Chapter Text
Tavali's hand pulled him down within moments of his cry for help.
His sorcerer had made a mockery of Cazador's minions within the first moments of the battle. Astarion saw her appear in the white light of misty step straight to the beginning of his cage of red light. She darted in immediately and grabbed his left hand with her right to heave him down.
The ritual's power over him snapped like a string pulled too taut. The agony lacing his back faded away.
It was a significant boost to his diminished confidence. Cazador had just temporarily stripped him of what sum of it he'd had coming into this place, along with his Yuan-Ti armor.
Now he would have a chance, one more chance, to seize this power for himself.
Tavali shoved something into his hands.
His shortsword. His dagger. How had she even-
“Try to hang back!” She whisper shouted as she spun away from him. “There's no way to get you any armor right now. I can't even get my shield free for -”
“You're mad,” he growled savagely, “if you think I'm sitting this out.” Astarion twirled both blades in his hand to have them ready.
“Astarion,” she admonished as they split up to take opposite positions on the short walkway. “You don’t even have armor!”
“That just means not to let them hit me,” he snarled and pressed himself against the tall wall to get some cover. He still had his boots of speed, thank goodness, and the elixir of bloodlust he'd drank back when they first came into the palace was still rushing through his body. “What happened to my bow?”
She looked at him with wide, adrenaline-fueled eyes. “It flew away in the other direction!”
Their friends were crying out from the central area. The fight had truly begun in earnest. There was a wall of fire blazing a line between some werewolves and the coffin.
“Well, let’s not delay any longer.” he said darkly.
Cazador had tried to flee from the daylight radiating from their friends’ weapons and armor, but his mist form had dissipated. He stood there now, back to them both and his focus on the five enemies in front of him.
Astarion crouched and brought up both knives.
Tavali didn’t respond beyond a strangled scream of frustration as she dashed away. Astarion saw the werewolves across the way heading toward her, and sent a firebolt into one’s face. It staggered under the blow.
His love twisted in place, sparkling quarterstaff in her right hand and shield raised in her left, as she unleashed a massive lightning bolt. The blue magic went streaking past him, filling his nose with the scent of a coming storm, and blasted into the strange robed skeletal figure and Cazador.
Bless that woman.
The pale elf launched himself around the corner and sprinted for his elegantly dressed master standing beside his coffin. With his back to Astarion and his body still riddled with the aftershocks of the lightning bolt, the bastard never saw the first strike coming.
What a fortuitous and remarkable change of circ*mstances.
The shortsword bit into the other high elf’s right shoulder, scoring a decent slash through the embroidered black fabric. Burgundy blood burst from the wound as Astarion ripped the blade free. The rogue gave his master no time to recover before driving his dagger into the older elf’s left side. It stabbed deeply into his kidney before Astarion pulled it loose again.
It was glorious to see his master’s blood on the stones. Too glorious to fully contemplate in the moment.
Cazador hissed and swung his scepter around with his right arm to try to knock Astarion back. The pale elf took the jerky blow to his shoulder and the pointed bat wings on the staff cut him just enough to draw blood.
“You are going to suffer,” he promised, “for everything you did to me!”
Cazador sneered at him even as his blood dripped on the floor. Astarion realized that despite the blows he knew the monster had taken, he barely looked ruffled.
“I have know you for two centuries. Have I not suffered enough?”
Astarion bared his teeth, but couldn’t make a retort because he had to dodge another werewolf lumbering toward him.
He had Cazador’s attention now. The man’s beady red eyes focused on him even as he evaded the werewolf’s claws. He had to look away.
“Do you think you have been free? That I have not felt you every moment?” The older elf asked venomously. Astarion could hear the familiar smirk in his voice.
Somewhere behind him, Tavali screamed. He couldn’t even turn around, could only focus on the creature that he needed to stab again and again to keep it from goring him.
“I felt your approach with every step you took. I knew you would return. You are so very predictable, my boy.”
Lies, he told himself fervently. If the bastard had sensed him that much, there would have been more attacks before his siblings made their attempt to kidnap him. Wouldn't there?
