Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“This is quite the gathering,” said Shadowheart, looking around at the parlor transformed for the evening into an intimate ballroom.

The banquet tables were laid with a handsome spread, the wine (mulled and otherwise) and cider were flowing, and more mages than Shadowheart had ever seen crammed into one place gathered in small groups to brag about their various accomplishments of the past year—or whatever passed for invigorating conversation among their kind.

Twisted black vines encircled the home's pillars and festooned the lintels of every doorway, bursting with vibrant blue-green leaves, and mauve night orchids and oleander spread their enchanting scent over the gathering as if to bring a fey illusion of summer to the long, cold winter night.

“My compliments to your mother on the décor, Gale.” Though she had turned her back on Shar years ago, Shadowheart could not deny the appeal the darkness still held for her. Or perhaps more to the point, the beauty that might be found therein. “There's something of the Shadow-Cursed Lands in it—though, thankfully, only the good parts.”

“Perhaps it's only appropriate,” Gale said, sharing a knowing look with Astarion, “given that it was in that blasted landscape the two of us first realized our feelings toward each other had, shall we say, evolved past the point of mere amicability.”

“That's one way to put it,” Astarion said as if as an aside to Wyll and Karlach. “Just when I was beginning to think I would have had more luck wooing a kuo-toa, this one comes up to me in the thick of battle, says I look fetching covered in blood, and am I familiar with a particularly naughty book he thinks might be right up my alley?”

Gale refused to take the bait and dignify that comment with a response, though his cheeks did pinken considerably.

“Though I believe credit for the decorations rightly belongs to Arabella,” he said to Shadowheart's point. “The vines were her idea. And creation, for that matter.”

They were doubly appropriate then, for as Shadowheart recalled, it was also in the Shadow-Cursed Lands that Arabella had joined their camp.

“That's right,” said Karlach, “we're not just celebrating you two tying the knot, are we? This is both a wedding and adoption party.”

That explained the teens and tweens running back and forth between the refreshments and the garden, where they crowded around Arabella, stuffing hand tarts into their mouths while she regaled them with tales of her recent adventures across Faerûn.

“Her peers at Blackstaff, I take it?” Wyll said with a nod toward them.

“Former peers,” Gale said, following Wyll's gesture. “I swear most of tonight's guest list consists of current or former students of the Academy.” That with an uneasy glance around the room at the other wizards and sorcerers, the cream of the crop of Waterdeep's magical elite. “If it were up to me, this would have been a far more intimate gathering, consisting entirely of friends we made on our various adventures.”

Wyll recognized a few of their old compatriots scattered amid the crowd. It was unfortunate Halsin and Lae'zel were too distant or busy with their own affairs to make the journey here. And with Jaheira and Minsc settled in Rashemen, Wyll feared that, short of some sort of divine intervention, he might have seen the last of the two legends. His heart still ached when he thought of Tav going its own way, no matter how much he told himself that beneath the tentacles it was no longer the hero he once loved.

But it was good to see Alfira and Lakrissa again, in Waterdeep on what was their own honeymoon of sorts, traveling the Sword Coast in pursuit of lost songs and inspiration. Rolan was there, chatting with a couple of wizards, and making sure Dammon had someone familiar to cleave to while Karlach mingled. Dame Aylin cut the most striking figure in the crowd, as even without her wings and shining armor she stood head and shoulders above most of the attendees. Wyll made note to catch up with her and Isobel later.

As for Volo, his fame alone guaranteed him a sizable audience, even if said audience seemed mostly to be putting up with his tall tales so they would have fodder for gossip after tonight. Come to think of it, Volo's presence here was a bit of a surprise, given Gale and Astarion's, and especially Tara's, low opinion of the man.

Though as Gale lamented, “My mother insisted we trust the matter of invites to her capable, and well-connected, hands. She seems to think I might come to regret not sharing my triumphs with my peers.”

To which Astarion clucked his tongue. “How sweet you think of me that way. But if anything, you're my triumph, lover.”

“Your mother appears to have friends in rather high places, Gale,” Wyll observed before Gale could completely wilt under Astarion's hungry gaze. “I even noticed a few patriars from Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter in attendance. Have you been holding back on us, or might the Dekarios name carry far more weight in these parts than you led us to believe?”

“Well, if you were to listen to Astarion,” Gale said before the man in question could do more than suck in a breath with which to speak, “you might think my mother was one of the masked lords of Waterdeep herself. Though as I keep reminding him,” that with a pointed look to his left, “if my mother were a masked lord, don't you think her own son would know it?”

“Not if she's doing it right. That's the whole point of being masked, sweeting!”

“Uh-oh,” Karlach said, “do I detect a little trouble in paradise?”

“Not at all,” said Astarion, and he looped his arm around Gale's waist, pulling them hip to hip and sloshing the mulled wine in Gale's cup onto his best pair of shoes. “A little verbal sparring is how we like to keep each other on our toes, keep things fresh.”

“In other words, you're the sort of vamp who prefers his blood pre-heated,” Wyll teased.

Which earned him a toothy smirk. “I couldn't have said it better myself.”

“Speaking of warm blood,” said Shadowheart, tipping her empty goblet, “I'm going to need several more of these if I'm to stave off this chill. Do you suppose Dammon will be terribly jealous, Karlach, if I cling to you like an octopus all night?”

That got a hearty bark of a laugh out of the tiefling woman, who linked arms with Shadowheart and pulled her close. “C'mere, Fringe. I'll be your personal brazier.” Now that she could, without fear of burning the other person—or blowing up, for that matter—her infernal engine was no longer the source of shame it once was. Much as Karlach would have rather had her old heart back, this one did have its uses. “Even I can tell it's cold as a hag's tit out there. What sort of animals decide to hold their wedding feast on the longest night of winter?”

That with a wink thrown the couple in question's way, just to show it was said with no hard feelings.

“I still say it's too bad you didn't have a proper ceremony in the autumn,” Wyll weighed in.

“You'll get no argument from my mother there,” said Gale. “But don't let our demeanors fool you. All that pomp and circumstance isn't really us.” Perhaps at one time in his life he'd wanted little more than to be the center of attention, but being recognized everywhere he went as one of the heroes of Baldur's Gate had cured him of that.

And Astarion agreed, “What is a wedding but an occasion for friends and family, in the sight of their gods, to put their formal stamp of approval on two people sleeping together? It's not as though we needed anyone's permission before, gods or otherwise, so why start now?”

No, signing the appropriate papers before a magistrate upon their return from travels abroad had been enough for him. Everything else that mattered he already had. It was the legality of his and Gale's union, and the legality of Arabella's adoption, that convinced Astarion to make it official. That made him feel, for the first time he could remember, truly secure. Knowing that in the eyes of all Waterdeep, he had a family he belonged to, not by blood, neither by birth nor by death, but by his own choice and the choices of those who loved him. Those who wanted him just as he was. Astarion would be damned if he let anyone try to take that from him now.

“Besides, if I am going to be celebrated, it ought to be when I can actually enjoy it. When better than the longest and darkest night of the year?”

“You couldn't ask for a more fortuitous start to a new life together than Simril night,” said Gale. “The Dekarios star is burning fiercely above us, our family is two bright souls richer, we all have our health—why, I don't think it would be too presumptuous to say Lady Luck is smiling on us again this year.”

“And all of these fine people,” Astarion said with a wide gesture toward the rest of the guests, “will soon be on their way to other dinner parties across the city. So you see, my friend,” that with a nod Wyll's way, “we couldn't have planned things any better.”

“Alright, alright,” Wyll laughed, “I know when I'm beaten. But if I can't stand as your best man, at least let me propose a toast.

“To Gale and Astarion Dekarios,” he said, raising his goblet to them, even if for their sakes he did not raise his voice for the whole gathering to hear, “two of the truest compatriots a man could ask for, and no lesser friends besides. From our first days in the wilderness, when you were each weighing down your packs with books you thought might catch the other's fancy, I knew you were kindred spirits. Thrust together, through the whims of misfortune or blind luck, into a situation that might have caused lesser men to lose all hope. Instead, you found your better halves.”

“My better half?” Astarion blinked at the turn of phrase, turning to Gale. “I rather like the sound of that.”

“Have you never heard that expression before, Astarion?” Shadowheart asked him.

Was she trying to say it was a common figure of speech? Because “It's not exactly the sort of thing vampires go around calling each other.” No, most of Cazador's endearments had been cruelly belittling. Half his own for Gale, Astarion suddenly realized, were food- or drink-related.

“Nor high elves neither.” Not that Astarion had strong memories of his parents, but from what impressions were left to him, he doubted either would ever concede to their partner being a better anything.

But as for Gale . . . Yes. Wyll had hit the bullseye with that one, for Astarion could think of no better term for the man who stood beside him, squeezing Astarion's hand where it rested upon his waist and staring back at him like some love-stricken puppy, even four years in when the novelty should have long worn off. This gentle, handsome, delicious if ofttimes irritatingly pedantic wizard of his, whose generosity and trust Astarion still wondered at times what he had ever done to be worthy of.

“Well, it couldn't have happened to more deserving folk,” Wyll continued. “Arabella, too, who found a second home, a second family, and a whole new destiny here in Waterdeep. With the loving guidance of her new fathers—not to mention a very generous grandmother and the wisest winged cat I've ever had the privilege of meeting—I have no doubt she'll grow into the brilliant and fearless young woman she was always meant to be. And so I wish the three of you all the happiness in the world. May you enjoy a long and peaceful life in Waterdeep—”

“Eh, not too peaceful, if you don't mind,” Astarion cut in. “If it is to be a long one, it had better be interesting.”

“Then here's to many more adventures,” Wyll amended, “and to good company on the road!”

“ 'Ear, 'ear!” said Karlach. “I'll drink to that.”

“As will I,” said Shadowheart, “as soon as I have a chance to refill my cup. Far be it for me to spoil your luck, not drinking to your good health.”

