Chapter Text
It is a pain you have never known before. Like fire in your blood. Twisting, shrieking, stealing the air from you until you cannot scream.
Cannot breathe.
Though you do not need to.
Your lungs are cold.
You cannot feel…cannot feel your heart.
Chilled tears slip from your eyes, wetting your temples and the hair above your ears as you writhe where you lie.
Where do you lie?
You cannot see anything but a world of white, swirled in tears. Blinded totally in pain.
“Silence it. Its agony is disturbing.”
Your fingers reach, grasping at the chain that holds your hands above your head on the cold stone. You can do nothing but claw at the metal. Mind too lost to pull in earnest.
“We are to wait for the cleric.”
“We must learn what it is, first.”
The pounding rush of blood filled your eardrums. Voices are close. Though it does nothing to silence you.
“It is a vampire spawn. What does it matter?”
“It matters for the proper ritual. The entire city shrieked when you pierced it with silver. No spawn holds such power over the others.”
“Then why did it not simply vanish when we attacked it?”
The hot, pulsing scent of soured blood draws near. Kicking your mind into a frenzy, only to cease the moment that burning intrusion in your chest was seized—and twisted.
You make a yowling sound of pain you do not recognize. Something animal. Your back arches from the harsh stone, testing the restraints on your ankles and wrists and that searing pain continues to twist. You feel a flutter of your heart beneath the arrow. Broken, but still trying to beat.
“We shot it twice with sussur bloom arrows—tipped in silver. It’s not going anywhere.”
“Perhaps it did not want to abandon its youngling.”
The twisting pain ceases. You draw in a ragged breath. Something whimpers in the far corner of the room. A voice you recognize, and you will yourself to—Focus!
“Vampire do not have young. And they do not hold care in their heart. Don’t be foolish.”
“Tis a shame what it did to the poor girl.”
“Feel no sympathy for it. And this creature…” You feel the prod at the arrow in your breast—do not mind it, it will heal swiftly— “…is not it’s sire. Lady Jaheira said this one was created. Just as the youngling.”
You suck in a sharp breath through your teeth as the hand releases. Your arching back falls to the hard stone.
“A shame to lose a friend this way. I wonder if any of her still remains within it.”
You should show them.
It is his voice that draws you back. Though it is distant. Weakened. The silver and sussur now tainting your blood made sure of it. A thought that had that gnarling, twisting, howling pain crawling through you once more.
“Huh, I suppose it is a bit…disturbing.”
“Come. We will wait for the cleric outside. Perhaps its thirst is driving it mad.”
The warm, calling smell of blood grows faint. Footsteps trail away. Heavy stone is moved, like a door being dragged across cobbled floor. Moments later—there is only silence. The sound of your fevered breathing comes to echo off the empty walls.
“Mother.”
That voice again.
Listen.
“Mother…speak to me.”
Obey.
You have no will of your own. No fight. The beating of your heart is cold and still within your chest. Dead…you are—
Mine! Obey the child.
“Remove the arrows.” Your voice is deep and hollow.
There comes the rattling of chains. The slide of bear skin across dusty stone.
“I cannot…I cannot reach you.”
You wince as your body shifts, trying to contort enough to turn your head and see the girl.
You hear her suck in a pained breath.
“Mother, please, don’t—” she makes a small cry. “It hurts. I can feel it. …Father… he can feel it. He…he is so very angry.”
There is dread in her words. Deep seated and chilling. You gaze up at the streaming light through the high windows above the rafters. Enough to illuminate the room in a pale grey—too high to ever touch you.
Where are you?
“Where are we?” your fingers lax their grip on the chains keeping your hands. By now you could feel you are lying on a stone table without cushion. Perhaps an altar.
“Some sort of temple,” she answers softly. “I was not awake when they brought us in. And I am not sure how far we are from home.”
Perhaps a days journey. Given they had only knocked you unconscious, and you had not woken until now.
Close.
Though distance didn’t matter with silver tipped sussur arrows buried deep in your chest.
You could hear his voice.
But you could not feel him.
