chapter seventeen.
hangman's knot
Astarion had thought the ash would have long rinsed from the skies. Instead it clung to the air, casting the thicket of trees in a sullen veil, obscuring ridge from ravine, forest from the trees.
He'd managed a fair distance from the tavern before he'd stopped to catch his breath and put a name to what he'd done, or rather, what he hadn't. Images of fire, soot and scorched earth rushed up to greet him, and were promptly shoved to peripheral view. Breathing a sigh of relief, he'd made sure he hadn't been tailed and stolen away into the night with a grin pushing his cheeks taut and the type of giddy pride only collected by getting away with it.
He was alone, as alone he'd been in the nautiloid's wreckage, this time without the uncertainty of his circumstances or any troublesome company. Not just alone but free. Long overdue, he assured himself, for this was how it should have been from the start. Two centuries of savage noise and unerring terror, and he could think of no more hellish a bookend than playing jester in someone else's court.
Dawn broke across the horizon, sun's yolk lashing heavenly beams of vivid heat against his skin. The distant echo of water hitting rock led him to a thin mountain stream, glittering with opalescent gems at its bottom. He'd plucked a handful from its depths, cold mountain water kissing his skin, and when he'd held them to the light above, they'd near blinded him with their brilliance. It was only when his quiet chuckle had subsided that he'd registered the error of not carefully choosing.
Atop the bunch sat a tear drop stone of ink and violet.
After wrestling with the temptation to toss them back, he shoved the gems in his pocket and shook his head of superstition. It was merely a coincidence, but even if it wasn't, who was he to be afraid of a rock? He'd sooner believe in fortune telling than register a guilty conscience after all these years. Frankly, pissing off had been child's play.
But now that he was on the subject, maybe there wasn't harm in letting loose a little anger. Because he was indeed angry, and justifiably so. Astarion had seen her, face to face with that devil, looking entirely too comfortable and definitely like she was engineering the mechanics of his downfall. Of course he had left! What, was he stupid? Should he have been taken for a fool? The disrespect to think she could pull a fast one on him. The arrogance!
Astarion should have left then, but the timing felt wrong. There was no guarantee she wouldn't sick the cambion on him once she'd realised he wasn't coming back. Lull them all into a false sense of security — by dawn he'd have passed through Wyrm's Crossing and marched immediately to the nearest tailor (the state of his clothes!). To consider what he intended to do thereafter, considering Cazador's inevitable hounding, had been the furthest thing from his mind. At least that'd been his intention, but then he'd heard the voice, or rather, it wormed its way into his ear.
At first it had been pure nonsense, the way the gurgle of a cauldron might be mistaken for a muddy incantation, yet the moment Astarion figured the whole endeavour to be moot, clarity struck. His eyes briefly skimmed Fallon, to make sure she was neither awake to hear the voice, nor its direct source, before leaning down to parse the whispers between the rhythm of her breathing.
Like trailing smoke from a smothered campfire, the voice thinned to a reedy muttering, and along with it, a familiar scent. The chill of midnight's air, the sweet of berry and poison's bitter aftertaste. Astarion recalled Dalaia's hand with its strange wound, that the pop of blisters sprouting on her hands had sounded like the smack of lips. There was a lyrical quality to the words and the rhythm, a steady patter that sounded like recitation. It sounded like ...
"... a prayer, my Dark Lady, kneeling at thy alter of stark suffering. Your erstwhile servant returns to carve a pound of flesh and pay penance for that which I have failed. Swear to you, resolute as the walls of you empire, that I shall not fail again. Emptied of worldly possessions and the shackles of familial imposition, my Goddess, I arrive to you as your most loyal servant. Your will be done, sure as this world is brought to its knees, sure as ..."
Outside the window, an owl hooted and tapped upon the glass. The sound of knocked Astarion to his senses. From the ache in his muscles, it felt as though he'd been bent for hours. What was he doing? He was meant to be leaving.