“And in so many ways.”
Astarion lured the werewolf toward the wall of fire, and then nimbly leapt away when it lunged. The dumb creature fell forward into the flames with a bellow.
Cazador took the opportunity to cast his own attack.
Blight permeated Astarion's body, but the necromantic magic didn’t keep him down long. Even with the tadpole keeping him more alive than before, the spell wasn’t as effective against undead.
That meant Cazador meant to drag this out, and land as many blows against him as he could.
Astarion could probably use a potion or healing spell soon, if only Shadowheart wasn't on the other side of the fire.
The black-haired man surged forward in front of him, staff horizontal in both hands over his chest.
“Did you think I could not feel it,” he whispered sinisterly, “every time you gave your body to that half-breed?”
Astarion’s stomach dropped even as he raised his daggers again. Blades already coated with his master’s blood, with proof that his master was not invulnerable, and still his words brought a sensation like bile up his throat.
No. No, he couldn’t have. He can’t have tainted all that too, he can’t get inside my head and take something else-
He lunged, but Cazador slipped back to the side, not turning into mist, but not fleeing either.
That same wretched smirk, but his eyes became impossibly crueler.
Astarion flipped his dagger and sword into new positions as he stepped to the side to keep the fire wall at his back while his master maneuvered his staff.
“It was honestly repugnant, feeling you two rutting so frequently.” The man’s voice was laced with disgust. “It’s no wonder they let you cling to their tailcoats all the way back to Baldur’s Gate if you were servicing her so very thoroughly.
The barbed insult in those words flew toward him, but merely bounced off his skin.
Because now he realized what he feared wasn't true. Cazador hadn't gotten into his head at all.
Cazador was bluffing.
You lying bastard, Astarion breathed carefully, keeping his master at his front as the battle raged around them. Oh, you bastard, you never sensed a thing.
The moment was interrupted as Cazador was abruptly blasted with a burst of icy magic. He hissed and misted to the other side of the chamber. Astarion rocked back on his heels before chasing after the nebulous red and black mist as it tried to flee from him. The vampire lord's incorporeal form failed again.
Cazador had tried to bluff, and he’d failed. He’d thought he’d known Astarion to his very marrow, and maybe he had known Astarion would use his body to try to ingratiate himself with the group. But he hadn’t known what to expect from Tavali and their companions, hadn’t known Astarion could grow enough to push back and ask for a boundary. He hadn’t known of Tavali’s patience and her willingness to be with him, to see him as he was and still accept the cracked, fractured pieces of himself he held together.
They hadn’t been having sex. They hadn’t had sex in weeks; not since that time in the Underdark.
Which meant Cazador hadn’t sensed any of it. Despite what Aurelia had tried to say when she came to the camp, despite what Cazador was saying now, Astarion had been undetected this entire time.
The idea that he’d caught his master in an out and out lie was a little intoxicating. He hadn’t been fooled or cowed into letting him tarnish the moments he’d shared with Tavali, moments that still seemed fragile and shimmering as newly spun glass.
His pursuit was briefly stalled when a werewolf came into his path, but the thing was weak and bleeding. Astarion took the time to stab it with his dagger before trying to reach the other elf again.
“Astarion!” Shadowheart screamed. “Stay clear so I can hit him!”
It took a great deal of effort, but Astarion held back just in time.
A flame strike burst over his master, capturing both him, a ghast, and several irritating bats in the process.
Cazador was panting now, singed by radiant light, flames, and lightning working in consort.
Astarion got close again as his friends readied more spells.
“I won’t let you do this!” Astarion shouted. “I won’t let you win.”
Cazador just chuckled like he was a recalcitrant child. His face was bruised and his hair in disarray.
“But I’ve already won, my boy! All the pieces are in place. The Ascension is inevitable.” His glowing red eyes fixed on Astarion, blazing with animus. “You sad child. Don't you see? Even you’ve heeded your orders to the very last. You returned home with fresh prey. The same rules for all those you brought me will apply to her.” Cazador lifted his head, a manic look in his eyes as he stared Astarion down. “Once I have completed the ritual, I will have need of new spawn to attend me. She will make a lovely first addition, don’t you think, my boy?”
