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1.
Tarquin doesn’t regret joining the Shadow Dragons—far from it. He’s just not sure this is exactly what he was picturing when he signed on. Or maybe this is exactly what he should have expected from a group led by someone who runs around on rooftops in that getup. Still, he can’t deny the appeal of a chance to make positive change in this Maker-forsaken city that goes beyond inconveniencing the occasional magister at his day job when he can get away with it.
Standing in Shadow Dragons headquarters for the first time feels significant and like nothing all at once. It took several weeks of test patrols and following Tarquin home for them to finally trust him enough to show him their hidden base of operations. (He offered once to let someone hit him over the head and bring him back there if it made logistics easier—but the Viper’s eyebrows furrowed in a way that Tarquin interpreted as his being the kind of man who wasn’t in favor of unnecessary bodily harm to his allies, so Tarquin didn’t push it.)
The place itself is well-lit and welcoming; the walls are covered in graffiti and the floors are covered in cushions that look far too expensive to be in a place like this. But then, Tarquin supposes that’s what you get when the three most important people in your slave rebellion are alti. He hasn’t interacted much with Pavus or Tilani, but he can put two and two together when it comes to the Viper—you don’t just get that kind of magical ability, or handwriting that fancy, by being any old laetan off the street. You also don’t get looks that good. Not that Tarquin can see what he looks like. (Not that Tarquin is paying attention.)
The woman in the shop on the ground floor sent Tarquin up the back stairs to see the Viper but, as far as he can tell, no one is here yet. Unless he’s hiding in the shadows waiting to make an entrance, a thought that has Tarquin glancing over his shoulder just in case.
As if summoned by the mere thought of dramatic entrances, the eluvian around the corner lights up and the Viper sweeps through not a moment later. Tarquin is still adjusting to the idea that there are people here who just casually walk through magic mirrors as though it’s an everyday thing. And to the fact that the Viper manages to look so good while doing it. Prick.
“Tarquin, I’m glad you made it,” says the Viper as he strides forward, motioning Tarquin toward a desk.
“Wasn’t all that hard,” he points out. “You told me where to find the place.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Whatever marginal amount the headquarters have managed to impress Tarquin, the feeling vanishes faster than Halos’ leftovers into the jaws of a street cat when he sees the state of their filing system.
“What in the Maker’s soggy taint is this?” Tarquin ignores the Viper’s wince, not caring whether it’s at the way he’s chosen to express himself or at the realization that showing their drawers of dubiously organized (at best) records to an archivist might have been unwise. Tarquin is already pulling out drawers and evaluating the mess he’s going to have to rearrange. How these people have managed to get anything done is beyond him.
“Filing isn’t my strong suit; I mostly left it to the others to manage,” the Viper says sheepishly.
“Clearly. When you say the others, do you mean the dog?” Tarquin shoves a pile of parchment into his arms. “Hold this.”
Several more hours pass with little to mark them beyond the sound of rustling paper and the occasional order from Tarquin to the Viper about where to stack each box once he is satisfied with the contents. Eventually, though, Tarquin breaks and asks the question that has been bothering him since he first met the mysterious Viper, leader of the shadowy resistance and haunter of Minrathous’ rooftops.
“So what, everyone around here just calls you Viper?” he asks, keeping his attention firmly fixed on the manifests in front of him, running the numbers in his head. It isn’t until several moments have passed that Tarquin realizes the Viper hasn’t responded. When he looks up, the man’s gaze is locked on him—and there’s a hesitance in his eyes that Tarquin isn’t used to seeing in any highblood.
The Viper looks from Tarquin to his scattered piles of paperwork, then around at the others in the hideout, then back at Tarquin.
“You can call me Ashur.”
2.
Ashur begins taking Tarquin out on routine patrols with him. Not much ever happens beyond the occasional Venatori who gets bold enough to be open about it and therefore needs to be taught a lesson, but Tarquin reckons Ashur is probably using it as a way to get the measure of him anyway. Make sure he’s what he says he is. Make sure he’s worth having around. He supposes it’s only reasonable; after all, the Shadow Dragons wouldn’t be much of a resistance if they let just anyone in on their secrets.
It’s not like he minds, exactly. Ashur is—well, as far as company goes, Tarquin’s had worse. He doesn’t say much but, when he does, it’s usually worth listening to. (Because it’s important. Not because his voice is low and friendly, his tone warm; not because the words he uses remind Tarquin that, for once, he’s not being treated like an idiot because he refuses to play along with a system invented by a bunch of magisters to benefit—oh, yeah, a bunch of magisters.) He occasionally laughs at Tarquin’s jokes and, when he doesn’t, he at least tolerates them, which is more than most. And he either knows what he’s doing or else he fakes it well enough that Tarquin can’t tell the difference, either one of which Tarquin figures is worthy of his respect.