Forcing himself to his feet, Astarion attempted to shove all that he had heard to the back of his mind. His eyes caught on a distraction. Fallon's pack was pulled to the seams and yawned with the scent of the road. A little snooping couldn't hurt, perhaps she had some coin for the road. Inside he found little of interest, aside from a few spare pieces of gold ("so much for thievery") and a battered journal. Prying it open, he found her crowded penmanship swimming across the pages.
"Mine now," he muttered, and sandwiched the journal against the tight fit of his jacket.
But as he had made to leave, he had heard it. The distant thunder of footsteps, metal boots and the quiver of drawn steel. Atuning himself to the clutter of noise, he caught hint of their raucous cries, their intent. As he paused at the doorknob, Fallon's voice drifted into the ensemble.
"Who are you?" she said, hushed and shimmering.
"I am your mother, have you forgotten me so quickly?"
That had brushed against the grain. Even now, sobered by the distance, the gentle accusation buzzed around his head like an ambitious mosquito: it wasn't worth raising the wrist to swat away, at least not immediately. Was it the voice of the zealot? On the face of it, unlikely, but this conclusion was obvious. Too obvious. Regardless, he felt knew they were linked to the concoction, Netherese or not, that was Fallon's blood.
That was, if her blood were still flowing.
Sun faded, night set. He spent his first night alone with his ears pricked to the stray snap of twigs, the shimmer of wind swept leaves, sucking down the meagre meal his hunt had procured. He'd ended the evening wishing he'd swiped Fallon's compass — the journal was placed a distance across a sooty campfire to be glowered at — and resolved to gather supplies before contending with the path home.
To no avail — the road was little else than an aisle of husk and char. Before he knew it, he'd looped back around to the tavern, or what remained of it. From the road he smelt the rot, and steered an ample course in the opposite direction. Another day passed and he'd made little headway, finding only the Absolute's footprint.
With only the landmark of the tavern to plot from, Astarion found himself contemplating his options in the ashen surrounds. Above, a storm threatened to break, the clouds swollen, his brow polished with kept moisture. Thunder growled in the distance, the wind a buffet of static. He took refuge beneath a cluster of pale firs, cursing Talos for his timing, and sunk down onto a mossy log.
For two centuries, Astarion had yearned for freedom. Now he had it. Faerûn's sprawling bounty, the unshackled feet to traverse them, the silence to do so in peace. The silence. His brain should have felt cramped, from the worm and all the chaos invited. Tap his skull, though, and it would ring hollow as a drum. All the noise that those miscreants had made. It had been a flea in the ear, truly maddening, just awful! He'd have taken a night with Godey to be rid of them. He'd have ...
Astarion shuddered. Why had his mind gone there? Better yet, why was it now refusing to leave. How foolish to think he had a choice. The memory was not inside of him, no, he was in the memory. Stale, rusty air. Needling pain, blanketing his skin. He heard the chains rattle, saw the shadow thrown in unsteady candle light. Three steps. Tick, tick, tick. Bone against iron teeth ...
The journal. He had to read the journal. He'd been putting it off, hadn't had a spare minute, and this required his full attention. He loosened his jacket enough for the journal to fall loose and seated it on his lap. A brief pause, his eyes swept the battered cover, leather with messy stitching (was this the position of 'F' or 'P'?), its spine loose and mouth ragged. A refrain short lived, he dug the covers open and flipped hungrily, scouring for a nugget of sweet, sweet justification. He had run for a reason, hadn't he? All the answers lay within these pages, all he had to do was read.
"Agh! Th— This is just poetry!" Astarion cried in disgust when he'd reached the last entry. "Poetry and dramatics!"
He threw the useless book and cursed her name, cursed her household, and a few other things that bore no repeating. Indeed a great many obscenities spilled from his mouth, falling on deaf ears, unless the log beneath him and all it's standing brethren had gained sentience. Astarion slumped forward and let out a coiled huff.
Then something miraculous happened. He went and picked the damned thing up, even started wiping it clean before realised what he was doing.
