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Chapter Text

Evelyn Trevelyan sat straight in her saddle and focused on looking relaxed. Calm. Unconcerned.

"Your knuckles are white."

Instantly, she relaxed her grip, then sighed and slanted a sidelong look at the Qunari walking alongside her horse. "I'm wearing gloves," she said. "Are they still behind us? Don't look."

"They turned back when we passed that last bend," he said.

"Just as well." Evelyn nodded her head forward toward the distant smudge of smoke. "That's the outer pickets of the Inquisition army, unless I miss my guess."

"No, that's them," said the green-hooded scout riding to her left. He shielded his eyes with one hand against the sun. "You don't think our army should meet the Ferelden honor guard?"

Evelyn exchanged a wry smile with Bull. "Honor guard," she echoed.

The scout blinked. "They are an honor guard. Queen Anora said..."

"She knows what she said, kid," Bull said.

"So they... they weren't an honor guard?"

"After a fashion, I suppose," Evelyn said, adjusting her seat to loosen the tight muscles in her back. Now that she was sure she wasn't going to catch an arrow in a kidney. "They were making sure we'd honor our word to leave Ferelden once that the last rift was closed." She shook her head. "We spent more time dancing around bitchy marchers than we did fighting demons and closing rifts."

"They don't call 'em marchers in Ferelden. Those were teyrns."

"Bitchy teyrns, then. This is getting out of hand, and it's not going to get better. If they're like this when they still need us inside their borders, how bad are they going to be when the rifts are all in other countries?"

He reached up to set a hand on her thigh. "Let Josephine worry about the diplomacy," he said. "That's her job, and she's good at it."

Evelyn hmmed an acknowledgement, if not an agreement.

"Almost home, then."

She sighed heavily. "Finally. I wonder what Skyhold looks like in summer."

Iron Bull chuckled. "It hasn't been that long."

"Three months," she said. "Long enough."

"And two months since I got laid."

Evelyn laughed, low and soft. "Someone had to stay at Denerim."

"I make a shitty hostage."

"You weren't a hostage. You were a tactical liaison," she said, patting his hand on her thigh and not so incidentally stilling his fingers as they stroked over her leg. "And I refuse to believe you spent two months celibate just because I wasn't there. Anyway, what about last night?"

"One of us fell asleep."

"I apologized for that! I'm just... tired, I suppose."

He squeezed her leg and let go. "I know, Kadan. You'll rest tonight."

Her eyebrows rose and she looked down at him. "I will?"

"Tonight," he clarified. "We'll be at Skyhold within the hour. That gives us plenty of time before night."

The clamor from the tent city grew louder. Ahead, Evelyn could see soldiers breaking out of training ranks to run toward the causeway they were on. "I think they spotted us," she said dryly.

"Welcome home, Inquisitor," Bull replied, swatting Royeaux on the hindquarters to send him galloping toward the camp.

Evelyn lifted her left hand, letting the mark blaze, a banner of flaring green light to mark her homecoming.

The courtyard emptied slowly after the initial greetings were over. It felt odd to come back to new faces, to the lack of familiar ones. Josephine remained, thankfully, and Cullen of course. But aside from Bull, almost all of her friends had drifted back to their lives.

Leliana was gone, off to the Sunburst Throne, taking with her Cassandra and half of the people she'd brought into the Inquisition. Vivienne and Sera had vanished not long after Corypheus' defeat. Solas had never reappeared. Dorian had been at Skyhold when they left, but she knew he wanted to return to Tevinter and thought it likely that he would have simply slipped away.

And Varric? Varric sent letters from Kirkwall that took pages and pages to say nothing at all.

Home, but missing most of those she had come to think of as her family.

She tried to pay attention to Josephine. "Of course most things can wait until the morning," the ambassador said, speaking rapidly as they walked toward the main hall, "but there is one matter—"

"Will keep," Bull interrupted.

Evelyn smiled a little. "Inquisition things," she reminded him.

He growled.

"Not exactly," Josephine said as they entered the hall.

Four Qunari warriors stood inside.

"They say they're here for Hissrad," Josephine whispered.

"Well, shit," Evelyn heard Bull murmur behind her.

She reached over her shoulders, fingers wrapping around the well-worn leather hilts of the twin daggers riding in her shoulder harness.

Bull's fingers clamped around one of her wrists, halting her.

She didn't look back at him, eyes locked on the four warriors. One stepped slightly ahead of the others. Hands dropped to weapons, but their swords remained sheathed.

"Evelyn, no."

Not until he spoke did she realize her free hand had continued to draw.

Slowly, she released her weapons. "The last time the Qunari came to the Inquisition, it ended poorly," she said. "A little matter of some assassins being snuck into my guard in an attempt to kill one of us."

The Qunari who had stepped forward looked at her, then shifted his gaze to Bull behind her. "Tal-Vashoth," he said.

"Yeah," Bull sighed.

"No," Evelyn interrupted. "He is not. You disavowed him. He is The Iron Bull, and he is mine."

"Enough, Evelyn."

"More than enough," she said, cold and controlled, "They can't just toss you aside and then show up as if nothing happened."

"I think they know that," he said. "They only sent four people. If they were serious, the Arishok would have sent half the antaam."

"He wouldn't dare," she said. "They wouldn't risk starting a war with the Inquisition." She tilted her head slightly. "Let's send them home without their horns. That should send the right message, I think."

The leader took a step toward her.

Bull shoved Evelyn behind him. "Easy, Sten," he said. "That's not a fight you can win here."

Sten didn't like it. A muscle in his clenched jaw jumped. "Tal-Vashoth. Arishok requests your attendance."

"Tomorrow," Bull said.

"There is no more time. We have waited a week. The ship for Seheron will sail without us."

With that, Bull shifted to Qunlat. Evelyn could follow some of it, but it was too rapid and accented for her to catch all the nuance. But there was one word that dropped all the attention on her, all eyes on her, and silence crowded out any possibility of speech.

Kas-berasala.

After a moment, Sten nodded once.

Bull took her by the arm and pulled her into the bottom of what had come to be known as the Spymaster's Tower.

"I don't have much time before those four assholes shove in here and this really does turn into a fight," he said. "And this isn't about the Inquisition, so listen to me and do as I say. I'm going with them."

"You are not," she snapped. "They declared you Tal-Vashoth! The Arishok can't order you anywhere. And if they think four people can take anything from me--"

He shook her a little. "I said listen. If you kill those four, more will come. Eventually, the entire beresaad will come. Then the whole damned antaam. They will start a war over this and never call it one. We knew it might come to this eventually. We talked about it."

"When did w--"

"I told you once that if I had to leave, I would come back for you. Or send for you. Remember?"

Anger faded, replaced by doubt and fear. "You're really going?"

"I have to. I can't explain, there isn't time. Trust me, Kadan. If you've never trusted me before."

She reached up to stroke his face and fumbled for the words she needed to keep him with her. "What about tonight?" she asked, a tiny smile feathering the corners of her lips.

He groaned and dropped his forehead to hers. "Don't remind me."

"Don't go," she whispered.

"I have to."

She fell silent, closing her eyes, inhaling slowly as he exhaled, drawing his breath into her lungs.

"Come back."

"I will."

"Swear it."

"Kadan."

She nodded, the faintest motion of her head, and let him pull away from her. Before he could turn away, she grabbed the weapon harness that stretched across his broad chest. "You will come back," she said, fierce and angry, "or send word. If you don't, I swear I will travel the length and breadth of Thedas. I will rouse up all the faithful, I will gather them under my sword, and I will lead a Holy March against the Qunari. I will come for you."

He reached a hand up to hers, unthreaded her fingers from the leather. "That is exactly what I'm afraid of." Gently, he nudged her back, away from him. "Stay here. Wait. Be patient. Obey me, Evelyn."

She stayed.

He left.

She waited.

Chapter Text

"This is a mistake, boss."

"What's the matter, Krem, afraid of getting hurt?"

Krem hitched his shield higher and stared over it at the Inquisitor across the training ground. "Well," he said, "yes, actually."

With a tsk of annoyance, Evelyn lowered her daggers to her side. "It's just practice."

"You don't practice."

"I practice!"

"Not against people. No offense, boss, but you're more edgy than those four blades you've got."

"Oh for pity's sake. Do you want me to use practice sticks?"

He nodded.

She blinked. "Are you serious?"

He kept nodding.

"What if there were more of you?"

"More of me, the world can't handle."

"Ha ha. I mean more attackers."

"That would be worse."

Evelyn shook her head. "I don't understand."

Now Krem lowered his shield. "You've spent close to, what, two years living a war. All you do is fight multiple attackers on battlefields. You're not used to pulling your blows or avoiding lethal strikes. If a bunch of us rush you, your instincts will kick in."

"You think I'll kill you before I realize what I'm doing."

A shrug.

"And you don't think you can stop me."

"I can stop you."

Evelyn glanced over her shoulder and saw Cullen walking toward her and Krem. One side of his mouth was curved up. He watched her from the corner of his eyes as he walked by her, slowly shedding the velvet and fur surcoat he wore over his armor.

Her eyes sparkled as she watched him, an answering smile tugging at her lips. "Are you sure, Commander? I almost killed you last time."

"I was barefoot and in sleeping clothes," he said, making a show of rolling his shoulders. "And it was a draw."

"I've had a bit of practice since then. I've fought entire armies. A couple of dragons. A demi-god. Perhaps you've heard of them?"

"Commander..."

"It's all right, Krem," Cullen said, reaching over his shoulder for his shield. "The Inquisitor could use a lesson."

"All right, then." Evelyn flipped her daggers over the backs of her hands and loosened her stance. "Give it to me."

Cullen closed the gap between them in two rapid strides, leading with his shield. She danced aside, spun, and her daggers flashed out to catch his sword as it flickered toward her. The motion of her blades pushed his sword back toward him and down, leaving his side open for her other knife. She spiraled the other dagger in, missing the unarmored scarlet of his shirt by scant inches as he twisted with the motion of his sword. He brought his shield around as he turned, and the clatter of daggers against shield echoed through the rising dust.

They paused just out of sword reach. Evelyn grinned, licking the dust from her lips.

And vanished.

Cullen opened his guard, sword slightly to his right, shield slightly to his left. His eyes unfocused and his chest rose in steady counted breaths. Abruptly he slid sidelong and jabbed his shield in front of him.

Evelyn popped visible when she hit the dirt, then sprang up and spun away from his descending sword. She blinked dust out of her eyes and drew herself up, indignant.

"Come along, Inquisitor," he said, settling back into guard position. "The lesson isn't over yet."

She studied him. A crowd had formed, thickening on the edges of her vision, but she ignored them. Cullen wasn't smiling now. He was waiting.

"All right," she murmured and stepped off, pacing a careful circle around him. Between one step and the next, eyes on his, she shimmered out of sight.

Cullen spun his sword in his hand and gripped it downhand, thrusting it behind him without shifting around. Immediately he twisted and brought his shield from low guard to high, smashing it upward. He hit nothing, there was no sound, but he didn't pause against his invisible attacker. Pivoting on one foot, left foot anchored solidly, he swept the hilt of his sword through the air near his face. This time, all gathered could hear the chime as metal struck metal.

Evelyn reappeared in the cloud of dust as Cullen tangled her feet with his. His shield arm wrapped around her, giving her few paths of escape. She went down, dropping to the ground and sliding between his legs. Her daggers slashed as she rolled, but he was already moving and she missed his unarmored inner thighs.

One of his feet stomped in the dirt just shy of her left hand. Before she could get to her feet, he took another step, relentlessly striking at her prone body with sword, shield, and armored boot.

She rolled and flipped, springing sideways to her feet and twisting at the waist to face her attacker, one dagger behind her and one in front. Before he could go on the offensive again, she sprang at him.

Double-edged blades sliced paths through the curtain of pale powdered sand that hung in the air around them. Impossibly, his sword or shield was there for every blow, countering her attacks. Metal and metal, flickers of sunlight and flares. Step by step, she backed him up. He pivoted as he walked, patient, waiting.

Abruptly he stepped toward her, into her spinning guard. He grunted as one of her blades slammed deep into the muscle of his shoulder, her aim unerring in finding the thin space between the rerebrace on his upper arm and pauldron on his shoulder, a space exposed for a heartbeat as he blocked.

Her right blade caught when the space snapped closed, trapped with a motion of his arm. Before she could choose between releasing her weapon or forcing it free, he shifted his weight. Warned, she managed to twitch enough so his armored knee slammed into her ribs instead of her stomach. Her breath exploded out of her.

Evelyn grabbed tighter to her trapped dagger and spun around Cullen's knee. Her back flattened into his chest. The padded leather on her right forearm caught the pommel of his sword before it could strike her face. Her left dagger plunged toward the gap in his armor at his waist.

Something blunt and hard, something that tingled against her skin, cracked through the air and slapped her backward. She hit the ground hard enough to bounce, used the impact to help her scramble to her feet, only then realizing that Cullen had been knocked off his feet as well.

Dragging in a harsh breath, one arm protectively cradling her cracked ribs, she saw Dorian in the grit that whorled gracefully around him. Tiny dust devils danced beside the glowing staff he held planted firmly in the ground.

"I'm not entirely certain which one of you I rescued in the nick of time," he said in the silence, "but I believe the customary thank-you is the hand of a prince."

Cullen reached up to the dagger still in his shoulder, touched it lightly before his hand flinched away. "I think you mean princess."

Dorian snorted. "What on Thedas would I do with one of those?" he asked. He flipped a hand gracefully at them. "Shoo, both of you. Off to the infirmary."

Cullen walked toward the low stone building, passing by without glancing at her.

Slightly hunched, Evelyn followed. Her eyes tracked the dribbles of bright red blood pattering into the dirt. Clerics rushed from the building and gently led her inside. She lost track of Cullen momentarily, but once inside and seated, she found him staring at her.

His expression was blank. Calm.

Nor did it change when they removed his armor around her dagger.

"How's your shoulder?" she asked, glancing away again.

"Bleeding. How're your ribs?"

"Cracked," she said, wincing as one of the clerics ran his hands over her side.

He said nothing else.

She peeked at him again, at his cool whiskey gaze.

She sighed and dropped her gaze. "Fine," she said, holding one hand up in surrender. "Krem was right. I'm too edgy."

"He might have died," Cullen said.

"I said 'fine'," she said, frowning and attempting to straighten as one of the clerics poked her side.

Dorian leaned casually against a support post, arms folded over his partially bared chest. "Now now, let's not renew hostilities where the mage might get damaged. And be grateful neither Bull nor Neria was here to react to this or we'd not have a stone left one atop another."

Cullen's glance flicked sideways to Dorian, then he shrugged and grimaced.

Dorian arched an eyebrow at Evelyn.

"He started it," she muttered.

"And had your last thrust landed, you would have killed him."

"He'd have let me go!"

"Evelyn."

She flinched again, this time from the whipcrack word. For an instant, he sounded like a tenor version of Bull.

Cullen stood and dropped his left hand to her shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. She looked up at him without lifting her head. The blood had stopped, she saw. His armor was off, her blade was gone, and his skin was whole and perfect under the rip in his shirt. "It's all right," he said. "I was about to push you clear when Dorian intervened. I knew what I was getting myself into."

"I could've killed you," she said softly.

He chuckled. "Not on your best day," he said. "Drink your elfroot."

Reluctantly, she quirked a smile at him and took the bright red potion from the cleric, tossing it back as Cullen walked out of the infirmary.

"Ugh," Dorian said. "Save me from you blood-and-steel types."

"You like the blood-and-steel types," she said. "When did you get back? Not that I'm not delighted to see you, but why are you back?"

He frowned a little, a perfect wrinkle forming between his perfect black eyebrows. "Well, as to that, I had the oddest meeting with your Iron Bull..."

Evelyn missed the end of his sentence in the sudden rush of blood in her ears. Her vision darkened momentarily.

"Evelyn?" Dorian looked down at her, frowning more deeply now.

She shook him off and looked around at the worried clerics. "Out," she said. "Everyone out."

The infirmary emptied.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me everything."

He settled himself on the end of the bed across from her where Cullen had been. "Little enough to tell," he said. "There I was in Jader, wai--"

"Jader?!"

"Yes. In Jader, waiting for a ship to cr--"

"You saw Bull?"

"Yes."

"In Jader?"

"You know, this really will go much faster without all the interruptions. For an Inquisitor, you're not very good at the inquisiting bit."

"He couldn't be in Jader. They only left a week ago. There wasn't time for them to get there and you to get here."

"They?"

She stopped herself. "You're right. I'll be quiet."

"Hm. Very well. So as I was saying, there I was in Jader, waiting for a ship to cross the Wakened Sea, when a very large Qunari-shaped shadow fell over my otherwise sunlit table. Before I could ask him anything, he said I had to come back here and see to you."

"See to m--" She stopped herself. "Sorry."

"Actually, that's what I said." He set his staff aside and opened his pack. "Then he gave me this letter to give to you." He handed her a folded sheet of paper.

Evelyn:

Wait. Be patient. Obey Dorian. I will send for you.

IB

She flipped it over, but that was all it said, only that scant handful of words. "Nothing else?"

"Nothing for you," he temporized.

She turned the letter to face him. "What does he mean, 'Obey Dorian'?"