One morning, Tarquin gets to the Pawn Shop early. The archives don’t need him and it’s better than the alternative, which is staring at the bare walls of his one-room flat unless he decides to take a nice, long walk in the stinking Minrathous rain. It’s only recently that he’s been entrusted with a key to the Shop—a little early, he thinks, but it’s not his business if they want to trust him just because Ashur does—and this will be the first time he’s used it to let himself in rather than lock up behind the last of the stragglers late at night.
He’s startled on arrival, though, to hear the soft thump of leather on stone. A figure appears in the shadows of a nearby alleyway and beckons to him.
Tarquin goes, but not without rolling his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks Ashur, who is loitering out of sight in full Viper getup. “And why are you being so fucking dramatic about it?”
Ashur, for his part, takes Tarquin’s mockery in stride. “Waiting for Bren,” he says.
“… Why?” Surely the Viper, enigmatic leader of the Shadow Dragons, has his own key to the Shop.
There’s a pause. Eventually, Ashur says, “Just… scoping out the area. Making sure no one’s watching. You can’t be too careful.”
Tarquin, whom Ashur has known for about five minutes and who now has a key to Shadow Dragons headquarters, where the Viper keeps his maps, plans, documents, weapons, supplies, and, incidentally, recent refugees rescued from slavery and blood magic, just looks at him.
“Bren should be here any minute,” Ashur says after a moment.
The look Tarquin is sending in his direction turns, if possible, even more derisive. “You can wait for Bren out here if you like,” he says. “I’m going in unless someone’s watching us. And, if they are, tell me so I can stab them and then go in because I’m getting soaked.”
He unlocks the door. Ashur hangs back until Tarquin goes inside and then, somewhat hesitantly, follows him. Tarquin wonders whether he lets others go first out of politeness or just habit, the kind of nugshit altus pampering that has him expecting everyone else to hold doors and carry packages and wipe his arse for him. (So far, Ashur hasn’t struck him as that kind of altus, but you never know, really. All of them are probably that kind of altus if you look close enough.)
He shrugs and tells himself he doesn’t care. It’s almost convincing enough that he believes it, but not quite.
3.
Joining in with—leading, even—Shadow Dragons jobs is a regular part of Tarquin’s life now. He’s starting to get to know the others, learning their fighting styles and quirks. Marisa is most comfortable with blades and Quillon leaves his right side open no matter how many times Tarquin tells him to keep his head on a swivel and Ashur, well—
“What are you doing back here? I thought you were taking point!”
“I am.”
“Is there some sort of mysterious altus code where ‘taking point’ means loitering at the back of the group?” Tarquin asks, exasperated. “Where I come from, taking point means staying in the front. If you don’t want to be up there, just tell me and I can take over.”
“I am taking point. I was just making sure everyone was through safely. The magical wards…” Ashur isn’t looking directly at Tarquin, instead keeping his eyes on their colleagues’ backs as they head into the next room. It doesn’t escape Tarquin’s notice that, now, neither of them is taking point.
That’s the last straw. Tarquin takes a deep breath, preparing for a full dressing-down. He doesn’t care that there are other Shadows with them; he’s had a shit week and Ashur isn’t helping. This isn’t a life-or-death mission—but if Tarquin can’t count on Ashur to stay where he needs to be during a routine sweep of the catacombs, then how can he be trusted when lives are on the line?
“Last I checked—” he begins.
“Oi!” shouts Quillon from the next room, effectively cutting off Tarquin’s rant before he can get properly started. “Can you two have your couples’ spat when we get back to headquarters? It’s been a long week and I don’t want to be down in these tunnels any longer than we have to.”
“What? We’re not—” Tarquin blusters. “Fuck off, Quillon, the job’ll take as long as it bloody well takes.” He turns and brushes past Marisa, glaring at the look on her face. “I’m taking point.”
He’s fed up with Ashur and his stupid altus face and his stupid altus logic and his stupid altus eyes and—anyway, he’s as ready to be out of these damn tunnels as Quillon is but he won’t be saying that.
As they head through the next doorway, Tarquin resolutely ignores the sound of Ashur leaping through a hole in the wall two feet to their left instead of just following them like a normal person.
Stupid altus mage and his stupid altus need to be dramatic.
Tarquin isn’t interested.
And he’s not looking.
