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As the long and dreadfully hot summer of 9:42 Dragon drew to a close, the ambassador to only the second Inquisition in all of Thedan history was aware of two things: first, that within a few years’ time she would be out of a job, and second, that she had become, through a rather frustrating and improbable ordeal involving one of Empress Celene’s former lovers, a Friend of Red Jenny, the Nevarran royal family, and the Inquisition’s own resident Pentaghast, romantically involved with the Divine of the Andrastian Chantry. All was not well, however. As the leaves in Skyhold’s impossibly temperate climate turned, the ambassador considered her past, her future, her current state of affairs, the affairs of Lord and Lady Gascon of southern Orlais, their lovers’ affairs, and their lovers’ children’s affairs—their circumstances, rather, not their romantic entanglements, as the children were much too young.
It was, in short, an ordinary day in post-Corypheus Thedas. Once again, Ambassador Josephine Montilyet was left to tie up loose ends and make good on old promises, a monumental undertaking that would take at least the better part of a year, if not more. Once again, Ambassador Josephine Montilyet would have no time for herself. She could not afford it, she had been told, could not rest until the Inquisition had paid its final dues. She was, in fact, so busy that all the time she could have spent fantasizing about Cassandra—Divine Victoria, she thought, obscenely and not without pleasure—she instead spent infuriated at the stupidity of her own decision.
“What in the Maker’s most holy name have I done to myself?” she cried, throwing her hands up in frustration in Skyhold’s rookery. It smelled like bird and rot in here and the creatures crowed at the most ungodly hours, so she had every right to be angry even if everything leading up to this point had been of her own volition. “The Chantry will have me arrested, tortured, and hanged by my thumbs. I will be executed for the crime of desecration.”
“Cassandra would never allow that,” Leliana purred in her smooth Orlesian tongue. Like their general, Cullen, she had found herself with less and less to do as of late—except delight in Josephine’s frantic rambling and occasional hysteria, apparently.
“Or,” Josephine said, and her voice trilled, the way it was wont to do when she was angry, “she will end our relationship and put this whole debacle to rest before it ruins us both. I have no desire to be the subject of some bard’s tragic tale about the famous lover of Divine Victoria. Within a few years I’m sure no one will even be referring to her as Cassandra Pentaghast anymore.”
“The Pentaghasts will.”
“The Pentaghasts’ heads are full of nothing but sheer fancy.” She strut around the room, tense with nervous energy and delirious from exhaustion. She could not even remember what she had been thinking about before heading to the rookery; as soon as her shoes hit the floorboards her mouth started off on its own. “Cassandra has been gone for weeks, and they still come over expecting to see her. Imagine, they travel all this way, and arrive so uninformed! Is she not the talk of the town in Val Royeaux? Were they deaf to all discussion of the Divine while passing through Orlais? It’s completely ridiculous!”
“She does come back every now and again, though,” said Leliana, amused. “Perhaps they were not interested in an official audience at the Grand Cathedral.”
“Then they would be as lucky as I to see her,” she said, and she could feel herself sag, her muscles grow weary. “She moves as a shadow when she is at Skyhold.”
“I thought you saw her at meetings?”
“For diplomatic functions, certainly, but for personal affairs?” She rose her brows. “Do you really think we could afford that when she has so many people looking after her?”
“Oh,” she said, “but the look on her face every time she walks in! She’ll have gray hair before she turns forty.”
“Don’t remind me,” Josephine pleaded. “I am a fool to think that this would ever work out.”
“She loves you,” she said.
“And I am sure that at this point she wishes she didn’t,” she said, and then she recalled why she had come here in the first place. “There is a ball.” Her voice changed, assumed an ambassadorial air. “The Inquisition has been invited, and we must make an appearance. The Divine will be there as well—although I have no doubt that she’ll despise every minute of it.”
“Are you looking for a dance?”
“I am looking to ensure that it will not become another Halamshiral,” she said curtly. “The Empress wishes to use the occasion to celebrate the Inquisition’s victory over Corypheus. It will be even more ostentatious than the last, if you can imagine it.”
“Oh, I can. Back to the formal uniforms, then?”
“Yes. With any luck, the Qunari will invade that day and throw Thedas into chaos. Again.”
“And then,” said Leliana, “you can run off with your surly lady lover and never have to think about this again.”
“As if we could afford it.”
Josephine returned to her office downstairs and began to work, but as she worked, her mind wandered. Within a few weeks, Cassandra would face her first grand celebration as the Divine in the Empress’s presence. She would have people to impress, ideas to spread, minds to change, palms to grease, and at the heart of it all would still have to retain some semblance as the head of the Chantry. It would not be an understatement to say that Josephine worried about her. With any luck, Cassandra would make the Chantry sound like an army ready to eradicate corruption the world over, when in truth the Chantry was a vast web of political, military, and religious structures that had dictated the history of Orlais and Ferelden for centuries now. She worried about how Cassandra would run the institution, but mostly she worried about whether Cassandra would be able to run it at all. Earnestness and good intentions would only take her so far.
Moreover, whether they wanted to or not, they would have to meet at the ball. Cassandra likely would not dance in a formal capacity—Divines did not dance, they sat there and looked as if they wanted to be anywhere but in an enclosure surrounded by flagrant hypocrisy. They would, however, have to talk about the Inquisition, both between themselves and with others: how to punish war criminals, how to restore the Chantry, how to reform the Circles and the Templars and the Seekers, and how to compensate everyone for the mountains of gold it would take to rebuild everything. Honestly, it almost wasn’t worth it. For at least the past decade there was always some war or another going on; it was as if the Maker Himself, bless His holy name, had decided that every single world-changing event in this age would take place over the span of a few years.
