Blood Poison 22, 23, and 24
Summary: overall f!Surana/Zevran, at least previously, but what is happening naow omg? Part 22 has Alistair being a woobie to a level that gives me author squick, part 23 which features as much violence as I ever do, and part 24 in which we see that someone is a Bad Man.
Word Count: about 4k
Rating: T
Archive: At LJ or at ff.net
Vigil's Keep looked terrible when Alistair arrived. The walls still stood for the most part, but some were caved in and anything not made of stone was destroyed. He tried to look at the mess from a commander's point of view, whatever that meant, and the back of his neck became painfully tight.
They climbed some stairs and he turned at some quick movement to his left to suddenly have Neria leaping at him. He caught her reflexively and held her up. She was snuffling against his neck, her warm breath going under his armor.
"Where were you? Where were you?" she was asking, her voice shaking.
He bowed his head against hers after a moment's hesitation. "I couldn't come," he said. He allowed his gauntleted hand to cover her hair. "The darkspawn were awful in western Amaranthine and the Teryn asked me to help protect the people when it spilled over to Highever."
She was sliding down now and so he opened his arms to let her go, looking worriedly at her face. "I couldn't say no. I'm so sorry."
She took a slow breath and nodded. Her face was red but she didn't look like she was crying, which was good, because he'd never seen her cry unless badly wounded and he had no idea what the proper response to crying from your commander/sister/first-love-that-rejected-you-for-a-manwhore.
"You did well," she said with a firm and polite smile. She looked intent and cheerful again as she always did. She nodded to the side. "Come on. If you're not tired, we've work to do."
That night she asked Alistair to come to her room, where the roof had already been restored but the door was just a bit of tacked-up cloth. There were pieces of shattered furniture in the corners and a straw mattress on the floor. They crouched before the hearth and talked for hours as the fire burned to embers, until their hands became black shapes against the dull red. He spoke of how he had led soldiers for the first time and how awful that was. She did not speak clearly about anything, but he managed to learn that she felt responsible for a lot of people dying in Amaranthine and that Zevran was gone, though he couldn't work out why.
When he finally yawned and stood to go to bed she said suddenly, "You can sleep here," and he would've been less shocked, frankly, if she'd punched him.
"I… what?" he said, his stomach tumbling over as he looked down. Her hair was like shining hills and valleys of fire and he had never touched it with his bare hands more than twice in his life.
"Ignore that. Never mind. You won't disappear overnight if I don't watch you," she said with an odd laugh. "I showed you where the Warden men were sleeping?"
He nodded and left a moment later, the knots in his stomach tying up and loosening again and again.
Neria shut the door which had only been installed a week ago. "So. This is a commander meeting."
Anders shot a look at Alistair's back as the other man made his way toward the bench in the room. "We're commanders?"
"Ha! If we're commanders then that explains the sorry state of this Keep, doesn't it?" said Alistair. Neria moved to a short block of stone that still hadn't been cleared away after all these months and sat down.
"Yes, well. Congratulations! You're being promoted!" she said. Alistair made a face at her and she gave him a thread of a smile that disappeared quickly. "Not you. Him." Her finger was pointing directly at Anders.
"What?" Anders sat down in the room's one chair. "I mean, I can't fault your good judgment, but… what? I didn't think we had a hierarchy other than you on top and everyone else directly beneath you." He couldn't help himself. He smirked a little.
Neria stood up with a sigh and rubbed her hands together. She paced across the room. "I'm-" she released a breath and looked at the ceiling as if suddenly trying to find faith in the Maker. "-making you the Warden-Commander."
Alistair let out a guffaw and pointed at Anders, who ignored the other man and sprung to his feet. "What? You can't! I'm a mage!"
Neria spun on her heel to face Anders with her arms spread wide in the universal gesture of What a coincidence! I may know something about magic myself!
"You're the sodding hero of Ferelden! It's different!" said Anders. "Also I won't do it!"
"Wait wait wait…" Alistair's brow furrowed. "Why do we need a new Commander? Where are you going?" he asked, while Anders held his tongue and vividly imagined the hell of being trapped by responsibility.
"To Antiva." She sat down beside Alistair and rubbed her forehead. Her fingers were stiff and jerky in every motion. He looked over at her, elbows on his knees.
"Why…?" he drawled, warning in his tone as if he already knew the answer. She shifted in her seat and just looked at Alistair with lips pressed and her eyebrows raised meaningfully.
Anders looked between the two. "Why are you going then? You're going to have to use words on me, I'm afraid."