“Well, what are we waiting for, Fringe? We'll get you topped off in a jiff!” And with that, Karlach whisked Shadowheart off toward the refreshments.

“That was lovely, Wyll, thank you,” Gale said, clasping Wyll's hand in a hearty shake. “This may be as close to a wedding banquet as you're going to get, but rest assured your warm words are no less appreciated for the size of the audience.”

“And you managed to keep it under fifteen minutes,” Astarion said, “which is better than Gale would have done in your shoes.”

By his laughter, Wyll took Astarion's glibness in the manner it was meant, as a means to dodge acknowledging the sentiment Wyll's heartfelt toast had aroused in him. After spending months on the road with one another's particular senses of humor, it was hard to take offense. Gale, too, clucked his tongue at his husband's gentle ribbing, while his eyes glimmered with unshed tears of gratitude.

“It's my pleasure,” said Wyll. “I only hope it isn't another four years before our next reunion. Our chance meeting over the summer, in Almraiven of all places, was a clarion call. How quickly the time passes when we're busy with our own lives. All the more reason to reach out to old friends as often as one can, before one loses the chance entirely.”

“That,” Gale agreed, “is something we could all strive to do better.”

As if Astarion needed yet another reminder that mortal life was fleeting, and this happiness he'd found could be snatched away in an instant. A familiar swishing clink reached his ears, and he felt his skin prickle, his dead heart sinking in dread.

Two guards were heading straight for him and Gale, though their turbaned helms and brass scale mail marked them as strangers to Waterdeep. The last time Astarion had seen their like had been in Calimport—in the tower of the Caleph Arcane, to be exact, where he had been imprisoned and scheduled for execution simply for the crime of being a vampire.

“Gods,” Astarion scoffed, “what have I done this time?”

But despite his attempt at humor, Gale could feel the tremor that ran through him. “Perhaps they've come to apologize on the Caleph's behalf,” he whispered to Astarion. “Although if it were regrets Irik intended to send, he might have done so in a letter.”

He wanted no trouble—at his mother's residence of all places—but prepared himself to cast a spell if worst came to it. Though if these guards were anything like those that surrounded the Caleph back in Calimport, they would be well-versed in magic and countercharms themselves.

“If you've come to arrest me for a second time,” Astarion announced to the newcomers when they stopped a few paces from him, “then I am pleased to inform you you're rather out of your jurisdiction. But do give your master my regards.”

“Apologies for the misunderstanding, Saer Astarion,” came a small but strong voice from behind the guards, “but I'm afraid my father insists on these two accompanying me wherever I go.”

“Kardelen!” Astarion barked in relief as the guards parted and a young girl stepped forward.

Pale as the snowdrop flower of her namesake, with eyes like fire-lit rubies, she all but disappeared within a fine hooded cloak of heavy brocade and fur. Though Kardelen came from a much warmer country, being a vampire spawn herself, she did not need as much protection against the cold winter nights of the north as her mortal protectors. The girl looked to be no older than eight or nine, but spoke with the maturity of a young woman a decade older, extending her hand to her hosts with the grace of one who had extensive practice with social conventions.

“Miss el Majizar,” said Gale, taking that delicate hand in his. “What a—well, it certainly is an unexpected pleasure to see you here. Isn't it, Astarion? Frankly I'm a little surprised your father would allow you to make the long journey, what with your particular sensitivities to consider. If I may, did you come overland or by sea?”

“Don't be silly,” Kardelen giggled. “We came by teleportation circle, of course! My father is the Caleph Arcane, after all. He has trusted friends in all the major cities on this side of the globe.”

“Oh? Does that mean he's accepted the outside world knowing what you are?”

“Well, some friends are more trusted than others. Fortunately for us, Waterdeep is replete with powerful wizards to choose one's allies from. One can hardly swing a cat in this city without hitting one.”

A sharp “ahe-hem” by Gale's feet and the girl started.

“And I probably should not have said that.” Kardelen said with a little curtsy to Tara, who had just decided to join them, “Please forgive the choice of expression, milady. That was insensitive of me.”

“It was,” Tara agreed, sitting primly. But she added with a feline smile to match the girl's own: “But you did save Master Astarion's life, so in light of services rendered, I'm willing to overlook the colloquialism. This time.”

“Your guard detail can rest easy,” Gale told Kardelen, “knowing you are perfectly safe under my mother's roof. There are enough seasoned adventurers and spellcasters in attendance tonight that should any ne'er-do-well wish to harm one of her honored guests, they will be swiftly incapacitated.”

“Though that does raise the question, how did you get in here?” Astarion said, curious to know whether Kardelen had discovered some secret way to bypass the prohibition against vampires entering residences on their own initiative. “We certainly didn't invite you.”

“I did, in my last letter.” Arabella practically bounced up from behind her adoptive fathers, her tail swishing excitedly behind her.

In her black robes adorned with raven feathers and embroidered green vines, she looked every bit the young sorceress of wilderness and shadow. “After all,” she said, “this is as much my party as it is yours. I should get to invite my friends too.”

“What about all your peers?” Gale said, nodding toward the gaggle of Blackstaff students. “I thought you were on close terms with that half-elven girl—Jacinth, was it?”

“Jonquil, you mean?” Arabella corrected him with a roll of her eyes, as it wasn't the first time she'd had to do so. “We're close enough, I s'pose. But the rest of them aren't really here for me.”

Gale understood that sentiment well enough without further explanation. Though he was fond of some of his fellow professors of magic, his relationship with them did not extend far past the grounds of the Blackstaff Academy tower. Many of them it was fairer to say he tolerated. He made polite conversation with them every Simril night in the off chance he might have need of their expertise in the coming year. Those handful of souls Gale considered to be his true friends were those who had shared adventures with him, with whom he'd fought back-to-back. Those he trusted with his life, and with his darkest secrets.

It seemed Arabella was of like mind. Unfortunately for her, her truest friends were currently scattered across Faerûn.

With the exception of her pen pal of these last several months, Kardelen el Majizar. Arabella turned to her with a brilliant smile, reaching for the girl's hand. “Come on. I'll show you around. Gran has an enchanted night garden I know you'll just adore.”

“I do love a night garden,” Kardelen said, allowing herself to be swept along.

Much to the consternation of her guards, who hastened to keep up, albeit at a respectable distance from their mistress.

“But first, you have to try these ices,” Arabella said, as they passed one banquet table in particular.

It was laden with chilled foods, and its centerpiece was an ice sculpture of a beholder. There were several varieties of ice creams and sherbets nestled amid the carved eye stalks, in a tantalizing array of pastel colors. But the contents of one bowl, situated apart from the rest as if to avoid confusion, were a deep garnet red.

“It's blood sorbet!” Arabella proudly announced as she filled a little glass of the stuff and held it out to Kardelen. “Cow blood, to be exact. Magic Man ordered it special from the creamery so Fangs wouldn't feel left out at his own banquet. What do you think?”

Kardelen grimaced as the chill from her first eager bite went straight to her head.

But once the flavors had a chance to melt upon her tongue: “Ooh, I could get quite used to that! It reminds me of when I was a little girl and Father used to take me for sorbet in the market when he needed a break from his work. Oh, it was such a delightful reprieve from the heat of the day! But ever since I was changed . . .”

Kardelen shook her head, as if fearing that if she allowed herself, she might linger in what memories she still had of her past, from when her heart still beat and she could still stand in the sun's rays. “Needless to say, I never thought I would be able to enjoy sorbet ever again.”

Arabella's heart ached to hear that, both happy for Kardelen to have found this small joy and grieving with her for all she had lost. She remembered what Astarion had told her on many occasions. That though he mourned what had been taken from him, and the suffering he'd endured as Cazador's thrall, he did not regret being a vampire. Undeath came with its own advantages. And in any case, there was nothing anyone could do to reverse it.

“How does your dad feel about you being so far from home?” Arabella ventured.

“Probably terrified I'll want to stay away, now that I've had a taste of freedom,” Kardelen mused around her spoon. “He's getting better at accepting this is what I will always be. But as for letting me go. . . .”

Her gaze grew distant, as far away as far Calimshan, when she spoke again. “I remember my father was a gentle man before I was turned. It was grief and anger that changed him into the monstrous version of himself you saw.”

A version who immolated any vampire who crossed his path by sunlight, under the pretense of carrying out Anachtyr's justice. Whether the unlucky vampires were actually guilty of taking innocent lives or not had been irrelevant. As bloodthirsty undead, they were all guilty in the Caleph's eyes. And the sad fact was, most living people would have agreed with him.

The one exception the Caleph made was his own daughter. Out of love for her, he sustained her on his own blood—and locked her away from the outside world for nearly ten years, convincing himself it was the only way to protect her. Until Astarion and Arabella released Kardelen from her prison, and forced her father to confront his hypocrisy.

“However, with patience and understanding,” Kardelen said, “I have to believe he can become the man he once was again. I'm just not sure he will ever see me as anything other than his little girl, stuck in the age I was when I died.

“That's why I was hoping to speak with Astarion while I'm here,” she said to Arabella, her raised eyes flashing with hope. “Surely someone of his vast experience must know other vampires who were changed as children, like I was. Maybe he can give me some advice as to what I should expect of my life, such as it is. How I'm supposed to go on with the mind of a grown woman and the body of a child.”

Arabella wasn't privy to everything in Astarion's past, but from what he had told her, or dropped hints of in his sardonic comments, she knew the subject of children was a sore one for him. A source of immense guilt. He would be reluctant to take part in the sort of discussion Kardelen wanted, to say the least. But Arabella didn't wish to crush Kardelen's hopes on Simril night. Not after she had come all this way.

“I can talk to him, if you like,” she offered, “put a bug in his ear about it. He owes me a few favors anyway.” After all, she did save Astarion's behind three times over their summer adventures—and that was before they'd even turned back toward home.

It was far from a promise, but Kardelen visibly relaxed, as though even just in asking, a great burden had already been lifted from her shoulders.

Then she looked past Arabella, to where the only other young people at the party were gathered. “Are those your friends?”

