Page 100 of Astarion

But den Suriel did not try. He bowed his head instead and murmured a few words, and then the air became dense in a familiar way, and truth came and squatted on Astarion’s tongue.

“Is everything you’ve told me true?”

“Everything I have said in this room is true.” Astarion’s half smile was a masterpiece of rue. “Obviously I lied when I said I was just going to the privies.”

Den Suriel exhaled, long and slow, and clawed at his hair again. “Why would your master do this?”

Because I told him to. Astarion pushed the words aside and offered, “He has a reason for everything he does. I don’t always know what it is.” He laughed, soundless and bitter. “No, it would be truer to say that I usually don’t know what it is.”

“What if I break the door down instead?”

Astarion looked at the door. It was made of iron, and he knew for a fact that there was an iron bar on the other side. “To begin with, I’d be very impressed.”

“What if I find another entrance?”

“I would be even more impressed.”

Den Suriel’s growl would not have been out of place on an actual badger. “If I knock you unconscious—”

“The door stays barred.”

“Are you going to fight me?” The aasimar’s hand tensed on the hilt of his sword.

Astarion shrugged. “I probably will, if you try to kill me. Since I don’t have my daggers, I’m not sure how successful I’ll be. I suppose if you gave me long enough, I could take the wire in the seam here and twist it into something that could give you a savage poking.” And please don’t ask about other weaponry, or any contact poisons I may be concealing on my person. “I am under no orders to attack you, if that’s what you’re asking. If you go inside, my master will most certainly kill you and drink your blood, but that won’t be much consolation for me.”

Den Suriel groaned and sheathed his sword. Astarion reflected that truth spells were practically useless in the hands of honest men.

“I’ll go to the authorities,” the paladin said. “I’ll tell them there’s a vampire lord in the city.”

“It won’t work. My master has been here for many centuries, and his family is old and respected. You’re a stranger, a knight of an order no one has ever heard of, and you don’t even know his name.”

It was a painful thing to watch a paladin try to be shrewd. “What’s his name?”

Astarion touched his throat. “You won’t get that from me. I am not allowed to reveal my master’s name to his enemies.”

“Fine. If they won’t help me here, I’ll find a temple of Tyr and—”

Astarion was already shaking his head. “Do you think it hasn’t been tried?” He leaned against the wall, trying to look smaller. “If you don’t bring enough, you lead them all to a slaughter. And if you do somehow find half a hundred paladins and figure out where you’re going, he’ll know about it long in advance and be a thousand miles away. Although, yes, you might well manage to kill everyone he leaves behind. Including me.”

Den Suriel put his forearm against the wall and leaned his head on it, covering his eyes. His voice emerged slightly muffled. “What would you have me do, then?”

“Leave,” Astarion said, keeping the triumph out of his voice with difficulty. “Leave and forget this place ever existed. Forget that I ever…no. No, that isn’t true, I see.” He didn’t have to feign the rueful chuckle that followed. “I don’t want to be forgotten.”

The aasimar tilted his head, and one white eye gleamed at Astarion. “You truly don’t want me to come back here with an army and kill your master?”

“If I thought it was possible you would succeed…” Then I still wouldn’t, because then I’ll be a spawn forever. He kept his mouth closed and though the spell tugged at his tongue, it couldn’t compel him to speak.

“I knew I couldn’t, but I thought I’d try anyway,” den Suriel said.

“Why? Do you genuinely have a death wish after all?”

The aasimar closed his eyes. “I’ve outlived everyone in my family,” he said. “I saw my youngest sister’s children die of old age. They were all human, and I was the cuckoo in the nest. I haven’t actually seen another member of my order in decades. For all I know, I’m the last one.”

He might have stopped there, but the truth on his tongue was pushing him, and he had less experience with falsehood than Astarion. “I don’t crave death, but gods, some days I am so very tired of living.”

There was so much weariness etched into every line of the paladin’s body that Astarion had to look away. If he could see his own reflection, he thought, it might look a little like that.

So that is why we were drawn to each other. Underneath the wit and the lust, they had recognized some terrible kinship of exhaustion and despair.