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The first time Tarquin sees the Viper’s face is an accident.
“Did no one ever teach you how to fucking duck?” he spits, yanking Ashur down behind the overturned stone altar that’s currently the only thing keeping either of them from becoming a Venatori pincushion. The arrow intended for the Viper’s throat whistles past, clattering into the wall behind them with a musical ting .
“I don’t usually have to,” Ashur admits. It’d be annoying if he were boasting about it, but he’s not— just stating a fact, and so it’s infuriating instead.
Tarquin glares at him, lunging around the side of the altar to stab a Venatori who’d been hoping to sneak up on them. The cultist goes down with a gurgle, and Tarquin throws himself back down beside Ashur as another arrow ricochets off the front of their makeshift cover. “Now might be a good time to figure it out.”
“I’ll take it under consideration.”
It’d be so easy to just leave him here. Tarquin wouldn’t even feel bad about it.
But no one else is willing to be seen in public in the Viper’s idiotic outfit, so Ashur must live to annoy another day. He leans around the edge of the blood-stained altar instead, trying to get a fix on the last remaining cultists. Four— no, five, including the archer who’s so determined to put new holes in each of their heads.
Tarquin’s more competent than impressive with a sword these days, for reasons he chooses to believe stem from his time in the Archives rather than being on the wrong side of thirty, but Ashur is a powerhouse of magic, with the kind of skill and raw ability any Magister family would cream their fancy robes over achieving. Five idiot Venatori hopped up on red lyrium and over-confidence should be no problem for them to handle.
Should be.
Which of course was why they had only barely crashed the ritual when something popped , arterial red light flaring across the delicate lacework tangle of blood magic sigils scrawled across the floor as the air burned with ozone and iron. One of the cultist mages had dropped instantly, oily smoke billowing from his eyes and mouth, a sight Tarquin already knows will be playing itself on repeat in his nightmares in the days to come.
Ashur had taken one look and declared the whole bloody thing wildly unstable, and now none of them can use magic without risking blowing the whole building and everyone inside halfway to the Archon’s palace.
On the bright side, everyone inside currently includes enough high-ranking Venatori that the bastards aren’t risking it either. On the not-so-bright side, the Venatori have a whole fucking passel of ungifted lackeys to throw at the problem until one of them gets lucky. Ashur just has Tarquin.
“Right,” Tarquin decides. “There’s one fucker on the west side of the room, behind that ugly gold dragon statue by the door. On my mark, you run like hell, try to get the drop on him. I’ll keep the rest off you.”
Ashur frowns, mostly hidden behind his mask. ”And leave you to face four of them alone?”
“I can handle it.” Probably. “Worry about yourself.”
Ashur is brave and determined and not completely useless in a fight, even without his magic. He can handle one shithead Venatori by himself.
He has to, or there’s a very real chance they’re both dead.
“Ready?” Tarquin plants his feet, readjusting his grip on the hilt of his sword. His glove sticks a little, leather tacky with drying blood. Ashur meets his gaze, expression tight and unhappy above the mask, but nods. “ Go!”
Tarquin hurls himself around the edge of their barrier, hears Ashur do the same from the other side. Two of Tarquin’s Venatori startle like the rank fucking amateurs they are, jerking away from where they’d been conferring. The third— the archer— raises her bow, arrow already on the string. Tarquin feints left, wrenching his knee as he overextends to avoid breaking the line of the glowing magical circle painted across the marble. A bright, burning line of agony bursts open across his forearm, but it’s fine. A graze, only, and the archer is still aiming at him , not too-reckless-to-duck Ashur.
He’s inside her guard before the archer can nock another arrow, blade driving up and into her chest in a single smooth motion. Bright blood splashes across the lines of the sigil. Something flares, the air crackling like the moment before a lightning strike, but nothing explodes, so Tarquin ignores it.
The remaining two Venatori come at him with a yell. Tarquin pivots, lets the first sword sing past him, catches the second with his own blade. The second cultist snarls— kneel before the glory of the Venatori, blah blah — and Tarquin lunges, sword-point first. The Venatori stumbles back, blood sheeting down his side.
It’s a split second— barely a moment— that it takes Tarquin to glance over to check on Ashur. He’s up, face-to-face with the cultist he’s apparently decided to grapple instead of stab with his dagger like a sane person —
The first Venatori’s sword catches Tarquin across the side, his leather armor parting like water under the blade, his own blood spilling down to join the growing stain on the stone.
Focus . He can’t protect Ashur if he’s dead.
He finishes it quickly, falling back into the rhythm of violence like diving into deep waters, smooth and familiar. His side burns, but he can already tell it’s not serious — a problem for future Tarquin. He’s turning back towards Ashur before the second Venatori finishes collapsing.
Ashur’s cultist is… also down. Ashur stands above them, breath heaving, because it turns out a lot of the muscle memory and skill needed to wield an orb and spellblade translates pretty well to wielding a regular blade.
But not completely. Blood pours down from a long slice across Ashur’s face, and he raises his hand to it, looking faintly baffled when the clawed tips of his gloves come away wet with red. The Viper mask lies in two ragged pieces at his feet.
Tarquin wrenches his eyes away from Ashur’s face. It feels almost like a violation, seeing him like this. A sight Tarquin hasn’t earned.
“You good?”
“I— yes.” Ashur shakes himself, wiping his hand down the front of his jacket and only making the whole mess worse. He gestures toward the body with his cleaner hand. “That symbol on his coat. That’s the crest of the Paridus family.”
Tarquin nudges the body onto its back so he can get a look, ignoring the way the absence of the mask means he can see Ashur’s grimace of distaste. There is a symbol picked out in crimson thread that’s almost lost against the blood on the dead Venatori’s coat, some kind of… two-legged blob. A chicken, maybe?
“Pretend one of us isn’t a fancy Altus who has all the family trees of Minrathous memorized,” Tarquin says, giving up on deciphering the image. “Who’re the Pariduses?”
“It’s a songbird,” Ashur says, correctly interpreting Tarquin’s blank expression. “Otho Paridus is the new Grand Cleric.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Indeed. This is bigger than we thought.” Ashur frowns, pain flickering across his face as the motion pulls the wound on his cheek. “I must disperse the ritual, and then we need to go.”
“Won’t hear any argument from me,” Tarquin agrees. He goes to stand guard at the door while Ashur does something complicated and arcane to the runes on the floor, and he doesn’t let himself watch.
~
The alley Ashur has chosen to shuffle them both into is choked with broken cobbles and dilapidated wood, all of it slimy and wet and filthy from Minrathous’ never-ending rain. There is a distinct lack of warm fires and alcohol, which is what Tarquin has been most looking forward to about stopping. At the Shop. Where they’re supposed to be going.
“What are we doing here?”
Ashur frowns, his whole face just out where anyone can see it, and Tarquin turns away, pretending to check the mouth of the alleyway for Venatori pursuers.
“You’re hurt,” Ashur accuses, which is a little unfair since Tarquin isn’t exactly hiding it.
Anything more strenuous than a deep breath sends a sharp stab of pain into his side, but he’s not going to keel over dead any time soon. Not before they make it back to the Shop and that waiting drink, anyway. “It can wait.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
And, well. He doesn’t really have an argument for that.
He shifts, keeping his eyes on the street outside the alley. Ashur is achingly gentle as he pushes aside the shredded layers of Tarquin’s tabard to get to the torn skin underneath. Tarquin jumps, whipping his head around to look before he can catch himself. He’d been expecting the graze of cold metal, the clawed fingertips of Ashur’s idiotic gloves, but instead Ashur’s fingers— his actual, uncovered fingers, warm and surprisingly rough for a rich boy who wears gloves all day— brush against Tarquin’s skin.
