Archive of Our Own ^beta

The letter arrives in the morning.

Tarquin steps on it as he’s staggering out the door, too little sleep and too much shitty coffee rendering him just conscious enough to function but not enough to avoid crashing directly into the wall outside his apartment as the envelope skids out from under his feet. He catches himself gracelessly against the brick and swears.

He scrapes a bit of mud off the front so he can pick out the sender’s name and swears again.

Dear son, the letter begins when Tarquin cracks the seal at his desk later. There’s not much good to be said about being stuck in the archive basement, but at least there’s no one around to see that the parchment in his hand isn’t actually work-related and no one who would care even if there were.

I wonder if you’ve given any more thought to the question in my last letter?

It’s the same question that was in the letter he got for All Soul’s Day. And the letter before that. Every letter since the Antaam force occupying Ventus melted away without support in the aftermath of the blighted gods, in fact. When are you coming home to visit?

Solstice was always Tarquin’s mother’s favorite time of year and her letters have only grown more pointed as the time nears. This one features a tiny and slightly uneven doodle of a solstice wreath accompanied by several exclamation points.

Tarquin sighs. He goes to tuck the letter away—he’ll answer eventually, when he can think of a new excuse—but a line of text written on the back catches his eye.

It’s his sister’s handwriting, scribbled along the bottom of the page like she was in a hurry when she wrote it.

Please come. Mum and dad aren’t getting any younger. How many more chances will you get?

Bring your partner.

Tarquin stares at the words for a long moment, willing them to resolve into something different. The ink refuses to cooperate, the words stubbornly unchanged.

He shoves the letter into the deepest pocket of his uniform and determines not to think about it.

***

He keeps thinking about it.

The letter stays in his pocket for his whole shift. It stays there when he gets home that night, too tired to bother fishing it out again. It stays there when he wakes up at too-fucking-early-o’clock the next morning and drags his uniform on again.

It’s still there when he makes it to the Shop that night, exhausted and grumpy and more grateful than he probably should be for the chance to knock around some of the newer Shadows in basic hand-to-hand training until his brain turns off.

Not that it lasts. By the time the last of the recruits drags themselves home, Tarquin has the letter out again, toying with the edges until the paper begins to curl.

“Bad news?” Ashur asks.

“It’s nothing,” Tarquin says, too quickly, and curses internally as one of Ashur’s stupidly perfect eyebrows raises, intrigued. It’s just the two of them now, Ashur’s mask discarded within easy reach on the desk and the disappointed twist of his lips on full display.

He won’t pry—he’s too cautious for that after the blowback of having Tarquin followed—but he’ll radiate patient curiosity in Tarquin’s direction as loudly as possible until Tarquin caves and that’s worse.

“It’s a letter from my mother,” Tarquin sighs, just to get it over with. “She wants me to come home for solstice.”

“That sounds nice,” Ashur says, completely genuine in a way that shouldn’t even be possible. “When are you leaving? Mae and I can divide up whatever you need done while you’re away.”

Tarquin ducks his head, avoiding Ashur’s eyes in the vague hope that he can also avoid the inevitable questions. “I’m not.”

There is a long moment of silence. Tarquin draws idle circles on a corner of parchment and pretends he’s doing work.

“Forgive me,” Ashur says eventually, his expression thoughtful. “You’ve mentioned wanting to visit home before…”

He trails off and once—in the tense few days after their fight—Tarquin would have heard suspicion in the silence, more evidence of Ashur’s lack of trust in him. Now, though, dead elven gods and the Blight and one uncomfortable mutual apology later, he only hears Ashur’s particular weird brand of concern.

Tarquin sighs, tossing his quill down. There’s a headache building in the front of his skull and its name is Ashur. “She’s been inviting me non-stop since the occupation fell,” he says, ducking Ashur’s real question. “I’m not going. I’m busy. There’s work to do here.”

Ashur tilts his head, looking more like a particularly stupid bird than his namesake viper. “But you’re worried about it this time.”

Fucking overly observant rat bastard.

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t go.”

“Seems to me like you can,” Ashur says, nodding toward the letter.

“It’s not like that. It’s—it’s stupid.”

He hasn’t been back to Ventus since the day he set foot on the boat to Seheron, the ink on his enlistment papers in his pocket still wet. He’s always meant to go back, to see his family again for the first time in decades. At some point. Eventually.

It’s just that the idea of going back to the place where most people would still remember him as the little girl he never truly was makes him feel like he’s drowning on dry land.

He’s not the person they remember.

What if they’re not the people he remembers, either?

“Even if I wanted to,” he starts, leveling Ashur with a glare when it looks like he’s about to object, “I can’t. They think I have an actual life. Things I can’t leave.”

Ashur frowns. “You do have that.”

“Not like that.” He has the Shadows, of course—a fact that still surprises him if he thinks about it for too long. It’s the first time his life has meant something. The first time he’s had a real purpose. And somehow, along the way, the Shadows themselves have become important to him. He’s grateful, sure, but he can’t exactly tell his family about them. “Like—a, uh. A partner. Who I told them was too busy to come to Ventus.”

“A… romantic partner?” Ashur says, incredulous enough that Tarquin can tell he thinks he’s misunderstanding the situation. If only.

Tarquin nods miserably.

“You lied to your parents about having a romantic partner so you wouldn’t have to visit them?”

Okay, well, when he puts it like that, it sounds stupid.

“I said he had an important job he couldn’t leave,” Tarquin admits sheepishly. It’s pathetic. But Tarquin’s a middle-aged pencil-pusher with a job he hates and a hopeless crush on his best and only friend. His best and only friend who just so happens to be his boss twice over and the second most important person in all of Tevinter. His whole life is pathetic. “I needed an excuse and it got my mum off my back about when I was going to settle down.”

“He?” Ashur asks carefully.

Tarquin shrugs. He hadn’t been thinking about Ashur when he’d started the lie. Not really. Or, well. He hadn’t meant to. He’d just needed something that would keep his mother off his back while making his life seem less crushingly depressing.

It just happened—totally by coincidence—that the fake partner he’d invented ended up sounding a lot like Ashur after all.

He hadn’t been thinking of Ashur when he’d penned the first letter. But he thinks of Ashur every time he writes about it now.

Ashur settles back in his chair, his gaze a physical weight on Tarquin’s skin. He has his thinking face on, which has never once boded well for Tarquin’s continued well-being in the entire time they have known each other.

“Have you told them much about this partner?”

“Of course not,” Tarquin says. A sinking feeling of dread has taken up residence somewhere behind his breastbone and appears to be settling in for an extended stay. “On account of him not being real.”

Ashur nods like this was the answer he was hoping for. Tarquin’s dread increases. “Then I could go with you. You could see your parents and they wouldn’t have to find out you were lying. It’d be just like any other undercover mission.”

Ashur is not allowed on undercover missions. Ashur is not allowed on undercover missions because he is the Imperial bloody Divine.

“Is your family likely to recognize the Imperial Bloody Divine in common clothing and traveling without a retinue?” Ashur asks placidly when Tarquin points that out.

Tarquin stares at him. Wonders how angry the Maker would be, really, if Tarquin were to murder His earthly representative here and now and tell everyone His Perfection fell into the harbor.

Probably not as angry as Mae.

“My family members are not the only people in Ventus,” he grits out.

“I’ve never been to Ventus as the Divine. It’s unlikely anyone would recognize me.”

“All the crazy shit that’s happened in the last year and you want to bank on unlikely? That’s the worst fucking plan I’ve ever heard.”

“Nevertheless, the offer stands,” Ashur says and picks up his quill again like nothing even happened.

***

“I think it’s a lovely idea,” Mae informs him three days later, sinking into the slightly wobbly chair next to him with more grace than Tarquin’s ever managed in his life. “Taking Ashur with you for solstice.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“I would never,” Mae lies. “I’ve been trying to get him to take a vacation for months.”

“To Ventus?”

“Ventus is lovely this time of year,” Mae says easily.

Tarquin stares at her. “Ventus was under Antaam occupation until six months ago.”

Mae tips her head, acknowledging the point. “But it’s not anymore. And it would still be good for him to get away from the Argent Spire and Dock Town both for a while.”

Tarquin shoves the Venatori cipher he’s been working on to the side. He’s not getting any more work done on it now. “What exactly did he tell you?”

Mae raises a single unimpressed eyebrow. “That the two of you would be spending solstice with your family so he can pretend to be your partner for some reason that only makes sense to the two of you.”

Ah. Right.

“Why are you not more against this?” he asks instead of addressing any of the questions implied in Mae’s response.

“Because he’s right. The chances of his being recognized are low and it would be good to have a first-hand account of how things stand in the city now.” She leans in, holding his gaze, and adds bluntly, “And I want you to get your head out of your ass and finally tell him how you feel.”

Tarquin feels his mouth open and close several times, like one of Halos’ fish fresh from the harbor, but no sound comes out.

Mae rises from her chair as smoothly as she arrived, sliding the half-decoded cipher out from under Tarquin’s unresisting hand as she goes. “Have fun in Ventus, dear.”

***

The Knight-Captain signs off on his leave request without a fight or even any follow-up questions, which is a bit insulting when Tarquin thinks about how little it actually matters for him to show up at work at all. The Knight-Captain could at least have denied some of his leave. A couple of days, maybe. Just enough so he could tell Ashur there was no way to make it to Ventus and back in time.

Not that it would help. That’s one of the things no one mentions about accidentally becoming friends with the guy who’s technically in charge of the entire Imperial Templar Order. It’s much harder to lie to him about work.

The whole thing goes suspiciously smoothly.

Even the trip itself—once Tarquin resigns himself to the fact that he will be visiting Ventus whether he wants to or not—is uneventful, if only because it turns out Ashur has the worst seasickness of anyone Tarquin has ever met.

Ashur spends most of the four days at sea leaning miserably out of the tiny porthole in their quarters, hurling up his meals and possibly several internal organs. Tarquin spends most of the four days trying to make sure Ashur doesn’t die of dehydration.

It’s better than the last time he was on a ship—on his way free from Seheron six years ago, newly retired and utterly without purpose.

He tries to keep that in mind as he listens to the Most Holy heave His Most Holy guts into the Nocen and counts the hours to Ventus.

***

“This is a stupid idea,” Tarquin says, hand hovering over the latch for the front gate. It’s a nice little house, all neat stone and bright shutters. It’s worn but carefully tended, even the cobblestone path to the door swept clean and free of weeds. A far cry from the rundown tenement he’d actually grown up in before the Antaam invasion swept through and left what could politely be called an excess of available housing.

