The Last Light of Dawn: An Astarion and Dark Urge FanFiction

Chapter 3

Her heart held out for longer than he thought it would. Astarion should not have been surprised, she always couls take more sugfering and torture than he thought possible. He wasn't sure how long they sat there. Or when he stopped talking. His voice faded until the only noises were the rain and her heart, going ever faster like a prey animal he drained dry.

The rhythm sped up until it turned into almost a dull hum. This was it. One last spasm, one last horrible, rattling gasp and then...stillness. Quiet. A silence that hurt his ears.

"At least you won't be in pain anymore, darling." He kissed her already cooling forehead. His body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. All he wanted was to curl in a ball and never move from this spot ever again. But he couldn't do that. He still had work to do.

He forced his body to remember how to move, how to get first on one foot, then another, then to push himself to stand. With a deep breath, he brushed the dirt off and straightened his doublet. "Not much left to do," he whispered. Then he reached for the shovel.

...

"Just how many gothic monstrosities are in this city?" Romulus's palace was as dark and forboding as Cazador's, even in the daytime. Alan'na and her new companions stood well away from a wrought iron gate. The spindly spires were made of some sort of dark stone that almost glistened in the sunlight. They reminded Alan'na of long fingernails that pierced the sky.

"You said this Romulus is a vampire," Varra pointed out. "They're drawn to tall, dark, and creepy. I'm sure if your spawn wanted to move in anywhere, it would be in a place like this."

"You aren't wrong," Alan'na admitted. "Though I think sleeping in a bed that does not remind him of his abuser is still preferable." She doubted he would like to live in Cazador's palace as much as she would like in the Temple of Bhaal. Too many bad memories. And the food would be just terrible.

"We'll need to find a back door," she continued, focusing on the task at hand. "I don't fancy taking a fight head on."

Varra blinked. "Why don't you just turn into an owlbear and flatten him?"

Davrin's eyes became so wide, Alan'na thought he might turn into a frog. "Romulus didn't tell me you were a druid."

"You weren't told a lot about me, were you? If you had been, you might have reconsidered this mission." If he had known what she was, what she had been, he would have been halfway to the Risen Road by now.

His indifferent shrug confirmed her suspicions. "Let's just say I needed the coin more than I needed the details."

"And what are you going to do now that you won't get the coin you would have gotten for me?"

"That's the thing with my line of work," he said. "No matter what happens, no matter what side I'm on, there will always be coin."

Varra began pacing back and forth as they spoke. "If we are done yapping about sudden and inevitable betrayals, I would like to move on," she snapped. "We are wasting daylight. I would rather not be caught here after the sun sets."

"Well, if we waited until sunset, we could just walk right in the front door. This man has parties almost every night, I'm told. The grounds are lined with the carriages of nobles, sometimes out into the street. Though I will never understand how a drow of all things got this much power. He isn't even nobility, and he gets so many women."

"He's a vampire," was all Varra said. A simple answer that explained many things.

"Right." Alan'na rolled her shoulders back and began giving her body some warm-up streteches. "We're here to scope the place out. You two wait here and I will see about getting all of us in. I'd say a raven fits right into a place like this, don't you think?" Before anyone could stop her, she took the familiar stance, gathering the forces of nature in her palms. With a few words, her human form was shed away, skin replaced with pitch black feathers, arms replaced with wings. With a final caw to her companions, she jumped into the air.