Alistair answered for Neria while still studying her face. "She's going to bloody well find a single assassin in all of Antiva and drag him here by the points of his ears!" Neria jumped to her feet and put her palms out toward him, turning away and saying nothing as she always did when the subject of the missing elf came up. Anders had had to resort to asking Oghren questions about Zevran, which was always a smelly experience and rarely worth it.
"Neria, if he left you, you can't go putting your life in danger just to bring him back!"
"He didn't leave me!" she burst out in a shout at Alistair. Anders was struck all at once by a distant memory of his mother shouting at his uncle. He dropped back in his chair and laced his fingers together, smirking again. "If he's not back he's dead or in trouble, and from what he'd told me, he's likely dead!"
"Then why go?" Alistair shouted back and he opened his arms.
"Who else will go after him if I won't? They can't do this to him without me hurting them in return! No, you know what?" she swept her hands back and forth, shaking her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm leaving. You lot can either talk to me about it or I'm sneaking out during the night."
Alistair was making a strangled sound and so Anders had to raise his voice over him. "I'm no more keen than he is on you doing something like this, but why me? Why not Alistair here, or-ooh, what about Nathaniel? He's good at these kinds of things!"
"Alistair can't be the leader of a whole Arling. Anora would have him poisoned," which was confusing information to Anders. Neria was watching Alistair. "And to make a Howe into the Arl would invite unrest. You'll be good at it, Anders… Alistair," she sighed, and moved toward the templar. "I'll come back if I live?" she offered.
"That's not a comfort!" he spat. "You've never even travelled alone! Do you know what they do to elf women who travel alone?"
Neria stepped back and rubbed her forehead yet again as the two men glared at her. She dropped her hand and looked at them. "You both owe me," she started. "Anders, you know you'd have hanged and I gave you freedom from the Tower. And Alistair, are you sitting on a throne in Denerim like everyone in all of Thedas wanted of you?"
Alistair shook his head, still frowning. "Wait, what?" said Anders. "Throne, what?" He gaped at his fellow Warden. They both ignored him.
"Bloody Anora offered me a boon for almost dying with the Archdemon and where did that end up? Which is another reason why I want a skilled mage as the Commander, to tell you the truth. Please." She retreated back to the stone in the corner and sat down, rubbing her face. "I want this one thing. I went to the Tower when I was a toddler and I've been fighting the Blight ever since I got out. I'm not a slave. All I have is my own life and I want to decide what to do with it. And if I live, I'll come back." She glanced at them from under her hand.
"Let me go with you," Alistair said first, then stopped and looked away, frustrated as Neria shook her head.
After a tense silence, Anders spoke. "Fine, I'll do it. I'd do worse than this to get my own room and office anyway. I'll roll all over in your sheets while you're gone and think, mmm, Neria!" Alistair shot him a glare and Neria smiled briefly.
"Alistair.." she stood and walked to the ex-templar. Neria stepped up on the bench beside him, took his head in her hands, and leaned over to kiss his forehead. Anders pitied the man and looked away.
"If I live, I will return," she said a third time as she jumped down. "But it might be better to let the news of my death out sooner rather than later in order to secure Anders's authority in the Arling. Please don't spread information about where I'm going or why. It would be best if everyone just thought of me as dead. I don't want to get hunted down by the Chantry. I could get killed."
"I won't," said Anders, and a moment later Alistair nodded, too.
"Thank you." Neria studied Alistair for another breath or two, then sighed and went to the door. She left and Anders followed, still arguing, leaving Alistair there with his eyes closed and his hands in fists.
Alistair came to her room and paced between the bed and the fire in the hearth as she watched him from the shadows along the wall.
"You're my best friend and you will get hurt," he said without preamble. "I don't even think you understand this."
"I'm not without skill, even if you don't consider my magic," she answered. "You've taught me how to use my shield well, yes? And I learned quite a lot about my blade from Zev."
He stopped and looked the shadowy shape of her and opened his hands. "Yes, but you're not a warrior! I can best you half of the time!"
"And I can best you half of the time!" Neria gave a brittle laugh and took a step into the ruddy light. "Do you not know what this says about me? You are a better warrior than the Hero of River Dane was! You're one of the best in all of Ferelden, do you not know this? You're probably better than King Maric ever was!" and her voice hitched briefly over his father's name, losing momentum there. "What chance does a bandit have against me if I can beat you half of the time?"