There are vines of arbor blessing climbing the front walls. His mother had always wanted arbor blessing.

“It’s not too late to turn back,” he continues. “We could be back in Minrathous before you know it.”

Ashur levels him with a flat look. His skin is no longer the sickly green it was at sea, but he’s still paler than normal. “Not even the Maker Himself could make me get back on a ship right now.”

“I’ll do your reports for a month,” Tarquin promises without any real hope. “I’ll even do the inventory for the Spillway safehouse.”

“What? Bren was supposed to do that two weeks ago.”

The front door opens and all Tarquin’s concerns about covering for Bren’s sorry ass fade into the background.

His first thought—immediately, inanely—is that’s not my mother.

Tarquin’s mother has honey brown hair she was always laughingly upset that neither of her children had inherited, not this twist of faded grey. She was never tall, but she looms larger than life in all of Tarquin’s memories, not this bird-boned woman who barely comes up to his shoulder. Tarquin’s mother is young and vibrant and full of life.

The woman in front of him is… old. Old and tired.

Twenty—is it twenty-one now?—years away have turned them both into strangers. Tarquin is old and tired, too.

But then she stumbles forward, tears already welling up in her eyes. “Tarquin,” she says quietly, raising one papery-skinned hand to cradle his cheek, and suddenly she is his mother again.

“Hey, mum.”

“You got so handsome.” She falls into him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on with more strength than he would have thought possible in her tiny frame. He holds her back and pretends he doesn’t notice the hiccup of her breath against his shoulder.

After a moment she draws back, swipes a hand across her eyes, and straightens with all the self-control of a soldier.

“You must be Ashur,” she says, turning to him. To Tarquin’s immediate and overwhelming horror she wraps Ashur up in a hug as well.

Ashur, to his credit, takes it in stride. He wraps his arms around her without hesitation and says, with a sincerity that makes Tarquin squirm, “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am.”

“None of that. You can call me Tansy. Tanaquil if you must.” She steps back, studying Ashur at arm’s length for a long moment. “You have kind eyes.”

Ashur blinks. At least they’re equally uncomfortable now; Ashur has never quite learned how to handle compliments that don’t carry a hidden barb or careful social calculation and he’s surprisingly shit at hiding it.

“Mum,” Tarquin says again.

“Oh, all right,” his mother laughs. “Come in! Your father’s still at work, but everyone is so excited to see you.”

It’s just like stepping over the threshold of any other house. It feels like it shouldn’t be, after twenty years of avoidance and excuses—some to his family, most to himself—but he steps inside and the universe doesn’t tilt on its axis. He’s still him.

The inside of the house is just as charming and picturesque as the outside. The walls are plain stone, none of the elaborate murals and mosaics favored by houses in Minrathous, but well-kept. Someone—he assumes his mother—has covered every available surface with solstice decorations, red and green ribbons tied to every sconce and garlands woven with gold thread draped over the lintels of the doors. Everything smells like pine and fresh bread and home.

It reminds him—it reminds him of the Shop, actually, on the days when the world isn’t ending and there are no immediate fires to put out. Warm and lived-in in a way that’s welcoming rather than shabby.

“Well, well, well, look who finally showed up.”

Tarquin turns. The baby fat of their teenage years is long gone, but he can still see the shape of the obnoxious little kid who used to follow him everywhere in the woman before him. His sister smiles at him before reeling him in for a tight hug.

“I’m glad you made it,” Lena murmurs into his ear.

“Me too,” he manages as they pull apart and is surprised to realize he means it.

Sophie is the easiest. Tarquin wasn’t able to make it back for his niece’s birth sixteen years ago—the army couldn’t spare him from the critical task of sweltering in the Seheron sun waiting to die from a qunari blade or unlucky bout of malaria—and he’s never really been able to adjust his idea of her to anything other than a hazily imagined baby. She’s become a whole human being somehow, with her dad’s dark skin and riot of curls, and a glare that looks like she would happily strike Tarquin dead on the spot.

“I don’t speak to class traitors or cops,” Sophie informs them when her mother attempts to make introductions. She looks Tarquin and Ashur up and down with a level of disdain most magisters could only dream of achieving, turns on her heel, and leaves.

“I’m sorry,” Lena sighs as the door slams behind Sophie. “She’s been reading those manifestos from the capital. The ones about ending the Imperium and freeing all the slaves and such.”

Tarquin nods, keeping his eyes firmly ahead and refusing to even glance at Ashur. The delight radiating off the other man is palpable and, if he makes eye contact now, there will be no stopping either of them from breaking into the startled laughter Tarquin can already feel bubbling in his chest.

“I’m sure she’ll come around,” Ashur manages. Only Tarquin can hear the glee in his tone.

Lena hums doubtfully. “We’ll see. But you must be Ashur! It’s so nice to meet you finally!”

“My sister, Helena,” Tarquin explains hurriedly.

To his horror, the excitement in Ashur’s eyes doesn’t dim at all. “Helena. I’m looking forward to hearing all about what Tarquin was like as a child.”

“Deal,” Lena agrees immediately. “But only if you call me Lena. And if you tell me what he’s been getting up to in the big city. His letters never include anything good.”

There is only so much a person can write about new organizational techniques in the templar archives to cover for the fact that they spend most of their free time fighting blood cultists and committing what are, on a very technical level, crimes against the state. So maybe his letters are a little light on personal details. That’s always been fine by him.

“What if we don’t tell any stories at all and instead focus on the spirit of solstice or whatever?” he suggests.

Ashur smiles. It is his Viper smile, the one that’s all teeth. “Ah, but the spirit of solstice is family and giving, Quin. I believe this counts.”

His sister cackles. “Oh, I like you already.”

This was a mistake. This was a mistake and now Tarquin is going to have to kill Ashur here and now. In front of his mother.

They are left in Lena’s care as his mother bustles away to the kitchen to finish dinner preparations, puffing up like an outraged cat when Tarquin dares to offer their assistance. Well, his assistance. He’s learned from experience that Ashur has never had to cook for himself and can’t be trusted with anything more complicated than boiling water.

“Come on, there’s a fire going in the sitting room,” Lena says. “I’ll make coffee.”

It’s no colder here than in Minrathous, but after four days crossing the Nocen Sea, Tarquin isn’t going to turn down the prospect of a warm fire. And he’d have to be dead before he’d turn down the chance for coffee not made by Neve.

They follow Lena down the hallway until Ashur stops so abruptly that Tarquin runs straight into his back.

“I know, weird, right?” Lena says from further into the room. “Don’t tell mum. She’s very proud of them.”

Tarquin peeks around Ashur’s shoulders—there’s just no good reason for a mage to be this broad, it’s unnecessary—and follows the line of Ashur’s gaze to a set of three hammered copper plates hung in a careful line on the wall, each with a profile view of a serious-looking man in a stupid hat and a a scroll of Old Tevene text.

Tarquin doesn’t know Old Tevene, but he can sure fucking recognize the names Urian Nihalias and Aequitas II.

The last portrait somehow manages to capture Ashur’s improbable jawline exactly while still looking nothing like him and Lena hasn’t started screaming yet, so it’s possible Ashur was onto something when he said no one would recognize him. Not that Tarquin will give him the satisfaction of admitting he was right.

“They’re… very nice,” Ashur says gamely and Lena and Tarquin both snort at the same time.

“Pretty sure lying is a sin, Ash,” Tarquin informs him.

Ashur levels him with an unimpressed look and says, dry as dust, “I think the Maker would understand.”

The room itself feels strangely familiar, for all Tarquin’s never been here before. The solstice tree stands over in the corner by the fireplace, strung with tinsel and faded paper chains Tarquin remembers making with Lena when they were barely old enough to be trusted with scissors. The same battered tree topper from his childhood memories casts golden light from the top of the tree, its glow steady despite the cracked housing and peeling paint. Even the ribbons on the garlands strung around the mantel are familiar.

Tarquin’s eyes sting and he looks away.

He doesn’t recognize the clump of random leaves hung from the doorway into the sitting room, tied off with a festive red bow. He squints at it, but he’s too much of a city boy to be able to identify anything more complicated than a root vegetable.

“What’s with the plant?”

Lena rolls her eyes. “Some new fad from Ferelden that mum’s latched onto. If two people stand under it at the same time, they have to kiss.”

“What does that have to do with solstice?” Ashur asks dubiously while Tarquin edges quietly away and makes a mental note not to be anywhere near the doorway at the same time as him for the foreseeable future.

Not that he’d object to kissing Ashur. Hypothetically. Under normal circumstances. Like the ones he imagines alone in his bed more nights than he’d care to admit, where Ashur is willing and eager and desperate—

Not in front of his sister and the judgmental copper eyes of Ashur’s Divine coronation portrait, in any case.

“No idea,” Lena says. “I don’t think mum knows either.”

They settle onto the couch, already pleasantly warm from the fire. It’s not nearly as warm as the heat from Ashur’s body as he sits directly next to Tarquin, shoulder to shoulder despite the available space. It’s—fine. It’s just part of their cover. Dorian practically sits on the Inquisitor’s lap whenever he can get away with it; it’s normal for two people who are together to share space like this.

Except they’re not actually together and Tarquin can’t focus on anything except the feeling of Ashur’s thigh pressed against his.

Lena returns before Tarquin can make up his mind to scoot away or quietly sink into the earth and never return, carrying a tray with the promised coffee. Ashur’s hand brushes his as they both reach for mugs.

“So,” Tarquin begins awkwardly, once Lena has settled into her own seat. “How are they doing?”

She sighs, curling her hands around her mug. “Good, mostly. Dad had a bad fall earlier this year. The healers said he was lucky not to break his hip.”

“No one told me.”

She shrugs. “They didn’t want to worry you.”

The firelight plays across the dark liquid in his cup, breaking and reforming as Tarquin tilts his hand. He stares at it and feels… empty.

He should be upset, he thinks. Or should he? Does he even have a right to? He loves his parents, but it’s an impersonal thing, worn by time and distance and the fear that never faded that maybe it still wouldn’t be enough—maybe all the horrors of Seheron and his years as soldier wouldn’t be enough—and his family would still look at him and see a woman.

He hadn’t—he hadn’t meant for it to be so long. But time flies when you’re avoiding something and now it’s been twenty years. What right does he have to be upset when his sister was the one who was here for them the whole time?

Maybe he shouldn’t have come back at all.

