Archive of Our Own

Tavian was seven the first time he killed a person.

He opened his eyes, panting hard, like he had been running or screaming or scared. He saw his hands first. Felt them, too. They were sticky and wet and red and they hurt.

Then he looked down, past his hands, and his whole body froze.

He had only met Gregor, Syril, and the four other children they had adopted about a month ago, but Tav liked them. They didn’t mind that his eyes were red or that he didn’t like to be touched or that he talked in his sleep or that the matron of the orphanage had called him “disturbed and unsound” and told them he couldn’t be saved. They were nice to him. They told him they were here to help.

When he’d whispered to Gregor last night that there was a voice in his head, one that wanted him to hurt people, Gregor hadn’t brought him back to the orphanage, hadn’t dumped him on the street, hadn’t even reared back in fear. He had just sighed sadly, careful to touch Tav’s sleeve instead of his skin as he patted his arm. He had looked at Tav with such warm, kind eyes, and promised that he and Syril would bring Tav to a healer, that they would find a way to make Tav feel better.

Gregor wasn’t saying anything now. He was lying on his back. His warm, kind eyes were missing, replaced with blood, with gore, with empty staring sockets. His belly had been torn open. His guts spilled across the floor. They mixed with Syril’s, with the other children’s, all of them lifeless and empty and still bleeding slowly. The room smelled like metal, like something sour.

Tav scrambled back. He felt like he was gonna throw up. Then he did, before he could stop himself, his entire body hurting with the force of it. It smelled like the sour stuff in the air, like the blood on the floor. It tasted like blood, too. He couldn’t stop staring. His chest hurt. His hands hurt.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No, no, no no no no–”

The voice that spoke in his head then was different from the normal one. Higher-pitched, less growly, less forceful.

“Ah, my young master,” it said. “What a beautifully wretched first slaughter you have committed! I must admit, I was worried for your development, but it seems you are growing into your bloody Urges most nicely after all!”

“Who are you?” Tav pleaded. “What– why? Why did this– did I do this?”

“You did,” the new voice said warmly. “And look at how marvellous it was! You do not need these pretenders, my dear, sweet master. You will find your true family soon enough. Your Father loves you very, very much.”

“My– my father? How–?”

“Hush, my liege. The neighbours heard the glorious screaming. The Fist will be here soon, and if you are seen like this, oh, terrible things will happen.”

Terrible things already have happened, Tav thought. He felt numb. Empty. The strange voice was the only thing keeping him from collapsing. He could listen, though. The matrons didn’t like him, they thought he was scary, but they always said he was a good listener. Tav thought he was scary, too. Or at least, he was very, very scared, and there was nothing left here to be scared of but himself. But he could listen.

He listened as the voice told him to scrub his hands and face in the washbasin, to stuff his bloodied clothes into the still-burning fire in the hearth, to dump the dirty wash water out and put on fresh clothes, to tuck the knife he had used to kill the people he had hoped could be his family under his shirt. To hide under one of the beds as footsteps pounded up the stairs, to act frightened when he was found, to cry when they asked him what had happened. To lie. To say it was someone else, he had hidden away, he didn’t know who, he was afraid.

Tav was afraid. But not like that.

He was taken back to the orphanage. His old bed had been filled already. The matrons had to put a mattress on the floor for him. It was too thin, too lumpy, an old one meant to be thrown out. Tav was afraid to sleep. He had been asleep when he killed Gregor and Syril. He didn’t want it to happen again.

But, of course, it did.

The next was a girl with firey hair and wild freckles, who had laughed too loudly and talked too much, but she never left Tav all alone when he started shaking, when he couldn’t stop his tears. A few months after he met her, she had held his hand and said she had read the article in the Gazette about him, about his short-lived adoption, and she was sorry. He said he was sorry, too. She didn’t know why, but she did hug him, before leaving to play with her other friends.

Tav awoke over her body the next morning, hidden in the dark alley behind the orphanage, her face as red as her hair and the arms that had been so warm around Tav bloodied and broken.

Then there was the boy with the burn scars, a few years later, long enough that Tav’s discomfort in his own skin was no longer limited to his hungry blood and the whispers in his head. The boy was nearly as quiet as Tav was, a recent addition to the orphanage’s number, made odd by his being Tav’s age. He sat next to Tav during meals. No one else wanted to do that.

The boy was kind, and when he spoke, he was funny. Eventually, he told Tav that he was there because of a house fire. It had killed his parents, and nearly killed him, and he had no family in the Gate to take him once the clerics who had healed him couldn’t keep him any longer. He wanted to be a cleric, too. Tav thought he would make a good one. And when Tav grew brave one day as they walked along the Chionthar, when he leaned in and kissed the boy on his scarred lips, and the boy kissed him back…

Tav drew back, smiling like an idiot. The boy was smiling too. The setting sun glowing behind his head made him look like an angel.

Tav had some memories of doing that one. Hands reaching into a chest, the sharp snap of bone breaking. The boy died with a halo of blood around his head and his ribcage ripped open into bone-white wings.

Tav stopped making friends after that.

It didn’t stop the killings.

None of the deaths could be linked to Tav, officially. Nothing was provable. Nothing was sure. But the matrons were suspicious. The other children were even more so. A year after he killed the sweet, burned boy, when he was thirteen, Tav ran away from the orphanage in the night. He never knew if they looked for him. Whether they did or not, they never found him.

The streets were no kinder than the orphanage was, but at least Tav no longer knew the names of the people he couldn’t save from himself. Sometimes people saw a teenaged drow living alone in the streets and thought he would make an easy target. It wasn’t long before Tav had learned enough to prove them wrong, even without the help of his Urges. Tav couldn’t tell whether the kills he was aware for were better or worse than the ones he wasn’t– he’d rather have control of himself while he killed, if he had to at all, but the way his entire body sang as he plunged a knife into a neck or ripped out a throat or tore open a belly only served to make him all the more nauseous once it passed. When a band of slavers decided that Tav would fetch a nice price in the Underdark, Tav didn’t exactly know what the right response to killing them should have been, but he doubted it was ecstasy. Still. Better them than anyone else, and killing while conscious was the best way to keep his Urge at bay.

Sometimes people tried to help Tav, too. He learned quickly that it was better to be cruel to them when they did, to reject any offers of aid and flee before he could be chased down, so the fools kind enough to try and help him didn’t die for their trouble. It even worked, sometimes.

Tav was seventeen when it got to be too much. He had awoken over more bodies– another family, one so similar to the one Gregor and Syril had tried to bring him into all those years ago. Tav had arranged them into a circle, spraying blood out in an arc around them. It looked ritualistic. And the pleasure of it was still coursing through his veins.

He had been doing so well. It had been weeks since the last incident. He hadn’t even hurt any of the stray animals he’d stumbled upon, and those were even more vulnerable to his Urges than people were. He had resisted the voices, had beaten them back. He’d been doing so well.

But he couldn’t beat this. Could he?

Tav still had the knife he had taken from Gregor and Syril. He hadn’t wanted to part from it– it was a reminder. A warning. A trophy. He couldn’t tell which. He supposed it didn’t matter. There was no beating the evil inside himself, he knew that now. Whatever these Urges were, they were woven into his blood. No cleric had ever found anything wrong with him that could have caused the voices or the thoughts, back when the matrons had still bothered bringing him to clerics. There was nothing to be done. Tav would just keep killing and killing and killing, forever and ever, and his blood would run hotter and hotter every single time he did.

There was no winning this game. The only way he could protect the world from himself was to refuse to play.

Tav was still holding the knife in his hands. He had used it to butcher the family– he usually did. Now, he turned it around, pointing the blade towards himself.