In the split second it took for those words and threat to sink in, Cazador was blasted with another streak of blue magic. He barked in pain, nostrils and lips twitching, as the bolt of lightning shot through him and several of his thralls.
Astarion shot forward with a yell that boarded on a shriek and caught his old master across his left shoulder over the staff.
Astarion was going to skewer him. He was going to leave him a pulpy stain on these stones.
It was the very fear he'd had in the Flophouse when he'd imagined meeting Tavali without the tadpole. Now it was worse because he knew his brief affairs hadn't ended in death but in an enslavement different to but just as monstrous as his own.
Now Cazador promised Astarion's own fate on Tavali, and it fueled his wrath anew.
The very thought of it; Tavali, a spawn. Tavali, enduring that kind of torture. Tavali, subjected to the Master’s lessons and then sent out into the world to lure innocents with her body. Tavali, who had already told him she would sooner let her magic destroy her than live like that.
Astarion was going to seize this ritual and leave Cazador with nothing but a broken promise to a devilish overlord who would hopefully take it out of his black soul for the rest of eternity.
Cazador hissed and took the time to become mist and dash away again.
It failed after he’d gone a few paces, because his brilliant friends had cast daylight and brought a holy mace with them to drive out the darkness. No matter how many times he tried, he would keep failing to escape that way.
The battle became a blur. For every hit he landed on the master, he had to turn back to another werewolf or zombie or bat haranguing him. Never mind that Cazador wasn't taking the assault lying down. He cast many spells against Astarion and his friends, from blight to chain lightning that the vampire spawn barely dodged as it jolted through him.
His bare torso was littered with cuts and bruising. His back likely matched. His chest felt heavy from the magic the Master wielded against him.
His friends were facing the same problem, but to his immense relief the daylight and radiant magic was working more than one wonder. Not only was Cazador being pelted with spells, but Astarion hadn’t seen him able to heal much at all during the fight.
And as if in direct contradiction to that, Astarion felt many of his wounds close as Shadowheart released a major healing spell over them all.
The vampire spawn had just given the last werewolf a bloodthirsty smile and stabbed through its jugular when he heard Cazador shout.
“Enough, wretches!”
Astarion looked past the struggling werewolf's right shoulder, blood coating his hand as the beast lunged over and tried to maul him. He took a cursory lick of the scarlet liquid on his knife and felt it replenish him just a little.
Cazador had thrown his staff to the ground, and power seemed to pulse out of him.
His eyes glowed brighter, and his muscles seemed to bulge under his shirt.
He looked around, and Astarion had the feeling he was looking for him.
An old fear rose up inside him, a bone deep sense of panic that the Master was angry. The Master was displeased with him, and all the pleading and begging for mercy in the world wouldn't stay his hand.
Cazador didn't see him quickly enough, partially obscured by the lycanthrope as he was.
But Astarion saw when his eyes fixed on something else, and a terrifying hate overcame his stony features.
His master dashed away past the central coffin and out of Astarion's sight. He had to focus back on the beast trying to eat his shoulder in one last desperate bid to kill him.
It died with his shortsword through its heart in a few short seconds.
That was all he had time to do before he heard a horrible, cut-off scream.
By the time he looked around, it was already too late.
Cazador had Tavali pinned against one of the columns. They were separated from nearly everyone else except him by the wall of fire Gale had conjured.
Tavali’s own fire wall on Astarion’s left had just faded to nothing.
There were so many smells on the air, and yet the scent of her sweet blood seemed to overpower them all. Cazador’s claws had raked through her, moving in a frenzy with unnatural speed as he punctured her armor and body one last time.
Even as Tavali fell and Astarion started moving, Cazador was reaching down to lift her up again.
The monster held her aloft and she just hung there, eyes closed and body unmoving. He tilted her head, trying to expose her neck, and he was going to bite her.