As he took three steps toward Neria he saw how her eyes became wild and looked away, but he put his arms around her anyway and her arms did not hesitate to close around his waist. "How will I do this without you?" he blurted. She was so small. She hadn't even seemed this small when he carried her off of Fort Drakon. She was moving her head against his chest, directly over his heart at her height, and he would have to lean over a little to even be able to kiss her hair, which he mustn't do, mustn't do, but then he leaned over and did it anyway. Her hair surrounded his nose and mouth; she smelled of fire and clean water and though he'd told himself for well over a year now that he cared for her as no more than a sister it was a lie.
"I swear you are stronger than you think. And if I live, I will come back," she said, as if this didn't make pieces of him break all around her. His hand shifted up and moved through the hair at her crown, his smallest finger nearly touching the skin of her neck and she shivered. Horrible, painful, traitorous hope leapt within him. She made a small sound that he didn't know the meaning of and in his mind there was a flash of Neria arching above him as Morrigan had once done but in the same moment as his blood was rushing all around him she was squirming away from him, out of his touch and back into the shadows where he couldn't read her.
"I have tried my best to give you the life that you told me you wanted," she said there and she sounded as if she was begging. "Please be happy. Trust me to look after myself. Please don't come for me."
He took a deep, aching breath and found that he could speak. "Come back, then. Live, and come back." He could not find a smile for her or any more words and so he left to find that it hurt even worse outside of her room than in it.
The walls and the street were both made of honey-colored stone and the sun soaked into Zevran's armor with an even heat. Some distance ahead of him a man in fine silks turned the corner, each step rolling into the next. Behind him there was the soft whisper of a boot pressed carefully across gritty stone.
Their steps crisply broke through yellowing grass as they rounded a hill. Neria lifted her hand for a halt and looked toward the distant houses with narrowed eyes. "I see two, no. I think three of them are nobility. There are six others dressed in leather armor. We should have little trouble. Lead us in, Oghren. Make for the bann in the grey armor first."
She lifted her staff to the clean-swept sky and pulled down magic on it, two white chips of bone swaying from the end.
Zevran turned the corner and found the man waiting for him, smiling. An inch of a shadow trembled to Zevran's left. "Arainai! Such an pleasure to see you. Your own Master would be envious to hear that you've seen me before him, wouldn't he?" He was dark-haired, dark-skinned and his eyes were black.
"To be perfectly honest I was hoping that he would not be hearing straight away," Zevran said, his full lips molding to a relaxed smile. He folded his arms and lifted a shoulder. In a doorway ahead of him and to the right there was the creak of leather. They were not bothering to hide themselves well. "Why should I go to him when I could work for a stronger Master such as yourself?"
Master Fedele laughed, his voice deeper than Zevran's own. "I am not in the habit of taking in dead men. For you died nearly two years ago, did you not?" His smile widened until the corners of his eyes creased. "But still, it is an honor to me to be the one to ensure that you have a proper Crow burial." The shadow to Zevran's left flashed again. He threw himself against the wall and the arrow shattered in the street.
Beside the pink bone and the great emptiness of the man's split chest, Neria saw the edge of a tattoo. She went to another man and pulled open buckles. Nathaniel's arrow trapped the armor against the body, but she was able to slide it along and bend the ribs enough to see the tattoo-a whorl there followed the muscle and she had traced just such a whorl so many times with teeth and tongue.
"I can't heal the dead, Commander."
The body didn't even bleed anymore as she rocked the torso by the shaft piercing it. "Shit," she hissed, and hit the corpse across the face for being so weak as to die without giving her news.
He had counted five, but he was so, so wrong, so mistaken. Knives serrated through his skin to tear the fibers of his muscle, sliced him again and again and the shaft of an arrow lodged itself solidly in his body in such a sudden blow that it should have made more sound than it did. His breathing and the gritty sound of his boots turning against stone became the only sounds he knew and the last one he killed with his left dagger for his right arm did not work anymore. There were nine bodies, no, eleven, no… his eyes failed him and it looked like the streets of Antiva were underwater.
His feet did not carry him with any of his usual grace as he departed. He turned from voices and movement and found himself on his one good hand and his knees without remembering falling. His tongue grew thick in his mouth. He moved toward darkness and fell into dreams.
She stumbled in the road, her legs grown weak and she half-fell to a seat on a root. She pushed the heel of her hand between her eyes as Zevran filled up everything under her skin. The scent of him was in her shoulders, his voice in her throat, the taste of him in her belly and the secret way that she watched him move was in her lungs. She could not breathe.
