A/N: Initially begun as a birthday fic for B-Mommy on Tumblr!
Chapter Rating: T
Chapter Warnings: Reference to past sexual assault
Sandcastle Virtues
Chapter 1
She was not so good at being stealthy.
Then again, it wasn't a good setting for it. The floors had the wrong sound, the air the wrong scent, the shadows the wrong shade of black. He didn't much like it, either. But he was a visitor, and she a native - she really had little excuse.
Perhaps if her hair was not so beautifully red.
Also, it would perhaps have helped her if she knew how to move silently with any amount of speed. She crept. He could have, if he had known her destination, been there and back again five times before she'd turned a corner. But no, he trailed behind her, watching from shadows she had no concept of using, as she...
Prowled?
It was hard to tell even what her motive was. All he knew was that she was beautiful, she was gangly, and she was Kallian Tabris's cousin, bedecked in the nice fabrics and heavy skirts of a Bann (though the hem was already muddy and worn, a sleeve patched, and if she would not disappear or move quickly, he would inventory her entire outfit before the night was through, without getting it off of her. And that would be a shame).
Perhaps she needed assistance. Or, perhaps, she needed to be liberated of the whisky she was so fond of (though he could not see a flask), or led back to the party, or otherwise revealed to King Alistair as the most ineffectual sneak to creep through his palace halls. Perhaps he just needed a laugh, or a respite from watching her inexorable slinking forward.
He crossed the hall to her side when she was intently focused on the corner she was approaching, stepped up behind her as she moved forward by inches. When she finally leaned around the corner, one hand (pale, calloused, not as quick as it would need to be) braced on the stone, he reached forward. With a tug on her belt he took the first thing he touched, a small, fashionable leather purse that rested on her hip.
A leather purse that was filled with stones.
She swore and spun on her heel, and he frowned at the purse and tossed it between his hands.
"I know that times are hard, but has Ferelden truly turned to river cobbles as currency?" he asked, taking a step back as she snatched at it. Her lovely face was contorted in anger and he only smiled in return as he danced away from her. "Ah, ah, not so fast."
"Give that back."
"Here I thought you would be the thief of the family, what with Kallian's penchant for beating things with heavy objects - and yet you have trouble with a hallway. Tsk, my dear. You must allow me to help, hm?"
"Give it back, you doghumping ass-"
"Language, dear Shianni!"
Her name gave her pause and she stopped, hand outstretched. Slowly, she pulled back, crossing her arms instead over her chest, feet planted shoulder-width apart. He knew that look. It was Kallian's, when she was stopped and could find no way to overcome the barrier. They were so similar, even if they looked nothing alike in the particulars. Kallian had been hard and straight up and down, narrow-hipped with warped legs and chipped teeth, dark skin and darker hair- and Shianni, ah, Shianni was the sort of beauty an Antivan man was made for, pale skin and red hair, if not the shy, delicate disposition of what men called ladies.
He liked his women with fire in their souls, though, just as he liked his men. Really, if it weren't for the utter mess she had been making of the art of stealth, he would have been all aflutter and heated from the sight of her.
(Of course, he still was; it simply took a back seat to amusement and frustration.)
"You're Kallian's assassin," Shianni said once she had taken a series of deeper breaths to calm herself. "The Antivan."
"Zevran. Zev, to my friends," he said with a bow and a smirk. He tossed the purse again, hand to hand.
Shianni reached out and took it back in a single movement, tucking it back into the belt she wore even on top of her fine gown.
He laughed. "Well! Perhaps you are not so lethargic as I first thought. Simply bad at sneaking."
"Am not."
"And what would you call this, slinking as a tortoise in place of a cat, peering around corners for hours?"
She glanced to the corner in question, then shrugged. "I'm being cautious. I've never- had to sneak around inside like this. It was always streets and back alleys."
"It is the same; you only have a roof now." He came closer, close enough that he could lean around her and peer down the branching hallway. "It's clear, you know."
"I was just making sure," she responded at his ear, the petulance and steel there making him chuckle. The shiver that went down his spine he set aside, except for how he let his hand settle on her hip.
"Come. I will take you where you would go." If he drew up in order to breathe the offer against her skin, it was only because it was convenient and comfortable, because it was habit. Where thought intruded, it was only to tell him to keep the moment short. He knew little about this cousin of the Warden's, except for what Kallian had told him one night when he asked about the ring she wore around her neck. But it was enough.