Astarion started screaming at some point, and his blade was a foot from his master's back when the bastard let go of Tavali and turned to mist once more.
The sorcerer fell unimpeded to the ground. Her head struck the edge of one of the stairs with a dull crack.
For the first time since the battle started, Astarion didn’t turn to follow Cazador’s movements.
He threw himself to his knees at her side, bracing his right palm against the steps at her shoulder while his left hand found her neck past her scarf.
There were no fresh bite marks, no evidence that Cazador had fed from her.
No evidence that she had died from being drained and therefore begun the transformation he’d undergone centuries ago.
But his relief was short-lived.
He abruptly realized there was no pulse in her neck either.
She wasn't breathing.
Her blood wasn't still flowing out of her with the same rapid beat as before.
The pale elf felt something in his chest fracture at the sight of her lying there on the steps, like ice cracking under pressure and heat.
She was too still, too pale, too gutted and limp.
Tavali had never actually died before. Not since they were traveling together, at least. Some of their other companions had perished and been brought back by scroll or Withers.
Tavali had only had close calls, skirting the precipice of mortality but always pulling away from the edge at the last moment.
But not this time, not here.
Astarion spun away from her before his gorge could rise. He had nothing he could vomit up anyway.
One of the others would have a scroll. Or Shadowheart would be able to do something.
He had nothing. He could give her nothing. Not as he was. Not as this weak, pitiful thing.
So instead he threw himself back at his master as the older elf tried to massacre his other companions. Karlach took a few blows, grunting under the sickly green slashes, before she caught the vampire lord clear in the gut with her hammer.
Cazador was weakened. He was flagging on the stones while his stolen blood sprayed in thick drops from his lips. His left hand clutched over his stomach as he backed away from the raging tiefling.
It left him wide open to a final stab from Astarion with his shortsword right into the elf's unprotected right ribs.
Astarion shouted wordlessly with the last strike.
Cazador yelped in pain, a noise Astarion had never heard the straight-laced, unequivocal bastard make. The lord swung his right hand uncoordinatedly to fend his spawn off, but it was too late.
Radiant daylight shone through and seared his undead skin one last time.
Astarion's tormentor broke, fleeing in a swarm of mist and bats into his coffin.
Astarion hurried across the floor after him. He slipped in blood and guts and the slippery remnants of one of Gale's ice spells. He fell with a wet slap to the floor in the viscera, feeling to splatter and seep into his pants before he got up to move again.
He turned quickly when he saw the wall of fire come down.
Shadowheart's spirit guardians faded away as she went to kneel at Tavali's side, her healer's hands gentle as she inspected her body.
Astarion had to turn around. Something in his brain was twitching, like a nerve had been kicked out of alignment from the rest of him.
Tavali was dead because Cazador had killed her. Because Astarion had brought her here. Because Cazador had looked at them and somehow known she was the important one, that she was the one that made a difference to him.
He had to focus on getting to the dying vampire in his coffin before he healed himself enough to start fighting back again.
The coffin lid went slamming to the ground and Astarion spat at his master to wake.
He had to ascend. He had to. He had to make himself so powerful that no one could ever lay their hands on him again. So that no one could take the few f*cking things that made life bearable away from him. So he would be safe, for once.
“I wouldn't want it,” Tavali's tearful voice from their camp in Rivington came back to him.
He shut it out, hearing Cazador's loathsome voice explain why Astarion couldn't complete the ritual instead of the lord.
As if Astarion couldn't work around that with just a little help.
Tavali still looked dead when he looked to her.
Shadowheart was praying over her body, palms glowing with the rare sight of a revivify spell.
Astarion needed her. He needed her up and aware, needed her to look at him. And right now, he needed her to help him complete this infernal ritual and end everything Cazador had done to him once and for all.
“Is that what you want to do with your life? Be like him?”
He couldn’t think of those words at the Flophouse, or any of the others that had preceded and followed.
Tavali loved him. Surely she would help him one last time now?
