Chapter Text
A bead of sweat slipped into Teryn’s eye, salty and sharp. She let it burn, in the hopes the damned worm could feel it too.
“Rooftops ahead,” Lae’zel said brusquely, the first time she had spoken in many miles.
She was tight-lipped as of late. A goblin ambush three days ago ended with her taking an arrow to the arm–it must have pierced her ego as thoroughly as her bicep, as she’d still be caught glaring daggers at the wound as though it had personally wronged her.
None willing to provoke her ire, her words’ only reply came as twigs crunching underfoot and the gentle clang of armor.
The ambush was more a team-building exercise than any real peril. Gale and Wyll had fallen into easy synchronicity, the former conjuring grease under goblins’ feet and the latter igniting it after a breath. Lae’zel skewered little bodies on her sword and flicked them like bugs into Shadowheart’s orbiting spirit guardians, where they dissolved upon impact. Teryn’s back was guarded by Astarion, his daggers finding swift purchase in the goblins who evaded her blade.
It was only a few goblins, though—none armed with more than a crude bow, or a scimitar crusted with so much dried blood it dulled the blade.
In contrast, they’d faced Ethel not too long ago. The fight had Gale gasping for air above a chasm that seemed to burrow into the center of the planet as the hag suspended him with a clawed hand. Shadowheart was locked in place with a hold person while Astarion, Lae’zel, and Teryn feverishly hacked at the hag’s illusions.
The witch had taken a liking to Gale, sniffing the nips of Weave that were always bubbling at his surface like just-poured champagne. Teryn had felt it too, once—the first time she slowly lowered a junk magical amulet into the strange portal in his chest. It disappeared into the murk, and while Gale sighed in appreciation, all the hairs on her body stood on end like lightning was about to strike nearby.
Later at camp, she itched to swallow an enchanted ring or lick the blade of her sword to see how a paladin’s blessing tasted. Or if it deepened her stores of magic. Maybe she’d learn to throw fire, too.
Of course, the Dawn Lord made no mistakes—of this she was certain. Had she been meant to wield powers beyond the holy, he would have filled her pool to the brim with them.
But she was drawn, by some nature she had to concede was given by her god, to everything she couldn’t have.
In the depths of the hag’s lair, she’d channeled her oath. A flash of blinding, crackling light shot out from her blade, fizzled out into a steady flame. The walls of tangled roots and packed earth were briefly illuminated in golden light. Tendrils of white and yellow licked out intermittently from the blade, kissing her skin with the warmth of young solar flares.
She cut away from her two allies and barreled straight for the witch. Ethel, too consumed in poking at the orb in Gale’s neck, did not notice when Teryn brought her sword down in a flaming arc into the hag’s legs.
Ethel buckled to the ground, subdued if only for a moment. In her folly, she’d broken her grip on Shadowheart’s invisible prison. Shadowheart riposted her own hold person upon Gale—when Ethel fell, he fell into the chasm in tandem. A scroll of telekinesis had him back on solid ground, and once released, he thrust a volley of fireballs into the hag’s chest.
The illusory Ethels blew out like candles, one by one, until just the real hag remained. She yielded, released the captive Mayrina, and disappeared into a cloud of green dust after a litany of threats about ‘sucking the marrow from all their pretty bones.’
A difficult fight, indeed—but there was an unspoken satisfaction in the aftermath. Calluses thickened where they gripped sword hilts. Muscles were rendered deliciously sore, in that way that is only soothed by lying in a soft bedroll. Around the campfire that night, while they all nursed bruises and cuts too superficial to justify Shadowheart and Teryn’s healing spells, the talk was strangely upbeat, the sweet afterglow of adrenaline rush.
The goblins had felt like swatting flies on a summer day, comparatively.
Their hands were itching for something none could put a name to. Even Teryn, oath bound as she was, felt a shift when the tadpole burrowed in. Not like the parasites were a conduit for the Absolute–that would have been too easy to remedy; just rip them out and chase the pain with a healing potion.
No, this was something innate, a change entirely of and on their own. A need to do things, just to do them.
Recklessness. Slitting throats when an arrow shot from cover would have sufficed.
