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As the taste of iron pushed up into his mouth, Tarquin still stood staring at the Divine’s Manor, wondering where the side entrances would be on an estate this big. There were gardens, plazas, wings that housed servants – slaves before the reign of Aequitas II –, clergy and administrative staff. However, through the wrought iron fence that encircled the walls at quite a distance, it was hard to guess, and right now, Tarquin was in no state to brave the spear-shaped tips.
Wouldn’t have known how to find Ashur, anyway. Front gate it is.
In a puddle on the cobblestone street, glaring in the green light of a magic lantern high above, Tarquin checked that the rain had washed away the blood that kept seeping out from the plates of his Templar armour. If he draped his mantle right, he probably had a few minutes of looking normal before he started to drip red on the expensive carpets in the manor.
He shouldn’t have come here at all – wouldn’t have come here at all, had he any hope of making it to a Shadow Dragon safe house before he bled out on the street. However, the knife he’d caught in the side before he’d bashed that Venatori lackey’s head in had pushed in deep.
Here was to hoping Ashur was even in; he’d only mentioned in an off-hand comment last night that he planned to stay at the Manor today rather than at the Argent Spire. If Ashur had been called away, Tarquin might be done for. He had no idea which of Ashur’s servants were trustworthy. A wounded Templar should still be able to get help at the Divine’s Manor regardless, but pretty much every second one of his dear colleagues was in the pockets of the Venatori and they’d naturally be alerted if one of their fellows collapsed on the doorsteps. Chances were they would soon enough be able to connect him to their little ritual he’d just ruined, cut his throat and call it an unfortunate death as a result of his wounds. Staying out on the street was just as much of a risk for the same reason. One of those Venatori rats had slipped him, just at the end of the brief but bloody clash. Whatever reinforcement she fetched would know their target had been dressed up in Templar armour – though at least not that Tarquin had just used his own standard issue rather than a disguise.
The Chantry’s glaring eye hung in dark metal over the double-winged front door, dripping rain waiter down its sunbeam lashes. Tarquin winced at the pain shooting up his side when he grabbed the dragon-shaped knocker and slammed it into the wood.
After a few moments, a Templar in shiny silver armour opened the door for him. Tarquin pushed up his visor, hoping he didn’t look too pallid.
“Evening,” Tarquin said, forcing his voice steady as he saluted, the movement tearing at the wound even though he used his good side. “Ser Tarquin from down in the Templar Archives. I have a dispatch from Knight-Captain Lepidus. He said His Holiness wanted a report face-to-face.”
One thing Tarquin knew was that Ashur made time for Templars. It was one of his attempts to create connections within the ranks, hopefully pull a few back from their dark paths or keep them from veering off. Unfortunately, he was one man fighting an entire cabal in the shadows, which turned this into a largely fruitless endeavour. Tarquin, for his part, thought that most of his colleagues deserved a journey into the harbour with a stone tied to their foot rather than an audience with the Divine. He had often squabbled with Ashur over the danger of showing his naked throat to potential traitors just to get them to reconsider. Tonight, though, he could make use of his optimistic approach.
“I see. Come in. His Holiness is not engaged with visitors right now, so I’ll have your arrival announced to him,” the Templar woman said, waving to him.
Tarquin sent a silent prayer of gratitude to the Maker as he stepped out of the rain into a spacious entrance hall bordered on both sides by statues of grave old men in robes and headdresses, likely former Divines. Ashur had to know Tarquin wouldn’t turn up here without a damn good reason, so as long as word of his arrival got to him, he should be able to get to talk to him in private soon. Maybe Ashur would chew Tarquin out for taking the risk of exposing him, which would be entirely fair, but he’d never make him wait.
He focused on keeping his breathing flat and ignoring the dark splotches at the edges of his vision. When the Templar woman returned with an elf in tow, he couldn’t have said when she’d even left his side, or how much time had passed since then. His heart had gone from beating in his throat to beating right behind his eyes, his whole head pulsing. I can’t lose it now. I’m too close. He nodded carefully at the elf in her tailored grey servant’s uniform, not trusting himself to speak.
“This is Ser Tarquin,” the Templar woman told the elf.