Zevran dreamed of many things as he bled. Sometimes he would dream of running across rooftops a moment before they fell away, sometimes he would dream of Rinna and her flashing eyes, but more often his poisoned mind carried him to that which had been recently familiar, campfires and the cold of Ferelden. He dreamed that Neria did not breathe after the dragon and tears seeped from beneath his eyes as his lips moved soundlessly. He dreamed that his Neria slept beside him and his fingers moved through the grit of the stone and his own sticky blood, tracing patterns on what the Fade told him was the smooth valley of her back. His heart felt whole beside her as he lay there dying.
Neria wept for Zevran, rocking back and forth. The warmth of the liquor spread through her belly and left a foul taste on her tongue. She curled her body around the memory of her Crow where he was lodged beneath her breastbone.
She named it for the first time. "I loved him so much," she cried, her throat opening easily for these words.
Zevran's golden eyes opened. He was glued to the street by the remnants of his blood and dried filthy water. Eventually he was able to bring a small vial to his lips and swallow. The strong herbal flavor of it was good against his parched throat. He was in a dark place with a small arch of stone above him. He rolled to his belly and accepted the pain that followed without sound. After a time he lifted to his knees and crawled out. He drank the contents of another vial and was able to stand against the wall, shaking like a weakling. The mistakes he had made against Master Fedele were enough to kill him, but he did not yet have it in him to die as he ought.
"…did you not, Master Arainai?"
Zevran shifted his eyes from the man he was speaking with and looked to his guest further up the table. "Mmm? Forgive me, my exquisite lady, for I was not following your conversation." This woman was rumored to be in the pocket of the Grandmaster of the Crows and he smiled at her.
"I was asking if you knew the Grey Warden that is called the Hero of Ferelden." He caught the slight hitch of movement as one of his household served a plate for the lady.
"Ah, yes, I have met her. Why, have you met her as well? I did not think that of your refined tastes would be very keen on a nation that smells of wet dogs and garbage. Maker knows that I was not."
"I heard the news today that the barbarian nation mourns her death and thought of you." Her smile widened; it made the woman look like a refined cat with a mouse-tail dangling from her mouth.
Zevran sighed smoothly. "Such a pity. Rarely have I met a woman more eager to come to bed, though I must tell you that it was the other Warden who was more skilled." He winked at the woman. "But if you would join me later for a more… private conversation? I will tell you all that you wish to know."
She declined, as expected, and he returned his attention to the man beside him, the fork and knife in his hand smooth as he cut into his supper.
Zevran sat on the edge of his bed and leaned his forearms against his knees. He opened his hands and they curved around the space where Neria's face would have fit. He could see her: her mouth open with laughter, her eyes fascinated as she had once looked up at him. He felt as if some vital part of his body had been cut away and he could still feel the ache of what was missing in the shape of her. She was a woman of angles, his Neria, snapped words and eyes flashing with temper and he had been half of a person since he left her over a year ago.
His hands shook where they cupped the air and then closed to fists. He found a bottle of wine in his cupboard and drank straight from mouth of it. The strings he had pulled carefully for months were to close around the throat of the Grandmaster three days hence, but he would release them now. He slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands like a child.
Neria sat cross-legged in the floor with the heavy and loathed grimoire in her lap. She read it aloud in practiced whispers, faster and faster, then drew her finger across the floor. Faint light sprang up in the wake of her touch on the wood like a curtain of water rising to the ceiling.
"You are being hunted, Master."
"Yes? If you are able to tell me this, then why hasn't the person responsible already been killed?"
Taddeo lowered his eyes to the powerful elf beside him before answering. "This is where Gianni, Vanni, Leone, and more than ten others have gone to."
Master Arainai frowned just a little. "Master Conti?"
"I cannot say. Anyone who has spoken with this person is now dead. Vanni was able to discover that you were definitely her target, but I did not much learn more than that before Vanni died."
"What is this woman's name?"
"I cannot say this either, Master-" and he stopped briefly as Arainai gave a hiss of displeasure that sometimes ended in violence. This sort of behavior had become gradually more common in the last few months. Taddeo held himself still, then continued when it appeared that a glare was all that was forthcoming this time. "But Vanni thought her accent was that of Seheron or possibly Ferelden."
Master Arainai's glare flicked away. "What is the condition of the bodies, if anyone has seen them? Were there burns, or was it just knifework and poisons?"
"No, no signs of magic, if that is what you are after." Taddeo allowed himself a small smile.
"Cheeky bastard. You realize that without your devilish good looks and skills in the bedroom you would never get away with it."
Taddeo's smile grew to a grin. "I am ever at your service."
