Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cavern closes with a shuddering boom.

Astarion doesn't flinch, but it's a close thing. 

Dust rains over his bristled shoulders, smothering the cragged ground as if promising more of the mountain is next to fall. The debris spreads underfoot, unearthed from burrows and dens carved into the walls, from pitfalls waiting patiently to snap ankles. A haze in the air, in their throats. A testament to nothing everlasting.

The seven inhabitants of this miserable fucking space cluster together. A party of heroes run like rats from the fox. 

Gale pants, hands lowering; the last of his magic, spent summoning a wall of stone over the entrance, to lock them within like corpses in a tomb. But the alternative is a continued death upon the blades of the githyanki, and Astarion cannot formulate a good enough reason for leaving that the party will accept. 

So he doesn't think about the stone, about the enclosure. He doesn't. He doesn't think about the only sounds being hoarse pants and the steady drip of blood to the stone floor. He doesn't think about a space so small he has to hold himself still not to brush against others. He simply doesn't think.

This is a mercy, actually. They escaped the crèche and the healing that was supposed to be their salvation. How lucky are they. 

Astarion uncoils, hackles up and teeth firmly pressed to the back of his lips. It is simple pragmatism that guides his hands to the task of unbuckling his vambraces, nothing more. They aren't shaking.

By the entrance, Wyll breathes some hells-twisted word—a mote of light dances around the cavern, pausing on everyone's face. Naked relief pours over his scattered wounds and keratin ridges when he counts all seven. And their canine straggler. 

"Healing," he says, taking his habitual stance as their proud and fearless leader with everyone confirmed alive. "Shadowheart, how much do you have left?"

She grimaces. "Not much." Even now, she's half-slumped against the wall, Scratch sniffing anxiously at her leg. A nasty slash mars her thigh, enough she'd limped their entire escape—far from ideal, when evading githyanki who have a marvelous fucking ability to teleport whenever they want. "A few heals, if they're lesser."

"I have some remaining," Halsin says, head bowed. He's likely the least injured of them all—twice he'd taken bestial forms in combat, his elven form untouched. The transformation doesn't seem to eat up his magic, though Astarion doesn't exactly know enough to question it. His own arcane potential is limited to sparks if he's well-fed enough to summon them. 

Wyll looks at them again, gaze lingering on each. Light peeks through the cracks Gale left, though hazy in floating dust and the remnants of stale air. It's enough to categorize their wounds.

"Karlach first," he decides. "Then Lae'zel."

Shadowheart's lip twitches. Though they'd seemingly buried the hatchet about the Astral Prism insofar as she nearly slit Lae'zel's throat and got her own cut for the trouble, their truce still feels unsteady. Which is demonstrated by her immediate turn to Karlach. 

The tiefling is sitting to the side, her only choice beyond bashing her head against stalactites. Her tail loops around her thigh as if for comfort, left arm limp, battleaxe sheathed. Scratch shifts focus, circling around her with his tail like a hurricane. Spreading despicable little hairs everywhere. 

Shadowheart kneels before her, gaze sharp. Not touching, considering Karlach's engine thrums like an arterial industry after combat, smoke trickling through her ports. The faint scent of burning, where dust lands over her arms. 

The cleric closes her eyes, palm outstretched. A pulse of magic, diagnosing; Karlach hums like it tickles. 

"Dislocated," Shadowheart says, almost soft. "Hold still."

Karlach nods, gritting her teeth. Her tail stills. 

A flash of purple-black and her arm wrenches back into its socket with a wet pop, cartilage stitching together and oozing discontentment. She winces, rolling her shoulder out. Every bone twists oddly under her scars. "Thanks, soldier."

Shadowheart nods, haggard. Her last magic spent, what the crèche didn't drain when a full fucking spectre of a lich-queen loomed overhead and demanded penance. But considering Karlach burst straight through the wall of the monastery to offer them an escape, it's well used. She deserves everything for getting them out of there.

The other chosen candidate is not so cooperative, as Lae'zel hauls back and punches stone. 

The cave trembles before her, vitriolic fury packed into the blow. Her shoulders are drawn like iron bars. "I am fine," she hisses, ears pressed to her skull. In Astarion's remarkably professional opinion, she is not. 

Halsin doesn't seem to take offense, palms raised. "Peace, my friend," he says gently. He towers over the cavern, hair brushing at the sloping wall—though not as obtrusively as Karlach, given he can still stand. "I merely wish to take the sting away."

Lae'zel's pupils narrow to slits."There is no sting. I am not injured."

That's a bold lie, considering everyone saw her get blasted back by her misanthropic inquisitor. Astarion's no expert in githyanki anatomy, but he's pretty sure they can't crack a stone pillar in half with their back and walk away unscathed.

"Lae," Karlach says, gentle enough to almost hide the worry. Her eyes are enormous in her face, ringed and yearning. "Just let him heal you, yeah? I don't want you being hurt."

Lae'zel grimaces. Something shakes over her form, trembling down to clenched fists. 

"Fine," she bites out. "Heal me. Quickly."

Halsin nods, still unruffled. He presses a hand feather-light to the top of her shoulder, an amber-warm light suffusing under the cracked pieces of her armour. It spreads down her back and Lae'zel squeezes her eyes shut, some unspoken tension unknotting from her neck. Broken ribs, probably. 

She was content to ignore that agony; to wear it like punishment, if Astarion is reading her right. The betrayal of her queen boils in the air. A lifetime of servitude to a ruler who wanted to eat her. 

Two months, she touted how the crèche would purify her, free her from ghaik influence. Instead, their organ-slick machinery tried to rip her mind apart. 

That's likely to leave a mark. 

Halsin flexes his hand, frowning. "That is all I have," he says apologetically. "I cannot do more until I trance."

Astarion nurses on that, digging claws into the broad side of his arm. There's only a few healing potions left after the debacle, and they need to be saved. He adjusts his strategy.

Wyll ducks awkwardly to avoid knocking out a horn on one of the low-hanging stalactites, padding forward. "Does anyone else need healing?" He asks, flicking that same mote of light to dart through their ranks. "Gale?"

The wizard closes his eyes—bruises pepper up the side of his face from shrapnel, but his exhaustion comes from the encounter directly before, when another wizard came puffing up with lackadaisical incaution. A marvelous soliloquy later, Gale is left with a suicide quest. He's been quiet ever since.

"Trivialities," he says, his first word in hours. The lack of verbosity hammers its presence home. "It will heal tonight. There's no need."

Wyll hesitates—that's nearly as antithetical to the man's existence as could be—but doesn't push it. "Astarion?"

The linger of an arrow puncturing his shoulder, only the memory remaining. Fangs piercing green flesh. 

"I'm quite alright, love," Astarion says, smiling beatifically. "Nothing more than the normal."

Stolen blood thrums through his veins, sharp and tinged hot like starfire. Githyanki are a sanguine delicacy, exotic in a manner he hadn't thought to expect. Richer than simply that of thinking creatures. 

But he is not allowed to drink from people. This is the rule. This is what he was told, flat on his back with a sword to his chest, so he did not drink from a githyanki, and it did not heal his injuries, because he had none. That is all there is to say. 

Wyll blinks, but Astarion is already unlacing his armour to squirrel away the cuts over its front. They'll be stitched closed in the comfort of the shadows. No blood on pale skin, no scars to see; to the world, he looks as though he escaped that nightmare unscathed. No reason to drink blood, because he didn't. 

"I'm glad," Wyll settles on, a faint smile over his face, patterned with relief. "This– could have gone much worse."

It still didn't go well.

Astarion tugs off his inner bracings, arranged artfully as close to the entrance of their wretched little hollow as possible. He stares through the gaps in the stone to convince himself it isn't sealed. It isn't. He doesn't think about it.

Karlach leans back, head thumping against stone. Part of it scorches black, and Scratch whines. "What next?" She says, tiredly. "Don't think these mountains are all that safe."

Halsin nods, a deep rumble in his chest. "We are alive," he says, like the bleeding optimist he is. "But we cannot remain here."

That's a fucking understatement—an entire race bays for their extinction, led by dragon-backed warriors and psionic abilities to specifically counter the tadpoles nibbling at their skulls. Cultists for a false god snap at the heels of Faerûn, transformation waiting on the edges. The walls are closing fast on their fate. They are still surrounded by stone. 

Astarion pauses his disrobing, despite himself. Everyone is looking up, through eyes hazy or focused or absent or sharp, at their illustrious leader. 

Wyll sighs, a hand rising to massage the base of his horns. The movement reopens a cut somewhere under his gambeson, the scent of brimstone-tinted blood trickling through the air—Astarion doesn't react, and Wyll doesn't flinch. 

"We have to leave," he concedes. "I think we can rest tonight, get our strength back, but the githyanki will chase us, and we barely escaped as is." He doesn't look at Lae'zel, but the intention is clear. "They control the gate, and we can't sneak all seven of us through."

