The Quest for the Necklace of Azrisol

  The smell hit him first.

  Thick, suffocating decay. The damp rot of ancient bones, dust, and stagnant air clinging to his lungs like old filth that would never scrub clean. It was the kind of scent that seeped into flesh, buried itself beneath fingernails, wedged between teeth. He knew it too well.

  Astarion swallowed back the memory before it could take root. His fingers twitched at his sides, the ghosts of shackles pressing cold against his wrists.

  Then came the voice.

  “Well. This is absolutely miserable.”

  His own voice—light, careless—slipped from his lips like a mask, smooth and easy.

  “I do hope whatever divine horror cursed this place is actually hiding something worth taking.” He waved a hand lazily, gesturing at the desolate expanse of the crypt. “I’d hate for all of this to be for nothing.”

  “You could try to sound more grateful,” Gale muttered from ahead. The torchlight flickered across his face, casting sharp shadows that made him look more haggard than usual. “We are here for you, after all.”

  Astarion opened his mouth to reply, something sharp already forming on his tongue, but stopped. His eyes flicked toward Sena instead.

  She wasn’t looking at them. Her focus was elsewhere, walking around the chamber, her eyes scanning across the walls like she was mapping it in her mind—checking for exits, hidden traps, escape routes. Possibilities.

  A good instinct.

  She had been quiet since they arrived, but that was normal for her—sharp-eyed and vigilant, her hand never straying far from her weapon, always ready for what came next.

  It was that constant forward motion, that refusal to stop or look back, that had brought them here in the first place.

  Astarion hadn’t believed in this quest. He still wasn’t sure he did.

  He thought back to weeks ago—back in Baldur’s Gate.

  After the Netherbrain’s defeat, the sunlight’s burn had been swift and unforgiving. He should have been used to it—life in the dark had been his constant companion. Yet the months spent journeying across the lands, basking in the warmth of daylight, had changed something in him. It made the shadows colder. Deeper.

  When the sun was stripped from him once again, everything else seemed to dim with it. The tadpole’s gift had been a cruel glimpse of something he could never truly have. A tease, nothing more.

  And then came the first night with the door.

  It had happened without thought. He’d followed someone inside—a merchant, maybe, or some drunk stumbling home—the kind of thing that had been so easy during their travels. Doors had stopped mattering when the tadpole writhed beneath his skin.

  It wasn’t until he found himself standing in the dim hallway that it struck him.

  He froze. His gaze drifted back toward the door he had just walked through, pulse quickening.

  He had stepped right in.

  Uninvited.

  Astarion lifted his hand, brushing his fingers against the frame, half-expecting the barrier to snap into place, to throw him back into the street where he belonged. But nothing happened. He stood there, unchallenged, as if the rules that had governed him for two centuries had simply… vanished.

  For a brief moment, relief washed over him—strange and fleeting. But it curdled just as quickly.

  If he could do this, then why couldn’t he walk beneath the fucking sun?

  Why did the tadpole leave him with these half-measures—these little scraps of normalcy—but not the one thing he truly wanted?

  He tried to distract himself in the only ways he knew how. Brothels, taverns, endless bottles of wine.

  Every indulgence felt meaningless, swallowed by the same emptiness he couldn’t escape. The city felt hollow, its chaos too loud, its pleasures dull and temporary.

  He was free—but free to do what, exactly?

  Free to have empty, baseless conversations with men and women who didn’t care who he was, so long as he looked at them the right way. Free to drink alongside strangers who were only drinking to forget, just like he was. Free to laugh at jokes that weren’t funny, surrounded by people pretending they weren’t just as miserable.

  Free to disappear.

  Free to be forgotten.

  He thought of Sena—briefly at first, then too much, too often. Maybe she was already gone, already moving on to some brighter, more meaningful future, closing this chapter behind her. Closing him behind her. He wouldn’t blame her, really. That’s what people did, wasn’t it? Passed through his life like smoke, like shadows, leaving him in the same place they found him.

  He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself it never did.

  But it was while stewing in that particular lie—angry, half-drunk, and wallowing in the sharp-edged silence of his own thoughts—that he saw her.

  At first, he thought it was a trick of the light, or maybe the wine catching up to him, like some cruel manifestation of his thoughts.

  But then Gale stepped out of the shadows beside her, and Astarion realized it was worse. It was real.

  Sena didn’t waste time. She never did. She stepped toward him holding a book in her hands like it was the answer to some unspoken question. Gale lingered just behind her, nodding with that infuriatingly patient look of his—like this was part of some grand plan Astarion hadn’t been invited to join.

  “We found something,” Sena said, opening the book and flipping to a specific page. No preamble. No explanation. Just the facts, delivered in that maddeningly calm way of hers.

  She pointed to an illustration—a locket with a golden crystal at its center, veins of magic branching across the metal like cracks in ancient glass. She explained how this necklace crafted by some god might actually shield him from its burning touch.

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  But the bitterness twisted deeper, coiling like vines keeping him in his darkness. He had wasted years—decades—chasing false relics, false hope. He had thought he’d left that part of himself behind—the desperate fool who believed in a cure.

  “Oh, darling, please.” He took a sip of his drink before waving them both off with a careless flick of his wrist. “There is no cure for what I am. This chapter is already written. I belong in the dark. Like a good little vampire.”

  Then she slapped him.

  Hard.

  His head snapped to the side, and for a second, he just sat there, stunned. It wasn’t playful. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t meant to be.

  “What the fuck was that for?” he snarled, his eyes flashing as he turned back to her.

  Her expression didn’t change. “Because you’re being a coward.”

  The words hit harder than the slap.

  Astarion opened his mouth, ready to retort, but Sena wasn’t finished.

  “We’ve done harder things than this,” she said, snapping the book shut and stuffing it back into her pack. “If you want to rot in the dark, fine. But don’t pretend that’s all you are.”

  For a brief moment, he caught something behind her fierce eyes. It wasn’t pity. It was worse than that—it was belief.

