AN: This is for compels on tumblr, who originally suggested the idea, and then for the rest of the group who told me to stop dithering about with my other WIP ideas and work on this one first. As always, ten thousand thanks to thievinghippo for the wonderful, patient, and precise beta. That you can now call me out for mischaracterization of my own Tav brings me endless delight.
Set just after the House of Grief, but before the Cazador confrontation.
We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity - so much lower than that of daylight - makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire, for soon it will be gone again.
—Watership Down, Richard Adams
—
Astarion was, by every conceivable and inconceivable metric, annoyed.
He was hot. He was sticky. He was covered in goo and ichor and the corrupted, inedible blood of a dozen Sharran priests, and he would have happily maimed a man for a very hot bath. Even worse, none of their party seemed willing to listen to his voluble complaints. Karlach was lying on her back in the middle of the stone floor, breathing hard, bits of magical darkness still clinging to her horns; Shadowheart was talking very tearfully with the thin, disheveled remnants of her parents up the altar stairs. Tav was nowhere to be seen.
He went to stand over Karlach's head, hands on his hips, and tried to ignore the way his fingers slipped and slid on his filthy armor. "Are you quite finished?" he asked, restraining himself to bare petulance. "Any interest in carrying those living ghosts out of here so we could return to camp?"
Karlach blew a bit of blood-matted hair from her face and looked up at him. "Come on, Astarion, give her a minute. She's had her whole world turned upside down in a few hours. I'm sure you can find a way to entertain yourself until they're ready."
"Given the absence of any living soul here to fight, bite, or delight—" he waved an expressive hand at the bodies arrayed around them "—how would you suggest I go about such a thing?"
"You're a bright young vampire," Karlach said, and closed her eyes, folding her hands over her stomach in a picture of perfect—if steaming—patience. "You'll figure something out."
He sneered, even though she couldn't see it, and went to find Tav. The House of Grief had not fared well in their fight. Dead priests and wolves slumped in various attitudes and levels of intactness over the stone floor, the stairways and ledges, a handful of stained altars. Even the dim purple light from the various magical stones lodged in the walls and arches of doorways could not disguise their fixed expressions of rage and fear. He gazed longingly at a ripe-looking priest sprawled by a charred bookcase, came close enough to smell the acrid stink of Shar in the spilled blood, and went on his way in even worse temper.
Finally, he spotted Tav's hair across the great, echoing hall. She was sitting on a low step, leaned up against the base of a broad marble column; the shadows clung to her like limpets. She'd excused herself rather swiftly after Shadowheart's parents were freed—a mix of joy and jealousy, he'd thought—and must have come here to catch her breath.
"There you are, darling," he said as he approached. "Listen, what do you say to going back through the halls for any missed chests or locks or little expensive-looking boxes? I'm sure there's a handful of dented silver chalices lurking somewhere in here, just waiting for you to get your grubby little fingerprints all over them."
She didn't move. Astarion sniffed in pique, crouched at her feet, and peered around the tumble of her hair. Eyes shut, mouth slack; her hands had fallen palm-up in her lap. Not the first time she'd dozed off after a battle—her upbringing had taught her the importance of catnaps whenever they could be stolen, and it wasn't uncommon to find her tucked away in some little nook with her head on her arms and her eyes shut tight. "Wake up, my dear. I need you to persuade our dear friend Shadowheart that this touching reunion could be held just as easily somewhere civilized, like that perfectly accommodating inn with the hot-water sign we passed this morning."
Nothing.
He put his hand on her knee. It leaned sideways under his touch, knocking into her other knee, and one of her hands fell lax and unresisting to the step beside her. No flinch. No flicker of the eyelids. And, now that her hand had moved, he could see the dark, glistening patch of blood that had spread like ink over her stomach, caught in the creases of her leathers and the ridged metal rivets of her belt. One red drop fell with a quiet plish to join the tacky pool between her feet. He hadn't even noticed—hadn't smelled, in this reeking pit—
"Shadowheart," Astarion said, very loud and very sharp. He put two fingers to Tav's neck, searching for a pulse. "Shadowheart, stop babbling at your family and come do your job."
No heartbeat. He checked again, as if he of all people could have possibly missed it, and looked for the rise and fall of her chest with a breath. Any breath. Anything—any shift of light off the leather, any glance of thought from the tadpoles they shared, any parting of her lips gone, he suddenly realized, grey as paper—
"Shadowheart!" he shouted with real, rising panic.
"What is it? I'm here. Stop yelling." Her heavy, mailed footsteps approached behind him. Her voice was still wet and quavering, even through the irritation. "What's wrong with Tav? Is she hurt?"
"Hurt? No." He spun, still crouched, still gripping Tav's shoulder as if it might matter. "Her soul has fled this mortal shell. She's gone to the great gutter in the sky, crossed that wide black river, joined the vast and countless majority." Shadowheart only stared at him, uncomprehending, and Astarion seethed. "Are you as addled as your parents? Have you lost the ability to parse all metaphor? She is dead, Shadowheart, as—a—fucking—doornail."
"What?" Shadowheart gasped, and she shoved him aside so abruptly he had to catch himself with both hands. "Let me see. Let me—"
He let her. His ears roared as he pushed unsteadily to his feet, the edges of his vision going black and then returning; he crossed his arms tightly over his chest to avoid doing anything stupid, like throttling Shadowheart with his bare hands. Karlach came to join them, her weapons stowed, her warmth and color beside him a surprising—if faint—comfort in this dark, echoing mausoleum. Then Shadowheart's parents limped over like the hangers-on they were, eyes wide and bloodshot, and it took real effort not to demand they immediately find somewhere else to be pathetic and sad and overly watchful. He felt garroted enough already; he hardly needed the direct cause of Tav's death goggling over his shoulder.
"You've got enough left to bring her back, yeah?" Karlach stepped forward to assist with the dead weight, worried but not afraid. That made one of them. "Gods know you've done it for us before often enough."
"Yes," Shadowheart said, though her brow was furrowed. "But something feels—I'm not sure. Wrong."
"Who the hells cares?" Astarion snapped. "Cast the spell and let's be done with this place. The stench of pity is unbearable."
