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Chapter Text

“Then you are free to go, Varric. May the Maker watch over you during the dark times ahead of us.”

“Same to you, Seeker. Same to you.”

– Cassandra Pentaghast and Varric Tethras, Dragon Age 2

Varric awoke to darkness.

His head thrummed with a pain so intense it made him wince just to raise it to look around. He was kneeling in a small room, stone walled, the only faint light coming from cracks around a solid wooden door in the wall he was facing. A slight shifting metallic noise told him someone was standing behind him –he concentrated– two someones, in fact. Standing either side of him, just out of sight. Armoured, by the sound of it. Guards? But for what?

There was a heavy weight around his hands. He was in manacles.

Varric’s immediate impulse was to laugh. Maker’s balls, he’d been told by plenty of people (and by Aveline more than once) that he would end up like this one day, but he’d never quite believed it. This was hardly the worst situation he had ever woken up to over the course of a long and interesting life, but it would have been more reassuring if he could remember how he’d ended up like this.

There had been an explosion. Varric didn’t remember it so much as still feel it in every aching bone – a noise loud enough to fill the world, a force great enough to pluck him off his feet and throw him bodily to the ground. Shit, was he dead? He’d never paid much attention to what the Chantry sisters had said about what happened after death if you’d pissed off the Maker somehow, but he had a vague feeling that cold dark rooms and manacles wasn’t far off.

But then...there had been...a mountain? Yes, that was it, an impossibly tall grey mountain and things chasing him as he climbed, a woman bathed in light and a hand reaching out...a hand...

The thought that had been trying to get Varric’s attention ever since he awoke hit him like a sledgehammer. With a cold creeping sense of dread, he looked down at his left hand and heard the sound of his own breath catching in his throat as it echoed around the silent room. One of the guards behind him shifted slightly at this sign of wakefulness, but Varric hardly noticed, transfixed by the sickly green light emanating from the long, jagged mark across his palm.

After what seemed like an eternity in which Varric tried very hard not to panic – or at least not panic visibly – he became aware of the sound of voices raised in argument outside the room, coming closer.

“He didn’t do this, Chancellor. If I am sure of anything, it is that.”

That was Cassandra’s voice, unmistakable. So if he was dead then he was in far more trouble than he’d realised. Still, Varric had to admit to himself that this explanation was seeming less and less likely by the minute. Being dead probably didn’t hurt this much.

“You said yourself that he’s a liar, Seeker! A rebel, one who associates with all kinds of dangerous elements! He even knew the mage who blew up the Chantry in Kirkwall and started this war!”

Varric didn’t recognise the man’s voice but couldn’t help but wince at the mention of Anders. There were some associations that people didn’t forget easily.

“But he himself denounced that action,” said Cassandra. “He had nothing to do with it.”

“So he says. He was at the centre of the destruction in Kirkwall, and now the Conclave has been destroyed as well, with him the only survivor. Surely even you cannot think that is a coincidence?”

The sound of footsteps had stopped just outside the door.

“No, it is not coincidence. I brought him here, against his will. Or do you also suspect me of complicity in this master plan, Chancellor?”

A third voice broke in at this point, this one calm enough that it was too soft to hear the words properly through the door. As Varric strained his ears, his mind desperately tried to make sense of these few scraps of new information. Holy shit, he really was in more trouble than he’d realised. Being dead might have been the better option; he could hardly wrap his head around the full meaning of what he had just heard. The Conclave was destroyed? Destroyed how? The explosion he remembered must have been real at least. Maker, all those people...

And they thought he was responsible!

And Cassandra was...defending him.

Even in the horrified turmoil that was his mind right now, that gave Varric pause. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more worried. It was certainly a good thing that the Seeker didn’t think he had done...whatever it was that had happened, but if the only person speaking in his defence right now was someone who could reasonably be described as his nemesis, that didn’t bode well for his chances of getting out of this with his head still attached to the rest of his body.

At that moment the door opened with a bang and Cassandra herself entered, outlined in light streaming in from outside the room, so bright it made Varric squint. The Seeker did like to make an entrance, and this one was depressingly familiar. He had a grim sense of déjà vu.

“Leave us,” she said sharply to the guards behind him, and then, as they started to move away; “And for the Maker’s sake, take those ridiculous things off him.”

“Chancellor Roderick said we were to—”

“I don’t care what the Chancellor said. Remove them.”

Varric, still blinking in the sudden light, didn’t realise what she was talking about until he heard the clink of a key and one of the guards leaned down to release him from the manacles. Then they hurried out of the room, closing the door again behind them. Rubbing his wrists, Varric realised he should probably thank the Seeker for that, but the words got lost somewhere on the way to his mouth. He couldn’t even look at her, couldn’t take his eyes off the crackling, vivid green scar across his hand, now fully visible as he turned his palm this way and that to look at it.

“Shit.”

“Is it painful?” said Cassandra. There was little in the way of concern in her voice, and when he looked up she was regarding him coldly, arms crossed. There was a new scar slicing unforgivingly down her cheek that did nothing to improve her fierce appearance, but at least hers didn’t glow.

“Yeah,” Varric said. “It is.” Actually, it mainly just felt weird, as if it were an injury that should be agonising, but something held the true sensation at bay. It felt hot and cold at once, a steady throbbing ache like an infected wound.

“Seeker, what the hell is going on?” he said.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” said Cassandra. “What happened? What is this?” She caught hold of his wrist briefly, raising his marked hand to his face before dropping it again.

“How should I know?”

Cassandra was pacing back and forth in front of him like a caged animal. What happened at the Conclave?” she said.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” said Varric. He really hadn’t meant to echo her words, but as soon as the sentence left his mouth he realised how mocking it had sounded. He winced and, as expected, Cassandra strode up to him furiously—

Leliana’s arm held her back, gently but firmly. Varric hadn’t even noticed her enter the room.

“We need him, Cassandra,” she said. “Remember what Solas said.”

Cassandra nodded and backed off a little, her eyes still fixed angrily on Varric. Leliana however, regarded him with what seemed more like curiosity.

“How much do you remember of what happened, Varric?” she said.

Varric grimaced. “Not much. I remember an explosion, and then running from...something. Monsters. Demons, maybe. There was a woman who reached out to me...”

“A woman?” asked Leliana sharply. Varric was surprised at her tone.

“Yeah, I assumed it was one of you.”

But then, they hadn’t been there, had they? Both Leliana and Cassandra had been back in Haven, called away to something they wouldn’t tell him about. He had been waiting to meet the Divine, trying to seem nonchalant about it, joking with a few of the mercenaries that had been sent to the Conclave to try and keep the peace. He didn’t remember a woman there, come to think of it, but then he didn’t remember a whole bunch of demon spiders being present at the Divine’s Conclave either, so maybe both things had been some kind of weird vision from being knocked on the head. It wasn’t as if he could ask anyone else who had been there what had happened.

“...and him the only survivor.”

A horrible curl of guilt formed suddenly in the pit of Varric’s stomach, lurking there for later. The man Cassandra had been arguing with earlier had a point – Varric did always seem to be at the centre of death and destruction. How many people had been at the Conclave? Hundreds at least. Not just mages and templars, but priests, servants, mercenaries, men, women, even a few children. And yet he was apparently the only one who had...

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” said Cassandra, her voice breaking through Varric’s morbid reverie. “I will take him to the Breach.”

Leliana hesitated for a moment, and Cassandra sighed. “I am not so unreasonable that I will forfeit our only chance of ending this madness,” she said. “Whether he deserves it or not, he will come to no harm with me.”

Leliana nodded briefly and left, leaving the door open behind her. His eyes adjusting to the brightness of the light this time, Varric could now see snow outside and a glimpse of clustered buildings – they must be back in Haven. He had intended to make some sort of quip about Cassandra promising to protect him, but as she held out a businesslike hand to help him to his feet, Varric found he couldn’t summon up the will even for that.

“What did happen, Seeker?” he said instead, the words sounding uncertain and scared even to his own ears.

Cassandra regarded him for a moment, her eyes flickering from his face to his marked hand. When she spoke next her voice was less harsh than before, and if he didn’t know better, Varric might have even said there was a trace of sympathy there.

“It...will be easier to show you.”

Chapter Text

Varric had woken up to some really bad days in his time, but waking up to a crowd of worshippers…that was new.

Apparently, he’d been out cold for several days since his – failed, futile, doomed – attempt to close the Breach, and from the look on Cassandra’s face when he walked into the Chantry to find her and Leliana arguing with Chancellor Roderick, there had been no consensus as to whether he’d ever wake up again at all. Whatever genuine relief the Seeker might have felt at his survival was short lived, since Varric’s opening line was “Who or what, exactly, is the Herald of Andraste?” and the argument that ensued had drowned out all other considerations.

Now, several hours later, Varric was warming his hands over the fire someone had built in the centre of Haven and trying not to look too much like he was sulking.  It had been an unbelievably shitty few days since the Conclave, and it didn’t look like things were going to improve any time soon. The long, bloody fight through the valley with Cassandra and her pet apostate Solas to reach the hole in the sky might have felt like a bad dream if Varric had been capable of having them, except for the inescapable presence of two things – the vast, swirling horror in the clouds above them that still loomed over every conversation, and the sodding mark on his sodding hand.

Actually, there were three things. And the third thing was somehow the worst thing, because the third thing was…everyone else.

The villagers of Haven and the survivors of the Conclave had all undergone a bizarre transformation while he was asleep. People who before had been apathetically civil now treated Varric with reactions ranging from suspicion to stiffly formal respect to outright awe. People whispered behind their hands as he passed. Soldiers kept trying to salute him. Even the stoic town blacksmith, with whom Varric had shared a drink not days before, fumbled over his words when Varric stopped by for some tools to give Bianca a tune-up. At least the village apothecary Adan, who had apparently been in charge of keeping him alive while he slept, seemed to be unimpressed – according to Flissa in the tavern (who had dropped a tankard and spilled ale all over the floor when Varric walked in) he was well known around Haven to be a grump. Varric had stayed for a solid half hour talking to the man about herbs just for the novelty of having someone who could look him in the eye. Thank the Maker for cynics and grumps.

With a wonderfully apt and entirely unconscious sense of timing, Cassandra appeared at that very moment from the direction of the Chantry and made a beeline towards where Varric was standing. She had a way of walking that always made him instinctively want to back away. Varric had pondered before on more than one occasion whether the Seeker was actually capable of just walking anywhere like a normal person, or if she had some kind of condition that forced her to storm through life as though she had a personal grudge against the world and everything in it.

“There you are,” she said, in the tones of one who was annoyed by not finding him always exactly where she had left him, like a horse tied to a tree. “Leliana has received word from her scouts in the Hinterlands. Mother Giselle is alive, and aiding the refugees on the road to Redcliffe village, but the situation in the area is extremely unstable. We leave tomorrow.”

“We?” said Varric.

“A few scouts Leliana can spare. We have little time to assemble a greater force, and speed is of the essence. Solas has also agreed to accompany us. I assume you do not object.”

“Nah, he proved in the valley he can handle himself in a fight,” said Varric. Where exactly Cassandra had found the elven apostate and why he was apparently so eager to help – aside from the obvious not-wanting-the-world-to-end thing – was something Varric was still a bit vague on, but what did he care about the guy’s motives? “If he wants to come, the more the merrier.”

“I will also travel with you, naturally,” said Cassandra, a touch stiffly. “To ensure you do not come to harm.”

“Why Seeker, I’m touched. I think I can handle one elderly priest.”

Cassandra made an exasperated noise. “Mother Giselle seems sincere in her desire to help the Inquisition, but the Fade rifts are everywhere and the roads are not—”

“Relax, I was kidding,” said Varric. “Actually, I’ll be glad of the backup. The two of us seem to be the only people who don’t believe this whole ‘Herald of Andraste’ bullshit, after all.’

Cassandra said nothing. Varric rounded on her, horrified.

“You’re kidding! Seeker, tell me you don’t—”

“What better explanation do you have, Varric?” she replied, voice sharp and defensive. Her brows were drawn darkly together, but in this moment, Varric was just as infuriated as she was.

“Anything! Any explanation is better!” he said. “I am not anyone’s saviour. This mark is just...just some shiny shit from the Fade.”

“And the woman seen with you as you stepped out of the Fade?” said Cassandra. “Your survival when everyone around you was killed?”

“You think I wanted that?” Varric realised his voice was rising. “You think I like being the only one to make it out okay while everything around me goes to shit?”

“It is not my intention to blame you,” said Cassandra, with a chilly dignity. “But nor will I indulge your self-pity. Like it or not, you survived, and you are now our only means of closing the rifts.”

“I know. I get it, Seeker, it’s honestly pretty difficult to forget.” Varric gestured vaguely at himself. “Look, I’m here to help, all signed up to your shiny new Inquisition and set to go. While I’m stuck with this-” he held up his marked hand “-you can point me at all the rifts you need to, but you cannot honestly tell me you really believe the Maker chose me, me, to fix all this.”

“I did not say I believed it,” said Cassandra, in an infuriatingly calm voice. “I am simply not discounting the possibility that there is more going on here than we know.”

Varric sighed. “Look Seeker, I was just in the wrong place at the worst possible time,” he said. “Story of my life.”

Cassandra looked at him for a long time, and he could almost see the appraisal in her eyes; there was the inescapable feeling of being weighed and measured and found wanting. Whatever she said, he couldn’t imagine that Cassandra Pentaghast’s idea of a holy saviour had much in common with one Varric Tethras, esquire. He braced himself for a lecture, something about stepping up to responsibility and the Maker’s will, but instead the Seeker just sighed almost imperceptibly and said:

“We leave at first light.”

Not giving him a chance for further protest, she turned and strode away back towards the Chantry.

Varric didn’t sleep well outdoors. The ground beneath his bedroll was hard from the winter frost, the night seemed filled with a constant cacophony of chirruping insects and snuffling night animals, and there was so much...space around him. Even lying in the tent he could feel it, the oppressive emptiness pressing in from all sides. He had been a surface dwarf all his life and had no problems with the sky, but he was still a city guy through and through, and liked to have good solid walls and a roof between him and the stars.

If he really tried, Varric could almost make himself believe that his passionate hatred of camping was the only thing keeping him awake.

The Hinterlands of Ferelden were a mess. The journey down from the mountains hadn’t taken as long as Varric had feared, but with every step they took closer to civilisation, the more grim the road became. The travellers they passed were clearly refugees, some fleeing from the fighting with little more than the clothes on their backs, some with what looked like all their worldly possessions stuffed into a cart. All looked weary, footsore and terrified. Varric recognised the look from some of the worst times in Kirkwall, the grinding exhaustion that came from not knowing if any day would be your last. The road itself was churned up into mud from all the use, and then the mud frozen into deep, uneven ruts that threatened to break wheels and throw riders. At one point they passed through an entire farm that looked recently abandoned, the horses gone and the farmhouse burnt to a shell, but druffalo still in the fields, the only creatures around apparently unperturbed by recent events.

Worse even than the trudging, blank-faced Fereldans were the mages and templars they had come across, who provided Varric with another familiar taste of home in the most depressing possible way. Clearly past even the pretence of civility, they attacked the small Inquisition contingent on sight, perhaps having already learnt the hard way that attack was the best and only form of defence. It didn’t seem to matter that the Inquisition officially hadn’t chosen a side. Who around here really knew what the Inquisition was? Varric wasn’t sure even he did.

Cassandra tried to reason with their attackers, every time. And every time she was met with fireballs from mages who clearly saw nothing but just another templar in her sword and plate armour, or with blades from templars who saw they were travelling with a mage and drew their conclusions from that. Varric, unobtrusive at the back of the group, picking off stray attackers with well-aimed bolts, half wondered if he wouldn’t have been safer travelling by himself after all. No-one cared about some random dwarf.

For her part, Cassandra looked exhausted too by the whole thing, her face set in grim resolve as they picked their way through the still smouldering ruins of villages and farmland towards the crossroads just south of Redcliffe where the bulk of the refugees were holed up. For all that Varric had accused the Seeker in the past of being too fond of stabbing things, it was clear the indiscriminate slaughter was starting to weigh on her, and Varric couldn’t say he was exactly relishing the experience either. Only Solas seemed unperturbed, felling mage and templar alike with no sign of any emotion other than stoic resignation. The elf wasn’t exactly a sparkling conversationalist, but any distraction was welcome from Cassandra’s snappish criticisms and Varric’s own brooding, so a not inconsiderable amount of the journey was spent talking with Solas about the Fade and the Veil and other things Varric had never had much cause to think about much before all this had happened.

At least their small party had managed to offer some practical help to the refugees when they finally arrived at their destination. They’d barely managed to get to Mother Giselle in time, but the makeshift camp Leliana’s scouts had set up at the crossroads was better than being out alone in the wilds. And since it was clear Mother Giselle had no intention of leaving until she was sure that the refugees were safe, even Cassandra didn’t object to their helping to shore up the defences, bring back supplies and do what they could to help those in need.

As for Mother Giselle herself…Varric had liked her, for the most part, but she made him nervous. Not just for her suggestion of him marching into Val Royeaux to address in person the clerics who had denounced him as a heretic, an idea that made his blood run cold. No, it was more than that, it had been…something in the way she looked at him. Everyone Varric had met since shit went down at the Conclave had viewed him with either fear, anger or a disturbing reverence. Mother Giselle had cast her warm brown eyes upon him with pity.

Varric sighed and scrambled up from his bedroll, deciding that he would just give up on sleep for now. He was still fully dressed anyway, it being so cold, so he just had to pull on his jacket and grab Bianca – you could never be too careful after all – before heading out of the tent into the icy night air.

Cassandra was snoring in the next tent in a quiet but particularly undignified way, which Varric made a mental note to rib her about later. The lake by which they had pitched their camp was dark and mirror-still, reflecting the countless stars above in the clear sky. Varric hoped the Inquisition recruit who had been trying to help refugees keep warm had been able to send someone out to retrieve the supplies they’d found for him, or it would be another long, cold night for anyone out at the crossroads.

The sentry on duty nodded to Varric respectfully as he passed but made no attempt to stop him as he walked a little way away from the tents and the circle of firelight to the crest of a nearby ridge on the cliff’s edge, overlooking the valley below. He stood there for a while, occasionally blowing on his hands to warm them up, lost in thought. It was a hell of a view in the daytime, and now at night he could see the little flickering lights of countless campfires like their own, spread out across the wilderness; friends, foes, mages and templars and refugees alike all trying to survive the long cold of the night. Varric could even see the bright smudge of light in the distance that was Redcliffe, and the tiny pinpricks of light that marked the castle, high above the town. Surely they would be going there eventually, to seek out the mages for help in closing the Breach. Or would they approach the templars instead, like Cullen wanted? Neither seemed like a particularly attractive prospect, and Varric realised with a horrible sickening lurch that the way things were going it could well turn out to be his decision. It was his messed-up hand they would be channelling power through at the Breach, after all.

Varric tried to decide which direction Kirkwall was in, but after a while he realised he’d really just be guessing. Geography was not his strong suit. Figuring out where Haven was turned out to be a little easier, as he could see the distant peaks of the Frostback mountains outlined against the stars. Somewhere off in that direction, up miles of winding paths, was a village in which hundreds of people would willingly fight and die for the Herald of Andraste. Varric once again found himself fighting the urge to just run, back to Kirkwall or into the wilds, who cared, anything just to get away from all this.

And then without him the rifts would all continue disgorging demons into the world, and it would be his fault. If he stayed and failed it would be his fault. If he cut and run it would be his fault. A life watching from the sidelines was no longer an option; the Maker had decided to put him in this situation for whatever mysterious reason, and this time there really was no sodding escape.

Varric had never in his life felt so sympathetic towards Hawke. He really must remember to write to her when he got the chance.

He suddenly heard a soft footstep behind him and spun around, swinging Bianca up automatically...and then lowering her again as Solas stepped forward out of the darkness, his hands raised in a gesture of peace.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” said the elf. “You also found it difficult to sleep, I take it?”

“Yeah.” Varric tried not to look so obviously on edge as he felt. In all honesty he did still feel a bit uncomfortable around Solas, whose reasons for staying on with the Inquisition and coming along to help were still somewhat unclear. “I thought you could fall asleep anywhere though,” he said, as much for something to say as anything. “Don’t you sleep in demon infested ruins as a hobby?”

Solas gave a strange half smile. “That doesn’t exempt me from feeling restless at other times, I’m afraid,” he said. “It is, I suppose, sleep with a different purpose. Or rather, sleep that lacks one. Sometimes I wonder if my experience of the Fade is part of what makes it so difficult to simply allow myself to fall naturally into dreams as others do.”

Varric shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course. Strange, never to dream. Though I suppose you dwarves would think the opposite.”

Varric just made a non-committal noise in response. He wasn’t really in the mood for philosophising.

“It’s a shame that we lack the ability to truly share our experiences with each other, beyond simply talking about them,” observed Solas, who obviously was in the mood for philosophising. “Perhaps if we could, our differences would be a source of fascination, rather than one of conflict.”

“Yeah well, maybe this stupid war wouldn’t have happened in the first place if certain people had tried for a bit more in the way of empathy,” said Varric.

Solas regarded him thoughtfully, apparently surprised by the bitterness in his voice. “You think this war entirely evil then?”

“It’s war. I’m not a fan.”

“You speak from the position of one with no personal stake in the outcome,” said Solas. He came to stand next to Varric, looking out over the valley. “There are many who would argue that this war is a good thing, an opportunity. Many mages see it as a long overdue chance of freedom. And I daresay many templars relish the chance to purge the evil of magic once and for all.”

“I’m pretty sure there are probably other ways of solving problems than just hitting each other over the head until only one side is left,” said Varric.

To his surprise, Solas chuckled softly. “Indeed,” he said. “You’re an optimist, Master Tethras. A dangerous thing to be, in times like these.”

It occurred to Varric that of all the labels he had been given over his lifetime that might be considered dangerous – casteless surface dwarf, associate of Hawke, blasphemous heretic – ‘optimist’ was pretty far down the list. He wondered what kind of life Solas must have led to give him that kind of outlook. Something told him it was best not to ask.

“What about you then?” he said, instead. “Being an apostate and an elf puts you on just about everybody’s shit-list. I’m guessing you’ve survived so far by staying out of it, so why hang around now? If you’ve joined the Inquisition, you must think there’s a chance that they can fix all of this.”

Solas gave him a strange smile. “They,” he said. “Not ‘we’?”

Varric just shrugged. Solas seemed to accept this as answer enough, and turned to look out over the valley again, his eyes on the distant mountains.

“Perhaps I am an optimist too,” he said.

Varric didn’t know what to say to that, and the two of them stood in silence for a long time, both lost in their own thoughts, until Varric’s hands felt numb with cold and the distant campfires blurred together with the stars in his tired vision. Eventually, Solas shifted next to him.

“It’s not long until dawn,” he said. “We should return to camp. Cassandra will not be happy if she wakes to find both of us gone.”

“Right.”

To Varric’s surprise, Solas put a hand briefly on his shoulder before turning to leave, in a way that was almost friendly. “I’d advise you get some sleep, Herald of Andraste,” he said, with only a hint of irony in his voice. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about wars, it’s that they invariably get much worse, before they get better.”

Though Solas wasn’t exactly the world’s most comforting person to have a heart-to-heart with, he turned out to be right on the money with his prediction. Things did, indeed, get much worse. And then, unexpectedly, a little better.

Travelling to the Orlesian capitol to address the clerics had gone about as badly as Varric suspected it would. He wasn’t a huge fan of Orlais at the best of times – the food was good, admittedly, but you just couldn’t escape the fact that the place was full of Orlesians. The journey to get there had been a long one, and Varric was already not feeling great about the fact that they’d left the ravaged countryside of Fereldan and the desperate refugees in order to go and play nice for a bunch of Chantry bigwigs who would rather see him tied to a stake like Andraste than actually out there closing rifts and helping people. His mood had not been improved by arriving in Val Royeaux to what could best be described as a frenzied mob, and a whole shit-ton of templars. The Lord Seeker had been with them, and it turned out that Cassandra’s boss had even more of a stick up his ass than Cassandra herself did, which was saying something. He also had even less time for the Inquisition than he did for the clerics. The dignified conversation and plea for harmony that Mother Giselle had been hoping for had turned into a three-way public shouting match, and any hope of help from the templar order now looked about as likely as spotting a herd of flying nugs overhead.

It was not a promising development. Without the templars, the Chantry was toothless. And without the Chantry, the templars were…what? It was a pressing question, and a disturbing one, to be honest.

But just as Varric had been ready to shake the dust of Orlais from his boots and never look back, he’d received an invitation. Two invitations, in fact, one via a smartly turned-out messenger and one delivered via a rather less conventional method, tied to an arrow that had passed within inches of his head and nearly given him a heart attack.

The first invitation was from Vivienne de Fer, First Enchanter of Montsimmard and Enchanter to the Imperial Court of Orlais, and sheer curiosity made Varric insist on going to attend her ‘salon’ at the Duke of Ghislain’s estate, some distance outside of the city. Only in Val Royeaux could you be denounced as a heretic and a murderer in the town square in the morning, and invited as guest of honour to a party stuffed with the cream of nobility that same night.

It was worth it. Madame de Fer had looked Varric right in the eye from behind her ornate mask as one solid-gold bullshitter to another, and asked to join the Inquisition. Reading between the lines of what little Cassandra knew of her, Varric got the impression of a ruthless social climber who did nothing that didn’t benefit her in some way, and he found that oddly comforting. He highly doubted Vivienne believed he was Andraste’s chosen any more than he did, but she clearly saw something in the fledgeling Inquisition worth taking a gamble on, and that was enough for him. Varric was sure that Leliana’s friend Lady Montilyet at least would be pleased that a personage of genuine importance had attached herself to their cause, which might soften the blow of losing any chance of help from the templars now that the whole lot of them had marched off to Maker-knew-where.

Besides which, the Iron Lady of Montsimmard threw a pretty decent party. The canapes were melt-in-the-mouth delicious, the wine flowed freely, and her guests had obviously been chosen from among those who supported the idea of the Inquisition, aside from the unfortunate Marquis Aphonse, who had been escorted from the premises after an unpleasant scene at the start. Strange that. The Marquis’ swaggeringly threatening rudeness towards the Inquisition and attempt to challenge Varric to a duel had been a very convenient way for Vivienne to make a dramatic entrance, and plant her flag publicly in the Inquisition’s corner. Varric might not be Orlesian, but he understood the game well enough.

All in all, he couldn’t say this was exactly his favourite way to spend an evening, but Cassandra was in absolute, palpable misery, which at least provided him some free entertainment. She had insisted on accompanying him, although the invitation had been for the Herald of Andraste only, because although Madame de Fer was a well-respected and distinguished person, she was also a mage and an Orlesian, and therefore untrustworthy on two counts according to Cassandra. Whether the Seeker was acting as a kind of bodyguard for him – or at least, for the mark on his hand, Varric thought sourly – or if she was just trying to make sure he didn’t cause a scene of some kind he wasn’t entirely sure, but Cassandra had spent the evening looking stiffly uncomfortable without her armour and sword, and glaring at anyone brave enough to attempt engaging her in conversation. For all her equivocating about the Maker’s unknowable will, she still couldn’t seem to stop making a face like she’d swallowed a lemon every time someone called Varric ‘my Lord Herald’, which was the closest thing to enjoyment he considered himself likely get from this whole situation.

Varric had made the most of this by being excessively charming to absolutely everyone, flirting outrageously, encouraging whatever wild rumours he came across about what was going on in Haven, and generally acting as though he were having the time of his life. A couple of hours in and he found himself surrounded by three particularly persistent guests, a man and two women, who were fluttering around trying to get him to talk about the new Hard in Hightown book, which was difficult, since he hadn’t written the damn thing. They seemed to have come to the conclusion that it was easier to simply ignore Cassandra, glowering beside him, as though she were a servant.

“I knew ‘The Re-Punchening’ could not have been you,” said the Orlesian man, simperingly. “It did not have the same quality, the same je ne sais quoi…”

“But you will write another, won’t you, my Lord Herald?” asked one of the woman, a curvy brunette wearing a cat shaped mask and a daringly low neckline to her gown. “The world cries out for it!”

Varric hard Cassandra’s faint snort at this. “Actually, I was thinking of writing a spin-off series about Jevlan,” he said.

“You were?” asked the woman, breathlessly.

“You were?” repeated Cassandra.

“Yeah,” said Varric, ignoring the Seeker entirely. “It’s time he got his moment in the sun, and there’s a lot of backstory with him I haven’t explored yet.”

“Oh then you must give me a preview,” said the woman, somehow managing to bat her eyelashes visibly even behind her mask. “I shall have a salon of my own and you will be the guest of honour! Or perhaps something more private…”

“Excuse us,” broke in Cassandra. “It is time for us to leave. The Herald has important business elsewhere.”

“Oh! So soon?”

“Yes,” said Cassandra shortly. “Now, in fact. Varric.”

Varric briefly considered insisting that she call him by his proper title, but decided he couldn’t bring himself to be that pretentious even for a joke. Besides which, Cassandra was right that they had somewhere else to be.

“Another time, my lady,” he smiled at the brunette, bending to kiss her proffered hand briefly before turning to leave. He almost had to jog across the polished marble floor to keep up with Cassandra’s strides as she headed towards the door.

“You could have been a little nicer,” he remarked.

“I am in no mood to indulge legions of your simpering fans, Varric,” Cassandra said curtly.

“Three is hardly a legion, Seeker.”

“That woman,” she bit out, the words coming as though she were forcing herself to say them, “clearly wanted more than an autograph.”

“Your observation skills are as keen as ever, I see.”

The servant at the door bowed his head to them as they left the mansion and walked through the lavish gardens to the gate, where a coach was waiting. The sun was setting, throwing orange light and long shadows across the formal hedges and borders, glinting off the iron railings. Their feet crunched on immaculately raked gravel as they walked.

“Does that happen to you often?” asked Cassandra, unexpectedly.

“Sometimes,” said Varric. “The price of fame. Not everyone is immune to my manifold charms, Seeker.” He gave her a sideways look, which was pretty difficult given their height difference. “Jealous?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Aw, I’m sure you’ll have fans of your own someday. With your winning personality, it’s only a matter of time.”

She just looked confused. “What are you—oh.”

They reached the coach and Cassandra stopped to give the driver some terse instructions before climbing in to join Varric, who had clambered up the steps with some difficulty and was already making himself as comfortable as possible in the plush cushioned interior, a little footsore after having been standing around all evening. Cassandra sat opposite him, as stiff as though she were tied to a chair in an interrogation. The Seeker looked like someone who had never been comfortable in her entire life.

“What was all that nonsense about a Jevlan spin-off series, anyway?” she said, as the coach set off with a rattle of wheels and a clop of hooves, pulling away from the Ghislain estate.

“Oh, he’s a character from Hard in Hightown,” said Varric, surprised she’d absorbed anything of the conversation at all. “The main guy’s seemingly hapless young partner who—”

“I know who he is,” snapped Cassandra impatiently. “I hardly think he warrants a whole…” She trailed off into sudden silence, as if realising what she’d said.

“You’ve read Hard in Hightown, Seeker?” said Varric. “Seriously?”

“And what of it?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Varric, turning gleeful little cartwheels in his head at Cassandra’s suddenly rather pink face. “Just didn’t take you for a fan, that’s all.”

She made a disgusted noise. “It was…research,” she said.

“Into what? You do know it’s fiction, right Seeker? That it’s all made up?”

“That is what many say about the Tale of the Champion,” said Cassandra. “Just as there are more than a few lies in that story which purports to be the truth, so one might find also a gleam of truth in a tale that is drawn from the imagination, even if the author doesn’t intend it.”

It was, Varric had to admit, a surprisingly profound insight from her, but it also sounded both very rehearsed and very defensive. Cassandra looked braced for further mocking, so he decided to throw her off by leaving it there, instead cocking his head slightly at the sound of the clanging bells that sounded in the distance as the coach rattled into the outskirts of Val Royeaux.

“That’s ten bells already,” he observed. “We’re going to be late for our meeting.”

“I still think that this is a foolish endeavour,” Cassandra said.

“It doesn’t occur to you that someone who shot an arrow with a message at me in broad daylight in the middle of Val Royeaux could just as easily have shot me in the head?” said Varric.

“Of course it has occurred to me,” said Cassandra, who did not, Varric noticed, look terribly concerned at the prospect. “That is all the more reason not to seek that person out. It is clearly a trap.”

“Ah, but since we know it’s a trap, we have the advantage,” said Varric. “Unless that’s also part of the trap, and they know that we know. But then we know that they know that we know, so we still have the advantage.”

She glared at him. “Are you drunk?”

Varric grinned. “Maybe I just want to find out who in Val Royeaux is a better shot than me.” He leaned comfortably back in the seat, wishing his legs were long enough to put his feet up on the seat opposite, just to annoy Cassandra. “So…Hard in Hightown?” he said. “Didn’t take you for the hard-boiled detective type, Seeker.”

“I do not know why you would presume to know my tastes at all,” said Cassandra waspishly.

“You have taste? Colour me shocked.”

“Considering how you choose to dress, you are last person who should be lecturing me on matters of taste, Varric.”

They continued bickering lightly as the carriage rattled away from the Duke de Ghislain’s estate and into the city, more out of habit than anything. Though she wouldn’t have been his first choice of company, needling the Seeker was at least a decent distraction from thinking about the third invitation Varric had received in Val Royeaux, the one that had really worried him. He hadn’t told Cassandra about the moment in the busy marketplace, when she had been distracted by some would-be pickpocket, and Varric had been tapped on the arm and ushered into a shadowy alcove by a slight woman with a hood cast over her head, obscuring her face. When she had pulled down the hood, he’d recognised her from ‘Wanted’ posters immediately.

Consider this an invitation. Come to Redcliffe, and meet with the mages there. All know of your friendship with the Champion of Kirkwall. You have been a friend to mages in the past, and understand our cause better than most. Perhaps we could help each other.

Varric wondered what Vivienne de Fer would have said if she’d known he had been talking with  Grand Enchanter Fiona, the leader of the mage rebellion, just hours before meeting with her. He certainly didn’t blame Fiona for wanting to avoid catching Cassandra’s attention, even if it meant Varric would probably be in for a lecture later, when the Seeker inevitably found out. But the invitation had been for the Herald of Andraste, after all, not for her. Perhaps the rebel mages thought that he, of all people with any power in the Inquisition, would be the most sympathetic to their cause. Perhaps he was, at that. He’s certainly had enough of templars to last a lifetime in Kirkwall, and they needed help to close the Breach. Maybe…

Varric put the mages and Fiona out of his mind as the carriage rattled to a stop, and the driver called out that they had arrived. Cassandra stepped down and offered him a hand to help him out too – stupid Orlesian coaches and their human-designed steps. Having to accept the Seeker’s hand like some swooning lady in a bad novella just to reach the ground without falling on his ass didn’t do anything to improve Varric’s mood.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” said Cassandra, as the carriage departed, and they started down a street towards the docks. “I do not know Val Royeaux well, or at least not this part of it.”

“Never strayed too far from the Grand Cathedral, huh?” said Varric. “Why am I not surprised? Don’t worry Seeker, the map we found was pretty clear, and I’ve got a good memory.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s not far.”

“Hmm.”

She followed his lead without further comment as they headed deeper into the less salubrious part of the city, the streets becoming twisting, narrow alleyways, the cobblestones uneven beneath their feet, the buildings run-down. They had to step over puddles and piles of blessedly unidentifiable mess as they picked their way through the dark labyrinth of Val Royeaux’s underbelly, ignoring the figures hunched in doorways or slumped against walls, bottle in hand. Though Varric did notice that Cassandra, bleeding heart that she was when it suited her, handed a few coins to an elven beggar girl who couldn’t have been more than about ten years old, which at least stopped him from having to reach for his own coin-purse. For all that Cassandra had been born with a silver spoon shoved firmly into her own mouth, she didn’t seem particularly perturbed by the filthy poverty they were wading through – presumably she’d seen worse in her time as a Seeker.

For his part, the grimy streets and unidentifiable smells reminded Varric poignantly of Kirkwall, and a sudden wave of homesickness made him lapse into silence as they continued on to their destination. Of course, if this were Kirkwall, at this time of night they would already have been jumped by at least one group of muggers or cultists or something to liven up the journey a bit. As it happened, Varric did notice a group of men loitering on one street corner who all stood up when they saw people approaching, hands twitching obviously towards hidden weapons. But as they got closer, the motley gang took one look at Cassandra and apparently thought better of it, instead just walking past with extremely forced nonchalance and a muttered ‘Messere’. Cassandra didn’t seem to have noticed anything. Varric winked at them as they passed.

It wasn’t quite midnight by the time they were approaching the secluded spot that the map had led to. The few people about on the streets had thinned out, and the two of them were completely alone as they rounded a corner to find an ornate if slightly rusted gate, hanging open, a courtyard just beyond, piled with crates; likely a storage area for the backs of shops surrounding it.

“Alright, this is it,” said Varric. “But I don’t see—”

There was sudden whoosh sound, and Cassandra’s hand on the back of his coat yanked him back violently as a fireball flew past the spot where his head had been moments before, splashing against the gate. The ironwork glowed cherry red with heat for a moment, and Varric jerked his gaze around to see a finely dressed man in a golden mask step out from around the crates, his hands raised.

“Herald of Andraste!” he cried, his Orlesian accent thick. “How much did you expend to discover me? It must have weakened the Inquisition immeasurably.”

Varric heard Cassandra draw her sword. He supposed he should be glad she hadn’t already said ‘I told you so’. His own hand reached to his back and he readied his crossbow as the Orlesian pulled back his arms in a flamboyant gesture to hurl another fireball.

“Great,” Varric sighed. “Another fan.”

Chapter Text

The Inquisition was growing, although not quite in the way Varric had expected. They had travelled to Val Royeaux in the hopes of placating a potential enemy in the Chantry, and although they had not exactly succeeded in that mission, they had left the city with two powerful new allies.

Lady Montilyet might be thrilled at Vivienne de Fer signing on to the cause, but Varric was more encouraged by the foul-mouthed elf girl they’d met in an alley. Even the dumbest Coterie thug in Darktown knew not to mess with Red Jenny, whether or not such a person had ever existed. It remained to be seen whether Sera would actually have found her way to Haven as promised by the time they returned, but Varric had the suspicion she was more resourceful than her attitude had suggested. Cassandra seemed to think that the whole affair had been a tremendous waste of time, and remained brooding as ever as they made their own way back by a circuitous route towards the Frostbacks, her mind clearly still on the departure of the templars and the Lord Seeker’s parting insults.

But finding allies in unexpected places was turning into something of a habit. Varric received a letter from Leliana telling him that a band of mercenaries called ‘Bull’s Chargers’ had offered their services to the Inquisition, and so they made a detour to the Storm Coast, a wind-blasted bit of shoreline along the north edge of Fereldan, looking out over the Waking Sea, where they met with the leader of the group. The letter had been vague on the details of who ‘the Iron Bull’ was, but Varric managed to hide his surprise at the sight of a huge Qunari with an eyepatch and more muscles than could be found on the cover image of The Randy Dowager Quarterly: Beefcake Edition.

“You need a frontline bodyguard,” said the Qunari, without much preamble, when Varric introduced himself as being from the Inquisition. “I’m your guy.”

“What makes you think I need a bodyguard?”

“Well, for starters,” said Iron Bull, “I’m guessing a dwarf being called ‘The Herald of Andraste’ hasn’t made you the most popular person in the world.”

Varric could see Cassandra in his peripheral vision tense up at that, proving that she was listening in. Unlike Madame de Fer, the Chargers hadn’t requested to meet the Herald personally, and had no reason to think he’d come, and although rumours were circulating widely now that Andraste’s chosen was a dwarf, the mark on Varric’s hand was currently concealed by his glove.

“You’re well informed for a merc,” he said, regarding Iron Bull with new respect, and not a little suspicion.

“You’re well connected for a surface dwarf,” said Iron Bull, grinning. “That woman behind you pretending she isn’t ready to chop my head off if I so much as twitch in your direction is Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of Truth. I’m guessing the former Right Hand of the Divine doesn’t tag along as a sidekick for some random Inquisition hiring agent. Plus, the crossbow on your back is kind of a clue. Might want to stop carrying such a distinctive weapon if you’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“You’re an expert on low profile, are you?” said Varric, eyeing the one-eyed, eight foot tall horned Qunari up and down. Bull just laughed.

“You see what I want you to see,” he said. “Seems like maybe that’s something you know a little bit about too, Herald. Big dumb oxman with an axe, wisecracking dwarf with his shirt open and more gold decorating his ears than most people make in a year. Not much threat to anyone, are we?” Bull didn’t wait for a response. His voice grew slightly more serious. “Look, you’re from Kirkwall. You don’t trust Qunari – that’s fair. A real shitshow, what happened there. But you’ve had enough dealings with us to know that when we start something, we follow through on it. And that it’s better to have us on your side than anyone else’s.”

“And here I thought I was just hiring the Chargers,” said Varric. “Aren’t you Tal-Vashoth?”

“Well, about that,” said Bull. “There’s one more thing I should mention. Might be useful, might piss you off…”

 A few minutes later, Varric was shaking the Iron Bull’s hand and welcoming him to the Inquisition. It was more than a little disturbing to discover that the Ben-Hassrath had an interest in him, but Bull had judged his sales pitch well, and he had to admit it was kind of comforting to continue on their way in the company of the Chargers, whose ribald chatter and wild stories reminded Varric of old times, before he’d suddenly been surrounded by people too important to have a sense of humour.

Speaking of which, for all that Cullen had lamented the Inquisition’s need for more experienced fighters, Varric expected Cassandra to make a fuss about signing on a bunch of mercs led by a Qunari spy, but to his slight discomposure, they seemed to strike up an immediate rapport. That is to say, the Iron Bull flirted shamelessly with her from the moment he introduced them. Although it wasn’t exactly what Varric had had in mind for a bodyguard, as a strategy he had to admit it worked pretty well, unintentional or otherwise – a distracted Seeker was a less stabby Seeker, after all, and Cassandra seemed to be torn between being amused and flattered at the attention, rather than annoyed by it.

They needed all the distraction they could get as they made a slow, winding route back along the Storm Coast. Leliana had apparently sent word to her lead scout to look into reports of Grey Wardens in the area; the whole order seemed to have disappeared without a trace at the most inconvenient possible time, and Nightingale didn’t believe in coincidences.  But after days of searching they found nothing but old abandoned camps, and since it was pissing it down with rain and there was a dragon flying about, Varric didn’t want to linger.

What they did find a fair amount of, however, were rifts. Varric was almost getting used to them by now – they had stumbled across several more of the tears in the Veil while travelling through the Hinterlands – although they didn’t improve much with familiarity. The horrible things seemed to light up like fireworks and spew out demons the second he got within sight of them, and while Iron Bull and his Chargers were as good as their word at taking down whatever horrors crawled out of the Fade, it was disconcerting to discover such violent wounds in the very fabric of reality itself wherever they went. Every rift Varric closed with the mark on his hand was starting to make him think about all the others out there, in places he wasn’t. If they were here, this far from the Breach, did that mean they were popping up all over Orlais and Fereldan? Or even across the Waking Sea in Kirkwall? Would anyone even tell him if they were? Was this the rest of his life now, travelling the world as the only person who could repair the damage the Breach had done, terrified at every moment that he would slip up, get himself killed, and leave Thedas with a mess they had no way of fixing?

“So, how does that thing work, anyway?” asked Bull, as they made their way up a road through a narrow valley that would eventually take them towards Lake Calenhad, and back to Haven. The Chargers were up ahead, Varric, Bull and Cassandra at the rear of the group. It was a strange experience, being flanked by two tall, musclebound bodyguards at all times, but at least Bull seemed to be trying to make it less weird by making friendly conversation. “The mark on your hand, I mean.”

“Damned if I know,” said Varric. “I just sort of hold it up and concentrate. It feels like something that’s more coming through me, rather than from me, if that makes sense. Looks like I’m stuck with it though, or it’s stuck with me.”

“Like being a mage,” said Bull. “Although I guess you are a mage now.”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“You can do magic, can’t you? Last I checked, that’s the only qualification.” At Varric’s obviously stupefied expression, Bull added: “First dwarven mage in history! Congrats.”

There was a long silence after this, as Varric strove to quell the sudden absolute panic that this had inspired in him without looking like that was what he was doing. Iron Bull, apparently unbothered, whistled a snatch of a melody, in a nonchalant if surprisingly tuneful way.

“If you truly are a mage, that means you have a connection to the Fade,” said Cassandra, who Varric was slightly relieved to hear also sounded seriously disconcerted. “Have you experienced any dreams?”

“Seeker, most nights you are asleep approximately three feet away from me,” said Varric. “I guarantee you, if I had suddenly started having dreams after a lifetime not even really understanding what they are, you would have heard about it.”

“You gotta wonder what it means when it comes to demon possession though,” said Bull, who Varric was beginning to suspect was doing this deliberately.

“Nuh uh,” he replied, firmly. “Dwarves can’t be possessed. That’s the deal – can’t reach things on high shelves, don’t get your body taken over by demons. That’s the trade-off.”

“If you’re channelling magic from the Fade though, that door usually opens both ways,” said Bull. “Isn’t that right, Seeker?”

“That is…generally correct, yes,” admitted Cassandra. “Though there is much we do not understand about the mark, or how it came about. The witnesses at the Temple of Sacred Ashes said Varric walked out of a rift, so we can only assume it was something that happened to him in the Fade.”

“But you don’t remember anything about it?” Bull asked Varric curiously.

“Not a thing,” said Varric. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“So technically, you don’t even know that what walked out of the Fade was Varric,” said Bull. “Maybe Varric Tethras is dead. You could be anyone.” He laughed at the expression on both their faces. “I’m just fucking with you, Boss. If I really thought you were a demon, I wouldn’t have signed on. A guy’s gotta have some standards.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Varric.

“Anyway, how many do you think?” said Bull. “I count five or six.”

Cassandra frowned. “Five or six what?” she asked.

“Guys following us, up on the cliffs on the right hand side,” said Varric, maintaining his conversational tone. “For maybe ten minutes now. I’m guessing they’re waiting until we fall far enough behind the group to—”

His sentence was cut off by the sudden zip of an arrow, and Cassandra tackled him bodily to the ground, her reflexes obviously better than her observational skills. Varric had the brief and deeply disturbing experience of being pinned beneath her, her face inches from his own, but he didn’t have time to protest, as he heard another couple of arrows thunk into her shield as she held it over them. Shit. They were pinned down without a scrap of cover, and now he’d lost any sightline on their attackers, so even if he could bring his crossbow up in time, he’d be shooting almost blind. Still, they could hardly lie here and wait to get killed.

“On three,” Varric said, and Cassandra nodded, her mouth set in a resolute line even as another arrow lodged in her shield. He really hoped the Seeker’s face wasn’t the last thing he ever saw. Talk about your life flashing before your eyes.

“One…two…”

Cassandra rolled off of him and leapt to her feet, Varric following, drawing Bianca from his back and swinging the sights up to the cliffs above. He saw movement and squeezed the trigger—

A meaty hand on his arm jerked his shot wide, clattering into the side of the cliff instead, and Varric turned to see the Iron Bull, who raised his hands quickly. “Cool it, Boss!” he said. “We’re all good. They got the last one.”

“What is happening?” demanded Cassandra, striding up. But there was a notable lack of arrows hailing down from above, and as Varric’s gaze returned to the cliffs, he saw the familiar figure of the dark-haired elven woman from the Chargers appear, and raise her hand, giving some signal to Bull down below.

“Just five,” said Bull, with a tone of satisfaction. He turned back to the Seeker. “I told a couple of my guys up ahead to circle round a few minutes back,” he said. “That’s what the whistling was about. Took them long enough to get in position, but Skinner knows her stuff. If she says she got ‘em all, she got ‘em.”

Varric’s shoulders relaxed, and he stowed his crossbow as Cassandra likewise sheathed her sword. Bull hadn’t even drawn a weapon, apparently confident enough in his people to do their jobs that he hadn’t thought it necessary. It took them a few minutes to circle round themselves to reach the top of the low cliffs that ran alongside the road, where the rest of the Chargers were now also waiting, along with the laid out bodies of their former attackers. It wasn’t a bad spot for an ambush, Varric had to admit; if the positions had been reversed, he’d be willing to bet he could have taken out several people on the road below with Bianca before they’d even had time to react. These guys had been sloppy to let themselves get spotted before they were ready to strike, and to leave no-one on guard behind them – it looked like whichever of the Chargers had slipped around while they were distracted by their targets had been able to cut their throats from behind without even a fight.

“Good work,” said Bull. “Search the bodies – their weapons clearly aren’t worth shit, but whatever valuables they have are Skinner and Grim’s, for taking them down.”

Varric saw Cassandra’s frown at this mercenary attitude, but it wasn’t as if they hadn’t done the same to the mages and templars they’d killed in the Hinterlands. The dead didn’t need swords, or money, but the Inquisition sure as hell did.

“More Blades of Hessarian?” Varric asked, as the bodies were duly searched. The gang of bandits had been attacking Inquisition scouts on sight along the coast until they’d gone to their base and Cassandra had killed their leader in single combat a few days ago – an interlude which at one point in Varric’s life might have seemed a notable event, but now barely registered as memorable. The Blades of Hessarian, whose name was frankly more impressive than their operation, had sworn themselves to Cassandra’s service, but in Varric’s experience a changeover of leadership always left a few disgruntled dissenters ready to take a chance to bring back the good old days.

“No,” said Cassandra. She held up a crumpled picture she had just retrieved from the pocket of a corpse, and Varric recognised it with a jolt as his author picture from the back of one of his books. “Assassins.”

“Hired thugs,” corrected Bull, with a dismissive grunt. “Assassins is giving them too much credit. Amateurs.”

“They will not be the last,” said Cassandra.

“Hey, Chief!” The Iron Bull’s right-hand man Krem was straightening up from one of the corpses, waving another piece of paper in the air. “You might want to see this.”

Bull took the paper and skimmed it, frowning before handing it to Varric. “Lyrium smugglers,” he said. “Looks like they’ve been tracking you from the Hinterlands.”

“We did run into an unusually well-armed group of bandits while we were in the area,” said Cassandra.

“Seems like they didn’t take well to us interrupting their business,” said Varric, reading the letter. “Or the Inquisition establishing a foothold in the area.” He grimaced. “Shit, they talk about ‘the red stuff’, that’s not a great sign. Blah blah blah…eliminate the meddling dwarf…there’s directions to an old fortress in the forest where their operation is based.”

“They kept their orders on them?” Cassandra said incredulously. “With the location of their base?”

“Like I said,” remarked Bull. “Amateurs. Or else they want you to go there so they can ambush you again.”

“It’s not far from Redcliffe,” said Varric. “Seeker, if they’re supplying the rebel mages with red lyrium…”

To his relief, Cassandra nodded. “We must put a stop to it,” she said. “If the Inquisition accepts grand Enchanter Fiona’s invitation to meet with the mages, we may be able to deal with whoever these people are at the same time.”

Varric had finally cracked and told her about Fiona approaching him in Val Royeaux on their journey back, and Cassandra had been predictably annoyed about it, but not as censorious as he’d feared. There had been a brief lecture on being more careful and not trusting the woman who might very well have had something to do with the explosion at the Conclave herself, but the Seeker seemed more open to the idea of approaching the mage rebellion for help than Varric had expected. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised – Cassandra was nothing if not a pragmatist, and any idiot could see they would need a lot of magic to seal the Breach for good, if that were even possible, and there was realistically only one place to get it.

A lot of magic. To channel through the mark on his hand. Through him. Varric Tethras, mage. Holy shit. Hawke was gonna have a field day with that one.

“For now, we should keep moving,” said Cassandra. “We must return to Haven as soon as possible.”

“Got to aim me at the Breach before someone inevitably takes me out, right Seeker?” said Varric, and Cassandra glared at him.

“No-one is ‘taking you out’, Varric,” she said. “It is not news that the Inquisition has enemies, but we are far from defenceless.”

“Damn straight,” said Iron Bull. “We’re right beside you, Boss, ready to jump in front.” He grinned, suddenly. “And if you ever want to throw me to the ground, Seeker, just say the word.”

Cassandra snorted, but strangely, Varric did feel slightly comforted by the obvious lack of concern from his two companions. Right now, as much as a lot of people wanted him dead, even more had a pretty strong interest in keeping him alive. Signing on the Iron Bull and his Chargers was looking like a better decision by the minute, and as for the Seeker…

Well, she wouldn’t let anything happen to him. She needed him, and besides that, Varric could only imagine how annoyed she’d be if someone else got to kill him before she got the chance to do it herself.

The winding road up through the mountains to Haven was a long and difficult one, but although Varric was eager to get back to a real bed after weeks of camping, it wasn’t really as much of a relief as he’d hoped, returning to the little village.

He’d almost forgotten what it was like, to be at the heart of the burgeoning Inquisition, surrounded by people who were all convinced that he was the last, best hope for the salvation of Thedas. Rumours of what had happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had spread, and more pilgrims were arriving every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of Andraste’s chosen, and pledge themselves in service to him. It made Varric feel slightly queasy to think of, as did the way people’s conversation seemed to hush to a respectful murmur when he passed, the way eyes followed him wherever he went. Chancellor Roderick was also still hanging about like a bad smell; apparently not content with stirring up trouble for them in Val Royeaux by rallying the grand clerics against the Inquisition, his new mission seemed to be to keep a watchful eye of the Herald of Andraste personally, although thankfully the other Chantry sisters in the village seemed to pay his doom-mongering little attention.

Varric spent as much time as he could shut up in the Chantry, talking with Ambassador Montilyet – “Josephine, please, my lord Herald” – about possible alliances in the Free Marches, and gaining the support of the Merchant’s Guild and possibly certain factions in Orzammar, a discussion he at least felt he could usefully contribute to. Varric wrote a lot of letters to old contacts, and prepared to call in a lot of favours. He also persuaded Leliana to fill him in on whatever she was willing to reveal about her spy network, on the basis that he also had a lot of people in certain useful positions who told him things, from time to time, and information pooled was better than them ending up accidentally working against each other.

Leliana was taking the lack of news about the Wardens hard – she had fought alongside the Hero of Ferelden during the last Blight, Varric had heard, and he half wondered if she still had some kind of naïve hope that the Wardens could fix things now as they had done then, if only they could be found. Or perhaps she was just looking for her friend. Though he’d come to be somewhat fond of her on the long journey from Kirkwall, Nightingale’s motives and moods were as impenetrable to Varric as Cassandra’s were obvious. Leliana’s past was a mass of conflicting and improbable rumours; that she had been a bard in Orlais was fairly well known, that she had travelled with the Hero of Ferelden also seemed to be genuinely true. That she had been the Warden’s lover was only speculation, surely, as were rumours that she was Justinia’s lover too. Could she really talk to birds and use them as her spies? Could she turn into a bird herself? Had she actually assassinated several prominent Orlesian nobles personally in order to protect empress Celene (another supposed old flame; either Leliana had been extremely busy or people tended towards certain subjects when it came to thinking up these tales).

Whatever the truth, she was obviously still grieving Justinia’s death, and with Josephine busy every moment, neither Cullen nor Cassandra being exactly Varric’s first choice for conversation, and everyone else apparently too intimidated to talk to him, Haven could be a lonely place. Solas was friendly enough, but not really the type to share a drink with.

But after a long day of reports and circular discussions around the war table, Varric was desperate not so much for a drink but just for any kind of relaxation, normality. So he decided to brave The Singing Maiden, the tavern in Haven that was where anyone looking for a hospitable evening would be gathered. Perhaps, if nothing else, he could find a quiet corner to sit in to write a letter to Hawke unseen, and soak up the atmosphere of everyone else having a good time without being in the way. Varric had always been an avid people watcher, and much preferred it to other people watching him.

Unfortunately, the moment he opened the door and walked in, a hush spread across the crowded room. Heads turned, people muttered to their neighbours, and there was a general sense of everybody straightening up in their chairs, trying to look professional. Varric was half tempted to just turn and walk back out again, but he had some pride, and the open door in his hand was letting in cold air. So he allowed it to close and, ignoring the whispers, started to walk towards the bar, where Flissa regarded him as though he were an approaching darkspawn horde.

“Hey Boss!”

Varric’s head turned at the familiar voice to see the Iron Bull, sitting at a table nearby with Krem and a few of the Chargers. He waved Varric over, ignoring the curious looks of the rest of the tavern.

“Come join us! It’s Krem’s round.”

Krem got up, grumbling at this hint, and made his way over to the bar. Varric sat down, and the noise level of the tavern slowly returned to normal, heads turning back to their drinks and their friends, conversation starting up again. Bull immediately pushed a half-finished flagon of ale towards him.

“Something to get you started,” he said. “Krem will be ages chatting up the barmaid.”

“Thanks,” said Varric, and glanced over at the bar, where Krem had indeed leaned one arm on the polished wooden countertop with a casual air, and Flissa was laughing at whatever he’d said to her. As Varric watched, she twirled a lock of her hair idly in her finger, leaning closer.

“Good to see you’re all settling in,” Varric said, turning back to Bull, and lifting his flagon to take a drink. The ale here wasn’t strong, and of middling quality, but he’d had far worse. A warmth spread through him, not so much from the drink as from sheer relief at having company.

Bull chuckled. “Yeah, some of my guys are known for uh…settling in with the locals wherever they go. We lead a life with a lot of risks. Makes you want to seize the day when you get the chance. As long as they show up the next morning on time, it’s all good with me.” He leaned forward a little, in a conspiratorial fashion. “Speaking of – you and the Seeker…are you…?”

Varric almost choked on his drink. “No,” he said emphatically. “Holy shit, Tiny, don’t do that to me.”

“Can’t blame a guy for asking,” said Bull, grinning. “She is hot. And you two kind of have a vibe.”

“If the vibe is ‘barely restraining ourselves from killing each other’, then sure,” said Varric. “I dread to think what her type is, but I can guarantee you it is very much not me.”

“And jaw-droppingly gorgeous, badass women with swords aren’t your type, Boss? Damn, guess I must have been reading someone else’s books by mistake.”

Varric snorted. “Look, there is absolutely no love lost between me and the Seeker,” he said. “If you want to go there, you’re welcome to try, Tiny, I just don’t want to hear about it.” Andraste’s ass, how was this a conversation he was having now? Varric wasn’t one to get drunk, but he was definitely not drunk enough for this.

“Nah,” said Bull easily. He gave Varric a rather strange look. “Something tells me I’m onto a lost cause there. Shame.”

They were blessedly interrupted at that moment by Sera, who had, it seemed, made it to Haven as promised. She was grinning widely, and set down a flagon on the table with a thunk before turning a chair backwards and straddling it.

“Alright Herald?” she said, with cheerful irreverence. “Your Inquisition’s grand. Get the tavern supplied first, that’s the way to do it. Decent food and drink for everyone before sorting out the bigwigs’ fancy clothes and professional arse-wipers.”

“Thanks, I think,” said Varric. “But it’s not my In—”

“D’you know they’re paying me to be here?” said Sera, delightedly. “Like, actual wages. I haven’t even done anything yet, ‘cept pass on a couple of tips to your ginger friend.”

“Always get the money up front,” said Bull approvingly. “Hey, it’s Sera, right? I saw you down at the archery range earlier. You’re pretty good with that bow. If you’re looking for a job after this…”

“Pfft, I’m not working for you,” said Sera. “Free agent, yeah? I don’t do orders.”

“And yet you’re here,” pointed out Bull.

“That’s different,” insisted Sera, and took a swig of her drink. “I want the hole in the sky fixed. He” – she gestured to Varric – “is the one who can fix it. Maybe. Magic hand and all, gotta be better than nothing, right? So we want the same thing. I’m not working for the Inquisition, we’re like…what that’s word? You know…calibrating.”

“I think you mean ‘collaborating’,” said Varric.

“Yeah. What he said.”

“Fair enough,” said Bull.

“Quit spying on me shooting stuff anyway,” said Sera. “It’s creepy.”

“And you weren’t watching the Seeker train, then?”

The tips of Sera’s pointy ears went pink. “Shut up.”

“Hey, I don’t blame you. She’s got excellent form...”

As they continued talking, one of the dwarves from the Chargers, a guy with an impressive moustache, tapped Varric on the shoulder to get his attention. The Chargers seemed to be taking their lead from their Chief and were not inclined to treat Varric with any particular reverence.

“Hey, Tethras, right?” he said. “Name’s Rocky. I think one of my cousins is cousin to your cousin.”

“Small world,” said Varric, shaking the guy’s hand. He shuffled through his mental files and suddenly a hazy memory surfaced. “Wait…didn’t you get kicked out of Orzammar for blowing up the Shaperate?”

Far from being embarrassed, Rocky looked delighted. “You’ve heard of me! Hey Chief, the Herald of Andraste has heard of me! My legend spreads far and wide.”

“When you’re around, everything spreads far and wide,” said Bull, grinning. “Rocky here is our explosives expert,” he told Varric. “Although ‘expert’ is maybe stretching it. Here, let me introduce you properly to some of the crew…”

Krem brought back a round of drinks as Varric shook hands with the various members of Bull’s rag-tag team that were present, and the rest of the evening passed in a wonderfully convivial blur against the background of the noisy tavern, the clink of bottles, the laughter, the bard in the corner strumming a tune that wove through the warm, friendly hum of the bustling room. For once, he didn’t have to think about being the Herald of Andraste, or the first dwarven mage in history, or even possibly a demon duplicate from the Fade. For a few brief hours, Varric felt like…himself. He sipped his flagon of mediocre ale, laughed at Krem’s tales of some of the Charger’s exploits, told a few tales himself, and was briefly dragged into judging an impromptu knife-throwing competition between Sera and Skinner, the elf woman who had proven herself so adept at throat slitting on the journey here. He stood his round in turn with the others without anyone protesting, the looks people cast him sometimes when they thought he wasn’t looking stopped bothering him after a while, and even Flissa seemed less anxious around him now, or at least had gotten better at not dropping things every time he spoke to her. Best of all, no-one called him ‘Your Worship’ all evening. Under the circumstances, Varric decided, he could probably learn to live with ‘Boss’.

Night had long since fallen when he eventually left the tavern, along with more snow, blanketing the streets of Haven in a smooth, unbroken carpet. It was a scene that would almost have been peaceful, if it weren’t for the faint, ominous green glow on the Breach above, reflecting off the white of the snow.

Sera, in an effort to keep up with the Chargers, had drunk far too much, and Varric was obliged to walk her back to the building where she had found a bed, her slender arm slung around his shoulders, hushing her attempts at trying to recite the song the bard had been singing earlier, with the addition of her own…unique lyrics.

“Drink some water before you go to sleep, okay?” he said, as he hustled her inside. “And come see me in the morning if you need a hangover cure, I’ve got a doozy.”

“Thanks Harold,” said Sera. “Herald.” Then she burst into a fit of giggles, through which he heard the word Harold again, amidst the snorts of mirth.

“Just ‘Varric’ is fine, Buttercup,” he said, grinning. “We’re collaborating, right? No need for titles.”

“Nice one,” said Sera vaguely, and lurched inside, the door banging behind her loud enough to make Varric wince for anyone nearby trying to sleep. When he turned away, chuckling to himself, he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Cassandra standing only a few feet away, watching him. She must have been speaking to Solas, as she was just outside where he slept, presumably having just exited the building. It was late for a meeting – Varric entertained a brief amused flight of fancy in which the Seeker was having a torrid affair with the apostate elf, but unfortunately as funny as that would be, it didn’t seem likely. More probably they had been doing a lot of boring strategizing about how to seal the Breach. In spite of their other differences, the two of them were single minded in wanting the thing gone.

But the look on Cassandra’s face was not the habitual grim resolve he was used to. It was something rather more disconcerting, almost amused, and Varric suddenly felt oddly self-conscious at the idea that she had witnessed him staggering back from the tavern with his arm around a drunk Sera. It wasn’t exactly how the Herald of Andraste was probably supposed to behave.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked warily.

“Oh I was just thinking,” said Cassandra, “that you have gathered quite a disparate group around yourself again. Just as you did in Kirkwall.”

“I haven’t done anything,” said Varric. “People want to join up; I won’t turn away help if I’m the one they ask. It’s not like I’m out recruiting.”

“You don’t have to, you’re naturally so...” Cassandra trailed off, and to Varric’s great surprise, looked slightly embarrassed. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “You misunderstand me,” she said. “I did not mean it as a criticism.”

“Well, that’s a first.”

“Forget it then,” said Cassandra shortly, and strode off back towards the Chantry. Varric made a face at her behind her back, and immediately felt rather childish. Maybe he’d had one too many flagons after all.

Still, it occurred to him that if it was weird experience for him to be considered someone important, it was probably just as uncomfortable from Cassandra’s point of view to have to treat him as if he were someone important. The thought cheered Varric a little as he trudged back through the freshly fallen snow to his own bed, and fell into the deepest, most peaceful sleep he’d known since the Conclave.

It was a couple of weeks before they got another real lead on the Wardens, and Varric found himself travelling once again into Fereldan on the trail of a Warden named Blackwall.

Thankfully, the last report of him being sighted was on the way to Redcliffe village, which was where they were headed anyway. It was still a little unclear to Varric who, exactly, was actually in charge of the Inquisition at this point, but Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana and Josephine had at least all agreed that it was worth hearing what Grand Enchanter Fiona had to say. For his part, Varric doubted very much that the help of the mage rebellion would come without strings attached, but since it was the only plan they had, he figured it was worth a shot too.

Though this was essentially a diplomatic mission for the Inquisition and there was therefore no reason to bring along a band of mercenaries, travelling with just Cassandra and Solas once again was not nearly as much fun as being on the road with Bull and his Chargers. Especially since the reason Cassandra had been speaking to Solas so much recently quickly became clear, as Varric endured a whole journey being interrogated by the elf about his mark and how it had affected him thus far; did he feel any pain when he used it, had he any more awareness that demons were close by, or other sources of magic, had he been able to use its energy for anything other than closing rifts, did it ever seem to do anything against his will, etc. etc. It was like having an extended and very unpleasant appointment with a healer, and after a while Varric half expected Solas to start asking him if he had any new rashes, or how many times a day he went to the privy.

It was obvious Solas and Cassandra had been discussing the mark, and what it might mean that a dwarf was now wielding such powerful magic, a situation that was, as far as they knew, unprecedented.

“Come on Seeker, you don’t really believe all that bullshit Tiny was spouting about me being possessed, do you?” said Varric, honestly more concerned at the idea of her thinking he was a demon than at the prospect of actually being one.

“I believe that the danger may exist,” said Cassandra. “And that there is much we do not know. It does not hurt to be watchful, and prepared.”

Lest he start thinking she was actually concerned for his welfare, she gave him a long list of signs to be watchful for, up to and including hearing voices, feeling strange compulsions or fits of emotion unconnected with external events, or waking up in a strange place with no memory of how he got there.

“If you experience any of these, you must tell me immediately,” she said.

“Why, so you can chop my head off?” asked Varric, sourly.

“Your hand first, I think,” said Cassandra, with a perfectly straight face. “Solas believes the mark is more likely to continue working if it is removed while you are still alive.”

“Ha ha.”

When they finally reached the Inquisition outpost at the crossroads, Corporal Vale handed them a message that had come by one of Leliana’s ravens ahead of them – Vivienne de Fer had arrived at Haven shortly after they’d left, and would join them in Redcliffe as soon as possible to meet with the rebel mages. So at least they would have someone with them who knew Fiona a little, enough to perhaps persuade the mages that the Inquisition could be trusted, and was worth helping.

It was the only piece of good news to be had. Though the Inquisition outpost had grown, and was something akin to a well-provisioned hamlet by now, more refugees were still flooding in, from Orlais now as well as surrounding Ferelden. There were rumbles of a civil war brewing across the border, and reports of more Fade rifts from as far afield as Nevarra and Rivain. The Breach’s destruction was spreading invisibly across the world, faster even than the Breach itself.

Varric experienced a fleeting moment of hope when a farmer reported running into Warden Blackwall the day before, up by lake Luthias, not an hour’s walk away. He and Cassandra left Solas helping the healers with the injured at the crossroads and set off the next morning at dawn to find the rogue Warden, but although they were successful, it wasn’t exactly the encounter anyone had been hoping for. Blackwall – a stoic, bearded man with a permanently travelworn air – professed not to know anything about the other Wardens, or where they had disappeared to. Varric’s heart sank for Leliana at the news, but he didn’t have much time to chew over this disappointment as, somewhat surprisingly, Blackwall offered to join the Inquisition himself.

“The Divine is dead and the sky is torn,” the man said grimly. “Events like these…thinking we’re absent is almost as bad as thinking we’re involved. Maybe you need a Warden. Maybe you need me.”

Varric glanced at Cassandra automatically, but for some reason she was looking quizzically at him, as though it were his decision. Weird.

“Welcome aboard,” Varric said, shrugging. “I can’t promise you Darkspawn, but we seem to be fighting just about everyone else, so it’s probably only a matter of time.”

Blackwall chuckled. “I can hold my own,” he said.

The Warden wasn’t a particularly talkative fellow, asking only a few questions of Varric about the situation at Haven and the nature of the Inquisition, as they travelled back to the crossroads. He seemed interested in practicalities of troop numbers, defences and long-term goals rather than interrogating Andraste’s chosen on what had happened at the Conclave, for which Varric was profoundly grateful. But as they walked through a meadow alongside the ruin of some ancient fort, Varric found himself distracted by an uncanny sensation, something nagging at the back of his mind, on the very edge of his awareness. Not a sound, or anything he could see, but some quality of the air that put him on edge. His steps slowed, and he realised that he was flexing the fingers of his marked hand reflexively.

“Seeker…”

The warning tone of his voice was enough – Cassandra stopped immediately, her hand flying to the hilt of her sword. Even as she did so, a rift rent the air in front of them, barely forty feet away, a sudden, shocking scar on the face of reality, sickly green and pulsing. Another breath and it had thrown out tendrils of light, from which demons bubbled and writhed, clawing their way out onto the grass, burning and befouling all they touched, heads turning eagerly to behold their new playground. Beside him, Varric heard Blackwall’s sharp intake of breath, which was, under the circumstances, a pretty restrained reaction.

Cassandra had already drawn her sword. “Varric,” she snapped. “Close it. I will deal with the demons. Warden Blackwall, if you truly wish to help the Inquisition, then keep him alive.”

“But—” Blackwall was clearly about to protest the plan that involved a single person throwing herself into battle with a small horde of demons, but before he could do so, Cassandra was hurtling off into the fray. Varric sighed and raised his hand.

“Don’t get in the way of the beam,” he warned Blackwall. “I don’t know what happens if you do and I don’t want to find out. Watch my back or I’ll have to start over if something starts trying to rip my lungs out.”

Without waiting for a response, Varric focused his will through his marked hand and felt the familiar rush of power, the uncomfortable sensation that something was working through him that was only barely under his control, like standing waist deep in a fast-flowing river that threatened to knock him off his feet and carry him away if he lost his step for even a moment. The stream of light poured into the rift, which began to crackle and groan, folding in on itself. Just another day on the job.

Though Varric dared not move while he did this – Blackwall seemed to have understood his orders well enough and remained by his side, blade drawn against any demons that might approach – he could still see what was happening, which meant he had a pretty good front row seat to the wholesale slaughter Cassandra was unleashing on the creatures from the rift. For all that she was a tremendous stick-in-the-mud and had the personality of a wyvern with toothache, the Seeker was a truly incredible fighter. Awkward as she could be in other ways, in battle she had the effortless confidence of someone born with a sword in her hand.  She sliced through the demons as though they were nothing more than training dummies packed with straw, giving no quarter, her blade flashing in the sun, her feet weaving in a brutal dance. She was already surrounded by twitching corpses, crumbling to ash as they fell. As Varric watched, she slammed her shield into one of the wraiths then spun around with her blade in an arc that sliced through the legs of the spindly terror that had been raising its claw to swipe at her from behind, sending it shrieking to the ground.

Varric felt that itchy, just-about-to-sneeze pressure at the back of his brain that meant the rift was almost closed, and sure enough, as the last demon fell to Cassandra’s onslaught, the glowing tear in the air sucked inwards with a rushing sound and popped out of existence entirely, leaving the three of them standing in a sunny field in the pleasant countryside, with not a sign that anything had ever been amiss.

“Maker’s balls,” said Blackwall, sheathing his sword, visibly stunned. Varric was briefly flattered until he realised the Warden wasn’t looking at him but regarding Cassandra with something approaching awe. “You’ve got one hell of a bodyguard, Herald.”

Varric snorted. “Just ‘Varric’ will do,” he said. “And Cassandra would throw me into a rift herself if it wasn’t for this.” He held up his marked hand again and wiggled his fingers dramatically as Cassandra walked back over to them, sheathing her sword.

“It certainly seems useful,” said Blackwall, showing a remarkable talent for understatement. “Cassandra. Wait…not Cassandra Pentaghast?”

“The very same,” said Varric.

“The Cassandra Pentaghast? Hero of Orlais, Right Hand to the Divine?”

The woman in question re-joined them at that moment, and nodded to Blackwall, looking wary. “Yes?” she said.

“I didn’t know. Forgive me, Lady Pentaghast, it’s an honour.”

Cassandra cleared her throat, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I prefer Cassandra, if you will,” she said.

“Not one for titles either?” said Blackwall, with a wry glance at Varric. “Fair enough.”

Thus properly introduced, they managed to make it back to the crossroads without the countryside farting out any more horrors at them from thin air, where there was a well-dressed surprise waiting for them. Madame de Fer had made excellent time from Haven, travelling not a day behind them, presumably eager not to miss the Herald of Andraste’s meeting with the mage rebellion at Redcliffe.

“Fiona and her tragically misguided Libertarians have trapped themselves in a corner,” Vivienne said smoothly, with the barest hint of vitriol in her voice. “Hiding out in a village in Ferelden like rats in a barrel, waiting for the templars to come, or the people to tire of harbouring them and turn on them…it’s sad, but inevitable. It falls to me, as the leader of the Loyalists, to extend the hand of friendship. I will endeavour to make them see reason, Herald.”

This promise aside, it wasn’t as happy a reunion as Varric might have hoped. Though scrupulously polite to him and Cassandra, Vivienne didn’t seem to know what to make of Warden Blackwall or he of her. Varric got the impression the Imperial Court Enchanter had imagined the Herald of Andraste would surround himself only with noteworthy allies of rank, and a scruffy Grey Warden wasn’t her idea of a suitable travelling companion, especially for a meeting of such importance. She made a few barbed comments to that effect as they headed up the road towards Redcliffe, the tenor of which Blackwall seemed at first puzzled, and then offended by.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, this tension was only a bad omen of things to come. All in all, closing the rift ended up being the most successful part of Varric’s day. To call his meeting with the leader of the mage rebellion a ‘disaster’ would have been a spectacular understatement. The moment they stepped foot within the gates of Redcliffe village – Varric feeling like he was walking into the tavern back at Haven again, heads turning to watch him every step of the way – they were confronted with three extremely unfortunate and unexpected pieces of news:

1) Grand Enchanter Fiona acted as though she had never met Varric before in her life, which made his story about a clandestine invitation at Val Royeaux seem embarrassingly like self-aggrandising bullshit

2) Grand Enchanter Fiona was not the one making the decisions anymore, vis-à-vis the mage rebellion and any help they might give the Inquisition in closing the Breach

3) The person who was making the decisions, and who had apparently taken over both the mages and Redcliffe castle, the most defensible fortress at the heart of Ferelden, was a Tevinter Magister

It might have been reasonable to assume that this was as bad as his day was likely to get, but to his dismay, Varric found that in the next few hours he spent in Redcliffe village, he was handed a mysterious note by the Magister’s son that summoned him to a secret assignation at the Chantry, where he was informed by that young man and another Tevinter mage – a lavishly moustachioed fellow with an insouciant air – of a time-travelling plot to snatch control of the mage rebellion from under the Inquisition’s nose, and a cult of Tevinter nutjobs called ‘the Venatori’ who wanted him, Varric Tethras, dead.

“Why?” Varric asked, at this revelation, more just baffled at this point than alarmed, if only because his capacity for alarm was pretty much maxed out. “What did I do to piss the Imperium off?”

“The Imperium doesn’t care a jot about you,” said the gaudy moustache-bearer. “Well…that isn’t entirely true, a dwarf being called ‘Andraste’s chosen’ emerging as the leader of a heretical and now heavily armed new power in the south is certainly raising a few eyebrows. But not everyone in Tevinter wants you dead.” He gestured to himself. “Case in point: me. Dorian Pavus, by the way, since you didn’t ask. Pleased to meet you. Big fan of Hard in Hightown, incidentally – cracking stuff.”

“All the Inquisition is doing is trying to close the Breach,” said Varric, ignoring this last comment, lest Cassandra’s head explode. Her expression was already looking dangerous. “We’re not a threat to anyone. And I’m not the leader of anything,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Dorian. “You must understand how dangerous you are. That mark on your hand, or magic very much like it, is presumably responsible for the Breach. It tore open the very barrier between the Fade and the physical world, which is impossible, by the way.”

“As impossible as time travel,” said Vivienne, tartly. She was more adept at schooling her reactions than Cassandra, but she looked about as thrilled to be speaking to this guy as she had been speaking to Fiona. Only Blackwall looked more interested than wary.

“Indeed,” said Dorian. He glanced at the Magister’s son Felix, who in spite of being the one to summon them to this rendezvous, had let his friend do most of the talking. “Look, you don’t have to believe me on all of it,” he said, turning back to Varric. “You’ll see soon enough. The point is that you can’t stay here. Magister Alexius has no intention of letting you have his southern mages; they’re nothing more than bait for his trap.”

“You still haven’t made clear why the Magister wants the Herald in the first place,” said Cassandra.

“Because we don’t know.” It was Felix who spoke up this time, and he sounded tired. “The Venatori are Tevinter supremacists; perhaps my father thinks the Inquisition and its Herald are a threat to that agenda.”

“They’re not the first to want to bring back the good old days,” said Dorian grimly. “It never ends well. Look, I have to go – Alexius doesn’t know I’m in Redcliffe and I want to keep it that way. But I’ll be in touch.”

With a few parting words to Felix, the mage disappeared, and the Inquisition’s little contingent left the Chantry with an air of gloom. The village outside was bustling with people, but you could feel the tension in the air, the snatches of muttered conversation, the way people rushed past with their heads cast down, trying not to attract attention. They had intended to stay in Redcliffe for several days, but with the village held sway by a Magister, it didn’t seem like a good recipe for a restful night’s sleep.

“Thoughts, Seeker?” Varric asked, and it was a sign of how bad things were that he was soliciting Cassandra’s opinion, for lack of any better ideas.

“I do not believe we can trust a word any of these Tevinters say,” said Cassandra darkly. “But that Pavus man was correct in one thing – we cannot linger here.”

“Agreed,” said Vivienne. “The two of us cannot protect you from a Magister with an army of mages at his back, Herald.”

“There are three of us,” glowered Blackwall.

“So there are,” said Vivienne, with glacial coolness. “I had forgotten.”

“Alright, so we go back to Haven,” said Varric. “Try and figure out what to do about this mess from somewhere we’re not hopelessly outnumbered.”

“As you say, Herald,” said Blackwall, which meant he at least had taken it as an order, rather than a suggestion. Varric tried to prevent himself from wincing visibly.

Linger they did not, but they were obliged to stay in Redcliffe another hour just to buy some  supplies for the journey back. Blackwall proved himself useful by unobtrusively striking up conversation in passing with a few mages who were still in the village, and was able to more-or-less confirm what Dorian Pavus had told them, and get an impression of how perturbed most of the rebels were by their new Tevinter master. Vivienne was silently watchful, tense, and Cassandra remained glued to Varric’s side like a scowling, heavily-armoured shadow, her hand twitching to her sword every time a mage so much as glanced their direction. This made Varric’s secondary purpose in Redcliffe difficult, and he was eventually forced to start an argument between Vivienne and Blackwall about the mage rebellion in order to distract his three companions while he had a quiet word with a local merchant down by the docks, who knew someone that was heading out soon to sell his wares in Highever. A fair bit of coin – and some name dropping of Andraste that Varric really wasn’t proud of – extracted a promise from the man to see that the letter Varric gave him would be put on a ship headed across the Waking Sea.

The letter in question, handed over out of sight of the others, was addressed to a business associate of Varric’s in Kirkwall. Not that he didn’t have a perfect right to send such a letter, but sending it like this rather than from Haven meant that no-one in the Inquisition was likely to actually read what was inside. If anyone – most notably, Cassandra – discovered who the real intended recipient was, a Tevinter cult bent on murdering him would be the least of Varric’s problems.

But if Hawke didn’t hear from him again soon, she was liable to charge across the Waking Sea to find him and make sure he was okay, and the last thing Varric wanted was for her to get caught up in all of this. Hawke had enough to worry about.

In all honesty, it had been difficult to know what to write to her, how to explain to her everything that had happened without sounding insane…

“Hey Hawke, turns out I’m Andraste’s chosen Herald, and half of Thedas wants to worship me, while the other half wants me dead. Anyway, what’s new with you?”

“Hey Hawke, did you see the statement the Chantry put out about me the other day, denouncing me personally? I’ll bet Aveline found that hilarious…”

“Hey Hawke, funny thing, but I seem to have gotten myself embroiled in the politics of at least three different nations…”

“Hey Hawke, bet you never thought Cullen would be taking orders from me, huh? But lately he keeps looking like he’s trying to stop himself from calling me ‘ser’…”

“Hawke—”

“How did you do it? How did you do any of it? Were you scared shitless the whole time too? Because you always made it look so easy…”

In the end he’d kept it short and to the point and as cheerful as he could make it. I’m alive, I’m fine, I’ll figure this out, basically. Though Maker knew if any of those things would still be true by the time Hawke even received the message. Varric didn’t know if he’d hear back from her, didn’t even really have a way to tell if she got the letter at all. He’d told her to assume all his correspondence was being read, and he wasn’t sure he was being paranoid to think as much. Nightingale might be all smiles when it suited her, but Varric had heard enough to know that she could be ruthless too when necessary, and he didn’t doubt she might believe in the necessity of keeping tabs on who the Herald of Andraste was talking to.

How could he explain to Hawke the position he was in now, when he barely knew what to make of it himself? He was not a prisoner of the Inquisition, exactly, and yet he couldn’t leave. He wasn’t their leader, certainly, and yet people kept asking him what to do. More and more, everyone kept looking at him whenever anything happened, as if he had any answers, as if he wasn’t just making all this shit up as he went along. Varric wanted to close the Breach, of course, wanted to help in any way he could, but…tracking down a secretive order who had disappeared into thin air? Trying to end a war? Negotiating with a Tevinter Magister?

It looked like this Herald of Andraste business was going to involve more than just waving his hand in the air at rifts and looking pretty, after all.

Chapter Text

To an outside observer – and, frankly, to Varric too – the Herald of Andraste going to Redcliffe for only a few hours before immediately leaving and heading back to Haven looked a lot like running away. He had to admit he was as eager as the others to put as much distance between Magister Alexius’ creepy, knowing smile and himself as possible. Redcliffe had made Haven seem positively homely by comparison.

But fate, or the Maker, had a way of throwing a wrench into Varric’s best laid plans recently, and the journey back to Haven was no exception. They met up with Solas again at the crossroads and explained what had happened to him, and to a very perturbed Corporal Vale, who instantly assured them that any apostates who came this way looking for sanctuary would be fully appraised of the situation before they went on to Redcliffe, so that they might decide for themselves whether servitude to a Magister was a price they were willing to pay for his dubious protection.

But Solas had news of his own. One of the refugees whose wounds he’d treated had trusted him with a letter found on a corpse in a cave he’d sheltered in overnight, which bore directions to another cave just off the road back to Haven, wherein was apparently a vein of pure lyrium. It was exceptionally rare for lyrium to break the surface, and Varric felt a sinking feeling as soon as he read it.

“The lyrium smugglers in these parts who sent assassins after you may well be connected with this dead man,” said Solas. “I thought it best you knew, Herald.”

Under the circumstances, they could hardly afford not to investigate, and as it was on their route back anyway, they found the location easily enough. Vivienne broke through a hastily erected magical barrier that protected the entrance, and when they entered, weapons drawn, they discovered that the cave was occupied by a particularly insane apostate mage who attacked on sight and had to be put down, along with several demons he conjured. And, at the very back…

A dwarf. A very dead dwarf, lying in front of a pulsing, virulent vein of red lyrium. The glowing crystals thrust out of the stone like blood spurting from a wound in the skin of the earth itself, humming with energy, casting an eerie red light around the rocky walls. They all stopped short at the sight, arrested by the sheer horror of it. Varric heard Blackwall curse under his breath, and even the usually unflappable Vivienne looked taken aback.

Varric had really been hoping that red lyrium at the Temple of Sacred Ashes had been a coincidence, simply unearthed from deep underground by the explosion. In fact, if he were a less cynical person, he might even have thought it had caused the explosion – raw lyrium was infamously unstable and prone to blowing up if you so much as looked at it the wrong way. The destruction of the Conclave might have been nothing more than a tragic accident, a ticking time bomb beneath the earth primed to blow and inadvertently triggered by the presence of so many mages in one place.

Ha. If only. Varric stepped forward, his gaze held by the spurs of red lyrium that now proved what he had always known deep in his heart to be true – that they hadn’t seen the last of the evil stuff by far. It was as if it was following him; he could see it in his mind’s eye, a great network of it lurking below ground, red fingers creeping through the Stone like poison through the veins of the world, ready to reach out and grasp at him wherever he went.

The crystals in front of him now were his worst nightmare made manifest, but as he stared into the glossy, red heart of them, he realised they were almost...beautiful, in a way. There was something about the stuff that looked like it would be warm to the touch, that made you want to reach out and lay your hand on its smooth, unblemished surface, press your ear against it to see if you could hear a heartbeat…

“Varric.”

Cassandra’s warning voice snapped him out of his reverie, and Varric realised he had been moving closer to the crystals, hand outstretched. He’d almost stepped, unseeing, on the corpse of the dwarf before them. Bile rose in the back of his throat, and Varric spun around quickly.

“I’ll meet you outside,” he managed, and fled the cave as quickly as his dignity allowed, not looking back to see the reactions of the others, and not pausing even when he passed though the entrance and was out in the open again. He strode across the open meadow back towards the road, relishing every step of distance he could put between himself and the cave, and only forced himself to stop when he reached a wide flat rock, where he sat down and took deep gulps of the cold spring air, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal.

It was a pretty day, the sky a clear blue with puffy white clouds. Little orange poppies waved cheerily in the breeze that sent ripples through the long grass. But Varric closed his eyes against it, trying to drive away the memories that flooded into his mind. The endless, silent dark of the Deep Roads. The foetid, bloody stench of Bartrand’s half-abandoned manor, the pleading treble in his voice. The way his hands had shaken, his eyes had rolled in his head, as if he were seeing things no-one else could see.

I just need to hear the song again…just for a minute…make it stop, little brother…

Being a dwarf didn’t protect you from everything. Demon possession might be impossible, but there were other things to lose your mind to. Varric had felt the pull of the red lyrium idol in Kirkwall, and he had felt it at the Temple of Sacred Ashes too – that lulling, alluring song at the back of your mind, an itch you could never quite scratch, that promised if you just listened a little longer, got a little closer…

Shit.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Cassandra making her way across the meadow towards him. The other three were still presumably in the cave, but Varric wasn’t surprised the Seeker was unwilling to leave him alone out here for too long, given how many people had been trying to kill him, lately. It had been a stupid risk to go running off by himself in his distracted state, really – if anyone had thought to ambush him out here, he probably wouldn’t have noticed them until it was too late.

 Varric expected a lecture on that subject when Cassandra reached him, but to his surprise, none was forthcoming. Instead, she sat down next to him on the rock.

“Blackwall is destroying it,” she said. “Insofar as we are able to do so. Vivienne and Solas will bring the cave down so that the vein is covered at least. We searched the miner’s body but there was little to be found, or at least no indication that whoever it was knew anything about the red lyrium at the Conclave. An opportunist, I suspect, simply looking to make easy money from the lyrium trade.”

Varric nodded. Easy money. That was what everything so often boiled down to, wasn’t it? Easy money to be had from the Deep Roads after a Blight; that’s what he and Bartrand had thought.

As if she had read his mind, Cassandra said suddenly: “Have you heard from your brother?”

Varric still had just about enough of his wits left not to react to the question. “I told you Seeker, I—”

“Killed him, yes. I remember,” Cassandra cut him off. “You told me as much to ensure that I did not use him as leverage against you, I imagine.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. “I would not have done so, but I cannot fault you for not knowing that, at the time.”

There was a long silence.

“I don’t hear from him, I hear about him,” said Varric, finally. “He’s…the same. No better, no worse.”

“He is well guarded?”

Varric shot her a look. “What do you think?”

Cassandra nodded. “Good. There are those who would use him against you, now that you are the Herald of Andraste.”

Varric was too exhausted even to object to her use of the hated title. How Cassandra knew about Bartrand probably didn’t even matter now – Leliana had her ways, and at least they were all nominally on the same side these days.

“My brother Anthony was killed when I was a child,” said Cassandra suddenly. “I know that the situations are not the same, but…”

She trailed off. Varric wondered if she’d surprised herself with her words as much as she had him. It was a small piece of herself that Cassandra was offering in recompense for everything she’d forced out of him at the point of a sword, but a genuine one at that. It might be a shitty thing to have in common, but it was something.

“I’m sorry about your brother, Seeker,” said Varric.

“I am sorry about yours. By the Maker’s grace we can make sure what happened to him never happens to anyone else.”

Movement at the cave entrance. Vivienne, Solas and Blackwall emerged, and after exchanging a few words, the two mages raised their hands and with some apparent effort brought part of the cliff face crashing down, sealing the cave with rubble. It was a relief when they walked over – another few minutes of that conversation, and Varric might have started mistaking Cassandra for an actual person, rather than a collection of muscles and a bad attitude in a suit of armour.

“It’s done,” said Blackwall. “Nasty business.”

“I guess we know what the bandits in that fortress in the forest to the west are trying to protect,” said Varric, grateful that no-one seemed about to question him on his abrupt flight from the cave. “They’re not just smuggling the stuff – they’ve got a red lyrium mining operation going on nearby.”

“It also explains a great deal about their actions,” said Solas. “Prolonged exposure to red lyrium exacerbates paranoia and aggression. Doubtless they believed that given your history in Kirkwall, Herald, you would not suffer their operation to continue, if the Inquisition discovered it.”

“They weren’t wrong,” said Varric grimly.

“With the rebel mages and templars still at war, adding red lyrium into the situation will only make things worse,” said Vivienne. “I suppose these reprobates only see it as a way to get rich. Fools.”

“It is unlikely they truly understand what they’re dealing with,” agreed Solas.

“We will send soldiers to clear out the fortress,” said Cassandra. “We ourselves must return to Haven, and decide what to do about Redcliffe. If Alexius and his mages have a supply of red lyrium, it makes the situation there only more unstable. King Alistair at least must be informed.”

“Make sure Cullen’s guys try and take the smugglers alive if they can,” said Varric. “We need to know where they’re getting the stuff.” He gestured at the blocked off cave. “This vein broke the surface here, but if there’s more underground they must have an entrance to the Deep Roads nearby to be mining it. We need to know where.”

The sound of hooves on the road nearby made them all turn, hands going to weapons again, but the figure riding hard from the direction of the crossroads turned out to be wearing the dull greens of an Inquisition scout, and turned her horse off the road towards them the moment she spotted their clustered group. When she was close, she leapt off the horse lightly, looking nervous at her audience, and held out a small scroll of paper to Varric.

“This arrived by raven for you, my lord Herald,” she said. “From Sister Nightingale. Marked urgent. Corporal Vale asked me to see if I could catch up to you.”

“Thanks,” said Varric, taking the message and unrolling it. The scout stepped back, a little self-consciously, and went to tend to her horse as he read the letter aloud to the others:

“Please be advised, a situation is unfolding in Southern Fereldan, where we lost contact with a group of our soldiers. They have been found in a bog called the Fallow Mire. They are being held hostage by Avvar who demand to meet the Herald of Andraste if the Inquisition wishes to see its people alive again.”

Leliana’s signature was scrawled at the bottom, the message clearly having been written in her own hand. There was no order of what to do, nor even advice, but the implication was obvious. Varric looked up at the others.

“Guess Haven will have to wait,” he said.

“To detour to the mire would add several days to our journey,” frowned Cassandra. “We should send a delegation of Inquisition agents instead to negotiate for the soldiers’ release.”

“And if there are rifts?” said Varric. “What are they supposed to do about those? Besides, we can’t just keep throwing people at the Avvar.”

“Nevertheless, the Breach must be our priority,” said Cassandra stubbornly, the brief moment of fellow-feeling they had shared earlier obviously over. “We need the mages to close it.”

“I don’t think they’re going anywhere, Seeker,” said Varric. “Magister Alexius is waiting to see what we do next, and if it’s me he’s after, then he can get in line after the Avvar. The mages seem safe enough in Redcliffe for now, if only because Alexius needs them as much as we do, but I’m guessing wherever our soldiers are in this bog, it doesn’t involve a cosy tavern in a nice little village with a fire in the grate and regular supply caravans.”

He rolled up the letter and stowed it firmly away in his coat pocket. “They’re there because of me,” he said. “I can’t just let them rot.”

“I’m with the Herald on this one,” said Blackwall, unexpectedly. “You can’t expect loyalty from your people unless you show them the same in return.”

Cassandra looked between the two of them, more outnumbered than persuaded. “Very well,” she said finally. “If you are determined to go, then I cannot stop you.”

This was patently untrue, but Varric allowed himself to be cheered by this small victory over the Seeker, and to her credit she raised no further protest as Blackwall unrolled the map on the flat stone and started to plot their route south along with Solas. She went to have a word with the nearby scout, presumably telling her to send a reply back to Leliana when she returned to the crossroads. After a brief exchange, the scout leapt back onto her horse and cantered away in the direction she’d come from.

“I will return to Haven if you have no objection, Herald,” said Vivienne, ignoring Blackwall’s muttered ‘of course’. “I will inform the others of what transpired in Redcliffe. Perhaps we might be able to determine a solution to this mess Fiona and her rebels have entangled themselves in, while you are…otherwise engaged.”

Her tone made it clear she didn’t approve of going to rescue a handful of soldiers any more than Cassandra did, but her suggestion wasn’t an unreasonable one. She could give a better account of the situation in Redcliffe to the Inquisition than any written message could.

“Be careful on the road, Iron Lady,” Varric said. “There are worse things than Avvar out there.”

Vivienne looked a little surprised at his concern, but covered the moment swiftly with a bland smile. “I am far from defenceless, my dear,” she said. “Do not trouble yourself on my account.”

“Tell Leliana and Cullen we’ll bring their people back if we can,” said Varric. “And tell the Iron Bull I’m sorry he didn’t get to come along, but the next time we fight Avvar, he’ll be the first person I go to.”

“Iron Bull?” asked Vivienne, her eyebrows raised.

“You didn’t meet him in Haven?” asked Varric.

“I wasn’t there long.”

“You will know him,” said Solas dryly, glancing up from the map, “when you see him.”

“We must make haste,” interrupted Cassandra brusquely, and with that they parted company, Vivienne cutting a lonely figure as she continued along the road up to the Frostbacks. The road was well used by the Inquisition now, and there was little danger to someone as capable as Vivienne, but Varric still felt a flicker of unease at the choice he’d just made. He’d done it without thinking, but if he’d made a mistake, the consequences would be on more than just his own head.

Still, there was no time for second guessing now. With Cassandra still looking impatient, and Blackwall and Solas as dutiful as ever, the Herald of Andraste turned south, and headed for the Fallow Mire.

Varric had lived his whole life in Kirkwall, which was officially known as ‘The City of Chains’ and unofficially often described as ‘a total shithole’. And yet still, somehow, he could unequivocally say that the Fallow Mire was the worst place he’d ever been.

It was cold. It was wet. It was cold and wet even before they arrived at the small Inquisition camp at the deserted hamlet of Fisher’s End, where even the long-abandoned buildings shivered in the driving rain, and the ashes of plague pyres make the waters of the bog run black.

They were greeted by Lead Scout Harding, a freckle-faced and very capable young woman who he had met briefly back in the Hinterlands, who was quickly making a name for herself in the Inquisition. Usually, Varric would have appreciated the chance to have an actual eye-to-eye conversation with a fellow dwarf, but Harding didn’t have any good news. The Avvar were holed up in some distant keep, and no-one had been able to get close enough to even tell whether their Inquisition captives were alive or dead. Their leader had issued a challenge to the Herald of Andraste personally, and Harding didn’t think much of their chances when it came to negotiating a peaceful solution. She also informed them, with what Varric considered altogether unreasonable cheeriness, that the bog was lousy with undead, and this had very quickly proven to be true.

Varric couldn’t remember a time when he’d had to endure such prolonged physical discomfort in his life. Sloshing through the mire in the driving rain, inches deep in mud, breathing in the stench of death and avoiding the grasping, rotten hands that reached out of the weeds to clutch at any step that strayed from the path, was not made any more bearable by the knowledge that he was the one who had insisted they come here. After a few hours, they were all soaked to the skin and utterly miserable. It didn’t help matters that, in an apparent attempt to pass the time, Cassandra asked some pointed questions about Kirkwall and the people he knew there, which just reminded Varric of how much he’d rather be in The Hanged Man right now with his friends by his side instead of squelching through a bog with someone who was little better than his gaoler, for all that she allowed him a long leash. It also made him feel squirrelly about Hawke, although he couldn’t see how the Seeker could have possibly found out about the letter he’d sent from Redcliffe. Still, she clearly wasn’t done interrogating him just yet, and Varric didn’t much appreciate this return to form on her part. His terse replies to her questions obviously got his feelings across, and the entire party lapsed into grim silence, Cassandra forging a way through the mud with wounded dignity, Varric stumping behind her with a stoic Blackwall, and Solas bringing up the rear with the air of a disapproving parent.

As they trudged through the mire, they passed more signs of plague, piles of bones, burnt out houses, and occasionally beacons in the mist, inscribed with strange runes that seemed to draw the wandering undead like moths to a flame when Solas lit the braziers with what he called ‘veilfire’. What they didn’t see were any Avvar, at least until night was falling, and a familiar green light in the distance drew them to a rift, being watched over by an enormous armoured barbarian with a maul Varric doubted he could even lift. Cassandra and Blackwall both drew their swords as they approached, but Varric waved them down. The Avvar was watching them with more interest than hostility as they approached, an interest which only grew as Varric’s marked hand started to crackle and glow as they approached the rift.

“You’re the one the Lowlanders are calling the Herald of Andraste,” the barbarian said. “I’ll admit, I thought you’d be taller.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” said Varric.

“I am Sky Watcher,” said the Avvar. “They say you can heal the tears in the sky.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” said Varric. “But yeah.”

“We are here for our people,” said Cassandra, stepping up next to him. Sky Watcher looked her up and down briefly, either assessing her as a threat or displaying a casual interest which Varric didn’t want to think too much about. “Can you tell us if they are alive?”

“They’re alive,” said Sky Watcher. “Though some were injured when they were captured. They fought well. My leader wants you dead, Lowlander, but it’s not my fight. My concern is this.” He gestured to the rift.

“They concern us all,” said Cassandra. “The Inquisition seeks to prevent more from forming, and if the Avvar have the same goal, then we need not be enemies.”

“Then I wish you luck in the coming fight,” said Sky Watcher, with a wry smile. “But talk is cheap. Will you not aid me now, and prove yourself a friend to the Lady of the Skies, who we all serve?”

Varric raised his hand, and the rift pulsed in response. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

After the tedious grind of the journey, fighting demons and closing the rift was almost fun just for the variety it provided. The Avvar proved an able warrior, unsurprisingly, and when Varric closed the rift for good, he actually looked impressed, under his helmet.

“Go in peace, Inquisition,” he said. “With my thanks. My duty is done, and you’ve saved me a night standing out in the rain.”

The moon was rising as they picked their way along the thin path through the bog, leaving Sky Watcher behind them. “If all Avvar are that big,” said Varric, “I’m not sure I fancy my chances fighting their leader one-on-one.”

“You will not have to,” said Cassandra. “We will not indulge the whims of a kidnapper.”

“Afraid of the competition, Seeker?” said Varric, unable to resist the jab. Cassandra only sighed irritably in response, which meant that he’d won this round.

They made camp in a natural formation of rock that at least managed to shield their tents from the worst of the wind, and meant it would be hard for any undead to stumble across them. Cassandra, apparently tired of bickering, disappeared into her tent as soon as the campsite was set up, leaving Varric and Blackwall to force down a few mouthfuls of soggy rations by the meagre fire as Solas went to take first watch. Varric held out his hands to warm them, and watched as the Warden beside him took off one boot and poured water out of it with a long-suffering expression.

“So, is the Inquisition as glamorous as you expected?” Varric asked.

“Unlike Madame de Fer, I didn’t sign on for the glamour,” said Blackwall, starting work on his other boot with an air of resignation. “But I’ll admit to hoping the rest of it will at least be somewhat drier.”

“Well, Haven’s not too bad,” said Varric. “I’m ass-deep in snow half the time if I stray off the paths, but there are real beds and the food is decent. For what it’s worth, I’m grateful you persuaded Cassandra to let us make a detour though.”

“I was under the impression that you did that,” said Blackwall, setting his boots aside, and holding his feet up to the fire in an attempt to dry out his socks.

“Ha. The Seeker is not known for listening to my opinion on anything much, as you may have noticed.” Varric poked the fire moodily with a stick, totally failing to coax it into providing any more warmth. “Hopefully you won’t end up judging the Inquisition as a whole based on the arguing of two people who don’t get along,” he added.

There was a brief pause and then Blackwall said: “Two people who don’t get along? That’s not what I see.”

“How do you mean?” asked Varric.

Blackwall gave him an appraising look. “Do you want me to be tactful, or honest?” he asked, and Varric saw immediately that this was a test, of a kind. The Warden was still getting the measure of him.

“I always appreciate honesty in other people,” he replied casually.

“What I see,” said Blackwall, clearly choosing his words with care, “is Seeker Pentaghast striving to remain civil while her every passing word to you is rebuffed with unwarranted suspicion or a cruel jest. She cannot even ask after the wellbeing of your friends or the reconstruction work on your city without you treating it as some kind of attack. In all honesty, it’s hard to watch.”

“Yeah…well, maybe when you’ve known the Seeker for longer you’ll understand why,” said Varric, ignoring the little worm of guilt that had curled into his gut. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to him that he was the one making a bad impression.

“She strikes me as a woman with a great deal of responsibility, and very little patience,” said Blackwall. “Perhaps lacking in tact. But hardly worthy of your contempt.” He paused. “You’re right, however,” he said. “I don’t know her well, nor you. Forgive me my bluntness; you asked for my opinion and I’ve given it. I understand that it isn’t my business, either way.”

Varric waved a hand vaguely, neither agreement nor dismissal, and after a few more extremely awkward minutes, Blackwall muttered something about turning in, and they both slunk into their respective tents. As they only had what supplies they could carry out here, Varric was sharing canvas with Cassandra, and was relieved to find her already asleep as he crawled into his own bedroll beside her, removing only his shoes and coat before making himself as comfortable as possible.

Tired as his body was, his mind had a more difficult time relaxing, and he found his thoughts chewing over the conversation with Blackwall as he stared up at the canvas above him, listening to the relentless patter of the rain and Cassandra’s deep, even breathing. The plain-spoken Warden clearly had a bad case of hero worship for the Seeker – which Varric had to admit was at least a nice change from people trying to worship him – but the man might also have a point. Maybe Varric had been a little…uncharitable towards Cassandra recently. For all her faults, she did seem to be trying to be more pleasant towards him. She had come along on this detour in spite of her own opinion on the matter. She had even been sympathetic, in her own way, about the red lyrium. Maybe he had gotten a little too comfortable in his habit of blaming his frustrations on her.

Varric’s resolve to try and be more civil to the Seeker was not overly tested the next day, as the weather was just as foul as it had been since they arrived, and there was little time or inclination for idle chit-chat as they walked. The hulking grey shadow of the distant keep loomed closer with each step, and Varric felt an increasing sense of foreboding as they approached. Part of him didn’t want to make it inside – not because he feared fighting the Avvar leader, though he didn’t exactly relish the prospect, but because he had a dread of what they might find there. The Inquisition captives had been taken alive, but who knew what state they were in now? What if they were too late? What if even stopping to sleep last night had meant the difference between life and death for a handful of poor sods who were only here because they believed in the Herald of Andraste and wanted to help save the world? He hadn’t commanded them to go here himself, but they were his people, like it or not, and they deserved better than to die in this horrible place.

As they got close to the keep, a distraction appeared in the form of a veritable army of undead, crawling out of the mire on either side of the narrow approach. After hacking a few of them to bits and realising there were literally dozens more emerging at the sounds of battle, Cassandra yelled to run for the keep, and for once Varric was more than happy to obey. They made it inside the gatehouse pursued by a shambling horde, which Solas and Varric held back at a distance with bolts and blasts of fire as Blackwall found the mechanism to lower the portcullis with an obscenely loud clang that echoed around the courtyard.

The dead were held at bay, but they were trapped inside now, and the Avvar could not help but have heard them coming. There could be no subtle approach, and as they made their way up a flight of slippery stone steps to the half-ruined hall where distant braziers spilled out light, they kept their weapons drawn.

“Keep to the back,” said Cassandra unexpectedly, as they reached the top of the stairs. Her voice was pitched quietly enough that Varric thought she meant only him to hear. “And keep your mark concealed. The Avvar may not know which of us is the Herald. Best for us that their leader assumes it is me.”

“Doesn’t seem best for you, Seeker,” Varric muttered, but Cassandra had no time to respond, as they entered what must once have been a great hall, the roof now gone and the walls overgrown with vines. The floor was covered with rubble and slick with rain. At the far end, on a raised dias flanked by archers, was an Avvar who was almost as wide as he was tall, a solid wall of muscle wielding the biggest maul Varric had ever seen.

“Herald of Andraste!” he boomed, in a voice that echoed around the hall, making the walls tremble. “Face me!”

“I’d rather not!” yelled back Varric, which wasn’t his wittiest ever reply, but made Blackwall chuckle beside him all the same.

“Where are our people?” said Cassandra, her voice too echoing sharply around the hall. “Release them and we have no fight with you.”

But the challenge had been nothing more than a formality. The Avvar gave a wordless roar in answer and started across the hall, and the sudden zip of an arrow past Varric’s ear made clear that this guy’s idea of ‘single combat’ wasn’t anything an Orlesian Chevalier would recognise.

The four of them scattered instinctively, breaking up the easy target they made as a group. Varric leapt to the left as Solas veered right, both of them keeping to the walls as Cassandra naturally dashed forwards to meet the Avvar and threw up her shield, fending off the first sweep of the barbarian leader’s maul. Varric kept low and fast, only realising that Solas had woven one of his magical barriers around him when an arrow clattered harmlessly off it that would otherwise have driven right through his throat. He didn’t have time to think about that, or the fact that Solas could not maintain more than one such barrier, which meant the other three were wholly unprotected, as he was focused on getting into a position where he had line of sight on the archers.

The clang and scrape of metal on metal was all he knew of the others fighting as he dashed down the side of the hall, dodging behind pillars until he was finally in a place to leap out of cover and aim Bianca at the archer who was even then drawing back his bow to shoot at Blackwall. The archer didn’t even hear the ratcheting clunk of the crossbow, and the bolt flew true, driving through his shoulder and sending him collapsing to the ground with a cry, his bow falling from his hands. The other archer was frozen solid – obviously Solas’ work, and as Varric turned, he saw the elf in the far corner, muttering something under his breath, casting some spell that clearly took all his concentration. Blackwall was making mincemeat of a wiry Avvar warrior, another already dead at his feet, so Varric turned to where Cassandra was still engaged with the barbarian leader, dodging his heavy blows and striking with her sword at any opening. The man was bleeding heavily from a dozen wounds, but showed no signs of slowing – Cassandra, however, had trekked miles through the bog and fought through an army of undead just to get here, and Varric could see the tiredness in her movements even as she fought. He raised his crossbow, trying to get a target on the Avvar’s head. If he would only stay still for long enough…

Varric pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide. A hand had grabbed his ankle, yanking him off-balance. The archer he’d felled earlier, still with a bolt sticking out of his shoulder, had crawled to him and was trying to pull him down to the ground. Varric just about kept his footing but lost grip on his crossbow, which went clattering to the floor as he stumbled. Even worse, at the same instant, Cassandra caught his eye from across the room.

“Varric!”

Her moment of distraction was all the Avvar leader needed. There was a sickening crunch as his maul connected with Cassandra’s breastplate, and the Seeker was flung several yards across the room to the hard stone floor.

Varric didn’t have any time to process this, as he was finally pulled down to the ground as well, and found himself grappling with the wounded archer. Fighting up close and personal, just the way he had always hated, the other man’s hot breath in his face, hands trying to close around his throat. Varric scrabbled for his boot and managed to get a grip on the handle of a short knife he kept concealed there, pulling it out and thrusting it wildly into the archer’s chest. The man spluttered, coughed blood, and finally stilled. Varric rolled him off, and looked up to see the Avvar leader now looming over him like a vengeful mountain, his painted face locked into a snarl of vicious triumph. With Cassandra tossed aside, he had finally found his prize. He raised his gigantic maul high above his head, muscles bulging, and—

Varric grabbed Bianca from where she lay beside him, swung his crossbow up in a move of sheer desperation, and shot him in the head.

It was, if he said so himself, a pretty great shot, if more by luck than judgement. The bolt drove through the Avvar’s jaw, up through his soft palate and right into the brain. The giant of a man froze for a moment, and then simply toppled backwards, his hands still reflexively gripping his maul even as he crashed onto the ground, dead. Varric sent a brief but fervent prayer of thanks to the Maker that he hadn’t fallen forwards instead and crushed him, which would have been a really embarrassing way to die.

The battle was over. When Varric picked himself up off the floor, he saw that the other Avvar had been felled by his companions, and both Blackwall and Solas were making their way hastily over to where Cassandra was struggling to rise. Varric couldn’t blame them for being more worried about her than him, as the Seeker had taken a hell of a blow. When he reached the three of them, Cassandra was obviously trying to placate their concerns without much success. She was swaying slightly even as she got to her feet.

“Uh, perhaps you should sit down, Seeker,” said Varric. “Take a minute.”

“I am fine,” said Cassandra, brusquely. “I just need to—” And then, in an unusual display of mortal frailty, she passed out.

Varric had the misfortune of happening to be the one standing closest and just about caught her before she hit the ground again, with much clanking of armour. He looked down at the limp form of the Seeker in his arms and said ruefully: “Ah, and no-one will ever believe me.”

It only took a moment for Cassandra to come round, by which time he and Blackwall had managed to manoeuvre her into sitting on a crate nearby. She seemed inclined to be embarrassed, which was oddly endearing, and at least had the good sense not to protest again that she was fine.

“A couple of ribs cracked, I think,” she said. Her face was grey and taught with pain; she looked little better than one of the corpses outside. “And my shoulder is dislocated.” She addressed Blackwall. “You should search for our people.”

“Are you—

“I am in no immediate danger,” said Cassandra. “We cannot be sure the same can be said for them. Solas, they may be in need of healing. Varric, if you could assist me?”

“Sure thing, Seeker,” said Varric, and nodded at Blackwall and Solas, who for some reason were looking to him for approval. “Find our people, we’ll be fine right here.”

As they left to begin the search, Cassandra let out a deep breath, and gestured vaguely to her shoulder with the hand she could still freely move. “If you could…?”

Varric leaned over her and started unbuckling her plate, his fingers slipping on the wet leather straps. As he levered off her pauldron he heard her let out a hiss of pain between gritted teeth.

“Sorry,” he said, and Cassandra just gave a curt nod. He suspected all of her energy was going into not passing out again. He managed to unbuckle her rather dented breastplate without jostling her too much, and then hesitated, knowing that what inevitably came next wouldn’t be fun for either of them.

“Have you done this before?” asked Cassandra, her voice still tight with pain.

“Never had the pleasure,” said Varric. “But I know what to do, don’t worry. Fenris was prone to it too.”

“Really?”

“He said when it’s happened once it’s easier for it to happen again.”

Cassandra nodded. “I was careless when I was undergoing my Seeker training. And it has happened a handful of times since.”

“Alright, ready?”

“Just do it, Varric.”

He didn’t patronise her by pretending to count down, instead simply bracing his hands wordlessly against her shoulder there and pushing hard here—

There was an extremely unpleasant crunch as her shoulder popped back into its socket. It was a good thing he didn’t speak Cassandra’s mother tongue, as he was fairly sure the unintelligible string of Nevarran that fell from her mouth was mostly cursing.

“Thank you,” she said finally, once she had gotten her breath back.

“Any time, Seeker. Actually scratch that; let’s never do that again.”

The corner of Cassandra’s mouth twitched. “On that, we can agree.”

At that moment he heard Blackwall’s voice, echoing through the keep. “Herald! We’ve found them!” The Warden appeared from round a pillar, gesturing for him to come over. “We could use some help.”

His voice didn’t betray any particular urgency, but Varric still couldn’t prevent Cassandra from getting to her feet alongside him as they both hurried over to where Solas and Blackwall were facing a very solid looking wooden door.

“We can hear them inside,” explained Solas. “But it is locked. We thought perhaps…?”

Varric knelt down at the lock obligingly and took a roll of fine tools from his inside coat pocket, getting to work. This he could do. It was the work of but a few minutes before the door was swinging open as he brushed off his knees and got to his feet, greeted by the dirty, tired, but very much alive faces of a dozen missing Inquisition soldiers inside.

“Everyone alright?” Varric asked, as the soldiers stared at him.

“Yes ser,” said one, saluting quickly. “We’re…very grateful to see you ser. That is…my lord Herald,” he corrected himself quickly.

Varric eyed them as they filed out, some supporting each other. A few were limping, or bandaged, but their wounds had obviously been treated either by the Avvar or each other, and all were capable of walking. Relief flooded his body like a bottle of wine, and he felt almost light-headed with it.

“I can’t believe the Herald of Andraste came for us!” he heard one soldier whisper excitedly to his fellow, as he thought himself out of earshot.

“I told you he would,” came the smugly muttered reply.

Blackwall started organising the soldiers into dealing with the bodies of the felled Avvar, as Solas examined the wounded and passed out rations from the supplies they’d brought with them. A few of the heartier men started to get a fire going by breaking up some crates, and searching the Avvar storerooms for better food, and slowly the hall began to fill with friendly chatter as the relief of rescue fully took hold.

“You were right to insist upon coming here yourself,” said Cassandra, watching the proceedings from beside Varric. “These people have been through a great deal. They deserve to have their faith rewarded.”

“I’m sorry Seeker, I didn’t catch that first part,” grinned Varric. “You said I was…?”

“I am still capable of doing you a great deal of damage even one-handed, Varric,” said Cassandra, which actually got a laugh out of him in spite of himself.

“You doing alright, Seeker?” he asked.

“I will live,” said Cassandra. “And so will they. That is the best result we could have hoped for.” She turned to him then, her expression thoughtful. “But I wonder…I cannot help but think that this might serve as a warning, of a kind. This Avvar chief took your people hostage to lure you out here and kill you. Magister Alexius has done the same thing with the mages at Redcliffe.”

“You’re trying to tell me tactfully that I’m very quick to walk into traps,” said Varric.

“I have never been blessed with a great deal of tact,” said Cassandra dryly, which made him wonder if she might have overheard some of his conversation with Blackwall the night before. “But it had occurred to me, yes.”

“I don’t see that we’ve got a lot of choice anyway,” said Varric. “We need either the mages or the templars to help us close the Breach. And the group that issued a formal invitation to the Inquisition still seems like a better bet than the one that called us heretics and punched out a priest in the middle of a public square.”

“I will not excuse what the Lord Seeker did,” said Cassandra, looking pained. “But I am not sure that placing our trust in a Tevinter Magister is preferable.”

“So you think it’s a better idea to just ignore the weird Tevinter cult apparently out to get me, that just so happened to grab a foothold of power in Ferelden just as all this went down? That feel like a coincidence to you, Seeker?”

Cassandra gave him an odd look. “You have been thinking about this. You believe we should continue our talks with Alexius at Redcliffe then? In spite of the risk?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”

“You are the Herald of Andraste.”

Varric opened his mouth to object, then shut it again. Cassandra hadn’t said it to mock, or chastise, just as a statement of fact, and she had a point. People would care what he thought.

“I won’t go against what the others decide,” he said. “I’m not here to make trouble for the Inquisition.”

“You are, however, entitled to an opinion,” said Cassandra, with apparent sincerity. “You have the mark. Leliana, Cullen and Josephine will have their own opinions on what to do of course, but they will also listen to what you have to say.” She was regarding him with a grave expression. “You may not have wanted this power, Varric, but you have it, like it or not,” she said. “Do not underestimate what it might yet achieve.”

He was saved from having to think of a response to that as Blackwall called him over. The soldiers had found the Avvar’s store of booze, and their reverence eased by the conviviality of shared relief, were calling to share a drink with their rescuers, and toast to the Herald of Andraste.

That was one duty Varric was happy to perform.

To Varric’s surprise, Cassandra was right. The others did listen to him. When they finally returned to Haven there was a huge argument about the situation at Redcliffe, which seemed to be a theme of how the Inquisition made decisions so far, but one thing everyone agreed on was that they couldn’t simply ignore that the mages of southern Thedas were now under the thrall of a Tevinter Magister.

Everyone also agreed that they couldn’t very well just have Varric march into Redcliffe castle to meet Alexius alone, as the Magister wanted, that being judged likely to result in the Herald of Andraste’s premature decapitation.

Which put them at something of an impasse, before Leliana put forward a plan that actually had some semblance of strategy behind it – thank the Maker there was someone in the Inquisition whose idea of a solution wasn’t ‘hit somebody’ (Cassandra), ‘just ask nicely’ (Josephine) or ‘give up altogether’ (Cullen). Leliana had been to Redcliffe castle before with the Hero of Ferelden, during the last Blight, and knew of another way in that doubtless even the Venatori weren’t aware of. Some of her most skilled and trusted agents could slip through this secret passage into the castle, and take down the Venatori from within. Quick, quiet, subtle. The kind of plan that appealed to any rogue.

“It’ll never work,” objected Cullen. “They’ll be discovered long before they reach the Magister.”

“Which is why we will need a distraction,” said Leliana. She caught Varric’s eye, and he grinned, catching on.

“A distraction like the Herald of Andraste turning up for that meeting Alexius wanted?” he suggested.

“Absolutely not,” said Cassandra. She sounded horrified. “We have just agreed that such an envoy would be suicide!”

“If I was actually going in alone,” said Varric, warming to the idea all the more in spite of Cassandra’s objections. “Think of it like what happened with the Avvar, Seeker – you distracted the big boss with a showy challenge, while the rest of us slipped round the sides and took out his support.”

“Which nearly ended up killing us both,” said Cassandra. “Alexius is not some barbarian from the hills, Varric, he is a Tevinter Magister.”

“Which means he’ll want to talk,” said Varric. “Grandstand. Ten royals says I can have him halfway through the history of the Imperium before he even notices the knife in his back.”

His anxiousness about the threat of the Magister was turning into something almost like keen anticipation, now that there was a plan in the offing that gave him something he could actually do, for once, rather than just being marched around and pointed at rifts.

“This…could work,” said Josephine thoughtfully.

“And if it doesn’t? said Cullen. “We lose the mages, and our only way of closing the rifts.”

“Your concern is touching, Curly,” said Varric.

“I agree,” said Cassandra. “It is an unacceptable risk. We should let Ferelden deal with the Magister, and seek out the templars for help with closing the Breach instead.”

Varric rolled his eyes. “Come on Seeker, all I have to do is keep this guy talking. Even you have to admit I’m good at that.”

In fact, this reminded him a lot of some of Hawke’s schemes, back in the day, albeit on a bigger scale – he’d been drafted in many a time in Kirkwall to charm his way into a place where brute force wouldn’t work, or talk their way out of a tricky situation by spinning a plausible tale. Varric had to admit to himself that he was far more comfortable with the idea of ‘the Herald of Andraste’ being a role he could slip on willingly to put on a show, rather than something he was saddled with whether he liked it or not.

Cullen opened his mouth for further argument, but Varric was sick of standing around in the Chantry all day bickering.

“Why don’t we vote on it?” he said brightly, before Cullen or anyone could say anything else. “All those in favour of taking unacceptable risks? Aye!”

Varric raised his hand as he spoke the last word. He really hadn’t expected this tactic to work, but Leliana, her eyes twinkling, promptly raised her hand too and repeated “Aye!”

“Aye,” said Josephine, a touch apologetically, glancing at Cassandra’s scowl. “My apologies Seeker, Commander, but I really do not think we can simply abandon the mages now. We must put our trust in the Herald.”

“The Ayes have it,” said Leliana. “I will make preparations.”

That seemed to cinch it, although Varric didn’t quite get things all his own way. Cassandra, though grudgingly forced to accept the plan, still point-blank refused to let him walk into the castle alone, and insisted that if anyone cared to stop her from accompanying the Herald, they were welcome to try. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it, but Varric doubted the Magister would object to him bringing along a single bodyguard, and the Seeker was probably at least a preferable choice to showing up to a castle full of Tevinters with the Iron Bull in tow.

And so the Herald of Andraste sallied forth from Haven once more, with a lot more ceremony this time. This was no hastily cobbled-together mission, it was an official envoy to Redcliffe, a small column of Inquisition soldiers marching down from the Frostbacks with banners waving, and the Herald riding out at their head, the former Right Hand of the Divine at his side. With the Inquisition having stabilised the situation in the Hinterlands, they’d secured the services of Horsemaster Dennet, a local man, and they now had a stable full of what Varric had been assured were the finest horses in Ferelden. It was certainly going to make travel in and out of Haven easier, but Varric discovered he had at least one thing in common with Cassandra – a shared hatred of travelling on horseback. He found being so high up disconcerting, and it was extremely difficult to talk to anyone while you rode, which made for a boring trip. Cassandra, as far as he could tell, just didn’t like horses much; he’d overheard her describing them as ‘dung monsters with hooves and tails’ to Warden Blackwall when he’d passed by the stables one time.

But Varric had to admit this show of strength and officialdom at least made for a decent distraction, which was of course the point. Leliana’s people were already getting into place at Redcliffe, along with her secret weapon – the mage Dorian Pavus had been true to his word and gotten in touch with the Inquisition, offering his services in getting her agents past the Venatori defences at the castle. It seemed Magister Alexius’ former pupil had little loyalty left for his old mentor, and Varric, remembering what Cassandra had said about his habit of picking up useful strays (although she admittedly had not phrased it exactly like that) advised Leliana to give Pavus the benefit of the doubt and accept his help. Tevinter or not, the enemy of their enemy could at least be an ally, if not a friend.

As well as Cassandra and Dorian, Varric was surprised to learn that Vivienne had also petitioned to be allowed to accompany him into Redcliffe castle. He had to admit he’d thought the Court Enchanter’s interest in the Inquisition was chiefly mercenary, and she would be more careful with taking unnecessary risks to her own life, but he appeared to have misjudged her on that score. Vivienne was grimly determined, and would not take ‘no’ for an answer any more than Cassandra would.

“What becomes of the Circles of Magi is as much my responsibility as yours, my dear,” she said, when he asked her. “More, one might even argue. I know many among those now at Redcliffe castle personally.”

“You do know we’re only going as a distraction, Iron Lady?” Varric said. “We’re not actually intending on doing any negotiating with the Magister?”

“I should hope not,” said Vivienne. “But even if you are successful in disposing of the unpleasant man, one hopes there will be someone left to negotiate with. You do intend to bring the rebel mages under the wing of the Inquisition, do you not? I understand that was your goal at the outset?”

“I guess so,” said Varric, who was honestly finding it difficult to think that far ahead.

“Then I would like to be a part of that discussion. That was always my intention when I joined you at Redcliffe, after Fiona’s initial invitation.” She inclined her head to him formally. “In the meantime, I will offer you what protection I can, my lord Herald.”

“Varric,” said Varric, who was trying to at least get people he spoke to regularly in the habit.

“Not in public, my dear,” said Vivienne, with a faint smile.

The Inquisition thus arrived in Redcliffe village with much more fanfare than the last time and, with the meeting with the Magister scheduled for the next morning, established themselves overnight in The Gull and Lantern, a comfortable inn that held a small contingent of mages still holding out against being summoned to the castle, their fear of the Magister still outweighing the suspicion and hostility of the villagers. There were a couple from the fraternity of Aequitarians who were eager to speak to Vivienne, one Tranquil who had been sent away from the castle because his presence apparently made the Magister uncomfortable, and a nervous looking young man in fine robes who kept shooting glances at Varric from a dark corner as he ate supper with his companions. Dorian Pavus had also joined them at the inn when they arrived, as no-one outside of the castle would be likely to recognise him, and confirmed that Leliana’s people were in place for tomorrow. Cassandra had then spent most of the last hour while they were eating quizzing him about Magister Alexius and the Venatori, and time magic, which everyone was still pretty sceptical of.

Varric ate in comfortable silence, happy for the Seeker to be interrogating someone else for a change, and very deliberately not looking in the direction of the young mage in the corner. He would come to them eventually, and sure enough, as the room cleared out and the evening wore on, Varric saw a shadow fall over the table and looked up to see the young man standing there. He was even younger than Varric had thought, actually, maybe not yet twenty, pale, scrawny and worried looking, with a shock of auburn hair.

“Herald of Andraste?” he asked, as if Varric could have been anyone else, at this point. They hadn’t exactly been subtle about their arrival.

“What can I do for you?” he said, pitching his voice casually. This kid had been working his way up to speaking to him for hours, and he didn’t want to scare him off now. Unfortunately, Cassandra and Dorian had stopped talking and were both watching this exchange too now, which probably wasn’t helping the young mage’s nerves.

“My name is Connor Guerrin,” he said. “My uncle is Arl Teagan, rightful owner of Redcliffe castle, and these lands.”

“And yet you’re with Alexius?” said Dorian curiously.

“I didn’t have a choice,” said Connor. “I was in the circle when they rebelled, and Redcliffe is the only place mages are safe now. I hoped I could speak to my uncle, but…” He trailed off, then looked at Varric helplessly. “I want to stop this, what’s happening, but I don’t know who to trust. Someone told me…I met the Hero of Ferelden once, a long time ago. Someone told me they’re with your Inquisition now?”

“Then whoever you heard it from was incorrect,” said Cassandra, more than a touch snappishly. “The Hero of Ferelden has not been seen in months.”

“But we have the support of the King of Ferelden,” said Varric smoothly, ignoring Cassandra’s sharp look at his blatant lie. “And Leliana is one of our top advisors. She’s instrumental in our organisation. You must have met them back in the day too, right?” He’d heard the story – everyone had.

“Yes.” Connor still looked hunted, unsure. “Yes, Sister Leliana was kind to me.”

“You can trust the Inquisition,” said Varric. “We’re here to help the mages.”

Connor seemed to come to a decision. “Then there’s something you should see,” he said, glancing around furtively. “Follow me.”

He headed towards the door of the inn, and Varric got up to go after him, nodding to Vivienne as he did so, who made her apologies to the mages she was speaking with and fell in with he, Cassandra and Dorian as they followed Connor outside. Night had fallen, and their breath puffed little clouds into the cold air as they stepped out into the quiet village, Connor already walking away, obviously expecting them to follow.

“What is this about, Herald?” asked Vivienne, quietly, as they started after him, Varric deliberately setting the pace slowly so that they wouldn’t be too obvious in what they were doing.

“No idea,” said Varric. “He wanted to show me something.”

“We should not have left the safety of the inn,” said Cassandra, her voice a sharply disapproving hiss. “And more to the point, you should not bandy about the King’s name—”

“He was looking for a reason to trust us, Seeker,” Varric hissed back. “You don’t think it’s a good idea to find out why?”

“I do not believe we should be trusting him. He is known for treating with demons.”

“One demon. When he was a kid.”

Cassandra did not respond to this, but the frown on her face told him she didn’t think much of that defence. Still, she clearly realised that objecting further would be pointless now, as the four of them followed the figure of the young mage through the village, and down towards the docks. During the daytime, this place had been bustling with merchants unloading wares, and market stalls hawking everything from fish to books of poetry, but now the trestle tables were all packed away, the only sounds the creak of boats tied up at the docks and the dark waves of Lake Calenhad lapping at the shore. They found Connor waiting by a slightly run-down wooden house, tucked into the corner of a cliff. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, but there was a lit lantern hanging by the door.

“Here,” said Connor, as they approached, and then looked around again nervously. “I have to go, I can’t…I can’t be seen here. But you should look inside.”

Without waiting for a response, he darted away, disappearing quickly into the darkness. This was about as much ominous foreshadowing as Varric could take, so he tried the door to the house, and found it locked. Not to be dissuaded, he pulled out his roll of lockpicks and, ignoring Cassandra’s disapproving huff, got to work. It didn’t prove much of a challenge, and after a few minutes the lock was defeated. Varric was on the point of opening the door and walking in, when Cassandra put a firm hand on his arm.

“What did I tell you about walking into traps, Varric?” she said, and pushed open the door herself and walked inside first, before he could protest. Nothing seemed to explode, so Varric followed her in, just in time to hear Cassandra’s sharply indrawn breath.

He couldn’t blame her reaction – Varric wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn't this. The small building was filled with skulls. Row upon row, grinning down in neat ranks, on shelves that lined the walls. There must have been close to a hundred of them. It put Varric in mind of descriptions he’d heard of Nevarran ossuaries, except this was no peaceful resting place for the honoured dead. There was a macabre kind of…efficiency to the place, as if it were nothing more than a storeroom for sacks of grain. As Vivienne and Dorian followed him in, Cassandra bent over a small table in the corner, where she’d found a sheaf of papers.

“Well I don’t think much of Fereldan interior design,” commented Dorian, looking around. “What is this, some sort of temporary crypt?”

“I don’t know,” said Varric, examining a shelf near him. The skulls were not entirely smooth, he realised; there were intricate carvings over them, runes and spirals, almost pretty in a ghoulish kind of way. It niggled at something in the back of his mind, as if he had seen the same thing somewhere before. When he turned around, he saw Cassandra was still reading, and something about the look on her face made Varric’s blood run cold in sudden anticipation.

“What does it say?” When she didn’t respond he raised his voice a little, enough that it caught the attention of the others too. “Seeker?”

Cassandra read aloud from the paper in her hand: “Alexius was quite clear in his orders. We must scour the countryside to find more of the shards. Without them, the Venatori cannot claim the treasure our master seeks. For that, we need the Oculara. Without them, the shards are nearly impossible to find, even if they are no longer cloaked by whatever magic hid them for all these centuries.”

The Oculara. Shards. That was why the skulls seemed familiar – Varric remembered now the odd skull on a wooden post they had found a while back near the lakeside camp, up in the hills. Peering through the crystal set into the eye socket had led Solas to some glowing stone shard that he’d seemed excited to study later, but Solas was always getting interested in weird magical shit they found. Now that he realised what they were for, Varric noticed a couple of wooden posts in the corner, which meant that the Venatori must be the ones making the things and sticking them up around the countryside. Which solved a minor mystery, but it didn’t explain Cassandra’s terrible stillness, the way the paper shook slightly in her hand as she continued:

“There must be more Tranquil in the area—the rebels abandoned most of them when they fled their Circles. Remember, the skull will only attune properly if the Tranquil is in close proximity to one of the shards when the demon is forced to possess him. Even then, the blow must be delivered immediately. The Oculara produced from Tranquil killed even minutes later failed to illuminate the shards when used.”

She looked up, her face white, as she repeated the final few words.

“I trust you to continue your efforts in this matter,” she finished. “Our master expects success.”

The silence in the room was absolute. After what seemed an eternity, Vivienne spoke. “The Tranquil,” she said. “I had hoped they would be safe with the mage rebellion. Clearly, I was wrong.”

Varric couldn’t drag his eyes away from the rows of grinning skulls surrounding him. These were not ancient, crumbling remains, like you might stumble across in some dusty old tomb. These had been living people, perhaps only weeks ago. People who had walked around, talked, who had names, families…

Varric felt a lurch of nausea. Maker, there were so many of them. He hadn’t known there were so many Tranquil in the circles in the first place. Had they felt any fear at all, when they had been led to their deaths? Had they even protested, or were they content to know that their bones would serve a purpose after they were gone?

“I wondered what had happened to them after the rebellion,” said Cassandra. “I should have looked harder…”

“You cannot save everyone, my dear,” said Vivienne. “What a waste.”

Cassandra slammed the letter back down onto the table as if it were something foul that she might crush with her fist. “Maker take every last one of those Venatori murderers!” she snarled. “They will face justice for this.”

She was actually shaking with fury, Varric could see. He had never felt so warmly towards her, although admittedly in part because it was nice to see her anger directed at someone else for a change. Speaking of which, Cassandra rounded on Dorian.

“Did you know about this?” she demanded.

“No!” said Dorian, looking genuinely stricken. “No, I can’t believe Alexius would—” He cut off his own words, looking down at the ground. All his former swagger seemed to have drained away. “But perhaps I don’t know what he would or wouldn’t do anymore. This…I had no idea the Venatori were doing this. I swear.”

“And Fiona has let her rebels fall right into their clutches,” said Vivienne, disgust dripping from her voice. “A wise alliance indeed. They may as well be livestock for the slaughter.”

“The skull we found on the post out near the camp,” said Cassandra. “They are being used to find something, but we…we cannot just leave it there…it is obscene.”

“We won’t,” said Varric grimly. “We’ll go back and give it—give them, whoever they were, a decent funeral. All of them.” He turned to Vivienne. “Iron Lady, I don’t suppose there’s any way of finding out who they were?”

Vivienne shook her head. “Not without blood,” she said. “Even Tranquil would have had phylacteries, of course, but most were destroyed along with the Circles, and there is little to be done with bone. Unless the Venatori themselves kept records?”

Dorian looked wretched. “I highly doubt it,” he said. “They wouldn’t have considered it a priority.”

Cassandra made a very dangerous sound in the back of her throat.

“We should get out of here,” said Varric. “Connor was right – we shouldn’t be seen here. We can’t let Magister Alexius know that we know about this.”

They left the horrible storehouse, Varric closing the door behind them, and started back towards the inn. Even the cold, fish-smelling air of the docks seemed refreshing after the horror of that cramped, grisly room, but the grim pall that had fallen over their group could not be lifted so easily.

“Whatever Fiona’s mistakes, we cannot let the mages remain in the hands of these monsters,” said Cassandra. It seemed whatever misgivings she’d had about pursuing this course instead of seeking out the templars had crumbled away. The rebel mages were starting to look less and less like a hostile force to be negotiated with and more like hostages in need of rescuing.

“Then let’s hope the plan tomorrow works,” said Varric.

Back at the inn, Vivienne bid them goodnight and retired to her room, while Dorian slunk away unobtrusively as well. Connor was nowhere to be seen, but Varric noticed another figure sitting alone at a table eating a late supper, and after a moment of hesitation, went over to speak to him. It was the Tranquil who had spoken to Blackwall last time they were here in the village, who had apparently been sent away from Redcliffe castle at the Magister’s order. Presumably he simply had nowhere else to go.

“It’s…Clemence, right?” said Varric, as the man looked up at his approach. “The alchemist?”

“That is correct,” said the Tranquil, setting down his half-eaten pie politely.

Varric wondered how to broach the subject, and then realised he was being an idiot. Straightforward was the only way, under the circumstances. “You told Warden Blackwall that you wanted a chance to use your skills, didn’t you?” he said. “Since the Magister sent you away? You should join the Inquisition. We could use someone of your talents.”

“An interesting proposition,” said Clemence. “I can see how your organisation might benefit from my work.”

“Good,” said Varric. “Great. You should go now. Right away, actually. Tonight.” He drew a piece of paper from his coat and dashed off a note, handing it to the man. “Speak to our guards at the town gate, and they’ll escort you to the camp at the crossroads,” he said. “You can take the next caravan to Haven from there.”

Clemence regarded him placidly. “From your reaction, I take it that you believe I am in immediate danger here,” he said.

What was the point of being tactful to a Tranquil? “Yeah,” said Varric. “I do.”

“Then I will go. I have no belongings that cannot be replaced.” The man nodded to him and walked out of the inn without a backwards glance. Varric had to repress a shudder, but when he turned back he saw that Cassandra had been watching the exchange.

“Any objections, Seeker?” he said.

“Not at all,” said Cassandra. “You are right, he will be safer with the Inquisition than anywhere else.”

“Wish I could say the same,” said Varric wryly. “First the Chantry declaring me a heretic, then smuggler assassins putting a hit out on me, Avvar warlords trying to fight me, and now Tevinter cultists with a habit of boiling the flesh off people’s skulls and using them as fancy spyglasses. I’m not exactly making friends here.”

He expected her to scoff, or make some dry comment about his talent for pissing people off, but to his surprise, Cassandra looked troubled. “Be careful, Varric,” she said, unexpectedly. “Tomorrow, when we go to meet the Magister. I know you believe you can talk your way out of any situation, but…please do not take any unnecessary risks. We do not know what exactly Alexius wants you for, but I doubt it is anything you would like.”

“Tell me a part of you wouldn’t be happy to see my skull stuck on a post in the middle of the countryside, Seeker.”

Cassandra’s frown deepened. “That isn’t the kind of thing you should joke about.”

He had only been half joking, in fact. It had occurred to Varric that if the skulls of Tranquil – severed from their connection to the Fade and magic as they were – held some property that made them suited to finding the strange shards the Venatori wanted, it was entirely possible that dwarven skulls might do the job just as well. Clearly that thought hadn’t occurred to Cassandra, and this probably wasn’t the best time to bring it up.

“Look, the plan doesn’t need this meeting to be successful,” Varric said, placatingly. “We’re just buying time for Leliana to get her people inside the castle. All I have to do is a be distraction.” He treated her to a trademark roguish grin. “I’m good at being distracting.”

Cassandra almost smiled.