"Oh but why should I care! I simply refuse to give this anymore of my time." He whined, setting the book down beside himself. "She and the rest of them would've gotten themselves killed all on their own, they didn't need my nudge, there wasn't a lick of sense to share between them. I'm good to be rid of them. They only slowed me down. If I'd have shaken them off, I'd be well on my way to Baldur's Gate, and not traipsing around inns taking orders from devils. I'd have been ..."
Alone.
It was lost on Astarion that he'd been the one to insist his company, and even if it had occurred to him, the thought would have been knocked loose because at that moment, Dalaia came streaking down the decline and tackled him to the ground. They rolled a short distance: luckily the slope was not harsh, unluckily the tree that broke their momentum was.
"Ow! What on—"
His side had caught at the base of a trunk, eyes continuing down to see the edge of the mountain a stone's throw away. Shock subsiding, he turned around and found himself face to face with the tiefling. Shock gave way to a forced grin.
"Well, hello darling. Fancy seeing you in this neck of the woods."
If smoke could have left her ears, then her skull would've been a furnace. Dalaia had recovered quicker, pinning him by shoulders to the mess of pine needles beneath. The scent of cheap malt liquor cleaved his senses.
"Real friendly greeting considering the last time I saw you."
"As I remember it, I gallantly pulled you from a burning building. A little thanks wouldn't go astray."
Dalaia's eyes widened in disbelief, but the reprieve was short lived. In an effortless motion, she balled the scruff of his collar in her fist, pushed from the ground, and yanked him to his feet without a dent in her breathing. Astarion's grin fell to a scowl, attempting to pull away.
"That was needlessly emasculating, I'll have you know."
"Oh shut up. Just shut up," Dalaia snarled. Anger quivered her voice, but he caught the guilt it ran parallel with: a soft patch of skin demanding to be prod. "You're lucky I didn't break your neck on the spot. And I should! Gods I should. We took you in, and at the first opportunity, you proved a coward."
"And judging by the fact it's you taking me to task, I can only imagine you did the same."
If he had doubted the clouds above, he needn't have guessed the tempest that brewed before him. Her mouth gave an ugly shudder and peeled back to bare her teeth. Her hand found his neck and suddenly Astarion was dangling an inch from the ground. Abandoning all sense of politeness, he began to claw at her fingers. Even as blood began to vein her knuckles, Dalaia didn't flinch. She was marching to the edge.
Astarion felt the valley wailing up to greet him, a freezing blast of wind tugging at his ankles. The muscle of his former heart dropped into his stomach, and he feared briefly that the force would throw her off balance. He didn't need to see what lay below to paint a picture — the open jaws of death, or at least, something adjacent.
"You reckon vampire spawn know how to fly? I think I wanna find out." She was halfway hysterical.
"L-le...t m...e d...ow—"
"And to think, I felt for you. Thought you were given a rough go of it! You had my pity, but then you went and fucked it all up. Do you know what you've done? Do you?"
She gave him a rough shake, her grip crushing. Astarion's eyes bulged as the walls of his throat squeezed narrow.
"That was my family ... She was my family ..." She bit back a choked noise, her jaw slackening, the hand at his throat with it. Astarion found himself clutching, desperate, to her forearm. "It's as good as done ... Just gotta, yeah, just gotta let go an—"
"Dalaia!"
There was the sound of rock and silt scrabbling underfoot. Through the blear of his eyes, Astarion could make out a head of dark curls.
"Drop him, Dal," Marth said. Astarion made a strangled noise of contest, which made him sound quite a lot like an angry goose. "Sorry, I mean set him down. Safely? On the ground."
"You cannot be serious, Marth. After what he did? If Fallon was here, and had the upper-body strength, she'd be doing the exact same thing I'm doing right now."
"Dal, please. No matter how hideous you feel right now, it'll be nothing compared to if you let go." There was a careful rhythm to Marth's voice as he spoke, dropping low, so as not to startle. "And no matter
"List...en ... be ... g...ood l-lapd...og ..." Astarion wheezed.
"What was that?" Her eye twitched.