"You must admit, it's excellent advice. Now. Obey the mage and let's get some lunch."

He took her by the elbow and led her unresisting outside while she read the letter five more times. "I don't understand," she murmured.

"I barely do myself," he said, "yet here I am. Back at Skyhold."

She trotted a little to catch her balance as they walked to the steps up toward the keep proper. "You don't sound happy," she said, checking the back of the letter again. There had to be more.

"Leaky roofs, constant noise, no decent baths... what's not to be happy about?"

"Then why come?"

"To save you, of course."

That got her attention. "Save me?"

"Save the Inquisitor, save the world after all."

"Save me from what?"

"From yourself, I believe. Ah, at least there's wine." He snagged a jug off a table in the main hall and looked it over critically. "Your cellar has improved a bit."

"I don't need saving."

"Don't be silly, Evelyn, of course you do. Fetch us a glass, won't you, there's a dear." He flashed a smile at one of the servants who curtsied to him and hurried away.

"Dorian, enough." Irritable, put the letter down. "What is going on, really?"

He sighed and took both bottle and glasses from the returning servant. "Upstairs," he said, nodding his head toward the far end of the hall.

Stifling a sigh of her own, she strode through the hall and took the stairs two at a time, waiting impatiently at the top for his more leisurely arrival. Arms folded, she watched him pour a glass of wine and set the bottle on the table next to her couch. He took a sip, then gestured her to sit.

She glared at him but sat, knowing she'd get no answers until she did.

"I don't know how he arrived in Jader the same day I did when I left before him. It's a trip of almost a week. He would've had to have arrived there the same day he left here, if I understand you correctly," Dorian said. "And yes, he told me other things, but those things were not to be repeated to you. What I do know is that without him holding your leash, you're something like a Tal-Vashoth yourself. In non-Inquisition matters, at least."

Evelyn felt the internal snap of pieces falling into place. "And he sent you here to see to me, you said."

Dorian watched her over another sip.

"You're my keeper."

"After a fashion."

"Not in any fashion," she snarled, fury rising.

"You're going to want to sit back down," he said mildly.

"Go home, Dorian."

"I don't think I will," he said. "I barely arrived in time, it'd be sheer folly to leave now."

"Get out of my castle or I'll have you thr--"

His bronzed hand clamped around her throat, cutting her off.

Shock pinned her there, staring into the anger and cold determination in his eyes. Fingers tightening, he slowly drew her toward him. She watched his gaze flicker, drop to her lips. Her lips tingled as the warmth of his breath teased across her mouth. His head tilted slightly.

Involuntarily, her lips parted for him.

Confusion threaded through her anger, tangled with uncertainty and... something else she didn't want to investigate too closely. He leaned his weight against her, just a little, bending her backward.

"I'm staying," he said softly. "Best accustom yourself to the idea now, my sweet." He released her abruptly, and she fell back onto the couch, staring up at him.

"I have to speak with some others," he said. "I want to be sure I understand the situation here. Lunch will be sent up to you. Eat well. Rest. Relax."

He left her sitting there, then paused at the top of the stairs. "And Evelyn."

She turned her head toward him, but not enough to see him.

"Obey me, girl."

Chapter Text

Dorian sat with his feet propped up on the Inquisitor's desk, finishing the last of his wine while he watched her sleep. The fire had dimmed to embers; it wasn't strictly necessary now in the height of summer, but he'd had the servants build one for her. She was always chilly when she slept.

Bull paused as he rose. "She gets cold," he said, head turned back toward Dorian but not looking at him. "At night. She gets cold at night."

"I hope you're not suggesting I sleep in the same bed."

There was no answer.

Softer. "I'll take care of her."

He stroked an index finger absently under his moustache, not really feeling the slide of hairs over his skin. His eyes studied Evelyn's form, curled into a tiny ball under a velvet cover. The red rumples turned black in the shadows, gold where struck by firelight, and shifted as her legs straightened.

He should be asleep, he knew. Evelyn rose at an ungodly hour, and rarely got through an entire meal without being beset on all sides by problems and issues. He would have to deter some of them. It would be more difficult for him, not being a 7' Qunari mercenary with a giant axe strapped to his back, but then what about this wasn't more difficult for him?

"How exactly am I supposed to control her? I can't very well seduce her into compliance."

"Get her off-balance early. Keep her that way."

"Step one, is it?"

"Heh. Yeah. Step one. Take the high ground, then keep it. She's trained now. In the habit of obedience if she accepts you're dominant. Just don't give her time to think about it. If she starts thinking instead of obeying, you might as well just go home."

He finished his wine but kept hold of the glass, twisting it between his fingers. He didn't refill it. He had too many decisions to make, too many questions to ponder. The answers he'd gotten from Cullen, from Josephine, even from the few friends he'd made among the mages, weren't comforting.

Oh, they all assured him she was doing well. She had altered the mission of the Inquisition away from Corypheus and toward the tracking and closing of rifts across Thedas. She was decisive, grasped situations and nuance rapidly, and appropriately dispersed her resources.

Maybe she seemed a little more short-tempered or impatient.

She sometimes lost focus, but it was easy to catch her attention again.

She had ridden down a party of bandits and offered no parley, but they had killed some farmers. That was understandable, wasn't it?

Wasn't it all understandable?

"Don't watch what she says, watch what she does. When the pressure starts to get to her, she'll get edgy. She'll retreat, but Evelyn doesn't know how to back up. So from her, retreating will look like going forward as fast as she can. She'll start making expedient choices, not good ones. And she'll hate herself for them later, when the pressure's off."

"Surely she has time befo--"

"She's already been alone two months. Two months surrounded by nothing but people who nod their heads at every word she says, who throw themselves on swords when she arches an eyebrow. Look, I'm not saying you have to tie her shoes for her, but you have to watch her. You have to know when she's gone too far, when she's done too much, because she will never, ever stop. She'll cut her own throat trying to save the world, and then the world's fucked."

Dorian tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling high overhead. It was absurd, really, how he got himself into these things. He should've stayed in Tevinter, should never have followed Alexius. If he'd had any idea...

But which of them had? And at least he'd had a choice. Evelyn hadn't. This was all something that had happened to her, not something she had decided on, trained for, volunteered for. But she'd never said no. She'd never said she couldn't do something. Never turned her back on any of it.

Never turned her back on him.

"This is absurd. I can't possibly do this. Do you hear what you're asking of me?"

"There is no one else, Dorian!" The contents of the table jumped as Bull slammed his hands on the tabletop, toppling the vase with its single red carnation. "I can't leave her with Cullen, he obeys her too well. Varric's too worried about keeping himself intact to make sure she stays intact; he won't know how to be objective."

"And I will?"

"She trusts you already. That'll have to be enough, enough to get you in. She's trained to submission now, she'll be looking for a leader. If she isn't given one, she'll find one."

"You say leader, but you mean master."

"Then you see how bad this could get."

"Very, very bad," he murmured aloud, watching firelight gleam off the rim of his glass. He glanced at the decanter, at the deep burgundy wine waiting for him, then back at Evelyn.

"I'll send for her."

"Maybe you should've taken her with you."

"I almost did. But she shouldn't leave yet."

"So even that decision was about her."

Bull looked away, toward the harbor. "All my decisions are about her."

"Bull."

"What?"

"You've been alone for two months, too."

Bull walked away and turned down an alley, vanishing into the city streets of Jader.

Dorian swung his feet down and walked to the bed. Hesitantly, carefully, he reached down toward a curling lock of hair that fell across her face. Just before his fingers touched her, he stopped.

His hand dropped to the blanket. He pulled it higher around her shoulders.

She got cold at night.

Chapter Text

"I resent the fact that you think I need a keeper."

"I know."

"I resent the fact that he thinks I need a keeper."

"Yes, I know."

"I've led an entire Inquisition, I'm quite capable of-- Stop eating all the jam!"

"Well if I'm not going to have sex with you, I certainly expect to be getting some kind of compensation out of all this." Dorian dolloped another spoonful of jam – grape, and a shocking waste of a fruit – onto his toast.

Evelyn sighed. "It's far too early to be this exasperated. Dorian, really. I'm fine. This is just Bull's misguided sense of... ownership, I suppose. I don't need to be fed and watered like a fern left on a windowsill while he's off adventuring."

"Are you going to eat that last slice of ham?"

Evelyn stabbed her fork deeply into the ham and lifted it to her mouth, taking a huge, defiant bite of it and glaring at him as she chewed.

Well, at least he'd gotten her to eat something.

Dorian sipped his tea and looked out over the mountain. He kept one ear on the stairwell in case anyone was thinking of interrupting her breakfast, but it seemed the Chargers were doing a good job of turning people away. No one dared interrupt her time with Bull, not since the whole Cullen incident anyway, but they had fewer compunctions about breaking in on her when Dorian was with her. He'd had to recruit help. Again.

Across the table, Evelyn had finally swallowed her mouthful of breakfast meat and picked up her diatribe, listing the reasons why his help wasn't needed.

The problem was that one little misstep could ruin everything, he reflected. Iron Bull knew how to handle Evelyn. Not only had he had training himself, but he'd trained Evelyn, groomed her so she would react and behave in ways he could control. Dorian had no such advantages. In fact, he had no earthly idea why Bull thought he could do this at all, except that Dorian had had some experience with dominant-submissive partnerships, and not all sexual in nature.

And Bull had done it without Evelyn's consent, something Dorian would never countenance in normal circumstances. He'd had implied consent, perhaps. He had given her opportunities to walk away and she hadn't taken them. Though given the stakes, Dorian decided it was unlikely Bull would have actually let her walk away.

Fucking to save the world.

What a concept.

Of course Bull would literally spend the rest of his life paying for and making up for that decision, that lack of consent. Dorian wasn't ready to go to quite those lengths for Evelyn, dear as she was to him.

Hm. Then perhaps it was time to acknowledge that he himself was not, as he'd been protesting all along, Iron Bull. He was Dorian Pavus. Perhaps it was time he stopped doing things the way a Qunari Ben-Hassrath would and started doing them the way a magus of Tevinter would.

He set his cup down firmly enough to rattle the spoon still resting on the saucer, breaking into Evelyn's latest sally.

"Do you trust him?" he asked her.

"Of course, but--"

He wagged a finger at her. "Just answer my questions. Do you trust him?"

"I said yes."

"Has he ever done anything where you're concerned that was ill-considered?"

"No, bu--"

"Don't toss rote answers at me, I am not your history tutor, my girl. Think about what I'm asking you. Has he ever done anything where you're concerned that was ill-considered?"

He saw her take a deep breath and actually think about it. "No," she said again, slower this time, grudging.

Dorian nodded once. "When you've fought him on a decision, how many times has he been proven correct?"

Her expression went from annoyed to troubled.

"How many times has he done things for you, things you didn't want him to do only to later realize they were, in fact, for the best?"

She looked away from him now, down at the remnants of her breakfast.

Softer, he asked, "How many things has he done for you that you never even knew about?"

She didn't answer.

"I know you resent being treated like a small child who needs a nanny. But consider it from his viewpoint. He has sworn a vow, in his own Qunari fashion, to take care of you for the rest of your life. Now circumstances have forced him to abandon that vow temporarily. He cannot leave you alone. He cannot be with you. So he sends me. So I agree to come."

Dorian leaned across the table and rested one hand over hers where it sat on the table. "I am your friend, Evelyn. I am his friend, as odd as it seems to say that. Will you trust me?"

After a moment, she nodded a little.

"Look at me, please."

She lifted her eyes, but not her head.

"Come now, you can do better. Chin up. You're a strong woman, Inquisitor, I'll not have you behaving like a little girl even if I did just chastise you quite thoroughly."

Cheeks coloring, she raised her chin and, to her credit, managed to meet his eyes calmly.

He nodded and sat back and picked up his tea. "Now then. I want to be completely clear in this. I am not offering to take care of you. I already made that promise, and I can manage to keep it quite well without your permission."

"Then what are you offering?"

"I am offering to be your dominant."

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted just a little. Subtle lines of tension eased in her body. Arousal. So Bull had been right about this as well. She wanted one. If she weren't given one, she'd find one.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Your dominant. Oh, temporarily, to be sure." He took a sip. "Iron Bull will want you back, after all. But he did ask me to take care of you, and the best way to do that is to step into the role of master."

She stared at him.

In the silence, he finished his tea. He removed his napkin from his lap and touched it to his lips before dropping it on his plate, over the remains of the jam toast. Silent still, he sat back again and rested his hands in his lap.

"But you're gay."

"Charming," he murmured, never taking his eyes off her. "Even after all I've done, you still think that matters."

"But if we can't have sex, then..."

He didn't interrupt her. She just trailed off. Her cheeks turned an even brighter shade of pink. He let her squirm a moment longer before answering.

"Your confusion is natural; you're not a submissive. You're a sexual submissive and there is a difference. But dominance isn't about sex. At least, it doesn't have to be. Believe me, my dear, I can master you. I have mastered you. And, if you ask it of me, I will continue to master you. But, Evelyn?"

She blinked.

"You will have to ask me."

Nothing could have hidden her shiver from him. He was watching her too closely for that. She swallowed, licked her lips. "I... I don't know what I'm asking."

Well, that was promising. He nodded. "You don't know what it would mean to be my submissive. That's wise. Shall I tell you?"

A tiny nod.

"Little in your day-to-day will change. I know as well as anyone what your job entails, and what it demands of you. I will not interfere in that. And, in turn, when I make a demand on your time, you will accede to that demand."

When he didn't continue, she asked, "Is that all?"

"It will be taxing enough, I assure you. Your instinct will be to disobey. You will have to fight against that instinct until obedience comes more naturally."

Sparks of defiance lit her eyes, hints of challenge, curiosity. "But how will you enforce it?"

He tilted his head. "You obeyed Iron Bull because he made it very pleasant to obey him. You didn't disobey him, because you feared the absence of pleasure."

Blink. "Did he tell you that?"

Dorian continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "Now needless to say I don't have quite the same toolkit at my fingertips but for the moment you'll simply have to trust I know what I'm doing. I suppose I could prove it to you but for one small detail."

"And what is that?"

He smiled at her, slow and warm. "You haven't asked."

Again, she looked away from him. That subtle show of submission. He rather liked it.

Gently, he said, "Do you want to ask?"

Long moments passed. Sunlight spilled over the mountaintops and across their table.

A nod. A tiny one, just a faint motion of her head.

"You don't know how."

She shook her head, eyes closing.

He rose and extended a hand to her.

Her palm touched his, and he curled his fingers around her hand.

Victory.

He pulled her to her feet and led her a few steps away to the rug in front of the fireplace, then put his hand on her shoulder. "Down," he said.

She knelt, smooth and graceful. Well-trained indeed.

He left her there and went to his packs by her desk. "In Tevinter, when a submissive accepts a dominant and vice-versa, they mark the occasion in some way. For a time, branding was a popular option but it always struck me as terribly barbaric. And our little liaison isn't meant to be permanent. Collars are still quite popular, but let's not occasion any more gossip than we must, shall we? Ah, here we are."

He walked back to her and stood in front of her, extending out his hand to reveal a velvety soft band of suede leather adorned with a delicate silver chain set with equally delicate bells. He let it dangle from his fingers, making the tiny bells sing in high, cheerful tones.

"Put it on," he said. "You may sit."

She looked up at it, then at him.

He really would have to do something about her hair, he realized. It had once been shorter, but it seemed as if she hadn't cut it in months and it hung around her face, beset with random curls.

But she didn't take the anklet.

"What is it, Evelyn?" he asked softly.

"I..."

He stroked a finger down the curve of her cheek. "It's all right, my girl. What is it?"

"It won't be the same."

"No, I daresay it won't. It will be something completely different. Each bond is unique, because each person is unique. Each pair is unique. But it can be something very good between us."

"I know what Bull got out of it. What he gets out of it. But I don't understand..."

"That's because you're not a dominant," he said.

"You said I wasn't submissive."

"You're not. It's not one or the other, Evelyn. It's not either/or. There's a spectrum of tastes and preferences."

"And I'm, what, in the middle?"

He bobbled his head. "Somewhat. I'd venture to say you weren't even sexually submissive until Bull got hold of you. It may've been a preference you were unaware of. There's no doubting that you are now, however. Your submission is entirely sexual. You derive little pleasure or enjoyment from submission outside a sexual context."

"So... some people like being submissive even without sex?"

Dorian sighed. "Your Qunari has left you woefully uneducated," he said. "If you like, we can discuss it in more detail later. For now, suffice it to say that yes, some people simply enjoy being submissive without necessarily being aroused by it."

She thought about it, kneeling there in front of him. "Which is what you get out of it," she murmured. "You enjoy being dominant."

He took her chin in his hand and smiled a little at the pretty picture she made. He bent at the waist and tightened his grip, forcing her head to the side. Mouth close to her ear, he whispered, "Very, very much."

He held her there a moment longer, savoring the rise in her breathing, the light tremble under his hand. He felt her relax into his control, accept it.

Then he released her and took a half step back.

"Now then." He held the anklet out again, letting the bells sing softly to her. "I am offering, Evelyn. Will you accept?"

Dorian walked alongside her as they crossed the main hall, heading toward the practice grounds. Her face was a brighter pink than their level of exertion could account for.

He fought against a grin. It wouldn't be seemly.