Chapter Text

If Varric had been writing ‘The Tale of the Herald of Andraste’, this would have been the epilogue.

There had always been a part of his mind he could never seem to turn off, even when he wanted to, that went through life turning events into prose even as they happened, thinking in third person, editorialising as he went. He’d be looking out at a beautiful sunset over the docks, say, and find himself thinking ‘Varric looked out over the docks, the sky a riot of amber and gold, the dying sun setting the sea aflame. The distant shouts of the dockworkers heading home mingled with the music already spilling from the dockside tavern, as—’

Well. Hawke had found it funny, at times, this habit, and at other times mildly annoying. “It’s like you’re a tailor, and you can’t help sizing everyone you see up for a suit,” she’d told him once. “Whenever you meet someone new, I can see you thinking about how you’d describe them.” Bianca, in one of her less kind moments, had accused him of being afraid to live in the moment, always trying to stay one step removed by clinging to the role of outside observer, casting himself as the writer rather than a character in his own story.

Perhaps there had been some truth to that. But Varric had been forced into a leading role of this particular tale against his will, and it should have been a relief to know that it was now over. It was a relief. And yet it was also somehow…narratively unsatisfying.

The Breach was closed. The Inquisition had defeated the nefarious Magister, rescued the mage rebellion from his clutches, and the Herald of Andraste had earned their gratitude and their help in sealing the hole in the sky once and for all. It had been a great victory of alliance, as Josephine had said, and Varric had to admit that when you put it like that, it didn’t make for a bad story. Now was the time for celebration; banners waving, bells ringing out across the land, all that stuff. There might even be statues of him put up, like Hawke’s in Kirkwall. It was a horrifying thought, but not as bad as the possibility that now the Breach was gone everyone would just return to their previous business of hacking each other to pieces, which seemed, Varric thought sourly, equally as likely.

But the feeling of unfinished business niggled at him. There were too many unanswered questions, too many – for want of a better word – plotholes. The Breach was closed, yes, but who had opened it in the first place, and how had they done it? Perhaps more importantly, why had they done it? To kill the Divine? To prevent peace between the mages and templars? Had those been the goals and the Breach just a weird side-effect, or was it the other way around? Whatever the truth, the Inquisition still didn’t have the faintest idea who was behind any of it. Did that person consider the whole thing a success, or would they try again? And then there was the mark on Varric’s hand…

But the Breach was closed. His job was done. He could go back to Kirkwall, finally go home. Sure, he’d have to wave his hand at a few lingering Fade rifts along the way, but that was all in a day’s work now. Varric should have been ecstatic. He should be down at The Singing Maiden right now, where Flissa was drawing pint after pint for the revellers who were spilling out onto the snowy streets of Haven, dancing and carousing, or else in the Chantry where Josephine had organised a more restrained celebration, where Vivienne and Grand Enchanter Fiona were even now arguing politely about the future of the Circles over canapes, and Leliana, Cullen and Josephine plotted the Inquisition’s next moves.

But Varric didn’t feel much like carousing, and he didn’t want to see Leliana right now. Or Vivienne. Or even Dorian, who had hung around after what happened at Redcliffe, even joined the Inquisition himself, to the surprise of just about everyone except Varric. He didn’t blame Sparkler for wanting to see the Breach closed with his own eyes, after what the two of them had witnessed in the future at Redcliffe castle.

That was why Varric was out here now, standing some distance away from the Chantry in the gathering darkness alone, looking out over the riotous joy of Haven, unable to shake the heaviness in the pit of his stomach. Unable to ignore the memories that gnawed at him like a dog worrying a bone, vicious and unrelenting and red.

Red lyrium. The colour of a future he was never meant to see.

And yet every time he closed his eyes he could see it again, as clearly as if it were still before him. The sky ripped apart. The crumbling, desolation of the castle, the very walls corrupted by glowing red crystals that also tore grotesquely through the bodies of the living and dead alike. The stench of decay in the air. The blank, cold stare of Leliana’s eyes. Cassandra, broken and hopeless, reciting the chant of light alone in the darkness of her cell.

Maker forgive me, I failed you, I failed them all.

Varric had disappeared for a year, in that timeline, their only hope for sealing the Breach lost to them, and the Seeker still thought she had been the one to fail. Anyone else, he would have written it off as ego, but…

It had disturbed him more than he might have imagined it would, seeing Cassandra Pentaghast like that. And he found it difficult to look any of them in the eye now, those he had met in that nightmarish future at Redcliffe; Cassandra, Leliana and even Vivienne, who he hardly knew at all. He had watched them all walk willingly to their deaths just to buy him a little extra time.

If Varric had left the Inquisition, if he had cut and run back to Kirkwall after the Conclave as his instincts had screamed at him to do so many times…that was the future he would have abandoned them all to face.

“I am surprised to find you out here.” Cassandra’s voice interrupted his morbid thoughts, and Varric turned to see her walk up and stand beside him, not without some self-consciousness. He wondered if Josephine had sent the Seeker to bring him back inside. “I would have thought you’d be in the thick of the celebrations,” she said.

“Needed some air,” said Varric.

Cassandra followed his line of the sight to the darkening sky above the mountains, where the Breach had been. “Solas says the heavens are scarred, but calm,” she said. “The Breach is sealed. We’ve reports of lingering rifts, and many questions remain. But this was a victory. Word of your heroism has spread.”

“Ha,” said Varric. “I just stuck my hand in the air, Seeker. The mages did the rest.”

“Is that all you did?” said Cassandra. “Ah, they must be thinking of some other Herald of Andraste then.”

She was in a good mood, which just made Varric feel worse. Heroism. What a joke. When she was the one who had…

“I’m sorry, Seeker,” Varric said, the words like stones in his mouth.

“Why, what have you done now?” Cassandra asked, still with more good humour than the suspicion he was used to. Pity he was in no mood to appreciate it.

“Nothing,” Varric said, wearily. “I’m sorry for something I didn’t do, or…I don’t know. Forget it.”

“You are thinking of the future you saw at Redcliffe.” Cassandra actually smiled a little at his startled expression. “I am a Seeker of Truth, Varric, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what is preying on your mind.” Her voice softened slightly. “It really troubles you, doesn’t it?”

“Seeing with my own eyes what happens if we fuck this up? Yeah, you could say that. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a guy.”

“But it won’t happen. It cannot happen now. The Breach is sealed.”

“I know, but it’s…something Leliana said. The other Leliana, I mean, in the future I saw. She said that for me and Dorian it was all make-believe, a future that we hoped would never happen. But that for her it was real. She suffered. The world suffered.” Varric sighed, trying to put his complicated, half-contradictory thoughts into words. “That version of her will never exist now, but she was real, then. And I could see everything she had suffered in her eyes.”

“And in mine?” said Cassandra. “I can tell when you are dancing around a subject, Varric. You may have been vague on the details, but Dorian was not so tactful. The red lyrium took me along with the others, I know.” She didn’t seem perturbed by the information. “I am surprised, truly; I would have thought my Seeker training would mean it would more likely kill me first, before it took hold.” She gave him a sideways look. “I imagine it was not…pleasant.”

“No,” said Varric. “It was not.”

“I cannot speak for Leliana, or for the world,” said Cassandra. “But for what it’s worth, I can tell you with certainty that I would not have blamed you. In the future you saw, there is no version of me that would have held you responsible, or borne you any resentment for what happened to me. I would have known that you did what you could.”

It was a moment before Varric could speak. “That’s worth a lot, actually,” he said. “Thanks.”

“It is not easy, to have the weight of the world on your shoulders,” said Cassandra. “I should remember that. I was perhaps a little too…harsh with you before, about your choice to ally with the mages at Redcliffe. Truly, you did well, and the results are undeniable. I had not hoped the Inquisition would accomplish our primary goal so quickly.”

It was the closest she had ever come to offering him a genuine apology for anything, much less something that could almost have been called a compliment, and Varric found that rather than being pleased, he just felt awkward, wrong-footed. It was easier to deal with the Seeker when she was railing against him, and frankly he wasn’t even sure he had done the right thing, with the mage rebellion. After everything, he just hadn’t wanted to be the one to put them back in chains.

“So what now?” asked Varric, because that was the question that had been occupying his mind all evening, when it came right down to it.

“Now we—”

But he never found out what Cassandra’s idea of what came next would have been, because at that moment the harsh clanging of a bell rang out over Haven, the sounds of revelry turning to cries of alarm. People were starting to point to the distant pass into the valley, where torches were flickering into view, like tiny stars against the dark silhouette of the mountains. First a few, then more, and more…and the sound drifting in on the wind, now that the music and laughter had faltered to a stop, of marching feet.

“Forces approaching! To arms!”

Cullen’s voice made Varric startle, and the confusion of the revellers turned to fear, people starting to turn and run, for either shelter or to find a weapon. He could hear now the distant shouts of soldiers calling out orders at the town walls, the rattling clank of the defensive trebuchets being loaded, even as the sound of marching feet grew louder. Varric couldn’t take his eyes off the gathering crowd of torches flowing down the mountainside – Maker, there must have been hundreds, at the very least.

Cassandra reached out an arm and stopped the Commander as he passed. “Cullen, what is happening?” she asked urgently.

“A massive force approaching,” said Cullen, grimly. “The bulk over the mountain.”

“Under what banner?” Josephine’s voice; she had appeared from the Chantry with Leliana, both looking confused, alarmed.

“None,” said Cullen.

“None?!”

It was then that Varric felt it; the whispers in the back of his mind. The song, like a melody forgotten from childhood, always drifting on the edge of your thoughts, just out of your reach. Maddening. Tantalising. Promising…

Red.

Varric’s mouth went dry. He felt rooted to the spot, as though a blast of ice magic had frozen him in place. It was if that terrible future was coming for him, coming for them all, marching over the mountain towards them. Perhaps there were some fates you could never outrun, no matter how hard you tried. Some sins that would always find you out.

A sudden boom of something like a small explosion rocked the main gates to Haven, and jerked Varric out of his trance. It was followed by a frantic pounding on the heavy wood, as if – and even as he thought it, Varric knew it was crazy – the approaching army was knocking to be admitted entry. Cassandra and Cullen both drew their swords, and ran through the streets down to the walls, Varric following. When they arrived, there was a cluster of soldiers hesitating by the gates, obviously unsure how to respond to the noises without, and suddenly a plea sounded, muffled through the thick wood:

“I can’t come in unless you open!”

Varric ran forward, ignoring the warning cries of the others. He couldn’t have said what made him do it, except that the voice outside sounded about as frightened as he felt. He heaved the gates open and almost ran into a gangly young man standing on the other side, a human, wearing a wide brimmed hat and ragged clothes. He was surrounded by armoured corpses slumped in the snow; forward scouts for the approaching army, most likely, though what had happened to them was anyone’s guess. The young man was twitchy, his voice tremulous as he addressed Varric.

“I’m Cole,” he said, without preamble. “I came to warn you, to help. People are coming to hurt you!” He looked terrified, babbling in urgency. “You probably already know—”

“Calm down kid, and tell me what’s going on,” said Varric, waving at Cassandra and Cullen to lower their weapons as they ran up beside him.

“The Elder One,” said Cole, and Varric felt as though a bucket of ice had been poured down his spine at the familiar words. Fiona, in her cell in the bowels of Redcliffe castle, rent with lyrium, barely alive, her words an agonised rasp: The Elder One…more powerful than the Maker…

“You took his mages,” said Cole. He looked up properly at Varric for the first time. His eyes were huge, pale, glassy with fear. “He’s very angry.”

“How do you know this?” demanded Cassandra. “Who are you?”

“Your gift from Isabela,” Cole said urgently to Varric, ignoring her. “In your coat. Up there—” He pointed to a distant ridge, above where the army was pouring down the mountainside like a flood.

Without waiting to even think about how the hell Cole knew about it, Varric drew the small brass spyglass from his inside coat pocket. Rivaini had given it to him one Wintersend, half as a joke – is that a spyglass in your pocket, Varric, or are you just pleased to see me? – but it was a gift typical of her, a shiny, pretty trinket that had actually come in extremely useful on dozens of occasions. He pulled the collapsible metal tube open and raised it to his eye, looking in the direction Cole had pointed. There, up on the ridge, was the figure of a man, with a face Varric had never thought he’d see again.

“Holy shit, is that…” Varric thrust the eyeglass at Cullen. “Tell me if you see what I see, Curly,” he said urgently.

Cullen put the glass to his own eye and drew in a sharp breath. “Samson,” he said, grimly. “That can only mean one thing.”

“The templars,” said Cassandra. She sounded more shocked than afraid. “But surely they cannot mean to launch an outright assault on the Inquisition, simply for harbouring the mages!”

“Wait…” said Cullen suddenly. “Maker’s breath, what…?”

Varric snatched the eyeglass back off him, unable to resist. Holding it back to his own eye and swinging his vision to where Samson had appeared, he saw the taller figure that now stood behind the ex-templar, surveying Haven with a cold, sweeping gaze.

Varric felt all the air leave his lungs. “It can’t be…”

A great roaring shriek from above made him fumble the spyglass, and the next moment he was borne to the ground, thrown face down into the snow by Cullen as a great blast of fire scoured the village walls. Varric felt the heat on his back, heard the screams of terror and pain, the great, sweeping boom of vast wings overhead.

He scrambled to his feet just in time to see the dragon make another pass, and all of them pressed against the stone walls of Haven, clinging to what meagre shelter they provided, as great gouts of red, crackling flame lit up the night, pouring over the village and igniting the wooden houses, lighting people up like candles even as they fled. Varric could only stare in horror at the chaos, the carnage so appalling it felt almost unreal.

“We must go,” said Cassandra, beside him. “We cannot stay here.”

She half dragged Varric back inside the gates of Haven, Cullen alongside them, the three of them heaving the gates closed behind them, but it was no use. The dragon had done its work – Haven was aflame, their forces scattered and fleeing. Everywhere the screams of dead and dying drifted through the thickening smoke. There would be no-one to defend the walls when the templars broke upon them and flooded into the village. This was not going to be a battle. It was a massacre.

“Get to the Chantry!” cried Cullen. “It’s the only building that might stand against that…thing.”

Everyone in Haven seemed to have the same idea, and they joined the crowds of people scrambling through the streets towards the stone bulk of the Chantry. But as they passed one of the houses, half buried under the debris from another, Varric heard cries from inside.

He caught hold of Cassandra’s arm, stopping her short even as Cullen ran on, oblivious. “There’s someone trapped in there!”

Cassandra turned to him, her eyes blazing. “Varric, there is no time—”

“We can’t just leave them!”

A split-second of hesitation, then Cassandra nodded. “Get out the way,” she said, and raised her foot to kick the door once, twice, before the wood splintered and the debris blocking it gave way. Varric helped her clear a path and she forced her way inside, where they could see someone pressed against the back wall, obviously livid with terror at what might have come for him. He was in such a state that he backed away even in the face of his heavily armoured rescuer, and Varric was on the point of shoving past Cassandra and trying to calm the guy down himself, when a scream from the tavern across the way made him whirl around.

The roof of The Singing Maiden was on fire. Varric barely hesitated before he was dashing across the street, bursting through the door to the tavern that was already hanging off its hinges. Inside, half of the roof had already collapsed, and he found Flissa on the floor underneath a table, sobbing, her face smeared with blood.

“It’s ok…” he said, reaching for her even as the burning skeleton of the roof creaked ominously above them.

“They left,” gasped Flissa. “They all ran, it was so crowded and everyone just panicked, they all ran at once. I got knocked down…”

“And now it’s time for you to get out of here too,” said Varric. “Let’s go now.”

Flissa’s sharp, gasping breaths steadied as she focused on him. “Oh…Herald…” she said. “It’s you…you came back for me…”

“Course I did,” said Varric. “Here…come on…”

He pulled her to her feet, half dragging her out of the tavern even as the roof fell in behind them in a great groan of tortured timber, a shower of sparks stinging Varric’s skin as they staggered out into the street. Cassandra was nowhere to be seen. He never thought he’d be so relieved to see the huge horned shape of a Qunari coming into view through the smoke, but when Bull reached them, Varric could have wept with gratitude.

“She needs help,” he said. “I think one of her legs is broken, she can’t walk…”

Bull leaned down and scooped Flissa into his arms as if she weighed nothing, cradling her limp form against his bare chest. The barmaid had passed out, or else this was doubtless a moment she would remember fondly in future years, Varric thought, a touch hysterically. If any of them got future years.

“The Chargers are trying to get people to the Chantry,” Bull said. There was no hint of the usual good-humoured nonchalance in his deep voice; he sounded as curt and grim as Cullen. “But I can hear fighting from the main gate. The army’s broken through.”

“Have you seen the Seeker?” asked Varric urgently.

“Not since the dragon. I thought she was with you.”

Another shout from nearby; Varric recognised Blackwall’s voice. “Get her to the Chantry,” he said to Bull, and left at a dead run, scrambling over fallen debris in the direction of the Warden’s cries. He was operating on pure, panicky instinct now, expecting at any moment the beat of wings overhead as he was lit up like a torch. When he leapt up the stone steps towards the apothecary, he saw the wreckage of a cart of pots overturned, figures stirring feebly beneath, and Blackwall straining to lift the cart to free them. The buildings around them were wreathed in flames, the sound of small explosions coming from inside the apothecary as glass bottles shattered in the heat.

“Herald!” called the Warden, as he saw Varric. “They’re pinned, I need help!”

“The pots!” One of the pair trapped was Adan, the village healer, his voice hoarse with pain and smoke. “If the fire gets to the pots—!”

“Shit.” Varric joined Blackwall, wedging his fingers under the edge of the cart and heaving with all his might. It shifted, creaking ominously, and the woman beneath screamed, with pain or fear Varric couldn’t tell. The muscles in his arms were screaming too, Blackwall grunting with effort beside him, both of them straining to lift, even as the flames crept closer and closer…

Suddenly the cart lifted, rising into the air even as Varric’s astonished grip slipped from the wood. He whirled around to see Vivienne, soot-streaked and gimlet-eyed, no mage’s staff in sight, her hands raised as she lifted the cart into the air, inch by inch. Her face was running with sweat, set in a grimace of effort, her arms trembling violently.

“Get. Them. Out,” she said, between gritted teeth.

Blackwall seized Adan and dragged him from under the cart; Varric did the same to the woman, who he now recognised as Minaeve, the elven researcher who he'd seen dancing around a campfire not a few hours before. They were barely away when the flame reached the pots in the cart and whatever was inside them exploded, sending shrapnel whizzing through the air, a shard slicing a shallow cut in Varric’s cheek. He sheltered Minaeve as best he could, but they’d been clear of the blast, and he saw Adan get to his feet, clutching at his side but apparently mostly unhurt. Vivienne had let the cart drop, and as Varric watched she stumbled against Blackwall, and the Warden looped his arm around her waist without a second thought, supporting her as they started towards the Chantry, Adan in tow.

Minaeve had not been so lucky. Kneeling over her, Varric could see the blood speckling her lips, staining her teeth. Her breaths were ragged and shallow, quick gasps laced with agony. The cart had crushed her ribcage, and though there was no blood on her robes, he could see on her face that the damage inside her body was too great. He took her hand, and Minaeve’s eyes met his. They were a bright green, the colour of new spring leaves, very like Merrill’s.

“Andraste…” she whispered, and it could have been a plea, or a curse, or simply a prayer. And then her eyes glazed, her laboured breathing stilled, and she spoke no more. Varric reached out and closed her eyes with his fingertips. Minaeve had been Dalish by birth, he knew, but he didn’t know if she’d been Andrastian. He’d never find out, now.

Stumbling to his feet, he felt dazed, disoriented. There was no sign of the others, and the smoke was thickening, making it hard to see. When he saw an armoured shape approaching, at first he thought it was Blackwall, coming back to find him, but there was something wrong about the silhouette. It was jagged where it shouldn’t have been, and moving oddly, like a clockwork soldier.

Then the figure saw him, its movement becoming more purposeful as it strode his way, and Varric’s heart stopped in his chest.

It was a templar, but like no templar he had ever seen, save one. The Knight Commander of Kirkwall had been an aberration, driven mad by the red lyrium sword she wielded, consumed with rage and paranoia, until the lyrium took her, body and soul. Merideth had been a nightmare made flesh, a cautionary tale for children, never to be repeated. But the figure in front of him now was somehow worse. It looked like…

How Cassandra and Vivienne had looked, in the future at Redcliffe castle. The blood-red blades of lyrium tearing through their skin, making them grotesque, monstrous. A ruin of a person, a thousand times more terrible than the statue of Merideth, because they had still been alive underneath, moving with creaking joints, speaking with voices rusty from disuse and an agony long accepted.

The thing in front of him that had once been a templar raised its sword, and charged. Flames glinted off the silver of its armour, the ruby shards of lyrium, and under the darkness of the visor Varric saw eyes of fury and madness, gleaming red. It would be the last thing he ever saw. His horror had cost him what little time to react he might have had, he raised his crossbow even knowing it was too late, too late…

“No!”

Desperate hands pushed him aside and Varric stumbled, barely keeping his footing, as the monstrous templar missed his target and thrust his blade into the body of Varric’s rescuer instead. It was Chancellor Roderick – the crotchety troublemaker who’d been a thorn in the Inquisition’s side from the start, who’d once demanded that Varric be taken to Val Royeaux for execution – who folded up around the blade and crumpled to the ground.

Stepping over him without even pausing, the templar bore down on Varric once more, but was felled himself before he could raise his blade again, toppling forward with an arrow through his neck. Whirling around, Varric saw Sera with her bow, far behind him at the entrance of the Chantry, already moving onto her next target. She was covering the fleeing villagers as best she could as the last stragglers streamed towards the Chantry doors. Varric doubted she had even seen whose life she was saving, but he had no time even to thank the Maker for his good luck, as he bent over Roderick and dragged the man to his feet. The Chancellor was bleeding heavily, clutching at his stomach, but still conscious.

“Herald…” he said feebly.

“Come on,” said Varric. “Let’s go, let’s get you out of here.”

Roderick’s arm slung over his shoulders, they hobbled towards the Chantry at an excruciatingly slow pace, Varric expecting an arrow in his own back the whole time. The air was thick with smoke now, making it hard to breathe, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, because they made it to the great stone building without any sight of more templars. Cullen arrived at the same time, his armour spattered with blood, also breathing hard.

“Herald!” he said. “Get inside now, we must close the doors. Haven is overrun.”

Someone relieved him of Roderick’s weight, pulling the Chancellor inside, but Varric was peering into the flames of Haven, a growing fear gnawing at him. There was no way the Seeker would have gone inside the Chantry without making sure he was there, and if she wasn’t here at the door…

“Curly, have you seen—”

But his question was answered before he could finish asking it, as Cassandra appeared through the smoke, carrying a villager in her arms; a child, pale faced and rigid with terror.

“You’re alive!” she said, when she saw the two of them. “Thank the Maker.”

A screech from high above, and the stomach-churningly familiar sound of wingbeats drowned out any answer they might have made, and those few left outside launched themselves as one through the doors of the Chantry, even as the people inside pushed them closed. The doors slammed shut with a resoundingly solid boom, and Varric couldn’t help but wonder what that sounded like to any poor soul who was still left outside in the village.

Inside was hardly an improvement. The Chantry was packed with a heaving, panicking mass of people, many dragging injured friends, or crouching over prone bodies, screaming for help or just weeping. The usually serene, incense scented, candlelit nave now resembled a charnel house, the floor smeared with blood, the air thick with the stink of smoke, and fear. They all knew it: they were trapped. Rats in a barrel.

Dorian came shoving through the crowds towards Varric the moment he caught sight of him. His usually immaculate robes were singed, his hair in disarray. “It’s him, isn’t it?” he demanded, wild-eyed. There was no trace of his customary glibness now, he looked pale and starkly afraid. “The Elder One they all spoke of in the future. He’s come for us.”

“It’s Corypheus,” said Varric. “I’d recognise that ugly bastard anywhere. He’s a Darkspawn, a really old one. Claimed to be a Tevinter Magister once.” The full weight of it hit him as he finally had a moment to really accept what he’d seen. “Shit,” he said fervently. “Shit.”

“You seem more worried about him than the dragon,” said Cullen distractedly.

“I am,” said Varric. “The reason being that I’ve never killed that dragon before. It has every right to be alive, even if I’d rather it was anywhere but here. But Corypheus...he’s dead, or he should be.”

“You and Hawke killed him years ago,” said Cassandra, joining them, apparently having found someone to take care of the child she’d rescued. Varric turned to her in surprise, having half forgotten that he had ever told her that story.

“Yeah,” he said. “We did, and we made damn sure we finished the job too.”

“Then how…?”

Another roar from outside rattled the roof, sending dust down from the rafters. Several people screamed. Somewhere, a baby started crying, a high, thin wail.

“How isn’t important right now,” said Cullen. “Why is he here, now?”

“He wants you.”

It was the pale, gangly boy from the front gate, the one who’d tried to warn them. Cole, Varric remembered now. Every head snapped to look at him as he spoke, and Varric wondered if they too were trying to work out how they could possibly have forgotten about him, even in all the chaos. Had he been with them the whole time? Varric hadn’t even looked for him after the dragon had attacked, and yet here he was.

“He doesn’t care about the village, but he’ll crush them all like ants to get to the Herald,” said Cole, oblivious to their confusion. His big, pale eyes bored into Varric from under his wide-brimmed hat. “You stole something from him,” he said. “He wants it back. And he wants you to pay. I don’t like him.”

“You don’t—” Cullen broke off with an impatient sound, and turned to Varric too. “Look, there are no tactics to make this survivable,” he said grimly. “But we still have a few trebuchets that weren’t destroyed. If we could turn them to the mountains, cause an avalanche…”

“And bury us all alive?” said Varric. “Not my favourite plan in the world, Curly.”

Others were gathering round them now; Blackwall and Sera, Iron Bull, terrified looking Inquisition soldiers and scouts, all clearly desperate for some plan, some shred of hope. But Cullen had none to offer them.

“We’re dying,” he said bluntly. “But we can decide how. Many don’t get that choice.”

“No…there might be a way…”

It was Chancellor Roderick who had spoken up, of all people, slumped in a chair nearby. Varric had honestly thought he was dead, but though his voice was thready and weak, he sounded determined, and it was a sign of how desperate they were that all turned to listen to him as he spoke. Varric felt a leaden sense of inevitability as the Chancellor described a little-known route out of Haven from the Chantry itself, across the mountain pass. A way to flee. A way to survive. Except…

“Corypheus won’t just let us leave,” said Cullen.

“Sounds like you could use a distraction,” said Varric. “Something to keep him busy. If I’m the one he wants...”

A part of him, a small, selfish part, had wanted someone to object. It wouldn’t have changed his mind, but it would have been nice, all the same. But no-one did.

“I will come with you,” said Cassandra.

Varric frowned. “Seeker, this is a one way trip, you don’t have to—”

“I am not in the mood to be argued with, Varric.”

He hesitated only for a moment, holding her gaze, and then nodded.

“I’ll go too,” said Blackwall. “You’ll need someone to help load the trebuchets, and if that really is a Darkspawn out there, it’s my duty as a Grey Warden to face it.”

This time Varric didn’t even try to protest. They had already wasted enough time for him to stand here arguing with stupidly honourable, self-sacrificing idiots. He turned to Dorian.

“Sparkler, I hate to ask this, but if we’re going for a distraction, we could really use a mage out there. Maybe just for a few minutes, see if you can draw the dragon’s attention and then leave with the—”

“Oh don’t be so absurd,” said Dorian, forcing a smile. “I can’t let everyone else make all these noble sacrifices while I’m left out in the cold, now can I? I always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Never thought it would be quite so literal, but there we are. I saw what the world was like with the Elder One in charge, and I can’t say it was really my cup of tea.” He gave Varric an elaborate bow. “Herald of Andraste or not, I’m with you until the end.”

Varric turned back to Cullen. “Get the people out,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “Send a signal when you’re clear, and we’ll bury the bastard for good this time.”

Cullen was looking at him with something dangerously close to admiration. “You’ve come a long way since Kirkwall, Varric,” he said, with a rueful smile.

“Takes one to know one, Curly.”

To his surprise, Cullen put a hand on his shoulder, a brief gesture, but a heartfelt one. “Maker be with you, Herald,” he said. “With all of you.”

They started towards the main doors, Cullen already shouting orders to the crowd as Cole helped Chancellor Roderick to his feet. None of the four companions looked back as they went. They’d made their choice. Flanked by Cassandra and Blackwall, blades drawn, Varric and Dorian heaved open the great wooden doors, and they stepped outside into the smoking ruin of Haven.

As the Chantry doors closed behind them, Varric felt a strange sense of unreality. So this was it then; the final chapter of Varric Tethras. He’d walked into some well-nigh unwinnable fights before, but never one where he knew for certain he wouldn’t be coming back alive. Now he could feel the last minutes of his life slipping away like sand through an hourglass, every breath of icy, smoke-filled air he drew into his lungs counting down to his last.

Varric wondered how Hawke would react, when she found out what had happened. Whether anyone would tell Bartrand, if his brother would even truly understand. If Bianca would grieve for him, or if a part of her would be relieved – better a dead hero than a living embarrassment, right?

Varric didn’t feel like a hero. He just felt terrified. He kept his hands gripped tightly on his crossbow, hoping the others couldn’t see them shaking. Beside him, he heard Cassandra reciting the chant of light softly under her breath. If he were a better person, he would have tried harder to get her to leave with the others, but instead he was pathetically grateful that she was here, that they all were. That he didn’t have to do this alone.

“Right!” said Dorian, only the faint tremor in his voice betraying his fear. “Shall we get to those trebuchets?”

“Let’s make some noise,” said Varric.

Blackwall pounded his sword on his shield in a savage gesture that Iron Bull would have been proud of, and Dorian wove a barrier around them with a sweep of his staff. Then they went forth into Haven, ready to meet their fate. The streets were littered with bodies, half charred, slumped where they had fallen. Cassandra delivered swift mercy to one who was still stirring feebly, beyond any help but the quick end that her blade could provide. But the village was eerily silent now, save for the crackling of the flames still burning the thatch of those few buildings that hadn’t already collapsed.

It wasn’t long before they ran into the red templars. The twisted monstrosities attacked on sight, apparently uninterested in leaving anyone in Haven alive, and it was necessary to battle their way through them just to reach the village walls, where the trebuchets were waiting. Varric knew he couldn’t have faced so much resistance alone – even with the combined efforts of his three companions, they were all bloody and besieged by the time they reached their goal. Varric scrambled up onto the platform and covered Blackwall with his crossbow while the Warden heaved the great trebuchet into position, Cassandra and Dorian flanking them, both keeping the red templars at bay. They were certainly making for a distraction, the noise of clashing steel against steel and Dorian’s staff spitting fire was drawing the enemy to them from far and wide. Hopefully it would keep them away from the Chantry for long enough…

Varric tried not think about the templars they were cutting down – whether they had families, whether they had ever really understood what they were signing up for, whether they’d been given any choice in what they’d become. Instead, he forced himself to think of the people of Haven. Krem, whose stories of the Chargers had made him laugh until tears ran down his cheeks. Crotchety old Adan, who had hardly slept for days after the Conclave, keeping Varric alive, and shrugged off any word of thanks. Mother Giselle. Flissa. Chancellor Roderick. Clemence, the Tranquil from Redcliffe, who he’d encouraged to come here, where it was safe. Grand Enchanter Fiona, and all her mages, who were under his protection. Every minute of time they bought here, all of them were one step closer to safety.

The tide of templars was slowing, bodies crumpled on the ground, the red of blood and lyrium both spilled on the snow. Varric shot a bolt through one who was struggling to rise again, and he fell still. He saw Cassandra clap Dorian on the back, both of them panting for breath but alive, and say something to him that couldn’t be heard over the ratcheting clank of Blackwall aiming the trebuchet.

“That’s done it!” The Warden’s gruff voice was triumphant. “The trebuchet is—”

A screech made their heads whip up, where a huge winged shape overhead blotted out the moon and stars behind it, turning their way, growing bigger and bigger as it dove towards them, and all Varric could think was no, no, not now, not yet, not when we were so close…

“RUN!” he yelled, and they ran, the three humans charging ahead through the snow, their longer legs outpacing him easily in their wild flight. But Varric was falling behind, and his last thought before he heard the beat of vast leathery wings right overhead, and the force of dragon fire threw him to the ground was:

“The end, I guess.”

Chapter Text

“Varric. Varric, can you hear me?”

The voice filtered through his consciousness, nudging him awake. Varric was lying on cold, hard stone, every bone in his body aching as if he’d fallen from a great height, which – he dimly recalled now – he very probably had.

He opened his eyes, and it made no difference. It was dark. The pure, confining, pitiless dark of the Deep Roads. Varric felt a nauseating panic rise inside him, but strangely even as it did, the darkness lessened, the space around him illuminated by a faint green glow. The mark on his hand. Whether it was just coincidence, or if it had somehow responded to his desperation for light, it had flickered into faint life, even through the thick leather of his glove. Varric pulled off the glove instinctively, and the light increased, although it was still not much more than a single lantern might have provided. He could just about make out the stone walls of a large cave around him, and, as he turned, the faint dark shape of Cassandra, sitting not far away. Actually, it could have been any human, the light was so dim, but he knew her voice well enough.

“Good idea,” she said, as though the light from the mark was something he’d done deliberately. And then: “Are you hurt?”

Varric considered this, as he stood up, and the question was immediately answered. A hot, vibrant pain in his left leg made him hiss between his teeth. He put his hand down and felt the wetness of fresh blood from a long gash along his thigh – he must have caught something sharp on his fall down here. But he could put weight on it, so the leg wasn’t broken, at least, and other than that he seemed more or less functional.

“Nothing serious,” he said. “A few cuts and bruises. You?”

Cassandra got to her feet too. His eyes were adjusting to the light; he could just about make out her face properly now. “I am fine,” she said.

“Where are we?”

“A cave,” said Cassandra, which was an answer annoying enough to be something he might say, before she followed it up with: “Underneath Haven. I did not know this one existed, but these mountains are riddled with such cave systems. It looks man-made…I believe we must have fallen down an old mine shaft.”

“A stroke of luck for us, I guess,” said Varric, limping towards her. He could see a few broken pieces of wood littering the floor of the cave along with them which gave some weight to her theory.

“Providence,” said Cassandra firmly. “If we had not fallen down here, we would both be dead.”

Varric remembered properly then – Corypheus, lifting him into the air and tossing him aside like an old rag. The dragon, prowling like an enormous cat towards him as he lay in the snow, opening its mouth and drawing in breath…its head whipping around as Cassandra appeared from nowhere, launching herself at Corypheus with a wild cry of fury, her blade gleaming in the firelight…Varric using the last of his strength in that moment of distraction to grab the sword that lay discarded beside him and cut through the line of the trebuchet…

After that, only noise and chaos. He'd brought the mountain down upon them, upon Haven. It was too much to hope that he’d buried Corypheus too, but Cassandra was right in one thing; it was something approaching a miracle that either of them had survived.

 As her silhouette became clearer when he reached her, Varric realised there was something significant missing about the Seeker; no gleam of plate or clanking of metal as she moved.

“What happened to your armour?” he asked.

“It melted,” said Cassandra, simply. “The dragon. Archdemon. Whatever it was. Fortunately, the fire burned through the straps and I was able to remove it quickly, and put out the flames.”

Now that he examined her closer to, holding his marked hand up to see by, Varric could see that her padded gambeson was also gone, presumably hastily torn off in flames, and Cassandra wore only a linen shirt and trousers, the closest to civilian clothing he had ever seen on her. This casual look was marred somewhat by the fact that her clothes were torn in places and obviously singed, and there was a nasty burn across the left side of her neck, creeping down across her collarbones and beneath the edge of her shirt.

“It is only superficial,” said Cassandra, obviously catching his wince. “Falling into the snow was my saving grace. I will heal.”

“Still looks like it hurts like hell.”

“Yes.”

There didn’t seem to be much else to say about that. Varric was in a fair amount of pain himself, and his head still felt a little fuzzy, sheer exhaustion catching up with him now the immediate danger of the attack on Haven had passed. However far they had fallen, he couldn’t hear any sound from above, but whether that meant Corypheus had fled with his dragon and his army, or if they had all been buried, he couldn’t tell. The silence was strange, after the roar of the fires, the clash of battle, the screams of the dead and dying.

“Do you think they made it?” he said, finally giving voice to what they must both have been thinking.

“I am sure of it,” said Cassandra. “You saw the signal, did you not? And the templars…” For the first time her voice shook slightly, and she pulled herself together, with some effort. “Even if they were pulled back in time to avoid being killed, they would have had to regroup, after the avalanche. I believe our people had time to get away.”

Believing it was not the same as being sure, but Varric didn’t say as much. Maker, but he was tired. The sustained panic and terror of the attack had drained away, leaving him hollow.

“Corypheus won’t give up that easily,” he said. “He didn’t die last time. I doubt he’s dead now.”

“What did he say to you?” asked Cassandra. “You were talking…”

“He was talking,” corrected Varric. “This mark on my hand…” He held it up again. “He called it the ‘Anchor’, and it didn’t come from Andraste, that’s for sure. He talked about it like it was a tool, something I’d stolen from him. I’m guessing I haven’t exactly been using it in the way he intended. That’s why he was here, Seeker. To get it back.”

He didn’t say the rest – that Corypheus had told him the Anchor was permanent. Varric didn’t have much reason to believe anything an ancient Darkspawn Magister told him, but that at least had the horrible ring of truth to it. Permanent. He’d always talked about the mark to other people like it was something he was stuck with, but deep down there had been a part of him that had hoped once the Breach was closed, it would simply…disappear. He’d been using it like a tool, like a weapon he could one day set down, but now he knew it was a part of him, and always would be. Varric Tethras, Herald of Andraste, first dwarven mage in history, was who he was now. No going back.

Cassandra’s thoughts were running along different lines. “If Corypheus was responsible for your mark,” she said, “then he must have been the one responsible for what happened at the Conclave. The Divine’s murder, the explosion…do you still remember nothing?”

“Nothing,” said Varric. “I wish I did.”

“I did hear some of what he said, at the last,” said Cassandra. “That he would suffer no rivals. Varric—” Cassandra sounded hesitant, as though she wasn’t certain if she should say what was on her mind. “Hawke was the one who found him in his prison, years ago. If Corypheus survived that battle, and then broke free…she would surely be the first person he sought out. Perhaps that is why we cannot find her.”

Varric almost told her then. The words were on the tip of his tongue – Hawke’s fine, Hawke’s alive, I know exactly where she is, and me not telling anyone is exactly the reason she hasn’t been murdered already. This is why, Seeker. Everything that’s happened to me is exactly what I was trying to stop happening to her.

But he held back the disastrous truth that threatened to spill from his mouth. Hawke needed to know about Corypheus, but what good would it do to tell the Seeker about Hawke now? His silence had kept his friend safe so far.

“Hawke’s not dead,” he did say aloud, the words clanging into the emptiness of the cave with a defensive hollowness. Cassandra looked as though she were going to respond, but then thought better of it. Perhaps she decided it was better to let him have his delusions.

“We should get a few hours of rest before we try to find a way out of here,” she said, changing the subject. “It cannot yet be dawn outside. We will need energy to find a way to the surface and return to the Inquisition.”

Speaking of delusions… “What Inquisition?” said Varric. “Seeker, the Inquisition is done. Haven is a smoking ruin.”

“The village of Haven was not the Inquisition.”

“It’s over, Seeker. The Breach is closed, and all those people…even those that survived have nowhere to go.”

“So you intend to just give up?” The disapproval in her tone was almost comforting in its familiarity. “Return to Kirkwall and leave the rifts open across Thedas? Ignore Corypheus and his army until they burn down your city and come knocking on your door?”

“Of course not,” said Varric, with weary annoyance. “I know I don’t get off the hook that easily. But face it, the Inquisition is finished.”

“Only if we let it be,” Cassandra said stubbornly. “This is a setback, yes, but—”

“Setback?” repeated Varric incredulously. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“We closed the Breach, but our work is not yet done,” said Cassandra, and there was an edge of anger to her voice now. “You saw the world under Corypheus’ rule, at Redcliffe castle. Will you sit back and let that happen?”

Varric sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her right now. “You’re right,” he said. “We should get some rest.”

Cassandra made an irritated noise, but since he was technically agreeing with her, said nothing more. They both tried to find a comfortable bit of cave floor to lie on, which wasn’t exactly an easy task, though Varric was at least more used to sleeping on the ground these days, and he was so dog-tired that he was willing to give it a go. He put his glove back on, which dimmed the already faint light from the mark, but at least kept his hand warm. His dwarven eyesight was getting used to the darkness anyway now, and he had no trouble seeing Cassandra as she settled down to lie on the floor nearby, on her side to avoid pressing on her fresh burn, resting a hand under her head. He could feel her still simmering with annoyance, which was ironic, because when his gaze fell on her, he could see that she was curled up against the cold, the arm that wasn’t in use as a makeshift pillow wrapped tightly around herself. Varric felt a sudden stab of unwilling guilt – even in his thickly lined leather coat and gloves he was uncomfortably chilly, and Cassandra had only a linen shirt between her and the stone floor.

He propped himself back up on one arm, ignoring the flare of pain from his wounded leg. “Want to borrow my coat for a bit, Seeker?” he asked, slightly awkwardly. “I think you need it more than I do.”

He saw Cassandra’ prone form stiffen at this offer, but her only response was best described as: “Urgh.”

Varric rolled his eyes. “What did I do now?”

“You’re so...nice,” said Cassandra, in a tone of barely concealed disgust.

Varric couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud, even knowing it would only serve to irritate her more. “Now you’re mad at me for being too nice?” he chuckled. “You really are a piece of work, Seeker.”

Cassandra sat up, and even though he couldn’t see very well, he was sure she was glaring at him. “It’s...” She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “...deceitful,” she said. “You are nice indiscriminately, even to those you hate. It makes it meaningless, if everything you say and do is just...urgh.” She let out a sharp breath of frustration. “Everything is a performance to you, nothing is real or important.”

“You’d rather I went around telling every pompous stuffed up Orlesian noble we meet exactly how I really feel about them?” said Varric.

“Yes! And I’d rather you didn’t patronise me by offering sympathy I know full well you do not feel.”

“I wasn’t offering sympathy, I was offering a way to not freeze to death,” said Varric, starting to get a little annoyed again despite himself. The Seeker had that effect on him. He also suspected she was picking an argument with him just to distract them both from this shitty situation, which was usually his job, and he felt inexplicably irritated at her taking his part. “But have it your way.”

He lay back down, and saw Cassandra do the same. But even though he was profoundly exhausted, Varric couldn’t bring his eyes to close. He was afraid that if he did, he would see the face of Corypheus behind his eyelids, the hideous, contemptuous snarl, red lyrium tearing through mangled skin. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own. To champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed. For I have seen the throne of the Gods, and it was empty…

He might never sleep again, after being that close to the creepy bastard. Besides, Cassandra was being…distracting. She was now shivering so violently that he could actually see her body shaking, even in the darkness. Sweet Andraste, it wasn’t that cold in here. How was he supposed to sleep like this? He’d probably wake up to a frozen corpse and the Seeker would still find a way to blame him, somehow. Varric was on the point of suggesting they give up on sleep altogether and just get moving, when Cassandra spoke again:

“Varric,” she said in a small voice. “I...have reconsidered your offer. I would very much appreciate your coat.”

There was a time not so long ago when Varric would have crowed over that, but instead he just levered himself upright, shrugged off his coat and handed it over without a word. There was actually a certain amount of smug satisfaction in being the bigger person for once. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Cassandra wrapped the coat around herself with a faint sigh of relief, and lay back down, drawing the thick leather close and curling her legs up to cover as much of herself as possible, like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Varric watched her as she wriggled into a more comfortable position and even folded up one of the sleeves to make a better rest for her head. The Seeker was nothing if not resourceful.

“You really think I hate you?” Varric asked.

“Hmm?”

He hadn’t quite meant to say it out loud, but as he did, he realised it had been playing on his mind.

“Just now,” Varric said, “you accused me of being indiscriminately nice even to people I hate. Were you including yourself in that?”

“I suppose,” said Cassandra. Her voice sounded rather distant, as if she were only half listening.

“I don’t remember ever being particularly nice to you. In fact, you’re probably one of the few people I really can’t force myself to even pretend to get along with most of the time.”

“I am flattered,” Cassandra murmured dryly.

Varric wrestled briefly with a feeling he couldn’t quite name. There were a lot of things he might have said in that particular moment, but when he opened his mouth again, what came out was:

“I don’t hate you, Seeker.”

There was a silence long enough that Varric wondered if he had embarrassed her or annoyed her in some way, but when he snuck a glance in Cassandra’s direction he realised she had just fallen asleep. She looked oddly small curled up in his coat, and the image returned, unwelcome, to his mind – the Seeker in her cell below Redcliffe castle. It hadn’t really been her, of course; it never would be now, as Cassandra herself had said. And yet…it had been her. The Seeker’s face, her voice, even the way she’d spoken his name. Only her eyes had really been different, that haunting, lyrium red, the same red that had crawled under her skin, through her veins, burst out in jagged crystal spurs through her very flesh, growing from her spine, the bones of her legs, her ribs. It had been excruciating even to look at – Dorian had thrown up violently in a corner when they’d come across what had become of Grand Enchanter Fiona, and he’d looked like he was close to repeating the reaction when they’d found Cassandra in her cell. 

It had amazed Varric that she had even managed to stand in that condition, let alone hold a sword, but she had. Varric had never met anyone so completely incapable of ever giving up, even on a lost cause.

“We will hold the main door for as long as we can.”

Cassandra had fought through the castle alongside them, gone to her death with Leliana and Vivienne, for the sake of a future she would never get to see. And now she was here with him, down in the dark, when everyone else had fled.

And she was still shivering, even wrapped in his coat, even in her sleep! Varric briefly considered taking off his shirt and giving that to her too, but decided against it. It was far too much like something one of his romantic heroes would do, and besides it was damn cold and his chivalry only went so far. That left the other obvious option, the one he had been trying to avoid, because it too was perilously close to something he’d write in one of those trashy romance serials that had been widely panned. Varric wrestled with the irresistible thought for a while, and then gave in. Ah, to the void with it. He wasn’t about to let them both freeze to death for the sake of his own pride.

He shuffled over, as quietly as he could, and – half expecting the Maker’s wrath to strike him down from the heavens even as he did so – wrapped his arms carefully around Cassandra, pulling her close and drawing his coat around the both of them. She stirred a little, but made no protest, and he felt her tense frame relax against him almost immediately, as the warmth of their shared body heat did its work. There; no different from sharing a tent with her, really. Actually, Varric felt warmer too. Considering how much she had been shivering, the Seeker didn’t feel that cold, at least not on the outside. But then, who knew how this shit worked? It was entirely possible that none of this was making the damnedest bit of difference, but it was all he could think of to do, and if nothing else it was making him feel slightly better, at least.

Well, in a way. The situation still wasn’t exactly ideal. The cave was still dark and horrible, Varric was still tired and hungry, and worried sick about the others. He was also distracted by the growing realisation that as well as being a colossal pain in the ass, Cassandra was also an attractive woman. Of course he had known that already, but suddenly it was a lot harder to ignore, because shorn of her armour, she was all warm supple curves, and parts of her that he really shouldn’t be thinking about were now pressed softly against him. Parts of himself that he was trying quite strenuously not to think about had very definite ideas on how to react to a beautiful woman curled up in his arms for the first time in more years than he cared to remember, even if the circumstances were less than ideal. Shit.

Varric hastily tried to think of something else. The pain in his leg was at least a good distraction there, and replaying a few images of the gruesome creatures that had once been templars was enough to dampen his idiotic body’s hormonal impulses. After a while his thoughts became muddled, and he felt sleep creeping up on him at last, a blankness of thought that could only come as a relief.

“Varric?”

Halfway between sleeping and waking, he might have imagined Cassandra’s voice, quiet in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t hate you either.”

Varric awoke feeling not cold, but hot, uncomfortably so. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead, the wound on his leg a vibrant pulse of pain. Well, that couldn’t be good. Cassandra was already awake – perhaps her getting up had woken him – and was exploring the cave, running her hands along the walls and looking up, as though she was debating whether it would be possible to climb out of here. Varric could have saved her the trouble, as even at a glance it was clear the rock was far too sheer to be scaled without any equipment whatsoever, fucked up leg or not. He was surprised to notice that she was still wearing his coat, and that he could see her better than he had been able to a few hours ago, as there was now a faint light streaming into the cavern from high above their heads. Daylight, weak and grey, illuminated the lines of her face as she turned to look at him when he sat up. She looked about as tired as he felt.

“There is a narrow tunnel in the far wall,” she said. “It is the only exit, so we must hope it leads outside eventually, though I cannot tell from in here whether we’ll be walking in the right direction or not.”

“Good morning to you too, Seeker,” said Varric, getting to his feet. He couldn’t bite back the grunt of pain as he put weight on his left leg, and Cassandra’s head snapped towards him.

“You are injured.”

“I’m fine,” said Varric. “It’s nothing.”

She strode over to him impatiently. “Let me see.”

“If you’re trying to get me out of the rest of my clothes, Seeker, you’re out of luck. You’ll have to be satisfied with my coat.”

“Varric.”

Varric wondered if one day Cassandra wouldn’t need to communicate with him in words at all, that she would just have to say his name in that sharp, disapproving tone of hers, and he’d be so used to it that he’d be able to extrapolate whole sentences just from those two syllables.

“There’s no point, Seeker,” he said. “It’s stopped bleeding and there’s not much else we can do now anyway, is there? Unless you have a bunch of elfroot stashed down your pants.”

Cassandra did not appreciate this attempt at levity. Without warning, she pressed a hand to his forehead; he hadn’t noticed her remove her glove, but her slender, surprisingly delicate fingers were cool against his brow for a moment before she removed them again. She frowned. “You have a fever. The wound is likely infected.”

Varric shrugged. “Once again I say, so what?”

“This is serious,” said Cassandra. “If you have the blood sickness—”

“Then we’d better get back to somewhere with healers quickly, hadn’t we?” finished Varric. Casandra looked like she wanted to argue further, but she must have realised she didn’t actually have any good response to this, so she just nodded curtly.

“The tunnel is this way,” she said. “We will need your mark.”

Varric took the glove obligingly off his left hand, and raised it to let the light shine down the opening in the cave wall, like the world’s weirdest torch. It still wasn’t exactly easy to see, especially for Cassandra’s human eyes, and they had only just approached the tunnel entrance when the Seeker tripped over something on the floor, and Varric had to catch her arm to stop her from falling. Another hiss of pain escaped his teeth as the sudden movement jarred his leg, but Cassandra didn’t notice, as she was shaking off his grasp and bending down to look at what she’d caught her foot on.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, and the amazement in her voice was so genuine that even Varric forgot his injury for a moment.

“What?” he said. “What is it?”

“It’s…Bianca.”

She stood up and turned to him, her face a picture of utter astonishment. And there, in her arms, was his crossbow. The sight was gone, two of the limbs were snapped off, and she was battered all to hell, but Varric had never been so happy to see Bianca in his life. He’d assumed she was back far above in the ruins of Haven, but she must have fallen down with them. If Cassandra hadn’t walked right into her, they’d never have known.

“Alright,” Varric said, taking his crossbow from Cassandra with something approaching reverence. “I’m convinced. Providence, like you said. Maker’s great hand at work, etc, etc.”

“You are ridiculous,” muttered Cassandra, but she was smiling, for the first time since they’d woken down here. “A broken crossbow will not help us in the least.”

“Better get her fixed up too then, hadn’t we?” said Varric. He turned Bianca over in his hands, examining her carefully, amazed that the damage wasn’t worse. “There, there, sweetheart,” he crooned. “It’s alright, I’ve got you now.”

The strap was one of the few parts of the crossbow still actually functional, so Varric swung the familiar weight over his back with a sense of profound satisfaction.

“Come on Seeker,” he said. “Let’s go find the Inquisition.”

That was easier said than done, and admittedly Varric’s newfound optimism was dampened somewhat as time wore on, and he and Cassandra made their way through what felt like miles of twisting, damp stone tunnels. The only light was the green glow from his marked hand, the only sound their laboured breathing as they scrambled over rockslides and squeezed through narrow openings. Cassandra’s guess that this was part of an old mining complex had proven true, as further along some of the tunnels were shored up with timbers, and the floor became smoother, flatter, with the faint imprints of old tracks from mining carts long since abandoned.

The one consolation was that neither of them felt the need to try and make conversation, concentrating on conserving their energy instead. At least Varric was grateful that he didn’t have to pretend with the Seeker, didn’t have to be the noble Herald of Andraste, or even play the wisecracking rogue, the guy who always had a clever quip or a funny anecdote to lighten the mood. It was relaxing, in a way, to be with someone who didn’t expect him to be of any use whatsoever, and they spoke only to decide what way to go when the path forked.

After what seemed like hours, the tunnel they were in started to widen, and there was a faint murmur from up ahead that almost sounded like the wind, blowing through the mountains, a familiar sound for anyone who had spent time in the Frostbacks. Varric squinted, wondering if he was imagining the fact that it was becoming easier to see the rocky walls ahead of them. 

“Is that daylight?” he said. “Shit, I think it is!”

“Praise the Maker,” sighed Cassandra, but her relief was spoken too soon. Even as the tunnel widened out into another large cave, where faint light was indeed coming in from a distant entrance, Varric felt the hairs on his arms stand up on end, in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Oh no,” he said. “Maker’s balls, not now…”

“What is it?” asked Cassandra, but he didn’t have to answer – at that moment, with an unholy rending sound, a rift opened up in the middle of the cavern before them, throwing the walls into bright, green relief. Another moment, and demons were spilling out into the rocky floor, chittering and howling, heads swinging around to seek out the living bodies they must have sensed nearby. The nearest, a hunched, gnarled shade with wiry arms that ended in vicious claws an inch long, turned its cowled head towards them and dove forwards with a shriek.

Varric saw Cassandra’s hand fly automatically to the hilt of the sword that she wasn’t carrying. After the briefest instant of realisation, she stepped in front of him.

“Stay behind me,” she said.

“Seeker—”

“…and get ready to run.”

Varric was barely confident in his ability to do anything of the kind now, on his agonising leg, but that was beside the point. The likelihood of him dashing for the cave entrance and leaving Cassandra alone to draw the demons away for long enough for him to escape was less than zero.

The shade was almost upon them, the other demons not far behind, their excited screeching filling the cavern, and suddenly Varric was back in the great hall at Redcliffe castle, Dorian by his side desperately trying to cast the spell to return them to the past, the appalling cacophony of the Elder One’s armies outside.

“We will hold the main door for as long as we can.”

Varric remembered the way Cassandra had not even turned to look at him, as she and Vivienne had walked out, the doors slamming closed behind them, Leliana taking up position with her bow. He remembered the sounds of battle outside, muffled by the heavy wood, but not muffled enough. Dorian swearing in Tevene next to him, pleading desperately with the Maker as he cast his spell. Varric remembered the door bursting open, the sound the Seeker’s lifeless body had made as it hit the floor, tossed aside like garbage as he and Dorian fled back to a time where there was still hope.

And that sacrifice had meant nothing, because now he would die here anyway. He was going to die, and the last thing he would see was the Seeker, ridiculous in his oversized coat flapping around her arms, facing a horde of demons with nothing more than her fists. He was going to have to watch her get torn apart again, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

And suddenly Varric didn’t feel afraid, he just felt…angry. Angrier than he’d ever felt in his life. Cassandra Pentaghast, the Hero of Orlais, didn’t get to die down here in the dark, with no-one to see, futilely trying to defend the life of someone she barely tolerated. It was a shit ending for her. For anyone. Varric wouldn’t be party to it. What the hell was the Maker thinking, doing this to her? Was this the kind of shitty loyalty the bastard showed to someone who had lived her whole life in his name? Where was the justice? What was the point?

Desperation rose within Varric like a scream caught in his throat, a primal, silent howl of rage at the sheer unfairness of it all. He felt it like a physical force, burning through his veins, all the fear and anger and despair he’d been holding in since the Conclave, since before the Conclave, suddenly coalescing into a pure, white-hot energy that his body barely felt big enough to contain. On some compulsion Varric couldn’t even begin to understand, as the demons fell upon them, he thrust his marked hand into the air and…

Released it.

There was a sound like an explosion underwater, a muffled boom that shook the walls of the cavern. The rift itself seemed to scream, heaving, fluctuating wildly, and then…it was as if it turned inwards on itself, not just closing but sucking in like a whirlpool. The demons were drawn back from whence they came, yanked upwards into the air like puppets on invisible strings, clawing and wailing as their bodies dissolved to ash. All of them, from the wispiest shade to the tall grotesquery of a terror demon, were plucked from the cavern as though the Maker’s great hand had reached down and scooped them up.

No, not the Maker’s hand. His hand.

With a final effort of will, Varric poured the energy from the blazing mark into the rift, and it finally imploded, winking out of existence with a sound not unlike a gasp of shock. The demons were gone. The cavern was empty, silent but for the howling of the wind outside, and Cassandra’s ragged breathing.

Varric lowered his hand, staggered, and collapsed to the floor, panting. Cassandra was by his side in an instant, crouching down, her eyes wide, face white with shock.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice filled with something almost like awe.

“Don’t know,” Varric said faintly. “Don’t ask me to do it again anytime soon please.” He felt wrung out, limp as a dishrag. His mark was no longer glowing, as if it too were exhausted.

“We should keep moving,” said Cassandra, ever the pragmatist, never shaken for long. “The cave entrance is only just ahead. Can you stand?”

Varric could stand, and he could even walk, just about, although it was really more of a shuffle, and he felt strangely like he’d left his head behind him on the ground. His thoughts were hazy and vague, and the sensations of his body – the pain in his leg, the cold, even Cassandra’s arm around him – felt as though they were happening to somebody else. The journey to the mouth of the cave felt endless, but when they reached it there was no respite to be found. Outside was a wall of white, a howling blizzard of snow. It was barely possibly to see a few yards ahead.

They stepped out into it. There was nothing else they could do.

It was awful, immediately. The snow was so deep that every step was like wading through a mire, and the wind so cold it stung. Varric squinted ahead, but he could only just make out the scribbled outline of a few trees in the distance, no signs of life. They had no destination in mind, no direction but onwards, and so onwards they went, grimly ploughing forward side by side.

“You always take me to the nicest places, Seeker,” Varric mumbled, as they trudged.

He hadn’t expected a response, but to his surprise, Cassandra said: “Very well, next time you may choose the destination.”

Things must be bad if she was indulging his grumbling. “Somewhere warm,” Varric said vaguely. “Hot, even. Somewhere it never snows.”

“I hear Antiva is lovely,” said Cassandra. “Though I have never been.”

“Good wine,” said Varric, game to keep up the pretence of casual chit-chat. “Terrible beer. Don’t go on Satinalia, it’s impossible to get a room for the night.”

“I heard it was traditional on such occasions to find someone else’s room for the night.”

“Why Seeker, I’m shocked. You’ll make me blush.”

“Josephine speaks highly of the food,” said Cassandra.

“Mm, there’s this little pastry thing they make with apples…”

They talked like that for a time, of meaningless nothings, just to distract from the relentless cold. But as the hours wore on even that became impossible, more effort than either of them could spare, and they lapsed into silence. There was no end to the mountains, no respite from the ceaseless, biting wind. Varric focused on putting one foot in front of the other, now his only task. Every step threatened to be the last he could manage, and yet every step was somehow followed by another. And another. Step after aching step, mile after mile they walked, blinded by snow, battered by the wind. Varric lost all sense of time. His thoughts grew muddled. For a while he thought his old friends from Kirkwall were walking beside him; Hawke, Aveline, Merrill…even Anders, but Anders as Varric had first met him years ago, that intensity of gaze, the lopsided grin.

“Saved the mage rebellion, Varric?” His voice was familiar, but came from far away, a distance much further than years. It echoed in Varric’s mind like a memory he’d never had. “Always knew you had it in you.”

“Didn’t do it for you, Blondie.”

“But you did it because of me, partly. You always listened, when I talked about the Circles, didn’t you? Didn’t always agree with me, but you always listened.”

The vision faded, and was replaced by Bartrand, his brother now stumping alongside him, sometimes swearing and grumbling under his breath, sometimes raving, wild-eyed at things only he could see. The irony would have made Varric laugh, if he’d had the wits for it. Maybe he and Bartrand were more alike than he’d ever thought.

One foot in front of the other. Every step a colossal effort. Varric’s injured leg had grown numb. The wind howled, and Bartrand became their father – not much change there, just a few more grey hairs, a thicker beard, that gravelly voice of disapproval they’d always shared.

“Forgetting your heritage, your family…casting aside the history of your people…my own son…I could weep with shame. Maker’s chosen, are you now? That’s what comes of going off gallivanting with humans. Might as well put on the robes of a Chantry Sister, boy, they’ll suit you better than dwarven armour ever would…”

Varric stumbled, and his mother’s voice joined the ranks, words slurred with drink, crawling out of the recesses of his memory. “Where is Bartrand? Where is my son?”

“I’m your son. It’s Varric, remember?”

“No…I want…I want my son. I don’t know you. Who the fuck are you?”

“Don’t do that…you’ll hurt yourself…”

“Get out of my house! I want my son!”

One foot in front of the other. Every breath a knife in his chest. Bianca beside him now, eyes dancing, her lips curved in that smile that always made him crazy.

“Herald of Andraste?” She laughed a rich, warm laugh, with an edge of mockery. “Come on, Varric. What’s this? Some new con?”

The phantom brush of her lips on his cheek, lighter than a flake of snow.

“Let’s just forget all this. Forget your brother, forget your parents, forget what anyone says. You and me, Varric. We can make it.”

“We can’t. We tried.”

“We’ll run away, get married, tonight. We just need each other. I’ll meet you there.”

“You won’t…Bianca…don’t go…”

“I’ll see you soon. I love you, Varric. Nothing matters more than that.”

“Bianca—!”

“I have her.” Cassandra’s voice beside him, misunderstanding the word he had spoken aloud without realising, cutting through his fevered vision. “Do not worry.”

Clinging to the brief moment of clarity, Varric glanced sideways and saw that the Seeker did indeed have his crossbow cradled in the crook of one arm. The other was around his back, supporting him as they walked. She was no longer wearing his coat – it was back on his shoulders, though he couldn’t have said when that had happened. Cassandra’s face was white and pinched with cold. Her eyelashes had frost on them.

“Seeker…” His voice was hardly more than a rasp.

“It will not be much further,” said Cassandra, not looking at him.

But perhaps she too was only a vision. Perhaps she too had left him, as everyone always did, back at Haven, and it was only his fevered, dying mind that had conjured a protector to drag him through the snow. Perhaps he was dead already, and this endless march was what came next, a purgatory of cold, his sins made manifest, walking alongside him.

One foot in front of the other. Step after step, mile after mile. He didn’t feel cold anymore, or hot, or anything at all. He felt light as a feather, drifting, and the world around him was white, and his vision was white, and then even that thought was slipping away, as Varric’s legs collapsed beneath him and he lost what little consciousness he’d had.

Chapter Text

Varric ached all over, which was how he knew he was probably going to live. His awareness came slowly enough, in fits and starts, that he didn’t really have any time to feel surprised at being with the Inquisition again. He didn’t think he’d been conscious when Cassandra had found them, but by the time Varric fully understood where he was, lying on a makeshift bed under canvas in the camp of huddled refugees from Haven somewhere in the Frostbacks, alongside the other wounded, the realisation didn’t feel unexpected, as if it were something that had been explained to him already, in a less lucid moment.

Around him, the camp did not so much bustle with activity as lurch wearily with it, people trudging to and fro with supplies, clustered in small groups around fires. Night had fallen again – a full day had passed since the attack on Haven. Most people seemed stunned into an exhausted stupor; the mages, Varric noticed, seemed to be those most effectively rallying round to try and help improve their situation. Perhaps after the rebellion, the experience of violently losing everything they’d ever known and being cast out into the wilderness to survive wasn’t a new experience for them. Those skilled in healing were flitting between the injured, doing what they could with what few supplies they had. Others were keeping fires going, kindling wood that would have taken hours to accept a spark from a flint with a wave of their hands. Around the edges of the makeshift camp, a team that seemed to be headed by Vivienne were raising their staves in a complicated accord and drawing up huge barricades of packed snow to keep out the wind.

Varric watched this through eyes barely open to slits, lying still on his bed. The energy even to move seemed a distant impossibility.

“How is he?”

Cassandra’s voice, close by. Mother Giselle was the one who replied, her softly accented tones as placid as ever, in spite of the situation.

“Healing well. The potion has done its work, and his fever has broken. The wound was not deep. All he needs now is rest.”

“And the mark?”

“I cannot say. Such things are beyond even our mages to tell.”

Varric shifted uncomfortably, raising his hand to examine the mark himself. It didn’t look any different from before, so hopefully whatever he’d done with it back in the caves wouldn’t stop it working altogether. His movement alerted the two women nearby, and Cassandra came over to him as Varric sat up with some effort, bowing to the inevitability of her attention.

“You are awake,” she said, with her usual talent for stating the obvious.

Varric had been pretending to sleep, in fact, for a while now. Lying here, eyes closed against the grim reality around him, listening to the howling wind, the moans of the dying, the muffled sobs of the survivors, and the endless, circular argument of the Inquisition’s leadership.

Cullen, Josephine and Leliana’s voices were audible even some distance away, a constant backdrop rising and falling across the low murmur of the rest of the camp. Varric had caught a few phrases, and none of them boded well. ‘Nowhere to go’ had been one. ‘Who put you in charge?’ had been another. ‘This isn’t what anyone signed up for’ had been a particularly incisive one, Varric thought bitterly.

What now? was the only real question, and it was one that Varric didn’t have a better answer to than anybody else. He had the horrible idea that it was a question people would be eager to start asking him very soon, nonetheless.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to have gone out in a blaze of glory, like Dorian had said. The Herald of Andraste’s last, heroic stand to save the people of Haven. No matter that he’d felt more scared shitless than heroic; there had at least been a kind of clarity to that moment. Varric had known what role he was needed to play. Now…he felt like an actor without a script. Standing on a stage with a vast audience before him, reaching for words that wouldn’t come. The terrible, immense possibility of a blank page of parchment, knowing that the world was leaning over his shoulder to see what he wrote.

But Varric was a guy fresh out of ideas. He was exhausted, he’d been making all of this up as he went along and now he had finally run out of rope. He couldn’t face the thought of getting up and walking through the camp, seeing all those expectant faces turn to him.

Cassandra’s expectant face was bad enough. “How are you feeling?” she asked. It was the first time she had ever asked him anything of the kind, and the lie came automatically to his lips.

“Fine,” he said. “You?”

She too looked surprised that he’d bothered to ask, which Varric found vaguely insulting. “I am as well as can be expected,” she answered. “Now that you are awake, you should join the rest of us to—”

“To what?” asked Varric, not letting her finish. “To find another way to say that we’re totally screwed?”

“All is not lost,” said Cassandra stubbornly. “The bulk of our people survive. We still have the mark…”

“Yeah,” said Varric, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “You still have the mark. The mark isn’t going anywhere.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Her voice was quiet, and he felt annoyed, inexplicably, at her apparently genuine remorse.

“I closed the Breach,” he said. “What more do you want from me?”

“We are trying to consider the Inquisition’s options. You should be a part of that discussion.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard your discussion,” said Varric. “Heard it from all the way over here. No thanks.”

Cassandra frowned. “You cannot simply—”

“I’m tired, Seeker.”

To his surprise, she hesitated, and her expression softened slightly. “Rest, then,” she said, and turned away without further argument, leaving him feeling oddly bereft, as if he’d been robbed of something.

Mother Giselle, who had been standing nearby, busying herself with bandages in a way that meant she had absolutely been listening in to the entire conversation, walked over to Varric and wordlessly passed him a cup of some hot drink. He took it, grateful for the steam rising from the top, the warmth of it through his hands. The first sip scalded his tongue, but he didn’t care. Mother Giselle did not say anything as she sat back down by his bedside, but she had a way of not saying anything so loudly that it was difficult to ignore.

“You know, for someone who doesn’t even carry a sword, your disapproving looks are almost as unnerving as Cassandra’s,” Varric remarked.

“When you collapsed in the snow,” said Mother Giselle, “she carried you the rest of the way down the mountain back to us. It was no easy task.”

“How romantic,” said Varric sourly. “I never thought I’d be so grateful to be unconscious.”

Mother Giselle gave one of her enigmatic smiles. “You do not like the thought of others helping you,” she said. “And yet from what I have seen...could you honestly tell me you would not do the same for any of them?”

“I doubt I could carry the Seeker anywhere.”

“I think you would try nonetheless, if you had to.”

Varric couldn’t really think of anything to say to that. He took another gulp from his cup. It was a kind of broth, he realised, rather than a drink, presumably the best way the Inquisition could stretch out its meagre supplies. It tasted like thin, salty water that had once perhaps had a glancing acquaintance with a few vegetables. A few more days in the mountains and they’d probably be dreaming fondly of this stuff when their food ran out.

“What happened at Haven wasn’t your fault,” said Mother Giselle softly.

“Oh, the Seeker will find a way to blame me anyway, don’t worry about that,” said Varric. “She always does.” It came out sounding a lot more bitter than he’d intended.

“She did not seem eager to blame you just now,” said Mother Giselle, with what Varric considered to be unreasonable fairness. He sighed, and then winced at how it made his ribs hurt.

“It’s just…I don’t know, I almost believed in it all for a while there,” he said, looking down into his half empty cup of broth rather than at her. “The Inquisition. That we were building something worthwhile.”

“And you resent Lady Cassandra for giving you that hope, now that you feel it has been lost?”

“Well, when you put it like that it sounds petty,” muttered Varric.

“She believed in you,” said Mother Giselle. “And now you feel you have let her down, along with the rest of them. Anger is easier than guilt. It is something I know well.”

“I think I preferred being asleep,” said Varric.

“It is hard, having the burden of so many hopes on your shoulders,” said Mother Giselle gently. “I think that is something Seeker Cassandra knows well too.”

Varric finished his broth in one long gulp, and set the cup down. “Yeah, well you’d have to search very hard to find any hope left in anyone now,” he said.

“You think so?” said Mother Giselle.

To his surprise, the revered mother opened her mouth and started to sing.

“Shadows fall

And hope has fled

Steel your heart

The dawn will come…”

For a moment Varric was embarrassed for her, as heads started to turn towards the sound. But then Leliana began to sing too, and the murmur of conversation in the camp fell silent as the two voices rose into the night, singing of courage, of hope in the darkness. One by one, more people started to join in, the words of the familiar hymn coming to their lips. Varric saw Cullen’s lips moving, and Josephine’s too, as the song swept through the camp. His eyes sought out Cassandra in the crowd, and he saw that she was singing too, a sight he never thought he would see in his lifetime.

“Bare your blade

And raise it high

Stand your ground

The dawn will come…”

People were standing, their faces lighting up, Inquisition scouts and mages and villagers alike, old women and children, Chantry sisters and weary soldiers, even some of the terribly injured, propping themselves up in their beds and croaking along with thin, determined voices. All the camp seemed to be singing now, the sound echoing defiantly off the mountains, and Leliana’s voice, soaring above the rest like a swallow in spring as the chorus of voices grew, gathering like an avalanche, swelling with fervour.

“The night is long

And the path is dark

Look to the sky

For one day soon

The dawn will come.”

The final line of the song, ringing from hundreds of throats, felt as powerful as the release of energy from Varric’s mark in the caves had been. But instead of being deflated afterwards, the people around him were smiling, clapping each other on the back.

“Faith is made stronger by facing doubt,” said Mother Giselle, beside him. “Untested, it is nothing.”

She walked away, leaving Varric open mouthed. Looking around the camp now, he felt suddenly…ashamed. What business did he have giving up, when no-one else had? Was he really gonna lie around bitching about how hard everything was, when he was alive, and so many weren’t? Some Herald of Andraste he was.

The Inquisition was scared, lost. They needed a direction, and Varric wracked his brain for any ideas. Redcliffe, never far from his thoughts, sparked one possibility; King Alistair owed the Inquisition for ousting Magister Alexius from Redcliffe castle, and he’d also been sympathetic to the mage rebellion, to a point. Perhaps the Inquisition could seek sanctuary in Ferelden, use Andraste’s name to throw themselves on the King’s mercy. After all, the guy had been a Grey Warden, once – still was, in every way that mattered – and if Corypheus truly had an archdemon at his command, he of all people understood what that meant. It was a slim chance, but it was something. And the Wardens had treaties to call upon allies in a Blight, didn’t they? Blackwall had even suggested they use them…

But getting help from the Wardens meant finding the Wardens, which so far all the Inquisition’s resources combined hadn’t been able to do. That, unfortunately, left Varric only one option, and it was one he had been really trying hard to avoid. He didn’t know where the Wardens had gone any more than anyone else, but he did know someone who almost certainly had an idea.

It was almost a relief as Varric realised that he had already made the choice even as he thought about it. He’d been playing Wicked Grace with the Inquisition for too long, keeping his cards close to his chest, waiting to see how things shook out. Maybe it was time to finally lay everything on the table. To go all in.

“Varric. A word?”

The voice almost made him jump – Solas had appeared beside him, footsteps soft as ever. Varric nodded, and followed the elf away from camp, ignoring the curious gazes that followed them.

“A wise woman, Mother Giselle, worth heeding,” Solas remarked, as they walked. “Her kind understand the moments that can unify a cause.”

“Decent repertoire too,” said Varric. “If it were up to me, it would have been a few verses of The Ballad of Nuggins.”

Solas gave one of his faint almost-smiles, more a recognition of a joke having been made than actual amusement, as he led Varric up a nearby ridge, where someone had stuck a brazier into the snow. The fire had faded, but when they approached, Solas waved his hand and veilfire sprung into its place, throwing cool blue light across his face, deeply shadowing his eyes.

“I didn’t see you at Haven,” said Varric. “I’m glad you’re still with us, Chuckles.”

“I think I speak for everyone when I say that the feeling is mutual,” said Solas. “Your actions at Haven saved many lives, and have earned you a great deal of respect; one might describe it as devotion. Even those that do not believe in the Maker, believe in you.”

There was a tone in his voice that Varric couldn’t exactly parse, something between admiration and distaste. He didn’t have to think of a response to this extraordinary statement though, because Solas continued:

“Faith is a dangerous tool to wield, however, and a cause can be fractured as easily as it may be built.” He hesitated for only a moment. “The orb Corypheus carried, the power he used against you; it is elven.”

“You’re sure?” said Varric.

“I have seen such things before. Yes, I am sure. Corypheus used the orb to open the Breach, Unlocking it must have caused the explosion that destroyed the Conclave.”

A lot of questions crowded into Varric’s mind, but somehow the first that escaped his mouth was: “Why are you telling me this, and not Cassandra?”

“I have great respect for Cassandra,” said Solas carefully, “But, like it or not, she was part of the Chantry. And she’s a human. Neither group has ever balked at an excuse to make elves a scapegoat in times of hardship. You yourself have experienced first-hand how easily an outsider can become a subject of blame. Besides which, you are the Herald of Andraste, not Cassandra.” He held up a hand with a small smile to forestall Varric’s inevitable protest. “—whether you accept the title or not, the people of the Inquisition look to you. I’ll admit, it’s a power I would rather see in your hands than Cassandra’s, or Cullen’s. Do you think either of them would ever have allied with the mages, without your insistence?”

Varric’s silence was clearly answer enough.

“For better or worse, you have found yourself at the centre of these events,” said Solas. “People look to you for guidance. You can continue to fight it, but you cannot deny it. Mother Giselle sees it, and so do I.”

“I don’t see that it matters now,” said Varric. “I can’t guide these people anywhere, even if I wanted to. We’ve got nowhere to go.”

Solas was silent for a long moment, looking out over the mountains. Standing beside him, Varric suddenly remembered their conversation on a clifftop in the Hinterlands, what felt like a lifetime ago. Perhaps I am an optimist too.

Solas turned back to him. There was a strange look in his eyes, half resigned, half determined, as if he had made a decision about something.

“I may be able to help with that,” he said.

Some weeks later, and Varric was storming through the echoing, tumbledown hall of Skyhold Keep. He wasn’t particularly good at storming, not having had much practice, but if there was ever a time for storming somewhere it was now, and he was damn well going to give it his all.

He was furious.

He didn’t have much practice at that either. Varric had a pretty long fuse, all things considered. His brother Bartrand had always been the hot tempered one, ready to snap and take offence at the slightest remark, to swing a fist into the face of anyone who defied him. Varric had gained a reputation for being very difficult to make angry, simply because next to Bartrand anyone would look mellow by comparison. Besides, he had found anger didn’t usually help much. Varric didn’t like to lose control.

The keep was mostly empty, as pretty much the entire Inquisition was still out in the castle courtyard, where he had just come from. He could hear them out there in the distance, the sound of the exultant crowd. So there was no-one around to look askance at a fuming dwarf stomping along the length of the recently cleared hall, ducking under scaffolding, and being followed by four humans who were all trying to talk to him at once, without much success.

Varric ignored them. Without saying a word, he flung open the wooden door that led through the office that Josephine had set up in, down a short corridor, and into the War Room. It was one of the most intact rooms of the castle, lacking the leaking roof and crumbling walls that so much of Skyhold had boasted since they’d arrived. Even the windows were still intact, shafts of afternoon sunlight falling onto the stone floor and over the huge table that dominated the room. Carved from a vast felled tree, it was covered in a gigantic map and studded with markers and scribbled notes, littered with parchment, books and reports. But Varric ignored the table too, simply standing there waiting until Josephine, Cullen, Leliana and Cassandra were all inside and the huge oak doors closed behind them, sealing them safely away from the ears of the rest of the castle. Then he spun around to face them.

“What, in the name of every single sodding ancestor I have, was that?” he demanded. “What were you all thinking?”

“You’re upset,” said Josephine. “It’s understandable, but—”

“You bet I’m upset! Inquisitor? Seriously? Why not just shove a big gold crown on my head and call me king of the nugs! It’d be less ridiculous!”

“And yet you accepted the title,” said Leliana.

“Because you sprang it on me in front of a crowd!” protested Varric. “What was I supposed to do? Turn round and say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to a bunch of cheering people? Give a big speech about how I’m not the right guy for the job? Yeah, that would have been really inspiring to those poor sods, after losing everything in Haven.”

“You really believe that?” asked Leliana, with infuriating calm. “That you are not the right person for the job?”

“You know me, Nightingale,” said Varric, tempering his voice to something slightly less hysterical, trying to appeal to reason. “I’m not a leader, any more than I’m a chosen one.”

“You don’t have to shout at people and think you’re right all the time in order to be a good leader,” said Cullen. “In fact, those qualities usually indicate a bad one.”

“Nor do you require high birth, or titles,” said Josephine, who looked relieved that Varric had calmed down a little. “Many have risen to prominence from humble beginnings, and been the better for it.”

“In the end,” said Leliana, with a wry smile, “all you need in order to be a leader is to have people following you. And they do.”

There didn’t seem to be much else to add to that, and the three of them, so often at odds, were all looking down at him with expressions that did not look likely to be persuaded. As a last desperate resort, Varric turned to Cassandra.

“Seeker, surely you don’t honestly think this is going to end well?”

Cassandra frowned. “Leliana is right. Regardless of my feelings on the matter, the people see you as a symbol of hope. You are the Herald of Andraste. You closed the Breach, and saved their lives. They trust your judgement, and they believe you are the one to lead them to peace. They would not have rallied behind anyone else.”

“But—”

“Like it or not, it is done,” she snapped. “Try to be magnanimous about it, at least.”

Varric glowered, and Josephine stepped forward with a nervous smile, ready as ever to smooth things over. “We’ll support you every step of the way of course,” she said. “You will not be alone in rebuilding the Inquisition into a power to be reckoned with.”

Varric opened his mouth to protest that he had never once in his life wanted to be a power to be reckoned with, but closed it again without speaking. What would be the point? He was smart enough to see when the tides of history were dragging him along with them. All he could do was try and grab for anything to hold onto as he was swept away.

“It was a good speech you made out in the courtyard,” said Cullen, almost kindly. “Whatever else you think you might lack, you know how to work a crowd. That’s not nothing. The future of the Inquisition is in your hands, but you can leave the day-to-day logistics to the rest of us.”

“You will give us direction, Inquisitor,” said Josephine. “As you have been doing all along. We will not ask the impossible of you, only that you continue to be as good a guide to us as you have been since the Conclave.”

“Perhaps you might think of it as writing the story of the Inquisition,” said Leliana.

“Alright, alright,” said Varric, a touch petulantly. “I get it. I just wish you’d given me some warning.”

There was a palpable sigh of relief from the room at large even at this grudging acceptance.

“We do have one advantage, going forward,” said Leliana. “We know what Corypheus intends to do next. In that strange future you saw at Redcliffe, Empress Celene had been assassinated.”

“Image the chaos her death would cause,” said Josephine. “Without the strength of Orlais, the south would be easily conquered by anyone, god or no god.”

“I’m more worried about this ‘demon army’ that Corypheus apparently had at his command,” said Cullen. “If that sort of thing was easy to come by, we’d all be in a lot more trouble. Demons aren’t known for obeying orders. We need to find out how he managed it.”

“We need more information,” said Leliana.

“We need more allies,” said Josephine.

“We certainly need to get that huge hole in the wall out there fixed,” said Cullen wryly.

“We all stand ready to move on your order, Inquisitor,” said Josephine. “But such plans need not be made today. I suggest we all return to our work, and you join me in my office for tea. I can fill you in on what you need to know about the current political situation in Orlais, so that you are well informed to make a decision about how best to proceed.”

“Yeah, I’ll uh…I’ll be right with you,” said Varric. “I just need a moment.”

He was a little embarrassed, in truth, at having exposed more of his feelings than he usually liked to, and it was a relief when the others – his advisors, he supposed they were now – filed obediently out of the War Room, apparently satisfied at having won the day. Varric turned to examine the map on the table closely, not really seeing it, more to give himself something to do while they left than anything.

“Varric.” He turned and was surprised to see Cassandra hovering in the doorway, looking rather hesitant. “I...I said earlier that this decision was made regardless of my personal feelings,” she said. “That is true, but...well, I don’t want you to take that as a condemnation. For what it’s worth, I do not believe that this was a mistake. We may have had our differences in the past, but what you have already achieved is remarkable, and I...” She finally met his eyes properly and Varric could recognise the look of someone steeling themselves to say something they really didn’t want to.

“I was wrong about you,” Cassandra said. “When I came to Kirkwall I was frightened and angry at what was happening, and I let that cloud my judgement. I treated you badly and I am sorry for it, truly. I hope that we might put it behind us, and that you believe me when I say…well, that whatever you do next, you have my full support, Inquisitor.”

And she left, leaving Varric staring after her, wondering if his jaw was actually on the floor or if it just felt that way. If the Seeker had disrobed in front of him he couldn’t have been more shocked. Whatever he did, he had her support? Maker’s breath, she was going to regret saying that when she realised exactly what it was he planned to do now, what he had already done...

But Varric had made that choice even before he’d become the Inquisitor. The raven had flown, the message had been sent. He couldn’t call it back now even if he wanted to.

Varric walked over to one of the tall windows in the curved wall of the room, and leant his head against the cool surface. Through the little diamonds of thick leaded glass, he could see the outer walls of Skyhold, and the Frostback mountains beyond. Unlike Haven, where they had been nestled in a valley with snowy peaks looming on every side, here they seemed to be at the very top of everything, the whole world spread out at their feet.

Skyhold castle was a miracle by almost anyone’s standards – a defensible fortress in the mountains straddling Ferelden and Orlais, vast enough to habour the Inquisition’s forces easily, and sturdy enough to withstand any attack. Empty and waiting for them, as if it had been placed there by the Maker himself. Though technically it was Solas who had led them here, he had waved off any thanks for this remarkable piece of good fortune. “I stumbled across Skyhold many years ago during my travels,” he’d said. “I can certainly take no credit for its existence.” The place had been abandoned for decades at least, but work had started almost the day the Inquisition had arrived on clearing out the debris and shoring up the walls, making the place fit for habitation again. Even those who had been injured in the attack on Haven seemed to want to play their part in fixing up their new home; yesterday Varric had seen a guy with one leg hobbling around the inner courtyard garden on a crutch, whistling cheerfully as he planted herbs under Mother Giselle’s direction. Everywhere you went, people would pass by carrying tools, or planks of wood, or wheelbarrows, and the sound of hammering and sawing was a constant backdrop. The Inquisition’s banners streamed from the tallest towers, and soldiers proudly patrolled the battlements. There was already a tavern, though no-one had yet decided on a name for it.

Skyhold castle was the answer to every prayer. And it was…his, Varric realised suddenly. The Inquisition had claimed the place as their own, and he was now the Inquisitor. This was his castle, every stone and soldier. Andraste’s holy knickers, that was certainly…something. He’d decided to go all-in on the Inquitision, sure, to see this thing through to whatever end, but he hadn’t imagined they’d make him their leader. But if Varric looked at it from an outside perspective, he couldn’t really blame the others for it – any organisation like this needed a figurehead, and he was the obvious choice. The Herald of Andraste, who’d survived the Conclave, closed the Breach and miraculously escaped the attack on Haven, leading his followers to a new home. Never mind that the mages had really been the ones to close the Breach, that Cassandra, Blackwall and Dorian too had been willing to give their lives for Haven, that Solas had been the one to find Skyhold.

People liked to have a hero. They needed to have a hero. What right did Varric have to take that away from them?

He sighed heavily, allowing himself the luxury now that no-one was around to see. Writing the story of the Inquisition, huh? Nightingale herself certainly knew how to spin something to make it sound more appealing. Well, Varric had gotten pretty sick of the feeling that his whole life lately was trying to dodge all the bullshit that was constantly thrown his way, as if he were on some out-of-control carriage ride careening on the way to Maker knew what ultimate destination. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be handed control of the reins for once.

So what first on the agenda for Inquisitor Tethras? It was Cassandra’s voice that came to him, though she had long since left the room: We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or without your approval.

Varric couldn’t help but be unreasonably cheered at the thought that the Inquisition had actually already achieved the first two out of these three goals. Restoring order would be no easy task, but living in Kirkwall all his life had given Varric a pretty good object lesson in how quickly things could spiral into chaos if you let them. And how such disasters might be headed off too, if you knew how. A word in the right ear, a coin in the right pocket, a knife in the right ventricle…

You couldn’t just march out and restore order at the point of a sword – that was what people like Knight Commander Merideth had never understood. Order had to come from the ground up, from people having full bellies and a roof over their heads and a feeling that their voices were heard. Good intentions and believing you had the Maker on your side wasn’t enough. The future was something you had to build with your own hands, laboriously, stone by stone, if you wanted it to last. And it was all too easy to sit back and let other people build the future for you, until the moment you realised too late that it wasn’t at all what you’d wanted.

The spectre of Redcliffe castle rose in his mind, and Varric pushed it firmly down. If he wanted to banish that waking nightmare from his thoughts for good, it would take more than just closing the Breach. He needed to make sure that future would never happen, could never happen. No demon army, no damned red lyrium, no Elder One. If the Inquisition needed a direction, that was it. Varric would do whatever it took to make sure none of it ever happened.

Allowing himself one more sigh for good measure, Inquisitor Varric Tethras pulled himself away from the window, left the War Room and went to speak with Josephine.

He had work to do.

If anyone had asked him outright, Varric would have confidently said that his favourite part of Skyhold was the tavern. This was because lying came as easily as breathing to him, and he was so used to keeping up his carefully maintained reputation that sometimes he hardly had to think about it at all. The Herald’s Rest – they’d finally come up with a name, if an uncreative one – genuinely was a well-provisioned and convivial place for a drink and a game of cards at the end of a long day, but Varric’s days of people-watching from a secluded corner while he scribbled happily on parchment were long gone. The new Inquisitor was not exactly a person who easily passed unnoticed.

In truth, Varric’s favourite place in Skyhold right now was the Undercroft.

It was ironic, really; Varric usually wasn’t much of a fan of being underground. But though the Undercroft was in the bowels of the castle, under a heavy stone ceiling dripping with stalactites, it was also open to the outside on one end, daylight streaming through the ever-present roar of the waterfall outside. It was cool and cavernous and…quiet. That was what Varric liked about it, really. He wasn’t usually much one for quiet either, preferring to be part of a bustling crowd. But the past few weeks at Skyhold had been an endless parade of meetings, plans and negotiations, both practical – How would the Inquisition ensure the safety of trade caravans into Skyhold? Do we prioritise the acquisition of building supplies or lyrium and spell components? Siege defences or food? – and more philosophical – What was the Inquisitor’s official stance on the future of the Circles of Magi? Would releasing the news of Corypheus’ identity as a Darkspawn Magister help to unify Thedas against him, or cause more chaos? – that had given Varric a rare craving for solitude.

Master Harritt the smith was the only one who could generally be found in the Undercroft, and he was easy company, knowledgeable about his craft, but a man of few words, not unlike Warden Blackwall in that way. He had a gruff, matter-of-fact Ferelden manner to him, and was comfortable enough around the Herald of Andraste now that he didn’t feel the need to be anything more than respectfully polite, and let Varric get on with whatever he wanted to do.

Bianca had taken some time to fix, and Varric would let no-one else touch her, so he was obliged to make the repairs himself. He also had a few other projects he was working on, the kind to give a rogue an edge in battle. If he was going up against Corypheus again, he wanted to have a few more tricks up his sleeve next time. Besides, one irritatingly dwarven cliché Varric found himself embodying was that he liked working with his hands. There was a soothing satisfaction to be had in it, in little interlocking parts and mechanisms, in trying things out in tiny variations until you found what worked. It ordered the mind, helped him to think; he’d come up with some of his best story ideas while making little pitch grenades or spike traps.

He was working late one night, leaning over a workbench with his sleeves rolled to the elbows and tiny mechanisms spread out on a roll of velvet before him, when he became aware he wasn’t alone. That in of itself wasn’t unusual, as people did come in and out of the Undercroft from time to time, to ask Harritt for some work done, or even looking for Varric himself. But it was late enough that most people were now abed, Harritt included, and whoever had just entered through the door had done it in a way that had made almost no noise whatsoever, quite a difficult feat. They didn’t want him to have noticed their presence.

That left two options, a thief or an assassin, and no thief worth their salt would bother creeping around when they could simply have waited a couple of hours for him to leave and had the run of the place.

Varric kept working. He hummed a few bars of Sera Was Never under his breath, a tavern song that had been really stuck in his head recently. Whoever was sneaking up behind him was obviously good, as Varric had excellent hearing, and the only sound they were making was well muffled by the waterfall. That meant there was little point in turning around, as he wouldn’t know what direction the attack would come from, but at least this person didn’t intend to kill him right away – they could have done that with a well-aimed knife in his back as soon as they were inside. Interesting. He was musing on what this might mean, when he was suddenly seized from behind, the blade of a dagger held against his throat. Varric went very still.

“Crossbow not to hand, eh?” growled a voice. “You’re getting slack, Tethras.”

“Am I?”

Varric dropped the grenade he’d palmed from his pocket; there was a bright white flash of light that he only saw through his closed eyelids, and an acrid puff of smoke. His attacker got the full blast of both and flinched, the dagger pulling away from his throat just enough for Varric to be able to drop from their grasp. He rolled when he hit the floor and sprang to his feet, only opening his eyes then, to see his would-be assassin still blinking stupidly, trying to see past the light of the flashbang that was good for blinding pretty much anyone not fast enough to close their eyes for a good few seconds.

Seconds was all it took, in a battle, but Varric didn’t press the advantage, because he recognised the woman standing in front of him, who was now sliding her knife back into its hilt on her back with a movement so familiar she could obviously do it even without being able to see.

Varric sighed. It seemed he had forgotten the possible option three: a mad idiot.

“Seriously?” he said, folding his arms. “I could have killed you, you know.”

“Ah you wouldn’t,” said the woman. “Not without seeing who it was first. One of these days that curiosity is gonna get you killed, Varric.” Finally able to focus on him properly, she grinned, and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, a wide, wicked grin below dark, tousled hair and a pair of dazzlingly blue eyes that had charmed more people than Varric could count. It was a grin that promised trouble, and plenty of it.

The next moment he was enveloped in a bone-crushing hug, several extremely pointy bits of armour sticking into him.

“It’s good to see you, you absolute lunatic dwarf. Maker’s breath, I leave you alone for five minutes and suddenly you’re a religious icon!”

“It’s good to see you too, Hawke.”

Chapter Text

Cassandra wasn’t speaking to him. Not in a petty, childish way, ignoring Varric while he was present; that would at least have been vaguely funny. No, instead she simply...arranged things so that they were never in the same place at the same time. When he was out at the archery range, she always seemed to be inside in a meeting. While he ate breakfast late at the long table in the main hall, she ate early and was long gone before he arrived. Messages to him seemed to end up being passed through other people.

She was furious. That was nothing new; looking back, Varric could hardly remember a time when the Seeker hadn’t been angry with him, to a greater or lesser extent. But this was different. This was personal. Cassandra had saved his life in the mountains, apologised to him, openly declared her support for him as Inquisitor...and then just a few days later he had stabbed her in the back. Well, from her perspective, anyway. It wasn’t true of course; the timing was just coincidental and Varric had in actual fact been lying to her by omission all along.

Shockingly, that knowledge didn’t make him feel any better.

After his initial anger at their confrontation had abated, the gnawing worm of guilt had started eating away at Varric from the inside, worrying away at him every time he remembered the look on the Seeker’s face when he had walked into the War Room and told everyone that Hawke had arrived at Skyhold. The fury in her eyes as she had taken a swing at him, barely held back by Cullen. The catch in her voice as she spoke of how the Divine’s death might have been prevented if only he had told her the truth in the first place.

The worst part was that she was right. Varric didn’t regret the decision to keep Hawke hidden from Cassandra back in Kirkwall, but he had to admit that in hindsight it had turned out to be one of the worst mistakes of his life. If only it had been Hawke that the Seeker had dragged to the Conclave in his place...right now the Hero of Kirkwall would be the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor, the one saving the world and making the heroic speeches. Hawke was good at that stuff. And Varric would still be at her side, of course, as ever. But free to go into battle without everyone else trying to protect him, free to have a drink in the tavern without hearing songs sung in his name, free to snipe and bicker with the Seeker instead of enduring her endless icy silence.

It had not been a fun week. Hawke’s visit had been a good distraction, but it had also been short. She didn’t know anything more about how Corypheus had survived and escaped the Deep Roads than Varric did, obviously, but she did have their first real lead on the Grey Wardens. To that end she’d left abruptly when she received a message through Leliana only a couple of days after arriving at Skyhold, and now Varric was waiting to hear from her to find out if she’d managed to arrange a meeting with her contact. And in the meantime, he’d managed to piss off even more people than the appearance of Hawke had, by welcoming to Skyhold just about the only person who seemed like they’d wind up being even more controversial an ally than the Champion of Kirkwall.

Although maybe ‘person’ wasn’t the right word for Cole.

Varric had stumbled across the kid again early one morning when he’d gone down to the kitchen to grab something to eat before going to see Cullen – Josephine had told him time and again that he could have food brought up on a tray to the luxurious Inquisitorial bedroom he’d been given, but Varric preferred not to risk assassination attempts by poison. Not that he was paranoid or anything, but you didn’t have to make things easy for the people who wanted you dead. So generally he ate in the great hall along with everyone else, where long tables were piled high with food every morning, or else just charmed something out of the cooks down in the kitchen if he was short on time or wanted to avoid the stares. That morning, when Varric entered the great bustling kitchens, he’d been unlucky enough to almost walk right into Cassandra, who was evidently doing the same thing. She’d opened her mouth automatically to apologise before she’d realised who he was, and then her face drew into a tight, pinched expression, and she swept past him with barely a nod of response to his awkward: “Morning, Seeker.”

Well, at least she hadn’t taken the opportunity of their being alone to try and punch his lights out again. Maybe that was the best he could hope for now. Varric found he’d lost his appetite, and just filched an apple from the top of a barrel as he passed through the kitchen, exchanging greetings with those working before heading out into the lower courtyard. He sat on a low stone wall and munched moodily on his apple, feeling vaguely as if he’d lost some dignity just by being surprised into offering a polite pleasantry to someone who was demonstrably not interested in the least in being pleasant towards him.

He became aware of someone sitting on the wall next to him, though he’d been so wrapped up in his own brooding about Cassandra that he hadn’t noticed anyone arrive. Still, it wasn’t as if the wall had his name on it, so Varric didn’t think much of having to share the spot with someone else until the soft, distant voice beside him said:

“It was cold beneath the mountains. Your words reaching out in the darkness, like arms around her. She wanted it to be true, but it was just another story. She wishes she did hate you. It would be easier.”

Varric felt prickles rise on his skin that had nothing to do with the chilly wind. He and Cassandra had been alone in the caverns beneath Haven, and he was certain she wouldn’t have recounted any of the experience to a stranger. When he turned, he recognised the young man sitting next to him with a jolt – it was the same person who had found them at Haven and tried to warn them of the coming attack. Varric had forgotten about him completely, and it was only now, faced with the distinctive gangly frame and pale, watery eyes peering out from under a huge hat, that he recalled forgetting him before too.

“Who are you?” asked Varric, because no matter how creepy this was, asking ‘What are you?’ still seemed kind of rude.

“I’m Cole.” The kid tilted his head to one side, making him look like a lanky, quizzical bird. “I want to help.”

Varric ditched his meeting with Cullen and took Cole straight to Solas, who was fast becoming the ‘weird shit explainer in residence’ for the Inquisition, and had set up a kind of office in the main tower of the keep, with a desk overflowing with mysterious objects, surrounded by walls where the elf seemed to be midway through painting some surprisingly artistic frescos. This instinct turned out to be a good one, as Solas immediately subjected Cole to a barrage of excited questions, several magical tests, and generally acted like Merrill had done the one time Varric had brought her a stray kitten he’d found on the streets of Lowtown.

“Cole is a spirit,” he explained to Varric, “but like none I have ever encountered. Outside of the Fade, spirits usually appear monstrous to us, as those you encounter from the rifts do. But Cole appears human, as far as I can tell, by choice.”

“He’s not…dangerous?” It seemed like a weird question to ask about someone who was currently poking his fingers into a pot of paint and examining the blue gloop delightedly, but Varric had to ask.

“He can cause people to forget him, or even fail entirely to notice him,” said Solas. “He also appears to be able to sense when people are in pain, or in need of help. There are some that might consider those qualities dangerous, but if you mean to ask if he intends us harm, I see no reason not to take him at his word that he does not.”

“Hey kid,” said Varric, and Cole turned obediently, spattered with blue paint. “You followed us…or I mean, you came with us, with the Inquisition, from Haven. Why?”

“I told you,” said Cole, with no trace of impatience. “I want to help.”

“Help the Inquisition? Why?”

Cole frowned, apparently in confusion. “Because you might need it,” he said.

“Alright, fair enough,” said Varric. “Welcome aboard, I guess.”

It looked like his reputation for picking up strays wasn’t going to be shaken off any time soon, but having another person around who was neither murderously angry at him or in awe of him at least felt like a small win. Solas was no fool, and if he was willing to vouch for Cole, then that was another point in the kid’s favour. The whole spirit thing was…weird, admittedly, but Varric was used to weird. After all, he had at one time in his life spent a fair amount of time in the company of a spirit, albeit one sharing a body with a human, and at least this one wasn’t possessing anybody, according to Solas. Cole seemed to have a clear idea of who he was, and what he wanted, and what he wanted…was to help. That was good enough for Varric.

It hadn’t been good enough for everyone, however. Vivienne had thrown a very genteel strop about it, declaring Cole an Abomination, and Sera demanded that Varric ‘keep that thing away from me unless it wants to be a demon pincushion’. No-one else was quite as vocal about their displeasure, but still the general feeling towards Cole from everyone but Solas – and Dorian, who seemed to view the kid as more a fascination than a threat – was one of suspicion at best, open hostility at worst. The reactions were maybe understandable, but it made Varric defensive, feeling unusually belligerent about the whole thing.  You only had to talk to the kid to see he wasn’t a threat to anyone. Besides, if they all wanted Varric to be Inquisitor, then the Inquisition could bloody well trust his judgement and learn to live with his decisions, he decided.

He’d expected Cassandra to kick up a stink about Cole too, but she hadn’t tried to talk him out of it at all, which only served to annoy Varric more. He was aware that he was becoming almost as prickly as she was these days, the weight of new responsibilities giving him sleepless nights and early starts, the gazes of mingled awe and expectation fixed on him wherever he went in the castle. Being the Inquisitor was like breaking in a pair of new boots, and he was feeling the pinch.

And now, on top of everything else…he was faced with this.

“No,” Varric said flatly.

Josephine shuffled awkwardly. “It is traditional that, as the Inquisitor, you—”

“No way, Ruffles. You can give me all the fancy titles you like, but I am not judging anyone.”

Josephine looked askance at his raised voice, though he had hardly been shouting. She’d at least had the good sense to not make a big ceremony out of things this time, but as she was proudly showing him the throne that had been installed on a raised stone dais at the head of the main hall, there were still a fair few onlookers about. Leliana was with them, and the hall was scattered with the usual people standing about chatting idly – visiting nobles mostly, a few mages passing through, a group of stonemasons on scaffolding at the far end working on fixing up part of the roof. Admittedly, a few heads did look his way when Varric spoke, before pretending hastily they weren’t listening in.

“You should have known he’d try to get out of it,” said Cassandra, who – because the Maker was really trying to mess with him today, Varric assumed – was watching from nearby, her arms folded. “He’ll take the title and the applause, but he won’t accept any real responsibility. It’s not in his nature.”

Even Josephine looked visibly surprised at Cassandra’s rudeness, glancing at an impassive Leliana awkwardly. Varric felt his temper rising, and had to make a conscious effort to keep it in check.

“He is standing right here, Seeker,” he said. “And it’s not about responsibility, it’s about sodding oversight.” He held his marked hand in the air, focusing on it with all his will in order to make the green light crackle and thrum. It was easier now; he seemed to have more control over it these days. Eyes around the hall turned towards him, but Varric kept his own focused on Cassandra. If he could win this argument with her, then the rest would follow.

“This is why I’m here, isn’t it?” he said. He lowered his hand again, but kept his gaze fixed determinedly on the Seeker’s narrowed eyes. “This mark is what you want from me. I’m here because we need it, and because whatever you might think of me, I want to help. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to be appointed judge, jury and executioner. Maybe that’s how they did things back in the old days, but we all know how well that turned out in the end. No one person should have that sort of power; that’s how this whole mess started.”

Looking at the faces before him; Cassandra’s annoyance, Josephine’s polite concern, Leliana’s thoughtful expression, Varric was reminded suddenly of the moment back in Haven when they had been deciding what to do about the Magister at Redcliffe. The impromptu vote he’d called on a whim. The ayes have it. And the little spark of an idea lit up in the back of his mind.

“I’m not going to sit on a throne,” he said firmly. “I’m not a king and I’m sure as hell not the new Divine. That hat wouldn’t suit me at all.” This remark got a muffled chuckle from a few people around the hall, breaking the tension slightly. Varric allowed himself to relax a little.

“If the Inquisition needs to judge its enemies, then the Inquisition will,” he said. “Cullen, Josephine, Leliana and...” he inclined his head towards the Seeker. “...Cassandra, of course. We’ll hear what they have to say, we’ll give others a chance to speak against them or in their defence, and we’ll decide on what to do with them together.” He turned to look around the hall making sure to catch the eyes of a few random people that were watching. “And anyone can come forward to challenge that decision. Anyone.”

“Of course,” said Josephine, sounding a little flustered, “we’ll be happy to advise you, Inquisitor...”

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of it like that,” said Varric. “No-one has final say, not me, not anyone. We vote on it. With five of us we won’t end up in a deadlock.”

“It is not how things were done in the past…” fretted Josephine.

“But perhaps it might be a better way for things to be done now,” said Leliana, smoothly. “It will be as you say, Inquisitor.”

“The throne, however,” said Josephine, “is an important symbol. It is a piece of Inquisition history.”

Ruffles could be as forceful as Cassandra in a deceptively gentle way, and Varric heard the steel behind her words. Fine; never let it be said that the Inquisitor couldn’t compromise.

“Alright, the throne can stay,” he said. “But no crowns, or I swear the last thing you’ll see of me is a dwarf shaped hole in one of those fancy new stained-glass windows you’ve had commissioned. And I’m not sitting on that chair” – he gestured to the throne – “until there are four other chairs beside it.”

He was as good as his word. And Josephine, to her credit, knew how to put a positive spin on anything, and soon the whole castle was abuzz with praise for the new Inquisitorial Council. Varric felt a slightly petty glee that none of his advisors could very well refuse what was tantamount to a holy calling from the Herald of Andraste himself, so when the very first Judgement was called, the four of them sat in their own elaborately carved wooden chairs beside the Inquisitor’s throne, just as he’d demanded. It was impressive, really, how fast those chairs had been made – Varric knew Ruffles must have had them commissioned especially, as Leliana’s had little nightingales carved into it, and Cassandra’s had dragons. It also wasn’t lost on him that Josephine had sat Cassandra at his right hand and Leliana at his left. Nice Divine imagery there, Ambassador. Real subtle. Cullen sat stiffly at Cassandra’s right, and Josephine herself next to Leliana, presumably so the two could easily exchange those knowing glances they were so fond of.

Quite a crowd had gathered in the great hall to see the first trial of an Inquisition prisoner. Varric had tried to be as prepared as he could be for this moment, but he still felt a jolt of some nameless dread when the man was brought forward in shackles, flanked by two burly Inquisition soldiers.

“You recall Magister Gereon Alexius, of Tevinter,” said Josephine.

The torn, bleeding sky, the ringing song of red lyrium in his head, the sickly glow in the Seeker’s eyes as she struggled to rise from the floor of her foetid cell. “Varric?” He had heard Cassandra say his name many times, in every tone from weary disapproval to outright hostility, had heard her spit it like a curse, but he had never heard her say it like that before. Never. He hoped he never would again.

“Yeah,” Varric said. “I remember.”

Alexius looked up at him with a haggard expression of too many sleepless nights. “I couldn’t save my son,” he said, his voice raw. “Do you think my fate matters to me?”

“Will you offer nothing more in your defence?” asked Josephine.

“You’ve won nothing,” said Alexius, his eyes boring into Varric. “The people you’ve saved, the acclaim you’ve gathered…you’ll lose it all in the storm to come.”

It would have been better if he’d been angry, defiant. Instead, his voice held nothing but the cold certainty of the grave. The man didn’t look like the sneering villain of some Orlesian stage play, the way a Tevinter Magister should. He just looked tired, and old, and defeated. Varric knew the feeling.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said.

Skyhold castle was all a-bustle. News had spread out from the Frostbacks, slowly but surely, about the Inquisition’s new base of operations, and – in spite of what had happened to the old one – everyone seemed eager to see it with their own eyes. Far from being cowed by the attack on Haven, the Inquisition’s allies had rallied round with offers of help, declarations of support, and envoys arriving at Skyhold from every corner of Thedas day by day. The Herald of Andraste’s miraculous escape from the ashes of Haven seemed to have swayed a lot of people into believing that maybe they really did have the Maker on their side. The Inquisition was no longer an upstart rabble of heretics – they were becoming a serious player on the world’s stage.

Josephine had never been busier, trying to plug the gaps in Varric’s knowledge of the politics of Thedas, but at least he didn’t need her to tell him that allowing the Inquisition to deal with the Tevinter Magister who had seized their most important fortress had been a significant gesture of recognition and support from Ferelden. Or maybe King Alistair just didn’t want to risk pissing off the Imperium. The Magister had been disowned by his homeland and stripped of his rank, but doubtless still had allies in the Magisterium back home, and a cynical part of Varric wondered if Ferelden’s king was just hoping that any Venatori assassins might leave him alone and go after Varric instead.

Whatever the reason it had ended up being held at Skyhold, the trial of Gereon Alexius had taken some hours, even before the newly formed Council had withdrawn to discuss the sentencing. They’d heard evidence from several of the mages who’d been at Redcliffe, as well as Grand Enchanter Fiona herself, speaking in a clear, carrying voice with such eloquence that Varric fleetingly wished he’d thought to include her on the new Council as well. Dorian too had come forward, and stiffly requested that the Inquisition show compassion to his former mentor in meting out punishment, although he cast no doubt on Alexius’ guilt. Since he was the only other person who had actually seen with his own eyes the terrible future Varric had witnessed, his word counted for a great deal.

And then there had been the debate in the War Room, safely behind closed doors, as they tried to figure out what the hell to do with someone whose worst crimes Varric had technically stopped before he was even able to commit them. Which was not to say that Alexius didn’t still have a lot to answer for, but a failed attempt on the life of the Herald of Andraste wasn’t exactly in the same league as the destruction of the entire world. It made deciding on the appropriate punishment…complicated. Cassandra and Cullen had been all for making a direct statement by executing the Magister publicly, but Leliana had suggested that would be a waste, and his skills might be better put to use for the Inquisition.

“Community service?” Varric had asked, incredulously, and Leliana had given one of her enigmatic smiles.

“Something like that.”

“It’s too great a risk,” objected Cullen. “He’d be a viper in the nest!”

“I was not intending to keep him in the nest, Commander,” said Leliana placidly. “And there are ways of ensuring his loyalty, or at least his obedience.”

“You mean to make him Tranquil?” said Cullen.

“No.” To Varric’s surprise, the objection came from Cassandra, who had largely been silent in the discussion. “The mages will not countenance such an act,” she said. “To do so would risk open rebellion.”

“I would not suggest it anyway,” said Leliana, with a hard look at Cullen. “I speak of more civilised methods. I believe Dorian may be able to help us there.”

In the end though, it was Josephine who swayed Varric’s own opinion. “This will be the Inquisitor’s first official, public act,” she said, in that measured, reasonable way she had, giving away nothing of her own feelings on the matter. “Will it be one of vengeance, or of mercy?”

And so Magister Alexius escaped the headsman’s axe on a vote of 3 to 2, although they had all agreed not to make such knowledge public. Whatever result the five arbitrators landed on would be presented as unanimous, no matter what bickering might happen behind closed doors, and Varric was the one who publicly pronounced the sentence, with all the Inquisitorial authority he could muster. The Magister himself took it as well as could be expected, though it was clear to Varric at least that he anticipated his imprisonment lasting only as long as it took for his Elder One to come and lay waste to Skyhold too, and slaughter them all, himself included.

Which was a cheery thought.

Dorian did indeed go to speak with his former mentor after the sentencing, as a personal favour to Varric, and although no-one was about to ask for the details of that particular conversation, when the mage returned he went straight to the tavern and spent the rest of the evening getting quietly and methodically shitfaced, and – if rumours could be believed – had a one night stand with the Iron Bull. Well, everyone had their own ways of coping with things, after all.

Whatever Dorian had said to the disgraced Magister, it seemed to work. Leliana reported that Alexius had been put to work under Fiona’s supervision, and that his expertise would doubtless be an asset to the Inquisition going forward. But knowing that Alexius was somewhere in the bowels of the castle, locked in a dungeon under Leliana’s watchful eye as securely as he would have imprisoned her had things turned out differently, make Varric sour on being at Skyhold for a time. He started to feel claustrophobic, overwhelmed by the demands on his time and his patience, and it was a profound relief to get word from Hawke.

She’d made contact with a Grey Warden who had news on the whereabouts of the order, and the two of them were currently hiding out in the arse-end of Ferelden, just outside a village called Crestwood. What more information Hawke had couldn’t be trusted to a letter, so Varric made plans to ride out the very next day to meet up with her, happier than he cared to admit to be getting a brief reprieve from his Inquisitorial duties at Skyhold.

Of course he couldn’t have things all his own way. Since discretion was the order of the day, his departure was as unobtrusive as possible, and Varric was obliged to travel only with a couple of trusted companions to ensure his safety if they ran into any trouble. Which meant Bull, who had after all been hired to be his bodyguard, and, unavoidably, Cassandra. Varric would have preferred Blackwall, under the circumstances, but since they had no solid information on what exactly was happening to the Wardens, even Blackwall himself had grudgingly agreed that he would keep a low profile for now. And Varric had to admit that the Seeker had never let her personal dislike of him get in the way of what she saw as her duty up to now, so he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t object to coming along.

Still, Varric couldn’t help but feel the irony of his choice of travelling companions as they left Skyhold at the crack of dawn one morning, Bull yawning widely and the Seeker apparently unconcerned by the early start but dour as ever.

“Oh yeah, you two are really inconspicuous,” Varric said, looking them up and down as they set out. “An eight foot tall Qunari, and a woman wearing plate armour worth more money than most people see in a year. We’ll definitely be taken for simple travellers on the road.”

“The intention is to move quickly and avoid attracting undue attention to our mission by travelling light and keeping to back roads,” said Cassandra coldly. “Not to deceive a casual observer. Though if you truly wished to be inconspicuous, I would take up Madame Vivienne’s offer to write a letter to your tailor.”

“I packed the false beards for nothing then,” said Varric. “Shame.”

Cassandra didn’t dignify this with a response, merely hefting her shield onto her back and starting down the mountain path, not bothering to check to see if he was following. But at least she was deigning to talk to him directly again. Varric didn’t imagine for a moment that she had forgiven him for keeping Hawke from her, but she seemed to have cooled off slightly. Or perhaps she had just realised that it would be impossible to ignore the leader of the whole Inquisition for the rest of her life. Leader, ha. As if he could lead Cassandra Pentaghast anywhere she didn’t already have a mind to go. As Inquisitor, Varric could probably have ordered her to stay behind at Skyhold instead of coming along to meet up with Hawke, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, and besides she was undeniably the best fighter they had. He’d be an idiot to let his pride deprive them of her sword arm when it might be needed.

Anyway, the old sniping was better than icy silence any day. Varric had actually sort of missed it, in a weird way.

The journey into Ferelden and through the Hinterlands was significantly safer these days, the roads marked with sturdy watchtowers that had been erected by the Inquisition, and the mages and templars no longer hacking each other to bits across the countryside. The lyrium smugglers that had plagued the Inquisition scouts in the area were also no longer a problem; they’d been frustratingly unable to discover where they’d been sourcing their red lyrium from, but since Inquisition forces had routed their base in the forest, at least that supply line had been effectively shut down. But when their small party arrived at the Crossroads outpost, Corporal Vale drew Varric aside and mentioned that a couple of Inquisition scouts had come back from a hunting foray into a nearby valley complaining of strange singing echoing in their heads.

“I thought you’d want to know, your worship,” he said. “It sounds like red lyrium alright, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the smugglers were using the old docks at the end of the valley to move their goods across Lake Calenhad by night. I’d send some of our lads to investigate, but there have been reports of a dragon nesting in that valley too, and that sort of thing is a bit beyond what they signed up for.”

“We’ll check it out,” said Varric instantly. It would delay their meeting with Hawke, but they were making good time so far, and it was on their route anyway. The dragon he suspected was somebody’s boastful exaggeration – a wyvern or something was more likely – but he wasn’t about to let caches of red lyrium just lie around the countryside where anyone could stumble into them.

The valley was long and narrow, lush with trees and suspiciously devoid of the wandering rams that roamed the surrounding countryside. There was certainly something living here that had scared off the local wildlife, but patches of burnt ground could just as easily be attributed to apostate mages or demons from a rift as anything bigger. In any case they saw no sign of the rumoured dragon as they continued along their way, cliff edges rising high on either side, but the ground itself sloping gently but noticeably downwards as they drew closer to Lake Calenhad at the far end. If the lyrium smugglers had used this as a supply route, access to the lake could have opened up half of Ferelden to them without having to risk travelling the Imperial Highway, and given them a private route into Redcliffe village too.

Smugglers aside, they were undoubtedly not the first to venture through the valley – they found another of the Venatori’s Oculara out on a post, and stopped to bury the skull of the unfortunate Tranquil, as Cassandra murmured a prayer over the final resting place of the poor bastard, something that had become a grim ritual they’d performed several times now. Finding out what the Venatori wanted with the shards the gruesome devices revealed was on the Inquisition’s long list of tasks, but for now all they could do was show the Tranquil respect in death that they hadn’t been afforded in life.

Varric had his own private ritual too now, whenever they found one of the skulls. He made up a story in his head about who the person might have been, before they met their end. This one, he decided, might have been a young man from Denerim; an elf, perhaps, from the Alienage there. Brown eyes, a smile that made the girls swoon, a liking for fishcakes. Maybe he’d showed signs of magic from a young age and been taken into the circle at Kinloch Hold, far across the great lake that Varric could even now see in the distance at the end of the valley. The young man would have been thrilled at the comfortable beds and plentiful food of the Circle, maybe comforted rather than afraid at the presence of the watchful templars, listening closely to the teachings of the senior enchanters. But then…what? Varric had met few Tranquil in his life, but he’d heard the stories – everyone in Kirkwall had. Mages made Tranquil for some trivial infraction. For saying ‘no’ to the wrong templar. For getting on the wrong side of Circle politics. Sometimes, the rite performed simply as a ‘precaution’. But Ferelden’s Circle was meant to have been more lenient than most. So maybe this guy really had crossed a line. An academic interest in forbidden magics taken a little too far, an argument with a fellow mage, a spell cast in a burst of anger…

And then the judgement. The brand. The lifetime of patient, willing service. No more anger, no more jokes, no more smiling at girls.

“Varric.”

Cassandra’s voice shook him out of his reverie, and they continued on towards the shore of Lake Calenhad, leaving the empty wooden post now standing a grave marker behind them. The skull could have belonged to anyone really; young, old, male, female, human, elf…perhaps a Nevarran Mortalitasi might have been able to tell, but it was far beyond Varric’s skill. But it had been someone. They had all been someone.

“There’s the docks,” said Iron Bull, as they neared the lake shore, and a little wooden jetty appeared, with a small boat tied up and a few crates piled haphazardly around it. Then he grimaced. “Ah, shit, yeah…there it is.”

Varric didn’t have to ask what he meant; the faint but distinctive hum of red lyrium tugged at the back of his mind with every step they drew closer. The smugglers must have used some kind of protective containers, because the feeling was muted, disconcerting rather than unbearable. Varric caught Cassandra shoot him glance from the corner of her eye, and felt a flicker of annoyance at her checking up on him, before he made an effort to tamp the feeling down. It was the lyrium making him prickly, not any fault on her part for making sure he wasn’t about to go berserk.

“Anyone else feel like it’s weird that this is just out in the open like this?” asked Bull as they poked through the crates, in unspoken agreement not to open them.

“If it’s a trap, it’s not a very good one,” said Varric. “It’s sheer chance those scouts stumbled across this at all.”

“It is fortunate for us that it is out of the way,” said Cassandra. “We can mark the location and Leliana can send some agents trained to deal with disposing of red lyrium, without fear of anyone else chancing upon it in the meantime.”

She was clearly eager to get back to their main objective for this journey, but Bull was still frowning, unsatisfied.

“But why just dump this stuff here?” he said. “It’s valuable merchandise. Even if whoever was moving it heard about their base in the woods being destroyed, surely you’d just take the product and hightail it across the lake? Plenty of places would take a few crates of raw lyrium, no questions asked.”

“Maybe they began to fear the effects,” said Cassandra.

“The effects make you want to have more of it, not less,” said Varric. “Anyway, if this operation has been running as long as we think, they’d be used to that by now.”

“They have must have been interrupted mid-loading,” mused Bull. “There’s a couple of crates in the boat, and the rest are still—”

He was interrupted by an ear-splitting roar, a sound that seemed to shake the very ground they stood on and sent the water of the lake sloshing with sheer force of it, the little wooden boat bumping against the jetty. A vast shadow passed over them, blotting out the sun, and the unmistakable sound of wingbeats boomed overhead.

“Hey boss,” said Bull, turning to Varric. “I’ve got a new theory.”

“Run!” yelled Varric, and the three of them sprinted towards the nearest cover, an outcropping of rock by the cliff face. He heard the noise like the breath of the Maker himself, and felt the heat of dragonfire licking at his heels as they hurled themselves around the rock, pressing firmly back against it. As they panted for breath, a tremendous thump shook the earth again – the dragon had landed. At any second Varric expected a vast head to come swinging around the side of their shelter, but perhaps the beast hadn’t noticed their hiding spot, or content with driving them off was not bothered about finishing the job. Huge clawed feet thudded on the ground and there came a sloshing sound that took Varric a moment to identify – the dragon was drinking from the lake.

Beside him, Bull was fingering the haft of his axe. “What’s the plan, Boss?” he said.

“This thing is way too close to the crossroads,” said Varric, trying to clear his head, think past his initial, instinctive panic. “And Redcliffe. It might be nesting here for the ready supply of livestock nearby, but I doubt we can rely on it sticking to an all-Druffalo diet. Even if we could get away clear…” The people of Haven, lit up like torches, burnt to ash even as they ran. “We can’t risk it being here,” he said.

“So we take it out,” said Bull, starting to grin. Well, at least one person was happy about the turn this trip was taking.

“We take it out,” Varric agreed, in a rather less enthusiastic tone. “Seeker, you’re the dragon expert, think it can be done?”

He had been half hoping she’d say no, but Cassandra, who had been leaning cautiously around the rock to take a look at the dragon, turned back and gave a brief, businesslike nod. “Spread out, keep moving and watch the tail,” she said. “Its eyes are wide set, so it will have a significant blind spot we can make use of. If it takes flight, do not waste your bolts trying to hit it, just find cover from its breath. We are in its territory, which it will defend, so we need not fear it flying away.”

The dragon escaping wasn’t exactly at the top of the list of Varric’ fears in this particular moment, but he didn’t say as much. “Alright, on three,” he said. “One, two…”

They burst from cover and into a fight that was insane, even by Varric’s recent standards. The dragon whipped round from the lake to greet them with a roar that sounded almost enthusiastic, mirrored by the one that Iron Bull let out as they ran towards their quarry, their only hope to get close to the thing before it opened its mouth and burnt them all to a crisp. The dragon was enormous, golden scaled and spiny-backed, with horns like a ludicrous parody of Bull’s own, jutting out on either side of its head. It looked like death on four clawed legs.

It’s just an animal, Varric told himself, as he pelted towards the dragon, firing his crossbow as he went, the bolts sinking into the thick scaly hide like toothpicks. Not an archdemon, not a monster, just a really, really big animal. This is just…pest control. On a big scale.

Varric was not made for fighting on a big scale. He was best against a thinking enemy, an opponent who could be outwitted, outmanoeuvred, who had vulnerabilities to be exploited. Facing a dragon, the best he could do was act as a distraction while the warriors went to work, and this he did in a kind of reckless haze of controlled terror, dodging and weaving between the lethal claws, firing bolt after bolt into the soft underbelly, hoping to hit something vital.

Cassandra kept the vast, snapping head busy while Bull hacked at the dragon’s legs, attempting to cripple the beast. Varric saw his greataxe cleave through muscle and bone, and the dragon screamed as the wounded leg collapsed from under it – in that moment of distraction, its head sunk close to the ground, craning to see the attacker behind it, Cassandra’s sword sliced cleanly through the side of its head, sending a great spurt of blood across the stony ground, and tearing through the dragon’s right eye.

The sound the dragon made then was so horrendous Varric almost dropped his crossbow to clap his hands over his ears. He felt a brief flicker of pity, but then forced himself to remember the charred ruins of Haven, the snow falling black with ash. No dragon would have any sympathy for him.

Varric dodged out from between the huge, stumbling legs, swinging Bianca into position again, ready to press their advantage, and was nearly knocked off his feet by Cassandra, who darted past him. Varric only just turned in time to see her sweep her sword through the neck of a dragonling; a perfect miniature of the vast creature above them, no bigger than a wolf, that had nonetheless been on the point of making Varric’s day a very bad one indeed. With the noise and commotion of the fight, he hadn’t even noticed it coming up behind him until its head hit the ground, sliced clean off by the Seeker’s blade.

“Watch your flank,” Cassandra snapped, and before Varric could respond she was whirling away, launching herself at another dragonling that was screeching its way towards them, part of a scaly brood summoned by the dragon’s cry to defend their mother. Further away, Bull was picking himself off the ground after being thrown down by a swipe from the dragon’s uninjured back leg – he’d rolled with the blow and looked like he’d gotten lucky, but Varric shot a couple of bolts through the heads of another two dragonlings that were converging eagerly on him. At least with targets so small his bolts found their mark and had an effect. Varric felt a savage sense of victory as the scaly bodies hit the ground.

“Leave the little ones to me!” he called. “Keep at the legs!”

Bull yelled something Varric had to take as acknowledgement, though over the screeching of the little dragons and the roaring of the big one, he could only guess. He wove through the chaos of massive legs and flashing blades, felling the darting shapes of the dragonlings with his bolts, one after another after another. As the last dropped, the dragon above him howled again and tottered as Bull cleaved through another leg, and then came the unmistakable leathery sound of great wings unfolding.

“SHE’S TAKING OFF!” yelled Bull, in a voice used to calling across a battlefield.

“Shit—” Varric muttered, a jolt of real fear gripping him. The dragon hadn’t used its flame since it had first flown overhead, apparently focused on trying to catch them in its jaws and make a meal of them. But now it was injured, desperate, and they’d been drawn out in the open, no cover to be had. If the dragon took off again, despite its wounded legs, they were all toast. Varric’s hand slipped inside his coat and clasped the familiar small round shape of a grenade. Can’t fly if you’re blind.

Slinging Bianca across one shoulder, he ran out from underneath the dragon’s shuddering bulk, following the line of its long, scaled neck, where blood streamed from a dozen deep cuts. He’d only get one chance at this. He pelted right under the massive horned head and out into the open in front of the beast, directly into the line of fire, ignoring Cassandra’s cry of alarm as he passed her. Then he turned, and faced his foe.

Even the dragon itself, wings half unfurled, looked confused for a moment at this apparently suicidal tactic. But then its beady little eye fixed on him with murderous intent, the other side of its head crusted with blood, its vast nostrils flaring as it inhaled—

Varric threw his pitch grenade with pin-point accuracy and hit the dragon’s remaining eye. The hot, sticky tar inside exploded, and the dragon shrieked, shaking its head back. It reared up blindly, front legs raising instinctively to try and claw off the pitch, and Cassandra leapt forward and drove her sword into its exposed chest up to the hilt.

Varric wasn’t the only one with good aim, it turned out. Dark red heart-blood sprayed from the buried sword. The dragon tried to roar, but made a sound that was more like a tremendous gasping whine, and then lurched forward. Cassandra had no choice but to release her grip on the sword and retreat backwards as the dragon started to fall like a mountain collapsing. Varric had no time to react as the Seeker stumbled back into him and sent them both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and crossbow.

The shadow of the toppling dragon blotting out the sun behind it, Varric instinctively squeezed his eyes shut, his body tensing for the inevitable impact—

There was an ear-splittingly loud, very final thump that shook the ground. Varric opened his eyes to see Cassandra sprawled next to him, already propping herself back up on her arms…and the dragon, dead. Its head was barely inches from them, enormous tongue lolling between rows of razor-sharp teeth. Varric goggled at a horn which was longer than he was tall, a weight which would easily have crushed them both into oblivion had it landed on them.

“Oh shit,” he said.

He started laughing, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep within his chest, born of sheer adrenaline and the shock of finding himself, after all this time, somehow still alive.

Cassandra’s eyes met his and her blood-splattered face split into a wide, triumphant grin, the first real smile Varric had seen on her in weeks. It transformed her familiar stern features, and in that instant he could see the person she might have been if she had followed her family’s tradition and become a dragon hunter, unburdened by duty and sacred oaths, all the weight of the world’s trouble lifted from her shoulders. If she allowed free reign to that reckless passion she kept tamped down so carefully, the simple joy she took in a good fight.

For the briefest of moments, it was easy to forget everything that had happened between them and share in the thrill of victory, triumph against the odds. In one of Varric’s books this would have been the time to say something. To use this rare moment of détente to break the tension between them, to apologise, or explain or…something.

But the words got stuck in his throat, and then the Iron Bull was bounding towards them, roaring with approval, and the moment passed. The Seeker got to her feet, turning away, and Varric was left to pick himself up from the dirt, a part of him wondering if Cassandra might have smiled just as widely if he’d gotten crushed by the dragon after all.

He shook off the sour feeling of disappointment and went to examine the dragon’s carcass, already mentally composing a better version of this fight in his head, one which didn’t end up with him knocked onto his ass. The Inquisition could put a decent spin on this, Varric was sure – slaying a high dragon was solid and undeniable hero stuff, even if it had been mostly self-defence. He wasn’t sure if there was any kind of bounty for removing inconvenient dragons from populated areas, but he suspected that was something he should have gotten Josephine to negotiate with King Alistair ahead of time.

Well, Varric thought, if nothing else at least this would make a good story for Hawke.

The rest of the journey through Ferelden was less eventful, and they made Crestwood just about on schedule, but unfortunately whatever luck had been on their side while fighting the dragon seemed to have definitively run out. They arrived at the little village late in the evening, rain falling in icy sheets, with no other thought in Varric’s mind than pulling off his sodden boots, warming his frozen hands at the hearth and falling into whatever bed the local inn could provide. But instead of the warm inn, roaring fire and homespun hospitality of the locals he had been hoping for – Varric wasn’t above using the whole ‘Herald of Andraste’ thing to get a decent room for the night – what they found was a town under siege.

A group of exhausted looking villagers outside the main gate were fighting a horde of shambling, slimy corpses, firing slingshots from behind makeshift barricades, and beating the things back with a few swords and bludgeons that seemed to be whatever they could grab. Varric drew Bianca from his back and shot bolts through the heads of several corpses that were almost on the point of overwhelming some of the defenders, and heard the cries of shock and confusion as they dropped, felled by his unseen hand.

The cause of the trouble wasn’t hard to work out. They’d seen it all along the road to the town even before the sounds of fighting had reached them – an eerie green glow shimmered from beneath the dark, churning waters of the nearby lake. A rift. Varric wondered if, like so many rifts he had encountered, it had activated as he and the Anchor drew closer. If this was his fault. The walking corpses were coming from the direction of the shore, and their flesh was bloated and peeling, stinking of fish. Even now, as one of the villagers cleaved the head off one in a lucky blow with a butcher knife, more were coming through the darkness.

The man with the knife spotted the three live people approaching as he stood there, panting hard, his hair plastered to his head with rain and his clothes spattered with ichor. Behind him, more heads of villagers peered out from barricades, their eyes wild. There were already dozens of bodies on the ground, and not all of them looked like they had come from the lake.

“You, who are…? —I don’t care,” said the man desperately. “Help us, please! There’s no end to these things!”

There was no time for explanations or even introductions. Cassandra and Bull waded in to the melee, sword and axe cleaving rotten flesh as corpse after corpse staggered out of the darkness, moaning horribly and dripping with weeds, gnashing their brown, broken teeth. Varric had to keep ducking behind the barricade to reload Bianca, doing his best to stop anyone from getting flanked by picking off the corpses that threatened to swarm any one defender. They lost one villager, dragged to the mud with a scream that cut off in a gurgle as blunt teeth tore out his throat, before anyone could reach him. Another, Varric noticed, was a boy barely old enough to grow a beard, yet another an old man who was fighting with one arm, the other limb lost to some battle long past – there were no more than a dozen of the desperate looking people, presumably all the small village could muster in the way of a fighting force, the others barricaded in their houses behind the main gate, cowering and waiting for the sound of dead fingers scratching at their doors.

They fought through the night. They’d slain a high dragon not days ago, and yet this was one of the hardest battles Varric had ever been in, not just due to the weather, but the sheer interminability of it, the brief moments when they thought it might be over, only to hear more distant moaning on the wind, the slap of wet feet on earth. He wrenched bolts from fallen corpses and reloaded them into his crossbow with mechanical efficiency, determined not to let a word of defeat pass his lips as the others fought on around him. Varric was reminded irresistibly of their time in the Fallow Mire, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much of the Inquisition was going to be like this – down in the rain and the mud, fighting off corpses.

He thought in the grimmest moments that maybe there really was no end to the hungry, vengeful dead, but as the sky started to turn the paler grey that preceded dawn, the rain slackening to a fine drizzle, the flow of horror slowed to a trickle. The few corpses were now crawling to meet them rather than walking, those already so rotten their legs no longer supported them, easily dispatched. And finally, after the longest time yet with no sign of attack, Cassandra leaned down to wipe her sword clean on the wet grass, and sheathed it.

“Is everyone alright?” she asked, causing one of the villagers to break into hysterical laughter, and another to start sobbing as they sank to the ground, the iron poker they’d been using as a weapon falling limply from their hand. The Seeker had been in enough battles not to be surprised at these reactions, only turning to Varric and Bull to raise her eyebrows at them in the same question.

“Never better,” said Bull, with a grim humour. “What a shitshow. Think that’s all of them?”

“For now,” said Cassandra. “But with a rift still open under the lake, there will be more, and worse, in time.”

“I’ll close it,” said Varric. “We’ll figure out a way. But right now we gotta go, Seeker.” The man with the butcher knife was approaching them, so Varric spoke quickly, quietly. “Maybe these things were attracted to the village because of all the people,” he said, “or maybe they’re everywhere. Hawke’s out there without much in the way of backup.”

Cassandra nodded curtly, and Varric kept his marked hand concealed by his glove as they gave the barest possible information to the raggedly grateful villagers, mentioning only that they were ‘Inquisition Agents passing through’ when quizzed on where they had come from. It was a sign of how the Inquisition’s influence was spreading that even these yokels seemed impressed, even heartened, in learning who their rescuers worked for. Varric spotted a young Chantry sister, who had appeared through the gate the moment the fighting was over, ready to render aid to the survivors and respect to the fallen, giving Cassandra a slightly puzzled look, as though she was trying to place a familiar face. That seemed like a conversation they didn’t have time for right now, and a sign to move on, so Varric elbowed the Seeker and jerked his head meaningfully towards the road, earning himself a scowl in return.

There was no time to rest. They had to leave the little village with a promise to return as soon as they could with more help, and start down the road west towards the foothills. Too tired for small-talk and wary of the villagers’ warning of bandits in the area, they walked in silence as the sun rose weakly behind them, Varric’s weary thoughts brooding over the rift in the lake and worrying about Hawke. He would’ve felt better about helping the village of Crestwood if he hadn’t been plagued by the suspicion that he’d played some part in bringing trouble down upon them in the first place. Finding a town besieged by undead in the very place they’d come to meet up with Hawke felt like a weird coincidence.

After only about half an hour’s walk from the village, however, his gloomy musings were interrupted when they rounded a corner and a faint rustle in a bush by the roadside made him stop short, throwing up a hand to halt his companions. A few long moments went by when Varric began to think what he’d heard must have been the movements of some small wild animal after all, when there was a stifled sound from the undergrowth that was definitely no fennec. The bandits they had been warned of, then? A scout perhaps, or even another assassin?

Varric levelled his crossbow at the bush, as Cassandra too drew her sword and said “Show yourself!” as she strode towards the sound, ever one to face an unknown danger head on without a second thought. But when the bush rustled more violently and the unseen watcher stepped out, it wasn’t exactly what any of them had been expecting.

It was a little girl. She looked no more than six years old, and she was filthy from her head to her feet, tear tracks streaked through the dirt on her face. She was physically trembling, looking up at Cassandra with wide-eyed terror. The Seeker sheathed her sword instantly and knelt down in the mud so that they were face to face.

“It’s alright,” she said, her voice gentler than Varric had ever heard it. “We won’t hurt you. We’re here to help. Are you from the village?”

The little girl nodded. “There were monsters,” she said, in a small voice. “I ran away.”

“That was a good idea,” said Cassandra. “But the monsters are gone. It is time to go home.” She straightened up, exchanged glances with Varric and Bull, and then said firmly: “We will take you back.”

There wasn’t really anything else they could reasonably have done. Hawke would have to wait a little while longer. To Varric’s mild surprise, Cassandra held out her hand to the little girl, who took it unquestioningly and allowed herself to be led as they started back down the road, a strange kind of honour guard. Bull rummaged in his pack and handed a biscuit to the Seeker, who passed it down wordlessly to the little girl.

“You’re really pretty,” said the girl conversationally, who seemed to have bounced back quickly from her terror with a biscuit in one hand and Cassandra’s hand in the other. “Are you a princess?”

“Oh—” To Varric’s amusement, Cassandra looked totally nonplussed at how to respond to this. “Thank you,” she said. “And yes, I…suppose I am. Technically.”

The child wrinkled her nose. “What’s that mean?” she said, around a mouthful of biscuit. “Do you have a horse and a castle and servants and stuff?”

Varric was struggling to hold back his laughter now as Cassandra, who was clearly realising that she did in fact have all of those things, searched to find a way to convey to the wide-eyed kid that she wasn’t quite the kind of royalty they were imagining.

“I live in a castle,” she admitted, “but it isn’t mine. And I will not ever be the ruler of a country.”

Varric doubted from the look on the little girl’s face that her idea of princesses was linked to any real concept of hereditary rulership. “Why aren’t you wearing a dress?” she asked, not to be swayed from what she clearly considered the important parts of being royalty.

This time Varric couldn’t help the faint snort of amusement that escaped him. Cassandra shot him a glare. “I do not have any dresses,” she said, with stiff dignity.

“But why—”

“Hey kid, do you want to know a secret?” said Varric. He tilted his head in a conspiratorial fashion to summon the girl to his side. “Cassandra here is actually a secret princess. She’s on the run from her enemies. That’s why she’s in disguise.”

“Oh,” the girl breathed, her eyes round as saucers. “Is that why she hasn’t got a crown?”

“That’s right. She used to have a golden crown, and hair even longer than yours, right down her back, and hundreds of dresses made of silk and velvet and covered in jewels. A whole stable full of horses. But she had to leave it all behind in one night.”

“Why?”

“Well that’s a long story. You can keep a secret, can’t you?” The girl nodded vigorously, throwing a glance at Cassandra, who was studiously pretending not to listen. “So here’s what happened—”

They trudged back along the muddy road as Varric spun a story of secret plots, daring midnight escapes, implausibly loyal horses, and a young Princess Cassandra who was far readier with a wisecracking retort to her enemies than the real one walking beside them. It lasted until they reached the village again, when Varric hastily wrapped up the tale with a suitably dramatic swordfight and a happy ending, just as a real happy ending appeared in the form of a woman who pelted down the street towards them and flung her arms around the little girl, sobbing into her shoulder.

