Chapter Text
--Part 3--
The days passed paper-thin, like fragile parchment caught in a breeze. I felt as if I were teetering on an edge, and while the memory of two pinprick scars had urgency bleeding from my every pore, there was little to be done about it.
I ordered my spies to place both the assassin and the pale elf under constant surveillance. While there was no feasible way to have eyes inside their suite at the Elfsong, from the moment either of them stepped over that threshold, I was watching.
While I had already been watching my assassin for some time, my spies were somewhat bemused by my sudden interest in the elf. They delivered baffled reports recounting trips to the market and midnight feasts at chicken coops, but none indicating that the vampling was travelling at her side.
I read these reports quickly, tossed them with a grimace into the fireplace, then ordered my spies to maintain their watch. Were they not so loyal, they might have thought me mad.
Even knowing she had heeded my demand, it did little to quell the noxious jealousy she’d twisted like a hot knife into my chest, the depraved thoughts of lustful revenge that filled my mind. Oh, how she frustrated me.
More than anything, I was baffled. How could it be possible for a rat-fed spawn to bring her the satisfaction she insisted on denying me? Why waste her pleasures on another when ours was a love dictated by the stars, written into our very flesh? Had we not consummated and consumed until our bellies were filled? Our hearts sated and engorged with blood? Was she not mine in every possible meaning of the word?
I spent my nights mired in such thought, mind reeling as I failed to make sense of the puzzle she’d laid before me. Some evenings, when my head was thick and hazy with drink, I would attempt to take myself in hand to ease the tension, only to find the motion dull and hollow. Even picturing her hand in place of my own did little to sway me. The pale elf was always there, sneering from the shadows of my mind like a living nightmare.
Of course, it would be no nightmare without a visit from Orin. She came late one night to find me brooding over the hearth with my cock in hand. I had to scrape for the final dregs of my self-control to keep from ripping out her mocking tongue.
“Eager for company, little tyrant?” Her voice was a well in the heart of the uncanny valley, rich with my assassin’s timbre, yet rotten with Orin’s inflection. But it seemed the Slayer had finally managed to capture the seductive prowl of her sister’s walk. The sight was made all the worse by her nakedness. Bile and shame rose in my throat, and I looked away, hurrying to stow my cock before she could gain the satisfaction of seeing it stir.
“You might have knocked,” I hissed. “What is it you want, Orin?”
The image of my assassin came to sit on the arm of my chair, the soft flesh of her flank pressing against my shoulder, her breasts swaying at eye level. “Such an obstinate one,” she crooned, “like a dagger locked between rib bones. Don’t you want to look, lordling?” One taloned finger reached for my chin, tilting my gaze up to meet wine-red eyes. “Don’t you want to play?”
I gritted my teeth and steeled my expression, refusing to let Orin bear witness to my desire. But I failed to hide the bob of my throat as her tail wrapped itself around my thigh. Whether the cackle she let out was hers or her sister’s, I couldn’t say—I’d never heard my assassin laugh before. Ashamed, I sat stock still in my chair, fingers gripping the armrests as my mind worked to determine a way to redeem myself. But my resolve crumbled when Orin bent down to graze tiefling teeth over my neck.
“Enough!” I shouted, shoving her away and leaping up as if struck by lightning, my chair clattering to the floor.
Orin delighted at my discomfort, all but giggling with glee. “How pathetic you are, saving yourself for my whore of a sister.” She propped herself on the edge of my desk, legs falling open and hand wandering over the soft flesh of my assassin’s thigh. “Were you not so caught up in your flesh-suckling lust, you’d have seen that there isn’t a scar on this body. The vampling was the first to leave a mark on her flesh. What do you think that means, little tyrant?”
The image of the pale elf’s mouth at her neck leapt unbidden into my mind. I could practically see how his teeth grew slick with her blood, how sweetly she sighed as he drained her, consumed her. When had she ever let me drink of her thus? When was I ever allowed more than a taste?
A grin spread over Orin’s face. She must have seen where my mind had gone. “He’s spoiled her, you know. Thrust his undead flesh between her legs. Now her womb stinks of necrotic tissue.” She approached me again, fingers skittering up my arms like spiders. “She’d never give you an heir.”
“And I suppose you would?” I spat, disgusted by the very notion.
“I could make you sinews sing in agony, little tyrant.”
I might have gagged, or barked with laughter. But a knock sounded at my door, the pattern was that of one of my spies. It was late—far too late for their usual update. Something happened.
I turned to Orin with a sneer. “Get out,” I hissed.