“You can look, you know,” Ashur says quietly, as cool healing magic begins to sink into Tarquin’s side, casting over the bricks around them with soft green light.
He risks a glance, and Ashur gestures toward his own face with the hand that’s not currently pressed against Tarquin’s side. The bleeding has stopped, but the crust of dried blood remains, snaking a gory trail down the front of Ashur’s coat.
“I trust you.”
Tarquin’s stomach flips. Blood loss, probably, or some obscure side effect of healing. Yeah. That must be it. He sucks in a breath— blessedly pain-free— and turns to face Ashur fully for the first time since the warehouse.
The first thing he thinks of is statues.
The Templar Commandry is lousy with statues. They’re almost entirely former Templars rich and conceited enough to commission their own likenesses in stone: ancient Knights-Divine with the occasional Knight-Commander allowed in for variety. But at the heart, overlooking the main hall, is a figure of Hessarian himself, holy and noble and perfect.
Ashur is a statue come to life. Handsome, sure, and all warm brown skin in place of pale marble, but there’s something cold, something calculated about the lines of his face. It’s a Magister’s face, carefully bred and just as carefully maintained.
It’s not like it’s a secret that Ashur is some high-and-mighty Altus. Not to anyone with even basic observation skills and two brain cells to rub together, anyway. The stupidly powerful magic kind of gives it away.
Plus he talks like a ponce.
The bloody slash across his cheek is an improvement, Tarquin thinks, insanely. A crack in the perfect veneer, something to offset the unsettling symmetry of his features. That mark, that obvious flaw, is Ashur’s , not the titled and protected Altus Ashur disguises himself as outside of the Shadow Dragons.
He kind of hopes it scars.
“You’re not going to say anything?” Ashur asks after a long moment, oblivious to the bizarre spiral of Tarquin’s thoughts. He frees his hand from the tattered remains of Tarquin’s tabard, green glow fading as the spell dissipates, and shifts his weight, awkward. It’s the closest to nervous Tarquin can ever remember seeing him.
“Fishing for compliments, Viper?” Tarquin responds, just to be an ass.
Ashur smiles, cautious and a little lopsided from the gash, and any resemblance to a statue melts away. It’s just Ashur— the man who always takes a moment to speak personally to every slave the Shadow Dragons free, and still pretends the mutt hanging around the Shop isn’t his, a full six months after she’d first shown up. The man who keeps picking Tarquin for missions and stopping by his desk to ask how things are going, even though Tarquin is a prickly asshole who never learned how to make friends and is rude to him more often than not. Tarquin’s heart kicks traitorously in his chest, a warning beat.
He stamps the feeling down into oblivion where it belongs. “Do something about your face before you bleed out and I leave you here.”
Ashur’s smile quirks upward a notch, even as he raises a hand to his cheek. “I was worried this would change things.”
“Why would it change anything? ‘s not like you’re the Divine or something under there.”
“Ah,” Ashur says, strangled. “Of course not.”
~
Ashur starts taking the mask off after that.
He’s careful about it. Never while they’re on a mission, no matter how minor. Never while anyone besides Dorian or Mae could see. (The first time he does it in front of them, Dorian swears a blue streak and passes Mae a handful of coin. Mae smiles like the cat that got the cream, and neither of them will explain, no matter how many times Tarquin asks.)
But any time it’s just the two of them, working alone late at night in the Shop, the mask comes off. The slash on his face heals to a thin shadow of a scar, barely visible unless the light is right or you know what you’re looking for.
It’s good, because something indescribable has changed between them now, some infinitesimal shift that transforms Tarquin from just another Shadow Dragon, another comrade in arms, into something else . Someone who might— eventually, maybe, not that Tarquin cares— even be Ashur’s friend.
It’s also terrible, because something foreign and fluttering trips over itself inside his ribcage every time he sees the quiet curve of Ashur’s uncovered smile. And now he has to see it daily.
It’s not a crush. Not in the way Dorian had gleefully joked the first time Ashur had taken off his ridiculous oversized coat and Tarquin had stopped speaking mid-sentence, thoughts stuttering over the swell of Ashur’s biceps. Tarquin is a grown man, not some hormonal teenager. It’s just—
Brain damage. Or some previously dormant heart condition, hopefully fatal.
Anything less mortifying than a fucking hopeless crush .
“We need to get inside Otho Paridus’ house,” Ashur says, frowning down at the spread of papers covering their shared table in the Shop.
Tarquin slips the report about the Grand Cleric’s finances from his stack over to the chaos of Ashur’s side. Clearly whoever taught Ashur fancy Altus shit like which fork to use at dinner neglected to teach him any organizational skills whatsoever. “We don’t have anyone on the inside there?”
“No,” Ashur says, taking the report with a grateful smile that does horrible things to Tarquin’s insides. “Otho has a... reputation. He is harsh on his slaves.” Ashur lets the implication of just how harsh a Magister has to be to earn that sort of reputation in the miserable cesspit that is Minrathous go unspoken. “It was never worth the risk to an agent.”
But if Ashur’s right, and the Grand Cleric himself is a Venatori— “Might not have a choice.”
Ashur drops the report— in the wrong fucking pile, of course— and sits back in his chair, spine straighter than a novice Templar trying to pass inspection. Ashur’s facial expressions are still new and uncharted territory for Tarquin, a blank space in the center of a map that Tarquin is determined to fill in, but he knows Ashur’s body language. He knows this body language.
“You’re not fucking going in alone.”
“It’s too dangerous—”
“But not for you?” Tarquin snaps. “Us poor ungifted sods can’t be trusted not to get caught, is that it?”
“You know it’s not,” Ashur says, quietly. And Tarquin does know, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it. Ashur’s a naive idiot at times, but he’s never thrown his status in anyone’s face. He just tries to get himself killed every time Tarquin looks away for a bloody second . “It’s safer if I’m the one to go. If I get caught, I can play it off. I’m not at risk of being arrested or executed. Not like the rest of you.”
Tarquin snorts. “He’s a fucking Venatori, and one of the most powerful people in the city. You really think he wouldn’t just have you murdered and make it look like an accident?”
The line of Ashur’s mouth flattens unhappily. He stares at Tarquin for a long moment, eyes searching and weighted with some unspoken question.
Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it. Tarquin glares back, and Ashur gives in, sighing like Tarquin’s the one being unreasonable here.
“Otho isn’t going to murder me,” Ashur says finally. He toys with one of the quills on the table, running his broad fingers compulsively over the spines of the cheap goose feather. “Tarquin. I’m— “
But whatever he’s trying to say is forgotten in an instant as Hector barrels in, both arms painted with blood. “Viper,” he pants. “Need a healer. One of the scouts ran into a group of Venatori by the docks.”
Ashur is already rising, snagging his hat from the table in the same instant. The mask— the one made of leather and cloth— is back in place, along with the other, unseen, that settles over him like a barrier spell. Ashur— the man who smiled at Tarquin— vanishes, replaced by the Viper.
Tarquin scrambles up after him. He may not be able to heal wounds with a touch, but he can hold down flailing limbs and offer false reassurances in his sleep. Has done, a couple nights, when the dreams of Seheron were more creative than usual.
At least here he’s doing something worthwhile, even if he can’t do much. It’s a new feeling, the shine not quite worn off yet. Tarquin has only ever been a disappointment— to himself, to his family, to the army, to the Templars, to everyone in his life that has ever tried to get to know him and found an empty shell with only misery and resentment inside. But the Shadow Dragons’ work matters. It matters to every slave they free, every person they feed or clothe or help back on their feet.
