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Chapter Text

You very nearly raze Last Light to the ground. The Harpers you saved lead your group to the edge of a protective ward, the eye of the storm hidden within these cursed lands. The guards at the gate greet you with weapons drawn—in your limited experience, that seems to be the only type of getting you ever get.

Your pet Harper holds up a hand. “This group is with me.”

The Harper on guard nods once, then turns and beckons you to follow. The Harper leads your group across the bridge and you all take the chance to observe this strange bubble of peace hidden within ruin. The eerie silence of the Shadow-Cursed Lands gives way to the familiar bustle of a frontier outpost. For days now, you’ve moved through an unsettling landscape with only your own voices to keep you company. The darkness of the Shadow-Cursed Lands swallows noise as surely as it swallows light. As you traverse the long-dead ground, your eyes dart between the rotted trees and twisted branches. All manner of beasts find comfort in the dark.

Much like the Emerald Grove, scouts patrol the perimeter of Last Light Inn. Civilians wait further in, using the Harpers as a bulwark against the encroaching shadow. Chatter between soldiers, clanging iron, and the faint sound of music fills the air, bringing life back to this cold, barren land. The chill of darkness fades away beneath the moon’s caress.

Your erstwhile guide calls out a name you’ve never heard, but it rings familiar all the same. “Jaheira!”

Pure agony lances through your fractured skull. White-hot rage blooms behind your eye. That name is a spark that sets the firewine in your veins alight. You feel the clench of your fingers, the sharp points of your teeth against your tongue, and the beast inside you howls for blood. The tadpole in your brain squirms as your anger threatens to boil it alive. You stumble, gripping at your temple. Your thumb presses against the seam of your eye and you briefly consider tearing it out to. If you can reach through your eye socket to the part of your brain touched by hellfire, you can crush the gray matter in your hands. Perhaps then, the pain will stop. Your momentary lapse in focus is enough for Jaheira to call forth a tangle of vines that ensnares you and your allies..

You hunch over, upper body continuing forward as the ground swallows your feet whole. Your gaze whips up, clawed fingers pulling away from your eye. When you look upon the fools holding you hostage, you see them all dead by your hand. Already, you can feel the crunch of their bones beneath your heels. If you blink, you may just find your dream a reality when next you open your eyes.

You pant through the pain in your skull, squinting through visions of slaughter at the woman who’s ensnared you. The red veins pulsing at the edge of your eyes wreathes the strange druid in a bloody halo. She holds her arm up, hand curled into a tight fist, against a backdrop of pale moonlight. Her face remains shadowed, silhouette swimming in front of your blurred vision.

You don’t need to see her face to know you want to wear her skin as a suit.

You flash a feral grin at her, all bared, sharpened teeth. “Just this once, I wish people would simply say hello,” you hiss through a clenched jaw.

A smirk curls at the corners of Jaheira’s mouth. “Hello,” she says simply, hand still clenched tight.

Your smug, arrogant sense of humor is far less amusing when you find yourself trapped on the opposite side. Your upper lip curls back in a sneer that does nothing to unsettle Jaheira’s calm, unyielding demeanor. That just makes you angrier. Your already burning blood bleeds through your skin, into your palms. The Weave turns your cursed blood into unholy fire, winding between your fingers.

“Is this how you thank everyone that saves your soldiers?” you growl, your legs uselessly pulling against your bindings.

“No.” Jaheira watches your struggle with thinly veiled amusement. “Only the ones that we find in bed with the Cult.”

For all the power contained within this stolen body, all the strength it once held is gone. Your muscles remember that they used to be strong. You’ve hauled bodies twice your size without breaking a sweat, wielded a sword with enough force to cut a grown man in half. Sometimes that instinct takes over still and you try to move a wardrobe that you once could have pushed with ease. But you woke up on the nautiloid weak and impotent, every muscle in your body atrophied beyond recognition.

You no longer have the strength to break through these vines. It disgusts you to be brought low by something so mundane.

Wyll steps in to back you up. “It’s an honor to meet someone who has done so much for Baldur’s Gate.” Jaheira visibly resists the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m Wyll Ravengard, the Blade of Frontiers!” Jaheira resists the urge to roll her eyes even harder. “Your suspicion is understandable, but on my honor, we only come seeking refuge from the Shadow Curse.”

“Wyll.” She regards him with narrowed eyes, her gaze piercing through his armor to the devil underneath. “It’s been quite some time. The horns are new, but I’d be lying if I said you didn’t wear them well.”

“You know Jaheira?” Karlach gasps.

For his part, Wyll looks slightly taken aback. “Apologies, High Harper, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember us crossing paths.”

Jaheira’s answering laugh is warm and gentle, incongruous with her still clenched fist. “You wouldn’t. You were very young.” She places the side of her free hand against her hip, showing a much younger Wyll’s height. “It was before your father became Marshal of the Fist.”

Her mouth pulls into a thin line as she watches Wyll. You sense there’s a litany of words pressed against the back of her teeth, held at bay only by her ironclad self-control. Finally she tears her eyes away and regards the rest of you with that same measured gaze. Her age is apparent in the lines on her weathered face, but also in the way she carries herself. She holds herself resolute and firm against all that walk out of the shadows. A dozen soldiers look to her for guidance, waiting on her command, fingers held on the triggers of their crossbows. They are prepared to fight and die at Jaheira’s word. She is a leader, just as you are. But unlike you, she has earned the title over a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears. You were thrust into the role because no one else could keep your group together.

“Many people come here seeking refuge from the Shadow Curse—even those that would seek to cause us harm.” Jaheira reaches into her pocket and withdraws a familiar vial, the same bottle of cranial fluid you’ve found every tadpole submersed in. “If your intentions are as pure as you say, then you have nothing to fear.”

She holds out the jar, and as it nears, you feel the tadpole brush against your mind, seeking connection as all the others have. You growl at the offending creature as it lets out a delighted chirp and spins in circles. All humor on Jaheira’s face drains as a shadow of grief clouds her eyes.

“This curious creature still holds many mysteries. But it knows its own kind.” She slips the vial back into the pocket of her robes and looks upon the party with a cold, bitter resignation. “You should never have come here, True Souls.”

Your eyes dart to the faces of the Harpers you saved and find them all pointing their crossbows at your chest. Ungrateful heathens, when I’m done with you only ashes will remain. The phantom pain of a dozen bolts pierces the gaps between your ribs. The Harper witch won’t listen to reason and you’re less than a second from being turned into a glorified pincushion. You need to make it out of here, you need to carve a path through the brambles. You led your group into the lion’s den so now you must take its head.

While Jaheira’s attention remains on Wyll, you bend at the waist and bury your hands in the mass of vines. They immediately ensnare your wrists, thorns digging into your exposed flesh. You ignore the pain and reach deep for the primordial spark within you—the font of raw magic that forms your soul. You gather all that pure, arcane energy and push it into the ends of your fingertips. Magic surges from your palms into the ground below. You are the Weave molded into flesh and when you bid the earth to unspool beneath your hands, reality warps at your command.

A surge of wild magic bears down on nature’s grasp. Druids may hold sway over the natural world, but how strong is that clenched fist when nature has no hold over you? The vines shudder and immediately shrink away beneath the assault of arcane energy. However, while your command of the Weave is strong indeed, it is also volatile. The force and urgency of your command fractures the Weave between your hands. When you unleash a blast of raw energy on the earth, an errant strand slips through your fingers and catches fire. A ripple of flame spreads across the ground with you at the center. All your companions and the onlooking Harpers get singed by the blast.

The resulting damage is barely a scratch. But it does sting like a motherfucker. All your companions hiss, used to the threat of self-immolation where you’re concerned. Jaheira stumbles back at the sudden burst of energy. The light of druidic magic in her palm flickers like a candle in the wind. Her control over her own magic weakens beneath your onslaught. You keep pushing, pouring more of your soul ito the soil.

Your resistance only serves to anger her further. With a growl, she, too, bends down and touches her hands to the earth. The Shadow-Cursed Lands may be desolate and bleak, its spirit drained over the decades by Shar’s blight. But nature endures. Through curse, and plague, and ash, and ruin, the land’s spirit persists, lying in wait. Decades, or even centuries may pass before it can return. But it always does—when the rot is cleared away, life will return and heal the scars. All that untapped power lies far below the surface, now. All Jaheira needs to do is excavate the earth, carve a path through the soil, and life will bloom into her hands.

She rises, pulling at the earth with both hands, capturing your own fire in her palm. “Stand down.” A deep, throaty roar erupts from her mouth, wild and feline. “Or we’ll put you down!”

Her power fortifies the thick brambles knotted around your legs. They tighten, thorns digging into your flesh, drawing blood. You feel your very bones protest, her vines threatening to snap your legs in two. She’s much stronger than you expected. Not only that, but you’re vastly outnumbered by her Harpers. Your eyes dart around, frantically looking for a solution, a way out. If she won’t even listen to Wyll’s plea for negotiation there’s no hope for you. You rack your brain for a way out, something you can say to stall for time.

“If you kill us a bomb will go off and level everything from here to Moonrise,” you blurt out.

Jaheira raises an eyebrow at you, clearly unimpressed. “I’m not interested in the Absolute’s manipulations.” Jaheira looks over her shoulders, nodding to the soldiers at the ready. “Harpers—cut these True Souls down!”

You’re out of time. You don’t like your chances against these numbers, but if the other option is standing here and watching your companions be skewered by a dozen crossbow bolts, then… You’ll do what you have to to survive. You haven’t come this far to be cut down now. You reach inward for the primordial spark of your beating heart and prepare to unravel it. An emergent Fireball dances at your fingertips against a backdrop of shadow. It will burn the vines away. If you’re lucky, the Harpers will be stunned by the flames long enough to give you a head start.

A familiar voice cuts off your cast. “Stop!” Mol shrieks, her voice growing closer as her feet pound against the earth. “What are you doing? They’re the ones who saved us!”

Mol skids to a stop, hands on her knees as she pants for air. She looks quickly to Jaheira, holding earth and fire in her hands. Mol then turns to you, your growing Fireball easy for all the Harpers to spot. You’re briefly annoyed that Mol’s meddling cost you your best chance at escape. But Mol’s body visibly sags in relief upon seeing you unharmed and you can’t help the burst of fondness in your chest. She reminds you of a certain rogue that you’ve grown quite attached to.

Jaheira turns to regard the tiefling girl, looking between her and your… eclectic group. “They’re the ones who protected the Emerald Grove?” she asks in disbelief.

“Yup. Didn’t leave a goblin standing.” Mol smiles, bright and cheeky.

You meet Mol’s gaze with warmth in your eyes, a gentleness that you rarely allow to surface. “It’s a hobby of mine.”

You can hear the smirk in Mol’s voice. “Not so bad to hang around with, either.” She looks to Jaheira, making full use of her youthful, round eye. “Saved two of my friends—one from a harpy, and one from a mad druid with a snake.”

Those memories echo from such a long time ago. It’s only been two months at most, but for you it’s been your entire life. The encounters with Arabella and Mirkon were some of the first things you did upon reaching the Grove. You were a different person, then, aimlessly shambling through the forest, purposeless and empty. That was before you grew to appreciate your companions, back when they were little more than convenient meat shields. But things have changed since then—you’ve changed. You’ve found purpose, and you’re no longer a mere passenger on the tides of fate. Now you’re a sailor, directing the winds of change. Mol and her group were some of the first people to see anything good in you.

“I’d pretty much trust them with my life.”

It’s a heavy burden, one you hardly deserve. You’re the last person anyone should entrust with their safety. Alfira did, and it was the last mistake she ever made. Yet somehow, people keep doing just that. Every day your companions trust you with their lives. You don’t deserve it, but you’ve vowed to take on that mantle even so. You still keep Mirkon’s story tucked into the seam of your robes. You pull it out by the fireside every once in a while, and remind yourself that before you even knew who you were, someone once saw you as a hero. And here Mol is now, returning the favor.

“True Souls with minds of their own…” Jaheira mutters under her breath. “How is that possible?”

She watches you with narrowed eyes. Your hand still hangs in the air, frozen in the middle of tracing the runes for Fireball. A ball of fire collects in your hand, which Jaheira glares at pointedly. In turn, you eye the dozen or so crossbows still pointed at you and let flames wind between your fingers.

“Our tadpoles have unionized and decided the Cult’s working conditions are inhumane.” That earns a cut-off laugh from Astarion and an aggrieved sigh from Shadowheart.

Jaheira herself smirks once again. “I find that’s all too often the case with cults.”

That’s because followers are cattle bred for the slaughter. The intensity of that thought catches you off-guard. It streaks across your mind in a flash of lightning, then disappears just as quickly.

Jaheira continues, ignorant of your violent thoughts. “But now is not the time for jokes. The real answer, now.”

Once more, your eyes dart to all the crossbows levied at you. You aren’t exactly keen on sharing the existence of the artefact with anyone who asks. Considering the last people who realized you had it tried to kill you, you think your unease reasonable. If the Dream Visitor is to be believed, that artefact is the only thing keeping the tadpole dormant. If the cult was to learn of it, no doubt they would hunt you down as surely as the githyanki. You can’t risk that information falling into the wrong hands. It’s better to play these cards close to your chest.

You tilt your head back in a nod towards Lae’zel. “Our githyanki ally was able to place a ward on us to put the tadpole into stasis shortly after it was implanted.”

You’re hoping Jaheira doesn’t know enough about githyanki to call that bluff. It’s a fair guess, from your limited experience, most people who encounter a githyanki don’t live to tell the tale. Jaheira’s chances of meeting one are slim, nor would she have reason to learn. Wisdom gained from a century’s worth of travels narrows her eyes. You stand tall, face carefully blank beneath her gaze.

After a long moment, Jaheira unclenches her fist with a sigh. The vines slither back into the earth, and you nearly tumble forward at the sudden shift in balance. Wyll catches you with an arm on your shoulder, and you straighten your spine, ignoring the weakness in your knees.

“Congratulations,” she says with cautious intrigue. “You’ve earned yourself the benefit of the doubt.”

She looks back over her shoulder at the soldiers that make up the defense against the shadows. “Hear me, Harpers! All clear, at ease!”

Just as quickly as they’d raised their crossbows, the Harpers lower them. Across their faces flit errant wisps of emotion, as fickle and malleable as the tides. Confusion, interest, distrust, hope. You quickly avert your gaze, refusing to confront the breathless anticipation that these soldiers wield as surely as their blades. You allow the mote of darkness in your palm to disperse back into the Shadow Curse.

When you look to Jaheira, her gaze locks with yours, a far off glimmer of hope hidden behind the wisdom in her eyes. “I’ll not pretend to understand why you, the enigma that you are, suddenly crossed our path.” She tilts her head, looking at you like a puzzle she’s trying to solve. “But I’m old and wise enough to recognize a sliver of hope when it crawls out of the dark.”

You bark out a bitter laugh. “That’s not how this works,” you sneer. “You don’t get to hold a blade to my allies’ necks, then turn around and ask them to wield it for you.”

A dozen hope-filled eyes dim at your callous response. Your jaw clenches, bone grinding against bone inside your skull. Your blood burns once again, and flames wind down the length of your legs, in direct contrast to Jaheira’s vines, scorching the ground from which Jaheira draws her power. These people are lucky Mol came to their aid before you dragged them from their safe haven and watched shadows crawl down their throats. Their hope means nothing to you and you have no desire to carry it on your shoulders. How arrogant of this woman and her band of meddlers to attack you, then saddle you with their hope because of the very thing they sought to kill you for.

Hope is a heavy burden. All too easily, it becomes a shackle, binding you to the earth when you were born to soar. You carry it on your allies’ behalf, and chain yourself to their happiness. You dedicate yourself to blazing a trail through the unknown, finding the path to a future where they are free. For them it’s easy, natural. Why wouldn’t you give everything you have for the people that form your entire world? But your devotion is a gift that the Harpers have done nothing to earn. Every wretched part of you—mind, body, and soul—belongs to the people that walk by your side. There is no space for anything else, certainly not for the Harpers’ desires.

Jaheira stays quiet through your outburst, watching you with an even gaze. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know she’s reading your expression, just as you’ve done so many times before.

“We very rarely get to choose our heroes.” An old wound opens in Jaheira’s chest, an ache that never quite heals. “More often than not, ‘heroes’ are made when some fool gambles against fate and loses.” She finally breaks eye contact with you, her gaze carefully looking over your allies. She raises her chin high, her presence imposing despite her small stature. “In times like these, we do what must be done. When you are the only one who can—you do whatever it takes.”

You immediately balk at her words. “I am not your hero,” you spit through bared teeth.

Jaheira simply raises an eyebrow. Pointedly, she turns her head to look at Mol, still standing a few meters away. Mol beams at her, continuing to pout adorably in the hopes of swaying Jaheira’s opinion of you. Jaheira is far too old to be swayed by a child’s whims. But she can’t deny how the glimmering starlight in Mol’s eyes sparks hope in her weary heart.

Slowly, Jaheira turns back to face you fully. “I don’t think that’s for you to decide.”

You clench your fists, nails drawing blood from the meat of your palms. It takes all your strength to hold back the bloody rage burning beneath your breastbone. These people are so naïve to think you a vessel for hope and salvation. You may have saved the tieflings, you may even have come to be fond of them, but that doesn’t change who you are at your core. Even if you wear the skin of a lamb, you are still a wolf, a predator biding its time to strike. No matter how kind you are, the beast inside you will demand blood.

“You can spit fire and ash all you like, but you cannot force people to stop sharing your story.” Jaheira smirks to herself, and deadpans, “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Her words hit you in the center of your chest with the force of an Eldritch Blast. Why does it matter to you that Jaheira knew your actions before she knew your face? That the refugees described you as a hero, they told her you saved them? It shouldn’t matter. Jaheira and the Harpers can believe whatever nonsense they want to about you. It won’t make a difference in the end. Your purpose is clear—you are to protect your allies at any cost. That is what you must do. Nothing else matters.

“I will give you time to collect your thoughts,” Jaheira finally says. “There’s food in the Inn over there. Beds too if you require rest. Aloe oil in the cupboard if the vines gave you a rash.”

You glance down at your hands, turning them over and inspecting your palms. They’re certainly red and irritated from your efforts to escape. But your hands are weathered, scars and calluses decorating your skin just the same as the rest of your body.

You can’t help but think of the long vertical incision down your stomach, and the knotted scar at the base of your skull. “I’ve had worse,” you call simply.

Jaheira nods. “Settle in, then come join me for a drink. You may be just the godsend we’ve been praying for.”

A growl builds in the back of your throat. Your teeth nearly shred the inside of your mouth when you speak. “I’m here in spite of the gods, not because of them.”

Jaheira pauses mid-turn. She looks over her shoulder at you, brows furrowed. A faint chord sounds from deep within the halls of her memory, where a string has been plucked. She feels it resonate through her body every time she lays eyes on you. But no matter how much she searches, she can never find the path to unravel it. She knows that if she could only find the path through the labyrinth in her mind, that missing puzzle piece would make everything fall into place. The world would make sense again. But right now, it is beyond her reach and she has much more pressing problems.

Still, though, when your eyes meet, she knows that history is written in the shadow of your footprints. “Good!” Jaheira surprises you with a sudden laugh.. “Stoke that fire burning in your eyes. You’ll need it to light your way through the dark!”

Your eyes follow her until she disappears behind the Inn’s doors. The Harpers that had held you under fire mere seconds ago give you a wide berth as they ease back into their tasks. After all that trouble, she’s just going to let you wander freely? You glance around, expecting to see a heavily armed escort shadowing your group. But in only a handful of minutes, the excitement over the newcomers fades away to make room for vigilance. Someone needs to stand against the shadows and protect the refugees taking shelter in the Moonmaiden’s light. The Harpers will take up the mantle when no one else will.

You can feel Karlach vibrating with excitement as she steps up behind you, a warm glow diffusing across your back as she draws near. “I can’t believe you never told us you knew Jaheira!” she gushes.

Karlach pouts at Wyll, though you can see the distant glimmer behind her eye. Wyll, too, is smart enough to know when he’s being teased and smiles back at her fondly.

“I would hardly say I know her, I’ve only heard about her secondhand through my father and that was”—he pauses to swallow—“many, many years ago. I should remember meeting her, but I must have been young enough that she was just another of Father’s allies.”

Karlach groans, reaching up to shake Wyll’s shoulders, but curling her hands into fists before their skin touches. “Sometimes I forget that you’re nobility,” she groans. “Jaheira is my hero.”

“Chk. Do your heroes often hold you at knifepoint?” Lae’zel scoffs.

“Yeah, that’s the best part!” Karlach says with a bright smile.

With her, it’s impossible to tell whether she’s joking. You’re of similar minds in that respect—the adrenaline rush of someone holding your life in their hands is just another type of lust. The wash of relief when you cut them down feels like benediction. You can’t help but chance a look at Astarion, only to find him looking directly at you. He raises his eyebrows with a wicked smirk. He winks at you before looking away, the smug grin never leaving his face.

Gale’s voice pulls you from your thoughts. “Her caution is understandable. No doubt she’s encountered all manner of deception during her adventures,” he states. “Many in her position would lack the bravery to take a leap of faith in granting us mercy.”

“Her name sounds familiar,” you hedge carefully. “Is she someone I should know?”

Shadowheart looks at you, eyes wide in sheer disbelief. “I don’t remember the vast majority of my life, and even I know who Jaheira is.”

“Congratulations.” Your voice is bitter like the winds over the Shadowlands.

“Do they not talk about the Bhaalspawn Crisis in Menzoberranzan?” Karlach asks.

A cold chill that has nothing to do with the wind crawls down your spine. “They must not.” You force your voice out as your throat closes around it in a vice.

“Years ago—over a century—Jaheira was part of a group that saved Baldur’s Gate from Sarevok. A Bhaalspawn trying to plunge the city into war,” Karlach explains.

Your body acts on its own; your lungs seize in your chest, your hands shake, and your jaw trembles, teeth nearly chattering with the force. You have to pull every muscle in your body taut to still your shivers. In your time following the Absolute’s trail, you’ve suffered all manner of wounds—you’ve been stabbed, bitten, burned, bled. That pain feels like benediction. Only through slaughter and bloodshed can you make yourself whole.

But the hollow ache against your ribs is more painful than all of them. This is the pain you felt when you watched Astarion’s hope shatter on the Morninglord’s altar. The ache you felt for Astarion lived in your heart for three days, feeding off your pain and misery as surely as Astarion himself fed off your blood. But the ache you feel now lives in the marrow of your bones, so deep that cutting it out would take what little you have left of yourself.

A stone weighs your tongue against the floor of your mouth. Needles press against the backs of your eyes, and you know if you so much as blink, they’ll pierce through. You can’t force any words past the vice grip of your throat. You can only stand frozen beneath the light of the pale moon as cold, bitter agony ebbs and flows through your veins.

What is this, you wonder. Why does this wretched heart ache like it’s been torn from its cradle? You touch a hand to your chest, checking to make sure your heart still beats within. It does, steady and strong against your hand. Why, then, does it hurt?

This ache is familiar, if far more intense than any you have felt to date. It’s the ache you feel when you envision a future built atop Gale’s bones, the pain you felt as you spent three days digging through rubble to find Astarion. This is grief. This is loss.

But why does an old legend bring you closer to the Nightbringer’s embrace?

“My mum used to tell us stories about them—the legends who protected the city from evil. She said Jaheira was a powerful druid. Adamant. Tough.”

You should be paying attention to Karlach’s description of Jaheira, you should be probing for any information she and Wyll have on the woman who just threatened your life. But the only thought in your head is that Karlach was once as small as the tiefling children from the Grove. Small enough to fit in her mother’s lap and listen to fairytales.

“Clearly, the stories I heard were very different.” Shadowheart says, eyeing the nearby Harpers with thinly veiled disdain.

“And pray tell, what childhood stories do they tell the brats raised in your… cloister?” Astarion asks, chin perched on the back of his hand as he watches Shadowheart with intrigue.