He knew how to kill. He could literally do it in his sleep. This would be easy.

Tav stabbed inwards, again and again and again and again and–

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to a face he had never seen before and yet he recognised immediately looming over him.

The creature was small, probably shorter than his knee when he was standing, wearing a tattered suit and a jaunty little hat. Its hooked, horn-like nose was inches from Tav’s face.

“Oh, young master, what have you done?” it exclaimed, in that higher-pitched voice that was always so kind to Tav after he killed. “I admire your tenacity, my liege, but your gifts were never meant to be used on yourself!”

It was then that Tav realised he was a lot less dead than he should be, for how many times he’d been stabbed. He jerked, trying to sit up, but the creature put a clawed and startlingly-strong hand on his shoulder, shoving him back down.

“Ah, ah, ah,” it said. “You must rest, Master. Your injuries were severe. You are lucky your dear old butler was nearby to aide you!”

“My…?” Tav breathed, still too weak to fight the creature’s– his butler’s– grip, though he was able to see his stomach. His shirt was still shredded, but it seemed like the creature had poured a healing potion over the wounds, and they had mostly stitched themselves back together by now.

He could also see where he was, and it wasn’t in the room he’d been in when he’d stabbed himself, just another body amidst his victims. Around him were massive, crumbling stone pillars, the faint drip of water echoing off of them, the strange stink of moss and age and dust hanging in the air, barely lifted by the heady metal scent of the blood still coating Tav’s skin. He had spent long enough wandering below ground in the Gate, drawn there by Urges that were safe enough to indulge to keep the rest of them at bay, to recognise the Undercity when he saw it. How in the hells had he gotten here?

“Who are you?” Tav demanded, glaring at the strange little imp still fussing over him, his hand finding the knife tucked once more into its sheath at his side. “How did you find me? What do you want?”

“Ah! I have been watching you for so long that I forget that we haven’t been properly introduced,” the creature said, before scraping low in a bow that still managed to come off as condescending. “I am Sceleritas Fel, your ever-loyal, ever-devoted butler. I am here to see to your every need, every whim, every Urge, and to ensure that you are able to follow the path your Father has laid out for you. And these past few years, you have been doing so very well. I’m sure that this, eh… little setback will be all but forgotten soon.”

“My father?” Tav asked. “You– I’ve heard your voice. You’ve mentioned him before. Who is he? What– I’ve never met him, I don’t even know who he is, how can he have a plan for me? I–”

“Do not trouble yourself, sweet Master,” the creature– Sceleritas– said, petting clawed fingers through Tav’s hair. It was a bit too hard, a bit too sharp, his fingers cold and scaled and uncomfortable, but Tav was too weak from the blood loss and the pain and the Urges to stop himself from leaning into it. His eyes closed before he could stop them, and then they were too heavy to open again, the world slowly spinning away from him.

“You will meet your Father soon enough,” Sceleritas was saying, though Tav barely heard it. “I am sure he will want to speak with you tonight, after your little stunt. He will not be pleased that you damaged his property. But do not fear, Master. He loves you very much. You may claim your birthright yet, if you do exactly as he tells you.”

Tav wanted to ask more questions, to demand answers, to strangle Sceleritas until he told him everything, but then everything went dark, and the Undercity vanished.

He came to again not surrounded by stone, but by a vast, empty void of endless, roiling red.

Before him, sat on a massive throne of blood and bone, was a figure. A figure Tav had never seen before. A figure that sent chills down his spine, that made his blood hum in harmony, that made his Urge quake in fear– and his Urge did not fear, his Urge was to be feared alone.

And all of a sudden, Tav understood.

Tav’s Father extended one broad, calloused, beckoning hand. “My child. Come here.”

Tav obeyed before he could stop himself, some combination of instinct and Urge walking him closer to the figure, until he was on his knees before the throne, his chin held in a blood-hot, vicelike grip.

“You’re my Father,” Tav whispered. “Who– who are you? Who am I? The– that creature, Sceleritas, he said you had plans for me, what–? Why–?”

“So many questions,” Tav’s Father said, gripping Tav’s chin tight enough to hurt and cutting off all his words with it. “But I suppose you do not know yet that your purpose is not to question. I will enlighten you, child. You are my son. My spawn. My vessel. Crafted from a drop of my gore, with no mortal parent to dilute the sanctity of your divine blood. The purest child of murder ever created.”

Child of murder. Tav had grown up in the Gate. He knew what that meant.

Bhaalspawn.

Tav was a Bhaalspawn.

Gods, it made so much sense.

And if Tav was Bhaalspawn, and this was his Father…

Bhaal, the God of Murder Himself, tilted Tav’s chin back further, turning his head side to side as though examining him, as Tav’s panting, panicked breaths caught in his throat.

“You were created to destroy this world. To bring about the crimson dawn from which my throne of blood will rise. And, when the world breathes its last, I will reclaim the body I created and rule over the ruins you have made.”

Tav tried to shake his head, but he– he couldn’t. Not just because of the bruising grip Bhaal (his father, his Father, Tav had wanted to know who his parents were for as long as he could remember, he was such a fool) had on his chin. His muscles wouldn’t respond to his commands. It felt like the Urge had claimed him, but his mind hadn’t fled in turn. He was painfully present and entirely helpless, trapped in his Father’s grasp.

“I know your mind, child,” Bhaal said coldly. “You belong to me. You cannot refuse me. Your path has been set since the moment I created you.” His gaze darkened suddenly. “And yet you attempted to avert it.”

“I–” Tav began.

“You are mine,” Bhaal interrupted. “Your body, your soul, your entire life. You will not die until you have served your use to me. I will not allow it. Your blood is not yours to spill.”

Tav trembled, pinned and helpless in his Father’s grasp.

Suddenly, Bhaal’s eyes softened, and His grip gentled, His thumb stroking across Tav’s chin, his lips. Gods. His hand was so warm.

“I am being unfair to you,” Bhaal said. “It was by my command that you grew up outside of the tutelage of my followers, after all. I wished you to learn the sorts of skills one cannot learn within my Temple, to ensure that your leadership is more skilled than that of those who have failed me before. It is not your fault that you did not know your purpose.”

Tav shivered again, a million emotions he couldn’t hope to identify racing through him.

Then his body was moving again, without any say from him. Bhaal must have been controlling him, puppeting him, forcing him to clamber into his Father’s lap, his legs splayed over Bhaal’s on his throne. It was then that Tav realised he was naked, his half-healed stab wounds exposed to his Father’s piercing, judging gaze. Then Bhaal’s hand left his face, His arms instead wrapping around him. He was– He was embracing Tav.

Tav couldn’t help it. He crumpled into his Father’s flame-hot arms, all the pain, the terror, the helplessness and misery and endless, aching loneliness of his entire life overwhelming him in an instant. He shuddered, wrestling back tears, tucking his head into his Father’s chest, not quite daring to embrace him back. He was so hot it almost hurt. He smelled like blood, like gore, like rot. It was a scent that made Tav’s Urge hum in contentment.

This was what he was created to be. This was his purpose.

Tav wanted to be sick, but in this place, he didn’t think he could. Instead, he just curled further into Bhaal’s arms, taking the first hint of comfort he had been offered in… in… gods, he couldn’t even remember how long it had been.

“I… I’m sorry, Father,” he breathed.

Bhaal– Bhaal smiled. “I know you are. My sweet, slaughtersome son. Hush, child. You need not suffer any longer. Do as I command, heed me entirely, and the only suffering you will know is that which you bestow upon others.”