It almost makes Tarquin believe that he can matter, too.
And Ashur… Ashur makes Tarquin almost believe he can matter in a different, more dangerous way. Deep down, where the most realistic parts of Tarquin live, he knows it’s just Ashur being friendly, being a good leader, in a way that hurts to think about for too long. But the feeling remains, no matter what he tells himself.
He’d do a lot more than help with a wounded agent for the chance to stay at Ashur’s side.
~
The scout lives.
Tarquin stumbles back to his apartment in the dark, half dead with exhaustion after hours of tracking down cultists and a handful of minutes that felt like hours, watching the Viper knit the agent’s shredded flesh back together. It’s a long day made worse by the knowledge of the exact shape of Ashur’s frown under the mask. He falls face-first into his narrow bed, the argument from the Shop forgotten.
He sleeps, and dreams of Seheron and Ashur’s smile.
~
It’s not just the mask that changes.
“I’m headed up to the roof,” Ashur informs him one night, when they’ve both been working long after most of the others have disappeared to their beds and the fire has burned down to a handful of dying embers. “Join me?”
The roof is nicer than Tarquin expected. It’s clean, for one thing, cracked tiles neatly swept and free of the layers of white bird shit that cake each of the nearby rooftops. There’s a makeshift shelter in the center, not much more than a roof and four supports, carefully assembled. Like maybe someone comes up here a lot.
Ashur heads for the shelter immediately, walking with the thoughtless confidence of someone who doesn’t fear the tiles beneath his feet suddenly giving way. Heights have never been a particular favorite of Tarquin’s, but he follows, a little more slowly, trying to place his feet where Ashur’s had been without making it obvious what he’s doing.
The roof doesn’t collapse and plunge him to the most embarrassing death possible— joy, hooray, he lives to go to work another day. He stops outside Ashur’s little hideout. “So. What’s up?”
“Hm?” Ashur’s already gotten comfortable by the time Tarquin makes his way over, propped against a sturdy-looking crate that seems to exist for exactly that purpose. For once it’s not raining, not even overcast, a rare miracle of clear evening skies. The warm orange light of the sunset paints the planes of Ashur’s face with gold as he turns back to look at Tarquin.
Tarquin swallows, mouth abruptly gone dry. Must be more sensitive to the height than he thought. “What didn’t you want the rest of them to overhear?” he clarifies, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the staircase that leads back down to the Shop.
It’s early enough to still be teeming with Shadow Dragons, hurrying to finish whatever business they have left before nightfall. Not exactly the most private location to discuss anything they don’t want the whole Shop knowing.
“Oh,” Ashur says, eyes flicking between the doorway and Tarquin with genuine surprise. “Nothing. I come up here to clear my head, sometimes. I thought you might enjoy it as well.”
“Oh,” Tarquin echoes, with a flip in his stomach he can’t trick himself into believing is because of the height.
It is… nice, up here. The sunset casts everything in contrasts, darkening purple shadows hiding the worst parts of the city, transforming the view into something almost worth looking at. This far above the close tangle of the streets, there’s a decent breeze, cool with the promise of future rain and heavy with the salt scent of the harbor. Tarquin spends most of his days stuck in a dusty archive basement, and most of his nights stuck in a run-down apartment too close to the docks to smell of anything except the reek of fish. It’s been a very long time since he last stopped and appreciated something as simple as fresh air.
It’s nice having a moment to just… be . There’s no paperwork up here, no unhinged Venatori trying to murder him and use his blood, no Knight-Captain to yell at him for some imaginary breach in policy as irrelevant as it is petty. No crushing weight of spending the rest of his life doing meaningless busywork in a dark basement for people he hates. There’s just the distant bustle of people down below on the streets, the breeze, and the last dying rays of the sun.
And Ashur, who looked at him and thought he would like a moment like this.
“It’s all right, I guess,” he mutters, coming to lean against the crate as well. Ashur smiles.
They watch the sun set over Dock Town, arms barely brushing.
~
The lower levels of the Templar archives are where sound goes to die.
Well. They’re where a lot of things go to die. Old patrol reports, evidence from cases so cold everyone involved is long dead, half-forgotten minor relics too valuable to throw away but not valuable enough to keep somewhere anyone will see them. Templars who are more trouble than they’re worth.
But it’s the silence that bothers Tarquin the most. There should be echoes, in any place as vast and twisting as the Archives’ stone halls. That would be the decent thing. But nothing about Tarquin’s luck is decent, and instead the centuries' worth of paper and vellum crammed into every last dusty crack of the place smother all noise, words falling stillborn to the uneven stone floor the moment they’re spoken.
It’s muffled and oppressive and it makes Tarquin’s ears pop, somehow, even though it’s no deeper than the catacombs the Shadow Dragons use to smuggle supplies and liberated slaves. Just another of the archive’s special charms, along with dust that plays hell with Tarquin’s allergies and the entire staff of Templars who hate him.
The last part should make the quiet irrelevant, really. The other poor sods damned to the archives for their sins leave him alone, mostly, the same way he does them. It leaves him plenty of time and opportunity to go digging through the stacks he has no legitimate business accessing, sifting through years of accumulated junk for anything that can help the Shadow Dragons.
They’d let him stay even if he didn’t have access to the archives, he’s pretty sure. But it’s not a theory he’s eager to test. Easier to keep up the steady stream of old blueprints of forgotten underground tunnels and shipping manifests. Easier to believe the Shadow Dragons let him stay because he has something concrete to contribute.
Easier than thinking about the casual way Ashur takes off his mask now, the moment they’re alone. Or the way he’d asked Tarquin back up on the roof, mere days after the first time, like it was just something they did now. A thing just for them.
Tarquin shakes himself, dislodging a small mountain’s worth of dust. At least the resultant sneezing is an effective method of refocusing his attention.
He flips through the pile of papers again, scanning for anything he’d missed the first time. The Venatori aren’t quite stupid enough to sign their contracts and documents in blood, much as it would make Tarquin’s job easier. But the connection to House Paridus, to the Grand Cleric— that’s a thread he can pull on, following it down through years of business dealings and financial exchanges. He can pick out which Houses are close to Paridus in ways they shouldn’t be, on the surface.
Be a lot easier if he could read the fucking paperwork, though.
Fuck the highbloods and their insistence on writing all of their official documents in bloody Tevene. Maker forbid they use the same Trade common the ungifted rabble speaks.
He spots another mention of Paridus, some kind of contract with House Bataris, and tucks the page into the growing collection concealed under his coat.
He’ll take it all back to the Shop, and one of the privileged assholes who can actually read it can figure out if he’s found anything worthwhile.
~
“I can try,” Mae says, looking over the now somewhat crumpled pages doubtfully. “But Tevene has never been a strong point of mine. I speak enough for school essays, but not much more.” She shrugs a single elegant shoulder. “You’d be better off asking Ashur.”
“Not Dorian?” he asks, surprised. The man seems allergic to swearing in Trade.
“Dorian’s Tevene is worse than mine. He only knows the insults.” Mae laughs. “Ashur actually uses it regularly. All those Chantry sermons, you know.”
Tarquin does not know. He stops, trying to wrap his head around the idea that Ashur, the man who regularly dresses up like a snake and who he saw stab a Venatori to death just last week , is actually a Chantry father .
He can’t make it work. The thought shies away like a spooked horse, refusing to take. Mae gazes back serenely, daring him to ask.
He doesn’t. He won’t. Bad enough he can’t get his stupid emotions under control, his heart flipping uncontrollably every time Ashur so much as looks at him. He’s not going to pry into the man’s outside life, too. If he’d wanted Tarquin to know he would have mentioned it, and he didn’t, because they’re friendly coworkers and nothing more.