Shadowheart furrows her brow, the way she always does when trying to recall events from her past. “We were taught not to listen to people’s words but to watch their actions. Jaheria and her Harpers too often use goodwill as a shield to deflect from the manipulations they use.”

“Fascinating,” Astarion hums, an even mixture of amused and incredulous. “And you truly believe that don’t you?”

Shadowheart bristles, shoulders tensing as she shoots him a glare. “You’re the last person I’d expect to come to the Harper’s defense.”

Astarion waves his hand dismissively. “Oh, I’m not. I just don’t think they have the brains to manipulate anything.” He mirrors the disdain in Shadowheart’s expression as a Harper passes nearby. “They’re far too inept for that.”

Shadowheart hums in agreement, while Karlach’s brows furrow in indignation. “They stopped Bhaal didn’t they? That seems like a success to me.”

“Jaheira stopped Bhaal while the rest of the Harpers allowed a group of abominations to slaughter people in the streets.”

Karlach crosses her arms over her chest, her disagreement clear in her sharp frown. But she holds her tongue, recognizing the futility in trying to argue with Astarion on morality. She and Wyll have been trying for the past month; while they’ve gained ground with you and seeded doubts in Shadowheart’s mind, any attempts to sway Astarion’s misanthropic viewpoint only serve to make him dig in his heels and cling to a lifeline woven from bitterness even as his anger weighs him down.

Karlach averts her eyes, looking past Astarion and Shadowheart over the rest of the outpost. A soft silver glow cloaks the scenery. As much as Karlach misses the sun, she can’t deny the beauty of a land bathed in moonlight. There was neither sun nor moonlight in Avernus, no crisp autumn air, or clear rivers flowing to the sea. In the Hells, there was only the thick fog of sulphur and bitter ashes between her teeth. Every day was the same, no phases of the moon or rising tides to track the flow of time. There was only fire and brimstone and pain and blood. But time moved forward even still. Days became months became years and the young soldier she used to be became a heartless warrior, fueled by the bloodthirst and hellfire.

Astarion isn’t alone in his rage. She has anger, too. Karlach’s fury burns so bright within her heart that the warmth of her scorched skin rivals that of the sun. Astarion’s anger is a poison, silent and insidious where Karlach’s is a bright star, searing her from the inside out. But what point is there in being angry at the world when for the first time in ten years, she can feel joy instead? She doesn’t understand why Astarion and Shadowheart hold onto their despair so tightly when there is evidence of hope all around them.

Karlach’s unfocused gaze lands on a small barn housing a makeshift forge. Karlach’s eyes focus sharply, and she sees a familiar face. At the same time, that face sees hers, too. Dammon pauses, catching sight of your group across the yard. After a moment of surprise, his face breaks into a gentle smile, and he offers a small wave.

Karlach’s frown melts away into a beaming smile, moonlight turning her eyes a brilliant gold. “Look, it’s Dammon!” she calls to the rest of the group.

She immediately jogs a couple steps forward, bounding like a displacer beast. Her whole body lightens, the tension and unease that she’s been carrying since you entered the Shadowlands sloughs off like a second skin.

She pauses and looks at you over her shoulder, feet shuffling in place. “We should go say hi!”

She watches you expectantly. You meet her hopeful eyes with your normal black expression. It isn’t until suffering through a few moments of awkward silence that you realize she’s waiting for permission.

You cough a laugh into your fist. “Go on. You don’t need my permission.”

You didn’t think it was possible, but Karlach’s smile widens. Without another word she turns and jogs briskly over to Dammon. Warmth fills your chest at the giddy skip in her step. Chancing a look at the rest of your group, you see a similar fondness in all of them. Even Lae’zel wears an echo of a smile, and Astarion hides his behind his hand. Karlach isn’t one for stealth, but she easily slips through one’s defenses and finds her way to their heart. She’s extremely easy to care for. You’re glad that the others feel the same way. You’d have to kill them otherwise.

You follow Karlach towards Dammon. The sheer joy on his face at seeing your group is a welcome change from the Harpers’ greeting. You offer him a friendly wave as you approach, he accepts it with a nod, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Karlach!” he greets. He instinctively begins to reach out to her, but quickly remembers himself and thumbs at the clasp of his blacksmith’s apron. “And the rest of you!” His eyes pass over each of your companions, the warmth of his forge shining in his gaze. “So glad you’re all right. Well”—he gestures at your gloomy surroundings—“as all right as any of us.”

“We were until Jaheira decided to make us fixtures in her garden.” You hold up your palms, showing him the scratches where thorns pierced your skin. You pointedly turn your head to look at the bridge, in full view of Dammon’s forge. You look back at Dammon with a raised brow. “I certainly hope you enjoyed the show,” you tease without any bite.

Dammon follows your gaze, blinking. “Oh, you were the ones making all that noise?”

“No, no, we were perfectly well-behaved. Jaheira thought to Entangle us without even saying hello.” You sniff haughtily.

A gentle laugh rumbles in Dammon’s chest. “She has good reason to be wary, your group is formidable.” A wide grin breaks out over his face. “It’s a good thing you’re on our side.”

Hearing those words hollows you out, leaving you cold and empty. The autumn wind whistles through your ribs. You’re fond of Dammon—now. But not that long ago, you would have killed him without a second thought. When you first walked down the winding path inside the Grove and spied Dammon at his forge, you took note of his tools. Heavy bricks of iron and steel, tongs, a vice. They were the pens and paintbrushes from which you would mold hope into tragedy. Oh, how the devilspawn would burn when you pinned his back against the forge. You salivated, already tasting his seared flesh. Would it smell like brimstone dissolving on your tongue?

It was only the presence of your allies and your own sense of self-preservation that stayed your hand. If you had spilled his blood into the forge and molded a blade from its iron, you would have stolen Karlach’s life from her before you ever met. Dammon is an ally now, one you trust to take care of someone you treasure more than death itself. His and Karlach’s affection is a gift that you hold close to your heart. Had you killed them as your wicked blood desired, you would have stolen this moment from yourself, too.

“So why aren’t you in Baldur’s Gate?” you ask. “Given Mol saved us, I’m guessing the others are here?”

Minus the dead ones you looted on your way to Last Light.

Dammon grimaces. “We were ambushed by cultists,” he says with a sigh. “Half of us were captured, the other half ran here.”

You had been able to deduce as much from the carnage you saw. You had knelt over Ikaron’s cold, stiff body and searched through his pockets. Less than a month ago you convinced him to have a drink at the party. He had sat in the corner of camp, glaring at everyone for daring to celebrate the coming dawn. You shoved a drink into his hand and told him to get over himself. He didn’t take kindly to your harsh words, but by the end of the night, he’d drained the goblet and wore a faint smile.

Now, he lay dead on the side of the road. In the end, his worthless guilt did nothing to honor the people who lost their lives.

“Whose foolish idea was it to cut straight through the Shadowlands?” you asked incredulously. “Not Zevlor, surely?”

The man was a coward, but not an idiot.

“I believe that was Cerys,” Dammon hums. “You’ll have to ask her for the details. Unfortunately, Zevlor was… captured.” Dammon winces, the muscles in his jaw tensing.

Dimly, resentment and betrayal flickers in the depths of his eyes. It glows for a moment, and then it’s gone. Gentleness returns to Dammon’s gaze, bitterness flushed from the electric blue of his eyes. There’s something there—more to the story that Dammon refuses to share. You narrow your eyes, but hold your tongue.

“Off the anvil, into the forge. We’ll find them—hopefully.” Karlach nods, as much to assure herself as Dammon

“Again?” Lae’zel spits behind you, brows furrowed in a mix of anger and confusion. “After all the time we wasted fighting their battles?”

Shadowheart puts an arm between Lae’zel and Dammon. “Watch yourself, Lae’zel,” she hisses.

“I would worry less about me and worry more about the kainyaki that do not know when they are outmatched,” she spits, the glow from the forge glinting off her pointed teeth. “Jhe’quith dvenzir. You denied them the chance to grow stronger and now the whole has suffered for it.”

“These people are civilians,” Wyll attempts to argue. “They wouldn’t have stood a chance against the goblins.”

“Just as they didn’t stand a chance on the road without our constant protection,” Lae’zel turns on him with a snarl. “Protecting the frail killed the soldiers stationed here and delivered more bodies into the Absolute’s hands!”

“Tentacles.” Your mouth moves faster than your mind can follow.

The glare Lae’zel levels at you is scathing. “What?”

Unable to back down from a challenge, you raise your chin and meet Lae’zel’s slitted eyes. “The Absolute doesn’t have hands. They have tentacles.”

Shadowheart lets out a weary sigh and puts her forehead in her hands.

Lae’zel’s body trembles with incandescent fury, nostrils flaring as her lips pull back to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth. “Is that one of your jokes, istik?” she seethes.

Over time, you learned that much of Lae’zel’s aggression was simply githyanki culture. Her harsher edges have worn down ever so slightly over your travels, as she’s learned how to navigate Faerûn alongside you. The idea of her familiar candor being true anger seems laughable, now that she regards you with a look bordering on pure hatred. You recognize her expression as the one she wore the first time you asked about Orpheus. Her burning eyes pin you in place and stuff your mouth with cotton. You open your mouth, but nothing escapes.

Your silence only serves to make her eyes burn hotter. “Answer me,” she demands.

Everyone in the party knows that your stubborn arrogance will be your downfall. “No,” you say.

A lifetime of military training pulls Lae’zel’s spine ramrod straight. She’s one of the shortest members of your group, and yet her anger looms over your head. “You are not jhe’stil and you will not speak to me as such,” she snarls. “You will break your back carrying the burdens of anyone you meet, risking all our lives, but you will not do the one thing I have ever asked of you—that my queen asked of you!”

She hasn’t looked at you with such pure hatred since the day you met, when you stumbled out of your pods and she mistook you for a thrall. In the few seconds before you opened your mouth and heard your own voice for the first time, Lae’zel had been prepared to strike you down. Had it not been for your minds melding, she would have done so without regret. The disgust-tinted anger she levels at you now makes you think she wishes she had. The Urge wishes you had, too. It would have been an easy kill, to shove her from the nautiloid when she turned her back. That was before you met the others—they would be none the wiser and your Urge would have been sated.

You feel sick and small beneath her glare, something heavy and rotten twists in your gut. It’s different from the Urge—painful where the Urge is a ravenous hunger. Your chest is cavernous and empty and all you want to do is crawl inside your ribcage to hide from the sun. But you’re no coward, and this animal instinct to run and hide turns you feral. You are not prey to be hunted, cowering out of sight. You are a predator waiting to separate a lamb from its herd.

Anger rises in your throat—it’s far easier than accepting your failure.

“Your queen would have killed us either way! You’re smart enough to know that, Lae’zel!” you shout.

“And if she had Crèche Y’llek would still be standing!”

All of your anger snuffs out like a flame, leaving a vacuum of smoke and soot where it scorched your skin. The thick ichor of guilt and shame pools in your belly. Where anger and joy feel exhilarating, guilt is stagnant. You fall into it, and shame binds your legs, leaving you to drown. All you can do is wallow in the pain and hope that the knots around your wrists unfurl.

“You refused to heed my queen’s orders, you forced my kin to suffer a shameful death, you denied me ascension—yet I am the one named hshar’lak,” Lae’zel growls.

Your mouth pulls into a tight grimace. Lae’zel’s fury is entirely deserved. You were lucky it took this long for Lae’zel’s anger to overflow. Had she gone for the kill while Astarion was dead, you’re not sure you could have picked up the pieces. You know Vlaakith would have killed Lae’zel for the Astral Prism. You don’t regret sparing the Guardian’s life, nor standing against Vlaakith. Lae’zel’s life is far more important to you than her loyalty. But you regret seizing the Blood of Lathander—an ill-gotten treasure wasn’t worth the devastation it wrought. The anguish you saw in Astarion’s eyes still haunts your dreams. As you ran to the monastery’s edge, every footstep sent a shockwave of agony through your bones—every part of your soul screamed at you to stay. When you touched solid ground, the mountainside shook with Lathander’s fury, and you whipped around just in time to see the monastery disintegrate before your eyes. Your heart crumbled with it, knowing that Astarion was there, somewhere beneath the rock. You had never felt guilt before that moment. You hadn’t known what it meant to fail, but you do now. You will remember turning your back on him for the rest of your days.

Your own worthless guilt blinded you to the fact that Lae’zel had done just the same. You forced her to abandon her kin a dozen times over. You were so worried about Astarion in the aftermath that you never checked in on Lae’zel. From the glares full of hellfire and the harsh words meant to pierce your armor, you knew Lae’zel was angry. You thought it best to give her space to come to terms with everything that happened. But who would check in on Lae’zel if not you? Is it not your job as leader to make sure she’s taken care of? That you so badly failed someone you’d sworn to protect guts you. Shame climbs up your neck like knotted ivy, and forces you to look away.

Lae’zel pants in the wake of her outburst, chest heaving with the all the emotion that had been trapped beneath an immovable mountain. Her heart of stone crumbled to dust at the same moment you turned Rosymorn Monastery into a mass grave. You called Astarion’s soul back from beyond the veil, but Lae’zel’s people are still dead. They’re rotting beneath the mountain of rubble you buried them in.

Despair that she’d never allowed herself to feel poured out of the cracks in her heart. Rage and betrayal filled her lungs, every breath pure agony as she moved further and further from Vlaakith’s light. Her life had always belonged to the githyanki and the githyanki belonged to Vlaakith. She honed her body into steel as all githyanki are taught, and she became a blade to rip through space to the Astral Sea. One day, it would be her home.

What had all that ambition amounted to, in the end? All the pride and honor that she carried within an unbroken heart. Shame, betrayal, and doubt. Emotions that held no use for her people. There was no place for them within Vlaakith’s empire. Within the span of a couple months, it all fell apart. Where was there to go from here? With her dreams well and truly gone, her only purpose crumbled to dust, what was she to do now?

She closes her eyes and steels herself, rising to her full height. She gives you one last piercing glare before turning on her heel and stalking across the courtyard. The plates of her armor rattle together like windchimes as she storms away. With a heavy sigh, you rub a hand across your face.

“Someone go check on her,” you ask. “Make sure she doesn’t kill anyone.”

Wyll, of course, graciously steps forward. “I’ll go see what I can do.”

You nod at him gratefully. To your surprise, Shadowheart steps away from the group, as well. “I’ll come with.”

Wyll hesitates, giving her a curious look. “Are you sure?”

Shadowheart nods. “If worst comes to worst, you’ll need someone strong to back you up.”

You sigh heavily. “Please, don’t resort to violence unless absolutely necessary.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Shadowheart insists evenly. “I’m just being realistic.”

You trust Lae’zel not to lose sight of your goal. Your group is on extremely thin ice with the Harpers, and likely one misstep away from being thrown back into the Shadow Curse. But Lae’zel isn’t one to act out of anger—of your group, she isn’t the one with a habit of getting you into trouble. Still, Shadowheart has a point. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Fine. Just don’t get us kicked out before we’ve had a pint.”

Shadowheart and Wyll nod, separating from the rest of your group in search of Lae’zel. A few moments pass after they leave. Part of you waits to hear shouting followed by the familiar sound of a fight breaking out. But it never comes, Last Light retains its tentative peace for the moment. You turn to Dammon with arms crossed.

“I am… so sorry you had to see that,” you say, not sorry at all.

Dammon smiles sheepishly, visibly cringing in secondhand embarrassment. “It’s no trouble. I understand emotions are running high these days.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” you grumble.

Dammon’s smile brightens slightly. “That’s why I try to stick to the forge when I can. Iron and steel are fairly predictable once you know how to work around them.”

“Regardless, we’re heading to Moonrise, anyway. We’ll at least look into rescuing the prisoners,” you promise.

You won’t commit to staging a full prison escape until you see what the full situation is. But you can at least promise to look. Besides, if some escaped prisoners can distract the cult enough to give you time to snoop, it’ll work in your favor.

“I’m glad to hear that. The others inside will be, as well.” He nods towards the inn. “But before you run off into the belly of the beast, I have some good news.” His turns directly towards Karlach, smile radiant in its excitement.

The tense mood immediately sloughs away as Karlach literally lights up. The flames dancing on her skin surge, sparks flying and nearly setting a pile of hay alight. She doesn’t take notice, her eyes sparkling as she leans towards Dammon. Astarion barely manages to hop over her tail where it flicks anxiously back and forth.

You didn’t think it was possible, but Dammon’s smile grows even wider. “I only need one more piece of infernal iron to craft an insulating chamber that could make it possible for you to—”

“—touch people?!” Karlach finishes in a rush, sharp teeth nearly cutting her lips in her excitement.

Dammon’s eyes shine, proud that he can use his ill-gotten expertise for something good. “Exactly.”

Karlach’s joy is infectious. Your argument with Lae’zel feels realms away. You can’t raise Rosymorn Monastery from the ground, nor can you unmake Vlaakith’s empire. You aren’t sure how to fix what you’ve broken with Lae’zel—you’re not sure if it’s even possible. But you can fix this. Dammon has offered you the chance to rewind the clock and return to Karlach what the world stole from her.

In the span of days you have lost so much of what you hold dear—Astarion’s life, Lae’zel’s loyalty, the looming specter of Gale’s suicide. This is a victory you sorely needed. Without a word you open your bag and search for the infernal iron you (Astarion) stole from the Zhentarim.

When she wheels on you, her tail nearly clotheslines Astarion. “Oh my gods. It’s really happening,” she gasps her fists clenching and unclenching at her breast. “It’s been so long.”

You meet her eyes with a frantic nod, speeding up your search. So many times you’ve wanted to take Karlach’s hand or lean into her by the fire, the way you have with everyone else. The others have spoiled you. Wyll never hesitates to lay a steadying hand on your shoulder or wrap a quick arm around your waist after a tough battle. His hands are steady and warm where he corrects your form with a rapier. Gale, too, offers touch easily. The best way to feel the Weave is through his hands, and he offers it readily to anyone who asks. He channeled the Weave with you, and you’ve even seen him do the same for Lae’zel and Shadowheart. Shadowheart is more closed off, as is the nature of Sharrans. But so much of divine magic requires touch, that you know the calluses on her hands by memory. She doesn’t offer easy embraces the way Wyll does, but after a glass of wine at dinner, she’ll lean into your side. Lae’zel, while far from comforting, will jump at the opportunity to spar. She’ll berate your battle stance as she makes a mockery of you, then wrap your bruises in the aftermath.

And Astarion, well. His was the first embrace you ever received.

You’ve wanted to share that with Karlach since the moment you met. The anticipation of it being so near charges the air—the forge itself crackles with sparks of lightning. Karlach has been waiting far, far longer. She doesn’t deserve to wait any longer. In frustration, you empty your pack on the ground, shaking all the potions and scrolls you’ve collected onto the ground.

A human skull rolls out and bounces against Astarion’s foot. He kicks it away with a huff. “One skull, I can understand, but do you really need five?” he huffs.

You ignore him, continuing to shake everything onto the ground. Finally, a loud clang followed by a thump signals the infernal iron falling on the ground, nearly smashing Gale’s foot. Karlach beats you to it, grabbing it up and thrusting it into Dammon’s waiting hands.

“We’ve got it, we’ve got it!” Karlach cries. “Let’s do this thing!”

Dammon takes it, treating the nigh indestructible hunk of iron like it’s made of crystal. “All right,” he murmurs, retreating behind his eyes as his brain kicks into gear. “This shouldn’t take long.”

The three of you wait in tense silence for the few minutes it takes Dammon to work his magic. Gale makes a half-hearted attempt at politeness and steps away so as not to crowd the man. Karlach is far too excited, her eyes unable to leave the infernal iron as Dammon molds it into something that can contain her mechanical heart. You and Astarion simply don’t care, watching Dammon like a pair of vultures. For his part, Dammon’s focus is so intense that he doesn’t seem to notice his audience.

You’ve seen Dammon work out of the corner of your eye as you walked around the Emerald Grove. He was always hard at work on some project or another. But this is the first time you’ve truly watched. He works the metal between gloved hands the way you mold the Weave, shaping it—transmuting it into something entirely new. And much like your relationship with the Weave, the infernal iron is temperamental. The forge itself howls when he heats it, the flames smelling of sulphur and sin. Dammon leans back with a wince to avoid the sparks.

But in only a handful of minutes, Dammon quenches the iron and it returns onyx black, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He turns to face Karlach with an exhilarated smile. Karlach’s feet shuffle, tail whipping back and forth.

“Is that…?” she breathes.

Dammon nods, holding it out for her to take. “Same as last time—you’ll need to install it yourself. But this should do the trick.”

Karlach grabs it before Dammon even finishes his sentence. She reaches into her chest, whatever magic that powers the engine allowing her to reach through her own skin. She feels around, searching with her fingers for the place Dammon’s modification is supposed to go. It only takes a few seconds for her to find it—after ten years she knows her mechanical heart better than the back of her hand. She slots the piece of iron into place, then pulls her hands back out of her chest.

She waits for something to happen, for her to feel cooler or for the flames on her shoulders to die down. Seconds pass, then a minute, the gears in her heart grinding to mimic the flutter of an anxious muscle. She wants so badly to reach out to someone, anyone, but she needs to know they won’t get burned. She waits for some change to signal that her fire has cooled, but nothing happens. She still feels as hot as ever. When she looks at her scarred arms, the flames on her skin still dance.

“Did… did it work?” she asks, looking between Dammon and the others.

Part of her anticipates that Dammon’s face will fall at any moment, realizing that something’s gone wrong, that his work amounted to nothing. She’s afraid to look at him, for fear of watching the disappointment cloud his eyes. If her hopes have risen only to be shattered, her heart might break down altogether. But the disappointment never dawns, and Dammon looks to you at Karlach’s side.

“Only one way to find out,” he says.

You don’t need to be told twice. You leap into Karlach’s arms nearly before she’s even turned to face you. She yelps in surprise, hands instinctively bracing themselves on your waist. You wrap your arms around her neck, nearly your entire body pressed against hers. She bears almost the whole of your weight, your feet barely touching the ground. You don’t care if you get hurt, and you don’t care how badly. Being able to show Karlach the care she deserves is worth braving the flames.

But there’s no pain. Her skin is warm like a dark stone laying in the sun. The unquenched fire on her skin tickles your chin where it rests on her shoulder. Her skin is a balm against the darkness of these Shadow Cursed lands. You’d forgotten how it felt to bask in the sun.

“Careful, soldier!” Karlach laughs into your ear, voice wet. “Don’t just throw yourself onto the pyre! You’ll get burned!”

You burrow your face into the warmth of Karlach’s neck. “You’re worth burning for.”

Karlach takes a shuddering breath, then leans her cheek against your temple. She curls her arms tighter around your waist, holding you against her body as tight as possible. Your lungs ache with the need to breathe, but you barely notice the pain. Any closer, and your bodies would meld together. Fitting, you think, as Karlach has always been part of you.

The world falls away. All that matters is the warmth you feel in Karlach’s arms. Damn the Absolute, damn Baldur’s Gate, damn everything outside the peace you’ve found with your allies. The rest of Faerûn can rot for all you care. If you can spend the rest of your existence like this, warm and safe with the people who’ve become your entire world, that would be more than enough.

“Thank you.” Karlach’s words brush against your ear.

It’s ridiculous, you think. You should be thanking her.

Only a couple months ago, you wandered out of the nautiloid’s burning wreckage and into a conflict you knew nothing of. You were little more than a shambling corpse; there was more empty space in your skull than gray matter. You watched the world through hollow eyes, watching a stage show you lacked the capacity to understand. In the span of a few hours you bore witness to Wyll’s heroism, Alfira’s grief, and Nettie’s compassion—all things you didn’t, couldn’t, understand. Why did Wyll bother teaching a group of children destined to die? Why did Alfira sing for someone who could no longer hear? Why did Nettie let you walk free when you were a threat to everything she knew? Emotions—any emotions—came easily to everyone else. But not you. You carried a bitter, chill with you across the beautiful landscape of the Grove. No matter how much sunlight warmed your skin, it couldn’t eclipse the pitch black void in your chest. You worked alongside your party to find a cure, but all the while you felt nothing, nothing, nothing.