A sever the felt like a wound deeper than that in your breast. The worst agony of anything. Empty.
Dead.
I forbid the thought.
“He does not like what you are thinking.”
Lily’s soft voice breaches the quiet. You shut your eyes to clear away the lingering tears. There is a metallic rattling, followed by the return of heavy stone dragging across the floors as a heaving door is opened.
Footsteps return. Armored boots moving toward you, pulsing blood warming the air, void now of the foul smell that often tailed the smell of the Gur.
Instead the smell is…sweet.
The boots stop at the foot of the table. You cannot twist enough to see. So you simply lie, staring up at the rafters. A moment passes and they begin to circle.
Whomever it is, they are watching you. You feel a hand hover over you without touching. As if to test the coolness of your body. The skirt of your dress is taken between fingers to assess the fabric. After a pause, the touch comes to prod at one of the arrows left in your chest.
The smell of Gur appears in the open doorway.
“Do you see?”
The arrow is pushed deeper into your flesh, and you cry out. Lily’s own scream comes from the corner of the room.
“Sussur arrows?”
The voice that speaks over you is male. Schooled and deep.
“The Master Halsin had said it was a witch. The creature is dangerous—even as a spawn.”
Silence resumes. A man’s face appears in your field of view, coming to stand over you with a scowling, tempered expression. His hair is long and dark, kept in a way that was ready for battle, chest armored in silver. Though his hands were sheathed in simple leather.
You watch him sling the longsword from his back and rest it beside the table. A moment later you feel his glove come to rest beneath your chin to tilt your face. His dark eyes roamed you studiously as his thumb parts your lower lip to expose your teeth. It prods at one of your sharp incisors before the man makes a soft hum.
Your face is turned to reveal the bare side of your neck. Another hum. His touch runs over your skin, as if to feel it.
“She bears no mark,” he notes quietly.
Several Gur step farther into the room.
“We examined it. It bears no mark anywhere. Unusual for a spawn.”
The Gur’s words do not disturb the man’s still expression.
His gloved fingertips brush your cheek as he continues to examine you.
“She is no mere spawn.”
The silence that follows is sudden and heavy.
“She is warm. Her skin is flushed.” The man’s gaze roams to meet yours. “Someone has fed her well. And taken great care to not mar her flesh upon turning,” he says. As though such a thing could be a warning. His voice falls to a whisper as he studies you. “Her heart is pierced, and yet it beats. It is as though she is... living.”
Before the lingering Gur can respond, the man turns to face them.
“Gather your things. We cannot stay here.”
“I’m sorry?”
The man sets about gathering the things he had set beside the table.
“I cannot perform the ritual here. We are but miles from their lair. Her sire is likely on your scent already.”
“The master has no reason to come for a simple spawn."
"We must perform the ritual.”
“What will it care for one measly creation anyhow?”
Several voices begin to argue, but one cuts through, calling the others to silence.
“Listen to the cleric. He has done this many times.”
“We must move further out of range,” the paladin says.
You hiss in pain as the cleric begins to unhook your chains and leash you from the table.
“Be cautious of it,” one of the Gur warns. “It is said to be cunning.”
The world swoops in as you stumble upright onto your feet. You turn swiftly to catch a glimpse at Lily being pulled behind you. Your mind commands you to do something. Though the sussur and silver mingling with your blood is like a toxin. Rendering you weak—blinded by pain.
“The sun has passed behind the mountains. We can move them in daylight.”
The chain keeping your hands is wrapped once around your throat and reined like a collar, the cleric gripping it with odd care as he pulls you to him, uttering low in your ear, “Try to bite me and I will remove those pretty, sharp teeth,” as he pushes you ahead of him.
You are brought out into the cavernous belly of the temple.
Look around you.
It is aged by the look of it. Whatever stone god once stood watch was now headless and wrapped in blooming vines. There is no time to linger as you are drawn through and down a steep set of stairs. Beyond is an open door leading to the outside.
You are loaded into a cart with Lily, and more than a handful of the dozen or so Gur, who laugh as they watch Lily scramble to shrink into your skirts, hands bound at her back.
