Cruel World, Full of Cruel Things

by crueldisciple

Summary:

None of his whores look like me.
I’m disappointed. I tell him so.

Fearing her old mistress, Tav agrees to become Astarion’s retainer—despite how he’s changed, despite how he’s broken her heart. She knows she’s trading her freedom for safety. She knows she’ll be a servant.
What she doesn’t know is how much more he’ll demand—her dignity, her loyalty, her heart. And it will take all her cunning and violence to escape him.

Chapter 1: The Fool

– Tav –

None of his whores look like me.

I’m disappointed. I tell him so.

“You can’t call them whores, Tav,” he chides.

Whatever they are, they litter the estate, ruined as it is. They don’t seem to notice the decay, lounging shoeless in their silks. Their smiles are languid, eyes heavy-lidded. There’s a mild narcotic in even a spawn’s bite, and I imagine Astarion’s has grown more potent since his Ascension.

I wouldn’t know. I haven’t let him bite me since.

“What, then?” The colnbluth have far more sexual taboos than I anticipated, endlessly concerned with proper terms and behaviors. Even after all this time, I feel as if I’m perpetually fumbling. “Your guards?”

I haven’t seen a single proper guard since we arrived, and the absence makes my skin prickle. This is not how you should run an estate.

“Ha.” Astarion gives his overly forced laugh, the one that meant my joke didn’t land. I couldn’t care less. I didn’t come here to play the fool in his court, though I suspect he may have other ideas. Only a few months ago I was humiliatingly amenable to him.

“You have guards, yes?” I ask. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell him how to manage his estate, but I’d served my matron in the same capacity, and it’s instinct to notice these things.

“Are my ears deceiving me, or did I detect a note of worry?” he replies, pausing dramatically under the arch leading to the grand foyer. “How unexpected. I was under the impression I no longer occupied any space in that cold little heart of yours.”

I don’t answer. Silence unnerves the colnbluth, makes them squirm. Often they’ll drop the subject entirely.

Instead, I inspect the door. Astarion lingers, watching me with that curious, feline intensity of his. The door’s an idiot’s choice to keep anyone out, wood polished nicely, but soft. I could poke through it with a dull blade and a wasted afternoon, let alone with the force of a battering ram.

“Phla'ta,” I mutter. Terrible.

“Not a fan of pine?” he asks lightly, though I can hear the edge of amusement in his voice.

“The hinges,” I say, gesturing angrily at the hardware to show they are on the outside. You could lift them off with even a cobbler’s tools. “And that lock.” Shallow-set, far too easy to pick. He should know. “What were you thinking?”

“Naturally it wasn’t me,” he sniffs. “Someone with atrocious taste had them installed long before I took ownership.”

Cazador.

We step into the foyer, and it’s immediately clear he’s redecorated. I can smell the expenses—anyone who has been a servant can. In Menzoberranzan, you’d know wealth by a room’s wood: fungal woods grow sparingly in the Underdark, and surface imports are so costly they might as well be gold.

Here, it seems, the colnbluth shout their wealth by gilding every available surface.

I whistle low. “Gold,” I say, skeptically. “Everywhere. Did you anger the master mason?”

Astarion’s eyes narrow. “You’ve always had such oddly refined taste for a... what was it Minthara used to call you?”

“Xa’huuli jor,” I answer without hesitation. “It means ‘garbage rat’.” 

The insult has no teeth. I’ve spent my life being called worse, and now it only bores me. Astarion knows this. Perhaps he only wishes to remind me that he knows me—where I came from, who I am.

“Ah, yes, how elegant your mother tongue is,” he replied, his smile sly and sharp. “Say, where are you keeping yourself these days? I trust it’s suitably lavish for your tastes?”

Colnbluth have some ideas around being unhoused that I disagree with. Yes, I have no home. I’m not quite certain how I’d go about acquiring one. Does that mean I require charity? Absolutely not.

They say I show very little emotion, and I’ve found this serves me well. I don’t want to answer him, so I simply stare.

Astarion stares right back, unblinking. After a moment, he speaks, “You know, if you’re in need of a bed, mine is exceptionally large, you’ve only to ask m—”

I cut him off with a dismissive wave, brushing past him before he can finish.

As I glance around the foyer, I finally spot what looks to be the guard lurking in the upper wings. I groan. “Tell me those aren’t them.”

Trailing after me with an air of studied indifference, Astarion clasps his hands behind his back. “Whatever do you mean?”

I spin on my heel, fixing him with a sharp glare. “Astarion,” I complain, “they are drow.”

They blend into the shadows well, their clay-dark skin and crimson eyes just visible in the dim light. Mixed genders, all clad in drowcraft. A closer look makes me wince—a parade of bad choices. Full plate armor on all of them, chainmail beneath.

He’s sacrificed mobility for bulk. If they’re attacked, they’ll be exhausted before the fighting begins. The amateur mistake makes me cringe.

“What?” he asks innocently. “Among the drow are Faerûn’s finest killers. I’ve you to thank for that knowledge.”

“Equally skilled in biting the hand that feeds us,” I warn. I hope I’ve used the proverb correctly. “They’re waiting for a half-decent bribe to turn on you—or they’ll tire of waiting and do it for free.”

Astarion says nothing. I squint back at the upper level, one of the guards catching my attention, and I point her out. “That one.”

“You’ll have to be a little more specific, my sweet. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

I let the pet name slide, though he promised he wouldn’t use them anymore. It confuses me. People aren’t nice where I come from. “That drow looks like me,” I say, turning to raise a brow at him.

“Mmm, vaguely,” he agrees. Not vaguely at all. Menzoberranzan is notoriously incestuous. She could very well be a cousin—or something worse—but the resemblance is striking enough that she might as well be my sister.

“Are you wondering if I’ve had her?” The question is as casual as if we were discussing wine.

“Did you?”

“That depends—which answer will please you most?” he asks, lips curling.

I consider this honestly. “That you did.”

“I haven’t,” he says with a sigh. “Unfortunately, there’s no replacing the original, and anything less would only break my heart all over again.”

I study him carefully, unmoved but unoffended by the theatrics. I’m certain he’s beyond such things as heartbreak now. Whatever core of emotion he once had feels diminished, hollowed out. I don’t know what he is anymore—naïve as I am to the depths of what he’s become—but I can sense an absence.

It unsettles me.

And yet, I still miss him painfully. I still think of him every day, despite everything. So I let him lead me down the hall, saying nothing as he guides me to whatever purpose he’s summoned me here for.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The root is a small, gnarled, unassuming thing, its brilliant red hue the only sign of its potency. Seated in one of Astarion’s drawing rooms, I pick it up with a gloved hand, holding it up in the light.

“Tell me again?” I ask. Astarion’s hiding something—I can tell—but he hates being pestered. I’m counting on irritation to draw the truth out of him.

There should be no secrets between us. After all, there are no stakes. We don’t belong to each other, and we murdered seven thousand people together. What’s left to hide, and why hide it?

“There was a drink,” he reiterates with carefully measured patience. “Just a sliver was used. The intruder dropped his pouch when he fled.”

I make a small disapproving noise. No surprise there was an intruder, given the state of the Szarr mansion. “You must set your house in order,” I chide.

“Oh, I’m painfully aware.” His smile is strangely razor.

Ignoring it, I bring the root closer to my nose. Fairly certain insufflation won’t harm me, I inhale softly.

“What are you doing?” Astarion’s voice sharpens, uneasy. He’s seen me test poisons before, and experiment with mithridatism, so he worries I might eat the root without knowing what it is.

“Aren’t you going to get out your little box and play with your alchemy, or whatever you call it?” he mocks, though I hear the undercurrent of concern.

Poison-crafting, not alchemy. I do not correct him.

I shake my head, still inspecting the root. “No need. The intruder a vampire?”

He’s behind me before I realize it, fast and perfectly silent, poised as if to snatch the root from my hand. At the mention of “vampire,” I feel him stiffen.

“Spawn,” he admits. “How did you know?”

I turn my chair to find him looking down at me fondly. Once, I would have melted under that look, his eyes gleaming in the dimness, the flickers of lamplight catching the sharpness of his cheekbones, his nose, the glint of his fangs.

For a moment, I feel like I’m staring at a memory, one from when I’d loved him so fiercely it felt like I might break under the weight of it. It made me weak, made me worship him like he was the only thing holding me together.

Something twists in my chest—an ache I hadn’t prepared for. Everything is still there.

“Whose drink was tainted?” I ask. “Your spawn?”

It’s a ploy. I already have a good idea whose drink it was. I want to know if he’s created spawn.

Astarion’s smile is faint. “No, not one of them.”

“So you have spawn?”

The smile widens. “Would you like to meet them?”

I give him a skeptical look. “You’d let me?”

“But of course,” he says. “Right after you tell me what you’re holding. You know what it is, don’t you?”

I nod. He leans forward and deftly plucks the root from my hand. He places it on the table beside him, close enough to keep in his sight—but still within my reach.

“It’s a drug,” I explain, rising from my seat. Stepping closer to the table, I make a show of adjusting my cloak, but my fingers close around the root again, quick and unnoticed. “It makes blood taste better than it should. My guess is that they gave it to one of your…” I gesture vaguely, unsure of what term he prefers.

He hesitates. “Thralls,” he decides, though the word lands awkwardly. It doesn’t quite fit. I think he’s relying on my unfamiliarity of Common, hoping I’ll not notice.

I raise a brow at his choice, faintly amused. I’m not sure why he dances around the term “whore.” Both of us had carried that title once, after all.

“You were the target,” I explain, fumbling purposefully with the cloak, “your ‘thrall’ was just the vessel.”

When I bend down to adjust the fabric, I take a nibble of the bloodroot, swallowing without chewing.

“They want to addict you,” I continue, straightening once more. “I doubt they dropped the pouch by accident.”

I step in front of the table, the bloodroot closed in the fist behind my back. I let it fall in the spot Astarion expects it to be.

Astarion gives no sign he noticed my subterfuge. He nods lowly, his hand resting against his chin, pensive.

“Thank you,” he says distantly, spoken from obligation rather than sincerity. His gaze flicks back to me, sharper now, as though he’s remembered my presence. “And now you’re just going to leave?”

I shrug.

“You’re so very cold,” he murmurs, settling down into the chair I just vacated. I wonder if he feels my body’s warmth. “How am I to know you’ve missed me at all?”

“You know my feelings,” I reply evenly. “There’s nothing left to say.”

I’d never cared for anyone as I did for him—hadn’t thought myself capable. I killed seven thousand people for him, for us. And yet, when I showed the slightest resistance to one of his whims, he strong-armed me, and when I didn’t yield, he left me.

“I miss you, you know,” he says lightly, almost carelessly. “I regret how things ended between us…it feels so terribly unfinished”

“You can feel regret?” I ask flatly.

He leans back in the chair, relaxed, but his eyes stay on me, unrelenting. “It seems so.”

But it’s not regret—not in the way he wants me to believe. It’s not for breaking my heart, if he even understands that he did. His regret is for his own loss, he mourns that I’m no longer his. I remind him that there are some things he can’t have.

While I smothered my sobs so they went unheard, forcing myself to swallow food I couldn’t keep down, struggling to even breathe without him, he was fucking and feeding his way through Baldur’s Gate. Building his empire, perhaps testing out potential spawn in the brothels and orgies.

What I feel isn’t jealousy—I’ve never felt it the way others might. I was trained as a concubine at around fourteen, jealousy wasn’t something they allowed. What I feel is unfairness. I suffered, so he should suffer too.

That’s why I took the bloodroot. I want him to smell it on me, to know he’d never taste my blood again. It’s petty, yes, but I’ll take anything to cut him I can find.

Only the root is making me a little dizzy.

“What happened to the whore—companion—affected?” I ask, forcing my words out as evenly as I can. I refuse to call them thralls, the term makes my skin crawl in the same way his talk of ‘dark consort’ once did.

The dizziness creeps in stronger, and my vision feels as though it’s narrowing. I may need to sit.

Astarion’s nostrils flare as he scents the air, having picked up on the change. His lips curl into a rueful smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Dead,” he says, almost wistfully. “Unfortunate, really. I drained him completely. Couldn’t control myself.”

My breath hitches, the sound embarrassingly loud in the sudden quiet. I’ve made a mistake.

His expression shifts almost imperceptibly, and I know he’s realized it—either from the faint change in my scent or the flicker of panic I failed to conceal.

“What have you done?” His voice is low, regretful, but hungry.

We freeze, two animals locked in a standoff, each gauging the other’s next move.

I know he doesn’t want to kill me. Not really. But it won’t matter the moment his killing instinct takes over. If I can just get past him, put enough distance between us that he can no longer catch my scent—

“Don’t run,” he warns, voice taut and trembling with restraint. “If you run, I won’t be able to stop myself.”

My pulse pounds in my ears, beating against my ribs. I chance a glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s still seated, but his body is coiled tight, primed to spring. I know how quickly he can close the distance between us—faster than I can draw breath.

And I know I don’t have many options left.

Slowly—so slowly it feels like time itself is stretching thin—I step forward, inch closer. Every footfall feels a gamble, each step the moment he’ll lunge forward to tear me apart.

When I finally stop in front of him, he flinches. It’s the barest twitch of his muscles, but I see it. He’s clinging to control by the thinnest, most fragile thread, and it could snap at any moment.

I reach out, my hand brushing his arm. Even the slightest contact sends a shiver through me, a betrayal of my own body. It’s as if it remembers him, misses his touch, and I hate myself for it.

He stares at my hand as if it’s some foreign thing. For a heartbeat, I think he expects me to strike him, to at last mount my attack, and perhaps I wish I could.

When I ease myself into his lap, his entire body goes rigid beneath me. Every movement is careful and deliberate, nothing sudden. One arm slips around his neck. His skin against mine feels so fundamentally right, a locked away part of me wants to weep.

He watches me, red eyes furrowed in confusion, as I fling my long white braid over my shoulder.

Only when I close my eyes and bare my neck for him does he understand.

Astarion’s laughter is soft, disbelieving, but undeniably pleased. The instant it fades, his teeth sink into my throat.

Notes:

I wrote this fic in response to some of the popular Ascendant Astarion fics out there--not out of spite, but affection for their tropes. One I couldn't help riffing on is the idea that Astarion has a bunch of hoes lying about who look like Tav.

Another common trend I wanted to challenge is Tav as a virgin, or losing their virginity to Astarion. Personally I never understood the appeal, Astarion is essentially a sexy geezer (though elves likely mature differently than shortlived races). I follow the implications of this a little more closely later in the story.

But hey, opinions are like assholes, meaning everyone has one.

Still, I wanted my Tav to be the opposite of a blushing virgin. Though she's pretty (drow are canonically evil misandrist supermodels), and several people comment on her youth, she's lived very roughly in her short life. Though things get out of her control, I wanted her to be able to match his violence in many ways.

ABOUT DROW LANGUAGE: I use Drow sparingly, mostly for flavor. You don't need to translate it to follow the plot or emotional context--think of it as bonus content. I default to the Forgotten Realms wiki dictionary, but I pull from eillistsraee.com for the fuller vocab. Many of the words on the latter are not canon.

Also I had no clue what quote to use in the description for this fic. I used the first line because I think its hilarious, but if you come across one you think is better I'm all ears.

Chapter 2: The Wizard

Summary:

"First the bruises."

Notes:

I promise you not a lot of this fic will be Gale POV.

– Gale –

First bruises.

Tav is a little like a stray, rolling in when she pleases, often sporting a black eye or some fresh contusion. None of us have the faintest idea where she spends her nights or what leaves her so battered when she returns.

I ask, quite naively, about the ones on her neck. My eye barely catches them, purple and black against the clay-colored skin, obscured by the black specks of her freckles.

Tav reaches for the wine. Whether she hasn’t heard me or is deliberately ignoring the question is impossible to say. Her face seldom betrays anything. I’m told this is common among the drow.

Shadowheart slaps her hand away. “Answer him, you dolt.”

As Tav recoils, indignant, my eye snags on the pendant dangling from her left ear—the one missing a sizeable chunk, courtesy of Cazador’s rabid bats. The pendant is white, triangular but oddly organic—

“No,” Shadowheart breathes. “You cannot be serious. Again?”

I understand then. The bruises on her neck are aged bite marks—I can see the faint puncture wounds now, and I’d wager good coin on precisely who left them. As for the earring—Cazador’s fang, unmistakably. Jaheira told me Astarion wears one like it.

Tav slinks back to her side of the table, slumping against the wall. Feeling our stares, she shifts uncomfortably, then offers only a shrug as her answer.

She reaches for the wine again.

Shadowheart shoves it out of reach. “Are you aware you haven’t uttered a word this entire time?” she asks, exasperated. “Well? What are you waiting for? Speak!”

 “I’m acting as a retainer. Nothing more,” Tav says. “I will not be his spawn. We agreed.”

Shadowheart’s lips press into a thin line, though she clearly fumes. We exchange a glance. We both understand Tav can be…odd. Difficult. Particularly when it comes to him. Best to tread carefully.

“I see,” I reply cautiously. “But what, if I may ask, have you agreed to instead?”

For a moment, Tav’s impenetrable mask slips, flickering with something like excitement as she launches into her explanation.

“The Szarr estate is a wreck, far too easy to crack open,” she begins. “We proved it when we killed Cazador. Weak points everywhere—you could breach it from the city wall, scale the ramparts, or come up through the sewers.”

She looks as though she might rattle off a dozen more vulnerabilities, but she presses on.

“Astarion knew of the flaws, so he brought in drow mercenaries to guard,” Tav continues. “They’ll cross him. Coin’s their only interest.  And those are the only people he put on guard detail.” She exhaled through her nose. “I offered to right things. I’m to get the defenses in order and establish a proper guard. But after that, I leave.”

Perhaps she truly is working for him, but whatever the arrangement, it’s little more than an excuse to keep seeing each other. There has never been a more worrying pair.

“No spawn available for the guard?” Shadowheart asks skeptically. “They have no choice but to be loyal.”

The briefest hesitation from Tav. “Not for the guard.”

“So he has made spawn,” I press. The inevitable, it seems, has come to pass. “How many?”

“Some.” That’s all we’ll get from her.

Silence falls then, a laden one. We’re all thinking about the spawn—about the seven thousand we allowed him to extinguish. And now, his new creations.

Shadowheart rises abruptly, chair scraping the floor as she mutters under her breath. She rounds the table and stops before Tav, grasping her by the head, tilting it to better look at the bruises mottling her neck.

Tav freezes, rigid as a startled deer. She doesn’t pull away, though—doesn’t recoil from the contact, nor lean into it. She’s never known how to accept such gestures, though they’re not entirely unwelcome either.

“Nine hells,” Shadowheart murmurs, her frown deepening. “We’ll find you an ointment, I suppose. Tell me—offering him your neck, is that part of the agreement?”

Tav looks away. “A mistake.”

“And why, pray tell, does it look as though he tried to maul you?” Shadowheart asks.

“He got excited.”

Shadowheart and I both recoil, twin sounds of disgust escaping us. We get a rare, cheeky grin from Tav. It’s gone as soon as it came on.

“No more talk of that, I beg you,” I say, holding up my hands. “Just…do us all a favor and tread carefully. He’s not as he once was.”

Tav’s expression shifts then—still blank in that frustratingly Tav-like way, yet managing, somehow, to exude patronization. She doesn’t share my concerns.

“He needs me,” she says simply. “He has enemies.”

This is cultural baggage in part—Menzoberranzan-born instincts stirring beneath the surface.

Shadowheart snorts, rolling her eyes. I agree. Immortal, obscenely powerful, and now swimming in wealth, it’s difficult to imagine Astarion needing anyone. Well—anyone save for someone willing to act as his conscience. And Tav, for all her virtues, struggles enough to manage her own.

“You laugh, but he needs help,” Tav insists. “He is very bad at planning. He didn’t even know about the tallage he needs to collect.” Tallage, land tax. Cazador must have land tenants outside the city.

I know she once served a matron—the same one she’s terrified might find her—but whether it was in this capacity, I’m not entirely sure. When she drinks enough to let details slip, they vary vastly. Either she’s lying, or she’s worn many roles.

Given her knack for practicality, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows how to help Astarion fashion a household or collect tax from his tenants.

But Astarion had once been a magistrate in Baldur’s Gate, certainly well versed in the intricacies of estates, taxes, and the unrelenting crawl of city governance. Surely he knows perfectly well what tallage is—and how to manage the estate he’d been tethered to for centuries.

Still, in the end, we relent and let the matter drop. We’re excited to see each other, too eager to set aside our worries and make merry, if only for a while.

Later, I berate myself for it.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Another alehouse, a new set of injuries, as has been the case each time she’s graced us. This time, however, she’s outdone herself.

“Oak Father preserve you,” Halsin begins, almost breathlessly.

Tav scoffs. Her contempt for the gods rivals Astarion’s.

Her lip is split, a bruise darkens her chest, and her arm and several fingers are tightly bandaged. Whatever lies beneath the wrappings doesn’t look good. My only consolation—if one can call it that—is her neck bears no bite marks, although a bruise winds around it.

It’s been a few months since we last saw her. Letters sent to the Szarr mansion went unanswered, not a word, until Tav appeared unexpectedly on Shadowheart’s doorstep, suggesting we meet for a drink in a few days. No explanation, no preamble.

And now, here she sits, battered and bruised. Truth be told, I’m not entirely surprised.

Not long after the last visit, the rumors began to trickle in. Those of us who remain in contact—mainly Jaheira, Shadowheart, Halsin, and myself—traded what scraps we could manage. Minthara might know more, given her strange and somewhat alarming relationship with Tav, but she’s consumed with her own intrigues against Lolth’s church.

Jaheira was the first to tell me about it. Harper business brought her to Waterdeep, and we’d spend our mornings walking the winding streets of the city before I headed to Blackstaff Tower.

“I’ve been hearing whispers about Lord Ancunín’s enforcer,” she remarked on one such walk.

I scoffed. “Lord? Is that what he calls himself these days? How very grandiose.” Then her words hit me fully. “His enforcer? Someone making trouble for the Harpers?”

Jaheira shot me a sharp look. “It’s Tav, you oaf,” she chided. “What exactly does he have her do in that palace of his?”

“Organizing his guard detail, she told us. Repairing the estate.” The words felt thin then, hollow. Even as I said them, I doubted that was the full extent. Now I’m certain they are falsehood.

“That’s what she told you?” Jaheira asked, amused. “The girl’s never been shy to tell a lie.”

As we walked, she elaborated.

“He’s been expanding,” she explained grimly. “And when he needs something done, she makes the way for him. She hasn’t killed anyone important yet, but she will. Or she’ll get herself killed.”

 

“What has happened to you?” Halsin asks, brow knitted.

Tav, despite our obvious concern, seems utterly unfazed. She laughs, pulling her cloak tighter around herself. “They asked the question, I gave them the answer.”

Drow for you should see the other one.

When she realizes we’re all staring, waiting for an explanation, she sighs.

“A list? Here.” She gestures to her injuries in turn. “Pommel to the face,” she begins, tapping her split lip. “Lucky it wasn’t my eye this time—you colnbluth seem to like doing that.” Her finger moves to the dark bruise on her chest. “Buckler’s edge. Caught me square.” She shifts her weight slightly, failing to hide her wince. “Arm’s sliced and slashed. Hand got boot-stomped.” She shakes her head at that, angry. “That was my own foolishness—stupid—and now I can’t perform draa velve.”  

Two-blade—the fighting style rare and so revered among the drow. One of the few things Tav takes pride in, perhaps the only thing.

“I’m useless until my fingers mend,” she mutters. She lets loose a string of curses in Drow, undoubtedly colorful. I can see the shame beneath her anger.

“Nine hells, what is he having you do?” Shadowheart demands.

She shrugs, motion nearly swallowed by the cloak. “Lots.” A pause, then she amends, “He is not having me do anything, I have agreed to it all. I’m head of the guard now.”

“Do you sleep in his bed?” Shadowheart asks bluntly. Halsin cringes.

“I have a room.” A non-answer. Flustered, Tav continues, “I’m not a consort or whore. I work. I have a position—a stipend.”

As if that is what we care about.

“I’m kept busy.”

“Oh, how very romantic,” Shadowheart drawls.

There are no warnings we can give her, no cautions she will heed. All we can do is sit with her, try to offer our company, even as unease simmers beneath every interaction.

Later in the evening, the others gathered nearby, their laughter ringing softly through the room. Tav and I, for the first time in months, find ourselves alone.

“What must I say, or do, for you to share what is happening?” I ask quietly. “You know we only wish to help.”

She looks up at me then, a faint, almost apologetic smile tugging at her injured lip.

I’m struck by how young she looks, even with the burst lip. She’s never shared her age—elves often don’t, as time holds a different meaning for them—but there’s an undeniable naïveté about her. Unusual, especially for a drow.

“I have a place,” she says. “That is more than most people can hope for in this life.”

A sinking feeling coils in my chest. Something is very wrong here.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Shadowheart makes Tav promise to visit soon. “If you don’t,” she teases, “we know where you live.”

The threat, however playful, works. A week later, we find ourselves in Jaheira’s home, gathered around a table with steaming mugs of mulled wine. Tav sits across from me, a fresh bandage wrapped tightly around her head.

“Again?” I ask, struggling to mask my frustration. “You’ve certainly grown fond of collecting injuries. What’s the story behind this one?”

Tav delivers her account of facing three Zhent in a narrow hallway, painfully low ceiling, with all her usual bluntness, but she doesn’t make it far before Jaheira interrupts.

“Why is he making you do all of this?” she asks. “Has he grown bored of you? Is he hoping someone else will finish you off?”

Tav freezes. Her face smooths into a cold mask, but the room seems to constrict around her silence. Her fingers twitch against the edge of her mug.

“Jaheira, that’s hardly—” I start, but she cuts me off with a sharp wave of her hand, still fixed on Tav.

Tav’s eyes dart anywhere but toward us. Finally, she drags a hand over her face, exhausted.

“Look,” she begins hesitantly, “he doesn’t want me hurt. He’s trying to make a point. When he wanted to make me spawn, it was so he could protect me—”

“That is most certainly not the reason,” I cut in, unable to hold my tongue. “Gods, Tav, please tell me you understand that.”

She regards me evenly, a faint smile ghosting her lips. “The spawn are stronger than I am, faster. It’s something in his blood,” she explains. “I’m not of use to anyone if I’m weak. If I can’t perform without getting hurt…”

I realize then that, eventually, she’ll relent. Of course she would. He has centuries to wear her down, after all. I’ll be lucky to last another sixty years without the intervention of magic.

Jaheira leans back in her chair. “But you haven’t been fighting lately,” she points out. “You broke your fingers. You can’t dual-wield. So how, exactly, did you get hurt this time?”

Whatever small warmth Tav managed to conjure, whatever faint reassurance she’d tried to offer, vanishes in an instant. Her expression hardens, and she turns on Jaheira with unmasked venom.

“Oh my, cub,” Jaheira mocks “How terrifying. Are you going to answer, or will you spin some story about falling down the stairs?”

Tav’s jaw tightens. When she finally speaks, her voice is low, measured. “I give as I get.”

At first, I don’t take her meaning.

“The head wasn’t from him, but even so, I’m no kicked dog,” she continues, words clipped. “The problem is, he’s stronger now. The bastard can regenerate—”

“Tav,” Shadowheart gasps, horrified.

“Who cares?” Tav retorts, eyes flashing. “We’ve always fought. You remember.”

“Not like this,” I say, shaking my head. They argued plenty—and loudly, we’ve all heard them—but there was always a superficiality to it, as if they felt they were meant to be fighting rather than doing it earnestly. They made up far too quickly for the anger to have been as real as it sounded.

And they never raised a hand to each other.

“No,” I finish. “This is not normal, and you cannot pretend otherwise.”

“Perhaps not for you,” Tav replies coldly. “But I am drow. This is how it’s done.”

A horribly lapsed drow by all accounts. Even she admits her kind wouldn’t claim her now.

“You’re all treating me as if I’m weak,” Tav says, voice rising. “I’ve proven I’m not. Leave this be.”

Jaheira stands abruptly, slapping her hands against her knees as she does. “There are Harper safehouses within the city,” she announces. “You’re coming with us tonight.”

“No.” Tav rises just as quickly, body tense, brimming with restrained anger.

“Tav, please,” I interject. “Be reasonable for a moment. You can’t very well intend to return there after what you’ve just admitted.”

She rolls her eyes. “Watch me.”

Without another word, she turns to leave. But before she can take a step, Jaheira catches her by the wrist.

Rigid, Tav’s gaze drops to the hand gripping her arm. “Let go,” she warns. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jaheira’s eyes widen, and then she bursts into laughter. Shadowheart and I both draw in sharp breaths, rising from our seats in unison. I can’t say who would win if it came to it between them, but one thing is certain: neither would walk away unscathed. Not even with a cleric among us.

Tav glances between us, her expression unreadable. “You can’t keep me prisoner. This is my choice.”

She’s not wrong. But the thought of stopping her, forcing her to stay, is alluring in its simplicity. She’s chosen him, decided to remain by his side, and I know her well enough to understand that her stubbornness is immovable. Nothing will change her mind except time and distance, and she won’t allow herself either.

Jaheira releases her wrist at last. Tav doesn’t hesitate; she turns sharply and storms off to gather her things.

“Please,” Shadowheart urges softly, but even she knows it’s useless.

I wonder, not for the first time, what it is he offers Tav that she believes no one else ever could.

We watch in silence as she buckles her arms belt, her hands stiff and trembling. Her cloak swings around her shoulders, and she strides toward the door without sparing a glance back.

“Tav,” Jaheira calls after her.

She stops, one hand on the doorframe. Her red eyes, dark and unfathomable, shift back to us.

“No matter how long it takes, there’ll be a place for you. Do you understand?” Jaheira tells her. “I’m not angry with you, cub.”

Tav’s face does an odd thing then. It flickers, emotions coming on powerfully but too quickly to pin down—confusion, anger, sadness. But it lasts only a heartbeat before her expression smooths into its usual calm.

Without another word, she’s gone.

 

“You’ll have to be patient,” Jaheira says later, hands submerged in dish waster. “She’s practically a child.”

“How old is she?” I ask, passing her another plate.

“Tav says she doesn’t know,” Shadowheart supplies from the kitchen table, where she’s managed to avoid cleaning duties entirely. Of the three of us, she seems the most upset. “They don’t have seasons in the Underdark.”

I’ve heard this before, in passing, though I’m not certain I believe it. Tav has a way of making the truth slippery.

“Minthara claims she’s around twenty,” Jaheira adds. “Perhaps younger.”

I choke on air.

I’d always thought Tav, like Shadowheart, to be somewhere near forty. Elves do not age as we do—it’s not difficult to misjudge. Once, in a humiliating lapse of judgment, I’d even confessed feelings for her. Those feelings turned out to be friendship—a revelation that came with equal parts relief and mortification, given how spectacularly dysfunctional Tav could be. Still, the memory sometimes creeps back to burn my cheeks.

Jaheira glances at me, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “You’ve always seen what you’ve wanted to see with her,” she says, as though reading my mind. “She might be young, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous. Why do you think my house is empty?”

It’s true—we’ve yet to see any of Jaheira’s foster children. The implication coils uneasily in my stomach. Did she truly believe Tav would harm them?

“I wonder if she would have listened to us, if Minthara were here,” Jaheira muses, drying her hands.

Shadowheart lifts her head from where she’s been cradling it. “Why her? The two of them nearly came to blows the last time they shared a room.”

A fair point. Personally, I would have wagered on Lae’zel—Tav had always favored her, and the sentiment, while rarely spoken, had been plain in how she watched her leave on that red dragon. Tav regretted not going with her.

Jaheira only sighs. “The girl’s never had a mother,” she says simply. “Not truly. There are some ways Minthara fills that space.”

My thoughts drift to my own mother—how much of me is shaped by her guidance, her love. How much of me was written in the ink of her care? And what, I wonder, might I have become without it?

And then I think of Tav—of how she stood, rigid, when Jaheira told her we weren’t angry. Perhaps it was the first time anyone had ever said as much.     

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I decide to remain in the city a little while longer, on the off chance that Tav might come around. A foolish hope, perhaps—one I should know better than to entertain, and yet I linger.

Shadowheart has a spare room in her rented apartment in the Lower City, and with my ability to portal between here and Blackstaff Tower—Mystra’s favor restored— there’s little inconvenience in staying.

Mostly, we pass the time drinking too much wine and reminiscing. Our attempt against the Absolute was less than four months ago, and yet it seems an age has passed

We’re halfway through a bottle of Esmeltar Red when a knock rattles the door.

Shadowheart rises, and when she opens it, we find one of Moll’s urchins on the threshold—a grubby little tiefling who, in a single breath, manages to pick at both his nose and his crotch before addressing us.

“Elf lady says I’m to tell yous that the drow’s there, waitin’ at her house,” he announces. “And she’s wanting yous fast.”

 

Tav stares at us from the bench in Jaheira’s common room as though we’re the ones who’ve done this to her.

“Oh, Tav,” Shadowheart begins gently.

“Don’t.” Tav cuts her off, growling the word, though she sounds more tired than anything.

She’s a mess. That much is undeniable. Her skin is riddled with fresh, vicious bites, as though something—someone—has tried to devour her. Blood seeps sluggishly from a wound at her temple, her hands wrapped in haphazard bandages, red staining her sleeves, her collar, nearly every visible inch of fabric.

She’s wearing a dress, I realize belatedly, some silken thing that drapes far more revealingly than anything I’ve ever seen her wear. And she’s gotten thin.

Jaheira stands nearby, arms crossed, her face carefully blank. I get the distinct sense they had been arguing before we arrived.

“What in the Nine Hells happened to you?” I ask, alarmed. “Was this his doing?”

“No!” Tav snaps, waving a bandaged hand in alarm. “No. It wasn’t him.”

I wish I could believe her, but I’m unconvinced, given her frequent recourse to lying. She isn’t even trying to meet my gaze, and she doesn’t offer any further explanation.

Instead, she turns back to Jaheira. “You still have that safehouse?” Her foot won’t stop tapping, and only now do I realize—she’s trembling all over. “We should go,” she adds. “Quickly.”

Jaheira watches her for a long moment, assessing. “Easy now,” she says, measured. “Is he going to come after you?”

Tav sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. “Yes,” she admits. “Maybe. I’ve displeased him.”

“What happened?”

“There was a party,” Tav explains, hollow-faced. Her pupils look strange, blown wide. “A little sampling is fine. I’m no prude.  But I don’t like getting passed around.” Her fingers curl into a fist on her lap, knuckles whitening. “I told him that. I don’t know any of these people.”

I’m still trying to piece together the shape of what she’s telling us, but she isn’t finished.

“I told him I wouldn’t be a whore,” she rambles, voice thin, unfocused. “I did my time doing it in Menzoberranzan. He said—he said it was all I was good for, if I couldn’t protect myself—”

Jaheira cuts in sharply. “You’re getting distracted. What did you do, Tav?”

Tav perks up. “Oh, I killed them all,” she says absently. “Can we go now?”

That, at least, makes sense. It fits neatly with everything I know of her, of her regular self.

Jaheira nods, unfazed. “You’ll need to clean yourself up first. You can’t go out in the streets like this—you’ll be too easy to track.” She glances at Shadowheart. “Run a bath for her.”

“We really should be leaving,” Tav warns anxiously.

Shadowheart hesitates—briefly—but doesn’t argue, disappearing down the hall. Jaheira follows soon after, likely to send word that we’re coming. That leaves me alone with Tav.

She glares at me almost immediately. “Don’t look so smug,” she accuses.

“Smug?”  I blink, taken aback. ““I assure you, that’s the last thing I’m feeling.”

“I see it.”

“By the Weave, I swear!” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Why would I be smug? I feel awful.”

“Well, stop it,” she chides, turning away. “I’m fine.”

She isn’t. But I suspect neither of us is foolish enough to argue the point.

“I’m going to go back,” she announces, matter-of-fact. We’d see about that. “I just need somewhere to lick my wounds for a few days. The people he has at the estate…”

A knock sounds at the door.

Tav moves instinctively, reaching for swords that should be strapped to her hips. When she realizes they aren’t there, she snarls something vicious in Drow. In a heartbeat, she’s on her feet, sweeping the kitchen, presumably in search of something sharp.

I could tell her there’s no need. I have several incantations ready, each one more than capable of reducing whatever stands on the other side of that door to ash. If it’s one of the party guests, one of the spawn—even Astarion himself—I find that, at present, I don’t particularly care.

“Wait,” Tav hisses, freezing in place. “It could be one of Jaheira’s kids.”

That complicates things.

I glance between the door and Tav—now clutching a kitchen knife in her bandaged hands—calculating our options. If we try to slip out the back, they could just as easily follow. Which means we’ll have to face whoever stands on the other side of that door. And we’ve already squandered the element of surprise, dithering over whether to act.

Tav brushes past me, and, much to my alarm, yanks open the door.

I’m not quite certain what I expected. But it certainly wasn’t the unassuming elven man standing on the other side of the door, casually swinging his arms as he glanced around, waiting.

Perhaps unassuming isn’t the right word. He’s dapper—immaculately so. A crisp linen shirt beneath a structured vest embroidered with fine blackwork, a string of pearls at his throat. His hair is perfectly coifed, not a strand out of place.

He looks vaguely like Astarion—but also like someone else. Someone I should recognize, though I can’t quite place it.

His eyes are red, I realize. One of the spawn.

“You’re Gale, aren’t you?” he asks, tilting his head. He nods to himself as if I’ve answered, though I’m still standing in mute shock. “Fenorin. A pleasure, I’m sure. Tav may have mentioned me. Or not. She’s like that.” He waves his hand, as if to indicate her reticence. Then, in the same breath, “Say, where is our favorite murderess?”

He makes a grand display of glancing around, as if searching for her, before finally looking down, as if only just now noticing Tav standing in front of him.

“Ah,” he says, lip curling. “There she is.”

“You need to announce yourself,” Tav chides. “I would have killed you.”

I should be alarmed. By all accounts, I should be reaching for a spell. But they’re both looking at each other with something almost fond—Tav in her usual guarded way, the newcomer with an easy, knowing smile.

“He isn’t angry with you, you know,” the spawn remarks casually.

“He’s not?” Tav asks, her voice slipping into something almost childlike, confused. Then, in her monotone, “Thank fuck.”

“Oh, he’s vexed, certainly,” the spawn concedes, amused. “But there’s no real danger. If anything, I’d say you’ve left everyone rather impressed. That could change, of course, so best not dawdle.”

As he speaks, he takes a wounded hand, turning it over gently in his grasp. “Poor Tav,” he murmurs. “The world wants to hurt you, doesn’t it?”

Tav looks up at me, something resigned in her expression. “You’ll apologize to the others for me,” she says. “Tell them it was a misunderstanding, and not to be angry with you for letting me leave.”

“You can’t be serious,” I say, shaking my head.  “This is absurd.”

The spawn pouts indignantly, already draping an arm around her, guiding her away.

“Look at yourself,” I continue, voice rising. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

“I’ve never claimed to be,” she replies, eyes tired.

A carriage waits up the street. It’s beautiful, all lacquered cherrywood and gilded embellishments. The burgundy curtains are drawn, giving no indication that anyone is inside.

I take a step forward. “Do you remember what he promised you that night?”

Tav stops dead in her tracks.

The spawn beside her stills as well, his easy charm flickering, replaced by wariness. I wonder how much is staked on his success in returning her—what commands he’s been given.

Tav doesn’t look at him, or me. She’s somewhere else entirely.

I remember the night of the Ascension well. Tav and Astarion pressed together, foreheads touching, his hands cradling her face as he whispered to her like they were the only ones in the room.

I need you.

If you do this for me, we’ll never have to be afraid again.

I’m certain Tav remembers too. I can see the ghost of it on her face.

“See that he holds fast on that promise,” I urge her. “You’re owed that much, at the very least.”

That was the deal they struck. And he isn’t upholding his end of it. Setting aside the violence inherent in drow culture, the tangled knot of her youth, her shame, and her self-hatred—this much, at least, she can understand.

Tav nods once, curt, before stepping into the carriage.

And she’s gone.

 

Notes:

I had a friend proofread this chapter, and they audibly groaned when they saw it was a Gale POV. Was it annoying?
Personally I felt like I needed some of him because he serves as a good foil for Tav who is at times a murder hobo, though currently employed by her psycho boyfriend.

What I was aiming for in this chapter was a tangle of overlapping, messy relationships—nuanced, contradictory, and not always transparent. Everyone sees each other a little differently. Their understanding of themselves, and of one another, is skewed by affection, bias, or ignorance. I didn’t want it to be totally clear who had the right of it, as that’s an element of realism.

If I could change one thing, I might push Tav’s characterization. In her POV, she rarely reflects on herself except in terms of what she can do or give—how she functions in relation to others. That’s deliberate, due to her upbringing and yadayada. Through the fic, I wanted to balance this with occasional external perspectives. For example, her old travelling crew, who are all freaks, find her cute, almost awkward. Regular people find her unsettling. The gap is interesting, I want to see what lives there.

On a narrative note, this chapter spans the timeframe of the next six chapters, so we come to discover the events behind Tav showing up all mangled. The following chapter picks up right after Astarion fed from her, so if the timeline feels fuzzy, that is why.
I try not to use too much nonlinear storytelling, but I do it every once and awhile so Tav’s POV doesn’t grow stale or so the pacing is ok.

Also I never know what to put in the summaries. Do yall even read that shit?

Chapter 3: The Spawn

Summary:

“Tav, my dear, did someone forbid you from seeing me?"

Notes:

This takes place immediately after the prologue.

– Tav –

My clothes are bloodied and torn to shreds. They’re completely unwearable.  

There’s no mirror, but I don’t need one to know how I look. My neck is gored, torn by his teeth. My white hair, slick with sweat and blood, clings in matted strands. My lips are swollen from his kisses, and my thighs are still slick.

Astarion must notice. He doubles back, and before I can say anything, pulls me into his arms, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that makes me shiver.

There are no words for the sensation—no words for how much I’ve missed it, missed him. I’ve been told there are creatures on the surface that die without their partners, and in the days after our parting, I felt as if I were one of them.

I rise onto my toes to keep him close, to prolong the kiss for as long as possible. This might very well be the last.

When he finally pulls back, his hands cradle my cheeks, his thumbs brushing lightly over my skin. His red eyes hold mine, and he looks at me as if I’ve never done anything wrong, as if there is no pain or guilt between us.

“I’ll get you cleaned up, don’t fret,” he assures me, but the way his gaze lingers tells me something else entirely—that a part of him prefers me like this: ruined, bloodied, and marked by him.

While he’s gone, I take stock of the immediate consequences of my mistake. Blood stains the fabric of the chair. My torn chausses lie crumped in a heap at its feet, and my chemise—ripped from collar to belly—is thrown carelessly in the far corner. The arms belt, with my twin blades, is the only thing that has been treated with any sort of respect. I took it off myself and gently placed it on the table.

I try to piece together how it happened. I’d bared my neck willingly, hoping to stifle his predatory instincts triggered by the root, to keep him from losing control. He drank from me—gods, it felt good. I’d been right about the venom. And then…

He must have noticed my reaction, my body’s little shakes and the rolling of my hips, because I felt him grow stiff beneath me. Past that, it’s a blur. His hand between my legs, my voice breaking into those pathetic little whimpers I haven’t made in months, his laughter—soft, wicked, and insistent as he did everything to ensure I’d make more of those sounds.

Then there were the things he made me say. A dozen confessions and promises I didn’t mean and wouldn’t keep. It was a game to him, even in the early days. I’d say just about anything so he wouldn’t stop fucking me.

I remember breathlessly gasping in Drow, even using the pet name I’d once given him— ussta astunin, my undoing. I prayed it was not prophetic.

When he returns, he’s holding a robe. He extends it toward me, as if it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to offer.

I glare, hoping my reproach is plain on my face.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t worry about bloodying it, I’ll have the laundresses take care of it tomorrow.”

“I have to leave, Astarion.”

Even as I say it, I tug on the robe. It’s better than nothing. I’ll wander out of here in it if I must, arms belt tied over top. Its fabric is soft and thick. It smells of him, and I’m careful not to bury my face in the collar.

“Do you?” he asks lightly. “Well, even if you must, you shouldn’t rush off just yet. I’ve drained you rather thoroughly, darling. You’ll collapse if you don’t eat and drink first.”

But when he presses a large gold goblet into my hands, it isn’t water—it’s wine, sloshing dangerously at the brim as I steady it.

And he’s talking about giving me a tour, not sending me off with bread and broth. His hand rests lightly on my lower back, guiding me as if this is all perfectly normal. I glance back at the table where my arms belt still lies, within easy reach but momentarily forgotten.

“You don’t need it,” Astarion murmurs, catching my gaze. His fingers smooth over my hair like they used to. “If it gives you comfort, by all means. But I promise, you’re safe here.”

Oddly, I find I nearly believe him. Hearing it is a balm. I’ve spent my life in a state of extreme, paranoid vigilance. The weeks since the group parted have been no different—moving constantly, always braced for conflict, and sleeping only for a few hours at a time. I cannot enter reverie, as many increasingly born drow, so sleeping has always been terrifying.

People are eager to test their supposed fear of the drow, yes, but mostly I worry Eredune will send people after me. Stories of a scarred-up drow girl will eventually reach Menzoberranzan, and my old mistress will know where I am.

My chest grows tight with the thought. Perhaps it lends me some clarity, because I cross the room and fetch my blades, tucking them beneath my arm. Astarion makes a grand show of sighing and rolling his eyes as if I’m being ridiculous. Perhaps I am, but I refuse to be caught unawares. 

I can’t live like this forever. I need to find patronage, or I need to keep moving—onto other cities. I should have left with Lae’zel. Or Karlach and Wyll. A mercenary band, even. I’m suited for fighting, not whatever this is.

But I know, in my heart’s heart, the pathetic reason I’ve stayed.

I worried for Astarion. Worried he’d run into trouble.

I’ve seen what feels like a hundred coups in Menzoberranzan. The first year of a takeover is always the most precarious—the new matron is still consolidating her power, still scrambling to manage assets, tributaries, alliances. A house might change hands two, three times before something relatively stable takes hold.

I’m distracted by these thoughts, so much so I barely hear Astarion’s tour, his words distant but almost soothing. We’ve turned down a few halls when I get the sense that he’s leading me to a distinct place rather than showing me the estate.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, clutching my swords under my arm with the same nervous grip I’ve seen surface children use on their dolls.

Astarion chuckles. “You did insist on seeing the spawn, darling.”

“What?” I ask, startled. “I can’t meet anyone like this.”

He cocks his head at me.  “Whyever not?”

He’s toying with me, and I’m letting him enjoy it far too much. If I want to leave this place, I need to be dull, uninteresting, something easily forgotten. “We’re not supposed to—”

“Not supposed to?” he echoes, grin widening, fangs glinting as he shifts closer. “Tav, my dear, did someone forbid you from seeing me? How inconsiderate. You may not be my consort, but we’re still close, aren’t we?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes. No one on this plane can steal my words so effortlessly.

His hand ghosts along my spine, and I nearly shiver. “Close enough you bared your throat for me…and so much more,” he murmurs, his voice dipping into a purr. He leans in as if to whisper something, but instead, he simply watches my reaction before pulling away with a smirk.

“Well,” he says breezily, “whoever in our old merry band disapproves, they’re bound to notice—what with your neck so deliciously ruined. Best you stay until it fades. No one has to know.”

Again, I try to protest, but before I can force the words out, he throws open the doors before us.

I was my matron’s favorite in Menzoberranzan, given the title consort. That meant I had to be kept separate from the other concubines—too valuable to be left among them, lest they try to kill me.

When the mistress was home, I remained at her side. When she was away, I was locked in a secret, windowless chamber at the bottom of the compound, sometimes for weeks at a time. It was enough to drive me mad. That was why I had fought so hard to prove my worth, to earn my place among her warriors, to march on Vandree raids. Neither had protected me from the other concubines in the end.

Had I been allowed among them, and had things been civil amongst us, warm, even, I imagine it would have looked something like this.

The doors swing open to one of the inner parlors—a place I’ve stood before. I drew blood in this room, bled in this room, when we fought here, when we came to kill Cazador. I took a wound—bad enough that Astarion had almost relented, almost given in and left to get me healing. Only my own sharp words, my refusal to stop, had dissuaded him.

It’s decidedly different from the last time I saw it—when the floor was slick with blood, littered with the bodies of Cazador’s werewolves and smarmy sellswords. Now, the room is carpeted, the walls and furniture dusted to a near-polish. A low chandelier hangs from the ceiling, casting warm golden light that flickers alongside the glow of a thousand candles and the blaze of the fireplace.

Six spawn are scattered throughout the parlor, each absorbed in their own idleness. Two are reading the same manuscript—one sprawled across the floor while the other holds it in their lap. Another agonizes over a chess board, while someone leans in to whisper in her ear. Across the room, one plays the organ quite horribly, though the music cuts off abruptly at our arrival.

The last lingers at the edge of the group, half in shadow, twirling a goblet of blood in his hand as he chews absently on his fingers.

They look at me. I look at them.

And then, as one, they rise.

The room stirs with motion, all of them clambering toward Astarion as he holds court, their eager voices overlapping. They adore him, probably as I once did. For a long time I hadn’t understood how anyone couldn’t.

This is good. It means he’s been treating them well. So why does my heart hurt?

“My, my, not even scarf or bandage?” comes a voice behind me.

I turn over my shoulder, mortified.

It’s the spawn who held back, goblet still in hand. For a moment, I’m staring at a ghost. He bears a passing resemblance to Astarion—handsome, immaculately kept—but mostly he looks awfully, terribly like Sebastian.

He mistakes the flicker of shock for something else entirely. “Oh no, believe me, I’ve been there, I’m not casting disparagements.” He lifts his hands, goblet sloshing, smiling wryly. “I just didn’t expect him to be quite so shameless. He’s showing you off rather boldly, so you must be important.”

It’s true Astarion brought me immediately to his spawn, with barely a moment to clean up, to disguise what we’d done. He had me walking these halls in his robe, with his mark laid bare for all to see.

I fight the urge to tug the collar higher, knowing well that it wouldn’t hide the wounds.

The spawn watches me closely. “You can speak, can’t you?” he asks. “If you stay silent, I’ll have no choice but to assume I’ve left you speechless. Anything else would wound my fragile ego.”

Gods. He sounds just like Astarion when I first met him. Not on the beach—but later, when he realized I might be of use to him.

“Can you?” he prompts again, growing uneasy.

“No.”

The spawn snorts, his carefully curated charm slipping for the briefest moment. I don’t quite smile back, but I look away, as I always do when I feel at risk of returning one.

“Fenorin,” he introduces himself. “You seem tense.”

He reaches for my goblet, guiding it to my lips, so casually so fluidly, that I don’t think to resist—silly, especially considering I was raised in Menzoberranzan, where the national pastime is poisoning one another.

It isn’t until he tilts the goblet further, too far, that I realize my mistake.

Wine floods my mouth too quickly to swallow, spilling over my lips, trailing down my jaw, my throat. I choke, sputter, half of it soaking into the robe, into my skin.

“Oh dear,” Fenorin muses, entirely unrepentant.

I scowl, wiping at my face, convinced he did it purely to humiliate me. But then he leans in slightly, voice lowering.

“How dreadfully clumsy of me,” he says. “Ask me to help you clean up.”

I blink. “What?”

His lips barely move as he grits out, “Ask me.”

There’s something careful in the way he says it.

“I can’t unless you do,” he says, glancing over my shoulder. I follow his gaze to Astarion, and then I understand.

And so I do.

 

Fenorin was his first.

I expected as much. He’s exactly the sort Astarion would favor—young, sharp-witted, beautiful. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I braced for the callousness I thought would come with that. But it does not come, not in the parlour, not as he leads me to the nearest basin, and not as he begins to wash the wine and the wounds on my neck with meticulous care.

He’s too gentle.

I want to tell him so, but it’s not something I can explain to colnbluth. Surface people don’t understand that kindness is a wound of its own. It makes my breath come too short and my eyes burn.

Fenorin speaks as he works. He tells me they’d been given orders before I arrived—a rare thing, by his account. Astarion had commanded them to treat me with courtesy, to leave me be unless I wished otherwise, to grant me whatever I asked for.

I don’t know what to make of that.

He tells me of his life before this—of the years spent at Sharess’s Caress, sometimes keeping the books when coin was good, sometimes working the floor when it was not. He speaks of the night he first attended one of Baldur’s Gate’s lavish, self-indulgent orgies, of how he met Astarion there, of how easily he was swept off his feet.

Promises had been made. His debts had been paid.

And now here he is—Astarion’s spawn. His chamberlain.

“And now,” he says cheerily, securing the bandages around my neck, “I think it’s only fair you tell me who you are.”

But I’m still stuck on his being the chamberlain. “You must help him get the estate in order,” I urge, flinching when his hand moves a little too quickly. If he notices, he gives no indication. “Repair the walls. Install new gates, doors. Hire a new guard.”

He shakes his head. “Not my domain, I’m afraid. He’s rather insistent on handling the guard himself.”

I groan. “Stupid old man.”

Fenorin’s eyes go wide before laughter spills from him—bright, incredulous, delighted. “Now you really must tell me who you are.”

I recoil from him—not sharply, but enough to put space between us. He’s wrapped the wounds well enough, and I’m not sure I can take any more of these careful touches.  I wave him off instead, dismissive.

“No one important,” I say honestly. Not anymore.

Realizing I haven’t given him my name, I relent. “Tav.”

“Just Tav?” he presses. “No surname?”

I might have laughed, if I had the energy. My kin were iblith from the Stenchstreets—slum filth. If one of my forty-odd siblings risked being mistaken for another, they only had to specify we were the ones popped out at the pleasure house. Most of my childhood, I was Tav Whoredaughter to keep from being confused with Tav Gong Farmer.

It had taken everything to claw my way out of that place. More still to scrape that name from me. And yet, the Stenchstreets still cling.

But how could he know? I learned Common mainly from Gale and Astarion. Unlike Drow, I didn’t speak it like street trash.

I simply shake my head. But Fenorin keeps staring, open and curious, like he expects more. It makes my skin itch.

I don’t want to give him anything. And, I realize, I don’t want to go back to the parlor just yet. There will be questions for me there. And Astarion’s usual games.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks, as if he’s read my thoughts.

 

By the time we return to the parlour, we are well and truly drunk.

When we stumble inside—arm in arm, Fenorin braying with laughter—the entire room turns to stare. I barely notice.

We’d walked the courtyard first, both of us draining our cups too quickly. Then we raided the cellars, before clambering up to the very top floors—where Fenorin usually wasn’t allowed, but could now enter thanks to the simple loophole of me asking. There, we found a sealed-off room, thick with cobwebs and stuffed with old furniture. Mostly armoires filled with costumes. We’d tried on a few, until I had the brilliant idea to start smashing the furniture—much to Fenorin’s horror.

“He doesn’t want any of this shit,” I slurred. “It’s Cazador’s.”

“Who is Cazador?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I kicked a bedpost until the whole canopy collapsed, and Fenorin whooped.

 

Now, I sink into a velvet chair, letting myself sprawl in a way I usually wouldn’t. I’ve let my guard down too much, but the drink has always been my weakness. I try to summon some vigilance, to shake the haze from my thoughts—

And then fingers brush against my braid.

“He dressed your wounds?” Astarion’s voice comes from behind me. He’s looking down, inspecting Fenorin’s work. “How precious. I didn’t know he had it in him.”

Absentmindedly, I press my lips to the hand at my shoulder. Lean my cheek against it, knowing I shouldn’t, but too drunk to care.

Astarion must know how far gone I am. It took me too long to grow comfortable enough to be sweet like this when we were lovers—and I’d never done it with an audience.

His eyes narrow, assessing, but he only smiles.

“Come,” he says.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I spend the entire evening feeling safe and warm for the first time in weeks. It reminds me—just a little—of when we traveled with the others, back when I was the happiest I had ever been.

This is a respite, but I know it must end.

When the night begins to wane and the others drift away, Astarion and I find ourselves alone in one of the vast halls.

I adjust the robe, wondering if he’ll offer me something more suitable when I make to leave. I risk a glance at him—and find him already watching me.

“Naturally, I’d rather you to stay,” he says casually. “But I can’t exactly force you, now can I? You’d only find some terribly creative way to wriggle free—probably breaking something in the process.”

I nod. He’s absolutely right.

He sighs, disappointed. “I’ll see you out.”

He links his arm through mine, as Fenorin had earlier, but the feeling it stirs in me is entirely different. It feels so good that I lean into him without thinking—until I realize, with a jolt of panic, that this is about to end. That in moments, I will be gone, and I might never see him again.

I swallow hard, grit my teeth, and force myself to focus on practical matters. Anything to keep it at bay.

“Who collects tallage?” I ask. “Spawn or drow? The drow will pocket half of it, you realize.”

Astarion looks at me, blank.

I frown. Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. Tallage is collected monthly from the fungi farmers of the Donigarten, as we don’t have seasons in the Underdark. But up here, it would make more sense for taxes to be collected yearly.

“Tallage?” he repeats.

“You must be joking,” I sigh. At least his tenants must be thrilled with their new lord, having apparently escaped their dues. “Cazador was old. He’ll have tenants.” Likely whole villages, old ones that never thought to question their long-lived lord.

Astarion says nothing, and I realize—he hasn’t considered any of this.

How has he been earning gold? Just selling off the estate’s old fixtures?

“When you took over,” I say carefully, “did you find maps? Records?”

 

The maps, naturally, are in Astarion’s bedroom.

Even in my drunkenness, I hesitate. I don’t trust myself with him there.

And yet, in the end, I follow—just as I always have.

Before we step inside, I stop short, pressing a hand against the doorframe. Astarion gives me a questioning look.

“Canopy bed, draped. Mirrors. Bookshelf. Armoire. Large desk. Perfumes and oils.”

I know I’ve guessed correctly, but I can’t tell if he’s pleased or displeased.

“Sometimes, I forget just how much of me you remember,” he muses.

Before my dulled mind can piece together a response, he brushes past me, calling for me to come along.

The room is exactly as I imagined—down to the last piece of furniture, save for a few careless accessories. The only thing I hadn’t accounted for are the silk restraints tied to the bedposts.

Astarion makes a show of kicking them out of sight, feigning sheepishness. I don’t comment, worried where that conversation might lead us. It was something I enjoyed in bed, and it seems now he’s carried it on with other lovers.

Instead, I set to work, sinking into the chair at his desk. He unfurls a set of maps before me, along with a daunting stack of records. I do my best. The map is easiest—I trace the faded spots where the oil of fingertips has worn at the parchment, likely places of importance. Then I turn to the records, scouring them line by line.

Eredune had me taught to read—enough to draft missives, simple things. Battle reports. Slave inventories. Things I needed to know as consort. My skill is rudimentary. Reading in Common is worse still.

But I force myself through it, because someone has to.

When my head begins to ache and my eyes strain, I give in and ask for his help—though I told myself I wouldn’t.

He tells me to hand him some of the documents.

I’m not quite sure what he’s been doing this whole time—absorbed as I was in the work—but now I see him leaning lazily against one of the bedposts. When he reaches for the papers, I flinch.

He notices.

His brow lifts. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asks. “You’re not yourself. Far twitchier than even your usual.” Carefully—too carefully—he takes the documents from my stiffened hands. “I do still care about you, you know.”

I realize, with abject horror, that I’m about to cry.

I’m not the only one who notices. “Oh,” Astarion says, grimacing. “Oh dear.”

I slap my hands to my face, as if I could somehow push the tears back where they belong. I very, very rarely cry, and I am utterly unprepared for it. I don’t know what to do with myself, or how to even begin self-soothing. I don’t know if I should run, or hide, or—

Then his arms wind around me, and the relief is so immediate, so overwhelming, that I shudder against him. I sink into it without thinking.

“What’s this? Tears?” he teases, giving me a playful shake. “From you? Gods, I must be dreaming. Have you been replaced? Or have you gone soft?”

I can’t speak, so I just shake my head, choking back a particularly wretched sob.

He hushes me, stroking my hair, whispering reassurances. Soft, meaningless things. He used to do this, now and then—baby me like this—and gods help me, I liked it. I hate how much I still do.

“What’s wrong with you, hmm?” he murmurs. A colnbluth would hear that and think him unkind, but I know better. “Come now, out with it. You know I’ll get it eventually.”

“I hate the people here,” I manage, wiping at my eyes. He knows who I mean. The surfacers. “I hate them all. I don’t understand what they mean, if they’re mocking me, if they want something from me—”

The feeling swells, choking off my words.

Astarion draws me tighter, crooning.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet thing,” he sighs. “Of course, you don’t understand them. They’re all liars—just not the sort you’re used to,” he said wryly. “Go on. What else?”

“It’s always cold,” I continue. And I’m lonely. And afraid. “And I’m tired.”

I’ve been alone too long, on guard too long. He asked me if I’d gone soft, and the truth is—I have. I got used to warmth, to company. To him. And then he was gone.

You made me like this, I think bitterly. And then he left me. Now I don’t know how to be anything else.

“Come lie down, then.”

It’s not what I meant, but of course, I follow. Because he’s the only one who knows how to make me feel better—I certainly don’t. I will do whatever he says.

That’s how I find myself in his bed, drawn up against his chest, confessing everything about our time apart.

“What have you been doing for a place to stay?” he asks.

I wipe my face, sniffing. “The colnbluth let you in their houses if they think you might fuck them,” I explain.

Incredibly stupid of them. Everyone raved about how terrifying the drow were but then they’d throw open the doors for me like simpering fools.

“I show them that I’ll be taking what I want. They get too scared to argue.”

I exhale. It feels nice to tell someone.

“I take whatever gold or food I can carry and leave.”

Stunned silence.

Then he bursts into laughter— sharp, shrill, his real laugh, not the smooth, practiced one he gives the rest of the world.

“You know,” he manages between breaths, “they told me you were whoring. Not entirely unfair, given you were walking into strangers’ homes and emerging with coin.”

I push myself up, staring at him. “You had people watching me?”

That would explain the paranoia—the creeping sense of being watched these past weeks.

He nods, brushing past it, pressing my head back down against him as if to say it doesn’t matter.

“What are we to do with you?” he murmurs. “We can’t have you resorting to burglary every time your purse runs light, that’s for certain. I imagine the only thing that’s kept you from a cell is your victims’ sheer embarrassment.”

“But they let me into their house,” I reply. “Is that still a crime?”

Menzoberranzan had no formal laws. There was only what the matrons didn’t like and the kind of street justice the common folk dealt out when things got out of hand. If someone was practically asking to be robbed, how could that be a crime?

Astarion’s features pinch. His hand stills on my back before he presses his fingers to his temple.

“Gods above, you can’t be serious.” A slow, steady breath. “Yes, in fact, it is still a crime.” He exhales through his nose, shaking his head.

Then he shifts, fingers brushing along my jaw, cradling my cheek, guiding me to meet his gaze.

“Tav, darling, stay here,” he urges softly. “You don’t do well on your own. You don’t even like it. And I—” He stops short, then exhales. “Well, I like having you exactly where I can see you.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he stops me with a look.

“Listen to me. I won’t make you spawn. I won’t even feed from you—unless you ask. No one will. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” He pauses, lets the words settle. “But I do need you. The estate—it’s… well, you’ve seen it.”

I consider his words. He knows exactly what I want to hear—that I can be useful. That I will be needed. That I will be safe.

Sensing my resolve slipping, he presses on.

“Let me take care of you,” he says. “Rest, for a while. Then, if you must, you can move on. You need this, after everything we’ve been through.”

I may not be clever, but I’m not completely naïve. I know this is calculated manipulation. But I’m beyond the point of caring.

My people have a sickness. They’re starved for love, and when they get the smallest taste of genuine affection, it’s like a drug to them. It what made me successful in Menzoberranzan. I just hadn’t thought myself susceptible to what I was selling.

The temptation is laid out before me, and I see no reason to resist. I’m in need of a patron, after all.

Astarion knows he’s won. He smiles, all smug satisfaction. “There’s a good girl.”

Another weakness of mine, the praise, especially in that confusing space between patronizing and sweet. I hate how it warms me, makes me squirm.

“Things will be better for you now,” he purrs. “Don’t you worry your pretty head. I’ll see to everything.”

Chapter 4: The Concubine

– Tav –

The spawn fight. Often, and childishly.

Somehow, I’ve been appointed their arbiter—alongside Fenorin. It is the most irksome of my duties.

“Artesia’s a bitch,” Cimon complains.

“I know that.”

Her lip twitches, features twisting as she attempts to hold onto her indignation. “Can you make her stop?” she asks, trying to resummon her anger.

“I don’t think so.”

Cimon fights another laugh, but it doesn’t smother her frustration.

I weigh my next words carefully. By now, I know each of the spawn well enough to see what they are to Astarion—who they are meant to replace. Fenorin is Sebastian, Artesia is Violet, Eudes is Petras, Othric is Yousen, and so on. Six favored spawn to Cazador’s seven. I try not to dwell on who he intends the seventh to be.

Cimon is Dalyria, in his mind. Both elves, both physicians. Logical, educated—though Cimon has far more bite. Pardon the pun.

“Listen,” I begin. “You’ll have to find a way to get along. The six of you are like siblings—”

“She’s not my fucking sibling,” Cimon snaps. “I left my sisters behind. To come here. To become a daywalker. When is that supposed to happen? It’s been months already—”

“Quiet,” I hiss. “If he catches you talking like that—”

Cimon waits, genuinely curious. No one has been punished yet. Astarion has overstepped no boundaries, has exercised no cruelty, no undue power.

And yet, why does this peace feel so precarious?

When I don’t respond, she shifts tactics.

“Can you ask him?” she pleads, eyes bright and wide with practiced innocence. She drapes herself over me as I cringe. I’ve always had the sense Cimon was the youngest in her family. “Please? You’re the favorite. He won’t get mad at you.”

“I’m not so sure,” I reply dryly.

Both Fenorin and I share that precarious title, and I know well from Menzoberranzan that favor is no shield against a master’s temper. If anything, it makes you seen. It makes them watch you—notice your flaws. It paints a target on your back.

I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But it hasn’t.

The estate is a mess, certainly. On my first day of duties, I must have sent hundreds of letters to the city’s guilds—stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, merchants—negotiating contracts for labor and materials. Shipments arrived soon after: clay tiles, limestone, brick, timber, iron—stacked in neat piles beside the estate’s ruined wings. I arranged a guard detail to ensure none of it walked off.

I had the old rooms cleared—stripped of the memories Astarion hadn’t wanted to look at. I had new doors commissioned from hickory, the strongest surface wood I knew, with hinges placed on the inside this time. When Astarion scoffed at the color, I brought in a woodworker to stain them.

I called upon an artificer to construct traps—glyphs of warding, tripwires, vents, mines. He worked diligently, laying his defenses through the halls and foyers until, just as I turned to fetch his payment, Astarion snapped his neck.

“Lose ends are untidy,” he told me simply, flicking the blood from his fingers. “I don’t like untidy things.”

I’m not particularly soft-hearted, but even I recognize waste when I see it. The gnome had been the most skilled among the Gondians.

After that, I make sure Astarion is a little less involved—always under the pretense of sparing him the tedium of administration. Fenorin, I notice, does the same.

Astarion has more than enough to occupy him. There are always at least twenty ‘guests’—though Fenorin and I have yet to settle on a proper term. Playthings? Livestock? Devotees? Each one eager to bare their throat or spread their legs—though he much prefers Fenorin and me to handle the latter.

He doesn’t take very good care of them, his guests. On my first morning, intending to break my fast, I discovered there was no cook, no scullery, no one tending the kitchens. Fenorin had to send someone into the city to fetch me food. That, too, we arranged.

And then, of course—there are the offensives.

In the wake of Cazador’s death, lesser vampires begin to crawl out of the woodwork, foolish enough to think Baldur’s Gate is safe for them again. Astarion sends me to remind them it is not.

I track them, follow them into the holes where they nest with their spawn, smoke them out like rats. I feel something like remorse when I slaughter their spawn—they have no choice but to defend their master. But I tell myself this is for our safety.