“We need to get going,” said Varric to the others, as they waved off the woman’s thanks. “Hawke is gonna be wondering where we are, and she’ll move on if she thinks it’s not safe.”

“That’s if she hasn’t been driven off by a bunch of walking corpses already,” said Bull.

“That story you told was not very fair on my uncle Vestalus,” remarked Cassandra, as they started wearily back down the road. “He has never once had me locked in a dungeon.”

“Artistic license, Seeker,” said Varric. “I don’t think she’ll be telling anyone.”

“Hmm.”

She made no further comment on the subject, which was a surprise, but still it was the closest thing they’d had to a civil conversation in days, so progress, of a sort.

Varric was getting fairly sick of the road out of Crestwood by this time, but at least this second attempt at the journey to meet up with Hawke went uninterrupted. After a horde of walking corpses and the little girl, he’d half expected another dragon to show up just to really put a cap on things. But the only threat they faced was boredom and exhaustion as the dull grey morning drizzled on, and they left the road and headed up into the hills, following Varric’s increasingly soggy map. Soon the paths they were on were little more than nug tracks, which they scrambled up single file, feet slipping on wet grass and loose stones. As they climbed higher, they could see Crestwood in the distance below, a collection of buildings huddled next to the great, iron-grey lake, and the faint glow of the rift beneath the waters like an ominous beacon. They met not anther soul as they walked; though the distant howling of wolves across the wind made all of them glance around warily, and Cassandra’s hand twitch to her sword hilt, they saw no sign of them. Perhaps it was just the rain and his fatigue, but it all struck Varric as hard, lonely country, perhaps better left to the dead.

It would have been easy to miss the cave, even with his map, as from the outside it was barely more than a tall, narrow cleft in the rock, only really visible from one side as they approached. But as they got closer, a figure who’d been standing watch just inside detached herself from the shadows, and Hawke stepped forward to greet their bedraggled group. She looked almost as tired as he felt.

“Shit Varric, where have you been?” she said, sagging with visible relief as they approached. “It’s pissing it down out here and I’ve been waiting for hours. I didn’t dare light a torch to guide you – we nearly ran right into a couple of Wardens on the road here.”

“More Wardens? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s complicated,” said Hawke. “Get inside, come on. What took you so long anyway? We were expecting you yesterday.”

“We ran into a little undead problem on the road,” said Varric, as they followed her into the cave. “And then an unexpected babysitting gig. It’s a long story.” The rift in the lake nagged at his conscience again and he added: “I might need your help with something before we leave.”

The cave opened out further in, and it was blessedly warmer and drier than they had been for hours. There was a small fire in the centre, surrounded by the unmistakable signs of habitation – a couple of bedrolls, packs and discarded supplies. Tired to the bone, the three of them set down their own packs, and Varric and Cassandra cast off their hoods, which had provided scant protection from the rain, Bull of course not having had the option at all.

For some reason that Varric couldn’t fathom, upon being confronted with Cassandra, Hawke stared agape at the Seeker for a second, almost as wide eyed as the little girl earlier had been, before visibly shaking herself. “Seeker Cassandra,” she said, a touch awkwardly. “I, uh…nice to meet you. We didn’t get the chance when I was at Skyhold.”

That was unusually diplomatic for Hawke, since for the few short days she had been at the castle, Cassandra had been furiously avoiding Varric, and therefore Hawke by association.

“I am glad to meet you properly too,” said Cassandra. “I have heard a great deal about you.”

“Likewise!” said Hawke brightly, and then winced – everything she’d heard about Cassandra was naturally from Varric, and most of it had not been…complimentary. So much for being diplomatic. Varric saw Cassandra’s posture stiffen almost imperceptibly.

“I see,” she said. Varric groaned internally. So much for progress.

“Is that Varric I heard?” A familiar voice echoed through the cave, and a woman wearing the unmistakable blue of a Grey Warden uniform stepped out of the shadows, peering around until her eyes fell upon him. A moment later, Varric found himself enveloped in a warm hug that was a lot more comfortable for lack of armour than one of Hawke’s, but no less emphatic.

“Long time no see, Sunshine,” he said when he was finally released, smiling wider than he had done in days.

“Seeker Pentaghast, Iron Bull, this is my contact in the Grey Wardens,” said Hawke. “My sister, Bethany.”

Chapter Text

“It’s…difficult to describe,” said Bethany, frowning slightly into her bowl of stew. “I know it’s called ‘The Calling’ but that makes it sound like a voice, like something you can understand. It’s really more of a feeling.”

She looked up at the faces of Varric, Bull and Cassandra, who were listening with more interest than comprehension. Hawke, obviously long since bored with this subject, was ladling more stew from the big pot over the fire into her bowl.

They’d managed to snatch a few hours of uncomfortable sleep in the cave up in the hills before heading back down into the valley to close the rift beneath the lake, a task that couldn’t be ignored for long unless they wanted to contend with a plague of demons on the road back, and was firmly the Herald of Andraste’s responsibility to deal with besides. Unfortunately, according to the shaken town mayor, the only way to get to the rift was to drain the lake, and the mechanism for doing that was in Caer Bronach, an old keep that had fallen into some disrepair and was being used as a base by the bandits the villagers had warned them about. More fortunately, Varric was now travelling with four of the most lethal people he knew, all of whom were highly motivated to clear out the unwelcome squatters not just for practical reasons, but for the unspoken shared realisation that if they could take Caer Bronach, they might all be able to sleep under an actual roof that night. Undead notwithstanding, Hawke and Bethany could not risk staying in the town, for fear of being recognised.

Together though, they’d made short work of the bandit group, who had been brave enough to stand and fight, but not smart enough to surrender when it became quickly clear they were hopelessly outclassed. Caer Bronach was secured, the lake was drained and the rift closed, after a deeply unpleasant and slimy trip through some underground caves beneath the drowned town of Old Crestwood. All in a day’s work. The desperate, impromptu mission had by all standards been a success, which was heartening, especially as storm clouds were gathering on the metaphorical horizon as well as the literal one. Bethany’s news about the Wardens had not been good.

“I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to is that feeling when you’ve got a word on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t remember it,” said Bethany. “Or like…when you find yourself humming a snatch of tune that you can’t place. Or that feeling you’ve forgotten something really important.” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a writer like you, Varric, I can’t really put it into words.”

Actually, Varric had just been thinking of how familiar Bethany’s description of the Calling was – it sounded exactly like how being around red lyrium felt. Perhaps that was no coincidence, since both things came from the deepest part of the Deep Roads. Varric was no Warden, but he wasn’t unfamiliar with the draw of the dark, the feeling of coming under the seductive lure of something that whispered in the back of your mind…

He suppressed a shudder, in spite of the warmth from the fire that blazed in the hearth. Their little group was gathered in the great stone kitchen of Caer Bronach, finally able to take the chance to stop and take a breath, to talk about what had happened to the Grey Wardens. Although it was a rough sort of accommodation, compared to the cave in the hills it might as well have been an Orlesian Chateau. The bandits who had taken up residence here had obviously been hitting trade caravans, and had enough food in the kitchen of the keep to feed a small army. With bowls of hot stew in their hands – courtesy of Iron Bull, who was a surprisingly competent cook – and a fire crackling in the stone hearth, the place was positively cosy, even with the rain lashing down outside. And yet with all of them clustered on chairs, leaning forward as Bethany related the doom that had come upon her order, Varric had the feeling of listening to a ghost story.

“And all the Grey Wardens have been hearing this?” asked Cassandra. “At once?”

“No wonder they disappeared,” said Varric. “They must think they’re all going to turn into a Blight of their own.”

“They’re terrified,” said Bethany. “The whole order dying at once…or worse, becoming an army of Darkspawn…” She trailed off, looking into the fire.

“A friend of mine, Warden Stroud, was investigating Corypheus,” cut in Hawke, setting down her now empty bowl of stew and picking up the narrative. “He had this theory that the Wardens had imprisoned the Magister beneath Kirkwall back in the day because he had the same power as an archdemon, some ability that might prevent him from being fully killed. Stroud came to find me in Kirkwall, and told me he’d heard the Calling too, but he thought Corypheus was behind it.”

“And you didn’t think to maybe mention any of this, Hawke?” said Varric.

“It was long before that mad bastard attacked Haven,” said Hawke, defensively. “You had enough to deal with as it was. None of us thought what happened at the Conclave was connected, let alone that Corypheus might be behind that too.”

“Warden Commander Clarel spoke of a blood magic ritual to prevent future Blights so that the world wouldn’t be destroyed, even if the order was gone,” said Bethany, turning back to her audience, her voice grave. “I heard rumours of it and objected…I’ve seen what happens when you try to solve your problems with blood magic. The next thing I know I’m being hunted down by my fellow Wardens as a traitor.”

“We Hawkes are not very popular these days,” said her older sister, with a wry grin. “At least I had some experience of being in hiding by then.”

Varric didn’t dare look at Cassandra’s face at this statement, but the Seeker, it seemed, had more important things on her mind. “We must stop this ritual from taking place,” Cassandra said. “If Corypheus is truly behind it, Maker only knows what it will unleash.”

“Demons,” grunted Bull. “It’s always demons, with blood magic.”

“I’d put money on this being something to do with that demon army Cullen is so worried about,” said Varric grimly.

“The only way to know for sure is to go to the Western Approach and find the other Wardens,” said Bethany. “Maybe together we can make them see reason.”

There was a long silence at this, broken only by the relentless beating of the rain outside, and the crackling of the fire. Varric wondered if the others too were thinking of how difficult it was to make a bunch of zealots see reason, and what they could possibly offer people who had already accepted their own deaths as a price worth paying for their cause.

“I’m glad you’re on our side, at least,” said Bull unexpectedly, eyeing Bethany. “That was some nice work with the demons back there in the caves. Looks like you know how to handle a staff.”

Varric rolled his eyes almost out of his head, but Bethany just smiled, a touch bashfully. “Whatever their problems now, I’ve had excellent teachers in the Wardens,” she said, relaxing a little. “They take recruits from all over, so I’ve learned a lot about magic that a life in the Circle would never have taught me.”

“Bet you hear some great stories, too,” said Bull. “Word has it a lot of Wardens have some uh…colourful backgrounds.”

“Some people would say that about me too,” said Bethany reasonably. “An apostate mage, fleeing the Blight across the Waking Sea, only for it to catch up with me on a doomed expedition to the Deep Roads…”

“…along with your sister, the beautiful and charming Champion of Kirkwall,” added Hawke, with a grin.

“Yes, yes, you’re a great legend,” said Bethany, now rolling her own eyes. “The truth is,” she said to Bull ruefully, “generally it’s my sister people want to hear stories about when they find out who I am.”

“Well, when we get back to Skyhold I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me about you instead,” said Bull, with an excessively charming grin. “But right now I’m beat.” He yawned, somewhat theatrically. “Need me for first watch, Boss?” he asked.

“Nah, I’ll take it,” said Varric. He was late to bed and to rise by habit, and getting an uninterrupted stretch of sleep was better than being woken up halfway through, in his opinion. Bull, who had spent most of his life on the road, seemed to have the enviable ability to fall asleep instantly just about anywhere, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

“I’m tired too,” said Bethany. “I hope these bandits had actual beds somewhere; I’m sick of sleeping on the floor.”

“Let find out, shall we?” said Bull, and Bethany, looking pleased if slightly pink in the cheeks, left the room with him, the two of their voices in friendly conversation drifting down the corridor as the door slowly closed behind them. A rather awkward silence descended in the kitchen.

“Uh, that doesn’t give you pause, Hawke?” asked Varric, jerking his head at the door through which Bull and Bethany had disappeared.

Hawke shrugged. “Beth can take care of herself,” was all she said.

Cassandra, faced with the prospect of being left alone with Varric and Hawke, stood up too. “I am going to bed as well,” she said abruptly. “Wake me when I am needed for a watch, Inquisitor. Goodnight.”

Varric mumbled something polite, but Cassandra hadn’t said much since Hawke’s minor gaffe when they’d first met, retreating back into her role as stoically dutiful bodyguard, and it was frankly a relief to see her go. The moment the door closed behind her and her receding footsteps faded away, Hawke leapt to her feet and swung around to Varric. “Ok, what the fuck?” she demanded.

“Uh…you might have to be more specific?” said Varric, baffled by his friend’s reaction.

“Why didn’t you warn me about her?” said Hawke, which was only more confusing.

“You knew the Seeker would be coming with us,” Varric said slowly, wondering if Hawke had taken a blow to the head in that last fight. “I told you she’s annoyingly glued to my side.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know she would be…” Hawke gestured vaguely but emphatically at the door through which Cassandra had left, apparently under the mistaken impression that this would get her message across.

“Would be what?” asked Varric. In all honesty he’d thought Cassandra had been remarkably civil and restrained, for her. Her sulking wasn’t ideal, sure, but she hadn’t stabbed anyone, aside from the demons from the rift and a few bandits who’d frankly had it coming.

“You’re kidding, right?” said Hawke. “You’re messing with me right now?” Seeing Varric’s genuinely bemused reaction, she flopped back down into a chair and sighed heavily. “Varric, I was lurking in a damp cave, where I have been camping with my sister for three days, both of us getting on each other’s nerves and neither of us having the chance to exercise much in the way of personal hygiene,” she said. “There I was, looking like absolute nugshit, thinking ‘well, it’ll be interesting to finally meet this annoying Seeker woman that Varric is always complaining about’ and then—” She glared at him. “Then the most drop-dead gorgeous woman I have ever seen in my life walks in and introduces herself in a voice that has me halfway to removing all my clothes before I remember where we are and who I am.”

Varric groaned. “Seriously, Hawke? The Seeker?”

“Varric, she looks like a heroine from one of your books; if you’d described her to me even halfway accurately, I would’ve thought you were exaggerating. Holy shit. You didn’t think to give me even a teeny tiny heads-up?”

“It really didn’t occur to me,” said Varric, shrugging. “I’ve been too busy dodging the Seeker’s fists to paint you a word picture of her face.”

“It’s not just her face,” said Hawke, and Varric grimaced. Dear friend she might be, but Hawke did have a terrible track record of being attracted to the worst possible people. She’d even had a fleeting crush on Knight Commander Merideth once, he recalled, before it had become clear that the woman was legitimately unhinged. Hawke loved other people in the way moths loved flames.

“Did you see her fighting that rage demon?” Hawke said, a dreamy look in her eyes. “It was poetry in motion.”

“Yeah, well it’s not so poetic when you’re the one facing the sharp end of that sword,” said Varric. He was amused rather than really annoyed at this sudden libidinous breach of loyalty on Hawke’s part, but something in his voice made Hawke pause anyway, squinting at him suspiciously.

“Alright, Varric, what is the deal with you two?” she said.

“It’s complicated,” said Varric, and then realised that was a weaselly kind of answer. He sighed. “No, it’s not. She doesn’t like me.”

Hawke snorted. “Yeah, I can see that. My renowned people skills picked up on the incredibly subtle vibes you two were putting out. Are you that bad of a boss?”

“Andraste’s tits, if I tried bossing the Seeker around I’d be looking for a new ass by now, owing to mine being kicked all the way back across the Waking Sea,” said Varric. He sighed. “No it’s…she wanted you, I think, for Inquisitor. That’s why she came to Kirkwall, although I didn’t know it at the time. So I lied to her, about you, about not knowing where you where. And the Seeker didn’t take it well when she found out.”

“So it’s my fault?” said Hawke, frowning.

“What? No! It’s hers.” Varric grimaced. “And mine. Maybe mostly mine. Ah, it’s just a whole mess, Hawke, don’t worry about it.”

“Hmm.” Hawke leaned back in her chair, rocking it back on two of its legs. Varric had a sudden flash of her doing the same thing back in The Hanged Man, years ago, when all their problems had seemed very simple. “You know, it’s funny,” Hawke said, “but from your letters I thought maybe you had a thing for her.”

Varric was brought back to the present with an unpleasant jolt. “Come again?”

“You mentioned her every other line.”

“I do not,” said Varric, “have a thing for the Seeker.”

Into his mind drifted the unwelcome memory of the caves below Haven, of Cassandra curled up in his arms, and he felt defensive suddenly, irritated. “She’s a pain in the ass,” he said firmly. “A self-righteous Chantry thug. The only reason she bothers with me at all is because I’m the Inquisitor, and she didn’t even want that to happen.”

I was wrong about you. I am sorry for it, truly.

But she hadn’t been wrong, had she? He was a liar and a charlatan, just as she’d always thought. It was the Seeker’s fault for thinking he was something he wasn’t, or wishing that he was. She should have known that Varric Tethras wasn’t one to live up to lofty expectations.

“She can stay pissed off with me for the rest of our lives, for all I care,” he said. “She doesn’t owe me anything, and I owe her even less.”

This too came out more bitterly than he’d intended, and Hawke gave him a strange look. “Hey, don’t worry about the Seeker,” she said. “I’m here now, right? And I do owe you.” She grinned her trademark Hawke grin, the one that lit up her face like a firework. “I’ve got your back, Varric. And well…” She stood up from her chair suddenly and bowed low. “I’m at your service, Herald of Andraste.”

“Ha ha,” said Varric.

“I’m serious, actually.” And when she straightened up, Varric saw that her grin had faded, and she was looking at him with a very un-Hawke like expression. “I’m in, Varric. I want to join your Inquisition. I don’t know if there’s an oath or something…”

“There isn’t,” said Varric, now genuinely wrong-footed. “At least I don’t think there is; I never took one. I just—”

Shook Cassandra’s hand. Promised to help. Looked her dead in the eye and made her believe that, despite their differences, they were on the same team. No more secrets. No more lies.

Varric shoved the memory firmly back down. “Are you sure about this?” he asked Hawke. “I would’ve thought the Inquisition is a bit…Chantry…for you.”

“I could say the same about you,” said Hawke. “But you’re about the only people to give the mages a chance, I trust you more than anyone alive, except maybe Bethany, and I want to help fix our mistake. Corypheus is our fuck-up, Varric. Give me a chance to help make it right.”

“I’m just saying, remember what happened the last time you signed up to a job with me?”

Hawke laughed, her good humour back again. She never could be serious for long. “Well, the bar’s pretty low, right?” she said, jostling his elbow affectionately. “We’ll just steer clear of the Deep Roads and we’ll be fine.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal on that one,” said Varric.

Outside, there was a distant rumble of thunder, and Hawke, never one to miss out on some dramatic irony, waggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, ominous,” she said. “You write that in, Varric? Had a word with the Maker for some added ambiance?”

Varric chuckled. He’d missed Hawke terribly, he realised. There was something so irrepressible about her confidence, as if whatever happened, things would always work out somehow.

“Give me some credit, Hawke,” he said. “I prefer my foreshadowing a little more subtle.”

“Well, here’s some for you then,” said Hawke cheerfully, grabbing a bottle of ale from the table and raising it in a toast. “Hawke and Varric together again,” she declared. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Varric couldn’t reasonably have blamed Hawke for it, but things did start to go wrong more or less as soon as they got back to Skyhold.

The return journey, escorting Bethany unseen through Ferelden, was uneventful, which was a minor miracle. Not just because Varric’s luck had seen to it that the journey from Skyhold had been like an exciting game of ‘what gets to gnaw on the dwarf first’, but because Hawke, whatever she claimed about being good at hiding, was not really a person made for keeping a low profile. No, Hawke liked people, taverns and crowds and music and being at the centre of whatever action was going. It was one of the things Varric had liked about her immediately when they’d met, even if he personally preferred to spend an evening over a game of cards while she was more likely to start an arm-wrestling contest or persuade a bard to teach her the lute. Camping out in the countryside to avoid being recognised in a town was palpably boring for her, and she made up for this by keeping up a voluble stream of chatter, jokes and the occasional spontaneous made-up contest like ‘who can name the most Elven gods in a minute’ or ‘how many knives can I juggle’.

In all honesty, it was good to be by her side again. And with Bethany there too, it was almost like old times. The back-and-forth, the good-natured bickering between the two sisters reminded Varric poignantly of those early days when he had first met Hawke in Kirkwall, before the Deep Roads expedition. Before everything had gone to shit. He half expected to hear Aveline breaking in to reign in the teasing with a weary fondness, or Merril’s piping voice asking Hawke to explain one of her jokes.

But back at Skyhold, the mood was all business. Leliana’s agents were dispatched to scout Western Orlais for the whereabouts of the Wardens, as Varric and the two Hawke sisters prepared for an expedition out there. The desert wastelands where the order was apparently gathering was hostile country, full of unpleasant wildlife which meant travel there was slow and dangerous, and there was a lot of ground to cover. Bethany only knew that the Wardens had been summoned to some old Tevinter ruin near the Abyssal Reach, and it turned out the place was absolutely lousy with Tevinter ruins. That was a lot of sand to sift through.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Orlais, civil war was grinding on without a sign of end. Josephine had spoken of chaos in the south if Empress Celene was assassinated, but frankly it looked to Varric like Orlais at least had enough chaos right now to be worried about. Josephine insisted that any expedition the Inquisitor made to the Western Approach must be done by taking ship at Jader and sailing to Val Royeaux, as an overland route through the Dales would mean travelling through what had essentially become a vast, spread-out battlefield.

“We cannot risk the Inquisition’s involvement with this war until we know—”

“Who’s winning?” said Varric.

“I would not have put it like that, precisely,” said Josephine. “But yes. If we are to make allies of Orlais against Corypheus, we must pick a side eventually. But Leliana believes that at present his eye is turned towards the Grey Wardens, and so ours must be as well. Orlais must wait. I am strengthening our diplomatic ties with Ferelden in the meantime, Inquisitor.”

Sometimes, Varric thought Josephine might actually be the one running the Inquisition, or possibly the whole world, and the rest of them were more or less window dressing.

Not long after his return to Skyhold, Varric received a note from the Ambassador requesting his presence for an informal meeting ‘regarding the dragon you encountered in the Hinterlands’. He sincerely hoped he wasn’t about to somehow get into trouble for killing it. Josephine’s meetings usually involved tea and gossip, and he generally looked forward to them, but one of the problems with having a writer’s brain was that Varric could always think up half a dozen plausible scenarios for why he might potentially be in trouble before breakfast.

But when he arrived in Josephine’s office, the chair at her desk was empty, which was unusual enough in of itself to give Varric pause. More unusual because she was usually a stickler for punctuality, and she had after all been the one to summon him. He wandered down the corridor to the War Room on a hunch, and on hearing voices through the thick wooden doors, entered to find Josephine with Cullen, Leliana and Cassandra, the full Inquisitorial Council clustered around the war table, their faces grave.

When she saw him, Josephine pressed a hand to her mouth. “Inquisitor! I didn’t expect—my apologies, I’ve had some news that drove our appointment quite out of my mind.”

“What news?”

Josephine, usually a stickler too for keeping him informed, hesitated, exchanging a glance with Leliana. Varric’s sense of foreboding increased exponentially.

“You should tell him,” said Cassandra, impatient as ever with dithering. “He has a right to know, at least, and he will find out sooner or later.”

“Tell me what?” said Varric, looking from one face to the next, a little part of him wondering if the Seeker felt some kind of spiteful satisfaction now, for having a secret from him, however briefly. He wondered if she too was also thinking of the fact that the last time they’d been in this room together, she’d thrown a punch at him.

“We’ve had news from across the Waking Sea,” said Josephine. “Prince Vael of Starkhaven has marched on Kirkwall, in an attempt to annexe the city.”

Varric felt like one of Dorian’s lightning bolts had struck him in the middle of the War Room. “He did what?”

“He has the city surrounded,” said Cullen, who looked grim. “One of Leliana’s agents managed to get word of the invasion to the Provisional Viscount, so they were not caught completely unawares, but it’s led to a stalemate that threatens to become an all-out siege.”

“He believes he can find and root out the apostate Anders,” said Cassandra. “Who you told me Hawke killed herself, during the uprising.”

“She did,” said Varric. “I was there, Seeker.”

Cassandra regarded him levelly, clearly trying to decide whether she believed him or not. “Perhaps it does not matter,” she said, unexpectedly. “Whether he lives or not, whether he is still in Kirkwall or not, Prince Vael believes that he is.”

“We didn’t want to tell you because we were formulating potential responses to the attack, Inquisitor,” said Josephine, smoothly. “Prince Vael has asked the Inquisition for…aid, in this endeavour.”

Varric’s answer to this was not repeatable, and made the corners of Cullen’s mouth twitch. “Yes, we thought that might be your general opinion on the matter,” he said.

“We have also received a letter from Guard Captain Aveline,” said Leliana. “It was addressed to you personally.”

She handed over a letter to Varric on which the seal was unbroken, but he assumed she must have read anyway. Nightingale had her ways, and right now he didn’t really care. Varric unfolded the letter and read Aveline’s familiar blocky, careful handwriting.

***

To Inquisitor Varric Tethras, Herald of Andraste,

The city of Kirkwall has come under attack from forces marching under the banner of Starkhaven. As Kirkwall has no standing army, the defence of the city has fallen to the City Guard, and what volunteer militia we have been able to muster from the populace. As you know, Kirkwall is a proud city, and many are willing to give their lives to defend their home, but I sincerely hope it need not come to that. Prince Vael’s demand that we hand over a man who is, to the best of my knowledge, dead, cannot be satisfied. Even if it could, the unprovoked invasion of a neighbouring city in order to bring a single man to justice is an unacceptable act of aggression. On behalf of the Provisional Viscount, and the people of Kirkwall, I beg the Inquisition to intercede in this matter. If Prince Vael will not listen to reason, perhaps he will listen to Andraste’s chosen.

Yours sincerely,

Aveline Hendyr, Guard Captain, Kirkwall City Guard

P.S. Merrill is well, and sends her love. I have not heard from Fenris or Isabela, but if you do, please convey my regards. For the Maker’s sake, keep them and Hawke as far away from the city as possible – we’re in enough trouble as it is.

There was another, short note written at the bottom of the letter, dashed off quickly in a hand Varric didn’t recognise:

Varric- Aveline didn’t want to tell you this, but she’s given me this letter personally to make sure it leaves the city, so I’ll break her trust this once. She is pregnant. If you can’t help us, in the name of your friendship, I beg you to find a way to get my wife safely out of Kirkwall. I have tried to persuade her to no avail. -Donnic

***

Varric folded up the letter and carefully stowed it in his coat to give himself a moment before he looked back up at the others. Even so, it was an effort to keep his voice calm.

“We’re putting a stop to this bullshit,” he said. “Now. Whatever it takes; I want Choirboy out of my city. Actually, I wouldn’t say no to having him dragged in chains into Skyhold so I can give him a piece of my mind to his face.”

“I can’t promise that,” said Cullen, “but I can mobilise troops across the Waking Sea in a matter of days. It’s no easy thing to lay siege to a city, and I don’t believe it would take much to tip the balance of power in Kirkwall’s favour and send the Starkers packing.”

There was an edge in his voice that might have made Varric smile, under other circumstances. It seemed that Cullen’s time in Kirkwall, however fraught, had left him with some lingering loyalty to the city after all.

“It benefits no-one to have the Free Marches at war with each other, especially at a time like this,” said Josephine. “We must be careful in our approach.”

“But it would make the Inquisition look weak, if we cannot even protect the city from which our Inquisitor hails,” pointed out Leliana.

“True,” said Josephine. “I have every reason to believe Prince Vael will back down, without our support. Once our forces are in place, you should release a public statement condemning the invasion, Inquisitor.” Her lips curved. “Doubtless you will not struggle to find the right words.”

“You don’t want to write it for me?” asked Varric, surprised.

“There are times for formality, and times when the personal touch is more effective,” said Josephine. “Though that does remind me—” She turned, unexpectedly to address Cassandra. “Lady Pentaghast, if you would be willing…”

For a moment Varric was confused by this, but Cassandra herself seemed to know well enough what Josephine was asking. “I will sign my name to whatever message the Inquisition wishes to send King Marcus,” she said. “And I will write to my uncle. He has some influence, I believe, in court.”

She didn’t look thrilled at the prospect, but Josephine nodded, pleased. “Nevarra will not commit troops and risk all-out war,” she said. “But they can bring significant pressure to bear on Starkhaven if their trading ties are threatened. It would be a great help.”

“Then if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my duties,” said Cassandra, still apparently mostly addressing Josephine, and at a nod she left the room without a backwards glance. Varric’s gaze followed her instinctively as she left, distracted momentarily from the matter of Kirkwall by this abrupt exit.

At the war table, Cullen was already drawing Leliana and Josephine into a discussion of troop movement and how to conceal their intentions until the moment came to act, their three heads – pale blond, dark, and fiery red – bent over the map, a sight that had become very familiar since those early days at Haven. But the scene felt oddly incomplete without the fourth member of the Inquisitorial Council, the driving force behind the Inquisition who now seemed determined to cut herself out of it altogether.

Varric felt wrong-footed by Cassandra’s apparent disinterest. Whatever her personal feelings on the attack on Kirkwall, it was a huge favour she was doing him by agreeing to involve her family, and she could at least have had the decency to hold it over his head just a little, to make him beg for her help, or squirm at having to show gratitude. To not make it quite so brutally clear that her own integrity so far outstripped his own that it had apparently never crossed her mind to leave Kirkwall in the lurch out of spite towards him.

She could at least have looked him properly in the eye, just once.

He’d hoped after their trip to Crestwood things might have changed, somehow. Was this really what it was going to be like between them, from now on? The Seeker resigning herself to the role of stoic bodyguard, fighting alongside her Inquisitor out of some stubborn sense of duty, and treating him the rest of the time as if he were a pile of bronto dung? Did she really think so little of him now? Whatever Varric had told Hawke, on some level he had thought…fuck, Varric didn’t know what he’d thought. He didn’t even know why he cared, why it niggled at him like a rotten tooth. He’d never really had Cassandra’s respect, much less her affection, but he’d at least always had her undivided attention. Now he missed the sharp lance of her glare, the bite of her words. He couldn’t help but linger on the brief glimpses he’d gotten of the other Cassandra – the Cassandra who had been kind to him about Bartrand, who had read Hard in Hightown for ‘research’, who had been so furious over the murder of the Tranquil that her hands had shaken. The Cassandra who had carried not just him down the mountains from Haven, but his crossbow too, because she had known what it would have meant to him to leave it behind. Varric found he couldn’t dismiss that Cassandra from his thoughts as easily as she apparently could him.

Varric remembered what Cole had said, and realised that he and the Seeker were at least in agreement on one thing – it would be easier if she simply hated him. Or if he could at least find it in himself to hate her.

Well, to the void with it all, anyway. He had more important things to worry about right now. Varric forced the problem of Cassandra from his mind and went to join the others at the war table – Inquisitor or not, he was still Varric Tethras, and his city was in trouble.

Though the news about Kirkwall had driven it from his mind, Varric did find out in fairly short order what exactly Josephine had wanted to talk to him about regarding the dragon, and it wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

“A party?”

“A small fête,” said Josephine, “to be held here at Skyhold, in celebration your heroic feat. The dragonslaying,” she added helpfully, in case Varric was having trouble keeping track of his heroic feats. “It has caused quite a stir.”

“You know I wasn’t technically the one who killed the thing, right?”

“Well then, you can correct the details of the story to your heart’s content over a glass of fine wine and the company of carefully selected nobles from both Ferelden and Orlais. Many have clamoured to see the trophies you collected. This is a rare diplomatic opportunity. More tea?”

Varric wrestled with his pride for only a moment before grudgingly accepting. Josephine poured another steaming cup into the fine, rose patterned porcelain that was laid out on her desk. It felt strange to be drinking tea while somewhere, Aveline was out on a barricade defending Kirkwall. Somewhere, the Grey Wardens were gathering for a blood magic ritual that might unleash chaos on the world. Somewhere, Bull’s Chargers were even now sifting through the ashes of Haven, trying to find anything they could to identify the bodies there for their loved ones. How had the world gotten so messed up? How had his own life gotten so weird?

Varric blew on his tea to cool it, ignoring Josephine’s scandalised look at this apparent faux-pas. “You do remember that the last time we had a party,” he said, “it was crashed by an army of red templars and a darkspawn Magister?”

“That is precisely why this event is needed,” said Josephine firmly, though he noticed that her hand shook slightly where she gripped the handle of her teacup. “We must give the people an assurance that the Inquisition’s victories can be celebrated, and that we have not been cowed by that…interruption.”

“Don’t you think this is kind of a busy time to be organising something like this?” Varric couldn’t bring himself to say ‘don’t you have more important things to be doing?’ but Josephine either wilfully or inadvertently misunderstood his meaning.

“Of course you have far more pressing matters to attend to, Inquisitor,” she said. “Rest assured you need not trouble yourself with the details. I will arrange the whole thing. You need only be there.”

There was not a hint of steel in Josephine’s polite voice, but the implied words ‘or else’ hung unspoken in the air anyway. Between brooding over Kirkwall and the Seeker, Varric wasn’t really in the mood to be partying. But Ruffles was right, as usual – people needed something to celebrate for once. This wasn’t really about him, so when the appointed evening arrived, Varric took a long, hot bath, put on his finest tunic, undid an extra fastening for good measure, and sallied forth into the great hall with all the Inquisitorial charm he could muster.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Although there were still significant parts of Skyhold that were shored up with scaffolding or simply full of holes, the great hall was by now a pretty impressive sight. The tall stained glass windows at the far end had been completed in record time, depicting a triptych of scenes – the Herald of Andraste emerging from the rift in the ruins of the Conclave with Andraste by his side, the Herald closing the Breach, glowing hand raised triumphantly in the air, the Herald facing down Corypheus and his archdemon at Haven. Although the figure was stylised enough to not really be recognisably him, Varric still found it weird seeing a dwarf depicted in stained glass, something he always associated with Chantries. There were no dwarves in the tale of Andraste, or at least none important enough to be in any of the artwork. But whatever his feelings about the windows, he had to admit the effect was spectacular; the rays of the setting sun streamed through the coloured panes, throwing a rainbow of light like jewels over the Inquisitor’s throne and those of the Inquisitorial Council flanking it on the raised stone dais at the head of the room. Great banners emblazoned with Inquisition insignia hung from the beams of the high vaulted ceiling, and hundreds of candles burned in the great chandelier, still more in candelabras arrayed along the long wooden tables that were full to bursting with the kind of little finger foods that nobles loved to pick at while enjoying this kind of shindig. In one corner, Maryden the bard had been joined by a few of her compatriots, playing the kind of music designed to be a background to genteel chatter and the clinking of glasses.

Slightly incongruous with this atmosphere of refinement was the enormous dragon skull that had pride of place in the centre of the room. Josephine had managed to get it brought up the mountains at some effort and expense, and Varric had to admit that it too certainly made an impression. It was surrounded by drifting gaggles of people, examining it from every angle with impressed expressions; after losing so many friends to dragonfire at Haven, maybe there was some savage enjoyment to be had from seeing the head of one displayed as a party decoration. It obviously wasn’t in the same league as the thing Corypheus had made his pet, but there was a certain swaggering ‘fuck you’ quality to the sight of it that Varric appreciated, making an ostentatious defeat of what had become everyone’s greatest fear.

“Rather vulgar, I know,” sighed Josephine, when she greeted him, looking resplendent in a many-layered gown of gold and turquoise. “But the nobles do like to gawp at such things.”

A lot of those present seemed just as interested in gawping at the Herald of Andraste himself as much as the dragon skull, and Varric was grateful that Ruffles had managed to intercept him as he arrived, to give him a quick sotto voce rundown of the people here he should know. Varric had extremely detailed knowledge of the movers and shakers of Kirkwall and the Free Marches, and where all their proverbial skeletons were buried, but that knowledge ended at the Wounded Coast. He was no good playing politics on such a big stage, but the Inquisition had their ambassador for that very purpose, and she made sure that Varric at least knew everyone’s names.

It was an impressive guest-list, considering this whole thing had been on pretty short notice. Varric was surprised to see that Arl Teagan of Redcliffe was present, engaged in spirited debate with Blackwall about the Grand Tourney, which he broke off from to thank the Inquisitor profusely for ridding his lands of both the mage rebellion and a high dragon. There was a faint edge to his words, however, when he enquired about Varric’s recent trip further into Ferelden – perhaps it was inevitable that news of closing the rift beneath the lake would spread out from Crestwood eventually – and Varric was forced to do a certain amount of subtle schmoozing to assure the Arl that the Inquisition was not staging some kind of stealth invasion of his country.

Arl Teagan was King Alistair’s uncle, if Varric remembered correctly, and it was probably important that he went back home with a good report of Skyhold and its inhabitants. It wasn’t exactly clear in which country the castle lay, the border being a bit fuzzy along the Frostbacks, but the last thing they needed was an argument between Ferelden and Orlais on who got to charge the Inquistion rent.

“I’m not usually prone to listening to rumour,” said Arl Teagan, once the appropriate pleasantries had been disposed with and Josephine had drifted away, “but I have heard that the Hero of Ferelden is with your Inquisition?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Varric. “We’ve only got the Hero of Orlais.” This was something of a backhanded compliment at Cassandra’s expense, but it wouldn’t exactly be diplomatic to imply that Ferelden’s finest was surplus to requirements. “Grey Wardens are hard to find these days,” he added. “I’ve no more idea where the Hero of Ferelden is than the next guy. But surely King Alistair must know?”

“The King…plays some things close to his chest,” said Teagan, and Varric filed away the hint of frustration in his voice as useful to pass on to Leliana later, before turning the conversation smoothly to other things. He wasn’t surprised that the King of Ferelden was being shiftier than usual, even around people he trusted – the guy had been a Grey Warden too, after all, and must be hearing the Calling along with the others. King Alistair was probably shitting bricks right about now.

Though Teagan was probably the most powerful figure to attend, Josephine’s party had drawn a few other people out of the woodwork too. Tactfully avoiding the Arl was the former Grand Enchanter Fiona, who Varric noticed across the room, deep in conversation with Bethany, the two mages looking oddly of a piece with their dark hair and blue robes. Fiona had also once been a part of the Grey Wardens, Varric recalled, though she had left under rather murky circumstances. She and Bethany would have a lot to talk about. He couldn’t see Hawke anywhere in the throng, which probably meant she was off somewhere getting into trouble, or else had ditched this thing entirely for a better party.

Not having that option himself, Varric dutifully made the rounds, flirted lightly with a couple of important Orlesian nobles that Josephine had pointed out, and let an old man who was apparently a renowned wyvern hunter in his youth treat him to an extremely long lecture about the strategy he should have used to take the dragon down. Enough nodding and muttering polite things along the lines of ‘wow, I never thought of that’ on Varric’s part, and the old duffer was ready to declare the Inquisitor ‘a fine young man, for a dwarf’. Josephine beamed at Varric from across the room when he finally escaped – the former wyvern hunter’s clothes and jewellery had stunk of huge amounts of money spent in a profligate manner, and doubtless the Inquisition’s coffers could make use of his patronage.

It was hard work, but Varric found he was enjoying himself nonetheless, far more in his element here than he ever had been out in the wilderness, trudging through fields and fighting off demons. Perhaps this crowd wasn’t exactly the company he would have chosen, but there were worse things than spending an evening eating good food and talking to people.

Not everyone would agree with that opinion, of course. Varric had spotted Cassandra lurking in the corner of the hall early on, looking for all the world as though she would have much preferred going round two with the dragon to spending her time like this. Maker only knew how Ruffles had persuaded her to be here, much less remove her armour in favour of what must have passed for the Seeker’s formal attire. She was wearing black; high laced boots, leather trousers so tight they’d probably be illegal in Starkhaven, and a black velvet doublet with copper fastenings. She looked like a very dangerous bottle of ink. It wasn’t surprising that everyone else present was giving her a wide berth – Josephine might have persuaded her to change her clothes, but not the forbidding scowl on her face that made it very clear she considered this whole thing a waste of time. The Seeker was not much one for pageantry.

Inevitably, Varric spent most of his evening telling the story of the dragon slaying over and over again to a flatteringly agape audience, embellishing a little as he went. He made sure to give Bull and Cassandra their dues as well – not that the battle needed much exaggeration in that regard – and he quickly found the rhythm of the tale coming more easily to him as he repeated it. The rumours of the dragon sightings, the mystery of the lyrium smugglers disappearance, then the sudden shadow passing overhead…

Varric knew how to spin a good yarn; what to skip over and what to embellish, how to ratchet up the tension or release it with a joke, how to hook the audience and keep up the pace, when to let the excitement, or the anger, or the fear show in his voice so that those listening could believe, just for a moment, that they were there feeling it too. Hawke had always said that he loved being the centre of attention, but the truth was this was the closest thing Varric had ever found to being invisible. As he spoke, he disappeared, and the story was what mattered.

“…and I’m there, flat on my ass in the dust,” he recounted, for the dozenth time, “laughing like a madman because I can’t believe the damn thing missed me by inches, inches. And the Seeker—”

Had been right there in the dust next to him, panting and filthy and spattered with blood. The memory of her wide, uninhibited grin of triumph made Varric glance over, in spite of himself, to where she stood. With a jolt, he met Cassandra’s gaze – she was watching him from across the room, though she couldn’t possibly have known he was talking about her. She looked away quickly, and Varric too wrenched his attention back to his audience.

“Well, the Seeker just sheathes her sword, like it’s another day on the job, cool as anything,” he said. “I don’t think she even broke a sweat.”

This was greeted with a series of impressed murmurs from the cluster of nobles who were gathered around him. They’d leaned in close, hanging off his every word, and now Varric saw the relaxing of shoulders, the pleasure in the narrative having drawn to a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion.

“How magnificent,” breathed one woman rapturously, pink-faced with wine. “I have seen the fresco in the Grand Cathedral of course, of the Lady Seeker’s heroism in saving the Divine Beatrix. What a jewel in the crown of the Inquisition, to have such a woman at your side, Inquisitor.”

“She certainly lives up to the stories,” said Varric, which was a usefully meaningless phrase that was absolutely true but contained no actual opinion. Ruffles would be annoyed at him for downplaying his own part in the dragon battle, but his version made a better story anyway – the Inquisitor, scared shitless and in over his head, but blessed as always with the Maker’s own luck, was a character that people could relate to. Cassandra cut a more likely heroic figure than him, and she had, after all, struck the killing blow, if not with quite the same gallant sang-froid as he’d described.

One of his little audience opened his mouth to speak, and Varric braced himself for another round of questioning – about his books, the mage uprising in Kirkwall, the attack on Haven, the Inquisition’s position on the Orlesian civil war. All the options seemed equally exhausting, but Varric kept the smile pasted to his face. This was something he was good at, and he owed Josephine and the Inquisition his best effort, no matter how wearing it became.

But salvation arrived in the unexpected form of Vivienne de Fer, who glided up at that moment and inserted herself into the conversation effortlessly, all graceful charm as she kissed the pink-faced woman on both cheeks in effusively Orlesian greeting.

“Mariella, darling, I almost didn’t recognise you!” she exclaimed. “You simply must give me the name of your dressmaker, my dear, the woman’s a genius. How are you? I was so sorry to hear the news of your dear brother—”

Whether deployed by Josephine or acting under her own steam, the Iron Lady was a pro. In minutes she had the little crowd eating out of the palm of her hand, and Varric was easily able to feign spotting someone across the room and slip away.

He was absolutely starving, since he’d spent hours talking instead of eating, and so he took the opportunity to sidle round to one of the tables and cram a few canapes into his mouth, savouring the brief moment of respite with no attention on him as much as the taste of the food. But his fleeting moment of peace was abruptly brought to an end when Hawke appeared, weaving through the crowds with – rather unexpectedly – Dorian in tow, and the most massive shit-eating grin Varric had ever seen gracing her face, which was saying something.

“I’ve got an idea,” Hawke announced, “to get you back into the Seeker’s good graces.”

“I don’t think she has graces, good or otherwise,” said Varric, used to keeping up with Hawke’s non-sequiturs. “And since most of your ideas involve breaking into places, beating people up, or both, I can’t help but be sceptical.”

“Hey, I only beat up people who deserve it,” said Hawke, with a wounded look that would convince absolutely nobody.

“I dare say Cassandra might say the same,” noted Dorian, who looked rather less animated than Hawke, but amused at her enthusiasm. He was holding a goblet of wine with the air of someone utterly at ease in his surroundings.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sparkler,” said Varric. He glanced over, once again, to where Cassandra stood, only to find empty space. She had gone; absorbed into the crowd or, more likely, escaped out the main doors while no-one was paying attention. Varric felt a brief flash of envy.

“Don’t you want to hear our plan?” asked Hawke. She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, the way she always did when she was bursting to say something.

“Only because I was cursed with a curiosity that will probably one day kill me,” said Varric, turning his attention back to the pair in front of him. It was occurring to him that by letting Hawke and Dorian meet, he may have unleashed a force upon the world more dangerous than Corypheus.

“So, it turns out that Cassandra…is a big fan of your books,” said Hawke. “Specifically, Swords and Shields.”

“Wait, I think I must have heard you wrong,” said Varric. “Did you say Swords and Shields? The romance serial?” Hawke nodded, looking tremendously pleased with herself. “You’re kidding, that’s easily the worst thing I’ve ever written.”

“Cassandra doesn’t seem to think so,” said Dorian. “She’s eagerly awaiting the next chapter.”

Eager was not a word Varric would ever have used to describe Cassandra Pentaghast. Impatient, maybe. Eager implied a kind of breathless, wide-eyed girlishness that suited the Seeker about as well as a frilly Orlesian dress would.

“So this is a set-up, right?” Varric asked, looking from Dorian to Hawke and back again, searching for any trace of deception. “You’re messing with me right now?”

“On my honour as a scheming, heretical Vint,” said Dorian, pressing a hand to his heart. “She told me it’s her favourite.”

“I saw Dorian reading it and asked him where the hell he got it,” said Hawke, “since it’s not exactly widely available, especially outside Kirkwall.”

“And I replied with the Maker’s honest truth that Cassandra lent it to me,” said Dorian.

“Wait, you were reading Swords and Shields?” said Varric, who felt that his grip on this conversation and his sanity in general was slipping by the second.

Dorian smirked. “I have the excuse that I was simply curious to see what had our dear Seeker blushing like a beetroot when I stumbled across her reading it in the garden the other day. She tried to hide it from me, which was a dreadful mistake. The loan of the book was the price of my silence.”

“Looks like the Seeker got played for a sucker there,” said Varric. “So much for your honour as a Vint.”

“Technically, Hawke told you, not I,” said Dorian, unoffended. “Besides, it’s all in a good cause.”

“Well, she’ll be waiting a long time if she’s hoping for more,” said Varric, who was still trying to imagine Cassandra blushing like a beetroot, and failing. “The sales for that series were terrible. I wasn’t planning on finishing it.”

“Ah, but that was before you knew Cassandra was hooked on it,” said Hawke. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint your biggest fan, would you?”

Varric had a long and proud history of disappointing people, but oddly enough this plea, however humorously meant, did cause him a little pang. Cassandra; a fan of his filthy, bodice-ripping romance books. Who’d have thought? A hundred ways he could make fun of her about this instantly sprang to mind…and then suddenly Varric felt ashamed of himself. The Seeker liked his books, why the hell should he have a problem with that, of all things? Why was his first instinct, when Hawke had offered him a way to make peace, to try and turn it into another weapon?

Varric had spent a lot of time, in those early weeks after the Conclave especially, needling the Seeker as she’d tried to make peace with him. She’d called him a little shit, when she’d thrown that punch at him, and maybe she wasn’t entirely wrong. Now she’d apparently given up on him altogether. So perhaps it was long past time for Varric to eat a little crow himself, to be the one to reach out to her if only in the name of general team unity. Hadn’t that been what he wanted, after all?

Swords and Shields. Maker’s breath.

“So you want me to continue writing my worst serial. For Cassandra.” Varric sighed theatrically. “That’s such a terrible idea, I have to do it. I’m in.”

“Just don’t let Aveline find out,” said Hawke, grinning. “Inquisitor or not, she’ll kick your ass.”

“She’ll have to get in line after the Seeker,” said Varric, grinning back, though the mention of Aveline made his gut clench. It was the right thing to do, to keep Hawke away from Kirkwall, to not burden her with the news of the invasion until necessary, but keeping the information to himself didn’t sit easy. It would still be days before they were likely to have any word from across the Waking Sea, and he wanted to have good news to give Hawke, not just another thing to feel guilty about.

At least he’d made her happy in the meantime. Hawke looked thrilled with herself, and nudged Dorian in the side with her elbow, making the mage wince. “Told you he would!” she declared smugly. “Wait ‘til I tell Bethany about this!” And with that, she darted off through the room towards her sister, leaving Varric marvelling at his friend’s irrepressible desire to fix everybody else’s problems, even when her own life was only ever barely controlled chaos. How Kirkwall had ever survived without Hawke, he would never know. He only hoped she would be able to go back to it one day, and that there would be something to go back to. But then, maybe she wouldn’t want to – many of her friends had moved on, after all, and the city hadn’t always been kind to Hawke. Kirkwall was Varric’s home, the anchor that always drew him back for better or worse, but he couldn’t assume that his friend would feel the same way.

“She went back for you, you know,” remarked Dorian. “At Haven.”

Varric, whose mind was still on Kirkwall, wrenched his attention back to the mage. “What’s that?” he said, distractedly.

“Cassandra,” said Dorian. “We were clear of the dragonfire, almost back to the Chantry when we realised you weren’t still with us. She told Blackwall and I to keep going, and she went back for you. Even though we told her that you were almost certainly already dead.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Oh, no reason,” said Dorian languidly. “Just thinking out loud, really.” He turned to leave in a swirl of expensive robes, obviously enjoying the admiring stares of the people around him.

“That book was truly terrible, by the way,” he threw over his shoulder. “Cassandra has very strange taste.”

Chapter Text

It was hot.

That was the main feature of the Western Approach; the relentless, baking heat, gruelling and inescapable. Varric had known that before they set out, of course – he’d read the requisite chapter of Genitivi, his copy now so dog eared, bookmarked and full of notes that he could probably write his own sequel – but nothing could really prepare you for the reality. The endless rust coloured sand, stretching to every horizon, under an impossibly blue sky that made you start thinking longingly about a single drop of rain. This land had been ravaged by the Blight, sucked dry of any life beyond tufts of brittle, spiny grass and wandering beasts who preyed on anyone luckless enough to find themselves out here. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the Grey Wardens had decided to gather here, where they were surrounded on all sides by a grim omen of what would become of the world, should the order fail in their duty and the Blight reign victorious. It was a bleak, terrible place, of sunstroke and hot, brittle winds, of crumbled ruins and white bones sticking out of the endless sea of sand.

“I spy with my little eye…” said Hawke, “something beginning with S.”

“Sand,” said Bethany, wearily.

“Ok then…R,” said Hawke.

“Rocks,” said the Iron Bull.

“Damn, you guys are good at this,” said Hawke. “Okayyy, how about…” She craned her head this way and that, looking for inspiration.

“Give it up, Hawke,” sighed Varric. “That’s all there is.”

This wasn’t strictly true. There was the occasional dead, twisted tree, bark bleached white by the sun, and they’d already stumbled across a couple of Fade rifts, even all the way out here. But overall it wasn’t exactly a place Varric would have picked for a vacation spot. They had left the Inquisition’s main camp in Lost Spring Canyon early that morning with just Cassandra and the Iron Bull accompanying him, Hawke and Bethany, as they had done from Skyhold. Leliana had insisted on keeping the fact that the Hawke sisters were acting as guides in this matter on a need-to-know basis. Varric wasn’t sure if she was trying to make it harder for assassins targeting either of them for what they knew, or if Josephine was worried that Hawke’s folk-hero status would overshadow their Inquisitor. Either way it meant that they were a small party, their purpose right now simply to find the Grey Wardens as fast as possible and figure out what exactly it was they planned to do out here in the desert. Lead Scout Harding and her people had been battling the sands without any luck so far in locating their quarry, but Varric was supremely grateful for their fortified base camp and hand-sketched maps of the area. And he had something they didn’t have – a Grey Warden of his own.

The night before, as they’d sat around the campfire, Hawke had asked Bethany, in her typical matter-of-fact way, whether the Wardens were close. Bethany hadn’t seemed surprised at the question, frowning slightly in concentration rather than annoyance.

“They’re here,” she said, finally, “but far away west.”

“How can you tell?” asked Bull curiously.

Bethany shrugged. “I can feel them.”

“Feel them how?”

Bethany had thought for a moment and then said. “Close your eyes – I mean your eye –  and hold your hand out in front of you, not touching anything.”

Bull had done as she asked.

“Do you know where your hand is?” said Bethany.

“Sure.”

“But you can’t see it, and it isn’t touching anything but air, so how can you tell?”

“Because it’s a part of me, I guess.”

“Exactly.”

Bull opened his eyes and lowered his hand. “Useful,” he’d commented thoughtfully. ‘Creepy’ was how Varric would have put it, but he kept that thought to himself, and when they’d set off at dawn, it was by unspoken agreement that Bethany took the lead.

There was at least been one thing that made the arduous trek through the desert more bearable. When their ship had docked at Val Royeaux, news from across the Waking Sea had been waiting for them – the siege at Kirkwall had been broken the moment the Inquisition’s troops had arrived, banners waving, and demanded in the name of Andraste that Starkhaven return to their own lands and stop harassing innocents in the name of vengeance. For once Varric didn’t feel bad about them using Andraste’s name, as he was pretty sure She would’ve been on their side on this one.

The office of the Provisional Viscount in Kirkwall had put out a statement apologising to its valued trade partners for the unfortunate disruption of commerce due to this unprovoked attack, and saying that if the apostate Anders was ever found, he would be duly arrested and put on trial in Kirkwall for his crimes according to the law, as any civilised city would do. Varric had cackled to himself when he saw that – it made Starkhaven look like a bunch of howling barbarians descending on a city to sack it under the thinnest of excuses. He wondered if Aveline had any hand in writing it. Anyway, she was safe, that was the main thing, as was the rest of the city, at least for now. Choirboy had slunk back to Starkhaven with his dignity in tatters, and facing the condemnation of pretty much every other city state in the Marches, not to mention Nevarra, the neighbour who nobody wanted to piss off.

Varric would have to thank Cassandra for that, when he could be sure she was in any mood to trust his sincerity again. To that end, he was spending every spare moment he had – which wasn’t a lot, to be honest – working on the next chapter of Swords and Shields. He’d been obliged to re-read what he’d written so far, since it had been so long since he’d worked on it, alternately wincing and chuckling at his own ludicrous prose. Romance had never exactly been his strong suit as a writer, and the story had begun as a way to annoy Aveline, so the plot wasn’t very well thought out. But he found himself entertained nonetheless as he’d started scribbling down a few notes for the next instalment, deciding what fate should befall the stalwart Knight Captain character after her wrongful imprisonment at the hands of the corrupt Viscount, a corner he’d written his protagonist into without the faintest idea of how she’d get out of it. It wasn’t hard to see why Cassandra might like Eveline, who was a woman who took no shit from anyone, and was so incandescent with integrity that she’d probably hesitate to say ‘good morning’ if it was raining outside, for fear of making herself a liar. But since Cassandra apparently sincerely enjoyed what Swords and Shields had to offer so far, Varric decided not to make any efforts to change the tried and tested formula, and continued to put Eveline in a variety of increasingly contrived dramatic situations, all of which were easily solved by some swashbuckling action on her part, and were mostly excuses to ratchet up the sexual tension between the Knight Captain and her lover, an improbably handsome, musclebound and devoted Guardsman who the real Aveline’s husband Donnic had been immensely pleased by when his wife had made the mistake of letting him read the book once. Varric made a mental note to send a copy of the next chapter to Donnic too, once he’d written it.

“You know, if you’re bored of ‘I-Spy’ already,” said Hawke, in a suspiciously conversational tone, breaking Varric’s train of thought. “You know what would be more fun…”

“No,” said Varric.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”

“You want to bait that dragon.”

They’d run into only one other person in the desert who wasn’t an Inquisition scout; an Orlesian scholar who had claimed to be out here researching high dragons. Since it was frankly the most interesting thing that had happened in hours of traipsing over dunes and fending off the occasional wandering hyena pack, Hawke had latched onto the idea like a dog with a bone.

“For research,” she said, earnestly, her eyes wide and unable to restrain her grin. “For science, Varric.”

“That guy,” said Varric, “was crazy. You’d have to be crazy to be out here willingly, and we do not follow the whims of clearly crazy people, especially when they involve goading huge, fire-breathing monsters. And that includes you.”

“He let me fight a dragon in the Hinterlands,” said Bull.

Hawke gesticulated as if this proved some kind of point. “You let him fight a dragon in the Hinterlands!”

“I didn’t let anyone do anything,” protested Varric. “The dragon attacked us.”

“And this dragon might attack us too,” said Hawke hopefully. “Or someone else. We’d be doing the world a favour.”

“She’s got a point, Boss,” said Bull.

Hawke nodded vigorously. “Come on Seeker, you’re a Pentaghast,” she said, turning to Cassandra. “Back me up here.”

“I—” Cassandra was clearly torn between not wanting to agree with Hawke’s insanity and resisting the inevitable consequence of being on Varric’s side in an argument. Varric took pity on her.

“We are not fighting any more dragons,” he said firmly. “It’s too damn hot and we’ve got enough to worry about without going round poking the local wildlife with a stick.”

“Ah, you’re no fun anymore,” said Hawke. She brightened. “Remember that dragon we fought at the Bone Pit back in Kirkwall?”

“Vividly,” said Varric. “It took weeks for my eyebrows to grow back.”

“Mother was furious,” chimed in Bethany. “You said you were going out to get milk and you came home with your clothes all burnt, a concussion, and a half share in a mining company.”

“But she did have milk!” said Varric.

“Only because you reminded her on the way home,” said Bethany. She pulled out her waterskin from her robes and took a swig, grimacing at the lukewarm water before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Bethany had been suffering the worst of them in the desert, fair skinned as she was, and in spite of the cowl cast over her head to keep off the sun, the tip of her nose was pink and peeling. “Anyway, that mine was nothing but trouble,” she said to Hawke. “You should have called it ‘the money pit’.”

“There was no way I was going to change the name Bone Pit,” said Hawke, sniggering.

“Yeah, the jokes kind of write themselves for that one, huh?” commented Bull, grinning too.

Cassandra made a noise that might have been a disgust, or hastily bitten off laughter; Varric couldn’t tell when he glanced over at her. But he suspected that, overall, Hawke was not quite what she had expected. Admittedly Varric had…polished up a few of his friend’s rough edges in The Tale of the Champion. Taken out a lot of the swearing. Spun some of her more insane ideas as clever plans. Omitted the couple of times he’d had to bail her out of gaol, or haul her ass out of the fire when she got in over her head. Hawke was a wonder, a fizzing fireball of a person, fiercely loyal and scrappy as anyone would be who’d risen to the top of the heap by her fists and her sheer brass balls alone. But she did not exactly come across in person as someone who would have a statue made of her; more like someone who you’d be likely to see grinning down at you from a ‘Wanted’ poster.

The Seeker was learning on this trip what so many had discovered – it was rarely a good idea to meet your heroes in person. Hawke, for her part, seemed to have mostly gotten over her short-lived crush and now treated Cassandra the way she treated everyone; like an old friend who she hadn’t seen in years, all cheerful camaraderie and cheesy jokes. It was extremely entertaining to watch.

They made camp that night by a creek that ran through a long, narrow canyon, the light of their small campfire sheltered from prying eyes by the high sandstone walls that rose on either side. Varric usually took first watch when they were camping rough, but this time he gave it to Bethany, who looked like she could use some uninterrupted rest, and found himself woken instead in the small hours by Bull to stand his turn.

He pulled on his boots and coat as quietly as he could, grabbed his crossbow and settled down on a convenient rock near the cluster of tents – his and Cassandra’s, Hawke and Bethany’s, and the tent Bull took up all by himself. It was a familiar sight by now, and this a familiar routine. Varric couldn’t say he’d developed any great love of camping outdoors since his time with the Inquisition, but it was amazing what you could get used to, if you had to.

The darkness was absolute outside of the circle of firelight, and the night surprisingly cold. Varric passed the time by writing a few pages of Swords and Shields, looking up periodically, and occasionally getting to his feet to circle the camp, checking what passed for the perimeter. But although he had keen eyesight in the dark, he saw nothing but the sand, heard nothing but Bull’s snores and the occasional distant call of a hyena, far off in the dunes.

After a couple of hours, Varric headed back to the tent he was sharing with Cassandra. She was an early riser by habit, so was content to have the last watch of the night fall to her, and it meant he didn’t have to be worried about waking her accidentally as he returned to grab his last hour or so of sleep.

“Rise and shine, Seeker,” he said, as he ducked through the tent flap. Cassandra stirred and started to lever herself upright up as Varric sank onto his bedroll and started to unlace his boots. “It’s your w—”

His sentence was cut off in a yelp as some unseen force clamped onto his one still-booted foot and wrenched him bodily from the tent. Varric’s head hit the sand and the world whirled around him in a dimly-lit blur of canvas and firelight as he tried to make sense of what was happening, dragged along the ground half dangling from whatever had seized him. He had the impression of scales, and hot, foul breath, and then he got a mouthful of sand as he tried to cry out for help.

The next moment, there was a chaos of shouting and movement, and Varric found the pressure on his boot released, as he was dropped unceremoniously onto the ground. His head spinning dizzily, he just about had the wits to scramble to his elbows to see what had grabbed him, and found himself looking at something he’d only seen before in pictures.

It was a varghest – a scaled, reptilian creature the size of a wolf, with inch long claws and jaws strong enough to drag away unsuspecting dwarves for an impromptu midnight feast. Varric had only a vague impression of the thing, as it was currently rolling on the sand in a flurry of talon and fist with Cassandra, locked in something akin to a bizarre wrestling match. In an effort to stop the beast from dragging him away from the camp, the Seeker, with no weapon to hand, had simply launched herself bodily at the varghest. It was a strategy that had worked in the short term, but as the combined momentum of animal and woman brought them rolling to a stop and breaking apart, she was left facing the thing with nothing but her bare hands.

Varric was in exactly the same position and helpless to do anything as the varghest righted itself and now rounded on Cassandra, its jaws open in a drooling snarl. But instead of getting to her feet, the Seeker had used the half a second of time to roll to the side and seize her shield, which by some stroke of providence had been knocked by the wild melee to within arm’s reach. She brought it up in a desperate arc over her head as the beast leapt at her, and the thick metal smashed into the varghest’s long jaws, sending teeth flying, the unfortunate animal knocked back into the sand, a raw gash open on the side of its head, spraying blood as it fell. The next moment Cassandra was back on her feet, an impressively fast reaction given she’d been fast asleep not thirty seconds ago, and even as the varghest stirred to rise again, clearly dazed, she brought the point of the kite-shaped shield down on its head.

There was an extremely unpleasant noise of crunching bone and meat. It did not improve as Cassandra repeated the action several more times, until the point of her shield was dripping with gore, and the creature prostrate on the sand at her feet was very, definitively dead. She stood over it, panting heavily. Cassandra Pentaghast did not – as so many might secretly have suspected – actually sleep in her armour, so she was barefoot in the sand, dressed in her smallclothes and a loose cotton undershirt that fell to her thighs, which was now filthy and spattered with blood. The whole fight, from the moment Varric’s boot had been seized in the varghest’s jaws, had taken maybe a minute.

Cassandra turned to him, still lying half dazed on the ground, as if she’d just remembered he was there. “Are you injured?” she asked.

“Uh…no. No, it just got my boot.”

Varric scrambled to his feet, as the sound of the others emerging from their tents behind him made him realise that it was probably a good idea to account for the other sleeping members of their party. Where there was one varghest, there could well be more.

“Everyone else okay?” he called. On getting no response at all to this, he turned to find that Bethany was still peering out sleepily from her tent, and Hawke and Iron Bull were both ignoring him completely and staring at Cassandra with near identical expressions of poorly concealed lust.

“Oh for—” Varric sighed deeply and picked his way over to the unwitting object of their regard, since it was clear he was going to have to be the adult in this moment. “Are you alright, Seeker?” he said.

“Fine,” Cassandra said shortly, letting her shield drop to the sand. She rolled her shoulder experimentally and grimaced a little, but was apparently satisfied with the result. “But we should all be more cautious when changing watch. Clearly the threat of fire is not enough to keep away all of the creatures in these parts.”

She scanned the edge of their camp, frowning into the distance for more possible threats. Even Varric had to admit she was a fairly arresting sight, all long, moonlit limbs and wind-tousled hair. It was also pretty cold in the desert at night to be dressed in just a thin shirt. Perhaps he could write a scene into the next Swords and Shields where the Knight Captain was kidnapped in the middle of the night and had to fight off her attackers in her nightclothes, only for her love interest to storm in and save her, prompting much blushing and averting of eyes at her state of undress, which would inevitably lead to—

“Urgh,” said Cassandra, blissfully unaware of his train of thought. “I think some of that thing’s brains got into my mouth.” She spat on the ground. “I hope they’re not poisonous.”

Varric sighed. The Seeker would make a terrible protagonist. At least Hawke and Bull seemed to have gotten a hold of themselves, and were starting to try and rescue the now collapsed tent, as Bethany gathered back up the supplies that had been scattered in the melee.

“Don’t bother,” Varric called to them. “Dawn isn’t far off. Since no-one’s getting any more sleep now, we might as well pack up and get moving before it gets too hot.”

It was a sign of how much things had changed that the others started breaking camp without any further discussion, prepared to follow his lead. Varric had expected more teasing from Hawke about that – sarcastic ribbing about the great Inquisitor Tethras, Herald of Andraste, but his old friend seemed oddly at ease with the whole thing. In fact, everybody did, except Varric himself. Even before, when they’d been half-jokingly arguing about the dragon, it was him they’d been expecting to decide what to do. The Inquisitor. Their leader. If he’d told them they were going to fight the dragon after all, they’d do it – even Cassandra. It was a weird feeling, knowing that. Even weirder, somehow, than knowing that even when she would hardly look him in the eye or speak to him unless he spoke to her first, she would still throw herself into the jaws of death to protect him without a second thought.

He'd had to get used to giving orders, recently, including ones that people didn’t always like. Blackwall had been eager to travel with them into the desert to help the Wardens, but Varric had tasked him instead with a different mission – he and Sera had been dispatched to track down Warden Stroud, who had last been investigating Corypheus in Kirkwall, but had disappeared after giving Hawke his warning about the false Calling. It was possible Corypheus had caught up with him, or his fellow Wardens had, but either way he was currently their best potential source of information on their enemy, and urgently needed to be found. Bethany was also clearly worried about him – Stroud had been the one to initiate her into the Wardens, so perhaps Varric shouldn’t have been surprised that she had become close to the man who seemed to have acted as a kind of mentor over the past ten years. Hawke too had described Stroud as a friend, and that was good enough for Varric to make finding the man a priority.

Blackwall had been sore about it, clearly feeling he was being kept from the main action, but he was the obvious choice for the task. The man was unobtrusive enough to travel unremarked, and he’d be able to sense a fellow Warden when close by, just as Bethany could. Varric had asked Sera if she’d go with him, as she had a nose for finding people who didn’t want to be found, and contacts in just about every city across Ferelden and Orlais to keep an ear to the ground for news. Besides, she and Blackwall got along well, the gruff Warden having developed an almost fatherly affection for her, and Varric trusted both of them to keep their mouths shut and their eyes peeled for trouble.

There was another reason Varric had assigned Blackwall with a mission that took him far away from the Western Approach. In truth, although he had no reason not to trust Blackwall, he didn’t want to force the guy into a position to have to choose between his loyalty to the Inquisition and to the Wardens. Bethany and Stroud had both walked away willingly and made themselves traitors to their order in doing so, but Blackwall had made no such choice yet, and Varric wasn’t sure that either of them were ready to find out what it would be if he had to.

The sky was starting to lighten as they left the canyon where they’d camped, and the desert rolled out before them as they continued west, with no sign of the Wardens and thankfully no sign of any more hungry varghests. But as dawn broke, a hulking shape appeared in the middle distance; a keep, perched on the edge of the abyssal canyon that split the desert from the Gamordan mountains beyond. Even in the dim light, the black and red banners hanging from the walls were plain.

“Venatori,” said Cassandra.

“Guess we found their base in the area,” said Bull.

“It’s Griffon Wing Keep,” said Bethany. “It’s an old Warden fortress, but we abandoned it long ago.”

We, thought Varric, and saw Hawke’s darting glance at her sister and realised this unexpected insight into Bethany’s loyalties hadn’t gone over her head either. But the other two members of the party seemed more concerned by practicalities.

“I don’t see anyone on the walls,” said Bull. “Sloppy.”

“It does seem poorly defended,” agreed Cassandra. “Perhaps the Venatori have only recently arrived, and have not yet had time to dig in.”

The Venatori arriving in this area at around the same time as the Wardens was not a coincidence that boded well, in Varric’s view, but he had failed to catch the gist of where the conversation was heading.

“You know…since camping out has been such trouble, maybe having a more permanent base for the Inquisition in these parts wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” said Hawke thoughtfully.

Varric stared at her. “You’re kidding. You want to take it from them?”

“With the element of surprise, we could do it,” said Bull. “Outpost like this…even if they’ve got a couple dozen guys in there, they’ll be spread out. Most of them still asleep. Don’t give ‘em time to react, we can take them out room by room. Like at Caer Bronach.”

“It is in a good strategic location,” said Cassandra. “I daresay Commander Cullen could make use of a fortress such as this as the Inquisition expands.”

“What do you think, boss?” said Bull, turning to Varric.

All eyes on him again, Varric resisted the urge to make a flippant remark or protest out of habit, and actually considered it. Cullen’s forces had saved the day in Kirkwall, and the Inquisition now had a permanent presence in the Free Marches, and Caer Bronach in Ferelden was becoming a useful base of operations too. With their numbers growing by the day, maybe he did need to stop thinking small.

“Alright, let’s do it,” he said.

“Yeah!” Bull’s enthusiasm was infectious. “Cut off the leg before the infection spreads, that’s the way to do it.”

“Nice metaphor, Tiny.”

“And then beat them round the head with it!” said Hawke cheerfully.

“Right, I’m taking the metaphor away from you now,” said Varric. “You lot can’t be trusted with it.”

Terrible ideas and even worse jokes aside, the five of them were a lethal team, and practised by now at fighting together. By the time the Venatori noticed their approach, they were at the walls of the keep, and made mincemeat of the handful of guards who rushed out to meet them. It was a stupid move on the cultists’ part – they should have stayed inside and raised the alarm for their comrades. Instead, the Inquisition’s small raiding party was left standing at the now unguarded front gate, surrounded by corpses and facing a fortress of Venatori scattered, scrambling, and completely unaware of what they were facing.

“Shall we knock?” Hawke asked, nudging Cassandra jovially in the ribs, in a way that would surely have resulted in instant decapitation for anyone who wasn’t her.

Cassandra smiled. She had that in common with Hawke at least, Varric thought with an unexpected touch of fondness; both women were never happier then when about to take out their frustrations by violently stabbing things.

“Gladly,” the Seeker said.

When they returned to Skyhold, sunburnt, wind-scoured, but with the intel and the foothold in the Western Approach that the Inquisition sorely needed, they found a castle already preparing for war. Adamant Fortress, the Grey Wardens’ ancient stronghold to which the order had retreated, was the topic on everyone’s lips, and Varric’s days were crammed full of meetings in the War Room discussing siege weapons, supply lines and strategy.

Cassandra was notably absent from these preparations. The first few times, Josephine had politely mumbled something along the lines of ‘the Lady Seeker regrets…’ but after a while even she stopped bothering. They had more important things to worry about than Cassandra’s recalcitrance, if the Inquisition was going to stop the horror that was unfolding in western Orlais. The one bright spot in amongst the gathering stormclouds was that Griffon Wing Keep was perfectly positioned to act as a staging area for their next move; they’d left the Inquisition’s scouts in the area in possession of the place, glad to have high walls between them and the desert wildlife, and Cullen had already sent out one of his most trusted men to take command there, to secure and fortify it ahead of their attack on Adamant fortress.

A slight wrinkle in the preparations for war came when Cullen asked to see Varric in private and informed him, in a conversation that had been very awkward for the both of them, that he was attempting to break his dependence on lyrium, and had not been taking the stuff for some time.

“I apologise for the timing, Inquisitor,” he said, a touch stiffly. “I don’t expect it to trouble me severely just yet, and I have…plans in place for if and when the effects mean I can no longer do my job. I won’t be giving the Inquisition anything less than my best for the coming battle. But you should know, nonetheless.” He sighed. “The truth is, there will never be a good time to do this. But if I don’t try now, I never will.”

Varric genuinely respected what Cullen was doing, but it did mean he had one more person in Skyhold to be worried about, and he was already worried about Leliana, who had become even more withdrawn, hard-voiced and flint-eyed since she’d heard their news of the Wardens. But most of all, he was worried about Bethany, who had been quiet and subdued on the journey back from the Western Approach, making only desultory attempts to respond to her sister’s banter and join the conversation around the campfire at night. Even Cassandra had been more talkative, exchanging stories of battles past with Hawke, debating strategy for a potential siege on Adamant with Bull. All of them making a conscious effort, Varric thought, to cover for Bethany’s malaise.

After what they’d learned from their brief encounter with the Wardens in the desert, no one could have blamed Bethany for being downhearted. The order that had saved her life and taken her in when she had nowhere else to turn was now a sinking ship, her fellow mages thralls to Corypheus, no more than puppets with their strings pulled by the Venatori, just as the templars had become. There would be no reasoning with them now. The Grey Wardens had always had more mages in their ranks than in the general population – they were a last resort option for plenty of people with nowhere else to go, and mages found themselves in that situation more often than most, as Bethany herself knew well. If a life imprisoned in a Circle didn’t appeal, then joining the Wardens was always an option. Of course, officially, the Wardens only took mages who had passed their Harrowing, but it was common knowledge that they weren’t so picky in reality, and a lifetime battling Darkspawn and an early death was still more freedom than most mages got.

Now, that freedom had turned around to bite them. They were serving a Darkspawn, one of the very architects of the Blight that they’d all sworn to destroy. Those Wardens not possessed of magical abilities were nothing more than blood sacrifices for the slaughter, which tracked perfectly with how Tevinter Magisters usually saw non-mages. And all to provide Corypheus with a demon army he could use to sweep away the Inquisition and anyone else who opposed him in his conquest.

Bull had been right – it was always demons, with blood magic. But sweet Andraste, it had been so much worse than any of them had imagined. Now it seemed their only chance to stop what the Wardens were unwittingly about to unleash was an all-out assault on them, and Varric didn’t need Cullen’s grim briefings to know that it was a fight neither side would escape without a high cost.

Varric had told Solas once that there were other ways of solving problems than just hitting each other over the head until only one side was left. How naive he felt now for having said it.

The day before they were to leave again for Adamant, and battle, Varric found Bethany in Skyhold’s garden, a wide inner courtyard that was always an oasis of peace in the middle of the castle. A patch of grass and trees sheltered by the surrounding high walls, threaded with winding stone paths, it was a decent place to sit on a bench and read a book, if Varric had ever had time for that sort of thing anymore, but even this space had been put to practical use for the Inquisition. Mother Giselle had set up a physic garden, stuffed full of medicinal herbs that were used in a variety of potions and poultices by the healers, and she had a veritable army of volunteers coming and going to do the endless job of tending, picking, drying and grinding the plants. Varric had already been tasked with bringing back some seeds from some apparently rare plant when he next ventured into the desert, and found himself provided with a helpful sketch from one of Giselle’s herbalists, lest he forget. Apparently, it was something they were hoping to cultivate here, and since Mother Giselle gave a service every morning in the little chapel off the garden and was remarkably effective at roping in her congregation to lend a hand with the herbs afterwards, Varric considered he’d gotten off easy with his own mission.

Bethany was leaning over a wooden trestle table, surrounded by dried herbs and hard at work with a pestle and mortar when Varric came across her. She’d tied back her hair and rolled up her sleeves, and when he hailed her, she looked up and smiled in greeting, but kept grinding as he approached.

“Just be a minute,” she said. “I’m nearly done.”

“You know you’re my guest, right?” said Varric, when he ambled up. “You don’t have to work to earn your keep.”

“Oh, I like to keep busy,” Bethany said vaguely. “It keeps my mind off things.” She passed the now smooth paste she’d been working on to an elven woman who was meticulously slicing up some kind of root on the table next to her.

“You go on, Mistress Hawke,” said the woman shyly. “The Inquisitor needs you more than I, I’m sure, and I can finish up here.”

“Thank you,” said Bethany, and fell into step beside Varric as they strolled over to the nearest bench. “It’s nice to be able to use my real name again,” she remarked, as they walked. “Any word from Kirkwall?”

“That’s why I came by,” said Varric. “Leliana gave me the latest from her people there. Your Uncle Gamlen is fine – the Starkhaven forces never got near Hightown.”

“That’s a relief,” said Bethany. “And Bartrand?”

Varric loved her for thinking to ask. “Safe,” he said. “There were only a handful of casualties from the whole thing, and most of those were Starkhaven soldiers. Seems like Aveline did a damn good job defending the city on short notice; treated it more like a hostage situation than a war, and kept them busy throwing themselves against barricades and arguing over terms until help arrived to break the stalemate. Apparently, the Viscount is trying to give her a medal or something.”

“Oh, she’ll hate that,” said Bethany, smiling. “But I’m glad she’s okay. I can’t believe she’s going to have a baby. It’s such a…a normal thing to be doing.”

Varric chuckled, but he sort of knew what Bethany meant. The ragtag group of misfits Hawke had gathered around her in Kirkwall hadn’t exactly been the type of people to settle down into comfortable domestic bliss. But Aveline had always been the most level-headed of them, and she’d seen her share of troubles too. It was nice to think of her carving out a piece of ordinary, uncomplicated happiness for herself, after everything.

They sat down on a stone bench together, Varric pleased that he’d been able to bring some good news to someone, for once. There had admittedly been some fallout from the short-lived siege of Kirkwall – Prince Vael’s forces might be back in Starkhaven, their leader humiliated, but he’d broken all official ties with the Inquisition, which meant a formerly loosely united Free Marches were now bitterly divided in loyalties. Still, the Inquisition had come out of the whole affair looking good politically, according to Josephine, and strong militarily, according to Cullen. That their first direct intervention in a conflict had been in aid of defending a city from an unprovoked invasion played well on the Inquisition’s stated goals of restoring peace and order to Thedas.

Varric wondered if Bethany was going to ask about Sebastian. She’d always had a soft spot for the sanctimonious prick, Maker knew why. But instead she looked at him sideways and said:

“You’re doing a good job too, you know, as Inquisitor. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a bit like what you always did in Kirkwall, isn’t it? Just on a bigger scale.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, you always had an ear to the ground and an eye on what everyone was doing, juggling the City Guard, the Coterie, the mage underground, the templars, the Merchant’s Guild…a finger in every pie, that’s what Aveline used to say.”

“Nose in everyone’s business, is what she meant,” said Varric.

Bethany smiled. “That too. But I mean it, Varric. I don’t think there’s another person in all of Thedas who could have brought together people like you have, or would even try. A Tevinter mage, a friend of Red Jenny, a Qunari mercenary…even a spirit! Do you really think anyone else in your place would’ve let them join the Inquisition? But you’ve got them all working together, along with hundreds of apostate mages pledged to your cause, and an ex-templar commanding soldiers from Orlais and Ferelden ready to go into battle side-by-side at your word.”

“I can’t exactly take credit for all of that, Sunshine.”

“So the mages aren’t here because you offered them an alliance when everyone else wanted to burn them at the stake for what they did?” asked Bethany. “And they’re not supplied with a steady flow of lyrium because of your contacts in Orzammar? And they didn’t close the Breach through the mark on your hand? Someone else faced down Corypheus and his archdemon to give the people of Haven time to escape, did they?”

“Team effort,” mumbled Varric, profoundly embarrassed by this entire conversation.

Bethany put a hand on his shoulder briefly, a gentle gesture, almost apologetic. “I’m just saying, maybe Andraste did choose you for a reason,” she said.

For a long moment neither of them spoke, the only sound the chirruping of birds and the leaves of the trees overhead rustling in the wind. Varric cleared his throat, a touch awkwardly.

“I was thinking of going down to the Undercroft, to talk to our new Arcanist,” he said. “Want to come with, see how your staff is coming along?”

“Thanks, but I have to get going,” said Bethany. “I’m meeting Bull for lunch.”

That was unexpected, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been. Varric clearly wasn’t the only one who had decided Bethany might need some cheering up, and Bull seemed to have taken to her, although it was difficult to imagine two more different people. Actually, given that Bull and Dorian had been alternately sniping at and flirting with each other ever since their rumoured fling that Varric was now almost certain had actually happened, maybe Bull just had a thing for mages.

Varric cursed his curiosity, but he had to ask. “Back at Caer Bronach, did you two…?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” said Bethany mildly, “but no, we didn’t. He was a perfect gentleman, actually.” She paused. “But maybe I will.” She grinned a mischievous grin at the look on Varric’s face, an expression that made her look suddenly much more like her sister. “You don’t take vows like a Chantry priest when you join the Wardens, you know. There’s no rule against it.”

“I didn’t really take him for your type,” said Varric weakly.

Bethany shrugged. “He seems nice. He makes me laugh. I wasn’t planning on marrying him.” She gave him an oddly serious look. “Life’s short, Varric. I don’t want to waste time second guessing every good thing that comes along.”

“Fair enough.”

He was taken aback at how matter-of-fact Bethany was, trying not to show his surprise at it. She had changed, since he had seen her last, Varric realised. The shy, sheltered girl he had known in Kirkwall, always trailing in the shadow of her protective older sister, now had a self-possession he hardly recognised, a quiet confidence.

“I still feel the Calling now, you know,” said Bethany suddenly. “Like whispers at the back of my mind, even right now, sitting here talking to you. It isn’t real this time, but one day it will be. I went through the Joining ten years ago. Most Wardens don’t get twenty.”

“Don’t say that,” said Varric, somewhat wretchedly. “We’ll figure something out.”

Bethany just gave him a rueful little smile. “You should make that your house motto,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sad. I just wanted you to know that…that I’m glad there’ll be someone around to take care of my sister, when I’m gone. You will take care of her, won’t you Varric?”

Varric swallowed the lump in his throat. “Count on it,” he said.

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” said Varric. “I promise, Sunshine.”

Bethany’s smile was still in place, but something in her expression had shifted when he met the gaze of her startling blue eyes, so like her sister’s. But where Hawke’s eyes were like the blazing heart of a mage’s fireball, Bethany’s were the blue of a summer sky, clear and cloudless.

“Don’t judge the other Grey Wardens too harshly, will you Varric?” she said. “They’re not afraid of death – every Warden knows that’s coming for them. They’re afraid of dying without it meaning anything. I understand how they feel.”

With a polite farewell she left Varric alone in the garden, not knowing quite how to feel himself. He was genuinely touched by what Bethany had said to him, but also humbled, somehow, in the face of her grave, quiet resolve.

Life’s short, Varric.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Bethany had lost as much as Hawke, perhaps more. Her home, her family. Her freedom. What she had gone through could so easily have left her cynical and embittered, but instead she was here, risking what little life she had left to help the Inquisition, stubborn in her belief that this was a world worth saving, even though it had never shown much in the way of kindness to her. She had mustered the courage to speak out against what her order was doing, even knowing it would make her an outcast.

It was a description that reminded Varric of someone else he knew, actually, and he was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, heading back inside with a sudden burst of purpose. Through the great hall and further into the castle he went, climbing the truly ridiculous amount of stairs up to the top of the tallest tower where the Inquisitor’s private rooms were. He was used to the obscenely luxurious accommodations by now, for the most part, although he didn’t spend that much time here, other than to sleep. Varric had never yet met a good leader who spent all their time locked away at the top of a tall tower, looking down on everyone else. You had to at least be somewhere where you were able to hear other people’s opinions, even if you didn’t agree with them. So the magnificent view of the mountains from the balconies went mostly unlooked-at, the plush rugs on the floor mostly untrodden, and the warmth of the blazing fire that Varric lit every morning (because Josephine had threatened to send servants to do it for him otherwise) was always nothing but embers that had to be coaxed back into life by the time he returned each night.

He did sometimes use the solid carved mahogany desk in one corner of his bedroom, on the rare occasion that he needed to be sure he wasn’t interrupted in the middle of his writing, or if it was the middle of the night and he couldn’t sleep because an idea had hit him. It was this desk Varric walked over to now when he entered the room, though he didn’t sit down, instead stopping at one of the bookcases behind it and drawing out a book that was far newer than any of the others – the best place to hide something, as any rogue knew, was in plain sight.

Unlike the thick, leather-bound tomes on the history and politics of Thedas that Josephine had optimistically stocked the shelves with, this was a slim volume, the cover depicting an image of an improbably beautiful woman with flaming red hair and very shiny plate armour, looking dramatically into the middle distance. The title read: Swords and Shields.

The cover picture had been provided by – and perhaps drawn by? – Cole, who had passed it to Varric just a couple of days before with no explanation beyond “You needed it.” Varric thought that ‘needed’ was a word doing a lot of heavy lifting in this case, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and although the picture wasn’t really how he imagined the Knight Captain character looked, it occurred to him that it might possibly be exactly how Cassandra did.

He’d bound the book himself, an indulgence that privately Varric recognised as just another way to put off the inevitable moment of having to admit that it was finished. He was no expert, but bookbinding was a meditative little hobby, and there was something satisfying in finishing a project off with his own two hands. Anyway, he wanted to make it clear that he’d put the effort in. That was what all this was about, wasn’t it? To show that he was trying?

He turned the book over in his hands. It seemed in this moment like too much, and not enough, all at once. Something that could all too easily be taken as nothing more than a joke, and Varric knew that there was a time not so long ago when he would have treated it as one. But if Bethany had changed, maybe he could too. If she could face her own oblivion with such grace and courage, surely Varric Tethras could handle one difficult conversation. And if he really wanted to believe that a better way forward was possible, for all of them, then he had to start somewhere.

Life’s short, Varric.

Before he could change his mind, he tucked the book under his arm and left his room with it. Time to break a stalemate.

Walking through Skyhold these days was not unlike walking through a small city. It was no Kirkwall, of course – the smell was better and there was significantly less chance of being stabbed if you took a wrong turn – but it had that same bustling sense of purpose, of every person you passed being busy with their own lives and concerns separate from your own. There were humans, elves, a fair few fellow dwarves now too, including the new Arcanist that Leliana had recommended to the Inquisition, which had come as a surprise. There was always a steady rotation of pilgrims, ambassadors and traders passing through the castle gates, and the Inquisition’s fighting forces had swelled to such a number that there was now a permanent encampment of soldiers in the valley below. Cullen had established Caer Bronach as a secondary base for training in Ferelden, and was already talking about making use of Griffon Wing Keep for a similar purpose in Orlais, once supply lines were established there and the Wardens had been dealt with. The Inquisition was growing by the day, and Skyhold castle was its beating heart.

Unlike Haven, when Varric had been conscious of the worshipful stares wherever he went, Skyhold was big and anonymous enough that people either knew him…or didn’t. Those who recognised the Inquisitor nodded respectfully as he passed by, but he was a known quantity to them now, their boss rather than their idol, and there were no whispering comments or craning necks. To most, he was just another well-dressed dwarf wandering through, probably here to sell something to someone.

Everyone knew Cassandra though, not a woman apt to blend in with any crowd, and a few casual enquiries turned Varric’s feet in the direction of the smithy. When he entered, it was thick with heat and smoke, busier than he’d ever seen it, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised given that the Inquisition was gearing up for its biggest military operation yet. Engaged with their work, no-one paid Varric any mind as he wove between the anvils and climbed the wooden stairs up away from the hubbub, since there was no sign of Cassandra in amongst the sweaty throng. He had never given any thought to what was above the smithy, and it turned out that the answer was…nothing much. A storeroom of sorts, cluttered with racks of swords, crates and sacks of coal, and another wooden stairway, so steep as to almost be a ladder, up into the eaves of the building. Varric climbed it on general principles, and was rewarded for his effort – when he reached the top, he found himself in a small room in the rafters, the sound of clanging anvils and shouted orders from far below now muffled, the heat from the forge less oppressive. There was nothing being stored up here, presumably since it would take too much trouble to climb such a way to fetch it, but crammed into one dusty corner there was a small table with a pile of books and a candle, and next to it, Cassandra, her back turned to him as she rummaged in a small trunk. There was also a bedroll tucked neatly into the corner, the implication of which was undeniable, and yet—

“This is where you sleep?” said Varric incredulously.

Cassandra stood up and whirled around, her hand automatically going to the hilt of a sword she was not, in fact, at this moment carrying. She relaxed slightly when she saw who it was, but didn’t exactly look thrilled to see him.

“There are not enough bedrooms in the castle for those who require them,” she said shortly. “This is warm and dry, and out of the way. It is perfectly adequate to my needs.”

“They practically gave me a palace,” said Varric. “That bed is big enough for a dozen of me.”

A look of mild horror crossed Cassandra’s face, presumably at the concept of more than one Varric Tethras, and then her expression settled back into one of wary suspicion.

“What are you doing here, Varric?” she asked.

Varric hesitated, no longer entirely sure himself. “Look,” he said, “I know things between us haven’t been...great, lately...”

He trailed off. He felt like an idiot, reading from a script, and maybe it was because he knew that even now he couldn’t bring himself to say the second part, the part that needed to be said.

…and I hate it, as it turns out. I really can’t stand it, Seeker, this feeling that I’ve broken something between us that I don’t know how to fix.

Ah, to the void with it. Varric held out the book. “So call this a peace offering, I guess,” he said. “The next chapter of Swords and Shields. A little bird told me you wanted to read it.”

She didn’t take it immediately, but if Varric had wanted a reaction, he certainly got one. Cassandra’s mouth fell open, her eyes widening as she took in the cover. “Oh!”

It was a genuinely fascinating experience to watch her face change, the brief moment of uninhibited surprise and pleasure quickly turning guarded as her gaze snapped back to his face.

“Who t—” A flicker of understanding in her eyes. “Dorian,” she said, in a voice like the first rumbles of an avalanche, and Varric felt a brief moment of sympathy for the mage.

“It was mostly Hawke’s idea, actually,” he said. “She’s the one who told me.”

“What did she say?” said Cassandra, now looking pained. “Exactly?”

“That you were a huge fan and desperate to read the next part,” said Varric, who wasn’t about to let her get away without a little teasing. “You’re probably wondering what happens to the Knight Captain after the last chapter…”

“Nothing should happen to her!” exclaimed Cassandra, her eyes widening. “She was falsely accused!”

Maker’s breath, she actually sounded…invested. Eager. Varric had expected it to be funny, but actually it was oddly sweet, seeing the irritable, stiffly dignified Seeker so breathlessly excited about one of his stories.

“Well, it turns out that—”

“Don’t tell me!” She all but snatched the book from his hands, retreating back from him with it clutched tightly against her chest like a prize.

“Alright, no spoilers,” said Varric. “Just…enjoy, I guess. Someone certainly should.”

But Cassandra only seemed to be half listening. She was already riffling through the pages, skimming here and there, a little frown creasing her brow.

“You really wrote it,” she said, in a rather odd voice.

Now was the time to bow out gracefully, perhaps with a parting quip, but – surprising himself – instead Varric said: “I’m not sorry, you know, for protecting Hawke.”

That certainly made Cassandra look back up from the book, but she said nothing.

“I know you want me to be,” said Varric, “and I could tell you that I am, just to smooth things over between us, but that would be a lie and you don’t like it when I lie to you either. Hawke’s my friend and the truth is I’d do the same thing again, even now. So if I’m a disappointment to you Seeker, then at least I’m an honest one.”

Then he did turn to go, satisfied that he had said his piece. But as he reached the top of the stairs, his hand on the rail, Cassandra’s voice behind him broke through the muffled noise from below.

“Varric—”

He turned back, his name a hastily bitten-off syllable on her tongue, to find the Seeker looking at him with an expression he couldn’t grasp. Her brows were as forbidding as ever, her eyes sharp and assessing, but she had an expressive mouth, Cassandra; it often gave her away when the rest of her face did not. Varric had so often caught her mood from the way her lips curled just a little at the corners, or else set into a firm, stubborn line. Now it looked as if her mouth had just closed over words she’d held back even as she started to say them.

“Thank you,” she said, finally. “For the book.”

Varric inclined his head in acknowledgement, and left, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

Chapter Text

BOOM.

The great spiked iron fist of the battering ram pounded on the gates of Adamant fortress, as though a giant was knocking to be admitted entrance. Sweating and straining, the soldiers flanking it hauled back on the huge metal chains to bring it to bear again, as the iron studded wood of the gate shuddered but held firm. The light of flaming torches in the gathering dusk gleamed off their armour, and their resolute faces were cast in an eerie blue glow from the vast magical shield that stretched above their heads – around them, a formation of mages with their hands raised kept the barrier in place as rocks and arrows clattered uselessly off it from defenders on the battlements far above.

Adamant was no mere bolthole; it reared from the desert like a mountain, buttressed and iron-clad, its mighty walls sheer as a cliff face and twice as high as those of Griffon Wing Keep. But now the Wardens’ ancient stronghold was surrounded by an army bristling with swords and banners, and those thick stone walls were being pulverised by trebuchets, chunks of stone and rubble flying as flaming projectiles lit up the darkening sky and hammered the battlements. Siege ladders were already rolling into place, even as the great battering ram swung again and again into the impossibly huge wooden doors of the gate, making a noise like thunder above the cacophonous din of the assault. The Inquisition had come to Adamant, and they would not be denied entrance.

BOOM.

Varric stood behind the battering ram, his mouth dry, his blood pumping through his veins, trying to look Inquisitorial and not quite as shared shitless as he felt, trying to ignore the screams of the Wardens being flung from the battlements, or those of Inquisition soldiers beyond the reach of the mages’ protection, caught by stray arrows from the defenders high above. Trying not to think about the sweat sticking his clothes to his back, or the hammering of his own heartbeat.

His nerve was holding only because he wasn’t alone. Clustered around him were the Inquisition’s best and most experienced warriors, those who had come to be known as the Inquisitor’s closest companions, who had faced down death beside him before and lived to tell the tale, all outfitted with the finest armour and weapons their smiths could provide. At his back were the Inquisition’s soldiers, loyal to the death and rigorously trained by Commander Cullen, who was leading from the front himself. And they had more than just blades at their command; a phalanx of mages too were amongst the attacking forces, clad in newly forged battlemage mail emblazoned with the Inquisition’s insignia. Grand Enchanter Fiona had offered her people – and herself – to fight on the frontlines at the siege as part of the Inquisition. Varric had tried to persuade her that it wasn’t necessary, especially since the mages had lost so many already, but Fiona had insisted.

“They are all volunteers,” she had said, firmly. “We have many skilled in battle magic, and in healing, both of which you will surely be able to make use of. The Inquisition sheltered us when we had nowhere else to turn. You must let us repay that debt.”

“You don’t have a problem fighting Grey Wardens?” Varric had asked her.

“Because I was one?” Fiona expression had been grave. “I join this fight to save the Wardens, Inquisitor. My mistake in tangling with the Venatori almost cost my people everything; I will not allow Clarel to lead the Wardens to the fate we so narrowly avoided.” A faint smile had flitted across her face. “You should not fear for our safety,” she said. “We have been cast as helpless victims often in recent times, but we mages are willing to fight for our place in the new world that is emerging. Save your concern instead for those who stand in our way.”

Fiona’s slightly ominous assurances aside, Varric dreaded the mages grinding themselves to a pulp against the Warden’s defences, and so he’d tasked Bull’s Chargers with acting as their personal protection, and Cullen had agreed, factoring in the new forces into his battle plan with every appearance of approval. As a former templar, he knew better than most what mages were capable of, and as they would be fighting mages enslaved by Corypheus at Adamant, it would help to even the scales to have some on the Inquisition’s side too. Some of the Inquisition’s newer soldiery were still wary of Fiona’s former rebellious Circle mages, but the Chargers held no such prejudices, and had no problem with their orders. But the Iron Bull himself hadn’t stayed with his company for the assault, electing to stick with the Inquisitor instead.

“You sure about being here, Tiny?” Varric asked him now, more for something to say than because he expected the answer to have changed. “I wouldn’t blame you if you want to be with your guys in the battle.”

“I signed on to be your bodyguard, Boss,” said Bull, unoffended but firm. He stood at Varric’s right hand side, unflinching at the projectiles raining down from above. “The Chargers know what they’re about, and you don’t need a second guy shouting orders in the middle of a battle. They’ll follow Cullen’s lead, and I’ll follow yours.”

“We need to find the Warden Commander,” said Varric. It was the closest thing to a plan he had. “If Corypheus hasn’t taken her mind yet, if we can get through to her, explain what’s happening…this doesn’t have to be a slaughter.”

“If she listens to you,” said Hawke. She was with them too, bouncing on the balls of her feet, clearly itching for the battle to begin. Bethany was with the other mages, somewhere in the army at their back.

“She’ll listen,” said Varric, with more confidence than he felt. “Everyone listens to me. I can be pretty convincing when the fate of the world is on the line.”

“To be fair, you can be pretty convincing when a single copper penny is on the line,” said Hawke.

“I’d be more worried about finding her in the first place,” said Dorian, who had also volunteered to be at the front lines, but was looking faintly green around the gills, wincing along with Varric every time the battering ram pounded against the gates. “There’s an entire fortress of Wardens and their pet demons in between you and Clarel.”

“Good thing there’s plenty of us too, then,” said Bull, placidly. “You don’t need to fight through every person in there; that’s what having an army is for.” He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, shifting his hold on his greataxe a little. “Don’t think about the numbers and just focus on the guy in front of you,” he said. “Kill him before he kills you. Forget the rest of the bullshit. Battles are won one man at a time.”

“I wouldn’t have thought one man at a time was really your forte,” muttered Dorian.

Bull winked at him. “I’m full of surprises,” he said.

BOOM.

The only person not talking to cover their jittery anticipation was Cassandra, who had wordlessly taken her place at Varric’s side, her sword already drawn, focusing solely on the gates ahead of them. She looked formidable in new plate armour that shone in the firelight, her face rigid not with nerves but with determination. Varric knew that her priority too, orders or not, would be to keep the Inquisitor safe. It gave him little comfort. It wasn’t just himself he was worried about.

“Just like old times, right Varric?” said Hawke.

Varric looked around, at the army of faithful that surrounded them, thousands strong, at the great desert fortress looming above, at the enormous battering ram even now swinging back for another attack.

“Uh…how, exactly?” he said.

Hawke shrugged. “Blood magic, fighting a bunch of guys…reminds me of home.”

BOOM.

The gates splintered. A great cheer went up from the men on the ram, picked up in a swelling chorus by the army behind them, swords beaten on shields and feet stamping in a rowdy cacophony. They were in.

“Stay close to me,” said Cassandra, and as Cullen bellowed orders, the Inquisition’s forces streamed into the courtyard of Adamant, their Inquisitor with them.

The air was thick with dust and the smell of blood, the ground already littered with corpses where the Wardens defending the gates had fallen. The initial melee was chaotic and brutal and fast, soldiers charging through the fortress, even as others swarmed around more Wardens who ran out to meet them. When the battle at the gatehouse abated, Varric had lost track of everyone but Cassandra, Bull and Hawke beside him, the bulk of their forces already moving further into the castle. He tried not to look at the bodies slumped on the ground around them, bleeding into the sand, the greens of the Inquisition soldiers mingled with the blue and silver of the Wardens.

Cullen appeared on an upper wall, his armour already sprayed with blood, his expression harried.

“Inquisitor!” he called down. “There’s too much resistance on the walls, our men on the ladders can’t get a foothold!”

“Leave it to me!” yelled back Hawke, and before Varric could stop her, she was haring over to the nearest wall and scrambling up a dead tree that was growing next to it, swinging from branch to branch as she ascended, yelling “Find Clarel!” back down at them.

“Come on,” said Varric to Bull and Cassandra, swallowing down the dread that rose like bile in his throat as Hawke disappeared over the parapet. She would move faster alone, and could more than take care of herself. She would be fine. She had to be fine.

They pressed on through the fortress, past fighting soldiers and twitching corpses, past great holes in the walls through which the desert beyond could be glimpsed, dark and serene under the moonlight, like another world far removed from the chaos around them. Inside Adamant the fortress was half ruined, in a way that reminded Varric of Skyhold when they had first found it, all hasty repairs and wooden scaffolding and crumbled stonework. In the outer courtyards they waded over dunes of sand piled up by the wind against walls, and passed through doorways on which only old rusted hinges remined to show that they ever once held doors.

They caught up with Dorian as they burst into a large interior courtyard, where a huge, roaring pride demon was swiping at a group of Inquisition soldiers dodging around it, like a pack of dogs harrying a bronto. Dorian was engaged in some kind of magical duel with a Warden mage who must have been bound to the thing, the two robed figures trading blasts from their staves, the air between them crackling with raw magic. As Varric aimed his crossbow to give Dorian a hand, it proved unnecessary – with a final flash of his staff, the Warden was struck with a bolt of electricity that lifted him off the ground and blasted backwards where he slumped against the wall, dead.

“Another blighter falls!” cried Dorian. “Oh, no you don’t—”

A sweep of his staff and a shimmering shield appeared just as the Pride demon brought its massive fists down on the Inquisition forces battling it, the blow bouncing off the magical barrier instead of the heads of the fortunate soldiers. Dorian followed this up with a volley of fireballs at the demon, making it howl and turn clumsily around to see where the barrage had come from. It had been a suicidally brave thing to do, but Varric had learned by now that one thing Dorian Pavus didn’t lack was courage. One thing Dorian Pavus did lack was armour of any kind, with no more protection than his robes of embroidered silk and the merest scrap of mail, more aesthetic than practical, as the demon roared its displeasure and strode towards him.

“Fuck, that idiot’s gonna get himself killed,” said Bull. “Boss…”

“Go,” said Varric instantly, recognising with no small amount of surprise the genuine worry in Bull’s voice. “We’ll be fine.”

They couldn’t afford to stop and help, but Bull ran towards the battle without another backward glance, leaving Varric and Cassandra momentarily alone.

“And they say romance is dead,” Varric commented.

“We will all be dead if we do not find Warden Commander Clarel quickly,” said Cassandra pointedly, and Varric nodded.

“Right, let’s move,” he said.

Speed was of the essence, but their progress through Adamant was torturously slow going. It wasn’t long before they met with more demons, roaming loose through the fortress in packs, unbound from their presumably dead mage masters, and attacking everything in sight. Rage demons, leaving trails of fire behind them, shades shrieking and clawing, demons of despair drifting in their tattered black robes, feasting off the combined emotions of the battling mortals around them.

Cassandra carved her way through them all like a hot knife through butter, moving from one to the next, to the next, with a ruthless efficiency. Varric had seen her fight many times before, everything from rabbles of bandits to a high dragon, but he realised now that these had been mere skirmishes for Seeker Pentaghast, the Hero of Orlais. She was a single-minded, utterly relentless machine of death, her blade sweeping away her enemies like a scythe reaping corn in a field, her face betraying neither fear nor anger, only a calm, focused determination. There was something almost unreal about witnessing it, like something from a legend come to life. Fighting alongside her against impossible odds, Varric knew he should have felt privileged to see Cassandra Pentaghast in action, knew that so many people would have given their right arm to see it, but in this moment all he could think was:

Andraste’s tits, I’m glad she’s on our side.

There were more practical benefits to fighting alongside Cassandra, which Varric was by this time very accustomed to making use of. The Seeker made a big, flashy target that drew the attention of everyone around her, leaving Varric free to fire bolts into several distracted demons before they even noticed he was there, and he was able to stop her from getting flanked and overwhelmed as together they fought their way steadily upwards through the fortress, heading for the high ground of the battlements – their best chance of spotting Clarel.

But as they burst out onto the battlements, they found not more demons, but a dramatic tableau taking place between a group of Wardens. A blue-robed mage stood with an impassive face over a Warden in plate armour on the floor, who was dragging herself desperately backwards, her leg clearly injured and any weapon she once might have had long gone. “Please!” she cried. “I don’t want to be a sacrifice!”

Crouched behind the meagre cover of a pile of crates not far off, another Warden with a sword in hand but no shield to protect him was watching the scene with obvious horror.

“Brother, can’t you see this is madness?” he cried. “Please don’t do this!”

His plea almost cost him his life. Alerted to his location, the Warden mage raised his staff, levelling it at the wooden crates, the tip kindling with flame – and then the fire abruptly went out and he toppled forward and slumped onto the ground, to reveal Hawke standing behind him, her daggers bloody. Varric felt a wave of relief at the sight of her.

The Warden warrior rose from his hiding spot and stared, thunderstruck, and then stepped forward again with his sword raised—

“Drop it!” said Varric sharply, and the Warden’s head jerked around to see a crossbow pointed at his head, outnumbered now three to one. He dropped his sword, and Varric lowered his crossbow. Cassandra kept her own sword drawn, but Hawke sheathed her dripping daggers swiftly and walked over to the other Warden on the floor, and held out a hand to help her rise.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned.

“I…don’t understand,” said the Warden with the sword shakily. “He tried to kill us, but you…but the Inquisition is here to destroy the Wardens…”

“We’re trying to save the Wardens, you fucking idiots,” snapped Hawke, as the injured Warden stumbled painfully to her feet with her aid.

“You’ve been betrayed,” said Varric. “The Inquisition isn’t your enemy.”

“The demons and blood magic didn’t give you a clue?” added Hawke, sarcastically.

“But the Warden Commander said…”

“Clarel is being deceived,” said Cassandra shortly. “The Inquisitor is here to stop her, not to kill Wardens.”

“The Inquisitor?” Now both Wardens stared, round-eyed at Varric. “We’d heard…you survived an archdemon at Haven. There are rumours that you fought Corypheus and lived!”

“Twice, actually,” said Hawke. “I was there too, the first time,” she added, but no-one was really listening.

“Corypheus is the one behind this insane blood magic ritual,” said Varric. “He’s put a false Calling into your heads and enslaved the minds of your mages, and Warden Commander Clarel.” This last was almost certainly not true, but there was no sense in muddying the waters. “They’re serving the Blight now, against their will,” he said. “If you want to hold to your oath, then you’re on our side, not theirs. You swore to resist the Blight, so resist. Fall back, and find as many others as you can. If you surrender to the Inquisition forces, we won’t hurt you. Your mages are lost, but the Grey Wardens don’t have to be. Not today.”

“Alright,” said the Warden slowly, exchanging glances with his companion. “Alright, we’ll fall back. My men want no part in this. Clarel’s in the main courtyard, last I saw. If you continue east on the battlements, the stairs down will lead you straight there.”

“You will stop her, won’t you?” said the female Warden suddenly. She had a strong Orlesian accent, and sounded like she was close to tears. “She killed…she sacrificed my…”

“We’ll stop her,” said Varric. “I swear.”

“Then go with the Maker, Herald of Andraste,” said the Warden, and the two of them retreated back towards the stairs down from the battlements.

“Great, two down,” said Hawke. “Only about a thousand, plus demons, to go.”

The three of them followed the directions along the battlements, fighting through more demons and Wardens alike as they went, helping where they could to clear the path for the Inquisition forces on the ladders. Focus on the guy in front of you, thought Varric, as he shot bolt after bolt into men and women clad in Warden blue, who had sworn once to give their lives to protect the innocent. Kill him before he kills you. Battles are won one man at a time.

It occurred to Varric that the Iron Bull, for all his advice, could very well be dead himself right now, and Dorian too. Or Cullen, or Grand Enchanter Fiona, or any of them. It seemed incredible, that he didn’t know.

Considering the state that Adamant was in by now, it was a miracle they hadn’t met with a dead end before, but now as they rounded the corner of a tower, they were met with a break in their path forward. A huge chunk had been blasted out of the battlements by a trebuchet, and on the other side was a group of Wardens. Varric noticed one raise a staff, and a billow of flame shot at them across the gap as the three of them ducked back around the wall, pressing themselves against it. Mages. There would be no reasoning with them.

“Shit,” said Varric. “That’s the way to Clarel. We need to get over there.”

“That distance is impossible to jump,” said Cassandra. “We must go the other way and circle round, but we will be easy targets for those mages.”

“Bianca won’t be any use at that distance,” said Varric, frustrated. “We’ve got nothing of enough range, no way to get over there, and they can blast us the second we leave this spot. They have us cornered. Hawke, what are you—”

But he didn’t even have time to finish the question. There was a long wooden flagpole lying on the ground nearby – presumably blasted off the battlements by the trebuchet and about ten feet from its ragged flag to its snapped end – and Hawke had grabbed it and darted around the corner before he could stop her. Varric and Cassandra could only watch with open mouths as the Champion of Kirkwall ran full tilt towards the gap in the battlements, pole in hand, and then used it to launch herself across, letting out a warlike scream of mingled terror and exultation as she vaulted over the space, releasing the pole and drawing her twin daggers midair, and fell upon the group of Wardens like the wrath of the Maker from above.

They didn’t stand a chance. Unlike Cassandra, there was nothing graceful or poetic about the way Hawke fought. Hawke was vicious and lethal and fast, and Varric had never seen her hesitate even for a split-second. She would thrust her dagger into an opponent, hilt deep, and then yank it out and spin round to slash open the throat of another, without even pausing to see if they fell. She would sweep the legs out from under people, sucker punch them in the gut, spit or scratch or bite like an alley-cat if it gave her a momentary edge, and she did it all with a grin on her face.

The Seeker went into battle with utter confidence in her abilities and the unwavering faith that, Maker willing, she would be victorious. Hawke went into battle like someone who had never once considered losing in the first place.

“She is insane,” said Cassandra, beside him.

“Yeah,” said Varric fondly. The next moment he was forced to pull his head back quickly as a stray fireball went whizzing past, just catching his sleeve as he ducked back behind the wall. He patted out the flames quickly, and then suddenly found himself clutching at his stomach, his sides shaking.

Cassandra looked at him, alarmed. “Are you alright, are you…” She blinked at him in surprise. “Are you laughing?”

Varric was, almost doubled up with it. “I was just thinking…” he wheezed, “what an absolutely fantastic Inquisitor she would have made.”

Cassandra stared for a moment, then a laugh startled out of her too, bright and sharp. “Maker preserve us,” she said. “We would have been at war with half of Thedas within the week.”

“She would have challenged Magister Alexius to an arm-wrestling competition,” said Varric, still chuckling, “and told the Grand Clerics in Val Royeaux to piss off, right to their faces. You got off easy with me, Seeker.”

Cassandra was watching him with an odd look on her face. “You are not a disappointment, Varric,” she said suddenly. “Quite the opposite. And I am…sorry, about what happened before, in the War Room, when Hawke arrived at Skyhold. It was unworthy of me. Of both of us.”

“Beg your pardon?” said Varric, still buoyant with good humour, even though it undoubtedly made him seem as mad as Hawke. “I didn’t catch that, Seeker.”

Cassandra sighed. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Oh! I'll mark this on my calendar – Cassandra had a feeling!”

“Perhaps not that sorry,” said Cassandra, but she was smiling. And Varric felt lighter than he had in a long time, a bizarre feeling to have in the middle of a battle for their very lives.

“Well, maybe I had it coming,” he admitted, impulsively. “I should have told you about Hawke earlier. At least after Haven.”

“I do understand, you know, why you did not,” said Cassandra.

“Still, I should have trusted you.” The words felt a little clumsy in his mouth, but he meant them. “I do trust you, Seeker. I wish you would trust me.”

She met his eyes, properly, for the first time in weeks. “I want to,” she said quietly. “I will try.”

A piercing whistle made him crane around the wall again, to see Hawke standing there across the gap, surrounded by a pile of robed corpses and looking very pleased with herself, even at this distance. “Are you two coming or not?” she yelled. “Path’s clear, you circle round and I’ll meet you there.”

“That’s our cue,” said Varric. “Come on Seeker, we can’t let Hawke get all the glory, and it’s been at least five minutes since we saved the world.”

“I’m right behind you,” said Cassandra.

There were some things, thought Varric, that no-one was going to believe about this whole story, when he eventually wrote it all down some day. Magical time travel had been bad enough, but it seemed that fate always had yet weirder things up her fickle sleeves when it came to the life of one Varric Tethras.

He was in the one place that even a surface dwarf was surely never meant to set foot. He was in the Fade.

Other people who had written about their travels in this realm – the Hero of Ferelden, for example – had described it as ‘dreamlike’, but never having had a dream in his life, Varric wasn’t in a position to judge. It was certainly bizarre. After the heat and dust and chaos of Adamant Fortress, this place was cool, and still, and empty, a bleak, misty plain stretching to every horizon. The ground was dotted with bubbling green pools and strewn with piles of twisted corpses, and other things too – broken pots and rotting furniture, discarded crates and empty bottles, like detritus like a shipwreck. And in fact there was a sea, a churning, sickly green tide lapping at the rocky shore, oddly silent in a way the real seas never were. It was a damp, dripping place, slick rock underfoot, overlooked by huge, weird indescribable statues and structures that were almost buildings, but the eye twisted away when you looked directly at them to try and make them out. Above them, in a stormy green sky that reminded Varric horribly of how the Breach had looked in that terrible future at Redcliffe castle, great lumps of rock floated impossibly, like chunks of meat suspended in a swirling pot of soup.

You would think that the sky might be the worst part of the Fade, a constant reminder that this was a world never meant to be seen with mortal eyes. Or that maybe the worst part would be the way that the ground couldn’t seem to decide where it wanted to be, the perspective always shifting and changing, so the sky was sometimes sideways, or steps sometimes led, impossibly, right back to where they began. Or the sounds, the skittering and wailing on the edge of hearing, as if there were horrors far beyond any demon hiding just out of sight, waiting.

But no, the worst part was that, to Varric, it all felt horribly…familiar. As if he had been here before.

He’d woken up here – if ‘awake’ was even a word that meant anything in this place – with Cassandra, Hawke and Bethany slumped around him, just as confused as he was as to what had happened. They been chasing down Warden Commander Clarel, and Erimond, the Magister who had betrayed the Wardens and summoned Corypheus’ archdemon when his treachery had been revealed. There had been a battle, and then the castle battlements beneath them crumbling, falling through the air…the mark on Varric's hand flaring into life…

And now, this.

After wandering aimlessly for a while, they had encountered and were now following the Divine Justinia, or at least someone who looked like her. In the Fade, who knew? Varric had never gotten to meet the woman, and he wasn’t thrilled at her appearance now, which seemed about as foreboding as everything else, this woman clad in spotless Divine regalia, incongruous with her damp, filthy surroundings. She’d promised them a way out, but they had no reason to trust her, or anything in this place. If only Solas were here, Varric thought grimly, they’d have a guide they could actually trust, an expert even, but Solas was still presumably at Adamant, fighting along with the rest. He couldn’t have predicted this. No-one could have predicted this insanity.

If it was spooky as shit for him to be following the lead of a dead woman, it must be a hundred times worse for Cassandra, who had actually known the Divine in life. Varric let himself fall behind just a little to draw closer to the Seeker, away from the ears of Hawke and Bethany.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly.

“Fine,” said Cassandra, in a voice which meant she knew exactly what he was talking about and very definitely wasn’t fine at all. But this was no time for a heart-to-heart, and Varric didn’t have much in the way of comfort to offer in any case. He didn’t know if it was better to think that the woman they were following was really Divine Justinia, or that it wasn’t. Demon or spirit or ghost, the Divine had offered help. And she had told them where they were, although knowing they were currently creeping through the lair of an impossibly powerful fear demon known as ‘the Nightmare’ wasn’t much reassurance.

Lights ahead of them that Varric had taken for veilfire coalesced as they approached into wisps of light that looked like almost like wraiths, formless and insubstantial, and yet somehow…expectant. Though they had no eyes, Varric felt their attention turned towards him. Beside him, Cassandra drew her sword, but the gauzy figures made no attempt to attack.

“What are they?” asked Varric, although, strangely, he thought he already knew.

“These are your memories,” said the Divine. She had stopped, standing serenely before them like a gardener showing off her prize roses for approval. “You do not remember what happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Inquisitor, the last time you were here. If you are to defeat the Nightmare and leave this place, you must take back what it stole from you.”

“How?”

The Divine made no reply, just gestured demurely to the wisps of light. Varric took a tentative step forward, and they too drew closer, as if in response. Behind him now, Cassandra made a noise of alarm.

“Varric—”

“It’s alright, Seeker,” he said, without looking round at her. For the first time since he’d woken here, he didn’t feel fear, but rather a thrill of something like anticipation. “I want to know.”

The memories, floating expectantly, drifted towards him, and Varric stepped forward to meet them.

***

He was in some kind of antechamber in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, waiting to speak to the Divine. Varric was restless with nerves, in a way that made him keep fidgeting on the stone bench he’d been sat on, wishing more than anything that there was anyone here to talk to. Outside, the site of the upcoming Conclave was already bustling with people; mages and templars and more priests than you could shake a stick at. The Divine didn’t travel light. Varric had been talking with some mercs when they’d first arrived, who’d been paid handsomely to escort a group of senior mages here and had some good stories from the front lines of the mage rebellion, which had been a decent distraction, but now he was alone. Waiting to be summoned. Even Leliana and Cassandra, who had brought him here across the Waking Sea, had disappeared back to Haven on some errand, and although Varric wouldn’t have exactly called either of them a friendly face, he’d even have welcomed the Seeker scowling at him from across the room in this moment. Every second that passed felt like an age, stretching into taut, twanging anxiety as his mind went round and round with all the things he should say when faced with Divine Justinia, all the things she might ask, what she might want of him.

The sodding Divine. Behind a single wooden door that separated him from what his panicky hindbrain told him was certain to be his doom. Sweat was sticking his shirt to his back. Varric really would rather go round two with the Seeker, book stabbing and all. Why couldn’t she have just told her boss his story herself? Maybe this was just some new exciting form of torture, seeing how long he would wait, before someone came and informed him that this was all some big mistake, or joke.

Whoever was in there now with Divine Justinia was taking a really long time. He’d been waiting for over an hour.

There was a sound from inside the next room, muffled by the thick wooden door, but loud enough to make Varric’s head snap up. It sounded like something being knocked over, or a scuffle. Varric stood up. Then sat down again. Then he stood up, and wandered cautiously over to the door. As he did so, he thought he heard a voice cry out, faintly. Varric hovered by the door, debated knocking on it, but thought better of it. He raised his voice just slightly and said, cringing even as he did: “Uh…everything alright in there, Most Holy?”

Another sound, barely audible. Varric threw caution to the wind and pressed his ear to the door. He couldn’t discern what the sound was, and as he strained his ears, suddenly a voice cried out, distinctly enough that he could hear the words with no room for doubt:

“Someone help me!”

Varric wrenched the door open without a second thought, and gaped at the scene which met his eyes. In the centre of the room was a woman who could only be Divine Justinia; she was in full Chantry regalia, but floating several feet off the ground, her arms held stiff by ropes of magical force. Surrounding her were a group of humans with swords drawn, wearing the uniform of Grey Wardens. Their faces were grave, but they showed no signs of helping the struggling Divine, and Varric realised with dawning horror that a couple of them were mages, their hands raised and frowning in concentration as they maintained the spell keeping her bound.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he cried, and somewhere at the back of his mind a mad part of him realised he’d just cursed in front of the Divine. She looked far beyond caring though; as her head turned to him, her face was twisted in pain, eyes wide with fear.

“Run!” she said. “Warn them—!”

“We have an intruder,” came the voice from the shadows. Varric’s gaze fell upon the tall, twisted figure that presided over the scene, his instinctive horror shot through with recognition. But that was impossible…it couldn’t be…

“Kill the dwarf,” said Corypheus, and had Varric even a moment to think about it, he might have been offended at that; the creature he’d once helped murder not even bothering to recognise him in turn. But he was rooted to the spot in shock and fear as two Wardens approached, their swords raised.

But Divine Justinia was not as helpless as she appeared. In that moment of distraction, her arm suddenly lashed out, dashing the orb that Corypheus was holding out of his gnarled hand, sending it flying. The darkspawn snarled in anger, and every pair of eyes in the room snapped round to follow the orb as it spun and rolled across the stone floor towards Varric, crackling with weird green magic, hurtling directly towards his feet.

Instinctively, Varric reached out—

***

“Varric. Varric, can you hear me?”

Hawke’s voice brought him back, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them to blink away the jumbled images of the vision. It had been so real, so visceral. Varric was on his knees, he realised, the memory of the pain receding even as his marked hand throbbed with light, the Anchor flaring. A hand on his back. He looked up into Hawke’s anxious face.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and Varric wrenched his mind back to the present, letting himself be helped to his feet. Bethany and Cassandra were both staring at him, and even Hawke had lost any trace of a smile.

“Did you see--?” Varric asked her, his throat a little rusty. He hoped he hadn’t screamed aloud in reality as he had done in the past when he’d touched the orb, as the coruscating fire flooded his body.

“We all saw,” said Bethany. “Corypheus…that orb…it gave you your mark. It wasn’t bestowed by Andraste at all.”

“It was an accident,” said Varric, not sure if he was trying to defend himself, or simply to say the words out loud, to try and come to terms with the truth of it. At Haven, Corypheus had spoken of the ‘Anchor’ as something he’d stolen, but it turned out even that had been giving Varric too much credit. He’d told no one else but Cassandra what Corypheus had said to him, and it hadn’t occurred to Varric before now that she had kept that secret, as he too had unthinkingly done. A crack in the Herald of Andraste’s story that neither of them had let slip, now out in the open for everyone to know. When he had been made Inquisitor, Cassandra had known – the only other person in the world who had – that the marked hand that made Varric special was no proof of a holy blessing. Why then had she agreed to it? Had it been faith on her part, or just wilful blindness?

“Corypheus intended to rip open the veil, use the Anchor to enter the Fade and throw open the doors of the Black City, not for the old gods but for himself,” said the Divine, oblivious to his tangled mess of thoughts. “When you disrupted his plan, the orb bestowed the Anchor upon you instead.”

“But what of Varric’s survival?” said Cassandra. “Was it truly Andraste that people saw in the Fade with him, who saved his life?”

“Inquisitor, you cannot escape the lair of the Nightmare until you recover all that it took from you,” said the Divine, and Varric saw, in a brief instant, the flash of hurt on Cassandra’s face at being ignored, quickly concealed. “You have recovered some of yourself, but now it knows you are here. You must make haste. I will prepare the way ahead.”

She disappeared, although maybe that wasn’t quite the right word for it. One moment she was there, the next gone.

“Well, that didn’t sound good,” said Varric, with an uneasy stab at jocularity. But no-one else looked in the mood for light-hearted banter. Even Hawke was frowning.

“The Wardens,” she said. I can’t believe this. It was them all along. I thought Corypheus had gone after then first, for imprisoning him, but they were helping him.”

“Their minds were obviously under his control,” said Bethany, defensive in the face of her sister’s accusations.  “They didn’t have a choice.”

Hawke didn’t reply, but she didn’t look wholly convinced either, Varric noticed. And he too felt a stab of unease. Corypheus had made the Warden mages at Adamant his puppets by means of the blood magic ritual, but up until the moment of its completion, their minds had still been their own. Bethany was still acting under her own will, obviously, and Blackwall too, even though he’d almost come face-to-face with Corypheus at Haven, so why would some Wardens be affected and not others? Frankly, even if the Wardens at the Conclave had been under some kind of thrall, Varric didn’t much like their chances once the rest of the world found out what they had done.

The four of them forged ahead, but the Divine’s warning proved prescient – it wasn’t long before they were met with resistance, as demons scuttled out from the surrounding rocks, formless horrors that shifted shape even as Varric tried to look at them. He’d half feared their weapons would be useless, but the things fell to his crossbow bolts readily enough, and they bled black ichor as Hawke’s daggers and Cassandra’s sword sliced into their legs. But these lesser minions of their enemy weren’t what they should have feared. As they travelled onwards, weapons drawn and wary, a deep, echoing voice sounded overhead, seeming to come from every direction at one.

“Ah, we have a visitor,” it said, and Varric felt the blood freeze in his veins. He didn’t need the Divine to tell him who was speaking to him now. The Nightmare. It would have been better if the voice had been angry, roaring, but instead it sounded almost…pleased.

“So, this is the fabled Herald of Andraste,” it said. “A joke that fails to amuse even you, Varric. You’re no more than a puppet of greater powers, hiding behind your betters as always. Now you’ve dragged Hawke into this too, put her in danger once again because you’re too weak to fix the mess that you created.”

“Yeah, cut that shit out Varric,” said Hawke cheerfully, grinning at him.

“And you Hawke; you failed to protect your city. What makes you think you can protect Varric now? When even your own family died knowing that you had failed them too?”

“Andraste’s tits, this thing’s been speaking to our mother,” muttered Hawke to Bethany, though her smile had slipped somewhat.

“Your death will be meaningless, Bethany, just as your life was. Always the pale shadow of your sister, needing her protection even now. Amounting to nothing, remembered by no-one.”

“Do not listen to it,” said Cassandra. “It is trying to get inside your head.”

“Ever the pragmatist, Seeker Cassandra. The Herald’s stalwart protector…or are you his gaoler? That is how he will always see you. Tearing his life apart because you were too much a coward to get your own hands dirty. Putting your faith in the Maker because you have none in yourself. When deep down you know that nothing answers your prayers. The Maker is a lie, just as your Herald is.”

“Die in the void, demon,” said Cassandra calmly, which lacked Hawke’s panache but had a certain something for sheer directness, Varric thought.

“You think to take back the fear I lifted from your shoulders,” said the Nightmare. “To defy me in my own domain and recover what you lost? Well…be my guest. I hope you like what you find, Herald of Andraste…”

The mocking tones faded away, but Varric was sure the words continued to ring in all their heads as they picked their way through the strange and horrible path ahead, past grotesque corpses and weird lights, through rows of grinning skulls and bizarre tableaus that were like a twisted funhouse mirror to reality – a fully set table hanging sideways in the air, an empty child’s bed surrounded by floating candles, a garden that sprouted only bones. At one point they stumbled across a graveyard full of headstones etched with dozens of familiar names, including their own – a cheap and tawdry kind of horror on the face of it, like something from the pages of a cheap novella, almost laughable. Less easy to dismiss were the fears carved beneath each name, pulled from the depths of their souls and displayed contemptuously, for all to see. Varric’s eyes skipped over them, snagging on each familiar name.

Dorian – Temptation

Iron Bull – Madness

Solas – Dying Alone

Rows and rows of them, drawing the gaze with an irresistible, shameful curiosity. But the four slabs of rock at the front were the clearest, fears laid out like a carcass at a butcher’s shop:

Cassandra – Helplessness

Hawke – Failure

Bethany – Being Forgotten

Varric – Became His Parents

“Becoming,” said Varric, out loud, directing his voice vaguely at the sky. “It should be ‘becoming’ not ‘became’. All the others are nouns or in the present continuous, not past tense. Points off for grammatical inconsistency.”

Hawke snorted, but at least he’d broken the tension slightly with his pedantry, and by unspoken agreement no-one else commented on the words they’d all read, avoiding each other’s eyes and pressing onwards. But the only thing that awaited them ahead were more of his memories, drifting and intangible, beckoning Varric as he approached them.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Bethany, anxiously, as Varric reached out to them.

“No choice, right?” he replied with more confidence than he felt, and let the memories come to him.

***

They’d awoken in an alien land, he and Divine Justinia, confused and terrified, everything unfamiliar. A place of cold grey stone under a swirling, angry green sky. No sign of the temple, or the pilgrims, or even the Wardens and Corypheus…and yet they were not alone. As they made their way through the bleak landscape together, foul things followed them, crawling and scuttling, gaining with every step, until they were running, fleeing directionless and despairing. An old woman and a dwarf, helping each other over jagged rocks and urging each other on, not daring to look back at what pursued them. And then the Divine cried out, pointing – a great mountain rose before them, and at the peak a great portal of green light, like a tear in the very fabric of reality. An escape, Maker willing. A chance, at least.

“Your hand!” Justinia gasped, even as they stumbled up the rocky scree at the base of the rise, and Varric saw that on his palm was a reflection of the light ahead of them, pulsing and crackling as if the portal itself was calling to him.

“I think I can open it,” he said, though he had no idea how he knew. “Keep running!”

The climb seemed endless, grasping and heaving towards a release that grew no closer, as if distance itself was taunting this faintest glimmer of hope. Varric’s breath burned in his lungs, his muscles screamed, his blood pounded through his veins as if every beat of his heart could be its last, until finally, impossibly, he pulled himself up over the crest of the mountain’s rise. The strange mark on his hand flared to a blaze and the portal answered, widening, beckoning. There was the smell of snow, and of ash, the chill of wind, and even not knowing what lay beyond, Varric felt a euphoria of victory. They’d made it!

A cry behind him made him turn. Justinia hadn’t been right next to him, as he’d thought. She’d fallen behind, and now she was clambering laboriously up the final few feet of rockface, and behind her…

A tide of horror, scuttling, drooling, grasping at the hem of her robes with clicking, excited pincers, hairy, many-legged, oil-black demons falling over each other to drag Justinia back. The Divine’s arms were trembling as she strained to pull herself up, and Varric dropped to his knees, stretching his own arm out to her, desperately trying to ignore the nauseating horde beyond, focusing on the woman reaching her hand towards his. Her face was shining with sweat, eyes wide with fear, her robes were torn, and somewhere her headdress had been lost and her hair was falling around her shoulders, white and gossamer thin. Divine Justinia had never looked more mortal, more frail, and Varric realised, in that moment as her lips formed a wordless plea, that he hadn’t even thought to tell her his name.

Behind him, the strange portal throbbed and hummed with the promise of salvation, of life. Ahead of him, Justinia was inches from death. Varric’s hand reached out to hers, fingers brushing, slippery with sweat, but it was too far, he couldn’t reach her…

The Divine met his eyes. “Go—” she breathed, and she slipped out of his grasp.

***

Varric awoke on the ground again, this time with Hawke’s arm around him – she had caught him as he collapsed, and helped him back to his feet. They felt leaden, his limbs heavy, his heart still pounding as if he’d been climbing the mountain again, Justinia by his side. But he’d seen what had happened to her. They’d all seen.

“I was too slow,” Varric said quietly. “I couldn’t save her.”

He couldn’t look at the others, couldn’t bear to see the look on Cassandra’s face. The Nightmare had been right after all – the Herald of Andraste was nothing more than a joke. Justinia had been the woman the soldiers had glimpsed in the rift behind him at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Varric had never been the Maker’s chosen. He was just a coward who had run away and left an old woman to be torn apart by demons to save his own skin.

“Then Divine Justinia is dead,” said Cassandra heavily.

“I am sorry, if I am not what you hoped,” said the spirit before them, her voice placid as a Tranquil’s. She had appeared again without Varric noticing, and looked less like a flesh and blood woman now that she was no longer pretending, more a shape of light, floating a few feet in the air.

“Looks like a lot of people aren’t what we hoped,” said Hawke bitterly, and Varric felt her words like a physical blow, before he realised that she wasn’t looking at him at all, but at Bethany. “These are the people you wanted us to risk our lives to save?” she demanded. “This is why we’ve all been dragged into another war? Your precious Wardens killed the Divine and they nearly killed Varric too! They blew up the Conclave! The one chance we had for peace and they—”

“Corypheus did all that,” interrupted Bethany, still visibly shaken, but setting her jaw stubbornly in a way that made her look even more like her sister.

“Oh, don’t give me that ‘slaves to Corypheus’ rubbish,” said Hawke, her eyes bright with anger. “Clarel knew exactly what she was doing, her mind wasn’t being controlled by anyone! And even if they had done that damn ritual, that means they were sacrificing their own brothers and sisters, with blood magic, willingly, to bind themselves to Corypheus. Why, just because he told them to?”

“We don’t know what he told them,” said Bethany, “They might not have known who he was, or what would happen.”

“You saw them!” said Hawke. “They were following his orders! All those people dead, and you think it’s okay if they just didn’t even think to ask what he was doing? A darkspawn Magister?”

“Did you ask Anders what he was doing, when you helped him set the charges at the Chantry in Kirkwall?” said Bethany.

Hawke’s face went white. “Don’t you DARE—”

“Enough!” Cassandra’s voice cut through them sharply. “This is not the time for blame.”

“The Seeker’s right,” said Varric. “Let’s get out of here before the traditional shouting match, shall we?”

Hawke was breathing hard, and there were hectic, angry patches of pink on Bethany’s cheeks, but they both nodded, and their dejected party continued on in furious silence. Varric could hardly spare a thought to feel angry at the Wardens, as Hawke did, as he was so consumed with anger at himself. At the realisation that, even after all this time, after all his protestations, there had still been a part of him that really had believed what everyone said about him. Varric Tethras, Herald of Andraste. How could he have been so stupid?

The spirit that was not the Divine glided wordlessly ahead of them, more beacon now than a guide, leading them onwards through the seemingly endless lair of the Nightmare. Solas had once told Varric that the Fade responded to the mind of the dreamer; their emotions, their fears and desires. None of them were dreaming now, but maybe it was the guilt and anger that hung over them like a pall of smoke that drew more demons to them, crawling out from behind rocks, dropping from overhead, heaving themselves from pools seemingly too shallow to contain them. They’d coalesced in Varric’s eyes into huge, black scuttling spiders, the kind that had chased him and Justinia, though Maker knew what the others saw when they fought them. He saw the look of disgust on Cassandra’s face as her sword carved through them, and Bethany recoil as fire from her staff charred them to a crisp. The more that fell, the more that appeared, and in more familiar forms too; demons of despair and rage. Fitting, Varric thought grimly.

The shape of the Divine did not wait for them, nor look back, as they followed her now through a dripping cavern that opened out onto a wide, blasted plain of grey rock. In the distance glowed the familiar green tear of a rift, as promised, but Varric knew even as he saw it that they would never make it that far. Rising between them and their escape was the Nightmare, and he knew when he saw it that he was looking at their death. It was an indescribable monstrosity, many-legged and carapaced, too big to be believed, too terrible to even imagine fighting. Firing a crossbow at it would be like sticking a dragon with a sewing needle. All of the besieging forces at Adamant combined would be swept aside by this thing like ants. Fear seized Varric’s body like a vice, and he heard the others beside him make soft, fervent noises of terror, stilling as he had done, staring up at the drooling, clicking maw.

Like the answer to their unspoken prayers, the glowing figure of the Divine rose before them, unafraid, a shield of light.

“If you would, tell Leliana I am sorry,” she said, and for a moment she sounded almost human again, sad. “I failed her too.”

Varric didn’t see what happened next, the light was so bright even through his eyelids as he squeezed his eyes shut. But when he dared to open them again, the Nightmare and the Divine – or whatever it had been – were gone.

Then he heard it. The eager, chittering sound of hundreds of claws pattering on stone. The familiar sound from his recovered memories that now he knew he would never forget again, not in the rest of his lifetime.

“Run!” he cried, and they ran, sprinting across the rocky plain, stumbling through piles of bones and clinging, stagnant pools, as a horde of demons poured from every corner, converging on them. The long, human legs of his three companions bore them relentlessly onwards, Varric dropping behind slowly but surely, even as the first wave of horrors drew close. They fought as they ran, Hawke’s daggers flashing, Bethany blasting the demons out of the way, Cassandra throwing them aside with her shield, but even as they drew closer to the rift, the tide of enemies threatened to overwhelm them, forcing them to stand and fight.

Too slow, again. Always too slow, always too late. The Nightmare had returned, as fear always did, beaten back but unconquered. As the vast, horrendous bulk of it lurched upright, Varric heard its voice echo around the reaches of the Fade, burning the words into his mind. Now it sounded angry.

“Your followers will all die screaming, oh great and holy Inquisitor. All of them. They will fall, one by one, crying out for the salvation you could never have given them, knowing in their final moments that you were a liar and a fraud. And only you will be left. Alone.”

It was like a thrall. They could only stare, frozen with terror, despairing, as their doom approached. Even the horde of lesser demons had fallen back, darting away whence they came, as if they too were afraid of the Nightmare’s wrath.

“You, they will speak of in the same breath as Maferath himself, Seeker. A heretic, a traitor. A failure in the eyes of the world, and in those of the Maker.”

“Forgive me,” whispered Cassandra, her sword and her shield both dropping from her slack hands and clattering to the rocky ground. Hawke had fallen to her knees. There was nothing they could do. No escape. No hope.

“And you, Hawke, will—”

“No. Leave her alone.”

It was Bethany who had spoken, quiet but firm, and suddenly, impossibly, the Nightmare’s voice fell silent. It was as if a spell had been broken. Varric found he could breathe again, the oppressive, overwhelming terror lifted from his shoulders. He heard Cassandra and Hawke gasping beside him, as if they too had felt the same sudden release.

“My sister isn’t afraid of anything,” said Bethany. “She’s not afraid of you, and neither am I.” Her head turned to Varric then, and her clear, summer-sky eyes met his. “Get her to the rift,” she said. “Close it. End this. Keep your promise, Varric.”

And Bethany turned, and started to run. Right towards the Nightmare.

“What are you doing?” gasped Hawke. “No…stop! Beth-!”

She started forward, but Varric seized her instinctively, wrenching her back, almost pulling her off her feet.

“For the Wardens!” cried Bethany, her silvery voice ringing across the Fade, filling it from edge to edge like a clarion bell. Her staff ignited into a pillar of white flame, her hands wreathed in it, as she flew like a shooting star towards the Nightmare.

Hawke lurched in Varric’s arms, straining against his grip, fighting him tooth and nail. “Let me go! Varric, stop her! Stop her…Varric, please!”

But Varric was already pulling her back, hating himself with every step, dragging her with every ounce of his strength across the rocky plain, too slow, too slow…

“Seeker!” he cried, and Cassandra seized Hawke’s other arm and helped him to manhandle his hysterical friend between them, picking up the pace now as they fled, stumbling towards the rift. Hawke was howling and struggling like an animal, sobbing her sister’s name as they dragged her away. Varric’s thoughts had narrowed to a single, repeated, desperate mantra:

Get to the rift. Close the rift. Get to the rift. Close the rift.