The elf mirrored his nod, her knot of tightly-wound hair bobbing briefly. Half her face was twisted by a crude, painful-looking old brand, leaving her with a permanent snarl. Slave mark, Tarquin’s brain supplied, seeing the trace of a lion’s shape in the mess of burn scars. Probably the mines or a galley. Nobles tended not to want to mess up their display pieces, but they were less careful with the less visible property.
“Follow me,” she said curtly.
Tarquin did, focusing on making it one step at a time, eyes lowered to the tips of his boots. It wasn’t the first time he’d sustained a serious injury – it didn’t happen so much in the archives, obviously, but it certainly had in the grey waves at the coast before Ventus. However, the last time he’d worn a military uniform was ten years ago, the year before he’d turned thirty, and the added decade hadn’t made his body more durable.
He was so concentrated on just keeping upright he almost walked past the servant when she stopped in front of a door. The dark wood sat under an arch of stone flanked at both sides with statues of Andraste wielding a mage’s staff, and topped with some silver-studded writing in Old Tevene that Tarquin couldn’t read.
The woman knocked, waited for a moment for a quiet noise inside, and pushed the thick, heavy door open with her shoulder.
Ashur sat behind a desk in a long black robe. The red slashes of fabric that decorated the vestments of more lowly priests were replaced with blood-coloured stitching around his collar, spreading out into brilliant, ruby-topped sunbeams over his shoulders and chest. He wore a diadem inlaid with the sunbeam eye on his forehead, a spiderweb of delicate gold chains draped across his head and dangling in thin strands around it, pearls swaying in the slender gold threads like strung-up stars. Tarquin found himself staring.
“Your Most Holy, this is Ser Tarquin, the one with the message from Knight-Captain Lepidus. I believe Fellum told you?”
If he hadn’t been about to vomit a mouthful of blood, Tarquin would have felt like commending the servant for lingering in the doorway, blocking his own entrance with a confidently placed foot. The elven woman had a bright, alert gaze and there was the faint outline of a blade under her shirt. Clearly, she was tasked to make sure that the Divine wasn’t left alone with anyone potentially dangerous and she took that job seriously. Tarquin hoped Ashur had a couple more people like this around him, even if it was bloody inconvenient right now.
“Yes. I’ve been waiting for Lepidus to send someone,” Ashur said without missing a beat. “Thank you, Alrai.” He regarded her for a moment. “Isn’t your shift over?”
“Gellus is still green. He can take the night shift, but as for visitors, I want a look at them,” she said with a sharp sideways glance at Tarquin.
“Gellus has to learn how to handle himself. You should go get some sleep, Alrai,” Ashur said mildly.
“As you wish,” the elf answered, giving Tarquin one more critical look before she bowed her head and waited for him to step inside so she could close the door behind him.
Once she had done so, Tarquin tried to listen through the drum beat in his head until he could not hear her steps anymore. Hopefully, that meant she also wouldn’t hear his armour crashing to the floor, considering his knees had lost all interest in carrying his weight. He still managed to catch himself on the arch of the doorway, at least.
“Sorry,” he managed. “I need help.”
Quick like a snake could strike, Ashur was out of his chair and by his side, offering him his shoulder to lean on.
“Where are you hurt?”
“Stabbed,” Tarquin grunted. “Left side.”
With a nod, Ashur pulled Tarquin’s right arm over his shoulder and dragged him across the room, easily carrying the weight of him in his heavy steel armour. They passed through a discreet door hidden between two overflowing bookcases which opened into a bathroom, all perfectly cut dark stone and golden fixtures. Easy to clean. Good choice. Because Tarquin could already see a trickle of blood drip down his leg.
Ashur sat him down on the ground and briefly glanced at the smear of red on his hand which had held Tarquin around the waist.
“I will get you a potion to bolster your strength for the moment,” he said, taking a couple of steps out of the room to rummage somewhere. “Were you followed?”
“I’m not dumb. Wouldn’t have come here if I had a tail,” Tarquin murmured.
“You should have come regardless. I can think on my feet.” Ashur strode back through the door. “It’s better to risk being revealed than to have you die.”