Perhaps the tadpole consumed the part of your brain that created joy. Maybe whoever drove a dagger into the back of your skull carved it out. Or you were broken from the start, and you simply never had it in the first place.

But from that barren land where no joy could grow, slowly something new began to take root. You may not have been made with the capacity for joy, or sorrow, or affection. But you learned it. Your companions nurtured it with their smiles, their laughter, the touch of their skin against yours. Joy, alien and unfamiliar, bloomed within you like a night orchid in the darkest shadow.

You want to stay here until the world burns to ash. You want to give Karlach the care she’s deserved these past ten years. You want to trace the runes for Hold Person into her back and keep her here always, keep her conscious while you peel back her skin to gaze upon her mechanical heart, you want to pull it out so that long after you’ve killed her her heart will keep churning.

And just like that, you remember why you can’t stay.

Reluctantly, you pull back from her embrace, meeting Karlach’s eyes with a smile tainted with shame. If she notices, she doesn’t say anything, gently setting you back on solid ground. She turns to face Gale and Astarion with a bright smile, her hands leaving your waist. Your skin aches with the memory and you want to pull her back into your embrace. But when you think about reaching for her hand, you wonder how she’d scream if you pried her fingernails off one by one.

You let her go.

“Wizard!” she crows, stepping forward to pull Gale into a tight squeeze.

Gale lets her embrace him easily, coughing slightly when her tight embrace forces the air from his lungs. Still, he rubs his hand across her upper back and smiles gently.

“I am immensely happy for you, Karlach,” Gale rasps. “You’ve earned the right to a little happiness.”

Karlach sniffs into his ear. “You’re damn right about that.” She pulls away with a tender smile. “But I couldn’t have done it without all of you.” She glances at Astarion who stands a few paces away, arms crossed. “You, too, Fangs.”

A knot of emotion tangles in Astarion’s gut. He can feel Karlach’s joy in the air as she embraces you and Gale. It’s bright and metallic, shining steadily despite the cloak of shadow. He’s not so heartless that he can’t share in her happiness. He better than anyone understands the agony of being denied a gentle touch for so long. And that’s exactly the problem—he watches Karlach wrap her hands around your waist, holding her body to yours, and he can’t help the jealous venom that drips from his fangs.

“Astarion, my boy, you’re just in time. Our guests have been waiting ever so patiently for your return,” Cazador’s voice calls in his memory.

Astarion stood at the entrance to the parlor beneath the weight of three sets of blood red eyes. His shoulders pulled inward, wishing to disappear from Master’s sight. Distantly, he felt the ache of dread in his unmoving lungs, a fear squeezing around his heart at the thought of what was to come. But if he allowed himself to feel those wretched things, Master would know, and he’d punish Astarion for his disobedience. No, the only way to endure was to simply feel nothing at all. The echoes of emotions he once felt slipped through his fingers, leaving him entirely hollow. A perfect puppet.

“What have I told you about slouching?” Master clicked his tongue.

He lounged on a wingbacked chair, one ankle crossed over his knee. He leveled Astarion with a reproachful stare. Astarion pulled his spine straight and kept his gaze lowered, unable to meet Master’s eyes.

Master snapped his fingers, pointing at the ground beneath his feet. “Sit.”

Astarion carried himself with all the grace beholden to his elven heritage. He walked across the parlor as if the floor were made of clouds, ethereal and effortless in his beauty. He knew what Master wanted of him, he felt it in the twin stares from Master’s guests, traveling the length of his body. Their eyes were a physical weight on his scarred back, peeling back the layers of his skin one by one.

Astarion kneeled at Master’s feet, knees nearly brushing Master’s toes. Astarion’s hands waited limply on his lap for instruction.

Master hummed, one clawed hand reaching out to touch Astarion’s face. Astarion had to suppress a full-body flinch. Any resistance would be sure to turn the encounter violent. His obedience was rewarded by Master’s nails scratching gently through Astarion’s curls. Astarion nearly melted into the touch, the numb fog he’d disappeared into faded, gently coaxing him back into his body. Master cupped his cheek tenderly, smoothing the point of his nail over Astarion’s brow.

When was the last time Master held him gently? The years blurrrd together. Astarion struggled to remember anything before this one moment,

“I see you’ve returned alone, my son,” Master hummed carefully, the pad of his index finger tracing the point of Astarion’s ear.

There it was, the overwhelming crash of fear and panic, racing through his unbeating heart. Anchored to his body by Master’s caress, Astarion felt it in full. His body trembled beneath Master’s touch, his voice shaking. It was easier when Master was cruel—over the years Astarion had learned how to distance himself from his body and the tortures Master inflicted on it. It was so much harder when Master offered him what he wanted. Master knew how to coax Astarion back into his body, with soft hands and sweet words. It was the only time in his miserable existence where nothing hurt, as Master flooded their connection with praise at Astarion’s obedience.

Astarion grew drunk on the scraps of rare possessive affection Master forced on him. When trapped in an unending nightmare, any moment of peace becomes a lifeline, no matter who offers it. Master bid all of Astarion’s broken pieces to settle back into place. Repairing something for the pleasure of breaking it again is a special kind of torment.

“Forgive me, Master, just a little more time and—”

Master fisted Astarion’s hair in his hand, pulling a pained gasp from the spawn. “You will speak only when I give you permission, boy.” Astarion froze. “Nod.”

Astarion obeyed. To his relief, Master loosened his hold on Astarion’s hair. Astarion’s head throbbed where Master yanked, but the ache pales in comparison to the warm relief washing over him.

Master sighed. “I’m disappointed in you. You’ve caused me to appear a poor host to our guests. They were so looking forward to dining together.”

Astarion closed his eyes, fighting down the dread climbing his throat. He knew what Master would do if those feelings tainted their bond.

One of Master’s guests spoke up. “It’s quite fine.” Astarion felt the weight of their eyes tracing patterns into his back. “I can think of a few ways to salvage the evening.”

Distant dread climbed up the knobs of Astarion’s spine. His body still ached from his lost target. No doubt Master could smell another’s sweat painted in broad strokes across his skin. The energy it took to perform was immense—he had to identify a target, lay out a trap, take them to bed, then lead them into Master’s embrace. Astarion had tripped at the finish line, and the panic at returning home empty-handed only wore him down further. The only thing in his stomach was the come he swallowed earlier—he was so, so hungry. Astarion wasn’t sure he could perform again so soon if asked.

Master watched him carefully, Astarion leaning fully into the palm against his cheek. “I’m feeling generous, my boy,” he hummed and lowered his hand. Astarion had to stop himself from chasing Master’s touch. “Why don’t you entertain our guests?”

Bile climbed in Astarion’s throat. If he threw up another’s release on Master’s shoes, how long would Master leave him on the pike this time? But beyond the disgust and revulsion was relief. If Master gave him another chance to be good, perhaps he could avoid punishment for his failure.

“Thank you, Master,” Astarion said, starting to get up.

Master tutted, “Ah, ah, ah.” Astarion froze, looking up at Master with an even mix of confusion and fear. “On your knees.”

Astarion swallowed his shame, allowing the relief to overwhelm all else. “Of course, Master.”

It was humiliating to be put on display. His body was entertainment for Master’s guests as much as it was proof of Master’s power. A beautiful High Elf of noble stock brought low, made to crawl on the ground and be fucked showed just how thoroughly Master could bend others to his will. He was a prized beast, trained not only to obey but to enjoy it. As Astarion crawled towards Master’s guests, he couldn’t help the warm relief flooding his veins. Unwanted as it was, sex was far better than another tenday in the kennels. He knew how to escape his body during sex in a way he couldn’t while Master flayed him alive. Crawling on his knees for Master’s approval was tolerable if it meant avoiding the worst of Master’s torture.

Astarion watches the same scene play out hundreds of times, the faces changing even as the humiliation stays the same. He watches himself grovel and he hates the person he sees. The memory slips away, mixing with all the other times Cazador passed him around for others’ pleasure. The aftertaste like rotten flesh lingers on Astarion’s tongue long after the memory fades. He remembers Cazador’s gentle fingers in his hair, the way he leaned into his tormemtor’s caress, the genuine gratitude and affection that flooded through him when Cazador chose to use his body as an instrument of pleasure instead of pain.

That pathetic, weak shadow of a man sickens him. What disgusts him most is just how little has changed, how that miserable creature still lives inside him. Nearly the first thing he did upon gaining freedom was let himself be used. It’s all he knows, all he’s good for. The most insidious part of Cazador’s torture, and the thing Astarion didn’t—couldn’t—realize until he’d escaped, was how the very act of wanting becomes twisted.

On the rare occasion, Cazador gave him what he wanted so that he could have the pleasure of taking it away. A gentle touch, a kind word, a moment of peace amidst the endless nightmare. Cazador controlled his pain, but he controlled his pleasure, too. Any relief given to Astarion only happened if Cazador willed it. Succor was a reward meted out in exchange for Astarion’s humiliation. Of course he would thank his Master for giving him the whip when he could have given him the blade. Of course Astarion would feel grateful for being sent to the boudoir when he could have been sent to the kennels. In the aftermath the shame and revulsion were sure to follow—that was its own form of torture.

Now, those emotions go hand in hand. Whenever he felt a desperate yearning for something within his grasp, earth-shattering shame was sure to follow. Your touch cast the shadows out from his heart only for nausea and repulsion to darken its door. It’s impossible to want something without fearing its loss, without being disgusted by his own desires. He’s free now, free to do what he wants without anyone standing in his way. He can seize the power that was ripped from him centuries ago, be the one hurting instead of the one being hurt. He can be as cruel and cold as he wants—he no longer has to play the Pied Piper, luring vermin to their doom. No one is going to flay him for disobedience, no one is going to force him to kneel.

Yet he can’t. Cazador may be far away but he is not free. He is still every bit as weak and pathetic as he was under Cazador’s thumb. Perhaps even moreso, because he had the freedom to be someone new and instead chose to use the talents Cazador nurtured for two centuries. He needs you and the rest to keep him safe from Cazador and he has nothing else to offer save for his body. He doesn’t know how to do anything else.

And once again he finds himself yearning for the person who controls him. He follows your orders without question, he’s molded himself into someone you adore, and he’s given you a tragically broken toy to fix. He’s formed himself into everything you could want. He should hate you for the role you’ve forced him into, for wanting everything he’s not. But he doesn’t.

He basks in your company like the morning sun rising over the horizon, languid and content. You gift him a dagger, bought with your money, and he can barely bring himself to use it because of how precious it is. You press your lips to his and he leans into your touch just as he leaned into Cazador’s.

He needs you for his safety, yes, but he wants you just as badly and that sickens him.

Karlach embraces you and Gale freely. She pulls you both close and holds you tight, letting the sunshine warmth of her skin bleed into yours. She knows what she wants as certain as the Chionthar flowing towards the sea. All this time she’s wanted nothing more than to touch others. Now that the means are finally within reach, she seizes them with open arms. It’s so easy for her. She’s so deliriously happy.

Hasn’t he earned that much after two hundred years of pure shit? So why can’t he have it? Why is he doomed to brush against the sun only to come away burned?

The answer is obvious; Karlach was strong of body and mind before Zariel stole her away. Astarion has always been weak—his curse is the only thing that gives him strength. Cazador may have given him the “gift” of eternal life, but that did nothing to change the sniveling welp inside. Two hundred years of torture only shattered what little remained of himself and reformed the pieces in Cazador’s image. He is what Cazador made him to be—a monster, a liar, and a pretty face.

Karlach still retains pieces of herself from before—the Baldurian, the bodyguard, the Outer City kid. Astarion only has the ability to blend in with the shadows and a body free for the taking. The only things that have endeared him to you—and the group as a whole—are the very things his Master taught him.

He is genuinely happy for Karlach—the gentle warmth in his unbeating heart comes as a surprise. But he is also jealous, bitter, resentful that Karlach can enjoy the very thing that was stolen from him.

Karlach coughs into her fist, regarding Astarion with tentative affection. “I know you’re not one for it, but…” She glances briefly towards you before looking back at Astarion. “I’d really like to hug you.”

Astarion blinks at her, shoulders stiffening. He’s accepted touch from you, obviously, and the occasional helping hand from Shadowheart when he needs healing. He’s surprised Karlach even wants to hug him. He’s not under any delusion that the others like him. You like him because you imprinted on the first six people you met. The others tolerate him at best. Astarion doesn’t make himself easy to approach these days and that’s by design. He spent two hundred years making himself palatable and sociable. He’s earned the right to be an irritating bastard. Everyone except you knows to keep a wide berth for fear of getting bitten. Lucky for him, you’re the exact type of freak that likes that. The only reason anyone would bother spending time in his company is for sex. After he lured you in, he didn’t care to seduce the others. He’s fond of Karlach—it’s hard not to be when she’s so heartbreakingly earnest—but he isn’t going to pretend the feeling’s mutual. People like Karlach—sweet, kind, good people don’t like monsters like him.

It’s easy enough to put the pieces together. Karlach hasn’t had sex in a decade. She’s made no secret of the fact that she’s frustrated. No doubt one of the first items on her to-do list is finding someone to let out all that energy with. And, well. Astarion is the obvious, easy choice, isn’t he?

He sends a furtive glance your way. The others know you’re sleeping together, but have you talked about it with them? You’re on good terms with everyone, sharing details of your sex life wouldn’t be too much of a surprise. He hadn’t considered that before, and the thought makes him want to vomit. It’s well within your right, but now he can’t stop wondering how much the others know, about him, about his body, about the things he forced himself through.

You’ve made it clear that you have no intention of sleeping with anyone else, but do you expect the same of him? Hell, have they asked you for permission? Have you offered him up on a silver platter the way Cazador did?

You wear the same, careful, shuttered expression you always do, giving nothing away, and he curses your unyielding façade. It serves him well when you’re on his side, but it’s impossible when he’s trying to gauge your intentions. You haven’t stepped in to stop Karlach, nor does he see any jealousy. He supposes it’s best to just play the role he always has.

He takes a steadying breath and flashes Karlach a coy smile. “Just a hug, da—”

“We should go check on Lae’zel and the others,” you interrupt him.

Karlach turns away from Astarion to look at you. “Yeah, good idea. Who knows what they’ve gotten up to.”

Astarion blinks at her back, stunned. He isn’t sure what just happened. You stepped in when he was about to give Karlach what she wanted. Are you jealous? That would work in his favor, though it would make you a hypocrite considering the tight embrace you just gave Karlach. You’ve never put a stop to his shameless flirting before. He glances at you only to see your attention focused solely on Karlach.

He isn’t sure whether he’s grateful for your interruption or annoyed. Distantly, he feels an echo of loss as Karlach pulls away.

“I haven’t heard any shouting so it can’t have been too terrible,” Gale hums, summoning a Mage Hand to stuff items back into your pack.

“Or Shadowheart cast Silence,” you mutter, kneeling to join the clean up effort.

“Ah, one thing,” Dammon says, looking between you and Karlach.

The both of you pause to give him your full attention. He fists his hands in the sides of his apron and gives you both a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Be sure to come back in a couple days.” His voice is forcefully even. “I’ll need to see how that iron is holding up and make sure you won’t need any more additions.”

Karlach nods vehemently, stepping forward to take Dammon’s hands in hers. “Of course,” she says. “And thank you, thank you so much. You have no idea what you’ve done for me.”

Dammon flushes a deep peach color at Karlach’s attention. “It’s the least I could do.” Bashfully, his eyes dart away, finding yours.

Beneath your piercing gaze, something flickers in his eyes. Fear, disappointment, shame. It’s there and gone in a flash of lightning, so fast you could convince yourself it was a trick of the light. But then Dammon tears his gaze away once more, this time looking blankly over Karlach’s shoulder.

Time stills as your gaze bores holes into Dammon’s cheek. All your elation evaporates, slipping through your fingers like smoke. In its place floods a cold, familiar dread. There’s something he’s not telling you—something important.

But Karlach finishes packing your bag and hoists it onto her shoulder. “Alright, let’s go find Lae’zel. I’ve always wanted to feel those ears!”

Gale sighs. “Be sure to ask for permission first. Strong as you are, you might get your hand cut off.”

Karlach shrugs. “A battle scar.”

The group is ready to leave, happy and unburdened for the first time in a tenday. You glance at them, then back to Dammon. He shuffles nervously beneath your gaze, his own smile suddenly dim. You have no desire to ruin the jovial mood, but you don’t like the idea of moving forward without warning.

You cross your arms, leveling Dammon with an empty gaze. “Two days, you said?”

“Two or three,” Dammon answers. “That’ll give enough time for the new part to fuse with the alloy casing.”

“Two days, then,” you say, bitterness tainting your voice. “Make sure you don’t go anywhere. I’ll hunt you all the way to Baldur’s Gate if I have to!” you threaten with false cheer.

Dammon swallows, then laughs nervously. “I won’t go anywhere, I swear it.”

You watch him carefully. When you sense no sign of deception, you turn on your heel and follow the others after Lae’zel.

Chapter Text

Thankfully, it’s fairly easy for Wyll and Shadowheart to find Lae’zel. She has the good sense not to wander far, and a lone githyanki is easy to spot amidst the unfading night. They find her on a low path circling the perimeter of Last Light, staring out through the moonlight barrier. Wyll approaches quietly, heavy boots clanking against the ground. Lae’zel pays him no mind, arms crossed over her chest.

The place she’s chosen to take up vigil is quiet. The sounds of the inn can be heard over the ridge, but they’re distant, muffled by the ever-present shadow dancing at the edge of the barrier. She’s chosen one of the few places within the barrier that isn’t under heavy supervision by the Harpers. Wyll expects that someone will pass through on patrol eventually, but for now it’s just the three of them. Were it not for the muffled clang of metal and the distant murmuring of the Harpers on patrol, Wyll might think they were the only three people in the world.

“I would ask if you’re all right, but I sense I already know the answer,” Wyll starts, gently trying to crack open the door of Lae’zel’s heart.

The only response that she heard him at all is a quiet scoff, barely audible over the distant whisper of the Shadowlands. Wyll sighs to himself. He didn’t expect this would be easy. He takes a moment to watch Lae’zel as he constructs the bare bones of a speech in his head, the kind he’s read in fairytales.

“You know none of us are responsible for your exile,” Wyll begins.

Lae’zel turns on him with a glare, steel clashing in her yellow eyes. “Do I?” she hisses. “Were you not so soft-hearted we could have slain the being in the Astral Prism and returned it to its rightful place in Vlaakith’s hands.”

Shadowheart steps closer, stationing herself at Wyll’s side. “That being is the only thing keeping us from turning into mindflayer’s, Lae’zel, we can’t afford to gamble our lives on the words of a tyrant.”

The lines around Lae’zel’s mouth deepen, the scar across her lips pulling taut. “Keep those words off your traitorous tongue before I cut it out,” she threatens.

Wyll holds out his hands, putting himself between the two women. “We’re all allies here. There’s no need for such threats, Lae’zel.” He turns his attention to Shadowheart. “And you know better than to rub salt in a fresh wound.”

“Are we allies?” Lae’zel snarls. “Following your path has led me to ruin.”

“You’re still standing, are you not?” Shadowheart asks, exasperation coloring her tone. “What exactly do you think would have happened had you handed the Astral Prism over?”

Lae’zel widens her stance, hands fisted at her sides as if readying herself for physical blows. The glare she levels at Shadowheart is scathing, enough to boil the very air between them. Wyll blocks her line of sight, and likewise Shadowheart’s view of Lae’zel. He knows Shadowheart won’t attempt to cast through him, and he doubts Lae’zel will attack around him. Failing genuine deescalation, hopefully his body will serve as enough of a deterrent to keep them from coming to blows.

“A red dragon would have flown me to Tu’narath, the City of Death, where I would be honored with an eternal home in the Astral. I would ascend to my rightful place at Vlaakith’s side,” Lae’zel insists, voice filled with wonder and a deep-seated yearning.

To be honored with a dragon the color of a burning sunset and sword of silver has been Lae’zel’s one ambition since the day of her hatching. Her earliest memory is a great red shadow passing by the window slits of the nursery on Crèche K’liir. Every ten minutes, she would watch scales the color of hellfire pass by, as her eyes grew heavier and heavier. One night, she carefully climbed from her crystal cradle, standing on the edge so that her hands could reach the lip of the window. The window was barely tall enough to fit the width of her hand; she had to hold on with the flat of her fingers, feet finding purchase on the rock. With a huff, she pulled herself up, pressing her eye against the glass to peer out at the starry void of space.

There she waited, arms aching, sweat pouring down her forehead. But a curiosity compelled her to hold on even as her nails cracked and her skin rubbed raw. Finally, she felt the walls shake as a great red dragon lumbered on the asteroid’s surface, crawling overtop the window. She gasped at the sight, eyes transfixed on scales shimmering in the starlight.

For the first time in her memory, the great beast paused, meeting Lae’zel’s gaze with a large golden eye the size of her head. A hearty rumble shook the ground as the dragon chuckled. Slowly, it craned its neck down, touching its snout to the other side of the glass.

“What are you doing out of your nest, little one?” the dragon purred, its breath fogging the glass.

Lae’zel stared up at it in wide-eyed awe, the handful of words she knew failing her at the moment she needed them most. Wordlessly, she pressed her hand to the glass, imagining the feel of ruby scales beneath her fingers.

The dragon’s eyes glimmered with faint amusement. “You are either very brave or very foolish, wyrmling.”

The dragon’s head pulled back with a mirthful glimmer in its eye, and with a great beat of its wings, lifted off the surface of Crèche K’liir. Lae’zel gasped, watching in awe as the dragon hovered against the backdrop of an endless starry void. The dragon soared in a few lazy circles, before suddenly diving into the abyss, disappearing beyond Lae’zel’s sight. When she asked Sa’varsh Kaaltav, he told her the dragon was Ashtyrranthor, one of seven red dragons that protected Crèche K’liir. He told her clutch then of Mother Gith’s pact with the Dragon Queen and the everlasting alliance between all githyanki and red dragons. From that moment forth, Lae’zel strove to become a warrior worthy of Mother Gith’s sacrifice and the red dragons that have protected her people since time immemorial.

“Even with the tadpole, you think they would have allowed you into Tu’narath?” Shadowheart asks pointedly.

Lae’zel knows she would have been slain the moment she set foot in the city, that any trace of ghaik would be destroyed on sight. “They need only bring me to another zaith’isk to be purified.”

“It nearly killed you!” Shadowheart snaps.

“It was tampered with!” Lae’zel insists, “I need only find another crèche, then—”

“You are far too smart to be clinging to your excuses!” Shadowheart yells, her face twisting in relentless frustration. “You spoke to Voss! He told you the truth and it makes far more sense than this”—Shadowheart gestures incredulously at Lae’zel—“fantasy you’ve invented!”

Shadowheart is right in that Lae’zel is smart enough to know a pattern when she sees one, and to see the threads of the wool thrown over her eyes beginning to fray. Every lie unmasked is another thread severed, until the harsh truth stands against the cold, dark shadows. Lae’zel is no warrior, she never was. She is cattle, bred to be harvested and devoured.

“You speak of things you cannot understand!” Lae’zel growls through razor sharp teeth. “Young gith are raised for one purpose—to slay a ghaik and return home to Vlaakith’s side.”

Lae’zel trained day and night until her bruised body could take no more. When she could no longer fight, she’d sneak into the arcane training ground in hopes of catching Gish Evir and Gish Hraznin sparring. Both were formidable warriors, the pinnacle of githyanki training. Haste powered lightning fast sword strikes, countered with the orange blaze of a Fireball. Magic runs wild in the Astral Plane, where thought is reality and forces of nature respond only to a traveler’s will. When magic flows from the end of a githyanki’s blade, they cleave through the barrier between the planes, and weave just a small, small piece of the Astral Sea into their strikes. In the flash of arcane wildfire, Lae’zel felt the call of her home for the first time.

Lae’zel learned much from watching those spars. A githyanki’s body is only as sharp as their mind. It was silver that felled the illithid empire, but it was Mother Gith’s psionic defenses that led the charge. Lae’zel combed through all the slates in the library on Crèche K’liir. She studied ancient martial tactics, the history of the githyanki empire, and all the tomes describing the cities they crafted in the Astral Sea.