She wanted to see Cassandra again, but among the prying eyes and wagging tongues and free-flowing gossip, she was doubtful whether the autumn ball would make for a sensible reunion setting. Want took over the better part of her rational faculties, however. There was no denying it. She was in love.
In the few days they spent together before Cassandra left for the Grand Cathedral, she had never been the most conventional of lovers. For one, she took great care and an unusual degree of deliberation in choosing where to place her hands when they kissed. She was extremely polite, and while she kissed with desire, fervor, interest certainly, she never demanded, never expected anything more than what Josephine would give her. She wasn’t hungry.
It occurred to Josephine that she might not be sexually attracted to women, only romantically, or, if she were, she had misgivings about her newly discovered attraction and was uncertain about the notion of sex. Or perhaps she simply wasn’t the lover Josephine had believed her to be. Perhaps she was normally this kindly and patient about it, and had never been possessed of such appetites in the first place. Or, she may have been holding back because she never planned on the relationship lasting, and didn’t want to give Josephine any more than she thought possible. She had no idea, really. Cassandra was blunt when she needed to be, but in matters of affection she was as cryptic as a veilfire rune.
She certainly loved her, though. She wouldn’t be so gentle, or so hesitant otherwise—and she wouldn’t ask so many questions. It seemed that she hadn’t given same-sex attraction a second thought in her entire life, for all that she was so ignorant about it.
“I know,” she had told her, that familiar crease in her brow. “I have lived for at least that long in Orlais to be aware of the practice. I had just not… thought to pursue further knowledge of it. I had certainly never expected to be in a same-sex relationship myself,” and all of which she had said brushing her thumb over Josephine’s hand, looking to touch.
“I do not know how I feel about it,” she confessed at another point. “It makes me feel, since you are a woman, decidedly not womanly.” She scowled, uncomfortable. “I do not want to be seen as a man. I do not want to be treated like one, either. Perhaps I am attracted to women, but I often detest how they are attracted to me.” Her voice was low, laborious, in that thick Nevarran accent—that speech like the dead. “I am not some knight in shining armor who has come to sweep your off your feet. I am a woman with needs, like every other woman with needs. I am not sure if you’ll be able to satisfy them. But I am willing to wait.” And why? “Because you have shown me many kindnesses, and I am… enamored. You are strong in ways that I could never imagine myself being. You complete me. It is as if everything I have ever wanted from myself, I have found in you.”
Josephine might have fallen for her all over again, after that. Cassandra was articulate without even trying to be, and she could not help but feel a little jealous at her surprising ease with language. She had an enormous sense of the power of words—though she often found it difficult to use them. If only she could put that impressive brain of hers to work, Josephine thought, then perhaps she would become the Divine that everyone wanted her to be.
Josephine, however, would rather she not. She was unforgivably selfish. She craved Cassandra’s company, lamented their lack of time and space and privacy, threw herself at her at every chance she was given and generally acted like a complete imbecile in her presence. Cassandra weathered it with all the fortitude of someone accustomed to genuine hardship, but she knew that their relationship wore down on her too—perhaps even more so, given her position. The time they shared was never enough, and as their visits became less frequent, their romance became more frantic, more trying, more desperate.
It was Cassandra’s last visit to Skyhold before the ball, and she had managed to secure about a little time away from her attendants to meet with Josephine in her room along the battlements. She looked better in the sense that she had acclimated to her position, and worse in the sense that she hated the fact.
They sat on the bed. “I am growing soft,” she said, pinching her arm and frowning. “I do not have so much time to train anymore. My body will leave me.”
“The reborn Chantry is still young. I’m sure activities around the Grand Cathedral will settle down soon enough,” said Josephine.
“The meetings are endless.”
“You always say that.”
“The clerics are shallow.”
“When are they not?”
“The meals are indulgent.”
“Then speak to the chefs.”
“And I have missed you dearly.”
Josephine sighed and leaned against her. “As have I.”
“A few of Justinia’s old attendants are still there, but many have been replaced. The Grand Cathedral was also ransacked for a time while we were at Haven, around the time the Conclave was destroyed. You may have not noticed the damage during my coronation ceremony, but you likely noticed that they closed off several areas to the public. Relics were stolen or destroyed, artworks defaced, and now the Chantry seeks repayment.”
“Is that what you’re planning to ask Celene?”
“Nonsense. We are asking only for Celene’s continued cooperation with the new Chantry leadership. I don’t even know half the people who claim to be working with me. There are so many traditions and formalities that I have to learn, when I would rather do away with them all. It is irrelevant. Meaningless. They have forgotten what it means to serve. They are only ever concerned with their own gain, with petty grabs at power.”
“Tell me something new,” she said. “You were aware of all of this coming in.”
“But the depth of it all is only reaching me now. I have enough work for three lifetimes.” She leaned back. “And you are either brave or foolish to continue this relationship with me. I know it will not last forever. If everyone does not already know, then they will soon, and I will not be able to hide it.”
“You haven’t turned me down yet,” said Josephine.
“I do not want to. But neither am I willfully ignorant. I know what will happen—they will use our relationship as an excuse to attack me and make my life difficult, and from then on no one will be able to shut up about it.”
“Well,” she sighed, “that is the risk you’re taking as an authority figure with a personal life. Regardless of what happens, you will be criticized. Your record could be totally immaculate, and someone would still find fault with your actions.”
“The worst part of it, though…” Cassandra shifted, buried her face in Josephine’s neck. “It is completely impersonal. I am alone. No one sees me as an individual; they only see me as a tool, as a means to an end. It is dehumanizing.”
