Chapter Text
The tieflings left at first light, many of them bleary-eyed and bumbling, but a few stern directives from Zevlor had them focused and motivated. Halsin, having foregone even a few hours of meditative rest, spent much of the pre-dawn hours with the refugees’ appointed leader, pouring over maps and discussing routes. Halsin recommended avoiding the Risen Road—with the report they’d received of the likely existence of a gith crѐche near the mountain pass, the risk far outweighed the appeal of the more direct path—and Zevlor agreed. They could not plan for every danger nor avoid every obstacle, but keeping to the less traveled roads seemed the wiser choice.
Halsin saw them off, walked with them a ways before exchanging farewells and a promise to look in on them should his travels ever take him to Baldur’s Gate. He was accustomed to parting ways with people he cared for; it was a comfort, at least, to know this goodbye need not be final.
Not this time.
As he turned to return to camp, he was startled by the sound of the rapid, light footsteps pattering up behind him, followed by the sensation of a small hand clasping onto his little finger. Halsin paused mid-step, looking down in bemusement at the dandelion-headed tiefling child who’d caught him up.
“Mirkon,” he said in greeting, keeping his tone light but his expression firm. “You should be in the wagon with the other children, snug in your bedroll.”
Mirkon shuffled his feet nervously, the tips of this burgeoning horns scarcely visible amid the nest of his wild curls. “I’ll go straight back,” he promised. “But I forgot to give this to her.” Into Halsin’s palm, the boy pressed a crumpled, ink-spattered paper that looked to have been torn from a bound volume. “Mol said I should thank her proper. I worked on this story all night. Will you take it for me?”
Halsin smiled, taking a closer look at the paper in his hand, at the clumsy lettering and inky fingerprints smeared throughout. “And who is the recipient of this delightful missive?”
Mirkon shrugged. “I forgot her name. The brave lady, with red hair and magic.”
Halsin felt his face stiffen, his smile falter. His fingers shook as they curled around the letter. “I’ll make sure she gets it,” he assured the boy. “Now go on, before the others leave you behind.”
He remained on the road, watching the retreating caravan until he’d seen with certainty that Mirkon had safely returned to the wagon. Then, in the grey monochrome of the blossoming dawn, he read what the child had spent the night penning while everyone else made merry.
Once, there was a boy on a beech. He saw there was a harpie nest. He was a very good climer. he wanted to clime to the top and steel from the harpie nest. But the harpie was very mean. She sang a song and the boy forgot wat he was doing. But then an adventurer passed by. The adventurer was very strong and killed the harpie in one blow and safed the boy. The boy was very cold and scared. He was standing in the water so he was very cold. But the adventurer had saved him! The boy thaught the adventurer was ammazeing. The boy wanted to be like the adventurer. He wanted to be strong and safe peopple and never be scared egain. Just like the adventurer.THE END.
Halsin folded the parchment and tucked it into his cuirass, overwhelmed by the tumult of emotions that crashed through him in waves. He felt freshly awash in crippling shame, to learn a harpy had nested close enough to the Grove that a child had wandered within reach of her luring song and nearly met with death. He should have been more vigilant of their borders, more aware of the dangers beyond the Sacred Pool. Perhaps—in some small way—Kagha was right. Halsin had left the Emerald Grove, and the circle of druids within, far too vulnerable, neglected their protections for too long.
He returned to the quiet camp, more certain than ever that he’d made the right decision to step aside from a position of leadership. It had suited him ill, and the Grove had only suffered under his watch.
He paused in front of Astarion’s tent, hearing small shuffling sounds from within that ceased when his footsteps did. He could well imagine Astarion on the other side of the tent flap, frozen in anxious expectation, waiting for Halsin to either call out to him or move on.
Scratch and the owlbear cub were curled up together to the right of the shuttered tent flap, nested within a mound of rumpled pillows. Scratch lifted his head at Halsin’s approach, wary and alert until he saw who it was. His tongue lolled out happily and his head tilted in greeting.