Oddly enough, she complied, though she made sure to trace a taloned finger along the length of my jaw as she turned to take her leave through one of the back windows. Once she disappeared, I felt myself relax a fraction.
“Enter,” I called out.
The guard who came through the door was a younger recruit, one I’d noted as all-too-eager to please—an ideal trait. He approached me breathless, as if he’d ran here. But he wasn’t carrying a scroll or missive. Whatever news he had, he intended to convey it orally.
“A message for the Archduke,” he said between gasps.
“Proceed.”
“It’s the elf. She was seen with him not an hour ago.”
I felt my jaw clench and my brow furrow, hatred curdling my belly. How cruel of her, to deny me this singular request. I’d felt the sting of betrayal many times over the course of my life, but never at the hand of someone so near and dear, so beloved to me. I’m not even sure I ever loved my parents. But her…
“Where are they?” I hissed.
“At the cemetery. Lower city. Shall we send someone?”
“No,” I snapped, having already shrugged on my armored coat, crossbow in hand. “Tell the spies to pull back. I’d prefer to handle this personally.”
The recruit gave a look of disbelief. “Are you—”
“Yes, I’m sure. Now go. I’ve an appointment to keep.”
***
The cemetery in the Lower City has always been a rather dismal place. It couldn’t hold a candle to the stunning gothic mausoleums and well-manicured gardens of the Upper City. I suppose both places stood in testament to the cruel reality that even in death, we were not equal.
I already knew where my targets would be. Weeks ago, I had ordered my scribes and archivists to track down the pale elf’s origins. Luckily, they’d been able to bargain with another of Szarr’s spawn before their master vanished from society—something he seemed to make a habit of doing every fifty years or so, presumably to avoid scrutiny for his immortality. If only he knew how much information Wyrm’s Rock had collected on him over the years. Or perhaps he did, and he remained because he knew just how much was missing from his dossier.
Regardless, the spawn we interviewed was able to provide a rough timespan in which the elf was transformed, as well as his former occupation. A few weeks later, my agents produced a file on one Astarion Ancunin, a magister who was found dead over a century ago, and whose grave was robbed shortly after his internment. His tombstone remained standing in the Lower City cemetery, and it was there I found the damned vermin, sitting in recline with his filthy fingers intertwined with those of my assassin.
I watched as they sat together in silence, seething at the way their shoulders brushed against one another, the bright red of a bite wound visible on her neck. I considered gutting him right there, spilling that stolen blood over his tombstone, but then his needling baritone broke the silence.
“I’ve been dead in the ground for so long,” he uttered so quietly I could barely make out the words. “It’s time to try living again.” The elf tilted his head. “That goes for you too, Crow darling.”
My assassin shifted, hair slipping like silken rain down her back. “What do you mean?”
I couldn’t see either of their faces, but I could hear the frown in his voice. “You should have seen yourself when you came back the other day. It hurts you know, seeing you like that. It reminds me of Cazador.”
She paused, then rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I’ve been bored to tears for days now, sitting in that tavern.”
That eased a chuckle out of her. “That’s why I thought we’d get out tonight.”
He looked down, then rested a cheek on her temple. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.” Her tone was so sincere, it was almost believable.
The elf shifted then, reaching to tilt her chin up. “I wanted to try something tonight, if you’re amenable to it.”
“What’s that?”
A mere breath of silence gasped its way into the cemetery, and I felt my chest tighten as I bore witness to the scene before me—no, a pantomime. This must be a ploy, a trick. Surely my assassin had plans for this spawn, and was merely waiting for the moment when her dagger in his throat would represent the peak of betrayal.
But then he kissed her, and doubt slithered its way into my mind.
The gesture was so soft, so gentle and loving, like carrying a newborn in one’s arms. Though he had fangs to spare, the vampling did not nip or bite, and his nails did not leave divots in her skin where he touched her cheek. Yet she seemed to melt against him all the same, eyes falling shut and body leaning into his. It was a moment of intimacy that lacked all the sharpness of our encounters, and I struggled to make sense of it.
Then, the vampling pushed her back, lowering her to the ground where her hair mingled with the dirt, his mouth still pressed to hers. Jealousy ripped through me. I lifted my crossbow, but my finger froze over the trigger. I couldn’t look away.
I watched with muted despair as my assassin wriggled her pants over her hips, as the vampling released himself with the flick of a belt buckle, then pushed into her with a soft sigh. I listened as her cries echoed gently in the night, silenced only by his mouth over hers.
