“Beautiful?” Ilya suggested.
Morning paused in a way that suggested she was reluctant to admit he had guessed correctly. “… Decorative.”
“You ever been to a big city before, Damsel?” asked Varric.
Although she was walking behind him, Morning’s narrow-eyed glare was audible in her suddenly flat tone. “Why would I have.”
“Well, there are a lot of cities between Redcliffe and – where did you come from? Markham?”
“Ansburg,” she corrected, without affection. “Amaranthine, I guess. That’s where we sailed from Wycome.”
“Not Denerim? I heard the king and queen of Ferelden personally invited you all.”
“Invited Fiona,” Morning replied with undisguised bitterness. “And some of the other enchanters. It’s not like they let the rest of us into Denerim proper when she met with them, there’d have been riots.” She paused, perhaps giving another look around the fantastic city around them, before conceding, “Amaranthine was kind of a shithole compared to this, though.”
Ilya, for his part, had only passed through Amaranthine briefly, and had visited most of the major cities west of Rivain and north of the Waking Sea, but had to admit nearly anywhere would suffer for the comparison to Val Royeaux. The heart of the city bore a facade as fantastically adorned as those of the masked citizens milling about its white marble streets. Everywhere he looked, something shone or gleamed or glittered in lustrous jewel tones – scarlet silk banners, polished summerstone roofs, lush topiary and garden trellises. The shadows cast by the ornate spires and intricate statuary provided momentary relief from the brilliance as they passed below. Were it not so devout, Ilya might have suspected that Val Royeaux hoped to contest the seat of the Maker for the title of the Golden City.
Other parts of the city were not so illustrious, of course. The things he had heard of its Alienage were ghastly, and even the less impoverished boroughs were far more banal than this. The market district was the city’s mask, an artifice of grandeur maintained only through the constant and meticulous labor of its invisible commoners. Even its claim to being a market was a false one; he couldn’t smell a single fish.
“This isn’t the city,” Ilya said. “Think of it like a garden. Nobody lives here in the market, they just come here to see and be seen.”
“Exactly,” replied Varric. “A real city is alive, and loud, and chaotic. There are street vendors and laundry lines and, no matter where you are, at least one mystery puddle you don’t wanna step in.” Ah, yes; Varric was from Kirkwall, after all. “People are too busy living to be scrubbing dirt off the cobblestones.”
“I don’t like it,” Morning decided, after some thought. “It’s so…”
“Soulless?” Varric suggested.
“I was going to say ‘rich’, but same difference, I suppose.”
Varric barked a laugh. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Aren’t you rich, Varric?” she asked archly.
“Sure, but I’m not Orlesian.”
“Oh, of course,” Morning replied, audibly rolling her eyes. Her silence lasted only a few strides. “… Anyway, why do I have to be ‘damsel’? You call him by his name.”
“Well, first of all, he doesn’t seem like much of a damsel.”
She made an aggrieved sound in her throat. “Don’t get cute.”
“To be honest, I didn’t want to give him a nickname when I thought they still might hang him. Like a sick kitten – didn’t want to get too attached,” Varric explained. “But that took forever, and by then it had already stuck. Besides, ‘Snow’ is catchy.”
“You don’t think ‘damsel’ suits you?” Ilya asked mildly.
“Remind me again why you decided not to hang him?”
“If the Chantry has their way,” he replied, eying the crowd that had gathered on the other side of the plaza, “you might still be in luck.”
“They do already have the gallows…” Even for Varric, that was a bit too dry to be entirely jest.
“By the Maker,” Cassandra interjected wearily, “please take this seriously.”
“I am the most experienced among us in evading execution, am I not?” Ilya shot her a smile; he had to raise his voice a touch to be heard over the clamor of the crowd as they approached. From the corner of his eye, he saw Morning tugging her cowl further down to obscure more of her face. “Don’t worry, Cassandra. Besides, you’re very intimidating.”