That's true enough, and all of them know it. Astarion is none too eager to meet a second death from a githyanki who considers him sub-sapient just for the crime of having a full nose, but acknowledging that doesn't give them an answer. 

If they have to leave, then to where?

"Halsin," Wyll says, a strangely youthful unease dithering at his feet. "You said the mountain pass was a way to reach the shadowlands?"

The druid nods grimly. "Yes. I do not want to take that path, but we may have no choice."

They fled the monastery, blades red with githyanki blood, and now they're out of options. 

The plan had been to take the Underdark route through, where even that inhospitable land had relay stations to gather supplies and prepare oneself, as well as starting them deeper in the lands instead of walking from the distant border. As much as Lae'zel had been adamant on her mythical zaith'isk, the others had been more willing to make plans for further avenues of healing. Their one redeeming trait.

It is not kind, to be proven right. Because instead of merrily tramping their way through a godless land of mushrooms and filth, they are hunted like dogs and chased to the very borders of the shadowlands.

Astarion sees that revelation dance over Wyll's face like an approaching storm. 

Everyone is still watching him, quiet in muted anticipation. All incongruously obedient. Lae'zel snapped at the bit to reach the crèche, Karlach made them defend the Grove, Gale wasted time at every passing trader. The party is no stranger to strong opinions for their next direction. 

But that is with things they want to do, and no one wants to be the one to say they're going to the shadowlands. They'd much prefer waiting for Wyll to fall on that sword. 

Without their hard deadline on ceremorphosis, decisions lumber instead of race. 

Wyll exhales. "Let's take stock of our supplies, first."

Delaying the decision. Pushing it back as if an hour will present another route to take, an unexploited miracle in the peripheries. Astarion shucks off one of his sheaths with more force than necessary. 

Wyll, the sanctimonious hypocrite, proceeds to ignore his own injuries, despite the pain lingering in the edges of his pleasant face. He pads around the cave, squeezing between everyone's clustered legs and tired slumps. Packs are gathered and spread over a small space along the furthest wall, bedrolls unwrapped and set aside. 

He sits in the middle, pulling out packaged food and waterskins and healing potions and all the accouterments of an adventuring lifestyle. The cavern hums with the gentle sounds of his labour. 

Everyone else begins the subdued progression of post-massacre recovery. Oiled rags are brought out to wipe blades clean of blood Astarion refuses to allow himself to smell, armour doffed and set aside for future troubles. No room for cooking, not in this enclosed space, so jerky is filched from Wyll's growing spread instead. 

Lae'zel doesn't partake. If Astarion was in a speculative mood, he would say she was mourning, though she looks too angry for that to be all. Even Karlach's murmured encouragement isn't enough to slacken her shoulders. 

Scratch, the damnable mutt, barks, as though he isn't causing enough of a headache when he'd snuck in right before Gale raised his barrier. He has an infuriating way of finding the party each evening, though they send him away before combat. Now he snakes his way through the crowd, sniffing at everyone and whining when they're too tired to offer him more than a scritch behind the ears. 

The cavern was small before and grows smaller now as the party settles, hemming closer to each other. But it's fine. This isn't the catacombs. Gale even left them air holes in the front, the miserable bastard. Astarion's hands aren't shaking. 

Wyll sets a last waterskin on the stone, half-full and sloshing. Though he cleared a space to work, he hasn't filled it, not completely. He rocks back, a pinch to his brows. 

"Halsin," he says, glancing up. "How long did you say it was to Moonrise Towers?"

The elf tilts his head, thinking. "It will be three weeks to reach Reithwin," Halsin says. "Though I doubt there is much remaining there, I hope it can serve as a place of preparation. The towers are only a day from the city's gate."

Wyll looks back at the food. A frown lingers. 

Despite himself, Astarion turns to pursue the selection—two hundred years since he's last partaken of anything with the pretense of caring, but even he can see the pickings are slim. Cloth-wrapped hardtack, dried venison, piles of potatoes with unsightly little roots growing out of their skin. Hardly the lavish feast Raphael offered, nor the honey-glazed decadence from the Grove. The spread is rather sparse. 

Astarion's ears flick. He can hear Wyll's heartbeat jolt uncomfortably in his chest.

"Perhaps we can double back," Wyll says, hesitantly. "Not to the monastery, but the wilds around—take some time to forage before going in. A day, at most."

"We cannot," Lae'zel says. She's brittle, drawn up like a fly caged by a spider's web. "I am named hshar'lak. They will hunt me."

All githyanki words are harsh, but Lae'zel says that one as though it seeks to devour. The crèche did not go well for any of them, least of all her. 

She turns away, glaring out the thin holes Gale left for breathing through the blockade. Dusk settles slowly, trickling down in ebony stretches between distant stars. "We are not safe here. We are not safe anywhere on this plane or all others, but we are least safe while we are close. Even resting tonight is a danger."

Wyll stares at the food and sets his jaw. Something taut and resigned in his face. 

As their leader, he must make the call. 

Wyll closes his eyes. Astarion has watched him enough over the past two months to guess what he is thinking—Waukeen's Rest, scorched and devastated, his father's guard left in the rubble. Ulder Ravengard, taken by drow to the towers, for a purpose they can only hope leaves him alive. A damsel in need of rescuing.

But that means taking the plunge into the shadowlands when they are injured, unprepared, and without supplies. 

Astarion doesn't say anything. He will not risk speaking up, not in his tenuous position as outsider. They have tolerated him thus far. He follows at their heels, wherever they walk.

The hero exhales, fists clenching as though they're wrapped around a calamity. When he raises his head, his mismatched eyes are fever-bright and stone-empty, respectively. 

"Then we will push on," Wyll says. "We must make it to Moonrise."

The air rings with a certainty his face doesn't show. 

Halsin sets an enormous hand on Wyll's shoulder, gentle. No words, just the offer of support. "We will survive," he assures. "It is the way of the world that we will be strong enough for the trials ahead." He pauses, one ear shifting through his hair. "Perhaps I can hunt tonight, under animal guise."

Then he turns to look at Lae'zel. "Presuming the githyanki are not ones to kill any bear that happens to cross their path?"

Lae'zel grits her teeth. It's like she can't quite decide whether she wants to tout their strength or hate them into oblivion, still caught in the treachery of her queen. "Disguise your mind," she snaps. "And do not be seen. We are not familiar with the manner of animals on this plane, but we know predators."

Halsin inclines his head. "Very well."

She punches the wall again. One of her knuckles splits. 

The rest of the party murmurs, quiet ministrations of middling acceptance. The shadowlands are to be their future, then. Perhaps their grave, if the food situation is that dire. Another of their uncomfortable realities. 

"We can do it, yeah?" Karlach shrugs, streaking soot down the wall. "I've made it through worse."

"There is nothing else to be done," Gale says. "That is where the Absolute is."

A tremor of indigo pulses down his mark, twining around the corner of his eye. Netherese magic tamed by a goddess' instructed martyrdom. Gale looks back at the floor. 

Wyll nods at them both, though it doesn't take the weight off his shoulders. This would be the time to offer up his own platitudes and endear himself to the others, but Astarion can't find words not riddled with derision. This is a stupid fucking decision, yet it's the one they're making. He will have to bear it.

Scratch butts his mangy nose against Wyll's hand—he smiles and rubs at his ears, the mutt wagging his tail. A shallow kind of consolation, though one he seems eager to accept. Perhaps if Cazador's mocking names for him were more apt, Astarion wouldn't be so scared. This cur has no worries of being killed for the crime of existing. 

Wyll looks at the food again. 

"I don't think Scratch can come with us," he hedges. 

Even Shadowheart blinks at that, face slack. It ripples through the party like a chain of called lightning, judging by how everyone's eyes fly open. As if they're so surprised that their tag-along freeloader can't come to a damned hellscape on a pleasure stroll. 

"Aw, fuck," Karlach says mournfully. She sighs, a low tendril of fire crawling between ports. "You're right, but fuck."

"It will be better," Wyll assures, like he's trying to convince himself. "He can travel with the tieflings to meet us in Baldur's Gate."

If it is better for him to be elsewhere, that does not bode well for how they will fare within. Wyll has already nudged the food back into a disorganized mess in preparation for sequestering within packs. Something about that feels deliberate. Hiding the deficit. 

As if only now noticing all the eyes on him, the mongrel tilts his head to the side, tail wagging. He yips some asinine question. 

Halsin bows his head. "We worry for you, my friend," he says, gentle. "It would be best if you were to travel ahead, so that you remain safe."

Scratch barks, booming in the sealed space. Astarion's ears pin to his skull. 

"I do believe you would protect us," Halsin says, a slight smile over his face. "But let us protect you, now. This is for the best."