Kneeling before him, Ashur pulled the cork on a crystal bottle with thick red liquid inside. Tarquin made a grab for it, but his fingers missed by a decent margin. Wordlessly, Ashur lifted the bottle to his lips, one gentle hand steadying the back of Tarquin’s head so he didn’t choke on the potion.
Even packaged up in that fancy phial that sparkled in all colours in the light of an ever-burning magic steel candle on the wall, healing potions always tasted like mashed up elf-root and grass. However, Tarquin still heartily welcomed the warmth that spread through him, down his throat, into his stomach, diffusing from there into his limbs. The pounding in his head quieted down. One potion wasn’t going to get him out of this mess, but he could actually hear himself think again.
“Do you have other wounds?” Ashur asked.
“Just bruises and scrapes. The cut’s deep, though.”
Ashur nodded his head, the thin golden threads gently swaying along. He reached around Tarquin, deftly pulling apart the leather clasps that held his breastplate and shoulder guards in place.
“You know how to strip an armour. Ever play with Templars behind the altar?” Tarquin joked breathlessly.
The first time he’d said something like this to the Divine, after he’d learned who he was, it had slipped out without him thinking, and he’d expected to get a scolding like the Chantry Brothers used to give him for sleeping during sermons. However, Ashur had deflected the blow as staunchly as ever, and from the way his eyes had narrowed, Tarquin had known he was smiling. After that, he just hadn’t stopped taking opportunities.
Ashur probably thought Tarquin simply enjoyed mocking someone of higher standing, which wasn’t untrue. There was, of course, another reason he liked talking to Ashur this way, but he tried not to think about that. Not that Ashur was likely to be interested, anyway. If the line of young Shadows swooning over the Viper was anything to go by, he was probably beating suitors off with his staff at Altus parties, too. Tarquin expected that he was either taking his pick already and being discreet about it, or that he simply wasn’t available for this sort of thing at all. And anyway, even if he were, that wasn’t a guarantee he’d want Tarquin. Too many ifs to gamble their friendship on, which meant more to Tarquin than he was willing to admit out loud.
“I wish Templars liked me enough to try to seduce me into illicit affairs. It might help my standing with them,” Ashur said dryly, placing the pieces of armour to the side. “Can I lift your shirt?”
“I’d wager you have to.”
Still, he did appreciate that Ashur asked. Ashur always did as long as someone wasn’t already unconscious or too out of it to make a decision – Tarquin had seen that at the safe house before. The thing was, you didn’t realistically have many options when you were bleeding tankards full of blood. You could let the healer do whatever they wanted, or you could die. That, however, was at least a choice; and especially in moments when you were this weak, it felt better not to just be wordlessly pulled and prodded like a dying animal, too.
Ashur pushed his shirt up quickly, tearing the fabric out of the half-clotted blood over the wound. Tarquin groaned in pain and didn’t otherwise complain, since a slow drag would have been worse.
With the shirt disposed off, Ashur reached past him to grab a fresh white cloth from the side of the stone bath tub, turned it soggy with a sparkling wave of his hand, and wiped away the blood. He frowned mildly at the deep, serrated wound.
“Tell me you can fix it,” Tarquin said through gritted teeth.
Because he’d seen Ashur’s magic and if he couldn’t, he had no idea where they’d get somebody who could. He really didn’t want to die tonight.
“I think so, but it will hurt. I’ll have to open up the wound to get to the damage inside. I could give you a sleeping draught.”
Tarquin breathed an unsteady sigh of relief. Ashur sounded very sure of himself and he was not a liar.
“I’d be out for hours, wouldn’t I? Going to be difficult to explain the Templar napping in your room.”
“I told you, I can come up with-”
“Just get it over with. I’ll bite that cloth or something.”
Ashur sighed. “It’s always the military men,” he murmured derisively.
Despite the pain, Tarquin snorted with amusement. Ashur even handed him a fresh cloth to bite. How fancy. He used to just use his own leather gloves when he was getting stitched up back at the front.
“Put your arm around my shoulders. You’ll be able to brace,” Ashur said, moving into position.
“I don’t want to crush you while you’re trying to do magic.”