The mob was not the foremost of Ilya’s worries. Despite the tension in the air, he thought it unlikely that the pearls of Orlesian society would be willing to test their own soft skin against the blades of several armed combatants – and if the situation were truly irrecoverable, a bit of theatrics with his mark ought to inspire enough fear to allow a retreat. That would come with its own set of headaches, of course, but probably better than the sort that a noose would cause.
Of greater concern were these templars and their motives for returning to the White Spire. Ilya had visited Val Royeaux only a few times, but not once had he gone so far past either of its gates without seeing a single templar. Their absence did nothing to reassure him. If anything, it only left him more wary; if their intent was only to rejoin the Chantry and resume business as usual, then where were they? It was hard to be certain whether the movements of this group were connected to the red lyrium borne by the templars at the Conclave, but it left him with an ominous feeling, like the sight of vultures circling overhead.
Still, it seemed that only a small contingent of templars had come to Val Royeaux, with the bulk of their forces remaining east of the Frostbacks. Whether that was because this group was a splinter or because their business in Orlais would be too brief to warrant several weeks’ march of an army remained to be seen.
The crowd had drawn more guards than usual to the Market District, but their attention was preoccupied by maintaining the peace. In the absence of a warrant for his arrest, they would likely defer to the Chantry’s authority, and it was that very authority they had come here to dispel. The situation balanced on a knife’s edge, but hardly the sharpest one Ilya had found himself on lately.
A Revered Mother stood on a dais near the center of the market plaza as she spoke in Orlesian to the restless crowd, but interrupted her jeremiad as she caught sight of him. “Behold,” she called, and pointed a trembling finger towards him. The crowd had already shifted as they stepped towards the dais, whether out of genuine fear of a group of well-armed foreigners or simply concern that they might sully their fine clothes, but at her words that berth widened further.
Her choice of language was doubtless intended to remind her audience that he was an outsider to Orlais and its Chantry alike – and, perhaps more importantly, to deny him the opportunity to refute her accusations. “The so-called Herald of Andraste, claiming to rise where our beloved fell. We say this is a false prophet! No servant of anything beyond his selfish greed!”
“I make no claims to Andraste’s blessing,” Ilya called back in Orlesian, raising his voice over the clamor. It was a pity Morning couldn’t speak for him; he suspected she could make herself heard over a crowd double this size. “Our only goal is to close the Breach. Will the Chantry stand idly by as the sky crumbles, or unite with us?”
“It’s true!” Cassandra joined him. Given her background, it shouldn’t be a surprise that she spoke the language, too, although her accent was heavier than his. As she spoke, his attention was pulled away by the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps across the plaza – a contingent of templars marching towards the crowd.“The Inquisition seeks only to end this madness before it is too late!”
“It is already too late!” The revered mother pointed triumphantly towards the approaching templars. Ilya watched them warily, but for the moment, did not react: they moved towards the dais rather than circling or flanking the crowd, as if the Inquisition were not a concern at all. A handful of templars joined her on the dais, while the rest remained at attention beside. “The templars have returned to the Chantry! They will face this ‘Inquisition,’ and the people will be safe once more!”
Without warning, one of the templars turned and punched the woman hard in the face with a full gauntlet. She dropped to the dais with a thud, hopefully only knocked out cold. With a bit of bad luck, a blow like that could kill a young man in a bar fight, never mind a frail old woman.
Gasps and cries of alarm went up from the crowd, which began to flow backwards from the dais as people panicked; this was likely the first time in their lives it had occurred to them that templars might be a threat to them. Ilya remained where he stood, studying the templar leaders with renewed interest. Only one of the three seemed to show surprise or concern for an act that should have been utterly unthinkable, while her attacker remained defiant and the third gazed proudly out at the crowd. A simple display of power and authority? Did the templars mean to usurp the Chantry, or just to formally cast aside their reins? It must be the latter – they had not marched on Val Royeaux with sufficient force to hope to accomplish a coup, even as feeble as the remaining clerics’ grip on power had become.