He let go of Tav, then, and Tav forced himself to do the same, sitting back upright as Bhaal’s hands found his hips, His fingers slowly tracing over the stab wounds on Tav’s torso, the scars surrounding them from his years of violence, instead. “Still. I cannot allow such insolence to go unpunished. You must learn your place.” His hands shifted, then, claws erupting from His skin, wicked and razor-sharp, enough to make panic spike in Tav’s chest, even as his limbs still refused to obey him.

“I do this because I care for you, child,” Bhaal said. “This is for your own good, you know. I want only the best for you.”

And then He hurt Tav. And even as Tav screamed, he began to understand.

After Tav’s punishment was finished, Bhaal healed all of his wounds in a blaze of agony nearly worse than the punishment itself, and gave him two orders with which to begin his new life as his Father’s purest son.

The first was to find Bhaal’s Tribunal, beneath Candulhallow’s Tombstones. To learn from the one there, to study the art of murder as worship, to grow his power and skill until Bhaal deemed him worthy. Then he would begin to rebuild the Temple of Bhaal properly, to revitalise it, to carve Bhaal’s name upon the world and work endlessly, tirelessly towards the crimson dawn his Father had promised him.

The other was personal. A reminder to Tav. For every drop of his blood that was spilled outside of his Father’s orders, Tav would have to pay a penance, hurt himself in equal measure. He would not die until Bhaal willed it, but Bhaal should not have to interfere so directly with the vessel of His will on the mortal plane, and Tav’s recklessness and stupidity and weakness in trying to kill himself could never happen again. He had to take care of his Father’s property, after all– Bhaal would not wish to rule from a ruined body.

Tav awoke in the strange, dark corner of the Undercity that Sceleritas had dragged him to, with his new instructions emblazoned on his mind and phantom pains still wracking his shaking body.

“Ah, sweet Master! I hope your conversation with your dear Father was informative,” Sceleritas said, prancing closer and bowing low. “I have taken the liberty of informing the denizens of the Tribunal that you will be arriving today– they have been told to prepare a feast fit for a prince for you, my Lord. You will learn from them until such time as your Father declares you ready to inherit all of your gifts. But you are such a talented young murderer, my liege, that I’m sure that will take no time at all!”

And so Tav followed him, into a ramshackle shopfront Tav had passed a million times before and never paid much mind to– any signs of death tended to make his Urge purr inside him, he’d assumed it was just the air of misery that hung over the place that excited his worst impulses. Sceleritas opened a secret door with a passphrase and made his way down a set of hidden stairs, leading Tav up to a trio of animated armours.

“Go ahead, young Master,” he said, bowing Tav forwards. “This is your task to complete.”

Tav took a deep breath, then stepped forwards.

The armours all looked up at his approach, shifting slightly into ready stances.

But then the door behind them swung open, revealing–

Gods.

Standing in the doorway was a hulking behemoth of a man, wearing an extremely distinctive suit of plate armour and a terrifying horned helmet.

Tav had always loved histories, nearly as much as he’d liked the sparse music lessons provided to the children at the orphanage. He had seen endless paintings and sketches and written descriptions of this man, a man who was supposed to have died nearly a century ago.

Sarevok Anchev tilted his head, staring down at Tav. “Child of Bhaal. Our Father told me of your arrival. You have been set a task of greatest importance.”

“I know,” Tav breathed, terror pounding through his chest. Sarevok fucking Anchev. How? “How– you’re him. Sarevok Anchev. How…?”

“Our most frustratingly benevolent sibling resurrected me to aide him in his fight against the Five. Our Father found me afterwards, and… reminded me of the duties I had neglected in chasing my own power.” He narrowed his eyes– gods, his eyes were just as terrifying as all of the accounts had said, glowing yellow and piercing through Tav like a knife. “He has done the same for you, has He not?”

“I– I’m supposed to learn. To… serve Him.” The words tasted sour on Tav’s tongue, and he shuddered. “I don’t–”

Tav felt as though a hand gripped his throat, then, squeezing tight enough to cut his words off, to cut his air off. Tav choked, his hands coming up to pull whatever it was away, but there was nothing. The pressure increased, tighter and tighter and–

And then it was gone, and it was only through sheer force of will that Tav managed to stay upright, gasping desperately for air.

Sarevok watched him impassively.

“Let that be your first lesson,” he said. “Our Dread Lord will tolerate no further disobedience from His children. Now. Come.”

Then he turned and headed into the tribunal, and Tav had no choice but to follow.

The training regiment Sarevok set Tav on was brutal. Tav supposed he oughtn’t have been surprised; Sarevok wasn’t exactly a man known for his mercy. The echoes summoned to aid in the Murder Tribunal now worked to catch Tav up on seventeen missed years of training in Bhaalist practice.

Illasera handled Tav’s weapons training, leaving him bloodied and bruised and serving penance for his many, many losses more nights than not.

His magical tutelage was managed by Sendai, who often scoffed at Tav’s lack of knowledge of both arcane and drowish matters, calling him pathetic for only being able to cast with an instrument in his hands or a song on his lips– hardly befitting behaviour for an assassin.

Abazigal taught Tav non-weapon fighting, as well as leading his lessons on anatomy and poisons. At least Tav had a knack for the subjects, one served by his haphazard murders in the years before his Father claimed him, but the lessons were made near unbearable nonetheless by Abazigal’s personality, which was somehow the most grating of all of his siblings– a feat Tav hadn’t thought possible before being forced to spend an entire tenday in the dragon’s company over a particularly finicky concoction.

He came to almost look forwards to the lessons on Bhaalist doctrine and practice taught by Amelyssan; she was just as cold and condescending as all of the other echoes, but at least she was interesting to talk to, able to pull her head out of her forced devotion to Bhaal to scoff at Him as often as she did at Tav. It was a welcome change of pace from the others. But then she would backhand him for a forgotten word in an incantation or describe some horrifying ritual with far too much glee in her eyes, and Tav remembered why she was the one Bhaal had entrusted His shattered essence to upon His death.

The only bright spot in his days was the time he got to spend with Orin, Sarevok’s little granddaughter. She was something of a murder prodigy, and Sarevok had told Tav the first time he met her about how she had slain her own mother only a couple of months prior, and earned their Father’s favour in the process. Orin was as mad as it was possible for a four-year-old to be, and Tav couldn’t help but see himself in her.

And Father loved her, nearly as much as He insisted He loved Tav.

Tav killed the various echoes and ghosts occupying the Tribunal often enough. He killed the various people languishing in its cells when his Urge asked him to. He killed people above ground, still, too– his Father wanted his skills honed on true murder as much as on his more theoretical training. But Orin… Tav wouldn’t kill Orin. His Urge did not flare to life when he touched her, as it did with every other warm, living body he had ever touched. Neither Father nor Sceleritas whispered fantasies of blood and gore and violence and death in his ears at the sight of her.

Orin was safe with Tav, in a way no other person had ever, ever been, or likely ever would be again.

Tav tried to spend as much time with her as he could. She was clever and precocious, funny in the way children were in her bluntness, and one of her favourite games was to turn into a miniature version of the echoes and mock them behind their backs during Tav’s lessons, which nearly always managed to make Tav laugh hard enough to earn a beating. Afterwards, he would find whatever corner she had slipped off to, and compliment her impressions, and the next time, she took his feedback into account.

“Amelyssan is more cold than Abazigal,” Tav told her one evening. “Your face was perfect, but you sounded more like him than her today.”

They were sitting in the cells beside Sarevok’s office together, the decapitated head of Tav’s latest victim on the ground between them. Orin’s hair had finally grown long enough to get in the way of her murdering again, and instead of letting Sarevok shear it off as he typically did– something that, according to Orin, she had always hated– Tav was using the head’s startlingly long black locks to teach her how to braid.