The cur whines, like he's devastated to be removed from the upcoming misery. He laps at Halsin's palm as though trying to convince him otherwise, dribbling saliva all over the stone. At least the stench is preferable over the temptation of blood. But Halsin's singular acceptable trait is that he is not swayed.

Karlach puffs ember-flecked air. "I'm gonna miss you, Scratch."

Astarion, politely, doesn't say good riddance. It's humorous, in a distinctly unhumorous fashion, how torn up they are about it. That the shadowlands are a concern, but a missing mutt enough for sorrow. 

They pass Scratch around the cavern to offer final goodbyes. Gale is still stone-faced and Lae'zel stiff, but Shadowheart buries her hands in his scruff and Karlach grabs a bit of metal to stroke over his back. 

He will not ingratiate himself with the party by mocking their absurdities. Astarion runs a quick hand through Scratch's fur then shuffles him off to the next. 

Halsin ponders the world outside, where dusk drapes itself down sloping mountain-backs. There's something distinctly ancient about him, like a relic pressed in the folds of yellowed paper, more than eyes or mannerisms. 

Astion doesn't know how to beguile him. The thought is harrowing. They have no map, just the century-old knowledge within Halsin's mind—though Wyll is their leader, he is their guide, and thus another vote in the collection he must convince to his side. A side growing more tenuous by the minute. 

If the party releases a blasted dog for fear of feeding it in the curse, what will they do with a vampire?

They've ignored his diet, since one pathetic bite a month ago that earned him nothing but a sword tapped over his heart. And gods, has he wrung himself dry to prove he's useful enough to stay in the mix, to travel with them, to stay within the bounds of the Astral Prism; polished himself until he gleams.

He can't say no to traveling the shadowlands—he can't say no. They want to save the world, and that means going to Moonrise, in a land desolated over the course of a hundred years of deific wrath. A land without sunlight or fortune; a land without prey.

Without blood. 

Astarion twists a strap of armour through his hands like a serpent, harsh enough to make the leather creak. A cessation of this adventure means a return to Cazador. Anything is worth avoiding that. He has felt hunger, then starvation, then what lies beyond. A sensation without a name, not one that suffices. 

The shadowlands will not break him. Not when he has tasted freedom for the first time. 

"I will take Scratch with me," Halsin says, nodding at the entrance. The mongrel's ears perk, like he's intelligent enough to recognize his name. "We will travel as far as we can, and then trust his clever nose to find his way to Zevlor. They will guide him."

"Are you leaving now?" Wyll asks, brows pinching. "I understand haste, but would you tell us about the curse first?"

"I will," Halsin says. A grave note enters his voice, like fallow fields and barrow-downs. "But you cannot grasp its true misfortune until you are within it. Our time would be better spent resting tonight, and explaining once you see it for what it is."

Wyll stares at him, something undecipherable in his gaze. Halsin meets it evenly. "We are hares sheltering in a foxhole," he says. "Best to recover and leave as soon as we are hale."

Astarion watches them both carefully. This is a moment to push back or roll over. Wyll is their leader, not quite elected though chosen nonetheless, and this is a minor impasse, but he's too familiar with Cazador to trust an amicable ending. Wyll could challenge Halsin, if he wanted. Prove his own authority. 

Wyll just nods, horns catching the light. "Be safe," he says. 

Astarion notes that. 

Halsin returns the motion, looking over the cavern. "Rest well," he says, "but keep your guard up. I fear our troubles are not yet concluded."

"I will keep watch tonight," Shadowheart says, eyes closed as if to demonstrate how poorly she'll do it. "I must commune with my Lady for the trials ahead."

She hasn't spoken much of Shar since the discovery of her illicit faith, but the shadowlands have revitalized her. There's a necrosis to her acerbic nature now, even with the glaring weakness of her amnesia. She talks like she wants her words to bite them. 

The shadowcurse is an invention of her goddess. Astarion wonders if that means it will be kind to her, or if it will burn her hand like the scar that never listens to mercy.

"Thank you," Wyll says, more tired than before. He rubs Scratch's head once more, the mutt whining as he pushes into his palm. His wagging tail scatters white furs over the already filthy space. 

"This way, my friend," Halsin says, offering a hand. Scratch whuffs at it. He pads forward then pauses, tilting his head at Karlach. Her tail lashes the ground but she just smiles sadly, waving at Halsin. Another goodbye. 

Gale closes his eyes, a faint sheen of sweat pooling over his brows, and the wall of stone flexes; like rushing tides, an opening appears, hollowing like a yawning maw. Halsin slips through with an agility that doesn't befit one of his size. After a mournful glance back, Scratch follows. 

Then Gale flicks his hand and the wall shuts once more, only pinpricks to show settling dusk outside. Astarion grinds fear under his boot. It's far more important not to be eviscerated by githyanki bloodlords than a pitiful memory over a hundred years buried. The stone isn't seamless. It isn't even marble. 

Astarion stops breathing to rip out the desire to scream by its shorthairs and stalks off to grab his bedroll from the neat stack. His armour is already undone but he goes about grabbing the bit of animal fat sequestered from Lae'zel's latest kill to soften the leather joints, keep it in prime form. A way to distract his hands so his mind doesn't have to think. 

He doesn't want to think about many things right now. 

The others drift off in their own inconsequential ways to settle down, unfurling bedrolls and dragging whetstones over blades. Lae'zel punches the wall one last time, lips split in a snarl, then not so much sits but collapses by Karlach. She murmurs something halcyonian to the githyanki, face soft. Gale curls up to sleep immediately, still silent. Shadowheart kneels for prayer. Her eyes flutter shut. 

Astarion separates the leather piece by piece, trusting his fingers over sight to find the creases and rough patches needing attention. The ritual is soothing, in a way. Though it isn't embroidery stolen on rare nights alone in the dormitory, he's still able to flex an ability that is entirely his own. Cazador did not teach him this. It is just his. 

Footsteps, echoing over stone. Astarion glances up. "Hm?"

Moving stiffly, Wyll sits next to him, swallowing a wince as the slight movement jostles his ribs. A marvelous fucking start to this misadventure. Perhaps the shadowlands are so desolate they won't be attacked every other step.

Wyll says nothing, at first. Just extends his legs, head bowed. His heartbeat thumps in his chest with vertigo.

For a moment, Astarion tastes potential. The night of the tiefling party, extracting himself from the pointless reverie of those still doomed to die, only to find a morose hero on the beach—then words shared, gazes lingering. A kiss, little more than a brush of contact. 

Two months has he been aware of his anemic status in this party, and for some reason he keeps trying to secure it with Wyll. To follow the princely hero and bat his eyes and lavish insipid words to the monster hunter, instead of any of the safer bets. 

But he's getting somewhere. And now Wyll approaches him of his own volition—comfort before the shadowlands, perhaps?

Wyll's gaze is distant, though. The same clouded impersonation as Waukeen's Rest, listening to the counsellor talk about a missing Grand Duke. 

"Yes, love?" Astarion prompts, then recalculates. He shifts his weight over, bumping his shoulder against Wyll's. An offer.

The hero exhales a shallow sort of breath, tinged too similar to dread. Fear, almost. There's a shake in his shoulders, drawn tight until they're liable to snap, fortitude withering. If anyone else sees his vulnerability, they offer what privacy they can by not looking.

Astarion doesn't respond, for a moment. He worries the idea around his mind like tar. 

Does Wyll want solace? Solidarity? Discussion? Why is he mentioning it, instead of swallowing down all weakness as he is wont to do? Lae'zel practically had to hold him down so he didn't spring back into combat after Mizora melted his skin off for her amusement. He isn't one for maudlin falls of fancy. This isn't right. 

But perhaps this is an opportunity. 

"The shadowlands frighten me," Astarion settles on, confiding first to break the stalemate. "Halsin's descriptions aren't reassuring."

Wyll huffs, a wane little sound. "Entirely not."

It isn't an admittance of his own fears, but it could be close enough. Astarion's ears flick. "I will say," he says, "you have only led us to remarkable success so far, love. If anyone is to get us through the shadowlands, it would be you."

The hero blinks. Astarion holds his gaze, dredging up reassurance and trust to sear over the contact. If he can just convince Wyll to like him–

Then the moment splinters, Wyll shaking his head with a rueful regret pasted over anything else. "I apologize for my melodrama," he says, drumming a hand along the edge of his horn. "You don't need to listen to that."

"It's quite alright, love," Astarion assuages, though the opportunity is already escaping. Pushed too far. He smiles beneath a mental storm of cursing. "Only normal to fear a curse."

"We'll be fine," Wyll says with unearned confidence. "I just wished to ask—when did you last hunt?"

Astarion goes very still. 

The githyanki soldier was around the corner and already gurgling around a fireball-assisted scorching of most of her vital organs—they couldn't have seen. He hid his bite under her armour, even pulling it back up when he was done, wiped all the blood from his face—they couldn't have seen. He's been so careful. 