Ilya needed to get closer. He brushed past the remaining bystanders who had not yet fled, slowly approaching as the templars descended the dais once more. “Attacking an old woman unprovoked – what was that display meant to prove?”
“A demonstration,” their commander replied, with icy scorn, “of the hollowness of her claim to authority. Much like your own.”
“Lord Seeker Lucius,” Cassandra said, striding towards him, “it’s imperative that we speak with —”
“You will not address me.”
She stopped, confused. “Lord Seeker?”
He glanced back to her, down at her, with a sneer. “Creating a heretical movement, raising up a puppet as Andraste’s prophet. You should be ashamed. You should all be ashamed!” He spoke as if he deigned to lecture a piece of filth on his boot-sole. His tone dripped with arrogance and disgust – but there was satisfaction there, as well, an excitement to have captured their attention that belied his words. Why else would he be in the midst of a speech? “The templars failed no one when they left the Chantry to purge the mages! You are the ones who failed! You, who would leash our righteous swords with doubt and fear! If you came to appeal to the Chantry, you are too late. The only destiny here that demands respect is mine.”
Despite this bizarre speech, Lucius’ words were not slurred, and his eyes were clear and sharp, focusing easily on both Ilya and Cassandra’s faces as he spoke. He seemed completely lucid. The templar who had struck the mother, by contrast, looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. His face was sallow in some places and florid in others, his eyes dark in their sockets and their whites webbed with red veins. There was no sign of a pendant, but if Ilya imagined how exposure to red lyrium might look, it would be something like this.
The third man looked troubled, but otherwise well; his eyes held doubts, but no red. If the rest of the waiting templars showed them any interest, they gave no indication of it, and their helmets prevented any closer inspection of their faces.
“If you care so little, why come all this way?” Ilya asked evenly, with a faint edge of derision in his voice. Provoking the man was a calculated gamble, but with the guards and mothers scattered, he was more confident in their position now. A dozen templars were no trifle, but he and Cassandra could hold them off long enough for Solas and Morning to tap into the lyrium they carried. They need only be able to cast a few spells in order to provide enough cover to flee the city. “Does a ‘destiny that demands respect’ not have more important things to do than beg for it?”
A strange expression crossed Lucius’ face, and his mouth moved wordlessly for a few seconds, as if rage had choked out his voice. There was something else there, too – frustration? Confusion? “To see what frightens old women so,” he managed at last, recovering his sneer, “and to laugh. I will make the templar order a power that stands alone against the void. We deserve recognition. Independence! We—”
“Recognition?” Ilya interjected. “What is it you aspire to be, exactly? A petty warlord? Without the auspices of the Chantry, what is the Order except a coup in want of a nation?”
Lucius’ face began to darken, but the whites of his eyes flared like a bull’s. He took a step forward, clenched fists trembling and his lip curled in a snarl. “Who are you to question me?”
Ilya folded his arms over his chest, lifting his chin as he calmly met Lucius’ boiling gaze. When he drew himself up to his full height – something he had done when they first approached the Lord Seeker – they were nearly matched in stature. “Someone who has yet to see why the Inquisition should concern itself with the twitching of a headless army.”
“The Inquisition,” Lucius spat. “Pretenders. Fools. Ants before a flood.”
Ilya smiled. “In the tale of how the Breach was closed and the apocalypse averted, where will you and your wayward Order appear, do you think? Will you merit even a footnote?”
For a moment, Lucius’ hand wavered by the sheath of his sword, but with visible effort he pulled it away and jabbed a finger into Ilya’s chest instead. Ilya didn’t flinch, his smile remaining steady and composed. “You— You know nothing –”
Ilya seized the opening and cut him off again. “What don’t I know?”
