Work Text:
Zevran frowned as he looked down at the pale young man shivering on the bed, then up at the man seated on the other side. “The dark spots are starting to show, amor,” he observed. “The taint is spreading.” He doesn’t have much longer didn’t particularly need to be said, not to this man.
Jorath Amell glanced up at him, then down at his patient, though he didn’t speak so as to avoid interrupting the count of his pulse. After the requisite twenty seconds, he nodded and released the man’s wrist. “His heartrate has slowed, however,” he said in the deep voice he only used around his lover. “And he’s stronger than when we first acquired him.”
The former Crow gave a little shrug. “All true.” He saw the glint in Amell’s eye and sat back in his own chair as a grin spread across his face. “Strong… enough, then?”
The man known across Thedas as the Hero of Ferelden smiled and nodded slowly. “Go tell Avernus to prepare our donor. I believe young Felix Alexius is ready for his salvation.”
The procedure was ready in a very short space of time, with Felix strapped to one table and a gagged man bound to another. The latter struggled valiantly against his bonds, glaring at Jorath as he always did, but that just made Zevran laugh and tie his cords tighter. “My dear Carver,” he crooned, “don’t you trust your cousin?”
Carver’s reply was, of course, muffled, but Zevran suspected it had a lot to do with the former Crow’s dubious parentage - a fact which amused Zevran to no end. He patted the young man on his shoulder and grinned at Avernus. “Feisty today, isn’t he? You give him extra juice?”
Avernus gave Zevran a pale smile. “For this? It was necessary.”
“Pity. His struggles do get tiresome after a while, do they not?” Zevran’s gaze turned to Jorath, who was using a small brush to apply a disturbingly dark red liquid to certain points along Felix’s body, leaving glowing red runes in his wake. “He knows what will happen to him regardless.”
“I am sure,” Avernus said in a bored voice, “that he would tell you that it is why he struggles. He can be quite tiresome sometimes. You should hear the threats he comes up with between sessions.”
Zevran chuckled as Jorath proceeded to paint Carver with the same runes as he had with Felix, his magic locking down each limb as he worked on Carver.
“Think of the great work you’re helping,” Jorath told Carver in his affected high voice. “Perhaps one day you can say you helped cure the Grey Wardens forever.” When Carver just glared at him, Jorath smiled sagely. “Or at least you might be a footnote in a history book somewhere. Perhaps in the chapter after the one describing your brother’s heroics.”
Carver screamed incoherently at him, but Jorath just smirked and finished his last stroke.
As soon as both sets of runes were in place, both men on the tables suddenly twitched and straightened in unison as if struck by chain lightning. Jorath held out the bottle of his special blood and red lyrium tincture, waiting for Zevran to come take it and the brush from him. When his hands were empty, Jorath shook his sleeves to rub his fingers against the small blades hidden in them. The metal sliced through his skin easily, allowing him to rub copious blood along his fingertips. Prepared, he moved to stand at the heads of the men. “Very well, gentlemen. Let us see what happens, hmm?”
And then he set his bloodied fingertips onto their foreheads, ignoring the screams of both men as he tipped his head back and let a smile come to his face at the rush of power.
When Felix stirred and sighed on the bed, Zevran leaned forward immediately and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Felix,” he said, shaking his shoulder. “Felix, wake up.”
Felix opened his eyes slowly, then groaned and curled up around his stomach.
Zevran laughed and helped the man sit up, then offered him the large plate of bread, cold meats, and cheese to him. “Eat. That’s just hunger, my young friend.”
Since the man in the bed was already drooling before he managed to get the first bit of roast beef to his mouth, Felix just nodded as he began to eat. Over the course of the next hour, Zevran asked him a series of careful questions and watched him carefully. The dark spots were gone, the gauntness had faded, and thanks to Jorath’s enhanced healing, his hair was already beginning to grow in again.
When Zevran reported to Jorath, it was with a grin and a wink. “Your turn, amor.”
Jorath nodded and went into the room. No sound emerged for well over an hour, and when the mage emerged, he was wiping his hands free of blood on a napkin. “He’s ready,” Jorath announced. “Send him home.”
“Our own little pet Magister, hmm?” Zevran purred as he leaned in and kissed Jorath’s scarred cheek. “Won’t they be overjoyed not to lose such a fine young man?”
“It’s a risk,” Jorath admitted. “The Magisters will be more attuned to blood magic than the mages down south, but the song in his veins should mask it now.” He grinned. “And the Wardens, if he meets them, won’t suspect anything because he’s not tuned to darkspawn.”
“No, amor, just you,” Zevran said with a smile. “How does it feel to be someone’s archdemon?”
“Marvelous, actually. The proof of concept proven,” Jorath said with a smile. “Tune the song, drive away the blight, and yet still have the hum of red lyrium in your blood. And that, I can control.” He grinned. “I’ve always wanted to have a Magister puppet. I think I’ll treat this one nicely. Wouldn’t want him to end up like poor cousin Carver, now, would we?”
Zevran laughed. “Of course not.”
“I–I don’t believe it,” Dorian exclaimed, a broad smile on his face as he looked up at the Inquisitor. “Felix is alive, and thriving, apparently.”
Trevelyan arched one of his eyebrows. “I thought he was afflicted with the blight after that run in with the darkspawn. Besides, wasn’t he presumed dead after he went missing on his way back to the Imperium after Redcliffe? He’s certainly been gone long enough to be dead.”
“Yes, correct on all counts,” Dorian said in a musing tone. Frowning at the letter in his hand, his expression turned thoughtful. “I’ll write to some people in Minrathous. See if they have anything further to say about this.” He frowned. “I have a bad feeling about this, Amatus. It bears scrutiny.”
The Inquisitor nodded. “Understood. Still, this shouldn’t be any more dangerous than Corypheus was.“
Dorian shook a finger at him. “Famous last words, Amatus.”