Friend!Scratch exclaimed. Halsin was certain the dog would have leapt up and run laps about Halsin’s legs, had it not been for the sleeping cub at his side.
Halsin nodded toward the tent.How is your master? Has he taken any rest?
Scratch let out a thready whine.No rest. Master is hurt. He makes sounds.
It worried Halsin, that Astarion wasn’t trancing—and therefore, not healing. He’d all but fled their company the night before, after uttering words he clearly hadn’t meant to voice aloud, repeating a phrase he’d likely heard many times throughout his enslavement to Cazador Szarr.
Halsin felt his hands curling into fists as his side, thick and gnarled as the burl knots on an oak tree. The more time he spent with Astarion, the clearer the nature of his enslavement became. Aside from fragments of details regarding the many tortures and horrors Cazador had visited upon the flesh of his spawn, and acknowledging two centuries of starvation, Astarion had never spoken much about what his time with Cazador had entailed.
But Halsin was midway through his third century of living, and was not without troubling experiences of his own. He could guess Astarion’s unspoken torments well enough.
Halsin’s lips parted, and he felt the sound of Astarion’s name building on his tongue. At the last moment he refrained, knowing full well how unwelcome his attentions were at present.
He returned his focus to Scratch, who’d been watching him in silent curiosity for the last several moments.
Stay by his side,Halsin implored.Keep watch over him.
The dog snorted in exasperation, as though the druid had instructed him to do something so mundane and expected it hadn’t borne the effort of asking.
You see to your own,Scratch huffed in warning.Master is for Quills and I to guard.
Halsin felt a weary smile pull at the corners of his mouth. Over the ages, much had been said on the loyalty of dogs, but they truly were remarkable creatures. Echoing the tilt of Scratch’s head, he asked,Quills? Do you mean the cub?
Scratch pawed at the ground in excited affirmation.Master told him, ‘If you muss the pillows I’ll make you into quills.’ He has mussed the pillows, and earned his name.
Halsin grinned then, as the welcome warmth of genuine amusement cast light on the shadows of the night prior.And how did you earn your name, then?
Scratch shook his head rapidly, making his ears flap.Fleas.
With a great deal of effort, Halsin turned away, and crossed the camp to where Gale slept. Although Scratch had lightened his spirits admirably, knowing that Astarion was alone in his tent, hurt and suffering and unable to rest, filled his chest with a sense of sorrow so heavy it felt more akin to dread.
Gale had slept with his tent flap open, his usually organized and catalogued possessions strewn about in the aftermath of the pillaging undertaken by Mol and her crew.
Gale had waved off the mess last night when Halsin had helped him to bed. “Everything of dire import has been packed away already. The little scamps have done me a kindness, I would say, lightening my load of non-essentials, as it were. No harm d—ah, they’ve made off with my copy of Ye Follye of Karsus… that was a rather early edition in remarkably good condition. Mol has a good eye.”
Gale had chuckled to himself as he collapsed onto his bedroll, cupping one hand over his left eye, miming an eyepatch. “Heh, she’s only got the one, see? Good eye.”
Halsin had smiled, and drawn a blanket across the wizard’s broad shoulders, and gently pet his hair.
“I meant it, you know,” Gale had said, his words slurring as he slowly succumbed to sleep. “Ask me again in the morning, when I’m sober, when Astarion’s healed, when everything seems better. Ask me if I regret telling you, and I’ll tell you again how ardently I… I care for…”
For several long seconds, Halsin had waited, breathless, for the completion of that statement, before the sound of Gale’s gentle snoring had filled the tent.
Returning now, some four hours later, Halsin knelt before the opening of the tent. Peering in through the murky shadows, he found Gale in the same position in which he’d left: sprawled on his back, one hand tucked behind his head, the other draped across his stomach; one leg extended and the other bent sideways. He spent a moment in fond observation, silently admiring the long lines of the wizard’s prone form, his elegant hands and broad shoulders.