“Some of them.”

Truth be told, Arabella felt as though a great gulf had opened up between her and her peers during her time abroad. She was still fond of Jonquil, whom she considered her best friend in Waterdeep. Only now Arabella felt aged beyond her thirteen years by her experiences. Much closer to Kardelen's true age.

“Is the boy from your letters here too? Mattis?”

“I wish,” Arabella said, missing him all over again. Though they kept in touch, it seemed as though more than just a few months had passed since they'd sailed together on the Vilhon Reach, and shared their first kiss during the summer solstice celebrations on the druid isle of Ilighôn. “He's stuck in Westgate for the winter.”

Kardelen looked down at her hands then, cupped around the sorbet glass. A bit disappointed, and more than a little awkward. She was such a confident young woman in her letters, Arabella hated to see her looking like a fish out of water.

“Do you want to meet the other kids?” she ventured, prepared for Kardelen to say no.

But the other girl surprised her with the excited twinkle in her eyes. “Do you think it would be alright? I mean, that they would be alright meeting someone like me? I haven't had an opportunity to talk to anyone my own age in so long. Not that they're my own age now, either.”

“Are you kidding? I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they realize who they're really talking to.” At the look of doubt that briefly overcame Kardelen's features, Arabella reassured her in a conspiratorial whisper: “The daughter of the Caleph Arcane of Calimport, of course! Not to mention, a more powerful wizard than any of them are.”

If Kardelen wanted to tell the others the rest of her secret, that was her choice, and Arabella would support her in whatever she chose to say. After all, it was scary enough being in a foreign city where you only knew a handful of people. All the more so if you were a vampire spawn surrounded by the living.

Kardelen smiled her thanks. And accepted gladly when Arabella offered her another helping of sorbet.

As Astarion watched Arabella and Kardelen from a distance, he marveled at how different a child could be from their birth-parent. In Kardelen he saw empathy, patience, and grace, blossoming despite an adolescence spent in cloistered seclusion while her father hunted down the vampire lord that had sired her.

No matter how reformed Kardelen's letters to Arabella assured them her father was, Astarion would always remember the man as a merciless crusader, with hatred in his heart. The last thing he wanted to be reminded of on the night he was meant to be celebrating he and Arabella joining the Dekarios clan was the time he was almost executed in a foreign land.

Then again, these sorts of social events were rarely for the benefit of those being celebrated. Otherwise, if Astarion had had his way, he and Gale would have run off to honeymoon in some musty old tomb, scrounging for magical artifacts and sending any surly undead who got in the way to their final final rest.

“Ahh, Gale m'boy!” an all-too familiar voice piped up. “These old eyes almost missed you hiding amid the shadows. Although I reckon you've grown quite accustomed to their umbral refuge these last few revolutions of the sun, eh?”

Gods, Astarion should have known Elminster's absence was too good to be true.

Though this time he had chosen to bring a plus-one. A tall, gorgeous, bronze-skinned human-seeming woman of indeterminate age hung on the old sage's arm, with flowing silver locks to match her flowing silver and scarlet robes, and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Despite his elvish nature, Astarion had to wonder if she'd cast some sort of charm on him, for when she smiled his way he could have sworn his dead heart gave a little flutter.

“Elminster, how good it is to see you!” Gale gushed as he and his old mentor took each other's arms, apparently unaware of Astarion's trouble beside him. “I wondered if you would show before the night was through.”

“Was there ever an ounce of dubiety? Oh, I've merely been making the requisite rounds. Your dear mother throws the most delightful Simril soirées, as I'm sure I've no need to remind you, I would not miss one of her lavish fêtes if I were sequestered in the deepest of dungeons with eye tyrants for turnkeys.”

“No, I should think not. And yet for a second there I thought perhaps you might actually have come to congratulate Astarion and myself on our nuptials.”

Elminster glanced uneasily between the two of them while he chewed the inside of his lip, and Astarion could have sworn the old man was muttering something to himself. Like an old mule dragging itself up a hill just quickly enough to avoid the switch.

“Yes, yes, that as well,” the wizard groused. “Salutations, m'boy, to longevity, and to the constitutions of you and your, ah, hem, herr, dear traveling companion,” he said, meeting Astarion's eyes for only the briefest of seconds, “on the road of life, such as it were. Many felicitous returns, and so on and so forth. Now if you will excuse me, I believe I see a nice, ripe Beregost blue beckoning me.”

And he promptly excused himself to the banquet tables.

“Unbelievable,” Astarion snorted. “Four years on and that man would rather stuff himself with cheese than say I kind word to me. I told you he didn't like me.”

“Well, you were rather rude to him when you first met,” Gale said with a sly smile.

“Some might say I had every reason to be.” Elminster's tidings in the mountain passes had been anything but welcome. Astarion still didn't regret the things he'd said then in Gale's defense. He glowered at the wizard's back over his goblet, hoping Elmister could feel his stare like daggers.

“My apologies for the dramatics,” Gale said to their other guest, reaching for her hands. “Lady Blackstaff, you remember Astarion?”

“From Simril night four years ago, of course,” she said. “How could I possibly forget such a singularly handsome face, and such charm and wit to go with it? I had a feeling even then that this one was something special,” she said with a wink Astarion's way. “And, Gale, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: It's Laeral, please.”

“Oh, I couldn't possibly,” Gale demurred with a chuckle. And was he actually blushing?

Laeral Silverhand, widow of the first Blackstaff and Open Lord of Waterdeep, was an archmage of incredible power in her own right, and had been a mentor in Gale's life since Elminster first recognized his gift for magic as a child. Laeral had made quite an impression on Astarion that Simril night, too, his first in Waterdeep. Not least for though she was centuries old, she looked as though she had barely seen forty years. A commendable goal for any living, let alone a human spellcaster.

Although in her case, being the daughter of the previous iteration of Mystra, endowed from birth with the goddess's silver fire, had as much to do with her seeming immortality as any life-extending spell. It was still strange to think that Elminster had raised this exquisite creature from girlhood, some seven hundred years ago. Surely if the old man could pull it off, Gale and Astarion had little to worry about where Arabella was concerned.

“As I understand it,” Laeral said to Astarion, “you two already had quite the honeymoon over the summer.”

“Let me guess. A little catbird filled you in on all the juicy details.”

From the other side of Gale's ankles, Tara let out an affronted huff.

But Laeral's laughter, like silvery bells, was an answer neither way. “I shan't tell tales out of school. Though speaking of, do you suppose, now that you're settled back in Waterdeep, I might convince Professor Dekarios to return to his position at Blackstaff Academy?”

“Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves,” said Gale. “I've barely had a chance to discuss the possibility with my family—”

“Arabella would be welcome back as a student, too, of course,” Laeral was quick to interject. “That little incident with Khelben's staff can easily be swept under the proverbial rug.”

“I'm not sure Blackstaff Safahr would be willing to let the matter go so readily. I fear the last words I spoke to her did little to dispel the poor impression of me she's retained since my days as an arrogant prodigy and teacher's pet.”

“Well, as long as I am Lady Blackstaff, Vajra has a duty to hear me out. And as Open Lord of Waterdeep, an obligation to obey. If I say you are to be reinstated, it is as good as done.”

That Laeral could say such cool and menacing words with such a warm, innocent smile upon her face only made Astarion adore the woman more. And want to stay on her good side as much as possible.

Gale, on the other hand, suddenly looked a bit warm in his robes. “While I appreciate your very generous offer to speak on our behalf, if Arabella and I decide to return to the Academy, it should be only after we've apologized to Ms. Safahr personally. Goodness knows she and I could both use the practice.”

“You're certainly right about that,” said Tara.

Laeral merely patted his hand as one does entertaining a beloved fool. “Let's revisit the matter another time. Now, where is your dear mother? I should like to pay my respects to the author of this feast.”

Indeed, it was not hard to find Morena, as she floated gracefully about the room making sure everyone was enjoying themselves, receiving copious praise in return. Gale pointed the way.

And when Laeral had moved in that direction, Wyll detatched himself from his companions to come over and ask, “Are my eyes playing tricks, or was that one of the Silverhand sisters?”

“Indeed it was. Could it be,” Astarion couldn't help teasing him, “we've actually found a member of the Sword Coast gentry Wyll Ravengard hasn't met before?”

“An oversight easily rectified, I hope. Fancy an introduction later, Gale?”

“I would be honored. Though there's no need to wait for my say-so. I promise you she won't eyebite,” Gale said with a wink. “Laeral Silverhand has been my mother's frequent guest for tea for some three decades now. She's like an aunt to me.”

Astarion shot Gale a knowing look.

“And before you start with your theories again, Astarion—”

“I'm just saying, darling, your mother has friends in some very high places. And not all of them have a connection to you. Of course, there could be a perfectly logical reason for that, say if she were to occupy a certain esteemed, anonymous position in Waterdhavian politics. . . .”

Clearly his two friends were no closer to mending this particular difference of opinion than when they'd aired it earlier, so Wyll simply sipped his wine and kept his mouth wisely shut.

That was, until he spotted some familiar faces in the crowd, and not the sort of faces he was expecting to. Complexions pale as cream, two of them scarred. And all three with blood-red eyes. “Good gods. Are those your siblings, Astarion?”

Astarion spun around, on his guard, his expression souring the instant he laid eyes on them. “The hells are they doing here? Did you invite them, Gale?”

“I was about to ask you the same.”

The answer was clear on Astarion's face, however: His vampiric brethren were the last people he wanted to play host to on a night like this, surrounded by no shortage of magic users whose already delictible blood was made warm and fragrant by alcohol. Was it too much to want to celebrate the new year with the family he had chosen for himself in peace, without being reminded of the one Cazador had forced upon him?

Wyll said, “Then I take it their names were not on the guest list.”

“They most certainly were not. I might have been careless and mentioned our union in one of my letters to Sebastian, but I would never have invited him to my mother-in-law's own home—let alone any of the rest. And who keeps letting all of these bloody vampires in?” Astarion whined.