“I’m sturdy.”
Since he was bleeding too much to keep arguing, Tarquin did as Ashur told him. Ashur’s hand ran carefully over his side, feeling the shape of where the wound sat.
“I’m starting now.”
And he pushed two fingers into the hole below Tarquin’s ribs, right up to the knuckles.
Tarquin could barely register the pain over how fucking outlandish what followed was. He’d been stabbed often enough to not be foreign to the sensation of things sticking in his raw flesh, that burning, screeching ache, but as Ashur slowly dragged his glowing hand back, Tarquin could feel his organs and flesh knitting back together behind his receding fingers, like Ashur was drawing a curtain closed. There was also something moving through his flesh, maybe a splinter of bone reattaching itself to his rib. When Ashur’s bloody hand came to rest against Tarquin’s side again, where the wound used to be, Tarquin was still shuddering.
“Maker’s breath,” he said with emphasis, after he’d spat the cloth into his lap.
“My apologies. The wound was deep.”
“I mean, I’d rather have that than a hole in my colon. Just felt damned weird.”
The shivering hadn’t stopped. Slowly, Tarquin realised it wasn’t just him trying to squirm away from the feeling, but also the sudden cold that had descended on him.
“Should I feel like I swallowed snow?” he asked.
“That can happen. Healing magic also draws on your body’s own powers – a lot of it when the damage is this big.” Ashur rose to his feet and rinsed his hands in a basin with water. “Wait here for a moment.”
Tarquin expected another brightly coloured potion. Instead, he got a steaming mug. “It’s sweet,” Ashur warned as he handed it over to Tarquin, who greedily wrapped his hands around the warm clay vessel. Ashur held his palm under it for a moment, but despite the shivering, Tarquin’s grip was strong enough to keep the cup safe.
From bleeding out to basically fine in a couple of minutes. I guess it’s not all that different from the way he wields the elements, but...
It was always so much easier to conceptualise power as something destructive, especially here in Tevinter. When Ashur burned and blasted his way through their enemies, Tarquin had never been surprised. They’d bred him like a race horse for power, so of course he would be a one-man storm. But exceptional healing magic was a lot more subtle when it wasn’t being worked on you.
Tarquin wondered if it took more skill. After all, it was a lot easier to smash something than to put it back together.
“Where did you get that drink so quickly?” Tarquin asked instead, since he didn’t want to draw Ashur into a whole debate on magic theory this late at night.
The brown liquid inside the cup smelled like burned sugar – had to be cocoa, he realised, not coffee with milk.
“My desk,” Ashur said flatly, reaching for his cloth again. “Can I clean you?”
“Sure, but I’ll have to put the bloody shirt back on, anyway.”
“I’ll give you one of mine,” Ashur said, as he quickly wiped down Tarquin’s torso before he also cleared the blood off his armoured leg.
Tarquin took a sip. The cocoa was hot enough to burn his throat, just what felt nice right now, and sweeter than a mouthful of overripe apples.
“You weren’t joking,” he said, making a face. “Why does it taste like this? Did your servants mix up milk and honey?”
“Because that’s how I drink it.”
“Huh,” Tarquin made. “Never knew you had a sweet tooth.”
Ashur just smiled briefly, once more cleaning off his hands in the basin before he left again. This time, he took a little longer to come back. Despite the taste, Tarquin had swallowed down half of the blessedly warm drink and managed to clean his breastplate and the ground when Ashur returned with a finely-spun, undyed linen shirt.
Tarquin placed the cup down and dragged himself up onto his feet by the edge of the tub. His legs held him well enough, so he reached out for the shirt and pulled it over his head. It was a little wide at the shoulders, but the fabric was thick and cosy. The armour fit well over it. Seeing himself in the mirror across the room, he looked just a regular Templar again, if still a little pale.
“How are you feeling?” Ashur asked.
“Like I need to go buy you some candied fruit or something. I really owe you one.”
“Not for this. But what happened to you?”
“Smashed a small blood magic ritual that had a couple Templar guards, so infiltrating was easy.” He frowned. “I let one of the bastards slip, though.”
“That needn’t be the worst thing. Some reports of our effectiveness might stay a few hands without the need for violence,” Ashur said.