It wasn’t that she’d gotten her first taste of blood and craved more. Just before her abduction to the nautiloid, a flock of thieves descended upon her temple in Waterdeep. The sentinel Dawnknights cut them down before the threshold was even crossed. Teryn’s own blade gorged on three of them, its thirst for blood spilled in the Dawn Lord’s name never quite quenched.
From death, life, the priests said over their bodies. They buried them at dawn, a heretic’s funeral, sprinkling seeds over the fresh dirt.
Shadowheart’s cough snapped her out of the memory. She sent it back from whence it came, misliking how the killer she used to be would hate the killer she was now.
Ahead of Teryn, Astarion walked with oddly tampered footfalls, all the grace of a hollow-boned creature. He twirled a dagger between his fingers in a practiced dance, the blade licked clean of blood.
Perhaps in the past, this blasphemy would have driven her to ritual martyrdom. A vampire at her side, fighting with her–Lathander would shake his head in shame, for her creed forbade in no uncertain terms convening with the dead.
But he’d saved her, she reasoned: he’d driven daggers into the necks of worgs and hags and tree-beasts that sought her out. Plenty of living men hadn’t killed for her like that, and in fact had tried to kill her. And if their small party meant to slaughter the Absolute and her followers, it would be foolish to lessen their own ranks when hers were only growing. If her purpose was protecting all which walked in the light, Astarion’s presence was a boon.
Had Teryn taken it too far, though, repaying him with blood?
It felt like a test when she was jolted awake to find Astarion’s fangs hovering above her neck. One which she wasn’t certain she’d passed, as she let him drink.
Perhaps pity overtook her. He had a starved, feral rage she’d only seen before in the cats that would come to gnaw on table scraps she’d toss them back at the barracks. The rise and fall of his chest was desperate, his voice cracking, pleading; it would have been murder to deny him. Her temple had fed worse creatures in better states.
It was pity, yes.
If the first time was out of pity, the second and third were purely pragmatic. His plea had been truthful, at least: he was quicker on his feet and sharper with his blows, a rusted gauntlet given its first lick of oil in ages. On a journey so unforgiving, it only made sense to fight with the best weapons they could muster.
Her blood for his efficiency. It wasn’t that awful of a trade, and this nightly sacrifice meant he would temper his fiery tongue for her, if only a bit. One less fool to forge retorts against.
And loathe as she was to admit, Astarion was quite nice when his mouth was shut. A lovely face with a fine, straight nose, and hair he took great care in keeping perfect. Moreover, he wasn’t entirely heartless; when he drank from her, he would stroke the back of her head as though comforting a frightened animal and let her hold one hand to squeeze when she felt her consciousness begin to fade.
She absentmindedly touched her last bite from a few nights ago. It was on the cusp of fading already. Vampiric saliva quickened the healing process and numbed the wound during the act.
This path they’d taken was well-stocked with enough animals to sate him—he’d assured her he wouldn’t need to partake anytime soon. Teryn was grateful, as she was dreading having to explain to him that enough blood was divulging from her body on its own, that she likely would not make it through a bite.
Horrible thing, it was, to be a woman. Draining in every sense of the word.
After more silent, boring walking, the rooftops Lae’zel foretold came into better view–an abandoned village.
“Everything is so empty out here,” Shadowheart muttered, cracking her knuckles. Under her breath, she cast detect evil, coming up empty.
“Aye,” Teryn agreed, “it almost makes you miss the tieflings.”
Wyll clapped a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You say that because didn’t have to live with them,” he said. “Nice people, but those kids . . . well, you know kids.”
Teryn recalled with a grin the first night they were allowed to camp in the grove, when a group of scrawny tiefling children descended upon Wyll, beating him into the dirt with wooden play-swords.
“Their company was better than silence, I think. And you spent scarcely a day in the Grove before we found you,” Teryn said, then added, under her breath: “At least you couldn’t hear Lae’zel’s complaining over them.”
He laughed at this, looking at the gith ahead of them, who had already unsheathed her sword before they’d even crossed the threshold into the village. Presumptuous, she thought. Lae’zel was on her guard more often than she was off it.
“Calm, girl,” Wyll chimed. “I’m sure the rats and bugs are already cowering in fear.”
