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They bring the fugitive mage to Cadash in chains, his handlers shoving him to the floor with far more force than is necessary. He topples to his knees but holds his head high. Proud.
For all that Cadash has heard about Anders, Cadash can’t help but think that he looks rather ordinary. Nothing like the inspiration for a rebellion that has engulfed much of the world. Tall, but all humans are, comparatively speaking.
The ambassador clears her throat several times, until the rumble of the voices of all the rubberneckers gathered in the hall fade at last. Josephine smiles, but her lips are stretched too thinly. “This man requires no introduction—”
“He deserves to hang for what he did, he does!” an onlooker calls from the edges of the room.
Josephine holds up a hand. The murmuring dies down again. Cadash has always admired the way the ambassador can control a crowd. But where Cadash’s attention might have otherwise been focused on Josephine, they find themself focusing on the captive before them instead.
His clothes hang off his emaciated frame, shaggy blond hair falling to his shoulders. Cadash swears that there’s twigs in the bristles of his beard, like he’d been dragged through every shrub in the country on his way here.
What Cadash doesn’t expect, however, is for the corner of Anders’s lips to curl upwards in a self-effacing smile. “If I must die for what I have done,” he says, “then so be it.”
Perhaps if Cadash were to take him at his word, they would assume that Anders had a death wish, but years of working as a smuggler had taught them how to read between the lines. The words are not those of a man resigned to his fate. There’s a fight left in him, a fire burning deep inside that could never be extinguished.
As if there had not been fire enough already.
But truth be told, Cadash is envious. They wonder what it’s like, to burn so passionately for a cause, to look at Thedas and think that it is worth changing.
Cadash even thinks they had known, once upon a time, but there had been no place in the carta for bright-eyed idealism. Now, Cadash is all sharp edges, walls as sturdy as their blades.
If anyone had asked Cadash a year ago, Cadash would have told them that they had made peace with their place in their world.
But that had been before Cadash had been given the tools to change it. Looking at this man before them, Cadash recalls a long-forgotten feeling: hope.
Drawing themself up to their full height, for all the good that it does, Cadash squares their jaw before announcing their verdict to the gathered court. “Nobody will die here today.”
There’s a discontent rumbling in the background but Cadash ignores, instead continuing, “The rebel mage Anders will remain at Skyhold at the mercy of the Inquisition.”
Anders lets out a noise halfway between mockery and relief. “A cell,” he says.
“A cell,” Cadash confirms, surprised to find a smile of their own forming on their features. “For now.”
Controversy is sure to stem from Cadash’s decision here today, but Cadash has never been one to crave the approval of others. Besides, they’re under no delusions that their position here is borne from anything other than their magical glowing hand and a misguided belief that they had been chosen by the bride of a Maker that Cadash didn't even believe in.
People will believe what they will to make sense of the world, Cadash knows. And for now, Cadash is simply trying to keep their own head above water.
Much the same as Anders.
“You could have assigned me a handler,” says Anders after Cadash visits him for the fifth week running. “But you didn’t.” He laughs, leaning back against the cold flagstone walls of his cell. He’s starting to fill out nicely now, what with the three square meals a day and the supervised exercise, which Cadash has allowed despite the man’s reputation as an escape artist.
If he managed to run away now, he’d save them all an awful amount of trouble. Cadash is not going to devote the Inquisition’s limited sources toward chasing him. As Cadash assesses him through the bars of his prison, they find their gaze lingering over the swell of Anders’s muscles more than it should.
“I could have,” Cadash answers in easy agreement. “But I always prefer to get my information from the primary source.”
There’s a twinkle in Anders’s eyes when he replies. “Another thing you learnt in your carta days, I take it?”
“Something like that,” Cadash says, before squatting down to make themself comfortable on the floor, arranging themself so they sit cross-legged, leaning against the bars.
“Careful, now,” Anders warns, “if the people knew how often you came down here to visit, they might think you were starting to grow fond of me.”
“Eyes would roll, tongues would wag… Perish the thought!” It is easy to fall back on the safe harbor of humour when any genuine feeling inches too close to the edge of vulnerability. Because truth be told, Cadash is growing fond of him, and the rumours and gossip of the Inquisitor and their pet weaken Cadash’s walls more than they would care to admit.
Maybe Cadash doesn’t guard their expression as carefully as they should, because Anders looks more serious than befits the levity of Cadash’s joke.
“I never thought to ask,” he starts, brow furrowed. “About why you saved me.”
It’s the question Cadash has been dreading, because even with the weeks that have passed since their judgment, they have been unable to refine their answer. There are layers. Complications. Even if Cadash had been more wary of Anders, there had been options other than what they had undertaken. Perhaps Anders could have been exiled, or returned to Kirkwall, or given back to the Wardens.
But instead, Cadash had kept him. Was it selfishness? Something more? Did any of it even matter? Had Cadash saved Anders, or had Anders saved them?
What was nonetheless clear to Cadash was that Anders was not the enemy. The enemy was the ancient magister who would seek to see them all in chains, in subjugation to Tevinter, and not even the Tevinter of now, but the one of a long time ago.
All Anders had sought was freedom, much like Cadash had. The average human was fond of expounding at length about how dangerous mages were, of trying to twist Cadash’s ear and tell them that Anders was a murderer.
But Cadash was a murderer, too. How many people had they killed through their work in the carta? How many innocents had met their ends as an unfortunate consequence of the actions of the Inquisition?
Cadash knew the truth: that people were not dangerous until they were pushed.
Apply enough pressure, and an explosion was sure to be the natural conclusion.
Cadash bounces on the heels of their feet as they swing open the door to Anders’s cell. Anders looks at Cadash in surprise because they’ve never done that before. Anders’s meals are provided by his jailors, the other limited amount of interaction he’s allowed outside his conversations with Cadash.
Even though the door is open, Anders makes no move to walk through with it. Cadash beckons him with a gesture, like a person trying to coax a timid kitten out of the rain and into shelter.
Anders regards Cadash with hopeful hesitance. “What does this mean?” he asks. “Has my sentence come at last?”
“For a given value of sentence,” Cadash answers, knowing that they must look quite a sight. They’ve never brought their daggers down to the dungeons before, but the weight of them against their back is comforting. People might disagree with Cadash’s decisions, but Cadash will defend their choices to the end.
Much like Anders would.
“You’re still here at the mercy of the Inquisition,” Cadash clarifies, “but I’ve decided you can do more good for the world outside of this cell than in it.”
Cadash had been worried, these past months, that the fire in Anders’s passion had been dimming. But in this moment, it flames up again, and he looks just like the man they had first met on the cold hard floor of the Great Hall.
Offering him a hand to help pull him through the door, Cadash continues, “People fear what they don’t understand. I wish to see more education in the world, not death.”
Anders clasps Cadash’s hand and Cadash marvels at how it feels like they fit together, like two missing pieces of a puzzle. “You would do that for me?” asks Anders.
Cadash shakes their head. “No. I’m doing it for us.”