“Keep them a part,” the cleric orders. “And keep your gaze averted for the love of Helm. Do not meet her line of sight. Lest her master remember your face.”
You turn your head where it rests on the side of the cart to gaze out at the land. At the dying colors of the sun—and the fog that now creeps thickly just over the horizon. Something pleasing filters through you. A flickering reprieve from the pain.
“Is that...?”
“It is sweeping the lands for what we have taken…”
“A crime that will be met swiftly. Without mercy,” the cleric states. “We must go now!”
The cart jolts as the horses are prodded to hurry down the road. The brief reprieve leaves you as you grow further from the rolling mist.
“Gods above, it is swallowing the world,” one of the Gur says. “Look within it. The fog is black as night!”
Answered by another, “It covered the sun over the city when we breached its lair. The creature is powerful.”
“And you have stirred its nest to take what belongs to it.”
The cleric’s voice is calm. Though there is a derisive edge that suggest he thinks that fact very foolish.
“You promised you could keep us safe and perform the rite,” one of the Gur replies. “You’re as much a part of this as we.”
The cleric’s reining hand cinches around the chain at your neck. “That was before I knew the folly of this mission—to take a bride from her sire in the open light of day. As long as the master lives, we will be in peril until the very end of our days.”
A simple fact.
Stated as calmly as the others.
An end swiftly approaching, assure them.
“Lady Jaheira had told us we were retrieving a mere spawn. We did not know.” The Gur who speaks turns to look at you as he says it. His fleeting gaze brushes your—pale eyes against the rapidly fogging sky—and pause.
The moment his attention locks with yours, you feel a small pulse of power. A slow creeping return of a familiar compulsion. It flares, like the silent words of an old spell, one not even the arrows can subdue, reaching for the Gur as his gaze stays transfixed to yours.
The look of awareness behind his eyes slips away.
Dimming.
Weakening.
Submit.
With the others bickering, they do not see him reach for the first arrow in your breast. The searing pain you felt moments ago begins to fade.
Surrender yourself, and you will be spared.
The closer he reaches, the stronger you feel. You can see his fear. His distant realization that his movements are not his own. Only for the look to vanish as the cleric swiftly seizes his hand.
“What did I tell you?” The Gur jolts, and his gaze averts to meet the paladin's. “Do not meet her line of sight.” He shoves his hand away. “She may be weakened, but her sire is not. His blood lingers within her. He can reach us through her. Even here.”
You wince, letting out a stifled cry as the pain reignites through your blood.
“We should perform the rite now. Can we do so while we are moving?”
The cleric makes a sound. Like a laugh, but joyless.
“The rite is designed to draw a spawn’s spirit from the clutches of the afterlife. A place that would yield the soul easily,” he says. “This creature is not quite dead. And her existence does not belong to the afterlife.”
There comes a heavy moment of silence, filled by hooves pounding dirt.
“Where do we draw her—it from, then?”
Another second of silence. The cleric looks at you without meeting your gaze.
“It is wed to her sire. Just as the master’s is to her. And he will not render her from himself willingly. For a sire to submit their spouse, is to destroy apart of themselves. …There is no such rite for that.”
The rolling fog has grown closer to the cart. The path ahead is darkened with twilight. You can hear the huffing breath of the horses drawing the cart forward.
They cannot run forever.
“We have promised Lady Jaheira to return her friend alive. There must be some—”
“We will be lucky to reach the rendezvous point alive,” the cleric cuts in. “We will deliver her friend, regardless of her state. Then disband quickly and pray this creatures sire knows none of our faces. Or perhaps is too busy pursuing Jaheira to mind us along the way.”
A grave silence befalls the cart. You stare wearily out at the fog now licking at its heels.
They are frightened, my love.
The pain within you begins to ease once again. Clearing your mind enough to think. To know, that fear was a useful tool.
A tool you had once used often.
Fear was a weakness to exploit.
Clever darling.
“Your horses tire.”
Your voice is somber and distant. Silence lingers, and you feel the Gur’s attention turn to you.