Astarion is pleased.

He makes me recount the killings before all his spawn. I loathe speaking before an audience—shy, a woman of few words—but I bask in his praise.

“My tireless little butcher,” he murmurs, playing with my ear. He favors the damaged one, the one mutilated the night we killed Cazador. “I doubt I could trust anyone else with this.”

I could tell him why—that he has chosen his spawn for everything but strength. Though his blood makes them powerful, not one among them is a warrior. He has gathered them for wit, for beauty.

But even he has need of a brute. Perhaps that’s why he dotes on me.

Whatever my recommendation for the estate, he heeds it. Whatever the cost, he pays it—sometimes even asking if I’ve been overly practical with the coin. Though I spend most nights in his bed, he has a room prepared for me, grander than my quarters in House Vandree, nearly as fine as his own —fully furnished, with windows that let in the light I still haven’t grown used to.

The contrast is staggering. I arrived at Astarion’s home with nothing but my weapons, the clothes on my back, and a small satchel of keepsakes: a kerchief he handed me after I’d been splattered with goblin viscera—his first gift to me—and a flame-bladed dagger he had stolen but been too nervous to give me, only for me to discover it in his tent .

Better still is the armor he allows me to import—Drowcraft leathers for training and light combat, and, my greatest indulgence, a full suit of plate.

Otherwise, I ask for little—but still, he gives. He has garments made for me from Figaro’s. It’s been years since I’ve worn anything so fine, and I’m almost giddy as I hold up each dress, each tunic. He has exquisite taste.

Though Fenorin and I saw to the kitchens, it’s Astarion who fills them with surface delicacies I’ve never known but must try—chocolate-dipped strawberries, bouillabaisse, sunmelon, kaeth, spiced wine. He watches me eat, chin resting on his hand, amused.

“You’d make a fine vampire,” he muses. “You’ve already the appetite. All you lack is my gift.”

I make some stupid deflection. It’s the first he’s pressed the issue since I’ve returned to him, and I’m stupid enough to not think much of it.

When my neck wounds have nearly healed, I visit our old friends. Only I’m too eager, I should have waited longer. Gale almost immediately catches the bruises, and I’m forced to explain where I’ve been staying, what I’ve been doing. They disapprove.

I have purpose. Why can’t they understand that?

Still, I know there’s a cost to this feeling, so I’m not the least bit surprised when Astarion sends me on more raids. First, he sends me to finish what remains of the Sewerkeepers. Then I’m sent draw Zhent blood. Then, to threaten the Docker’s Guild.

Hilariously, it’s with the Docker’s mercenaries that I take my first real injury. I have two of them on me, my blades whirling, when a spellcaster sets the ground beneath me aflame. The heat swells, unbearable, but I can’t afford the distraction, so I keep moving, keep striking, even as the fire races up my legs.  By the time the last body drops, the metal of my greaves has fused to my flesh.

Cimon is the one to tend to me. At first, she makes a fuss— hands clutching her hair, wet eyes—before snapping into the steady hands of a physician.

I refuse the alindluth and the opium sponge.

Astarion murmurs something to her, too low for me to catch. Then he watches in silence as she works, his expression unreadable.

It is painful, but I refuse to impair myself. Anytime I’ve been drugged, something bad has happened to me.

Only when the ointment has been smoothed over raw skin, the bandages secured, and a tonic swallowed does Astarion speak.

“This will happen again, you know,” he says. “No matter how skilled you are, how strong, how careful—you will always be breakable.”

I could tell him I’d be far less likely to get injured if he allowed me a few days between fights—but I don’t. I won’t risk him seeing me as weak.

I know how the powerful think. Everything is arithmetic to them, every relationship reduced to costs and benefits rather than attachment. Beyond this—beyond the violence and the blood—I’m not certain I serve a purpose. And I refuse to serve him through the only other means left to me. I won’t be a plaything again.

“You could be so much more,” he murmurs, lifting my chin so I will meet his eye. “Faster, stronger—undying. Let me make you unbreakable.”

“This wasn’t a part of our agreement,” I say carefully.

“I said I wouldn’t make you spawn,” he replies. “Not unless you ask. Are we not permitted to have a conversation?”

I’m not sure I trust him, not completely. It’s only a matter of time before I find myself with a gut wound too deep to heal, and Astarion at my side, telling me not to be afraid, that everything will be just fine, all I have to do is bare my neck.

I should be more concerned with immediate threats.

My eyelids begin to droop, a wave of warmth spreading through me, so soothing that I nearly sigh in contentment. I only realize what is happening when Astarion tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, his smile especially indulgent—patronizing.

The tonic.

“You had me drugged,” I slur.

I’m an idiot—stupid. I come from a place where everyone poisons each other, and still, I trusted it.

“You make it sound so nefarious,” he chides. “I’m only helping. You’re so terribly paranoid, darling. It no longer serves you.”

And yet, he takes full advantage of my vulnerability.

“You’re beautiful like this,” he whispers. I can barely form a response as his thumb ghosts over my lips. He doesn’t want any, except yes. “You trust me, don’t you? You want this. Want me. That’s why you’re still here.”

He leans in, breath skimming my ear. “Just one little word, my love, and I’ll make you mine. Forever.”

Even through the haze, I manage to pull away, shaking my head not once but three times.

He laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I’ve displeased him.

Well, it’s mutual. That little stunt earns him a week of my silence.

I use this time to seal all the smuggling tunnels and useless passages—almost all. I keep two to myself. A precaution. I’m certain Astarion has contingencies I am not privy to. I will have my own.

It’s Fenorin who comes to mediate, sighing as he drops onto the couch beside me as I mull over guard details. We’re meant to rotate nights in his bed and since I’ve been shirking, he’s been picking up my slack.

“My ass hurts, and the master’s in a foul mood,” Fen laments, throwing up his hands. “So naturally I’m in a foul mood. Fix this, will you?”  

“He drugged me.”

“With opium,” Fen counters. “People pay good coin for that sort of thing.”

I don’t dignify him with a response, but something catches my eye. A bruise, dark and blooming along his throat. I pull back the collar of his doublet—fingerprints. The kind that come from hands wrapping around the neck.

So, I relent.

I know Astarion well. A simple truce won’t suffice—perhaps once, with the man he used to be. But not this incarnation.

So I wait until one of his ridiculous sex parties he so delights in throwing, the ones I make a point to avoid. I let him think I won’t attend. And then, when the party is in full swing, I arrive.

The thing I wear can scarcely be called a dress—the neckline plunges to my navel, the fabric sheer enough to bare every curve, every goosebump, so thin it’s nearly indistinguishable from my clay-colored skin. It is more distracting than naked flesh, and heads turn despite the ongoing orgy.

It does not help that I am dripping in gold—at my ankles, my wrists, my throat. Everywhere except my left ear, where dangles Cazador’s fang.

Astarion lounges at his absurdly trite throne, chemise unlaced, hair tousled, lips red, as if he is the prince of indulgence. I would accuse him of compensating, had the proof otherwise not been on display at the sight of me.

The blood donors slip away before he even deigns to dismiss them, scurrying off on their own accord. I would run too. We look as if we will either kill or fuck each other—and I imagine neither outcome is particularly inviting to watch.

“I take it you’re not cross with me anymore?” he asks, eyes dark

“I missed you.” Though I am still furious with him, it is not a lie. Sometimes it feels as if he’s all I have.

He exhales dramatically, stretching in his seat. “I suppose I could be magnanimous enough to forgive your fit,” he muses. “But you’ll have to perform some kind of penance.”

Anyone with an ounce of imagination can guess what comes next. Within moments, I’m in his lap, squirming as his hands slide beneath the fabric—palming my breasts, tracing my hips, my thighs.

This is an act of submission.

The spawn are beginning to grow confused about my place here. I am not one of them. I am not the lady of the house. And yet, when something needs handling—when renovations stall, when reforms require enforcement, when the servants or the guard need direction—they come to me. I manage the chaos. I clean up the messes. They’ve stopped asking Astarion for anything.

And he’s noticed. I’m certain that’s why he’s grown so insistent on turning me.

This performance, while humiliating, will hopefully get him off my damn back.

I’m still silently praising myself for my act when, without warning, Astarion’s fingers tangle in my hair. A sharp pull—my head tilts, my pulse thrums—then his fangs sink in.

He bites down cruelly, deeply. The pain is enough to draw a gasp.

His venom takes hold almost instantly. It’s a strange high—it kills your fear, makes you pliant. Every touch feels good, too good, and the instinct to resist is drowned. No doubt it’s meant to pacify prey.

His fingers skim along my thighs, light, teasing, and the sound I make—pathetic, needy—is far more genuine than those that came before.

“There we are,” he purrs, pressing a kiss to the bite. “Much better.”

The venom, thick and sweet, dulls my thoughts, making it so much easier to give in. To let him touch, to let him take. He continues his lazy, torturous exploration, his smile against my throat.

It only gets worse. I let him fuck me on that throne, in full view of his court of sycophants. Beg him to do it. Then I beg him to take me upstairs and do it again.

It’s only when I’m lying half naked in his bed that my head finally begins to clear.

“You said no one would feed off me unless I wanted it.”

Across the room, Astarion scoffs from his desk, quill poised between his fingers. “And you’re saying you didn’t?” He laughs. “Darling, you were practically dripping. And you know how terribly weak I am when it comes to you. Really, it was adorable.”

An image flashes through my mind—me, grinding against him, slick and desperate, eyes closed, head thrown back as he laughed at me.

And yet, as I watch him now, lounging in his chair, pleased with himself as ever, I find some satisfaction in knowing that, at the very least, I’m safe.

Wrong.

“Tav, you know I adore you,” Astarion begins, turning out of his chair. He stands, looming over me, and I feel pinned. Watched. Studied.

“And how could I not?” he asks. “You’ve been devoted to me from the very start.”

I shift, sitting up. It does little to shake the feeling.

“You let me kill all those people,” he continues. “Seven thousand souls so I could become what I was always meant to be.”

A chill passes through me, but I do not pull my robe tighter. He can smell weakness now—apprehension, anxiety, fear—I swear it.

“Make your point,” I say flatly “You’re not the only one who grows easily bored.”

He smirks, passing back briefly to the desk.

“My spies uncovered a warehouse in the city,” he explains, handing me a stack of parchment. “They tell me it’s filled with bloodroot. Likely it’s owned by whoever sent our intruder.”

I unfold the aged building plan, the parchment brittle beneath my fingers.

“No doubt it will be swarming with vampires and spawn, considering the tenants emerge only at night.”

And I will be sent to clear them.

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

He sits beside me, his hand finding my face, holding me still. The touch should be tender, but it feels like an examination. It’s as if he’s looking for something.

“You’ve given so much to me,” he murmurs. “I’m loathe to ask for more, but I must.”

I take his hand carefully, ensuring the gesture doesn’t feel like a rejection. His touch is distracting, muddling my thoughts like any drug.

“Taking the warehouse will be difficult, dangerous. I can’t bear the thought of losing you,” he says, pulling my hand to his cheek, pressing it there. I am forced to meet his unyielding gaze. “Not to anything. Let me turn you tonight. Then I never will.”

I recoil. Only slightly, but enough for him to see. I can’t help it.

“Spawn can be killed just as easily as anyone,” I tell him. “I’ve slaughtered them by the dozens.”

I almost shudder at the memory—hauling their bodies into the sun, watching them shrivel, burn, turn to nothing but tattered cloth and the meager blood left in their veins. I think of him—as he once was. Starving. Eating putrid rats, his back raw and bleeding. It’s not their fault.

He doesn’t like that I’ve made a good point.

His lips press into a thin line. Then, a new tactic.

“You’re going to get old,” he warns, and there’s real distress in his voice. It pains him to say it. He’s never denied his shallowness.

But then, realizing he’s been too blunt—too sharp to win me over—he nuzzles into my palm instead, his lips brushing my wrist in a kiss.

“You were perfect tonight,” he whispers. “I want you like this forever.”

“Astarion,” I say, leaning forward. “You’re being overly persistent, and it’s no longer charming. Enough.”

His expression flickers before his lips curl into something haughty, eyes narrowed. He drops my hand as if my very touch disgusts him.

“Overly persistent?” he echoes.

I brace myself. I’ve seen him lose his temper very seldom, but I know the look—the tight, sour twist of his mouth, the stiffness in his jaw.

“Forgive me for caring,” he says, tone brittle. “I suppose you’re not especially familiar. No one’s ever wasted their time trying to love you, have they?”

No. Most never even pretended. My sister said it to me once. And my matron, Eredune, was an exception—but hers was not the sort of love a woman of three centuries should offer a girl barely turned fourteen.

For years, I hadn't questioned it, hadn't understood what had been done to me.

Astarion had been the one to explain patiently, over many long nights, that she had hurt me. It took longer still to convince me it wasn’t my fault.

My chest tightens. He was so gentle with me then, so careful. For the first time, I miss him—truly, painfully—as he was before. Even then, he was using me, but there was the space, however small, for something more. A slim, foolish chance he might return what I felt for him.

“If only I had a lover who was capable,” I reply.

Astarion stills, blinking. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to him that, in his current state, there are limitations. There are things he can no longer do, no longer feel.

I can see the mask clicking into place, the way he tilts his chin slightly upward, as if I am beneath his notice entirely.

He turns away. “You’ve annoyed me. Get out.”

 

What Astarion fails to realize is kicking me out is the opposite of a punishment. If anything, it’s a rare gift. Fenorin and I can have a night without him.  

“Why are you so resistant to becoming spawn?” Fen asks, passing me the bottle of Chultan Fireswill. He watches with obvious amusement as I take a massive gulp and immediately cough.

“You’re already his in most ways,” he continues, extending a hand for the bottle, but I hold it out of reach, taking another swig instead. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. I’d wager you’d throw yourself in front of a blade for him without hesitation. And you spend half your nights warming his bed. What are you pretending would change?”

I sputter, but drink again.

“I mean, the waiting is dull, I grant you,” Fenorin muses. “But really—it's not that terrible.”

When I lift the bottle a fourth time, his eyes widen. He raises his hands, as if about to snatch it away, then thinks better of it.

Fenorin has no idea. It’s been less than a year since he’s been turned.

“Astarion was vampire spawn for two centuries,” I blurt.

Fen’s eyes widen. I get the distinct sense I should have kept that to myself.

I watch as he digests it, his usual glib absent. “No, he won’t make us wait that long,” he says, almost to himself. “He’s a bastard, sure, but he has limits. He wouldn’t do that.”

I don’t argue. Not because I agree, but because I’m not entirely certain myself. My gut says otherwise, but from what I’ve observed these few months, Astarion is trying very hard indeed not to look like Cazador.

Instead, I reach for the fireswill.

Fenorin catches my hand. “What did he say to you?” he asks, studying me. “I wasn’t aware you had feelings to bruise.”

I shoot him a dark look. I want the fireswill. And I know how scared most people are of the drow.

Fen, of course, isn’t frightened of me in the least. He spends far too much time around me.

“Or shall I preen and plume until you simply must shut me up with an answer?” he asks, twirling one of my long strands of white hair. I allow him. He doesn’t realize what that means, those small gestures of trust.

“You know I love playing the buffoon,” he says.

I do. He’s weaponized it, in fact.

Still, I do not answer. Instead, I turn my head, resting my chin on his mattress.

Fenorin sighs, exasperated, slapping his legs. “Asanque.”

I freeze.

Asanque means ‘as you wish’ in my native tongue. Perhaps I misheard him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see an unusually boyish grin spreading across his face.

“You’re learning Drow?” I ask.

“Struggling is a more apt designation,” replies Fen. “The script is the same, and some of the words are familiar if you squint at them, but mostly it’s a miserable puzzle—”

An oomph escapes him as I slam into his chest, arms locked tight. Skinny as he is, the force nearly topples him.

“Get off of me this instant,” he huffs. “You’ll crush me to death.”

I pull away, biting back a smile.

A colnbluth would thank him, would have tried to explain what it meant—that he had chosen to learn my tongue, for me, when no one else ever had.

But I am drow, and such words escape us.

“Has no one ever tried before?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Not your little band of friends?”

Another shake.

“Not the master?”

That gives me pause.

I don’t call him that. It was one of my conditions in becoming his retainer. I had a master before—my matron, my lover, back in Menzoberranzan. I promised myself I would never return to that kind of servitude.

“He knows enough.” Curses, simple phrases. Ussta astunin, my pet name for him. He’d managed to pick it all up as we traveled together, despite my declarations of my native tongue’s ugliness, my careful attempts to keep him from understanding Minthara’s cruel utterances. All that stopped after he ascended.

“Poor Tav,” Fen says pityingly. 

Thinking he’s joking, I scowl. “What?”

But his expression doesn’t lend itself to humor. I frown, confused. The colnbluth aren’t always obvious in their emotions.

He sighs, looking over me. “No one will ever love you in a way you understand,” he says. “It won’t matter how hard you try to give them what they want.”

Chapter 5: Strength

Summary:

This is when he starts getting evil

– Tav –

The killing spree he sends me on is relentless.

It begins with the warehouse, then spirals into an unending campaign of raids and murders, so unceasing that I start to wonder if I’ve pissed him off enough that he’s decided I must die. Perhaps this is his way of orchestrating it without dirtying his hands.

Still, I obey. It’s what I’m good for.

Names, faces, locations—each one blurs into the next. There is only the slow, grinding crawl through objectives. I do not go home for a month—can’t, not with so much left unfinished. The work drags me beyond the city.

He’s made me do it along with the drow too, I don’t fail to notice. Though I took them off the guard, he kept them on the payroll, even with my insistence they will betray us. They’re but another danger for me to contend with.

The endless fighting, their presence—it snaps something inside me.

The night terrors return, battle dreams I hadn’t suffered in years. Worse, old memories surface, ones I had long since buried.

I’m around ten —thin from famine, crouched low in the fields of the Donigarten. My cousins move quickly, stuffing their sacks with mushrooms, oblivious to the sentries creeping closer. I am meant to be the lookout, but I stay silent. I’ve learned many lessons during the famine, and cruelest of them is this: with them gone, there will be fewer mouths to feed.

I’m thirteen—perhaps fourteen? Young, far too young, but I don’t yet know it. I’ve won the nedeirra, and that’s all that matters. I am slick with sweat, grinning, victorious. A noblewoman watches me hungrily from the crowd. She is so very beautiful, my breath catches. I don’t understand what the look she gives me means, I only know that it is a rare and great honor to be noticed by your betters.

I’m near seventeen, a warrior now, with some skill. I’m raiding alongside with my draa velve teacher and some Baenre warriors. He grabs a half-drow captive—only a few years younger than me—by her braid, dragging her up the stairs. He’s done this before. Something roils within me. I watch, almost in confusion, as my blade surges forward and slices him from navel to chin, a surgeon’s stroke. It will be years before I understand why I did it.      

I’m at the Mantle, magic fire burning wildly around me. Whether it was the enemy’s spellwork or our own no longer matters—it is killing us all the same, choking the oxygen from the cave system. A man from our ranks claws at my piwafwi, his skin blistering, peeling, trying to tear it from me to save himself. I shove him away—I have to, but I’m yelling that there’s enough room under it for both of us, that I don’t want to kill him. It doesn’t have to be like this.

I’m in my bed at the Vandree compound, thrashing beneath four other concubines while the fifth raises the knife. Drow culture values perfection above all else—if they disfigure me, I lose everything. My place. Eredune’s favor. My future.

I wake up with the scream still caught in my throat. Most mornings my body is so wrapped up in the memory that I retch.

The injuries begin to pile up. The stress is too much. The drow do not have my back in combat. And if you fight long enough, the worst will come to pass. A scimitar—one that looks as if from my home city, ironically—slices deep enough that I nearly bleed out. Days later, the edge of a buckler cracks against my chest. My clavicle clicks painfully with every breath.

“If you keep getting injured like this, I’ll have to insist you step down from your duties,” Astarion warns when I come home for healing. “For your own good.”

I know what he’s doing. He’s furious that I have refused him, that I will not become spawn. He’s making a point. This is his way of proving that I will have to yield, one way or another.

“I don’t understand you,” he insists. “You say you’re loyal to me, only me, and yet, when I ask this of you—one simple thing, something meant to protect you—you deny me. Why don’t you want this?”

“Haven’t I given enough?” I ask, exhausted.

“It’s not that you won’t give me this,” he amends. “It’s that you refuse to trust me. You think I’m like him—that I would treat you as Cazador did me.” He softens. “Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Despite the ache in my body, I cross the room. My hands find his face, fingers threading through his curls, soothing as best I can.

“I wouldn’t be here with you if that were true,” I tell him.

“Then why?”  

I hesitate. There are many reasons, tangled and snarled in my mind. I reach for the simplest.

“The moment I become spawn, I will never be your equal.”

Astarion looks down at me—and laughs.

“Oh, I tried to make you my equal,” he says, amused, cruel. “I wanted you at my side. I asked you to be my consort, and you know what you did? You asked to be a servant. It’s pathetic.”

“Careful,” I warn.

His eyes gleam, lips curl to reveal his fangs. “You know, I do believe I fucked you back then because you reminded me of myself.”

We’ve spoken of this before. Both concubines, both tortured, both locked away. Both molded by it, honed into something sharp and sometimes vicious. But he had suffered for two centuries—every agony stretched and multiplied a hundredfold, until my own paled in comparison. If I woke him with my night terrors, I felt only shame. I learned not to tell him anything of it, for fear of making a mockery of his suffering.

It was a cruel thing to have between lovers.

“Narcissism, really,” he continues, almost idly. “Pity it wasn’t the good parts, though, was it? No. You’re every weakness I clawed free of.”

“Astarion.”

“So servile, so obedient—it’s what comes naturally, isn’t it?” he sneers. “You’ll never be anything but this. Even back then, I had to teach you how to be, what to want.”

And he had. I hadn’t realized my chains until he’d explained them to me. I was still hoping to reconcile with my matron, that I might do so by subduing the Absolute. Still foolish enough to believe we loved each other.

“Without me, you’d still be crawling at your matron’s feet, licking her boots.” A pause. Then, with malice: “Or with your head buried between her thighs, wagging your tail like a good little pet.”

I hit him.

A sharp crack as the back of my hand meets his cheek.

I’ve always been strong—unnaturally so. They used to whisper that I might be Lolth-touched, blessed by the Spider Queen herself, because when the other children grew stunted from famine or disease, I only grew bigger, stronger. Harder to break.

Though Astarion’s head only jerks to the side, and he barely sways, I know my hand might as well have been a closed fist. Had his eyes been shut, he wouldn’t have known the difference.

But he only chuckles, turning back with something like amusement. It’s as if he’s expected this or wanted it. “Finally.”

His answer comes just as quick. A hand raised, heavy with rings—too fast for me to stop. The strike comes sharper, heavier, metal slicing my cheek.

The force of it knocks me to the ground before I even register falling. My ears ring, the room lurches. I raise a hand to my face, fingers coming away slick with blood.

I hiss a series of Drow curses. “Take off your fucking rings next time.”

He laughs, breathless, incredulous. “Oh, darling. As if that would help you,” he says. “As if it will ever be a fair fight again.”

 

I don’t sleep that night. Instead I pace the courtyard, thinking, remembering. I weigh Eredune against Astarion against Cazador.

Even as the sun rises, I feel restless. Isolated. Fenorin is buried in his duties, and Astarion is still seething. Even so, I seek out the former in his office.

“Oh, Tav, your cheek,” he blurts the moment he sees me. His eyes flit over the cut, the swelling. “Has he…?” he trails off, unable to summon the words. “With you too?”

It takes me a moment to understand what he means. We’ve caught each other returning to our quarters exhausted, bitten, and bruised, with ligature marks around our ankles and wrists before. He thinks Astarion was rough in bed with me.

I nod. The idea of admitting a male lover has struck me—even if I threw the first blow—is still deeply humiliating, as it would be for any drow woman. I’d much rather pretend this is a sex game that got out of hand.

“Do you like it?” Fen asks carefully.

“It’s fine,” I reply honestly.

And I mean both. The sex. The violence.

Astarion needs this. He’s reenacting his past, only now, he holds the power. He has to remind himself of that, and this is how he’s chosen to do it.

“Has anyone written me?”  I ask, eager to change the subject.

Occasionally, Astarion orders the spawn to lie. I can almost always tell—there’s a particular anxious rigidity to it, followed by some desperate attempt to mime what they’ve been forbidden to say.

Fenorin practically pops a blood vessel when I ask, eyes bulging. His mouth opens and closes mutely.

“Stop that,” I scold. “You’ll give yourself an aneurysm. Just open the drawer they’re in and walk away, I’ll handle this.” If Astarion hasn’t had them burned.

Sure enough, Fenorin pulls open a drawer, then—without a word—leaves the room.

Inside, I find a trove of letters. Sifting through the pile, I recognize the familiar hands of Shadowheart, Minthara, Gale, and others. I gather them quickly, tucking them beneath my shirt

Pain still lingers from my injuries, but I’ve learned my lesson since the last time Cimon patched me up. This time, I came prepared. I lifted some alindluth from the medicine stores, and now I plan to camp out in one of the abandoned rooms on the top floor. I refuse to let anyone near me while I’m dulled by the painkillers. I don’t like being alone, but there is no one safe.

The room is as I left it—dusty, thick with cobwebs, but the windows are clean enough to let in the morning light. I drag a heavy bench against the wall and settle there, crossbow in hand, as I sort through the letters. Updates, inquiries about my well-being, invitations to visit.

When you’ve been on edge long enough, the body does a strange thing—exhaustion pounces the moment you feel safe enough to rest. I drift off before finishing my second letter.

 

A creak on the wooden floor startles me awake.

Across the room, Astarion stands, frozen mid-step, as if caught in the act. Then, as if nothing at all is amiss, he tilts his head and smiles.

“Good morning, my sweet,” he says. “Sleep well? You looked so peaceful—I almost didn’t want to wake you.”

“You shouldn’t sneak up on me,” I warn, words rough with sleep. I blink the haze from my vision, still sluggish from the alindluth. My grip tightens on the crossbow. The lever is already pulled, bolt loaded—a mere twitch and I could have put a shot clean through him.

“Please,” he replies, barely sparing the loaded crossbow a glance. “You’d never hurt me, not in a real way. It’s simply not in your nature.”

The way he speaks reminds me of the way a kennel master might describe a hound. He is very assured of his control over me.

“Why did you hide these?” I ask, lifting a few letters from the stack.

He sighs, as if beleaguered by me. “Darling, must we really go through this?” he asks. “I need you at your best. You can’t afford to be burdened distractions, especially not from people who barely care about you.”

“They—” The words catch in my throat, unwilling to be spoken. It’s painfully naïve to claim anyone cares for you, especially among my people. It’s an invitation to be proven wrong. I’ve kept everyone at arm’s length to ensure that moment never comes.

He knows what I’m trying to say.

“Don’t be stupid. Where were they, when you needed help?” he asks. “We all knew, Tav. How could we not? You were a mess. And yet I was the only one who did anything about it.”

I inhale slowly, stilling my mind.

“Treating me this way wins you nothing,” I warn.

Kindness is a far more effective leash. I can’t be made to behave when I’m angry. I act strangely, unpredictably. My matron discovered this the hard way.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, but he’s on a roll. Sometimes he simply can’t stop himself.

“I was the one who pulled you from that,” he rants. “The one who gave you purpose. The one who made sure you amounted to something.”

“Eredune once spoke those words,” I remind him.

It gives him pause only for a heartbeat. Then he recovers, lips curling, amused. “Well, perhaps she wasn’t wrong,” he muses. “Should I lock you away to keep you safe? You were so much more manageable then, weren’t you?”

I pull the trigger.

The bolt sinks quite perfectly into his foot. A clean, flawless shot. I tilt my head, smiling, admiring my handiwork as he howls in rage.

“This is about how manageable I am now,” I remark lightly, lifting the goat’s lever and sliding another bolt into place.

He’s seething, spitting curses between gritted teeth. I catch ‘ungrateful bitch’ amidst the snarling vitriol. I shut the mechanism with a click, the bolt settling where it needs to be.

“Say something stupid, and I’ll let another fly,” I promise gleefully.

He will.

He looks up at me, glaring hatefully, his lips parting—

I lift the crossbow back onto my hip and let the next bolt fly. It punches through the hand he has splayed against the wooden floor.

“How dare you,” he spits, voice shaking with rage. His fangs flash as he snarls between curses, eyes burning with fury. “Oh, my dear, you’ll regret this quite soon, I assure you.”

“Tonight,” I agree breezily, swinging a leg over the windowsill. There’s a trellis below, one that will take me down to the main courtyard. “I’m off to visit Shadowheart.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

My visit with Shadowheart goes predictably. I arrive unannounced, she asks about my injuries, I offer half-truths in return, and we make plans to meet soon with Gale and the others.

Then I leave.

By the time I return to the estate, hours have passed. I no longer look like a soldier—I’ve dressed the part of a noblewoman, as if I’m the lady of the house rather than its captain of the guard. The seamstress had asked no questions when I told her I wanted to teach my unfaithful husband a lesson, only supplied accordingly: a gown of deep plum, brocaded in intricate patterns of vines and curling smoke. The bodice is fitted, trimmed with pearls, cut scandalously low and hoisting my breasts in that particular style the colnbluth obsess over.

It's snowing. A thick fur coat wraps around me, deliciously warm against the winter air. I feel a little like a child playing pretend, although I never had time to play games as a child. Behind me, a man struggles to pull a handcart laden with gifts for the spawn. I’ve spent every coin of my stipend. I don’t regret a single piece.

When I step into the courtyard, it’s as if everyone already knows.

The spawn pour out in a horde to greet me, their hands grasping, their voices bright. They kiss my cheeks, fawn over my new clothes, coo over the pearls and embroidery. Above them, leaning lazily against the stone railing of a lower balcony, Astarion watches—arms crossed, eyes dark, gleaming.

“Ah, there you are, darling,” he drawls. “I was just considering which poor soul to send after you.”

“Did you know they make clothes out of gnolls?” I ask, peeling off my fur coat. “The hide tans well, they said.”

He laughs. “Is that where this hideous thing came from?” he asks. “How cruel. It rather suits you.”

Fenorin takes the coat from my hands, leaning in as he does. “Tread lightly,” he murmurs. “He’s been absolutely wretched since you ran off.”

I ignore him. Instead, I call up to Astarion again. “How fare your hand and foot?”

Without a word, he lifts his hand, turning it over slowly, letting the unbroken skin speak for itself.

“The foot is much the same, I’m afraid. Try to contain your disappointment.” His gaze darts to the cart, laden with boxes. “You know, if you wanted more finery, you only had to say so. We both know I’d never refuse you.”

“Gifts,” I inform him. “For the spawn.”

I open a box, shake out its contents. Fine silks spill over my hands, along with trinkets, vials of perfume, delicate combs

“Oh, how terribly thoughtful,” he says dryly. “Well, do come see me after you’ve had your fun. You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I can’t shake my nerves as I make my way to his chambers. While I was out, I ate a pastry—a decadent thing wrapped in a white parcel, tied with a velvet ribbon. Now, as I approach his door, I feel much the same. As if I’ve packaged myself up, something to be unwrapped, devoured. Torn apart.

I pause, breathing deeply, steeling myself. I think I know what to expect, but expectation does little to soften the impact.

The moment I step inside and close the door, he’s on me.

I gasp as my back hits the wall, his hands already seizing me

“I’m seeing them in a few days!” I blurt. “They’ll have questions if I come broken—”

But his lips crash into mine, and I realize I’ve misread his intentions entirely.

The shock of it sends me adrift, unable to speak or strategize. His mouth trails to my neck, teeth grazing, teasing. One hand disappears beneath my skirts, gliding up with deft fingers, a thumb brushing over my nipple. The other fists the fabric, hitching it up so his knee can wedge between my thighs.

My breath stutters. My hips roll instinctively, pressing against him, chasing sensation. My eyes flutter shut, and I surrender to it.

The moment they’re closed, he flips me, slamming my cheek into cold stone. I gasp, shivering when I feel him nudge my entrance, already embarrassingly wet.

“What do you say?” he asks.

“Please.” I barely recognize my own voice.

I mewl as he slowly pushes himself into me.

Then his pace is vicious, punishing. “Look at you,” he taunts, breath hot against my ear. “All that fight is gone now, isn’t it? You were so very angry, and yet here you are, falling apart on my cock.”

I nod helplessly, and he laughs.

He brings down his pace so he can pull himself out of me slowly, then push himself back in, all the way up to the hilt. My breath hitches.

“I don’t need to bite you to control you, do I?” he asks. “This is—” his fingers dig into my hips, thrusts unrelenting. “—this is all it takes.”

I arch my back, tilting my hips to allow him more access. It’s all I can think to do.

“Admit it, pet. You love this.”

I stiffen.

Pet.

He knows what that word does to me. He knows who used to call me that.

My teeth bare, my mouth parting to snap at him—

He’s faster. His hand clamps over my face before I can get a word out, palm pressing over my mouth, muffling my protests.

“Shhh. None of that.” His other hand slides down, fingers finding me with infuriating ease. “Your body’s already answered for you.”

I shake my head, or try to, but the moment he presses himself deep inside me, his fingers circling just so, the protest dies in my throat. My body betrays me, writhing, tightening—heat surging as pleasure crashes over me.

The low groan in my ear tells me he’s come as well.

And then, as if it were nothing, he pulls away.

I barely register the loss before he’s walking off to fetch his robe, leaving me trembling, panting against the wall.

For a moment, I can’t move. Can’t think.

“Why did you do that?” I demand.

He doesn’t even glance back as he ties his sash. “You’re far easier to handle after you’ve been properly fucked,” he explains. “Consider it a diplomatic gesture.”

The way he’s spoken it makes me feel repulsive, like a rutting animal. I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. My dress, I realize, has been torn to shreds.

I walk to the vanity so I can take a look at myself.

“Now, it occurs to me,” Astarion begins carefully, “that placing you among the drow for weeks on end was a mistake. You regressed—started playing at being one of them again.”

I stare at my reflection. I look half-dead—skin sallow, clay-pale, one cheek still swollen. The cut has scabbed over, barely, an angry thing against my skin.

“But it’s not only that, is it?” He sighs. “No. I know my own hand in this.”

A pause. A ghost of a smile.

“You were quite sweet when you arrived here,” he muses fondly. “And I’ve gone and turned you into an emotional terrorist.”

I meet his gaze in the mirror. “Why did you call me pet?” I ask quietly.

“Does it matter?” he asks. “You certainly weren’t complaining at the time.”

I turn to face him fully, fists clenched.

Something flickers in his eyes—quick and unreadable. He exhales, slow, measured, when he realizes I won’t relent on this.

“Because it suited the moment,” he says finally. “You forget yourself. You needed reminding.”

“Reminding of what, Astarion?”

He smirks, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of what you are.”

The blade is in my hand before I can even think of it. I take a step toward him. It’s all it takes for him to process what’s happening between us.

Then he’s on me, faster than thought. His fingers close around my throat as he drives me into the vanity, glass shattering behind me. I’ve dropped the blade.

He eases up on my throat, enough for me to speak.

“There’s an ugliness in you now,” I spit. “It disgusts me.”

His eyes go cold, and his hands tighten again, constricting. I wheeze. I reach for my blade—just a quick thrust between the ribs, nonfatal, will get him off me.

“Disgusts you?” he repeats, voice tight with rage. “Disgusts you? You wound me, my love. And yet, you’ve only yourself to blame.”

I claw for my weapon, but his grip tightens, cutting off air, pressing me into the shards. Black spots bloom in my vision.

He leans in, his lips brushing my ear. “You made me this, my dear.”

I can’t reply, can’t speak, not with his hands crushing my throat.

I manage to shake my head —no. No, I didn’t. I didn’t ask for this. His fingers flex, his grip unrelenting, forcing me deeper into the broken glass. My lungs burn, my body straining against him

“Oh, now you deny it?” he sneers, breath hot against my skin. “Darling, you agreed. I asked, and you were so very eager to give me what I wanted.”

I claw at his arm, nails digging into the flesh, anything to loosen his hold.

“Were you afraid?” he asks. “Or was it merely to please me?”

A choked sound escapes me—half a gasp, half a protest. The shards dig into my back as he presses me harder against the broken vanity. I gasp at the pain, or I try to—he doesn’t allow it.

“I suppose it hardly matters now. The result is the same.”

The pain is searing, my back shredded, my lungs burning. My fingers find the hilt of my blade at last, slick with sweat, slipping in my grasp. I nearly have it—until he wrenches me forward, then slams me back into the splintered glass.

“Are you satisfied?” he snarls. “Answer me.”

My hand wraps around the grip.

The blade drives into his side once. Twice.

Astarion screams, a raw, furious sound, staggering back before I can land a third strike. His grip vanishes. Air floods my lungs as I collapse forward, hands clutching my throat, coughing, choking.

“You demented little asshole,” he hisses, clutching his wounds. “You’ve stabbed me.”

If it were anyone else, I’d finish the job while they stood there, bent over, staring dumbfounded at the knife jutting from their ribs. I’d step in, seize the hilt, carve it through flesh and bone until I’d gutted them.

But this is Astarion.

And I can’t run. There’s nowhere to hide, and distance will only stoke his wrath.

I have to let it happen. Let him exorcise his violence here, in this room. I can’t fight. I can only endure.

“We made a deal, that night,” I wheeze. “You promised—”

“You think I’ve forgotten?’ he asks. “Tell me—have I broken my word, or are you simply suffering the consequences of your own choices? I’ve offered you strength, and you refuse me. You provoke me—”

“That’s not fair,” I counter, too quickly, too childishly.

He laughs mockingly. “Tell me you’re afraid, and I’ll turn you this instant,” he cuts in, taking a step closer. “You’ll be so much less fragile then.”

I glare at him, my chest still heaving, my body trembling with exhaustion. My throat raw from his grip. I should be afraid of him. I should feel something beyond contempt.

“Well?” he presses. “Are you?”

A pause. I consider telling him yes.

Only then he’d ask why, and I’d have to tell him the truth—I’m not afraid of him, I’m afraid of us.

Perhaps it’s foolish, but I don’t think he’ll kill me. That isn’t what lingers in my chest like a dull ache. It’s the storm that twists between us, our personal alchemy, the ugly thing we birth together. He makes me do terrible things—makes me want to do them. And I made him… whatever this is.

A part of me misses when he was sweet, when he was capable of guilt. But I understand this incarnation far better.

I shake my head, barely a movement. I’ve already begun shrinking myself, making myself less interesting, hoping he’ll grow bored and spare me of himself.

There’s an art to making oneself small.

My gaze drops. Blood stains the vanity, a dark bloom against the shattered glass. Mine. I shift, and the shards bite deeper.

Astarion’s breath is still ragged, his fury simmering beneath each inhale. I slide down from the vanity, trying to avoid the worst of the glass and splintered wood. My feet hit the floor and I shake out my ruined dress, dislodging the fragments still clinging to me.

“I’ll call for the surgeon,” I say, voice hoarse.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Astarion replies coldly. His eyes find mine, pinning me in place, unblinking. “You made this mess. So be a dear and clean it up.”

Cautiously, I step toward him, slow and deliberate, as though approaching a wounded beast. He watches me with an unsettling stillness

I kneel at his side.

I’ve patched him up before, back when we were still traveling. The first brush of my fingers against his skin stirs something. An echo of simpler days.

 My throat tightens, but I push the feeling down.

I press a cloth around the wound, the knife still buried deep, while I search for something—anything—to properly bandage him. I’ll have to make do with those ridiculous silk restraints.

“Is that the hand you stabbed me with?” Astarion asks.

I glance up, puzzled. I mislike the look he gives me then, as if he’s decided something I won’t like.

Before I can react, he reaches down, seizing my wrist in a bruising grip. Instinctively, I let him take it, mind still caught between memory and the present.

“Apologies, darling,” he croons. “This will be quite painful.”

Agony explodes in my hand.

It’s too fast to react to, yet somehow drawn out, slower than the sharp crack of a bone breaking under a hammer or shield, torturous in its gradualness. It swells, intensifies with every heartbeat, a terrible, crushing pressure. I barely register my own strangled cry as I hear the splinter of bone. He’s broken my fingers.

Then I remember—I still have a blade.

With my free hand, I wrench it from his side and drive it into him again.

Astarion staggers, a sharp hiss escaping through his teeth, but it’s drowned out by his laughter—wild, exhilarated.

I clutch my ruined hand, stumbling backward to get away as he doubles over, still laughing.

“Oh, I’ll never grow bored of you, will I?” he asks, looking down at the blood blooming at his side. “I could do this forever, you know.”

That is precisely what I’m afraid of.

Chapter 6: Justice

– Tav –

Standing there, waiting for Cimon, I get the sense that we are both rather embarrassed.

I decide to take advantage.

“Breaking my fingers was foolish,” I chastise. “I need them for draa velve. I won’t be able to protect you.”

Astarion startles. “Protect me?” he repeats, incredulous. “You were going to kill me! Don’t pretend otherwise.”

I say nothing.

Though I tried, I don’t think I’d have followed through. I’m not certain I could ever kill him—no matter how he wrongs me, how he hurts me.

Minthara would be disappointed.

Cimon is at the door.

“I don’t want her eyes on me,” I say abruptly. A moment ago, I had only felt anger, a little shame, but now I feel weak, exposed. Wretched.

Astarion studies me. “You need to be treated,” he replies.

Still, once she’s done bandaging my hand and wounds—though not my back— he takes her to the other room to do the same for him, giving me privacy.

I sag. The bandages are tight, but I’m barely in my body. Exhaustion creeps in.

Then, through the thin walls, I hear Cimon’s voice—low, firm, so unlike herself.

“She won’t survive this much longer.”

Silence.

“The only question left is whether you’ll be the one, or if you’ll leave that privilege to your enemies.”

I can’t listen anymore.

I push myself up, tugging my ruined dress over my head. The fabric clings where the blood’s dried. The air is cold against my skin, a contrast to the heat of my battered body.

I drag my fingers along my back, searching for the worst of the shards, and begin the painstaking, painful work of pulling them free.

The effort is mostly futile—I can barely reach, one hand is broken and the other clumsy from the bandages, and each piece I manage to pluck out sends fresh pain searing through me. A  few snap under my nails.

Astarion emerges from the other room, pausing when he sees me—half-dressed, twisting to reach the mess of my back.

He leans against the doorframe, arms folding across his chest. “You’re not going to be able to reach,” he observes, watching as I fumble uselessly. “Shall I call her in again?”

I shake my head. “Help me.”

He hesitates, which is strange.

Astarion is not squeamish. He spent two centuries eating rotting vermin, watching his master butcher the people he brought to him. And he’s never hesitated to touch me, not after he ascended, whether in hunger or in anger or in amusement. But now, he stands there, motionless.

He even looks away, jaw tightening ever so slightly, as if he can’t bear the sight.

Now I understand. It’s not the fact of my blood, the wounds, or even my pain. It’s that its my back. I’ve reminded him of his own.

I recognize the rigidness in him—the way his fingers tighten ever so slightly on the doorframe, the way his mouth presses into something that isn't quite a sneer, isn't quite neutrality.

I’ve seen him like this. The night I first traced over the scars on his back, lovingly, with tenderness, and though he could barely stand it, he let me. Only for a few moments, and not without pulling away after with some joke, a smirk, some effortless cruelty to banish the awkwardness. But still.

I remind myself that my suffering is insignificant compared to what has been done to him. He could break every bone in my body a thousand times before it could compare.

“Never mind,” I tell him. “Cimon can—”

“No,” he says, exhaling sharply through his nose. “Turn around.”

He kneels behind me, close enough I feel his warmth. I brace myself for some biting remark, some insult to keep us both detached from what we are doing, but none come.

When his hands find me, they are gentle. Too gentle.

The last time someone touched me like this was Fenorin. And before that, Astarion himself, back when he was still capable of softness. Before. It hurts in ways I can’t quite understand yet.

He plucks the first shard from my skin, and I barely flinch, but still he notices.

“You know,” he murmurs, “when I met you, I scarcely believed you were real.”

I don’t respond.

“You were strong. Fearless. Idiotically so,” he continues, working another piece of glass free. “And I…” A pause, too long to be meaningless. “I used to think you were invincible. Immaculate. Like nothing could touch you.”

A bitter huff escapes me. “So you broke my fingers to prove otherwise?”

“Ha.” An equally humorless sound.

He pulls another shard from my back. This time, I do flinch.

“I’m not as I was before,” he explains, voice calm, almost clinical, as if stating simple truth. “I don’t feel guilt, or fear, or even pain as I once did. I don’t think I want to hurt you, but… I don’t know myself.”

I swallow. “Is that meant to comfort me?”

His hands still for a moment.

“I’m asking you be more careful,” he says at last. “With me. With yourself.”

I reach back, finding his hand. “You know I won’t leave you.”

This is all some kind of test—it must be. He knows I’ve betrayed everyone else I’ve ever loved. He’s pushing me to know for certain I won’t do the same to him.

He wants to see that I still care for him, even now, even when he’s like this. He wants to know that my feelings haven’t changed even when he’s terrible to me.

“You don’t have to know yourself,” I say. “I do.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he says wryly. “The very composition of my blood has changed. Do you understand what that means?”

No.  It’s stupid of him to even ask. I’m barely literate, and I have no interest in magic.

“I don’t care,” I insist.

Yes, he’s changed, and perhaps I’m too much of an idiot to see all that it means. But that doesn’t mean my heart has.

We’d fought in the Underdark—one of our first. Over what, I can’t quite remember. He waited until I was a little drunk to make amends. Not out of cunning, but fear.

“You’ve my heart in your hands since the day I met you,” I’d told him, tongue loosened by the wine, much too honest. “If only you’d stop squeezing.”

I’m not certain how old I am—it wasn’t as if anyone cared to count the years for me before I could myself— but I’m no older than a quarter century. The only thing I’ve ever known to be unshaken, unyielding, are my feelings for him.

“You’ll have to try harder than this to drive me away,” I say stubbornly. 

He gives me a look, as though humoring a child who has made a promise to marry, but his fingers still tighten around mine.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Still, covering for him is both exhausting and fucking tedious. Our friends already think poorly of this union—think I’m a fool for entertaining it. Showing up battered doesn’t help my case.

“Do you think any of them suspect?” Fenorin asks.

I consider. “No,” I decide. “They are good-hearted. Too good-hearted. Gale most of all. It blinds them, makes them believe we’d never cross such a line.”

“We?” Fenorin says pointedly. “He.”

“A swordfight requires two people to swing,” I reply. Or thrust. Slice. The idiom did not lend itself well to Common.

“Ah, yes. Cimon told me you stabbed him,” Fen remarks. “And several of us heard from the hall. Quite theatrical, by all accounts.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

A week later, I storm out of Jaheira’s home, heart hammering, breath unsteady. I’d barely escaped being dragged to a safehouse.

A safehouse.

The thought churns in my mind, bitter, confusing.

Despite my best efforts, Astarion’s voice lingers. We all knew, Tav. How could we not?

Why do they only care for my wellbeing now? Is it really me they worry for—or do they only disapprove of what I’ve let him become?

Jaheira’s final words trouble me the most.

No matter how long it takes, there’ll be a place for you. Do you understand? I’m not angry with you, cub.

A lie.

It must be a lie.

People aren’t like that—especially not after you reject their help.

 

When I finally arrive home, Othric is waiting for me in the courtyard. He informs me, carefully neutral, that the master is expecting me in his chambers. I try to get more out of him, but he knows nothing.

A knot tightens in my stomach. Did one of the spawn tail me? Were they listening at Jaheira’s door? Does Astarion know what was said?

But when I step inside, Astarion smiles at me indulgently. He’s the happiest he’s been in weeks.

Before this, he had been avoiding me. Keeping his distance.

“Hello, my sweet,” he croons, palming my head affectionately. He presses a kiss to my temple, lips cool. “I trust you had fun with your friends?”

His knuckles brush my cheek as I nod. Astarion has been agonizingly careful since our first series of skirmishes. I’m not foolish enough to believe it will be like this from now on. More will come—more fights, more wounds. But for now, the memory still lingers for both of us, and we will let it fade.

He pours me a goblet of wine. Lolth willing, he won’t notice that I don’t take a single sip. Our old friends certainly hadn’t. I’ve been so fond of drinking for so long that people assume I just do, although it’s been weeks.

“In a day’s time, we’ll be having company,” he explains. Again, he is stroking my hair. Does he know something? “Vampire lords and their entourages. I’ll need you to make the necessary preparations—see to it, won’t you?”

“Yes,” I agree cautiously. There’s more he isn’t saying.

“Make sure the spawn and the bloodwhores look presentable,” he adds. Then, realizing what he’s called them, his lips quirk. “Oops. Did I say that out loud?”

“We’ll live,” I intone dryly. We’re not the same, the donors and I, but we have some affinity. I’m not too proud to admit it.

Well, as much affinity as you can have with someone who looks right through you.

Astarion says nothing, but his eyes rake over me. He catches me by the hips and tugs me closer. One hand brushes down my arm, the other traces over my ribs, possessive, searching.

“I imagine more than a few of the guests will want to fuck you,” he murmurs. “Or feed from you.  Or both.”

His fingers skim lower. “Who could blame them?”

“No different from those who came before,” I reply. I’ve become more open to the orgies and group feedings since I let Astarion take me on his throne before his whole court. Ostensibly it’s been to build a tolerance to the venom, but I found I enjoy it more than I care to admit.   

When he entertained, he liked to parade me in something low-cut, letting his guests admire the fresh bites already littering my skin. We’d laugh as they caught my scent—drawn closer, their questions coy but hungry. And who is this? Where did he find you? They licked their lips as they spoke, eyes devouring.

Astarion might press a kiss to my throat as he answered them, unbothered and amused. He’d keep talking as his lips grazed my pulse, hand resting idly at my waist or on my thigh, waiting for them to ask what they really wanted.

Sometimes they only wanted to watch… other times they wanted more.

Once, he had pulled me into his lap, parting my legs so that a vampire could drink from each thigh while he took his fill at my throat—his hand slipping lower, teasing, coaxing. I had been so drunk on pleasure, so languid with it, that all I could do was sigh and ease into him, trusting that he would keep control.

I shiver at the memory. It had been thrilling, yes—but reckless. If I truly feared being turned against my will, letting a group of vampires drain me at once was a sure way to bring it to fruition.

And now? Now, I didn’t want anyone feeding from me at all. I couldn’t be sure what might happen, what the effect might be.

“I would never deny you pleasure,” Astarion continues. “Not when I so adore seeing you undone. Just remember who you belong to.”

Myself, I think, but I do not voice it.

I’ve made no vows to him. I am not his spawn, only his lover. I could walk into Menzoberranzan tomorrow, pay the right price, and buy myself a husband if I pleased. Eredune would have me killed for popping my head up, certainly, but that didn’t make it any less valid.

“People know you’re my favorite,” Astarion says suddenly. I startle. He’s never said it aloud before. “They’ve heard of you. Of what you are to me. And they know you’re neither spawn nor some enthralled puppet.”

I narrow my eyes. What is he getting at?

“You can imagine,” he continues, “that if someone wanted to strike against me, wound me—you’d make a rather ideal target.”

A cold prickle runs down my spine.

“And let’s be honest, my dear—” he leans back, sighing, “most are far less particular than I about obtaining… consent when it comes to claiming a new spawn.”

“I’d part their heads from their necks,” I say flatly.

“That’s all well and good, darling,” he says. “but these aren’t fledglings. They’re quite old. Some of them ancient—”

“It will make little difference.”              

“Tav—please.” There’s something pleading in his tone, though it doesn’t soften his command. “I have plans in motion, delicate ones. And you, my dear, do not get to spill blood without my say-so.”

His fingers brush over mine.

“No killing the guests. Not unless I command it.”

I hold his gaze, unyielding. But after a moment, I nod.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We lean against the balcony, drinks in hand, watching the crowd below. I’ve had none of mine.

Fenorin doesn’t notice, too caught up in the game we’ve made of guessing the guests and their reasons for being here.

“That one,” I say, tilting my glass toward a man sprawled directly on the ground, eyes wide and vacant. A blood thrall—one of the vampire lords’ entourage.

Fen takes a slow sip, considering. “Ah, him? Surprisingly not high on venom,” he offers. “Poor bastard’s never even been bitten. They just assume he has. He’s actually having a seizure.”

As if on cue, the man twitches, his eyes fluttering.

A spawn stands over him, watching, makes no move to help—or even ask if he needs it. I gesture toward her. “And her?”

“Her master’s a pervert, most certainly,” Fen replies breezily, swirling his drink. “Bald fellow, always lurking, hard to miss. But then, so is she. A pervert, that is. And you. And me. And all the other poor wretches here.”

I put the goblet to my closed lips, wondering—not for the first time—why am I still here? Eredune hasn’t come looking for me. Odds are, I’m safe. Technically, I could leave. But is that the reality?

Then comes the grind of iron-rimmed wheels over gravel.

A carriage rolls into the courtyard.

It lacks the gaudiness of the others, but the expense is still evident in its craftsmanship. Dark wood, worn by time, its lacquer dulled to a deep, muted sheen. Iron braces the doors and windows, aged and tarnished, but solid. It would hold against highwaymen far better than any of the gilded monstrosities that had arrived before it

The man who steps out is a vampire. I know it immediately—though, if pressed, I could never articulate how.

He is draped in layered silks, rich in color and texture, reminiscent of the patterned rugs Astarion imports from Calimshan. His hair—longer than most mortals could ever hope to grow—is twisted into thick black locks, tied back in a loose gathering at his nape. Gold glints at his wrists.

He is rich. I wouldn’t have needed the jewelry to tell.

He is also armed.

“Oh, now he’s handsome,” Fenorin murmurs appreciatively. “Perhaps we can still switch camps.”

I have other priorities.

 “Uss, draa, llar…” I mutter. “Uk uriu llar velven.”

“Are you counting his swords?” Fenorin demands incredulously. By now, he can count to ten in Drow. “Gods, you’re such a little freak.”

“Look! He carries three blades,” I point shamelessly. “Do you think he’s skilled enough to wield two?”

“Oh, for the love of—put your finger down,” Fen hisses, swatting my hand.

But it’s too late. The vampire’s eyes dart up to the rampart on which we are perched.

“Brilliant. He’s seen us, you sword-mad lunatic,” complains Fenorin. “I’ve lost all mystique.”

Below, the vampire lifts a hand in greeting, amused.

We—like giggling schoolgirls—wave back.

“Nine hells, he’s perfect,” Fenorin breathes, clutching his chest. “No man should be that gorgeous. I simply must fuck him.”

 

Fenorin bullies me into asking Astarion about him.

“That would be Artor Morlin,” he informs me, all too pleased to lecture. “Baron of Blood. An ancient vampire, powerful, ruthless—and rather antiquatedly dressed, if memory serves.” He pauses, then, with wicked glee, adds, “Oh my… don’t tell me you’ve taken a fancy to him?”

“No,” I reply, but it’s a little too quickly.

“Gods, what a surprise,” Astarion laughs. “I really didn’t think he was your type. I thought you liked your men fruity, or not at all.”

I make a noise of disgust but don’t bother protesting. There’s no point when he gets like this. Instead, I rise to resume my work.

“If you’re interested, I could make the necessary introductions!” he calls after me. “Oh, come now, don’t run off. There’s no need to be shy, I’m certain he wouldn’t mind.”

Without turning, I toss the drow sign for fuck off over my shoulder.

“He’s quite insatiable, or so I’m told,” Astarion continues. “Then again—aren’t we all?”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

How right he is.

It’s Fenorin who wakes me that night.

I’m on my feet in an instant, blade drawn from beneath my pillow, and have him pinned against the wall before he can blink. One quick slash would open his throat.

“Tav! Tav! It’s me, you lunatic!” he yelps. “Put the damn knife away before I start crying!”

I rub the sleep from my eyes, but don’t lower the blade.  “You shouldn’t wake me.”

“Yes, well, I typically prefer to keep my throat intact as well,” he huffs. I ease off. He rubs his neck. “But it seems we have a situation.”

 

Some of the vampires have killed our mortal guests.

I smell it before we even reach the parlour—the same room where I first met the spawn. Blood, thick and cloying, clings to the air.

“How many?” I ask.

“Six, perhaps?” Fenorin hazards. “I got a peek through the crack, then tried tallying the ones flitting about the commons.”

They shouldn’t have done this. It’s wasteful, and it’s discourteous. This was in Astarion’s own halls, they were guests here, people he allowed into his home. Now everyone will worry.

Ahead, someone is crying.

One of the spawn has collapsed, inconsolable. Venassa has thrown herself over a corpse, rocking, her cries raw. “Dhuoda, Dhuoda.” It takes me a moment to realize she’s repeating the woman’s name.

“Venassa,” I murmur, kneeling beside her. “I must take her.”

She doesn’t move, clutching at Dhuoda’s cooling body as if she can keep her soul from slipping away entirely. But the dead do not linger long—not like this. And even drained, the body will start to go faster than she realizes.

Venassa lifts her head, eyes red-rimmed and pleading. “Have him turn her,” she begs. “You’re the favorite. He’ll listen to you.”

I don’t know how to comfort people. No surprise, given my mother never sang to me, never held me, never offered a kind word.

Still, I try. Because I do love the spawn, in my own clumsy, guarded way.

I squeeze her shoulder. “She’s already dead,” I say gently “I am sorry.”

It’s a poor attempt at reassurance, but it’s all I have.

“She has children,” Venassa sobs. “A boy and two girls.”

Children she abandoned to spend her days here, living in hedonism.

I do not speak this. “Astarion will see to it they’re cared for,” I soothe. A lie, or close enough. More likely I will, with his money. But Venassa won’t know the difference.

I have the guards begin digging graves at the far reaches of the grounds, careful not to disturb the ones left behind by the last regime. By the time I return, Fenorin has managed to calm Venassa somewhat.

 

“Tell me what happened,” I whisper, casting a glance her way. She sits hunched and hollow-eyed, sniffling softly.

Fenorin sighs. “Likely exactly what you’re imagining,” he says. “The guests enjoyed themselves a little too freely—as they do—and, well, not everyone sees the value in mortal lives.”

“And Venassa?” I press. “Why couldn’t she stop them, or run for help?”

Fenorin swallows. “Recall the orders we were given when you arrived?” he asks. “They apply to all guests—we’re to serve, indulge, entertain. And unless it contradicts the master’s explicit will, we are not to refuse them. So when Venassa asked them to stop…”

He hesitates.

“Fen—just say what needs saying.”

“They made her watch.” His voice is flat, but I see the way his fingers twitch. “That’s why she didn’t leave for help. She wasn’t allowed to.”

Behind us, Venassa begins to cry again—ragged, open, inconsolable—as the guards move to take the body away. I lift a hand, calling them off.

They withdraw. Venassa blinks up at me, tear-streaked and confused.

“Come,” I say. “You should be the one to speak the last words to her.”

 

The spawn, as I’ve said before, aren’t chosen for strength.

I do most of the digging. Fenorin and Venassa try to help, but they’re too scrawny, and Venassa is sick with grief. She pauses often to retch, hands trembling against the shovel. I’m not much better. Stress has whittled me down, and my daily drills have started taking muscle rather than building it.

The sky shifts, dark bleeding into dawn. I keep one eye the horizon, worry gnawing at me. They can’t be out here much longer.

I bid Venassa make her final goodbyes. The two of them need to get inside.

She doesn’t argue. Just kneels beside the grave, whispering something I don’t try to hear.

Then, unexpectedly, she turns and throws herself against me, squeezing tightly. I go rigid. She’s too drained to sob, but I feel the damp warmth of her tears seeping into my shoulder.

“They’ll pay for this, won’t they?” she asks.

I feel ill.

“I’ll speak with Astarion,” I promise.

 

I finish the task alone.

By the time I trudge back through the courtyard, the estate has fallen into an eerie quiet, the vampires tucked away in their quarters. All except one.

Astarion stands on his balcony, bathed in the pale gold of early morning, watching the sun rise.

“For centuries, I dreamed of this,” he says. “To see the sun again. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it.” He sighs wistfully, without looking at me. “You will come stand by my side, won’t you?”

 

The sun is fully risen by the time I reach his quarters. It frames him in the balcony’s doorway, light spilling behind him like a halo as he steps inside to greet me.

“I trust you’ve heard of what passed in the night,” I begin.

“Naturally.” He settles onto the bed. I realize he wants me here for sex. He has difficulty going without it, and presumably he and Fenorin were interrupted by last night’s drama.

He smiles. “Darling, you’re absolutely drenched in filth. Do let me be merciful and call someone to draw a bath for you.”

Nothing sounds more tempting. But I shake my head. “Have we the names of those responsible?”

Astarion tilts his head, considering. “I do,” he admits. “I know exactly who’s responsible.” He smiles then—knowingly, almost fondly. “But you, my dear, look positively murderous. And we agreed—you wouldn’t harm our guests.”

A hand clenches around the hilt of my blade. I hear the leather creak beneath my grip.

“Unless you gave me permission,” I counter. My voice is steady, but he must hear the rage simmering beneath. “They had no right to kill those people, Astarion. They were your guests, under your roof. They took what was not freely given. That is no small trespass.”

Astarion waves a hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It was all in good fun.”

“It was wasteful,” I insist. “And needlessly cruel.”

He exhales, exasperated. “I truly don’t understand why you insist on fretting over peasants. Whether their lives ended at my table or someone else’s, it hardly matters. No one else will mourn them—so why should we pretend to care?”

Venassa would mourn. That woman’s children would mourn. But that isn’t what unsettles me most.

“Astarion,” I say, low and careful. “I crawled into this world from a brothel’s filth. The lowest of the low, more worthless than dirt.”

Had I been born a boy, they’d have left me near the Mantle, for the wild spiders and cave fishers to pick clean. Or dumped me with the refuse.

“Am I just as easily discarded in your eyes?”

For a terrifying moment, I think he might say yes.

Instead, he flips back the covers, closes the space between us, and takes my face in his hands. His thumbs brush over my cheekbones soothingly.

“Oh, darling, don’t be ridiculous,” he chides. “Is that what this is about? You and them are worlds apart. They were nothing. You are—well, mine.”

It would be easy to give in right now.

I want to give in. I want everything to be fine. To crawl into his arms, let him hold me, let him take me—even if it’s rough, careless, nothing like the way he used to touch me. I want to pretend this conversation never happened.

“And what of what was done to Venassa?” I ask. Surely, even he couldn’t condone that. Surely, at the very least, he’d agree to give the spawn better orders.

“Venassa has been coddled far too long,” he replies lightly “If anything, this was an overdue lesson in understanding exactly where our food comes from. If she can’t stomach that, well… perhaps she’s even weaker than I thought.”

I stare at him. I remember what he said, about no longer feeling guilt or fear. He’s forgotten what it is to be a spawn.

So I speak nothing more of it. “Best I clean up, then.”

He watches me for a moment—he knows me well, after all—but I’m certain being constantly suspicious of me exhausts him. He loses interest.

I turn and leave.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I ask Fenorin to cover my night. We exchange them from time to time— when he’s bone-tired, when Astarion and I have torn into each other again.

Fenorin flings his book aside. “But I was going to go flirt!” he complains, pouting.

Ah. Artor Morlin. I’d nearly forgotten.

“Please?” I press, leaning in. “This matters to me.”

That gets his attention. His eyes flick to mine, narrowing slightly.

“Tav, I know that look.” He studies me, wary now. “I’d really rather not be implicated in whatever nonsense you’re plotting.”

I only smile sweetly. It unsettles him more than any threat would.

“All will be well,” I assure him. “I’ll see to it.”

Fenorin concedes in the end, but not without grumbling.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I find Venassa and deliver the words she’s been waiting for.

“Your master has agreed.”

She gasps, hands flying to her mouth.

“The only condition,” I continue evenly, “is he know nothing of this. He must be able to deny everything—even his own part in it. He may act as if we never asked permission.”

Venassa doesn’t hesitate. She nods, accepting the terms without question.

While dishonest, this is necessary. If she believes this is his will, no one—perhaps not even Astarion himself—will be able to command her to stop.

I tell myself that, in the end, the only thing that matters is that it works.

I watch her a moment longer, then ask, “Which of them made you watch?”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I expect only Venassa outside my chambers.

Instead, I find three.

Artesia and Eudes flank her, their shoulders squared. Venassa wrings her hands, but her expression is set.

“We wanted to help,” Eudes informs me. He flashes a blade, half-hidden in his sleeve— a kitchen knife, small and clumsy, likely stolen in haste. Crude, but serviceable. It will do for what’s needed.

“It’s good you are here,” I tell them. “Someone must see you taught to strike back.”

Life is long and cruel. Theirs will stretch longer than most.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I stand just outside the door, pressed into the corner, hidden. The maul rests heavy on my shoulder.

“As we practiced,” I whisper the spawn beside me.

Everything happens in a heartbeat.

I knock and call out sweetly, some coy lament—a whisper of neglect, the suggestion that Astarion leaves me wanting.

There’s something about their condition that makes vampires lust insatiably—and when they’re thinking with their appetites, they rarely think at all. It makes them predictable. Stupid.

The door creaks open.

The maul swings down.

The bolt chain shatters with a crack, and the vampire inside shrieks, scrambling to force the door shut again. I ram my arm into the gap before she can.

Pain flares as the heavy door crashes against my forearm, but I grit my teeth and hold firm. She strains against it, desperate, but it stays open.

“Come,” I order the spawn.

For a breath, the vampire looks at me—truly looks—and realization dawns. Who I am. Why we are here. She panics.

She stumbles back, tripping over herself in her scramble to flee. Where she thinks she might go, I couldn’t begin to guess. This blind, useless instinct to survive will only make what follows more painful for her.

I follow, unhurried even as she scrabbles for purchase, slipping against the floor. Only when I stand over her do I pause.

I adjust my grip, sliding one hand down the maul’s shaft. I twist it, turning the butt toward her, and swing.

The strike lands clean beneath her chin. Her head snaps back, cracking hard against the marble.

She screams for help.

I scream along with her—mimicking her shriek in a high, pitiful wail. Then I throw my head back and laugh.

“Shall we try again?” I taunt, looking down at her. “I doubt anyone’s coming, but it can’t hurt.”

 

I’ve lived many lives for someone so young.

In one, my mother would send my sister and me to collect what was owed to the pleasurehouse. Debts, protection money. For years after, I’d look at cobblestone streets and heard the clink of teeth hitting stone.

It didn’t stop there. Someone once told me torture is our birthright from Lolth. A gift from the goddess who loves and hates us. Tonight I will share it.

 

I crouch beside the vampire, watching the way her chest heaves with panicked breaths.

“You’re trembling,” I observe.

Behind me, I hear the soft shuffle of feet. Eudes. Artesia. Venassa. They’ve stepped inside, their shadows spilling across the marble, falling over the vampire.

“Word is you had some fun last night,” I tell her.

She tries to scuttle away on her hands and knees. I sigh and reach out, seizing her ankle. She shrieks as I drag her back to the center of the room, heels kicking, nails scrabbling uselessly at the floor.

I crouch again, grip tightening around the maul’s shaft. I tap its iron head against her cheek. She sobs.

I hum sympathetically. “Not so fun tonight, is it?”

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes.

“Venassa grieves,” I say, rising to my feet, pacing. Slow steps, circling her. “And you are the cause.”

“You killed my friend,” Venassa whispers, her voice barely holding together.

“Fortunately for you,” I continue, “we aren’t wild killers like yourself. We know restraint. We can show mercy.”

The vampire gulps a breath. “What do you want?” she rasps. “Coin? I have plenty.”

“If you can name your dead, we’ll leave you be,” I reply, pausing mid-step. “All you have to do is speak her name and beg Venassa’s pardon.”

I sling the maul back over my shoulder.

The vampire looks down at her lap, lips pressed tight, trying to think.

The spawn watch in silence, faces pale and still.

“Well?” I prompt.

She lifts her gaze to me, defiant. She sneers. “You think I’d waste a thought on some spawn’s little pet?”

Ah.

“Wrong answer,” I say, almost cheerfully—just before I bring the maul down on her knee.