"I can hear the bells under my boot," she murmured.

He could, too. They were muffled, but the chimes definitely jingled quietly with her every step. "That's the idea," he said. "They'll remind you. Constantly."

She slanted a sidelong look of wry amusement at him. "Of you?"

"No," he said, stopping her on the landing just outside the doors. "Of us. Now then..." He turned her to face him and smoothed her shirt over her shoulders. "I've arranged for you to spend some time with Heir."

"Heir? My trainer?"

"The same."

"You know she threw me down a set of stairs once."

"Yes."

"Stone stairs."

"Evelyn."

She fell silent, but still looked dubious.

"Better. She isn't going to train you. You are going to help her train others."

Her expression shifted to bright interest.

"Yes, I rather thought you'd enjoy that. So. Go on. Play nice with the other assassins. I'll see you at lunch."

She wrinkled her nose at him, but skipped down the stairs with eager energy.

The chimes under her boot echoed back to him.

Dorian smiled in satisfaction.

Much better.

Chapter Text

"Well, it's been almost a month. Shall we discuss our progress?"

"Now?"

"I don't see why not."

"Well, I'm a little..." Evelyn looked down from the velvet-covered stool she stood on to the woman kneeling beside her. "What was that word?"

"Déshabillé, my lady."

"Yes. Thank you. I'm a little déshabillé at the moment."

Dorian, lounging across a chair, gestured at her with the delicate crystal goblet in his hand making the golden sparkling wine within it slosh alarmingly. "You're wearing a shift," he said.

"Two strips of gauze is not 'a shift'. And we're in company."

"Orlesian company," he said. "She won't gossip."

Evelyn snorted, an entirely unladylike sound in the otherwise sophisticated confines of the couturier. "Gossip is the national pastime here," she said. "I've been to--" She stopped herself short before she could say 'the Winter Palace'. "I've been to Orlais," she finished.

"Yes, so Bull has said."

That made her laugh, clear and happy. "Dorian!"

He chuckled and settled deeper in his chair. "Hah. One for the mage. Now go on, pet."

She shook her head, feeling the tickle across her bare shoulders where the curled ends of her upswept hair brushed over her skin. "I can't imagine what you want me to say."

"Let's start with how you feel."

How did she feel? Evelyn considered the question, obediently raising her hands as the seamstress slid a length of silver chain around her hips.

Since she had clasped Dorian's anklet around her leg, she had laughed more than she had in months. Her days were still busy, to be sure. She still dealt with the remnants of the Red Templars. She was still mapping the rumors of rifts and demons, deciding where she was most badly needed.

She missed Bull. She missed the warmth of his body at night. She missed his advice. She listened constantly for the low rumble of his voice. She missed the heat of his lips, and the times when his impatience for her body would turn his gentle hands rough.

But she also slept well. She ate regularly. She... She relaxed. Dorian's company was usually enough to wipe away the stress of a day, but he was taking his duties as her keeper seriously. He arranged for her to have nightly baths, always in scented water with a "proper" bath attendant. Sometimes he held impromptu training sessions; he'd had her give him massages (solely to help her understand how such an art should be performed, naturally) and he'd taught her how to serve at table, how to be elegant and graceful when pouring wine. Sometimes he did nothing more than eat with her, charming her with clever banter.

And on the one occasion where she hadn't been able to keep up her side of the conversation, when her day had been sufficiently terrible to reduce her appetite to nothing, he'd ordered her to sit beside him on a pillow on the floor, and had fed her from his own plate.

It had made her angry at first, but he hadn't been disdainful or cruel. Instead, he had been firm and calm until her anger had broken into sadness and she had cried in his lap and told him about the collapsed lyrium mine, the dead children. Then he had wiped her face and tucked her into bed.

That was when he'd started calling her 'pet'.

"I feel good," she admitted finally. "Better than I have in some time."

Even as she said it, a pang of loss drew her lips downward.

Dorian, watching her over a sip of his champagne, noticed. "But?"

"I miss him," she said honestly. "And I feel like I shouldn't feel better. I feel like I'm betraying him."

"Hm." He nodded and thought about it, then held his glass up. A masked servant stepped forward to refill it.

That restored a measure of her smile. Dorian was not at all shy of availing himself of the perqs of being a close confidant of the Inquisitor. Even here, where she was nominally incognito, he conducted himself as if the wealth of the entire Inquisition were at his disposal.

She didn't even try to deny him, and truthfully he didn't need to be curbed. It was, he reasoned, to her benefit and thus of benefit to the Inquisition as a whole. And he couldn't very well be expected to drink inferior wine while ensuring she got the best, could he? Besides, he rarely went to excess, generally confining himself to simply curating from among the gifts and bribes that were sent to Skyhold.

Until this trip to Lydes, at any rate.

"If I borrow a horse," he began.

"Ugh, this again," she said.

"If I borrow a horse," he said, louder, "should I return it to its owner scruffy and ill-kept, thin and wasted? Should I tell the owner that the horse had pined after him, and I neglected to care for it? Or should I return a glossy steed, sleek and well-fed, brimming with fire and passion?"

"Glossy steed?" she echoed.

"Well your hair looks better, at any rate."

"I'd like to point out that borrowing a horse does no one any good if you just keep it locked in a stall."

"Longing to be ridden, are we?"

She felt herself blushing and fought between the urge to laugh or to throw something at him. "I hate that stupid analogy," she said, losing the battle to laughter.

"Don't worry, pet, I'm arranging for you to be properly exercised."

"You're arranging for it?"

"Mm."

"That's very alarming, you know."

"Do stand still," he said. "You wouldn't want to be poked with a needle anywhere sensitive." Then he arched an eyebrow at her. "Or would you? I can arrange for that, too."

"Dorian!" Another laugh.

"Pardon, my lady, but..." The seamstress's fingers touched the pale tan suede anklet clasped snug around Evelyn's left ankle. "This will not match your outfit. Shall I remove it for you?"

Evelyn looked at Dorian. His expression was inscrutable, eyes on her, glass swirling lightly in one elegant, long-fingered hand.

She smiled, a curve of her lips. "No," she murmured, dropping her gaze from his. "That stays."

Dorian's return smile wasn't quite hidden by his sip of wine.

"Well," Evelyn said from within the folds of her oversized cloak, "she was right. It doesn't match."

"A good badge of ownership is never out of style, my dear. Stop fussing with your mask."

"It itches. And I can't see."

"If the Marquise de Val Foret over there can manage, so can you."

"The Marquise is wearing more than a gauze curtain. If I'd have known this was the entire outfit, I'd have flatly refused."

"You'll obey me, and do so smartly. Anyway, you're wearing a whole length of silver chain so I can't understand what all this fuss is. Ah, here we are."

They approached a tidy manor home in the city. There was no parade of coaches, no line of people entering and exiting. Only a discreet doorman and dim candlelight sconces behind frosted chimneys. The doorman did not speak as they approached, but bowed his head and opened the door.

It seemed they were expected.

Dorian walked her to one side of the entry where a table had been set with ten bowls, each holding beads of a particular color. Evelyn waited while Dorian selected six. Then he held her wrist and led her to a door in a short wall. A flip of a finger summoned a waiting servant.

"I need a moment with my girl," he said, "and I'd like not to be disturbed."

"Of course, m'lord," the servant replied with a bow of his head.

Dorian took her into the room and closed the door behind them, muffling the sounds of music and the low murmur of voices. They were in a storage room, Evelyn saw as she looked around, mostly full of wet weather gear.

She looked back Dorian, found him arranging the beads he'd selected on the top of a crate. "Well then," he said, taking a breath as he turned toward her. "All right. Sandals off. Down."

Evelyn kicked off the thin leather sandals and knelt on the cold marble floor. He didn't make her kneel often, but when he did, it meant what he had to say was both important and required her submission to him. She waited, studying him, her disquiet growing as his nervousness became apparent.

"There are," he said, unfastening her cloak and sliding it off her, "lines our relationship has not crossed. Could not cross. Tonight, they will. And so it becomes necessary that I ask you for your watchword."

It surprised her to realize he was correct; he hadn't asked for it before. She had never needed to give it. He had never even approached any of her boundaries, but looking back she could see it as a fault in their relationship. It was something he ought to have asked her for that first day, in retrospect.

What kind of party was this?

She wanted to ask, but now, like this, he came first. "Vanish," she said, awkward and unsure.

His head pulled back slightly, and she could see the sharp intelligence behind his eyes at work, dissecting all the possible permutations of how that came to be the word he would be listening for, the word she and Bull had chosen to keep her safe.

"I see," he said, looking away from her to smooth a non-existent wrinkle in the fabric of his tunic front. When he was done, he gestured toward the beads. "These are a sort of code. It is not by any means a complete code but it can, at a glance, convey enough information for those in the know to decide if further conversation is warranted."

He touched a finger to a pale amytheyst bead. "Submissive," he said, then shifted his touch to sapphire, gently rounded. "Bondage." A moonstone was next, opaque as a pearl. "Opposite gender." A round jet bead waited next to it. "Sex." Lastly, a golden citrine. He tapped his finger by it. "Available for a price."

The one he had separated out, he gestured to. "The faceted ones are the opposing sides of the same colors. Thus the faceted amethyst for me, indicating dominant. Were I... partaking, as it were, I'd also wear a faceted white stone. There are more, of course, but they do not apply to either of us. Red for pain, for instance. Round for the masochists, faceted for the sadists and so forth."

He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Questions?"

"For a price?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he said, looking down at her. "I intend to let someone purchase the right to fuck you."

Her eyes widened behind her mask.

"I can't do it, and it's been some time. Hardly seems healthy. I could have recruited some soldier or farm boy but..." He shrugged, a lift and drop of one bare, bronzed shoulder.

"But this is more civilized."

"So it is. And more controlled. And more likely to be to your specific tastes."

She lifted her chin a little as he began threading the beads onto the long silver chain she wore. "And the money?"

One corner of his mouth lifted, partially hidden by the black sweep of his moustache. "A fillip," he said. "I would hardly let you be with someone simply for the money. And it will ensure the man we select will be of a certain quality."

He stepped back and looked down at her. "So, pet."

He was waiting for her, she knew. Waiting for her to decide, waiting to see if she'd use her watchword.

Truthfully, she wasn't sure.

But she couldn't deny the pleasant hum of her nerves. Here, masked and anonymous, she was simply flesh, pleasure for the taking... for the right man. Though they might offer, the ultimate decision was hers. With one word, she could stop them all. And she wanted contact, she craved it. Rough and fast, with her arms bound, helpless to feel anything but pleasure with someone as hungry for her body as she was for theirs.

She wasn't sure.

But she was silent.

Dorian's eyes glittered. He took up the end of the silver chain. "Come along, then," he said, and led her out of the storeroom.

Aside from all the naked people, the crowd gathered in the grand ballroom actually reminded her quite forcibly of her time at the Winter Palace. People congregated in twos and threes or lounged on couches, sipping wine or nibbling on refreshments. It's just that most of the clothed people were tended to by some of the naked people and Evelyn didn't quite know where to look.

But she had to watch the male elf who trailed by her, clothed in nothing more than a gossamer loincloth studded with sparkling gems.

"Not that one," Dorian murmured. "Didn't you see his collar?"

"I don't think my eyes made it that far up," she whispered, edging closer to him.

"Strictly a bottom and more to my tastes than yours. Though I never did like the frail elven types. Wine?"

"Maker, yes."

"Dorian!"

Evelyn tried to step further behind him, to hide herself from the elegantly gowned and coiffed woman who swept up to them.

"Coline," Dorian said, leaning in to exchange cheek kisses. "Quite the gathering, as ever."

"Oh, just the usual people doing the usual things," she said with an artless flutter of one hand that she'd doubtless practiced for hours. "Though we have scored a coup or two." One of her fingers flicked the sole bead he wore, setting the facets to dancing. "Jérémie will be crushed," she said.

"I've sport of a different variety in mind tonight," he said, nothing but gentle amusement in his tone.

Coline's eyes roved over Evelyn. "So I see. Where did you find her?"

"Borrowed her from a friend," he said.

"Mm," the woman reached up to Evelyn's chain and slid a finger over the soft white bead. "Pity," she murmured.

Evelyn hoped her mask was long enough to cover her blush.

From the ripple of laughter that trailed behind Coline as she walked on, it wasn't.

"I take it they know you here," Evelyn said.

Dorian held a glass of wine to her lips, and she took a careful sip. "I've had occasion to be invited before," he said. "Come, let's wander the room. It's only polite to let everyone see you. You'll be a novelty they'll quite enjoy."

So they circulated, wandering from group to group, pausing here and there for Dorian to exchange greetings and gossip.

Evelyn, for the first time in her life, felt completely invisible while being completely visible.

Oh, they looked at her. Eyes flickered in her direction, fans covered mouths, speculation ran ahead and behind her. They looked at her body, looked at her beads, but all their conversation was directed to Dorian. None of them met her eyes.

Except Dorian. After every group, after every perusal, he would look to her. He said nothing. They simply moved on. Evelyn drifted. She felt as if she had let go of the last vestiges of something, as if she would float away entirely like a slender bit of fog but for the silver chain that linked her to Dorian's guiding hand. Nothing touched her, nothing moved her. She was, she realized slowly, waiting.

Until one voice in particular caught her ear and sent her crashing back to her body.

"Dorian," she hissed.

He stopped her by the branching greenery of a potted fern. "What is it?"

"Gaspard is here."

"Gaspard?" Dorian craned his neck. "You can't mean the Duke. In Lydes?"

"I'm telling you, it's him. I had far too many uncomfortable conversations with him at the Winter Palace not to know that voice. He's here."

"Well, that would be a coup, even disgraced as he is. Remind me to congratulate Coline."

"Dorian!"

"What?"

"He'll recognize me!"

Dorian laughed, a sound that carried enough to make her try to shrink into the fern. "Oh, pet. Don't be absurd. Have you looked at yourself?"

"I'm trying not to."

"There's very little this version of yourself has in common with the severely dressed Inquisitor who stopped the assassination of an Empress," he said quietly. "Trust me, at the moment you look like nothing more than a pampered and powdered pleasure slave."

"Dorian Pavus, unless I am mistaken."

Evelyn froze.

"Duke Gaspard." Dorian bowed low, and a twitch of her chain reminded Evelyn that she was supposed to do the same. "How delightful of you to remember me."

"The Tevinter magister who helped thwart an assassination attempt on my own cousin? I would not soon forget."

Dorian murmured something polite in response, but Evelyn didn't hear it.

Because Gaspard's gaze was locked on hers.

Evelyn's instincts told her to vanish and flee. Here was threat, here was danger. She should run. Run, or kill him. But it was the day she had spent with Dorian. It was the subtle chime of bells around her ankle as she shifted her weight. It was the chains tickling her bare skin. It was the mask. It was that commanding, demanding stare. When the Duke took her chin in one hand and forced her head from side to side, she drew in a sharp breath and it came out as a low sigh.

He and Dorian continued their conversation, words that drifted around her like butterflies. His hands took the measure of the curve of her waist to the sweep of her hips. He circled her, teased the line of her ear with a single finger, traced her jaw and the pulse surging under the thin skin of her neck.

When he withdrew the light touch, she staggered.

Dorian gripped her arm. She managed to focus on him after he repeated her name twice. They were alone.

He looked over her, assessing and concerned. "I am so sorry, pet. I didn't realize... You hide this side of yourself quite well, you know. Had I known you were so vulnerable, I would have done something about this sooner. But we have only moments before the Duke returns. Do you want this with him? You've only to say the word."

From behind her, a strong hand slid deep into her hair, disrupting her careful coif. The Duke's arm reached past her, and he handed off a small velvet pouch. "Not the entire amount, of course, but you must know I wouldn't carry such a total on me."

Dorian didn't look away from Evelyn.

She closed her eyes.

"Of course, my lord," Dorian said smoothly. "I hope you'll not take it amiss if I insist on being in the room."

"That will hardly be a problem, Dorian. Everyone will be in the room," the Duke said.

He used his grip in her hair to spin her around and, not waiting for her to get her balance, pushed her toward the center of the room. She saw a tall table had been placed in the center, covered over with a red silk cloth.

Before she could object or even think if she wanted to, she was face down over the table. The Duke's body crushed against hers, pinning her there, the hard bulge of his cock pressing against the swell of her bottom. He yanked her head backward, his free hand tearing open the gauze that covered her torso. His fingers slid across one breast, and his breath was hot against her ear.

"Do you know what is going to happen next?" he said, his voice thick and hoarse. His fingers stroked and pulled on her erect nipple, the fingers of his other hand tightening against her scalp.

Pain and pleasure spiraled through her, blazed through her, reigniting her like a bonfire long dead and cold. Evelyn fought to draw in enough air, lips parted wide.

Some disturbance at the door danced briefly across her awareness and faded as his teeth sank into her ear. Her small cry was met with a general appreciative murmur from the onlookers.

"I am going to spread those lovely long legs of yours," he whispered. "I am going to rip the last remnants of this flimsy bit of fabric from you."

The hand on her breast forced its way between her body and the table, pushed between her legs. Calloused fingers slid over her clit. If she hadn't been braced on the table, she would have fallen. Light applause greeted her gasp, the tears that filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

"And then, Inquisitor, Herald of Andraste, I am going to fuck you until you scream for me."

