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Mira didn’t like Kirkwall. It wasn’t just because her mother and brother had died with the Viscount when a failed revolt against the Order ended in bloodshed and a harsh lesson, though that would certainly have been reason enough. The city just felt wrong.
It was on the sea, just like Ostwick. But where most of Ostwick was on a jutting promontory, swept by powerful trade winds that carried ships north and east to the ports of Rivain and Antiva and Par Vollen, Kirkwall seemed to squat in the dank estuaries of a river delta. The air in the city, even by the docks, had a fetid quality that made her throat tight.
She pressed unconsciously closer to Elyse’s side as they made their way through a depressing section of the city’s Lowtown. They must have made a funny pair–-a tall, gangly young Marcher woman with long chestnut hair up in a tangled bun and fierce eyes, and a petite young Rivaini woman with beaded and braided bronze hair and striking features who came barely to her shoulder. And here, in this part of the city, Elyse’s colorful bracelets and the sound of her clicking clacking beads and the bells and coins strung around her ankle seemed to draw attention.
It made Mira twitchy for the bow slung over her shoulder. Especially with Elyse’s staff safely stowed back with the Fools and their camp outside the city. There had been Templars at the gates when they entered.
“Remind me again why we’re here?” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
Elyse didn’t even bother to turn her head or cut her eyes–-they both knew she was rolling them. “I gotta see a woman about a boat, Tawny.” The smaller woman tried to bump Mira’s hip, but it was more of a hip-to-thigh bump because of their heights. Mira tripped gracelessly over her own feet with a stifled yelp, only recovering her balance after a few embarrassing hops.
Color burned through the faint freckles and sun-bronze across the Marcher’s broad cheekbones, and she fell back into step at her friend’s side. Her hands swept up into her long hair, tugging it loose from its bun and retucking errant waves and tangles back into place before re-securing it atop her head-–like a cat grooming its fur after falling off a chair, or a hawk calmly grooming its breast feathers after a graceless stoop, every motion intended to convey casual disregard for a fumble.
Elyse’s bow-shaped lips quirked in a fond smile, which she was quick to hide by turning her gaze ahead to the docks. “I did say you could wait at the tavern.”
Mira’s mouth lost it’s embarrassed moue, firming resolutely. Yellow eyes flicked toward her, to the empty air where her staff would normally have extended over her shoulder. “Not fucking likely. Besides, who calls a tavern The Hanged Man? Sounds…depressing.”
That earned a wry, brassy chuckle. “Welcome to Kirkwall. Chief export: depression.”
On the heels of this comment, there was a sudden thump at their side, as a heavyset man swung himself off of a crate and spat a thick gobbet of something dark into the gutter. “Welcome to Kirkwall indeed, ladies,” he drawled.
Mira sidestepped without missing a beat, making a slow circuit with one arm herding Elyse at her side, as the scrape of steps and a sudden lull in the furtive activity of Lowtown spread out from their center. A pair of men who had been making an exchange in an alcove were now focused on them with avid attention. Another scrape sounded from above them, and then a thump as a sparsely-clothed figure dropped down into the open space at Mira’s left. She felt with relief the tug at the small of her back as Elyse palmed her holdout dagger under cover of her shifting circuit and protective clutch.
Fucking Kirkwall. She *really* didn’t like this town.
“Gentlemen. We thank you for your welcome.” Butter wouldn’t melt in Elyse’s mouth, her tone was so cool and measured.
One of the men near the alcove elbowed his fellow, and they shared a snicker. “They make them Rivaini bitches as can talk proper, eh? Shockin’ ain’t it, Boss?”
The heavyset man shifted his belt with a dark, pleased expression. “Oh aye, boys. There’s plenty of big men who pay for mudskins with manners. And here we got a bit of cream with the coffee. Oh aye, this’ll do.”
Mira’s relaxed battle-ready posture tightened with shock at the slur and the implication of the words. She opened her mouth and edged one foot forward, ready to snap off a hot retort, but Elyse’s hand pressed the hilt of the dagger against the small of her back with gentle pressure to discourage it.
“It’s unfortunate they couldn’t pay for your edification as well. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse us, we have business at the docks.” Elyse turned her back on the heavyset man, confidence and surety writ through every line of her slight form, the sublimest unconcern on her dark honey features. She knew Mira would take her cue, knew the other woman was donning that brash attitude that came out when she knew there was going to be trouble and was bracing herself for it, probably giving one of those jaunty salutes she had picked up from Renault.
There was shifting behind them and a firming up of the two men between them and the street to the docks. The leader loosed a deep chuckle. “Just so happens we’ve also got business on the docks. We’ll be glad to–-escort you. Boys!”