Orin frowned down at the strands as they twisted in her tiny hands, sticking to the blood coating her palms. “They’re all cold. They’re ghosts.”

“I didn’t mean physically,” Tav said, before blinking. “Wait, can you change your body temperature?”

Orin shook her head, pouting. “No. But I wanna. Abazigal always knows it’s me because I’m too warm and he can see it.”

Tav laughed. “Your impressions are very good without that, don’t worry. Anyone who isn’t a reptile wouldn’t even notice that. But I meant that… Amelyssan and Abazigal talk the same in a lot of ways, they both think they’re our Father’s greatest gift to the world, but Amelyssan is… sharper, than Abazigal. She clips off the ends of her words, because she doesn’t think anyone else is worth her time, where Abazigal draws them out because he likes to hear himself talk. Amelyssan is arrogant because she thinks she earned it, while she was alive. Abazigal is arrogant because he was a dragon– his power was handed to him.”

“Like you,” Orin said. “Grandfather says you were born to be perfect.”

Tav bit back a grimace. “Grandfather says a lot of things. Our Father focuses on me, and not you, because He made me Himself. But He loves you, very much. And so do I. And so does Grandfather.” Tav was fairly certain only one of those things was true, but he wasn’t about to tell the poor girl that.

“I know,” Orin said, tying off her latest, clumsy, adorable braid with a strip of skin Tav had torn off the body while he killed it. “Brother, look! I did it! What do you think? Is it pretty?”

“It’s beautiful,” Tav said, beaming at her. “You are an artist, Orin. Murder, words, shifting, hair. It’s incredible.”

Orin giggled, before beginning to pepper Tav with more questions about his training, about the differences between the echoes and how she could mimic them better.

It was a tenday later that Tav awoke, aching and still bloodied from his penance, collapsed atop his rough-hewn sheets with his day clothes still on, to see a miniature version of himself staring back at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Tav sat up, blinking away his exhaustion and pain as best he could. “Orin? What– is everything all right? What’s wrong?”

Orin shifted back into herself, wrapping her arms around her torso. She had her favourite knife tucked into the waistband of her pyjama pants, and she was clutching the blanket that usually sat crumpled at the foot of her bed in her hands.

“I– I used to come in here, before you got here, when I– I got scared,” she whispered. “Nobody knew I would do it, so they couldn’t find me. You’re usually awake later than me. I thought I could pretend to be you for a little bit.”

“Why are you scared?” Tav asked softly, shifting over and patting the mattress beside himself.

Orin clambered up onto it, dragging the blanket behind her like a somewhat ratty dress train. “I… had a nightmare. About my mommy. I thought she was gonna kill me again.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Tav said, wrapping Orin up in a hug.

She crumpled into his chest, her hands fisting in his torn, bloodied shirt as her shoulders began to shake with her tears.

“She’s dead,” Tav said. “She’s gone. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I miss her,” Orin said between sobs. “Why did she try to kill me? Was I bad? Will Grandfather try to kill me if I’m bad for him, too? Will Father?”

Tav pulled her close, curling around her, as though he could shield her from the horrors of their lives with the body that had never belonged to him. “You’re perfect, Orin. You’re perfect. And you beat her, remember? You’re– you’re safe now. I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let anyone else hurt you.”

The words tasted like a lie on Tav’s tongue. He wanted it to be true. He wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything. But it seemed the gods cared very little for what Tav wanted.

Still. If there was anything he could do to protect Orin from this world, this life, from any amount of pain and misery and suffering, he would do it. Bhaal be damned, he would do it. Orin wouldn’t fall to his fate if there was a damned thing Tav could do to stop it.

Tav began to hum, a quiet little song he remembered Gregor singing to the other children– singing to him– when the nightmares that plagued the little adopted family grew too intense to sleep through, when rest grew fleeting and the night grew long. It was a wordless thing, more felt than heard, a rumble in his chest reminiscent of the rushing waters of the Chionthar and the tolling of the bells in Wyrm’s Rock that marked the passing of the hours.

Tav cradled Orin in his arms, humming a song that sounded like the closest thing to home Tav had ever known, and Orin settled, her tears slowing to a stop and her breath easing, calm and quiet and at peace for once in her brief but pained life.

“C-can I stay here?” Orin asked eventually, once Tav’s throat had gone numb and his mouth dry from his song.

“Yeah,” Tav said, pulling the covers up around both of them, ignoring the blood for the time being. It wasn’t the first time he’d gone to bed bloody, and he doubted it would be the last.

After that night, Orin came to Tav when the nightmares were too vivid, too vicious to sleep through. Sometimes she would talk about them– her mother featured in a majority, as did the night Orin had awoken to see the woman standing over her bed with a knife in her hand and a murderous glint in her eyes. In some, it was Sarevok standing over her instead, or one of the echoes, or her unknown father, or even Tav himself. In others, her mother won, pinning Orin to the bed and slaughtering her slowly and painfully. Some nights, Orin was too shaken to talk about her dreams at all, and would just crawl into Tav’s arms, burying her face in his chest and crying silently.

Tav held her each and every time, humming that almost-forgotten melody he’d learned what felt like a lifetime ago, a quiet, gentle thing that felt so alien in these hallowed halls of murder and strife. And every time she came to him, every time she trusted him, with her dreams or her fears or her jokes or her impressions or even just a request to help her braid her hair, Tav made his silent vow to her again.

I’ll keep you safe. As much as I can. For as long as I’m able. I promise.

Slowly but surely, the months wore on, and Tav’s power and skill grew. He began to spend less time with the echoes, and more with Sarevok himself, learning the things that half-spirits comprised of naught but violence couldn’t teach him.

Sarevok tutored Tav in more mundane subjects– politics, manipulation, the day-to-day practicalities of running the Temple he would one day claim. He and Tav spent hours together in his office off of the Tribunal’s chamber, the screams of the victims in the cells beside them only barely dulled by the thick stone walls. It was by Sarevok’s side that Tav began to meet with representatives of the temples of other dark, illicit gods and goddesses within the city, to begin to form the alliances that would grow his own Temple’s power and influence.

It was in that office that Tav first learned what else being Bhaalspawn meant.

It had been a long day, most of it spent meeting– or, more accurately, arguing– with representatives from the slowly-growing temple of the Mother of Disease in the Gate. Tav had gotten the alliance he wanted, eventually, but not without an unnecessary spat that made his head pound and his Urge throb even once Talona’s clerics had left.

Tav sat behind Sarevok’s desk, pinching the bridge of his nose in a foolhardy attempt to quiet both his headache and his bloodlust.

A massive, heavy hand landed on Tav’s shoulder, bared of its gauntlet for once, squeezing almost gently.

“That went better than I had anticipated,” Sarevok said, his invisibility breaking as he began to dig his fingers into the knots in Tav’s shoulder, loosening the tensed muscles.

Tav sighed, letting his arm drop. “I’m glad to know you have such faith in me.”

“I have the utmost faith in you, little brother,” Sarevok said, his other hand coming up to join the massage. “As does our Father. But the Talontar are stubborn. You handled them well.”

Tav slowly relaxed into Sarevok’s touch despite himself. He knew it was stupid to let his guard down around the man; he had the scars to prove it. But, gods, he was so tired, and everything hurt, and Sarevok’s hands easing the tension out of his shoulders felt… nice. It had been a long time since something had just felt nice.

“I want to kill something,” Tav said. Murder always made the endless whispers in his head go quiet for a moment. “Ideally one of the Talontar, but I’ll take anything.”

Sarevok chuckled. “After all of the effort you put into swaying them to our cause? That would be a waste, child.” He pressed closer, one of his hands sliding from Tav’s shoulder, his thumb brushing along Tav’s neck.