Evelyn's eyes snapped open.

The door to the vestibule crashed open. Screams from the nobility mingled with the shouts from Coline's house guard, few though they were. Standing in the doorway was a Qunari.

His cold, dispassionate gaze flicked across the gathering, then narrowed at Dorian. At Evelyn.

He pointed at her.

"I have come for the woman."

Evelyn straightened, pushing the Duke away from her. Eyes on the Qunari, the warrior she did not know, she said only one word:

"Vanish."

Chapter Text

Evelyn studied the silent Qunari, blinking only when Dorian settled her cloak around her. The overlarge sweep of deep blue velvet covered her from shoulder to toes and if it wasn't much in the way of armor, it did make her feel significantly less naked.

"All right," she said. "Explain."

"What is there to explain?" he asked, looking down on her with a frown of what might be annoyance. "I have been sent to retrieve you."

"Sent by whom?"

"Arishok. We are wasting time."

"It's my time to waste, and I'm not under any obligation to obey your Arishok."

"Nevertheless, you will accompany me."

Dorian, watching behind them for overeager eavesdroppers, tipped his head around a bit and advised, "That would be entirely the wrong tack to take with her."

Evelyn throttled her annoyance. At the moment, the armed Qunari probably could knock her out, if he could get a hand on her. She needed armor and weapons. "We can discuss this further at our inn," she said, brushing past him to walk to the door.

Dorian fell in behind her. "We're taking him to the inn?" he asked.

"This is going to end in either bloodshed or a long voyage," she replied, pulling up her hood. "Either way, I'm going to need pants."

Evelyn led the procession into the inn and up to their room, entering after Dorian unlocked the door. She shed the cloak and paced nude to her side of the small room, shaking out a pair soft leather pants and sliding into them, hopping a little to get them settled as she buttoned them. "All right," she said, turning to face the Qunari and stripping the mask off her face. "What should I call you?"

"I am Taarbas," he said. "As I have told you."

Taarbas. She searched her memory. One of the antaam, of that she was sure. Then she had it.

"You find swords," she said.

"No," he said, a growl.

"Kas-berasala," she murmured. "Sword and shield of the soul."

"That is a terrible translation."

"You can do better?"

"Your language is also terrible."

"Ah. The taarbas do not retrieve weapons?"

He didn't muffle all of his sigh. "We retrieve souls," he said.

Evelyn blinked rapidly, reassessing. It made sense. Qunari warriors considered their weapons as part of their souls. Bull had told her once that because of that belief there were members of the antaam, the taarbas, who did nothing but search the world for weapons lost by fallen Qunari. The Qunari would even go so far as to execute a warrior who'd lost his sword. Who'd lost his soul.

"So the Arishok sent you to retrieve me."

"Yes."

"Because of kas-berasala. Because he had forced Bull to leave part of his soul behind."

A pause. "Partly," he said, grudging. "Are you finished? Can we go?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you need to learn patience?"

"Yes."

Evelyn let it slide. "I need more than just your word that Arishok sent you."

"You do not."

Dorian stepped behind her to help her remove the silver chain, preventing her from simply snapping it into pieces small enough to fall off her. She snatched up a band of leather and wrapped it over and around her breasts in quick, practiced flips, securing it with a double tuck. "If you want me to come with you, I do."

"He said you would be like this." The Qunari reached into a pouch attached to his wide leather belt.

"Arishok?" She kept dressing, watching him.

"No." He held out a piece of paper to her.

Wary, Evelyn took it. It was still crisp, fresh. It could've been written yesterday for all the wear it showed. There were only three words in stark black ink, written in Bull's bold hand:

Evelyn. Come here.

She sank onto the bed and stared at the message. It was exactly what he would say, exactly as he would say it. Exactly as he had said it innumerable times.

Dorian sat next to her and rested a hand on her knee. "Is it from him?" he asked quietly, eyes scanning the brief note.

She bent and picked up her pack, drawing a much more battered sheet of paper from inside it. She flattened out the note Dorian had been given in Jader next to the new one.

"The handwriting's the same," Dorian said. "But he didn't sign this one."

"He didn't need to," Evelyn said, numb. Bull. Her finger traced the letters.

"Now will you go?"

She shook her head rapidly. "Yes," she said. "Just let me..." She stood and started stuffing things into her pack. She had a change of shirt, but that was about it. Her armor and weapons, of course, had come with her. She wouldn't even risk a trip to Lydes without them. Royeaux was stabled; she should get the ostler to saddle him. Dorian might want more in the way of provisions. Where were her boots?

Dorian hadn't moved. She blinked at him. "We have to go," she said.

His voice was gentle, "Evelyn. I cannot go."

"No, he cannot."

She frowned. "Of course you can." She looked over at Taarbas. "Of course he can."

"The bas saarebas does not come."

"What are you talking about? He mu--" But no, she realized abruptly. He could not. Eyes full of dismay, she looked back at him.

"Ah, there now," he said, standing and resting his hands on her shoulders. "That look on your face is the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Dorian..."

"It's all right, pet. A Tevinter mage, in Seheron? It isn't possible, not if he wants to walk back out at any rate."

She shook her head a little, a tiny denial that set the half-tumbled mass of her hair to shivering in the candlelit room. "I can't do this without you," she said.

He shifted one of his hands higher, cupping her face. "Of course you can. Evelyn Trevelyan, who stopped an army, defeated dragons, killed Corypheus?"

"I didn't do any of that alone."

"You stopped a dragon in Haven alone."

"I had an avalanche."

"And now you have a Qunari warrior. Some would say there's little difference."

Even now he made her laugh, just a little, and she leaned into his touch. "I'm not ready to let you go," she whispered.

He stroked her cheekbone with a thumb, then released her and leaned past her, picking something up from the bed. He straightened and put the note into her hands.

Evelyn. Come here.

"Obey him, Evelyn."

She nodded a little.

Silently, he packed his few things while she drew on her armor and watched him unhappily.

"It's late," she said hesitantly. "You could stay the night."

"Alone, in Lydes? What a fate. No, I'll return to Skyhold and let them know you've gone."

"Then you'll go back to Tevinter."

"It's where I belong now."

"You'll always have a place at Skyhold."

He turned, hitching his pack onto his shoulder. "I know," he said.

Neither spoke. Even Taarbas remained silent.

Dorian nodded. "All right, then. Do write, let me know how it all turns out, hm?"

He turned to go.

Evelyn abruptly remembered. "Dorian, wait!"

He stopped and looked back at her.

Bending, Evelyn plucked at the knot of the suede anklet. The intervening weeks had tightened it, and she was forced to snap the tie.

The sound was loud in the quiet room, almost covered by the alarmed jingle of bells.

She stood and stepped to him, holding it out.

"Ah. Yes. Well." He took it, tossed it a couple of times in his hand, then closed his fingers around it. "Taarbas."

"Bas saarebas."

"She gets cold. At night, when she sleeps. She gets cold."

Evelyn stared at the wood of the door as it closed softly behind him.

"Why did he tell me that?"

"He thinks you'll take care of me."

"I will return you safely to Arishok."

"Not exactly the same thing."

"No," he said. "It is not."

They delayed their departure while Evelyn took the time to shake her hair loose of the remaining pins, while she repacked her belongings better, while she made sure of her armor and weapons. When she was certain they wouldn't catch up to Dorian on the road, she let Taarbas lead her from her room.

There was another brief delay when she started toward the stables. A few coins and a quick conversation with the ostler's son ensured that he would catch up to Dorian on the road. Royeaux could handle the gallop and the boy didn't mind walking back to town.

"It's not that I mind walking all the way to a port city," she told Taarbas, "but for someone in such a hurry, I'd think you'd rather I rode."

"You do not need the horse," he repeated.

"So he's close?"

"No."

Evelyn sighed. "You suck at conversation," she muttered.

She let the silence linger as they walked, Taarbas slightly ahead. He wasn't as large as Bull. Maybe the same height, just not as broad. Leaner. Heavy, though, compared to a human, with elegant sweeps of muscle chiseled in fine detail. The line of his spine trailed down to his narrow hips. Leather pants hid anything else from clear view, but from behind he did fill out those pants quite well...

She shook her head. Maybe stilted conversation was a better idea after all. Quickening her pace, she fell in alongside him. "So what does kas-berasala translate as, anyway?"

"It does not."

"Everything translates."

"What is love?"

"It's when..." She stopped herself. "But you know what it is. There's a word for it in Qunlat, and a word for it in Tevene. One in Orlesian, in Ferelden, in every language. It may be a definition that's difficult to encapsulate, but it doesn't mean there isn't a translation for it."

His nostrils flared and a muscle ticked in his jaw. "There is no concept for it, and therefore no translation for it. Your people have a word for 'responsibility', one for 'honor', one for 'reparation' but no word that means all those things. You do not have a word for something that is yours that you do not also own. You do not have a word for something you have claimed and taken that now owns you."

Evelyn frowned at the road in front of her, thinking on his words. "I don't own him," she said.

"Then you see the difficulty in translating kas-berasala."

"Here's another question..."

"You have an endless supply."

She ignored that. "What's the noun form?"

Now he glanced at her. "I do not understand."

"Well, if we're kas-berasala, he's my...?"

His white eyebrows drew downward. Finally he looked away from her again. "You call him The Iron Bull."

"Yes, but if he owned me, I might be his slave and he my master. Or maybe he'd be the dominant and I the submissive. So in this kas-berasala thing, he's the...?"

He looked back at her, silent, assessing. Then he grunted and looked forward again.

"What?" she asked finally.

"Nothing."

"You grunted."

"I do that."

"You also didn't answer."

"No, I did not."

"Don't you have an answer?"

This time, he actually snorted. He sounded so much like Royeaux when he was annoyed, Evelyn felt a little pang and hoped her horse was well. "He is not anything. He is himself. You are, together, kas-berasala. Apart, you are only yourselves. You are Evelyn. He may be Hissrad."

She cocked her head. "May be?"

Taarbas gritted his teeth. Even in the moonlight, she could tell. "If you are kas-berasala, he cannot be Tal Vashoth."

Evelyn stopped in the road. Taarbas stopped soon after and looked back at her. "Walk," he said.

"What do you mean, he may not be Tal Vashoth?"

"Hissrad was declared Tal Vashoth for rejecting the Qun. If you are kas-berasala, he has not rejected the Qun. Walk now."

She didn't. "Are you saying kas-berasala is of the Qun?"

"No. But he chose you over the lives of the Qunari on the dreadnought ships."

That wasn't exactly what had happened, but she wasn't going to argue it. "And?"

"And if you are kas-berasala, that decision was of the Qun."

"So I'm going to Seheron to prove that we are kas-berasala?"

"No."

"No?"

"Arishok believes you may be, so I am sent to retrieve you in case you are. If you are not, he is Tal Vashoth. If you are, he is Qunari. Walk."

She did, but slowly. "But you said I wasn't going to prove it."

"You are going to prove it. You are not going to Seheron."

"Where are we going, then?"

"Kont-aar."

Evelyn tried to place it. She'd stared at more maps of Thedas than most, she thought, and given her connection to Bull it was only natural that Qunari cities would be more familiar than not. "Rivain?" she asked. "On foot?"

But he didn't answer her. It was self-evident.

So they walked.

When the moon set, Taarbas finally stopped. They had left the main road, striking out cross-country, and without the silvered light of the nearly full moon, it had become difficult to step safely without entangling an ankle in an unseen root or bit of ground clutter. Evelyn was tired, but not yet exhausted. She'd been pushed harder than this in the last year. A dark walk after a full day of shopping and dressing didn't even make her list of tiring activities.

But she wasn't upset when Taarbas led her deeper into a copse of trees. "You will sleep here," he said, pointing at the ground.

"Right there?" she asked with no little sarcasm.

He stared at her, 7' of impassive Qunari.

She sighed and sat where he had pointed, only then realizing he didn't have a pack. He didn't have any kind of supplies. She shucked out of her pack and took out her nearly empty water bota, offering it to him.

He declined with a shake of his head.

"You should drink," she said.

"I do not need water yet."

"Food?"

"No."

"It's a long walk to Rivain."

"Yes it is," he said.

She sighed. "Fine," she muttered. Stuffing her pack under her head, she rolled onto her side with her back to the Qunari. It wasn't the roughest camp she'd ever had. Oh, a fire would have made it nicer. And a tent. Maybe a blighted blanket. But fine.

"Do you want to have sex?"

She sat up abruptly and twisted to stare at him. "And now I'm awake," she said. "What did you ask me?"

He cocked his head and looked down at her, frowning a little. "I asked if you wanted to have sex."

"No. No, I don't."

"Oh."

When staring at him produced no new questions or observations, she slowly laid back down though her eyes were still wide.

He didn't move, didn't shift away or sit or lie down. He stood over her, a silent sentinel.

She didn't trust it.

"Should I pay you?" he asked.

That got her on her feet, hands on her hips. "What?" she asked, enunciating clearly.

Had anyone in the Inquisition been with them, they could have warned him to choose his next words very, very carefully. But they were alone. "I overheard conversation in Lydes," he said. "The Bas Saarebas was paid by the man mounting you."

Evelyn didn't know whether to sputter, die, or kill him. She attempted some version of all three and ended up waving her hands in the air between them while trying to inhale and speak at the same time. "I am not a whore!" she said finally.

"Oh."

Her eyes narrowed. She could see the questions behind his mostly impervious Qunari expression. "What."

"Do not whores get paid for sex?"

"They do." Her tone was a warning.

He ignored it.

"Was he not paying you for sex?"

She sighed and closed her eyes. "That wasn't the same thing."

"What was it then?"

"You don't have a word for it in Qunlat," she said, sitting back down. "Just go to sleep."

"I will not sleep. I will watch over you."

"All the way to Rivain?"

"Yes."

"You are going to be one very tired man, Taarbas."

He didn't answer. Instead, Taarbas took her pack and pulled out the heavy blue velvet cloak Dorian had chosen for her. "Lie down," he instructed.

With no reason not to, she obeyed and rested her head on her flattened pack. He dropped the cloak over her, let her settle its warm folds over and around her.

She tried to forget humiliation, and tried to ignore the pragmatic side of her that was pointing out how good some rough sex would feel right about now. She was two months celibate after over a year of near nightly sex. A good sweaty fuck could be just what she needed.

Evelyn closed her eyes. "Are we there yet?" she muttered.

"No," he answered her facetious question. "Tomorrow."

Tomorrow?

But he would not clarify.

Eventually, Evelyn slept.

Chapter Text

Taarbas rousted Evelyn from sleep when dawn was still just an idea the night was pondering. But she woke quickly and quietly, and didn't object when Taarbas led her into the forest. She always had some food in her packs, though she'd need water before too long. She settled her weapon harness as they walked and rubbed her eyes to clear them of sleep.

Today. She would see Bull today.

Butterflies danced looping patterns in her stomach, even while her head argued it made no sense. They wouldn't make Rivain in one day, it simply wasn't possible. Did he think she would open a tear into the Fade and they would travel through it? Just the two of them?

It had been something she'd considered a time or two. If she weren't in the Nightmare's realm, it might be entirely different. Could she open a tear from that side? Could she even be sure distances would translate?

Would she see Stroud?

So she hadn't experimented, and she hoped Taarbas wasn't about to suggest she do so.

They had been walking for perhaps another hour when she heard the distinct splash of water. It didn't sound like a brook or stream, and she frowned a little, trying to remember if she knew anything of the surrounding geography. It sounded like a very small waterfall, actually.

Then they broke through a screen of brush and Evelyn stared around her at a courtyard.

At least, it had been at one time. The walls still stood, she assumed, under their heavy burden of ivy and flowering vines. They had entered at a gap in the growth, albeit a small one now that the vines had returned. The courtyard itself was a tangle of grasses, but no trees. Shallow roots, she surmised. She had seen it before in ruins. Where the footing was too solid for seedlings to take root, only grasses could grow in the thin layer of soil. In the center of the courtyard was a fountain, still spraying water into the air to fall into a mossy green bowl.

Of the house, only half remained. The rest was a jumble of bricks and broken marble tumbling down into the gaping rooms ripped open.

A second Qunari stepped out from the still-intact side. He watched her, arms folding. Unease stirred in her heart.

Taarbas held a fistful of black fabric out to her. "You will wear this."

Evelyn took it, uncrumpled it, and realized it was a hood. "No, I won't," she said.

"If you wish to travel farther, you will."

"Well, you have your orders to take me to Arishok so I think you'll take me no matter what I will or won't wear."

Taarbas didn't argue. He looked over at the second Qunari.

The Qunari who looked into the depths of the house.

Evelyn didn't see the third Qunari. The saarebas. She only felt his presence, felt the all-too-familiar pain of paralysis that locked her muscles into tightly clenched spasms. She could break free, would break free, just had to stretch enough, just enough to reach her daggers...

Taarbas's fist slammed into her face.

She went down, but they had misjudged her. The blow had shaken her free from Saarbas's influence, and before Taarbas could process that she wasn't unconscious, she laid his thigh open in a flashing dagger swipe that sent his blood flying across the grass. She kept moving, toward him and past him, and flickered into invisibility.