She sat up, pulled her close, carefully. “You have friends,” she said, stroking her back. “You have friends, here in the Inquisition. You have the Inquisitor and Leliana and I, and all of our companions. You are not alone.”
Cassandra drew herself up, put hands on her face and kissed her, fast and fiery and sweet. “And you?” she said, parting slowly. “How are you faring? Better than I, I would hope.”
“Well enough, I suppose,” she said, taking her hands off her face and grasping them. “My job never changes. Even when the Inquisition disbands—and it will, eventually—my services will always be in demand.”
“Will you work for Orlais again?”
“I could not imagine where else,” she said, but her brow creased. “Though I cannot be certain where I will end up. I would not want to be placed in a position unfavorable to your own. Hopefully I will have the freedom of choice in advancing my career, or else I do not know how I would take it.”
“What about Leliana? The others?”
“They are all still stuck in the same mire of uncertainty. While we have skills and practical experience, it is difficult to know who to trust. I would not mind working for, say, Empress Celene or King Alistair of Ferelden, but I would almost prefer a more neutral position than that. Perhaps I will even go home to Antiva—oh, but that is so far.” She shrugged in defeat. “Maker knows. No one understands what they are doing right now,” she sighed.
“Why do you keep sighing?”
“Am I really sighing that much?”
“It seems as though you must sigh every time we are together. Please stop. It is incredibly discouraging.”
“Will it stop you from seeing me?”
“I would not go that far.”
Josephine threw herself against the bed, melodramatic. “It seems as if every time we talk to each other nowadays, it is only to complain. We’ve had better days,” she muttered, letting her fingers trace circles on the bedspread.
“We have only been together a few months,” she said. “You think it has already gone sour?”
“I want more,” she replied, selfishly. “I am so… foolishly enamored with you that I am beginning to regret it. I cannot share you, Cassandra. I cannot look at you and go, ‘There’s Divine Victoria, I wonder what business she has with the Inquisition today’; whenever I see you I go, ‘Oh, Maker, there she is, I wonder kind of torture will be inflicted on me today.’”
“You exaggerate.”
Josephine rolled on her back so she could see her face. “If only a little bit,” she said. She wanted to reach up and pull her down with her, but she knew that within a short while Cassandra would have to leave, and she had no desire to make her dear Divine panic. “What will we do at the ball when we meet?”
“We will talk,” she answered, brusquely, “and if we are lucky we will be able to talk alone.”
“Will we be able to do anything other than talking?”
Her expression changed, brows drawing together. “Is that not all one does at balls—you especially? I cannot dance while I am…” she sighed, “occupied as the Divine. I was never that fond of it, anyhow.”
“That is what I feared.”
“That I was not fond of dancing, or…?”
“That you will be stuck up there with Celene the entire evening and we will never have a moment to ourselves. It’s selfish of me, I know—”
“It is not selfish—”
“But I wonder if it will always be like this.”
She frowned. “How do you mean?”
“If we will always be chasing each other after this function and that—if we will only ever be able to meet again in… an official capacity. You are the Divine and I am an ambassador; certainly we will have our fair share of encounters, but never as… lovers.” Josephine looked up at the stark stone ceiling of her apartment, and the stones seemed to stretch before her eyes, looming down toward her. She felt trapped.
“Did we not already establish that when we entered into this relationship? We never assumed it would be easy.”
“And you are satisfied with that?”
“My life has never been a walk in the park, to use the phrase.” Cassandra looked at her. “But if you find it that it causes you undue hardship, then perhaps you should reconsider—”
“No.” She sat up. “I said that I would take care of it. I can arrange things. I can… I can make this work.”
“You bluster.”
“I am not.”
“You are uneasy.” She leaned toward her, and tipped her chin and looked her carefully in the eye, and Josephine blushed despite herself. “Are you looking for reassurance?”
“I am not a petulant child; I do not need—” But Cassandra had leaned in and kissed her, and she could do nothing but lean into it herself. They kissed this time with heat, with languor, and Josephine made this horrible little noise of pleasure and grasped the back of her head, gasping for air. She bumped their foreheads together. “You are not getting away that easily,” she snapped, but Cassandra was smiling at her, self-satisfied in a way that would look at home on Leliana’s face.
“You worry too much.”
“I worry just enough to avoid landing us in hot water. And you of all people are one of the most studious worrywarts I know; you have no right to tell me that.”
“You want something,” she said. “Tell me.”
She hesitated. “I am not sure if it is something you’re willing to give.”
“I would give you the world, if I could.”
“You’re hopeless,” she said, rolling her eyes out of annoyance if not also embarrassment.
“We are running out of time. If you do not tell me now, I may never know,” and as Cassandra made to get up she held her down.
“Wait!”
“Josephine, just say it,” she said, her voice gruff with urgency.
“I want… I want us to make love,” she said, and it sounded awkward coming from her own mouth.
Cassandra slipped herself from out of her grasp, and moved off the bed, quiet and a little unnerved. “That is a natural consequence of these affairs, I suppose,” she mumbled. “At least, that’s what happens in the books.”
She sat up. “You’re embarrassed.”
“I-I do not know,” she said, edging toward the door, away from her. “I am not… experienced, with other women.”
“I am well aware of that.”
“I have not even thought about it.”
Her heart sank. “I understand if you are not interested, Cassandra.”
“I did not…” She exhaled, frustrated, and looked around for something to settle her gaze on and found nothing. Literally, she was staring at some blank spot of interest on the floor. “Maybe I should have expected this. Leliana did not…”
“Leliana?” asked Josephine. “She didn’t what?”
“I really must go,” she said, “I will write to you before the ball. I…” She hesitated, and then turned around. “She said that you were not one for such sexual appetites, and that it was nothing I needed to worry about,” she said anxiously, and then closed the door behind her and left.