  It made him pause, his usual response caught in his throat. Just for a second. Long enough to remind him of the part of himself that was thankful for her, the part he rarely let surface.

  He rubbed his cheek slowly, a smirk curling on his lips. “You’re lucky I’ve just fed, you know.”

  “No.” She turned on her heel, already walking away. “You’re lucky.”

  Gale glanced back at him, a faint smile playing at the edges of his mouth, as if he’d seen this play out in his head a hundred times before. “See you tomorrow night.”

  Astarion sat there in the dark tavern, the weight of her words settling into his chest like a stone.

  She always did have a habit of saving things that didn’t deserve saving.

  The journey here had been its own battle.

  A faded map found in the archives of Baldur’s Gate had led them through the Chondalwood, its tangled roots and dense canopy guarding deep secrets. Even reaching the ruined monastery had required a fair bit of bribery, coaxing information out of reluctant scholars who valued coin more than lost knowledge.

  But the map was useless now. The moment they stepped into the temple, the old paths it promised stopped making sense.

  “Amaunator,” Sena murmured, running her fingers over the carved name of the god this temple once revered. The torchlight danced across the faded sun sigils, their shapes twisted and cracked with time’s relentless touch.

  Gale, the know-it-all, hummed thoughtfully, taking in the space. “His faith was a rigid one. No mercy, no flexibility—only the law, the cycle of the sun, and his unwavering judgment. It’s no wonder people eventually turned to Lathander instead.”

  Astarion scoffed. “And now, here he is—reduced to a dusty relic in a forgotten crypt. What a legacy.”

  Sena continued to walk along the wall, gazing up at the expansive mural. It depicted a grand scene of followers walking in the light, their arms outstretched toward the sun god’s radiant form. “But some still clung to him. Even after the rest of the world turned away.”

  The words settled uncomfortably in Astarion’s chest.

  He knew the taste of that kind of devotion—clawing, desperate, unyielding. Worship that had nothing to do with faith, and everything to do with survival.

  Hadn’t he once begged, too? Not just to gods, but to a monster?

  Please, master. Please.

  The echo of it coiled tightly in his chest, but he pushed it down, letting it slip through his fingers like smoke.

  Gale had settled on a large stone table, the book open before him, his fingers tracing the illustration of the necklace. His eyes flicked upward, scanning the chamber for any clue that might align with the text—some hidden hint that would reveal its location.

  Astarion drifted up behind him, glancing down at the image.

  “How very fitting,” he mused. “A god of sunlight and judgment creating a necklace that severs someone’s connection to him entirely. A prison disguised as jewelry.” He tilted his head. “Amaunator must’ve taken the ‘judgment’ part quite seriously.”

  “That’s exactly what it was,” Gale replied, his eyes not leaving the page. “It was a punishment. The heretics, the oathbreakers, those who betrayed his faith… they were the ones forced to wear it.”

  “I’d never even heard of Amaunator before all this,” Sena cut in, joining them at the table. “I thought Lathander was all there was.”

  Gale nodded, slipping effortlessly into lecture mode. “Amaunator was the sun at its most merciless—the unyielding noon, harsh and burning. That’s why his domain stretched beyond light, into judgment and law.” He gestured toward the crumbling sculpture of balancing scales, its once-perfect symmetry fractured with time.

  “Lathander, on the other hand, is something else entirely—dawn, renewal, hope. Some believe he is Amaunator reborn, softened after his faith collapsed, transformed into something more forgiving. Others insist they are two separate deities—forever bound, yet fundamentally opposed.”

  Sena crossed her arms, her eyes flicking briefly to the murals around them. “Makes sense. When we found the Blood of Lathander, it felt… different. Protective. It was meant to shield and restore. This necklace seems nothing like that. It’s as harsh as the god who created it.”

  “And yet, you expect me to put it on my neck,” Astarion quipped, one brow arching.

  Gale hummed thoughtfully, his fingers tapping the edge of the table. “The Necklace of Azrisol is a curse by design, yes. But curses have a funny way of becoming something else entirely—if wielded the right way.”

  His eyes lifted to the mural spanning the walls, tracing the faded depictions of light and judgment. “For those who wore it, it was shackles. Cutting off their connection to the sun was nothing less than damnation. But for Astarion—”

  “Salvation,” Sena finished.

  Astarion’s gaze flicked toward her, only to find her already staring at him.

  Salvation.

  The word curled around him like something tangible, something weighty. A concept he had never been allowed to grasp—never dared to.

  For two centuries, the world had dictated his fate. What he was. What he had to do to survive. The idea that salvation could come not through blood or submission, but through a single object—through something given rather than taken—was almost too much to believe.

  Astarion forced a smirk onto his lips. “Ah, but then I’d have to find new ways to be dramatic. What a tragedy that would be.”

  Gale rolled his eyes. “Yes, we’d all mourn the loss of your shadowy mystique. Now, unless you’d rather lie down with the dead, let’s start searching,” he said, closing the book.

  They looked for anything that would help. The chamber was a box, unremarkable in shape, but the trio knew better than to trust the obvious. Square rooms were rarely what they seemed. They worked in silence, rifling through crates, shelves, and urns—turning over the remains of a place long abandoned, long plundered.

  Sena stepped toward one of the shelves, brushing aside thick layers of cobwebs as she scanned for anything useful. The dust was undisturbed.

  “Whoever was here before us cleaned the place out,” she murmured. “Looks like they took anything of value.”

  Gale went through the many vases and let out an unamused grunt. “Ah, excellent. More incense and rope. Exactly what we needed.”

  Astarion’s smirk sharpened as he turned to Sena, his favorite target. Teasing her had become something of a pastime, a little game he played when the world felt too dark, too close. Sometimes she scowled, sometimes she smirked right back. And if he was particularly lucky, she blushed.

  He leaned against a broken pillar, arms crossed, smirking. “Did you hear that, Sena? More rope for your little collection.”

  Sena groaned, already knowing where this was going. “Don’t.”