"He begs his own death." Astarion could hear the smirk in Orikas's voice. "Pity not to hand it to him."
"Please. Both of you. All three of you, in fact! A little common sense, a little restraint, for once."
If Astarion hadn't been tangled up in the fist of a tiefling, he might have mocked the unrestrained plea in Marth's voice — an obvious antidote to the strange gnawing it had planted in his gut. Briefly it appeared that Dalaia had much the same thought, disgust bubbling a stutter at the back of her throat. She tried thrice to string together anything of coherence, anger beating its head against the brick wall of her pride. Then just as she appeared to have gathered the words, a sound between a sob and a yelp overtook them, and she took a step backwards to place him on solid ground, her fist loose but fixed.
"There you go." He managed through a gravelly voice when he had recovered from a bout of coughs. "Now, just open up your hand and I'll be right on my way ..."
"No." She looked over her shoulder, perhaps to Orikas, but Astarion saw the silhouette of a tear rolling down her cheek. "He can't just ... Just go. He needs to pay, some how. It's your sister, it's Fallon. He all but threw her to the wolves."
"As I remember it, the wolves in question didn't need to be thrown to. She merrily waltzed her way into their fold."
"So what're doing?" She said, ignoring Astarion. "Because you know my vote already. I don't know if flinging him off a cliff will actually kill him, but my guess is that it'd give me enough time to fashion a stake and finish the job."
Astarion's eyes widened. "You're psychotic! Listen to your keeper, he hasn't been elbow deep in a barrel of ale."
Dalaia kicked at his ankles and he swung back at a sickening angle, turning her skin white where his fingers insisted purchase. She wouldn't kill him. She couldn't. They were criminals but a thief was a far call from an assassin, and they had spared him in the first instance, a miracle considering the placement of his dagger. Well, she had spared him.
He tried to demand Marth's gaze, but found he'd lost his nerve, mumbling something beneath his breath about "group consensus". Just when I thought you'd grown yourself a spine. Orikas studied him carefully, the gold of his eyes, cold as a miser's coffers. The man had pleaded Astarion's case in the past, but he wasn't such a fool to take it as a sign of good favour: he was not unfamiliar with sibling rivalry. Fallon was his sister, and death tended to turn a man to violence. Astarion's chances were as favourable as a troll on a tightrope.
"Was it fear?" Orikas said.
"If that's the answer that will satisfy the urge to toss me off a cliff, then yes."
"Took you for a prick, not a coward."
Farce! Did they take him for a fool? The firm resolution writ across Orikas's usual glower implied this was anything but a game. He began to consider how he would sound if he launched into a rant about Raphael. Surely not any worse than how they already saw him ...
"Maybe you're just a bad judge of character," He felt Dalaia lining up a shot to his shin. "Hold on, I wasn't finished. I thought it was a set up. Not the drow, but the devil. I saw her fraternising with that devil."
Marth's mouth fell agape. "Fraternising?"
"Well, speaking to. In private. In a way that heavily implied they had been previously acquainted." Astarion narrowed his eyes, still skeptical that the roots of deception only sprouted at her feet. "So you're to insist that you knew nothing of Raphael?"
Marth hesitated before shaking his head. The pause was hairline, so slight to be mistaken, if it hadn't been for the sweep of Orikas's gaze, locking eyes with Astarion. After a pause that felt a century long, he gestured to Astarion's forehead.
"Let me in."
Astarion pulled a face, stopping short of recoiling.
"Why should I?" He snapped. "As a final humiliation? Look, if you're going to kill me, just get it over and done with already before boredom beats you to it. Clawing around in my head isn't going to bring her ba—"
"Should I take you for a liar as well?" Orikas said.
His brows knitted together. If there had been some plot against him, which there surely had been, then Orikas had to have known. But if that was the case, why bother testing the voracity of his truth? He struggled to recall how Orikas had reacted to Raphael's presence. What had been said about him? Something about a mother ... And afterwards, when Astarion had stalked past the bar, he'd been muttering something about the book. He kept repeating the name, tracing it as one did a memory.