“Let’s hope so.”
Tarquin followed Ashur into his study, where Ashur pointed him to a beautifully carved wooden chair with a deep plush cushion that looked like no one had ever sat on it before. Tarquin lowered himself on it despite the thought that it was probably more expensive than his life. He still felt a bit light-headed.
“Can you stay a little longer? I want to make sure that everything went right with the spell.”
“My original plan was to bleed out in a gutter tonight, so I’ve got nothing else planned,” Tarquin drawled. “Besides, I feel if I go out there by myself, your bloodhound might run me through with a knife, after all. I doubt she actually went home.”
Ashur shook his head. “Alrai acts more callous than she is, but she is just as dangerous as she looks. I have to introduce the two of you. I’d have done so when you came, but it’s not a good idea to speak of anything confidential with the door open – the Manor has too many ears. Besides, I’d figured you had urgent business.”
Tarquin tried to imagine living in a place where half the people in it might eventually try to kill you. He’d go mad, but he supposed to Ashur, that was just what life had always been like. After all, the Vesperians probably weren’t the only family who had tried to make a Divine and Altus mages were never shy about thinning the ranks of the competition.
“You could say that. Couldn’t you fix her brand, by the way? You obviously got the skills.” He cocked his head. “Or does she not want you to?” Because he had a few of those scars, too.
“The latter. She says it makes sure that people know why they should be afraid of her,” Ashur said with half a smile. He pulled at a thin piece of rope by the desk that rang a distant bell somewhere in the hall outside. “I’ll have dinner brought. Lepidus’s report is quite long indeed. You lost a lot of blood, so you need to replenish your strength.”
As he walked to the door, he arranged the folds of his robe and straightened his collar. Now that he wasn’t distracted by his insides trying to escape him, Tarquin found himself looking at Ashur more closely again. He was every inch the Altus mage like this and his instincts desperately wanted to call him foppish, but unfortunately, the first word in his mind was regal instead. That’s how I know I’m in too deep.
There was a knock. The young man who opened looked barely old enough to not be called a boy, all curly hair and vibrating excitement.
“Denny, I’ll have a guest for dinner tonight,” Ashur informed him. “Could you also bring us a pot of tea? Unsweetened.”
“Certainly, Your Perfection,” he said eagerly.
He was already turning to dash off when Ashur said: “By the way, how is your sister?”
“Oh, she’s fine!” the man answered, coming to a quick halt, almost stumbling like a young colt. “She and the babe are both well enough. Her little girl was born just this morning,” his face clouded, “although her neighbour said it’s not a good omen that the sun wasn’t all the way up.”
“Blessings on both of them. It is said a child born to the just-rising sun speaks of a life of fruitful new beginnings,” Ashur said, and he used one hand to draw a fiery circle into the air before he touched the red sunbeams on his chest, a common gesture of blessing by mage-clerics. The Soporati ones Tarquin grew up with usually used a candle to create the same effect. Since this was Tevinter, it wasn’t thought to be as auspicious as when a mage did their little fire trick, though.
The young man beamed. “Thank you for your well-wishes, Your Perfection. I’ll tell my sister!” he said before he bowed so deep he was in danger of toppling over and bounded off.
Tarquin had listened to the exchange in baffled silence. When Ashur closed the door and turned to him, he saw his expression.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Tarquin lied. “Bet you got a line prepared for every hour of the day and night.”
“Of course,” Ashur said. “This superstition is too pervasive. It has no basis in any text I’m aware of, and even if it did, I can’t see the point of telling a new mother that her child is cursed for being born at the wrong time. There wasn’t much she could have done about it, after all.”
“Right.”
“A small sleight of hand like that surprises you?”
Tarquin shook his head, still unsure how to put it. “I’ve just never seen you be the Divine.”
In fact, there was a lot of Ashur’s life that he had no idea about, from the cup of horribly sweet hot chocolate in his hand to the people that he lived with. Yet, Ashur had opened those doors quickly and willingly. Tarquin did not belong in this world of the Gilded District and had little ambition to change that fact, but he felt welcome in the inner sanctum of Ashur’s private space, at least.