Tav tensed. “What are you doing?”

“Teaching you,” Sarevok said. “You know much of Lord Bhaal’s doctrine now. But Amelyssan has blind spots. Things she cannot truly understand, as a mere follower of our Lord. We are His children, His blood. We know His true desires better than any on this plane.”

His hands slid lower, dancing along Tav’s collarbones, caressing his chest, cupping his breasts, even bound and flattened as they were by the bandages he wrapped around them each day, hidden by the minor illusion he cast over them before meeting with anyone outside of the Tribunal.

“Stop,” Tav snapped, trying to jerk away from Sarevok’s groping hands.

But he couldn’t. Sarevok held him in place seemingly effortlessly, one arm wrapping around his shoulders to pin him against Sarevok’s plate-covered chest while the other slid down his stomach, untucking his shirt from his trousers and slipping beneath.

“Our primary duty is murder, and you manage that so well,” Sarevok said. “You slaughter like none before you, indiscriminately and worshipfully, your savagery and cruelty unmatched. But as His children, another duty falls to us that the mere worshippers of our Dread Lord will never understand. To continue His line. To ensure His blood lives on for generations to come.”

“No!” Tav wrenched himself free, stumbling out of Sarevok’s chair and backing away from the hulking giant of a man.

He only realised too late that he’d backed away from the door, into the shelves along the far wall. Into a corner. He’d trapped himself. And Sarevok was following him.

“You know better than to deny our Father’s gifts, child. And His blood must not be diluted. You did not think my daughter was to be the only one blessed with Lord Bhaal’s unholy seed, did you? You will serve Him in this way, too, to ensure His plans will never be given the chance to falter again, to ensure that none of His children can go unchallenged any longer.”

“You– your–? No, you didn’t–” Tav breathed, pressing his back into the shelves behind him as Sarevok drew closer, those hot, horrible hands reaching for him once more.

“Orin is my daughter, born of my daughter. I would not dilute the blood of our Lord further by entrusting His descendants’ wombs to any but His own.” He stared almost impassively down at Tav, who– despite the thick black assassin’s garb he wore– had never in his life felt so exposed. “And that includes yours.”

Tav’s hands darted to his knives, sheathed at his sides. “Lay your hands on me and lose them, brother.”

Sarevok just chuckled darkly. “You may be murder’s progeny, child, but so am I. Submit or fight, it matters not to me, but I will have you either way.”

Tav snarled, wrenching his knives from their sheathes and swinging. Sarevok laughed again, knocking one aside with his greaves as the other slipped between his pauldron and chest plate, scoring across his undead skin, catching in the leather strap. Tav wrenched it free, ducking under Sarevok’s arms as he reached out. But he was still too slow. Too weak. Sarevok’s leg shot out, tripping him as he made to run, and he caught Tav by the arms before he could fall, hauling him back until he was pressed to Sarevok’s chest once more, held several inches off the ground despite his kicking and squirming, his knives dropped in his clumsy error.

“Lord Bhaal does not demand violence in this realm, too,” Sarevok whispered in Tav’s ear, his breath hot and smelling of meat. “Only obedience. Submit, and this need not be a painful experience. It was not for Helena.”

“Let me go!” Tav demanded, thrashing against Sarevok’s grip.

Sarevok chuckled. “As you wish.”

Then he reached around, effortlessly holding Tav up with one hand as he drew a knife from his belt with the other, before scoring it down Tav’s front in one motion. The blade cut through Tav’s clothes and nicked his skin, leaving him bare and bloody. Then Sarevok tossed him aside, still gripping onto his clothes with one hand to rip the shredded rags from his body as he let Tav tumble to the cold stone floor.

Tav gasped at the impact and the sudden exposure, nausea and terror twining in his chest. He scrambled to his feet, sprinting for the door of the room.

Sarevok caught his arm again, slamming him face-down against his desk. Tav cried out, hearing the sick crack of his nose snapping against the wood, agony blinding him, rendering him limp and helpless for just long enough for Sarevok to sidle up behind him, pinning him down with his chest against Tav’s back, his hands groping along Tav’s now-naked torso before sliding down to his arse.

“No,” Tav gasped, his writhing weakening by the second as blood poured from his nose, as his head pounded in agony, as his Urge screamed in fury at being bested and pinned down.

“I will fill you with Lord Bhaal’s unholy seed,” Sarevok said, his voice growing lower as he ground against Tav’s arse, his fingers sliding along Tav’s slit before thrusting into his cunt, dry and sudden and agonising. “You will grow His next child, and the next, and the next, until there is an army of Bhaalspawn birthed of your loins to follow our Father’s every order, every whim.”

Tav couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight back. Everything hurt. Spots danced in front of his vision. He whimpered pathetically as Sarevok pulled his fingers out, only to feel something much, much larger pressing against him instead.

Tav screamed as Sarevok impaled him in one brutal thrust, setting a rapid, unforgiving pace immediately. A short, gasping cry was forced out of him with every thrust, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the wood of the desk as he tried frantically to scramble away.

Sarevok wrapped an arm around Tav’s torso, hauling him upright, groping at his chest as he continued to slam into him relentlessly.

“Stop,” Tav gasped as Sarevok fondled him, still whispering in his ear as he fucked him.

It felt like it lasted for hours. Tav was helpless in Sarevok’s grasp as he fucked him against the desk, the floor, the shelves, throwing Tav’s aching body around like a ragdoll whenever he grew bored and never softening when he came. Tav lost track of time soon enough, floating absently just outside of his body, in much the same way he did when his Urge took over. He watched as Sarevok fucked him again and again, the words that made bile rise in Tav’s throat and his Urge purr in his chest washing over his uncomprehending ears like the rushing waters of the Chionthar.

He came back to himself on his back on the rug, to the feeling of Sarevok’s lips pressing to his tearstained cheek- a chaste, almost sweet gesture that made Tav more nauseous than all of the violence that had preceded it.

“Get the fuck off of me,” Tav snarled, shoving Sarevok away from him with weak, shaking arms. Gods, everything hurt.

Sarevok let him go, this time, sitting back on his knees and tucking his cock away again.

Tav got up, as well, pushing past Sarevok to the shelves to grab some of the clothes stored there, since his darling brother had ruined his.

“As with all commands given by our Dread Master to His children, this one will be easier to follow if you do so willingly,” Sarevok said, watching Tav dress impassively, his face a perfect mask of nonchalance. He hadn’t even broken a fucking sweat. “You belong to Him, as we all do. He will do as He wills with your form. If you do not follow His path, He will force your hand.”

“I am our Father’s blood entirely,” Tav snapped. “Purest murder. Isn’t that what you keep telling me, brother? He will need no more children but me. I will do my duty. Bring about the crimson dawn. And I will not soil this world with more life even as I seek to rid it of that same stain.” He took a deep, shuddering breath.

Then he stormed out of the office, out of the Tribunal, breaking into a sprint once he was free of the oppressive air hanging over Candulhallow’s Tombstones. He wasn’t sure where he was going. He wasn’t sure if he was going anywhere. Eventually, his still-shaking legs gave out from under him, and he collapsed, curling up into a ball and pressing his back into the wall of the alley he’d landed in. Everything hurt. His head was pounding. His eyes burned with tears he couldn’t let spill. He was uncomfortably, intensely aware of the bruising on his hips, his breasts, his thighs. The ache of torn flesh in his cunt. The foul stickiness of Sarevok’s spend between his legs.

Tav curled himself smaller, pressing his forehead to the cracked cobblestones, whispering his prayers into the still evening air.