A month and a half ago, he tried to bite Wyll Ravengard, monster hunter, hero, newly-acclaimed devil, like a fucking idiot. And that earned an oath he didn't want to make in return—he will not drink from people. 

To the party, he doesn't. Because he will never let them see. 

"Why, the doe two days ago," Astarion says politely. An obvious sign of proving he's following the promise they forced him to swear. Animals only, and out of the way, so they don't have to think about it. To confront the monster in their midst. 

In a way, he's trained them to believe he only needs to eat once a week, because that is the frequency he brings them exsanguinated prey. It must make sense, really. Vampires don't need blood, not for life, so it is more of a want—and imagine all those evil fucking bastards out in the wildlands, draining innocent villagers down when they only need a mouthful. When they don't need at all, actually—just want. 

Perhaps they think it is a kindness, allowing him to drink at all. 

Astarion is not going to think about that. 

Wyll nods, the answer he expected. "What did you do with the corpse?"

"I gave it to Gale," Astarion says, dredging up memories through the pleasant blood-drunk haze that evening boasted. "Lae'zel skinned it, and then you all feasted upon it. Or, most of it, I suppose."

"Ah," Wyll says. There is something in his face that is painfully young. "I just wanted to make sure we'd made it into jerky, though I suppose we couldn't risk circling back if we hadn't." He shakes his head, refocusing. "Do you have enough blood to make it through?"

Oh. 

So that's why he's asking. 

There is a repurposed bottle of wine in his pack, dark glass smeared with scarlet from the doe. But only what remains. He had been planning to use their intended visit to the Grove to gather what he could from the goblin camp, all while playing marvelous pretend at only eating animals like commanded. 

Then the crèche imploded, and Wyll decided they will go to the shadowlands, and Astarion is out of blood. 

But if he says that, he will still not be allowed to drink from people. All that changes is how they will watch him closer, hands around blades for when he turns as feral as their imaginings of a vampire spawn. They will say he is staring at their necks. They will post a guard over him. They will wait for him to bite, and strike him down should he attempt it. A prophecy made manifest. 

There is a hunter in the tavern, one who has the potential to kill Cazador if only he tells her what is happening. And he smiles at a drunkard instead and seduces him home. The cost of failure is always greater than the contemptible hope of success. 

Astarion nods, lips quirking in lazy tranquillity. "Exceedingly so, darling. Although I'm afraid I can't share my stash should it come to that."

Something like relief floods over Wyll's face. "I'm glad to hear that."

He digs his claws into his wrist. 

A shard of his ancient terror must leach its way to the surface because Wyll separates their shoulders, shaking out his head as if to brush away cobwebs from fell spiders. "Rest well," he offers, pushing back to his feet. He heads to their scattered supplies, arranged himself beside them, staring at the piled food. His eyes reflect hollow in the gloom. 

In his wake, Astarion is frozen.

The conversation gnaws to drink his marrow. A few more sentences and it could have—could have ripped open his guts to spill secrets like viscera before a party of killers. Astarion knows they're unaware he doubles back to drain the corpses left behind after their habitual massacre because otherwise, he'd be twice-dead, if he's lucky. Or maybe they'd go find that miserable gur in the wetlands just to sell him back to his master. 

Gods. He can't afford to be this sensitive if he's going to withstand the curse. Cazador always said he was better off mute.

Astarion sets his armour aside, unclenching his hands. What comfort they could offer is gone now, skulked away in the shadows they'll soon be encroaching. To the land they will have to endure.

If the githyanki crèche had been a touch more gentle, had allowed them even a fleeting breath of preparation from its rot-stained stone, they would be entering the shadowlands with full supplies and half the Sword Coast alerted to their mission. An existence with at least a higher chance of success—of survival. 

But instead, they're alone, poorly equipped, and entirely bereft of plans. All they have is a druid operating off century-outdated knowledge and the drive to remove their tadpoles at a mysterious set of towers. And Wyll seeks to free his father, and Gale wants to blow himself up, and Shadowheart burns with excitement for a land drowned by her dark lady. 

Astarion lays over his bedroll, staring up at the stone ceiling overhead. It looms with the cragged teeth of stalactites—not marble, not polished, not enclosed. There are holes at the front that lead to the outside world. He's clawed his way out of a grave before; he can do it again. This is not the tomb. 

The shadowlands aren't, either. He will survive them because he survives everything. The party will never know.

Astarion falls into a restless trance to the quiet murmur of Shadowheart's prayers.

-

Dawn has barely broken, gold lancing through Gale's little peepholes, before they must leave. 

Halsin wakes them from whenever he traded watch with Shadowheart in the night, considering the cleric needs her magic back if she's to pluck the party from death. Faint circles girdle his eyes. No Scratch, which has Karlach looking so crestfallen Astarion can't summon a single contemptuous thought on the matter. 

They pack quickly, Wyll having organized all their various supplies back to their matched carrier. A broken fast with nothing but the remaining jerky and a collection of berries Halsin says to eat before they rot, everyone moving in grim silence. 

Gale drops the wall of stone, sluicing to the ground like pus drained from a wound. Sunlight smears through the gap, pale and reflective where the sun proper has not yet breached the mountain-backs, though its presence is felt through the canopy. Lae'zel peers out first, her longsword drawn, eyes slitted. But her people do not fall on them yet. 

There is no other way but through. 

Halsin takes the front of the pack, leading around the main trail to forge a new route beneath denser forest. His bulk drives a chisel through the underbrush, simple cantrips curling branches back and tugging mud out of their way, and for a brief, escapable moment Astarion can almost forget they're being hunted in favour of admiring the untouched wilds. Particularly when Halsin holds the more infuriating bits at bay. 

But that does not change what they're doing, and soon they lose the forest for a mere tree-dotted meadow, rivers snaking down from the surrounding mountains. Then they are reduced to cowering under shadows like rabbits beneath a hawk, waiting for dragonfire to scorch their legacies away. 

It doesn't happen. They continue moving. All the while, Wyll keeps his hands up and eyes open, searching for prey to gather along the way, though he doesn't stop the party. More important to run than to prepare. There's a lesson in that, maybe. Or a damnation. 

The meadow fades.

Slowly, the trees stop growing and start seeping. Bark loses amber lustre for grey, ragged and worn, knotted over like thorns instead of armour. What was once wildflowers now wilts, vibrancy eroding for muted greens. Then Astarion blinks, and there are no flowers at all. 

Something prickles down his spine. It's not quite ice. It feels like a memory with slavery instead of saviors; it feels like an alley where a magistrate came to die. 

He doesn't string his bow, no reason to put pressure on it when just traveling, but a part of him wants to. Wants to with a desperation he's almost forgotten the vehemence of. 

There is something dead here. A predator made from shambling skeletons and a butcher's teeth. 

It has been an hour since Astarion last heard birdsong when Wyll pauses, hand before his face. His breath fogs. Mist creeps through his fingers. 

"Wait," he says. 

Astarion stops. The others trickle to a standstill, some unconscious instinct gathering them closer as though a pack of wolves circle. But there isn't. In fact, there's nothing—no movement, no noise, just a pressing dark he didn't notice until it threatened to consume them. 

Perhaps one change went unnoticed, another slipping by unfelt, but the full coalition bares itself with macabre purpose now. The land has mutated. What is around them is no longer free but cursed. 

Astarion lets hands linger over his sheaths. Even the soil beneath his boots is grey, bleached from healthy brown. The air itself tastes foul. 

The catacombs were heavy in a way of misery, feeling each of his two hundred years whenever he was shoved into their unforgiving depths—this is cold in a different but surreal familiarity. Decomposing roots instead of stone, decay instead of marble. It's too close. 

"We are here," Halsin murmurs. The boisterous elf from the tiefling's party has vanished, replaced with a veteran of years gone. Though their surroundings could be explained, he watches the grey tint of stems and stone like rot over a cadaver. "The shadowlands."

Part of him already knew. 

Astarion looks up, to the sky overhead. Grey clouds have consumed it, eating away what he knows should be midday light—but it's gone. 

Sometime through the travel, the sun disappeared beneath an overcast grey, and he missed it. He missed his last chance to see the sun for weeks to come. Something lurches in his gut. 

Halsin unlaces the side of his pack and pulls free a torch, one of the many they found scattered over the Sword Coast on their journey to this point. He cups the tip between gentle fingers and murmurs a short word; embers spark and twist over the oil-wrapped cloth, sending bright, jolting streaks of orange over their surroundings. Almost instantly, Astarion can feel a chill he hadn't tracked retreating, hunkering back beneath the shadows cast by thorned trees all around. The light spills gold over the remnants of a trail. 

But all it does is signify the contrast. The juxtaposition of this ring of firelight and everything lurking on the edges, creeping like serpents through miasmal gloom. It waits with a hunger. 

