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The Blight never slept.
It murmured on the edge of Ashur's thoughts like a tide worrying away at a stone - distant, relentless, yet ever-patient. Some nights it was nothing more than pressure behind his eyes or a metallic taste at the back of his throat. Other nights it was far worse: the low, churning awareness of something vast and ruined turning somewhere far below the world, calling in a language older than prayer.
This was one of those worse nights.
Ashur lay rigid on the narrow bed, Tarquin's breathing warm and even beside him, the small apartment wrapped in the fragile peace of sleep. Lower Minrathous at this hour was quieter than Hightown ever dared to be. There were no echoing halls, no servants padding by, no wards humming softly through marble. Just cracked plaster, a flickering street-lantern on a bent hook outside the window, and the soft rattle of old pipes in the walls. He stared at the ceiling until the shadows began to crawl, then accepted the truth he'd been avoiding for the last hour; he wasn't going to be able to sleep again that night.
Careful not to disturb Tarquin, he slid from the bed and crossed the room barefoot. The tile was cold beneath his skin, but he welcomed it. Cold was something he could still feel cleanly without need for interpretation.
The wash basin was chipped, the mirror clouded with age and poor polishing. It suited this place, and Ashur adored it. Everything here was smaller, imperfect, and honest in a way that Hightown never was. There were no falsely gilded appearances hiding a rotten core beneath, only the truth of lives being lived. Ashur braced his hands on the porcelain and bowed his head, letting the ache in his bones settle into something manageable. For a moment he focused only on breathing, on the faint pulse of ever-present magic beneath his skin, on the familiar litany he had learned to recite on nights just like this.
I endure. I remain. I serve.
He lifted his head.
The candlelight caught his eyes first.
At a first glance, everything seemed as it should be - grey-blue around the edges, green deepening towards the center, gold flecked faintly around the pupil like dust caught in the disappearing sunlight. The colors that had always defined him since childhood, colors that painters and priests alike had tried to interpret as omen or symbol. And then Ashur leaned closer.
There, just at the rim, where sclera met iris. A thread of red. It wasn't bright or dramatic. A subtle intrusion, like blood diluted in the water. Easy to miss, if you weren't looking for it. Ashur exhaled, slow and careful, as if any movement at all might make it spread.
"So," he murmured to his reflection, quiet so as to hopefully allow his partner on the bed to remain in ignorant, blissful sleep. His voice sounded steady; he hated that it was. The Blight pulsed in quiet acknowledgment, and he had the sickening thought that it seemed pleased to be noticed. Happy to be seen.
The Viper splashed water on his face, cold enough to sting without the warmth of his magic, and he straightened again. The red did not fade. If anything, it looked more certain now - it was no trick of the shadow, no smear of fatigue or remnant of nightmare. It was a promise.
He had known this day would come. As Divine, as a mage, as a man raised on doctrine and consequence, he had always understood the unavoidable arithmetic of it. Blight was not a wound that healed. It was a road with a single destination, even for His Perfection. Still... knowledge and witnessing were entirely different beasts.
Ashur closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his brow. Faith - at times in the Maker, at times in himself, at times in a vague, nondescript sense that justice existed - had been his armor for most of his life. It sat on his soul, polished and heavy and rarely questioned. The Maker tested and the Maker refined. Suffering had purpose and purpose was salvation. But no Archdemon cared about divine purpose.
Its call coiled through him, distant yet intimate, like a hand of ice around his spine. He could feel darkspawn moving somewhere beyond, or perhaps beneath, the city, just as he could feel the dull ache of inevitability that accompanied them. He was not yet lost. He was not yet theirs. But the line was thinning, and now it had left another mark where he could see it. His gaze drifted slowly to the bed behind him, reflected dimly in the mirror. Tarquin slept on his side, dark hair falling into his eyes, one arm flung across into the space Ashur had vacated as though the sleeping Templar's body had noticed the absence before his mind could. In the low light, he looked younger, unguarded in a way that even Ashur rarely saw in daylight. This place - this life - had been Tarquin's long before it had become Ashur's refuge.
Someday, Ashur thought, Tarquin would wake to an empty bed again.
The thought landed with a quiet finality that surprised him. There was no panic and no spiral. Just a heavy, solemn truth, settling into place beside all of the others he had carried for so long. He had faced councils, riots, assassins, heresy, and betrayal. He had stood before altars and armies alike and had not flinched.
This... this was what undid him.
The man turned back to the basin, gripping the edge until his knuckles paled. I endure, he reminded himself. Endurance was not the same as survival. He had chosen this path knowing the cost, had accepted the Blight because someone had to, because Tevinter demanded sacrifices even of its saints. And Ashur had always been that; raised from birth to be a symbol of righteous belief, a gilded vessel for the Maker Himself, destined to pour out everything inside until he had nothing left to give.
But he hadn't accounted for love.
A soft sound escaped him then. It wasn't quite a sob, it wasn't quite a prayer. His shoulders shook once, sharply, and he swallowed it down, furious at the betrayal of his own body. He would not wake Tarquin with weakness, not when the soldier got so little rest of his own. Ashur would not burden him with this yet. There would be time - Maker help him, there would be time.
Ashur reached for the towel, meaning to dry his face, to compose himself, to put the simplest of his many masks back on.
Instead, his grip found and tightened on the basin's edge once more.
Porcelain and metal creaked softly under the pressure - an ugly, fragile sound in the quiet room. A sharp crack spidered out beneath his fingers, stinging his skin as a shard bit into his palm. Blood welled, bright and blighted and undeniably real, dripping into the basin below. Ashur stared at it for a long second, his breath shallow. His magic stirred on reflex, flaring just enough to heat the air, to make the candle's flame waver in protest. He hissed under his breath - not in pain, but in frustration - and jerked his hand back too quickly.
The basin rattled. The candle flickered.
And in the mirror, the red in his eyes suddenly seemed brighter.