The Qunari barked Qunlat imprecations at each other, the noise covering any sound Evelyn might have made as she slid through the grass and stopped in the shade of the ivy, still invisible, thinking hard.

Could it all have been a trap? What were her options? She could leave, return to Skyhold. They'd need an army or three to dig her out of there. But that would mean leaving Bull behind, and that was not acceptable.

She could kill them all, that she knew. She would have to start with the saarebas, then his arvaarad. He was the unknown. Taarbas, she could afford to leave for last. He was weaker, his mobility severely curtailed. Once they were dead, she could go to Rivain alone, she supposed, if Bull would still be there when she arrived.

Or she could put the hood on. Trust the Qunari who'd just attacked her.

Attacked, but not lethally. He could have cut her throat as easily as decked her. It was only his arrogance that led him to believe one hit would knock her out. She worked her jaw tentatively. Not even broken; she'd been hit harder.

The three Qunari were together now, back to back in the center of the courtyard.

"You are strong," Taarbas said, standing with his weight on only one leg. The other continued to drool blood, but there were no major arteries along the top of his thigh. "But you will not see him if you are not in my company."

There was that. Even if Bull were still in Rivain when she got there, if she showed up without her escort how close to Arishok would she get, and therefore how close to Bull?

"You have your orders," he continued. "Come here, he said."

She felt the tug, heard the echos in her memory of Bull's voice. Evelyn. Come here. Soft as a lover's murmur, low as thunder's angered growl, in every emotion he'd ever expressed, those words had always been between them: Evelyn. Come here.

Taarbas extended the hood.

The air shimmered around her as she reappeared in front of him, close as breath. "If you attack me again," she said, "I will kill you."

He nodded.

She took the hood and slid it over her head. Taarbas pulled a drawstring that drew it closed around her neck, but left her able to breathe. It was magical, it had to be. Why the Qunari would use a magical artifact, she did not know, but no matter the fabric, she should have been able to see something. In the bright daylight, flickers should have filtered through.

Not only was all light blocked, but she could hear nothing but her own breathing, her own heartbeat. A large hand gripped her elbow and led her forward. The first steps were rapid and she stumbled across the turf, only the hand on her elbow to keep her upright.

They stopped. The warmth on her skin told her they were still in the courtyard.

Another hand, her other elbow. Then a hand at her waist. She was airborne. Her stomach hit something hard. When her balance settled, she realized she'd been thrown over a shoulder. From the hitch in the step, she assumed it was Taarbas carrying her.

Pointless to yell. If she couldn't hear, her voice probably wouldn't make it out of the bag.

Her skin tingled. This did not feel safe. She couldn't protect herself, couldn't even see any possible danger coming. Her pulse accelerated, her breathing quickened. Taarbas's arm wrapped over her, holding her securely in place, but it didn't make her feel any safer. She expected to be set down relatively quickly, but when it didn't happen, she grew more nervous. He couldn't be planning to walk to Rivain with her over his shoulder, could he? She felt dizzy, unbalanced and unsettled, and tapped Taarbas's back. She wanted down.

He ignored her.

Evelyn reasoned with herself. She had decided to trust him, she should continue to do so. He wasn't doing anything to harm her (that she could tell), he had left her unbound and with her weapons and armor. If he were planning something, he could have tied her up. He could have killed her before, she'd already acknowledged that. Still, her misgivings mounted as the journey went on and on. She tried to interpret what was happening, where they were. They went down stairs at once point, and she could not imagine their location. The run-down estate she had seen certainly wasn't large enough for the distance they must have covered. She could tell nothing by the temperature on her skin; it was neither warm nor cool, neither damp nor sere.

Tingles swept over her skin again, gooseflesh chasing in waves along her arms. The nausea in her stomach rose. She had been upside down for too long and patted Taarbas's back again, more frantically this time.

He jiggled her slightly, wordless response.

She hoped he wanted vomit down the backs of his legs.

Abruptly, she was warm. Sunlight. They were back outside. Taarbas's weight shifted and he gently rolled her sideways off his shoulder, using his hand at her waist to help her find her feet, her balance. She fumbled with the tie around her neck and yanked the hood off, giving her head a shake to get her hair out of her eyes.

Blazing sunlight flaring back off endless water. The sussurration of waves punctuated by the shrilling of sea birds and the distant buzz of voices, the creak of ropes. Salt and fish and cooking meat, smoke and char.

Taarbas kept his hand at her waist as she wavered anew under the sensory assault.

She stood outside a warehouse on a dock in the warmth of a full summer afternoon. Ships rode the gentle slap of waves, tied to piers along the curving sweep of a rocky shoreline. The city was to her back. And in front of her were Qunari.

A lot of Qunari.

They stood in ordered lines, a phalanx of tall, heavily muscled warriors, silver and gold and bronzed skin stained red with vitaar, sweeping horns gleaming, weapons slung over massive shoulders or worn low on lean hips. They formed an aisle, a passageway. At the end was a Qunari with braided white hair, as tall and muscled, as chiseled of feature, wearing as lethal a weapon. He had no horns.

Behind him and beside him, she saw Iron Bull.

Evelyn. Come here.

Eyes locked on his, she stepped free of Taarbas. The ranks of Qunari warriors turned their heads to mark her progress, but she was only dimly aware of them.

Bull.

His arms were folded over his massive chest and the broad, heavy leather straps of his weapons harness. He wore the same supple, snug leather pants the other warriors did, emphasizing the arc and curve of every ridged muscle in his thighs. He was as expressionless as the Qunari to his left, staring at her, watching her as she came closer.

Her view of him was blocked by a wall of skin and muscle. She stepped around it, ducked under an arm and kept walking.

Bull.

The etched line of his jaw, strong bone under taut silver skin and ink-black beard, did not twitch. The sharp line of his cheekbone did not shift. No muscle in the corded strength of his arms tightened or relaxed. No narrowing of his eye indicated approbation or condemnation. He watched her, though, measured his breaths to her steps.

Her way became blocked again, golden skin and red vitaar.

She stopped, her nose scant inches from the muscled chest. There were, she realized, loud voices speaking rapid Qunlat, harsh syllables scattering around her like falling rocks, but that was not important.

Evelyn breathed in and exhaled, tasted the tang of the ocean, the low spicy warmth of sweat from the man in front of her. He was large, armed. His chest moved as he spoke. He grabbed her arm and shook her as if to emphasize some point, but that was not important.

What was important was that he was in her way.

Evelyn leaned to the side to see around him.

Iron Bull hadn't moved. He could have been a perfect statue of her lover, a monument carved from metal and obsidian, unmoved and unmoving. He too ignored the raised voices. He said nothing. He just looked at her.

His index finger twitched.

Evelyn. Come here.

Evelyn exploded into motion, a scything whirlwind of spinning daggers and blurring limbs.

The body fall to the dock with a meaty thud. The dead Qunari's arm flopped from the ribbons of muscle that wrapped over his shoulder, tendons and veins, arteries and joint all severed neatly. His golden chest parted, gleaming red muscle and bloody white bone. The strong line of his throat gaped wide, blood fleeing the body in rapid pulses.

She spun her daggers to shed the blood, crimson droplets spattering over the silent crowd.

Bull.

One corner of his mouth was a fraction higher than the other, his eye narrowed a hair's breadth. His approval sang through her, lengthened her stride as she moved toward him again.

The Qunari to his left stepped forward, between her and Bull. Her weapons shifted.

"No."

Bull's quiet word carried. She could not see him, but she had heard and his command stopped her. She shifted her gaze up to the stony face of the Qunari warrior in front of her.

"I am Arishok," he said, his voice calm and sure, smoother than she expected.

"I am Evelyn Trevelyan," she replied, "and I have been called."

"I have summoned you."

"No," she said. Lifting one bloody dagger, she pointed past him to Bull. "He did."

Arishok's voice dropped half an octave. "As I bade him."

"That part doesn't interest me."

He studied her, this Qunari leader with his braided hair and his skull bare of horns. "Parshaara," he said finally. He turned his back on her and stepped away. "The Triumvirate is united in this. You will prove your bond."

"I will answer his call," she said, warning.

Arishok gestured at Bull. "He is there."

They moved toward each other in the same breath, closing the distance in a pair of strides. She whirled her daggers to settle them in the harness on her back and stood in front of him, eyes full of words she wouldn't say.

He lifted a hand, his palm the size of her face. His thumb slid across her forehead, and she felt the smear of liquid. Blood from the dead Qunari.

"Magnificent," he rumbled.

"I came."

"I know."

What do I do, she wanted to ask. What next.

He frowned as he looked her over. "What happened to your hair?"

It startled a chuckle out of her. "Dorian," she said.

He growled low, a rumble she couldn't stop herself from touching. She set a hand on his chest, her palm flattened over the dragon's tooth he wore on a leather cord. Her fingertips settled against his skin, measuring the warmth, the solidity of his muscle, the vibration of the last of his growl.

"Woman," he said, lower still.

Her eyes warmed with the knowledge of his response to her. She veiled her gaze with a downward sweep of her lashes. "Snug pants," she noted.

"Yeah," he said. "Wasn't so bad before you took apart that Karasaad. Now I can't stand up straight."

"You've seen me kill before."

"Yeah but...come on. That was hot."

She laughed and settled her body against his, close as skin. His arms folded around her. Evelyn inhaled deeply, drawing the scent of him into her lungs, felt it become part of her. "Home," she murmured.

"Not yet."

There was warning there. "How much more time will they give us?"

"Kinda surprised we got this much."

"Any last minute advice?"

"Listen. Remember where we are. Obey. And Evelyn?"

She looked up at him.

"No rifts."

Of course. No magic, not among the Qunari. Still, she hadn't planned on using the mark. It was ever her weapon of last resort. "You think it will come to that?"

"Do you know how they plan on making us prove a kas-berasala bond?"

"No," she admitted.

"And neither do I. They're coming."

She tangled her hands in his weapon harness. "They'll separate us?"

"Not for long."

Hands pulled her away, pulled him backward from her.

"Evelyn," he called.

She struggled against the insistent might of the hands wrapped around her arms, her shoulders, and leaned toward his voice.

He smiled a little. "Find me. Tonight," he said. Then he turned and walked away, lost to her sight in a wall of Qunari flesh and steel.

She stopped fighting, let them spin her around and lead her in the opposite direction. Wind swirled through her blood-dampened hair and she settled into the silence of her guards. One corner of her mouth lifted.

Find me.

Chapter Text

When the guards left her in a room, one stayed behind. Taarbas closed the door and leaned against it. His leather pants still bore the damage from her attack, but his leg was sound and whole.

"You should bathe," he said.

"I wouldn't think the Qunari would care about that. It's just blood."

"When there is no time or place to bathe, there is no point in caring about it. When there is time and a place, there is no point in being unhygienic. It promotes illness."

"Do Qunari get sick from blood?"

"You are not Qunari."

Evelyn smiled a little. She was starting to like him, even if he had decked her.

Her room was a tidy chamber, small and neat without unnecessary clutter. The biggest oddity was that it had eight walls, not four, making for rather more angles than she was used to. One wall bore a small window, another an open doorway in leading into a tiled side chamber. There was no art on the walls, no grace notes like flowers or interesting bits of driftwood to soften the lines. But the plaster was honey-warm and smooth as silk. The furniture was wood and if the lines were simple without any ornate design, they were utterly perfect and polished to a soft sheen.

It was unexpectedly lovely.

She rolled her shoulders to shed her pack and, prompted by the balanced perfection of the room, put it into the wardrobe where its lumpiness wouldn't be unseemly. She didn't bother to unpack, however. She didn't plan on being here that long even if it meant a midnight escape.

"You should bathe," Taarbas said again.

"Will you be hauling a tub up here?" she asked.

He pointed to the side chamber.

When she stepped into it, curious, he followed her. "Pull this," he said, pointing to a slender chain against the wall by the door. "Water comes from there." He pointed to a grated hole in the ceiling.

Well, that was a much more reassuring reason for the grated hole in the floor than she'd anticipated. "That's brilliant," she said, walking around the chamber and looking up at the hole. "The water's kept on the roof?"

"It's efficient," he said, but she thought she detected a hint of smugness in his tone. "And yes."

She had a bar of camp soap in her pack, not the nicest scent she possessed but she had a feeling Qunari soap was 'efficient' and didn't feel inclined to borrow any. She paused after shedding her daggers and hanging the harness on the weapon rack under the window. "Are you going to watch?"

He folded his arms.

Evelyn undressed, but took her soft undershirt into the bathing chamber with her. It could use a quick scrub. "So why are you still here, anyway?" she asked, giving the chain an experimental tug. Water fell, but stopped when she let go of the chain. It wasn't warm, but not exactly cold either. Sun-warmed, probably.

"I have not completed my task," he said.

This was proving a ridiculously easy way to bathe. Why had she never thought of an indoor waterfall? She wondered if Gatsi would kill her for suggesting he add one to her chambers, and tried to visualize a tower-top catchment system. "You brought me safely to Arishok," she said, scrubbing at her hair with her soap. The scent of mountain heather warmed the air around her.

"You have met him," Taarbas corrected. "You are not returned to your bearer."

Well, that she couldn't argue.

Find me. Tonight.

"Soon," she murmured.

Taarbas blocked the open doorway with his broad frame. "You should not go," he said.

She blinked soap and water out of her eyes. "What?"

"You should not go."

"Of course I'm going. You heard him."

He was silent while she rinsed. Her hair, even with its coating of sticky blood, was clean faster than it took her to think about it. She really had to speak to Gatsi when she got home. She soaked her shirt and rolled her chunk of soap through it.

"I... ask that you not go."

She wondered when she had won enough respect to be asked instead of told. On the docks, likely, stepping over a dead body. Maybe no one had told the Qunari she was an assassin as well as kas-berasala. "Taarbas, what's going on?"

"You are bathing. I am waiting."

"Don't do that, you're better at idiom than that."

He watched her rinse her shirt. "Arishok does not want you together yet. When he does, he will command it, as he has commanded your separation."

"I think you're underestimating Arishok," she said, wringing out the fabric and giving it a few sharp snaps.

"Oh?"

"He let Bull speak with me. If he really wanted us kept separate, he wouldn't have done that."

"I do not understand."

Evelyn looked up at Taarbas. "We are kas-berasala," she said, "and Bull told me to find him. If Arishok thinks he outranks Bull, he's an idiot. So you tell me. Is Arishok an idiot?"

He frowned a little, his eyes gone thoughtful. Evelyn brushed past him to get clean clothes from her pack.

"Besides," she said as she began dressing, "it's been three months since we had sex. Knowing he's so close is slowly driving me mad."

Taarbas turned to her.

"I'm not having sex with you."

"Very well. Come with me."

He led her through the streets of a city that left her with no doubts it had been settled and built entirely by the Qunari. The houses were all octagonal, though in some cases the edges had been rounded and softened. Where they had to fit together, they did so neatly with shared walls that left space for another to be built between them and behind them. Where they had to stack, they did so with precision. Two buildings in particular towered high overhead, though she saw no indication of what they were for.

And it was quiet. Oh, people talked. There was a constant, low-level buzz of conversation. But no merchants shouted, there were no public arguments, no one yelled greetings or condemnations at unfortunately timed chamber pots. Not that there were any of the latter; the streets were pristine. She could hardly have called them 'cobbled', unless cobblestones were ever the size of her smallest fingernail.

Frankly, it was a little creepy.

She kept her observations to herself, however, and let Taarbas lead her to a large building. She thought it had been build in stages; something in the color of the building's walls made her think parts of it were older than other parts. Some sections had wide windows and balconies, other stretches were solid stone. The doors were carved, though, the first bit of decorative artwork she had seen in the city. They featured female Qunari, powerful and tall, towering over other Qunari, light beaming from their hands.

Evelyn began to suspect he wasn't taking her to see Bull after all.

Taarbas led her inside to a room of women all seemingly at leisure. They chatted around tables or sat reading books and scrolls. The windows were open to let in the sea air, and refreshments waited on a table. Tending the table were Qunari children.

It was difficult to assign gender to either of the sturdy little bodies. Both wore shapeless shifts, both had long white hair and horns shorter and thinner than her pinky. Both had fine features and the suggestion of high cheekbones hidden still beneath a layer of sweet baby roundness. Both were staring right back at her with large violet eyes. They held feathered fans on long poles, and when one of the females made a quiet comment in Qunlat, they both startled and went back to using them to wave insects away from the food.

"Come," Taarbas said to her, after bowing his head to one of the women.

Evelyn hurried to his side as he led her deeper into the building. "Did you bring me to the Tamassrans?"

He halted beside a door and knocked but didn't answer her. A quiet voice called from within the room. He opened the door and shoved her in, shutting it behind her.

Evelyn caught her balance and pushed still-damp hair from her eyes.

A warm feminine chuckle came from the room's occupant. "Poor little bas. You look like a kitten I once saved from a river. Come here, girl."

Evelyn stepped farther into the gracious chamber. A thick fur rug ruffled in the breeze coming from the balcony and took up a surprising amount of floor space. It looked to be some variety of feline, though she had never seen anything near that large. The bed was wide enough to sleep three Qunari comfortably, and high off the floor. It was made just-so with light layered sheets, edges folded to allow one to appreciate the contrast of textures and colors. The furniture was very like her own, but something in the carving emphasized the natural grain of the wood, suggesting rippling water pattern that made the heavy pieces seem to shimmer in the sunlight. Across from the door, gauzy curtains wafted in the breeze and separated a generous balcony from the main room. Behind the curtains she glimpsed a table and chairs, and a woman seated on one.