"Oh okay, fine. Fine!" He said with a scoff of vexation, rolling his eyes. "Just don't go rummaging around where you don't belong."
Orikas nodded, the edges of his eyes flexing. Astarion felt the tadpole squirming behind his eye, clenching his jaw with a hiss. A pain there was no getting used to. The taste of coin pricked Astarion's tastebuds, his lips curling in disgust. There was nothing curious about the probe inside his skull. Orikas maneuvered with efficiency, in seconds began to thumb through the entirety of the tavern's sequence. Sharp pain rang through Astarion's temple. It was as though Orikas had taken a slice of his brain. He grit his teeth and bore the sensation.
Go on then. Have at it. You might think me a bastard, but even a bastard has their reasons.
The tadpole jerked, wriggled, and then fell eerily still. Orikas wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and gave a heavy sigh. He weighed each interpretation of what he had seen in quick succession as Dalaia and Marth exchanged a look of uncertainty. Finally, Orikas gestured to Dalaia.
"Let him go."
"You can't be serious!" She said, whipping around to face him. "Wh-What'd you even see?"
"The truth."
"B-But—"
"Gods, not again. You've roughed me up enough, you don't need to go giving me a migraine as well. I mean really, are you still insisting that I'm solely to blame for this mess? Because as far as I'm aware, you three are here, and dear Fallon is nowhere to be seen, and that seems to imply, if I'm not mistaken, that you had the exact same idea I did. Persecute me all you wa— Actually no! You have no right to. None of you do. If you think I signed her death warrant, then the rest of you notorised it, so you can unhand me already or—"
"Or what?" Dalaia said, her voice reedy.
"Or along with being a coward, you'll also be a hypocrite, and you wouldn't want to feel any worse than you do right now, would you?"
His tone was saccharine, and perhaps it had done the trick (either that or she'd grown intolerant of the sight of him) because she loosened her grip and promptly shoved him to the side. Astarion stumbled from the edge, as far as he dared while avoiding Dalaia's beeline up the slope, regained his poise and began to smooth his clothes. He ought to hold her over the edge, see how she likes it, but Astarion couldn't delude himself. His abilities were nothing to be scoffed at, but even a betting man wouldn't wager his luck on one versus three. He resorted to glowering at her back as Marth shuffled towards him, haunted by a tense frown.
"So, how did you find me?" Astarion said.
"Pretty easy to track a person who's been going in circles."
"I was scouting the area! For the intrusion of present company."
"Right." Marth cleared his throat. "Glad you're ... Well."
Astarion let out a snort. The way he spoke was absurd after Dalaia's melodrama. Maybe they'd all lost their minds, in vastly divergent ways, and had come to individually exact their revenge upon him.
"You'll forgive me for not saying 'and you too'." Astarion muttered, raking his hand through his hair to loosen it of pine needles. "Not sure why you bothered with the detour. I should be the least of your worries. Hells, I would've thought you'd be off aven—"
"She isn't dead. For now," Orikas finished for him.
"I feel there's a better way to put that," Marth said. "She's been captured."
"Thanks, I was struggling with that piece of the puzzle." Astarion said, trying to distract himself from the cloud of dizziness that'd descended upon him at this news. He didn't quite know how to respond, what to think. Relief was not the appropriate tone — in fact, relief was irrelevant. Perhaps alleviated. Assuaged? "Well that's certainly ... An outcome."
Yes, neutrality. This changed nothing. What a truly pointless procession of events, though it never hurt to tie a loose end. He cleared his throat as he considered prying further, but Marth had sensed the invitation.
"That drow's marching with her and the cultists to Moonrise, but not without burning half of the mountain up. Everything's rubble ten miles eitherway, north to south. It's slowed them down at least, although ..." He paused to flinch. "It isn't good. Even from a distance, her condition ..."
"Sounds like the perfect opportunity to go and be a hero, and what a gallant one you'd make." Astarion said, rushing to fill the uncomfortable void that had lingered. "You've burned enough daylight interrogating me, to put it politely."