And they’re not—
He picks up the pace, heading for the deeper reaches of the tunnels.
At least there’s no such thing as an altus darkspawn.
4.
There are more of those fucking relics and, of course, no one in Minrathous is dealing with them except the Shadow Dragons. Tarquin is beginning to wish he’d never heard the words “Shadow” or “Dragon,” let alone ones like “red” and “lyrium.”
They’re running to try to keep up with the trail of the latest one, a hot tip from Neve Gallus (again; how is it that she always knows about the damned things before anyone else?), and frankly Ashur is lucky Tarquin likes him because he doesn’t go running around Minrathous for just anyone. Especially not the way Ashur and the rest of the Shadow Dragons run, half in the streets and half on the rooftops, flinging themselves up scaffoldings and slithering down half-collapsed walls like the world will end if they don’t get wherever they’re going half a second faster than the next person. (At least they usually have a good reason for doing it. Like that, if the blood mage they’re after is powerful enough and also fucking stupid enough, the world will end if they don’t get wherever they’re going half a second faster than the next person.)
So they’re running. To the chantry because of course they are because why wouldn’t Tarquin want to spend one of his rare and precious days off dodging templars this way and that while he tries to recapture a dangerous blood magic… thing… that might blow up half the city or, if they’re lucky, just drive him and a few hundred of his closest friends mad?
Ashur comes to a sudden stop in front of him and Tarquin nearly slams into him, skidding so hard he could swear the heels of his boots throw up sparks.
“That way,” says Ashur. "The chantry courtyard.”
“Right,” says Tarquin, “so why are we stopping?”
Ashur says, “I’ll go—” He indicates a nearby ladder, clearly intended for going down, not up, and even then only in case of emergency.
Tarquin shoots him an incredulous look. By now he’s used to Ashur’s weird hangup about going anywhere like a normal person, but—“Really? Now?”
“I can’t just—well.” He hesitates. “They might recognize me.”
“Might recognize you?” Tarquin asks in disbelief. “Ashur, I am a templar. Who is about to waltz into the chantry and start bashing a fucking magister. And you’re an Altus. Laws don’t even apply to you. What’ve you got to worry about?”
Ashur stares at him for a moment, fists opening and closing at his sides, and then deflates a little. “You were bound to find out sooner or later,” he says, a note of defeat in his voice. “Tarquin, when I’m not the Viper, I’m the Divine.”
“Pff, right,” says Tarquin. “And I’m actually the Inquisitor, only Dorian asked me not to tell anyone.”
“I don’t blame you for being skeptical,” says Ashur. “But we really don’t have time to argue about this right now. We can discuss it later.”
“I—” Tarquin begins but, before he can get any actual words out, Ashur is gone.
Later, at the Shop, Tarquin makes Ashur take off his hat and mask and stand still while he scrutinizes every aspect of his face. After all, who ought to be more of an authority on what the Imperial Divine looks like than a Chantry archivist? (He also makes Ashur extinguish and relight the fire half a dozen times “so he can see whether he resembles the Most Holy when he relights the Eternal Flame.” And makes him recite a chapter and a half of the Canticle of Apotheosis word for word. Or at least, Ashur claims it’s word for word. Tarquin wouldn’t know the difference but he stands there and squints suspiciously and pretends he’s mentally reciting along anyway.)
Then he tears Ashur a new arsehole for not having told him before.
Then he tears Dorian a new arsehole for not having told him before.
He has the good sense to stop short of Mae.
After that, his complaints about work become much more pointed in Ashur’s presence. That the templars are underpaid and overworked and the uniforms are stupid. That the Divine’s had all the chantry doors removed because, apparently, “all are welcome” (including, apparently, the rain and the stench of the docks). That Knight-Commander Lenos exists. At all.
“I am not,” says Ashur, “invoking the Maker to smite your boss.”
“You’re my boss! And his, too!”
“Quin,” Ashur sighs and Tarquin doesn’t even hear whatever he says next because he’s still thinking about that. About the fact that His Perfection Divine Aequitas II just called him Quin.
About the fact that Ashur just called him Quin.
5.
Tarquin slices his sword with vicious precision across the neck of one of Magister Prycis’ guards and the man crumples to the ground. They’re nearly halfway through the twisting tunnels that lead through the catacombs away from the estate—but the guards have caught up to them and the fighting is more vicious than Tarquin might have expected. Acrid fumes fill the air from a smoke bomb someone--presumably a Shadow Dragon--has thrown but, dragging an arm across his eyes to clear them, Tarquin can see that the battle is nearly over. He and Ashur have stopped some distance behind the group of slaves they’ve just turned into former slaves, cutting down guards as they approach while Marisa carefully unlocks the intricate door that will lead them closer to headquarters. Suddenly, Tarquin finds himself grateful for the seemingly endless tunnel patrols that have allowed him to so easily triangulate their location.
