Archive of Our Own ^beta

Karlach didn’t know a lot about soulmates.

That wasn’t saying much. Karlach wasn’t exactly what one would call a ‘learned individual’. Schooling was a luxury for those who could afford the classes. Even for free classes, sometimes Karlach was needed to help support her Mom and Dad for food money. And then after she’d gotten older, she’d found her own jobs she could do that brought in money.

So, most of what she knew about soulmates was passed down knowledge from other people. They weren’t a given. They were more of a weird crapshoot, a rarity in the universe. Not as uncommon as, like, six fingers on a hand, though Karlach had known a cousin like that who ended up chopping off the extra fingers because people got way more racist to tieflings the more unusual they looked. But they weren’t common. Her Mom and Dad weren’t soulmates. Her cousins didn’t have soulmates either. Karlach didn’t even know soulmates could be a thing that could happen to tieflings until her late teenage years, because it doesn’t matter how strong of heart you are; the more people tell you that you are nothing but hellspawn, the more it sinks in.

People waxed poetic about them. Of course they did. Bards got horny for that sort of shit, and Karlach was inclined to agree. People so close their souls brushed up at the edges, leaving a mark of some kind on the skin. People who worked better as a unit, in tandem, because they mirrored each other that beautifully. There were epic ballads of soulmate power couples, and soft stories of soulmates who loved other people but still built their lives around their soulmate, living side by side with each other. Souls mirroring each other in an endless reflection, slowly dissolving into that mirror green.

But also stories of people abusing their own soulmates. Tearing at their own soul because they couldn’t stand the reflection. Stories of mad wizards who sealed their soulmate in stone or imprisoned in a gem. Stories of soulmates who went mad at their soul doppelganger and tore each other into pieces and died in the attempt. Stories of soulmates using their other half as a stand-in for fairy deals gone bad.

You know. Sad stuff. Karlach wasn’t surprised by that though. She’d seen too much shit around the Gate to be surprised by the cruelties in the hearts of even ‘common, decent folk’.

Gortash had a soulmate though. Karlach had known that much before the Hells had claimed her. He’d shown her, a smear of red across his bicep.

Karlach had snorted. “That’s all you have to go off of?”

The marks were supposed to make sense when you knew the person. That you’d know the shape of the soul through the mark. But sometimes what you were supposed to be able to intuit was a mere smattering of color somewhere inappropriate to show people.

It’d seemed to Karlach that it was possible soulmates weren’t really a thing, and you just met someone who reminded you of the fancy mark you had, and you read into it. Like seeing pictures in clouds or favor in goat organs. But she couldn’t help but think it made a real pretty picture, you know?

Gortash shrugged. “I suppose.”

“How long have you had that?”

“A handful of years,” Gortash said. Even at the time, Karlach could clock him being evasive. Well, wasn’t any of her business she supposed. People got weird about soulmates, but at the time, she hadn’t seen why.

“You going to try to find them?” Karlach asked.

Gortash snorted. “No. I don’t put stock in such things. It’s nothing more than strings of fate getting tangled. I don’t like that someone’s caught up with me. I don’t need the competition.”

Despite her skepticism, Karlach had found it interesting. Not at birth then, like some stories claimed, or maybe some soulmates were an at birth thing. But like an omen. Like the skies growing gray before the rain. The anticipation of something great happening, no matter what Gortash had said.

But then Karlach had been dragged to the Hells.

Time bled together, meaninglessly. No passage of day marked time there, which only made things worse. Karlach liked to think of it as a single, long day. The absolute worst day of her life, but if she could find her way out, the day would end, and she’d be herself again. All she had to do was find somewhere for the sun to set, and she could go to sleep, wake up, and that’d be it. No more Hells. No more devils. No more ‘fixing’.

Again and again she was put under the knife, cut into, having more chunks of flesh removed. They reinforced her ribcage, her spine, her limb bones with infernal metal. They pumped hellfire through her veins, and drilled into her marrow, bone by bone, injecting? leeching? doing something to the insides of them that made them stop producing blood at all, just hellfire.

Sometimes she’d lose flesh out in the battlefield. Muscle mass, skin, half a horn, a limb. She’d be sent back to the chirurgeons, and they’d graft someone else’s flesh onto her, pumping something that made Karlach vomit to make the flesh keep. Bit by bit, more of the original Karlach Cliffgate was lost, until she resembled something more like a flesh construct with vents sticking out of her that ran on souls. Her skin was faintly patchwork now. She could follow where the flesh changed color on her body, where the scar tissue didn’t carry over to the next chunk of flesh. Until that, too, became scar tissue.

Zariel didn’t care. She’d just have someone tattoo her name all over Karlach, again and again and again.

That could have been tolerable. That she could have survived.

But they made her like eating the souls. Karlach became every childhood bully insult. Every fear the ‘good, common folk’ had of tieflings, of gobbling down the souls of their child. Karlach made them manifest, and gods, it eclipsed any pleasure Karlach had known before. She’d laugh madly carving through the hordes of demons, not even caring when she lost flesh, as the souls fueled her that much more, turning any pain she felt into an inconsequential buzz, a mere irritant.

It made her feel like a god. It was the only thing to look forward to in that miserable stretch of land.

“Be glad you are here,” Zariel had said, stroking Karlach’s hair like she was some sort of pet dog. “In the mortal realm, consuming souls would give you their mark. I’d hate to see you marked over with all those base souls. You are greater than that.”

Karlach managed to keep from vomiting until after.

She would find out later that she spent ten years, all told, in the Hells. And by the time she got abducted by mindflayers, she couldn’t even be that mad about the tadpole in her brain, because gods above, she was finally out. She could remake herself out of the Demonsbane into someone Good, someone who was worthy of being in the world again. Tear herself free from the half-devil that did anything and everything to survive the Hells back into Karlach.

Karlach, newly escaped, bleeding profusely from the forehead where she sustained some damage in the crash, spent a few hours splashing in the banks of the river, laughing and laughing and laughing.

And she went mad with it.

She ate the stalks of grass, just because. She stared at the sun long enough her vision got weird after. She hugged a bush and then started crying and sobbing into the bush, because it was just being there, see, just existing, leaves catching the sunlight as leaves were meant to do. Perfect and vibrant and sort of prickly. A sign that, right here, no one had slaughtered through anything else, burned down the ground just to spite the enemy. She was never taking nature for granted ever again. She kissed a leaf lightly and then told the bush that he was doing great and she hoped the rain tasted nice.

And then she catcalled some birds. Wasn’t sure why she did that. Maybe she could blame that one on the tadpole.

But in that gentle exploration, with sheer wonder at the alien world she’d stumbled into, a little slice of heaven, she noticed something. On her thigh, just along a still yet to be healed wound, deceptively small looking but running deep into the meat of her leg, a mark had appeared. A strange stylized rapier that looked of the Hells. Black handle, red-gold blade.

“Oh fuck no,” Karlach said. Either… either some fucking devil had gotten close enough to tangle with Karlach, or that last soul she ate-

She shivered, and she tried to will the Hells out of the place.

That was fine though. Maybe Gortash had the right of it. Maybe soulmates were a scam from the universe, and Karlach would simply have to kill her doppelganger or something, right?

—

Wrong.

It was that asshole who had hunted Karlach through a large swathe of Avernus, now back out of the Hells, with allies at his side. That guy who had stabbed her and ripped life out of her, leaving entire patches of skin dead, despite her shattering his arm and giving him a nasty gut wound. They’d both managed to nearly kill each other a dozen times in a dozen ways, with neither able to fully finish off the other.

That guy.

He had been working for the Hells, apparently. For Mizora. Except she’d talked him out of killing her, and-

His flesh had bubbled. It had melted, slowly, as his bones had dissolved, and the shape of Wyll was gone. It had caught flame, and the fat had gone up like a candle, just this oozing pile of flesh, flaking into ash. Karlach had hoped to never see another lemure, and-

Karlach had tried beheading Mizora, but she hadn’t actually been there. A projected illusion, with enough power behind it she could still cast spells out of it.

“Don’t worry,” Mizora had said. “You can tell him this is simply a disciplinary measure. A taste if he fails again. You’ll get your Wyll back. And so will I.”

It made sense. Fear made Karlach doubt Mizora, looking back to the pile of flesh and organs that was Wyll, but it made a kind of sense. Mizora would never stand to lose one of her own ‘pets’. Modeled herself right after Zariel, but had angry tantrums more about being stuck in middle management, never the favorite. Karlach had thought it was funny. It was stupidly funny how bitchy her personality was.

Karlach didn’t think it was funny anymore. Mizora didn’t look to her warlock, didn’t look to anyone else but Karlach with a horrid grin before vanishing, leaving them to deal with Wyll.

Somehow, reformation looked even worse than dissolving into a lemure. The bones grew out first, staggering, like they were pulling themselves out, tendons lashing to the next to keep himself from falling apart, even as the bones bled and bled and bled so much blood. Organs grew in next, and Shadowheart had to pulse healing magic through Wyll to keep him alive long enough for his skin to regrow.

Not as a human anymore. Devil through and through now. There was only one exit on the other side of lemure.

He wasn’t right after. He didn’t talk. Wouldn’t really look at anyone. Or at anything at all, really. He mostly kept hunched into a small ball, new tail curled around himself protectively. He didn’t answer when talked to, or even telepathically because he still fucking had a tadpole as Mizora was the greatest cunt outside of Zariel.

No one knew what to do.

“I’m not sure he can be of any help in this state,” Shadowheart said.

Karlach growled, baring her fangs. “We’re not fucking abandoning him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Shadowheart said. “I am merely pointing out that some things are not easily healed from, even when the body has been repaired. He might… take a bit to be helpful to the party again, and we’re just going to have to be aware of that going forward.”

Karlach wanted to say of course she was well aware of that. Who wouldn’t be?

But then… most people probably wouldn’t know how it felt to have their insides ripped open and stitched back together. Most people didn’t know Hell. And then, from there, another uncertainty, because she’d never been a lemure before, and so-

She looked around the camp, and she noticed with a sad kind of horror that everyone except Gale sort of had the same expression.

Astarion laughed, high and false and filled with nerves. “Well. We can just use Wyll as an excuse to take some breaks, right? Lae’zel has been pushing us far beyond our limits-”

“Do you think having a ghaik consume you would be kinder?” Lae’zel hissed.

Karlach retreated from the conversation. She didn’t know these guys yet. She’d just met them, and they all already knew each other. Gods, she didn’t even know the guy who had just swallowed down the Hells to save her. Not really. She knew he was sort of pompous and theatrical. She clearly didn’t know him at all.

The next day, Wyll was as silent as the previous. Stared at nothing in particular. Wouldn’t eat, and Shadowheart ended up having to use command magic to get him to drink anything. He was just broken inside. Most he would do was follow around the party, lost.

He would do that at least. Stagger after the group with a blank expression, and that was all he could do.

So. Yeah. Karlach put it together. An infernal Blade of Frontiers. She got it. She didn’t go further than secondary school, but she could puzzle this one out.