He takes the papers back and stalks away.
Ashur, when Tarquin manages to track him down, is puzzled. “She said that? Mae’s Tevene is impeccable.”
Tarquin sighs, feeling a headache start to build at the base of his skull. “She’s fucking with me. Also implied you were a Chantry father, so.”
So much for his resolve not to pry, fuck . He opens his mouth to— what, apologize? Take it back, pretend he’s not secretly desperate for proof that Ashur does see him as more than just a comrade in arms? — and stops.
Ashur’s frozen. He stares at Tarquin over the edge of his mask, clawed ends of his gloves poking pinpricks in the sheaf of papers he’s still holding.
“Would it be a problem?” Ashur says, eventually. Carefully. “If I were?”
“Is me being a Templar a problem?” Tarquin counters.
“This is… different.”
Tarquin snorts. “Don’t see how. It’s weird as fuck, but so’s you being an Altus.”
He’s a little surprised to realize he means it, too. There’s something deeply unhinged about Ashur, even apart from his preference for running around on the tops of buildings. It’s his unshakable belief in the face of all evidence that the Shadow Dragons can change things in Minrathous — that Minrathous is worth changing.
Anything apart from that is just details. They don’t change who Ashur is, at his core.
“Thank you,” Ashur says, after a long moment. He reaches out, clasps Tarquin’s shoulder, and squeezes, just once, a single instant of pressure and contact, before dropping his hand again.
Tarquin, because he is the most pathetic bastard to ever live, shivers. The feeling of Ashur’s hand lingers on his skin.
“And thank you for these,” Ashur says, clearing his throat and shuffling the papers awkwardly. “I’ll need time to review them, but it already looks like exactly the kind of connections we were looking for between some of the Magister families and the Venatori. It will help.”
What he means is good work . Tarquin grunts dismissively, face warming. The feeling of Ashur’s unspoken praise lingers, just as the feel of his hand does.
~
“I should go,” Ashur says, making no move to rise from the pile of old cushions Tarquin had insisted on adding to their rooftop shelter barely a week into making his visits a regular thing. “I have an early morning commitment.”
“Yeah? Big plans?” Tarquin asks, needling a little. He passes the wine bottle back— liberated from Dorian’s private stash, also at Tarquin’s insistence— and Ashur takes it with less arguing than might be expected for a man who has to wake up early. Probably Chantry service.
He doesn’t begrudge Ashur his faith. Tarquin’s never been more than an ambivalent Andrastian, much to the dismay of his mother, but Ashur is doing more good in the Maker’s name than any other Chantry father Tarquin’s met. If he wants to spend his mornings getting up before the sun to sit in some incense-reeking Chantry and drone on about self-sacrifice to a bunch of slave owners, that’s on him.
Instead, Ashur grimaces. “A wedding.”
“The Archon’s niece?” It’s all the highbloods in the city have been talking about for weeks. Rumor has it that the ceremony is costing Radonis more gold than the whole city budget for the year. It’s going to be officiated by the Divine himself.
Mae’s not invited— still too out of favor with the head assholes in the Magisterium— but Dorian is, and hasn’t shut up about the promise of sampling the Archon’s private wine collection since. Ashur’s family must be important enough to merit an invitation as well.
Ashur nods, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand that Tarquin takes without thinking. The night is damp and cold, the sky more water than air, and they’re both wearing gloves, so there’s no warmth to the feel of Ashur’s fingers around his own. Just the firm, solid pressure of Ashur’s hand, pulling him easily to his feet like Tarquin is something small and not a full-grown man in Templar leathers.
Tarquin shivers, curses himself, and drops Ashur’s hand the moment he’s upright.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” he says, to distract from the tingling awareness lingering in his palm. It doesn’t work.
Ashur freezes. “You’re going?”
“The Archon and the Divine will both be there,” Tarquin shrugs. “Lenos isn’t taking any chances with security.”
Isn’t taking any chances with missing out on an opportunity to make himself look good in front of the most powerful people in the city, more like. Which means every Templar who can still hold a blade and look halfway presentable has been drafted for security, Tarquin included.
He’s not thrilled. There are better things he could be doing with his day. Re-organizing paperwork no one has seen in a hundred years or cared about for longer, for example. Counting every brick in the stairs leading down to the lowest floor of the archives. Slipping out the one functioning window in the maps room and spending the day in the Shop with Ashur—
Tarquin stops that thought before it can go any further. Because Ashur will be at the stupid wedding, too, and not because the image of them side by side at their desk in the Shadow Dragons headquarters makes something embarrassing and warm trip inside Tarquin’s chest.
In any case , it would all be better than several hours standing around in ceremonial armor, watching rich assholes get progressively more drunk.
Ashur studies him for a long moment, weirdly intent. “You’ll see me there.”
“Sure,” Tarquin agrees. He won’t. It was a stupid joke. Tarquin isn’t important enough to get stationed anywhere near the actual ceremony, and even if he were, Ashur isn’t stupid enough to draw attention by chatting up some random Templar during a Magisterium event. They both know their places outside of the Shadow Dragons, for better or worse.
“You will,” Ashur repeats, like a promise, and vanishes over the side of the roof before Tarquin can respond.
~
It rains all the next day, a constant fine drizzle that snakes its way under the plates of Tarquin’s heavy plate like creeping fingers. He sees the Divine, once, far on the other side of the Plaza where he’s stationed, veiled in black and dripping with enough gold to shine even through the murk. Mostly he sees the backs of people’s heads.
He doesn’t see Ashur.
~
“What do you mean you’ve never heard of Fuck, Marry, Kill?”
“Exactly that,” Ashur says, without looking up. He crosses out a word on the latest Shadow Dragon manifesto, writes in another.
“Do Altus kids not make a game out of asking each other stupid questions? Or is that too close to fun to be allowed for highbloods?”
Ashur raises an eyebrow. He’s wearing the mask— too many people around at the Shop at the moment— but he doesn’t need the rest of his face to convey his skepticism. “We played other games. I doubt you would recognize them as fun, however.”
There’s a story there that Tarquin fully intends to circle back around to. But for the moment he has priorities , and those priorities are making Ashur say fuck out loud.
“You pick three people,” he explains. Across the table, Ashur sighs and puts the quill down. “It can be anyone, but it should be a challenge. Let’s say: the Archon, the Divine, and, uh… Dorian.” At the sound of his name, Dorian pokes his head around the wall, looking worryingly intrigued. Tarquin pretends not to see him. “It’s a challenge because you can only say kill for one of them.”
The corners of Ashur’s eyes crinkle in the way Tarquin knows means he’s holding back a laugh, and Tarquin has to tamp down on the warm thrill of victory that sends through him.
“Marry me, obviously,” Dorian announces, sauntering over and ensconcing himself in one of the free seats at the table, wine glass in hand. “I’m a delight and anyone would be lucky to spend the rest of their days with me. Kill Radonis— he’s an unpleasant bastard.” He takes a delicate sip from his glass, and finishes, offhandedly, “Fuck the Divine.”
“What makes you think he’d have you?” Ashur asks, the skin above his mask gone faintly flushed.
Dorian sniffs, prim and obnoxious. “He should thank me for the opportunity, frankly.”
Ashur grimaces— the only reasonable reaction to the idea of willingly having sex with Dorian, in Tarquin’s opinion— and turns back to Tarquin. “And you?”
It is not his best work, as a deflection. Tarquin snorts, but decides he has a better chance of getting an answer out of Ashur if he humors him first. “Easy. Fuck Radonis, kill the Divine, marry Dorian for lack of any better options.”
