Work Text:
The day that Zealir disappears, Orin prances into his office with her brother’s blood on her face. Enver can feel the strain in his chest even as he welcomes his new conspirator. He can’t show the changeling the pain she’s caused. The boiling hatred in his chest must be abided, not acted on.
He binds her to the same pact Zealir had proposed. The same words in her mouth as Zealir had uttered against his skin as they both bled from fresh self inflicted wounds on their palms. The satisfied, nearly relieved smile of the tiefling as he could finally touch him with a gentle hand. The violence with which he kissed him and took him to bed still makes him smile, even as he mourns the clever man that has been sent back to his father.
“Fool.” He spits, cursing the man for his weakness. He drains the rest of his wine goblet and throws the metalwear across the office, barely satisfied when it strikes the sword and shield Zealir had returned to him after binding the Elder Brain. The man’s glee had been sincere upon the victory over the brain. Had he given the weapons back to him hoping he would defend him? Would Enver had been able to stop Orin from murdering the man? Would the carefully created weapons have saved his… well. What he had been is moot, now. Any title relinquished to the eternal red realm of his father.
“You never should have turned your back on her. Damn you. Damn you to the Abyss.”
In the following months, Enver Gortash makes little use of Orin’s paltry abilities. She is an embarrassment. A pale in every sense imitation of the proper Chosen of Bhaal, and if he needs an assassination completed, he has his loyal altered drow to take care of it.
Lerah is subtle and careful, just as Zealir had been when needed. But she is not the oathbreaker paladin he had cherished. She is, despite the times he has taken her to bed, not what he wants. Enver Gortash wants the son of Bhaal. Without Zealir to suggest a mutual claiming of the drow, he had no want of her in his bed. She was a means to an end. A gift to and from Zealir. She is just a soldier. A supplicant who can never earn his attention on her own.
He beats a man to death with his bare fists one day. An insubordinate gondian attempting to mock him for relying on others and being ineffectual. A jibe at how a tyrant cannot have everything he wants without violence and an inevitable uprising that will end in his death.
The gondian does not know how the words strike into his chest. He does not know what he is forcing a mourning man to remember.
“It will always end in blood between us, Enver. Murder is praised when the Tyrant falls. That is all you are destined for. Your spine in want of a knife.” True words whispered into the crook of his neck as gentle fingertips slid down his spine while the tiefling embraces him in his bed.
He keeps his face in the trained placid expression he wore for Raphael as he murders the man. He cannot give anything away to the slaves he is teaching a lesson. He cannot let them see him be emotional. They must see him as dispassionate and calculating as a tyrant must be.
When the corpse is unmoving, he sighs and orders its husband to throw it in the furnace. He doesn’t feel anything for the sobbing man as he attempts to cradle the body. Enver orders the man to be quick or he will take the loss of production out on his daughter in the Iron Throne. The half elf nearly sprints to the furnace and throws his husband inside, his entire body shaking with sorrow and hatred. Enver doesn’t stay to meet the man’s eyes when he turns around. He calls for Lerah to follow him and returns to his office in Wyrm’s Rock. The drow had subserviently reminded him that he is covered in blood, a damp rag offered to him. He had sighed and allowed her to wash the evidence from him; remarking that lacking a mirror, he required her efforts. He was not blind to the woman’s shocked delight. She craves him ever more since she had been retrieved from the Iron Throne, despite his utter lack of interest in her.
She had been a gift from Zealir. And now Zealir is gone. Her interest is an insult, but not enough of one to outweigh her usefulness. Until she is overtaken by her desires, she is still the best assassin he has left.
There is an unmarked grave in Wyrm’s Rock. A small, flat stone under a west balcony where red flowers grow. No one but Enver Gortash knows it exists, and no one ever will. There was no service. There was no ceremony. There was only one man who refused to shed a single tear for the loss of his ally. His friend. His husband.
He has not returned since he made that spot sacred.
He believes that he will only return when the plot is finished. When he has kept his promise to the man he could not bury.
He is forced to increase the production of the Steel Watch as Orin grows impetuous. Her killings are impossible to make useful, and he is growing frustrated at her insistence on using her father’s name instead of The Absolute. She skirts the oath with the subtlety of a feral dog testing a leash. Every day, a Bhaalist is thrown from the keep to the shores below, the customary alert to him at the near breach of security. Lerah has been stationed at his side since this started, and he is growing sick of her aura of sycophancy. He calls her to his side one day, a jarred tadpole on his desk.