“They both talk about you all the time,” Lena adds, with the precision of a dagger strike. “They’ve always been so proud.”

“Oh,” Tarquin manages.

Ashur’s hand settles on Tarquin’s leg and squeezes.

***

Tarquin’s father returns just after dark, grumbling about long hours and a boss who’s about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking party. Ashur, who had heard Tarquin say the same thing about the Knight-Sergeant just last week, slants Tarquin a significant look as they meet Lucius at the door. Tarquin ignores him.

He expected it to be easier after seeing his mother. It’s not.

His father has never been a big man, naturally gaunt in the same way Tarquin is, but he’s smaller now. Reduced. Twenty years have turned him into something mortal. Just a man.

“Son,” his father says finally, stepping forward to clasp Tarquin’s arm—a soldier’s handshake, one Tarquin hasn’t used for years. His hand trembles in Tarquin’s grip.

“Sir,” he says, throat going hot and tight.

“It’s good to see you,” his father says, patting Tarquin’s hand with his free one, all knobby knuckle and thin, liver-spotted skin. And oh, there it is. All the feelings Tarquin didn’t have earlier when his sister spoke about their father’s health, when it was still an abstract. They rise up in Tarquin’s chest and threaten to strangle him like the vines twining over the outside of the house.

“Yeah,” he manages. “You too. You look good.”

His father snorts. “I look old. But it’s better than the alternative, I suppose.” He claps Tarquin on the back, his hand lingering for a moment that makes Tarquin’s heart squeeze in his chest, before turning to Ashur. “You must be the partner.”

“Ashur, ser. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

His father laughs again. “See if you still feel that way after dinner.”

He’s not wrong to warn them. Dinner is more like an interrogation.

“So, Ashur,” his father says, after leading them in a quick prayer of thanks (Sophie rolls her eyes through the entire thing; Tarquin can barely resist laughing at the sheer absurdity of his father leading the Divine in prayer). He says Ashur’s name slowly, like he doesn’t fully believe it. “Did you serve?”

“No, ser. I never had the honor.”

His father harrumphs, pausing to take a bite of turkey as he studies Ashur. “Are you from Minrathous originally?”

“Yes. My family’s been there for generations.”

Ashur’s eyes flick to Tarquin as the bowl of mashed potatoes reaches their side of the table, assessing as he watches Tarquin load potatoes on his own plate and copying the motions meticulously when Tarquin passes the dish. Ashur rarely eats at the Shop—too many people around, too much danger of someone seeing too much if he removes his mask—so this might be the first time in his life he’s ever had to serve himself during a meal.

Something warm and pleased curls up inside Tarquin’s ribcage without his permission. He looks away.

“Do you have a big family?” his mother asks.

“I’m the youngest of five,” Ashur answers truthfully.

“Maker!” Tarquin’s mother exclaims while Lena mutters something that sounds suspiciously like your poor mother. “Is your family upset you’ll be missing solstice with them this year?”

Ashur once got slightly too drunk on post-mission celebratory wine and confessed to Tarquin that his oldest brother had tried to have him killed the night of his ascension to Divine—and, when that hadn’t worked, had tried to kill Ashur himself during a formal Vesperian dinner party. His parents had stood by and watched.

“We’re not close,” Ashur says.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. What—”

Whatever Tarquin’s mother was going to ask cuts off abruptly, with a sound like someone has abruptly trod on her foot under the table. She turns to glare at Lena, who doesn’t look up from her plate but jerks her head significantly towards Tarquin.

It’s the least subtle display Tarquin has seen since the last time Dorian decided to distract a Venatori by flirting with them.

But it works. With unspoken agreement, Tarquin and Ashur both pretend not to have noticed and his mother’s mouth snaps shut again.

Easier to let everyone think Ashur’s estrangement from his family is due to his relationship with Tarquin rather than the complicated web of bullshit highblood politicking it actually is. They would object if they knew.

Or. Well. If any of this were actually real and not just Ashur being the world’s most self-sacrificing man doing the world’s biggest and dumbest favor for the world’s most pathetic pencil-pusher.

Although they would definitely still object to a Vesperian eating at a table with a bunch of soporati, regardless of the exact nature of said Vesperian’s relationship with one of the soporati.

“So,” Lena starts, redirecting the conversation with single-minded focus. “Tarquin’s never told us. How did you two meet?”

Ashur glances at Tarquin, the same quick cut of his eyes that Tarquin usually sees right before they hurl themselves together into a nest of slavers or Venatori cultists, but they’ve prepared for this. Tarquin has prepared for this because, unlike Ashur, he’s actually been on undercover missions in the past, and drilled Ashur in the specifics of their supposed relationship for the entire length of their sea voyage.

In hindsight, it will be a miracle if Ashur remembers any of it.

“At work, actually,” Ashur says. “I’m a clerk in the Argent Spire.”

“In the Spire!” Tansy exclaims. “Have you ever met—”

“Are you a mage?” Sophie cuts in, voice hard.

Ashur hesitates a heartbeat too long, and Sophie’s eyes blaze with anger. “You are. You’re one of them.” She looks around the table, glaring at each of her family members in turn. “The mage classes are everything wrong with Tevinter society! They do nothing but keep people like us—people who actually keep society running—down! They’re parasites.”

Tarquin takes a long drink from his glass because if he doesn’t, he’s going to start crying with laughter. He’s pretty sure he said the exactly same thing to Ashur just last week, except at a slightly lower volume and with more swearing.

“Sophronia!” Lena snaps.

“Sorry I’m not willing to lick the boot of our oppressors like the rest of you,” Sophie snaps. She shoves her chair back from the table and storms away.

There’s a long moment where no one seems to know what to say. Tarquin takes another drink and a deep breath.

“You didn’t mention he was a mage,” his mother says into the silence.

“Didn’t know I had to,” Tarquin mutters.

Ashur smiles apologetically. “I barely merit the title. I have enough talent to light a candle and not much more.”

Three weeks ago Tarquin watched Ashur encase half a dozen slavers in solid, glass-sharp ice while incinerating a shower of arrows in midair. He once watched Ashur catch three Shadow Dragons in midair when a path in the catacombs collapsed beneath them, saving all their lives. But the lie rolls smoothly off Ashur’s tongue and Tarquin’s mother just nods.

“Well,” she says kindly. “I’m sure you have other skills.”

Tarquin loses the battle and chokes into his drink.

 ***

His mother shows them to their room later that night, leaving them at the door with another pair of hugs and several minutes of fretting over whether they need more blankets.

They’ve shared close quarters before—on stakeouts, during the endless terrible days of the blighted gods’ siege. Hell, even the trip here was spent in a single closet-sized space barely big enough to hold the hammocks they’d been given to sleep in. But something about sharing a bed seems different. Bigger, somehow.

The bed looks worn but comfortable, big enough for two normal-sized people to share if they were willing to get a little close. Or for one normal-sized person to share with one product of superior altus breeding with seven-foot-wide shoulders if they were willing to get very close indeed.

“I’ll take the floor,” Tarquin says.

Ashur slants Tarquin a disbelieving look. “It’s your house.”

Debatable, given that Tarquin’s never been here before either, and the whole situation feels familiar and strange and disorienting all at once. But it is full of Tarquin’s family, which probably counts for something. Unfortunately, if Tarquin lets the Most Holy sleep on the floor in this house, he won’t even have to worry about the Maker striking him down for blasphemy because his mother will do it instead.

“Quin,” Ashur sighs. “I’m exhausted. We can share the bed and argue about it in the morning if we must.”

Tarquin’s going to object. He wants to object. But Ashur does look tired, the skin under his eyes bruised dark with fatigue. Tarquin hasn’t seen him look this bad since the siege.

It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Tarquin can be normal about this. It’s fine.

“Yeah, all right,” he concedes.

***

Tarquin has made a mistake.

It was bad enough last night, desperately trying to avoid watching Ashur strip down to his sleeping clothes before having to crawl into bed with him, arms and legs accidentally brushing as they both tried to get comfortable. Not touching, but close enough for the warmth of Ashur’s body to seep across the tiny expanse of mattress Tarquin had managed to leave between them.

Ashur had dropped off almost immediately, done in by days of not sleeping on the ship and probably not helped by having to deal with the mess that is Tarquin’s personal life. Tarquin had lain beside him in the dark for hours, absolutely not freaking out but acutely aware of every tiny motion Ashur made in his sleep.

He’d resigned himself to lying awake all night, but he comes to with a start as the first grey dawn light begins to creep in through the window.

He wakes up warm. Which is fine—nice, even, with the slight winter chill in the air—and tucked securely under Ashur’s arm, face pressed directly into Ashur’s chest—which is also nice for the split second before Tarquin’s brain comes fully awake and he realizes exactly where he is.

He recoils and promptly rolls himself straight off the side of the bed and onto the floor.

Above him, Ashur lurches upright into the altus equivalent of battle readiness—not particularly ready and only barely awake. He blinks down at Tarquin for a long moment.

“Why’re you on the floor?”

Tarquin squeezes his eyes shut again. The floor is cold and his hip has already started hurting where it hit the stone. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ashur is still staring at him suspiciously when Tarquin opens his eyes again, but even generations of premium highblood breeding haven’t managed to make him a morning person and it will be several more minutes before Ashur’s awake enough to put any pieces together. Tarquin takes full advantage of the reprieve to scramble to his feet and over to their bags.

They dress awkwardly. Or Tarquin does, anyway. Probably Ashur is totally unaffected by the whole thing because Ashur is here as his friend doing him the world’s weirdest favor and isn’t a pathetic idiot pining after the one person he can never have. Or more likely because Ashur wasn’t awake enough to register his friend/employee cuddling him as they slept.

Tarquin doesn’t know because he spends the entire time refusing to look at Ashur.

They head down to the kitchen together, the scent of freshly baked bread and cinnamon filling the air long before they enter. Tarquin’s mother is inside, looking like she’s been awake for hours, sleeves rolled up and flour streaked across the front of her apron as she kneads a mound of dough bigger than her head. Sophie sits at the counter nearby, cracking eggs into a bowl with a level of sullenness only achievable by teenagers and the recently condemned.

Every available surface around them is stacked with trays of cooling baked goods steaming gently in the morning air.

“Good morning!” his mother calls cheerfully when she spots them.

“You baking for the whole city now?” Tarquin asks, bewildered.

His mother laughs, folding a handful of dried fruit into the dough she’s working. “Just about. We’re helping with the bake sale!”