Sarcasm may have been a refuge for his roguish friend in stressful circumstances, but it wasn't fooling Wyll.

Or Gale, for that matter. Both could see the tension in Astarion's frame, how he was all but poised to strike. And counting how many strides it would take him to reach the nearest banquet table with cutlery, since he had foolishly allowed Gale to convince him to leave his daggers at home. What could he say? Old habits died hard.

Speaking of old habits, it wasn't difficult to fix his face when his siblings drew near, and force a congenial tone. Even if there was a rime of frost around its edges.

“Aurelia, Leon,” Astarion crooned. “Sebastian.” How deeply it still hurt to speak that man's name to his face. “Isn't this a surprise. Whatever are you doing here? And is it just the three of you,” he couldn't help but add, scanning the room for other deathly pallors, “or should I be worried about more of our brethren falling out of the rafters?”

“Just us,” said Leon. “You can rest assured of that. We came a long way to see you, Astarion. But then, when you get word your brother is getting married, and adopting a child to boot, it's only proper to congratulate him in person on his newfound happiness.”

“And is that what you're doing? Congratulating me?”

They'd dressed appropriately enough for the occasion, Astarion would grant them that much. Cazador's high standards for how his spawn presented themselves in public appeared to have survived him. Astarion supposed he should take it as some comfort his siblings hadn't show up in leathers. Or butcher's smocks, for that matter. He could only hope their intentions here were as civil as their attire.

“Now, now, little brother, whatever did we do to deserve such a chilly reception?” Aurelia chided him. “And after all you did to help us the last time we saw one another. We only wanted to meet the lucky man who had such a profound affect on you that you would leave the only city you've ever known to follow him.”

“Hello, hi. Lucky man in question here,” Gale said, seeing that as the moment to step forward and try to diffuse the tension as best he could. “Gale Dekarios,” he beamed, extending a hand for any of them to shake, “part-time adventurer and professor of magic. You know, we actually met before, in Baldur's Gate at a little inn called the Elfsong. Ring any bells? No? Well, I suppose we didn't make the best of impressions on each other, it was all a rather chaotic couple of days. But surely afterwards, during your exodus to the Underdark . . .”

Aurelia's shake of her head seemed to take whatever wind was left in them right out of his sails. Leon's snort was not a confirmation of remembrance either way.

But Sebastian smiled as he took Gale's hand, and told him, “I remember you, saer. You were with Astarion when he promised to free us from Cazador. I always wondered if you had something to do with him keeping that promise. Because if you did, it would seem I owe you far more than mere congratulations.”

Astarion looked away, the echoes of two hundred years of guilt plastered all over his face. “Why are you three really here?”

“Like Aurelia said,” Leon explained, “we wanted to see for ourselves what sort of man had managed to capture your heart. After all, if you could find a mortal to love you as you are, perhaps there's hope yet for the rest of us.”

“How did you even get in?”

“Through the front door, of course,” said Aurelia. “You'd be surprised how inviting people can be when you mention you're the family of one of the grooms.”

“Peace, Astarion,” Leon said, holding up his empty hands when he saw Aurelia's answer start to get a reaction, and not the kind he had hoped for. “If you'll hear me out, I will explain everything. Do you think the two of us could speak alone for a few minutes, brother to brother? Away from prying ears.”

“If it's privacy you're after,” Gale said with a cautious glance Astarion's way, “might I recommend the gardens.”

“Fine,” Astarion sighed sullenly, uncrossing his arms. “Let's get this over with. But it had better be worth it.” And he gestured for Leon to follow him.

Leaving Aurelia and Sebastian with Gale.

At least he did not have to face them alone. “Wyll Ravengard,” Wyll took the liberty of introducing himself, “the Blade of Avernus, at your . . . well. Well met, under the circumstances.”

He saw through the crowd that Astarion's raised voice had caught Shadowheart's and Karlach's attention as well, and they were beginning to make their way over in the off chance reinforcements were needed.

“A pleasure.” Aurelia cocked her head, a glint of recognition on her burned face. She may not have remembered Gale from the attempted kidnapping Cazador had ordered, but Wyll had captured enough of her attention to leave an impression. A human with an impressive set of horns yet no tail. A tiefling noticed such things.

And a Ravengard. The horns she ought to have remembered, yet it seemed she might have glimpsed his face before at one of the patriar galas Cazador forced her to attend. Unless that was this young man's father. After two hundred years of them, each grand party started to run into the next.

“I'm sure Astarion will be grateful you made such an effort for him,” Gale said to her and Sebastian, “once the surprise of your visit has had a chance to wear off. Do you know where you'll be eating while you're in town?”

If Aurelia and Sebastian were surprised by how matter-of-factly Gale spoke of such matters, it was at least a pleasant surprise, judging from the look they exchanged. Perhaps it should not have been, as Gale Dekarios had had four years for the problem of finding a vampire's next meal to become a mundane and second-nature consideration for him.

“We thought we might explore our options in Waterdeep's underbelly,” Aurelia said, suddenly all too aware of what the other guests might be close enough to overhear. Though surely friends of Astarion would not balk at the notion of vampires availing themselves of the city's criminal population. “After all, it's served our needs well enough in Baldur's Gate.”

“And normally I would say you were quite right,” Gale agreed, gesturing for them to follow him to a nearby table. “However, should you require something a bit more certain, I happen to have a standing arrangement with the proprietor of a local creamery—”

“A cheesemonger?” Sebastian scoffed.

“—who has been gracious enough to provide Astarion with fresh cow's blood on those occasions he needs to supplement his diet. He has assured me it does no harm to the cows,” Gale said while he jotted something down on the back page of the party's guest book. “And what's more, won't arouse the suspicion of the city watch.”

He tore out the piece of parchment when he had finished, folded it discreetly, and proffered it to Sebastian. “I'm sure he would be willing to extend the same courtesy to Astarion's relations. Especially if they were only passing through.”

If ever the other spawn had doubts Astarion had truly found his match in Gale, the ease and sheer politeness with which the wizard warned them not to overstay their welcome went a long way toward putting those doubts to rest.

“That's awfully kind of you,” Sebastian said as he accepted the note of introduction, “Mr. Dekarios.”

“Oh, tosh,” Gale said, still with that same flattering albeit glacial smile. “Call me Gale. We are family now, after all. Now, what news of the Underdark since we last saw you?”

Chapter Text

“So, how are things in Baldur's Gate?” Astarion said as they made their way through the quiet of Morena's garden. Thankfully it was frigid enough this year that few of the living guests were brave enough to stargaze so far from the braziers. “The other spawn are minding their manners, I hope.”

A smile he did not entirely feel twitched across Leon's lips. “For the most part. Those who are left, anyway. We are far fewer than seven thousand these days, I'm sorry to say. Some losses in the first year were to be expected, either to misfortunate happenstance, a tragic case of someone biting off more than they could chew, or groups simply cleaving off to start separate communities. Still some would rather take their chances striking out on their own. It's not as though we could stop them doing so.

“We were left rudderless when you took off for Waterdeep,” not that Astarion had had the charisma or the attention span to keep everyone in line after Cazador's demise, “but Yousen stepped in not long after to fill the leadership role. As well as anyone could under the circumstances. As it happens, being a fluent speaker of Gnomish and born to their ways is invaluable not just to surviving, but to thriving in the Upperdark.”

“The Upperdark?” Astarion knit his brows. “What happened to your plans to find refuge in the Underdark?”

“The local population didn't take kindly to an influx of thousands of hungry spawn with poor table manners into their territory. Particularly the drow. They treated it as an invasion. And I can't blame them,” Leon said, blinking at the memory, “as that's more or less what it was. We lost some good souls in that conflict. Learned some valuable lessons, too. Costly lessons. It was regrettable, but we're stronger for it now.”

“Petras might have held things together. People listened to him when he talked. For some reason.”

Gods, Astarion couldn't recount how many times he'd let himself be swayed by Petras's reassurances. Or chafed to see his little brother return to the palace with two, three, four women at a time hanging on his arms, tripping over themselves for a touch of his hand, or to hear their names on his lips. Some people were simply blessed to lead others around with the crook of a finger.

Only once he had the tadpole wriggling in his skull had Astarion seen Petras's confidence for the bull-headed bluster it really was. “With Dal's brains behind his brawn, he might have stood a chance of uniting the lot.”

The muscles in Leon's jaw bunched at the mention of their sister's name.

“That may be,” was all he said. “But since they disappeared, we'll never know for certain.”

“Still no word on their whereabouts, then?” Or ultimate fate, for that matter.

“Nothing but rumors. And to be honest with you, I don't care if we never find them. You know I would not have come tonight,” Leon told him, “if I thought there was a chance she would be here. I can never forgive her for what she did to my little girl.”

“No. No, I can't imagine anyone would, in your situation. I understand that now.”

“Yes,” Leon said, a sad smile tugging at his lips, “I believe you do. Now that you have a family of your own to protect.”

If Astarion were honest, he never gave Leon's position much consideration when Victoria was alive. Other than thinking it idiotic to keep a living girl in a den of vampires, as he was not surprised when one of them tried to drink her dry. If he was surprised by anything, it was that Dalyria would be the one to break, not Cazador or even Violet, whose hungry stares had only too often followed Victoria's back. And that Leon would have cursed his own child, thereby ensuring her quick, though no doubt still painful, death. Just to ensure she would not suffer her father's fate.

Victoria's loss was a tragedy, of course, for the girl and her father. But until recently, Astarion had never cared to ponder how that loss might actually feel. It wasn't so long ago he'd nearly lost Arabella to an arcanaloth and its pet pit fiend. Simply contemplating the worst felt as though it had taken him to the brink of madness. And she was not even related to him by blood.

How much deeper the abyss Leon must have found himself in, in his grief. The guilt of knowing Victoria's fate was as much his fault as anyone else's. Of the seven of them, Leon alone might have wished Cazador's ritual had sealed his fate and ended his suffering, once he learned what became of his daughter. Astarion felt new sympathy for his youngest brother then. The brother that it was fair to say he knew the least, separated as they had so often been by the upholstered walls of the favored spawn's chambers.