“Please, Father,” he begged. “I’ll be– I’ll be good. I’ll be better than any of Your children ever have been. I’ll be perfect. You’ll never need any more Bhaalspawn, never again, not after me. I won’t fail. I’ll be perfect for You, Father, just please don’t– don’t make me–”

“Saer?” a voice asked from nearby.

Tav was lunging before he’d even consciously registered the stranger’s presence, his blades finding purchase in the unfortunate elf’s flesh and ripping them to shreds, cutting and tearing and biting and ripping and goring until the red haze faded from Tav’s vision and his racing heart and panting breaths began to slow.

“For you, Father,” Tav breathed, carefully carving Bhaal’s tears into what little remained of the passer-by’s torso, bowing his head in prayer, in genuine reverence, for the first time since he’d learned the truth of himself.

He felt a sensation like hands inside his chest, wrapping around his heart, his lungs, caressing them almost gently.

Do your duty as I command. If you succeed, I will have no need of another. But if you fail…

“I won’t fail,” Tav said.

The presence retreated, then, fading back into the background. Not gone. Never gone. Father was always, always, always watching.

Tav took a deep breath, wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve, and then grimacing when he noticed the white linen of the shirt he’d grabbed in his haste. He’d need to flee underground as quickly as possible, to ensure no one saw him covered in blood. He couldn’t risk being spotted or, Bhaal forbid, recognised. The shirt was a stupid mistake for him to have made.

One he couldn’t afford to make anymore. Not if he was going to keep this last, barest bit of himself.

Tav threw himself into his training with new ardour, after that day. He couldn’t afford any more weakness. Any more failure. He grew steadily surer, quicker, stronger. Strong enough that the fifth time Sarevok fucked him, the brute left the encounter with a knife in his belly, slid between the plates of his armour and driven deep into his flesh, though it wasn’t enough to disrupt him. That didn’t happen until the ninth time, when one of Sarevok’s hands found Tav’s breasts again, and Tav cut it off.

Sarevok stumbled back, his yellow eyes wide with shock, staring at his dismembered flesh on the ground.

“This was a mercy,” Tav snarled, pushing himself off of Sarevok’s desk and discarding the surgical scalpel he’d hidden inside the flesh of his own arm– a trick he had stolen from the now-dead Loviatan priest who had joked about his Father’s fall from grace the tenday prior. “The cut is clean. Amelyssan can repair you, if you beg her well enough. But touch me there again, Grandfather, and I will ensure that you can never touch anything again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Of course, brother,” Sarevok said, his voice tight with pain, though beneath that, he seemed almost… impressed.

That night, when Tav found himself in the blood-red realm again, his Father’s claws scoring through his chest, tearing the flesh away, spraying them both with blood and gore and wiping Tav’s mind blank with white-hot agony, he recognised it for the mercy, the gift that it was. He babbled his thanks between his cries of pain, and when he awoke the next day, the skin of his chest flayed and bloodied but his breasts flattened, his unwanted flesh taken away by his loving Father, he vowed to sacrifice an entire family line in thanks.

Tav began to spend less time with Orin, too. He didn’t like that, but he couldn’t afford the breaks, the weakness and softness and fragility he felt around her. Not if he wanted Father’s favour. Not if he wanted to stay himself.

At least they still had their nighttime visits, Orin slipping into his room and crawling into his bed to hide from her fears as she always had, Tav singing her to sleep with lullabies remembered from the too-brief moments of care he’d known before he’d learned that such things weren’t meant for monsters like him.

Tav clung to that. To Orin, as much as he could. She kept him sane– or, at least, as sane as any of Bhaal’s children ever were. Tav knew he couldn’t fail, if not for his sake, then for hers. He couldn’t let the burdens laid upon his shoulders fall on hers, instead.

Orin was the only creature in all the realms who Tav could actually keep safe. He’d be damned a thousand times over before he let her suffer the same things he had, Bhaal and Sarevok and the wheel of fate itself be damned.

It was a little over a year after Tav first learned he was Bhaalspawn that everything changed again.

The day had started fairly normally, for Tav. Weapons training with Illasera in the morning– Tav won all their sparring sessions, which he had been doing more and more often– and a minor ritual with Amelyssan in the afternoon, before Sarevok dragged Tav into his office to discuss the newest recruits seeking to become Unholy Assassins. There were a few promising candidates, which of course meant that sacrifices needed to be sourced for them to slaughter and join the ranks, once they’d proved their mettle.

It was a good day. Sarevok hadn’t even touched Tav– though, every now and again, his eyes would flick to the deep gouge in the desk, where Tav had pinned his hand with a knife the last time he’d tried. Tav had gotten better at fighting him off, too. It had been well over a month since Sarevok had actually managed to get his hands on Tav.

“The sewers begin to run dry of fresh meat to slaughter,” Sarevok said. “It is risky to hunt for sacrifices above ground.”

“Don’t waste an assassin on it,” Tav said. “I’ve been meaning to go hunting for a few days, now. I’ll bring someone back.”

“Ensure they survive. They will be no use to us dead.”

Tav rolled his eyes. “I’m not an idiot. Don’t treat me like one.”

“Forgive me, brother. You are so forgiving of Orin’s missteps that I worry you will begin to forget your own.”

“Orin is six, Grandfather,” Tav snapped. “I am not. I will return before dawn, with a sacrifice in tow.”

Then he left, making his way out of the Tribunal and into the city streets above.

It was just barely dusk, the daytime bustle of the Gate beginning to fade into the quieter hum of night. Tav made a beeline for the Elfsong– on a nice night like tonight, the desperate and the lonely would be out in full force, easy pickings to select and slaughter. Tav could make a few sacrifices of his own, to sate the growing murmurings of his Urge, before finding someone suitably divine or altruistic or otherwise too good to be true in one of the city’s many dens of debauchery to drag back underground for his initiates.

Tav secured himself a drink and a table out of the way, watching the thronging crowds like a hawk. The tavern was busy, as he knew it would be, and Tav’s options were many. He spent some time watching a pretty, pale elf who flirted as easily as breathing, images of white curls stained red flitting absently across his mind, before movement out of the corner of his eye caught Tav’s attention.

A stocky, grizzled man sidled up next to him, sliding two tankards onto the table, pushing one towards Tav.

“Hope I’m not intruding,” the man said, his voice gruff and noticeably accented. Not Baldurian. Elturian? Tav wasn’t quite sure. “You looked lonely, over here, and I was hoping I could join.”

“Be my guest,” Tav said, tearing his eyes away from the elf, who seemed to have found his own target, to focus on this new stranger.

He was definitely a traveller– a merchant, if the quality of his cloak and the depth of his pockets were to be believed. And there, just barely peeking out from under the collar of his shirt, hidden enough that anyone less careful than Tav would have missed it, was a small tattoo of a winged serpent.

Zhentarim.

Oh, this was almost too easy.

Tav picked up the tankard the man had slid him, pretending to sip from it. As he’d suspected, there were drugs in it; nothing lethal, but that wasn’t exactly a reassuring fact with the Zhent.

The man was gruff and a little too loud for this sort of job, but Tav supposed if his victims were usually drugged that didn’t end up mattering much. It was easy to pretend to be charmed, to mime drinking the tankard, to feign growing dizzy and woozy and faint. To let the man wrap a road-roughened arm around his waist, guide his stumbling steps to the door, down a few back alleys, into an unimposing house and down into a surprisingly spacious basement.

And it was then, once they were alone, that Tav dipped out of the man’s grip, swept his legs out from under him, and pinned him to the ground, pressing a blade to his throat.