  Astarion’s grin widened. “No, no, I insist—let’s take a moment to appreciate your undying commitment to hoarding every coil of rope we came across. A truly noble endeavor.”

  She tossed aside an empty crate. “I thought we’d need it!”

  Gale let out a quiet chuckle, searching through yet another vase. “And yet, miraculously, the fate of Faer?n was not decided by an overabundance of rope.”

  Sena rolled her eyes, but there was no real heat behind it, just the easy, familiar rhythm of a well-worn joke.

  He remembered how young she had seemed when they first started adventuring. Funny how much your perception of someone could change in less than a year. Back then, he had barely taken her seriously. Always looting. Always keeping. Scared to sell, to let things go.

  It made him wonder what kind of life she had lived before all this. What kind of person hoarded scraps like they were lifelines? It wasn’t greed, not really. It was survival. A habit carved into her bones.

  He looked away, forcing his smirk to stay in place. That was the thing about seeing too much of yourself in someone else. It made it harder to keep pretending it didn’t matter.

  Astarion moved to another pillar nearby, distracting himself as he ran his hands over the stone.

  There had to be more. These old tombs always had hidden doors, mechanisms designed to keep relics out of greedy hands.

  He tapped his fingers against the surface, listening carefully. The stone didn’t sound quite right. Hollow.

  “Sena,” he called.

  She quickly came beside him, the torchlight illuminating a series of strange engravings—not sun sigils, but something older, rougher.

  Gale frowned, stepping closer. “That’s not Amaunatori script.”

  “No,” Sena murmured. “It’s a riddle.”

  The words were worn, barely legible, but Gale’s fingers traced over them carefully, piecing together meaning from fragments.

  “When the sun stands still, the path will open.”

  Astarion huffed. “Vague. Mysterious. Infuriatingly unhelpful. I love it already.”

  Sena looked up to study the markings above it. Symbols of the sun at different points in the sky—dawn, noon, dusk.

  Gale exhaled. “‘When the sun stands still’… It’s referencing an ancient belief from Amaunator’s followers. They thought that during times of great judgment, the sun would halt in the sky, refusing to set until justice was done.”

  Sena had already stepped toward a series of carved stone dials along the back wall, each one corresponding to a different phase of the sun.

  “We set it to noon,” she said. “When the sun is at its peak—standing still.”

  Well, that was fast.

  Astarion watched her study the engravings, watched how her mind worked. He should have expected it by now. Sena had a way of seeing things that others didn’t—not just riddles, not just puzzles, but people.

  He hated that about her, sometimes.

  Hated how easily she noticed the small things, how quickly she had peeled him open, despite the armor of charm and mockery he had spent centuries perfecting.

  And yet, he liked watching her work.

  Astarion’s fingers danced over the dials, testing them. They resisted at first, heavy with centuries of stillness, but with effort, they began to turn.

  The moment the last dial clicked into place, the air shifted. A deep rumbling echoed through the chamber as the wall before them groaned and slid open, revealing a passage beyond—dark, untouched, waiting.

  Gale stepped closer, peering into the gloom. “Well. If there was ever a moment to turn back, this would be it.”

  If they had any sense, they would have.

  Astarion’s lips parted, something sharp and easy rising to the tip of his tongue—something to deflect, to remind them they didn’t need to be here. Who knew if the necklace was even real? Why risk danger for such a foolish quest on his behalf—

  But Sena spoke first.

  “We didn’t come this far just to turn back.” She glanced between them, as if she had already decided they weren’t going to fail. “Whatever’s in there, we face it together. We get what we came for.”

  She wasn’t the strongest of them, nor the most experienced, nor the most powerful. But she had always been the one they followed.

  She wasn’t a leader because she demanded to be. She was a leader because she made people believe.

  He could almost laugh at it. Astarion hadn’t believed in this ridiculous quest—not in the necklace, not in the god who created it, and certainly not in divine salvation. But he had faith in her.

  He exhaled, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he stepped forward into the waiting dark. “Lead the way, fearless leader,” he said softly. “Let’s see what trouble we’re getting into this time.”

  The moment the passage sealed behind them, the sound slammed through the chamber like a closing verdict. The weight of it settled deep, reverberating in Astarion’s bones, echoing like an iron gate locking shut.

  The room they stepped into was different. It was beautiful—far better preserved than the earlier chamber. Their torchlight flickered over the polished marble floor, illuminating its intricate details.

  At the center lay a vast celestial depiction—stars, suns, and moons—a map of the heavens etched into stone with obsidian and inlaid opals, shimmering faintly in the flickering light.

  To their left, an archway loomed, the corridor beyond twisting into darkness, stretching out like an open mouth poised to swallow them whole.

  Sena moved first. She always did.

  She lifted her torch as she stepped toward the opening. However, the instant her boot crossed the threshold, the flame died—snuffed out as if something had reached out and strangled it.

  She vanished into the darkness.

  At the same time, a deep pulse shuddered through the chamber, crawling up the walls, through the stone, through them.

  She had triggered something.

  Astarion moved before he could think, before Gale had even opened his mouth.

  “Sena!”

  Astarion’s body was already lunging forward toward her, but the moment his body met the archway—

  Pain.

  A sudden force slammed into his chest, sending him sprawling back onto the cold stone floor. The impact stole the air from his lungs, left him breathless, disoriented, furious.

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  By the time he pushed himself upright, the wall was already there—a shimmering, imperceptible thing, like heat on pavement, separating them.

  A barrier.

  Gale had seen it too. His eyes flickered with understanding, already working through the implications.

  “I’m okay,” Sena called from the other side. Her voice was calm, but Astarion didn’t like the way the dark swallowed it.

  “Try to come back out,” Gale instructed.

  A moment later, Sena stepped through the archway again, the torch still cold and lifeless in her grip, but safe.

  Gale’s brows furrowed. “We’ve felt this kind of magic before. It’s not malevolent—just reactive.”