"It's a small army and we're three, with one unarmed. Dalaia's halberd was lost in the fire. But even if it hadn't been, it'd be impossible," Marth muttered. He shot a quick look over his shoulder towards Dalaia. She had ripped off a branch from a fir, and was beating loudly against its sibling's trunk. "They're nothing to scoff at. In wild shape, I didn't dare get too close. The drow regularly scouts a wide berth around wherever they camp, I swear she doesn't sleep. Taking out more than a dozen, let alone doing so while managing to safely get her out, it's out of the question."
"Impossible odds," Orikas said. "You'll help us."
Astarion snorted. "Like hells I will. This is your mess. You've already said I didn't get anyone killed. My obligation, or allegiance, whatever you wish to call it, has expired."
"Bad luck to owe a favour. Worse luck to turn down a devil."
The scars on Astarion's back throbbed with phantom pain. "While your confidence in me is flattering, four is only one above three."
Orikas shook his head. "Force isn't my concern. Raphael was not only suspicious to you. There's far more to this than an errand. Larger players. Unseen hands."
"That much is obvious," Astarion narrowed his eyes. Marth's foot had begun to tap, incessant against the gravel. "You crafted this hypothesis how?"
"The book. I know of it."
He lowered his voice an octave, glanced over his shoulder. Bright eyes traced not Dalaia, but the stalk of trees, the crag of rock, then sweeping around, the valley itself. He took in a long, deep breath, the tension melting from his face, replaced with heavy reverence. Astarion knew the look, the same that stained the faces of the impending dead. He had called upon his god.
"The Leaves of One Night. Shar." Upon utterance, Orikas folded inwards like a squashed blade of grass. "Her entropy. Her greatest triumph, her greatest weakness. Immense power. Immense ruin."
The breeze turned sharp and sent a shiver up the back of Astarion's neck. When he spoke again, his voice had lowered to meet Orikas's mutter. "Ruin of what exactly?"
"Everything."
'Everything' was not what Astarion heard. Cazador's name was what circled the drum of his ears, and with it, renewed vigour.
"Immense power, you say?"
"Why are you smiling?" Marth said.
Astarion was about to answer but the sound of Dalaia's gasp stopped him. In synchronisation, all three men turned their attention. The tiefling had blanched to the colour of salmon. He didn't have to look far to see why.
A figure had appeared at the top of the slope's high point. At first, Astarion took it for inhuman, more shape than man. It was only when descended, smoothly, as though striding across mist, that the dark cloak settled to a stir, revealing the man beneath.
Human, near the other side of middle aged, and recognizable to none. He was rough at every edge; coarse skinned, mouth corners weighted with a scowl, dark hair pulled high in a tight knot that accentuated his brow's sharp ridge. A leather eyepatch coveted his left eye, betraying only the brutal scars that spilled from beneath, a jagged vertical slash. From his lips hung a wooden pipe, smoke billowing in grey mushrooms before his face. Thick smoke. Dark smoke. Astarion narrowed his gaze, studying the muddy clouds, his eyes catching on the peculiarity. Shadows mingled with the smoke that puffed from the man's nostrils, in thin, beckoning wisps.
Before any of them had so much as breathed, a faint hum broke the quiet. The radiant glow from Orikas's soulknives were bright as the discs of his eyes. The man raised his head, raising the brow above his eyes patch, bunching the skin of his scar. As he opened his mouth, smoke and shadow spilled down the dark stubble of his chin.
"Do you really want to do that, boy?" His voice was a rumble that stirred the dust below his feet. "I don't think you do."
Heeding the warning, Marth grabbed Orikas's shoulder, but it was too late. The knives tore through the air, whistling as they honed in on their target. Mere inches from the man's face, he let out a rough grunt and flicked his wrist as if to unveil a dagger of his own. Instead, umbral curls wrapped the tips of his fingers as he caught the knives with the snap of his palm, gripping them as if they were made of steel.