“I have a gift for you, Lerah.” His voice is practiced and steady, the tone of a leader and politician. He doesn’t need to convince her or cajole her. She would do anything for him if he barely suggested it. She would fall to her knees at a glance if he wanted her to. She would debase herself for a moment of his attention.
He has never hated anyone more than he hates her. He can feel it in his chest. A surge of violent hate that makes his fingers tremble so hard he has to clench his fists. Even his hatred of Raphael and his parents pales as he watches the simpering woman supplicate herself for the vague promise of his approval.
His parents had made him useful, even as he despises them for what they forced him to survive, he grants them that they had taken what they needed and wanted. Raphael had his own whims and wants, and Enver knows that the conniving bastard had bigger plans for him than he had been allowed to enact before he had escaped. The devil had his ambitions and he used whoever he needed. Enver had learned to respect that.
But Lerah… she wants and wants and never takes for herself. All she has ever done is accept what was given to her. Even if it meant months of testing her faith in the Iron Throne.
Anyone worth a damn would have fought back.
She is perversely honored as he holds the tadpole to her eye, his free hand holding the back of her head in a tight grip. She wants to lean against him as the worm burrows into her skull, her body tensing as it invades her mind and senses. But she is professional and restrains herself, believing that doing so will make him want her. Make him respect her deference.
She does not understand that he would want her more if she could make a decision for herself for once. He might respect her if she admitted she wanted something instead of begging for the scraps of his attention.
She is pathetic, even before he can see the tadpole glaze over her mind.
She is little more than a puppet now. An empty headed toy soldier for him to discard if he wished.
And he considers it. For a moment.
It would be simple. Two words and she would no longer remind him of the man who brought her to his bed as proxy and promise. Lerah would no longer be the only kind of claim he had to Zealir.
Zealir’s final gift to him would be gone.
He slaps her so hard she falls to the ground, the shape of his hand burned on her cheek; several small cuts from where his gauntlet had impacted. He does not stand over her, instead leaning back on his desk as her wide, surprised eyes gaze up at him before he forces the memory from her mind. Her expression falls to a confused mask before she stands and apologizes for her assumed stumble.
He does not want her around anymore. She did not need the tadpole to guarantee her compliance, but he will not risk her returning uninvited. She will lead a Baneite cohort at Moonrise until the plan is set in motion. She nods, bows in deference, and goes to join the envoy to Ketheric’s shadow cursed tower.
The moment she is gone, Enver wants to chase after her and throw her from the tower himself. He hates her. He despises her. She wants everything she has no right to and does not act for herself and still believed herself better than the Chosen of Bhaal. She believed herself worth anything at all when she refused to take anything for herself.
Lord Enver Gortash walks calmly to his liquor cabinet, pours himself too much whiskey, and curses the name of Zealir until his voice is lost.
He can tell Ketheric is keeping something from him when they are all in Moonrise. The Undying elf has a smirk on his lips that speaks of something he knows Enver would want to know. He’s smug, and his gaze levels on Orin with a conspiratorial look that Enver hates but cannot afford to question at the moment. He has to get Ravengard back to the city and do the damn coronation. When Ketheric has the Astral Prism, then he can focus on getting everything back in order. He can find a way to kill the elf if he must, or bind him in ever locking chains and throw him into the bottom of the Chionthar. Just to get him out of the way if he becomes a problem.
Orin will be simple enough to kill when the time comes. Whittle through her Bhaalists fast enough and she will be left alone and she will have to make herself vulnerable. The Flaming Fist had killed The Slayer a few decades ago when Abdel Adrian was killed. Orin would be far easier to subdue even without the Steel Watch to grind her to paste.
The Absolute brings them back to the city, Orin spitting fury about something he isn’t interested in. He ignores her and awaits his wizard’s teleportation, his thoughts on when to send out the Steel Watch. The army would be marching for the walls at this moment, and within reach in a day or two. He would be best served waiting for the desperate patriars to come to him, and he would allow them to see he had already set the watch to the walls in an abundance of caution. They would be so relieved that he had done so that they would ignore his presumption of allowance. If anyone dared raise objection, he would counter with the wonder if they would prefer the soldiers to die instead of a Steel Watcher. The patriars are so very precious about the lives of petty soldiers.