  He stepped toward the archway, studying the opening and beyond. “It seems only one person can pass through at a time… perhaps it’s a trial of sorts, not unlike the one we encountered in the Sharran temple.”

  Of course.

  They worked quickly after that—it was second nature now, this rhythm of understanding, of solving.

  “What did you see?” Astarion asked.

  Sena shook her head. “I couldn’t see anything. Just—darkness.”

  That wasn’t normal. Even without light, human eyes should have adjusted.

  Gale rubbed his jaw. “Let me test something.”

  He lifted a hand, conjuring a small, steady orb of arcane light in his palm, stepping toward the threshold.

  The moment he crossed, the magic died.

  Astarion let out a sharp breath. “Ah. Well, that’s unfortunate.”

  Gale stepped back, eyes narrowing. “It doesn’t just block sight—it devours it. No natural or magical light works in there.” He exhaled. “Which means I’m blind in there too.”

  The two of them slowly lifted their eyes toward Astarion.

  He couldn’t help it, he smirked. “Elves prove superior once again.”

  Gale sighed. “Yes, yes, bask in it while you can.” He glanced back at the archway, tapping his chin. “I suppose a trial of darkness does seem fitting for Amaunator. But we have no idea what’s waiting in there. It could be anything.”

  Astarion turned toward the entrance, rolling his shoulders with a dramatic sigh. “I suppose I’ll just have to do all the hard work. Nothing I can’t handle I’m sure—”

  But before he could step forward, a hand caught his arm.

  Sena.

  She wasn’t looking at him softly—she never did.

  She wasn’t pleading. She wasn’t warning. She wasn’t going to tell him to be careful, because they both knew that was pointless.

  “We’ve done trials before,” she said. “They’re never what they seem. You know that.” Her grip on his arm was firm. “Whatever’s in there, it’s just another trick. And we’ll be right here when you break it.”

  He let himself smirk, slow and easy. “I do love a challenge.”

  And with that, he stepped into the dark.

  It wasn’t just darkness. It was absence.

  Astarion forced himself to breathe. Even his darkvision barely cut through the abyss, rendering the world in dark shades of grey and shadow. It wasn’t much. But it was something.

  His heartbeat felt louder in his own ears, too. The familiar itch of instinct clawed at his skin—he had been in places like this before.

  He took a cautious step forward, then another, following the curving walls lined with carvings of stars. The air was heavy, pressing in on all sides, thick with something unseen, something waiting. This place didn’t abide by natural law—he could feel it in the way the shadows clung to him, in the way each step felt like walking deeper into something alive.

  While following the path, every time he turned a corner, another fork appeared, splitting the way forward into choices that felt increasingly meaningless.

  He started keeping track in his head. Right, left, right, left, right. A pattern. A map.

  “Everything okay in there?” Gale’s voice filtered through the space, sounding both too far and too close at once. Warped. Distorted.

  “It’s just a maze.” He called back. His voice felt thin in the dark.

  Astarion exhaled sharply and cut his palm, pressing blood against the cold stone as he moved. Marking his path. Proof that he had been here.

  Right, left, right, left…

  He stopped short, eyes narrowing at the smeared mark ahead of him.

  His mark.

  His jaw tightened. He had already been here.

  That shouldn’t be possible. Logically, he should have been moving forward, deeper into the maze—not circling back. Unless—

  A creeping thought slithered into his mind.

  The walls were moving.

  As he continued, he could tell how they were shifting, just enough to throw him off course, just enough to make him doubt. The corridors looped back on themselves, illusions warping reality, every path bleeding into another, spiraling, leading him in circles.

  Dead ends weren’t dead ends at all—just traps. Meant to make him turn back, turn wrong, turn himself around until there was no forward, no path at all, just endless, suffocating repetition.

  Every time he thought he had made progress, he would step forward and find himself to another corner he’d already been.

  He exhaled sharply, pressing a bloodied hand to the stone, forcing his voice outward.

  “The walls are changing,” he called, unsure if they could even hear him through the thick, suffocating dark.

  A beat of silence. Then—

  “There must be a way to figure it out,” Sena’s voice cut through, distant. “We’ll look out here too.”

  Astarion dragged his fingers along the walls as he moved, trying to make sense of the corridors—of the way they bent and twisted around him. His eyes caught on the engravings that repeated in an endless cycle—patterns of stars, carved deep into the stone.

  Stars.

  “Check the ground!” he called again, the realization settling in his chest. The image on the ground. The constellations. It had to mean something.

  A pause. Then Gale’s voice, thoughtful, piecing it together in real time. “Of course. The star map—the celestial patterns. The maze isn’t random. It’s following a sequence.”

  Astarion smirked faintly, despite himself. Clever wizard.

  With Gale’s guidance, they traced the star patterns along the ground, mapping out the intended path. Sena called out directions to him, her voice cutting through the dark like an anchor.

  Astarion kept marking the walls with his blood, even as the corridors continued to shift and writhe around him. The maze was still trying to lose him—but he wasn’t moving in circles anymore.

  “Left,” Sena called.

  Astarion started to turn—

  “Right.”

  He froze.

  A whisper—a breath against his ear, slithering, intimate.

  “Right?” he called back, his voice sharper than before.

  “No, left!” Sena’s voice, firm, distant.

  “Right,” the whisper pressed again, not distant like hers. Close. Too close. It echoed, threading itself into his mind.

  “Turn back—before the darkness consumes you.”

  Astarion let out a slow breath, shaking his head. Ah. There it was. A part of the trial, no doubt. Pathetic—it didn’t matter. This was child’s play.

  “Another left,” Sena instructed.

  “Little vampire spawn.”

  “Then right,” Sena called again.

  “You still carry your master’s chains.”

  He forced himself forward. Left first, shaking off the vicious mockery.

  “Do you miss it? The stench of the dungeons? The taste of rat filth, the gnawing hunger clawing at your ribs?”

  Right.

  This was nothing. He had heard worse.

  ”Left!”

  “Forever hungry. A starving corpse, denied even the mercy of true death.”

  “Another left!”