“It speaks.”
“Do not look at it!”
Your eyes shift to the cleric. “You cannot out run him. And you are running out of time.”
I can already smell them, my love. The paladin’s blood is so very sweet.
“He says your blood smells particularly good…paladin.”
The cleric is still. He does not look at you, eyes moving out to the passing landscape. Something distant crosses over him. Something strangely calm.
Making peace with death.
A wise fool.
There is a scuffling sound fast approaching the car.
“Lothrin we—”
One of the Gur rises to speak to the cleric. His words stop short as one of the horses veers left. The scuffling has grown into a drum of claws in the dirt—low snarls and the gnashing of teeth, overcoming the cart as several wolves break through the fog. Then several more.
The Gur is thrown from the platform and into the swallowing fog. From screaming to silent all too quickly.
The horses kick as wolves close on their heels, drawing the cart off the road and into the uneven terrain of the open tundra. The cart rocks. Its wheels slow. A moment later it stops abruptly, wedged in soft earth and high grass.
Silence comes.
So deep it is unsettling. The Gur rise, steadying themselves to look around the cart.
“The wolves…they are gone.”
Laughter comes. Though it is not yours. Nor theirs. But Lily, reined by one of the men who holds her chain in a tight hand. The men turn to her. A truly terrifying sight as her head falls back in mad laughter, twisting and arching against the railing, lost in a fit of hysterics. Fog curls around the cart in thick, licking tendrils. Lily draws in several gasping breaths before sitting on her knees to look the cleric in the eye.
“Father will feed you all to us,” she says. The delight in her face is almost childish—had it not been so cold. She cranes her head as if to catch his gaze. “He will share you with Mother over breakfast,” she says. He makes a shivering breath, turning his face away. “You will make her so very happy…Lothrin. She will wear your holy blood like a fair perfume. He will taste it on her for days to come.”
You hiss as the chain is yanked tight around your neck. One of the Gur is leashing you to your feet and toward the edge of the cart. An action halted as the cleric takes the chain from his hand with haste.
“Fool,” he says. “Mind her, or your death will not be swift. We must move from here.”
“I cannot see the road.”
“Nor the wolves!”
“We move.”
There was absolution to his words. He takes you to the edge of the cart before leaping off and lifting you down after him. Boots hit the ground behind you, and you hear Lily follow. Her voice carries in a whisper so soft only your ears could ever hear.
“He is near, Mother. Have no worry.”
Lily makes a whimper as one of the Gur leashes her back. “None of that. Keep back!”
The cleric is unflinching. He gazes blindly into the mist as the others gather behind you. When he speaks his voice is low. Quiet. And you realize at once he is speaking only to you.
“Which of us will he kill first, I wonder.”
Spoken as a simple question. As though he is merely accepting. You glance up at him. A gesture the cleric does not return. He does not wait before he begins to lead you blindly into the fog.
Your skirts tangle with the long grass as you go. Behind comes the trudging sound of boots as the Gur fall into line. A soft glow carries around you as several men light torches.
“There is nowhere you can run,” you say to the cleric softly.
The man’s face is the only thing you can see inside the mist. “I will not yield,” he says. His voice carries a surprising conviction. “I swore protection to every living member of this group. Helm would never—”
His words are cut short by the vanishing cry of one of the men. You turn in time to see him dragged away into the dense fog. Though by what…
“Gods above. It's here!”
“Form a perimeter.”
The Gur begin to circle. Lily is thrown beside you into the grass. You heard the cleric draw his sword. The fog is so dense you can barely see the men in front of you. There is an unsettling moment of silence. The air is thick and still. Then—
Another shrieking scream as one of the men is lifted. Pulled away with a scream. The torch he held hits the grass and sends a wash of flame across the dry field.
“Where is it? I can’t see it!”
Look at them, beloved.
The low snarls of the wolves return, and you watch another man claimed by the mist.
“It’s picking us off. Mystra, why.”
They will taste sweeter with fear.