His feet pounding on the rock, his blood pumping through his veins, the light ahead of them like a beacon drawing them in even as the mark on his hand flared into life. Justinia’s voice in his head – go.

Get to the rift. Close the rift.

Varric ran. He ran just like he’d been running away his whole life, closing his ears to the sound of Hawke’s desperate, wracking sobs, and the shriek of the Nightmare behind them as Bethany fell upon it, fearless and blazing with light, incandescent, infinite.

Brighter than sunshine.

Chapter Text

Varric stood leaning on the battlements of Griffon Wing Keep, staring out over the abyssal rift below without really seeing it. They said it went down as far as the Deep Roads, and he could believe it. At nighttime, it was like a great black scar across the silvery moonlit sands of the desert, yawning beneath them, ready to swallow up the world. It reminded Varric of the Breach, and perhaps the Wardens had always felt the same way looking into its depths as he had done staring up at the Breach at Haven; a sense not just of dread, but of terrible, inescapable responsibility. They’d sworn an oath to stop the Blights, but the darkspawn always just kept coming. The Breach was gone, but there was no closing the great tear in the earth below. The Grey Wardens’ battle was a fight without end.

Or at least, only one possible end, the same for every single one of them.

The desert was colder at night, Varric’s breath puffing out in little clouds, the sky above him scattered with more stars than he’d ever thought the heavens could contain, back in Kirkwall. It was strange to think that it was the same sky, the same stars that hung above The Hanged Man, that looked down upon the Gallows and the docks and the Viscount’s keep, the rambling slums of Lowtown and the Hawke estate. Kirkwall was a city that never slept, always busy even in the small hours with sound spilling from bars and brothels, dockworkers and fishermen heading out to catch the dawn, nefarious types doing shady deals in dark corners and City Guardsmen patrolling in pairs with flaming torches, trying to catch them at it. But here in the desert, the night was still, and silent, broken only by the distant calls of wild animals and the sighing of the wind.

Unable to sleep, Varric had found a spot out of the way of the guards patrolling the walls, so when he heard footsteps behind him, he knew they would not simply pass by, leaving him to his thoughts. Besides, he didn’t need to turn to know that it was Cassandra. He recognised her footstep easily by now, the swift and decisive fall of her boots.

“Hawke’s gone,” Varric told her, without turning around. “To Weisshaupt. To warn the other Wardens of what happened.”

She had left without speaking to him. Without leaving even a note. Cullen, of all people, had been the one to tell Varric where she planned to go.

“I heard,” said Cassandra.

She came to stand beside him, though she did him the courtesy of keeping her eyes fixed on the view, rather than forcing him to meet her gaze. She had stood with him like this at Haven once, Varric remembered, after they’d sealed the Breach. Coming to check up on him, he’d thought at the time, but he wondered now if she too had just wanted to be alone, unable to bear the celebrations when so much had been lost.

Far more had been lost that same night. Looking out over the wilderness now, Varric half expected to see torches flaring into light again, an army sweeping towards them once more to blot out the blasphemous Herald of Andraste and his stolen glory. A part of him might have welcomed it. Perhaps it would have been no bad thing if he had died at Haven after all, a hero and a martyr. Whatever he was now, he didn’t even know himself.

“Varric, I know you don’t want to hear this,” said Cassandra, “but Adamant was a victory.”

“Ha.”

“I do not agree with your choice to ally the Inquisition with the Wardens, after what they did,” Cassandra said bluntly, “but I was wrong about the mages. Perhaps I will be wrong again. And at least with the death of Warden Commander Clarel and the capture of Magister Erimond, those who were responsible for Most Holy’s death have faced justice.”

“Corypheus was responsible for Justinia’s death,” said Varric. “And me and Hawke…we’re responsible for Corypheus.”

“What happened to Most Holy was not your doing, Varric. Nor was what happened to the Wardens. You cannot bear the blame for this.”

“Tell that to Bethany.”

“Warden Bethany Hawke died a hero,” said Cassandra. “We will not forget her sacrifice.”

She made a brief abortive movement – for a startling moment Varric thought she might be about to put her hand on his where it lay on the parapet, but she just stretched out her arms in front of her before leaning next to him.

“You did the right thing, you know,” she said.

“Did I?” said Varric bitterly. “I sent the one Warden who was actually smart enough to see through this blood magic ritual bullshit to her death. My friend. Hawke’s little sister.”

“It was her decision,” said Cassandra.

“I could have stopped her.”

“Yes, you could have,” said Cassandra. “And we would all be dead. Or else Hawke herself would have taken her place, to let her sister escape. Bethany was living off borrowed time, Varric, as all Wardens are, but you saved Hawke’s life when you held her back, and although she does not see it that way today, she will understand in time. You made the right choice.”

“That’s the problem,” said Varric. “I had a choice, and I made it.” He couldn’t keep the wretchedness out of his voice. “I chose Hawke over her sister, but it doesn’t matter why, it doesn’t even matter if it was the right call, what matters is that I chose. What the hell gave me the right to do that?”

“You are the Inquisitor. That gives you the right, and the responsibility.”

“But I didn’t want that,” said Varric, his voice rising. “I never wanted that. I never wanted this damned mark, or this damned title, or this...this...” He waved his hands expansively at the keep around them. “All this! I didn’t even want to be here.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cassandra’s voice was very quiet, and Varric turned to look at her, his anger deflating as suddenly as it had gripped him. “Oh,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean that I blame you.” In fact he had spent quite a lot of time blaming Cassandra, back when all this had started, but now somehow in the face of everything that had happened it all seemed rather petty. “The Nightmare was wrong about that,” he said. “I don’t think of you as…it’s not like you could have known what would happen when you brought me from Kirkwall. You didn’t give me this mark. We’re all in this shit together now, right?”

There was a long silence.

“Still,” said Cassandra. “I am truly sorry that all of this happened to you, Varric. I know it has not been easy, and sometimes I…I have not made it easier.”

“Yeah well, we all know how well things go when you start apologising to me,” said Varric. “You’ll regret it tomorrow when I find some way to piss you off again.” He saw Cassandra’s lips curve up in a faint smile and strangely found he felt a little better. At least he knew there was one person he could rely on never to put him up on a pedestal. A weird thing to be grateful for, but there it was.

“Come back to the Council, Seeker,” he said, impulsively. “Properly, I mean, not just publicly for show. The Inquisition is yours as much as it is mine, More, actually. You should be in the room where the decisions get made.”

“The last time I was ‘in the room’ I threw a punch at you,” Cassandra pointed out.

“Well, maybe I need a punch to the head once in a while,” said Varric. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“I fear I am better at real punches than metaphorical ones,” said Cassandra, dryly. She sighed. “It was never just about being angry with you, Varric. In truth, I am not needed in that room, nor on your Inquisitorial Council.”

This, Varric hadn’t been expecting. “Seeker…”

But Cassandra waved a dismissive hand. “I am not looking for pity, or reassurances. I know what I am; a sword hand, and a good one. I hope I have the wits to put myself in a position to do as much good as I can with what skills the Maker has seen fit to grant me. But I am no military strategist, nor politician. I am too impatient for long meetings and compromises, and too blunt for fine words.”

“Maybe blunt and impatient is what we need sometimes,” said Varric. “I mean it. We can talk ourselves in circles, but someone has to cut through the bullshit and remind us of why we’re here in the first place. Two Divines asked you to serve as their Right Hand, Seeker; I doubt it was just because you’re good at stabbing things.”

It was his turn to have surprised her. Cassandra regarded him for a long moment, perhaps searching his face for any trace of mockery, and then turned her eyes back to the horizon, her expression thoughtful.

“I will consider it,” she said.

Freed from the pressure of her gaze, Varric too let his eyes settle on the distant mountains. The world felt very big, in this moment, and Varric Tethras very small indeed.

“Just promise me one thing?” he said. “Don’t let me buy into it, ok? Now we both know for sure that the whole Herald of Andraste thing is bullshit, but if I ever start acting like...like the Inquisitor...” He trailed off, for once unable to put his thoughts into words properly. “Well, just don’t let that happen. I don’t want to be another Knight Commander Merideth.”

Hawke would have made a joke out of that. Others would have offered meaningless reassurances. Cassandra simply said:

“I promise.”

The weeks after Adamant had a dull, grey quality. Varric returned to Skyhold, to an Inquisition whose jubilant mood did not match his own, and spent days being clapped on the back, congratulated, and giving speeches he didn’t remember a word of afterwards. His face ached from the smile he kept pasted on as he shook hands with soldiers who Cullen had commended for their heroism in the battle, and his voice grew rusty from telling the story of his adventures in the Fade – the official, carefully curated version of the story – to eager audiences over and over again.

The Inquisition victorious was a sight to behold. They were saviours of the world twice over now, and the coffers were overflowing, nations tripping over themselves to claim allyship. Pious second sons of nobility who wouldn’t inherit the family title and would once have joined the templars now showed up at Skyhold to join the armies of the faithful. Businessmen from every corner of Thedas jostled to secure favourable trade deals with an organisation that was ever expanding and remembered who their friends were. The Inquisition’s reach extended throughout the south and even across the Waking Sea, where they had ambassadors and agents as far as the Anderfells and Rivain. What they had set into motion all those months ago in the cold, remote Chantry at Haven was now a force that was rattling all of Thedas to its foundations.

In the meantime, grief strolled back into Varric’s life like an old familiar friend, making itself comfortable in the corner of every room, dripping poison into his ear every night when he tried to sleep. Bethany’s death, and Hawke’s absence, weighed heavy as a stone in his chest, dragging down his steps. Varric did as he always did in times like this – he buried himself in his work. He was not the Herald of Andraste, but, like it or not, he was the Inquisitor. And the Inquisitor had work to do.

He had no time now to stop for a drink with the Chargers at The Heralds Rest, nor practice trick shots with Sera at the archery range, nor chat with Mother Giselle in the sunlit garden. From dawn until dusk, Varric’s days were spent in meetings in the War Room, or in the offices of his advisors; pouring over reports with Leliana, charming visiting merchants and negotiating trade deals with Josephine, talking supply lines and defences and troop deployment with Cullen and pretending not to notice the Commander’s shaking hands, even as Cullen tactfully ignored the shadows under Varric’s eyes. He spent hours too at the huge mahogany desk in his tower room, drawing up contracts and writing letters to important people, until his eyes swam and his ink-stained fingers cramped, and candle after candle burned down to a stub.

There was a hell of a lot to be done. The fallout from what had happened at Adamant had to be managed carefully, the story spun so that the Inquisition had saved the Grey Wardens from a terrible tragedy, not barely stopped them from inflicting one. The order were the Inquisition’s allies now, and so the hard work of rebuilding their reputation, and their numbers, was the Inquisition’s responsibility. Blackwall and Sera had finally tracked down Warden Stroud, who had been dispatched to Griffon Wing Keep to take command of the Wardens of Orlais, in the absence of any Warden of rank having survived Adamant. Reports of Darkspawn being sighted in increasing numbers were already coming in from across Orlais and Ferelden, and they would be needed.

Warden Stroud had also written to Varric about Bethany. There would be a statue, he said, at Adamant, honouring her sacrifice, side by side with the memorials for the Grey Wardens’ finest and bravest heroes throughout the centuries. A twin to her sister’s statue, far across the sea. That would have made Bethany smile, Varric thought.

King Alistair too had sent a long letter to the Inquisition formally pledging Ferelden’s full support and alliance, and personally thanking Varric for his mercy towards the Grey Wardens. He did not mention having heard the Calling himself, but Varric could only imagine the king’s relief at the revelation that it had not been real. With Orlais still riven by civil war, a succession crisis in Ferelden due to their monarch’s untimely death was the last thing anyone needed.

The Inquisition had made a powerful ally in King Alistair, and Varric wasted no time in leveraging it. There had been riots in the streets of Orzammar; the civil war in Orlais had also caused food shortages belowground, and as much as the dwarves of Orzammar hated to be hungry, they hated even more being reminded of how reliant they were on human trade with the surface to survive. With the Grey Wardens decimated and leaderless in the south, Orzammar was the first line of defence against another Blight, not to mention the only source of lyrium for the Inquisition’s mages, so trouble there couldn’t be easily dismissed. Varric spent hours with Josephine, drawing on all his knowledge of the messy, tradition-bound politics of Orzammar to try and hash out a trade agreement between them and Ferelden that would prevent people from starving without pissing off the Orlesians too much. It helped that King Bhelen owed King Alistair a favour, and Leliana too, for helping to put him on the throne during the fifth Blight, and Leliana also alluded to ‘knowing things about him he would not want to get out’ which meant that simply mentioning her name in negotiations gave them an unexpected advantage. It was amazing how difficult it could be just to get people to agree to something that was actually good for everyone, but Josephine pulled it off, and the Inquisition gained a great deal of goodwill belowground as a result. Suddenly, noble families who would once rather have smeared themselves with nug-fat and run naked through the Deep Roads before speaking to a casteless surface dwarf were jostling to claim Varric as a distant relation.

For his part, though everyone seemed to want a piece of him these days, Varric found being around other people exhausting. He found an unlikely ally there in Leliana, who was as withdrawn and melancholy as he had ever seen her, a mirror to his own mood. She was grieving Justinia still, and perhaps the Grey Wardens too, or at least what she’d believed the Wardens had been. A lot of illusions had been shattered at Adamant.

“I knew Bethany a little, you know,” she told him one day, as they were reviewing a report from one of her agents in Val Royeaux, huddled up in the tall, airy tower where Sister Nightingale spent her days perched amongst her ravens, dealing in secrets with her back to the wall and one eye always on the door. “I spent some years at the Chantry in Lothering, where she grew up.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Varric. He’d known Leliana had been a Chantry Sister, at one time, but most of her past was still a mystery to him, and as she seemed to want to keep it that way, he’d felt no reason to pry. Hawke had never mentioned knowing Leliana, but then he doubted Hawke had frequented her local Chantry very often. Bethany though, had always found more comfort in the Maker than her sister ever had, hope in the idea that someone was watching over them. That everything happened for a reason.

“She was a sweet girl,” Leliana said, softly. “This world seems to swallow up people like that.”

To that, Varric had no reply, and Leliana didn’t seem to expect one.

He wished he could be proud of what the Inquisition was achieving, but mostly, he just felt tired – his days had become an endless trudge of meetings and paperwork, punctuated by periodically having to don his Inquisitorial persona in order to meet with someone deemed important enough for a personal audience. Josephine often had to remind him to eat, and Varric tried to repay her quiet kindness by making sure he was never anything less than on top form during the meetings she was unable to deflect, playing whatever part was required of him – the pious Herald, the canny businessman, the heroic Inquisitor. He still knew how to spin a tale that would open people’s hearts, and loosen their purse strings, but he found there was little fun to be had in it these days.

One morning, Varric awoke in his room to find that he’d fallen asleep at his desk again, and he was disturbed to see that someone had laid a plate with a roll of sweetbread and a little pot of jam, along with a letter, on the desk before him while he slept. If someone could get into his room and that close to him unawares, then an assassin could do the same. Varric peeled his face from the wood of the desk and sat up, wincing at the protestation of his back and angry with himself. He was getting slack, and he would be no good to anyone dead.

Then he saw the handwriting on the letter, and froze, his hand halfway to the bread roll. It was not addressed to the Inquisitor, or the Herald of Andraste, or even Deshyr Tethras, as the Merchant’s Guild would still have it. The name on the paper was simply ‘Varric’ and it was written in what was unmistakably Hawke’s looping, exuberant hand.

His own hands trembling slightly and the breakfast forgotten, Varric picked up the letter and opened it, unfolding it on the desk in front of him.

***

Varric-

I’ve arrived at Weisshaupt. It’s about as cold and depressing as you would think it is. The Wardens are struggling to accept what happened, and there are a lot of arguments that I can’t tell you about because I’m sure someone will read this letter before it leaves here, and they’ll just burn it if I give away any of the order’s secrets. I’ll likely be here for some time – let’s leave it at that.

I guess you’re wondering why I’m even writing to you now, after leaving without saying goodbye. I wasn’t going to, but when I got the letter from Seeker Cassandra, I realised she was right, and that I couldn’t put it off forever.

The thing is, Lothering is gone, and now so many of the Wardens are gone too. That means there’s hardly anyone left who will really remember Bethany. Or my mother, or Anders, or any of it. Just a few of us, and sometimes I think we’re all living off borrowed time, like the Wardens do, just waiting for the axe to fall.

But when you wrote about them in your book, you gave them a kind of immortality. I can always open the pages of The Tale of the Champion and find them all there, just like I remember. You gave that to me. And I know that the rest of the world won’t forget them either, because of you. I don’t think I ever really thanked you for that.

What happened in the Fade wasn’t your fault, Varric. Bethany died to save both of us, and I know the last thing she would have wanted was for me to blame myself, or to blame you – your Seeker was right about that too.

Take care of yourself, and write me when you get the chance. If you need me, I’ll be there. And please try to stay out of trouble – I don’t want to lose the last family I have left.

Your friend, always,

Hawke

***

Varric laid down the letter carefully, and wiped the tears from his face. He sat there for a long time, as the pattern of light made by the morning sun through the windows moved across the floor, and then he ate his breakfast, washed his face, changed his clothes, and left his room in search of Cassandra.

He found her easily enough, where she always was first thing in the mornings – at the training dummies in the main courtyard, running through sword drills. She cut a familiar figure as he approached, fully armoured as she always was when in practice, to weigh down her movements the same as in a real fight, her blade flashing in the sun.

Not wanting to disturb her, especially with anything sharp and pointy in her hand, Varric leaned against the wall nearby and observed for a while; Cassandra’s feet moving in practised steps, her stance loose and confident as her blade carved through the air, overhand, underhand, slash and thrust, neat slices appearing in the hessian sack of the unfortunate training dummy before her, bleeding straw.

Her words at Griffon Wing Keep came back to him as he watched. A sword hand, and a good one. Well, she certainly was that. But it was strange to know that she didn’t see herself as having anything more worth contributing, when it was obvious to everyone else that she’d been the driving force of the Inquisition from the start, the person most clear-eyed and determined in their mission, even to the point of being extremely annoying about it. The people around the Seeker trusted her judgement implicitly – Cullen had informed Varric that Cassandra had agreed to keep an eye on him while he was attempting to break his addiction to lyrium and step in if he appeared to be failing in his duties, or presenting a danger to others. It was a responsibility she wouldn’t take lightly, and Varric could see why Cullen had asked her, rather than anyone else, who might have been more tactful. She was good, Cassandra, at saying the thing no-one else wanted to say, and now that she had returned regularly to the War Room meetings, their discussions there certainly seemed to take a shorter time too. Cullen himself had been obliged to make his excuses more than once, struggling now in the throes of lyrium withdrawal, fighting his own private battle from within, and it was perhaps this as much as Varric’s own request that had induced Cassandra to return to a more active role in the Inquisition’s running. She spoke for the Commander’s opinions and concerns as well as her own; the voice of pragmatism, of brisk competence, asking the questions that Leliana was too subtle to ask, raising the objections that Josephine was too polite to raise.

But practicality didn’t mean coldness. Varric had made that mistake when he’d first met the Seeker, and he genuinely regretted it now. They’d wasted a lot of time wilfully misunderstanding each other.

Cassandra paused for a moment, stepping back and letting her sword drop casually to the grass, before bending down to retrieve a flask she’d set down at the base of the training dummy and taking a long swig of what was presumably water. She noticed him watching when she set the flask down again, and straightened up.

“Varric,” she said, with less of the old wariness than there once might have been in greeting him, but still some surprise. She was one of the only people, actually, who didn’t just call him ‘Inquisitor’ these days, and though he wasn’t sure if it was a conscious choice on her part or just habit, he appreciated it all the same. It was nice to still be Varric to somebody.

“Is everything alright?” Cassandra asked, walking over to him.

“You wrote to Hawke,” said Varric, figuring she of all people would appreciate the direct approach.

“Yes.” Cassandra stopped in front of him, now looking uncharacteristically hesitant. “Perhaps it was presumptuous of me,” she said. “But after what happened in the Fade I…remembered how I felt after my brother Anthony was killed. I let my grief, my anger, drive my actions for a long time, and blind me to anything else. I lashed out and hurt those who did not deserve it, because I wanted someone to pay, for them to be in as much pain as I was.”

She paused, gathering her thoughts, while Varric tried not to look as wretchedly guilty as he felt. Selfish bastard that he was, he had never even considered that Hawke witnessing Bethany’s death would bring back memories for Cassandra of her own loss.

“I did not want to see Hawke make the same mistakes I did,” continued Cassandra. “I wanted her to know that cutting herself off from everyone in order to protect herself is not the answer. To assure her that she is not alone.”

Varric hardly knew what to say to that. “I…thanks, Seeker,” he said. “That’s…I don’t think it was presumptuous at all. I think it helped.”

“You have heard from her then?” asked Cassandra.

“Yeah.”

Cassandra smiled, a soft, genuine smile. “I am glad.”

“I owe you one,” said Varric, a little awkwardly. “Really.”

“Well then, I know exactly how you can repay me,” said Cassandra, much to his surprise. “The Iron Bull is holding a game of Wicked Grace in The Herald’s Rest tonight. It is your game, is it not? You should go.”

Varric winced. He’d been planning on locking himself in his room, writing back to Hawke, and generally brooding. “I don’t know if I—”

Cassandra held up an officious hand, stopping him. “You owe me, dwarf,” she said, firmly. “I believe the reputation of House Tethras would suffer if you did not pay your debts in a timely fashion.”

“Fine, you win,” said Varric, too exhausted to argue the point. “I’ll go.”

“Good.”

“Will you be there?”

Cassandra looked genuinely startled to be asked. She blinked at him for a moment and then said: “No, I am not…that is, I have…duties to attend to.”

Varric was almost tempted to say that as the Inquisitor he could order her to be there, and then wondered why on earth he would even think such a thing, much less say it. What did it matter, anyway?

“Well, catch you next time then, I guess,” he said, feeling slightly foolish. He made to leave, while he still had the rest of his dignity intact, but a thought seemed to occur to Cassandra.

“Oh, and you should know,” she said, “Leliana told me that Solas has sent word from Griffon Wing Keep. They have located the oasis out in the desert, and there is a temple there which appears to be what the Venatori were trying to lay claim to with those shards.”

That was a piece of good news, in theory; the Inquisition’s mages had been investigating the shards the Oculara revealed since they’d found their first one, without much luck. It had only been chance that one of them had remembered reading some reference to something similar on a scroll in the Circle tower in Markham, and that lead had been enough for the Inquisition to track down the thing and for Solas to mount a small expedition of researchers to try and locate the ancient elven temple the scroll described. It had taken a lot of time and expense on the Inquisition’s part, but Varric had insisted. Whatever these shards were for, the Tranquil had been slaughtered for it. They owed their friends and families answers, if not justice.

Still, Varric couldn’t help but groan. “More desert?” he said.

“More desert,” repeated Cassandra. “Perhaps you would prefer a trip back to the Fallow Mire?”

Maker’s breath, the world really was coming to an end if Cassandra was making jokes to cheer him up.

“Alright, alright,” said Varric. “I’ll save my complaining for when we actually get there.”

“I look forward to it,” drawled Cassandra, and Varric felt a chuckle ripple through his chest at her deadpan resignation, surprising himself. It felt like a long time since he’d laughed.

“I’ll let you get back to it then, Seeker,” he said. “Those training dummies won’t beat themselves into the dust, after all.”

He was already walking away when she replied, and he almost didn’t catch the words.

“You are not alone either, you know,” she said, quietly.

By the time Varric had looked back, she had turned away, and was heading back to the training dummies, her sword already in her hand.

They set out for western Orlais once more not days later, with the expectation that they would not see Skyhold again for some time. They went over sea again, Josephine too accompanying the party to Val Royeaux, where she had business to attend to – a little matter with some assassins that Varric helped her to clear up – and then west on the Imperial Highway, to Griffon Wing Keep to resupply before heading deeper into the desert. It was no bad thing for the Inquisitor to be back in Orlais. Though the civil war appeared to have reached an uneasy détente, and there were whispers of peace talks on the wind, Leliana’s reports from across the country had been ominous. Towns burnt to the ground by disaffected deserters from both sides of the warring armies, whole battalions of soldiers mysteriously gone missing. Even in Val Royeaux, miles from any fighting, the atmosphere of the city was notably tense.

Varric, conversely, was feeling more optimistic than he might have expected, to be on the road again. True to his word, he’d pulled his head out of his ass to go along to Bull’s casual game of Wicked Grace in the tavern, which had been more a vague plan than the formal social event Cassandra had made it sound, and surprised himself by having a good time. His head felt clearer for being around people who were more concerned with whose turn it was to buy the next round than with the fate of armies and empires, and the warm chatter of the tavern had been a reminder of what all this was for in the first place. Wasn’t this what they were trying to get back to, after all was said and done? Wasn’t this what they were trying to protect? It didn’t really matter, in the end, whether the people fighting in the Inquisition’s name believed their leader was chosen by Andraste or not. What mattered was that they got to go to bed knowing that there would still be a world to wake up to tomorrow, that they could believe in a future where the fighting would one day be over. As long as that future was still possible, Varric was determined to fight for it too, no matter how he’d ended up here. He’d give everything he could, just as Bethany had done. He'd make that future worth it.

In the meantime, he'd allowed himself one night off, and the world hadn’t crumbled around his ears. So he’d set out from Skyhold feeling comfortable that the work he left behind was in good hands, and with a renewed determination to do whatever good the Inquisition could in Orlais, to work towards peace as they had pledged to do.

Their first stop, though, was the oasis that Solas and his team had found, deep in the deserts to the west. The Inquisition by now had the finest ships and the finest horses at their disposal, able to shave days off the journey to Griffon Wing Keep, but it was still a trek of more than a full day from there over the dunes to reach the remote location marked on their map. They travelled light in a small party, not just for expediency, but because the Inquisition’s resources were spread somewhat thin as it was. The Iron Bull was with his Chargers in Ferelden, dealing with a dragon that had taken up residence near Crestwood and had been harrying the Inquisition’s garrison at Caer Bronach, a mission Bull had accepted with the air of someone receiving a particularly thoughtful birthday gift. Vivienne had stayed in Val Royeaux with Josephine, ‘to catch up with a few old friends’ (read: to charm or bully a lot of rich Orlesians into giving the Inquisition money) and they’d left Blackwall behind at Griffon Wing Keep to help Knight Captain Rylan with an incursion of darkspawn nearby. Rylan was a very competent commander in the field – a cheerful Marcher whose Starkhaven accent Varric tried not to hold against him, though it reminded him of a man he’d much rather forget existed – but there were obvious benefits to having a Grey Warden along when it came to dealing with darkspawn.

So it was only Cassandra, Dorian and Sera who set out across the desert with Varric, in search of the fabled oasis. He’d asked Dorian to come because having a mage with a different perspective and base of knowledge than Solas would be useful, and Dorian had expressed some curiosity about seeing the temple. He’d persuaded Sera to tag along too, because he was a little worried about her. She’d been distracted and withdrawn since Adamant, inclined to keep to herself and jump at shadows. Varric had been too wrapped up in his own problems to notice, but a chance remark from Cole back at Skyhold had made him pay more attention, and he’d realised that Sera too was struggling to deal with what had happened in the Fade.

Sera had been an invaluable asset to the Inquisition, her network of contacts as useful as her skill with a bow. She was excellent at finding people who didn’t want to be found, and passed any number of tips onto Leliana, ferreting out information from places impregnable to Nightingale’s spies, but still reliant on the kind of ‘little people’ that were more loyal to Red Jenny than anyone who paid their wages. But Sera was a down-to-earth, practical sort of person. She’d joined the Inquisition ‘to close the hole in the sky and get everything back to normal’. Ancient Darkspawn and battles and weird, impossible magic was more than she’d signed up for. It was obvious she felt out of her depth, and needed something practical to be doing, to stop her from dwelling on things too big and terrifying for anyone to understand.

Varric wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, and he was surprised at how sympathetic Cassandra was towards Sera, treating her rather more gently than she had done in the past as they journeyed together. Perhaps emboldened by her success in helping him – the Seeker, helping him fix his shit! Who’d have thought it? – she made tentative forays into trying to get Sera to talk about what was bothering her. This was actually somewhat successful, if only because her clumsy attempts annoyed Sera to the point that it made a good distraction from brooding on her fears.

“The Inquisitor came back,” she snapped, eventually. “That's all that matters. Maybe it's you who's still shaky. Everyone just needs to not think about it and feel better.”

“You're right, I do feel better now,” said Cassandra dryly, but she was tactful enough to stop poking.

They rode through the desert on horseback, shrouded from the burning sun by light cloaks and hoods that wrapped over the face, their specially selected mounts more accustomed to the heat than any of their riders. Varric was still no great fan of riding, but it was better than having to walk, and he still spent a fretful night as they slept under the stars, worrying about what they would do if any nocturnal predators tried to drag their horses off into the night, leaving them stranded. But they made it to the next morning unmolested, and rode out again at dawn with saddlebags lighter the more water they and their ever-thirsty mounts drank, eager to find any sign of life in these endless, scorching wastes.

They found it in the late afternoon, as rocky orange crags rose like a mirage in the distance, and as they drew closer the clustered outline of tents appeared and the sound of people talking drifted on the wind. Solas and his small team of Inquisition scouts and a couple of other scholarly mages had been here for a few weeks now, and their camp was well established, wooden stakes surrounding the perimeter and supplies neatly stacked in crates under the shade. In a cage, one of Leliana’s ravens cawed despondently, a failsafe way of sending a message quickly back to Skyhold should something go wrong. It was hardly civilisation, but it was a relief just to see other people after a day and a half of trekking through the vast, empty desert, and the sight of the Inquisition banners fluttering in the breeze lit an unexpected spark of something like pride in Varric’s chest.

They dismounted, feet thumping onto the sand. Varric was used to this by now, though it had admittedly taken a while under Horsemaster Dennet’s very patient and tactful supervision to learn how to get down from such a great height without making an absolute tit of himself. He patted his horse’s big soft nose vaguely, and it whuffed at him.

“Yeah, you and me both,” Varric said.

As they led their horses into camp, they were met with the familiar freckled face of Lead Scout Harding, who looked, pleased, if a little surprised, at their approach.

“You’ve made good time, Inquisitor, we weren’t expecting you before sundown,” she said, as she gestured at another scout to relieve them of their mounts and start unloading their saddlebags. “There’s still a couple of hours of daylight if you want to see the temple. Solas is camped out there by the entrance; I don’t think he’s left it since he got here. But the rest of us find the place kind of…creepy. No-one was going to get any sleep in there, that’s for sure.”

“What’s inside?” asked Varric, but Harding just shrugged.

“We’ve only breached the outer chamber. We thought it better to wait for you before going any further, your worship.”

Varric winced at that appellation, but was tired enough to let it pass. “I don’t see much of an oasis,” he commented, looking around at the craggy rocks and endless sands stretching away to the horizon.

“It’s further in,” said Harding. “It’s actually quite the sight. Here—” She handed Varric a sketched map. “Directions to the temple through the mining tunnels. It’s a fair climb if you were thinking of going there straight away.” She hesitated. “We also…we found some more Oculara,” she said. “There’s a few here, actually. We left them where they were for the moment, but Scout Watkins requested that when they’re dismantled, he be allowed to hold a funeral for them. For whoever they were. He had a sister who was made Tranquil.”

“Does he know what happened to her?” asked Cassandra, quietly.

“No,” said Harding. “Probably never will. But I think it’d help him to know that the Venatori won’t get whatever’s in that temple. He volunteered for this posting.”

Little tragedies, everywhere, hiding just out of sight. “He’ll get his funeral,” said Varric. “We won’t leave them here out in the sand.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll just head down to the oasis now, get a feel for the area, since we’re ahead of schedule,” he said, trying to sound Inquisitorial. “We’ll be back before nightfall.”

They left their horses behind and continued downwards on foot into the widening canyon of rock beyond the camp, sliding a little on the sand as the rocky walls rose higher around them. The evidence of old mining operations were visible everywhere, half broken walkways and shored up tunnels carved into the rock, old bits of equipment not deemed valuable enough to retrieve, half buried in the sand. There was a soft roaring sound in the distance, growing louder as they went, until finally they turned a corner and suddenly…there it was. The Forbidden Oasis.

“It’s beautiful,” said Cassandra, her voice filled with wonder, and for once Varric had to agree with her.

Water cascaded down from the overhanging rock in a white torrents as tall as Skyhold’s towers, foaming and sparkling in the sun. Shimmering rainbows hung in the spray, and below, spread out before them, was a wide flat pool, the water gleaming enticingly. The oasis was lush with trees and overhanging vines dripping from every cliff face, leaves glossy in the fine mist of spray that filled the air, and over the thundering roar of the waterfall there were the sounds of birds calling to each other, and the occasional clatter and flash of brightly coloured wings as one took flight. A great arch of sandstone overhead spanning from one side of the high cliffs to the other threw a wide strip of shade across the idyllic scene, and even the air down here felt fresher out of the burning sun above, the water before them cool and inviting.

Sera didn’t hesitate. She set off at a run and bounded into the pool with a shriek of joy. Varric and Dorian looked at each other and grinned.

“When in Rivain…” said Dorian philosophically, and sat down on a nearby rock to take off his shoes. Varric did the same, shrugging off the light cloak that had been protecting him from the worst of the sun, and leaning down to start unlacing his boots.

“We should really use the rest of the daylight to—” began Cassandra, but Varric couldn’t bear to even let her finish. “Seeker, we’ve been riding through the desert for hours,” he said, with more amusement than annoyance. “The temple will still be there tomorrow. Live a little.” He pulled off his boots and socks, and started to roll up the ends of his trousers. “In fact, as Inquisitor I order you to relax. If I’m hot and miserable you must be boiling alive in that armour. For the Maker’s sake, take it off and at least go for a paddle or something.”

Finished with his own preparations, he did just that, leaving both Cassandra and his boots behind to wade into the shallows of the pool with a groan of relief. The cool, clear water washed around his aching feet, and he stood there enjoying the sensation, watching Sera cavorting around the distant waterfall. In the time he had spent removing his shoes, she had thrown caution to the wind and appeared to have stripped down to her smallclothes to make it easier to swim – though Varric wasn’t entirely convinced she could, having spent her whole life in the city. Luckily the water wasn’t very deep, for an elf, so this was probably as good a place to learn as any. At least she seemed to be having fun, all thoughts of the Fade forgotten. Dorian, with slightly more dignity, had found a large, smooth rock to settle down on, spreading out his own cloak to sit on and dangle his legs in the water. He had removed a book from his pack and was apparently deeply absorbed in it, so presumably he was having fun too, in his own way.

Varric leaned down and splashed some water over his face, washing off the grit of the desert, and then waded back to his own rock, deciding that Dorian had the right idea. When he sat down, feet still firmly immersed in the cool water, he was pleased to see that Cassandra had taken his order to heart. She had elected not to strip down to her smallclothes like Sera, but she had at least removed her armour and her padded gambeson, and was wading around the edges of the pool, idly exploring with every indication of enjoyment. Varric watched her for a while as she gazed around at the waterfalls crashing down before them, and bent to examine a plant growing out of the water, rubbing its leaves briefly between her fingers, perhaps trying to identify it. His orders aside, relaxing was not exactly the Seeker’s forte – she seemed determined to go about it with a rigorous purpose that made Varric smile.

After a few minutes, Varric pulled off his shirt and folded it next to him, ignoring a distant wolf whistle from Sera. Now that they were in the relative shade of a canyon, the sun on his skin was pleasant rather than scorching, and he was glad he’d have the chance to wash his shirt before tomorrow, since it was the worse for travel. Stripped to the waist, he leaned back on his arms, turning his face towards the sun and sighed contentedly as a cool breeze played across his skin, lifting the stray hairs that fell across his brow. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in months. Nothing like the whole world going to shit to really make you appreciate the small things.

Ah Sunshine, he thought. I hope wherever you are now, it’s as peaceful as this. You deserve that.

He allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts for a while, more reflective than melancholy, and then rummaged in his nearby pack for some paper and a quill to start writing a letter to Hawke. He’d written her before they left Skyhold, of course, and said all the painful, difficult things that he wished he could have said in person, but he’d also promised to send her regular updates on what he was doing. It would set her mind at ease to know that he was okay, and if there was one thing Varric was really good at, it was providing a distraction. This letter would be filled with as many funny anecdotes as he could remember or make up about their journey here, and gossip from Skyhold about the people she’d met. If he could raise a smile from Hawke when she read it, hundreds of miles away, it would be more than worth it.

The light of the day slipped away, taking the worst of the heat with it, and as the sky started to dim, Varric packed away his letter and called to the others to head back to the camp. Dorian hadn’t moved from his rock, and Sera, bored with swimming, had been constructing some kind of obscene sculpture in the wet sand at the edge of the pool, with limited success. Cassandra, Varric noticed, was now simply sitting on the sand looking out over the oasis with the kind of quiet stillness she had sometimes when on watch duty, as though she had retreated to some tranquil place inside herself. Her head turned quickly enough at his hail though, and she made her way back over to where he was sitting along with the other two, as Varric started to pull on his socks and boots.

“Let’s get an early night,” he said. “And an early start tomorrow, to the temple.”

“I hope it proves worth the journey,” said Cassandra. Half dressed as Varric technically was, she was avoiding looking directly at him, though her gaze kept sliding back in forgetfulness to his bare chest before she wrenched it quickly away again. Varric smirked at this sudden display of prudish Chantry sensibilities, but pulled his shirt back on to spare the Seeker’s blushes before they made their way back to the main camp.

They were met with the smell of roasting meat – one of the scouts had shot a tusket, which was now turning slowly on a spit over a campfire, and they made an excellent meal of it, hungry after a day of travel. Licking the grease off his lips, warmed by the merrily crackling flames and eyeing with satisfaction the sturdy, spacious tents that this more permanent campsite boasted, the rotation of personnel that meant a night without watch duty, Varric thought that maybe this whole camping business wasn’t quite as bad as all that, after all.

“Do you know, the horns of these things are supposed to increase virility?” said Dorian conversationally. He rejoiced in this kind of fun fact. “I wonder if anyone kept them.” He gave Varric a sly look. “Though Maker knows things are steamy enough around here, what with our dear Inquisitor parading around shirtless,” he said. “If I’d have known beforehand, I would have sold tickets.”

Sera snorted, tearing a strip of meat off the bone with her teeth. “Like your boyfriend doesn’t walk around with his tits out all the time,” she said, her mouth full.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Dorian said, with airy dignity, though Varric noticed the tips of his ears had reddened slightly. So that was back on, then? Interesting, if a little annoying that he hadn’t realised. The Iron Bull himself had once told Varric that he worked best being in a position to know which of his people were sleeping with each other, and Varric couldn’t help but agree. He at least liked to have an idea of what was going on in the personal lives of people he considered friends, and both Dorian and Bull fell into that category. Sodding ancestors, he’d missed too much while sunk into his own self-indulgent gloom.

“Anyway, you shouldn’t be ogling Varric,” Sera told Dorian. “It’s weird. He’s like your dad or something.”

“I assure you, he really isn’t,” said Dorian, palpably appalled.

“Not your dad,” said Sera, waving her hand in a vague gesture, sending little bits of meat flying as she was still holding a leg of tusket. “I mean like…he’s everyone’s. He’s the Inquisitor. Him and the Seeker are like the mum and dad of the Inquisition.”

“We most certainly are not!” said Cassandra, now looking horrified herself, and Varric couldn’t help but laugh.

“How do you figure that one, Buttercup?” he asked.

Sera shrugged. “I dunno. You’ve both been in it from the beginning, right? Everyone else got sort of picked up along the way but you two arrived as a package. Plus, you bicker like an old married couple.”

“She’s not wrong, you know,” chipped in Dorian, grinning widely.

“That is absurd!” protested Cassandra. “We did not ‘arrive as a package’, the reason we were travelling together was because the Inquisition needed him and I practically had to drag him along. Complaining all the while, I might add.”

“I’m right here, you know,” said Varric.

Sera rolled her eyes. “Right, not like an old married couple at all, forget I said anything yeah?”

“Wait a minute,” said Dorian. “If they’re the mum and dad, what’s Leliana? She started the Inquisition too, you know.”

“Crazy aunt in the attic?” suggested Varric. And then added quickly: “Don’t tell Nightingale I said that.”

“Sweet Andraste, Varric, stop encouraging them,” said Cassandra.

“Yes dear.”

Sera cackled and Cassandra shot him a scowl. Varric winked at her.

Night fell, stars dotted the sky, and Sera nodded drowsily until she eventually admitted defeat and went to her tent to sleep. As Varric and Dorian fell into idle conversation about Tevinter literature, it was Cassandra’s turn to take out a book, and Varric couldn’t help but grin when he saw the cover of Swords and Shields. Unfortunately, Dorian noticed too.

“Goodness, you’re not reading that again, are you?” he said. “I would have thought once was more than enough.”

“Once again I remind you,” said Varric mildly, “that I am sitting right here.”

“And I’ll remind you,” said Dorian, “that you yourself described it as the worst thing you’d ever written.”

“You did not,” said Cassandra, looking up with a look of genuine shock. “It is—” She bit off whatever she was about to say, and awkwardly changed it to: “It is…not the one I was reading at Skyhold, in any case. It is the next part.”

“Ah, I see,” said Dorian, with a sideways look at Varric. “And does it live up to expectations?”

“Yes,” said Cassandra, a touch defiantly, having apparently decided that brazening it through this conversation was the only way out. “I am enjoying it very much.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Varric, with perfect honesty. The truth was, he’d actually enjoyed writing more of Swords and Shields, in the end. It had been a distraction from all the depressing bullshit the Inquisitor had to deal with, a little piece of time he’d been able to carve out just to be Varric Tethras again. “Now that I’ve picked it up again, I’ve got half a mind to finish the series,” he said.

“Were you…” Cassandra was trying to look nonchalant, something she was endearingly bad at. “Is that what you were writing, earlier?”

“Sorry to disappoint, Seeker, but no. I was writing to Hawke, actually.”

“Ah, another of your great fictional creations,” remarked Dorian, which made Varric turn to him, puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, your friend Hawke was a delight,” said Dorian dryly, “but not exactly the dazzling wit you made her out to be in the Tale of the Champion. You punched up her dialogue a tad, I take it?”

“Here and there,” admitted Varric. “It doesn’t have the same dramatic effect if the hero thinks of the perfect kiss-off line a week after she took down the bad guy.”

“I didn’t realise how much of you was in that book after all,” said Dorian.

“Shows I did my job,” said Varric easily. “The writer is supposed to be invisible. But the truth is, any good story is half what actually happened, and half how you tell it.”

“Hmm, remind me to be nicer to you in the future then,” said Dorian. “And do give Hawke my regards, will you? Tell her I’ll be collecting those fifty sovereigns any day now. She’ll know what I mean.”

“Sparkler, I don’t even want to know,” said Varric.

Dorian chuckled. Cassandra, however, was looking at Varric with a thoughtful expression, her book temporarily forgotten. “Will you write about all this?” she asked suddenly. “About the Inquisition?”

“Maybe. Depends on if any of us make it out in the end, I suppose.”

“Isn’t that a cheery thought,” muttered Dorian.

“Good,” said Cassandra, ignoring him. “If anyone must tell this story, I would rather it be you.”

“Why?” said Varric curiously.

“Some of the things the Inquisition has done could be cast in a poor light by one who had the desire to do so,” said Cassandra. “It would be easy to make those involved seem like…heretics, fools. Perhaps even mad with ego for attempting what we have done.”

“And you’re assuming I wouldn’t spin it that way, I take it,” said Varric. He expected a dry remark about his instinct for self-preservation, but Cassandra looked genuinely contemplative.

“You see people as...as the best that they might be,” she said. “When you told me of Kirkwall, you lent me pity for a blood mage, respect for a pirate, and sympathy for the very person I had come to condemn. They were fortunate to have you as...advocate.”

“Friend, Seeker,” said Varric, though without any bite. “Once again, the word you’re looking for is ‘friend’.”

For once, Cassandra didn’t rise to the bait of this instinctive teasing. “They were fortunate to have you as a friend then,” she said.

A strange and complicated thing happened inside Varric’s chest at that moment. Cassandra had spoken approvingly of his work for the Inquisition before, on occasion, and even seemed to have genuinely meant it, but this was the first time he could recall that she had spoken well of…him. It surprised him how touched he was. The thing about a compliment from Cassandra Pentaghast, he realised, was that you could be absolutely sure she sincerely meant it.

Varric saw that Dorian was watching him with a faintly amused expression, as if he’d noticed the lack of glib reply and correctly guessed the cause.

“So, what do you think I should call it?” he said brightly, to cover for this awkward moment. “If I do write this world-shaking tome? ‘The Tale of the Herald of Andraste’ sounds a bit clunky, and a lot self-absorbed.”

“How about…Inquisition Exposed?” suggested Dorian.

“That makes it sound like a nude calendar.”

“Precisely. Copies will just fly off the shelves.”

“Best not to set up expectations I’ll struggle to fulfil,” said Varric. He turned to Cassandra. “Come on Seeker, you’ve bought my books before, help me out here.”

“I am thinking,” said Cassandra. “What was it you told me once…? Ah, that was it: The wrong place at the worst possible time.”

Varric chuckled. “You’re right, that’s actually not a bad title.”

Cassandra looked inordinately pleased at this, and the three of them spent some time throwing out more potential titles, and bickering good-naturedly over details of how the story of the Inquisition should be told. They eventually retired to their tents, yawning, pleasantly full, and with the knowledge that the days or gruelling travel were at least temporarily behind them.

Varric was sharing canvas with Cassandra, as usual, but, tired as he was, he found he couldn’t drop off straight away as she did. Instead, he found his thoughts chewing over what she had said earlier. They were fortunate to have you as a friend. His ego aside, there had been something almost wistful in the way she’d said it that had just slightly tugged at a heartstring Varric didn’t know he possessed. The Seeker had written to Hawke to tell her that she wasn’t alone, but after her own brother’s death all those years ago, had there been anyone to tell the young Cassandra the same thing? Varric knew she’d been raised by her uncle, but he couldn’t imagine a Mortalitasi was much a comfort in the face of death. He could all too easily picture the Seeker as a child – spiky and unapproachable, brittle with grief and anger, left to fend for herself. It wasn’t a difficult line to draw between that image and the woman she was today, who was like the human equivalent of Skyhold fortress, distant and unassailable. She was more of a myth, to most, than an actual person. Cassandra, by her own admission, hadn’t been close to Divine Justinia as Leliana had been, and her relationship with Nightingale herself also appeared to be warm, but not especially intimate. She sparred with both Blackwall and Iron Bull from time to time, but Varric had never seen her sharing a drink with them at the tavern, or playing a game of chess with Cullen, or taking tea in Skyhold’s garden with Josephine.

He'd always just assumed that the Seeker preferred her own company. It hadn’t really occurred to him to wonder if maybe she felt that she didn’t have a choice.

Varric turned over in his bedroll, wincing at the hardness of the ground, uncomfortable in more ways than one. He’d made fun of Cassandra’s lack of social graces in the past, but the idea that she genuinely regretted being a person of few real friends didn’t strike him as funny at all. And why should she have resigned herself to it, if that was how she felt? Cassandra could be…blunt, yes, but a lot of people appreciated that candour. She might not ever be the life and soul of a party, but she was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation, and she possessed a dry wit that had drawn a laugh even from Varric on more than one occasion. She was also firmly egalitarian in her approach, never one to stand on ceremony, in spite of her lofty rank. She was well liked in the Inquisition, and it bothered Varric that she might not have noticed.

That did it – the next Wicked Grace game he was dragging her along, whether she liked it or not. In fact, maybe he’d start one himself, make it a regular thing. There had to be more to the Seeker’s life than just fighting, praying, and worrying about things. Cassandra too could stand to learn that the world wouldn’t crumble around her ears if she let herself relax a little, once in a while.

Varric let himself relax too, comforted by having made something like a plan, and hopefully having found some way to repay what Cassandra had done for him with Hawke. Eventually he dropped off to sleep, and slept deeply and well, as he had done since they’d left Skyhold, much to his surprise. Varric had slept alone in a room for most of his life, and had found the presence of another person so close by to be distracting at first, when they’d started sharing tents, but oddly enough, these days it was his big, empty room high in the tower of Skyhold that felt strange to him, and the soft, even sound of Cassandra’s breathing a few feet away had become a familiar comfort.

It was weird what you could get used to, in time.

Chapter Text

After the long and arduous journey to get there, they were frustratingly only at the oasis a few days. The temple of Solasan was ancient and remarkably well preserved, and of great interest to any scholar of ancient elven history, though it had quickly become clear that wasn’t why the Venatori wanted it. The thick stone doors within opened only at the application of the strange shards they had found, and Varric recognised them with a jolt as identical to the door Magister Alexius had barricaded himself behind at Redcliffe castle in the future that had never been. As a security system it was impressive, and once inside the place was riddled with traps that caused even Varric to break a sweat as he painstakingly disarmed them – pocketing a few parts for later examination – and corpses rose from the floor to attack the moment they breached the inner chambers.

But within were tombs, crammed with magical grave goods. Chests of ancient gold coins that gleamed in the firelight as if newly minted. Amulets and rings that crackled with frost, or glowed with an inner heat. Runes that fairly hummed with magical energy when you picked them up. Gauntlets and intricately woven belts of soft supple leather, etched with symbols none could decipher, looking as new as if they had been made yesterday, even as the corpses they’d adorned had crumbled long into dust. Varric felt weird about taking stuff from a tomb, but Solas was adamant that the purpose of the temple was not to seal the contents away forever.

“These doors were meant to be opened,” he said. “I believe it is a test of some kind, to ensure the one who entered was worthy of what they found within. These treasures were deliberately preserved, meant to be found and used again.”

He was kneeling on the damp floor of a tomb, painstakingly transcribing an inscription from a panel on the wall, lit by the flickering light of a veilfire torch, his face shadowed. It was slow, tedious work, but when Solas looked up at Varric, he smiled.

“If you feel you require permission of an elf to disturb these remains, Inquisitor,” he said, with a touch of irony, “then you have it. I doubt those interred here would have denied you anything that might help in your efforts to stop the return of Corypheus and the rise of Tevinter once more.”

It was hard to argue with that. Still, a few magical artifacts and old tombs hardly seemed worth the slaughter of the Tranquil to Varric. But then, what could possibly have been worth that?

As much as both Solas and Dorian would like it to be, the Inquisition’s purpose wasn’t scholarly research and archaeology. A rider came across the desert on the third day after their arrival, with a message from Josephine in Val Royeaux for the Inquisitor to return to civilisation as soon as possible. All word from the Dales had ceased – Val Royeaux had lost contact with forces on both sides of the civil war, who had been ordered to withdraw to their camps and cease hostilities, but had certainly been expected to continue providing regular reports back to their superiors. Those in the capital who had friends or relatives out fighting on either side were frantic for news, and Josephine had strongly suggested that now was the time for the Inquisition, an impartial mediator, to step in and find out what the hell was going on out there.

Solas elected to stay at the oasis longer – “With your permission, Inquisitor.” – to discover as many of the temple’s secrets as they could, and put them to use for the Inquisition. Varric agreed readily. If anything they found in here could be used to help take down the Venatori, then it was as close to justice for the Tranquil as they were ever likely to get, and the final chamber of the temple still remained stubbornly sealed. They didn’t dare risk abandoning this place to the enemy, not while they still didn’t know all of what was inside.

“I will send word if we make any progress,” Solas promised. “Though we may require far more shards in order to breach the innermost chamber. From the translations I have made, I believe the temple’s builders may have entombed something very powerful here. Or perhaps imprisoned it.”

“Careful, Chuckles,” said Varric. “Don’t go releasing any ancient elven monsters into the world without me, now.”

“I will endeavour not to, Inquisitor,” said Solas gravely. “I know you would wish to be present for such an event, so that you may describe it accurately later.”

That, for Solas, was something approaching a joke.

So it was with only Cassandra, Dorian and Sera by his side again that Varric headed back east to the battlefields of Orlais. Scout Harding had warned them that the exalted plains were a mess – she’d come overland to the oasis through the Dales, and reported a mass of desertions from both sides of the Orlesian armies even before this ominous silence had fallen. They’d need as much help as they could get, so they picked up a small squad of Inquisition soldiers as well as Blackwall from Griffon Wing Keep, the darkspawn successfully beaten back for now, and Vivienne met up with them at Montsimmard, having travelled down from Val Royeaux.

High summer on the sprawling plains of Orlais was oozing with a ripe, sticky heat that made you long for a breeze, and the closer they got to the front lines, the more burnt-out farmsteads and abandoned towns they passed, though no sign of either the Empress or the pretender Gaspard’s forces. But when they eventually reached the ramparts in the area where the armies had most recently been battling, they didn’t have to look very hard for the reason Val Royeaux has lost contact. The fortifications on both sides were crawling with undead, fallen soldiers rising by the hundreds to hunt their former comrades – the Venatori’s work, no doubt, in an effort to cripple the fighting forces of Orlais while the civil war had ground to a halt. The ramparts and trenches that had once been a sanctuary were a charnel house, what few soldiers they found scattered and terrified, lacking mages with the skill to disrupt the rituals that made the dead rise and also drew demons to the chaos like sharks to blood in the water.

It was a good thing they’d gone in force. They were forced to split up into two parties, a mage in each. Dorian went with Sera and the Inquisition soldiers to clear out the ramparts and put down the restless spirits and undead soldiers that now roamed them, while Varric pressed ahead into the vast rocky plains with Vivienne, Cassandra and Blackwall to search for more survivors. In such dangerous, war-torn country, Varric was glad to have three of the Inquisition’s most experienced fighters by his side, but Blackwall and Vivienne made for uneasy travelling companions, as their antipathy had never really abated, and Vivienne’s opinion of the Grey Wardens had only worsened after Adamant. But they both respected Cassandra – perhaps more than they respected Varric, frankly – and so her presence more or less kept the peace.

Now that Varric was paying a little more attention to Cassandra’s place in the Inquisition, he was relieved to notice that the Seeker and Blackwall’s mutual respect had developed into an easy rapport. He supposed that, as a Grey Warden, the general tenor of Blackwall’s life had been similar to Cassandra’s own as a Seeker of Truth in many ways. They had both sworn oaths to a larger organisation, put their faith in leadership that had ultimately failed them, but still held to the ideals of their respective orders even as they had themselves broken away. They had also both spent much of their lives travelling, and swapped friendly reminiscences about particularly noteworthy roadside inns, local dishes or unusual customs they’d run into in their time on the road, all of which Varric made a mental note of in case they ever came in useful for descriptive flavour in a future book.

On the subject of books, he shouldn’t have admitted that he was thinking about writing more Swords and Shields, because now Cassandra kept casually bringing it up in conversation, with that hopeful look in her eyes that only an author with a heart of stone could have dreamed of disappointing.

“How do you write as you do, Varric?” she asked one afternoon, as they followed the banks of the Enavuris river, sweating in the stifling summer heat. “I can never find the proper words.”

“You write?” asked Varric, curious in spite of himself. “Really?”

“I've needed to describe events in reports,” said Cassandra, which was a disappointingly boring answer. “They always come off as...” She trailed off.

“Dry?” suggested Varric, who had, in fact, had to read several of these reports. “Boring? Lifeless? Stale?”

“You…are an ass.”

“Just helping you find those words,” chuckled Varric. “But seriously, Seeker, it’s not some Maker-bestowed gift that struck me from above as a child. It’s just a skill, like any other. While you were dropping your sword and getting your ass kicked by your own training dummies, I was writing some truly terrible first stories. We both got better the more we worked at it.” He hesitated. “I assume, anyway. For all I know, you’ve been besting high dragons in single combat since birth.”

“I have not,” said Cassandra, dryly. “But why start in the first place? Why do you write?”

It was a question he’d been asked before, and Varric had never had a very good answer to it. “I don’t know,” he said. “It always seemed harder not to.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Cassandra, not as easily fobbed off as one of his fans asking for an autograph. “There must be a reason.”

“I suppose…” Varric thought about it. “Maybe it’s because the real world always seemed like such a messy, unsatisfying, and depressing place. In stories, it doesn’t have to be like that. The good guys can win, the bad guys actually face justice, and everything wraps up in a neat little bow. All the things that real life rarely provides.”

“That’s a rather cynical answer, my dear,” said Vivienne, evidently paying more attention than he’d thought. But then, the Iron Lady always was more conscious than anyone of what impression the Inquisitor was making, save perhaps Josephine.

“You think so?” said Cassandra, before Varric could respond. “It strikes me as a rather optimistic outlook, actually.”

“How’s that, Seeker?” asked Varric.

“You want to make the world better than it is,” said Cassandra, simply.

“I don’t think a few swashbuckling adventure stories or steamy romances are going to move the needle much on the state of the world, much though I hate to admit it,” said Varric.

“But when people read them, perhaps they too can believe that the world might be better than it is,” said Cassandra, “if only for a little while. Such tales remind people that it is worth trying, at least, even if you cannot always succeed.”

“I agree,” said Blackwall, unexpectedly. “People should have something to aspire to, even if it isn’t realistic.”

“Well,” said Varric, feeling a touch self-conscious, and not exactly sure why. “It’s a nice thought.”

A little further down the bank they reached their destination – the Pont Agur bridge, an arch of pale grey stone that spanned the river, wide enough for a half dozen men to march abreast. Or at least, it had been. A huge chunk had been blown out of the middle section, leaving the bridge two uselessly crumbled ends poking out over the deep, brown water of the river. On the other side, at least according to their information, was the Citadelle du Corbeau, where the bulk of the Empire’s loyalist forces in the area were holed up, and where they had been intending to go.

“Ah,” said Varric, regarding the now useless bridge. “Guess that’s why no-one’s heard from Celene’s soldiers.”

“It has been weeks,” said Cassandra, frowning. “If they have been trapped across the river all this time, surely they have hands enough to make repairs themselves?”

“Or at least a raft to send someone for help,” said Blackwall. “I can see trees on the far shore, so they don’t lack for timber. There’s more to this than a broken bridge, Inquisitor.”

“You think they’ve had to same trouble over there that we found on the ramparts?” said Varric.

“I’d bet money on it,” said Blackwall.

They all stared out across the water, to the silent bank beyond. All the maps showed the Citadelle du Corbeau as surrounded by rocky terrain, accessible only by the Pont Agur, making it an easily defensible stronghold and an obvious fall-back position for Celene’s forces. But with the bridge down, what made it hard for anyone to get in would also make it almost impossible for anyone to get out.

If the dead were rising across the river as well, anyone trapped there would have nowhere to run. No escape. Varric wondered if it was only his overactive imagination now that made him thinking he could smell rotting flesh on the breeze, hear the distant sounds of moans and shuffling feet. But the distant shore was empty and still, not even a breeze to rustle to leaves of the distant trees. It looked…expectant.

“That abandoned fishing boat we passed a few minutes back,” said Varric. “Let’s at least find out if there’s anyone left alive over there.”

They doubled back and liberated the boat from where it was tied up to a mouldering and long abandoned jetty, piling in with some difficulty. It was barely big enough to comfortably sit the four of them, especially with Cassandra and Blackwall in full plate making it sit very low in the water, but at least it was free of leaks. Varric picked up the oars himself and waved off both Blackwall and Cassandra’s attempts to share the task – the trip was not a long one, and while Varric wasn’t much at home traipsing about the countryside, rowing was at least something he’d gotten pretty good at. What with hefting a crossbow about all time, his strength was in his arms, and he liked to make himself useful where he could. He was also very aware that the others were obliged to slow their pace to match his when walking, due to his shorter strides, and never complained about it.

Vivienne made no attempt to take the oars from him, merely settling herself elegantly at the prow of the little boat and remarking: “It looks like rain, later.”

When they arrived on the opposite bank, they discovered more wooden ramparts, high walls of wooden stakes and watchtowers flanking the path further in – Celene’s forces had thoroughly dug in here. But the ramparts had been taken by the dead, as those down in the plains had been, and it was messy work cutting down the corpses that came shambling to meet them. Still, once the ritual burn pit was destroyed, there was still no sign of the missing soldiers they had expected. It didn’t bode well.

“Any survivors would have fallen back to the citadel,” said Cassandra. “If there is anyone here left to save, that is where we will find them.”

When they approached the Citadelle du Corbeau, Varric felt something more like hope. The high stone walls, flanked by gigantic wolf statues in the elven style, might have been ancient, but they looked pretty sturdy. If he’d had to flee an army of undead, this was the place he would have gone. But still, there was an undeniable…atmosphere, a strange oppressive hush in the air. Of course it might have just been the threatening dark clouds now rolling in from the west, the distant rumble of thunder in the far distance. But if the missing soldiers really were here, there should have been someone guarding the front gate, and patrolling the walls.

“I don’t like this,” said Blackwall, his hand hovering at his sword hilt. “If they have people at the windows keeping a watch, they must have seen us approach.”

“Unless they are all dead,” said Vivienne.

“Commander Jehan is a chevalier, and one of Celene’s most trusted commanders,” said Blackwall. “I can’t believe she would have led every one of her men to their deaths.”

“Believe what you will,” said Vivienne. “We shall see, soon enough.”

But the only thing they found inside the walls of the citadel were more dead. Not clawing and snapping their jaws as they lurched forward to attack this time, but simply lying there, strewn across the ground like laundry left in piles on the floor. Varric picked his way through, followed by the others, braced for an attack all the time, but nothing happened. This place was vast, as big as Adamant, but as they made their way through the huge outer courtyard and further in, up stone staircases wide enough for an army, past crumbled inner walls and wooden repairs and more ancient wolf statues, they were met only with the terrible, skin-crawling silence. And bodies everywhere, lying on the stairs, piled up in corners, sprawled out across the centre of open courtyards, as if they had been struck down mid-flight. The only sound was the buzzing of flies.

“Well, this is spooky as shit,” said Varric, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the strange hush. “Any theories as to what happened here?”

“Some of these bodies look like they died fighting,” said Blackwall, frowning. “Some of them don’t look injured at all. They’re just…dead.”

“A plague, perhaps?” suggested Cassandra.

“Why would they just be left like this though?” said Varric. “You burn people that die of plague to stop it spreading. That goes double if dead people have been getting up and attacking you after. Why just leave a potential corpse army of your own comrades lying around out here?”

Blackwall raised his head suddenly and inhaled sharply. “Can anyone else smell that?” he asked.

Varric sniffed obediently, and caught the smell too. Of all things, it smelled like…cooking meat. It reminded him of the tusket turning on the spit back at the oasis.

“Someone’s alive round here then,” he said. “And having lunch.”

“I don’t see any smoke from a fire,” said Cassandra, looking around. “Surely it must be nearby if we can smell it?”

“What’s that sound?” said Varric. It was just on the edge of hearing, a kind of crackling hum, vaguely mechanical.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Blackwall, and both Vivienne and Cassandra shook their heads.

“Humans,” muttered Varric. “It’s a kind of buzzing…look, spread out a bit, let’s see if we can find out where it’s coming from.”

They did as he asked, Viviene and Blackwall walking slowly in opposite directions, concentrating to catch the sound. Cassandra stayed by Varric’s side, paranoid as ever, but they too slowly started to pick their way forward again, in silence so that Varric could listen better and follow the noise that was definitely getting louder.

“I hear it too now,” said Cassandra. “What—”

“Inquisitor!” Vivienne had hailed him, and was pointing upwards. Varric followed her gaze to see a figure on a distant wall, by what must have been the citadel’s inner keep. Whoever it was wore unmistakably Orlesian amour, and was gesticulating wildly, obviously trying to get their attention, though they were too far away for any words to be heard.

“It looks like he’s trying to warn us about something,” said Varric squinting up at the frantically waving figure. “But there’s nothing h—”

He wasn’t even able to finish the sentence before Cassandra, without a word of warning, shoved him sideways with such force he stumbled and fell, automatically tucking into a roll as he hit the ground. Any rogue knew how to take a hit, and as he came to a stop a few yards away, Varric raised his head to ask Cassandra what the hell she was doing, but at the same moment he realised…

Cassandra was screaming in agony.

Varric would not forget the sound for the rest of his days. It seemed, for a confusing moment, that it was impossible that it could be coming from the Seeker, who raised barely a grunt of pain when she cracked a rib. But she screamed and screamed as though she had been cleaved in half, and then the sound cut off in a kind of choked gasp and she collapsed in front of his eyes, like a puppet with its strings cut, crumpling to the floor in a cacophony of armour on stone.

It took Varric a few seconds to scramble to his feet and reach her again, and Cassandra neither rose from the ground nor stirred at all in that time. Instinctively, Varric reached out to check for a pulse at her neck, but the moment his hand brushed against the metal edge of her breastplate he yanked it back with a cry. It was burning hot – he wasn’t wearing gloves and his skin started to blister even from the brief moment of contact.

“Maker’s balls, what happened?” asked Blackwall, aghast, as he and Vivienne too caught up with them. They had only been over the other side of the courtyard but seemed equally unaffected by whatever had stricken Cassandra.

“I don’t know, she just…collapsed,” said Varric.

“I saw her push you away—”

“There is something here, Inquisitor,” snapped Vivienne. “Something unseen. Put your sword away, Warden, what good will it do you? We must move,” she said to Varric. “We are not safe here.”

Without a second thought, Varric scooped Cassandra into his arms, this time ignoring the burn of her armour where it touched his bare skin, and they fled through the citadel towards where the figure of the Orlesian soldier had appeared. Carrying her, Varric had no time to check whether the Seeker was alive or dead, and at every moment he expected to hear one of his companions scream and fall, or feel the horror of some invisible attacker take him too.

It was no joke carrying a human in full plate armour even for a short distance, and by the time they reached the top of the steps that led to the inner keep, Varric’s arms felt like they were about to drop off, which was at least a distraction from his painfully scalded hands. The Orlesian solider was waiting for them, pressed against the wall by a great wooden door that led inside, which was heavily fortified with wooden spikes and makeshift barricades.

“You made it through!” he gasped, as they ran up. “It’s a miracle—”

“Made it through what?” asked Blackwall urgently, as Varric hadn’t enough breath left in his lungs even for speech. “What’s here, what attacked us?”

“No attacker,” said the solider. “It’s the citadel’s defences, the ones the ancient elves made. We turned them on to keep out the dead but we…we couldn’t control them…we couldn’t even get to them to turn them off…”

“Where?” asked Vivienne.

The man pointed to a tower across the courtyard, upon which was a huge wooden mechanism, like something you’d see on the deck of a sailing ship. Even at this distance, several corpses around it were visible. Instinctively, forgetting the burden in his arms, Varric started forward, but Blackwall caught his coat and wrenched him back. “Inquisitor, don’t!” he cried. “Look—”

Varric saw it – the faint shimmer in the air, like heat haze, barely a yard across, moving swiftly through the open space of the courtyard, easier to see from above. That sound again, like the angry humming of a beehive. As it passed over the piled corpses, it stirred them no more than the faintest breeze might, but the smell of cooking meat rose in Varric’s nostrils once again, the smell that turned his stomach now that he understood what it was. The defences.

Beside him, Vivienne raised her hands, her gaze fixed intently on the distant mechanism. The great wheel started to turn, creaking as it ground in a painfully slow rotation. Vivienne let out a hiss of effort through her gritted teeth. Frantic with impatience, Varric took the opportunity to check on Cassandra, hefting her weight awkwardly in his arms, as gently as he could. She was breathing, barely. She was alive.

With a loud, ratcheting CLUNK, the wooden mechanism stopped, and Vivienne dropped her arms with a sharp exhalation of relief. The Orlesian soldier stared for a moment, and then turned and started to hammer on a great wooden door in the wall of the keep behind them.

“Open up!” he cried. “Help has come!”

The doors swung open and they all barrelled inside, with absolutely no caution for any trap that might have been set for them. But they were only met with a ragged looking group of soldiers in a stone antechamber, all leaping to their feet as their small party came running down the steps, the solider who had been on watch at the lead.

A woman in very finely worked armour strode forward. “Who are you?” she asked, her strong Orlesian accent brusque and clipped.

“We’re from the Inquisition,” said Varric. “We have injured...”

A couple of other soldiers hustled forward to lead him to a bedroll that another was hastily laying out on the floor nearby, and Varric set Cassandra down upon it, oddly reluctant to let her go, although the weight of her was making every muscle in his arms scream in protest. Behind him, the Orlesian woman was in urgent conversation with Blackwall and Vivienne.

“The Inquisition, here in the Dales?” she was saying. “We never thought…but how did you get past the defences?”

“We didn’t,” said Blackwall grimly. “But they’re off now.”

“You turned it off? Maker be praised!”

But Varric had no time for praise, for the Maker or for them. “What is it?” he demanded, whirling round and striding back to rejoin the clustered group. “What does it do?”

“It is like nothing we have ever seen,” said the woman. “It burns from the inside.” She gasped, suddenly, as she saw Varric’s hands – for a moment, he thought she was just reacting to his blistered skin, but then the woman stood straighter and snapped off a crisp salute. “Inquisitor,” she said, in a voice tinged with awe. She had seen his mark. “It is an honour, your worship. Commander Jehan, at your service, and that of her Imperial Majesty, Empress Celene.”

Varric had even less time for introductions. “Can you help us?” he asked. “These defences, they attacked my—she was hurt by them, but I can’t see how.” He gestured to Cassandra, lying as still as one of the corpses outside. “She was caught in the beam, or whatever it was.”

Commander Jehan glanced over at the Seeker, and then slowly back to her companions, standing before her with barely concealed desperation.

“I…I am sorry, Inquisitor,” she said haltingly. “We do not even fully understand what the defences are, but we have lost many to them, attempting to find a way out of this rathole in which we trapped ourselves. The ancient mechanism stopped the dead from entering the citadel, but the power we unleashed has had us trapped for weeks, carving through living and dead alike. Some who were only touched in part by the beam lost only a limb, but if your comrade was caught full in its path…”

“We tried everything,” spoke up another soldier, a young man. “But we have no healers here, and we could do nothing for them.” He nodded his head sadly to the side of the room, where there was a row of bodies, wrapped in cloth as if ready for the pyre. “It was as if they continued to burn from within,” he said, “though the flames left no mark. None survived.”

With mounting dread, Varric tried to force his panicked brain into gear. There was no help here. It was a full day on foot to the nearest Inquisition camp, and even if Cassandra survived the journey, who there would be able to do anything? This was no battlefield wound to be stitched up. It was a powerful, ancient magic from a people long gone, and if even Vivienne had never seen anything like it before, then who could—

The realisation hit Varric like a shaft of sunlight through gathering storm clouds. “The Dalish,” he said. They had stopped by a Dalish camp just the day before, after finding the body of a young elven boy out in some ruins out in the countryside. The elves had been grateful to learn of the boy’s fate, if a little wary of outside visitors. But if anyone knew anything about ancient elven magic, it would be them. “They might know what to do.”

Jehan merely looked taken aback, but the young man who had spoken before visibly sneered. “The knife ears won’t h—”

Varric turned his back on the man, ignoring him completely. “They’re closer than any of our camps by far,” he said urgently to Blackwall and Vivienne. “If they haven’t moved on, we can be there in under an hour. Maybe they know some way to—”

Blackwall was already unbuckling his swordbelt even as he spoke. “I can move faster than you can,” he said to Varric, with no accusation in his voice, just plain fact. This was no time for wounded pride. “I’ll carry her if you can cover us.” His sword fell to the ground with a resounding clang, and he immediately started to unbuckle his breastplate too.

Varric nodded, as Blackwall’s armour piled up on the ground. If they did run into more trouble, the Warden would be totally defenceless, but for Varric and Vivienne’s protection.

“Take off her armour too,” Blackwall said, nodding to Cassandra. “She’ll be a lighter weight to carry, and it’ll do her no good now.”

Vivienne, not usually one to take orders from anyone, least of all Blackwall, knelt instantly beside the Seeker and started to do as he’d asked, the metal of her heavy plate now cooled enough to touch. Varric felt absurdly glad that he hadn’t had to do it. There was something in his mind that rebelled against the idea of undressing Cassandra while she was unconscious, a stupid, childish aversion to what felt like a violation, however necessary.

Varric turned instead to Commander Jehan. “We’ve cleared a path back to the shore,” he said, “but the bridge is still out. We’ll send word that you’re trapped here when we can, and supplies.”

“Thank you, Inquisitor,” said Jehan. Her face was covered with the helmet that doubled as a mask, a stupid Orlesian affectation, but even so Varric could tell from her posture that she was ashamed, humiliated by having to be rescued and by her failure to offer any help to her rescuers in turn. “The Empire will not forget the service you have done us today. I will pray for you, and for the Lady Seeker.”

Varric’s gaze returned irresistibly to Cassandra lying on the floor, now unbuckled from her plate, and even her heavy boots removed by an unflinching Vivienne. The Seeker’s skin was pale and sallow, and there was a sheen of sweat on her face, and soaking through her clothes too, sticking her shirt to her collarbones. Without her armour she looked slight, horrendously vulnerable. Varric had seen Cassandra injured before, many times – had seen her eye blacked and her lip split, had seen her skin freshly burnt from dragonfire, had seen her shoulder dislocated and her face running with blood. He had even, in a future that had never been, seen her torn apart by red lyrium, a walking monstrosity. And yet somehow this was worse than anything, this terrible silent stillness. Blackwall lifted her as gently as he could, but she hung limp in his arms like a sack of straw.

“How far can you carry her?” asked Varric.

“As far as I need to,” said Blackwall, firmly. “Let’s go.”

They ran. Through the citadel and down to the shore and into the boat, Cassandra laid on Vivienne’s lap as Varric and Blackwall strained at one oar each, making the other shore of the river in half the time of their original crossing. Vivienne muttered under her breath all the while, passing a hand over Cassandra’s brow, and Varric felt the chill of her ice magic, used gently, subtly, and wondered if it would do any good at all or if the fire burning inside the Seeker was more powerful than any magic even the Iron Lady could bring to bear.

In your heart shall burn, he thought, an unquenchable flame.

They didn’t bother to drag the boat up to shore; when they were in shallow enough water Blackwall simply leapt out, picking up Cassandra again with a grunt of effort, and started off in the direction of the Dalish camp, his companions hard on his heels and catching up quickly, unburdened as they were. They ran. They ran as Varric lost all sense of time, all awareness of anything except the earth beneath his feet and the hot sun above. The air was sticky and close, pressure weighing down like a thick blanket. There was no breath to spare for speaking, and what would any of them have said? They ran, and Varric thought only about running.

The sky was an ominous dark navy, fat drops of rain starting to spatter the ground when they arrived at the Dalish encampment, tucked among the rocky foothills by the river. It was lucky that they’d already been here before, as Varric’s experiences with the Dalish in Kirkwall told him that a group of unknown, heavily armed shemlen running into their camp could very well have been met with a hail of arrows, and understandably so. But the Keeper recognised the dwarf with the glowing hand and his companions, and waved off the archers that drew on them as they approached, Varric tripping over his words as he tried to explain what happened.

The Keeper took one look at Cassandra’s limp form in Blackwall’s arms and swore under his breath in Elvish. “Will the shems never learn to leave well alone things they don’t understand?” he muttered. “Fetch Glenwyn!” This last to a young elf nearby who scampered obediently off. “Our healer will do what she can,” the Keeper said. “Our clan owes you a debt for returning Valorin to us. By the grace of Sylaise, your friend will meet a kinder fate than he.”

The healer came running – an old woman with brown skin and thick white braids she was tying back with one arm even as she barked orders at people. Cassandra was taken carefully from Blackwall and hustled inside an aravel, the healer following. The door to the Dalish caravan slammed shut behind them, and as the rain started to come down harder, a crack of thunder sounding overhead, Varric, Blackwall and Vivienne were left standing outside.

“Come,” said the Keeper, not unkindly. “You may wait here, and someone will bring you something to eat. There is little more you can do now.”

Varric had thought the frantic race to get here would prove to be the worst part, but he was proven wrong by the hours that crawled by as they waited outside the aravel, huddled on wooden crates under a stretched canvas to keep off the lashing rain. Someone gave him a kind of salve for his burned hands, which he’d all but forgotten about, and he applied it mechanically, the pain feeling very far away. They didn’t speak. Blackwall got up occasionally and paced. Vivienne stared ahead, her expression gravely composed and her hands clasped in front of her, perhaps praying, perhaps not. Varric just sat there, looking out at the rain, seeing nothing.

We could do nothing for them. It was as if they continued to burn from within.

As terrible as it was to wait here, the door to the aravel sealing out any hint of what was happening inside, a part of Varric wished he could stretch this moment out forever and never have to face what might happen when the healer emerged again. If the Orlesians had been right, if nothing could be done…Varric didn’t know what happened then. There was nothing but a yawning blank in his mind’s eye, as if his imagination jerked away from the possibility, like his hand touching burning armour. It had not, until this very day, ever seriously occurred to him that the Seeker could do something as prosaic and commonplace as die.

The storm had moved on and the rain slackened to a steady drizzle as night fell, and finally the door of the aravel creaked open. The three of them got to their feet immediately, turning to see the healer emerge, looking tired. When she saw them, she nodded.

“Your friend will live,” she said. “She’s strong. But she needs rest.” The elf hesitated. “Perhaps one of you could go and speak to her, if only to reassure her that she’s the only one injured. She refuses to take my word for it.”

Varric gaped at her. “She’s awake?”

“She shouldn’t be, but yes.” The healer’s face suddenly cracked a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She looked like a woman who smiled often. “She’s being extremely stubborn about it.”

At her encouraging gesture, Varric headed inside the aravel without a second thought, the wooden door swinging shut behind him. Though he was surprised at first that the healer didn’t follow him, it immediately became clear why; there was little enough space inside with one person, plus the invalid. The inside of the aravel was cramped, full of stockpiled supplies and bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling, along with a hanging lantern that cast a dim light. This was a place to store things and to sleep when the weather was bad, not to live in. The air had the warm fug of a sickroom, and smelled of dried elfroot.

Cassandra lay on the bed that took up most of the space, half propped up by pillows, a stool next to her where the healer must have sat and worked. She looked ghastly, her skin sallow and dark shadows under her eyes, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, but she was at least conscious and alert enough to look up when he entered.

“Varric.” Absurd though it was under the circumstances, he heard relief in her voice. “Are all of you well?”

For some reason, it was a moment before Varric could speak. He was relieved to hear his own voice sound almost normal when he said:

“We’re all fine, if scared shitless. Andraste’s tits, Seeker, you took years off my life.”

Cassandra looked at him, her brow creasing, but for once it wasn’t his casual blasphemy that bothered her. “You were worried about me,” she said.

There was something in the way she said it – not surprise, not exactly, but a question in the words that Varric thought maybe neither of them knew the answer to.

“We all were,” he said, and immediately felt like a coward for it.

“The missing soldiers?” Cassandra asked.

“The old citadel defences had them trapped. That’s what…hurt you. We managed to turn them off, so once the bridge is repaired, they’ll be able to get supplies through.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Her eyes closed briefly, in tiredness or in pain he couldn’t tell, but it looked like an effort to open them again. Varric suddenly felt the imposition of his presence.

“Look, I’ll let you rest,” he said. “But, Seeker…thank you. For…” He trailed off awkwardly. It felt weird to thank her for saving his life, when she had undoubtedly done so dozens of times before in the midst of battle, with no particular sentiment. But this felt…different, somehow, in a way that was hard to put into words. Perhaps it was that it had never really sunk in before that Cassandra considered his life worth more than her own.

He would never have asked her to do that, to give her life for his. He would never have wanted her to. But she’d done it without a second thought.

“Think nothing of it,” mumbled Cassandra, her eyelids drooping again, her voice slurred with sleep. “You would have done the same.”

She had sunk into the pillows, as if even the brief conversation had drained her completely. Cassandra really did look different without her armour, more real somehow. Just a person. And suddenly Varric remembered the moment months ago, in the caves below Haven, when she had faced down the demons without a blade or shield in her hand, with only his coat on her back. He remembered the desperation he’d felt, the coruscating anger at the thought of watching her be torn apart in front of his eyes that had caused the mark on his hand to do something that had saved them both, the only time he’d ever really felt in control of the thing. He had never been able to replicate it since.

“Yeah,” Varric said. “I guess I would.”

But Cassandra was already asleep.

The rains moved on but the summer heat remained, the grassy plains no longer brittle yellow, but lush under the blinding blue sky, fresh green shoots eagerly cropped by the grazing herd of halla. Cassandra was asleep, on and off, for a couple of days, and Healer Glenwyn made it clear in no uncertain terms that she could not be moved for at least a week, as her body repaired itself. The clan’s Keeper wasn’t happy about it, but he was a smart enough leader not to gainsay his healer and risk pissing off both her and the Inquisition at the same time by insisting that Cassandra leave. And so they stayed.

In the meantime, Blackwall hiked out to the Inquisition’s main camp to deliver a message about what had happened and the plight of the missing soldiers, but insisted upon returning, as he didn’t believe Vivienne alone was sufficient protection for the Inquisitor in such dangerous country. The Dalish respected Grey Wardens, and provided him with both a weapon and an escort of a couple of hunters on his journey, and when they returned the next day, an encounter with a pack of wolves along the way seemed to have strengthened the bonds of fellowship between the three men considerably.

Varric dropped in to check on Cassandra periodically, finding her unconscious more often than not, but satisfied she was at least out of danger. On the third evening after they arrived, however, he climbed into the aravel to find her sitting upright in bed, propped up on pillows and looking more alert than she had done since they’d arrived.

“Evening, Seeker,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Tremendously bored,” said Cassandra, with a frankness that was rather endearing. “I am sure I am well enough to rise from bed, at least, but the healer was most officious about it. Something about my internal organs liquefying.” At Varric’s expression she added: “I am sure the woman exaggerates.”

“Well, maybe let’s not gamble with that one,” said Varric. “I’d rather keep your internal organs where they’re supposed to be.”

He drew up the small stool and sat down next to her bed. “Speaking of gambling…” He drew a pack of cards out from his pocket, with a flourish. “You ever play Wicked Grace before?”

 Cassandra eyed him suspiciously. “No.” She hesitated, apparently torn between saving face and the truth. “That is…not very successfully,” she admitted. “I can never seem to keep the cards straight.”

“Well now is the perfect opportunity to learn,” said Varric cheerfully. “Don’t make that face, Seeker, it’s not like you had any more pressing plans, is it?”

“I suppose not,” said Cassandra. “But you do, surely?”

“Nope, I’m all yours.”

In fact, Varric hadn’t exactly been idle while in the Dalish camp. None of them had, as they strove to repay the help they’d been given when they had nowhere else to turn. The Dalish had little use for money, but Keeper Hawen had certainly appreciated – with some understandable reservations – Varric’s assurances of the Inquisition’s eternal gratitude and protection of their clan. More solidly valued had been the practical help they’d been able to offer their hosts; Blackwall had some skill in carpentry, and had been more than willing to lend a hand to repair some of the aravels that had been damaged by travel over the rocky plains, and Vivienne had lent her aid to the Keeper in banishing a few troublesome demons from a local gravesite, as the clan was down one mage with the loss of the boy Valorin. Varric had pitched in with whatever needed doing; fixing things, collecting herbs for the stores, going out to hunt game for the cooking pot. Several of the clan’s hunters had expressed considerable interest in Bianca, but respected Varric’s hesitation to let them examine his crossbow more closely.

“The People know all about holding our advantages close,” one of them had told him placidly. “We will not pry your secrets from you, Inquisitor, and hope you will show us the same courtesy.”

And so they had been accepted as guests of the clan, more warily than warmly, though Varric had managed to ingratiate himself more easily than Blackwall or Vivienne. Being a dwarf helped, as there was not such a violent history of conflicts with elves there as the humans had, but more to the point, the Dalish really appreciated a good story, well told. Around the fireside at night, Varric had regaled them with the adventures of the Inquisition, emphasising the parts he felt this audience would particularly enjoy, like battling through both the elements and the undead in the Fallow Mire to save their captured people, or the many times they’d really pissed off the Chantry. Afterwards, a young elven man had come up to him shyly and asked if he might autograph his copy of Hard in Hightown, under the strictest understanding that Varric tell absolutely no-one else in the clan that he had it. Varric had always had a knack for making friends, even if they were technically here under sufferance.

But he’d done a long day’s work today, and Keeper Hawen certainly wouldn’t begrudge him taking a little time off to cheer up the invalid. Varric dealt the cards and then rolled his sleeves up to the elbows.

“Proves there’s no cards hidden up them,” he explained, as Cassandra seemed mysteriously taken aback by the sight of his bare forearms. She pulled her gaze back up to his face.

“I…still do not see why you are so insistent upon this,” she said.

“Stopping you going insane with boredom and stabbing everything in sight is in everyone’s best interests,” said Varric. “And Wicked Grace is a skill everyone should have. Besides, it keeps the hands busy and the wits sharp when you’re stuck in bed. I used to play a lot with my mother when she was…ill.” He stumbled a little over the words; he hadn’t really meant to bring up the subject, and it was one he would rather not dwell on.

“She was bedbound?” Cassandra asked, with a very cautious interest.

“Towards the end of her life, yeah,” said Varric.

Cassandra, with unusual delicacy, let the subject rest at that, and simply said: “Very well then, but you will need to refresh my memory on the rules.”

Refreshing her memory was putting it mildly. Cassandra had absolutely no knowledge of what hand beat any other, and even less idea of how to assume what was commonly known as a ‘wicked mask’ – the carefully neutral face that a player required to conceal how good their cards were from their opponents. About the only thing she had going for her was that she would often think her hand was much better or worse than it actually was, and win the round by sheer luck, her expression having given Varric a totally false impression of her chances.

“You know, as a strategy,” he commented, after the third time this happened, “it’s really not that bad.”

“The strategy of total incompetence?” said Cassandra, somewhat fatalistically.

“Total is a strong word,” said Varric. “Remember what I said about writing? Practice makes perfect?” He grinned. “Or at the very least, practice makes incompetence less…total.”

“The words of a born teacher,” said Cassandra.

Varric laughed, but he noticed Cassandra yawning, and took that as his cue to gather up the cards. “Same time tomorrow?” he said.

“I will be here,” said Cassandra, wryly.

He was true to his word and returned the next day, and the next, until it became something of a routine to head to Cassandra’s aravel after the day’s work was done, and spend a few hours playing cards and telling her whatever they’d been doing for the clan. Healer Glenwyn had given Cassandra a few tasks to pass the time – grinding herbs, mending aravel sails and clothes, anything that could be done while sitting and set down easily if she were tired. Just because you were bedbound didn’t mean you couldn’t contribute to the clan, and Cassandra took on these tasks willingly.

“I owe Glenwyn a great debt,” she said, “though I confess I am an even worse seamstress than I am a card player.”

It was a sign of how bored she must have been that Cassandra visibly brightened whenever Varric entered the aravel, and he found he looked forward to his visits too, though it was cramped, hot and muggy inside even with the hatches on the sides open to let in a breeze – there was a reason the Dalish slept under the stars in summer. He hadn’t talked so much to Cassandra one-on-one since the very start of the Inquisition. Perhaps he’d never really talked to her, if it came down to it.

In between hands of Wicked Grace, he entertained her by recounting the disastrous afternoon spent chasing a golden halla around the plains in an attempt to get it to join the herd, or relating Blackwall and Vivienne’s latest argument.

“It reminds me of hanging out with Broody and Blondie,” he said.

Cassandra’s brow creased. “Fenris and….Anders?” she said. “I don’t know how you can keep track of all these absurd nicknames.”

“About the only thing they ever agreed on was Hawke, and a decent bottle of red,” said Varric. “How Hawke stopped them from killing each other I’ll never know. I remember one time…”

One story about the old gang back in Kirkwall led to another, and another, irresistibly and inevitably. Varric hadn’t spoken much about his life in Kirkwall since leaving it – so many of his stories were now tinged with pain, featuring people he either missed horribly or had lost forever. Bethany. Anders. Even Bartrand. He hadn’t been able to stand the thought of questions about them, so he shied away from the subject altogether. But Cassandra knew the worst of it already, knew as much about that part of his life than anyone alive, really, certainly more than anyone who’d read The Tale of the Champion, which had taken some…liberties, with the truth. Though Varric really hadn’t appreciated her threatening every excruciatingly personal detail out of him at the time, it meant that now she understood better than anyone his mixed feelings about the events of the past ten years or so, and he didn’t have to explain anything to her. So, at her urging, he recounted a few of the escapades Hawke and their friends had gotten embroiled in that would never have made it into the pages of a book. The ones where things had gone embarrassingly wrong, or they’d pulled off a plan only by the skin of their teeth.

It was a strange experience, telling the Seeker things willingly. But Cassandra was an encouraging audience, gasping with shock at every twist, laughing in all the right places. She seemed a little in awe of his storytelling ability, actually, in a way that was undeniably flattering.

“It is not just your writing,” she admitted. “It is the way you recount things. A simple case of mistaken identity or an unfortunate mishap can become a comic farce, or a thrilling epic, the way you tell it. I really don’t know how you do it. I admit it is a talent I envy.” She held up a hand to forestall his expected objection. “I know, you would say it is not a talent but a skill, one that you have worked hard at. I don’t disbelieve it. But however hard I try I cannot…I cannot speak as you do.”

“You don’t seem to have any trouble making your voice heard that I’ve noticed,” said Varric, whose face felt slightly hot, and was a little worried his ego might actually be visibly inflating as she spoke.

“No, but I always seem to say the wrong thing,” said Cassandra. “To give offence where I don’t intend it.” She sighed. “And I take myself too seriously, I know. I always feel that I am the subject of mockery, rather than being in on the joke.”

It was a wholly unexpected glimpse into something personal, vulnerable, that Varric wasn’t sure how to deal with. Cassandra too seemed to realise she’d revealed more than she intended, because she cleared her throat a little self-consciously.

“You speak of Kirkwall very fondly,” she said, changing the subject with a clumsiness he carefully ignored. “You miss it a great deal.”

Varric shrugged. “It’s my home,” he said.

“It is not…” Seeing Cassandra striving to be tactful was like watching a nug trying to climb a tree. “Not the most conventional of cities,” she said finally.

“It’s a total shithole, you mean?”

Cassandra gave him a look. “It is not fair to put words into my mouth, Varric, not when I have just told you that my own foot occupies it all too often.”

Varric laughed. “What was that about taking yourself too seriously?” he said. “Anyway, you can relax, Seeker. I’m not gonna be offended. I know what Kirkwall is, or what it looks like to outsiders. It is a shithole, but it’s my shithole. I love Kirkwall, warts and all.”

“I suppose I can understand that,” said Cassandra. “I feel the same way about the Chantry, sometimes.”

“There’s just enough beautiful about it to make the rest worth caring about too,” said Varric.

Cassandra smiled, as brief and brilliant as summer lightning. “As you say.”

“Or maybe we both just love a fixer-upper,” said Varric, grinning back. “But you should visit Kirkwall sometime when it’s not just been half destroyed by a violent uprising. You didn’t exactly see the city at its best.”

“Perhaps I will someday.”

“Well, look me up if you do,” said Varric. “I’ll stand you a round in The Hanged Man, and give you the insider’s tour of the city. Warts and all.”

He’d hoped for another smile, but instead Cassandra looked…surprised, and perhaps even a little shy. “I would like that,” she said simply, and Varric moved the conversation on to other things with a haste he was embarrassed by, when he thought about it later.

The next day when he stopped by to see her, Cassandra was visibly distracted. She was sitting up in bed by now, had already taken several short walks outside around the camp under the healer’s supervision, and the colour had returned to her cheeks, but she played an even worse game than usual, and her responses to Varric’s conversation were perfunctory.

After a while, Varric laid down his cards. “Alright, out with it,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Cassandra didn’t bother to deny anything. She just sighed, and drew a folded letter from her pocket. “It is…regarding the Seekers,” she said. “We saw so many red templars at the assault on Haven, perhaps all that was left of the order, but what we didn’t see was Lord Seeker Lucius. Indeed, I’ve seen no hint of any Seekers amongst the red templars, or anywhere else. No-one seems to know where they are. They have disappeared as completely as the Wardens once did.”

That was a worrying comparison. Varric felt a flicker of guilt that he hadn’t spared a single thought for the Seekers in all this – he’d just assumed they too were amongst Corypheus’ forces. But Cassandra had been a Seeker all her adult life, and it wasn’t a large order. If Corypheus had Seekers at his command, they surely would have run into someone she recognised by now.

“Leliana has been looking into it for me,” said Cassandra. “The letter that arrived by runner yesterday from the main camp – it was from her.”

“She’s found them?”

“Perhaps. Her agents have been following a trail that seems to indicate Seekers travelling to Ferelden, and now she informs me there are rumours of the order gathering at a castle called Caer Oswin. It is the most solid lead we have had in months.” Cassandra folded and unfolded the letter in her hands fretfully. “I know we have so many other priorities,” she said, “and the Inquisition is stretched thin dealing with this unrest in Orlais. But I fear what may have become of the Seekers if they have not been brought into Corypheus’ ranks. Whether they are in hiding, or imprisoned somewhere, or…”

“Or dead?” said Varric quietly.

“I need to know,” said Cassandra. “One way or another. But it is a long journey, far out of our way. I have sworn to serve the Inquisition as long as I am needed, and I cannot even claim it would be beneficial to us, as I doubt the Seekers would look kindly on—”

“Cassandra,” Varric cut in. “Of course we’ll go.”

He saw her shoulders relax, the relief suffuse her features. Maker, she really wasn’t meant to be a Wicked Grace player. “Thank you,” she said. “The Seekers are the closest thing I have to family. Though I left the order, I cannot simply abandon them to an unknown fate.”

“The Inquisition’s presence has stabilised things in the Dales for now,” said Varric. “There’s no reason for us to be here any longer now we have permanent camps established and the roads are safe. We can leave tomorrow if you’re up to it.”

He hadn’t had much doubt as to her response, and Cassandra nodded gratefully.

“We’ll be one more on the way back to the main camp,” Varric remarked, getting up from his stool. “There’s a lad called Loranil, asked to come with and see what all this Inquisition business is about. The Keeper took some persuading, but he’s finally given his blessing.”

“A Dalish recruit?” said Cassandra, understandably surprised.

“He wanted to join up.” Varric rubbed the back of his neck. “I might have told a few stories about the Inquisition’s daring exploits round the fireside,” he admitted, “and I guess he took them to heart.”

“Of course you did,” said Cassandra, though there was an undeniable smile playing around her lips.

When Varric left the aravel, he ran into Vivienne, who was evidently returning from the nearby river. Varric had tried to warn her more than once about bathing without anyone keeping watch for her, but Vivienne had merely waved off his concerns with a smile and a comment of ‘Aren’t you sweet?’, so he assumed she had her own methods of ensuring she wasn’t caught unawares. He certainly couldn’t blame her for wanting to cool off in this heat.

“How is Seeker Cassandra?” Vivienne asked, as she stopped to speak to him.

“Better,” said Varric. He smiled, in spite of himself. “Not any better at Wicked Grace, but well enough to travel. We can get going tomorrow.”

Vivienne gave a nod of acknowledgement, but she didn’t look as relieved as he’d thought she would be, at this news. Instead, she was eyeing him with a penetrating expression.

“Do be careful, my dear,” she said.

She was walking away before Varric could ask her what she meant, but the thoughtful, appraising look on her face sent a ripple of unease through him, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

Varric made his way back to the spot where he’d been laying his bedroll to sleep every night, on the soft grass between the vast roots of a tall mossy tree, not far from the aravel where Cassandra slept. In a Dalish camp, there was no need for tents, the sky above and the earth below seen as a comfort rather than something to be shielded from, the herd of Halla a better watch than any one person. In spite of the wary suspicion of the elves, Varric found he could rest easy here, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t come to harm while under their protection.

But Vivienne’s words played on his mind, and the night was very warm, and it took him a long time to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Varric couldn’t recall the name of the inn in which they stayed. Didn’t even remember the name of the town, actually, although it was the sort of thing a writer should take note of – just another little Ferelden hamlet, like dozens he’d passed through since joining the Inquisition. A couple of streets that must be muddy in the winter, now dusty in the summer heat. A few shops and businesses, a market square with a horse trough and a set of stocks that looked rarely used. Townsfolk visibly surprised to see a dwarf, a rare sight in these parts, but polite enough not to stare. The pervasive smell of livestock and wet dog from the surrounding farms. The only distinctive thing about the place was that it was nestled in the shadow of Caer Oswin, the ancestral home of Bann Loren, and the sprawling, slightly run-down fortress loomed over the town from the nearby hill like a reminder of nobler times.

Even in the gathering dusk, you could still see the smoke from the pyre they had set. It had taken most of the afternoon to build. High up on the hill, what remained of the Seekers of Truth burned, their ashes drifting up into the heavens to the Maker’s side.

The only Seeker Varric had ever known sat alone, on the edge of the town well, a stone’s throw away from the coaching inn where they were staying the night. Cassandra had retreated back into that quiet stillness, her eyes fixed on the grey plume of smoke in the distance, and her hands clasped around the heavy, leather-bound book in her lap. An eye wreathed in flame stared up at her from its cover, the symbol of the Seekers, ever watchful.

She made no sign of noticing him as Varric approached.

“You alright, Seeker?” he said quietly.

“No.”

“Right. Stupid question really.” Varric set the mug he’d carried carefully out here beside her on the stone edge of the well. “Tea,” he said, by way of explanation. “Ruffles gave me some, after…well, it works, anyway. It helps you sleep.”

“Thank you,” said Cassandra, and Varric took this as encouragement enough to sit down too, next to her. The stone was warm, sun-baked and smoothed by generations of people sitting here as they waited to draw water, though Cassandra’s feet touched the ground, and his own shorter legs dangled from the side a little.

“I’m sorry about your apprentice,” said Varric. He was sorry for all of it, really, but he was willing to bet that was what Cassandra was thinking of, as she watched the distant smoke.

“He was terrified of me, when we first met,” said Cassandra. “The great Seeker Pentaghast, Hero of Orlais, Right Hand to the Divine herself. He could hardly look me in the eye, or speak to me without stammering.”

Varric could imagine. He’d seen the way the dying young man had gazed at Cassandra when she’d knelt over him, the look in his eyes that even his pain and his fear couldn’t totally conceal. The poor kid had obviously been head-over-heels, but it wouldn’t do much good to tell Cassandra that now.

“He was very young,” said Cassandra, her voice bleak. “Why is always the young that seem to…”

She trailed off, the words dissipating like ashes in the summer sky. It seemed ridiculous, now, that Varric had ever thought her cold, when she wore her feelings so close to the surface. Grief and guilt were etched on every line of her face. There wasn’t much he could say that would make this better, he knew that well enough. He could offer her only his company, and hope that at least the knowledge that she wasn’t alone would be of some comfort, as it had been to him.

“How old was Bethany?” Cassandra asked, perhaps guessing where his own thoughts must be.

“Not thirty,” said Varric.

“She was very brave,” said Cassandra heavily. “Daniel was brave too. If only that were enough. But they were both of them let down by the very people that should have been protecting them, guiding them.”

For a terrible moment Varric thought she was speaking of herself, and of him, but then Cassandra added: “I judged the Grey Wardens very harshly, but my own order was no better. The Seekers fell to trickery and corruption too.”

It was an unforgiving assessment, but not one that Varric could really refute. “Not all of them,” he said. “Not you.”

“Because I left,” said Cassandra. “I am still not sure if that was bravery on my part, or cowardice, a refusal to see what was happening before my eyes.” She sighed. “Even now…I am supposed to be a Seeker of Truth, and yet part of me wants nothing more than to throw this book into the fire and never have to confront what secrets it might contain.”

“You won’t though,” said Varric.

“No. But I cannot face it tonight.”

Cassandra set the book aside, picking up her tea instead and clasping it in both hands, breathing in the steam rising from the top. She took a tentative sip, and then a longer one, before lowering the mug again and letting out a long sigh.

“I am only glad Lord Seeker Lucius is dead,” she said. “And that he was not able to purge the mages, as he wished to do. I dread to think what might have happened if he’d been allowed free reign, or if the Inquisition had not stepped in to shelter the mage rebellion when Magister Alexius was defeated.”

“They would all have gone the same way as the Tranquil did, I assume,” said Varric.

Cassandra nodded. “Instead, the mages have been a great asset to the Inquisition,” she said. “Both in closing the Breach and in rebuilding after Haven. Without their help, many more of our people would have died in the mountains, and still more at Adamant. Thank the Maker you insisted upon making allies of them after Redcliffe, and not prisoners.”

“Yeah, turns out the best way to get people to help you isn’t always clapping them in irons and dragging them along by force,” said Varric dryly. He’d half intended to provoke her with the jab, distract from her melancholy with the flippancy she’d found so annoying in the past, but Cassandra just looked thoughtful.

“You are right,” she said. “It is what I would have done, and Maker knows what might have come of it. Instead, your trust in them has been rewarded. It is something I could stand to remember in the future.”

She took another sip of her tea, apparently contemplative, and then said:

“Varric, can I ask you something?”

“You’ve never needed permission before, Seeker,” he replied.

“Do you still truly believe that all of this…everything that has happened to you is just random chance? Bad luck, as you once put it?”

It wasn’t a question he’d been expecting, but the answer came easily enough. “You watched what happened in the Fade,” Varric said. “The woman that people saw back when the Conclave was destroyed was Justinia, not Andraste. And this mark on my hand is some ancient elv—ancient magic from Tevinter or wherever. Something Corypheus created. Nothing more to it than that.”

“Yes, you told me after Adamant that you thought ‘the whole Herald of Andraste thing’ was bullshit,” said Cassandra. “I suppose I just…I do not know why I was surprised, really. You have said as much from the start. It just seems so clear to me that all of this is for a purpose. It troubles me that you cannot see it yourself.”

She looked down into her mug of tea, as if there might be answers in there, and said:

“You believe in the Maker, do you not?”

Varric shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah. I just never got the impression He believed much in me.” That felt a little too personal, so he added: “The Chantry says the Maker turned his back on us for our sins, and so on and so forth.”

“There are other views,” said Cassandra. “Leliana believes He still watches over us. Many would consider it heretical, but it is commonplace at least to pray to Andraste herself for guidance.”

“Look Seeker, if anyone is watching over me, it isn’t Andraste or the Maker. It’s a woman with a very big sword and absolutely no patience for my bullshit.”

Cassandra looked briefly taken aback, and then actually smiled. “The blind leading the blind then?” she said.

“It’s got us this far. Assuming you’re not just biding your time until you can find a quiet moment to push me off the battlements at Skyhold and make it look like an accident, that is.”

It was a poor joke perhaps, meant only to ease the serious turn of their conversation, but he was surprised to see Cassandra’s brow crease into a frown. “Why would I do that?” she said.

“I don’t know Seeker, maybe because you think I’m an annoying pain in the ass with a big mouth and no sense of responsibility whatsoever?”

“I think you’re wonderful.”

It actually took Varric a few seconds simply to register what Cassandra had said. He turned to look at her in disbelief and saw she was staring into her mug of tea again in a very determined fashion, a faint colour staining her cheeks.

“I...” Varric said, and then immediately forgot the rest of his sentence. He tried again. “I...you...what did you say?”

“I think you’re wonderful,” repeated Cassandra, apparently still speaking to the tea. “You have built the Inquisition into a force to be reckoned with, saved so many lives both by your direct actions and by the choices you have made as our leader. In another’s hands, the kind of power you were granted could have been used to rule the world, or destroy it utterly. Instead, you have used it to protect people, to end wars, to show mercy to your enemies that I know I would not have been capable of myself.”

She turned to him then with a serious look in her eyes. “And through it all, you have remained yourself.  So many that follow you consider you not only a leader, but a friend. You have kept your faith, both in the Maker and in other people. I think that is remarkable. You are remarkable, Varric, Herald of Andraste or not, and I am proud to know you.”

Varric found himself completely at a loss for words. Cassandra turned back away and took a self-conscious sip of tea, but didn’t say anything else; no attempt to downplay or take back what she had just said. After all, she wasn’t that sort of person.

“I...thank you,” Varric said finally. What else was there to say? This wasn’t the moment for a sarcastic remark, and he was completely at sea when it came to such blunt sincerity. The Seeker always did have a way of throwing him off balance.

“I don’t say it to flatter,” said Cassandra calmly, though her cheeks still looked slightly pink. “I say it because it’s true. And because you give yourself too little credit.”

She tipped back the mug and drained the remains of her tea, before standing up, picking up the heavy book from beside her and tucking it under her arm.

“I think I will go to bed,” she said. “Goodnight, Varric. Thank you for the tea. And thank you for coming here with me. It was not what I’d hoped to find, but it is better to know.”

“Goodnight, Cassandra.”

When they finally returned to Skyhold it was a profound relief to find a castle bustling with life and purpose, a stark contrast to the dark, haunted halls of Caer Oswin. Although the only red lyrium had been contained within the bodies of the unfortunate Seekers they’d found, the desolate place had still reminded Varric horribly of Redcliffe Castle, and as Cassandra had knelt down beside her dying apprentice, all he could think was how close she had come to sharing his fate. Varric had sworn to himself that what he saw in those cells beneath Redcliffe would never come to pass, but it was happening already. Corypheus meant to destroy anyone who might stand in his way, and red lyrium was his tool. If only they knew how he had gotten hold of the stuff in the first place – the Primeval Thaig where it had been discovered had been sealed off, its location a closely guarded secret, and before the explosion at the Conclave, the only source of red lyrium above ground that Varric knew of was the petrified body of Knight Commander Merideth. He was fairly certain if a darkspawn Magister had swooped down on a dragon and taken a pickaxe to it, he would have heard. But now the evil stuff seemed to be everywhere, spreading through the world in any place Corypheus touched, corrupting and befouling. Varric had asked Leliana, Cullen and Josephine to focus all the Inquisition’s resources they could spare to try and track down the source.

As for Cassandra, he allowed her a few days grace to brood – and for the Inquisitor to catch up on the mountain of paperwork piling up on his desk – before making an excuse to go and talk to her, to make sure she wasn’t spiralling down the same whirlpool of self-flagellating misery that he had. Luckily Cassandra was more sensible that he was, it seemed, because she seemed possessed only of a renewed conviction, if perhaps a little tired around the eyes. She didn’t mind it when he pushed her just a little, Varric had come to realise, enjoying the brisk back and forth of their conversation. So when he asked her to come along to a game of Wicked Grace in the tavern that evening under the guise of ‘testing out my expert tutelage’, Cassandra, perhaps also recognising the hypocrisy in refusing, agreed to drop by. And she lost the game spectacularly, but she did laugh along with the rest of them at one of Krem’s terrible jokes, and she did grudgingly agree to lend Dorian the next chapter of Swords and Shields now that she’d finished reading it, and Varric overheard her arranging to meet up to train with Blackwall the next morning. At the end of the night, Varric casually declared “Same time next week?” and though there was a general chorus of hearty approval, it was Cassandra he looked to, and her small nod was worth the pile of coins he’d lost to Sera’s flagrant cheating.

And when Varric left a packet of Josephine’s tea in Cassandra’s ridiculously humble little room above the forge, she thanked him the next day with a smile. And in meetings in the War Room, though they disagreed just as much as ever, they listened to what each other had to say instead of throwing barbs, and more than once Varric caught the other three Council members sharing puzzled looks at the change.

And the words glowed like hot coals in his chest: I think you’re wonderful.

Meanwhile, Cassandra had been training harder than ever to recover her full strength after what had happened to her in Orlais. She had been assured by the Dalish healer that there would be no lasting damage from the ancient elven weapon that had struck her down, and so there had been no way to persuade her to even moderate her rigorous daily routine. It was probably a good thing – beating the stuffing out of training dummies was as good a way of relieving her feelings as any, and seeing the Seeker swinging a sword about was a vast improvement on seeing her bedbound and helpless.

Still, Varric kept a closer eye on her than usual, in as subtle a way as he could contrive, wanting to be sure she wasn’t overreaching herself. One afternoon, he was watching her train from the battlements, having just come out of a meeting with Cullen, when he was startled by a soft, familiar voice beside him:

“Smoke rising to the sky, everything ashes. No sanctity in this, no mercy. Didn’t realise there was so much to lose until it was gone. Maker let me be strong enough, to protect what is left. Let me not fail him now.”

Varric turned to see Cole next to him, perched atop the battlements in that birdlike way he had, as though he had only a passing familiarity with the world and how anything in it was supposed to be used. He was following Varric’s line of sight, and – evidently – the Seeker’s line of thought. Solas believed that Cole was originally a spirit of Compassion, and the kid’s profound, eager desire to ease the suffering of people around him seemed to also give him a unique, if not slightly spooky, ability to sense the cause of their pain.

Still, it wasn’t as if you had to be a mind reader right now to guess that Cassandra was hurting. If anyone else had caught Varric checking up on her, he might have felt a bit embarrassed at being such a mother hen. But it was impossible to feel that way around Cole.

“Hey, kid,” he said. “You’re worried about her too, huh?”

“She’s afraid they’ll make her into something she isn’t,” Cole said. “She’s afraid they already have.”

Varric opened his mouth to ask what that meant, and then bit his tongue. From the perspective of a writer, it was so terribly tempting to dig deeper into Cole’s little offhand comments about the people around him, to pry out the things they kept concealed. But that was a dangerous road to start down.

“She’ll be alright,” he said, retreating instead to general platitudes. “The Seeker’s tough.”

“The eye burns,” said Cole, his face still concealed by his oversized hat, but a frown in his voice. “She burns too. She doesn’t want you to know.”

“Then you shouldn’t tell me,” said Varric firmly. The revelation that Cassandra was suffering more than she showed was hardly surprising, but he knew all about putting a brave face on things, and couldn’t exactly judge her for it.

“You could help, if you knew,” said Cole.

“Maybe,” said Varric. “But that’s not up to us to decide, kid.” He reached up and patted Cole on the shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to do what you can for people and wait for them to come to you when they’re ready,” he said.

But Cole was still watching Cassandra. “Serpents and songs, knights and angels,” he said, in a distant voice. “Sleeves rolled up, nothing to hide – he makes a liar of me too. Is it my excuse, or his? Blur of faces in the firelight, laughing, one of a crowd, not set apart. It was never like this, before. It is…nice.” Cole turned to Varric with a little smile. “She always wanted to be there, even before she knew where there was,” he said. “She’ll come if you ask. Can I tell you that?”

“That one I’ll allow,” said Varric. “Thanks, kid.”

He left Cole to his people watching and headed down from the battlements. He’d been intending to go to speak to Solas since the elf’s return from the Forbidden Oasis yesterday, but he made a brief detour past the line of training dummies to call out to Cassandra as he passed by.

“Wicked Grace at the tavern tonight, Seeker?”

Her head turned at his voice, but she didn’t bother to lower her blade, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her free hand. “Is that an order, Inquisitor, or an invitation?” she called back.

Varric pretended to consider this. “Which one is less likely to get my head chopped off with that sword?”

Cassandra smiled. “I will be there,” she said, before turning back to her training.

On the face of it, that night at The Herald’s Rest was no different to so many similar nights Varric had whiled away over a game of Wicked Grace and some good company. He’d persuaded Josephine to join them too, as she worked far too hard and could use a break…and he’d also noticed that the Inquisition’s ambassador evidently had a little tendresse, as the Orlesians would say, for Blackwall, and that the gruff Warden seemed to have a soft spot for her too, though determined to do absolutely nothing about it. Varric was no matchmaker, but he did manage to contrive the two of them to sit next to each other at least, by complaining of a draft and shuffling the seating around, earning himself a wink from Dorian when the mage caught his eye.

In any case, Varric didn’t notice anything wrong with Blackwall himself that evening. The man played a decent game, was drawn into a discussion on the Orlesian civil war, and stood his round at the bar when it was his turn. When he looked back on it later, Varric wondered if Blackwall had known what was about to happen, and wanted to allow himself those last few hours of normality before everything changed.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Varric himself had a hint that anything was amiss, as Leliana intercepted him just after breakfast, appearing beside him as he left the great hall in her usual quiet, unobtrusive way.

“Inquisitor. May I speak with you a moment?”

She looked troubled, and that in of itself was enough to make Varric feel the beginnings of alarm as she drew him aside into an alcove.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”

“I am…not sure yet,” said Leliana. “It’s Warden Blackwall. He is…gone.”

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

Cassandra was sitting just outside the smithy when Varric approached, her sword laid on her lap, her gloved hands running a whetstone along its edge. A necessary chore for any warrior, perhaps even a meditative one, but even if Varric hadn’t already known better, you’d have to be an idiot not to recognise the tension in the Seeker’s posture, the hardness of her expression as she worked.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

Cassandra didn’t look up as he came to stand before her, though she seemed to know who it was. “I know,” she said curtly, without waiting for Varric to speak. “I was rude. Uncivil. You don’t have to admonish me.”

She ran the sword along the whetstone with a particularly vicious movement.

Scraaaaape.

“Actually, I was going to ask if you if you were alright,” said Varric.

Cassandra’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction, and her hand stilled. “Should I be?” she said, her eyes still fixed on her work. “I find it astonishing that everyone else seems able to be around-” her mouth tightened “-Warden Blackwall without any trouble at all.”

That was not, of course, remotely true. In fact, since his return to Skyhold there had been a wide circle of space around Blackwall wherever he went, as if the man was plague-struck. He’d never exactly been a social butterfly, but now he spent all his time in the stables, working, his head down. Varric had gone to see him the day before and received a curt brush off.

“I appreciate the effort, Inquisitor,” Blackwall had said, heaving a forkful of straw into a horse trough. “But my life is already more than I deserve. I won’t have an association with me drag your name down along with mine.”

“I’ve been associated with worse people,” Varric had said mildly, but he’d received no reply, and had been forced to leave Blackwall to his self-imposed penance.

Blackwall’s trial in Skyhold’s great hall, once his crimes and his true identity had become clear, had taken hours. Many had come forward to speak in his defence, some against him, and it had been strange to hear the unfamiliar name on their lips: Thom Rainier. A traitor. A hero. A friend. A liar. The Inquisitorial Council heard the testimonies in silence, but when the five of them had retired to the War Room to discuss the verdict, their argument took even longer.

Cassandra and Cullen had both been in favour of kicking Rainier out of the Inquisition and back into an Orlesian gaol cell. Leliana, and a slightly red-eyed and shaky Josephine, wanted to give him a second chance and keep him on as the asset to the Inquisition he’d already proven to be. In the end, Varric had been the tie-breaker. Just as he’d never wanted. He couldn’t bring himself to send a man who had eaten and slept and fought alongside him for months back to the noose, but how could the Inquisitor simply turn a blind eye to Rainier’s crimes? There was a time when Varric could afford to be hypocritical about the company he kept, but that time had passed. If there were no consequences for the people he personally liked, then he was no better than a tyrant, picking and choosing favourites, deciding who lived and died based on his whims.

It was the memory of the last time he’d had to make that kind of choice that made up Varric’s mind. Bethany had sacrificed herself because she’d wanted her death to mean something, and Varric owed Blackwall at least the same. It hadn’t been easy to persuade the other four Council members to agree to his sentence, but it was the closest thing to a compromise he’d been able to think of, and Varric had always been good at convincing people. He’d put his foot down, for once, and made his case, and the judgement had been passed:

Blackwall was not a Grey Warden. He never had been. But when Corypheus was defeated, he would leave the Inquisition and join the Wardens’ ranks for real, and spend the rest of his days fighting darkspawn, until the Blight took him. The death he’d sought in Val Royeaux would be his, but not before he gave the rest of his life to atone for what he’d done.

The murmurs around the great hall at this verdict had been approving, mostly – it was the kind of poetic justice that appealed to people, that Varric might have written into one of his books. Blackwall would get to make the story he told about himself a true one. Not many people got that chance.

But accepting the sentence wasn’t the same thing as accepting Thom Rainier. The man was a pariah with many, and even those who approved of his getting a second chance seemed unsure how to treat him now, defaulting to pretending he didn’t exist at all. For those who had known him personally, the sting was even sharper, and Cassandra seemed to feel it most keenly of all. This morning there had been what a melodramatic Orlesian novel might refer to as ‘an unpleasant scene’ at breakfast in the great hall. Words had been said, Blackwall had slunk away, Cassandra had stormed out, and Varric had found every other eye turned expectantly towards him, until he’d sighed, put down his newly buttered toast and said:

“I’ll talk to her.”

Now, Cassandra set aside her blade and whetstone, finally raising her head from her work to look at him. Perhaps she had been expecting Varric to come and speak to her as much as everyone else apparently had done, and had been bracing herself for it. But she didn’t look resentful at the prospect, or stubborn, just exhausted.

“It truly doesn’t bother you, that he lied about who he is?” she said. “To all of us? To you?”

“I don’t know that he did, really,” said Varric, thoughtfully. “In the end, we are what we do. Blackwall lied about his name, sure…and his past. But we all figured it’s normal for a Grey Warden to be cagey about that. Who he is doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

“He is a murderer,” said Cassandra.

“He’s risked his neck to fight beside us,” said Varric, with no particular rancour, just a statement of fact. “Saved a lot of people along the way. He stayed with us to face Corypheus at Haven too, even knowing it’d probably cost him his life.”

“How many lives does a man have to save before those he’s taken don’t matter?” said Cassandra sharply. “Is it simply a matter of tallying them up to wipe his slate clean?”

“How many lives do you have to take before those you’ve saved don’t matter?” countered Varric. “We’ve both killed people, Seeker. A lot of people.”

“Not for money,” said Cassandra. “Not children.”

“No.”

They were only rehashing the argument that had already taken place, and Cassandra looked as weary of it as Varric felt.

“Look, I was gonna head over to the kitchens and grab something to eat,” he said. “Since breakfast was a little…cut short. Join me?”

Cassandra nodded, and he waited while she packed away the blade she’d been working on, and then together they set off through the main courtyard. No matter what personal dramas played out within its walls, the great bustling machinery of Skyhold castle creaked into gear this morning just the same as any other; people hurrying to and fro, smoke already billowing from the chimneys of the smithy, the distant zip and thwack of arrows hitting targets down at the archery range as people got in some early morning practice. As they walked down the steps into the lower courtyard, the usual contingent of traveling merchants were setting up their stalls, laying out their latest wares, a few of them calling out greetings to Varric as they passed by. Varric noticed Cassandra glance over at the distant stable block, though there was no sign of Blackwall to be seen. Presumably he was laying low.

“If you want,” Varric said, as they walked, “I can make sure you and Blackwall don’t have to go out on missions together. You shouldn’t have to fight alongside someone you don’t trust.”

“No, I…thank you,” said Cassandra, a touch stiffly, “but that won’t be necessary. I will not allow my personal feelings on the matter to get in the way of doing my duty.”

“I know, Seeker. You never do.”

“I apologise for letting my anger get the better of me earlier,” said Cassandra. “I have accepted Blackwall’s sentence, and I do think it a fair one. You were right – the noose would have been a meagre justice for the dead when the man might still be of service to the living.”

“But accepting him still being around isn’t so easy?” said Varric.

Cassandra sighed. “I am not unsympathetic to the idea of second chances, of wanting to atone for past mistakes,” she said. “But I cannot so easily forgive someone who does not at least try to do so honestly. I do not like being lied to.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You lied to protect your friend,” said Cassandra. “He lied to save his own skin. There is a difference.”

She hadn’t always thought that way, but Varric wasn’t inclined to jog her memory on the subject. They’d reached the outer door to the kitchens and he pushed it open, holding it for Cassandra, and they stepped inside. Skyhold’s kitchens were huge, busy as the forge and almost as hot, the air thick with delicious smelling steam, noisy with the clattering of pots and pans, and shouted orders above the hubbub. A young elf girl almost barrelled into them as they entered, carrying a huge pile of dirty plates, and dropped a quick curtsy to Varric before scurrying off again, her load still balanced precariously as she carried them away. Varric left Cassandra hovering somewhat awkwardly by the door and wove through the busy room expertly, avoiding the elbow of a woman chopping turnips, returning the cheery greeting of a man in the process of plucking a huge bird of some kind, heading for the head cook, who was rolling out pastry on a massive stone tabletop.

“Alright Mags?” he said amiably. “Anything going begging?”

“Got a fresh batch of rolls out the oven over there,” said Mags, jerking her head towards a huge metal tray of steaming bread, without looking up. “Baked with currants that came in from Antiva, or some such place.”

“Sounds good,” said Varric, heading over and grabbing a couple. “How’s the knee?” he called back, over his shoulder.

“Better,” said Mags. “That salve worked wonders.”

Since she and the other kitchen staff were obviously as busy as ever, Varric didn’t linger to chit chat, just handing Cassandra one of the currant rolls as they left again, closing the door on the sweltering commotion in favour of the cool, crisp morning air once more. They sat down together on a low stone wall a little way away from the kitchens, and ate in companionable silence for a while, tearing into the fresh rolls. There was a delicacy to the moment, Varric thought, as they finished their small makeshift breakfast, a feeling that they had not yet quite gotten to the heart of the matter. Maybe Cassandra felt it too, because presently she said, quietly:

“I believed Blackwall a good man. Even a friend.”

There it was, beneath the anger – the hurt he glimpsed so rarely, that caused a sympathetic pang in his own chest. She didn’t trust easily, Cassandra, and to betray that trust was no small thing. He knew that better than anyone. So Varric said the only thing he could, because it was true:

“I know. Me too.”

Cassandra sighed heavily. “I have been wrong about so many things, Varric,” she said. “Sometimes I think I have just been a blind fool from the start.”

Something in her voice made Varric realise what he should have all along. He looked at her, at her grave, troubled expression. “This isn’t just about Blackwall,” he said.

Cassandra hesitated, and then nodded. “Perhaps,” she said. “I have learned things…some of the things in the book I took from Lord Seeker Lucius have been…difficult to accept.”

That was a surprise, although perhaps it shouldn’t have been. She’s afraid they’ll make her into something she isn’t. She’s afraid they already have.

“Anything I can help with?” Varric asked. “I know I’m known for being a talker, but I can listen too, if you want.”

Cassandra closed her eyes briefly, as if steadying herself. “Maker—” she said softly, but it wasn’t clear if she was cursing or praying. She opened her eyes. “No,” she said. “I appreciate the offer, but I need time to understand what I have discovered myself, before I share it with anyone else.”

“Alright. I get that.” Varric knew how far to push and when to leave off, and the day was slipping away from them both. But as he got to his feet and made to leave, he couldn’t resist a quick parting remark:

“But be careful about spending all your time wrapped up in that book, Seeker. You start reading it more than Swords and Shields, and I’m liable to get jealous.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but he had teased a faint smile from her all the same. Still, Varric found it hard to banish the defeated slope of her shoulders from his mind as he went about his day. Cassandra had lost a lot in a short space of time, and though it was hard to think of anyone more resilient than the Seeker, it bothered him to see her faith in herself so shaken.

Nothing but time would start to heal the wounds she’d suffered, but maybe there was something a little more immediate that Varric could do to help in the meantime. Poking her into socialising with card games was all very well, but Cassandra was not him – and he knew her well enough by now to understand that there was only one sure-fire way to distract her from her brooding and lift her spirits. What the Seeker needed was something to hit.

Varric went to find Cullen.

Chapter Text

The sun was shining. The sky was a vivid, cornflower blue, scattered with little scudding white clouds. The grass was fresh and springy underfoot, and birds sang their hearts out in the treetops. In a kind of minor miracle, Varric had finally managed to travel somewhere…nice.

He never thought he’d be happy to find himself out at the Storm Coast again, but it just went to show, you couldn’t always rely on first impressions. Or, apparently, names. There had been not a single storm in sight since they’d arrived, only clear skies and warm, starry nights. It was summer even here, but unlike the baking heat of the desert, or the armpit sweatiness of Orlesian plains, the northern coast of Fereldan in summer enjoyed the crisp snap of the sea breeze, giving the air a fresh, salty tang. The rugged coastline, dramatic cliffs and grassy foothills that had been muddy and shrouded in mist when they had last been to this part of Ferelden had been transformed by the weather into what could only be described as breathtaking scenery. Wildflowers dotted the lush, ferny grass and sunlight glittered on the crashing surf. Even the massive, dour dwarven statues that loomed over the landscape seemed less forbidding in the sunshine.

They were not here to sightsee, of course. The old dwarven port of Daerwin's Mouth had been taken over by red templars, and the enemy having such a foothold on the Waking Sea was more than Commander Cullen was willing to tolerate. When Varric had gone to him asking for an easy win, a way to get Cassandra back into the field without making it obvious he was trying to cheer her up, the suggestion had come immediately to Cullen’s mind.

“I wouldn’t call it easy, exactly,” he’d said, spreading out a map of the area on the desk in his office. “But I believe a surprise assault by a small group would be more effective than an all-out siege. If you can capture the port for the Inquisition’s use, it would strike a blow against our enemy and give us a valuable stronghold in Northern Ferelden. If we start moving Inquisition troops into the area, the templars will doubtless expect an attack and only dig in more deeply, so I was going to suggest sending in the Chargers at the next War Room meeting. It might surprise people to have the Inquisitor going personally on such a mission, but it would send a strong message on how much we value Ferelden as our ally.”

“Sounds perfect,” said Varric. “We drive the templars out of Ferelden, King Alistair owes us another favour, and the Seeker gets to kick some ass for the Maker. Everybody wins.”

Cullen had given him an odd look, a kind of slightly puzzled half-smile. “It’s a strange sort of gift, Varric,” he said. “Most people just stick to flowers or chocolates.”

Varric chuckled at the thought of presenting Cassandra with either. “I’m hoping the Seeker will punch somebody else to relieve her feelings,” he said. “Not looking to get clocked myself.”

“Whatever you say, Inquisitor,” said Cullen, but Varric was almost certain that, as he was leaving, he heard the Commander mutter under his breath: “And they say I’m terrible with women…”

In spite of Cullen’s scepticism, Cassandra did seem relieved to be away from Skyhold and on the road again, and with the Chargers as their travelling companions, it had been an easy journey through Ferelden. Walking along the Storm Coast with Cassandra and Bull by his side, the Chargers up ahead escorting an ox-cart full of supplies, Varric felt a tug of something almost like nostalgia. It hadn’t been far from here that he’d first hired Bull and his merc group, back when the Inquisition had been nothing but an upstart rabble of starry-eyed hopefuls huddled up in the mountains, harbouring a dwarf with a glowing hand and absolutely no idea what the future had in store for him. Their fortunes had certainly changed since then, for better or worse, but the two self-appointed protectors still walking by his side had stuck by him through thick and thin. It was an odd feeling; for most of his life, Varric had gotten very used to people leaving him at the first sign of trouble.

Bull seemed to be in a nostalgic frame of mind too. “Well, this place is a lot less shitty than when we were here last,” he said, looking out approvingly over the spectacular view from the coastal path they were taking.

“They should change the name,” agreed Varric. “That sea almost looks calm enough to swim in.”

“I do hope you’re not planning to,” said Cassandra.

“Not likely,” said Varric. “Dwarves don’t swim, we just sink to the bottom.”

“That true?” asked Iron Bull, curiously, and Varric shrugged.

“No idea,” he said. “But I’m not about to find out.”

“I haven’t swum since I was a child,” said Cassandra, gazing idly out over the distant waves. “I wonder if it is one those things the body never forgets how to do. I suppose I should hope I am never put into a position where I am forced to find out either.”

“You know Seeker, I heard that in Rivain, women swim in the sea naked to better commune with nature,” said Bull, ever the optimist.

“Yes, well I think I might skip that particular tradition,” said Cassandra. “Since this is Ferelden and I have no desire to freeze to death.”

“Knowing you, you’d sink right to the bottom too out of sheer stubbornness before you even took off your armour,” said Varric. “You even wore full plate to a card game.”

“You did not inform me of a dress code, Varric,” said Cassandra, with great dignity.

“Seeker, the only reason anyone wears armour to play Wicked Grace is if they think it’s likely to end in a barfight, or if you’re playing for clothes and you want extra layers.”

“Playing for—Maker’s breath, is that something people do?”

Varric grinned. “Why do you think I wear so many earrings?”

“Ah, I should have known you’d have found a way to cheat.”

“Cheating is a fine traditional part of Wicked Grace,” said Varric. “Consider this your first lesson.”

Cassandra made a derisive noise, but she was smiling. He’d made it a kind of mission, of late, to tempt more of those rare smiles from her. The kind that utterly transformed her face, made it something softer, her dark eyes bestowing a warmth on anything they rested upon. It was a good feeling, to have Cassandra look at him like that. A good change, from how things used to be.

The Inquisition’s main outpost in this area was the fortified camp of the Blades of Hessarian, the strange cult whose thuggish chief they’d dealt with months ago when he’d set himself against what he’d seen as an encroachment upon his territory by Inquisition scouts. But once the asshole in charge was dead, the Blades had proven loyal allies to the Inquisition, not unlike the Chargers, and their base, a small village of wooden buildings ringed by sturdy stockades, was a useful defensible outpost in northern Ferelden. Having eyes and ears on the Storm Coast, not to mention a dedicated strike force who knew the area well, was the reason they’d been able to plan this mission. The Blades had been harrying the red templars for days, drawing their forces out into the surrounding countryside, leaving their port vulnerable to attack.

Cassandra was still technically the leader of the Blades of Hessarian after killing their previous one, though since Varric was technically her leader, it probably didn’t matter. When he brought it up in passing when they arrived at the outpost though, Cassandra looked amused.

“Do you wish to fight me for their leadership, Inquisitor?” she asked. “I still have the crest that signifies such a challenge is to be made, if you would like to borrow it.” Her eyes danced with humour. “Single combat, I believe it was?”

Bull chuckled. “I’d pay every coin in my pockets and Krem’s to see that,” he said.

“It’d be a very short show,” said Varric, grinning. “Thanks for the offer, Seeker, but you can keep your personal hit squad, and I’ll keep my head attached to my body, if it’s all the same to you.”

It had occurred to him, in fact, that if Cassandra ever meant to rebuild the Seekers of Truth, the Blades of Hessarian wouldn’t be a bad place to start. They were a loyal and hardwearing group, dedicated to their strict code and devout Andrastians all. The Seeker could do a lot worse than channelling that energy into a new purpose, but these were thoughts Varric considered best kept to himself for now. The fate of the Seekers was still raw, and there was a lot he didn’t know when it came to how Cassandra felt about the future of her order.

For now, she seemed to be in good spirits, talking and joking along with Bull, as eager as the Chargers for the coming mission. The Iron Bull’s company were a motley bunch, and given to the usual cheerful vices of all merc bands – drinking, bragging and the occasional friendly arm-wrestling contest to solve disputes between them – but they knew their business, and settled down into a professional focus once they left the Blades of Hessarian base and headed south down the coast to their enemy’s stronghold. Their destination was a huge cliff at the edge of the crashing waves, taller than Skyhold’s keep, with an ancient door set into its rocky face, unmistakably dwarven, and firmly sealed from within. There were no guards at the entrance – why bother when dwarven locks were famously unpickable, and the doors themselves made of stone inches thick?

What the red templars hadn’t reckoned with, however, was that the Inquisition had more than one stubborn dwarf of their own. They all stood a respectful distance away as the Chargers’ explosives expert Rocky laid the charges and blew the stone doors open with a blast that shook the earth.

“Well, they’ll know we’re coming,” said Varric, as the dust cleared, and the doors hung open

“Good,” said Bull, with a grin, hefting his greataxe in his hands, and they walked into the cavernous halls of Daerwin's Mouth, weapons drawn.

Varric felt it the moment they stepped inside. The subtle vibration in the air, the hum at the back of the brain, the sensation that set his nerves jangling. Red lyrium. He’d expected it, of course, as the red templars had been using this place for a while, but there was an intensity to it he hadn’t anticipated. His companions seemed mostly unaffected, looking around with only cautious interest as they went further in, which only increased Varric’s foreboding. It was as if the stuff called only to him. As if it had been waiting for him.

The silence was eerie as they walked, weapons ready, through the old port. The place was big as a town, countless rooms and walkways hewn directly from the rock in tier upon tier, set in into the middle of a vast cave in the cliff, opened up to the crashing seas outside through gaping apertures if the cliff face. Accessible only by sea, or by the single door they’d come through, it was one of the most defensible ports Varric had ever seen. Cullen was right – if the red templars had known the Inquisition was coming, they might have ground themselves to a paste against these cliffs before they even got inside.

It was impressive, by anyone’s standards, but dwarven architecture always reminded Varric of the sodding Deep Roads. He never could understand why his ancestors had gone in for such high ceilings – it smacked of compensating for something, he couldn’t help but think. In any case, the whole place was in poor repair, like all dwarven shit on the surface, abandoned aeons ago when the Blight had forced the dwarves to fall back to Orzammar. Finely hewn statues lay broken on the ground, and there were signs everywhere of shoddy repair work by the current occupants – wooden scaffolding holding up crumbling walls, rope bridges across chasms no longer spanned by stone walkways. Lit braziers lined the way in iron brackets newly hammered into the ancient stone.

Of the templars, there was no sign. But there was certainly red lyrium. No wonder he’d felt it the moment they entered – it wasn’t just sealed away in containers for the templars to consume, but growing out of the walls, like in the temple of Sacred Ashes, like in Redcliffe castle. Varric had to bite back a gasp of horror when they came across the first cluster of red crystals clinging to the stone, and the further they ventured into the dim and dripping halls of Daerwin’s Mouth, there was more and more, towering spires of it climbing up the walls, rearing to the stone ceiling in grotesque stalagmites, throwing fractals of virulent crimson light over their faces as they passed by. It was an infection, a gleaming red mould slowly consuming everything. And the singing was more insistent with every step, in the air, in the stone, burrowing into Varric’s mind like a worm through a rotten apple. Bethany’s voice crept out of the recesses of his memory, firelight on her face, speaking of the Calling:

It’s like when you find yourself humming a snatch of tune that you can’t place. Or that feeling you’ve forgotten something really important…

Varric felt it now, the urgency of it, the relentlessness of the command, growing stronger with every passing moment. There was a sickening familiarity to the feeling, like seeing your own vomit. Bartrand had pleaded with him to make it stop, he remembered, and then in the next breath begged to hear it again, just one more time.

Though it was cool inside the cave, Varric found he had to keep wiping sweat from his face, his hands gripping the shaft of his crossbow with white knuckles. Trying to ignore the terrible whispers in his hindbrain that told him to come closer, reach out, take it, taste it…

The Chargers too now seemed affected by the stuff, growing quieter, drawing together as a group instinctively. But Varric couldn’t help but anxiously examine each face in turn as they walked, looking for that gleam of red in eyes, and he saw one of them – the guy Bull called ‘Grim’, who didn’t talk much – drawing closer to a column of red crystals that had shattered into shards on the floor, the curiosity in his gaze turning to captivation, his hand reaching out…

“Don’t—!” Varric cried, and every head turned to him at the alarm in his voice, including Grim’s. Varric made an effort to sound calmer, in control.

“Don’t…don’t touch it,” he said. “The red lyrium. Just…be careful. Nobody go near it.”

But the warning wasn’t necessary, Varric realised; Grim looked as puzzled as the others. He’d simply been walking past the crystals, some trick of the light or of Varric’s own mind twisting his features into that look of greedy rapture.

“You heard the Boss,” said Bull. “Eyes sharp, boys.”

That wasn’t necessary either – it was impossible to miss the red lyrium bursting out of every crack in the stone. This place was crawling with the stuff; for every glowing mass of crystals he could see, Varric could sense more behind the walls, under the floor on which they trod. No-one would be surprised now that the Inquisitor had come to this place personally to put a stop the horror that was growing here; his hatred of red lyrium was well known.

But right now, hating it wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Varric loved it. He wanted to be close to it, to touch it, feel it under his skin, to crawl inside it and let it grow from him. For the song to fill him from the inside, and lull him to sleep inside the warm, pulsing red womb of it.

He might actually throw up.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” said Krem conversationally to Dalish. “The way it sort of hums at you?”

“Quiet,” Varric snapped, though Krem hadn’t raised his voice much beyond a whisper, and they made enough noise just walking that they couldn’t exactly keep their presence here concealed from anyone listening. But any voice spoken here felt intrusive, wrong, like cursing in a Chantry. How could Krem be so flippant about it? How could they all ignore its call so easily? How could they not feel it watching them? Varric saw Cassandra cast a glance his way out of the corner of his eye, and felt a roil of anger seize him. Checking up on me, are you, Seeker? Want to make sure the Inquisitor isn’t going the same way as his dear brother?

He could hear Bartrand’s voice in the song. He could hear all of them. The song was carrying him further inwards as his thoughts floated on a sea of it, as they crossed a rickety rope bridge over a chasm of rushing water and into a cavernous hall, flanked by stone columns draped in shadow. Every one of them was crusted in a jagged red carapace, and even the shadows they cast seemed to move, crawling closer, reaching out…

Then a piece of the red lyrium detached itself and started heaving itself across the floor.

At first, Varric thought he was seeing things, that the lyrium madness had already taken him, but then Bull shouted something and the Chargers leapt forwards, weapons raised to meet the thing lumbering towards them. A behemoth, an enormous hulk of blood-red crystal, no longer recognisable as the man it once was. And as Bull’s axe met the lunging blades of its arm, more templars were streaming from every shadowed corner, converging on the Chargers in a sudden cacophony of shouts and clashing swords. The ambush had been sprung.

It was pandemonium. All around him Bull’s mercs grappled with the templars, with swords and axes, with fists and arrows, the staff that Dalish swore she didn’t carry spitting fire and ice. But Varric couldn’t drag his eyes away from the behemoth, towering over the rest. Cassandra had caught its attention now, almost certainly drawing the biggest target to herself on purpose, taking the heat off Bull, who was now engaged with a pair of burly templars. The Seeker looked tiny, impossibly vulnerable facing the immense, jagged goliath, her sword like a toothpick in her hand as she dodged its massive blows. Varric remembered the Avvar warrior’s maul hitting her, sending her flying, back in the Fallow Mire, and as the behemoth raised one of its brutal, club-like arms, he could see what would happen – the way the huge crystal dagger of its monstrous form would tear its way through Cassandra’s armour like tissue paper, crush her, pierce her heart, spread its red poison through her body…

Varric lurched forward – no, no, no, no – and there wasn’t time to think, no time even to do anything but try to throw himself between them…

But then Cassandra’s shield swung up and, impossibly, fended off the blow. Her sword swept in a shining arc that cleaved the behemoth’s arm from its body, and the thing screamed with a force that echoed through the cave, the howl of a man trapped inside a nightmare. She pressed it back as she struck again and again, the monster stumbling, on the defensive. Varric remembered the crossbow in his hands, but he didn’t dare fire at the behemoth, not with Cassandra so close. He swung from side to side, searching for a target amongst the clashing figures around him, his sights weaving indecisively. All of them looked red, cast in the same bloody glow, as if the lyrium had taken them already, as if they were inside it, dreaming. Varric’s hands shook on his crossbow as he blinked sweat out of his eyes, trying to tell friend from foe—

Wham.