The bone gives beautifully.

She screams.

Notes:

The post-fight conversation was painful to write. I think most readers will recognize the shape of what’s happening here—this is an abusive dynamic. But because Tav isn’t spawn, it was important to me that she still experience moments of deep loyalty, longing, and connection to him, otherwise she would have already left. That’s the only way the tension—will she stay? Or will she finally see it clearly enough to leave?—can exist.
There’s a line Astarion says—“I’m asking you to be more careful. With me. With yourself.”—that I HATED. The way the blame gets twisted, how responsibility subtly shifts back to her… I used to work in a field where I encountered people caught in cycles of abuse, and I often saw this awful cycle: moments of precise, painful clarity followed almost immediately by self-blame or renewed commitment. I hope that comes through here—not Tav being a dumbass kid, but caught in something she’s trying/struggling to understand. Either way, she gets better later on.
There’s a Grizzly Bear song, Three Rings, that served as my inspiration for what might be going on mentally with Astarion here.

I wanna show you my best side
I wanna be the guy who's right
I want you to see things clearly
I wanna make it alright

The vernacular doesn't lend to the fantasy setting, but the sentiment is there. Allowing Tav to see the worst in him—then twisting her into staying— is an ultimate form of control for him, but also validation, proof that she’s his, and that she’ll love him regardless. It’s not about wanting her love in a traditional sense. He doesn’t need it, doesn’t even want to feel it, really, because that would be a weakness. What matters to him is not losing it. After so long being powerless, having everything taken from him, even relationships have become a resource to secure. If he’s able to bring her back from the brink of leaving, it’s a victory in securing that resource.
Tav questions her ‘use’ to him throughout the fic, and this is it. Her loyalty—tested again and again, almost methodically by the end—is what he clings to.

On a more practical note, too many OCs? It's kind of a faux-pas to create too many of your own for a fic, but it was important to me that the estate feel populated and not totally faceless. I'm not particularly attached to them though, other than maybe Fenorin

ALSO vampires are like canonically hella horny in Forgotten Realms lore, that's not me being weird. I watched an Ed Greenwood thing on it, it comes up in a lot of lore vids, etc. In general that man is just oddly kinky, don't look up his tweets about drow pregnancy.

Chapter 7: The Baron of Blood

---

– Tav –

Astarion, naturally, is furious.

“Time to start talking, darling,” he hisses. “Tell me exactly what you did.”

I do. I’m coy as I explain, slowly, how I baited them with the promise of cuckolding him, how I broke open their locks with the swing of a maul, how I gave Venassa what was owed.

He’s seething, yes, but that little tremor in his fingers, the way his breath stutters—I see it. He may be scolding me, but he’s savoring every word. He’s always been in love with my carnage.

Pervert.

“You’re no priestess of Loviatar,” he grumbles, dragging his hands down his face. “Gods, Tav, do you have any idea what you've done?”

“This is on you. I wouldn’t have done anything if you—”

He’s already moving, charging toward me. A blur of motion, a gasp before his hands seize my collar. A manic laugh escapes me as he hoists me up. Then the wall rushes up behind me, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“—if you did your duty and kept the spawn safe,” I grit out. “But you didn’t, so I did.”

“The spawn?” he echoes. He shakes me—once, quick and vicious. “My spawn. Mine to give orders. Mine to command. Mine to punish or spare as I please. Not yours.”

I bare my teeth. “Then see to it your guests don’t.”

His fingers tangle in my hair—a brutal yank that wrenches my head back. I bite down on a hiss, my breath sharp between my teeth as he hauls me forward, bringing us nose to nose.

“Three vampires tortured and murdered—in my domain,” he spits. “Do you know what that looks like? It looks like a declaration of war.”

“Then we go to war,” I throw back. “Since when have you shied from bloodshed? Name the ones you fear and I’ll have them dead in a fortnight.”

I’ve almost recovered from my last set of injuries. I’ll be in fighting shape very soon.

Astarion exhales a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “You’re insane,” he breathes—yet his eyes drop to my mouth, head tilting, eyes dark with want. As if he must remind himself how I taste.

I don’t give him the chance to hesitate. I grab the collar of his chemise, twist it in my fist, and pull him into a kiss.

The contrast—the anger, the fear, the desire—makes it unbearably sweet. We both moan into it, lost to the heat. He tastes of blood, rich and metallic, and I chase the flavor, sweeping my tongue slowly along the roof of his mouth.

His hands roam over me, grasping, stroking, restless with need. There’s something almost boyish in his urgency, a rawness that has been absent since he Ascended. I find the earnestness endearing.

His grip tightens—then he pulls back, eyes narrowing.

“You cheeky little pup,” he says. “You’re trying to manipulate me, aren’t you?”

I nod. An incredibly transparent attempt. “Can I fuck you?”

He blinks, utterly thrown. Which gives me just enough time to slip my hand down his trousers, fingers curling around him, teasing, stroking. His breath catches, eyes closing as he leans into the touch—before his mind catches up.

With a frustrated growl, he jerks away.

“Tav, for pity’s sake—” He scowls. “No. You will not do this to me right now. We deal with this properly.”

I have a few more tactics I could try, but I run the risk of him bedding me and then just punishing me however he intended in the first place. Regardless, I’ve managed to defuse him, which was my intention.

“I’ve indulged you for far too long,” he muses, pacing before me, one hand to his chin. “You’ve grown spoiled and unruly—acting as if you rule alongside me.” He sighs, shaking his head. “A mistake on my part, I suppose. One I fully intend to correct.”

I sink to the floor, settling onto my knees as he continues his slow circuit around me. I’m in no mood for a lecture, but I bite my tongue and say nothing.

“You’ll pay obeisance,” he announces. “A show of penance. You’ll kneel before me—properly, publicly. Everyone must see. There must be no doubt that you acted on your own before, but that now you’ve submitted.”

I bite my lip. It’s the last thing I want. And pointless, besides. A drow’s vow means less than nothing—we are consummate liars and oathbreakers. I will be indulging him, nothing more.

“Why not here?” I ask, peering up at him through my lashes. “Why not now?”

I’m already kneeling. Already where he wants me.

Astarion gives a low, pleased hum, placing a hand atop my head, fingers combing over my scalp like one might pet a favored hound.

“Oh, darling, that is quite the tantalizing image,” he agrees, nails grazing my skin. “But you know exactly why not.”

“Fine,” I concede, though it’s a bitter concession. “But I want protections assured. For the spawn and me both.”

Astarion laughs, delighted. “Protections?” he scoffs. “I do love your audacity. Why, in the Nine Hells, would I extend my protection to those who disappoint me?”

My hands curl into fists.

“Besides, why would you, of all people, need protection?” he asks. “Hmm? You seem perfectly capable of butchering my guests all on your own.”

My stomach knots. I’m not ready to tell him what I already know.

I settle on a simpler truth. One I can say aloud.

“These people disgust me,” I confess. “I don’t want their hands on me, nor their teeth in my throat. I did my time whoring back in Menzoberranzan. I won’t do it again—not even for you.”

Astarion studies me, eyes half-lidded, unreadable.

“You know,” he muses, almost idly. “It’s only just occurred to me—if you can’t protect yourself, if you need me to do it, you’re not really good for much else, are you?”

The words shock me. I barely process them before I push myself upright, dusting off my leathers. I refuse to look away.

He smirks. “Without strength, you have but one talent afforded to you —the very one you’ve been attempting to wield against me this entire conversation.”

He knows I fear being reduced to that role. The master’s playthings wield very little power and live at the mercy of many. They can only wait for the next hand to claim them, and hope it is a kind one.

A memory seizes me— bodies pinning me down, the glint of an adamantine blade preparing to carve away my worth.

I swallow it, push it back. Those girls are long dead—I saw to that myself, that very night. I focus on now.

“So, will you be needing my protection?” he asks. “Or will you manage on your own?”

“I’ll manage,” I reply coolly.

“Excellent,” he says, amused. “I do think that’s for the best. It would be a shame if we had to rethink your position within the house.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

“If I were a better man and a good friend to you,” Fen muses, lining my eyes with kohl, “I’d tell you to run.” He sighs. “But alas—I am neither.”

“Don’t be nervous,” I scold. It makes Astarion angrier.

Fen pauses, withdrawing his hand. His fingers lace together, fidgeting, gaze darting to the dress laid out on my bed.

“I don’t like this,” he confesses. “Something about it feels off. You’re going to look like an offering.”

He’s not wrong. The dress is white, delicate as a spider’s web, clinging to all the right places yet suggestively demure. It carries an air of purity—one meant to be spoiled. It looks like the kind of thing they’d throw over a virgin before they sacrifice her at Bhaal’s altar.

Squinting at it, I realize that it looks a little like a drow wedding dress might—if our marriages were any more significant or binding than a temporary contract.

“Listen, I know what he said sounded like threat, but there’s no real bite behind it,” I explain. “He didn’t punish me. He was vague in how I should act with the guests, and it’s not as if he set them on me.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t have to,” Fen replies bleakly.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The obeisance goes smoothly. People know by now what has happened, and rather than fearing me, they are fascinated. They whisper behind gloved hands, pointing as I sweep by in my gown, smiling at me with sharp teeth.

“He has a drow?” one murmurs.

“His child bride,” another jokes “Look how young she is.”

“Is she? I can never tell with elves.”

“It’s in the eyes.”

I kneel before Astarion and his court. He watches me hungrily as I repeat the empty words.

And then it is done. The festivities begin.

At my suggestion, a dinner portion has been arranged for those still mortal. Constant feeding weakens the body, dulls the appetite—makes it far too easy for the blood donors to waste away. I make sure there is ample food, for when they find they can stomach it.

Vampires, I’ve learned, have a voyeuristic streak when it comes to eating. Three of them linger nearby, watching as I cut into a rare steak, their eyes gleaming.

I pretend not to notice. The raw, bloody meat is about all I crave these days, and I want to rip it apart in my teeth, but I chew slowly, deliberately.

A female vampire sidles over to me. Before she can speak, I catch Astarion’s eye. He mouths the words before she can say them—and who is this?

An inside joke of ours. For whatever reason, every vampire repeats some version of it when they meet me.

“And who is this?” she asks a beat later. I turn my head slightly to the left to hide my smirk. I’m not usually at risk of laughing, but Astarion brings it out of me.

“You don’t recognize one of Baldur’s Gate’s finest?” Astarion tuts. “You stand before one of the city’s great heroes.”

I shoot him a glare. I don’t advertise myself, not loudly, not where the wrong ears might hear. The last thing I need is for news of me to slither its way back to Menzoberranzan.

Astarion’s lips quirk into a small, knowing smile. He flicks his finger to say any moment now. He thinks she’s going to ask where he found me

“Impressive,” says the female vampire. “And where did he find you?”

We both cough to disguise our laughter. The vampire, puzzled but uninterested in whatever joke she’s missed, lets it go as Astarion launches into the story we rehearsed— I’m a restless daughter of Lith My’athar, driven to mercenary life by the boredom of home. The lie is plausible and uninteresting.

He slips his hand in mine. The gesture is so simple, so innocent, that I feel as if we’re camping on the Storm Coast again, sitting close against the cool night air I hadn’t yet gotten used to.

I squeeze back.

Only moments later, Astarion flits away, presumably to hold court, leaving me alone in the sea of watchful eyes.

“Your earrings,” comes a voice at my side. I startle. “Not the fang but the rings going up the lobe and to the helix—those are adamantine, are they not?”

I turn to find Artor Morlin beside me, his head cocked as he studies them with idle curiosity. I say nothing. I recognize that tone—someone about to make a point.

“Menzoberranzan’s biggest export,” he adds.

I cross my arms, masking the way my fingers ghost along the inside of my sleeve, feeling for the dagger strapped there.

He lifts his hands, a gesture of placation. “Do not worry, your secret is safe with me,” he assures. “It’s only that I spent some time there.”

“You did?” The question escapes before I can swallow it down, my voice too unguarded, too hopeful. It has been a long time since I’ve spoken to anyone from home—or anyone who has even seen it. The drow we keep in our pocket are all from Maerimydra. They don’t know. Not really.

He nods. “I lived there for a year,” he explains, adjusting the folds of his robes.

I narrow my eyes, wary. Foreigners in Menzoberranzan don’t tend to last long—not unless they’re enslaved or extraordinarily powerful. “Which part?”                       

Something about the question or my manner amuses him. “Duthcloim.”

Manyfolk. Where the wealthy non-drow make their homes, somewhat insulated from the true brutality of the city. “Did you visit the Braeryn?”

He shakes his head.  “No. Even I know there are places best left alone,” he replies. “But I saw it from above, standing on the walls of Eastmyr. Is that from where you hail?”

I don’t answer. I refuse to explain what it was like, growing up in the Braeryn—a place that felt as if the world had already ended, and we were just waiting to be taken along with it.

“A year’s stay? Then you stepped to the nedeirra,” I say, accusatory.

“Naked as the locals,” he agrees. “Your people are very paranoid.”  

Dancing armed is an insult. Most do so bare to prove they hide no weapons.

I nod, unoffended. “I won the nedeirra once,” I inform him proudly.

“Did you? Congratulations,” he replies. He pauses, expecting more. When I say nothing, he arches a brow. “Will you say more, or was that all? No grand retelling, you just wanted me to know?”

“Have you tried roavrae?”

I shift to interrogation—heartwine, qilovestualt. I even start listing food before I remember he’s a vampire.

“Why were you there?” I ask at last.

He adjusts his robes, drawing attention to something he’d been trying to show me earlier. “I was having this made,” he says. “Along with a few other drowcraft pieces.”

It’s a short sword, curved in the traditional drow style, wickedly sharp. I coo over it as if it were a particularly charming infant, running a finger along the edge. I tap the flat of the blade and listen for the hum.

I frown. “It’s adamantine.” It shouldn’t be. The metal is black.

“Good eye,” he praises, though sight has little to do with it.  Most drow can recognize drowcraft through touch, can feel the weight of the metal and know which ore it was cut from in the Underdark. No one has ever explained to me why, but I know it when I hold it—its as if the metal sings to me.

“It’s been treated so it won’t flash from the shadow,” Artor Morlin explains. “The craftsman won’t say how—too afraid his apprentice will kill him for the secret, or so I’m told.”

I’d heard the same tale a thousand times. The old masters always fear their students. Mine had good reason, though I hadn’t killed him for the usual ones.

He extends the hilt toward me. At first, I don’t realize he means to let me hold it.

When I do, I’m ecstatic. The weight settles into my palm perfectly. I spin it, then flow into a drow snake flourish—one Lae’zel once called ‘a futile expenditure of time and energy’, but I’d caught her performing. I hear murmurs of approval, but they barely register. The blade demands all my attention.

“I’m told you practice draa velve,” Artor says. “It’s a rare swordform, isn’t it? Only a few practice it per city.”

I nod, still mesmerized. The blade doesn’t gleam, exactly—it drinks the light instead, swallowing it.

“Why don’t you have a weapon now?”

Technically, I do. A blade rests snug against my wrist, hidden, waiting, but mostly for comfort. But he doesn’t need to know that.

“Astarion forbade me from carrying one,” I pout, truly sounding like a child but not caring. “He thought I might kill one of you.”

Artor bursts into laughter. “How cruel of him, to deprive you.” He looks to the sword in my hand. “I wouldn’t have the heart to. Take the blade, it’s yours.”

I go very, very still. A part of me wants to grin, to laugh, to twirl the blade like a fool. Instead, I do nothing. I don’t know how to emote properly. I feel I might start vibrating in excitement.

“Thank you,” I manage at last.

He nods in acknowledgement. “I have a collection of rare weapons, and a forge of my own. You’ll have to come visit Waterdeep.”

“I’d like that,” I admit, and I mean it. Fenorin certainly would too—I’d have to tell him.

I do my best not to skip away.

I search for Fenorin, but it’s Cimon I find instead. I lift the sword in silent appreciation, though she has no context for why it matters, why the piece is so precious.

“Very nice,” she says, indulgent, her tone just polite enough to make it clear she’s humoring me. “The master wants you to have this.” She holds out a goblet.

“No, thank you,” I reply.

“It’s drow green wine,” she insists. A vintage from home, no doubt. Astarion imports it sometimes as a treat.

I realize, suddenly, that I don’t actually have to humor either her or Astarion. Most people are oblivious enough that I could carry the goblet untouched, and they’d assume I’d been drinking. So I take it, murmuring my thanks.

She sighs, exasperated. “I can tell you’re not drinking it,” she complains. “He’ll get mad at me if you don’t. Just have one big sip.”

I scan the room, already knowing what I’ll find. Sure enough, Astarion is watching, our eyes locking across the distance.

I glance at the goblet. One sip—that’s all it’ll take to get him off my back. And it’s not as if a single sip will get me drunk.

I bring the cup to my lips, taking a quick, furtive taste, never breaking eye contact with Astarion. Only Cimon decides to tip the glass up. Wine floods my throat.

I pull back, coughing. “Why did you do that?” I ask, more bewildered than angry.

She shrugs. “Fenorin’s done it.”

Her eyes widen. I follow her gaze just in time to see Artesia, fists clenched, storming toward. The pair have been fighting all week, longer and harder than ever before.

“Get away while you still can,” I advise.

Cimon is already retreating, slipping into the crowd.

 

Notes:

Ugh I had a shift as a bartender at this sketchy strip club tonight and its legit 8am and I just got home, barely made any cash, just watched asses and titties for like 7 hrs. (Love both those but like--) I'm sitting here in a minidress and my leopard print fur coat, half cut as I post this.

Really enjoyed writing the conflict between Tav and Astarion in this first part. When I started writing this, I wanted a Tav that could meet him halfway, as opposed to the complete victim Tavs I sometimes read. I feel like that passage communicates a little bit of that.

Artor Morlin is a canon Forgotten Realms character. I take some creative liberties with him but I enjoy sticking to the canon because its creates interesting limitations.

Also sometimes I will forgot to italicize Drow words, or I decide to change the capitalization of Ascendant/ascended/Ascension, whatever. I'm just getting into the character of barely literate Tav, its definitely not me

Chapter 8: The Baron of Blood II

– Tav –

I find Astarion again.

I don’t march up to him like Artesia did Cimon—something I take mental note of. We can’t have them at each other’s throats before the guests. Instead, I weave my way through the gathering, pausing just long enough to let people gawk or murmur their thoughts aloud.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, yanking me around.

I’m face to face with a vampire.

Most are quite charming—it’s how they acquire prey, after all, how they thrive in the cities where they can’t just leap out and accost travelers on dark roads. But hunger lends them a sort of hollowness, strips away the mask, as if they’ve been carved out from the inside.  I know that look. I saw it during the famine, in the eyes of my own kin.

The vampire before me has that face. His nostrils flare, lips parting just enough to flash the barest hint of fangs.

“You smell delicious,” he murmurs

“So they say,” I reply evenly. “Now remove your hands from me.”

His grip tightens instead.

I glance down at his fingers, knuckles whitening against my shoulder, then back up at his face. He isn’t looking at me—not really. It’s as if he’s staring through me, at veins and arteries and the endless pumping of my heart.

I have Artor Morlin’s sword, but it’s not where it should be—not strapped to my back, not at my hip. It’s tucked under my arm, awkward, unwieldy. I won’t be able to draw as quickly as I’m meant to, and every moment counts when you’re fighting someone faster and stronger.

“You must have heard what happened last night,” I say softly.

The vampire nods, but his grip drags me closer.

“And you know well how Astarion struck down the one who made him,” I continue, looking up into his hungry eyes. “Tell me—how do you think a spawn managed such a thing?”

That gives him pause. People are curious, after all. The birth of a daywalker. The death of a master at the hands of his slave. It’s brought their kind hope and fear in equal measure.

“Me,” I growl. It’s not the whole truth—the parasite played its part—but it is truth enough. If I hadn’t followed him into the dark, he would never have climbed out. And he certainly wouldn’t have Ascended without me.

I tilt my head. “So will you go the way of Cazador?” I ask. “Or will we keep this affair civil?”

He lets me go.

It’s just then that Astarion reaches us. “Look at him scurry,” he remarks, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “And here I thought I’d finally get to be the gallant one, swooping in to whisk you away. But no—you’d never allow such a thing, would you?”

I smile, shaking my head. This place, this arrangement, is the closest I’ve ever come to letting him protect me. And even now, I am serving him, managing his assets, the estate, and his guard. I learned young that love, kindness, even loyalty—none of it matters if you aren’t useful.

And I almost ruined it all by asking for protection for me and the spawn.

I’m still staring at him stupidly when I remember the business with the green wine.

“What have you put in me?” I ask, unable to help myself.

Astarion blinks, then gasps, utterly scandalized. “What? You think I poisoned you?”

He always has this guilty air about him, no matter his innocence. And the more he protests, the worse it gets.

“No, not poisoned,” I murmur, lowering my voice as I glance around. “Drugged. Like you have before, with the tonic.”

“Why in all the realms, would I do such a thing?”

“Because you like seeing me weak,” I say simply. “It feeds your vanity. And you enjoy ruling over me.” Which I have made increasingly difficult.

The mirth flickers for a moment. He doesn’t like being seen—not like this. Not the way I see him, with all his ugliness and all his goodness laid bare. It’s a terrible thing, to be known.

“I didn’t order her to force it down your throat, darling,” he says lightly. “I merely requested she ensure you had a glass before there was none. She seems to have taken my request rather literally. You know how it is with the spawn.”

I squint up at him, searching his face for any hint of deception. He only tilts his head in return, amused, effortlessly unreadable.

“I noticed you were having quite the conversation with Artor Morlin,” he says. “Should I be jealous?”

Is that why he was so strange with the green wine?  

Jealousy is rare with him. He’s never needed to stake a claim—we both know I want only him. We are free to take our pleasures elsewhere, though I rarely do. If I toy with another, it’s never real—only to amuse him, to tease his attention, or, on occasion, for fleeting pleasure.

“Perhaps,” I reply. “He saw fit to gift me a sword, after all.”

He sighs as if defeated. “How you must have swooned. I do hope you're not packing your bags and running off to Waterdeep. You’ve already broken my heart once.”

I hang off his arm affectionately, all prior suspicion forgotten. “You know I wield two blades,” I reply coyly, trailing a fingertip along his collar. “Morlin only gave me one. You still have a chance to outdo him.”

Astarion barks a laugh. “Oh, so it’s a bidding war now? I do hope this isn’t some clever gambit of yours to amass more toys,” he teases. “But very well, dearest. Let’s see what prize Morlin deemed worthy of you.”

I draw the blade, practically thrusting it toward him, eager for him to see. Words tumble out—how it’s drowcraft, forged in Menzoberranzan, how the adamantine has been treated to give it the black sheen.

“A rather lovely blade indeed, how kind,” muses Astarion. I’m nearly bouncing on my heels when he glances at me, smirking. “And I suppose you’ll name it after your first kill?” he asks.

I nod. Typically, I name my swords after the method of the first kill, or my victim.

My first was Rinteith Pahnte, literally ‘Throat Opens’. The one that followed was Ogglin d'Oolos, or ‘Enemy of Idiots’.

There were exceptions, however. My first matched set had been named Vendui and Vendaust, literally ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’. I was also partial to a sword I gained very briefly before I fled Eredune service named Dos Xo’aus, or ‘You Tried’.

“How very exciting,” Astarion says. “But I do recall making it quite clear—you’re not to be armed. Not after last night’s mischief.”

My face must drop because he clicks his tongue. “Don’t pout,” he chides. “It’s not as if I’m taking it forever.”

I clutch the blade tighter, resisting the urge to back away. “Astarion, please?” It’s not often I beg, and I don’t like how my voice sounds doing it. “You saw what happened with that vampire. Allow me this.”

I glance up as I speak—and realize we’re still being watched. Their gazes skitter along the edges of us, hungry, wary. Waiting.

Astarion hums, considering. He reaches out to cradle my cheek. “You’re perfectly safe,” he assures me. “Just don’t stray too far from my side. I’d rather not test their restraint.”

A sharp, incredulous laugh bursts from my lips. I twist my head from his grip. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.” His voice is calm, measured. “Will you continue this little display, or will you behave? Because the moment they believe you’ve lost my favor...”

My breath stalls. Is that what has happened? Have I already been made a mark without my knowing?

“If anyone tries to feed on me,” I warn, “I’ll cut them down. I won’t be able to stop myself.”

Astarion laughs. “Oh, my fierce little thing. These are vampire lords,” he replies. “You’ll only amuse them before they break you, sword or no sword. Now, be a dear and hand it over.”

“I’m not spawn,” I bite out. “You can’t force me to follow orders.”

His smile doesn’t falter, but something behind it sharpens. I challenge him in ways the spawn cannot, and he both loves and hates it.

“Poor Tav,” he laments. “Did you really believe that?” He leans in, his words velvet-soft but vicious. “I assure you, you’ve merely been enjoying my restraint. If I were less fond of you, you wouldn’t have a thought left in that pretty head that wasn’t mine.”

He smiles. “It would be so very easy to dominate your will.”

My skin prickles. “You can?”

“Yes.” He extends his hand, fingers loose but expectant.

I don’t move.

As flicker of surprise, then a slow smile. “Do you want me to?”

His eyes have grown strange, the pupils swallowing all the red. He’s thought about this before, I realize, perhaps even fantasized about it. The idea excites him very much.

And for my own part, I’m curious, despite myself. So against all reason, I nod.

Something happens—something shifts. It’s as if his eyes catch mine, and the world tilts. Nothing exists except him. No sound, no watching eyes, no breath in my lungs. His voice—not spoken, but inside me. A searing command.

Give me your weapons.

The words carve through my mind, sharp and unyielding. Like the Absolute once did. Before I can think—before I can resist—my hands move on their own. I place the sword in his waiting grasp. He smiles, slow and cruel.

I hope—naively—that it’s over.

But my hands are still moving, fingers slipping into the sleeve of my dress. Finding the hidden blade, drawing it free. And handing it to him.

Astarion calls for a servant, instructing them to take the weapons to his chambers. I barely hear the words.

For the first time ever, I am truly afraid of him.

He knows it too. I can see it in his eyes when he turns back to me, an uneasiness. He smooths it over with something more composed, a carefully placed mask of amusement.

“There now,” he murmurs, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from my face. I don’t flinch from his touch, but I go statue-still. The stillness is unnerving enough that I might as well have.

A glass shatters nearby.

Two voices, shrill and furious, cut through the murmuring crowd—Artesia and Cimon.

Our heads snap in their direction. Near one of the tables, Artesia has Cimon by the collar, shaking her roughly, their argument spilling over the table between them.

Astarion exhales, long-suffering. How hard it must be to contend with all these people that live and die for you.

“Go handle it. Now,” he orders. “Because I’m quite certain you don’t want me doing it.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I’ve had to break up more fights than I can reasonably count. In the Braeryn, violence and feuding is open, ugly—no pretense. Among my kin, it’s a sport. The love of the bottle never helped matters.

The best way to start is always the same—separate them.

I don’t know for certain if Artesia is the instigator, but I like her for the role, so I don’t waste time deciding. I march up, grab her by the back of the neck, and haul her away.

“Go for a walk,” I order Cimon, not bothering to check if she listens.

Artesia whines and protests well down the hall I drag her through, barely registering her voice. My mind is elsewhere.

I can’t shake the image of Astarion’s eyes, searing into my thoughts, bleeding through my will. Drowning my consciousness.

I asked him to do it, yes, but his trousers were practically tenting while he did. It will happen again. He won’t be able to help himself. Having me helpless excites him in a way I don’t fully understand.

I used to think you were invincible. Immaculate. Like nothing could touch you.

Is seeing me a weak his way of proving he’s risen above me?

There’s no point in navel-gazing like this. I need to think practically, find solutions. There must be a way to resist mental domination, be it through artefact or training. Gale would know.

“Tav, you’re not listening to me,” Artesia complains. “And it’s important.”

“I am,” I lie.

She shifts, trying to turn toward me, clawing at my shoulder to force my attention. That’s when I notice. Her hands—wrapped in bandages.

I stop so suddenly she nearly stumbles. “What’s this?”

Artesia drops her gaze to the floor. “Listen, don’t make this about yourself. We all agree, none of us blame you —least of all me.”

I don’t speak, only look at her, and keep looking until the silent intensity becomes too much for her.

She shifts, uneasy, then, finally— “He punished us,” she explains quietly. “Forced our hands into the light, let the sun do its worst.”

I think of all the spawn I’ve killed, of dragging their bodies out into the daylight, leaving them to burn—the awful smell. And now them, Eudes, Artesia, Venassa…they’re hurt because of me, because I lied. I told them we had his permission. I could have done all of it on my own, and it would have gone just as smoothly. I should have—

“Tav.” Artesia’s voice sharpens, pulling me back. “This is his doing, not yours. He did it to twist us against you, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction.”

He punished them and not me.

“It’s not safe for you to talk like that,” I warn her.

She surprises me by taking me into her arms. I freeze, lock up like a trapped animal.

“You are insufferably sweet,” she murmurs, drawing back just enough to study me. She looks down at me. Had she always been taller?

I nearly laugh, ready to tell her she’s mistaken. I’m not sweet. I am drow, a ruthless, brutal killer by nature, the opposite of whatever she imagines me to be. But she keeps talking.

“And so terribly young,” she adds, amused. “Why do you insist on being our protector?”

It strikes me then—Artesia is an elf. There’s a possibility she’s older than even Astarion. And yet in my mind she’s a teenager. A child I must care for, same as all the spawn.

The thought knocks something loose in me, leaves my mind momentarily blank. All I can think to say is that of course I do, because I am. How could it be any other way?

But before I can reply, I hear footsteps approaching.

It’s the vampire from before, and he’s not alone. Two others trail at his sides—both women, both elegant in their beautiful ballgowns. The taller of the two, once human, with long blond hair slicked back, lifts her head—scenting the air.

“You’re right,” she says. “She does smell good.”

My arm snaps out in front of Artesia, shielding her. My eyes drop to their waists. The women don’t appear to be armed—not visibly. But that means little. I know better than anyone how to hide a blade.

The male vampire, though—he carries a dagger at his belt.

Not that it truly matters. Their real weapons are part of them. Fangs. Claws.

“You’ve taken a wrong turn,” I tell them. “The party is back that way.”

“I don’t think we have,” the male vampire replies.

Artesia takes a step backward. “I’ll warn the master—”

“No,” I snap. I don’t take my eyes off them. “No. Get me the mace above the fireplace, the parlor nearest to the kitchens.”

A pause. Then, blessedly, Artesia turns and moves.

The vampires don’t stop her. She isn’t their concern. They’re too busy watching me.

One of the women takes another slow step forward, the folds of her gown shifting. “I’ve never taken a drow before,” she muses. “Do they all smell like this?”

The man shakes his head. Then he turns his attention back to me, smiling. “If you come willingly, it will be gentler,” he promises. “We can make it good for you.”

I smile tight. “Very well, then. Come here.”

He hesitates, wary. “Why not step closer yourself?”

I shrug. “Mm. No.”

The man laughs. “How amusing. No wonder he favors you.”

Then, without warning, he moves.

Cazador was fast. But at the time, I had other concerns. Astarion had lost all his weapons—stripped of everything when his master tried to use him in the ritual. I forced one of my swords into his hands, then fought wounded, forced to hold the line with only a single blade.

Werewolves, bats, the endless onslaught—I repelled them all, keeping them at bay so Astarion could do what he needed.

Still, I remember—lifting my head in a panic, searching for him. Afraid he’d been struck down while I was too distracted to see.

And Cazador—flitting through the darkness, moving almost faster than the eye could track. Parrying, thrusting, preternaturally fast.

I have no way to measure speed like that, but this startles me. The male vampire lunges—and I barely pull back in time, the hairs on the back of my neck standing.

I pivot, the motion instinctive, and his momentum carries him forward.

His boot catches the first step of the stairs behind me—

And suddenly, he’s falling, stumbling. Up the stairs.

I stare, dumbfounded.

“You tripped?” I demand, bracing him as he begins to recover. I laugh wildly. “Dos vith'ez waeles.”

His dagger is in my hand before he even realizes it’s gone. He snarls, lunging, claws raking across my face—sharp, burning. I grab a fistful of his hair and slam his head against the marble. Once, twice, until his movements slow, grow dazed. I don’t give him time to recover.

I drive the dagger through his eye.

There’s a horrible, wet crunch. I feel it give beneath the blade. I nearly gag. I hate touching eyes. Some remnant trauma of the tadpole, no doubt—but I have no choice. I don’t know everything about killing vampires, but I do know that they can’t regenerate if the brain is sufficiently damaged.

I twist the knife, preparing to drive it in a second time—

Then, something soft at my neck. It quickly switches to a familiar sharp, icy pain. Fangs.

I freeze. Panic. I don’t know what this will do to me, knowing my current condition.

Letting go of the blade, I throw my weight back, collapsing on top of her. I hear a muffled oof as she hits the ground beneath me, but her grip doesn’t even loosen.

She’s still drinking. I can feel her moaning, tonguing at the wounds to increase the flow of blood. I thrash against her, disgusted, but she holds on, wrapping her legs around me possessively. Her fangs sink deeper, grip tightening like a vice.

The other woman—the taller one—is coming, I can see her out of the corner of my eye, closing in.

I can’t let this go on. I drive my elbow back, smashing it into her ribs. She grunts but doesn’t let go. Her jaw is locked, her teeth still buried deep.

I slam my head backward, hard. I feel the crunch of bone breaking beneath my skull. I’ve broken her nose. She shrieks, wrenching away, fangs tearing free. I don’t feel the pain—not yet, but I feel the blood, hot and thick, gushing down my neck, soaking my dress, slick against my skin.

I twist, grabbing her by the throat, shoving her down beneath me. She claws at my arms, her nails raking deep, but I don’t let go.

I squeeze, pressing my weight into her—focused, furious.

And that’s why I don’t see the second vampire until it’s too late.

A fist twists in my hair. My head jerks back, my throat exposed—and she bites. Her fangs pierce the undamaged side of my neck, tearing in. The pain is blinding and immediate. My body seizes, a ragged, furious scream ripping from my throat.

Nau. This won’t be how I die. I refuse.

The other vampire has pulled herself to a sit, her hands rubbing where I strangled her. I get that strange feeling once more—as if I’ve been caught in her eyes, as if the world is rapidly narrowing only to her. She grins.

I twist, my boot connects with her face, snapping her head back.

Then I’m twisting again, elbow swinging blindly, striking the second vampire still latched onto my throat. I hit something—her cheek, or perhaps her jaw—but it doesn’t connect like I need it to.

She grunts, annoyed, but she’s still drinking deeply, pulling, draining— I can feel it now, the weakness creeping in, the edges of my limbs going numb.

“Tav!”

I hear Artesia’s voice. She’s there—at the edge of the brawl, holding the mace. I can’t reach her.

I see the hesitation in her stance, the way she shifts, uncertain. She’s scared.

“Stay back,” I warn. If she steps in, they’ll kill her.

The vampire at my throat laughs—a muffled, satisfied sound against my skin.

I throw myself backwards once more. This drop is twice as violent, reckless. We crash into the ground.

She gasps, the air knocked from her lungs, but her fangs don’t loosen.

And now—her friend is standing over me. I look up, blood running hot down my collar, free for only a breath before my head is wrenched back again, forcing me open for them.

A moment later, their mouths find me. One tucked into the crook of my neck, the other buried deep in my shoulder. They press in, writhing against me, delighted, euphoric. The sensation is horribly intimate. One of them murmurs something against my skin, a laugh, a sigh of pleasure. The other—I think, I can’t tell anymore—lets her hands wander, trailing over my ribs, cupping my breasts, squeezing, savoring, pushing between my legs. If I could breathe, I would sob.

And then—a violent pull. A sharp, tearing pain as one of them is ripped from me, fingers tangled in her long blonde hair. A shriek, not mine, ripped from the throat of the vampire above me.

Astarion?

No. My vision clears just in time to see Artor Morlin, his fist knotted in her golden hair. He hurls her back, her body slamming into the marble, limbs splayed. The force would have broken the spine of a mortal.

Relief floods through me—clarity, sharp and sudden. I have an opening.

I reach blindly behind me, digging my thumbs into my attacker’s eyes. I press hard. She screams.

At last, she is off me, shrieking and clutching at her face, blood pooling beneath her fingers.

I don’t stop to watch, instead I stagger toward Artesia, weightless, dizzy. She stands frozen, eyes wide in terror. I snatch the mace from her grip.

It’s heaver than I expect—or perhaps I am just weak. I stumble, pivoting back toward the shorter vampire. I swing wildly. The first misses, but the second strike connects. Bone cracks beneath the instrument.

I trip, collapsing on my hands and knees. I push myself back up. Kneeling, I lift the mace high above my head and bring it crashing down. The blow crushes her skull.

I let the mace slip from my hands. It skids across the marble. Panting, I glance over my shoulder.

Artor Morlin stands over the last of them, his sword gleaming, menacing the mercy strike.

“Leave her,” I rasp, voice raw, wrecked. “She’s mine.”

Artor studies me. He smiles slightly, offering me the hilt of his blade. “By all means.”

A cruel echo of earlier—when he placed the drowcraft blade in my hands, his gift. If I’d had it when this began, things would have progressed far differently.

I take the sword, my grip steady despite the trembling in my limbs.

I don’t draw it out. No revenge, no cruelty. I don’t have the energy for it—no matter how they hurt me. I just want it to be over. To crawl into a hole and die.

When it’s done, I drag the blade across my skirts, smearing blood into tattered silk. Then I hand it back to Morlin, polite as ever.

He takes it without a word, then regards me for a long moment.

“If there’s a corner of this plane beyond your master’s reach, I suggest you make for there,” he advises. “Now.”

I nod. It seems Jaheira’s safehouse will have to serve me after all.

“You have my thanks,” I tell him, bowing at the waist. “Forgive me that I can’t take your sword. It’s the finest gift I’ve ever been given.”

Morlin inclines his head, pensive.

Before I can go, I have to say goodbye to Artesia. She doesn’t want me to leave, but she knows I must. Her hands are warm as they grip my arms, her voice urgent.

“You’re hurt,” she insists. “You have to go somewhere safe, and you have to get healing, you understand?”

I murmur the necessary reassurances, let her embrace me, let her kiss my cheeks in farewell. Her hands linger before she lets go. Behind us, Morlin inspects the bodies. I wonder what he is looking for.

“Tav dal l'Braeryn,” he calls just as I turn to leave.

I still. It has been a long time since I’ve been called Tav of the Stenchstreets, and even longer since I heard it in my native tongue.

“If you reach Waterdeep, I’ll do what I can for you. It’s more than most would offer,” he says coolly. “Do you understand?”

I nod. I’ve spent most of my life trading one master for the next, and I know that protection is never given freely.

 

Chapter 9: – Interlude –

– Gale –

Shadowheart is half a bottle in when she speaks again.

 “You recall how she insisted we couldn’t keep her prisoner?” she asks. “Well, let’s see about that.”

Tav was correct in assuming that everyone would be furious with me in the wake of her sudden and frustrating departure. Both Jaheira and Shadowheart had their say—at length—on my apparent incompetence. A bumbling fool, they implied, to have simply let her stroll off with the spawn. As if I had a choice in the matter. As if Tav has ever been particularly susceptible to coercion.

Well, coercion on my part.

“A bold idea,” I reply. “But just how do you intend to go about it?”

Shadowheart shrugs. “The usual means. There are plenty of cellars in Baldur’s Gate.”

Practical. If Jaheira has the grace to forgive us this blunder, perhaps even her safehouse would do.

“We’ll have to wait until she dares lift her head above ground,” I muse. “And I suspect he’ll see to it that such a moment is long in coming.”

Shadowheart snorts, crossing her arms. “I wouldn't be so sure,” she replies. “They're both absurdly impatient.”

Notes:

This is from a whole subplot I considered dropping. Hoping its not too boring!

I'm posting a full chapter in like 30 mins.

Chapter 10: Weakness

– Tav –

I know my memory of the attack isn’t accurate—there are wounds I don’t remember earning. My hands throb, newly mangled. Blood seeps sluggishly from my right arm. My skin burns with bites I have no recollection of.

Shock kept me upright, dragging myself forward to Jaheira’s. But now, in the carriage, it begins to slip away. My body sinks into the seat, too heavy, distant.

“Oh no, no, don’t you dare,” Fenorin pleads, pressing a cool hand to my cheek. “You stay awake. I am not built for this kind of stress.”

I try. But it’s getting harder. The world keeps pulling me under, consciousness slipping through my fingers like sand. Several times, Fenorin shakes me awake, his touch insistent, or turns my head in his hands until my eyes flutter open again.

Then—blackness.

When I wake, it’s sudden and jarring. The carriage is still. I’m alone.

Distant voices. I hear Fenorin speaking outside.

I lift my head—or try to. Even that is arduous. My fingers twitch, searching, remembering. I had a knife, the one I secreted away from Jaheira’s home. I find it on the carriage floor, just out of reach.

I lurch forward, seizing the blade with shaking hands and shoving it up my sleeve before my limbs fail me.

I slump back into my seat and let sleep overtake me again, for long how, I do not know.

I barely stir when the carriage door opens. It’s only Astarion’s voice—sharp, furious—that jolts me back, panic clawing through the haze.

“You fucking fool,” he hisses. “What were you thinking, not sending Artesia for help? You could have been killed.”

I crack one eye open, the other pressed against the seat, regarding him with as much disdain as I can muster. “You said if I couldn’t protect myself, then I had no worth but as a whore.”

He flinches. “I was angry with you,” he says, as if that erases it all.

“I know,” I reply. “That’s how I knew you meant it.”

His mouth tightens, jaw working as if he wants to snap something in return. He takes a deep breath.

“That pride won’t keep you breathing,” he chides, stepping into the carriage. “You’ve always been like this. Always. Zero self-preservation, completely eager to throw your life away. You think you’re the only one who has say in whether you live or die? It’s selfish.”

I let out a short, tired scoff. “Vith tir xuil dosst lecturing.” 

His eyes narrow. “Oh, you want me to fuck off with the lecturing?” he demands.

I’m surprised he understands any Drow, though I suppose vith was the first word I taught him.

He shakes his head, exasperated. “I can’t stand you.” His voice grows softer, though no less annoyed. “Can you walk?”

I say nothing, my grip tightening around the knife hidden up my sleeve. If I weren’t so drained, I might have turned my cheek, refused to let him look at me at all. But I conserve my energy.

Astarion edges nearer, cautious but intent, presumably to assess my injuries.

The moment he’s close enough, I slip the blade free and lunge.

He cries out, twisting back, but not fast enough—the steel grazes his side, slicing through cloth and skin. His hands snap to my wrist, gripping tight before I can drive the knife in deeper.

“You bastard,” I snarl, wrenching against him. “Do you think I’m stupid? You tried to have me killed.”

His eyes flash, breath unsteady, but he doesn’t let go. “I never intended for things to go as they did, believe me.” His grip tightens as I twist in his hold. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. You must see that.”

“You put bloodroot in my drink, didn’t you!?” I spit, still thrashing against him. The blade wavers between us, just shy of his heart. “You made sure I couldn’t fight back and then you set them on me—let them violate me.”

His face twists—regret, fury, perhaps something else. “Gods, fine—I’m sorry,” he snaps, struggling to wrest the knife.

I don’t want his apology. I want to open his throat. That’s the only reason I let myself be dragged back here.

I claw at him, weakly but stubbornly, black stars in my vision. My nails rake his cheek—barely—and he catches my wrist before I can do worse.

“Tell me how to mend this,” he breathes, “and I will. I swear it.”

Everything trembles, my body wracked with exhaustion, but I force out the only words I can muster.

“I hate you.”

“Hate me all you like,” he replies, unmoved. “But you’ll let me bring you to Cimon. You’re in no state to argue—just look at yourself.”

His fingers tighten around my wrist—already raw, already aching—until my grip fails and the knife slips from my grasp. It clatters to the floor, useless. I let out a growl of frustration, but even that sounds feeble, defeated.

Sensing my resolve crumbling, he moves in, hooking an arm around me. Before I can fight, he gathers me up, lifting me as though I weigh nothing at all.

“Dos letrael,” I cry, struggling weakly against him. You promised. “Dos vith'ez cahlind.”

There was a time when he couldn’t have done this—when I had more weight, more strength. But I’ve been worn thin.

“Dos ulnuth ulu uns'aa.” You lied to me.

I spit a few more choice words in Drow, namely that he’s a soft-handed leech, good only as a stain on my blade, and a greedy-mouthed rat bastard gnawing until there is nothing.  I sneer, telling him that no matter how he preens like a prince, he still reeks of the collar he needed me to break.

“Rest,” he murmurs against the crown of my head, not understanding a word I’ve said. “You can waste your breath screaming at me later.”

I want to fight, but the moment my head lolls against his chest, exhaustion pulls me under. My eyes fall shut. I tell myself I’m conserving my strength to kill him later. The infirmary will have surgical blades.

There are moments when I surface—snatches of sensation, half-formed thoughts. The murmur of Fenorin’s voice, the vibration of Astarion’s through his chest. The shifting of his hold.

The air warms. I see light behind my eyelids. A door closes groans shut. I hear Cimon crying at the state of me. She thinks it’s her fault.

“Here,” Astarion says. I feel myself set down, boneless, unresisting, likely on one of the infirmary cots. My body sinks into it like a corpse. “Tend to her—properly. And mind her hands. She’ll never forgive me if she can’t wield those damn swords of hers.”

“Gods,” Cimon laments. “She’s very hurt.”

“Yes, how astute of you,” Astarion mutters. “Now quit gaping and fix her.”

Hands press against my arm, and the touch burns—hot, searing, too much. I flinch, a weak, involuntary shudder.

A pause.

“She’s half-conscious,” Cimon observes.

“Of course she is.” Astarion’s voice is softer now, but not quite gentle. “Stubborn enough to wake up just to be difficult. Aren’t you, darling?”

I force my eyes open—just barely. The light stings, but I find him looming above me, watching with an expression I can’t quite place.

Cimon is telling me to hold still, but I waver, trying to summon the strength to speak.  My head swims.

“Xuat xindarl uns'aa,” I croak, tongue heavy. I feel delirious enough I can’t tell if its in Common or Drow.

Astarion exhales sharply. “For the love of the gods, shut up and hold still.”

I try. But as the magic flares, pain streaking through every raw wound, I can’t help it—I reach out, fingers curling around the closest thing I can find.

Astarion’s sleeve.

His arm tenses. For a moment, he doesn’t move. Then, slowly, he lays his hand over mine, pressing tight.

I’m too tired to question it. Instead, I close my eyes so I don’t have to bear witness to my weakness.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The healing leaves me feeling strangely hollow—like a hangover, or maybe that’s just the bloodroot still clinging to my body. I’ve no idea of how much I was given, after all.

Thankfully I can move. The worst of the damage has mended. My body still aches, bruised and raw, but the wounds are no longer weeping. I’m intact enough to leave, and I’ve no intention to linger.

My plan is to find an empty wing, somewhere abandoned, barricade myself inside. I don’t want anyone near me, least of all his damned guests.

I push myself up, ignoring the way the room sways, and set my mind to the only thing that matters—getting away.

That’s how I survived the Braeryn, when I was too weak and small to fight back. You found a corner, a crevice, some hole deep enough that no adult hands could reach you. You held your breath and prayed they wouldn’t find you.

And if they did—if they dragged you out—then you learned to disappear in a different way.

I find Cimon’s surgical tools quickly enough. The scalpel interests me, although it looks too delicate for my purposes, so I pocket several surgical knives, all with strange curves and ridges.

When I glance down, a snort escapes me despite everything. They’ve dressed me in some ridiculous negligee-like nightgown, no doubt Astarion’s influence. It would be hilarious if not for the circumstances. I’m forced to belt the blades against my bandages.

I move through the corridors as carefully and quickly as my body allows. Stealth is among the most innocent gifts of Lolth’s gifts, and it comes more naturally to me than most.

The estate is vast, too large for even Astarion’s ever-growing entourage. There are entire wings no one bothers with, chambers abandoned to dust and time, and I know them all. I slip into one, the heavy door groaning as it closes behind me.

The room is sparse, but that suits me fine. A long-forgotten guest chamber, some furniture still intact, though covered in sheets. I drag one from a chair and wrap it around myself, pressing my back to the wall, knees drawn up.

It’s only when I stop—when I let myself breathe, when I finally take stock of my body and the wreckage of the last day—that the trembling begins.

A full body tremor comes on, some pathetic, delayed response to fear and stress. The body catching up to what the mind shoved aside.

I close my eyes and try to bear it, but my thoughts won’t still.

A wet mouth at my throat. Another at my shoulder. Hands groping, prying. Fingers in places they had no right to be. My shame. Artesia seeing my weakness.

I remember their hands, the way they pressed in, how my body refused to respond. I remember the pain, the weight, but there are gaps. Bites I don’t recall receiving. Wounds I don’t remember earning. What else might have been done to me?

There’s also that little trick Astarion pulled, his command searing into my mind. Could I have been made to forget things?

I pull the sheet tighter around me.

I’m alive and they’re dead—I saw to that. Nothing else matters, and I will learn to forget it ever happened. I just need to be alone. To rest, to get my strength back.

I soothe myself by picturing ways I could kill Astarion. It’s an old habit from childhood, something I used to do when I worried someone got too close.

It’s enough to let me sleep.

────  ⚔  ────

 

It’s Fenorin who finds me. He arrives with food—a small tray of olives, bread, salted meat, and wine. I barely touch it. The thought of eating makes my stomach churn. I lift the bread to my lips but hesitate, feeling as if one bite might make me retch.

“He knows where you are,” Fenorin explains, setting the wine down beside me. “Vaguely. In a general sense, at least. I told him to give you some breathing room, and he seemed to take it well, but how can you be sure with him really?”

I say nothing. The bread lingers at my lips, unchewed.

“Did you try to kill him?” Fenorin asks. “In the carriage?”

I nod.

“Do tell me next time,” Fen continues. “I’ll do what I can to help the proceedings—even if its only to pass a blade, hold a candle, or offer encouragements.”

I stare at him, unblinking. I thought him devoted—that he loved Astarion as I once did, with the blind, desperate adoration of someone who has known nothing but hurt and now believes themselves saved. And he’s spawn, besides. There will be no helping me kill his master, even if he wanted to.

Not that it matters. I’m not certain I have the strength for it, anyway.

“Something needs to change,” Fenorin says, almost to himself.

He picks up an olive though he cannot eat it, rolling it between his fingers

“I keep thinking that had I been there, when they came for you, I could have helped you.” He pauses, then exhales shakily. “But that’s nonsense, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have been able to do a damned thing. I would have been forced to stand there and watch.”

I don’t know if I could have withstood that. Fenorin occupies a special place in my heart.

His fingers close around the olive, crushing it. Realizing what he’s done, he throws it into some dusty corner, smiling once more.

“Tav, dear, you’ve neither spoken nor eaten,” Fenorin drawls, smiling weakly. “Should I be concerned or offended?

I tear into the bread, stuffing a bite past my teeth. It sticks in my throat, but I force it down. I need my strength—I am not the only one who depends on it.

“Spawn can’t move against their masters,” I tell him, swallowing. “Kill that dream now. Either find a way to be beneath his notice or learn to make yourself useful to him.”

“You’re his most useful creature, and yet here you are, shaking and bleeding in some forgotten corner,” he counters. “Is this what his favor looks like? Because, frankly, I don’t want it.”

I worry for Fenorin. Rebellion has brought me nothing but pain, and he is not as strong as I am.

“Besides,” he adds, undeterred. “Astarion killed his master. Cazador, was it?  That means it can be done.”

“Mind your tongue when you speak that name,” I warn. “Who have you been talking to?”

Fen gives me a small smile, his eyes far away. “Now, now,” he says, “you know I never kiss and tell.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I manage another four days there. The spawn bring my meals, the servants empty the chamberpot I leave by the door. Otherwise, I do not leave.

It’s too much like my time under Eredune, but I endure it. I need the solitude. I need time to mend, to gather my strength before I face the world.

Artesia comes the second day to tell me what I’ve already guessed— she and Cimon had fought because she caught her drugging my drink.

The next day, Cimon brings a poultice along with the rest of the truth—Astarion ordered it. She weeps as she changes my bandages, and I tell her it wasn’t her fault.

I ask Eudes to bring me books I do not read, if only to have an excuse to apologize for the punishment he took in my stead. I ask Venassa for clothes so I can do the same.

I stare out of the window.

I practice drills.

I am asleep when the commotion begins—raised voices, boots scuffling against cobblestone. Lanterns sweep past the grounds. They’re searching for someone.

A prickle of unease crawls up my spine—the kind I’ve learned never to ignore. I retrieve the surgical knife and slip into the corridor.

Halfway down the darkened hall, the feeling spikes, a cold jolt of certainty. I pivot just as a hand reaches for me, catching my would-be attacker and slamming them against the wall.

The impact knocks the breath from him, but he laughs.  “It’s only me,” Astarion says, only I watch the laughter drain from his eyes when he realizes that’s precisely the problem.

Then I realize I shouldn’t be looking at his eyes at all. I keep mine fixed on the blade at his throat.

“My, my,” he hums when I refuse to ease up. “So eager to get your hands on me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you missed me.”

The implication disgusts me enough to let him go. I step back, eyes locked on his chest, tracking his movement.

He smooths his collar as if I’d only jostled him. “Be a dear and follow me to my quarters.”

I frown. “And if I refuse?”

He sighs, as if I’m being particularly difficult. “Then I suppose I’ll have to insist. Make no mistake—you are coming with me. Someone is here to kill you, and I don’t intend to let them succeed.”

I mull this over. Could it be Eredune? Or is this Astarion’s strange way of trying to win me back? He always had fanciful ideas, even when he pretended to be above them.

“I don’t need to be in there with you—really, I can think of a thousand things I’d rather do than endure your scowling,” he drawls. “But I do need you somewhere... contained. With guards posted, naturally.”

“Eredune?”

“I seem to have been the primary target and you the secondary, so I suspect not,” replies Astarion. “Although who is to say with the drow?”

I can’t help but look up, meeting his eyes. “You expect me to believe that after someone tried to kill you, you ran here—alone and unarmed—to stop them from doing the same to me?”

“I walked,” he corrects. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

I’ve embarrassed him—or he wants me to think I have. Either way, I’m too tired for his little games.

“Let’s go, then,” I sigh. “Lest they finish what you started.”

 

Astarion explains what has happened as we make our way.

“You’ll like this,” he says. “It sounds like something you’d have come up with. They disguised themselves as petitioners— grieving parents claiming to have lost their darling mortal children to our fanged guests. I might have informed them that you already took vengeance on their behalf, but they had more practical concerns. Namely coin”

He makes a vague gesture. “And, as it turns out, they were such a nuisance at the gate that the guards let them right in just to be rid of them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I reply. “They should have come found me.”

“They’ve been instructed to leave you alone,” Astarion informs me. I can feel him trying to make eye contact, but I keep my gaze trained on my boots. “Everyone has—except, of course, the spawn you so adore coddling.”

I ignore his pointed comment on the spawn.

“They got rather close before they produced the daggers they’d so cleverly hidden beneath their rags,” he continues. “Naturally, I made quick work of them—" he waves a hand dismissively, “—barely worth the trouble, really.”

My head snaps up. “Where were your guards?”

He casts me a sidelong glance. “Gone. Busy. Late. Does it matter?”

“Xsa wael. Yes, of course it matters,” I hiss. “You must be more careful.”

He stops in his tracks, regarding me with something unreadable. Then, softly—mockingly—

“You’re so very good at sounding as if you care.”

I could tell him the truth—that I do, always have, even when I didn’t understand why. But he must know. He wouldn’t be able to wound me so deeply if he didn’t.

“We both are,” I reply dryly, still refusing to meet his eyes. Instead, I turn to the nearby balcony. The sky is starless, moonless—choked by smog, Astarion once explained.

“This tells me nothing of my involvement,” I say. Other than that I would need to punish the guards for their negligence.

Astarion resumes his brisk pace. “Around the same time, some spawn came through the gate—Fenorin, Artesia.”

“But Fenorin was already with you,” I surmise.

“No,” he replies lightly.

I narrow my eyes. “You never sleep alone. Another of the spawn, then?”

“Is that truly important?” he asks, too flippant.

He’s hiding something.

“Anyhow,” he continues breezily, “it seems the spawn informed the guard they were off to report to you, only to reappear moments later, saying the same thing. So unless they’ve mastered the art of being in two places at once, I’d say the intruders must have... oh, what’s the term? Polymorphed? Shapechanged? Your wizard would know.”

If he involved Gale, or any of the others, in our foolishness—

But we reach his chambers before I can press the thought further. The guards open the door, and out slinks the drow woman who looks so much like me. She isn’t armored but dressed in some delicate shift, something I might have worn back in Menzoberranzan. Her dress is askew.

We lock eyes, both expressionless, until she passes.

I exhale, turning to Astarion. “Did you have the guards wait until I got here to let her out, or did they misinterpret orders?” I ask. “I’ll need to know for when I discipline them about the gate.”

“Come now, darling, don’t tell me you’re upset,” Astarion pouts. “I only did it because I missed you. There’s no need to be jealous.”

“Not jealous, Astarion,” I correct, stepping past him into the room. “You have me feeling cheap, though I suspect that was your aim all along.”

It’s been some time since I last entered his chambers. They’re warm—far cozier than the cold, forgotten corners where I’ve been hiding. I should be uneasy here, but instead I sink into the large chair and feel sleep tug at me almost immediately.

Until I feel him lingering.

“You said you didn’t have to be in here,” I say without opening my eyes. My fingers flex at the armrest.

“You won’t even look at me,” he complains. “Is the sight of me so unbearable to you now?”

“Yes.”

A beat of silence. Then, a quiet chuckle.

“You figured it out, didn’t you?” he asks. “I really must stop forgetting that you’re clever.”

The eyes. That’s how he was able to command me.

Unlike with the spawn, he can’t simply bark an order and expect blind obedience. He needs my gaze—needs mine to meet his in order to wrap his will around me.

I will make it as difficult as I possibly can.

“I should kill you so you’re never able to betray me again.” A proper drow woman would, even if only so he couldn’t use his trick against me.

“Yes, perhaps, but considering you’ll have to do it with your eyes closed, I imagine I will be quite the challenge,” he replies. “One little glance and it’s over.”

“I’d gouge them out to remove the temptation.”

“You would too, wouldn’t you?” He sighs, as if put upon. “Well, please don’t, I’m fond of them, and mutilation is such a messy solution. Not to mention rather premature, considering I have a remedy for you.”

That makes no sense. Why would he offer me a way to resist him?

“You’ll have to look,” he coaxes. “I’ve gone to some trouble to secure it for you, so the least you can do is open those pretty red eyes and see for yourself.”

It’s a ring.

The design is familiar. It bears a passing resemblance to the Szarr family ring, the one I still wear, a trophy from slaying Godey. That had been a challenge, figuring out how to make a corpse suffer, but I managed.

I don’t let this one touch my skin. I’ve seen enough cursed trinkets passed off as gifts to know better.

“It’s a ring of mind shielding,” he explains. “Nothing nefarious, I promise—though I doubt you’ll take my word for it at present.” His lips quirk. “It will keep prying minds out of yours and keep you from being twisted into someone else’s puppet. It should even provide some protection against charm, though, really, you hardly need it. Being an elf has its advantages.”

I don’t think of myself as an elf, I’m drow, but I do not tell him so.

“We should talk, you and I,” Astarion says. “You do want to know why I did it after all, don’t you?”

I roll the ring between my fingers, weighing it—though I use my sleeve, never letting it touch my skin. “You were trying to teach me a lesson.”

“No,” he says a little too quickly. “Well, at some point, but not the one you’re thinking of.” His lips press together for a moment before he continues.  “You were supposed to call for help, not try to take on three vampire lords alone. And I didn’t want them to—” He stops short, jaw tightening.

“Defile me?” I asked wearily. “Spoil what is yours?”

“I was meant to catch them before anything happened,” he replies. “Artesia was supposed to fetch me, not stand there gaping while you clubbed them to death like baby seals.”

I don’t know what a seal—other than an emblem or as a means of authentication—but that hardly matters.

“Your help would have done little,” I say instead, tone clipped. “Artor Morlin and I managed well enough.”

A jab. One I know will land.

“Yes, well, Morlin is tangled in all of this,” he says. “Someone in vampire society has been terribly industrious—getting a great many of our kind hopelessly addicted to bloodroot. The trade is controlled by a singular power, and whoever they are, they keep the others under their thumb.”

That only made sense, considering the reason I was called to the estate in the first place.

The ring made far more sense now as well. If we were to stand against other vampires, some of whom could bend my will with a glance, I would need protection. And Astarion, ever so thoughtful, would know exactly how to take it away.

A brush of his hand, a slip of the ring from my finger, and I’d be left vulnerable.

“Should a new face rise without falling prey to the root, they remove them,” he explains. “So I thought—why not lure them all together before they can? Weed out the ones already caught in the snare, and find those who remain useful.”

His logic is far from flawless. Much could go wrong, and there is no perfect way to root out our enemy.

I notice the lights outside the window, the flicker of lanterns shifting in the dark. Pushing myself to my feet, I step closer, peering down. The guards have clustered together.

“They’ve found your intruders,” I remark. “Best we go.”

“Later,” he says sharply, barely sparing a glance outside. “This is more important.”

There’s a rare urgency in his voice, something brittle beneath the usual arrogance.

“You need to understand—vampires unacquainted with the root react just as I did. They lose control, kill without meaning to. But those who have indulged grow accustomed to it. They’re far less likely to pounce at the scent.”

“So, that was your game,” I realize coldly. “You used me as bait.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he protests. “But you left me little choice. I had other plans, you know. Better ones. I used those mortals to find vampires who weren’t completely spineless addicts, then played the offended host, so utterly aghast that blood had been spilled on my marble floors, all to manipulate them into an alliance.” He clicks his tongue. “And then you went and killed them. I had to find a way to get my hands on more.”

I glare. “You put me in danger,” I accuse. “And you left me defenseless.”

“Well, clearly not defenseless enough, given you redecorated the hall with their insides,” he sighs. “The idea was for them to live, darling—so I could make a scene, throw a tantrum about how they dared lay a finger on my precious drow lover.” He rubs his temples. “I feared this would happen, that’s why I ensured you were not armed. Corpses are less easily blackmailed, and you love nothing more than making them.”

He lifts his head. “And you were supposed to stay near,” he adds, almost as if scolding me. “I told you that. This should not have happened.”

“Blaming this on me doesn’t serve you,” I warn.

“I’m not!” The retort is exceedingly childish. We both look at each other for a moment, stunned, in an awkward silence.

“I’m only explaining that things got out off hand,” he resumes, far more composed than before. “This was not some harebrained attempt on your life. If it were, I’d hardly be standing here explaining myself—I’d have snapped your neck while you lay so helpless in my arms that night.”

A fitting end for someone of my blood. Minthara cradled her lover—Eredune’s own cousin—as she died, her lips still stained with the poison Minthara had given her. A thousand likewise songs are sung in Menzoberranzan.

But he hadn’t done it, though it might have been convenient for him. Though sometimes I am more trouble than I’m worth. That counts for something.

I step forward until I’m standing before him. Close enough to see the flicker of surprise in his eyes, the way his gaze darts—just for a moment—to the blade holstered in my bandages.

“Artor Morlin had no interest in my blood,” I tell him.

“So Artesia told me, though no interest may be an exaggeration.,” he replies. “I suspect he’s the one pulling the strings. I’m not certain—yet—but I have a feeling.”

The feelings of the powerful tended to be inconvenient for those they concern.

“Then we strike before they can rally,” I suggest. “Artor Morlin granted me entry to his domain in Waterdeep. Send me, and his head will join the others.”

Astarion’s hands grasp my shoulders before I can move. I stiffen.

“You want me to send you to Waterdeep like this?” he asks sharply, incredulous. “Limping, bleeding, barely standing?”

His grip tightens, just enough to hurt, to make sure I’m listening.

“What, exactly, do you think will happen? Because all I see is you making it very easy for him to slit your throat. Is that what you want?”

It would be easier. Clean.

I have spent my life expecting to die—that is the nature of service. That’s what you do when you belong to someone else. You fight. You serve. You die, snuffed out young like every other warrior that managed to claw their way out of the muck of the Stenchstreets.

But this aftermath? This lingering, dragging me along? It has given me nothing but suffering. I have no use for it.

And there’s the other matter, of which only I know.

Astarion watches me closely. “You’re not well,” he says. “Artesia told me what they did. I imagine you think you can will yourself past it.”

“I barely remember.”

“Yes, well, that’s your favorite trick, isn’t it?” he asks wryly. “Yet here you are, suffering all the same.”

I look away, my stomach twisting.

I want to tell him not to do this—not to soften, not now. The kindness unsettles me, confuses me. It makes future cruelty cut deeper.

“Your hands are healing well, I trust?” His fingers brush my wrist, skimming the bandages. Not a grip. “You were so terribly careless with them. I’d hate to see them ruined.”

I nod, quick and stiff. I’m worried I might break down if he takes hold of them. So, of course, he does.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “I don’t want you hurt. It doesn’t amuse me, it doesn’t make me feel powerful, or whatever nonsense you accused me of before.”

His lips linger a moment too long, breath warm against the bandages, before he finally releases me.

“You should stay here,” he says, as if it’s a mere suggestion. “I won’t give up my bed like some romantic fool, but you’re welcome to it. Or if you prefer to suffer, the chair is yours. Surely better than that miserable bench Fenorin tells me you’ve taken over.”

Both of us know I won’t last long in the chair.

As if he can’t help himself, his hands find me again. One traces the length of my ruined ear. The other rests at my throat, fingertips at my pulse as if to reassure himself I am still here, still breathing. Once, when I was badly injured, he kept his thumb against my wrist for nearly a day, as if he feared my pulse might falter the moment he let go.

My mind spins with possibilities. I want him to hold me, to kiss me, to convince me that all is well. I want to believe it.

But if he did, it would also be the perfect moment to drive a blade between his ribs. Damage to the brain halts regeneration—so wouldn’t suffocating it of blood and oxygen do the same? A punctured lung would slow him. His heart, if I could reach it, might stop him altogether.

I just have to get close. Perhaps I could do it quickly enough that there would be no pain.

His fingers brush my chin, tilting it up. Not forceful, almost tender. A question.

“That drow,” I tell him. “The one who looks like me. I want her gone.”

“Done,” he says automatically. He chuckles, crooning, “Oh darling, have I finally made you jealous? You know I could never replace you. Come here.”

I let him kiss me. His lips are cool, softer than I expect, pressing against mine with a slow, deliberate ease. A careful thing. It aches, how good it feels.

“Whatever are you thinking about, dearest?” he asks. “You know I detest when that pretty little face knots up.”

I don't answer. If I speak, I'll unravel. If I move, I might not stop myself from doing something reckless—one way or another.

 He watches me with those predatory eyes, glinting in the dimness of the master bedroom. The gods were cruel, to make him so beautiful.

I love him, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’ve never said the words, nor will I, but surely he feels it. Or does he see nothing more than a well-trained cur, licking its master’s face even after it’s met with a boot?

Perhaps both are true. Perhaps they are the same thing.

Poison would be best. I don’t have the strength to slit his throat, whether awake or in his sleep, staring at the face of someone I once reached for without fear.

I’m too distracted with these thoughts, because I don’t even register when he moves. His hand slips around me, deft and assured, plucking one of the surgical blades I’d hidden away. Before I can react, he takes my least damaged hand and presses it into my palm.

“Decide,” he says, pressing my fingers tighter around the blade. “It’s rather hurtful when I can see you deliberating, and I’m certain it’s exhausting for you.”

It is. More than he’ll ever know.

My eyes trail over him once more as I consider the price of my freedom. A familiar ache settles in my chest. I had decided long ago that there would only ever be one—Eredune, my matron, my great love. And then, like a miracle, there was another. The thought of turning against him pains me, feels almost sacrilegious.

So, against logic, against generations of drow warnings and every instinct screaming at me to end this, to protect myself and my own, I stay my blade and follow him to bed.