“We shall have a summer wedding,” Dorian drawls.
Ashur’s face does something complicated behind the mask. Disapproval over Tarquin’s casual blasphemy, most like. “Why… why kill the Divine?”
“Between him and the Archon, he’s probably worse in bed.” Tarquin shrugs. “One of those repressed Chantry types, you know?”
“The Divine’s not terrible in bed,” Ashur protests, too quick, and then Tarquin swears he can hear the click of the man’s teeth as he slams his mouth shut.
“How would you know?” Tarquin returns immediately, in the precious final moments before the horrible realization sinks in. “Did you— did you fuck the bloody Divine? ”
Dorian chokes, doubling over and spluttering wine all down the front of his fancy robes. They both ignore him.
Tarquin has only managed to cling, barely, desperately, to the last shreds of his sanity when it comes to Ashur by refusing to imagine Ashur’s life outside the Shadow Dragons. Ashur and the Viper both exist only within the walls of the Shop and the back alleys and rooftops of Dock Town. As far as Tarquin’s concerned, when the Shadow Dragons’ missions are done, Ashur shoves his whole stupid costume along with himself into a closet and ceases to exist until the next mission, the next planning session.
Tarquin shouldn’t— can’t — let himself imagine Ashur outside of those limits and still stay normal around him.
Can’t, for instance, let himself picture Ashur, maskless, bare , hips moving above the blurry figment of the youngest Divine in centuries—
“Well?” Tarquin demands, because he is an idiot.
“No!” Ashur’s face flushes dark. His eyes look impossibly blue in contrast, which is not a thought Tarquin can allow himself to have right now. “Of course not. I just have… heard.”
“Oh, yes,” Dorian adds, voice still raspy from coughing. He stops dabbing at the crimson stain on his robes long enough to waggle his eyebrows horribly at Ashur. “It’s the talk of the Magisterium. Everyone wants to go for a ride with Divine Aequitas—”
“Dorian!”
Dorian grins, unrepentant. Tarquin’s not sure what his own face is doing, because everything feels a little unreal and far away at the moment.
It’s not that he’s ever forgotten that Ashur is an Altus, so far above Tarquin in the social strata that he may as well be in another world. But there’s a difference, it turns out, between knowing something intellectually and finding out that your boss-slash-friend-slash-object-of-your-stupid-unbearable-longings slept with the head of the entire Imperial Chantry.
It is a big difference. The kind of difference that sort of makes Tarquin want to lay down and scream, which is stupid, because he’s always known there was no way someone like Ashur would ever look at someone like him. Not in the way Tarquin wants him to look.
A lot of things Tarquin feels about Ashur are stupid.
“I didn’t sleep with the Divine,” Ashur repeats. “It’s not… like that.”
And that, unfortunately, is the first thing Mae hears as she walks up. She stops at the end of the table, fixing each of them with a level look that makes Tarquin start thinking longingly of crawling into a hole to die. One elegant eyebrow raises as she gets to the wine stains on Dorian’s front.
“I need to borrow Ashur for a moment, but I see you’re all very busy.”
Ashur is out of his chair before the words are fully out of Mae’s mouth, latching onto the opportunity to escape with the graceless desperation of a drowning man being thrown a rope. Mae can only follow in his wake as he disappears around the corner, throwing one last judgmental glance over her shoulder. Dorian smothers a laugh in his palm.
“She could have waited until we’d gotten his answer,” he laments, after a moment.
“Sounds like we know his answer for one of them,” Tarquin mutters.
Dorian turns in his seat, facing Tarquin full on, expression turning weirdly serious. As serious as Dorian ever gets, anyway. “Divine Aequitas has always been a vocal supporter of the Lucerni, you know. He’s a good one.”
Tarquin crushes down a sudden blazing surge of ridiculous jealousy and shrugs, casual and not at all like a pathetic idiot pining for someone out of his league. “Doesn’t make him good in bed.”
“I’m sure he’s… perfectly adequate in the bedroom,” Dorian says gamely.
Tarquin fixes him with a flat look.
“Maybe I’ve slept with him. You didn’t ask me,” Dorian adds with an exaggerated pout. He probably practices that look in front of the mirror every morning.
“You didn’t.” Dorian flirts with anything and anyone that stays in the same room with him for too long, but he doesn’t mean any of it. The man is devoted to the former Inquisitor in a way that’s frankly embarrassing to witness.
“But you think Ashur did? I’m wounded. I’m calling off the wedding.”
Tarquin rolls his eyes. “Ashur’s not a liar.”
Dorian swirls the remaining wine in his glass, firelight sparkling in the red. “Ah. I think that may depend very much on what you consider lying .”
It doesn’t matter. Tarquin shakes his head, pushing his own chair back and escaping before Dorian can stop him.
Whether or not Ashur actually slept with the Divine isn’t the point— well, okay, maybe it is a little— the point is that it’s possible . Possible because of who Ashur is, outside of Shop where he and Dorian and even Mae pretend that their place in society isn’t important, that it doesn’t color everything they do, consciously or not.
But it does. And it always will. And Tarquin needs to remember that.
However many times it takes.
~
He makes it halfway home before he realizes he’s being followed.
They’re good, whoever they are, sticking to the shadows and rooftops. Only a lucky break in the heavy cloud cover gives them away, a split second of silhouette against the darkening sky. He’d like to pretend that’s why it took him so long to spot, but the truth is he’s exhausted, and he got sloppy.
Hopefully it’s not enough to also get him dead.
He ducks into the next alleyway, pressing his back against the stone and drawing his dagger. He’s not carrying a sword, but the walls here are tight and narrow, quarters too close to make one much use anyway. In theory.
One breath. Two. A shape lands in the mouth of the alleyway, dropping noiselessly from the rooftop above and straightening slowly to full height, a shadow of menace in the dusk.
“Maker’s bloody tits, Ashur,” Tarquin spits, adrenaline draining in a sudden shaky rush. “Are you following me?”
“You haven’t been at the Shop for the past few days,” Ashur says, a note of almost-disappointment in his voice that Tarquin is definitely just imagining, like that explains anything about why he’s here , in Tarquin’s shitty neighborhood, following him home like a lunatic. Tarquin hadn’t even realized Ashur knew where he lived.
He hasn’t been sleeping well, is the thing. There’s a new Knight-Captain in the archives, some self-important bastard with enough connections to get sent down to the basement with the trouble-makers instead of getting kicked out of the Order completely when he tried to extort the wrong Magister. He’s been running them all ragged in his resulting desperate power trip, and it’s been all Tarquin can do to drag himself home after each extended shift without throwing himself into the harbor on the way.
“I left word with Mae,” he says.
Ashur nods, stupid silver accents on his hat flashing in the dim light. “She told me. But I wanted to speak with you.”
Tarquin considers inviting him up to his apartment for all of a moment before common sense returns and reminds him that it would mean Ashur, a man born with a silver spoon up his ass, would see the run-down little shithole Tarquin calls home. He considers just dying on the spot instead.
“What?” he demands.
“The Grand Cleric,” Ashur says, unphased by Tarquin’s brusqueness. “He and his family will be attending a dinner party to celebrate the upcoming solstice. The estate will be as unguarded as it is ever likely to get. It’s an opportunity we should not pass up.”
Tarquin scowls. “An opportunity to get yourself killed, you mean.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Ashur replies easily. “Which is why I’m asking you to come with me. If you are willing.”
Of course he’s bloody willing. The fact that Ashur even has to ask —
But Ashur is an idiot, as evidenced by him wanting to go alone in the first place. And the fact that he keeps Tarquin around.
