Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was near impossible for just anyone to attain an audience with the Imperial Divine. He had long been considered a reclusive man, more at home among dusty tomes and artifacts than in the company of most people.

Knight-Commander Tassia, however, was not most people. Although several years had passed since she had been in his dedicated service, she had never forgotten what it had felt like to fight by his side, united in their vision of a better Tevinter. She had never forgotten his captivating charms, the way his sheepish smiles belied a sharp contrast to the buoyancy and confidence of his movements, the way he tackled all the obstacles in his path with a near-boyish enthusiasm and zest for life and all of the opportunities which it provided.

Rezaren Ammosine had once made her feel like she could change the entire world.

And maybe, just maybe, she still could.

Doing her best to ignore her clammy palms, she ascended the steps to the Divine's private quarters. While she highly doubted she would’ve made it this far had she not been given clearance, she would be surprised if he knew precisely when to anticipate her arrival, and even if he had, surely he could not anticipate what she was here to do.

Her hands felt vulnerable and exposed without the comforting weight of her warhammer. She wished she hadn't had to leave it behind, but such a clumsy and imprecise weapon would have only gotten in the way.

With shaking fists, she knocked upon his door, standing with bated breath for her call to be answered. Fortunately, she was not kept waiting for long. The wooden door creaked open and through the sliver of exposed space Tassia saw the impassive face of the Right Hand of the Divine, a slender yet surprisingly strong elf she knew only as Neb.

Familiar revulsion crawled up her throat, but she swallowed the bile back down. This was the man that Rezaren had sacrificed everything for, the loyal bodyguard for whom he had deemed it worth compromising all the morals he had once professed to hold dear. This was the man Rezaren had valued more highly than her—but she shoved that thought aside. It wasn't like that. It had never been like that. It was never personal.

It was always just business.

Whatever was best for Tevinter.

"Neb," she said by way of greeting, keeping her voice as even as possible.

"Knight-Commander," he answered, his careful gaze scrutinising, as though assessing her whole, pulling apart everything that made her the sum of her parts until she was nothing but the scattered fragments of what once had been a human being.

Her heartbeat quickened in her chest and she willed it to slow, practicising the slow meditative breathing that all templar recruits were taught in the early days of their initiation. Could the elf see through her? Ascertain her motivations? She had never been the best of actors. There was nothing else for it: Tassia prayed—to Andraste and the Maker above—that he could not.

"Neb!" Rezaren's voice called out from the depths of the room, the same playful lilt to his tone that had once made warmth coil in Tassia's gut. "There's no need to stand there glowering in the doorway like that. Won’t you let me welcome our guest?"

Despite his master’s instructions, Neb continued to glower. He could not disobey, and yet, it was obvious that he still had his doubts. "Your Eminence..."

"Leave us," Rezaren commanded, in the firmer tone he retained for when his more personal charms proved inadequate. "You know Tassia," he added, as though either of them could've forgotten the other. "She's an old friend."

Even after all these years, the word didn't fail to send a frisson of ice down Tassia's spine.

Friend.

Despite Neb’s hesitance, he did as he was ordered, leaving the room with one last beseeching look at Tassia, as though he knew exactly what she was here to do, but finding himself powerless to stop it. Or perhaps he even wanted her to succeed. But that was most likely the wishful thinking of a guilty mind, a mind desperately seeking absolution for the crimes which weighed upon it.

As she advanced into the room, she was greeted with a sight that never would never fail to make her heart shatter anew, no matter how many times she had attempted to piece it back together. Rezaren sat at his imposing mahogany desk, fingers steepled together, long brown hair—longer again now—framing his narrow face, which wore the same indulgent smile and dark circles under the eyes that Tassia had fallen for all those years ago. For a moment, she could almost believe nothing had ever changed.

Everything was the same, just as it had been, except for one vital difference.

That accursed circulum, glittering on his head like a crown.

It was the finishing touch on Rezaren’s entire ensemble, bringing together all the disparate parts of him, the contrasts and contradictions that had once fascinated her so, into one final coherent, cohesive image. You look like every bad rumour about us combined, she’d once told him. But she had been wrong to suggest that all he needed to complete the look was a skull hanging from his belt—why settle for one when he could wear the symbol of hundreds, lives all taken far too soon?

She had once hoped she would be able to stop him before it came to that, that she could protect him from making any irreversible mistakes. She had even thought she could protect him. Save him.

But it was far too late for any of that. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped towards him. All of her plans had brought her to this moment and yet it was as though his presence had made her forget all of lines, or if she’d even rehearsed them in the first place.