"Lady Shar," Shadowheart breathes, reverence over clasped hands. Her face blooms. "I feel you, my lady."

Halsin fixes her with a cool gaze. She matches it with one of her own. 

"This is not a place for comfort," he says. "Keep your wits about you."

She ignores him. 

Astarion stares at the fire until his eyes smart—behind it, in the smoke overhead, he can watch what he presumes is the curse clawing its way forward as the flame sputters, outlining its territory. It has teeth. 

It should be him most comfortable with this madness. Vampires are, after all, creatures of the night; wretched scuttling things with red eyes through the dark. Hereditary hunting grounds, for claws only his instincts know how to wield. 

He does not feel comfortable. 

Wyll holds up a hand—his shadow curls over the ground, gangly and odd as though in a warped mirror. He regards that with a pale stability. "What do we need to know to protect ourselves?"

"Light," Halsin says, voice a low rumble. "Its name is not a misnomer; with torches and campfires, we can hold it at bay. Not forever, but enough for now. While we are here on the outskirts, it cannot reach past the light, but it will try to claim us regardless."

Astarion busies himself with scuffing anxious little patterns in the dirt. 

Gale hums, a perturbed sort of inquiry. He's got his spellbook pressed to his chest like he's scared something will squirrel it away. "By claim us," he repeats, "what do you mean?"

Halsin looks away from Shadowheart and to the lands surrounding, a malaise Astarion can't catch. "The shadowcurse is a consuming beast," he says evenly. "It wishes to destroy all aspects of this world, to spread its influence like a parasite. Taking the light is not enough for its appetite. If it sees a chance to seize our lives, it will not hesitate."

"You speak as if it is a living thing."

Halsin's jaw clenches. "It is not a living thing, not in the manner we consider. But it is thinking, moving. It hunts."

Fucking wonderful. If it isn't githyanki, it's the personification of nightmares. Astarion will always be hunted by something, it seems. 

Shadowheart tilts her head back. "Lady Shar will protect me."

"This curse is not Shar," Halsin says, grim. "Close, perhaps, in the manner of one tree in a mighty forest. She is the source of its power but not the keeper of its corrupted mind; the shadows will still target you."

Shadowheart opens her eyes just to strike him with a frosty glare. She's particularly adept at them. It seems her and Halsin will be in no short supply of disagreements. 

"The darkness does not hide the world from me," she says. "I see as well as I have ever before. Lady Shar protects me still."

Halsin doesn't concede the point but does abandon it, turning away from her to stare over the surroundings. He seems a man looking over the fallow field from a pointless war. Astarion wonders, quietly, what chased him away from the final battle. 

"What is it?" Gale asks, his first breath of curiosity since Elminster's interference. He hasn't perked up yet, but his gaze is less absent. More focused. 

"It has owned these lands for a hundred years, since Ketheric Thorm was sealed in his tomb," Halsin murmurs. It is not quite the voice of a storyteller. "He turned to Shar and she unleashed a parasite upon the world, ever-growing, bound only by the mountains ringing it in. A beast to upheave the natural law of life. There is nothing it gives back to the world that equals what it takes."

His eyes are dark and sad. "It is destruction."

The words echo, though there are no walls for them to do so against. Their weight rebounds instead. 

Astarion glances at Wyll. 

The hero stands, jaw clenched. It was his choice that led them here, no matter the importance of the mission, and him that cast them within this living hell. He looks too poised to be convinced of that decision. 

"We should all take torches," Halsin says, nodding to Wyll's pack. "Perhaps later we can share to stretch our supplies, but I would feel more comfortable if we all had protection today. This is not a kind place."

Astarion flexes his hands. The shadowcurse had seemed an impossibility, back in the sunlight—something to fear, yes, but ultimately another more hurdle on the batshittery of his supposed freedom thus far. 

But now, watching it snap and gnaw at the edges of firelight, he is less sure. There is a hostility on the wind, like the bared teeth of a wolf and knowledge the pack is surrounding. A torch seems like empty placations against its hunger. 

"Probably for the best I don't," Karlach says, wincing—considering their strategy for lighting campfires over the past month has been to give her a log to hold until it catches, that's an apt assessment. "Can I stick with you instead, Lae?" 

Lae'zel looks painfully relieved. "Yes," she says, hefting her torch—the height difference is beyond stark but Karlach tucks alongside her, eyes bright against reflected flames. 

Shadowheart takes the torch Gale hands her, but she's watching Lae'zel and Karlach with uncertainty. Another facet of her capricious nature. 

"Here," Wyll offers, extending an unburnt torch while his own crackles with puffs of eldritch magic. Astarion accepts it to tap against Wyll's, letting the orange spark over until they both burn like a solemn progression for a funeral dirge. 

Six fires held aloft, beating back the shadows with nothing more than a circle of claimed territory. The curse does not leave. It waits, instead.

"Move quickly, but do not wander." Halsin touches a fist to his chest, a nonsensical prayer to the Oakfather powerless under this curse. There are no gods here. "It will not hesitate to take you."

Astarion knows that truth all too well. 

Wyll steps to the front, rapier swinging in its sheath. He doesn't draw it, but Astarion can tell from his heartbeat that he wants to. A shallow comfort against an unkillable adversary. Perhaps the Blade of Frontiers is more used to things he can stab, unless they're the one holding his leash.

The air is rancid and hateful. It wants to kill them.

Astarion sets himself in the back of the group, trailing on the edges with his torch half-lowered to the ground. The shadows lurch all around, congealing into an ephemeral reality. A hell to endure so they might find the evil at its core. 

They're saving the world. Perhaps he could find hope in that, if he had healthier roots. 

Halsin said this land has gone unsaved for a hundred years. 

Astarion is starting to believe it.

-

It gets worse as they travel. The memory of meadows withers to chips of stone bleached white as bone, trunks mangled by a starvation so integral they become feral. Fog laps with a reeking horror at their ankles. Every time Astarion inhales, his mouth coats with something acidic. He stops breathing to avoid it. 

But less than half a day into the grey-choked miasma, they find something other than abandoned trails. 

Halsin spots it first in his position leading the pack, torch braced aloft as his steps pause. Situated just off the main road is a camp, or a shoddy depiction of one. Dirt packed by numerous feet, littered debris of constructions, poles for palistrades rotted away long before they should have. Crates and barrels reek with an impressive stench despite the cold, struts twisted and stained with creeping black. 

And cages. 

They're the only surviving element, made of iron beaten into shape instead of any marvel of blacksmithing. Perhaps four of them, stacked around the edges of a stone campfire, only ashes left in the midst. Empty, two of the doors swung open. A glance at a time passed. 

Astarion's ears flick, but there's nothing other than the distant moans whistling like a promise. Whoever built this is long gone. It likely wasn't a happy departure. 

Wyll pads forward, brows furrowed. He taps at the ground, testing its stability, and it is polite enough not to crumble underneath him so he walks to the center unhindered. His torch throws pale reflections over the cages. Astarion follows him at a much sedated pace. 

"It's a relay station," Wyll remarks, peering at the debris before their somber parade. Bobbing flames illuminate the space well enough, highlighting its abandonment; and Astarion can't tell if the reason he smells nothing is because the curse took it or it's been empty for long enough to chase away the remains. "Someone stored food and supplies here for when they traveled."

Gale nudges his boot against a charred stick, half-buried in the dirt. Footsteps cluster around it, the press of shoes against dirt calcified by growing darkness. "I do not think they survived. At least, not here." 

"You will find no companions here," Halsin says with a clipped nod. "They are long consumed."

"But they survived long enough to set up a camp," Wyll counters. "This is newer than a century passed."

New enough to be rotted instead of dust, yes. Astarion nudges one of the crates over. It collapses with a puff of soot-black ruin. 

They spread out, though not enough their circles of protection separate. Lae'zel and Karlach go to investigate what supplies can be scavenged, Gale pondering an inscription in the dirt. 

Astarion goes to the cages, crouching before them. The bars are only a little taller than his head while stooped, poorly made and riddled with flaws before the curse corroded them further away. Large enough multitudes could be shoved within, piled up on each other without anyone able to stand or break free. He runs a finger over the metal. It's cool to the touch, as though deep underground. 

Wyll follows him, torch bent to illuminate the looming shapes. "Food, perhaps?" He suggests, frowning. "Animals to keep while traveling?"

"Not quite, love," Astarion murmurs. He leans over to tap at the grime-streaked dirt beneath the bars. 

Carved through the filth are thin, parallel lines, overlapping and crossing wherever a free patch sits. The work of a person, clawing at any avenue of escape, rooting into soil as though it could carry them from the iron bars of their existence. He is well familiar with the marks that leaves behind. But there is a reasoning behind it, searching through earth for rocks or bones or a buried weapon; something to use, rather than blind fervour to attack unyielding metal. 

Animals claw at bars. People claw for purpose. Until starvation sets in and there isn't a difference anymore. 