“You’re helping with the bake sale,” Sophie mutters. “I’m here under duress.”

His mother ignores this. “One of the ladies from the city council organized a bake sale to help people who need assistance recovering from the occupation. Half of the food gets sold to raise money and the other half gets donated to those in need.”

“That’s incredibly generous,” Ashur comments.

“Yeah, except for the part where it’s run by Venatori slavers trying to kidnap people,” Sophie snaps. The next egg cracks harder than necessary against the bowl, bits of shell flying into the mixture. Sophie scowls and begins picking them out one by one.

Tarquin and Ashur exchange doubtful looks. Maker knows the Venatori in Minrathous have been getting desperate since the fall of the Old Gods and the power behind their cult, but putting on a solstice bake sale in the Ventus suburbs seems a little pathetic even for them.

“Sophie,” his mother scolds. “We’ve talked about this. Caren is a perfectly nice woman trying to help those less fortunate than us. She’s not a secret blood mage.”

Sophie huffs, not looking up from her surgical removal of egg shell fragments. But Tarquin sees the way her mouth twists, the way her fingers tighten around the shell pieces she’s already removed even though the shards must be digging into her skin. She believes it even if Tansy does not.

Ashur raises an elegant eyebrow at Tarquin and Tarquin knows he’s seen the same thing.

Tarquin sighs, tucking the information away to investigate later. Weirder shit has happened.

In the meantime—

“Do you need help with anything?” Ashur asks.

Tarquin turns to him incredulously. Ashur has never so much as been allowed kitchen duty at the Shop after the time he tried to stock the supplies with caviar left over from one of his family’s innumerable galas. There’s not a chance in hell he’s ever baked anything before. “Do you even know how to crack an egg?”

“Embarrassing,” Sophie sing-songs under her breath.

Ashur’s cheeks flush. “I can learn.”

They spend the next three hours working under Tarquin’s mother’s careful tutelage. It’s been years since Tarquin has baked anything more complicated than toast over a fire when he was too exhausted to find real food—years since he’s wanted to—but the motions come back with surprising swiftness. Ashur learns to crack an egg without splattering yolk everywhere (eventually), something small and pleased in his expression when it finally works.

He smiles up at Tarquin, flour and bits of egg smeared across his stupidly sharp cheekbones, and Tarquin wants nothing more than to reach out and touch, to wipe the mess away with his thumb. He wants to—

Well. He wants.

But Tarquin is used to wanting. He crushes it down and, eventually, his mother laughs and gently wipes the mess from Ashur’s face with a corner of her apron and Tarquin can look at him again without his heart doing uncomfortable flips behind his ribs.

Ashur volunteers them to help ferry the baked goods to the sale. Tarquin narrows his eyes at him and gets a perfectly calculated innocent smile in return, which means the offer is only fifty percent motivated by Ashur’s inherent inability to see any problem he can help solve and not solve it. The other half is sheer nosiness about Sophie’s claim.

It takes them three trips to the wheeled handcart his mother borrowed from a neighbor, but eventually the three of them (Sophie claimed to be running to the bathroom half an hour before and has not returned) get everything loaded and safely delivered to the bake sale.

Which, it turns out, is not just a bake sale, but rather one stand in the midst of a full-blown solstice market that fills the entire town square.

The whole place has been decked out for the occasion. Long swags of red and gold ribbon drape the streetlamps and walls of the neighboring buildings, and new magelights in festive but improbable shapes (it has never once snowed in Ventus, as far as Tarquin is aware, despite the glowing snowflakes) have been added to the existing posts. Even the marble statue of whatever old dead magister in the center of the square has been spruced up for the holiday with a crown of woven pine boughs.

Stalls line the plaza, laden with solstice-themed goods of every variety. Tarquin’s mother guides them to a stand already stacked high with pastries, manned by a pair of middle-aged women in matching green and gold sweaters.

“Tansy!” the woman on the left exclaims when they draw near. “I’m so pleased you made it!”

“Caren,” Tarquin’s mother greets, ducking around the side of the stall to exchange awkward cheek kisses with the woman. “This is my son Tarquin, and Ashur.”

If Caren notices the careful way his mother avoids explaining what Ashur’s actual relationship to Tarquin is, she doesn’t let on. It’s nothing Tarquin doesn’t expect—Dorian’s been trying, in the months since becoming Archon, but the weight of centuries is hard to shift and the changes they’ve managed are far from universally accepted—but it makes something sour in his chest despite it.

He tells himself he’s angry about the general unfairness of it, the way people like him and Dorian and Mae and half the people in the Shadows have to hide themselves, but he knows, deep down in the small, deluded part of him, that that’s not it. He resents the loss of his chance—his one chance—to lay public claim to Ashur, however fake it might have been.

But Tarquin is a coward in more ways than one and he stays silent as Caren and her friend profess how delighted they are to meet them.

“Tansy was just telling us about your efforts to help the less fortunate here,” Ashur says, all smooth politician’s flattery.

“Oh, yes. We have a food bank in the lower district. It’s as the Maker says: ‘let each look after his neighbor, and he will be looked after in return.’”

“Transfigurations 6:4,” Ashur replies instantly.

“A man who knows his scripture!” Caren says with a giggle that sets Tarquin’s teeth on edge. “How lovely! Are you staying to help run the stall?”

“I’ve already monopolized their morning with the baking,” Tarquin’s mother cuts in. “I’m sure the boys want to enjoy the market.”

Tarquin looks around at said market.

Endless rows of kitsch-laden stalls press in on all sides, packed with crowds of middle-aged civilians and loud, sticky children. It makes him think longingly of the last time he took a Venatori dagger to the ribs. That was a fucking delight compared to this.

“Yeah,” he agrees unenthusiastically. “That.”

Caren pouts. “Another time maybe.”

Ashur makes some polite parting remarks for both of them and then he and Tarquin are free to wander the stalls on their own.

It’s a miserable day for it. It’s the coldest it’s been so far, sharp wind cutting through clothing like it’s not even there and slate grey sky threatening to piss down rain but never quite mustering the energy to do it. Tarquin shoves his hands into his pockets and wishes he’d brought gloves.

“How far is the lower district?” Ashur asks once they’ve wandered far enough to be out of Caren’s earshot.

“Right at the edge of hightown. Maybe twenty minutes’ walk from here,” Tarquin says, eyeing a stall full of aggressively sparkly metal solstice trees suspiciously. “Easy enough to get to if we can sneak out after dark.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing left for us to do at the moment except enjoy the solstice festivities.”

Tarquin glares, but Ashur’s mouth just quirks up, pleased and infuriating.

They walk along the lines of stalls in comfortable silence. Tarquin surprises himself by stopping to buy a handful of last-minute gifts for his family—candied nuts, a bottle of nice liquor, and a particularly horrifying nutcracker shaped like Andraste for his mother that makes Ashur’s whole face screw up in distaste when he sees it.

They stop by unspoken agreement in front of a stall selling used books, piles of well-thumbed pages overflowing the stand and stacked on tables around it, because Ashur is secretly a colossal nerd and Tarquin goes through more pulp serials than he can count while pretending to do work at the archives.

Tarquin is grimly examining a recipe for something horrible called tentacle salad in a cookbook older than he is when the brightly colored cover of a book Ashur is holding catches his eye.

“Incendianus Julius and the Pillars of Peril!” he says, dropping the cookbook unceremoniously back onto its pile. “I think I read every one of those books as a kid. Loved ’em.”

“Oh?” Ashur flips through the book curiously, eyebrow raising as he stops at an illustration of Incendianus running for his life down a narrow corridor as a massive stone ball rolls down behind him. “Are they good?”

Tarquin laughs. “They were when I was twelve. Couldn’t tell you if they still hold up.”

“I’m sure they do,” Ashur says with a small smile. Tarquin ducks his head, toying with the pages of a battered romance novel, suddenly unable to hold Ashur’s eye.

They grab food together when they can, dropping by Halos’ shop after missions or long nights at the Shop, but this—just walking together in public, Ashur’s face bare and no pressing duties rushing either of them away—is utterly different from anything they’ve ever done before.

They’ve almost made it to the edge of the square and out of the chaos of the market when Tarquin draws up short.

The stall across from him is selling jewelry—mostly terrible solstice things with too much gold and a tendency toward snowflakes—but a flash of blue catches his attention.

A little snake pendant, with tiny glittering fangs and gemstone eyes the same electric teal as the Viper’s accents, on a chain long enough that it’d be easy to hide under Chantry robes—a little piece of the Shadow Dragons to keep with him always. A little piece of Tarquin.

He glances around, but Ashur is no longer at his side. Tarquin spots him several stalls away, back at the used book stand, saying something to the stall owner. It’s the best chance Tarquin is going to get.

He hands over the coin before he can talk himself out of it, tucking the little snake into his pocket just as Ashur reappears.

It’s stupid. Probably Ashur will hate it and he shouldn’t even have bothered. He should just put it away in his baggage back at the house and never think about it again. Maybe he can pawn it off on one of the other Shadows when they get home.

He keeps the snake in his pocket.

***

After dinner that night (topic of discussion: every single person Tarquin knew before enlisting, regardless of how well he knew or liked them, and where they are now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the ones who had been in Ventus when the occupation began—like Lena’s husband Matin—were dead now), Tarquin’s mother announces they will be attending evening chantry services to see the children’s solstice choir.

Together. As a family.

This is a problem for two reasons. One: Tarquin is currently trying to pretend the man sitting next to him is not the literal Imperial Divine because, if anyone realizes, they will be in deeper shit than they have ever been before and that includes the time the ancient gods returned from the dead and tried to give everyone the blight.

Two: he really doesn’t want to go.

It’s unlikely the Chantry Father here would recognize the Most Holy Divine Aequitas II without his symbols of office and wearing a slightly lumpy solstice sweater (an early gift from Tarquin’s mother, who’d worried about Ashur being cold), but there’s no point in taking chances. And if it gets Tarquin out of having to attend as well, even better.

“Actually,” Tarquin interjects into the middle of his mother’s description of how interesting the new Father’s sermons are (he does not ask what happened to the old Father). “Ashur and I already made plans. Ashur’s got a friend we’re meeting up with.”

“Yes,” Ashur agrees immediately. “He lives locally, and it’s been years since we were able to see each other.”

Tansy’s face falls. “Oh. Well, I suppose that’s my fault. I should have mentioned it sooner. I was just so excited about your getting to come this year.”