Orin comes to his office and tells him that Zealir is alive. He cannot hide the smile on his face at the thought. He cannot stop the lightness in his heart.
Zealir is alive. He is alive and he is coming home.
He has Ketheric’s netherstone and the Astral Prism, and he is his own man as a result. Zealir is coming back. Orin failed and his husband is coming home.
Zealir looks horrid.
He looks moments from falling unconscious; and the sight of him in such a state sparks a kind of concern Enver had thought long dead. He wants to comfort the man; to provide the soft bed he clearly needed. Whatever Orin had done, whatever he had survived to get back to him; Enver wants to make it all better.
But he cannot.
Even as he openly greets him, hoping to have Orin’s claims proved false, Zealir’s expression shifts to masterfully disguised shock and discomfort. The man had no memory of him. No memory of the great works they had accomplished together in the names of their gods.
Zealir did not know his husband stood before him.
He does not allow his regret to show. He does not let this disappointment rattle him. He does not allow his gaze to fall in the way his tail wraps around the ankle of a pale elf. Enver Gortash does not show weakness to his former ally’s current followers.
The Archduke of Baldur’s Gate invites his old friend to join him in his office when he had made things right with his sister. He smiles fondly at him when the tiefling’s eyes brighten at the idea of slaying Orin. There he is. Just as sharp and hungry as ever. His true nature will rise once again. The man will remember that they work best together. Zealir will know he has no equal, and he will come to Enver when he remembers how successful they were together.
Solace.
The name he had heard the followers call Zealir. The name that the tiefling responded to so easily. A very… twee name for the son of Bhaal. Enver feels a surge of anger at the idea of Zealir being called something other than himself. He cannot stand the disrespect to the godling. But time will allow him to fix the issue.
Enver saw the way their shoulders relaxed when the old half elf spoke to them, their expression pained and simultaneously relieved to have her speak whatever she did. He sees the pale elf smile at them and enthusiastically say something that makes the tiefling’s expression contort into a strained smile. He slips his hand into Zealir’s and guides them out of the hall, the rest of the hangers on joining them.
Enver Gortash dismisses the patriars from his attention as he returns to his office, needing to get work done. His mind works on the circumstances he needs to create for Zealir to be successful. He would order his Steel Watch to allow Zealir to explore at his pleasure, save for the more sensitive of places, such as the foundry itself.
Etvard Needle would need to be held off from publishing the prepared smear piece Enver had provided when he was unaware of just who was coming from Moonrise. When Zealir joined him, it was possible that his followers would not join the alliance as well, and if they proved treacherous, then the Baldur’s Mouth would be encouraged to run the story with a few changes. Fugitives are easy to hunt down when they are exceedingly well known by the public.
Enver Gortash smiles to himself as he pours himself a drink. His husband was safe. Alive and well. He would be cared for when he returned to him, and Enver would remind him about himself as much as he could.
Zealir was alive. Whoever Solace was would soon be irrelevant.
Enver watches, unable to truly understand what he is seeing.
The pale elf carries the limp body of Zealir behind the old half elf and a huge, tattooed man. The pale elf is crying.
Zealir is not moving.
He is-
He is-
Zealir is-
Enver stares at the oculus in his hands. Roughly two feet wide and half as tall; Enver can see through the eyes of his Steel Watch and scrying eyes as much as he wished. Before Ketheric had been killed, he had had a team of baneites watching the feed; The Chosen of Bane far too busy to deal with the mundane detail him self.
Now, Enver Gortash is watching from a scrying eye’s overhead view as the corpse of his husband is laid upon a patch of blue and white flowers by a man that does not know that Zealir’s favorite flowers were poppies.
He hears the wrong name applied to the man’s corpse and Enver throws the oculus across his office. It does not break. The enchantments prevent such damage.
Enver forces himself to calm.
It doesn’t matter. The plan will still work. It will still succeed. He can still keep his promise to the… now twice dead man. He can still make it right. And when all is said and done, he can petition his Lord to bring Zealir back. It will be fine.
Enver does not understand how Zealir came back this time. The scrying eye can only pick up so much information before it is destroyed. He hears something about a skeleton and Selune, but it doesn’t make any sense.
He supposes it doesn’t matter. Zealir is alive. He is alive.