Wyll's expression twists. "Slaves," he growls, crouching—he reaches through the bars to trace the clawmarks, testing their depths. Some are deep and ragged, as though from a tiefling, while others are the shallow points of buffed nails. It seems they had little deliberation in their targets. 

"Slaves," Astarion agrees.

Wyll grabs the bars like he wants to rip them apart. "This is from the cult of the Absolute."

That seems likely, yes. Astarion straightens, dust fluttering around his boots. Perhaps Wyll's father was kept in one of these, chained like a dog beneath his captors. He elects to keep that thought to himself. 

The revelation ripples over the others, who forgo care when poking through the remains. Karlach tugs the cap off a barrel and grimaces, slamming it shut. "Everything's spoiled here," she says, shaking off her hands. "Don't think we'll get any supplies."

"Gather their torches," Wyll says, ever the pragmatic, though his frown is pinched tight. Whether pity for the slaves or frustration at the dead end, Astarion can't tell. He turns away from the cages. 

Astarion keeps staring at them. 

If the cult of the Absolute used this camp as a gathering point to move further within the shadowlands, it doesn't bode well for survival that it's abandoned. When the villains can't endure their own curse, what chance do they have?

Not a chance beyond a need, really. If they don't get to Moonrise, then their parasites are kind enough to replace their faces with tentacles and minds for a hive's collective, if they survive the process at all. 

If they get to Moonrise, then they pluck away his damnation alongside his salvation, and he claws his way back to his master's side. 

Astarion tightens his grip around the torch. Its pale plume of light scatters by his feet. 

He isn't going to think about that. He can't. The party wouldn't understand, if they give a shit about his vampirism for anything more than a black mark against him. They think he needs blood once a week and can sit pretty with all his shackles tucked away like the unsightly things they are. 

Less than a day into the shadowlands and he's starting to fall apart. Astarion bites into his own lip just to drag sapience back into his corpse. 

Lae'zel and Wyll gather all the torches from the camp, tucking them in straps or tying a bundle together to hang from the bottom of Halsin's pack. Another safe half-week of travel, if they stretch them properly. Another resource to carry them through. 

He stares at the flame in his hand, at the potential spilling on the margins. 

Three weeks to Reithwin. The thought stretches to infinity, if he lets it. An empty bottle of blood and nothing but rubble in their charted path. 

Astarion doesn't think about that, either.

-

An interesting dilemma of traveling a land without sun is that time is an amorphous thing; hours pass by like minutes while the seconds claw themselves through tar. It's only by the slow descent of fire down torches and the exhaustion catching on their half-healed bodies that they finally slow. 

The trees here—if they can be called that—are old and ungrowing, no leaves beyond dead clutter to crunch underfoot. Without light overhead, they don't truly cast shadows, and it makes them loom like eldritch beasts from fell times, all teeth and trial. But they also function to create a small clearing, a rock protruding from a thrashing sea. Still perilous, but at least offering the façade of safety. 

Not the ideal place to make camp, but there isn't anything resembling ideal, not here. This is at least flat and close enough to the main road they don't have to worry about losing it. 

Wyll finishes his inspection, grimacing. "It'll have to do," he says, waving his torch once more over a split trunk. When nothing lunges out to grab him, he turns back to the rest, nodding at Halsin. "What do you recommend?"

"Firewood first," Halsin urges. "We do not want to burn through our torches too early."

Karlach bobs her head, hair knotting around the crags of her broken horn. "Hey, Lae," she says, waving at the githyanki. "Want to do it together?"

Lae'zel blinks, a first break in her brittle apathy. "Yes," she says, gathering her torch. It cuts her a striking silhouette, the straightest she's stood since the crèche. Astarion is only moderately adept at picking out the variety of frustration that can weave onto her face, but it seems to soften when she looks at Karlach; and if that's true, then Karlach just melts. 

They walk off into the shadows, Lae'zel hefting her torch. Their circle of safety splits from the party's, grey rushing in to swallow the gap like prey to consume, lapping hungrily at the divide. The very air thickens, drowning out the light until they disappear altogether. 

It looks like they were eaten, almost. Astarion's throat aches. 

But they have a torch with them, and Karlach's engine should it be necessary. It has to be enough. He doesn't know why the thought of them dying bothers him so much. 

Wyll's hands twitch, seemingly for a lack of things to do. He's happy enough to bend his knee to any task, not knowing what to do with himself in absentia. It seems like an exhausting sort of existence.

One that Astarion is not going to partake in. He settles himself in one corner of their chosen clearing, hip cocked and head up. "I'll hold the torch for you, love," Astarion offers very generously.

Gale hefts his own aloft, padding to the opposite side—between the two of them, they hold a flickering circle of light, just large enough to work within. The shadows slither against as though waiting.

Shadowheart stands on the border, staring out. Her eyes are deep and black. 

"Thank you," Wyll says, like he promised to go fetch the sun. It's very irritating that the gratitude does manage to make Astarion smile. 

Wyll extinguishes his torch with a sweep of wrist and busies himself cordoning off the space. Between him and Halsin, everyone's packs are opened and spread out, supplies unearthed from their cradled hold. Wyll gathers all the billowing cloths of their tents, setting them out in their typical position. 

"We will need to set the tents closer together," Halsin says, pondering their spread. "I do not wish to risk anyone stretching into the darkness."

Like the hero he is, Wyll leaps for the task. "Perhaps we can brace the purloins against each other," he offers. "Or lash them to the same stakes—so long as we leave a break or two for outer access, that feels like the closest we can gather."

"An excellent idea, my friend," Halsin says, a rare smile since entering the shadowlands spreading over his face. Astarion notes how Wyll's heart misses a beat. Something odd prickles in his chest at the sight. 

Wyll ties the cloth to the frames in a complicated procedure that seems to require more than two hands. A lonely legion of tents prop up in a condensed circle, wrapped around each other with open-faced maws so close they're shoving tongues down each other, if he continues the metaphor. With even a single log in the center, the light should reach them all. Assuming they get any sleep with the proximity. 

The thump of feet. Astarion lifts his head, claws curling, but orange blooms through the black—a torch, burning low but not yet out. For a moment, it's a strange sort of territorial dispute, having another patch of light. It holds itself like a ripple from a cast stone, separate, until its edge bleeds against theirs and melds. The curse retreats with its eyes slitted, resentment bubbling up in its loss.

Karlach pads through the shadows, carefully balancing a stack of logs in her hands. Smoke trickles between her fingers, twining grey over her face, but nothing catches. Lae'zel follows a moment later, torch held high. 

There is a faint flush to the ends of her pointed ears. 

"Nothing here wants to burn," Karlach says, apprehensive. "Not wet, just unwilling. I mean, good for me gathering, but bad for fire, yeah?"

"That is the manner of the curse," Halsin says. He looks like he expected it. "There is little here that will come with the ease we desire."

Wonderfully cheery. Astarion braces his torch a little higher.

Ever one for manual labor, Wyll springs forward with his handy little axe and begins splitting the logs, stacking them carefully off to the side of his tent. Karlach begins hauling stones over, first small ones in a circle around the center and then larger in a half-moon surrounding that, seats for their perusal. Lae'zel keeps the torch over her head. 

Within the stones, Halsin arranges the logs in a neat pile, stacked with little holes and entrances and other interesting ways to feed it air Astarion truly couldn't care less about. He murmurs that same short word and lets embers trickle through his grasp, splashing over peels of bark until they start to smoke. Karlach crouches on the other side, wrapping palms around the shorter branches—between the two of them, a fire comes creeping up with begrudging tolerance. 

The flames aren't normal. What passes for wood here seems tainted, the tongues licking at the sky odd and unnerving. Metallic, almost. Scarlet like blood, dipping into a crimson so deep it seems impossible to produce light. But it is more powerful—a ring of illumination jumps over their surroundings, snapping at the shadows until they huddle back. 

Astarion blows out his torch. Grey drifts up to join the clouds overhead. Gale mimics him, tapping the last of the embers onto dead soil. Better to save the wood for later days in the dark. 

They consolidate themselves, gathering around the crackling fire. Astarion arranges himself on one of the stones, palms flexed to the heat like he can steal it for himself; the curse is unforgiving in its chill, enough his own pallor quails. Even stolen githyanki blood cannot warm him forever, particularly with long travel times stretching between. Already he can feel it running thin through his veins.

No hunting today. He kept his eyes peeled for any signs of life, any flicker of movement out in the grey—but this land undead seems unwilling to give him a scrap. He'll find something tomorrow. He will. It isn't like the party will let him feed on them. 

The others sit, though Shadowheart chooses the stone furthest from the fire like she wants to disappear into the shadows beyond. Her hands stay laced in a permanent prayer. 