And the hat.
“You don’t have to be there? Your—” he gestures broadly at Ashur’s frame. “Day-job you?”
Ashur huffs a laugh. “My presence is… hoped for, but not expected. I can make my excuses without arousing any undue suspicion.”
“Ugh,” Tarquin says, face twisting with distaste. “Must not know you very well, if they’re hoping you show up.”
It’s weak, as both jokes and insults go, but Ashur smiles, barely visible in the crease of his eyes under the shadow of his hat. “They don’t,” he agrees. “Not like you.”
“Uh,” Tarquin says, like an idiot.
His own face is suddenly very warm. The sun has disappeared behind the surrounding buildings, blanketing the street level in darkness— dark enough, Tarquin hopes desperately, that Ashur won’t be able to tell.
They’re very close. All he would have to do is raise his hand and he would be touching Ashur, brushing against the fine leather material of his coat, the solid bulk of the man underneath.
He could do it. It would be so easy. Desire floods through him, sharp and pulsing. Lift his hand, wrap his fingers around Ashur’s oversized lapels. Draw him in, pull the mask away—
And then what? Watch Ashur recoil in horror as Tarquin ruins everything.
Ashur isn’t interested. Someone like him— an over-privileged mage, sure, but somehow still so genuinely decent , so full of determination and hope— would never, could never be interested in someone like Tarquin. The sooner he gets that through his thick skull the better it will be for both of them.
“Tarquin—” Ashur says.
“I’ll come by the Shop tomorrow,” Tarquin announces over him. He retreats backward, nearly tripping over a loose cobblestone and eating shit right there, putting distance between them. “You can tell me the details then.”
There’s a long pause before Ashur responds, the added space and the gloom blurring his features into indistinctness. “As you wish. I’ll see you then.”
Tarquin nods, hoping Ashur can see it, throat gone abruptly too dry for words. Ashur nods back— just two idiots nodding at each other in the dark— and turns, taking a running leap at the far alley wall and scrambling up onto the roof like some kind of freakish monkey. The soft sound of his footsteps fades, headed back toward the Shop.
Tarquin turns and very deliberately bangs his head directly against the wall.
~
The Paridus estate is a sprawling monstrosity of old money and no taste.
Ashur boosts him over a wrought-iron fence, the ends topped with vicious spikes cast in the shape of incongruously adorable birds. It’s neither of their preferred approaches— the main buildings where the Paridus family resides are set apart from the rest, surrounded by manicured gardens that must take a small army of slaves to maintain, with no convenient nearby rooftops for Ashur to traverse. And despite spending the last week poring over old maps and sending out the Shadow Dragons’ best scouts, Tarquin hadn’t been able to find any ancient tunnels that would let them in underground and unseen.
So here they are, hopping fences out in the open and just hoping no one around is paying enough attention to notice.
“This is a terrible fucking plan,” Tarquin grunts as he hits the grass on the other side of the fence.
Ashur jumps, grabs the top of the fence, and does some kind of complicated full-body twist that flips him up and over the spikes, landing easily on his feet next to where Tarquin is sprawled. Tarquin hates him.
“It’s the best plan we have,” Ashur points out, reaching a hand down to help Tarquin up. They’re on a mission, out in the open where anyone could still see them, so Tarquin doesn’t let himself focus on the clasp of Ashur’s hand around his own. Mostly.
“Doesn’t make it not shit.”
Ashur doesn’t bother to argue. He strides off across manicured lawn, headed into the protective shadow of the estate proper, leaving Tarquin to follow sullenly in his wake.
The grounds outside are… quiet. Even thinking the word makes Tarquin’s hackles raise, long-ingrained superstition from Seheron and the Templars both. But nothing moves among the decorative plants and gaudy marble statues surrounding the manor, and no one yells at them to stop as they reach the main part of the estate.
There’s a flash of ice-blue light as Ashur cracks the ward on the nearest window. Tarquin winces at the sudden stab of brightness, both of them freezing as they wait to see if it alerted any so-far unseen guards.
Still nothing. Ashur eases the shutters open, and they clamber inside— Tarquin possibly a little less graceful than Ashur, but it’s fine because they’re inside now and no one has come investigating.
They emerge in a wide hallway, the magelights lining the walls dimmed for the evening, shining softly on miles of pale marble and gilded accents. It’s exactly what Tarquin pictures the rare times he is forced to consider how highbloods actually live.
Ashur touches his arm, and nods to their left when Tarquin turns to look at him. He’s been here before, he’d admitted to Tarquin during their planning session at the Shop, looking guilty about it. As far as Tarquin is concerned, it all works out— no reason for Ashur to feel bad about playing nice with Paridus in the past when he’s just going to use that knowledge to break into the fucker’s house now.
He falls into step behind Ashur as they creep down the corridor, silent darkened doorways gaping like open mouths as they pass. It’s strange to imagine Ashur here, strolling through the halls as a guest rather than sneaking in through a window. What would he even talk about? Torture any slaves to death lately, Grand Cleric?
There’s a junction ahead, the hall breaking off into two smaller passages. Voices echo from the left-hand side, muffled and indistinct but growing clearer. Someone coming.
Tarquin glances at Ashur, finds him already looking back. They’re caught in an awkward spot, exposed midway between rooms, too far from any door to make it without running and risking drawing even more attention. The voices drift closer.
There’s an alcove to the right, taken up by a huge and inexplicable vase, gilded metal and large enough to hide a body in. It’s a beautiful waste of space, but more importantly there’s the smallest sliver of leeway between it and the rear wall of the niche. Enough room to cram two full-grown men, if they were desperate enough.
They’re desperate enough. Tarquin shoves Ashur toward it, hoping he’ll get the picture.
He does, though it takes some maneuvering and several precious seconds for him to slide into place behind the urn, broad shoulders barely fitting. Tarquin wedges himself into position next him just as two elven women emerge from around the corner.
“It’s going to take twice as long to finish with Hettie gone,” one of the women says. Their clothing is rough, little better than rags, but marked with the Paridus songbird on the breast. Slaves.
“Poor Hettie,” the second woman murmurs.
Tarquin can guess what happened to Hettie, even as the thought turns his stomach. He wishes they could do something for these people, trapped here, waiting to see if they will be the ones to disappear the next time Paridus needs blood for his magic.
But they can’t risk being seen, not now. Fear is a powerful thing, and the women’s fear of their master is a known quantity, a fact of life. It would be unfair and unwise to expect them to overcome it for two people they’ve never met, who can only offer pretty words about freeing slaves and the promise of future help.
Tarquin glances at Ashur, knowing the same frustrated thoughts must be running through his mind, and finds Ashur already looking back.
The whole ridiculous reality of their current situation crystallizes in a single instant. Ashur’s shoulders are wedged sideways into the narrow gap between vase and wall, head forced to the side to avoid smacking his nose on the metal. Tarquin’s not much better off, but at least he’s wearing fewer bulky layers of idiotic snake costume, so he has slightly more room to breathe.
Not enough room to leave his front not pressed firmly up against Ashur’s side, though. Ashur shifts, resettling his weight, a press of warmth that Tarquin feels along the whole length of his body. Tarquin swallows convulsively— knows Ashur can feel that, too— shivery awareness sparking to life in his core.
Ashur’s hand twitches, sandwiched awkwardly between them. The smallest movement, easy as breathing, and it could slide around Tarquin’s waist instead.
Or between them, pressing over the front of Tarquin’s trousers where heat is already pooling.