She crossed the room and slid aside a curtain to step out onto the balcony.

An elderly Qunari woman looked up at her with a faint smile on her lips. Her slate-gray skin was lined with wrinkles that fanned out as her smile grew. Her hair was still thick and white, held back from her face by the graceful sweep of her horns. They were dark, but striped with paler streaks and seemed cracked and dry.

"Well, don't just stand there. Pull that chair over here."

Evelyn obeyed, dragging the other balcony chair to the spot the Qunari – the Tamassran – indicated in front of her.

The older woman turned the chair around so its back was to her. "There. Sit now."

Evelyn sank down slowly. "I'm... I'm Evelyn."

"Of course you are," the old woman said. Her fingers began combing through Evelyn's damp and tangled hair. She hadn't taken time to brush it herself after bathing. "We all know who you are. You may call me Taashad."

"How do you all know who I am?"

"You cannot think Arishok travels to meet one bas and everyone doesn't know why," Taashad said, chiding. "Nor is it common that one who is declared Tal Vashoth has a chance to redeem himself and return to the Qun. At least, not without extensive re-education."

"So you know Bull, too."

That same warm chuckle. "The Iron Bull. It's a pun, you know. That name."

"Because of the horns?"

"Oh, no. It's a Qunlat pun. Do you know what a qalaba is?"

"Just that it's an insult for non-Qunari."

"It's a cow of a breed prized for the tenderness and taste of their meat. They are carefully bred, and semen from the best bulls is often transported to other farms to cross with the best cows. But qalaba are also stupid. Left untended, they often die because they... Oh, get stuck in corners. That sort of thing." Taashad's fingers tugged and pulled and combed. Despite the oddness of the meeting, Evelyn found herself relaxing under the older woman's ministrations. "One translation of The Iron Bull back into Qunlat could be the word for an instrument farmers use to impregnate stupid but delicious cows."

Evelyn laughed.

"You see? Now you'll never be able to call him that again without smiling."

"I suppose I'll just have to call him Hissrad, then."

Soft fingers patted her shoulder. "Not an especially subtle way of finding out which I favor," Taashad said, "but not bad, considering."

"Considering what?"

"War leaders are rarely subtle. Armies are not subtle things."

They sat in silence for a time in the warm sun and soft sea breeze while Taashad combed and braided Evelyn's hair into order.

"You didn't actually answer me," Evelyn noted. "Do you know him?"

A sigh. "Quite well." Taashad pushed her chair back. Evelyn took the hint and stood, moving her chair back to the opposite side of the table and sitting again. "Who do you think taught him to speak your language?"

"You raised him."

"I was one of several. Even then, one woman wasn't enough to handle him."

"I seem to be managing the trick of it."

"So you're his only lover." Taashad poured herself a glass of pale pink liquid from a metal pitcher on the table.

"No," she admitted. "Just the only one that matters."

"A very kabethari view," Taashad said. It sounded approving and was even punctuated with a nod, but the meaning still irked a little. Kabethari. A conquered person who wasn't completely untrainable.

"Which means?"

"They all matter to him."

"I thought Qunari were more casual about sex than that."

"Typically." She took a sip of the juice. "But he chooses his partners now."

Whereas the Qunari had their partners chosen for them and almost never selected one on their own. Evelyn frowned a little. It was a subtlety of culture she had never considered. In fact, she realized, it was true of everything that Bull did now. Previously, most things in his life were chosen for him; what he did, where he went, how he thought. Now it was all his choice, and therefore each choice had more meaning. Each choice was more revealing.

No wonder he'd never had a problem reading her. Everything she said and did, every choice she made, revealed something about her. Choice was something she took for granted, as most humans did, so she rarely thought carefully about her little choices, let alone the choices other people made. When she chose to wear red instead of blue, for instance. What did it mean that she usually wore boots over shoes? That she favored pie over cake?

The revelation of choice had never really occurred to her.

In just that short exchange, Evelyn felt she'd learned more about the Qunari than anyone had ever been able to simply tell her, even Neria who knew them better than most. For all that she had been told, she never truly understood.

She blinked and refocused on the woman across from her. "You're very good," she said.

"I would hope so," Taashad said. "Now, our time is almost up, but there are three things still I have to impart."

Evelyn nodded.

"Be careful what you eat or drink. Not everyone is pleased with your presence, and Ariqun has yet to comment."

"Arishok said the Triumvirate was united on the need for us to prove our bond."

"Arishok is tactically brilliant. But he is not Ben-Hassrath."

"Second?"

"Second, they are keeping him in Arishok's compound. To save you the trouble of searching the entire city for him. Just look for the building with the most warriors standing outside it looking stoic, and you'll have found it."

Evelyn grinned a little. "Understood. And the last thing?"

"Just this." Taashad slammed a hand down on Evelyn's wrist, pinning it with remarkable strength. She leaned across the table, eyes blazing, every line of her face and body taut. "Fail," she snarled. "Fail, bas-imekari, and you may escape with both your lives. The Iron Bull must never again be Qunari."

Chapter Text

Evelyn made Taarbas take her back to her room. In typical Qunari fashion, he didn't ask what had happened. He didn't ask if she were all right. He didn't say anything.

Food was brought but, mindful of Taashad's warning, Evelyn ignored it. She ate some of the dried meat from her pack, more to keep her energy up than from any real hunger. While she ate, Taarbas handed her his own water skin. Aside from that exchange, they did not interact. When staring out of the window no longer held any interest, Evelyn cleaned her weapons and her armor. Mostly, she waited. So did Taarbas.

When the sun had set and twilight lingered, Evelyn pushed away from the wall. She slid her weapon harness over her shirt, leaving her armor behind, and fixed the buckles closed without looking at Taarbas. "Time to decide," she said, working her shoulders to settle the weight of her daggers.

"Decide?"

"If you'll stop me."

He didn't answer.

"I'm going to him."

Nothing.

She nodded. "Fine. You know where he is, I assume. If you want me, you can find me there."

Invisible, she stepped backwards and out the window, tumbling lightly to the ground. Shadows lengthened around her in the purpling dusk. Taashad had told her how to find Bull, but there was still an entire seaside city to search. She hadn't wanted to leave before dark, but she also couldn't tolerate the chance that she would only just find him when dawn approached.

She checked the two tall buildings first, looking, as Taashad had suggested, for the largest concentration of warriors. They antaam were present throughout the city, but nowhere did there seem to be a large contingent of them.

Until she walked through the open gates of what she could only equate to some kind of manor house. It wasn't especially large or grand, but it was sectioned off from the rest of the city and featured a large open space. Qunari warriors were everywhere; sprawled under the trees, leaning against the walls, fencing and sparring. None of them seemed to be guarding, exactly, but she had no doubts that all their relaxed poses would vanish in favor of lethal energy at the first hint of danger.

So she gave them no hints.

Invisible, she would still leave footprints behind so she avoided the center of the courtyard. She skimmed past the warriors, past the Qunari who actually were obviously on guard, and did a slow circuit of the building. Easiest access would be through one of the open balconies, she decided. It seemed odd that the Qunari weren't terribly concerned about their security in what was, she had always heard, an armed and walled city prepared to repel an invasion.

She stepped toward the building to avoid a trio of wandering warriors, turning to watch them pass. Corded muscles flexed and shifted under metallic skin, sleek and strong as any vital predator. And there were hundreds of them in the city. So perhaps they had something to be arrogant about.

When she turned back, Arishok stood within easy arm's reach.

Evelyn froze.

His balcony faced the back of the building, much of his view obscured by the wall. He stared out at it anyway. His face bore little expression, but Evelyn felt an unexpected pang. He looked tired, she thought. Burdened.

Alone.

Had he no one to trust? No one to take the weight from his shoulders for however brief a period of time? She supposed not. Although he had all the Ben-Hassrath, they were another arm of the Qunari leadership. He would have to avoid being influenced unduly by them in order to maintain the balance their society required.

Given how frighteningly subtle the Ben-Hassrath could be, in fact, he must be constantly on his guard against them. Or at least constantly aware of what he ordered and why. And no one in the antaam could be relied upon; they were all looking to him. He might have advisors, she thought, but no one he could confide in, share fears with or doubts or insecurities.

He looked alone because he was alone.

And now he was here, in Kon-Taar because of her and Bull. Would she have done the same, she wondered? Would she travel so far over the love life of one minor guard? Perhaps. If that guard were now the lover of a king or queen she needed an alliance from.

Of course, the bonds of the Qunari were more lasting than that of a mere guardsman to his or her liege. But then, she knew some of her guards did literally worship her as the Herald of Andraste, even now. So maybe the comparison wasn't as inapt as she first thought.

She studied his profile in the reflected light from the lantern-lit room behind him. There was nothing she could do for him, no help she could offer but her silent understanding and sympathy.

Evelyn waited for the next patrol, trusting their noise to cover any she might make, and slipped away.

Around the corner, she found Iron Bull.

He stood in the doorway of his balcony, leaning his back against the door jamb, sharpening his axe. She watched him for a moment, watched the muscles of his arm and chest move and flex, then she hopped lightly over the rail, landing silently. Watching him was hypnotic. She loved him by moonlight, both silver and shadow, cool and warm, remote and beckoning.

Bull looked out at the sky and took a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh. Maybe he had decided she wasn't able to show up? She stepped back as he turned and went inside the room. Ghosting behind him, she watched him shut the doors to the balcony.

His hand lashed out and clamped down on her shoulder. He yanked her forward, pulling her against him, his other hand cradling the back of her head.

She popped out of invisibility like a soap bubble, her instinctive struggles halted as his mouth trailed across her cheek, his breath hot and ragged against her ear. "Shh," he said, the long exhale making her shudder.

His lips claimed hers, slow, deep, and hungry, a kiss to feed her soul. Worry and doubt spun away from her, half-formed plots to escape in the dark shattered and vanished like chips of ice in the sun. When he kissed her, while he kissed her, she ceased to be Inquisitor, ceased to be Evelyn, and was simply, utterly, his.

The buckles of her weapon harness came undone, but before it could clatter to the floor, he caught it and threw it onto the bed, spinning her as he did. Her hands came up in time to catch her as he slung her face first against the wall beside the doors. Before she could move away, he pinned her there with the length of his body.

Evelyn trembled as he caressed the curve of her waist, and she rocked her hips back against him.

His whisper was hot and soft against her ear. "Ah, Evelyn. Good girl." His hands skimmed her hips as he crouched, slid down her left leg. He tapped her calf. Obedient, she lifted her foot. When he had taken her boot off, he set her foot on what felt like a low footstool. They repeated the steps on her other foot, then Bull stood.

His hands slid around her hips. "Palms on the wall."

With a long, slow, shaky exhale, Evelyn leaned forward and opened her hands, resting her palms on the smooth wall. He tugged her back slowly until she was bent at the waist.

"You remember this game," Bull said, stripping her pants off her and throwing them to one side. "You, in that cold dungeon. What was it, four days into me training you?" Her hands briefly left the wall when he yanked her shirt over her head. "When I gave you your first real rule. The first time I made you call me 'ser'."

He leaned against her, over her, wrapping his arms around her to untwist the band of leather over her breasts. "Don't move now, girl. Of course, that was before you knew how completely I owned you," he whispered. "You know it now, don't you, Evelyn?"

Shakily, she nodded.

The callouses on his hand scratched lightly over her stomach as he slid his hand across her skin, fingers dragging through the curls between her legs. She felt his cock twitch against the round firmness of her ass. His left hand cupped her chin, forcing her head back. "Say it," he said. "Whisper it to me."

Evelyn licked her lips and struggled to breathe. "My life is yours," she whispered, eyes closing.

His teeth sank into her shoulder. His fingers circled her clit

She drew in a breath but his left hand clamped over her mouth and muffled her low moan against his flesh. "Silence, Evelyn."

She choked on her desire to cry out for him. He left his hand there until she managed to nod her understanding.

He teased and toyed with her clit, making her muscles jump and twitch. She couldn't move far or she'd lose her balance, stretched out as she was. But she obeyed. Palms on the wall. He didn't speak, but his breath was harsh and fast. She felt the head of his cock touch her, and rose on her tiptoes in a helpless bid to get closer, to feel him enter her.

The flat of his hand landed sharply on her ass, and she bit back a yelp. Silence. She had violated his wishes and, trembling, lowered her heels to the stool. Do not move. But she needed to, had to. She needed him.

He denied her, held her there with the head of his cock penetrating her. She felt a bead of sweat trickle down her back, her muscles stretched taut with the effort of holding still. No bonds enforced his will, no ties pinned her in place. Only his control. Only her submission.

Finally, finally his fingers began to stroke her clit again. His other hand gripped her hip tight, and in one hard thrust, he entered her.

Evelyn bit her lip and arched her back, fighting against the need to scream his name as he withdrew and forced himself into her again. Slow out, hard and fast thrusts, he set his pace, his rhythm, by his desires. White sparks danced before Evelyn's eyes as she clamped them shut. Her jaw dropped and she pulled in one harsh breath, clenched her throat around a silent cry.

Her head snapped back as her orgasm exploded through her. His hand left her clit and buried in her hair, holding her head at that extension as he rode her shaking body, fast and hard, rapid slaps of his hips against her ass. She heard him draw in a sharp breath and he slammed into her again once, twice.

Evelyn's muscles went limp. Now she trembled from weakness, from the sheer liquid heat of the aftermath. But she did not move. Palms against the wall.

With a grunt, Bull wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her away from the wall. He scooped his other arm under her knees and held her against him the three steps across the room to the bed where he dumped her unceremoniously before landing beside her.

Laughing silently, she managed to crawl atop him, sprawling across his chest.

He sighed and draped an arm over her. "In five minutes, we're doing that again," he mumbled.

"Five minutes, hm?" she teased, whispering still, stroking a hand through the drying sweat on his skin.

"It's been three months, woman. Be grateful I'm giving you a break."

Evelyn stretched, luxuriating in the happy hum of her body. "Ready when you are," she said, bending her head to lick at his collar bone.

He swatted her ass again, lightly this time.

"Anyway, I know you had sex at Denerim. That one maid couldn't stop following you around."

He snorted. "That was just stress relief. Barely counted. Besides, I've been gone a month. Don't tell me Dorian didn't help you out."

"He didn't!"

Bull pulled his head back a little to frown at her. "Are you serious? I told that asshole to take care of you."

"Well, next time maybe don't pick a gay man."

"There are ways around that."

"And he did take care of me." She settled herself, turning her head to listen to the steady, reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat.

He must have heard something in her tone. His hand gently stroked the length of her spine. "Liked it, did you?"

"I did," she said. "He pampered me outrageously. Fine clothes. Scented baths. Better food and drink."

"The haircut."

She smiled a little. "That too."

"Figures. Give a Vint a perfectly trained sex slave and he treats her like a kitten."

"Now that you mention it, he did call me 'pet'."

Bull's fingers tightened. "He didn't collar you, did he?"

"It was an anklet, not a collar."

His growl rumbled under her ear. "Fucking asshole. He took you as a submissive? You accepted?"

"Temporarily," she assured him. "He said that you told him to take care of me and the easiest way to do it was to become my dominant." Hesitantly, she looked up at him without lifting her head. "Did I... Was that wrong?"

He growled again. "No," he finally begrudged. "Didn't think he'd go that far, though." Both his arms tightened over her, squeezing her breathless for a moment before he released her. "At least he treated you well."

"Honestly, I think he liked it as much as I did. And I don't just mean the dominant bits."

"Oh?"

"I think..." She tried to put it into words, her fingers toying with his dragon tooth necklace. "It wasn't just that he liked having a submissive, though he did. Or that he liked dressing me up. He liked the company. I think he liked being able to demand my time without feeling like he was interfering with the Inquisition or with you and me. I think he's lonely."

Bull's hand resumed its slow strokes of her back. "Probably," he said.

"Did he seem lonely when you were with him?"

"It was only twice, you know. He wanted it, but it made him feel worse in the end. I could've gotten him through it, but..."

"But one troublesome submissive at a time?"

He lifted his head to kiss her hair. "Something like that," he acknowledged.

They both were silent for awhile. "We haven't done right by him," Evelyn said finally.

Bull sighed. "No, I guess not."

"Do you think we should make some trips to Tevinter?"

He shifted and looked down at her. "Both of us?"

"Why not?"

Gently, he said, "It might be kinder to let him find a life of his own. He won't leave Tevinter for us, and we can't leave the Inquisition for him."

"I don't think I like leaving things like this, though. It feels like we used him and then abandoned him."

"Because we did," Bull said, stroking her face with a fingertip. "But we did it openly. He had choices."

"No one chooses to be used."

"Nah, girl. You know better than that by now."

She didn't answer him. He didn't press.

Finally, he asked, "He didn't find anyone for you, though? For a month? Was he torturing you?"

Evelyn found a smile. "Not on purpose. And he did finally arrange something."

"Oh? This I gotta hear."

"Took me to a party in Lydes. I had nothing on but a little fabric, a mask, and silver chains with colored beads."