Chapter 11: The Prisoner

– Tav –

“You know, we don’t have to cut him up,” I tell Astarion. “We could set him running in circles, prod him with a stick whenever he stops.” Breaking people was far simpler than most realized.

Astarion’s smile tightens. He doesn’t like that. It makes Cazador’s cruelties seem less grand, less deliberate. Perhaps he still believes that he and the others had to be broken that way, that it wasn’t just senseless.

“Brilliant. But tell me, darling, which one of us is supposed to stand there for two days poking him with a stick?” he replies. “Because it certainly won’t be me.”

I sigh. He’s right.

“Go on, then,” he drawls. “Fetch your least favorite red coat and be done with it.”

I roll my eyes and reach for the surgical blades I stole from Cimon.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I find Astarion feeding.

Some pretty thing—long hair, blue eyes that flutter as he moans. I wonder if his pulse is strong or sluggish beneath Astarion’s lips.

I cross my arms, leaning against the wall, watching. He doesn’t notice me at first.

When he does, he startles. “Tav, darling! How terribly rude of me,” he exclaims, practically shoving his meal away. The man stumbles but doesn’t protest, too dazed to care.

“Don’t stop on account of me,” I reply. My chemise is still damp with another’s blood —hardly the time for prudishness. And we’ve both seen each other in states far worse.

“Nonsense.”

He flicks his tongue over his lips, catching a stray drop of blood from his chin, then smooths a hand over his coat.

“Your afternoon was productive, I trust?” he asks, lounging back. “Come, tell me all about how persuasive you were. I do so love when you get your hands dirty.”

I was quite persuasive. Brilliantly so, even. The problem is, my victim is spawn. He’s been ordered not to speak his master’s plans—so he physically cannot. I had hoped for a flaw in his master’s command, a loophole, the same kind Astarion leaves when he’s careless. Something that would let him write his answers or nod, even the barest shake of his head. But his master was thorough. There was nothing to exploit.

Astarion should be disappointed, perhaps even furious. The fact that he isn’t tells me he already knew how this would end.

“Don’t look so glum, my love,” he croons. “It wasn’t you—it was him. Still, I do wonder… if you had more time, more tools—” He trails off, then sighs. “No matter. You are quite pretty when you fail.”

His eyes rake hungrily over my bloodstained clothes, my skin damp with sweat. We’re still coasting on the aftermath of our last spectacularly explosive conflict—so for now, it’s all gifts and pet names, gentle hands and pretty smiles. But he won’t let me leave the estate, and every night, he insists I sleep beside him.

He hasn’t pressed for sex. Yet. But from the way he’s looking at me now, that might be about to change.

“Tell me about our other efforts,” he orders. “Fenorin tells me you’ve been busy with some clever mechanism.”

I have. I enlisted some of Roland’s apprentices to help me install a series of wards—not just to keep people out, but to keep them in.

If I weren’t the one designing them, I might worry I was building my own cage. But I’ve ensured there are weaknesses, escapes woven into the design—ones only I know how to exploit.

I don’t want Astarion anywhere near it—not when there’s a real risk he’ll decide to murder Roland’s apprentices, so I’ve been keeping him out of it entirely.

But I need to get off the grounds. And the defenses make for the perfect excuse.

So I tell him just enough. I spin it as a matter of expertise—how the work requires hands more skilled than mine, how it would be a waste not to consult the proper craftsman. He knows I know nothing of magic.

As I speak, he beckons me forward, his hands gliding up my thighs, curling around my hips. He stays seated, looking up at me through half-lidded eyes.

“My sweet torturess, are you trying to ask me if you can leave?” he asks. “But of course, darling, you’re not a prisoner.”

I stiffen when his fingers splay over my stomach.

“It’s only that you’re still delicate,” he continues. “And after what happened with those wretched creatures, well…”

He isn’t afraid someone will hurt me. He’s afraid I’ll take the first chance I get to disappear.

He’s been keeping me here to reacclimate me to this life—showing me how pleasant it can be, how easy, how safe, how full of the things I enjoy. He wants me lulled back into my place before I step beyond the walls.

“There is a paper trail, in my work,” I assure him. “If I go missing, you’ll know exactly who to talk to.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

– Gale –

I scream.

In my defense, it is not often one finds an intruder perched casually in one’s quarters.

Tav has scaled approximately two floors to reach my room at Shadowheart’s, and naturally, I had no expectation of company. I did not notice her when I entered. She did not call out until I was already seated at my desk, deeply engaged in reviewing my students’ work.

Which is to say—she waited precisely long enough to startle the soul from my body.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly, hopping off the windowsill. “Hello.”

“Hello Tav,” I return, still clutching my chest. My chair, I notice belatedly, is halfway across the room. “You’ll have to forgive me—my constitution is not quite what it once was, it seems. But I’m happy to see you all the same.”

I try to appraise her subtly, knowing full well it embarrasses her. She looks… well. Or at least better. Still too thin, but the bruises, the bites—faded significantly.

She retrieves my chair, setting it upright before meeting my gaze with those impossibly large red eyes.

And then, with tact completely forgotten, I blurt, “What happened to you?”

She sighs, world-weary. “All is well,” she assures me. “I got used in a rather convoluted plot of Astarion’s, which ended disastrously, as he’s hopeless at plotting beyond a step or two.”

Of course he is. He’s always been impulsive. They both have. I watch her carefully, considering what circumstances have brought her here.

“He made his apologies. The spawn are safe. Everyone who wronged me is dead,” she says, matter-of-fact. “There’s not much else one can hope for.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m glad,” I reply, hoping doubt does not play in my voice.

Tav does not seem particularly invested in whether I believe her or not. Instead, she picks up the small bag sitting on my desk, turning it over curiously.

“What’s this?” she asks, holding it up.

“Ah,” I say, adjusting my sleeves. “That would be my student’s project. A bag of holding—or rather, a pouch of holding, given its … modest capabilities. Entirely impractical, of course—fifty pounds to a typical five hundred. But an admirable attempt for a first-year.”

She does an odd thing then, where she holds the bag to her mouth as if she intends to eat it.

I stare.

Satisfied—somehow—she lowers it again and turns to me. “Can I have it?”

“Yes,” I reply automatically, before catching myself—perhaps I shouldn’t be handing out my students’ projects. Then I blink, frowning. “Tav, is this a social visit? Because Shadowheart will be home soon, and I imagine she’d be rather delighted to see you.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve something I want you to look at.”

 

The plans are exceptional.

A thousand different wards, all layered upon one another, reactive, interwoven—some designed to trigger traps and alarms, others merely marking whoever has touch them. It alerts a central mechanism, identifying anyone who has interacted with the system.

“Were you the one who designed this?” I ask, still poring over the details, my mind tracing its pathways, the cunning behind its construction.

She says nothing at first.

“This is…” I shake my head, equal parts astonished and baffled. “This is ingenious. Some of the most insidiously clever warding I’ve ever seen. And, might I add, quite unusual.”

It has the touch of someone who has never been trained formally in magic —who has never been constrained by rules, by theory, by the guiding hands of tutors. Someone who sees spellwork as a puzzle to be solved by any means necessary, mainly a hammer to the nail.

“Roland’s apprentices had to explain things to me,” she says simply, her version of a yes.  “There are mistakes.”

She’s right, of course. They are not obvious—not to the untrained eye, at least. It would take either an extraordinary amount of time or a wizard of considerable skill to notice them. Perhaps both.

Naturally, I set about explaining them, tracing the pattern with a fingertip as I tell her there’s a sequence of wards that can be disabled if someone triggers them in the correct order. Not by accident, mind you—this is now a function of the layering, whether intended or not. It would leave a path straight through the complex she is trying to protect—presumably Astarion’s gaudy castle.

She does not look the least bit dismayed by this. “You found them quickly,” she remarks.

I could deflect, perhaps play at humility. But—well. That would be dishonest, wouldn’t it?

“That would be a reflection of my magical expertise,” I reply. “It would be disingenuous to claim otherwise.”

“But other people wouldn’t find them.,” she presses.

I narrow my eyes. It’s coming together now—the pattern, the intent. “These were intentional,” I surmise. “A contingency plan of yours?” A door left ajar, should she need a way out.

Tav says nothing, which is as good an answer as any.

“If you don’t want to be there, you don’t have to be,” I insist, leaning forward. “We can help you. He is not omnipotent, no matter how much he wishes to appear so.”

Tav shakes her head. “It’s not that simple, and you know it,” she says. She won’t look at me.

“Don’t trouble yourself over me,” she adds. “I take care of myself, you’ll see.”

I think again about Shadowheart’s suggestion. You recall how she insisted we couldn’t keep her prisoner? Let’s see about that.

At this moment, I have an opportunity—one that may not come again. I could stop her from going back. Take her somewhere until she is free of his influence. Until she sees clearly.

But I am alone. No one to strategize with, no one to help me weigh the risks. And this is a delicate matter, one that cannot be handled with force or reckless impulse. I don’t want to hurt her.

“One last thing,” she says, thrusting out her hand my way. “This ring—tell me true, is it a ring of mind shielding, or did he trick me?”

I take her hand, tilting the ring this way and that under the light, making a careful show of my examination. The truth is already clear—I can feel the enchantment humming beneath my fingertips.

“Hmm,” I begin, drawing it out. “It appears so. But I would be cautious. If he gave this to you, I’d be surprised if he didn’t leave himself a way in.”

Tav looks horrified. Either Astarion’s already tried to manipulate her mind, or she believes he will.

“You can check, can’t you?” she asks, her voice smaller than I’ve ever heard it.

“I’d have to take a closer look,” I say carefully. “Magic like this can be deceptive. But rest assured—I’ll find out.”

She doesn’t hesitate.  Ripping the ring from her finger as though it burns her, she tosses it into my waiting hand.

I turn away, stepping toward my second desk, fingers tightening around the band of metal. I swallow hard.

I am not ready for what comes next, but I turn all the same.

Tav sits patiently, watching me with the smallest hint of a nervous smile. She trusts me. It is a rare and fragile thing to be given. And yet I stand poised to shatter it.

“Forgive me,” I say. “I wouldn’t do this if I had any other choice.”

Her expression twitches—something flickering there, too quick to name.

And then I cast the spell.

Dominate Person.

────  ⚔  ────

 

“Tav seems to be a little displeased with current circumstances,” Shadowheart explains.

Indeed, I can hear what sounds like Drow screaming, followed by a large crash.

Taking her mind had been messy. She had thrashed, fought—not with skill or training, but furiously. It had made the process all the more unpleasant.

I had her follow me to Jaheira without fighting back, crying out for help, or otherwise attempting to escape. A carefully enough worded directive.

Only when we reached Jaheira’s doorstep she interpreted the command as fulfilled in its entirety—at which point she promptly took off sprinting in the opposite direction.

By the time Jaheira opened the door, we had just made it back—both panting, disheveled, Tav glaring hatefully.

“I’ll be eating jail gruel before I let the Harpers hurt him,” she threatened, breath still ragged.

Jaheira and I could only stare in stunned shock, disbelieving.

Then Jaheira laughed. “Gods above, you can be so dense. We’re here for you, cub.”

That seemed to settle Tav as much as anything could, though she still didn’t quite understand.

Jaheira was significantly quicker in securing the safehouse this time. Within the hour, we were there, and Tav was ordered—however reluctantly—into a rather barren-looking cell. I gave no further commands after that. I couldn’t bring myself to.

Shame had already settled thick in my chest, and so I slunk upstairs to hide. That was when the commotion began.

“You certainly look chipper,” says Shadowheart, speaking loud over the shouting below.

“I can’t help but feel I’ve done something unforgiveable,” I confess, head in my hands. “Even if it was necessary…was it right?”

I can no longer feel her, no longer sense that dreadful, wrenching pull of her resistance. I commanded her to stop fighting it, after all. But I know she’s down there, seething, her will, her mind violated because of me.

“She’ll forgive you,” Shadowheart assures me. “Drow try to kill each other over spilled wine and then make up before dessert—never mind what she’s gotten used to at the Szarr mansion. Give it a night.”

           

I can’t hide from it for very long, because there are questions that must be asked—questions we need to answer truthfully.

So, Jaheira, Shadowheart, and I perch on the stairs, unwilling to step too close to our prisoner. I have the distinct sense that, though she is our friend, we are all a little afraid of her.

The cell is a ruin. She has thrown everything she could lift, shattered what she could break, left nothing intact. And now she sits at the center of the wreckage, cross-legged, eerily still, as if preparing to enter reverie. She cannot, of course. I know that.

“This is insulting, you realize,” Tav informs us. “I’m not some child you need to protect.”

Shadowheart speaks up first. “Does he have a way of finding you?”

“Not yet,” Tav replies ominously. An answer that is neither reassuring nor particularly helpful.

I lean forward slightly. “Did you tell him you were visiting me?” I ask.

If so, I’d very much like to know how much time we had before he comes knocking on Shadowheart’s door.

“No,” Tav grumbles. “I’ve kept you out of this as best as I can, you know. Now you’ve undone all of that.”

“That was our choice,” Jaheira says wryly. “Stop being vague, we need to know how to prepare.”

“You need to let me go,” Tav counters. “I’m going back eventually, and the longer it takes, the more he’ll stew. He’s petty, remember? And he’s really old, so he remembers every slight.”

Shadowheart snorts.

“Don’t laugh!” Tav protests, flinging her arms up in frustration. “You don’t want him upset with you.”

Despite everything—despite what we did, despite dragging her here—there is concern in her voice.

The conversation continues much the same way. Tav cycling through fresh arguments for her freedom, trying different angles, searching for the right combination of words that might unravel our resolve. We ignore them, each in our own way—Jaheira with dry indifference, Shadowheart with measured amusement, and I, admittedly, with growing exhaustion.

We manage to extract very little of use from her, though she’s been commanded to tell only truth. She lied to Astarion as to where she was going so she could get answers regarding the ring of mind shielding. She was supposed to visit several craftsman, most of which are recorded in her ledger.

But, her work relies on arcane knowledge. Astarion, whatever else he may be, is not entirely a fool. He may well infer that she came to me.

By then, it is quite late. We draw straws for the first watch, and—of course—I am the unlucky soul chosen to keep an eye on her.

When Jaheira and Shadowheart retreat upstairs and we are left entirely alone, Tav tries a new tactic.

She has peculiarly unsettling talent—she can perfectly mimic the sound of someone sobbing. This is not so strange, as most drow have a natural aptitude for audible mimicry.

The only problem is that it doesn’t sound like her, and her face remains entirely impassive as she does it.

If not for those two rather glaring issues, her performance of crying and pleading to be let go might have been worthy of the stage.

“Did you steal that cry from someone, or did you craft it yourself?” I ask, folding my arms.

Tav groans, letting her arms drop from where they’d been slung over the bars of her cell. “Mayrina,” she admits. 

I nod, unsurprised.

“Listen,” she continues, irritated, “this plan of yours is stupid. I cannot stay caged forever. I’ll get out.”

“The hope,” I reply smoothly, “is that reason will find you before then. Which, I must say, I have faith you will.”

She curses in Drow. “Fuck your faith,” she replies lightly. “He’ll figure out I paid you a visit. What will you do when the spawn come looking?”

“Will he truly?” I counter. “Because, as I recall, you mentioned that he takes quite the backseat from the actual affairs of running his domain. I imagine it will take him some time to determine where, exactly, you’ve gotten to.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I’ve seen Tav in a rage before.

I’ve sought comparisons in nature, in the great and terrible forces that shape our world, but none seem to fit her precisely. There is something of the viper in her stillness for the strike—coiled, stiffened. And then, the violence: sudden, unrelenting, savage and often excessive. When it has burned itself out, she moves with disturbingly cold precision—looting bodies, measuring their boots against her own, fingers seeking hidden pockets.

Or, if she fears risking discovery, I have seen her dismember her work as though she were field-dressing game. I had to explain—more than once—that we had magic at our disposal, efficient and mercifully less gruesome. And still she’d watch me with nervous apprehension, as if expecting to be called upon should I falter.

This is far different. There’s no one to kill, nothing to break. She has already destroyed the cell’s furniture in a fit of frustration, leaving herself no physical recourse. And so, she is left with the one tool she wields least comfortably: conversation.

I hear her talking all morning to Shadowheart—pleading, really, though she would never call it that. Shadowheart merely laughs, or dismisses her. Tav, typically unflappable, begins to fray. Her voice grows strained, words insistent, and I can hear their nervous urgency from upstairs.

When Shadowheart ascends, she levels me with the weariest of looks. I offer her a cup of tea, which she takes gratefully, although I suspect she might have preferred wine after whatever conversations she just endured.

“What did she have to say?” I ask, unable to help my curiosity. Foolish, really, as in mere moments I’d be suffering Tav’s inexhaustible convictions.

“Oh, plenty,” Shadowheart replies flatly. We both take a sip of our tea, then she makes a face. “Apparently, the stress is bad for the baby.”

I spit out my tea.

Coughing, spluttering, gasping for composure, I manage to wheeze, “I beg your pardon?”

Shadowheart, unbothered, waves a hand. “Oh, spare yourself the worry. She told me long ago Astarion is working with an empty quiver.” A sip. “We both know she’s a liar.” She raises her voice for Tav’s benefit, “And a brat.”

I exhale, dabbing the tea from my robes. Perhaps the wine would have been the wiser choice after all.

When I descend the stairs to find Tav already watching me—those great, burning eyes of hers locked onto me with feverish intensity—I nearly turn right back around to fetch a bottle.

“He’s not as bad as you think, you know,” she announces.

I sigh, lowering into the nearby chair, setting my book down on the table with what I already know will be misplaced optimism. There will be no quiet reading this evening.

“You told us you fought,” I remind her. “Enough that you were hurt.”

She shifts, barely perceptible, then stills completely. I’m certain she’s calculating, deciding what to admit and what she must hold back.

“Tav,” I continue, as gently as I can, “he is infinitely stronger than you now. If it were truly a fair fight, I might hold my tongue—but I think we both know it is anything but. You are at a disadvantage and I fear the cost of ignoring it.”

Her expression hardens. She scoffs, stepping back from the bars as if even looking at me is unbearable.

She’s always bristled at even the gentlest suggestion of weakness, mistaking concern and care for condescension and insult. It will make our conversation impossible.

“And might I remind you,” I press, “he’s nearly two centuries your senior. He shouldn’t be picking fights with you in the first place.”

The jury remains out on the finer mechanics of elven aging—whether wisdom accrues steadily among the long-living races, or if childishness lingers stubbornly—but surely, surely, he should know better.

Tav turns at last, cocking her head. “He says I’m mature for my age.”

A thousand protests rise to my lips, tangling over one another in the rush to be spoken. Before I can choose, Tav laughs.

“I’m only joking,” she cuts in. “Gale, I tried to kill him. Of course he fought me.”

Would that she had succeeded.

“Might I ask what came before to inspire such drastic measures?” I ask. “Because last I saw you both, you protected him as if he was your own beating heart.”

Even after they severed whatever once held them, she would lift her head in battle, eyes darting, searching for him. And when the worst did happen—when an enemy blade slipped past his defenses—something in her snapped. I once watched her tear through his assailant with such viciousness that, by the end, one could scarcely tell the wretch had been human at all.

A show of loyalty, or something far messier. He was hers to protect, whether he wanted her or not.

There were other moments, too. The night I caught her—blades trapped on each hip, bottles of holy water sloshing—readying to storm Cazador’s lair alone. It took a great deal of effort to dissuade her, and in the end, the one argument that truly struck her was the injustice of robbing Astarion of his revenge. I never breathed a word of it to anyone.

Tav’s expression changes just a fraction. I notice only because I know her face well, enough to catch emotion too tightly held back. “He’s testing me.”

I arch a brow. “How?”

She hesitates, then exhales, as if what she is about to say requires great effort. “I don’t want you to think I’m stupid for staying.” There’s something in her voice—something raw—that makes me wonder how I ever mistook her older than twenty-odd years.

I look at her evenly. “I would never think that.”

But she gives no indication she’s heard me. Instead, she shakes her head, retreating inward. She speaks no more that night. In the quiet, I find myself wishing she would.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

When she doesn’t speak a word well into the next day, we assume it is a form of silent protest.

Most of the others are relieved; the ceaseless arguments had begun to wear on them. Tav is not simply defensive—she is combative. She rails against our concern for her, accuses us of only making things worse. She claims we mistreat her, that we do not trust her, despite all she’s done for us. And she has—she has fought, bled, and cared for us in ways we may never fully repay. She never strikes at us directly, never quite makes it personal. But she edges close. So very, very close.

So when the silence begins, the others are eager to accept it as a much-needed reprieve. I alone notice that something is off.

I won’t claim any great perceptiveness—only that I missed her voice. And I worried. So I approached the bars, offering her a book or some other means of distraction, a small kindness to fill the quiet.

That was when I saw it. She had been working at the corner of the cell, chipping away at the stone with a wooden slat—a piece torn from the ceiling, repurposed into a crude but effective tool.

It takes all three of us to wrestle her down—no small feat, given her temperament—as I refuse to repeat the violation of seizing her mind.

I suspect our success may have more to do with Tav’s restraint. She does not wish to hurt us. And perhaps, more tellingly, she cannot fight as she once did. She’s been stripped down from whatever she endured at the Szarr estate, left gaunt where she was once formidable.

She’s only just beginning to gain again. Her stomach has bloated, no doubt due to her several meals of nearly raw meat—a strange predilection we’ve all agreed to entertain, perhaps born of our guilt.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

It’s on the fourth day that she manages to trick me.

Attempts come daily. Once she played dead for an entire afternoon, which I must admit was rather impressive in terms of commitment. She attempted—briefly—to wear down the rusted iron bars with a strip of leather before growing bored with the effort.

She’s also asked for soap. Repeatedly.

“She wants to use it to slip through the bars,” Jaheira had warned, arms crossed. “Is that it, cub?”

Tav only scowled.

But it is on the fourth day—well into the night, while I sit alone on my watch—that she makes her most pitiful attempt yet.

“Gale,” comes her voice, high and uncharacteristically childlike.  Frightened. “I hurt myself, I think. Will you come look?”

“Oh dear,” I reply, setting my book to aside. “Let me see, then. We’ll sort it out.”

Jaheira somehow hears this exchange from upstairs—an uncanny ability of hers, truly.

“Don’t you dare go in there,” she scolds. “The girl isn’t hurt. She’s an escape artist.”

“And what if she’s hurt herself in the attempt to do so?” I counter. “Forgive me if I’d rather not gamble on that assumption.”

Jaheira tilts her head, unimpressed. “Strange. I thought drow had keen eyes in the dark, Tav. Why, then, can you not tell if you’re bleeding?”

Tav scoffs. “Because we see in shades of gray, not color. And I’m too caked in grime to know where the blood starts and the filth ends, thanks to your stinginess with the soap.”

I’ll grant Jaheira this— it’s extremely suspicious.

“I’m not asking you to come in,” Tav insists. “Just…please look at it. Through the bars is fine. I think I’ve cut my wrist.”

Jaheira shoots me a withering look from the stairs. I shrug, helplessly.

And yet, as I approach the cells, I feel it—a whisper of forewarning, a quiet ripple of something off. Tav’s red eyes glint in the darkness, catching the lamplight just enough to remind me that she can see me perfectly while I must strain to see her.

“Come closer,” I urge. “If this is some elaborate ruse, I shall be terribly embarrassed, so you know.” But I’d rather be embarrassed than negligent.

And so, when she steps forward, into the light, I am ready for smug self-recrimination. Ready to be mocked for my soft heart and poor judgment.

Instead, I see it—blood, welling from a wound at her wrist.

She clutches it, looking up at me with those impossibly enormous eyes, and I sigh, muttering something in appraisal. Unthinkingly, I jut my arm through the bars, expecting her to extend her own so that I can get a better look.

An error.

The moment my arm is inside, she moves.

She seizes me, hauls me forward in a swift, brutal motion. Her arm snakes through the bars, wrapping tight around my neck—constricting. And there, in her other hand, I notice a sharp implement. It looks as if she’s carved a small part of the bars into a shiv.

“Sorry, Gale,” she whispers sheepishly. And then, louder: “Jaheira, come open the door.”

Jaheira, to my immediate dismay, does not leap into action. Instead, she settles herself on the steps, propping her chin in her hand

“Or what, cub?” she asks, entirely unbothered. “You’ll stick your finger up his nose?”

I would laugh, truly—if not for the very sharp point of Tav’s little craft pressing uncomfortably close to my eye.

“Erm—” I begin, eyeing it warily, but Tav cuts me off.

“I’ll slit his throat,” she warns.

Jaheira sighs, sounding almost indulgent. “We’re not stupid,” she says breezily. “You can barely stand disappointing him. Now you intend to slit his throat?”

I am about to argue—on principle, at least—that Tav seems perfectly content to argue with me, yell at me, and now threaten me—when I hear an exceedingly petulant sound of dismay, a little like a pout.

And then, just like that, I am released.

I stumble back, coughing, hands flying instinctively to my throat despite the fact that no real damage has been done. The sharp implement—whatever that was—is gone, vanished back into Tav’s sleeve or wherever she keeps these little tools of mischief. We’ll have to find some way to get it from her later.

Dismayed—and, if I am being honest, a little shaken by what has just transpired—Jaheira and I retreat upstairs.

“We’ll have to get Halsin here,” she says. “Minsc, if I can find him, though I doubt I will. I’m not sure you and Shadowheart can handle her on your own.”

“You’re leaving?” I ask.

“Only for a few days—Harper business,” she says. But there’s something else beneath the words, something unsettled. I haven’t heard it in a long time.

I do not ask about it. Jaheira is a dear and steadfast friend, but she is a Harper before all else.

Notes:

I made a few choices here that I'm not sure about.
First off, I broke my usual rule of sticking to a single POV per chapter. I’ve had feedback before that POV shifts in my writing can be disorienting, so I’m aware this might be a point of confusion. In the future I will try my best to stick to one.
Second, I originally intended to cut the entire 'intervention' subplot—but I ended up keeping it. It felt important to show Tav’s connections beyond the estate, and how those relationships might both limit and broaden what she considers to be her options in her situation. The rest of the band plays a much larger role later in the story, and I needed a way to keep them present in the narrative for now.

Also, I may start posting more frequently as I’m approaching the end of what I have written for this installment (not everything I’ve posted, but what’s already drafted in Word).

ANYWAYS i also might have more time to write becauuuUuse the strip club asked me to do promo so I'm going to quit :) FUCK doing promo. I. Am. A. Middle-of-the-road. Bartender. Not a promoter. Who would I promote to? My 800 instagram following consisting of my graduating class, my moms friends, and broke bar flies?
at least my weekends wont consist of me staring like this
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at this
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Chapter 12: The Prisoner II

– Gale –

Tav, ever perceptive, has identified me as the weakest link.

Jaheira is gone, and even before her departure, she had no patience for Tav’s ploys. Shadowheart deflects with teasing. Halsin Tav has always mistrusted. I once overheard Astarion asking her why, in the early days, and she quite candidly explained she didn’t like anyone that much larger than her.

That leaves me—far too prone to discussion, too willing to engage with her reasoning.

At present, she is mid-rant, railing again against our supposed concern for her, arguing—rather convincingly—that all we have done is make things worse.

“He’ll wonder what I said to you,” she insists. “He’ll think I lied, exaggerated.”

She doesn’t pace as she speaks, though pacing would suit her monologue. Instead, she merely leans forward, head pushed through the bares, gaze unblinking.

“You have to give me back.”

There’s something about that word, give, that I greatly mislike. An ownership.

“He’s not your captor,” I chide. “Nor your lord. He’s supposed to be your…” I falter, at a loss for a term that could possibly encapsulate their strange and deeply concerning relationship.

“Lover,” she provides dryly.

I shudder.

“You deserve kindness, Tav,” I press on. “Love is not meant to hurt like this. Whatever this is—it is something else entirely.”                      

She looks at me, faintly puzzled, as if I am the one who has misunderstood. “Love is trusting someone with the knife,” she insists. “If they choose to strike, you cannot turn the blade away.”

Oddly poetic for Tav. I can only hope it isn’t a verse he’s fed her.

“Love is trust, yes,” I say quietly. “It is trust that no hand you love would ever wield it against you.”

It’s talk of blades, of course, that give her pause, that finally brings her to sit and consider what’s been said.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Jaheira returns with ill tidings.

“’Lord Ancunín’ has attacked Harper safehouses,” she reveals. “Three have already fallen.”

A hush settles between us. Not for lack of questions—how is he finding them? How much damage has been done? How are the Harpers responding? —but for what her words truly mean.

Jaheira is High Harper. No matter what fondness she might feel toward Tav, it will never overshadow her obligation to her people.

And if the Harpers are in danger, then so too is her family.

“No,” Shadowheart declares. “You can drag me back to the Sharrans before I hand her over to him.”

Tav has made her fear of punishment abundantly clear. We don’t know what will happen to her if we do.

“I’m not suggesting it,” Jaheira replies evenly. “You know I’ll do everything in my power not to.”

“The Harpers are not the only ones with safe havens in this world,” Halsin offers. “The wilds hold plenty of refuge. Take her elsewhere, beyond Baldur’s Gate.”

A druid’s response.

Jaheira shakes her head. “Moving her changes nothing. How would he know to stop hunting Harper safehouses?” she asks. “If he doesn’t have her, he’ll keep looking. We’d only be making more work for ourselves.”

We’d only be placing more people in danger, perhaps only prolonging the inevitable.  

“Let me think on this,” Jaheira concludes, though her expression tells me the thinking has been done and yielded nothing good.

 

Later, I descend the stairs, finding Tav where I suspected she would be—pressed to the edge of her cell, listening.

“I heard all of that,” she says. “You’re letting her throw away Harper assets over someone who doesn’t even need protection. How many have lost sanctuary for this foolishness?”

How many indeed? Not people I know, not people I love—but people nonetheless.

“Let me speak with Jaheira,” Tav insists.

Tav’s pleas and brainwashed arguments have done nothing to move Jaheira, but this cruel calculus, the weight of lives lost and spent, just might. And though I understand the futility, some part of me wants nothing more than to keep them apart

“The people the Harpers shelter are nothing to me,” Tav continues. “But I won’t be the reason you get hurt. I’ve done too much to keep you safe—all of you. You’re throwing it away.”

It is then that I realize something of her arguments. This isn’t about the Harpers, nor Tav, not really.

“I can’t help but notice,” I begin, watching her carefully, “that not once have you told me you want to go back. You speak only of avoiding punishment, of sparing us. Tell me, if his anger were not a factor, if there was no threat—would you return? Or would you finally admit this is no way to live?”

“The spawn need me.”

Ah, there it is. For someone who claims to be bereft of both conscience and moral compass, Tav spends an inordinate amount of energy safeguarding others. Why she feels this responsibility—and how she determines who she owes it to—I cannot say.

“And if there were no spawn?” I press.  

“He needs me too,” she insists, stubborn as ever. “Just as I need him. This thing between us…you cannot understand. It’s impossible.”

Impossibly frustrating, I’d like to tell her. But she’s looking at me with those large red eyes, as if hoping—praying—I might understand.

“We know each other,” she continues. “It’s a rare thing.”

“Others could know you,” I suggest. “But you have to allow them the chance.”

She pulls back, shaking her head. “I don’t want them to,” she says. “This conversation is pointless. Tell Jaheira to come speak with me before he murders more Harpers.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

It’s not long before Tav gets Jaheira down there. From my bed, I catch fragments of their hushed conversation in the early morning.

“Dozens of innocents for one drow,” she’s telling Jaheira. “Not to mention the Harper networks in shambles. Even if you’re too stubborn to concede, your people won’t be. They’ll turn against you. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

Jaheira is unimpressed. “Let me guess—you’re suggesting we set you loose?”

“It serves you best,” Tav replies. “I know how to lie to him. I can come up with something to see you all free of this. The attacks on the Harpers will stop, and I’ll no longer be in your hair.”

“Perhaps I like having you back in my hair,” Jaheira suggests wryly.

Something about this angers Tav. She nearly snaps. “You don’t have to pretend as if I’m one of your orphans. I know what I am.”

“Has he been making you feel like a burden?”

A pause. “I am a burden,” Tav admits. “Listen, it’s always easier to walk away. People don’t act like this unless they care.”

Couldn’t she see the same applied to us?

“They don’t kill, you mean?”

Tav sighs, tired. “If I were nothing to him, I would be the one killed,” she replies. “It would be far simpler for him, believe me.”

“Give him time, cub.”

“I want to live,” Tav presses. “You must trust that I will do whatever is needed, and that I know things you don’t.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Another safehouse falls. Jaheira informs Tav, although I’m uncertain why. Perhaps she expects some insight, some strategy only Tav might see. Or perhaps, on some level, she’s simply curious as to how Tav will react.

She does not react, not in any way that matters.

“He’ll not tire of this,” she says. “Ever. Hand me over. You know it’s the right choice.”

 

Later that night, a crash awakes me.

I am uncertain whether I am the only one who hears it, or if the others do as well but prefer to feign sleep, leaving me to be the one to investigate. Jaheira leaves for some business early in the morning, and Halsin has returned to Reithwin for a time. Either way, when I rise and descend the stairs, I do so alone.

Tav’s cell is in disarray. Broken furniture, splintered wood, the remnants of that which she shattered before, cast once more into chaos. She paces within the wreckage, a caged beast.

When she looks at me, it is with wild eyes.

She makes a pained animal noise. “You left me down here,” she accuses, sounding quite mad. “You said you’d take turns—that I wouldn’t be alone.”

This was spoken, yes, but as no promise to her. We were discussing the best way to ensure she didn’t escape.

She spits out a long string of Drow cursing. I recognize only variations of vith, the Drow equivalent of fuck, which I can only guess she is wielding as noun, verb, adjective, and intensifier.

She is not speaking to me, not really. I am merely the only one who came. Still, I try to make amends.

“I’m sorry, Tav,” I tell her. Someone must have forgotten their shift—perhaps drifted off, or wandered upstairs half-conscious. “It won’t happen again. I’ll make certain of that.”

She does not acknowledge the apology. She keeps pacing, her breathing shallow, her thoughts unraveling aloud.

“I swore no one would ever do this to me again,” she rambles. “I put two bolts in him for even daring to jest, do you realize?” She laughs bitterly. “You’re worse than him.”

I keep silent. Something is going on here that I don’t understand. And without the right knowledge, without the right questions, I do not dare risk asking the wrong one.  

“You all act as if you’re so much better than us, but then you do the same things,” she goes on. “You and Eredune—”

I still, my fingers tightening around the banister. It is not often she speaks of Menzoberranzan, but I’m fairly certain I know that name.

“Your matron?” I ask. I know only fragments—she served a matron there, her lover, and it ended poorly. And I suspect, given the treatment she tolerates from Astarion, this matron was unkind to her.

She nods, furious. It seems as if her anger is alive, a disease wracking her body, a possession barely contained.

Without warning, she throws herself against the bars.

The sound is thunderous, the metal groaning under the impact. I take an instinctive step back, my footing uncertain, and fall onto the previous step.

“Open this, now,” she growls.

“Tav—” I start, but I do not know how to end it. A selfish part of me wants to tell her that she is frightening me, and I wish she would stop. “Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

She screams again, this time in Drow.

“I would love to be of some use here, but my Drow is woefully lacking,” I say nervously, words hollow. The civility is very much at odds with the berserk drow I’m speaking with. “You’ll have to tell me—help me understand.”

When she hurls herself at the bars a second time, I turn for the stairs.

Not out of fear—not entirely—but because I can’t bear to watch her break herself against the iron of the cell. I refuse to seize her mind as I did that first day, refuse to wrench control from her with the force of my will, but perhaps I have other means of helping her

I snatch my components belt from where I laid it the night before, hands clumsy in my haste. I reach for the fireplace, my fingers dipping into the remnants of last night’s fire, and with a smear of soot against my palm, I turn and bolt back down the stairs.

My eyes widen. She is beating her head against the bars, quite violently. Like a lunatic, some part of me supplies.

I force myself to ignore the bile creeping up on my throat, force myself to ignore the sound of what is happening ahead, and reach for another pinch of material—this time, salt from my pouch.

The words of the spell come automatically, the working familiar, steadying my hands and mind. Comprehend Languages is no grand invocation, no dazzling feat of arcana, but any magic washing over me would be a comfort at present.

And it allows me to understand her. I catch a string of her rambling.

“<I won’t be caged again—I won’t be shut away as if I’m a girl again, like some beast! I’d rather die than spend another second—>”

She’s still hurting her face.

“<Tav, stop it!>” The words rip from my throat before I can temper them.

She jerks back, startled by the Drow slipping from my lips.

“<For the love of the gods, stop—please. Stop hurting yourself, and I’ll let you out. You have my word.>”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

When Shadowheart finds me upstairs in the morning, she is disappointed.

As I discovered—rather belatedly—it was my shift that had gone unmanned last night. A simple error, or so I thought: reading too late into the night, not sleeping long enough, nodding blearily when Shadowheart roused me for my watch, then promptly collapsing back into unconsciousness the moment she left.

When she sees me, she knows my post is empty.

Her disappointment grows into shock when her eyes fall on the chair beside me, to Tav curled into herself, fast asleep beneath three blankets. Tav who should be in a cell, and has been trying everything in her power to escape the safehouse.

Before Shadowheart can open her mouth, I lift a finger to my lips and gesture to the door.

Slowly—painstakingly so—I rise from my chair and creep away, Shadowheart close behind. The handle turns beneath my fingers, the wood creaks ever so slightly as I ease it shut, and we slip out into the hall.

Shadowheart keeps glancing over her shoulder, no doubt expecting Tav to be right behind us, mid-escape.

Only when we are far enough from the door does Shadowheart finally speak. “She didn’t run.” A statement, not question, though in disbelief. “Did you cast something on her?”

I sigh. Part of me considers lying, as I know Shadowheart won’t trust Tav to stay docile. And perhaps she’s right not to.

There is also, admittedly, the embarrassment of letting her out myself. They already think me naïve after the last time.

The image of Tav slamming her head against the bars, over and over, comes unbidden. My stomach turns. I don’t want to repeat it aloud, even if just to spare myself from thinking it, let alone for the sake of Tav’s dignity. But I must make Shadowheart understand.

“I’m beginning to think I cannot, in good conscience, condone keeping her confined,” I say at last.

Shadowheart is already groaning.

“Please. Just… hear me,” I plead. “Even before tonight, I think we all felt this… unease. Whether we chose to admit it or not, something about this has never sat right—”

“Gale, we know its wrong,” Shadowheart cuts in, exasperated. “But letting her crawl back to him? That is far worse. Are you truly having a crisis of conscience now—now—when we’re this close? I’ve been listening to the two of you, she’s finally starting to see reason.”

A little generous, perhaps, but I did sense a shift. Still, it doesn’t change what I saw.

My lips press tight as I consider my next words. “She—she hurt her face,” I manage. “Whatever our good intentions, I think this is making her unwell.”

Shadowheart looks at me, dubious, amused. “Jaheira’s right—you really do see what you want to see in her,” she says wryly. “She’s not some porcelain doll, you know. I’ve seen what’s in her head. The cell’s not going to be what undoes her.”

“You glimpsed her memories with the tadpole?” I ask. “May I ask what you saw?”

Shadowheart considers. “Fighting and screaming, mostly. Menzoberranzan, though it might as well have been the Abyss,” she says. “A ridiculous amount of looking at her swords. Cobwebs, a little yellow-white spider. A…a cell.” Sheepish, she moves on quickly. “And a noblewoman. Her matron, no doubt.”

“And from what vantage did these memories come?” I ask. “Was she looking up at the world around her?”

Shadowheart frowns. “Yes. She’s rather short, if you haven’t noticed,” she says dryly. “What are you getting at?”

I’m not sure I can speak it

So instead, I say, “Tav is quite young, is she not?”

Shadowheart nods, eyes narrowing slightly.

“She served her matron quite young too, then. Much too young.” I pause, gauging her comprehension. “I suspect you understand what I mean?”

At first, she does not. I see the way her brow knots, the way she parses my words.

Her brow creases. “She told me she was eighteen when it began.”

I shake my head. “She served as consort for four years,” I remind her. “And if that was a promotion, it implies a considerable tenure before that—years, most likely.”

Meaning she was a concubine before. The dates and ages change constantly, but regardless, the implication hangs in the air.

“Oh, Tav,” Shadowheart murmurs sadly.

I nod. “Astarion once asked her to be his consort,” I continue. Every word feels uncomfortable, wrong. “It’s the only time she ever refused him. And I don’t think it was simply because she feared becoming spawn.”

Disgust flashes across Shadowheart face, brief but undeniable. “And let me guess,” she says. “Both Astarion and this matron had her caged?”

“Not Astarion,” I admit, though Tav told me he’d taunted her with it. “Only the matron. And now, regrettably, us.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Tav is gone.

Shadowheart bolts for the front door while I take the rear, splitting into the street, curses on our tongues.

An hour passes in our frantic searching—scanning every alley, every shadow while I curse myself. Why hadn’t I placed a tracking spell, some simple enchantment her boots or Cazador’s fang? I wouldn’t be combing the city like a blind fool.

She’s picked quite possibly the perfect time of year to escape—it’s Tarsakh 30, the spring equinox, and the Greengrass festival is in full swing. The streets teem with drunk celebrants and revelers—Vergadain’s faithful peddle their wares, Shialla’s dancers spin past me with foxes and fawns at their heels, and followers of Milil sing the Call to the Flowers so loudly my hands clap over my ears. They smile indulgently when I ask after a drow woman and wish me luck with a wink, thinking I’ve lost my friend in the crowd or had a quarrel with my sweetheart.

Shadowheart berates me on the stoop of the safehouse. I do not argue. I brace for Jaheira to do the same the moment she finds out.

When we come back into the safehouse, we find Tav curled up in Shadowheart’s bed.

 

She sleeps for an entire day. She’s barely slept in the cell really, only in shallow bursts, always ready to try some new angle at escape. I suspect it’s a relief to turn her mind off.

When she finally wakes, her face is swollen—puffy from too much sleep, mottled with the bruises she earned the night before. She regards us with narrowed eyes and demands to know where the real cold cellar is. She disappears into the cellar without another word, and when she returns, it’s with a slab of rothé steak.

She places it directly over the stove for a heartbeat—just long enough for the meat to consider being cooked—then flips it over with her bare hand. Another heartbeat, and then she pulls it away entirely, settling into a chair with the steaming steak gripped in both hands, no plate, no cutlery, no care for the grease smearing her fingers.

“Why did you do that to your face?” asks Shadowheart.

Tav shrugs. “I got frustrated.”

“For a moment we believed you were gone,” I confess.

Tav raises the slab of steak to her lips and sucks the juice from it.

Shadowheart and I exchange glances. For a wild moment, I wonder if she’s been made spawn after all, but then she tears into it, ripping, and I realize its impossible. Spawn only drink blood —and wine, curiously, though why that exception exists, I’ve never dared ask Astarion.

“You did me a good turn, loosing me,” Tav explains, chewing. “I don’t want you punished for it. They got you in trouble after I left Jaheira’s last, didn’t they?’

Shadowheart leans back, arms crossed. “I see. Does that mean you’ve delayed your grand escape?”

Tav ignores her. “There are people screaming outside.”

“They’re not screaming,” Shadowheart begins to object—but Tav is right. They are.

I glance toward the window. Devotees of Loviatar are engaged in what I recognize as the Rite of Pain and Purity: a ceremonial dance across a ring of broken glass and caltrops. The priestesses smile beatifically through it. The novices, less practiced, cry out in anguish.

 

We settle on the balcony and watch them for a time.

Tav seems nonplussed by their pain. “Want to play Three-Dragon Ante?”

It’s difficult to refuse her—impossible, really—when she’s spent the last week seething, disappointed, betrayed. And now, here she is, hesitantly optimistic—as much as Tav can emote—her face still swollen with bruises but looking like herself.

The next thing I know, we’re dutifully fetching her coin purse, and soon, we are playing cards.

I tell myself she’s trying to distract herself. Or perhaps she’s lulling us into a false sense of security. It wouldn’t be the first time. But still, I allow it. I miss the simpler times. I taught her to play Three-Dragon Ante, after all.

For a time, it feels almost normal. The three of us hunched over the table, cards shuffling, coins clinking after being tossed in the plant pot— repurposed into a betting pool after Tav upended its original contents over the balcony, claiming it was dying anyway.

She leans back in her chair with her hand, her hand fanned out before her, looking satisfied despite her losing streak When she tires of losing—which doesn’t take long—she asks us about the various celebrants and their gods, coaxing me into lecture so she can steal glances at my hand.

 

When the balcony door slams, none of us react immediately. The spell of merriment holds for a second longer than it should.

Jaheira is standing there, expression grim.

I brace myself for a lecture—I let Tav out, after all—but Jaheira barely spares her a glance. Which means this isn’t about that. Another safehouse compromised? Trouble in the city? Her family?

Behind her cards, Tav exhales.

“Oh,” she says flatly. “He’s here, isn’t it?”

“No,” Shadowheart says in disbelief.

But Jaheira nods.

“Is he coming in?” Tav asks.

“He shouldn’t be,” Jaheira replies. “He agreed to wait outside, though we’ll see if he keeps his word.”

She leans over the balcony rail, eyes scanning the alley below and the far side of the safehouse, searching.

A breath passes. Then, briskly, she turns back, snatches up her coin purse, and disappears inside without a word.

We are quick to follow.

“Don’t let him see that cell,” Tav instructs sharply. “Send me out alone. I’ll tell him I left on my own accord, that I misled you all. I told you I’m hiding from Artor Morlin. That is the story. Understand?”

Shadowheart bristles. “You’ll just offer yourself up like a lamb to a wolf then?” she hisses. “Brilliant. I’m sure he’ll take you back as if you’re a lost pet. Thi—”

“Don’t ever call me that,” Tav snaps.

The room stills for a fraction of a moment at here outburst, but we don’t have time for shock. The threat is too near.

“Tav,” I call gently.

She doesn’t stop fastening her coin purse, fingers moving in a nervous scramble, but she glances up.

“You have other choices,” I tell her. “There are paths that don’t end with you walking back to him. If you go now, I fear you won’t get the chance to leave again.”

She hesitates. A breath, a pause—but it is enough to seize upon.

Jaheira leans against the wall casually, though I know she’s minding the door. “He’s not wrong,” she agrees. “Say Astarion believes you. Then what? You’re at his mercy, and we’ll have no way to get you out again.”

Tav looks to Jaheira. “I told you I want to live. You have to trust me.”

“We have a cleric of Selûne, Mystra’s Chosen, a two-blade prodigy, and the High Harper,” Shadowheart insists. “I’d say our odds against one pompous leech are quite good.”

Jaheira and I are already nodding.

“If you lay a hand on him, I’ll lose my mind,” Tav intones tiredly.

Shadowheart sputters, affronted. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not a threat—only the truth,” Tav cuts in. “I’m not pleased with it either. Now—where are my things?”

No one makes a move to help her. Tav curses in Drow, charging off to look for them.

“Usstan tlun vith'ez ticondo d'nindol,” she complains. “A week. A week I spent in your cell, and now not one of you will lift a finger to help—”

Her voice falters and her steps still.

For the second time, the door opens while we are distracted with each other.

Astarion stands in the threshold, looking well-kept as ever in a fine black doublet. He cocks his head, gaze sweeping over us, with a smile that shows teeth.

“Gale, Jaheira, Shadowheart,” he greets, all fake cheer. “What a surprise. I must say, I didn’t expect to see you again, especially like this.”

Then, as if the entire room no longer matters—

“Hello, darling.”

She doesn’t quite run to him, but it’s close.

Yet in mere moments, she is before him, and he is already reaching—threading a hand through her hair, cradling the back of her head, pulling her into his chest. He presses his lips to the crown of her head.

The display would be nauseously sweet, if under different circumstances. But the entire time, his eyes remain on us, grinning slyly, like a man who thinks he’s won.

I force myself to remain still, to school my expression into something neutral. I imagine Shadowheart and Jaheira do the same, though I do not dare glance their way.

Astarion hums—pleased, indulgent. His fingers curl slightly where they rest against the back of her head.

He tsks. “My poor thing,” he croons, just shy of affectionate. “Have they been treating you well? No, I suppose not—look at you.” His fingers trail along one of the fresh bruises. “You’re hurt.”

Tav shakes her head quickly. “That was me,” she says. “Let’s go home. Please.”

Shadowheart shifts. “Tav—”

“I believe she can speak for herself,” Astarion interjects, smoothly, sharply, but without so much a glance in Shadowheart’s direction. His eyes remain locked on Tav, and hers on him. A standoff. “Can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” Tav replies. “No need to linger. Let’s go. Now.”

His knuckles brush her cheek, inspecting the bruises there. “Go get your things. I’ve been very patient.”

Tav pulls away, gaze flicking around the room. I can see her weighing the variables, measuring the risks. Who, left alone with him, will be the greatest problem?

“Shadowheart,” she decides at last, gesturing for her to help gather her things.

Shadowheart rises reluctantly, throwing us one last glance before stepping away.

“The bruises are her own doing, I’m aware,” Astarion remarks offhandedly. “As tempting as it would be to make you all sweat for the absolute headache you’ve caused me, I know none of you have the spine to lay a hand on her.”

Oh, but he does, doesn’t he? He’s done it already.

“Tav does seem rather prone to injury these days,” I remark. “Should we be concerned it happens so readily in your company?”

Astarion laughs—sharp, mirthless. Already I feel some needless cruelty coming. “Oh, you’ve noticed? What can I say—she likes it rough.”

And just like that, I know. I hate him.

Not in the passing, impersonal way. It’s ugly, deep. In my heart there is a volatile reaction, and when it settles, it leaves behind something hard and immutable.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I fail to laugh,” I say carefully. “Some of us actually care if she lives or dies.”

Astarion’s eyes narrow, his lips curling—not quite a sneer, not quite a smile. “You’ve always liked the view from your high horse, haven’t you?” he muses. “Tell me, did you know where she was living before this?”

I stiffen.

“Nowhere,” he finishes, eyes gleaming.  “And not even one of you had the faintest clue. Some friends you are.”

His eyes dart to Jaheira—watching, judging.

“But yes, by all means, do go on about how deeply you care.”

I exhale. “I presume it goes without saying that I never approved?” I ask, my voice steady.

Astarion smirks. “I had a sense,” he replies, so very pleased with himself. “Though I can hardly blame you. I did go straight for the throat—quite literally, on that first night.”

“I pretended, of course, for politeness’ sake,” I continue smoothly. As one does for the sake of civility. I knew there was something there I didn’t understand, though I hope, naively, it would burn out as quickly as it sparked.

I hadn’t had friends before our group, not truly. Tara, yes. Elminster, in his way. By consequence, I hoisted Tav up on quite the pedestal when I met her. She was brave, reckless, exotic, Mystra’s rival. He, by comparison, was merely a pasty-faced rake with a well-rehearsed smirk.

She only made it worse, when I asked. I questioned why she gave him blood whenever he pleased, until it left her pale and unsteady. Why she allowed it, even after he’d nearly killed her that first night.

Tav looked at me as if I were stupid, and said she’d learned, very young, that you had to forgive to stop people from leaving—and prove that they needed you, so they’d never want to in the first place.

“But then I overheard the two of you,” I admit. “When we camped at Rivington, talking.”

“Rivington,” Astarion muses. “She was teaching me to curse in Drow.” There’s something like fondness there.

“She was asking you questions about Common and the surface because she didn’t want to sound foolish in the city,” I continue.

Some of the things she asked were so painfully obvious it must have tested every ounce of his restraint, and yet he never mocked her. He never made her feel small. Never laughed at her, even when the rest of us, in our lesser moments, had.

Tav once commented on it. Yes, there’s no higher comedy than mocking a foreigner. Now that I’d considered it, that was almost certainly his line, something he’d given her, a ready retort for the next time someone tried to make her the joke.

Jaheira watches me, impassive, no doubt wondering where I’m going with this.

“You were kind to her in a way I didn’t expect,” I say.

She was nervous, so he’d asked her to teach him Drow instead. He let her tease him on his pronunciation, even though her Common was atrocious. Even eavesdropping, it was obvious—painfully so—that he’d done it just to make her laugh.

There were other moments.

When Minthara joined us, she took every opportunity to assert her dominance by berating Tav—and Tav took it, too used to the drow laws of station. She never spoke back, and we never stood up for her either, though we should have. I should have. Politeness, discomfort, cowardice—it hardly matters. What does matter is that it wasn’t until Astarion, of all people, snapped that anything changed.

Then the flamberge. Tav spotted it on a Zhentarim mercenary, delighted by the strange make. I caught Astarion slipping it into his gauntlet not long after, expression carefully blank. Days later, I saw Tav playing with it.

Then, when we first arrived in Baldur’s Gate, Tav suffered some sort of nervous fit at the gates, fearing she had walked into another Menzoberranzan, and he noticed before anyone else. He made some excuse—something in her teeth, some meaningless nothing—and whisked her away. I didn’t follow, but I heard his voice, low and gentle like I’d never heard it before, guiding her through the panic. Breath by breath. Her hand on his chest. His hand over hers.

There was love there once, not obsession, or fixation, or whatever was between them now.

I exhale, measured. “I’ll try my best to remember you like that.”

Jaheira pushes herself from the wall, a hand travelling to her pommel. She thinks something is about to happen.

Astarion tilts his head, amusement sharpening.  “Remember me?” he echoes. “I’m not going anywhere, seeing as I’m rather eternal. Are you trying to imply something?

“What I’m implying, Astarion, is that Tav will inevitably tire of this ordeal and slit your throat as you sleep,” I explain wearily. “Frankly, she’s already most of the way there.”

Tav and Shadowheart emerge from the basement, breaking the eerie silence that has fallen over us. Astarion stares at me with barely concealed rage—disguised only thinly by his usual veneer of smugness.

“Astunin,” Tav calls in Drow. The word is close to his own name, but by the softness in her voice, I imagine it’s a pet name of some kind.

It breaks the spell. I suspect this was her intent. His focus shifts, drawn to her—the real prize. As she nears, he takes her by the wrist, grip light but possessive.

“Well,” he declares, “this has been fun. But I do believe we’ll be on our way.”

 

It is later, when I return to the basement to retrieve the pouch I left behind, I find my salt spilled. Not scattered, but arranged, words formed in the grains. A message.

 

Waterdeep

Notes:

The plan (if she has one, who's to say?) is now cooking.

Sorry that not much happens in this one. At the time of writing, I felt it was necessary to pacing, but it may have dragged on in the end.

Writing from different character POVs has been fun, trying to nail their individual voice.

On a personal note, I’m worried I robbed the strip club by accident last night.
So I gave my notice to the manager, and he asked to keep me on payroll so when the business is lucrative I could be an auxiliary bartender. That’s all fine and good and kind of flattering since it means he thinks I’m alright at my job. BUT I got fucked over and had to work at shift tonight.
I walked home with $500
There is no conceivable way I could have made that much money. It was dead, the tip out to house is massive, and people were not generous. And yet I counted the tills three times over.
What the fuck happened?
Anyways I also fell in love with one of the dancers. We shared an uber and I turned bright red talking to her. One of those weird people who are like immediately likeable and radiate charisma. By contrast I have zero game and I’m supposed to be straight.

Chapter 13: The War Prize

– Tav –

“I heard your friends tried to kidnap you,” teases Fen. “And naturally, the master had to come swooping in to save you—”

I shove him, hard. He flies into the wall. Skinny people shouldn’t pick fights.

Annoyingly, however, he’s more durable than he looks. He recovers almost instantly, dusting himself off before pressing on, “Did you at least properly thank your gallant rescuer on the carriage ride?” His voice pitches into a ridiculous falsetto, and he mimes getting railed. “Oh ussta astunin, ohhh—”

I pretend to strangle him, but really I only shake him a little until he shuts up. The grin is still plastered to his face.

“Mmm, that’s rather nice,” he hums, unbothered. “Next time, a little longer, if you please?”

 

It’s been four days since my ‘rescue’ from the Harper safehouse, and the first time I’ve seen any of the spawn.

I’ve been all but locked in Astarion’s chambers, ‘properly thanking’ my rescuer for the last few days. He’s been more than happy to collect on his efforts.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I tried to disguise my stiffness as we walked to the carriage, my mind racing to stitch together the proper lies. The bruises were an unfortunate complication, a detail I hadn’t accounted for. I hadn’t planned them, but I couldn’t bear being caged a moment longer.

I braced for rage or a sneering lecture the moment we stepped into the carriage. But Astarion said nothing. He simply pulled a cloak around me and pressed me to his side, holding me firm, not saying anything. Occasionally he’d pull me closer and rub my arm absentmindedly.

It threw me completely.

It kept up for what felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.

“So,” he murmured. “Your ‘friends’ locked you up—just as your matron did before. Even as you kicked and screamed, I’m sure. But they knew best, didn’t they?”

“I went willingly,” I insisted, staring ahead.

Astarion scoffed. “Oh, spare me,” he’d said. “You think I didn’t hear your little exchange from the hallway, shouting as you were? You quite loudly announced your intentions to lie to me for all their sake.”  

I stiffened, bracing for one of his tirades.

Instead, his fingers curled beneath my chin, tilting my face up, forcing me to look at him.

For a moment I thought he might kiss me.

Worse, I realized I wanted him to.

My mind was tangled, twisted in ways I couldn’t quite grasp. Part of me was grateful he came for me, despite everything. Despite how I feared him, what he might do. I didn’t like being locked up.

“Now do you finally see?” he asked, staring into my eyes. “They don’t care about you. You were never their equal. Just another wounded thing to mend, so they can feel good about themselves.”

There was nowhere to hide my doubt, my disappointment. Those weren’t new thoughts, they were the same justifications I had used when deciding what truths to keep from them.

Astarion let me go, turning forward once more. “You shouldn’t waste your loyalty on them.” His thumb stroked my cheek fleetingly. “They don’t deserve it.”

The way he touched me then—it was different. Very much unlike his usual performance, the curated seduction. Often when he touched me, I felt like how he thought it should feel or look, not how he wanted it to.

I knew the difference. I had grown up in a pleasurehouse, after all.

Whatever the change, I was hungry for it. I seized one of his hands and pressed it to my cheek once more.

“What in the nine hells did you do to your face?” he asked, fingers feeling the swelling.

I paused, weighing my options. He already knew that I’d been taken against my will or at least kept there against my will. I should be doing damage control, softening my friends’ actions, pruning away any details that might incite him further.

But, almost as if uncontrollable, I blurted the truth. “Gale wouldn’t let me out so I staged a fit.”

“Oh?” he said. “How?”

I pulled back from him. He watched intently as I began to mime, grabbing the bars with one hand, then the other. A pause, then I jerked my head forward, slamming into them.

He laughed, half amusement, half horror. “You didn’t. Again?”

I nodded. I used the same con on Eredune’s guards when she was away, until they’d learned better. It was far more effective on colnbluth, it seemed, and I was quite good at it. Easy to put on such a show when the line between faking a fit and having a real one was needle thin.

“How many times did you try to get away?” Astarion asked.

“Every day,” I confessed, frustrated I hadn’t succeeded.

I almost startled when his hands slowly glided up my legs.

His gaze raked at my body hungrily. “Mmm. And what did you do to try?”

I hesitated, sensing—somewhat, or at least I thought—where it was going, but not the why.

Though confused, I knew it was best to humor him, so I recounted my escape attempts as Astarion lifted my legs onto his lap and pulled me closer. I was half-way through a retelling of my fourth attempt when at last I understood.

To him, this was flattery. Proof of how desperately I fought to be back in his arms. The more I resisted them, the more he believed I belonged to him. He was too narcissistic to realize I’d wanted my own freedom.

It was a little pathetic, quite honestly.

But he was touching me in all the ways I liked, setting me down on the carriage seat, hands roaming as if on their own accord, lips exploring my neck. I’d let him think it was flattery if this was the trade. I opened for him.

He rested a head on my thigh as he lapped at me slowly, agonizingly slow, stopping only to nip the flesh of my thighs. Unhurried, he kissed messily between my legs, and when I could help but clamp my thighs down, he’d laugh and wrench them apart, holding me open, vulnerable.

The memory came unbidden of the vampires doing the same as Artesia watched helplessly. But as quickly as it surfaced, I crushed it, shoving it down into the same place I put all the others.

In moments I was shuddering, his arms holding me down as the carriage jostled. When I came far faster than either of us expected, Astarion grinned, crooning in my ear, “Poor thing. I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I?”

That was how I ended up in his chambers for four days.

I knew he’d want me close the night of my return—to watch me, to assure himself he’d won and I was still his. And I, in turn, wanted more of what had happened in the carriage. He was a far less generous lover since he ascended, prone to being rough and selfish, but his skill had never waned.

Servants drew me a bath. We had sex in the tub, then against the cool marble, then finally in his bed. Exhausted, I drifted in and out of uneasy sleep.

In the morning, servants brought food. Astarion watched me eat, smiling fondly.

When I made a passing remark about returning to my duties, seeing to whatever mess awaited me in my absence, Astarion only pouted, complaining that he was hungry too.

I should have refused him, but I didn’t know how. A part of me worries what might happen when I deny him, how much it might anger him. He can’t do anything against my will if I’m always willing.

But I worry. More venom in my blood. I don’t know what it does, what it could do, and it’s not as if I can ask him for answers. I cannot tell him what I know.

I remind myself that three vampires have already taken their fill of me. If there were consequences, surely I’d know by now, wouldn’t I? What was one more bite?

I let him feed, and soon we were having sex once more.

Then, as my wits were finally returning to me, he bit me again.

And again.

The cycle repeated, keeping me caught in a haze of pleasure and exhaustion, always sex drunk or legless from the venom. At times I could scarcely lift my head, let alone stand. Servants came and went, brushing my hair, sorting me out, restoring some semblance of dignity. Sometimes I was too dazed to even eat.

My only solace was that he kept me too delirious to comprehend my own helplessness—and that it felt very, very good.

“Do you know how many I had killed just to find you?” he whispered as he thrusted into me, on what day I knew not. “How much Harper blood I spilled just to have you beneath me now?”

I hadn’t the faintest. I was having difficulty even forming words, let alone guessing at math.

He slowed his pace to plant a kiss on my temple, strangely chaste. “And I’d do it again. A hundred times over, for nothing more than a whim. You know that, don’t you?”

That I did.

But it would take so, so many more before we were ever even.

Even through the fog, I grew suspicious. Was this deliberate? Was he keeping me here while something happened outside, something he didn’t want me to see? Or perhaps he was testing how much venom my body could take before it stopped working or developed a tolerance.

No, those were things I would do. This wasn’t strategic. Astarion was doing it for his own titillation. Perhaps to prove to himself that he, too, could keep me somewhere for a long time. Or perhaps because power excited him.

Unable to properly string together a plan, I could only trust he’d grow bored. On the fifth morning, I stirred, expecting to find fangs in throat the moment he felt movement. Instead, I opened my eyes to an empty bed.

I sat upright, only to find Astarion sitting at the writing desk.

“Good morning, my sweet,” he greeted, as if he hadn’t kept me in a drugged stupor for the last four days. “I’d much rather keep you here in my bed for another decade, but alas—there’s the small matter of the wards. You’re the only one who knows how to activate them, and I imagine you’ll need a clear head.”

“Things are going to start falling apart if you keep me here any longer,” I warned.

“Things?” he asked dubiously.

I began to enumerate—supply lines, payments to our auxiliaries, guard duty rosters—but he lost interest before I even finished the first sentence.

“Yes, yes, terribly dire, no doubt,” Astarion said, waving his hand. “I wasn’t planning on keeping you much longer anyhow—though I must say, you made it rather tempting.”

I’d put down good coin on the fact he intended to hold me exactly as long as I’d been in Jaheira’s safehouse. Perhaps a day or two more, just to feel he outdid them.

His reasons didn’t really matter. The moment I had my chance, I took it—fleeing on unsteady legs, doing my best to look as though I wasn’t.

Astarion called to me as I reached the doorway. “Tell Fenorin he’s expected tonight,” he ordered. “And do be a dear—stay close. After the month you’ve had, I’d much rather keep you within arm’s reach.”

 

Activating the wards was easier than I let on. I might have drawn it out, used the pretense of difficulty to buy myself more time away from Astarion, but I had been too thorough for my own good. I’d installed a mechanism in his chambers that alerted him to any changes in the wards. If he wanted to see me, there would be no avoiding him for long.

I found Fen. He pulled me into a hug that lasted far longer than I could tolerate, then stepped back to inform me—cheerfully—that I had about a thousand things to do.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Walking with Fen now, something occurs to me.

“How did you know I called him that?” I ask. “Ussta astunin. My undoing.”

The pet name, though in Drow, is far too cloying for me to use in public. Even in private, I use it sparingly. I let it slip it in desperation at the safehouse, to make Astarion more amenable.  

“He told me,” Fen says. He grins. “What, did you think he just buggers me and then puts me on the shelf when he’s done? We do talk from time to time, you know.”

It feels odd knowing they discuss me when I’m not around to hear it. There’s a sliver of unease there—these are two in this world who probably know me best, and one of them I don’t always trust to have the best intentions.

Still, I care for them. Astarion—despite being an arrogant, despotic bastard. But Fenorin in a different way.

I worry for him. I worry for all the spawn.

“Did you acquire a blade, as I asked?” I ask him. The spawn were still bound by Astarion’s orders not to harm guests, but he had tweaked the command—it wouldn’t apply if either he or I were attacked. And besides, there were other threats. I’m certain the Harpers will retaliate somehow.

Fenorin, looking rather pleased with himself, pulls something from his sleeve.

I eye the sliver of metal in his hand. “A toothpick?”

“It’s a dagger!”

“Yes, the kind you’re given at five so wandering hands think twice,” I reply, unimpressed.

Fenorin recoils slightly and I know I’ve said something that makes the colnbluth uncomfortable, though I don’t fully understand why.

“Listen, the loser of a knife fight dies,” I explain. “The winner dies later on, with the cleric for company. Find something else.”

Fenorin titters. “Oh Tav, you really do care, don’t you? You hide it so well, gods forbid anyone sees it.”

This confuses me. I don’t think I hide it at all. If anything, it radiates from me, a glaring vulnerability for anyone to exploit. How many concessions have I fought for on the spawn’s behalf? How many long hours have I spent designing defenses to keep them safe? When they wanted something, I made sure they had it. When someone hurt them, I made certain they could never do it again.

Before I can linger on this, Fenorin speaks.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

I slow my pace, looking at him expectantly. Fen bites his lip, sighs, then grabs my hand, pulling me into a nearby room and closing the door behind us.

“You knew Astarion before,” he begins.

I stiffen immediately. Though he’s never forbidden it explicitly, I know Astarion doesn’t want any of the spawn knowing about his past.

“He’s not quite the same as then, isn’t he?” Fen continues casually.

“He ascended,” I agree, firm and final. That should be the end of it.

“What was he like, before?” he asks.

I pull back, studying him. “You said you talk,” I say carefully. “Ask him.”

Fen smiles. “Relax, Tav, I’m not trying to get you in trouble. I want to know what he was like to you.”

The memories surface.

The first time he realized I couldn’t enter reverie, offering so casually to keep watch —I don’t mind, really—while I slept, promising he wouldn’t tell the others about my flaw, my weakness.

The first time he’d apologized for a crueler than usual jest, the words awkward on his tongue, telling me it was alright to be angry even when I insisted that I wasn’t.

The first time he had fed too deeply—how he had snarled at me to be more careful, how his hands had trembled, how he had avoided me afterward.

Astarion flinching when I touched his back but allowing it anyway— choosing to trust. We were both so unfamiliar with it.

Astarion strangely embarrassed I caught him petting a stray cat.

Astarion telling me he’d played me from the start, seduced me so that I wouldn’t turn on him, but that he wanted whatever this thing was growing between us to be real. That I deserved something real.

Astarion, patient and serious, explaining to me what Eredune did to me was wrong. Telling me that it wasn’t my fault. That I was just a child

Nightmares. Sunrises. The journey to Baldur’s Gate. His head in my lap, mine resting against the wagon. Smiling stupidly at each other.