It's not quite silent, as the curse rustles dead brushes and Gale begins the monotonous task of pulling out cooking supplies, but it feels close enough. If Astarion focuses on the thought of others eating, of others satiating their own hunger, he is going to spit vitriol, so he doesn't, and stares at the fire instead. With his eyes locked on the crackling red-black, he can almost forget the shadows. 

"Here," Wyll offers, crouching down next to Gale with his waterskin. And then Astarion has to look over despite the food, because now there's valuable information being fettered about. 

Wyll is exceedingly fastidious when he prepares meals. Gale handles the combination, the mixing and melding of ingredients in their irresponsibly heavy iron pot, but Wyll is the one carving up dried meats to shred along the flat of his blade. Nothing falls to the ground beneath, nothing wasted. 

It reminds him of Dalyria, in a way. When she had enough mind not to be feral, she would skin the dead rats first, peel them apart with careful lacerations from her claws. Then she'd debone them to suck at the marrow within, cut open the organs to drink what was inside, lap up the veins directly. She got the most out of the scraps. 

Astarion does not want to think about that. About the six other souls—if any of them still have souls after it all—left in the palace, in the kennel. He stares at the fire again.

The food is made quickly enough, though the curse seems to swallow all sounds for the low thrum of distant winds instead. Everyone eats quickly, lapping at the bowls for remnants of something Astarion refuses to identify, to piece together the smells or flashes he sees. He watches the fire, but then the colour reminds him of blood, so he simply shuts his eyes and stitches together marvelous patterns in his imagination until his hands stop shaking. Without breathing, he could almost look like he's resting. It's a tactic he's too familiar with. 

Halsin clears his throat, a rumble like faultlines to draw their attention. Shadowheart fixes him with a curious half-glance, motes of grey-black lingering on the corners of her eyes. The lands have taken a hold on her in ways past even pious certainty—there is something dire in how she observes the curse, in how she walks on the very edge of the light and stares into the dark. 

"You have seen the shadowcurse," Halsin starts, face threaded through with grief. "You understand what we are facing. But I have a final piece of advice, if you'll take it."

"Of course," Wyll says. "Whatever you have to offer."

Astarion is of the mind that Halsin should perhaps have mentioned everything the moment they stepped into the shadows, but he keeps his mouth shut. 

Halsin inclines his head. "The shadowcurse does not accept guests," he says, like that isn't obvious, "and it does not tire. My suggestion is that we form groups." 

Astarion's ears flick up. Oh?

"Splitting watch between pairs can help ensure that the weight of standing guard does not exhaust one member too thoroughly, nor that there is ever someone alone to be caught unawares. It is not perfect," Halsin admits, "but it protected my circle when we attempted to advance further within. The curse is at its most effective when its prey is tired."

That sounds like an opportunity.

After that chaste, deplorable kiss on the eve of the tiefling's party, he's been working on getting closer to Wyll, entrapping the man into protection—or just leniency. If the vote comes to casting him out or worse, perhaps a monster hunter as his defender will sway the others. Allow him to stay within the bounds of the Astral Prism, at least until Cazador is not clutching at his mind.

Astarion doesn't have a plan, not really. He has desperation. That will have to be enough.

"I believe Wyll and I should go together," he says, an injected note of coy appreciation worming through his voice like a remedy. "I only trance four hours, and Wyll is as fast as they come with gathering up his magic. There will be no threats on our nights."

Wyll blinks, but there's a warmth on his face, as if the thought is a pleasant surprise. Which means Astarion has not been as effective at tripping the hero into his bedroll as he would like, but it's been devilishly difficult to set his snares onto such a princely, romantic type. New territory to fumble through. 

He smiles very prettily at Wyll. 

"That seems like a good idea," Wyll says. "And we can take the first watch."

Ah. The downside of pairing up with a hero is that he is altogether too fond of heroic activities. Astarion maintains his smile through gritted teeth. "Couldn't agree more, love."

Wyll returns his smile. His cheeks are darker than they were a moment ago. 

Shadowheart tilts her head to the side, circlet shifting under a curtain of hair. "Karlach and I," she says. "We're the strongest counters to the undead."

Lae'zel opens her mouth as if to counter, but Halsin beats her to it.

"I suggest instead it is Shadowheart, Gale, and I," he says, inclining his head to the wizard. "A triad means we can better guarantee reclaiming our magic through the night, with more rest under our belts."

Shadowheart falters, for a moment. It's very brief. But there is a flash of uncertainty in the corners of her eyes. 

"That seems a fair assessment," Gale says, drumming fingers over his spellbook. He isn't fully recovered yet from Elminster, but strangely the curse seems to have emboldened him in more ways than curiosity. "I, for one, will not complain about more sleep."

"Lae and me can whoop the ass of anything that shows itself on our nights," Karlach says, tapping her tail in the dirt before Lae'zel's knees. "No magic to worry about here."

Astarion will trance easiest when they're on guard, though he'd never tell them that. Both women could snap him in half without breaking a sweat. 

"We'll trade off every night," Wyll says, tapping his empty bowl against his palm. "Keep our minds sharp, and maintain the fire as well."

Halsin nods. "Thank you," he says, as though they're doing him some great service just by trying to survive. "I suggest we rest now. The travel will only worsen the deeper into the curse we get."

Wyll mirrors him, eyes bright. "Good thinking, Halsin."

Astarion can't help but glance at him. Though he knows the hero is not Cazador, there is something odd about having what had been the party's undisputed leader so easily allow the instruction of another. Wyll seems oddly… un-possessive over leadership, though he holds it when little doubt Shadowheart or Lae'zel would have snatched up the crown had it been for the taking. 

He stares at the fire again as Wyll sets a new split log on the mix, sending sparks hissing up to the higher skies. Clouds are everywhere, slithering about like malodorous hags, though at least Ethel's swamp had life in it. Anything that prowls this land can scarcely be called alive anymore. 

There is still no blood. 

The others begin to bed down, curling up with armour doffed and supplies protected. A tad awkward for everyone to change within the safety of the light, Gale in particular summoning some four mage hands to hold blankets over his dick so no one has to bear the shame of seeing it, which is the singular breath of fresh amusement keeping Astarion going. Begrudgingly, no one closes their tent to make sure they're reached by the light, though Shadowheart's expression says she disagrees strenuously with that mandate. 

Lae'zel's ears flick, a tremor like a hunting cat's. She pads to the entrance of Karlach's tent, hand extending, before spinning on her heel and marching back to her own. She drops to her bedroll and curls up like sleep is something she needs to wrestle to the ground and claim victory over. Judging by how her heart beats rabbit-fast in her chest, Astarion doesn't think it's working. 

Without the others to provide the quiet ambiance of eating, the curse is more active. It seems to move, crowned in storm-grey clouds and the sickly rot from a century of dead growth. Astarion watches it pulse on the border of the firelight. 

Three weeks of this. He can't wait.

"I'll go first," Wyll offers, shaking out his arms. "Get a feel for how the curse works at night."

How chivalrous. Astarion smiles at him, eyes half-lidded. "Why, thank you, darling." He extracts himself from his seat around the fire, adjusting a snowy curl for effect. Half playing up for his romantic virginal target, half to hide the scars on his back, he changes behind a blanket as well, settling over his bedroll like the red carpet of a throne room. Wyll stays around the fire, hand on his rapier and head on a swivel, a picturesque statement of a hero.

Then it's just Astarion, alone in his tent, surrounded by the beating hearts and lingering blood-scent of six other souls who came to a land doomed a hundred years past. 

A day he's survived the shadowlands and the shadowcurse. A day to feel the teeth that close around their fire's bulwark without penetrating. A day to feel the long dark stretching before him. 

Astarion lets his eyes flutter closed, reverie trailing its long fingers over his mind. It takes him a long time to finally go under.

-

Astarion flinches upright. 

Wyll freezes, hand hovering above his shoulder—in the black, his horns gleam like the hidden face of the moon. 

All around, the tents loom like mournful gravestones, inhabitants within still. Astarion stills, head tilting to the side, listening for their heartbeats—steady and slow, caught in the long-fingered grasp of sleep. Nothing awake. Nothing injured. 

"Are you okay?" Wyll asks, cautious. 

Astarion smiles prettily. "You startled me, love, that's all," he says, stretching his arms before him in a luxuriation of movement. This darkness does not pin him in place. He sits up easily, pushing muscles and limbs into uncomplicated obedience. "And you? How was your watch?"

Wyll rocks back on his heels, faint perturbation catching the line between his brows. "As fine as can be expected. I gathered enough firewood to last the night," he says, nodding to a stack of neatly split logs beside the stones, each piece grey and threaded through with oblong rings. The fire now is well-fed, crimson flames sputtering. 

Astarion hums, pulling himself out of his tent to stand. Wyll matches him. He looks uninjured, though tired. Not quite snapped up by the shadows. "Did anything happen?"

Wyll shakes his head at the same time his heart skips a beat. 