“We’re not friends,” she said once she was convinced enough they were alone, that Rezaren’s other Hand—Neb’s sister, Miriam—wouldn’t materialise out of the shadows like a hiding demon, at least, not now. And yet, despite her disappointment, her rage, her pain, she still wasn’t entirely certain which of Rezaren’s implications she was contradicting.

Rezaren’s smile faltered, the corner of his eyes creasing in sympathy. “No, I suppose not,” he said, standing from his chair in one sweeping motion. The desk was situated on a dais several steps above where Tassia was standing. As Rezaren stood before her, dressed in his intricately embroidered black and gold robes, towering above her in a way that made her feel impossibly small despite her own height, he looked more than merely divine but like a god himself: an image of the Maker standing before his throne.

The sight shouldn’t have stolen Tassia’s breath away. Not after all this time.

And yet.

No! she told herself firmly. She couldn’t falter. Not at this final vital moment.

“We were,” she started, wanting to continue towards him but instead remaining frozen on the spot. “We were,” she tried again, but the words continued to die in her throat.

Rezaren did not appear to share any of Tassia’s hesitance. He continued to advance towards her, until he was close enough she could feel his breath upon her skin, close enough to touch if only one of them would close the distance. “Lovers?” he suggested.

Tassia shuddered.

The Divine clicked his tongue. “No, you’re right, Tassia, that’s such a crude word. Honestly, what was I even thinking? Surely there’s a better term—ah! Paramours.” Finally, he reached out and cradled the side of her face with his long, slender fingers.

Despite herself, Tassia leaned into the touch, the heat of Rezaren’s skin upon hers as hot as the fire in her heart, the fire in her gut. She was drawn towards him when she should have been repulsed. She wanted to kiss him.

She needed to kill him.

Reminding herself of her goal sent another shockwave of ice through her veins, providing a much needed dampening to the effect of the growing heat. Suddenly, all at once, everything felt heavy: her armour against her limbs, her furiously pounding heart, the dagger she’d surreptitiously strapped to the side of her thigh.

The dagger. The dagger. All she needed was an opportunity, and the one that had presented itself to her was bleedingly obvious.

She closed her eyes and let him kiss her.

His lips were just as soft as she remembered. Her mouth yielded to his as though on instinct, allowing him to take control of the moment in his usual manner: gentle but hungry. It was like he didn’t know how to simply taste instead of devour, like he didn’t know how to love without destroying the world.

He tucked a stray lock of Tassia’s hair behind her ear, gently brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “It’s been too long,” he whispered once they parted for air.

“Too long,” Tassia repeated woodenly as she reached down between their bodies to retrieve her weapon from beneath her tunic. In his hubris, he only watched, expectant, until the glint of steel caught the light.

His eyes widened. “Tassia—” he gasped, but by then, it was too late.

In one quick movement, she had him pinned against the wall, the edge of the blade against his throat. He could stop her, she knew—his trained guards, his spymaster, they were to protect him from the dangers poised by the plotting of rival magisters.

But nobody had ever stopped to think he might need protection from someone like her. Templars in the Imperium weren’t like their brethren in the south: they weren’t trained to fight against mages, but alongside them. For them.

Even without a staff, Tassia knew Rezaren could kill her. He could kill her with her bare hands if he wanted to.

But he hadn’t been expecting a direct approach like this.

And besides, he didn't want to. That was what she'd been banking on.

“Tassia,” Rezaren murmured once more, as quietly as he could, as though to speak any louder would encourage her to press the blade more firmly against his neck.

Despite her best efforts, her hand shook. “It didn’t need to come to this,” she said.

Rezaren smiled sadly. “It was always going to come to this.”

“Then why?” she answered, still trying to steel herself. This would get messy if she were to lose her nerve now. Her lip trembled. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

He caught her gaze, eyes still bright and earnest despite his circumstances, still that same shade of too-fucking-blue. “I know better than to get between you and a promise.”

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. She had promised, hadn’t she? “I loved you, you know,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was saying it now. Perhaps it was one last desperate attempt to convince herself to stop, to retreat, to convince herself that everything could be fixed instead of ended.

“I know,” Rezaren said, and the last fragile string of hope inside her that had been staying her hand snapped at last.

Blood. Blood, everywhere.

His body was still warm.

Sweet Maker, why was his body still warm?

Her vision swum and her limbs trembled as she forced herself to get a hold of herself. It was like she’d never killed a man before. But then again, she’d never killed a man quite like this before. Not so messily, not so intimately, and never a man like the Imperial Divine himself.

Never a man like Rezaren Ammosine.

She hadn’t thought in much detail about what she would do next, she only knew she couldn’t sit here, cradling his body forever. There wasn’t much to do next, except move onwards, forwards, unfaltering in her duty.