"What do you call these?" He asked in voice that seemed to shake the ground.
Orikas gawked, his fingers still pressed against his contorted brow. As the man tightened his fist, Orikas's face burned red as a tomato, bloody veins spidering against the jelly of his eyes. A string of incomprehensible grunts fell pitifully to his feet.
"Hmm? Well? I'm waiting."
"He calls them brainblades or mindknives, or whatever," came Astarion's drawl. "Is that what you were looking for?"
He'd come to his conclusion as to who this man was. The shadows, the voice — easily one that could have rasped its prayers to Shar. It must have been some psychic manifestation that he'd heard that night, a kind of tether. Either way, the cards were in his hand as far as he was concerned. For once, a step ahead.
"You've demonstrated your party trick well enough. Let's get to the real reason why you're here. It's her, isn't it? You're after Fallon."
The man turned smoothly to meet Astarion's challenge. Recognition flickered beneath smoke's ashy veneer. Then, he shrugged. He unclasped his hand and shadow took its place, extinguishing the bright light of Orikas's soulknives. Orikas doubled over and gripped his knees, panting.
"You must consider yourself most clever," the man said.
"It's gauche to boast." Astarion strapped a grin to his lips. Gambling on intuition, he strode forward and extended a hand to the stranger. "I'm Astarion, and I must say, it was quite impressive, the whole ..." He paused to clap his fingers against his palm. The man's amusement was fading and the gesture did little to sustain it. "Any who, that's my introduction, and now for yours. Who are you and what do you want with our ... friend."
The man's face was a mask of indifference as he stared at Astarion's open palm, scoffing after a beat.
"Undead, eh?" His good eye burrowed into Astarion. "Exchanging pleasantries is not my forte, and I don't plan on changing that. Both of those questions will simply have to wait."
"Bullshit." Dalaia barked.
Fear swept clean from her face, Dalaia had recovered her colour and courage. In the blink of an eye she was face to face with the man, shoving Astarion to the side and drawing herself to full height. Knuckles cracking in the palm of her hand, she looked him up and down. Somewhat disgruntled, Astarion couldn't deny the woman's nerve, though perhaps this was simply relief that she had found a different target.
"That so?" A smoke ring emerged as he rounded his lips against the vowel. "And why would that be?"
She swiped the air with her bandaged hand, and cleaved the ring in two.
"It's bullshit because it hasn't yet been a tenday and I've already gotten kidnapped by goblins, been coerced to picking up a stowaway, had my hand mangled, almost died in a fire, only to be saved and then immediately threatened with death again, watched our stowaway abandon us, before allowing my best friend to be captured by a bloodthirsty drow. It's bullshit because I've had it to here with people waltzing into our lives," here she shot a look at Astarion, "who don't even bother to wipe their feet before trampling over everything."
She paused to catch her breath, sweeping her eyes not just across the man but the others as well, daring any of them to interrupt her. When none bit at the chance, she continued.
"Whatever lesion you've come to infect upon us, whatever fresh hell you have in store, you can fuck right off with it. I'm not doing this again. So unless you're going to wave your hand and magic my friend from thin air, or fight off the army dragging her by the hair, you can keep your business to yourself, and as far from us as possible. Not in this realm, and not in the next."
Only Dalaia's huffed breathing occupied the silence that followed. He realised he had been wrong to think her unafraid. Upon further inspection, she was shaking like a leaf. You might have my sympathy if you didn't wring me like a damp cloth. Palpable among them was the brace for retaliation. The man took a long inhale of his pipe, and held the tobacco in his lungs for a time, before releasing it in contemplation. His good eye jerked to Astarion.
"To answer your earlier question, you're correct, to an extent. I am here for the girl, but she's of no use to me dead. No, she needs very much to remain alive. I mean no harm, well, no real harm to the four of you."
"What use is she to you?" Orikas said.