In her dreams, she sailed the Astral on the back of a mighty dragon, great wings cutting through the Rainbow Ocean. Spelljammers dotted the flow of an endless expanse like the stars Lae’zel sees from Crèche K’liir’s window. But instead of a starry void, color streaked across the sky. On Crèche K’liir there was only space for the red of blood and the black of the abyss. But in the Astral, where time ceased to exist, Lae’zel would soar through blue tranquility and yellow joy.

Beneath her thighs surged lungs filled with smoke and brimstone. Spouts of hellfire loosed from the dragon’s maw as it roared against the sky. The bite of cold astral winds stung Lae’zel’s cheeks, tearing out her braids. Her dragon soared through a graveyard of forgotten gods, and in the distance shone Tu’narath like a six pointed star, the surface of The One in the Void twinkling with city lights.

After those dreams, Lae’zel would wake with aching cheeks and a hollowness between her lungs.

“The whole of my life I have learned Vlaakith’s words, fought her battles. Until the day the ghaik captured me I spent my days encased in stone—among Selûne’s Tears or far beneath the earth in halls of everchanging crystal.”

All she’s ever known has been the four walls of Crèche K’liir and the yawning void beyond the stars. It’s beautiful, yes, but empty. Emptier still with the blood Vlaakith demanded. The only sky Lae’zel knows is the black void of space dotted with stars, the only streets she knows those inside her tiny asteroid and the ever-changing halls of the Crystal Labyrinth. She longs for castles built on the backs of dead gods and the gale of wild magic tangling in her hair.

She would thrive and ascend to Tu’narath or die here and be forgotten among Selûne’s Tears. She refused to let that be her fate. She was Lae’zel of of Crèche K’liir and she would be known. She dedicated herself to her training and trimmed the fat from her clutch. Any that could not stand on their own would taste the steel of her blade. Their deaths would make her stronger—more worthy. That was how they served Vlaakith—by ensuring only warriors fit to wield her blade remain.

“What does steel need of the sky? How can silver yearn for the wind? When my people await me in the Astral Sea, why would I chase the sun?”

Her entire life, she trained. Lae’zel spent countless hours running through drills, whetting her steel sword with blood. She waited and waited for the day she would be called upon to prove herself. Once given a chance, she could hunt down a ghaik and present its head to Kith’rak Urlon. Pehaps, then she will be asked to return to her Queen’s side and the solitude of Crèche K’liir will fade away on astral winds.

The day finally came when Kith’rak Urlon ordered all hands to follow her aboard a spelljammer. The ship cut through the planes, placing them within reach of the nautiloid. They boarded, only for ghaik to cut down the entire squad, imprisoning Lae’zel in a pod. The rest is history. The nautiloid crashed, scattered its pieces across the beach, and for the first time Lae’zel felt the wind on her face, tasted ash and dirt on her tongue. She woke to a sky of ever-shifting color.

“Vlaakith’ka sivim heath krash’ht. Only in Vlaakith may we find light.” Lae’zel squeezes her eyes shut, unable to bear the weight of Shadowheart’s gaze. “I passed through fire as iron and emerged flame-tempered silver. I followed Vlaakith’s light and it led me here!” Lae’zel gestures at the darkness beyond the barrier, the void of the sky. “To this place of shadow and rot.”

She has fought and bled and killed in Vlaakith’s name. All her dreams end with her soaring through an endless ocean where time unspools between her fingers. What has it all been for, if that dream is a lie? If the foundation she’s built herself on for twenty years crumbles beneath her feet, then which parts of her remain to rise from the ashes?

“What is left, after a heart of stone shatters?” Lae’zel asks, her voice finally breaking.

Shadowheart draws in a cold, shaky breath. Despite the bad blood between them, her heart aches for Lae’zel. Even stranger she feels… unmasked. The confusion and doubt in Lae’zel’s words calls to the part of Shadowheart that she keeps locked deep within. It remains hidden within the shadows, her deepest secret that she could never share even with Lady Shar. It’s the part of her that gasps every time the pain in her hand flares, that struggles when it causes her to lose grip on her mace, that looks out at the devastation wrought by the Shadow Curse and wonders what the land could have possibly done to deserve this.

It’s the insidious doubt that whispers into her mind and questions her loyalty to Lady Shar. They’re thoughts she could never dare voice aloud, or even admit to herself that she feels. Every morning and night she prays to Lady Shar for clarity, for reason, a sign to guide her faith back to the proper path. But every day traveling through these lands only serves to shake the foundation of her faith even more. No matter how tightly Shadowheart locks those whispers inside the cage of her ribs, the still manage to seep through the cracks.

Hearing them spoken aloud in Lae’zel’s voice of all things shakes Shadowheart to her core.

Wyll is the one to step forward, as he always is. “You are far more than what Vlaakith made you to be, Lae’zel.”

Lae’zel looks to him with wide, searching eyes. For the first time, Shadowheart realizes just how young she is. The world must be such a strange and unfamiliar place to one who was never raised in it. Shadowheart would know, when she woke on the beach after the nautiloid she remembered only her divine mission, but nothing of the world she now found herself in. Fear paralyzed her. How could she possibly carry out her Lady’s will when she had no memory of how to navigate the world? To her eternal relief, you showed up to guide her hand, and she has followed your lead ever since.

Slowly, with plenty of time to pull away, Wyll places a hand on Lae’zel’s shoulder. She bristles instinctively beneath his touch, as if expecting a blade between her shoulders. But she makes no move to shrug him off. “Your inner strength is something no one can take from you no matter how hard they try.” Lae’zel closes her eyes with a shuddering breath. “I won’t pretend the path before you is an easy one.”

Wyll’s gentle smile briefly dims, a faraway look passing over his red-black eye. “My own father disowned me when I was barely a man.” Wyll doesn’t know much about githyanki aging, but Lae’zel is young. If she’s never been to the Astral Plane, then he doesn’t imagine she’s much older than he was when he left Baldur’s Gate. “I was supposed to follow in his footsteps, join the Fist then take his place as Grand Duke. But all those ambitions went up in smoke when he cast me out of our home.”

He’ll never forget the look in his father’s eyes when he returned from Elturel to find a devil on Wyll’s shoulders. The sheer disgust and betrayal on Ulder Ravengard’s face burned far worse than any blade. His father demanded an explanation for what had pushed his noble, righteous son into bed with a devil. When demands fell on deaf ears, proud Duke Ravengard began to beg. Salt burned the still healing wound of Wyll’s empty eye as he choked on words that refused to come.

I followed your teachings, Father, Wyll wanted to say. I kept our city safe.

“I know the pain of watching dreams turn to ash in your hands,” Wyll says quietly.

Lae’zel stares forward, unmoving. A sheen of glass fogs her eyes as she gazes into shadows as dark as the void she came from. She refuses to meet Wyll’s gaze, her shoulders stiff beneath his hand. But he knows her, and he knows that if she did not want his touch she would bend his wrist to breaking.

“I know the strength it takes to move forward after the future you strove for is lost,” he continues.

Every morning, Wyll recited his father’s lessons. Courage. Insight. Strategy. Justice. They laid the foundation from which his childhood sprung, and grew into the bones of the man he became. He fed himself on fairytales and stories of the heroes who saved the city. He strove to walk among them one day as a knight or even a paladin.

Those lessons were at the forefront of his mind as Tiamat descended from the eye of the storm onto his home. His hands shook as he signed his name on Mizora’s infernal contract, fear as wild and thunderous as the storm raging overhead. His heart ached for the future that slipped through his grasp as Mizora bound his soul to the Hells. Heroes do not carry the scent of sulphur in their bones, nor does hellfire follow in their footsteps. The price he paid was not only his soul, but the whole of his future burned to ash.

Everything I did was to protect the city we love, Father, Wyll tried to scream. I only ever wanted to make you proud.

“But time marches ever onward, and us along with it. When the path we walk disappears beneath our feet, we simply forge one anew.”

Mizora watched the tragedy play out with a wicked smile, as an insurmountable rift widened between father and son. Without his only lifeline, her newest pet would have nowhere to run but deeper into her clutches. Ulder Ravengard gazed over a pristine battlefield, all evidence of the cult Wyll fought swept away. He refused to even meet his son’s eye when he told Wyll to go. After seventeen years, his father’s doubt won over his faith in his only son.

There is a lingering bitterness in knowing the corruption the lurks beneath the surface of Baldurian nobility. Ulder Ravengard always scolded him for being too soft-hearted, that to run a city as vast and prosperous as Baldur’s Gate, one needed to be willing to make sacrifices. That sometimes protecting the whole of the city meant accepting its cruelty.

That is where Wyll and his father disagree. Where his father looks at a heart hardened against compassion and sees strength, Wyll sees a man who has grown complacent in the face of the people’s suffering.

Wyll squeezes Lae’zel’s shoulder, shaking her gently. “You are strong, Lae’zel. You will survive this.”

Finally, Lae’zel takes a shuddering breath, squeezing her eyes tight against the flood of emotion uncaged from her heart of stone. “What am I to fight for? When the fury that moved my blade is taken from me how am I to wield it?”

Shadowheart finally steps forward, a hand clenched to her chest. “You have experienced a great loss, Lae’zel.”

Lae’zel opens her eyes, watching Shadowheart with trepidation. It’s earned, Shadowheart will be the first to admit, but it stings even still.

“Vlaakith has made you her weapon and convinced you that your pain isn’t yours to own,” Shadowheart says, determination burning in her eyes. “But you are not steel nor silver, Lae’zel. You are a person and you have a right to hurt.”

Lae’zel tears her eyes away, sucking in a deep breath that hardens in her lungs.

“Your pain is yours to wield,” Shadowheart says. Slowly she reaches forward, gathering one of Lae’zel’s hands into hers. “The loss you feel will be your blade. She cannot take that from you.”

Lae’zel squeezes her eyes shut. For her entire life, Vlaakith’s will and hers were one and the same. Cast out from her people, Lae’zel finds herself purposeless, for the first time in her life. What does it mean to want? Is such a thing even possible for a broken blade? She looks within herself, at the torrent of emotions unleashed by her shattered heart. Despair, fear, anger. All these things that had never had a place within her before. Now they thrive, and the cold place meant to house her stone heart burns.

Lae’zel bites into the meat of her free hand and screams wordlessly. Her flesh muffles the growl rising in the back of Lae’zel’s throat. She doesn’t know what to do with all these useless impulses inside her. She wants to scream, to kill, to drive her blade into someone’s heart—she wants to throw herself on the ground and never rise. None of these things make sense. But the torrent rises inside her, deep and unyielding. If she doesn’t do something she’s certain her heart will burst. So she lets out a muffled scream.

Slowly, Shadowheart reaches for Lae’zel’s bitten hand. Shadowheart curls her hand around Lae’zel’s fingers and tugs. After some resistance, Lae’zel lets it go, her screams quieted. Blood smears across her lips and the back of her hand. Shadowheart sighs, and smooths her thumb over Lae’zel’s skin. It knits back together beneath her touch, but the blood remains.

“Where’s Astarion when you need him?” Wyll jokes.

Lae’zel opens one eye and shoots him a glare. “Do not let his fangs near me.” Her scowl is more intimidating smeared with blood.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Shadowheart wipes away the blood with the edge of her undershirt poking out from beneath her armor. After a moment she sighs and squeezes Lae’zel’s hand. “We all know how loyal you were too your queen, how much pride you held for your people. Me most of all.”

Despite herself, Lae’zel can’t help but let out an amused breath through her nose. The strife their opposing devotions caused has mostly settled under your careful watch. Shadowheart and Lae’zel are hardly the best of friends, but they are allies. In a way, that’s a bond far deeper than any other. Shadowheart trusts Lae’zel to hold the line, to guard her flank as she gives aid to a fallen ally. Lae’zel trusts Shadowheart to mend her wounds, she stands strong in the face of insurmountable danger knowing Shadowheart will catch her if she falls.

Placing your life in another’s hand—being the lifeline that pulls someone from the edge of death—is an unbreakable bond.

“You did not deserve to be cast out for questioning your loyalties.” Shadowheart reluctantly steps back, clutching her hands together in front of her stomach as she tries to clear her mind.

She fights every instinct in her body to pray that the Nightbringer won’t hear her next words. A prayer like that would be an invitation for Lady Shar to peer into her mind, and that is exactly what she doesn’t want. She imagines an empty room, the void of space, the dark abyss at the beginning of creation.

“You cannot have faith without doubt,” she says, trying to hold her voice steady despite her trembling body. “If your loyalty isn’t a choice then it’s no better than being owned.”

I choose to believe, Shadowheart tells herself. It’s my choice to stay.

“You have more than proven yourself worthy, Lae’zel.” Shadowheart swallows thickly. “If your queen was worthy in return she would have believed in you.”

Lae’zel and Wyll both stare at her. Shadowheart pulls herself tall, tenses against the shivers wracking her body. Lae’zel’s eyes are wide, open in a way Shadowheart has never seen. Almost… vulnerable, if such a word can be attributed to Lae’zel. Shadowheart meets Lae’zel’s eyes with a tentative smile. Wyll however watches her with an eye that unravels her at the core. She can’t bear to meet his gaze for fear that she’ll fall apart.

Among the githyanki, strength speaks where words fail. Lae’zel has faced nigh insurmountable trials and thrived. She struck down her clutchmates that sought to use her as a stepping stone, she survived the nautiloid where her betters fell, she bested Vlaakith’s own ch’r’ai. Shadowheart is right: all her life Lae’zel has followed Vlaakith’s light and she has proven herself worthy of respect.

“You speak true,” Lae’zel murmurs. “Perhaps for the first time.”

Shadowheart breathes out a laugh. “It is a relief to see that you are still the same Lae’zel in the face of hardship.”

Lae’zel furrows her brows. “There is only one Lae’zel. What other Lae’zel would I be?”

Shadowheart looks down at her folded hands. “You’re right. You’re you and you always will be.”

“From this day forth you fight for yourself,” Wyll declares. “Your life is your own. So long as you live, no one can take that from you.”

Lae’zel’s thoughts turn to you and the path you have carved through the darkness. At first she thought you weak. Indecisive. A coward like all the istiki she’s been warned of. You stayed your hand when strength would serve just as well, you offered your ear and your aid to people who had done nothing to earn it, you wasted so much time with your useless questions, your incessant need for understanding those beneath you. No self-respecting kith’rak would conduct themselves the way you do. To do so would be a weakness and they would be cut down by their betters.

But in this strange world, facing forces so much larger than yourselves, she bitterly admits there is wisdom in your actions. Had you acted on Wyll’s orders alone, you would have denied yourself Karlach’s strength. Lae’zel cursed your name for bothering with the goblin camp instead of heading directly for the crèche, but Halsin has served as a useful guide through the Shadowlands. Had you not handed Gale all those useless journals to read, you may never have learned the secrets of the Adamantine Forge.

It’s an alien concept to consider, when Vlaakith’s word is law, unquestioned. But even the goddess Mystra, the Lady of Mysteries, underestimates the strength of Gale and his allies. If even the gods themselves are not infallible, is it not wise to seek understanding? There is so much more to strength than the force with which you can swing a blade. She has seen it in you, in Gale, in Astarion. Knowledge is everything, Ch'r'ai W'wargaz said; why then was she denied it time and time again? Vlaakith has made her, and all the githyanki weaker for hiding this truth.

You are not infallible. You are foolish, arrogant, and reckless. But that is why you have allies. That is why she stands by your side.

Slowly, Lae’zel begins to nod, eyes still closed. “I will take back ownership of my mind.” She finally meets Wyll’s gaze. “We will slay the Absolute.”

Wyll’s face splits into a beaming grin that meets Shadowheart’s understated smile.

“Careful, Lae’zel,” Shadowheart says with a teasing lilt. “You’re starting to sound like a hero.”

“Chk.” Lae’zel finally shrugs off Wyll’s hand, which he lets drop easily. “Is it heroic to take up arms when no one else can be bothered?”

“To do what must be done, no matter the cost?” Wyll asks. “I would say so.”

Shadowheart’s grin widens, cheeks rounding. “Just wait, soon the bards will be singing ballads about ‘noble and gallant Lae’zel of Crèche K’liir.’”

Lae’zel’s face twists into a scowl. “In that case I will lay down and die.”

Wyll barks out an incredulous laugh. Shadowheart, too, hides a smile behind her hand, shoulders shaking. When the rest of their group rounds the corner, they find Lae’zel looking strangely smug.

“There you all are,” Gale huffs. “Next time, we’re giving you a Sending Stone.”

You wave the others up towards you. “It’s my fault for not setting up a rendezvous point,” you dismiss. “Now come on, we have a hero to meet.”

“What about—” Karlach begins with a pitiful whine.

You nod succinctly. “Right, Karlach’s going to rub her hands all over you first.”

Karlach nearly takes out a passing Harper with her tail.

Wyll perks up, eyes widening as he looks over the group’s smiling faces. “You mean—?”

“Yeah!” Karlach knocks on her chest with a knuckle. “Dammon fixed me up! I can touch you all as much as I want!”

Wyll’s face splits into a sunbeam smile. “Finally!” he laughs, jogging up the slope into Karlach’s waiting arms.

Lae’zel, too, approaches with muted interest. “Good. I am looking forward to finally getting a chance to spar with you properly.”

Shadowheart can’t help the warm smile on her face as Karlach embraces Wyll, not even a moment passing before Karlach turns to grasp Lae’zel’s hands. After everything this group has lost, it’s nice to finally win something back. She takes a step forward, eager to tuck herself into Karlach’s arms.

Agony lances through her right arm. Her knees buckle and she crumples to the ground. Her vision goes dark, all her senses consumed by excruciating pain. Arcs of lightning burst through the back of her hand, up her arm and shoulder, to her neck and jaw, then bouncing off each individual rib to tighten around her hipbone. Any muscle that isn’t carved through goes tight, threatening to snap her bones in two. A single moment stretches into an eternity of torture.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please make it stop, she begs.

Then all of a sudden, it disappears, leaving her gasping into someone impossibly warm. Shadowheart blinks against the spots in her vision, trying to find her body again in the aftermath. Something warm like a roaring campfire presses into the crook of her neck. It chases out the lingering aftershocks of pain, and she finds herself melting into the touch with a sigh.

“—dowheart?” Karlach’s voice echoes from a distance. “Shadowheart, what’s wrong?”

“You’re so warm…” Shadowheart slurs, blinking up at the sun and finding Karlach’s concerned eyes in its place.

Karlach’s hands come up to cup her cheeks, the points of her nails light against the back of her neck. Shadowheart lets out an involuntary groan, boneless against Karlach’s touch.

“There you are,” Karlach says with relief, gently patting Shadowheart’s cheek. “Thought we’d lost you for a second there.”

The spots in Shadowheart’s vision clear and she finds herself beneath the rest of the group’s concerned watch. She stiffens, shaking Karlach’s casual touch off despite the lingering ache in her arm.

“It’s alright. This isn’t the first time this has happened nor will it be the last,” Shadowheart says simply.

She begins to push herself to a stand, aided by your support as you hold out a hand to brace her. Karlach, too, rises with her, hands still warm on her shoulders. Shadowheart shies away from the worry plain on everyone’s faces and squirms out of Karlach’s hold even as her body trembles in the aftershocks.

“Are you sure you’re good to continue?” you ask warily, eyeing the shaking in her arms.

Shadowheart steals herself with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Of course. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

She brushes past the rest of the group, her feet shaking where they plant into the earth. Your mouth tightens into a thin line, but you let it go, for now. There’s nothing you can do to save Shadowheart from a spiteful goddess, not at the moment anyway. For now, all you can do is face whatever the Harpers have in store for you.

You settle into camp on the edge of the lake within Last Light Inn’s protection. After the battle, the others had wanted to try finding rest inside. Even if you had to share, a real bed would be a welcome reprieve. You, however, insisted on setting up camp as normal. You urged the others to find rest inside as they wanted, but they refused to let you sleep alone. When they asked why you were so insistent on camping, you said it wasn’t safe to sleep near so many strangers.

It isn’t a lie. However, the others naturally assumed you meant it wasn’t safe for your group, when really, you meant it wasn’t safe for everyone under Last Light’s protection. When you came face to face with the Selûnite cleric, you watched her through a veil of blood, her voice muffled by the pounding in your ears. When Marcus interrupted, it was a welcome relief. You turned your bloodlust on him, disemboweling him him with your rapier.

It wasn’t what you wanted, but it was enough to stay your hand. As soon as the battle was over, you needed to leave. Isobel, and the whole of Last Light Inn, was in danger so long as you stayed near. Even now, sitting by the campfire, the Urge boils beneath your skin. You idly pick at your lute where it sits across your lap. It’s the lute Alfira gave you, that day in the Grove.

You know it’s morbid, entirely wrong. Alfira gave you this lute as a gift, both of you unaware of the fate that would come to pass. No doubt if she knew what would become of her, she would have spit in your face and it would have been deserved. But you keep it anyway, as a reminder of what happens when you lose control. You pluck at it now to remember why you’ve stayed your hand these long months—what you stand to lose if you give into the Urge.

You notice when Astarion sits beside you, but don’t pay him any mind. He leans back on his hands, watching with perplexed interest. After a few minutes, he finally chooses to speak.

“So…” he begins. “Are you going to explain why you’re strumming that dead bard’s lute?”

“Ah.” You damp the strings with a steady hand. “I didn’t realize you remembered.”

Astarion raises an eyebrow at you. “Darling, you’ve only ever picked up one lute.”

You hum, idly plucking the strings once again.

“Don’t misunderstand, I don’t care,” Astarion assures you, waving his hand dismissively. “But it is rather macabre, darling. If you really must torture us all with the sound, you can buy one quite easily.”

The notes ring hollow through the still air on the edge of the barrier. You frown, trying to remember the vibration through the lute’s barrel when Alfira showed you that first time. Her long fingers had danced through the major chords as she bid you to watch. But when you grasp at the memory, all that comes to mind is how breakable her wrists had been, how you wanted to rend the flesh from her bones.

“That would defeat the purpose,” you mutter, trying to let your body remember where your mind cannot.

“And what purpose is that?” Astarion raises an eyebrow. “Feeling sorry for yourself?”

Meeting all the tieflings at the inn had been a bolt of lightning straight to your shriveled heart. Mol and Dammon had saved you. When you saw Raphael toying with Mol, fury like none other had risen inside you. You stalked over and barely restrained yourself from grabbing him by the throat. You watched a Winged Horror carry Mol into the sky and a scream tore itself from your throat. Once, they had been little more than cattle, meat ripe for the slaughter beneath your practiced hands. Now they were… allies—included in the veil of protection that cloaks the people at your side.

You tell yourself that Alfira was weak. A bard that could barely even sing without help? There was no hope of her ever making it through the shadows. But so was Bex. So were Mol, and Mirkon, and Mattis. You’ll never know if Alfira would have made it. You stole that future from her. You stole it from yourself, too.

“No one else can play it for her,” you murmur. “No one else remembers how.”

Bards are immortalized by their songs. The words they pen and the notes they play survive them long after they’re gone. You’re the only one who knows the melody Alfira wrote. She never had the chance to teach anyone else. If no one else can sing her final ballad, it falls to you, does it not? Keeping her alive in this small way is the only thing you can do now.

Selûne shines down from the heavens, her light the only reprieve from the darkness. She had sung about the moon, hadn’t she?

“Moon reminds me of your grace…” you hum, fingers strumming the chords slowly. “All the…”

You furrow your brow.

“...reminds me of your grace, all the…”

The melody continues on as you pluck the strings. But as you grasp for the words, they speed out of reach.

Gale clears his throat a few paces away, chopping herbs bought from Last Light Inn. “...Love.”

You lift your eyes to meet his with an inquisitive hum. Gale coughs into his fist. “I believe the next line was ‘all the love I can’t repay.’”

A somber warmth spreads across your face. “Thank you.”