Unfaltering in service to the Tevinter Imperium.

The circulum infinitus glittered in the candlelight. It sent a spike of rage through her. If only Rezaren had never heard of the damned thing!

In a final fit of impulse, she reached down with her bloodied fingers and wrested the unholy object from his head.

Chapter Text

Minrathous, 9:47 Dragon.

The acrid scent of smoke unfurled across the horizon, burning his lungs and making him cough profusely. This was not the way Rezaren Ammosine had envisioned saving his homeland. They were winning the war—for now, for the moment—but had it been worth the cost?

In the early days, it had been easy to justify. The Tevinter Imperium had always been at war. The Tevinter Imperium had always been at war, the very foundations of their nation built out of the ashes of the civilisations that had preceded them, those that had been foolish enough to oppose them, those that had failed.

And then there had been Andraste herself, blazing a path of glory in defense of the downtrodden, championing her righteous cause in the name of some distant Maker whose shadow they all suffered in, He who loomed over them like a disappointed parent, never a kind word where a harsh one would suffice.

And even Andraste herself, the goodness and righteousness of her cause, had not been enough to dissuade the displeasure of her holy Husband.

Even if the Maker despised his creations so, his human bride had held a brighter hope for humanity, tended a flame that would warm all the races of the world.

If the Maker had created the world, did He not have the power to end its suffering? And if He did, then why had He stopped her? Why had He stopped his bride?

It was a conundrum that had bothered Rezaren for many years, its very existence perverse, at odds with all the laws of magic and nature with which he was intimately familiar.

Of course he had asked the chantry priests for guidance when he had been earlier in his journey but they had only told him that this was the point.

Without faith, there could be no certainty. With certainty, there would be no reason for faith. It was a test, they said, ignoring any attempts to indicate the circularity of their argument.

It was a test?

Then so be it.

Rezaren could not, would not, allow himself to fail again.

Another splutter of coughs crawled up his throat. When he took his hand away from his mouth and looked at his palm, he was both surprised and not to find it splattered with red.

Ah, blood.

Nessum, 9:46 Dragon

“Are you sure, Rez? Is this really what you want?”

Rezaren forced himself to smile, but his lips were stretched more tautly than he would like. “Oh Miriam, have you ever known me to stray from my convictions?”

Miriam let out a short sharp, laugh. “No,” she answered, but he knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. It was one of the things that he truly valued about Miriam: never would she fail to speak her mind. “Not since Tassia left.”

Oh, how his dear sister always knew how to twist the blade! Despite himself, his smile faltered. “Well, Tassia’s not here anymore.” And yet, how that woman’s name still tasted of poison on his tongue! “I won’t be distracted by the likes of her again.”

Miriam, of course, persisted. She arched an eyebrow, planted a hand upon her hip. “Is that all she was to you? A distraction?”

He couldn’t help himself. His lips twisted into a frown. An impetuous pout, Tassia would have called it, but that didn’t matter because Tassia wasn’t here. “That woman was a traitor to the Imperium,” he snapped.

In an uncharacteristic show of restraint, Miriam merely shrugged. “I suppose so.”

Of course he’d supposed— had she or had she not heard his so-called supposition? No, there was something else happening here, he realised, something of which his awareness only barely scratched the surface but of which Miriam was intimately aware.

He looked at her, scrutinising her closely, but of course, Miriam’s face nor posture portrayed no hint of the secrets she kept. It made for an ideal spymaster, but it wasn’t a spymaster he needed at this moment but rather—no. He wasn’t going to think about her. He wasn’t. There was nothing else for it. If it was information he desired from Miriam, he would simply have to ask. How crude. “What do you mean by that?”

Miriam would not submit so easily. “By what?”

“That—that—!” Indignation bubbled up inside him, and for once, he allowed it. “I suppose so,” he mocked, air quotes and all. “You know what she did, Miri, you know who she works for!”

“The Crimson Knight,” Miriam agreed quietly, her gaze sweeping out at the horizon. Their vantage point in the tower provided them with a most strategic view of the city, but they would surely be overpowered now that the gates had been breached. Gates that had been reinforced by magic and not steel, gates that all but fell apart when faced with the nullifying effects of the Knight’s superpowered Templars.

“She would destroy Tevinter,” Rezaren said, still unable to bring himself to voice the truth. She is going to destroy Tevinter. Yet here they were, about to make their final stand. He had already sacrificed so much in pursuit of his dream. If he gave up now—gave up without exhausting all his options—he would be dishonoring all he had already given up. He would be dishonoring their memories. He would be dishonoring—

Miriam nudged him in the side with her elbow. “It’s not too late, you know.”

