Your Dark Gospel (Complete)

Chapter Eighteen

Astarion

The sounds of a new day permeated their tent, filling it with the soft rhythm of distant conversations as the drow tended to their morning chores. Despite the festivities lasting through the night and well into the early morning hours, it seemed they had little need of rest. The beginning of another day filled Astarion with unease. He wanted to shut everything out—to exist in the timeless moment with Elira fast asleep beside him for just a little while longer.

The bustle outside caused her to stir.

He watched as her eyes began to flutter, fanning the flames of their now dissolving moment in time. Soon they would rise and dress and leave whatever this was behind.

Gods, he didn't want to let go. The path that lay before them was several layers deep of pure shit. Even if they survived the beast that had the drow so frightened, there was still the plan to rob Mephistopheles blind. What were the odds they would live through it and ever hold each other again?

Would she even want to?

He hadn't slept. Not since he'd woken to a blade at his throat. He couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said the night before, about how she wanted to break free from her father. Between their lust for blood and yearning for freedom, he was beginning to realize just how alike they were.

Of course, the threat of another potential murder taking place also kept his eyelids decidedly open, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she slept curled against him. It felt... nice having her close, being able to wrap his arms around her waist and revel in the silence of their togetherness. He'd never slept with his victims, not in a literal sense. Cazador had always taken them away once the entertaining was finished.

She blinked at him, awareness creeping back in.

He reached forward and slid a strand of hair away from her eyes.

He wanted to kiss her.

"Tell me about this... book of Thay." His lips betrayed him.

She yawned and stretched her neck, then twisted her body so that they were lying face to face. "It's a necromancy," she said, eyes like frozen spheres of ice. "According to the Wizard I hired, you do remember Gale?"

Astarion nodded, lifting his hand and wriggling the finger that held the gold ring. "How could I forget?"

"He says it's imbued with ancient power. It will yield only to the reader it finds worthy of its secrets?"

Great. Another barrier. "And, naturally, we assume it will find you worthy?"

"What's more worthy than freeing a vampire spawn from his master?"

Astarion's brows furrowed. "But that's not all you want with it, is it?"

"I want to use it to raise every corpse in Baldur's Gate." Elira's tone was low and casual, despite the weight of her words.

"There are thousands of souls laid to rest in that cemetery."

"Exactly," Elira answered. "An army of undead just waiting to be risen."

"And I'm here to... what exactly? Pick a few locks?"

Some part of him wanted to hear her say that she saw something in him—a kindred flame. That she chose him over the other spawn because they were two souls longing to be free from the forces that controlled them. But that was an arrogant, stupid notion. She planned to get back in her father's good graces—not out. Whatever freedom she had once hoped for, she was no longer seeking it.