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Instead of a map of Ferelden or Orlais, Caroline stood at her war table looking at a map of the Winter Palace. It wasn’t complete, but it gave her an idea of what to expect before her people descended upon the Orlesian aristocracy with the grace and style of a cranky broodmother. Josephine tried not to go into fits about the Inquisitor’s selection of accompaniment--a Qunari mercenary, a Tevinter Altus, and a fast-talking dwarf--but she did make a valiant argument that her selection could be more practical. And if she hadn’t spent the last week harassing Caroline with pages and squires and a thousand errands, she might have been inclined to let diplomat sway her.
Caroline stood across the table smiling menacingly up at the puff-sleeved woman while she tried to convince her to swap any one of them for Vivienne.
“That was very lovely, Josie. Very compelling. And the answer is still no. Hard pass. Next question?” she declared once the impassioned speech died down. She swept her gaze along the table, lingering on Leliana and avoiding Cullen entirely. “We good here, then? We can’t prep for every scenario and we all know I’m going to end up winging it once I get in there, anyway.”
Josephine’s lips tugged downward a fraction. “The Orlesian courts are a complicated dance where death hides behind smiles and your friends and enemies are not so easily distinguished from one another. You need--”
“A cup of tea,” she interrupted in a groan, having heard the warning a thousand and one times already. “So we go in, I trust no one except for the people I brought with me, and I stop some assassins and save the day. And if I fail, I owe Dorian a custom tailored set of armor, and you know full well I have no plans on paying up. I’ve got serious stakes riding on this. I’m not going to cock it up. I love Dagna to pieces, but I’m not spending my free time in the Underforge designing Captain Fancypants a magicked up fashion disaster by any other reason other than the goodness of my own heart.”
Especially because she planned on designing him a wicked set of robes complimentary to Iron Bull’s armor for his birthday and losing that bet would put all of her plans askew.
Josephine scowled down at her ledger. “You have the final fitting with the tailor this evening for your ceremonial outfit.” That seemed to conclude her business.
“Leliana? Anything lurking in the shadows I should know about?”
The mark on her palm flared then, but Caroline closed her fist around it and smothered it back. She could not deal with its nuisance today. It tingled for an extra second before settling back into dormancy.
Her spymaster waited a beat before saying, “Fewer whispers than I would like surround the party. I feel like, knowing what we know, I should have been able to uncover more.”
“If anyone was going to scratch out anything, it would be you. I guess we’re winging it,” she declared cheerfully.
For a brief moment, she slid her gaze to Cullen while he patiently waited his turn, but her heart skipped a beat and she knew that if they spoke she would go into hysterics and either confess her passion for him or have a heart attack. She found it better if she didn’t try, especially without a wingman to keep her foot from finding its way too deeply into her mouth, or worse, accidentally giving up the bet.
Coughing uncomfortably, she looked quickly away. “Let’s call it a day then, team. Good talk. Couldn’t do it without you all.” She turned to flee, striding for the heavy door leading to the corridor.
Cullen shouted after her, “Inquisitor, if I could--”
She didn’t give him the chance to finish. As soon as the door swung shut between them, she bolted. Cullen had too much pride to run, so she knew she got a good head start. She hurtled into the main hall at a skid, rounding the corner and smashing face-first into an innocent, errand-running page just on the other side of the door.
They both went down with a clatter and yelps of surprise, papers scattering from the girl’s satchel across the flagstones. A few visiting dignitaries turned to stare at the spectacle, although nobody jumped in to help. Caroline untangled herself from the page as a sweat broke out over her body, her lead effectively erased.
“I-Inquisitor! I didn’t see you! I’m so sorry!” the page began in a wail.
Frantic, convinced she could hear the Commander’s echoing footsteps, she grabbed the page around the shoulders, smashing a hand over the poor girl’s mouth, and dragged her under the nearest longtable set with candles and wine. The girl let out an undignified “eep!” but didn’t dare try to wriggle free from the Herald of Andraste.
“Your Worship, what are we--?”
“Shh!” She gazed around suspiciously, holding the girl’s mouth again. “We’re hiding. Obviously. He’s coming.”
“From who? Who’s coming?” she asked, voice muffled.