Arainai sighed. "If this person is so eager to find me, then let her, I say. Set Fosca on the task of inviting her here and once she is within our enclave, we will spring our trap, find out who she is working for, and kill her."
Word Count: about 4k
Rating: T
Archive: At LJ or at ff.net
Vigil's Keep looked terrible when Alistair arrived. The walls still stood for the most part, but some were caved in and anything not made of stone was destroyed. He tried to look at the mess from a commander's point of view, whatever that meant, and the back of his neck became painfully tight.
They climbed some stairs and he turned at some quick movement to his left to suddenly have Neria leaping at him. He caught her reflexively and held her up. She was snuffling against his neck, her warm breath going under his armor.
"Where were you? Where were you?" she was asking, her voice shaking.
He bowed his head against hers after a moment's hesitation. "I couldn't come," he said. He allowed his gauntleted hand to cover her hair. "The darkspawn were awful in western Amaranthine and the Teryn asked me to help protect the people when it spilled over to Highever."
She was sliding down now and so he opened his arms to let her go, looking worriedly at her face. "I couldn't say no. I'm so sorry."
She took a slow breath and nodded. Her face was red but she didn't look like she was crying, which was good, because he'd never seen her cry unless badly wounded and he had no idea what the proper response to crying from your commander/sister/first-love-that-rejected-you-for-a-manwhore.
"You did well," she said with a firm and polite smile. She looked intent and cheerful again as she always did. She nodded to the side. "Come on. If you're not tired, we've work to do."
That night she asked Alistair to come to her room, where the roof had already been restored but the door was just a bit of tacked-up cloth. There were pieces of shattered furniture in the corners and a straw mattress on the floor. They crouched before the hearth and talked for hours as the fire burned to embers, until their hands became black shapes against the dull red. He spoke of how he had led soldiers for the first time and how awful that was. She did not speak clearly about anything, but he managed to learn that she felt responsible for a lot of people dying in Amaranthine and that Zevran was gone, though he couldn't work out why.
When he finally yawned and stood to go to bed she said suddenly, "You can sleep here," and he would've been less shocked, frankly, if she'd punched him.
"I… what?" he said, his stomach tumbling over as he looked down. Her hair was like shining hills and valleys of fire and he had never touched it with his bare hands more than twice in his life.
"Ignore that. Never mind. You won't disappear overnight if I don't watch you," she said with an odd laugh. "I showed you where the Warden men were sleeping?"
He nodded and left a moment later, the knots in his stomach tying up and loosening again and again.
Neria shut the door which had only been installed a week ago. "So. This is a commander meeting."
Anders shot a look at Alistair's back as the other man made his way toward the bench in the room. "We're commanders?"
"Ha! If we're commanders then that explains the sorry state of this Keep, doesn't it?" said Alistair. Neria moved to a short block of stone that still hadn't been cleared away after all these months and sat down.
"Yes, well. Congratulations! You're being promoted!" she said. Alistair made a face at her and she gave him a thread of a smile that disappeared quickly. "Not you. Him." Her finger was pointing directly at Anders.
"What?" Anders sat down in the room's one chair. "I mean, I can't fault your good judgment, but… what? I didn't think we had a hierarchy other than you on top and everyone else directly beneath you." He couldn't help himself. He smirked a little.
Neria stood up with a sigh and rubbed her hands together. She paced across the room. "I'm-" she released a breath and looked at the ceiling as if suddenly trying to find faith in the Maker. "-making you the Warden-Commander."
Alistair let out a guffaw and pointed at Anders, who ignored the other man and sprung to his feet. "What? You can't! I'm a mage!"
Neria spun on her heel to face Anders with her arms spread wide in the universal gesture of What a coincidence! I may know something about magic myself!
"You're the sodding hero of Ferelden! It's different!" said Anders. "Also I won't do it!"
"Wait wait wait…" Alistair's brow furrowed. "Why do we need a new Commander? Where are you going?" he asked, while Anders held his tongue and vividly imagined the hell of being trapped by responsibility.
"To Antiva." She sat down beside Alistair and rubbed her forehead. Her fingers were stiff and jerky in every motion. He looked over at her, elbows on his knees.
"Why…?" he drawled, warning in his tone as if he already knew the answer. She shifted in her seat and just looked at Alistair with lips pressed and her eyebrows raised meaningfully.
Anders looked between the two. "Why are you going then? You're going to have to use words on me, I'm afraid."
