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Astarion saw Tav finish walking down to the ritual site just in time, the bard’s movements slow and pained, and Astarion’s gaze locked onto him, tearing away from Cazador— who was finally at Astarion’s feet where he belonged. Astarion didn’t know if Tav had heard the rest of it, about Astarion’s plan and Cazador’s scoffing disbelief, but from the grim look on Tav’s face, matching those of their three companions— Astarion spared them only a brief glance, it was Tav who mattered here, even though he hadn’t even been well enough to help them fight Cazador— Tav had been able to hear enough.
Astarion was desperate. Tav had to help him.
“I can do this,” Astarion insisted, hating the doubt etched into Tav’s features. “But I need your help.”
Tav’s expression softened, visibly, even through all his bruises, and Astarion felt a surge of triumph through all his nerves, through all the trembling in his chest. “Alright, Astarion,” Tav murmured. “What do you need me to do?”
Astarion returned his attention to Cazador. The vampire lord was weak and wretched at his feet, cowering. What a pathetic sight he made, Astarion’s sire. Astarion’s master.
Well, not for much longer.
Astarion’s chest was heaving, even though he didn’t really need to breathe. He felt unmoored. He felt weak, even though he’d just done something he’d never even dared to dream of before. He felt scared. But he would never have to feel this again. He ignored the half-hearted murmurs of concern from his other companions; the only one that mattered was Tav.
Tav hadn’t helped with the fight. He was too injured, and had been startlingly quiet as he trailed after the others while they’d blazed a bloody trail through the Szarr mansion. Tav hadn’t even offered any commentary on the startling revelation of all the thousands of spawn, trapped beneath the manor, though the sickened look on his face was enough to wrench some ugly feeling in Astarion’s chest. Tav had protested, a little, when the others insisted on leaving him up near the cells when they went to confront Cazador, and he’d made Gale swear to Send to him once Cazador was taken care of so he could join them as soon as it was safe.
And now, here he was, just when Astarion needed him. Tav had promised all along to end this Astarion’s way. Tav had sworn tendays ago to help him with Cazador, to watch Astarion’s back. Tav understood what it was to be a slave who physically couldn’t say no, who sympathized and empathized with the need to get that power back for himself. He’d talked Astarion awake out of nightmares, comforting him. He’d helped Astarion take down an Orthon even though it could have spelled disaster for all of them.
And Tav would have seen firsthand the cruelty Astarion had suffered for two centuries, after his little bout with playing a vampire’s hostage over the last half a day. He would help Astarion.
Tav was his only companion who understood that sometimes, to kill a monster, you had to become one.
Astarion stood over Cazador with a snarl. Soon, he would be powerful. No one could take that control of him again. He wouldn’t have to fear anyone or anything. “Use the parasite— link your mind to mine,” he barked at Tav, unable to look back at him; he had eyes only for his former master.
Astarion drew his blade. He hoped this hurt. He hoped Cazador screamed. “Through your eyes, I can see the scars on my back and copy them onto his,” he said.
Cazador opened his mouth— groveling at Astarion’s feet, for once their roles reversed— doubtless to say something vile, but Tav beat him to it.
“No,” Tav said, and Astarion whirled on him, his whole body going cold.
“At the cost so many lives, Astarion, it’s not worth it,” Shadowheart added on, but Astarion only had eyes for Tav, shock and rage swirling through him.
“How dare— you promised—” he began, strangled and vitriolic, but he was brought up short by the sight of Tav holding up a hand. Betrayal rose thick in his throat. He’d thought Tav understood, he’d thought—
“Sorry. I didn’t mean ‘no’ to the ritual,” Tav said, interrupting the sickening spinning of Astarion’s thoughts. Astarion blinked at him, uncomprehending, caught in the whiplash of his careening emotions.
The bard started unbuckling the armor he’d borrowed from a corpse upstairs, and Astarion scowled.
“This isn’t the time for your stupid jokes,” he hissed at Tav. “Will you help me or not?” he demanded, and Tav grimaced at him, then winced, when it clearly aggravated the bruises on his face. For just a moment, at the moue of pain on Tav’s face, Astarion felt something other than desperation and fear: guilt.
And Astarion knew why he felt that way. Cazador had kidnapped Tav only the night before, and had doubtless spent the night doing terrible things to the bard, things that made Astarion want to feel Cazador’s bones breaking under his hands. Astarion had been furious when Leon had vanished from his siblings’ infiltration of their camp with Tav still grappled in his hold, only half-dressed and half-awake. It had taken all the combined persuasive powers of the others— and Karlach practically sitting on him— to keep Astarion from doing something incredibly foolish, like storm Cazador’s home that very moment. Instead, he’d been forced to wait until morning, as they rushed through the rest of the preparations they’d already been making to take on Szarr mansion without Tav’s help.