Rezaren scowled furiously. “Not too late for what?”

“Surrender,” she answered simply, resting a hand upon his arm.

 His answer was instantaneous. “Never.”

Miriam’s grip tightened. “You would destroy everything you profess to love to keep it safe?” To stop it from leaving you. He knew that was she really meant, but gratefully she let it go unsaid.

Heat pricked the corner of his eyes and his hands trembled. “I don’t have a choice,” he spat out. He was going to complete the ritual. He was going to unleash the full power of the circulum onto the nation before their enemies had their chance to lay their hands on it.

All of Tevinter would burn, with them inside it.

“You always have a choice,” Miriam insisted, and Rezaren desperately wanted not only to believe her but also for her rebuke to stop sounding like Tassia.  “It’s never too late to change.”

“Are you going to stop me?” he asked quietly.

For a moment, she hesitated, but it was enough: she glanced out at the horizon before answering, “No.”

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. His trembling hands furled into fists. “This is what you wanted all along.”

Miriam didn’t even have the good grace to avert her eyes—she’d never had any shame, that one. “Yes.”

“You and that girlfriend of yours.”

“Yes.”

Her lips had only moved the barest of fractions required to answer, but Rezaren swore she was smiling nonetheless. Gloating. He should have seen this coming. First Hira, then Tassia, and now, Miriam… was he not worthy of a promise kept? Of compassion? Of love? Every betrayal stung more than the last, and his chest felt like it was going to explode, as though ready to tear him apart from the inside out. His trembling hands reached for his chalk, to finish his circle, to finish his monstrosity, his final act of gore and glory. There was already so much blood in the air, the wind heavy with the scent of iron. It was enough to get started, enough to start the chain reaction. Blood begot blood begot blood and soon all of Tevinter would be red red red.

“Rezaren,” someone called, but the voice was distance, unimportant, too late. At long last, he could feel the unholy power rushing through his veins. So, it was blood they wanted?

Then let there be blood.

Chapter Text

Nessum, 9:45 Dragon

Rezaren woke with a gasp, his entire body drenched with sweat. It was like he had been set aflame, but the feeling began to wane almost as soon as he’d identified it.

Then there was a hand on his bare hip and he jerked away on it from impulse before coming to his senses. “Tassia,” he murmured, his voice still thick with sleep.

She didn’t reach for him again, but she remained close, propping up her chin on one hand. In the low light of the room he could just make out her features, and how her hair, freed from its usual high ponytail, framed her face and flowed downwards. He’d always marvelled at its length, its weight… oh, how he had missed being able to touch her like this!

It was an odd thought, considering how little time they spent apart these days but he pushed it aside. He couldn’t allow himself to be so discombobulated by the figments of his own imagination.

“Bad dream?” Tassia asked quietly, the warmth of her breath burning against his skin.

“I suppose so,” he answered, with a small quirk of the lips. Strange, how the words almost felt like a memory.

“You’ve been having them more often lately,” Tassia noted, as though he was incapable of identifying such an obvious trend for himself. He forced down his indignation: he knew Tassia was only trying to help.

“I know what you want to say,” he answered shrewdly. This time, he reached out for her, his fingers tracing a path down her skin, skittering down from shoulder, to elbow. “That it’s my conscience.” He was unable to keep the sarcastic lilt from his voice, but truth be told, he had not tried very hard to do so. “And that I should heed it.” He reached down further, grasping Tassia’s hand and intertwining his fingers with hers.

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I suppose I’ve said it often enough.”

“You know I don’t want to hurt you,” he continued.

Tassia inhaled sharply, and as though in a fit of impulse, buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. This time, he let her: let the scent of her soap waft into his nostrils, let the weight of her body provide a comforting weight against his own, alive and real and here. “I know,” she answered simply. And yet, there was still the sense of so much being left unsaid.

“But?” he prompted.

She laughed against his skin. “When has any of this ever been about what we want?”

Ah. That was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? He wrapped his arms around her in a proper embrace, resting his chin atop her head. “It would be simpler if we were different people. With simpler ambitions. We could simply stay like this. Forever.” At this late hour, the notion doesn’t seem as terrible as it does in the broad light of day. Why couldn’t he just remain here, frozen in time and place, and for once in his life, happy?

Wanted.

And yet, even as he allowed himself to revel in the fantasy, he felt it: the beast in his belly that begged to be released, that would claw its way out with talons and fangs if he ignored it. The way it spoke in an echo of his mother’s voice, criticisms sharper than the sting of her slaps: you were made for more than this, boy.