Yes, he was not quite the same.

“I take it by the tears welling in your eyes that it was quite different from now,” Fen observes.

“I don’t cry.”

“Ah, of course, my mistake. It’s merely the dust then,” he says dryly. “Listen. I met someone.”

Despite the weight in my chest, I manage a smirk, or what approaches one on the stillness of my face. “You’re always meeting someone.”

It’s how he ended up here, after all, one of Astarion’s spawn.

But Fenorin only shakes his head, growing serious. “Not like this,” he says. “You know when you meet someone and it cleaves your life in two? There is only before and after?”

I nod.

“You remember how that feels?” Fenorin asks.

Of course I do. Astarion may have changed, but I haven’t.

“I need to see him tonight, Tav.”

The spawn aren’t allowed to leave the estate without Astarion’s explicit permission. He hasn’t issued a command, but wards now prevent them. If Fenorin wants to slip past them, I’ll need to show him the trick I built into the wards—my secret way around them.

And I’m not certain I want to, because of what it would mean for me.

I groan. “I’ve been in there four days.”

“Exactly. Four nights, what’s the harm in a fifth? It’s not as if he’s rough with you the way he is with me. No, not his darling little—”

He catches himself, sheepish.

I arch a brow, amused. “Go on.”

“He hasn’t worked out that I’m spawn,” Fen resumes. “And with you missing, I couldn’t see him. He thinks I’ve been unfaithful.”

Fenorin has been unfaithful. He’s been sleeping with Astarion and whoever else has caught his eye recently.

“This is my last chance to set things right—to make him stay in Baldur’s Gate,” he pleads. “Qualla, Tav. This means everything to me.”

I cast him a long, dubious look. “If that’s true, why didn’t you go to mend things for the past four nights?” I ask.

Fen grows sheepish again. “Ah, well… nerves got the better of me,” he admits. “And I wasn’t sure before. Now I am.”

I waver. I need rest. Sleep, quiet, food, time to think—more than that, I need time away from Astarion. The longer I can stave off another violent conflict between us, the better. Careful distance will help.

Besides, for all I know, this just another one of Fenorin’s dalliances.

“Do you remember when he punished Venassa and the others?” Fen asks. “I got punished too, for trading nights with you. Only my punishment wasn’t one you could see.”

I go still. I had lied to him then, and he had suffered for it. I don’t want any of the spawn to suffer because of me. If someone must pay, let it be me. I can take it.

In the end, I give in. Fenorin is dear to me, and I have never been good at refusing him.

“Fine,” I tell him. “But I’ll need you to bring a package to someone in Heapside while you are out.”

 

 ────  ⚔  ────

 

Astarion looks genuinely surprised to find me at his door. For the briefest moment, his face softens, and I see his old self there.

Then it’s gone, replaced by that knowing, amused smile. “What’s this? Couldn’t bear to stay away?”

I roll my eyes. I refuse to trade quips with him—that’s Fenorin’s game, not mine. Instead, I lean in, brushing my lips against his, eager to get this over with.

He tuts. “You’re lucky I never tire of you.”

I wish I would tire of him. I can’t kill the love I have for him. I’ve tried, tried to reason with it, choke it down, burn it with rage.

But something else is growing there, a sort of contempt. I don’t find him charming anymore.

I don’t have much choice in the matter, but I do know one way to shut him up. I bare my neck and wait for the cycle to begin again.

I jolt when fingers skim my neck instead of fangs.

“Not tonight, dearest,” he says, already turning away, retreating into his room.

A strange, foolish offense pricks me. I know it’s absurd—why would I want to be picked for another night of degradation?

I follow, my body on alert. Something feels different, and I don’t like not knowing why.

“It was supposed to be Fenorin tonight,” he says.

Another tiny flicker of rejection—petty and ridiculous. “I asked to switch.”

“Why?”

He won’t like that Fenorin is in love. The spawn and I are free to take pleasure where we please—so long as Astarion remains central in our hearts. He wants to be the sun we orbit.

And he really won’t like that I left an escape in the wards—or that I gave it to Fen.

I hesitate. Silence while I deliberate on a lie, one long enough for Astarion’s eyes to narrow, for his head to cock in that unnerving, assessing way.

Half-truths are safest. “I was suspicious,” I say finally. “You let me go too easily—it didn’t feel right. I thought you were keeping me here to hide something from me, and I wanted to see what.”

He scoffs a laugh. “Typical drow paranoia.” He grins. “But you’re not entirely wrong. Shall I show you what I’ve been keeping from you?”

I hesitate.

What if Fen’s request was the trap?

What if Astarion put him up to it, a test to see if I meddled with the wards, left weaknesses in the estate’s defenses? Fen wouldn’t have a choice but to obey.

Suddenly he’s fallen in love? It didn’t make sense.  He hasn’t left the estate—not unless he managed to slip out, and he was busy in Astarion’s bed while I was injured and away. We’d had no guests for him to fall for, not since the vampire lords. No chance to meet someone.

His love story wasn’t real. It had been written for him—for me—a careful fiction authored by Astarion’s hand.

And if he so much as suspected that I had considered betraying him—if he knew I’d left the flaws in the wards— he’d kill me for it.

But what’s my recourse? Running is pointless. Fighting even more so.

I’m scared. It’s not only myself I have to worry about anymore. It changes everything.

I stop short of the desk and start trembling. It’s not fear exactly, not weakness, or at least I tell myself so, but pure adrenaline. My body readying for a threat I can’t yet see, preparing for something I can’t predict.

My head swims as I look ahead, try to see what Astarion is doing. When I see a blade in his hand, my mind blanks.

Astarion notices at last.

“Tav. Tav. Look at me,” he instructs. His voice is gentle, but it means nothing. He can be so kind when he wants to be.

I think I have the ring of mind shielding, but I can’t be sure, so I close my eyes. It’s a stupid thing, to blind myself now, while he has a blade in his hand, but its all I can think to do.

“I give you my word—it ’s nothing bad,” he vows. “Just breathe, darling.”

But I can’t. My muscles keep on coiling, jaw clenching, fingers gripping. My chest tightens until I cough—a strange, involuntary gasp, as if my body is forcing me to breathe.

There’s movement. My hands are pried open, then guided to curl around something cold and solid—adamantine, my mind supplies uselessly.

I blink down at the blade in my grip, its presence grounding. My fear begins to ebb.

Astarion has my other hand. I realize he means to put it against his chest, to guide my breathing, as he did for me a few times before he Ascended.

“It’s a sword,” he in forms me. “A rather exquisite one, if I may say so—meant to outshine Morlin’s. Fenorin’s been dabbling in Drow, hasn’t he? I thought he could see to an inscription.”

I stare at it blankly. “Thank you.”

Astarion exhales, shutting his eyes for a moment before settling into the chair. He regards me as I stand there. “You’re terrified of me,” he says flatly.

“Vith tir,” I scoff automatically, offended. Realizing I’ve lapsed into Drow, I add, “Don’t flatter yourself. Vel'bol zif shuu. As if.”

“Gods, you ’re insufferable,” he groans, dragging his hands down his face. “It’s not a personal attack, you twit. I tried to give you a gift just a moment again and you damn near fainted in fear.”

“Fainted?” I echo. All my pride as a drow woman is being challenged right now. “Fainted? Vith'ir Astarion.”

“Perhaps not as terrified as I thought, given I’m fairly certain you just told me to fuck myself,” he says. “But the point stands. When we took up together, I could have held a blade to your throat, and you wouldn’t have even blinked.”

I would have kissed the hand that held the blade.

It wasn’t that I’d trusted him then. I simply hadn’t cared if he hurt me. If that was his desire, then I would have made it mine. I wanted to offer myself to him as I had Eredune, eagerly and utterly.

“It’s the way of things for the servant to fear their master,” I reply.

Astarion shakes his head. “Something’s changed in you,” he continues. “Even in these last few weeks.”

I say nothing. Silence has served me well.

He leans in, taking my free hand. “You’re not wrong to fear me—I’ve earned it, after all. And I won’t deny, I enjoyed it at first. But if fear is all that’s left between us, I’ll lose what you once gave me so freely.” His fingers tighten around mine. “That, I cannot allow.”

“What exactly are you proposing?” I ask, suspicious.

“We negotiate,” he says. “I can be reasonable, you know. I’m not Cazador.”

Is that what this is about? Did he see himself in me—a spawn flinching under their master’s hand?

He wants us to adore him, worship him. It’s the greatest proof he is nothing like his old master. But he won’t feel powerful unless we fear him as well.

But I am drow. We love and hate in equal measure. If Astarion wants me to love him like a god, he will be disappointed. The only god I know is Lolth, and we despise her.

“I told you I’d mend this,” he says, “you’ve only to tell me how. Let me.”

I reach out, run a hand through his curls, fixing them as I used to before. He leans into my touch.

“I’ve something to tell you,” I confess. I can scarcely believe the words have left my mouth. “But I’m tired.”

And I am, but there’s more to it. Back when we camped together, I had no way of telling him I wanted to be in his arms—too ashamed to speak it, too afraid to reach for him first. I’d speak those words instead.

“Tomorrow then?”

I nod. “Tomorrow.”

I could only hope it wouldn’t get me killed.

Chapter 14: The Butcher

– Tav –

They’ll kill me in my sleep one day. I’ve always known that.

But not tonight.

I cannot enter reverie, never could, and a drow asleep is nothing but prey to be gutted. It’s my greatest shame.

My aunt was the first to notice. I thought I’d been doing a good job at hiding it until she pulled me aside one day.

You’re small now, she signed me, and your sister’s already watching you, though she doesn’t know it.

My mother bore a series of beautiful baby girls, doe-eyed and long-lashed, their strong cries echoing the pleasurehouse. Dra’ada, the eldest, smothered all except me.

I only lived because my aunt kept me close, tucking me into the drawer beside her bed. Dra’ada thought it meant our mother did not want me. The truth was she’d gotten sick of losing daughters before she could ascertain their usefulness.

She won’t wait until you’re strong enough to challenge her, my aunt warned. Once she notices you, she’ll find you in your weakest moment and snuff you out like the others. That is the way of things.

She paused, her fingers stilling, hesitating. Don’t let her.

I think my aunt loved me. Maybe. I’ll never know.

What fondness she had never stopped her from hurting me, often and cruelly, in her campaign to cure my weakness. If my chin bobbed, she struck me. If my eyes fluttered, she cuffed me upside the head. She nailed my braid to the wall to keep me from slumping. She pricked me with pins when she found me curled up somewhere too obvious. Once, in a fit of frustration, she beat me raw. Broke one of my arms.

She never managed to teach me reverie. But she did train me to sleep in short intervals—never more than a few hours, never where anyone could find me, and never so deeply I couldn’t wake to footsteps.

So when I first slept in Astarion’s arms, the exhaustion that took me was years in the making. I sank into him. I let go—objectively stupid, as he’d tried to kill me twice. But still, I did.

I woke in the morning disoriented but warm, my cheek pressed against his chest, his fingers trailing down my back absentmindedly. Feeling me stir, he laughed and teased me for drooling on him.

It felt like a gift I could never repay. Every night after that, it was my arms around him, a dagger in one hand. When he had his first nightmare with me, I combed through his curls, whispered his name, reminded him where he was.

I’d loved him so much I thought I might be the first person in the world to ever feel that way.

Perhaps it’s nostalgia that drives me to sleep like that for the first time in months.

Whatever the reason, it’s why I end up with a knife in my back.

Even relaxed as I am—and shouldn’t be—I still sense the intruder as they creep closer to the bed. My eyes snap open.

A silhouette looms, dagger raised above us.

I move without thinking. Astarion is beneath me, still asleep, and throw myself over him—shielding him with my body. There’s no pain, not yet, just a jarring force, as if I’ve been punched in the spine. No time to linger on it.

I whip around, catch the bastard by the arm before he can pull the blade free, and wrench him forward. My elbow slams into his face. He yelps, trying to twist away, but I don’t allow it. I grab a fistful of his hair and toss him aside.

His body hits the wall hard.

Behind him, another shadow moves, blade gleaming.

This one stands by the desk. My blade is there. I must arm myself, and I’ll need to close the distance, step within his reach, to do so.

I grip the bedpost, ready to lunge—pain lances through me, fire-like. I nearly buckle. My arm muscles aren’t working as they should, I don’t have my usual range.

It does not change what I need to do.

I grit my teeth against the pain and throw myself toward the desk.

He catches my shoulder and wrenches me around, slamming me into the ebony wardrobe. Pain explodes through my back—far worse than before, a searing, white-hot spike of agony. He’s driven the blade deeper into my back.

A scream rips from me, violent, more fury than pain. It’s enough to make my attacker flinch. I take advantage.

I’ve fought through worse, a lifetime of fights where I’ve been outnumbered and disadvantaged. The easiest way to tip the scales in your favor is often the simplest.

I slam my palm into his chest and shove.

It’s difficult to land a strike when you’re trying not to fall on your ass. He stumbles back, flailing.

I pivot, hand reaching for my blade—

A force slams into my back. I’m thrown forward, ribs crashing into the desk.

My first attacker. Fortunately he’s shoved me where I needed to go, though the edge of the desk knocks the wind from my lungs. My fingers close around the blade, relief flooding through me. I turn my back to the desk, ready to slit his throat—

Only to find his face inches from mine.

A hot pain bursts in my side. He’s driven his other dagger into my gut. I gasp, hand flying to the wound, fingers slick with blood. I meet his eyes, teeth bared in a snarl. He means to pull the blade free.

I slam my forehead into his.

The problem with headbutting someone is that you also feel it. We both stumble back, dazed. My vision swims for a heartbeat, skull rattling. Without thinking, I yank the dagger from my side and toss it to the floor.

My opponent tries to rise, but I slam my heel into his face. The bones there gives. Pain lances through my foot—I’ve likely broken something too. His head snaps back, mouth open.

I need him dead fast, so I kneel beside him and dig my blade into his stomach, dragging, disembowelling him. When that doesn’t kill him immediately, I drive the sword into his throat.

The adamantine sinks deep, lodging into the floor beneath him.

“Tav—” Astarion calls, a warning. The other is coming for me.

I wrench at my blade, but its stuck. I barely have time to jerk back as a sword slashes the air where I stood.

Now I’m unarmed, and facing the most competent of the two, the one with a proper sword.

I lunge for my weapon, desperate to free it before he realizes I’m defenseless. He notices. His blade swings, forcing me back.

I see the moment where he processes that I’m unarmed. He demeanor shifts, becomes patient, unhurried.

“Lock the door,” I snap at Astarion. Though I can’t take my eyes off my foe, I can sense Astarion protesting. “Do it.”

I barely manage to pull back from the next swing. My back screams in agony, fresh blood slicking my fingers where I press against the wound in my side. I refuse to bleed out before I kill this man.

He’s got me in a terrible position—trapped between the wall and the bed—but the beginnings of a strategy are forming. I can’t let him force me against the wall.

I let my eyes dart to the bed as if preparing to scramble onto it, to flee like any unarmed person might. He sees it.

I move—fast—turning toward the bed. The moment he swings, I drop.

His sword whistles past, so close that the air shifts against my crown. I pray that it embeds in the bedpost, but I don’t stop to check.

I throw myself between his legs, sliding past his dead friend, and my fingers close around the dagger I abandoned earlier.

I roll on my side, slashing at the back of his knee. The blade bites in, not deep, but enough to stagger him.

“Drow bitch,” he curses.

Before I can adjust, his boot slams into my ribs, hard. I’m sent sprawling, the dagger slipping from my grasp, lost somewhere on the blood-slick floor.

My vision swims. I reach blindly for one of the desk legs, hoisting myself up, searching for the dagger.

His blade comes into sight, menacing my throat.

Then—

Astarion’s pale hands. A sudden jerk, a wet, awful snap.

The body crumples. Astarion lets it fall, his fingers still curled, as if the man’s head is still between them. His face is blank, but his chest heaves, breathing ragged.

Pressing my palm against the desk, I push myself upright on shaky legs.

“Tell me you aren’t hurt,” I say.

“I’m not,” Astarion replies. He turns to me, looking me up and down. “But you are. Which, I must say, was particularly idiotic of you.”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly.

“Oh yes, of course—you’re perfectly fine,” he scoffs. “Never mind the knife lodged in your back.”

That’s right. I’d forgotten.

I crouch, fingers wrapping around the blade buried in the floor, rocking it back and forth, working it free from the corpse. “The door—did you lock it?” I ask.

“I can smell another wound besides,” he continues, ignoring my question. “Sit down before you topple over, and try to stay awake while I fetch the guard.

“Don’t you dare open that door,” I warn.

His eyes narrow. “Why not?” he asks.

At last, it wrenches loose. I push myself to my feet.

“Why do you think the guards didn’t rush in?” I ask. I ask, slicing the silk restraints on his bed. The fabric gives, and I start wrapping it around my waist.

“It’s not because they’ve grown used to you tossing me around,” I continue, knotting the makeshift bandages tight. I wince, hissing through my teeth. “They’re dead, and whoever killed them is on the other side, I promise you.”

Astarion’s expression flickers. “And you intend to kill them yourself, injured as you are?”

I don’t answer obvious questions. Instead, I crouch once more, this time curling in on myself, hands reaching back.

“Tav,” he warns, “if you so much as touch that knife—”

Too late. My fingers close around the hilt, and with a wrenching pull, I tear it three.

A cry rips from my throat.

“Gods damn it! That was stemming the bleeding! And now what? You’ll bleed out twice as fast—”

He cuts himself off as I close the distance between us. My free hand cradles his face, smearing blood against his porcelain skin. He stills.

He’s annoyed, yes—but also quite taken with what’s happened. The fight, the killing, the fact that I took a blade for him in the first place. The lunatic loves it.

I kiss him.

His frustration vanishes in an instant. He responds with a bruising eagerness, fingers digging into my shoulder, pulling me flush against him.

I break away, still only a breath apart. “Where’s Artor Morlin’s blade?” I ask. “In here?”

He nods.

“You’ll get it for me, won’t you?” I ask, smiling sweetly.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I’m furious.

Not just at them—for getting the jump on me, for nearly hurting Astarion—but at myself. I should have killed them both on my own. He’ll think less of me now.

The thought festers as I tear through his quarters, snatching a pair of boots that almost fit. Astarion retrieves Morlin’s sword while I lace them tight, yanking the knots hard. I’ll have to prove my usefulness to him tonight.

Astarion returns, slipping the blade into my hand. The moment my fingers close around the hilt, I am whole again.

“When I’ve finished with those in the hall, bar the door and bolt it,” I tell him.

I plant my boot against the door. I had the masons fit it to swing outward —one of many precautions. I shift my weight, testing, practicing where my kick will land. A breath, then I drive forward.

The door crashes open, slamming into whoever waits on the other side.

I slip through the threshold, blades already in motion.

The man sprawled on the ground fumbles for the sword he’s dropped. Too slow. I kick it out of reach and drive my blade through his throat. It’s efficient, almost clean, only he doesn’t quite know he s dead yet. His hands claw at the wound, blood welling between his fingers as if he can hold it in.

His friend doesn’t take it well. He cries out—a name, probably, or a curse, I’m not too concerned— and barrels toward me. The attack is sloppy, rushed.

I barely glance at him as my blade knocks his clumsy thrust aside. It circles back to open his throat.

There are more ahead.

I step over my corpses to greet them.

The advance is grim. Numbers are against me, so it all turns into arithmetic A gut wound drags out a death for days, but a punctured lung, a severed artery, or a blade through the heart will end a fight quickly. I strike where it counts.

I conserve my energy. I don’t run, or do any of my usual acrobatics. I hold my line —except when they have the advantage, coming down the stairs or loosing arrows at me from above. Then I make them give chase. I lead them into blind turns, into unlit halls, where the advantage becomes mine.  I cut them down in the darkness.

They fear me. I can see it in their hesitation, the way they pause before pressing on. They’ve been given orders to kill me.

There’s a rhythm to it. Two-blade follows a simple system—the first move parries, the second delivers the mercy strike. Any more moves, and you risk the enemy overwhelming you. I don’t misstep, I don’t hesitate. One moment, my foe is staring at my deflection in confusion. The next, my blade is buried between his ribs, sinking deep into his lungs.

Ragged breathing. Sweat beading against my skin. The lovely scrape of steel, a caress between blades before they bite.

And the gurgling, wretched sound the almost-dead make. I’ve tried to kill them cleanly, but I don’t always have the time.

I find myself in a narrow corridor, foes on either side. They keep coming— one by one, sometimes in pairs. The others hesitate, flinching back like scavengers wary of the beast they’ve cornered,

I wonder, fleetingly, why they don’t just rush me all at once, swarm me. Then they do.

Footsteps thunder forward. I laugh, elated.

They say Lolth fashions drow souls. I don’t know anything about that, or even where I’m supposed to go when they kill me. But if she made me, she made me for this.

There was a time where it made me a little sad. I’d been taught violence and not much else, and I worried all I could offer was pain and death. It seemed a meager gift in the face what Astarion made me feel.

But if this is all I am, then I will make something of it.

When its finished, I’m standing among a dozen corpses, thirsty and terribly woozy. Looking down, I touch makeshift bandages, now soaked through completely.

I prod the face of a fallen half-elf with the tip of my blade. I should’ve left one alive. We should’ve questioned them.

“Oh, my darling butcher,” comes Astarion’s voice, speaking fondly. “You are a vision.”

I jolt at the sound. He stands at the end of the hall, oddly pristine, completely untouched by the carnage. The air reeks—a battlefield condensed into a single corridor. People don’t realize how it stinks, fresh death.

“I told you to stay in the room,” I chide.

“But you know how I love watching you work,” he purrs. His eyes glint in the dim light, hungry. I wonder if mine look the same. “It’s been so long. I’m embarrassed to admit—I’d forgotten what you’re capable of. What you really are.”

I sway. I refuse to kneel, not here, not among corpses. I’ve already shown too much weakness tonight. But soon, my body will make the choice for me.

I reach back, intending to peel my shirt from my skin, thinking it’s slick with sweat. Instead, my fingers come away wet with blood.

“The attack seems to have been concentrated on the west wing,” I inform him. “But I haven’t cleared the rest. I’ll alert the garrison—they can handle what’s left.” I should have done so at the beginning, but I was too busy proving myself.

I move to leave, nearly tripping over a corpse in my path.

“Ah, ah. Stop.”

A command, no matter how honeyed. It stills me instantly.

“Stay, darling. I’m not quite finished with you yet.”

I turn, brows drawn. I’m too hurt for this. If I stay, I’ll slip up and get myself even more injured.

He’s angry with me too, there’s a blackness in his eyes, a sort of cold fury. But he should be pleased with me, perhaps not thrilled but at least satisfied. The unfairness is jarring.

“Astarion—” I begin, but what could I say? That I want him to wait to do whatever he’s going to do to me?

I decide to say exactly that.

“This has to wait,” I tell him. “You saw me get stuck with a blade twice. I’m in a bad way.”

“Oh, I know, poor thing,” he sighs, edging closer. “But you carved through so many after that, didn’t you? Surely you can manage to stand just a little longer. Or is it all too much?”

It’s such an obvious attempt at manipulation, and yet it still rankles me.

I sigh, wiping my blades on the shirt I borrowed from him—a petty rebellion, though does little to its state. It’s one of his ridiculous poet shirts, once white, now ruined with sweat and blood.

I pick my way over the bodies, unsteady, nearly tripping again. When I finally stand before him, its with the hesitant hopefulness of a beaten dog. I hate myself for it.

His hand catches my jaw—better than strangling, worse than a simple grip—forcing my head up so our eyes meet.

“The wards,” he says icily, gaze piercing. “You swore they’d be impenetrable, and yet here we are.”

I hadn’t even thought of them, not when I woke to blades in the dark, not when I rushed into the hall to face the intruders, and certainly not through my bloodlust.

He’s right. The wards are rigged to a bell tower. If they had fallen, the entire estate would have heard it. And unless Astarion and I miraculously slept through a clanging alarm, that didn’t happen.

“Tell me, my love—how do you suppose that happened?” he asks. “Are you simply incompetent, or have you betrayed me?”

If someone bypassed the wards, they could only have learned how from me, Gale, or Fenorin. And I know where my loyalties lie.

“Astarion,” I say evenly. “Had I orchestrated this, do you think I would have taken a blade to the gut and another to my back?”

For him. How many times have I nearly died for him? And now he accuses me of treachery.

His grip tightens. “Oh, but wouldn’t that be clever of you?” he muses. “Bleed for me, show me what a self-sacrificing, dutiful lover you are, all wounded, trembling—”

I wrench from his grip, recoiling. “Vith, 'sohna? I am not trembling—”

“—but ever loyal,” he continues, ignoring me. “You have been quite the headache lately, perhaps you thought I needed a reminder.”

I haven’t looked away at any point in this exchange, but my gaze sharpens on him.

“Why would I need to remind you of my loyalty?” I ask. “Only a fool could not see it. You tried to tear out my throat the very first night I met you, yet I spoke in your defense. The Oblodra dobluth slighted you, and I near split her skull. When you went into your master’s dungeons who was it who followed you? Me. And whose blade was in your hand when you finally struck him down?”

As I speak, I’m gesturing with my hands. I notice one is sticky with the blood from the bandages around my stomach. Something will need to be done soon.

“And that says nothing of what I have done since you Ascended,” I continue. “Lingering pathetically in the Gate because I worried for you. Killing your enemies, toiling in your halls, warming your bed.”

I might as well have said I’m your dog, woof woof.

Astarion says nothing. He’s thinking.

I’m thinking too. Gale is a suspect. This could be the Harper response I’ve been dreading, though our attackers didn’t feel like Harpers. I can’t explain it—something in their equipment, their mannerisms. Besides, for all their self-righteousness, I don’t think our old friends would have me killed. Not yet. I’d have to do a few more years of bad things before they’d decide I was beyond saving.

That leaves Fenorin.

He likely slipped out in the night, off to see that boyfriend of his. Did someone catch him in the streets? Drag him off? Extract what they needed by force?

He could be in danger.

But to get him help, I’d have to tell Astarion everything.

“Astarion,” I say. He startles slightly, eyes snapping back to me. “You can call your spawn back, can’t you? Or at least sense where they are?”

His gaze settles on me fully, near unbearable. “Why?”

I hesitate for only a moment before forcing the words. “Fenorin knows a way past the wards,” I confess. The urge to close my eyes, to look away, is overwhelming. “This can’t be his doing, he wouldn’t have the resources. Someone must have taken him, forced the knowledge from him.”

A long, awful silence.

“Now, that’s  curious,” Astarion muses coldly. “He just so happened to learn the inner workings of a system designed by you? Imagine that.”

My legs threaten to give. I can barely contain the tremor in them, can feel the creeping dizziness. I fear I might swoon like some playactress. I should be afraid right now—of him, of his accusations, of what he might do—but the humiliation of collapsing in front of him scares me more.

“I must admit, I do underestimate you,” he continues. “Considering how often you’ve been knocked senseless, your mother drinking through her pregnancy—”

“Careful,” I warn, though my breath is short, my hands slick with blood. “I’m hurt but I’m not toothless.”

“—and your questionable literacy, you manage quite well,” he continues, as though I never spoke at all. “I suppose your diligence carries you. You’re so very, very thorough. Meticulous, even.”

He knows.

“There’s no chance they exploited a flaw. You wouldn’t allow one to exist. Not unless—” he laughs bitterly. “Not unless you it wanted to.”

I’ve both my hands pressed as hard as I can to the gut wound. He tugs me closer, uncaring.

“You left yourself an out, didn’t you? A way to slip free, to run from me.” He sneers. “And yet you speak of loyalty.”

“I worried you’d kill me,” I counter. “And yet still I remain.” Like an idiot. Did he not realize that this loyalty was humiliating? Everyone thought me the fool.

“Why ever would I do that?” he asks. “After all, you’re so the picture of devotion, aren’t you?”

“It won’t be on purpose,” I reply coldly. “You’ll lose your temper, or you’ll forget mortal limitations. Look at what’s happening now.”

I watch as he takes stock of me, the blood-soaked bandages, my pallor, and my unsteady legs. Yes, look well, you self-absorbed idiot. I am bleeding out before your eyes.

I know I’ve won, so I don’t wait for his answer. Lurching forward, I stagger down the hall. I won’t be able to stay upright for long, so I press against the wall, dragging myself along inch by inch.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Astarion calls after me. “The infirmary lies the other way —unless, of course, you intend to repaint the floors with your blood.”

“Garrison.”

A hand clamps around my arm before I even hear him move. I start, but his grip is unyielding.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he chides. “You may love playing martyr, but you’ll be dreadfully slow hobbling along like this. Far more efficient to make for the infirmary and have the spawn call for the guard.”

 

I give in, reversing my direction, though I keep myself pressed against the wall. Astarion offers to carry me, as he did the night I was nearly bitten to death. I scowl in response.

He lets me struggle for some time, but when my pace proves too slow, he sighs and all but hauls me against him. I let him take half my weight, an arm slung over his shoulder, though I want nothing to do with him right now.

I have less than half the holes I did last time I was dragged into Cimone’s infirmary, but still she makes her fuss. Othric happens to be there with her, fortunately, so we send him to the garrison.

Astarion watches me as Cimone patches me up, his gaze lingering far too long for my liking. I try to ignore it, but eventually, irritation wins out. I mouth what? at him. He only shrugs.

When Cimone steps away to retrieve something, he finally speaks.

“I won’t apologize for accusing you,” he says. “I needed to be certain. You, of all people, should understand that.” A pause, then, softer— “But you did well tonight. And I do reward competence.”

I narrow my eyes. “Really?” I ask, suspicious. “You wish to reward me, even though I made a vulnerability in the wards?”

Even if I hadn’t meant to, telling Fenorin meant the information had gone to our enemies.

Astarion smiles patronizingly. Usually, that look would infuriate me—but right now, I’m just relieved he isn’t going to kill me.

“Oh, I know,” he sighs, waving a hand. “And I’m ever so cross about it, truly. But then I thought… no. You didn’t turn on me, that’s not your way. You were played.”

You’re not a traitor, you’re just stupid, he has just said.

He thinks Fenorin betrayed us.

I start to protest, then pause. There’s no need. This will sort itself out once Fen’s back at the estate—after all, he cannot lie to Astarion.

Astarion leans in slightly, smirking. “We have quite the mess to contend with, don’t we?”

Notes:

So you find out a little more about Tav in this one, particularly about her upbringing. I'm not sure if readers will find this interesting--I've always been told that most fanfic should focus on the canon characters, not the ones you've created--but I felt it was necessary in order to understand her a little more.

Chapter 15: Betrayal

– Tav –

“Have you found him yet?”

Astarion kisses my neck, thoroughly uninterested in my question. Occasionally his fangs graze the flesh there, as if measuring where he’d bite—should I allow it.

He’s agreed not to, but that doesn’t stop him from endlessly teasing it. He knows I’m no good at denying myself. Where I come from, everything is in violent flux. If you want something, you took it fast and held onto it hard, same went for fleeting pleasure.

“Tav, darling,” he murmurs into the crook of my neck. “Didn’t I say not to overtax that pretty little head of yours?” His hand slides over my hip. “Relax. Be good for me. I’ll take care of things.”

Leaving things to others has never been easy for me. I don’t trust them to be thorough, or to do what needs to be done.

But in his bed, under his hand, I know how to play along in the way that best pleases him.

It’s not completely different from before, at least in a straightforward sense. He’s always liked lording over me— testing how far I’ll let him go. He wants to feel powerful, and I make certain he does, always putting up just enough resistance so he feels he’s earned it.

Like most of Astarion’s neuroses, this comes back to Cazador. Sex was a tool, a means of control —one Astarion learned both ways. There’s power in making someone feel something for you.

Other times, it made him feel like a thing to be used, a tool passed from hand to hand.

It was no less transactional for me. I was taught early that my worth lay in how well I could serve. My aunt—once a courtesan of some renown—had her tongue cut out by a patron for whispering the wrong thing in the wrong ear. She could no longer earn, but she could teach.

From the day I first bled I became her student— learning how to speak deferentially, how to still my face, how to lower my eyes just right.

It helped me survive Eredune’s house. Come to think of it, it’s what helped me survive this Astarion too—the one he became after he ascended.

What we had, before he was this, was less defined…Something real was trying to grow between us, but we didn’t know how to let it. We both tried to be with each other in the only way we’d been taught: through offerings ourselves up.

I knew he was manipulating me—of course I did—but I’d catch glimpses of something unpolished, raw, and it made me wonder if, maybe, he wasn’t only pretending.

I held on to those moments. Because for me, it wasn’t a game, never had been. That made it real —and that, frankly, terrified me.

Before we reached Baldur’s Gate, he asked that we stop having sex altogether.

“What use will I be to you?” I’d asked, frightened. I hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but I was. I didn’t want to lose him, and I didn’t know how to keep him except through service. “I have nothing else to give.”

Eredune used to joke I was good for two things: my sword, and my ‘sheath’.  A crude, ugly jest, but one I learned to laugh off. Except—I hadn’t wanted to be just a sword to him. Not anymore. Not when he had become so much more.

“That isn’t true, and you damn well know it,” he’d insisted. “You’re more than what you think I need from you, and most certainly more than whatever twisted nonsense your matron put into your head.”

I wanted to believe him.

“This will be good for the both of us, I promise,” he’ d said, holding me close. “I see it, you know—how sometimes, when I touch you, you go elsewhere too. You don’t even realize.”

Perhaps he meant it. Perhaps some part of him wanted to protect me, the same way I so desperately wanted to protect him.

It was forgotten the moment he ascended.

We had sex almost immediately after we returned from Cazador’s dungeons, in one of his many rooms. He tore the clothes from me, shoved me to the floor, and took me from behind—his hands bruising my thighs, driving himself as deep as he could. It had been nothing like before. There was no hesitation, no careful consideration of what might be too much.

When it was over, he had asked me to become his consort, and I refused him for the very first time.

Now, he’s trying to be a sweet as he used to be. He’s pleased with me once more, for throwing myself over him, for shielding him with my own body.  But beneath it, there’s the barest hint of unease. He almost lost his beloved brute, his most devoted and useful servant.

Even weeks after the failed assassination, he keeps me by his side day and night. I won’t lie to myself: I like his attention, no matter how tangled, how dangerous our union has become.

I should be wary. He could easily take advantage while I’m still healing. But for whatever reason, it feels like it did before—when his presence was a balm, when the press of his body against mine made it easier to breath, as if I could afford to be half as vigilant as when alone.

I have questions. But even though he’s in a magnificent mood, I know better than to try his patience.

So I wait. I wait until I’ve sated him thrice, until his hunger is spent and his arms are slung lazily around me, before I ask what I need to know.

“Ussta astunin,” I begin, resting my chin against on his chest. “Do you remember when your siblings came for you?”

Astarion’s cry wrenched me from sleep.

“Get the hells away from me!”

My dagger shot out of the darkness, finding its mark in Leon’s arm, pining him to the wall. He howled in agony.

Astarion recoiled, eyes darting wildly between the spawn.

If they’d touched him again, I think I would have lost my mind, slaughtered them all.

“Peace brother,” Aurelia pleaded, hands raised in supplication. “We’ve come to—”

Her words were cut short by a sharp, strangled noise as she felt my blade press against her throat.

“Careful now,” Astarion called, a feverish gleam to his eyes. “You’ll find she’s a tad overprotective.”

He wasn’t afraid anymore. He’d realized that I would gladly kill every one of them for him, no mercy or hesitation. If he so much as looked like he wanted me to, I would tear them apart with my bare hands.

“But of course I remember, my sweet,” Astarion replies. “You were so delightfully homicidal that night.”

“How did you find us?” I demanded.

 Aurelia stared up from where I’d thrown her to the ground, eyes wide with terror, as I set my blade’s tip against her cheek. She trembled but did not answer.

I pressed my boot down harder on her wrist, bones splintering beneath.

“Well?” I snapped. “Have you all turned mute? Speak!”

Aurelia’s breaths came in pained, ragged gasps.

“Master Cazador has known where Astarion was this entire time,” she finally wheezed. “He knew he would return.”

I didn’t like that.

My boot met Aurelia’s ribs, knocking the air from her.

Cazador could sense his spawn. He could track them—pull them back to him no matter how far they ran. So why couldn’t Astarion do the same with Fenorin?

“I almost killed them,” I say.

I’d sent the throwing knife through Leon’s arm, shattered Aurelia’s wrist, and sent another blade through Yousen’s spine, leaving him paralyzed but alive, so he we could use him in the rite without resistance.

“But then Cazador called them back, remember?”

Astarion’s jaw twitches. He doesn’t like it when I bring up Cazador, but he nods stiffly. “He did.”

“Can’t you do the same with Fen?” I press. “I’m worried, Astarion. Something isn’t right.”

His expression shifts. He smirks, amused.

“Oh, Fen, is it?” Astarion teases, arching a brow. “I hadn’t realized you had a pet name for him. How darling of you two, really. Should I be jealous?”

I shake my head, annoyed. He knows Fenorin only fancies men, and he’s most certainly heard me use the diminutive before.

I open my mouth to press the issue, but he cuts in.

“Tav, my dear,” he sighs, reaching to pat my head like I’m some fretting child. “Fenorin played you like a fiddle, sold your little trick with the wards to the highest bidder, and absconded. I daresay we won't be seeing him again. He’s probably sipping wine somewhere, laughing at us. Clever boy.”

He’s far too unconcerned.

“All the more reason to find him,” I insist. “If he betrayed you, he must answer for it.”

Astarion’s expression softens. “If only it were that simple, darling. I’d so enjoy watching you drag Fenorin, kicking and screaming, to grovel at my feet,” he says wistfully. “But, irritatingly, my talents aren’t quite there yet.”

 

That’s how I know he’s lying.

Astarion wasn’t born into his power. Even after his ascension, he had to learn. It took him time to develop his abilities, to understand how they worked. And nothing had chafed him more. It made him feel weak.

And he never admitted to weakness lightly.

He wouldn’t confess his ignorance so readily. He’d have deflected, lied through his white teeth.

I know him well—my lover, my master.

So I make an excuse to slip away. He whines, sulks, feigns offense, as if the very thought of parting is unbearable. But in the end, he relents, because he enjoys having the power to grant such things.

And I’m under no illusions—he expects me to return. I’ll have to do this quickly.

I head straight for Cazador’s dungeons.

The drow are posted outside. He had to use them—I know the regular guards too well, would have noticed immediately if he’d reshuffled their shifts.

They stiffen as I approach, hands resting on their weapons. They know who I am. They know I was responsible for Sabrae—the drow woman with my face—getting removed from the estate.

Little did they know, Sabrae is still in the Gate, making a very generous salary. Hopefully Fenorin brought her last payment before he ‘disappeared’.

“<Here for the spawn. Master’s orders,>” I bark in Drow. “<Door. Get at it.>”

The few who haven’t heard my Drow are stunned. As Minthara once sneered, I speak it like an inbred gangster with half my teeth kicked in. I cleaned it up during my years in House Vandree, but the Braeryn is a filth that stains permanently.

“<The master gave us orders too. You, specifically, are not to pass,> the bravest of them calls out, jaw set.

I reach to draw the sword Astarion gave me. I’ve named it Belbaue Qu’uente or Give-Guts. I prefer the Common version.

It’s about to live up to its name again.

“<And don’t think of cutting us down—he’s the only one with the key.>”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I find Astarion with the rest of the spawn. He can’t stand being alone for very long.

For weeks now, the spawn have looked at me strangely when I speak of Fenorin—odd, unreadable expressions I mistook for sadness, worry. Now I know better, Astarion ordered their silence.

I know Astarion well, but he knows me well too. The moment his eyes land on me he knows something is amiss.

“Leave us,” he calls out. The spawn don’t hesitate, scurrying from the room.

Eudes claps a hand on my shoulder as he passes, followed by Othric. Artesia lingers just long enough to meet my eyes, brushing past with a look. Be careful.

“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve found Fenorin,” I announce once the spawn have fled. “Though I wonder when you intended to tell me you found him first.”

He frowns. He’s worried I’ll do something reckless, and I very well might.

“Come here.”

I hesitate, watching him carefully. He doesn’t look like he means to hurt me, but he hasn’t been as predictable lately. Still, I step forward.

He takes my face in his hands, firm. “He used you, my love. Nearly got you killed,” he says, voice low. “Even if you care nothing for your own wellbeing, you must understand that a slight against you has become one against me. I saw to his punishment accordingly.”

His touch is oddly soothing, and his words rational. I glance briefly at my hand to check the ring of mind shielding is on my finger.

I shake my head, though his hands remain. “You should have told me—”

His grip tightens. “You dote on the spawn far too much.”

He’s jealous, I realize. I’m supposed to love only him.

His fingers ease, touch growing soft again, stroking over my skin. When he speaks again, it’s much smoother, though anger simmers beneath. “Had I told you, you’d have gotten on your knees, pleaded so sweetly, and I would have indulged you, as I always do, fool that I am.”

“Is that what you want?” I ask. “For me to beg?”

Our eyes lock. The space between us tightens, charged and volatile.

“Oh, always,” he purrs.

“Call the spawn back and whoever else, I don’t care,” I tell him. “I’ll do it.”

He laughs softly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No. He is my spawn, to punish or reward as I see fit.”

“You’ve been starving him, haven’t you?” I ask. Just like Cazador did.

His lips flatten into a thin line. “It’s been but a few weeks. He’ll live.”

Seeing I won’t budge, he groans dramatically. “Oh, for the love of the gods, spare me that sad little face. He’s suffering because he earned it, my dear. He tried to hurt us.”

“He wanted to leave so he could go see a lover, not to—”

“Is that what he said?” Astarion’s brow arches. “And did he also tell you that this ‘lover’ is none other than Artor Morlin? That those men you killed were his?”

I still.

Oh.

It makes sense now. Fenorin hadn’t met his beau after the guests left the estate. He met him here.

But Fenorin wouldn’t have betrayed us.

Astarion sees the chip in my resolve.

“I’ll not have my spawn cavorting with the enemy,” he continues. “Frankly, I should just kill him. This is charitable in comparison.”

He isn’t wrong. I stare at the floor, turning it over in my mind.

“If you hadn’t taken that blade in your back—if it had found my heart instead—would you be as merciful?” Astarion asks.

No. I would have killed Fenorin and Morlin both.

“He must have been tricked,” I insist. “Morlin seduced him—got him talking, then wrung our secrets from him. He’s not—he wouldn’t—”

Astarion’s eyes narrow, hard. “You know, this is frankly a little insulting. You’re falling over yourself with excuses for him when I nearly paid for his lapse in loyalty. Do you care more for him than you care for me?”

“That’s ridiculous,” I reply. “It’s only that I understand why their growing impatient—”

He recoils, eyes narrowing further. “You understand their impatience?”

“It’s my fault,” I admit. I’ll take the blame for Fenorin, I decide. I can shoulder it.

“I let it slip how long you were spawn,” I explain. “He must have gone to Morlin because he worried he’d have to wait two centuries, as you did.”

I draw a breath, nervous. “If you’d offer them your blood—or at least a promise, a measure of time—”

Astarion laughs.

“I won’t make them vampires,” he says flatly. “Not one among them is ready. If I turned them now, Baldur’s Gate would be reduced to a charnel house in a matter of days. They need discipline, control before they can be worthy. Until then, they remain as they are.”

He reaches out, takes me by the throat.

Not roughly—he doesn’t cut off my air—but the suddenness of it makes me go still as prey. He uses the hold to pull me closer, tilting my head, turning it slightly, examining me.

“Tell you what,” he says softly. “Since you want his freedom so dearly, let’s strike a bargain.”

His eyes glitter, his mouth inches from mine.

“I’ll let Fenorin go. I won’t give him my blood, but I’ll set him free, allow him to do as he pleases. Leave here, if he so wishes.”

His grip shifts. One hand moves behind my neck, fingers curling in my hair. The other finds my wrist, lifting it, brushing his lips over the skin. There’s no affection in his touch.

“In return,” he murmurs, “you become my spawn. A spawn for a spawn. That’s fair, is it not?”

His thumb strokes behind my ruined ear. “I’d make it so good for you, darling. There won’t be any pain, only pleasure.”

I can’t. Not now. Maybe in a year—less, even. But not yet.

He sees it in my eyes.

“No?” he asks. “Ah, well. I suppose your fondness for Fenorin does have its limits. Not quite enough to you bind yourself to me, no, gods forbid that.”

“I’ve already bound myself to you,” I reply. Far more than he realizes, Lolth take me.

His smile doesn’t waver.

“Not in any meaningful way,” he counters gently, fingers ghosting my ear once more. “But that’s all right. I can’t hold it against you. Eternity is a terrifying thing—especially when you’re still a child in so many ways.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I might be a child to him. I certainly don’t see the world the way he does, not yet. But I know what it means to be trapped, to wait and wait and wait, with no sense of when it will end.

He’s forgotten. He’s also forgotten what I do know.

I know him.

I know how he wants to be seen. I know what he hides, what still shames him—the way he begged Cazador. Godey. The things he did to survive. I know how to press where it hurts.

I wait until we have an audience.

Two days later, we dine as a “family”—one of those nights Astarion permits his spawn to feed from the bloodwhores.

They sit along the long table in two neat rows, their favorite mortals tucked close. There’s laughter, goblets clinking, and already some of the mortals have gone glassy-eyed, flushed, overly docile.

Astarion watches me hungrily from one of his many ridiculous thrones.

Though he’s sampled many, he still hasn’t found blood he prefers to mine. I don’t flatter myself—it isn’t because I taste sweeter, it’s memory. We were each other’s firsts, and there’s a sentiment in that for him, a twisted sense of purity. He’s allowed others to sample me, yes—but never without his permission, never without his hand guiding the moment. And no spawn has sullied my blood, save him. It’s a line he’s been quite vocal should not be crossed.

“I have a confession,” I announce, voice steady. “And I’ve come to beg your pardon for it.”

Heads turn, confused, wary. They don’t know what’s coming, though Astarion does.

He only watches me coldly. But I know him well enough to see the rage simmering beneath that stillness. He knows I’m going to make a move for Fenorin’s freedom, he’s just not sure how.

“Fenorin rots in the dungeons below the estate,” I begin, loud enough for every blood-drunk courtier gathered. “But its not him who bears the greatest guilt for the incursion. The blame is mine—and so should be the punishment.”

A ripple in the room. Disbelief. Astarion has done a good job at hiding the circumstances behind Morlin’s raid, and most think me most loyal among his servants. After all, he didn’t even need to turn me into spawn. I’m ever at his side, as if I was.

Astarion sighs, leaning back. “And how is that?” he asks. “Curious, considering Fenorin confessed—quite plainly, I might add—to betraying me. He cannot lie to me. You, on the other hand… well, you can try, bless your heart.”

“You and I both know I created the weakness in the wards,” I answer. “The breach was only possible because of me. Fenorin acted, yes—but I gave him the means.”

A pause.

“And I swore myself to you, Fenorin never did. That matters. What I did constitutes treason in most households.”

I kneel.

“Given that I bear the greater fault,” I say, voice unwavering, “it stands to reason I should bear the greater punishment.”

Astarion will either be forced to take my challenge, dole out the punishment to me, or lessen Fenorin’s in order to admit mercy toward me. Normally this would be an unwise gamble, but I know the punishment is not one he wishes to give.

He can already sense it coming on. I can see it from the tension in his features, the way his hands curl against the arms of the throne.

“What are you proposing?” he asks, anger barely contained.

I meet his eyes as I reach for my blouse. “The sentence for betraying one’s house is the same most places,” I reply, unbuttoning the first few fastenings. “Among the drow, it is called neirtarr. You surfacers call it a flogging or lashing.”

Another murmur from the crowd.

I shrug of my shirt, setting it aside. My shoulders roll, muscles flexing, and from my belt I draw the switch—one of Godey’s old toys, left forgotten behind a cabinet in the lower levels.

I place it at my side. Then I turn my back to him, spine straight.

“It’s there for you,” I say over my shoulder. “Or one of the spawn, if you’d rather delegate. I’ve no idea how Cazador preferred his punishments meted out, but you must remember.”

Eyes are on me, mortal and spawn alike, staring—at my back, at my bare skin, at the lover of their master stripped for punishment. It would mean less in Menzoberranzan, where bareness isn’t shameful. But here, on the Sword Coast, I’ve made a spectacle.

I glance back at Astarion, expecting to see him seething, uneasy, or both, scrambling to reassert control.

But he isn’t looking at me, he’s looking at the switch. My stomach twists when I realize its not with disgust, but feverish interest.

Shit.

I’ve miscalculated.

I assumed he wouldn’t dare, that the thought alone would be enough to pull him short. He flinched when he saw my back before. I thought the idea would repulse him, remind him of what he’s sworn never to become.

But perhaps that’s exactly why he will. What better way to prove he’s not like Cazador—by doing the same thing and pretending it’s different. I’ve forgotten how badly he needs to be in control, and how I’ve challenged him.

Vith. I don’t want this.

I’ve seen enough slaves get a neirtarr back home. It’s painful, and they don’t always survive the process.

Once, a year into Eredune’s service, she’d taken me down to the slave pits, pressed my face against the bars, and showed what happened to those who disobeyed. A darthirii girl, only a few years older than me, half-dead on the stone, her back weeping blood, flesh hanging in ribbons. Eredune told me this was what I’d been spared, that locking me away was a mercy. Terrified, I’d thanked her.

I remind myself I was a child then. Despite what Astarion thinks, I’m not anymore. I won’t flinch. I won’t beg.

Astarion rises from his seat. My heart kicks in my chest. I shut my eyes, breathe deep.

I hear shuffling beside me. Something soft hits me.

“Cover yourself,” he says, disgusted. “You’ve done quite enough to embarrass me.”

I do as I’m told, dressing quickly. I get a confusing flash of gratitude, a warmth in my chest, stupid as it is. I know he didn’t spare me out of fondness or mercy.

Still—I was spared.

He steps close, his hand clamping around my arm.

He yanks me upright. “Well-played,” he whispers venomously. “You want your precious Fenorin? By all means—let’s not keep our dear boy waiting.”

He maneuvers me into a hold that looks almost courtly—arm tucked to his side, though his hold is punishing, fingers digging into my flesh. His guards stir, but he dismisses them with a wave.

We leave at a clipped pace, his steps swift, mine forced to match. He doesn’t drag me down the halls to the dungeons—no, that would be uncouth—but he doesn’t need to. His grip is adamantine.

“You’ll pay for this, you realize,” he growls. “Using what you know, turning it against me, after everything I’ve given you. You’ll pay for it dearly.”

“I know.”

I knew when I laid out the pieces for this plan. And I knew I’d suffer for the spawn the moment Artesia told me he burned their hands because of me.

This seems to anger him more. He scoffs.

“You understand what you feel for them is one-sided, don’t you?” he asks. “If I hadn’t ordered them to behave, the spawn would have torn into your lovely throat the moment hunger overtook reason.”

He leans in, breath hot against my cheek.

“And they certainly wouldn’t bare their backs for you, were your places exchanged.”

A pause.

“You hand your loyalty to every pitiful wretch,” he continues. “And what of me? Who has armed you, clothed you, given you shelter and laid you on a bed of silks? Who protects you from your matron? I’m the one who forgives your every blunder, every weakness, every pathetic bout of conscience. And yet somehow, you offer me nothing but disrespect.”

“I am loyal to you,” I snap. “And grateful. You know that.”

“Do I?” he asks. “After your little trick with the wards? Undermining me—exposing me—before my court with what you know of my past? No, my dear—I’m not so sure I do.”

“I’m stopping you from making a mistake with the spawn,” I counter. “If you become what your master was, you will regret it—even if you’re blind to it now.”

He halts mid-stride. Turns.

And then his hands are on me—both shoulders, hard enough to bruise. He yanks me close, breath hot and ragged through clenched teeth.

“Tav, dearest,” he says, furious, “no one makes me want to become him more than you. Were I not so…fond of you—so invested—I’d have done far worse than a public lashing. The only thing—the only thing—that saved you was past good behavior.”

He shakes me for emphasis, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. Oddly, I think of my mother. She’d shake me the same way when I acted out, in moments when she couldn’t be bothered to raise her voice or strike me.

“Do you understand?” he demands, shaking me again. “Well? Do you?”

I nod. His grip tightens, as if he wants to do something more, but after a breath, he lets go.

We walk the rest of the way to the dungeons in silence.

The dungeon antechamber reeks—spilled rum, sour wine, sweat. The guards are drinking openly, two sitting cross-legged with a battered Talis deck between them, goblets tipped on their sides. Drow green wine slicks the floor. Another drinks straight from the bottle.

They laugh too loud—until they see us. Then the noise dies sharp.

“Vendui ‘sohna,” I call. “<He’s changed his mind. Open the doors.>”

“Whatever she just spat in that hideous language of hers is likely true,” Astarion says lazily. “Let her through, before I’m forced to endure another syllable.”

I barrel through the door before it’s even fully open.

Fenorin is crumpled in the corner, barely lifting his head at my approach. His face is battered, swollen, one eye nearly shut from bruising. His once-fine clothes are stiff with blood.

“Tav,” he rasps, trying to smile. “What a delight. Do forgive the state of things.”

I drop to a crouch beside him, gently tilting his face to inspect the damage. Skin split. Nose crooked. Blood dried black on his collar.

The door shuts behind me.

Notes:

I love the idea that she's decently eloquent in Common because of Astarion and Gale, but just talks like a gangster hillbilly in Drow.

The part where she offers her back for a flogging was one of the first scenes I dreamt up for this fic. I felt it fits both her background and his history. A lot of Forgotten Realm drow content features lashing and whips.

Also I've put a lot of hints as to what's going to happen. Have I been too heavy-handed? Does everyone already know the twists?

Anyways, thank everyone so much for reading. It has been so fun having an audience!

sword!

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⢶⣤⡠⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠈⠛⠳⠦⣄⣤⣤⣼⣴⡿⡏⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠋⢿⣿⣾⣿⣿⣅⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⡟⣯⢻⣟⠏⠛⠳⢤⣄⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⡿⣿⡾⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠓⠷⣤⣀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣔⣱⡃⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠴⢜⡢⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⣛⣿⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣿⠷⣻⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⢿⣾⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡜⠁⢾⠇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣰⡿⠃⡜⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⢯⡷⡰⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⢏⡾⡷⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡄⠀⠀⠀⠸⠀⢀⣄⠀⠀⠀⢀⣾⣿⢉⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠺⠍⠁⠀⠀⠐⠀⠀⣋⠀⠀⠀⣼⣴⣻⠇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡄⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⡆⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡄⠀⠀⢃⠄⣸⣿⠿⡗⠀⢠⠀⠀⠀⠆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⡋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⡀⣰⣿⢭⡝⠁⠈⠛⠁⠰⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⠘⠈⣠⡅⢀⠰⠀⣦⡏⢛⠦⠃⡀⠀⠀⠜⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⠀⠀⠙⠀⠐⡈⡠⠌⠀⠼⠉⣵⢼⠛⠀⠁⡠⠂⡀⠶⠂⠀⠒⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠔⠣⠁⢀⠢⠂⠣⠄⣀⣉⢨⠰⠁⠀⡅⠔⠀⠄⢀⠀⠀⠀⠚⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣆⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠈⡀⠈⠅⡀⠀⡆⠀⣸⢃⠃⠢⠃⠀⠈⠀⠀⠷⠔⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠄⠉⠁⢂
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡐⢤⠃⠘⡋⠐⠁⠼⢞⠈⡞⠁⠴⠖⢠⡘⠀⠈⠏⠀⠤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⡕⡂⠃⠠⠠⠈
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⠀⠏⠘⠀⠀⠀⠆⡠⣄⠜⢀⡀⣁⡀⠁⠈⠀⣀⠀⠥⠀⠒⠒⠂⠀⠀⠭⠉⠙⣻⣿⣶⠄⠠⠠⠤⠤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠒⠒⠚⢒⠚⠛⠻⠽⠛⠛⠒⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣠⠐⣶⠂⠈⢳⢄⡠⠉⢠⠀⢰⠀⠜⠅⠈⠁⠀⠀⠀⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⢨⠀⠊⣸⠞⣠⠘⣧⢸⠘⡀⠘⠃⠤⠀⠈⢌⠨⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⠀⠀⠐⢠⣎⠪⢀⣁⠒⠳⢸⠠⣗⢶⠂⢀⠀⡀⠀⡈⠀⠀⠈⠀⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠐⠇⠀⠀⠀⠈⠠⠀⠈⢈⣯⠖⣞⠃⠀⠀⢸⠀⢠⠘⢀⠁⢀⠂⠢⠁⠀⠀⠛⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⡠⠀⠉⠀⠀⠀⠀⠊⠁⣠⢃⠁⠶⢠⢸⠀⠆⠈⠀⠣⠁⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⠀⢀⣯⣧⡞⠁⡌⠀⠀⣦⢸⠀⢀⠀⢁⠀⢀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠑⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⣿⠟⠀⠠⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢘⠀⠀⠀⠈⢁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠐⢮⠗⠒⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠀⢘⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠨⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⣴⡀⠀⠀⠐⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⠄⠀⠸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠘⡏⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Chapter 16: The Cell

– Tav –

I freeze.

Then I whirl, lunging for the handle. My palms slam into the metal just as the bolt thuds into place.

Too late. The lock slides home, sealing us within.

Trapped. A cold spike of panic seizes my heart—but rage quickly overtakes it.

“Astarion,” I snarl, pounding against the door. “Open the door.”

“Apologies, my love,” he calls from the other side, amused. “But this fetish of yours for the spawn has grown tiresome. It seems you need a lesson in loyalty—specifically in who is worthy of yours.”

I hurl myself at the door, shoulder first. “Let me out!”

“Why?” Astarion asks, perfectly pleasant. “You were so desperate to see him. It would be rude to cut your visit short.”

“Vith’ir!” I shout, ramming the door so hard my shoulder sears with pain. “Dos xukuthe'l fa'la zatoast!”

My heart’s beating too fast, slamming against my ribs. I can barely breathe.

He laughs, utterly unbothered. “I'm sure whatever venom you've just snarled in Drow was positively withering,” he says, raising his voice over the sound of my fists meeting the door.

Voice honeyed, he adds, “And Fenorin, darling, if you’re feeling peckish—do help yourself. She seems to think you won’t harm her. Let’s see if her faith is misplaced.”

I throw myself at the door again, and again, screaming, kicking, slamming both fists against it until they burn.

His footsteps fade.

Still, I don’t stop.

My throat is raw, knuckles screaming, chest heaving.

“You do realize that’s not going to work, don’t you?” Fenorin calls from his corner. “Trust me, I’ve tried. Quite vigorously.”

I ignore him and press on. Another slam. Another. Another. My breath grows ragged, the ache spreading through my arms, my shoulders, my ribs.

I pull back from the door, snarling in frustration.

Fine. Brute force will not do. I will find something that will.

I turn on the room itself —eyes raking over every crack, every seam. I crouch low, running my hands across the stone. A splinter. A shard. A nail. Anything I can use.

There is nothing. It is but brick and dirt, with no loose stone to pry free. No window. Not even a cot. And certainly no way out.

I throw myself at the door once more. Agony shoots through my hands, white-hot. I cry out before I can stop myself.

The skin is split, flesh raw.

“Tav, please,” Fenorin says firmly.

But he doesn’t understand.

I sink to my knees, pressing my burning hands against my face. Shame wells up, thick in my throat.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I thought I was going to save you.”

“At least now I have good company,” Fen replies breezily. “If I had to choose a cellmate, you’d be my first pick. No contest.”

A breath of laughter escapes me—shaky, exhausted.

I hear him shift, then the quiet sound of footsteps as he crosses the tiny cell toward me.

“Let me see?” he asks gently.

I hesitate, then allow him to take one of my hands. He turns it over in his grasp, tutting at the damage like he’s done before. “My word. If I didn’t know better, I’d accuse you of masochism.”

Perhaps I am a masochist. Perhaps that’s why I’ve stayed at Astarion’s side for so long.

I’m too lost in thought to notice the change in Fenorin’s breathing. I don’t register him drawing closer, lifting my hand, his lips parting—

Until the wet heat of his mouth closes over my fingers, sucking greedily.

I rip my hand away with a chocked sound of disgust. “What in the hells are you doing?!”

Fenorin stumbles back, eyes wide, face flushed with shame but warring with something else. Appetite.

“I—I’m sorry!” he stammers. “It’s been weeks, Tav. And your blood—gods, it smells divine. No wonder he can’t keep his teeth out of you.”

Did Astarion dose me with bloodroot once more?

I rake back through the day, searching for the moment he could have slipped it to me.

Then I catch a glimpse of Fenorin.

He’s pressed into the corner, chest rising too fast, pupils blown wide. Desperate, but sickeningly hopeful. He knows how much I care for him, so he thinks I might feed him.

No, Astarion didn’t give me bloodroot. Fenorin is simply hungry, likely for the first time since he was turned. Compared to what Astarion and his siblings endured, he’s been spoiled.

“Never do that again,” I tell Fenorin. “Do you understand? You will not drink of me.”

“Of course,” he says, too quick, eyes darting away.

Silence stretches between us, thick and awkward. Neither of us will meet each other’s eyes.

Finally, I speak. “Tell me about Artor Morlin.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

It’s exactly what one might expect.

Whether that makes it harder or easier to swallow, I am uncertain.

Artor Morlin told Fen the truth: most vampires have no reason to release their spawn. Why create a rival when you can keep a servant? Spawn make perfect servants.

“He’s never going to set you free,” Morlin told Fenorin, “Why would he? You must do it yourself.”

Perhaps he’s right.

Either way, it was enough to push Fenorin into deceiving me.

“I knew he wouldn’t be mad at you,” Fenorin protests. “Anyone else he’d have killed. But you? He’d huff and storm about, then you’d be sitting on his lap a day later.”

“He could have hurt me,” I counter. “As he has, time and time again.”

“I had to do it,” Fenorin insists, pleading now. “Taudl, Tav, I know it wasn’t fair to you, but can you blame me? I had to try something. I can’t live like this—I won’t.”

I turn away. His selfishness hurts, makes me regret every risk I took for him, every ounce of trust I gave.

“I cannot be tied to him for eternity,” Fen presses. “It’s disgusting, the way he treats me in bed. You don’t get it—he’s still playing doting lover with you, keeping you happy while you can still run.”

He leans forward. “You know what you’ll be to him the moment you can’t any longer? Nothing. Just another toy for him to break—”

“Fenorin, shut up,” I snap. “I’ll not hear another word about us.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

That night, I dream in circles.

My aunt is there, drilling some lesson into me—again and again. Whatever it is, I can’t keep up. Every time I fail, she cuffs me upside the head.

Somewhere in the dream, I know I’m supposed to be bigger than this, stronger. I’m allowing her to treat me this way. And yet, I still don’t stop her. I fold, and I fold, and I fold.

I wake with a jolt—Fenorin’s face inches from mine, fangs glinting in the dimness.

I jerk back, heart pounding.

“Vendui,” he greets, as though nothing is amiss, and I am not locked in a cell with a hungry spawn, one who I just caught hovering over me in my sleep. “Sleep well?”

I only scowl.

“Tav?” he calls.

I grumble something in response, grumpy from my unrestful sleep.

“When the door closed, you lost your mind,” Fenorin says. “I’ve never seen you like that. It frightened me.”

Good, I think. If he’s afraid, he won’t try to sink his teeth into me. Still, some part of me wishes he’d resist because he cares, not because I’m some feral thing.

“And when we found out the Harpers had you locked away, Astarion said he best move quickly, because you didn’t ‘fare well’ caged,” he continues. “What did he mean by that?”

Perhaps I’m too tired to lie, or perhaps there is nothing to do but talk. Either way, much to my surprise, I tell him of Eredune.

I don’t give him the whole of it, obviously—I tell him nothing of the Braeryn, nor that I was half-grown when she took me for her own. But I tell him that I was a concubine.

“I had a temper back then,” I say, laying on my back as I stare at the endless black of the ceiling. “I was young. I acted out.”

I’m not certain that I actually did. At the time I thought I’d earned what she did to me. Now… now it’s all muddled.

I exhale slowly.

“She found it amusing, or she didn’t. I could never predict which. When she didn’t…she’d shut me away,” I explain. “Sometimes it wasn’t even a punishment, it was for my protection. But she’d leave me alone in there for days. Weeks. It made me... not right, inside.”

I’d hear footsteps and see flashing lights. I spent all day crouched, listening through the gap they passed the food through, tracking shadows that may or may not have been real.

I suppose I never properly recovered. My ‘twitchiness’, as Astarion so fondly calls it, worsened a whole lot after that. Strange how it’s the mundane things that ruin you —not war, nor rape, nor murder, though Lolth knows those did my nerves no kindness either.

“Then she would come at last,” I say. “I was so starved for touch, for even the sound of a voice, that I’d cling to her.” I laugh, bitter. “I think she got off on it, seeing me made small, having me thank her afterwards.”

Fen mutters something in Elvish, what I know not.

“It was confusing. I felt angry, but so, so grateful. I didn’t know which of the two was right,” I finish, “Either way I got into bed with her.”

I look at Fenorin at last. He watches me, unreadable, before shaking his head.

“And Astarion knows all this, I suppose?” he asks.

I nod. Of course he does.

“He’ll do the same to you the moment you leave this cell,” he says. “Mark my words. This was never about me—it’s all been for you. He wants you brought to heel, and he’s having some fun along the way.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I spend the entire day negotiating with the drow guards, trying to wrangle food and water through the door.

There’s a small, barred window at the top—just enough to see the vague outlines of the guards and catch the smell of piss, sweat, and drow green wine. I have to stretch to reach it, stand on my toes until my calves burn.

“<Listen, my ass won’t rot in here forever,>” I tell them. “<When I step out, d’you want me remembering you fondly or planning your bad luck?>”

One of them chuckles. “<Ah, but it is you in the cell, and your master outside. Should fortune shift, I will seek you out.>”

He winks. I hate this one.

“<Cute,>” I say flatly. “<But the master means to punish me, not kill me slow. If I starve, he loses his fun. Send word—tell him I need feeding,>” I insist. “<You know how the pale fuckers are. They forget we got to eat same as they.>”

Silence. A glance between them. Could be a quiet no, or a quiet yes. Either way, I lower myself onto the floor, stretching my legs out with a slow breath.

“You’re hungry?” Fenorin asks.

“Not just yet,” I reply. “Trying not to make a habit of wasting away.”

I need to take care of myself now.

“I’m hungry too,” Fen says, not really to me.

There’s something wrong in the way he says it. I glance sideways. His eyes are locked on me—glassy, unfocused, but intent.

“Tav.” He swallows thickly. I know what comes next. “I have a proposition.”

I shift back, until the stone wall presses into my spine. There isn’t far to go in a cell of this size.

“The master says I can feed from you,” he goes on, smiling faintly. Almost apologetically. “So why not now? Just a taste, while you’re still in good health. It’s practical, really—safer for both of us. I won’t take much, just enough to keep us well. You have my word.”

My mouth tightens.

“Fenorin—”

“We don’t know how long he’ll keep us here,” he whines in that familiar, pleading lilt—the one I used to take pity on. “You’re strong. You could part with just a sip, couldn’t you? I’m in pain—”

“No,” I cut him off, final.

He flinches like I’ve struck him.

Then his face twists. “You’re punishing me!” he accuses. “I lied to you, and now you want me to suffer.”

I don’t rise to it, though the urge to slap him like a petulant child gnaws at me. Instead, I cross my arms and lean against the wall, waiting him out.

He paces, ranting. Whining.

Then sulks. Then pleads again. It drags on, endlessly.

It feels like hours when he finally stills. When he does, he looks a little more like himself. But only just.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The guards promise they’ve sent word to Astarion —but with drow, who’s to say?

Still, it’s somewhat of a sign they might be amenable to me. Perhaps I can weaponize it.

When I’m finished speaking with them, I settle opposite Fenorin. He’s grown quieter in the last day, since I refused him.

I study him for a moment, then tilt my head. “Tell me—was Morlin at least a good fuck?”

Fenorin lifts both his hands and his face in mock rapture. “Oh, the most amazing of fucks,” he sighs. “Transcendent. The kind that makes you forget your name, your pride, your principles. Worth betraying everyone I care for? Evidently I thought so.”