Everyone looks on as a long-forgotten melody fills the air. The notes are apprehensive, trembling then growing in confidence as your body finds the memory. You’ve never spoken of Alfira since sunlight unveiled your crime for all to see. There was no time to interrogate you, not with the looming threat of the mindflayer tadpole. The change in you afterwards was plain to see—your stone exterior softened, the cold bite of your words warmed. But if you felt regret or grief, you hid that well behind closed doors.

In truth, you’re not sure if you felt grief at all. Not until now.

You’re no bard, but there is magic in your voice even still. The empty ache of loss in your chest resonates with everyone that hears. You think of the life you lost, the person you used to be—the person you are now. You stand on a precipice, fighting this monster inside you that yearns to destroy it all. Every moment, you are but one misstep away from losing everything you’ve gained.

Similar thoughts flow through all your allies. Gale thinks of his goddess and the executioner’s axe hanging over his head. The ever-present ache in Shadowheart’s hand pulses. Wyll’s horns weigh heavy on his crown. Lae’zel considers the price of freedom. Karlach’s cooled heart whirs in her chest, the memory of your touch still tingling on her skin. Your blood pulses, warm in Astarion’s veins, your presence like the sun even in the deepest shadows.

Wyll sets down his goblet and brushes imaginary dirt off his clothes. He begins to cut across camp, making a direct line towards Karlach. He feels six pairs of eyes on his skin but never wavers. Karlach tilts her head curiously, her eyes bright as he approaches.

When he finally reaches her, he bends at the waist in an exaggerated bow. “I’ve been watching you from across the ballroom all night, milady.” He croons, playing the part of the gallant prince. “Your smile is as radiant as the sunrise over the Sea of Swords.”

As he speaks, Karlach’s mouth slowly breaks into a face-splitting smile. Her cheeks bloom into a near purple color. She buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with uncontrollable giggles.

Wyll, ever the diplomat, maintains his noble mask, his only tell a wry curl on the edge of his lips. “Will you give me the honor of having a dance?”

Everyone watches with amused fondness as Karlach shakes the nervous energy out of her hands, still smiling from ear to ear. “Gods, Wyll, you sure know how to make a girl blush.” She giggles, the sound light and airy. “I bet you broke a lot of hearts at those fancy balls of yours.”

“If you’re worried about your tender heart, young maiden, I vow to keep it safe in my care.” Wyll leans into his persona, crooning sweet words into Karlach’s ear.

“That’s what I used to say, too,” Astarion mutters under his breath.

“We know, we heard you practicing,” Lae’zel says sharply from her tent.

Astarion leans back, craning his head just to shoot her a glare from upside down. Across camp, Karlach laughs breathlessly. “Hells, my palms are all sweaty. I can’t remember the last time I smiled this much.”

“Well, don’t keep the man waiting,” Shadowheart calls out, approaching the campfire with a bottle of wine in hand.

Karlach nods to herself, wiping her hands on her trousers. She clears her throat before sinking into a stiff curtsy. “Why, yes, Lord Prince Wyll Ravengard. It would be my pleasure.” She places her hand in his.

With a brilliant smile, Wyll’s hand curls around hers. He guides her back towards the campfire, until they brush the edge of its orange light. He stands tall, facing Karlach with his palm held up. Karlach mimes him nervously.

“This is probably the part where I should warn you, I’ve never properly danced before,” Karlach chuckled, a hint of anxiety sneaking into her voice.

Wyll’s smile is heartbreakingly kind, “Don’t worry. The steps themselves don’t matter—it’s the company that’s important.” He presses his palm to hers, the flames of her infernal engine tickling the skin between his fingers. “And yours warms me even on the coldest night.”

“You, charmer, you,” Karlach teases, but meets his touch firmly without hesitation. “Just don’t complain if I step on your toes.”

Wyll begins to lead a slow dance, a push and pull between him and Karlach to the strum of your lute. The orange flames dancing on Karlach’s skin are bright enough to rival the campfire. She shines like a beacon against the depths of the shadows in the distance. But here, within Isobel’s protection, you only care for the light and its gentle glow.

“Dance upon the stars tonight,” you hum, continuing to play.

Wyll circles Karlach with graceful steps, guiding her in a slow arc around the campfire. The scent of slow-cooked lamb floats on the gentle autumn breeze. The weather has begun to turn, the nights growing colder, made colder still by the unyielding dark. But you suppose it’s not so bad, as the people you cherish most gather within the fire’s glow.

Shadowheart pours out six glasses of wine, then holds up a seventh and looks pointedly at Astarion. “Thank you, dear, but fine wine is wasted on me.” He nods towards you. “Give that one a second glass for me and between the both of us it should even out.”

Shadowheart drains her own glass, then looks Astarion dead in the eye as she fills it a second time.

Astarion scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You are such a child.”

Shadowheart shrugs, holding out a goblet for Lae’zel as she approaches. “I suppose everyone is a child to someone your age.”

“And yet I don’t look a day over a hundred.” Astarion preens, carefully brushing back his curls. “The curse of eternal beauty is such a heavy burden.”

“Next time you die I’m not reviving you,” Shadowheart threatens guilelessly.

“Smile and pain will fade away…”

Lae’zel takes the goblet from Shadowheart’s hand. “What is this?” she asks sniffing the liquid.

“Wine,” Astarion snarks.

She glares at him. “I am familiar.”

“Ignore him. It’s Amnian dessert wine. It’s known for being used to celebrate. I was saving it as a reward after a harsh battle.” Shadowheart smiles, setting the bottle down by the fire. “But I imagine fixing Karlach’s engine is reason enough to indulge.”

The group turns to follow Karlach and Wyll’s circle around the campfire. What at first had been a proper noble ballroom dance, quickly devolved into formless rhythm. Karlach takes to this much better than the stiff, practiced steps Wyll knows. Instead, he follows her lead, sweeping her across camp with long strides, spinning her out, then twirling her around. When he guides her into a twirl, he has to stand on his tiptoes to avoid catching his arm on her horn.

The entire time, Karlach can’t stop smiling, her pointed teeth on full display. The flames running up and down her arms flicker to the beat, licking and curling around Wyll’s fingers. It should be terrifying to hold hellfire in his arms, but it doesn’t burn. Karlach’s fire caresses him playfully, almost teasing, warm like a stone that’s bathed in the sun.

Even Lae’zel can’t help the amused smile that curls on the edge of her lips as she watches the display. “Yes. On Crèche K’liir the warriors would celebrate successful raids by availing themselves of the spoils.” Lae’zel takes a sip of wine, coming away with a perplexed twist to her lips. “This is a similar victory.”

Shadowheart regards her with mild interest. “Do githyanki have dances?”

Lae’zel narrows her eyes at Shadowheart. “Of course the githyanki dance. We are a far travelled people—we have some form of near everything istiki have.”

“Words of mine will turn to ash…”

Shadowheart nods. “Of course. It’s simply hard to imagine any of the githyanki we’ve encountered doing something so frivolous as dancing.”

“Chk. The githyanki you have met are warriors carrying out their missions or children in training. To spare time for leisure would be to neglect their duty.”

A contemplative look passes over Shadowheart’s face and she nods. “I suppose that makes sense.” Carefully, she tucks an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “Is that… something you could show us?”

Lae’zel furrows her brow, the light casting the lines on her face into deep shadow. “We have traveled for months and you have not asked a single question about githyanki. Why now?”

Astarion’s eyes dart between the two women, his eyebrows slowly raising as wicked amusement begins to twinkle in his eyes. As Shadowheart blusters beneath Lae’zel’s harsh stare, Astarion bridges his hands together and rests his chin in the valley of his fingers.

“Well, it’s not as if you’ve asked about Shar’s customs either,” Shadowheart mutters, eyes darting away.

“Because I have no interest.”

Shadowheart purses her lips. “I see,” Shadowheart says curtly.

Lae’zel continues, ignorant to Shadowheart’s sulking. “As I said, githyanki crèches are places for training. Leisure is reserved for githyanki that have earned their place in the Astral.”

“When you call the last light down…”

Shadowheart refuses to meet Lae’zel’s eyes, sipping sullenly at her wine. Gale watches the exchange with a mixture of pity and secondhand embarrassment.

“Well, you’re not within the crèche anymore, Lae’zel,” Gale says with forced cheer. “Any interest in experiencing leisure as we do on Faerûn?”

The full force of Lae’zel’s attention turns on Gale. “Do you know how to dance, wizard?” she asks incredulously.

Gale blinks at her, clearly offended. “I’m a scholar of Waterdeep, and a former Chosen of Mystra, besides,” he gasps. “I would be a poor representative of my goddess if I made a fool of myself in the ballroom.”

“I would have assumed you were too busy frolicking in Mystra’s pleasure domes to bother with her ballrooms,” Shadowheart muses.

Gale pinches the bridge of his nose. “For your information, a pleasure dome can in fact serve as a ballroom should the need arise.”

Lae’zel thrusts her goblet into Shadowheart’s chest, nearly spilling it down her tunic. “My interest is piqued.” She seizes Gale’s wrist and begins to drag him away from the campfire. “Show me how your goddess dances.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Gale splutters, looking to Shadowheart for assistance. “The stew is nearly ready, if I leave it’ll overcook.”

Shadowheart waves him off, her eyes alight with amusement. “I’m a decent enough cook to pull a pot off the fire. Enjoy yourselves.”

“Moon reminds me of your grace…”

Gale sends Shadowheart a withering glare. It should be far more frightening coming from the man with a bomb in his chest. Yet Shadowheart only smiles pleasantly, watching Gale shuffle nervously beneath Lae’zel’s intense stare. She sits herself beside the fire, finishing the last of Lae’zel’s wine as she watches the display.

Gale’s glare melts away into a pleasant smile as he settles into a teacher’s role. He dons it as easily as he plucks at the Weave, showing Lae’zel where to place her hands. She places a hand on his shoulder, while his rests on her waist. Gale is clearly a practiced hand, whereas Lae’zel is comically stiff beneath his touch.

It’s certainly strange for someone who approaches physical intimacy with such ease.

Soon enough, Gale leads the young githyanki in a simple waltz. She stumbles back unnaturally when he steps into her space, which Gale patiently corrects before trying again. Lae’zel nods at his words, brows pinched severely. When Gale moves again, this time she follows him near perfectly. Shadowheart and Astarion both smile at the display.

“So…” Astarion hums, biting back a shit-eating grin. “Lae’zel?”

Shadowheart looks at him out of the corner of her eye, before turning her focus back to Lae’zel. “Do you want something?” she sighs.

“Oh a lot of things. But right now I’d love to know what exactly changed.”

“All the love I can’t repay…”

Shadowheart’s eyes turn to glass; they follow Gale and Lae’zel without really seeing. What could she possibly say to that? A hundred wisps of half-formed thoughts flit through her mind. She can’t put her voice to a single one.

I look at her and see myself. The doubt in my heart has only grown since I’ve known her. She’s strong in a way I can never be. She makes me realize that I gave up so much more than just my memory.

Pain shoots through her right side. “Ah!” she gasps, her arm buckling beneath her.

Her body crumples towards the campfire. She braces herself for being burned. She’ll be fine. You have plenty of potions, more than enough to bring her back should she fall. But in the meantime it will hurt. Firelight will sear her flesh away. She remembers how the sun peeled Astarion’s skin back from his bone—it will do the same to her. In the time it takes to find a potion and knit her skin back together, she will writhe and ache and burn.

It’s only fitting—light is Lady Shar’s enemy.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t want to doubt, I don’t know how to stop, I’m sorry.

Just as the flames lick her skin, a cold hand catches her around the waist and pulls her out of the pyre. She’s pulled into something cool and solid—instinctively she clings to it like a lifeline. Her right arm won’t respond, but she weakly tries to grasp for purchase. Something cold presses into her palm and her hand weakly curls around it, fingers twitching in the emptiness left once the pain begins to fade.

A weight presses between her shoulderblades. For a moment, she doesn’t fight against the black shroud over her vision or the ringing in her ears. She just sits in the stillness and wishes her mind could be this empty forever. No thoughts, no Absolute, no pain. When her senses return, they’re only going to ache. She’s already been burned twice in one day—how long before it strikes again? As long as she can remember she’s tried to avoid it, but no matter what she does it only returns. Not just that, but it’s getting worse. What used to be a dagger through the back of her hand now feels like her soul being ripped out through her fingertips.

A low rumbling voice purrs into her hair. It pulls her back into her body, as much as she doesn’t want to return. “It’s all right, dear, just breathe.”

A cool thumb strokes over the back of her hand, avoiding the scar. Shadowheart’s lashes flutter against her cheeks and she gasps, heaving within her chest.

“There you are,” another voice says behind her. “We’ve got you,” it promises, steady as stone.

She takes stock of her body. This is a familiar routine. When your allies pull you from the brink of death in the midst of battle, you need to be ready to fight. They’re all practiced hands at transitioning from unawareness to being ready for battle. Her skin is cool, undamaged save for the lingering twitches in her right arm. Her lungs ache, but it’s dull, caused by holding her breath through the pain. It fades quickly as her breathing settles. An arm wraps around her waist, a cool hand pressed against the bottom of her ribcage. Its match curls around her wounded hand, holding it against someone’s broad chest. Someone has bundled her in their arms, she realizes distantly.

Her memory fails her when she tries to recall exactly what happened.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” someone huffs into her hair.

Distantly, a mix of irritation and fondness wells up inside her. She knows that voice and the ridiculous person that owns it. Without even looking, she can imagine the exaggerated eyeroll, the scrunch of his nose in exaggerated disgust.

“You’re warmer than I thought you’d be,” she slurs into Astarion’s chest.

An amused laugh puffs against her forehead. “You’re certainly the first person to say that.” He meets your eyes over the top of Shadowheart’s head, the corner of his mouth curled with repressed laughter. “I’d love to take all the credit, but I think that’s all the fresh blood my lover has been donating. It comes pre-warmed.”

Shadowheart’s laugh escapes as a pained wheeze. “I’ll stop complaining about Lesser Restoration every morning,” she grumbles.

Astarion clicks his tongue at her. “Now, let’s not be hasty. I’m not sure our relationship will survive if you stop mocking me relentlessly.”

Shadowheart squeezes her eyes shut, his animated words grating on her sensitive ears. “Gods, you really love the sound of your own voice.”

Astarion carefully smooths Shadowheart’s braid over her shoulder, checking the ends for any damage. “Ah, there’s my favorite cleric,” he sighs. “I should have enjoyed the gratitude while it lasted.”

All the strength has been sapped from Shadowheart’s body in one fell swoop. The weight of her limbs drags her down, her bones solid blocks of iron. The pain is gone, but its course through her body hollowed it out. It carved out the connection between mind and muscles, and now every command she sends to her twitching fingers disappears into the ether.

A warm hand rubs slow circles into the center of her back. “Are you alright, Shadowheart?” you ask, breath tickling the back of her neck.

Shadowheart whimpers wordlessly. “I don’t think I can move.”

Your other hand curls around her shoulder, rubbing warmth back into deadened limbs. “That’s alright,” you murmur. “You don’t need to go anywhere.”

You brace your hands against Shadowheart’s back and meet Astarion’s eyes over her head. “Here, I’ve got her.”

Astarion curls his hand tighter around her ribcage. “It’s quite alright. You can’t exactly keep playing that lute of yours with a limp cleric in your lap.”

That gives you pause, and you regard Astarion with confusion. “I hardly think anyone will care if I don’t finish the song.”

“Well, I will.” Astarion jerks his chin towards the other, oblivious to Shadowheart’s pain. “Besides, it’s rather pathetic to watch them dance to complete silence.”

The truth is, Astarion doesn’t want to let Shadowheart go. Her body is warm in his arms, her side pressed against the length of his chest. Left immobile by the shock of pain, she’s little more than dead weight, her only movement the slow expansion and contraction of her lungs and the occasional twitch of her fingers. Normally, the idea of touching anyone makes his skin crawl even as he yearns. When Shadowheart presses a Cure Wounds into his shoulder or Wyll pulls him out of restraints, Astarion shies away as soon as the touch is over. But he reached for Shadowheart without a second thought. He wrapped his arms around her to pull her out of the fire, then realized he didn’t want to let her go.

Shadowheart is exhausted, pained. There’s no expectation for Astarion to provide anything more than this. Shadowheart couldn’t even ask for more if she wanted to, limp and heavy as she is. It’s Astarion’s choice to hold her, to feel the ridges of her knuckles beneath his thumb. To any onlooker, Astarion is performing a service, providing comfort and sanctuary to someone in need. They don’t have to know just how badly he yearns for this, how good it feels to touch someone without being expected to offer more than he wants to give.

You pull back, your fingertips trailing down the length of Shadowheart’s spine. “Alright.” You nod resolutely. “If you’re sure.”

You pull Alfira’s lute back into your lap and your voice swells to fill camp once more.

“Rest and know that I will pray…”

Shadowheart closes her eyes, your soothing voice a balm against the lingering ache in her limbs. “This is nice,” she hums.

Astarion looks down at her and for a moment he’s not here beside the campfire in the Shadowlands, but on the cold floor of the spawn quarters in the Szarr Palace. It’s not Shadowheart in his arms, but Dalyria, shaking apart as he combs fingers through her knotted hair. Comfort was rare between him and his “siblings.” The spawn were far more likely to cut each other off at the knees for a chance at gaining Cazador’s favor than to patch up each other’s wounds. Cazador delighted in watching them torment each other, and any attempt at soothing Cazador’s punishments would be seen as insubordination.

But on the rare occasion, Astarion would return from a hunt to find Violet, or Petras, or Dalyria whimpering in the wake of a nightmare or curled in a fetal position, licking their wounds. He could still feel unwanted hands on his body, the lingering aftershocks of forced pleasure still churning in his gut. He floated outside of himself, numb to the stale sweat painted across his skin and the stickiness between his thighs. He needed to scrub himself clean, to peel back his skin until he found any piece of himself that remained untainted. But that would mean taking stock of the damage that had been done, acknowledging the things he’d been made to feel. He was far too tired, too hungry to try and piece himself back together.

Another frail whimper would pierce the air. On trembling legs Astarion would carry himself to the other spawn’s bedside and collapse to his knees. They would reach for him with a single hand, and Astarion would catch it in both of his. He would press the hand against his cheek and lean in, desperate for some kind of connection—anything that wouldn’t hurt. The spawns’ hands were unbearably cold, trembling and weak on his face. But that was for the best—warm touch meant wandering hands, carnal pleasure, revulsion.

Tomorrow, the other spawn would be his tormentors once more. They would mock him, pierce his flesh, compete with him for their Master’s favor. But for now, they were his lifeline—the only people in the world who could ever understand what it was like to be unmade and reformed into something rotten.

Aurelia had done the same for him after that wretched year of solitude. She had bundled him in her arms like a child and sponged the dirt and dried blood off his papery skin. Her touch was cold, but it was the only warmth Astarion was allowed. It was the first kind touch he’d felt in a year. He had clung to her and stifled his cries into her neck. She was the only person he could cry to. She stroked his hair and whispered into his brow just how much she missed him, how much she worried for him. If Cazador had left him there to rot, she would have been the only one left to mourn him.

For two hundred years, Astarion’s only connections were Cazador and the other spawn. He brought ruin to everyone else he knew. When the only thing you’re allowed to keep is the very thing that wounds you, you learn to love it anyway. When you’re cursed to destroy the people that care for you most, pain becomes a part of love.

What ills have the other spawn suffered with him gone? No doubt they would be punished for allowing him to slip his leash, accused of aiding his escape. Cazador would torture them blindly, in hopes of rooting out the traitor. They would be sent out to bring him back, then punished when they failed. How long did it take to sour any remaining affection they might have had for him? When did they begin to curse his name? How many beatings can love withstand?

For Astarion, it was only a few lashes.

The spawn would begin to turn on each other, convinced one of them knew the secret to his escape. Suspicion and doubt would tear them apart as they struggled in vain to find some means of ending their suffering. But an end would never come. The very thought is horrific. Pity flickers briefly between his lungs. Death would be a mercy for them now.

The vision fades away, and the light of the campfire warms Astarion’s skin once more. Shadowheart’s embrace aches only because of the memories and nothing more. Shadowheart has never hurt him. Save for the incident with the monastery, none of you have. The touch he receives from all of you has only ever been gentle and warm. Even your sensual caress against his skin is different from the touch of his previous targets. Even when your touch makes him sick it means something to be able to choose.

Astarion swallows thickly. “I suppose it’s not the worst thing.” He ignores how this may be the closest thing to safety he’s felt in two hundred years.

When Shadowheart begins to snore quietly into his collarbone, a part of him is grateful—it means he can stay like this for just a bit longer. “Your goddess is a wicked bitch,” he murmurs into her hair.

“Farewell my dear old friend…”

Karlach practically collapses by your side, breathless with laughter as she leans back on her hands. You set Alfira’s lute aside and meet her grin with eyes warm enough to rival the flames curling in her hair. Karlach’s smile widens and she throws an arm around your shoulders, pulling you tight against her side.

You go easily, wrapping your arms around her waist and holding tight.

“What happened to Shadowheart?” Karlach asks, nodding at where she curls in Astarion’s lap.

“Bit too much to drink, I imagine,” Astarion hums easily.

You let the white lie go. Shadowheart values her privacy and hates when the group fusses over her even more. Particularly when it comes to Shar’s mark. It invites questions from the others that she doesn’t want—or isn’t ready—to answer. You aren’t one to encourage falsehoods among your allies, or allow them to mask their pain. But Shadowheart is clearly exhausted, and the Karlach’s fussing would likely only disturb her rest.

Karlach accepts the explanation with a nod before tucking a giddy smile into your crown. “Gods, I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun,” Karlach laughs into your hair.

“They don’t throw a lot of parties in the Hells?” you tease.

Drinking her fill of any kind of connection, Karlach twirls your hair around her finger. “You’d be surprised,” she hums. “They usually end in a bloodbath, though.”

“That can always be arranged.”

Karlach huffs a laugh. “No, soldier, I think I’ve had enough blood after that business with the cleric.”

You hum, sinking into Karlach’s warmth, her gentle flames caressing your skin like sunlight. “When we get back to Baldur’s Gate, we’ll go to a real party,” you murmur.

Karlach barks out a laugh. “I think I’d prefer a round of drinks at the Elfsong than some stuffy ballroom.” She glances up at Wyll as he begins to ladle out the stew for everyone. “All this high society stuff is fun with friends, but I think if I had to listen to some snooty lord gossip I’d throw him out a window.”

Wyll laughs brightly, passing a bowl into Karlach’s hands. “A night of debauchery it is then.”

Karlach smiles warmly, gazing down into the stew Gale carefully prepared. A long buried emotion prickles at the corner of her eyes. For ten years, rage has been her driving force. She couldn’t afford space for anything else. Survival meant fighting tooth and nail against devils, demons, and everything in between. For the longest time, she suspected her capacity to feel anything else was ripped from her along with her heart. Where her heart used to be now housed only machinery, powered by hellfire. There was no space for love or fear inside a mechanical heart. Only a deep-seated fury at everything the world had taken from her.

Now though, with time to rest and allies at her side, she finds all those old feelings surging back. Her veins flood with emotions she thought long buried. Every new bit of earth she sees sparks joy in the bowels of her engine. For ten years, she lived without the sky, no sun, no moon, no stars to guide her home. Despite the peril they found themselves in, every day of this journey had been a precious gift. Sunlight greeted Karlach every morning, the smell of fresh earth and wildflowers a constant reminder of the life she’d reclaimed. She still had to fight for her survival, but there was far more peace on the Material Plane than she’d ever experienced in Avernus. On the front lines of the Blood War, a night of dancing and revelry would be unheard of.

She’s happy, for the first time in ten years, she remembers what happiness feels like. “It’s a bit like a childhood dream come true, you know,” Karlach laughs wetly. “When I was a kid I’d look up at the lights in the Upper City and wonder how the other half lived.

“I was more a catching frogs by the creek, rolling in the mud kind of kid.” Karlach’s smile dims into something closer to yearning—for a time when the world was good and simple. “But I think every little girl in Baldur’s Gate dreams of the fairytale ballroom, the dashing prince come to sweep her off her feet.”