He knew what something so brutal as that could do to a person, and while he would not coddle, he would not press for simple fun. Not with a friend, or the family of a friend.
As he stepped around her, he glanced back. "Where to, my friend?"
She was blushing. She was blushing, and her arms were crossed again, and she was scowling. Oh, but her ire made her lovely.
"The room where the merchant Hendrid is staying," she said at long last. "A floor up, that way."
It was actually two floors up, and she remembered only as Zevran was picking the locks on the door that was not Hendrid's. She blamed him, and he laughed, and then he pulled her back into the shadows.
It was ridiculous, skittering up royal stairs dressed as a noblewoman. She felt out of place and, more than that, angry that she should have velvet gowns (a gift from the Bann Alfstanna of the Waking Sea, or something like that) while the Alienage starved. It was a show of rebellion to find evidence of what was hers, theirs, and stolen while dressed in the trappings of her hollow office.
And it was a show of weakness that Kallian's assassin had her heart in her throat when his hand found hers and pulled her along, because she was better than a swooning maiden or a half-wit thief, and he was far too good at all of this.
"This one, then?" he asked as they crept to the door. She pulled the map one of the servants had drawn her the night before from her belt, scanning it in the near-dark.
"This one," she said.
Zevran nodded and reached for his picks, then paused. "Mm, have you ever picked locks?"
"Once or twice. I'm no expert."
"No, but you may learn. Here." He held out the leather tool wrap and she took it after only a moment's hesitation.
"You're going to stand guard, right?"
"But of course." His smile was infectious and she felt her lips quirk even through her nerves and frustration. Guards could come at any minute. Servants not sympathetic to her. The King might even stumble across her, though she hoped he would understand.
Hendrid, after all, was driving up food prices across all of Denerim. It wasn't just the Alienage. He was making a fortune off of poverty and famine, and she was going to prove it.
But her hands trembled as she crouched in front of the door and it took all of her will to select a pick and try it. The clicking of the tumbler was lost beneath the thudding of her pulse in her ears, and she fumbled and nearly dropped it as it caught. "Void and flames," she hissed to herself, biting her lip.
And then there was warmth behind her, the creak of leather, and Zevran reached around her with both arms, taking her hands in his. He was close enough that she could have settled back against his chest. Instead, she stared at where his tanned fingers braced hers.
"Sh," he murmured. "Like this. You are too tense."
"You're supposed to be watching for the guard."
"There is nobody around either corner, querida," he said, and though she couldn't understand what he called her, the rolling of his accent made her cheeks burn and her throat go dry. "I would help you, if you'd let me."
Shianni thought to ask if he meant only what he was offering. Kallian had told her stories, after all, all of them amusing but not all of them reassuring, and with him almost holding her, it seemed- prudent. But her voice caught in her throat and she only nodded.
His hands folded around hers, and he moved the picks slowly. "Relax," he murmured in her ear. "And listen."
It was hard to concentrate with the scent of leather and oil filling her lungs and the unexpected feeling of skin on skin where their fingers touched, but she closed her eyes, trusting him to be hers for just a moment.
There it was. The click. He let go of her to turn the knob, and the door swung open, but neither moved.
"Ah, there- beautifully done, yes?" he asked, lips by her ear and his hand going not back to her hand but to her shoulder. He thumbed away a lock of hair, fingertips touching her neck just above where her collar was, and she inhaled sharply.
The last time a man had touched her like that-
Had been entirely different. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and looked back to him. He was smiling, a brow quirked in question, and through her spike of panic she felt the opposing urge to steal a kiss. It had been a long time, and she was more than willing to trust her cousin's companions.
She didn't flinch as his other hand went to her hip, and only shivered when he moved his lips to brush the lobe of her ear. "Will you tell me why we're here?" he asked, purred against her skin.
Shianni couldn't help the sharp laugh that rose in her throat. "Dragging a worm out of the ground so I can crush it," she said, quiet and conspiratorial, and then, finally, she stood. He took the lock picks and tool wrap and she slipped into the room while he put his equipment back to rights. It was chill, autumn cold winding in through a cracked window, and it helped cool the unexpected heat in her cheeks and belly.
There were things to do.
The door had opened onto a set of rooms. She moved quickly through the small entryway and into the study; to the left was the man's bedroom. Hendrid was down in the great dining hall, rubbing elbows with Banns and the King himself, making deals in the light to compliment the ones he kept to the shade. She went immediately to his desk, rifling through the pages littering the wood.