Elyse rolled her eyes as she eeled away from Mira’s side, a flicker of green gathered in one palm, and Mira’s holdout dagger held low at her side. Slavers were so predictable. She heard the clatter of arrows in a quiver and the solid thud of Mira going to a knee behind her, and the first whir of a loosed arrow was like a song. A cramped street wasn’t the best battleground for the longbow, though–-she hoped Mira had the sense to get up to a rooftop.
She let that concern fall away, trusting her friend to do what was needed, and focused in on the fight with the keen attention and incisive action of the healer. She was small and quick, darting under a grasping hand, coming up beside a man like a dancer, her small dark hand resting firmly on his forearm. She felt the knit of bone and tissue and ligament, sought a weakness, and–-exploited it.
The healthy green glow of Creation magic didn’t know the difference between healing a wound and making one–-but Elyse did. Her lips skinned back from her teeth in a fierce expression as the Fade warped through the flesh and bone beneath her hand and the man cried out in pain, an old, ill-healed fracture splitting with stabbing agony. This: her only true apostasy. A healer’s oath twisted by necessity.
She ducked and twisted away as another pair of grasping hands made a grab for her braids, the knife coming up in a slashing arc. Blood spattered out, following the arc, from a jagged wound along a meaty arm.
“Get the fuckin mudskin!”
“Don’t let the big one get–-up! Blight fuckin take you all! Get them!”
Shouts rang out around them, but Elyse was in her moment, her small hand reaching as she arched up on toe-tip, grasping claw-like at a spindly shoulder. Joints were such vulnerable things–-bone in socket, ligaments, and soft flesh a poor sheathe. A tendril of green found a strained strand of tissue, teased, tore–-heed this, apprentice, sometimes you must break down the flesh in order to heal it–-and the man’s shoulder joint slumped grotesquely from the socket, accompanied by his choked scream.
Sometimes you had to break men to heal the world. It was a lesson she had learned young. Mira was still learning. But someday–-someday they would be a force to sweep through Thedas.
Elyse gave a brassy laugh, tossing her head to settle her braids back over her slim shoulders, and shook her wrists, stomped her feet, the clicking clacking of her bracelets and beads ringing out in counterpoint to a quick staccato thud of arrows rapid-fired into the meaty bits of their foes.
She twisted again, the green curl of her magic twining up her slender brown arm like a wisteria vine. There were more men–-reinforcements, but some had already fallen. Mira had gained the roof–-Elyse saw her kneeling near the edge, her long bones and angles folded compactly to field a rain of death.
There was a shout farther up the street–-brash but distinctly feminine. Elyse went for her next target, but found the chest her hand reached for suddenly sprouting a business-like crossbow bolt. She danced back with ringing chiming steps and held the dagger down and out at her side, body coiled to spring. Mira gave a warning shout from the roof, and another arrow winged over her shoulder, close enough that Elyse heard the whir of its passing. She didn’t bother to turn–-her friend couldn’t miss at this range.
There was a group tearing down the street towards them. Not guards, though Elyse looked for the flash of Templar shields, the green coiled around her arm dimming with caution. In fact–-
Two tall figures broke forward, one putting on a burst of speed, his lithe dark form seeming to fade out around the edges. The other brought two fingers to her forehead, almost in a salute, and behind Elyse another slaver went down, thrown back against a wall. The leader was still up–-wielding a cudgel and going for the crates that might give him enough elevation to reach Mira.
“Pardon us! Coming through! Flames, look at this brazen brass-balled nugshit. Fenris!” A tall, pale woman barreled down the street, stabbed her staff into the dirt and dust, and a shockwave with narrow focus careened along the street toward the leader, tumbling him off the crates and onto his back.
The lithe dark elf lit up all along one arm with a ghostly blue light, and then his hand disappeared into the chest of the downed slaver. Elyse’s fingers twitched on the hilt of Mira’s dagger, and she found the nearest wall with her back, sharp cinnamon eyes flicking up to check Mira’s safety and then drawn inexorably back just in time to see the slaver seize as though with cardiac arrest.
And she supposed it must be. The elf withdrew his gauntleted hand, now dripping with heartblood, and pushed back to his feet, looking around to take stock.
The female mage hadn’t stopped to make introductions, but was still tearing down the road, in pursuit of the remainder of their assailants. There was a muttered curse and a clatter from the rooftops, which drew Elyse’s eyes again, but rather than Mira, she spotted a dwarf with a nasty-looking crossbow making his way along the roofline after the mage.