Alistair answered for Neria while still studying her face. "She's going to bloody well find a single assassin in all of Antiva and drag him here by the points of his ears!" Neria jumped to her feet and put her palms out toward him, turning away and saying nothing as she always did when the subject of the missing elf came up. Anders had had to resort to asking Oghren questions about Zevran, which was always a smelly experience and rarely worth it.
"Neria, if he left you, you can't go putting your life in danger just to bring him back!"
"He didn't leave me!" she burst out in a shout at Alistair. Anders was struck all at once by a distant memory of his mother shouting at his uncle. He dropped back in his chair and laced his fingers together, smirking again. "If he's not back he's dead or in trouble, and from what he'd told me, he's likely dead!"
"Then why go?" Alistair shouted back and he opened his arms.
"Who else will go after him if I won't? They can't do this to him without me hurting them in return! No, you know what?" she swept her hands back and forth, shaking her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm leaving. You lot can either talk to me about it or I'm sneaking out during the night."
Alistair was making a strangled sound and so Anders had to raise his voice over him. "I'm no more keen than he is on you doing something like this, but why me? Why not Alistair here, or-ooh, what about Nathaniel? He's good at these kinds of things!"
"Alistair can't be the leader of a whole Arling. Anora would have him poisoned," which was confusing information to Anders. Neria was watching Alistair. "And to make a Howe into the Arl would invite unrest. You'll be good at it, Anders… Alistair," she sighed, and moved toward the templar. "I'll come back if I live?" she offered.
"That's not a comfort!" he spat. "You've never even travelled alone! Do you know what they do to elf women who travel alone?"
Neria stepped back and rubbed her forehead yet again as the two men glared at her. She dropped her hand and looked at them. "You both owe me," she started. "Anders, you know you'd have hanged and I gave you freedom from the Tower. And Alistair, are you sitting on a throne in Denerim like everyone in all of Thedas wanted of you?"
Alistair shook his head, still frowning. "Wait, what?" said Anders. "Throne, what?" He gaped at his fellow Warden. They both ignored him.
"Bloody Anora offered me a boon for almost dying with the Archdemon and where did that end up? Which is another reason why I want a skilled mage as the Commander, to tell you the truth. Please." She retreated back to the stone in the corner and sat down, rubbing her face. "I want this one thing. I went to the Tower when I was a toddler and I've been fighting the Blight ever since I got out. I'm not a slave. All I have is my own life and I want to decide what to do with it. And if I live, I'll come back." She glanced at them from under her hand.
"Let me go with you," Alistair said first, then stopped and looked away, frustrated as Neria shook her head.
After a tense silence, Anders spoke. "Fine, I'll do it. I'd do worse than this to get my own room and office anyway. I'll roll all over in your sheets while you're gone and think, mmm, Neria!" Alistair shot him a glare and Neria smiled briefly.
"Alistair.." she stood and walked to the ex-templar. Neria stepped up on the bench beside him, took his head in her hands, and leaned over to kiss his forehead. Anders pitied the man and looked away.
"If I live, I will return," she said a third time as she jumped down. "But it might be better to let the news of my death out sooner rather than later in order to secure Anders's authority in the Arling. Please don't spread information about where I'm going or why. It would be best if everyone just thought of me as dead. I don't want to get hunted down by the Chantry. I could get killed."
"I won't," said Anders, and a moment later Alistair nodded, too.
"Thank you." Neria studied Alistair for another breath or two, then sighed and went to the door. She left and Anders followed, still arguing, leaving Alistair there with his eyes closed and his hands in fists.
Alistair came to her room and paced between the bed and the fire in the hearth as she watched him from the shadows along the wall.
"You're my best friend and you will get hurt," he said without preamble. "I don't even think you understand this."
"I'm not without skill, even if you don't consider my magic," she answered. "You've taught me how to use my shield well, yes? And I learned quite a lot about my blade from Zev."
He stopped and looked the shadowy shape of her and opened his hands. "Yes, but you're not a warrior! I can best you half of the time!"
"And I can best you half of the time!" Neria gave a brittle laugh and took a step into the ruddy light. "Do you not know what this says about me? You are a better warrior than the Hero of River Dane was! You're one of the best in all of Ferelden, do you not know this? You're probably better than King Maric ever was!" and her voice hitched briefly over his father's name, losing momentum there. "What chance does a bandit have against me if I can beat you half of the time?"
As he took three steps toward Neria he saw how her eyes became wild and looked away, but he put his arms around her anyway and her arms did not hesitate to close around his waist. "How will I do this without you?" he blurted. She was so small. She hadn't even seemed this small when he carried her off of Fort Drakon. She was moving her head against his chest, directly over his heart at her height, and he would have to lean over a little to even be able to kiss her hair, which he mustn't do, mustn't do, but then he leaned over and did it anyway. Her hair surrounded his nose and mouth; she smelled of fire and clean water and though he'd told himself for well over a year now that he cared for her as no more than a sister it was a lie.
