Page 92 of Astarion

Astarion stoppered the vial. If nothing else, he could present it to Cazador and tell him who had stolen the rest. He slipped it back into his jacket just as Dalyria’s spine hit the wall.

“If I had been made a vampire,” he said, gliding toward her, “I could have gone back and acquired all the undying blood that was left. I could have left this city and brought you a live unicorn if you so desired. I would have remembered that you helped me, and I would have been generous.”

He was close now. His eyes bored into hers. Dalyria swallowed hard.

“Your experiments are never going to work,” he told her, his voice as soft as a lover’s murmur. “I humored you because you were useful to me, but I have never believed that you would find a cure.”

“I will.”

“Darling Dalyria.” He gave her a bladed smile. “You won’t. You’re simply not clever enough. You have had the finest lab in the city and years of uninterrupted time, and you have accomplished nothing. And you never will.”

She tried to protest. He set a finger over her lips.

“And if, someday, someone else finds a cure—a smarter, better doctor—I will have you killed before you taste a single drop.”

It was clear that he hadn’t known Dalyria half as well as he thought he did, but Astarion could still read her eyes and see that she believed him.

He thought about breaking her fingers, or perhaps her neck. But that was only pain, and it would heal. Everything physical healed.

The poison he’d whispered into her soul, though…

He turned on his heel and stalked out of the laboratory, slamming the door hard enough to send glassware shattering across the floor.

In a strange way, the trip to Baldur’s Gate with Bajia was not unlike the trip from the vineyard to Lady Erikinia’s estate. He was older and angrier and despairing, and yet the weather was fine, and Bajia was still a merry traveling companion. They slept rough instead of staying at inns, but Astarion would often wake to find a rabbit sizzling on a spit over the fire.

“What will you do after we reach Baldur’s Gate?” he asked one day, shuffling through the papers that Lazlo had given him. Gods, he even had a fake birth record. Lazlo had been so thorough that Astarion wondered if the man had made up new identities before.

“I don’t know,” Bajia admitted. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Lady Erikinia told me to go back to my people, but…” She shook her head. “It’s been a long time. I don’t know what kind of welcome I would receive.”

“You could stay with me.”

He said it quickly, before he had time to think, because if he’d thought about it, it would have gone permanently unsaid. The words dropped to the road and squatted there like toads.

Bajia was silent for so long that he wondered if she was simply going to pretend that he hadn’t spoken at all. Perhaps that would be for the best. The upswept tips of his ears burned.

“It is a kind offer,” she said finally. “Under other circumstances, I would be happy to. But now I think perhaps the Ancuníns hold too many memories for me.”

It was a graceful rejection. Astarion was able to smile and say, “You can hardly blame me for trying. Who else will be able to commiserate about the old lady with me?,” which made her laugh.

He had loved Bajia since he was a child, but as he’d grown older, he’d begun to notice how magnificent her thighs and hips were and to admire the way they gripped the horse under her, and how her skin was still flawless, despite the years that had passed. Impressive, really, given that she was human. She didn’t seem to have aged a day.

Not a single day, in fact. And that was more than a decade ago. A suspicion began to coil in the bottom of Astarion’s mind.

He waited until that evening, when they sat by the fire. He dredged up his memories of that long-ago journey and compared Bajia then to Bajia now.

She hadn’t changed. At all. Not a thread of silver in her hair, not a suspicion of crow’s-feet, not even a hint of the cosmetics that some used to stave off the years.

“Why haven’t you aged?”

“Hmm?” Bajia was mending a bit of harness leather. “What was that?”

“It’s been fifteen years, but you haven’t aged a day.”

“You’re sweet.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ah, well, you know.” She laughed, not entirely convincingly. “Sazarac’s Skin Lotion. And clean living.”