"Astarion," Karlach said in warning, but her hands were gentle as she eased Tav's body back to lie against the steps. Her head flopped with sickening looseness to one side before Karlach caught her, rested her temple more carefully on the stair. "Ready when you are, Shadowheart."
"I don't think—" the shabby scrap that was Shadowheart's father began, but he quailed at Astarion's venomous glare. Shadowheart did not seem to hear him; her hands were glowing blue, gesturing in a pattern that had become unfortunately familiar over the months, and then she spoke a word that echoed off the stone of the high, arched hall. The light sank into Tav's body like water seeping into parched earth, then dimmed, then went out.
Nothing. No sharp inhale the way they always did when Shadowheart forced their souls home again. No flooding of the cheeks with color, no faint twitch of the fingers with renewed life. No tickle at the back of his throat as her heart began to beat once more.
Tav's face stayed white as bone, her eyelids shut, and when the last blue spark faded, the shadows seemed to wrap even more closely around every limp limb.
"Shadowheart," Karlach said, low, urgent. "Something wrong?"
"Yes," Shadowheart gasped, and she whirled on her knees, clutching at her chest. "What's that? Can you hear that? It's—she's here—"
Astarion, fangs bared both literally and figuratively at her distraction, was cut off by a low laugh. It was a woman's voice, low and cruel, and the sound came from behind them—above them—from the dais where Shadowheart's parents had dangled—from inside his own chest. It was thick with power and fury.
"Lady Shar," Shadowheart breathed, aghast.
Her father stepped forward again, one narrow, broken hand clenched at his throat. "She is the Lady of Loss, Jenevelle. We are in her House. I am sorry. I know you did not take this fight only to save us, but—I'm sorry all the same."
"Explain faster," Astarion snarled, fingers flying to the dagger at his waist, "or I'll make you. What does it matter where we are?"
"Stand down, soldier," Karlach said sharply as she stood, one hand landing heavy on his shoulder. He wanted badly to shake her off, but he had as much chance of that as spontaneously growing a second head that spoke Rashemi.
"It's her House," the man said again, pleading. "She is the goddess of loss—darkness—betrayal. This was not a wanted death—you feel it acutely, the grief. I can see it in your face. Do you understand?"
He was beginning to. A horrific, sick sensation began twisting in his gut, like a cloud of flies swarming carrion.
Shadowheart's father drew himself up in fragile, filthy dignity, and his eyes were full of sympathy. "A death like this in the goddess's seat of power is not a tragedy. It is a gift. An offering. And Shar has accepted that offering gladly." He shook his head, and if this speck of abject degradation dared pity him an instant longer, Astarion was going to tear out his throat. "I'm sorry. Shar holds your friend's soul, now."
The world seemed to recede, the man's face growing very dim and very far away. Even Karlach's hand on his shoulder became nothing more than a feather's brush, lost amid the wild black rage surging to choke him. That dark laughter sounded in his mind once more.
A fitting atonement. A worthy offering, given what you have stolen from me. I thank you, small ones. You shall come to appreciate this blessing in time.
Shadowheart suddenly shrieked in pain and bent over her hand. The unhealing wound flared with a lash of purple power, then faded. "Don't do this," she breathed, wide-eyed, almost to herself. "Don't take her. Don't punish someone else for the choices I made here. Don't make her suffer because you're angry at me."
You have renounced me. Cold now, unforgiving. And so I renounce you. Go and walk with this loss I have gifted you, and think of what you have left behind.
The sense of power dwindled into nothing. In a matter of moments the goddess's presence had withdrawn completely, leaving them nothing but the weak purple light and the stink of scattered bodies and the high, distant echoes of empty stone.
Astarion had gone wholly numb. He watched from outside himself as he made a real lunge at Shadowheart's father, only to be thrust back by a furious, tearful Karlach. With clinical detachment, he observed his own hands scrabbling at Tav's horrible satchel, pulling out a fistful of scrolls and scattering the rest over bloodstained stone. He heard his voice speak the Weave-lit words, saw the magic reach out to and then recoil from Tav's body like rain sliding away from waxed glass. A second scroll vanished in smoky light. A third.
Shadowheart was in his face, yelling something. Weeping, the tears creating runnels in the dirt on her cheeks. He didn't care. Now Karlach. Expression crumpled with sorrow, hot red arms coming around him in an embrace that was more restraint than comfort. The reinforced boning of her armor dug into his chest like hard fingertips, reaching for the hollow place where his heart used to be.
"Don't touch me." His own voice was strange to him, flat and colorless. "Don't—touch me."
"You can't kill them," she said in his ear. The words trembled with grief. "I'm sorry, Astarion—gods know how sorry I am, but you can't kill them. You promise me that, and I'll let you go."
He couldn't, and she knew it. He shut his eyes as if that might help, the silence broken only by the sound of Shadowheart crying, and let Karlach stand between him and death.
With curious remove, the future unrolled itself before his feet. Their little group would shatter. Karlach and Wyll would do their best, but Tav had made herself a sort of glue over the months, and without her they would break apart like a ship against a reef. Minsc and Jaheira would go first, likely with Halsin, who were not bound to their urgency and did not like the rest of them enough to remain. Gale would stay a little longer, probably through a battle or two, but Astarion thought one day they would wake up and find some nearby forest leveled to the earth and the wizard gone without a trace.
Lae'zel would stay to the end, he guessed, with Wyll and Karlach, if only for the hope of it. Not much point—their chances withered considerably without the rest of the group's support. Dame Aylin might help regardless, but he thought the rest of the allies Tav had recruited would quietly vanish. Zevlor, Valeria, Arabella—those would all withdraw their aid. The Fist would not help without her; nor would the Harpers. Even the dog and the temperamental ginger cat would probably leave.
Astarion himself would be gone by dawn.
He knew that with absolute certainty. Only a few things he needed to fetch from the camp—mostly gifts she'd given him, but he shied from that thought as soon as it arrived—and then as soon as the rest of them all came together in their mourning, he would slip away into shadow and get out of this wretched snarl of grief and memory as fast as he could. He could feel the barbs tearing at him even now, clawing gouges into an already-shredded mind; he was not enough a free man to come out whole on the other side of this. He had to go. He would leave and he would throw himself blindly at Cazador and he would die and it would be over.