Josephine stared at the door for a few solid moments before massaging her forehead in complete disbelief. Leliana was spreading misinformation about her again? It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the first time it was about something as personal as her sex life. Leliana didn’t even know anything about her sex life, partially because she hadn’t even had one up until now. Who was she to decide what Josephine decided to do with other people in her private quarters, and what she did not? She was angry, but most of all, she was disheartened by Cassandra’s reaction to her request. The Seeker—Maker, she was not a Seeker anymore, she was the Divine—had never shown any particular interest in women before her, minus the one (and there had been extenuating circumstances), so she supposed she couldn’t be that surprised, and yet all the same she was totally exhausted and needed… a tea break, or something.
She removed herself from the bed and walked out the door, where Cassandra was nowhere to be seen. She pushed the thought out of her mind. There were arrangements that needed to be made, and the orders would not fill themselves. She could not afford even a tea break.
Cassandra’s absence at Skyhold had been marked, for at least the first few weeks. Her friends—Sera especially—seemed antsier, still reeling in shock over the idea that she would ever have to leave them. The Divine herself had seemed in disbelief as well; she took her time in moving what little she owned out of Skyhold and into Val Royeaux, and still ran missions with the Inquisition for weeks after their main objective had been finished. There had been fond farewells, gifts given, and promises pledged, between the two of them naturally but also between her and the others.
Leliana and Cassandra had made their own private arrangements between them, and Josephine assumed it had something to do with Justinia’s directives, some final request of hers to be carried out after the Inquisition had done its job. She could not say she was jealous of them, precisely, but they had a strange confidentiality about their relationship that Josephine knew she could never violate. Leliana took pleasure in hoarding her secrets, and while Josephine would trust her with her life, she knew that the habit could be dangerous. She could not afford blatant lies about herself, her relationships, her sex life, or otherwise.
She could also not afford to bring the matter up around decent company. While Leliana was not busy, the Inquisition still found isolated pockets of Venatori or Red Templars or what have you around Thedas, and Leliana swore to drive them all out of hiding. With the ball approaching, she also had a hand in gathering intelligence on that event, and so after they had discussed all of those matters between the two of them, while having tea in a room along the battlements, Josephine finally broached the subject.
“I spoke to Cassandra the other day, when she was here at Skyhold,” said Josephine. “She said…” she paused, “that you had discussed with her a matter regarding my sexual preferences.”
“You must be impatient, or else you would not have worded it like that,” said Leliana, clutching her teacup in entirely good spirits. Maker, she never did stop smiling these days.
“Leliana, when did I ever say I wasn’t interested in sex?” she finally said. “I have never told you anything of the sort!”
“Well, you never—”
“I refuse to sleep with anyone I am not seriously involved with, and generally I like to take my time with these things, but…” She groaned. “She is like a stain on my conscience. Every time I try to scrub it off, my mind goes…” she looked away, “to other places. I will admit that I have been in love before, but I cannot attest to ever having been in lust before.”
Leliana’s eyes glittered like a snake’s. “Would you like some assistance with that?”
She scoffed. “Leliana, I could hardly…”
“You’re beautiful, Josie. I’m sure she can hardly keep her hands off of you.”
She shrunk into her chair. She felt vulnerable. “You would think that, but she is…”
“What?” Her expression darkened. “She is not interested in you?”
“She is uncertain.”
Leliana grinned. “That just means it hasn’t quite dawned on her yet. She is over the moon about you; Cassandra doesn’t treat anyone else that way. If you’ve managed to get this far with her, I doubt she’d stop over a matter as petty as your gender.”
Josephine’s eyes flickered downward. “It doesn’t seem as if she feels the same way, though.”
“She is awkward. She doesn’t know how she feels.”
“I do not have the means to seduce her,” she said, frustrated. “She’s the Divine.”
“And the Empress of Orlais was bedding an elf, a soldier, and probably some others as well. Everyone knows that Val Royeaux is a hotbed of lurid trysts.” Leliana sipped at her tea with farcical delicacy. “You are so sweet and innocent, you do not even realize what’s surrounding you.”
“I know perfectly well the romantic affairs of at least twenty different noble families,” she snapped, “including those of their lovers, so I would appreciate if you would stop accusing me of being ‘innocent.’ I am not.”
“Well,” she said, setting a hand on her chest, “you never wanted to sleep with me when I offered.”
“I appreciate the gesture, Leliana, but alas I am more discriminating than that,” said Josephine with a roll of her eyes.
“You are worrying over nothing! Look here,” she said, setting her hands on the table. “If you want to sleep with Cassandra, then nothing is stopping you but your own hesitation.”
“If I decide to have my way with her simply anywhere, then I doubt it will be anything like we imagined.”
“You cannot afford to be choosy about location if you want to bed the Divine, of all people,” she insisted. “The ball would be perfect. There are plenty of empty rooms in the Palace, and I’m sure you won’t be the only one with that idea, so even if you make noises no one will able to tell where they’re coming from.”
“You are joking,” hissed Josephine. “That is the one thing the Divine cannot be seen doing. It’s utterly disgraceful!”
“You are romantically involved with the Divine. Is that not scandalous enough?”
“Yes, but we must be discreet about it.”
“If you are too discreet, you will never get what you want,” she said in her awful purr, and, looking her in the eye, took a cookie from the platter and slipped it onto her tongue. She closed her mouth, letting the tip of her tongue slide along her lips, and Josephine swallowed.
“Did I do something to offend you,” she said, discomfited, “or are you telling me that I ought to seduce her already?”
“Josie, you are precious,” she said, after eating, “and these cookies are as delicious as I make them look. I may actually eat them all if you do not partake… unless your appetite is of a different kind.” She leered at her.