The scene before me might as well have been dictated to me in infernal. It was beyond my comprehension. Surely this wasn’t what satisfied her? Where was the wild look in her eyes? The desperation? Her incessant need to carve and tear and bite? All I saw was comfort, sweetness, ease, gentle thrusts punctuated by hushed declarations. “I love you. I love you,” each repetition bringing my stomach to clench and my lip to tremble.
It truly was the ones you loved who hurt you the most.
I didn’t notice my crossbow lower. I was too absorbed in the nightmare of her moans growing in fervor, of the vampling’s pace increasing in response. Then, just as I thought one of them might meet their end, wine-red eyes flew open, and locked with mine across the cemetery.
She gasped, hand flying to her companion’s shoulde. “Astarion!”
But I was already turning to leave. I already saw.
I should have killed him, taken the shot from afar or run bellowing into the fray to thrust a stake through his heart. But my hands were shaking too much to hit my mark, my rage too blinding to trust myself not to kill her as well. So, I simply left, throat burning with nausea as I stumbled my way out the cemetery gate and into the labyrinthine alleyways of the Lower City.
I meandered my way back to Wyrm’s Rock in a daze. The clamor of passerby and late night tavern songs sounded muffled and distant, as if I were underwater. My breath burned in my lungs. Nothing felt real.
I had almost succeeded in convincing myself that it was all an act, that I would return to my chambers to find my assassin waiting for me with a clever grin on her face. I hope you enjoyed the show, she would say, amused by the notion that such a thing could be considered anything but a farce.
But then I stumbled over a crossroad, and the devil found me there.
“Well, well,” Raphael crooned. “Let it be known that no great man stands infallible atop his ivory tower. Even the soon-to-be hero of the Gate stands to be undone by a pair of wretched spawn. Perhaps Bhaal and Szarr should have kept their pets on shorter leashes.”
I grit my teeth against the burn of hot sulfur that stung my nostrils. “You would do well to avoid speaking ill of her. There are ways to kill a devil, you know.”
Surely because he knew it would further incense me, Raphael let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, what a deliciously shameful position you’ve found yourself in. The Tyrant cuckolded by his own weapon. If only there was some way to regain your dignity, a path of redemption that would bring the object of your affection to her knees before you.”
“Affection,” I spat, stalking past Raphael, refusing to grant him the attention he so craved. “You really think me so soft and coddled? You of all people should know better.”
Even though I’d put him at my back, he appeared in front of me once more, a sly grin creeping over his face. “Oh, I do know better. ‘Affection’ hardly describes what you felt in that graveyard. Tell me, do you think she lets him feed after he’s spilled inside her?”
My hands flew to my crossbow and fired off a shot before I could even think to stop myself. The bolt was incinerated in a sizzling puff of smoke before it even reached its mark, and Raphael’s laughter grew brighter still.
“It seems I’ve touched a nerve. After all, you’ve cultivated quite the obsession for Bhaal’s daughter. A pity she doesn’t seem to return the sentiment.” He tilted his head, like a predator playing with its food. “I could change that you know. For a price.”
I said nothing, but Raphael must have seen the way his offer gave me pause. He did not hesitate to snatch up that opportunity.
“I could give you the future you always desired,” he continued. “You could rule Faerun with the Bhaalspawn as your queen, your blushing bride. I could remove the insipient elf from her memory, take him out of the equation entirely.” He reached out a hand and closed it into a fist, as if to illustrate. “She’d be yours for the taking, for as long and as often as you’d like.”
I felt my hands clenching at my sides and flexed them open until the blood returned to my fingers. “You waste your words. I have no soul to offer. Mine has already been promised to Bane.”
Raphael’s expression grew serious, and he shook his head. “I’ve no interest in your soul. You have something much more valuable to me. You know the artifact of which I speak. It sits atop the elder brain at this very moment.”
I narrowed my eyes. “The crown of Karsus.”
“Precisely.”
I stopped to consider. It was a tempting offer, to be sure. Even without the crown, I would rule over Faerun, and my assassin would finally belong to me, and no one else. I could hide her away in my palace, adorn her in fine silks and jewelry, command her to ride me upon my throne before the entire court, make love to her in our chambers until she forgot her own name. That intoxicating word echoed through my head: Mine. Mine. Mine.
And yet, I could not help but think of all that would be lost, should I agree to such a trade—godhood, divinity, an eternity among the stars with a goddess at my side. After all we’d been through, were we not owed such a triumph? Was our story not deserving of such a fine ending?