How pathetic. How wasteful. One woman perished and his future winked out to nothing. How many had he led to their doom over the centuries? How many had he readied for the slaughter? Thousands. Many thousands, perhaps. Two hundred years of slavery, a few months of shining freedom, and after all of it, a single death he hadn't even caused would be the breaking of him. He was disgusted and apathetic all at once.
He felt Karlach's head turn above him. "What's that again?" she asked, and he realized distantly that Shadowheart's mother had been speaking for some time, some watery little thread of nonsense as insignificant as a breeze.
"We must go to Our Lady of Silver," the woman repeated, her voice washed thin as a seashell. "Listen, daughter. Can't you hear her calling you? If you intend to pierce Shar's darkness, there is no better spear than holy moonlight."
"What are you saying?" Shadowheart asked. She had almost turned away from her parents, as if in fear of their answer. "You sound like you think—like there's something we can do."
"Be careful," said her father to his wife, brows pinched in worry. His glance to Shadowheart was one of warning. "This is not a choice I would consider very…what she speaks of is an old ritual, rarely used. When it works, it channels the holy divinity of Selûne herself through all darkness, restoring life to those even Shar has hidden. But it—does not work often."
"How often?" Karlach asked. She'd let go of Astarion at some point, though he could not bring himself to move. "I mean, what are we talking? A few times a week? A year?"
"I have seen this ritual performed perhaps ten times in my very long life. I have watched it succeed once, and that was led by a woman who had been a high priestess of Selûne for four centuries, aided by a dozen faithful." His voice was sympathetic. "I don't mean to crush your hope, but you should know how fragile a hope it is."
"Well, that's no problem at all," Karlach said bracingly. "I mean, here you two are, aren't you? And us with you, and all of us ready to give it our best shot, even though the odds have been stacked against us from the start. Can't let even a little chance pass by without trying to grab it, right?"
She'd turned to look at Astarion at the last. He stared up at her, even now unable to reach for this bit of driftwood in a raging sea. "Karlach, I…"
"Steady on, fangs," she said, warm and low to him alone, and then she looked over at Shadowheart. "Well? You want to try?"
Shadowheart swallowed. "I don't…know if I can. I've spent so many years cursing Selûne's name. I don't know if I have the right to ask her for anything."
Shadowheart's mother crossed to her, embraced her with arms thin as sticks and still somehow strong as the roots of an oak. "The Moon Maiden is eternally patient, daughter. She does not hold grudges. Keep your heart open and your prayers simple. If she can help—if there is even a chance to break through Shar's hold—she'll find a way."
"All right," Shadowheart said, a little stronger, and she squared her shoulders. "I'm willing to try. What should I do?"
Her father shook his head, but he said, "We should find a clear view of the night sky, out of this place. Somewhere the moon can be seen."
Without speaking, they all seemed to come to some kind of agreement. Shadowheart and her parents began speaking very close together about the details of the ritual, the required components; Karlach bent down and, with enormous care, lifted Tavish's body into her arms. Her head lolled backwards over Karlach's bicep, her mouth slack and her teeth stained with her own blood; the wound at her waist still dripped scarlet, though it was slower now.
Astarion was completely adrift. To hope was impossible. That had been crushed out of him centuries ago, the wretched shitheap that was his life making it very clear this luxury would always be beyond him. To wish for relief from the agony was to set himself up over and over for the new bite of disappointment. One could only walk willingly over glass shards for so long.
But to accept Tav had died was like throwing himself bodily into the Abyss. That black despair yawned open before him, hungry to swallow him whole, and he didn't—he didn't want—he wasn't ready after all—
A different embrace flashed through his mind. Softer, more tender even through his shock, a hint of a smile in her eyes as she'd leaned into him and let him find his place around her. His own surprising reluctance to withdraw, the pressure of her hand in his hand afterwards, the shadows around their camp kept at bay by a hundred warm-glowing candles. He'd been so lost, unsure of his next step in a dance he'd led without thought for two centuries. She'd thumbed his knuckles and winked, and all at once the uncertainty—hadn't mattered at all. Because she was there. Because he cared for her. Because she was going to walk beside him wherever they went.
He wasn't ready to let her go.
They'd left her rapier behind. She treasured that weapon more than herself, oiling the blade religiously and fretting over every loose thread of the hilt's wrapping. Now it was stained with blood, with a new divot in the steel near the crossguard; she would be furious when she saw it. Astarion shut his eyes, let out a long, slow breath, and plucked the blade from the stair where it had fallen. The grip was still warm.
Too painful to hope. Too painful to give in to the despair. He shoved them both aside for later. He followed the rest of the group back through the silent, empty shadows of the House of Grief, his eyes trained on the place where Tav's head was cradled in Karlach's sturdy elbow, her hair loose and tangled in her armor, her face sheet-white in death. One step at a time. One after the other, steady rhythm, soft taps of leather on stone. Listen to that only, not the silence where her voice used to be. Keep moving or the horror will eat your heart.
Not now. One step, nothing more. Nothing else.
—
They took her to a small park on the outskirts of the city. Astarion knew the park well—had coaxed several people through the years to join him there beneath the willow trees—and knew from the back hill a clear sky view could be seen, the nearest city towers set just far enough away not to crowd. Luck was with them—or perhaps Selûne, if he was fully leaning into this idiotic dream—and tonight's sky was cloudless, black, a smattering of city-faint stars haloing the coin-round moon.
Shadowheart's mother directed them here and there with gentle commands: Tav's body arranged just so at the highest point of the hill, seven enormous diamonds from her bag placed at certain points around her in the soft dew-damp grass. Shadowheart knelt at her side, hands spread in the air over her head and heart. Cool moonlight fell in a gentle wash over Shadowheart's shoulders, over Tav's face. In that glow, where all color faded anyway, her expression became one of peaceful repose. Somewhere in the trees crickets were sawing out a rough melody; somewhere a nightingale called for its mate.