She groaned aloud. “I understand,” she said, “but if you ever do something like that around me ever again, I may have to reconsider why I'm even telling you this.”
“I meant no offense.”
“You never do.” She sipped her tea, which had gone cold. “Though I do see your point. I am, as you have suggested, being prudish.”
“I never said that.”
“But you were thinking it, by all means.”
“Are you afraid you won’t be able to satisfy her?”
“I have not even thought that far ahead.”
“Indeed. Perhaps you should be worried about it the other way around.”
“She could not disappoint me if she tried,” she said, looking down into her teacup. “Just the thought of us… Well, I am sure you can imagine, and I would rather you not. Maker,” she swore, turning her head toward the ceiling, “what did I ever do to deserve you as a friend?”
“You will let me arrange something, then?”
“At the ball?” She shrugged, too exhausted for niceties. “I doubt you would even listen to me if I tried to stop you. If anything goes wrong, then it is on your head, and yours alone.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Leliana, and leaned over over the tray and slipped another cookie into her mouth. It would be just like her to make an act as innocuous as eating seem totally profane.
“And would you please stop doing that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You could try to eat them in a more respectable manner—one that doesn’t require such meticulous use of one’s tongue.”
“I’m not at one of your insufferable dinners right now, Josie. I can eat them however I want. They’re good,” she said, picking up another cookie off the platter. “I’m enjoying them.”
“You are enjoying my tribulations.”
“That too,” said Leliana, and, instead of eating it, she slid it straight into Josephine’s mouth. Josephine took it as a sign to give up and be done with the whole ordeal, and, in fact, it was quite delicious.
Her sense of calm did not last long, however. Perhaps a few hours after having consented to Leliana’s ill-advised seduction scheme, she thought about it a little harder and then wondered what in the Maker’s name she had actually consented to while Leliana was distracting her with her salacious eating habits. She would put them in a room, and then what? She would seduce Cassandra with her words? She would force herself on the Divine? She would sit there hoping and praying that Cassandra would make the first move and if nothing happened, then it was a complete waste of their time? What would Leliana even do, to begin with? What manner of meeting would she arrange, who would she ask for help? Would Cassandra herself even know what they were doing, or would they just be shoved together into a room like two animals being forced to mate?
Most of all, did Cassandra even want to touch her? Leliana’s mind was invariably in the gutter; of course she would assume that Cassandra wanted to bed her because that’s what Leliana believed with her whole heart, because with Leliana people were either black or white and there was no color in between. Cassandra was either absolutely interested or not at all interested, and because she showed some interest she must have wanted to go all the way. One would have thought that Josephine would be able to tell by now what Cassandra’s actual preferences were, but she was so awkward at expressing herself that she could not tell whether she was merely trying to be polite or honestly struggled with the idea, in a way that suggested she felt at least a little bit of what Josephine felt if not all of it. They had kissed many times before; Maker, there was no denying that level of attraction, and Cassandra must have been enamored with her in some sense or she would have never consented to this relationship in the first place, but she was impulsive, and—oh, she had thought herself into a circle again.
She wanted to stop thinking about it, but she could not. Her struggles were infuriatingly base—animal desires, she could live without them for another few months, and some people lived without consummating them for their entire lives, it should not have been that hard—but more importantly they were distracting her from her actual paid work. And the more she attempted to will the thoughts away, the more urgently they returned, hounding her, making her doubt the sanity of this relationship and Cassandra’s interest in her and what they had found so attractive about each other in the first place. It was demonic.
Why on earth, she began to wonder, did this woman fall in love with me in the first place, when she had not spared a thought for another woman in her life—at least, none that she did not have a bizarrely manipulative relationship with—and seemed perfectly content to be that way? What had Josephine done to her? At what point did Cassandra sit down and think, “I have been totally oblivious to my attraction to women my entire life but I’m actually in love with one now and willing to sacrifice an essential part of my identity just to be with her?” It was a miracle that this had even happened in the first place, and now Josephine was terrified that one little issue, one little fly in the ointment, could ruin everything.
In fact, she recalled one conversation in which their relationship had come quite close to utter collapse, if only because they had been both inebriated and more than a little stressed out.
“You are too idealistic,” Cassandra had complained at one point, after they had become involved but before she had left to become the Divine. It was in the evening, and they had been drinking, and the drink loosened both their tongues and their comportment.
“How?” she had asked. They had been lying on the bed, as usual.
“You believe everything can be solved with words.” Her speech slurred, if only a little. “It is unrealistic. Violence and upheaval are the only constants in this world.” She was speaking from experience, Josephine knew. “If everything could be solved with words, then there would be no need for war.”
“That is my primary aim, my love,” she said. “No war, and no violence. Not if I can do anything about it.”
“Rubbish. I would be out of a career.”
“You’re the Divine now; you will never be out of a career.”
“I would not have these scars. You find them attractive, don’t you? Maybe you would have never fallen in love with me,” she said. “Maybe we would have never met. I would have never become the Divine.”
“Fine,” she said, “but you would be happier.”
“In a world run by bureaucrats?” She scoffed. “I would be beside myself with misery.” A pause. “And no war does not mean no violence. Inside the home, or out on the streets, the battles would still go on. You are too idealistic,” she said again. “It unsettles me.”
“Good,” she said. “You are rude when you are too comfortable.”
“But what if you are right?” she asked.
“Then you would have to accept the fact that you are wrong.”
“I have been wrong so many times.”
“I have as well. It happens to us all.”
“It isn’t fair. I’m not…” she paused, “I’m not wrong. Your diplomacy will not solve everything.”