The elf shot a glance and a curt nod of acknowledgment to Elyse, and turned to follow after them. Bemused, Elyse shouted a quick “Gratias” after his retreating back. She was fairly certain his back tensed and that there was a muttered “Salutatio” in response, but they were away quickly.
Elyse’s magic had dissipated completely, and she leaned down to wipe the blade of Mira’s dagger on a slaver’s trousers before making her way to the side of the alley where her friend was clambering down from the roof. The tall Marcher’s bow was back over her shoulder, her quiver a little lighter, but she was already inspecting some of her spent arrows with narrowed yellow eyes, salvaging what she could. It was a thrift she never would have known before she met Elyse and joined the Fools.
“Are you okay?” Mira’s eyes flicked over her from head to toe, her generous lower lip thinned with annoyance.
Elyse waggled her dagger in a dismissive gesture. “Better than you, idiot. Look at that pretty face!” She patted Mira’s hip to turn her and slid the dagger home in its sheath at her back. Her dark cinnamon eyes fixed on the swelling already rising across Mira’s left cheek. “You’re supposed to use your powders before they hit you, you know.”
Mira’s eyes shut and she heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Well, you had my dagger, not that you care about these sorts of details. Longbows–-not really made for close quarters.”
Elyse wrinkled her nose and reached up with gentle fingers that gave the lie to their teasing and bickering. She brushed cool green healing across the swelling, feeling the strain in the broad arching bone beneath and knit it stronger. Her lips twisted as her awareness of the body beneath her hand found a soreness low on Mira’s back where one of their attackers had tried to suckerpunch her in the kidneys.
The tall Marcher gave a sharp hiss as Elyse’s hand moved to the burn of pain low in her back.
“I’m sorry.” Not only for the hurt, but for all of it. Elyse never forgot that Mira was a noble, a woman who should have been in an estate with attendants and an easy life. But the life they lived was good-–they did good things and lived with purpose.
Mira shot her a hooded yellow look, disregarding the apology. “Those men-–”
Elyse smiled wryly and gave her friend’s back a last pat, watching with satisfaction as the tension of pain left her. “Slavers. C’mon. I still need to get to the docks.” She set out with a ringing chiming stride, shaking her braids back again.
Mira followed beside her, measuring her stride so as not to outpace her friend’s shorter legs. “Slavery is illegal in the Marches.” She said it matter-of-factly, secure in the privilege of her skin and her bloodline and the wealth waiting for her in her mother’s estate.
Elyse sighed, shaking her head. “Tawny-–” She tilted her head back, casting her eyes toward the Maker in a plea for fortitude. “Listen. They call this place the City of Chains. That kind of legacy doesn’t go away. It gets down deep into the stones of a place–-it lingers, it haunts.”
Mira’s tone was careful and uncertain. “I don’t understand what the sea chains have to do with slavers.”
Another sigh. Elyse came to a stop, turning on her heel to face Mira. Her cinnamon eyes were firm on her friend’s broad, innocent, kind–-Maker, still so much innocence, how did she manage it?–-face. She held her arms out, wrists turned up, clashing them together with a rattle of her bracelets. “The city. of. chains.”
A forceful breath flared the Marcher’s nostrils. “Oh.”
Elyse gave her a dark twist of a smile. “It was the heart of the slave trade back, oh I don’t know, before the Exalted age even.” She jerked her wrists apart as if breaking bindings, a discordant jangle of her bracelets ringing out. Mira flinched. “Like I said. That kind of thing gets down into the stones of a place. And the Imperium still has reach here. The Gallows is only concerned with stamping out uppity mages. The city itself does all of its work stamping out uppity mudskins and knife-ears.”
Mira’s jaw clenched, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “I hate those words.”
“You think you do?” Elyse shot her a cool cinnamon glance, but there wasn’t any sting to it, just a reminder.
Mira flushed slightly, eyes sliding away. “Sorry.”
Elyse’s lips quirked, her hands flicking as if casting away the darkness that lingered in the thought of this place’s history, and the apology along with it “The sooner we get to the docks, the sooner we can get out of here. It smells like an estuary.”
That startled a choked little laugh from Mira, dispelling some of the tension from her face. “Elyse. It *is* an estuary.”
“Well, Maker’s fuck, I wish you’d told me before. It explains so much.” She gave her friend a quirked little smile, gladdened by her answering laugh.
There were no chains on her wrists, on her ankles, no lash upon her back. Elyse was free-–would always be free. Only–-a red thread, thin as a wound, strong as dragonbone, binding her heart and fate link by link to this girl. But that was a binding she had chosen–-and would never regret.
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