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The ritual pulsed around him, and he screamed. The demonic magic was straining at his soul, trying to consume the very core of his being and pull it into the flames of an everlasting fire. The parasite in his head squirmed against the assault, burrowing deeper into his brain, fiercely staking his claim over his host's body and mind.
But Astarion could feel the ritual gaining momentum, magic thrumming high in his blood towards an apocalyptic end. At least for him.
Cazador had taken him out of the fight so easily. All it had taken were a few poison laced words to goad him close enough to mock his pathetic attempt to his face before trapping him inside the ritual circle. What had he been thinking? They'd never stood a chance. All that traveling and fighting alongside those brazen fools had messed with his head. They had given him hope. A fool’s hope, because he'd known what was waiting for them. He should have remained hidden, far away from Cazador. Maybe he would have quivered in the dark for the rest of eternity, and he would never have tasted the pleasure of entertaining revenge. But he would have escaped this fate.
Cazador's laugh rang through the air, like a cruel bell ringing the toll of death. It was disturbing enough that Astarion forced his eyes open, fighting the red haze clinging to his brain to try and catch a glimpse of his companions. An ice cold feeling soaked him at the sight of the death ridden battle ground before him. It looked like Tav may have tried to cross the ritual circle to free him before getting gored. Gale was just a pile of clothes in the distance, and he could not find traces of Karlach among the bestiary of corpses littering the ground.
Only Cazador was left standing, in the center of it all, his staff in hand. A red mist curled around him as he chanted the damning words Astarion had so feverishly hoped would be his own to say. The gravel voice seemed to sear through the very flesh of his back, setting the words engraved there ablast with unearthly fire.
Ecce dominus,
Has animas offero in sacrificio,
Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.
He screamed and thrashed against his bindings, and he heard the screams of his brothers and sisters merging with his own, like a wretched cry to the Hells. He felt the silent screams of the seven thousands trapped souls as the jaws of the infernal bargain closed around them all, a ravenous, unstoppable force set to consume them. He thought his head might explode as the tadpole squirmed and twisted in the confined bed of his delicate brain. It seemed to grow, inflate beyond bearable proportions, pushing past thresholds of pain Astarion never thought he could endure.
Then a shockwave, and a burst of pain beyond everything.
And darkness.
He groggily woke up to the feeling of hard, cold leather pushing against his face. There was wet grim on his skin, but this was in itself not necessarily surprising. He was aching all over, which did not register as alarming either. It was the voice that finally jerked him to full, acute consciousness.
That deeply loathed voice he had hoped never to hear again.
‘Well well, you are harder to kill than a cockroach. And here I thought you were the weakest of my children. Always whimpering, never retaining a lesson right. But look at you now…’
Cazador, who had haunted his dreams and waking hours. The monster that had burrowed so deep under his skin that the taste of freedom never quite sat right with him. Because he knew well that as far as he would run, his master would find him. Freedom tasted like the dirt into which he would be buried for his transgression, and it terrified him.
He had never been free from Cazador.
And now his master had reclaimed his due. Astarion could feel their bond thrumming at the back of his mind, alive and powerful. The parasite was gone, he was certain of it, and with it whatever protection it had granted.
Part of him wanted to lash out, to claw the sibilant smile off his master's face, but every instinct in him fought that impulse, knowing the greater predator in the room was standing tall above him and contemplating what to do with his most troublesome creation.
‘Nothing to say, boy? But you seemed so full of words just moments ago. Perhaps you can learn,’ he taunted, crouching elegantly before his cowering spawn.
With a flicker of his hand, red binding dragged Astarion from the ground and onto his knees. He considered his displayed creation critically, running a thumb along the pale elf’s jaw. Spreading the blood that had run from Astarion’s nose and mouth as the ritual tried to shred his soul out of his body. Astarion tried to struggle against the bonds, but the ritual had depleted him of his strength, leaving him if not dead just on the very cusp of it.