Teryn heard Astarion shoot a laugh through his nose behind her and smiled. He had been oddly reserved on the day’s trek, and she found herself missing his flippant comments that were often like a balm to their adversity.
“Preparedness will save us, boy,” Lae’zel sneered. Teryn could hear the scowl in her voice. “You are too fast to speak, and too slow to draw. That hesitance will kill you.”
Wyll and Teryn shared an amused look, each silently begging the other not to laugh.
As though in retribution, her gut suddenly panged with a dull ache. She caressed it with her hand, which quelled nothing. It was dreadful enough that she was on this journey, with a tadpole in her brain and a camp of goblins to stamp out and this ridiculous crèche to find—she also had to fight against her body.
Elven women were luckier than most, she figured. Humans had to suffer every moon, which was unimaginable—how did they get anything done? Her own blood would shed infrequently, a few times a year.
She’d been walking since the previous morning with a bundle of cloth wedged between her legs. The leather skirt of her armor kept her modesty, falling loosely around the unsightly wad. Only one more week, she reminded herself. Then she could enjoy the beach without hiding when they returned to the grove. It would be a welcome respite after days of walking trying to find this goblin hideout.
“You think we’ll find an abandoned tavern in this place?” asked Shadowheart to no one in particular.
Astarion, finally interested, replied, “I fear their wine will be more like vinegar by the time we get to it.”
“Drink is drink.”
“You would say that,” he scoffed. “When was the last time you drank water?”
Shadowheart did not offer a reply but pulled her mace out from its holster on her hip to toy with the wrapped leather handle in a silent warning.
Teryn sighed. “Stay sharp, if you both will. There are enough threats in these woods. We mustn’t add each other to the list.”
Shadowheart spun around to face her, walking backwards now. “Cute bites on your neck, there,” she said, pointing with her mace. “Need me to heal them now, or will he just pick the other side next time?”
Teryn flushed, then slapped a hand over the bite on her neck. “Shall I ask him to bite you next time?” she countered. “Who knows? A cleric’s blood might even turn him back.”
“Or get me drunk,” he grumbled. “Actually, I’ve always wanted to try th—”
Shadowheart interrupted him with a groan, turning her back on them again. “Spare me, please,” she said. “You’ll be keeping my blood, and any mention of it, out of your mouth.”
Before Teryn could say something reprehensible like, ‘it’s not so bad after the first minute,’ the road they’d taken opened into a quaint town square. A fountain sat in the center, cracked stones crawling with moss and now holding barely a finger-width of water at the bottom. Perched atop a platform in the middle, a man posed as an archer, aiming to the sky, his bow long crumbled into debris.
To the north, a boarded-up general store beckoned them. Their stock of potions had dwindled since they’d last brewed at the grove, and Teryn practically salivated at the thought of what Healing could do for her aching belly. She led them into the building, kicking through decayed slats that blocked the doorway.
Inside, the air was heavy with a stench of dust and herbs. To their dismay, it had been picked through already—but the pillagers clearly had no alchemical knowledge, as many jars of raw ingredients were left behind the front counter.
Shadowheart and Teryn started on the shelves, clearing them of rogue’s morsel and balsam. Nearby, Lae’zel was picking through the unwanted jars of what appeared to be dried meat, shoving them indiscriminately into her bag of holding.
“Do you even know what those are?” Gale asked, not unkindly, craning his neck to inspect the illegible labels. “We’ve no indication the people who once inhabited this place weren’t cannibals. Or people, for that matter.”
Lae’zel clicked her tongue dismissively. “It is meat,” she said, as though that should explain it.
He shrugged, satisfied with this answer.
From the corner of her eye, Teryn could see Astarion’s crown of silver hair ducking underneath the remaining planks of a boarded-up doorway to disappear into the next room. She recused herself from Shadowheart’s side to follow him in.
It was a parlor of sorts, or perhaps once was: its grandeur had rotted away, garnished with cobwebs just as abandoned by their tenants as everything else there. Wallpaper peeled and crumbled from the walls, exposing the stone underneath, which crumbled away in its own stead, bones of wooden beams showing through. A few moth-ravaged sofas were arranged around a low table at the center. They might have once been lovely with their intricate carvings but were now cracked at the seams and purging horsehair stuffing all over the floor.