"I swear you are stronger than you think. And if I live, I will come back," she said, as if this didn't make pieces of him break all around her. His hand shifted up and moved through the hair at her crown, his smallest finger nearly touching the skin of her neck and she shivered. Horrible, painful, traitorous hope leapt within him. She made a small sound that he didn't know the meaning of and in his mind there was a flash of Neria arching above him as Morrigan had once done but in the same moment as his blood was rushing all around him she was squirming away from him, out of his touch and back into the shadows where he couldn't read her.
"I have tried my best to give you the life that you told me you wanted," she said there and she sounded as if she was begging. "Please be happy. Trust me to look after myself. Please don't come for me."
He took a deep, aching breath and found that he could speak. "Come back, then. Live, and come back." He could not find a smile for her or any more words and so he left to find that it hurt even worse outside of her room than in it.
The walls and the street were both made of honey-colored stone and the sun soaked into Zevran's armor with an even heat. Some distance ahead of him a man in fine silks turned the corner, each step rolling into the next. Behind him there was the soft whisper of a boot pressed carefully across gritty stone.
Their steps crisply broke through yellowing grass as they rounded a hill. Neria lifted her hand for a halt and looked toward the distant houses with narrowed eyes. "I see two, no. I think three of them are nobility. There are six others dressed in leather armor. We should have little trouble. Lead us in, Oghren. Make for the bann in the grey armor first."
She lifted her staff to the clean-swept sky and pulled down magic on it, two white chips of bone swaying from the end.
Zevran turned the corner and found the man waiting for him, smiling. An inch of a shadow trembled to Zevran's left. "Arainai! Such an pleasure to see you. Your own Master would be envious to hear that you've seen me before him, wouldn't he?" He was dark-haired, dark-skinned and his eyes were black.
"To be perfectly honest I was hoping that he would not be hearing straight away," Zevran said, his full lips molding to a relaxed smile. He folded his arms and lifted a shoulder. In a doorway ahead of him and to the right there was the creak of leather. They were not bothering to hide themselves well. "Why should I go to him when I could work for a stronger Master such as yourself?"
Master Fedele laughed, his voice deeper than Zevran's own. "I am not in the habit of taking in dead men. For you died nearly two years ago, did you not?" His smile widened until the corners of his eyes creased. "But still, it is an honor to me to be the one to ensure that you have a proper Crow burial." The shadow to Zevran's left flashed again. He threw himself against the wall and the arrow shattered in the street.
Beside the pink bone and the great emptiness of the man's split chest, Neria saw the edge of a tattoo. She went to another man and pulled open buckles. Nathaniel's arrow trapped the armor against the body, but she was able to slide it along and bend the ribs enough to see the tattoo-a whorl there followed the muscle and she had traced just such a whorl so many times with teeth and tongue.
"I can't heal the dead, Commander."
The body didn't even bleed anymore as she rocked the torso by the shaft piercing it. "Shit," she hissed, and hit the corpse across the face for being so weak as to die without giving her news.
He had counted five, but he was so, so wrong, so mistaken. Knives serrated through his skin to tear the fibers of his muscle, sliced him again and again and the shaft of an arrow lodged itself solidly in his body in such a sudden blow that it should have made more sound than it did. His breathing and the gritty sound of his boots turning against stone became the only sounds he knew and the last one he killed with his left dagger for his right arm did not work anymore. There were nine bodies, no, eleven, no… his eyes failed him and it looked like the streets of Antiva were underwater.
His feet did not carry him with any of his usual grace as he departed. He turned from voices and movement and found himself on his one good hand and his knees without remembering falling. His tongue grew thick in his mouth. He moved toward darkness and fell into dreams.
She stumbled in the road, her legs grown weak and she half-fell to a seat on a root. She pushed the heel of her hand between her eyes as Zevran filled up everything under her skin. The scent of him was in her shoulders, his voice in her throat, the taste of him in her belly and the secret way that she watched him move was in her lungs. She could not breathe.