‘Kill me,’ Astarion heard himself pleading. The words repulsed him as they tumbled from his lips, but neither could he bear the idea to go back to thrall-hood. To be reduced once again to be Cazador's obedient puppet, only left free to suffer for the amusement of his twisted father. To beg for the meagerest of indulgence.
Cazador's grip on his jaw only tightened, amusement clear on his face.
‘Perhaps I should kill you. You have proven to be nothing but trouble from the night of your creation, despite all the effort I invested in you,’ the grip on his jaw turned to bruising, and Astarion feared the bone might break under his master's unnatural strength. ‘But you are still mine. The only one of my children left to me. And I think you may still prove useful.’
He rose, grabbing Astarion by the neck in a choking hold to drag him across the ritual platform. The stench of rotten, undead blood hung heavy in the air, but there was a tangy, fresh undertone to it that drove Astarion crazy. He weakly collapsed on the stone when his master let go of him. His throat hurt and his mind was a muddle of his own thoughts, his own impulses, and his master's overbearing presence.
‘Feed,’ the order snapped, like a physical blow.
He instinctively turned to the closest source of fresh, warm life that his master had brought him to. It smelled incredible, a boon he had longed for but never been allowed to before. His teeth ached to sink into the flesh and drag the life into himself.
He blinked and the scene shifted back into focus. Tav was watching him from the corner of their eyes, breathing laboriously. Severely injured but alive, no sound came from their mangled throat. But the look in their eyes told him they were terrified. He could feel Cazador watching behind his back, taking in Astarion's reluctance despite the spawn’s obvious need for blood. Astarion's breath hiccuped when he felt his master's hand touch his head, and softly start to comb through his curls like one would to bring comfort to a wounded animal. How he had longed for these fake gestures of affections in the past, despite knowing full well they were just a tool wielded by Cazador to manipulate them. Their master loved to see them strive for his approval and affection, whatever brand torture he would inflict on them by the end of the day. It amused him.
Addictive sweet coated lies.
‘I have seen through your siblings’ eyes. I have seen you fight and lie, my little spawn. You may yet have your place at my side as my prized child, if you prove to me your time away was not in vain. But you’ll need your strength.’
Astarion cast a glance to his master, but all he got was a glimpse of a deep red, appraising gaze. There was no mocking smile etched on the undead face, no mirth playing on his lips. Prized child. He drove his eyes back to the ground, to his mortally wounded companion, shame and longing fighting his drowning wrath. Hunger twisted his guts ferociously and his sight pulsed red at its edge. The tang of blood was heady and overpowering.
Yet he could feel the choice was his own when he bit, when his teeth broke the skin. When he took that warm flood of blood for himself until life snapped from his companion’s body like a string plucked.
And at the back of his mind he could feel the radiating approval of his master, thrumming from the bond. He could feel the strength emanating from Cazador, the power the ritual had granted. The blood may have strengthened him, but he had no hope to match his master anymore. Not alone, not even with the help of those that remained in camp, given they would ever accept to help him now that their leader of misfortune was dead.
Astarion’s mouth twisted in a sneer anyway.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Gurs have gathered outside these halls. Slaughter them. Make it a demonstration of what you have learned in the wilderness.’
So Cazador wanted an attack dog, one he had picked and groomed to his taste. Astarion thought bitterly he could be that. He stood from the ground, letting go of the cooling body of the one who had instilled so much doomed hope in him. All dead things now. But if Cazador wanted a show, Astarion pondered while picking up his weapons, he could give him a show. He was good at slaughter.
He would have to learn to dance to his master’s tune again, but he did not think he had been away so long that he really ever forgot the steps. He could still discern the low lying compulsion poisoning his mind, but it was slowly gaining on him and he knew that soon enough he would not be able to tell it apart from his own thoughts any longer.
His master had rekindled their bond, and Cazador would never let him escape his leash a second time.