But what was she going to say? ‘Hey sorry your body and mind got melted because you didn’t kill me. I think I’m your soulmate though. Want to make out?’

It had the taste of the Demonsbane about it, and she couldn’t stand that. No amount of ale could get the taste out of her mouth, and she was trying so hard to be good, because her living required a good man become a devil. That was what the fates had said for Karlach. She could escape the Hells if someone else took her place.

A good person would have remained behind in their makeshift camp with him.

Karlach fled with the others instead. Didn’t matter what weird mission they were on, she’d take that over seeing what her consequences had brought.

—

So, they killed a hag, or, sort of killed the hag. Gale insisted the hag wasn’t fully dead and would come back somewhere else, but at least they freed a handful of people. That was something. That was more than something. Karlach had a long ledger of bad things she’d done, and she needed to start tilting the scales the other way.

If she lived long enough, that was. The metal in her chest, her bones, it only seemed to burn hotter here. A tiefling blacksmith from the Hells claimed he might have a fix, and Karlach wanted to believe in that so much. Bounded between that and a sort of fatalism depending on the day.

On one hand, of course she probably didn’t have long. That was just the sort of shit Karlach got in life. At least she could die out of the Hells, somewhere pretty and green. Let her become dirt instead of just more bones littering Avernus. The thought had some pleasure in it. Make it so she could be buried next to a bush or a tree and let herself become something else, forever locked into this world.

On the other hand, what sort of sad fucking story was that? She’d survived Hells, persuaded a man to destroy himself to spare her, only to die a month later? Gods, that cheapened everything that happened, yeah? Did wrong by Wyll. And she was going to be such a good friend to Wyll, she decided. Just. When looking at him didn’t twist the insides of her engine into glass. When she could apologize on her knees and actually get a response from him other than a blank stare.

She flung herself into the work. There were a lot of things that needed to get done around here, so Karlach rolled up her sleeves and got to them. Rescuing little kiddos from harpies, and probably criminals from gnolls, but criminals didn’t deserve to get eaten alive, you know. Lae’zel wanted so badly to run up to the mountain to the creche, but if they had the time, and according to the stranger that had appeared in their dreams, they did have the time, Karlach was going to spend that saving someone other than her own skin, because if she prioritized herself one more time she was going to be sick in the bushes for a good half hour.

A day passed, and then another. Wyll remained half-catatonic, but he started to master eating and drinking without needing Shadowheart to use magic to make him survive at least.

Good. That couldn’t- It just couldn’t feel right. Wyll flinched when Shadowheart had to use the magic on him, locked that much further away. Good that he was doing it on his own. It had to be good, right?

Karlach talked to Wyll at nights. Made herself sit down next to him despite how badly her skin wanted to crawl and run somewhere where guilt couldn’t crack her bones. She told him of exploits in the Hells, her many escape attempts. Showed him Crag, her lucky rock.

“They always knew I was going to break out because I’d take him with me,” Karlach said. The weight of Crag in her hands reassured and soothed some of her nerves. She knew he was a rock, okay. She knew he didn’t actually have emotions or anything. But she always made sure he had someplace soft to sleep at nights and got to look around and see the new sights. And then she started feeling bad, so she’d gathered a few other really nice rocks so Crag could have friends to talk to on the journey. Surely devil rocks couldn’t have been good company, but maybe mortal rocks could be a friend to him. “A smart woman would have left him behind.”

Wyll didn’t say anything.

“Yeah I probably should have, but. Gods, he was my first friend in the Hells. And I needed a friend. Nothing but devils there. I kept crying in every spare corner I could find. So he comes with me.”

Wyll continued to not say anything, but he was at least looking at Crag, devil eye red and ink black. She offered it over to him. To her surprise, he actually reached out and stroked it with a finger. Her engine shuddered in sympathetic response.

“Good rock, yeah?”

She didn’t mention that the last time she’d taken Crag and ran, that’s when they sent Wyll after her. She hoped Wyll wasn’t putting that together. She might be fucking this all up. She didn’t know how to be gentle; that hadn’t been stressed in the Hells or the Gate. She was fumbling blindly, trying to imagine what she would want done to her and awkwardly imitating that person.

She hesitated for a moment, a long moment.

“Do you want to hold him? Until you get better?”

Wyll didn’t respond, but something flickered in his eye. A stirring, a thought. He looked to her then, and then back at the rock. Tentatively he picked it up from her hands before cradling it to his chest.

Something in Karlach’s own chest squeezed.

“Yeah. Look, when you get, ah, when you start feeling better. You gotta swap stories with me. I want to hear from the Blade’s mouth whether or not some of those tales were really true. They filtered down even into the Hells, you know? But that can be another day. There’s not- I don’t need you to press yourself into a fighting shape.”

Karlach had to. She hadn’t had a choice. Zariel had sent her out again and again.

Karlach wondered what would happen if they weren’t around. If Mizora would show up to throw a new target Wyll’s way. If they were the only thing keeping Wyll safe right now from being sent out half brain dead.

“Take your time, okay?”

Wyll looked to her, the briefest glance. Karlach decided to read it as conversation, and she counted it as a win.

—

Karlach didn’t want to kill the goblins. They were just fun-loving bastards, which Karlach found good for a laugh. And she felt a sort of kinship with them. Tieflings weren’t seen as much better in many places, honestly, and then tieflings also had to resort to crime to survive.

But like. They were planning on massacring a bunch of her kind, so. Yaknow.

“We could just eliminate the major players,” Shadowheart offered. “The horde will disperse without them.”

That made for a challenge though because a couple of the leaders were just right there hanging out in front of all their minions. Sort of hard to lure away where no one could see the quietest beheading Karlach could manage. Astarion could have helped more, but he’d volunteered to watch over Wyll at camp, and Wyll needed a minder because while he’d mastered ‘tail after the group’, that was the extent of his physical capabilities right now. Mizora hadn’t left him with self-defense.

She hoped, she hoped by her teeth that this was temporary. A trauma response to having been- You know. She didn’t want to think it, but everyone knew what had happened. Mizora was a vindictive bitch, but she was also greedy, and she didn’t normally break her toys beyond the point of repair, because she couldn’t keep re-breaking them then.

But at the goblin camp, things got bloody. Messy. Untidy. The goblin brander and that mean but sexy drow lady were able to be dispatched without excessive casualties, but a hobgoblin had pulled some answers from a dead illithid, and when they’d entered, he’d recognized them from the mindflayer’s brain.

All those goblins Karlach had tried to carefully spare so they could go their own ways turned violently upon the group.

Karlach sighed, and she surrendered herself to the pulsing glory of reducing people into mere meat. Because she enjoyed it. She almost always enjoyed it, even without the soul coin. Didn’t matter she’d wanted to save those goblins earlier; they’d attacked her, and now she could kill them gleefully.

But! She could work on that in the future. Shadowheart kept Karlach running longer without her needing to get new flesh grafted onto her body or anything, which was making for Karlach’s favorite flavor of healing magic. They managed to find the missing druid, tell him Kagha had gone insane and was working for the Shadow Druids, and then wiped their hands of the mess and headed back.

When she got view of the camp though, her metaphorical heart stopped.

Astarion was talking animatedly to Wyll in the center of camp, sitting on some log somehow posh-like. He was gesticulating as he talked with these long, exaggerated movements and sweep of his fingers, clearly enraptured by his own voice and having a grand all time of it.

But Wyll was talking back.

Karlach couldn’t make out what he was saying, and it seemed delayed, but gods, he was talking.

Something in her engine shuddered. It’d- you know, it’d have been nice if Karlach had been the one that could have gotten him talking again. Wasn’t that what she was for? As his soulmate? But also Karlach could understand if Wyll didn’t actually want to look at her anymore. Sparing her was one thing. But he’d have to be stronger than a saint to not blame her.

Karlach braced herself, and she walked forward.

“-large sweeping hats, I’m telling you. With so many feathers it looks like people massacred birds and glued them onto their hats. And not in a good way. Look I know the pigeon population got way out of control after the invention of the Sending spell, but wearing them in hats does not make for high fashion.”

Wyll made a dry snort, but that was a laugh. There was a pause, a breath too long for normal, but then falteringly, “Better than the- the extra poofy trousers. Right next to the torso. With ripping right below it, supposedly decorative, but it always looked like a cat got at your clothing. I did not understand that fashion trend, but all the patriars were scrambling to wear it.”

A wave of homesickness washed over her hard enough it nearly sent her reeling.

“Talking about the bad fashions of the Gate?” Karlach asked hopefully, now in view.

Wyll’s face didn’t change when he saw her. There was no narrowing of the eyes, slightly bared teeth. His shoulders didn’t hunch. His muscles didn’t tense. She couldn’t read anger into his body.

“…yeah,” Wyll said after a beat. Still that delay. “Astarion’s been entertaining me. I- hadn’t been, in seven years.”

Gods, what did she say? She didn’t want to fuck this up, but also she couldn’t deny the elephant in the room. Again, Karlach felt awkwardly and bumbling, unused to kindness or how to extend it to others. She fumbled forward anyway.

“Feeling better then?” Karlach asked, words lamely falling from her mouth.

Wyll nodded slowly, though he looked downcast. “I… apologize for being unhelpful these past few days-”

Alright, no, snipping that off at the bud.

“You were a lemure! You got melted! My man. You are allowed to have a breakdown after that. Especially after- you know, saving me. You didn’t have to, but you did, and- Thanks. I’ll have your back as long as you’ll let me, okay?”

The strangest thing happened. Wyll actually sort of smiled, with little dimples in his cheeks. Karlach’s engine shuddered. Handsome smile on that man. She hadn’t noticed it back when he was trying to kill her.

Maybe she could salvage this soulmate thing after all?

“I think I’d like that,” Wyll said slowly, once again delayed. “You’ve already been looking out for me. I know I wasn’t talking, but I did hear you. If you need Crag back-”

Karlach sat down. “Nah, keep him a bit longer. He’s great for emotional support. But guess what. I’m also a Gates kid. Got stolen out of there ten years ago. They did what with trousers?”

“They’re still doing it,” Astarion said.

“No!” Wyll said.

Astarion nodded. “That fashion statement has stuck around. Makes my earlier ensemble look respectable in comparison. Though at least embroidery’s come back in a big way. Thick designs now that cover most of the chest, if you want to match your patriar peers. That hasn’t been the worst, I suppose.”

Karlach grinned. “Maybe we can go after this tadpole business is sorted out and see it ourselves.”

—

It didn’t happen immediately. Karlach wouldn’t have let it if it had. They’d hiked up the mountain to meet with Lae’zel’s people, and that lead turned out to be a wash in the absolute saddest possible way. Lae’zel hadn’t even been able to fight her way out of the creche. She’d just stared at her kin blankly as they shot at her.

Karlach shouldered the burden for her. She didn’t know these githyanki. Wouldn’t hurt her the same if she killed them.

