Page 59 of Astarion

The paladin flinched violently. Dear sweet Tymora, I take back everything bad I’ve ever thought about you. Astarion pressed his advantage, running his tongue along dry lips. “All you have to do is…break your word.”

The paladin cursed and flung himself backward. Astarion saw a glimpse of naked terror on the man’s face before he was on the other side of the hallway. Interesting.

“That’s why you wanted me to swear,” den Suriel said bitterly.

Astarion sat up, rubbing his wrists. “Can you blame me? Locked in a cell with a sworn slayer of undead? Of course I wanted some protection.”

The paladin gave a short, humorless laugh. “You don’t understand. You’ve already destroyed me, vampire.”

“You’re looking rather undestroyed to me.” Actually, Astarion thought he was looking rather lovely. Those cheekbones even made misery look good. He put his chin in his hand and admired the picture the aasimar made, the way those full lips pressed together, the hint of resolution in his despair.

I could parade him through town like that, and every maiden in a three-mile radius would show up to offer to soothe his tormented brow. Gods, I could charge admission.

“I cannot allow one of your ilk to survive,” the paladin said grimly. “Not when I could stop you. It is a violation of the oath I took to the Order. Thou shalt not suffer the undead to walk free. But I cannot kill you, or I am forsworn. No matter what I do, I will be an oathbreaker.”

“Yes, yes, how terrible for you.” Astarion climbed to his feet. “Are you certain you want to have this conversation in the middle of a hallway that could be flooded with skeletons at any moment?”

“At least if they kill me, I die with my oaths intact.”

Astarion told himself that he wasn’t going to strangle the paladin. “You haven’t broken your oaths yet. It’s possible that there may still be a way.”

—

In the end, Astarion was fairly certain that the only reason den Suriel agreed to move was because the paladin wasn’t willing to let him walk away by himself. He waited until den Suriel had picked his way through the collapsed wall beside the ward, then turned away. He could feel those pale eyes boring into the back of his neck as they hurried down the twisting corridors.

At last, he found a secluded chamber half hidden by a rockfall and beckoned den Suriel into it. The paladin took up a position by the entryway, picked up a small piece of stone, and murmured a single word. It began to glow with soft white light. He tossed it into the center of the chamber, where it fell at Astarion’s feet.

Vampire spawn and knight studied each other in silence. Without the sickly green illumination of the cavern, the aasimar’s skin was even more golden than Astarion had expected, with coppery undertones like no elf or human Astarion had ever met. The scattering of marks across his cheekbones gleamed like metal.

He did not comment on Astarion’s eyes. Perhaps when yours were a blank white, you learned not to judge.

Now, how to play this? In more than a hundred years, he’d never had to charm a victim who knew he was undead. Normally, a paladin would be easy—tell them you saw someone kick a puppy in the park, and you’d have to run to keep up. But in the absence of a puppy…

Inspiration struck. Astarion wanted to crow with delight but kept his features somber. “I don’t know about you,” he said, sitting down, “but I am exhausted.”

Den Suriel remained standing long enough for Astarion to wonder if the man was simply unwilling to show any similarity to a vampire spawn, but at last he dropped to his knees. His unsheathed sword lay across his lap in a distinctly unsubtle warning. “Well. Now I see why laying on hands didn’t work. More the fool me.” The bitterness in his voice seemed to be for both of them. “You said there might be a way.”

“There might be. I don’t pretend to know the minds of your gods, of course.”

Before he could go on, the paladin lifted a hand to stop him. “Wait.”

“Oh?”

The aasimar put his free hand to his holy symbol and murmured something. A wave of cool air washed over Astarion, and a lump seemed to lodge briefly in his throat.

“What was that?”

The paladin’s smile was not entirely pleasant. “What’s your name?”

“Petra…Pet…Astarion Ancunín. Oh Hells.” Astarion rubbed his throat. “You did the thing, didn’t you?”

“If by ‘the thing,’ you mean cast a spell of truth over the room, yes.” Den Suriel considered him. “You look more like an Astarion than a Petras. Why did you lie to me?”

“I usually give that name if I’m suspected of doing something illegal.” Astarion could feel the words because I don’t like him on the back of his tongue and clamped his mouth shut.

“Who is your master?”

He tried to sidestep this one, picturing what the old man would do to him. “Telling you could be very dangerous for me if my master found out.” That was certainly true.