Another Gur is lifted into the air. Left to dangle just in sight, from struggling to limp where he hangs above you. You hear his choking breath. See the blood that comes like weeping tears, from mouth and eyes, fingers and skin, as though… As though Astarion could command their very blood. Every part of them.
Drink, my love.
It drips over you like warm rain. Soft patters on your cheeks and nose.
They have starved my poor darling.
You open your mouth to taste the aired flavor of the Gur’s blood. Soured and metallic. But fresh.
That’s it, my sweet.
“Is this what it is?” You hear the cleric speak softly beside you. “To be loved by a vampire?”
Lily rises on her knees beside you to catch the blood that rains, until the dripping stops. The Gur is tossed aside into the mist.
“Forgive me, Helm. I am failing.”
You look to the cleric. His eyes scan the darkened field, lit now by nothing but felled torches and burning grass. One of the Gur screams in terror and reaches to cradle his face. Several other do the same, and each falls to their knees without resistance.
“I can hear it. Its in my…its it my head!”
Sounds of despair echo around you as the Gur fall. The only sound besides the chitter of bats rapidly approaching. The Gur keel forward, bodies bowing on bended knees, unsaved by any amount of prayer.
Lily rests herself against your skirts. You hear the paladin utter the spell for daylight and a spark comes—there and gone as it is choked by the mist, by the sudden swarm of the children that overcome them like descending darkness. Shrieks echo. Cries of men as they are fed upon in a mad frenzy without chance to escape. The cleric beside you whispers a prayer. His sword dangles at his side without a target.
“You will not strike me, paladin?” you say.
Dare him to try, my love.
He does not look at you. Breathless as he answers. “I have sworn to protect…every living member of this group.” A realization that dawns on him with a helpless sort of awe.
There are few Gur left. And a sudden ease comes at the promise you will soon come…home.
Come home to me.
“Do you fear death?” you ask the cleric. It is an honest question. You think you have never seen someone so unafraid in the face of it.
You see him shut his eyes, as if to accept something he must. His breath, once rapid, slows with some resolve. When his eyes open again, they meet yours.
That dark, curling heat of Astarion coils up within you. Though it need not reach. You watch the cleric stick his sword in the grass. And kneel.
His gaze holds fast to yours.
Submission.
When he speaks, his words are steady.
“I have honored Helm since I was a child,” the man says. A dying scream echoes over the field. “He was the god of my father. And his father, before that.” His hands come to grip the hilt of his sword as he bows his head. “I have sworn my protection to every living member of this group…” His eyes lift to you. There is a peace within them. A knowing. An acceptance. Surrender.
“I cannot abandon my word. Were I to die now my god would not claim me. Please…do not send me to him a failure. I must keep my word. Let me…”
His breath leaves him in a shudder. As though he can sense Astarion, appearing behind him like a ghost in the mist. The cleric’s eyes flicker shut.
“Let me serve you.”
He offers himself, beloved.
“Let me honor my word… I must.”
He bows his head as Astarion closes in. He is watching the cleric—eyes blazing in the night.
Does he move you, my love?
An idea that seems to please Astarion. It sends that thrill of dark hunger through him—through you. That hunger for you.
Show me that darling heart.
Astarion’s blade gleams in the firelight as he draws it. The paladin is unmoving as he brings it to rest beneath his chin.
“Astarion.”
His lips turn with the vaguest hint of a smile. His red eyes lift to yours, brighter than fire in the dark. He waits with bated breath.
Say it, my love.
“…Spare him.”
Astarion draws the blade up his neck. The cleric’s throat is bared to you as his chin is lifted.
“Do you not hunger, my love?”
There is a dangerous edge to his gaze. Though it is not anger that crops up within him. You feel his mind salivating at your request.
“Spare your mercy for our children,” Astarion bids you. “He is of no use to us.”
The cleric lifts his eyes to the night sky. The world around them has grown silent. Nothing remains but the soft sounds of the children feeding. “I know where he is,” the man says softly. Astarions eyes fall to the cleric. “The Wizard of Waterdeep. His allies. Your…friends. I can take you to them.”
Astarion draws in a breath.
