*
A broken, ragged sound, soaked in venom and delight. “You see?” he rasped, twisting despite the dagger still buried deep, fingers snapping around Xarann’s wrist with impossible strength. “Even now… even ruined… I choose how this ends.”
*
The moment stretched thin as glass.
Cazador felt it. The heartbeat. The intention and the blade parting the air behind him like a whispered prayer. He turned but not in panic, not even in surprise..
In acceptance that sharpened into spite.
*
⠀
Of course he felt it. it filled the room like noxious chemicals,a power so significant it seemed to make the walls tremble in fear. it almost felt familiar — painfully so,as if his own knees would buckle to bow before them. but he didn’t. and neither did the one
•
*
his fingers clawing instinctively for the drow, terror flaring sharp and sudden.
“No—” Astarion breathed, then louder, desperate, “Xarann!”
Cazador laughed through blood that spilled from his lips.
*
*
what caused Astarion breath to grow heavy, his skin to pulsate .. it was the sheer power the vampire lord emitted and Xarann could feel it too.
The crypt seemed to inhale.
Cazador’s smile did not falter at first as he looked past Xarann, past the weapons and fixed his gaze on Astarion like a hand closing around a throat. His eyes flicked once, precise, calculating, to the
*
⠀
His steps followed closely with theirs as they opened the door,the sight of the vampire lord in the middle of a large room. six bodies floated in that ritual circle,all bodies containing the same scars astarion once possessed. what had become of them was simple,each
•
*
Astarion lifted his chin, red eye blazing, fear transmuting into something sharp and defiant but as Cazador took a step forward ; the entire room seemed to shift.
This one's eyes glowing, the staff in his hand doing the same — and perhaps not the appearance was
*
*
His teeth grit but he decended the staircase anyway, brows furrowed when Cazador turned — this ones eyes drilling through him and almost he had stopped .. but no, he couldn't.
Astarion went very still at Xarann’s words, like something sharp had slid clean between his ribs.
For a heartbeat he didn’t even look at them — eyes fixed on the door, on the muffled chanting beyond it — but the corner of his mouth twitched anyway, a slow
*
⠀
He had made a promise to them. a promise that seemed more important than anything else,at least in his addled and ever fracturing mind that is. cazador would live no longer,and the ascension ritual would end at the pointed tip of their dagger plunged into their old
•
*
A step forward then, door creaking open and down the staircase behind it — the ritual was almost completed with Cazador .. right in the middle, talking .. emitting that presence he hated so much.
*