It was unsurprising to find Astarion digging through a large wooden chest across the room. He seemed to come up empty, sitting back on his heels and sighing in frustration.
“Anything good in here?” Teryn asked, finding her voice dampened in the heavy dust as though she was in the midst of a snowfall.
Astarion gave a curt shake of his head but did not turn around. “Can I go nowhere alone?”
“I . . . I can go,” she said quietly, faltering behind a loveseat. On any other day, his retorts bounced off her like arrows off a cuirass. But her heart was rendered fragile with the onset of her cycle, quivering a bit at his harsh tone.
He stood up to face her, lips pursed in displeasure. “No need for that, little shadow,” he said, shaking his hands clean of dust.
“If I am bothering you—”
“I’ve no quarrel with you.”
Teryn’s face fell into a frown. “Oh, don’t tarry. There is something wrong. Tell me what it is.”
Astarion took a deep breath, eyes shut while he sought patience. “There's been an air about you recently. Is that reason enough?”
“That cannot possibly be it,” she pried, chancing a step closer.
He pitched away like spirit guardians were encircling her. “Gods, you are so—you literally have an air about you. I can’t be near you. It’s unbearable.”
Teryn paused, puzzled. “. . . Are you saying I smell?”
“Yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying.” He winced, nostrils flaring. “Ugh, it’s the perfume of a just-felled corpse.”
“I—but—we all bathed in the same pond!” she insisted, in abject disbelief. “Are you certain it’s me? I even—look, I oiled the joints of my armor, and it’s scented with rose.”
She presented a gauntleted hand to his face, much like a lady awaiting a courtly kiss. He nearly stumbled in his effort to get away, arms jerking up to protect the little distance between them.
“I am quite certain it’s you,” he said quickly. “Maybe there’s a piece of goblin stuck between your plates, or you stepped in a puddle of hyena blood. I don’t know. Just stay away. More for your sake than mine.”
She was desperate for an answer but entirely sure he wouldn’t offer her one—then it hit her, deep in the pit of her stomach.
“Blood, you said? Is it just blood?”
Astarion blinked, looking like he was moments away from fleeing out of the room like a jittery cat. “Yes, you reek of the stuff.”
Teryn could not stifle the grin that spread across her face. “And it has been thus for two suns now?”
“Yes, can you get to it?”
“What a fine nose, and what little mind behind it,” she said gaily. “Astarion, I smell like blood because I am, well, bloody.” She gestured to her abdomen.
He blinked again, and she swore she could see the pieces fall into place in his head. “Oh, gods, you mean—”
“Aye, you dolt.” Teryn basked in the distress on his features. “I thought someone as . . . er, ‘practiced in bodies’ as you would have discerned as such on your own.”
None were spared from his fireside tales of lovemaking in the city, as compelling and embellished as the rest of him. Teryn let herself be shocked once, then never again—of course, a man with his charms could hook as many fish as he pleased. Even she was lured in at times, when her veins rushed with more ale than blood, and his voice was pitched just quiet enough that she had to lean dangerously close to hear it.
It had to be on purpose. Everything about him was.
“Well,” he said capriciously, “now that that’s sorted: stay away. As best as you can. Or clean up, or whatever you must do. You cannot imagine the turmoil of being in your aura for this long.”
She tried to imagine. It must have taken all his restraint to sit across from her at camp, where no plate armor confined her hips. Had the blood leached during her bath the night prior tumbled with the waves to the shore, where he was reading by candlelight? And she’d tossed her dirtied cloths to the fire—oh, shadows consume her, she was practically torturing the man.
Astarion’s hands were on his hips in a casual stance, but his fingertips betrayed him where they turned white under a vise-tight grip.
A perverted sense of pride filled her, seized a beat of her heart—it was her blood winding him up so much.
“I can do that,” she assured him.
“Much obliged,” he returned, looking down his nose at her as best as he could when they were almost matched for stature.
She knew not what to say next and lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
Everything was silent, in fact. The clattering of bottles and crates had ceased from the room beside them, their companions’ drone entirely gone.