“I never said it would.”
“We need violence,” she said, “we need Templars and Seekers, and the military. There are evil people in the world and they need to be destroyed, but the people who are dragged into these conflicts…” She paused again, thinking. “I—I killed them too.” She stared at her. “I,” she said, “have taken innocent lives.”
“Cassandra, you are drunk.”
“You have not, but I have killed. You have no idea what that feels like! It is monstrous. It feels—it feels great. Maker,” she said, “I am glad that you detest it because I… I would not do it as often as I did if I didn’t take some twisted sense of satisfaction in being covered in another person’s blood.”
Josephine frowned. “You’re…”
“Drunk, yes, but speaking the truth. I… I don’t deserve you.”
“That is not the truth.”
“I’m a killer, Josephine! I have killed so many people, and through my actions as the Divine I will kill many more. I can’t—I can’t let you… I can’t expose you to that,” she stuttered, “you and I… We are nothing alike. I am idealistic, but you are the ideal,” and Josephine never knew whether to be annoyed or impressed that she managed to be so eloquent even when drunk. “I might speak it, but you practice it. I love you,” she said, staring at her, “but is it… Can I?”
“Of course you can,” she said, her voice firm in spite of her intoxication.
Her brow creased. “But do I deserve it?”
“Cassandra, I know you. You have only acted with the best of intentions at heart.”
“But I enjoy it! It is monstrous!”
“You are drunk. You don’t say these things when you are of sound mind.”
“I can hear myself just fine,” she snarled, turning so that she bodily faced her on the bed. “I’m… I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid; you know about my temper. You know. I am so angry,” she said, “and you cannot… What if I hurt you?”
“Why are you so worried about this?” Josephine asked. “You have done nothing. You have done nothing; blessed Andraste, you are the sweetest person in the world to me.”
“But it’s hard!” she said, and grasped her head and kissed her so hard that their teeth knocked together. “You have no idea… You keep telling who I am, but Maker, I know what I am,” she said, and kissed her, over and over again, “I am awful. You should end this, with me. It is hopeless.”
“You’re wonderful,” she said. “I wish you would realize that.”
Cassandra fell asleep in her bed and sneaked off to her loft above the forge in the early morning hours, and when Josephine woke up she saw the bed was empty. When she brought up the matter of their conversation to her after their morning council, Cassandra claimed to have remembered none of it. Josephine pressed her until she cracked.
“I… I did not mean that,” she insisted, nervously, in the hallway by the war room. “I was drunk. Clearly, I…”
“You want to end our relationship,” said Josephine.
Her brows drew together. “There are many reasons our relationship may not work out, but I am sure you have considered them, and it would be unfair to list them all now. I am simply… worried that my affections may not be what I thought they were. That my love—that it is merely my frustrations in another form. That when I kiss you, it is not out of affection, but out of a need to… relieve my urges. That I do not deserve you.”
“You are not making yourself very clear.”
“You would not be the first to tell me that. I suppose…” She paused, wringing her hands. “I suppose it does not make much sense, and if you enjoy it, then we don’t have anything to worry about. There is nothing wrong with physicality, after all. I am not trying to hurt you; I am trying to make you feel better.”
“But are you so upset over it?” she asked. “Are you afraid of your own feelings?”
“I am never comfortable with them, if that is what you mean.”
“Why not?”
“I am awkward. I am uncomfortable with myself; that is the very definition of the term. I have never been anything but,” she answered, frowning, “and if that surprises you now, then I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“I can’t change who I am for you.” Her voice rose. “You can’t expect me to be comfortable with the idea right away.”
“It has been months since we started this—”
“And it may take years. I might never be comfortable with the idea; that’s what I’ve been telling you all along!” she snapped. “It is strange! It is hard! It is absurd; it has been… what, twenty years since Galyan? Twenty years spent believing I have only ever been interested in men—you may have had the benefit of knowing all along, but I did not. If you think it is easy, then imagine learning that your beloved parents were not actually your birth parents and that they had kidnapped you from your real family when you were young. That is what it feels like.”
“That isn’t anywhere near comparable.”
“You don’t understand how it feels,” Cassandra said. “You could not possibly understand. You want so much from me and from us and from our relationship—”
“I am trying to make it work—”
“And I don’t fault you for that! I know you are. But I cannot help what I feel. I never could. I am very near to the point of driving myself insane with doubt, and you are so much better at dealing with it than I am,” she said, placing her hands on Josephine’s shoulders, “that I am worried that you will not have the patience for my misgivings.”
“Cassandra,” she said, “with that kind of attitude, I will always have the patience for you.”
“Because I am apologetic?”
“Many are not.”
“You are a fool,” she sighed, and let go. “If you continue to encourage me, I might actually take advantage of you.”
“There is no way I could imagine you taking advantage of me.”
“Because you don’t believe I’m capable of cruelty,” she scoffed, turning away, “because I am so nice and I apologize and I couldn’t possibly harm you and mean it—”
“That is what it means to have faith—”
“But is it worth it?” she said, looking at her. “Is it worth the stress? Is it worth my stress, on top of everything else that I have to do? I do not know how much more my heart can take.” Her voice was suddenly soft. “I am a romantic, but I am a pragmatist. I do not…” Her brow creased. “What the Chantry needs right now is stability, not a Divine that will shatter at the first sign of her illicit romantic relationship falling apart.”
It quieted her. “I… I see.”
“I had hoped that you would not. I did not want to have to… expose you to that side of me. I would give the world for you, but the world needs me. It is dangerous.” She began to wring her hands again.
“I understand.” Josephine looked down, and felt cold in the pit of her stomach. “You have your obligations, as I have mine.”
“I trust you, but I do not trust myself.”