  Then—

  “Do you dream of her blood?”

  Astarion’s steps halted.

  “Does it haunt you—the way it would taste?”

  A second voice slithered in, closer than before.

  “But she wouldn’t give it to you, would she? Not freely. Not willingly.”

  Astarion’s hands twitched, the instinct to cover his ears nearly overwhelming, but he couldn’t. He had to listen for Sena. His nails dug into his wet palm instead as he turned left for the second time.

  “Right!”

  “She knows what you are.”

  A third voice. Closer. Louder. They were multiplying, closing in.

  “A monster she pities. A broken thing to fix.”

  His teeth clenched, his jaw tightening with the effort to keep moving, keep breathing, keep thinking.

  “Poor, lost star,” the whisperings crooned. “Forever chasing the light. You want it to save you, don’t you? But it never will. Light is not meant for things like you.”

  “It will always be out of reach. Just like her.”

  “Two lefts!”

  Her voice felt further.

  “She’ll leave you behind—forgotten, discarded.”

  “Right!”

  “And when she does, you’ll be exactly what you’ve always been—a stray, wandering and starving in the dark.”

  The whispers were inside his head, twisting through his thoughts like poison. He stumbled forward, the walls closing in, the space tightening with each step. His hand clenched tighter until blood from his earlier cut dripped onto the floor, leaving a dark trail in his wake.

  He could barely hear her voice as he turned right.

  And then—the end.

  A stone pedestal loomed before him, etched with a star map and three raised moon sigils in a line. His breath dragged sharp through his nose, his pulse pounding in his ears—so loud he couldn’t tell if it drowned out the whispers or beat in perfect rhythm with them. His fingers trembled, slick with blood, hovering over the sigils.

  The whispers coiled around him, desperate, clinging—

  “If only you had taken what was yours.”

  He blinked, trying to focus, trying to breathe. The walls seemed to shudder around him.

  “You could have ascended—become something greater than him. Greater than all of them.”

  Looking down at the three, he first pressed the left sigil. It pulsed faintly beneath his touch, glowing with soft light.

  Astarion exhaled—too sharp, too fast—moving to the middle one.

  “But you threw it all away.”

  His fingers pressed it. The light died instantly. Wrong sequence. His heart jumped, fingers twitching as the voices hissed again.

  “You casted aside your one chance—”

  He pressed the left once more. Glow.

  His pulse thundered in his head, his fingers moving with growing urgency. He pressed the right sigil. Another glow.

  “For her?”

  His breath caught. His hand hovered over the final sigil. His fingers shook.

  “Did you really believe it would make her love you?”

  He pressed it.

  The pedestal flared with sudden light—a blinding, violent burst that devoured the dark, swallowing the whispers whole in one final scream.

  Then—silence.

  The voices were gone, but he could still hear them.

  They clung to the edges of his thoughts like a sickness. The press of them against his skin, the curl of their taunts in his ear. They had vanished into silence, but the silence felt wrong.

  His fingers still itched from where they had pressed against the sigils. His blood still marked the walls behind him, a trail through the maze, proof that he had made it out.

  Gale’s voice greeted him first. “Well done.”

  He gestured toward the newly open path behind them. “The next door opened when you reached the end—it looks like it descends further down the crypt.”

  Sena, however, moved quickly to his side, gently lifting his bloodied hand. “What happened?”

  Astarion snatched it back—too quickly. “Marking paths with blood. Oldest maze trick in the book.” His voice was light. Exactly how he meant it to sound.

  “Astarion.” Her voice was steady. Not accusing. Reaching. “Was there anything in there?”

  His fingers twitched.

  “Poor, lost star.”

  He forced a small, sharp smile, not looking at her. “A few cheap tricks. Hardly worth mentioning.”

  Sena didn’t press. But he could see it in her body—the way she leaned forward, like she wanted to say more but stopped herself.

  She just nodded once, slowly, and turned toward the stairs ahead.

  They descended down the new opening, Sena’s torch once again lighting their way. His breath dragged heavy through his nose, but it felt like it barely reached his lungs. Voices still coiled in his head.

  “If only you had taken what was yours.”

  His gaze flicked to the damp stone, the walls pressing closer, the air heavier with each step.

  He tried not to hear it. Not to feel it.

  “You threw it all away.”

  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

  It almost sounded like his own voice now—the cadence too familiar, the edge too sharp. He shook his head, flexing his fingers, blood sticky on his skin.

  He blinked, realizing how far down they had gone, how cold the air was now. Focus. One step after another.

  It was nothing.

  Nothing.

  Then—

  A shriek.

  Not human. Not alive.

  It came from below, echoing up the staircase in a piercing wail. Astarion’s fangs ached at the sound.

  Wraiths.

  He recognized that kind of scream. Not of the living—but of the dead that refused to stay buried.

  Sena drew her weapon. Gale’s fingers tensed around his staff.

  Astarion sighed, feeling the familiar, comforting weight of his dagger in his hand once again.

  “Finally,” he sighed, a cold smile pulling at his lips. “Something I can actually kill.”

  They came from the shadows. Shapeless. Hollow-eyed.

  Four of them.

  As they entered the new chamber, Astarion caught the first wraith mid-lunge, driving his dagger into its insubstantial form. It shrieked as the silvered blade made contact, but he didn’t stop there. A twist, a second strike, a flourish—he knew how to make it hurt. If such things could.

  The thing writhed, caught between this plane and wherever its twisted soul belonged. A final slice sent it dissipating into smoke, the air thick with its lingering spite.

  Astarion stood for a moment, dagger still raised, watching the remnants fade.

  One down.

  Behind him, Sena’s blade flashed, carving a path through the shifting dark. Gale stood behind them, staff raised, weaving spells in rapid succession—Scorching Rays lashed through the gloom, burning spectral bodies from the inside out.

  Astarion should have been keeping pace. Should have been watching their backs. But the rush—the sheer relief of finally cutting something, feeling something scream beneath his hands—it was intoxicating.