“Soon,” Lucius lowered his voice to a hiss, close enough now for Ilya to feel his breath, “very soon, all of Thedas will belong to Him, and mine will be the steel gauntlet around its throat, mine the boot crushing its neck. The Chantry will be dust, and none will dare to even whisper the name of the Inquisition. The people will curse the Herald for abandoning them to their fate.”
This time, Ilya didn’t reply, just maintained his even smile. Lucius’ eyes scoured his own expectantly, as if he were certain that he would at last find fear there, but with each second he grew only more frustrated. Finally, the Lord Seeker stepped back, his breaths heaving with anger. “You have shown me nothing, and the Inquisition… less than nothing,” he snapped, but his voice was not so certain as before. “Templars! Val Royeaux is unworthy of our protection! We march!”
Ilya watched in silence as the templars filed away. When the sound of their footsteps no longer echoed in the plaza, Morning clapped her hands to her mouth and let out a dark, uncontrollable giggle, as if it were a breath she’d been holding for too long.
A grin spread slowly across Varric’s face. “You’ve been holding out on us, Snow!” he teased, in mock accusation. “‘A coup in want of a nation’ – did you rehearse that?”
Morning’s excitement was still bubbling in her voice, somewhere between vicious and girlish as a wide, toothy grin spread across her face. “If he’d waited any longer to turn tail, he’d have turned purple.”
“Deftly handled,” said Solas; even he could not resist a quiet note of amusement. “We now know for certain that the Lord Seeker’s defection is not merely an opportunistic grab for power, but a move in a broader conspiracy.”
Ilya was not in the mood to revel in the victory, and simply frowned in thought, gazing toward the rue by which the templars had departed. “What do you think, Cassandra?”
“I know Lord Seeker Lucius,” she replied, troubled. “Or – I thought I did. This is… utterly unlike him. He was always a decent man, never given to grandstanding. Had I not seen his face, I would have hardly recognized him.”
“Well, he’s sure not going to want to play nice now,” Varric noted.
“You heard him,” said Morning. “He wouldn’t have cared about anything short of Ilya licking his boots. Egotistical prick.”
“I know, I know, I’m just saying. Maybe the other templars will start noticing that he’s got a few bolts loose, anyway.”
Ilya didn’t reply. After a few seconds, he turned back to where the revered mother sat on the dais, apparently having come back to her senses. A sister knelt beside her, dabbing the cuts along her forehead and cheekbone from the metal gauntlet with a cloth.
“Are you alright?” he asked as he approached her.
She shot him a glare, then passed it onto Cassandra, who had followed behind him. “And now you come to mock me. This victory must please you greatly, Inquisition.”
Ilya shook his head. “Not at all.”
“We came here only seeking to speak with the mothers,” Cassandra replied. “This is not our doing, but yours.”
“And you had no part in forcing our hand?” The revered mother gave a dull laugh. “Do not delude yourself. Now we have been shown up by our own templars, in front of everyone. And my fellow clerics have scattered to the wind, along with their convictions.” She gave Ilya a long, cautious look, as if trying to make her mind up about something. Her eye was swollen and already beginning to blacken where she’d been struck, but the blow seemed to have shaken only her nerve, not her mind. “Just tell me one thing: are you the Maker’s chosen, as so many claim?”
Ilya let out a quiet sigh. It was a question he’d been avoiding whenever possible, even as he knew his thoughts on the subject mattered less than anyone’s. “The Maker chooses the path each of us walks, does He not? Whatever happened on that mountain, I’m no different than anyone else.”
She was quiet for a moment, then something shifted in her expression, pained and plaintive, and she looked away. “That is… more comforting than you might imagine.” She sighed heavily. “I suppose it is out of our hands now. We shall all see what the Maker plans in the days to come.”
They spoke a while longer, until someone came to help the woman out of the plaza. Her voice had grown weary, but the resolve in it had softened; whether he had truly changed her mind he could not say, but the doubts he had come here to sow had taken root.
By the edge of the market, Ilya and Cassandra rejoined their waiting companions. Morning had managed to contain some of her glee, but remained the most cheerful he had seen her since they’d first met. “So, what do you think?” she asked.