Astarion, who felt as far from living as he had since clawing out of his own grave, watched in silence. Karlach stood close beside him, not quite touching but near enough he could feel her heat, and Shadowheart's parents stood on the other side of Tav's body, heads bowed and mouths moving in silent, beatific prayer. They had linked their hands in some minuscule expression of affection; the faint rage Astarion felt at the sight of it cut a little through the numbness. How dare they. How dare they, with all the world ended like this, have the temerity to think there would ever be anything good and right and real for any of them ever again—
"I'm ready," Shadowheart breathed, and her outstretched hands began to shine. The diamonds arrayed in their loose circle began to glow as well, pinpoints of white stars swelling in their depths. The light bounced oddly off Tav's body, brighter than it should have been, reflecting and refracting like water.
"Good," said her mother, and then she turned her pale, pain-lined face to Karlach and Astarion. "We will make the first offering to Selûne on your friend's behalf. It will strengthen the ritual, ease the way for the Lady of Silver to pluck her soul from Shar's grasp. But your friend will need anchors as well. Something to call her home, you see? To call her back to you." She took a step forward, hands pressed over her own heart. "You have a bond with her. Make it a mighty beacon to guide her here, where she belongs."
"Yeah, okay," Karlach said, nodding firmly, as if that direction made any kind of sense at all. "After you, ma'am."
The woman smiled as her husband came forward beside her, a sweet expression for the old sorrow behind it, and she took his hand again. They each knelt in the grass beside Tav's body, a little unsteady on badly-healed legs, and shut their eyes. Their mouths moved together in some unfamiliar litany, and then Shadowheart's father looked up at the clear starry sky with tears in his eyes.
"I can feel Her," he said, and there was a raw, aching wonder in his voice. "After so many years. After so long. Emmeline, can you…?"
"Yes," said his wife, and for all her occasional confusion this came with a firm and serene certainty, not a revelation but a reunion. "Yes. She's here. She's with us." A tear slid down her cheek, caught in the wrinkles around her smile. "Come nearer, Selûne, nearer still. There is new faith here, and prayer, and great need of your aid. Come and cut through the darkness; let your light shine on the path out of the shadow. Do you see how she is loved? It is not her time. Her soul was not free for Loss to claim. Guide her back into the safety of your sight."
The moonlight fell in silence around them. Astarion watched their hands gleam bright as silver; then all at once the silver tumbled in a beautiful rush over Tav's body, rivulets running like water over her throat, her closed eyes, down along the length of her legs. It shone there a long time in scattered streams, very still; eventually, slowly, the silver runnels began to slide back along her skin, collecting in one radiant, coruscating streak over the fatal wound in her stomach. Rays of cool moonlight stretched up into the air, rippling with power. Then they receded, dwindling like the fall of a quiet dusk, and after a moment or two only a layer of thin watery light was left glittering through Tav's injury.
"I felt it," Shadowheart said, her voice thick. "I felt it take. Selûne is here." She looked up suddenly, her own eyes damp. "Next—now. Whatever you're going to do, do it right now."
"Right," Karlach said, and she went with ready willingness to crouch beside Shadowheart. Even her rich skin seemed pale in the light of the moon, against the diamonds shining like stars. "Hey, you," she said gently. "Not sure if you can hear me. You probably can't, but I'm here, trying anyway. That's what you taught me, y'know? You know I like to run straight ahead through anything in my way. It's hard to see the sideways routes sometimes. Or at least, it used to be. But I can't fight through this one, so I guess I have to try it your way."
It was all so brutally honest. As if she didn't care who knew her heart, as if it were an easy thing to tear herself open before them all with no promise of reward. Karlach leaned over and took Tav's hand in her own, and Astarion's own hand clenched into a fist. "There," said Karlach. "You feel that? That's me, holding onto you. Keeping you right here with me. You helped me get this back, so now I'm helping you get yourself back too." She pressed Tav's hand to her mouth, then wrapped it in both great hands at once. "Come on, soldier. I've got you right here, and I'm not letting go. Come on home. We're all waiting for you."
"Good," said Shadowheart's father, and he looked over to his daughter. "Now. Find the strength in that connection. Push into it, feel where it wants to root and guide it in."
"Yes," Shadowheart murmured, and when she opened her eyes again they were a gleaming, solid white. She reached out and touched Karlach's hands where they were wrapped around Tav's; a silver light flickered there, caught like a struck match and nearly went out again, then steadied in a dim glow. "Yes. Good, Karlach. It's working. I can feel it working."
"Not enough," said her mother, gone a little distant. "One more anchor is needed. One more bond."
They looked together to Astarion. He stared back at them in the silver glow of the ritual, uncomprehending. Karlach tilted her head—understanding slammed into him like a hammer, smashing the numbness into splinters—and every single instinct in his body seized him with the overpowering desire to run.
"I can't—" he said, almost stuttering in his panic, hands thrown up as if to ward off a blow. "You can't possibly be serious. I don't know what you think I can—what I could—"
"This isn't the time, Astarion," Shadowheart said sharply. Her voice had grown heavy with power, echoing in the cool night air atop the grassy hill. "We need to finish the ritual. The goddess is here, waiting for you."
"Waiting for me?" This was impossible. A farce. He was dreaming, surely. He came a stride or two closer, blazing with the certainty of his own impotence. "I called on every god I knew for two hundred years. Not one answered me—not one. Not Ilmater with all his vaunted rescues of the tortured, not Tyr with his justice, nor Helm nor Eldath nor any other blessed deity you can scrape up a cult for." He was sneering now, lip curled, voice rising despite his efforts to keep himself disaffected. "Every single fucking one of them left me to wallow in the festering cesspit of Cazador's palace. The gods have made it very clear, over and over, that they want nothing to do with me. What makes you think there is any chance your Moon Maiden will hear me now?"
"You selfish little—can't you see for once in your miserable life it's not about you?"
"I know that!" he snarled. "Can you get it through your thick skull, Shadowheart, that I am saying if I touch this little ritual of yours, it'll shatter into pieces?"
"You're not that important," Shadowheart said through gritted teeth, her eyes still gleaming white, but Karlach nudged her with her shoulder and she subsided. Her parents watched in silent concern.
"Astarion," said Karlach then, voice level, gaze strong. "I need you to focus up, okay? Tav needs you to help her out. Forget about the gods," she added, cutting off his rising protest. "Forget about Selûne and Ilmater and the rest of them. Come over here and hold her hand and let go of the fear, just for a few minutes." She smiled. "Come on. Tav needs you. That's all that matters."