Zevran dreamed of many things as he bled. Sometimes he would dream of running across rooftops a moment before they fell away, sometimes he would dream of Rinna and her flashing eyes, but more often his poisoned mind carried him to that which had been recently familiar, campfires and the cold of Ferelden. He dreamed that Neria did not breathe after the dragon and tears seeped from beneath his eyes as his lips moved soundlessly. He dreamed that his Neria slept beside him and his fingers moved through the grit of the stone and his own sticky blood, tracing patterns on what the Fade told him was the smooth valley of her back. His heart felt whole beside her as he lay there dying.
Neria wept for Zevran, rocking back and forth. The warmth of the liquor spread through her belly and left a foul taste on her tongue. She curled her body around the memory of her Crow where he was lodged beneath her breastbone.
She named it for the first time. "I loved him so much," she cried, her throat opening easily for these words.
Zevran's golden eyes opened. He was glued to the street by the remnants of his blood and dried filthy water. Eventually he was able to bring a small vial to his lips and swallow. The strong herbal flavor of it was good against his parched throat. He was in a dark place with a small arch of stone above him. He rolled to his belly and accepted the pain that followed without sound. After a time he lifted to his knees and crawled out. He drank the contents of another vial and was able to stand against the wall, shaking like a weakling. The mistakes he had made against Master Fedele were enough to kill him, but he did not yet have it in him to die as he ought.
"…did you not, Master Arainai?"
Zevran shifted his eyes from the man he was speaking with and looked to his guest further up the table. "Mmm? Forgive me, my exquisite lady, for I was not following your conversation." This woman was rumored to be in the pocket of the Grandmaster of the Crows and he smiled at her.
"I was asking if you knew the Grey Warden that is called the Hero of Ferelden." He caught the slight hitch of movement as one of his household served a plate for the lady.
"Ah, yes, I have met her. Why, have you met her as well? I did not think that of your refined tastes would be very keen on a nation that smells of wet dogs and garbage. Maker knows that I was not."
"I heard the news today that the barbarian nation mourns her death and thought of you." Her smile widened; it made the woman look like a refined cat with a mouse-tail dangling from her mouth.
Zevran sighed smoothly. "Such a pity. Rarely have I met a woman more eager to come to bed, though I must tell you that it was the other Warden who was more skilled." He winked at the woman. "But if you would join me later for a more… private conversation? I will tell you all that you wish to know."
She declined, as expected, and he returned his attention to the man beside him, the fork and knife in his hand smooth as he cut into his supper.
Zevran sat on the edge of his bed and leaned his forearms against his knees. He opened his hands and they curved around the space where Neria's face would have fit. He could see her: her mouth open with laughter, her eyes fascinated as she had once looked up at him. He felt as if some vital part of his body had been cut away and he could still feel the ache of what was missing in the shape of her. She was a woman of angles, his Neria, snapped words and eyes flashing with temper and he had been half of a person since he left her over a year ago.
His hands shook where they cupped the air and then closed to fists. He found a bottle of wine in his cupboard and drank straight from mouth of it. The strings he had pulled carefully for months were to close around the throat of the Grandmaster three days hence, but he would release them now. He slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands like a child.
Neria sat cross-legged in the floor with the heavy and loathed grimoire in her lap. She read it aloud in practiced whispers, faster and faster, then drew her finger across the floor. Faint light sprang up in the wake of her touch on the wood like a curtain of water rising to the ceiling.
"You are being hunted, Master."
"Yes? If you are able to tell me this, then why hasn't the person responsible already been killed?"
Taddeo lowered his eyes to the powerful elf beside him before answering. "This is where Gianni, Vanni, Leone, and more than ten others have gone to."
Master Arainai frowned just a little. "Master Conti?"
"I cannot say. Anyone who has spoken with this person is now dead. Vanni was able to discover that you were definitely her target, but I did not much learn more than that before Vanni died."
"What is this woman's name?"
"I cannot say this either, Master-" and he stopped briefly as Arainai gave a hiss of displeasure that sometimes ended in violence. This sort of behavior had become gradually more common in the last few months. Taddeo held himself still, then continued when it appeared that a glare was all that was forthcoming this time. "But Vanni thought her accent was that of Seheron or possibly Ferelden."
Master Arainai's glare flicked away. "What is the condition of the bodies, if anyone has seen them? Were there burns, or was it just knifework and poisons?"
"No, no signs of magic, if that is what you are after." Taddeo allowed himself a small smile.
"Cheeky bastard. You realize that without your devilish good looks and skills in the bedroom you would never get away with it."
Taddeo's smile grew to a grin. "I am ever at your service."
Arainai sighed. "If this person is so eager to find me, then let her, I say. Set Fosca on the task of inviting her here and once she is within our enclave, we will spring our trap, find out who she is working for, and kill her."