"Ah, I see where this is going," Bull said, cupping one hand around one of her lower cheeks.

"You think you do, but I promise you that you don't. One of the beads was a citrine."

His body shook as he suppressed a laugh.

"Mm hmm. Laugh away, but the man who... who bought me was Gaspard."

That took him by surprise. "The Duke? No shit. Did he recognize you?"

"Dorian said he wouldn't, but..." She sighed. "There I was, clothes ripped off me, pinned over a table with him bending over me, and he whispers in my ear that he's going to fuck the Herald of Andraste in full view of half of Lydes."

Bull grunted his understanding. After a moment of thoughtful silence, he said, "Got you hot as hell, didn't it?"

"Thought I was going to climax right there."

This time he did chuckle, low and deep. "Ah, woman. I love your appetites. Did he do you justice?"

"Oh no," she said. "That's when your Taarbas showed up. Kicked open the door and damn near started a riot."

Bull choked on his laughter. When he had himself under control again, he pulled her into a kiss. "Poor Evelyn," he said. "One thing's for sure. You're gonna get some really nice Orlesian presents."

Evelyn nipped his lower lip. "I better. We had to return all the money he gave Dorian when Taarbas ruined everything."

"You know that little shit is no more taarbas than I am, don't you?"

She pulled away to stare down at him. "What?"

Bull snorted. "He's Ben-Hassrath. It's the way he looks at everyone."

"He... No."

"You know, I'm not usually wrong about people."

"I didn't mean it that way, I just... He's so... Qunari."

"He was pretending to be Taarbas. Probably has for awhile. He's good at it."

Evelyn settled back down and thought. Arishok would still have sent him. The taarbas were under his command. But just how he had settled on that particular taarbas was likely engineered by Ariqun, who sent a Ben-Hassrath agent to observe Evelyn. To report back. "Plots within plots," she murmured.

"Mm," Bull said, wordless agreement. "I wouldn't worry about it. He took care of you, right?"

"Tried to," she said. "Offered to have sex with me, too. Was that just to see if I'd do it?"

"Maybe. See what I'd taught you firsthand."

She snorted. "As if I'd have him."

"I'd have taken the shot too," Bull said. "As twitchy as you were after that party, he had a chance."

"He didn't take it personally when I said no," she said. "Not even the second time, here in Kon-Taar."

He worked through that, then started chuckling again. "He took you to the Tamassrans."

"He took me to the Tamassrans." She frowned, remembering. "But not in the way you think."

"Oh?"

"Do you know someone named Taashad?"

His body stiffened.

Evelyn slid off him and sat next to him, studying what she could see of his expressions in the moonlight.

"Taashad," he murmured. "Well, shit. What did she say?"

"We didn't talk long. She said Iron Bull is a pun."

His mouth quirked. "Yeah."

"And she told me to fail. She said if we failed, we might escape alive."

He didn't look at her. "Anything else?"

"She said that..."

When she stopped, his eye flicked over at her. "Evelyn."

"She said that you can't ever be Qunari again."

His jaw ticked. "Exactly that?"

"No," Evelyn admitted, thinking about it. "She said that you must never again be Qunari."

"Fuck." He sat up and scrubbed his face with his hands.

"What now?"

"Now? Get your gear. We're leaving."

Taarbas stepped into the room from the balcony. "That will not be possible," he said flatly.

The door to the room opened. Arishok entered. The light from the hallway behind him was shadowed with the bodies of Qunari warriors. He looked them over. "Get dressed," he said. "It is time."

Time for what? Evelyn looked at Bull.

He jerked his head toward the pile of her clothes and Evelyn rose to dress, Bull sliding out after her. When she was fully clothed, Taarbas held out a pile of leather to her. Her armor.

Evelyn shrugged into the leather and chain and thought rapidly. They could get out, that was certain. Taarbas was all that stood between them and the freedom of the grounds. But though they would never find her if she didn't want them to, Bull didn't have her ability to disappear. Escape would mean fighting their way through the antaam. They would never survive. Bull would never survive. And as long as they had him, she acknowledged, they had her.

They were kas-berasala.

Together, they left the room behind.

Chapter Text

Evelyn watched the movement of the fabric. It didn't quite match the swaying of the wagon. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said, sighing.

To her left, Bull didn't bother opening his eye. "I could order you not to be."

"If it'd help."

"Never give an order you know won't be obeyed," he said. He cracked an eyelid open. "Face me."

Obedient enough, she shifted around and rested her back against the barred door, facing Bull. He sat with his knees bent, arms resting over them, to all appearances perfectly relaxed. "Better?" he asked.

She smiled a little. "View's improved," she said.

He smiled back and closed his eye again. "Let me know if you get bored. I'll find you something to do."

"I'm not having sex with you in a prison wagon surrounded by Qunari."

"Would if I told you to."

She didn't argue the point. He might be tempted to prove it. "You know, I could pick the lock. Wouldn't take me but a moment. We could hop out and run for it."

"So why don't you?"

"Because I could make it but I don't know if you could."

"Hey!"

"Best not to risk it. Since we're not on our way to our execution or anything."

"Sure about that?"

"Arishok said..."

"What he said was 'That remains to be seen.'"

Evelyn snorted. "If they try to execute us, I'm going to bring the entire Fade down around their horns." She brightened. "Maybe they're taking us to a gladiatorial pit. We'd do well in a gladiatorial pit."

"Qunari don't have gladiatorial pits," he said, head rocking to the rhythm of the cart. His horns clacked against the bars.

"Now you're just making me depressed," she said.

She couldn't hear his chuckle over the rumble of the wagon, but it was in his voice. "Assassins. So bloodthirsty."

Unable to sit still, Evelyn rose and began pacing the wagon, listening to the sound of the creaking wheels, of the distant birds. She wondered how deep in the forest they were. For all she knew, they weren't even still in Rivain. Maybe they would stop and somehow be outside Skyhold. Though she supposed she'd know if they transitioned to the mountains.

"Did you ever wonder how we got here?" she asked.

"You mean how did we wind up in the back of a prison wagon?"

"No, I mean how did we get to Kon-Tarr. How did you get here, exactly? You met up with Dorian in Jader and then scarcely a week after you left, he was in Skyhold. How did you get there so quickly?"

He cocked his head and studied her, working on the meaning behind her words. "I dunno," he said, one massive shoulder rising and falling. "They knocked me out."

"It's just that Taarbas came for me in Lydes. We walked for hours. He put a hood over my head, I couldn't see through it or hear anything once it was on. Then he picked me up and carried me. When he put me down, I was on the dock."

He didn't answer.

"I thought Qunari didn't use magic," she said.

"They use it," he said. "They just only use magic they can control, and only a few people decide when to use it."

"Is Arishok one of them?"

"No." He stopped himself. "Sometimes. Ah, it's all politics. Technically, the Ben-Hassrath have Viddasala. She's in charge of all that shit."

Evelyn nodded a little. "So the Ben-Hassrath and Ariqun are threaded through this whole little adventure, supposedly Arigena agreed as well, but we've only seen Arishok. Why is that?"

"How do you know you haven't seen Ariqun?"

Evelyn started to reply, but then considered it. How would she know? She hadn't even known Taarbas was really Ben-Hassrath. "You have to wonder, though."

"Wonder what?"

"What was so important?"

He frowned at her.

She waited.

His gaze drifted away.

Evelyn folded her arms and leaned against the bars, not bothering to fight against the slow smile that spread across her lips.

"Huh," he said finally. He looked back at her and his frown returned. "Are you laughing?"

"Not out loud!" she protested. "Give me this one; I never get there before you. In your defense, you've been a little..."

"Distracted?"

"Focused," she said. "And it was probably deliberate."

He shook his head slowly. "They offered me something I wanted so that I wouldn't look deeper."

"Well now you're looking. So I say again: You have to wonder. What was so important that the Qunari used magic to bring us here?"

He didn't answer, so she continued to muse aloud. "Taashad even dropped a hint for me. She said something about it being unusual for Arishok to come so far over one Tal Vashoth, but I didn't pick up on it at the time. Then I saw him while I was on my way to you. Whatever they really want, whatever it is they brought you here for, it has Arishok worried."

One corner of his mouth lifted, but she saw no trace of humor in his face. Only bitter realization. "Not me, Evelyn. This was never about me."

"What do you mean? If it wasn't about you, then wh--" She stopped, realized his implication, and shoved away from the bars.

He stared at her.

The wagon bumped to a stop and the cover twitched aside. Taarbas studied them through the bars before pulling the door open. Not locked after all. "Out," he said.

Evelyn turned and hopped out of the wagon, looking around to see mostly trees and hints of a clearing through the woods. The path they'd taken was raw and open, branches hacked away to make a trail. They weren't the first ones to take this new trail, but it hadn't been here long.

Bull stepped out next to her as Arishok approached them, flanked by warriors on either side. "Come," he said, and walked off into the forest.

They didn't walk far, just enough for Evelyn to feel like her skin wasn't still vibrating from the trip, just enough to loosen her muscles. Arishok halted ahead.

Evelyn walked up behind him. Her eyes picked out more warriors in the trees, spaced perhaps fifteen feet apart in as perfect ring as possible in the dense woods. She went to step around the Qunari war leader, past the ring of warriors. Instantly, Arishok yanked her back, thrusting her behind him.

Her left hand spasmed. A peculiar tearing buzz ripped up her arm and stopped her in her tracks. She looked down at the green light flaring from her palm.

Rift.

Evelyn shrugged off the Arishok with an easy roll of her shoulder and shoved past him. The rift hovered in the center of the clearing, a malevolent crystalline light that snapped and cracked with abrupt shifts in direction as though seeking escape.

But no streamers of weaving light emerged. No smaller tentacles of energy licked out to indicate where demons would appear.

She walked slower, closer, hand extended. The fingers of her left hand wove delicate patterns as she tried to understand what her senses were telling her.

Bull's uproarious laughter didn't pull her attention. She ignored him as she walked a slow circle around the rift, eyeing it. From the far side, through the crazed emerald light, she saw Bull bent over, hands on knees as he managed to suck in a breath between bouts of hilarity. She shook her head a little.

"Oh man," he gasped. "I can't believe it. You... You brought her to a rift." Bull leaned against a tree, laughing anew.

"It is her task," Arishok said. Evelyn fancied she could hear a thread of annoyance. "You are here, so she is here."

"Yeah," Bull said, catching his breath, "but all I did was bring Evelyn. You, you poor bastard? You brought the Inquisitor."

"Enough, Bull," she said, walking back toward them, noting as she did that neither had passed the ring of antaam warriors. She looked up into the scowling face of the Arishok. "Let me make a few guesses about what happened. You found the rift. You killed the demons. More demons came. You killed them, too. Only they kept coming. You finally realized that it was triggered by proximity and if no one approached it, no more demons would come."

She paused, giving him time for denials. There were none. He just stared down at her, impassive.

Evelyn took that as affirmation and continued. "You hopefully also noticed that the demons coming out each time were stronger and stronger. How many people did you lose?"

"Thirty-eight," he said instantly.

She shook her head. Thirty-eight. Blessed Maker. "We have another problem now. That," she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder, "is a very big rift. Every time demons come through a rift, it tears a little more, gets a little bigger, making room for larger and larger demons to come through."

"The second demon was larger than the third."

"I don't mean larger in size. I mean more powerful. How many waves of demons did you go through before you stopped trying?"

His voice dropped half an octave, disapproval heavy in his tone. "Twelve," he growled.

Bull whistled.

Evelyn's eyebrows rose. "Twelve waves? And you only lost thirty-eight warriors?"

"You will close it," he said.

"I can't."

Impatient, he snapped at her. "We have heard the reports. You approach the rift. You hold aloft your hand. The rift closes. This is your task. Go now, and do it."

"Your reports are incomplete," she said, unruffled. She glanced at Bull. "You weren't with us yet at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, were you?"

"Heard about it," he said. "One big rift, below the breach in the sky. Took a whole bunch of mages with you. They poured power into you, you opened the rift. Took all of you to kill the demon. After it was dead, you closed the rift."

She nodded. "Same thing happened there that's happened here," she said. "Something tried to come through, something very, very large. Only it got stuck. Now it's blocking the rift so nothing else can come through, but the rift can't close either. What we need to do is tear it open a little more, let it come through, then kill it before anything else follows it so I can seal the rift."

"How big're we talking?"

Evelyn shrugged at Bull, then looked back at Arishok. "What was the last demon that came through?"

"I do not know what it was called. It was made of shadows, and caused many warriors to see things that were not there."

"Things?" Evelyn repeated.

"Things they feared."

Her pulse sped up. She shivered, rubbing her arms involuntarily though she stood still in full sunlight.

"That's not good," Bull said. "Any idea what's bigger than a nightmare demon?"

Evelyn shook her head a little, turning back to face the rift. "Not a clue," she said, "but I suppose we're about to find out."

Bull came to stand at her shoulder. "Do you need the saarebas?" he asked.

"I don't think so," she said. "I'm stronger now than I was then. I think I can open it. It feels like I can. I just don't know if we can deal with what comes out."

"You want the antaam?"

She walked forward. "We're going to need them. I'd feel better if we had Solas and Blackwall along, though."

He huffed a laugh. "One's vanished and the other is Warden Rainier now, remember?"

"I know, I know. Still. Better a team I trust..."

"The antaam will do their jobs."

"And yet, I am not comforted. A mage would be useful."

Bull clapped a hand to her shoulder and broke into an easy lope, going to stand near the rift.

Evelyn looked behind her. Arishok had followed them into the clearing. "Bull knows his job," she said. "I know mine. Your lot will engage the smaller demons that will inevitably slip through, keep them busy. Bull will tackle the big one. I'm assuming you're good in a fight?"

"I am."

"Then you'll be with Bull."

"What will you be doing?"

"My job."

Looking around the soon-to-be battlefield, Evelyn spotted the stump of a tree that had obviously been ripped down. It was taller than she was, but she scaled it easily and stood atop the uneven, raw wood. "Get ready," she called into the silent afternoon.

Arishok barked a sharp order in Qunlat.

The ring of antaam warriors stepped in closer, drawing their weapons. Swords and axes gleamed in equal measure, but none quite so brightly as the double-bladed axe Bull held. To the casual observer, it was reflecting the green of the rift, but Evelyn knew better. The wards against demons that Dagna had worked into the hilt had activated.

"Here we go," she muttered to herself. She stretched her left hand out toward the rift.

Power lashed out, met halfway by an answering thrum of power from the rift itself. That was where it normally would end. She would gather the threads together and pull, collapsing the rift in on itself. But she didn't want this one to collapse, she wanted it to open. She couldn't pull, she had to push, pour energy into the rift and that energy came from the mark.

The mark and Evelyn herself.

She felt it, felt the rift and the thing inside it gobbling up power as fast as she could feed it. It drank eagerly from her, and she scrambled to maintain control. It wanted. It hungered.

It opened.

The demon arrived.

Evelyn staggered under an impact that was wholly spiritual. She had one moment, one heartbeat to register the absolute silence of the world. While she watched, a warrior drove his sword into his own chest. Another shoved a dagger into his throat. Others curled into tight balls or ripped at their own horns, or beat themselves in the face with clenched fists. She could see the rift, see Qunari warriors falling to their knees, could see the black cloaks of Despair demons fluttering, but heard none of it. Air trembled and shook against the bare skin of her face.

A crushing blanket of bleak hopelessness devoured her. This was useless. They couldn't possibly defeat a demon so powerful; half her force was already down and the thing hadn't yet begun to fight. And even if she did somehow, through some miracle of the Maker, manage to defeat this one, there was another one waiting, and another after that. She couldn't cover the entire world, finding every rift everywhere. It was logically impossible. She would never have a life outside of the Inquisition, never do or be anything except the means to an end.

And Bull. She lifted her eyes to him, saw him kneeling, bracing himself with one massive hand gripping the head of his axe, the hilt planted in the ground. He hadn't even wanted this relationship, not really. He had tied himself to her, sacrificed himself for her well-being, doomed himself to a relationship that was nothing but a burden to him so that he could keep her sane long enough to close the breach. Now that it was closed, he was stuck with her.

He wanted to be a Qunari again, wanted to be with his people. He must, or he would not have come, would not have stayed. He wanted it so badly, he had never even looked beneath the surface of the summons, he who ate plots and machinations with his breakfast. He had grabbed with desperation at the first chance to become Qunari again.

To be rid of her.

She was going to lose him. She was going to have to, for his own good. After all he had done for her, could she do any less? How could she be so selfish as to keep him? She had to let him go. He would never let her go, she knew that. He was too honorable, too duty-bound. The only way this could end, the only way to free him, was to die.

Dully, she noticed despair demons, smaller wraiths swirling around the larger demon. They were slaughtering the unresisting antaam. Here and there, a warrior struggled to his feet but was quickly overwhelmed by the demonic forces.

It would be so easy to die here. All she had to do was stay on her knees a little while longer, just be a fraction of a second too slow, and Bull would be free.

What did it matter, anyway?

She was nothing.

She would never be anything.

Her hair stirred. Something stroked the top of her head. Delicious, she heard in the still silence. The voice echoed oddly, repeating itself in a dozen whispers in her mind. Killing you would be like ending a banquet that had only begun. Live, little Herald. Live, and give me life.

