The Third Dawn

They left the city before the last stars faded, winding through sleeping streets and out the eastern gate. Astarion had insisted on a different vantage—something higher than rooftops, something farther from the clatter of carts and the reek of fishmongers. Tav had simply nodded, a faint smile playing at her lips, and led him up the switchback trail to the old watchtower on the cliff. Now they sat on the worn stone parapet, legs dangling over a drop that would have turned his stomach two weeks ago. Now it merely made him feel alive. The wind tasted of salt and wet grass, and the horizon was a thin strip of indigo bleeding into pearl. “You know,” he said, keeping his voice low, “I used to dream about this. Not the sunrise specifically. Just… the act of waiting for something beautiful. Cazador’s rules made even anticipation a sin.” Tav’s hand found his, warm and calloused. “What was the first thing you anticipated, once you were free?” He considered. “The next dawn. And then the next. And then… the one after that.” He let out a quiet laugh. “I have a list now, you know. A hundred sunrises I owe myself. Absurd, really. Counting light like it’s coin.” “It’s not absurd,” she said. “It’s a vow. And I’m collecting them with you.” The first blush of gold touched the edge of the sea, and Astarion felt his breath catch. This one was different from the first—rawer, as if the sky had decided to show its bones. The second had been soft, city-warmed. But this third dawn came with the cry of gulls and the distant bell of a fishing boat, and it felt like the world was waking just for them. “It’s not going to burn me,” he murmured, more to himself than to Tav. “No,” she replied, squeezing his fingers. “It’s going to warm you. Eventually, you’ll learn the difference.” He turned to look at her, at the light catching in the loose strands of her hair, at the quiet certainty in her eyes. “You keep saying things like that. As if you already know how this ends.” “I don’t know endings,” she said. “But I know beginnings. This one started the moment you chose to watch. And the next will start when we find the fourth rooftop, or the fifth cliff, or maybe a garden in Waterdeep.” Astarion smiled—a real one, not the practiced smirk he’d worn for two centuries. “Waterdeep? That would take tendays.” “We have time.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “We have a hundred sunrises.” And as the orb of the sun cleared the horizon, painting the world in shades of amber and rose, Astarion let himself believe it. The third dawn was not a miracle—it was a promise kept. There would be ninety-seven more. He had a list. He had a guide. And for the first time in his unnaturally long life, he had all the time in the world.