It had been a long time, Halsin admitted to himself, since he had last felt his heart stir as it now did. Even longer since he’d last allowed himself to act on any such feelings.
Gale made a small sound in his sleep, a quiet little whimper, and his back arched ever so slightly off his bedroll. Halsin’s hands spasmed against his thighs, his fingers flexing, fighting an instinctive urge he felt to grab.
Halsin shot hastily back to his feet, and decided in that moment not to wake Gale. A few more hours of rest wouldn’t jeopardize the mission.
He straightened and turned, locking eyes almost immediately with Lae’zel, who was watching with silent disdain from the opening of her own tent.
She looked to have been awake for some time already, wrapping her assortment of weapons in protective cloths before easing them through the opening of her bag of holding. Halsin felt a jolt of disconcertment, recognizing Dror Ragzlin’s warhammer among her collection. She must have claimed it while he and Gale had tended to Astarion in the chambers below the throne room. He remembered well the crushing heft of that hammer; his shoulder ached with phantom remnants of pain from the numerous blows he’d received from it.
Halsin made his way toward her, gesturing to the hammer in a manner he sincerely hoped was casual. “You kept it,” he said softly.
Lae’zel quirked an eyebrow at him, tilting her head so sharply the metal beads and bands threaded throughout the numerous braids of her ornate hairstyle clattered against one another like chimes. “The hobgoblin was not my victory, but no one else claimed ownership of the spoils. If it is your wish to do so now, I will gladly fight you for it.”
Halsin held up his hands, palms out, in pacification. “You are welcome to it. It’s just… reminders of Ragzlin might have been better left at the goblin camp. Buried with him.”
She ran her fingers along the oiled leather of the warhammer’s handle, almost tenderly. “Chk.Why would I bury a weapon? It is not broken.”
Halsin’s gaze darted toward the tent neighboring hers—Astarion’s—starkly aware of the fact that the elf within was not resting, and had senses keen enough to overhear this conversation if he wished.
Lae’zel caught him looking, and scowled. “You do the pale one no favors, pampering him as you do. I am not unaware of what befell him at the hobgoblin’s hands, but if he cannot even bear the sight of a weapon once wielded by a fallen enemy, he is fit only for beheading. Such weakness as you seem to see in him would never be tolerated in Crѐche K’liir.”
Halsin felt the heat of indignation rise along the back of his neck and across his scalp. “I donotthink him weak. Anything but. There is a singular resilience that forms from surviving the things he has.”
Lae’zel narrowed her reptilian eyes, considering. “I will concede your point,” she said with a great deal of reluctance. “But know this: if Astarion’s troubles delay my purification any further, I will end his misery myself.”
Halsin nodded, not trusting himself to speak lest he betray the bitter resentment churning in his heart.
After a drawn-out moment of leaden silence, Lae’zel rolled her eyes and bared her teeth in obvious frustration. “Tsk’va.” Grim-faced, she turned to the pile of gear that still remained to pack away. “He would prove less of a burden had he better means of defending himself. He flails about more efficiently with a weapon in each hand, and has foolishly never worn much by way of armor.”
She dug through the pile, pulling out a set of faded drow armor and a gleaming shortsword. Grimacing, she shoved the lot into Halsin’s arms. “See that he gets these.”
Halsin surveyed the gear, his stomach churning at the sight of the armor. There was a noise building in the back of his mind, like the rush of water, and he fought to keep his hands from trembling. “Excellent armor,” he managed to say. “Though sun-damaged. Drow gear is not made to withstand daylight.”
“Then Astarion already has much in common with it.”
Still Halsin hesitated, regarding the lean gith with newfound respect and great deal of curiosity. “This is very kind of you. Would you not rather give it to him yourself?”
