Chapter Text
Tav stared down at Cazador. He was clutching at his chest, his red eyes blazing with anger. Dark blood oozed from his wound.
“What are you waiting for?” Astarion yelled. “Do it!”
He pulled a small crystal from his pocket and tossed it to her. The moment she caught it, her magic immediately was pulled towards it, towards her hands. She stretched her arms wide and called lightning down, at the highest spell level she had.
Crackles of lightning rained down onto Cazador. His body jerked and he cried out in pain. Power hummed through Tav, buzzing like static in her ears and making the world look bright and flickering. When the last bit of lightning sizzled away, he was gone.
Tav blinked. “Is—is that it?” It was strangely antclimactic.
“No in the slightest,” Astarion muttered. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, towards the wide hall.
“What do you mean?” she asked, trying to allow her mind to catch up with everything that happened.
“You’ll see,” Astarion said pensively. “You’re not off the hook just yet, darling. You should have called for me the moment the monster dropped you into his bed.”
“How much did you see?”
“Enough to make me wish I could sacrifice him twice.”
Astarion strode down the steps, his posture tight and unforgiving. Then Tav realized…
“’Sacrifice him twice?’ Astarion, you promised—”
“No.” He turned to her quickly, and she barely recognized the elf looking at her.
Astarion’s eyes were wide and red like Cazador’s had been right before he had vanished—cold and angry. His expression was one of clear, deliberate intent; a single-minded focus shadowed his features.
“He almost killed you,” Astarion hissed. “He almost…”
He shook his head, as if he couldn’t contemplate it.
“I’m safe now,” Tav said gently, putting her hand on his arm.
He shook it off. “We’ll never be safe!” he screamed. His despairing voice echoed down the hall. “If we kill Cazador, then what happens? Someone else will come along, won’t they? They’ll find out you’re the last Szarr and hunt you down, thinking you are like Cazador. Or they’ll want your power, or Tempest’s Embrace. Or they’ll want to eliminate me.”
“Don’t do this,” Tav begged. “Let’s just finish this.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Astarion retorted, and swung open the doors to the chamber.
Tav gasped. The undead priest and Godey were unmoving on the ritual platform, and in the middle of the room, there was a coffin.
“I had a feeling this would show up here,” Astarion grimaced. “No vampire would sleep in a bed that small when he could have a grand coffin like this hiding somewhere.”
Tav looked at Astarion. “Are you hurt? When did you…”
Her voice trailed off when she gazed at the piles of bones. It was only because she had seen them when they were up and moving around that she knew who they had been.
“I waited outside of the chamber, and when you and Cazador left, I entered and killed them.”
His fists shook with fury as he looked at the two skeletons.
“Astarion—” Tav began placatingly.
“No!” Astarion screamed, but he was looking at the coffin. “No healing sleep for you!”
With a strength she didn’t realize he possessed, Astarion pushed the mahogany lid from the coffin. Cazador lay inside, his arms over his chest, looking very much like he was resting.
Tav held out her hands, ready to send the biggest lightning bolt she could. With the aid of Tempest’s Embrace, she knew that whatever life Cazador still clung to would easily be extinguished.
Finally, she thought, elation running through her. Finally I can kill him.
“Hands down!” Astarion snapped at her. “Let me finish this.”
He pulled the taller vampire out from his coffin and roughly thrust him to the floor.
Cazador’s eyes shot open, and he looked at Tav and Astarion like they were something stuck to his shoe. Tav was pleased to see that his hair, clothing, and eyebrows were singed.
“Get your hands off me, worm!” Cazador spat.
“I’m not the one in the dirt,” Astarion taunted, a cold look in his eyes. When he turned back towards Tav, it melted away into a piteous, plaintive gaze. “I need your help.”
“We can’t do this,” she said shakily. “Astarion, I love you, and I know that you are better than this. You are better than him.”
Astarion still clutched the lapels of Cazador’s bloody coat. As he processed Tav’s words, the cruel confidence on his face melted away to a different kind of self-assuredness. His red eyes ceased to glow, and swallowed.
“You’re right,” he said slowly, and dropped his old master to the ground. “I am better than him. But it won’t stop me from enjoying this.”
He flipped the bloody dagger in his hands and lunged.
Cazador caught his wrist with his hand, and in his other Tav saw the dull wooden gleam of a stake.
Fear seized Tav’s heart, and she didn’t even think before she shouted, “Perurē!”
All of the power that was still in the hands channeled through the crystal. She knew it wasn’t enough, so she brought every last bit that she could manage. It came from her heart, from all the times that she had shed tears over Astarion, protected him, loved him. She brought it from the tips of her fingers that had ran through his tousled hair so many times, and from the pit of her stomach where she had burned with desire for him.