Sound returned first. Warriors moaned here and there across the meadow. The rift pulsed and crackled. One enterprising bird cheeped warily. She could feel warm sunlight on her back, and the breeze cooled the tears on her cheeks.

Her heart continued to beat, and her lungs insisted on breathing. She began to accept that she was alive and likely to go on living regardless of whether or not it was important that she do so, and so she lifted her head.

Across the clearing, Bull was staring at her. She could see the shattering grief in his expression, some deep realization that had hit him at his core.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Evelyn stumbled to her feet and turned away, shuffling toward the road and distant Kon-Tarr.

Morning.

Evelyn didn't precisely wake as much as realize she was staring at the ceiling over her bed, that she had been for some time. She blinked rapidly to clear the dry itch from her eyes and sat up, orienting herself in the present.

They had, as a group, straggled back into Kon-Tarr late the prior evening. The walk had helped restore some measure of awareness and control to the survivors, but there had been no discussion, no quiet conversation. Not even with Bull.

Not even when they parted.

He had gone toward the Arishok's compound. She had returned to her room. No one had forced them apart. No one had said they must. She hadn't asked. He hadn't protested.

Bull hadn't wanted her with him last night.

She tried to apply reason. After all, he hadn't sent her away. And if he hadn't come with her, well, she hadn't exactly gone with him either. If anything, the decision to sleep apart was mutual.

It still hurt.

With a sigh, Evelyn decided to actually be awake and rose from her bed. She knew where he was. She should go find him. She had failed to kill the demon, failed to close the rift, failed to even fight. She could at least succeed in her duty to Bull.

No one stopped her as she walked through the city, no one followed her. The guards at the walls of the Arishok's compound let her pass without comment. She had one odd moment of wondering if she had slipped into invisibility all unknowing, even glanced at the backs of her hands just to be sure, but she was as solid and real as she had ever been. Even if it didn't quite feel that way.

Not until she had actually entered the building did someone finally address her. A warrior she didn't know stepped away from a staircase and stood in front of her, heavy arms folded over massive chest. "Go there," he said, his accent making the two words all but unrecognizable.

She looked toward the door he had nodded at, then back at him. "Is Iron Bull there? I should find him first."

He frowned at her, white brows lowering over forged metal eyes. "Bas go there," he said, growling.

"Right," she sighed, turning away. "I'll just go there, then."

The room was spacious and light, with the same honey colored walls as elsewhere in Kon-Tarr, but most of the space was taken up with large slabs of furniture. Neat piles of paper, scroll containers, and maps obscured the tops of the tables. The maps she saw were turned face-down; someone was protecting secrets. Behind one of the tables was Arishok, and past him was the balcony she had seen him standing on. Bull stood to the left of the table. Three other Qunari stood around it.

Everyone looked at her when she entered.

Failure, she heard in their silent gazes, the air heavy with unspoken judgement.

She felt her cheeks warm but managed to keep her head up and her shoulders square. "We have to find that demon and kill it," she said.

"We've been discussing how to do that," Bull said. He had unfolded his arms, but didn't reach for her, didn't gesture her close.

It hurt.

She ignored it. He wouldn't thank her for ignoring duty so that she could beg his forgiveness, beg him to say he loved her again. Not that it hadn't been a lie, but it had been such a pretty lie. She wanted the illusion back.

Uncomfortable, she looked away from him and walked instead to the map, forcing her brain back on task. "It won't have gone far from the rift," she said. "It's still bound to it, to the energies coming through from the Fade."

"I told them that," Bull said.

Of course he had. He was as experienced with demons and rifts as she was. When it came to tactics, he was even better than she was. She bit down on her embarrassment and asked, "Did you also tell them that I can still disrupt the rift?"

He stayed silent.

She looked up at Arishok. "I'll go back. It'll know when I manipulate the rift. It will come. But I... I can't defeat it alone."

"I will supply warriors," Arishok said.

"We'll need more than that. We'll need help. That thing... We'll need protection against it, against whatever it was it did to us." Her chin lifted a little in defiance. Whatever it had done that had defeated her, it had also done to every Qunari present including the Arishok. She wanted to remind him of that. To excuse her weakness.

One of the other Qunari, a male she didn't know who wore tiny chains embedded in his horns, spoke. "The saarebas are too great a danger," he said, insistent. This, then, had been the discussion she interrupted. "They are too susceptible to demons."

"We'll need magic," Evelyn said.

"We could send back to the Inquisition," Bull said. "Take time to get the mages here, though."

Arishok held up his hand. "I have already sent for a mage."

"I have said the saarebas--"

"I will not take your saarebas into battle with this demon," Arishok said.

Silence.

Then all three Qunari spoke at once.

"Arishok, no!"

"You cannot possibl--"

"Without consult? You dare...!"

His fist slammed into the desk. "Parshaara," he snarled. "I will see this demon fall, and I will bring every weapon to my hand to finish it. It is done. The message was sent last night."

"You risk much," warned the Qunari with the chains.

"I risk everything," Arishok agreed.

"Are you sure she will come? Are you sure she will even answer?"

He straightened and looked past Evelyn. "I am sure," he said.

Evelyn turned.

A slight figure stood in the doorway, hooded and cloaked. Behind it were two warriors and two saarebas distinctive with their stitched bindings. The voluminous sleeves fell back as delicate hands lifted to the hood and slid it off, revealing night black hair and wide elven green-on-blue eyes.

Neria cocked her head to one side. "Of course I came. When Arishok asks for help, what else can his kadan do but acquiesce?"

Chapter Text

The three other Qunari stalked out of the room, stiff with disapproval, before Neria had even finished removing her cloak, contorting themselves to avoid so much as brushing against her. Neria stood still as they passed, unmoveable and unmoved as a rock in a stream.

The door closed quietly but firmly.

"Subtle as ever," Neria murmured, giving the cloak a shake and settling it over one arm. Underneath, she wore herringbone Grey Warden armor over a white shirt, loose black pants tucked into comfortably worn boots. "My advice would've been to send to the Inquisition but I see you've already done so. Hello, Inquisitor."

"Hello, Warden-Commander."

Neria's eyes flicked to Iron Bull. "Tal Vashoth."

"Neria."

That earned him a faint smile, a twinkle in her eyes, then she turned to Arishok. "Kadan," she said.

"Kadan," Arishok rumbled.

Neria perched in a chair. "Effusive greetings out of the way, someone tell me what I'm doing here."

Uncertain, Evelyn looked to Bull. Now that Neria was here, would she take over? Maybe that would be best, given the utter failure Evelyn's so-called leadership had brought about. She still needed to close the rift, of course, but perhaps it would be best if she stayed at the road. Was that why Arishok had asked her here?

The silence stretched out.

"I see," Neria murmured. She folded her hands on her knees. "Then perhaps we can discuss how I got here. I found it quite interesting, Arishok."

Arishok frowned at her. "You were to be hooded."

"They tried."

The slight musical lilt to the last word suggested the attempt hadn't gone well.

Arishok grunted. "We will not discuss it."

"Won't we?"

"We will not."

Qunari intransigence met Warden determination and won. Neria sighed. "All right. Qunari business is Qunari business and no concern of the Wardens. So again I ask, what am I doing here?"

Evelyn sank into a chair near her. "I suppose that depends on what you know," she said.

From inside her armor, Neria drew a folded sheet of paper and read from it. "A demon is free. Stay with your escort. Arishok."

Evelyn looked toward Arishok. "That's all you said?"

He folded his arms and stared down at her. "More was not needful."

"You could've said how the demon got here."

"There are rifts. Demons come from rifts. It was implied."

"Or that we tried to kill it and failed? Or how many people died?"

"It is obvious we would fight. It is obvious the fight failed, and therefore people died. Had I been successful, I would not have sent for her."

"You get used to it," Neria assured Evelyn. "I'm rather touched he was concerned enough for my safety to add the part about my escort."

"Ariqun is concerned," Arishok said. "You sometimes have a misguided sense of humor."

Neria's head snapped toward Arishok. Tension rose, drawing her jaw tight, her eyebrows together. "Ariqun is here," she said.

Arishok nodded once.

They stared at each other. Evelyn looked back and forth between them, seeing only rising anger in Neria, stony control in Arishok. She opened her mouth to speak.

Bull's hand rested on her shoulder.

He touched her. The warmth of his hand radiated outward, soothing hurts she hadn't yet acknowledged, spreading hope, comfort. Evelyn looked up and back at him. She wanted to leap into his arms, wanted to crawl over the chair and make herself small against his broad chest. Instead, she settled for raising her hand to wrap over his, clinging tightly.

After a moment, his other hand dropped lightly to her other shoulder.

Evelyn shuddered and sighed. He was still here. He still wanted to be close to her. Eyes closed, she turned her head to the side and brushed her lips over his skin, inhaling to draw his scent into her.

"No."

Neria's brittle voice interrupted her drifting thoughts. What had passed between the Warden and Arishok, she had missed entirely but she was certain this was the first word either had spoken.

"Kadan..."

"I will not be here long."

"That does not matter."

Neria rose to her feet. "No!"

More silence as their wills clashed again. Bull shifted his grip downward, under Evelyn's arms, and picked her up bodily from the chair before pushing her behind him. Evelyn sidestepped enough to let her see, but Bull kept one hand on her, firm pressure insisting she remain at his back.

Neria's face was pale, more pale than usual. Her jaw was clenched, eyes wide, slender fingers balled into fists at her side.

Arishok's expression hadn't changed, but when he spoke, his voice had softened. "The agreement has not changed, does not change. We have given our oaths," he said.

Neria spat a word in a language Evelyn didn't recognize. "Then let Ariqun bring it," she said, "and we will discuss an alteration of those oaths."

"You react thoughtlessly," Arishok said, stern again. "It can now do you no harm, bring you no pain. It does not even prevent you defending yourself. Its only purpose is to assure others that they are safe."

"It can do me no harm?" she repeated, disbelieving.

"Now. When the Qunari went to Kirkwall, they insisted we tie our weapons into our sheaths. This we did, as it was their place and therefore we abided by their laws. You are not rendered even that helpless, yet you refuse though the circumstances are little different."

"And Qunari died because of it."

"You will not be as helpless."

Neria snorted. "They were not helpless, and still they died, attacked from all sides by those who implied a threat that did not exist until they created it. Is this your comforting analogy?"

He accepted her point with a subtle gesture. He stepped around the table and lifted his hands to cup her shoulders. "Am I no longer deserving of your trust?" he asked, low and quiet.

"Am I no longer deserving of yours?"

"You are kadan."

She stared up at him.

He waited.

"Sten..."

One corner of his mouth rose slightly, an expression Evelyn would have missed if she hadn't grown accustomed to reading Qunari faces. "Arishok," he said.

Neria laughed, a brief huff of sound that seemed to drain the strength from her. Her shoulders dropped, and her head lowered, touching briefly against his chest. "Arishok," she said, accepting.

He rested his forehead against her bowed head, then he walked past her to open the door.

"So Cullen's not the only one," Bull said quietly, letting Evelyn step out from behind him.

"Do you suppose we'll ever have entire conversations in twelve words or fewer?" she asked, attempting a smile up at him.

Bull took her hand and lifted it to the dragon's tooth he still wore around his neck. "We already do."

She curled her fingers around it.

Qunari token, she thought. A Qunari token for a Qunari man.

You have to let him go.

Disturbed, she released the pendant and sat again. Arishok walked back to the desk, carrying now a small carved box and what appeared to be a scepter as long as his arm.

Neria wrinkled her nose. "Let's get to this rift and kill the demon so I can leave."

"Kadan..."

"Just hurry before I change my mind."

Arishok opened the box, revealing a beaten silver headpiece. He drew it out carefully and Evelyn's breath caught.

It was beautiful. The silver band would nestle across the forehead, decorated by delicate loops of fragile, faceted chains that would frame the wearer's eyebrows, trail elegantly in front of the wearer's ears, and sparkle like gemstones. Freshwater pearls had been worked into the links of the chains, little droplets of velvet shimmer. Looking closer, Evelyn realized that what she'd taken for decorative designs were runes and symbols, cunningly etched into the metal so that they flowed and whorled, disguising their nature.

Neria's eyes narrowed, and she refused to look directly at it.

Arishok slid it on Neria, fitting it neatly around her forehead.

He drew his hands back.

Blue light flared around her head. She didn't cry out, but she did wince. Her hands laced together tightly in her lap, and her gaze remained fixed on the wall.

Arishok turned and picked up the scepter. He pointed it at the Warden.

Light flared again, another wince, stronger this time.

"The formalities having been concluded," she said, her voice sharp and clipped, "may we go now or is there some other indignity I must suffer before I save the Qunari yet again?"

"We go," Arishok said. "I will see to transportation. Will you come?"

"I will not."

Arishok hesitated, then put the scepter down on the table near her and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

No one spoke.

"Are you..." Evelyn trailed off.

Neria looked out the doors leading to the balcony, spine stiff, jaw tight.

"Are you all right?" Evelyn tried again, softer.

"Bas saarebas," she said, as if the words themselves were bitter in her mouth. "It was the only way they would let me live. The only way to stop the killing, really. He defended me. Said that I had defeated an arch-demon and stopped a blight, and that the Qunari owed me. So they gave him a chance to prove he was not... Not infected."

She shook her head a little, making the glittering chains shiver against her black hair. "They fought him. He killed them. Many at first but at least one or two every day. He would have stood in front of me until the next age, killing his people for as long as I wanted to stay in Seheron. But he killed something in himself with every Qunari that died on his sword. Until Ariqun came and said that they would accept him as arvaarad. If I would accept the collar of a saarebas."

"He had this one made for you," Evelyn guessed.

Neria nodded.

"You could have left," Bull said.

"To just leave after so many deaths? No. There was... insufficient expiation. So I stayed until he became Arishok. I left after that." A smile flitted across her lips. "Well, first there was a Desire demon, a very long nap, and some harsh words. But not long after."

"And you haven't seen each other since?" Evelyn asked

"We wrote." Neria stood carefully, gingerly, touching her fingertips to the table as if to help her balance.

"He loves you," Evelyn said softly.

"As I love him. We came through the blight together, both of us altered by the strange alchemy of war. Forged in the same fire, quenched in the same river of darkspawn blood."

She drew in a deep breath. "Well. Enough of that," she said. "Please bear in mind that Arishok does not enforce the collar's discipline. This is not widely known. Suspected, but not known. Therefore when in public, I will not speak since in the normal course of things, collared saarebas cannot."

"Because they have their lips sewn shut."

"A sign of their devotion to the qun. It doesn't actually prevent them from speaking. After all, how do you suppose they eat? It's the collars that prevent intelligible speech."

Evelyn grimaced. "Do I want to know what else the collars can make them do?"

"Anything," Bull said, with an odd, low tone that made Evelyn look back at him, frowning. He wasn't looking at her, wasn't even looking at the Warden. His gaze was fixed on the scepter.

Neria's eyes glittered under soot-black lashes. "He is Arishok," she said. "Who would dare take the saar-issqun from him?"

Bull's eye flicked toward her. "But he wasn't Arishok when you put it on."

Neria watched him, unblinking.

"Expiation," he said.

Neria looked away, brushing her fingertips across the surface a fraction of an inch away from the scepter. The saar-issqun. The master of a dangerous thing.

Silent still, she walked out of the room and onto the balcony, tipping her head back to let the warm coastal sun soak into her skin. Silver chains glittered around her face.

Evelyn took a hesitant step toward her, only to be stopped by Bull's hand on her shoulder again. "Let her be," he murmured.

"What do we do?"

"Nothing," Bull said. "We try to survive what was done to her."

"Gaatlok."

He nodded.

The door opened and Arishok entered. "Mounts are being brou--"

Bull pushed past Evelyn in one stride, scooping up the saar-issqun from the desk. Evelyn heard Neria cry out from the balcony, but before she could stop Bull, he had crossed the room and slammed the scepter across Arishok's face with a backhanded blow.

Muscles knotted, he shoved it toward the other Qunari.

Arishok stood there, one hand over his shoulder on the hilt of his sword, one hand rising to his face. Slowly, he wiped away the blood, then straightened. His bloodstained hand reached out and wrapped around the scepter, just above Bull's fist.

Their eyes met. Held.

Neria stumbled in from the balcony, fingers buried in her hair, drawing breath only in tiny gasps.

Bull released his hold and turned his back on the Qunari warleader.

Neria drew in a long, shuddering breath and straightened, dropping shaking hands to her sides.

Arishok looked down at her as she walked to him. Neria nodded, only that.

"Mounts are being brought," Arishok said again, calmly, ignoring the blood that continued to drip from the torn skin on his face. "Warriors gather. We will leave momentarily."

This time when he left, Neria went with him. So did the scepter.

Gently, Evelyn touched Bull on the arm.

He didn't look at her for a moment, struggling for control. Finally, he turned to her and his hand rose to cup her face.

"He should have protected her better," he said, husky and low, his thumb stroking her eyebrow. In the etched lines on his face, she could read his pain, his guilt, his shame.

"Bull..." she whispered.

He shifted away, clearing his throat. "Come on," he said. "Let's close this damned rift and get you out of here."

Silent as Neria had been, Evelyn followed him out of the room.

This is destroying him, she thought.

You have to let him go.