“G’lyck—away druid. Accuse me of any such weakness again, and it will be yourhead adorning the front of my tent when next we make camp.”
*****
It was many hours before the camp had fully roused. Halsin kept himself busy, doling out provisions for breakfast and breaking down tents. Gale’s bag of holding looked fit to burst by the time he’d carefully maneuvered the last of his books through its interplanar opening.
Halsin had left Lae’zel’s gifts at the entrance to Astarions’s tent, and didn’t witness the moment the little bundle was retrieved. Astarion emerged from his tent in the waning hours of the morning, preening in the armor, giving the shortsword a few deft swings in practice.
“I should have been a drow,” Astarion remarked more than once, his tone pleased, his expression luminous. “They have such stylish armor.”
Halsin allowed himself a small, secret smile, silently agreeing that the armor did suite Astarion well. The supple layers of darkened leather clung to the alluring shape of his waist and hips while serving to broaden his shoulders and deepen his chest.
If not for the faintest of tremors in Astarion’s hands and the shadows of pain slipping at brief intervals through his expertly crafted veneer of whimsy, Halsin would have thought the other elf whole and healed. Astarion hid it well, with practiced ease, but Halsin was acutely attuned to the suffering of others, and not so readily fooled.
He clenched his jaw and straightened his shoulders, resolved to approach Astarion with another offer to heal his injuries. He was of half a mind, after the offer was inevitably refuted, to lay hands on the vampire and heal him regardless.
He made it three steps toward Astarion before he felt Gale’s hands close urgently around his wrist, staying him.
“Please,” Gale said. “You can’t force him. He’ll never trust you again if you do.”
Halsin blinked down at the wizard’s earnest face, wondering if Gale had somehow acquired the means to read minds, or if Halsin had simply displayed his intention that obviously on his expression and through his demeanor. He locked his eyes on Gale’s, focused on them, and on the gentle pressure of his warm hands. He measured his breaths as he inhaled, timed them on the exhales, calming himself in stages.
“You’re right,” he said, when he could. “Thank you. I’m—I’m sorry.”
Gale shook his head, and only then did Halsin notice he’d removed his earring. The eight-pointed silver star. Mystra’s symbol.
“No need to apologize,” Gale said. “He’s damnably stubborn, your frustration is far from misplaced. But remember—please—how little control he’s had over his own life. His own body. Permitting him so small a concession as allowing him to heal on his own terms, in his own time—it is the very least we can do.”
Gale frowned, and Halsin wondered if anyone had ever told him he was pretty. Handsome, certainly. Striking—regal, even. But also… pretty.
“Well, perhaps permitting and concession aren’t the best choice of words, as they may imply we feel some degree of ownership, which is certainly the absolute last sentiment I wish to convey, however—”
Halsin reached out, wordlessly brushing the edge of one thumb across the soft flesh of Gale’s naked earlobe, leaving unspoken the question burning in his mind.
“Ah.” Gale flushed, nervously lifting a hand to smooth over his already impeccably groomed beard. “Well, it’s just… you didn’t ask. So I thought… if I showed you…”
Halsin felt the heat of his inner bear rise within him, the vicious pull of nature that commanded the destructive force of storms, and knew, by the widening of Gale’s eyes, how evident it was that he could barely grasp the fraying tethers of his self-control.
“Did you truly mean it, then?” Halsin asked, pleased to find himself still capable of speech. “The things you said last night?”
The redness in Gale’s face darkened, deepening to a hue that clashed brightly against the purple of his robes. His gaze darted in a frantic sweep of the campsite, taking stock of his companions and their various activities, assuring himself of the relative privacy he shared with Halsin.
“I confess myself somewhere overwhelmed by what I feel,” Gale said at length, “but no less sincere for it. I do care for you. Most ardently.”
Halsin closed his eyes. Felt himself shaking. His thumb, still pressed so lightly against the base of Gale’s ear, moved to caress instead the length of his graceful neck, tracing the elegant line of one collarbone.