Gods damn. Gods damn. He took one involuntary step forward and faltered. "I'll—I'll probably kill her, you know."
"You will come talk her back to life, Astarion," Shadowheart said fiercely, "or so help me, I'll stake you where you stand."
"Well, if you're going to be such a bully about it." His voice was trembling, weak; he couldn't muster the bite it needed. The compassion in Karlach's face stung badly, but it was easier to look at her than Tav's dead stillness, and he came nearer with stilted, graceless movements. The nightingale called again from the trees, a lonely rippling down the scale. "Where should I…"
"Right here," Karlach told him, and he knelt at her direction near Tav's other shoulder, just inside the ring of shimmering diamonds. His hands dangled at his sides. "Now," she said. "Forget the rest of us are here. No audience, okay? Just let her know how to get back to you."
No audience. His entire existence had been designed to cultivate as much of an audience as possible, to catch every eye in the room and coax their attention until they could think of little else. He no more knew how to ignore their watching eyes now than to find his own in a mirror.. But—
But Tav needed him. That's what Karlach had said. Tav loved him—he knew she did—and she was hurt and she needed him to be here and she needed him to help, and that pierced the blank terror where little else had.
Talk her back to life. Yes. He could talk to her. That he knew how to do.
"Hello, darling." His throat was so dry. He swallowed hard, tried again. "What a stupid mess you've gotten yourself into."
Shadowheart scoffed but said nothing. In his periphery, Karlach gave a supportive nod.
He forced himself to look Tav in the face. Her eyes were shut tight, the lashes dark against her death-pale skin. The freckles stood out like spatters of ink over her cheeks. He'd kissed them a dozen times, had intended to do so a thousand more.
Not ready to let go.
He licked his lips. "How good you've always been at getting yourself out of these kinds of scrapes. That's what you've been used to, isn't it? Only now you can't. Now you'll have to lean on us for a little help, whether you like it or not." The indignation was rising. He reached for its comfort. "How awful you must feel, knowing you can't fix this one all by your little lonesome self."
"Dear boy," Shadowheart's father said in a low, shocked tone.
Shadowheart shook her head without looking away from Tav. "Don't worry. This is how they work. I don't really understand it either."
Astarion ignored them. He was warming to his subject now, the words coming easier. "Weren't you just telling me that the other day? Complaining so bitterly about how much you've begun to care about all these people? Something about realizing despite being alone so long, you still found yourself ready to defend them to the death."
There was a strong flavor of hypocrisy to the sentiment; Karlach's chuckle told him she saw it. He paid her no mind. "And it never once occurred to you, my love, that any one of us would have done the same for you. Hm? So instead you creep off by yourself like a sick cat and die all on your own, where no one could help you, where we wouldn't even know you were hurt. A miserable, cretinous thing for you to do, darling. And now we're all paying for it."
The silver light rippled and shifted over Tav's face, suggestion of movement without the life. Astarion reached out and brushed a bit of hair from her face, let his knuckle trail along her cheekbone. His fingers were still stained with the remnants of their battle, his thumbnail chipped and catching. "I hate that you've done this, you know. Gone somewhere I can't follow. What did you expect me to do? Break into the Towers of Night and steal back your heart? That does sound like a challenge, my dear, even for me."
He did not want her to be dead. That was the crux of it. She had taught him he could have the things he wanted, and in this moment he wanted her to be alive and well and without her stomach turned inside out. He wanted it with such desperation it physically ached.
Quietly, a faint shine of light began to catch where he had touched her hair. No great brilliance, only a glint along the strands, pale silver amid auburn. He traced his fingertips down that glint and it grew a little stronger. Without much thought, he slid his fingers more thoroughly into her hair and sectioned out a larger piece. About the same size, he guessed, as the careful twists she pinned up every morning before the rest of them rose; those minutes were always quiet, stolen out of her own embarrassment that even now she indulged that little vanity. Ah, but he knew the pleasure such small things could bring, even amid a life of mundane horror.
He began to plait her hair. The light continued to swell everywhere he touched it, his dexterous fingers moving in and out of the twists and overlaps with easy surety. The pattern was one he'd seen some charlatan use years ago while hawking love charms, some promise that as long as one lover wore the braid, the other would never leave. The charm had been nonsense, of course, but he'd very much liked the pattern, and it had stuck in his mind long after the charm-seller had been tenderly enticed into Cazador's clutches.
Fitting, then, that he find new use for it now. One more thing to be reclaimed from his master's power, some small proof the man who created it had not been forgotten. He added a second loop of his own invention and found it lovely, then a third. The strands wove together in shining silver, gleaming with each stroke like the phosphorescent lichen of the Underdark beneath their tramping feet. Beautiful. Compelling. He did not know what he was doing save that it felt right.
He came to the end of the braid and tied it off with a leather cord from his wrist. He tucked it back into place where it belonged, the light steady and shimmering, and he ran his fingers lightly down the length of it to see it glow. A lover's braid, a lover's knot, a promise that there would be no parting. A silly swindler's charm that carried in its weaving the threads of something very real.
Astarion leaned down and carefully kissed her cheek. He said, quietly, for her alone, "Darling, it's time to come back."
He felt the magic take. His heart gave a sudden sharp tug, as if someone had set a hook there for a tether that stretched beyond his sight. Not painful, just—present, and he pressed his hand to his chest. The moonlight swelled around them in silence, brightening the hill almost to the light of day. A voice without a voice said, very soft, You have been heard.
Reluctantly, defiantly, he began to hope.
Shadowheart was reciting something, some phrase whispered over and over. Her hands had begun to brighten too, and Karlach's where she still held Tav's, and the diamonds where they lay in the soft grass beneath the moonlight. Her parents had shut their eyes, their mouths moving with Shadowheart's words.
"There," Shadowheart said, her voice layered now with a second tone, rich with strength. Her expression had gone still and serene, and she lifted her face without blinking to the clear night sky, to the full and glowing moon that waited patiently above them. "There, Selûne. The road is laid and the door is open. Be the Lady of Silver; be She Who Guides. Show her the way."