His lack of attention to his surroundings had cost him – a templar rammed into his side and sent him sprawling to the ground, Bianca clattering from his grip. It was more likely an accident than an attack, someone else’s blow sending their opponent staggering into him, but either way the templar fell along with Varric to the hard stone, half atop him. He smelled blood and hot, panicked breath, locked eyes with a wild, crimson stare from beneath the visor of their helmet. There were spurs of red lyrium protruding from every joint in the plate armour, inches from Varric’s face, and the earlier enticing draw of it had gone, utterly; now he felt only a sick, all-encompassing horror. He was sure, as sure as he was of anything, that if it touched him he would die. It would crawl under his skin, crystallise his blood, burst from his eyeballs, make him love it even as it tore him apart. Varric let out an inarticulate cry of terror and lashed out with his fists and his feet, kicking the struggling figure off him, scrambling backwards on his hands, thinking of nothing but getting away. His hand met a chunk of stone, fallen from some crumbled wall, and his fingers closed around it like it was the Maker’s own salvation. As the templar struggled to rise, Varric launched himself forward, rock in hand, and dashed it into the templar’s head, cleaving in the helmet, again and again until the figure stopped moving and everything was red, red, red.

He scrambled to his feet, panting, and seized his crossbow from where it had fallen, only a few feet away, swinging it up…only to see the chaos around him was already abating. The clash of weapons had stopped and only the Chargers still stood, their fallen attackers lying around their feet. The fight was over. But Varric couldn’t seem to move. His heart was hammering in his chest. His mouth was dry. The floor was littered with corpses, red crystal and silver plate stained with gore. There had only been about a dozen templars, besides the behemoth, badly outnumbered by the Chargers even as they’d attacked, made mad by the power of the lyrium coursing through their veins. And now Varric’s companions were sheathing their weapons already, as though the threat had passed, as though another attack couldn’t come at any moment. As though this was over, when they were still in the red, beating, violent heart of it. And they were smiling, slapping each other on the back as if this were some day at the beach. Some of them were even bending down to start to search the bodies where they lay, and Varric felt a lurch of fear and anger.

“I said don’t touch it,” he snarled. “Didn’t any of you hear?”

They don’t listen. They don’t respect you. You’re not their leader. Even now they’re looking at you like you’re the idiot, the mad fool.

Bull gave him an odd look, then turned to the Chargers. “Leave the bodies,” he said, and the repetition of his order, as if it had meant nothing the first time, made the anger coil tighter in Varric’s chest. “We can search them when this is over. This won’t be the last of ‘em.”

Looking back down to Varric, he said, in a slightly quieter tone: “You alright, Boss?”

“I’m fine,” said Varric, not troubling to keep his own voice down as he slung Bianca over his back. “No thanks to you. Aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard?”

Bull’s smile was gone. In fact, nobody was smiling now. “Right,” he said, after a long pause. “Sorry, Boss. Won’t happen again.”

“Good. And keep your people under control, won’t you?”

A light touch on his shoulder made him flinch and spin around, reaching instinctively for his crossbow again…but it was only Cassandra, who was scrutinising him with a troubled expression, her dark brows drawn together.

“Inquisitor,” she said. “A word, if you will.”

“I’m not in the mood for a lecture, Seeker.”

“I am not in the least concerned with your moods, Varric,” she said, a hint of steel in her voice. “A word. Now.”

She walked away without bothering to see if he was following, and it was that show of unspoken faith in him being reasonable that meant Varric grudgingly did as she asked, walking after Cassandra as she led him away from the fallen bodies and down to the edge of a wide stone platform nearby, a dock that looked out over the sea. There was a boat tied up here, bobbing in the waves at the vast mouth of the cave, and crates and barrels of supplies were piled up on the slippery stone, presumably having just been unloaded. Varric sat down on a crate, facing away from the Chargers and the dead templars behind him. Beyond the dark, dripping mouth of the cave, the sea was drenched in sunlight, a gleaming expanse stretching to the horizon. Far out amongst the waves, a huge, ancient statue of a dwarf still stood, holding a war hammer above his head, victorious even long after all other dwarves had been driven far from this place, sturdier and more intransigent by far than his flesh and blood kin. It must be nice, Varric thought, to be made of stone. To be able to look upon all this waste and ruin and feel nothing.

Cassandra stood next to him, looking out to sea as well, and he braced himself for the sermon, but she said nothing. Varric took the brief moment of respite to try and calm his jangling nerves. With the rhythmic crashing of the waves in his ears and the sea air on his face, it was easier here to shut out the singing, and Varric breathed deeply, in and out. The smell of salt and the calling of distant gulls reminded him of Kirkwall. Fuck, it made him so homesick that he felt it almost like a physical force, dragging at him from across the Waking Sea. What he wouldn’t give to be there right now, far away from here, from all this.

A hand appeared in his peripheral vision, holding a waterskin.

“Drink,” said Cassandra.

It wasn’t quite a request and not quite an order, but Varric found as he grasped the waterskin that he was thirsty. He took a long swig, and then another, before passing it back. It was hard to look directly at her, right now. Easier to look at the sea.

“You are unwell, Varric,” said Cassandra.

“I’m fine, Seeker,” he replied. “Just got annoyed, that’s all.”

“I have seen you annoyed many times, but I have never seen you be ill-mannered to a friend without good cause.”

Guilt slid in like a knife between Varric’s ribs, and he tensed around it.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just—”

“It is the red lyrium,” Cassandra cut in bluntly. And then, in slightly gentler tones: “You have been exposed to it more than most. And it has taken a great deal from you. There is no shame in admitting that it affects you.”

Varric opened his mouth instinctively to snap a denial…and then closed it again. When he did finally reply, his voice came out dull, and bleak.

“It takes everything,” he said. “Everything. My brother, my city…it even took you.” He looked down at his hands in his lap, unwilling for Cassandra to see his face as he spoke. “You don’t know…you can’t know what that was like, Seeker,” he said. “The strongest, most stubborn person I know and it still took you along with the rest. Maker, what it made of you…”

The memory of it glowed before his eyes, as clearly as if he were seeing it again for the first time. The jagged, glowing crystals bursting from her skin, the feverish crimson brightness of her eyes. Her voice, rusty with pain, humming with the song. The remains of the Seekers at Caer Oswin hadn’t even been close to that grotesquery, the corruption that had taken her body by inches over a slow, agonising year. It had been in her blood, in her very bones.

Varric gripped his hands together, a strange parody of prayer, afraid that if he unclasped them, they might be shaking. He sensed, rather than saw, Cassandra kneel down in front of him; the clank of her armour, her voice nearer when she next spoke.

“Red lyrium has done nothing to me,” she said firmly. “It can do nothing. I am a Seeker of Truth, and it cannot touch me. They would have to force it upon me, and I swear by Andraste I would die first. Varric, look at me, please.”

Varric closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, and when he opened them again and looked up he saw only Cassandra as he knew her now, kneeling in front of him with a grave, determined expression. It was odd, to see her face on level with his own; he didn’t think he’d ever been so close to her before. There was a very faint scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, brought out by the sun.

“You said at Adamant that you trusted me,” she said. “Did you mean that?”

“Of course.” The answer came easily to his lips, and he saw the flash of something like relief in Cassandra’s eyes.

“I’m glad of it,” she said, “because I am going to ask you to do me a favour, and you will not like it.”

Varric’s heart sank. “You want me to go back to the camp,” he said.

Cassandra nodded. “I cannot order you. As the Inquisitor, you have the right to do as you will. But as your friend, I promise you that I will see that the red lyrium is destroyed. Every last piece of it.”

To his lasting astonishment, she reached out and took his hands in her own. She gave them a brief, emphatic squeeze. “You are the strongest person I know, Varric,” she said. “But being the Inquisitor does not mean you have to do everything yourself.”

Varric felt a dozen arguments rise to his lips. He felt the sickening bile in his belly of anger, resentment, suspicion. The Seeker wants you away from the red lyrium, when you’re the one who brought her here in the first place. What does she know about you, about what you can or can’t handle? What right does she have to make that call?

But…he’d said he trusted her. Cullen had placed his trust in her as well, when he had decided to stop taking lyrium, because Cassandra was clear eyed about these things, honest. Divine Justinia had trusted her too. And the Seeker had never lied to him in all the time he’d known her, not once.

“Alright,” Varric said, tamping down the humiliation of defeat, the sting of anger. “You’re right, I’m no use to any of you like this. I’ll go back.” It was a kind of relief, to say the words. He tried not to think of the image, burned forever into his mind, of Cassandra walking away in the hall of Redcliffe, the last time he had fled on her order. The way she hadn’t even looked back.

We will hold the main door for as long as we can.

“Just…be careful, Seeker,” Varric said. “Please.”

Cassandra no longer looked surprised, or sceptical, at his concern. She simply said, “I will,” and released his hands, brushing off her knees as she stood up.

Varric watched her walk away until she rejoined the others, and then turned away himself, unable to stand what he might see in their expressions as she told them where he was going. He got up from the crate and started to make his way back through the gloomy halls of his stupid, doomed ancestors, trying to ignore the tantalising draw of the lyrium that tugged at his mind even as he walked away. He was surprised at how short the journey back to the entrance was – it felt like he'd been in here swallowed by the darkness and the red for hours.

The first step back in the sunlight was like the first breath of air after being underwater, and the further away Varric got from the templars’ outpost, the better he felt, enough to feel profoundly relieved at having taken Cassandra’s advice. He also found himself frightened, retrospectively, about the strength of the bitter emotions he had experienced back in that horrible place, that he recognised now had been alien, far beyond his control.

Varric was in no mood to appreciate the fine day and the picturesque scenery of the walk back. By the time he returned to the Blades of Hessarian camp, he was burdened not just with wounded pride, but a genuine feeling that he’d let people down. He was the Inquisitor, after all; he should be leading from the front, not slinking off with his tail between his legs because he couldn’t handle exposure to something that they were bound to encounter, again and again. They were facing an enemy whose greatest weapon was arguably red lyrium. He would have to find a way to deal with the stuff without falling apart, sooner or later.

The image of Cassandra’s grave, sympathetic face made his guts clench. He’d let her down too; the Seeker who had such unwavering faith in him, even when he annoyed the hell out of her, even when he fucked up. Varric badly wanted to be worthy of that faith, and of her friendship, which had been so hard won. Andraste’s tits, he’d brought her out here as a distraction from her worries, not to add to them.

Now he could do nothing but wait.

Feeling that he may as well try to be of some use, Varric went out into the hills with a couple of the Blades and shot one of the big curly-horned rams that were common in the area, the three of them carrying their prize back to camp between them. Soon it was turning on a spit over a fire in the middle of the compound, and Varric was working with his sleeves rolled up in the hot sun to help fix a section of the wooden stockade that surrounded the camp. Soft-handed businessman and writer he may be by trade, but he wasn’t too proud to do a bit of manual labour from time to time, and whittling and hauling the huge wooden stakes was better than sitting around thinking about red lyrium crawling through the veins of his companions, their last thoughts before the madness took them that their leader had left them to die.

“Inquisitor, ser!” Just as the sun was starting to set behind the distant horizon, a young woman jogged up to him and attempted a sort of half-salute, obviously unsure of the protocol. “They’re back.”

Varric was at the gate and squinting out anxiously into the dying rays of the sun in record time. He found himself holding his breath as the Chargers approached, only releasing it when he recognised the familiar silhouettes of Bull and Cassandra walking at the front. He immediately felt vaguely guilty about it; just because the two of them had made it back safely didn’t mean everyone had. The guilt increased as the group drew closer, and he saw that Cassandra was sporting a split lip and a large purpling bruise across the right side of her face, her eye slightly swollen, though she looked otherwise unhurt, and raised a hand in greeting when she spotted him.

Varric had been bracing himself for the questions from everyone he’d dragged out here about what had happened to him; the concern, the barely concealed disappointment at his having turned tail and run from a fight, something the Chargers had surely never done. But the expected awkwardness never came. Instead, when they walked in through the gates, Bull roared with approval at the sight of the ram turning on the spit, and clapped Varric on the shoulder so firmly he could have sworn he sunk an inch into the ground.

“It was a rout, Boss,” Bull said. “The Chargers cleaned house.”

At this, the Chargers raised a ragged cheer, already spreading out around the campfire and gathering round casks of ale.

“We lose anyone?” asked Varric. Besides me, he thought.

“Nah. Skinner broke her arm trying some heroic bullshit—” Bull nodded towards the elven woman, whose arm was indeed in a makeshift sling bound to her chest and appeared to be having an argument with the Chargers’ medic, Stitches “—but no-one’s getting any interesting scars from this one. Although the Seeker…”

“Is fine, thank you for your concern,” said Cassandra, repressively.

“You should’ve seen the other guy,” said Bull, and Varric found himself waiting again for the questions: Where were you, anyway? What happened? What kind of Inquisitor abandons his people like that?

But Bull just stretched out his arms above his head and said: “Good day’s work all round. Let’s drink.”

“Lady Seeker—” Stitches wandered up at that moment and passed Cassandra a small pot of something. “Elfroot salve,” he said. “It’ll help with the swelling.”

“Thank you,” said Cassandra.

“It’s an honour to fight alongside you, my lady,” said Stitches, a touch pink in the face, before heading back to the others.

“Suck-up,” muttered Bull under his breath, though he was grinning. “Maybe he needs something to help with his swelling.”

“Don’t be crude,” said Cassandra sternly. She sat down on one of the huge wooden logs that served as benches around the fire and unstopped the pot. Then she prodded tentatively with her other hand at her face, obviously unsure exactly where the damage had been done, wincing slightly when she hit a sensitive part.

“Do either of you have a mirror glass?” she asked.

“If only Sparkler were here,” said Varric. He held out his hand. “Pass it over Seeker, I’ll do it. I can see better than you right now.”

She did so, as Bull wandered off to join the others at the casks, and Varric stood in front of her, dipping his bare fingers into the little pot. The salve inside was cool, and certainly smelled herbal.

“Close your eyes,” he said, and Cassandra obeyed. Varric was struck, suddenly, by the realisation that they were mirroring their positions from only hours ago, when she had kneeled in front of him and taken his hands. They were the same height again, for the second time that day. If only he had ignored her warning, shaken off his stupid weakness and stayed to fight alongside her, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Or maybe she would have gotten hurt worse, trying to protect his useless hide. You could waste a lot of time thinking about ‘maybe’.

Varric reached out and smoothed the salve into Cassandra’s skin, skimming his thumb as lightly as he could along her purpling cheekbone, rubbing little circles into her temple. She winced again, and her nose wrinkled slightly, he thought more from the smell than from pain.

“Pretty sure I remember telling you to be careful, Seeker,” he said, more for something to say than out of real admonishment.

“And so I was,” said Cassandra, her eyes still closed as he worked the salve gently into her skin. “I very carefully killed every red templar I saw.”

Varric chuckled and withdrew his hand from her face, only really aware of the strange intimacy of the moment when he stepped back. He cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly.

“Done,” he said, and when Cassandra opened her eyes he handed the little pot back to her. “But there’s some left for later. Does it feel any better?”

“More numb,” said Cassandra. “Which is an improvement.” She stood up, abruptly. “Come, we should get something to eat before the Chargers tear that ram down to the bone.”

She was right to be worried – the rams of Ferelden were hefty creatures, with enough meat on one animal to feed a village, but the Chargers had worked up an appetite, and they feasted heartily and drank deeply around the campfire that night as they exchanged increasingly boastful and improbable anecdotes about the fight against the templars. When Bull claimed to have cleaved off two heads with one swing of his axe, it caused Krem to recount – with much accompanying groaning from his Chief – a time on one job that his axe had gotten stuck in the bark of a living tree they’d been hired to take down, and Bull had refused to let go, a story which had even Cassandra laughing until tears ran down her cheeks.

To be honest with himself, Varric had dreaded the Seeker’s reaction to the day’s events most of all; her disapproval, or worse, her pity. But she only engaged him in casual conversation about how the Inquisition might use the old dwarven port now that it had been cleared out, and how the Blades of Hessarian had suggested they might move to a permanent base there and act as protection for future Inquisition travel and trade across the Waking Sea. She solicited his opinion on trade opportunities in the Free Marches, and what he thought the general opinion in Kirkwall might be on the matter, and she didn’t say a word about what had happened in the halls of Daerwin's Mouth. No-one did. They joked and they feasted and they toasted to their victory and their Chief and their Inquisitor, and not one of them said a single damn word.

Wicked Grace really was a great leveller. In spite of his reputation, Varric really wasn’t that bothered about gambling; he’d never been at risk of becoming one of the down-and-outs in Darktown who would wager their own teeth for the thrill of one more roll of the dice. No, what Varric liked was a bunch of people round a table, a fire blazing in the hearth and the sound of shared laughter. Sure, there was some fun to be had in a game of chance, in figuring out someone’s tells and calling their bluffs, in exchanging a little good-natured trash talk and scooping up a pile of coins after brazening out a round on nothing but a pair of Serpents and a shit-eating grin…but that wasn’t why he played.

He played for conversation. And that meant he won every time.

The game Varric had roped Cassandra into at The Herald’s Rest was now a regular weekly occasion at Skyhold – everyone knew when and where, and everyone knew they were welcome. Rank meant nothing around that table, even for the Inquisitor, and Varric appreciated that more than anyone.

There had been a brief pall cast by Blackwall’s absence after the revelation of his true identity, but Varric and Bull between them refused to let the tradition die, and – somewhat unexpectedly – Cassandra too attended the games almost religiously. Varric wasn’t sure if she saw it as just another one of her duties, or if she was just so stubborn she was determined to get better at playing, but either way she seemed to genuinely enjoy herself, so he counted it as a win. Aside from the three of them, the other players came and went as they liked. Sera had gotten bored with the game quickly, and the chances of either Vivienne or Solas joining were about as likely as Corypheus himself showing up at the tavern and asking to be dealt in, but there were enough regular players for a lively rotation. Dorian often joined the table; there for either the gossip he absorbed or just there for Bull, Varric couldn’t entirely tell. There were usually a couple of the Chargers about too, happy to make up numbers and lose a bit of coin – no-one was playing for very high stakes. Lead Scout Harding also sometimes dropped in when she wasn’t out on a mission, after mentioning an interest in passing; she was an indifferent player, but made up for it with a truly astonishing array of wild stories of things she’d seen on scouting missions across Thedas. Even Cole showed up more often than not, sometimes visible only to Varric, happier to watch than to join in himself and absorbing the conversation with a studious look of one who was trying to learn more than just how to play cards.

Dorian’s masterstroke was in persuading Cullen to join, which meant there was occasionally someone who was just as bad as Cassandra. Cullen was a skilled and dedicated chess player, a genuinely talented strategist, but hopeless at any game that involved deception. It was a lack matched only by his utter confidence that he was getting the hang of it every time, and one memorable night the whole table was reduced to helpless laughter as Josephine – who enjoyed a good game but rarely had the time – relieved him of first his coin purse, then his valuables, and eventually his clothes, as Cullen steadfastly refused to fold. Luckily the Commander was a gracious loser.

Varric had more reason than usual to be grateful to Cullen recently. The Commander having now come through the worst of his lyrium withdrawal, Varric had gone to him in confidence when he’d returned from the Storm Coast and asked for help in getting better at dealing with being around red lyrium. Cullen of course was no expert, any more than anyone else was really, but he did have experience of the extensive training that templars went through to resist the effects of magic, and some of his meditative techniques had been surprisingly helpful. Varric had often wondered whether Knight Commander Merideth’s templar abilities were what had allowed her to resist the worst effects of her red lyrium idol for so long, succumbing only at the very end to outright madness, and even then having more measure of control over her actions than Bartrand had. Varric very definitely didn’t want to end up like the former Knight Commander of Kirkwall or his brother, but he wanted to be able to at least fight the stuff that had destroyed so many lives.

Together, he and Cullen had drawn up a kind of program of exposure by degrees, using the small crystal samples that the Inquisition’s researchers worked on under carefully controlled conditions to find out what worked and what didn’t. It was unpleasant work that always made Varric feel wrung out afterwards, but he was determined to persevere. Red lyrium was dangerous, and he wouldn’t forget that, but simply being around the stuff didn’t have to be incapacitating. With Cullen’s help, he was learning to build a wall in his mind to block out the song, to recognise which of his thoughts were really his own, to hold on to the stubborn, flinty core of Varric Tethras that refused to let some stupid singing rock make him a burden on the people who depended on him.

That was also something Cullen genuinely understood. And it helped the Commander too, Varric realised, to feel like he was being useful, to know he was helping the Inquisitor in a way he still felt he had failed his old boss. Sometimes Varric wondered what the Cullen Rutherford he’d known back in Kirkwall would have thought if he could see them now. He wasn’t even sure what the Varric Tethras he’d known in Kirkwall would have thought – in a way, that guy felt just as much like a stranger to him now.

Tonight, though, there would be no red lyrium training, no paperwork and no meetings. Varric had given himself a night off. He was in The Herald’s Rest, but not to meet anyone, just to write. He’d tried to be better at allowing himself time to do it, to carve out little pieces of space in his life so he didn’t lose himself in the Inquisitor again, and there was nothing that made him feel more at home than sitting in the corner of a noisy, crowded tavern and scribbling a story. He’d actually started working on another chapter of Swords and Shields, because why not? He’d dashed the last one off as a rush job, but he wanted to take more time over this one, surprise the Seeker with it sometime. She’d been through a hell of a lot lately, and anything that might make her smile was certainly worth his time.

It was more difficult to concentrate this evening though, as a group of rowdy recruits were drinking at a nearby table, and while Varric didn’t generally have a problem with a convivial hubbub – he actually found it harder to write in silence – the men’s voices carried, and he couldn’t help but keep being distracted by snatches of their conversation, which seemed to be primarily about their recent conquests. A Ferelden with sandy blond hair seemed to be the de facto leader of the group, or perhaps just the drunkest, because his voice kept rising above the rest.

“— not bad, but too sweet for me,” Varric overheard him saying loudly, obviously interrupting a disagreement among his fellows with his own vitally important opinion. “I like ‘em a bit fiery, you know? No fun if they don’t fight back. A woman should have a bit of fire to her.”

“What about the Seeker then?” said one of his friends. “She’d fight back. The Herald’s mabari, they call her.”

“I wouldn’t say no to having her on a leash,” said the blond man, an unmistakable leer in his voice, along with the faint slur of drink. “Have you seen the arse on that one? Nice tits too, the whole package.”

“You haven’t seen her tits,” protested the man next to him.

“Seen her out of her armour,” said the blond man. “It don’t take much imagination.”

“She’s got a bit of a stick up that arse, though,” commented one of his friends, but this objection only spurred the blond drunkard on.

“Oh yeah, she’s a Chantry type through and through,” he said. “Probably never had a real man. I’d teach her a thing or two, make no mistake.” He grinned. “All those years of denial, I tell you mate, she’ll be gagging for it. I bet she rides like a fucking stallion. I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

Varric stood up from his chair abruptly, sending it scraping back across the floor with a loud noise, and turned to the man who was holding court. “Hey, knock it off, would you?” he said, surprising himself with the force of his anger. “Don’t talk about the Seeker like that.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the blond man said, squinting at him belligerently. “No shortarse nug-merchant is gonna tell me who I can polish my staff to.” His friends chuckled, a touch uncomfortably, but the man obviously took heart from the sound. “Now piss off and mind your own business. I’ll talk about who I want, how I want, and if you don’t...”

He trailed off, aware that Varric and his friends were now all looking past him.

“What was that about Seeker Pentaghast?” said a deep voice from behind him. The man turned and looked up. And then further up, into the pleasantly smiling face of the Iron Bull.

“Ah...I...” he stammered. “We were just...”

“Singing the Seeker’s praises, I expect,” said Bull, with a horrible calm amiability. “Not surprising. She’s a hell of a woman, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Er...yes.”

Bull clapped him on the shoulder, and the man visibly winced. “Good to hear! After all, no-one works harder than the Seeker. She’s one of the people who started the whole damn Inquisition after all! None of us would be here if it wasn’t for her.”

“Well, I...”

“And instead of just sitting on her ass in a castle somewhere, she’s out there nearly every damn day, saving the world with her own two hands, right alongside the Inquisitor,” continued Bull. “Y’know, not so long ago I saw them fight off a horde of undead to save a little town of people that no-one else gave a damn about. The Seeker fought right through the night in the rain and the mud and I never once heard her complain. Ah shit, what was the name of that town again? Crestwood! That was it!”

He turned his gaze upon one of the blond man’s friends. “Say, isn’t that where your parents live, Harper?”

“Yes,” said Harper, in a very small voice.

“Thought so. Can’t think why I suddenly remembered that fact. Weird how that happens, right?”

Bull gave a very theatrical yawn, stretching his arms above his head in a way that somehow managed to flex every single muscle he had. “Well, I could stand around chatting all night,” he said, “but I can see I’m keeping you boys from your beds. You look tired. Time to call it a night, huh?”

There was a chorus of scraping chairs as the men all got hastily, if somewhat unsteadily, to their feet, and fled the tavern. Varric thought he might have spotted the bartender give a faint chuckle, the first time he’d seen the man so much as crack a smile, but Bull only looked satisfied as he turned back to Varric.

“You alright boss?”

“Yeah,” said Varric. He realised he was tense as a bowstring, his hands curled unconsciously into fists at his side. He relaxed them, embarrassed. “Thanks, Tiny.”

“Any time,” said Bull. “That guy was a real asshole. Hope you noticed my restraint in not punching him through the wall.”

“Noticed yes, appreciated, maybe not so much,” said Varric, with more honesty than he’d intended. “He is absolutely fired though. Can I do that? Fire people? Shit, I didn’t even get his name.”

“I’ll talk to Cullen,” said Bull. “Bet he can find the guy a posting somewhere real nice.”

“How about the Deep Roads?” muttered Varric.

“I hear the Fallow Mire is just beautiful this time of year,” said Bull, with a particularly evil grin.

Varric chuckled. “Really though, thanks for stepping in,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a barroom brawl, and I don’t think Josephine would look too kindly on the Inquisitor actually starting one.” He gestured to the barman. “This round’s on me.”

They took stools side by side at the bar as the barman pushed over a couple of flagons, Varric perched on his stool with his legs not touching the floor, Bull causing his to creak dangerously under his weight. Neither of them noticed that kind of thing anymore; they were both used to the world not really being built for them.

Varric took a sip of his drink – small beer, the barman knew his habits by now – and reflected uncomfortably that Bull had taken on what should have been his role in the little almost-altercation that had just happened. Varric was usually the peacemaker, the one to talk people down with words. Instead, he’d acted on instinct, let his anger get the better of him. It was, ironically, the sort of thing that the Seeker would have done. Speaking of which…

“Do they really call Cassandra ‘the Herald’s mabari’?” Varric asked.

“You hadn’t heard that one?” said Bull. “Yeah, it’s been doing the rounds. You can’t really blame people for it – she’s by your side wherever you go, and she bites the head off anyone who so much as raises a finger against you.” He gave Varric a sideways look. “Though that goes both ways, seems like.”

Varric gave a sort of half shrug, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. In truth, he’d heard the rumours. When exactly they’d started he didn’t know, but perhaps it was inevitable that anyone who worked so closely together as he and Cassandra did would become the subject of…speculation. Always one to stir the pot, Dorian had openly commented on their apparent intimacy lately, and hadn’t been subtle in his implications. Even Varric had to admit that the habitual bickering between him and the Seeker was less barbed these days and something closer to being playful, even affectionate. On occasion it strayed dangerously close to flirting, or at least might appear that way to an uninformed observer.

Which of course was a ridiculous thought; Cassandra herself would surely take a swing at him again just for thinking of it that way. Or of her that way. Which Varric wasn’t. Obviously.

He had become…fond of her, that much was true. How could he not, after everything they’d been through? They’d fought dragons, faced down Magisters, quite literally been to the Fade and back together. More to the point, now that they were over their prickly mistrust of each other, Varric found he enjoyed Cassandra’s company – her dry sense of humour, her fierce determination, her unshakable faith, her willingness to roll up her sleeves and get her hands dirty rather than leave other people to sort out the problems she saw before her. There was a great deal to admire about the Seeker, if you looked for it. Things like ‘duty’ and ‘honour’ that were so often nothing but pretty words to other people became real when you were around her. With her family name and her titles, she should by all rights have been an unbearable snob, but she treated everyone they met, from Orlesian Dukes to elven servants, in precisely the same way.

Some days she reminded him of Aveline, some days of Hawke, occasionally even of Merrill, in her unwavering, often blinding convictions. But she was so much herself, Cassandra, that was the most charming thing about her. Utterly without guile or pretence, just a straightforwardly decent person who put herself on the line day after day for other people and never expected a word of thanks for it. And she liked trashy romance books and blueberry pastries, and tree pollen made her sneeze, and she was truly terrible at cards but she’d never lost a sparring match with the Iron Bull, not once. Varric had become used to having the Seeker around, as familiar a presence as the crossbow on his back or the mark on his hand; in fact, he was finding it increasingly difficult to remember what his life had been like without her in it.

But the idea that there was anything more salacious to their relationship just went to prove that people never let common sense get in the way of a good story. As if Cassandra Pentaghast, for whom no handsome Chevalier in shining armour had ever been good enough, would look twice at one Varric Tethras – rogue, habitual liar and all-around pain in the ass – as a romantic prospect! The idea was laughable.

I think you’re wonderful.

Varric took a sip of his beer to douse the warmth that flickered in his chest, threatening to spread to his face. “Speaking of people joined at the hip,” he said, casually, “what’s the deal with you and Sparkler lately? I haven’t seen him around here for a bit.”

Bull chuckled. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know,” he said easily.

“That bad, huh?”

Bull took a much more hearty swig from his own tankard. “We fuck, he decides it’s gotten too serious and picks a fight, we fuck again, he avoids me for days,” he said, and then shrugged. “He’s figuring his shit out.”

“Sounds kind of rough on you.”

“I can wait. Good things don’t come easy.”

Varric let the subject lie at that, but he was a little surprised at Bull’s serious tone. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been – as more time went by, the bonds of the Inquisition were being forged into something stronger than just a shared purpose. His own unexpected friendship with Cassandra was not the only relationship that had changed.

He chatted with Bull idly about this and that; the latest report from the Wardens who had been deployed to investigate a serious Darkspawn incursion on a town in Orlais, the High Dragon nesting off the Storm Coast whose lair the Blades of Hessarian had recently stumbled across, the new Antivan sweetmeats seller that had turned up at Skyhold recently that Bull was almost certain was a spy for someone, and who he had therefore been feeding increasingly outrageous false information to see how long it would take for the man to figure out he’d been rumbled. But it was getting late, so once they’d both finished their drinks Varric bid Bull goodnight and left the tavern, thinking ruefully that he hadn’t gotten much writing done after all that.

As he strolled through the great hall on his way back to his bed, Varric found himself intercepted by Leliana, who slipped out of a shadow in that way she had when you couldn’t exactly have accused her of hiding, but you wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t said anything.

“Ah, Inquisitor,” she said, as though they had just run into each other by chance and she hadn’t obviously been waiting for him to pass by. “You have a visitor.”

Varric was on the point of turning this accidental small piece of poetry into a longer limerick, when Leliana added:

“She is waiting for you in your private rooms. I thought it best she not be seen.”

“My—”

But Leliana had already walked away. Varric stared after her for a moment, taken aback. Leliana wasn’t the stickler for social etiquette that Josephine was, but it was still a pretty presumptuous move to invite anyone for a private audience this late at night in the Inquisitor’s own chambers. Leliana was no slouch when it came to security – she must have been damn sure this person wasn’t a threat to allow them to get so close to him.

Varric made his way up to his room, trepidation increasing with every step up the long stone staircase. He had already narrowly avoided one fight today, and felt like he’d suddenly been set up for another, with no idea why, or with whom. Leliana had said ‘she’, which had one obvious explanation, but surely Hawke wouldn’t bother with all this cloak-and-dagger stuff anymore? Both Merril and Isabela might have their own reasons for wanting to remain unseen, but why would either of them turn up out of the blue like this? Could one of them be in trouble?

The door was ajar when he reached it. Curiosity warring with unease, Varric pushed it open and climbed the final set of stairs, pausing at the top to look around his bedroom, half expecting an attack. Instead, there was only a small figure standing at the fireplace, prodding the flames with the iron poker, apparently wholly unconcerned with her surroundings.

She must have heard his footsteps, and his sharp intake of breath, because as Varric froze on the top of the stairs, hardly able to believe his eyes, his visitor turned to him with a smile of greeting.

“Hey Varric,” she said. “Nice place. You always did know how to land on your feet.”

“Bianca. What are you doing here?”

Chapter Text

As Varric stepped inside the door that led to Valammar, he couldn’t help but wince as it creaked shut behind him. It was a hastily erected wooden entrance set in the cliff behind a waterfall in the Hinterlands, no ancient dwarven door, and yet still in his imagination…he heard another door slam shut, echoing from his own past. The door deep in the forgotten thaig that Bartrand had closed behind him, trapping his own brother on the other side to die. Varric had endured weeks down there in the dark with Hawke and her sister, and Anders too, all there because of him, because of his stupid promises. Weeks of fending off darkspawn and trudging down endless twisting tunnels that all looked the same, the hollow ache of hunger in their bellies as they shared out meagre rations, the growing fear that they would never see the sunlight again. They had all been hoping to change their lives with that expedition, and they certainly had. The Blight had found Bethany down there, sealed her fate years before she went to meet it, but none of them had really emerged from that darkness the same as they had gone in.

Varric really hated the Deep Roads. There wasn’t much that could have induced him to walk them again. But as he ventured forward through the narrow rocky tunnel and out into the vast cave, Blackwall and Solas silent and alert as his side, a small figure detached itself from the shadows of a wall and came to meet them. The reason they were here.

“Finally!” Bianca exclaimed. “I started to think you weren’t coming!”

Under other circumstances, it might have struck Varric as darkly ironic to hear Bianca say those words to him, considering all the times he’d waited for her, only for her not to show. When she’d told him back at Skyhold that she had some things to take care of, and would meet him out here to travel underground, a not insignificant part of Varric had expected her not to turn up.

But in spite of his doubts, he had never been able to say no to Bianca. And besides, she had done what all the Inquisition’s resources had been unable to – found the source of Corypheus’ supply of red lyrium. She’d told him about humans carrying the stuff out by the cartful from a hidden entrance to the Deep Roads she knew of, one she’d used in the past. The location was in the Ferelden Hinterlands, not far from where the Inquisition had encountered those lyrium smugglers way back when, or from the cave where they’d discovered the dead dwarf and the raw vein that had broken the surface.

“Nobody said you had to hang out in the creepy cave while you waited,” Varric said, trying to keep his voice light as Bianca joined them.

“Well I did wait,” said Bianca, with a brief flash of a smile, perhaps also appreciating the irony. “So let’s make it quick. These idiots are carrying the red lyrium out in unprotected containers.”

The reminder of why they were here focused Varric’s thoughts somewhat. There was no time to dwell on the past right now, and without another word they started up the flights of stone steps leading to the Valammar thaig. The enormous cave that served as little more than an entrance hall to the underground city was open to the sky far above their heads. What used to be the cave roof had long since crumbled into the abyss below, letting through a rushing waterfall that crashed endlessly into the impenetrable deeps, and wide shafts of sunlight illuminating the ruined upper levels of what had once clearly been a huge dwarven outpost. It all reminded Varric horribly of the port at Daerwin’s Mouth, but at least what lyrium grew here was far underground. This entrance might be how Corypheus’ lackeys were bringing the red stuff to the surface, but the primeval thaig where Bartrand had trapped him long ago was many days journey away by the Deep Roads. Varric sincerely hoped he wouldn’t ever have to see that cursed place again.

He made hasty introductions for Blackwall and Solas as they walked, but if Bianca was surprised at his choice of an elven apostate and a notorious murderer as back-up, she didn’t show it. Of course, Varric didn’t exactly introduce them as such, but he was sure Bianca had done her research, and knew who his two companions were well enough. But then, maybe she was used to him having unusual friends by now. She was probably just glad Hawke wasn’t here with him – the two of them had never gotten along, on the couple of brief occasions they’d met.

The company Varric kept these days didn’t pass completely without comment though. As they stepped onto a vast stone bridge across a yawning chasm, flanked all along by dour dwarven statues, Bianca said conversationally: “See you managed to give your guard the slip, then.”

“What’s that?”

“The woman with the scar and an expression like someone just spit in her ale,” said Bianca.

“Oh, the Seeker,” said Varric, in a voice he sincerely hoped sounded more casual to Bianca than it did to him. Bianca had only been at Skyhold for a few hours, keeping a low profile before slipping away as quickly as she’d arrived, but she’d obviously observed more than he’d realised. “She’s not so bad. Overprotective, maybe. Keeping me alive is sort of her whole job, and she takes it pretty seriously.”

“She looked like she takes everything seriously,” said Bianca. “Never thought I’d find you hostage to a bunch of Chantry types, Varric.”

Varric couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Not sure ‘hostage’ is the right word,” he said. “I am technically in charge, you know.”

The truth was, he hadn’t given Cassandra any chance to object to being left behind. He’d told no-one but Leliana where he was going, asking her to keep this mission on a strictly need-to-know basis. If someone from Bartrand’s doomed expedition had leaked the location of the primeval thaig to Corypheus, the last thing the Inquisition needed was to announce to the entire world where to get a plentiful supply of superpowered evil lyrium. So as far as everyone back at Skyhold was concerned, Varric had simply left on a brief trip to Redcliffe on some vague, boring diplomatic visit to Arl Teagan. Bianca was right – they needed to get in and out of Valammar quickly and quietly, shut down this operation and seal off the entrance before anyone else found out about it.

Still, it wasn’t as if the two of them could reasonably have ventured into the middle of a red lyrium mining operation in the Deep Roads without some help. But Varric just hadn’t been able to bring himself to involve the Seeker in all this. She’d be anxious about him being around red lyrium again, and Varric needed to prove to himself that he could handle it without her there to keep a watchful eye on him. Besides, Bianca and Cassandra were from such different parts of his life, it had been...weird, just the thought of seeing them both in the same place at once, in way he couldn’t quite define. Varric’s first thought had been to not take Cassandra with them to Valammar since Bianca would be there and it was bound to be awkward. His second thought was that he definitely should take Cassandra along, because otherwise it would be obvious he was trying to keep them apart from each other. His third thought was mainly wondering how his priorities had got so screwed up that his first two thoughts had been about Cassandra.

The truth was that Varric didn’t want Bianca making any mistaken assumptions about he and the Seeker, as a few other people had done recently. That would just be embarrassing for everyone involved. And he didn’t want Cassandra making assumptions about Bianca either. Varric’s relationship with her had always been…complicated, and the Seeker saw everything in black and white.

In the end Varric had asked Blackwall to come along as back-up because they were going into the Deep Roads, after all, and if the guy intended to be a real Grey Warden someday, he may as well get some practice for the inevitable. Maker knew Blackwall could keep a secret. Solas too could be relied upon not to pry too much into anyone’s personal affairs, and although he wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, Varric had come to trust the elf’s quiet competence. Something about this whole situation felt…off, and he needed people he could trust.

Not that he couldn’t trust Cassandra, of course; he trusted her more than anyone. She just wasn’t the right person for this particular mission, and he would fill her in on the whole thing once he got back. It really had nothing to do with Bianca at all.

“You had me worried, you know,” said Bianca, as they made their way over the stone bridge. “I haven’t heard from you since the Chantry explosion.”

“Has it been that long?” said Varric, a touch feebly, painfully aware of Blackwall and Solas walking behind them, almost certainly able to hear every word.

“The only reason I knew you were still alive was when suddenly people started talking about the Herald of Andraste,” said Bianca.

“Well, then you know I’ve been a little busy, what with one thing and another,” said Varric.

“So I’ve heard,” said Bianca. “Did you really walk out of the Fade?”

“Twice, actually.”

“Well, you always did know how to make an entrance.”

A shadow shifted at the base of one of the dwarven statues they were approaching, and Varric tensed. “Speaking of making an entrance…”

“I see them,” said Bianca.

In a swift movement, Varric swung his crossbow from his back. “Solas!” he yelled.

Two dwarven figures sprung from the shadows and shot crossbows of their own at Varric and Bianca in tandem, the bolts clattering off the magical barrier that Solas had cast instantly around their small group. Varric’s gaze took them in with a quick assessing sweep. Carta. The pair of ambushers clearly hadn’t been expecting to face a mage, as they looked confused at the barrier and shot off a couple more bolts before realising it was useless. That moment of hesitation, of deciding whether to attack or flee, cost them their lives. Bianca shot one through the eye with her shortbow with pinpoint accuracy, and the other Bianca – the one cradled in Varric’s arms, just as deadly – took care of the second. With both attackers felled in moments, Varric braced for more…but none came. After a minute, Solas’ barrier flickered out and the four of them walked over to examine the slumped bodies on the stone. The two dead dwarves both had heavily tattooed faces and armour that was well-made, but worn. They were Carta all right.

“Sentries,” said Blackwall. “They may have sent someone to raise the alarm.”

“Let’s hope they didn’t have time,” said Varric. “Seems like they were relying on the entrance being well hidden, so they weren’t expecting visitors. Still, keep an eye out for traps.”

They continued on, swiftly but vigilantly, through the ruins. Up at the top of the cave there were trees growing in the sunlight streaming in from above, clinging stubbornly to the rock, but as they descended, Bianca leading them down uneven staircases and over rope bridges spanning long-broken paths, the light grew dimmer. Down into the lower levels, deeper into the thaig, the evidence of the mining operation became more and more obvious. It had clearly been running for some time. The ancient dwarven rooms they passed through were piled high with crates of supplies, bedrolls and even a few desks and rugs rolled out onto the stone floor. The Carta had been living down here on a long-term basis, acting as guards for the shipments of lyrium coming up to the surface. It had probably seemed like an easy job, Varric thought grimly, since no-one else knew this entrance was here. Doubtless Corypheus – or Samson, or whoever was directly in charge of this little operation – had hired the Carta because dwarves would be naturally more resistant to the effect of the raw red lyrium. He wondered if any of them had started to hear the singing. But the rooms, though obviously recently occupied, were strangely empty. They met not another living soul.

“So, this is what you do now?” asked Bianca, as they cautiously made their way through the empty living quarters. “Running around in caves, shooting stuff…this is your day-to-day?”

She was nervous, Varric thought, and trying to make conversation to cover for it, which was unlike her. But maybe understandable, given where they were.

“I usually try to avoid the caves,” he said, game to be a distraction. “But actually, there’s a lot less shooting stuff and a lot more long, boring meetings than you would think, being the Inquisitor. It’s as bad as the Merchants’ Guild for paperwork, sometimes.”

“Aw, poor Inquisitor,” smiled Bianca.  “I hope they let you have some time off for good behaviour. You’re still writing, right?”

“You know me, it’d take more than the world ending to stop me writing.”

“So what have you been working on?”

Varric found himself genuinely touched at her asking. Bianca had always been vaguely supportive but never particularly interested in his writing. She was such a practical person, she’d never really seen the point of it. In fact, his surprise at the question meant he automatically answered truthfully, without thinking. “Oh, uh…I just finished the next chapter of Swords and Shields, if you can believe that.”

“The romance serial?” Bianca laughed delightedly. “Ancestors, Varric, why? I thought sales for that one barely paid for the ink.”

“Favour for a friend.”

“Your friend has terrible taste.”

“No kidding.”

Varric made a show of searching the trunks in the room for anything useful along with the others, while Blackwall stood guard, hoping fervently that Bianca wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions. Why did every casual conversation suddenly seem laced with tripwires? Varric had never been remotely ashamed of Swords and Shields – it was what it was, wildly unrealistic escapism, really no worse than Hard in Hightown in that respect. Varric certainly wouldn’t have made any claims to the book’s literary brilliance, especially since he had initially written a good deal of it just to annoy Aveline, but he wasn’t embarrassed by it either, for all that it was little more than a mixture of tooth-rottingly sweet romantic cliches and implausibly raunchy sex, held together with a plot so thin it barely deserved the name. Sometimes that was what people wanted to read, and who was he to judge?

But though Bianca’s laughing dismissal didn’t particularly bother him, Varric found himself oddly uncomfortable at the thought of having to admit why he’d written more of it. Or who he’d written it for. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time – it had been a peace offering to the Seeker, of a kind, an apology not for what he’d done but for the inescapable fact that he had genuinely hurt her in spite of his good intentions. Alright, so maybe it could be argued that writing a whole book for someone was overkill, but he’d been amused at the revelation that it was Cassandra’s favourite, given the subject matter.

It didn’t seem so funny now. In fact, now that he had been forced to think about it again, Varric found a part of him deep inside squirmed at the memory of some of the things he’d written; the thought of Cassandra reading them, and knowing that he’d written them, knowing that he’d written them for her…

“Copper for your thoughts?” said Bianca, as she straightened up from searching a nearby desk.

‘I’m starting to realise that writing bespoke erotica as a personal gift for a woman who is famously always by my side might give people the wrong impression about our relationship’ didn’t seem like a winning response to this, so Varric said:

“How’s whatisname?”

He knew full well what Bianca’s husband was called, but his carefully studied indifference towards the man had always amused and flattered her, so the old habit came easily.

“Bogdan?” said Bianca, casually. “He’s in Nevarra right now, selling my machine to wealthy landowners.”

Even the mention of Nevarra caused a dangerous lurch in the pit of Varric’s stomach, and he told himself furiously to get it together. “I heard some of the guild were trying to get you named a Paragon for that contraption,” he said, wrenching his thoughts back to the subjects at hand.

“A surfacer Paragon?” Bianca nudged his arm. “Well, we’ll see which of us gets there first, shall we?”

That distracted him from the dangerous line of his thoughts anyway, though not in the most pleasant way. Paragons and Carta and Deep Roads…Varric hated having to think about all this dwarfy stuff. He’d lived on the surface all his life, and though dwarves weren’t uncommon in Kirkwall at least, they were still distinctly in the minority, same as everywhere on ground level. And yet somehow it was always when Varric was surrounded by dwarven stuff that he really felt like an outsider. Maybe there was something in all that superstition about the ancestors living on in the Stone after all – it was difficult not to feel like every stern dwarven statue they passed was looking down on Varric Tethras with deep disapproval.

There were more dwarven statues of that type lining the stone bridge they were crossing now. Since a lot of these narrow walkways across the yawning chams below had already crumbled and been replaced by rope bridges, Varric didn’t feel hugely confident in the staying power of his ancestors’ architecture, but it was the only way across. He was just wondering what would happen if the Inquisitor fell into a very big hole, and whether Josephine would be able to somehow spin that into a heroic fate, when he caught sight of figures emerging from a crack in the stone wall at the far end of the bridge. These were no dwarves – though much the same build, you could tell by the way they moved what they were, that sniffing, shambling eagerness. Beside him, he heard Bianca draw in a sharp breath as she saw them too.

“Ah shit,” muttered Varric.

“What is it?” asked Blackwall, the only human in the party, squinting into the darkness.

“Darkspawn,” said Solas calmly. “Be ready.”

They came spilling from a crack in the rock like maggots pouring from a wound, maybe a dozen of them, drawing weapons and calling to each other in gleeful hisses and whoops as they spotted their nearby prey. There was nowhere to hide for the small party on the bridge, but the exposed location ended up working to their advantage – unlike the Carta sentries, who had at least concealed themselves to try and even the odds for an ambush, the darkspawn had no sense of tactics. Rushing over the narrow bridge meant they were funnelled into attacking only a few at a time, their greater numbers made meaningless.

It was close-quarters fighting; nasty, brutal work that Blackwall bore the brunt of. Varric and Bianca drew to the sides behind the heavily armoured warrior and picked off darkspawn as they flowed onto the bridge, sending them tumbling into the abyss below still clutching at the bolts sticking out of their necks. Solas could do little with his staff that wouldn’t catch the others in a lethal blast too, but he managed to freeze a few darkspawn in place, whittling down their numbers. Blackwall stood firm on the bridge like a bulwark against the horde, his sword cleaving through the ongoing spawn, the very picture of the Grey Warden he had never been. If only Cassandra could have seen him in this moment, perhaps even the Seeker might have been able to believe in the man Thom Rainier could be, rather than the man he had once been.

But Cassandra wasn’t here. There was no swift, slender figure bringing the brutal poetry of death to their foe, no flashing silver blade in the darkness, and even as Varric shot bolt after bolt into the darkspawn, even as he and his companions took them down, he still felt the Seeker’s absence every moment, like the hole where a tooth had been knocked out. The truth was, it felt wrong not to have Cassandra fighting at his side; Varric realised he hadn’t been in a single battle without her since the Conclave. Of course Blackwall was an extremely capable warrior, Grey Warden or no, and mindless darkspawn didn’t stand much chance against the four of them, but Varric was just so used to having the Seeker there. He kept expecting to see her when he turned, or hear her voice above the din of battle, shouting orders or calling out warnings. The Herald’s mabari, they called her…and where would the Herald be without her? Dead several times over by now, probably. It had been stupid to leave her behind.

None of them were dying today, though – by the time the last darkspawn had been sent howling into the abyss with a final slam of Blackwall’s shield, they were all spattered with black ichor, but uninjured. The Blight itself was an unpredictable enemy, but there was nothing any of them could do but hope the infection hadn’t passed to any of them as they fought.

“Everyone alright?” asked Varric, as they stowed their weapons, breathing hard with exertion of the skirmish.

“Never better,” said Blackwall, with a grim pleasure. “Though I wouldn’t bet on that being the last of them.”

“Guess that’s why we haven’t seen more Carta,” said Varric. “They must be dealing with a darkspawn incursion.”

“Occupational hazard in their line of work,” said Bianca. “It’s probably too much to hope for that the darkspawn have done our job for us, but I’m not surprised they’re here, especially if—” She hesitated for just a split-second, then finished. “—the noise from the mining disturbed them.”

And the thought drifted across Varric’s mind: That’s not what she was going to say.

He shoved the suspicion aside. He was getting paranoid – perhaps the red lyrium was having an effect on him after all, even still buried deep beneath them. Who was to say there couldn’t be traces of its dust even in the air they breathed down here? It wasn’t fair to start reading into every word Bianca did or didn’t say.

A few minutes later, and they were standing in front of a serious looking door, distinctly dwarven but much newer than any of the other stonework down here. Bianca had consulted a map a few times along their way – thank the Maker they had a guide who had been here before, as even if they’d stumbled across this entrance themselves, they could have gotten lost down here for days before they found the route down to the Deep Roads.

“I built these doors,” said Bianca, a touch of pride in her voice. “They probably shut this one from the other side against the darkspawn.”

“It must have taken the Carta a long time to break through in the first place,” Varric said, eyeing the solid slab of stone that looked set seamlessly into the rock wall. “It’s incredible work.”

Bianca gave no sign of hearing the compliment, bending down and doing something he couldn’t see with the door. Eventually, it gave a surprisingly soft click and actually slid down into the ground, leaving a wide opening.

“Ta-da!” Bianca said, straightening up with an ironic flourish.

“You’ve been waiting all day to do that,” said Varric, with a grin, and Bianca winked at him.

Behind the door was a fairly intact stone room that had obviously been used as another living area, though it was as empty as the rest they’d come across. Varric sincerely hoped that his theory about the Carta enforcers being drawn away to protect the mining operations from darkspawn was correct, and they weren’t just walking into some kind of ambush. But so far the occupation of Valammar seemed to be protected by secrecy rather than force of numbers. It had been the right call to come in quickly and quietly like this; they’d caught their enemies with their britches down.

Still, they had been walking down here for hours even before battling the darkspawn, and there was no reason to push their luck, and their energy, to the limit.

“Let’s rest a minute,” Varric said, once they’d done a cursory search of the room. “Catch our breath.”

“I’ll keep guard,” said Blackwall immediately, and went to take up a post at the entrance before anyone could protest. Varric opened his pack and shared out some of the bread and cheese they’d bought the day before when they’d stopped off at Redcliffe, and sat down cross-legged on the stone floor to eat, Bianca sitting next to him. Solas wandered away to examine the dwarven carvings on a nearby pillar as he ate, apparently more interested in his surroundings than in conversation, for which Varric couldn’t exactly blame him. Still, it meant he was left more or less alone with Bianca, trying to shake off his lingering sense of unease, a feeling that couldn’t just be attributed to being in the Deep Roads again. Bianca had kept her word, and was going out on a pretty big limb to help the Inquisition – to help him – and yet he’d realised it wasn’t just this mission that felt off. It was her. Ever since she’d turned up at Skyhold without warning, their conversation had felt stilted, forced, as if she were trying too hard to pretend that nothing had changed. And of course, in many ways, it hadn’t; she was the same Bianca as ever, brilliant and beautiful, with the same ready wit and that familiar smirk that used to drive him crazy. But being with her again felt different somehow, oddly unreal, like he was reading about one of his characters from a book. Every word Varric said to her he felt like he was playing a role.

“So, your workshop is doing well?” he asked, when the silence between them threatened to stretch on for long enough to be uncomfortable. This question too felt forced, rote, but Bianca either didn’t notice or was content to ignore it.

“You should come see for yourself,” she said, brushing breadcrumbs from her lap. “Come visit me sometime.”

While my husband is away. The words hung unspoken in the air, and Varric felt a little annoyed in spite of himself.

“I can’t just drop everything at a whim, Bianca,” he said, “I’ve got a lot going on, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I dropped everything to come and see you,” Bianca said, with a smile.

Varric’s heart softened. “I know,” he said. “I appreciate it, really. It was a surprise, but it’s good to see you.”

“Is it?” There was no trace of hardness in Bianca’s voice, but something more like curiosity. “Because since I’ve arrived, you haven’t exactly seemed thrilled at me being here.”

“I just don’t think you should have taken the risk, is all,” said Varric, uncomfortably aware that although this wasn’t exactly a lie, it wasn’t the whole truth either.

“There was a time when you thought I was worth the risk,” said Bianca teasingly.

“I didn’t mean to me.”

“I know,” said Bianca fondly. “But things are different now, Varric. A surfacer, leading the Inquisition? The Inquisition, which, by the way, is now the biggest buyer of lyrium in the south. And everyone knows you pulled King Bhelen’s ass out of the fire by securing a new Ferelden trade alliance. You’re going up in the world.” She smiled. “Or down, if you wanna take the dwarven view.”

“Finally meeting you at your level, huh?” said Varric, unable to keep the touch of bitterness from his words.

“You know I don’t care about that stuff,” said Bianca. “I just mean that maybe we don’t have to be so worried about being seen together anymore.”

“Tell that to your family.”

“Actually, my father knows I took this trip to meet with the Inquisition,” said Bianca. “Not why, of course, but he knows. Told me to give you his regards.”

Varric stared at her. “You’re shitting me. The only thing your father ever tried to give me was a knife in the back.”

“I told you,” said Bianca. “Things are different now.”

She reached out and took his hand, and Varric just had time to feel embarrassed at the thought that Blackwall or Solas might see this gesture, when Bianca unexpectedly raised his hand between them and started to pull off his glove.

“Can I see it?” she said, although the question was kind of a moot one, since she had already removed the glove and was turning his palm upwards even as she spoke. The Anchor glowed weakly, casting Bianca’s fascinated features in a soft green light.

“Weird,” she breathed fervently, now running her thumb lightly along the line of the mark. “It feels like scar tissue but it’s almost like a tiny Fade rift in your hand.”

She turned his hand around, manipulating it so she could see it from all angles, closing his fingers over the mark briefly and then opening them again. Varric submitted silently to this examination, watching Bianca’s expression as her head bent over his hand, the brightness of curiosity in her eyes. It had been years since they’d been together like this, since she’d been so close. He should have felt that familiar electric spark of desire at her touch, at those clever hands of hers on his bare skin after such a long time.

Instead, Varric just felt vaguely awkward. He was reminded, suddenly, of Cassandra taking his hands in hers on the Storm Coast. Her steady grip. The warmth of her hands, even through her gloves. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

He jerked his hand back from Bianca’s grasp, and she looked startled. “Does it hurt?” she asked, sympathetically.

“We should get going,” Varric said, and ignored Bianca’s look of swiftly covered confusion as he stood up and went to collect the others.

They didn’t have a long journey, it turned out, before they reached where Bianca had been leading them. Just one more level down they entered a large hall, lit by braziers and filled with crates and pallets and a couple of carts clearly used for hauling the product up to the surface. At one end there was a small desk and a couple of bookshelves of ledgers, clearly a kind of makeshift office for whoever was in charge, though presumably they were lower down fighting darkspawn along with the majority of the Carta lackeys. There were only a couple more dwarven guards in this room, lounging bored by a huge door in the far wall, who were visibly surprised at a bunch of outsiders bursting in on them, though not for long. Varric had felled one with a crossbow bolt to the throat before he even had time to draw a weapon, and the other soon fell to Blackwall’s sword.

There was a huge chunk of raw red lyrium lying on a pallet at one side of the room.

Varric stopped and made himself look at it as the others moved into the room around him, apparently unbothered by the sight. The crimson crystal glowed dully in the firelight, the same colour as the blood of the guards now staining the floor. Varric breathed evenly in and out, and listened to the song.

It was only faint, a distant, tantalising hum beckoning him closer, but he stood his ground and remembered Cullen’s advice. Don’t try to block it out, or ignore it. Let it in, recognise it for what it is, and understand it as separate to yourself. Then you push it away. Build a wall around it, brick by brick. It will still be there, but it can’t touch you.

It was easier, not being totally surrounded by the stuff, and Varric felt the queasy feeling gradually recede. He stepped back, hoping that Bianca hadn’t noticed his moment of panic, but luckily she was absorbed in searching through the desk in the corner. Only Solas had been watching him, and Varric thought he saw the elf give him a slight nod before turning away. A little embarrassed, Varric went over to examine the door in the far wall, a massive construction of stone and iron that was clearly another of Bianca’s design. It could only lead down into the Deep Roads.

“How’d they even get through this?” he muttered under his breath, as he ran his hands over the door. Bianca was the greatest smith of her generation, and this door didn’t look like it would give to brute force. Even if the miners here had directions to the lost thaig, he couldn’t see how they—

“There you are!”

The relief in Bianca’s voice behind him made him turn to see her pluck something from a desk drawer, and as she hastened over, he saw the gleam of something metal in her hand. A key. Varric was just putting the pieces together in his mind when Bianca confirmed his suspicions by inserting the key into the huge door and turning it, causing a heavy ratcheting clunk behind the thick stone.

“There,” she said. “They won’t be able to use this entrance again, at least. Hope the darkspawn are good company.”

She turned around to see the three others staring at her. Varric found his voice first.

“Bianca…”

Her face was confirmation enough. “Varric, don’t—” she started.

“They had your key! You’re the leak?”

Bianca winced. “When you gave me the location of the thaig, I went and had a look for myself. I found the red lyrium and I…studied it.”

Varric felt as if his stomach had plunged off a very steep cliff. “You know what it does to people!” he said, incredulously. “I told you to stay away from it!”

“I was doing you a favour,” snapped Bianca defensively. “You want to help your brother, don’t you?” Before Varric could even answer, she was forging onwards, the words coming quickly, as if she could talk away what must have been the look of horror on his face. “I was careful, of course, I took every precaution I could, and it paid off. I figured it out, Varric, it wasn’t for nothing. I know where the red lyrium comes from, what it is. It’s blighted. That’s why it makes sense for the darkspawn to be here too – they’re from the same source. Red lyrium has the Blight. Do you know what that means?”

“What, that two deadly things combine to make something super awful?” said Varric.

“It’s alive,” said Blackwall. Varric had almost forgotten he and Solas were there. “The Blight only infects living things.”

“Right,” said Bianca, and Varric could see the old familiar gleam in her eye, the one that she always got when she was wrapped up in some new idea. “It means everything we thought we knew about lyrium, all lyrium, is wrong. It’s the kind of discovery that could change everything.”

“It is certainly remarkable, if true,” said Solas. “Though it does not explain how Corypheus came to know of it.”

Bianca’s eager face fell a little. “I could only get so far on my own with my research,” she said. “Once I realised it was Blighted, I went looking for a Grey Warden mage to help me, and I found this guy, Larius. He seemed really interested in helping, so I…gave him a key.”

“Larius?” The name jolted Varric out of his shock, at least temporarily. “He was the Grey Warden I met with Hawke at the prison where we found Corypheus,” he said. “And he definitely wasn’t a mage before. He was half dead with the Blight already.”

“He must have been working for Corypheus,” said Blackwall. “That’s the connection to the Wardens we’ve been missing.”

“No, he wanted to kill Corypheus,” said Varric. “It was all he cared about, there’s no way…” The realisation hit him. “Ah shit, I knew something seemed off! He was different…”

“You believe Corypheus possessed this man,” said Solas. “That is how he escaped death at Hawke’s hands.”

“They say an archdemon’s soul can transfer to another darkspawn body, if anyone but a Grey Warden kills it,” said Blackwall grimly. “Didn’t Hawke’s friend Warden Stroud think the same thing might have happened with Corypheus?”

“I didn’t know,” said Bianca. “How could I have known?”

“So you gave him the location of the thaig,” said Varric. “A guy you barely knew, and you handed him the keys to the deadliest weapon I’ve ever seen.”

All their attention was back on her now, and Bianca visibly stiffened under their combined judgement of their eyes.

“What does it matter now?” she said. “The door’s locked, we have the key back. We fixed it.”

“Fixed it?” said Varric incredulously. “Bianca, this isn’t one of your machines! You can’t just replace a part and make everything right!”

“I can try, can’t I?”

Out of the corner of Varric’s eye, he saw Solas and Blackwall exchange a look, and tactfully wander off to the other side of the room, apparently suddenly very interested in searching the bodies of the Carta guards. But Varric didn’t even have the capacity to be embarrassed. All his attention was focused on Bianca, who was looking at him with an expression half beseeching, half stubborn.

“Look, Varric, I know you’re angry—”

“You bet your ass I am! You lied to me, and now it’s gonna look like I lied to everyone else. You really think anyone will believe that I didn’t know about this? That you weren’t doing it because I asked you to? I’m the Inquisitor, what do you think is going to happen if people find out I’m the one who handed red lyrium over on a platter to Corypheus?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” said Bianca, with the edge of a laugh that had very little humour in it. “Your reputation?”

Varric almost growled in frustration. “No, it’s not th—people trust me. People follow me! They go out and fight Venatori and red templars and Maker knows what else because I tell them to, and all along…” He broke off and ran a hand through his hair distractedly, hardly able to put his thoughts into words. “Andraste’s ass, Bianca, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I knew this would happen!” Bianca said. “Because I knew you’d try and find a way to make it all your fault.”

“So you lied,” said Varric flatly. “To make sure no-one found out it was yours.”

Bianca’s expression hardened. “Oh get your head out of your ass, Inquisitor, like you wouldn’t have done the same.”

The bite of mockery in her voice as she said his title shouldn’t have stung, but it did. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re gonna lecture me about bending the truth to make yourself look good?” said Bianca. “This whole thing…the Inquisition, the Herald of Andraste…it has your fingerprints all over it. I know you, Varric, and this is one of your stories. The unlikely hero, rising from nothing to become the saviour of the world?”

“I never claimed to be a hero,” said Varric quietly.

“I know. But what matters is they all believe you are. You can make these people believe whatever you want.” Bianca reached out and grasped his arms gently, a gesture half affectionate, half pleading. “Just make up some story,” she said. “You’re good at that.” She jerked her head towards Blackwall and Solas. “Those two look like they can keep a secret. No-one has to know, Varric.”

Varric stepped back, letting Bianca’s hands drop from his arms. “I know,” he said. “And I’m not gonna lie about it to the people who trust me just to cover my own ass.”

Bianca flinched, and then her face went hard again. “I guess I was right when I said things were different now,” she said. “You’ve changed.”

“You haven’t.”

He’d meant it to hurt and it obviously did. “Right,” said Bianca, her voice now more defeated than angry. “It’s all my fault, as usual. You’re the tragic hero, I’m the one who lets you down. Again.”

Varric’s own anger drained away as quickly as it had come, leaving him hollow. How many times had they done this dance through the years? The world had gone crazy, his life had changed beyond recognition, and yet somehow Bianca still made him feel like the same idiot kid who got swept away by grand ideas of forbidden romance, and couldn’t accept the simple truth that he would never be good enough. Bianca hadn’t come back for him. She’d come to fix her mistake, and because she’d known that all she had to do was snap her fingers, and Varric Tethras would come running. He was too old for this shit.

“Look, I know I screwed up,” said Bianca quietly, “but I was trying to help you, Varric. Please believe that.”

Varric sighed. “I do,” he said. “I just…wish you’d told me.”

And there it was. They were left where they always ended up – wishing things were different, knowing that they never would be. Bianca looked exhausted. She hadn’t actually said she was sorry for lying to him, Varric realised. But then, Bianca always had been better at explanations than apologies. Maybe he really was still that idiot kid, expecting her to be something she wasn’t.

“We need to head back to the surface,” Varric said dully, not meeting her eyes. “We shouldn’t risk running into more darkspawn down here. And you should get back home before someone misses you.”

Varric sat alone in the corner of The Herald’s Rest, staring unseeing at the flagon clasped in his hands.

It was a familiar sight the world over. There was always an unobtrusive corner in every tavern, from Ferelden to the Anderfells, where you could find someone sitting alone, staring at nothing, drinking their troubles into oblivion. Probably even in the darkest depths of the ocean, weird deep-sea creatures sat in gloomy corners of underwater taverns, tentacles wrapped around a mug, as all the other fish tactfully pretended not to notice them.

Unfortunately for narrative conventions, and for himself right now, drinking his troubles into oblivion had never been Varric’s style. As a matter of fact, Varric Tethras, for all that he had been a familiar face at The Hanged Man in Kirkwall for years, had an extremely strict set of personal rules when it came to having a drink, known only to his closest friends. Stick to beer, nothing stronger, no more than a tankard or two. A nip of whiskey if a friend passed you a flask on a cold night, yes, or a glass of wine at some fancy dinner to be polite to the host. Enough to prove to himself that it had no hold over him, Varric thought grimly, but never enough to test the risk that maybe it could.

It would be so easy, that was the terrible thing. So easy to just let go, for a minute, for a night, and wash away all his problems, like his mother had used to do. So peaceful, to let the blanket of drink deaden the accusatory voices in his head.

But one of those voices was Bianca, always had been. And right now, Varric couldn’t stand the thought of giving her the satisfaction. He’d already sunk about as low as he could today, when he’d had to stand in the War Room and look his advisors, his friends, in the eye as he told them exactly how Corypheus had come to wield the terrifying power of red lyrium. He’d wondered if they too had been thinking, even as he spoke, of the red lyrium corrupted dragon that had burned Haven to the ground, that had laid waste to their people and nearly slaughtered them all.

So now he was sitting in his corner staring into his lousy flagon of small beer as the warm clamour of the tavern went on around him, with not even the comfort of being drunk to distract him from his gloomy thoughts, almost oblivious to his surroundings as a parade of memories played out in vivid detail in his mind’s eye. The explosion at the Conclave. The dead dwarf in that cave in the Hinterlands. The grotesque, half-mad templars swarming down the mountainside towards Haven. The Seekers at Caer Oswin. Cassandra in the cell below Redcliffe castle. Corypheus’ sneering, ravaged face. Red, all of it red. When Varric closed his eyes he could even see it behind his eyelids, almost hear the whispers again, in spite of Cullen’s advice. No matter what else he did, red lyrium would be the legacy Varric Tethras left to the world.

The good thing about being the guy in the corner of the tavern, drinking alone, was that everyone knew to leave that guy to himself. So it should have been a surprise to Varric when someone sat down in the chair opposite him across the small table, but it wasn’t. In some strange way, he had been expecting her.

Cassandra didn’t speak. She simply sat with him, sipped from her own flagon in front of her, and waited. Strange that when they’d first met it had been an interrogation, him spinning lies at the point of her sword, and yet now her silence was enough to draw the awful, unvarnished truth from him like poison from a wound.

“You know, it’s almost funny,” Varric said, eventually. “All along I’ve been wondering how my worst nightmare had somehow followed me from where I left it buried deep beneath the surface, and yet the answer’s been there all along – it was me.” His grip tightened on his flagon. “It was all me. I set Corypheus loose, and then armed him with the most dangerous weapon possible.”

“Varric, it isn’t your faul—”

“Spare your breath Seeker,” he cut in bitterly, looking up from his drink. “How many times are you going to try and tell me something isn’t my fault before you figure out the common factor in all this shit?”

“How many times am I going to have to tell you that something isn’t your fault before it sinks into your thick, stubborn skull?” replied Cassandra sharply. “You did not let Corypheus loose. He escaped. After you encountered him. And you did not give him red lyrium, Bianca did.” Her mouth tightened for a moment, as though just saying the name was unpleasant, but if she had stronger opinions on the matter, she did not share them. “It was an accident,” she said. “A profound error in judgement which she should not have tried to cover up, but certainly not something you could be blamed for.”

“I should never have told her the location of the thaig.”

“Another error in judgement, perhaps, but you could not possibly have known what she would do with that information.” Cassandra’s voice softened a little. “She wanted to help you,” she said. “She is not the first person to ever do something foolish in such an effort, and you are not the first person to put their trust unwisely in another.”

“Not even the first time I’ve unwisely trusted Bianca specifically,” said Varric, with more honesty than he’d intended, and Cassandra gave him a searching look.

“Will you see her again?” she asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

“I don’t know,” said Varric. He expected some sort of admonishment, but to his surprise Cassandra said nothing. Perhaps she was just thrown off by an honest answer. She took another drink, and when she set down her flagon again she kept her gaze lowered, as though unwilling to quite look him in the eye as she spoke.

“When I was a young woman I knew a mage named Regalyan,” she said. “He was a good man. Brave, kind, far too charming for his own good. We were...very close at one time.”

“What happened?” asked Varric, curious in spite of himself at this unexpected turn of the conversation. The pause before Cassandra had finished her sentence made the nature of her and Regalyan’s relationship plain. A mage, huh? Not what Varric might have expected.

“Our lives took different paths,” said Cassandra. “We wrote to each other every now and again, and when we had the chance we would meet and speak of old adventures together. I did not see him as often as I would have liked, but I still considered him a friend.” She gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “He died at the Conclave.”

She had said the words quite calmly, but they still hit Varric like ice cold water dumped down his back.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know.”

Cassandra glanced back up at him, looking vaguely surprised. “Of course you didn’t,” she said. “There is no reason why you should.”

“Still,” said Varric. “I’m sorry.”

“It saddens me to know that he is gone,” said Cassandra. “But in truth I think I grieve more for what we might have had than for what we ever did.” Her gaze now was steady, serious. “I have lost many people in my life, Varric. And I have blamed myself every time. When I see it in someone else it only strikes me how futile that is.”

“You think I’ve lost her then? Bianca?”

“I—” Cassandra hesitated. “Do you honestly want my opinion on this?”

Varric shrugged. “Considering all the shit it’s put us through, you’ve probably earned the right to one.”

“I think you lost her a long time ago, and you are grieving only for what might have been, as I was.”

Varric let out a slow breath. “When you give an opinion, you don’t mess around, Seeker.”

“If I overstepped the mark—”

“No, no, you’re right, probably. I don’t know. Bianca is…she’s a hard habit to shake.”

Though they were his own words, they tasted sour even as he said them, the ring of truth so uncomfortable when spoken aloud. His mother, reaching for the bottle time and again. Hating it as much as she loved it. Knowing that it was destroying her, and yet…

Cassandra shifted a little in her chair, perhaps interpreting his silence as offence, no matter his assurances. “I should take my leave,” she said.

“Stay.” It sounded more pleading than Varric liked, but he was probably past having much dignity at this point anyway. “I’d actually like some company,” he said, “if you aren’t too busy. We can have a practice round of Wicked Grace – if you win a game against Josephine before we defeat Corypheus than Bull owes me ten royals.”

It was a thin excuse, but Cassandra smiled. “Alright. Though I think you took a bad bet.”

One round became another, and another, and time passed in the slippery way it had sometimes, when a minute so easily became an hour, the tavern humming around them as the evening wore on. She was such easy company, Cassandra – crazy a thought that might have once seemed – and Varric realised he had missed this from those days when she had been recovering in the Dalish camp. When it had been just the two of them and a pack of cards, the rhythm of their conversation and the way it would branch into unexpected directions, sometimes the back and forth of their familiar repartee, sometimes slipping into more serious topics. Cassandra had an interesting way of looking at things, and she’d surprised him more than once with the strength of her opinions, or by her willingness to listen to his own.

He ordered another drink, for both of them, relaxed by the fact that he was no longer alone, the dark spiral of his thoughts arrested by the Seeker’s reassuringly sensible presence. Varric stopped after his second flagon, but it was enough to make him pleasantly buzzed, his troubles seeming less insurmountable than they had done just hours ago. Or perhaps that was just the effect of Cassandra’s company too; that way she had of making you feel like there was no problem that couldn’t be overcome. The Seeker had never yet met a hopeless cause she didn’t like. Deal her an unwinnable hand and she would stubbornly refuse to fold. Show her an unwinnable fight and she’d simply pick up her sword and get to work.

She was a little mellowed by the beer too, Varric could tell, her movements getting looser, her accent thicker when she spoke. She had relaxed into her chair, leaning forward with her elbow on the sticky tavern table and her chin propped on her hand, her other hand holding her cards. On some reckless, playful impulse, Varric started teaching her the other rules of Wicked Grace, the unspoken rules. How to take two cards off the top of the draw pile without anyone noticing. How to slip the Angel of Death back into the pack when your hand wasn’t strong enough for the round to end yet. How to use the reflection in a shiny tankard to check out the hand of another player, or ‘accidentally’ reveal what cards you wanted someone else to know you held without them guessing it was a deliberate slip.

“This is all so you know what to watch out for in other players, of course,” Varric said, as he shrugged his shoulder and slid a card out of his sleeve, flipping it between his fingers in the manner of a magic trick. “As a dwarf of honour, I would never endorse such flagrant cheating.”

He was showing off, a little, as eager to soak up Cassandra’s shocked reproofs as her approval. He liked to watch her face for those little tells; the faint crease between her brows, the subtle curve of amusement on that expressive mouth.

“No wonder you favour this game,” Cassandra said, plucking the card from his hand and returning it to her own where it had come from. “It is nothing but lies and trickery.”

“We all work with the gifts the Maker gave us,” said Varric. “Speaking of which, the first rule of being a rogue – a distracted opponent is an easy mark. If all else fails, undo an extra button on your shirt.”

“Varric!”

Varric shrugged, unrepentant. “It always worked for me.”

“That’s—you are the Inquisitor, such tactics are beneath you.”

“I’m a dwarf, not very much at all is beneath me,” grinned Varric, unable to let such an obvious set-up line pass by. “Oh come on, Seeker. You must know what you look like. You can’t tell me you’ve never used it to get your own way when brute force wasn’t working. Batted your eyelashes? Turned on the charm?”

Cassandra looked outraged. “I wouldn’t…that’s…you’re one to talk!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Varric innocently.

“You have made a career out of being charming. You’re as bad as Dorian, you flirt with everyone. Constantly!” She paused. “Except me, of course.”

Varric raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you just haven’t noticed,” he said.

“Bah!” said Cassandra, a magnificent sound that Varric immediately resolved to add to his lexicon. “I would notice.”

The ensuing silence was just a little too long, and Varric cleared his throat. “So, no trail of broken hearts left behind you in your time as a Seeker, then?” he asked.

“I am sorry to disappoint,” said Cassandra dryly. “But no, I have never been interested in dalliances of that kind.”

“Nor have I, to be honest.”

“Of course,” she said, suddenly very interested in her cards. “You have your Bianca.”

Varric snorted. “No, you were right before; she hasn’t been my Bianca for a very long time. Maybe she never was. I don’t have her.”

“She clearly loves you deeply,” said Cassandra, which for some reason annoyed Varric more than it should.

“And if you think that solves anything, Seeker, you’ve been reading too many of my books,” he said. “Love isn’t all sunsets and roses.”

“It should be.” When he looked at her, eyebrows raised, she looked mulish, and embarrassed, and sure of herself all at once. It was a very Cassandra expression. “Love should be a good thing,” she said. “It should make you happy. Even for you.”

Varric chuckled. “Even me, huh?”

“You deserve better,” Cassandra said, to his great surprise. “You deserve someone who deserves you. Who wants you as you are. No excuses, no compromises.”

“And you?” he said, defensive without really knowing why. “What do you want, Seeker? If a dalliance isn’t good enough, what are you looking for?”

“Someone who wants me,” she replied simply. “As I am.”

“Not hard to find, I’d say,” said Varric. It was more difficult now, to keep his voice light. “You’re Cassandra Pentaghast, Hero of Orlais. The world is full of people who practically worship you.”

“I do not want someone who worships me,” said Cassandra. “I want someone who sees beyond my titles and my history, sees me for who I am, and who is not afraid to tell me when I am wrong. Someone who challenges me, makes me better; so that I see more clearly, fight harder, because they are by my side. Someone who believes that I am worth their time, and their effort, even when it is not easy. I want sunsets and roses and growing old together. That is what I want.”

Varric stared at her. It was as if Cassandra had wrenched his heart from his chest and spilled it out of her own mouth. She might as well have undressed him for how exposed he suddenly felt. How exposed she suddenly seemed. Shit, he didn’t even know.

“Cassandra…” he said, with absolutely no idea what he was about to say, but she didn’t wait to hear it anyway, laying down her cards and standing up abruptly, not looking at him.

“I…I am tired,” she said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Right.” Varric stood up too, clumsily, almost knocking over his chair and having to catch the back and right it before it hit the floor. The tavern had almost cleared out around them, he noticed now. It was later than he’d realised. “Yeah. Me too.”

They both tried to leave at once, nearly walking into each other and forced to do that awkward little sideways shuffle where they both tried to make way for the other and ended up even more in the way. And then somehow they were just…there, standing stupidly in front of each other. Cassandra was looking down at him and he was looking up at her and he didn’t know what the hell was happening but Varric had the sudden sensation of being pushed onto a stage under bright lights without a script. He swallowed the sudden dryness in his mouth.

“You know what, Seeker?” he said. “What you’re looking for? I hope you find it. I really do.”

“So do I,” Cassandra said. “I have been waiting for a very long time.”

Now was the time to go, to get out of here as fast as he could. But somehow Varric couldn’t seem to move, or even look away. From behind her dark lashes, Cassandra’s eyes were a rich, warm brown, the colour of good Antivan rum. Isabela had given him a bottle once, in return for a favour he couldn’t even remember now – it had tasted like sin in a bottle, sweet and smoky, like fire on his tongue. He wondered if Cassandra would taste the same way. Maker save him.

It felt like years before Cassandra broke the silence, and the words came out in a rush, as if she’d been startled into them.

“Goodnight, Inquisitor,” she said, and turned away quickly, weaving through the tables towards the door before he had even opened his mouth to respond. Varric watched her go.

“Night, Seeker.” His voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears, the words coming from some far away place totally unconnected to him. He stood there, rooted to the spot for several minutes before his thoughts spun into gear enough to remind him to leave the tavern too.

Varric wasn’t sure how he made it back to his room, hardly aware of a single step of the journey. He felt winded, his head spinning, as though he’d just been dealt a heavy blow in battle. It was a good thing he didn’t run into anyone on the way back through Skyhold, because a whole horde of assassins or Corypheus himself might have sprung from the shadows and he wouldn’t have noticed.

When he finally reached the relative safety of his bedroom, the door shut firmly behind him, Varric sank down on the edge of his ridiculously oversized bed and dropped his head into his hands with a heartfelt groan.

Oh shit.

Chapter Text

The next day, Varric surprised the hell out of Leliana by going to speak to her barely after dawn had broken and informing her that he intended to make a trip into Orlais. A man named Fairbanks, some kind of local leader in an area of forest known as the Emerald Graves, had contacted the Inquisition not long ago, promising vital information on their enemy that he would vouchsafe only to the Herald of Andraste in person, and Varric had decided it was worth the risk to go.

Immediately, in fact. The sooner the better.

Clearly a little puzzled at this sudden whim, Leliana nonetheless promised to make the arrangements, which left Varric to go and prod a grumbling Iron Bull out of bed to enlist his help. This had the unintended side-effect of waking up Dorian too, since the two of them were apparently sharing a bed these days, and Varric thought: what the hell? It was never a bad idea to have a mage along. They picked up Cole too along the way – Varric had intended to find the kid, and apparently that intention was enough, because one minute he had a bleary-eyed Bull and Dorian in tow, the next Cole was there too, smiling in his vague way, apparently unbothered by these last-minute plans.

In the time it had taken Varric to gather some travelling companions, Leliana had not been idle. They met her at the main gate, where she was waiting with a covered wagon belonging to a trader who was set for an early start from Skyhold.

“I thought it best we keep this departure unobtrusive, Inquisitor,” she said smoothly. “As the situation in Orlais in so unstable, we would not wish for any action of our part to upset the upcoming peace talks.”

Translated for tact, that meant: don’t go stomping round Orlais pissing the wrong people off and ruining all our careful diplomacy with your big shiny hand, Inquisitor.

“Right,” said Varric. “This is an off-the-books thing. We’ll get in, find out what this Fairbanks guy has to say, and get out. Quick and quiet.”

And so it was that, before most of the castle was even awake, Varric found himself sitting at the back of the wagon as it rumbled down the long, winding mountain road, watching Skyhold receding into the distance with a mixture of remorse and profound relief.

It wasn’t running away, he told himself. It was a…tactical retreat. It was a trip he’d been meaning to make anyway, and if it meant he didn’t have to look Cassandra in the eye for a while, then that was probably for the best for everyone concerned.

Varric wasn’t sure what he’d find in the ancient forests of Orlais. The mysterious Fairbanks had been vague about his information, and no-one seemed to be able to find out much about who he was or what his motivations were. If even Leliana’s agents were drawing a blank, that in of itself was interesting enough to be worth investigating. Varric figured that bringing the Iron Bull and Cole with him to this clandestine meeting was his best chance of figuring out any hidden agendas at play; both of them were, for their own very different reasons, good at ferreting out people’s real motives and character.

He’d had another motive for bringing Cole with them too – the kid had a shaky understanding at best of concepts like privacy and tact, and an unfortunate habit of speaking thoughts aloud that were better left unsaid. There were bound to be questions asked about the Inquisitor’s abrupt departure, and Varric had a profound dread of Cole cheerfully providing the answers to those back at Skyhold.

He was fairly certain both Bull and Dorian at least assumed his sudden desire to run off and hide in the forest – Dorian’s exact words, muttered when he thought Varric couldn’t hear – was to do with the fiasco with Bianca. Varric didn’t bother to try and disabuse them of this notion, but oddly enough, he hardly thought of Bianca at all. For the whole journey his mind kept wandering instead to, of all people, Regalyan, the mage Cassandra had told him about. It was strange, to think of Cassandra having had a lover. Of course Varric knew she was a romantic at heart, and he’d seen that she could be warm, even gentle under the right circumstances, but the idea of her being…intimate with another person, taking someone into her bed, was…it was…

Distracting. It was all a distraction, and right now a distraction was the last thing he needed. Orlais was a keg of Qunari black powder, ready to explode again at the slightest spark. Empress Celene had finally set a date for the promised peace talks between her and her cousin Grand Duke Gaspard, but although the civil war had reached an uneasy détente, the fighting hadn’t exactly stopped. Deserters from both armies had banded together into a loose group calling themselves ‘the Freemen of the Dales’, and their rebellious name didn’t do much to disguise the fact that they’d essentially become little more than well-armed bandits, raiding towns and caravans, attacking anyone who wasn’t them.

The trade caravan they’d hitched a ride with turned off for the Imperial Highway miles before they reached their destination, but they ran into few other travellers on the road deeper into the Orlesian countryside. By the time they reached the small and well-hidden Inquisition camp that Leliana’s scouts in the area had established, the landscape had changed from open plains to thick forests, gnarled trees towering above the rough, half overgrown track. In places the canopy of leaves overhead was so thick the sun could only pierce the green, vegetable gloom in thin shafts, and the forest seemed full of places for unseen attackers to conceal themselves. The scouts didn’t have good news – red templars had been sighted in the area, in numbers, and when Varric and his companions finally fought their way through to the refugee camp in a hidden gully where Fairbanks was waiting, they found a man under siege. It was clear that desperation, rather than any sinister intentions, had caused him to ask for the Inquisitor personally. The people he was trying to protect were trapped like rats in a barrel, fearing to leave the safety of their hideout and fall prey to the Freemen, or the red templars, who seemed to have formed some sort of alliance with them. There were rumours of people not just being killed, but taken, put in cages and transported north for Maker knew what horrible purpose. And on top of that, there were Fade rifts throughout the forest, disgorging demons into an area where the veil was thin due to the centuries of violence on its blood-soaked soil.

Fairbanks had the look of a man who hadn’t slept much recently. He turned out to be a fairly ordinary looking man; dark haired and unshaven, wearing workmanlike leathers and a careworn air.

“My people are not fighters, Herald of Andraste,” he said, in a gruff, heavily accented voice, after hasty introductions had been made. “We have enough to defend this place for a time, but we cannot leave. The great and good of Orlais have retreated back to their fine houses in the cities, and left the common folk to fend for themselves. Empress Celene spares no thought for what this war has wrought upon us.”

“Do you favour Grand Duke Gaspard’s claim to the throne, then?” asked Dorian, curiously.

“I don’t care who sits on the throne,” said Fairbanks bitterly. “I care that these people have been driven from their homes, and those in Val Royeaux don’t care to even notice until the trade caravans stop coming and the price of bread triples overnight. We cannot wait for these peace talks, more posturing. We need help now.”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Varric.

“We have a common cause, you and I,” said Fairbanks. “These foul templars that serve your enemy are aiding the Freemen. I can give you what information I have on this area, and their movements, but we need your Inquisition to match their strength.” He lowered his voice slightly, making sure that no-one else in the camp could hear. “We are running low on food,” he said. “Every time we make a hunting party to leave this camp, some never return. We will all die here, if the roads cannot be made safe again.”

Varric didn’t need Cole to tell him that Fairbanks was on the level – the fear in his eyes, reflected in those of the men, women and children scattered around the camp, was enough. There was nothing he could do under the circumstances but promise to give whatever help he could, and so they plunged deeper into the forest in search of the missing refugees. The camp swallowed up quickly by the forest behind them, Varric reflected that Fairbanks wasn’t what he had expected. He’d thought they were going to meet some money-grabbing chancer, out to sell a bit of information to the deep pockets of the Inquisition for the right price. But Fairbanks just seemed to be a genuinely decent man, trying to do what he could for people. In fact, he was the sort of dashing romantic character Cassandra loved to read about; hero of the poor and downtrodden, classically handsome with just a bit of a rough edge. When they been asking around for information of where the last hunting party had gone missing, one of the refugees had confided in Varric that she suspected Fairbanks had noble origins, and only some great personal tragedy or scandal had led him to this humble place. It certainly made for a good story. He’d make for a good protagonist, Varric decided, for some kind of swashbuckling romance.

Perhaps he would write the Seeker a new story along those lines when he had the time, take it more seriously this time around. Swords and Shields, for all Cassandra inexplicably loved it, had been pure, self-indulgent slop, dashed off quickly on a whim. Varric had filled it with just about every romantic cliché he could think of in place of anything remotely resembling plot, and the characters were thinly sketched foils. But he’d had fun writing it, and escapism was just what people needed in times like these. Maybe once Swords and Shields was properly finished – he doubted he’d be able to wriggle his way out of that one – he could write her something different, something that had a decent story, and a romantic hero worthy of her ideals. Something that might make her see him differently to how she—

Varric tripped over a gnarled tree root and nearly went sprawling, his quick reflexes only just righting himself in time. Brushing off the slightly amused concern of his companions, he forced his brain furiously back to reality. Forget what Cassandra might think of his writing, or of him, the problem was that he was thinking about her again, he realised. Exactly what he had been trying not to do. Shit, shit, shit.

At least there were distractions enough to be had in the Emerald Graves. For all that Varric had promised Leliana this trip would be quick and quiet, it was obvious they couldn’t just turn around and leave. The next few weeks were spent hunting down red templars. Without the back-up they needed for an all-out confrontation, they used whatever tactics they could to harry the agents of Corypheus, to buy the refugees time, at least. Fairbanks had maps, and his people had detailed knowledge of the area, which allowed Varric’s small party to slip unseen through the trees, elude the enemy’s sight.  Cole, dressed in his usual ragged clothes and ambling along the path whistling a cheerful little tune, made for excellent bait, it turned out. Freemen gangs who leapt out to pick off an easy target on the road found themselves quickly trying to grab at thin air, and then very suddenly facing a hail of fireballs and crossbow bolts from where Varric and Dorian had concealed themselves, before a massive Qunari came barrelling out of the trees to finish them off. Ambushing the ambushers was immensely satisfying, and in the depths of the forest, being outnumbered didn’t pose much of a disadvantage. The Freemen, their templar allies and their Venatori handlers were clearly used to facing frightened peasants, not a well-armed and highly motivated group of adversaries with totally unknown capabilities and numbers.

They worked by night as well as by day – Varric and Cole slipping into camps unseen, slitting the throats of sentries, setting fire to tents, stealing supplies. They set traps on the forest roads, tripwires and caltrops and tempting looking dropped satchels filled with runestones that exploded when they were picked up. They laid false trails to lead their enemies astray, or into the territory of wandering forest giants, who did their job for them. With Fairbanks’ help, and that of Leliana’s suicidally brave scouts, they identified the leaders of the red templar forces and picked them off one-by-one, drawing the noose ever tighter around the invaders as they scrambled to figure out what was happening, how a helpless rabble of Orlesian farmers had somehow turned the tables on them.

It wasn’t always easy. There were a few close calls, fights where they barely escaped with their lives thanks to one of Dorian’s hastily thrown up walls of ice, or where Cole only kept his head because Bull took a hit that would have killed anyone but a Qunari. The forest giants had no loyalty, and would kill anyone who crossed their paths. And where there were red templars, there was red lyrium. A lot of it. It tried its best to get inside Varric’s head whenever he came close to it, singing to him of dark eyes and firelight, a lulling, lilting melody like a foreign tongue. It promised without words; to make him stronger, to give him the power to protect every person who needed him, to be more, to have what he needed to rival Corypheus himself…

But the voice was easier to ignore these days, because there was another voice with him, more familiar, a memory that Varric reached for whenever the song threatened to wrap its red tendrils around his brain:

“It can do nothing. They would have to force it upon me and I swear by Andraste I would die first.”

Cassandra’s words might have seemed a strange sentiment to take comfort in, but there was something in that firm, uncomplicated resolve that felt like an anchor, something to cling to that stopped him getting swept away in the song. The Seeker was right – red lyrium could do nothing to him against his will. Varric knew he’d rather die a quick death than face what had happened to his brother, or what he’d seen at Redcliffe castle, and though that was a choice he really, really hoped he’d never have to make, it was comforting to be reminded that there always was a choice.

That was something Cassandra had taught him, he realised, without even knowing it. Being the one to stand up and make a choice, even when both options seemed equally shit. Doing something, when no-one else was even willing to try. Taking the responsibility, and the consequences, upon your own shoulders, so that other people didn’t have to. Hawke had always been a natural leader, and Varric couldn't recall a single time she'd asked anything of him, but Cassandra...well, she didn't ask either, not really. She just assumed he would do what needed to be done, because she'd always believed that he could. Right from the first time they'd met, when she'd dragged him halfway across the world to help with her Inquisition. She believed in him, and that belief was a force more powerful than any doubts Varric had.

Varric wondered if Cassandra had any idea that the much-vaunted Herald of Andraste would never have gotten this far without her. He wondered what she was doing right now, at Skyhold. It was easy to picture her, impossible not to in quiet moments: the Seeker practising her sword drills in the light of dawn down at the line of training dummies, or in the War Room arguing with Leliana, her hands carving through the air as she emphasised her point, or perhaps sitting in the garden amongst the flowers, reading a book, that faint frown of concentration on her face. Varric’s imagination painted Cassandra softly in her absence, though at times he would have gladly accepted the worst of her disapproving retorts just to hear the sound of her voice.

In more practical terms, her sword arm would have been a tremendous help under the circumstances, and he really did have cause to regret leaving her behind when they encountered a high dragon nesting in the depths of a woodland glade by the cliffs. They’d been following the muffled sounds of fighting, thinking they would come across another giant, but the trees were so thick that when they burst out into the open, they were almost on top of the battle already in progress before they had time to realise what was happening.

The dragon, blue and yellow like a poisonous toad, with a blunt, ugly head and beady little eyes, was surrounded by darting figures in red robes – Venatori. At the beast’s feet were corpses encased in ice, only the red lyrium crystals glowing faintly to show that they had once been templars, bodyguards thrust forward into the dragon’s path to try and protect their masters.

“Hot damn,” said Bull, next to him, taking in the scene. “She’s huge.”

Varric had no time even to respond. One of the Venatori mages caught sight of them and called out something in Tevene that Varric didn’t understand, but made Dorian swear sharply. The next moment, a magical barrier had sprung up before Varric, only an instant before a column of flame billowed towards him and splashed against it – not from the dragon, but from the mage’s staff. He’d been recognised, it seemed.

The dragon, taking advantage of this distraction, leaned down in a swift, decisive movement, and seized the Venatori in its jaws, biting the man in half in a moment so gruesome that Varric felt a new flash of understanding for Cassandra’s impatience at anyone who romanticised dragons as noble beasts. That great scaly muzzle was red with gore and dripping as it raised its head and howled, sending a blast of icy breath towards the newcomers, forcing them to scatter as they dived out of the way, huge crystals of razor-sharp ice flying in every direction.

It was chaos, immediate and comprehensive. They survived the ensuing battle only because the dragon seemed consumed with rage and fear at the very sight of fire, and obviously identified the Venatori mages as the greater threat. It stomped around snapping and breathing great plumes of ice at the little red robed figures darting around it, while they hurled curses at Varric and his party, heedless of their own lives in their attempt to murder the Inquisitor. By the time the dragon was down, dazed by Dorian’s lightning enough for Bull’s axe to cleave into its neck without risking his own, there was only one Venatori still standing. Even under his hood, the robed mage looked so startled at discovering himself completely alone and outnumbered that Varric briefly considered letting him flee, until the bastard spun to the nearest target and sent a bolt of pure, malevolent magic directly into Cole’s chest, clearly working on the ‘if I’m going down, I’m taking as many of you with me as I can’ principle.

Varric shot him dead with swift, merciless precision, and then sprinted across the clearing, reaching Cole just before Bull did. The kid was flat on his back and looked dazed, but was still awake – whatever magic had hit him, his not-entirely human nature seemed to have mitigated the worst effects.

“Easy now,” said Varric, kneeling beside him and helping him to sit up. “You alright, kid?”

“He wanted to live, but he wanted me dead more,” said Cole, frowning. “The dragon made more sense. She was just hungry.”

“Yeah, you’re alright,” said Varric. Bull joined them, grunting with relief as he saw that they were both uninjured.

“Another dragon down, boss,” he remarked. “You’re gonna start getting a reputation.”

“You and Sparkler did most of the work there,” Varric said. Looking around, he could see that Dorian, also having satisfied himself that no-one was in immediate need of help and the fight was over, was pulling a tooth from the dragon’s head, for some reason best known to himself.

“Didn’t think we’d ever have a dragon as an ally,” Bull said. “But she cleaned up those Venatori good. Maybe Corypheus is onto something.”

“Since it nearly killed the whole lot of us too, I’m gonna veto any plans you’re formulating for riding into battle on a tame dragon,” said Varric. “Sorry.”

“Ah, the Seeker was right all along, Hawke should've been Inquisitor,” grinned Bull. “I bet she would have gone for it.” He rolled his shoulders, working out the strain in his muscles as Varric and Cole both got to their feet. “Shame the Seeker wasn’t along for the ride this time,” he said. “We could really have used her on this one.”

Varric felt the sharp pang in his chest, that off-kilter feeling that afflicted him now whenever Cassandra was mentioned.

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said, vaguely, keeping his eyes fixed on Dorian’s distant struggles. “She’s the dragon expert.”

“Her light blazes in the darkness, dragging me in its wake,” said Cole softly. When Varric turned, the kid’s pale eyes were fixed upon him, his expression curious. “Words on a page, a smile caught on the edge of a laugh, like the sun rising over the mountains,” he said. “Her hands take mine. She looks at me as if I am…enough. The space where she should be aches.”

There was a long silence. Bull stared at Cole, and then turned slowly to Varric. “Holy shit,” he said.

“Tiny...” said Varric in a warning tone of voice, though anything he could have said would be far too late. Bull wasn’t an idiot.

“Boss, are you and Cassandra—?”

“No,” said Varric flatly. “Whatever you were going to say, no we’re not.”

“But you...”

“Yeah.”

There was an even longer silence.

“Shit,” said Bull, with feeling.

“Yeah.”

Bull did him the favour of not pressing any further as Dorian rejoined them, but Varric had the sinking feeling he wouldn’t just let the subject drop for long.

Later that day, they found themselves searching a grand chateau, a place that was so large it could have swallowed the Viscount’s keep back in Kirkwall whole, and so extravagant that every gilded doorknob was probably worth a year of Varric’s book sales. Dragons notwithstanding, this part of the forest was apparently much in demand for the summer homes of the Orlesian nobility, looking to escape the stinking heat of Val Royeaux in the hottest part of the year and retreat to the dappled shade and babbling brooks of the countryside instead, to go on picnics and ride out hunting and whatever else it was that rich bored people did with their time. So the area was dotted with ostentatious mini-palaces like this one, ringed by high ornate iron railings and surrounded by lavish formal gardens into which the wild chaos of the forest was already making inroads in the absence of a team of gardeners to fight it back.

All of these homes were boarded up and shuttered, the furniture inside covered in dust sheets, the lamps unlit and heavy padlocks on all the doors. Vines were starting to creep in at the broken window panes, dead leaves blowing across the marble floors. The chateaus of the Emerald Graves were a depressingly on-the-nose metaphor for the fate of Orlais; the Orlesian Empire was still one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in Thedas, rivalled only by Tevinter, but things were changing. They’d been ceding territory to the Nevarrans for decades, and not forty years ago they had lost Ferelden too, after the rebellion there. Now the Orlesian lion was tearing itself apart, its armies fighting each other in protracted, brutal civil war, while the Imperium looked on in delight from the north, and Corypheus waited in the wings to strike.

These summer retreats of the rich and powerful had been just another casualty of that war, as the area became too dangerous to travel to. Looking around at all these boarded up and crumbling temples to opulence, built on the graves of their past conquest and now left to rot as new enemies moved in on all sides, it was hard not to see an Orlais in decline and in denial.

The Iron Bull gave a low whistle as they stepped inside a vast marble entrance hall, the sound echoing off the cobwebbed, frescoed ceiling.

“Nice place,” he said. “Impossible to defend though, look at those huge-ass windows.”

“I don’t think they built it with defence in mind,” said Varric.

“Or taste, apparently,” said Dorian, looking around with an expression of deep disgust. “Why do the Orlesians feel the need to gild everything? This place screams new money.”

“It doesn’t scream,” said Cole. “It’s not afraid. It thought everything would last forever. It still thinks they’ll all come back.”

“Maybe they will,” said Varric, “but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a while.”

They’d found some orders on one of the frozen red templars about their commander using an abandoned chateau nearby as a base of operations, but there was no way to know which one. This place looked undisturbed, and Bull had been forced to cleave the padlock off with his axe in order for them to get inside, but there could be other entrances.

“Now we’re here, we may as well give it a thorough search,” decided Varric. “Even if the templars aren’t here, there might be something we can use.”

“Ah, looting Orlesian homes!” exclaimed Dorian. “Finally, something my father can be proud of.”

“We’re not looting, just…think of it as payment for services rendered,” said Varric. “I’m not saying we start pawning their furniture, but if there’s anything here those refugees can make use of, there’s no point leaving it here to rot.”

“No argument from me,” said Dorian.

“You go right then,” said Varric, gesturing at one of the doors out of the entrance hall. “Me and Bull will go left, and we’ll meet up in the middle before heading upstairs. Kid, stick with Dorian and get him through any doors he can’t open. If anyone runs into trouble, just yell. This place echoes enough, I think we’ll hear it from anywhere.”

They split up accordingly, Dorian and Cole disappearing through the door as Varric and Bull made their way through the one opposite, into some kind of reception room, filled with little couches covered in dust sheets, their carved gilded legs sticking out from underneath. On one side of the room there was a vast fireplace, with a vase of flowers long dead on the mantle, and the other side a row of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over an inner courtyard garden. Light streamed through, illuminating gleaming dust motes dancing in the air. There were a few cabinets around the walls, and Varric wandered over the one and found it locked – he got out his roll of lockpicks immediately, on the basis that anything locked might have something worthwhile inside. Bull, meanwhile, was reaching up under the fireplace to feel around in the chimney.

“Sometimes people hide their valuables here,” he said by way of explanation, in response to Varric’s questioning glance. “If they left in a rush.”

Varric turned back to his lock and it clicked open, but there was nothing in the cabinet but a bundle of what looked like legal documents. He left them where they were, and straightened up to find Bull wiping his sooty hand on his trousers.

“Nothing,” he said, and by unspoken agreement they started across the room to the next door.

“So, is it the scar?” Bull said, as they walked into a music room of some kind.

Distracted by a huge grand piano carved of mahogany, Varric was only half listening. “What’s that?” he said vaguely.

“Cassandra,” said Bull, as though they were picking up a conversation they’d already been having. “It’s the scar, isn’t it? A certain type of guy is always attracted to women with scars. Or men.” Bull grinned and gestured to his own heavily scarred face.

Varric sighed, turning to him with a feeling of deep trepidation. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t want to—”

“Is it the accent then?” Bull cut in. “The accent is hot.”

“I don’t—”

“Is it because she shines like a beacon of faith in a world of shadows, facing the darkness with her blade and her head held high, eyes open where others would blind themselves, her heart willingly given to a world that will offer her only doubt and distrust, asking nothing in return?”

Varric stared, his mouth dropping open. “That...about covers it,” he managed finally. “Son of a nug, Tiny, where did all that come from?”

“You,” said Bull. “You wrote it in the last chapter of that book you gave the Seeker, about the main character. Dorian read it to me.” He gave Varric a sideways glance. “Funny, because I don’t really remember your Knight Captain Whatsername being much one for the Maker until that point. You might want to start reading back some of this stuff sometimes, Boss.”

“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be much else to say.

“There was more, but I can’t remember it all,” said Bull. “It was nice though. Romantic.” Bull’s one good eye was regarding Varric with an unusually sympathetic expression. “You really have got it bad, haven’t you?”

“’Bad’ being the operative word.”

“Does she know?”

Varric gave a hollow laugh. “Yeah, because that would be a great conversation starter. Hey Seeker, you know how you think I’m a huge pain in the ass who was sent here by the Maker specifically to test your patience, and how you assume the feeling is mutual? Well turns out that isn’t true, because actually I...” He trailed off. “Shit, I can’t even bring myself to say it to you, it sounds so ridiculous. I’d be lucky if all she did was laugh in my face.”

“That’s a little extreme, Boss,” said Bull, patiently. “Last I checked, you two were friends at least. Don’t you think you’re being too hard on yourself?” He frowned. “And Cassandra too, come to think of it. She might not be a master of tact and diplomacy, but she’s not cruel.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Varric. “She probably wouldn’t even find it funny. If I actually managed to convince her I was serious, I’m sure she’d be very...kind about it. Andraste’s ass, I can’t think of anything worse.”

There was a long silence.

“Anyway, enough about me,” said Varric, with a forced jollity that convinced neither of them. “It’s not all hopeless causes round here. I notice you and Sparkler seem to have finally figured things out.”

“Seems like it,” said Bull, with a slightly irritating lack of embarrassment. They both started towards the next door, conscious of time moving on, and this room being almost completely empty but for the piano that must have been too large to remove.

“You’re not worried about the fact that your two peoples are engaged in a centuries-old war with the aim of total obliteration of the other’s culture and way of life?” asked Varric, as they walked down a foyer, checking into side doors as they went.

“Nah, that just makes for good foreplay,” said Bull grinning. “Seriously though, it is what it is. For as long as it lasts. It doesn’t always pay to overthink these things.”

Ignoring this pointed comment, Varric said: “Well, if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“I guess I am happy.” Bull actually looked slightly surprised at this. “Huh, who’d have thought?”

They finished the rest of their search more or less in silence, both absorbed in their own thoughts, and met up with Dorian and Cole at the other end of the mansion before searching the upper floors. But they found no sign of the red templars. As the rest of the day drew on, and they scoured more of the nearby abandoned summer homes of the wealthy, they did find signs of recent habitation, but no-one still in residence. Out in the forest, under the emerald shade of the trees, there was the same sense of…abandonment. It was hard to put your finger on until Cole mentioned something about singing, and Varric realised that birdsong, which had been notably missing since they’d arrived, seemed to be returning to the rustling canopy of leaves. There was a sense of nature breathing out a sigh of relief, and he felt it too, the lightening in his chest, the absence of a constant, nagging sense of unease which he associated easily by now with the nearby presence of red lyrium. As they picked their way through the lush forest paths, they met no-one but a slender, dappled deer that startled out from the bushes nearby and bounded across their path.

When they returned to the refugee camp, the news was the same from every scout – no sign of the enemy, only abandoned camps and tracks headed north. Their leadership in the area crippled, the red templars and their remaining Venatori masters had fled, and the Freemen deserters with them.

Fairbanks surprised Varric by shaking him firmly by the hand as he told them the news, a broad smile on his face for the first time since they’d arrived.

“It’s good to know the Inquisition at least still cares about the common folk,” he said. “I thought you might be all speeches and hollow words, Inquisitor, like those in Val Royeaux. I am glad to be wrong. It is a welcome change, to meet someone who puts his money where his mouth is.”

Varric chuckled. “I could say the same about you,” he said. “The Inquisition could use a few more people who give a shit, if you’re interested?”

“You’ve saved me making the offer myself,” said Fairbanks, with a wry smile. “Once I can be sure these people are safe, I am at your service, Herald of Andraste. And there are others here, I think, who will say the same.”

The mood that night in the refugee camp was celebratory.  Even though many of these people still didn’t have homes to go back to, simply being able to leave the sheltered gully without risk of attack was clearly a tremendous relief. The Inquisition was toasted gladly, as the refugees made plans to travel onwards together, to find shelter in a city, or to stay here and try to rebuild what they had lost. There was music and laughter, in spite of the nip in the air that spoke of the summer drawing to an end.

It was easy to think of Orlesians as the stereotype from a hundred different bawdy jokes; pompous and stuffy, preening pampered peacocks obsessed with status and their Grand Game. But these people were Orlesians too. Farmers and inn-keepers and housewives, the kids shrieking and chasing each other round the camp, the two old women gossiping by the cooking pot, the courting couple entwined and giggling in the shadows. They’d all had their lives overturned by a war they had no say in, and their whole world threatened by an enemy who they could barely even hope to comprehend.

Varric felt a twinge of apprehension as his mind turned inexorably to the upcoming peace talks at Halamshiral. The Inquisitorial Council were united in thinking that this was when Empress Celene would be the most vulnerable, and an assassination attempt was almost certain. Even if they managed to stop it, ensuring that the peace talks themselves went smoothly was just as important. The pause in the civil war had barely made things safer for the people of Orlais, as they’d seen here in the Dales, and if diplomacy broke down and hostilities resumed in earnest…

There would be more homes destroyed, more refugees, more grieving family members. No crops planted in the fields for another year. It wouldn’t be the nobles in Val Royeaux who would suffer the most.

Varric pushed his grim thoughts to the back of his mind with some effort. Strangely, he found himself wishing that Cassandra were here, for all that this whole trip had started in an effort to avoid her. Bull was a decent guy, and Dorian was too, underneath all the flash and bravado, but Varric couldn’t really…talk to them, in the same way. They’d both known him as the Herald of Andraste first, and he’d always be that to them. Cassandra had known him before, if only a little, and she’d never stood on ceremony, never seen him as anything other than an equal, whether they were at each other’s throats or forging a tentative friendship. If she were here, Varric might have told her of his doubts, but admitting to either Bull or Dorian that he felt way out of his depth trying to navigate the politics of Orlais would have felt like letting them down somehow – they had signed up to follow him, and so he needed to at least seem confident, sure of himself, when it came to being the Inquisitor, live up to the image that people had of him in their heads. It was a lonely sort of feeling. Varric wondered, with a pang, whether Hawke had ever felt the same way.

The next morning, not long after dawn, an Inquisition scout arrived on a horse, carrying an update from the south camp and a couple of letters – one for Bull and one for Dorian. Varric, still breakfasting, found himself in the unusual position of being the one with no correspondence of his own. Of course, any non-urgent messages were probably waiting for him back at Skyhold, but there was a notable absence which still stung every time he failed to receive a letter with the handwriting he was looking out for, one he knew Leliana would make sure he got wherever he was. But he’d had no word from Bianca since Valammar. Perhaps it had been stupid to expect it – it had been pretty clear where things stood between them when they’d parted ways. Still, for all that it had happened many times before, apparently some part of Varric still had the capacity to be surprised at how easily she was able to slip out of his life once again. Cassandra had been right; he’d lost Bianca a long time ago. He’d been clinging to the idea of her for so long that he hadn’t even noticed that he hardly knew who she was anymore.

Cassandra had been right about a lot of things. And Varric had been very, very wrong about Cassandra, from the moment they’d met. What a blind idiot he felt for it now. What wouldn’t he give to turn back time and do things differently…

A faint noise of surprise from Bull shook Varric from his thoughts, and he saw that the huge Qunari was frowning down at the letter in his hands.

“Bad news?” he asked, unable to restrain his curiosity.

“Interesting news,” said Bull. To Varric’s surprise, he passed the letter over. “See what you think, Boss.”

Varric skimmed the letter, and let out a low whistle between his teeth, all thoughts of Bianca and Cassandra driven from his mind. “An alliance with the Qunari?” he said, looking back up at Bull. “That’s…unexpected.”

“No shit.” Bull wasn’t a guy to let his feelings show on his face, but he looked uneasy, Varric thought. “They must be more worried about the Venatori than I thought. The reports coming out of Tevinter must be pretty bad.”

“Think it could be a trap?” asked Varric.

“Nah, the cipher’s right. It’s legit. Just…surprising. My people have never made a full-blown alliance before with a foreign power. This could be a big step.”

He didn’t sound any happier about the prospect than Varric felt, but the Inquisition didn’t have a lot of options right now. With Orlais in shambles, teaming up with the sheer military power of the Qunari…

“Then I guess we’re going back to the Storm Coast,” said Varric. “Ruffles would kill me if she thought I was rude enough to ignore such a polite invitation.”

“Ha,” said Bull, with no real humour. “I’ll send word to the Chargers, get the boys to meet us there. We’ll need backup, but if we’re doing this, we can’t tip the Venatori that the Inquisition is coming.”

At that moment, Dorian joined them, tucking his own letter into a pocket in his robes. “Did I hear you say we were headed to Ferelden?” he asked.

“Looking that way,” said Bull. “Got a message from an old contact.”

Varric assumed Dorian would be curious about this, but, surprisingly, he didn’t ask any follow-up questions. “I wonder if we might make a brief stop at Redcliffe while we’re passing by,” the mage said, instead. “It appears I have some…pressing business to take care of there.”

Though his tone was light, Varric saw the lines of strain on his face. Whatever had been in Dorian’s own letter, it had troubled him as much as Bull’s had done.

“He’s waiting,” said Cole, his soft voice coming from where he had been perched nearby, unnoticed. “But not for you. The person he’s waiting for doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just a picture in his head. He can’t bring him back.”

Varric saw both Dorian’s and Bull’s faces in that moment as they turned to Cole, and realised that they both had almost identical expressions of barely concealed dread. Which of them Cole was talking about wasn’t clear. Maybe it was better not to know.

“Alright,” Varric said briskly, covering for the awkward moment as best he could. “We’ve done good work here, but I’m sick of trees. Let’s hit the road.”

Cole frowned. “Wh—”

“It’s an idiom, kid,” said Varric kindly, anticipating his question. “I’ll explain on the way.”

After the lush, tangled forests of Orlais, with their empty, echoing chateaus and desperate refugees and ancient wounds, it was a relief to be back in Ferelden. This whole country reminded Varric of Hawke; cheerfully scrappy and a bit unkempt, tough as ironbark. In these damp, hardscrabble lands the Champion of Kirkwall had been born and raised, and Ferelden left the same kind of lovable underdog impression that she did. It was difficult not to develop a certain fondness, with familiarity.

Varric had spent so much of his time travelling the south recently that he had almost gotten used to the rhythm of life on the road; seeing the landscape pass by from the back of a horse, waking up in roadside inns, pulling his hood up to keep off the rain, bartering for fresh food from farms. It wasn’t a lifestyle he’d ever choose willingly – every night spent under canvas made the muscles in his back protest for a real bed – but it wasn’t such a trial as it once had been. They made good time back to the Storm Coast, even taking into account their brief detour to Redcliffe for Dorian’s sake. This turned out to be for a meeting with his father, the Magister Halward Pavus, of which the best thing Varric could say was that it was mercifully short. It put Dorian in a distant, melancholy mood for the rest of the journey, and though Bull did his best to keep his spirits up, he too was obviously distracted by the prospect of the upcoming joint mission with the Qunari.

It was a clear, warm morning when Varric found himself once more at the port of Daerwin’s mouth, the place from which he’d fled so humiliatingly when last he’d been here. He was determined not to let the ghosts of his own failures rule his mind again, but he needn’t have worried – the place had been transformed in his relatively short absence. Now that the Inquisition had taken possession of it, Cullen had moved in a small garrison to support the Blades of Hessarian in defending the port, and work was well underway in making it fit for purpose again. All traces of red lyrium had been destroyed, and the makeshift repairs that the red templars had made had been disdainfully dismantled by a team of dwarven stonemasons, who were in the process of repairing the stone bridges and structures into something that would last. Trade and travel for the Inquisition between Ferelden, Orlais and the Free Marches had gotten a whole lot quicker with such easy access to the Waking Sea, and Varric could only imagine that Josephine was spending her days right now fending off petitions from traders asking to use the port and benefit from the Inquisition’s protection.

They had some time to themselves now they had arrived – the planned rendezvous with Bull’s Ben-Hassrath contact wasn’t for another couple of days. Dorian and Bull immediately wandered off to find something to eat, and Cole disappeared in the way he often did. Varric himself got stuck getting a report on the progress from the Corporal in charge of the port, who went on for a long time but was so obviously glowing with pride at getting to talk to the Inquisitor directly that Varric didn’t have the heart to stop him. When he did eventually manage to extricate himself, he followed his nose to what was clearly a communal food hall set up in one of the old dwarven buildings carved into the rock, and ran into Krem sitting at a large trestle table with a bowl of stew.

“Good to see you, your worship,” he said cheerfully when Varric wandered up. “The Chargers only beat you here by a day – we arrived last night. You just missed the Chief, by the way; he stopped by for some food but said he was going to be indisposed for the next few hours.”

Since he’d been with Dorian, Varric could pretty easily guess what that meant, and he couldn’t help but be glad that Sparkler at least had a good distraction on hand from his family troubles. He was on the point of asking Krem out of interest what he thought of the unusual couple, when Krem added: “Seeker Pentaghast is still up at the Blades of Hessarian camp, but I’m told she’s expected back by nightfall.”

“The Seeker’s here?” Varric said, seized with a sudden mixture of alarm and eager anticipation. Krem looked slightly taken aback by his reaction.

“Yes, Inquisitor,” he said. “My apologies, I thought you knew. She arrived last week with Ward—with Blackwall. Apparently there’s been trouble with darkspawn in these parts, and they came to help.”

“Well, our own plans changed at the last minute,” said Varric. “I guess we must have missed a report.” He hesitated for a moment, all thoughts of lunch forgotten, and then said: “The camp isn’t far. I’ll go and meet her, fill her in on what’s happening. If anyone asks, tell them I’ll be back by nightfall too.”

He could only imagine what Bull or Dorian’s reaction to that would be, but it was probably better to face Cassandra alone than risk his well-meaning friends making an already potentially awkward situation worse. So Varric set off quickly down the coastline to the Blades of Hessarian camp before he could think better of it or anyone could insist on going with him. This whole area had such a strong Inquisition presence now that he was unlikely to find himself in any danger he couldn’t handle out in broad daylight like this. Outside of a Blight, darkspawn tended to stick to caves, although the news that they had been coming to the surface at all was concerning. Varric mulled it over as he walked, since it provided a good distraction from his other more pressing concerns. Now that they knew red lyrium had the Blight, perhaps it was no coincidence that the darkspawn had been drawn to the surface here, where there had been such a concentration of the stuff. Maybe the lyrium called to them too.

It took him less than an hour to reach the Blades of Hessarian compound on foot, but when he entered, he found his journey wasn’t quite over. Varric was informed by a surprised Blackwall that the Seeker was up in the foothills with a couple of hunters on the trail of a particularly territorial she-bear that had recently moved into the area, and had been deemed too great a threat to leave alive. Since he’d come this far already, Varric set off again, waving off Blackwall’s offer to accompany him, this time turning away from the distant shore and following the course of the river inland. The grass was lush and wet; clearly it had been raining, though the skies were now clear overhead, and his boots were soon caked in mud. Eventually a bellow nearby made him veer sharply towards it, the sound of fighting getting clearer as he made his way cautiously through the trees.

They had the bear at bay, backed up against a rocky cliff. Two burly Blades of Hessarian warriors, clad in worn leathers, and – Varric’s heart gave a lurch in his chest – Cassandra, in her familiar plate, holding up her shield to fend off the bear’s swiping claws. The beast was bleeding heavily from several wounds, torn between the three targets and lunging ineffectually at each in turn, as the others tried to find an opening to strike a killing blow. It was an enormous creature, even by Ferelden bear standards, packed with muscle and wielding claws inches long, but it was clearly tiring. When it reared up suddenly on its hind legs with a furious roar, ready to strike, it towered feet above the heads of the humans…and inadvertently presented a perfect target. Never one to miss a Maker-given opportunity for a dramatic entrance, Varric raised Bianca without a second thought and shot it through the head. The bolt drove right through the bear’s eye into its brain, and although it would be an exaggeration to say that the ground shook when its lifeless carcass dropped to the wet grass, it certainly made an impact.

The three humans turned as one to stare at Varric, who collapsed his crossbow and swung it over his back, admittedly with a bit of a flourish. Cassandra’s face split into a smile as she sheathed her sword.

“Varric!” she called.

She looked genuinely, unreservedly happy to see him, which made Varric feel briefly as though he’d swallowed a small sun. He started towards them and Cassandra came to meet him halfway, her two companions hanging back by the bear carcass.

“What are you doing here?” Cassandra asked when they were close enough to speak comfortably. “I thought you were still in Orlais.”

“I thought you were back at Skyhold,” Varric countered.

“Forgive me, Inquisitor, but I decided that sitting around sipping tea with Josephine while you go out gallivanting through the Deep Roads and meeting with mysterious Orlesian rebel leaders was not really a valuable use of my skills,” said Cassandra, slightly pointedly.

“I can promise you I’ve never gallivanted anywhere, Seeker,” said Varric, torn between amusement and guilt. Shit, from her perspective he really had ditched her twice without bothering to tell her where he was going, hadn’t he? “I don’t think it’s even possible to gallivant through the Deep Roads,” he said, “not without tripping over something unspeakable.”

“In any case, the darkspawn needed dealing with, and the Blades of Hessarian sent word requesting help, as they know we are allied with the Grey Wardens,” said Cassandra. “I believed I had a responsibility to them.”

“And Blackwall?”

“He asked to come,” said Cassandra, a touch stiffly. “I could see no reason to forbid it.”

Maker’s breath, that must have been an uncomfortable journey for the both of them. But the Seeker had vowed she wouldn’t let her personal feelings affect her ability to work alongside the guy, and it seemed she’d meant it. At least while cutting down darkspawn there probably hadn’t been much time for idle chit-chat.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, anyway,” said Varric. “Something tells me we might need all the help we can get.”

“What do you mean?”

Varric jerked his head subtly towards her companions, who were standing somewhat awkwardly by the bear carcass, pretending not to listen in. Cassandra turned to them.

“Return to your camp,” she instructed. “The bear is too heavy for us to move now, but if you hurry, you can send out a larger group with a sled to bring it back before nightfall. I daresay you could make use of the meat and the hide. The Inquisitor and I will return to the port.”

The Blades of Hessarian obeyed, hurrying off into the trees as Cassandra and Varric fell into step together, their feet turning towards the distant shoreline. As they walked, Varric filled her in on the offer from the Ben-Hassrath. Cassandra was about as sceptical as he was himself at the prospect of an alliance, however temporary, with the Qunari, but she agreed that they had little choice but to agree to this joint mission. With the loss of Daerwin’s Mouth, the Venatori had been forced to smuggle red lyrium north from a more vulnerable position further up the coast, and if the Qunari’s promised dreadnought could take out their ship – with Inquisition support on the shore to deal with their mages – then it would strike a blow against their enemy’s efforts to keep the lyrium flowing.

By the time he’d brought Cassandra up to speed, they had reached the coast and turned to walk along the shingled beach, the looming cliffs of Daerwin’s Mouth just visible in the distance, and Varric was finding it more than a little difficult to keep his mind on strategic Inquisition matters. Maybe he’d been wrong to think it was better to face Cassandra without anyone else around, because now he was acutely aware of just how alone they were. Strolling along the endless beach together, not a soul in sight, just the two of them and the sound of the crashing surf and birds calling to each other in the distant trees, the smell of salt and late summer in the air.

It was…

Maker’s balls, it was all so sodding romantic that Varric was in absolute agony. How was he supposed to concentrate with the soft rays of the afternoon sun gilding Cassandra’s olive skin, her eyes flecked with gold, the sea breeze ruffling her hair like an affectionate lover? How was he supposed to ignore the easy grace of her strides as she walked beside him, automatically slowing to match his pace, the subtle sway of her hips that spoke to the curves of her body, tantalisingly concealed beneath layers of armour? Had she always looked like that, and he just hadn’t noticed?

Alright, admittedly Varric had noticed, on plenty of occasions. He wasn’t blind. But not like this, not in this way when he couldn’t seem to stop noticing. When he couldn’t stop wondering how soft her skin would feel under the touch of his hands, or his mouth…

Not far from here, not so long ago, Cassandra had knelt before him and called him a friend. She had taken his hands in her own. The very thought of her doing that now made Varric feel like he was going to dissolve into sand and be washed out with the tide. Did she ever think about that day too? Or the night they’d spent in the caves below Haven, wrapped in each other’s arms? Or the last time they’d seen each other, that evening in the tavern when she’d looked at him as if—

“Varric, is something wrong?”

Cassandra was watching him with a small frown, presumably taken aback by his uncharacteristically long silence. She sounded genuinely puzzled, and Varric made a conscious effort to pull himself together. He was being ridiculous. Of course she hadn’t been thinking about that night. They were just a couple of comrades who’d had a bit too much to drink and got a bit too personal – mildly embarrassing, sure, but nothing to lose sleep over. Cassandra had probably already all but forgotten about the whole thing. Maker, but he was a prize idiot.

“Just tired,” he said. “It was a long journey to get here, even with the stop at Redcliffe.”

“You stopped at Redcliffe? Why?”

“A favour for Sparkler.” Varric hesitated. “It’s...personal. Not my place to talk about it, but it was important.”

“Of course,” said Cassandra, as if she could never have doubted it. That immediate, unconditional trust made Varric chuckle in spite of himself.

Cassandra looked at him quizzically. “What is it?”

“Oh nothing,” said Varric. “It’s just…we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? Since you forcing all of my secrets out of me at sword-point.”

There was a time when Cassandra would have taken offence at that, but no longer. “Trust is earned, Varric,” she said, with an emphasis not unkind. “And you have earned mine.” Her mouth quirked up a little at the corners. “I am the Herald’s mabari, am I not?”

Varric winced. “You’ve heard about that too, huh?”

“It is not the most flattering of nicknames,” said Cassandra dryly. “But there are worse things to be accused of than loyalty.” She turned and smiled at him, a warm genuine smile, and Varric’s heart kicked like a mule in his chest. “And there are worse people to be loyal to,” she said.

Varric smiled back, though it felt forced even to him. He had to press his teeth together until his jaw ached, to prevent the words that threatened to spill from his mouth. The things that would be tremendously stupid to say out loud: that he had missed her, like a limb. That in the few short weeks they had been apart, he must have turned to her a dozen times to ask for her opinion, to make some joke that he thought might make her laugh, just to see her face.

“Actually, I am glad to have a moment alone with you,” said Cassandra, absolutely oblivious to the immediate dramatic effect these words had on Varric’s heartrate. “I have been meaning to speak to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“It is about the book I took from Lord Seeker Lucius. Can we sit?”

He nodded, and they both sank down onto an enormous piece of driftwood, a hollow tree trunk washed up high up the shingled beach and bleached white by the sun. Cassandra wasn’t one to fidget when nervous, or mince words, but Varric could sense the tension in her posture, and waited as patiently as he could for her to start speaking.

“I was always taught my abilities as a Seeker came from the Maker,” she said. “Now I know that is not true, at least not in the way I believed...”

Varric had promised her once that he was a good listener when the occasion called for it, but even now it took some effort to remain silent as Cassandra haltingly poured forth the secrets of the Seekers of Truth. It didn’t make for a pleasant story. All mysterious orders had their secrets, of course, but usually they were kept from outsiders, not their own members. The Grey Wardens, for example, held their Joining ritual extremely close to their chests, but whatever strange process Bethany and her compatriots had been forced to endure to resist the Blight, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what Cassandra described in becoming a Seeker. It sounded to Varric like something more akin to torture; a whole year of isolation, of fasting and silent prayer, stripping her down to only her resolve and her faith in the Maker’s will. Cassandra, like every Seeker before her, had been purged of all emotion, emptied of everything she was.

Made Tranquil. Without even knowing it.

Not as punishment for some terrible transgression, but as a test. Not every prospective Seeker passed it. There was a grim list of records in the book, Cassandra told him, of those initiates who had been left Tranquil forever. Seekers were trained young, and most were not yet of age when they undertook this vigil, oblivious of the stakes. This would have been horrible enough, but the second part of the ritual was more shocking still – the order called upon a spirit of Faith to break the Tranquillity in the initiate’s mind, and give them the powers which all fully-fledged Seekers possessed. After that, nothing could touch them. Not lyrium, not demons. They were the perfect weapons for the Chantry to wield against its most dangerous enemies.

When Cassandra had finished, Varric let out a long, slow breath through his teeth. “No wonder the Lord Seekers kept it a secret,” he said. “It’s hard not to come across as hypocrites if you’re killing mages just for the risk of possession, and then secretly forcing it on your own people without their knowledge to make them more powerful.”

“Indeed,” said Cassandra. “We have all been lied to, routinely, for a long time. Perhaps the Seekers of Truth were once truly an order that lived up to our ideals, but at some point power has become its own master. I cannot justify what the Seekers have become. Perhaps Lord Seeker Lucius was only the natural result of an order built on lies and self-justifications.”

She sounded more resigned than despairing, but still Varric’s heart ached for her. Once again he’d been wrapped up in his own troubles when all the while Cassandra had been bearing this weight alone. She might have willingly left the Seekers, but she had still described them as the closest thing she had to family, and it was clearer than ever now that being a Seeker of Truth wasn’t just a title – it was something you were. No wonder Cassandra’s faith in herself had been so shaken. Varric remembered suddenly something she’d said back at Skyhold: Sometimes I think I have just been a blind fool from the start.

“How do you feel about all this?” he asked. “I guess it hasn’t exactly been easy to accept. Not just the Seekers, but what happened to you, without you knowing.”

“It has been…difficult,” admitted Cassandra. “I did want to tell you from the first, but I feared what you might…” She hesitated. “After your experience with Anders,” she said carefully, “I did not want you to think there was another in your midst who might be overtaken by a spirit, and lose control over their actions.”

“And you were afraid of that too?” asked Varric, as gently as he could.

“I suppose I was,” said Cassandra. “But I spoke to Solas about it, in confidence, and he was surprised, but not alarmed at what I told him. He assured me that what the ritual described did not sound like possession, and he could find no trace of a spirit lingering within me. He likened the whole thing to a sword being forged in a furnace – the blade is changed forever, made into what it is, but it does not remain on fire.”

“That’s a surprisingly good metaphor, for Chuckles,” said Varric.

“I thought so too,” said Cassandra. “Though perhaps I should feel offended that people assume everything must be explained to me in terms of martial weaponry in order for me to understand.” She sighed. “Regardless, whatever I was forged into, it is what I have been for a long time now, and I cannot change it. Besides…we are what we do. You told me that.”

“I meant it,” said Varric.

“I have done many things in my life I regret,” said Cassandra, “but those choices were my own and no-one else’s. I know who I am.”

“I’m glad you told me, anyway,” said Varric. “That’s a lot to deal with alone.”

“I did not wish to add to your burdens too.”

“Well, you know what they say; a problem shared…”

“What?” Cassandra just looked puzzled. “A problem shared what?”

“…is a problem halved,” said Varric. “A problem shared is a problem halved. You’ve really never heard that saying?”

“Never. Perhaps it is only common in the Free Marches.”

“You know, that actually explains a lot about you, Seeker.”

“In any case,” said Cassandra, “it is not a problem that will be easily resolved.” She looked at him, her expression grave. “You understand, do you not, that this is not a revelation which affects only the Seekers?”

“Yeah,” said Varric. “Looks like you’ve got a cure for Tranquility on your hands.”

Cassandra nodded, clearly relieved that he had got there on his own. “Tranquility has always been controversial,” she said. “It was meant to be a tool to protect both mages and non-mages, to avoid bloodshed. And yet so often it has been used instead as an instrument of terror. Many mages fear Tranquility just as much as they fear possession, perhaps more.” She sighed. “Just as many mages fear templars, those who were always meant to protect them. As a Seeker, I looked into many abuses of the Rite of Tranquility. What finally began the mage rebellion was the discovery that it could be reversed. The Lord Seeker at the time covered it up. Harshly. There were deaths.”

“But the rumour got out anyway,” said Varric. “Everyone’s heard it.”

“If only a rumour caused open warfare and countless deaths, I fear what harm the truth could do,” said Cassandra. “Yet I cannot see how we can in good conscience keep this from the mages. Not after so many Tranquil have been slaughtered like cattle, abandoned and unable even to defend themselves.”

“Are you asking what I think?”

Cassandra nodded. “You have always been able to see these things more clearly than I.”

“I’m not sure that’s true, Seeker. And I’m not really sure I can tell you what the right thing to do is, either.”

Still, Varric considered what she’d told him, and they sat without speaking for a long time, looking out over the restless sea that was gleaming white now in the light of the setting sun. Anders had always said he’d rather be dead than Tranquil, Varric remembered. Bethany too – it wasn’t an uncommon opinion, among mages. And yet if you asked any Tranquil whether they wanted to be…cured…then the answer was invariably no. Cassandra’s own words were strangely apt. Whatever I was forged into, it is what I have been for a long time now. Was reversing the Rite against a Tranquil’s will just as bad as performing it in the first place? What about their friends and family, the people who had loved the person they’d been before? Did they get a say? Should they? Even setting all that aside, if you made the cure public knowledge, then what chaos would be caused by setting loose potentially hundreds of dangerously unstable and mentally scarred mages all across Thedas at once? But if you kept the knowledge only to a few…then who exactly got to decide which Tranquil got the cure, and when? Who had the right to make those decisions? The Chantry? The Senior Enchanters that were left? In all of this, would the Tranquil themselves end up getting a voice at all, or would they end up as just another bargaining chip?

Once upon a time, it was a debate Varric would have been happy to leave to other people to figure out, but those days were behind him. Sooner or later, the Inquisitor would surely be asked to weigh in on the matter, whether he wanted to or not. Cassandra at least didn’t press him for an opinion right away. She had always been comfortable with silence, and – impatient though she often professed herself to be – she seemed content to let him sit a while with the information she’d been living with for some time now.

“If you really want my advice,” said Varric finally, “I’d talk to Grand Enchanter Fiona, and ask what she thinks. And Vivienne. And Solas actually, and the Tranquil at Skyhold.” He held up a brief hand to forestall her objection. “Not to add to their burdens. To get their perspective. Neither of us have skin in this game, and maybe it shouldn’t be our decision to make.”

“There are risks to letting the mages entirely govern themselves,” said Cassandra. “Just look at Tevinter.”

“There are risks either way,” countered Varric. “Just look at Kirkwall.”

“True enough.”

“I’m not saying you hire a town crier in a fancy plumed hat to shout the news out in every market square,” said Varric. “I’m saying that maybe together we can figure out a solution that’s better then just ‘hide the truth away in a big book and kill anyone who finds out about it.’ Too many decisions that affect everyone have been made by important people with no accountability in secret little rooms. The mages are the Inquisition’s allies; we should show them the same trust they showed us. Let them into the room too, give them a say in their own future.” He was aware that he was in danger of speechifying, and tempered his words by adding: “At least, that’s what I’d do.”

Cassandra didn’t look wholly convinced, but she did seem as though she had relaxed, at least a little, the burden of her secrets perhaps eased just by someone else knowing. “Perhaps you are right,” she said. “I will think on it, Varric. Thank you.” She stretched out her arms in front of her with a faint clank of armour, her fingers interlaced, and then rolled her shoulders, easing out the tension in her muscles. “It is getting dark,” she observed. “We should get back to the port.”

She was right – the sun had slipped just below the horizon as they’d talked, and the sky was turning navy, faint stars starting to appear. They both rose and continued on their way towards the cliffs, where distant braziers had already been lit, marking the entrance to the port.

“I have spent too long talking of my own troubles, and I know nothing of your trip,” said Cassandra, as they walked. “What news from Orlais?”

Varric described the situation in the Emerald Graves; the refugees, the Freemen, the Venatori working behind the scenes to sow chaos. Cassandra probed carefully about how he had coped being around red lyrium again, and Varric defied his instinct to make light of it, and told her honestly that it had been hard, at times. But the work he’d been doing with Cullen had helped, and it had felt good to be able to do something to fight back against it. The templars were made powerful by red lyrium, yes, but they were also dependant on it now – by disrupting their supply lines, the Inquisition was starting to cripple their forces, weaken their resolve. It would make Corypheus more desperate, perhaps, and likely to retaliate, but every blow they were able to strike made him more vulnerable. Perhaps if this mission with the Qunari was successful, even the Elder One’s most faithful zealots might start to doubt his all-powerful grip on events. Orlais was on the edge of a knife; it could either stand against Corypheus or fall to him, depending on what happened at the coming peace talks.

By the time they reached the entrance of Daerwin’s Mouth, Varric was relieved to find that he’d relaxed over the course of their conversation, in spite of the topics being so grim. This was what he’d missed the most, he realised. Not just Cassandra’s courage, her humour, her fierce determination. It was talking to someone who took him seriously, who saw through his bullshit and still cared what he thought anyway. Someone who’d seen him at his worst and still seemed to expect his best. Her trust was an astonishing gift; Varric couldn’t believe he’d ever taken it for granted.

His panicked instinct to avoid her had been a bad one, cowardly. Why punish the Seeker for the sudden revelation of his own stupidly timed, dangerously inappropriate feelings? She was his friend. Varric was an adult. He was the Inquisitor, for fucks sake. He could deal with this. If necessary, he could shove it all down into a little metaphorical box somewhere deep inside him, turn the equally metaphorical key in the lock and never open it or look at it too closely ever again.

There. Problem solved.

The Inquisition soldiers on guard saluted as they opened the newly rebuilt stone doors to the port to allow them entry, a gesture Varric hardly even noticed anymore. He wondered, as they walked inside into the wide entrance cavern, whether Cassandra too was thinking of the last time they had been here together. If she was, she gave no sign, her expression untroubled in the light of the flickering braziers they passed. She really was very beautiful. Varric tried to make himself see it as he had done before; as a bland, objective fact, irrelevant to anything. It didn’t work.

“Have you eaten?” Cassandra asked. “The food here isn’t bad – the Blades of Hessarian are experienced hunters, and keep the port well supplied.”

“I ran into Krem earlier with some stew that looked pretty good,” said Varric, remembering that he had actually been distracted from his more prosaic hungers by the temptation of the Seeker’s company. “Let’s go see if there’s any left.”

“Corporal Haynes has done a fine job with getting this place up and running in a short time,” commented Cassandra, as they headed towards the food hall Varric had discovered earlier. “And he was good enough to spare some of his stonemasons to aid us in sealing the caves where the darkspawn have been emerging in the area. I must commend his work to Commander Cullen when we return.” She glanced down at him. “Do you intend to remain here long, after the mission with the Qunari is completed?”

“Guess it depends how it goes,” said Varric. “But no, we should get back as soon as we’re able to.” He noticed Cassandra looked pleased at the word ‘we’ and realised she hadn’t automatically included herself in his plans, as if she thought he might order her to remain here. As if there was any chance Varric could do without her, as if she hadn’t become so absolutely necessary to him now that it scared the shit out of him. “The peace talks at Halamshiral won’t wait for us,” he continued, “and Ruffles will be sweating if I’m not back in time to be briefed beforehand on whose hands to squeeze and which forks to use. We won’t be here more than a few days before we’ll have to get going.”