“I hope you'll believe me, Astarion, when I say I had nothing to do with Dalyria's disappearance. Or Petras's, for that matter.”

“It never crossed my mind.” Until Leon mentioned it, that was. Even still, Astarion had no reason to doubt him. Whatever their issues as a family, he struggled to imagine any of them going so far as to murder one another.

“You knew Dalyria better than I did,” Leon said. “You seemed closer to her than the others. So please understand, if something has befallen our sister, I do not feel sorry for her. If anything I would be relieved, because it would mean I'd had no hand in it. I could stop fearing what I would do if I ever saw her again. For I doubt I'd be able to curb my impulses if she and I were to meet face to face. She made her choice when she targeted my daughter, and I do believe it was a conscious one, made in cold calculation and not out of hunger.”

“I saw what she'd written in her journal, trying to justify it to herself. She was desperate for a cure, Leon.”

“Who among us wasn't? Even when we knew there was no hope? Yet you and I were able to control ourselves. Perhaps you best of all.”

“As if we had any choice.” If they had tried to defy Cazador's commandments, it would not have been without considerable pain to themselves. Pain enough to send them back to their master, begging his forgiveness for their transgressions.

And yet he sensed what Leon must have longed to say behind his patient stare. That Dalyria had managed to defy those commandments. And without the aid of an illithid tadpole.

“I was unfair to you, Astarion,” he said. “I treated you as though you were my worst enemy in that place, and in doing so, turned a blind eye to the greater threat. Perhaps you were simply an easier target. No matter how hard I worked to secure my place, it was clear to me you would always be Cazador's favorite, and I resented you for it. He would have had us overturn every stone in the city to find you when you disappeared. I could never understand why he didn't simply cut his losses. You constantly challenged him, got under his skin, gave him every reason to loathe you—and then went crawling back after he punished you for it, like a beaten dog to the master it still loved.”

His lips curled into a snarl, mirroring the disgust Astarion felt inside seeing himself through Leon's eyes. Like a lump in his own gut that waxed and waned, but never went away.

“I know now love had nothing to do with it. You were only trying to survive. As were we all, in our own ways. Perhaps if we'd recognized it sooner, we might have—”

“What, set aside our petty resentments and banded together? Taken Cazador down ourselves? I know you were a little late to the party, Leon,” Astarion couldn't help twisting the knife, “but do you think none of us ever tried? You remember what it was like to be under his thrall. How completely he owned you, body and soul. Pitting us against one another was just another part of his grand design. To keep us weak and dependent on him alone.”

It was Leon's turn to look away then.

Perhaps Astarion should not have been so quick to cut off his brother's attempt to apologize for past wrongs, if indeed that was what this was. But sometimes they all needed reminders that there was little they could have done differently. That ultimate responsibility for what had happened to them, and what they'd been forced to do, wasn't theirs.

“Aurelia told me about the spawn who came before me,” Leon said, “Cazador's other hopefuls who . . . disappointed him.”

“They usually didn't last long.” Most had lasted such a short period of time that Astarion barely recalled their faces, let alone their names. Would that he could have forgotten them entirely. “We rarely saw them while they were being . . . trained.” He struggled to find a better word for it. The endless parade of empty promises and very real punishments inflicted on them as Cazador systematically broke their spirits, remolding them into what he required them to be. “But we would hear their screams,” their pleas for mercy, mostly, “from the kennel during the daylight hours. Until one day the screams would just stop.”

“That must have been when they were moved to the dungeons and marked for sacrifice. We only found that out later.”

“Why am I not surprised?” The shock of learning what Cazador had done with all the victims Astarion brought him had worn off long ago. It seemed their master had been unwilling to let any of his efforts, no matter how seemingly fruitless at the time, go to waste.

“They couldn't learn to play the game as well as you and I could.”

Game? Astarion revolted at the word. But he could not find the lie in Leon's choice of it. Every day in that household had been a contest of wills, among the spawn as much as between them and Cazador: to see whose will was mightier.

“Perhaps what I took for resentment back then was really envy,” Leon confessed to him. “That you played it better than I did. And still you had the courage to stand up to Cazador when I couldn't.”

“What you call courage, most people would call stupidity.” Astarion had often called it stupidity himself, when he was turned over to Godey afterwards to reap the rewards of his insolence. “Anyway, you had something to protect. A good reason to keep your head down and your mind to the task at hand, don't you think?”

“I suppose you're right. Though it didn't seem to matter much in the end.”

They walked for a little while more in silence, while the laughter of the party echoed behind them.

“Frankly,” Astarion said at last, eager to be rid of Victoria's ghost who always seemed to be following in their footsteps, “I'm surprised any of my siblings came to wish me well at all. It's not as though you owe me anything. Well, aside from your lives and your freedom—but it's not as though I've ever asked anything of you in return.”

“Fair enough,” Leon agreed. “But the fact remains I am happy for you, Astarion. Sebastian and Aurelia would surely tell you the same, if you allow them the chance to. She had children, too, you know.”

“She never told me that.” But it explained Aurelia to some degree, now that he knew. Her fierceness. Like a manticore in a cage. Or one who had little left to lose. It certainly told Astarion what his older sister must have thought of him, that she would confess such an important part of her life before to Leon, whom she'd known only a handful of years, and not once to Astarion in all their two hundred together.

“Two little ones,” Leon said, “lost in the fire that scarred her face. I always wondered if Cazador chose her because he knew he could use her pain. And now, seeing you here with Gale and your daughter—”

“Adopted daughter,” Astarion was quick to add. As though the distinction really mattered. As though he needed to maintain his separation from Leon and Aurelia in this regard, out of respect for the magnitude of their loss.

That brought a fragile smile to the sorcerer's lips. “A real family all the same. As much as it wounds me to see in them a reminder of what I might have had . . . what I did have once . . . I don't begrudge you it. After all you suffered, you deserve to be loved, and at peace—”

“We all deserve that, Leon.”

“Now, I do know you well enough to know you don't mean that. Not entirely. Not deep down.”

Leon did not need to speak its name aloud for Astarion to feel the specter of shame join them in their conversation. Shame for what they were on the most fundamental level. Such quintessential shame, even their very cells knew it and could not stand in the warm light of the sun.

“But I do envy you your good fortune. We all would like someone to look at us and see anything but a monster, the way they look at you. Your second chance gives us hope we might yet find someone to love us for what we are. Or perhaps I should say, in spite of what we are. As Gale does you.”

It seemed there was more that Leon wasn't saying, more than he professed. When he spoke of their pasts under Cazador, there was no ulterior motive nestled between his words. (And how Leon could manage to speak that man's name without it being a curse on his lips was beyond Astarion.) Surely he and the others had not come all this way just to reminisce. Though it seemed they were keen to remind Astarion where he came from.

The question was why.

“What is this really about, Leon?”

Astarion stopped in his stride, forcing Leon to turn and face him. Whatever warmth his youngest brother had sought to engender between them turned to ice in Astarion's heart the more certain he was of his own instincts.

“You didn't come here to toast my happiness, any more than you came to see if Gale had any other vamp-curious siblings I could set you three up with. No luck there, by the way. He's an only child.”

If Leon had denied it in that moment, Astarion might have been content to believe him—or at very least, to go on politely keeping up the lie that his siblings truly cared about his well-being.

But the mask of befuddlement fell from his brother's face as Leon shut his eyes. It took everything in Astarion not to raise his clenched fists.

“We wanted to be sure,” Leon said, “that this affection between you and your new family was genuine—”

“Of course it's genuine!” Astarion spat. “What, did you think I had bewitched them, like when we were Cazador's thralls?”

Judging by the way Leon stared back, that was exactly what he had suspected.

“This is outrageous— I swear to you, Leon, I have not manipulated them into caring for me. Our arrangement is as much their choice as it is mine. And for you to come here and claim the likes of us deserve love, while clearly not believing we are capable of earning it on our own, is—” Infuriating. Insulting. Understandable, given that at one point, years ago, there was truth to it. “It's fucking hypocritical, to say the least!”

“What was I supposed to think, Astarion? You drink their blood. Don't deny it, I can smell them on you.”

“No. Only Gale's.” The thought of tasting Arabella's blood was every bit as repulsive to Astarion as it no doubt was to Leon. “The girl is,” he waved his hand in dismissive circles in the air, “affectionate with me. That must be how I picked up her scent. And I would never take Gale's blood without his permission—nor more than he can afford to give. He gives it freely, if you can believe it. In fact, he's usually the one to offer.”

“Weren't you the one who insisted we sustain ourselves on beasts and criminals?”

In response to Dalyria's eagerness to taste the blood of intelligent creatures, yes.

“And I have. For the most part. What Gale and I have is . . .” Astarion searched for a good metaphor, but none came readily to mind that didn't make Gale out to be food. “Look, we're both consenting adults who knew full well what we were getting into. Ask him yourself, if you won't take my word for it.

“But whatever else he is, the one thing he is not is my victim. Arabella is not my victim. And I resent the accusation that that's all they could be.”

Leon studied his face a moment more. And though Astarion could not feel any tip-toeing through his thoughts, he wondered how seriously his sorcerous brother was contemplating reading his mind.

At last Leon said, “I believe you,” and relaxed.

Astarion must have grown complacent in the last few years if he did not realize until then just how poised Leon had been to attack. Come to think of it, he hadn't had his siblings searched when they arrived at the party. He had no idea how many weapons the three had brought into his mother-in-law's home, though he was now certain they all had daggers, at the very least, concealed on their persons. In addition to their fangs and, in Leon's case, spells.

In short, they had come if not expecting, certainly prepared for trouble.

“I don't believe this,” Astarion exhaled. “You came here to test me. Didn't you? And if I didn't pass, then, what, were you going to put me down in front of all these guests like a rabid dog? Does Sebastian know what you were prepared to do?”