Ashur’s voice breaks through his thoughts. “I’ve got the rest of them. You go on ahead and make sure everyone is all right.”
Tarquin nods curtly and, without hesitation, heads for the door. He trusts Ashur. If he says he can handle the remaining guards, he can. The ex-slaves’ safety takes priority.
As soon as he’s slammed the door shut behind him, Tarquin scans the group. Quillon is already weaving between them, checking for injuries and dispensing whatever is needed. Marisa, who has been stationed near the door, crouches to relock it, but Tarquin holds up a hand.
“Leave it,” he says. “We can lock it after Ashur gets in. Help Quillon.”
Marisa nods in an unconscious mirror of Tarquin’s earlier actions and retreats to lend a hand wherever Quillon might need it.
Tarquin takes several paces back from the door, his sword still raised at the ready. From beyond it, somewhere close by, he hears one last muffled thump—and then silence. Biting down hard on the inside of his cheek, he forces himself to focus on the job. Ashur is fine. He shouldn’t be worried. He isn’t worried. Ashur can take care of himself. That doesn’t mean Tarquin can’t be… concerned.
There’s a muffled shout from just outside the door—Tarquin can’t make out the words—and then, with no further warning, an explosion rips through the air. Rubble goes flying; everyone ducks except Tarquin, who was standing too close to the door and has been involuntarily deposited on his arse. As he gets to his feet, he hears more than sees Marisa and Quillon moving forward so that all three of them stand between the source of the explosion and the group of nervous, too-thin elves they’ve been escorting. Smoke billows from what used to be a hole in the wall in the form of a door but is now a door in the form of a hole in the wall.
Tarquin coughs, blinking furiously and shaking his head to rid his ears of the ringing. A figure emerges from the smoke and Tarquin raises his sword, ready to strike down whoever was foolish enough to follow them. The silhouette, however, has other ideas and resolves itself into the shape of—
“Viper? What? How many behind you?” Tarquin asks, shifting his stance, still trying desperately to see through the lingering smoke as Ashur lets the magic crackling along his fingers die down.
“No one is behind me. We’re all clear.”
With that, Tarquin abandons any attempt to see behind Ashur and instead just gapes at him.
“What d’you mean, ‘all clear?’ Why did you blow up the fucking wall if there’s no one behind you?!”
“It’s—a complicated lock. This way was faster.”
“Faster—what are you on about? The door wasn’t even bloody locked!” Tarquin mentally strikes out any worry he might have felt about Ashur and replaces it with pure irritation. The man can be more infuriating than a plague of paper moths in the archives. “Never mind; don’t answer that. We’re on a job and ready to move—if you’re finished blowing up the catacombs.”
Ashur wisely says nothing.
It’s a strain, but Tarquin manages to wait until they’re back at headquarters and he can corner Ashur away from everyone else to give him a proper earful.
“Highbloods!” he exclaims. “Just can’t help doing everything the easy way, can you? S’pose a door’s a drop in the bucket to you.”
Ashur sighs. “I’ll replace it… and the wall.” It goes some way toward mollifying Tarquin that Ashur does, at least, sound a little chagrined.
“Sure you will,” he grumbles. “Got enough for a new set of eardrums while you’re at it?”
+1.
Something strange is going on in the Magisterium. Tarquin doesn’t know what, but he knows it’s annoying him. Entitled dickheads keep requesting more and more obscure records from the archives and coming up with more and more reasons to pull Tarquin and his colleagues from one urgent duty to another so that nothing ever quite gets finished. Whatever it is, Lenos knows. He’s not saying, but it hasn’t escaped Tarquin’s notice that he’s not having his chain jerked around like the rest of them.
All of which is to say that Tarquin is tired and, by the time he finishes shoveling some food in his mouth and going over the last of his hastily scribbled notes for the Shadow Dragons (in a shorthand even his archivist colleagues would struggle to understand) and catching up on the absolute nugshit the Imperium Secret is full of, he’s just about ready to collapse into bed and pretend the world doesn’t exist for at least the next six hours.
Typical, then, that that’s the moment something huge and dark comes flying in through his window and lands in the middle of his bed with a resounding crack.