I rolled my shoulders back and pretended to inspect my fingernails. “I’m sorry, Raphael, but I’ll be declining your offer. I have plans for the crown. Besides, the vampire spawn is nothing but a distraction. She will tire of him and return to my side soon enough.”
Raphael seemed less convinced than I was. “Are you so sure? Pursuing this matter on your own may prove deadly.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “Though I wonder whether you’d even mind. After all, violence is its own ecstasy.”
“Tease all you’d like, devil. My answer is no.”
Raphael clucked his tongue in disappointment. “To each his own, I suppose. So be it. But do say hello to your Lord Bane for me, and your nemesis as well.” The air sparked with smoke and sulfur, and before I could make sense of those final words, the devil disappeared with a flash into the night.
***
After the cemetery, I retreated into my sanctuary atop Wyrm’s Rock and ordered assassins to lay waste to the vampling. But much to my disappointment, the spawn was nowhere to be found. Even the denizens of the Elfsong had not seen him since the evening I witnessed at the cemetery.
To ease a mote of the tension roiling in my veins, I ordered a doubling of the guard around my quarters, continued to read spy reports on the remaining rogue True Souls, and paid Gondian workers a king’s ransom to install locks on all the windows, so Orin could no longer slither through so easily.
The latter seemed not to matter. In the days that followed, the Slayer fell into a valley of bland inactivity. For a while, I worried that hers and elf’s disappearance were connected somehow, that Orin had been facilitating this conspiracy against me all along. Then, I received word that my assassin wished to pay a visit. When I reached out through my stone to feel her presence in the tower, I found her carrying not one netherstone, but two.
Well, she’d managed to kill that damned sister of hers after all. Good riddance.
It should have been a victorious occasion—Orin and Ketheric dead, the hum of all three stones in my domain. But the triumph was spoiled by her infidelity. I felt sick with jealousy, dizzy with grief. The lover I’d planned to ascend with into the heavens had set aside godhood in favor of a less capable lover.
Yet, when I felt her presence in my fortress, I held out hope that she may yet seek my forgiveness, that the final stone would be offered up in apology, as an olive branch of sorts. Or perhaps I was simply desperate to see her. Either way, I instructed my guards to allow her into my chamber, then dismissed them so we might be alone.
She stepped into my domain like a doe onto an open field, eyes scanning for traps, for a marksman hidden in the shadows. Her jaw was set tight, her shoulders rigid. A part of me liked to see her so on edge. I’d spent so many nights at her mercy, it was time she surrendered to mine.
“I’d be willing to forgive you, you know,” my voice rang through the chamber, held together by little more than malice and bits of string. “For that scene in the cemetery.”
No response. I could see her biting the inside of her cheek.
“I’ve had some time to think on the matter,” I continued, clasping my hands behind my back as I stared into the fireplace. “I’ve been struggling understand why you’d degrade yourself with a mediocre lover. But I think I’ve figured it out.” My eyes snapped to her. “It’s your memories, isn’t it? Without them, you’ve grown confused. Desperate for intimacy. But you’ve forgotten what sort of intimacy it is you crave, the kind that satisfies your hunger. The kind we once shared.”
For a long moment, she simply stared up at me from beneath her brows. Something swirled in the dark of her eyes. “I have Orin’s netherstone,” she said eventually.
I rewarded her with a small smile. “I know. Wise of you, to wait until you’d acquired it to return. I’m willing to receive the gesture with all the good will it was intended to convey.”
She shifted, hair shimmering like a dark lake over her shoulders. “On what condition?”
I crossed the room, approaching her until there was naught but a hair’s breadth between us and I could feel her warm breath on my face. Already, I found myself forgetting my anger. How could I hold a grudge when she stood so beautiful before me? To the Hells with my mercy. I would have begged for hers if she asked.
“Forget the vampire spawn,” I said, low and intimate. “Be my lover again, my acolyte, my goddess. I can think of no one else I’d want at my side.”
Her lips parted, revealing the soft glint of pointed teeth. “Even after—”
“Always and forever, my dear.” I inhaled a shaky breath, pulse rising and chest stirring with devotion. “You must understand that you have consumed me, body, mind, and soul. A single mistake, no matter how foolish, couldn’t possibly change that.”
I threaded my fingers through her hair, thumb grazing her cheek. Then, remembering the sort of lovers we were, I pressed down with the sharp talon of my thumb and drew a razor-thin line of blood across her cheek. Her breath hitched.
“Stay with me,” I breathed. “And I will worship you for an eternity.”