“You were the one who involved a child, Astarion. And given your history—”

“Fuck you, Leon! You know damn well I have never bitten a child!”

“Given your history,” Leon persisted, “we had to be sure you posed no danger to her.”

Astarion froze. For if he was sure of one thing, it was that he hadn't mentioned Arabella in his replies to Sebastian's letters. “You've been watching us. Gods. How long have you been in Waterdeep?”

“Less than a tenday.” Leon looked away as he said it. Not proud of his subterfuge, Astarion was at least pleased to see. “Long enough to have serious concerns about the way you're conducting your life here.”

“Well, I hope our little celebration tonight has been enough to allay them for you! Or at very least demonstrate that you are woefully outnumbered if you attempt to abduct me again.”

“Don't insult my intelligence, brother. If we truly believed you were a threat, you would not have seen us coming.”

“Spoken like someone who has some experience in these matters.” And now the picture of Leon's life after Cazador finally came together. Astarion was only sorry he hadn't seen it earlier in the evening. “You've become a godsdamned vampire hunter.”

To Leon's credit, he did not deny it.

“Aurelia, too? And Violet?” Poor sweet, beautiful, vicious Violet. Was she another accomplice, or victim? “You haven't said a word about her.”

“Violet returned to the stage. It would appear the life of a singer is well adapted to the nighttime. I have no desire to keep her from pursuing what makes her happy, so long as she exercises discretion.”

“But you managed to rope Sebastian into your schemes, didn't you? I take it he's not just tagging along as your plus-one. After all, this may be his best chance to avenge himself on the man who gave him to the Devil.”

“He— He didn't require much in the way of convincing, it's true. But that's because a part of him, despite everything, still cares about you and doesn't want you to suffer. And if you would just calm down and think about it for one moment,” Leon said to his sibling's impatient scoff, “surely you would see that we have only done what was necessary.”

“Then by all means,” Astarion growled, “elucidate it for me, Leon, because it sounds as though you've turned on your own kind! I always knew you despised what Cazador made you—what he made you do, night after night, just to stay in his good graces. But what ever gave you the right to decide for all the rest of that bastard's children how they get to cope with what he made them to be?”

“Because we're monsters, Astarion!” Leon hissed back, closing the gap between them. “We're worse than animals—we're slaves to our hunger, little better than gnolls! At least I recognize that. At least when Cazador's commandments were in place, most of us were too afraid of the consequences to ever step out of line and taste what was forbidden to us.

“But you released us of that fear when you stuck a dagger through his heart. And not all of his spawn have managed to behave themselves with their freedom. Some outright refuse to. They believe drinking the blood of sapient creatures is what they were made for—that it's their right to indulge their true nature whenever, and on whomever, they please.”

Gale had told him something similar, when he'd first convinced Astarion that he need not feel ashamed to drink his blood. But that was a different set of circumstances entirely. Or so Astarion desperately needed to believe.

“Vampires like that,” Leon said, “are a bloody menace to us all. When the bodies start turning up in barns and alleyways, drained, with the telltale marks on their throats—when the pets and the children go missing, who do you think suffers from the pogroms that follow?”

Astarion could not look at him. Nor could he trust himself to answer. The type of vampire Leon described—Astarion could only see himself in it. Luring desperate drunks and adventurers from their beds. Stealing the Gur children from their camp, from their families. It didn't matter that he had done so for Cazador, because he was afraid of the punishment that would come down on him should he refuse. It didn't matter that he'd been careful to take the ones who wouldn't be missed. Or if they were, would not be missed by anyone the authorities would listen to.

“Then the spawn who met unfortunate ends,” he said to Leon, “you and Aurelia were responsible for some of them.”

“We did what we had to. So that the rest of our family, those who've learned to master their hunger, can continue to exist in peace alongside the living.”

At least Leon didn't say he was proud of what he did.

But even if he had, would Astarion have been able to blame him? Had he any right to judge, after leaving them all—seven thousand starving souls—to their own devices?

“If you were in our position, Astarion, if you'd seen what we have, I trust you would come to the same conclusion.”

Astarion wanted very much to tell Leon he was wrong about that, but he couldn't be sure. “There, you see, that's why I left the spawn in more capable hands. You clearly have more faith in me than I do.”

Desperate to put an end to this torment, he stalked past Leon, rounding the far side of the garden and heading back toward the party. The warm twinkle of candlelight and the murmur of overlapping conversations never seemed such a refuge to Astarion as they did now, knowing that once he and Leon were back within earshot of the other guests, it would be unwise to continue this line of talk.

But before they could reach that point, Arabella and her group of friends caught Leon's eye. In particular Kardelen, whose vampiric nature he recognized in an instant, with a start.

“Whose is she?” he asked Astarion. “Not one of ours.”

It was a moment before Astarion remembered Kardelen's immaculate porcelain face would have given her away as not one of Cazador's spawn. He could never forgive that man for what he had done to Sebastian's beauty, and to so many children's youth and innocence. The scars marking them as sacrifices for a ritual that never was, yet they would carry those marks with them eternally. Or however long their eternity lasted. In many ways, it was a kindness Astarion got to carry his on his back.

“I don't know,” he began, “but I suspect one of the vampire lords of Erlkazar might've been responsible for her. She's the daughter of—”

The temptation to say the Caleph Arcane of Calimport was strong. To put a target on Irik el Majizar's back and send his own siblings to hunt the man down, exact revenge on his behalf. Eliminate one past hurt, and put a considerable distance between his siblings and his home here in Waterdeep at the same time.

Astarion could not say what impulse stopped him from doing so. Perhaps he just wanted to forget what had happened in Calimport entirely.

“A man who swore revenge on all vampires,” he told Leon, “for the death of his child.”

That barb had no trouble finding its mark. Leon let out a long and weary sigh.

“I do not do what I do because I crave vengeance, Astarion. Nor does Aurelia, or Sebastian. We do it to protect our brothers and sisters. And if I can prevent what happened to my daughter from befalling another child, all the better. If I can prevent another parent from experiencing my loss, I will.”

“And what of your victims? They were your siblings, too. Where was protection when they needed it?”

“If they drew our ire, it was only because they could not or would not control their hunger. Nothing more, nothing less. I want to live in the light just as much as you do, brother. But our place is in the shadows. So long as we remember that and stay in the dark, we are safe. Those who threaten that anonymity, threaten all of us. And if you still saw yourself as one of us, instead of masquerading as a surface-dwelling elf, you would see that I was right.”

Astarion blinked at him, stunned as if slapped. As if any vampire could deny what they were. Every storm drain running swift with rain water, every door casually left open to them, every godsdamned sunrise reminded them just what they were. They could never forget their altered nature. And Leon had the gall to come here uninvited and accuse Astarion of pretending he was something other than what he was—playing at being elf.

“Call me what you like, Leon,” he hissed through his teeth, “at least I'm not a killer of my own kind.”

“And Cazador was what, then?”

“You know that was different. It was—”

“Justice? A righteous kill? I suppose you'd also like me to believe you did it for us. As if the old you wouldn't have betrayed us all if it had suited you to do so. With nary a second thought.”

“After you ambushed me here tonight, I'm starting to wonder if I should have.”

If he allowed himself, Astarion could still recall how it felt to hold Cazador's staff in his hands—the sheer power of the ritual already begun that had coursed through it into him. The spell wanting to be completed, it did not matter by whom. Hardly a tenday went by when he did not think about that power, and wonder how his life would be different if he had become the vampire ascendant.

And shudder that the temptation still held such sway over him, even years later, surrounded by all the comforts of the life he'd made for himself in Waterdeep. It shamed him to think what a small part his concern for his siblings had played in his ultimate decision.

It shamed him more that he did not feel as guilty about that as he should have.

If Leon knew what dark thoughts troubled Astarion, his face did not betray it.

“Then let me pay for what your indecisiveness has brought us to, seeing as you still lack the stomach for it. At least we can both agree the living shouldn't have to.”

“You two were gone quite a while, Astarion,” Shadowheart remarked when he returned to the party, Leon trailing at his heels. “Your siblings were just telling us about their journey up from Baldur's Gate.”

“Were they?” Astarion's frigid tone was lost on none of them as he skewered Aurelia and Sebastian in turn with his stare. “Well. I do hope they managed to get in all the exciting bits, because it's past time they were leaving.”

“Something the matter?” Karlach asked him.

“That depends.” And Astarion turned around to ask his youngest brother, with politeness balanced on a knife's edge: “Do we have a problem, Leon?”

Leon had only to look around him at Astarion's friends to know he and his two companions were outmatched. The Blade of Avernus may have been without his blade this evening, but his deadly reputation still preceded him. Nor would it have been wise to cross a former cleric of Shar, or find out what creative uses Karlach might invent for her cocktail fork. To say nothing of what Gale of Waterdeep might be persuaded to do if he thought his husband was being threatened.

Thankfully, Leon had no desire to see violence done to these fine folk, let alone fall victim to it himself.

“Not at all,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. “I think my brother and I said all we needed to each other. In any case, I hear there are plenty more parties across the city tonight where we might find ourselves a warmer reception. But you enjoy your celebrations, Astarion. You've earned them.”

And excusing himself with a nod of his head, he turned and led the other two in a hasty exit.

Though not before Sebastian could say to Gale, “It really was a pleasure to meet you again, saer.”

When they had gone, Astarion seized the cup out of Gale's hands and downed its contents, cringing at the acrid taste even as the wine warmed his belly and calmed his nerves. He would require a lot more than one cup if he were to drink away everything Leon had said to him, but it was a start.

“Are you alright?” Gale asked him.

The answer to that was clear for all of them to see. But Astarion assured him in a low voice, “Fine. We'll discuss it later,” as explicit a hint as anyone needed that he would not be persuaded to go into it further.

“With any luck,” said Wyll, “it will be some time before those three darken your doorstep again.”

“Yes, let's hope they learned their lesson.”