Something about that phrasing—everyone I care for—doesn’t sit right.

“Fen,” I begin, “Morlin sent those first assassins, didn’t he? The ones Astarion handled himself, while I was laid up in the old rooms?”

Fenorin nods.

“They targeted me,” I tell him. “Even in the raid—they had chances to go for Astarion directly, but they didn’t. They chased me instead. Have you any idea why they’d do that?”

Fen’s face twists. “Oh, please. As if I’m ever privy to anything. I’m practically a slave, Tav,” he snaps. He sneers. “You, on the other hand… I saw the way Artor couldn’t take his eyes off you. Perhaps this has more to do with you than you are letting on. Have anything to confess?”

I recognize this immediately for what it is—a deflection. Fenorin and Astarion are more alike than either of them realizes.

This I will revisit. For now, I pretend not to realize.

I shake my head. “You know as well as I that I could never go against him.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The guards deny me food and water, claiming Astarion has refused me.

“<Did you actually speak to him or are you giving me the runaround?>” I ask.

The nearest sneers. “<This is your reward for lying with surface filth.>”

I roll my eyes. “Gods, spare me,” I complain. “I’m not the first drow to do it and I won’t be the last.”

If we were in Menzoberranzan, he wouldn’t dare. No male would risk speaking to a drow woman like this. But they do have a habit of behaving personally slighted whenever one of us takes a non-drow lover, and they quickly forget themselves when given a scrap of power.

He leans in, lips curled. “<And it will end for you the same it ends for every drow who forgets the elamshin and defiles herself.>”

“I want to speak with him,” I insist. “Tell him. And fetch me something to eat and drink—it’s in your best interest I stay breathing.”

“I’ll fetch you something,” says the younger one. He’s behind the older guard, lounging. It’s only the two of them now.

Fenorin shuffles nervously behind me.

I narrow my eyes. “What’s the catch?”

The young guard rises with a grunt, brushing dust from his sleeves.

He puts his face up to the bars. “None,” he says. “You’ll have to trade something, of course. That’s the way of things.”

I gesture around the cell. “I find myself low on things to trade at present.”

The drow smiles. “You’ve something. All women do.”

Fenorin sucks in a breath, shocked. I make a sound of disgust.

“What, you’ll spread your legs for that scrawny darthirii but you’ll give no love to your own?” he asks. “Come now, it won’t be so bad. You don’t know how long you’ll be down here, ussta ssinjin. it’s wise you make nice.”

For a moment there is only our breathing.

“Fine,” I concede.

“Tav—” Fenorin begins, uneasy. I cut him off with a look, my hand lifted.

The drow guard’s brows lift. He smells a trap, but he wants what he wants more. He’s hopeful.

“How do you want this done?” I ask. “Because if you think I’ll fuck you while Fenorin stands gawping, you’ve gone mad.”

He snorts, but he’s thinking. “You’re not hiding a blade, are you?”

“I’m not hiding a blade,” I say sweetly.

He pulls back, shaking his head. “Why did you say it like that?”

“Like what?” I ask innocently, my fingers drifting to my hair, twisted up in a hairpin.

Fenorin sees what I’m doing. “Tav—” he tries again.

“Shut up,” I interrupt. Then, to the drow: “If you think I’ve a knife tucked somewhere, you’re welcome to feel for it. I promise to hold very still for you.”

He bites his lip, considering.

“<Don’t,>” his companion advises. “<You’ve seen what she can do. She’s death itself.>”

I’ve never heard anyone put it quite so poetically. My work feels far messier—the gore, the gasping, the broken bones underfoot.

“If you’re too shy to put your hands on me, come closer,” I suggest. “I’ll give you a slow, thorough demonstration that I’ve nothing on me.”

That does it. The fool draws near, breath quick with excitement.

I reach up, pluck the slender pin from my hair, and feel my white locks fall loose. I toss them over my shoulder.

He leans in—cheek almost pressing the iron bars…

I lunge, driving the hairpin into his eye.

He screams. I twist.

“<Open the door,>” I call. My hand knots into his shirt to keep myself from falling, and him from getting away. “<If I let go now, you might still keep the eye.>”

I’m straining, face pressed hard against the bars, body stretched forward, feet dangling. I do not see when the second guard grabs my arm and yanks it farther through the bars.

I yelp when he slices into my skin. I release the hairpin and try to wrench back, but he won’t let go.

Another cut, the blade so sharp I barely feel it. Then another.

I grit my teeth and twist, fighting his grip. Two more cuts before I finally wrench my arm free.

My arm is slick with blood. Not deep enough to kill me—he didn’t cut vertically—but there’s an orderliness to them. Five small slashes, all precise, all bleeding hard.

Outside the cell, the younger guard is still screaming, shrill and wild, no doubt clutching the ruin of his eye.

“You’re not the only one who’s hungry,” the older drow taunts. “Let’s see how long your friend keeps his teeth to himself while you bleed.”

My blood runs cold. can feel Fenorin’s stare boring into the back of my skull.

The guards footsteps are fading when I turn around to face him.

“Gods you smell good,” Fen breathes, eyes gleaming. He licks his lips.

He takes a step toward me.

Tucking my wounded arm close, I angle away from him. I back myself into the corner.

He laughs nervously. “Tav, don’t be ridiculous. I’d never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Maybe, or maybe I don’t,” I reply. “But I will hurt you. Stay. Back.”

He growls, frustrated. “Look at it just leaking down your arm!” he complains, gesturing. “Dripping away when I could make use of it. I wouldn’t even need to bite.”

The thought of him lapping my arm is unappealing—but it isn’t what’s stopping me. It’s what might happen the moment blood hits his tongue.

I’ve seen famine. When a starving person gets their hands on food, they tear into it like animals. Sometimes they vomit it all back up, then keep eating. Sometimes their bodies can’t handle the sudden plenty, and they gorge themselves to death.

I don’t trust Fenorin not to lose control.

I don’t move, don’t answer, but my body coils tight, preparing for a fight.

“You don’t understand what this feel like,” he explains. “It’s not hunger. Not like you know it. It claws inside you.”

I still say nothing. But I watch him. Every shift of his weight. Every twitch of his hands.

His breath shakes. “I said I’d never hurt you. You have to believe me,” Fen says. “I love you, you know. As if you were my sister.”

I recoil, repulsed at his blatant manipulations.

“If you mean that, then show it,” I reply carefully. “I’m not doing this to be cruel, Fen. There’s something…”

I hesitate. It’s a dangerous thing to say, even now. I haven’t told a soul yet for that reason.

I decide I can’t afford full honesty. Half the truth will do, as it usually does.

“The raw meat,” I begin. “You may have noticed I’ve developed a…taste for it.”

He pouts. “You’ve always liked it.”

“No,” I say, annoyed. “No, I haven’t. It came on a few weeks after I arrived here.”

His head lifts, eyes narrowing with interest.

“I think its his bite,” I say, though it’s not. “It’s doing something to me that I don’t understand. I can’t risk taking in more, not until I know the cost.”

It’s not entirely a lie. My body doesn’t answer solely to me anymore, something inside me has taken control of my appetite. And I do worry what effect the bite will have on it.

“I’m scared, Fen,” I confess. This is truth. “That’s why I can’t let you drink my blood. Do you understand?”

He considers it for a moment. Then he nods solemnly, eyes filled with unshed tears. I smile, relieved.  I really don’t want to kill Fenorin.

I walk to the bars to see if the guards have returned.

We can survive this. There’s always a way out.  Perhaps an angle with the guards, or maybe Astarion will call off our imprisonment when things get dire. We’d figure this out, together—

Something slams into my back.

I gasp, twisting—too slow.

Fenorin is already on me. His fingers clamp around my wrist, nails biting into flesh. But I’m faster. I pivot hard, driving my knee up into his jaw.

His head snaps back with a crack, and he crumples, clutching his face.

“I just wanted to smell it,” he gasps, over and over. “I just to smell...”

I stare down at him, chest heaving, my teeth bared in disgust.

“Control yourself, you sniveling little brat.” My voice is cold, furious. “Astarion was once denied blood for thirty years and did not break. This is what a month turns you into?”

He doesn’t answer. Just shudders, hands pressed against the floor, breathing ragged.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I fight sleep with everything I have.

Despite his trembling promises, despite the way he cried and begged and swore he’d never harm me—I do not trust Fenorin. I cannot.

I last longer than I should. I watch him sleep twice, counting his breaths, waiting for a twitch, a stir—any sign that he’s pretending. But exhaustion wins.

When I wake, it’s not to teeth at my throat, but I know immediately something is amiss.

Fen crouches a few paces from me, eyes glinting in the darkness, a thin line of saliva trailing from his lips.

“I’m going to come forward and bite you,” he announces, eerily calm. “I—I don’t want to hurt you. But I need this. I can’t stop myself.”

My blood runs cold.

“Please don’t,” I plead. It slips out before I can cage it. I hate how young I sound, how scared.

Fenorin looks at me in pity, then takes another step.

“I can’t let you do this,” I tell him, my fists curling.

He cocks his head. “How do you intend to stop me?” he asks. “I see no blades on you.”

My fists clench harder. Heat pricks my eyes, tears of frustration, but I refuse to let them fall. I won’t give him that.

I have very few options.

I remember what happened with Astarion and the bloodroot.

“Very well,” I say finally, though it hurts. “If I don’t struggle, you’ll be gentle, won’t you? Come then.”

I offer him my wrist. “Do what you must.”

Fenorin’s breath catches. His mouth parts, trembling with want. He lurches forward, stumbling in his eagerness.

The second he’s too close, I rip my wrist back.

His eyes widen, confused, hurt.

“Put your head on my lap,” I instruct. “I’ll guide you to my wrist. It’s how Astarion and I used to do it.”

A lie. I gave Astarion my throat, freely and without question, even when he was a stranger to me.

But Fen believes me. He nods, grateful.

“Thank you, Tav,” he rambles, breathless with relief. “You don’t know what this means. This—this is the greatest gift you could have given me.”

I hear an echo in his words. Astarion once said something like that, the first time he fed from me.

I smile wanly. “I know.”

Fenorin practically scrambles into place, pressing himself beside me, his head settling into my lap

He looks up, eyes shinning. “You’re a good friend to me.”

I brush a hand through his hair. “There’s just one thing,”

His brows twitch. He nearly whines in complaint.

“Why did Morlin’s people come after me?” I ask gently. “Tell the truth. Then I’ll let you feed.”

Fen stiffens, biting his lip. He has the pitiful look of a guilty child.

“I won’t be angry,” I say softly. It tastes like ash. “I promise.”

He closes his eyes. “Artor asked for Astarion’s weaknesses,” he says quietly. “And I told him. I said it was you.”

My hand doesn’t still. Part of me anticipated the betrayal, just not the shape it took.

“You didn’t see him when the Harpers took you,” Fenorin continues. “He lost all sense. He’d have torn the Gate apart, stone by stone, if it meant getting you back. Or making them bleed for touching you.”

For a moment, I allow myself to mistake this for love. It looks like love. I’d be the same, if someone hurt him.

But it’s not. It’s ownership. They had taken what was his. Property he cherishes—mostly, when I’m being good—but property all the same. An extension of him, same as the spawn or the estate.

What was it he’d said before? A slight against you has become one against me. I’ve become tied to his image. Probably more than ever, after I killed the vampire lords.

“You mustn’t hate me,” Fenorin begs. “I never wanted him to hurt you. I thought if I gave Artor enough—pleased him enough—he’d rid us of Astarion. That was all.”

I sigh. “I could never hate you.”

I slide one arm around, cupping his cheek in my palm. The angle is awkward, strained—but it’ll do.

“I’m so sorry that this is happening,” I tell him hoarsely, thumb brushing just beneath his eye. 

His brow creases. There’s the briefest flicker of confusion in his eyes. His lips part—he’s about to ask what I mean.

My hands wrench sudden.

The bone cracks, a wet crunch. I nearly retch.

I twist harder. His body convulses— once, violently —then stills.

I hold him for far longer than I should, pretending his body hasn’t already begun to grow cold.

Notes:

I was meaning to post this on Saturday but I ended up getting so lit I was worried about typos and then I spent all of Sunday fighting for my life at work, so I'm not sure how many of yall will see this. Still suffering from hangxiety days later, pray for me.

Poor Fenorin, may Corellon see fit to give a nobler vessel in the next life.

I've been working to stay more faithful to the core principles that shape characters in my writing--the idea that they're driven by a fundamental nature, fear, lived experience, or desire. With Tav, its the famine she endured as a child, which taught her to see the world through a lens of scarcity. Anything she needs or wants can be taken from her at any moment, including food, people, safety, love. Over time, she comes to believe that the only way to escape this constant uncertainty is by aligning herself with a powerful patron—first Eredune, and later Astarion. That’s why, at the start of the fic, she’s so determined to secure a new patron rather than fleeing farther from Menzoberranzan.
Her experience with hunger is also what helped her understand vampiric hunger, which I've written as a metaphor for intimacy/sex

anywaysss, should post Thursday. I'm almost done writing everything.
(,,> ᴗ <,,)

Chapter 17: The Fool (Inverted)

– Tav –

I spend a day or so with Fenorin’s corpse—again, impossible to tell. My mind’s gone soft, my thoughts mushroom pulp. I’m only good for sleeping, so that’s what I do. A mercy, to hear no whimpering or begging. No more half-waking panic that I’ll feel teeth in my throat.

Eventually, the silence must draw attention. One of the drow guards finally cracks the door, cursing sharply when he spots the body.

Moments later—or maybe longer—Astarion is there, standing in the doorway. He holds a gloved hand to his nose against the stench, which frankly pisses me off.

“You killed him,” he says, almost as if to himself. “I can’t say I was expecting that.”

“I warned him not to bite me.” My voice is dull.

Fenorin’s head is twisted my way, staring blindly through me. He’s still handsome as in life, but the body is already slackening, looking more like a wax figure than the person he was.

I look up at Astarion. “What becomes of elves when they die?”

“We get another go at it,” he replies. “Not sure your kind gets that luxury.”

“Perhaps we’ll meet again on better terms,” I say dryly. If I don’t die first and go to whatever pit or prison drow are owed.

Then, leveling him with a tired look, I ask, “Do you mean to let me out, or have you come to stare?”

Wordlessly, he extends his hand. I take it.

My legs hold, at least. Killing can calm the nerves, but this wasn’t some nameless foe. This was Fenorin. I loved him, and he is gone, by my hand. Beneath everything, I feel like a poison to all that is good. But mostly I am hollow.

Astarion casts furtive glances as we leave the cell, trying to read me. Gauging if I’m liable to lash out, snarl or turn on him.

I am beyond those things. I just want out, away from here. I can’t imagine forgiving him—but I don’t need to. I’ll pretend this never happened, shove it down with all the rest I carry with me, move on.

I can feel him strategizing. He knows he crossed a line I told him never to touch.

“The drow I stationed were under orders to get you out the instant Fenorin so much as twitched the wrong way,” he explains. “Not a second afterwards. I expected he’d break within hours. And when they didn’t bring you to me, I assumed—foolishly, perhaps—that his fondness for you was stronger than the hunger.”

“And if it had been? What then?” I ask. “Would we have stayed indefinitely? You planned for one of us to starve, that much is plain.”

“What do you mean?” he asks. “They weren’t feeding you?”

I shake my head. Whether he’s truly surprised or just playing another angle, I no longer care enough to find out.

“That wasn’t the arrangement,” he says, voice cold. “Food was sent daily from the kitchens. If it never reached you, then someone’s been very bold indeed. They’ll be made an example of.”

The drow, obviously. I warned him a thousand times that they’d betray us the moment it served them. He didn’t listen.

I press onto more mundane concerns.

“I need water.” My voice is hoarse.

The drow watching us don’t move. I look to Astarion.

“Well, you heard her,” he says sharply, waving a hand. “Go on then, fetch her some. And do be quick about it.”

Moments later, I’m handed a waterskin. I uncork it and drink greedily, eyes closed. It hurts—my mouth is dry, cracked, and my throat sore, but the relief is almost dizzying, euphoric.

“Slow down, darling. You’ll make yourself sick,” Astarion chides, hand closing over the waterskin.

I yank it back stubbornly.

He lets me drink three more gulps before wrenching it from my grip. “That's quite enough. You'll have more later,” he says, as if I’m a child.

Water spills from my mouth as I cough, the sudden stop making me sputter. I wipe my chin with the back of my hand and glare up at him hatefully. “Eredune never starved me or denied me water.”

“My apologies,” he says tightly. “Next time I’ll be sure to let you overindulge and vomit all over my floors. Humiliate you, as she would have done. And by now you’ve surely gathered that starving you was not part of my plan.”

He leans in. Despite everything, I don’t flinch or pull back.

“I’ll have the drow killed, naturally,” he murmurs low, so they cannot hear. “But if you’d prefer the pleasure of doing it yourself, I’ll delay until you’re well enough to enjoy it. You’re looking rather...lean, from your ordeal.”

Pull back to look at him, my anger forgotten. “No need. Do you have a blade?”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I draw it out slowly, mercilessly.

Normally, it wouldn’t matter who delivered the blow, so long as the deed was done. But today, I need it to be my hand.

Their pain feels right, as if something inside me has aligned. Someone must answer for Fenorin’s death. I’m not ready to ask whether that someone should be Astarion. Or me.

If the drow are hurting, then I am not.

Astarion lounges in a nearby chair, one leg draped over the other, watching me torment them with reptilian interest.

By the time I’m done, his expression has softened—no, warmed. There’s pride there, twisted though it is, tangled with hunger, fondness, want.

It should repulse me. Instead, it steadies me.

Despite it all, I’m hungry for his strength. When we are in true accord—when I stop trying to be better than I am, and he lets me see how he needs me—we become something terrible and complete. In those moments, it’s easy to believe that nothing matters except us.

But things have changed.

“I suppose you think we’re even,” I declare. “I used your past against you. Now you’ve used mine to punish me.”

He hums low in his throat, contemplating, as I wipe his blade clean against my thigh.

“I meant to teach you a lesson in trust,” he begins. “Or rather, in how poorly you place it. But even without the drow meddling, the delivery may have been a little more… draconian than I realized. For that, I do apologize.”

He’s always been good at apologies, at least with me. Letting me kill the drow went a long way. It calmed me, made me feel I got my revenge. Made it easier to shift the blame away from him.

Still, he’s gone too far, too many times.

I shrug. “You were careless, but I can’t deny it was necessary,” I agree, but my voice is dead.

He notices. “You’re…off,” he says slowly. “Don’t play coy—what happened in that cell?”

I exhale. I need to tell someone, and he’s all I have.

“Come here,” he orders, and I do.

He reaches out from his chair, lacing his fingers through mine.

I stare down at our joined hands. “Did Fenorin tell you he was the one who pointed Morlin toward me?” I ask.

Astarion sighs, pressing a kiss to my knuckles.

“Oh, darling,” he murmurs. “It’s funny, you keep trusting the wrong people, and still, I’m the one left holding your hand when it’s all said and done.”

“I know.”

He draws my hand to his cheek, eyes distant.

“Stupid boy,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Knowing you, I doubt your guard would crumble even if you vanished for a decade. Though...” He smiles faintly. “Finding a replacement would be troublesome.”

I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t because of the guard. Fen told him that if he killed me, you’d fly into a rage,” I explain. “You’d get sloppy, leave openings.”

For once, Astarion has nothing clever to say.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I sink into the oversized chair in Astarion’s chambers, folding into myself, chin resting against the high back. My eyes fix on nothing.

He’s speaking—moving about, fussing over something or other—but I don’t register it until his voice cuts clearer. He mentions a bath and sending for the servants.

“Don’t bother. I’ll draw it myself,” I say. I don’t want anyone near me.

“Nonsense,” he says, smiling. “Didn’t I promise we’d never lift a finger again?”

Perhaps he did, it sounds like him. We’ve both been made to serve before.

I let the servants run the bath, let them scatter the herbs so I’ll smell like roses instead of old blood, then wave them off. I don’t like them waiting on me like Astarion does. It’s an excellent way to get a knife in the back, and I’ve already caught one there this month.

The water steams when I slip in.

I stay until it grows cold, knees hugged to my chest, arms wrapped tight around them. I don’t feel the temperature, but my body shivers all the same.

“You’ll catch a chill,” Astarion calls.

I jolt; I hadn't even known he was there.

He’s perched in the corner, chin propped in one hand, studying me. When I only blink at him, he sighs and rises, tossing a towel at me.

I catch it, step out, and dry myself off with brisk efficiency. Then he’s there, pressing a second towel to my head, rubbing at my hair.

“You’re so very quiet,” he murmurs, hands braced on either side of my head. “Should I be sleeping with one eye open tonight?”

He’s teasing, but there’s a sliver of real concern there. I heard what Gale told him. One day I’d slit his throat in his sleep. Were I any smarter—stronger—I already would have.

He must see the fracture—the thin crack in my composure—as he starts stroking me like he’s gentling some wild beast. One that might very well bite, but only because it’s pathetic and scared.

I won’t cry. There’s no room for that now. Fenorin will be mourned later, when it’s safe.

I swallow the ache in my throat. “I’ve had some time to think,” I say. “We should have answered Morlin’s blow while he was still reeling.”

Astarion’s hands still.

“Shame we didn’t,” he replies dryly. “It may have had something to do with the gaping wound in your stomach at the time.”

“He lost a lot of men,” I press. He steps back, letting the towel drop into my hands before pulling away. “He’s still licking his wounds. We could press the advantage.”

He stops, turning over his shoulder to meet my eye. “I know it stings,” he says. “Fenorin made a fool of you. It’s not your fault, really—you’ve always been soft for a drow. But throwing yourself on Morlin’s blade won’t undo your mistake.”

“And if I run him through with mine instead?” I ask coolly. “I’ll do it with the blade he gave me—or the one you did, if it pleases you. I care little for which one does the work.”

That gets his attention. He pauses in the doorway, shoulder pressed to the frame.

I grab my robe, shrug it on as I speak. “You laughed when I said I’d face any vampire lord who tried me. Then I slew three.”

“Yes, yes, you’re very impressive,” Astarion replies. I know it’s a jab, but I smirk anyway as I knot the robe at my waist. “But if memory serves, you had some help. Morlin himself lent a hand.”

I close the distance between us.

Even now, for all his power, Astarion is just a little wary when I move too quickly. But this time, he doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t glance at my hands.

When I reach him, I trail my hand up his chest, press myself against him.

Astarion once said my appeal lay in contradiction— that I could slit a throat without blinking, then turn to him with the sweetest of smiles. That I could rest my cheek in his bloodstained palm and look at him like neither of us had ever done a single bad thing.

Things were simpler when I was a little idiot in love.

I wish that softness had died with the rest—but no. It lingers. I let him see it, though it pains me, though I wish I could tear it out.

I can only hope I look at him sweetly enough—adoringly enough—that he’ll let me do what must be done.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

Astarion startles. His eyes rake over me, uncertain.

“Yes,” he says at last, as if disappointed in himself, as though it hurts him to say so. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

I brush his cheek, tender. “Then you’ll let me do this for you.”

Notes:

Tav told Jaheira she wanted to live, and it wasn't a lie.
You'll see her plan to make sure of that over the next few chapters. She's been working on it for some time, you may have noticed the hints.

Chapter 18: The Queen of Blades

– Tav –

“<What, so you forget my pay for weeks and then you come sniffing for a fuck?>” Sabrae sneers.

I roll my eyes. “<I’ll rut in the muck with a goblin before I lie with kin again, Lolth take me if I lie.>” Going abed with another drow woman is like fucking an evil cat in heat. I’d done it enough as a teenager to come away with scars.

“<Traitor,>” Sabrae mutters, but there’s no real malice there. She jabs a finger at my bag, switching to Common. “You say one thing, yet you’ve brought your comforts like you mean to nest here.”

I hand her a parcel—back pay in full, all the coin I handed Fenorin to pass along the night he used the wards to leave the estate. Wherever that ended up.

She snatches it before I can blink, retreating into the depths of the Heapside apartment I pay for.

“You’re coming with me to Waterdeep,” I call after her.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I manage much of Astarion’s coin and holdings, but that does not grant me leave to help myself as I please.

I’m allotted enough to cover necessities—supplies, a teleportation spell, and little else. And Sabrae’s payment was never included in that.

So when we arrive in Waterdeep, I am penniless.

We were to take a day, perhaps two, to move quietly through the city—gather what knowledge we could, take food and rest. None of that is necessary, fortunately.

We head straight for Artor Morlin’s domain.

Sabrae and I trade jokes to settle our nerves.

“<Why did the matron hug her son before bed?>” she asks.

“<To better drive the knife in?>” I finish.

She curses. “<You know all of them,>” she complains.

“<Then I’ll tell one: Why don’t babies in the Braeryn cry for their mother?>”

Sabrae squints. “<Because they’re not sure whether to call her sister?>”

“<Because she might find them if they do,>” I answer.

She clicks her tongue, then grins. “<Mine is better. Alright: How many drow does it take to raid a treasure hoard?>”

I wait.

Sabrae leans in, delighted with herself. “<One to find it, one to start the knife fight, and a third to step over the corpses to claim it.>”

They’re barely funny, but they’re something, and I’ll take it.

 

We arrive under cover of a moonless night—whether by cloud or coal-smoke, I couldn’t say. Either way, it suits us. Sabrae’s near blind in the sun, her eyes worse than mine by day.

“<The cisterns should be just past that rampart,>” I whisper.

She’ll skirt the bailey wall, keeping to the shadow, until she reaches the cisterns. From there, she’s to drop down into the drainage trench and climb one of the unfinished construction shafts into the compound. Seems Astarion’s not the only one expanding his dwelling.

I’ll be coming up through the latrine chute.

Both entry points link to the keep’s waterworks. Once inside, we’ll shut the supply—foul it, break it, anything to get the guards running. If fortune favors us, the guards will scramble, pulled from their posts near Morlin’s chambers. That’s when we move.

“<You’re clever for an inbred,>” she says, half praise, half mocking. By now there’s no hiding that I’m from Menzoberranzan.

“<I’m touched,>” I bite out. “<Now go. And if you risk being seen, turn back—quick and quiet as you can. You’re not free of me until this is done.>”

She grins and flashes me the drow sign for respect—the one reserved for a commander or older sibling. The sincerity of it makes it hard to meet her gaze.

Still, I watch as she slips along the bailey wall. I wait until she’s vanished from sight, until she’s likely reached the cistern.

Then I turn. Not toward the trench, nor the chute waiting slick and foul in the dark. I pass it without pause.

I walk to the front gates.

I spook the guards. It’s been some time since I frightened anyone properly—everyone at the estate is far too familiar with me, no matter how silent my gait— and it almost makes me laugh.

“Announce me to your lord,” I call out to them. “Tav dal l'Braeryn. stands at his gate. Tell him I slipped free of my master at last.”

And so it begins.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Artor Morlin comes to greet me with his retinue, but they do not raise the portcullis. Instead, they remain just beyond the gate, watching me through the bars. His eyes—and those of his spawn—gleam red in the dark, catching the torchlight.

I hear the click of another crossbow being loaded. If I’m counting right, fifteen are trained on me.

“Tav,” he begins, lips curling to reveal long, yellowed fangs. One is gold-capped. “What a surprise. When you failed to arrive, I assumed Lord Ancunín had you locked away in some boudoir for the next century or so.”

“He bores quickly,” I reply.

One of his spawn steps forward, hand still on her weapon. “Forgive me, master, but your kind —though fickle—are not without cunning. This could be his ploy to breach our walls and assassinate you.”

“She’s right in part,” I cut in. “I came here with orders to kill you.”

The spawn shuffle uneasily. Morlin waits for me to continue.

“Let me speak plainly, if I haven’t already,” I continue. “Astarion believes I’m here to make you answer for the blade aimed at him some nights ago. But I came with my own purpose.”

“She could be speaking truth,” the spawn murmurs. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t draw those swords of hers the moment we raise the gate.”

“A gesture of goodwill, then.” I unbuckle my arms belt, raising it above my head, swords dangling. I try not to wince—disarming myself feels like signing my own death warrant.

Next comes the thigh blade, pulled slow from its sheath. I tap my heel against the bridge, revealing the boot dagger, and toss it aside. Then the stiletto sewn into my cloak lining. And finally, I pull free my long, needle-like hair pin, my long white hair spilling down over my shoulders and the small of my back.

“That must have been difficult for you,” Morlin says, his eyes on the blades. He’s checking to see if I’m carrying the one he gifted me. Neither that sword nor its sister are on my arms belt tonight.

“Yes,” I agree honestly. “But this is less difficult: send your guard to the cisterns. You’ll find a drow warrior there. She was sent along with me to accomplish our task.”

The cisterns have no construction shaft. Sabrae had slipped down into them and found herself trapped—caught like prey in a pit. Confused. The guards will have no trouble surrounding her.

“Do as she says,” Morlin commands. “And see her weapons collected. Then raise the portcullis.”

My nostrils flare as I watch them gather up my blades and carry them from my sight. I track them as long as I can

Then the portcullis creaks, and begins to rise.

“I tried to have you killed,” Morlin confesses. “Did you know that?”

He doesn’t come closer—he and his brood remain at the threshold, watching.

I nod curtly. “Fenorin said he made me a target.”

Morlin takes a step forward. “He claimed your master would go mad with grief if you were killed.”

I laugh bitterly. “That’s very flattering, but no. He’s beyond heartbreak now,” I reply. “If I died, he’d rage like a child denied his toy. He’d lash out. Make mistakes. Perhaps you’d even succeed in killing him.”

I meet Morlin’s eyes. “But all the same applies if I flee into the arms of another vampire lord.”

Morlin’s eyes flash with interest, and he takes several steps closer as though drawn by the thought alone. But then he halts, blinking it away. “And what would you have done if we managed to kill him that night?”

I stop breathing for a moment.

No lie comes fast enough. Just a sudden, white-hot jolt of panic and grief—so sharp, it’s as if what he suggested truly occurred.

Because in a way it is. Getting sanctuary here would mean losing him. He won’t be dead, but he would be lost to me, forever.

The spawn—his chamberlain, by the look of her—scoffs. “She’s still his creature. Just look at her. Don’t take another step.”

Morlin isn’t listening to her. His attention is entirely mine now.

I’ve spent enough time among vampires to know what stirs them—even the idea of taking his rival’s adoring, beloved lover, of cuckolding him, has Morlin wholly absorbed.

I try not to think of Fenorin as I let this happen.

“What happened, my dear?” Morlin croons. “You still love him, I can see that. Why did you run?”

My throat locks. I swallow, but it doesn’t help.

I don’t want to show weakness—not in front of them. Not this shame. I can barely face it myself.

Gods, it makes me sick.

Now that it’s been long enough, I see the pattern.

I gave Eredune my heart and my body, thinking she’d lift me from the filth the Stenchstreets. A child’s fantasy—of being saved, of being chosen. What I found instead was a nightmare.

I escaped. Found a prettier nightmare, who smiled more and called me sweet things, who told me it could be different. Who told me it didn’t have to hurt. And so I handed over everything I could think to give.

Worse—I made myself a new master.

Astarion, as he was, never had the strength to do what he did to me.

I gave him that power. Willingly.

“He said I wouldn’t have to be afraid,” I manage, but my voice sounds nothing like my own. “But he—he—”

He what?

He hurts me and I’m fairly certain it excites him? He breaks all his promises and then convinces me he never broke them, or that he never made them at all? He doesn’t love me—isn’t even capable of loving me? He’ll grow bored, and then what? What happens to me when he’s done?

It doesn’t matter. The tears come. This is, unfortunately, the price of sanctuary.

I wipe the first one away and look at the wetness in my palm as if it’s something foreign.

Morlin comes forward at last, cooing some sickly-sweet nonsense as he wraps his arms around me. I want to rip him apart. I tremble with rage and hope it gets mistaken as meekness.

I only manage not to lash out because I pretend he’s Gale. But even then, I think I’d bite Gale if he tried this.

Still—

It gets me inside.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I may be difficult, but I’m usually quite good at reading what people want from me.

It’s clear Fenorin told Morlin enough—about Astarion’s household, and about me.

He thinks I’m a broken bird. He’s hoping that with kindness, he can earn the same slavish devotion I gave Astarion.

First, he has his spawn take me to the baths.

The most outspoken of them—the woman I assume is his chamberlain, and likely his favored spawn—escorts me herself. She’s serpentine, quite literally: yellow, slit-pupiled eyes and fine, dark scales where skin should be.

“What are you?” I ask.

She wrinkles her nose, or tries to. It’s flat, with only two narrow slits.

“Yuan-ti,” she answers dryly.

Thankfully, they let me bathe myself. Vampires are perverted enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Morlin sent in two nubile slaves to hold me down, lather every intimate inch, and present me to him like a gift.

Instead, they assign the yuan-ti to watch me—Medechai, I learn soon enough.

They give me a robe. Silk, of course, and cut scandalously short, but at least I’m not marched through the halls naked.

Small mercies.

When we leave the baths, a pair of guards stop Medechai. She steps aside to speak with them, murmuring in low tones.

“Did they find Sabrae?” I ask when she returns.

Medechai nods. “She’s not very happy with you,” she says. “Do the drow not keep faith, even with kin?”

I don’t dignify that with a response. It’s quite possibly the only thing surfacers know of the drow.

But something catches in her phrasing. “She lives, then?” I ask.

Medechai’s slitted eyes narrow further, studying me. “Do you care for her?”

I shrug

“I’ll tell the guards to keep her breathing,” she says. “If you want her spared, you can take it up with the master. But the decision will be his.”

“Thank you,” I say, earnestly. It’s far more kindness than I expected.

Then I’m brought to Morlin.

His chambers are vast—larger than Astarion’s by far—but sparse, echoing. It’s a foreign style, unfamiliar, but I would guess its in the manner of the Lands of Intrigue: sandstone walls and floors, a few scattered carpets and vases. And, most boldly, a shallow pool set into the center of the room, still and glassy.

Before it, Artor Morlin lounges on a pile of pillows at a low table.

He’s drinking blood—I can smell it from where I stand. Rich, coppery, fresh.

“I thought it wise to sate myself beforehand,” he says, with a sheepish smile, tongue running over a gold fang.

“I appreciate the gesture,” I reply. “I’ve been made a meal enough for one lifetime.”

He laughs. “Come, sit.”

 I take my time, my eyes sweeping the room. No chains. No guards. He likely doesn’t think he needs them, even if I were an enemy. The last time he saw me fight, I was unarmed and barely standing. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of.

“Is that truly all they gave you to wear?” he asks, eyeing me openly as I approach.

I smile. “It’s no trouble. Drow don’t flinch at the sight of bare skin.”

I stretch, deliberately, and watch his eyes follow the hem as it lifts. It seems very likely indeed that freedom will come at the cost of my dignity.

“Yes,” he muses. “That’s right. I suppose it’s been some time since I was in the City of Spiders.  I’d forgotten how bold your kind can be. No blushing, no games.”

“Drow love games,” I reply flatly.

The genuine reaction throws him off and he laughs, rich and pleased. I roll my eyes and settle beside him, letting the robe fall as it may.

He’s not a bad man, Artor Morlin. Not truly.

But I know what he wants from me—sex, blood, a warm body that knows when to bare its throat and when to smile. Perhaps more. And he’ll wring every advantage he can from my predicament.

Still. There are worse masters. Far worse. He’s shown me something like respect so far. Kindness, even. From someone with power, that is dangerously close to affection.

I remind myself that Astarion was quite fond of me too, and so quickly it became ownership.

“You were a concubine, in Menzoberranzan,” he says, almost idly. “Barely grown, or so I’ve heard.”

My jaw tightens. I never told Fenorin or anyone much about Eredune or the Stenchstreets, let alone how old I was, no matter how gently or persistently I was asked. I kept that part of my life sealed away.

Only one person ever got past those walls completely.

“Who told you?” I ask, words sharp. But we both know there’s only person it could be.

“Your master,” Morlin answers casually.

He has no idea what he’s just said, how the words he’s spoken cleave me in two.

I gave Astarion everything, every wound, every humiliation he cared to ask about. I laid all my pain and heartbreak bare before him like an offering—raw, trembling, still bleeding—and he’d dissected it before a stranger, presumably for their amusement.

It wasn’t even in cruelty either, or else he would have told me. It was careless, meaningless to him.

I open my mouth. Close it again. Though I keep my face blank, my breath comes shallow and stupid, like a fish on a dock gasping at air it can’t use.

Morlin watches, and—for all his faults—he does look genuinely sorry.

“I didn’t mean to wound you,” he says gently. “You were loyal to him. Fiercely so, by all accounts. It’s a shame that he didn’t see fit to return it.”

I breathe through my teeth and force the hurt down —deep, where the rest of Astarion’s betrayals fester. Scars will form, and one day there will only be the memory of an ache.

“I swore the tears I wept at your gates would be the last I ever gave him,” I say quietly.

There’s a bottle at the table that’s not blood—presumably wine. I pour a goblet, lift it to my lips, though I don’t drink. It smells of sweet herbs. Something local, maybe.

Morlin watches me over the rim of his own cup. “He was not always kind to you, your last master,” he says. “And the one before him, worse still—if he spoke true. And yet here you are—seeking another, if I understand your position correctly.”

“I’ve worn collars all my life,” I reply. I can’t help the bitterness there.

“And would you wear mine?”

It’s flirtation, and a jest, in part.

But it stirs something in me, a kind of heat, my body answering before my mind can catch up.

I’m submissive in bed. Lolth must’ve laughed, making me that way, and then to have me in fetters half my life. Now, when desire stirs, fear and shame are all tangled up in it. I feel all of it at once when Morlin speaks those words.

Or maybe it’s not the goddess at all. Perhaps I’m just broken.

Either way, he sees it—that traitorous pulse of want, quick but too strong to hide.

He smiles knowingly, and I hate myself for it. It makes me feel like an insect.

Still, it serves me. “I might,” I say softly.

He leans forward, shadows cutting sharp across his cheekbones, candlelight glinting off the gold of his fang.

He reaches for me then—just the barest touch, fingers grazing my wrist. I realize he’s checking my pulse.

I don’t move. I let him feel it race.

“I would treat you well,” he murmurs. “Far better than he did. I would take care not to hurt you.”

I lift my eyes to his, looking up at him through white lashes, lips parted. “But would you take care to please me?”

His thumb brushes my lower lip. I shiver.

“Oh,” he breathes, voice husky, “I worry pleasing you may become the only thing I care to do.”

I let him part my lips, tongue grazing the pad of his thumb—then slowly draw it into my mouth.

He gasps, then chuckles—low and delighted.

And gods, the way I soften under him with so little coaxing—so eager, so obedient—sends something hot and shameful blooming low in my belly. I want this, to please, to be praised.

My thighs shift together, a slow grind I don’t even mean to make. The robe slides up, bunching at my hips.

He watches the movement hungrily, his free hand gliding up my leg, slipping between to find the slick heat there. He hums, pleased by what he feels.

I whimper, hips stuttering.

He gathers the slick on his fingertips, spreading it slowly before drawing soft, deliberate circles over my clit. Barely there, only enough to make me writhe.

“There we are,” he murmurs. My eyes flutter, a moan catching in my throat. “So good for me already.”

I lean in, aching, desperate for more. But he keeps the contact feather-light, just enough to keep me whimpering.

I whine without meaning to, pressing forward.

“You’re quite the gift,” he breaths, lips brushing my ear. “I’m beginning to think Astarion was an utter fool.”

Perhaps it’s the mention of his name that breaks the spell.

Suddenly, I remember why I came here—and it’s not to have this man’s fingers in my mouth or between my legs while I completely forget what I’m doing.

I draw back, sobered, though barely. “Forgive me,” I say. “I should take a moment to compose myself—if I’ve leave to do so.”

He reclines with a knowing grin. “Take your time,” he says. “I’ll be waiting.”

I walk calmly—then curse myself all the way to the privy for my continued, humiliating lack of self-control.

Once inside, I shut the door and lean hard against it, panting.

I reach into my mouth, fingers sweeping along the backs of my teeth.

For a moment, I feel nothing. My stomach knots. Panic surges.

Then—there. The faint catch of a thread. I seize it between two fingers and pull.

My body revolts instantly. I gag, hard. My throat convulses.

Let it happen, I think. If I vomit, it’ll make the whole thing faster.

I drop to my knees, spine rigid, breath shallow. My nose runs. Slowly, carefully, I draw the string out from my esophagus.

Every instinct screams to yank, to be done with it—

But I don’t. I can’t. If I snap the string, I lose what’s tied to the end.

I retch again—harder this time. Water and scraps of food spill from my mouth, but nothing significant. My throat burns with acid. My eyes are streaming.

A knock on the door.

“Nearly done,” I croak, the words slurred around the string still in my throat.

I close my eyes, praying, though the gods have never once listened. They don’t like the needful, or so I’m told.

Still, perhaps just this once.

Footsteps recede from the door. Thank fuck.

Seconds later, I retch for the third time, and everything surges up—my last meal, the entirety of the string and, tangled at the end, Gale’s student’s pouch of holding.

I hold the vomit-soaked pouch aloft, grinning madly.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I’ve said it before: vampires don’t think at all when they’re thinking of sex.

I ask Artor Morlin to close his eyes—softly, sweetly, as if I’m shy. He obeys at once, reclining like a king in a nest of silk., smiling to himself. I wonder what fantasy he has cooking under those lids.

I slip off my arms belt, quiet as I can, placing it gently on the ground so it doesn’t clatter. I climb onto the bed.

He smirks when the mattress dips. Poor fucker.

I take a moment, let myself look, feeling a little like voyeur. I haven’t had many men, fewer than four, all told, if you don’t count the ones who took without asking. I didn’t even know I could want a man until Astarion.

Morlin is everything Astarion is not—broad, dark-skinned, heavy with muscle. He lies beneath me, body taut with anticipation, straining with desire.

I hover over him, straddling his hips, careful not to let the blade kiss his skin too soon. At Astarion’s request, I wield the very blade Morlin gifted me. A beautiful thing—elegant, curved, balanced.

He moans softly beneath me, arching up. His cock is hard, thick, twitching against his stomach. His breath comes shallow.

I think—bizarrely, painfully—of Fenorin. Strange, that we’ve shared this—this act, this man—and yet I’ll never be able to tell him.

“For what little it means,” I say, “I’m sorry it has to go this way.”

And then I open his throat.

Morlin’s eyes snap open, wide with pain and disbelief. Blood pours from the wound, hot and fast, forming a red bib.

He jerks, tries to sit up—panic driving him—but I press a palm to his chest, pushing him back down into the pillows.

“Shhh,” I hush. “Look at me.”

He’s choking on his own breath.

“Press here,” I instruct, lifting my clean hand to demonstrate. “On your throat. Firm. Like this.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind—but he mimics the motion. His fingers slap against the open wound.

“You’ll bleed out if you don’t,” I explain, “and I’ve need of you yet.”

His eyes are wild, uncomprehending.

“There you go,” I taunt, mock-warm. “So good for me.”

I slip off the bed, cinching my arms belt into place, casting a glance at the door. No shadows moving. No sounds. For now, we’re alone.

I kneel by the pouch of holding and start rummaging. My boots surface first—useless as I’m still undressed—so I toss them aside.

Behind me, I hear the shift of weight, followed by the soft thud of bare feet on the floor.

I glance back. Morlin has hauled himself upright and is attempting to stand.

“Stop that,” I snap. “You’re in shock. Go lie flat and focus on not dying.”

But he’s not listening. Vampires are vain creatures, the idea of looking helpless offends them more than death.

I know what he’s planning—or thinks he’s planning.

With a sigh, I walk to the jug of blood. I pour the smallest splash into a cup, then carry the rest to his pool and tip it in.

Morlin watches me, eyes filled with despair.

“There’s a little left. Drink it once I’ve gone,” I tell him. It will help him regenerate, but not enough to matter. I can’t have him strong.

Unable to speak, he can only stare.

I return to the pouch of holding.

I manage to extract both my gauntlets when a massive crash sounds beside me. I whip around.

Morlin again. Too weak to flee, but not too weak to draw attention—he’s knocked over one of the vases.

“Vith,” I hiss, jamming my feet into my boots. I don’t bother lacing them, simply drawing the laces tight and shoving them in. I scramble toward the door.

My boots nearly slip in the pool of blood he’s still generously spreading across the floor. His gaze follows me, silent and unblinking.

I’m a breath from the door when it bursts open.

Two guards.

I snap my head to them with what I hope renders as shock. “Someone’s hurt him!”

It’s enough. That single heartbeat of confusion is all I need.

I strike.

My blade drives up into the nearest man’s gut, slicing clean, fast. He crumples forward with a choking gasp.

His companion glances down at the blooming red, then back up—just in time for my sword to punch through his throat.

I’m lucky—the first body collapses inside the room. The second drops in the doorway, one arm limp in the hall, the rest slumped on the threshold.

I grab the corpse by the ankles and start hauling. His armor scrapes across the floor—loud, gods, too loud—but I drag him over the blood-slick stone and into the room.

I freeze. I get itching at the back of my neck that comes from staring.

I look up to see three of Morlin’s spawn stand at the far end of the hall, watching me in shock.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Here we go.

“Your master’s given no commands to kill me,” I call, stepping over the bodies quickly. Normally I’d let them come—use the corpses as a stumbling block —but I don’t want them near him. His vocal cords may yet regenerate, then he’ll be able to give them commands. “You can walk away right now—”

They don’t respond, they just start moving.

Astarion chose his spawn for their looks, their skill, their resemblance to people he’d lost. Morlin I can’t say for certain, but his spawn seem more familiar with the dance than Fenorin, Cimone, or any of the others were. They’re trained.

Still, the first to reach me is the youngest—barely turned, probably. Still stupid with speed, thinking it makes him invincible.

He lunges.

I sidestep him, drawing one of my blades in the same motion, reverse-grip. I drive it through his ear. He spasms once, limbs jerking, then hangs limp.

The female spawn wails when she sees what I’ve done. It breaks her focus.

I yank my sword free, flip the grip fluidly.

She charges me, blade raised, half-blind with tears.

I let her swing. I catch the arc on my blade and redirect it, step to the side, use her own motion to carry her past me.

She overcommits. I sweep a leg behind hers and slam my elbow into her shoulder.

She hits the ground hard. The breath leaves her in a sob. She doesn’t need to be sad much longer, for a moment later, I’ve slit her throat.

The last spawn hangs back. A human male, backed against a nearby table, too pretty for his own good—thick brow, soft lips, sharp jawline, that face is probably what got him into this mess. Just like being stupid and useful and freckled was all it took to catch Astarion’s eye.

In the Underdark, life makes itself colorful to attract a mate. Glowing fronds, vibrant scales, bioluminescence. But its costly signalling—pretty things attract predators just as easily.

He’s sweating. Breathing too fast. His gaze keeps flicking to the corpses, then back to me.

Smart boy. He knows better than to test me.

“The drow they pulled from the cisterns,” I begin, stepping over a body, “where are they keeping her?”

His eyes dart to my blade, to the blood drying on my hands. “Second door down the hall,” he says. “Silver knob. Expect company. Could be two, could be ten.”

“My thanks,” I reply, sheathing my sword once more. I only had to draw one. This pleases me. I worried I’d grown soft in Astarion’s service—particularly near the end.

“Do his spawn love him?” I ask.

He considers. “Most want nothing more than to live,” he answers honestly. “But Medechai will gladly lay down her life for him.”

Good to know.

I sense Morlin before I see him. I look over my shoulder to find him in the threshold. His hand is still pressed to his neck, but the bleeding’s stopped. Barely. He’s furious, but he seems pleased with himself.

“Go,” I tell his spawn. “Before he gets the chance to—”

“Kill her,” Morlin croaks. I should have cut deeper.

The spawn has no choice but to obey.

He launches himself forward, no weapon on him, forced to tear me apart with his bare hands.

I step in and drive both blades beneath his ribs, twisting them to make sure his death is quick.

Bracing him with my foot, I wrench my swords from him, letting him drop.

I’m left standing over him, chest heaving, teeth bared. My hands shake on the hilts. I’m breathing like I’ve run miles, but it took nothing. Nothing at all.

A waste. I scream in frustration.

So much life wasted, and for what? Morlin could have told him to get help, could have given him any number of better commands, and yet this is what he chose.

I whirl to face him. “I didn’t want to kill him!”

I don’t know what I look like—wild, blood-slicked, shaking—but Morlin falters. He steps back, as if surprised by the outcome.

Somehow that tears something loose in me.

I fall on him, my swords forgotten. I knock him to the floor, and I’m clawing, tearing—nails raking down his face, his throat, anywhere I can reach. He tries to fight back— grab my hands, push me away—but I drive my fist into his face, again and again, until there is no feasible way for him to mount any kind of resistance.

My knuckles split. Bone crunches under my fist. His face caves inward, soft in all the wrong parts. I cannot stop. I hear the clink of a tooth skipping across the floor and I think of home, of the Stenchstreets.

He coughs, tries to turn his face away, so I take him by the jaw and slam his head back into the marble beneath us. His face is pulp now, thoroughly ruined. It doesn’t matter, because I’m not seeing him anymore.

I see Fenorin, neck twisted all wrong, wide-eyed like he can’t believe I’d ever hurt him.

I see Astarion.

“I hate you,” I snarl. “Look at what you made me do. I hate you, I hate you, I hate—”

Notes:

Tav finally has her well-deserved crashout.

Writing the almost-sex scene with her and Morlin was difficult, I felt the secondhand embarrassment hard, all her shame and her horniness. Girl.

Coming up with the drow jokes was so fun. I'm no comedian, so I was pretty jazzed to find I had the ability to write jokes. They were originally supposed to be spoken between Tav and her jailors in The Cell, but it didn't fit the pacing. I was happy to find space for them elsewhere.

For some background lore, Medechai is a canon character, but I took a lot of liberties with her. In Vampires of Waterdeep, she's a medusa rather than yuan-ti (I'm just partial to yuan-ti purebloods, I played briefly as one), and she hates her vampire dad. I wrote her as loving Morlin as I wanted her to be a mirror to Tav.

Originally I was going to design Morlin's lair based on canon content, but I got so exhausted and realized that while writing with limitations makes for creativity, it wasn't really pertinent to the story or my writing style. No need to describe all the different levels uselessly.

Chapter 19: The Queen of Blades II

Notes:

Big old trigger warning here. Typical Menzoberranyr bullshit.

This chapter is a lot of flashback, so if you're not interested, you find sexual assault/grooming difficult to read, or are simply not in a good place, feel free to skip.

– Tav –

I come to with my hands locked around Morlin’s throat. His body twitches under me, but only barely. I panic, certain I’ve killed him.

Then he wheezes, a rasp of breath trying to get past my chokehold.

“Oh.”

I loosen my fingers.

“Forgive me.” I smooth back the hair sticking to my face. The white strands have gone pink. “I lost my temper.”

I rise to my feet, lightheaded. I fix the robe, wipe my palms on the hem like it will change anything, and search for my swords.

Morlin’s breath rattles. He looks like the corpse he should be.

“Stay down,” I tell him, though he’s in no condition to respond. “I might get angry again if I come back and see that you’ve dragged yourself somewhere.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I kill two more in the corridor—guards, not spawn. They die just as easily.

The silver handle turns slick under my palm, blood smearing over the metal. I struggle to open it, slippery as it is.

Sabrae is shackled within, chains wrapped several times around a mahogany chair. She startles at my entry, but her expression curdles.

 “<You?>” she hisses. “<Come to gloat? You realize treachery and backstabbing brings the elamshin no closer if you sell out your own to surface filth.>”

“I have no interest in the elamshin.”

“<I gathered as much when I saw you baring your throat for that pretty darthirii like some lovesick slave,>” she sneers. “<Lolth take you, you’re pathetic. But I suppose you’ve done him some damage in the end, I’ll grant you that.>”

I resist the urge to remind her she spread her legs for him too. “Where are your guards?”

She shrugs, the chains rattling.

I sweep the room. A hammer would be ideal, but no such luck. This looks to be one of Morlin’s discarded piles—walls choked with old paintings, dusty statuettes, other forgotten trinkets. The long-lived often become hoarders.

The adamantine of my blades will have to do.

“Lay the chain flat,” I order.

“<What for? Did you want to take both my hands too?>” Sabrae asks.

“Now,” I snap.

Sabrae obeys. I raise Morlin’s blade and bring it down. The chain splits clean.

The name strikes me at once—I will call the blade Sluda-Ke'brei. Chain-Breaker. These are not the only chains I will use it to break tonight.

Sabrae rubs her wrists, uncertain. “You’re freeing me?”

“I’ve left corpses a short walk from here,” I tell her. “If your blade is gone, theirs will serve you.”

Her eyes sharpen as she understands. “This was your plan from the start, wasn’t it?” she asks. “I was the price of entry. But you still need help, so came to collect mine.”

No point in denying it.

She laughs. “I knew you’d never choose anyone over that darthirii. Gods, you’re up to the blacks of your eyes for that dainty fingered fuck.”

“Morlin’s not exactly to my taste,” I reply flatly. “Given the lack of dainty fingers.”

She grins so broadly, so smugly, I can’t help but let my lips twitch in return.

 

Despite being from Maerimydra, Sabrae loots the corpses like a Braeryn alley-rat—stripping one for throwing knives, prying a war axe from another’s hands. She gives it a lazy swing, testing the heft.

“What’s our plan?” she asks.

“Simple,” I reply. “Everyone dies.”

I wanted badly to spare the spawn from earlier, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Now I am.

For what I have planned, I can leave no witnesses.

“<Oh? Starting to think like kin again, are you?>” Sabrae smirks, slinging the axe over her shoulder. “<Perhaps you’re still one of ours after all.>”

 

We met resistance in the halls leading back to Morlin’s chambers.

I know Sabrae can fight, but I brace to do the bulk of the work. So when one of her throwing knives whistles past my cheek and buries into the back of a guard’s skull before we’re even seen, I’m impressed.

I surge forward.

I slip past the first guard, pivot behind him, and drive my blade into the gap of his cuirass. As he crumples, I twist to catch a thrust from the one behind him, batting back his blade—

Sabrae barrels in with a raw, wordless yell, axe swinging wide, and crashes into him.

We make quick work of them—surprisingly quick.

When it’s over, eight men lie dead, blood pooling at our feet. Sabrae is breathing heavy, but I’m barely winded. Still, she’s done well.

She whistles low as she looks over the carnage. Then she turns to me, eyes bright. “<Lolth has touched you with a terrible grace,>” she says. “<That kind of skill doesn’t belong in the sun. You should be serving the matrons or the priestesshood.>”

She pauses, then shrugs with a crooked grin.

“<Although—fuck the nobles.>”

I squint at her, something stirring in the back of my mind.

Something in her manner—that grin, the blood on her face.

Dra’ada, I realize. Gods, Sabrae doesn’t look like me.

She looks like my sister.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

If Lolth had touched anyone in our family, it was Dra’ada.

The universe seemed to bend over itself to give her chances to kill and maim. She’d find a sword in the gutter, still sharp. She’d find a half-crippled soldier—once a skilled warrior—willing to pass on what he knew for a few coins and the occasional bread loaf.

She’d find the door unlocked to the baby’s room.

I spent most of my childhood hiding so I wouldn’t become her next victim. Dra’ada knew I was there—obviously, she wasn’t stupid—but I made myself below her notice.

It wasn’t until one of the Hunts that things changed.

Every year, the nobles tear through the Stenchstreets on their war lizards, killing as they pleased and taking trophies of teeth, ears, or heads.

When the call came, you ran. Everyone scattered, rushing into homes or crags or crawlspaces. If you didn’t make it back in time, you were left outside to die for fear of risking those inside.

My cousins and I had been feuding with the orcish children next door. When the horns blew, they saw a chance to thin our numbers—one of them tripped me just as I took off running. I went down hard. By the time I scrambled to my knees, the door was shut.

I thought I was dead. When someone yanked me by the collar, hauling me off my feet, I thought I was even more dead.

I cried out, thrashed, and they clamped a hand over my mouth. I felt Dra’ada’s rings press against my face and struggled harder.

“Squirm or squeal again, and I’ll drop you right at their feet, you ungrateful little rat,” she hissed. “You think anyone else would bother pulling you out of the dirt?”

She dragged me somewhere safe—a cellar, I think. I watched Dra’ada warily as she crouched beneath the high window, creeping up now and then to peek out. She cursed the whole time—at the nobles, at me, at the filth of the Braeryn.

“You ought to be thanking me on your hands and knees, you realize?” she said amidst the vitriol.

She made me do just that, along with other grovelling, namely bowing and telling her she was the superior child, stronger, better, faster than me or the siblings who came before—those who died or got away. It wasn’t even a lie.

Once satisfied, she stepped back, gave me a once-over as if I were livestock. “Our aunt’s had her turn with you,” she said. “Now I’ll see what you’re good for. You’re mine. Understood?”

She made me some of what I am. Eredune ensured the rest.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Morlin’s gone.

Where I left him is only blood. A long, smeared trail leads out, streaking down the corridor in drag marks and footprints. Multiple sets of tracks.

“He called his spawn,” I mutter. I’ve seen spawn called, but I’ve never seen a vampire doing it. I assumed it required voice, or at least focus, concentration. All things I hadn’t left him with.

“Didn’t you say you meant to kill everyone?’ Sabrae says from behind me, amused. “Now they’ll be in one place.”

I nod, wiping my blades and sheathing them.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Dra’ada was the first one to put a sword in my hand.

We were little more than animals then—blade-mad, starved, half-feral things our mother loosed upon her enemies. Once Dra’ada decided I was her disciple and slave, I was dragged along to every racket she touched—shaking down neighbors for protection money, collecting debts, wanton burglary, it didn’t matter.

Our mother ran a brothel, which came with its own curse. Among the drow, to service a man is the highest degradation—so vile others would cross the street to avoid you.

So most workers in the city were men. If not, they were hirelings, pretty mercenaries with clever hands that’d escort you around the rougher parts of Menzoberranzan and bed you after a long day. Or, if you were exceptional, a courtesan. Or you could call yourself a masseuse and cater to nobles. Anyone else was meat, and everyone knew it.

What my mother started was closer to what they offered at Sharess’ Caress.

That made the early decades lean. Half the coin came from the beds, the rest from thuggery—extortion, robbery, killing. But things were improving when Dra’ada and I were born, and the addition of two strong, violent daughters gave us weight in the Stenchstreets.

I wasn’t grown—not even close—but I made myself useful. People flinch from a child with a loaded crossbow as from an adult with one—often faster. Once I reached what looked like my full height, Dra’ada trained me seriously—with throwing knives, close work, and my longsword: Throat Opens. Our training dummies often bled and drew breath.

The Braeryn is a cesspool, but we made it ours. Still, we were more than eager to get away. Though we felt like queens, we knew we were ruling over shit.

Violence was the only way out: join Bregan D’aerthe, serve as a guard, or sell your blade to a noble house. If you were good—quick enough, cruel enough—they might even take you in, make you an official member of the house. It was all we dreamed of.

After I won the nedeirra, a broker for House Vandree came sniffing around to offer my sister and I work. I didn’t know—couldn’t have known—that Eredune asked around and learned I was one of the whorehouse whelps. This offer wasn’t for my skill, it was bait.

We were desperate to escape our mother’s yoke. Dra’ada was already serving as her enforcer and in the beds. I was to follow once I “filled out,” as my mother so delicately put.

I was a coin purse in the shape of a child, and they were eager to see it open.

Fortunately, our mother was just as sick of us as we were her. So long as she got her cut, she didn’t care where we went. We sent most of our wages home, and in return, she left us alone.

A good bargain by all accounts. The barracks had better beds, and meals came regular and hot. That was enough.

But the slave raids... those were something else.

We weren’t polished enough for guard duty—too coarsely spoken, too quick to anger— so they threw us in the ranks. Infantry. Cannon-fodder, though our targets didn’t often fight back. Not well, anyway.

Still. I saw things I hope I never see again.

And I did things—disgusting, unforgiveable things—I have never admitted to anyone, not even Astarion. Some were so awful my mind tucked them away. They return only in strange flashes, half-formed dreams. I pretend I imagined them.

Dra’ada kept me steady and breathing. Poor girls in a drow unit are dispensable. Many were killed, even by our own. I wouldn’t have made it without her.

That didn’t mean she didn’t routinely terrorize and beat me up, but still. She made sure no one else did.

Eredune didn’t move quickly. She’s three centuries old, after all

At first, the work was as promised: we were hired blades for the several months of the raiding season, living in the barracks in between tours, hauling crates or digging ditches until we were called out again. If a rival house struck, we fought. Hard work, but we could drink as much as we wanted on our off-hours, and most knew better than to cross us.

Then I got the summons.

I was filthy from digging latrines when it came. Not from any of our officers, but our employer. Matron Eredune herself.

I turned, certain they meant someone else. I asked if there was some mistake, but the servant only gave me a shallow bow and said no.

No one had ever bowed to me before. He didn’t look happy about it—like it stung to lower himself to Braeryn trash, woman or not.

“What did you do?” Dra’ada hissed, nails digging into my arm. “If you’ve ruined this for me, I’ll slit your fucking throat.”

I wrenched free, glaring, then followed the servant.

I remembered Eredune from the nedeirra —watching from the high gallery. Our eyes met only once, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I remember hoping I might grow into even a hint of what she was.

She was even more radiant up close—silver hair pinned high, spidersilk shift clinging to her, fastened to gold torque gleaming at her throat. Effortlessly regal.

I was a rat staring up at a goddess.

But the goddess was looking back.

I was terrified. I was sure—absolutely sure—she meant to kill me. Perhaps one of her daughters wanted to win the nedeirra, and I’d gotten in the way.

Or it was a mistake. She’d mistaken me for someone, and when she realized, she’d kill me anyway. For daring to think someone like her might speak with someone like me.

She smiled kindly. “They say you are called Tavisin.”

It was my name, though no one used it. My mother had a daughter Tavisin before me. She died young, and she hadn’t wanted to waste a perfectly good name.

I couldn’t correct a matron, so I nodded.

“Are you hungry, Tavisin?” she asked. “I should like your company at my table.”

That night, I learned our nobles dine in six courses.

Sugar-roasted cave bat. Salted carrion crawler grubs. Eels braised in fungus, covered in the shavings of brown cave spike. Faux spiders made from things I couldn’t even name, placed atop crisps of the thinnest shelf fungus—cut elaborately, crisped edges salted with rock crystals. Salvret pie, still steaming when it hit the table.

I’d never seen so much food in my life.

Each dish arrived on a silver tray, presented by silent, gloved servants. I had training from my aunt, but it wasn’t the same as living among the nobility. I had to copy Eredune carefully, how she held the utensils, how much she ate, what she left behind.

And the wine—so much of it. Farramber, heartwine, drow green wine. My cup never emptied. If I paused, even slowed, she’d coax me to have just another sip, just a little more. I couldn’t seem ungrateful.

I was drunk before I realized. Too drunk to keep track of what I was saying. Too drunk to remember clearly how it ended.

Sometimes I wonder if she took me to bed that night, and I simply can’t remember.

Through it all, she smiled and asked questions, gently, softly—about my training, my family, what I wanted, as if any of it was interesting. As if I was interesting.

When I admitted how unprepared I’d arrived here—how my mother kept my good boots, my only decent dress—she laughed, and told me she’d see to it. Like it was nothing.

I don’t remember the walk back to the barracks. What I do remember is standing half-collapsed outside, covered in my own sick, still retching while my head spun.

“Lolth’s tits, you’re an affliction, you know that?” Dra’ada snapped, holding me up. “A burden to us all. What good are you? Useless, sniveling little parasite—I should’ve snuffed you out when you first cried, like the others.”

But she held me until I could stand. When my head stopped spinning, she questioned me. What had Eredune said? What had I said? What did I eat? Who else was there?

She listened carefully. When she’d heard enough, she shook her head.

“I don’t like this,” she muttered.

“Maybe this is something she does with her servants,” I offered. “For her amusement.”

Dra'ada slapped me. Not hard, but enough to sting.

“Jal khaless zhah waela,” she growled. “Listen well. No gift comes without teeth—and if you don’t see any, it only means they’re hiding.

 

It went on like that for a time—Eredune giving me gifts, making me feel special. Seen. It’s hard to explain what that does to you, having the attention of someone so much older, wiser, more powerful, when no one’s ever wanted you.

But I was born in a brothel. She needn’t be so genteel with me, not the way she might’ve been with the other girls she’d coaxed to her side. I was already so grateful.

It was not long before I left the barracks to serve in her bed.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We track him through corridors and narrow stairwells. I’ve studied the plans of Morlin’s lair well enough to know there’s a banquet hall at its heart, vast enough to stage a feast or a last stand. That’s where they’ve taken him.

Occasionally we come upon his people. I killed all the best fighters during the raid of Astarion’s estate, so the fighting is easy. Easy enough that Sabrae feels small talk is in order.

“<Did you have to crawl into Morlin’s bed to see this through?>” she asks.

“<What?>” I hiss. “<No! Hells, just hold your tongue—our foe might hear.>”

We move down a wide, windowless hall lined with stone pillars. The torchlight is too bright, casting false shadows and throwing off our darkvision.

“Oh?” asks Sabrae, looking pointedly at the robe. “<Then why in Lolth’s name are you wearing that?>”

“<If you must know, Morlin’s people dressed me,>” I reply primly. “<They—and Morlin—seemed certain I’d get into bed with him, and I did. But it was only to open his throat.>”

Sabrae’s eyes bulge. “<You tried to give him the Spider’s Kiss?>”

A game—if you could call it that—played by drow woman. The essence of it was killing male lovers after sex.

“<The Spider’s Kiss requires you fuck,>” I say primly. “<I cut his throat while he lay there hard and hopeful.>”

Sabrae bursts into laughter, doubling over. Drow humor is not especially refined.

She’s wheezing, one hand on her knee, when a spawn steps from behind a pillar—sword raised, angling for her skull.

“Dra’ada!” I shout on reflex.

Sabrae’s head jerks up, confused, but it saves her. The spawn’s blade meets flesh, but it catches her shoulder instead of embedding in her skull. She stumbles, cursing.

I’m already on him.

Sluda-Ke’brei swallows the torchlight, Give-Guts gleams.

I drive the pommel of the first into his sternum—cracking the bone—then the other sinks into his belly. Give-Guts earns her name again as I drag the blade sideways, carving him open. He folds, intestines spilling from the wound

More spawn spill in, funneling from either side of the hall. Either this is an expertly laid ambush—or Morlin’s waiting just ahead, surrounded by his brood.

I shift my stance, planting myself between them and Sabrae’s slumped form. One blade lowers, the other rises.

Give-Guts drops into the low guard.

Sluda-Ke’brei lifts into high.

Crossed at the ready—the classic draa velve stance.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

It was Eredune who suggested I learn draa velve.

We were dining when she noticed how I picked up my cup with my left hand and reached for the knife with my right, then a moment later I might switch. Ambidextrous, she called it.

“I may have found a jewel in the gutter,” she mused, stroking my cheek.

I knew of the swordform, of course. Most drow did, thanks to Drizzt. But draa velve isn’t something you pick up on instinct. It requires precision. Not only must you be born with certain traits, you must receive years of formal training.

Braeryn drow have not much of anything at all, let alone the coin and the leisure to study. Garbage rats don’t learn the elite forms. We seized whatever blade we found and learned to stab before we got stabbed. Dra’ada was exceptionally trained for one of our own.

By then, Eredune had stopped pretending there was anything chaste about her interest. She made no effort to hide her favor—or the fact that I was hers.

There are no laws in Menzoberranzan. Only the whims of the matrons. Eredune’s preferences were beneath their notice. The lesser houses sometimes sent their daughters willingly—secondborns, thirdborns, their spares, offered like gifts.

But I was her favorite.

She dressed me in spidersilk and paraded me through her compound. In public, she stroked my hair and called me pet, spoke to me like I was precious.

During her meetings, I knelt at her feet, sitting on a cushion like a tamed animal. When she’d had too much wine, she’d pull me into her lap before guests, her hands slipping beneath my clothes while they smiled and turned their eyes away.