  He needed this. The fight. The thrill. The release.

  Another wraith lunged. He met it with a snarl, dagger slicing through mist, the thrill of the kill washing over him like a drug.

  He wasn’t keeping track of the others. His blade was already rising for another go—until Sena twisted to dodge a wraith, straight into his path.

  Her eyes widened, barely registering the incoming strike—his blade, his mistake, a shadow of silver cutting toward her—

  No.

  A blast of force sent her tumbling back before his dagger could cut her.

  Gale.

  “Astarion!” Gale’s voice was sharp, crackling like the remnants of a spell. A pulse of Thunderwave had shattered the wraith and thrown Sena to safety.

  Astarion breathed hard, the heat of battle fading just enough to let the moment sink in.

  He’d almost—

  He clenched his jaw. Spun, burying his dagger into the last wraith with enough force to end it in one strike. It shrieked, a horrible, clawing sound, before vanishing into nothing.

  The silence that followed was heavy.

  Gale turned on him immediately. “What in the Nine Hells was that?”

  Astarion said nothing.

  “Recklessness is one thing,” Gale’s voice was clipped. “If you want to throw yourself at danger, be my guest. But not at the expense of Sena, who was actually trying to have your back.”

  He bristled at that. But—he couldn’t argue. Because Gale was right.

  And Sena was watching him. Not hurt. Not angry. Just… Sena.

  “It’s fine,” she said, already dusting herself off. “Really. My fault. Should’ve been paying better attention.”

  Liar.

  She moved forward, not letting the moment linger, tilting her head toward the path ahead. “C’mon. We’ve gotta be close.”

  Just like that, it was over.

  But the shame still sat heavy in his chest.

  The corridor was long and narrow. Their torchlight flickered against the stone, throwing jagged shadows along the walls, stretching them taller, thinner, until they almost looked like shackles.

  Astarion kept pace and his expression was neutral, but his thoughts churned, restless. The fight had ended, but the feeling in his chest hadn’t.

  It wasn’t just the lingering rush of battle, or the whispers still clinging to the edges of his thoughts like smoke. It wasn’t even the suffocating quiet of this place, the weight of judgment pressed into every crack of the stone.

  It was Sena.

  She walked ahead of him, hands carefully checking along the walls for traps as they went. She barely looked at him. And that left him unsure what to do with himself.

  Their adventures had made him used to fighting in a group. Seven—sometimes more—fiercely independent minds forced to collaborate. In the beginning, it had been chaotic, infuriating even. More than a few fights had broken out over strategy, Lae’zel barking orders, Karlach charging ahead, Gale nearly setting Wyll on fire with a misplaced spell. It had taken time to smooth out the edges, to fall into something cohesive, practiced.

  But with Sena, it had always been different.

  She was small, fast—blindingly so. Where Astarion moved with the shadows, disappearing and reappearing where he was least expected, she was a blur of motion, slipping through the cracks of the battlefield, darting in and out before enemies could register she was even there.

  Many times, he had gone for a kill only to find her blade already buried there. It became a game of sorts. A flicker of amusement in her eyes, a raised brow from him. Who could reach their target first? Who was faster, sharper, deadlier?

  Even in the chaos of the group, by the end, they hadn’t needed to speak. They just moved. One covering where the other couldn’t. Two blades, one rhythm.

  That’s why he should have caught himself sooner. He should have known where she was in the fight. The way he always did.

  And yet—he had come so close to striking her. The thought twisted something deep in his gut.

  He exhaled slowly, flexing his fingers before stepping closer, his voice low enough for only her to hear.

  “You should be angrier, you know.”

  Sena didn’t stop moving, didn’t look at him. “Why?”

  He frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I nearly put a knife through your ribs?”

  That, at least, made her glance at him. Brief. Indiscernible. Then she turned away again, checking a pressure plate along the floor before stepping over it.

  “But you didn’t,” she said simply.

  Gods, she was infuriating.

  He caught up, tilting his head, watching her. “If it had been the other way around, would you be able to brush it off so easily?”

  Sena hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second, barely enough for most to notice. But he wasn’t most.

  She exhaled, eyes still fixed ahead. “Fighting with a bigger group made me sloppy. I should’ve been watching my own back.”

  And just like that—it was over. She just kept walking.

  Astarion clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to sigh. It was impossible to tell with Sena, sometimes. Whether she brushed things off because they didn’t matter or because they mattered too much.

  But this? This should have mattered.

  He wanted her to snap at him. To hit him again. To do something other than just act like it wasn’t worth her time.

  Because the truth was, he wasn’t sure if she didn’t blame him—or if she just didn’t expect any better from him.

  “I think this is the final room,” Gale called out from ahead.

  Astarion looked up to the growing mouth of the marbled archway, to the unnatural stillness waiting for them inside.

  The chamber—no, the arena—stretched wide before them, vast and unnervingly silent.

  Astarion took a slow step forward, boots echoing faintly off polished floors. The walls arched high, curving into a dome of carved reliefs that spiraled outward like rays of a black sun. Along the perimeter, rows of tiered stone benches loomed empty. A courtroom. A stage. A place where verdicts were passed, and sentences were final.

  Gale exhaled, his gaze sweeping across the space. “This must be the fabled Court of Judgment.”

  His voice carried, unchallenged by the silence. “Amaunator’s seat of justice,” he continued, stepping forward. “A place where the condemned were tried under the harshest light. These benches—” he gestured to the looming rows above them, “—are where his priests, his faithful, would gather to bear witness to sentencing. The accused had no voice, no plea. Their guilt was decided before they ever stood beneath him.” His eyes flicked toward the massive statue presiding over the chamber. “Mercy was never Amaunator’s way.”

  Astarion barely heard him.

  His gaze had already fallen to the cage at the center.

  It stood beneath the raised judge’s dais, the iron bars rusted, chains hanging slack where prisoners had once been bound. Above it, a high stone podium loomed over the room—the seat of Amaunator’s chosen judges. A place to cast down punishment, high above those who had no choice but to kneel.