“If I keep answering questions, it won’t make for a good hiding place, will it?”
She asked something else, unintelligible.
Caroline raised her hand. “What?”
“Why do I have to hide with you?”
Before she could explain that she had no plan and was making things up on the fly, the door leading to Josephine’s office and the war room opened with a small creak. For a moment, she found herself distracted by the creak. Josephine kept a tight running ship and a squeaky door would annoy her puffy sleeves to death.
“Sara must have done something…”
“What?” the page she had captive whispered.
“Shh!”
She watched in terror as Cullen strode quickly past, pausing in the center of the hall, and then move on. She sighed as he disappeared from sight, slumping back and loosening her grip on the girl next to her.
“Um...Inquisitor?”
“Huh?”
“Why are we hiding from Commander Cullen?”
“I wasn’t hiding from him! I’m not hiding from anyone.”
Her brow furrowed, one eyebrow lifting an inch. “We’re...we’re under a table. You told me we were hiding.”
“Did I? That’s weird.” She scooted out cautiously, prepared to dive back down in case Cullen made a surprise reappearance. “Well, good work not getting us caught.”
“I thought we weren’t hiding,” she snorted.
Caroline twisted around, still unconvinced she had gotten away. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Rosee.”
“Rosee. Right. I like you.” Swooping down, she helped pick up the scattered papers the girl had lost in the fall. “Be good, and tell Josephine that if she needs me, I’ll be working on my speech to address the Orlesian courts about how asinine their fashion is. And don’t forget to report back to exact expression she makes. Okay, off you go.”
Shaking her head, Rosee hugged her satchel to her and continued on her way. Caroline, meanwhile, stood exposed out in the open. If Cullen doubled back, she had nowhere to go. Prancing across the hall, she entered the rotunda. Solas must have been off doing whatever mysterious errands he ran when left to his own devices, although she noted that he made good progress with his murals. She would have to drop in on him soon and chat with him about it. It had been too long since they sat down and banged on about art and philosophy.
Taking the steps two at a time, she made her way up the cold tower to the meager library and, rather predictably, found Dorian with his nose stuck in one of the tomes. A shipment from Tevinter had finally arrived, giving him adequate enough diversion that Iron Bull had been huffing about grumpily over the last few days, feeling neglected.
“If you’ve come up here to complain about your bet, may I stop you before you begin? I have wine and a very comfortable shoulder, but I’ve heard it all too many times this week and I’m busy,” her friend said without raising his eyes from his book.
“Iron Bull is getting jealous that you’ve cloistered yourself up here with these,” she said, picking up one from his stack and flipping through it. They were all written in Tevene and entirely outside her purview, although she had been learning a bit of the language from Dorian. “I can’t say I blame him. I’d be miffed myself if my lover preferred studying literature over anatomy.”
He stood and swiped the book from her hands, placing it neatly back where she took it from. “We all must make sacrifices.” He looked aside dismissively. “Although you can’t fault me for making the big lug all needy and desperate. When I finish with my research here, he will be just primed.”
Caroline didn’t need an elaboration on what Dorian thought he would be “primed” for. Giggling, she flopped down into one of the armchairs the mage had commissioned be brought up for the sake of his comfort while digging into the depths of the Inquisition library, kicking her feet up on the low table that contained most of his books.
“How did your meeting go?” he asked, nudging her feet off of the table.
She let them hit the ground heavily. “As expected.”
“Still avoiding Captain Tightpants?”
She cocked him a salute. “Got a bet to win, haven’t I?”
“By avoiding him?” He tsked disapprovingly. “Carrie, I love you dearly, but you’re an utter lunatic and it’s painful to watch. Lose the bet. You can’t avoid him forever.”
She slapped a hand to her heart. “Don’t you remember what’s at stake? Hank, Dorian. My staff. My favorite staff. I won’t do it. I won’t sacrifice him.” No to mention, if she won, Varric had to ask Cassandra out to a nice dinner and she could contrive no better way for those two idiots to get over their pride and admit they would want such a thing.
Waving her off dismissively, Dorian turned away and perused the bookshelf in front of him, although he seemed disinterest in the titles there. “He can’t very well make a move if you don’t let him talk to you.”