“Thank the Maker,” Cassandra said, with unexpected feeling. “This port is a strategic asset, and accommodations are better than many we have tolerated, but I’ll admit I share your dislike of caves. I find being surrounded by solid rock on all sides somewhat…disconcerting. I will be glad to return to Skyhold.”

“Yeah,” said Varric, and it was with a strange feeling of surprise he said the words, knowing that he really meant them. “Yeah, it’ll be good to be home.”

Chapter Text

“One, two, three, one two three, and turn…”

Keeping time effortlessly as she spun him about the room, Lead Scout Harding was…leading. She wasn’t supposed to be, given that they were engaged in a dance in which the male partner was supposed to take the lead, but Varric had only just about memorised the steps to this one, and he wasn’t going to get any awards for style any time soon. If he ever came to write the story of his time as Inquisitor, Varric thought, he might just skip this particular episode.

“One, two, three, and dip…”

Varric obediently swung Harding down low, holding her weight on one arm, before bringing her back up again. The Inquisition’s Lead Scout was light on her feet and utterly unembarrassed by the proceedings, and as they parted she looked pleased.

“Good!” she said cheerfully. “You’ve got that one down, your Worship.”

“Only about a hundred to go,” said Varric. “And please tell me by the time we’ve got through them all, you might have given up on this ‘your worship’ business? It makes me feel like I should be wearing a tall hat and a robe.”

“Sorry, Inquisitor,” said Harding. “But if it’s any consolation, there are actually only about eight different dances you absolutely need to know that are likely to be called for at the Winter Palace.”

Varric groaned. “Kill me now. How do you even know all this stuff, Freckles?”

Harding shrugged. “I can’t have hobbies?”

“We are very grateful you were able to take time from your busy schedule to assist us, Lady Harding,” said Josephine, who was perched in a corner on a chair, scribbling notes in a slim ledger. Varric sincerely hoped she wasn’t giving him points out of ten for his footwork. The ambassador looked up and smiled warmly at Harding. “Your skills have proven invaluable once again,” she said. “What a fortunate day for the Inquisition when you joined our ranks.”

Harding blushed beneath her freckles at the compliment, and Varric seized the momentary opportunity of her distraction to head for his own chair and sink down into it gratefully. They were well into the second hour of today’s lesson, and well into day…he couldn’t even remember, of preparations for the Inquisition’s trip to the Winter Palace at Halamshiral. Varric had already cursed Empress Celene to the Deep Roads and back several times for insisting upon holding peace talks at a ball. He wasn’t a particularly self-conscious guy, and he’d always been light on his feet too, but none of this was exactly in his wheelhouse.

“It is a shame we don’t have any music to practice to,” commented Josephine. “I am sure that charming bard in the tavern would be more than happy to—”

“Oh no,” said Varric. “We are not bringing more people into this.”

“As you wish, Inquisitor,” said Josephine. “Though you really have improved greatly.”

“You’re a natural,” said Harding. “You’re fine on the slower and group dances, it’s just your galliard that needs more practice. You have to really commit to the leg movements.” She frowned thoughtfully. “And you’re gonna be in trouble if a human asks you to join them in a volta, because you’d need to lift them from the waist, and the height difference would make that difficult. It could be…awkward.”

“No-one will ask that of you,” cut in Josephine, firmly.

“I don’t know, Ruffles, you don’t think there might be a few people who would jump at the chance to make the Inquisitor look like an idiot?” said Varric.

“Many,” said Josephine, unperturbed. “But it would be an obvious move, a clumsy attempt to humiliate you that would reflect more poorly on the instigator than on you. No real player in the Game would be so unsubtle.”

“It might not be a bad idea to practice a couple with a human partner though,” said Harding. “If only to figure out hand placement. It’ll mostly be humans there, I assume.”

“Correct,” said Josephine. “Though there will be a small contingent of emissaries from Orzammar, as the peace talks affect trade there too.”

“Oh goody,” said Varric.

“They are greatly in your debt, Inquisitor, and they know it,” said Josephine. “I doubt you will have any trouble from them.” A small smile quirked her lips. “I also highly doubt any of them are likely to ask you to dance. Lady Harding is right that any partner you find yourself escorting to the dance floor is likely to be human.”

“In that case…” said Varric. He stood up and strolled over to Josephine, holding out his hand and putting on his practised Inquisitorial voice; suave but unaffected, warm but polite. “May I have the honour of this dance, Lady Montilyet?”

Josephine beamed. “The honour is mine, my Lord Herald.”

She took his hand and they assumed their positions as Harding started her counting back up, a smile in her voice.

“One, two three, one, two three…”

“So, how do you find the Winter Palace, my lord?” asked Josephine, as Varric twirled her around the room.

“Even my words couldn’t do it justice,” said Varric, with the utterly sincere smile of someone who had not yet even stepped foot in the place.

“What a surprise to see the Comtesse Roche here, after what happened with her daughter,” said Josephine.

Varric wracked his brains. Roche…Roche…aha!

“It seems courage runs in their family,” he said smoothly. “Our Commander tells me Lieutenant Roche is one of our most skilled warriors. I hope someday the Comtesse will be proud of her daughter for following her calling to serve the Maker with her sword, as Andraste herself once did.”

“Good,” said Josephine. “Nicely put.”

Lady Elinor Roche – who had absconded out of her bedroom window in order to avoid an apparently unwanted arranged marriage and run away to join the Inquisition instead – was the least of the potential conversational pitfalls Josephine had warned Varric he might have to negotiate at the Winter Palace. She had been drilling him relentlessly on the latest ins-and-outs of Orlesian society, the things he would be expected to know. Varric was confident in his ability to talk his way out of any awkward questions about the mage rebellion, or the Grey Wardens, both of which were controversial subjects at best, but there were plenty of people who would be attending the ball that the Inquisitor couldn’t afford to offend, and plenty of opportunities to accidentally do just that, if he wasn’t careful. Varric knew plenty about the politics of Orlais by this point, but his work had been concerned with trade deals and battlefields, not the latest feuds and fashions amongst the great and good of society. He hadn’t got a clue what colours were in style or who had snubbed who, or which families could be played off against each other to the Inquisition’s benefit. All of which was apparently vitally important if he was going to make a good impression on the nobility of Orlais, and gain Empress Celene’s trust enough to uncover the plot on her life. Ferelden was a powerful ally, and the Inquisition’s own forces were considerable, but if they wanted to hunt down and defeat Corypheus, sooner or later they would need Orlais on their side. Preferably an Orlais that wasn’t still riven by civil war or reeling from the assassination of their Empress. These peace talks might be their only chance.

So no pressure.

“One, two three, and turn…”

Josephine spun out at the end of Varric’s arm in an elegant flurry of silk skirts, and then rejoined him again when he drew her back in, falling back into conversation as easily as she fell into step.

“May I ask who you favour for the next Divine, my lord?” she enquired.

“Those kinds of things are best left to the Maker, I think,” said Varric.

“Ah, but are you not His mouthpiece?” asked Josephine lightly. “Rumour has it members of your own Inquisition are tipped for the Sunburst Throne.”

Varric missed a step. “Wait, really?” he said.

“Focus, Inquisitor,” trilled Josephine. “If someone attempts to blindside you with a piece of information you did not have, you simply smile and say…”

Varric smiled. “You’re well informed, my lady,” he said.

Josephine smiled back. “I try to be,” she simpered.

Varric had been listening with half an ear to Harding’s counting, and they negotiated the last few steps of the dance with relative ease. At the end he dipped Josephine carefully, a little less low than Harding, to make up for her taller height. When he raised her up, she was beaming again.

“Very good!” she said, and clapped her hands together twice, in a very Antivan gesture of delight. “The Winter Palace cannot help but adore you, Inquisitor. You will have charmed them all thoroughly by the end of the night.”

This was overstating the matter a bit, Varric suspected, but he was more than happy to be reassured.

“Was that true, what you said?” he asked. “The Chantry is looking for a new Divine in the Inquisition?”

“Rumours only,” said Josephine. “Best not to pay them too much mind for now; it may come to nothing. But you should be aware.”

It was certainly an unexpected piece of information. In all the furore after the Conclave, the question of who would be named next Divine had more or less slipped Varric’s mind, and he was willing to bet it wasn’t at the top of most people’s list of priorities either. Chancellor Roderick, the crotchety old Chantry clerk who had saved his life at Haven, had spoken of it a few times, Varric remembered now, but hadn’t given much indication who he thought it was likely to be. Now that the Inquisition’s power rivalled that of the Chantry itself, maybe it made sense that the remaining grand clerics in Val Royeaux would look to consolidate that power by looking within their ranks to find a new leader. There were a fair few Chantry Sisters in the Inquisition, mostly survivors of the Conclave who’d fled with them from Haven, but few of any significant influence that Varric knew of. Mother Giselle seemed the obvious choice, though he’d gotten the impression she wasn’t really the ambitious type. But who else was there?

Josephine pulled an ornate gold pocket watch from the ruffles of her dress and consulted it. “Ah, but you must excuse me, Inquisitor. I have a lunch appointment with Madame Vivienne and I mustn’t be late.”

That meant he was off the hook for now, but Varric thanked both her and Harding sincerely as they all parted ways. It was one thing to have people who would fight and die at your command, and another thing entirely to have people who would teach you to waltz. The ball at the Winter Palace was looming ever larger on the immediate horizon, and Varric had to admit he was increasingly nervous about the whole thing – the Inquisition really did need the friendship of Orlais, especially after the potential alliance with the Qunari had turned into a total fiasco.

That had been Varric’s fault, more or less, along with a great big heaping dose of terrible luck. The Venatori on the Storm Coast had not been as cowed as they’d hoped, and had more reinforcements on the shore than they’d expected. Powerful mages, covering the launch of their ship. Bull’s Chargers had been cornered on the beach, and the only way to prevent them from being slaughtered had been to bring their other forces down from the clifftop to back them up, leaving the Qunari dreadnaught defenceless.

Varric had understood the choice he was making. Except it had hardly been a choice at all, because for all that the Qunari were a powerful potential ally, the Chargers had already stood with the Inquisition when they were nothing but an upstart rabble of heretics in the mountains, had shed blood alongside them, had dragged survivors out of the ashes of Haven as dragonfire rained down upon them. Varric didn’t give a shit what the strategic political move for the Inquisitor might have been – he didn’t abandon his friends. Ever.

The Chargers had survived, the reinforcements coming in the nick of time. But the dreadnaught had been sunk to the bottom of the Waking Sea, and with it any hope of support from the Qunari. Varric didn’t doubt that would come back to bite him personally in the ass someday – from what he’d seen of the Qunari in Kirkwall, they weren’t a people big on forgiveness. He’d have to add them to the ever-increasing list of people he’d managed to piss off somehow who were now very probably out for his head. If this went on, potential assassins would have to start working out shifts or something.

But the Iron Bull was the one who faced the most immediate consequences; he’d made his choice along with Varric, and the Qun wasn’t big on personal choice either. And so Bull was now Tal-Vashoth; no longer a true Qunari to his people, yet still inescapably and threateningly Qunari to anyone else he met. It was not unlike being a surfacer dwarf – you were an outsider either way, not exactly welcome anywhere unless you could make yourself useful enough, and even then accepted only on sufferance.

But at least Bull had his Chargers, and a place in the Inquisition as long as he wanted it. Varric had to hope that would be enough. Bull also seemed to genuinely have Dorian, and the unlikely pair had been cheering each other up, no longer bothering to hide their relationship. It was difficult to believe, the two of them; not that it was really any of Varric’s business. But it also made a strange kind of sense when you really thought about it. Both Bull and Dorian had a weird love/hate relationship with their homelands, and perhaps it was that which not only bound them together, but also allowed them to understand each other even in spite of their more obvious differences in faith, culture, upbringing and, well…almost everything. Maybe it also helped that, in a way, they had both lost their family recently. In any case, their relationship certainly seemed to be more serious than Varric had thought, but he was glad they seemed to have found some kind of equilibrium. He’d been sincere when he’d told Bull it was good to see both of them happy. Shit, he was turning into a real bleeding-heart romantic in his old age. Cassandra was a terrible influence on him.

Perhaps he’d go and see Bull now, Varric thought, since he had some time. Just to check in, show that he was there to talk if he was needed. He wanted to speak to Sera sometime today too, about a tip she’d passed on, and it was coming up to midday so he could get something to eat at the tavern while he was there.

It was a total coincidence that heading to The Herald’s Rest would take him past the training ring, where he knew Cassandra would be at this time, drilling some of Cullen’s more promising lieutenants in advanced swordsmanship.

Varric stopped by a window as he passed along the corridor and checked his reflection quickly in the glass, re-tying his hair. He undid another fastening on the front of his tunic, and then thought better of it, and did it up again.

“Idiot,” he muttered at his reflection, and then sallied forth into the bright morning sunshine, squinting a little in the glare. It was a cool, crisp day, the sky a vault of blue overhead, the leaves of the trees around Skyhold staring to redden and fall. Varric heard the faint clash of weapons as he neared the training ring, which was a wide fenced-off area in the central courtyard, the grass scuffed to dirt beneath by heavy boots. Cassandra’s silhouette was instantly recognisable, even out of her heavy plate armour as she was today, her arms folded as she watched two of the lieutenants sparring. Another woman stood watching next to her, her posture obviously nervous even from a distance, which marked her out as one of the trainees as much as her standard issue Inquisition uniform did. The two men who had been fighting stopped at Cassandra’s order, lowering their blunted swords a little self-consciously as they parted and the Seeker spoke to them. They weren’t wearing armour either – presumably that was part of today’s lesson.

Varric leant an arm on the wooden fence to watch, finding it just the right height, for once, for a good casual lean. He was just too far away to hear what was being said, but the cadence of Cassandra’s voice sounded pleased. He guessed she made a good teacher, possessing a natural authority, a wealth of experience, and not being one to play favourites. Varric knew himself how her forthright nature meant a single word of praise from the Seeker could make you feel like Andraste herself had descended from on high to give you the thumbs up. The soldiers she was instructing certainly seemed to be listening intently. There were two young men – a tall skinny fellow he didn’t know, and a Fereldan lad he vaguely remembered having a reputation in the tavern as a jokester. The woman who had been stood next to Cassandra looked barely old enough to even enter a tavern, and when he saw her face Varric had the frustrating sense of recognising but not being able to place her, before he realised that she was the aforementioned Lady Elinor Roche. Well, as much as he appreciated a good dramatic backstory, he wasn’t about to embarrass the woman by singling her out. She was the first to realise he was watching, however, as she caught his eye by chance, and her face drained of colour as she realised who he was.

“The Seeker’s not working you too hard, is she?” Varric called, trying to sound casually friendly.

The three lieutenants all stiffened into respectful attention as they all turned to see him, something Varric never really got used to, no matter how many times it happened. Cassandra, thankfully, was less intimidated, and merely raised her eyebrows at the interruption before strolling over to speak with him, her students trailing awkwardly along with her.

“Good day for a fight,” said Varric, somewhat inanely, but feeling like he had to offer something since he’d bothered them. Besides, if these soldiers were rising through the ranks, they’d have to get used to speaking to him like a person eventually, instead of shitting themselves with nerves any time he turned up. “What’s on today’s agenda?”

“Seeker Pentaghast had been teaching us how to combat different types of opponents,” said Lt. Roche, her Orlesian accent thick and her big brown eyes looking very much like an eager puppy when she looked at Cassandra. Varic recognised a hopeless crush when he saw one, though he supposed he wasn’t in much of a position to judge.

“Funny, Ruffles has just been teaching me more or less the same thing,” he replied, though this was a comment likely to pass over the heads of everyone present except for Cassandra.

“Maybe you’d like to step into the ring yourself, Inquisitor?” asked the Ferelden lad, with a broad grin. “None of us have ever fought a dwarf before.”

The two others looked horrified at his daring, but Varric just grinned back, pleased at this unexpected show of irreverence.

“I think not, Lieutenant Wakefield,” said Cassandra, in a long-suffering tone. “The Inquisitor has more important things to be doing. If you will excuse us a moment.”

Thus dismissed, the soldiers made themselves scarce to the other side of the training ring, their relief in having escaped the encounter obvious. Varric watched them go, torn between amusement and a strange kind of pride.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full with young Wakefield,” he said, turning his gaze back to Cassandra.

The Seeker huffed in exasperation. “He wouldn’t know a respectful tone if you hit him around the head with it,” she said. “But he is good with a sword,” she added, grudgingly. “Commander Cullen has an eye for talent.”

“You realise you just passed up on a golden opportunity to see me get my ass kicked in public?” said Varric. “These chances don’t come along that often, you know.”

“I would not tempt fate on that, if I were you,” said Cassandra, leaning against the wooden fence too, on the other side of it, resting her hand casually on the bar that was the right height for Varric’s elbow. She visibly relaxed a little in his company, in a way that made something twist pleasurably in Varric’s chest. Perhaps it was also the lack of her habitual plate armour that made her movements a little less stiff – it was rare to see her out of it, even around Skyhold. The Seeker was the sort of person who always considered herself on duty, and after what happened to Haven, Varric couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be caught unprepared even here at the Inquisition’s stronghold.

Still, even in what passed for casual clothing – a simple linen shirt tucked into her breeches, and no weapon in sight – you couldn’t mistake Cassandra Pentaghast for an easy target, or a random civilian. She’d never be able to remove her striking, aristocratic features, or conceal that unmistakable warrior’s bearing. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would immediately mark her out as someone who could take you down without breaking a sweat, armour or no, a quality which Varric was unfortunately discovering he found extremely attractive.

Her shirt was unlaced at the collar; nothing remotely revealing, but Varric found he had to quickly drag his eyes back to her face and hope she hadn’t noticed him looking. Maker’s breath, he was in enough trouble as it was without having to contend with deeply impure thoughts about the Seeker’s collarbones.

“How are you getting on with them?” he asked, to cover for this moment.

“Well enough,” said Cassandra. “I am hardly a natural teacher, but they are eager enough to learn, and willing to put in the work. It is heartening to see the Inquisition drawing recruits from so many different backgrounds together in a common cause.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming,” said Varric.

Cassandra sighed. “They are…very young.”

“You’re not exactly over the hill yourself yet, Seeker.”

“You flatter me,” said Cassandra dryly. She glanced briefly over to where the recruits were taking advantage of the break and chatting idly to each other. Wakefield was gesticulating, apparently telling some kind of funny anecdote, and the other two were stifling laughter.

“When I was their age, I was already a fully-fledged Seeker of Truth, and Right Hand to the Divine,” said Cassandra. “Yet when I look at them, I’ll admit they hardly seem more than children.” Her face fell slightly. “They remind me of Daniel,” she said. “I must have seemed so all-knowing to him, when I took him on as my apprentice. But the truth is that I never even truly understood what it was I was training him to be. Or where that path would lead him, in the end.”

“I might not have known him, but I’d be willing to bet what he really wanted to be was someone who made a difference,” said Varric. “Someone like you.”

Cassandra gave him a look. “Now you are trying to flatter me,” she said, though he noticed she didn’t look entirely displeased at the idea.

“You know me; nothing but the truth,” said Varric. “We can’t choose anyone’s path for them, Seeker. All we can do is make sure they don’t have to walk it alone.”

“That sounds like something from one of your books.”

Varric grinned. “I was just thinking that. It’s a good line, right? But seriously, these kids will be able to say that they were trained by the Hero of Orlais. That’s more than most people get. And who knows? Maybe one day they’ll be someone else’s hero, and all this will be a story they tell around the fireside when they’re old and grey.”

Cassandra’s face took on a faintly wistful expression. “I hope that’s true,” she said. She straightened up. “I should get back to them,” she said. “Unless you needed something?”

“No, just checking in,” said Varric, in a voice he hoped came across as airy and carefree. “Doing the rounds, you know? I’m just about to go talk to Sera.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Don’t let me keep you, Seeker.”

With a nod, Cassandra turned to stride off towards the young soldiers. Varric realised he was watching her walk away with more attentiveness than was perhaps suitable, and quickly looked away. What was he doing again? Ah, that was it – the tavern. Sera. Iron Bull. Lunch. Right.

He headed away with a renewed determination to get his head out of the clouds and into the game. Get his head, in fact, into the Game, capital G…because that was what awaited him at the Winter Palace. In just a few days they would leave for Halamshiral. He had to keep his eyes on the mission, not on…anything else. After all, Varric thought, the fate of an empire was on the line, and maybe the world. He was no fool, but the Orlesians’ Grand Game was a complex dance he’d only ever seen performed by others before, and now he was going to be walking into the dragon’s lair with people who had been playing it for their whole lives.

Maker willing he’d remember the steps, and not fall on his ass.

Varric had always secretly believed that if he was blindfolded and left in the middle of Kirkwall, he’d be able to navigate the city just by the ground beneath his feet. The broken cobbles of Lowtown, the flagstones of Hightown, the smooth, polished marble of the Viscount’s Keep. Dwarves that stayed underground, real dwarves, were supposed to have some kind of innate connection to the Stone that meant they never got lost in the Deep Roads, but Varric prided himself that he’d never need that anyway. In Kirkwall, he’d always know where he was.

He had no idea where he was right now, other than somewhere in north-east Orlais, but although his feet weren’t touching the ground, the way the carriage wheels beneath him had stopped rattling and jolting and were now rolling smoothly along a paved road meant he could guess that they must be getting close to their destination. It was the night of the great ball at the Winter Palace, and the Inquisition was arriving in style.

Josephine had borrowed the carriages from a friend of hers whose home they’d also stayed at last night; some rich merchant or other who owed the Ambassador a favour and was more than happy to have the social cache of putting up the Inquisition. Varric had sort of taken to the guy, who, like many merchants, had more money than he knew what to do with, but would never be considered high-class enough to warrant an invitation to the rarified circles of the nobility.

“I’ve heard the good work you’ve been doing in Orlais, Inquisitor,” the merchant had told him, bowing low when they were introduced. “My caravans can travel safely through the Dales again, thanks to you. It’s an honour to have the Herald of Andraste under my humble roof.”

The man’s mansion was hardly humble by anyone’s standards, but compared to where they were headed it may as well have been a hovel, so the loan of his fine carriages was extremely appreciated. According to Josephine, the Inquisition didn’t have anything suitable at their disposal, and as all the highest echelons of Orlesian society would be at the Winter Palace for the ball, the Inquisitor could not afford to make anything less than an impressive debut. Varric’s suggestion that he come riding in on a tame dragonling – he was taking this whole thing seriously, but he couldn’t resist poking a little fun – had been roundly vetoed. They’d not had to depend entirely on charity however; the stablemaster Harritt had provided four of the Inquisition’s finest horses to draw the Inquisitor’s carriage. Four pure white mares, brushed until their coats shone, their manes braided with gold and nodding plumes of feathers adorning their bridles. The outside of the carriage, with the merchant’s permission, had been emblazoned with the symbol of the Inquisition, the flaming eye and sword picked out in yet more gold. Frankly, as an entrance it raised expectations that Varric worried they might struggle to fulfil.

Still, it was more comfortable than their usual methods of transportation. The inside of the carriage was plush purple velvet and lit with glowing crystals. The air was just on the stuffy side of warm, and thick with Vivienne’s doubtless extremely expensive perfume. The mage in question was sitting on the opposite bench of the carriage, next to Cassandra, with Varric and Dorian on the bench facing in the direction of travel, since Dorian had complained he got queasy if he had to ride backwards. Josephine, Leliana and Cullen were in another, slightly less ornate carriage together a little way behind them; plotting, Varric assumed.

“I really can’t decide,” said Dorian conversationally, as they rolled along, “how much to confirm or deny about Orlesian views of the Imperium tonight. “Much though I’d love to set the record straight on a few points, I couldn’t help but feel like quite the party pooper if I were to shatter all their delicious rumours.”

“That’s assuming anyone will speak to you at all, darling,” said Vivienne.

“The son of a Tevinter Magister? Oh, they’ll be lining up for my attention,” said Dorian cheerfully. “The lure of the forbidden is really quite strong, you know, and people do love a novelty. As someone who was dragged to all sorts of these things for years, I can’t tell you how tedious it gets seeing the same old faces at every single event.”

There was something in the way he said ‘old faces’ as he looked at Vivienne that was clearly meant as a dig, but she didn’t rise to the bait.

“What a pity for you that when the novelty wears off, one must provide something of substance beneath in order to maintain interest,” she said placidly. “A veneer of glamour can get you only so far.”

“Lucky I‘ve got my dazzling good looks and natural charm to fall back on then, really,” said Dorian.

“Hmm.” Vivienne eyed him critically. “Quite. Well, I suppose you must make the best of the resources at your disposal, of course, however limited.”

There was something comfortingly familiar about this habitual sniping, and Varric wondered if perhaps that was why they were doing it, to try and ease the tension of the atmosphere. In truth, both Dorian and Vivienne seemed to be looking forward to the ball immensely, a rare moment of agreement between them. Varric suspected they secretly enjoyed each other’s company, for all they liked to trade barbs, and they were certainly the best suited to fitting in at an event like this, Dorian having been rigorously trained from birth to move in such circles, and Vivienne having long since clawed her way into them by sheer will. Both mages were perfectly comfortable riding in style and anticipating the night to come, a stark contrast to Cassandra, whose spine was ramrod straight and who looked about as full of trepidation as Varric felt.

The four of them made for an odd sight tonight, as they were all wearing the same thing, as primped and polished as the horses drawing the carriages, and clad in the formal uniforms that Josephine and Leliana had insisted the Inquisition’s envoy all don. Though they’d been tailored to fit and made from the finest materials, the uniforms were also gaudy by design, made to stand out in a crowd of ballgowns, frills and feathers. They were primarily red and gold, with a blue sash that made Varric feel like he’d been presented with some sort of minor civic prize. Josephine had consulted with a patient Vivienne to ensure the Inquisition’s look was the perfect balance between smartly militaristic and opulent, a display of wealth, power and above all, unity.

On Varric – and frankly on most of them – the uniform looked flamboyantly out of place, more eye-catching than fashionable. On Cassandra, distressingly, he noticed that it somehow managed to be devastatingly attractive, emphasizing the lean, angular lines of her body, the curve of her hips, her exquisite posture. The rich crimson silk and gold braid made her skin glow a warm copper, her dark hair and eyes gleam like jet. Varric wouldn’t be surprised if there had been several sonnets written by the end of the night.

Cassandra, utterly oblivious to the poetic tenor of his thoughts, tugged restlessly at her tunic, and rolled her shoulders, accidentally jostling Vivienne in the cramped confines of the carriage.

“There is not much range of movement in this thing,” the Seeker remarked. “I can hardly move my arm above the level of my shoulder.”

“You will hardly need to flag down a passing postal carriage at a ball, my dear,” said Vivienne.

“I was thinking more of swinging a sword, actually.”

“You always are,” said Vivienne, a touch despairingly.

“We are technically supposed to be here for diplomacy, Seeker,” Varric reminded her. “Not so much stabbing.”

“For all that you say that, I’ll admit why I am here at all eludes me,” said Cassandra.

“Peace talks?” said Varric. “The fate of Orlais? Stopping Celene from being assassinated and throwing the whole south into chaos? Did you sleep through all the briefings?”

“You misunderstand me,” said Cassandra, with a longsuffering air. “I understand perfectly well why the Inquisition must be here. What I do not understand is why I must be here. There is hardly likely to be a battle, and we are obviously not permitted weapons inside the palace besides.”

Varric shrugged. “I thought it would be useful to have someone with a respectable name with me that the Orlesisans already consider a hero.”

Cassandra gave him a look. “You have become a lot worse at lying since becoming Inquisitor, Varric.”

“Okay, I uh...thought we might need you to punch things if it all went really wrong.”

“Try again.”

Varric let a grin spread across his face. “Fine, the truth. If I have to suffer through this, then so do you. I brought you out of spite.”

Cassandra’s eyes crinkled a little at the edges, a sure sign she was trying not to smile. “That’s the Varric I know,” she said.

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same, Seeker.”

“I don’t deny it,” said Cassandra. “Dragging you to places you don’t want to be is a hobby of mine, as you have mentioned often.”

Dorian made a slightly disgusted noise. “I may actually vomit after all,” he muttered under his breath, only just loud enough so that they could hear.

Varric cleared his throat self-consciously. “So, we’re guests of Grand Duke Gaspard tonight, officially,” he said, moving the conversation quickly on. “Do we think that means he’s willing to work with the Inquisition against Corypheus if he ends up on the throne after all this?”

“Gaspard is a thug,” said Vivienne disdainfully. “A little man seeking to legitimise his grubby little rebellion by borrowing some of your glory, Inquisitor. I hope you will not indulge him longer than necessary.”

“He is a strong military leader, however, with the loyalty of his men,” said Cassandra, a frown in her voice. “And he is the one who invited the Inquisition to this event. Empress Celene has done nothing to show she means to ally with us, nor lifted a finger to oppose Corypheus. Perhaps the Grand Duke is right in thinking he is more suited to lead Orlais in such a time.”

“You have such charming faith in his good intentions, my dear, but you are misguided if you believe Gaspard thinks of anything but his own self-interest,” said Vivienne.

“And Celene does not?” countered Cassandra. “She seems paralysed with inaction, while her people starve and Corypheus’ forces run rampant over her lands. Now her solution is to throw an expensive party.”

“She is an intelligent woman in a difficult position,” said Vivienne. “That she hasn’t yet committed herself while her throne is still vulnerable shows that her wits are still about her. Any leader of Orlais who could not play the game as well as she would not last long.”

“Perhaps,” said Cassandra. “But I would still rather follow a leader with less intelligence, but more integrity.”

“Ouch,” said Varric, grinning.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I am not speaking of you, of course,” she muttered, looking faintly embarrassed.

“What about you, Sparkler?” asked Varric. “Gaspard or Celene; which one are you rooting for?”

“It’s not the Grand Tourney, my dear,” said Vivienne, with amused approbation.

Dorian shrugged. “They’re both Orlesian,” he said. “Whichever one emerges triumphant, I wouldn’t turn your back on either, no matter what allyship they promise. They’ll shake your hand one minute then put poison in your tea the moment your back is turned.”

“And Tevinter is so much more civilised, I suppose?” said Vivienne, acidly.

“But of course,” said Dorian. “We would put poison into your wine. Much harder to detect.”

“Well, you’ve effectively put paid to me eating or drinking anything at this party,” said Varric. “So thanks for that, I guess.”

“There it is,” said Cassandra suddenly, pulling aside the velvet drape on the window to get a better look. Varric craned his neck too, and let out a low whistle between his teeth as he saw their destination for the first time.

Set outside the city proper, the Winter Palace was a confection of blue and gold, as though an enormous cake had been dropped into the middle of the Orlesian countryside. It was bigger even than Adamant, but no fortress – though the walls surrounding it were high, the gates were wide open and made of intricately wrought iron that would have been no defence at all in the face of an attack. Light blazed from every window of the palace, illuminating spindly turrets and graceful arches, rows upon rows of wide balconies and the tops of trees that had been clipped to within an inch of their lives, perched in the surrounding formal gardens. Everything that it was possible to gild had been gilded. The place gleamed in the light of the sun, which was already low in the sky, though it wasn’t yet late – the nights were drawing in, and as the carriage turned a corner into the palace’s grand approach Varric could see the breath of the horses steaming in the cold air. The jaws of winter were flexing, ready to bite, and his mind couldn’t help but turn to the refugees he’d met out in the forest, and the soldiers out on the ramparts in the Dales. There would be no wine and dancing for any of them tonight, no fine silks or comfortable carriage rides. But they might live and die by what happened here in the next few hours. Celene’s life, Gaspard’s ambition, the Inquisitor’s choices.

Varric swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. Outside, the carriage wheels crunched over gravel and slowed as they made their way down the long, sweeping driveway; he could hear the sound of other carriages, horses whinnying, drivers calling to each other as they jostled for position in the procession of arriving nobles. The faint suggestion of distant music on the air. When their carriage finally drew to a halt, the silence inside was absolute, tensely expectant, and it was all Varric could do not to jump as there was a polite rap on the door. It opened the next moment at the unseen hand of a servant, and the steps unfolded, causing everyone inside to lean back instinctively in their seats to avoid being seen, their brief illusory cocoon of privacy and comfort suddenly broken.

Dorian was the first to move, standing up in an abrupt movement. “Into the lion’s mouth we go then,” he said cheerfully, and smoothed his moustache in a quick, unexpectedly self-conscious gesture before stepping out of the carriage and out of sight. Varric shifted restlessly, trying to see outside without obviously craning his head too much, and Vivienne held up a graceful hand, perhaps interpreting this as him intending to rise.

“Not yet, Inquisitor,” she cautioned. “Remember what Josephine said.”

“Get out of the carriage last, to build anticipation,” recited Varric. “I remember. After you, Iron Lady.”

Vivienne, her back straight and her face set in such a picture of polite serenity she might as well have been wearing an Orlesian mask herself, glided out of the door and down the steps of the carriage.

And then there were two. Varric took a deep, steadying breath, and checked for the hundredth time that his tunic was buttoned up properly, his stupid sash on straight. When he looked up, Cassandra was watching him.

“You are nervous,” she said.

Maker’s hairy ass, he really was getting worse at hiding his feelings these days. His moment of hesitation meant the chance to brush off Cassandra’s concern with a joke was lost, and all Varric could do was shrug, and try to keep his voice light.

“There’s a lot at stake,” he said. “And Ruffles has made it clear this isn’t exactly a friendly crowd.”

Clinging to the last scrap of privacy afforded by the dim interior of the carriage, Cassandra leaned forward and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment, gripping it firmly and looking earnestly into his eyes.

“You are worth ten of any of these people, Varric,” she said. “Do not let them make you forget it.”

And in the next moment she too was climbing out of the carriage door and down the steps, leaving Varric completely alone. He had the sudden mad urge to simply bang on the roof of the carriage and order the driver to take him away again, to flee while he had the chance.

Instead, he waited for ten long breaths, in and out, trying to ignore the reckless pounding of his stupid, pathetic heart, that had nothing to do with assassins or wars or the future of the Orlesian empire and everything to do with the brief touch of Cassandra’s hand. Then he got to his feet – not having to stoop as the others had done, as even standing his head didn’t quite reach the ceiling of the carriage – and reached with an effort for the Inquisitor. He knew by now how to do that, at least, in much the same way that he did while writing, to summon the character that he needed for a particular scene.

It was Varric Tethras who stood up from his seat, but it was the Inquisitor, wearing the fate of the world lightly on his shoulders, who stepped out of the carriage and into the night that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Chapter Text

The ballroom of the Winter Palace could have held the great hall at Skyhold several times over. It was a temple to excess, a glittering cavern of soaring columns and marbled floors, frescoed ceilings and flower arrangements as tall as a man spilling from vases in every alcove. An orchestra, forty strong (Varric had counted) filled the air with music, and on the dancefloor, silk gowns swirled and jewels gleamed on elegant throats as they caught the light of the chandeliers above. Arrayed around the rest of the room, spilling out into a dozen side chambers and balconies, the nobility of Orlais moved in a dance every bit as complex, clusters drifting apart and reforming, newcomers welcomed and old friends snubbed, news exchanged and rumours swapped, heads bent together in breathless undertones.

The heat was stifling – though every balcony had floor length windows that were thrown wide to the cool night air, the guests sweated beneath their ornate masks, fanned themselves with feather and painted paper fans, and drank deeply from ice-cooled wine in crystal goblets, their tongues loosening dangerously as they imbibed.

Holding two such goblets, Varric wove through a froth of sound and movement, the rustling skirts and wafts of perfume, catching the occasional scrap of conversation as he passed, or a trill of laughter rising from a flock of gossiping nobles rising above the genteel hubbub. He was aware of the curious eyes that snagged on him and followed his progress as he went, but didn’t allow himself to be drawn into conversation with anyone. The Inquisitor was on a mission.

He found Cassandra in the grand vestibule, leaning against the staircase, her arms crossed as she surveyed the scene. In spite of the crowds, there was a wide circle of space around her, and Varric didn’t blame people – the Seeker was giving off a distinct aura of barely concealed hostility. Though she wasn’t carrying a blade, anyone who even caught her eye risked being cut down by her glower alone.

Made of sterner stuff than the Orlesians, Varric sidled up to her and handed her a goblet of wine.

“Something to do with our hands,” he explained, taking a theatrical and entirely fake sip of his own. “But I won’t blame you if you take a swig or two. You look like you need it. Seen anything suspicious yet?”

“Nothing,” said Cassandra. “If there truly is an assassin here, I wish they would hurry up and make their move, so that we might leave.”

This was unusually blunt, even for her, and Varric cast her a sympathetic look, feeling a genuine pang of guilt. “This isn’t really your idea of a good time, is it Seeker?” he said.

“Hardly,” said Cassandra. “It is obscene. I do not begrudge the nobles their dances and baubles in better times, but to revel in such excessive luxury while so much of their country lies in ruins and the world is on the brink of destruction is repellent. It is times like this I feel a great sympathy with Sera and her friends.”

“We’re here too,” Varric pointed out. “Hobnobbing along with all the rest of them.”

“Out of necessity,” said Cassandra. “If I thought that any of these people were doing anything to actually help those less fortunate…” She looked out over the ballroom with a withering glare. “I am sure every one of them would call themselves Andrastian, yet how many would open their coin-purse to give a single copper penny to a peasant in need of food?” She turned back to Varric. “How many would even speak to you, a casteless dwarf, if you were not the Herald of Andraste and they believed it might increase their social status?” she said.

“Actually, people keep asking me for autographs,” said Varric mildly. “Apparently the Iron Lady wasn’t kidding about Hard in Hightown being in fashion amongst the court recently. These nobles aren’t all so terrible, Seeker. They’re just people, when you get down to it; good, bad, and everything in between.”

Cassandra sighed, relaxing just a fraction. “My apologies, I am…ranting, I suppose,” she said. “I am uncomfortable in this kind of environment. It does not bring out my better qualities.”

“Ah, ranting is one of your finest qualities, Seeker, never let it be said otherwise.”

Cassandra made an amused sound. “And where does self-righteousness rank on that list, I wonder?” she said.

Before he could answer, a couple of ladies drifted past, throwing glances in their direction, their eyes curious behind their masks. “What is Lady Pentaghast wearing?” murmured one to her companion, in tones rich with polite mirth.

The comment was obviously intended to be overheard, and Varric saw Cassandra stiffen imperceptibly.

“Hey Seeker, you’ll never guess what I saw out in the gardens just now,” he said, pitching his voice just low enough to sound confidential and still carry perfectly well. “Count Richleau disappearing into the bushes with one of the servants. I guess he finally managed to give his wife the slip, huh?”

There was a faint squeak of horror from behind him, and the sound of hurried footsteps as the Countess Richleau – she of the discerning fashion sense – scurried off towards the gardens, her friend calling after her.

“That was unnecessary,” said Cassandra, obviously trying to sound disapproving and failing spectacularly. “If you intend to avenge every petty insult someone throws my way, you will be at it all night.”

“Who says I’m avenging you?” said Varric. “I’m wearing the same thing, you know. Besides, I happen to think we all look rather dashing.”

“Of course you would approve of red silks and gold braid.”

“Give them a show and they’ll believe whatever you want them too, Seeker,” said Varric. “Sparkler is right about that. Make people think you’ve got everything out on display and they never look further than the surface.”

Cassandra gave him an odd look. “You are good at this,” she said. “All of this. The Game.”

Varric shrugged, trying to work out whether she meant it as a compliment or a criticism. “It’s a skill like any other,” he said. “One my family needed and Bartrand never had, so I got good at.”

“As simple as that?”

“It took some practice,” he admitted. “It’s just like picking a lock, really. The right words to say, the right way to say them to get the result you want…and half of it is in the listening, adjusting for each effect until something goes click, and you’re in. After a while you can do it without really thinking at all.”

“I doubt I ever could,” said Cassandra.

“Ah, you’re too sincere,” said Varric. “It’s not a bad thing. Maybe playing other people isn’t your strong suit, but it means you’re much harder to play yourself.” He grinned. “There’s no getting around you, Seeker.”

“I don’t recall you ever having tried.”

“I know when I’m beaten. You’ve always seen right through me.”

“Ha.” In spite of her response, Varric thought Cassandra looked a little pleased. Perhaps sensing the conversation had strayed into dangerous territory, she was silent for a few minutes, watching the mingling crowds, and then said:

“I suppose I should be grateful that Josephine didn’t demand that I wear a dress. I had quite enough of that as a child.”

A vision of Cassandra in a dress drifted irresistibly across Varric’s mind, and he gripped the stem of his goblet a little tighter.

“Mmm,” he said, non-committally.

“You are distracted,” said Cassandra, and for a horrible moment Varric thought maybe she’d spontaneously developed the ability to read minds, before she continued: “I saw you speaking with Empress Celene’s ‘arcane advisor’ earlier. What did she want?”

“To help,” said Varric. “Or for us to help her. Not sure. There was a lot of veiled hinting and double-talk. But she knows Celene is in danger tonight, that much was obvious.”

The mysterious woman had looked worried, actually, under a veneer of smirking confidence. Leliana had already taken Varric aside and warned him that the apostate who had gotten so close to the Empress was a dangerous unknown quantity, but Varric couldn’t help but think that he was just as unknown a quantity to her too. Their conversation had been brief, but her choosing to trust him even with as much as she had done smacked of desperation, rather than cunning.

“There’s something going on with the servants,” he continued. “Have you noticed that there isn’t anyone hovering around with trays of canapes, or waiting to take our drinks when we’re finished with them?”

“No,” said Cassandra, in honesty. “But now that you mention it, I suppose it is strange.”

“I’ve been keeping an ear to the ground and it looks like I’m not the only one who’s worried,” said Varric. “A lot of people are missing. There’s obviously something going down behind the scenes.”

“In Halamshiral, the servants will be mostly elves,” said Cassandra slowly. “Leliana did mention there might be some threat from the elf Briala.”

Varric nodded. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence,” he said. “Celene’s pet apostate doesn’t want to risk leaving the Empress’ side, so she gave me a key to the servants’ quarters to investigate, but I can’t exactly just disappear through a locked door for Maker-knows how long without raising some eyebrows.”

His mind had been worrying over the problem while they chatted idly, as it happened, but he was no closer to figuring out the best thing to do. There was a time when he was just plain old Varric Tethras when he could have slipped away easily enough, but the Inquisitor wasn’t so easily able to blend into a crowd. But though Cassandra seemed equally stumped, the answer came from an unexpected source.

“Sounds like you need a distraction.”

It was Dorian’s voice, closer by than he’d expected, and they both turned to see the mage stroll into view, looking as comfortably at home in his surroundings as he ever did. Varric gave himself a mental kicking for being overheard – not that it mattered what Dorian knew, but if he’d been able to catch some of their conversation, others could have as well. It was too easy to get comfortable talking to Cassandra, to let his guard down.

“Trying to sneak into somewhere you shouldn’t be, Inquisitor?” asked Dorian, as he joined them. “It’s a little early in the night for that kind of thing, but if it’s a distraction you require, perhaps yours truly might be of service.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Varric, a touch suspiciously.

“Watch and learn, my friend.” Dorian glanced between the two of them, perhaps standing a little too close. “I would recommend you both go, however,” he said, a hint of mischief in his voice. “If anyone does spot you sneaking away to somewhere off-limits, it’s far less suspicious if you’re together.”

That was true enough, for fairly obvious reasons, but in this particular moment Varric could have cheerfully throttled Dorian for saying it.

“You mentioned a distraction?” said Cassandra abruptly.

“Follow me,” said Dorian, and he turned away and started to weave through the crowds with the ease of long practice, throwing out the occasional polite smile or flirtatious glance as he went, in a way that seemed wholly automatic. Varric and Cassandra were left no choice but to ditch their goblets and trail as unobtrusively as they could in his wake as Dorian made his way into the main ballroom, heading for the spot where a small cluster of hopeful Orlesian nobles had flocked around a profoundly uncomfortable looking Commander Cullen. The Commander been cornered for most of the evening so far, not having mastered Cassandra’s ‘don’t talk to me’ glare, and as Dorian appeared, he looked briefly hopeful, as if rescue might have finally arrived.

He was destined for disappointment, however, as Dorian strolled up with an absurdly charming grin, drawing every curious eye to his approach. “Commander!” he said cheerfully, in a carrying voice. “Care for a dance?”

The look of horrified astonishment on Cullen’s face was something to behold, but unfortunately for him, his slightly panicked gaze caught Varric’s eye across the crowds as he looked around for an escape, and Varric gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

Poor Curly was not a man meant for the subtle machinations of the Game, but he wasn’t stupid, and he was loyal to a fault. Varric watched with profound gratitude as Cullen Rutherford took one for the team.

“Well, why not?” Cullen said loudly, and there was a susurrus of thrilled mutters from the people around them, heads turning to see the two men walking hand-in-hand towards the dance floor, Dorian plainly trying not to laugh and Cullen with the air of one being led to the gallows. The drift of nobles hustling towards the ballroom to watch the deliciously unfolding scandal was not subtle, and moving against the tide, it was easy enough to turn the key in the lock of the door that led to the servants’ quarters and slip inside.

“That man,” remarked Cassandra, when the door was safely closed behind them, “is far too handsome for his own good.”

“Which one?” said Varric, ignoring the absurd clenching those words produced in his gut.

“Both of them,” said Cassandra. “But at least Cullen does not play upon it deliberately.”

“I’ll try to hire uglier people for the next Inquisition,” said Varric, only half joking. He was not particularly enjoying the reminder that Cassandra spent her days surrounded by dazzlingly good-looking eligible bachelors.

Focus, Tethras. Keep your mind on the sodding mission.

He was brought back to reality in the worst possible way shortly afterwards, as they made their way with furtive haste through the quiet, empty corridors into the servants’ area of the palace. The more doors they passed through, the more noticeably shabby the decor became, gilt and marble giving way to workaday flagstone and narrow corridors. But it wasn’t the peeling paint that bothered Varric – it was the silence. As the hum of the ballroom faded away, it should have been replaced with the sounds of frantic behind-the-scenes activity, as the servants scurried to and fro, bumping into each other and cursing as they rushed around to ensure the ball went smoothly. These kinds of events took a lot of work, and it wasn’t a good sign that they met no-one as they made their way deeper into the off-limits part of the palace.

By the time the opened the door to the servants’ quarters, Varric already half knew what he would find. But still he couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him when he saw the bodies on the floor, blood pooling stickily over the stone. Considering where they were, the distinctive elven ears marked them out as servants as much as their humble clothing did, and they had obviously been unarmed and taken by surprise, left where they’d fallen without any attempt at concealment. There was a tray with spilled drinks lying beside one, as if the young man had been struck down before even having a chance to put it down to defend himself. There was a carelessness to it that curdled the blood, as if the poor sods now crumpled lifelessly on the floor had simply been in the way.

“Someone will pay for this,” snarled Cassandra.

“Count on it,” said Varric grimly.

They checked the bodies for any signs of life, but it was obviously a lost cause. When they entered the huge kitchens, bigger than even those at Skyhold and far more modern, they were met with yet more bodies, strewn across the floor and slumped over counters, platters of little glazed Orlesian pastries still waiting to be taken to the guests spattered with blood. A small handful of the servants had obviously tried to make some kind of stand here; there was a large wooden table upturned as a kind of futile makeshift barricade, and behind it lay the bodies of what looked like a cook and two kitchen maids. The cook still had a huge kitchen knife clutched in her hand, but it had done her no good – she was as dead as the rest of them, blood staining the front of her white apron crimson.

Varric leaned down and closed her eyes with his fingers, as Cassandra murmured a prayer behind him for the Maker to have mercy on their souls. After a moment of hesitation, he pried the kitchen knife gently from the cook’s stiff fingers, and held it out to Cassandra as he stood up.

“Seeker…”

She took it, not having to ask for the reason, and slid it into the sash tied around her waist, within easy reach. A quick, wordless search later, and Varric was armed with a short blade of his own – the Winter Palace kept its kitchen knives well sharpened at least – and another slid into his boot. As improvised weapons went they were not ideal, but these bodies were freshly killed, and anything with an edge was preferable to being ambushed empty-handed, so the weight of the knife in his boot was a comfort, even if he didn’t have to use it. Varric hated knifework, usually; too up close and personal. But any rogue learned to make use of whatever they had at their disposal, and besides, one of the servants lying dead next to the cook looked like she was barely in her teens. If they came across the people who’d done this, Varric wouldn’t feel much hesitation.

Cassandra was already moving towards the door at the opposite end of the kitchens, perhaps thinking the same thing, but before he joined her, Varric’s eye fell upon a small pot labelled with careful handwriting sitting out on the counter, and after a moment’s hesitation he took that too, slipping it into his pocket.

The door led outside, into a dark garden, fragrant with herbs, where more corpses stared unseeing up at the stars through wrought iron archways festooned with flowering vines. It was a clear night, the moon a bright, sharp crescent hanging over them like the edge of a knife in the darkness, not a breath of wind stirring the heads of the flowers in the formal borders. Out here, the only sound aside from their own footsteps was the music that drifted faintly on the air from the open windows of the distant grand ballroom, a lively waltz. Varric could almost hear Scout Harding’s voice counting time at the back of his mind: One, two three, one two three…

The ballroom seemed very far away, a place of light and colour and warmth that existed in another world entirely from this dark, silent courtyard. Varric wondered what someone might see, if they looked out from one of the upper windows at this moment. A pair of thieves, perhaps? Or two lovers, slipping away for a secret rendezvous? If only either were true. More likely they were rats being led into a trap, the jaws about to snap closed. He had been expecting to contend with a single assassin tonight, not a force large and well-armed enough to slaughter a whole wing full of servants without raising an alarm. He and Cassandra were on their own out here, far enough away that no calls for help would be heard, armed only with these makeshift weapons and without any armour.

Varric reminded himself of the other day, when he’d spoken to Cassandra at the training ring. She hadn’t been wearing armour then either, presumably because that was part of whatever lesson she’d been teaching. After all, Cassandra Pentaghast was no green recruit – although he was used to seeing her fight in full plate, there must have been plenty of times in her life she’d been forced to do without it. In fact, hadn’t he himself once witnessed her take down a varghest, in nothing but her nightshirt, without even a sword to hand?

That memory comforted him somewhat, but Varric still wished he had his crossbow with him. But there was no way to return to the ball now to raise the alarm, not without implicating themselves in whatever was happening. They had to find out who had done this. They were on their own.

At the centre of the garden was a huge, elaborate stone fountain, flanked on each of its four corners by winged golden lions, the rush of falling water from its tiered edifice a sound that would have been tranquil under other circumstances. In front of it lay another corpse, but this man was no elf, and no servant either. Even lying face down, as dead as the rest, his clothing was distinctive.

“A Council of Herald’s Emissary,” said Varric. “I spoke to him barely an hour ago. What was he doing out here?”

He crouched down to examine the corpse, pulling out the dagger with a grunt and handing it up to Cassandra. She gave a sharp intake of breath as she wiped blood from the handle.

“The Chalon family crest,” she said.

“Hmm,” said Varric, somewhat sceptically. “A clue. How convenient.”

“You think it was planted?” asked Cassandra

“I’m sure Gaspard is capable of a little light murder and treachery, Seeker, but when we spoke, did he strike you as a complete and utter idiot? He’s murdered an Emissary and just left him out here with a big gift tag tied to his leg saying ‘I, the treacherous Gaspard, killed this man’?”

“You believe it is a ruse meant to implicate the Grand Duke.”

“Or a trap,” Varric said. “If we were in Hard in Hightown, this is the exact moment when—”

A sound from the far corner of the courtyard made both their heads whip round and Varric rise to his feet. The sound of metal on stone, running footsteps, gave them only a few seconds of warning before the figures appeared just yards away.

“Venatori!” cried Cassandra, drawing the kitchen knife from her sash as the figures rushed towards them, their armour gleaming in the moonlight, swords in their hands. Those pointy, narrow-slitted helmets were unmistakable as belonging to the cult’s muscle, and Varric only had time to send a brief prayer of thanks to the Maker that there didn’t seem to be a mage present before the uninvited guests fell upon them in a flash of steel and unintelligible yells in Tevene. There were four of them, a small infiltration team perhaps, more than enough to slaughter a wing of unprepared servants. But even outnumbered two-to-one, their attackers clad in plate armour and armed to the teeth, Varric knew only seconds after the fight began that he was going to win.

Because he had the Hero of Orlais. He had Cassandra.

The music drifted through the night — one, two, three, one, two, three — and he and the Seeker moved together like they’d been doing it all their lives, leading their enemy in a lethal dance. Varric was quick on his feet, always had been, but Cassandra was faster, much faster with no heavy plate armour to weigh her down, dodging the blows aimed at her, the kitchen knife darting out at every chink in armour, exploiting every blind-spot the heavy steel helmets created. In her hands the simple domestic tool became an agent of lethal effectiveness. Varric might have been fighting alongside Hawke once more, the swiftness that the knife drew blood again and again, but there was an efficiency of movement to Cassandra’s style that Hawke’s wildness never had, the easy grace of a body trained every day of her life to do this, to be both weapon and shield for the Maker. And Varric had fought alongside the Seeker for so long now that he knew what she would do before she did it, anticipated where she needed him, the opportunities she created, and the knife in his own hand did its bloody work in her wake. Who needed his crossbow when he had her?

One, two, three…

And turn—

A Venatori brought his sword down, and Varric lost his knife in fielding the blow, only the strength of his arms and the speed of his reaction saving him. A shower of sparks from steel against steel, and the knife went flying to the ground. No time to grab the other stowed in his boot, but a rogue always had a few tricks up his sleeve. As the cultist brought his blade down again, Varric already had his hand closed around the small pot he’d grabbed from the kitchen earlier, and threw it up into the eye-slit of the helmet – it was no carefully crafted flashbang or smoke grenade, but the little pot labelled Antivan Pepper did the trick. Varric’s attacker stumbled back, dropping his sword, sneezing and clawing at his streaming eyes, while Varric dived for his knife. His fingers closed around it and he let his momentum carry him in a roll back to his feet. The action had left his flank wide open, but it didn’t matter because as he turned…

Two—

…Cassandra was there, her leg sweeping under those of the man who had been poised to sink a sword into his back, sending him flying to the ground in a cacophony of armour. Varric ignored him, drawing back his knife and letting it fly …

Three—

Another Venatori dropped, gargling blood, the hilt of Varric’s knife sticking out of his throat. The man who’d gotten a faceful of rare and expensive spices had rallied enough to take a wild, half-blind swing at the Seeker – she’d straddled the guy on the floor to stop him from rising and swiftly and decisively slit his throat, but wasn’t distracted enough not to heed Varric’s cry of warning…

And dip—

She dived out of the way of the blow just in time, as Varric yanked the short knife from his boot and threw that too into the back of her attacker. It clattered uselessly off his armour, but made the man spin around reflexively, and Cassandra sprang to her feet, now wielding the sword she’d seized from the hand of her fallen enemy. With a single, double-handed sweep, she brought the razor-sharp silver blade around in an arc and lopped the man’s head clean off with the merciless efficiency of an executioner. He crumpled to the ground, in an extraordinarily gruesome fashion.

Varric had only seen three killed, but the fourth Venatori was on the ground too, slain by the Seeker in a moment he hadn’t even caught in the midst of battle. It was over, the courtyard silent again, save for the distant music and their panting breaths, as Varric and Cassandra stood side by side, surrounded by their fallen assassins. The whole fight had taken less than the length of an Orlesian waltz, and neither of them had suffered more than a scratch. When he wrote about this one day, Varric thought, no-one would ever believe it. Cassandra’s face was flecked with blood, sprays of it across her golden epaulettes, and when she turned to him he was treated to one of her wide, uninhibited smiles of triumph, her teeth gleaming white in the moonlight.

“Now this is more my idea of a good time,” she said, with great satisfaction.

It was strange, Varric mused, how something so long anticipated, something months in the planning, something which had consumed the time and effort of so many people and caused so much anxiety, could simply be…over. And in a matter of hours.

Well, perhaps ‘over’ was an exaggeration. True, Empress Celene had retired from the ballroom some hours ago, and Varric noticed that Briala, the elven leader who’d made a swift ally of the Inquisition when she’d figured out which way the wind was blowing, had also disappeared, so he doubted even Celene’s evening was truly over just yet. But whatever remained to be discussed between the two women was clearly for their own ears only, and the Empress was safer with Briala now than with pretty much anyone else, if Varric was any judge.

The hostess being absent hadn’t stopped the party though; the wine still flowed, the orchestra was still playing, and the revels at the Winter Palace continued well into the small hours of the morning. And there was genuine revelry now, free of the tension that had hovered over the ball when it had started, as if the whole country of Orlais had finally released a breath long held. The War of the Lions was over, a traitor publicly unmasked in Grand Duchess Florianne, and what might have been tedious peace talks had instead provided enough juicy drama for everyone who’d attended tonight to dine out on for years to come. As far as Orlesian entertainment went, this was better even than a night out at the opera. Relief suffused the grand ballroom in a cloud as thick as perfume, as intoxicating as wine.  It was hard not to get swept up in it, to bask in the adulation of the court, even as exhausted as Varric was, as much as he was starting to think longingly of his stupidly big bed back at the top of the tower at Skyhold.

But the Inquisitor’s evening wasn’t quite over yet either. Varric managed to disentangle himself from the endless rounds of back-slapping and effusive Orlesian thanks – everyone was grateful for his having saved Empress Celene’s life and throne, apparently, even those who would happily have spit on her grave a few hours ago – and slipped out onto one of the wide balconies that surrounded the grand ballroom for a moment of respite. But after only a few minutes, he was joined by someone he’d lost track of over the course of the evening; Celene’s mage ‘advisor’, who strolled up to him in an almost silent whisper of silk skirts. Though richly dressed, she was a fairly ordinary looking woman in most respects, save for her eyes, which Varric had noticed at their meeting earlier were bright yellow, like a cat’s. It gave him the uneasy feeling of being a small prey animal as she approached, but her expression was not unfriendly, if not quite as openly admiring as the other courtiers.

“Inquisitor,” she said, inclining her head in greeting. “What good fortune to find you alone. I must inform you that I have been—” An expression flickered across her face, half amusement, half annoyance. “—instructed to join your Inquisition. As a show of gratitude and allyship from Empress Celene.”

“And how do you feel about that?” asked Varric carefully.

“My feelings are irrelevant,” said the woman, without rancour. “I go where I must. But a proper introduction is in order, as we are in Orlais and the Orlesians set great stock by such things.” Another slight inclination of the head. “You may call me Morrigan, if you will.”

The name sparked recognition at the back of Varric’s mind, and a memory nudged its way forward. “You’re the mage that travelled with the Hero of Ferelden, during the Blight,” he said.

“One of them, certainly,” acknowledged Morrigan. That explained how Leliana had known her, anyway, though not exactly how she’d worked her way up from wilds-dwelling apostate to personal advisor to the Empress in such a short space of time. But it also made Varric remember where else he’d heard the name.

“I met your mother, once, I think,” he said. “Back in Kirkwall. Or just outside of it, anyway.”

Morrigan’s face tightened. “Then I imagine I will seem a most pleasant houseguest, by comparison,” she said.

“She said a lot of really ominous cryptic shit and then turned into a dragon and flew off, if I recall,” said Varric. “Are you planning on doing that?”

“Not unless the food at your Skyhold is uncommonly bad.”

Varric snorted. “Then welcome aboard, I guess.”

He held out a hand to shake, and was rewarded with a look of genuine surprise on the witch’s face, quickly concealed by the clearly more habitual ironic smirk.

“Thank you,” she said, grasping his hand for the merest fraction of a second before releasing it. “Tis most kind of you, my lord Inquisitor. In truth, I expected to be more tolerated than welcomed.”

“I know the feeling,” said Varric. What the hell, why not be friendly? “And it’s just Varric,” he added.

The witch gave him a strange look. “So it is,” she said. “A surprise indeed.”

It looked like cryptic utterances weren’t entirely off the table then, but Morrigan was already drifting away before he could ask her what she meant. “Until Skyhold, then,” she threw over her shoulder.

As she reached the entrance to the balcony, she was forced to step aside briefly to let Cassandra past, who was walking the other way. As the two women glanced at each other, it occurred to Varric that Morrigan was exactly the kind of dangerous apostate that the Seeker might once have been tasked with hunting down, far beyond the skills of most templars to apprehend. He felt a flicker of unease as their gazes met briefly, and he wondered if they were both thinking the same thing, and imagining how such an encounter might have ended, but the moment passed – if he hadn’t imagined it in the first place – and Morrigan disappeared back into the palace without a further word or backwards glance.

Cassandra looked more relaxed than Varric had seen her all evening as she strolled over to him, clearly relieved at the ordeal being over.

“I can’t believe you escaped before me,” she said. “A fat count insisted upon talking about soup for fifteen minutes.”

She leant an arm on the stone balustrade beside him, with a sigh.

“And so Celene remains Empress,” she said. “All of that, all those innocent people dead, just for things to stay the same.”

“But the war is over, at least,” said Varric. “Shame about Gaspard. I know you thought he’d make a better ruler than Celene.”

“I thought he was a better man,” said Cassandra. “But though the assassination plot may have been his sister’s work, he still threatened to have people’s families killed for opposing him, and smuggled his Chevaliers and mercenaries into peace talks to force his way to the throne by violence. He was as corrupt and power hungry as the rest of them, in the end. No, the people of Orlais deserve better than him.”

“And so the Hero of Orlais has spoken,” declared Varric, with a smile. “At least the Empress now owes us a favour or two. It could have gone a lot worse.”

“It certainly could,” said Cassandra. She gave him a sideways look. “And I believe you have walked away from this night with more than one person owing you a favour. It was…kind of you, to reconcile the Empress and Briala.”

“Well, I’m always a sucker for a good love story,” said Varric easily. “And everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?”

“You really do try to see the good in everyone, even those who likely do not deserve it,” said Cassandra. “But perhaps that is no bad thing.” She smiled. “You are ever the optimist, Inquisitor.”

“Speaking of which,” said Varric, impulsively, “want to dance?”

If he’d surprised himself by asking, he’d surprised Cassandra far more. She gaped at him as if he had just proposed they fight a high dragon naked.

“I...what?”

“Dance. You. With me,” clarified Varric, perhaps unnecessarily. “This is a ball, after all.”

Cassandra’s mouth opened and shut a few times with no words coming out. Varric watched her with interest. Presumably the fact that he had asked her was sufficiently startling that she couldn’t even come up with a decent sarcastic comment in response. “I...I can’t dance,” she stuttered finally. “That is, I don’t...”

“Come on Seeker, the only dance I’ve had tonight was with a psychopathic Orlesian assassin who turned out to be plotting to murder me and rule the world. I’m sure you’ll at least be a slight improvement.”

“How generous of you,” Cassandra said dryly, regaining a little of her equilibrium.

Varric simply held out his hand. “Help me get my money’s worth out of Harding’s lessons,” he said, and then, a little gentler: “No-one will see.”

Slowly, as if she couldn’t quite believe herself what she was doing, Cassandra placed her hand in his. Varric’s fingers closed around hers, his heart beating a wild tattoo against his ribs as he stepped closer and put his other hand on her waist with the same level of care that he might use to defuse a Qunari black powder bomb. He felt Cassandra stiffen momentarily before relaxing. Her spare hand found his shoulder, resting lightly, a strange mirror to the moment of comfort she’d offered him in the carriage, some hours ago.

One, two three…one, two three…

No elaborate moves, no swirl of skirts or fancy footwork. Just the two of them and the music drifting from inside, a moment as brilliant and fragile as a soap bubble.

Varric smiled up at her. “There, see?” he said, as they swayed gently. “The world didn’t end.”

“Not tonight, anyway,” said Cassandra. They spun in a slow, graceful circle, a little more confident now. “Did you really take dancing lessons from Scout Harding?”

“You didn’t? I figured Ruffles would have insisted.”

Cassandra shook her head. “I had lessons in my youth. Some things you don’t forget easily. I was dreadful and had no desire to repeat the experience.” Her eyes flickered across his face, searching. “I imagine Harding was a better partner,” she said. “Given your heights, if nothing else.”

 “We’re doing just fine, Seeker,” said Varric softly.

“I suppose this isn’t…terrible.”

They had moved closer together somehow, and oh this was dangerous, the success of the evening and the starry skies above and the music in the air all mingling into an intoxicating cocktail of possibility. The space between them felt hot, expectant, everything else blurring to a distant insignificance. Varric could see the colour blooming across Cassandra’s cheekbones, but to her credit she didn’t look away, her eyes fixed on his, glittering in the light spilling from inside, and he wanted to kiss her. It was hardly a revelation; these days he spent most of his time wanting to kiss her, but right here and now it felt like an inevitability, as vital as taking his next breath. Varric swallowed hard, forced moisture into his suddenly dry mouth.

“Cassandra…”

The sound of her name seemed to shake Cassandra out of the trance they were locked in. Varric saw the moment of decision in her eyes just before she drew back, like a shutter going down over a lit window. Still oddly in step, he released her as she pulled away from him and they parted, left standing too close and too far apart, the dance decidedly over.

“We can’t,” said Cassandra quietly.

“Sorry.” It was an automatic response, and he saw Cassandra wince.

“It’s not that I don’t—” she said. “If it could be a—a dalliance and nothing more, merely a physical…” She stumbled over her words, blushing furiously. “But I do not think it could be, with us,” she said.

“No,” Varric said. “No, you’re right. I think it’s too late for that. Shit.”

Shame stampeded over the barricades of disappointment, demolishing them in a hot, humiliating rush. Idiot. He turned away, unable to bear the pity he was sure he’d see in her eyes. She knew, then, how he felt. Maybe she’d known for a while.

He leant on the stone balustrade, looking out over the gardens, anywhere but at her face. After a few moments, Cassandra joined him, a careful distance away. The two of them staring out into the darkness, seeing nothing.

“Anything else is…impossible,” Cassandra said, as though forcing herself to speak, obviously determined to have this out, here and now. “You are the Inquisitor, and I…my name is already spoken along with Leliana’s for the next Divine. If I am called to serve the Maker in that way after all this is over, I would not refuse. If another is chosen…then I still have an obligation to my order. If the Seekers of Truth are to be rebuilt, I must be the one to do it. I cannot abandon them again.”

“I know,” said Varric heavily. He wished she would stop talking, honestly. Every word felt like a nail in his coffin.

“Your home is Kirkwall,” said Cassandra. “Whatever becomes of the Inquisition when all of this is over, I do not think you would abandon your city, or the family you have made there, to the care of others either.”

“No.”

“I am sorry to be so blunt.”

Varric forced a smile into his voice. “To tell you the truth, that’s something I’ve always appreciated about you. And you’re right. I was…it was a bad idea.”

A bad idea that would have felt so good that even now he ached for the want of it, to wind back time to just a few minutes ago and freeze it there forever, to have Cassandra in his arms again. How had it come to this? How had he let things go so far?

Cassandra sounded wretched. “I hope this does not…I hope I can still call you a friend, Varric.”

“Of course, Seeker.”

He saw, from the corner of his eye, the tension of her shoulders slacken a little, perhaps at the return to her familiar nickname. Of course that was what she wanted. That was what they all wanted; cheerful, irreverent Varric, the dwarf handy with a crossbow and a witty remark. The loyal sidekick, up for anything, wanting nothing for himself. One of the greatest characters he’d ever created, really.

“Inquisitor—”

Both he and Cassandra whirled around at the voice behind them, a reminder that the privacy of the moment was an illusion. Josephine stood poised in the entrance to the balcony, looking stricken.

“Oh, I—forgive me,” she said, her eyes darting between the two of them. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“You didn’t,” said Cassandra, and Varric winced internally. There was nothing like such immediate denial to make obvious that something was going on. “We were simply getting a breath of fresh air. Excuse me.”

She strode past Josephine back inside, not sparing even a glance at Varric as she left. It took a conscious effort, on his part, not to let his gaze follow her until she was out of sight. Josephine, regaining her own composure quickly, walked over to join him.

“Are you alright?” she asked carefully.

“Yeah, just…clearing the air.”

“I see.” And she probably did, at that.  His feelings were probably written all over his face. But Josephine did him the kindness of not probing further. “The carriages stand ready, Inquisitor,” she said. “There will be much work to do tomorrow to formalise the alliance, but for now we may retire from the celebrations whenever you wish. It has been a long night, for all of us.”

“Right,” said Varric. “I’ll be right there. I just need a minute.”

“Of course.”

She left him there alone, and when he finally made his way back to the carriages, he discovered that several of the Inquisition’s party had already left, Cassandra among them. Varric made the return journey in a carriage with Leliana, Vivienne and Josephine, who spent the time in deep discussion on the political ramifications of the evening’s events, and left their Inquisitor alone to rest his head against the padded walls and pretend to sleep.

But though he was exhausted, and the gentle swaying of the carriage ride would have been lulling under other circumstances, sleep would not come. The pit of despair in his stomach was a poor reward for his achievements tonight – by any measure the evening had been a success, and a success that Varric could, for once, claim genuine credit for. He’d been the one to figure out the assassination plot, spending hours alternately charming nobles out in the ballroom and sneaking around the off-limits areas of the palace to uncover enough evidence to expose the plotters. Varric had picked locks, persuaded people to testify against their employers, slyly planted rumours in the right ears, eavesdropped for information, and generally made the most of every rogue’s skill he’d ever learned. He’d worked his ass off. He’d scaled walls, and told amusing anecdotes, and even waltzed. In public.

And it had paid off. The Inquisitor had personally saved Empress Celene’s life, and the Orlesian civil war was now over. This was a great victory.

So why did Varric feel like he’d lost?

Cassandra’s face in the moonlight, that anxious, searching look in her dark eyes. His hands on her, the supple warmth of her body beneath her tunic. Varric would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it, that it hadn’t been occupying his mind more and more lately, in the restless hours between sleeping and waking. And yet…

If it could be a dalliance and nothing more…

Dalliance. The word had been familiar on her lips, and Varric realised it was because she’d used it before, that night when they’d spoken about Bianca, and Regalyan. I have never been interested in dalliances of that kind – that was what Cassandra had said, when he’d tacitly asked her about her other…conquests. He should have understood it then for the rejection it had been, and saved her the trouble of having to make it clearer tonight. Varric could only count himself lucky that Cassandra had been unusually tactful when it came to making her excuses, letting him down gently while still making her position plain: whatever there was between them, she did not think it worth pursuing. She did not feel as he did. A flirtation. A dalliance. Nothing more.

Varric felt like a fool, and he had only himself to blame, all his bluff and façade stripped away. Some Wicked Grace player he was. He had finally showed his hand, and it had been a poor one, as he’d always known deep down it was.

Now the game was over; he’d put everything he had out on the table, and he’d left with nothing.

Chapter Text

It never snowed at Skyhold, even as winter hit the Frostbacks like a battering ram, blanketing the peaks around them in a thick white cloak as far as the eye could see. Every morning when he awoke, Varric’s windows were covered with a sheet of frost, and when he ventured outside his breath puffed out in clouds in front of his face, but the full force of the turning seasons seemed held at bay somehow, never breaching the castle walls. The Inquisition’s mages could only conclude that there was some enchantment woven into Skyhold’s very stones, impossibly powerful to have lasted throughout the centuries and beyond any of their skill to replicate, that shielded them from the elements.

Whatever the reason, Varric was grateful for it – he remembered vividly the bitter cold and shoulder-deep snowdrifts of Haven. But Skyhold Castle was no Ferelden hamlet in the mountains, and even Josephine and Vivienne, whose tastes ran to the expensive, couldn’t complain about the Inquisition’s accommodations now. Roaring log fires blazed in every hearth, windows were draped with thick velvet and stone floors piled with rugs, their quartermaster overflowing with fur-lined cloaks. The kitchens produced a vast array of warming foods; creamy stews flavoured with hot Antivan peppers, hearty meat pies, suet puddings bursting with dried fruit and candied peel.

They needed all the energy they could get, as the Inquisition wasn’t resting idle after their success at the Winter Palace. Josephine was hard at work with the ambassadors from the Orlesian court, turning nebulous gratitude into solid promises, drawing up the practicalities of alliance. They needed Orlesian military power, and Celene needed the backing of the Herald of Andraste to solidify her hold on the still-wobbling throne and sway the few Gaspard-loyal holdouts to allegiance, or at least submission. Tales of the Inquisition’s exploits at Halamshiral were already spreading, along with – perhaps not surprisingly – breathless rumours that Commander Cullen of the Inquisition’s forces was romantically involved with a Tevinter Magister. The Orlesians did love a scandal, but poor Cullen was mortified, and Dorian was annoyed on two counts – first, that he was not a Magister, and second that he was in fact romantically involved with a Tal-Vashoth mercenary, which was far more interestingly scandalous. At least the Iron Bull seemed to bear the whole thing with good humour, although Varric noticed that Cullen had taken to avoiding the tavern and throwing Bull slightly nervous glances when they came across each other.

But gossip was not the only thing the Inquisition brought back from the imperial court. Morrigan had turned up at Skyhold as promised, though no one seemed to be able to recall exactly how she’d arrived. She had proven as cagey as Varric had expected, keeping herself to herself, and offering only a brusquely polite offer that she was ‘at your disposal, Inquisitor, should you have need of me’. She was widely believed to be a spy for Celene by most, and even Skyhold’s other mages seemed wary of a witch of the Wilds, giving her a wide berth and swapping whispered rumours about her powers and past misdeeds. Morrigan reacted to this suspicion and distaste with about the level of disinterested amusement Varric might have predicted, from the impression he’d gotten of her from their brief conversations. Rather less predictably, she’d also brought her young son with her to Skyhold, a quiet boy who was given to the same kind of disconcerting stares as Cole, and remained close to his mother, rarely straying from her sight. Varric had to take that as a sign of good faith, at least. You’d have to be tremendously stupid to bring your own kid into a place where they could easily be held hostage if you were planning to betray your allies, and Morrigan definitely didn’t strike him as anyone’s fool, so presumably she really was on the level about joining the Inquisition.

In any case, one more mage at Skyhold wasn’t that much cause for concern, wherever her loyalties ultimately lay, and Varric had more important things on his mind. Mother Giselle had come to talk to him not long after their return from the Winter Palace, and for once it hadn’t been rare herbs that were on her mind. With the civil war in Orlais over, thoughts were turning once more to the election of a new Divine, something which would already have happened months ago under normal circumstances, and Giselle had a few strong opinions on the matter of who was in line for the top job. Varric couldn’t honestly say he didn’t have a few opinions of his own, given how the main contenders seemed to be shaking out – Josephine’s warning about rumours that the Chantry’s eye had turned towards the Inquisition proved correct, and those rumours were now circulating widely. Cassandra had told Varric herself that she and Leliana had been spoken of for possible candidates, but he’d had no idea that they were top of what was apparently a very short list. Most of the people who would have been in the running had died at the Conclave, and with the Inquisition only growing in power and influence, the Chantry was obviously keen to hitch their wagon to the right horse by making sure their new leader would be someone who had the Inquisitor’s trust, and his ear.

Not that Mother Giselle exactly put it like that, obviously. But Varric could read between the lines. Ruffles confirmed it – the clerics were already circling like vultures, pressuring her to send Cassandra and Leliana back to Val Royeaux to make preparations.

“Of course I have told them it is out of the question, Inquisitor,” Josephine assured him. “These are key members of the Inquisition, and neither of them will even consider leaving until the threat of Corypheus is dealt with.”

She had ink stains on her cuffs and a rather harried look, Varric noticed. He made a mental note to see if she could be persuaded to take on another clerk to ease her workload a bit. Ruffles was one of those people who enjoyed being busy, but there had to be limits.

“But it cannot be put off forever,” she cautioned him, before Varric left her to her reams of paperwork. “The Chantry must have a new leader, Inquisitor, or it will crumble. And leave a dangerous power vacuum in its ruins.”

This wasn’t exactly what Varric wanted to hear, but Josephine had a point. Still, sometimes it felt like he only had to solve one world-ending problem and another five disasters would immediately spring up to take its place. But Ruffles clearly had enough to deal with, so maybe this was one thing he could take off her plate; for that, he needed more information, since he knew almost nothing about the inner workings and complicated politics of the upper echelons of Chantry hierarchy. Varric never thought he’d miss crotchety old Chancellor Roderick, who could probably have given him a very detailed, if biased, run-down of the movers and shakers at the Grand Cathedral. Mother Giselle, for all that she had apparently been friends with Divine Justinia, had done her best to avoid the whole circus in Val Royeaux for years.

That left only one option. Well, technically two options, but Varric had been – let’s be honest – avoiding Cassandra, as much as it was possible to do without making it obvious that it was what he was doing. Things had been so busy that it hadn’t been hard. Besides, it was obvious where a smart Inquisitor would go for information, on the Chantry or anything else, so Varric made his way laboriously up the steps to the top of the tower where Leliana spent her days amongst her ravens. It was always cold up here, no matter how many fires were lit, and the clattering and rustling of raven wings was a constant backdrop of sound that would have driven Varric nuts if he’d had to spend all his time amongst it, but Leliana didn’t seem to mind.

He found the spymaster leaning over a table, reading a report and occasionally referring to a map spread out in front of her that looked like a part of Orlais. It was covered in markers and little notes, all written in a cipher Varric didn’t know, typical of Leliana’s conscientious paranoia. If any enemy agent slipped her notice and gained access into the tower, they still wouldn’t be able to make any sense of whatever plans she was working on.

It wasn’t difficult to find an excuse for coming to see her; Varric asked for an update on the search for the refugees who had been taken prisoner from the Emerald Graves, whom Leliana’s agents had been trying to track. The Tevinter Imperium had never balked at trafficking in slaves, but Varric doubted the Venatori just had a lifetime of domestic service in mind for the people they’d captured alive, and he wasn’t about to abandon a load of innocent Orlesian peasants to a fate of horrible red lyrium experiments or blood magic rituals or whatever else Corypheus wanted with them. Eventually he managed to bring the topic round to the election of a new Divine, trying not to be too obvious about watching for Leliana’s reaction.

“Of course it was inevitable, once things in Orlais settled down,” said Leliana, typically giving away nothing of her feelings on the matter. “But whoever is chosen for the Sunburst Throne will have a lot of work to do. And a lot to live up to.”

It was obvious she was thinking of Justinia, but Varric couldn’t afford to be tactful about the subject any longer.

“What is it…like, being Divine?” he asked carefully. “I mean, the day-to-day. I guess I never really thought about it.”

Leliana gave him one of her searching looks, the kind that made you feel as though those soft, pale blue eyes could see right through you down to the bone. “The only people who could honestly answer that question are all gone,” she said. “I worked closely with Justinia, but even I cannot know how she truly felt about how her life had turned out.”

“But you did know her for years,” said Varric. “Even before she became Divine.”

“Yes.”

“I only got to meet her in her last moments,” said Varric. “I guess I can’t help but wonder what she would have thought of all this, if things had been different. If she’d made it out of the Fade instead of me.”

“That I can’t tell you either,” said Leliana. “But…” She hesitated. “I can tell you a little about her, if you would like.”

Varric nodded, and Leliana gestured for him to sit, the two of them drawing up two wooden chairs by the nearest window, which let in both a shaft of cool winter light and a bitter current of air around the edges. Leliana leaned back on her chair a little, apparently at ease, or as close as she ever got, but Varric wished suddenly for one of Josephine’s cups of tea just for something to do with his hands. Leliana wasn’t exactly the relaxing presence that Ruffles was. She got down to brass tacks immediately, no trace of perceptible emotion in her voice.

“Justinia was deeply involved in the politics of Thedas,” she said. “Some might say too much so. Not all Divines are, but she had a hands-on approach, believing that her role as head of the Chantry gave her a responsibility to all of the Maker’s children. She believed very strongly in peace, but she was not naive. She worked hard to make allies across Thedas, to strengthen and aid those who supported her, and to oppose those who worked against her own goals.”

“How?”

Leliana smiled wanly. “Meetings,” she said. “Promises. Formal negotiations. Informal dinner parties. The right word in the right ear. The right speech in the right place at the right time.”

“Where did you come into all this, as her Left Hand?” asked Varric.

“I acted as her eyes and ears in the places that she could not go herself,” said Leliana. “Sometimes I relayed messages to people that Most Holy could not be seen talking to, and say the things she could not say publicly.”

“And the Seeker?”

“She was more useful for the things Justinia did want done publicly. We often worked in tandem; Cassandra making a show of authority, and me working behind the scenes. Justinia once described me as the carrot, and Cassandra as the stick.” Leliana smiled at the memory. “Given my hair colour, she thought it apt. But please do not tell Cassandra that; being called a mabari is bad enough.”

Varric couldn’t help but smile too. “Justinia sounds like she was quite a character.”

“She was,” said Leliana. “But I cannot imagine a more devout, more hard-working Divine. She spent most of her time in the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux, of course. She would lead morning and evening prayers there, and spent her mornings in meetings. In the afternoon, she would work on her correspondence. She had several clerks, of course, to intercept anything unimportant, but there was always a mountain of work to do besides. Chantry projects to give her official seal of approval, events that required her to write a statement in response to. Sometimes she would work in her private rooms well into the night.”

Varric was exhausted just listening to this description. “She didn’t get out into the city much?” he asked.

“It would not have been safe,” said Leliana. “When she left the Grand Cathedral, it was with a full retinue, and for official business only; state visits, that sort of thing. Such trips were also hardly for pleasure – her schedule was full of formal events and meetings wherever she went, never enough time to respond to half of the invitations she received.”

Leliana looked away, the first sign of emotion she’d given. She turned her eyes towards the window, the winter light falling on her face as she looked out over the mountains at something only she could see. She looked older, suddenly. Tired.

“Everyone wanted a piece of her,” she said. “And she gave herself away so freely, but she never let them own her. They called her a radical, but I know she wanted to do more. She would have done more, if only she—” Leliana cut herself off. “Well,” she said. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“Who do think she would have chosen,” asked Varric, throwing caution to the wind, “as her successor?”

Leliana turned back to him with a tight, unreadable smile, mask firmly back in place. “I cannot answer that, Inquisitor, not under the circumstances as they are now. I was certainly not an option, before the Conclave. It is not something Justinia would even have considered.”

Varric wasn’t so sure of that, but he kept that thought to himself. “Do you want it to be you?” he asked.

“Do you?” shot back Leliana, her voice suddenly hard, her gaze sharp. “Or are you just hoping to avoid the alternative?”

Her arrow found its mark, and Varric found himself gaping, lost for a reply in a way that all but confirmed the truth in her words. Shit. He used to be better at this, at all of this. Why did he ever think it was a good idea to befriend a bunch of people really good at ferreting out secrets? Or maybe he had just been fooling no-one but himself for a while.

“It’s not up to me,” he manged finally, knowing even as he said it that it sounded weak.

“It might be,” said Leliana, though her voice had softened slightly. “There is no use denying it, Herald of Andaste. Even your silence will be taken as a position, if you say nothing on the subject. You must know that the eyes of the world are on you, and your actions speak as loudly as your words.”

The implication was obvious. Josephine, of course, would have told her about coming across he and Cassandra on the balcony together at the Winter Palace. And even before…no, he probably hadn’t exactly been subtle, in his stupid, humiliating hopes.

“Doesn’t matter what I want, anyway,” said Varric, discarding a pretence they were long past. “She doesn’t want me.”

“No, what she wants is the romantic ideal, hmm?” Leliana smiled enigmatically; an expression Varric was sure she must practice in the mirror when no-one else was around. “Someone tall, dark and handsome, like one of the heroes in your books. Someone full of courage and noble integrity. With a sword in one hand to vanquish evil and a bouquet of flowers in the other, yes? Perhaps riding in on a horse?”

“She doesn’t like horses,” muttered Varric vaguely. “You know, you should write books yourself, Nightingale.”

“Yes, it does seem unlikely such a person would exist in reality, doesn’t it? You would think men like that would be very difficult to find, but strangely enough it seems they’re everywhere these days.” Leliana started to count off on her fingers. “There’s Cullen of course...he’s very handsome, and dedicated to the cause. Blackwall; a lone Grey Warden, willing to sacrifice anything to stop the tide of evil, what could be more romantic than that? Although I suppose that ship has sailed… the Iron Bull though...you should hear the girls in the kitchens talk about him! Or perhaps the dashing Fairbanks, or any of the Chevaliers...”

“Do you have a point?” said Varric wearily, “Or are you just listing all the people in Thedas who are better romantic prospects than me?”

“My point,” said Leliana, “is that Cassandra has shown not the slightest interest in any of them.”

It was the first time either of them had acknowledged the name aloud, though it had been obvious enough who they were talking about. Now it was Varric’s turn to look away.

“I have known her for many years now too, you know, far longer than you,” said Leliana, pitilessly ignoring his discomfort. “She is a very private person, for all she appears to wear her heart on her sleeve. But she’s different, since the Inquisition. She smiles more, speaks more. She is more at ease with herself than I have ever seen her. Justinia used to say that Cassandra could see off a dragon with one of her scowls. But that is not such a common look on her face, these days.” Leliana tilted her head slightly, a gesture that made her look like one of her ravens, her eyes piercing and curious, searching his face for a reaction. “It took me a long time to realise why,” she said.

Varric squirmed, feeling like an insect pinned to a board by some curious collector, laid out and examined. “It’s a nice story, Nightingale,” he said. “But it’s not gonna have the ending you want.”

“We will see,” said Leliana placidly. “But forgive me, Inquisitor, I must get back to my work, if you have no more questions.”

It was an obvious dismissal, and Varric was grateful for it. He wondered if Leliana had turned the conversation the way she did because she was afraid of having revealed too much of herself. Sister Nightingale liked to be the one holding the cards. Or perhaps she genuinely did care. It was hard for even Varric to tell, with her.

But she surprised him, as he started to walk away, by saying quietly:

“The answer is yes, by the way, to your question.”

Varric turned, but Leliana had her back to him, her head bowed over her desk.

“I do want to be the next Divine,” she said, without looking up. “But I won’t be. I think we both know that.”

Varric’s thoughts were more than a little messy as he made his way back down the tower and out into the main courtyard, with no real destination in mind. It was a relief to be back in the cold, fresh air, away from the musty feather smell of ravens and Leliana’s penetrating gaze. Unfortunately, far harder to shake was the image in his mind’s eye of Cassandra, swaddled in heavy robes, confined to the Grand Cathedral and forced to smile benignly at every insufferable Orlesian noble who came to her door for Divine endorsement, shackled to a desk with an unceasing mountain of paperwork. There was a time when such a possibility would have struck Varric as funny, ironic. Now it just made him feel as though he’d swallowed a ball of lead. Cassandra would be utterly miserable, profoundly alone. And she’d do it too – he knew she would. Varric had never met someone so willing to sacrifice themselves upon the sword of duty.

But perhaps it wouldn’t happen. Leliana might be wrong; perhaps the grand clerics would choose her after all. Varric tried to picture her on the Sunburst Throne, a Divine with a smile like the edge of a knife, ravens clustering in the eaves of the Grand Cathedral. Eyes in the dark.

It was strange, Varric thought, that he’d come to know Cassandra so well since meeting her, and yet somehow he felt he understood Leliana even less than he had at the start. She’d slowly emerged from her blanketing cocoon of grief – for Justinia, or perhaps as much for the world which Justinia had represented, one where peace was possible, where the mages and the templars could be saved, where the Grey Wardens were selfless heroes and the Maker watched over His children with a beneficent eye.

What Leliana believed now was anyone’s guess – she had become the quintessential spymaster; careful, subtle, with a playful sense of humour that showed itself at odd times, but always something reserved, held back. But sometimes there was something in the way her eyes lit up with an inner fire, in the way she spoke just a little too fast, too forcefully, that Varric had seen enough of before to worry him. It was like…not mania, nothing like that. It wasn’t Bartrand that Leliana reminded him of sometimes, it was…

Anders.

Zeal, that was the word. The force that could drive someone onwards when all else had been lost to them. He’d seen it in the eyes of the Arishok at Kirkwall too, and even in Corypheus at Haven. The belief that the world was fundamentally broken, and needed fixing. The sort of person who’d say ‘I’ll do anything’ and really mean it.

“Inquisitor!”

Varric had been so lost in his thoughts that the hail made him jump, and he was embarrassed when he saw it was only a young elven woman, a herbalist he’d seen helping Mother Giselle on more than one occasion. The faint pang in his chest when he saw her was unexpected, and he realised it was because the last time he’d spoken to her, she’d been working alongside Bethany in the gardens.

“A message for you, my lord, from the lady Morrigan,” said the woman. “She has a matter of great importance to discuss, if you would meet her in the garden at your earliest convenience.”

“Uh…right,” said Varric, not sure what the right response to this was. In truth, he wasn’t doing anything now, but he felt vaguely that it wasn’t a good idea for the Inquisitor to be seen as being at Morrigan’s beck and call. Luckily the elven woman seemed satisfied with having delivered the message, and walked away, leaving Varric feeling wrong-footed.

He told himself sternly to get a grip. He had enough to deal with in the present without borrowing trouble from the future, and the dark spiral of his thoughts hadn’t been making a fair comparison. Leliana was not Anders. When she spoke of the Chantry, it was about reforming it, not blowing it up. And she would have people around her as Divine, wouldn’t she? To advise her, to stop her from going too far? The way that Josephine, or Cassandra, or even Varric himself had been forced to step in and stop her, on occasion. As the Inquisitor, he knew better than anyone that being the one sitting in the big chair didn’t mean you could just do what you wanted with impunity.

No, Leliana was a good person. She would make a good Divine.

Varric tried to tell himself that anyone else would see it that way.

Setting the whole thing firmly aside on his mental ‘worry about that later’ shelf – which was becoming in of itself, worryingly full lately – Varric squared his shoulders and headed towards the garden, and whatever fresh catastrophe Morrigan was undoubtedly about to add to the pile.

Night had fallen upon Skyhold, and Varric sat at the desk in his room, staring at the blank page in front of him. He’d intended to write to Hawke, but stories about the ball at the Winter Palace all seemed like petty distractions, misdirection from all the things that were really on his mind, that he couldn’t write about.

He’d started several times, and his desk was covered in crumpled up scraps of paper, with words crossed and blotted, all of them completely inadequate:

Hawke – This might seem strange, but I wonder if I could ask your opinion on

Hawke – A lot has happened but not all of it is stuff I can put into words. I didn’t

Hawke – I heard a great story from Josephine the other day which I think you’ll

Hawke – Have you ever suddenly realised that something you took for granted was actually

Hawke – I think I’m in over my head.

That was nothing new. He’d been in over his head since this whole thing started, and Hawke knew better than anyone what that felt like. But Varric had a feeling now, some kind of extra writer’s sense, very possibly complete bullshit, that things were somehow…winding up. Coming to an end. Aveline had said the same thing to him once, he remembered, right before everything more or less went to shit in Kirkwall. How are you at finales, Varric?

If his discussion with Leliana about the next Divine election had him feeling that the future was coming at Varric Tethras alarmingly fast, then Morrigan’s revelations had transformed that future in his mind into a charging bronto. Varric had called a meeting in the War Room immediately after parting from Morrigan’s company, sending a message to the other members of the Inquisitorial Council to drop whatever they were doing and convene as soon as they could. But as his usual rotten luck would have it, the first person who arrived as he was anxiously pacing around the War Table was Cassandra. The moment she stepped in the door she looked like she wished she hadn’t, but the brief awkwardness at this being the first time they’d been alone together since the balcony of the Winter Palace was quickly swept away as she saw the look on his face.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, moving swiftly into the room and closing the door behind her. “What is this about, Varric?”

It would have been sensible to wait for the others, who could only be minutes away, but the story of what Morrigan had shown him poured out of Varric’s mouth; the mirror, the Crossroads, the place that the witch had claimed wasn’t the Fade exactly but was close enough to make no difference in Varric’s mind. She’d led him in with nothing more than a wave of her hands, from some dusty storeroom in Skyhold to a place lost to the mists of ancient legend. Varric had watched Merrill lose everything in her efforts to repair the broken Eluvian she’d had back in Kirkwall, but he had never dreamed what it could actually do, and how many there apparently were.

“It’s why Corypheus wanted this mark, the Anchor, whatever,” Varric told Cassandra, waving his hand vaguely in the air and starting his pacing again. “He wants into the Fade. If he gets his hands on an Eluvian then he can do it, Seeker, I saw it with my own eyes. There were dozens of the things, like doors just waiting to be opened…and he’ll finish what he started thousands of years ago. Take the Golden City and make himself a god. We won’t stand a chance against him.”

But Cassandra was shaking her head. “He is a madman,” she said firmly. “He cannot succeed. Whatever he claims he saw in the Fade was merely a reflection of his own mind, his own madness and ego.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Varric.

“I am not sure,” said Cassandra. “I have faith. Corypheus is a powerful mage, and a Darkspawn, and both make him dangerous. But whatever he wants us to believe, that creature is not a God, and I will no more bow to his delusions than I will to him.”

She gave Varric a thoughtful look. “He seeks the power to enter the Fade physically, a power you already have through the mark on your hand, even if you cannot fully control it,” she pointed out. “I do hope you don’t consider yourself a God.”

Varric let out a breath of laughter and stopped pacing, surprised by this unexpected line of attack. “No Seeker, my ego hasn’t quite reached that point yet, don’t worry,” he said.

“Well then. You told me yourself not long after the Conclave that your mark was ‘just some shiny shit from the Fade’.” – Varric couldn’t help but chuckle again at Cassandra’s poor impression of his voice – “Perhaps that is the best way to continue thinking of all of this. It is magic, powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands, yes, but nothing more than that.”

Varric felt himself relax just a fraction, Morrigan’s ominous warnings about the havoc Corypheus might wreak fading a little. “Ah, maybe you’re right,” he said.

“It happens more often than you might think,” said Cassandra, smiling. “We will stop him, Varric,” she said, a little more seriously. “Whatever it is he plans to do. I have faith in that too.”

Josephine had entered at that point, and the others not long afterwards, but Varric was glad, in the end, that he’d spoken to Cassandra first. Walking in the Fade again – the place where the Divine had fallen, where they had escaped last time only through Bethany’s sacrifice – it had felt like all the normal rules had been thrown out of the window. Like anything was possible.  Like maybe Corypheus had been right all along.

Alright, so maybe he’d panicked, a little. But as usual, Cassandra’s pragmatism and steadfast faith had a way of putting things into perspective, and it was probably a good thing that he had only panicked in front of her, and not the others. And it turned out in the end that his other advisors were just as encouraging, for once all on the same page. Maybe it was only because they hadn’t been dragged on an unexpected trip to Spooky Magic Elven Mirror Land, but they all seemed to take this news as a piece of good luck.

“It is a good sign that Lady Morrigan has shared this information with us,” said Josephine. “It means she takes this alliance seriously.”

“I would be wary of taking her at her word,” said Leliana. “Or of following her blindly again without telling anyone else where you’re going,” she added, giving Varric a stern look. “But it’s true that this could prove useful. If Corypheus truly is seeking these Eluvian, and we have one here at Skyhold…”

“Then we have an advantage over him,” said Cullen. “We might even be able to use it as bait, to draw him out.”

“Into an attack on the castle?” said Josephine, anxiously.

“Of course not,” Cullen reassured her. “But it can be moved, can’t it? In fact, just the rumour that we have what he’s looking for could help us.”

“My agents could plant such a rumour if need be,” said Leliana. “But I would advise keeping this to ourselves until necessary, Inquisitor. A card we can play if we have to.”

“Still, it’s good news,” said Cullen firmly. “Now we know what his next move is, it’ll make finding Corypheus that much easier. With the support of Orlais, I’m confident we can meet his forces head on. The Inquisition is ready to end this.”

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” said Josephine. “There is still the matter of his dragon, remember. And we don’t know if Corypheus himself can even be killed.”

“But without his Venatori and his red templars, he’ll be helpless,” said Cullen. “Darkspawn Magister or not, he’s only one person. The Wardens managed to imprison him for hundreds of years once, and if we can do the same again, I’m ready to call that better than nothing. It would certainly buy us some time to find a way to destroy him permanently.”

“One thing at a time,” said Cassandra. “We must find him first.”

“But now our agents have another lead to pursue,” said Leliana. “Corypheus’ forces have been ransacking ancient elven temples since Haven, and this explains why. If you’ll excuse me, Inquisitor, I must go and speak with Morrigan. It seems we have a lot to catch up on.”

“I will send out discreet inquiries to see if anyone has heard of these Eluvians,” said Josephine. “Professor Kenric has written to me lately, I wonder if he might know of anyone…”

The meeting had broken up, with the Council going their separate ways and Varric feeling on a firmer footing than he had before. In truth, he’d never been a guy who was good at dealing with things alone – he needed a team around him, and the Inquisitor had a hell of a good one, it turned out. Cullen’s soldiers, Josephine’s allies, Leliana’s information network…shit, maybe it was Corypheus who didn’t stand a chance. Varric was just one person, but the Inquisition was more than just him. The Inquisition could win this thing yet.

So no, it wasn’t Morrigan’s revelations, or the looming confrontation with Corypheus, or even the untapped potential of his own powers that had Varric sitting here now instead of being tucked up asleep in his bed, feeling helpless and out of his depth.

It was Cassandra.

It was because when he’d learned some new, terrifying, world-shaking secret, the only person he really wanted to talk to about it was her. It was because whenever he saw her his mind kept returning to that brief, shining moment on the balcony at the Winter Palace when he’d believed, for the space of a heartbeat, that they’d both wanted the same thing. It was because just the thought of the grand clerics coming to take his Seeker away to Val Royeaux felt like he’d been hit in the chest with one of Vivienne’s bolts of ice.

It was because he was in love with her. Probably long past time he stopped lying to himself about that, at least. And Maker, he was too old and too cynical and too busy to deal with this on top of everything else, he had a world to save for fucks sake, and still his stupid heart had given him absolutely no choice in the matter.

The letter to Hawke remained unwritten, and Varric had sat here for too long, quill gripped in his hand, staring at nothing. The candle on his desk had burned down to a stub, the flame guttering desperately as it clung to life, throwing flickering shadows against the walls. Varric put it out of its misery with a pinch of his fingers and sat there in the dark, smoke like incense curling into his lungs.

Chapter Text

Not a couple of days later, the Inquisition got a new lead – not on an Eluvian, but on where the Venatori had been taking the people they’d captured. A friend of Josephine’s contacted her about a small town called Sahrnia near a quarry in the highlands of the Dales, where reports of a red lyrium mining operation overseen by red templars were spreading, and since the area also had more than its share of elven ruins, Varric was eager to go personally to check it out.

In fact, he’d been filled with new determination to see this thing done, to track down Corypheus and get rid of the bastard once and for all. To stop being on the defensive and foiling his plans as much by luck as anything, and actually take the fight to him for once. To take away every weapon he had, to cripple his forces, to drive him back underground for another thousand years. To stop all of this. To take back control of the story. To be…well, the Inquisitor. Mostly because being the Inquisitor was preferable to being Varric Tethras right now, whose life was frankly a huge fucking mess.

But the Inquisitor’s life wasn’t exactly a picnic either. Winter still held the Frostbacks in its icy embrace, and the journey from Skyhold down through the foothills and across the frozen Elfsblood river was one marked with heavy snow and bitter winds. Well provisioned though they were, Varric could understand how news might be slow to filter out from the highlands – no-one would travel under these conditions unless they had to.

Varric’s physical discomfort wasn’t eased by the fact that he was still sharing a tent with Cassandra when no other accommodation was available, as they always had done. He couldn’t think of a single reason he could have given for changing the arrangement that wouldn’t have made things ten times more awkward, and so instead he endured the sound of her breathing, the warmth of her body so close to his, the soft little noises she made sometimes in her sleep, the way her eyelashes fluttered fretfully against her cheek when she dreamed. He could, probably, have made some excuse not to bring her along on this mission anyway – Maker knew there were a dozen other places that the Inquisition could just as well have used her sword arm, and the Inquisitor had plenty of staunch allies to choose from. But that too would have been obvious. Worse, it might have made Cassandra feel as though she’d done something wrong.

Besides, he wanted her with him. Aside from anything else, she was his friend, and the thought of shunning her company altogether was miserable. They just needed to put the whole humiliating incident at the Winter Palace behind them and get things back to something approaching normal. And the hardships of the journey meant there was blessedly little time for any awkwardness, as they battled the elements on the road and spent only as much time after making camp each night as it took to have something to eat before falling, exhausted, into their bedrolls.

When they finally reached their destination – an area known as Emprise du Lion, which Varric suspected he was pronouncing wrong every time he said it aloud – the wind and snow had abated slightly, but conditions weren’t much improved. The cold was inescapable, bone-deep, and the snow blanketed everything like a bright, glistening shroud, under a heavy grey sky that threatened more to come. Sahrnia was less a town than a village, and it reminded Varric painfully of Haven; a collection of shivering wooden houses, roofs bowing under the accumulated weight of snow, barred shutters on every window. Half of the buildings were derelict, and people had clearly been using the timber to burn to keep warm. You could almost taste the desperation in the air, and the distant howling of wolves in the mountains didn’t improve the atmosphere.

The supplies the Inquisition had brought with them were warmly welcomed by the villagers, but they had only just finished setting up camp and getting a brief report from Harding, who had travelled ahead to scout the area with a couple of her people, when a commotion arose at the far edge of the village. A shout of ‘templars!’ had Varric running, Cassandra close behind and quickly catching up, arriving at the crumbled village walls to see a skirmish taking place just beyond.

It was five against one, but the figure battling the red monstrosities was managing to hold his own, which was to say that he hadn’t been immediately killed, which was impressive in of itself. The unfortunate man was a human, as far as Varric could tell in the melee, wearing Orlesian armour, and as they watched he ducked out of the way of a blow before springing up and lopping off the head of a templar with a sweep of his longsword, spraying red blood across the snow.

Still, he was no equal to Cassandra, who leapt into the fray without a second thought, and killed two of the templars in a few seconds, while they were still scrambling to figure out where this fresh opponent had come from. Varric’s crossbow took care of another, and the distraction allowed the Orlesian man to dispatch the last, thrusting his sword with perfect form straight through the chink in plate between breastplate and pauldron and into the heart.

The last templar collapsed into the snow just as the Iron Bull arrived on the scene, obviously having been further away from the action. He gave Varric a quick apologetic grimace when he realised the fight was over, to which he received a half shrug in return. Bodyguard or not, Bull couldn’t be everywhere. Behind him, anxious eyes peered around the doors of the village, but after a few moments it was clear no further attack was imminent – this had likely been a patrol, or perhaps a scouting party looking to gauge the numbers of the arriving Inquisition contingent.

The man who had been battling the templars turned, breathing hard, to his rescuers, his eyes tripping over Cassandra and Bull before falling on Varric. He gave a visible start. “My lord Inquisitor,” he said. “I heard the Inquisition might be coming but I never thought to see the Herald of Andraste himself. Your timing is impeccable.”

“Who are you?” asked Cassandra warily, not quite lowering her sword.

“My apologies,” said the man. “Of course, you’re right to be cautious.” He sheathed his own sword, a mollifying gesture, and gave a short bow. “Michel de Chevin, at your service,” he said.

“Ser Michel de Chevin?” said Cassandra, sounding surprised. “Empress Celene’s champion?”

“No longer a champion, nor a ‘Ser’,” said de Chevin. “But no need to ask who you are; it is an honour to meet the Hero of Orlais. You fight like Andraste herself, Lady Seeker!”

Cassandra looked rather embarrassed as she sheathed her own blade, and Varric decided spontaneously that he hated Michel de Chevin, every part of him from his perfect golden hair to his stupid perfect jawline to his rich, mellifluous voice.

“Well, nice to meet you, can’t stay and chat,” he said loudly. “We’ve got business at the quarry with some red templars.”

“I am glad to hear of it,” said de Chevin, his expression darkening. “Those traitors have plagued these lands for too long, and the red crystals are spreading like a rot. If your Inquisition can root them out, you will have done Orlais another great service, Inquisitor.”

“You could join us,” suggested Cassandra, slightly to Varric’s chagrin. “The Inquisition could use another skilled blade in this fight.”

“Would that I could,” said de Chevin, “but I have business of my own in these parts – I track a powerful desire demon known as Imshael. I have heard rumours he has settled in Suledin Keep, an old elven fortress up in the hills. He is free because I made a mistake, and I have sworn to see him destroyed.”

“May the Maker guide your hand,” said Cassandra.

De Chevin nodded. “If you can drive off the red templars, reaching Imshael may not be such an impossible task after all,” he said. “I must try, regardless, but I am glad to know the people here have the Inquisition’s protection now. I stopped here at the village because I could not in good conscience leave them without defence, but now I must make haste before the demon eludes me again.”

He gave another rather self-important bow.

“I pray to the Maker for your safety and your success, Inquisitor,” he said. “And that our paths may cross again in less desperate times.” Varric couldn’t help but notice he seemed to be mostly looking at Cassandra as he said this, but fortunately he turned away without waiting for a response, and walked away from the village, disappearing quickly into the trees.

“Looks like you’ve got a new fan,” remarked the Iron Bull to Cassandra as they headed back to camp, winking at Varric as he spoke. Varric glared daggers back at him.

Cassandra sighed. “I don’t know why the Orlesians insist upon this absurd hero worship,” she said.

“You are quite literally the Hero of Orlais, Seeker,” pointed out Varric.

“I didn’t ask to be called that, they bestowed the title upon me. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

“Wow, I wonder what that’s like,” said Varric, deadpan.

Cassandra snorted. “Just wait until they start putting paintings of you up in the Grand Cathedral,” she said. “You’ll be six foot tall and spouting holy fire from your mouth, if the fanciful depictions of me are anything to go by.”

Varric laughed, happier than he had any right to be simply to know that they had not lost this, the easy back and forth of conversation he’d feared would be made awkward by what had happened – or not happened – between them. It was an overwhelming relief to learn that the unfortunate interlude at Halamshiral had not altogether destroyed the delicate balance of their friendship. He had made a fool of himself, perhaps, with his clumsy overtures to her, but it could have been a lot worse, and Cassandra seemed content to pretend the whole thing had never happened.

That at least was familiar territory. Varric had always been good at pretending.

So here he was now, playing the accustomed role of ‘guy who doesn’t give a shit’, even as they trudged through snow that came up to his waist, keeping up the rhythm of idle conversation to distract them all from the biting wind as they struck out from the relative safety of Sahrnia and into the hills. Fearing the enemy would be dug in and wary after the loss of their outpost at Daerwin’s Mouth, the Inquisition had come out in force – Varric had brought with him their most powerful people, those most experienced with dealing with red lyrium and red templars. So, he was flanked by not just the Iron Bull and the Seeker, but Blackwall too, stoically trudging along, Vivienne and Dorian bickering lightly with each other, and Solas bringing up the rear, in quiet conversation with Cole, who was the only person apparently unbothered by the cold. Sera rounded out the party, having declared that she was pleased the Inquisition was ‘helping normal people for once, not those nobs in their stupid palaces.” Varric wasn’t sure she was actually spelling nobs without the silent ‘k’ in that word either, but he had to admit he agreed with the general sentiment.

Altogether they made a bit of an odd group, but they were all used to each other by now. Vivienne, always a handy source of Orlesian court gossip, related to Varric the fall from grace of Michel de Chevin as they journeyed, which cheered him immeasurably, even if the Iron Lady was unusually vague on the exact details.

But the fairly convivial atmosphere couldn’t last, as after a few hours of punishing hike, they reached their destination, and the work began. The red templars covered the quarry like ants in an anthill, and the Inquisitor and his companions swept through them like a cleansing fire. Or at least, that was what Varric would write later. In reality, it was a brutal, gruelling effort, scrambling over rocky scree and fighting in close quarters on rickety wooden scaffolding, moving through the warren of valleys where the rock had been scooped out, getting lost and doubling back, following the sounds of pickaxes. The templars, confident that their operation had gone undetected, were taken completely by surprise by the attack, and were spread out and scattered, their desultory defences falling easily.

Getting rid of the templars wasn’t the hardest part though. That was rescuing the poor sods who had been forced to mine the red lyrium here. The miners took some convincing that their heavily armed rescuers – a group which, admittedly, contained three mages and a Qunari, all of whom they had probably been taught their whole lives to hold in abject terror – weren’t here just to bring some fresh torture. Shackled together at the ankles to prevent escape, those workers allowed even a moment’s rest to sleep and eat were held in great iron-barred cages, like chattel at a Tevinter slave market. Even Dorian, not a guy easy to shock, swore violently under his breath in Tevene when he saw them, emaciated and huddled together for warmth. And everywhere, the red lyrium – growing out of the cliff face in great, jagged crystals, piled in carts and packed into crates, sprouting from the very bodies of their captors.

No more masters, it whispered. No more slaves, no more death. No word of command but your own. No more thought but the song.

Varric didn’t listen to it. His own stubbornness far outweighed the familiar lure now, as well as the guilt he felt every time he saw it. If it weren’t for him, and Bianca, this stuff would have stayed underground where it couldn’t hurt anyone. Now it was loose, and there was no putting that varghest back in its cage. This was his responsibility, his fuck-up, as Hawke would say, and so Varric would deal with it as long as it took to rid the world of the evil stuff altogether, even if took him a lifetime to do it. He’d been thinking more about that lately – what he might do when all this was over, if the Inquisition managed to defeat Corypheus once and for all. It was all the talk about the Divine election that had that future looming larger in his mind, when for so long since the Conclave he’d just been trying to make it to the end of each crisis. What would he do, when the world no longer had need for the Inquisitor? Cassandra had offered one possibility, on the balcony at the Winter Palace: Your home is Kirkwall. She’d said it as fact, as though there were no doubt in her mind that he would return there as soon as he was able to. And maybe she was right. Maybe this story ended with Varric Tethras right where he started, telling tall tales and buying rounds in The Hanged Man, king of his own comfortable, familiar little kingdom.

There was a time when that thought would have been a huge relief. Now it just made Varric feel…he didn’t really know. It was just hard to see himself in that image anymore, like trying to squeeze into a coat that no longer fit.

For now at least, it was easier just to focus on the work that needed doing today – picking the locks on the cages, tending to the injured, loading templar bodies onto a pyre. The more able-bodied freed workers helped in this effort, relieved of their initial panic now that the fighting was over. Most of them were from the village, but not all. There were dozens who had been rounded up by red templars from further south, refugees from the civil war captured on the road. But even in this Maker-forsaken place, everyone had heard of the Inquisition, and one young man Varric helped out of a cage was in tears – not just at being rescued, but at being saved by the Herald of Andraste himself.

“The Maker has not forgotten us, after all,” he wept, as he was wrapped in a blanket and led to where Solas was doing what he could for the wounded. “I was wrong to have doubted.”

Varric still wasn’t really any more comfortable with the hero-worship thing than Cassandra was, but it occurred to him that he couldn’t exactly prove the man was wrong. Maybe his prayers to the Maker had been heard, and answered. Who was Varric to say otherwise?

He dashed off a quick note and trusted it to Cole to head back to Sahrnia so that the Inquisition agents there could be told of their success, and word sent back to Skyhold. In the meantime, they took over the templars’ encampments as a forward camp for the Inquisition, inventorying the supplies and establishing a watch, making sure the rescued villagers had hot food and rest. Solas and Blackwall volunteered to care for the injured in the largest tent they could find, and most of the others set to work destroying what red lyrium they could, at least in the immediate area. Varric found himself most of use just talking to the workers, encouraging them and bringing them news of the outside world – they’d been so cut off by the weather that none of them had even been aware the civil war was over. He also managed to subtly pry for anything they might have overheard from their captors, and made note of a few scraps of information that might prove useful to Leliana, at least.

After a long day of fighting and ploughing through snow, it took just about the last reserves of energy Varric had to be the Inquisitor for these people, to strike the right balance between righteously angry and warmly reassuring, to be the holy saviour they wanted him to be instead of what he was – a guy who really wanted to go to bed and was so cold he hadn’t felt his own toes for several hours. But these people had been through an ordeal Varric couldn’t begin to imagine, so if what they needed was the Inquisitor shaking their hands and relating the miracle of his escape from the fires of Haven and the heroic tale of saving Empress Celene’s life, then that was what they would get. Even if it made the Inquisitor feel like a pompous prick to be doing it.

When he was finally able to escape, Varric was obliged to duck behind a tent briefly and sink down heavily onto a crate, sighing in relief just to be off his feet and away from the centre of attention for a moment. But the peace couldn’t last, as Solas popped his head around, with an admittedly apologetic air.

“Inquisitor, could I trouble you to come and speak with one of the wounded, when you have a moment?” he asked. “The man claims to have some information, but he is anxious to whom he may trust it.”

“Sure,” said Varric, trying not to let the weariness show in his voice. They were all tired, after all. “Just, uh…give me a minute, ok? I’ll be right there.”

He almost ran into Cassandra a moment later as he made to follow Solas. The Seeker stopped and gave him an appraising look before handing him – somewhat unexpectedly – what turned out to be a small pork pie.

“Eat,” she said, in slightly impatient tones, at what must have been Varric’s look of complete bafflement. “You have not.”

She was right, actually. In all the hurly-burly of the day’s work he hadn’t eaten anything for hours. “Thanks,” said Varric, accepting the offering. He obviously looked about as exhausted as he felt, because Cassandra, although she seemed a little uncomfortable, made no move to leave.

“Are you…alright?” she asked, and the tone in her voice made Varric realise immediately what was on her mind.

“Just tired,” he assured her. “It’s not the lyrium getting to me, it’s the weather. Never thought I’d miss the desert.”

Cassandra didn’t look entirely convinced. “You will tell me, will you not?” she said. “If you are…if you need…?”

“I’m just fine, Seeker,” said Varric, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Really. I’m not exactly having the time of my life, but I can handle it. I promise if that changes, you’ll be the first to know.”

Cassandra seemed to accept this, and although he would rather cut off his own hand than write something so sappy in one of his books, her concern for him lit a small flame of warmth in Varric’s chest in spite of the brutal cold. He wished he could tell her that just her presence by his side was ward enough against the singing, or pretty much anything else, but that was the kind of thing that would only have sounded like a cheesy line, for all that it was true.

He obediently demolished the pork pie on the way to speak to Solas. It was slightly stale, but tasted like the best thing he’d eaten in weeks.

The next day, snow started to fall again, thick and fast, but there was no time to bunker down and wait for it to pass. The freed workers had left for Sahrnia at first light, carrying those who were too weak to walk on canvas stretchers, but those not addled by the lyrium or the hard labour had been able to eavesdrop on some of the templars as they talked, and passed on what little they’d gleaned from their captors. There were further templar camps to be routed, perhaps more prisoners too in need of help, and this area couldn’t be made safe if the enemy had a chance to rally, or even dig in defensively once they got word of the Inquisition seizing control of the quarry.

With so much ground to cover, they split up into smaller groups – Varric took Sera, who had sharp eyesight to compliment his excellent hearing, along with Bull and Cassandra, to scout in the direction they thought most likely. The presence of so much red lyrium around them was making everyone a little snappish and ill-tempered, so conversation was kept to a minimum, but by midday the lyrium was the least of their problems. The wind picked up and the snowfall became a blizzard, and before long they were battling through a world of icy, biting whiteness, barely able to see a few feet in front of their faces. Even wrapped in a dozen layers or wool and fur, Sera was so slight she risked being buffeted off her feet if she didn’t stay behind the bulk of the Iron Bull, and they had to raise their voices to shout over the howling of the wind just to hear each other.

After a while it became clear that the only smart thing to do was abandon any other objective in favour of finding any kind of shelter, but by then they were thoroughly lost, with nothing to do but plough onwards through the snow and hope they stumbled into something. It reminded Varric of the slow journey through the mountains after Haven, with Cassandra. That memory sparked an idea, and he took off his left glove in spite of the cold, and willed the Anchor into a brighter glow, creating a faint green beacon to keep the others from losing him in the snow. Luckily the power from it also warmed his hand enough to avoid frostbite. He had more control over the thing these days; it felt like a part of him now in a way he’d long accepted. In fact, most of the time Varric didn’t think about it much at all now. Perhaps that was how mages had always felt – just because you technically had the power to wreak unspeakable havoc on the world didn’t mean you had to actually use it. Alright, so he had the key to tearing open the Veil and entering the Fade in the flesh, but maybe it was better for that to be in his hand then anyone else’s. Varric Tethras had already opened the door to red lyrium through his own carelessness, and he’d learned his lesson. It didn’t matter whether it was the Maker’s will or sheer chance he’d been trusted with the power that Corypheus was willing to rip the world apart for. The arrogant bastard would have to go through him to get it, and Varric wasn’t going to make it as easy for him as last time.

Eventually the blizzard abated, and the world around them became easier to make out. But they’d obviously gotten turned around and ended up somewhere Varric had so far only seen marked on maps – ahead of them now, a fortress reared up from the snow, dark grey stone against the blank white of the sky. The lyrium had taken hold of it, as bad as Varric remembered Redcliffe castle being, great spurs of red crystal fifty foot high thrusting out of the walls, marring the elven carvings. It was like seeing the corpse of something that once must have been beautiful, and the four of them stopped by unspoken accord to take in the sight.

“Suledin Keep,” said Cassandra. “We must have gone further west than we thought. Well, at least we know where we are now.”

“We won’t find any shelter there,” said Varric grimly. “It’ll be swarming with templars. I’d bet good money that’s where they’ve made their base. We’ll have to come back with—”

“Inquisitor!”

A figure appeared from the direction of the keep, struggling through the snow, and as it got closer Varric recognised Michel de Chevin, panting for breath as he neared them.

“I heard voices on the wind,” he gasped, “but I never dreamed…praise Andraste, my prayers have been answered.”

Varric didn’t have time to think about the undeniable fact that this was the second time in as many days his arrival had been greeted with that declaration. De Chevin was white faced and wild eyed, his golden hair in disarray, looking far from the picture of a handsome Chevalier. There was blood on his sword, Varric noticed. He’d been fighting, recently.

“Imshael knows you’re here,” de Chevin blurted out, obviously with no time for pleasantries now. “He is within the keep, but it is as I feared – he has struck some kind of deal with the red templars. While I was fighting for my life against them, he has summoned a pack of Shades to attack Sahrnia. The people there are defenceless!”

“Shit,” said Varric, with feeling. The Inquisition camp back at Sahrnia had only a handful of scouts as guard, most of their forces still mustered at the quarry.

“I must return without delay,” de Chevin said desperately. “I cannot let more die due to my mistake. But Inquisitor, if Imshael gets the chance to flee again…”

“He won’t,” said Varric grimly. There was only one thing for it. “You protect the town, we’ll take care of the demon.”

A moment of hesitation, and then de Chevin nodded. Varric liked him a little more for having the respect not to ask if he was sure. “Maker be with you, Inquisitor,” was all he said. “With you all.”

He left without a backwards glance in the direction that Varric now knew led down the valley to Sahrnia. How quickly he could get there, and what he would find when he did, was anyone’s guess. Could the villagers hold out against an attack of demons even long enough for help to arrive? Varric felt a twinge of sympathy for Michel de Chevin – it was obvious that just by coming here, the guy might have signed the death warrant of every man, woman and child in Sahrnia, and he knew it. The Inquisitor could understand that, at least. You couldn’t be in two places at once. You couldn’t save everyone. No matter how much people expected of you, you couldn’t fix everything.

But you could damn well try.

Varric turned quickly to Sera. “Think you can find your way back to the quarry camp?” he said. “The village is gonna need some help and so are we.”

Sera was the fastest of them by far, light enough to walk on top of the snow instead of ploughing through it. Varric also wanted to get her out of the way of this Imshael – if the demon was as dangerous as de Chevin believed…

Sera was an excellent shot and a pretty lethal gutter fighter, but she was also younger than Bethany had been. Varric had enough blood on his hands already.

“I can make it,” said Sera instantly, and then hesitated. “You’ll be alright though, yeah?” she said, looking between the three of them anxiously. “No stupid hero shite?”

“You know that’s not my style, Buttercup,” said Varric. “Get us some backup and we’ll be fine.”

He wished he felt as confident as he sounded, as Sera raced away. Formidable warriors as both Cassandra and Bull were, taking on an entire keep with just three people was a daunting prospect. But they had no choice. If they waited this out for help to come, Imshael might slip away. And if they managed to kill the demon, maybe the shades he’d summoned to attack the village would die with him. If de Chevin couldn’t reach them in time, it could be Sahrnia’s only chance.

“Alright Boss,” said Bull, hefting his axe and turning towards the doors. “Want me to do the honours?”

“Let them hear us coming,” said Varric, and Bull charged the doors of the keep with a roar that shook them to their hinges before his greataxe turned them to splinters. No turning back now.

They carved through the first templars that came running to meet them, the element of surprise the only advantage they had. Templar after templar fell to crossbow bolt and blade as they pressed on into the ancient keep, through a maze of stone and snow and red crystal. It wasn’t such a ruin as Varric had expected – the vast sprawling fortress was mostly intact, save for where the lyrium had taken over the stone, and he had time enough to wonder, at the back of his mind, why the powers of Orlais had left such a place empty all these centuries. Superstition, perhaps? The keep was undeniably what Sera would call ‘elfy’ down to its very bones, all halla carvings and owl statues and swooping arches reminiscent of tree boughs. The red templars and their lyrium had colonised it like a mould; pitched their tents in the corners, piled up crates of supplies and racks of weapons, hammered ugly iron grilles and stretched canvas over holes in the walls. Further in, they came across a set of enormous iron-barred cages in which lay the body of a very dead giant, red lyrium bursting out of its flesh. It was a creepy sight, and almost a sad one. For all that giants looked disturbingly like people, they were animals, really, and this one could only have had an animal’s understanding of what was happening to it. What whispers did red lyrium pour into the blunt, undreaming mind of a giant? Varric could only guess. In any case, prisoners in cages tortured with red lyrium until they broke was something he’d seen enough of at Redcliffe castle. If the giant’s body was the only one left here, it was probably just because it was too heavy to move, not because it was the only victim of such experiments.

His sympathy was tempered slightly when they rounded the next corner to be met with an earth-shaking bellow of pain and rage. Another giant, this one very much alive, holding a templar in its meaty fist and dashing them against the stone, surrounded by the corpses of several more. Whether the giant had escaped or been set loose in some last-ditch attempt at defence didn’t really matter, as the result was the same. The lyrium-ravaged creature was insane, even more homicidal than was usual for its kin, and thundered towards them the moment they appeared, tossing the body of the templar aside with a stomach-turning crunch.

“Now this is a fight!” yelled the Iron Bull gleefully, and a fight it certainly was, a hard and bloody one. Its strength only amplified by the lyrium running through its veins, the giant seemed immune to pain, and eventually Bull had to leap onto its back and bury his axe in its skull before the creature finally went down. The giant toppled like felled tree into a half-crumbled wall that was the last support of a tower, and its massive bulk sent the whole edifice tumbling in an avalanche of stone. Varric dived out of the way, throwing his arms over his head to protect himself from the cacophony of falling masonry, and when the dust had cleared, he found himself staring at a mountain of rubble that had buried the giant completely. If it hadn’t been dead before, it certainly was now. Not far off, Cassandra was picking herself up, but Bull was nowhere to be seen. Varric did, however, hear a lot of what was presumably swearing in the Qunari language, and deduced that Bull was on the other side and at least hadn’t been buried himself.

“Alright back there, Tiny?” Varric called.

The response was muffled by the barrier of stone. “Yeah, you two still breathing?”

“We’re fine,” said Varric. “How bad is it?”

“It’d take time we don’t have to break through,” said Bull, the frustration clear in his voice. “You sit tight Boss, I’ll try to find another way around.”

His heavy footsteps receded along with his words, and Varric and Cassandra exchanged glances. Standing around here while Imshael made his escape was also probably time they didn’t have, not now the demon definitely knew that the keep was under attack. The Shades attacking Sahrnia were an obvious tactic to get de Chevin from off Imshael’s trail, which meant he was afraid, ready to flee. If Empress Celene’s renowned champion had been tracking Imshael all this time and only now managed to corner him, this might be the only chance they would get to stop him.

“What about it, Seeker?” asked Varric, hesitant to even voice the idea that was almost certainly suicide. “Think we can…?”

Cassandra straightened her shoulders, steel in her eyes. “Of course,” she said, instantly.

She was fucking magnificent. Maker, how had there ever been a time when he hadn’t thought so? Looking at her now, Varric was struck afresh with the feeling that there would be stories about all of this one day, about her. Poems, even. If he had to write the damn things himself, there would be.

If he hadn’t been  – alright, why not admit it? – gazing at her so admiringly, he might not have caught Cassandra’s almost imperceptible wince as they moved forwards and she put weight on her left leg.

“You’re hurt,” Varric said.

“It is nothing.”

“Cassandra…”

“Truly.” She smiled, and Varric forgot momentarily where they were and what they were doing.

“Uh…right,” he said, turning away quickly. “If you’re sure.”

“I can handle it,” said Cassandra. “If that changes, you will be the first to know.”

Using his own words against him was a low blow, but Varric trusted her not to bullshit him about this at least, and whatever minor injury she’d taken from the rockslide didn’t seem to slow her down as they ran into more templars. They fought their way through the inner keep, and if Varric was exhausted, numb with cold and arms aching from wielding his crossbow, he could only imagine how Cassandra felt. She had inner reserves of strength and sheer, bloody-minded determination that other people could only dream of, and Varric wondered if all Seekers of Truth were like this, forged into unstoppable weapons by their training and the ritual they undertook, or if it was just Cassandra. He suspected that actually there might not be anyone in the entire world even remotely like her.

There was still no sign of the Iron Bull, and Varric had lost track of how many templars they’d killed when the two of them emerged into the icy daylight again into a huge inner courtyard at the centre of the keep. Red lyrium sprouted from the walls, casting the icy-sheened flagstones in an eerie red glow. For once, no-one rushed to attack, though they were far from alone; there was a man standing out in the open, incongruous in his fine clothing, apparently unbothered by the bitter cold and clearly waiting for them. A couple more red templars hovered on the sidelines, their swords drawn but their gazes turned towards the figure for direction, and although their breath clouded in the air in front of their metal visors, the breath of the finely dressed gentleman did not.

If it hadn’t been obvious from context who this was, Varric felt the mark on his hand crackle and flare, as it reacted to the traces of Fade clinging to the figure in front of them. Imshael. Desire demons tended to change their shape to suit whoever they were trying to entice, Varric knew, but the smoothly handsome human man before them didn’t do much for him. Either Imshael wasn’t bothering to try, or – a more disturbing possibility – he had judged Cassandra to be the greater threat and assumed a shape that he imagined would be attractive to her. Either way, the face he wore didn’t show any sign of alarm as they approached warily, weapons raised.

“Ah, the hero arrives,” he said, in a smooth, unctuous voice. “But is it—”

Varric shot him. Imshael caught the crossbow bolt a moment before it drove through his neck, but at least he looked surprised, if not particularly worried. He dropped the bolt to the ground.

“This would be a lot easier if you’d stop for a moment to lis—”

Varric shot him again.

“Oh for…” Imshael didn’t manage to stop this bolt – he plucked it out of his shoulder with a wince and a sour expression as a dark stain bloomed on his waistcoat. “I am trying to have a civilised dialogue here,” he said. “This doesn’t have to end in blood. I thought your Inquisition was all about restoring peace?”

“We do not treat with demons,” said Cassandra sharply, her voice ringing across the courtyard.

“Oh, a Seeker,” said Imshael, glancing at her in the manner of someone who’d just stepped in something unpleasant and was examining the bottom of their shoe. “I heard they’d all died.”

“Maker give me strength,” growled Cassandra, and stepped forward, her sword raised.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Imshael, a flash of alarm crossing his face for the first time. “Your friend is very quick to violence, Inquisitor. It’s worrying. I’d heard you were a more reasonable sort, a man of words. Merchants’ Guild, wasn’t it? You should know the value of a good deal. You let me leave, tell that dour Orlesian you killed me, and I’ll make it worth your while. I could grant you the power to defeat your enemies, or riches even you can’t imagine. Or perhaps something more…personal.” He smiled, his sharp little eyes boring into Varric’s. “You’ve heard how powerful I am,” he said. “I can give you anything you want. Anything,” he repeated, with a satisfied emphasis, before his gaze slid sideways to Cassandra. Varric felt a thrill of sheer disgust ripple through him as he realised the demon’s implication.

“Good to know,” he replied, lowering his crossbow a fraction, seeing the flicker of triumph in Imshael’s eyes. Then: “What I want is for you to die quickly, so I can stop freezing my ass off out here.”

In a swift movement, Varric raised his crossbow again, swung it sideways and shot one of the templars through the neck. The lyrium-ravaged figure toppled backwards, dead as he hit the ground, but Varric was already turning to the other templar, and by the time he’d felled them too, Cassandra was running full tilt at Imshael.

“Fine!” snarled the demon, his face twisting, the pleasant mask slipping into something ugly. “If you won’t be reasonable, then be afraid.”

By the time Cassandra’s blade was upon Imshael, the demon was no longer in the guise of a man. Instead, it reared up into the air, spindly and ragged, claws sprouting from its emaciated form, its face a howling void. Cassandra showed neither fear nor surprise as the gleaming arc of her sword lopped off grasping, razor-sharp appendages even as they flew at her. Varric cried out a word of warning and the Seeker leapt backwards as he lobbed a sticky pitch grenade that exploded on impact with the demon, wreathing it in flames, but the scream it released became a roar of fury as Imshael’s shape twisted again into the squat, white-hot form of a rage demon, belching fire. Varric riddled it with bolt after bolt from his crossbow, but he was little more than a distraction. This was the Seeker’s fight, and it was what she’d trained to do all her life. Even as the demon’s shape writhed and changed – now tall and jagged, now squat and oozing, now many legged and carapaced – she adjusted her technique just as quickly, giving no quarter as her blade found its mark again and again. When her sword swept another spray of dark ichor across the frozen flagstones, biting deep into flesh and bone, Imshael howled and grew to an enormous size, a horned black monster towering over the silver armoured figure of the Seeker, as big as the giant they’d felled earlier and far more deadly.

Pride demons were all brute force, no finesse, and though they were no joke to take down, Varric could see through the tactic immediately. It was a last-ditch effort, meant to intimidate them into fleeing. Imshael was tiring.

Unfortunately, so was Cassandra.

Varric had seen it the moment they’d entered into combat in earnest – she was favouring her left leg, in a way that might have been imperceptible to anyone who hadn’t seen her in battle a thousand times. Whatever minor injury she had taken earlier was starting to slow her, making her reactions take just a fraction too long, her movements less sure. She ducked and weaved amongst Imshael’s heavy, clumsy blows, but Varric could only create so many openings for her, and he was out of grenades by now, down to only iron-tipped bolts that clattered off the demon’s hide, barely an irritant. He watched in helpless horror as Imshael raised his massive claws in a complicated movement, the acrid tang of magic in the cold air, and drew between them a long whip of pure white, crackling lightning. Cassandra had no mage with her, no chance to dispel or shield herself from the power against which her armour would be no protection. Varric could see the next few moments play out in a kind of grim theatre in his mind’s eye, the whispers of red lyrium painting it in vivid crimson colours – the lash of the whip connecting with the Seeker’s metal plate, paralysing her, robbing her of movement, of sight, of escape. For only a few seconds, maybe but long enough for the demon to crush her utterly.

Her only hope was to avoid the blow, but Imshael’s reach was too far, Cassandra too exposed, too slow. The demon knew it too – the courtyard rang with his deep, mocking laughter as he drew back the whip and swept it through the air towards the Seeker, a white-hot, sparking line of death.

There was no way to stop that deadly, inexorable arc, and so Varric did the only thing he could do, and dived into its path himself.

He didn’t feel the impact of the whip so much as experience it as a flash of very bright light, and a sudden sensation of being weightless, outside of his own body. He must have blacked out for a moment, because when he came to, he was lying on his back in a snowdrift some distance away, crossbow still clutched in his hands, which must have gripped it reflexively as the lightning seized his body. Now everything hurt – Varric felt like he’d been hit with Skyhold fortress – but he was alive, which was something of a surprise.

It took several long seconds to remember exactly where he was and what was happening, and he raised his head enough to see Cassandra locked in combat with the towering form of Imshael, now reduced only to the brute strength of his massive claws in this form, bleeding from a dozen wounds. The whip of lightning the demon had conjured must have taken the last of his energy, and he could manage nothing else. But brute force might still be enough. As Varric watched, Imshael brought down his fists on Cassandra’s shield as she braced against it, her legs sliding on the icy flagstones, her whole body trembling with the effort, giving way inch by inch.

No, Varric thought, and half-dazed as he was, it was more a decided rejection than a desperate one. His crossbow was no use here, he was no use, and so in a moment of strange clarity, he discarded Bianca and raised his marked hand into the air and thought of the caves below Haven. Stay behind me and get ready to run, Cassandra had told him then, and he’d been so angry, so totally, irrationally pissed off that she would do that for him. That she held her life so cheaply. That she’d assumed he would too. That, deep down, Cassandra Pentaghast saw herself as nothing more than a shield to throw in front of other people. Had the Seekers done that to her too? Told her that was all she was good for? That it was the Maker’s will?

Varric reached for the anger he’d felt then, the force of his will, and channelled it through the Anchor, as if he’d known all along how to do it. It was remarkable how easy it was, twisting the fabric of the veil like this, tearing it open like pulling at a thread, the rift opening above Imshael as readily as a hot knife sliced through butter. The demon was lifted, howling, off its massive feet, dragged through the rift back into the Fade with inexorable slowness, dripping ichor and clawing uselessly at the air. And then it was gone, and the swirling green vortex pulsed greedily as Varric forced it shut with an effort, this at least familiar from the hundreds of times he had sealed similar rifts all across Thedas. As it closed with an anticlimactic pop, Cassandra whirled round in time to see him lower his hand and manage to lever himself into at least sitting upright, in spite of the protest of every bone in his body. Her sword and shield both slipped from her hands and clattered to the flagstones.

“Varric—Varric!”

The Seeker sprinted across the courtyard, and when she half collapsed to her knees before him, it occurred to Varric that before the moment that the rift had opened, it was very likely she’d also assumed he’d been killed outright by Imshael’s blow.

Her breath was coming quick and ragged; she made as if to reach for him, but closed her hand instead into a fist. “Maker, I thought…” Her face changed as relief gave way to a more familiar emotion, her brows drawing together in anger. “Why did you do that?” she snapped. “Take the blow for me, you idiot, what were you thinking?”

“You’re welcome,” muttered Varric.

“This is not a joke, Varric,” said Cassandra, her eyes glittering dangerously, dark with anger and fear. “You could have been killed. You are the Inquisitor, you cannot risk your life for me. For anyone.”

Varric felt his own anger kindle into life, born as much of frustration as of the cold and pain, and helped along some way by the nagging whisper of red lyrium. Anything else is impossible. You are the Inquisitor. There were a lot of things to Inquisitor wasn’t allowed to do, it seemed. “My life’s still mine, whatever titles you foist on me, Seeker,” he said, with the edge of a growl. “I can do whatever the hell I want with it.”

Cassandra made a dangerous noise in the back of her throat. “Swear to me,” she said fiercely, seizing him by the shoulders abruptly. “Swear you will not ever put my life above your own again.”

“No.”

“Damn you!”

She lunged forward and kissed him, hard as a slap. Her lips were chapped from the wind and cold, but soft, impossibly, startlingly soft where the rest of her was all sharp edges.

A few brief, infinite moments later, Cassandra pulled back with a violent movement. Her eyes were wide, her face in an expression of utter shock, as though her mind had only just caught up with what she’d done. It had started snowing again, Varric realised, in a dreamy, abstract kind of way. Little flakes of it were clinging to Cassandra’s hair, and the tip of her nose was pink with cold. Perhaps he had died after all, he thought; freezing his ass off aside, he could think of much worse afterlives.

Cassandra swallowed hard. “Varric, I—”

A cacophonous sound of crumbling rock nearby had her springing to her feet, scrambling again for her sword. She released her grip on Varric so suddenly he actually fell back into the snow, which would have been embarrassing if he’d been in any state of mind to think about it, and she was barely upright again, blade in hand and shield still abandoned several yards away, when the nearby wall collapsed. Or rather, the rocks burst outwards in a kind of slow explosion, drifting serenely to the snowy ground, and revealing Dorian and Vivienne standing behind it, staves raised. The Iron Bull stood between them, greataxe at the ready, but a quick scan of the courtyard had him convinced that there was no immediate fight to be had; his huge shoulders relaxed as he lowered the weapon a fraction when he saw the two of them alive and apparently unhurt.

“The others have gone to help the village, Boss, but apparently Sera thought we could use some firepower,” he said, gesturing at the two mages. He looked from Varric, now scrambling awkwardly to his feet from the snowdrift, to Cassandra, who was still facing them with her sword drawn, her face flushed pink from more than just the cold.

“So, what did we miss?” Bull asked.

Chapter Text

There was, as usual, good news and bad news.

The good news was that the moment Imshael had been dragged back into the Fade, the shades he’d summoned to attack Sahrnia had apparently crumbled into ash even as they were falling upon the village, and the villagers escaped a slaughter by the skin of their teeth. Michel de Chevin – who had arrived at Sahrnia at almost exactly the same time as the shades, and been both prepared and by that point resigned to giving his own life in the defence of the village – was so astonished to hear of Imshael’s defeat that it was slightly insulting.

“In truth, I believed I was likely sending all of us to our deaths, Inquisitor,” he confessed, when they met up with him again. “I once witnessed Imshael slaughter an entire…well, suffice to say that I wasn’t sure such a powerful demon could be stopped at all, and I thought it would surely cost my life to see it done.”

Still, he thanked them again and again, in an effusively Orlesian way that Varric was pretty sure he wouldn’t have found quite so grating if so much of it hadn’t seemed directed specifically at Cassandra again.

“You have rid the world of a terrible evil,” de Chevin said earnestly. “And my own conscience of a terrible burden. I would be honoured to join your Inquisition, and fight for your cause.”

“Bit of a humourless fellow, isn’t he?” remarked Dorian, once the Chevalier was out of earshot. “Good with a blade, and a handsome face, but not much fun at parties. Shame. You can see why the Orlesians like him, I suppose.”