And Ashur, who handled the long weeks of the siege of Minrathous without once bending, who once survived a rival family’s assassination attempt and sat down to eat dinner like nothing happened afterwards, who was once captured and tortured by the Venatori for three hours before the Shadow Dragons found him—

Ashur breaks.

“Tarquin could still go,” he says. Tarquin turns to stare at him, trying to convey with his mind how deeply and sincerely he wishes he could throttle the man right now. Ashur meets his eyes, shrugging apologetically, before turning back to Tarquin’s mother. “My friend won’t mind if it’s just me.”

Tansy’s eyes light up. “That would be lovely!”

“Yeah, Tarquin, it’d be lovely,” Lena echoes, with the sadistic glee of someone who is also about to be forced to sit through several dozen unmusical children butchering solstice carols for an hour.

Ashur sees them (minus Sophie, who disappeared completely the moment dinner was over. Smart kid) off at the door. He leans in as Tarquin moves past and, for a brief, insane moment, Tarquin thinks Ashur is about to kiss him.

“I’ll go by the place we talked about as well,” Ashur says quietly. He’s so close that his breath fans across Tarquin’s face and it takes Tarquin a long moment to realize he’s talking about the food bank.

“Back before midnight or I’m coming after you, yeah?” Tarquin murmurs back.

“I know,” Ashur says and that’s all the warning Tarquin gets before Ashur leans in close and presses a quick kiss to Tarquin’s cheek. “Family’s watching,” he explains, low-voiced, as he pulls away.

“Guh,” says Tarquin.

And then he fucking leaves, walking off into the Ventus night like nothing has happened and Tarquin can’t still feel the phantom press of lips on his skin, burning like a brand.

***

“Here,” Lucius whispers, nudging Tarquin’s elbow as they find their seats. The chantry is packed, families crowding the aisles as they wait for others to shuffle along the dark wooden pews into the few open spaces. They’ve arrived early, thanks to Tarquin’s mother, and managed to find seats near the middle, at the outer edge of one of the pews.

Everything smells like incense and wax and the murmur of the crowd grows to a low roar as more and more people arrive. It’s already hot; it must be sweltering by the altar where the Father stands in front of an impressive arrangement of burning red candles. The chorus—children of various sizes all dressed in repurposed bed sheet costumes—shuffles impatiently behind him.

Tarquin glances down and finds a heavy silver flask being pushed into his hand.

“Don’t let your mum see,” his father adds.

No need to tell him twice. Tarquin waits for his mother to be distracted greeting another of her approximately eight million extremely close friends before twisting to the side and taking a swig. The brandy burns the whole way down. Tarquin immediately starts feeling better.

“So,” his father starts, ignoring the jealous glare Lena is giving them from Tansy’s other side. Lucius takes a sizable swig himself and tucks the flask back into his pocket. “You gonna marry that boy of yours?”

Tarquin is no longer feeling better.

“Not an option,” he answers shortly.

Lucius raises an eyebrow. “Thought that new Archon was changing all that.”

“He is.” He already has—it was one of the first changes Dorian enacted after taking the Archon’s seat, right after abolishing slavery. “Still not an option. Ashur’s job and his family—”

He trails off, hoping his father will get the picture and stop this conversation before he violates their tacit agreement never to talk about emotions or anything more personal than the weather.

“You’d want to, though?”

Tarquin wants a lot of things where Ashur is concerned. He wants Ashur to see him as something more than just a friend—for that to even be a possibility for someone as powerful and important and incredible as Ashur, who can have anyone he wants and doesn’t need to be stuck with an old, broken-down templar. He wants his stupid letters to his family to have been true and for this whole ridiculous charade to be real, despite everything. He wants Ashur to kiss him on the cheek before leaving because he wants to and not because of their cover. He wants Ashur to kiss him—

He wants to not be having this conversation.

“Doesn’t matter what I want.”

His father nods. They trade the flask back and forth again before Lucius says finally, “He’s a good man.”

“Too good sometimes,” Tarquin agrees, and then the children start caterwauling about giving thanks to the Maker and it’s too loud for any more words.

***

Tarquin doesn’t sleep that night, so he hears the moment something scrapes softly along the stone outside the guest room’s window. He’s on his feet in a moment, flattening himself against the wall beside the window, knife held low and ready.

“It’s me,” Ashur says quietly as he pulls himself over the sill and inside. It’s almost exactly midnight.

Tarquin shoves his dagger back under the pillow, the general anxiety that’s been thrumming through his veins since Ashur left draining out of him as abruptly as it came.

“So?” he demands.

“Sophie is right. The bake sale is being run by slavers.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Ashur just slants him a look, because of course these are their lives. Tarquin’s not even sure why he’s surprised.

“Did you do anything stupid?”

“No,” Ashur says immediately, which means that he absolutely did. “I followed that woman Caren to a warehouse on the south end of the docks.”

Tarquin knows it. Not the building specifically, but the area. Nothing good ever happened on the south end of the docks. It seems even a Qunari occupation couldn’t change that.

“Cultists?” Tarquin asks.

Ashur shakes his head. That’s something. Normal slavers have a vested interest in keeping their captives alive, at least. They can work with that. “Roughly a dozen prisoners. They told me they’d all been taken from the committee’s food bank when they came for supplies.”

“They told you?” There it is—the stupid thing that Ashur definitely didn’t do.

“They only posted guards on the outside of the building,” Ashur protests. He doesn’t even sound sorry about it, which only makes Tarquin angrier.

“You can’t take risks like that. Not here. Not where we don’t have any backup if something goes wrong,” he snaps. He wants to grab Ashur and shake him, but he already knows it won’t get through the man’s thick, altus-bred skull. The risks never matter when it’s the Viper taking them. Sometimes Tarquin thinks Ashur is the only person in the world the Viper doesn’t care about.

Ashur lets the words hang in the air for a moment. There’s nothing to say and they both know it.

“The prisoners are being moved on solstice,” Ashur says at last.

Tarquin lets out a deep breath. They have two days to figure out a plan.

***

The next day (blissfully free of any solstice-themed activities; not blissfully free of Lena regaling Ashur with the story of how ten-year-old Tarquin broke his leg climbing out of their third-story apartment on a rope made of their mother’s best bed sheets in order to avoid going to chantry) the two of them make their excuses almost as soon as dinner is over. His sister gives them a horrible, knowing leer as they retreat to their room together, but no one questions the explanation that they’re still tired from traveling.

The sounds from the rest of the house wind down shortly after. They wait another twenty minutes just to be sure everyone is well and truly inside for the night and then climb out the bedroom window into the garden.

“Do you need a sheet rope?” Ashur asks when Tarquin is partway through the window.

“Fuck off.” Tarquin swings his other leg over the sill and stands. On the ground. Because they are on the ground floor.

“Just checking,” Ashur says and Tarquin can hear the smile in his voice.

Ashur takes them over the rooftops to the docks because, even outside his usual stomping grounds, the man is incapable of traveling like a normal person. But it keeps them out of sight and unnoticed, so Tarquin can’t complain too much. (He does still complain, of course, but only about the state of his knees and being too old to be jumping across alleyways four meters above unyielding cobblestone. Ashur ignores him.)

The docks are crawling with people despite the late hour. Stevedores yell instructions and heave crates under the flickering illumination of magelights left too long without maintenance while sailors and dockworkers mingle and smoke along the quay.

There’s no sign of the solstice spirit that seems to have consumed the entire rest of the city. There is a distinct smell of piss and rotting fish.

The building Ashur leads them toward is one of an identical row of run-down warehouses. No light shows through the grimy windows, but a pair of men lounge outside the main entrance, attention fully occupied by the dice game they have going on the top of an overturned barrel.

Sloppy, but about the level of competence Tarquin has come to expect from slavers.

They sneak in through an open window on the upper floors, the glass long since shattered. The rotting wood of long unused catwalks creaks beneath them, but they don’t immediately plummet to their incredibly embarrassing deaths on the floor of the warehouse, which is a promising start. A soft light appears in the palm of Ashur’s hand, barely bright enough to do anything more than make the shadows seem darker, but it’s all they can risk with the guards outside.

In the gloom, Ashur nods toward the cavernous main space of the warehouse where the prisoners must be kept and Tarquin takes a cautious step forward, hoping there’s a ladder somewhere in this place.

Something moves behind them, an almost imperceptible scuff of shoes against wood. Tarquin shifts his weight, turns, lunges—

—and comes up with an armful of struggling teenage girl.

“Sophie?”

“Let go of me,” his niece hisses, making a determined but unskilled attempt to kick him in the kneecaps. “You’re going to ruin everything!”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

She doesn’t answer, but she does try to bite him.

“Quin,” Ashur says quietly beside him. There’s a thread of tension in his voice that makes Tarquin look up immediately.

Crouching in the shadows where he’d grabbed Sophie are two more idiot teens, each holding blades that look like they stole them from their parents’ kitchens.

“Unhand her, Venatori scum,” the one on the left orders—an elf, slightly older than Sophie, with a ragged haircut that looks like it was done with the same kitchen knife they’re now holding in their hand.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding here,” says Ashur.

“Get that knife out of my fucking face, you little shit,” says Tarquin.

Ashur slants him a disappointed look as he steps forward, both hands held up non-threateningly. Ashur could take out everyone in the room even without a staff, of course, but the kids don’t know that and even Ashur isn’t foolish enough to let it slip. “We’re here to help these people, just like you.”

The third kid—pudgy and freckled—lowers their knife a little, glancing uncertainly between Ashur and Sophie. Sophie bucks wildly and Tarquin feels an unexpected flash of pride at her unwillingness to trust them, which vanishes an instant later when she lands a solid hit to his shin.

“Sophie,” Ashur says, low and earnest. “We’re here to bring the light.”

Sophie goes still in Tarquin’s grip, which is great because it means Tarquin can have his hands free to kill Ashur.

“You?” Sophie asks, disbelief dripping from her tone. “You’re a mage.”

“The Viper’s a mage,” Bad Haircut offers quietly.

Sophie snorts. “Yeah, but he’s no Viper. He’s just some clerk.”

“Do we want to maybe have this conversation literally anywhere else?” Tarquin cuts in. Tonight’s mission is well and truly blown. They haven’t been caught yet, but it’s only a matter of time at this rate and neither Tarquin nor Ashur is willing to risk getting a bunch of random untrained kids caught in the crossfire when it happens.

“No,” Freckles says, grip tightening on their knife. They’re younger than the other two and their voice wobbles as they speak. “My brother is down there. We have to save them.”