“You’ve been to sermons I held,” Ashur said, perching on the edge of his desk.
“Yeah, but you were summoning enough fire to burn down a district and speaking in Old Tevene and quoting ancient texts and all that. It was a show, politics. You weren’t – you know, acting like a Father.”
“Ah,” Ashur said with a slow nod. “It’s interesting that this strikes you as appropriate behaviour for the Divine. I agree with you – but many would find the ceremonies more important.”
“Well, technically, you are just a Father, right? But the temple you watch over is a lot bigger.”
He knew that wasn’t the way of the real world, considering being the Divine also meant being the Grand Enchanter and a member of the Magisterium, but that was how it had been explained to him as a kid, and in truth, that was still kind of what made the most sense to him.
“Indeed. I was placed on this path for prestige and influence, but I came to enjoy my role as cleric. I suppose it gave me a meaning when the pettier politicking didn’t. You are right that I do too little care work, though. I’m always short on time.” He raised a brow at Tarquin. “But you didn’t think I had it in me?”
Actually, now that Tarquin considered the way the Viper spoke to bloodied, over-excited and frightened Shadows, the line from the back of the Shop to the front of a Chantry seemed bright and clear like the gold chains Ashur wore.
“No, you’ve got a knack for talking people down.” He shrugged. “That headpiece looks better than the giant sunburst crown you usually wear, too. The one with the beams like a ring of swords.”
“It is also a lot more comfortable. The sunburst crown weighs eight pounds.” Ashur used one finger to gently untangle two strands of golden chain that had wrapped around each other. “However, people expect a certain appearance from the Divine.”
“I don’t know, I think this is the most Divine you’ve seemed to me so far,” Tarquin said, leaning back in the chair. “Caring about to the wounded, calming your flock, even sharing your clothes... hot cocoa’s a bit of a miss. Think Fathers are supposed to be ascetic or something. Kind of sweet, though.”
“Just kind of? You looked like I made you eat pure sugar.”
“You, not the drink.”
Tarquin regretted the words even as they fell off the tip of his tongue. It was too direct and personal, not some flippant dirty joke that teetered at the edge of offensive. But how were you supposed to keep that bottled up after someone saved your life?
Ashur looked at him for a long, torturous, silent moment. “You’re too nice to me today. Did you hit your head during the fight?” The thin smile faded from his face. “Speaking of that, I want to say this again so you remember: Do not ever hesitate to come to me for help. I don’t care if you make a commotion. Even waiting out there for my servants to get around to fetching you was dangerous. You were badly hurt.”
“Don’t worry. I’m tough as old leather,” Tarquin said, surprised by the flicker of naked fear in Ashur’s voice. He’d seemed so composed while he was treating him – but then, a good healer couldn’t be seen panicking while their patient was already afraid, and a good Father should probably never show they were scared. Tarquin was glad for it, though, because under all the sense and reason, Ashur was giving him a glimpse of more than either role allowed. This was just Ashur.
Ashur straightened his back, looking him in the eyes. “Quin, I don’t want to lose you.”
And perhaps that was Tarquin’s answer to that stupid comment. His heart was thumping wildly and Tarquin folded his arms over his chest as if to keep it from crashing straight through his ribs. He had to be a little brave, he supposed. Shouldn’t be a problem after working up the stones to walk into the Divine’s Manor tonight, right?
“You didn’t. If you still want to help me, you can come kiss it better, though.”
He didn’t make it sound like a joke and from Ashur’s wide, watchful eyes, he clearly didn’t take it as such. However, his movements were purposeful as he got up and leaned down, pressing a chaste kiss on Tarquin’s lips. The thin chains from his diadem brushed Tarquin’s face.
“Thanks, by the way,” Tarquin said, so he wouldn’t say something much heavier that he probably should keep to himself for now – but, hopefully, maybe not forever.
“As I said, anytime, and gladly. But I do hope you don’t make a habit out of getting hurt,” Ashur answered.
“Depends. Can I get you to take off my shirt for other reasons?”
A rough chuckle escaped Ashur as Tarquin wrapped his fingers into gold and pearls and pulled him in for another kiss.