“Yes, but when he talks to me, I lose my mind. I’m going to tell him exactly what I want and how I want it. Then Varric will win and I can’t let Varric win. It’s just not…” She trailed off mid-sentence, ears cocking. Footsteps sounded against the rough stone steps leading up the rotunda. She recognized the gait anywhere. “I have to go.”
“Coward!” he shouted after her as she ran for the nearest door that led to the battlements.
She skittered out onto the walkway and down the steps into the courtyard. She kept her head down and moved along quickly. At first she veered toward the Herald’s Rest out of habit, but realized that it made for the obvious choice for a hideout. If Cullen was truly tracking her down, he would either have it staked out or check there on each of his sweeps. There were many things she could credit her Commander with, but tactical idiocy was not one of them. She’d played chess with him enough times to know he wasn’t easily outmaneuvered.
Which was when she decided to hide in his office. It would be the last place he looked.
“I spend entirely too much of my day evading my advisors,” she mused as she climbed the stone hatchback to reach his sanctum. Maker forbid the day she felt compelled to make herself inaccessible to Leliana.
Hands shoved in her pockets, she moseyed along at a good clip, Cullen’s office door in eyesight when it popped open and the blonde head of the Commander himself ducked out into the dewy sunshine.
Caroline froze. It hadn’t been him walking up the rotunda, unless he had a displacement spell to magick him back to his office on a snap. She whipped around in an about-face and launched the other direction. His shout rose after her. She picked up her pace, but height had never been one of her virtues. Even at her quickest stride, the Commander caught up without much trouble. His hand closed around her arm above the elbow and all but yanked her to a stop. She turned, desperate to play it cool, and plastered on what she hoped was a convincing smile.
“Ah. Commander. I didn’t hear you.”
“I shouted your name…” He trailed off, jaw locking for a moment as his gaze slide sideways toward the view of the mountains. He coughed and released her, his hand raising automatically to the back of his neck. “Can we talk?”
“Well, I was just off to--”
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” he interrupted, eyes landing anywhere but her.
Panic seized her. He’d noticed. “I...what? No! Of course I haven’t--”
“Look, Inquisitor, I don’t know what I did to offend you, or if I made you angry.”
“No, of course you--”
“Please.” He cut her off mid-sentence and finally edged his gaze toward her. “Let me get this out.”
Caroline could have gladly died. Clamping her teeth together, she ducked her head and stared fixedly at his shoulder, not his face, unable to endure the wounded look in his eyes.
Again, he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I know I have offended you, and for that I’m deeply sorry. These last weeks have made me realize how much I took your friendship for granted. I didn’t notice how much I enjoyed your teasing and your levity and your humor until I was forced to taste its absence. I want to mend this rift, Inquisitor. Caroline. Please, tell me how I can make it up to you.”
She watched, jaw slack, as he delivered his apology, the sick feeling her stomach growing until she thought she might vomit on his shoes. She’d been torturing him. Thoughtlessly. His eyes only grew sadder the longer she looked at him. Unable to take the sight of him so unbearably humbled, she turned away and paced to the wall overlooking the mountains, setting her hands against the cold stone and leaning in. “I...am such an arsehole.”
Cullen leaned in next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing out at the snow-capped peaks. “I tried asking Dorian about it, but he couldn’t stop laughing long enough for me to get much of an answer out of him. I didn’t dare bring it to any of the others.”
“Dorian knew? He knew you felt this way?” She thought of several, unique ways of murdering him for withholding such knowledge.
He exhaled, still staring outward, as if the view might help him. “I don’t care how much time it takes. I’m willing to work on it. I want to, at the very least, be on good terms with you.”
She had to set things right. She could still win the bet, but she could also ease Cullen’s guilt over something he hadn’t actually done. “You did nothing wrong. I’m certainly not angry with you. It would kill me to ever lose your friendship, Cullen. I’m the one that should be apologizing.”
There. Not so hard, was it? She could state her feelings without putting the bet in jeopardy. She couldn’t wait to brag to Varric later about how maturely she handled this.