Sophie and Bad Haircut both glare at Tarquin accusingly. He sighs. “We will, kid. We have a plan, but it won’t work with you lot getting in the way.”

“We can help,” Sophie protests immediately. Tarquin releases her and she whirls around, eyes blazing. “We’re not children.”

“You’re not,” Tarquin agrees. In truth, she’s not much younger than he was when he first set foot on Seheron—a realization that makes him feel both vaguely nauseated and impossibly old. “But you don’t know how to fight and that makes you a liability.”

“You could get someone hurt,” Ashur cuts in smoothly before Sophie can have another go at kicking Tarquin somewhere vital. “And it might not be you. You’d be endangering everyone we’re here to help.”

“So what, you want us to just leave?”

“I want you to help us. We have a better chance of helping these people if we work together.”

Sophie wavers. Ashur has that effect on people. There’s something intoxicating about the way he talks to someone like they’re equals, like he has full faith in them.

“Okay,” Sophie says finally. The other two relax somewhat, taking their cues from her, the tension easing out of their frames. Now Tarquin only has to worry about getting stabbed with a kitchen knife by accident instead of deliberately.

“Thank you,” Ashur tells her, all genuine sincerity. “Do you have a place we can go to talk?”

“I have a place,” Bad Haircut volunteers. They move along the narrow catwalk to the window and, with a nervous backward glance at Tarquin and Ashur, climb back out onto the roof. Freckles follows, shoving their knife carelessly into the belt in a move that makes Tarquin want to shake them.

“You first,” Sophie demands when Tarquin steps back to let her leave.

There’s just enough light for him to catch Ashur’s eye. Ashur shrugs and goes, Tarquin a step behind him and Sophie following them both like a small angry shadow. Tarquin sends up a silent apology to the people in the storehouse, but it won’t help anyone if they rush in half-cocked and get caught. They’ll be back. With or without the kids.

Bad Haircut—who introduces herself shyly as Veta—leads them back over the rooftops to a dilapidated tenement on the edge of lowtown. There’s room for at least a dozen families, but the place is empty now despite the late hour, outer walls blackened and pitted. One corner of the roof is collapsed in completely, victim of whatever uncontrolled fire rendered this place uninhabitable to anyone except a single desperate elven girl.

“Sorry about the… everything,” she says as she ushers them in through a ragged curtain serving as a door.

She navigates through the darkness with the ease of familiarity and soon a candle flares to life in her hands. The apartment is dingy and run-down but weirdly untouched by the fire, walls unblackened despite the overwhelming smell of old smoke. A couple of battered wooden crates serve as both tables and seating and there’s a pile of old blankets in one corner that can only be Veta’s bed.

Sophie drops onto one of the crates next to Veta like she, too, is familiar with this place, leaning back and crossing her arms with an unimpressed glower. “So. Talk.”

“There are a dozen people being kept in the warehouse,” Ashur begins with no hesitation. Just like any other Shadow Dragon briefing. “Not all of them are in any condition to run, much less fight. We need to get them out and get them somewhere safe.”

“They can stay here,” Veta offers. “It's not much, but no one comes here.”

No one comes here because it's a safety hazard one stiff breeze away from falling down, but Tarquin’s seen worse safehouses. And no one will have to stay here long enough to catch anything after he and Ashur take care of the slavers themselves.

Ashur nods. “Good. One of you will have to lead them back here. Someone else will need to be your lookout.”

“Simon can do it,” Sophie says, gesturing toward Freckles, who nods seriously. “He’s quick.”

“And I can lead the captives back,” Veta volunteers.

“That just leaves me.” Sophie’s eyes narrow. “And you.”

“You’re our lookout at the warehouse while we take out the guards,” Tarquin tells her. He doesn’t love the idea of killing anyone—even a slaver—in front of his niece, but he suspects there’ll be no shaking her. And it will be safer with a lookout. There were only two guards tonight, but Tarquin’s had enough simple missions go tits up to know better than to count on first appearances.

And once the prisoners are safely extracted and the kids busy getting them settled, he and Ashur can slip away and take care of Caren without the audience.

Ashur produces a handful of gold coins and passes them to Veta, who takes them, wide-eyed. “In the morning, go buy enough food and medical supplies for the captives and bring them back here.”

“But how do you know I won’t just leave?” Veta asks, staring down at the gold. “I could book a passage to… anywhere, with this.”

“You could,” Ashur agrees easily. Exactly the same way he agreed, years ago, when Tarquin pointed out he had no way of knowing that Tarquin wasn’t going to just turn over the location of the Shop to the Knight-Captain. “But I don’t think you will.”

Veta nods, short and sharp, and tucks the coins into a pocket at her belt.

 “Good. We’ll meet back here tomorrow at midnight. Send word to Sophie if anything comes up before then.”

Ashur rises to leave, his makeshift seat creaking ominously as his weight shifts. Tarquin turns as well, already lifting a hand to push back the curtain over the door—

“Wait,” Simon blurts. He shrinks back a little as everyone turns to look at him, chewing his lip and looking impossibly young. “What’s the Viper like?”

The laugh bursts out of Tarquin before he can smother it.

“Big fan of dramatic entrances,” he says, just to see Ashur’s lips twitch up in a smile. He thinks about lying, saying something easy: He’s an impossible hero who never makes any mistakes and definitely isn’t a fucking idiot about his own safety. He once took out fifty Venatori single-handedly and only shits gold.

But that’s not what the Viper is like, not really. It’s not what Ashur is like.

“He’s—good,” Tarquin says slowly. “He really believes things can be different—better—even when it seems impossible. And he has a way of making everyone around him believe it, too.”

Simon mouths the word wow, looking awed, but Veta just looks considering.

“And he doesn’t have a problem with the two of you… being together?” she asks, voice trailing off uncertainly. Sophie grabs her hand and holds it tight, expression fierce and determined, daring the Viper to show his face and object.

Maker, Tarquin is so proud of her.

“He introduced us,” Ashur says.

Tarquin blinks at him.

Six months after a grown man dressed as a snake dropped down from the rooftops on Tarquin’s walk home and asked him if he wanted to help stop a slave shipment (actually what he asked first was if Tarquin wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself; Tarquin told him to fuck off), the Viper had shyly caught Tarquin’s arm after a mission and said quietly, “You can call me Ashur.”

Ashur’s version is a better story. The idea that someone saw the two of them and thought they needed to be put into each other’s lives, that there was something more there—something more to the way they fight together as seamlessly as if they’re reading each other’s minds, or the way Ashur insists on walking him home on nights when they stay too late at the Shop, or how sometimes when Tarquin looks up he finds Ashur already looking back—

Tarquin bites the inside of his cheek, hard, until pain blooms bright and clarifying. Ashur is sticking to their cover story—to the mission—and Tarquin is projecting—again—because he’s an idiot.

But Veta nods, eyes going wide and a small smile creeping across her face.

Maybe a small lie was worth it.

***

They walk home alone. Sophie stays behind to spend more time with Veta, swearing up and down that she’ll be back before morning (Tarquin informs her he won’t cover for her if she’s not; Sophie snaps back that he won’t have to. They both know he would).

Ventus after dark is nothing like Minrathous. The capital never sleeps—there are always people in the streets and the streets are always lit with blazing magelights or smoky torches in the worse parts of town. Here there is nothing but the weak light of the moons and the occasional candle in a window. The streets around them are empty and silent.

They could be the last two people on earth.

“I thought you would be angry,” Ashur comments eventually.

“I was,” Tarquin admits. He kicks a broken piece of cobble and watches it spin off, disappearing almost immediately into the darkness.

They seem like good kids. But kids are reckless. Kids talk. And as for Sophie—

He wants to trust Sophie; she’s his niece, for all that he’s been a pretty shit uncle so far. But shared blood doesn’t make someone trustworthy. Ashur knows that more than most—lives it with every polite social call or dinner he attends, sharing expensive wine and barbed comments with family members who would happily bury a knife in his chest if it meant advancing their own careers. But—

“They wouldn’t have listened to us if you hadn’t told them.” Ventus is a long way from Minrathous. Even if the slavers here follow them back, if they connect Tarquin to the Shadow Dragons—he won’t be talking. And any attempts to track down a non-existent Spire clerk named Ashur will only lead them to dead ends. The Shadow Dragons will be safe. He has to believe that. “It was the right call.”

“Thank you,” Ashur says simply. “I don’t like to put them in danger, but…”

“Yeah,” Tarquin agrees. There was never any chance of the kids not getting involved; it was only a matter of whether Tarquin and Ashur caught them before the slavers did. At least this way they can keep an eye on them, stop things from going too tits up.

Hopefully, anyway. Tarquin has never been much of an optimist.

They turn a corner, the cobbles becoming uneven and broken in places beneath their feet as they reach the outskirts where Tarquin’s family lives. Ventus is rebuilding, slowly, from eight years of Antaam occupation, but it will be years yet until these smaller residential roads become a priority again.

Tarquin skirts a darker patch of shadow where some enterprising citizen has pried out an entire swath of cobbles for use in their own unsanctioned rebuilding efforts. Ashur does not.

Tarquin’s moving before he even registers it, darting backward just in time to catch Ashur as he stumbles and pitches forward in the dark. 

Ashur’s not a small man—the Vesperians bred for aesthetics as much as they did magic and several centuries of practice meant they have gotten very, very good—and Tarquin staggers a little under his sudden weight. His body is warm against Tarquin’s.

“Thank you,” Ashur huffs. His face is barely more than a smudge of slightly lighter shadow in the darkness, details blurred even further by the fact that he’s so close.

Tarquin opens his mouth to make a smart remark— something about the famed gracefulness of the Viper or rigorous altus training not covering the basics of walking—but what comes out instead is, “Always.”

“Quin,” Ashur breathes.

It’s strange, seeing his face like this—out in the open where anyone could see, without the Viper’s ever-present mask. It’s not something that could ever happen in Minrathous, where Ashur’s brief moments of freedom occur only in the late hours of the night when everyone else has left the Shop or on the rare occasions when he can stop by Tarquin’s miserable little flat for a drink or an impromptu strategy session.

 It’s—nice, to see him without one of his many masks for once.

Except he’s not really free of his masks even here, is he? Because Tarquin has forced him into another mask just by bringing him here, making him pretend to be yet another thing he’s not just so Tarquin won’t have to face his family alone. Bitter nausea swells in his throat and he swallows it down, pulling away.