“Your tattoo is showing,” Tav purred in the man’s ear as he shouted, shoving up against Tav, unable to dislodge him. “There isn’t a drow in Faerûn who wouldn’t recognise a Zhentarim slaver when we saw one. I would advise you to pick your targets more carefully next time, but unfortunately, there won’t be–”

“By Cyric, Trent, your only job was to make sure this one couldn’t fight back,” a new voice said.

Tav’s head whipped up, finally spotting the figures emerging from the shadows lining the room. More Zhentarim, these ones wearing their emblem more openly, carrying nets and chains and weapons aplenty.

“I thought he couldn’t!” the man beneath Tav protested, still struggling against his grip. “He seemed– hrk!”

Tav cut the man’s words off with a dagger to the throat, leaving him to choke and bleed on the smooth stone floor as he rose to his feet above him. There were probably twenty Zhent in here with him, not counting the body on the floor.

That made this a little bit more difficult than Tav had anticipated.

“He’s feisty,” another one of the Zhent said. “Won’t be easy to get him tame enough to sell.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re professionals, then, isn’t it?” the first to speak said.

Tav rolled his eyes, redoubling his grip on his daggers.

Father, guide my blades.

And then he reached into himself, searching for his bloodlust, his mindless frenzy.

He expected to find the Urge. It wouldn’t be easy for him to take out twenty trained fighters on his own, even if he let the Urge do most of the work– he’d emerge from the encounter bloodied and beaten, needing to pay penance as soon as he’d recovered enough not to accidentally kill himself in the attempt. But he was fairly certain he was capable of it.

He didn’t expect what actually emerged.

Tav screamed as white-hot agony seared through him, his bones cracking, his flesh splitting, tearing, ripping apart around him. He howled as his body changed, gore spraying from him as a monster erupted from his skin, the Urge and the pain decimating his mind.

My child, Bhaal’s voice breathed in his mind. Take my greatest blessing. Prove yourself worthy of it. Destroy these pathetic creatures, in My name.

The beast that had once been Tav roared, and now it was the Zhentarim who screamed.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a slaughter. Tav tore the slavers to shreds, until there was little left of them but offal and gore, their blood sprayed about the room and their bones crushed to dust beneath Tav’s claws.

That was when the skin of this strange new monster tore itself away from him, and Tav crumpled to his knees, his chest heaving, his every muscle alight with agony.

“Oh, master, master, master!” Sceleritas Fel squealed, appearing out of nowhere as he was wont to do to bounce up and down, clapping his hands together. “Your Father is so proud of you! And so am I, my Lord. Your jimjams fit you so well!”

“My– that was– that was the Slayer, wasn’t it?” Tav said, staring around at the carnage he had wrought. “Amelyssan mentioned it. Said it… does that mean…?”

“It means that you have proven yourself to your dear Father,” Sceleritas said. “You have earned his blessing most unholy. He has deemed you worthy, little prince. The time has come for you to claim your throne.”

Terror and joy and pain and relief tangled together in Tav’s chest until he couldn’t tell where one emotion ended and another began. “You mean… the Temple. I– I can really–?”

“Not just the Temple,” Sceleritas said. “You have truly proven yourself. Bestowing the form of the Slayer upon you means that your Father has taken you as His Chosen. You are His Scion, His heir, His Prince of Blood. Oh, jubilant day!”

“His Chosen,” Tav breathed.

He could feel his Father’s gaze on him like a physical thing, a weight pressing into his shoulders.

He took a deep breath, and nodded. “All is as it should be, then.”

“Oh, Master, you have grown into your mantle so well!” Sceleritas said. “We must away to the Temple immediately. Your Father will wish to claim you in front of all of His dearly devoted. Your work with your failed siblings has been admirable, but their perspectives are, ehh, incomplete. Only you, His purest blood, can understand Lord Bhaal’s true ambitions.”

A world destroyed. Brought to slaughter. A crimson dawn rising over a mountain of corpses, atop which sat a throne of bone. A throne from which Bhaal, in Tav’s body, ruled the ruined world with an iron fist.

The images were familiar, after all this time, all these many, many years, seeing them every night in his dreams. There was something almost comforting about them.

Tav nodded. “I do. Our work begins today.”

The Temple of Bhaal was hidden in the Undercity, a vast, cavernous expanse of crumbling stone. The trial to enter– slaughtering an echo, of all things– was laughably easy. The Bhaalists within– disorganised, messy, sloppy, easily caught, half-starved and rabid, Bhaal’s plans would go nowhere like this, these ranks needed to be culled, retrained, regrown– parted for him as he approached, though whether that was due to curiosity or respect Tav couldn’t tell. He knew that soon enough it would be fear and reverence alone in their eyes when they looked at him. That was enough.

When Tav approached the altar in the centre of the Temple’s depths, one of the Bhaalists approached him, one in ornate, bloodstained ceremonial robes and a headdress that blocked his entire peripheral view. Stupid. Pointless. That would have to go, too.

“A new recruit,” the Bhaalist said. Cocky. Arrogant. Authoritative. The perfect example. “You are young, so you may yet earn my forgiveness, but there are procedures–”

The idiot’s hand landed on Tav’s shoulder, heavy and hot and far too sure of himself.

Tav spun, grabbing the arm holding him by the wrist and using it to throw the fool onto the altar. His Father’s altar. Fitting, for this to be his first sacrifice upon it.

“Do not take me for one of your feeble initiates,” Tav snarled, climbing atop the Bhaalist. He writhed, drawing his own knives from their sheathes. Tav disarmed him in an instant and used his own blades to pin his wrists to the bloodstained stone.

The man screamed. There was fear in his eyes. Weak. Pathetic. Unworthy of Father’s blessings.

At least he would make a good little sacrifice.

“Hush, now,” Tav said, drawing his own blade, watching the way it wobbled and warped in his hands, becoming longer, curved, crimson. Amelyssan had shown him this blade before. His Father’s blade. The blade of His Chosen.

The knife that had warped into it was the one Tav had used to kill Gregor and Syril all those years ago. The last remnant he had of his mortal life. He shoved aside the strange, wretched pang of grief at the thought. He couldn’t afford grief. Not anymore. There was work to be done.

The man that used to lead Bhaal’s Temple died screaming upon His altar, his life ended by his successor, by his better, as all things should be. The congregation watched, bloodlust and horror and joy visible on all of their eager faces.

And, as the whimpering little sacrifice gurgled his last, the massive skull carved into the wall above the altar flared to life, its eyes glowing red.

As one, the Bhaalists gasped, some dropping to their knees, others pulling out their blades, a few particularly fragile ones fainting in shock. They would have to be the first to go.

The skull spoke, as Tav straightened up, finally deigning to face Bhaal’s congregation. His congregation.

“My most loyal assassins. My most faithful devotees. You gaze upon my spawn. My purest blood. You gaze upon The Dark Urge, the Scion of Bhaal, the Prince of Murder. You gaze upon my Chosen. He will lead you all to glory. To blood. To the crimson dawn at the end of all things. Heed him, or suffer the wrath of those who deny My doctrine.”

And then the skull went dark again.

The Temple lay silent.

Then a voice spoke. An older, wizened elf, her face more scars than skin, a devoted acolyte of Bhaal for time beyond measure.

“All hail the Dark Urge, Prince of Murder, Chosen of Lord Bhaal!”

The call was taken up, echoed, reverberating through the Temple until the clamour of it overwhelmed Tav’s mind. He let them shout, let them cheer and scream and bellow their fury and hope alike, for just a moment.

Then he raised his hand, and silence fell.

Huh. Tav wasn’t used to being obeyed.

He rather liked the feeling.