“But if you have thought that far, then why did you agree to this? Why did you not turn me down before?” she asked, looking up at her.
“Because I am impulsive and I am maudlin,” she drawled, “and back then, I believed that we could do it. Now that I am the Divine—now that I feel like the Divine—it seems a much less feasible task.”
“So you do…”
“Want to stop? But if I said as much, then you would agree with me, and then we would actually stop. I am…” She took a deep breath. “I am looking for reassurance.”
Josephine walked up to her, drew close. “What kind of reassurance were you looking for?”
“The kind that will convince me I won’t regret this for the rest of my life,” she said, wrapping arms around her waist.
Josephine circled arms around her neck. “I can’t promise you that.”
“Well, then why even bother,” she muttered, and leaned down.
It had been a different time then, those idle summer days, and Josephine marveled at the fact that she had been so calm around her back then. Granted, they had been able to see each other much more often when Cassandra was still living at Skyhold, and now that she had moved back to Val Royeaux Josephine had lost her greatest source of mental strength. She was much more likely to rant at Leliana or Varric or the Inquisitor or whoever was still around these days; she was lonely, and pining after someone she would not have dreamed of courting even a year ago. But everything was so up in the air and she was so busy that she could not afford any more delays, even for pining. The date of the ball was looming near. Everything had to be perfect.
But perfection arrived a little too late, and before Josephine knew it, she was already there greeting dignitaries in Val Royeaux, home of Empress Celene and Divine Victoria and rumors that they were bedding each other already. “Blasphemy,” she had been told by some Antivan noble or another, “they would have murdered each other within days. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she had replied, in her now almost unfamiliar mother tongue, “I most certainly do,” and then an Orlesian next to her gave them both a dirty look. How she had missed this city, her home away from home, Val Royeaux!
Naturally, Celene spared no expense. While the Imperial Palace was not so grand as the one in Halamshiral, it was still massive and still plenty elaborate. If there was not a statue here or a painting there, it was in the process of being repaired or repainted. She was still outside the ballroom, still aghast at some of the outfits these people were wearing, still keeping an eye out for Cassandra in her absurd Divine getup, but remained unwaveringly cordial toward all who crossed her path even when she couldn’t stand them. The other members of the Inquisition tried to mingle, largely without success. Only Blackwall, Dorian, and Vivienne blended in. Meanwhile, the Iron Bull stuck out egregiously with his horns, Cole was nowhere to be seen, and Sera was probably off wreaking havoc somewhere. As for her fellow advisers, Leliana was only pretending to listen to her conversation partners, and Cullen was cornered by his admirers as usual. Everything was going as well as it could have, at this point. She sweated in her uniform; they could not stave off the last of the summer heat. Then the first bell rang, and everyone moved inside.
Yes, she had heard, the Divine had made it. She would be sitting near the Empress for the duration of the ball, and only when the Empress left her seat would she be allowed to leave, and would the Empress flirt with her, probably; was she the Empress’s type, most definitely; was the Empress polite enough to leave her alone, most definitely not. Didn’t the Divine already have a lover? Oh, but who? The whispers went on and on into the night; Josephine danced with Maker-knows-how-many-people; her sister Yvette was there again; she talked with Leliana when she could; they would meet with Cassandra eventually, she said; you must not give yourself away, she said, even if Most Holy does.
The talks, when they finally happened, were long and trying. None of the ideas were new. She kept having to shoot glances across the room at Cassandra, and everyone noticed but she didn’t care—shut up, said her eyes, shut up! She could not afford to have Cassandra act like a fool in front of the others. The Empress knew and Vivienne knew and everyone else knew and it was so embarrassing, but she retained her composure throughout the hours and hours of debate; eventually composure was all she could do to keep herself awake. At some point, when the night grew long, and people were tired and the talks were over, Empress Celene had one of her attendants slip Josephine a note to meet Cassandra outside—away from the festivities, in one of the less populated corners of the Palace. For you, Celene had mouthed, when they made eye contact. Josephine glared daggers at Leliana, who then smiled and likewise mouthed, You’ll thank me later.
There, Cassandra had changed into something more comfortable than her Divine robes, in the fashion of what her guards wore. “Josephine,” she hissed, in the darkness of the hallways, “in here, quickly,” and urged them inside an unassuming parlor with a bed.
“Cassandra,” she said, dumbfounded, as Cassandra closed the door. This was not a parlor, it was a bedroom.
“I knew about this only a little before you did,” Cassandra said, abashed. “Celene told me that I was free to leave, but I didn’t realize…”
“That her intentions were a little more suspect than that. I understand.” Josephine rose an eyebrow. “Did Leliana tell you anything?”
“Leliana?” she asked. “What did she—”
“Never mind.”
“There is a bed in here, Josephine,” she said, thrusting a finger at it. “I’m assuming that was not a coincidence.”
“It was very likely not.”
“You know more about this arrangement than I, then?”
“She… Leliana informed me that she would do something of this nature, yes.” Josephine looked around the room, almost expecting her to materialize out of some dark corner somewhere. It was reasonably well-lit, and decorated in that heinous rococo fashion that was taking Orlais by storm nowadays: the furniture was obscured by those terrible ubiquitous curlicues and there were gaudy angel carvings and repulsive shades of pastel everywhere. “This room is absolutely hideous,” she said, and the candles seemed to darken in agreement.
“I’m glad we can at least agree on that.” Cassandra planted herself awkwardly in the middle of the room, refusing to move from that spot. “I can’t imagine how anyone could be expected to sleep in here, let alone make love.”
“I… I am to blame for this whole debacle.” She sat on the bed and crossed her legs. “Maybe I should have expected this,” she sighed.