Enver did not know he could feel such relief. But he does, and he allows himself to sink into it.
Zealir is alive. He is alive. His husband is alive.
Enver finally has the man alone. He does not need to pretend anymore. He can be as open and enthusiastic as he once was.
Zealir wants to know about their shared past. Enver is delighted to regale him. He starts with the heist of the House of Wonders. He has them enthralled with the tales of their exploits in the organized crime of the city. The glorious havoc the man had created with his murders. He tells them of the hell heist, and the close calls of simply getting into Mephistar at all. The tiefling is engaged and excited, and it feels like the old days as he watches Zealir shuffle through papers, his brow furrowed as he tries to remember what Orin stole from him.
He is about to call for the man’s attention when he realizes that Zealir did not seem to know he was being called the wrong name.
He offers to correct that.
He almost smiles at the dumbfounded expression on Zealir’s face. The man did not seem to realize that he had had a different name before he awoke without one. His eyes meet his and he sees hesitation overtaken by resolve and want.
Zealir’s name leaves his lips as a blessing for the first time in more than a year.
The man struggles to remain upright, and Enver finds himself holding the man once again.
He is just as warm as ever. Just as easy to cradle against his chest. Zealir is once again in his arms, and Enver never wants to let him go.
Zealir leaves to take care of his followers, and Enver feels a lightness in his chest as he knows his husband remembers him. Remembers them.
He has his husband back. Everything is going to be as they wanted it.
Better, now that Bhaal is gone.
No longer bound to a father that would force him to wanton slaughter. Zealir is free; he is well and truly his own man.
Enver makes preparations for his husband to return to the fold. Guards are selected, provisions made for the man to control his cohort of cultists. A few of the old guard volunteer to work with the bhaalspawn, recalling the cleverness of the man and wishing to provide a smooth reintegration for him. Enver finds himself grateful for the followers who do this. They remember the bhaalspawn as worthy and formidable. As they should.
Zealir does not come to his office when called. The guard that reports the man’s refusal stands tall and proud, but his voice quivers with fear at the Chosen of Bane’s reaction.
Enver smiles and dismisses the soldier without reprimand. Zealir is capricious and had indeed been suffering physical pain when he had left his office. It was not unreasonable that the man wanted more time to rest. He was likely being tended to by the healers he had amassed, urging his body to mend so that he is more capable when he returns to Enver.
Zealir never did less than he was able to do, and even when he had been injured, he had ignored the damage to complete the mission. It was one of his best qualities.
When the brain is dominated and Zealir is able to rest, Enver would have to care for him again. Force him to bed rest if he must. The city would soon be theirs and he would have time to rest.
Karlach tortured Zealir.
She tortured his husband.
She must have convinced the others to turn on their leader and attempt to unmake their plans. Typical, ungrateful girl. She had been given the chance to make something of herself and she let petty vengeance blind her to what she could be. And in her rage, she has abducted and harmed the man she could never equal.
She is gleeful in her explanation of what they had done to Zealir. What the Sharran and githyanki are doing to him even now. How Zealir was strong for hours until the pain grew too much and he started to tell them what they wanted to hear.
Zealir had experienced enough pain. He did not deserve to suffer more of it. Enver feels a burning sensation in his chest as he sees Karlach’s feral excited expression. She had enjoyed it. She had enjoyed hurting his husband.
Enver begins to send the Steel Watch to the refugee camp, reminding Karlach that she brought this on herself and the unwanted tieflings in Rivington. He is surprised by the smug smile on her face as he tells her what she is responsible for.
Six Steel Watchers are taken offline in thirty seconds. All of them around Rivington. He hears reports of Ironhand guerrillas being seen at the time. Enver keeps his face passive. He cannot show weakness.
Karlach taunts him that she will see him soon.
Enver detonates the Iron Throne. The memories of he and Zealir spending nights there, the man showcasing his talents for torment. The times he found the tiefling curled up in the arboretum, books and blankets around him like he is at a picnic.
No matter. It is just a place. It is Zealir he must find. Once he is found, then he can burn the city around him to find the traitors and hang them in the Wide.
He focuses his forces to begin the search of the city, but before they are deployed, the Foundry is under attack. He must send his forces there instead, hoping against hope that whoever is attacking his factory will die to the Titan before the foundry can be destroyed.
The Steel Watch is sundered.