“The Temple has fallen into disrepair,” he said. “We begin to rebuild today. What leaders exist amongst you, come to me, so we may discuss next steps. The assassins my Tribunal and I have trained, you have your orders already. Carry them out. Our first sacrament blessed by our Dread Lord Himself will happen tomorrow at dusk– to miss it is to sign your own death warrant. Any objections will be brought to me directly. Am I understood?”

A murmured chorus of “Yes, my Lord” echoed through the hall.

Then the gathered throng dispersed, leaving only the elderly elf, a young tiefling with eyes that glowed nearly as bright as his Father’s, and a human with Bhaal’s symbols tattooed across her chest to approach the altar as one.

Tav took a deep breath, steeling himself.

Do not falter now. This is what you were created for.

Tav didn’t know whether the voice was himself, his Father, his Urge. He supposed it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

The Temple’s power grew, slowly but steadily, under Tav’s leadership. He brought in new recruits, both willingly and not, and culled the ones who were too weak-willed or weak-stomached or otherwise unfit for Bhaal’s designs upon the world.

He culled the ones who wished to usurp him, too, of which there were no shortage. That was hardly a surprise. What was slightly more of a surprise, though perhaps it oughtn’t have been, were the number who wished to take not his power but his body, as Sarevok had– apparently, the pure flesh and blood of the Lord of Murder was irresistible to some of his devotees. Those fools ended up dead, too, and often mutilated very recognisably for their trouble.

Tav was tired. But he couldn’t falter. He couldn’t give in. Things were going so very, very well.

Tav moved Orin into the Temple proper with him and the other child recruits he found, as much to get her away from Sarevok as to have her near. It only somewhat worked; she had always adored her grandfather, even before Tav’s arrival, and since he could hardly tell the poor child why he loathed the man so much, that adoration only grew with age. She spent quite a lot of time at the Tribunal, hanging off of Sarevok’s every word, and Tav found himself too busy with the duties of his new role as the head of Bhaal’s church to fetch her from his side more days than not.

At least her new quarters in the Temple proper meant that Orin would still come to him for comfort, at night, when the other children were cruel to her– Tav made examples of them very quickly, he would not tolerate Orin’s suffering– or when she was injured in her killings– which happened more often than it should have, her habit of turning her kills into art projects was dangerous– or when the nightmares that still plagued her grew too strong to ride out in the barracks. Tav took her in his arms in the ornate bedroom behind the altar that Sceleritas had insisted he move into every time, humming quiet lullabies to her until she fell asleep once more.

She had begun bringing her blades with her to bed, even by Tav’s side. A wise instinct, in a place like this. Tav’s bed was the least safe place in the Temple, though he ensured that Orin never suffered for it, beyond the way the scuffles would occasionally wake her.

Tav spent less time involved with the Tribunal, as well– Sarevok and the echoes were perfectly capable of weeding out the worthy Unholy Assassins on their own, Tav had no need to interfere. And, though Sarevok had not laid a hand on Tav since the night he earned his Slayer form, even the sight of him was enough to make Tav’s skin crawl with the memory of the many, many times he had done so before.

Tav knew Sarevok resented his distance. Resented his own subjugation, his own irrelevance, his own failures both past and present to insert himself into Bhaal’s legacy.

As the years stretched on, Tav also knew that Sarevok began to pass those resentments on to Orin. She grew crueller, more biting, more jealous and snappish with Tav, scoffing at his corrections and implying that she knew better due to her own blood, due to Sarevok’s influence.

Tav bit back the words about what he thought of Sarevok’s influence. And he continued to offer Orin sanctuary in his arms at night, regardless of what she said to him during the day.

Orin was twelve when Tav ruined everything.

It had been over a month since she had come to visit him at night. Her last visit had ended with her scornful words the morning after, when Tav had offered to take her hunting with him that day. She had scoffed that she was Sarevok Anchev’s granddaughter, that she didn’t need his help in killing. He had managed to keep from rolling his eyes, but only just.

That night was a bad one. Tav’s own nightmares kept him up late, tossing and turning restlessly in his bed, the wretched screams of the ones he’d killed echoing in his mind. In the past month, despite Orin’s absence, near every night had been interrupted by an upstart Bhaalist who thought that getting one over on their Lord’s young Chosen would be the key to securing their own place in the hierarchy, testing his strength and resolve during the day as well as at night, and Tav had grown jumpy, twitchy, anxious from the lack of sleep and the constant fraying of his nerves.

Tav was only half-asleep, bloodied visions dancing across his mind, his ears echoing with ancient screams, when he felt a presence atop him.

He lunged before his eyes were even open, throwing the interloper to the floor with a resounding crack of bone on stone and pinning them in place, a knife held to their throat.

It was only as a familiar gasp sounded that Tav’s mind caught up with him, and he saw Orin, bleeding slowly from the gash in her throat where Tav’s knife was still pressed.

Tav scrambled back immediately, horror and guilt and shame flooding him in an instant.

“Shit,” he said. “Orin, I– I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

Orin leapt to her feet, drawing her own knives. Her hair was disheveled. There were already tearstains on her mottled, multicoloured cheeks, her white eyes rimmed red from crying. A nightmare. Probably about her mother, hurting her.

And then Tav had done the same.

“I didn’t believe him,” Orin said, her voice shaky, her hands on her blades trembling. “I didn’t want to believe him, I… but Grandfather said you would hurt me, too.”

“I didn’t mean to, I swear, Orin–” Tav began.

Orin spoke over him. Whatever was happening in her head, she wasn’t hearing a word Tav said. “He was right. You have changed, brother. Father’s favour has gone to your head.”

“Orin–”

“Do not think I will ever be this weak again,” Orin hissed. “If you wish to kill me, you will have to try much harder.”

Then she twisted the ring on her finger– the one Tav had given her, the last time she had nearly been caught by the Watch, with an admonition to be more careful, to get out of trouble before it could catch up to her next time, he had been so cruel, he was such an idiot– and vanished.

Tav stared after her, tears he didn’t dare let spill burning his eyes, barely able to breathe against the weight on his chest.

Orin never came to Tav for comfort again.

He pretended like her absence, her scorn, the suspicion and fury and fear in her eyes when she looked at him, didn’t gut him to his core.

Eight more years passed. The Temple grew in strength, in size, in influence. Tav’s own power and command grew with it. He didn’t need Orin’s approval, or Sarevok’s, or that of any of his followers or his sacrifices or any of the feeble, unenlightened minds of the Gate that he would one day lead to their deaths in his Father’s name.

He had his Father’s approval, expressed as it was via blades through his flesh and blood on his hands– the only warmth a wretch like him was allowed.

At least, until the day one of his assassins found a note on a body in the sewers, addressed to the unknown leader of the Bhaalist resurgence in the Gate, asking them to come to a fairly nondescript house in the Lower City, signed only with the letters E.G.

Tav held the bloodstained parchment in his hand, his head tilted as he read the words again.

“Do you wish us to purge this upstart heretic for you, my Lord?” asked Bran, the eager little acolyte who had brought the note to him.

Tav knew that curiosity was dangerous, foolish, a risk to the mission. But he was his Father’s son entirely, owned by Bhaal body and soul. Any errors he made would be swiftly corrected before they could cause his efforts a true delay. And it would be worth it to know just how this E.G. had learned of the rise in Bhaalist activity, the mere fact of which made Tav’s hackles raise– he had trained his devotees to be better than that.

“No need,” Tav said. “I will attend to this matter personally. See what information I can tear from this creature’s tongue before I split them open in Father’s name.”

“We await your word, my Lord,” Bran said, bowing low as he backed away.

Tav tucked the note into his pocket, making for the address indicated on it.

Well, E.G., whoever you are, he thought, let’s see what you have for Father and I.