“Gender has nothing to do with it, I also dreamt of being charmed by a knight in shining armor,” Astarion cuts in.

“Every Baldurian child, then,” Karlach corrects. “But I had my fill of noble arses and their parties when I worked for Gortash,” she spits the name on the ground like poison. “I was supposed to just stand in the corner and watch, seen and not heard. If anyone did pay attention to me it was always with the look, y’know? Like, ‘who brought in the Outer City trash?’”

She scowls for a moment, grabbing the wine the Shadowheart left for her. She downs it in one go, and when she comes away it’s with amusement tugging on her lips. She looks to Wyll, her eyes forming into crescent moons beneath her smile.

“I certainly never could have imagined dancing with the son of a duke,” she teases.

“Normally I would tell you that I’m the Blade of Frontiers, a simple folk hero,” Wyll says with a grin. “But I suppose tonight I can be Grand Duke Ravengard’s son.”

A boisterous belly laugh erupts from Karlach’s mouth. “Ballroom dancing with a hero? Even better!” She wipes at her eyes through her laughter. “All my old schoolyard bullies would die if they saw me now.”

“Give us some names and we can take care of that,” you offer.

“Oh, stop.” Karlach gently shoves your shoulder, nearly pushing you into Astarion. “I never could have imagined this back then.”

She looks out over your group with fondness. You tuck yourself close against her chest. Nearby, Astarion holds Shadowheart nearly curled in his lap. Wyll hands out steaming bowls of lamb stew before settling on Karlach’s other side. Beyond the glow of the campfire, Lae’zel spins Gale in practiced circles as he laughs, an amused gleam in her eyes.

“Hells, three months ago I was fighting for my life in the Blood War.” Her arm curls tightly around you, a warm brand on your waist. “Being here, surrounded by people I care about, dancing, laughing…” The points of her nails press firmly between your ribs. “It was unthinkable. If someone told me I could have this, I would’ve punched their face in for being an arsehole.”

Astarion gazes at her as if seeing her for the first time. He looks down, shifting Shadowheart in his hold. She murmurs unintelligibly in her sleep, breath warm against his collar. It’s unthinkable that anyone could ever understand the suffering he’s endured, all the ways he’s been broken down. How could anyone possibly understand the fear that lurks inside him, how even in a city far beyond the horizon, Cazador controls him even still? No one could ever understand—the only people who ever could were part of his torment.

Yet the proof lay here, in his arms. Karlach knows what it means to be controlled, to be owned, to give up hope of ever seeing the sun. Shar seeds fear and obedience within Shadowheart much the same way Cazador did him. Beneath Shar’s all-seeing gaze, there’s no hope of escape. Where do you go, to outrun a god?

“Yes, though the tadpole and the cult are a bit of an unwelcome surprise,” Astarion hums, deflecting.

Karlach laughs brightly. “Hey, if that’s the cost of freedom, I’d pay it a thousand times!” She presses a giddy smile against the top of your head. “Funny that getting captured by mindflayers might be the best thing that’s happened to me in a decade.”

Astarion looks over the group beside him—Karlach, Wyll, you, and Shadowheart in his arms. Then further out, to Gale and Lae’zel, still dancing even though the music has long faded. He’s still afraid—there hasn’t been a time in two hundred years where the icy claws of fears haven’t stabbed through his heart. But it’s distant, farther away than it’s ever been when he’s still in his body. The hollow shell of the person he used to be feels… more. Fuller, somehow. The warmth that he’s only ever felt at your side flickers gently within his chest as Shadowheart’s body heat spreads through his palms, as Karlach’s laughter makes the dead muscle between his lungs stir.

“Tragedy certainly seems to follow in all our footsteps,” Astarion says.

“Well, maybe this is the turning point,” Karlach says optimistically. “It has to get better eventually, right?”

Astarion raises a skeptical brow at her. “Darling, one thing the past two hundred years has taught me is that it never gets better.”

“Oh, don’t be so mopey,” she scolds. “You’re here aren’t you? And now you have us.” She flashes him a smile as radiant as the sunrise. “Just you wait. I have a feeling everything’s going to start falling into place.”

Astarion knows better than to trust something as nebulous as a feeling. But even his ice cold heart isn’t immune to Karlach’s cheer. He shakes his head with a fond sigh.

“I think you have enough optimism for the both of us,” he says dryly. “You keep that chin up, dear, and I’ll be realistic.” It’s practically a ringing endorsement coming from him.

He pretends not to notice as Karlach wipes the corners of her eyes. “You know, I’m so lucky to have met all of you.”

Karlach looks over each and every one of your group, etching your faces into her memory. The joy spilling off her is so strong that it overflows through the tadpole. A flood of endorphins reverberates through your shared psychic connection, echoing and amplified each time it finds a new host. You can practically taste her joy, rich and warm like honey-roasted rothé melting on your tongue. It’s a warm shroud over the camp, your own protective bubble of firelight to keep out the shadow.

You close your eyes and lean into her chest. You never want this feeling to end. For this one moment, the Absolute and your Urge are far, far away. If you could only freeze time here you could keep everyone dearest to you safe—from yourself and the world that’s broken them down. You press your ear against her skin and listen to the gentle thrum of her mechanical heart. Funny, that a heart made of metal could be the gentlest of all.

You remember so little of what you were before, the person that used to live inside this vile husk of yours. You remember blood, you remember darkness, you remember an endless stream of unseeing eyes and cavernous mouths with tongues removed. You don’t remember a single person. You don’t remember being… cared for. All those visions of death and violence bring pleasure, thick and cloying… but not like this. Not warm and content and… safe.

You feel safe.

“I’d do anything to keep you,” you murmur into the valves of Karlach’s heart. “I think you all might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Chapter Text

Besides you and Astarion, Lae’zel is consistently the first to rise. This morning is no different. You leave the warmth of Astarion’s tent shortly after dawn (or whatever passes for dawn in this place) and find Lae’zel running through sword drills. You approach cautiously, unsure if it’s better to make your presence known or wait for an appropriate opening. You stand back, watching her with intrigue. She stands square against the mindflayer dummy she’s constructed, greatsword in hand.

You watch as she practices blocking with the crossguard, parrying, then arcs her sword through the air and lands a strike against the breadth of the dummy’s chest. She shifts her stance and hits the opposite side once again with her blade. Her strikes are quick, cleaving through the air with deadly precision. Not for the first time, you’re immensely grateful that’s on your side.

“Instead of gawking at me, you should speak your mind,” Lae’zel finally speaks, cutting through the morning’s silence.

You bristle instinctively at having been caught, before allowing the tension to ease. Lae’zel’s words are harsh, but they hold none of the bite from earlier. She has, at the very least, calmed from the last time you spoke to her directly. You aren’t sure exactly how to do this. You’ve never hesitated to apologize to your companions when you feel you’ve done them wrong. But never has your mistake been so severe, nor have you been so blind to it.

You had thought the words would come to you in the moment, as they always do. But when you close your hands around them they crumble between your fingers. You don’t know where to begin apologizing for this. You don’t know how to make it right. When you left Astarion to die, part of your soul remained there, buried beneath the rubble. You were able to bring him back, but that piece of you is still trapped on the mountainside. You can never go back to who you were before you knew the pain of failure.

Lae’zel’s people are still dead, never to return. You can’t fix that, just as you couldn’t return Alfira to life.

Your mouth goes dry as you reach for something, anything at all to break the tension. “Your form is good,” you finally settle on.

Your voice falls flat, just as lame out loud as it sounded in your head. Lae’zel pauses, sword held at the ready as she processes your words. After a moment she lets out an irritated sigh and allows the point of her sword to fall limply to the ground. She finally turns her head to look at you, brows pinched together to match her severe frown.

“I am aware,” Lae’zel says tersely. “If you interrupted my training to offer meaningless flattery, then don’t bother.”

You let out a long breath. That’s about the response you would have expected from Lae’zel. You’re not sure that an apology will go over any better, in all honesty. But you need to try—even if you can’t undo your mistake, you need her to know that your regret aches like a festering wound.

You fold your arms over your chest, gripping your own arms tightly. “I owe you an apology Lae’zel,” you begin.

Lae’zel’s expression is unyielding, blank like stone tablet yet to be carved. You feel her unmoving eyes on your skin as she reads your intent. The mask she wears is near-perfect, honed through a lifetime of careful training beneath teachers that praised only conquest. Lae’zel was trained to be a vessel for Vlaakith’s will, without any emotions of her own. Even now, cut off from Vlaakith’s will, the hollowness still remains. It will take time to learn what lay beneath that heart of stone. For now, she simply waits.

“I’m sorry for destroying the crèche. Your people didn’t deserve that.”

At first it’s difficult to meet Lae’zel’s gaze. Shame burns hot between your ribs, siphoning all the air from your lungs until your head feels weightless. Not even when you slaughtered Alfira and all your allies regarded you with judgment in their eyes did you feel shame so brightly. Alfira meant nothing to you and your companions meant little more than that. It wasn’t until after that you began to care.

Now, bile climbs your throat at the thought of facing Lae’zel’s scorn. “And I’m sorry that it took me this long to realize how hard that must have been for you.” You take a steadying breath and slowly meet Lae’zel’s eyes, even as panic curls around your jaw.

Her lips twist into a grimace as she regards you. With an annoyed sigh, she jams the point of her sword into the ground—in part just to stab something and in part so she can free her hands. On Crèche K’liir, failure was intolerable. Once, an enchanted dagger disappeared from the armory. It was a simple thing, barely worth its own weight in steel. Kith’rak Al’chaia gutted the Quartermaster on the training grounds for her failure. Kith’rak Al’chaia stepped over the spilled intestines and ordered the asteroid searched from top to bottom.

They found the dagger hidden beneath young Qirin’s mattress in the barracks. He said that Ih’za had attacked him in his sleep one night and he needed a means of defending himself from her assault. Sa’varsh Kaaltav oversaw a duel between the two youths. Qirin narrowly won by breaking Ih’za’s neck. As soon as Sa’varsh Kaaltav declared Qirin victor, Kith’rak Al’chaia cleaved his head from his torso. The duel was not to determine which of the two githyanki were meant to live, but to determine if Ih’za could finish what she started. Qirin was dead the moment they discovered the dagger in his bed.

Lae’zel had looked on with scorn in her eyes, ashamed that her kin would dishonor Vlaakith’s name with petty theft and weakness. Guitar’rac neh toruun—one theft consumes all. Qirin’s theft stained the whole of their clutch. When Kith’rak Al’chaia sheathed her sword and turned to look at the remaining students with a piercing gaze that said with startling clarity: next time, I will not be so merciful.

On Crèche K’liir, there was no such thing as failure, only the end of a blade. Cull the weak with a silver sword and in doing so make the githyanki stronger. They were all servants of Vlaakith, and what good is a servant that steps beyond its station?

Despite your faults, Lae’zel has chosen to follow you. Were you githyanki, you would be her sarth. It would be unthinkable for a sarth to apologize to someone under their command. It would be the greatest shame, to bow your head to someone beneath you. Lae’zel tears her eyes from your face, instead looking over your shoulder. A sarth would never apologize, much less a kith’rak.

“Your words are worthless,” Lae’zel says, brusquely. “The githyanki you killed will not find comfort in them, nor will it bring them back.”

You close your eyes and nod stiffly. The words twist a knife between your ribs, but you’ve earned them. You let down your guard and the Urge took over, just as it had with Alfira. By the time you realized what was happening, it was too late, and the monastery was crumbling beneath your feet. It’s cruel to call yourself lucky when that lapse of control caused the death of dozens. But you do feel lucky. Had things been different, you might have woken to find one of your allies gutted at your feet, your limbs painted in their blood.

You actions beneath the Rosymorn Monastery are a chilling reminder of everything you stand to lose if your rancid blood isn’t purged.

“One thought haunts me when I remember the tremble of the mountainside as Crèche Y’llek fell,” Lae’zel murmurs, her gaze chasing the shadows. “As soon as I met you, I judged you a coward.”

The arrogant fire inside you flickers to life momentarily. You are many things, but a coward certainly isn’t one of them. However, you let the flame burn out uselessly. Your pride will do you no good here, not when Lae’zel’s anger is entirely earned.

“I allowed you to lead because at the beginning it was between you, the vampire, or the cultist.” She wrinkles her nose in clear disgust.

Any other time you would object to calling Shadowheart a cultist on her behalf. Regardless of your feelings about her childhood, you don’t want to encourage strife among your allies.

“And while my steel is unmatched, I am wise enough to know that in an unfamiliar land, I would be a fool to charge into the unknown.” The corners of Lae’zel’s mouth pull into a severe frown, the lines on her face darkened by shadow. “Even still, it nearly drove me to madness. You are not githyanki, and you do not lead your group the way a kith’rak would.”

You can’t help yourself. “And how would a kith’rak lead our group?”

Lae’zel motions sharply with her hands, the flat of her hand striking her palm. “A kith’rak would trust the strength of their steel and those under their command. They would identify the enemy and strike first, headon.” Lae’zel exhales sharply with a shake of her head. “They would not waste time talking to those beneath them. They would not infiltrate, nor explore.”

“I suppose I would make a terrible githyanki,” you attempt to joke, a bitter smirk curling on the edge of your mouth.

Lae’zel nods sharply. “You would not have survived training. The moment you tried to protect someone responsible for themselves, the both of you would have been gutted.”

You fold your arms and look away. She is right in that you are recklessly protective and loyal, perhaps to the detriment of your group. After all, Gale was a significant threat to all of you in the early days. But Wyll implored you to let him stay, and Karlach rightfully pointed out that the rest of you were no better. So you accepted the danger he carried. What would have become of you, if you’d woken in an environment like Lae’zel describes? If everything around you told you to force Gale out, you would have told him to go. He would be dead, and your life would be duller for it.

“It was a grave insult,” Lae’zel continues. “Clearly, you must not trust our group’s strength since you so often resorted to manipulation where blades would have been swifter.”

You bristle at the accusation. “Lae’zel, surely you know that’s not—”

“I do. Now.” She lets out a short breath through her nose. “But those were my thoughts, once. I am… beginning to understand.”

After these long months, she sees the wisdom in your actions. No matter how strong your blade, not every problem is one that can be cut through, nor should it be. You are no githyanki, nor a kith’rak. But perhaps that is one of the many things that has kept your group alive where they would have perished alone.

“You have kept us alive despite the odds.” Lae’zel nods at you. “That is admirable.”

Your eyes widen almost imperceptibly at the sudden praise. It’s exceedingly rare to receive Lae’zel’s approval. It means more because you know she speaks the truth.

“What I do not understand, is why after an overabundance of caution to the point of madness, you would throw it all away on the altar of a god,” Lae’zel asks, her eyes unraveling your skin at the seams.

You mouth presses into a thin line. “I… I don’t know.”

Lae’zel scowls at you. “That cannot possibly be true. You insist on knowing everything, yet can’t find an explanation for your own actions?”

You have one, it simply invites more questions than answers. How can you look Lae’zel in the eye and tell her that you wanted to watch a monument crumble? That the deaths of her people were not an unwanted casualty, but the result you wanted? The Blood of Lathander was just a convenient excuse, given any opportunity, you would have burned the monastery to ash with Lae’zel’s people inside.

You regret it, given the chance you would have tried to stop it. But you still wanted it. Your control lapsed for a moment, and it cost you Astarion’s life and Lae’zel’s loyalty. How can you explain that?

You feel more helpless than you have since waking with no memory of who you are. “I don’t know how to explain it,” you murmur beneath Lae’zel’s glare.

“You can’t,” she snaps. “But I want to hear you try.”

A sigh escapes through your nose. A hundred lies climb up the walls of your throat. You didn’t think the entire monastery would fall. You thought you’d be able to stop the fallout. You thought there would be enough time for the githyanki to evacuate. None of them are true. Lies fall easily from your tongue when it suits you. The world reforms itself to your spoken word. It’s easy to spin a web of silken lies when people look to you for answers. But when you have to meet your companions’ eyes, the strands of silk tear apart at the seams. All your falsehoods die on your tongue. You’ll never claim to be entirely honest, but you can’t bear to feed them outright lies.

They’ve been lied to enough. You don’t want to be the next person who’s used them and let them down.

So here you are, standing beneath Lae’zel’s withering glare, unable to lie and unable to tell the truth. You close your eyes and try to grasp for something, anything that will make everything fall into place. What can you say to make sense of this chaos?

“I wanted to feel powerful,” you murmur, eyes still closed. “After everything with the zaith’isk, and then the Prism…” You open your eyes again to meet Lae’zel’s unflinching gaze. “I wanted to feel in control. I thought the blood of a god would give me that much, at least.”

For a long moment Lae’zel says nothing. Silence hangs thick between you as she stands at attention, one hand clasping her other wrist. Her eyes measure you with the expertise of a general, sizing up his troops, deciding whether you’re cannon fodder or a soldier with a higher purpose.

When she speaks, you still don’t know what she’s decided. “And? Did you feel as powerful as you wanted?”

“Yes,” you gasp, breathless. “Stealing the blood of a god who’s never lifted a finger to help us? Watching his monument crumble? There’s very little better than that.” You hope that the Moringlord is watching you now, that the sun rises blood red every morning as he casts his rage upon the land. “Zariel was his angel. If Lathander took any responsibility for those under his command, perhaps Karlach would still have her heart.”

You may not be a god, but you’re a leader in your own right. Your allies are extensions of yourself. Their actions are yours and yours theirs. If any of them were to stray, it’s your duty to guide them back. If one of them turned on the rest, it would fall to you to cut them down.

“But it wasn’t worth the cost.” Your voice shakes like the monastery trembling beneath your feet. “That feeling of power faded, and then I had to look upon the ruins I’d left in my wake.”

You stared into the cloud of dust as it settled, waiting for a miracle. You searched endlessly for some sign of life, a shock of white hair cursing as it climbed out of the rubble, you listened for a voice calling your name. But wicked creatures like you aren’t granted miracles. You looked upon a pile of ash and heard only silence. You had to pick up the pieces and try desperately to form them into a miracle of your own making.

“I’ll regret that moment of weakness until I breathe my last,” you vow.

Lae’zel remains silent, ever watchful as your voice lingers in the air. Her face betrays nothing as your words echo behind her eyes. She knows the desperate struggle for power better than most. All her life she strove to be powerful, to please Vlaakith the way she was taught. Vlaakith offered her ascension in exchange for obedience. As the weak around Lae’zel were cut down, power was her lifeline, the only means by which she could reach the future. If she ever wanted to see the Astral Sea, if she ever wanted to go home, she need to carve her place in it. Jez’rathki—seeping through the cracks between realms—was no easy feat. She needed to tear open the fabric of reality herself.

But all the power she’d gained in Vlaakith’s name vanished in an instant, a stone that fractures and shatters between her hands. Does she regret it now that she’s been cast out from Vlaakith’s light? Does she regret the people she’s killed? Does it even matter?

“Your regret is worthless.” Lae’zel lifts her chin, and turns her amber gaze on you, burning like the sun. “If you truly feel regret then prove it in your actions. Do not let your greed consume you again.”

A long-held breath escapes you as you realize what Lae’zel’s offered you: a second chance.

A second chance is far more than githyanki are ever granted. But mercy and justice are two things she’s learned from you. You allowed Gale and Astarion to remain despite the danger, and they’ve proven themselves formiddable allies. You showed mercy to Shadowheart when she held a knife to Lae’zel’s throat, then shown that same mercy to Lae’zel when she held a dagger to yours.

With Vlaakith’s light no longer shining to illuminate her path, perhaps it’s time Lae’zel found a light of her own. Yours has served her well thus far.

You meet Lae’zel’s eyes and wordless understanding passes between you. A second chance was not something she could have offered at the beginning of your journey, but it’s something you have earned. Lae’zel’s mercy is a gift you won’t squander.

“I’ll make this right,” you vow.

“Chk.” Lae’zel scoffs. “I am not the one you wronged. The people whose forgiveness you seek are beyond your grasp.”

You nod slowly as the words bite. “I’ll do what I can.” You swallow thickly. “Should you join Voss’s fight against Vlaakith, I’ll be by your side.”

Lae’zel stiffens at the sudden reminder of all that has happened in the past tenday. She can never truly forget—the loss of Vlaakith’s favor aches with every inward breath. But the reminder of all that lay ahead is a daunting prospect. On that path lay a hundred choices she’ll need to make without anyone to guide her hand. She might just hold her people’s future within her grasp, and it’s a weight she’s not sure she can bear.

“If what Voss says is true, then I must,” Lae’zel says, masking the tremor in her voice with bravado. “I will not let Vlaakith keep my people in chains.”

“Then I’ll do whatever it takes.” Like all your promises, your words are etched in stone, carved into each of your ribs so that every breath feels the weight of the vow you made. “I won’t let you down again.”

You mean it with every fiber of your being. If this is the path Lae’zel chooses, then you will be by her side until the end. You’ll clear the path for her to free her people. No matter the price, you’ll pay it gladly if it leads to a future where Lae’zel can be truly free.

Lae’zel narrows her eyes at you, a curious tilt to her head. “Why would the githyanki matter to you?” she asks, voice hard and brittle. “This is my fight, not yours.”

You blink at her, caught off-guard. “You just answered your own question.” To you, it’s obvious. You’ve made no secret of your devotion. “It matters to me because it’s your fight.”

Lae’zel’s eyes remain narrowed, brows furrowed deeply as she searches your face. She finds no sign of deception, but that’s no surprise. Everyone knows you’re a practiced liar. But there’s a warmth in your eyes that only ever shows itself when you look at your allies. It’s unsettling to be on the receiving end of it. Lae’zel isn’t used to affection like this—kind words and gentle looks. It’s an incessant scratch under her skin that she can’t quite shake. The only type of affection she knows is carnal and animalistic. Sex is the only time she’s ever allowed her guard to drop, and even then she keeps stock of the knife under her bedroll.

But somehow, you manage to disarm her without need of pleasure. You do it with those earnest eyes of yours and the devotion that pours out of your bleeding heart and stains the ground. It’s strange. For her whole life Lae’zel has been the devotee, never the one being worshipped. Finally, Lae’zel simply shakes her head. As much as she tries, perhaps there are things about you she will simply never understand.

Lae’zel wraps her hand around the pommel of her greatsword and pulls it out of the ground. “Get your rapier,” she orders.

You blink at her. “What?”

“Your rapier,” Lae’zel repeats. “I’m growing rather tired of watching you fail to use it properly.”

She brandishes her sword, holding it in front of her with both hands. A breathless laugh escapes you as you go to grab your rapier from your pack. She waits for you, in an unmoving battle stance. When you return, you briefly pass a hand over both your blades, dulling them with magic. You take a few steps back and settle into your own stance, a mimicry of how you’ve seen Wyll brandish his blade. Lae’zel strikes almost before you finish—you bring up your sword to parry, but her strength overwhelms you and breaks your guard. Her sword strikes the side of your forearm hard enough to bruise. You can’t help the breathless laugh that escapes at the flare of pain. The dull ache beneath your skin feels like forgiveness.

After two days you return to Dammon, as instructed. The group mingles in the courtyard of Last Light Inn. Wyll and Astarion speak to Quartmaster Talli to haggle for supplies. Well, Wyll haggles; Astarion surreptitiously pockets anything not nailed down while Wyll is distracted. One of the Harpers is brave enough to approach Lae’zel, and they show off a heavy crossbow that she inspects with interest. Gale and Shadowheart wait with you near Dammon’s forge as he looks over Karlach’s engine once more. In low voices they discuss your plan to head to Moonrise.

You stand sentry with folded arms, eyes unblinking as you watch Dammon work. Every few seconds his eyes dart towards you before checking the heat of the forge again. Your intense supervision clearly makes him nervous. Good. You’re placing Karlach’s life in his hands—he should know just how precious it is.

He places an ear over Karlach’s mechanical heart, just as he did that first time. He purses his lips, strides to his workbench and grabs a worn leather journal. He flips through the pages with a deep furrow in his brow, then leans in to listen again. He cycles through these motions three times, his expression growing more severe each time.