The nightingale let out a sudden, sighing cry. Shadowheart flung out her hands before her and every drop of silvershine stretched and grew and strained to reach her, almost in yearning. Cool streams poured out from every diamond, from the glittering wound in Tav's stomach, from Karlach's tight-fisted grip, from the weave of Astarion's braid. The light grew in her palms like the sun dropped into a bowl, so brilliant Astarion could hardly stand to look at it. Shadowheart cupped the power without flinching, without blinking; the light grew and grew until nothing was left outside of what she held, even the wound gone dark, even the braid faded. She spoke a word.
The orb of light collapsed into a moonbeam. It stretched up as high as Astarion could see, a thin blinding river leaping upwards for the stars; the other end drove into Tav's chest like a spear and stayed there. Shadowheart held the beam from both sides, her fingers trembling. Her mother said her name, and the trembling vanished.
"Come home," Shadowheart said, and then she reached into the heart of the moonbeam and touched the center of Tav's chest. The light narrowed into a bead there like a star, focused on that single point, hung there for a lifetime. Then, slowly, without any sound at all, the bead sank into Tav's chest. The slender shaft of light dwindled from silver to grey and went out.
—
The world in the aftermath was very dark and very quiet. Astarion blinked, struggled even so to make out the others' shapes in the abrupt return of true night. Even the full moon seemed dim after the starry brilliance that had just washed over and through them.
The shapes began at last to resolve themselves. The diamonds had all cracked straight through, their clarity gone with the magic. Shadowheart was breathing hard, propped up on one hand, the other covering her eyes no longer glowing; her parents had come to her side and bent over her in concern. Karlach still knelt where she had been, still gripped Tav's fingers and held them close as she leaned forward, brow pinched.
The nightingale warbled; a cloud passed in front of the moon and was swept away. The stand of willow trees sighed and shook in a passing breeze.
Tav's chest rose and fell with a breath. Again. A third time.
"Gods," Karlach gasped, and Tav opened her eyes.
Alive.
Alive, turning her head to cough wetly into the grass, lifting a feeble hand to cover the place where her injury had been scoured by moonlight, the skin beneath the shredded leather made whole once more. Karlach was crying, smiling; Shadowheart was clutching at the loop of Tav's belt, her shoulder, anything she could reach; Shadowheart's parents stood above them all with proud, radiant smiles. Astarion jolted to his feet.
He wanted, very badly, to leave.
His chest roared with pain. He could not even begin to sort out what he felt—there was relief, yes, and an inexplicable thread of fury even now, and an echoing despair that would not die, and a rising golden coil of joy that frightened him if he looked at it too directly. It was too much—it was all too much. He'd gotten what he wanted. He'd watched the fulfillment of a miracle, a stolen soul restored to life, a dead woman brought back to those who loved her. So why—so why—so why—
He raked his hands through his hair, spun on his heel, and took a few paces away into the grassy shadows. Let them have their wonder. Let them have their reunion. He'd speak with her later, probably. When he did not wish to rip his own chest apart to ease the crushing pressure. When he could better command his mind, his words. When he could look her in the face and not be destroyed by the bone-shattering grip of fear—
"Karlach," he heard her say between coughs, and his feet stopped themselves against his will. "Gods—gods—it hurts. No, I'm okay. I saw you take that hammer to the head. Are you—how are you—" Another fit of coughing, a pained heave for breath.
"Just fine, just fine. Come here, you," Karlach said warmly, and he heard the sounds of an embrace. "Easy now. You gave us a fright, I'll tell you that."
"And Shadowheart. Where's—and you? That sword…" He heard her shake her head. "Wait. That was before. We got your parents down, didn't we? They were thin as rakes."
"Yes," Shadowheart said, and Astarion heard her father laugh. It was a glad sound, unoffended. He hated it. "They're safe. And so are you, despite you trying very hard to convince us otherwise."
"Hm?" She coughed again, groaned. "Ilmater's red cord, it feels like I've been trampled."
"That's not far from the truth."
"What do you mean?" And then, before Shadowheart could answer, "Where's Astarion?"
He said nothing, every ounce of effort in his body expended just to keep himself rigidly still. Shadowheart's armor clanked as she turned. "He was just—ah, he's there. See? He's all right."
Clearly. Astarion gave a bitter snort.
"Yes," Tav said, but her tone was slow, confused. "What…what happened? I can't remember. How did we get here?"
"You were—hurt," Shadowheart said, stumbling over the word. "Bleeding badly. We had to get you out of the House of Grief to heal you."
"In that case, I'll thank you for your efforts, and I'll apologize for the inconvenience." She laughed. "Especially since it seems to have moved you to tears."
"You fucking died," Astarion snarled, whirling on his heel.
Tav, sitting now against Karlach's side, looked up at him in the sudden silence. Shadowheart shut her eyes, pressing her fingers into her forehead; Karlach grimaced. "I wondered," Tav said at last, calmer than he expected. "It was very dark and very cold. Shar was laughing," she added, and he saw a shiver run through her. "And then a light came, like a hand reaching out to help me…"
He didn't want this. He'd thrown the words out like a challenge. He craved a fight, desperately, longed for the simple pleasure of striking a blow and knowing exactly what would follow. How the skin would split, where the blood would make things slick and sticky, what kind of pain would come and where and for how long. Every word here was some new agony, a blow from angles he couldn't anticipate, from hands he couldn't see. He knew how to watch his own back in a fight. Here, he had no defense at all.
"Could you hear us?" Karlach asked.
"Yes. No. Sorry, it was…it was all so odd." Tav scrubbed her hand over her face. "I could feel—it was like someone had come to stand beside me I couldn't quite reach. And then I could feel someone else squeezing my hand, and I thought I heard Astarion's voice." She reached up and touched her hair where his braid was still tied, and she did not seem surprised to feel the new and intricate pattern. "And then the light fell and stretched out in front of me like—like a path, and in the distance it turned into a star. It was so beautiful it made my heart ache."
She was smiling now, the faint shocked expression of someone who knew exactly how close they had come to disaster. "A voice told me to run as fast as I could. So I did. And here I am. And here you all are," she added, a little more grounded, and turned to look at all of them. "I'm grateful for your help. Especially you, Shadowheart. I know that couldn't have been easy, especially right after finding your parents. I'm sorry for kicking up such a fuss."
