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His blindness toward her nature bothered him.
True, the long dark leather jacket she wore looked misleadingly like the robe of a priestess, particularly with those weathered golden suns blazoned just under the neck and just over the hem that lapped about her leather-clad calves. An effect she no doubt knew full-well was heightened by the soft, rich draping of the vibrant red scarf wrapped about her hips. Perhaps the give-away should have been her staff, but even that, old gold, topped with a sleek and shining image of a woman--Andraste he supposed--burning with arms outstretched upon a pyre, had seemed no more than a symbol of her office.
He wanted to resent the misdirection his thoughts had taken. In retrospect, it had been foolish to think the strong-arm of smuggler and her associates might be a priestess... nonetheless, he was quite sure the woman knew the impression her appearance created... and knew how to use it to her advantage...
He disliked having himself used against him, though it was no less than he had long since learned to expect from a mage... from her kind.
And yet... in spite of her advantage, she'd asked nothing of him. Demanded nothing.
And when some strange compulsion he couldn't quite explain... some left-over remnant of an idea that his nature and his destiny was to serve mages... had prompted him to offer her his services-against his better judgement, no less, as if her power over him was as absolute as it was inevitable-she had asked him something. She had asked him... if he would be bothered by her presence. By her nature. Or that of her friends. Such consideration...was something he had rarely experienced.
The Fog Warriors had asked about his thoughts and wishes... no one else ever had. Before or since.
It wasn't only about consideration, of course. He knew that. Experience told him as much. Even if it hadn't, the look in her eyes would have explained it. She was weighing him, evaluating the dangers he might pose against the advantages he might provide. He would have liked to resent that, too, but he couldn't quite manage it. It was the sort of thing he would do. The sort of thing the Fog Warriors had done. It was a mark of person who had learned to control impulse in favor of tactical advantage.
Mages, in his experience, did not bother with such things. Who had need of intelligent evaluation and planning to win a battle in which they were armed with raw power? It was the difference between a dragon and a hawk.
She was a dangerous thing... but, then, he could recognize and respect that. After all, so was he.
Perhaps that familiarity paired with his distraction, his single-minded need to follow Danarius and seize him in his hands... to tear him limb from limb... perhaps that was what had prevented him from immediately recognizing her for the threat she was.
What unnerved him even more than his initial ignorance was that he could picture her among them, the Fog Warriors...
There had been no mages among the Fog Warriors during his time with him... and yet... he had never thought on it, but he suddenly realized it might well have been possible...
He was more than a bit surprised to find the mental image didn't immediately fill him with blind, unthinking rage.
And their magic...he suspected it would be very much like hers. A wild and whipping frenzy of air and power, a whirl of energy, sparking in the air about them, a swift and sure strike of lightning, raining chaos down upon the unsuspecting...bringing with it not only a frisson of fear, but also an odd sense of familiarity.
The image of a Fog Warrior casting magic, free and unchained, kept recurring in his thoughts... it hunted him until it haunted him...and, somehow, it seemed to wear her face. Yes, he could imagine her fitting in among them as easily as he longed to do, as he never could.
The thought burned like bitter bile... and, yet, in spite of himself, he found it rather comforting.
Somewhere, in some particle of his being, close enough to his thoughts he could sense it, but far enough away he could pretend it didn't exist, he seemed to have a memory of the oddest impression when he first caught sight of her... a strange sense of recognition, of acceptance... of relief, almost, as if he had finally, finally, found the one thing that could save him...
Which left him wondering what that made her. What that made them.
He had completely taken leave of his senses. There was no them .
Better, surely, that he should leave. Now. Immediately. Before there was.
Magic was the destructive force that had deprived him of his own life, his own memories. It could have no role in building new ones. He wanted no ties binding him to anyone, particularly to any mages, however well-meaning.
They were never harmless.
They could not be.
And, yet, he wasn't at all sure he was ready to leave.
He wasn't sure he knew what it was he wanted.
Which was strangely intriguing after all this time of wanting nothing but Danarius dead.
He suddenly understood the mage may have had a point when she'd answered his inquiries about her own desires, her own intentions, by telling him that to know such a thing would spoil all the fun...
And yet the memory of her words made his hackles rise still.
He could sense danger hovering nearby, gathering like lightning in the wind.