“You are sighing again.” She walked over to her side of bed and loomed like a flustered dracolisk, scarred and tall and bony and positively plaintive with concern.
“Do you even love me in that way, Cassandra?”
“Do I want to have sex with you?” She thought about it. “I am uncertain. Probably. I have my reservations—I cannot see myself enjoying it as you might—but I would give anything for the chance to make you happy.” She drew close, took her hands in her own. “In that sense, yes. Although…” She paused. “I do not know how to feel about you touching me. The thought does not excite me. It mostly just annoys me.”
Josephine frowned.
“I am being honest. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She looked down. “We should not… We are running out of time, and there is still so much I want to do. I… I don’t even know when I’ll see you again after this.”
“I know. It is a mess.”
“That’s the real reason why I’d rather just… make love to you and forget about all of this!” She spread her arms. “Or have you make love to me, whichever; I will not touch if you if you aren’t comfortable with it. At least then when we part we will part with good memories, with good feelings, we will not be stuck wondering about this or that or the other thing. We will have… confirmed our love. Made it tangible. Real.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“That is not how it has to be, but…” She faltered. “I do not know, really; I’m grasping at straws here. I have been talking to people all day and you probably have as well, and you know I usually enjoy it, but today I am totally sick of it. I could not be out of this place sooner. I don’t even… know,” she said, with a breathy laugh, “what I am doing. I am totally delirious.” She looked at Cassandra. “We defeated an original darkspawn, Cassandra! We defeated Corypheus! I have no idea what to do right now. I am waiting for the next war, so we can stop it, because honestly, I am going crazy without another to deal with.”
“As am I.”
“You have performed the work of the Divine. You have slain dragons and darkspawn and Venatori and Red Templars and—I think I understand! You are going crazy. That is what it is. You are going mad from inaction, and every time you let yourself go, the craving only returns more severely and more viciously the next time around. It is in the same sense that Master Iron Bull claims to enjoy being struck. You have hit the most amazing highs and experienced the most exhausting lows, and I doubt that even having sex with me will achieve magnitudes of either of those extremes.”
Cassandra smiled and leaned over and brushed the hair out of her face. “You are babbling, you know.”
“I feel as if I have not slept for days. Can you see it? Through the makeup?”
“You look amazing.”
“Lies,” she scoffed.
“You always look amazing.”
“Flattery isn’t much better.” She paused, wiped the hair out of her face. “I don’t want to have sex with you if all it tells you is that I’m desperate to have you touch me. We have spent all this time arguing over one thing or another and—I don’t care! I don’t care. I would be so happy even if you never touched me. I love you. I would do anything to be with you; it doesn’t matter in what way. I tire of this drama, not when I don’t know when I’ll ever see you again, and please,” she said, “tell me that I’m not a fool for saying all of this.”
“You are not.”
Her brows creased. “Then why do I feel like one?”
She sat beside her. “That is normal. Your behavior is perfectly normal. We do not have to do anything if you do not feel like it.”
“Cassandra, I want to do everything. All at once. All the time. Ever. I’m just… I’m so worried that I’ll lose you. I don’t understand how this is supposed to work. It is infuriating. You fret over this and that and we never agree on anything and I—why? What is the meaning of any of this? Why do I continue to pursue you? You are the Divine, for Andraste’s sake; I… I could not possibly ruin that for you. I cannot afford to be so selfish when there are so many other people waiting for your help.”
“You are not ruining anything for anyone. As the Divine, I profess that you are important to me, and that everyone else can wait.” She covered Josephine’s hands with her own and moved ever so slightly forward, an invasion of personal space but a welcome one if there were any.
“Tell that to the clerics in the Chantry,” said Josephine, oblivious, or defiant, or maybe a little of both. “You will be laughed out of the Grand Cathedral.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I mean it, Josephine.”
“You are the Divine,” she said again. “Do you even understand what that means?”
“I, most of all. Do you?” she asked, but before Josephine could answer, she had leaned in and kissed her.
“No,” she said between kisses, “to be honest I really don’t.” She could scarcely think. Whatever was happening right now, it was marvelous.
“Then shut up,” said Cassandra, easing her onto her back, “and let me touch you.”
No one had caught them in the act, incidentally, but everyone noticed the pair of them afterward. She would not know until far too late how much coin Cassandra had paid the Empress to try to keep her people quiet, and not even that prevented rumor from spreading from Orlais to Ferelden into the Free Marches and Antiva, wherein her parents promised to find her a match more suitable than the one sitting on the Sunburst Throne.
Josephine would eventually receive so many inquiries into their relationship that replying to them became almost second nature. Divine Victoria, for her part, either intimidated her followers into keeping their mouths shut, or else weathered the goading and wisecracks with as much patience as she could muster.
Such trysts, Cassandra would later write to her in a letter, are expected of every single player of the Game. I should not be surprised by their tolerance, but I do worry about you. Eyes and ears are everywhere.
We are all always in danger, Josephine wrote back. We live in Thedas, for Andraste’s sake; if you are not dead yet, then it is either by providence or by sheer dumb luck, and the wisest of us would say that those were interchangeable. We are lovers in the public eye, and you expected to be miserable. Tell me something that I do not know.
You are noisier than I thought you’d be, she replied, like a sea lion giving birth, and when Josephine read her reply she had been so righteously offended that she threw the whole letter into the fire, envelope and all. It burnt to a merry crisp.
“So,” said Leliana, after they had returned to Skyhold from the ball. “How was it?”
“Elaborate, Leliana. How was what?”
“Sex with Cassandra. You know,” she said, leering, “the one we had all once assumed to be straight?”
“Oh,” she said, without a second thought, “it was divine.”