Halsin, now traveling with the party, suggested they bypass the majority of the Shadow-Cursed Lands through the Underdark, and Karlach figured he was the expert. She’d had enough of horrifically cursed landscapes, thank you very much, and she wasn’t done seeing the wonders of every environment there was. Gods, she’d never appreciated the joys of nature before the Hells, and now she couldn’t get enough of it.

The Underdark held such beauty. Fungi everywhere, yeah, but more than that. All sorts of burrowing animals, and these sort of mole-gopher-bunny things that Karlach wanted to hold so badly if not for her hellfire engine.

And secrets began to leak.

Though one that hadn’t leaked: Wyll didn’t seem to know they were soulmates. Karlach didn’t spy any marks on his body at least, which made her doubt her entire assessment, but she just felt it right in her bones that it had to be Wyll, right? She didn’t know why a mark wouldn’t have appeared for him, but she hadn’t gotten one until out of the Hells. Maybe something fucky was going on? She considered telling him, but she had basically negative proof, and there was a deep set fear that the rapier wouldn’t mean anything to Wyll. That it was a mark from some other devil. Someone else Karlach would have to murder to be sane again.

(Or worse. The last soul she’d eaten had left a mark on her after all.)

Karlach strangled her desire to be something more. It could wait until Wyll was saner. Until Karlach could summon the confidence to say that was for sure Wyll.

Until Karlach no longer braced for immediate rejection.

But for the secrets, Shadowheart worshiped Shar, a goddess of loss and secrecy. Not one of the nicer gods, Shar, but Karlach tried to withhold judgment. Sometimes people worshiped a nastier god for their own reasons. It was common back at home to worship Umberlee after all in hopes she wouldn’t fuck over your fishing vessel. Tribute paid to a cruel tyrant, but Shadowheart seemed genuine in her devotion, and Karlach found it unsettling. Still. She trusted people more than gods, and Shadowheart had been a friend so far.

Gale had a magical bomb in his chest that might explode, hence why he’d been eating magical items. And Mystra thought he should die about it. And she was supposed to be one of the nicer gods. Gave Karlach a bad taste in her mouth. Once again, Karlach trusted people more than gods, but this one hurt. Mystra was supposed to be a good god, right? Karlach couldn’t wrap her mind around it. But she and Gale started drinking fancy wines together and just talking. About life. About death. Karlach didn’t think the engine would leave a body behind. Gale didn’t think the orb would leave a body behind either.

And then there was Astarion. Astarion was a vampire.

Half the camp had known, apparently, including Wyll, but Karlach hadn’t known. She thought he’d just been pale and weird. Lots of people were pale and weird.

But that wasn’t all with Astarion.

Astarion, apparently, had started sleeping with Wyll. Astarion was casual and dismissive about it. ‘Just exchanging mutual comforts, nothing to get your pants in a tizzy,’ he’d said. Wyll looked softer though, his body angling towards Astarion like one of them plants grown in the cracks of a wall desperately trying to reach sunlight.

And Karlach felt-

Awful. Horridly, grossly awful. Not the seething kind of jealousy. Her rage didn’t stretch into that. Something flatter.

Because really, what did Karlach have to offer? She didn’t think about it, because she was alive and well and was going to stay that way, but there was also a voice in the back of her head worried about her engine burning burning burning. She’d have, what, a handful of months to offer Wyll before she died on him? Rub it in his face he sacrificed his soul for the walking dead? She didn’t know if she could even touch him. He was a devil, but if she touched him and he didn’t burn, he’d pull away, because he pulled away from mirrors, from ponds, from his own shadow.

And a soulmate was sort of the ultimate mirror.

So, instead, she volunteered a watch with Astarion. Waited until everyone else had fallen into sleep, and then approached the subject.

“So. You and Wyll?”

Astarion smiled, but there was a nervousness to it. He smiled like a dog baring teeth in an attempt to ward off a threat. “Just some harmless fun. I figured he might need it after his trip through the Hells, you know.”

“Does he know it’s just ‘harmless fun’?” Karlach asked, letting a hint of steel come through her voice. Not enough to be truly threatening. Just enough to let Astarion know that Karlach did, in fact, have Wyll’s back, and she’d be watching out for him, because that’s simply what one should do.

Astarion rolled his eyes. “He has notions of something more, and I’m entertaining them. He wants to court me, and I won’t say no to getting pampered. I’m not heartless, Karlach. I’ll have you know I rather like Wyll.”

“Good,” Karlach said. “Because I’m pretty fond of him. And you better not hurt him. Won’t do more of a shovel talk than that. That’s not necessary, I think. Just… give him a reason to smile, okay?”

Something in Astarion softened. “I am trying. I’m cheering him up the best way I know how!”

Another deep, deep ache. He’d gotten Wyll talking. He was now sleeping with Wyll. But jealousy was a devil’s game. She didn’t own Wyll. He was not obligated to sleep with her. He was not obligated to love her. He’d saved her without knowing her. That did not require him to return affections. She was just projecting onto the first person that hadn’t backstabbed her in a decade and a half. She wanted, so badly, someone to love her. Someone that would miss her when she was gone. Someone who would think of her more than just a weapon in a never-ending war, or as a ‘pet’ project to fawn over. She craved love. Maybe that’s what they scraped out of her bone marrow. Every scrap of affection she ever had, because the thought of Wyll with someone else made her feel nauseous.

But still. The fact that he was happy to be her friend would have to be enough. And she liked friends. Was starved for those too. She’d… be friends, and it could still be good, right?

And Fangs was awful, but he was the fun kind of awful, usually. He was genuine fun, from his horrid goblin antics, to his delightful rants that sounded like something out of a stage play. He had cheered Wyll up. He’d so far been proving himself to be a good partner for Wyll. And didn’t Wyll deserve some fun in this world?

(Didn’t Karlach?)

If it weren’t for Wyll and the damned engine, she might approach Astarion for a tumble herself.

“Just treat him right, okay?” Karlach asked softly. At least she didn’t actually have a heart that could be broken. All her pain was just a churning of an engine. Maybe all she could do for Wyll as his soulmate was make sure he was looked after when she was dead and gone. “No one’s saved me like that before. Ever. I want to do right by him.”

“Don’t worry,” Astarion said. “I like him too much to hurt him.”

—

So Astarion lied through his fucking teeth to Karlach.

This was, in Astarion’s opinion, an absolute fucking given considering the circumstances.

Of course he lied! Why wouldn’t he lie? Karlach was a massive eight foot tall hulking monstrosity with an axe as big as she was and a guilt complex about Wyll! She stared at him with eyes that glowed with infernal light, with teeth that half of which seemed to be sourced from various devils, and she told him to be good to Wyll, with a looming Or Else. This was a woman who apparently ate souls for breakfast in the Hells. So yes, of course he said he’d never ever hurt Wyll. That’s what anyone with so much as a teaspoon of brain matter would say. Even fucking Petras could probably have figured that one out.

But of course the reality was that Astarion was probably going to hurt Wyll at some point. That was the whole point of using him.

And, you know, he had already. Hurt Wyll, that was.

Wyll had been nice enough not to tell anyone about, you know, the actual reveal that had happened that first month of them as a group together. Astarion had woken up with night terrors of Cazador, feeling the compulsions rattle around in his brain, and he hadn’t been able to tell if they were real or not.

If he’d been free or not.

And there’d been an easy way to know, for sure, if he was free of Cazador. And there’d been, you know, one person sort of half-comatose and non-responsive, so. Astarion had bit Wyll. Who had woken up and stared at Astarion and then just sort of curled in on himself. He hadn’t resisted. He hadn’t alerted anyone. He hadn’t done anything that looked like anything remotely similar to a survival skill. So fine, Astarion had thought. If he wouldn’t fight back, Astarion should take advantage of the situation.

Astarion had tried to push past, to summon the steel he’d developed under Cazador. If Wyll wasn’t going to protect his blood from a predator, fine, he didn’t deserve it. So Astarion had bitten Wyll again but-

It hadn’t felt good. The euphoria of the blood went to vinegar in his mouth, but why, Astarion couldn’t figure out. He’d retreated with his answers at least, but he didn’t even get to enjoy them.

The next morning, Astarion wanted to slap his past self, because he’d been so stupid. So blatant in his simple-minded pursuit of an immediate answer. It would have been so easy for Wyll to get Astarion killed after. The rest of the party adored Wyll. Doted on him in a way that caused something caustic and sour to bubble in Astarion’s soul. If Wyll told people that Astarion had taken advantage….

Astarion chatted to Wyll the next day like nothing had happened, like he could maybe convince Wyll it had all been a strange nightmare if Astarion didn’t act any different.

(Cazador had done that to Astarion a handful of times at the start. Toying with Astarion before really showing him how cruel he was.)

Wyll didn’t act differently towards Astarion, which made Astarion sigh with relief that maybe he could pass it off as a terrible nightmare. Wyll continued to sit by him and even started to respond with fumbling words. The Gate had done it, dragging something Wyll enough out of the shattered remains of his mind.

But something ate at Astarion. He needed to know if Wyll knew. So, in another stupid night, Astarion tried to pry, just a little, with the tadpoles.

Wyll had looked up then, devil eye catching Astarion’s. For a moment, Astarion saw steel.

The memory he’d been holding had been snatched away. And Wyll thought at Astarion, “I’ll allot that one time. That is the only grace period you will receive. You do not bite our friends. You do not bite me again, unless you ask first. The next time I stake you.”

It should have been terrifying. And it had. Astarion felt the strong urge to fawn, to appease.

Astarion’s brain had apparently been scrambled by the tadpoles, because instead of just terrified Astarion also felt… relieved? Better Wyll threaten him than just quietly shrug. Better Wyll’s survival instinct flare up and do something other than let a vampire have their wicked way with him.

Astarion didn’t have a lot of martial skills. He was untrained in combat, desperately trying to make up for his deficiencies. But two hundred years had made him very attuned to the social dynamics going on. Wyll had considerable sway in the group, for all that he’d mostly gotten himself hurt and struggled to recover. If Wyll vouched for Astarion, people would listen to him.

And damnit, Astarion had been right. In the Underdark, when Astarion had finally told the group about his culinary habits, people had looked to Wyll.

So, yes. Astarion aimed to get closer into Wyll’s graces. There were more perks than he’d thought. It hadn’t been at first, but Wyll had relaxed a little when Astarion hadn’t had his wicked way with anyone else, and he allowed Astarion to bite him during sex. Had, their first time, encouraged it even, offered it, and something in Astarion had stirred. With the blood the sex had even been tolerable.

(Astarion always kept his shirt on during sex. Wyll hadn’t questioned it, and Astarion pretended he wasn’t grateful for that small courtesy.)

And Wyll was fun. There were flashes of a horrid sense of humor that bordered on meanness that Astarion found intoxicating. Astarion didn’t regret pursuing Wyll. He was the logical choice for a companion to get cozy to, especially as Wyll regained his martial skills, adapted to his new devil body. A powerful warlock who also could command the hearts of the people without use of charm magic. Objectively, the smart choice to bid on. And Astarion had done so, yoking himself to Wyll as the winning play.