Varric had de Chevin packed off immediately to Skyhold, where Cullen could put him to work training the Inquisition’s forces, but the rest of them weren’t getting out of the frozen highlands of Emprise du Lion so easily. That was the bad news. Clearing the quarry of red lyrium was a huge undertaking, involving experienced mages and specially made containers and trained teams of workers on constant rotation so that no-one had to be exposed to the evil stuff for too long. Putting aside the risk in handling red lyrium at all, it was logistically a nightmare. The Inquisition moved into Suledin Keep temporarily as a base of operations in the area, and after a while it became clear the arrangement was likely to be permanent, as their workforce grew and so too did the garrison of soldiers necessary to protect them, plus the veritable army of people needed to keep the place supplied. With the nearby quarry temporarily shut down, the villagers of Sahrnia and the surrounding area were only too happy to have the Inquisition on their doorstep, offering well-paid work to restore the roads, repair the old fortress and bring some life back into the area. It would certainly take some time before they were able to start exporting marble and granite again, which had been the lifeblood of this area before the red templars moved in.

If only the Inquisitor himself was as pleased with these developments. Varric was getting increasingly uncomfortable recently with how big the Inquisition was growing, how firmly they were establishing themselves in every corner of the south, with so little resistance. For all that he was apparently their leader, he didn’t seem to have a lot of choice in the matter, and even if he’d put his foot down, what could he say? That they shouldn’t help people who needed help? That they should just leave someone else to deal with the red lyrium? That their soldiers could do without strong, defensible bases in which to train, and rest, and keep watch over the areas in which the Inquisition needed to operate? Still, the idea that Varric was technically the owner of one castle was a lot to deal with, but Skyhold at least had never felt exactly like his, any more than The Hanged Man in Kirkwall had. It was home, sure, but for the Inquisition rather than just him, and it belonged to the organisation. Now there were several castles across Ferelden and Orlais which flew the Inquisition banner from their battlements, and Varric couldn’t help the sneaking suspicion that this would come back to bite him personally in the ass someday.

In the meantime, Josephine saw to it that the Inquisition paid a sizeable rent to Ferelden and Orlais for every outpost they occupied, and made it very clear in her flowery Ambassadorial language that of course they remained subject to the laws of the land and the authority of the sovereign, and naturally if they were no longer welcome their troops would withdraw immediately, and take their trade opportunities and their well-trained patrols that kept the roads safe from bandits with them. No-one wanted to be an unwelcome houseguest, after all.

Shockingly, neither King Alistair nor Empress Celene took up this offer of eviction. The Inquisition strongholds of Caer Bronach and Griffin Wing Keep had both stabilised wild outlying regions of their lands with very little expense and effort from the actual rulers, and become safe-havens for travellers and traders passing through. Daerwin’s Mouth on the Storm Coast was fast becoming a bustling port, and Varric had received letters from both Isabela and Aveline – of annoyance and approval respectively – expressing their feelings on the Inquisition starting to dominate trade routes across the Waking Sea. The lyrium trade was all but under the Inquisition’s thumb now, the Chantry was practically begging for their approval, and the Inquisitor…

Tried his best not to think too hard about any of it.

There was plenty to keep him occupied, at least. Varric wasn’t such a martyr as to take part in clearing the red lyrium himself, but there were still red templars hiding out in the hills to be hunted down, and once the old Tevinter bridge at Judicael’s crossing was restored they set about taking possession of the old watchtowers along the road, to make safe the route for trade caravans. There turned out to be a couple of dragons nesting in the hot springs along the eastern road, and Bull’s Chargers, who had come down to help out with the reconstruction efforts, were cheerfully ruthless in dealing with the beasts.

When he wasn’t out tramping around the highlands fending off wolves or closing Fade rifts or re-opening Chantries – alight just one Chantry, but the villagers had insisted he give a speech, which was all a bit embarrassing – Varric was holed up behind locked doors in Suledin keep with Solas. The mark on his hand didn’t look any different, but clearly he had abilities at his command that went far beyond just closing the rifts, and now he was apparently able to use them at will rather than weird shit just happening at random. He’d gone to Solas and explained what had happened as soon as he had the chance, and the mage was both fascinated and, Varric thought, slightly impressed, and more than happy to run through a series of experiments to discover just what the limits of those abilities were.

Varric still couldn’t think of himself as a mage, but it was nice to feel slightly more in control of the Anchor. If nothing else, this thing had yanked him bodily into the Fade twice, and it would be a relief to think that it couldn’t do it again, or if it did happen, he might have an easier way out. Guilt rose in his throat like bile when Varric thought about what had happened at Adamant. If he’d had more control over the Anchor back then, if he hadn’t wasted so much time trying to ignore it, rejecting the power he'd been given…could he have pulled them back out of the Fade without Bethany having to sacrifice herself? Could he have simply willed a rift for them all to walk through?

It wasn’t that simple though, for better or worse. Demons were creatures of the Fade made flesh, and Solas made clear, in his calm, scholarly way, that using the Anchor to banish them back whence they came was a different matter altogether than creating a doorway that a mortal could use.

“If that were so easily possible, then Corypheus could simply have walked through any number of Fade rifts caused by the Breach to carry out his plans,” Solus pointed out. “He is seeking the Eluvians precisely because the Anchor failed to achieve what he wanted it to.”

“But the Anchor can break into the Fade,” said Varric. “I mean, maybe I haven’t done it deliberately yet, but—”

“Yet?” said Solas, his voice unusually sharp.

“You know what I mean.”

Solas looked at him for long enough that Varric felt extremely uncomfortable, but when he spoke again his voice was measured. “It is true that you wield a great power, Inquisitor,” he said. “One that many, Corypheus included, would kill for, or far worse. But although we cannot know the limits of that power for certain, it is still, in its way, merely a tool. Think of it this way – anyone may pick up a hammer and use it to destroy something. But it takes work, and knowledge, to use it to repair something already broken. It may take a skilled craftsman a lifetime to learn how to use that hammer to build something entirely new.”

“And until then I’m just running around smashing everything to bits?” said Varric.

“It is a risk, yes,” said Solas. “But I must warn you, if anything is likely to be damaged, it is not the Veil itself, but rather you. This magic is like none anyone has ever come across before, in our lifetimes at least. Perhaps being a dwarf might shield you from the effects, or perhaps not. But I would be wary of using it as a weapon lightly, Inquisitor. No magic is without a cost.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on drawing attention to the fact that I can now make rifts as easily as I can close them,” said Varric. “That’s not a good look, whichever way you slice it.”

“Indeed,” said Solas. “I am curious, though, what exactly triggered this new control you seem to have over the Anchor.”

Varric shrugged. “Really big demon,” he said.

“At the risk of sounding like the Iron Bull, I think you have faced bigger,” said Solas, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. He paused. “Your intervention was to help Cassandra, I believe?”

“Your point being?” said Varric, admittedly a touch belligerently. It was a bit much if Solas of all people was now going to start giving him shit about his personal life too.

“Only that mages often experience their first bloom of magic in a similar way, in a moment of heightened emotion,” said Solas. “Control over our powers can take some time to master, and it is not simply out of cruelty that the Circles typically discouraged if not outright forbade intimate relationships between young mages. Any true loss of control could result in disastrous—”

“Alright, fine, thank you,” said Varric quickly, holding up his hands in an effort to stop what was quickly threatening to turn into an excruciating conversation. “Your concern is appreciated, Chuckles, now let’s please never talk about any of this again.”

“Just something to bear in mind, Inquisitor,” said Solas gravely, and Varric escaped with as much of his dignity as he could gather, and the sneaking suspicion that Solas was laughing at him behind that solemn, inscrutable expression.

As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about without being told he might accidentally open a new Breach if he ever got laid again. Varric sincerely hoped that Solas was just messing with him on that one, even if it wasn’t exactly a pressing concern right now, since his personal life was still a complete disaster. Cassandra was treating him more or less as if he had the plague, any sense of friendly rapport they’d managed to rebuild since Halamshiral totally demolished. They hadn’t spoken about what had happened after the confrontation with Imshael, save for once, as they were walking back to the quarry camp afterwards. Cassandra, walking beside him, had cleared her throat and said in a stilted undertone:

“Inquisitor, what happened before…it was a…momentary lapse. The lyrium, you understand, I was…it will not happen again. Of course.”

“Right,” Varric had replied, keeping his eyes forward and not daring to even glance at her. “Heat of the moment. It’s already forgotten.”

It was one of the more egregious lies he’d ever told her, but it wasn’t as if she were likely to call him out on it.

“Thank you,” Cassandra had said stiffly.

And that had been that. If it hadn’t been for her embarrassed half-apology, Varric might really have thought he’d imagined the whole thing, in the daze from being knocked on his ass by the demon. And it hadn’t been, by almost any measure, a good kiss; over almost before it began, a thing more of anger than of passion. Varric had thought of almost nothing else since it had happened. Maker, how his mind lingered on it, that brief, glowing instant. How his stupid, irrepressible imagination spun image after image of how better, how longer and slower and softer he might kiss Cassandra if he ever…if she ever…

But it didn’t make sense. She didn’t want him, not like that; she had made that very clear. And there had been a strange kind of relief in that knowledge, as if a blow had finally landed that he’d been braced for all along, the pain of it no less, but at least not unexpected. Varric was used to not being wanted, not being good enough. Now he didn’t know what to think.

Cassandra had told him she wanted his friendship, and if there was one thing he trusted it was her honesty. But the fact remained – that had not been, in Varric’s experience, how anyone might kiss their friend. Red lyrium, of course, did tend to intensify any strong emotion, and Imshael was a demon of desire who had made it plain that he knew exactly what Varric desired, and perhaps neither he nor Cassandra had been exactly in their right minds in that moment, and yet…and yet…

Varric’s thoughts ran in endless circles, like nugs chasing each other round and round, as the weeks passed and the Elfsblood river finally started to thaw, spring pushing green shoots through the carpet of snow. Word arrived from Griffon Wing Keep that Venatori had been reported heading west, deeper into the desert, where there were rumours of ancient elven ruins from pre-Imperium times, hidden beneath the dunes. Preserved by the sands and the isolation, it was just the kind of place that might hold an Eluvian. With the restless desire to do something, and admittedly the desire also to avoid going back to Skyhold and his mountain of Inquisitorial paperwork, Varric decided to investigate himself. What Corypheus was seeking was still a closely guarded secret, known only to the Inquisition Council and Varric’s most trusted inner circle, and so an official Inquisition expedition was out of the question. He’d travel across Orlais himself with only a small group, under the guise of checking in on Griffon Wing Keep, and then onwards, hopefully without attracting the attention of the Venatori and putting them on their guard.

The preparations were made quickly and quietly, and Varric bid farewell to his friends that would be travelling back to Skyhold, and those who would be staying here a while to help at Suledin. He couldn’t honestly say he would be sorry to see the back of this icy, isolated place, but thoughts of what they might do if they did find an Eluvian out in the desert – or worse, if the Venatori found it first – meant Varric struggled to fall asleep the night before they were due to set out, even knowing he had a long day of travel ahead of him, and days more after that. He'd been having trouble sleeping anyway due the lingering effects of spending so much time around red lyrium, not helped by the fact that it was freezing cold, no matter how many layers of quilts you laid on the bed or logs you threw on the fire. Suledin Keep was no Skyhold for comfort. After a couple of hours tossing and turning and cursing the fact that he might as well have stayed up late and not wasted the time, Varric forced himself to get out of bed and pull on his clothes. He could have gone for a walk to clear his head, but that seemed likely to turn him into a dwarf-sized icicle, and there was no tavern here to go and wind down to the chatter of conversation around him while he wrote quietly in the corner. Besides, Varric knew himself well enough to realise that he was too tired and distracted to get anything decent written right now. And so, in the absence of any better ideas, he left his room and went to do something he hadn’t yet had time for since they’d set up shop here – he went to have a bath.

They’d discovered the baths underneath Suledin Keep soon after taking possession of it, and it was the one part of the place that had come out more or less intact from whatever calamities had befallen this fortress over the centuries. Sealed off only by a single, unassuming door, a vast cavern lay below the main keep, apparently naturally formed, where the hot springs that ran under the rock throughout this region bubbled up. Whether it was the elven builders that had done it or someone more recent, the cavern had been laid with marble and tile, and the hot springs diverted into a dozen large square sunken pools in the manner that Dorian had compared to a bathhouse in Minrathous he was fond of.

“Perhaps this place was built here to take advantage of this very thing,” he’d suggested one evening, over dinner in the chilly mess hall. “A kind of fortress-slash-spa. Very enlightened of the ancient elves.”

“That doesn’t seem likely, my dear,” said Vivienne, but Dorian had found an unlikely ally in Solas, who had also been listening.

“It’s not an impossible theory,” the elf commented. “You humans tend to think of the ancient elves in terms of their demise – the tragedy of a civilisation lost, of war and slaughter. But before that time, they would have found joy in idle pursuits and pleasures the same as Orlesians do today, or those in the Imperium.” He inclined his head at his two fellow mages as he spoke. “Perhaps the elves did come here to enjoy the hot springs. Not every fortress starts out as one.”

Whatever the origin of the baths, they did wonders for morale and provided some benefit to Inquisition soliders who found themselves posted to this cold and gloomy place. Josephine’s friend, the Baron Desjardins, had been asked to take command of Suledin Keep for the Inquisition, and he’d turned out to be a surprisingly pragmatic man, well aware of the importance of keeping up the spirits of those who were forced to deal with red lyrium all day. And so the old baths had been cleaned up as a matter of priority and opened for the use of anyone off duty, which right now included one Varric Tethras. And why shouldn’t he? Out of some weird sense of Inquisitorial martyrdom? A long hot soak, Varric decided, would be just the thing, followed by a cup of Josephine’s tea when he returned to his room and hopefully a few hours of sleep until the morning.

It was well past midnight as Varric headed out, and the keep was bitterly cold and silent, only a few guards on duty patrolling the moonlit battlements. It was a relief, but not surprising, that he met nobody on his way down to the entrance to the underground cavern. There was always a guard posted at the door – officially there just in case there were tunnels they didn’t know about down here and darkspawn broke through, unofficially to ensure that no-one got drunk and stumbled down here, passed out face-down in the hot water and drowned themselves, which would be an embarrassing look for the Inquisition. Being neither a darkspawn nor noticeably swaying, the guard waved Varric through with a respectful nod, and was rewarded with a hefty tip not to let anyone else in for a while. It wasn’t likely this late at night anyway, but still, Varric didn’t feel like having to make conversation. The guard did give him a strange look, something approaching a smirk, which was weird, but then maybe he was just thinking about what gossip he could spread about the Inquisitor’s strange bathing habits in the middle of the night.

Down the stone staircase and through another door there was a small antechamber where Varric removed his clothes and folded them up neatly onto the shelves put up for that purpose. It was already noticeably warmer down here, the heat coming through the rock, and the suggestion of dampness to the air, the faintest hint of sulfur. There was a row of robes hanging on hooks for those more inclined to shyness, but Varric didn’t bother, since none of them were dwarf sized anyway, and just headed right out into the main cavern, enjoying the sensation of being warm for once without being wrapped in a dozen layers of clothing.

The moment he walked into the vast main cavern he immediately regretted not spending more time here. The air was full of steam rising from the hot bathing pools, making it warm as blood, even as the tile felt pleasantly cool under Varric’s bare feet. The place was lit with glowing crystals set into braziers in the walls, their light not quite reaching the roof of the cavern, where stalagmites – or was it stalactites? Shit, some writer he was – hung from the shadows, dripping occasionally onto the slick marble below. Soaring marble columns were dotted between the sunken baths, though whether they were necessary to hold up the rock or just aesthetic, Varric had no idea. The water itself, he was slightly taken aback to see, wasn’t clear but a sort of opaque greenish-blue, like a child’s painting of water. It smelled even more strongly of sulfur in here, but the minerals in the hot springs were supposed to be good for you, apparently, though no-one had really explained to him why.

Varric headed to the nearest bath, a square pool easily big enough to accommodate a dozen people but blessedly empty, and a groan of relief escaped his lips as he climbed down the steps and sank into the steaming water, feeling the tension drain from his muscles. The sound echoed a little around the cavernous room, and Varric experimented with humming a little snatch of tune as he settled down onto the marble bench that sat beneath the surface of the pool, high enough that he could take the weight off his feet and still have his head and shoulders above the surface, the water lapping pleasantly around his chest. He felt more relaxed than he had in weeks, and realised with a chuckle at himself that the tune bouncing round his head was the one Bull’s Chargers had been singing when they returned triumphant from their dragon slaying the other day. Taking advantage of the acoustics, he sang under his breath:

“No one can beat the Chargers 'cause we'll hit you where it hurts.

Unless you know a tavern with loose cards and looser skirts!

For every bloody battlefield, we’ll…” Varric hesitated, his mind drawing a blank. “For every bloody battlefield, we’ll…ah shit.”

“We'll gladly raise a cup.”

The answer came from only a few yards away, and Varric’s head snapped round so fast he winced at the sudden crick in his neck. There was no mistaking that voice. Cassandra was sitting in the bath next to the one he had chosen, concealed until now by the depth of the sunken pool, a pillar which must have been between his line of sight and where she was sitting when he’d glanced around upon walking in, and Varric’s own stupendously reckless inattention.

“That’s the next line,” the Seeker said, when his eyes fell upon her. “Then something else, and it ends with ‘horns pointing up’, I believe. You know, you haven’t a bad singing voice,” she added, in a casually conversational tone that was slightly forced. “I cannot carry a tune in a bucket, as they say, though I have never really understood what that meant.”

Varric didn’t have a quick response to this, as he was busy mentally kicking himself for being such an idiot. Why had he assumed this place would be empty just because he wanted it to be? Why hadn’t he just asked the guard at the door? With hindsight, the guy he’d tipped to keep other people out had obviously assumed he already knew the Seeker was in here, and that this was some kind of clandestine rendezvous. Great, that would really help squash those persistent rumours about the two of them. Still, he couldn’t blame Cassandra herself. In fact, Varric immediately understood her predicament, and sympathised with it – unnoticed when he entered the baths, her only options had been to awkwardly announce her presence, and put him in the position of having to snub her by turning round and leaving, or remain silent and hope he left quickly of his own accord.

It was good of her, really, to make her presence known before he’d embarrassed himself by launching into a full-throated rendition of ‘Andraste’s Mabari’ or something. But Varric was having a difficult time appreciating this mercy, because he was very aware that this was the first time they’d been alone together since the incident that he’d promised Cassandra he’d forget about, and also – because the Maker had a terrible sense of humour, evidently – that they were both completely naked.

Cassandra was seated as he was, almost fully submerged, but the sight of her bare shoulders was so startlingly erotic that Varric felt faintly lightheaded. Her skin was dewy with sweat from the steam, her cheeks flushed, and her hair clinging to her forehead. The water lapped at the soft curves of—

Varric wrenched his gaze back upwards, but it was far too late to pretend he hadn’t been staring. It didn’t help to see that Cassandra seemed similarly distracted by him – her eyes slid from his face to his bared chest, to his arms, stretched out on the cool tile behind him. Varric felt her gaze like a touch running over his bare skin, and he was suddenly intensely grateful that the water was a milky opacity that mostly covered everything from his waist down. Of course, when he’d walked in, that wouldn’t exactly have been the case.

Varric cleared his throat, feeling his face heat up. “Ah…sorry to disturb you, Seeker,” he said.

“You haven’t,” said Cassandra, apparently regaining a little of her composure, her own eyes flicking back up to his face. “I was just about to leave, actually. Since we have an early start tomorrow.”

There was a trace of admonition in her voice, which struck Varric as extremely hypocritical, since she was also obviously not getting any rest before tomorrow’s journey right now.

“You uh…you come down here often?” he asked, and then immediately strongly considered drowning himself.

“No,” said Cassandra, and now she looked amused. “But it seemed a shame to leave without having made use of this place once. Dorian has also been most persistent recently about my needing to relax. This was…one of his suggestions.”

Varric could fairly easily guess what Sparkler’s other suggestions might have been. “Well, it’s definitely relaxing,” he said, feeling about the least relaxed he’d ever felt in his entire life. “Maybe this place isn’t all bad. Snow and red lyrium and packs of hungry wolves aside.”

“You won’t be the only one pleased to leave Suledin Keep behind,” said Cassandra. “The cold seems to wear down the spirit as much as the lyrium does; I cannot imagine what would possess people to settle in such a place. But perhaps the highlands are more pleasant in summer.”

“Nah,” said Varric. “Midges. They swarm around the river; one of the villagers told me.”

“Urgh. I would certainly rather take our chances with the Venatori in the desert than remain here to endure that.”

“You’d be safe as long as I was there, believe me,” said Varric, for whom this entire conversation was taking on something of a hallucinatory quality. He was speaking automatically, the words coming without much input from his brain, which was very much otherwise occupied. “Midges always go for me,” he said. “It’s like they can sense a soft city-dweller.”

“Perhaps you taste particularly appealing,” said Cassandra, which was a sentence Varric would have bet a lot of coin he would never hear the Seeker say to him. Cassandra seemed to realise this too, because she shifted a little uncomfortably, glancing away. The water sloshed faintly as she moved.

“Well,” she said, with a note of finality. “We go where we must. But it is a long journey to the Western Approach, and it may be some time before we have the chance to sleep in real beds again. I suggest we both make the most of it.”

Forcing aside all the ways his treacherous mind immediately suggested they both make the most of available beds, Varric nodded. “Point made, Seeker. I won’t stay down here long.”

Cassandra’s eyes met his again, and there was a look in them he didn’t know how to interpret, a kind of challenge.

“Until tomorrow then,” she said, and Varric realised what was about to happen only a split-second before it did.

He didn’t look away. He would have, if Cassandra had asked, but she didn’t ask. She simply held his gaze for a long moment, and then rose from the waters, climbing the steps with the dignity of a queen, and stepping naked out onto the tile.

Varric had a long enough time, as Cassandra crossed to the robes hanging at the wall, to discover that there were in fact some things that even his excellent imagination could not do justice. Holy shit.

Cassandra wrapped a robe around herself, a development which seemed in this moment like one of the greatest tragedies of Varric’s life, and walked towards the exit.

“Goodnight, Varric,” she tossed over her shoulder casually, her voice betraying a hint of amusement again.

Varric managed to unpeel his tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to say: “Goodnight, Seeker.”

The moment she had left the cavern, he sunk back into the water, letting his head fall back upon the tile and closing his eyes, letting a soft, fervent oath fall from his mouth. Well, there was absolutely no way he was getting any sleep now. Or possibly ever again. It was not just the image, now burned permanently into his mind, of Cassandra’s glistening olive skin, her soft, pert breasts, her magnificent ass and her impossibly long legs. It was that she had wanted him to see. It was the look in her eyes when she had held his gaze before she rose from the water, like a card player about to lay down a winning hand. Cassandra had always described herself as impulsive, and Varric could only imagine that her actions had been the impulse of the moment, a way to win back some semblance of control over the mess of the situation between them.

But she had given herself away, in that moment. No matter what Cassandra had said at the Winter Palace, or after the fight with Imshael, no matter all her awkward, polite demurrals, she had been unable to hide the truth in her eyes.

Maker’s fucking breath. She wanted him.

They left Suledin Keep as dawn broke over the mountains, bleary-eyed and shivering in the cold, riding north down the river to meet the Imperial Highway. They were a smaller party than had set out from Skyhold – Bull and his chargers stayed behind to help the rebuilding efforts in the area, and Blackwall and Sera had both volunteered to stay too, for a while, to help the village get back on its feet. Although Blackwall had been slowly unbending from his self-imposed isolation, and even Cassandra had been more or less civil to him recently, Sera was the only one who had never seemed at all bothered by the revelation of his real identity. When Varric had broached the topic curiously with her, she’d only shrugged and said: “He’s trying to be better, yeah? No point to any of this if you start giving people shit for that.”

Heading west on the Imperial Highway, they parted ways with Vivienne too at Lydes, as she was travelling further north to conduct some business in Val Royeaux which Varric highly suspected might take her by the Grand Cathedral. But whatever politicking the Iron Lady was engaged in was blessedly none of his business, and so, one mage down, they continued on westwards through the heartlands of Orlais, an amiable group. Dorian and Solas had always gotten along surprisingly well, and even Cole’s presence was no longer the bone of contention it once had been with some of the Inquisition. The weather was turning, and the lack of snow and the occasional hint of sunshine through the clouds put everyone in a good mood, especially since they were travelling through an Orlais that was encouragingly changed from previous journeys Varric had taken. The roads were clear of trouble, and populated once more with fellow travellers and traders, the roadside inns bustling.

“It is as if the civil war never happened,” remarked Cassandra, when they stayed overnight at an inn on the outskirts of Montsimmard. “It’s hard to believe the battlefields we saw last summer were just a handful of miles away from here.”

“This place has seen a great deal of conflict, over the centuries,” said Solas. “Perhaps they have mastered the art of bouncing back quickly.”

This seemed to send Cassandra’s thoughts the same way it did Varric’s. “Have you heard news of Kirkwall, recently?” she asked, turning to him. “How is the reconstruction work there going?”

“Slowly,” said Varric. “There’s plenty of money in Kirkwall, but getting people to part with it is easier said than done. Everyone wants to fund the shiny new Chantry, no-one wants their money going towards boring stuff like pensions for retired dock inspectors, even if that’s what’s actually needed.” He shrugged. “Aveline says they’re getting there though, even if the provisional Viscount is tearing his hair out over it. It’ll be interesting to see how much of the city just gets rebuilt as it was, and how much really changes.”

“Perhaps you will be able to see for yourself, soon enough,” Cassandra suggested.

“I hope so.”

It was nice to be able to speak of Kirkwall without any bitterness, and it was nice to be able to speak to Cassandra normally as well. Varric had offered to show her around his city at some ill-defined time in the future, he remembered now, and wondered if she too remembered that promise. The Varric who’d made it seemed very distant now, a guy who’d still naively believed that after all of this was over, things could still somehow go back to the way they had been before. In the here and now, he could be grateful at least for small mercies – leaving Suledin Keep seemed to have eased the tension between he and the Seeker slightly, and Cassandra had been friendly enough to him in the old way he’d become used to. And if they were both trying a little too hard, maybe, to pretend that everything was normal, then it was a necessary façade, and one they seemed to be of the same mind on.

The accommodations naturally got a bit rougher once they left civilisation behind and headed out into the desert, but they still made good time to Griffin Wing Keep, where they were greeted by Knight Captain Rylan. The man looked far more tanned than when Varric had met him last, but no less cheerful, his Starkhaven accent not sanded down even a fraction by his time in Orlais.

“It’s good to see you again, Inquisitor,” he said, saluting briskly. “I heard about the Inquisition taking Suledin Keep. The news takes a while to reach us out here, but Sister Nightingale keeps us informed, and told us where you were coming from so as we’d know when to expect you. I must admit I envy them their snow up there in the highlands.”

“It’s nicer to look at than walk through, believe me,” said Varric.

“The grass is always greener,” said Rylan philosophically. “Though I’ve not seen grass in months. We’ve hot springs here too of course, but nothing you’d want to bathe in,” he added. “Sometimes the young varghests wander in and you can hear them screaming for miles. The acid, you know?”

“Remind me to ask Josephine to give you a raise,” said Varric.

Rylan laughed. “You can repay me by saving the world, Inquisitor. And maybe put it in a good word for Starkhaven if you return to the Free Marches. We’re not exactly in anyone’s good books right now.”

“Perhaps Starkhaven should not have engaged in an unprovoked invasion of a neighbouring city if they wished to remain popular,” said Cassandra tartly.

“With respect, Lady Seeker, one man’s misguided crusade for justice does not speak for his entire city,” said Rylan, more serious now. “I think that’s something the people of Kirkwall know as well as we do.” He fidgeted a little awkwardly. “But forgive me; I’ve spoken out of turn, and Commander Cullen would have my hide for it, and rightly so. You’ve had a long journey to get here and a longer one ahead of you – I’ll have someone show you to your rooms.”

They were only at Griffin Wing Keep a couple of days to replenish their supplies, and the Knight Captain didn’t even hint at raising the subject again, but he’d made his point, and Varric realised he would have to get used to people asking him for favours on a larger scale than he generally dealt with. Varric Tethras could always be relied upon to grease the wheels of a business deal or two for a friend, but a word from the Inquisitor could change the fate of nations now.

They rode out into deeper into the desert on the keep’s own hardy horses, taking with them the latest maps and advice on dealing with the hostile wildlife. Their next stop, and the last scrap of comfort they would find out here, was the Forbidden Oasis, where the Inquisition now had a permanent outpost mining for rare stone, and a small team of scholars painstakingly researching the ancient elven temple, guarded by a rotation of soldiers from Griffon Wing Keep. Varric wondered now if the Eluvian had been what the Venatori had been searching for here too, the other treasures of the temple only a distraction. It made sense now, how many places they’d encountered Venatori that had ancient elven ruins. The blood-soaked battlefields of the Dales, the deep forests of the Emerald Graves…Corypheus had been digging through the remains of a destroyed civilisation to try and find the tools to wreak an even greater destruction on the whole world.

When they arrived at the oasis, they were informed that a team of scouts had already gone ahead to set up a forward camp in the deep northern desert ominously known as ‘The Hissing Wastes’, tracking the Venatori. Solas had already been suffering from the heat, so Varric persuaded him to stay at the oasis and help with the research efforts while the rest of them pressed onwards – one ancient elven ruin in the hand was worth two in the bush, as it were, and Solas promised to see if he could find any references to the Eluvian in the oasis temple.  Since his research methods involved not just examining what still remained, but dreaming his way into the Fade to find traces of what went before, he might well have more luck than anyone else would.

North into the Hissing Wastes, and it was several days before they reached the forward camp, set in the shade of vast rock formations, and home to a few hardy Inquisition scouts who had little to report except that the Venatori were certainly here, though why anyone would want to be out here voluntarily was beyond them. Varric couldn’t help but agree. He decided if he ever wrote about this, he’d have to find a word even remoter than remote to describe it; there was simply nothing for mile after endless mile, dunes stretching to the horizon in every direction. The sun overhead was pitiless, and after some discussion they decided as a group to take their lead from the local wildlife and travel at night when it was cooler, taking shelter during the heat of the day so that their thin canvas tents would provide at least some respite. Horses were as slow as walking out on the dunes, and more visible from a distance, so they went on foot, with only what supplies they could carry out from the main camp. This presented its own challenges – Varric had been prepared for it, but it really was startling how sharply the temperature dropped at night. It wasn’t anything like the biting, bone-deep cold of the Emprise du Lion, but they could still see their breath clouding in front of their faces as they prepared to head out.

“Boiling hot at day, freezing cold at night,” said Dorian, rubbing his arms vigorously. “Wonderful place. These alleged ruins had better be worth it.”

“At least I’ll have plenty of good material if I ever want to write a travel guide to the ass-ends of Thedas,” said Varric. “Genitivi, eat your heart out, right?”

“You really do have a gift for finding the one copper piece in a mountain of dragon shit, Inquisitor,” said Dorian, which sounded suspiciously like one of Bull’s turns of phrase. “Don’t know how you do it.”

“You keep the bad inside, let others share in the good,” said Cole. “Say it enough times, it makes it feel true. Like the sun, warming those it shines upon, burning itself up for them even though it can’t ever see its own brightness. I see it. I always have.”

“That’s the idea, kid,” said Varric.

Cole tilted his head. “That wasn’t me.”

“We should get moving,” said Cassandra abruptly, and so their search began.

Whatever Dorian thought, at night this place did have a kind of stark beauty to it. The moon hung low and enormous in the sky, so bright that even humans could see without the need for torches, and huge outcroppings of rock made striking silhouettes against a sky strewn with countless stars. The great emptiness of it, the silence, might have been oppressive, but after the howling winds and whispering lyrium song of the Emprise du Lion, it was a welcome relief. They were far away from Skyhold here, far away from the Inquisition and – in some way Varric struggled to define even to himself – from the Inquisitor too. With no-one trying to kill them every five minutes, and no company but the odd lizard skittering over the sand, they were able to fall easily into idle conversation as they trekked over the dunes, and Varric felt more at peace than he had in some time. For all that he knew how to work a crowd, he had always been happiest amongst a few close friends, away from the expectations of an audience. Dorian was good company, an inexhaustible font of interesting conversation and genuine warmth wrapped in several layers of irony that were easy enough to see through once you knew him. Cole was, as ever, cheerfully uncomplaining and endlessly curious, as happy to talk about books with his three travelling companions as he had been to muse cryptically on the Fade and the nature of self with Solas. And Cassandra was…Cassandra. It was all so easy, so familiar, to fall into conversation with her as they walked, to share a flask of water or a joke. At times Varric could almost forget the rest.

He couldn’t stop the way his attention lingered on her though. He couldn’t help but notice the way she always shouldered the heaviest load to carry, took the watch duty that no-one else wanted. The way she needed no distraction on watch, as most of them did, to pass the time, instead being content to simply stand or sit gazing at the horizon with no company but her own thoughts. She was more comfortable with silence than any person Varric had ever known. He couldn’t help but find his gaze drawn to the little constellation of freckles at the corner of her mouth, or the way the corners of her eyes creased when she was trying to suppress a smile. How when she laughed it always sounded as if she was startled into it, as though joy was something she had learned to keep hidden.

Varric kept getting the irrational urge to reach for his quill and parchment to try and put them into words; the uncountable number of subtle, oddly enchanting things about Cassandra Pentaghast that no-one else seemed to notice.

Enchanting. The Seeker. Sweet Andraste, he was in so much trouble. He really would be writing poetry next.

Not all his thoughts were so poetic. The Inquisition’s forward camp had been established by an old well, so at least their water supplies were plentiful again, and they’d been able to wash off the sand and sweat of the journey when they’d arrived. But the sight of Cassandra with her sleeves rolled up, wringing out a wet cloth over her face and neck with a sigh of relief, reminded Varric irresistibly of Cassandra rising from the steaming water of the baths at Suledin Keep. Her head proudly erect, her eyes blazing, every supple, perfect inch of her body dripping wet. The beads of water that had clung to her like tiny jewels, trickling down her skin…

Varric’s blood had pulsed hotly through his veins at the memory, and he’d hastily poured a bucket of water over his own head.

It was lucky that he couldn’t dream, because even his waking moments recently were plagued by irresistible daydreams featuring Cassandra that veered between the embarrassingly romantic and the implausibly erotic. It was bad enough when Varric had been able to assume those kinds of thoughts would have made the Seeker kick his ass if she’d known about them, but somehow it was far, far worse to consider the possibility that she might actually…that she…

If it could be a dalliance and nothing more…

Then what? She would have been amenable? Varric wondered now if he’d misunderstood her rejection at Halamshiral, at least in part. He’d assumed Cassandra had been trying to let him down easy, to draw a line under their flirtation and make it clear that she didn’t want anything more than that. She enjoyed his company, his attention, just as she enjoyed the Iron Bull’s habitual flirting, but whatever she’d guessed of Varric’s feelings had been enough for her to take a step back. Bull’s words had proven true – whatever else Cassandra was, she was not cruel.

But he’d have to be blind to think there was nothing there. She’d been the one to kiss him, after all. And she’d been happy enough for him to see her utterly, gloriously naked, even though she must have known…damn it, she must have known what effect it would have on him, how he’d be able to think of nothing else whenever he looked at her now. The Seeker hadn’t ever struck Varric as one to tease, so maybe that had been an invitation, of a kind. If he had followed her back to her room back at Suledin Keep that night and knocked on her door, would she have opened it to him, let him walk inside?

Of course, once that thought was in Varric’s head, it proved extremely difficult to shake. But Cassandra had been right before – it was impossible. As if there had ever been any chance he could go to bed with her and feel nothing. As if he wasn’t already in this thing so sodding deep he couldn’t even see the sky. No, she had been right to step away. It had been a kindness to him that he didn’t deserve, not to give him false hope that she might ever return his feelings.

Luckily the desert provided distractions enough from his imagination’s best efforts to torture him, as after a few days out in the dunes they finally stumbled across the ruins that had brought the Venatori out into this inhospitable place. Half buried in the sand, there were nonetheless signs of recent excavation – entranceways dug out of the dunes and burnt-out torches discarded. Though they met not another living soul, someone had been out here, and recently. Cautiously, they approached the dark opening that had been uncovered, down a set of heavy stone steps, a feeling of odd certainty growing on Varric with every step they took. When they stopped before the stone doorway, Dorian voiced what they must all now be thinking aloud:

“Well, if the Venatori are hoping to find an Eluvian here, they’ll be disappointed,” he said. “These ruins certainly aren’t elven. Or anything like any old Imperium ruin I’ve seen either.”

“Then what are they?” asked Cassandra.

Varric ran his hand over the carved lintel, low enough that even he could reach it. Stone sense. He’d never had it – they said dwarves that were born on the surface lost the ability, but he’d sometimes wondered if the whole thing was just bullshit anyway. But he had eyes, and he’d spent enough time in the Deep Roads to recognise the style of carving from long ago, from a time before the Blight reshaped the world. It was impossible to see something like this on the surface, out here of all places, and yet here it was. And maybe he did feel something; a shiver almost of recognition, like the hand of history reaching out across the aeons to take his own.

Varric stepped back, pulling his hand away. “They’re dwarven,” he said.

Chapter Text

They made camp in the small hours of the morning under the overhang of a huge outcropping of rock, some way from the uncovered entrance they’d first stumbled across. Over the course of the night, they’d found more; broken columns and half buried statues, excavations abandoned where tunnels were filled with rubble. Only a faint greyness in the sky to the east now hinted at the dawn still about an hour off, and buried amongst the silvery dunes as far as the eye could see were the ruins of a vast, sprawling, and impossibly ancient dwarven city.

It had been a long night, but the mood of their small party was one of exhilaration rather than exhaustion. Dorian in particular was fascinated by their discovery, and trying unsuccessfully to hide his excitement. There was nothing in any history book anyone could remember reading about dwarven ruins out here in the desert. There were precious few dwarven ruins on the surface at all, and most in caves like Daerwin’s mouth, little more than fancy entrance halls to the thaigs far beneath. This was the discovery of a lifetime for any scholar of history, and Dorian, Varric had long since figured out, was more passionate about such things than he liked to let on.

He wasn’t the only one. The Shaperate was absolutely going to lose its collective mind over this. The lost thaig of Kal Repartha, or what remained of it, here on the surface. The last resting place of the renowned Paragon Fairel, if the carvings they’d found could be believed.

“No wonder the Venatori came all the way out here,” said Varric, as they reached their would-be campsite and started to unload their packs. “Paragon Fairel’s weapons of war were quite literally legendary. The story goes he disappeared to escape the destruction his own creations were causing.”

“If anything of his inventions could be recovered from the ruins here, surely it would give Corypheus an advantage,” said Cassandra, frowning. “His forces have been crippled by our disrupting their red lyrium supply; perhaps his followers are searching for a way to tip the balance back in their favour.”

“If they are, it’s a pretty long shot,” said Varric. “But what beats me is how they even knew all this was here in the first place. No-one else did.”

“If Corypheus really is one of the Magisters Sidereal, as he claims, then he predates the first Blight too,” pointed out Dorian. “Perhaps he visited this thaig himself when it was still a living city.”

“The Blight made a desert of this part of Orlais,” said Cassandra thoughtfully. “That may even be the reason the thaig eventually fell into ruin.”

“The stone fell silent,” said Cole softly. “They couldn’t hear the warnings and the dark wings blotted out the sun, and then even the water was death when it had been life. There were flowers here, once.”

They drew straws to decide who would climb to the top of the huge rock and scout the area as the sun came up, and Dorian went off grumbling along with Cole, leaving Varric and Cassandra to set up camp. It was a good thing that they had done this so many times now that it was almost muscle memory, because Varric’s thoughts were occupied with what they had discovered and trying to figure out what they should do about it. Now that they knew there would be no Eluvian here, there was little chance of finding Corypheus either, and that surely had to be their priority. Should they simply turn around then, and leave the desert and its buried treasures to the Venatori? Varric felt an unexpected ripple of anger to think of the bastards pawing through the ruins of this sad, desolate place to try and plunder the work of a guy who, by all accounts, had fled his own people to try and stop his creations being used for war. Maybe it was sentimental of him, but they didn’t have a right to this place, any more than they had a right to loot the ancient elven temples. Kal Repartha was nothing more than a resource to Corypheus and his goons, but even if there was nothing more valuable here than crumbled ruins, just the proof of its existence would mean so much more to countless dwarves.

“Whatever the Venatori find out here,” Varric remarked to Cassandra as they got to work, “I have about a dozen different people to write to about this place, and every single one of them will be furious if I don’t tell them first. This is gonna make a lot of people happy and a lot of people angry.”

“It’s that significant?” said Cassandra.

“To some people, yeah,” said Varric. “I mean I’m no fan of dwarven history but this is…this is surfacer history. A dwarven Paragon who built a thaig up here, the greatest runecrafter in dwarven history choosing the surface…shit, in the right hands, this story could change everything.”

Things are different now. Bianca’s voice, echoing at the back of his mind – she’d told him, hadn’t she, that dwarven society was starting to shift away from tradition and caste above all else? That was partly King Bhelen’s influence, progressive reformer that he was, and partly now Varric’s own. A surfacer dwarf being one of the most powerful people in all Thedas was bound to tilt the balance a little away from the Orzammar traditionalists. There had always been voices, growing stronger in recent times, that the insistence of the dwarven people on clinging to life belowground would end up being their doom. They’d been ceding ground to the darkspawn for centuries, with less children born into each generation due to the taint’s sickening proximity. They’d been crumbling into dust along with their deep roads and lost thaigs, some said, clinging to a world which no longer existed, while those exiled to the surface flourished under the sun, grew rich from trade and built a new life in harmony with the other races, not locked away. But if there were no dwarves left in Orzammar, others argued, no Shaperate and no Provings, no great noble families, the centuries-old forges cooled and silent, then were there any dwarves at all? If they all fled to the surface, to a world that had never been theirs, how long before even the memory of what they once had been faded? Before the Stone itself fell silent and nothing of the dwarves remained? If survival meant giving up all that they were, was it survival at all?

A dozen half-remembered arguments between drunk dwarves in taverns rang in Varric’s ears as they started pitching the tents, and he groaned aloud. “Ah, I hate thinking about all this dwarf stuff,” he muttered.

Cassandra glanced at him curiously. “Why?” she asked, and although there were a dozen easy, joking brush-offs Varric could have offered, something about being in this place seemed to compel a serious answer.

“Because I never really think of myself as a dwarf,” he said, kneeling down to bury a tent peg deep into the sand. “I mean…I am, obviously, but it’s just not something that’s ever been that important to me. All that stuff about Ancestors and the Stone and ancient traditions and the great proud history of dwarf kind, blah blah blah. But when that history is staring me in the face…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess it just reminds me that I’d never get to be a part of that, even if I wanted to be. That other dwarves don’t think of me as one of them either. The ones underground, anyway. Hand me that rope, would you?”

“Have you ever been to Orzammar?” Cassandra asked, as she passed him the rope and held the tent in place while he hitched a knot around the tent peg.

Varric gave a humourless chuckle. “They don’t let people like me in, Seeker. House Tethras was exiled within living memory, and the memory of Orzammar is way longer than that.”

She didn’t ask, but he continued talking on some strange impulse as they worked, because this was one thing he’d never told her, not even during that first interrogation. “My father got caught fixing Provings,” he explained. “He did it for his family, to make a better life for his wife and son, but it cost him everything, and he never really forgave himself for it. So he tried his best to make a life for them – for us – on the surface instead…like this guy Fairel did, I guess. But it meant he wasn’t around much, and when he was it was mostly just to tell us everything we were doing wrong. At least that’s what it seemed like when I was a kid, anyway. He died when I was pretty young.”

Varric stood up, brushing the sand from his knees. Both tents erected, Cassandra was already on her knees and kindling a small fire, so he went to unbundle the small collection of dry wood they’d collected as they came upon it. In the heat of the day they wouldn’t need a fire for warmth, and there was always a risk even a small plume of smoke could reveal their location, so it needed to burn only long enough to cook food.

“Do you remember much of your father?” Cassandra asked, as he joined her.

“He was old-school,” said Varric. “What we surfacers call kalna. He worked twice as hard to make up for what he’d lost. Tried to be ten times dwarfier than any other dwarf could be. My mother—” He broke off then, not from embarrassment exactly, but from a sudden feeling that he’d been talking too long. Ranting, even. It had been a long time since he’d spoken about any of this.

“You said she was sick,” said Cassandra, her voice cautiously encouraging. “Towards the end of her life.”

“She drank,” said Varric bluntly, and even now it was strange to say it out loud, after having spent so many years hiding it. “It made her cruel, sometimes, to herself and to everyone around her, and it killed her in the end. I think maybe a part of her always wanted it to.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cassandra softly. The fire kindled, she sat back, and Varric, kneeling beside her, fed a few sticks of dry wood into the flames as much to avoid her gaze than anything.

“I didn’t understand, when I was a kid,” he said, “how she could miss living in a big hole in the ground. But she’d lost her family, her friends, her status…everything. On the surface, she had money enough for a comfortable life, but nothing else, and it wasn’t enough for her.” A trace of the old hurt crept into his voice, in spite of himself. “We weren’t enough.”

“I often felt that way about my own parents, as a child,” said Cassandra, unexpectedly. “I wondered why they did what they did, why they couldn’t simply have been content with the life and the position that they had. I imagine they also believed they were doing it for us, for my brother and I.”

“I guess we never really understand our parents,” said Varric. “To me, Kirkwall had always been home. It wasn’t until I thought I might lose it forever that I really understood how my mother felt.”

The fire was burning well; Varric let it be and sat back too, the sand soft and gritty and cool under his hands. “I don’t blame her for any of it, not anymore,” he said. “She really was sick. The reality of her life was too much for her, and she needed something to keep it at bay. I get that. For her it was drink, for me…” He turned to Cassandra with a rueful smile. “…it was stories.” He shrugged. “We all have our ways to cope, I guess. We weren’t so different, after all, in the end.”

Cassandra was looking at him with that faint crease between her eyebrows, the one that meant she was trying to figure something out, although in this case it seemed that she had just understood something that hadn’t made sense to her before. “That headstone in the Fade that bore your fear,” she said gently.

Varric was surprised she even remembered – the siege of Adamant felt like a lifetime ago. Varric became his parents. “You noticed that, huh?”

Cassandra nodded, and Varric sighed. “I didn’t even realise it was something I was afraid of until I saw it,” he said. “But yeah, I guess it preys on my mind the older I get.”

Cassandra seemed to consider this, and then said decisively: “Then you have nothing to fear, Varric. You are nothing at all like either of the people you have described.”

Varric’s heart clenched in his chest. It was typical of the Seeker – a kindness spoken so frankly, so completely without hesitation or artifice, that you couldn’t help but believe it. Cassandra was not one for platitudes, and it meant that the simple truth from her was always worth more than a thousand flowery compliments from anyone else.

“Thanks, Seeker,” he said gruffly. Perhaps he should have felt embarrassed at talking her ear off about so much tawdry family shit, but something about the cool, pre-dawn silence of the desert, broken now only by the faint crackling of the small fire, seemed to invite confidences, and he didn’t mind what Cassandra knew. If anything, he realised he felt a strange sense of relief, as if he’d let out a breath he’d been holding for too long.

“What about your parents?” he asked, impulsively. “Do you remember them at all? You must have been very young, when you lost them.”

“I was,” said Cassandra. “I have only the vaguest impressions of them. That my mother was beautiful, my father kind. The sort of thing every child believes of their parents, I imagine. I remember Anthony weeping when they were executed, but I do not think I was really old enough to understand what it meant, at the time. I was sadder for my brother than for myself.”

“How old were you when he…?”

“Twelve. He was murdered by blood mages in front of me.”

“Shit. I’m…sorry.” The words were humiliatingly inadequate, but what else could you say to something like that?

“I wish you could have met him,” Cassandra said. “I think he would have liked you a great deal.”

“My brother would have absolutely hated you,” said Varric. “And I mean that as the highest compliment I can give.”

Cassandra let out a breath that was almost a laugh, as though she were not sure whether to be amused or not. “He was truly that bad?” she asked.

“He did literally leave me for dead in the Deep Roads that one time, remember?” said Varric. “But to be honest, there wasn’t a lot of love lost there even before. I was never who he wanted me to be, and he wasn’t shy about letting me know.”

What Bartrand might have thought of him now, Varric had often wondered. Would he have been impressed? Seen all this as an opportunity, or an embarrassment? It didn’t really matter now – the Bartrand Varric had known, for better or worse, was gone as much as his parents were. He’d never get to find out what his brother’s reaction might have been to the Inquisition, or the lost thaig, or the story they’d found carved into the stone of the ancient tombs:

Fairel's sons built monuments to their father, locking away his great works, and worked together, for a time, side by side. Each ruled half the thaig, but each ruled differently. They argued, and heated words made the brothers duel, and where one brother fell, the other raised bloodied axe in hand, alone.

Alone.

“You speak of your brother as if he meant very little to you,” said Cassandra, breaking him out of his reverie and bringing him back to the present, “and yet you ensure that he is safe, and cared for, even now, even after all he did.”

When Varric turned to her, she was looking at him with an odd expression, half fondness and half exasperation. “It never would have occurred to you not to, would it?” she said. “You always—”

But whatever she was either going to accuse him of or praise him for, he never did find out, because at that moment several things happened at once.

Something wrenched Varric to his feet from behind, and before he had time to react, there was an arm holding him firmly in its grip, and the sharp edge of a knife pressed against his throat. It could very well all have ended there, but whoever was holding him – a human man, by the size of them – wasn’t an assassin, because they kept the blade close to his skin, but didn’t draw it across. Cassandra leapt to her feet in the same moment, drawing her sword, but froze as she saw his position. The man holding Varric walked back carefully a few feet, pulling his hostage along with him, to increase the distance between them and the furious Seeker, and Cassandra hesitated. Varric saw her eyes flick from him to something either side of where he was standing, and realised that whoever his attacker was, they weren’t acting alone.

“Drop your sword,” said a man’s voice just outside of his eyeline, confirming his suspicions. “Now. Or we slit his throat.”

Cassandra did as she was told, the blade falling to the sand with a soft thud. Immediately, a man holding a crossbow moved in to level the weapon at the side of her head, far enough away that he would be out of range of any impulsive lashing out, but close enough that he couldn’t miss if he pulled the trigger. He had been trained well, or experience had trained him, Varric thought. Even though he and Cassandra had been talking and distracted, it was a feat in of itself to get close enough to spring an ambush without either of them having noticed anything. The sand must have muffled their attackers’ footsteps, and they’d picked their moment well. Shit.

Their targets disarmed, the attackers moved in closer, within Varric’s limited view. Aside from the guy holding him, there seemed to be only three others, all human – the crossbowman, the man who’d ordered Cassandra to drop her sword, and a woman. They all had the weathered, hard-eyed look of mercs, but beyond that Varric couldn’t guess who they might have been sent by, especially since he was trying desperately to think past the blade pressing against his throat, and the very real possibility that he was about to see Cassandra shot in the head at point-blank range right in front of his eyes.

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds,” said the man who’d spoken before. He had pale hair and a slight sunburn, and spoke with an accent that wandered all over the map even in the space of a few words. “But our boss wants to have a little word with the Inquisitor.” He nodded at Varric. “Now, this doesn’t have to be done the hard way,” he said, “if you’re smart and do as you’re told. We have orders to try and take you alive, but the orders don’t say anything about all the bits being attached, you follow?”

“Lay a finger on him, and the hangman’s noose will be the least of your worries,” snarled Cassandra, and if Varric had been given to swooning he might very well have done so. But right now he had more important things to think about, like the metal tipped bolt inches from Cassandra’s temple. His brain working at overtime speed, he blurted out:

“Give it up Seeker! You’re not fooling anyone. Fucking ancestors, I’m not paid enough for this.”

This startled Cassandra into silence, as well it might. Their captors also seemed slightly taken aback, and the sunburnt man, who seemed to be in charge, cleared his throat, actually looking faintly embarrassed.

“Now, now, Inquisitor, let’s try to have a bit of dignity, eh?” he said.

“I’m not the Inquisitor, you nug humping bastard,” Varric said, letting a bit of Dust Town creep into his accent, along with a twinge of desperation that wasn’t entirely fake. “I’m the decoy. The decoy. Tell them, Seeker!”

Cassandra, unsurprisingly, remained silent, her face still frozen with confusion. Varric hoped he was the only one present who could read that expression, or at least that their attackers were all focused on him enough not to notice it.

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Sunburn, which was the first mistake the man had made in an ambush that had otherwise been going very well for him. Few people had come out the richer for letting Varric Tethras talk.

“I’m saying I’m not the Inquisitor,” said Varric insistently. “You’ve got the wrong sodding dwarf. The Inquisitor’s back with—” He cut himself off, as if a thought was occurring to him. “I mean…I can tell you where he is. You let me go, I can tell you all sorts of things, lead you to their camp…”

“You snake!” Cassandra burst out suddenly, in a very passable impression of fury. “You swore an oath!”

She had caught on, later than Hawke would have done, but Varric felt a flicker of pride nonetheless. That’s it, Seeker, work with me here…

“Ah, shove your oath,” he said. “The stocks would have been better than this. I never should have agreed to this stupid job. You forge a few signatures, change a few documents, and suddenly you’re  a criminal, when everyone knows that everyone does it, it’s just how business is—” This time he was cut off by the guy holding him, who pressed the edge of the knife slightly against his throat, apparently not interested in hearing the rest of this self-justifying rant.

“Why should I believe you?” said Sunburn, scowling.

“I can prove it!” gasped Varric. “The real Inquisitor has a mark on his right hand, how he closes the Fade rifts, right? I don’t have it – take off my glove, look for yourself. Can’t fake that.”

The guy who held him was not stupid enough to release his grip on either Varric or the knife, but Sunburn jerked his head at the woman, who walked over and yanked Varric’s right glove off, examining his hand.

“He’s right,” she said grudgingly. “I can’t see anything.”

“Because I’m not him,” said Varric. “You think the la-di-dah Herald of Andraste is out slogging through this desert, getting sand in his ass-crack and fighting giant spiders? They just wheel him out when they need a rift closing.”

“If you’re not him, why is the Herald’s mabari with you?” demanded the crossbowman, weighing in for the first time and gesturing with his weapon at Cassandra in a way that made Varric’s heart leap into his throat. He forced himself not to flinch, and instead scoffed theatrically in response to the question.

“Because she’s the one who does all the actual work, you idiot,” he said. “What, you really thought some pampered prick from the Merchant’s Guild was getting his hands dirty? His lackeys do all the grunt work, I stand around looking pretty because humans are too stupid to tell dwarves apart, and His Perfection sits on a throne back at Skyhold drinking beer, playing cards and sleeping his way through half the servants.”

“Shut up, Godric!” snapped Cassandra, and it was all Varric could do not to grin in delight. She’d made the expostulation sound perfectly natural. She did, after all, have long practice in telling him to shut up, though where she’d gotten the name from he had no idea. One of her books, perhaps?

“Piss off, Seeker,” he said. “I’m not dying for him.”

The guy holding Varric, whose arm was probably getting pretty tired by now, slackened his grip slightly, though he kept the knife close. “What do we do, Captain?” he said. “It’ll be our heads if we go back with the wrong guy.”

“Shut up!” said Sunburn. “I’m trying to think.”

But Varric didn’t particularly want the guy to think, since there were holes in his story big enough to drive a herd of druffalo through. “Look, just let me go,” he wheedled. “I don’t owe the Inquisition shit – maybe we could come to an arrangement…?”

“You shut up too,” said Sunburn distractedly.

“The Seeker’s a good hostage,” Varric continued relentlessly. “The Inquisition would pay top coin for her. If you let me go, I can tell them—now!”

Cole dropped on the crossbowman like a bolt from the heavens, sinking twin daggers into his back. The crossbow twanged as the merc gripped the trigger reflexively, but Cassandra was already diving out of the way, reflexes fast as ever. Varric had time only to glimpse that much, as he rammed his elbow into the gut of the man behind him and spun round to kick his legs out from under him, sending him toppling to the sand. The man had the training or the sheer self-preservation to keep hold of the wicked looking knife that had so recently been held to Varric’s throat, but wheezing for air cost him the few seconds he might have had to react, and his life as well. Varric didn’t bother wresting the knife from him, instead pulling the short blade he always kept tucked into his own boot and plunging it into the side of his kidnapper’s neck. No time for mercy or second-guessing.

A heavy blow to Varric’s back sent him sprawling over the corpse of the merc he’d just killed, and the acid whiff of magic combined with long experience told his survival-fuelled brain what had happened – a potentially lethal blow from a sword, caught in time by a mage’s shield thrown over him, between the blade and his own unprotected back, turning away the cutting edge. Varric rolled off the corpse in time to see a blood-splattered Sunburn standing over him, raising his sword for another deadly strike, orders to take the Inquisitor alive apparently forgotten. Whether Dorian’s shield might have held a second time Varric thankfully never had to find out, as before Sunburn could bring his blade down again, he jerked violently, and the tip of a shortsword burst through his belly. When he dropped, Cassandra was standing behind him, the gory weapon in her hand presumably taken from the female merc, who lay dead on the sand a few yards away. Evidently the Seeker’s own sword had been too far for convenient reach, and she’d made do with what was at hand.

The frantic calculus of combat quickly tallied in his head, and four corpses scattered around the camp, Varric relaxed, getting to his feet and tucking his knife back into his boot.

“Everyone alright?” he said, panting slightly and looking around. Cole was already cleaning his daggers fastidiously, and Dorian clambered down from the rocky outcropping above and dropped down, a little inelegantly.

“Peachy,” said the mage. “Nothing like a little brawl to get one ready for bed. Is that the lot of them, do you think?”

“You tell me,” said Varric. “See anything else while you were up there on the rock?”

“A great deal of absolutely nothing for miles,” reported Dorian. “And these four sneaking up on you.” He looked contrite, briefly. “I’m glad you’re alright, Inquisitor. We had to decide whether to try and warn you, or spring an ambush of our own. Cole was certain they didn’t mean to kill you if they could help it.”

Cole nodded. “More money than we’d ever seen before,” he said, looking at the corpse of the sunburned man. “Enough to retire? Stupid thought – makes you sloppy. Don’t tell the others. Just another job. Take him alive, keep it clean, no mistakes on this one.”

Varric imagined it hadn’t been an easy choice all the same. If Dorian and Cole had guessed wrong, he and Cassandra could have had their throats cut before help came. But risk sending a loud, flashy warning of the attack, and it would have been a fight for their lives anyway, outnumbered two to one. They’d won against worse odds before, but still.

“It was a good call, Sparkler,” Varric said. “Thanks.”

“Knew we could rely on you to keep them talking,” said Dorian, relaxing a little. “Decoy indeed.”

“I can’t believe that left hand/right hand thing actually worked,” said Varric. “I mean, I was willing to bet most people don’t know which hand the mark’s on, but you’d think maybe one of them would have thought to check both.” He took his other glove off his left hand, where the jagged line of the Anchor glowed faintly even now.

“You were extremely convincing,” said Cassandra.

“Glad to know I can play the part of the snivelling turncoat coward so well,” said Varric. “Don’t think I could’ve gotten that far on the story, but it was enough to keep them talking and distracted, anyway. Embarrassing how easily they took us by surprise though. I might leave that part out when I recount this particular incident.”

“Focus instead on the part where you save the day with your famous silver tongue,” suggested Cassandra, and although there was a note of amusement in her voice, Varric felt a warm flush of pleasure go through him nonetheless, embarrassingly thrilled at her praise. Even Cassandra talking about his ‘silver tongue’ in her warm, accented drawl was a lot to handle, especially since she was looking at him in the way she’d looked at him in the baths at Suledin Keep, with that burning intensity that made him feel like he was naked again. Except that he wasn’t supposed to think about Suledin Keep, or anyone being naked, or—

Suddenly, Varric’s eyes caught on something that brought him back to reality with an unpleasant jolt. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Following his gaze, Cassandra raised her hand to her neck, and looked surprised when the fingertips came away red. “Ah, I didn’t notice,” she said. “The bolt must have grazed me.”

Meaning that another inch to the right and it would have gone straight through her jugular. Varric aggressively pushed away this thought, and said, “Let me take a look.”

With only a token protest, Cassandra went to sit down on a nearby rock, Varric following, while Dorian and Cole started the unpleasant task of searching and moving the corpses. Cole had no fear of the dead, but it was a grisly duty that Dorian usually avoided – perhaps he felt a little guilty, still, at taking so long to come to their aid.

Cassandra’s height now more level with his own, Varric reached out and took her chin gently in his hand, tilting her head to the side so that he could see the shallow gash in her neck better. He pulled the collar of her shirt aside a little and caught the sudden hitch in Cassandra’s breath, though he’d been careful not to brush against the wound. The realisation arrived too late that the tautness in her posture wasn’t due to pain, and a faint colour was starting to redden her cheekbones. Varric could hear her slightly ragged breathing, and he was suddenly very aware of the scent of her – sweat and armour polish, something faintly floral lingering underneath. The animal warmth of her skin.

Cassandra swallowed hard; he saw the movement of her throat, the tension of restraint. “Varric,” she said. Her voice was lower than usual, like rough velvet. He felt it right down to his bones.

“It’s uh…yeah, it’s just a scratch,” Varric said. “It’s stopped bleeding already.”

He didn’t move his hand away though. Driven by irresistible impulse, he ran his thumb slowly, lightly, along her collarbone, wiping away a drop of blood that had slid down her neck.

Cassandra made a soft, intensely feminine noise, something dangerously close to a whimper.

“Nothing much on them,” said Dorian, this interjection making Varric withdraw his hand sharply as if he’d touched a hot coal, and Cassandra leap to her feet in a clank of plate metal. The mage had snuck up on them as effectively as the mercs had, and he hadn’t even been trying. “The weapons might be worth something if we can be bothered to lug them back with us across the desert, but no clues to who hired them. I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

Dorian looked from Varric to Cassandra, and back again, catching on to the not exactly subtle atmosphere. “Are you two…alright?” he asked, an undeniable smirk creeping into his voice.

“Fine,” said Cassandra. “We are both unhurt, thanks to your assistance.”

Dorian rolled his eyes, but Cole wandered up and was looking at Cassandra curiously. “Heat twisting, clenching inside,” he said. “Hungry skin. Wish I could just—”

“That is enough,” snapped Cassandra. Her cheeks were still flushed with more than just the desert heat. She looked pained.

“He feels it too,” said Cole. “It hurts. In a good way?”

“Not helping kid,” said Varric tightly. He didn’t dare look at Cassandra.

“Well, here’s an idea!” said Dorian brightly, clapping Cole on the shoulder. “Why don’t you and me go and get some more firewood? I saw a dead tree back there that looked perfect.”

“No that is not necessary,” said Cassandra. “There is…we have quite enough.”

“We shouldn’t split up again,” Varric added. “There could be more of these goons. Don’t know if they were working for the Venatori or one of the dozen other people who want me dead, but they were good enough to get the jump on us.”

“We should be more cautious in future,” agreed Cassandra crisply. “Now we know that the enemy may be alerted to our presence here.”

Dorian looked at the two of them, determinedly not looking at each other, and sighed deeply. “One day I swear I’m going to have Bull knock your heads together,” he muttered under his breath.

Varric took the first watch as usual, and due to their nocturnal schedule, that meant he got to see the sun come up over the horizon, the sky turning from grey to cloudless, cobalt blue. Annoyed at himself for their earlier lapse, he didn’t take out a letter to write, as was his usual habit, but stayed on high alert, scanning the horizon for any movement and getting up every few minutes to wander round the perimeter of the camp, though a couple of tents and a long since burnt-out fire under the shadow of a rock was hardly worthy of the name. The corpses of his would-be kidnappers made the hideout seem uncomfortably crowded all the same, laid out together a few yards away as they were. Trying to bury bodies in sand was a fool’s errand, and burning them would have just drawn more attention, so Dorian had frozen them solid with a wave of his staff, which would at least stop them from attracting flies. When the Inquisition party had all gotten some rest and night fell again, they would pack up and leave this place, and the desert would eventually swallow the unfortunate mercs, as it had already swallowed so many. What a waste, Varric thought. How quickly those lives had been ended. How easily it could have been his own corpse lying there instead, and those of his three companions, if things had gone just a little differently. How random and pointless all of this seemed, sometimes. If those mercs had been just a little smarter, or a little more ruthless, he could have been trussed up and on his way to being delivered to Corypheus or whoever on a platter right now, and Cassandra would be dead, her blood drying on the sand where she lay under the hot sun. That was the world in which they existed now, the reality of the lives they led when all the dramatic flourishes of a story were stripped away. Life and death on the flip of a coin, or the bluff of an uncertain hand. It could all end so easily, at any time.

And yet it hadn’t happened; he was alive, and Cassandra was alive, and still Varric was too much a coward to just go to her, to wake her up and tell her that if that had happened, if he’d had to watch her be killed in front of his eyes, as she had witnessed her own brother’s death, then honestly he wouldn’t have much cared what happened to the rest of the world after that.

Varric’s state of restless watchfulness meant he spotted it early: the tiny black dot in the sky, growing closer. For a stomach dropping moment he was reminded of Cole’s words from earlier – dark wings blotted out the sun – but this was no dragon. It was a bird, circling and then diving towards their camp, and Varric held out his arm automatically as he’d seen Leliana’s scouts do. The raven landed on his sleeve, surprisingly heavy, gripping him with uncomfortably tight talons.

“Thanks,” said Varric, as he untied the small scroll tied to the raven’s leg, and then felt like an idiot for saying it. The bird cawed in response, and ruffled its black feathers in a way that he couldn’t help but see as smug. Varric was just wondering if he should offer the bird food and water, or if this was something they sorted out themselves en-route, but this puzzle was solved by the raven taking off in a clatter of wings as soon as he’d removed its message and soaring away back into the dazzlingly blue sky.

Varric unrolled the little scroll of parchment, read the words hastily scrawled upon it, and swore under his breath.

“What is it?”

Cassandra’s voice behind him made him jump – either she’d been woken by the cawing of the raven and realised what it meant, or she’d never been asleep in the first place.

Varric passed her the scroll. “They’ve tracked down Corypheus,” he said. “And they think he’s found an Eluvian.”

Varric had never known a time when Skyhold Castle hadn’t been busy, but this was different. By the time he arrived, after an exhausting race back east across Orlais, the plans had already been drawn up and the armies emptied out of the valley below as they marched south towards the Arbor Wilds, and Corypheus. The Inquisition had been preparing for this moment for a long time, and every person in the castle, from cook to herbalist to farrier, wanted to play their small part, even if they couldn’t be on the field of battle themselves. There was a hum of nervous anticipation in the air, so thick you could almost taste it when you drew breath.

The Inquisitor was both vitally important in all of this, and oddly surplus to requirements. Of course Varric would have fought tooth and nail if anyone had suggested that the Inquisition face off against Corypheus and his armies without him being there, but what was disconcerting was the relief people seemed to feel as soon as he arrived back at Skyhold. As if his mere presence in the upcoming battle meant victory was assured. Astonishingly, the general consensus seemed to be that they had Corypheus ‘cornered’ and that it would all be over soon. The Inquisition’s army would sweep away their enemy, Corypheus would be brought down by the Herald of Andraste, and the world be made safe once more. The end.

The story was already written in their minds. That was the good thing about stories – for better or worse, they always had an ending. No-one needed to think about what happened next, what the Inquisition would do after its purpose was served, what would become of their great hero, how they would all begin to pick up the pieces of a world still battered and bleeding from everything that had happened. Like the village of Sahrnia, but on a bigger scale, it would take more than just dramatically throwing down their enemies to restore everything that had been lost.

Varric couldn’t blame people, really. He knew better than anyone how much more comforting stories could be than grim reality, and in his long absence from Skyhold he’d been pushing a few uncomfortable realities to the back of his mind himself.

On the morning they were to leave, Varric woke well before dawn and looked around his vast, opulent bedroom, wondering if it was the last time he’d ever see these walls. They were hunting down Corypheus to stop his plans, but had no clear plan themselves on what to do when they found him.  Even Leliana, cynical as she was, and Cullen, the pragmatic strategist, seemed to expect their Inquisitor to just pull some great feat of heroism out of his ass as usual and win the day. As he had done at Haven, and Adamant, and Halamshiral. Never mind that all of those had won them nothing but more time, when it came down to it, and even that at the cost of more lives than Varric ever wanted to reckon with again.

The problem was that they believed the story too now. For all his powers of persuasion, Varric couldn’t find the words to remind them that he wasn’t the Herald of Andraste, not really, and that he didn’t have any idea what to do to stop Corypheus. But there was no choice – the tides of history were sweeping him along once again, and all he could do was show up and hope like hell he could live up to their terrifying faith in him.

Varric dressed and left his room without a backwards glance, heading down the tower and into a Skyhold that was already sleepily lurching into life, humming with the expectation of the Inquisitor’s imminent departure. There would be cheering, and people lining the battlements to watch the hero ride forth into destiny’s waiting arms, and Varric would probably have to make a speech – in all honesty he’d prepared one just in case – but right now he couldn’t face dealing with all that just yet. So he slipped through the back stairways and little-trodden corridors, taking a circuitous route to Skyhold’s garden, cool and fragrant and silent as a grave in the light of a dawn that was just starting to gild the tops of the towers far above. After a moment of hesitation, Varric opened the door that was set into one wall of the garden courtyard, and entered the small chapel, to find Cassandra already there.

In any other circumstances Varric might have laughed. How had they reached this point, where they were so much of a mind that they had both come here at the same time? What chance did he have, when even not trying to seek her out, there she was still?

But he didn’t laugh. Cassandra turned as the door opened and smiled in surprise at seeing him, and Varric’s heart flip flopped in his chest. Limned in the golden light of the sunrise breaking through the window behind her, she almost seemed to have a halo. Maker’s breath, she was so beautiful.

“Is everything alright?” Cassandra asked, as well she might, since he was standing there gazing at her like a slack-jawed idiot.

“Fine,” Varric said quickly. “Just looking for some peace and quiet, you know?”

Cassandra looked uncomfortable. “My apologies. I will—”

“No, no, that’s not…I didn’t mean…” Sweet Andraste, he was an idiot. Since when did Varric Tethras, silver-tongued wordsmith, put his foot in his mouth and stumble over his sentences? “Stay,” he said. “I’ve always been more one for talking than praying, anyway.”

Another smile lifted the corners of Cassandra’s mouth. “I had noticed.”

Varric chuckled and strolled over to join her. “Other people answer you, even if you don’t always like what they say,” he said. “The Maker never does.”

“Not in words, perhaps. Or at least not to us.”

That made Varric glance up at the statue of Andraste, impassive and dignified in her own silent presence as the third person in the room. The Maker’s chosen. Varric had wondered more than once before what that had felt like. He wished he still didn’t know.

“Do you think she ever had doubts?” he asked aloud.

“Andraste?” Cassandra gazed up at the statue. “I am sure she must have done. The Chant tells us that the Maker did speak directly to her, but even so she must have had moments when she questioned whether the path she was on was truly the right one. Whether what she believed to be the Maker’s will was simply ego, to think that she had been called upon to change the face of the world.”

“Sounds like you’re familiar with the feeling,” said Varric.

Cassandra looked down, and when she spoke her voice was softer, quiet. “I am not made of stone, any more than she was,” she said. “It is not always so easy to know the difference between what is the right thing to do, and my own desires.”

“Yeah,” said Varric, his voice suddenly a little hoarse. “I get that.”

“Sometimes I am so certain of my own path,” said Cassandra. “I feel that I know exactly what I should do, the person that the Maker would wish me to be. But sometimes…I cannot help but ache for things that I know I should not want.”

Varric moistened his dry lips. His pulse was thrumming in his veins. “Like what?” he asked.

Cassandra simply shook her head.

“Cassandra…”

“Don’t.” Her voice was very small, a fragile thing. “Please.”

They stood there for some time, side by side before Andraste, their eyes fixed on her solemn, carved face rather than look at each other, the weight of the future in this moment feeling every bit as crushing as that of history, and just as immutable. Varric hadn’t known he could feel so much, about anything. It was as if something inside of him had expanded just to contain the feeling, as if he had been fundamentally changed, made new by it. He wanted…what? To take Cassandra into his arms? To fall at her feet and weep? He hardly knew, only that he wanted. He was a wretched, desperate thing of wanting.

“Mother Giselle came to speak to me yesterday,” Cassandra said, in the voice of someone striving to speak evenly. It wasn’t difficult to guess what the conversation must have been about.

“She’s quite the kingmaker on the quiet, isn’t she?” said Varric, unable to keep the bitter edge from the words.

“She wants what is best for the future of the Chantry,” said Cassandra.

“And what does she think that is, exactly?”

“Me.”

That was hardly a surprise, though Varric still felt the blow land. “And what do you think?” he asked, finally allowing himself to turn back to Cassandra. She looked a little more in control of herself, as if she had packed her emotions down into a place deep inside her, as he had seen her do before. Some side-effect of the initiation ritual all Seekers went through, perhaps, or maybe just a skill born of long practice. Still, the little worried crease remained between her brows as she sank down onto one of the wooden pews, gesturing for him to sit beside her. Varric did so, painfully aware of her closeness.

“Surely it was never meant to be like this,” Cassandra said. “All this in-fighting, jostling for power, playing politics in Val Royeaux while the common folk starve…it is surely not what Andraste ever intended. The Chantry should not seek to dominate or exclude. It should be a place where people turn for comfort, for peace, as it always has been for me.”

“Nightingale feels the same way,” said Varric, but Cassandra still looked troubled.

“Leliana…is a radical,” she said, “as Justinia was, but without Justinia’s temperance. I cannot say she is wrong to feel the way she does. The Chantry does need to change – I am the last person who would deny that. But I fear the result of such change if it is handed down as edicts from on high, with little regard for all those who cling to their faith as the one constant in a world that has seen such trouble these recent years.”

“You’re afraid of a holy war.”

Cassandra nodded. “The mages rebelled against the injustices of their situation, for their freedom. It is difficult even for me now to argue that it was not a noble cause, at least in their eyes. And yet what was the result? They were killed in their hundreds. The Tranquil slaughtered, the templars corrupted. And many more innocent lives were destroyed by being drawn into the conflict that ensued. War in a noble cause is still war.”

“A lot of them might still say it was worth it, in the end,” Varric said.

“But what right does any one person have to make that decision for all of Thedas?”

“And you think Leliana would?”

“I do not know. I think she is desperate to make all of this mean something, and that desperation, and her grief, makes her reckless.” Cassandra clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap, agitated. “I worry that such radical reform, so quickly, will serve only to divide the faithful at a time when we need more than ever to put aside our differences,” she said. “I worry that another schism in the Chantry will destroy it utterly, and I worry that if Leliana becomes Divine she will get herself killed for her ideals, as Justinia did.”

“And others along with her,” said Varric.

“Yes.”

“Maybe you’re not giving her enough credit. Nightingale’s no fool.”

“But she is not infallible, much as it suits the Inquisition to pretend that she is. Her ideas do not have the support of most within the Chantry, or even outside it, and even the Divine’s power is not unlimited.”

The conclusion hung unspoken in the air between them. She’ll be forced to play the tyrant to get what she wants. Every change she makes will have a price paid in blood.

“But what is the alternative?” continued Cassandra, almost as if arguing with herself now. “If the grand clerics will not abide an idealist, then what they get will be a pragmatist, someone who knows how to play the Game, whose faith always comes second to their own agenda.”

A vision of Vivienne floated across Varric’s mind, and he didn’t doubt Cassandra was thinking of the same thing. The Iron Lady had already risen about as far as a mage could go, but you’d have to be an idiot to underestimate her personal ambition. If she wasn’t able to gather the support necessary – and it would take a lot for a mage, even one so connected – then there were others like her who might make a play for the Sunburst Throne.

“Or…they elect you,” said Varric.

“Or they elect me.” The weariness in Cassandra’s voice was palpable. “The choice of possible candidates is not a long one, Varric,” she said. “That is what Mother Giselle was trying to impress upon me. And she is right about one thing – whatever my feelings on being the next Divine, if I am not chosen, I fear what someone else may do in my place. And so does she.”

Varric couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He was in no position to advise her, even if he’d had a nug’s hope in Dust Town of being remotely objective on the issue. And Cassandra, her future closing around her like a tightening noose, deserved better than whatever comforting platitude he could come up with. Cassandra deserved so much better than any of this. Certainly deserved better than him. In this moment Varric would have torn the whole world down and rebuilt it with his own hands, if he could, into something worthy of her.

Cassandra shifted next to him, letting out an almost imperceptible sigh. “Thank you for listening to me,” she said. “I know you have troubles enough of your own without adding mine to the pile, today of all days especially.”

“Any time, Seeker,” said Varric. “I mean it.”

“A problem shared is a problem halved,” she said, glancing at him with a wry smile that pierced his heart. “The whole world seems to share its problems with you, and you always make that burden look so easy. I only hope if I am called to the Sunburst Throne, I can do half as much good as you have.”

“You already have,” Varric said.

Impulsively, he reached out and took her hand where it lay on the pew between them, made reckless by the desire to offer her any small comfort he could. He half expected Cassandra to pull away, but instead she entwined her slender, battle-calloused fingers with his own, and gripped his hand as if it were the only thing anchoring her to the world and she was afraid if she released it she might drift away. Varric knew the feeling.

They spoke no more, and instead just sat in silence together, looking up at the face of Andraste as the sun came up behind her and filled the world with light.

Chapter Text

People said your life flashed before your eyes when you died, but Varric had stumbled through enough near-death experiences that he knew by now what mostly flashed before your eyes was ‘ohshitohshitohshit this is it’.

His feet pounded on the uneven stones of the great bridge that spanned the chasm before the temple, knowing that if he stumbled even for a second, it could be a mistake that cost him his life. Overhead, the monstrous lyrium dragon roared, sending a gout of crackling red flame that licked at their heels, but it wasn’t the only thing they were running from. At every moment, Varric expected to be hit in the back with a curse thrown by Corypheus, whose gruesome resurrection they were fleeing with the unthinking horror of bearing witness to something too terrible to comprehend. Before them, the high walls of a temple was the only sanctuary to be had. Technically, this mission was already a success. They had found the elven temple Corypheus was searching for, and they had found Corypheus. The problem, of course, was that meant Corypheus had found them.

When it came to fleeing, Varric was an old hand, but his shorter legs meant that he was often easily outpaced by his companions. The Iron Bull reached the great temple doors first, Cassandra just moments behind him, both turning to check that they were not alone, when they easily could have simply dived inside to safety. Varric, bringing up the rear, at least didn’t have to test his courage by doing the same – by the time he made it to the doors, Solas and Morrigan both had made it too, and as Varric leapt inside, Bull and Cassandra were already pushing in tandem with all their might to seal the entrance behind them.

The dragon screamed in fury, and another gout of flame splashed against the shield that Solas hastily threw up to cover the closing crack between the doors, but either luck or the Maker’s grace was on their side today, because the next moment the doors slammed closed with a boom that shook the ground. The sound outside was cut off so abruptly that mere stone couldn’t explain it – some magical seal made the doors glow golden for a moment, and something told Varric that it would take more than muscle to open them again. That could be a problem eventually, vis-à-vis getting out of here, but right now he wanted as many barriers as possible between them and that dragon. He allowed himself a sigh of relief, and did a quick assessment of his companions, to make sure they all looked unhurt.

“Everyone alright?” he asked, panting.

“He was dead,” said Cassandra, who seemed to take another instance of being chased down by a dragon in her stride, and had other priorities, namely, what they had just witnessed minutes ago. “Corypheus was destroyed by the temple’s defences, and yet…”

“He took the body of a Grey Warden,” said Solas. Even he looked visibly shaken, which was unusual.

“That was the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen,” said Bull. “Which is saying something. I’ve seen some creepy shit.”

“Hawke’s friend Stroud was right then,” said Morrigan. She alone looked more curious than horrified, unruffled by their panicked flight. “Corypheus has the same power as an archdemon; to take over the body of any blighted creature and make it his own.”

“He really can’t be killed,” said Varric, and the words fell like the blade of an executioner’s axe, leaving only silence in their wake. If Corypheus wanted to become a god, he’d already got the most important part down, it seemed. Immortality. How could you fight against that? Even if they got through his dragon, what hope did they have, when gathering all their strength to slay their enemy could cost them everything, and would still be nothing more than a minor inconvenience to Corypheus himself?

“It does not matter now,” said Cassandra, breaking the terrible moment. “We came here to stop Corypheus from obtaining the Eluvian. We are inside the temple, and he is not. If we wish to retain what little advantage we have won, we need to move.”

“Right,” said Varric, shaking himself. He was the Inquisitor; he should be the one keeping them on track. He didn’t have the luxury of allowing himself to show his fear, or despair. “Let’s go.”

After the thick jungle and clash of battle outside, the temple of Mythal was eerily silent, full of golden light and long shadows. The Arbor Wilds were like nowhere Varric had ever been before; a lush, humid forest riotous with life, mushrooms as big as his head growing from the bark of enormous, gnarled trees that dripped with waterfalls of moss, and flocks of cawing, brightly coloured birds racketing from the canopy. When he’d arrived at the main Inquisition camp yesterday, their presence had only added to the chaos, row upon row of brightly coloured tents, the smoke of cooking fires and the clatter of soldiers and horses, shouts mingling with the lowing of druffalo that pulled the supply carts, the organised chaos of an army on the move. The familiar muted green of Inquisition soldiers mixed freely with the gleaming silver and blue of Orlesian forces, all under the command of a harried but determined Commander Cullen, who was bent over a huge map in the command tent, along with Leliana and Josephine, moving little pieces about as reports came in from their scouts on enemy movement through the jungle. This was to be the decisive battle, and none of the Inquisitorial council would countenance staying behind the walls of Skyhold when victory might finally be at hand. Grand Enchanter Fiona had also once again insisted on being in the battle, her mages ready to fight for their future alongside the rest.

More surprisingly, Empress Celene too had come personally – almost certainly to give the impression of strong military leadership to those who still thought Gaspard would have made a better general in this time of a war. Whatever her motivations, she’d seemed determined enough to see the thing through to whatever end when Varric had spoken to her, and he’d been grudgingly impressed at her putting her money where her mouth was, even if she wouldn’t exactly be risking her life on the front lines herself. It was weird that talking to the Empress of Orlais now felt so normal to him that it barely registered as anything to be nervous about, but that was the way Varric’s life was now, and frankly he had so many more things to scare the shit out of him, Celene didn’t even rank.

The plan, such as it was, was simple enough. The Inquisition’s forces would keep the red templars and whoever else Corypheus had mustered busy, while the Inquisitor would slip around behind enemy lines and reach the lost elven temple before Corypheus could lay claim to it. Solas and Morrigan, knowledgeable in elven history as they both were, would go with him as guides, and to help him evade detection. Cassandra and the Iron Bull, of course, would be there to help fight off any enemies they did run into, and – though no-one said this part out loud – because neither of them trusted Morrigan further than they could throw her, and the chances of them allowing her to guide the Inquisitor anywhere with only Solas as protection should she turn on them was out of the question.

The reality had been a sweaty hike through the jungle, hacking through undergrowth and wading rivers, all the while evading the sounds of fighting that seemed to come from every direction. The clash of swords, distant screams and the occasional muffled explosion – there were mages on the field, after all – lent an edge of urgency to their mission that meant no-one complained about the miserable conditions of their trek, and they moved in a grim silence. Along the way, sometimes they had stumbled across signs that this area had not always been so wild; traces of ancient roads long overgrown, stone markers coated in moss, or hewn stones tumbled in the undergrowth, lost from some long-destroyed structure, still with the faint carvings visible. They’d run into only a handful of red templars, obviously separated from the main bulk of their forces, who had posed little trouble, and by the time the sun was highest in the brief glimpses of sky visible through the canopy, it was clear they were getting close. The elven ruins were becoming more frequent, undeniable remains of a great city lost since lost, and then all at once they passed through an archway out onto a large balcony that led to a stone bridge spanning a river, churning white water fed by a series of breathtaking waterfalls. And there beyond, flanked by gigantic stone wolves, had been the temple of Mythal.

And now they were inside, and it was as if they had entered another world. Varric had to force himself to remember that although Corypheus might be stuck beyond the walls for now, Samson and a dozen red templars at least had made it into this place before them, and they were not much safer in here than they had been out in the jungle. But there was an indefinable sense of peace about the temple, a kind of reverent hush, the weight of centuries compressed into the air, clinging to every stone. As they made their way cautiously into a huge courtyard, overgrown with ferns and waving grass, they fanned out a little instinctively, all gazing around in wonder at the soaring columns and the long, shallow canals filled with water lilies, the walls and floor that gleamed with thousands of tiny golden tiles. It was a grandeur that was somehow not diminished by the trees whose roots now burst through those tiled floors, or the carpet of leaves that gathered in drifts in every corner. Where the ruins of Kal Repartha in the desert had felt sad, long-dead, this temple still felt alive, as if it were still imbued with ancient magic, as if it had never truly been forgotten. Perhaps it hadn’t been – they had glimpsed elves, before, battling to stop Corypheus and his templars from crossing the bridge. Just because the humans of Orlais had no idea this temple was hidden in the southern wilds didn’t mean no-one did.

“Daisy would love this place,” Varric said under his breath, as he took it all in.

“Perhaps you will be able to bring her here, after all this is over,” said Cassandra.

Varric almost jumped – he hadn’t realised she was close enough to hear him, and though her words were innocuous enough, it was the first time Cassandra had spoken to him directly, not part of a conversation with others, since they had set out from Skyhold. He had felt a kind of wall between them since their conversation in the chapel, a distance which made him ache with regret every time she failed to catch his eye. To the casual observer he doubted anyone would notice the change – there was none of the prickly tension or sniping that had plagued their early time together, but the ease Cassandra had once seemed to feel in his company was gone. Varric felt, deep in his bones, that she had made some kind of decision, and that the distance was deliberate.

He didn’t have an opportunity to respond though, as Morrigan strode over, her golden eyes gleaming with excitement. “A word, Inquisitor?” she said meaningfully, glancing at Cassandra. Varric saw the Seeker’s face darken, but he didn’t even hesitate.

“Whatever you want to say, we can all hear it,” he said.

“As you will,” said Morrigan sourly, after the briefest of irritated pauses. She led them over to a large broken column in the centre of the courtyard, inscribed with elven writing. “This altar speaks of the Well of Sorrows,” she said. “Corypheus mentioned it too, outside. This may be why he’s here.”

“Not an Eluvian?” asked Varric.

Morrigan shrugged. “Whatever the well is, this temple was built around it. The carvings tell of it bestowing a great boon on the supplicants here…but at a terrible price.”

“Great, not ominous at all,” muttered Varric.

“For them, it was clearly a price worth paying,” said Morrigan. “Corypheus appears to feel the same way. Perhaps this is an avenue we too should be pursuing.”

“We are here to prevent Corypheus from plundering the secrets of the ancient elves to further his own ends,” said Solas. “Not to do the same ourselves.”

“I do not speak of plunder,” said Morrigan. “I speak of preservation. Of restoring the Well of Sorrows, of not allowing the knowledge gained here to be lost.”

“How charitable of you,” said Solas dryly, but Morrigan ignored him. It was clear she thought the Inquisitor was the person who needed to be convinced, and Varric felt a stab of annoyance on Solas’ behalf, that the opinion of the only elf present was apparently considered irrelevant.

“What do you suggest?” he asked. “We don’t even know what this well is. We could be looking at it right now.”

“I do not think—”

The sound of a blast, echoing through the temple, interrupted her, and they all exchanged glances. Samson.

“This way!” said Varric, and they raced, weapons drawn, through a set of doors that led to another courtyard. There was no sign of Samson and his templars, but the cause of the sound was apparent quickly enough – a huge hole, the edges still crumbling, had been blasted into the tiled floor, in front of a huge set of sealed doors. It seemed Samson had lost patience with trying to open them, and made his own shortcut. They were already heading towards it when Morrigan stepped in front of Varric quickly, holding out her hands.

“Hold a moment, Inquisitor,” she said. “While we rush ahead, this leads to our true destination.” She gestured at the great, sealed doors. “We should walk the petitioner’s path as instructed in these carvings, complete the ancient rituals and face the Well of Sorrows prepared. Do this the right way, and we may take Samson’s prize from under his nose.”

“An army fights and dies for us outside,” said Cassandra sharply. “We cannot waste time on this nonsense.”

She made a fair point, but something about the watchful air of the temple gave Varric pause. It did feel strangely as if something, or someone, was waiting to see what they would do, and it wasn’t just Samson. If this temple had held secrets for a thousand years, he doubted it would give them up to sheer force.

“Samson wants to blast through here and kill everything in his way,” said Varric. “Maybe he’s not someone we should be taking our cues from, don’t you think?”

Cassandra frowned, but had no answer.

“I’m not one for rituals, but obviously these ancient elves were,” Varric said, his decision solidifying even as he spoke. “If we want to find this Well of Whatever before Samson does, they seem like the people to ask, not him. Trust me, Seeker.”

Cassandra didn’t hesitate. “I do,” she said, though she still didn’t look happy. “Do what you think is best, Inquisitor.”

She only used his title these days, Varric had noticed, when she disagreed with him, but there was no time to think more closely about that. It was not the first time Cassandra had thought him an idiot, and it wouldn’t be the last. If an idiot he turned out to be, then the consequences would be on his shoulders alone, and that thought didn’t weigh as heavily as it once had done. He was the Inquisitor, and he had gotten used to being the one who had to make the call.

They completed the rituals under Morrigan’s direction, walking the path laid out on the tiled floor with reverent care, though Varric could feel Cassandra’s frustration with every passing moment, and Bull had gone quiet enough to make it clear that he also thought this was a bad idea, but wasn’t about to argue with the boss in front of Morrigan. Bull tended to play up the meathead bodyguard thing with anyone he didn’t trust, and he was smart enough to know when a tactical silence was more useful than making his opinion known. But his Chargers were out there fighting in the wilds too, and if this delay cost them…

After what felt like hours, the rituals were completed, and they were rewarded by the vast doors at the end of the courtyard swinging open with surprising silence. There was something…expectant about them, as if someone was watching, just out of sight. Morrigan looked thrilled, Cassandra thunderous, and Solas and Bull typically inscrutable as they walked through them, weapons drawn by unspoken agreement. They entered a vast chamber, easily as big as a great hall of Skyhold, and more intact than any of the temple they’d seen so far. The tiled floor here was pristine, the murals that adorned the walls as fresh and vibrant as if they had been painted yesterday. There was even flame burning in braziers set in alcoves. This was no abandoned ruin. Someone had been tending this place.

That someone became apparent pretty quickly. As if they had stepped out of the very murals themselves, slender figures of elves in shining silver amour, a dozen or more, appeared around the edges of the chamber, raising longbows in uncanny, silent unison. Varric and his party stopped dead in the centre of the open floor, and Varric just about had time to wonder if the last thing he would hear before being turned into a dwarven pin-cushion was Cassandra telling him ‘I told you so’ when another elf appeared on the high balcony at the far end of the room. He was armoured like the rest and wore a long grey cloak with a hood cast over his head, and it was immediately apparent he was the leader, as he gave some kind of word of command to the archers before stepping forward to address the visitors.

“You are unlike the other invaders,” he said. “You stumble down our paths at the side of one of our own.” His eyes flicked curiously to Solas, then back to Varric. “You bear the mark of magic that is…familiar.”

“Who are you?” asked Varric.

The elf inclined his head. “I am called Abelas. We are sentinels tasked with standing against those who trespass on sacred ground. We wake only to fight, to preserve this place.”

Varric saw Cassandra stiffen at his side, the tension in her posture of someone preparing for an attack. But Abelas made no move to raise a weapon of his own, only watching them carefully, his gaze assessing. “I know what you seek,” he said. “Like all who have come before you, you seek to drink from the vir’abelesan.”

“The Well of Sorrows,” breathed Morrigan.

“It is not for you,” said Abelas. “It is not for any of you.”

“Look, we’re just here for Corypheus,” said Varric, who felt that all this was getting a little too portentous, even for him. “He’s the guy who’s attacking your temple,” he explained. “Or at least his people are. We’re here to protect it too. We want to stop him getting to your well just as much as you do.”

Abelas looked at him for a long enough time for Varric to start feeling profoundly uncomfortable, and then gave a very slight nod. “I believe you,” he said. He cast down his hood, and around the room, from the corner of his eye, Varric saw the other Sentinels lower their bows and melt away again into the shadows. He’d already lowered his own crossbow, but now he slung it over his back in a mirroring gesture of conciliation, and after a moment of hesitation, he saw Cassandra sheathe her sword, and the others make similar gestures.

Abelas didn’t look pleased, exactly, but he didn’t seem hostile either, more just resigned. “You say you come to repel our invaders,” he said. “We will lead you to them. As for the vir’abelesan…it shall not be despoiled, even if I must destroy it myself.”

At that, he turned and walked away, disappearing swiftly into the darkness of the inner temple.

“No!”

There was a clatter of wings; after crying out in anguish, Morrigan had launched herself into the air and her form had twisted instantly into that of a great black-feathered bird, like one of Leliana’s ravens. With a caw, she flew after Abelas, soaring into the air before any of them could even think to react, much less stop her, disappearing as quickly as the elf had done.

“Shit,” said Varric fervently, and started running, the others at his side.

“We should never have trusted the witch,” snarled Cassandra, as they raced after Morrigan. “She seeks to take this ‘well’ for herself, that much is clear. No doubt she already knew it was here.”

“She played us for suckers, Boss,” agreed Bull.

“Doesn’t matter now,” panted Varric, who was already busy kicking himself and didn’t need anyone else’s help to do so. Images of Merril’s clan flashed before his eyes – the last time he’d tried to help a mage unlock ancient elven knowledge that should have been left buried. Aravels overturned, bodies strewn over the ground. Merril weeping in Hawke’s arms. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’d gotten too comfortable in the role of Inquisitor, assumed Morrigan too would follow his lead without question. But power dangled in front of a mage was always a risky gamble, and he hadn’t known Morrigan well enough to see the danger – there was a desperation in her desire for this that he didn’t understand, a piece of herself that she’d kept hidden, some agenda that Varric had overlooked in his focus of stopping Corypheus. So easy to forget that other people were not characters in a book, and had secrets of their own.

Doors opened for them as they ran through the temple – whatever magic still held sway here, it had accepted them, as Abelas had. As they ran through chamber after golden chamber in the vast, empty halls, sometimes the slender figure of an elven Sentinel would appear and gesture silently to show them the way, guiding them into the heart of the sanctuary. Eventually they burst through a set of doors into an inner courtyard, where the sound of rushing water and birdsong in the trees broke the reverent silence. They stopped short as soon as they entered the wide, sunlit space, arrested by the sight of two things; first, the distant gleam of what looked very much like an enormous mirror in front of a pool, on a raised stone platform far to the other end of the courtyard. Second…

Elven bodies on the ground. It was as if Varric’s memory of Merril’s clan had been a premonition. But this wasn’t Morrigan’s work, thank the Maker – there were templar bodies too, riddled with arrows, their red lyrium encrusted forms as still and broken as those of the temple’s protectors. And kneeling over one of them, perhaps closing their eyes, perhaps even saying a prayer, was Samson.

The elven Sentinels had done their job well – Samson was evidently the last one left of his band of invaders. But he was surrounded by corpses and yet looked untouched himself, which didn’t exactly bode well. As they approached, he got to his feet and turned, apparently unconcerned of the sight of four heavily armed enemies converging on him, even alone as he was now. They stopped a few yards away, but rather than making a move to attack, or even flee, Samson looked obscurely pleased.

“Varric,” he said, almost conversationally. “It is really you, isn’t it? D’you know, there’s a part of me that never really believed it. Haven’t we both come a long way since Kirkwall, eh?”

“In pretty different directions, yeah,” said Varric.

Samson seemed more amused than offended. “Ha! You always were holier-than-thou, even though you grubbed around in the same muck as the rest of us.” He gave Varric a thoughtful look. “There’s still time, y’know, to back the right horse. My master will need loyal servants as he rules the new world we’ll create. There could be a place for you in that world, if you play it smart.”

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you,” said Varric. He gestured to the others to stay back, stowed his crossbow, and took a few steps forward, his hands open.

“Boss—” objected Bull, at the exact same time as Cassandra said “Varric—” and Solas said “Inquisitor—” He ignored them all, gesturing more firmly for them not to follow, and walked unarmed up to Samson, who was eyeing him with mild curiosity now. He could feel the twanging tension of his companions behind him, but this, right now, was between the two of them. He wanted Samson to be able to see his face clearly, to know he meant what he said. He might be the Inquisitor, but he was Varric Tethras too, and this was his choice.

“We don’t have to fight,” he said. “Come and work for the Inquisition instead. We can help you. Cullen doesn’t take lyrium anymore – it doesn’t have to own you. Corypheus doesn’t own you either.”

A flicker of genuine surprise on Samson’s face, quickly covered by a hollow, mocking laugh. “Save the bleeding-heart act, Varric,” he said. “We both know how this ends.”

“It ends however you want it to,” said Varric. He put his hands in his pockets; the image of a casual chat. Unthreatening. Just Varric here. They might have been passing the time of day outside the Hanged Man, the two of them. Maybe Samson would pass on a useful tip, something he’d overheard, and Varric might buy him a drink as thanks. Was Samson thinking of Kirkwall too? Was anything really left of the man he’d been back then? Was anything left of that Varric, either?

“We all get to write our own story,” said Varric. “And yours doesn’t have to end here, with you dying for the sake of some power-hungry Tevinter mage with bullshit delusions of godhood. You still have a choice.”

“I never had a choice,” scoffed Samson. “The Chantry made sure of that. But Corypheus…he chose me twice. First as his general, now as his vessel for the Well of Sorrows. You know what’s inside the well? Wisdom. The kind of wisdom that could scour the world. I give it to Corypheus and he can walk into the Fade without your precious anchor. He’ll be unstoppable.” He sneered at Varric. “Face it – you’re outclassed. You always have been. And you don’t get to look down on me anymore.”

Samson’s armour began to glow red, as though it were being forged even on his body, crackling with power, sparks of crimson lightning arcing from the dull metal. The same red was reflected in the depths of Samson’s eyes, alight with triumph.

“This is the strength the Chantry tried to bind,” the templar growled. “But it’s a new world now, with a new god. And there’s no going back for any of us now.”

His voice held the nauseating treble of the song, and Varric felt it ring in his ears as he looked at Samson. The red lyrium had him, as surely as it had taken Bartrand, and what remained of the man he’d been was nothing more than a shell. Maybe there really never had been another ending, for him. Samson was what the templars had made him – a tool to be used and discarded when it had served its purpose. Even now, when he thought he’d finally broken free, he was still nothing more than a puppet on a lyrium leash. Samson was a man who wielded more power than most people could ever have dreamed of, and still had no more choice now than he’d had begging on the streets of Kirkwall.

“I’m sorry,” said Varric, and he meant it.

“You won’t be for long,” said Samson, and a grin spread across his face as he raised his sword, ready to bring it down in a arc of swift, crimson silver death—

His hand inside his pocket clutching the smooth surface, Varric activated the rune he had concealed there.

Dagna, the Inquisition’s dwarven arcanist, was a runecrafter to rival Paragon Fairel himself, and she had done her work well. The Inquisition’s strength wasn’t just in its armies – it was the people they’d gathered, the oddballs and the cast-offs, the people who had never fit in anywhere but found a home at Skyhold, and brought new ways of thinking with them. Quite a disparate group, Cassandra had called them once, and the Inquisition had certainly become that. It was what Varric had insisted on from the start, and he didn’t regret any of it for a moment; sheltering the mage rebellion, giving the Wardens a second chance, bringing onboard agents from the Dalish to the nobility to the criminal underworld. The diversity of experience and skills meant there were few problems the Inquisition couldn’t overcome with the right tools and enough time, and he’d made damn sure Dagna had both.

Samson’s armour exploded, crumpling inwards. It wasn’t pleasant to watch, but Varric forced himself to anyway, because looking away was a cowardly thing to do. When the screaming was finally over, and Samson was a limp heap on the ground, his eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth leaking blood, there was a horrible silence left in its wake. Bull swore quietly, and Cassandra strode up to the fallen templar and rolled him over with a dispassionate air, kneeling beside him and pressing her fingers to his throat for a pulse.

“He is still alive,” she said.

No normal person would have survived what they’d just witnessed, but Samson wasn’t quite human any more, for all that he looked like it. The red lyrium was keeping him functional even as it ravaged his body, probably repairing the damage even now.

“Chuckles, can you make sure he doesn’t wake up any time soon?” said Varric.

“I believe so,” said Solas, bending over the prone figure and muttering an enchantment under his breath.

“We’re taking him back to Skyhold,” said Varric. “He can face judgement like everyone else.” Although Maker knew it would be a pretty short trial. With all the harm Samson had done, the headsman’s axe was the least people would call for.

“It’d be easier just to kill him now, Boss,” said Bull.

“I know,” said Varric. “That’s why we’re not doing it. Can you carry him?”

In response, Bull picked up the prone templar and hefted him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Let’s get to that well,” said Varric.

They started forward, picking their way through the overgrown courtyard, Solas now leading the way, and Bull carrying Samson at the back. Cassandra drew close to Varric, and it was a sign of how far they’d come that she was obviously taking care to make sure neither of the others overheard her admonishment to him.

“That was extremely dangerous, confronting Samson like that,” she said. “If that rune hadn’t worked…”

“He left the door open,” said Varric quietly.

“What?”

“The door to the temple,” said Varric. “Samson saw us there on the bridge, before. He turned, and he saw us, and he went inside and he left the door open. He could easily have sealed us outside with Corypheus and that dragon.”

“Perhaps he believed we were already as good as dead,” said Cassandra. “Or else he wanted a chance to kill you himself.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Varric. “But he left the door open for us. I figured I at least owed him the same thing.” He rubbed the back of his head, remembering Samson’s twisted, triumphant smile as he brought the sword down. Had there been any trace of regret there? Maybe Varric had just wanted to see it, the way he’d wanted to see it in Bartrand, in Anders. “Ah, maybe he’s right, and I am just a bleeding heart, after all.”

“There are worse things to be,” said Cassandra softly.

“Inquisitor!” cried Solas, pointing to the far end of the courtyard. A great black bird had appeared, flapping frantically towards the raised stone platform, and the unmistakable shape of an Eluvian. The next moment, Abelas burst from some unseen entrance, running with the speed of a fanatic to outpace the bird, heading too for what could only be the Well of Sorrows. As the elf drew closer to the raised stone dias, steps appeared before him, either concealed up to now by magic or else manifested by the temple at the approach of one of its Sentinels, and Abelas leapt up them, heedless of Varric and his companions as they raced after him.

The bird soared over their heads before they reached the top of the steps, and when they did, they found themselves standing before a wide, shimmering pool of water in front of what was unmistakably an Eluvian. Easily twice as tall as the one Morrigan had concealed at Skyhold, the surface of the great mirror was blank, but it was ornately set into a stone arch, obviously built as the centre of the temple. The pool at its base was shallow enough to see the bottom, which glittered in the sunlight with innumerable tiny golden tiles. Even if they had not been told about the Well of Sorrows, it would have been obvious that this was no natural pool, as there was a strange energy about the water, a hunger, a kind of indefinable draw that put one uncomfortably in mind of red lyrium. Varric barely had time to register all this, as Morrigan had transformed back into her usual shape and was squaring off in front of Abelas, her staff in hand, her eyes narrowed—

“Morrigan!” Varric called, and he saw her stiffen, and – somewhat to his surprise – lower her staff, looking faintly embarrassed. Still, she rallied quickly, her face setting to a stubborn expression.

“You heard his parting words, Inquisitor,” she said. “The elf means to destroy the Well of Sorrows!”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” said Varric. Merril’s clan, dead all around them. Samson’s mocking laugh. He’ll be unstoppable. “It’s only a matter of time before Corypheus breaks in here, and we can’t let him anywhere near this thing.” He turned to Abelas. “How do we—”

But Morrigan stepped between them. “There is another way Inquisitor,” she said urgently. “If I use the well, I can prevent Corypheus from using it, and preserve the knowledge that would otherwise be lost.”

“This grasping vassal of yours seeks to claim that which she cannot hope to understand,” sneered Abelas. A string of elvish poured from his mouth, which Varric couldn’t imagine was complimentary. “I would die before I see one so unworthy desecrate this place so.”

“No need for that,” said Varric, holding out his hands placatingly. “Everyone just…calm down, okay? We’ve stopped Samson. That’s what we came here to do. There’s no need to start another fight.”

But Morrigan was already shaking her head. “The well clearly offers power, Inquisitor,” she said. “If it could help defeat Corypheus, can you afford to turn it down?”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about something you hadn’t even heard of an hour ago, Feathers,” said Varric. “We don’t even know what this thing is.”

“It is enough that he would rather destroy it then let us use it,” said Morrigan, gesturing at Abelas, who glared at her with such pure hatred that Varric was half surprised Morrigan didn’t burst into flames.

“You do not even know what it is you ask,” said Abelas. He turned his gaze to the pool before them. “As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on through this,” he said. “The vir-abelesan may be too much for a mortal even to comprehend.”

Morrigan scoffed, and Abelas’ eyes sharpened as he turned back to her, his lip curling. “Human arrogance is not something we have forgotten,” he said. “This woman seeks to claim something she has no knowledge of, nor right to. But you…” He turned now to Varric, his expression more thoughtful. “You have shown respect to Mythal, and there is a righteousness in you that I cannot deny. I saw you show mercy to your enemy, and you too would see the well destroyed before it could be used for evil. Perhaps that alone makes you worthy of the wisdom within.”

There was a moment before what he’d said sank in, and then Varric felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Wait, you’re saying you think I should use it?” he said, aghast.

“If that is your desire,” said Abelas.

Varric couldn’t think of anything he desired less, but Abelas was plunging on, regardless. “Brave it if you must,” the elf said gravely, “but know this: you will be forever bound to the will of Mythal.”

“Bound to the will of a goddess that no longer exists, if she ever did?” interjected Morrigan, all but visibly rolling her eyes.

“Whatever you decide, my duty here is done,” said Abelas, throwing another disdainful glance Morrigan’s way, before dismissing her completely and walking away. As he passed Solas, Varric heard them exchange a few quiet words in elvish, and Solas briefly laid a hand on Abelas’ shoulder, the most warmth Varric had ever seen him display towards another person. And then they were finally left alone at the edge of the pool, the still waters glittering in the sunlight and the great blank face of the mirror looming expectantly before them.

“Well, we found the Eluvian,” said Varric, breaking the tense silence. “Go team.”

“The well is the key to this Eluvian,” said Morrigan, gesturing at the pool. “If I use it, the mirror will be no more use to Corypheus than glass.”

“Could be our way out of here, Boss,” said Bull, who had been silent so far, but made a good point. Corypheus and his dragon were just outside the temple, and they had no other plan for how to leave without getting burned to a crisp.

“I am willing to pay the price the well demands,” said Morrigan, turning to Varric decisively. “I am also best suited to use its knowledge in your service.”

Varric had the experience, which might have been very funny under other circumstances, of hearing both Solas and Cassandra make almost identical noises of derision at this.

“Or more likely, to your own ends,” Solas said.

“What would you know of my ends, elf?” snapped Morrigan.

“Abelas told you it was not for you. You are no more than a glutton, drooling at the sight of a feast. You speak of your knowledge of elven history, but your disdain for this place and everything in it has been—”

“Okay, everybody just take it easy,” cut in Varric quickly. “None of us understands how any of this shit works, and no-one is drinking from any weird magical pools.”

“What happens when Corypheus comes for you again?” said Morrigan, her voice hard. “He is immortal. The well may give us a way to destroy him.”

It was the first thing she’d said that gave Varric pause, and Morrigan clearly noticed. She leaned forward, pressing her advantage.

“I am willing to pay the price, and I am best trained to use the knowledge of the well,” she said. “Give me this and I fight at your side, Inquisitor! I shall be your sword.”

It was as close to pleading as he had ever heard her sound, all trace of irony stripped away, and Varric saw it in her face; the eager brightness of her eyes, the way she was almost trembling with repressed excitement. Zeal. Morrigan meant it when she said she would accept whatever consequences came. And if there was any thought in her mind of her young son, waiting for her return back at Skyhold, she gave no sign. Varric couldn’t help but be reminded of the conversation he and Cassandra had shared not so long ago, about their own parents. I imagine they also believed they were doing it for us.

But Corypheus waited outside. If he managed to catch up with them, then maybe none of them would make it back to Skyhold, Morrigan included. They’d come here to stop Corypheus from using the Eluvian, after all. Maybe this was the only way.

“What does everyone else think?” Varric asked, turning to his companions.

“Doesn’t seem like a good idea either way Boss,” said Bull. “But if this well really could help us against Corypheus, I say we take it.”

“I agree,” said Solas. “The witch is right about one thing – we cannot let this opportunity go to waste. But I told you once that I would rather see the power you wield in your hands than those of any other, Inquisitor, and I hold to that. If the opinion of an elf counts for anything even in this place” – he threw a cold look at Morrigan that made it clear he’d noticed the way she’d tossed the word at him earlier like an insult – “then I would have you to be the one to drink.”

When Varric allowed himself to meet Cassandra’s eyes, she looked miserable; he recognised the look of someone who could tell when the tides were turning a certain way, and there was no stopping what was coming. He’d felt it often enough himself. “If it is truly between you and her,” Cassandra said, a quiet desperation in her voice, “then…” She hesitated, her distrust of Morrigan warring with an instinct less easy to express. “Then let her take the risk,” she finished wretchedly.

It was not the answer Varric would have expected, but he saw the fear in her eyes, and in that moment he thought maybe he saw something else too, something that had taken him far too long to understand.

But he also saw Bethany, blazing with light as she faced the Nightmare. He saw Leliana holding the door with arrow after arrow as he and Dorian escaped from the doomed future at Redcliffe. He saw the face of every red templar he’d killed, consumed by the lyrium he and Bartrand had unleashed upon the world. And he saw the Divine, reaching out her hand, falling away as he ran…

Varric shook his head. “No, Seeker,” he said quietly. “I’m done letting other people take the risks for me.”

And without looking back, ignoring Morrigan’s outraged cry, he walked into the water and cupped his hands to drink.

Chapter Text

For a moment, Varric thought his dramatic gesture had been all for nothing. The cool water of the well swirled around his knees, soaking into his trousers, filling his boots. He could feel the gaze of the others behind him, on his back, waiting for something to happen. Varric opened his mouth to say something, make some quip to cut the tension, make himself feel less foolish, and—

The world around him fell away; the heat of the jungle, the cool water, even the light of the sun above. All was darkness, and mist, and silence. Varric stood up, or perhaps he was floating, and swivelled his head this way and that, but he couldn’t see anything, not his companions who had been there just a moment before, nor the temple around him.

And yet…he was being watched. He felt it in his bones, in the hairs that stood up all over his body. He felt naked in front of a thousand pairs of eyes, everything stripped away but the truth.

“Help me,” Varric whispered. His voice sounded strange, and maybe he was only thinking the words instead of saying them, and maybe it didn’t matter, because he’d never meant anything more. “I need your help. Please, whoever you are.”

Out of the silence…whispers, almost like the song of red lyrium, but different somehow, like a conversation just on the edge of hearing. Varric whirled round again, squinting desperately into the darkness, but there was no movement but the swirling mist. He felt the rising tide of terror grip his chest, but forced himself to breath evenly. Talk, Tethras. You’re good at talking.

“I don’t know what to do, and they said you had knowledge,” he croaked, a little louder now, firmer. “I need that, I need answers, or more people are going to die and I won’t be able to stop it. Everyone is relying on me to end this, and I can’t fail them again, not after they’ve all fought so hard for so long. I can’t let them down.”

The prickling sense of observation sharpened. Varric had their attention.

“I need your help,” he repeated, raising his voice louder, directing it to the unseen listeners. “To be who they need me to be. To defeat Corypheus. It’s my fault he’s free in the first place, my fault he has red lyrium. I have to fix this, I have to stop him, and I’ll…I’ll pay whatever price you ask. Whatever it takes.”

Silence. Silence and watchful eyes. And then…a sense of retreating presence, the darkness fading. Attention turned away.

“Please!” cried Varric, desperately. “Please, I need…I’ll do anything, do you hear me? Do you understand? I’ll do—”

Vir mythal’enaste.

Varric woke so abruptly he could still feel the words dying on his lips, coming out as a kind of choked gasp. His head felt like someone had split it open with a chisel and scrambled his brains about.

“Varric? Are you alright? Maker…please, open your eyes.”

Cassandra’s face, when he finally managed to focus on her, was drawn and pale. She was kneeling, his head cradled on her lap, which Varric was unfortunately in no state of mind to appreciate. She must have pulled him from the well after he fell into the waters, though he didn’t need to look to know that the shallow pool would now be dry as a bone, drained and empty. He sat up with some difficulty, wincing at the clanging pain in his head and his damp clothes, his forehead creasing at the muffled cacophony of whispers that rose immediately at the back of his mind. The Well of Sorrows. It had worked. Varric reached for one of Cullen’s techniques, breathing slowly in through his nose and out through his mouth, building a wall in his mind, brick by brick, blocking the sound off behind it with painful effort.

“I’m okay,” he managed, his voice coming out as little more than a rasp.

The others were all staring at him, and Cassandra didn’t look very convinced either. She reached out, brushing his wet hair back from his brow with a slightly shaking hand and cupping his face in her palm, her eyes anxiously searching his expression. Her touch was warm, unspeakably tender, and Varric longed to reach up and take her hand in his, to turn his face and kiss the softness of her palm. He might have done it, and to hell with the consequences, if not for the sound which made all their heads turn, the sound that chilled Varric down to his marrow.

Wingbeats. Great, leathery wingbeats, growing louder with every passing moment.

“Incoming!” cried the Iron Bull.

Corypheus had found a way around the temple defences, or else Varric using the well had drained whatever lingering protections this place had. As the stomach-droppingly familiar shape of his dragon appeared over the temple, swooping towards them, Corypheus himself appeared at the far end of the courtyard, through the open doors they had entered by. In Varric’s slightly dazed state, the sight struck him as almost comical – this eight foot tall, twisted monstrosity, like a villain from a kid’s storybook, striding through the doors alone like a customer entering a shop just five minutes before closing time. Corypheus’ mangled, lyrium-corrupted face surveyed the scene in a faintly irritated fashion, as though he was offended at no-one rushing to offer him service, and was about to demand to speak to the owner of the temple.

Then his eyes fell upon them all, and the Eluvian, and the drained pool before it. Varric saw the moment of realisation on his face even as Cassandra leapt to her feet and drew her sword, bracing herself in front of their fallen Inquisitor along with Solas and Bull, the latter still with Samson slung over his shoulder. Even Morrigan had her staff in her hand, and had put herself between him and Corypheus, readying for battle.

Varric came to his senses. “No!” he cried, scrambling to his own feet. “Through the mirror! Come on!”

He couldn’t have said how he knew how to do it, but the Eluvian lit up at the slightest effort of his will, the dull glass turning to a bright white portal as they sprinted towards it. There was no time for hesitation; they leapt into the mirror in a chaotic rush even as a scream of rage from Corypheus rent the silence of the temple behind them and a thump of air from huge wings overhead almost bore them to the ground. Varric was last through, hoping like hell the portal would close the instant he was through it, or they were all dead.

There was the familiar sensation of icy cold, of being pulled…and then he tumbled out the other side, barely managing to keep his feet. Varric got the impression of a small stone room, oddly familiar, of being surrounded by anxious faces, and then the voices in his head burst into a roar of dissonant whispers, and his legs buckled beneath him.

Cassandra caught him as he fell. “A healer,” she ordered the others, her voice breaking. “Fetch Mother Giselle—”

“No,” rasped Varric, and struggled to stand up, pushing her away. “No, I’m alright,” he said. “I’m fine, it’s just…it takes some getting used to.”

And he was getting used to it, he realised with relief, minute by minute. Dealing with the Well’s whispering voices was like catching an unpleasant memory before it had time to replay in your mind, pushing it back to be examined later. He could feel them there, but it was easier this time to close the door on them, leaving their words little more than the murmurs from a conversation in the next room. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to ground himself in his own body.

“Where are we?” he asked, looking around, his head still a little fuzzy.

“We are back in Skyhold,” said Cassandra. “You brought us home.”

That was why the room looked familiar – the five of them were in the old storeroom in which Morrigan had hidden her own Eluvian when she’d come to the castle. In fact, when Varric turned, there it was, propped against the wall, dust sheets pooled around its base, looking no more threatening than a normal mirror, though his own reflection in its surface had certainly seen better days. The blessedly familiar cool damp smell of Skyhold’s stones and the faint whistling of the wind through the Frostbacks outside confirmed that they truly were a world away from the vegetable heat of the jungle. In his panic, it seemed, Varric had opened the doorway back to the safest place he knew. It was at once profoundly disorienting and a tremendous relief.

“Not bad for my first try,” he said vaguely. Merrill was going to go nuts when he told her about this. Could he activate any Eluvian now, or just the one at the temple? Would he be able to seal them all off for Corypheus?

“What of the well?” asked Morrigan eagerly, leaning in. “What is it like? What does it tell you?”

“Give him a moment,” snapped Cassandra.

“No, it’s okay,” said Varric. “She’s right, there was no point doing this if I can’t use it.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment, let the door in his mind open just a crack, and listened.

It wasn’t like having a conversation, not exactly. It was more like…remembering a conversation he’d already had a long time ago, things he’d once known coming back to him as he concentrated:

His forces are laid waste, but Corypheus will not flee…that dragon is no archdemon…no mere pet…it is a part of him and he a part of it…slay the beast and the darkspawn may be slain also…you will need the witch…she is a servant of our lady…she is her own creature!...she cannot be trusted…a traitor…the dragon is the key…he will not return…for a child of the stone to have this power is blasphemy…you are our lady’s champion…you are to be an instrument of Her will…kill the dragon and your enemy will be mortal once more…

It was like being told a slightly different version of the same thing at once by a dozen different people, all vying to make their voices heard. Varric shut them out once more and opened his eyes to the curious expressions of his companions.

“I’ll need some time to understand it,” he lied. “But I think it can help us.”

“You think.” Morrigan looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. “If only one who had the training to understand the well’s power properly had drunk from it.”

“What’s done is done,” said Solas, and perhaps it was the faint hint of smugness in his voice that finally made Morrigan crack. With a noise of disgust worthy of Cassandra herself, she pushed past them and out of the room, throwing her parting words behind her like daggers:

“You know where to find me, Inquisitor. If you have need of me. Or if you intend to send a squad of lackeys to throw me out like a mad drunk from a tavern.”

The door banged dramatically behind her, making Varric wince.

“I might make the same offer, Inquisitor,” said Solas, breaking the awkward silence that Morrigan left in her wake in a rather calmer manner. “I can claim no great expertise in this Well of Sorrows, but if you require my help in trying to understand this new power you now wield, I am at your disposal.”

“Thanks, Chuckles,” said Varric, and Solas made his way towards the door too. The Iron Bull glanced from Varric to Cassandra – who was now standing there stone faced, not looking at anyone – and muttered something vague about getting the prisoner to the dungeons before picking up the limp form of Samson and beating a hasty retreat along with Solas, leaving the two of them alone in the storeroom.

Varric shuffled from foot to foot, wishing he knew what to say to break the horrible tension. “I really am alright, Seeker,” he said. “I don’t feel any sudden fealty to any long-dead elven gods.” He allowed himself a reassuring grin. “I’m pretty sure that part was bullshit. To stop just anyone from taking the well’s knowledge, maybe.”

Cassandra did not look reassured. Her face was still pale and rigid with worry. “Nonetheless, it was reckless,” she said tightly. “You did not know what would happen, what the consequences might be...”

“It’s done,” said Varric, deciding that maybe Solas’ tack was the one to take. “Listen, I got the Anchor by sheer, dumb accident, but this was my choice. Corypheus…maybe he’s not completely my fault, but he is my responsibility now. I’m the Inquisitor, and if this helps the Inquisition stop him, it’s worth it.”

“That is no reason to treat your life as if it is disposable!” said Cassandra, her voice rising in a sudden storm of passion that genuinely took him by surprise. She started forwards and then stopped abruptly, as if she’d meant to seize him by the shoulders again and only just checked herself. “I have told you before, and yet you persist in this…this…you cannot keep doing this, Varric!” she pleaded. “You might have been killed!”

“That might be what it costs, in the end,” said Varric, as gently as he could. “You know that, Seeker. We all know that.”

“No, I…I cannot accept that,” said Cassandra. “You are our leader, like it or not. You are not just the head of the Inquisition, you are its heart as well, and if we lost you I…I…” Her breath caught in her throat, and Varric realised with an awful lurch in his chest that she looked almost close to tears. The expression on her face as she stared at him was one of bleak despair.

“If we lost you, I do not know what I would do,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I do not think I could survive it.”

“Seeker…”

But Cassandra spun on her heel and stormed away, and even if Varric had enough wits about him in his shock to go after her, he could never have kept up with her stride.

It was late by the time Varric was able to drag his weary feet up the stairs to his rooms at the top of the tower. The Inquisitor returning unexpectedly to Skyhold via magic created a lot of logistical problems to be dealt with, it turned out, not least that there was a whole Inquisition army in the Arbor Wilds waiting for him to emerge from the jungle again. The first thing Varric did was send a raven to explain what had happened at the temple, but it would take the best part of a day to reach its destination, and that meant they had to wait for news to return too. At the least, Varric was able to reassure those anxiously awaiting news of the battle that initial reports when he’d last spoken to Cullen were predicting a complete rout of Corypheus’ forces, vastly outnumbered as they were. The only risk – though Varric didn’t say this part aloud – was that Corypheus might have been angry enough at the loss of the Eluvian to enter the fray himself with his dragon. Still, Varric comforted himself in that it didn’t feel very likely. Even the lyrium-encrusted monstrosity of that beast wouldn’t do well fighting in the tangled canopy of the jungle, and frankly Varric thought Corypheus probably didn’t give two shits about the fate of his minions, and would be more likely just to leave them to their fate after having failed to get what he’d personally come for. Besides…now he knew that the dragon’s safety itself was something Corypheus did have good reason to be very concerned about; he couldn’t imagine it would be risked on an already failed undertaking.

Only time would tell for sure. But for now, in the absence of Josephine, Leliana or Cullen, it fell to Varric to be all Inquisitorial at people and spin his abrupt return as the success of a very secret mission to foil Corypheus once again, which technically it had been. The whole escapade could also easily have come across as the Inquisitor running away like a coward, but Varric was good enough at spinning things the right way, and by the end of the day word was spreading through the castle that it was Corypheus who had fled the field of battle and was now on the run, his armies laid waste and his plans thwarted.

Varric told no-one of the Well of Sorrows. His followers who knew him as the Herald of Andraste likely wouldn’t be happy to discover he’d willingly made some kind of deal with a dead elven goddess, even if only of the metaphorical kind. Luckily the after-effects of the Well hadn’t lingered for more than a couple of hours, and physically he felt fine. Varric was aware of it there at the back of his mind still, the knowledge he could access if he reached for it, but it felt more or less under his control. Like the Anchor, really. But at least this particular weird-ass power had been voluntary, and a longer conversation with Solas in his study – more productive away from the provocation of Morrigan, who was still off sulking somewhere – had confirmed that Varric’s ability to use the Anchor itself seemed unchanged. Of course, it was still entirely possible that a dwarf taking in an ancient elven magical power he was inherently incompatible with meant that the Well of Sorrows was slowly eating away at his brain and he’d been dead within a week, but he’d agreed to any price, hadn’t he? Best not to think about that. Just add it to the pile.

Still, it was a relief for Varric to be able to finally escape the eyes of the castle and head towards the sanctuary of his private rooms, to have some time to think about all the things he’d been putting aside that the Inquisitor didn’t have the luxury of feeling. Maybe he’d stay up and write to Hawke. He could admit to her, at least, that he was scared shitless.

But it turned out he’d relaxed too soon, because when he reached the top of the stairs, in a moment that was fast becoming so commonplace that Varric didn’t even feel the surprise he should anymore, he found that Cassandra was already there, waiting for him.

“You were right, this room is far too big,” she said, by way of greeting. “It is absurd.”

She was sitting on the edge of his writing desk, and Varric wondered if it had taken her some time to decide where to wait, if she had considered standing too formal, the couch too intimate. She certainly didn’t look relaxed, though she was out of her armour and dressed only in a linen shirt and breeches, sitting stiffly on the mahogany surface with her feet dangling slightly off the floor.

His heart kicked a little at the sight of her, as it always did, and Varric suddenly felt unfathomably tired. He wasn’t sure he had it in him right now, to sit through another round being berated for his recklessness, or even of awkward apologies, some fresh attempt to make things between them normal again, as if they ever could be. Hadn’t she tortured him enough? Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

“Why are you here, Seeker?” he said quietly, with a weariness he didn’t trouble to hide.

“Because it is no use,” Cassandra replied, with a strange, almost sad little smile. “Because it makes no difference if I am lying in my own bed, staring at the ceiling, or in a tent somewhere in the middle of the wilderness a hundred miles away; whatever I do all I can think about is that you are not with me. And how much I wish that you were.”

He saw her chest rise and fall as she took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Because I am in love with you, Varric,” she said, her voice and her gaze steady. “And wishing it were otherwise cannot change that. Knowing that it is hopeless cannot change it. I love you. I don’t ask anything of you, but I would have you know it. You deserve that much.”

Varric stared at her, and then he let out a shaky exhale of his own, because for a moment he’d forgotten to breathe at all. “Maker’s ass, Seeker,” he said. “And you say you can never find the right words.”

Cassandra did not drop her gaze. “If you wish me to leave, I will,” she said.

Varric took a step, half-stumbling, towards her. His heart was hammering a frantic drumbeat in his chest. “I don’t want you to leave,” he said. “I never want you to leave.”

And then words weren’t enough; he closed the space between them in a few strides, took Cassandra’s face in his hands and kissed her like he’d wanted to for months. It was nothing like the frantic, spur-of-the-moment kiss they had shared in the cold at Suledin Keep. It was purposeful and deep and intensely passionate, heat blossoming in Varric’s chest down to the very tips of his fingers and toes as Cassandra’s lips moved against his. He kissed her like it was the last thing he’d ever do, and right then he didn’t care if it was.

She made a little noise, as they parted, that Varric would remember for the rest of his life. He let his forehead rest against hers, sharing breath, overcome by the moment. His hands slid down to rest lightly on her shoulders, feeling the rise and fall of them as she breathed.

“Varric,” said Cassandra, her voice uncertain, slightly dazed. “I…I wish to do something, and you must promise not to make fun of me.”

Varric raised his head and felt a smile spread across his face as he looked into her anxious expression. “Seeker, why in Andraste’s name would I make fun of you right now?” he asked.

“Just promise.”

“Alright, I promise.”

Cassandra hesitated for a moment, and then she reached out a hand and placed it on his chest, where his shirt was open.

“Hm.” The noise she made then was one of soft, fervent satisfaction. Her palm skimmed his chest, fingers curling a little though the fine hair, fingernails grazing his skin. Varric forgot how to breathe again. His heart might be about to explode.

Cassandra raised her gaze from his chest back to his eyes, looking a little curious. “You’re not making fun of me,” she said, sounding surprised. “You’re not amused by my impulse?”

“Uh…not the primary emotion I’m currently experiencing, no,” said Varric, hoarsely. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and Cassandra smiled.

“Oh,” she said. She leaned in and captured his lips again, kissing him with a slow, deliberate sensuality, her hand roaming a little more boldly now, sliding up to his shoulder, under the edge of his tunic. Maker. Varric’s arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, her legs bracketing his hips. The warm, yielding softness of her pressed against him…

They parted, both breathing hard, both knowing where this was going. The very air in the room was hot and charged with the inevitability of it, the thrumming anticipation.

“All the things I said at The Winter Palace,” Cassandra said, breathless, “all the reasons that this is a bad idea…they haven’t gone anywhere. They are still true.”

“I know,” said Varric.

“There cannot be a happy ending for us. This will hurt us, sooner or later. You know that, don’t you?”

“I don’t care. I’d crawl over broken glass through the Deep Roads, Seeker.”

“Cassandra,” she said, her a voice a gentle violence.

“Cassandra.” Varric caressed her name, feeling it dissolve like sugar on his tongue. “Cassandra, I love you.”

Cassandra’s eyes closed briefly. “Oh,” she whispered. It was helpless little sound, a mixture of pleasure and pain. “You love me.”

The surprise in her voice just about broke his heart. Varric kissed her, softly, a brush of his lips against hers. “Yes.”

Her eyes opened, dark and molten. “You…you want me?”

“Yes.”

“Say it,” she whispered. “Please. I want to hear you say it.”

“I want you, Cassandra.” His voice almost broke with the enormity of it, the sheer inadequacy of putting the feeling into words. “Maker, I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“You have me,” she said, simply. “I am yours.”

In one of his books there might have been the end of a chapter, perhaps a tasteful trail of punctuation to imply the rest. In beautiful, imperfect reality, there was the awkward stumble to the absurdly oversized bed and Varric was obliged to stop kissing her long enough for the two of them to clamber onto it, whereupon he resumed kissing her with a hunger that might have embarrassed him if Cassandra hadn’t been kissing him back with equal fervour, her hands already tugging at his clothes. Inelegant, clumsy, she was laughing a little now but seemed intent on getting him naked as quickly as possible and not too bothered about herself, which wouldn’t do at all. Varric tugged at her shirt ineffectually, usually deft fingers suddenly clumsy on the lacings, and when Cassandra caught on she made an irritable noise in the back of her throat and pulled the offending item over her head in an impatient movement, discarding it behind her. She wore nothing underneath.

Varric beheld her, hair tousled, flushed with desire and naked from the waist up, and if lightning struck him down from the heavens right now, his life wouldn’t have been a total waste.

“Holy shit, Seeker,” he breathed.

She smiled. “Always so eloquent.”

He laughed too, giddy with joy and desire, and bore her back against the pillows of the bed, hit suddenly with the hot, overwhelming surge of arousal at having her pinned beneath him, the vision of a thousand guilty fantasies. His eyes locked with hers, his hand drifted to her waistband, but the sharp hitch in Cassandra’s breath made him pause. There was something in her sudden stillness that spoke a little more of tension than of desire.

“Hey, if this is too soon…” Varric said, drawing his hand away, “if you don’t want—”

“No!” Cassandra exclaimed, with such obvious alarm that he could hardly doubt her sincerity. “No I don’t…I do want this. Very much. It is just…it has been a long time.”

Varric smiled, in spite of his pounding heartbeat, the urgency of his need for her. “Yeah, for me too,” he said softly.

He saw the look on Cassandra’s face, and realised he’d answered a question she would never have asked aloud. He didn’t want her to linger in that thought, not now, and so he kissed her again, kissed her eager mouth, the sharp line of her jaw, her collarbones, her perfect breasts. He took it slow, taking his time, savouring every moment, feeling Cassandra soften and relax, sighing with pleasure, desire overcoming doubt again. When he indulged his own desire to taste one tight, dusky pink nipple, she made a desperate little sound, her head falling back against the pillows, her hand clutching at the bedsheets, the other tangling in his hair. Maker, he wanted to touch every part of her. To take her apart and put her back together, to know her completely. Varric nuzzled into her neck, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses at the juncture of her shoulder, letting his teeth graze her skin.

“You remember chapter three of Swords and Shields?” he murmured. “In the Guard Captain’s office?”

“Of course,” replied Cassandra breathlessly. “Why—oh.” Her eyes widened a little when he pulled back to look at her, colour staining her cheekbones prettily. “You want to…?”

“Yeah.” Varric’s voice came out as a rasp, on the edge of pleading. “Is that ok?”

“No-one has ever—” Her blush deepened. “That is…yes.” She swallowed hard. She was trembling slightly as he set about the business of removing the rest of her clothes, and his own. He wanted nothing between them, wanted her to see how badly he wanted her. And when he settled between her legs, he could see how badly she wanted this too. Maker, she was so wet, sticky to the thighs, the dark curls between her legs damp and clinging.

Varric felt no hesitation, no trace of awkwardness. Nothing but the sheer pleasure at the realness of Cassandra, her body laid out before him like a blank page waiting to be written on, and every part of him filled with the profound desire to make her feel good, to make her feel a fraction of what he felt. He bent his head and applied his tongue to the task it was always meant for, as Cassandra gasped and moaned and made the most filthy, gorgeous sounds. Yes, yes, yes. His hands on her hips, fingers pressing into soft, yielding flesh. Yes. The heady scent of her, everything slick and swollen and flushed. Oh Maker, yes. Cassandra was writhing, utterly undone. He was just aware of her hands twisted in the bedsheets, white-knuckled, as she cried out to the Maker, to Andraste, to Varric, alternately cursing and pleading with him not to stop, please don’t stop, Varric—

Her thighs started to shake and he realised in a moment of startling, lightning-bolt clarity that she was going to come. She was going to come, and holy shit he was going to make Cassandra Pentaghast come, which was the most insane, wildly erotic concept in the whole of existence, and he nearly lost it then, just at the thought of it.

It was not a gentle thing, when it happened; Cassandra was unrestrained in this as in everything else, her body arching in a great spasm of rapture, and she cried out almost in shock, as if amazed by the staggering capacity of her own pleasure. When he had drawn the last shudder of bliss from her, Varric raised his head to see her sink back against the pillows, panting, her mouth slack and eyes closed.

His tongue sticky with the taste of her, he moved back up her body to press a kiss to her forehead, a small tenderness. Cassandra opened her eyes, heavy lidded with pleasure, and she looked…happy. That was what he remembered most, after, how simply, incandescently happy she looked, just to see him. He could drown in those sweet, dark eyes, or maybe burn to ash, a willing martyr to her touch. He wanted to look at nothing but her for the rest of his life.

“You’re so beautiful,” Varric said, because in that moment, he had no other words.

Cassandra wound her hand in his hair, pulled him down to kiss him, clumsily, ardently. “Please,” she whispered against his lips. Her long, slender leg hitched around his side, pressing him closer, making her meaning more than clear. “Please…”

He could have denied her nothing in this moment, least of all this. And sweet Andraste, the sound she made when Varric finally pushed into her was nothing he ever imagined Cassandra could make, a soft keen of pure, animal pleasure.  

“Varric…” she breathed. “Oh Varric…”

His name on her lips, husky with desire, did indescribable things to him. He surged forward, kissed her with a desperate passion, swallowing her moan as they found their rhythm immediately, and then he buried his face in her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her skin, sweat and sex, overcome by the sheer visceral reality of the two of them, joined together. He’d always wanted this. He’d always wanted her, his Seeker, wild and stubborn and passionate and so fucking lovely, needed her like air to breathe, needed her so badly it almost killed him every second she wasn’t with him; the words were falling from his mouth in a half-incoherent flood as he moved inside her, even as some distant part of him thought: she’ll give me hell for that, later, for not being able to stop talking even now.

He raised his head to look at her, prostrate and gorgeous beneath him, utterly exposed, a Cassandra that was only his, that no-one alive had ever seen. A flush was spreading across her chest, staining her collarbones, the sounds falling from her lips becoming more frantic. She clutched at his back, nails sinking into flesh, dragging him back down to press their bodies together, her legs winding around his back, wanting him deeper, harder, more. They were fucking now in earnest, primal and urgent, and it was so good, so good, every hard rolling thrust making the bed creak and tearing a desperate moan from Varric’s throat, closer and closer to release – Maker, he wanted it, needed it, and he felt the same need quickening in Cassandra, the trembling tension in her body, her cries muddling into wild incoherence as she lost any inhibition she had—the moment rising and swelling like a glittering tide, a gathering wave, building and building and then—she bit into the muscle of his shoulder as she pulsed around him, long and hard, and the frisson of pain sent him over the edge; he burst inside her with a raw, animal cry, inarticulate bliss, a blinding apotheosis of pleasure as they fell together.

After, they lay entwined, limp and sweat-slicked and sated. Cassandra curled around him, her leg draped over his own and her head pillowed on his shoulder, Varric’s arms wrapped around her. His limbs felt heavy, and he was exhausted, body and soul, but he fought sleep, wanting to cling to this moment for as long as he could.

“I love you,” he mumbled, feeling half drunk with it, lightheaded with the sheer pleasure of saying the words aloud, lost in the astonishing truth of them. “I love you, I love you…”

“I dreamed of this,” said Cassandra softly. He felt her breath against his skin, the words barely audible. “Of you holding me like this again, as you did in the caves below Haven.” Her voice broke slightly. “Maker, Varric, I…I wanted it so badly.”

There was a world of loneliness contained in those words, a glimpse into a deep well of longing and shame kept bottled-up for so long that Varric knew it was about more than just him, something he understood better than he could ever tell her. He kissed the top of Cassandra’s head, drawing her tight against him in the crook of his arm. He wanted to hold her closer, press her into his very bones, to never be apart from her again.

“So did I,” he said.

He succumbed to sleep with Cassandra in his arms, and maybe every saccharine, cliché, overblown romantic thing he’d ever written in his books was true after all.

Chapter Text

Varric lay in the delicious state between sleep and wakefulness, the hazy memories of the night before taking shape in his mind even as the vague awareness of another body next to his in the bed coalesced into wonderful, undeniable fact.

He opened his eyes to the now familiar sight of his tower-room ceiling, and then rolled over on his side to the much less familiar sight of a sleeping Cassandra, tousle-haired and breathing softly against his pillow. The coverlet of the bed was half on the floor, half crumpled at the end of the bed, tossed aside in a moment of forgotten passion, and the morning sunlight streaming through the windows caressed the smooth curves of Cassandra’s body, a repeating diamond pattern of light through the leaded glass thrown over her skin. The warm, animal smell of sex still lingered in the air.

Varric simply watched her breathe for a while, the rhythm of her shoulders rising and falling in the soft, sacred quiet of the morning, as the patterns of light slid across her back. Perhaps it should feel strange, seeing her like this, but somehow it just felt…right. She was still his Seeker, as much herself sprawled naked and asleep beside him as she was armoured in full plate, sword in her hand and splattered with blood. In this moment, his own feelings for her aside, Varric was simply and profoundly glad that she existed at all. Right now, in spite of the chaos his life had become, the whole world seemed to make perfect sense in a way it never had before, just because Cassandra Pentaghast was in it. If there was a miracle to be found in all of this, it was her. It had always been her.