“She’ll be fine.”
“Not about her,” she rolled her eyes, as if he was being purposefully difficult. “What do we do now?”
“Now,” Ilya replied, “we write Leliana a letter.”
“Some of her people are still around,” Cassandra pointed out. “One of them will have a bird bound for Haven.”
“Then we won’t be returning immediately?” Morning asked, not quite guilelessly.
Cassandra gave a short sigh of irritation. “We are not here as tourists.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to stay,” Morning snapped back, turning her head away to instead glare at the city.
Before they could continue their quarrel, a woman’s voice interrupted them, stepping out of a nearby alcove: “If I might have a moment of your time…?”
Ilya turned to face her: she was an elf, somewhere past her middle age, with short dark hair and a self-possessed bearing. He didn’t recognize her, although something about her made him feel as if he should. He felt Morning’s hand insistently tugging at his elbow; just as he glanced down to meet her eyes beneath the shade of her cowl, Cassandra spoke, sounding bewildered: “Grand Enchanter Fiona…?”
Morning gave him a long, strongly-worded look, then silently let go and slipped to the back of their group. He would have to commend her for her subtlety later, if she’d tolerate the compliment, but for now he turned his attention back, against all odds, to Fiona. He might have wondered whether she was an impersonator, as he could not imagine Cassandra knew the woman’s face all that well, but Morning’s reaction left him without any doubt.
“Leader of the mage rebellion,” Solas said, with audible surprise. He, at least, knew how to lie. “Is it not dangerous for you to be here?”
“I heard of this gathering, and I wanted to see the fabled Herald of Andraste with my own eyes.” Her gaze was heavy and thoughtful as it settled on him. “If it’s help with the breach you seek, perhaps my people are the wiser option.
Cassandra finally recovered her balance enough to argue. “But you –“
“That’s enough, Cassandra,” Ilya cut her off, sharpening his tone well past the quiet manner he had slipped back into after the templars’ departure. “You needn’t recite your personal views of the mage rebellion again.”
Her head snapped toward him with a baffled look, but after a long few seconds, she seemed to take his cue. “Very well,” she replied stiffly, and took a small step backward. Well, he supposed that was the best performance he could hope for.
He turned back to Fiona and inclined his head politely. His tone remained coolly civil. “My apologies, Grand Enchanter. I must admit it’s a surprise to see you well, let alone here of all places. You did not attend the Conclave?”
“Indeed,” Fiona replied, matching his tone. “I sent a negotiator in my stead, in case it was a trap – as did the Lord Seeker, you’ll note. I won’t pretend I’m not glad to live. I lost many dear friends that day. It disgusts me to think that the templars will get away with it.” Her sharp eyes glanced from his face to Cassandra’s, and Ilya wondered how much of their confrontation she’d overheard. All of it, with any luck. Despite the steely poise he would expect from a woman so resilient, she seemed to have grown more comfortable since he had reprimanded Cassandra; only a little more, and she should be convinced she had him. “I’m hoping you won’t let them.”
Ilya let his voice drop for a moment, quiet and grave. “I don’t mean to.” Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly; her control of her expressions was admirable. He allowed that to hang in the air for a moment before he went on. “The Rebellion was not willing to speak with us before. Why now?”
“Because now I’ve seen what you are,” Fiona replied. “And I’ve seen the Chantry for what it is.”
“And what is it you want from the Inquisition, in exchange for the mages’ help?”
“That remains to be discussed,” she answered evenly. “Consider this an invitation to Redcliffe: come meet with the mages, and perhaps we can reach an agreement.”
“You’ll need to give me more than that, Grand Enchanter,” he replied, with a small smile. “The Inquisition isn’t going to send me to Redcliffe with carte blanche without any idea of the price or the bargain.”