Beside her, he fidgeted. “I did nothing wrong,” he repeated with a long sigh. “Rather, I did nothing, isn’t it?” Before she could scurry around the topic, he said in a low voice. “I never know how serious you are about anything. It seemed impossible…”
Her heart stuttered a few times as she glanced up at him. He had a look of grim determination locked in. Caroline couldn’t take it. She could see that he got it, but she also saw the lingering doubt there, the reluctance to put himself forward, lest he get stung. Her Commander, for all of his stony strength, struggled to believe in the faith others put in him.
“Maker toss it,” she swore.
No bet was ever worth letting that dumb man walk away without making a move. She grabbed him around the edge of his armor, closed her eyes, and prayed to Andraste she didn’t scare him off. Much to her profound surprise, her lips found his soft and yielding. He gripped her curls at the nape of her neck. For a moment, the world ground to a halt. Corypheus, Varric’s bet, the upcoming Orlesian assassination plot, all of it faded away, leaving Caroline warm and hazy and deeply aroused.
When he pulled away, she found herself clinging to his arms, not trusting her full weight to her legs just yet.
“That was okay?” he asked, eyes still half-lidded.
“Okay? That was good. Very good. We should probably do it more. Just to be sure.”
“Inquisitor?”
The bubble around them popped, the world springing back into glaring focus all at once. They both whipped their heads over to the approaching page, one of Josephine’s.
“What?” she snapped, her grip tightening on the Commander’s arms, lest he try to pull away.
It was Rosee, from the table hiding incident. “The tailor is waiting for you in your quarters for your final fitting. I was sent to fetch you and confirm that you held the appointment.”
“That woman has no faith in me,” she snarled under her breath. “I’m busy.”
“I’m...um...under strict instructions to confirm that you keep the appointment.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Tell Josephine--”
“No,” Cullen interrupted, clearing his throat. “Keep the appointment. I have work I need to get done myself. Perhaps we could pick this up again later. Over dinner?”
Feeling petulant, she almost argued it. Instead, she lifted up on her toes to claim a brief kiss, just to prove that this hadn’t all been an erotic hallucination. “We aren’t finished. I’ll find you later.”
And for what she thought might be the very first time, he smiled without the tightness around his eyes and lips. Her heart dropped to her stomach where it fluttered pathetically. She had no idea Cullen could look so...debonair. She whined pathetically as he turned and walked away, leaving her dissatisfied and twitchy in the clutches of the page.
She whirled on the girl. “I thought we were a team, Rosee! We hid under a table together!”
“Apologies, Inquisitor.”
Storming down the battlements, she left the page to scurry to keep up. It was only when she hit the bottom step that it caught up to her.
She had sacrificed Hank.
“Oh. No, no, no, no! Shit. I need to take it back. I can't. He can't think I regret it. He’ll get mopey. I already tortured him this week. Damn it, Rosee! I was weak. He just looked so sad, you know? I could lie to Varric...no I can't do that. We did it in broad daylight. It'll get back to him. Shit.”
The girl patted her arm. “Do you want to go hide under the table again?”
“No.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I'm the Inquisitor. I have to deal with this like…” she shuddered. “Like I'm not a giant, bloody coward.”
She sulked all the way into the keep where she spotted Varric enjoying a drink near one of the fires. Again, she got the urge to avoid him, but she would have to go up to her quarters for the fitting where Hank was propped in the corner. He would stare at her the whole time, his empty eye orbits sadder than Cullen’s. She couldn’t face down her staff before she faced down Varric.
She veered off, much to Rosee’s protests, to confront the dwarf.
“We give him a proper funeral!” she snarled.
Varric turned to her, eyebrows climbing on his forehead. “What? Who? Who died?”
“We give him a celebration and a funeral and I get to make as many puns as I want. Then you can do what you want with him, but he deserves at least to be honored.”
“Andraste’s tits, you did it,” he breathed. Varric pumped a fist with a howl of glee. “Suck it, Inquisitor! That fucking staff is out of here!”
“Bite me, Varric.” She squared her shoulders and marched away.
“How was the kiss with Curly, then?”
She raised her middle finger at his gloating fuming toward her quarters. She couldn’t believe she had to break the news of Hank’s retirement to him in front of the tailor. She would gladly die of embarrassment.