It just was made more awkward, because Astarion was fairly certain Karlach was Astarion’s soulmate.

Which was deeply fucking new. Spawn didn’t have soulmarks. Leon had one apparently before he was turned, and it had vanished in undeath. Vampires could have soulmates, but not spawn. Spawn weren’t enough of a person. Too much puppet with a residual soul attached, like some withered appendix that had long since forgotten its function. What use was a soulmate to a spawn when their souls weren’t even their own?

But with the tadpole, things had changed. He walked in the sun, even if his body remained cool. He could splash in rivers without it burning off his skin, even if he still didn’t have a reflection.

And over his heart, right over his heart, was a stylized depiction of a heart with sun rays radiating off of it. He hadn’t gotten it, not until a tenday after meeting Karlach. Yes, ten entire days after Karlach, because how was he supposed to think of the heart as literal? But she’d been staring at the sky, crying. And when Astarion had mocked her, she’d waved him off.

“I spent ten years without the sun. I don’t care if you think it makes me look stupid. I’m going to celebrate every moment with it.”

Astarion was not often subject to flashes of powerful insight, but he’d just known at that instant. It had to be her, or who else could it have been?

But if Karlach knew in return, she hadn’t acted upon it. She didn’t protect Astarion more than anyone else. She favored Wyll above all others. Astarion had considered showing her his mark to bind them closer but, for one thing, the only asset Astarion had to lure people in was his body, and that wouldn’t work on Karlach. Only a fool would abandon his main skill honed after two hundred years. Of course he kept to Wyll.

Secondly, what was a spawn’s word worth? Nothing at all.

What did ‘soulmate’ even mean? A stumbling of fates in a dark alley, nothing more. It only meant what people read into it, and usually far less than that once the illusion of romance dwindled into dust.

Astarion kept to Wyll, and to his sexual prowess. And Astarion was skilled. He tolerated through the sex, but there was a growing softness towards the sounds of Wyll in pleasure. Astarion hadn’t gotten to truly appreciate mapping out a person before. Everything had been one-night stands and quick trysts.

(If, maybe, he did have to throw someone in front of Cazador as a shield before running, at least this wasn’t his soulmate, right? So he didn’t have to care as hard.)

—

By the natural laws of the universe, things complicated.

“A hand on my lower back. Yes, right there,” Wyll instructed.

Astarion felt rather like a pig someone had dressed in fine clothes as a joke right now. His instinct was to stomp on Wyll’s offer, to lash out so Wyll couldn’t see the vulnerability. Above all other things, you did not let others see weakness. 

It’d be easy. His mind laid down all the pathways out for him. Mocking the idea of dancing in the middle of a heat-soaked landscape. Sneering that surely the high pursuits were rather past Wyll right now, weren’t they? Pointing out that it was inane to go through the rituals of courtship when one was already fucking, wasn’t it. And what even was a dance to two monsters? Did Wyll think he could hide from his new devil body by pretending he still had the form of a human? Did he think Astarion could? Did he-

Astarion swallowed down his terror and adjusted, as his other hand was held gently in Wyll’s grasp.

“Ready for me to lead?” Wyll asked.

“We’ll trip on something,” Astarion groused, looking around. A complaint for complaining, sideways, not addressing the core issue but allowing him the luxury of spitting something. Fear pounded in his veins, in his muscles, ready to bolt if needed.

“No we won’t,” Wyll said, confident as a fairy prince.

He still had days where he lost the ability to talk, just followed, though now with the ability to defend himself. Those days waned but lingered. The tomb never truly left, after all, but for now, Wyll looked bright-eyed as he did when Astarion first met him.

Astarion could feel the heat radiating out of Wyll’s hand soak through his lower back, warming the skin there. He watched, transfixed, at the rise and fall of Wyll’s ribcage, his lungs echoing the ebbs and flows of the ocean.

And together they swayed.

Complicated, horridly, because it… wasn’t bad? Astarion could read the skill in Wyll’s movements. He made simply moving across stone into an act of gliding, half-flight if Astarion was feeling fanciful and poetic. He didn’t yank Astarion around, but gently led him, the two of them swaying together, faces locked towards each other like objects locked in orbital gravity, and yes Astarion had read the astronomical books, imaginary Gale. Whores could read!

But he was a whore. That’s what this whole thing was, an act of using his body to secure services rendered unto him. Even without using carnal delights, this was still a kind of whoring.

Wyll hadn’t been told. Of course Astarion hadn’t told him. It would have offended his hero sensibilities, but he hadn’t figured out apparently that Astarion was a whore, and so he kept doing things like this, like they were more than base dogs trained to hunt or bitch on command.

“You okay?” Wyll asked.

“Shut up. I’m fine,” Astarion said. “I’m imagining this correctly for your information, which if you were at all skilled you would be too. A grand ballroom with all the patriars in their shitty poofed and torn trousers. Fine wines and finer foods, roast duck and fresh bread and delicately aged cheeses, none of which I can eat, while I try to avoid handling the silverware with my bare skin. Not because spawn are weak to silver. I’m trying to convince people I’m a werewolf.”

Wyll snorted. “Of course. Right. Why wouldn’t you?”

“One must have their hobbies.”

“Your face was twisted in pain,” Wyll said. “And I know I didn’t step on your foot.”

“Well to do this properly, you need a crowd of rivals that you are showing-up, right? Backbiting patriars who titillate at the gossip.”

Wyll laughed, delighted. “So you’re angry because you’re mad at the imaginary patriars in your head?”

“Yes! Clearly Wyllyam! Get with the program.”

“I see. I suppose that does enhance the dancing experience.”

Wyll’s breath ghosted along the shell of his ear. “Want to give them really something to titillate over?”

Wyll dipped Astarion, an act that should have been terrifying. Should have had Astarion rolling out of Wyll’s grasp and getting his grace back. But he allowed it. Allowed the dizzying pull of gravity, stopped by a single hand pressed to the small of his back. And with the other hand Wyll pulled him back upright, spinning him gently, before pressing a kiss to Astarion’s temple.

It grated. But Astarion didn’t want it to stop, either, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Complications.

It wouldn’t be the first time a mark had fallen for Astarion. Other people had slept with Astarion and foolishly proclaimed themselves in love, because carnal lusts made dribbling fools out of mortals.

But Wyll… got too close, to the boundaries of understanding. He wasn’t a mere mark in a city to be served up to Cazador. A man there and then gone the next day. Astarion didn’t even have to remember their names, their habits, their anything. Scrub the taste of them out of his mouth and mind and set out the next time Cazador wanted a midnight snack, and Astarion wanted anything to abate the unending pain in his torso.

They were both dogs, see, that wanted to break free of their masters. Wyll understood that. He couldn’t talk about the pact, but Astarion would sell his fangs if Mizora hadn’t glossed over aspects of the pact somehow, not shown him the full thing, the full understanding. Or maybe she’d coerced him into it? Astarion hadn’t had time to ask the right questions with his blood leaking out from his skull. He could barely fumble an agreement when Cazador had asked him if he wanted to be saved.

“I expect actual nice clothing next time,” Astarion said, finally pulling away. “If you keep wanting to spin me around an imaginary ballroom, you could at least grant me the luxuries it provides.”

“Mmmm yes lots of fine fashion boutiques in the Underdark,” Wyll said. “Silly me. Should have bought you something. Though I could go back to the Myconid colony. Crown you in a mushroom tiara.”

Astarion shrieked and pushed at Wyll’s chest. “No you horrid man!”

Wyll laughed. “They can’t actually infect you, Astarion.”

“I’m a corpse! They infect corpses! I am not risking it!”

Wyll looked contemplative. “You think we should bring back some of these dead corpses for them as a gift? Is that insensitive to Myconids? They seem happy to grow something in the body of Nere I suppose.”

“I didn’t kill them as a charity.”

“I know you didn’t,” Wyll said. “Considering you looted each one quite thoroughly and then rifled through their veins for pocket blood.”

Here was the thing. The joke shouldn’t have worked. Astarion knew this, intimately. It lay too close to the uncertain aspect of Astarion being allowed to feed from enemies. Too close to him starving. But it sounded so damnably fond coming from Wyll’s lips, that Astarion couldn’t find where the fear would be.

“Maybe these cultists have nicer clothing I can make use of,” Astarion said. “Gods. I hope they don’t have Bhaalist fashion tastes though. I would like more to cover myself than rotting strips of flesh.”

“Especially if the flesh clothing gets infested with mushrooms,” Wyll said innocently.

Astarion sneered, but there was no heat in the act.

—

Astarion could not regret Wyll. Too much the winning choice. And, gods, did Wyll infest someone as surely as a Myconid. Wormed through Astarion’s flesh until it found Wyll’s hands pleasing to the skin instead of an echo of so many others. Into his heart and lungs to where they would stir in a facsimile of life when Wyll was around. Into his useless empty head for sure, to where when at merchants hawking their goods, Astarion couldn’t help but think oh Wyll would really like a cloak of protection, for, you know, safety, but also wouldn’t Wyll look so dashing in a cloak? More flair that way.

But, complications compounded.

Karlach, at long last, could touch people now. Astarion didn’t understand the specifics of what Dammon had done, other than Karlach could touch people without burning, for all that fire still flowed through her veins.

Wyll, unprompted, had hugged Karlach, and Karlach had cried into Wyll’s shoulder.

And Astarion had-

He’d wanted, in an abstract way. It’d be easier if he could have simply moved into the hug for Karlach, but touch suffocated, more and more. Astarion didn’t quite understand why. He’d tolerated touch for so long, and what, now that he didn’t have to, suddenly it became more than he could stand?

But Astarion withstood touch from Wyll. Why couldn’t Astarion summon the same thing for a soulmate?

(Some logical part of his brain pointed out that it was mere familiarity with Wyll at this point. There was nothing more magical than that.)

Still, Karlach and Astarion sat together at ‘nights’, when people slept.

Karlach’s body angled towards Astarion, and he wanted to touch as strongly as he wanted to remain untouched.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Karlach said. “I knew there were more fucked up cursed lands other than the Hells. Hells have got to be the worst, but didn’t mean other places didn’t have their own problems. And just because I never finished secondary school don’t mean that Mama K couldn’t figure out the Shadow-Cursed Lands were going to be a) dark and b) cursed. But…”

Karlach sighed, breath steaming into the air. It normally actually did that. It had only been half-visible back when Astarion first met her, but here it steamed out in great vapors away from her. Forever so much warmer on the inside than the outside.

No matter how cold it was, Astarion’s breath never steamed out.

“I know,” Astarion said with a sigh. “I’d just gotten back the sun. You missed it for a decade. Try two centuries, and then see how you feel.”

He regretted saying it. The words felt wrong, too antagonistic, which felt deeply weird. Astarion loved antagonizing people. It was truly one of the great joys in life. He still wanted to nettle Karlach, but he didn’t want to hurt her.