She was already tightening her grip—deciding what I ate, who I spoke to, how I spent my time. She sent me to a courtesan she trusted to cure my inexperience. Already she was shaping me into her ideal lover.

She struck me, sometimes—a slap for the wrong word or glance. But how could I resent it, when minutes later I was back in her arms?

Among our people, affection is shameful. We don’t reach for each other except in anger or lust. We don’t praise, except to manipulate. I’d never been hugged, never held past infancy, never even spoken to gently or kissed on the forehead.

Now I was drowning in it.

I was fourteen. I thought it was love. And once I did, it was over. It didn’t matter what Eredune did to me. I loved her, I served her, I would have done anything for her.

Everyone caught on quite quickly. Dra’ada had to stop one of the girls from cutting my throat in my sleep. A day later we caught someone trying to poison my gruel. We maimed her, cropping one of her ears, to send a message to the others.

“This has to end,” Dra’ada told me afterwards, wiping the blood on her trousers.

“Why?” I demanded. “She gives me gifts. It’s good for us.”

“And where are the gifts, idiot?” she shot back. “Sitting in some chest somewhere so the others can’t pinch them? No—you don’t have them because they were never yours. She’s trussing you up like a noble so they can laugh at you.”

“That’s a lie,” I spat, voice catching. “She l—likes me.”

Dra’ada reeled back, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, were you just about to say she loves you?”

I just stared, throat working around words that wouldn’t come.

She laughed in my face.

So I tried to strangle her.

I was somewhat successful too. Impressive, considering how much stronger my sister was.

We crashed onto the floor.  I managed to get on top, hands locked around her throat. She bucked and thrashed, gasping —then her thumbs went for my eyes, gouging them. I saw stars before I let go.

“Are you stupid?” Dra’ada snapped, voice ragged. “I’m the only reason you’re not dead. You don’t have anyone else. Only me.”

“I don’t need you,” I hissed, staggering up. “I have her. Stay away from me.”

The raiding season was ending. Eredune had asked me to stay so I could train draa velve under her eye.

It wasn’t a position, I knew that. But I was lovestruck enough to imagine that if I did well, if I pleased her, I’d become more than a plaything. I had only to be faster, sharper, more skilled than the rest. I had to prove that I was not just pretty, but useful.

Dra’ada was obviously jealous. And a jealous drow would burn what they coveted to ashes rather than let anyone else enjoy it. She’d try something—anything—to ruin this for me.

Fortunately, there was only a week until the auxiliary blades were dismissed, slinking back to whatever piss-stained pit they’d crawled out from. Dra’ada among them.

I clung to Eredune’s side all seven days, vigilant for signs of sabotage. When the final day came and there was nothing, I could finally breathe.

We were strolling one of the inner courtyards, Eredune speaking idly about which tutors she might grace me with, when I spotted Dra’ada smiling and waving.

“And who is this unfortunate beast?’ Eredune asked.

Dra’ada looked very similar to me. But while I was dressed in white and gold, she filthy, reeking of the latrines they’d been ordered to dredge. The difference between us was slight, and my stomach twisted in knots when I realized how quickly it could be corrected.

“That’s my sister,” I confessed, bowing my head. I dared not lie to Eredune. “Would you permit me to speak with her?”

“By all means,” Eredune replied, smiling thinly. I’d displeased her. The tightness in my chest told me so.

The walk across the courtyard was torturous—each step dragging, Eredune’s gaze prickling my shoulders the entire way. Dra’ada’s smile only widened the closer I came.

“Go back to your little mistress,” she whispered venomously, “and tell her you’ll be leaving with me. Say our mother is sick, and you must come along.”

“As if either of us would piss on our mother if she were on fire,” I hissed. “Eredune’s not brainless, Dra’ada. She’ll see through it.”

Dra’ada didn’t flinch. “Then tell her we need to ensure the will favors us,” she said. “If we don’t go, the others will pick her corpse clean and leave us with nothing.”

I shook my head, pulling back. “No. I won’t go. Why would I?”

Dra’ada regarded me evenly. “Because if you don’t, I’ll make a scene,” she said. “Look behind you—she’s already watching. Deny me, and I swear I’ll roll in shit every day and run naked before the gates, screaming your name. I’ll never let her forget you and I share blood.”

Every time Eredune saw Dra’ada, she’d see me. My face, smeared with filth.

That was how I ended up in the back of a wagon rattling toward the Stenchstreets—shoulder-to-shoulder with some drunk with vomit on his shirt and my grinning sister.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

When the fighting ends, Sabrae is back on her feet, panting, hand clamped to her shoulder.

“<What’s happened?>” I ask, sliding my blades home. I step over a twitching spawn, boots squelching in something I don’t care to identify.

“<Bastard got my shoulder,>” she growls, gritting her teeth. “<I can’t tell if it’s the muscle or bone—>”

She lifts her axe to test it. A cry rips from her throat. The weapon clatters on the stone.

Sabrae isn’t ambidextrous. If she can’t heft that axe—

She catches my expression and scowls. “<I’m fine.>”

I eye the wound, then her face. She isn’t.

“<You need to say something if your arm is useless,>” I warn.

“Vith tir,” she spits. “<Did I not say I’m fine? Stop jawing and move.>”  

So I drag her along.

Broken or not, I need her for what I have planned. More even than I need Morlin.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Dra’ada dragged me through the Braeryn, all the way back to our family’s brothel.

Our mother was pregnant. Her belly led the way as she waddled toward us, puffing on her pipe. She grinned wide enough to flash her gold tooth.

I’d never seen her smile like that in all my life. It chilled me to my marrow.

“You’ve filled out at last,” she said, blowing smoke in our faces. Her hands came for me, prodding my hips, my chest. “Good.”

I held still and silent, eyes cast down. We were taught not to speak unless asked. Dra’ada said nothing either, but her mouth tightened. She misliked what had been said.

A loud slap echoed from down the hall, followed by an indignant shriek. Our mother took interest there, leaving us.

Someone brushed my sleeve.

“Ilninil,” I spoke softly. As close to a kind greeting as our family ever gave.

My aunt did her usual inspection—checking my arms, my face, my jaw, making sure I hadn’t been scarred or damaged in any way.

When she finished, she began to sign.

You got away. Why would you come back?

 

I had no room of my own. Still furious with Dra’ada, I asked our aunt if I could sleep in her bed. She laughed, showing her stub tongue, and returned to sharpening the shiv she hid in her cane.

So I found myself in Dra’ada’s bed, crammed elbow to elbow beneath the same blanket, her mattress lumpy and barely wide for us both.

“You’re too stupid to know what’s good for you,” she spoke suddenly. “But one day you’ll thank me for dragging you out of that bitch’s bed.”

“I hate you,” I told her with the earnestness only a child can muster.

She snorted. “I’m not thrilled with you either,” she replied. “Shut up and sleep. And if your hand so much as twitches toward your blade, I’ll make sure you never twitch again.”

 

I made breakfast for my aunt when I woke. Without her tongue, she couldn’t control her food well, nor could she taste much, so I cooked soft, heavily spiced meals—things she could gum down and sometimes enjoy.

I made a soft stew from marrult mushrooms, boiled tender, stirred with fermented fire lichen for heat, and topped with a rough powder of crushed funguswood. My eyes watered from the spice as I searched for her, steaming bowl in hand.

I found her in the commons and stopped cold. She wasn’t alone.

My aunt sat stiffly by the hearth—but she wasn’t what held me. It was our mother, standing in the center of the room, and Dra’ada just behind, arms folded.

My mother spoke first. “Dra’ada tells us the matron of House Vandree herself saw fit to make you her pet,” she said. “And you haven’t been charging.”

Behind her, my aunt signed from her lap, out of sight.

Careful. Be obedient.

“Dra’ada has a big mouth,” I muttered, helpless to my spite.

“Fuck you, you ungrateful brat,” Dra’ada snapped. “Say that again, and we’ll have two tongueless freaks in our family, Lolth take me if I lie—”

Our mother raised her hand. “Enough.”

Silence fell, save for the hearth’s crackle.

Her gaze sharpened on me. “She’s a matron, girl. If she’s bedding you, you ought to have something to show for it. Coin. Gifts. Power. Status, even. And yet—” she gestured toward me, dismissively— “you’ve come home with nothing.”

She was wrong.

Eredune paid me well, though not in gold or silk or anything that could be tallied or sold. She paid me in kind touches and sweet words, in her attention, her warmth, the weight of her arm across my body while I slept. She paid me in love, or so I believed then. It was a new and priceless currency.

And if I had that, I would have gladly gone without coin, without food, without anything. But I could not go without her.

But how do you explain that to someone who’s never known it?

My aunt signed once more. Tell her you’ll fix it.

My throat tightened, my tongue like lead in my mouth.

“Tell me,” my mother began softly, venomously, “did you even try to negotiate? Or were you too busy gasping her name and thanking her between breaths?”

My face burned. I stared at the floor.

“Well?” she pressed. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’ll make things right,” I gritted out.

“Of course you will.” She sank into her chair with a groan, one hand resting on her belly. “We’ll start by selling you back to her.”

The words stunned me.

She was proposing offering me as a slave, making me Eredune’s property.

But it would also mean I’d be back in her arms. If she owned me outright, I’d never have to go home again. My mother would have no claim on me.

“That’s not what we discussed,” Dra’ada blurted. “We both agreed that she didn’t belong there.”

“She doesn’t,” my mother replied smoothly. “She belongs here, working to repay the bill she owes. Not elsewhere, wasting her cunt.”

“Bill?” I echoed, confused.

Dra’ada’s eyes flicked to mine, then fell. “Expenses owed for raising you,” she said softly. “I’ve got one too.”

“As is fair,” our mother said, tapping the parchment beside her. “Have a look.”

“I can’t read,” I said coldly.  Hopefully she didn’t charge me for lessons she never gave. She confused us with our other siblings, the ones we never met.

“I’ll read it to you,” Dra’ada cut in, then turned toward our mother. “What she’ll fetch won’t cover the sum, and she can’t make payments if she’s collared. You’d be throwing away coin.”

Our mother’s eyes narrowed. “Your sister’s right. You do have a big mouth,” she said, voice low. “Speak out of turn again, and yours will be the tongue taken, as you so colorfully threatened earlier.”

Dra’ada managed silence, though I saw the effort it took.

“House Barrison Del'Armgo has been sniffing around the Braeryn for warriors,” our mother said, reaching for her pipe. “Vandree’s chief rival. I doubt they’ll wait more than a few months to strike.”

She conjured flame on her fingertip—sorcery or pactcraft, I don’t know. I wasn’t certain she knew either. Demons sometimes seal pacts with desperate children too young to remember, especially in the Braeryn.

“When the time comes, we’ll hand them what they need—every secret our sweet little Tavisin has picked up. Floorplans, guard routines, weaknesses.” She took a drag, exhaling. “And when Vandree’s matron is choking on her own blood, my daughter can skip her way home.”

“I can’t betray her,” I said, horrified. “I can’t.”

“You don’t have a choice,” my mother replied coldly.

I said nothing. It was as if I suddenly couldn’t speak. Every part of me wanted to scream or flee—but I only stood there.

My mother had spoken, and in a drow home, the matriarch’s word is law.

At last I forced myself to move, one step at a time, toward the door. Past that, I had no idea where I was going or what I would do.

“Wait,” my mother called.

I stopped, but didn’t turn. I couldn’t bear to look at her.

“If you’re old enough to open your legs for free, you’re old enough to open them for coin,” she said. “You’ll work the low hall tonight. Wear something appealing and try to be charming—we’re drawing more highborn patrons these days.”

 

I don’t remember much past that.

Dra’ada came to me with the bill. A scroll, really, items listed in cramped, meticulous script. The charges were inane but exhaustive. A birth fee—I tore her, apparently—diaper linens, clothing, rent, and medicine, among other things. Everything I’d touched, worn, or broken since I came screaming into this horrible plane.

And then, to my surprise, Dra’ada handed me second scroll. A list of payments she’d been quietly making to both of our debts for years.

She poured me something strong—vile and burning, scouring my throat—saying it would make things better for me. That may have helped with the forgetting,

I’d like to say I fought. That I shouted, scratched, bit—showed some inkling of strength or courage to be proud of later. But I didn’t. I couldn’t even think of resisting my mother, couldn’t conceive of it. The idea of disobedience hadn’t fully existed in my world. Not yet.

Not without someone to tell me how.

When it was over, Dra’ada pressed the bottle back into my hand. She coaxed me to drink more, then more, until my mind went still. She drew a bath for me, scalding hot. I scrubbed my skin raw, wanting to be clean and wanting to punish myself.

Dra’ada slouched against the wall, rambling. “It won’t hurt next time,” she said. “It’ll get easier. You’ll stop thinking about it.”

She peeled herself from her spot to perch the rim of the tub. “We keep going, keep our heads down, pay off our debt, and then we leave,” she continued. “Our mother knows. The baby she’s growing is meant to replace us.”

She pressed a towel into my hands, looking me in the eye. “Go dead inside, if that’s your choice—I don’t give a fuck,” Dra’ada said. “Most do. But linger there too long, and you’re doing her work for her. We can’t let her win.”

I snapped from my fugue for a moment, enough to take stock of her.

“You did this to me.”

Something passed over her face, quick as a blink. Hurt, maybe. Or anger. I couldn’t tell.

She opened her mouth, but the words seemed to wither on her tongue. She turned instead and walked out. The door slammed.

I sat in that bath for some time, not thinking or feeling. When I rose, standing naked, I shivered from the draft.

They’d left a window open.

Notes:

Tav (dead-eyed, smoking cigarette): Oh man... the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.
Now you know (mostly) why she's so messed up.

I hate Eredune so much I had difficulty writing even a single scene with her in it.

Next chapter has a decent level of flashback as well, but its the last you have to live in Menzoberranzan.

Chapter 20: All Trust is Foolish

Notes:

Trigger warning, as with the last one, but far less heavy imo.

This is the last time I torture her so thoroughly, I promise. We don't revisit Menzo in this fic.

– Tav –

I walked, barefoot, through the alleys of the Braeryn. All the way through Duthcloim. All the way to the Vandree compound. Lolth must have looked down on my little rebellion fondly, because no one robbed or killed me on my way, unarmed as I was trudging through her holy city. A quiet miracle in Menzoberranzan.

Eredune was sympathetic, at first.

“My poor pet,” she fussed, kissing my tears away. “Poor, sweet Tavisin. All this crying—you mustn’t shame yourself, ussta iiyola. Come, I’ll help you forget.”

In hindsight, she wanted me to shut up and get between her legs.

But at the time, I believed she was the first and only person to care if I wept. She’d get what she wanted either way, as I’d all but melted into her arms, grateful beyond sense.

Still, I had more to say.

I told her of Dra’ada’s threats, my mother’s plans to sell me. Grimacing, I explained her plan to use me to bring down House Vandree for Barrison Del'Armgo. I told her of the bill—how my mother had tallied the cost of my birth and childhood and served it to me.

And then, haltingly, wincing, I told her the rest.

How they’d started putting me to use, forced me to earn my keep on my back. I waited for her arms to draw tighter around me.

Her fingers stilled in my hair. “What did you say?”

I thought she was angry on my behalf, at my mother for what she’d done. I thought Eredune might avenge me. I still had a child’s fantasy of being saved.

But the silence drew on too long. I pulled back to search her face.

She wasn’t angry for me. She was disgusted.

“I didn’t want to,” I stammered, panicked. “She made me—”

“You let them.”

It struck harder than a blow. My mouth snapped shut. I only looked up at her, gutted, confused, hoping she’d soften once more.

“How many chances did you have to stop it?” Eredune asked. “You’ve been marching in my raids for months now, slitting the throats of colnbluth warriors twice your size. It’s not as if you’re some helpless, doe-eyed child.”

I absolutely was, I just didn’t know it. Eredune did though, and she’d use it.

She leaned down, her eyes hard. “Do you expect me to believe you cried and begged like some surface girl?”

I couldn’t answer. Shame and fear twisted so tightly within me that I could barely breathe. My mouth opened—no sound came. I shook my head.

“I didn’t want it,” I breathed at last. “Lolth take me if I lie.”

“You let filth touch you,” Eredune continued, drawing away. She rose from the bed. “Now every time I touch you, I will feel them. Do you understand? You’ve made me unclean.”

There is a sense of contagion between classes. Though no one dared speak it, I knew some of the nobles looked at us in disgust. Not because I was a child, but because they could smell the Stenchstreets on me.

Now I was truly tainted.  

Distraught, I barely noticed Eredune call for the guards. It was not until they wrenched me upright that I realized something was afoot.

I stammered, trying and failing to ask what was going on. No answer.

And then the anger hit. Blinding, hot. Thank Lolth for my rage, nothing erases misery quite like it.

These were elite guards, older men, disciplined. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could win against them, but I could hurt them.

I drove my knee into the gut of one. He doubled over with a grunt.

I twisted, ready to kick, bite, or claw the next—

“Tavisin, enough,” Eredune scolded. “Compose yourself. A day back in the Stenchstreets and this is what you’ve become?”

“I won’t go back there,” I managed.

She gave a deep sigh, as if I’d embarrassed us both.

“But of course not, treasure,” Eredune replied, softening at last. “I can’t very well let your mother lay claws on you again, can I? Not if she’s bartering favors with Barrison Del'Armgo.”

It should’ve been the best thing I’d ever heard. But if she meant to protect me—why the guards? My eyes darted between them, trying to understand.

Then the one I’d kneed reached for me, seizing my hair and yanking my head back hard.

“I’ll tuck you away somewhere safe for now,” Eredune continued. “Somewhere quiet, where you can reflect.”

 

And so they did.

I would become very familiar with the small, windowless room they threw me in. There I’d spend more time in than any other in the Vandree compound. The next seven days I’d spend curled on stone, listening to my own breathing, counting cracks in the wall.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I expect Morlin behind the next door.

I kick it open, blades ready, sliding into a dueler’s stance. But I’m met with only silence and the burble of alchemical alembics.

The room is circular, one side lined with scroll racks, the other cluttered with arcane instruments that pulse and flicker with stored magic. I spot several chained tomes, no doubt cursed grimoires like the Necromancy of Thay.

“Laboratory,” Sabrae announce, as if it is not obvious.

The air smells of parchment, but also old blood. My stomach growls. I’m hungry, I realize. Fighting always stirs my appetite.

Something catches my eye—half-buried under a stack of notes. I snatch the page.

I don’t know magic, but I’d recognize Astarion’s scars anywhere. It’s a sketch of the infernal contract Cazador carved into his back.

Sabrae peers over shoulder. “<What is that?>”

“You don’t recognize Astarion’s scars?” I ask dryly. “I suppose you didn’t get a very good look at them while on your back.”

That was the only way he would’ve had her, the only way he took anyone these days. Astarion used to receive, back when things were... simpler. When it was still fun and our roles less defined. I knew what I was doing—mostly, a long career of pleasing women having left me familiar with the strap. He used to laugh. Moan. Beg.

All that ended after he ascended. He never let me take the lead again. What he wanted now was perfect and complete control. Mostly I didn’t get to touch him first unless he said exactly how.

That I could understand. I was tired of being used too. Perhaps if I had the means, as he did now, I would make others kneel for once.

“<Please. He fucked me with his clothes on,>” Sabrae reveals, unbothered. “<And made very quick work of it. Then he spent the rest of the time covertly griping about you, as if I couldn’t tell. I’d put coin on the fact that he imagined how he’d punish you with every thrust.>”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

To say my punishment was being locked in a room is perhaps simplifying things.

Now that I’m older, I understand it for what it was—a calculated effort to break me down, strip me of my self, so that I could be shaped into something more pleasing. Eredune is no innovator, this kind of thing has been done for thousands of years. Cazador did the same with his spawn.

It worked. I owe most of what I am to Eredune—my weaknesses, yes, but also my strength.

Everything you like about me is her doing, I’d told Astarion once.

The cell was just large enough to stand in, to stretch my limbs. A mercy, I suppose. But small enough that pacing quickly turned maddening. I could see—drow eyes need little light—but without the glow of Narbondel, time meant nothing.

There was nothing to distract myself with. Only smoothed stone, the door. Cobwebs.

I could hear the guards outside sometimes—low murmurs, the occasional laugh. I’d press my ears to the door, desperate to catch a word, but never could.

Very quickly, I grew bored. And then, I grew mad.

Even the breaks in monotony became their own torment. The guards would bring too much food or too little. They'd forget water entirely or bring it warm and fouled. The slot would open and slam shut with no warning, and sometimes—mockingly—with no food at all, only the muffled laughter of the guards. I would scream in rage.

The chamberpot filled, the air fouled. I began to lose myself.

One day, a little yellow-white spider lowered from the ceiling on a trembling thread. I stared at her for so long my eyes ached.

I became convinced this was a sign from the goddess, Lolth showing her favor to me.

She became my dearest companion. I named her Valsharla, a pet form of valsharess—queen. I spoke with her often. I was not all that surprised when she started intermittently speaking back—softly, from within my mind.

I started hallucinating quite shortly into my stay. First flashing lights, visual noise, then voices that could’ve been the guards if not for how close they came. But Varsharla was a sort of purposeful madness, a half-imaginary friend to ease the loneliness. I thanked Lolth for her constantly.

I was eating cobwebs out of boredom when I discovered Valsharla had laid eggs, a teardrop-shaped silk sac in the corner she liked to linger. I watched her guard them in fascination, so fiercely devoted to her unborn children. I was jealous, even. What would it be like to have a mother who loved you simply for existing?

It became our shared vigil. I fantasized about what the day of hatching might look like, little yellow spiderlings scattered like stars in the darkness of the cell. As the sac grew—thickened, bloated—poor Valsharla struggled to cover it fully, her small legs twitching with effort.

I pressed my cheek beside it, lulled by her endless scuttling, and fell asleep.

I awoke to find Valsharla near death, her limbs trembling weakly. The sac had burst open. Her babies swarmed over her, devouring her legs and eyes and belly first as she twitched.

I only watched, weeping quietly.

That day I cursed Lolth. I swore I’d never pray again, that I would spit her name if I spoke it at all. Any blessings she’d given me I’d use how I pleased.

The guards opened the door at last to find me crouched in the dark, blank-faced and streaked with filth. I didn’t speak, only stood and followed them out.

Eredune had me bathed and prepared, much like Morlin would one day. I was given some scant thing to wear then as well. The powerful are all the same, no matter time, nor age, nor gender.

When I was brought before her, I didn’t wait to be told what to do.

I lowered myself to the floor, prostrated. The stone was cold against my knees, my forehead. I stayed like that, spine bowed low, head pressed to the tile in the traditional pose of supplication.

Then I spoke the question, though I already knew the answer.

“What must I do to fix what I’ve done?”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Scaling the brothel was far too easy. The building had been pieced together over decades—additions slapped on when there was coin, so the roof was a patchwork of uneven terraces. I was barely winded when I slipped through Dra’ada’s window, minutes after arriving.

She lay sprawled across the bed, one lip split, one eye swollen nearly shut.

“Oh, great,” she rasped. “You’re back. After I got beaten bloody for letting you slip.”

I crossed the room in two steps and dropped beside her. I took her hand before she could think to recoil. She stiffened at the touch, eyes darting to mine—wide, uncertain in a way I’d never seen before. I don’t think anyone had ever touched her gently.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

Dra’ada snatched her hand back as if it hurt. “It’s fine,” she mumbled, unable to meet my eye. “Are you stupid, coming back here? She’s going to flay you for what you did and make me clean the floor afterwards.”

I sat back on my heels, watching her face. “You and I… we’ve taken good care of each other, haven’t we?”

Dra’ada groaned, dragging a hand through her tangled silver tresses. “No shit. I’ve been trying to tell you that the whole time.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I didn’t listen. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Eredune.”

She pushed herself upright with a wince, watching me like I might strike. No doubt she knew something was wrong.

“She asked me to come here and kill you,” I admitted. “All of you. Said it was the only way to prove I still belonged to her. The only way she'd forgive me.”

Dra’ada’s eyes dropped to the swords at my hip.

“No,” I said before she could speak. “I’m not here to gut you.” I paused. “But it made me think.”

“She got you to do that? I wasn’t sure you were able—”

I glared. “Shut up. Listen. We hate our mother.”

“Hate’s too kind a word.”

“She's weak now,” I continued. “And we are not. That brothel runs because of us. We've bled for it, killed for it. It's already ours in all but name.”

I leaned forward. “Let’s kill her. Take what’s owed. No debts, no one to lord over us.”

Dra’ada didn’t speak at first. I could see the wheels turning, her bruised face unreadable.

“We’d have to kill them all,” she said at last. “Our cousins. The workers. Anyone who might come crawling out of the woodwork with a grudge. Otherwise we’ll be fighting to hold it till we’re wrinkled.”

I didn’t flinch. “Then we kill them,” I reply. “I don’t have anyone I need spared. Do you?”

“Of course not,” she snorted. “What do you take me for?”

She tilted her head, narrowing her good eye at me. “Do you really mean it, or are you fucking with me?”

I only held her gaze. That was answer enough.

Dra’ada’s mouth twitched into a wolfish grin. Emboldened by my earlier touch, she reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

 

────  ⚔  ────

Sabrae’s hand keeps drifting to her shoulder. Every time her fingers brush the wound, she winces—but doesn’t stop.

We’re nearing a pair of wide double doors—likely the banquet hall, judging by their size and ornateness—when I hear the thunk of a crossbow’s bolt.

Sabrae and I fall to the same side on instinct.

The bolt misses me by inches. We crash to the floor together, her breath hissing through clenched teeth. I roll and rise in the same motion, up in an instant, already charging.

The sentries flinch. One stumbles back, bolt half-loaded in trembling hands.

They’re terrified of me.

“Please, you don’t have to—” one begs. “Gods, why won’t you just go?”

I wonder once more how many spawn are here against their will, or for love of Artor Morlin, same as I stayed for love?

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I’ve never had much love for my family. They didn’t deserve it. The cousins beat me bloody for sport, groped me when they thought no one was looking, and on more than one occasion, tried to get rid of me for good.

Even so, it took effort to snuff out the part of me that hesitated. Most of them weren’t warriors. They weren’t armed. Some were still children—young enough they might forget they should run and just stand there crying instead.

Our mother had hired some mercenaries to guard in our absence. We struck them first. Dra’ada picked them off one by one from the rooftop with her crossbow, while I moved through the halls like a shadow, opening throats before they realized what was happening.

With most of the mercenaries dealt with and Dra’ada’s attention elsewhere, I slipped away, jogging through back corridors until I reached the low-ceilinged room where they kept the children.

About fifteen of them, curled on mats and motheaten blankets. A few of the older ones stirred when I entered, blinking through sleep or rubbing their eyes.

I crouched beside the eldest girl, maybe ten years old. I pressed a pouch of coin into her hand and made it her tuck it under her shirt. “Three houses down, there’s the human couple. Go there and hide.”

They were escaped slaves, soft-hearted surfacers. If anyone was stupid enough to care for drow children, it would be them.

I made her show me she had a knife. She did. So I handed out a few more from my belt to the others—small ones.

Then I unlatched one of the rear exits and opened it onto the alley, hissed at them to leave before I changed my mind. They didn’t argue.

They were just slipping around the bend in the alley when a thud sounded behind me.

Dra’ada dropped down from the thick zurkwood outside the eastern wall, landing light despite the weight of her crossbow. Her eyes followed the direction the children had fled.

“I tried to kill you, you know,” she confessed suddenly. “When you were a baby.”

I stilled.

“Ilninil was asleep,” she went on, not looking at me. “You were in that little drawer she kept you in. I stood over you for what felt like hours.”

I said nothing. I’d never heard this story before.

“All the others were so easy,” Dra’ada continued. “But…you were so tiny, curled in tight. I had the pillow ready and everything, but I couldn’t press down.”

I realized what was happening then. She was absolving me of my mercy, my weakness just now.

“I don’t think I can kill ilninil,” I admitted.

I’d been thinking about it all day—turning it over in my mind. Whenever I tried to picture it, I just kept remembering when I got sick with blacktongue fever. My aunt didn’t sleep for three days. She had to keep prying my mouth open when I choked, shoved a carved stick between my teeth to keep my tongue from curling and blocking the air. She fed me through a reed tube when I was too weak to swallow. I should have died. Everyone said I would.

Dra’ada nodded curtly. “Leave her to me.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The barricade to the banquet hall is poorly made, falling to our boots with hardly any effort.

I spot Morlin at once—slouched in one of the high-backed chairs at the far end of the hall. Medechai clings to him, his mouth latched to her wrist like a suckling child. He can’t even lift his head.

He’s too far gone to give orders either, it seems. It’s Medechai who calls for my death.

“She dared lay hands on our lord!” she cries, Sabrae forgotten. “Blood for blood! Bring us her head, and you’ll be rewarded for your loyalty!”

The spawn surge in from all sides.

Sabrae must fight dirty. She lets her arm hang loose and helpless, drawing them in. The moment they lower their guard, she turns vicious—driving knees into groins, stomping heels onto insteps, caving in noses with a well-placed elbow.

The rest I take.

In a frenzy like this, I don’t think. I only move. I drive a blade up through someone’s jaw and kick them away. I carve a line across a chest, open a throat, crush a skull underfoot.

Sabrae targets the weak—those I’ve wounded, those too green to hold a blade right. I glimpse her tearing through the stragglers as I slide across one of the long banquet tables, chasing down a fleeing spawn.

That’s when I see her veer toward Morlin.

“Leave him!” I shout. “He’s mine!”

Glass crashing. A wail as someone catches flame—one of the spawn is a spellcaster, and a very untrained one at that. Their magic singes me once, but before they can cast again, Sabrae is on them, dragging them down, choking the breath from their lungs before they can speak another word.

Soon the room has fallen silent.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We moved through the corridors in silence. I’d haunted this place once as a child, a hungry ghost, barefoot, unseen.

We were our mother’s daughters no longer. We were disciples of Kiaransalee, consumed with our retribution, masters of death. Vengeance made small gods of us that night.

The brothel’s dying throes came in gasps—a shriek cut short, the crash of a vase, the splitting of flesh. When we met resistance, I surged forward, fast and sure, cutting down the brave. If they bolted, Dra’ada whistled, and I’d throw myself against the nearest wall just before her bolt zipped past and found its mark.

We knew every inch of this place. We knew every board that creaked underfoot, every velvet panel hiding a crawlspace. We knew where to look because we’d been the ones hiding once. Never again.

When Dra’ada killed our aunt, I waited outside like a coward. You can still scream without a tongue. A raw, garbled sound reached me through the door—the cry of someone dying scared. I gasped some pained noise, hand pressed to my mouth.

Dra’ada emerged, her hands were red, her face flushed. I wiped my tears quickly so she would not see.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” she said. “And I’m glad you’re at my side. These people are nothing.”

Maybe she’d seen I’d been crying. Or maybe she just couldn’t stop the words from spilling. Her eyes shone too brightly, and her voice was breathless.

“Our family doesn’t mean anything to me,” she said. “They might as well not be real. But you—you—you and I are different.”

She smiled. Something had come loose in her too. She was not as unmoved as she wanted to be.

“Lolth blessed me when she made you,” Dra’ada continued. “Do you know what it’s like, feeling as if you’re a stranger in your own family? I was alone. I never saw myself in anyone until I saw myself in you.”

             

────  ⚔  ────

 

Medechai throws herself over Morlin.

I don’t expect it. Stupid of me, given I did the exact same for Astarion not a month prior—threw myself over him without thinking, shielding him from a blade as he lay sleeping.

Sleeping…

Only—he couldn’t have been sleeping, could he? He never sleeps. Elves don’t need to, most can slip into reverie, where they can hear and see their surroundings. He should have seen the assassin coming. So—did he let me do it? Was it a cruel test or amusement? A form of self-flattery?

I shove the thought aside. It doesn’t matter now.

Whether Morlin is flattered by Medechai’s loyalty, I cannot tell. He still looks half-dead, slumped and slack-jawed, eyes feverish, held upright only by her and the blood she’s forced him.

Medechai stares up at me, jaw set, eyes blazing with hatred.

I know that look. It’s mine—the same one I wore when I gutted the first assassin meant for Eredune. When I stood between Astarion and his siblings as they closed in like wolves. When I held the line against Cazador’s hordes, my side split open and blood soaking my boots.

It’s the same one I’ve had every time I’ve refused to run, because the alternative would mean leaving him.

I’m caught up in ghosts —my dead sister behind me, and a younger, stupider version of myself crouched in front, baring her teeth at me like a kitten hissing.

“Move,” I order coldly.

“Never,” she says.

Behind me, Sabrae prays in our tongue, thanking Lolth for our victory. “<I spin thy web of chaos, Mother—>”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

“—Blessed be the weaver,” my sister prayed, “for guiding our hand, for letting us take vengeance and walk.”

Killing our mother was far less satisfying than I thought it would be. I’d imagined something grand—relief, transformation. Instead, all I could think of was Valsharla, her babies turning on her, eating her alive. Tiny articulated fangs tearing into the body that made them.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Dra’ada said. “We’re free. We don’t have to be afraid of her anymore.”

The dagger was slick in my hand. Our mother’s blood made it hard to hold.

I was too numb to even startle when Dra’ada pulled me into a clumsy hug.

She held on too tight, fingers digging—someone so unused to tenderness, she didn’t know how to touch without hurting.

“I know we’re not supposed to,” she whispered, muffled against my shoulder. “The priestesses say it makes us weak, but I can’t help it. I love you. You’re the only one I’ve ever cared about.”

I don’t remember if I said it back.

I only remember nodding—shifting the dagger into place.

I remember her spine arched under my hand as I drove it between her ribs.

She stumbled back from me, shocked, looking down at the wound in surprise.

Jal khaless zhah waela. All trust is foolish.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Dra’ada never saw me coming.

Sabrae does.

She turns around as if she senses my intent—eyes locking mine, pupils contracting to pinpoints. My blade is poised inches from her throat.

She sneers, lips curling. “I should have known,” she spits. “You’re a traitor to your own kind.”

“Jal khaless zhah waela,” I remind her softly.

Her expression falters. She swallows, closes her eyes.

Then, to my surprise, she inclines her neck.

I open her throat quick, clean, before she can even anticipate it. A mercy strike.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I beat Medechai near an inch of her life and still she will not go.

I blacken an eye, I split her lip. Her nose, though serpentine, still breaks when I slam her head against the floor.

I drag her away by the hair, spitting curses, shoving her to the door. She crawls back to Morlin’s side moments later.

“Waeles, go!” I snarl. “You’re free. You don’t have to stay here.”

All I want is for her to walk away. I need her to, no matter the risk it brings me. Why must it be so hard?

“Is this what you want?” I hiss. “To die at his feet?”

But she only sobs. She pleads for me to stop, for me to go—but still she will not do so herself.

“Do you think this is love?” I demand. “Bleeding for someone who wouldn’t spare a drop for you? If you were anything more than his slave, he’d have given you your freedom. And yet still you crawl after him like a dog.”

She doesn’t answer—just clings to him, her back to me. I take a step forward, my shadow falling over her, and she shrinks tighter against him, her face buried in his side.

“He doesn’t love you,” I press on. “He won’t mourn you. He won’t even miss you. He isn’t capable. He’ll find another to replace you—and in a few decades, he won’t even remember your name.”

My hands shake. I hate her.

“You’re pathetic,” I snap, voice tight with rage. “Do you hear me? You’ll die for him, and it will mean nothing.”

 

In the end, it’s Morlin who makes her leave.

He doesn’t look at me. Just shifts slightly, murmurs something low, and crooks a finger. Barely a twitch, weak as he is.

She bows her head to meet his, lets him whisper in her ear. I cannot hear the words, I only see the way her face crumples.

Medechai shakes her head, a stern refusal. Morlin grows more insistent, and she begins to cry.

He whispers again. This time it’s not a request.

Her body jerks in compliance, limbs stiff and unwilling as she stumbles away from us, still begging to be allowed to stay.

Would Astarion do the same for me? I think not.

The matrons of old had their favored slaves and concubines slaughtered at their deathbeds, flung into the Donigarten with their own corpses during the funerary rites. A final gesture of ownership. That would have been my fate.

Morlin and I watch her go in silence.

When I can no longer hear her sobs, I look to him. “You and I have work to do. It will be unpleasant.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The night I murdered my family, a carriage waited on the edge of the Braeryn. I climbed in without looking back, and rode to the arms of the woman who would make me hers —who would make my life a hell.

There is no carriage tonight. Only the heat of the fire behind me, licking up the walls of Artor Morlin’s estate. By morning, it will have swallowed all it can.

In those ashes, they will find what they need to bury me: a drow’s charred remains, the blades gifted by two vampire lords, a kerchief stained with old blood, Cazador’s fang, and a little dagger Astarion was once too shy to give me. It pained me greatly to part with it.

I am not going back to him. All that passed between us—the violence, the desire, my love—will burn too.

The old must die for the new to be born.

I leave it all to the flames.

Notes:

Apologies for the backstory dump—I felt it was necessary to show why Tav is so fiercely protective of the people she cares for, yet incapable of truly trusting them. People tend to repeat the patterns they learn in childhood, and I wanted to explore that through her. Tav grows up taught that trust is foolish and that kindness always comes with teeth. She internalizes these lessons so deeply that when Dra’ada tries to offer her something real, she can’t accept it. Eredune, ironically, feels safer—because Tav knows exactly what she wants from her.
By this point of the story, Tav realizes this. Her verbal lashing of Medechai is her confronting that impulse—her inability to break the pattern, and the disgust she feels seeing it in someone else.

also lol my favorite part is when she's like 'he's changed :( ' because he won't let her peg him anymore 💀💀💀

Some trivia: Lolth sends Tav divine messages on the regular, but she's too oblivious to clock them. A few examples: baby spiders devouring their mother—a warning that she’ll kill hers; the dream where her aunt tries to teach her a lesson she can’t grasp—she’s repeating the same role she played with Eredune, now with Astarion. Lolth loves Tav very much despite her blasphemy and consorting with the enemy.

Foreshadowing notes: Tav starts laying the groundwork for this plan all the way back in "Weakness," while she’s laid up injured in the estate's rooms. When she tries to convince Astarion to send her to Waterdeep under the pretense of confronting Morlin, its so she can set it in motion.
She also gets Sabrae fired by feigning jealousy, knowing it’ll give her the leverage to recruit her as a body double later. Earlier in the fic, Tav specifically mentions that she doesn’t experience romantic jealousy the way others do. Astarion wants her to be jealous, therefore will perceive her as being so, so she exploits this.
When Gale and the others kidnap her, she spells “Waterdeep” in his magical dust—trying to signal to them that she has a plan.
Same with her line to Jaheira: “I want to live. You must trust that I will do whatever is needed, and that I know things you don’t.”. She doesn't outright tell them partly because she fears Astarion's mental domination, and partly because she fears they will fuck it up for her somehow, as they did with the kidnapping.

But why is she suddenly so protective of her own life and freedom when historically she's centered her world around others?
hmmm

Chapter 21: – Interlude –

– Gale –

The first time Tav sees fit to knock on a door happens to be when my mother answers it.

I hear the scream from my workshop in the cellar.

Rushing upstairs, I imagine all manner of domestic terrors: a rat, perhaps, or one of the local pigeons—creatures which, for reasons unknown to all but the gods, strike absolute terror into my mother’s heart.

I do not expect Tav.

She stands there on the doorstep, bloodied and bandaged, looking altogether too satisfied for someone so clearly injured. That slight stoop of hers betrays the pain, but her grin is unmistakable.

“Hello Gale,” she says.

My mother turns on me as though I am personally responsible for the mess at her threshold.

“Hello, Tav,” I reply automatically.

She looks over her shoulder quickly, checking the street. Though she’s pleased with whatever happened, she’s also afraid. That’s what catches me off guard. Tav is never afraid, not for herself.

But mostly there is relief.

“Is it over?” I ask.

She considers.

“I think I’ve gotten away.”

Chapter 22: The Visitor

– Gale –

My mother prepares dinner while we sit at our table, the clatter of her cooking the only sound between us. The scent of herbs and roasted meat just masks the iron tang of Tav’s blood slowly staining the dining chair.

She says nothing, so I wait.

Nearly a half hour passes before the trembling begins. Tav fumbles for the cup I’ve set before her, hands shaking so badly it nearly tips.

“Will you tell me what happened?” I ask.

Tav sets it down, casting me a sidelong glance. “The less you know, the safer you are,” she replies. “And the sooner I’m gone from here, the better. I’ll be on the road come first light.”

I bite down telling her that she’s lying to herself if she thinks she can travel like this.

“I’m not afraid of Astarion,” I say. “But if you are, traveling in this state is unwise.  You’ll draw eyes wounded, and if he’s hunting for you, you’ll prove very easy to find.”

Tav shifts in her seat, uneasy, then falls silent again. She’s never yielded to a suggestion of mine before—not like this—and the quiet that follows feels oddly jarring.

After a long moment, she speaks. “What would you have me do?”

It pains her to ask.

“Stay here,” I urge, “just for a few days. Rest, let your body mend—I can send word to Jaheira. If anyone can help, it will be the Harpers.”

Tav shakes her head, sipping again. “The Harpers can’t help me, and I don’t trust Jaheira.”

I blink, stunned. “Why ever not?” I protest. “She cares for you —obviously more deeply than you seem to see. She risked more than most would to see you to that safehouse. That is not nothing.”

Tav sets her cup down once more and looks at me squarely.

“Gale,” she begins, “she came to the safehouse with Astarion in tow. If it wasn’t her hand that pointed him to me, it was someone in her network, her inner circle, and she let it happen.”

Gods, how had I not considered it? I’d been too wrapped up in the moment.

“I don’t blame her,” Tav goes on. “She did what she had to for her family and the Harpers. But many bled so I could have this chance, and I won’t let anyone take it from me. That includes you.”

My protest falters as my mother slips into the room—wordless, breezing in to collect a serving tray from the credenza.

Tav’s gaze follows her, guarded. She holds her tongue until we’re alone again.

“Artor Morlin’s castle is burning,” Tav explains. “You didn’t hear the cry go up because it rose too far to the west.”

She leans back stiffly, wincing as pain catches her. “By dawn, they’ll pull what’s left of him and his spawn from the rubble,” she continues. “Along with the corpse of a drow woman—one wearing Cazador’s fang and some keepsakes of mine.”

Her voice doesn’t waver, but something behind her eyes does. A flicker of sadness or memory.

Or perhaps I’m only imagining it. Jaheira has said more than once that I’ve always seen what I wanted to see where Tav is concerned.

“The flamberge?” I venture.

Her head jerks up, eyes narrowing, as though she can’t quite fathom how I would know about it.

“So you won’t go to the Harpers,” I say, gently sidestepping. “Very well—you’ve your reasons. But what is your alternative? Because like it or not, you will need help.”

That earns me a scowl, the kind meant to end conversations.

Before I can press further, my mother reenters the dining room, carrying a tray of food.

“Are you ready for me?” she asks lightly, but I catch the brief, assessing glance she gives us both.

Tav inclines her head very low—so low it nearly touches the tabletop. For a moment I’m baffled as to what she’s doing, until she speaks. “Yes, malla Dekarios.”

My mother and I exchange the briefest glance. Tav, head down, does not notice.

We begin the meal in uneasy silence.

Tav is still shaking, though she tries valiantly to hide it. My mother notices—as she always does—watching discreetly as Tav spills a few drops of watered wine with an unsteady hand.

“Gale,” she says, “there’s a draft in the air. Would you fetch your guest a blanket—or a cloak, if one’s nearer?”

I nod and rise, expecting Tav to protest, accuse me of fussing, but she stays silent.

When I return, blanket in hand, she accepts it without a word, wrapping it tightly around herself. Something about the way she clutches it makes my chest tighten.

“Now then, Tav,” my mother says, folding her hands neatly, “I’ve heard so much and so little about you. I’d love to know more. How do you make a living?”

Tav glances up from where she’s pushing food around with her fork. “A living,” she echoes. I can see the gears turning.

“Common is her second tongue,” I supply quickly. “Tav acts as a retainer to a lord—managing assets, overseeing his interests—”

“I kill people,” Tav interrupts.

I throw her a sharp look.

Tav only shrugs. “She’d have asked soon enough why I turned up drenched in blood. A steward doesn’t come in soaked to the elbows in red.”

My mother sips her wine, unruffled. “Gale tells me you’re in some sort of trouble.”

“I’ll be gone soon enough, malla Dekarios.”

Her strangely respectful tone makes me uneasy. I’ve never heard her speak like that.

“Morena,” corrects my mother. “You’ve already come into my home, so I think I’m owed a clearer picture of what exactly I’ve welcomed along with you.”

Tav is quiet.

“I staged my death,” she admits at last. “I think I’ve done it convincingly enough, but there’s no knowing. If it didn’t take, they’ll be coming for me—and you’d get caught in that. Best I keep moving.”

“We all get a say in the risks we take,” I tell her. “You cannot lock everyone out simply because you believe it will keep us safe.”

“Yes I can,” Tav replies. “It’s my business.”

“As I’ve already said,” my mother cuts in coolly, “it ceases to be your business the moment you cross into my home."

I glance at her, startled.

“Now,” my mother continues, lacing her fingers together, “this seems a fine time for one of you to explain precisely what’s going on—not merely the parts you find convenient.”

Tav lurches up, pushing her chair back. “Excuse me.”

Her face has gone carefully blank, but I think there’s something to parse there. A sort of panic.

When she dashes away, I realize she’s about to be sick.

My mother and I stare at each other as the sound of her retching echoes through the house.

“One can only hope she located a sink—or the privy,” she says dryly.

“I know what you're thinking,” I begin.

“I assure you, you don't,” she replies. “You may as well tell me what’s happened—because I very much doubt she’ll be forthcoming.”

I swallow, choosing my words. “You’ll recall I spoke of a friend—one whose...” I falter, the term eluding me. Partner feels too tame, too polite a word for what strange knot that binds them. Karlach, I remember, used to call them the ‘creepy twins’ long before anything official blossomed between them.

“The man she’s with, they fight, I remember,” my mother says. “You tried to intervene, but she wouldn’t have it.”

I do not explain that our intervention was rather more... physical than she assumes—an outright kidnapping, truth be told, with me doing most of the heavy lifting. I simply nod.

My mother grows wistful, smoothing some of my hair as if I were nine again. “My sweet boy,” she says. “You can’t fix everything for everyone, I hope you realize this.”

I offer a crooked smile. “It seems she has done the fixing herself, without any meddling of mine,” I reply. “Rather humbling, considering our earlier efforts.”

“Mm,” my mother hums. “And yet she still knocked on our door—bleeding, asking for you.”

I’m not certain it’s meant to flatter me, yet it does. Having Tav grant even a scrap of trust feels rather like coaxing a wild beast to your hand.

Gesturing toward where Tav disappeared, my mother continues. “Look, I don’t know what happened to her—whether he did that, or she did it to herself trying to get away—but it’s plain she’s hurt. She may have struck her head, that could explain the sickness. You’ll need to see her to a cleric.”

“No need."

Both my mother and I scream.

Tav, the speaker, has materialized at my side. She’s always had the disconcerting habit of moving in perfect silence. I had grown used to it during our travels, but it unsettles me once more now.

“I saw clerics of Talona before I came here,” she explains. “They tended to me.”

My mother and I exchange another discrete glance.

“Talona?” I repeat slowly. Mistress of Disease, Mother of all Plagues. “Tav, are you quite certain you understand the nature of that particular goddess?”

“The disease one, yes,” she agrees. “Her clerics stitched me up well enough with my crossbow staring. And don’t worry, I warned them I’d return if they tampered with me.”

She smiles thinly, still looking nauseous.

Mystra’s Weave, this was going to be difficult.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The rest of dinner goes as well as one could reasonably expect. Tav utters but three more baffling comments and offends my mother only once, a victory by most measures.

When the meal ends, we leave Tav briefly to gather what she’ll need—fresh linens for the guest bed, a few of my clothes for sleeping, and some of my mother’s for the day to follow.

When I return downstairs, I find Tav and Scratch studying each other intently.

Scratch had been dozing on the back porch when Tav arrived, and I’m frankly surprised the smell of dinner didn’t rouse him sooner.

“Why does it stare?” Tav asks, frowning slightly.

I laugh. “Tav, that’s Scratch,” I chide gently. “Surely you remember our faithful camp follower, scourge of all unattended food?”

Scratch pads forward and noses her thigh. Tav stiffens, then rises from her chair, hands open, grasping. “What do I do?”

I’ve seen that gesture before—the hands reaching, searching—I suspect it’s what she does when she can’t find the pommel or hilt of a blade

“He wants you to pet him,” I tell her. “Go on. Even if you get it wrong, he’s quite forgiving.”

She hesitates as though I’ve asked her to stick her arm into a sprung trap to see if it’s still live.

To be fair, I don’t think Tav fully grasps the concept of domesticated animals outside of livestock. When Scratch first wandered into our camp, she asked if he was a small bear. I launched into a lecture on canines, their taxonomy, their history with humanoids. She’d listened patiently, then asked if we were going to eat him.

In the end I manage to coax her into tentatively reaching out and patting him once, twice, but with the stiffness of someone expecting to lose a hand. Scratch, bless him, wags his tail so fiercely he nearly topples one of my mother’s vases.

We part ways soon after, bidding each other goodnight.

“Wait,” Tav says at the last moment, as if indecisive. “There’s something I should show you.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

When she first hands me the log, I don’t know what I’m looking at.

Her writing in Common is…poor, to put it kindly. Letters reversed, sometimes upside down, phonetics scrawled like guesses. I have to sound out each line until the meaning dawns on me.

Wounds inflicted on a vampire. Notes on their kind, their severity. Behavior during and after the trauma. yeleb in payn, she writes, flincheb fore holy water hit, regenerashun 4 ɯinutes. ᗺ ite control returns. Dib not speek.

I swallow. “How long did it take you to gather all this?”

She cocks her head, the gesture is almost childlike—disturbingly so, given the context. “To write it?”

“No, Tav. To collect it,” I say. “How many vampires did you kill for this?” And torture.

“I’ve killed many,” she says, almost off-hand, “but this is only from one.”

My eyes dart over the pages one more time. Whoever this was, vampire or not, they suffered horribly before they died.

Mystra forgive me, I feel ill.

“I can use this, can’t I?” Tav asks, hopeful. “To kill Astarion?”

The answer is no.

She’s spent hours—days, perhaps—torturing someone, gathering data with agonizing diligence, all for nothing.

Astarion is more than a vampire. He traded seven thousand souls to shed all the weaknesses she so carefully catalogued in these notes. All she’s done is confirm what any Gur monster hunter or paladin of the Aster already knows.

But I look at her—anxious, exhausted—and I can’t bring myself to tell her so.

“I’ll look over it,” I promise, tucking the book under my arm.

Relief softens her shoulders. I wonder what her plans for vengeance look like.

Remembering I’m still present, she straightens. “Your mother’s very fond of you.”

“She always has been,” I admit. “More than my merits warranted.”

Tav nods once, as if confused by this, and shuts the door.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Tav doesn’t sleep.

At least not while anyone’s watching. The first two nights she spends pacing the halls with soundless footfalls. Whether she’s keeping vigil or merely unable to rest, I’m not certain.

“What is wrong with her?” my mother whispers one evening.

I stare, genuinely appalled.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she hisses. “I don’t say it out of malice. She moves in complete silence, Gale. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“She means well, truly,” I say, voice soft. “You have my word.”

My mother shakes her head. “There’s something wrong. There’s a... darkness coming from her, even when she's trying. She's dangerous.”

Tav herself might agree with my mother’s assessment. But I do not.

The sleeplessness begins to wear. I see it in the sharpness of Tav’s cheekbones, the hollowness gathering beneath her eyes. Her skin—already grey—takes on a drawn, brittle pallor.

“You should sleep,” I urge. “One cannot pour from an empty cup—and yours, I fear, is nearing the bottom.”

She doesn’t answer, but I get the distinct sense this is self-inflicted. A penance, perhaps, though for what crime I cannot say.

 

I think I glimpse her asleep only once, head tilted, Scratch’s muzzle nestled contentedly in her lap. But when I step into the room, her eyes are already open.

I suspect it might be the first true sleep she’s allowed herself since coming to stay with us.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

She regards me with that same unreadable calm. “There is nothing useful to feel.”

Ah, marvellous. Nothing concerning about that in the least.

I step forward, meaning to say something—what, I’m not quite sure, perhaps that feelings are not designed to be useful, merely felt—when Scratch lets out a low growl, his ears folding back

“Really now,” I protest, offended. “Scratch, it’s only me.” The man who feeds you treats everyday.

“He growled at your mother as well,” Tav informs me. “And I can’t take two steps without him dogging my heels.”

Curious.

“Well it seems he’s chosen his allegiances, I suppose,” I muse. “Betrayal, thy name is hound.”

Satisfied I’m not getting any closer, Scratch puts his muzzle back on Tav’s lap.

Tav squints at me. Then she looks away. “Something is wrong.”

“What?” I ask. “What do you mean?”

“It’s too calm,” she explains. “I’m holding my breath.”

Ah.

“Tav,” I begin, meaning to offer some soothing words about recovery, about the toll of fear and vigilance—

“Shut up,” she cuts in. “I don’t want you to die.”

I tilt my head at her, open my mouth, close it, then shake my head. In the end I simply change the subject.

 

She continues to be sick regularly, no doubt the consequence of her ill-advised dealings with Talona’s faithful.

“Tav, my dear,” I say, gently as I can, finding her after she’s left the privy for the second time.

She flinches. Ah. Of course—that’s what he calls her.

To acknowledge it would be worse, so I press on. “You said clerics of Talona saw to your healing?”

She nods.

“Forgive me,” I say, offering a rueful smile, “but I don’t place much faith in her servants. They are far better versed in the infliction of ailments than their cure. If you are ill, it may very well be their parting gift.”

She smiles—or her version, just a twitch at the corner of her mouth. “I promise you, Gale—I’m fine. Let it rest.”

I offer to escort her to a cleric I trust. I offer to polymorph her, teleport her to the temple so she is not seen. I offer to summon a healer to our doorstep.

I even consider—briefly—the possibility of gently tampering with a cleric’s memory after the fact, should discretion prove necessary. But no. I’ve meddled enough with minds for one lifetime.

On the third day, as I sit bent over my books, she slips into the study without a word. I turn, instinctively, to greet her—only to find myself stilling. Some small instinct warns not to bother her.

I let her be. Tav settles into the armchair behind me.

I think I hear her breathing a bit too deep, a little too even, so I risk a peek over my shoulder and find her dozing at last. Very, very carefully I drape a blanket over of her.

 

Things improve after that, slowly, stubbornly, and then seemingly all at once.

There’s a brief setback when I must explain—diplomatically—that my mother is rather unsettled by Tav sleeping armed with a loaded crossbow. Tav scowls, bristles, but after some negotiation, concedes to relinquish the weapon.

She stops patrolling the halls at night. She begins to eat again—asking for rothé steak, practically raw—and only gets sick some of the time. She puts on weight faster than I would have thought possible. Once she relearns how to sleep, she seems determined to make up for lost time, napping most of the day, Scratch loyally stationed at her side.

“Scratch and I take shifts,” she explains.

It isn’t perfect. But it’s something.

I realize somewhat belatedly that I’ve been holding my breath for months, far before she knocked on the door. Truly it’s a wonder I still have any hair left.

I am, for once, quite satisfied with the order of things—until my mother sweeps into my study unannounced.

“Your friend is pregnant,” she declares.

I blink. A pause, a hiccup in thought. I imagine I’ve misheard her, for that’s the only reason I can think of for those words. When I realize I haven’t, I find my footing in reason.

“That’s… not biologically feasible,” I tell her, shaking my head. I look back down at my papers as I continue. “Vampires are undead. They consume the vital spark, they don’t cultivate it—they are, in every arcane and anatomical sense, anathema to life.”

“I may not know your tomes and theorems,” she retorts, “but I’ve been pregnant. I know what it looks like. If it’s not possible, then it’s not his. Maybe that’s why she left.”

I huff a half-laugh. “Tav? No. She’s remarkably…devoted,” I explain. “Distressingly, even. I wager he’s had the whole of her attention and then some.”

I’ve seen many forms of devotion—religious, romantic, self-destructive—but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people quite so utterly consumed by one another.

During our travels, they were maddening: childish, chaotic, emotionally exhausting to behold—yet always circling back. Shouting at each other one moment, then crooning endearments and stroking each other the next. Enough to send anyone nearby politely scattering.

It was ridiculous. Still, I found myself envious. It rivalled, if I’m honest, the way I once looked at Mystra—though they had the advantage of being able to scream at each other without rupturing the Weave.

They always made up. Always found their way back to each other, no matter how loud or vicious the parting.

Not this time.

My mother slaps her hand down over my student’s work —naturally, on the very paragraph I had been meaning to revisit. The treatise on planar disruption will have to wait.

“Gale,” she says firmly. “She hasn’t been drinking—”

“Please,” I laugh. “She’s had wine with every meal. Breakfast included.”

“She raises the glass, yes,” my mother counters. “Swirls it, puts it to her lips… but it’s always full when she sets it down. Not a drop gone.”

I pause, collecting my thoughts. “She’s… not used to peace,” I reason. “She’s uneasy. She told me as much—said she’s worried something might happen. It stands to reason she wouldn’t want to dull her reflexes.”

My mother arches a brow, unimpressed. “Mm. And the cravings?” she asks. “Gale dear, she’s been wearing your shirts, even though I gave her a stack of mine. She naps at all hours. Scratch won’t leave her side. And when the wind slammed the door the other day, she didn’t reach for those blades she so obsesses over —she clutched her stomach.”

Half of that could be chalked up to Tav’s eccentricities, the other half to the ordeal she’s endured. Anyone would be unsettled after what she went through, and I’m certain I don’t even have the full story.

I open my mouth to tell her so, but my mother beats me to it.

“Listen,” she says, nodding upward.

I do.

It’s faint but clear: Tav is retching again in the upstairs privy. Violently, drawn out longer than usual.

It’s not the first time. It’s not the second, either.

I frown. That sound—violent, wrenching—I realize I’ve heard it nearly every day.

“Go,” my mother says quietly. “Offer her a towel. And for gods’ sake, talk to her.”

I recoil, scandalized. “Mother!” I sputter. “I can’t simply ask her. That’s—good gods, it’s personal.”

“Why, because you’re a man?” my mother asks dryly. “If you find the topic too scandalous for your delicate sensibilities, you might reconsider forming friendships with women at all.”

“It’s not that,” I say, indignant. “It’s because Tav is—she’s intensely private.”

Well. ‘Private’ is generous, given this is a woman who has informed me of her bowel movements multiple times since we became friends. Perhaps ‘guarded’ is better. Or ‘selectively circumspect.’ Regardless—

“I’ll not intrude on her like that.”

“Fine,” my mother says, already turning. “I will.”

Notes:

You probably predicted this lol. My first hint was chapter 6 I think?

"He pours me a goblet of wine. Lolth willing, he won’t notice that I don’t take a single sip. Our old friends certainly hadn’t. I’ve been so fond of drinking for so long that people assume I just do, although it’s been weeks."

 

" “Besides, why would you, of all people, need protection?” he asks. “Hmm? You seem perfectly capable of butchering my guests all on your own.”
My stomach knots. I’m not ready to tell him what I already know."

"We lean against the balcony, drinks in hand, watching the crowd below. I’ve had none of mine. Fenorin doesn’t notice, too caught up in the game we’ve made of guessing the guests and their reasons for being here."

"But I worry. More venom in my blood. I don’t know what it does, what it could do, and it’s not as if I can ask him for answers. I cannot tell him what I know."

"I stiffen when his fingers splay over my stomach."

"“I think its his venom,” I say, though it’s not. “It’s doing something to me that I don’t understand. I can’t risk taking in more, not until I know the cost.”
It’s not entirely a lie. My body doesn’t answer solely to me anymore, something inside me has taken control of my appetite. And I do worry what effect the venom will have on it." "

Tav won't move unless for an outside force. She doesn't care enough about herself to do that. There needs to be a push.

 

Oh and forgot to mention, Morena makes a comment on her blades, but obviously Tav couldn't keep her cool ones or it would be obvious she isn't dead, so this is a fresh but lame set that she's armed with now.

Chapter 23: The Mother

– Tav –

 

Now that I’m free—free of the need to fawn, bat lashes, kneel just so—I let the hate come. I bring the hurt close.

I rage. I burn.

But shame runs hot and thick along with it, and I have nothing to cut up in the Dekarios household, no outlet.

They tell me I have centuries ahead. A drow's life is long, provided she isn't killed. Yet in my heart, I know truth: unless I return, my chance is gone. The bastard will keep living, and I will keep hiding.

I struggle to explain even the smallest pieces I want Gale to understand.

“So, you were just biding your time?” he asks. “Waiting for the opportune moment to free yourself from him?”

I know they all think I’m stupid. I want to be angry with them, but how can I? That was the part I played, and I played it well because it wasn’t a lie, not truly.

“Had I disappeared, he’d have torn all Faerûn apart,” I reply. “I had him convinced I would never run, so he’d think one of you idiots dragged me off again. He had to think I was dead.”

Gale rises, restless. He runs a hand over his face. “You know we can help you with these things,” he says. “You don’t have to carry it all alone.”

Yes, I most certainly do.

How could I tell Gale what I know? That it was close—far closer than anyone could forgive. I spent months plotting my escape, but just as long searching for reasons to stay. Some days I found them.

I wanted to believe that Astarion could do better, even without whatever piece of himself he’d lost in the ascension—or that I could make it better, that if I yielded when it pleased him, resisted when it mattered, everyone might survive what we were doing to each other.

I almost told him everything when he asked to negotiate. The truth caught in my throat that night, pressing the back of my mouth, clawing to be free. But I swallowed it.

And worst of all—I miss him. He hurt me. I ran so I could be safe from him. And yet, lying in the darkness of the Dekarios guest chambers, alone and afraid, I find myself wishing he were here.

I fantasize that he’ll find me—catch me—before I can vanish. That I’ll confess everything, and he’ll understand why I did it, why we couldn’t go on as we were. I want him to hold me, promise me it will be safe from now on.

I want it so much it hurts.

Lolth take me, I disgust myself.

I will excise this weakness. Burn it, cut it out, like blight from a mushroom crop.

The pain grows so sharp I mistake it for something physical. Still, I cannot risk another cleric, so foolishly, I ask Gale why my chest aches so fiercely.

He shifts uncomfortably, then says, “Sometimes it is the heart that wounds us most cruelly.”

Heat floods my face. I look away, humiliated by what I’ve asked, but he continues, gentle: “All the same, you must see a cleric. Matters of the spirit cannot heal while the body suffers.”

But the body anchors me—the bruises, the aches, the skin pulled too tight over clumsy stitches.

I don’t know what Talona’s clerics did to patch me up—I tried to pay attention, truly,but it’s hard when you’re nodding off from exhaustion, trying to keep a shaking crossbow trained at six robed strangers.

Whatever it was, they left me with strange bruises. Aches that don’t feel like healing at all.

It doesn’t matter, really. If the clerics are to be believed, the one thing that does matter is safe. Miraculously, against all odds. Unharmed, they assured, with a very strong heartbeat.

“You must have wanted this very badly,” the head cleric whispered, examining the stitched gut wound I’d sustained from Morlin’s raid.

She hummed absently as she worked, fingers prodding the sewn flesh. “It looks as though the gods themselves meant to rip it from you.”

They’d have to try harder.

“Still—”

She drove her finger into the wound, blood surging up around her knuckle.

I choked on a scream, the world blurring into white agony as she wriggled her finger inside me, twisting.

“—perhaps next time, pray to your spider bitch instead of threatening us,” she finished sweetly.

When I found my wits, my hand twitching toward my knife to open her throat, she was already threading her needle, calm as if nothing had happened at all.

“You may find her more amenable to you now,” she continued. “As you have both turned against your darthiir lovers.”

I shivered but said nothing. I would not ask how she knew.

They say Lolth takes mortal guise when the mood strikes her, that she walks the Braeryn in secret, waiting for an offense so she might exact her vengeance. There were times I thought I could feel her.

In that moment, I was certain: something else was with us, and I’d angered it. I was lucky to walk away with nothing more than strange bruises.

 

Still, the nausea—which I assume is from the clerics—is more irksome than I can describe. Most days, I’m sick before I even open my eyes.

I have my head buried in the privy when I sense someone approaching my back. I curl my arms around myself instinctively—

--but it’s only Gale’s mother.

She’s holding a towel.

I take it. “Thank you,” I murmur, cautious.

I don’t know how to act around Morena Dekarios. She hasn’t asked me to leave, but I know she doesn’t want me here. I can feel her unease when she looks at me. I think I might frighten her. And she disapproves of my closeness with her son, that much is clear.

I’ve tried to honor her station, address her as matriarch of the household, but it only draws tight smiles and puzzled glances. I’ve tried to make myself useful, but they ask me to stop. I thought I understood colnbluth customs, but I’ve never met anyone’s family before, not really.

So I say little now. I wipe my face slowly, then let my head bow again, the towel clutched in my hands. I’m so tired.

“It’s strange they call it morning sickness,” Morena says, “when it strikes at any time of the day.”

“Morning sickness?” I repeat, head still in the privy. The phrase means nothing to me.

She gives me a patient look, as if speaking with the village idiot. “Nausea. From your body adjusting to the child. It’s perfectly normal.”

My head snaps fully.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says, a faint smile on her lips. “I’m a mother. I remember what it was like.”

I consider lying. It would be safer to deny everything, for her and for me. A secret unspoken is one that cannot be extracted later by blade or magic.

But then her gaze drops, just for a breath, to the hand resting protectively over my belly. I snatch it back as if burned.

“Does Gale know?” I blurt childishly, as if she will tattle on me.

Her lip twitches as she folds her arms. “I tried to tell him. He wouldn’t believe me,” she sighs. “My poor son sometimes thinks himself too clever to be told anything he didn’t already suspect.”

I exhale, relieved. I can’t speak to it—not fully—but I don’t want Gale to think badly of me. And he will, once he discovers this. He’ll think me careless for letting this happen, mad for letting it continue, and pitiful for the partner I chose.

Perhaps it will soften the blow if Morena tells him. Then I won’t have to hear that gasp he makes when appalled.

And maybe I won’t have to ask Gale all the questions I need answered. Embarrassing ones, ones I should know but don’t. After all, I have someone standing right in front of me who has been through this before.

I sit back on my heels. “How long does it last?”

Morena raises a brow. “What, pregnancy or morning sickness?”

“Both.”

She shrugs. “I couldn’t say. How long do drow carry?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head, sudden heat prickling my eyes. “No one told me anything.”

My mother had us in batches. I was the last of mine. By the time she got heavy again, I was already off on campaign, so I wasn’t there to see how she changed and how long it took.

Eredune had children, but they were already far older than me. She said the only way she’d have another child was if someone else carried for her. She looked at me when she said it.

Morena frowns, crossing her arms. “When did you conceive?”

“Vith'ez uoi'nota,” I curse under my breath, frustrated. “I don’t know this word.”

“Don’t curse at me,” she chides sharply.

I bow my head. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t for you,” I reply. Were I not clay-skinned, I’d surely be flushed in embarrassment. “What is ‘conceive’?”

Morena sighs, rubbing her temple. She refuses to meet my eye. “It means when did this begin,” she says tiredly. “Listen, I’d rather not have this conversation in the privy. Let’s get some water.”

I follow her downstairs, trailing like a scolded child. When we reach the kitchen, I pull out a chair for her, as I was taught. Then I move toward the pitcher to fetch water myself.

She clicks her tongue, annoyed. “Sit down.”

I freeze, uncertain, before obeying. I sit, feeling as if I’ve failed yet another test. I resist the urge to touch my stomach, as I’ve trained myself for months, my hands fidgeting in my lap instead.

She returns a moment later and hands me the glass. I grip it tightly, hating how small and stupid I feel. Like I’m young again—though a drow mother would’ve cuffed me far earlier in this conversation.