Tav had been in a sorry state when they’d found him in the Szarr mansion what must only have been an hour ago. Tav had managed to piece together a few weapons and pieces of armor as he’d fought his way out; they saw, when they had broken in to save him, that he had already freed himself from whatever torture chamber Cazador had put him in. His face had been badly bruised up, one eye swollen shut, and he’d looked wan and tired and smelled like blood, but he’d been standing and moving on his own power, insisting he didn’t need any healing magics.
“Save your energy, it’s just a black eye,” he’d told Shadowheart, waving her off as the others made to fuss over him.
“You don’t have to come with us to finish this,” Astarion had told him, the gentlest words he could muster, relief at finding Tav whole warring with the badly-contained panic and cold spreading in his gut, with the icy dread that flooded Astarion upon setting foot in the Szarr mansion again, leaving him mostly just feeling sick. He hadn’t meant it, really. Astarion needed Tav. He couldn’t do this alone.
“I promised you,” Tav had murmured, resting a hand over Astarion’s arm through his armor. There hadn’t been time for much more; they’d been spotted by werewolves, and that had been that. They’d kept the bard out of the fighting and made their way down to the ritual site, uncovering more and more terrible secrets as they went.
And now-- Tav was disrobing in the middle of Cazador’s dungeon, the vampire lord defeated at the site of his own would-be Ascension, and the chance for Astarion’s freedom just one little ritual away. Tav’s false eye, in the un-bruised side of his face, was bright in the gloom, unnaturally blue against the sallow shade of his face. He… he looked so pale, but he hadn’t been Cazador’s prisoner long enough to lose his tan, surely?
“I did promise,” Tav said. “I only meant— you don’t have to do all that, to finish the ritual,” he said, calmly. He stripped the gear off and dropped it, then hesitated as he reached for the hem of his shirt.
“What the hells are you doing?” Astarion snapped, nonplussed. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Yes,” Tav said, meeting Astarion’s gaze with his one eye. “I just— one thing,” he added calmly and casually, as though they were talking about something over a campfire instead of in this nightmare of a place. “If you complete the ritual in Cazador’s place, all his spawn die?”
Astarion snarled impatiently. “Yes, and what a loss it won’t be,” he snapped. “They’re nothing but mindless monsters, Tavran. It would be worse to unleash them on the world. At least this way, they serve a purpose,” he said, gesturing wildly.
Tav nodded slightly, as though that was what he’d expected to hear and didn’t disagree. “Right then,” he said, and grasped for his stolen shirt. He pulled it over his head without ceremony, the motion stiff like it hurt, and as he tossed it aside, Shadowheart gasped behind him, her hands flying to her mouth. Karlach looked disgusted, and Gale’s face went white.
“You don’t need to worry about carving up Cazador,” Tav said, calmly. “I mean, I’d love to dig a knife into him myself, for plenty of reasons. But why risk copying it wrong? Seems like a waste,” Tav said with a humorless, close-mouthed smirk, and Karlach swore colorfully and viciously behind him.
Astarion felt like he were outside of his body, like he knew something but refused to think it. “Waste of what,” he said flatly, unwillingly, as though the words were pulled out of him.
Tav turned around, revealing his back. A familiar pattern, much fresher than Astarion’s own scars, was still raw and bleeding, carved into Tav’s skin.
It felt like the whole world suddenly tilted to one side. The infernal contract of the ritual was branded accusingly on Tav’s skin. It was a match to the ones on the backs of his siblings, still caught in the beginning of the ritual around him, and on his own back, Astarion could only assume, and for a moment, he was furious at the thought of the pain that must have caused Tav. How dare Cazador ruin Tav the way he’d ruined Astarion.
Then Astarion froze, feeling like his thoughts had just tripped over themselves. Cazador started to laugh at his feet.
“Show me your face,” Astarion snarled, not recognizing his own voice, and Tav turned to look at him obediently. His expression was solemn, resigned maybe. Astarion had thought the lack of his usual humor made sense for their location or the pain from the injuries there, but perhaps Tav hadn’t smiled for another reason. “You,” Astarion began, furious. He always got angry when he was afraid. Then he changed his mind and whirled on his companions. “Shadowheart! Heal his damned face,” he snapped, and Tav grimaced.
“You stupid child,” Cazador mocked. “Did you not know? Did you think because you ran away that I would let my ritual fail? I merely replaced you, with the thing you loved best—” he sneered, and Astarion found Cazador’s staff in his shaking hands, and swung with all his strength, breaking his sire’s jaw with a sickening, satisfying crunch. Cazador slumped over with a pained cry, whimpering and cupping his broken face.