"Know of the book, know of my purpose. You're well enough versed in the Lady of Loss, are you not? " At this, Orikas washed to a shade that rivaled Astarion's complexion. "Shadow haunts the path ahead. Trust when I say that will be none of your concern, if you so choose. Walk alone, and you won't make it more than a mile."
The group exchanged a collective glance to Dalaia's hand, the bruises that yellowed on Orikas's palms.
"Do you swear it?" Dalaia's lip quivered but her voice was laced with conviction.
"Hang on, hang on, you can't be serious. You were ready to bite his head off a second ag—"
"I swear it."
Astarion didn't like this one bit, hadn't since the man had put a name to his condition. He had appeared the second the book had been mentioned, almost like he'd been lying in wait. The ruin of everything. That kind of power in the wrong hands was bound to be squandered.
Dalaia nodded and nodded towards Marth. He had spent the past few minutes nervously wringing his hands, as if checking to see if they were still attached to his wrists. Realising he was being called upon, his hands took on dead weight and fell to his sides, slack as his jaw.
"Why, uh, yes, I mean, it all sounds, you know ... If that's what you're all in agreeance about it, yes."
"Then it's settled," Dalaia said.
"No it's not. No it's not 'settled', have you all gone mad?"
"Gods, maybe! But what other choice do we have?" She huffed noisily, but doubt plagued her forehead, and she could no longer hold a level gaze. "Dunno why you're so bothered, you're perfectly free to fuck off now."
"I—"
He was. He was perfectly free. He had alleviated his (not) guilty conscience, guaranteed that he wouldn't need to check around corners for the shadow of retribution, and had any lasting obligations rinsed clean ... But the book. But his scars.
"I never said I didn't want to tag along. I was ... Well, I was simply skeptical that there was any point. But since we've made an acquaintance, perhaps that's ... Changed." He took in a theatrical breath and thrust his hands to the air. "But you're right. Majority rules! I won't be such a sore loser to abandon over a single vote."
He forced a grin on the dour audience, none of whom seemed particularly convinced, but had neither the energy nor patience to speak against him. Taking the silence as an implicit admission of approval, he folded his arms against his chest and turned once more to face down the stranger.
"Now, while I won't question ... this fashioning yourself as a good Samaritan, you can't begrudge me for questioning the method of this promised heroism. Mainly, how are we to trust a man who hasn't yet spared his name."
The man's face took on a strange quality at this question. The half with his good eye grew slack while the other seemed to tighten, as though an invisible hand had reached out to pull the skin taut. After a beat, he reached for the pipe in his mouth and removed it, upending the ash within and shaking clean the wooden implement.
Finally, he looked to the sky above. The murk of the building storm had not worsened since Astarion had first come to settle, but by no means had it thinned. In the distance, low thunder rolled a sigh, startling bird song from the air.
"My name is Drasek Riven, but spare a thought for that friend of yours. Every second's a grain of sand down a bottleneck that's not nearly as slender as you might guess it to be. That's my way of saying we're burning time."
"Oh but, just one measly question won't take an hour to answer," Astarion said. "Humour me just a moment: how exactly do you intend to pry dear Fallon from the clutches of her captors? I'm not sure if you gave heed much to, how did you put it Dalaia, the 'bloodthirsty drow'. She's not alone either, and whatever awaits us in Moonrise Towers, no doubt it'll include an infestation of those cultists. Hardly a string of threats to scoff at."
Drasek didn't waste a beat before answering.
"By courting a private audience with General Ketheric Thorm."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
AUTHOR'S NOTES
i. long time no see!! sorry i took forever to update, the gap between publishing was fertile ground for me to have mad anxiety about the quality of my writing. i've gone over this an agonising amount of times and im just gonna publish it bc otherwise im gonna be stuck in rewrite hell for another month.
this was also originally meant to be one chapter but i eventually decided to split it down the middle for pacing, so the second half will not involve a three month gap (i swear).
ii. tysm for all the lovely comments and support! im rly glad it's resonated so far with u guys, bc when i started writing it, i was convinced i'd have like 5 people reading. hopefully you'll like where i take the story! i have so many terrible things planned <33