The more he pushed it down, the more it wanted to scream. He needed to prove himself worthy of all the sacrifices that had been made in his name. He needed to repay the dues he owed, no matter the cost. No matter the cost.

“Rezaren…”

The way Tassia said his name—gentle, plaintive—made something twist monstrously in his heart. Here would come her protestations.

“I hate seeing you like this,” Tassia continued, the ghost of her breath continuing to spook his skin, raising gooseflesh in its wake. “You can’t let this search for—for this circulum—consume you. It’s just…”

Just a legend. Isn’t real. Not like us. He’d heard it all before. In one frustrated motion, he rolled away from Tassia, unwilling to look into the depths of those pleading blue eyes any longer.

“You know why I need this,” he said, surprised himself at the coldness of his words.

Tassia, of course, would not be deterred. She shifted back towards him, and again, reached a hand for his hip, embracing him from behind, her legs tucked in behind his, the soft swell of her breasts pushed up against his back. “This isn’t about what you need,” she insisted. “It’s like you’re paying penance for some crime you haven’t even committed. But it wasn’t your fault. And you can’t bring back the dead. It isn’t—it isn’t right.”

“So which is it?” he answered woodenly. “Impossible? Or wrong?” It couldn’t be both—there would never have been any need to assign a moral judgement to impossibilities.

Tassia sighed. “I just… you can’t change the past, Rez.”

He let out a scoff. “And what, you can?”

Tassia didn’t answer, but the question was rhetorical enough.

The silence lingered, and desperate to interrupt it, Rezaren continued. “Maybe I can’t change the past, but I can always work toward a better future.” He felt it again, in his bones, the screaming and the burning, the desire not to allow anyone else to pay the price for his mistakes.

“I know, I know,” Tassia answered. “But I still worry sometimes that you’ll do something you’ll regret. Something you won’t be able to forgive yourself for."

Laughter bubbled up inside him at the absurdity of Tassia’s suggestion. Her concern had never been one he’d shared. “You know what? I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Worried,” he replied.

Tassia scoffed and held him closer. “And what makes you so confident?”

He rolled over in her arms to see her properly once more, his face widening into a brilliant grin. “Why, because I have you, of course. I’ll always need my knight-commander.”

“Please don’t remind me that I’m sleeping with my magister,” Tassia said with a sigh, but all the same, she was smiling despite herself. “Honestly, could we be even more of a cliché?”

“Only if you promise you’ll always protect me,” he laughed, leaning in and brushing her nose against his own. “Even if it’s from my own hubris. Even if it’s from myself.”

“Of course I will,” Tassia promised. “That’s my job.”

“Only your job?” he teased, before leaning in to kiss her properly. Her lips were plush and pliant against his own, and his heartbeat quickened in his chest. If only this could be enough. If only he could be enough.

Once they parted for air, Tassia tucked a stray lock of Rezaren’s hair behind his ear. “I love you, you know.”

And he did. He did know. He also knew he should say it back, knew that he felt it in every single drop of blood in his body. But he couldn’t promise so readily, so freely, as she did, because he wasn’t good and pure and beautiful like she was.

He was a flaw, a mistake, a tragedy-in-waiting.

“I know,” he answered. You shouldn’t, he should have added, but again, he could not quite bring himself to say it. Was it wrong for him to be selfish? Was it wrong to simply revel in this happiness, this bliss, for this momentary measure of time?

Perhaps it was. Wrong, but he had been wrong in so many other ways before. For once, he could be wrong in a way that was beautiful.

Tassia yawned, and nuzzled in close. He pressed a kiss against her crown. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, because that, that begged to be declared aloud.

“I know,” she answered, her voice thickening with sleep.

It wasn’t much longer before she was snoring beside him and he disentangled his limbs from hers and went about redressing himself. They would be returning to Minrathous in a few short days, and the truth about the circulum awaited.

Chapter Text

Nessum, 9:44 Dragon

She’s here again, at the beginning. Where everything had started, for the better or the worse. Slumped against the wall in the depths of the Divine’s summer palace, watching Rezaren flit about with boyish energy and charm both so familiar and foreign. He talks about the circulum as though he still genuinely believes it could change things—fix things—because he hasn’t yet realised they had been irrevocably broken long before they had started.

Memory unheeded can only become enmity.

“It’s supposed to bring the dead back to life, Tassia.”

It can. It does. She’s seen it.

He fixes her with those big blue eyes of his, and pierces her soul with those words that will have her following him to their damnation each and every time. “Isn’t there someone you’d give anything to get back?”

She scoffs, pushing herself back up to her feet, warhammer in hand. She can’t quite bring herself to agree, not entirely, but nonetheless… “All right,” she says. “But we’re in this together.”