I watched her eyes dart over my face, searching for the truth there. After a moment, she said, “I was manipulating him, you know. All I wanted was for him to help me remove the tadpole.” She swallowed. “He’s nothing to me.”
Her words had me near giddy, my face splitting into a smile. “I know, my dear.”
I held her gaze for a moment, heart swimming with glee. Then, I saw her eyes flicker down to my mouth and her tongue dart out to lick her lips. My cock stirred. Eager to acquiesce to her desire, I pulled her sharply against me, our hips pasting together so she could feel my growing hardness. Her eyes widened a fraction, then softened into siren-like seduction.
“Enver,” she murmured, “take me to bed.”
Hells take me, but I growled like a hound heeding its master, hands tightening on her waist, our mouths colliding like stars. No longer tentative, she dove into me, teeth biting and claws tearing at my clothes. I shrugged off my trappings all-too eagerly, desperate to feel her bite on my skin, to let her draw blood. I could already taste that coppery tang on my tongue by time we stumbled backwards onto the bed, her armored thighs clamping on either side of my naked waist. The metal of her greaves was cold and biting. I gasped at the sensation, and she took the opportunity to sink her teeth into the junction of my neck and shoulder, eliciting a strained cry from my throat. Oh, how I’d missed this.
She captured my mouth in another kiss, hands fumbling with my belt to unleash my weeping cock. I gave into her willingly, desperate for her touch. I’d have let her break open my ribcage and feast on my innards if she asked, so long as she rode atop me while she did, so long as I was the only one that was hers.
“That’s it, love,” I gasped against her mouth while her fingers fumbled with the catches of her armor. “Take me. Ride me into oblivion, to the very edge of madness. My blood, my seed—it’s all yours. I’m yours. I’m—”
A shard of ice plunged into my chest, and the force of it drove the air from my lungs. My eyes flew open.
My assassin was leaning over me, eyes watching intently. The desire had vanished from her gaze, replaced by a clinical distance I couldn’t quite make sense of. Her hand was shaking, and I didn’t understand why until I looked down and saw the dagger jutting from my heart. Its blade was encircled by the crescent moons of her bite, like a painting framed in silver—one final masterpiece.
My reaction was oddly delayed, but a moment later I found myself grasping blindly for her, eyes wide as I tore at her hair, scraped my talons over her back, reaching desperately for the ledge of life. But she pulled away from me, dagger leaping from my chest in a sickening squelch that left a gaping wound in its wake. Blood sputtered forth with every useless beat of my heart, filling the indents she’d left with her teeth so long ago.
As my skin grew cold and my breaths grew shallow, I couldn’t help but recall our first meeting, the words she had given me then: Would you not see it as an insult to be granted a mediocre death?
Was this a gift or an insult? I couldn’t decide. All I know is that when I met her gaze for the very last time, her wine-red eyes were steady and lucid.
A shiver ran through me, and all went dark.
***
Crow trudged her way back through the Lower City in a flat haze. There was no blood on her hands, no murder weapon at her belt. Both belonged to the Chionthar now. She’d even offered a friendly nod to a passing fisherman as she scrubbed sand beneath her fingernails to ensure not a speck of evidence remained. The gesture felt rather hollow, as if performed in a body other than her own, but she was used to that by now. It was all part of the pantomime.
The evening crowd was in full swing by the time she stumbled over the threshold of the Elfsong. Normally, she might have found comfort in such raucous and revelry, but tonight the stench of spilled ale had her stomach churning, and the off-pitch singing hurt her ears. What would these smiling faces look like when they read the news tomorrow? What would they think of her if they knew what she’d done, how much power she held tucked away in her knapsack?
In no hurry to find answers, Crow darted upstairs to seek out the quiet sanctum of their suite. After slipping over the threshold and shutting out the din of downstairs revelry, she slumped against the door and loosened a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Is it done then?”
Crow went rigid, heart shaking against her rib cage and hand flying to her dagger, only to find a familiar face watching her from across the room. His long legs were crossed at the ankle, a book balanced on his knee. Astarion watched her with a piercing stare.
She willed her shoulders to relax, then nodded.
His gaze softened. “Are you alright?”
Crow swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “I will be.” She’d tried to hold her voice steady, but it cracked all the same. Then, before she even understood what was happening, a sob broke free, and Astarion was crossing the room to pull her into his arms. He stroked a loving hand over her hair as she cried out against his shoulder, voice hoarse and tears wetting her cheeks. When was the last time she’d cried?
Thunder sounded somewhere in the distance, and rain began to fall in clear, colorless rivulets down the windowpanes.