Astarion’s features erred on predatory as he pulled out his two daggers. When Teryn opened her mouth as if to speak, he shot a contemptuous look at her, worse than when she’d shoved her armor in his face.
Something oily enveloped her brain, spectral fingers prying past any guard she might have up—his tadpole, linking with hers.
Step aside, his voice said promptly, quiet as you can muster in that armor.
She swallowed, then shuffled out of his way, mail quietly clattering against itself. With deafened footfalls he stalked to the doorway, where Shadowheart appeared looking much paler than the last time Teryn had seen her.
When they locked eyes, another hand caressed her mind, this time gentle as a breath, the herald of sending.
Glyph, Shadowheart explained, and Teryn swore she could feel her unease. Triggered on anything other than us. It’s a lot of . . . things. Ready yourself.
Goblins, you think? Teryn thought back.
Shadowheart released the mace at her hip. Unwilling to waste magic on another sending, she shrugged, lips pursed in worry: not sure, get your damn sword out, said without saying.
Ar’isar slipped from its sheath with a metallic hum. It had only just been cleaned the night before; Teryn lamented sullying the blade again so soon. A rising sun, the symbol of Lathander, was enameled into the pommel with borders of gold, which she took great care in scraping clean of grime after a skirmish—it was one of her conduits for magic and still worked when dirty, but she kept it pristine out of respect.
Lae’zel took the lead, pupils narrowed to scrutinous slits. Her githyanki sword was poised in defense across her body, glorious in its ornate metalwork and inset red stones. Teryn followed just behind with one hand brandishing Ar’isar and the other gripping her amulet fiercely, braced to channel at any moment.
The group hid behind the front wall, peering around broken windows. Outside, the square was as they’d left it. Leaves danced over mossy cobbles; a rusted door creaked on its hinge with the wind. Nothing to betray the town’s utter abandonment.
Teryn blew a puff of air at Shadowheart to get her attention. Where was the glyph? she mouthed, hoping she understood.
Entrance, Shadowheart returned.
From this position, their view of the square’s entrance at the east was obscured. But they didn’t need eyes to see.
Astarion’s tadpole once again invaded her mind, along with everyone else’s, the psychic equivalent of clearing his throat. Do you feel that? he asked. Whatever they are, they’re tadpoled.
He released them, and then they felt what he had before: the slightest tug, like the creatures in their minds wanted very desperately to crawl out and towards their kin. It was an augury of Absolutists.
Teryn chewed on the inside of her lip and cast bless under her breath, channeling it into Wyll, Astarion, and Lae’zel. They shivered as the spell cloaked them with Lathander’s warmth, and suddenly their weapons felt lighter in their grasps.
Just in time, as the culprits tumbled into the square: three bugbears, flanked by an enormous group of goblins wearing armor that fit none of them properly, clearly stolen off corpses. At their head, a battle-scarred worg foaming at the maw pulled at its rope leash, almost toppling the goblin who was its unfortunate handler. Though darting about in a feral manner, its nose stayed glued to the ground—it was tracking a scent.
They followed the beast in a circle around the central fountain before stopping along its northernmost border. The hidden party sank back into shadow, knowing they were in the line of sight now.
Gale whispered something into Shadowheart’s ear beside him, to which she nodded solemnly.
She used the final words of her sending spell to tell Teryn, metal armor. I make water, Gale will shoot lightning—she made the gesture of an explosion—dead.
Keeping to the shadows, she cast create water with a whisper. Her magic rippled around her hands where she signed the motion for the spell, falling like glittering mica through the air. Teryn peered around the edge of the broken windowsill to see a small puddle of water slowly seeping through the bottom of the fountain, growing to encompass most of the goblins and two of the bugbears.
They didn’t notice the water, too busy fussing with the worg, who’d found a dead squirrel on the ground and made a snack of it. Shadowheart’s brows furrowed as she stretched the sheet of water further, almost to the worg, then released the spell.
She nodded to Gale, who stepped over to her position and cast witch bolt on the puddle.