  And there—atop the judge’s table—sat the necklace.

  Unassuming. Almost too simple for what it was.

  Astarion’s steps slowed as he neared the cage, fingers grazing over one of the rusted links. He didn’t need to step inside to know what it had been like.

  He glanced up.

  The statue of Amaunator loomed at the back of the chamber, tall and looming, with a severe expression. The solar disk behind his head was cracked, weathered by time—yet it glowed.

  There was no light down here. No torches, no divine radiance. And yet—the golden disk shimmered, faintly illuminated from above.

  Sena moved first, stepping toward the far end of the chamber. “There’s something behind the statue.”

  They crossed the expanse, their footsteps crisp against the emptiness of the space.

  Beyond Amaunator’s towering figure, they found a spiraling stone staircase curving upward—but it was destroyed. Entire sections had crumbled away, leaving jagged gaps where steps should have been. The structure looked ancient, pieces of it collapsed into dust, but the path was still traceable.

  And above it—a hole in the ceiling.

  Moonlight streamed through the open space, casting silver illumination down the ruined steps, making the statue’s golden disk appear to glow.

  Astarion tilted his head, gaze narrowing.

  “This must have been the entrance,” Gale murmured, eyes scanning the remnants of the staircase. “Judges, spectators—this is how they would have come down to witness Amaunator’s trials.”

  “It’s not just age,” Sena murmured, eyeing the broken steps. “Someone made sure it couldn’t be used. Maybe Lathander’s followers.”

  Astarion let out a soft scoff. “Not for most, perhaps. But we’re rather resourceful, aren’t we?”

  Sena’s eyes flicked upward, already calculating. With their combined skills—potions, magic, sheer recklessness—they could make it work.

  Gale hummed, stroking his chin. “We’d need to use a scroll—a potion maybe, but yes. This could be our way out.”

  Astarion exhaled slowly, turning his attention back to the center of the room, to the judge’s dais. His eyes flicked to the necklace, still resting undisturbed on its pedestal.

  Sena walked forward, heading toward the dias.

  Astarion’s hand shot out, catching her wrist before she could reach the pedestal. “Let me grab it.”

  She stilled but didn’t look at him. Not yet.

  “This was my idea,” she said, voice steady. “I’ll finish it.”

  Gale hesitated before stepping forward. “If the relic is cursed, Astarion would have a better chance of resisting it. We need to be rational—”

  “Don’t,” Sena interrupted, “don’t decide for me.”

  It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t defensive. It was simply a truth, and Gale had no argument against it.

  Astarion scoffed, tilting his head. “Ah, but you can decide for me?”

  Sena turned to face him fully now. “It’s not the same.”

  He let out a sharp laugh. “Isn’t it? We don’t even know if it’s real, if it works. But by all means, risk yourself for a trinket.”

  Sena studied him, her gaze dark. “You don’t believe this will work, do you?”

  “Why would I?” He released her wrist with a flippant gesture. “Do you have any idea how many so-called ‘cures’ I’ve chased? How many false relics and empty promises? You think this is any different? Some dying god’s locket…”

  Gale exhaled, shifting his stance. “Let’s take a breath before we—”

  But neither of them listened.

  “You don’t get to do that,” Sena said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was cutting. “Act like this is meaningless. You wanted this.”

  Astarion’s expression twisted. “Wanted what, exactly? A glimpse of something I can never have? To chase false hope?”

  Sena’s jaw clenched. “To be free.”

  The word twisted inside him, sharp and cruel.

  Freedom.

  Freedom was rotting in the dark corners of Baldur’s Gate, pretending it still meant something. It was drowning in fleeting indulgences, filling the nights with distractions that never lasted. It was standing at the edge of dawn, never being able to welcome it again.

  It wasn’t freedom. It was a cage with a prettier view.

  His throat felt tight. The ugly thoughts curled like tendrils, winding their way out of his mouth before he could stop them.

  “We wouldn’t even be here if you’d just let me ascend.”

  The silence was immediate.

  Gale let out a slow breath, measured, but there was something pointed beneath it. “Careful, Astarion. You’re lashing out at the wrong person.”

  Astarion barely heard him. His focus had locked onto Sena.

  She didn’t speak at first. Just looked at him—searching. Then, at last, her voice cut through the quiet.

  “Let you? Is that what you think?”

  Astarion forced a smirk. “Don’t pretend you didn’t talk me out of it. You looked at me with those big, tragic eyes, pleading as if you were saving my soul.”

  She didn’t reply.

  And that was worse.

  It made the whispers grow louder, swelling in the silence, feeding off it.

  “You could’ve been great.”

  “You threw it all away.”

  The words echoed in his skull, slipping through the cracks, burrowing deep like they belonged there.

  Gale took a step toward him. “Look, you know Sena was just—”

  “No,” she said. Too calm. Too controlled.

  Astarion barely heard her over the storm in his head.

  Then he saw it—her hands, trembling. Tugging at the wrappings around her wrists.

  She exhaled deeply, and when she spoke again, there was something quieter beneath the words.

  “I’m sorry if you felt forced.” The words carried weight. “I thought you didn’t ascend because you wanted to be better for yourself. Because you didn’t want to be like him.”

  She finally looked at him, and something in her gaze—something raw and real—made his stomach drop.

  “But if you want to pretend otherwise—if you want to keep pushing people away, then be my guest. I’m used to it.”

  Her eyes were shining—not with tears, but something close. A frustration too deep to be named.

  Before he could speak, before he could ruin it, Sena turned and strode toward the pedestal.

  “Sena, wait—” Gale started.

  She didn’t.

  Her fingers closed around the necklace.

  The chamber exhaled.

  A long, slow release of still air. The weight in the room lifted—not violently, not with divine wrath—just a stillness settling over them.

  Nothing happened.

  No explosion. No curses. No divine reckoning.

  Just Sena, standing there, the necklace cold in her palm.

  Without another word, she turned and walked toward the ruined staircase. She downed a potion of flight, stepped up—

  And left.

