Blood Magic

Chapter 5

224 days after turning

My eyes open to utter darkness, harshly reminding me of the void in my dreams. I lift myself up and bang my head against thick wood. Feeling and knocking all around me, wood encloses the immediate space in a rectangular box.

Must be the old vampire in a coffin gimmick.

I vigorously push upward, but the door doesn't budge until I cast Knock. I sit up and survey the small, pitch black room, quickly recognizing the stony cellar to the Last Light Inn, particularly a detention cell. Past the cell gate sat a dark-haired high half-elf eating at the centre dinner table. I clear my throat to announce my presence.

Stopping mid-chew, the half-elf looked in my direction. Under the haze of a deep sleep and in the dim light of a nearby candelabrum, the details of his face are difficult to make out initially, until he smiles widely with a knowing grin.

Harper Geraldus.

"Morning, Lillith!" he exclaims brightly. "Erm—I mean Dame Lillith. You gave me shit for not correcting myself once."

"I did." I smile back at him. "You had never heard of the Zalfura clan, so you can hardly be blamed."

"Hardly not! How was I expecting to be respected as a city protector if I wasn't even remotely aware of the city's most valuable? You and Jaheira showed me right for shirking my responsibilities as a Harper," he says.

Geraldus set down his meal of bread and chicken onto his plate and rose to his feet. "Sorry for the coffin. And the cage. It's for our safety," he explains, approaching the cage door.

I nod. "I will be on my way shortly, as long as night has fallen recently. How long have I been asleep?"

"A day. It's morning."

I instinctively grab the bars of the cell gate. "A day?! No, I have to leave. He'll be coming for me. He could be back in Baldur's Gate by now!"

"You'll die out there if I let you out!"

"I'll cast another Move Heavens ritual. All I need is another hour and I'll be in the Underdark. Please, Geraldus, you have to let me go." I cannot believe my life has become a series of pleading for my freedom from men.

He took a step back from the cell gate and looked toward the cellar door around the corner. "When those nurses put you to sleep, the sky returned to day, meaning that ritual is no more than a concentration spell, yes?"

"Yes, and what of it?" I want to rip the gate off its hinges and throw it at him for asking pointless questions during my dire need.

"Say you are attacked before you make it to the Underdark. Your concentration will break and you'll be exposed. Are you truly willing to risk your life like that?" He tips his head to the side as he asks this, looking at me with pity. At the right angle of candlelight, his eyes glow like amber gems. .

He is right. I know he is right, but I cannot stay. I chose to risk death by escaping the palace, casting the ritual, trusting the Harpers to help me. Death has always been an option, so if I cannot find freedom in my undead life, I can find freedom in death.

But death is not the only option.

"I am willing," I respond. "When death guarantees a better fate than an eternal life of slavery, I choose death, but I am free now. Well, more free than I was under Astarion's imprisonment. Geraldus, there has to be a Harper here who can escort me to the ruined battlefield nearby. There is a temple with an elevator that leads directly to the Grymforge in the Underdark. Please don't seal my fate when I'm so close to taking control of my life's destiny. Please."