“May I come to you?” Halsin asked next. “Tonight?” He opened his eyes, drinking in the astonishment on Gale’s face, exhilaration nearly overcome by terror, yearning all but eclipsed by hesitation. “In whatever capacity you desire,” he added in a tone scarcely above that of a whisper.
At a clear loss for words for the first time since Halsin had met him, all those days ago in the depths of that shattered and desecrated Selûnite temple, Gale lifted his eyes to fasten on Halsin’s, and nodded.
*****
Karlach and Wyll broke down Astarion’s tent for him, when it became clear the vampire had no intention of doing it himself. After Astarion confessed to lacking a bag of holding of his own, Karlach offered to carry his things in hers, and packed them as well, while Astarion hovered and fussed.
“Don’t worry, Fangs, I can be delicate when needs must,” she assured him, plonking his possessions into the bag’s opening without any semblance of order.
It was past midday before the party was well and truly on the road. Lae’zel made no secret of her displeasure at the delay, extracting vows from each of them in turn that they would continue past nightfall in order to reach the mountain pass by tomorrow, as was planned from the start.
Being the most familiar with the area and the path ahead, Halsin led the procession. Gale accompanied him at times, shyly but no less talkative for it. Halsin spent the better part of an hour detailing both the medicinal and poisonous uses of the local flora and fauna to the enraptured wizard, whose attention to the subject matter—and the instructor—seemed at all times genuine.
It was nearing sundown by the time the party approached, then solemnly passed, the ruins of Waukeen’s Rest. Halsin had heard the others tell of the inn’s destruction at the hands of Minthara’s war party, but the devastation was even worse than could ever be conveyed in words. Ulder Ravenguard, Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate, had been abducted from the inn by the forces of the Absolute and spirited away—likely to Moonrise Towers. That fact was, in part, the reason why the party had agreed to continue on into the Shadow Cursed lands regardless of the outcome they faced at the crѐche. Cured of their tadpoles or not, the Cult of the Absolute was a danger too great to ignore, and they now held prisoner a man pivotal to the government of Baldur’s Gate. If Ravenguard were killed—or worse, infected—the city would plunge swiftly into chaos.
He was also Wyll’s father. Seven years estranged, but blood nonetheless.
As the demolished inn fell out of sight once more, Tav fell into step beside Halsin. He clenched his jaw to ward against the vitriolic words that rose instantly to mind at the sight of her. He had not spoken to her all day. Had done his best not even to look to her. At this point, his place among this group was purely to advise and guide. He was not their leader—Tav was—and she had not been denounced as such.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked, breaking the pregnant silence when it became clear Halsin had no intention of doing so.
In answer, Halsin withdrew Mirkon’s crumpled letter from his cuirass and handed it to her. Begrudgingly, and with no small measure of curiosity, he watched her face as she read it through. Her tentative frown softened into nostalgic delight, and the uncompromising hardness in her eyes became reflective of something more akin to sorrow as she finished the letter and carefully folded it again, sliding it into the pocket of her sorcerer’s robes.
“Well, for starters,” she said quietly, “there were four of those blasted harpies, not one. And it was hardly finished in one blow.”
“What do you want, Tav?” Halsin said. He was weary from the day, weary from the night before, weary of her.
She hesitated, clearly picking up on the resentment he’d made no effort to conceal. She walked with him a little further before speaking again.
“You’ve studied these parasites,” she ventured after a time. “And ceremorphosis.”
“Yes.” His answer was clipped, scarcely on the side of courteous.
She balked at his tone, then grimaced and forged ahead. “Is memory loss a common side effect?”
His steps faltered as he spared her a cursory glance. “If Shadowheart is who concerns you at present,” he said, “be at ease. Her memories were sacrificed to the goddess Shar at a Mirror of Loss. Common practice for a cleric of her order.”