Lightning crackled in her eyes, so that all she could see through the energy was him—Astarion, the vampire spawn that she loved.
Tempest’s Embrace cracked in her hand, shattering into small pieces as she drained every last source of magic in it.
Her lightning bolt obliterated Cazador. Blue-white streams of energy rushed through him, along with the natural energy at the heart of her storm. His scream was carried away with it. When the lightning had ran its course, Tav slumped down to her knees, completely drained.
The only thing left of Cazador was a pile of ash.
I did it, she thought fleetingly. He’s gone.
**
The next thing Tav knew, Astarion had her in his arms, and she was cold. She opened her eyes. Wherever they were was a comfortable—if not slightly cooler—temperature, and it was dark. It smelled of old stone and moss, and a soft green glow enveloped them.
“You’re awake,” Astarion said. “Thank the gods.”
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“We’re in the Underdark.” His voice was tense. “It was the only place I could think of to go, with 7,000 spawn in tow.”
Tav sat up quickly, and everything that happened came rushing back to her. “We did it.”
“You did it,” Astarion said gently, and his lips were buried against her hair. “Without you, I don’t think I would have had the strength to—to end it.”
“You would,” Tav said firmly. “I know you would have.”
“Well, be that as it may…” Astarion cleared his throat. “I still cannot walk under the sun, and we have a legion of spawn crawling around down here, now.”
“I can’t say that bothers me much,” Tav said, thinking of the duergar slavers and the Lolth-sworn drow.
“My brothers and sisters are here, too,” Astarion said. “They will keep the spawn in line—as best they can. It’s funny,” he added. “All I thought I wanted was power, and to rule in Cazador’s place. Now the others will be ruling in a way—7,000 spawn—and I don’t know what I want to do, as long as it is with you, my love.”
“I think the first thing will be to find a cure. There has to be one.”
“Maybe.” Astarion’s voice was haunted. “Maybe not.”
“Either way, we will take each day as it comes. Astarion, you are finally free.”
“Yes,” he murmured, his eyes widening. “I am free. And I have no fucking idea what comes next.”
Then, suddenly, they both laughed. And they couldn’t stop laughing.
**
Tav linked her arm through Astarion’s as they walked through the graveyard.
“It’s not as romantic as I thought it would be,” she said sarcastically.
He elbowed her gently, and gave her a fond look. “You’ll understand why I brought you here for a ‘night out’ in a moment. There’s something I wanted to show you.”
Tav nodded, trying to stifle her excitement. She had something to show him as well.
They wandered past some of the newer graves. It made Tav’s heart hurt to look at them—all the lives lost during the brain’s attack on the city. She hugged him a little closer to her.
They made their way to an older part of the cemetery.
“I’ve never been this far back,” Tav said. “It’s so… so old, and quiet.”
After a few moments of walking, Astarion paused. Then he loosened his grip on her, and walked over to an unremarkable grave. There was ivy growing all over it, and she couldn’t read the name.
A strange look came over Astarion’s face, and he knelt down in front of it, brushing the ivy away. Tav stood behind him quietly, not wanting to intrude. She had an idea of whose grave this was, now.
“Nearly two hundred years and I never came back,” he mumbled. “Not since the night I woke up down here.”
Tav wanted to embrace him, but his posture was tight and angry.
“Did I ever tell you how it happened?” His voice was bitter.
Tav shook her head, and Astarion began to speak. Horrid things, about how he clawed through all of the dirt in his grave to break free, only to see Cazador waiting for him. How Cazador said that Astarion belonged to him, forever.
“That bastard got what was coming to him,” Tav said angrily.
A small smile played at Astarion’s lips. “He did. And now I am free, and that’s all thanks to you, my love.”
He turned to her, and took her hands in his. “You were by my side, through all of this. Through bloodlust and pain and misery. You were patient. You cared. You trusted me when that was an objectively stupid thing to do.”
Tav tried to blink back the tears that were burning in her eyes.
“I feel safe with you,” Astarion husked. “Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don’t want to lose that.”
“You won’t,” Tav said, reaching her hand inside her robes to pull out the documents. But then, Astarion sank to the ground.
“I should probably fix this,” he said softly, clearing the debris from the grave. She could see his name written clearly then, for the first time: Astarion Ancunín.
Tav spotted a wild daisy growing nearby, and she plucked it, then laid it on the cold, dark earth in front of the grave.
“Cute,” he muttered, giving her one of the looks that made her want to love him as much as she possibly could without dying from it.