Karlach didn’t seem hurt, but she rarely seemed hurt until she was too wounded to hide it. She’d been fine killing those paladins of Tyr until after they were dead when she suddenly had a fit of rage and burned the building down. And then she was fine again, anger a flashfire gone as quickly as it had come.

Astarion remained a coward, but the answer remained that he could touch Karlach now. He could actually be of use to her. He hadn’t thought soulmates worth shit, but he had one, despite Cazador, despite everything. How long had he had one? Surely not before Karlach had been born, but, if the tadpole was only suppressing Cazador’s hold over Astarion, maybe he had the mark for longer, and it simply hadn’t shown through the spawnhood.

He couldn’t deny a growing desire to seize onto this, with fangs, with claws, with soft hands and whatever soft body movements she desired.

Astarion was a fool for being surprised. Every gift that had been given back to him he couldn’t get enough of. Not enough sun, not enough water, not enough breaking into people’s houses just because he no longer needed fucking permission. Karlach was proof that right now, Cazador didn’t have a full hold over Astarion, and he wanted to-

to press his body against that safety until the illusion of it finally made the scrambling rat fear abate.

And yet, on the other hand, she might not have long. A handful of months. Surely even someone as bright as she didn’t want to be shackled to some spawn in the last days of her life. Astarion wouldn’t want that. If he could find a way free, become something more, then maybe he would have a person worthy of Karlach’s attention.

Gods, Astarion was starting to realize he wasn’t much worth Wyll’s attention either.

He realized Karlach was looking at him with something wry in her expression.

“What?” Astarion asked, defensive. Okay, yes, he’d zoned out during the conversation a little, but who fucking didn’t in this party?

“You want to play the suffering game?” Karlach asked, but there was no heat in her voice, just teasing. “Look I’ll grant you have seniority in suffering, but buddy, you at least got the stars and the moon. You got to see the world, even if it was through a cage. I was in the literal actual Hells.”

“I would argue it’s worse to be in your home and being tortured,” Astarion said. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, actually. Right now he didn’t really care if he believed anything he said. But by the gods above he’d been through law school, and he was going to win this argument. “It has greater cognitive dissonance. You are being tortured and abused, and then you have to walk out into the world and act like everything is fine, and laugh and drink with strangers even though you got flayed the other day.”

“You think there ain’t cognitive dissonance in the Hells?” Karlach asked. “Where weakness gets you killed? Where your superior can punish you for ‘malicious unhappiness’?”

“What?” Astarion asked, choking on a laugh. “Wait. In the Hells? In the bloody fucking Hells? In literal Hell? There? Malicious unhappiness?”

Karlach laughed and laughed and laughed, breath steaming in the air, ribs trembling to where they must ache. “Yeah Fangs. It’s a hit to morale. You can’t have bad morale in the army. You might perform that much worse when fighting demons. Unhappiness means you aren’t being as effective at your job, and that costs the Hells valuable work-hours, so, punishment.”

No. No he could still win this. Astarion held up a finger. “Alright. Okay. I’m granting you that, being magnanimous. I would point out the Hells, horrid as they are, aren’t the sole plane dedicated to suffering. The Abyss is suffering but wild. The Shadowfell is suffering but in true despair. Ah. I suppose like here. The Feywild also has swathes of suffering but brightly, agony turned up to a burning sun. I vaguely recall parents telling me horror stories about the Feywild and why our family emigrated out.”

“Mhm. Yeah, and Baldur’s Gate is smack dab in the middle of the Shadowfell-”

“The point is that while the Hells is known for suffering, it does not have a monopoly on the subject matter. And therefore, in Cazador’s manor, I could endure my own small Hell.”

Astarion sat back, grinning smugly.

“Yeah, from a vampire,” Karlach said. “And that’s fucked. You are a walking horror story, and you wear it well, by the way.”

Astarion preened.

“But like, most mortals, they just die in the Hells. Powerful wizards. Intrepid heroes. Planeswalkers. It’s not the devils you have to worry about. Well, you do have to worry about them, but it’s the Hells themselves. You are in a place that wants to break you into screaming fragments of pain. The entire realm of it, if it could, would devour every devil and spit them back out as lemures. And you can feel it. It seeps into your dreams, and even devils require sleep. They shouldn’t. By all rights they shouldn’t need to sleep, but they must, because the planes of Hells requires it, purely so it can engulf their souls in torment.”

Karlach looked up to the vast, flat, black blankness of the sky. “It’s like here, but amplified so much farther. Like you can feel it here. The land kind of hates you. There’s a sentience here that wants us to be cold husks it can zombify and pilot around like one of them Myconids. Here, but so, so much more hate. You can feel it watching you, everywhere you go, like at any moment the land might rip you asunder.”

Astarion made an exasperated sound. “Well now you’ve gone and brought too much reality into our little game. I didn’t even start waxing on about how Cazador would flay me this time.”

Karlach grinned. “Proud of you, Fangs. But hey. At least we’re out.”

Her eyes narrowed into half slits, as her engine pulsed a soft glow, a warm light that not even Shar could dampen.

And for the first time in so long, Astarion felt an urge to just- to put his hand where the engine met skin.

To touch.

Something miserable rose, swelled up in his throat.

Astarion did not have many memories of ‘before’. He knew though that before he’d been a spawn, he had occasionally found a lover or two. Sometimes at the same time before they faded elsewhere. Maybe they died. Maybe they never got an answer to the death of Astarion Ancunin. But he’d known for a long time that he was capable of loving many. Or, he’d known that had been the case. He’d sort of assumed that Astarion had died in the tomb, and there’d been nothing left of that boy. All of Astarion, all of his mannerisms, his skills, his knowledge, his connections. They all flaked away under vampirism. There was only the spawn, forcedly obedient to Cazador.

After two centuries of abuse, Astarion had thought that more than anything he would never want to have to deal with a person again.

And yet, Karlach, glorious and bright, his gods be damned soulmate, right there and touchable now. And yet Wyll, who should have been nothing but a mark to Astarion, and yet Astarion found himself wanting to crawl into the dirt, back into the grave at the knowledge of how he was using that man.

It couldn’t end well. Cazador loomed beyond the shadows. Dammon said Karlach didn’t have long to live, and Karlach had made it clear she would die before returning to the Hells. And Wyll? Astarion feared for Wyll. Feared he would not be able to swallow down idealism for the sake of survival. That he would stop hunting for Mizora period, and then there’d be nothing left of him.

It hurt so much more this way. Three months ago, Astarion had nothing left to lose. Now?

Going back to Cazador now would ruin him more thoroughly than that year in the tomb ever could have.

“Yeah,” Astarion said, ears low. “At least we’re out.”

—

Mizora showed up again. Horrifically unpleasant woman. Karlach put herself in front of Wyll, and Mizora had laughed and then ignored Karlach. Mizora claimed magnanimity. A retrieval of a devil from a location they were planning on going to anyway. An asset of Zariel’s they didn’t want the Absolute to have. Wyll didn’t have to kill anyone. Wasn’t that just so gracious of her?

But there was a strange way she was talking to Wyll. Too familiar, too casual, not enough ‘see I was kind in my punishment’ sort of things.

It hadn’t been a month since they’d last spoken. Which meant either Mizora had been showing up at nights, or whatever warlock patron powers she had meant she could talk to Wyll when she wanted.

At least Mizora vanished soon. Wyll seemed strange. Not as scared as he should have been. Karlach talked to Wyll about the retrieval, not sure how she felt, but Wyll assured if the person was anything like Karlach, Wyll wouldn’t return them.

Karlach just stared at Wyll then, eyes wide, tail low.

Wyll had already internalized that idea then. That he could defy Mizora again, costs be damned. Or, costs were damnation. He’d already decided that was a fate he could live with, but then he’d already sort of decided that before Karlach.

Astarion wanted to shake Wyll by the shoulders until sense rattled into that skull. They already had enough passively suicidal people in this party! They didn’t need more!

And then when they went back to Last Light Inn, Raphael was there, playing lanceboard with a child, because of course children could sign away their souls in Hell law. Why couldn’t they?

Raphael flouted knowledge though, in a devil deal, for Astarion to kill a devil of Raphael’s employ that lurked on this realm. Astarion had been prepared for Wyll to get into a holier than thou lecture.

“It’s as fair of a deal as you can find,” Wyll had said approvingly.

“You don’t think it’s not some grand chess game?” Astarion asked slowly, prodding carefully to feel where the landmines were in the conversation.

Wyll laughed. “Oh of course it is. But you’re a piece. Not the player. This isn’t Raphael wanting to make a deal with us about our tadpoles; this is an exchange of favors for him to get the leg up on someone else. Can’t say he can’t do both at the same time, but it’s as good of a deal as you’ll get from a devil.”

It shocked Astarion. He hadn’t expected Wyll to support him. Because Wyll didn’t always have Astarion’s back. He didn’t follow Astarion’s word around like the besotted mark he should have been. He raised an eyebrow when Astarion pointed out things could be easier if they simply controlled the cult for themselves. He raised both eyebrows when Astarion suggested that the dead barkeep ghost stab herself and not stop, and Karlach instead told Madeline that she should forgive herself, which was a load of hogwash. And then Wyll had sighed when Astarion had told that whiny bard that her voice was shrill and she should get over herself, and Wyll apologized to the tiefling and then gave Astarion the cold shoulder for the rest of the day, even turning down Astarion’s centuries-perfected blowjob skills.

In a number of things, Wyll opposed Astarion. Astarion would sneer, dig in his heels, want to claw into Wyll’s stupid ideals-

But in other ways?

If it had stopped with just Raphael, maybe. But Wyll at night pulled Astarion aside and went over all the things that could be expected with killing an orthon. Weaknesses, strengths, tactical maneuvers. Wyll had purchased, with his own coin, for no other reason than because Astarion sometimes put out, a scroll of See Invisibility.

“Orthons like to hide around invisible, observing you, and then ambushing you when you least expect it,” Wyll said, pressing the scroll into Astarion’s hands. “They are less prepared for their prey to turn the tables on them.”

Astarion didn’t know how to feel. Sure, hunting devils was Wyll’s whole schtick, but, Wyll didn’t gain anything from this.

And yes, of course Astarion knew Wyll didn’t gain things from the people he saved. It had been deeply aggravating at first. But this was different, because now it was Astarion, being given advice and help and magical items for the expectation of…

They went to Moonrise Towers, to see if they could find Wyll’s father, or that devil he had been tasked in rescuing. They found neither, nor the source of Ketheric’s immortality, but they met a drow merchant with a legendary potion. Something that could permanently increase the strength of the drinker even beyond mortal limits.

All Astarion had to do was bite her.

Astarion claimed it was the blood. That the blood reeked. The blood had a bad smell, Astarion said out loud, sneering and trying to hide behind Wyll, being Karlach, behind anyone.

The blood smelled like all other blood, warm and rich and tantalizing, decadent.

But she looked at him like he was a spawn. None of the others had. None of the tiefling refugees had. No one they met had treated Astarion like a spawn, because they weren’t familiar with spawn, not even really the monster hunter Wyll, as vampires weren’t his normal prey.