Lightning traveled through the water like a conduit and shot through bodies in a flash of blinding light. They shrieked in pain, then were silenced as their muscles seized and jerked, kept electrified through the metal shell of their armor. A ribbon of crackling lightning stretched from the puddle to Gale’s palms, revealing in no uncertain terms their position.
Lae’zel was the first to bolt to the commotion. In her path was the worg, now untethered from its handler, and reared up in a defensive stance. She held her sword in guard of her legs and waited for it to pounce, cheating to the right to land a blow in its side. Deep red blood, tinged with an acidic odor, flowed from the wound—but the worg still stood.
Fleeing from her cover, Teryn dashed to Lae’zel’s side. The bugbear who’d evaded the puddle was trained on them with its mace already raised, ready to deliver a killing blow. Teryn put all her might into a swing aimed at the worg’s haunches, burying the blade so deep into its flesh she had to wrestle it back out. The worg crumbled to its knees, giving the women just enough time to attack the bugbear in tandem: Teryn goading it into aiming for her while Lae’zel slunk to its rear to hack into its hamstring. It fell with a roar, spraying blood onto Lae’zel.
Just before Teryn stabbed into its back, an arrow whizzed past her and bored into one of the electrocuted goblins’ heads. She notched her sword under the top lip of the bugbear’s leather cuirass and pushed, feeling much resistance as the blade sliced through muscle and hit bone. The bugbear went rigid and died at her feet, allowing her a moment to see whose arrow nearly nicked her.
“Sorry, dear,” shouted Astarion from the doorway of the store. He ducked back behind the wall after the goblin he shot fell to the ground, then returned to position with a new arrow notched in his bow. Sharp eyes scanned the field and found a target: another goblin who thought himself cunning, sneaking up behind Lae’zel with a scimitar in hand, ready to chop. Before the goblin could get an arm’s length to her, Astarion released the arrow, watching with satisfaction as it embedded into his cheek with such force it poked through the other end.
Teryn felt a mild warmth pass through her midsection as Shadowheart darted past her, encircled by a ring of necrotic spirit guardians. She came close to the edge of the water, careful not to step anywhere wet as Gale’s witch bolt remained steady. The goblins twitching near the perimeter were caught in her spirit guardians’ orbit and rasped painful yelps as the necrosis took hold, choking out their cells until they withered. One goblin succumbed, going stiff with a final jolt of electricity, and falling rigid into the puddle with his face frozen into a scream. Another staggered too close for Shadowheart’s comfort, quickly remedied by a mace blow to their head.
Shadowheart remained in her spot while Wyll rushed into her protective wall of spirits, the goblin at his tail naively following. She wailed when she crossed the threshold but made it through, twin scimitars faltering in her grasp. With scant precision she lunged at Wyll, failing but for a scratch on his thigh.
He glanced at the tiny wound and pointed a hellish rebuke at her without deigning to watch her body erupt into flames and convulse in pain. Avoiding the roasting goblin, he moved to defend Shadowheart, one hand wielding his blade and the other in position to cast eldritch blast.
On the other side of the fountain, a bugbear who’d fallen prone with the torment of lightning crawled, in agony, out of the water. The final waves of electricity twitched through its body and dissipated. It took a moment, on its knees, to catch a breath that was stolen minutes ago and clench a wet fist onto its longsword.
A few paces ahead of it, Teryn clashed swords with an old goblin painted with scars. He was clever with his blows, landing one on her armored calf that toppled her onto her side. He clamored on top of her, and she swiftly shielded her face with her sword, holding it at the hilt and the blade. Every swing of the goblin’s scimitar was blocked, and easily so—he was fumbling at this angle, his swings weak with no leg leverage for torque. But her arms could not hold position forever.
And the bugbear behind her, yet undetected, had gotten shakily up to its feet. With everyone else in the square preoccupied with goblins, it found it quite easy to slink to Teryn’s head, longsword raised above one shoulder, ready to kill—when an arrow shot into its armpit.
It faltered, glaring at the arrow in shock. Cocked its head in the direction it came from, where Astarion flashed a grin before seamlessly firing another into the bugbear’s eye. The goblin astride Teryn’s chest was momentarily distracted, giving her the seconds she needed to grab her amulet and channel her oath. Golden light stretched up her sword’s blade from the hilt, like the sun was bound to her weapon.