Fiona paused a moment, weighing his words. “You are well aware that the current balance of power is precarious, and not only for the mages. I should like to see whether a fledgling power such as the Inquisition truly has the power to alter that balance. An alliance could serve us both, after all – and you have seen for yourself that the templars are allegiant to nothing but their own greed.”
Ilya allowed a small sigh, as if to concede the point, and Fiona smiled.
“Au revoir, my lord Herald. I hope to see you there.”
Morning, to her credit, waited until Fiona was well out of earshot before unleashing a string of colorful profanities. Ilya doubted there were any curses in the trade tongue he hadn’t heard before, but it was a surprisingly near thing.
“Who taught you to swear like that?” Varric marveled.
“Oh, that blighted fucking snake!” she snarled, as if she hadn’t heard him. Ilya motioned for her to keep her voice down and she obliged, dropping to just above a stage whisper. “I thought she might have just gone daft, but she did sell us out to the Tevinters!” She flung a hand loosely in Ilya’s direction. “And now she thinks she can play the same trick on you! Oh, I’m going to put her in the fucking lake.”
Varric laughed, earning a dark look from her. “Don’t light the fuse just yet, Damsel. We’re a long way from Redcliffe.”
As preoccupied as he was, Ilya offered Cassandra an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”
She shook her head. “No apology is needed. Your talent for deception clearly exceeds my own,” she replied dryly, before lowering her voice. “In any case, this is clearly a trap.”
“Even so,” Ilya mused, matching her hushed tone, “we can’t afford to ignore it. Whatever bargain they’ve struck, not all the mages will be pleased with it. If we can remove the Tevinters from the picture…”
Morning huffed, folding her arms over her chest. “You are not going.”
“It is hardly your decision,” Cassandra chided her.
“I’m not going,” Ilya agreed, in part to cut off any further bickering at the pass. “But this is a discussion better had elsewhere.”
“My lord Herald, I beg your pardon,” came an unfamiliar voice from behind them, prim and perfectly enunciated.
“Stars falling,” Morning snapped, exasperated, “who is it now, Andraste herself?”
Ilya turned to find a courier – no, a manservant, neatly dressed, waiting patiently and apparently undeterred by his companion’s discourtesy. “You have it. What do you need?”
The man bowed, then offered him a letter – smooth, finely-milled paper, sealed with a stamp he didn’t recognize in plum-colored wax. “I have a letter for you.”
The man bowed and departed with the appropriate pleasantries as Ilya skimmed the letter. The handwriting was flowing and elegant, written with a confident and meticulous hand. “‘You are cordially invited to attend my salon to be held at the château of Duke Bastien de Ghislain,’” he read aloud. “‘Yours, Vivienne de Fer, First Enchanter of Montsimmard, Enchanter to the Imperial Court.’”
“Are there any mages left in Thedas whose invitations we should be expecting, I wonder?” Solas asked wryly.
“I hope not,” Ilya murmured as he skimmed over it once more, in case there was some detail he had missed. “I don’t think think my calendar can bear it. Morning, do you know of First Enchanter Vivienne?”
She made a face. “I’ve never met her, but she’s one of the loyalists. Montsimmard was one of the Circles that refused to leave the Order’s ‘protection’, and bully for them that their templars didn’t decide to kill them all anyway. Montsimmard was the most influential of the loyalist Circles, so I suppose she’s the one in charge of all the ones that are still standing.”
“If you’re going to be wining and dining with the nobility, you probably ought to show up in something that doesn’t smell like blood and horses,” Varric pointed out. “We might want to track down a tailor. Maybe a perfumer, for good measure.”
Ilya laughed, folding the letter and tucking it away in his coat. “Some scented soap, perhaps. We’ll have to mortgage Haven to afford an Orlesian perfumer.”
“Remind me not to touch anything in this damn city,” Morning muttered.
“Don’t worry, Damsel. If you trip and bump into something, I’m sure Snow can talk them down to only ten or fifteen years working off the debt.”
“Oh, wonderful.”