“I’m not asking for Shadowheart,” Tav said. Her red hair shone a fiery orange in the warm glow of the late afternoon sun, her pale blue eyes flashing to gold as they turned to him. “I’m talking about me. I don’t—” She sighed, looking now at her own boots, covered in road dust and old stains. “I don’t remember anything from before the nautiloid. It didn’t worry me at first—I figured it was the trauma of infection… the crash. But it’s—nothing’s coming back, and I’m worried it’s starting to… affect me.”
Halsin studied her in earnest now, tampering down the revulsion he felt. “Why are you telling me this?”
She threw her hands up, exasperated already. “Because you’ve some knowledge of illithid tadpoles, and because you’re a healer, and because I need help.”
Halsin was silent for a time, examining his own thoughts and the troubling lack of obligation he felt to provide the assistance and assurance for which she’d come to ask.
“Is Tav even your name?” he asked at last.
She glared at him. “That’s what’s most pressing to you right now? My fucking name? No, all right? Tav isn’t my name. I made it up. I don’t know my name, I don’t know who I am, I woke up in a fucking capsule on a mind flayer ship screeching through the hells, and there’s a fucking parasite eating what’s left of my brain.”
He was silent, unmoved by her outburst. Once she had calmed herself, he spoke again. “Memory loss is not a symptom of ceremorphosis. Not to my knowledge.”
“Great,” Tav muttered, kicking sullenly at an errant stone in her path. “So I was broken even before the mind flayers. If we cure the infection at the crѐche, or at Moonrise… I’ll be broken still.”
Halsin vacillated between an instinct to quell her clear suffering, and the darker, more bitter desire he felt to revel in it.
She seemed to sense his turmoil, his clashing dispositions, and halted abruptly, yanking at his elbow to stop him as well.
“How long are you going to be angry with me?” she burst out, petulant as a child. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Leastways—how was I supposed to know if I… if I was? Astarion was participating. Hells, he initiated. All right, maybe I shouldn’t have left him there alone, but the sex was good. It’s not your business, but it was. And he reciprocated, and he didn’t ask me to stop.”
Her expression shifted again, emptying, drawing blank—but not before Halsin saw the shock of frigid anguish and grief steal across her eyes. He knew, in that moment, that something had settled in her mind.
“Fuck,” she whispered. “He said he felt wrong. I thought he meant the wine. I told him he was fine, but he was…”
Halsin had no interest in comforting her. “He was what?” he pressed.
“He was crying.”
Halsin’s flesh rippled and nearly shed, the bear within him fighting for dominance. The roaring in his head felt closer to screaming, and he felt the fire in his eyes, knew they were burning with the hot orange glow of his wildshape.
Tav skittered back a few paces, eyes round with alarm, fire sparking along the fingers of one hand and ice along the other.
“Stay back,” he heard her shout to the others. “Just leave us. Give us a moment.”
Halsin fought to control himself, felt himself losing to the bear. His rational mind fell to shreds in the grip of the bear’s mighty claws, slashing away all thought and emotion until nothing remained but the memories of what he had witnessed in the worg pens. Dror Ragzlin’s relentless lust. Astarion’s calm resignation to what was being done to him. The sounds he’d made. The wet snap of his hips popping out of joint and the guttural scream that had followed.
Even then, Astarion had not cried.
Halsin felt a hand on the back of his head and startled, rearing to strike until he registered Gale’s scent.
“I said leave us!” Tav repeated, her voice shrill and tight.
“With all due respect,” Gale replied, “and by that I mean, none at all—fuck off, Tav.”
Gale’s hands soothed down the length of Halsin’s shuddering spine, warm and firm and patient, and he murmured calming words of which Halsin only caught drifting remnants. Tav started to withdraw—to retreat—but Halsin’s hand darted out, snaring her wrist.
“If you ever,” he growled, “touch him again, it will be your end.”