Ashur’s eyes are still on his, blue eaten up by black in the low light. Tarquin sucks in a shaky breath and Ashur’s eyes flick downwards, landing like a blow on Tarquin’s mouth—
It’s too much. The voices of the elven women have faded as they finally reach the other end of the corridor, and Tarquin hurls himself out from behind the vase. Ashur follows more slowly, steadying the vase where Tarquin’s wild flight set it rocking on its pedestal.
They stare at each other in silence for a long moment.
“We should— “ Tarquin begins, at the same time Ashur says, “Tarquin, I— “
They both stop.
“We should keep moving,” Tarquin blurts, before Ashur has a chance to say anything. “In case they come back.”
Ashur’s jaw works under his mask, but in the end all he says is, “Yes.”
They creep down two more endless hallways and cut through a ballroom big enough to fit Tarquin’s entire apartment building— an ostentatious waste of space that makes Tarquin a little nauseous if he thinks about it for too long— before Ashur draws to a halt in front of a single heavy door. Intricate carvings of serpents wind around images of the Paridus songbird, every square inch of the expensive-looking wood crawling with reliefs.
“Otho’s study,” Ashur murmurs. He does something complicated around the door-frame, silvery light playing over the metal of his gauntlets as he unwinds whatever warding magic Paridus left. There’s no change Tarquin can see, but after a moment he steps back, gesturing Tarquin forward. The lock pops open under Tarquin’s tools with frankly embarrassing ease, and the door swings open on silent hinges.
The room inside puts everything they’ve seen so far to shame. A massive desk dominates the center, some kind of black stone that seems to drink in the light, accented with gold. One whole wall is taken up with shelves, stuffed with leather-bound tomes in such pristine condition it’s obvious no one has ever so much as opened them. Across from that is a marble fireplace, huge and unnecessary like everything else in this fucking place, fire banked low to await the return of the study’s occupant.
And above the fireplace, heavy gilded frame shining red in the dim glow of the fire, is a single painting. An older man, hair gone entirely to gray, in the robes of a Chantry Father, stands next to another figure: young, swathed in painted black velvet that looks soft enough to touch, a sunburst crown of gold on his head.
Tarquin has never seen Otho Paridus to judge if it’s a good likeness, but the face of the Divine is a perfect mirror. He stares out of the canvas with eyes of exact, unbelievable blue. Blue as the waters at Seheron before they started filling with blood.
Tarquin turns, slow, and meets the sheepish gaze of the same sea-blue eyes in the portrait.
“Ah. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you,” Divine Aequitas II says with Ashur’s voice.
“Fuck you,” Tarquin hisses. Rage surges through him, burning and poisonous. Ashur could have figured it out if he’d wanted to. If it had been important enough. He could have opened his perfect, stupid mouth and used his fucking words any time over the last months, instead of stringing Tarquin along like a fool. “What are we even doing here? You could walk in whenever you want and he couldn’t say no.”
Ashur shakes his head, hands up and placating. It makes Tarquin want to hit him. “I couldn’t. I can’t risk him connecting my… other activities to anything that happens tonight. I would not lie to you about that.”
“No? Just about everything else?”
Ashur— Aequitas— flinches. It’s a tiny thing, almost imperceptible, but Tarquin has spent the last few years cataloging Ashur’s every expression and movement, both behind the mask and not, in a useless attempt to placate his stupid, hopeless attraction, and he doesn’t miss the way the man’s unfairly perfect jaw tightens now.
He’d told Dorian just weeks ago that Ashur wasn’t a liar, Tarquin remembers suddenly. Maker, Dorian had even tried to warn him. And he hadn’t paid attention, because his stupid heart had been so distracted with the impossible hope that someone like Ashur could ever care about a lowly Soporatus fool like him.
That turned out well, didn’t it? Prickling heat builds behind his eyes, and he’s not sure suddenly if he wants to laugh or cry. He really is the dumbest motherfucker in Thedas.
“Tarquin—” Ashur pleads, taking a hesitant step forward.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tarquin snaps, taking a step back. Away. Closer to the desk— the reason they’re here in the first place. “Find what you need and let’s get out of here.”
“I never intended to hide it from you,” Ashur says, even as he starts toward the desk and begins flipping through papers. “That night at the warehouse, when you didn’t recognize me— I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want you to see me differently. To treat me differently.”
I trusted you , Tarquin doesn’t say. He rips open a drawer, vicious, spilling quills and blotting paper over the woven-silk rug. You could have trusted me .
But why would he? Tarquin is just some guy who is mostly rude to him. The knowledge that the Divine and the Viper are one and the same is information that could topple the balance of the entire Magisterium in the wrong hands. It would get Ashur killed, executed publicly as an example to anyone else who dared to oppose the system. It’s so far above Tarquin’s pay grade as to be on another continent .
Ashur should never have let Tarquin see his face in the first place. It’s reckless , is what it is. What if Tarquin had recognized him? He couldn’t have known Tarquin wouldn’t sell him out to the first Venatori he saw, not truly. It’s like he’s trying to get himself killed. Ashur is—
Wait.
“Is Ashur even actually your name?” he demands.
“A middle name,” Ashur admits, pausing in his search to meet Tarquin’s eyes. “A name I chose for myself.”
Tarquin scowls, turning back to the scattered mess on the floor. It’s not the same. It’s not the same as what Tarquin did, young and alone, throwing away every last remnant of home, of who he was expected to be, in order to make himself who he is . A new name for a new life, a new set of crushing expectations to live up to or die trying.
It’s not the same, but maybe he understands, a little.
“Fuck off ,” he says. But it’s softer this time.
~
They’ve managed to unearth a small pile of incriminating papers when everything goes to shit.
The door swings open without warning. Grand Cleric Otho Paridus— he does look just like the painting— stands in the doorway, looking almost as surprised as the two of them. His cold gray eyes sweep over Tarquin, dismissing him immediately, and land on Ashur.
“The Viper, I presume?”
“Grand Cleric,” Ashur says politely, like this was any normal drawing-room meeting. Maker, Tarquin hates highbloods. “I was under the impression you would be out for the evening.”
“The party was cut short; a most uncouth assassination attempt.”
“Unfortunate,” Ashur agrees. Tarquin shifts his hand, infinitely slow, to the hilt of his sword. Paridus doesn’t so much as glance at him.
“Yes,” Paridus says, unconcerned. He lifts a hand, enough rings to feed a Dock Town family for a year weighing down his fingers, and tendrils of poisonous blood-red energy begin to coalesce around him.
Ashur steps forward, his own hands hovering at his sides, and Paridus freezes.
“Vesperian,” he hisses. The ribbons of blood magic whip through the air, agitated now. Angry .
Tarquin glances to the side. Color drains from Ashur’s face above the mask..
“Otho. Think about this.” Ashur raises his hands, empty and nonthreatening. It’s the kind of trick that might work on a stupider cultist. On Paridus, a Magister taught from the cradle that his body and the power flowing through his veins are the only weapons he would ever need, it does nothing. “I am the Divine. There will be questions if I am killed.”
“Questions I will be sure to look into after my election to the Argent Spire in your stead,” Paridus sneers.
“Told you,” Tarquin mutters. Ashur slants him an unimpressed look.
“The Venatori rise ,” Paridus shouts, patience finally wearing thin. Red corrupted energy shoots from his palm, splashing against the barrier Ashur throws up, quick as breathing. Tarquin darts forward, grabbing the papers they’ve collected and shoving them inside the front of his coat, drawing his sword in the same moment.
Tarquin is used to fighting Venatori. Hell, he’s used to fighting mages . But never like this. It’s always been the less impressive scions of Tevinter’s noble families— fools seeking more power because they didn’t have enough.