Araj was familiar with spawn. She knew all the ways he wasn’t a person, and she laughed in novelty when Wyll tried to defend Astarion’s personhood. She talked to Wyll about Astarion, like he was a pet. Tried to barter with Wyll and not Astarion, because why would it be Astarion’s choice who he got to bite?

It wasn’t new. It was so, so familiar. The various undead lords and wizards that had consulted with Cazador, the occasional corrupt patriar that Cazador had in his pocket. Spawn were expendable things for their master. They didn’t have opinions that mattered. They didn’t have autonomy that mattered. If his master said kneel and bark like a dog, Astarion would, because he was less than a dog, and he’d forgotten, was the thing, he’d just forgotten that truth somehow in a mere two months of traveling with people who didn’t know that.

Astarion felt numb, face paradoxically burning with it.

Some part of his brain seethed at himself. What was this pathetic display? This sniveling resistance? Oh did it matter to Araj what Astarion was? A single bite. Astarion had swallowed down the blood of a rat that was a tenday old and infected with rot. Astarion had at family dinners picked up beetles and larvae and eaten them, because that was what Cazador had allotted in his amusement, and all Astarion existed for was to amuse and serve Cazador.

Astarion did what he had to do to survive. He could drink the potion and become stronger for it. Or, if this burgeoning anything mattered at all, he could give it to, say, Karlach, his actual soulmate, as their chances of survival were not guaranteed. He could give it to Wyll if Karlach didn’t want it, for all that Wyll channeled his tongue into martial strength.

He should. He should bite Araj. He really should. It was the smart play.

“What’s going on Fangs?” Karlach asked, having pulled him and Wyll aside.

Astarion bared his teeth. “I don’t like her. She smells rancid.”

He made sure his voice could carry, as much of a verbal slap in the face as he could.

Her blood smelled as hearty-warm as all blood, rich and vibrant and pulsing along her veins. It probably wouldn’t be that bad. If he could divorce himself from her, he could manage. Close his eyes and pretend he was biting Wyll.

Astarion shivered.

“Drinking her wouldn’t be pleasant,” Astarion said, instead of what he should be saying.

Astarion felt like in freefall, backsliding into his worst habits. Inevitable and stupid, with no Cazador around to remind him of how brutal the world could be. Astarion wasn’t sure if he could even eat a beetle if he needed to at the moment. The thought seemed repugnant, and he wanted to rip apart from the part of him that clawed deeper, wanting to subsume him and do whatever it took to survive.

Karlach looked to Wyll, both confused, but they shrugged, mirroring each other so acutely Astarion’s heart twinged at the sight.

“What?” Astarion snapped, nerves gossamer thin and sparking.

“Just not normally like you to turn down power,” Karlach said, tail swishing behind her. “You were the most gungho about the tadpole diet, and you were all about your creepy book with a face on it. Just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.”

An interesting assumption, that Astarion would be the one to drink it. He shivered again, almost violently, and then unable to stop himself, he peeked into the outer layers of their mind. You couldn’t get much that way, just surface impressions, floating thoughts, but Karlach seemed to view it as Astarion’s deal. The potion would of course go to Astarion, and if he wanted to gift that to Karlach so she could suplex more enemies that’d be great, but it wasn’t necessary-

“Drinking her wouldn’t kill me, but it would be unpleasant,” Astarion said, attempting to summon the feeling of being a person again. A person who could say no, not that, that’s too disgusting to do. Too revolting. People didn’t do such things. People didn’t have to.

But he really, deep down, didn’t see any other way this could end. Until it did.

Not in a gaudily painted sign. No fireworks or magical illusions of explosions. Just Wyll shrugging. “I mean, no one will force you to do something you don’t want to do. You don’t want to bite her, don’t bite her.”

Which was such dribbling stupidity. Of course people forced Astarion to do things he didn’t want to do. They forced him to hike up a fucking mountain and then back down that same fucking mountain. They made him sit back while they rescued every sob story from here to Neverwinter. They told him no, Astarion, you can’t kill the monster hunter that wants to murder you.

So why did this matter? Why did this feel like getting suckerpunched in the stomach, but in a way that made him want to press his body against them? Why did-?

“Well, alright then,” Astarion said, blinking back wetness. “I’m not biting her.”

And Wyll and Karlach backed his play.

Later back at the Last Light Inn, Astarion found himself vomiting anyway, in some forgotten basement.

He didn’t think he could use Wyll anymore.

—

Every day, Wyll woke up. And every day, just for a moment, Wyll forgot.

Sometimes the forgetting was a mere handful of seconds. Sometimes it would take up to thirty minutes, rarely a few hours, until he started wondering why his neck ached so terribly that Wyll remembered.

Wyll was a devil. He’d seen the Hells, and he hadn’t survived. A lemure was more a fleshy ghost than a devil. An entity that saw into the Hells and was locked into a state of echoing it. Nothing more than a voicebox for the plane, everything else melted away. Only by Mizora’s fickle desires was Wyll’s eye shut from seeing Hell again, forced out the other side into something infernal.

But he couldn’t forget. He’d seen Hell, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t ever be able to truly forget.

So, instead, he tried to shut it away. He didn’t like remembering. Or, to put it more acutely, dwelling. The only path towards survival for Wyll was to accept the unacceptable and keep moving. Embrace cognitive dissonance until his mind was a series of boxes, all shuttered away from each other.

One box held Wyll’s current devilhood. It opened more frequently than the other ones. Astarion seemed determined to pry it open with his fingernails alone.

Another box held Wyll’s infernal ending. He didn’t think he could continue to hunt for Mizora. He’d always be questioning the targets. Seven years, Wyll consoled himself, was so much longer than Wyll had thought he’d get when he’d made the pact and saved his city. Seven years gave him time to grow to love the world and do some final good before he succumbed. One last encore before the curtains shut, and Wyll slipped to echoing Avernus for forever.

Another box held whatever he was to Astarion. Wyll didn’t look into it often, but he forced himself to open it every three days, to prepare himself. Astarion was a glorious man, but he held different values than Wyll did, and he’d more than once mocked the exact kind of person Wyll aspired to be. He was free-spirited, and he should remain that way. Wyll clung out of habit, but Astarion had been noticeably drifting away the past two tenday. Wyll prepared for a graceful end. He would not make a scene.

He’d made a scene enough with his father, and Wyll still lived in shame of that.

But another box was less a box and more of a bracer Wyll always wore. He claimed it was a wristbrace. It was not a lie, but it wasn’t truth either. Wyll had shattered that forearm, but he’d done it himself when he’d gotten drunk and angry that first year of the pact. There was also a scar where Wyll had tried to cut his forearm off, after the shattering, because drunk people made terrible decisions.

Because when Wyll was seventeen, when he pledged his soul to Mizora to save Baldur’s Gate, Mizora had taken it. And thus, become Wyll’s soulmate.

Her mark had blossomed on his skin, her golden crest stamped there.

Of course Wyll had heard tragedies when he was younger, of some great villain being a soulmate to the hero, but they’d just been tales. Abstract stories to dream about. Not things that actually happened.

The other boxes could hold, despite Astarion’s best efforts. The bracer could not. The knowledge had been burned on the inside of Wyll’s eyelids, on his lungs, on his tongue. Not as bad as his rebirth in hellfire, but almost.

Wyll hadn’t told anyone before. He could, actually. It wasn’t a part of the pact, simply something that arose out of it, so in theory he could tell Astarion that the man he was deigning to fuck was actually pledged in more than one ways to Mizora. That his soul was promised to Mizora in more ways than one.

Astarion chided Wyll for moping.

“I’m here for fun, darling,” Astarion had said more than once.

Wyll had sort of felt the end of the play a few stanzas back, but he lingered, hoping to hold on just a little longer. Just until the cult had been dealt with, and they’d all go their separate ways. That seemed the cleanest ending. Astarion would not yoke himself to Wyll beyond that regardless.

Wyll tried not to long for more. He tried not to show his avarice. Astarion had enough of greedy men, but Wyll wanted to cling to Astarion’s story, see how it all unfolded. He would, at least, pledge himself to helping kill Cazador and Gortash. Wyll was pretty sure he’d have just enough time to make sure that happened before the curtain fell on Wyll.

After Moonrise, Astarion avoided Wyll entirely. Wyll wasn’t sure where he erred, but it was hard to argue with the results.

Wyll strangled down his grief, held it under the water until it stopped moving. He, discretely, cleaned his face, allowed himself a single shudder, and then he donned the mantle of the Blade.

—

Karlach celebrated her new freedom, and gods, it was a glory to see. Wyll hugged her whenever she wanted. It wasn’t just for Karlach. She gave great hugs. Warm and firm, grounding. Boxes didn’t open when Karlach hugged Wyll. He could even forget why he had a tail, why there were horns. They seemed more natural when hugging her, bits and parts he didn’t have to think about.

She was the brightest soul Wyll had ever met.

“Not overdoing it?” Karlach asked, a touch of uncertainty. Wyll was tucked under her chin, and her tail was wrapped around his waist. This was hug five for today, and it was midmorning.

Wyll grinned against her chest. “Not possible for me.”

Now that touch was on the table, Karlach wanted the entire buffet of it. She offered to redo Wyll’s twists, and he walked her through it, reveling in the simple sensation of it all, the camaraderie. It had always seemed so lonely doing his hair by himself. His father would make the time to do Wyll’s hair back at Baldur’s Gate. Even when he couldn’t spar with Wyll anymore, even when he’d miss dinners, he’d always find time to do Wyll’s hair, once even faking a sick day to make the time for it.

Wyll reciprocated. Karalch’s hair didn’t take as much time to do, mostly just shaving down the sides of her head for her.

“An undercut and a mullet,” Wyll said, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah,” Karlach said. “Who’s stopping me? The Hell cops?”

“This couldn’t be military issue,” Wyll teased. “And if it wouldn’t pass in our militaries, I can’t fathom the Hells would go for it.”

“Well I’m not a devil,” Karlach said, with such resounding smugness that Wyll felt warm from it. “And technically there’s not rules for mortals in the Hells’ army. Which I pointed out. And then they didn’t like that, so I threatened to suplex my superior officer into the river Styx, saying I’d happily take the punishment. And he believed me. So he agreed technically there weren’t rules against it.”

The thing was.

Sometimes, around Karlach, Wyll would wonder if this counted as erring. As cheating. If that’s why Astarion pulled away from Wyll. For that all the stories Wyll had pledged himself to, to the ideals and devotions he had, to wanting to do right by his partner.

Sometimes he wanted more. Again, Wyll’s greed always got the better of him. He felt like a bucket with a hole, that no amount of love poured in could ever fill.

Sometimes, he wanted them both, shameful thing he was.

But Karlach had escaped the Hells. She’d sworn to never touch a devil, and she made good on her vow for ten years. That she extended touch to Wyll was enough. To ask anything more would be craven.