The door shut, a quiet thunk, and she glanced up. Zevran lounged against it, legs crossed at the ankle.
He had her purse again.
She frowned and he shrugged, tossing it from hand to hand.
Clearing his throat, he asked, "So, this worm?"
"Merchant. Has control over almost all of the food coming into Denerim, from the Marches and the surrounding farmland. He's a profit-stealing usurious bastard and he's made it all but impossible for the Alienage to get food," she said, words coming faster, voice turning terse as they tumbled out. She scowled, sliding parchment under her hands.
"And yet he stays in business?" Zevran paused, the pouch dangling from one finger on its purse string.
"He charges the absolute most we can pay - and if we can't, there's no way to work out a deal. I intend to bring it before the King."
"Hm." He tossed the purse one last time before tying it to his own belt. "And he will have left the right documents here, for any to find?"
"Maybe. I hope so. Some of the elves who work in the palace come home to the Alienage on their days off. One of them mentioned overhearing him making arrangements. If he's stupid, he'll have records. And I hope he's stupid." She turned her attention back to the desk, trying to keep the mess recognizable as his mess while she scanned over each piece of parchment in turn.
Silks. Perfumes. Orlesian hams.
Shianni growled in frustration, pressing her palms flat to the desk and taking a deep breath.
"It will be here," she said aloud.
"And if it is not, I shall help you find it," he said, and she looked up to find him on the other side of the desk, the faintest smile on his lips.
"Why?"
He chuckled. "Is that not obvious? Because I-"
He was interrupted by the sound of a wooden bed frame creaking, followed by the sound of laughter, breathy with want and languor. Shianni swore and ducked down beneath the desk.
"A moment," Zevran murmured, tapping on the desk, and then she heard the soft padding of footsteps- and then nothing.
The man was all bone except for the swelling of his stomach, the woman one of the few human servants in the palace. Unexpected, but more annoying than anything else.
And he was getting rusty.
The door to the bedroom had been closed almost entirely, and that had kept the lovers from hearing Shianni. That was good. What was better was the bright light by the bed and the lack of it everywhere else. His fingers toyed with his blade, and he considered.
It would be easier, and less messy, to simply walk away. Take Shianni with him, act as if nothing had happened, and return another night or later that night. Or send Shianni from the room and look himself. He would be quieter.
But it had been some time since he had plied his trade quite like this, and what had Shianni said? Not starving the elves, but taking what little they did have? Alienages were horrible places, and city elves wretched creatures; he had always counted himself separate. Kallian had changed that, though, just a little, just enough. The man in that bed was more than inconvenient and far from admirable in his gold collecting.
He was disgusting.
And it would be easy to do, if not quite so easy as a retreat. Two slit throats, blood stained sheets, the whole old game again. Nobody would know it had been him, and Shianni would have no marks on her hands. The blame, though, could still fall to her.
And that was what made him retreat, padding backwards from the room, just as the woman let out a squeal and the man moaned and the air became thick and cloying with the scent of sex.
He found Shianni still crouched beneath the desk.
"Take the papers," he whispered. "We will be able to leave without notice. Come."
"No, he'll see they're missing."
"Then read quickly, querida. The time we do have runs short, unless he is a particularly skilled lover." She grimaced and her nose wrinkled. He fought back a chuckle and took her hands, leading her out from her hiding space. "Here, I shall help. We look for letters of food, yes?"
"Grain, mostly. Especially from Dragon's Peak," she said, glancing to the door. She was nervous - terrified. It was in the set of her mouth and her shoulders. She was able to sneak (after a fashion) and pick locks (with aid), but the actual thievery made her tremble. And yet, beneath it all was that same core of steel.
If he wasn't careful, she would enchant him nearly as much as her cousin had.
He touched her hip to calm her, then bent to his work, shoulder to shoulder with her. He kept an eye on the door, an ear for any sound beyond papers moving and bodies sliding. Silks. Perfumes. Orlesian hams. Antivan whores-
Ah. Dragon's Peak, statements of holdings. Ledgers. He thumbed through the sheaves. "Querida?"
Shianni didn't respond, and he looked up to find her staring at a piece of parchment, water-stained and faded. Her brows were drawn up in grief, her lips parted, and she shook her head, slowly.
"... Shianni?" he asked.
"They're on Estwatch."
He frowned, moving behind her to peer over her shoulder. Her fingers trembled and her breathing was erratic. When he shifted his touch to her shoulder, he could feel her muscles tensing and relaxing, a spasmodic dance of nerves and pain, and he scanned the missive.