"A fuss," Astarion said with a mocking laugh. "Yes, that's all it was. A minor interruption of our day-to-day. Thank goodness that's over, everyone, now on to dinner."
"Astarion," Shadowheart snapped. "Maybe now's not the time for you to decide you're made of a thousand needles."
"It's all right," Tav said, and he hated, he hated that look in her eyes. That one that said she understood exactly why he was behaving so abominably and even worse, did not blame him. "Astarion, I promise. It's all right."
He laughed again. "A fine sentiment for one plucked so neatly from death's clutches. Not all of us were so lucky, my dear."
"Steady now, fangs," said Karlach. "You know very well we'd have done the same for you."
"Would you?" he said scornfully, hating himself with every word. "Whisper sweet nothings in my ear and hold my cold, dead hand?"
"Yes," Shadowheart said with a level stare, "even if right now I'm finding you very annoying."
Gods damn the world and everyone in it. Gods damn him for turning all this towards himself when he least wanted their attention. Gods damn the very real comfort and gratitude he felt at her reassurance, even now, even as irritated as she was. He did not know what his face showed; he suspected it was very similar to the expression he had seen on Tav as she'd watched Shadowheart go to her parents atop that broken dais and embrace them.
"Well," he said, "if you're going to waste the power of a ritual like that on me in future, don't frivol away your time braiding my damned hair. Bring me a cup of blood and some really dirty stories, and I'll come sauntering right back."
Shadowheart made a noise of disgust, but Tav was watching him, still with that terrible look of understanding. "Astarion," she said, not unkindly. "Come over here."
"Why should I?"
"Because I want to hold you, and I think if I tried to get up right now my legs would fold up like toothpicks."
"Maybe I don't want to be held, did you think of that? Maybe I'm not eager to be touched by a woman who until very recently was doing an excellent impression of a sack of meal."
She held his gaze, curious. "Is that true?"
"No," he said, and he was ashamed of how his voice wavered on the word.
Shadowheart shook her head, pushed to her feet. "Come on," she said. "Let's give them a little breathing room. Goddess knows I don't have the patience for him right now."
Karlach made sure Tav was steady where she sat, then rose as well, just in time to catch Shadowheart as she staggered. "Easy there, girlie. Let's get you settled yourself. Not a bad job, you know, coming neck and neck with some four-century-old priestess. Ah, but I knew you'd do it."
Shadowheart's mother—Emmeline—gave a proud smile. "She has always been so strong," she said, and then she wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders, took her husband's hand with her free one, and went together with Karlach towards the edge of the moonlit willow trees. Not far at all, only a few seconds' run should they be needed, but distant enough Astarion could no longer hide behind the shield of his anger. Just him, and Tav, and the raw agony of a heart flayed open.
"Come here," Tav said again. Her eyes were bright with starlight.
He went. She reached up for him as he drew close, and he dropped with coltish clumsiness to his knees. Her arms wrapped around him without hesitation, pulling him tightly into her warmth. She was warm again. He could sense her blood beating strong, steady, powerful in her throat. He could feel the familiar brush of her mind against his—too much to hope, he supposed, that that particular visitor would vanish with the ritual—could feel the weight of her hand in his hair as he dropped his forehead into her shoulder and stayed there.
It hurt.
He'd thought he'd learned everything he could about pain. About loss, about watching everything one valued be ripped away, about being forced to go on afterwards regardless. How simple, he'd thought, to measure suffering in broken bones and the bite of a knife. Now he was faced with an entirely new devastation, one he'd never imagined mattering, and he was—to be frank—handling that revelation poorly.
She was stroking through the hair at the nape of his neck. Just a gentle movement, slow, toying here and there with a matted curl when it caught. Occasionally she scratched her fingernails lightly over his scalp, sending frissons of a mild, comforting pleasure down his spine. No heat to any of it. Just tenderness. Much more alien, he thought. Much more precious.
His heart began to calm. The frenetic anger eased, yielded to the softer, profound relief hiding beneath it. He let his shoulders slump into her, found the strength to wrap an arm around her waist. Perhaps if he could get a tight-enough grip, he could hold her here himself. Perhaps if he could find a room and lock her in it and never let her leave, he could bear to face the mere idea of this loss.
As if she would allow it. As if she wouldn't have the lock picked in half a second and the tip of her rapier at his throat for daring even to try. She would not stand to be caged, even by his affection. No choice, then, but to learn to live with the weight of understanding, of knowing that one day there would come a parting and he would have to learn how to survive it.
But—later, he thought suddenly, and when she hummed something soothing into his hair he turned his face further into her neck. Later. Years—decades—centuries. Now she was alive. Now she was with him again even after death, holding him, and he was so glad for it his hands shook.
"I did hear your voice, you know," she said eventually. Her lips brushed against his temple as she spoke. "Felt you plaiting my hair. Even in the dark."
"It was Shadowheart's idea," he mumbled into her collarbone. "She said she'd stake me if I didn't talk you back to life. You should make it clear to her these threats are deeply unappreciated."
"Don't whine. Anyway, I'm glad you did it. I'd have hated to see you staked."
"You wouldn't have seen anything. You'd have been enjoying the experience of full-bore rigor mortis, my dear, which you should know isn't a good look on anyone."
"Hm. Would you still love me if I were—"
"Yes, you awful thing."
He felt her smile against him, a comfort in and of itself, but he'd wallowed long enough. "And? What about you?"
"Would I love you if you were a corpse? Dear one, I'm afraid I have some terrible news for you."
He laughed, which surprised him, and he lifted his head. She was indeed smiling, though her brows were a little creased, and he brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes. "Are you very hurt?" he clarified. It was a difficult question to ask, not just because he hadn't genuinely meant the question in two hundred years, but also because he wasn't sure he wished to know the answer.
"Me? Oh, fine. Right as rain."
She was lying to him. "Fine."
Now she shifted, her eyes falling away to the treeline. "It hurts like the hells," she admitted. "Not just the—" she put her hand over her stomach "—but every joint feels like Loviatar herself picked me up and bashed me against a wall. And my head aches something terrible. And worse than that…"
She trailed off, shook her head. Astarion took her chin in his thumb and forefinger and made her meet his eyes. "Worse than that?"