“Quin?” Ashur says again. Too damned perceptive, as always, even when Tarquin can barely see his own hand in front of his face.

 “Let’s get back.”

Something flickers across Ashur’s expression, but it’s too dark to read. Tarquin turns away and keeps walking.

He lies awake that night for a long time.

***

In the morning, Tarquin’s mother shoos them out of the kitchen in a fluster, already knee-deep in preparations for dinner. It’s the eve of the solstice, which is apparently almost as big a deal as the solstice itself, and Tansy isn’t willing to let anyone else into her kitchen, no matter how well-meaning.

Tarquin sits in the front garden, nursing a cup of coffee and hoping the chill in the air will help burn away the familiar fog of exhaustion. It’s not working.

The door creaks open. He’s expecting Ashur, but the body that settles next to his on the stone bench is Lena’s.

“Happy solstice eve,” she says, saluting him with her own coffee cup.

“What do you want?” It may have been twenty years, but Tarquin can still sense his sister’s bullshit. She’s up to something.

“To wish my darling brother a happy holiday, of course,” she lies. She takes a sip of her coffee. “This morning, Sophie informed me she’s going to move to Minrathous as soon as she comes of age.”

“Why?” He knows why. But he can’t exactly explain that to his sister.

“It’s those damn manifestos,” she sighs. Tarquin fights a flinch; Ashur writes a good chunk of what the Shadow Dragons put out, but he’s a busy guy and his careful phrasing doesn’t always resonate with the masses. Tarquin writes the rest—the angrier ones—himself. “She wants to go and become some kind of fucking revolutionary.”

“Ah,” Tarquin says.

“I know she’s been nothing but a little shit to you since you got here, but… you’ll look after her, won’t you?”

“Of course. Lena, you don’t even have to ask.”

There will be problems down the road. The first time Sophie gets a good look at the Divine or any of the eight million portraits of him that the Chantry felt necessary to put up around the city. The first time she hears the Viper speak. Hells, even the first time she makes an off-hand comment about Ashur and Tarquin being together in front of anyone who isn’t Mae.

But Tarquin looks at his sister, staring blankly down at her coffee cup with her face creased in worry, and knows he could never say no.

***

Solstice is a time for family, warmth, and gift-giving.

It is also, inexplicably, traditionally a time for gambling.

Everyone (except Sophie, who has once again disappeared) gathers in the sitting room after dinner that evening, drinks in hand and pockets heavy with whatever collection of small trinkets they could scrounge up to wager. There’s a fire burning cheerily in the hearth and even the knowledge of their mission later tonight and the copper gaze of his mother’s decorative Divine aren’t able to dampen the feeling of contentedness that’s taken up residence in Tarquin’s chest.

He’s just settled into his seat—next to Ashur but not quite touching—when his mother makes a noise of despair.

“Oh, I forgot to bring the cookies! Would you boys grab them from the kitchen for me?”

Ashur agrees at once because he is a suck-up. Tarquin grumbles a bit but follows because he’s not a complete asshole. The two of them return laden down with two trays of more cookies than any four adults could possibly eat, only to be stopped in the doorway by his mother.

“Look,” she says delightedly. “You’re under the mistletoe!”

Tarquin looks up, his stomach sinking, though he already knows what he’s going to find. The bundle of dark green leaves hangs innocently above them.

“You have to kiss,” his mother continues.

“No, we don’t.”

“It’s tradition!”

“In Ferelden.” Dorian’s the only person Tarquin knows who’s ever set foot anywhere near Ferelden in the past decade, and he’s never mentioned anything about kissing because indoor shrubbery demands it. And he would have introduced the tradition to Tevinter himself if he’d been given half the chance.

“It’s fine,” Ashur murmurs, quiet enough that only Tarquin can hear it. When did he get so close?

Tarquin jerks back, desire and self-preservation warring in his chest, but they’re still in the doorway. His back hits the doorjamb and he stops short.

Ashur’s still so close and he’s looking at Tarquin. Studying him like he’s one of Ashur’s obscure history texts. His stupidly blue eyes flick over Tarquin’s face before dropping finally down to his lips—

Then he leans in and presses his own lips against Tarquin’s.

It’s barely a kiss. Ashur’s lips press against Tarquin’s, closemouthed and unbearably gentle, and then he’s pulling away again. It’s over in a heartbeat.

Tarquin has had better kisses before. Objectively. Technically. But he’s never had one that made his heart trip over itself in his chest like it doesn’t know whether to beat triple time or stop working entirely. He’s never had one that made his face grow so hot he feels like he would burn anyone who tried to touch him.

He’s never had one with Ashur.

He opens his eyes—when did he close them?—and finds Ashur still there, still looking, the barest hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Tarquin wants, wildly, to press his thumb there, to feel the shape of Ashur’s smile—

“See?” Tarquin’s mother says into the silence. “It’s a lovely tradition.”

He doesn’t hear Lena’s response over the sudden ringing in his ears.

He did this. He pushed Ashur into this situation—took advantage of their friendship, took advantage of Ashur’s fundamental need to help—and now they’re here and Ashur had no choice—

He forced Ashur into this kiss because he’s too much of fucking coward to face his family and too fucking selfish let go of his delusional fantasies about a world where Ashur would actually want this. If he ever needed more proof that he doesn’t deserve Ashur, here it bloody well is.

“Quin?” Ashur’s hand hovers awkwardly between them like he wants to reach for Tarquin—and isn’t that a joke, him comforting Tarquin, when this is all Tarquin’s fault.

“All good,” he lies, twisting out of Ashur’s reach and going to join his father on the couch.

The next few hours pass impossibly slowly and in a blur all at once. Tarquin plays his cards in a daze. He doesn’t do well, though he was expecting that for other reasons—Ashur, along with being a perfect specimen of magical ability, is also a fucking demon at Wicked Grace.

So Tarquin loses, repeatedly, until the yawns around the table start coming more frequently and he and Ashur are finally able to retreat to their shared room.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurts the instant the door closes.

Ashur freezes in the middle of laying his winnings (a handful of copper coins, six buttons, a brass buckle, and one rock) down on the chest at the end of the bed. “For what?”

“Out there. Earlier.” Tarquin waves a hand vaguely toward the door. Ashur’s expression remains blank. Tarquin sucks in a deep breath and says, “The mistletoe.”

Ashur tilts his head, frowning now. “There’s nothing you need to apologize for.”

“There is,” Tarquin insists, stepping toward Ashur before he can think better of getting too close. “I know you didn’t want this. Any of it. Fuck, I should never have asked you to be here in the first place.”

“I volunteered,” Ashur points out, which is not the point. Ashur would happily volunteer to cut himself open if he thought he was doing the right thing. Tarquin opens his mouth to object, but Ashur steps forward and grabs his hand. “And… I didn’t mind. Under the mistletoe.”

Tarquin stares at him. Ashur holds his gaze steadily, his fingers burning like a brand around Tarquin’s hand.

“Come on,” Sophie demands, materializing in the window. Tarquin springs away from Ashur like he’s been burned, feeling caught. Which is ridiculous, because there was nothing to catch. Ashur doesn’t suddenly want to kiss him just because he didn’t mind having to do it once under pressure.

Still. He doesn’t know whether he wants to strangle Sophie or thank her.

He pulls his hand out of Ashur’s grasp and turns away to grab his gear.

It’s a cloudless night. The garden is a tangle of deep blue shadows cast by the twin moons. A good night for skulking around rooftops.

Sophie is a darker patch against the greenery, shifting her weight impatiently as she waits for them to exit the window. There’s a scarf pulled up around her face and a woolen hat jammed over her curls.

“Here,” Tarquin says, catching her elbow before she can rush ahead. “Early solstice gift.”

The dagger is small—meant to be tucked in a boot or up a sleeve—but Tarquin’s kept it wickedly sharp. He’s not going to waste his breath telling her not to put herself in danger—he’s spent long enough with Ashur to know it would never work—so she may as well be able to stab anyone who gets in her way.

Sophie takes the blade, sliding it partway free to study the edge in the moonlight. The leather of the sheath is worn shiny with age and use, but it’s a solid weapon. Tarquin has trusted his life to it on more than one occasion.

“Thank you.” It’s the most genuine Tarquin has ever heard her sound. She looks up and, for an instant, Tarquin thinks she might hug him.

“Pointy end goes in the bad guy,” he tells her. She rolls her eyes at him, the moment broken, and walks out of the garden.

It all starts off suspiciously well.

The other kids are waiting at Veta’s building, both dressed in dark clothes and looking determined. The kitchen knives are back, too, but at least this time they won’t be pointed at Tarquin or Ashur.

The same two guards sit outside the warehouse, passing a bottle of something they definitely shouldn’t be drinking on the clock back and forth. The docks are just as busy as the night before, but the warehouse is isolated—just far enough away from the main bustle that no one is likely to hear and come investigating when things turn violent.

And they will. There won’t be any slavers walking away from this.

“Stay here,” Tarquin orders the kids. “Keep an eye on the street while we take care of the guards.”

By some kind of solstice miracle not even Sophie objects. They leave the kids in the shadow of an old sailmaker’s and make their way across the rooftops—Ashur’s insistence—over to the warehouse.

Ashur drops from the roof like an avenging spirit, daggers of ice already shooting from his hand. The shards take one of the guards through the throat just as Tarquin drops down behind the other, sliding his dagger up and into the man’s solar plexus. Both men drop without a sound.

Easy. Painless, except for the displeased twinge in Tarquin’s knees after that landing.

The guards’ bodies go into the water with a quiet splash. The coins from their purses go into Ashur’s pockets to be handed out to the rescued captives later. The keys from one of their belts go with Tarquin.

They collect the kids—Sophie stays outside, acting as lookout still, but Veta and Simon follow them inside as Tarquin pushes open the main doors. Ashur summons another magelight, sending it high into the air above them.

The main floor of the warehouse is one large, open room, piles of rotting wood and ancient fishing equipment heaped along the walls. Two massive iron cages, twice a man’s height, take up the center of the warehouse floor. They are both full of people.

It stinks of misery and too many people in too small a space.

“Anyone injured?” Ashur calls as the captives blink and begin to murmur in the sudden light.

“Here,” an elderly man calls, gesturing not at himself but at a younger man who grits his teeth as he cradles a clearly broken arm against his chest. Veta rushes over, already pulling bandages and elfroot from the pack on her back.

Simon runs over too, dropping to his knees beside Veta, shoving his hands through the bars to reach the injured man. His brother was here, Tarquin remembers. They have the same freckles.