But gods, he wanted. He wanted so badly. He wanted to be pressed against their bodies tight enough that it could squeeze out seven years of loneliness. Hubris made him think that perhaps he could hug out their own years.

Sometimes, by himself in his bunk, he wondered if-

If he could just ask Astarion and Karlach to look out for each other. Make sure neither got too lonely after this was over. He didn’t want them to be forgotten by the wayside. He wanted both of them to live gloriously. But even if he did continue to hunt for Mizora, she wouldn’t allow their presences after. Mizora had made that quite clear, and even Wyll’s greed had its limits, thankfully. Karlach wouldn’t understand, but if Wyll left at the right time in the night, Karlach wouldn’t have a chance to stop him.

And then, another mote of selfishness, but he wanted to be missed. He wanted to be remembered. He wanted, when he was gone, people to wonder where the Blade had went, maybe pass around and swap stories. He wouldn’t be able to live on, but maybe his memory could?

He breathed out. The thoughts weren’t becoming of him. He allowed himself another minute of drama, and then he shuttered the thoughts away in their designated boxes.

—

Astarion made good use of Wyll’s advice. They ambushed the orthon and wrested the information from Raphael. A devil deal Cazador made for power, in return for Astarion’s soul, as well as the souls of Cazador’s other spawn. It shouldn’t be possible, to sell someone else’s soul for power, but vampires controlled so much of their spawn, and some foul magics could bypass consent. Night hags did frequently, stealing souls and selling them to the Hells for power.

“We will not let this come to pass,” Wyll said.

“Right,” Astarion said after a beat. He didn’t look reassured. He looked contemplative, but whatever he was thinking of, he didn’t deign to share.

They found and rescued the Nightsong, Dame Aylin, a celestial of Selune. Wyll knew the so-called good gods rarely did anything to help mortals, but he had to swallow down a sneer that they apparently couldn’t even help their own theoretically beloved children.

And then it was back to Moonrise, before the cultists could prepare too far in advance.

Astarion groaned. “Always go go go. No time for pleasantries, is there? I need a break.”

Wyll gently nudged Astarion’s shoulder with his own. “We can have one when this is all over, alright?”

Astarion, for a moment, looked like he was going to make some terrible innuendo and then devolve into a fit of giggles. And then it passed, and he looked away. Wyll felt a terrible loss. Even if had probably just been a sex joke, he wanted to hear Astarion’s horrid jokes. They made him happy.

“Astarion?”

“Can we talk after this?” Astarion asked, voice smaller. “I- This isn’t the time. I know it’s not the time. Hold me to it, alright? Don’t let me squirm out of it.”

Into the box it went. It didn’t touch Wyll. He breathed in. He breathed out. If Astarion didn’t want Wyll, then he simply didn’t, and Wyll couldn’t hold it against him. If he wanted out, Wyll wouldn’t hold him any longer. He was not owed affection. He wasn’t owed anything at all.

“Alright,” Wyll said.

The assault on the tower was brutal, moreso for Shadowheart having lost her clerical powers. She remained behind, white-faced and lips too pale, with Isobel fussing over her. She’d survived Shar’s rejection at least. Wyll felt hopeful for her future. But it meant she couldn’t heal the fallen, and Isobel didn’t risk nearing the tower.

They endured.

They fought Ketheric with Aylin’s aid, though Ketheric retreated having lost his immortality. And then they delved deep into the pits of it, where a mindflayer colony stretched.

Pods.

Wyll could feel the contract on his tongue, what he’d agreed to. He’d check. No harm in checking. A devil returned to the Hells was at least not a mindflayer devil that would indulge in carnage on the populace. Maybe he wouldn’t die today. Maybe it’d be another month still.

And, to be fair, the captured person was a devil. Just Mizora.

“Finally,” she groaned. “I’ve been here for days. You’re lucky there was a shortage of tadpoles, or else you’d be in the Hells by now, Wyll.”

Karlach barked a laugh. “Oh Mizora. You don’t think it’s that easy, do you?”

Mizora raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Yes I do. It’s mutually assured destruction. I die, I get tadpoled, I get a single hair on my head harmed, and Wyll’s a lemure. I’m sure you’ve seen them at least a few times. Wyll. You don’t want that to happen again, do you? I won’t pull you out this time. I can tolerate a single act of disobedience, but if you do basic critical thinking here, I can’t do that if I’m dead. And even if I wasn’t, a warlock that can’t even protect me isn’t a warlock worth saving, is it?”

There should be fear. There should be so much fear, but Wyll had been drowning in it for so long he couldn’t feel that much different.

“I think I’d rather just get it over with,” Wyll said. “I’m a lemure soon enough anyway I think.”

Astarion looked like Wyll had gutted him, but it passed in a moment, morphing into something far more calculating.

“Exactly,” Astarion said. “Which is why we’re here for negotiations. Wyll doesn’t see the advantage in freeing you, doesn’t see what’s in it for him. Which is a complete failure on your part as a patron, I would point out. Clearly you need to sweeten the pot.”

“So, new deal,” Karlach said. “Wyll saves you, he gets out of his pact. Now, immediately.”

Mizora drummed her fingers against the translucent bit of the pod. It couldn’t be glass. “Really? Here? Surrounded by enemies and cultists? When he still hasn’t found his father dearest? Wyll, I know you’ve more daddy issues than you can shake a stick at, but I don’t think you’d be willing to abandon him. How about this. You let me out of the pod, and I save your father before he gets infested. You have, hmm, I think a mere two minutes before he’s infected with a tadpole by what looks like is going on. I don’t think even if you run you can get there in time. Buuuut if I were let out?”

Wyll froze.

Strange, that he didn’t doubt Mizora was telling the truth. But she lied through omission, through twists and loopholes. Mizora had never once lied to Wyll outright.

“How much damage do you think the cult can do with a Grand Duke in their ranks?” Mizora asked casually.

The question was pointless. It was a handful of more seconds. Wyll didn’t know if Mizora was stretching the truth on whether or not they could theoretically get there in time, but it was a vast complex, and Wyll didn’t know the location. He would not be able to save his father. That was a given.

“We don’t care,” Astarion said. “Release Wyll.”

“Awwww but does Wyll care? And does he have time to debate?” Mizora asked.

He didn’t have time. He really didn’t. And he’d failed his father in so many ways, but he couldn’t fail him like this. Once again picking a devil over his own father-

The air compressed in his lungs, holding them flat and still, and vision swam.

Karlach looked to Wyll. “Wyll. Love. Stay strong, okay? Whatever happens with your father, we can still fix it.”

“Can you?” Mizora asked doubtfully.

Karlach snarled at Mizora but kept her eyes on Wyll. “But this, right here, might be the only chance for you to get out. You said you’ve looked for ways out this entire time? This is it. Lady Luck won’t give you another hand like this, and it’s a miracle enough you ended up with this hand anyway. I know it’s painful, but you can do it, alright? Look. We still got our advantage. If your father is infested, then he’s another sorry Tadfool on a quest. Even if he gets infested, that’s not necessarily an end for him. We could still save him after.”

Wyll could have released Mizora anyway. He could have, in another world, not risked it, been the better son.

But he could feel phantom pains of the soulmark burned on his forearm. And more than he loved his father, he wanted to tear himself free. He knew it was unfathomably selfish. It was a devil thing.

But how much more a devil would Wyll become locked into echoing the Hells again?

“I want out of the pact,” Wyll said, numbly.

Mizora rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Fine. You’d be useless to me anyway as you are now. Open the pod, and I’ll let you go. I promise, alright? Devils can’t break their promises. Which will be fun for you to learn, truly, one day.”

Wyll looked to Karlach, to Astarion, and then obliged. The pod slid open, and Mizora stretched her wings. She snapped her fingers, and a long scroll of glowing infernal parchment runes appeared, with a not-quite stranger’s signature at the bottom. It engulfed in flame.

And Wyll felt no different. There was no sensation of his soul sliding back in or anything. No release from torment, from agony. No sensation of the Hells leaving him. He felt exactly the same.

“That’s it?” Wyll asked stupidly.

“Were you expecting trumpets or an orchestra?” Mizora asked, laughing. “Applause? A standing ovation? Well. I don’t have to deal with your everything now, but when you inevitably realize you can’t actually solve problems without someone feeding you power on a silver spoon, send me a call.”

She vanished in a puff of brimstone, and Wyll felt-

Hollow.

He tried to summon his magic, but it didn’t appear. Of course it wouldn’t. He didn’t have magic anymore. This should have been a relief.

Why wasn’t he relieved?

“Thank fuck,” Astarion said, voice high. “You’re alright? Soul belonging to you once more? Can we check that somehow? Get that verified? I don’t trust that bitch to not have swapped it out with- I don’t even know what you could swap a soul with. Another soul? Some magic equivalent of a mirror?”

Wyll did trust Mizora. Gods, how bizarre. How unsettling. It hung low in his throat, but she didn’t break promises. She couldn’t. She could twist them to her own ends, but a deal was a deal.

“I don’t think I can be of any more help,” Wyll said, not truly cognizant of the words he was saying until they were out of his mouth.

Ah, that was why. And there was the panic.

He was helpless. He couldn’t stop anything on his own. And he’d abandoned his father. Truly, just looked at his father, who’d always made time for Wyll before the banishment, always made sure to support him, and declared that Wyll was worth more. The panic held his chest in a vice, and his hands scrambled. One of them found Karlach’s.

“Not yet,” Karlach said. “You’ll get there.”

Lae’zel huffed. “I understand this is momentous, but we cannot afford delays right now. Wyll. Break later, when it’s safe. Do not make the mistake I made in the creche. Later.”

“Don’t be a cunt. He can break if he wants to,” Astarion said sharply.

“No, she’s right,” Wyll said. “We’ve lost time enough. Let’s go.”

—

They did not save Ulder Ravengard. His father was infected, processed, taken before the group could rescue him. Wyll hung back as the group fought Ketheric, and then he panicked when Myrkul himself showed. Wyll fumbled with spellscrolls. He did not innately have magic to use, and channeling the magic through the scrolls felt weaker, hollow. Empty.

After, exhaustion washed over him, threatening to drag him to the floor. There were too many emotions. He was near sick with them: fear, terror, a resounding sort of helplessness he hadn’t felt since Tiamat had shown. Enough guilt he never wanted to show his face again to anyone. Shock, that that had fucking worked at all.

And something lighter. Wyll had always been greedy, been selfish. Possibility loomed in front of him, as expansive as the Sea of Swords.

Maybe…

Maybe even if Astarion didn’t want him anymore, he could still follow Karlach?

The thought shined brighter than fairy gold. There had to be a trick in there somewhere. It didn’t seem possible for Wyll to just cast off Mizora and- and go somewhere else, with other friends, and not spend his years carving each new day out of his eventual lemure fate.

But if Wyll could get his soul back, what else could Wyll do?

They all peeled back to the tower in their victory. Half the Harpers were dead. It was fortunate none of their group were. Wyll tried not to be overly thankful it was strangers who were dead and not his friends. He didn’t succeed.