Paridus has enough. He fights like Ashur, all overwhelming force and sheer skill , honed over a lifetime of dedication. His first blast hits like a ton of bricks, sending Ashur skidding backward across the expensive rug under the force.
But Ashur’s barrier holds. Tarquin lunges, swinging at Paridus’ outstretched arm. A tendril of living blood shoots out before he gets close, ramming into his chest and sending him flying. He hits the bookshelves on the far side of the room and hears something crunch.
Ashur’s already moving, taking the opening to draw his orb and dagger, crackling white light meeting sickly red. The air in the room turns heavy with the reek of ozone and iron.
Tarquin climbs to his feet as Ashur darts forward, lightning dancing around his blade. Metal clashes against Paridus’ staff, sparks and shards of red energy spraying outwards. Paridus shouts, and a tendril of blood whips down to crack against Ashur’s chest.
Ashur staggers but doesn’t go down. The light around his blade changes, blue-white darkening to deeper blue as the temperature in the room plummets several degrees. The frost hits Paridus full on, shattering his tendrils of blood mid-air and crystallizing across his chest.
It’s only a split second, barely a moment where Paridus is frozen, straining to shatter the ice that crawls over his limbs.
Tarquin throws himself forward and drives his blade through the Grand Cleric’s chest.
Paridus’ mouth works silently, fury in his eyes fading as his blood spills across the floor. Tarquin watches until the light fades completely, tendrils of blood magic dissipating into the air without a trace. He pulls his sword back, wipes the blade on the Grand Cleric’s robes. “Someone will have heard all that. We need to go.”
Ashur nods. There’s blood all down the front of him— from Paridus’ magic or actual injury, Tarquin’s not certain— but he moves easily, shattering the window with a bolt of lightning. He clears the lingering shards of glass with a swipe of his dagger, and vaults over the ledge.
Thank fuck they’re on the ground floor. Tarquin follows, hearing a rush of running feet and panicked voices outside the study door even as Ashur steadies him on the grass outside, and they take off sprinting into the night.
~
They end up at the Divine’s Manor, because of course they do.
“It’s closer than any of the safe houses,” Ashur protests, as he leads Tarquin through the basement of an abandoned building and into the tunnels that serve as one of the Divine’s emergency escape routes. “And no one will be looking for us here.”
“I am going to fucking kill you,” Tarquin informs him. His back throbs. No doubt he’s going to have a truly spectacular bruise in a couple hours where he impacted the bookshelves. At least whatever he heard crack seems to have been furniture and not part of him. “I told you it was a terrible fucking plan.”
“We got what we came for,” Ashur says, placing his hand on a glowing rune carved into the wall. The stone splits under his touch, hidden door grinding open with a noise like the tunnel is collapsing.
“Yeah? Fat lot of good it’ll do us now, with Paridus dead.”
Ashur shakes his head. “He has links to the other Venatori families. And personally I am relieved to know there is one fewer Venatori in the Divine’s immediate circle of influence.”
The mention of the Divine only stokes Tarquin’s lingering anger. He clenches his jaw so tight he can feel his teeth creak as he follows Ashur through the doorway, emerging into… a closet?
The room itself is bigger than Tarquin’s entire bedroom, the glow of Ashur’s magelight shining off rack upon rack of silk and velvet. Everything is variations of black and crimson, studded with enough gold and rubies to buy half of Minrathous. It’s more wealth than they’d seen in the entire Paridus estate. It’s more wealth than Tarquin has ever seen in his life .
“What the hell is this?”
Ashur sighs, eyes flicking around like he’s seeing it for the first time. “The Divine’s wardrobe. I told you this was an escape route from the Manor.”
Tarquin’s lip curls, disgust warring with unease. This— this stupid closet with more clothes than any one man should ever need— makes the whole situation terribly, inescapably real in a way it hadn’t been before.
Ashur is the Imperial Divine. Ashur is the Imperial Divine, head of the Tevinter Chantry and second-most powerful man in the Empire, and Tarquin is standing in his closet .
The magelight blinks out as Ashur swings open a door that had been hidden behind the rows of Divine robes. The room beyond could fit Tarquin’s apartment with room to spare, opulence dripping from every surface. The silk-covered bed in the center could easily fit five people, which is not a thought Tarquin wants to pursue right now.
Ashur’s bedroom.
No, Tarquin corrects himself firmly. The Divine’s bedroom.
He hovers in the doorway to the wardrobe, torn between anger and uncertainty. Part of him feels like he’s going to sully this place just by being here, and that only makes him angrier. Ashur isn’t better than him just because he’s a highblood, and being Divine sure as hell doesn’t change that. He’s just an asshole in an even stupider hat.
Ashur strides to the cluttered desk in the corner, stripping the Viper’s hat and mask and tossing them carelessly onto the surface before turning back to face Tarquin. “You are still angry.”
“No shit ,” Tarquin blurts, without meaning to. Ashur scrubs a hand tiredly through his shorn hair, motioning for him to continue, but Tarquin’s words have run dry.
I thought you trusted me . No, pathetic. It’s Tarquin’s own fault for believing that.
Sometimes you look at me and I think maybe you feel the same way. Absolutely not. He’d rather take his sword and slit his own throat right here in the Divine’s bed chamber. Let Ashur figure out how to explain that one.
“I am sorry,” Ashur says, when it’s clear Tarquin isn’t going to continue. “I should have told you, but I was… selfish. I was afraid to lose what we had.”
“And what’s that?” Tarquin demands. “Me yelling at you?”
“You treating me like a person and not a title,” Ashur corrects, soft.
“You’re insufferable,” Tarquin says flatly. He wants to be mad at Ashur. Wants it so badly. The anger is still there, but he can feel it ebbing away, faltering under Ashur’s quiet confession and the way the weight of his attention still makes Tarquin’s stomach flip, even after everything.
Tarquin knows what it is to not want to be treated as what society perceives you as. He’d told Ashur once that it didn’t matter what Ashur did during the day, because he was still Ashur at the end of it, naive and hopeful and unbearably reckless.
He realizes suddenly that he still means it.
“But lucky for you,” he grumbles, pretending to study the intricate design of the rug beneath his feet instead of meeting Ashur’s eyes. “I don’t have any plans to stop yelling at you any time soon. Not as long as you keep being stupid.”
“So, forever?” Ashur asks, something fragile and cautious in his voice.
“Guess so,” Tarquin agrees roughly. He risks a glance up and finds Ashur staring back.
“Tell me,” Ashur starts, taking a jerky step forward. “Tell me if I’m being stupid about this, too.”
And then he’s closing the distance between them, hand sliding into Tarquin’s hair, as he presses their lips together.
It’s cautious, testing, a fleeting brush of mouths. Tarquin freezes, brain skittering to a halt, unable to process that this is happening , long enough that Ashur begins to pull back. That jolts Tarquin out of his stupor. He grabs Ashur, winding his hands around the straps of Ashur’s armor, and spins them until Ashur’s back is pressed against the wall. Ashur goes willingly, following where Tarquin leads, and Tarquin shudders as he leans back in, swallowing Ashur’s gasp.
Time slows. Tarquin deepens the kiss until there is only the slick slide of their mouths together, the hot press of hips. Ashur’s clawed gloves snag in Tarquin’s hair, sending pinpricks of pleasure-pain skittering down his spine. He bucks against Ashur, desperate, and pulls back just far enough to pant against Ashur’s mouth. “Not stupid this time,” he manages.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Ashur breathes, and leans back in.
~
“Changed my answer,” Tarquin announces the next time he runs into Dorian at the Shop. “Marry the Divine.”
Dorian’s eyes widen as he glances between Tarquin and Ashur, masked but radiating smugness, and he laughs.