Tarquin’s just gotten the second cage unlocked when two whistles sound from the rooftop, short and sharp.

Sophie’s signal.

There’s just enough time for Tarquin to press himself back against the wall beside the main door and for Ashur to throw a shining barrier spell over the cages before the entry fills with slavers. Six of them, with Caren in the center, a ball of fire wreathing her hand.

Of course she’s a fucking mage.

“Well,” she says, in the sickly sweet voice from the market. “I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

She’s speaking to Ashur—hasn’t noticed Tarquin yet, pushed back into the shadows as he is. And, if he plays his cards right, she won’t—not until it’s too late.

The fire around her hand flares. “Leave now and I’ll let you live.”

“Of course,” Ashur agrees smoothly. “But I’m taking these people with me.”

Caren laughs. One or two of her henchmen shift, sensing blood in the water. “That’s a shame. But have it your way—there are always buyers that will pay extra for a slave with magic. And such a handsome one, too.”

Oh, Tarquin is going to enjoy killing her.

They’re outnumbered, but there’s no universe in which he wouldn’t bet on Ashur when it comes down to a battle of magic. The rest of Caren’s slaver friends seem to be ungifted—they carry blades like they know what to do with them, but they’re standing like they’re not planning to have to use them tonight. Expecting Caren to take care of it, no doubt.

No, the biggest problem will be getting them out of the doorway to clear a path for the kids and the captives.

Ashur raises a hand and blasts the far wall of the warehouse with a wave of crackling force. Wood and metal shriek as they’re torn apart. The building shudders precariously, but there’s a gaping hole now where the wall used to be, opening up onto the docks outside.

Okay. Or that.

“Get everyone out of here, Veta,” Ashur orders. Behind the barrier, Veta nods and starts ushering people toward the smoldering hole in the wall.

“That was a mistake,” Caren snarls.

Tarquin moves at the same moment Caren launches her ball of fire toward Ashur, dragging his blade across the throat of the nearest slaver. The man gurgles, dropping his sword to clutch at the blood now fountaining out of his neck.

Tarquin catches the sword, whirls, and is on the next slaver before they can react.

Something explodes behind him, flames beginning to lick up the inside of the building. Caren shouts in rage, but Tarquin keeps his eyes forward. Ashur can handle himself.

There are rhythms to a fight, like currents in water. A give and take that you can learn to see if you’re skilled enough, practiced enough. Tarquin spent fifteen years fighting for his life on the sands of Seheron; he sinks into the rhythm of violence as easily as breathing.

Duck. Parry a wild swing from the woman on the far left. Step inside the nearest man’s guard. Slide his stolen sword into the man’s stomach. Next.

He loses himself to the fight. A slaver catches him across the arm, a bright line of pain along his bicep, and goes down under Tarquin’s blade a moment later.

One slaver left standing. Tarquin turns, weapon at the ready, and—

The man crumples as a bolt of lightning takes him directly in the chest.

“I had him,” Tarquin protests.

The barest smile crosses Ashur’s face. “I know.”

The fire is catching in earnest now, embers raining from the roof. Caren lies dead in front of the cages, corpse still smoking slightly in the flickering light. Together, Ashur and Tarquin drag the corpses of her compatriots out of the doorway, further into the warehouse. Let Caren’s fire take care of her and her pack of shitheads.

The fresh air outside is a relief to Tarquin’s stinging eyes. He wipes his non-bleeding arm across his face and freezes as a shape emerges from the shadows across from the warehouse.

“What are you still doing here?” Tarquin demands. The danger is past, all the slavers dead on the floor of the rapidly burning warehouse, but his heart still lurches in his chest at the sight.

“I had to make sure,” Sophie says. Her knife is out, clutched down by her side. Her grip is atrocious—if she does move to the city, Tarquin’s going to have to teach her how to actually use the thing, whether she wants to learn or not. Though he suspects that she does.

“We’re fine,” Tarquin tells her and sees her white-knuckled fingers relax. “The others?”

“They all made it out. They should be back at Veta’s by now.”

“Good work,” Ashur tells her. She ducks her head, clearly pleased despite the scarf still covering her face.

The flames are beginning to attract notice. Faint yelling picks up further down the docks. They need to move.

They slip away just as the first dockworkers arrive at the scene. Tarquin’s arm throbs as they make their way up and across the rooftops, fresh blood oozing out of the wound, but he’ll live.

As Sophie predicted, they’re the last to arrive at the tenement. Someone’s covered the windows with boards and cloth so no light shines through, but inside, the rooms glow with candles in a way that’s surprisingly homey if you can ignore the streaks of ash down every wall and the general smell.

Veta and Simon bustle between units, handing out food and a ragged collection of blankets. Simon’s brother sits in the first unit they visit, arm now securely wrapped in a sling against his chest, looking a little poleaxed. It’s an expression on more than one of the rescued prisoners’ faces.

They don’t stay. It won’t do for too many people to get a good look at Ashur’s face, even this far away from Minrathous. Veta accepts the coins from the dead guards’ purses—secretly supplemented with gold from Ashur’s own pockets—with tears in her eyes, promising to distribute it fairly among her new building-mates. Tarquin has no doubt she will.

He hopes, as he and Ashur bid her farewell, that she’ll come to the capital with Sophie. The Shadow Dragons can always use someone like her.

Streaks of purple dawn are just beginning to break over the horizon when they arrive home. Just in time—Tarquin’s father wakes with the sun, a habit never lost from his years as a soldier. Which means the rest of the household will be up soon as well.

They sneak back inside with an ease that is actually a little worrying when Tarquin thinks about it too long.

“Let me see your arm,” Ashur says the moment the window closes behind them.

Tarquin thinks about arguing. Now that the adrenaline of the fight has worn off, he’s starting to remember exactly how much he doesn’t deserve Ashur’s friendship. How much he doesn’t deserve Ashur’s hands on his skin.

But it also would be more than a little suspicious to show up on solstice morning with an actively bleeding flesh wound.

With a sigh, he holds his arm out.

Ashur’s healing magic always makes Tarquin think of Dorian’s fancy wines. The feeling bubbles, effervescing through torn flesh and blood vessels, tingling across newly mended nerves. Tarquin shivers and it’s only partly from the feeling of Ashur’s fingers on the bare skin of his arm.

“I have something for you,” Ashur says quietly. He’s still holding Tarquin’s arm and he doesn’t let go when Tarquin tries to jerk back. Bastard.

“We should change. We’ll be expected for solstice shit soon.”

“We have a moment,” Ashur argues. He smiles, a little crooked. “And in any case, this is ‘solstice shit.’”

He does release Tarquin’s arm then—a loss of sensation that Tarquin absolutely does not miss immediately—turning to his bags and emerging with a slim package neatly wrapped in green paper.

“Ash—”

“Just open it.”

He tears off a corner of the paper. The illustrated face of his childhood hero stares back at him. Incendianus Julius and the Pillars of Peril—the copy from the market. The one Ashur must have gone back for when Tarquin was distracted.

“You got this for me?”

Ashur’s expression softens with something Tarquin doesn’t know how to name. “You said it was your favorite.”

He did. But it was an idle comment, not meant for anything deeper. He wasn’t expecting—

Well, he wasn’t expecting Ashur to be Ashur about it.

“Here,” Tarquin says, not knowing what else to do, fishing the viper pendant out of his pocket. The festive red paper the stall owner wrapped it in is distinctly worse for wear after the last few days, but Tarquin couldn’t stand the thought of Ashur accidentally finding it if he’d left it in their room. He can barely stand the thought of giving it to Ashur now. “It’s stupid, I know, but—”

Stupid and presumptuous. Ashur’s family has more money than the Maker himself; he doesn’t need some silly trinket from a backwater solstice market. And he definitely doesn’t need it from Tarquin, who is probably overstepping every normal boundary between friends right now. Again.

But Ashur handles the bundle like it’s something precious, fingers gently coaxing each layer of paper open until the little snake lies revealed in his palm.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Quin. I love it.”

It’s nothing. It should be nothing. But Tarquin feels his face flush, equally pleased and grateful that the room is still too dim for Ashur to be able to tell.

“Quin,” Ashur says again. “Yesterday. After the mistletoe—”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Tarquin cuts in.

Ashur’s head tilts, studying him. “I think we do.”

Fine. That’s fine. It’s not like he didn’t know this was coming. It was only a matter of time until Ashur came to his senses about this whole charade and tried to re-establish some fucking boundaries.

“I’m sorry,” Ashur says. “I shouldn’t have kissed you then.”

Yeah, he knows. But it’s a special kind of pain to hear Ashur say it out loud.

Ashur sighs, looking uncertain for the first time. He rubs his thumb over the little viper pendant and Tarquin tells himself he doesn’t wish that thumb was skimming over his own knuckles. “The truth is, I’ve wanted to do that for… a long time, now. But it was wrong of me to do it without letting you know that first because I know you don’t feel the same. I took advantage.”

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?”

Ashur looks pained. “I apologize. I’ve tried not to let my feelings impact our friendship—”

“You can’t have feelings for me!” Ashur’s face goes carefully blank, the same expressionless mask that appears when he talks about his family and Tarquin realizes he is fucking this up enormously. “You can’t have feelings for me because you’re you.”

“I am… aware.”

“No,” Tarquin says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “That’s not—I mean, you could have anyone you wanted. Anyone.”

“As Divine—”

“Not the Divine,” Tarquin snaps. “Not the Viper, either. You. Just your own stupid, brave, self-sacrificing ass. You’re too good for a washed-up templar who’s too much of a coward to face his own family alone.”

“I don’t think I am. And it doesn’t change the way I feel.”

“Ashur—”

Ashur has always been the reckless one. Willing to make a leap of faith.

He leans in and kisses Tarquin.

It is, somehow, better than the kiss under the mistletoe. The lack of Tarquin’s immediate family is a contributing factor. But better still is the way Ashur’s mouth parts softly under Tarquin’s, the way the hand not gripping the little viper comes up to clutch at Tarquin’s shirt without Ashur’s seeming to be aware of it.

The way it feels like coming home again.

Outside, they can hear the soft, domestic sounds of the house waking. They’ll have to make an appearance soon—exchange gifts under the tree, eat themselves sick with Tansy’s solstice breakfast, and pretend to be more awake than they are. But not yet. For now they have another few moments to themselves.

“Happy solstice, Quin,” Ashur murmurs against his lips.

“Happy solstice, Ash.”

And it is.