He settled in a corner with a few bottles of wine, and Karlach and Astarion both found him shortly afterward.

“I know this is rough, but it’s growing pains,” Karlach said confidently, a warm hand on his shoulder. “It’s, what, a month to Baldur’s Gate? We’ll get there faster than the army. Armies march slow, even mindflayer ones. That’s time for you to relearn a few things. We got magic users and sword users alike in this party. We’ll get you to Bladeshape in no time.”

Wyll smiled, despite it all. A flicker of it. He didn’t know if he could believe Karlach, but he wanted to believe.

“You don’t have to justify it,” Astarion said. “Any amount of feeling upset. Even if freedom is worth it. Of course it’s worth it, right, but losing your access to self-preservation hurts.”

“It does,” Wyll said, guiltily.

Astarion smiled, and Wyll could feel the man trying. After so much distance, this much companionship felt like getting too close to the fire, but Wyll couldn’t help but burning himself on it. “Come now though. Surely we can find something worth celebrating. Karlach can touch people, and we get to murder Gortash as part of saving the world now! You’re free from that harpy, and maybe I’m not doomed to the shadows forever.”

“By killing your siblings?” Karlach asked, eyebrows raised.

“They’re horrid, trust me,” Astarion said. “They all deserve to die. But this for once isn’t about me. Shocking, I know. No more lemure state for you Wyll! That gaggle of orphans you saved or something didn’t result in the loss of a perfectly good Blade. Well. Ah. Okay so a little loss of a Blade, but you’ll get it back.”

Wyll raised his eyebrows.

“Now that did sound like erectile dysfunction,” Karlach said. “Maybe you just need the right herbs, Wyll.”

Wyll snorted before scratching at his bracer, absentmindedly.

And then-

He just needed to check. To see if the mark was still there. It could still be. It was possible that even with the pact gone, Mizora remained Wyll’s soulmate. Forever a mark of what he’d endured, but if there was a soulmark, he could make it into that. A simple scar like the others. Or maybe he’d ask Gale of a way to remove a mark that didn’t require cutting your own limb off.

Wyll slowly undid the laces and removed the bracer.

In all fairness, Mizora’s mark was gone. It was not appearing on his wrist. There was no longer a golden seal on his skin. There were instead two simple elegant little marks. Small, round, red, the distance apart as a pair of fangs. He touched them for a moment, bewildered, but no blood came away.

Just two red dots on his skin. They shouldn’t mean anything. It was impossible not to read everything into it.

Wyll stared at it. At the nonsense of it. Of the cruel impossibility of it. Of the man who’d drawn close to Wyll only to slide away. He felt, suddenly, a surge of panic, that Astarion might see it and then stay longer with Wyll out of misplaced guilt, but by the time he’d had this thought, the other two had looked down.

“That wasn’t there before,” Wyll said in his best job at not passing out.

“But-” Karlach said.

“Wait,” Astarion said.

Wyll covered the mark as quickly as he could. And then he floundered. He didn’t know whether to dismiss it before Astarion could or to not disrespect Astarion like that. Possibilities loomed out from Wyll, all of them ending terribly. So he froze instead, for all the good that had ever done for him.

“I don’t have a mark for you,” Astarion then said, sounding perplexed.

Right. Stupid. What was Wyll thinking? Shame wanted to smother him, but Astarion’s face didn’t look disgusted. He was still staring at Wyll’s bracer, just confused.

“I do,” Karlach said.

“Do what?” Astarion asked, looking away.

“Have a mark for Wyll,” Karlach said.

Wyll’s eyes widened. Blinked.

“What?” Wyll asked. “How long? What do you mean you have a mark for me?”

“Since you saved me,” Karlach said, ears tucking against her skull. “But you didn’t- if you had a mark you hadn’t said anything, and I didn’t want to- You know, rub your trauma in your face because you were in such a bad way- And I didn’t know if you’d even like me, and, like, what if that’s all it was. You saved me, whoops that’s a soulmate, and all I’d do is remind you of the Hells-”

She revealed her thigh, the infernal rapier. Wyll could almost feel an echo of it, a tiny part of his soul unbound. He pressed his fingers to the mark, and she shivered.

“That- what- him?” Astarion asked. “You have a mark for Wyll? You have a mark for Wyll and you didn’t tell me when I started sleeping with him?”

Karlach’s ears flattened fully. “Not gonna force my soulmate to dump someone. That’s patriar shit. But… I just don’t get it. I don’t understand. I’ve got a mark for him, but, Wyll you don’t have another mark somewhere for me you just didn’t tell me about?”

“Not that I know of,” Wyll said. “That- had been Mizora’s mark.”

“Oh gods,” Karlach said.

“It’s a devil pact thing,” Wyll said.

Astarion then laughed, high and half-hysterical. “Ah. Okay. I think I get it. Just a moment.”

And he undid the laces of his shirt, revealing his chest, with a heart radiating out sunlight. No matter how badly Wyll wanted, he could not see himself in it. It was clear who it was meant for.

“How long have you had that?” Karlach asked.

“Not since after tadpoling,” Astarion said. “Spawn normally don’t have soulmates. We truly are our master’s puppets.”

“You were soulmates with me and didn’t tell me?” Karlach asked.

“You didn’t tell Wyll! You don’t get to be mad at me when you didn’t tell Wyll!”

“Wyll had trauma-”

“We all have trauma,” Wyll said.

“Wyll had trauma and the situation was vastly more complicated than us, and if you’d just said something-”

Astarion winced. “I- am not a good man, Karlach. Wyll. I’m sort of, well, awful? Yes, Karlach, I knew you were my soulmate, but I couldn’t touch you, so I didn’t see the point in pursuing you. I couldn’t make you like me. I have exactly one asset, which is my body. How was I supposed to endear you to me when you couldn’t touch me? With what? My winning personality?”

Astarion’s laugh was cruel. “That never lured anyone back to Cazador.”

“What are you saying?” Wyll asked.

Astarion’s ears flattened. “I thought I needed a protector. I didn’t know shit about self-defense, and I was a vampire among people with easy access to tent stakes and fire and all other sorts of ways to kill me. If you liked me, maybe I’d last longer. But, look, you are so damned likable I felt bad because it wasn’t really ‘real’, and I couldn’t- I didn’t want to hurt you anymore. I couldn’t stomach it. So congratu-fucking-lations Wyll. You are just that sweet and charismatic and kind and gentle and all that other horseshit a centuries old predator feels bad hurting you.”

Wyll stared at Astarion. “So. To avoid hurting me. You avoided me and refused to tell me what was going on, leaving me to baste in my own doubts.”

Astarion winced. “Ah. Well. You deserved honesty, and I didn’t know how to tell. You’re so stupidly good. You and Karlach. And then Karlach got touch back, and I felt awful I never said anything about being soulmates before the touching part, and- I spent two centuries being grasped and touched and fucked, and yet you make me want to be touched again. You both do.”

Wyll stared at Astarion, and then he undid the clasps on his other bracer. There was no mark for Karlach. He checked his thigh, and it wasn’t there either.

But he knew. If Karlach had a mark for Wyll, then surely somewhere-

Wyll brightened, and he undid his armor, pulling it off and then raising his shirt. Also new, nestled along that nasty long scar, right along his torso, was a small stylized phoenix, fiery and free.

“Oh shit!” Karlach said. “That’s me! Oh man I make for a badass phoenix. I think I like that. Fire but without the Hells.”

“It doesn’t normally work this way,” Wyll said, trying to keep from laughing and failing miserably. “You gave me this scar, remember? I had to teleport away and push my intestines back in my body. And when we first met, I stabbed you in the thigh. I was trying to cripple you so you couldn’t get away.”

Astarion nodded. “Right. The normal ‘meet cute’ of dates.”

“But I don’t have one for Fangs,” Karlach said. “I checked. Believe me. I wasn’t looking for marks at the time, but I wanted to see the extent of what I looked like now. I didn’t see anything else.”

Astarion hesitantly reached out a hand to the massive swathe of burn tissue. “Was this hellfire? Do you think that could have done something?”

Karlach looked contemplative. “Maybe, but do you have one for Wyll?”

Astarion shrugged, uncertain. “You know. No reflection and all. It’s hard to tell. Okay fine I’ll get shirtless too. You’d better appreciate these goods, Wyll. I don’t normally take my shirt off for anyone.”

“I’ll also get shirtless,” Karlach said, pulling her top off. “We’re all shirtless now. Evens out.”

Astarion turned, hesitant, and Wyll’s heart twinged. Astarion’s back was a mess of engraved infernal runes, raised and angry looking despite being pale as the rest of him. But nestled between two letters on the small of his back was another mark.

“It’s a little acorn,” Karlach said.

“An acorn?” Astarion shrieked. “What? Like for Halsin? No! This is convoluted enough already!”

“I think it’s mine,” Wyll said, hope flickering in his chest. “My mother would tell stories about the Wilden Oak at the edge of Baldur’s Gate. She died before I could meet her, but those stories were all I had of her. Tales of tales. The oak always seemed so magical to me.”

Astarion turned back, squinting suspiciously. “You aren’t just having one on me.”

“I mean if you want it to be for Halsin-”

Astarion rolled his eyes, but he seemed to accept the answer. “Well,” Astarion said after a beat. “So it’s all three of us, then. If- if you still want me around. I did, ah, try to use Wyll for my own advantage.”

“I tried to kill Karlach,” Wyll pointed out.

“That don’t justify it,” Karlach said.

“No, but, people do stupid things then they think survival is on the line,” Wyll said. “Just- don’t pull away again like that. If you need to leave, just tell me first?”

“I don’t want to leave,” Astarion said. “And, you know, since all three of us are soulmates, I didn’t think you were that kind of person, but I’m just saying we coooooould try all three of us, can’t we? I really hope that doesn’t ruin the whole ‘no I really want you’, but have you seen Karlach?”

“Gods, please,” Karlach said longingly. “I didn’t want to get between the two of you, but- I keep flipflopping between accepting I don’t have long for this world and hoping Dammon pulls a miracle out of his ass, because I deserve one I think. Whatever time I have, I want to spend it loved. Not to pressure you Wyll. Friendship is love too, but if you’re open…”

“Of course,” Wyll said, almost stumbling over his words to get them out before they could take their words away. “I’m greedy. I’ve always wanted more. I’ll have the both of you as long as you’ll have me.”

Astarion relaxed. “Then let’s have more. For as long as we have.”

—

Wyll did learn some martial bladework, and he even learned how to tap into magic again. It was weak, a pale reflection of what he once had, but he could at least summon a sword to his bidding once more. And if the sword happened to look like Karlach’s soulmark, then Wyll could only cradle it.

Gortash was killed, and Karlach wept. Astarion killed Cazador, and he too fell to pieces. Wyll pressed an acorn into Astarion’s hands and tried to find whatever wishing magic the tree was said to have for a soft ending for all three of them.

At the end of things, the tadpoles died. The sun began to catch Astarion, and Wyll pleaded with Karlach to live.

And in the purest form of trust there was, Karlach did.