"Nothing," he says, then grimaces. "Though the curse is worse at night. Louder, I think."

Astarion pauses. "Louder?"

"Hard to hear when we're traveling, but it makes noise," Wyll hedges. "It's– unpleasant, in a word. You don't have to stay up, if you don't want to. I can do it."

Astarion strengthens himself, a friendly sort of smile setting on his lips. He needs Wyll to like him enough to defend him. He cannot be lesser. He cannot be weak. "I'll be fine, love," Astarion soothes. "I would hate to take sleep from you. Besides, I doubt the curse can be any more frightening than Halsin snoring."

Wyll huffs a surprised laugh, eyes crinkling. "Very well. Stay safe, Astarion."

"Darling, I plan on it."

Another quiet laugh. Wyll beds down, stretching over his roll. He braces a pillow under his head to hold his horns off the ground, arms curled underneath, rapier by his side. Within moments, Astarion can hear his heartbeat stagnate, settling to a stable thrum. Used to making himself sleep quickly. A relic of the wilds. 

And then there is no one awake in the camp. Just him. 

Astarion gets his embroidery out, needle thieved from some lucky bastard who died in the forest instead of this hellscape, setting it on his knee with all intentions of use. The campfire is bright enough in that vivid scarlet to light his way, continuing narrow lines of stitches. 

It sits abandoned. He keeps plucking his bowstring, not enough to dry-fire but enough to pulse the enchantment in tremors of amber-warm sparks. 

He needs to repair his armour, to hide the cuts from the githyanki's crèche so no one ever knows he healed himself with stolen blood, but he can't make himself start. Can't remove his hands from the arrows. 

Damningly, Wyll was right; there is a faint noise, spilling through the cracks of pressing silence. It's faint, whatever it is—screaming voices, begging children, the howls of some wolf in the depths of a very lonely rut. Entirely unpleasant, though better than the kennel, where the shrieks came from him. Here, he can distance himself from the thought. But he cannot remove himself from the darkness. 

Cazador kept the palace choked in velvet curtains and iron grates. There was never light there, only tallow candles that burned too dim to be anything but a mockery. The shadowlands are too similar. He strums his bow again. The needle stays forgotten. 

Astarion is very alone when the man emerges from the shadows. 

It is more the impression of one, sprouting from the grey in hazy definition. Tall, with hair that spills soft over half his face, angular features. A riverside traced by a stone's ripples. His clothing seems amorphous, almost, the memory of deep crimson and golden lapels. Whatever stitchwork visible is neat and forgettable. It shifts between each passing moment.

He does not move beyond the boundary of the shadows. There is nothing beneath his coat, neither legs nor footsteps. A looming absence of blood-scent, of a heartbeat. 

This is not a living man. 

Astarion pointedly drags the base of an arrow to his cheek. 

The thing stares at him. There's something missing in his face, eyes shot through with grey, no pupils or iris. Indistinct smoke. 

"Hello," the ghost says. 

It could be a mimicry, but it seems strangely eloquent. Masculine, voice a soothing baritone, an accent he can't place but for the Baldurian notes underneath. 

Astarion doesn't respond. Just keeps his bow raised, fletching indistinguishable from the dark. 

The revenant tilts his head to the side. It spills hair over his shoulders to cascade down, length altering before it settles a little lower than his chin. "My name is Sebastian," he says, polite. The name is familiar, in the manner of graves that only haunt him. Astarion elects not to tug on the exposed thread. 

A name. A mark to leave on the world as though it belongs. The ghost's shoulders shift, as though he took a step forward, but there's nothing visible beneath the bottom of his coat. Just shadows. 

Halsin spoke of nightmares. Astarion is no stranger to monsters wearing disguises, but this doesn't feel right. 

The ghost stays quiet. Just waits for a response.

"You aren't real," Astarion says. It's less sure than he wants. 

"I'm not," Sebastian agrees easily, as though they're discussing morning tea. His hair writhes like grasping arms. "Not the kind of real you're implying."

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Astarion chances a look around the clearing, campfire trailing crimson over rotten stone. The others are asleep in their tents, curled up with bundled arms and knotted cloth. Nothing else moves. It's too much a step to the left to be his mind's picturing of the kennel. "I'm not dreaming," he clarifies. 

"You are not," the ghost confirms. 

A dream would likely continue the narrative with a phrase like that, but Astarion won't fool himself into believing this is something he can wake up from. He's not intelligent enough to spin together this shadow-wrought man with teething camaraderie, like two and a half centuries of acquaintanceship. This is not of his mind. 

Astarion doesn't lower his bow, but he does relax the tension on the string before it snaps. Sebastian never looks away. The arrow barely registers to him. 

The campfire flickers, gnawing on a newly-exposed curl of bark—its scarlet light bleeds farther out and Sebastian shifts back, hugging the boundaries of the flames. Visible, but not moving forward. Bound to the shadows. 

Bound to the curse. 

Astarion flattens his ears, hackled like he can find something tangible to flinch from. His dead heart squirms in the presence of the revenant. If he can even call it that. "What are you?"

"I am someone you forgot," Sebastian says. He holds up a hand, looking at it; at ashen skin, the glint of a copper ring over his littlest finger. It flutters and reassembles like a bird in a net.  "Lady Shar remembers all those lost. She allows me to reawaken them, for a short while."

"That doesn't answer my question," Astarion snaps. "What are you?"

"There is no name in existence for me," he says. "You may call me Sebastian, if you will."

Something about that moniker is wrong—is familiar, if he wants to plummet to the marble depths that memory echoes alongside. Astarion bares his fangs. 

Mentioning Lady Shar is indicative enough that this ghost is brought about by the shadowcurse in some way, though Halsin didn't fucking mention this when he blathered on about parasites and trees in a forest or whatever bullshit he made up to describe this misery. But why? 

The revenant seems relatively unconcerned with answering questions. Astarion would bite at that proffered bait, if Cazador had not shown him the fallacy of questions. It isn't worth asking something unless he already knows what the answer will be. 

None of this is worth it. 

"I am only here to talk," Sebastian says, when the curse-riddled silence stretches. 

Oh, how kind of him. Astarion clenches rictus fists around the bow. "And I'm not here to talk. I'd much prefer if you fucked off."

The ghost tilts his head as if in acquiescence. "Very well," he says, with no note of reproach or annoyance—just calm, like a river cold enough to devour its own waves. 

Astarion's ears prick—there's the distant sound of mist, a storm threatening to break upon the horizon. Sebastian's form wavers. His eyes, pale, disperse into the grey. The rest of him follows, fracturing into swirling clouds and the fabric of a cloud. 

And then he is gone, and Astarion is alone. 

An arrow shakes against his cheek, twisting this way and that—there's nothing to target but the swaying tents of the party. No more grey eyes, no more hollow silhouettes; just the pressing dark of before. 

What the fucking hells was that?

The curse hunts, but that certainly didn't feel like any creature's predation—it felt like a vampire spawn, enticing pretty nothings out from flophouses to follow them home. It felt like fangs in a lost alley made of ice. It felt like treachery. 

A revenant made of ruptured memories came slithering out of the shadowcurse, speaking of Lady Shar and people forgotten, and said it wanted to talk. To chat in an afternoon soirèe. 

Cazador used to do the same, to fancy up his spawn like treasured children until they lifted the plate and found maggots instead of hale flesh. 

Astarion's claws bite into his cheek. 

Wyll said nothing happened to him. 

The hero kept watch and spoke of mysterious noises—Astarion gets hounded by death in the form of a man. A phantom with missing eyes. What did it want? Why did this happen?

The answer is simple. He did not drink from the githyanki—he did not see a ghost. 

If he saw a ghost, then he is not like Wyll, not like the rest of the party, and he has worked too long to claw his way into tolerance. There is no room for lying about being a vampire spawn, not after Wyll found fangs in his throat, but this? This is an easy lie, though not like the easy lies of two centuries past, where he has well-worn lines in the sand carved the repetition of failures. It is an easy lie because the alternative is telling the truth.

And to tell the truth is to acknowledge there must be a reason the shadowcurse came to him. 

Astarion exhales a breath that's grown old and stale in his lungs. From anyone else's mouth, it would plume silver and misted, proof of an internal warmth brighter than the cold. From him, it is nothing but dead air. 

Halsin said the curse kills all those who enter its shadows. What would it do to one already dead? What is it trying to do to him?

He will not find out. And neither will the party, because he cannot trust what they will do with that insight. 

Slowly, Astarion lowers his bow, easing the string back until it stretches dormant between the bough. Not from any particular decrease of tension, but, well– it would be too suspicious for the others to wake and see him this petrified. He sets the arrow down, nudging it back into the quiver with its brethren. The fletching gleams crow-black in the oppressive dark. 

It's like Wyll said—nothing happened. 

Astarion breathes, even and steady, and waits in the shadowlands for the others to wake.