  The silence stretched on as Sena disappeared up the entrance in the ceiling, the night sky outside swallowing her whole. Astarion just stood there, processing—though what exactly, he wasn’t sure. The weight in his chest, the strange, hollow ache of words he hadn’t spoken, the way her back had turned without another glance.

  Gale sighed beside him. Astarion could feel the wizard’s gaze flicking between him and the empty space where Sena had been, could already hear the inevitable wisdom forming before Gale even spoke.

  Astarion let out a breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it. “Well? Get on with it, then. Yell at me. Tell me what an insufferable bastard I am.”

  Gale only shook his head. “No.” His voice was level. “I think you’re doing a fine enough job of that yourself.”

  Something in him bristled—like an instinctive urge to bare his teeth, to snarl something cutting in return—but the words didn’t come. Instead, he just stared at Gale, waiting.

  The wizard sighed, rubbing his chin before lowering his hand. “Speaking from experience… When you’ve spent long enough in a hole, it’s easier to keep digging than to even think about climbing out.” His gaze flickered to Astarion. “Sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone throws down a rope.”

  He paused, considering his next words carefully.

  “Redemption doesn’t have to be grand, or loud, or some dramatic reckoning. It doesn’t need an audience. Sometimes, it’s just… accepting that someone wants you to have it.”

  Astarion looked away, jaw tight. The words should have rolled off him, should have been easy to dismiss—but they weren’t. They stuck, uncomfortable and unwelcome, settling into the space Sena had left behind.

  He exhaled sharply, shifting his weight. “I don’t know why she cares so damn much.”

  Gale didn’t answer right away. He watched Astarion carefully, as if weighing how much truth to give him, how much he’d even allow himself to hear.

  “You don’t have to understand why she cares,” he said finally. “Just don’t waste it.”

  When Astarion looked up, Gale wasn’t looking at him with judgment. There was no sanctimony in his face, no arrogance. Just quiet understanding. A man who had once been drowning in his own mistakes, in the weight of what he had done. Who had also been given a choice to be more.

  Astarion’s throat felt tight. He didn’t know what to do with that, but he knew one thing.

  He straightened, pushing down whatever war was still waging in his head. “I’m going after her.”

  Gale let out a breath that was almost a laugh, shaking his head as a small smirk pulled at his lips. “Good.”

  He stepped forward, lifting his hands as the air warped, folding in on itself. With a practiced motion, he wove the incantation—Dimension Door—and a shimmering portal took shape before them, a rift in reality opening exactly where they needed to go.

  Gale tilted his head toward it. “After you.”

  Astarion found her perched at the edge of the cliff, behind the monastery. Her back to him, gaze fixed on the distant horizon. The first hints of dawn brushed the sky, the stars fading against the warm hues of oranges and lavender.

  She was sharpening her dagger slowly, as if grounding herself in the familiar rhythm of steel against stone.

  For once, he hesitated.

  Then, forcing ease into his steps, he made his way over, lowering himself beside her.

  “If you’re considering shoving me off the cliff, do you mind if we do it from the other side?” he said lightly. “There was a rather lovely bush over there that might offer a bit more cushion.”

  Sena exhaled through her nose—a sound too amused to be a scoff, too restrained to be a laugh.

  “You’d survive.”

  “True, but I’d be terribly inconvenienced.”

  Silence stretched between them, broken only by the steady rasp of her whetstone.

  Astarion exhaled, tilting his head toward her, and this time, there was no jest in his voice.

  “I was an ass back there. You didn’t deserve that.”

  She paused. Her fingers stilled on the blade. Then, she set it aside and turned to face him properly.

  “You say a lot of things you don’t mean.”

  Astarion studied her, the way her eyes searched his face—not accusing, not dismissive. Just… waiting.

  He swallowed. He looked away, toward the creeping light on the horizon.

  “You did save me, you know. From myself.” His voice was quieter now, the usual sharpness stripped from it. “You’re practically the first person I—”

  He stopped, exhaling slowly.

  What was he even trying to say? That she was the first person who had ever made him want something more? That for the first time in over two centuries, he wanted to believe—truly believe—that he could have something beyond hunger, beyond survival, beyond being just what Cazador made him?

  It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t comfortable. But maybe… maybe he wanted to start trying.

  Astarion huffed, shaking his head. “I think… I’d like to start accepting good things.”

  He turned his head to look at her, to meet her eyes.

  She wasn’t like the rest of them. She never had been.

  Sena was closed off in ways no one else ever seemed to notice. Always scanning, always assessing. He had noticed the way she flinched at sudden touches, the way her hands lingered near her weapons even in safe places. How she covered her skin, hiding something—or maybe everything.

  You don’t become a girl like Sena without having gone through something.

  Her own scars. Her own Cazador.

  She never talked about it. Never hinted at the weight she carried. And yet—he saw it, in the way she existed. A wound not quite healed. A blade always braced for impact.

  Someday, when she was ready, he wanted to be there.

  He didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know what any of this meant.

  But for once, he wanted to find out.

  Sena shifted, reaching into her pack.

  When she turned back, the necklace was in her hands.

  She held it out to him.

  “You can start with this, then.”

  Astarion stared at it for a long moment.

  “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “I know,” she said simply.

  When he reached for it, his hand held onto hers.

  She didn’t pull away.

  Together, they turned toward the horizon, the sky shifting from violet to pale gold. The sun had not yet broken, but its presence was undeniable, creeping ever closer.

  He swore he saw her blush as he let her hand go.

  Or maybe it was just the light.

  Astarion swallowed, fingers curling around the chain.

  “Let’s see if this thing works, shall we?”

  With a measured breath, he clasped the necklace around his throat.

  The moment the sun broke over the peaks, golden light spilled across the valley—over stone, over sky—over him.

  No warmth, but… no pain.

  Astarion tipped his head back, staring at the sky, at the endless stretch of radiance that swallowed the last traces of night.

  And it was beautiful.