Before the goblin could react, she sat up with momentum, thrusting the blade sideways into his wrinkled neck. It sliced with ease into his skin, drawing a slow gurgle of blood as it cut through the throat and almost to the other side. He sank to his knees, limp, and she pushed the bloodied body out of her lap in disgust.
Astarion ran to her side, stepping over the bugbear’s body to help her to her feet in uncharacteristic kindness. In front of them, the remaining beasts still shuddered with lightning, though less vigorously—some because they were in the throes of death, and the rest because Gale’s spell was beginning to wane.
Upon scanning the group, Teryn felt a momentary relief when she found the final bugbear dead on the ground, patches of fur singed off to reveal the mottled skin underneath. Eleven goblins remained alive. At least, alive enough to pose a real threat.
Shadowheart came up to where Gale stood, with Wyll still safely in the perimeter of her guardians. “Release it,” she said. “They’ll be easy to kill in this state.”
Gale nodded. “I have more lightning where that came from,” he assured her. “I’m ready when you need me.”
He stepped back, then ceased the stream of electricity at his palms. The light crackled a bit in the air before disappearing, leaving the goblins at the rest of the party’s mercy.
They crowded in around Shadowheart with the exception of Lae’zel, who’d charged forward the moment the lightning stopped to skewer through the nearest goblin’s chest. Shadowheart began to circle the fountain, stepping so the radius of her spell touched the walls of it. As each goblin was struck by necrotic magic, their limbs convulsed and tensed up close to their bodies before they tumbled to the ground, where Teryn, Lae’zel, or Wyll plunged their blade to finish them off.
Just as quickly as they’d come, the fiends were culled, nothing more than corpses in pools of blood.
Teryn pulled her sword out of the final goblin’s chest, shaking the gore off the blade. A heady musk of iron and kicked-up dust blanketed the square, riddled with small bodies. Blood spatter dulled the gleam of her armor and crusted into the skin of her face.
As the final ripples of exhilaration faded, she sheathed her sword and knelt over the body at her feet.
“Dawn Lord, grant that the fallen who knew you not in life may seek your light in death,” she whispered, too quiet for the rest of the battlefield to hear. “Deliver their souls from darkness and into your eternal—"
She was startled by someone grabbing her shoulder in a panic. “Are you alright?” Astarion asked, scanning over her body as though looking for something.
She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “I—yes, why?”
“You’re bleeding,” he said, shaking his head erratically.
Teryn palmed over her torso in a frenzy. “Oh lord, did one of them stick me? Where?”
Astarion pulled her from her crouched position and spun her around but found no stray arrows or knives. “I don’t know.”
Shadowheart, having noticed the commotion, offered, “Maybe she’s in shock.”
“I don’t think that’s—oh,” Teryn said, clamping a hand onto his arm to stop his fussing.
He cocked his head hesitantly, still very worried. “What is it?”
She choked back a laugh. “I believe you called it my ‘aura?’”
He frowned, crossing his arms like a fitful child. “Stop being funny before I give you a better reason to bleed,” he said, with lips curled into a sneer where his canines peeked through.
Shadowheart’s face broke into a wry smile before she could dampen it. “Don’t tempt the girl,” she said to herself, prying a piece of bloodied cloth from the spikes of her mace.
Astarion scowled at her. “Wretched woman,” he muttered, then turned to Teryn. “You’re . . . er, uninjured, then? Other than—”
“Yes, nary a scratch on me. Now, please shut up,” Teryn forced through her teeth. “We have discussed this enough.”
He blinked the unease in his face away with a practiced swiftness. “What were you mumbling, earlier?” he asked plaintively.
“Prayers,” she said, fumbling with the hilt of her sword. “I know they follow the Absolute, but you never know. Minds can change when faced with death.”
He considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “They’re goblins,” he said. “They don’t have much mind to change.”
Teryn, unsure how to respond, fell back down into a kneel. Knowing he was behind her and watching, she continued her prayers, a bit louder if only to annoy him away.
When she heard his footsteps walking off, she chanced a look back at him, and tacked on, “and deliver his soul, too, if you can.”