Her breath caught; then the words tumbled out all at once, heaving out of her like someone throwing ballast off a sinking ship. "Astarion, it was awful. It was so dark. And so bitterly, bitterly cold, and I could hear Shar laughing the whole time. Not even amused, just—just satisfied, and I could feel how much she hated me for interfering. She'd watched me botch my chances and now I had to pay her price. I knew I was never going to get out and I knew this was going to be all there ever was for me." No tears, but her face had gone white as chalk. "I was so afraid I wanted to die. I didn't know anyone could be so afraid and not go mad." She laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "Or maybe I did, and you're only a wonderful dream."
"How sweet, that even in your horrors I make for wonderful dreams." Astarion cupped her cheeks in his hands. "You're free, my darling. I'll swear that to you. That wretched goddess has as much claim on you now as some steaming pile of horseshit plopped in the street."
"How vivid," she said. "But I appreciate the thought. You almost made that sound sincere."
"Little idiot!" he snapped, hurt. His fingers slid against the intricate, knotted braid at her temple. "Believe me, I am not wasting my time with perfunctory comfort. This is not some trite sentiment pulled straight from a bargain-sale romance novel. I am trying to tell you that you are safe, that I'm right here with you and that this is real, and that I don't intend to let you go anytime soon. That even if she tried to pluck you out of my arms and back into the shadows, there's nothing that would stop me from coming after you anyway."
Her hand came up to wrap around his wrist. Her voice trembled. "I want to believe you. I do, desperately. It's just…" She gave a pained smile. "It's hard to imagine why anyone would go to the trouble, you know? Why bother? Why now?"
"Why now? Because now, you know us." He ran his thumb over her cheekbone. "As irritatingly altruistic as you can sometimes be, you've wormed your way into all of us, and not a single member of our little cavalcade would hesitate to do whatever it took to bring you back. Why else would we spend seven very beautiful diamonds trying to show you the way home? Why else would Shadowheart finally reach out to a goddess she's been virginally shy with since the Shadowlands? Why else would Karlach—well, I suppose Karlach would do it for anyone."
"She would," Tav said, but her eyes were shining, and the smile had softened to something real. "And you?"
He hesitated. And yet—this was a time for courage. "And I watched Karlach carry you out of that mausoleum, limp as a dishrag, and it felt like I had died alongside you. I caught a glimpse of what a future without you might look like." He looked her square in the eye. "I don't wish to see that world ever again."
"I won't argue there." She tilted her cheek into his palm and sighed. "Thank you, Astarion. For calling for me."
You have been heard. The words flitted through his memory, faint as a breeze.
"What is it?"
"She…I heard something." Astarion shook his head. "During the ritual, I mean. She told me I'd been heard. I thought Shadowheart's lovely little Moon Maiden meant herself, but now I wonder if she was talking about you."
"Selûne spoke to you?" Tav leaned forward now, coming to rest against his chest, curled into him like the ginger cat sometimes did at camp. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders in peaceable affection. "To you, directly? What did that feel like, talking to a goddess?"
"Well, considering our body of experience so far has been Vlaakith, who tried to kill us, Mystra, who wants to kill Gale, and Shar, who did kill you, I can't say I was elated at the prospect." He turned his head and kissed her hair. "But she seemed fairly benign, all things considered. She certainly didn't seem to hold any grudges over the many sins I've carried out in her view over the centuries. Including the handful that weren't committed with deliberate enthusiasm."
"Well, well, well." Her forehead was warm against the side of his neck. "The Silver Lady has a new devotee."
"Now, now, let's not go too far. I'd settle for 'no active animosity.'" A little undersold, if he was honest—he could not look unfavorably on a goddess who'd gone to the trouble of bringing Tav back to life. "All the same, I'll be happy to return to the realm of the quietly ignored."
"You, ignored? Impossible."
"How I would have missed your tepid flattery," Astarion said, stroking idly over her back. "Tell me—how's the head?"
"Very terrible," Tav sighed, and she pushed a little deeper into him. "I want to sleep so badly, except I'm afraid Shar will be waiting when I do."
"Nonsense. I'll stay with you tonight. She won't have you—I'll swear that—but even if she tries, she'll have to get through the fuss I'll kick up first."
"My knight in shining armor." She stretched up then, her fingertips light on his cheek, and she kissed him. He kissed her back, mindful of her pain, and felt that clenched agony in his chest at last begin to ease. She pulled away when it was over, then said, "I don't suppose you'll carry me back to camp."
"I will not," he told her, but he did help her to her feet in the soft grass, the green strung here and there with glittering dew, and she waited while he collected the shattered diamonds and her rapier from where he'd dropped it a thousand years ago. Her agonized grimace at the ruined gems made him laugh; her very real stumble as he tried to return her rapier was less amusing, and when her shaking fingers fumbled the hilt a second time, he hung it from his own belt instead.
Her lip curled as she clutched at his shirt. "Ugh. I bet Karlach would carry me, if I asked."
"I bet you're right," he said, unmoved, and he came in closer beside her, taking careful hold of her waist in support. "Off you go, darling."
"Like this? Only if you're coming with me."
He chuckled. The moonlight washed with steady serenity over the hill, flowed placidly down the branches of the nearby willow trees. Karlach had at some point dug out a number of apples and various tarts from her bag and was feeding Shadowheart's parents while they waited; empty tins and gnawed apple cores littered the grass around them. Shadowheart herself was talking with her mother Emmeline, their heads close together, a similarity in the face visible even from this distance, even through the wear of years. Her father looked up as they approached and smiled. It was a kind smile, the sort Astarion rarely tolerated, but it did not sting here as much as usual. He hadn't caught the man's name; he'd ask Shadowheart later, perhaps. Once they were all settled together somewhere quiet, alive and safe and unafraid.
"Astarion," Tav said, and he looked down at her in the dim glow of the stars. "Will you teach me how to weave this braid?"
"Yes," he said, pleased, and as they joined their friends beside the willow trees, the nightingale, low and lovely, began to sing.
—
end.