He took her hand in his where it lay between them and brought it to his lips, kissing her fingers softly, one by one. Cassandra stirred slightly, perhaps already half awake herself, and he watched her drift back into consciousness with tender fascination, until her soft, dark eyes opened and focused on him. What did you say in situations like this? It had been so long Varric had forgotten, and in the light of day anything that came to mind seemed clumsy and trite. So he settled for just:

“Morning, Seeker.”

Cassandra blinked sleepily. “Morning,” she murmured, as if she were still catching up to where she was. Perhaps she was still working out whether she was dreaming or not – the thought made Varric smile. He would be embarrassed by all the raw, desperately earnest things he’d said last night, except that Cassandra had returned every sentiment and left him in no doubt that they were on the same page. So it was something of a surprise when she sat up in bed, shrugging off sleep, and said:

“I should go.”

Varric levered himself upright too, with a faint grunt of effort. “Got somewhere to be?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. It wasn’t as if there could be any word from the Arbor Wilds yet, and none of them had been expected back at Skyhold for weeks, so their time was pretty much their own for the moment.

“Well…no, not exactly,” admitted Cassandra, obviously realising this too. “But it is long past dawn. We should get up.”

“We should,” Varric agreed. “But this bed is so very warm and you are so very naked.”

He let his gaze travel across her body, shamelessly drinking in the sight of her; the lean, toned muscle, the soft, tantalising curves, every scar and mole and freckle, those long legs folded beneath her. Her braid had come undone sometime in the night, and the thin plait was lying, half unwoven, over her shoulder, like a river of ink down her skin. Varric reached out and stroked it idly.

“I’m not in any hurry to start the day,” he said. “Considering it would take a lot to make it live up to the extremely high bar of yesterday. And last night in particular.” He allowed himself a grin. “Unless I’m way off the mark, you seemed like you had a good time as well.”

He expected a wry comment, a remark on his being too pleased with himself this morning, but instead Cassandra dipped her head, smiling. “I did not know that it could be like that,” she said, almost shyly. “I always thought your books exaggerated. I thought all such tales were only meant as pleasant fantasies, that reality could never…” She trailed off, going a little pink.

“Careful, Seeker,” said Varric, delighted beyond measure. “You’re appealing to my ego as a writer and as a lover – I’m in danger of getting a swollen head.”

“Well, perhaps it is justified.” She shifted, leaned in close, self-consciously intimate. “There is such a thing as being too modest, you know,” she murmured, and then then gave him a sly little smile. “And I am more than happy to stroke your ego on occasion,” she added, the barest hint of a purr in her voice.

It was a terrible line, and therefore deeply unfair how alluring she somehow made it sound. It made parts of his body that should definitely know better stir eagerly. Varric groaned and pulled Cassandra down to kiss her fervently, feeling her smile against his mouth. The kiss melted into another, and another, until they were thoroughly entwined again, breathless and enthusiastic as youths in the first flush of love. The way she looked at him when they finally broke apart…Varric had never once thought of Cassandra as delicate, but in the softness of her skin, the open warmth of her smile, the tenderness in her gaze, there was something that was as fragile as spun-glass. He felt a fierce surge of protectiveness – not for her, exactly, because Maker knew she’d never been in need of his protection. But for this, this strange and wonderful thing that had happened to them both, somehow more unexpected than anything else that had happened to him since leaving Kirkwall.

“Can I ask you something?” Varric said, impulsively.

“With the understanding that I may not answer it,” said Cassandra.

“Why did you kiss me, back at Suledin Keep?”

“Oh.” She did look surprised at the question, but not annoyed, drawing away a little to consider her answer. “I was…upset,” she said.

“You’ve been upset with me plenty of times, and you never kissed me about it before,” Varric pointed out.

“I was not upset with you,” said Cassandra. “I was upset with myself. You’d just risked your life for mine, put yourself in danger to protect me, and I was angry, but I was also…pleased. I was happy that you cared for me enough to do that. I didn’t know…that was the first moment I thought that maybe you truly did feel as I did. Of course, I did not want you to die for me, but the thought that you would was…”

She trailed off, as if she were a little ashamed, even now, to admit to what she was saying. “It was a lot to feel all at once,” she said. “I have always been better suited to actions than words.”

“I should put myself in mortal peril more often,” said Varric.

“That,” said Cassandra sternly, “was not the message to take away from that incident.”

“You really didn’t know how I felt about you?” asked Varric, genuinely surprised. And here he’d thought he was being humiliatingly obvious. “Me making an idiot of myself at the Winter Palace didn’t give you a hint that I was absolutely arse-over-tit in love with you?”

Cassandra looked torn between being amused by and disapproving of this turn of phrase. “You did not make it easy,” she objected. “I have told you before that you are too charming to everyone. It is difficult to tell when you actually mean it. Besides, at the Winter Palace you had just…things had not gone well, with Bianca. I feared perhaps you were simply looking for a…distraction.”

“A safer distraction would have been to go put my head in a dragon’s mouth, Seeker.”

Cassandra gave him a look. “Regardless of my family heritage, it is not entirely flattering to be compared to a dragon, Varric,” she said. “And you are trying to distract me now. I should return to my own room.”

“Or – here’s an idea,” said Varric. “You could not do that. Ever.” He grimaced. “It’s barely a room anyway. Do you even have a door?”

“Be serious.”

“I am. Really.” His voice softened. “Stay with me.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I can hardly move into your quarters.”

“Why not? You said yourself they’re far too big for me.”

“Because I…what would people think?”

“I know exactly what people will think,” said Varric. “They’ll think ‘that lucky bastard’.”

A breathless giggle escaped Cassandra, a delightfully un-Seeker like sound that Varric immediately resolved to tempt from her as often as possible. He pressed his advantage, reaching out to caress her face in tender affection. “Cassandra,” he said softly. “When have you ever cared about what people thought?”

She closed her eyes briefly, as if in pain, and Varric wondered if he’d misread the moment, if he shouldn’t have pushed.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

But when she opened her eyes again, Cassandra’s gaze was warm and glowing with pleasure. “It is just that I never thought I would hear you say my name like that,” she said. Her voice held a tenor that sent a shiver down his spine. “I find I like it very much.”

“I like saying it. Cassandra…” Varric leaned in and kissed her softly. “Cassandra,” he repeated, light as a feather against her lips. He kissed her again. “My Cassandra…”

She liked that even better, and showed her appreciation so enthusiastically that it effectively put paid to any more discussion on the matter for a while.

She didn’t leave, in the end. She stayed. It was perhaps the first time that anyone ever had, for him.

The world didn’t stop turning just because you wanted it to. However much you wished you could freeze time, preserve a moment of perfect, unfathomable happiness in the eternal present, sooner or later the future always barged open the door like a landlord demanding rent. Endings only existed in books. In real life, there was always the next day to face, the next problem to solve. The next crisis.

But sometimes, when fate was feeling kind, you did get a bit of a break.

Varric’s break was less than a week – six glorious days of something approaching freedom as the rest of the Inquisitorial Council made their way back from the Arbor Wilds, six days of nowhere to be and nothing to do, six days filled with nothing but lazy late mornings, writing in the quiet corner of the tavern, and Cassandra.

Cassandra, there when he woke every morning. Cassandra strolling by his side through the courtyard as he read her a letter from Aveline, Cassandra laughing at his jokes over dinner, Cassandra practising her sword drills as Varric sat and watched, no longer bothering to hide his appreciation. Cassandra in his bed every night, and Varric had almost forgotten how good it was, really, how good it all was, how even the most fertile imagination was a poor substitute for reality. Sex; not just the sheer, animal pleasure of it, but the way it stripped away everything else, leaving only this is you and this is me and here we are, and for now, nothing else matters. The physical expression of a feeling too huge and intangible to ever put into words, spoken instead with every kiss, every touch, and Varric had been in love before, but not like this, never anything like this. Every time he looked at his Seeker, he was astonished to find her anew, as if she were something he was sure he must have dreamed up, a creation of his restless quill and the quiet, lonely ache of his heart, so long suppressed he had almost stopped feeling it at all. Impossible that she existed, impossible that she loved him. And yet there she was.

News from the Arbor Wilds arrived before any people did, and it was cause for celebration. The Inquisition forces, along with the armies of Orlais, had won a decisive victory against the Venatori and red templars. Corypheus’ forces were dead or captured, and Corypheus himself had fled. Or left, anyway, the semantics were up for debate, but the result was the same – his reign of terror across the south was all but over. The Inquisition’s forces would take some time to hunt down and mop up any last remaining holdouts of red templars, and Leliana’s people were always rooting out Venatori sympathisers trying to worm their way into various corridors of power, but for all intents and purposes, Corypheus was finished. With no army of followers at his back, he was just a mage with a big dragon, and since the Inquisition had dealt with both mages and dragons before, the general mood was one of overwhelming relief. Skyhold castle was bursting with triumphant pride.

Of course, Varric was very aware that it wasn’t over yet. If Corypheus’ armies had been the Inquisition’s problem, then Corypheus himself was the Inquisitor’s, especially now that Varric was the only person who knew of a way to permanently destroy him. Finding and killing Corypheus before the bastard could search out another Eluvian, or find another way to enter the Fade, was now the task that would occupy the Inquisition’s every moment, and when Cullen, Josephine and Leliana returned to Skyhold, the Council agreed. There was time for celebration of their victory, yes, but also work still to be done.

That meant an unpleasant task that Varric had been ignoring since his own return had to be done too. He hadn’t exactly been looking forward to the inevitable confrontation with Morrigan, but with the return of the Inquisitorial Council he couldn’t put it off any longer; the voices from the Well of Sorrows had made him certain that the witch had a part to play in their fight, and he didn’t dare ignore the knowledge he’d risked so much to gain.

It was only later that Varric realised the decision to seek out Morrigan at the particular moment that he did might not have been his own choice at all, but a compulsion buried so deep that he hadn’t even been aware of its pull. Because when he went to find Morrigan in the room with the Eluvian, where he somehow knew she must be, he was just in time to see her calling after her son Kieran as he disappeared into the mirror, and the next moment she’d leapt through it herself, leaving Varric with no choice but to follow.

It hadn’t been much of a surprise to find himself once again in the Fade, though at least this time with a clearer exit route than he’d ever had on his previous unwilling trips there. The one slim silver lining was that by the time Varric had caught up with Morrigan, whose terrified cries for her son were easy enough to follow, she’d clearly forgotten all about any quarrel between them. They’d searched for the boy together, through the horribly familiar landscape of mist-wreathed stone and weird echoes, until finally a glow in the distance drew them like a beacon to what had called them all here. Keiran, apparently unhurt and unafraid, had greeted his frantic mother with nothing more than a smile. But standing before him had been—

“Mythal?” Leliana’s voice was sceptical.

Varric paused in his narrative, which he’d been relaying to the members of the Inquisitorial Council, shut up together in the War Room and listening to his tale with various attitudes of shock and consternation. This was the biggest revelation to swallow, he knew, and he wasn’t surprised that Leliana had been the one to speak up. She’d had dealings with Morrigan’s mother before, Varric knew, back during the last Blight.

“Flemeth claimed to be the elven goddess herself?” Leliana said.

“She did more than that,” said Varric grimly. “She ordered me to restrain Morrigan, and I did it. Couldn’t help myself; it was like my body moved by itself.”

The looks of horror from the faces of his audience were expected, but no more welcome for it. The realisation that had hit Varric in that moment with a cold dread was almost as unpleasant to see in the eyes of the others.

“Then this was the price the Well of Sorrows spoke of,” said Josephine. “Bound forever to the will of Mythal…”

“That doesn’t prove she’s Mythal herself,” said Cullen, frowning. “By every account of her, Flemeth is a powerful mage, and I doubt she’d baulk at blood magic. Maybe she was just playing off an old legend to intimidate you.”

“Does it matter?” said Leliana. “Witch or goddess, if she has some kind of power over you, Inquisitor, that is problem enough.” Her blue eyes were hard, like chips of ice. “I knew Morrigan couldn’t be trusted,” she said. “I should never have allowed her to join the Inquisition.”

But Varric shook his head. “Feathers didn’t know anything about this, I’m sure of that,” he said. “She looked terrified, I mean really terrified. Flemeth…Mythal…whoever, wanted to take Kieran away. I thought it might come to a knock-down-drag-out fight between them, and who knows what side I would have ended up on. Not sure I would have had a choice in the matter.”

“The boy?” asked Josephine, surprised. “What would one so powerful need with a child?”

Varric shrugged. “No idea.”

“I know,” said Leliana, unexpectedly. “But it is…not my secret to tell.”

They all looked at her in surprise, but there didn’t seem to be any more forthcoming. Just another of Nightingale’s mysteries.

“Well, whatever his grandmother wanted from him, I think she got it,” said Varric. “She took something from the kid, that’s for sure. Then she let him go.”

And me. He didn’t voice the obvious implication aloud, but it hung over the conversation anyway. If Flemeth had crooked her finger and ordered Varric to follow her into the Fade, he wasn’t entirely sure he would have been able to refuse. He remembered all too well the sudden compulsion, the disturbing experience of his body moving beyond his own control, like a puppet dangled on strings…

A hand on his shoulder, the steady warmth of it bringing him back to the present. Cassandra was standing beside him, of course, listening attentively along with the others, but now she had broken the veneer of professional detachment with a simple gesture. She didn’t trouble to hide the moment of obvious intimacy, and Varric saw the brief flash of surprise in the expressions of the others, quickly concealed.

“Whatever she is,” Cassandra said. “If she wants you, she will have to go through me.”

“Through all of us,” said Josephine firmly, and Varric was touched to see the others looking equally determined.

“If you’re bound to this…person by magic of some kind, there must be a way to dispel it,” said Cullen.

“Morrigan has thwarted her mother’s plans before,” said Leliana, which was the closest Varric had ever heard to her giving Morrigan a compliment. “Flemeth is not all-powerful, and the Inquisition has mages from across Thedas, elven ones amongst them, and scholars of ancient history too. We will find a way to release you from whatever hold she has over you, Inquisitor.”

Varric nodded, not entirely reassured, but more heartened than he could say at this united show of determination on his behalf. He finished the rest of his account quickly, sticking to the bare facts of what Morrigan’s mother had said before disappearing back into the depths of the Fade.

“This is an interesting opportunity,” said Leliana thoughtfully when he was done, her earlier sympathy yielding quickly to typical pragmatism. “It was an act of courage to take on the Well’s knowledge for yourself, Inquisitor, and it has already borne fruit. Whatever other agenda she has, it seems that Mythal has as much reason as us to want Corypheus dead.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” said Cullen, a touch sceptically. “You really think that applies here?”

“Friend is a strong word, but I would rather another ally than another foe, even if it is only temporary,” said Josephine. “Do you think she was in earnest about helping us against Corypheus, Inquisitor?”

“Yeah,” said Varric instantly. “I do.” It was his own instincts as much as the voice of the Well that made him sure of that, at least. Apart from anything else, there was no reason to have let him go if he wasn’t already about to do exactly what his new puppeteer wanted him to anyway.

“I suppose a woman who calls herself a god would hardly be likely to look kindly on a potential rival,” said Cullen.

“Then we are agreed,” said Leliana. “We will trust that our interests align with Flemeth’s for now at least, and seek out this altar she spoke of.”

“I’m pretty sure I can find it,” said Varric, which he figured sounded better than ‘the voices in my head know exactly where to go’.

“Best to leave quickly then, and without drawing undue attention,” said Leliana. “Maker forbid that Corypheus himself learns of where you are going and gets there before you, as you did to him in the Arbor Wilds.”

And so Varric set out from Skyhold once more just a few days later, with no speeches and cheering crowds lining the battlements this time, just Cassandra, Solas and Bull riding out with him as dawn broke over the mountains. Like old times, really. Varric didn’t have it in him to feel nervous about their mission – instead he was possessed of a slightly worrying sense of certainty which he didn’t share with the others. He knew exactly where the altar that Flemeth had spoken of was, could feel it in the same way a compass needle was pulled north, and he knew what they would find there too. The voices of the well were less like intruders in the back of his mind now, and had taken on the shape of his own thoughts, as if the knowledge had always been a part of him. It was…weird, and it should have bothered Varric more than it did. Perhaps he’d just long since filled up his capacity for being surprised by weird shit. In any case, he sort of agreed with Leliana that even in spite of what he’d learned since, his choice to drink from the Well of Sorrows still wasn’t one he regretted; it had already given him the knowledge to defeat Corypheus, and now Mythal, or Flemeth, or whoever she was, had promised him the power to make it happen. If she really was on the level about all this…well, even if he did end up bound to her will for all eternity, Varric had made worse deals in his life.

It didn’t do to dwell too much on the potential troubles of the future. Right now, Varric felt like his path was clear, and walking beside him along it was the woman he loved. How could he fear anything?

The journey south into the Orlesian forests was a damn-near blissful one, a world of difference from the last time Varric had come this way, when they’d been walking into the middle of a civil war. The weather held and the roads were as safe as they’d been for months, and every small town or village they passed through was buzzing with the news of the Inquisition’s victory in the Arbor Wilds. Varric didn’t want to draw attention to himself by revealing who he was, and so they stopped only long enough to replenish what supplies they needed from local traders along the way, sending Solas as the least recognisable of their party to pick up what they needed. They were all plenty accustomed to sleeping a little rough when need be, and since Varric was still sharing a tent with Cassandra, as had always been their habit, he was even coming around to the charms of camping in general. Admittedly, there wasn’t much room for romance in a tent, but they made do, unable to hold back the tide of their shared desire, still giddy and reckless with the newness of it all. Cassandra’s mouth finding his in the darkness, hands on bare skin, grasping and urgent, the sweetness of her muffled cries swallowed up by the sounds of the forest outside.

Reasonable discretion was one thing, but they hadn’t made a secret of the change in their relationship. There was no way they would have been able to really, not in such a tight-knit group as the Inquisition’s inner circle had become, not with the joy blazing off both of them like a corona, obvious for anyone who knew them to see. So back at Skyhold they’d endured the teasing and the jokes and the ‘I-told-you-so’s; Leliana’s knowing smile, Sera’s crude gestures, Vivienne’s looks of thoughtful calculation, and even Dorian declaring he would write to Hawke at Weisshaupt and demand payment for a bet the two of them apparently had.

Here, on the road and with no-one but an indifferent Solas and an indulgent Iron Bull to roll his eyes when Varric and Cassandra emerged somewhat late and dishevelled from their tent early in the morning, there was no reason not to just enjoy being together. Cassandra spent a lot of the journey berating Varric about the latest chapter of Swords and Shields, which he’d given to her to read as a sneak preview. In it, the Knight Captain’s lover had been acting very suspiciously and Varric had hinted at his possible involvement with the villains of the piece, something Cassandra vociferously objected to.

“He cannot have betrayed her!” she complained. “He would never.”

“Never say never, Seeker,” said Varric, strolling by her side and enjoying the dappled sunlight on his face through the thickening trees they were passing through. “Everyone has a price, you know, and not always in gold.”

“So there is an explanation?” said Cassandra, pouncing on this little hint as he’d known she would.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Cassandra let out a little noise of frustration, her jaw set in a way that couldn’t quite be described as a pout, but Varric couldn’t help but find distractingly adorable nonetheless. He resisted the urge to pull her down to him and kiss the expression from her face, a course of action which would probably not have been hugely professional.

“Something up ahead, Boss,” said Bull, whose height often meant he saw things before the rest of them, but there was no hint of warning in his voice, so no-one reached for a weapon. “Looks like a ruin.”

“Yeah, this is the place,” said Varric. “I can feel it.”

“I feel it too,” said Solas quietly.

They all fell silent as they approached through a series of crumbled stone archways, the atmosphere weighing as heavily as it had in the temple of Mythal, a reverent hush tinged with expectation. The birds in the surrounding trees fell silent as they walked out into an open clearing, and the only sound was their footsteps on the soft grass, and the comfortingly familiar clink of Cassandra’s plate armour. They’d left their horses at camp, as Varric knew there would be no well-trodden path to follow, and mounts were more likely to slow them down than anything. Plus, they were here to find a dragon, and he didn’t fancy the idea of essentially trotting in atop a line of tasty, four-hooved dragon snacks.

At the far end of the clearing there was a huge stone statue, half overgrown with vines, that was clearly their destination even if the Well of Sorrows in the back of Varric’s mind hadn’t been drawing him towards it like a beacon in the dark. Mythal. He walked up to her carved image and looked up, wondering if he’d come to curse the day he ever heard the name, and suddenly felt an odd sense of déjà vu, remembering looking into the face of the stone statue of Andraste in the chapel at Skyhold. As much as Varric felt sometimes that he was acting as a pawn for one of them, maybe even both of them, it occurred to him that maybe there was a time when they’d felt that way too. After all, both Mythal and Andraste had ended up betrayed and murdered, according to the stories. Maybe they too had just been making everything up as they went along, doing the best they could. It was an odd thought, that maybe every towering figure of myth and history had been, deep down, just a regular person who could have no idea what would happen to them or how they would be remembered.

Maybe, in a thousand years from now, some poor sod would be looking up at a statue of him, and wondering how much of the story was really true.

Varric tore his eyes away from Mythal’s stony, unforgiving gaze and turned around to see the others looking at him expectantly.

“Ok, let’s do this,” he said.

The thing about stories was that after the big dramatic scene, you could just cut to the next interesting thing that happened with a brief paragraph of explanation to cover the intervening time. Varric envied his characters sometimes, for having no obligation to endure the boring in-between bits, or sit through long meetings, or read reports, or ever stop to go to the bathroom.

Characters in a book never had to make the journey back from places either. It wasn’t very exciting to turn around and just retrace the route you’d already taken, especially if you’d spent days travelling for a mission which turned out to take all of ten minutes to actually accomplish once you got there.

Mythal or not, what Flemeth had told him had proven true enough – the dragon would now come when he called it, though only once. Varric knew it in the same way he knew his own name, understood when he’d looked into the beast’s huge yellow eyes that the same power which had compelled him to follow Flemeth’s orders bound the dragon too. Bull was wildly jealous at the idea that Varric now had a tame dragon at his beck and call, but it was hard to explain to him that the dragon was very much Mythal’s creature, not his. Cassandra was inclined to be sceptical about the whole thing, uneasy about a power that sprang from somewhere so far outside the bounds of her own rigid and unwavering faith. She was also afraid for him, Varric could tell, though she tried to hide it, and was a little quieter on the return journey through the forest than she had been on the way in, Bull’s rapturous musings on all the possible uses for a tame dragon making up the bulk of the conversation.

With his head stuffed full of monsters and gods and ancient curses, Varric had pretty much forgotten that the world held more prosaic dangers as well, out in the wilder places like this. It felt almost quaintly nostalgic when they walked through a clearing and suddenly found themselves surrounded on all sides by an effective, if slightly amateurish, ambush. A couple of archers in the trees, a handful of guys with serviceable looking weapons flanking them as they emerged from the undergrowth. Bandits. Varric couldn’t blame them, really: to the casual observer, only the Iron Bull and Cassandra would have stood out as much of a threat, and he himself could easily be taken for a rich merchant travelling with a couple of bodyguards and an elven manservant. A set-up that wasn’t unusual in Orlais, though if Varric was in their place he really would have stopped to wonder why the targets weren’t on horseback.

“Weapons and packs on the ground, and turn out your pockets,” grunted one of the bandits, in a workmanlike fashion, almost sounding bored. “Armour too, miss,” he added, jerking his head to Cassandra. “Quick as you like and you’ll be on your way and we’ll be on ours.”

“Almost feel sorry for them, huh?” muttered Bull under his breath.

“Leave the elf too,” called another of the bandits, one of the archers in the trees. “He’ll fetch a decent price.”

“Okay, so that feeling didn’t last long,” said Bull. “On your mark, Boss.”

It wasn’t a long fight. Varric took care of the archers in the trees before they even had time to react, only one managing to loose off an arrow even as he was hit squarely with a crossbow bolt to the chest. The arrow clattered dully off the shield that Solas threw up with a sweep of his arm, and by the time the bandits realised their erstwhile victims had a mage with them, they were also halfway through realising that they had picked a fight with one of the finest swordswomen alive. It wasn’t a mistake they had much time to regret, as Cassandra went to work. After a few minutes the forest was peaceful again, and they were surrounded by corpses, blood seeping into the earth – a snack for the dragon after all, Varric thought, somewhat morbidly. Bull and Cassandra had done the bulk of the fighting, but neither had a scratch on them, and Cassandra looked like she’d faced more resistance from her training dummies. Once she was satisfied that the bandits were all dead, she sheathed her sword, throwing her head back and rolling out the kinks in her neck with obvious satisfaction, looking more at ease than she had since they’d found the altar. Nothing like a good fight for the Seeker to work out her stress, Varric figured, amused. Aware of his gaze on her, she turned to him with rueful smile, and he was struck suddenly by the gleam of sweat on her skin, the heat of battle in her eyes, and felt an answering heat flicker to life in his own body.

“Deserters from the Orlesian army, if the uniforms are anything to go by,” said Solas, who was examining a corpse dispassionately. “It would be prudent to be out of this forest by sundown, Inquisitor.”

“Huh?” Varric blinked. “Oh right. Yeah.”

Shit, if he was going to get turned on every time he saw Cassandra fight, he was going to have to seriously rethink some of his usual battle strategies. Varric made a conscious effort to pull himself together as they continued on the road, but he wasn’t the only one who’d enjoyed the show, it turned out.

“That was some solid work back there, Seeker,” said Bull, conversationally. “The way you backhanded that guy with your shield and then damn near chopped him in half? You and the boss should use that between the sheets.”

He was obviously trying to get a rise out of her, but Cassandra just raised her eyebrows at him. “How do you know we haven’t already?” she said.

Bull laughed, and Varric was suddenly so fucking happy that he was worried the top of his head might actually fall off from the big, stupid grin he couldn’t seem to wipe from his face. Cassandra really didn’t care that people knew about them. She wasn’t ashamed of him in the slightest.

The road became less deserted as the day drew on and they left the forest, passing through farmland until they reached a small village at a crossroads late in the afternoon. They paused to consult their map, and Cassandra declared they were making good time, and might even catch a mail coach part of the way north if they made a detour to the nearest town.

“There are still several hours left until nightfall,” she said to Varric, as Solas and Bull headed over to the market that was just packing up in the village square to see if they could pick up some cheap end-of-day food. “If we make the most of the light, we may even be able to catch the morning coach and return to Skyhold a day sooner than expected.”

“We could do that,” Varric agreed. “Or we could stop here for the night and patronise this very nice inn” – he gestured at the establishment in question – “where there’s a roaring fire, decent food and actual beds. Big, warm, comfortable beds…”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Varric,” she said sternly, with an undeniable smile in her voice. “You cannot delay our journey just because you want to—”

“It’s not just because of that,” Varric said hastily. “We deserve a proper rest, and real food, because we all know that opportunity doesn’t come along every day. We’ve been walking all day and fighting bandits to boot, but we did what we came here to do and for once we’re not on a deadline, so it wouldn’t kill us to take a minute before the next crisis. It’s a smart move to conserve energy when you get the chance.” He hesitated, but decided he could allow himself a little honesty, for her sake. “…and yeah, I also want to take you to bed tonight, and have a lot of hot, sweaty, mutually satisfying sex,” he added. “Is that so terrible?”

Cassandra was silent for a moment, and when he risked a glance at her, her eyes were turned to him with a look that could have melted steel. “No,” she said. “It isn’t so terrible.”

Varric got his way, and though the innkeeper was clearly not thrilled at the sight of a party that included a huge Qunari and a slightly shabby looking elven mage wandering into his establishment, a generous amount of coin quickly changed his tune and they procured some rooms for the night, as well as the promise of a decent cooked meal. Varric was no snob, but frankly it was nice just to be able to sit at a table and eat food with actual cutlery when you’d been on the road cooking rations over a campfire for a few days. A few more coins in the hand of a delighted serving girl and there was hot water brought up to wash up in, and the four of them met up again downstairs at a table looking significantly less travelworn. The inn’s main room was filling up as the evening drew in, a comforting hubbub of conversation from what seemed to be mostly travelling merchants and a few locals propping up the bar. For a part of Orlais this remote, Varric guessed this was probably the largest watering hole for quite a distance, and a common stop along the road for anyone used to passing this way. He’d avoided giving his name to anyone, hoping to remain unrecognised in spite of his more noticeable travelling companions, but these hopes were dashed pretty quickly, as they’d only just sat down and ordered some food when he was spotted.

“Inquisitor!”

The hail had come from across the room, and Varric looked round to see a human man waving at him enthusiastically. A quick glance gave him little information – the guy was young and well dressed, if somewhat travel-worn, and apparently unarmed. The accent hadn’t been Orlesian, maybe Ferelden or even Marcher, but he wasn’t anyone Varric recognised. Besides, most people he knew would have been more discreet than yelling out his title across a crowded room. Several heads craned curiously around as the human started to make his way towards their table.

“So much for travelling with a low profile,” said Varric.

“Wait, is that Harding?” said Bull suddenly, and Varric took a second glance at the small figure now making her way towards them alongside the man, and realised that the freckled face beneath the hood was indeed familiar. She appeared to be lightly berating her companion, and by the time they arrived at the table and Varric gestured for them to sit down, the human man looked a little pink in the face.

“My deepest apologies, Inquisitor,” he said, speaking with what was now more clearly a strong Starkhaven accent and with apparently genuine contrition. “Lady Harding is quite right to rebuke me – my enthusiasm overcame my common sense, and she’ll be quick to tell you it isn’t the first time.” He gave an embarrassed grin which was fairly disarming, and held out his hand for Varric to shake. “Professor Bram Kenric, of the University of Orlais.”

“Josephine mentioned you,” said Varric, shaking his hand. “You’re heading an expedition to the Frostback Basin, right? To find out what happened to the first Inquisitor?”

“I certainly hope so,” said Kenric, who seemed both surprised and delighted that Varric himself knew anything about his work. “Ambassador Montilyet has been most kind in helping me to raise the funds for my research, but there’s only so much I can do from behind a desk. It’s been too dangerous to mount an expedition before now, with how unstable Orlais has been, but as soon as the opportunity arose…well, here I am!” He looked genuinely thrilled. “Some of my team has already travelled ahead to establish a camp, but I’ve been delayed with paperwork,” he said. “Which is why I’m travelling after them. Lady Harding has been stuck with escort duty, I’m afraid, which is a thankless task I’m sure, but I’ve had reason to be grateful for. I’m rather new to fieldwork you see – the libraries and lecture halls of the university have ill-prepared me for some of the realities of the wilder parts of Orlais.”

“I think the bogfisher was more scared of you than you were of it,” said Harding, with a sudden grin, and Kenric chuckled gamely at what was clearly an in-joke between them.

At that moment the innkeeper shuffled over, looking like a man who feared he was about to be skewered on the spot for daring to approach.

“My lord Inquisitor.” He bowed nervously. “I couldn’t help but overhear you were here—” Cassandra shot a glare at Professor Kenric, who had the good grace to look embarrassed “—and I have a letter for you. Arrived by coach last night; I was told to hold it for you if you passed through this way.”

Varric took the letter with thanks, broke the seal and unfolded it as the innkeeper scurried off.

“It’s from Leliana,” he said, scanning the contents quickly. “She’s left Skyhold, and she’s on her way to Valence. She’s had a letter from—” he broke off.

“From who?” asked Cassandra, curious at his reaction.

“From Divine Justinia,” said Varric, and passed over the letter. “I think you’d better read it for yourself.”

Cassandra took the letter and did so, her face betraying no emotion. Professor Kenric and the others tactfully took up the conversation between themselves, to at least give the illusion of privacy.

“A directive to be sent only after her death,” said Cassandra, finally passing the letter back to Varric. She looked intrigued, he was relieved to see, but not upset. “It is unusual, but not unheard of, especially for those who know that the end could come unexpectedly, leaving them no time to get their affairs in order.”

“Justinia knew what she was doing was dangerous,” said Varric.

“Indeed,” said Cassandra. “I am not surprised she might have left something behind for Leliana, as a contingency, but what awaits her in Valence I cannot guess. Leliana asks that we both meet her there, if we are able.”

“Of course,” said Varric. “It’ll only add a day to our journey back, and she shouldn’t have to face that alone.”

He slipped the letter into his pocket, and let his knee nudge gently against Cassandra’s under the table, a subtly affectionate gesture. She didn’t trouble to move from that position as they rejoined the general conversation of the table, and they spent the rest of the evening with their legs pressed together as food and drink was brought and the talk flowed comfortably, mostly about Professor Kenric’s upcoming expedition.

In spite of his initial faux-pas, Varric kind of took to the professor. The man was obviously as knowledgeable and passionate about his study of the Inquisition’s history as he was inexperienced at fieldwork, but he had a cheerfully self-deprecating manner and nothing but glowing praise for the current Inquisition. Even more in his favour was that he seemed to have struck up a genuine rapport with Scout Harding, who treated him with an indulgent amusement, and seemed slightly embarrassed by his effusive praise of her. As far as Varric could tell, their time together had mostly been Harding pulling Kenric out of various scrapes, and the professor retold these stories as happily as he related some of the legends he’d pieced together of the original Inquisition. As much as he had a tendency to ramble a bit once they lit on a subject that sparked his imagination, he had enough self-awareness to cut himself off before he slipped into lecturing, and he seemed just as comfortable talking to Solas about the role of elves in the first Inquisition as he did with Cassandra about the history of the Seeker order. It was only a shame Dorian wasn’t here, and Varric made a mental note to drag Sparkler along if he ever got the time to go to the Frostback Basin to see the expedition for himself. Professor Kenric’s enthusiasm was contagious, and it was nice to think that fears for the future had settled down enough that people were able to think about the past again – besides, although Varric was no scholar of history himself, preferring to live in the here and now, he could admit to some small amount of curiosity about the last Inquisitor, in the same way you would be curious about anyone who had a job before you, and then disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

After a couple of hours of conversation, however, Cassandra pressed her leg a little more firmly against Varric’s and gave him a meaningful look before standing up and announcing: “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, it has been a long day. I believe I will retire to bed.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll call it an early night too,” Varric said, standing up too. “Night, everyone. Good to meet you, Professor.”

Maybe he should have left a tactful amount of time before leaving himself, to avoid being seen by a roomful of people so obviously heading upstairs with Cassandra, but this random inn was hardy Val Royeaux for gossip – it wasn’t as if anyone round here cared. As for the people at their own table…

“Do they really think they’re fooling anyone?” he distinctly heard Harding mutter as they walked away.

“Just think yourself lucky you’re not in the room next to them,” was Bull’s reply. “I’m thinking of sleeping down here at the bar.”

Cassandra either didn’t hear these comments or pretended not to, and once they made their way up to Varric’s room, the babble of the inn faded away and the sound of the door closing behind them and the latch slotting into place was the sweetest sound Varric ever heard. He sat down on the edge of the bed – more humble than his own back at Skyhold but a damn sight better than a tent on the hard ground – as Cassandra unselfconsciously went about the business of removing her many layers of armour and clothing. Varric watched her remove each progressive piece with an appreciative, leisurely gathering lust.

“So, Harding and Kenric,” he said conversationally, as he started taking off his own shoes. “What do you think?”

Cassandra glanced at him, looking puzzled. “About what?”

“You know. The atmosphere.” Varric waggled his eyebrows as he stowed his shoes and socks neatly under the bed and began unfastening his shirt. “The tension. The puppy-dog eyes, the in-jokes. The frisson of romance in the air.”

“Harding and Kenric?” said Cassandra sceptically.

“Oh come on Seeker, you didn’t pick up on it? All that ‘Lady Harding’ business. The guy talked about her sharpshooting skills longer than he talked about pot shards, which is saying a lot, and he went red as a beetroot the one time she threw a compliment his way. Plus, I’ve never seen Freckles laugh so much.” Varric pulled his shirt off and tossed it over a nearby chair and then settled back on the bed against the pillows to get a better view of Cassandra stripping off her own clothes, far more interested in that than in undressing himself. He watched the muscles in her back bunch and shift as she pulled her shirt over her head, and thought of, with another unexpected surge of heat, her killing the bandits earlier.

“I rather thought Harding found the Professor exasperating,” said Cassandra, oblivious to his attention. “Given what they described of their journey so far.”

“You of all people should know that finding someone annoying doesn’t always rule out attraction,” grinned Varric.

Cassandra considered this. “I suppose he is around Scout Harding’s age, and his accent is pleasant,” she said musingly, and then, catching Varric’s look, added hastily: “If you like that sort of thing.”

“And just think how adorably freckled their children would be,” added Varric.

Cassandra laughed. “You really are a romantic at heart, aren’t you?” she said.

“You only just figured that out, Seeker?”

“Not remotely. You once said yourself that I’ve always seen right through you. You like to play the cynic, Varric Tethras, but I have read your books.”

She turned to him properly then, clad only in her underclothes now, and he felt a warm surge of anticipation at the look in her eyes. She’d been aware of him watching her undress, he realised, and liked it. Unhurried, Cassandra strolled over to the bed and joined him, pushing him back a little against the pillows.

“You know,” she said, her voice lowering to something warm and alluring, “When we first met I used to read them and wonder how you could possibly write such things. Such wonderful, romantic, debauched things.”

She leaned down and kissed him, running her hand down his chest, skimming her fingers across the muscles of his abdomen. Varric was intensely aware of the coiled power of her body above his, the air thickening with their shared desire.

“Is that right?” he managed, when they parted for breath.

Cassandra made a soft noise of assent. “You infuriated me in person,” she said, “but your writing was extraordinary. I couldn’t believe it came from you. Everything the characters in your books felt, everything they did...”

Shifting closer, she started to move her hips softly against him as she spoke. Varric’s hands gripped her tightly as he groaned.

“Every kiss...” She leaned forwards to press her lips to his again, and Varric responded hungrily, a low noise of desire rumbling from the back of his throat.

Cassandra pulled back, smiling wickedly. “Every touch...” She shifted back just enough to slide her hands down to his waistband and undo the fastening on his trousers, slipping her hand inside. Varric felt his hips jerk reflexively.

“Nn...Maker’s ass Cassandra...”

“It was all so…intimate,” said Cassandra softly. “So real. As if you had put words to every fantasy I had never admitted even to myself. Everything I longed for.”

And then she was pulling his clothes off, insistent more than gentle, her voice was low and husky as she continued. “But when I thought about it I realised I could imagine you thinking those things, doing those things,” she said. “After a while I stopped pretending even to myself that I wasn’t imagining you doing them to me.”

Varric’s mouth dropped open. He had thought he was already about as turned on as it was possible to be, but shit that was...had she just admitted what he thought she had? Images flew into his mind of Cassandra reading his words...lying in bed, thinking of him as she...

She pulled away from him and he couldn’t help but let out a moan of sheer frustration at the loss of her touch as she raised herself onto her knees. Without breaking eye contact with him, Cassandra slowly removed what remained of her clothing, sliding her underclothes down her legs and tossing the scrap of material carelessly away. By the time she was naked before him, Varric was practically panting.

“Cassandra...” he rasped. “Maker please, I need...”

She moved forward with a feline grace and kissed him again, slowly, deliciously filthy, as she took him in hand and guided him inside her. Varric swore fervently as she settled astride him, tight and wet around his painfully hard cock. Cassandra rolled her hips and bowed her head to rest her brow on his, panting a little.

“You always were a guilty pleasure of mine,” she murmured. She started to move, slowly at first, then more eagerly, bracing her hands on his shoulders. “Sometimes…” her voice hitched, caught on the edge of a gasp. “When we were sharing a tent and you were so close…I couldn’t stand it…”

“Tell me,” he managed. “Tell me what you…”

“My hand between my legs…thinking of you…your hands on me…”

Varric’s hands gripped her hips, not to control her movements but just to touch her, feel her, his palms sliding up to her taut stomach muscles, the heave of her ribcage, cupping her soft breasts. His thumbs brushed over her stiff nipples, captivated by the sight of her, her head thrown back, olive skin gleaming with sweat as she rode him. How many times had he imagined this, conjured up a fantasy of her in the guilty dark, and all along she had been thinking of it too?

Cassandra leaned down to murmur close to his ear. “Sometimes I had to bury my face in my bedroll to stop myself from calling out your name.”

Fuck.

With a final desperate thrust of his hips, Varric found his release, crying out as he spent inside her. When the blissful blankness of ecstasy faded, his eyes refocused to see Cassandra looking as smug as he had ever seen her. An expression not customary on his Seeker, but hardly something he could begrudge her now. Andraste’s ass.

“You have told me you like the sound of my voice,” she said, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. “You often talk to me when we...well, I thought you might like it if I did the same.” She gave him a smile that was dangerously close to a smirk. “It seems I was right.”

Varric let out a somewhat shaky chuckle. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Cassandra clambered off the bed to clean up a little, leaving Varric to get his breath back, luxuriating in the pleasant haze of absolute, uncomplicated happiness. When he was a younger and painfully eager to please, he might have felt embarrassed at everything being over so quickly, a less-than impressive performance on his part. But being with Cassandra wasn’t about scoring points or proving something, the way it had been sometimes with Bianca. It was just easy, relaxed, fun. So unbelievably hot to be with someone who wanted him as much as he wanted her. And, with the edge taken off his lust, the rest of the night now stretched before them, and he had every intention of making Cassandra extremely glad of agreeing to them staying here at the inn tonight.

When she rejoined him on the bed, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her slowly, deeply, letting his hands lazily explore the now familiar topography of her body; the long slender limbs, the soft curves and the faintly raised ridges of scar tissue from battles long fought and forgotten. Cassandra Pentaghast in his bed was not something Varric thought he would ever get used to.

“Was that true?” he asked. “What you said…you really thought about me like that?”

Cassandra’s face, close to his own, went faintly pink. Andraste’s tits, now she was embarrassed?

“It is true,” she said. “I don’t know why you seem so surprised; you told me yourself you found me attractive from the start.”

“Yeah, but have you seen you?”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I can tell when you are fishing for compliments, Varric.”

“In the mood to indulge me anyway?” His hand caressed the inside of her thigh. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

She squirmed, a little. “Oh, very well. I find you extremely attractive, and I always have. Happy?”

Varric grinned. “You’re a true poet.” He leaned in to kiss her by way of thanks, his hand sliding up between her legs. “Thanks for humouring me,” he murmured. “Sometimes I still find it hard to believe, that you want me.”

To his surprise, Cassandra pushed him gently away and sat up, a crease between her brows as her eyes searched his. “You have never seen this clearly,” she said. “You see worth in everyone but yourself. Varric, you are the Inquisitor. The Herald of Andraste. You cannot know what it is like, loving you. What you mean to people…”

Varric smiled, both touched and a little embarrassed at her earnestness. “It’s all just a story, Seeker,” he said lightly. “You know that.”

But Cassandra was having none of it. “No,” she said fiercely. “It is you. You have given the world hope, where it had none. Shown them a better way, brought them out of the darkness. You do not hear the way people speak of you, the way they look at you…you are everything to them, Varric.” Her voice lost some of its passion as she ended this little speech, and she let out a faint sigh. “Even though a part of me wishes that you could be mine alone,” she admitted.

Varric raised his eyebrows at her. “…which part, exactly?”

Casandra shoved him in the chest. “You ass.”

“Sorry, couldn’t help myself.” He captured her hand after a brief, playful tussle and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles softly. “I am yours,” he said, all trace of teasing gone as he looked back up and met her eyes again. “Everyone else…they want the Inquisitor. You want me. That’s…that’s everything. You’re everything to me, you do know that, don’t you Seeker?”

Cassandra let herself fall back against the bed, pulling Varric down by the hand so that he ended up almost on top of her. Propping himself up on one arm, he looked down into her eyes, warm with affection and desire.

“Convince me,” she said.

Chapter Text

Though the days were warming again and the nights growing shorter, when Varric looked back on that time at Skyhold it always felt to him like late autumn, the last bloom of summer before the winter chill. There was always an unspoken sense of time being short, of every passing moment being something to seize upon and savour.

And savour it he did. Cassandra had always been a passionate woman, wholehearted and unrestrained in anything she did, and she was no different as a lover. Varric had expected to have to reign in his overwhelming desire for her, at least somewhat, to give her the tender romance she so obviously longed for, and it would have been no great sacrifice; he wanted to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of, everything he could, everything he had to give. And Cassandra did like it very much when he kissed her hand fleetingly whenever they passed in the hallways of Skyhold, or left a flower tucked jauntily into the bindings of a training dummy before her daily drills, or read her poetry as they curled up together by the fireside of an evening.

But she also liked it when – to put it bluntly – they fucked like nugs in heat, leaving bruises and teeth marks on skin, thumping the headboard of his bed against the wall. She wanted him fiercely and unapologetically, body and soul, and Varric found it ridiculously charming that Cassandra could be possessed of such a bold sensuality behind closed doors, and yet a few tender words could often reduce her to blushing and stammering. The first time he called her ‘sweetheart’, unthinkingly in casual conversation, she took the best part of a day to recover.

The Inquisitor’s too-big room, which had once seemed so strange and lonely, had now become an oasis, a place for only the two of them. With no-one else to see or care, it was a sanctuary where everything else could be put aside, the titles and the duty and the weight of the future, and they could just be…themselves. Varric read her rough drafts of his writing, Cassandra ranted about whatever fresh batch of recruits Cullen had foisted upon her for advanced training, and they chewed over the events of each day with each other without having to worry about what people might think who heard their unfiltered opinions. They argued good-naturedly about books, and politics, and everything in between. They told each other tales of youthful escapades; childhood dreams and adolescent mistakes, the long tapestry threads of their respective lives now woven together so tightly it felt as if somehow this was where they had been headed all along, that surely fate would always have seen to it that they were intertwined. But they rarely spoke of the future, by unspoken agreement. They discussed the Chantry, sometimes, but never the Sunburst Throne. They talked about Cassandra’s hopes for the future of the Seeker order, and Varric’s plans for the future of Kirkwall, but they talked around what their own roles might be in those dreams, as if by not speaking the words aloud they could live for longer in the eternal present, where their obligation was only to the Inquisition, and to each other.

It was strange how easily it all fit into the relationship they already had, how quickly the comfortable routines established. And in his letters to Hawke, Varric found it hard to articulate how this felt at once the most profoundly important thing that had ever happened to him, and yet at the same time, so inevitable and right that he could almost laugh at how long he’d been afraid of it. He loved Cassandra, and he would have loved her regardless. If she had never shared his bed, if she had not loved him in return, he could still never have known her and remained unchanged. And maybe it didn’t matter if Andraste had never chosen him, Varric sometimes thought, somewhat blasphemously, because Cassandra Pentaghast had, and that was worth more than the favour of any prophet, any goddess.

One routine which was inevitable was Varric waking up at a reasonable hour to discover that Cassandra had long since left, since he was a late riser by nature and she got up at the absolute ass-crack of dawn. He eventually gave up trying to become a morning person and accepted that he would just have to spend a certain amount of time trying not to keep Cassandra awake when he was writing late into the night, and trust her to do the same when she rose in the morning to slip out and go to her sword drills – which she actually did before breakfast, because apparently Varric had fallen in love with a woman who was completely insane.

The downside of this was that, depending on both of their schedules, they often didn’t see each other until well into the day, and that had been the case on the morning Varric opened a letter from Kirkwall in a familiar hand. A grin spread across his face as he read it through, and without a second thought he went to find Cassandra, heading off through the castle with a spring in his step.

He eventually found her leaving Cullen’s office, wearing a frown that Varric would once have assumed meant displeasure but he recognised now as nothing more than abstracted thought. A fair amount of Cassandra’s reputation for sternness was a combination of severe features and complete lack of social graces, and Varric watched passersby scurry out of her way anxiously as she strode past, completely oblivious. As someone who’d never been in the least bit intimidating himself, he greatly enjoyed watching the effect Cassandra had on other people.

“Morning, Seeker,” he called, causing her to pause on the point of heading down the steps to the courtyard and wait for him to catch up with her. Varric had gone the long way round the battlements to avoid running into Mother Giselle, who he’d been trying to dodge as much as possible recently, though he felt guilty about it. He’d warmed to the Revered Mother over their acquaintance and generally enjoyed her company, but lately there was only one subject on her mind and it wasn’t anything Varric cared to discuss more than absolutely necessary.

“You know, you’re a hard woman to track down,” he said, as he strolled over to Cassandra, and they continued down the steps side by side. “I’ve been traipsing all over the castle looking for you. You could have given Hawke a few tips when it comes to laying low.”

“You could have simply asked someone where I was,” pointed out Cassandra.

“Yeah well, look where that got you,” grinned Varric.

Cassandra snorted at that. “You’re in a good mood this morning,” she said.

“Got some good news,” said Varric. “Wicked Grace at the tavern tonight after sundown, Seeker, on Inquisitor’s orders. And drinks are on me, ‘cause we’re celebrating. I just got word from Kirkwall – Aveline had her baby. A little girl.”

“A baby,” said Cassandra, in a voice almost of surprise, as if she had half-forgotten such things existed. “That is wonderful news.”

Varric couldn’t blame her for being taken aback. A baby seemed to be something from a different world altogether than the one they inhabited, such a tangible piece of the future that had once seemed so uncertain. A small, defiant piece of hope against the darkness.

“Aveline is well?” asked Cassandra, though it was mostly a matter of form – Varric would hardly be smiling so wide if she wasn’t.

“Already trying to go back to work, it sounds like,” said Varric. “But yeah, they’re both doing great. Aveline writes that the kid already has a strong grip, so I’ll bet she’ll be swinging a sword before she can walk. If she’s anything like her mother, Kirkwall had better watch out.” He paused briefly, giving the moment the weight it deserved. “They’ve called her Beth,” he said.

Cassandra smiled at that, but she still looked thoughtful. “What kind of world will she grow up into, I wonder?” she said.

There was that future again, knocking on the door, more insistent with every passing day. Varric kept his smile in place in spite of the twinge of unease he felt in the pit of his stomach. “Guess that’s up to us,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight, but I gotta go – I’m late for a meeting with Ruffles, and you know how good she is at those disappointed looks.”

“Taking Cullen for every coin in his pockets once again tonight will doubtless improve her mood, if you can persuade her to come along,” said Cassandra dryly, and Varric chuckled as he hastened away to Josephine’s office.

He received no worse than a reproachful eyebrow raise and a cup of slightly cold tea as punishment for his tardiness, and Josephine agreed readily to come and join the game later. Then it was on to business as usual, with reports to be heard from across Thedas, letters to various notables to be signed, and new favours begged and new allies to be considered. This was all stuff Varric was good at, even if was boring as shit, and he enjoyed working with Ruffles. The hunt for Corypheus was urgent and ongoing, but that was Leliana’s purview – Josephine’s job was to see to it that the great machinery of the Inquisition kept moving in the meantime, well-oiled by money and favours, and steered visibly by the Inquisitor’s own hand when required. She approved of Varric’s insistence on actually reading any letter or agreement he signed his name to, a quality she’d told him ‘was sadly lacking in many of my superiors at previous postings’ although it did ultimately slow things down a bit. Her light patter of conversation, interlaced with gossip and cups of tea, did a lot to make the meetings more bearable.

The news of the discovery of the lost thaig of Kal Repartha had leaked out, as they’d known it would, which meant that an annoyingly long portion of their meeting that morning was about dwarven politics, one of Varric’s least favourite subjects. He was also vaguely annoyed that although Orzammar was admittedly one of the Inquisition’s most important trading partners, King Bhelen had done absolutely shit all to help in the fight against Corypheus. He’d pled the decimation of the southern Wardens as an excuse for needing every hand belowground ‘to hold back the Darkspawn threat’ although Varric personally couldn’t think of a Darkspawn threat more pressing than the immortal Magister threatening to tear the world apart and rule it as unto a god. He was slightly cheered by the fact that King Alistair had referred to Bhelen as ‘a slippery little weasel’ in one of his letters, which must have slipped by whatever people he had to stop him from saying that sort of thing publicly, and the former Warden had also seemed genuinely regretful that there was no way he could have sent Ferelden troops into Orlais to join the battle against Corypheus’s forces in the Arbor Wilds without causing a diplomatic incident. So at least there was one person whose intentions they could always rely on to be easy to read. The King of Ferelden was not a subtle man.

After about an hour Varric couldn’t stand hearing any more about the warring great houses of Orzammar and what favours they were offering to be the first allowed to stake a claim to the ruins of Kal Repartha, like carrion birds picking over a carcass. He told Josephine as much, and she agreed to table the discussion for another time, as the ruins weren’t going anywhere.

“On to another matter then,” she said smoothly. “We have had several missives from the Grand Clerics in Val Royeaux…”

Maker’s ass, was there really no avoiding this conversation? “Table ‘em too,” said Varric instantly. “We don’t have time to deal with that right now.”

Josephine frowned. “I understand these demands can be wearying, Inquisitor, but I fear they will not go away for wanting,” she said tactfully. “With peace now returning to the south, and Orlais specifically, the matter of electing a new Divine is only looming larger in the minds of the faithful. A few words from you could make all the difference.”

“I’d rather not discuss it right now, Ruffles.”

“I don’t see why—”

“Because it’s Cassandra!” Varric burst out, his frustration finally overcoming him. “Of course it’s Cassandra, it always has been. She knows it, you know it, everyone sodding knows it. Vivienne’s in it for the power, Leliana wants to burn the whole thing down, but Cassandra…she has it all." He started ticking off on his fingers as he spoke. "Vision, determination, noble blood, the respect of the people and the last Divine. She’s already a hero to half of Thedas. She wants to make the world a better place and the terrifying thing is that she might actually be stubborn enough to pull it off. Fuck, she’ll even look good on the commemorative plates, she's got the profile for it. She practically has destiny stamped all over her face, and I can’t…”

To his horror, his voice broke. Varric slumped down in his chair, all his frantic energy draining away, feeling ashamed at his outburst. He dropped his head into his hands. “I can’t see a way out of it,” he mumbled.

There was a long silence. “I am so sorry,” Josephine said quietly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I swear, if I thought she really wanted it,” said Varric wretchedly, “I would never…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence in any way that he could be sure was the truth.

The truth was, he hadn’t realised how much hope he’d still held onto before their trip to Valence. Before he’d seen the future – Cassandra’s future – written in stone and stained-glass. There had been a small, hidden part of him that had hoped Leliana’s letter from Justinia would lead to naming her as the Divine’s successor somehow, a blessing from beyond the grave that no-one could have denied. Instead, it had been the opposite; Leliana had been led only to a message from Justinia that released her from her service, absolved her of the guilt she carried for her past. A divine directive for Sister Nightingale to lay down her burdens and fly from the cage in which she’d trapped herself, to be free.

Cassandra had received no such mercy. While Leliana had been deeply moved by the Divine’s last message to her, Justinia evidently had no words for her former Right Hand. Nothing to absolve her guilt at having failed. Nothing to release her from a lifetime of service. Cassandra had borne any disappointment she’d felt as stoically as ever, apparently having expected nothing different, and had been genuinely glad for Leliana. Varric had watched as Leliana fell to her knees in the Valence chantry and wept, watched Cassandra embrace her, somewhat awkwardly but with genuine feeling, and urge her to take the Divine’s final words to heart. And in that moment, he was ashamed how badly he wished that Cassandra Pentaghast was a more selfish person.

In the dark recesses of Varric’s memory, his brother slammed a door shut in the Deep Roads, trapping him on the other side. His mother looked through him with eyes glazed with fever. He waited for hours in the dark to run away with a woman who never showed. He heard Cullen’s voice: Hawke left for Weisshaupt this morning. No, she didn’t leave a note….

A lifetime of watching people walk away from him. He should be used to it by now.

“I’m going to lose her,” Varric said quietly, more to himself than Josephine. But when he looked up he saw that the Ambassador was blinking rapidly, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief which she tried quickly to conceal. Varric immediately felt like a heel.

“Ah, shit,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ruffles, this isn’t your problem.”

“But you are my friend, Inquisitor,” said Josephine, leaning across the desk, her expression earnest and her eyes still bright. “If I cannot offer you help, then my sympathy is all I can give you, and I hope you know how sincerely I mean it. This seems such a poor reward for everything you have been through. Both of you.”

“That’s not how the world works, I guess,” said Varric. Not every story gets a happy ending.”

He’d known that from the start, had no illusions about where he and Cassandra were headed. She’d always been honest with him, his Seeker, and he tried to do the same for her. Just because they didn’t speak of it didn’t mean they didn’t know.

The pit in his stomach had become a hollow ache, and for once, Varric allowed himself the truth, because Maker knew Josephine wouldn’t judge him for it.

“I just…I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

The Herald’s Rest was quieter of late, the bulk of the Inquisition’s forces being out in the Arbor Wilds still, and Skyhold castle down to the number of residents they’d had when they first came here. But although there were less soldiers riotously carousing, the place was still popular enough to be crowded in the evenings, and filled with the warm hum of conversation, the clatter of mugs and the scrape of chairs that always made Varric feel at home.

He'd pulled a few Inquisitorial strings to reserve a table in the upper level of the tavern, where the warm air rose in faintly beer-scented waves and you didn’t get interrupted by people pushing past to the bar so often. There were some people – alright, mostly Vivienne – who thought it unseemly for the Inquisitor to be seen in public so often mixing with commoners and relaxing, but Varric had never wanted to be the kind of leader who was snootily above it all. Well, he’d never wanted to be any kind of leader, obviously, but here he was, and he could at least admit he’d gotten pretty lucky with the people who’d chosen him to follow.

They were crammed around a long table, the Iron Bull taking up a whole end by himself, Dorian lounging by his side. Cullen had hustled in late, muttering excuses but not wearing his armour at least, taking a seat slightly warily next to Sera, who had a habit of teasing him – to keep him humble, yeah? – and an even worse habit of cheating very noticeably. Cole appeared in his usual way that meant Varric couldn’t quite put his finger on when the kid had arrived in the chair next to him, and for the first time, Leliana joined them too, arriving with Josephine. She’d been different since her message from Justinia and the trip to Valence, as if a weight had been lifted from her, and Varric welcomed her without making a big deal of it, wondering how long it had been since Leliana had given herself a night off to do anything not related to hunting down Corypheus.

But their spymaster wasn’t the only unexpected addition to the party. When heavy footsteps made the wooden stairs creak as they approached, Varric assumed it was just the barkeeper bringing a tray of drinks until the conversation around him suddenly stuttered to a halt. He looked up to see the new arrival standing somewhat awkwardly at the end of the table, holding a mug of ale and wearing a nervous expression behind his beard. Blackwall.

“Is there room for one more?” he said, once all eyes were on him.

There was a brief, tense silence, in which everyone was either obviously glancing at Cassandra, or pretending not to. Even Varric, pretty good by now at reading her face, couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He could read Blackwall more easily though; he saw the point at which the guy decided he was on to a lost cause and opened his mouth to speak again, to offer some thin excuse for a tactical retreat, when—

Cassandra cleared her throat, not looking at Blackwall. “I believe there is a free chair here,” she said, gesturing.

Blackwall’s eyes widened very slightly, but he was smart enough not to allow himself any more of a reaction. “Thank you, Seeker Cassandra,” he said, his voice even gruffer than usual.

“Just Cassandra is fine,” said Cassandra stiffly. “We do not use titles here.”

Blackwall nodded and took his seat. Beneath the table, Varric found Cassandra’s hand and squeezed it gently, for just a moment.

“Alright, let’s play,” he said loudly, picking up the deck of cards and shuffling them with the ease of long practice. “Drinks are on my tab tonight, so no-one bet more than they can lose, because I’m not bailing you out.”

The game was informal and about as chaotic as expected, just like old times. Dorian and Bull bickered and flirted, Cullen lost extravagantly and Leliana’s ‘wicked mask’ unsurprisingly turned out to be so good that no-one dared bet against her even when she held nothing more than a pair of songs. Sera started building a tower of cards, and when she realised that Dorian was subtly plucking the card at the bottom out repeatedly with a flick of his wrist from across the table, she threatened to shave his moustache off in his sleep. Even Blackwall lost his initial stiffness after a while, roaring with laughter along with the rest at Varric’s tale of Aveline and Donnic’s wedding, which had almost ended in the bride having to arrest everyone present, and joining in the conversation with his old warmth, though he and Cassandra were still awkwardly polite and formal with each other when they had occasion to speak – the break in their former friendship not so easily healed in one night. Varric also noticed that he avoided catching Josephine’s eye, until the point when Leliana made an uncharacteristically poor play that somehow left Blackwall and Ruffles the only two in the round and forced them to actually look at each other. Blackwall chivalrously folded on what Varric was certain was a winning hand, Cole made some comment that made Josephine blush, and Varric wished fervently that all the stakes in their lives could be as low as these little personal dramas of the heart. He sure as hell preferred smoothing over an awkward moment with a well-timed joke to deciding the fate of nations.

The barkeeper kept the drinks coming, and they all toasted to Aveline’s baby, though no-one but Cullen had ever even met her. But they were all pleased, genuinely pleased, Varric realised, because Aveline was his friend, and her good news made him happy, and that was enough reason to celebrate with him. He could never have predicted, when all this began, that he would find friends like that in all of this madness, but now there were so many it was a struggle to crowd around one table, and the babble of voices rose to the rafters. As Varric looked around at each face, chatting and joking and frowning at their cards, he felt a powerful swell of affection for every person here. Every one of them around this table had some awful bullshit in their past they’d had to wade through to get here, and yet here they were. Maybe a little banged-up and bruised, but not yet broken, and still ready to go all-in on what they believed in, to take a chance on the future the Inquisition wanted to build. To take a chance on him. He’d be damned if he was willing to let a single one of them down.

It was impossible to be here tonight, with these people by his side, and not feel hopeful. Varric had been so preoccupied with endings lately that maybe he’d forgotten that in real life there really was no such thing; there was always another page to be turned, another chapter waiting to be written. Even for people like them, there could always be new beginnings. It wasn’t much, but it was something to hold on to, and nights like this were something to hold onto as well, a memory to keep like a talisman against whatever came next.

It was well into the small hours when they settled up and cleared out, going their separate ways with varying degrees of swaying and stumbling. Varric and Cassandra strolled together across the great open courtyard, not hurrying in spite of the bitter cold that crept into the castle along with the night, even though summer was well on its way. The stars twinkled in the vault of the heavens overhead like jewels on a roll of black velvet, and at the top of the tallest tower a blazing fire and a warm bed would be waiting. They didn’t speak, worn out by the lively conversation of the tavern and content to just enjoy the walk in companionable silence. Varric felt as much at peace as he ever had.

But on way back through the dark, empty great hall, something made him pause; he noticed there was still a light burning in the room at the base of a tower that Solas had made his office. A moment’s hesitation, and he decided to follow the compulsion to stop.

“I’ll catch up with you,” he told Cassandra, to her questioning look.

“Do not be too long,” she replied, and bent to kiss his cheek briefly before departing, an unusually public display of affection, perhaps aided by the couple of mugs of ale she’d had.

Varric wandered into the circular tower room that Solas had set up in since the day they’d moved into Skyhold. As the guy who’d led them here in the first place, he could have had his pick of rooms, and it was a little surprising that he’s chosen somewhere not tucked out of the way, but close to the great hall, easy to see anyone passing through. Varric realised he actually had no idea where Solas slept, as it definitely wasn’t here. The base of the tower was an office that the elf had settled into like a bird in a nest, and he was rarely found anywhere else when he was at Skyhold but bent over his desk in the centre of the room as he was now. The single candle burning in a safety lamp near his arm meant he was sat in a small island of light, surrounded by shadows that flickered and leapt as the flame guttered, making the painted figures in the murals on the walls that enclosed him an oddly lifelike audience. They seemed to move out of the corner of Varric’s eye as he approached the desk, silently observing his intrusion.

“Working late, Chuckles?” said Varric.

Solas looked up, unsurprised – he’d apparently been absorbed in his work, but you didn’t survive as an apostate out in the wilds for as long as he had without staying aware of your surroundings at all times.

“Finishing a letter,” he explained. “I wished it to catch the caravan that leaves at dawn tomorrow, but it seems I had more to say than I thought.”

“I know the feeling,” grinned Varric, amused at the idea of the notoriously quiet and retiring Solas being too verbose, even in writing. His desk bore out the truth though – although you’d expect Solas to be fastidiously neat, it was covered in papers, books and notes in a small, looping hand, rolled maps and laid out sketches. Varric could spot several sketches of Eluvians and other elven artifacts that they had come across on their travels, as well as a rubbing of some carvings he recognised from the temple in the Forbidden Oasis. There were a couple of crystals and dried herbs carefully labelled, and a bottle of some deep red liquid that could have been a potion or just a long-forgotten drink. There was even one of the shards that the Oculara revealed, still giving off a very faint glow and apparently doing duty as a paperweight.

“The caravan leaving tomorrow is headed for Daerwin’s Mouth,” observed Varric, having dashed off a reply to Aveline for the same reason – Leliana’s well-trained ravens were a limited resource, and any less urgent correspondence still had to find its way across the Waking Sea the old-fashioned way. “Are you still writing to Daisy?”

Solas inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Merrill has some interesting insights on the Eluvian network,” he said. “Your friend has a remarkable mind, if a somewhat…unusual way of expressing herself.”

“Handwriting like a spider jumped into an inkpot and crawled over the page, right?”

One of those brief, almost-smiles. “As you say.”

“She’s desperate to come to Skyhold and go through ours for herself,” said Varric. “It took a lot of persuading to convince her that she’s still needed more where she is, and it wouldn’t be safe to visit until all this is over.”

“And will it be safe, even when all this is over, for one such as she?” asked Solas. The question had no bite to it, but it was a fair one all the same, and something Varric didn’t have an easy answer to. One such as she. And elf, and an apostate – a dangerous combination to be at the best of times, as Solas himself well knew. More often than not treated with wary suspicion by other elves, disdain from human mages, and outright hostility from anyone else. Though it was hard to think of two more different people on the face of it, Merrill and Solas had that in common, and their attitude towards dealing with spirits would be seen as dangerous lunacy by most, even those formerly from the Circles. The bright, shiny new world the Inquisition saw in the future still might not be so easy for people like them. Varric wasn’t naïve enough to think that all their problems would be fixed the moment Corypheus was defeated.

But what Solas himself thought about it all was anyone’s guess. Quietly dependable, a formidable magical skill concealed behind a shabby exterior, decided but never pushy in his opinions, Solas had faded into the background of the Inquisition slightly. Varric had heard both Grand Enchanter Fiona and lady Vivienne speak highly of his expertise, and they were not easy women to impress, but Solas seemed to have no ambitions within the Inquisition except to be left alone to do his work, and see Corypheus defeated so that he could go back to exploring old ruins without being bothered by the world ending. He didn’t seek out the company of others beyond Cole, who he seemed to have a genuine affection for, although Varric knew Solas didn’t approve of his own undertaking to help Cole explore his human side more. He didn’t think the issue had caused genuine resentment, but you really did never fully know, with Solas. Varric hoped there was no ill-feeling anyway – Solas might not be the flashiest or most renowned member of the Inquisition, but they owed him a lot. Varric owed him a lot too.

“I hope so,” he replied, answering the question after a too-long pause with the best he could do. It seemed as much as Solas was expecting.

“Did you have any success tonight?” asked Solas, changing the subject. “With your card game, I mean.”

“Depends what you’re measuring by,” said Varric, a little surprised that he’d asked. “I didn’t win any money, but everyone had a good time and got to forget about Corypheus for a few hours, so I’d call that a success.”

And the most drop-dead gorgeous woman in all Thedas was waiting for him to come to bed, so by any measure he was the luckiest son of a bitch ever to walk beneath the sky. What was losing a few coins to that? As Solas dipped his quill in the inkpot again, Varric felt a sudden pang of something like pity for the solitary, studious mage. Although he was obviously here by choice, the image of Solas working at his desk late into the night as candles burnt to stubs and the castle fell silent around him was kind of a melancholy one. Not so long ago, it would have been Varric doing the same, burying himself in work until the work was all he was, and he wondered, not for the first time, what it might be that Solas was running away from that he preferred dreams and the Fade to real life. It wasn’t always as easy as people thought, to tell the difference between someone who favoured their own company and someone who had made themselves become accustomed to solitude because they felt they had no other choice. Varric had to push aside the image of Anders that drifted irresistibly into his mind, hunched over a desk, muttering to himself, scribbling one of his manifestos.

Impulsively, Varric said: “You’re welcome to come along, you know. To the game. Any time.”

Solas didn’t look up this time, his quill continuing to scratch over the parchment. “Thank you, Inquisitor,” he said mildly, “but I’m afraid games of bluff are not really my forte.”

Varric shrugged. “Well, offer’s open,” he said. “Speak to you tomorrow, Chuckles.”

“Goodnight, Inquisitor.”

Varric left Solas sitting with his head bent in the little pool of light around his desk, surrounded by piles of books, his quill skating across the paper, doubtless relieved that the interruption had only been a short one. Shaking off his lingering guilt, Varric headed through the dark great hall towards his own rooms, where Cassandra was waiting.

“This is dangerous, you know.”

“Where’s your sense of drama, Seeker?”

“It will be very dramatic indeed if I fall and break my neck.”

“I won’t let you fall.”

Cassandra huffed a little, but allowed Varric to steer her carefully up the narrow stone staircase that led to the top of the tower, one hand out to steady herself, as her vision was currently obscured by the blindfold he’d wheedled her into tying around her eyes.

Of course, she knew basically where they were going, as the blindfold had only been in place since they’d reached the last set of steps - there was no power in Thedas that could have persuaded Cassandra to walk through the whole of Skyhold blindfolded. Frankly, Varric was a little surprised she’d agreed to this much; after all this time he was still learning new things about her, one of which was apparently her willingness to play along with his bullshit once her curiosity was piqued. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised at that, given how they’d first met.

But he’d managed to maintain some sense of mystery, and was sure she couldn’t guess why he’d brought her here this evening to this unremarkable and little-used tower. Skyhold was huge and rambling enough that the lower levels were used only for storage, and the upper levels for nothing much at all. It wasn’t even as tall as the tower in which his own rooms were housed, but where that tower faced east towards the rising sun, this one, crucially, faced west.

They reached the top and Varric guided Cassandra the last few steps out onto the open space of the battlements, squeezing her arm briefly to signal that she should stop.

“Alright, you can take it off now,” he said, and he felt a ridiculous little thrill of nerves as Cassandra removed the blindfold and finally beheld the scene before her.

The sun was setting behind the mountains, a breathtakingly magnificent backdrop that cast golden rays of light across the small open space. Set out before them was a large rug, held in place at each corner by a stone, though Varric had carefully chosen a day when there wasn’t much of a breeze. He was relieved to see that the candles he’d lit were still burning, and the rose petals scattered about the place had survived too. There were more roses in a vase, a bottle of very expensive Antivan wine cooling in a bucket inscribed with an ice rune – courtesy of an indulgent Vivienne – and a wicker picnic basket overflowing with food, including the blueberry pastries Cassandra was so fond of, that Mags in the kitchen had baked fresh that morning.

It was… all a little cheesy, undeniably. But Varric had thought: fuck it. Cassandra was a fan of Swords and Shields, she liked cheesy. And when he looked at her expression now, he knew his effort had been worth it.

“You told me once that you wanted sunsets and roses and growing old together,” he said. “I can promise at least the first two.”

Cassandra swallowed several times. “It is wonderful,” she said finally, her voice slightly thick. “Thank you.”

“Let’s eat,” said Varric. “It took it out of me lugging all this stuff up three flights of stairs.”

They settled down on the rug and unpacked the basket, talking of inconsequential nothings as they ate. Cassandra gave him an update on her trainees, including some kind of interpersonal drama that the ever-irritating Lieutenant Wakefield seemed to be at the heart of, and Commander Cullen’s plans for expanding the garrison in Caer Bronach, to which she seemed to be trying rather tactlessly to get Wakefield posted. This reminded Varric of a similar situation Aveline had once dealt with amongst her guards, and he regaled Cassandra at length with the story, embellishing a little as he went for comedic effect. He worried, sometimes, that he talked too much when they were together, but when he expressed this to Cassandra, to his surprise, she earnestly told him that she not only didn’t mind, but actually appreciated it.

“I am not a natural conversationalist,” she said. “I find it relaxing to be around someone with whom I need never fear an awkward silence, or running out of things to say to each other.”

“You’re not just being polite?”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “You know you will get nothing but the truth from me, Varric,” she said, smiling. “You have never once tried to talk over me, or ignored me when I do have something to add. Believe me, if I ever wanted you to stop talking, I would simply say so.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so he took her at her word and chatted away with the same ease he felt in the company of any old friend as the sun set behind the mountains and stars started to dot the darkening sky. For her part, Cassandra looked as relaxed as he felt, nibbling on blueberry pastries and seemingly in no hurry to return to the castle below, to duties and meetings and other people. She wasn’t wearing armour today; she didn’t always bother around Skyhold anymore, though he’d be hard-pressed to put his finger on when that had changed. Varric liked to think it was because she felt safe here, but just as likely was that she was preparing for the day when donning full plate was no longer an option, and she would have to become accustomed to a very different uniform. Putting that thought to the back of his mind, he was at least glad to know that she was surely more comfortable like this. When he saw her stifle a yawn, he managed, with a lot of patience and many assurances that no-one would see, to persuade her to lay her head on his lap so that she could rest a little as they talked.

Strange that Cassandra could be so bold to the point of recklessness in many ways, and yet still endearingly nervous when it came to things like that. It was as though she half expected someone to leap out and tell her that she wasn’t allowed to show any form of gentleness, or be treated with affection, that such things weren’t for her.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” said Varric, his fingers stroking through Cassandra’s hair idly. “Do you remember Professor Kenric, who we ran into in that inn in Orlais?”

“I remember.”

“Josephine told me he’s sent her a new report on some of his expedition’s findings. Apparently, they’re sure now that Inquisitor Ameridan was in the area. And they’ve found some evidence that he might have been a mage.”

Though he couldn’t see her face from the angle where she lay, Varric felt Cassandra’s body stiffen as her breath caught with surprise before she released it. “A mage?” she said. “He is sure?”

“According to Ruffles, the Professor’s still hedging his bets, but I doubt he would have mentioned it if he didn’t have some pretty good evidence.”

“The founder of the Seeker order, a mage,” said Cassandra wonderingly. “If it is true, then that may help the mages’ cause in pushing for self-governance, when all this is over.”

Varric was surprised that her thoughts had gone there so quickly, and that she seemed more intrigued than upset. “The idea of a mage in charge doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

“The last head of the Seekers made a deal with a demon for his own gain, and betrayed those under his command to their deaths for it,” Cassandra said, her voice hard, as it always was when she spoke of the recent history of her order. “And he was no mage. Clearly, magical ability is not always as great a threat as ambition and pride can be. And the mages in the Inquisition might well be taken as a case study for how self-governance might work in the future.”

“You think?” said Varric. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Why do you think Fiona has bent over backwards to make herself and her people useful?” asked Cassandra dryly. “I do not doubt that she believes in our cause, but she can hardly be unaware that the world is watching to see what happens when mages are out from under the thumb of the templars. And whatever measures she has personally taken to ensure this experiment was a success have worked – I was concerned when you allied with the mage rebellion, as was Cullen, but we have faced no abominations amongst the mages here.”

“That could just be because the people most susceptible to that were all possessed then killed by templars in the war,” pointed out Varric.

“Perhaps. But it makes a powerful argument for them that templars are not required to keep the peace even when a great number of mages are gathered together. And it is hard to deny that the templar order has done a great deal more harm by allying with Corypheus than the mage rebellion ever did. Indeed, Fiona and her people have risked their lives and fought by our side to restore peace to Thedas.”

Cassandra sat up then in a decided movement, making Varric’s hand fall away from her. Her expression was determined, almost as if she were squaring up for a fight.

“Perhaps we have let our fear guide us for too long,” she said. “Andraste said that magic was meant to serve man, but surely she never meant mages to be chained, as the Qunari do. There must be some middle ground. I thought we had found it with the Circles, but recent events have only proven how wrong I was. Would it not be foolishness, even madness, to simply try the same thing again and expect it to be different?”

It didn’t sound like a question that she expected an answer to, and sure enough, Cassandra plunged on without waiting for a response, her voice gathering certainty even as she spoke.

“If a mage has fears, doubts about a colleague, or a friend, or even for their own control…how likely were they ever to go to a templar to help, and risk being made Tranquil?” she said. “But if they had been sure of support, not punishment, how many might have confided in another more senior mage, with experience and sympathy, and been helped before disaster struck?”

She’d been thinking about this, Varric could tell, and although the conversation had turned a little more serious than he was expecting, he didn’t want to break her train of thought by turning to lighter matters.

“You’re coming round to the reformers’ side then?” he said.

Cassandra looked slightly uncomfortable, but she wasn’t one to shy away from her opinions. “I have spoken to many of the mages here at Skyhold, as you once suggested I do,” she said. “There is hardly a consensus of opinion even amongst them, but it is obvious to all that change is needed. I would never suggest that we simply allow apostates to run wild, unchecked, but the Circles need not be prisons. We caged the mages like criminals – perhaps we should not have been surprised when they acted accordingly.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” said Varric, but Cassandra nodded in understanding rather than be offended.

“So much has changed…” she said, visibly relaxing a little now that she had said her piece, some of her instinctive defensiveness dissipating. “After the Conclave, what happened at Haven, everything I have learned since about the Seekers…I believe I am not quite the same person I was when all of this began.”

“I guess none of us are,” said Varric. “Being dragged into that interrogation room back in Kirkwall feels like something from a whole other lifetime now.”

Cassandra made a thoughtful sound, looking out over the distant mountains. “It is strange, to remember how we met,” she said, her voice slightly distant too, softer. “I wonder what I would have thought if I could go back and tell myself then that one day I would love you. More than I believed I could love anyone.”

“If you went back and tried to tell yourself anything, your past self would behead you as an abomination,” said Varric.

“Well…yes, you are probably right.”

She turned back to him, and he was surprised at the serious look on her face. “Varric, I need to tell you something, or rather…say something to you, and I am anxious of not getting the words right.”

Charmed by her sudden earnestness, Varric had to suppress his smile, for fear that she would think he was laughing at her. “I’m not going anywhere, Seeker,” he said gently. “Take your time.”

Cassandra closed her eyes briefly, as if she really were lining up the words in her head before speaking them aloud, but when she started, she made sure to hold his gaze, as if wanting to assure him that she really meant what she was saying. “My life…has not been one that has allowed for a great deal of tenderness,” she said, haltingly. “I have spent most of it fighting, because it was necessary and because I am good at it. And I told myself for a long time that it must be enough; being necessary, and being good at what I do. I told myself that I was content. But you…you changed everything.” A faint smile crept into her voice. “In the way that you are so annoyingly good at. For the first time, I allowed myself to want something for myself, and I am very glad that I did. This time with the Inquisition, with you, has been the happiest of my life.” She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “And if it must end, one way or another, I need you to know that I have no regrets.”

Varric took her hand and laced her fingers with his own. “That sounded an awful lot like a goodbye, Seeker,” he said quietly.

“It might be,” said Cassandra. “Leliana and Josephine are both certain, now. The clerics will name me the next Divine.”

It was not a surprise, not by now, but still the declaration settled on Varric’s shoulders as heavy as a shroud. He had spent so long holding in the words he so desperately wanted to say that he couldn’t help himself any longer. “You don’t have to do this, Cassandra,” he blurted out. “They can’t make you.”

Cassandra didn’t look annoyed, only tired and resigned, which was worse. “Being ordained Divine is not some unpleasant chore to be avoided, Varric,” she said gently. “It is a holy calling.”

“But is it what you want?”

“You never wanted to be the Inquisitor, yet you accepted the role.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? Why?” There was a slight sharpness to her voice now. “Because it was you, then, who had to make the sacrifice, not I? Because you believe that what you wanted did not matter? Or that my happiness is more important than your own, or the good of the world?”

“And what if I do?” said Varric.

Cassandra leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Then I love you the more for it,” she said. “But it does not change anything.”

“I could stop it, you know,” said Varric. “I’m the Inquisitor. Andraste’s chosen herald. I could denounce the idea of you as Divine loudly, publicly. Throw my support behind…whoever. Someone else. Anyone.”

Cassandra smiled, a small, sad expression. “You could,” she said. “But you will not. You would not be the man I fell in love with if you were capable of such a thing.”

“I would if you asked me to,” Varric said quietly.

“And I would never do that. Which you know too.” Cassandra’s voice was steady, gaze unwavering. “You have always known who I am, Varric, and I will not apologise for it. If we wish to make a better world, to learn from the mistakes of the past and build a future of which we can be proud, then we must be willing to take on that burden ourselves. I will not flinch from the opportunity to undertake that work, or deny the honour that is being chosen to guide the Chantry on a new path. If the Maker has called me to serve Him, as I believe he did you, then I will not refuse that call any more than you did.”

There was a little hitch in her voice suddenly, the smallest crack in her composure. “But I…I need you to know that my heart is yours, my love,” she said. “Completely and unreservedly. And that it always will be, no matter what happens.”

It was Varric’s turn now to look away at the distant mountains, ashamed of what she might see in his expression, though his fingers still remained laced tightly with hers. There were a lot of things he could do in this moment, he knew. He could be angry, he could rant and rave at the unfairness of it all, he could throw himself at her feet and beg her to change her mind. And none of it would get him anywhere. It would only hurt her, and there was nothing in the whole damn world he wanted to do less than that.

All that was left was surrender to the inevitable, accepting the world as it was, not how he wanted it to be. Cassandra would be Divine – there was nothing he could do about it now. But he wasn’t losing her, not completely. Things would just be…different. So maybe they would never be alone again like this, never get to play cards in the tavern, or fight side by side, or share a bed, or kiss beneath the stars by the glow of a campfire. Maybe he could let himself grieve those things, and still be glad that he'd gotten to have them at all. Varric couldn’t let this end like he and Bianca had done, in silence and resentment and wishing things were different. Cassandra was too important for that – he owed her better. He owed himself better. And so he made the choice, right there and then, that he wouldn’t make this any harder for her than it already was. He would support Cassandra with everything he had, just as she’d done for him since the Conclave. After all, the Divine wasn’t a prisoner, was she? She was allowed friends, at least. And Varric Tethras, for all his faults, prided himself on being a good friend to have.

He swallowed his grief like one of Mother Giselle’s bitter potions, and turned his gaze back to Cassandra, squeezing her hand lightly.

“Then I guess we’d better make the most of whatever time we have left,” he said, and he was relieved that his voice remained steady. “And for what it’s worth, Cassandra…I think you’ll make a fantastic Divine. I think the clerics made the right choice.”

Cassandra looked at him for a long time. “Thank you, Inquisitor,” she said, her eyes suspiciously bright. “That means a great deal to me.”

It probably did, at that. Varric remembered how he’d felt, all those months ago, when Cassandra had told him that she approved of his being made Inquisitor. If there was any part of her that ever doubted herself, doubted her ability to do this, then he would be there to remind her of just how extraordinary she was, and how lucky the Chantry was to have someone like her at the helm.

He released her hand gently and raised a glass of wine. “To whatever time we have left, then,” he said, with a smile.

“To whatever time we have left,” repeated Cassandra, and touched her glass to his before drinking deeply and setting it back down with a faint sigh. “I can promise you this,” she said. “I will not leave the Inquisition before Corypheus is defeated. I have faith that we will find him soon, and I swear to you I will be by your side when you do.”

Varric grimaced at that, and Cassandra looked at him with a keen eye. “Varric,” she said, her voice dangerous. “Please tell me you do not intend to leave me behind.”

Varric sighed. “I don’t want you anywhere near that monster,” he said. “I want to know that you’re safe, somewhere far away.”

Cassandra inhaled sharply. “Varric—”

“But whatever I might want,” continued Varric firmly, cutting across her protest, “I know full well that’s never going to happen.” He gave her a wry smile. “You don’t need me to protect you, but I need you, Seeker. I need your sword and I need you to watch my back, like you always have.”

He saw her visibly relax, a strange reaction for anyone but Cassandra to learning that she would be going into battle against an ancient evil. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For what it’s worth, I too wish that you could be somewhere far away from all this, even though I know it is not possible. It...frightens me terribly, knowing what could happen to you. And knowing what it would do to me if something did.”

Varric took her hand again gently. It was unusual for Cassandra to admit that anything frightened her.

“After...all this is over,” he said hesitantly, “maybe we could find somewhere far away together. Just for a little while, I mean, before…” He trailed off, and then forced his voice to remain light. “You know, take a break after saving the world.”

“I would like that,” said Cassandra.

“I’m thinking a beach. Somewhere sunny. You, me, very little clothing involved.”

A smile touched Cassandra’s lips. “You have come around on the concept of the outdoors after all, then, Inquisitor. I never thought I would see the day.”

“Ah, I was resistant to its charms at first, but it wore me down,” said Varric. He winked. “I’ve always had a weakness for beautiful things that could easily kill me.”

She laughed at that, and leaned down to kiss him, softly at first, then more insistent, open mouthed and hungry. She tasted of wine, and the lingering sweetness of blueberries, and as Varric drew her into his arms, her hands came to grip his shoulders with a hint of possessiveness, sliding down to curl around his biceps. Cassandra had a fascination with his arms, and his hands, that mystified him.

“I have spent a great deal of time looking at them,” she’d confessed to him once in a moment of post-orgasmic candour, when they lay entangled in bedsheets, their hands entwined between them on the bed. “Your hands are much larger than mine,” – here she’d pressed her palm to his, slender fingers against his own – “but you have always been so…deft. It is fascinating to watch you disassemble your crossbow, or pick a lock.”

Varric, still getting his breath back, had grinned. “Seriously? Me picking locks turns you on?”

She’d only blushed, which was all the answer he needed.

Now, with the last of the coppery sunset faded behind the mountains, leaving only candlelight and stars, she kissed him and kissed him, hands roaming with increasing eagerness as they tumbled back onto the rug. An empty wine glass went rolling off across the flagstones and they disentangled, breathing hard. Cassandra’s eyes were dark, her lips wine-stained and parted enticingly.

“Shall we go inside?” she said, in the tone that meant she was restraining herself with some difficulty from tearing his clothes off.

“There’s no-one around, Seeker,” Varric replied. “We—"

The rest of his suggestion was drowned out by a sound which rent the air, an explosion both impossibly loud and oddly muffled, as if underwater. Varric clapped his hands over his ears instinctively, startled and bewildered, looking around for whatever had blown up. But Cassandra’s reaction was entirely different. She leapt to her feet, and she was staring wildly around at the sky. And Varric realised, with a sinking, sickening feeling, that it was because she had recognised the sound, because although he didn’t remember it himself, she had heard it before.

And then he saw it, just as Cassandra did, as an inarticulate sound of horror and distress escaped her. Varric could only stare, his insides turning to lead. Away to the north, swirling above the mountains like an open wound, virulent and green against the night sky, was the Breach.

Chapter Text

They rode through the night, horses kicking up snow and earth in great clods as they thundered through the Frostbacks. It was a wild, dangerous flight, a plunge into the darkness with no time to prepare and nothing to see by on the treacherous mountain roads but the flaming torches they carried and the ghastly light of the new Breach, casting a green glow over the jagged mountain peaks and valleys below. It was growing by the hour, as the first had done, already almost double the size it had been when it first opened, and as they drew closer, mile by tortuous, hurtling mile, it become clear where they were heading.

The Temple of Sacred Ashes. Where this had all begun.

Varric had only ever seen it briefly before the Conclave, and he knew it best as a ruin, peeled open by the explosion like a burst rotten fruit, all rubble and fused rock. Now it drew them in like a nightmarish beacon, jagged and green at the foot of the mountain peaks, laid out like a corpse. Great chunks of it were already starting to be drawn into the sky by the pull of the Breach, horribly reminiscent of the Fade. Somewhere down there in the valley below, Varric knew, were the blackened ruins of Haven, and the whole place felt cursed, as if were dragging them all back for one final time to face the doom they had once so narrowly escaped. There were barely a couple of dozen of them on this desperate mission through the night; all the Inquisition could muster with the bulk of its armies still leagues away. Only those who would not leave the Inquisitor’s side, those who were willing to give their lives to make sure he could do what he had to do. They all knew what failure would mean. The future Varric had seen at Redcliffe Castle all those months ago filled his thoughts as they rode, infesting his mind with a sick terror he thought he’d long since put to rest. The sky torn apart. The smell of rot in the air. The dead-eyed, hopeless look of the few survivors in a world that no longer belonged to them. And Cassandra…

“We will hold the main door for as long as we can.”

No. Not that. Not again, not ever. Not while Varric still drew breath.

The moment the temple ruins were in sight, the horses shied and stumbled, tossing their heads and whinnying, their eyes rolling white with fear. Varric didn’t blame them – not only was there the Breach like a gaping, horrible mouth overhead, but you could feel the thinning veil all around, that feeling that set your teeth on edge, that sound like whispers just on the edge of hearing. He could already see the green glimmer of smaller rifts starting to tear open all around the ruins, twisting the air, and movement ahead of drifting, ragged shapes. Demons.

There was a cry as someone nearby was bucked from his horse entirely, and the thunder of hooves as it galloped away in to the darkness. Varric’s own mount, chosen for the Inquisitor for its easy temperament and experience in battle, strained at the reins as it tried to yank him away, and he heard others struggling to control theirs too, all around him.

“Let them go!” called Varric, leaping from his mount and releasing the reins. He had to yell now above the sound of the Breach, but all around him people were dismounting anyway, rather than risk being carried off back into the night by their terrified horses, or else bucked off. In the confusion of stamping hooves and shouting, Varric caught sight of the Iron Bull nearby, and hurried over to him while Cassandra was distracted helping Sera control her horse. He wouldn’t get another chance.

“Tiny—” Varric jerked his head at Bull to bring him closer, lowering his voice and speaking urgently. “Listen, you signed up to the Inquisition as a bodyguard, right? So I need you to do me a favour.”

Bull grimaced. “I know what you’re gonna ask,” he said, glancing to the side briefly to make sure no-one else was within earshot, though they were all distracted enough not to be listening anyway. “And you know Cassandra would kick your ass if she knew.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Varric. “Look, Corypheus is going down either way. If we can avoid the crazy bastard taking us all with him then great. I’m not planning for any of us to die today.” He glanced over at Cassandra too, who was now heading towards them. “But if it comes to it…if it’s her or me, she’s the priority. Understand?”

Bull frowned. “She wouldn’t thank you for it, Boss.”

“I know. But whatever Cassandra thinks, the world needs her far more than it ever needed me. If it ends up that only one of us gets out of this alive, it’s going to be her. We agreed?”

Bull nodded. If he might have protested more, he didn’t get the chance anyway, as at that moment a great and tortured shriek shook the ground, and every head snapped upwards instinctively to scan the sky. What few horses remained took flight in utter panic, leaving their riders clustered and instinctively drawing together as a group, reaching for their weapons.

“Inquisitor!” cried Solas in warning, but Varric had heard the gut-churningly familiar sound of wingbeats before he even saw it – the silhouette of the huge dragon beating its way through the ravaged sky towards them from the direction of the temple. Black as the night itself, glowing from within like a hot coal, crystals of red lyrium now erupting from every joint and ridge of its vast, terrible body, its wings outstretched in a swoop of lethal precision as it bore down upon them.

“The temple!” cried Blackwall. It was mostly a ruin by this point, and swarming with demons, but he was right in that it was the closest thing to cover to be found out here. Perhaps their only hope. And yet…

“No, everyone stay where you are!” yelled Varric. “Weapons drawn, but don’t move!”

“But—”

“Trust me! Stand your ground!”

It was an insane order, one no-one in their right mind would have followed. And yet they did. Breaking every rule in every dragon hunting book Cassandra’s ancestors had ever written, they stood there as fiery death swooped down towards them. Varric felt sweat bead on his forehead.

Come on…he thought desperately. Come on…

There was a ripple of pale blue magic that Varric recognised as one of Vivienne’s shields springing into place, surrounding them, but no shield would last more than a few seconds against dragonfire. The monster was now so close it seemed almost to fill the whole sky. With a deep caw of triumph and a gleam in its beady, obsidian eyes that looked almost smug, it opened its vast jaws wide. Varric saw rows of jagged teeth and the sparking red crackle in the back of its throat as it drew breath into its massive lungs and—

The other dragon hit it in the side like the fist of the Maker, slamming into the great, horrible thing with a tremendous meaty thump. Focused on its huddled prey, Corypheus’ pet hadn’t seen the attack coming, and there was a moment of spinning scale and talon as the two dragons grappled at each other, locked in a strange kind of embrace, both sets of wings beating frantically to stop from crashing into the ground. Then they separated, and reared back, facing each other in the air, skeletal black squaring off against the faded green of the guardian of Mythal. The dragon had come when Varric needed it, as promised. He didn’t have time to consider how, or what the cost of that help might be, as both dragons opened their jaws wide and roared at each other in a mutual challenge that made the jelly in his bones shake.

“Go!” screamed Varric, and they broke for the temple, sprinting across the blasted rocky ground and into the ruins, none of them daring a glance back, not even Bull, for whom the sight of two huge dragons fighting would usually have been hard to resist.

But there was no moment to stop now, no chance to regroup as they came upon the ruins of the temple; there were rifts everywhere, the air thick with green lightning arcing from the Breach above and tearing more in the very fabric of reality. It was tooth and claw against blade and staff, demons pouring from every side in a chittering crowd, terrors screaming and slashing, rage demons spewing flame, the roaring laughter of huge, towering pride demons whose time had finally come. Overhead, the two dragons clawed at each other, their howls of rage and pain making the ruined temple tremble and even the demons cower when they thundered past, their huge scaly bodies knocking walls into rubble when they crashed into them, talons scoring great gouges in the stone as they launched themselves back into the air, wings beating for higher ground, plumes of flame sending both demon and mortal alike diving for cover as the two titanic creatures ignored everything around them in their battle.

It was chaos. Varric shot volley after volley of bolts, felling demons left and right, but it seemed to almost make no difference to the odds. The temple was overrun. He caught only glimpses in the melee: Blackwall and Cullen fighting side by side, surrounded by a pile of ashy demon corpses. Vivienne throwing up a barrier of ice to buy them time. Sera climbing up a wall to find a vantage point with her bow, and Grand Enchanter Fiona blasting a demon that grabbed hold of her ankle, cutting it in half with a lance of pure white magic from her staff. Cole’s daggers flashing as he darted, quick and silent as a ghost, around the battlefield…and Varric wished briefly, poignantly, that Hawke was here beside him too. She’d have loved this, a desperate last stand against the odds, getting to unleash herself against a horde of demons.

But if it came to that, Varric wished all the Inquisition’s armies were here, wished they hadn’t been forced into this desperate confrontation with no time to plan and no relief coming, while the Breach spewed endless reinforcements, a tide of demons tearing their way through, one falling to Bull’s axe or Dorian’s fire only for another three to take its place. And all the time the Breach expanding like a great, putrefying wound, a ticking clock forcing Varric to fight his way further and further into the ruins, searching for higher ground, any way to reach—

“Corypheus!”

Cassandra, by his side, pointed to a high ledge, where a familiar tall shape was silhouetted against the swirling skies. Varric had known he must be here of, course – the Breach was the bait and Corypheus himself the jaws of the trap that they’d had no choice but to walk into. But still the sight of him made Varric’s stomach lurch. This was it. This was really it.

His eyes met that cold, red, pitiless gaze. And then the familiar voice of the darkspawn Magister boomed out across the temple:

“I knew you would come.”

Corypheus raised his arms in triumph, and with it the ground shuddered beneath their feet. There was a deep, rending sound, loud enough to drown out the sounds of battle and even the roar of the Breach above, and as Varric leapt towards Corypheus, he found himself thrown to the ground, barely keeping a hold of his crossbow, distantly aware of Cassandra falling too as the world around them shuddered violently. The only thing Varric could compare it to was an earthquake he’d once experienced on a trip to Treviso, and this was ten times worse. It took him a moment to realise what was happening – the whole ruined temple was tearing itself from the mountain and rising into the air, crumbling apart even as it did. Corypheus had brought his power to bear and wrenched the temple free from the earth, and now the Breach was drawing it inexorably upwards, like a whirlpool sucking in a huge galleon.

When the howling of the wind rushing past and the worst of the shaking stopped, Varric managed to scramble to his feet, staring around. Corypheus had disappeared, and the chunk of temple Varric and Cassandra had been on had separated out from the rest – they were perilously close to the crumbled edge, with the mountains already gut-clenchingly distant below – and there was no sign of demons, or any of their companions. Varric realised that had probably been the intention; to separate the Inquisitor from his allies. Around them in the sky were other huge chunks of temple, floating and spinning like driftwood in a river, and aside from the roar of the Breach above, for a moment all was uncannily calm. Some way away, a long span of stone steps, perhaps once a route into the inner sanctum of the temple, still connected to the high ledge where Corypheus had stood, winding up and out of sight. It was already crumbling away at the edges, lumps of stone falling away even as Varric looked at it, trying to calculate how much weight it could even bear before breaking off. It would be embarrassing to fall to his death now. Though maybe it was better than the alternative.

Beside him, Cassandra too had got to her feet, and as she looked around she was clearly coming to the same conclusions Varric had. He met her gaze, her face now cast eerie green in the glow of the Breach, so much closer now.

“Varric…” she said, and then stopped, perhaps realising that nothing more needed to be said. Her tone of voice was enough, the look in her eyes was enough. They both knew that the two of them against Corypheus made terrible odds, and they both knew that they had to try anyway – the Breach was growing. The demons would keep coming. Only the mark on Varric’s hand could stop this.

Varric turned his gaze to the Breach, swirling above, to strengthen his resolve, and it was the only thing that saved their lives. “Seeker!” he cried urgently, and Cassandra’s head snapped upwards too to see what he’d seen – the two dragons, locked together in a scaly embrace, claws digging deep into flesh, plummeting towards them in a death spin.

They dived out of the way blindly, as the dragons burst through the floating ruins in a shower of stone and scale. Varric was dimly aware of Cassandra curling around him, using her body to shield him from the falling rubble, but a shard of something caught him in the head anyway and made the world go bright white for a moment, stars exploding behind his eyes. There was a confusion of pain and noise, and then Cassandra was dragging him to his feet, pulling him away, and Varric wiped away the blood in his eyes, staggering behind her, only half aware of what was happening. He had the impression of scales, and hot breath. Then Cassandra released her grip and they both slumped down behind a half crumbled stone wall, the Seeker with an ungainly clank of armour, Varric relieved to find he’d still managed to keep a grip on his crossbow, although Bianca looked about as battered as he felt. His head clearing a little, he glanced around the side of the wall that Cassandra had made their makeshift hiding place, to see the exact sight he’d dreaded. The red lyrium dragon was sprawled on the flagstones barely a few dozen yards away. It was in a bad way – claws marks along its body oozed blood as black as pitch, and it was panting like a huge, scaly dog, but it was horribly, undeniably alive. It looked even bigger than Varric remembered, up close like this. None of the high dragons he’d fought with the Inquisition even came close.

The green dragon, Mythal’s servant, was nowhere to be seen. Dead or gone hardly mattered. Varric half expected a muttered ‘I told you so’ from Cassandra, a hushed lecture about trusting the promises of ‘so-called Elven gods’, but none was forthcoming. Beside him, Cassandra was pale and slumped against the stone, breathing hard. Varric realised with a jolt that she was missing something.

“Your shield…”

“Is gone, said Cassandra, brusquely, pitching her voice low as he had done, to avoid attracting attention from the dragon. “I could not hold it anyway. My arm.”

Varric realised that the sweat on her face was from more than just exertion. Her features were tight with pain. And in the same moment he saw that her arm was hanging limping at her side. Her bad shoulder had dislocated. 

“Shit,” Varric said fervently. “Shit.”

He risked another glance around the side of the wall to see the dragon curled around itself, craning its neck to lick at the deep wound in its side. Its flanks were heaving, streaming with blood, and it gave a kind of great shudder, as if it had tried to stand properly and failed. It couldn’t fly, Varric realised. In a strange mirror to Cassandra, one of its wings was dragging lifeless on the ground, half torn off. It couldn’t get away. Which would do he and Cassandra no good at all, because neither could they, and now they had no defence against those claws, those teeth, that terrible breath that could turn them both to ash from fifty yards away the moment they broke cover. The stone steps might as well have been in Par Vollen for how impossible it was to reach them now. No mage’s shield to hide behind. Not even a metal one. No chance.

Beside him, Cassandra let out a long, slow breath, laced with pain. “Varric, how does it end?” she asked quietly. “Swords and Shields?”

He turned back to her, only half listening. “Huh?”

“Does the Knight Captain’s lover come back for her?” said Cassandra, still in that strange, measured voice. “I know he cannot have truly betrayed her. Even if they cannot be together I’m sure he must come back and fight for her in the end. No matter the cost.”

“Seeker, is now really the time to—” Varric saw the look on her face and felt his heart seize in his chest as he understood. “No,” he said sharply. “Don’t even think about it.”

“We have no choice,” said Cassandra. “There is no time; you must get to the Breach. If I can distract the beast long enough to—”

“I said no!” Varric seized her uninjured arm, ignoring her start of shock at his grip, the force of it, the anger in his voice. “And you say I treat my life like it’s disposable! The Hero of Orlais, the Right Hand of the Divine…now the Herald’s fucking mabari! You’re more than just a weapon, Cassandra!”

She looked so startled at this outburst that she had no response. Varric released her arm, raising his hand to cup her face, determined that she hear this, that she believed it even if it ended up being the last thing he ever said to her. “We need you, do you understand me?” he said fiercely. “I need you. Not your sword, you. And when you made me the Inquisitor, you put me in charge. You swore to follow where I led, and this is an order.”

Behind them, the dragon made a pained, lowing sound like a vast druffalo, its claws scraping fretfully on the stone. A blast of its fiery breath at some unseen movement lit up the night, the pale green glow of the ruins under the Breach briefly and shockingly crimson, and the heat even from this distance was intense. If it figured out they were here, Varric doubted even the stone wall would protect them.

“I won’t tell you how the book ends, Seeker,” he said, letting his hand fall from Cassandra’s face. “You’ll have to find out for yourself when it’s done. But I swear to you it doesn’t end like this. No heroic sacrifices. No-one dies. Not in my story.”

Cassandra’s eyes didn’t leave his, her gaze fierce and proud, and blessedly resigned. “Together, then?” she said.

Varric nodded. “We break for the stairs on three. One...two…”

“Maker guide us,” whispered Cassandra.

“Thre—”

But at the moment they were poised to make their suicidal run, an explosion suddenly slammed into Varric’s eardrums, and he had to clap his hands briefly over his ears as the dragon let out a fresh bellow of pain. Without thinking what he was doing, he scrambled out from behind cover and felt his heart leap to his throat at the sight that met his eyes.

It was as if Cassandra’s prayer had been answered. A huge chunk of stone had risen behind the dragon, this one not spinning wildly into the air, but guided, levitated by the mages standing at each edge – Dorian, Solas, Vivienne and Fiona, their faces set in concentration at their impossible burden. The blast hadn’t come from one of them, but from Sera, who was standing on the shoulders of the Iron Bull, with an expression that was half livid dread and half sheer determination, already levelling another grenade at the injured dragon and getting ready to throw. Beside them, Varric saw Blackwall, his sword at the ready, and Cole too, crouched to spring down.

“It’s okay, Seeker,” Varric said, a grin spreading across his face in spite of everything. “The cavalry’s here.”

“Alright, Boss?” called Bull, catching sight of him, as the mages floated the rock out of reach of the dragon’s snapping jaws. “We thought you could use a hand.”

“The others?” called back Varric.

“Still fighting below!” Bull grunted as he ducked to avoid the sweep of a huge taloned leg.

“Lady Morrigan is with them,” yelled Blackwall. “She brought reinforcements. I think the demons are in more trouble than we are!”

“Morrigan? How--?”

“She turned into a giant spider!” Sera sounded almost hysterical, torn between terror and exultation. “You should’ve seen Cullen’s face!”

There wasn’t remotely enough time to unpack any of that, as the dragon reared and snapped, and the mages finally found an opening to bring their rock close enough for their party to leap down. The Inquisition’s finest fell upon the dragon like a pack of wolves, and it was in that moment that Varric realised, with a strange bittersweet feeling, that maybe they’d never needed Mythal’s help at all.

Dorian threw up a starburst of fireworks around the dragon’s head, dazzling it, blinding it, and the warriors used the distraction to close with the beast – Blackwall running beneath the dragon’s scaly bulk with the courage of a Warden who had already accepted his own death, his sword slashing at the legs as thick as tree trunks. Bull let out a great roar of his own to match the dragon’s enraged bellow, his axe cleaving into the leathery hide. Cole and Sera darted through the melee like shadows, striking at the places where the scales were already torn, finding every weakness. The dragon, besieged and struggling, snapped and lunged uselessly, trying to strike every target at once, but the moment one of the attackers was forced to dive out of the way of those massive talons, another was there, on the offensive, giving no quarter. Blackwall was knocked down by a sweep of the huge, spiked tail, but there was Bull, grabbing the tail and holding it back, his muscles bulging with effort, as Sera dragged Blackwall to safety. A blast of crimson flame caught Dorian, but his cry of panic was cut off as Vivienne spun round and doused him with ice, before throwing up a shield with her other hand to block the swipe of a claw, graceful as a dancer and lethal as a viper. They all fought as if they’d been fighting side by side for their whole lives, and…Varric was doing it again, he realised – thinking of how he’d describe the scene in a book instead of remembering that he was one of the characters himself. Kicking himself for the moment of distraction, he hefted his crossbow and darted forward to help, but found himself suddenly facing a wall of ice, bringing him up short. Vivienne. Over the top, Varric could see Bull wrestling with the dragon’s head, having taken it by the horns. Cole was scrambling over the dragon’s scaled back, light as a feather, his daggers gleaming in his hands.

“Get going, boss!” called Bull between gritted teeth. “Leave the dragon to us!”

“He’s right,” said Cassandra, sounding grim. Varric turned to see she had struggled to her feet, sword in hand. “We must find Corypheus.”

Varric rounded on her, aghast. “We? Seeker, you can barely—”

The dragon screamed, a surprisingly high-pitched sound that made his ears ring. Cole had plunged one of his daggers into its eye, and it was thrashing wildly, made suddenly dangerous by its agony. The attackers were forced to scatter as the dragon opened its useless, broken wings and howled, making the ground beneath them tremble and rock perilously. It actually lifted off the ground for a fraction of a second before crumpling back down, its spiny tail catching a piece of wall and causing an avalanche of stone. It was trying to flee and realising it couldn’t, blundering about in animal panic, the sheer weight of it making their fragile chunk of floating ruin pitch wildly as it careened about, smashing blindly as it stumbled and howled.

There was a crumbling, rending sound, and Varric saw what was going to happen only moments before it did. There wasn’t time to think – he sprinted towards the stone stairs that led upward, between the dragon’s flailing legs, dodging the lethal sweep of the tail that threatened to knock him into the waiting abyss. He could hear Cassandra calling out his name behind him, but he ignored her, ignored everything that wasn’t the cracking, disintegrating stone stairs ahead of him, and he reached them at the moment they broke in half, and leapt for the other side of the widening gap. He landed bodily on the stone, winded and bruised, his crossbow cradled in his arms, and then Varric could only cling to the steps as the ground bucked and crumbled around him, praying that the mages were able to shield themselves and the others from the collapse. Praying that Bull remembered his promise to protect Cassandra. Praying that they were able to finish the job and kill the dragon, because otherwise what he was about to do would all be for nothing, and he’d probably never even know.

By the time he was able to get to his feet, Varric didn’t need to look back to know that everything behind him was gone. He could feel the terrible, gaping void at his back, and the shrieking of the dragon and sounds of battle were now no more than faint murmurs on the wind, as the piece of ruin he had landed on continued to rise towards the Breach, relieved of its scaly burden and succumbing to the draw of the swirling vortex above. It was bitterly cold this high in the clouds, and Varric told himself that was why he was shaking all over as he stood.

“LET IT END HERE!” The voice of Corypheus, close now, boomed across the night skies. “LET THE SKIES BOIL! LET THE WORLD BE RENT ASUNDER!”

Varric checked his crossbow reflexively, making sure the mechanisms were all in place, and nothing had jammed after the beating they’d both taken. The sight had snapped off, but he could do without that. Could probably do without the whole thing, to be honest, for all the good it might do him now, but it made Varric feel better to have it. Made him feel less alone.

And he was alone now. No Hawke bounding along with him, making jokes and twirling her daggers. No Cassandra, steadfast and fierce, to watch his back. Not even Bianca, who had gotten him both in and out of more scrapes than he could recall when they were kids. For the first time he could remember in his whole life, Varric was walking into a fight with no-one by his side. And there was no dragon to call on now, no blessing of Mythal or even Andraste, or at least none he could count on for a last-minute reprieve. He figured he was all out of divine favours. Varric Tethras alone would have to be enough.

The coppery taste of fear in his mouth, fingers slick with sweat where they gripped his crossbow, he began to climb.

Varric had always thought that the cliché of your life flashing before your eyes before you died was just a literary device, but as his legs carried him inexorably towards his doom, he really did find his thoughts conjuring memories at breakneck speed, all the moments which had led him here, like flicking through the pages of a familiar book. His father, hunched over a desk, late at night, as Varric hesitated in the doorway, afraid to go in and speak with him. His mother, pale and sickly on her deathbed. Meeting Hawke for the first time, that ridiculous little stage-play with the pickpocket that she’d seen right through in seconds. The slam of a door in the Deep Roads. Fighting for his life on the streets he’d grown up on as Kirkwall burned. Being dragged into an interrogation room, the door bursting open and Cassandra striding in, all gleaming armour and barely suppressed fury, holding a knife to his throat. Cassandra handing him a sword in the courtyard of Skyhold, as the crowds cheered, the look on her face as he was declared Inquisitor. Bethany flying towards the Nightmare as Hawke screamed in his arms. Watching Bianca walk away for the last time.

Maybe it was all just a way of his mind distracting him from what awaited at the top of these steps. Because although the climb seemed interminable, somehow in what seemed like no time at all he had reached the summit, and found himself facing a vast courtyard of stone, lit sickly green by the swirling Breach above, ringed with broken pillars and half crumbled walls. A huge chunk of temple like a floating arena, or perhaps a stage, with the whole world below an unwilling audience. And there, standing in the middle, the familiar orb cradled in his hands, was Corypheus. It struck Varric as faintly ridiculous, that after all this, he would just be standing there, waiting. But then, Corypheus had always had a flair for the dramatic moment. Maybe somewhere in his arrogant, Tevinter mind, it wasn’t even enough that he succeed. He wanted an audience.

“Tell me, where is your Maker now?” the darkspawn boomed, to the world in general. “Call him. Call down his wrath upon me. You cannot, for he does not exist. I shall release you from this lie in which you linger. Bow down before your new god and be spared.”

And that was Varric’s cue. Entering the courtyard really did feel like stepping on onto a stage where no-one had told him what his lines were supposed to be, and he could only fall back on instincts as a writer. What would a hero say right now?

“Enough, Corypheus,” he said, and he was relieved to hear his voice ring out firmly across the echoing stone, carrying no hint of the terror that threatened to choke the air out of his lungs with every breath. “You’re right – it ends here.”

Perhaps responding to his emotions, perhaps just to the proximity of the new Breach above, the mark on Varric’s hand flared and crackled as he spoke, drawing Corypheus’ gaze like a beacon. The darkspawn narrowed his eyes in recognition at the small figure with the crossbow before him.

“Inquisitor.” He made the word sound like it rhymed with scum. “You have been most successful in foiling my plans. But let us not forget what you are. A thief, in the wrong place at the wrong time. An interloper. A gnat.”

“I’ve been called worse,” said Varric. “If this fight is going to be about petty name-calling, then I like my chances against a guy who looks like a melted wax candle dressed in my mother’s old bathrobe.” He raised his crossbow at Corypheus with the comfortingly familiar ratcheting thunk of a bolt sliding into place. “And I’ve killed you once already, long before I ever got this damned mark,” he said. “I can do it again.”

“What delusion is this?” sneered Corypheus. The darkspawn monstrosity gazed down upon him, but there was something about the expression on the twisted face that wasn’t exactly the expected glare of fury, which gave Varric pause. There was a…blankness to that look that was more than just the usual cold arrogance. Corypheus seemed genuinely confused at what he’d said. The truth dawned on Varric, and he couldn’t help it – he laughed. A burst of hearty, astonished laughter escaped him, and he shook his head wonderingly at Corypheus.

“You still don’t recognise me, do you?” he said. “You’ve spent this whole time trying to kill me and you don’t actually know anything about me. You haven’t even bothered to learn my name.”

And suddenly, Varric wasn’t afraid any more. It was a strange sensation – the absence of a fear that had been with him for so long it had become a kind of background hum to his life. Fear of fucking all of this up, of letting everyone down. Fear for the people he loved, for his home, for the whole world that was looking to him to somehow fix this mess.

But now all of it was gone. Now it was just him and Corypheus, and Varric wasn’t afraid. Instead, he just felt…angry.

None of this had even needed to happen in the first place. None of it. All this pain, and suffering, and terror, just because the ugly git in front of him had woken up from a thousand year nap in a bad mood and decided to make it everyone’s problem.

Varric stepped forwards, and perhaps this too was such an unexpected thing to do that Corypheus didn’t even react, made no move to attack as the lone dwarf advanced on him, as if he was curious about exactly what it was that Varric planned to do.

But Varric didn’t have a plan. All he had was his anger, and it was carrying him forward now with a reckless abandon.

“The people of Haven,” he said. “Every Warden that died at Adamant, every elven servant murdered in their beds at Halamshiral. Every poor sodding templar turned into a monster like you. Every Tranquil slaughtered by your minions to get into some stupid temple that didn’t even have what you were looking for. You didn’t know any of their names either.”

“They were beneath my notice,” said Corypheus coldly. “They were unimportant.”

“They were people, you arrogant, nug-faced bastard!” growled Varric. “They were all important!”

Corypheus raised his hands and let out a wordless roar, sending a blast of raw, lyrium-red magic screaming towards Varric, who dived out of the way of sheer instinct. Corypheus may have been an impossibly ancient and powerful mage, but he’d been letting his minions do most of the fighting for him, and Varric had been staying alive by his own wits since the day he was born. He knew every trick in the book and then some, and he was good at it. He feinted left and darted right, rolling with his crossbow, and by the time the dust was cleared he was tucked safely behind a piece of crumbling pillar, out of sight. The blast which would certainly have killed him had been a stupid mistake – so bright it had blinded Corypheus’ vision as well as a flashbang would have. Only for a few seconds, but seconds were all any good rogue needed, and Varric almost laughed again as he risked a glance out from behind his shelter to see the Magister whirling around stupidly, trying to figure out where his victim had gone.

“Witless cur,” Corypheus snarled. “Stone-blind fool. Your name shalt be but a footnote in my legacy, Inquisitor.”

“Oh piss off,” said Varric loudly, in a moment of almost manic derision. Perhaps this was how Hawke felt all the time. It’s certainly what she would have said, if she’d been here. “Maybe I’m not the nemesis you think you deserve, but I’m what you’ve got.”

He saw Corypheus turn his head this way and that, trying to work out from the bouncing echoes which way his voice was coming from over the roar of the Breach above. He sent another blast of magic towards a fallen pillar nowhere remotely near where Varric was, and Varric took the opportunity to toss out a smoke grenade and then shoot a barrage of crossbow bolts into the Magister’s back before he was on the move again to a new hiding spot, ignoring Corypheus’s scream of rage.

The bolts were nothing more than a distraction, a bee sting to a giant, but maybe a distraction was all Varric needed. After all, he didn’t need to kill Corypheus – if the dragon was really gone, then anyone could do that now. He needed to close the Breach; the Anchor on his hand meant he was the only one with the power to do it, save for Corypheus himself, and Varric realised with a flash of clarity that the very accident that had given him that power had already shown him how. The elven orb. Maybe that moment of blind chance at the Conclave that had marked him for life really had been providence all along, like Cassandra had always believed. Maybe this is what it had all been for, the moment everything had led him to.

Alright, then. No more hiding. He knew what he had to do, and it didn’t matter what happened to him now. Drawing a deep breath into his lungs, Varric focused on the anger that had kindled into life deep inside him, let it fill him up like a mage chugging a bottle-full of lyrium. Up until recently he’d always thought of anger as a bad thing, a weakness. He’d witnessed that bitter resentment swallow up his mother, transform his brother into someone he barely recognised, eat away at Anders until there was nothing left. But maybe there was something worse; complacency. Sitting back and letting things slide, accepting what should never have been accepted. Maybe, when the world around you had been smashed to pieces by people who didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, anger could be a blessing. Varric had seen it in Cassandra – how a burning fury at the inadequacies of the world lit a fire in her that drove her forwards, against impossible odds. How she stormed through life, forcing the people around her to do better, throwing herself into fixing the problem in front of her, whatever the cost. Varric had once wished he could remake the world into something worthy of Cassandra Pentaghast. Well, if this was how it all ended, here and now, then that was what he was damn well going to go out doing.

Varric stepped out into the open, and tossed his crossbow aside as Corypheus turned to face him.

“And it’s Varric Tethras, by the way!” he yelled. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally—” He held out his hand and with the sudden blaze of his mark that felt as much an answer to a prayer than any will of his own, the orb that Corypheus held was wrenched from the Magister’s grip and shot across the courtyard, slapping into Varric’s outstretched palm with a satisfying thunk. Varric grinned. “—unwelcome tagalong.”

He thrust his hand into the air as he had done hundreds of times now, letting the power flow through the Anchor into a blazing column of green fire that leapt towards the Breach above. There was no army of mages pouring their will through him now, and yet with the orb in his hand there was no need – for all his ravings, Corypheus had always been as much a thief as Varric was, drawing on the ancient magic of the elven artifact to tear open the veil. The power had never truly been his to begin with. With that same power Varric now forced the tear in the sky closed, focusing on nothing else, willing the Breach gone with every fibre of his being. It felt like dragging closed the heaviest set of doors in the world, his nerve endings screaming with effort, an impossible task until suddenly all at once it wasn’t, and the sky folded in on itself, the roar softening, the light fading, the great wound in the heavens shrinking and fading until it was nothing at all. Then even the column of green light fizzled and died, leaving nothing but dim moonlight and a breathless hush.

Varric released the orb and dropped it to the ground, hearing the crunch of it breaking against the stone even as Corypheus fell to his knees beneath the suddenly silent skies, as if the power had been drained from him too. The darkspawn Magister, once the stuff of nightmares, looked lost and confused. Even afraid. Looking up at the dark, empty place where the Breach had been, he seemed almost to have forgotten that Varric was there.

“No!” he cried, his booming voice wavering and breaking. “Not like this…I have walked the halls of the Golden City, crossed the ages…Dumat, ancient ones, I beseech you…if you exist, if you ever truly existed, aid me now!”

But none of the old gods answered. Instead, it was only Varric Tethras who strode forward like the wrath of the Maker that Corypheus had called down upon himself, his marked hand crackling with virulent green lightning. He was exhausted and he was really pissed off and he was absolutely out of patience for all of this bullshit.

“You wanted into the Fade?” he growled.

With an effort of will no more than it took to snap his fingers, Varric reached out and opened a rift right where Corypheus knelt before him. The darkspawn screamed, a horrible, unearthly sound of fear and fury and pain, as his body twisted and writhed, drawn inexorably into the swirling vortex, unable even to frame a final curse as his cold, crimson eyes fixed on Varric’s one last time and he was dragged out of this world and into a prison from which there could be no escape.

And then he was gone. Varric was alone.

But there was no chance to feel any sense of victory, or even relief. The power that had raised these ruins into the skies – whether the Breach itself, or Corypheus, or some combination of the two – was failing. With a juddering, rumbling sound, the ground beneath Varric started to fall, sending him to his knees at the sudden, stomach-dropping lurch. He had barely enough time to look around and realise what was happening, seeing the chunks of stone that had been drifting in the clouds around them dropping, shedding rubble as they went, before the courtyard around him started to plummet in earnest towards the mountains below in a great rending cacophony, pillars and parapets crumbling as it went, vast chunks of ruin plunging and crashing into each other around him. His crossbow went flying, lost in the chaos of tumbling stone and Varric’s desperate, grasping hands. The wind was howling past, and he was stumbling, sliding, falling, here thrown against a surface hard enough to make his head ring and his breath wheeze from his lungs, and then falling again, no moment to find a purchase. He lost all sense of which way was up, sky and stone wheeling around him, buffeted like a feather in a raging torrent, throwing his arms over his head to protect himself as best he could.

Varric must have been knocked out for at least a moment, because when he came to again all was silent and dark and still. He tried to open his eyes and found it made no difference, tried to cry out from the pain pummelling every inch of his body and found he couldn’t even draw enough breath into his lungs for more than a faint whimper. He could feel hard, cold stone beneath his back, and pressing in from all sides, an unbearable weight. He was entombed in it, pinned beneath who knew how many tonnes of fallen rubble, broken and buried, sharing the fate of countless unlucky dwarves since the dawn of time.

Guess we do go back to the Stone after all, Varric thought vaguely. A lifetime under the sky and I die beneath a mountain of rock. Typical.

At least it would all be over soon – he could feel what little strength he had left waning. It was getting hard to breathe, and even harder to think, and even the pounding agony was acquiring a sort of distant quality that Varric couldn’t help but fervently welcome. He was very tired. He thought he could hear Cassandra’s voice, calling out to him, but even now the cynical writer’s part of his mind told him it was nothing more than his imagination. He wanted her to be here, because he didn’t want to die alone. And because there seemed in this moment to be a thousand things he should have told her and didn’t – that meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to him, that she was the bravest person he’d ever met, in every way, and that she made him braver too, made the world feel like a place worth fighting for. That she’d changed him in ways he could never have imagined. That he would have put her into a book one day, that he’d always wanted to find the words to capture her somehow so that the whole world could know her the way he knew her, write and write until his ink ran dry and then burn every page to ash, so that she would only ever be his. That he loved her the way he had loved nothing in his whole life.

He should have told her that he had no regrets either. That it was all worth it, for her. That he’d do the whole damn thing all over again and not change a single day.

But the darkness was closing in, and the time for words was over. Varric felt a strange sense of peace fall over him as the last dregs of his consciousness drained away.

I think I did okay, right Seeker? Stopped the bad guy, saved the world. It’s not a bad ending, all told.

The air was crisp on Varric’s face, a fresh breeze that smelled of pine needles and still carried the icy bite of winter. It sent the long grass around his boots rippling as he walked, patches of little orange poppies dancing and bobbing. The sky was a pale blue, wisps of white cloud scudding across with surprising swiftness overhead, sometimes obscuring the sun for a moment before allowing the light to spill out again, warming Varric’s skin and making the drops of dew still clinging to every blade of grass gleam like jewels.

He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, he realised as his feet carried him at a steady pace up a rise, or how he had gotten here. There was a slight…disconnect in his mind between the present moment and recent events. And yet, at the same time, a strange and nagging sense of what the Orlesians called déjà vu – that feeling of familiarity, where none should exist. He’d been lying under a ton of rubble, dying, and now he was walking up a hill in the countryside somewhere, and although the sudden absence of pain was a relief, it probably didn’t bode well.

As he reached the top of the rise, Varric realised he’d been walking towards the edge of a cliff overlooking rolling farmland below, laid out like a patchwork quilt of fields and forests and little clustered villages. In the far distance, a town nestled on the edge of a huge lake, a castle just visible with pennants snapping in the breeze from its towers. He recognised it, though in his current confused and slightly muzzy state, he couldn’t bring the name to mind.

There was someone waiting for him at the cliff’s edge, though he didn’t so much as turn to acknowledge Varric’s approach. Solas; his slender, bald-headed profile unmistakable, even as he was crouched over something clutched in his hands. When Varric came to stand next to him, he realised it was the remains of the elven orb that Corypheus had used to open the Breach and Varric himself had used to close it. However Solas had retrieved the artifact and brought it to…wherever here was, it was obvious that the orb was broken beyond repair. It was crumbled into pieces, as dull and lifeless as a rock in the elf’s hands. Solas was staring down at it, his face obscured as Varric looked down at him, but his body language clear enough.

“The orb…” Solas murmured.

Varric felt a lurch of guilt. “Sorry Chuckles,” he said, awkwardly. “I know you wanted…look, what happened? Where are we, exactly?”

“The Fereldan Hinterlands,” said Solas, laying the broken artifact carefully at his feet and straightening up. He gestured vaguely. “Or rather, my memory of them, and yours. It is difficult to know where one begins and the other ends, in this place.”

“Wait…” said Varric slowly. “This is…the Fade?”

“You sound surprised for someone who has already been here more than once,” said Solas.

Varric looked around at the fresh, dewy grass, the rustling pine trees, the rolling landscape. “I’m not used to it being so nice,” he admitted.

Solas almost smiled. “For the first time, you are not here in the flesh,” he said. “For dwarves that is usually impossible, but for you, the rules are somewhat…different. I brought you to a place I hoped would not panic you. We spoke here, once. About war. About dreams.”

“You brought me here?” Varric let out a heavy whoosh of breath, and almost bent double, bracing his hands on his knees against the dizziness of relief. “Shit, maybe lead with that next time,” he said, straightening up again. “I thought I was dead.”

Now Solas did smile, a faint upturn of the corners of his mouth that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Not today,” he said. There was a brief moment of hesitation, unlike his usual unflappable self. “I simply…I wished to speak to you one last time, somewhere we could not be heard,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that none of this was supposed to happen as it did. But you…you were not what I expected you to be, and I am glad to have known you, Inquisitor. Varric. Whatever happens next, you will always have my respect.”

Varric frowned, alarmed not just at the words but the tone in which Solas spoke them. “Whatever happens next?” he repeated. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need help?”

What remained of his smile slipped from Solas’ face, and the elf suddenly looked unspeakably sad. He regarded Varric for a long time, and there was a moment when it almost seemed he was about to say something, but then thought better of it. Instead, he turned away.

“You should return,” he said. “Cassandra will not be happy if she wakes to find both of us gone.”

Without looking back, Solas snapped his fingers and—

Varric awoke to light.

It was so bright he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut again, wincing. He felt like he’d been stampeded over by a herd of bronto – every bone in his body hurt, but the heavy pressure had been lifted from his chest. As he dragged air shakily into his lungs, he found he could breathe easily again, although not without some level of grimacing. His attempt to swear emphatically came out as something more akin to a groan.

“Wait, what was that?” A voice, nearby. The crunch of boots on rubble getting closer, and a gasp of shock. “Maker’s breath, it’s—”

Varric risked opening his eyes again just in time to see the blurry shape of an Inquisition uniform turn and dart away, yelling and waving its arms like a madman.

“Over here! It’s the Inquisitor, I’ve found him!”

More shouting, in the near distance, more running feet, and Varric took that as his cue to force himself upright, using a nearby chunk of stone to lever his protesting body into something approaching a dignified sitting position. He was going to have some impressive bruises tomorrow, he thought hazily, but whoever had unburied him had likely healed him too – he was fairly certain a few broken bones had been knitted back together, and his lungs felt distinctly less crushed than he'd thought. Varric looked around for Solas, squinting against the brightness, but even as his eyes got used to being open again, he couldn’t see the elf anywhere. There were others though, approaching through the ruins, more Inquisition uniforms clambering over rubble towards him through the dust-choked air, calling to those behind them as they caught sight of him. And pushing through them, sliding and stumbling over the piles of stone as she ran, was a blessedly familiar figure.

Cassandra.

She reached him first, and Varric felt the last of the tension he’d been holding leave him in a rush of sheer relief as she sank to her knees in front of him.

“You’re alive,” Cassandra gasped. Her hair was streaked grey with dust, and she reached out to him with hands raw and bloody from digging through rubble. There were wet tear tracks cutting through the thick grime coating her face. “You’re alive…”

She pulled him roughly into her arms and kissed him full on the mouth, in front of dozens of Inquisition soldiers and Maker knew who else. Cassandra kissed the way she did everything – like she meant it. Varric knew he was a worrier by nature, an overthinker, but it was impossible to doubt anything when Cassandra Pentaghast kissed him like that.

I’m alive.

It’s over.

And I’m alive.

Holy shit.

When Cassandra released him, he saw she was beaming through her tears, and Varric gazed at her with a profound gratitude, taking in every detail of her sweet, familiar face – the colour of her eyes, the raised pink line of the scar across her jaw, that dazzling, uninhibited smile – that he thought he’d never get to see again. But she was here, his Seeker, alive and with him still, after the end of everything. And as the initial shock of the moment wore off, Varric noticed that not only was Cassandra unhurt, but she had taken hold of him with both arms, which meant someone had actually managed to stop her from charging after him long enough to fix up her dislocated shoulder.

“That arm should be in a sling, Seeker,” he said, unable to stop voicing the thought that immediately popped into his head. “You’ll make it worse. What would Mother Giselle say?”

“Are you going to lecture me about being reckless, you hypocrite?” Cassandra laughed. “After you faced Corypheus alone?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Varric. “I promised you could be there. And now you’re never going to let me hear the end of it.”

“Never,” agreed Cassandra. “Never, for the rest of our lives.”

She helped him to his feet and didn’t trouble to move away, her arm possessively about his shoulders, Varric’s wrapped around her waist. Side by side, supporting each other as they walked, they went to meet the others who were now coming into view amongst the Inquisition soldiers, haloed in gold by the light as they approached. There was the unmistakable silhouette of the Iron Bull’s horns, and Cole’s oversized hat. There was Sera, red-eyed and shaky, swearing bitterly as she swiped tears from her grimy face with the back of her hand, supporting a limping Blackwall along with Cullen propping him up on the other side. And there was Vivienne, and Morrigan, the two mages working in tandem to clear a path through the ruin, while Dorian, limping as well, was using his clearly broken staff as a walking stick, half his robes and his moustache burnt away. And there was Josephine, scrambling over the rubble, hair falling loose, heedless of the damage to her clothes, and Leliana, beaming wider than Varric had ever seen in all the time he’d known her.

They had made it. Against the odds, against all common sense, they had actually made it. And Varric realised as his friends converged upon him, laughing and talking all at once, that the bright light which had almost dazzled him when he woke had been the sun streaming through the ruins of the temple as it rose behind the mountains. The long night was finally over.

The dawn had come.

Chapter Text

Varric collapsed backwards into the bed with a flump, gasping and spent. He pressed his hand briefly to his chest to make sure he hadn’t actually had a heart attack and just not noticed whilst otherwise engaged, and felt with some relief the pounding beneath his palm. It would’ve been a hell of a way to go.

“Sweet fucking Andraste,” he panted.

Cassandra, lying beside him in a similar fashion of breathlessness, made a faint noise like, “Nggh,” and then mumbled vaguely: “Do not blaspheme. I am to be Divine, you know.”

“All the more reason to make the most of this while we can,” said Varric. “How much blasphemy and incredible sex can we squeeze into the next couple of months, do you think?”

Cassandra didn’t answer, and Varric immediately regretted killing the mood, bringing up the parting that was looming ahead of them. He propped himself up on one arm so that she could see he was still smiling as he spoke, not slipping into self-pity.

“I’ve been thinking, you know, that you getting that gig won’t be all bad,” he said, his voice carefully light. “I’m definitely looking forward to calling you ‘your Perfection’.”

But Cassandra didn’t roll her eyes or retort to this bit of studied irreverence. Instead, she sat up in bed too, tousled haired and still flushed from exertion. All of a sudden she looked pensive and a little hesitant; that look Varric recognised as the one which meant she was considering very carefully what to say next.

“I have been thinking about that too,” she said slowly. “Well, not about that, but…about the future. About being Divine. What it means and what it might not have to mean.”

That was vague enough that if he didn’t know her better, Varric would almost think Cassandra was trying to ratchet up the tension. The future of the Chantry might make for strange pillow talk, but that was how their lives were, these days – the fall of Corypheus had left a whole lot of messes to clean up, and even here, in the Inquisitor’s private rooms where they retreated from the world and were able to snatch whatever time they could together, duty couldn’t be put off for long. That was just who Cassandra was, and Varric couldn’t resent her for it. To have her with him was a gift he’d never deserved, and to know that she relied on him to talk over her plans for the future was a trust he didn’t take lightly. But it was unusual for something to be preying on her mind for any time without him knowing.

“…and?” Varric prompted, finally unable to stand the suspense any longer.

“And…Leliana is not wrong about change being necessary,” Cassandra said. “Perhaps I still hold too tightly to the strictures of others, and what they demand of me." She hesitated another moment, and then took the plunge: "Why must I deny the man I love to hold the Sunburst throne?" she said. "After all, I am not a priest; I have taken no vows, save those to the Seekers.”

“And I thank the Maker every night for that,” said Varric, doing his best to hide his surprise at this turn this conversation had taken. “But I don’t think it’ll make a difference to the clerics, or the people. Everyone expects the Divine to be…above it all.”

He gestured vaguely to illustrate his definition of ‘it all’, the wave of his hand encompassing the rumpled bedsheets, the clothes strewn across the floor, all the undeniable evidence of delicious, earthly carnality.

“And why should they?” said Cassandra. “For tradition’s sake? Andraste herself had a husband.”

“Maybe not the example I’d reach for, given how that ended,” said Varric. He gave Cassandra a sly glance. “Husband, huh?”

A faint colour touched Cassandra’s cheeks. “I only meant that I see no reason why becoming Divine should mean I must give up any personal attachments,” she said, her voice gaining in confidence even as she spoke. “Why I must cut out the parts of myself that others deem unsuitable.”

“Unsuitable might be downplaying it,” said Varric. “The Divine and a casteless surface dwarf?”

“The Divine and the Inquisitor. The hero who closed the Breach, ended the war between mages and templars, saved the life of Empress Celene, and rid the world of Corypheus.”

“Flattering my ego aside, the Divine and anyone would be a hard sell, Seeker.”

Cassandra set her jaw stubbornly. “I don’t care,” she said. “I have been fighting my whole life, Varric, why should I not fight for this? Why should I do things the way they have always been done?”

Varric started to grin. “Can’t think of a reason,” he said. A sudden bud of tentative hope had sprouted somewhere in his chest, beating small and fragile behind his ribcage.

“I am determined,” said Cassandra. “When you became Inquisitor, you changed what that meant rather than let it change you; you made the title and the position your own. It only proved that you were the right choice. If they want me as Divine, then they can have me on my own terms or not at all.”

Hope unfolded like a brilliant flower in Varric’s chest, bursting through his carefully constructed walls of stoic acceptance like green shoots through the frost-hard ground. He could hardly believe the words even as he spoke them aloud:

“You mean you’ll still…see me?”

Cassandra stared at him, aghast. “Maker, Varric, I would always have seen you,” she said. “Did you imagine I would cut you dead in the street? Lock the doors of the Grand Cathedral to you and burn your letters?”

“Well now you’re making it sound melodramatic.”

Cassandra reached forward and cupped his face in one hand, a gesture at once affectionate and possessive. “I mean,” she said, looking into his eyes with a fierce, earnest gaze, “that I will not give you up. If we must be discreet, then so be it, but I will not let anyone take you from me, my love. Not ever.”

Varric reached up took her hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss before letting their entwined fingers rest between them. It gave him the moment he needed to be able to speak again with a steady voice.

“Well, as the Inquisitor,” he said, “I can assure you that the Inquisition is open to maintaining close ties to the Grand Cathedral. Very, very close ties.”

Cassandra smiled. “I am glad to hear it.” Then her face fell into a more serious expression. “But I cannot pretend it will be easy,” she said. “I would see you when I could, but…a few days together, maybe a week here and there, with months in between…if it is not enough for you, Varric, I would understand. I do not wish to hold you to anything, for this to become an obligation, or a burden…”

“Cassandra—” Varric leaned forward and kissed her lightly, stopping the flow of her words in the gentlest way he knew. “You could never be a burden,” he said. “And let’s face it, you and I…we were never going to just retire and settle down on some vineyard in Orlais and spend the rest of our days growing grapes and sitting by the hearth. We’d both go crazy within a month.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Cassandra, with just a hint of wistfulness.

He squeezed her hand. “Look, you’ve read my stories, you know I like a happy ending as much as anyone. But I’m not looking for an ending yet, happy or otherwise. What I want is a life with you in it. Whatever that looks like.”

“As do I,” said Cassandra. “More than anything.” She leaned in to kiss him again—and then stopped suddenly, drawing back, her expression changing. Her eyes widened. “The vineyard in Orlais!” she exclaimed. “That’s what the money is for!”

Varric blinked. “Come again?”

“In Swords and Shields,” Cassandra said excitedly. “The Knight Captain’s love hasn’t betrayed her, he has been saving the money this whole time to buy back her father’s old vineyard. That’s why he’s been so reticent about it!” Cassandra’s eyes were sparkling. “I am right, am I not?” she said eagerly.

Varric grinned. “You’ve got me, Seeker,” he said. “I guess it’s not a bad thing you figured out the ending. Means it makes sense, at least. Sorry for spoiling it.”

“But why would he not simply tell her?”

“Maybe he wanted to surprise her. More romantic.” Varric tilted his head questioningly. “So, what do you think? Is it a good ending for them?”

Cassandra considered. “Yes,” she said finally. “It is. They have earned some peace.”

“I thought so too.”

“Now that I know how it ends…” Cassandra’s voice could only be described as coy. Beguilement did not come naturally to her, and if she ever found out how stunningly effective she was at it anyway, Varric figured he would be in a lot of trouble. “There is no reason why I shouldn’t hear some of it, is there? Perhaps you might read me some?”

Helpless in the face of Cassandra’s hopeful gaze under those thick dark lashes, Varric clambered out of bed to go and fetch some pages from his writing desk.

“It’s still only a rough draft,” he warned, as he returned, feeling oddly almost as nervous as he had been facing Corypheus. “There’s a way to go before it’s even remotely publishable. Some of it might change.”

Cassandra only settled back against the pillows of the ridiculously big bed, folding her hands back behind her head and fixing him with an expectant look.

“Start talking, dwarf,” she said, with a smile. “They tell me you’re good at it.”

~The End~

…or is it?