You watch the dagger’s edge draw away—replaced by Astarion’s hand as he grips the cleric’s throat. He tilted the man’s face to gaze up at you. “How fortunate you are,” he croons darkly, “That my darling does so love strays.”
As though the cleric’s words satisfy him deeply. You see the paladin’s throat move with a swallow. Drawing your eyes to the warm, pulsing, delicate skin.
“Swear yourself to her,” Astarion commands.
The cleric’s eyes lift to you as the mist begins to thin, revealing a moonless night. “By my blood,” his words are a near whisper—urgent and without hesitation. “I swear myself to the service of your lady. I shall protect her with my very life.”
Words truer than perhaps the poor cleric knew. Astarion seized his wrist with such quickness the man gasped. He kept firm rein of his throat as he drew his pulse to waiting lips. All the while the paladin gazes at none but you. A fact that seems to please Astarion ruthlessly. He stifled a grunt as Astarion’s teeth dug in. A line of blood escaped to trail his wrist.
Look how willing, my beloved.
As if such a thing was simply natural.
The world yields to us. It begs to serve.
The cleric gives a wavering exhale. He falls forward, bracing a hand in the scorched grass at your feet. Astarion’s feeding grows more urgent, drawing life from him quickly, you can see it in the way his eyes soften. The listless pallor of the man’s face. His dark hair slips forward off his shoulder as he pants.
Astarion gazes down at him, illuminated in fire and starlight, a dark angel standing above, vicious and demanding of his every last breath.
You hear a wavering word break free from the paladin. “M…master.” A plea. An acknowledgment. As though he cannot control it. The man reaches forth. As if to touch your bare foot. Only to be stopped—I forbid it.
“Mother,” he whispers. Like it is a holy word. One his entire being begs to speak. His last, before the paladin’s hand slips from Astarion’s grasp, and he falls lifeless before you.
You feel Lily turn her face into the shelter of your skirts. Astarion’s hand comes to cup your chin. A tender touch, guiding your gaze to him.
“Come to me, darling.” His voice beacons you softly. And you are drawn by the sound, by the gentleness of his touch, and the fragrant blood that drips from his chin. He draws you in like you are made for him. The taste of his lips is so very sweet when you press yours to them.
“Astarion…” His hand comes to your breast. To the arrow that has pierced your heart. “Be still, my little love,” he commands you.
Your fingers claw at the breast of his coat. Silver and wood ignites your blood as he pulls. The pain is blinding. You fall forward into the shelter of his chest with a cry, and he casts the first aside. He does not scold you for screaming as he pulls the second. Only drawing you back to urgently catch the blood that spills down your breast with his mouth. He laves at your wounds, nursing blood from them until the pain lightens. Until—
That feeling of him returns. Gripping. Powerful. Immediate. You gasp as it seizes you. And all other feelings fall away.
“There you are, my love.” Astarion’s voice is ragged against your throat. As if he is overcome by some relief. Pain and anguish subside. You feel his desire to bite you. To sink teeth in and remind you once again—mine!
But he does not.
“Not yet, beloved. Not until you are well.”
A fact that sends something dark and gnashing through you. Your own desire. Disappointed that he cannot do as you wish. Astarion makes a soft tsk.
“My spoiled bride.” As though your feeling registers within him. “Come now. We have much to prepare for.”
He does not allow you to draw away from him. To gaze down at the cleric cast dead up on the ground. Though you knew he would not stay that way for long.
“The children will take him to the tombs, my sweet. Do not worry yourself,” Astarion’s nails dig gingerly beneath your chin to tilt your lips to his. “We will have answers from him soon enough.”
A dark promise.
“And then we will put the matter of our old friends to rest…once and for all.”
His words send a twinge through you. A hurt Astarion will not abide. He takes you swiftly, then. Back to the shelter of manor in only a flicker of darkness. As though you had never left. Leaving you with two warring questions in your mind.
Whether this cleric will truly give you the answers about Gale you truly seek.
And what exactly Astarion plans to do with Jaheira and Halsin…once he finds them.