She sat down next to him, not yet wanting to speak. She wanted him to have all the time he needed to feel whatever it was he needed to feel. Anything less would be a disservice.
“I’ve been dead in the ground long enough,” he finally proclaimed, staring at the grave. “It’s time to try living again.”
When he turned back to Tav, his hand was open. Laying in his palm was a small golden ring. Arcane symbols were enscribed inside it, and the jewel atop it was a deep blue shard. It seemed to flicker for a moment, and Tav’s heart stopped.
“Is that…”
“A piece of Tempest’s Embrace,” Astarion finished for her. “Yes, it is. There is still a remnant of the storm inside of it. I wanted to keep it, you know, to commemorate everything. And I thought, that if I was going to ask you to marry me, I wanted you to know that I celebrate all of you, Tav, just as you have always done for me.”
Tav couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Her hand trembled as Astarion slid the sparkling gem over her ring finger.
“When did you do this?” she gasped.
“Oh, I’ve had the pieces since that night,” Astarion said nonchalantly. “I knew that I would want to keep them, in case I ever worked up the courage to listen to my damn heart. Then I went to Dammon… Rings aren’t his specialty, but he said he’d make an exception for us. I picked it up just today, while you were busy with whatever boring official work you were doing in the upper city.”
“Speaking of…” Tav pulled out a small sheaf of folded-up parchment. “This is for you.”
Astarion gave her an impatient smile. “What is this?”
“Read them.”
Astarion shuffled through the documents. His eyes widened as he beheld the seals on the parchment. “Tav, what is this?”
“Cazador wasn’t lying about one thing,” Tav said mischeviously. “He made sure that the very night we were officially married, that the documents were in the hands of the court. Not only that, but I’m his last living relation they could find, so—”
“Szarr Palace is yours,” Astarion’s voice was hushed.
“No,” Tav corrected him. She pointed to a line on the parchment. “It’s yours. I’ve signed it over to you, Astarion.”
“What?” he gasped, his eyes scanning the documents again. “Hells, Tav. Why?”
“Because you suffered far more at the hands of Cazador than I did,” she replied. “You deserve to have this place, and decide what to do with it—not me.”
“And what if I wanted to live there?” Astarion raised his brows at her.
“Then I would accept it. I just…” Tav sighed. “You a free from Cazador, Astarion. And thanks to the reward money from Duke Ravenguard, all of us can afford property in Baldur’s Gate. But I want you to be able to live anywhere you want, Astarion—to go wherever you want! Sell the palace, live in it, burn it down… The choice is yours.”
Astarion’s gaze seemed far away. “Anywhere I want…”
Tav swallowed nervously. She knew that he loved her, had indeed just put a ring on her finger, but she needed him to make his own choices. To have everything he could have ever wanted—power, gold, something that was his.
She would be with him regardless, but if they were to have a future together, it needed to be free of obligation or dependency. He deserved to live life on his own terms.
He surprised her with a quick kiss. “I am thinking about traveling some more. I do miss those nights under the stars with you.”
“Really?” she cocked an eyebrow.
“Of course,” he said. “Feasting on your blood by a campfire, what could be more delightful than that?”
There was a wickedness in his eyes that made her blush. But… “Where will we go?”
“You need adventure, and I need a cure. I would say that could take us to many places, don’t you think?”
Before she knew it, Tav had embraced him, squeezing him as tightly as she could. He set the documents down quickly, and wrapped his arms around her.
“Careful, darling—mind my inheritance.”
“And what will you do with it?” she asked.
“Blow it up,” he said, with not even a hint of sarcasm. “I think Wulbren still owes us a favor, and he definitely has the runepowder to do the job. Oh, we’ll find new livelihoods for the poor, disappointed humans about the place, but I would dearly love to see Szarr Palace as a pile of ash, just like its former master.”
He pulled back from her, and his eyebrows were set determinedly. “We also need to stay in the city for a little while, at least.”
“Why is that?”
“To get married,” he said, rolling his eyes. “That is—” and then, that quick insecurity was back “—if you’ll have me, Tav. You never did say ‘yes.’”
“I didn’t?” Tav laughed. “I guess I thought it was obvious. I would love to be your wife, Astarion.”
His eyes softened. A genuine, bright smile curved his lips.
“Good,” he murmured, pulling her close once more. “Then it’s settled—the stars will be our witnesses and Szarr Palace nothing but a memory.”
For several minutes, they just sat together, kissing softly under the starlight. Then Astarion pressed his forehead against hers. “You were right, you know.”
“About what?”
“The things we’ve done in the past, the things we weren’t proud of… That wasn’t the end of our story. In fact…” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “I think our story is only truly starting now.”