An ever increasing dread mounts in your chest as you watch the hope fade from Dammon’s eyes. It’s an echo of the tightness you saw in his face two days ago, drawn to the surface and amplified. Where before he felt unease, now you watch full-blown grief take root. You knew he was hiding something. You knew.

For two days you’ve held Karlach, danced and lived, all the things she hasn’t been able to for ten years. In two days, you’ve tried to fit a lifetime of joy. An impossible task, but you did your best. When you fell asleep, bones weary and warm, there was comfort in knowing there would be a lifetime ahead to keep trying.

But you sense the waves breaking against the shore. Wild magic erupts from your palms and rends your flesh from bone. After the sun sets, unyielding darkness swallows its light. You were a fool to think that this happiness was yours to keep.

In the moments before he opens his mouth, Karlach, too, realizes that her carefree joy has come to an end. She forces a resigned smile on her face, watching Dammon with such tenderness that it makes you want to kill them both. You can imagine it so clearly—reaching into Karlach’s chest and ripping out her infernal heart. It would burn in your grasp as Karlach’s blood seized in her veins. Surely a heart made of iron would be heavy? Perfect to smash in Dammon’s face until it’s an unrecognizable smear.

Whatever Dammon’s about to say will hurt far worse than killing them with your own two hands. Dammon steels his jaw. When he finally meets Karlach’s eyes, his mouth twists like he’s been gutted. If he’s been gutted then why is the knife sticking out of your chest?

“Karlach…” he begins with a heavy breath.

“Don’t,” you cut him off, your rotten heart seizing in your chest.

Panic like you’ve never felt rises in your throat. Whatever’s he’s about to say may as well be a dagger through your heart, for it will kill you just as surely. It’s only been two days. Is two days of joy that great a sin? After ten years of servitude Karlach has earned far more than that. They can’t steal it from her again, you won’t allow it.

Dammon’s crystalline eyes dart to you, hollow sympathy writ on his face. “I wish I had better news for you.”

Then find better news, you think. Take fate by the hands and change it. Don’t look at me with pity, I’ll claw out your eyes, don’t look at me!

You seethe through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to hear it,” you growl, your voice broken glass against the column of your throat.

Your fingers overextend, curled into claws. The Urge within you roars to life, spurred on by the terror running wild in your veins. Your fear spills out into the Weave, the air around you crackling with energy. The forge itself bubbles and comes to life, roiling against the wild magic in your veins. Shadowheart and Gale quickly stand at attention, hands going to their weapons. After so long at your side, they recognize the feel of a burgeoning surge.

“Clear your mind,” Gale warns calmly.

How can he say that? Your mind is clearer than it’s ever been. You are a weapon crafted to maim and slaughter—this the purpose you were born for.

“Soldier,” Karlach calls, stern but gentle. The liquid gold of her eyes shimmers wetly beneath the glow of the forge. “It’s alright. Really, I should’ve known it couldn’t last,” she says with false cheer.

You blink harshly and let out a long breath. For the moment, the forge stills once again.

Dammon’s shoulders slump. “It’s not hopeless, but…” He watches Karlach with resigned longing. “The adjustments I made have bought you more time but… that engine of yours is just too hot to exist here in the Material Plane indefinitely.”

“Yeah, I know.” Karlach looks away, her jaw flexing. “Zariel was real proud of her insurance,” Karlach spits like Zariel’s name is poison in her mouth. “Said that even if I found a way, I’d never be able to live outside the Hells.”

“I had hoped that my modifications might be able to counteract the heat, but…”

When Dammon sighs, his entire body deflates, all his youthful charm replaced by weariness. You remember, suddenly, that this man forged weapons for devils on the frontlines of the Blood War. He’s seen death and destruction the likes of which few people ever have. He crafted blades knowing they would see infernal blood. And he crafted them well, artful as he sharpens an axe that will cleave through a devil’s throat. He shapes infernal iron and trains it to thirst for blood.

In some ways, he’s much like whoever made you into the monster that you are.

“This thing will burn you up from the inside out—far sooner than you think.” Dammon refuses to meet Karlach’s eyes, the words unwieldy in his mouth. “But there’s a cure, if you return to Avernus for good—”

Karlach’s derisive scoff interrupts him. “The minute I set foot back in Avernus, Zariel will force me back into service,” she spits, an ugly twist to her mouth. “I’m not doing her bidding again. I’d rather die.”

I’d rather die, she’d rather die, after everything you’ve been through she’s going to disappear.

First Gale and now Karlach? She’s the second member of your group to be given a death sentence in the span of a tenday. You had two days of bliss and for what? Just to watch it all slip through your fingers like sand?

This is all you have. When you had nothing save for forgotten past and a hollow shell, these people took you in, they give you purpose when you don’t even know who you are. They’ve guided you hand, protected you, cared for you when you didn’t deserve it. You swore to keep them safe. You swore to see them through this journey to the end. You’ve fought and bled and died for them.

Yet with each step further they slip farther and farther from your grasp. You left Astarion to die. You sealed him beneath the earth and watched the mountain crumble as he screamed. You killed Lae’zel’s people and forced her to do the same. You listened as a goddess and an archdevil told Gale and Karlach their days were numbered.

Why keep going when the ending is the same?

“I understand,” Dammon says with a nod. “But consider it. I promise I’ll do my best to figure out a cure, but—”

“So far, it doesn’t seem like your best has been good enough,” you snarl.

Your harsh words hit everyone within earshot like a bolt of lightning. Dammon freezes midsentence while Karlach gapes at you.

“Soldier,” she gasps in horror.

“I understand you’re upset,” Gale begins. “Believe me, I take no pleasure in this grave news either. But that’s no excuse to take it out on Dammon.”

Of course he thinks he understands, he’s a wizard. Wizards think they understand everything. But he couldn’t possibly understand you. Not unless he peeled back your skin to expose the rot inside.

Every day you fight against the curse that runs through your veins. You resist and balk and refuse to let yourself be controlled. When every fiber of your being screams to fist your hands around Astarion’s throat, to tear out Lae’zel’s eyes, to carve through Gale’s chest and thrust your hands into the magic within, you stay your hand through sheer force of will. The Urge inside you is a hunger and to starve yourself of slaughter hurts like a brand against your flesh. Every time you resist a part of you dies, swallowed by that yawning void.

But you resist even still because you don’t want to walk this path alone. You can’t imagine moving forward without the people you hold dear. You so desperately want to be the person they see in you, the vigilant guardian that you try to be.

So what’s the point of it all? Why do you suffer and ache and bleed at your own hands if they will die even still? Is this the destination you’ve been heading towards? Death has come for Gale and Karlach, it hangs over Astarion like a shroud. How long before it consumes the rest? Are you doomed to lose everything you care for little by little until only you remain? Is your only purpose to watch the world as it ends?

At that thought, something unlocks inside you.

Of course, Master. Had you truly forgotten? That’s the vile purpose you were made for! It’s your duty to bring the world to its knees and rejoice when the final bell tolls!

Deep in your wicked heart you know it to be true. You are no simple murderer, no assassin nor torturer that delights in the slaughter. You are a destroyer, a harbinger of the end, you bring ruin to everything you touch and delight as it falls. Wherever you go, destruction follows.

Is that what you’ve been doing all this time? You thought you were a protector, a watchful guardian standing sentry over your flock. But have you instead been the final shepherd, leading the lambs to slaughter?

Dammon shakes off your ire to regard Karlach with a tender smile. “For what it’s worth, I think the world is better with you in it—even in Avernus.”

Karlach’s answering smile is equally tender, tinged with sadness. “Had you used that line the other day I might’ve snogged your face off.” Dammon’s face flushes with a gentle laugh. “Listen. I’m never going back. If you said I could die right now or live a thousand years in the Hells, I’d choose to go out now, with my freedom intact.”

Dammon closes his eyes and nods with a heavy sigh. It’s lost on you, because all you hear is the storm howling inside your head.

Dying, she’s dying, you’re going to lose her, you’re going to lose Gale, you’re going to lose them all, everything, this is what happens to the things you love, you should have killed her when you had the chance, when you would have delighted in her death, but instead you held her close and now you have to burn with her as she dies, you should have taken Gale’s hand, at least then you would have been able to keep him by your side, death at your hands would have been a mercy compared to burning from the inside out, it’s going to hurt, it’s going to hurt, this is the price of love, this is what happens to those who reach for the sun.

What your companions see is this: faster than any of them can move, a bolt of magic cracks through the air. Dammon’s body seizes as Hold Person slams into the center of his chest. In a single stride you fist your hands in his leathers and crowd him against the wakened forge. Wild magic surges around you, lightning arcing through molten metal. You haul his face to yours, noses nearly touching, as your bloody gaze sears into his.

“Fix it,” you hiss through clenched teeth. “I don’t care what god or devil you have to call on, but pick one and start begging.”

The alarmed shouts of your three companions fall on deaf ears as Dammon’s eyes fill with terror. You suspect that if he could move he would nod at you vehemently, cowed by the sudden shift in your pleasant disposition. To Dammon, you’ve only ever been an ally. Even when you wanted to push his face into his forge, you treated him pleasantly, if cold. But as your companions warmed your heart, so too did your interactions with him. He helped Karlach, so you folded him into your ever growing circle of allies.

But you’re no longer the adventurer that compliments his wares. You’re a force of destruction, inviting him to kneel or be ripped asunder. If he can’t help Karlach then what good is he? You would sunder the world for her—he should be willing to do the same.

A pair of arms snatches you around the waist. “What is wrong with you?” Shadowheart hisses in your ear.

Shadowheart drags you backward. Where unholy strength powered you seconds before, the adrenaline has faded and Shadowheart has the element of surprise. She’s a practiced hand at pulling bodies out of the line of fire, and by the time you dig in your heels, you’re already an arms’ length away. You flail against her hold, grabbing and pulling at her arms around your waist. But her grip is unwavering and your heels dig two deep furrows in the dirt.

Karlach catches Dammon with a hand at the small of his back and steadies him away from the forge. “I am so sorry, I don’t know what that was.”

Your hold over Dammon snaps as Gale Dispels your magic. You growl at him, earning a searing glare. Shadowheart immediately slaps a hand over your mouth to stop you from casting. Dammon sinks into Karlach’s hold with anxious laughter, shooting you a nervous glance before choosing to ignore you altogether.

“I suppose my bedside manner needs some work,” he says in an attempt to break the tension.

“You were fine, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to tell me I’m dying,” Karlach says, half joking and half sincere.

Your instinct is to bite through the hand over your mouth, to rake your nails across any exposed skin. But it’s Shadowheart subduing you, and you would rather die than hurt her. So instead you uselessly struggle in her grasp, trying to break out with your meager strength. Distantly, you hear Gale explaining the tadpole infection, and that you’ve had a tough go of it, with the occasional outburst. “Outburst” is certainly one way of describing what you did to Alfira. But Dammon seems to nod along in sympathy.

Shadowheart murmurs an incantation in your ear. When she finishes, a shroud of magical calmness falls over you. Suddenly all the rage, desperation, and fear sloughs off you like a snake’s skin. Without blind fury powering your body, you feel only a cold numbness, the hollow void in your chest swollen to fill your whole body. You deflate in Shadowheart’s arms, falling limp against her chest.

She holds you there for a moment as she waits to make sure the spell worked. Your head falls back against her shoulder, completely numb to everything you felt only moments ago. You were acting like such a fool. How many tieflings have you wrung the life out of? Dozens? Hundreds? Karlach was just one more like all the rest. One more body on the altar, one more beautiful corpse.

“Are you calm, now?” Shadowheart asks.

You nod and she sighs in relief, setting you back on your feet. She parts from you and Karlach and Gale both approach. You’re a good distance from the forge now, Dammon out of earshot. Gale looks at you sternly, arms folded, while Karlach’s worry is plain on her face. Foolish. A weapon doesn’t need to be worried over.

“I cast Calm Emotions,” Shadowheart explains. “It should wear off in a minute, I have no idea what we’ll be dealing with, then.”

“I’ll have my own Hold Person ready just in case,” Gale says. He turns his gaze on you, anger flashing in his dark eyes. “You can’t just attack anyone that gives you news you don’t like,” Gale snaps. “You did the same thing with Elminster!”

“In fairness, Elminster was a real sod,” Karlach says.

Gale splutters as Shadowheart nods. “Yes, I think if anyone delivers a message telling you to kill yourself, you’re justified in telling them off.”

Gale pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Fine, the point is, I know you have better control over yourself than that.” Gale gestures back in the direction of Dammon’s forge. “You would do well to exercise it more often.”

You follow his gesture numbly, looking over the tiefling blacksmith. A decent kill, though untrained. His loss would weaken the whole of Last Light Inn and make them vulnerable to siege. If you killed that Selûnite cleric after, no one would stand a chance against the shadows. A delicious prospect.

“I needed to kill something,” you say numbly, your voice echoing through a cloud of fog.

Three pairs of eyes lock on you with matching alarm.

“We only need to walk a few paces into the Shadow Curse and you’ll find any number of beasts to kill,” Shadowheart points out.

You shake your head. “Not the same. I need to tear someone apart.”

A heavy silence falls over the group, your three companions exchanging concerned looks. “Lady of Sorrows guide us,” Shadowheart murmurs under her breath.

“Soldier, that’s…” Karlach regards you with open concern. “I enjoy a good battle as much as the next person but that’s… that’s Dammon you’re talking about. He’s our friend.”

The spell wears off then, and sharp, bitter shame floods your veins. Hearing those words in your own emotionless voice is a confirmation of everything you just learned. That’s who you are with all your emotions stripped away. You don’t kill because you’re angry, hells, you don’t even kill because you like it. You kill because it’s who you are. Your hands were made to kill the same way a bird’s wings were made to fly.

Karlach says that you shouldn’t want to kill Dammon because he’s your friend. If only she knew just what you want to do with your friends. The people you care about are the ones you want to kill most.

“Right, forgive me,” you murmur, shaking the muddled thoughts out of your head. “I lost myself for a moment,” you lie.

You didn’t lose yourself—for one bright moment you remembered.

Gale’s brow furrows as he looks at you, the gears turning behind his eyes. “Alright,” he says warily, clearly not satisfied with your explanation. “Perhaps we should practice some meditation exercises from now on.”

They still look at you with doubt and trepidation. You can hardly blame them, but your skin crawls under the attention. It had felt so good to let go for that one moment. In the brief second where you pinned Dammon against his forge you knew who you were—everything in the world felt right again. The rush of pleasure in that moment was intoxicating, the sheer delight in being feared, in holding someone’s life in your hands as your fist closes around it. It’s hard to remember why you resist, why you bother to fight when it’s so much easier to just give in.

“You know you can talk to us, yeah?” Karlach curls a hand around your shoulder, her eyes full of so much concern it aches.

Warm. Her hands are so warm.

This is why. Giving in means losing this.

In the end you might have to lose it anyway.

Your face twists into an ugly grimace as you shrug off Karlach’s hand. “I’m going for a walk.”

Without leaving any room for argument, you turn and storm away, fire smoldering in your footprints. You pick a random direction and start walking, mindlessly letting your feet carry you where they may. Slowly, the chatter of the inn dims, replaced by the gentle lap of water against the shore. The dirt path gives way to limestone as the ground beneath you falls away to greet the riverbank edge. The river stretches out far past the barrier’s edge and disappears beneath a shroud of shadow. Ramshackle barricades stand here, an overturned table meant to defend against the shadows. Further down this path is the graveyard, where Marcus hid the Fist he killed. When you found the body, its face unrecognizable, you couldn’t help but be impressed.

For the moment you’re alone, your only witnesses the earth and sky. You’re not far enough away that you could scream without drawing attention, but your skin no longer crawls with the weight of a dozen eyes. You try to collect the pieces of your undone mind and fit them back behind your mask of stone. But no matter how you try, the façade has irreparably cracked.

Gods, what will your allies think of you now? You’ve allowed them to think that you’ve changed since killing Alfira. You have changed, but not in the way that matters most. The Urge to tear someone apart the way you did the bard still remains, it’s your willpower that has changed. You have a reason and the control to fight the Urge where you didn’t back then. But the Urges are getting stronger, your control weaker. If you lose yourself, what then? You’re little more than a mindless beast.

You need to bring this body of yours to heel by any means necessary. You need to kill something, now.

Tittering, airy laughter raises the hair on the back of your neck. “Oh, my dear Master, did you really think you could escape your calling?”

Your head whips up to follow the voice. There, just beyond the inn’s protective barrier, that wicked butler perches on a rocky outcropping above the river. For a moment you forget about the Shadow Curse and step through the barrier without a second thought. The necrotic energy seizes you for but a moment—you push through it and stride towards Sceleritas, of one singular mind as your hands grasp around his throat. The moonlight protects you from the Shadow Curse as you haul him off his feet and hold him out over the cliff’s edge. The river surges, dark waters churning far below.

“You did this,” you growl, thumbs digging into the hollows of his jaw.

His taloned feet kick aimlessly in midair, arms dangling limp as he sways in your grasp. “No, no, no, there’s no need!” he rasps through his tightened throat. “You carve a bloody path, Master.” Delight rings clear in his voice. “Death follows in your footsteps!”

Your hands shake, thumbs digging into the meat where his pulse would reside. Does a creature such as he even have a pulse? If you tore out his tongue would he bleed? There’s only one way to find out. His breaths come in throaty rasps as you choke the life from his rotten body.

“A pity, though, that fate would deny you the pleasure of killing them with that vile mind of yours,” he gasps air whistling through his sharpened teeth like reeds.

“They’re mine,” you hiss, shaking him by the neck. “They’re mine and you can’t have them.

You feel a pop as gravity unsticks the vertebrae in his spine. “Time takes away all the things we love most,” Sceleritas wheezes. “Their lives are so precious to you, Master. Wouldn’t it be better for you to decide when they end?”

His eyes roll back in his skull as you squeeze his throat with a fury unlike any other. His trachea breaks against your palms, his spine shattering beneath your hold. You are not strong by any stretch of the imagination, but fury and bloodlust embolden you with the strength to carve through mountains. You could fell gods with this power.

The fear and scorn in your companions’ eyes as they gazed upon Alfira’s corpse flashes through your mind. They wore the same expressions just now, as they wrenched your bloody hands from Dammon’s collar. Your rotten heart unveiled itself for but a moment and they reeled back in disgust. They would never trust you, care for you the way they do if they saw you for who you truly are. How many more times can your mask crack before it shatters? How long until your allies’ trust runs out?

“If you kill them, they’ll love you for the rest of their days.” Sceleritas chokes on his last words.

“Shut the fuck up!” you howl as he dissolves to blood in your grasp.

“Well, that’s certainly no way to greet a friend.”

You wheel around, coming face to face with Gale. He stands just on your side of the protective bubble around Last Light, a mote of fire burning in his palm to keep the Shadow Curse at bay. You look down at your hands, Sceleritas Fel’s ichor smeared across your palms. You glance back and find the stone unmarred. You curl your hands into fists, hiding the blood from view.

“Apologies, I thought you were someone else,” you murmur.

Gale settles a disapproving hand on his hip. “I hardly think that’s an appropriate way to greet anyone, but it hardly matters now.” He waves you closer. “Now step back inside before you get yourself killed.”

You glance up the path towards the graveyard, then behind you into the river’s dark abyss. All is still for the moment, even your wretched mind. Choking the life from your butler and watching him disintegrate into viscera has calmed you for the time being. A distant part of you knows, somehow, that he’ll be back, that death would not claim him so easily.

You turn to Gale with a curt nod. “Fine.”

Gale steps out so that his light catches you when you hop down from the rock, keeping you safe from the Shadow Curse. His mouth is pulled into a severe line, dark eyebrows pinched together. He guides you back to safety with a firm hand on your elbow. Once the barrier closes behind you, he exhales a mix of relief and frustration. Your other companions stand a few steps back, gathering around the makeshift barricades. They regard you with tense suspicion, as if waiting for you to lash out.

Gale steps into your path before you can rejoin them, hand still on your arm. “I understand more than most the pain of watching what you love slip inexorably through your fingers,” he says sternly, catching your eyes. “But Karlach’s pain should be our focus, now. This tantrum of yours has been incredibly selfish.”

He’s using the same voice he used when teaching Lae’zel to dance, when he held your hand and you channeled the Weave together. It’s the voice of a teacher, scolding a schoolchild for bad behavior. Normally, you would simply roll your eyes and shrug him off. Now though, his arrogance grates against your skin.

You scoff in his face. “You of all people have no right to call me selfish.”

He reels back, blinking at you in shock—the same expression he wore when you bent Dammon over his forge. “Excuse me?”

“The moment Mystra offered you a sword to throw yourself upon you took it.” Your mouth twists bitterly, lips trembling with the tide of emotion you cage behind your teeth. “After everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve done to keep you safe, you would just throw your life away?”

Gale has no right to lecture you—not when this agony in your chest is his doing. If he would only exercise the slightest amount of self-preservation, if he would only struggle against the noose as it tightens around his neck, you wouldn’t be where you are now. Righteous anger wells inside you. Gale’s life is so precious to you—it’s a treasure that you will protect with your life and beyond. Caring for Gale gives you purpose. How dare he throw it away so easily?

His jaw flexes, anger held at bay. “Do you think I enjoy watching my life’s hourglass run empty? Do you think I want to die?”

“You certainly don’t want to live,” you spit in his face. “As soon as you realized your magic items weren’t working anymore you offered to kill yourself!”

It didn’t anger you then—he was little more than an intelligent burden, siphoning magic off items you could have used. But it angers you now, that he would throw his life away so easily, that you would have let him had you cared at all for your own life.

“Hells, you yourself said that if it wasn’t for Tara you would have died months ago because you’d given up hope!”

He would have died and you would have been none the wiser. You would have never pulled him from that portal, teased him for carrying around that tattered spellbook of his, felt the Weave as it flows through his hands. He would have been one more person stolen from you before you ever had the chance to know him. From him you learned patience, the importance of knowing your enemy before you jump into the fray. Whenever you trip over a blank spot in your memory, a piece of history that by all rights you should know, it’s Gale you turn to. You don’t even have to admit your own ignorance. If you probe with the right questions, he’ll explain all on his own. He taught you more about your own volatile magic than you could have ever learned on your own.

Indignation pulses in the dark veins around Gale’s left eye. “I have a volatile orb of destructive magic in my chest. What would you have me do? Recklessly ignore the fact that my very presence puts everyone around me in mortal peril?”

Your upper lip curls back in a derisive snarl. “You wizards think you’re so special,” you scoff. “Do you really think you’re the only one who destroys everything they touch?”

“What?” Astarion pipes up from afar.

Gale similarly looks aghast. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“It means that when someone tells you to kill yourself you’re supposed to, at the very least, consider other options before accepting it unquestioningly.” You deflect expertly, brushing past any questions about your own demons by targeting Gale’s. “What good is that big brain of yours if you can’t be bothered to use it?”

Gale lifts his chin, staring down the length of his nose at you. “That someone is Mystra,” he says haughtily. “The Lady of Mysteries possesses knowledge reaching far beyond the bounds of this mortal plane. You or I cannot even fathom the intricate weave of fate that unveils itself before her eyes.” Gale’s shoulders raise defensively at the blatant slight against his goddess.

You roll your eyes. “How fitting that Mystra and all her wizards would share the same hubris.” Gale bristles at your mocking tone. “You think that possessing all the knowledge in the world makes you omnipotent. You underestimate the power of anything beyond your own mind.

“Elminster himself told you that will can change the tides of fate. But you’re so concerned with your own demise that it fell on deaf ears.” You lift your own chin, meeting Gale’s eyes with fury to match. “Well, I listened, and if you don’t have the willpower to save yourself then it falls to me.”

Gale sighs, shaking his head wearily. “You are gambling with the fate of Faerûn itself,” he warns. “Are you really willing to risk everything in creation for the life of one mortal man?”

One mortal man, he calls himself. One speck of dust amidst all of creation. Insignificant.

“How dare you?” you snarl, lip curling back over your teeth. “Your life may not be precious to you, but it is to me.” Your voice hisses through your teeth. “Faerûn can rot for all I care!”