“Where is your mother?” Morena asks.

I bristle. “I’ll be gone soon enough. There’s no need to pawn me off to another.”

“I asked a question, I didn’t say I was ousting you.”

I hesitate, studying her. Telling Gale’s mother that I murdered my own pregnant mother hardly seems wise.

“My mother is a whore,” I say instead.

Morena doesn’t flinch. She sits down across from me and says, “Many people are. Does that mean she won’t help you?”

“She might, if I earn my keep,” I say easily.

The lie comes naturally. I pretend, sometimes, that I never slit her throat. That Dra’ada’s still alive, chasing coin from some noble house, and my ilninil still walks the Braeryn, her knife tucked inside that cane. I pretend the seven thousand spawn never existed at all.

“But if the babe comes out pale,” I continue, “she'll cut both our throats. Drow despise the darthiir.”  

Morena leans back, considering. “And your father?”

I groan, dragging a hand over my face. But she doesn’t let up.

“You’re light-skinned for a drow,” she points out. “Perhaps his kin would take you.”

So Gale comes by his perceptiveness honestly.

Yes, I am suspiciously pale, though not light enough to earn slurs or sidelong glances. Having seen my mother’s side, it most certainly came from my father. Obviously, I’ve no idea who that is.

The common joke in Qu'ellarz'orl was that it was Drizzt Do’Urden himself— never mind the timing’s off by a century or so, or that my mother wouldn’t fuck him for all the coin in Menzoberranzan.

Dra’ada used to say it was the orc across the way. I believed her until I was old enough to realize she just wanted me to feel ugly.

“I already told you, my mother was a whore,” I say.

How the hells was I meant to know who he was? It’s not as if she kept receipts.

I glance away, then back. “I don’t have anyone,” I say. “Only Gale, Shadowheart, Jaheira and you.”

We’re both a little stunned that I included her. It slips out before I can think better of it, and we recoil at the same time.

I suppose its true, even if we don’t like each other. I’m in her home, after all, and I have nowhere else to go.

Her mouth tightens. “Stand up. Pull your shirt tight. Let me see.”

I do as I’m told, glancing down as I gather the fabric.

She studies me for only a moment before speaking. “You’re already showing,” she says. “Barely, but still. That means you’re at least three months along, if not more.”

“Three months,” I repeat. That sounds about right. It was around then I first felt… off. No real symptoms, just this quiet, gnawing sense that something inside me had changed. A few weeks later, I knew.

“How do you not know when it happened?” she asks, incredulous.

“Any warrior properly maintaining themselves stops bleeding,” I explain. “Fighting and training is too vigorous. And I was having sex a lot, so I can’t narrow it down.”

She snorts. “Lovely. Thanks for that detail,” she says. “Humans carry for about nine months. I assume it’s longer for elves—”

“I’m not an elf,” I cut in. “I’m drow.”

She shoots me a glare. “—but I can’t say for certain. I have elven friends, but it has never come up. You’ll need a cleric to know for sure,” she continues, “but—”

I shake my head quickly. “No. No clerics.”

“Stop interrupting me,” she scolds. A pause, then coolly. “As I was saying, you’ll have to go to a cleric to know. But you won’t, because you’re too afraid of the father to even leave the house.”

I glare at her, heat rising. “You think me a coward?”

She doesn’t answer my question. Instead she stands, moves to the bouquet she has at the window, fussing with the arrangement.

“You need to be very careful with what you decide now,” Morena tells me, her back turned. “Gale told me this person is dangerous—that he hurt you—”

I inhale sharply, ready to argue, to tell her it’s not so simple, but she lifts a hand without turning, and I shut my mouth. Drow tradition demands I listen when an older woman speaks.

“If you let this child be born,” she goes on, “it will bind you to him forever. Do you understand?”

A long pause. My chest aches.

The pathetic, lovesick girl in me—yes, she’s still there; only Lolth knows why—wants to tell her I’m already bound to him. I still miss him every day, even as I daydream burying my dagger in his throat.

She’s hard to kill, that girl. She’s been thrown around, strangled, stabbed near to death, yet she always seems to limp back in.

But there’s a louder voice now.

“It’s not about me,” I reply. It never has been. If it were, I would have stayed at Astarion’s side until he destroyed me. I know myself too well to pretend otherwise.

The moment I knew what was changing inside me, I started planning my escape.

She sighs. “Perhaps you’ll make a good mother after all.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Morena tells Gale.

I don’t try to stop her. It had to come out eventually, and it’s a mercy she’s spared me from saying the words myself. Still, it makes facing him no easier.

When Gale approaches later, I know immediately he knows.  His mouth parts as if to speak, but nothing comes. He tries again. “You’re... you mean to say you’re—?”

I arch a brow, amused. Can he really not say it? Perhaps it is taboo in Common.

“Is the word considered rude?” I ask.

Still he fumbles. “No, it’s only that—I didn't expect—” He stops again, expression pained. “And the child, it’s...his?”

“I would think so,” I reply dryly. “He certainly put in the hours.”

Some colnbluth turn different colors when they’re hot or cold or embarrassed. Gale turns a remarkable shade of red, clutching at his temples as though to dispel the unwanted image.

“Mystra’s Weave,” he mutters. “Tav…what will you do?”

I stare ahead, resolute. “He can never know.”

Gale lowers his hands. “Yes, I'd rather suspected as much—especially given how... thoroughly you covered your tracks. This is the real reason you left, isn’t it?”

I nod.

Sighing, I consider his question again. “I’ll see the birth through. Then I’ll place it in safe hands,” I say.

Someone good. Someone kind.

“And then I’ll go back to what waits for me.”

Gale’s eyes widen, horror plain. “You cannot mean that. Gods—why in all the hells would you even consider going back?”

I have no words that will make him understand.

I’ve been a poison since the day I first drew breath. I’ve killed most who thought to ally with me—the Emperor, Gortash, every idiot cultist who didn’t see me for what I was.

Before them, my mother, my aunt. My sister. Later Fenorin, and many, many in between.

I betrayed Eredune, and repaid Minthara with disappointment. Even Artor Morlin died screaming by my hand because he was stupid enough to help me, no matter how selfish his reasons.

And that’s nothing of the seven thousand who died in the rite.

I must see this through, no matter if it destroys me.

Astarion will kill me, or I will kill him. And whichever way it ends, I deserve it. I’ve deserved it a thousand times over, for a very long time.

But I can say none of this. Instead I am practical. “Drow make horrible mothers. I won’t subject a child to that. It wouldn’t be right.”

Young children sometimes cried at the sight of me in the streets of Baldur’s Gate. I learned to avert my eyes, to step aside. I cannot imagine them looking to me for comfort.

“And what of what’s right for you?” Gale asks quietly. “Because you and I know it’s not whatever’s waiting for you in his house. I can’t help but think you’re punishing yourself.”

I get the strangest shiver of memory. Astarion said something painfully similar once, when I told him I was returning to Menzoberranzan.

“Whatever you’re too frightened to tell me you did, it’s not your fault,” he’d said. “Don’t punish yourself with whatever’s waiting for you back there.”

Nausea twists inside me, though whether from the child or the weight of memory, I cannot tell.

“I’ve done terrible, terrible things,” I manage to whisper. “Things beyond forgiving.”

He leans back, gaze steady on mine.

“I know,” he says, surprising me. “I read your notes. And I was there, the night of the ascension.”

I suppose he was. They all were.

“I won’t pretend to know all you’ve done to survive,” Gale continues, “but I do know you’ve hurt people—killed people. Many.” He pauses. “But if you return to him, everything you did to get free, all the pain you caused, will be for nothing.”

He’s wrong. It means something, everything, if what grows inside me gets to live. But his words stay with me.

I think of Morlin’s spawn—Medechai, dragged herself back to her master’s feet again and again, even when staying there meant death. Had she, too, felt she deserved her fate?

Perhaps he senses that he’s shaken my resolve, because Gale softens, turns wistful.

“Do you remember when you begged me not to reforge the Crown of Karsus?” he asks.

Embarrassingly, yes—I do remember. It was after things fell apart with Astarion, when I still thought that if I was useful enough, perhaps no one else would leave me. I’d intended to help Gale—but I got scared. I became convinced the Crown would change him, just as the ascension changed Astarion. I’d lose him too.

And so drunkenly, pathetically, I'd found him at the Elfsong, begging him not to go through with it—

Gale moves, sinking to his knees just as I did that night.

“Stop!” I blurt, alarm jolting me upright.

But Gale only laughs at my discomfort. “What?” he teases. “I seem to recall you doing precisely this. Am I misremembering, or is it that I’m not allowed to return the gesture?”

I cringe. He’s not wrong—but I was drunk then, grovelling in a way I’d been taught to do before my superior, too naïve to realize how strange and awkward it was among surfacers.

This is not Menzoberranzan, and I am certainly not Gale’s superior. Flustered, I hurry for the door, but his voice catches me before I can escape.

“What was it you said then?” he calls. “That you couldn’t bear to lose anyone else? Well… nor can I. Don't force me to.”

Notes:

Sorry nothing much happens in this chapter! Just lots of talking. Talking heads is most certainly my writerly sin, I have to work hard to curb it.

"I bring the hurt closer" has been bouncing around in my skull for some time, I believe it might actually be a line from Disco Elysium that I stole.

Chapter 24: The Mother II

– Tav –

 

No matter how this ends, I’ve known for some time what must come next. I’ve lingered too long. The domesticity has made me sluggish. I cannot afford it any longer.

I find Gale in the courtyard just past dawn, a book in his lap.

“I need you to get a message to Minthara,” I say.

He startles hard, nearly tossing the book—but at least this time he doesn’t scream. He and his mother are growing used to me.

“Not in person,” I add before he can speak. “The Underdark is no place for you. But if you could send word, or… gods, you must have a spell for that kind of thing, don’t you? Something.”

He rubs his face, blinking blearily. “Minthara? Why?”

He doesn’t understand. None of them do. Only Astarion ever came close, and only because he’d dismantled all my walls with the same patience as when he picked at the pins of a lock.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

When I returned to Eredune’s house after the massacre of my kin, I came alone. Dra’ada—the only one I’d ever trusted to watch my back—lay dead with my knife in her ribs.

That was fine enough if I spent the rest of my life in Eredune’s bed or hiding under her skirts, but when I returned to the field for the raiding season, I’d be vulnerable to those who would slit my throat for the chance to take my place.

For whatever reason, Minthara took an interest. Perhaps it amused her to meddle with Eredune’s plaything, or perhaps she wished to use me later. Either way, she threw her weight behind me. She placed me among the Baenre warband, keeping the worst of my rivals from circling too close. She saw that I ate when others went hungry, and that my wounds were stitched by skilled hands. And she arranged my draa velve training, had me tutored by a Baenre two-blade warrior.

I repaid her by murdering my instructor.

That would be enough for most drow women to kill me. But when the Baenres called for my head, it was Minthara who intervened.

I waited for her to pull my strings in return, but it never came.

Drow don’t express favor or affection as surfacers do. A mother beats most cruelly the child who is her favorite, because that one is worth the effort of shaping.

Minthara was firm with me by drow measure. By surfacer standards, she was mean.

After we freed her from Moonrise, she wasted no time in noticing the looks of pained longing I’d taken to casting Astarion’s way. She made her disapproval known—loudly, and often, though exclusively in our tongue.

She lectured me endlessly, not only for my reckless infatuations. She criticized my judgment, my lack of ambitions, my squandered potential, and my endless list of bad choices and failures.

The others grew skittish—hovering, checking in, offering half-hearted kindness without daring to ask what was wrong or why I wasn’t fighting back.

Except Astarion. He asked. I told him the truth: I had to listen, because Minthara was one of the gentry, my better in every way that mattered. And I’d learned very young to obey my betters. I thought he, of all people, might understand.

Instead, it started the queen of all fights.

He accused me of making myself small, of humiliating myself by acting the servant. I flinched when he told me I made him sick.

I replied that it was just the way of things, and it was easier than pretending that wasn’t exactly what I was.

We didn’t speak for three days. Then, one afternoon, he overheard Minthara going at me again and finally snapped.

“Oh, do shut up,” he said. “It’s getting rather tiresome listening to you lash out at someone who refuses to return the favor. One starts to wonder who’s truly the weaker party.”

Minthara and I both blinked at him. I hadn’t known he was in the room.

He perked his head up from the bench he’d been lounging on. “Tav, dearest,” he sing-songed, “don’t you have that thing to do? Positively dire, if I recall. I’ll even walk with you—aren’t I generous?”

I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I took a step forward when Minthara spoke.

“Tavisin dal l’Braeryn,” she said. “<If you bolt to him like a called dog—>”

But I was already doing just that. I didn’t care, not then.

Outside, I leaned against the wall and let my head fall back, eyes closed, exhaling.

Astarion watched me for a moment before speaking. “What was it she called you, just then?”

I cracked an eye open. “Auflaque?” I offered, already reaching for a lie. “It means—”

“No. The other bit,” he interrupted. “Tavisin dal something-or-other. Is that your name?”

A tiefling called some greeting— noticed that it was me and Astarion—and turned on the spot and walked away. They were quite used to our fighting by then.

“It is your name, isn’t it?” Astarion pressed. “Gods, you’ve never even told me your name.”

I pressed my lips in a tight line. It felt like I’d escaped one scolding only to stumble into another.

“You said the past didn’t matter,” I replied.

That wasn’t what he’d said, of course. He said he couldn’t remember his, and that I shouldn’t ask—should kindly fuck off and stop digging. I remembered mine all too well, and foolishly hoped he’d extend me the same courtesy.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But your past seems rather determined to intrude on the present. Who is Minthara to you? She acts as though she’s your—”

Mother, my mind supplied. I did not speak it.

 

How I managed to extradite myself from that conversation, I know not. But it was far from over.

Later, after nightfall, Astarion drew me away from the fire, trying to seem casual, until I was seated on a half-broken crate just out of sight.

“I had the strangest conversation this evening,” he said brightly. “Though perhaps ‘conversation’ is generous. Frankly it was quite one-sided. Minthara accosted me in the hall—”

I was on my feet before he’d finished. I thought this was her reply—retribution for his defense of me. I would give her mine.

But his hand found my arm before I could take a step.

“Easy now,” he soothed, thumb rubbing my sleeve. “Nothing’s happened. Come—sit with me. We ought to talk for once.”

He explained that Minthara waited until I was gone to corner him.

She warned him whatever game he believed he was playing, he’d best rethink it. Because once I caught on, I’d kill him, as I always did. I was older now, she said, not some hapless child, no matter how eagerly I ate from his hand or ran to his bed.

“Older,” he said, eyes on me. “What did she mean by that, Tav?”

I panicked.

I’m lucky that my mind fogs over the worst of it. I can’t remember exactly what I said—only that I’d tried to lie first. When that quickly fell apart, I turned on him.

I shouted in his face, told him to leave me alone, that it wasn’t his concern. He didn’t know anything about me, and he should shut up and keep his place. I called him some slur we spit at surfacers, although he’d have no idea what it meant.

He didn’t so much as flinch, only sat there, expressionless, while I burned myself out. When he asked again, gently, I broke.

I didn’t want him to think I was a monster. But I was, wasn’t I?

Not everything came out that first night. I kept lying, desperate to make myself palatable. I told him I was sixteen when I first climbed into Eredune’s bed—silly, really, as if there’s a world of difference between fourteen and sixteen. At the time it felt like it mattered. I told him I hadn’t murdered my whole family, only my mother. I hadn’t gone on slave raids, only military campaigns.

I didn’t want him to see me for what I was. I wanted to be good. Clean. Someone he could touch without sullying himself.

Please still want me, I remember thinking. If only for a little longer.

“None of us made it this far with clean hands,” he said carefully. “Whether we wished it or not.”

It was an olive branch—his way of comparing what I’d done to what he’d been forced to do by Cazador.

Only…no one had forced me. I’d smiled as sweetly as I could and agreed.

He couldn’t know the rest. I wouldn’t let Minthara tell him.

I knew how to get her off my back, but it meant giving her the truth of my plans. I didn’t have to seek her out—she found me at first light.

“You tore yourself free of one bera’lut—why seek another?” she demanded. “<That boy is drunk on freedom and vengeance. He doesn’t see you—only the weapon he needs. He is using you.>”

Was there anything wrong with that? Weapons weren’t meant to be seen, they were meant to be wielded. So long as he needed me, so long as I was useful, I wouldn’t be set down.

“<Then let him use me,>” I said. “<What does it matter to you? When our enemy lies dead, he will be in Baldur’s Gate, and I will be in Menzoberranzan.>”

He’d have the sun, and I’d return to the dark.

That was always how it was meant to end. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t feel so wrong, lying to him. Our time was brief by design, why not let it be sweet?

But I would think of him. And it would be often, Lolth forgive me. He was beginning to matter to me in ways Eredune never had.

Minthara stared at me like I’d gone mad. “<That door closed the moment you fled,>” she said. “<Step into the city, and Eredune will have you flayed in the square.>”

I explained, with the air of a child not knowing if she would be praised or punished, that if I slew the Absolute—if I brought down her cult in Lolth’s name—it would make up for the highborn concubines I’d killed when they tried to disfigure me.

Eredune would welcome me back into House Vandree.

Minthara’s face fell. “<You are given every opportunity to be more than what the Spider Queen has made us,>” she said quietly. “<And still, you kneel.>”

She turned from me then, as if she couldn’t bear the sight.

My hands curled into fists.

“<Like you kneeled for Orin?>” I called after her.

She froze mid-step. Turned.

I’m not quite sure how the fighting started, only that it did, and I got a champion beating.

I managed one good hit in—blackened her cheek. She broke my nose in return. A second later, she had me on the ground.

Minthara was less interested in hurting me and more in proving her superiority. I wasn’t a rival needing to be eliminated, I was a whelp who needed teaching. Every time I got up, she slammed me back down. Mostly she just thrashed me about and bashed me against the ground.

No one even had to pull her off. She just stopped, stood, and calmly offered a kerchief for my bloody nose.

Moments later Astarion was there, holding it to my face and tipping my head back.

“How inspiring, you finally showed some spine!” he said, dabbing bits of dried blood from my face. “Though perhaps next time you might try not losing quite so spectacularly? You look as if you were dropped off a roof.”

I told him my nose was crooked. When he asked to look, I tilted my head obligingly, only for him to strike—seizing the bridge and wrenching it into place with an awful snap.

I made a noise I was deeply ashamed of.

I glared up at him sullenly, betrayed, which was all the invitation he needed to start cooing over me. A “you poor thing,”, a “oh, there there”, and a kiss to the temple, and I was all but melting into the palm of his hand.

Then it was business. “Now, since you're finally ready to move past your masochistic phase,” he began, “shall we discuss how to best rid ourselves of your drow friend?”

“Rid ourselves?” I asked stupidly.

He smiled. “Well we can’t allow those lovely features of yours to get rearranged again, can we?” he asked. “It would rather spoil my view. Best we remove the threat entirely.”

I shook my head vehemently. “Minthara’s only looking out for me. I earned what she gave.”

Astarion sighed. He cupped my jaw gently, careful not to brush the bruises. “Dearest Tav,” he said, eyes searching mine. “I fear your definition of ‘looking out’ is terribly skewed.”

He paused, turning his head slightly. “Though in a strictly literal sense, yes, she's absolutely looking right now.”

He raised his hand to wave. I lunged for his wrist, but he danced out of reach.

“Fret not, she’s perfectly well!” he called. “Thank you for your concern!”

“Astarion!” I hissed.

“What? I’m not afraid of her,” he shot back. “She hits you again, I’ll kill her.”

We both went quiet.

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. And I hadn’t expected to hear it, not from him, not ever. My face must have betrayed me—I’m certain I looked up at him as if he’d composed the most beautiful of sonnets, meant only for me.

I was easy to win back then. One half-meant threat and my chest ached with how fast my heart was beating.

“Minthara?” I managed, trying to tamp it down. “Good luck.”

But he wasn’t listening. He was studying me, head tilted slightly, eyes gleaming strangely.

He leaned in.

I flinched. “Wait—my face—” I began. “I’m filthy—”

“Oh, hush,” he murmured sharply. “As if that matters.”

Then his mouth was on mine—blood, grime, and all.

 

I blame Minthara, in part, for pushing us together. But it didn’t happen then. That was only the moment she decided to interfere.

 

Two days later Astarion burst into my room. I was still damp from the tub, my blouse clinging to my skin, hands half-raised to braid my hair off my neck.

“Have you always been this monumentally stupid,” he snapped, “or is this just a passing lapse? Do let me know so I can lower my expectations accordingly.”

Minthara had told him my plans, my intention to return to my matron.

He wanted to know why I would ever consider going back.

I remember his face perfectly, chest heaving, eyes wild, but almost pained.

“Well?”

I said nothing. I’d never been in a partnership where I had the luxury of being able to argue back. If I displeased Eredune, I listened patiently to the vitriol that followed and waited for my punishment to be named.

But Astarion wanted me to participate.

“Is this the part where you stare at the floor and hope I go away?” he pressed. “Because I won’t. Speak, damn you.”

So I did. I told him the truth, or at least what I thought was the truth: I owed Eredune more than I could ever repay.

He laughed, stunned.

Minthara had told him how young I really was when I went to Eredune’s bed—or near enough, though we weren’t certain of the exact age. There’s a chance I was younger. Either way, he said, I’d been a child. And my matron had known it. She hadn’t wanted me despite that—she’d targeted me because of it.

“Some are born to rule,” I said, my voice dull. “Others to serve. It’s the way of things. It’s not my place to question how they ask me to do so—or when.”

He stared in disbelief. “You cannot possibly mean that,” he said. “You truly think it’s natural for a woman of three centuries to keep a fourteen-year-old as a pet?”

I snapped then.

“I wanted it!” I protested. “I needed to get away. Eredune gave me the means and plenty more, more than anyone’s ever seen fit to give me. It’s not as if she forced me to do anything.”

“And what of Cazador?” he asked. “Was that simply ‘the way of things’ too?”

I told him he was seeing a mirror where there was none.

“Eredune is not Cazador,” I said, “and I am not you. I was nothing—less than nothing—and she made me into something.”

“And all it cost was your dignity,” he replied, disgusted. “A bargain, really, since you seem to have so little use for it.”

The door slammed behind him, so hard dust shook loose from the frame.

 

Thus began his little war of attrition.

Since he’d broken the lock when he stormed out, I had no choice but to haul the copper bathing tub to his quarters whenever I needed to wash..

Drow don’t have a nudity taboo, and he’d seen all of me and plenty, so the nakedness itself didn’t trouble me. It was that he used it as an opportunity to interrogate me.

He’d ask every question I’d no wish to answer, about Eredune, about living in her house. What did she ask of me? Could I refuse? What happened if I tried?

“Vith tir, Astarion,” I snapped, sloshing water violently over the rim as I sat up. “Izin uns'aa ulu kertest ussta et'zarreth wun gre'as'anto!”

“Do be a dear and speak in Common,” he drawled, dodging the splash. “If I’m to suffer your pitiful justifications, I’d at least like the satisfaction of understanding them.”

I glared. “I said: Fuck. Off.”

“My, so many syllables to say so very little. What a deeply inefficient language.”

“Lolth’s tits, you are annoying,” I shot back. “This is none of your business.”

“Isn’t it?” he returned, too calm.

We stopped, staring at each other.

If he had a stake in this—where I went, who I belonged to—then what we had wasn’t temporary. We weren’t just passing through each others lives.

Or perhaps he was just a concerned friend —one whose bed I warmed when it suited him, and the only person I’d come dangerously close to trusting with my ugliness.

Later, as we walked to the smith, he gestured at the tiefling children climbing a tree. Did I realize, he asked pointedly, that I was far closer in age to them than I ever had been to Eredune?

Irritated, I reminded him of our own enormous age difference, to which he coolly replied that my brain had finished baking by now—presumably. Though I did seem hellbent on proving otherwise.

“You were a child when she found you,” he said, serious now. “You couldn't possibly have known what you were doing.”

“I knew exactly what I was doing,” I told him. “I wasn’t as normal children are. I did awful things—hurt people who didn’t deserve it. Whatever you think I am, you’re wrong—I’m not good or innocent.”

He laughed in that high, theatrical trill of his, delighted. “Oh, my dear, sweet Tav. You think I didn’t notice? That I’m only just now realizing you’re a murderous little psychopath?” His smile grew wicked, fond, even. “Darling, not only do I not care—I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

I was suddenly grateful drow couldn’t blush, though it did nothing to ease the embarrassment. Unable to hold his amused gaze, I found myself staring at a point just beyond him.

“My room is cold at night,” I complained, hoping to change the subject. “I want your bed.”

He shot me a smug look over his shoulder. “Was that your way of asking for a cuddle?” he asked. “I’ll consider—once you’ve come to your senses.”

I ended up there anyway, of course.

I was half-asleep in his arms, dangerously content, when I felt him lean in, whispering against my neck.

“Whatever you’re too frightened to tell me, no matter how monstrous or terrible, I promise it wasn't your fault,” he said. “Don’t punish yourself with what's waiting for you back there.”

I couldn’t answer, my throat too tight. Instead I shook my head, fingers tightening around his wrist.

The next evening, he shifted tactics. Now he tried appealing to my reason —while somehow managing to imply I was something like an exceptionally stupid bird that had flown into cage and couldn’t see the door was open.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” he said, carefully patient. “You’re only doing what you’ve always done, because that’s all you’ve ever known, and frankly, because it’s easier than imagining anything else.”

“Exactly,” I agreed, annoyed. “It is all I know. How do you expect me to live differently?”

I wasn’t being contrary, I genuinely didn’t know. I had never been taught to care for myself—only to serve, whether for Eredune, my mother, or anyone else who claimed ownership of me.

He drew back, unimpressed. “Please. You’ve an entire gaggle of doting do-gooders tripping over themselves to help you,” he said. “Shadowheart, Gale, Karlach, that bear druid you’re too skittish to talk to—take your pick. Any one of them would happily comb your hair, tie your shoes, and feed you fucking berries out of their hand if you’d just sit long enough.”

“They’re not staying,” I said flatly. Even speaking it twisted something in my chest. If I could have chained them to me, forced them never to leave, I might have. “They all have lives—places to return to. Once the tadpoles are out, they’ll leave.”

The anxious wretch that lived in me, the one that whimpered like a kicked dog at the thought of being alone again, wanted to scream.

Astarion looked up at me, eyes softening. “Perhaps they do,” he said quietly. “But I don’t.”

His hand slid across the table, palm up. An invitation.

I looked away. “Stop that,” I said, brittle.

“What, speaking plainly?”

I scoffed. “As if you ever speak plainly.” Then I shook my head. “You have everything you want from me, Astarion. You can stop pretending.”

“Pretending what exactly?” he asked, voice neutral.

We both knew perfectly well what I meant.

I sighed, closing my eyes. “Please don’t make me say it.”

“Oh,” he murmured, gentle yet merciless, “but I think I shall.”

I swallowed, throat tight. “Pretending to be…nice to me,” I managed. “Pretending you care. I’m not stupid, you know. I knew what you were doing. But now…”

My voice faltered. I couldn’t bear to met his eye. “It’s becoming embarrassing.”

I took a breath.

“You’ve no need to keep lying,” I forced out bitterly. “I said I’d help you, and I will. That’s what you want, isn’t it?  You don’t need to keep up the act to get it, or say—”

I stopped abruptly, unable to repeat what he’d spoken the other night. Those three words, everyone’s favorite, he’d called them. No one but Dra’ada had ever said them to me. Hearing them again made me sick.

“—those things you said, or…do anything more with me. It’s alright. Just stop.”

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, then something colder.

“’Do anything more with me’,” he echoed mockingly. “How charmingly vague. You mean sex, I presume?”

I gave a single, curt nod.

“Is that what you think of me?” he demanded, voice tightening. “That I’d sleep with you as some crude means to an end? Gods, Tav. That says far more about you than it ever could about me.”

“Ph'dos ver'n?” I muttered, sighing wearily as I pushed myself up, chair scraping harshly against the floor. There was no point in entertaining this.

He stood too, glaring, eyes bright with anger. “You think that I’m using you,” he continued, voice rising. “As if I haven’t been used for the last two centuries.”

“Straj. If you can’t speak truly, I will leave,” I told him firmly. I spoke coldly, calmly, but I wanted to break something. “Goodbye.”

I turned.

“Tav—” he called. Then: a pause. A shift.

“Fine, off you go then. Heavens forbid you face anything.”

 

I surprised myself with tears. No sobs, praise Lolth—just stinging in my eyes and on my cheeks. I couldn’t name what I felt then, a sort of raw aching shame. Not from what he’d said—but from what I allowed myself to want.

Worse, I wanted to go back, ask him to forget every word and keep lying to me.

I scrubbed my face raw with the heel of my palm.

I found my crossbow, checked the string, loaded the bolt. My fingers knew what to do even if the rest of me didn’t. I took a torch from the wall.

The sun was sinking, though it made little difference in the lands touched by Shar’s dark hand. Cloud cover strangled the light even at its brightest, turning noon to dusk. Still, their black rain had finally thinned to a spitting mist. A mercy, I supposed. I walked into the trees without looking back.

Most of the growth here was blighted, curling and black, but certain trees burned a beautiful, brilliant red, as if in eternal autumn—though I hadn’t seen a true autumn yet. One such tree bent low, sheltering some dry earth below its canopy. I drove my torch into the dirt and sank down beneath it, leaning back until the bark met my cheek.

It felt like a good place to be pathetic.

So I let myself. Poor me—gullible little Braeryn-born rat who thought she knew the game until someone crooned the right words in a half-warm tone and she folded immediately.

I didn’t mean to sleep. I just closed my eyes for a moment, and the patter of rain through red leaves dulled my thoughts until even the torch gave up, hissing softly as the wet found its flame.

Somewhere in sleep, a voice warned me. Danger. That was all.

A twig snapped. I woke with a start.

I surged upright, crossbow up and ready, bolt trained on the brush. There was light behind it—dim, flickering. Could be Harpers, could be cultists. Impossible to tell.

“Tav?” came Astarion’s voice. “Would you mind terribly calling out? I’d rather not get skewered with a bolt, and wading through the filth in search of you wasn’t quite what I had in mind for the evening. The muck is ruining my boots.”

Oh, great heavens, not his boots.

“Go away,” I called back. “I want to be alone.”

“So I gathered. And I did consider respecting that,” he replied. “But unfortunately your woodland escapades have everyone positively hysterical—”

He emerged from the brush, a curl sticking damply to his temple. “So here I am, unfortunate volunteer.”

We stared at each other.

I hated that he was still beautiful. Even now—drenched, curls plastered to his face, boots caked in muck—he looked like something painted.

I shivered. My clothes weren’t clinging yet, but the wet had found the seams.

“Your torch went out,” he said. “You do realize that’s what keeps away the shadow-curse?”

I didn’t answer. Just sighed, stood, brushed the needles from my thighs. The woods were dangerous, and I didn’t want him hurt. I’d pretend nothing was wrong if it got him safely back to Last Light.

“You should know you were right,” he said suddenly. “What you said before.”

I have a hard time revisiting this memory. It hurts more than any of the cruelty or heartbreak that came after—because it reminds me that, for a moment, we had something good and true.

It might have lasted, too, if we hadn’t been so afraid.

Astarion planted his torch beside the one that had gone out and gave me his very best speech—why he did what he did, why he played me. Though it was halting and difficult for him, I had a feeling he’d been rehearsing for some time.

“Habits from two hundred years kicked in,” he explained. “You must understand, my entire existence was to seduce anything with a pulse, to offer myself up in order to survive. Every instinct I have is telling me that nothing’s changed.”

So I became a mark. Willing, yes, though he didn’t know at the time—but a mark all the same.

But then he started to like the way I looked at him far too much. He grew greedy for it, and when that look faltered—when I flinched, or went quiet, or didn’t shine for him on the usual cues—he couldn’t bear it. He watched me more and more, not to better manipulate, but reassure himself that nothing had changed. That I still wanted him, still saw him as more than what Cazador made him.

And somewhere in all that watching, he started seeing me.

“I’ve lived longer than you can fathom,” he said. “Most people blur together, each as petty and predictable as the last. But you—” he looked at me then, something tight in his expression.

I, of course, misunderstood and thought he meant my skill in combat.

I frowned. “You should know my draa velve is imperfect,” I said. “I killed my instructor before he could finish with me. I do well enough, but I’ll never properly master it.”

“Your—?” he sputtered, shaking his head. “Oh, for the love of— I didn’t mean your damned bladework. I’m talking about you.”

I hesitated, even more uncertain. “What is it you’re saying?”

He said a lot of things then, all in a rush, as if he was afraid he’d lose the courage if he paused.

The heart of it was this: I’d been used before, by my matron. He hadn’t realized how deeply, how damagingly, until it was too late and he’d already used me too.

I tried to brush it off, said it was fine, certainly not the worst thing to happen to me. He told me, kindly, to shut up.

I deserved better, he said. So much better. I should never have been taught otherwise. He wanted things to be real between us. It was the very least I was owed.

But if I didn’t want that, if I couldn’t, he would understand. He wouldn’t ask anything of me. All he asked—begged, really—was that I not go back. Not to her. Because if I did, he would never forgive himself. He’d have to live with knowing he made me believe there was no point in hoping for anything more.

“It doesn’t have to hurt,” he explained. “Or—at least, I don’t think it does. I don’t honestly know. I’ve never had the chance to do this properly. But I’d very much like to—with you. If you'll have me.”

A promise to try not to hurt me was still far more than anyone had ever offered.

 

We walked back to Last Light under the same cloak, my shoulder pressed to his side, his arm around me. I felt delirious with joy or terror or perhaps both.

When we made it past the barrier, it was Minthara I caught lingering at its edge. She didn’t say a word, only nodded in greeting. I found out later she was the one who pointed him my way.

We spent the better part of the next two days conjoined like newlyweds, usually in bed. Eventually I had to come up for air. When I left for the kitchens to properly water and feed myself while he was in reverie, I passed Minthara in the common space. She eyed the bite marks at my throat.

“I take it your return to Menzoberranzan is no longer urgent?” she asked coolly, amused.

“You don’t approve,” I stated, arms crossing tighter than I meant them to.

“Perhaps not,” she agreed. “But should you require context—know that I disapprove far more of Eredune and her appetite for children.”

I thought I understood, then, what had happened. Why she’d told him about Eredune, about my plans.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “I’m not going to war against Lolth’s church for you.”

I might have made a vow to only spit Lolth’s name as a child in a dark cell, but I was terrified of my goddess, far more than I let on. The Spider Queen can reach out and crush any drow when she pleases, or worse.

“So why do you care?” I pressed. “Where I go, what I do—why does it matter to you?”

She looked away, silent for a moment.

“Did you know you were the youngest of the raiders the season we met?” she asked. “The helmets wouldn’t even fit you. I had someone stuff yours with rags so it wouldn’t slip over your eyes.”

She glanced back. “That is why.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I cannot say all of that to Gale. It’s too raw, too knotted, and I don’t completely understand it myself.

Instead, as always, I offer the simplest truth: “Minthara’s always had my best interests. She’ll see to me.”

Gale nods, though I sense he doesn’t quite believe me. “Very well. If you’re certain.”

He leaves me alone to linger a little longer in memory.

I try not to stay there—I’m in danger of losing myself if I do— so it’s been a very long time since I allowed myself to remember Astarion as he was before the rite. The difference is so stark now, I can’t help but wonder what truly went wrong—what else he might have traded away alongside those seven thousand lives.

I’ll never know, and I doubt knowing would change a thing.

Very soon now I will need to get moving, away from Waterdeep. Astarion surely has people scouring the ruins of Morlin’s castle by now. If I’ve made even one misstep, it won’t take long before someone thinks to search the home of a close friend, even if only to be certain.

Notes:

I lingered on this chapter for a very long time.

I may have mentioned how I thought it was important to show Tav's backstory so as to understand why she stayed for so long, but I also felt it was important to see how she and Astarion were pre-ascension.

Also with Minthara--I can't fully speak to it, but she's always given me an oddly maternal vibe despite her general Machiavellian drow-ness. Perhaps its because she's pregnant in some of the cut content, but she has an odd amount of dialogue concerning children and motherhood. It fit for this story

Chapter 25: I Follow

– Gale –

They’re yelling.

Minthara, it seems, is very displeased with the situation.

We hadn’t expected her in person—Tav was quite convinced she’d dispatch underlings to collect her. Instead, there was knock at the door. When I opened it, Minthara barrelled past me, bellowing for Tav. The guest bedroom’s door flew open and slammed shut, then the muffled Drow shouting began in earnest.

My mother and I creep to the foot of the staircase, eavesdropping. The volume suggests violence will soon be involved. There exists precedent here—Minthara beat Tav bloody once, though Tav insisted it was deserved. I’m unconvinced.

The door bursts open. Tav bounds down the stairs, oddly buoyant.

We stare. She waves in greeting, then brushes past us.

Upstairs, Minthara laments insistently, “Ilhar-mzuld di’morad. ilhar-mzuld di’morad!”

Tav leans over the banister and roars back, causing my mother to jump. “Enough with this, si? It’s said and done!”

Her accent thickens when she slips between tongues.

“What is it she keeps calling after you?” my mother asks, wide-eyed.

Tav sighs. “Ilhar-mzuld di’morad,” she explains. “Motherless behavior. It means I’ve been acting the fool.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We gather around the table for what promises to be a spectacularly awkward dinner.

Minthara bypasses the pleasantries. “Tavisin tells me she’s no longer safe. I warned her it would come to this.”

“You never said that,” Tav corrects. “You said I should pick my partners for strength, and he was using me because he had little of his own.”

Minthara disregards this completely. “We’ll need to act accordingly. The safest course is to move her into the Underdark.”

Then she stares at her plate—hummus, olives, flatbread—as though it were a puzzle. Tav leans over and wordlessly dresses the bread for her—smooths the hummus, places the olive at the center and hands it over.

What an odd pair they are.

I clear my throat. “And what of her matron? I imagine she hasn’t simply lost interest.”

Elves, for all their supposed grace, are prodigious grudge-bearers—drow doubly so, I would think. Whatever Tav did to invite her matron’s anger, I daresay it hasn’t cooled.

“Eredune hasn’t forgotten her—or the concubines she left in pieces,” Minthara says evenly, taking a bite. She sniffs, faintly repulsed.

Pieces? I file that away for later.

“But she’s mired in Menzoberranzan for now,” she continues. “Even so, I wouldn’t risk placing Tavisin in any city—major or minor. The babe will be pale. That alone invites death.”

I reach for the wine, my appetite gone. My mother pushes her glass forward and I oblige her just as generously.

“Let them try,” Tav says.

Minthara’s glance is sharp, assessing. But not hostile. If anything, she looks... faintly amused. “Bold words,” she says, “from one who let a male lover raise his hand to her.”

Tav goes rigid. “This isn’t from him.”

“Ah, but it is what happened, isn’t it?” Minthara asks. “You have the air of a kicked dog about you.”

My mother stands. “I’d like to remind you that you’re in my home,” she says. “And I will not tolerate venom at my table.”

Tav presses her forehead to the table in that bow she always gives my mother—presumably the one reserved for the head of a house. “My apologies, malla Morena.”

My mother groans, exasperated. “Not you, Tav—gods preserve me—her.”

“I’m only concerned she lacks the strength to protect the child she so stubbornly insists on bringing into this world,” Minthara says. “And if she doesn’t, then it is a mercy the child is not born at all.”

My mother chokes on air; eyes bulging. I inhale to object—but Tav only laughs.

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “Stop fussing.”

“My fussing is the only reason you still breathe,” Minthara returns coolly. “Show the barest instinct for survival, and I’ll relent.”

I’m having a difficult time following whether this is fighting or fondness. The line appears perilously thin.

“So,” I say, hoping to steer toward more navigable terrain, “you have a location picked out, I presume?”

I’ve taken to studying the Underdark’s cartography some, though no map can prepare for its plane-warped geography. The Upperdark is too near the surface—a casual stroll for most bounty hunters. The Lowerdark, conversely, is hostile to the point of madness.

The Middledark, then. If fortune’s on our side, Minthara knows of a place near a reserve of faezress. The right concentration could shield us from scrying and ruin any attempt at magical intrusion.

“It’s best you remain ignorant of the location,” Minthara replies. “Same as your mother.”

I laugh. “Surely I’m not meant to follow blindfolded. I should know where we’re going.”

Silence. Three sets of eyes stare my way.

“We?” my mother asks.

“I wasn’t informed the wizard would accompany us,” Minthara says. “Tavisin?”

Tav speaks before I can. “It’s too dangerous.”

“But not for you?” I counter. “You’ll be with strangers. Forgive me—but I don’t place much faith in the goodwill of drow, even if they are Minthara’s people.”

Minthara doesn’t bristle. “Your mistrust is noted—and irrelevant. She will be among our kind only for the journey, and always in my presence. After that, she’ll remain in isolation, supplies arriving every two months.”

“Every two months?” I echo incredulously. “What happens if she takes a fall? If there's a complication with the pregnancy?”

But Minthara isn’t listening. Her attention’s on Tav, eyes dull and hands still.

“Take the wizard, if you must,” Minthara says. “Though I counsel against it. The choice is yours, for so are the consequences.”

Tav doesn’t answer right away. Then, softly: “I need time to think.”

I huff, unable to mask my frustration. She’s gone mad if she thinks she’ll go about this alone.

“You’ve tarried too long in Waterdeep, dalhar,” Minthara warns. “Every moment you delay brings you and that child closer to a shallow grave.”

Tav nods once.

I want to argue—lay out the logic, invoke reason —but the weight of the evening saps even that.

We lapse into quiet. The scrape of cutlery fills the silence. Tav dresses another piece of bread. Minthara accepts it, then lays a hand gently over Tav’s wrist: enough.

“Tell me,” Minthara says lightly. “By what cunning did you slip your leash this time?”

Tav’s lips twitch. “I had him send me after a rival of his.”

I haven’t heard this tale—not fully—and neither has my mother. Politeness kept us from asking. We both lean forward without meaning to.

“I used my body to gain entry,” she continues. “And opened his throat in bed. His guards followed, then next his spawn. I left it all in flames.”

Minthara’s eyes gleam as she takes a bite. “Almost as dramatic as your first massacre—though few things rival a mother murdered by her daughter. I’m told they still tell of you in Qu'ellarz'orl.”

A muscle jumps along Tav’s jaw. I sense my mother stiffen at my side.

Minthara does not relent. “Surely you had aid in your carnage,” she presses. “Did you again kill your accomplice once their use was spent?”

“Yes,” Tav answers quietly. “I needed to leave a corpse that looked like mine.”

A hush settles then. Minthara senses the shift, looking at us.

“These two are blinking like newborns in the sun,” she says. “You didn’t think to tell them you killed all your kin? Did they not ask why you are alone?”

No, we didn’t.

Tav tears a fragment of bread and chews, offering no defence.

Minthara watches her a moment longer, then sighs—almost fondly. “There is much you stand to gain,” she says, “should you decide to forgive what you are.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

The rest of dinner unspools in uneasy silence. Now and again Tav leans to Minthara, murmuring in Drow. My mother and I do not challenge the impropriety, it would take energy neither of us can spare.

When the plates are bare, Minthara rises without so much as an offer to help clean up, thank you, or farewell. She flees to the courtyard. Tav, true to form, follows.

I climb the stairs and slip onto the balcony where Scratch is kept during meals—the only countermeasure we’ve discovered against him jumping up to pilfer our plates.

He perks up at my entry, licking my hand before returning to his post at the railing, where he lets out a plaintive whine.

His gaze is fixed below. Watching Tav in the courtyard, no doubt distressed by their separation.

“I know,” I murmur, fingers in his ruff. “Don’t worry. She won’t stray far.”

Minthara is speaking—stern, unrelenting. Her voice carries through the courtyard’s echo. I should listen no more, give them their privacy, but curiosity is the sin of all good wizards.

“It was foolish of you,” Minthara is saying, “to take a weak lover, thinking he could not hurt you —and then to hand him the means. Tell me, are you a glutton for punishment?”

“Perhaps,” Tav says. “I don’t know. I just wanted to give him what he needed, I wasn’t thinking that far.”

“Then you must start thinking farther.”

I wince. I nearly cough conspicuously to show them I am here and the window to the kitchen—where my mother is doing dishes—is very much open, but Tav beats me to it.

“Please, ilninil,” she groans. “I have more shame than I can bear—must you twist the knife?”

Minthara scoffs, muttering a few words in Drow. There’s a pause before she huffs, then speaks again.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” she says. “Such a love only comes once. Be grateful you won’t suffer it again.”

“But I’ve done it twice,” Tav mutters, bitter. “Am I some special kind of idiot?”

“That you may well be,” Minthara concedes, though there’s no malice. “But you did not love Eredune. You were drowning. And a drowner will cling to a knife if that is all they’re offered. You won’t make that mistake again. You cannot—not with a child counting on you to stay afloat.”

The balcony door creaks, my mother stepping out, shawl drawn tight. She settles beside me in silence. I feel the old childhood tug—wanting her comfort, even as I want her gone. I wish she’d give me her usual wisdom, but she doesn’t seem to understand.

I lean against the railing and bury my face in my hands.

“Hmph,” she mutters. “Just when I thought they couldn’t possibly get any stranger—now she’s braiding her hair.”

I lift my hands. Sure enough, Tav’s perched on the stone fence, Minthara tugging quite aggressively on her bone-white tresses. One particularly enthusiastic yank earns a hissed curse and a sharp jerk of Tav’s head.

“That’s who she means to leave with,” I say, gesturing angrily, although this is by far the most benign exchange I’ve seen between them.

Mother rests a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll manage,” she says. “I’m very proud of you. Not many people care so deeply. But this isn’t your journey. I think somewhere in you, you know that.”

“You’re only saying that because of Minthara’s lurid tale,” I retort, hearing the adolescent petulance even as it leaves my lips. “We don’t have the whole of it. She might very well have lied or told half-truths.”

I say it with conviction—and parts of me feel it—but deeper, more honest part knows: Tav almost certainly killed her mother. Minthara’s delivery was cruel, callous, but neither precludes truth.

My mother smiles pityingly. “I know.”

“She has a good heart,” I insist, suddenly aware how flimsy the assertion sounds under scrutiny.

I’ve seen Tav hurt people—not only carelessly, but eagerly and with great pleasure. Memories flash: Tav stripping the still-warm corpse of someone she didn’t need to kill, humming appreciatively at their boots. Tav amusing herself with Cazador’s remaining teeth. Tav watching as Astarion culled his siblings—seven thousand lives so he could prance in the sun when it pleased him.

So much she has done runs counter to my every principle. And still—still—I cannot let this idea I have of her go.

Perhaps, a wretched part of me whispers, I want her to be good not for her sake, but my own. Because if she isn’t, then who am I to be so fond of her?

“You’ve disliked her since the moment she crossed our threshold,” I accuse. “You’ve never given her a fair chance.”

My mother takes my hand. “I don’t dislike her,” she says. “Truly. But I see things you might not. She’s... odd, Gale. Unsettled. Afraid of nearly everything. And angry—so, so angry. I’m not certain time will ever temper that.”

“You hardly know her.”

“True,” she concedes. “But I’ve known others like her. And while they might not mean harm, they can’t help but draw you into their storm. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to spend your life making the world a gentler place for her.”

“That’s rather unkind,” I mutter, “particularly given what she’s just endured.”

My mother sighs, long and tired. “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”

I look at her, confused.

“You lose yourself in others,” she continues. “You make them your world. And then when they leave, you’re devastated. Rudderless. Tell me—how long did you lock yourself in that tower after Mystra cast you aside?”

I scoff. “Tav is not a goddess.” It’s difficult even thinking of her as elven, given how urban and crass she can be.

“No,” she agrees, eyes soft. “But you are still you. Think on it. Please.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I linger outside long after my mother leaves me, after even Minthara and Tav vanish into the house. The cool air tempers my frayed thoughts, though it cannot settle them.

When I do at last step inside, I nearly leap out of my skin. Two red eyes catch the glow of the dying fire.

“Sorry,” Tav murmurs sheepishly.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She’s curled near the embers, staring into nothing.

A pause. “I’m fucked,” she shares suddenly. “I’ve never so much as held a baby.”

Come to think of it, neither have I. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” I offer, easing down beside her. “And you won’t have to do it alone.”

She turns, resting her cheek against her shoulder to look at me. Her expression is unreadable but exhausted. “You’ve been very kind to me,” she says. “More than I’ve deserved. It means a great deal, being able to call you abbil.”

“Don’t give me that look,” I say, shaking my head. “You’ll need help, and I’d rather be there than wonder if you’re safe. Having me along is the most pragmatic course. People aren’t meant to be alone. Especially not in your condition.”

Sending her off is wrong. I know it in my bones. We agreed not to tell the others, for her safety. But my instincts rail against it. She should be surrounded by friends. By people who love her. She shouldn’t be alone.

I see the chip in her resolve, the way she bites her lips white.

Then, quite unexpectantly, she steps forward and folds herself into me. It’s clumsy, unpracticed, but she throws herself into it like this is the last hug she’ll ever get.

“Mystra’s Weave,” I wheeze, half-laughing. “You’ll crack a rib.”

She doesn’t let go. When she speaks into my shoulder, her voice is as small as I’ve ever heard it. “I’m frightened.”

I nod, resting my cheek against her crown. “So am I,” I confess. “But in one respect, at least, you needn’t be afraid. You won’t be alone.”

When she pulls away, she makes quick work of wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “What about you?” she asks, blinking hard. “You have a life here.”

“I’ve already spoken with Blackstaff,” I admit. “A sabbatical’s been arranged. I thought… well, I’d be at your side until the birth. Then we’ll take stock and decide what’s next.”

Then I would do everything in my power to stop her from returning to that wretched place—to him. Even if it’s only to kill him.

She nods slowly, but she’s not quite present. Her thoughts are elsewhere.

“I have this awful feeling,” she whispers. “I don’t want to put you in his way.”

“You’re not,” I assure her.

And even if she were—well, truthfully, I’m better equipped to face him. There’s only so much two blades can do against magic, no matter how skilled the hands that wield them.

I reach out and take her by the shoulders. “You’re not, and I’ll say it again if I must. And more than that, I have a say in the risks I choose. Let me choose this.”

“Gale…”

“If you won’t let me come by invitation,” I say, “then take this as fair warning—I’ll follow.”

I smile thinly, as if it’s a jest. It isn’t.

Because I have an awful feeling as well. There’s a gnawing fear in my gut that if I let her walk away again…we won’t get her back. We nearly didn’t the last two times.

Tav exhales. “Very well,” she says. “I’ll tell Minthara.”

My shoulders sags. “Thank the gods.”

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We walk down the halls together. Partway through, Tav pauses—smirking—and brings a finger to her lips. “Come,” she whispers. “You’ll want to see this.”

Naturally I follow, creeping to the stairs. There’s something oddly comforting in it—the shared hush, the thrill of getting away with nothing in particular. If I had a sister, perhaps it might’ve felt like this.

We peer down. Minthara paces, muttering. Then, quite suddenly, she slumps against the wall, pressing her fingers to her temple as though trying to still the world.

“She’s twelve cups in, easy,” Tav murmurs beside me. “Properly wrecked. I must have stressed her overly.”

“No.”

“Oh yes,” she assures me. “You’ll see. She starts talking.”

Most drow make terrible drunks, she explains, especially noble stock. It’s dangerous, letting your guard down. They rarely indulge as a result, and when they do, it hits like a battering ram.

Indeed Minthara gets talking. As we descend the stairs, she’s in the midst of giving my mother a scathing and likely unsolicited review of Waterdeep.

“The city is a mess,” she declares, gesturing with an empty cup. “The street are crowded with filth. Vermin from the Skullport pass unchecked while the guards gape at them like cattle.”

Then her eyes catch us.

“And yet you—” she jabs a finger at Tav, “–you are so utterly conspicuous, I will need a dozen routes to move you.”

Tav nods along. “Come sit outside,” he says soothingly. “I’ll fetch you some wine and we can strategize.”

Minthara lets herself be shepherded back to the courtyard, glowering but compliant. My mother offers me a look of mute gratitude.

I trail her into the kitchen. She cuts fruit for dessert; I help arrange it. There’s an oddly final feeling to the task. I realise it may be my final taste of fruit for quite some time. There are no orchards in the Underdark.

When we enter the courtyard, there’s music in the air—a lute, a pipe flute, a drum played with too much enthusiasm. A local band up the street, no doubt. Our neighbourhood is lively on summer nights, and the hour is still early enough.

Minthara scowls. “Listen to that colnbluth caterwauling—aimless, overlong, and bleating,” she complains. “I’ve half the mind to walk over and sever the strings myself.”

My mother leans in, clearly amused. “And I suppose Drow music is better? What’s it like, then?”

Tav groans from her seat. “It’s all about incest and murder.”

Minthara makes an affronted sound. “Perhaps in the brothels and gutters of the Braeryn. But certainly not in Qu'ellarz'orl.”

“It was most certainly that in Qu'ellarz'orl,” Tav retorts. “You forget they made me sing.”

“Forgive me—did I just hear that correctly?” I ask, incredulous. “You? Singing?”

It’s hard to reconcile. When we met Tav, it took considerable effort to get more than a few clipped words. The notion of her voluntarily breaking into song is surreal.

Tav looks at me tiredly. “Sing, dance, spar, tumble, tell jokes,” she says. “Whatever pleased those set above me.”

Oh.

My mother, cheerful and oblivious, clasps her hands. “Sing something for us.”

“No,” Tav says quickly. . She throws a look at Minthara. “I can’t sing anything fit for polite company.”

Minthara huffs, offended. “Please. You cheapen our people’s art. It is not only crude ballads. You know the vidrinath.”

“Xa'huuli jora xuat sultha Arach-Tinilith,” Tav says, lowering her voice as though we might spontaneously understand Drow.

“Yes, but even street filth catch it from the alleys beyond the academy walls,” Minthara replies. “Don’t feign ignorance. I’ll begin.”

Tav’s eyes go wide. “You?”

“If she’s going to sing,” I say, “then you really must.”

Never could you have convinced me that one day I’d be seated in my childhood courtyard with the pair of them about to sing a duet.

Tav sighs. “Fine. But you should know it’s sung in rounds,” she explains. “Keep in mind it’s done by about a hundred priestesses, all of whom are better than the two of us.”

And so they do.

Minthara starts, and Tav joins a breath latter. The melody is…odd. Dissonant by surface standards. But as their voices layer, it begins to braid into something. The notes catch each other, forming echoes that don’t quite end. It raises gooseflesh along my arms.

I don’t know the words, but it is eerie and beautiful.

My mother and I are silent for a few seconds after they are finished. Then we remember to clap.  Tav rolls her eyes, and Minthara looks pleased with herself.

“What kind of song is it?” my mother asks.

“It’s a lullaby,” Tav answers.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

We part ways not long after. Minthara forgoes any farewell entirely—just turns on her heel and marches to the guest bedroom with her usual imperiousness.

Tav lingers.

She looks up at me, eyes bright and unblinking. “I will come back to kill him one day.”

“If anyone manages it,” I say—gently, not unkindly—“it shall be you. I can’t imagine a more capable executioner.”

She narrows her eyes, catching the ambiguous phrasing.

“I’m serious,” she says, stepping closer. “I’ve thought this through. He can’t regenerate if he’s cleaved into small pieces.”

Her gaze drifts—just for a moment—and I can tell she’s imagining a dozen or more methods. Mystra’s Weave, I forget sometimes that she is quite mad.

I reach for her hands. She allows it, barely. Her fingers twitch like they might withdraw, but don’t.

“Tav,” I say. “Go to bed. Revenge will find its hour.”

What I want to say is: I hope she can forgive herself. And I hope she stays far, far from him. Vengeance is how this whole nightmare began.

She smiles, though it is a bitter one. A sad one.

“Aluve, ussta abbil,” she says wryly.

And with that, she’s gone.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

I sleep quite fitfully that night. It feels good to have at least half a measure of what the future will bring.

The house is still when I wake. Unusually so.

I half expected raised voices—Minthara chastising Tav once more. Instead there is only birdsong.

One among them is too sharp, too urgent. A distressed chirping, high and stuttering.

I frown, pad outside.

Tara is crouched over a bird, feathers everywhere, while it sings its dying throes.

She looks up. “Why, hello, Gale,” she purrs. “I’m so very sorry about your friend.”

A chill ripples down my spine.

I’m running before I even process the words.

The guest bedroom is empty. Immaculately so, linens folded, not a hair out of place. Her things are gone. Their things.

I curse aloud. There’s no way. Not after everything, not without a word. She wouldn’t—

I scour the courtyard. Every room. Even my study.

There’s no sign of them.

By the time I stagger into the dining room, my chest heaves.

Mother sirs at the table, perfectly composed, nursing a citrus tea.

“They’re gone—” I choke out. “Scratch too. They must have—”

“I asked her to take him,” she says gently, setting down her cup. “So she wouldn’t be alone. I’m sorry, dear, but she said it was her choice—”

No, I want to say. It wasn’t. I told her she didn’t have a choice. I would follow. I promised.

I don’t answer. I turn and wrench open the front door.

The sunlight is blinding, harsh against my eyes. I squint, scanning the street with desperation.

High morning in Waterdeep: wagon wheels clattering, hawkers crying out, gulls circling, the whole city thrumming.

I cast locate creature. Nothing. She’s gone too far into the crowds.

A hundred faces. A hundred carts rattling down a hundred paths.

And none I can follow.

She’s gone.

 

────  ⚔  ────

 

Leagues away in Baldur’s Gate, someone is handed bad news.

Very bad news indeed.

His spawn deliver it with trembling hands and downcast eyes: his enemy is dead—yes—but so, it seems, is his beloved drow concubine. Her body as found in the ashes, broken and burned beyond recognition. Yet there could be no mistaking it. The twin blades at her hips, the flamberge dagger still fused to her charred belt. The Szarr family ring on one blackened finger, and beside it, a ring of mind shielding. Most damning of all—dangling from one ruined ear—Cazador’s fang, twin to the one he wears.

He does not take it well.

Nor does he believe it.

Not until the corpse is dragged south. Not until its carved open on cold stone, dissected and flayed, blood tested for illusions, glamour, or other trickery. Not until every form of deception is ruled out, twice over. Not until scryer after scryer is called upon to look for her—each one seeing only darkness.

Only then is the body quietly burned.

He does not mourn. He has long since lost the capacity. But he dreams of her more often than he likes—uninvited, strange snatches, usually just her face. Sometimes, even in waking, he swears he hears her voice behind him, smells her scent on the air, and wonders if at last—finally—he has gone mad.

The new state of things becomes easier to bear—month by month, year by year. The ache dulls. She is dead, just like the seven thousand before her. Just like every other lover he’s ever known.

She might have been different. If she’d accepted his gift. If he’d bound her to him by force, rather than indulging her tiresome hesitations. But neither came to pass, and so—once again—he is alone.

So it goes.

And so it will go, until one day, a vampire spawn appears at his gate.

When he recognizes her, he assumes the obvious: she’s here to avenge her master—the fool whose corpse smouldered beside his drow lover. That should be entertaining. Most things in immortality bore him now, but crushing her attempt, humiliating her before his court—that, at least, will amuse.

But it isn’t him she seeks revenge against.

It is Tav.

Tav, believed to have died in the flames of Morlin’s estate. Tav, whom Medechai watched butcher the drow’s corpse and plant the keepsakes meant to mislead searchers.

Tav, who is very much alive.

He’s near struck dumb by this revelation, face still, speechless. Then, slowly, he smiles.

Years have passed, but Astarion knows precisely how to draw her back home.

Notes:

The End!
(Just kidding)

 

I wanted to give everyone a natural pause point, even though this isn’t the true ending. Tav’s journey isn’t yet over, and—let’s be honest—you deserve a happier finale than this.

 

So here is my plan:

• I’ve written a short fic called ‘Milkteeth’, which follows Tav in the Underdark solo (with a cameo from a certain devil that explains Astarion’s post-rite personality change). Think of it as bonus content, though it will bridge to the later part of the story…
• I’m in the process of writing the timeskip + conclusion – basically the final arc, which I’m folding back into this main fic so you won’t have to chase two stories.
• The only downside is these might feel a little thematically different than the first bit, but I’m working to make them just as good.

I’m restructuring the latter to keep it short and sweet for you guys, so weekly updates will take a brief hiatus. I’m hoping to get back on it soon. In the meantime, Milkteeth will drop—link below to keep you fed.

If you’re stopping here, thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. It means the world. If you can stomach some more—yay, I love you, see you soon.

Also wanted to give a special thanks to:
Ruby_002 and Super_Supernova for their frequent comments—I always get so excited to know people are reading.
And also a special thank you to terezis and littlehouseofimagination for their recent kind comments. There are more of you, but I got really shy reading nice things so I couldn’t go look through all of them.

Link to Milkteeth: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67913341

Chapter 26: Bonus Chapter: The Githyanki

– Lae’zel –

 

I did not expect to come to the Underdark with a child on my back.

I did not expect a child at all—not in war, nor peace, not in the span of my living days. I was to become kith'rak, a blade of Vlaakith. A scourge of our people’s enemy. Not varsh, a caretaker of young.

But the stars have shifted. I no longer march the path I once did.

The settlement is small, mushroom-choked and half-rotted. It is built atop the bones of dwarven stonework, judging by the statues that litter the place. Minthara stands before one that has fallen, the dwarf’s face lost beneath a tangle of glowing fronds.

“Lae’zel,” she greets. “I must admit, it was a surprise to hear your name from the sentries. This place is not easily found.”

I offer no explanation. Minthara and I are alike in our practicality, and we have business between us. If she wishes to pester me on this, she can do so after it is complete.

Her eyes dart over my shoulder to the bundle strapped to my back.

“The egg,” she says, and there’s something like awe in her voice, though dry. “So it did hatch in the end.”

Xan squirms against my spine, reaching for her. “Shkath zai,” he tries, but it is gibberish.

He is learning. That is enough.

When he doesn’t immediately get a response, he tries again. Minthara tilts her head, the corner of her mouth twitching. Perhaps she recognizes it as a greeting—or perhaps she humors him.

“And greetings to you, lotha uss,” she says, unusually warm.

It fades as she addresses me.  “The Underdark is treacherous enough for natives. For foreigners—especially those burdened with children—it is a death sentence. Why are you here?”

I will not explain what does not need explanation. “You know well why I’ve come.”

Minthara closes her eyes, sighing.

“Prepare yourself,” she says coolly. “You will not like what I must say.”

“Do I strike you as delicate?” I ask, equally cold.

Xan chirps behind me, this time plaintively. I catch the Gith word for down. I shift my shoulders, jostling him just enough to distract. “Speak plainly, I am no hatchling to be coddled.”

“I would never insult you so,” she replies. “Come inside. The fewer who mark your presence, the better—these people are vetted, but they are Menzoberranyr.”

The chamber we enter is dim, narrow. It looks to be an old hall, though half of it has collapsed. The air stinks of mildew.

This is not a stronghold, this is a hiding place. And yet Minthara has carved her command from it. Maps of the Underdark sprawl across the walls, every surface bearing some mark of movement or war. Her desk overflows with correspondence. In the corner, crates are stacked in orderly rows. I do not recognize the Drow labels, but I spy weapons, bandages, bottles of poison or potion.

Xan’s little hands tighten at my shoulders. He leans forward, alert, curious. Most of this journey has delighted him—fungi that glow, strange beasts with many eyes, stranger people. This is the longest he has endured being carried since cracking the shell.

He does not know fear yet. For now, I allow this. It is a beautiful thing, to live with such wonder.

“I placed Tavisin somewhere remote,” Minthara begins. “Wilderness, a cave system leagues from any trade route or settlement. No one would stumble across her, let alone follow.”

Xan begins to squirm. I loosen the straps before he grows loud about it. The only things of danger look to be in the crates, and they are much too high for him to reach.

Naturally, he toddles toward them first.

“Provisions were laid in,” Minthara continues, unbothered. “My agents had orders to resupply her every two months.”

“Two months unattended?” I ask. “While carrying? Curious. I was told your kind falters when gravid.”

“Tavisin is drow,” Minthara replies coolly. “If there is danger, it comes not from her state, but from kin with knives.”

I should have guessed it was so. Once, Minthara told me that drow test their children’s resilience against common poisons by flooding their wombs with toxins, determining strength through survival.

I imagine as little thought is spared for the mother. She too must prove her strength.

I forget, sometimes, the brutality of my friend’s people. In battle, Tav was a storm—merciless, unflinching. But off the field…an odd softness lingered in her, as if she’d never learned to strike it from herself. It surfaced unpredictably, and when it did, she indulged it with suicidal intensity.

I called her she'lak fondly, but I meant it. She was ruled by feeling more than she’d ever admit.

Xan pounds a tiny fist against the nearest crate. When no one comes to help him reach inside, he throws his head back and bellows his despair. He opens and closes his hands at me—his crude sign for up.

I sigh, bracing to lift him, but Minthara moves first. She hushes him, rummaging through one of her drawers. A moment later, she produces two tiny wooden swords and offers them, murmuring something in Drow.

Xan snatches them, instantly content.

“Not long ago, Lolth’s faithful infiltrated our ranks,” Minthara explains, returning to her desk. “They waited, patient, until their roots had spread deep—then struck as one. Our leadership was gutted, along with all couriers, informants. For months, we were not fighting—we were surviving. I lost nearly every agent I had. Those that remained were too vital to waste.”

“How long was she left alone while you saw to these other matters?” I ask.

Minthara doesn’t flinch. “I told you it would displease you,” she reminds me. “Would you rather I risked sending someone who might have slit her throat in the night? I placed my faith in her will to survive, as only a true daughter of the drow can. I had no safer hand to play.”

“How long?”

“No one ever reached her.”

A silence. I go still.

“The first of my people sent to fetch her supplies never came back,” Minthara explains. “While we were waiting for them to return with news, we were infiltrated. By the time we regrouped and had enough people to send the next party to the site, she was gone.”

Astarion most certainly. But had he taken her—or had he killed her?

No. I refuse to believe she died by his hand. She would have fought fiercely, would have killed him or gotten away.

Minthara spares me further speculation.

“There was an earthquake,” she continues. “The cabin collapsed, the cellar buried. But outside, someone arranged the debris into a single word: alive. Presumably it was Tavisin. Though I’d be a fool to dismiss the possibility of subterfuge.”

The brevity sounds like her. Direct. Unsentimental. Missing every detail anyone else might need. K’chaki.

“My agents scoured the area for days, but there was no trace of her,” Minthara explains. “That was months past.”

“So she moved,” I reply. “She wouldn’t stray far, if she was expecting your people.”

I stand. “I will look where you told her to remain.”

“Lae’zel.” Her voice halts me. “If she survived the birth, it was under conditions no one trained her for. The girl knew slums—clever, yes, a survivor, but not of the wilderness. She had no food, no water, likely no tools either. I would be a miracle if she’s still alive.”

And of course, Minthara sent word to no one. Months lost. One of us could have reached her—seen for ourselves.

“You speak of poor odds,” I say, voice tight with fury. “Yet they were yours to shape. You left her ill-prepared. Alone. You knew this and did nothing. That is why the odds soured. I will not repeat your failure.”

I brush past her to gather Xan into my arms.

“You’re forging a resistance against your own tyrant now,” Minthara says. “The cost of command will reveal itself soon enough. When it does—perhaps this will seem less cruel, and more necessary.”

“Perhaps,” I say. “But not today. Farewell, Minthara. Let’s not turn this into something maudlin.”

Xan whines as I lift him, refusing to release the toy swords. His grip tightens—stubborn.

“Take them with you,” Minthara says, her voice quieter now. “They were meant for Tavisin’s child. Should you find her…see that she receives them.”

I nod once. I do not thank her.

Notes:

Hi friends, so I totally lied.
I said I’d keep the fic all in one work, but someone wisely suggested that, since the second part has thematic differences (namely Tav getting tortured less), I split them. That way readers can make an informed choice.
The sequel is called The World, the Devil, and the Flesh, and can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69644531

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Cruel World, Full of Cruel Things