His creations are inert. Because a foolish little girl could not accept that she was a means to an end. A useful tool he had given purpose.
Enver Gortash summons the remnants of his followers to Wyrm’s Rock. Karlach was coming to kill him, and in all likelihood, she would not be alone. Her foolish friends would not allow her to do so alone.
If they all wished to die with her, he would provide. He can pull the information from their corpses if they must. Where they hid Zealir would not remain a secret for long.
Zealir pushes open the heavy doors of the office and Enver’s heart soars. Even bloodied and bruised, Zealir had made it back to him. He steps towards the tiefling, ignoring the quiet worries of his guards. His husband is home, and he is hurt.
But not as hurt as he might imagine.
He is not limping. He does not have a makeshift brace for his legs or knees. His arms are not broken. Even his tail is intact.
Doubt drifts into his mind like a stormfront. Writhing and dark.
Zealir speaks of never being an equal. Of being a tool that he wished to use.
What else could Zealir be? He is an assassin. It would be unacceptable to deny him his purpose. How else do you show someone that they are loved other than letting them be their most useful selves?
Zealir scoffs and rants about Karlach of all people. How she was his best friend and how she did not deserve to be made useful. Enver hears the sound of breaking glass and glances back to see the aflame tiefling quickly surrounded by his guard.
Zealir stands five feet away from him, his sword drawn at his side. Enver is mostly unaware when he pulls his crossbow from his back. His body knows what this is. His mind still playing catch up. He raises the crossbow slightly and only stills when he feels cold steel on his throat. Zealir is looking at him with an unidentifiable expression. He does not know if he feels regret or remorse or anger. All Enver knows for certain, is that he cannot run. He cannot abandon his station and city.
And this thing will not let him live.
Zealir is dead.
The shambling mockery of the man asserts so, and who is he to argue? Zealir would never have hesitated to kill him if he were alive and wanting to take the Brain for himself. Whoever this thing in his husband’s skin is, it is not nearly as potent as his husband had been.
It says that Zealir let himself die. That he loved Enver so much that he refused to have Bhaal force him to kill the tyrant. It wants him to believe that Enver had been loved by the man.
And that love had been what killed him.
Whatever puppeteered his husband’s body has made a mockery of it. A shambling, grotesque corpse of the man he had been.
Enver Gortash does the only thing he can do for his husband’s memory.
He kills the thing that stole his body.
He watches the empty body of Zealir fall. He feels nearly nothing as he watches the corpse crumple. Red blood blooming from two crossbow bolts through the neck and mouth.
Silence treacherous tongues. A tenant of Bane. A tyrant cannot abide discontent. You must silence those who speak against you.
Even if they once spoke for you.
Maybe he can bring Zealir back.
Maybe he'll bring him back. Maybe he'll finally have his obedient husband if he takes a page out of Ketheric’s book and shoves life into his foolish husband's chest.
Zealir may be dead, but a fractured mind can be rebuilt. A few suggestions after reforming him. A little time locked in the dark. Let the tadpole do its work and erase the lingering memories of whatever Solace was.
Zealir would be grateful for his saving. He would be devoted to him. All would be well.
Yes. Maybe he would bring him back.
Maybe he can make it right.
He’s earned that much.
The pale elf was a vampire. He should have expected that. Zealir had preferred corpses before he had met Enver. The unspoken, entirely understandable reason for his predilections had been obvious the first time Zealir had awoken in Enver's bed. The tiefling had shrieked in alarm so profound that Enver had startled awake to find the man sprawled beside the bed; tangled in sheets.
How they had laughed at the man’s alarm. Oh how they had joked about it for years after.
Perhaps it is predictable that Zealir would find a corpse to lay with in his absence. It must have felt familiar.
Even to the thing that stole Zealir’s body.
He can’t even say his name.
He can’t say the name of his husband.
That, more than anything, is what he is aware of as Karlach sunders him.
Zealir is dead and his name is too.
Karlach’s ax cleaves into his left side and he barely feels it. All he knows is that his crossbow is taken from him and thrown across the room.
He is on his back, defending his chest uselessly from Karlach’s fury when he hears a familiar cry. A muffled, hurt noise that he had been used to ignoring in the night.
A stifled whimper of loss and fear.
The last moment of Enver Gortash’s life is spent wondering if — will ever know peace.