That clearly rattles Gale to his bones and he stumbles back. “Surely you don’t mean that—”

“And why wouldn’t I?” Your sharp teeth cut into the tender flesh inside your mouth. “You had a life before the tadpole—people and things to fight for. This”—you gesture wildly to encompass Gale and all of your companions—“is all I have!”

Your other companions look on you with wide eyes, clearly unsettled by the force of your conviction. They knew you were loyal, that you would risk your life and perhaps even die to keep them safe. It’s a favor many of them would gladly return. But it’s another thing entirely to know you’d forsake the whole world—that you would let everything else fall to pieces so long as the people under your care remain. It’s a dizzying prospect, to know someone treasures you more than all the realms.

Gale’s meets your stubbornness with his own; the one shared trait between sorcerers and wizards. “That’s not true. Even if you don’t remember it, you still have a past.”

Shadowheart’s gaze snaps to Gale, brows furrowed incredulously. “What do you mean by that?” Shadowheart’s eyes quickly find yours, betrayal clear on her face.

You let out a long breath through your nose. You suppose this was inevitable. As you near Baldur’s Gate, the gaps in your memory become more and more apparent. The falsehoods and misconceptions you’ve allowed the others to believe about you tangle and twist until you can barely remember the mask you’ve crafted. As the Urge grows ever stronger, so too does the façade you wear begin to crack and fall away.

You’ve carried on the charade long enough. You should have come clean a month ago, when you realized your purpose lay at your allies’ sides. But their trust in you was intoxicating, a gift you couldn’t afford to lose. You want so badly to be the person they need you to be, a rock upon which they can lay their burdens and weather the storm. You’ve hidden the cracks in your façade, the foundation as it crumbles into the sea. But you can’t any longer.

“When I woke on the nautiloid I had nothing,” you spit the words from your mouth like venom, eyes never leaving Gale’s even as your words encompass the whole of your party. “No past, not even a name to call my own.” The Dark Urge. You think that’s what they called you before. “Just an empty shell that’s been hollowed out.”

And the vile blood in your veins that drives you to kill, kill, kill.

“What about the Underdark?” Wyll asks incredulously. “What about Lolth?”

This whole time he’s been under the impression Lolth drives your cruelty, that it’s a learned behavior from a life brought to heel beneath the Spider Queen’s wrath. You’ve done nothing to correct him, partially because you didn’t know any better, and that explanation made as much sense as any other. But after these long months of fighting your Urge, you think you do. You’ve met other Lolth-Sworn in the Underdark—they were cruel and deceitful, yes, but none of them showed the wanton brutality that delights you so. If Lolth was known for sending butlers to mind her subjects, you think you would have heard of it by now.

“It’s… complicated,” you mutter. “Obviously, she must own some part of me.” You gesture towards your eyes, the eternal brand you can’t escape. “But I don’t remember. There’s flashes of a past that blinks out like lightning. I lived there, once. I can’t say much more than that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Karlach asks, voice far smaller than it has any right to be. “Maybe we could’ve helped jog your memory.”

You shake your head. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever’s in my past should stay there.”

You ate that damned mushroom in the Underdark. Drip drip dip. The splatter of blood on stone floors, gray matter oozing out the back of an infant’s skull. It was barely longer than the length of your forearm, limp in your hold where moments before it had squirmed and flailed. You wonder if it had felt the same fear its mother had as you cut the wretched thing out of her. An early death was a mercy—a life free of fear, pain, release from a world racing towards its end. Now, how best to prepare the corpse? Young flesh was a delicacy you rarely had opportunity to enjoy.

When the memory faded and you came back to your body, you had to fight the urge to vomit.

You don’t know how you ended up on the nautiloid, but you know your past is full of bloodshed. You know that anything good you might have had met a bitter end between your own wretched hands. You can never return to the person you were before—to try would mean to lose everything that matters to you now. You can only move forward, even as the path crumbles beneath your feet.

You cast out your arms to encompass the whole of your group. “This is the only thing I care about. And I can’t lose it.” You shake your head. “I won’t lose it.”

“And yet you didn’t think we deserved to know that you can’t remember anything?” Shadowheart snaps, her eyes narrowed sharply.

You lift your chin and meet her eyes even as they sting. “I’ve told you all there were holes in my memory.”

“Yes, you said there were holes, not one giant shadow with a few pockets of clarity!” Shadowheart yells, leaning forward, a hand clutched to her chest—this revelation is a knife through her heart, one she never expected from you.

“Aren’t secrets part of your goddess’s domain? You of all people should understand why I keep mine close.”

Shadowheart looks away, unable to hold your gaze as it burns. Her voice shakes when she speaks, on the verge of breaking, “I told you all of my secrets. You couldn’t trust m—us enough to tell yours?”

“Perhaps if you had spent less time talking and a bit more listening, you would have earned them.”

“Astarion,” you hiss.

Shadowheart whirls on him, the hurt in her eyes suddenly flashing to white-hot anger. “You knew?”

“Well, of course.” He examines his nails, practically preening as he gloats about being the leader’s favorite. “I asked.”

The morning after your first night on the beach you had pulled yourself to campfire, exhausted spasms wracking your body, dried blood covering your chin from when you nearly bit through your own tongue. Astarion had taken one look at you and asked in a mixture between disgust and utter fascination what the hells was wrong with you. You told him then, about dreams full of blood and a past that disappears into shadows. He’d cocked his head at you, gaze discerning as you saw his eyes truly light up for the first time, and told you to play the terrible hand you’d been dealt.

It was one of the first things that separated Astarion from the others.

Shadowheart scoffs at him. “Oh, don’t play the ‘doting lover’ act, you were just trying to get into someone’s pants.”

“Jealousy is a terrible look on you, dear,” He tuts. “The rest of you were trying to do the exact same thing. It’s a shame, really,” He runs a careful finger over his coiffed curls, pretending to adjust them as he sighs, “None of you ever stood a chance.”

“That’s enough,” you cut in sharply.

For the first time in your memory, Shadowheart ignores you. “Gods, you’re insufferable. Are you going to start pissing in a circle around your bloodbag to mark your territory?”

“That is no way to speak of one’s jhe’stil.”

“Can we stop fighting?” Karlach sighs heavily, her voice unheard amidst the din.

“This is not an army and I am under no one’s command but Lady Shar’s.”

A bark of laughter escapes Astarion’s mouth, his eyebrows raised like the sound surprises even him. “Oh, I’ve done far worse than just pissing.”

“You’re disgusting—”

“Both of you, quit.” Wyll physically puts himself between the two, placing both his hands on Shadowheart’s shoulders. “Shadowheart, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“I know, and it’s working,” she hisses through clenched teeth.

“C’mon, guys…” Karlach tries again, looking between the faces of your allies only to find none.

“Astarion,” Wyll casts a gaze over his shoulder. “We’re all devastated about Karlach, but that’s no excuse for lashing out.” He shoots you a pointed glance.

Sceleritas Fel’s ichor is warm and sticky within your clenched fist.

“This has nothing to do with Karlach, I’m just a petty bastard,” Astarion says flippantly.

Gale sighs with a slow shake of his head. “Astarion, please, we all care for Karlach.”

Astarion turns to him with a sneer, his laugh lines dark. “What do you care? If you have your way we’ll all be collateral in your spectacular suicide.”

“Please!” Karlach finally shouts, the ground shaking beneath your feet. “Just… just stop.” Her voice cracks as it trails into silence, her shoulders slumping like all the air has fled her lungs.

Complete silence falls over your group. For a moment, even the river seems to still. Karlach looks far smaller than she has any right to, even as she still towers over the group. Ever since you’ve known her, Karlach has carried an everburning spark of hellfire in her eyes. As your feet blister on the unforgiving road and your limbs ache with unhealing bruises, it’s Karlach’s smile that keeps the group going. Karlach has every right to bitterness, but instead her life burns bright and keeps all of you warm. It’s impossible to give up hope when Karlach believes so fully.

For the first time, her light dims, her energy wanes. Even as the flames on her skin roar stronger than ever, beneath the surface Karlach begins to wither. The rotting flesh you call a heart seizes at the sight. It thrashes and beats and tears against the inside of its cage as you watch the sun flicker out before your eyes.

“I don’t want us to fight,” Karlach sighs heavily. “Not today.”

For her part, Shadowheart has the decency to look ashamed. Her lip trembles, so slightly you almost miss it, then she steels her jaw and her eyes harden. Astarion refuses to make eye contact at all. Instead he stares up at Isobel’s balcony, watching the moonlight as it shines against the sky.

“I know everyone’s on edge because of me, but—”

“This isn’t your fault, Karlach,” you cut in.

She nods limply. “You don’t have to tell me that, Soldier. I just…” She turns her gaze towards the sky, its darkness so thick that even the stars don’t shine through. “I just wish it wasn’t like this, y’know?

You think of all the worthless gods locked away beyond the mortals’ reach. Where are they now? Where’s Selûne to cast out her sister’s darkness? Where’s Mystra to offer her arcane knowledge? Where’s Lathander to fix his wayward soldier’s sins? You cast your eyes upward with a glare fierce enough to pierce the Heavens.

Fix this, you pray. My life is yours if you come the fuck down here and fix this.

A moment passes. Then another. How the hells are you to know when a prayer is answered? Then suddenly, something dark and familiar claws its way into your heart. The hair on the back of your neck stands on end, the skin all down the lengths of your arms pimpling, as for one moment a being large enough to darken Faerûn’s sky fits itself into your flesh. Your heart seizes at the icy cold grip of terror and the warm embrace of comfort battling inside you. Terror because of the overwhelming dread that rattles the bars of your ribcage. Comfort because your body knows this even when your mind does not.

Your lungs burn within your chest. Pressure builds within your body as you suffocate even as you breathe. Dark spots begin to dance on the edge of your vision before you realize; your heart hasn’t seized. It’s stopped. Whatever being is wearing your body has fisted your heart in an iron grasp. It squeezes that fetid muscle until it empties itself of blood. The chambers of your heart are just as dry as they were when Astarion sucked all the blood from your veins.

With your blood stilled, none of the air in your lungs can reach your brain. Terrified thoughts tumble wildly through your mind, but your body won’t respond. The tadpole squirms behind your eye, distantly you hear its panicked chittering and your mind begins to weaken. As death beckons you with open arms, your body melts into its embrace. A warm blanket of darkness caresses the edge of your vision.

Death rushes up to meet you like an old friend.

I know you. I’ve been here before. As you sway on your feet, you grasp at Karlach’s arm to steady yourself.

“Soldier?” Her voice falls on deaf ears.

Laughter that isn’t yours rumbles in your chest. Who are you?

Astarion peers at you curiously. “Darling?” His eyes flick down to your chest then back up.

Are you going to kill me?

Then, like a book snapping shut, the connection severs abruptly. Suddenly, your heart beats again. It pounds steady and strong within your chest, like it had never stopped at all. Your head spins as blood rushes into your starved brain. The tadpole quiets as it gluts itself on your gray matter once more. The afterglow of death’s embrace remains, unsettling in its comfort. Warmth suffuses your entire body, electricity tingling beneath your skin—an aftereffect of all your synapses firing as death came for you. You had almost forgotten that this body wasn’t truly yours.

You suck in a long breath, waiting for your vision to clear and your limbs to steady. Your hand still clenches around Karlach’s arm, using it to steady yourself. “Forgive me,” you gasp. “This past tenday has been…” You shake your head, trying to pass off your sudden dizziness as a fit of emotion. “Gale’s right. We should be focused on you, Karlach, not our petty squabbling.”

The words feel wrong in your mouth. It’s unlike you to admit defeat so easily. Everything you’ve done has been for your allies. You aren’t sorry for being willing to do what it takes to protect them. You’re perhaps a bit sorry for threatening Dammon, but if it gets results you don’t care whose blood you have to spill. But you don’t have the strength to argue anymore and diffusing the situation is the best way out of the mess you’ve made.

Gale puffs out his chest. “I usually am.”

“Don’t push it,” you warn.

It takes all your composure to keep your breath even. Your body screams at you to gasp for air until the ache in your lungs settles. But you’ve distracted everyone from Karlach enough. Your rage struck through you like a shooting star, shining bright then burning out. In the wake of the comet’s trail, it’s time to pick up the pieces. You had your moment of weakness—now your team needs you to be strong. You’ll find a path through the darkness, one that keeps your allies alive.

You meet Karlach’s eyes, burning like a bloody sunset as your spark returns. “We’ll find a solution,” you promise, unyielding.

Karlach smiles weakly, then looks away as she lets out out a weary sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this now,” she says. “I know it’s a bit much to ask but can we just… can we just take it easy today?”

You keep her gaze for a few moments. Your instinct is to keep pushing forward, that Dammon said the clock is ticking on her life and you need to find a solution now. But even you know that machinery wears out if you push it relentlessly. Your body was ruined even before you woke up in it, it doesn’t matter to you how much of it you lose. What do you care for the years of your life shaved away by stress when you have no life to return to? But your allies need rest.

Besides, there’s plenty of reconnaissance you can do from Last Light. “Of course.” You nod curtly.

If Dammon will talk to you, you can ask him how to best extend the life of Karlach’s engine. If he won’t, you’ll send Gale.

Karlach gives you a grateful smile. “Thank you.” She turns to the rest of the group, her spark beginning to light up once again. “I just want to drink until I can’t remember my own name!”

“That sounds like an awful idea,” Shadowheart says. “I’m in.”

“Me as well,” Lae’zel says with a nod. “Perhaps if we lower some of the Harper’s inhibitions more of them will agree to test my mettle.”

Wyll shakes his head with a laugh. “Then I suppose I should join to make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

You let your hand fall from Karlach’s shoulder, confident that your legs are stable enough to hold your weight.

Gale shakes his head with a fond smile. “While I’m never one to turn down a party, if we’re taking the day then I’m going to see what the inn has in the way of a bath.”

“Please do, that thing on your face reeks so badly, every morning I think a squirrel has crawled on your face and died,” Astarion says, back to his normal, playful rudeness, all of the bite removed from his words.

Karlach turns to you with a toothy grin. “What about you, Sol—” She gasps. “You’re bleeding!”

It’s then that you notice the dark smear of Sceleritas Fel’s ichor on Karlach’s skin. Your group’s eyes fall to the matching stain on the inside of your palms.

“Oh…” You blink for a moment, looking between your hand and the stain on Karlach’s skin. “You all can see that?”

“Is there some reason we wouldn’t?” Shadowheart asks raising an eyebrow.

A large part of you suspected that Sceleritas Fel was just another invention of your sickened mind. You knew of no creatures like him and he appeared seemingly out of thin air, only to vanish just as quickly. He followed you, on his own, and undetected through the Emerald Grove to the Shadowlands, without any protection. He seemed real, but you had your doubts. Being oathsworn to kill everything you touch must be a lonely existence. It would be no surprise to invent an imaginary friend, bound to your service.

You glance out past the moonlight barrier. All is still on the path to the graveyard. Nothing to kill besides shadows that don’t bleed. If the others can see his blood on your palms, then that means he’s very, very real.

“No, no, I just didn’t realize I’d gotten hurt,” you say dismissively. “It’s fine, I’m not in any pain.”

Astarion sniffs the air then looks at you curiously.

“Go ahead and get started on those drinks. I’ll join you after washing up,” you say with a smile.

“Going all alone, dear?” Astarion asks coyly.

You give him a flat look. “I wasn’t aware going to the washroom was a team effort.”

“Then I have lots to teach you, pet.” His grin widens, fangs on full display.

“I believe that is our cue to leave.” Wyll gestures for the group to begin the trek back up to Last Light, taking up the rear once the others pass.

“For the record,” Gale clears his throat. “I am also going to the washroom!”

Astarion gives him an amused look. “That’s fine.” He winks. “I don’t mind an audience.”

You check your shoulder against his. “Well, I do, so if you plan to put on a show you’ll be doing it alone.”

Astarion turns those red, limpid eyes on you, like he had that first night he asked for blood. “You never let me have any fun.”

“That’s a bold-faced lie, I just let you rob the poor quartermaster blind.”

“Jaheira called you her miracle, the least she could do is throw in a free pair of boots.”

Gale throws up his hands in frustration. “Right. I’m going to go take a bath, you both can have it after I’m finished.”

Astarion turns to watch him march away in a huff, an amused quirk to his mouth. As he turns back to you, his hand darts down and clamps around your wrist. You make no motion to draw away as he lifts your hand to his face. He locks eyes with you as he breathes in deeply through his nose.

His mouth twists in disgust. “I don’t know what vile creature you killed out here, but that is certainly not yours.”

“How can you tell?” You feign ignorance.

He rolls his eyes. “Because, sweetie, your hand smells like rotten meat and if that was what your blood smelled like I’d be having sex with Wyll.”

Rotten meat. You aren’t sure what you expected Sceleritas’s blood to smell like, but you suppose that fits well enough.

“Really? The monster hunter? That’s your second choice?”

“Of course he is”—he’s a bleeding heart that would fall for the frail, tortured vampire act faster than you did—“don’t you know what a delight it is to corrupt something? And don’t change the subject.”

“What subject?”

Astarion crosses his arms and levels you with an unimpressed look. He jerks his chin out past the barrier, towards the rock Gale found you on. “If I look over the side of that ridge am I going to find another dead bard?”

You pause, staring blankly past Astarion’s shoulder. You don’t particularly want him and the others thinking you butchered someone again, especially after attacking Dammon. They’ll think you’re out of control—a threat to their lives. You won’t claim to be fully in charge, but you’re not a threat, not to them. As long as you can keep your Urges focused outward, your allies are safe within your care.

But trying to explain where the blood actually came from will invite more questions than you can answer. At the very least, you know Astarion will keep this secret.

“You won’t find anything,” you murmur, quietly.

Astarion’s gaze scans over your face, and you wonder what he sees. A moment passes, then another, where Astarion judges you silently. You see the gears turning behind his eyes, a plan forming that you can’t trace.

After far too long, his face splits into a wicked grin. “You’ve learned from your mistakes then, good,” he purrs. “You work fast, I have to admit I’m impressed.”

He steps closer, his long arms unfolding as he gently trails the tip of his finger down the length of your arm. “You know, I’ve always felt a connection between us,” he croons, breath warm against the point of your ear. “Like we’re two souls walking the same path.”

“Have you?” you ask, unimpressed. “Is it all of my blood in your veins?”

A deep laugh puffs against your ear as he settles his other hand on your hip. “Even before that, I mean.” He leans into you slightly, just enough to fit the full length of his body against yours. “Ever since that day I woke to you covered in blood.”

Out of habit you curl your hands around his waist, holding him close.

“I still think about that day, you know,” he breathes. “How beautiful you were, how good you smelled.” He fits his mouth against the side of your neck, scraping a fang over the tender skin. “I wanted to run my tongue all over your body.”

His tone is alluring, you know he’s trying to pull you into his bed. But his words make you feel heavy, a nausea turning deep in your gut. His words echo those of Sceleritas, the truth that now burns inside you. Murder is what you were made for. When your heart stopped you welcomed death as it raced towards you, your oldest friend.

“I wasn’t in control.” You murmur, “That person wasn’t me.”

Astarion hums against your throat. “But you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” A shiver runs down your spine as his words brush against your ear. “It’s alright, you know. Killing is an instinct for us, there’s no shame in doing what you were made for.” He nips gently against your neck. “I’m the same way. Every step we walk trails blood.”

“Death follows in your footsteps!”

You shove your hands against his chest.

“Wh—” He stumbles at the forcefulness of your shove. You place both hands on his shoulders to steady him, but he immediately shrugs you off. “What the bloody hells was that for?” He glares at you fiercely, face warped in anger.

Astarion huffs, frustrated that the speech he’s been preparing for the past few days elicited such a violent reaction. All he was waiting for was the perfect time! The situation with Karlach and your insane outburst towards Dammon couldn’t be more perfect! You told him yourself it was his lack of judgment after Alfira that won you over. Your temper had earned you the ire of everyone else in your group, what better time to offer understanding and camaraderie? He hadn’t even gotten to the good part yet!

You stare down at the ground, vision swimming before your eyes. “Is that all you see in me?” you ask, voice barely audible over the roar of the river.

“What?” Astarion asks incredulously, endlessly annoyed that you interrupted him to ask a silly question like that.

“Is that all you see in me?” you ask again.

“Well, what else is there?” he spits viciously.

He immediately knows it was the wrong thing to say. It isn’t even your reaction that tells him, but the bile that rises in his throat as he hears those words in his own voice. He doesn’t mean it. If you were just a mindless killer he would never have bothered with you. No, you’re devoted, and powerful, and funny—it had been so horrifically long since he’d genuinely laughed, but when you told a group of orphans they were going to die with a straight face in front of people he nearly bit off his own tongue containing his laughter. Despite the peril, every day with you is fun—a concept that was completely lost to him for over a century. Even the sex, tainted as it is, brings a joy that he hasn’t known in decades.

You freeze completely still, not even breathing. A jolt of panic lances through him at the thought that your heart stopped again. But after a moment, he hears the familiar thump thump thump. You retreat within yourself, the way he does when disgust and loathing squirm beneath his skin. Your stone mask fits back over your face in a way he hasn’t seen in months.

“I see,” you say, voice completely flat.

There are moments that peek through the haze when you’re together, even as his body goes through the motions. Something will pull him out of that fog and he’ll come to in the middle of sex, your fingers slotted with his and a tenderness in your eyes that aches so much he wants to disappear again just to escape it. But you’ll laugh, your warm hand in his and he buries his face in your neck to ride out the storm. Sometimes he even wants to stay and that desire is so wholly terrifying that he can barely admit to having it.

He wants to do that for you now, to clear away the mountain stone you’ve encased yourself in and pull you back where you belong. But he isn’t you. He knows exactly what you would do, were your positions reversed. You would watch him with those open, unclouded eyes and read his expression like a book. You would extend your hand, fingers gently curled, and wait for him to lay his hand in yours. Then you would enclose his hand safely within both of yours, your thumb gently plucking each of his knuckles like a string. You would look him dead in the eye and say something so revoltingly, heartbreakingly earnest that for a moment the dead muscle between his lungs would come alive again.

But he can’t even look at you with anything other than suspicion and bitterness. He considers offering you his hand, but what if you don’t take it? What if it’s the wrong thing to do? You’re always so sure that he’s going to take your hand but he isn’t confident in the reverse. Especially after what he said. You would own up to your mistake, wouldn’t you? Just as you did with Karlach mere moments ago. But the words stick in his throat, the idea of showing weakness makes him panic. You can’t know how much he needs you. If you ever learn how much power you hold over him, you’ll know just how to bend him to your will. He needs to turn the tables somehow, to seize back the control you’ve so thoroughly ripped from him by going off script.

He brushes a hand over his curls with a sigh. Well. There’s only one way to do that. “Forgive me dear, it’s been a stressful day,” he sighs flippantly. “I think we could both use that bath that Gale’s pruning up in right about now.” He runs his hand down the length of your arm, curling his hand around your palm. “You do seem dreadfully tense. Why don’t you let me work some of that tension out?” He flutters his eyelashes with a sultry grin.

You stare at your hand, almost entirely limp in Astarion’s grasp. Your very marrow weighs you down with the grief you feel for Karlach, the resentment towards Gale. Everything has been too much and the responsibility on your shoulders grows every single day. Lae’zel has trusted you with the fate of her people, Wyll’s freedom awaits at Moonrise, Shadowheart has sought your aid for a divine trial, you need to find a way to defeat the Absolute without Gale’s sacrifice, you have to find a means to fix Karlach’s heart… And through it all your cursed blood lies dormant, waiting for the moment you let down your guard to steal back everything you’ve gained.

“Is that what you want?” you ask, voice placid and emotionless.

“To rub my hands all over that gorgeous body of yours? Always.” The lie burns as it leaves Astarion’s mouth.

You are so, so tired.

But Astarion’s embrace has at least kept the Urge at bay. Perhaps if you just let him take care of you as he wishes, you won’t have to think.

“Alright.” You nod slowly. “Lead the way.”