But it did not escape Gale's notice how Astarion's gaze drifted time and again to the front door, even after the levity had returned to their conversation. Nor would he turn his back to it. As if he expected his siblings to change their minds and come marching back through it for him at any moment.

Chapter Text

“My mum and pops didn't have a star when we lived in Elturel,” Arabella said as she craned her neck up to the night sky. “I don't think it's a very common tradition there. I'd never even heard of Simril before Beard Man brought me to Waterdeep. But now that I'm officially a Dekarios, I can point to that sort of green-looking one over there and say it's mine. Hmm, or is it that bluish one . . .?”

“Seems to me you've found it one way or another,” said Shadowheart. “Surely that still counts in Tymora's eyes.”

Arabella wanted to believe she was right, for surely if you could trust anyone where god matters were concerned, it was a cleric. “Does your family have a star?” she asked Kardelen.

“We do.” Kardelen scanned that tapestry of twinkling lights, but being unable to find the right constellation to guide her, had to admit defeat. “I'm just not sure it can be seen above the horizon in this hemisphere this time of year.”

“Luckily Tymora is only a goddess of good fortune,” Laeral assured them from her settee, “and there are no penalties for being unable to find your star. Just as there would be none on a cloudy night, or if Selûne's silver orb were blocking the way. Which is why most of us Waterdhavians view Simriltide stargazing as little more than an amusing party game. Though I have been to some parties where the competition got quite heated.”

“Were spells involved?” Arabella asked.

“Oh, yes. To the point the competitors had to be polymorphed before they could turn into combatants!”

The Blackstaff students had all gone home long ago, and most of the adult guests had moved on to other festivities across the city. Gale and Astarion were the last to say their goodbyes, the rest of Shadowheart's old traveling companions having left some hours before to see what other Waterdhavian traditions they might partake in. If Shadowheart hadn't overdone it on the mulled wine, she might have joined them in braving the Yawning Portal.

Then again, on a night like this, the infamous tavern was bound to be stuffed to the rafters with raucous revelers. Some quiet time in, bundled up for a midnight picnic in Gale's mother's garden with Arabella, Tara, and the Open Lord of Waterdeep—who was refreshingly down-to-earth for the daughter of a goddess—was about all the excitement Shadowheart's pounding head could take.

Not to mention the vampling Kardelen and her two guards, the latter of whom could not have been comfortable spending such a cold night in metal armor. But one had to admire their dedication. They refused to stray far from their mistress, even as they yawned into their gambesons and fought to keep their eyes open.

“Here, to warm you up,” Morena said to them in their own tongue when she returned from the kitchen, handing each in turn a steaming mug. And to their suspicious looks, “It won't make you drowsy, I assure you. I thought you ladies might appreciate a taste of home after a long night's watch.”

It was more than just the invigorating aroma of the coffee that made the brass-mailed women sit up a bit straighter on their footstools. “How is it you know Alzhedo?” one of them asked her in Common. “You speak it as if you were Calim-born yourself.”

“That would be my son's doing,” Morena said. “He studied High Calishite when he was a student at Blackstaff Academy and desperately needed someone to practice with. So I decided to take it up, learning from local expats what his books couldn't teach me. To this day I'm afraid I know little more than how to order cuts of meat or lengths of cloth, or comment on the weather.”

“You are far too modest, ma'am,” the guard insisted. To which Tara put in her two coin from where she sat between the girls: “And Gale's Alzhedo is still as hopeless as ever, I'm sorry to say.”

Morena came round to Shadowheart next, handing her a mug from which wafted a nostalgic aroma of licorice and peppermint. “There's a bit of willow bark in there as well, dear,” she said with a sympathetic glimmer in her warm brown eyes. “For your head.”

Thanks hardly seemed like payment enough. Morena had known just what she'd needed without Shadowheart speaking a word. But then, she was probably used to brewing the same concoction for Gale each Simril. In fact, after spending the evening surrounded by his mother's generosity, it seemed to Shadowheart that no one could say Gale had fallen too far from the proverbial tree.

“Is there any truth to what Gale likes to tell us, Morena,” she asked as the woman in question took her seat beside Laeral, “about the Dekarios clan being descended from an ancient Calishite princess?”

“Now that,” Morena said, with an intelligently raised finger that struck Shadowheart and Arabella as curiously familiar, “or should I say, the precise details of that, depend on which side of the family you believe. But according to the legend most can agree on, she fled north to Waterdeep during the Throne Wars that followed Syl-pasha Malik el Majizar's assassination.”

“Wait.” Arabella exchanged a surprised look with Kardelen. “Gran, does that mean you and Kardelen might actually be related?”

“Well, if we are, it is only very distantly.”

Morena talked a bit more of this and that, her lyrical voice easily distracting Shadowheart from her hangover while the tea soothed its symptoms.

Until at last Laeral had to excuse herself. “There are appearances an Open Lord is expected to make before festivities have ended, and I've put them off as long as I can.” And she embraced Morena and kissed her cheek before she stood, as one does a sister.

“I'd best be off as well, I suppose,” Shadowheart sighed, burrowing down further into her borrowed quilt to absorb as much heat as possible for the walk back to the Selûnite temple.

But Morena would hear none of it. “You'll do no such thing, young lady. I insist you stay here with me, at least until you've recovered. We have so much to catch up on. I should very much like to hear about your dear parents. And the family menagerie.”

“Can Kardelen stay the day, too?” Arabella piped up. She wasn't keen for their time together to end so soon. And by the way Kardelen turned in Morena's direction at the suggestion, her face bright with hope, neither was she.

“I don't see why not,” said Tara, “as long as it's alright with her sponsor in the city.”

“And her guardians, of course,” Morena said with a glance at the two armored women.

It seemed even they were reluctant to take leave of Morena Dekarios's hospitality. However, before they could commit to an answer either way: “We will require an interior room. With heavy curtains if it must have windows. It is paramount not even a beam of direct sunlight be allowed to get through.”

“Might magical darkness do the trick?” Shadowheart offered.

“No,” the guard shook her head, “in this case that is not enough.”

“That is quite alright,” Morena was eager to allay her concern. “It wouldn't be my first time playing host to a vampire.”

She'd observed the care these young women had shown their charge all evening, and understood they did so not merely out of duty to the girl's father and his position, but out of respect and loyalty to Kardelen herself. Some might have found it morally questionable to show such devotion to an undead creature, but not Morena.

“My own son-in-law has passed many a day in this house without incident. So never you fear. I have just the place for your mistress where no sunlight will reach her.”

The squares and promenades of Waterdeep were dotted with bonfires that night, each one ringed by revelers trying to stay warm near the flames, their hands clasped around cups of hot mulled wine the many vendors never seemed to run dry of. A man nearby played a concertina, and a few of the stargazers sang along to the well-known tune, cajoling whoever else they could to join in. Whether they knew the concertinist or not was impossible to say. Nor did it matter. Everyone was family on a night like tonight.

A log settled inside the bonfire with a loud crack, and plumes of sparks flew up. There was laughter, cheers. Some folks took a step back. “Daddy, daddy,” came a little girl's voice, “look, fire pixies!”

“Yes, honey bear, I see them.”

She must have been four or five years old. Surely no older than six. Far too young to be up at this hour. But then a night of such magic as this had a way of tickling a child's imagination awake long past their usual bedtime. Well bundled against the chill, she bounced on her father's shoulders as he joined in the song, his breath steaming in the frigid air.

But her eyes were glued to the dancing flames, watching to see if more pixie sparks would come out. And in the glow of the fire, the locks of her hair that had come loose from her hood shone like golden threads. The way hers had at that innocent age.

“Copper for your thoughts.”

Leon glanced over as Sebastian sat down beside him, the night cold enough that even he felt the need to press shoulder to shoulder for some semblance of warmth, and rub his bare hands together.

“I was just thinking Victoria would have loved a night like this,” Leon told him. “Would that I could have shared it with her, when I still had the chance.” She would have been a young woman grown by now. Far too big to bounce on his shoulders, but big enough to drink a toast to the new year with her old dad.

“I'm sorry,” Sebastian said. “I shouldn't have pried—”

“Don't be. It's good to have someone to remember her to.” Even if every time Leon did so, he felt as though another piece of his heart was being carved out with a rusted spoon.

But he clapped a hand on Sebastian's knee to show there were no hard feelings, and forced a smile to his lips as he met the other's eyes, whose usual warning red hue was changed to liquid amber by the firelight.

“The day I no longer wish to speak her name will be the day I've given up.”

“And this swill is supposed to help?” Sebastian reached over to snatch the cup out of Leon's other hand, and gave its contents a dubious sniff. “It can't possibly taste the way you remember it.”

“No,” it was quite horrid, if Leon were honest. Like spiced piss and vinegar. “But it gets the job done. If you drink enough of it.”

That earned him a dark laugh. “Sometimes I forget it wasn't so long ago you were alive.”

The mood he was in, Leon would take even that. Sometimes he forgot Sebastian was technically his elder by a century and a half. He still had the manner of an ingenu about him. Perhaps having spent all those years locked in a cell and starved of blood had preserved his innocence to some degree. He had not been forced to debase himself night after night to avoid Godey's rack, or choked down the congealed blood of dead cats which had often passed for Leon's supper.

And yet, even knowing what he did, if offered his choice of the two Leon would still choose the path he'd been given, with its illusion of freedom, every time. He could not begin to imagine the hell Sebastian had made it through trapped within those same four walls, somehow with his sanity and kindness intact. Not all of them had been so lucky.

Which made Leon all the more grateful for the very real freedom they had now. Perhaps he did have Astarion to thank for that. A second chance to forge his own destiny, not bound by any master. And what was more, to watch Sebastian rediscover the world that had moved on without him, as if seeing it through new eyes himself. When his wife was taken from him, then his child, Leon had doubted he would ever be able or willing to love another soul again. Taking his master's suppers to his bed had only served to alienate him from his fellow man even further than death had.