Tarquin flings himself backwards, snatching up the dagger that lives on his table and serves as both letter opener and fruit slicer. Not that it matters; if the Venatori (or worse, the templars) have found him, it’s probably too late to fight back.
The figure that pulls itself upright in the remains of his bed, though, sheepishly dusting itself off, is not a blood mage or a Knight-Commander; it’s Ashur, hat askew and coat slicked with rain that is dripping off him to form a small puddle where Tarquin was about to try to get a little well-deserved sleep.
“What,” says Tarquin in a dangerously even tone, “the fuck.”
“Spotted by some cultists about a quarter of a mile back,” Ashur explains, a little breathlessly. “Couldn’t think of anywhere closer to go.”
In spite of everything, Tarquin smirks. “Got the route memorized?” he asks and isn’t prepared for the flash of something—surprise? alarm?—in Ashur’s eyes.
“I,” says Ashur and then, “Well.”
Suddenly he seems to realize he’s still standing in the middle of the devastation he’s wrought in Tarquin’s home and steps gingerly off the bed. Rather, what used to be the bed before Ashur came vaulting through the window and split the bloody thing in half. Literally. If Tarquin is sleeping at all tonight, it’ll be on the bare floor getting splinters of what used to be a bedframe stuck in his—
“What is it with you?” he demands. “Your fucking windows and your fucking roofs and your fucking—why can’t you just go places like a normal fucking person?” He doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, not exactly. “I’d still have a bed right now if you’d just—”
Oh.
That’s what he’s trying to say.
What is it with you? Why can’t you just stay safe like a normal fucking person? You’d be dead right now if you’d just—
“I’ll replace it,” Ashur says. It sounds like a plea.
“Great, thanks,” says Tarquin, skipping past the promise. (Since when has any altus ever kept a promise to someone like him?) “D’you know what that is over there, Ashur?”
“The… door?”
“Yeah,” Tarquin says. “The door. You know, for going in and out of. Which is why it hasn’t got a fucking bed in front of it.”
He and Ashur look at one another. Is it Tarquin’s imagination or is the Viper squirming just a little under his gaze?
Finally, Ashur says, “The ones at the Vesperian estate… they slide open and shut. There’s a rune…”
Tarquin glares.
“And the Divine—well, there are people for that,” he continues. “Do you think the Most Holy ever opens a door for himself with his own hands?”
“Ashur,” says Tarquin, “what the fuck is your point exactly?”
Ashur grimaces, visible even under the Viper mask. “I don’t know how,” he admits, every word begrudging.
“Don’t know how…” Tarquin gapes at him. “To open doors? The Imperial fucking Divine doesn’t know how to open a fucking door?”
“They,” Ashur gestures helplessly. “They don’t slide. There are a dozen different types of handles and twice as many locks. Half of them are made to be concealed and most of the rest are magically warded. It’s not as easy as it sounds!”
“No,” says Tarquin. “It is. It is exactly as easy as it sounds, Ashur. How d’you think the rest of us who haven’t got personal door-openers manage it?”
Ashur turns his sigh into an inaudible mumble and Tarquin has to lean closer to hear when he repeats it. “Don’t tell anyone at headquarters.”
Tarquin is definitely telling someone at headquarters. The someone is probably Dorian.
“Come with me,” Ashur says.
“You—what?”
“Come with me,” he repeats patiently. “I’ve cost you your bed. It’s only fair you take mine until I’ve replaced it.”
Take Ashur’s…?
Don’t be an idiot. He’s the fucking Divine. He’s got a hundred beds and ninety-nine of them are probably packed away in the servants’ quarters where you might as well be living in the Golden City with the Maker Himself for all you’ll see Ashur.
Bitterly, he asks, “Need me along so you can get inside?”
Ashur laughs. “The manor has windows,” he says, voice alight with amusement. “But if you join me, we’ll use the back entrance.”
Tarquin says, “I’m not posing as a Knight-Divine.”
“That would be far too scandalous,” Ashur says dryly. “Let’s aim for ‘secret lover.’ That’s practically a requirement in Tevinter high society.”
Tarquin’s brain stutters to a stop. There’s no way Ashur just said what Tarquin thinks he just said.
But Ashur is standing at the window, one hand extended in invitation. To Tarquin. Who is apparently about to walk into the Divine’s manor and into the Divine’s bedchambers and into the Divine’s bed and, somehow, incredibly, he is going to do all this while maintaining the facade that everything is perfectly normal.
He takes Ashur’s hand.
Halfway to the manor, something strikes him.
“But how do you get into the undercroft at headquarters?” he asks.
Ashur looks at him, confusion evident in his expression.
“The… what?”