“Shadowheart,” he bellowed, and then there was a familiar incantation. Tav briefly glowed with light, and then—
And then. Tav’s good eye, no longer swollen shut from bruising, was red. Vampire red.
Astarion felt as though he were carved from ice. The staff clattered to the floor, falling from his nerveless fingers. A low, broken keen echoed around the chamber, and Astarion realized belatedly it had come from his own chest. “Tav,” he gasped. “Tav, I—” The sense of premonition loomed larger, more threatening, and Astarion still refused to look at it. Refused to comprehend.
There was something tender and sad in Tav’s mis-matched eyes. His eyes had been so blue before, a bright color that Volo’s eye had nearly matched. With one eye gone blood-red, his face was jarring to look at.
“It’s okay,” Tav said, and he was there suddenly, his hands cupping Astarion’s jaw the way he had countless times before. Tav’s skin wasn’t warm, this time, though. “It’s not your fault. It’s Cazador’s,” the bard said. “And you can make him pay, now, right? That was the point of all this.”
Tav gave a crooked, tired, pathetic sort of a smile, nothing like his normal impish grin. A hint of fang flashed behind his lips.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Astarion gasped, feeling like all the air had left the room. “You unbearable little shit, why didn’t you say anything?” he asked wretchedly, grabbing at Tav, not sure if he wanted to hug him or dismember him.
“I wasn’t sure if you would be able to tell, at first. Like, with vampire senses or something,” Tav said with a shrug. “And. Well, we didn’t have the time to waste. I knew we needed to stop Cazador from completing the ritual.”
Tav’s weak smile faded. “And now you have,” he murmured. Astarion gripped him, too tight, nails digging into Tav’s skin in a way that was surely uncomfortable. “The ritual is yours, Astarion, if you want it.”
The cold dread was back, stealing into Astarion’s limbs and making them all feel heavy as lead. “We don’t have to use you,” Astarion told Tav, feeling panic choking his throat. “We can still carve up Cazador. It’s the least of what he deserves,” he said.
“I suppose if it would be cathartic,” Tav mused dryly, lips twitching in an almost-familiar smile. There was something about the look in his eyes, though, that made Astarion want to tear out throats. Astarion was so close. He wasn’t going to lose this. He wasn’t.
“Tav. Tavran, you can’t be serious,” Gale said from somewhere behind them, his voice gone pleading and panicky. “Astarion, you mustn’t—”
“I deserve this,” Astarion howled, all of his rage returning to him in a rush. “I put up with centuries of torture! Two hundred years of cowering in the shadows, bleeding and performing and debasing myself for this bastard,” he spat, turning back to Cazador and kicking him fiercely in the side. He still felt like he wasn’t quite there, like someone else was piloting his body.
“Tavran,” Shadowheart said, sharp and jagged the way she only got when she was afraid.
“Astarion deserves freedom,” Tav said flatly, and something in Astarion howled in triumph. (Something else wailed with grief.)
“He’ll die!” Karlach shouted. “Astarion, you bastard, if you do this ritual, Tav will die with all the other spawn! Is that what you want?”
Something cracked in Astarion’s chest as he slammed fully back into his own body, the understanding he hadn’t wanted spelled out clearly for him in blood, unmistakable and unavoidable.
Of course. That had always been the plan. 7,000 vampire spawn for one Ascended Vampire Lord. A bargain.
And a curse. Cazador would win in the end, no matter what Astarion chose. His freedom, or his—
“I’m dead either way,” Tav said, so gently. How could he be so calm when Astarion felt like the world was ending? “That’s what you said, isn’t it? All the spawn, everyone bearing the scars, will be consumed.”
Then Tav leaned in, cupping the back of Astarion’s head, and kissed his brow. It felt like a brand, even though his skin was as cool as Astarion’s, now. “I made you a promise,” Tav said, sweetly, sickeningly, nothing in his expression to betray manipulation or fear, as he leaned in close. “You were always my choice. Now you can make yours,” Tav murmured, for Astarion's ears alone.
Astarion took a ragged inhale that he didn’t need. The world didn’t make sense. His whole body housed a tempest of conflicting desires. He was shaking with it.
But Tav was wrong. There was no choice to be made at all. That decision had been taken from him long ago. Astarion snarled with fury and pushed Tav back, away from him, refusing to meet his mismatched eyes any longer.
“Give me the staff,” Astarion snapped, ignoring the cries of his companions. Their opinions didn’t matter. Only Tav mattered.
And Tav picked up the key to Cazador’s ritual without any hesitation, and handed it over.