But sharing the travails of the road, seeking shelter together from the sun day after day, had brought him closer to the man beside him than he could have thought possible four years ago. When even the night seemed too dark to navigate, Sebastian found a way to guide him through.

“Humans,” Aurelia scoffed.

And it seemed she wasn't referring to the living who surrounded them. The two looked up to see her shaking her head at them, albeit fondly, a hand on her cocked hip. Looking like a proper devil in the bonfire's orange glow.

“And where have you been?” Leon asked her.

“Hunting for a snack.” By which she did not mean roasted chestnuts. Aurelia hardly bothered to disguise the hunger in her gaze as it passed over each reveler in turn, sizing them up. “All these warm bodies pressed together, steaming in the open air, and I haven't had a full belly since that bear we caught outside Daggerford. It's maddening.”

“We could pay a visit to that cheesemonger Dekarios recommended,” said Sebastian, but Aurelia quickly vetoed the motion.

“Don't feel like beef. Do you? Surely Waterdeep has its share of rapists and muggers prowling the streets on a night like this.”

“That have already been marked by Waterdeep's vampires, no doubt. They've been watching us all evening. Haven't you noticed?”

By the way Aurelia and Leon looked at him, with curious expressions on their faces, Sebastian took that as a no. He couldn't help a little smirk. “You two have forgotten what it's like to be prey. Even now I can feel their eyes on the back of my neck.”

Leon must have been distracted indeed if he hadn't noticed they were being tailed. Or else the vampires of Waterdeep were simply that much better than Cazador's brood at keeping themselves hidden. Either way, it would be foolish to cross them in their own territory. If not deadly. He might be willing to risk the city watch for a tipple, but not them.

“There'll be plenty of cutthroats outside the city walls, Aurelia,” he assured her. “Gods know they never have any trouble finding us on the road.”

Perhaps it was best if they left Waterdeep sooner rather than later. Not even the longest night of the year would last forever, and they wanted to be outside the gates and bedded down safe before sunrise.

They could scarcely have cut their return to the tower any closer. By the time they made it to the bedroom floor, a trail of winter cloaks and gloves and toed-off boots left in their wake, the late-Nightal sky was beginning to lighten around the horizon.

Gale let out a triumphant “ha!” at the sight, before cinching the heavy curtains more firmly shut. “I might actually stay awake long enough to see the sunrise this year.”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves, darling,” Astarion said, shrugging out of his brocade jacket and tugging loose his cravat. “It's early yet, and you did have an excessive amount to drink, even for a Simril night.”

“I suppose it wouldn't be seemly of me to call Shadowheart a bad influence. Gods, I forgot how she can put it away!”

“That's no excuse for you and Wyll to try to keep up with her.” Humans. With their delicate constitutions. Would they ever learn to stay within their limits?

Gale had been fumbling with the clasps of his robes while he made his way back around to Astarion's side of the bed. But he took a break from it as he drew near, all the better to loop his arms about Astarion's waist and hold him close. His swimming eyes struggled to stay focused on Astarion's lips.

“It can't have been easy for you,” he murmured, “watching us all get absolutely sozzled on nog. After the patience you've shown me tonight, I'd say you've more than earned yourself a drink.”

That was certainly the most conciliatory offer of blood Astarion had heard in a while. He tucked a stray lock of hair back behind Gale's ear, and couldn't be blamed if his attention was pulled toward the seductive curve of Gale's throat, already half unwrapped for him beneath the robe's loosened collar. The pounding of Gale's blood resonated through Astarion everywhere they touched, and he would have been lying if he said he didn't yearn to taste it.

But Leon's words to him earlier chose that moment to worm their way back into his thoughts, and temptation turned to revulsion in Astarion's gut.

Still, he was careful to keep the mask of domestic bliss in place. None of this was Gale's fault—not what Astarion was, nor how he felt about it. Nor was Astarion particularly in a mood to explain himself.

“Ehh, another time. Do you really think it wise to open a vein when you're so,” he trailed the back of his fingers down the side of Gale's neck, “thoroughly marinated?”

The shiver beneath his touch was almost as delicious as the first bite. “Perhaps not. Good point.”

“Oh, I'm full of those, my love.”

And just to prove it, Astarion tipped his head to capture Gale's lips in a toothy kiss. Gale gasped against him at the sharp dig of a canine, not quite hard enough to break the tender skin, and tugged at the tails of Astarion's shirt as he let himself be guided back toward the bed.

“Besides,” Astarion purred, leaning down over him, “Arabella will be at your mother's all day,” pressing open-mouthed kisses down from where Gale's pulse beat wildly, “and if I know Tara,” to the fragrant junction of his shoulder, “she'll want to stay and catch up. It isn't often these days we have the tower all to ourselves. I intend to make the most of it—which will be a whole lot easier if you're not lying here anemic.”

Gale's chuckle was lost in a blissful moan, and he tried his best to help Astarion shimmy him out of his robe without discouraging his mouth's explorations. “As long as that's all it is. Here I was worried you were abstaining because of something Leon said.”

Astarion pulled back before he could stop himself. “Why would you think that?”

He grasped once more for his most charming smile, leaned back in to smother any answer in a firm kiss. But he should have known it was already too late.

“Because I know my husband,” Gale managed to elude him well enough to say. “And you tend to get funny about drinking my blood after someone makes you feel guilty for it.”

In an instant Astarion was back on his feet, glowering down at him.

“Funny?” There was nothing amusing about his choice to abstain. Nor whatever reasons he might have for doing so. “How is it any business of yours how I feel about my appetites!”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Astarion wished he could take them back. Of course it was Gale's business. They were in this together. But he couldn't bring himself to apologize for the outburst any more than he could simply will away his offense. Old instincts had already kicked in. Put some distance between you and the threat, and prepare for the next attack. He could not help what two centuries of conditioning had made him.

In any case, the mood was as good as dead. Anger darkened Gale's eyes as he sat up on the edge of the bed, though at least Astarion knew his husband well enough to know it was not aimed at him.

“What did he say to you?”

No use denying it. The gremishka was out of the bag now.

Astarion heaved a sigh. “About what you'd expect, really. Just reminded me where I came from. Made sure I understood what would happen to me if I ever harmed you or Arabella.”

He could not meet Gale's eyes as he said it.

“As if we had anything to fear from you,” Gale said.

“Yes, well, you and I know that.”

Perhaps Leon was right. Perhaps Astarion had become too inured to the comfortable existence he had here in Waterdeep. “Don't get me wrong. These past four years with you have almost been happy enough to make me forget the two hundred that came before. But not everyone is as understanding as you are. Most people will only ever see me as some bloodthirsty monster—no, don't argue with me on this, Gale, please,” he muttered, grinding his teeth, “you know they do, once they learn what I am.”

“You are so much more than what Cazador made you, Astarion.”

Gale still bristled at the word “monster.” Despite Astarion's plea, it took all his self-restraint not to deny it.

“But I am also what he made me,” Astarion was quick to remind him. “If I'm going to be better than my nature—and I do want to be better—then I first have to accept that. You can put a parasite in my skull to let me stand in the sun, or a magic ring on my finger, but that doesn't cure me of my hunger. I can't pretend that what I am isn't something fundamentally different from all the living around me. Something . . . unnatural. Gods know the rest of the world won't let me forget it.”

They could not afford a repeat of what had happened in Calimport. Nor could they risk giving the impression to Astarion's siblings or Waterdeep's own vampires that he posed a threat. His life with Gale was still only beginning, and he intended for it to be a long one.

“All of which is to say, I may need to be more careful about my drinking habits than I have been of late. For my family's sake as well as my own. All the more so if you're going to be teaching impressionable young wizards again.”

“Gods,” Gale groaned, “can we at least agree to cross that particular bridge some other morning?”

He extended a hand, a gesture of peace as much as an invitation for Astarion to join him on the bed. Their blood may have cooled for the time being, but the day was only just beginning. And with no one to tiptoe around this morning, they could take things as slow as they pleased. Even stay in bed all day if they so wished. Just as they had when they'd first settled in Waterdeep.

“It's a pity Leon had to come all this way and antagonize his in-laws,” Gale said as they scooted and crawled their way to the center of the coverlet. “In sunnier days I would have liked the chance to pick his brain, one conductor of the Weave to another. I must admit I'm curious to know how his transformation into a vampire affected his sorcery.”

“I'm sure you two would have got on as famously as you did with the Caleph Arcane.”

“Mm, not my proudest couple of days.” Least of all the part where he'd tried to bargain for Astarion's life over a game of lanceboard. Going on seven months later and Gale could still hardly look at the board in his library without feeling sick with shame for how insensitive he had been to Astarion's suffering.

In light of that, he could stand to be more supportive when Astarion declined his blood. To not take it so personally, nor try to love or reason Astarion out of his guilt. They were both entitled to indulge in that vice from time to time.

“To be fair, he's not exactly the Leon I remember,” Astarion said, settling against Gale's side. “Although if I'm honest, I'm not sure I ever knew him very well.”

“Four years are enough to change anyone. Especially when they've taken on the sort of burdens he and Aurelia have.”

Astarion couldn't be sure how much his older sister had told Gale and his friends, though he doubted she would have mentioned the part where she had become a hunter of other vampires. Whatever Gale did or did not know could wait, however. Arabella and Morena deserved to hear the news about his siblings, too, and Astarion wasn't sure he wanted to tell it more than once.

“Have I changed?”

Gale gave that question far too much thought for Astarion's liking. “You're certainly more empathetic than the stab-first, help-others-later rogue I first met beside the Chionthar.”

“Says the pompous know-it-all wizard! So, I've gone soft is what you're saying.”

“Oh, I don't think soft is such a bad thing,” Gale said with a wry smile in his voice. “For what it's worth, if our little adventures over the summer have proven anything, it's that I still think you're fetching covered in blood. Now, what does that make me?”

“Hmm. My better half?”

Whatever witty riposte Astarion was expecting never came. Gale's breathing had already begun to slow and deepen under his ear. While outside the tower, another year's shortest day dawned unseen by those within.