Chapter 1
The familiar sensation of cold steel against the back of my neck awoke me as if from a fever dream. It seemed like reality – the outside world, that I had all but forgotten – had caught up with me, and with it: the tip of a sword, and a raspy voice behind me, just as familiar:
”Turn around, istik. And if you prefer your head on top of your shoulders, show us to the Orphic hammer.”
I turned, the sword’s tip gracing my skin, leaving a trace of goosebumps around my throat.
I couldn’t make out their faces at first, in the backlight before the portal, its soft white glow framing their silhouettes like a halo. But I knew them, and they knew me, perhaps better than anyone in all of the worlds, except for Astarion – the thought a jab of pain – but they did not remember this. I saw it in their eyes, when finally my gaze became accustomed to the light: they had really forgotten me. Yet I felt that somehow they had come for me. I smelled Helsik’s incense on their clothes – a flash of a memory, as if from another life – they had come here via the portal in Devil’s Fee. Just like Astarion and I did.
Shadowheart, silver hair glistening in the magical light, knuckles whitening around her staff. Karlach – her menacing size and one broken horn making her silhouette instantly recognizable – with a fierce look in her fiery eyes, and a double headed axe heavy in her hands before her. Wyll Ravengard, his rapier drawn and his head held high, as if his horns were a prince’s crown. And, in the other end of the silver sword pointed at my throat: Lae’zel, awaiting my answer, her war painted face stone hard and her ember eyes glowing.
I was holding my breath, watching them. When I let it out it sounded almost like a sob.
”Oh, thank the gods”, I said, gasping, the relief was unbearable, and for a moment I saw confusion flash across Lae’zel’s brow. Then: fury. Before the tadpole in my brain sensed hers. And our minds interlinked.
Lae’zel, Karlach, Wyll, Shadowheart, they all cringed as their minds were bombarded with images, a wave of information crashing against them: everything that they had forgotten. Me, Astarion, how I had lead them through the Underdark and the Shadow-Cursed Lands. And everything that had happened to me and Astarion, here. All that we had done. Every idiotic decision, I showed them everything. Each image a jolt of pain in my chest, and when I reached the part of the story where Raphael brought us to see Mephistopheles, I broke the connection. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t.
I showed them everything, except Mizora. The heat of her body colliding with mine, the way she looked from below, the way her fangs glistened in that secret smile she had reserved for me, how impossibly tender her touch could be, and how deliciously cruel. All that I kept to myself, hidden deep inside the velvety folds of my mind. A secret they couldn’t find if they tried.
My friends cringed again, and their eyes cleared. There was a collective catching of breath. Shadowheart cradled her forehead in her hand, Wyll groaned.
For a second the sword at my throat wavered, as Lae’zel swayed, but in the next she had straightened herself, pressing the weapon’s tip against the soft flesh beneath my chin.
”What trickery is this?” she snarled, baring her fangs. ”Our minds have been played with enough, istik.”
Trying and failing to open my mouth, the blade threatening to break my skin, my eyes simply widened as I realized: she was going to kill me. Just then, everything – Astarion, what would happen to Astarion if I died – was lost.
Until Karlach stepped forth. The steamy heat surrounding her body, that I knew so well, enveloped me as she easily pushed Lae’zel aside – a hissed Githyanki curse – and pulled me into her arms.
”Good to have you back, soldier”, she said, resting her chin on my head. ”I think I missed you. Somehow.”
Oh, gods. I could let myself break then, in the tight warmth of her embrace, but I fought it. If I fell apart now I didn’t know when I would be able to pull myself together again. But I let myself breathe, just for a moment, against Karlach’s chest. As if I was safe.
Meanwhile, the realization of what had just happened seemed to settle in the rest of my companions, because I heard Wyll let out what sounded like a tired laugh.
”You are mad, Tav”, he said, sounding quite as if he couldn’t decide what he felt about what had been revealed. ”Perfectly mad.”
And I felt a pang of guilt for keeping secrets from him – a flash of Mizora’s face, the feel of her, in the furthest, darkest back of my mind – and just as Karlach let me slip out of her arms I saw Shadowheart before me. In one moment: her gray eyes like daggers, and in the next: the palm of her hand hitting the side of my face with a smart crack.
There was a gasp, I couldn’t tell whose, perhaps mine.
”How dare you?” Shadowheart demanded. And if the slap stung, the unmistakable shudder of concern in her voice was worse. ”While you two have been lounging down here, letting gods know what be done to you, the rest of us -”
”Easy now, Fringe”, Karlach tried, quite unconvincingly as Shadowheart went on, looking around her as if for someone else to scold.
”And where is that clown Astarion?! When I get my hands on him I will -”
”I lost him.”
Silence. Easy now. They all looked at me, Shadowheart’s face contorted with sadness, and I was so close to breaking out into sobs that my whole body shuddered, and I heard my voice crack dangerously. And words kept slipping out. ”He is in Cania. With Mephistopheles …” My breathing, I had to keep it in check, but I heard it quickening. I was gasping. ”I have to get him back.”
Karlach’s hand again, impossibly hot and impossibly heavy on my shoulder.
”We have to get him back”, she said, leaning down to gather my gaze – that apparently had been flickering – in hers, steadying me. ”What do you need?”
I knew exactly what I needed. My fingers had been itching for it for weeks – months now? Was time still moving? – and I could almost taste the steel of it in my mouth. So like the taste of blood. And just like that I was gathered.
”A sword”, I said, making the fire in Karlach’s eyes dance. A little smile curved the corner of her mouth.
”Do not get ahead of yourselves”, Lae’zel interrupted, still looking skeptical. ”Before anything else we require the Orphic hammer.”
I blinked.
”The what?”