He meant it. It a rare alliance of the bear’s brutal nature and his own innate druidic wisdom, all of him meant it.
Tav saw the truth in his words, and the last thread of defiance evaporated from her gaze. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said.
Gale sighed. “Intention, I think you’ll find, has very little impact on the outcome of action.”
“I guess you would know,” Tav said. There was no malice in her tone, only cool contemplation.
“Yes, I would know. Quite intimately.”
Halsin straightened, realizing only then how hunched over he’d been, curled in on himself as he fought to hold the bear in check. His face and neck were drenched in sweat, and he was afraid to look behind him, at the faces of those with whom he now traveled, terrified of the wariness and disgust he was certain to find reflected back at him through their eyes.
He had scarcely begun to recover himself when he felt Gale’s arms tighten around him in apprehension. Looking up, focused now by an urge to protect against whatever had caused the shift in Gale’s demeanor, he saw a man approaching them from the road ahead.
The man appeared human, average in height for his race, approaching middling years but still well shy of them. He wore a well-tailored suite of blue and red, trimmed with golden piping and filigree. His dark hair was studiously coifed, smoothed back as though not to distract from the intensity of his features. There was not a speck of road dust on him, and no weapons in sight, but the aura of menace radiating from him was unmistakable.
“My, my,” the man said by way of greeting. His voice was low and dark. “What manner of place is this?”
He stepped closer, and Gale cautiously lifted his quarterstaff while Tav turned to face this new danger with the elements of fire and ice once more dancing along her palms. What whispered conversations had been taking place behind Halsin fell immediately into silence, as the stranger commanded all attention.
“Do you walk a path to redemption,” the man continued, smiling indulgently at the defensive statures of those before him, “or a road to damnation? Hard to say, for your journey is just beginning.”
“We journey to the mountain pass,” Tav said. “I’ve love to offer you directions, if you’re lost, but I’m sorry to tell you neither redemption nor damnation are on my map.”
The man chuckled, ceasing his approach at last. “Well met,” he said, dipping into a polite bow. “I am Raphael. Very much at your service.” Straightening once more, he peered at Tav with a piercing sort of interest. “It’s not everyday one meets such a cavalier sinner as yourself.” He lowered his chin toward her, an extra show of deference. “What a true, bloody pleasure.”
Tav’s eyebrows shot toward her hairline, and very slowly, she lowered her hands. “Do you… know me?”
Raphael’s dark eyes gleamed. “I’m rather an admirer of the sanguine arts, even if I wasn’t quite born under a killing moon myself.” He held a hand out toward her. “Shall we withdraw? We have much to discuss… to our mutual satisfaction.” Gesturing to the wilderness surrounding them, his expression soured. “This quaint little scene is decidedly too middle of nowhere for my taste.”
Tav leaned forward, almost falling into the step she took toward Raphael.
“Don’t,” Gale warned, but it was too late.
Her hand lifted, and she rested her palm against Raphael’s.
She vanished, displaced instantly in a blaze of hellsfire.
Halsin shouted, realizing a moment later that Gale had disappeared as well. Taken from his side in the blink of an eye. Reeling, his cast his eyes to the road behind him. Everyone was gone. Only Scratch and Quills were still present—Scratch whining and sniffing at the ground where his master had stood only moments before, Quills chittering and cooing in distress beside him.
Raphael remained as well, glaring at Halsin with cold indifference.
“I do apologize,” Raphael said, “but I’m afraid this invitation is for the tadpoled only. Although…” He paused, inhaling slow and deep, and Halsin had the disquieting suspicion he was being scented. “Do seek me out if ever you’d like counsel on managing that troubling beast within you.” He smiled, the picture of generosity and charm. “You aren’t still calling it a wildshape, are you?”
Then Raphael disappeared as well, leaving the scent of sulfur in his wake, and Halsin was well and truly alone with the animals, and the quiet, and the sheer, desperate panic in his heart.