"From Gnaeus Volius," she said, horror thickening her voice and deadening it to a flat whisper. "To Hendrid. Concerning the transport of thirty-seven elven slaves, removed from Denerim in early Justinian of this year. Andraste's flaming tits, they're alive. They're-"
The sounds of passion and skin on skin in the next room over died away to sighs, and he tightened his grip.
"We must go."
"This is-"
"We must go," he said, and grabbed the grain import ledgers in one hand and her in the other, and pulled her back into the hallway. Not half a minute after Zevran shut the door behind them, he heard movement, walking, voices.
He pulled her into the shadows to run.
Shianni sat on the edge of the bed.
She should have felt hope. Joy, even. This should have been a turning point, a moment of glory when she realized she could finally do something. Zevran had found the evidence of Hendrid's corruption, enough even of what he did to his fellow humans that it couldn't be denied. And she-
She had found them. Valendrian. Valora. Everybody they thought had been lost, everybody Kallian had been too late to save. They were on Estwatch, their ship put into safe harbor after it was damaged in a pirate attack. The elves were all accounted for, each one, and she read over the list too many times to count. Numbers. They were only numbers.
Shianni had found them, and she could do nothing.
The bed, the room, were too grand. They were a gift from the King - from Kallian, or from her influence - and they felt alien and cold despite the fire burning in the hearth. Her stomach felt an empty pit despite the full dinner she had had not hours before. And where her skin had warmed from Zevran's touch in the hall, she felt only numbness.
"This look, it does not flatter you," the Antivan said as he slipped in through the window at the far end of the room. "I will fix this, though. I have brought you brandy - Nevarran, I believe - and a pastry from the kitchens. And the King has been informed of... goings on."
"You don't have to do this," she said, scowling at the floor, at the wall behind him, anywhere her eyes came to rest. She could not look at him.
But out of the corner of her eye, she saw him move, saw him wave a hand dismissively. "Ah, there are many things I do that I do not have to. I prefer it that way. I find that now that I'm gifted freedom, I like to use it."
The mattress bowed as he sat beside her, one leg tucked under him, a bottle produced and extended. She took it and uncorked it, but hesitated.
She wanted a drink, but it was finer alcohol than she was used to, than she wanted.
"Try it," he murmured, and she tipped the bottle and took a sip.
It coiled warm and round in her belly, and she sighed, handing it back to him. He drank, then set it aside, and offered her the pastry.
"No," she said, and he shrugged, then took a bite.
"Ah, but I do have something of yours," he mused after he had swallowed, reaching for his belt. He pulled the purse of stones from it and passed it to her. She stared at it.
"Keep it. It's worthless."
"Mm, except in the illusion. Who is this Shianni, I asked myself, who creeps through palace halls with a bag of gold at her hip? I imagine that was the purpose - a distraction, and a veil?"
"Like the dress."
He chuckled. "Very like the dress, but the purse, I believe, is all your doing."
"You're clever." She reached for the bottle again and he passed it, shrugging.
"Very clever. It is one of my best traits, along with my rugged good looks and mysterious past. Ah, and the accent. The leather, too. I have many good traits."
She took a swig, rebelling in the waste and lack of care. She wiped the back of her mouth with her hand and grinned. "And a cock the size of a vhenadahl, right?"
"But of course."
It was comfortable, joking in excess, and she wondered if this was how Kallian had managed everything she had. A good companion, a steady shoulder- it was nice, to play at being the hero for a night.
Though a hero could have done something.
She took another swig and then sighed, letting herself fall back onto the too-soft mattress. The brandy sloshed out the neck of the bottle before she righted it entirely. "They're in Estwatch."
"We could ask the King to send the navy. Ah, but your country has no navy, does it?"
"And nobody who cares enough to go to the rescue."
Zevran hummed, thoughtfully, and looked down at her. He plucked the bottle from her fingers and drank. "This should be sipped from glasses," he said, then waved a hand. "Ah, well. Perhaps when we return from the adventure."
Shianni frowned, pushing herself up to half-sitting. "Adventure?"
He grinned. "I can think of two people in this very room who would go to the rescue. Let us encourage the possibility. A ship for the two of us, a pirate adventure, and a dashing heroine to win the day."
She stared up at him.
"It would be romantic, hm? And filled with bloodshed and intrigue. If you will not go, I may go on my own."
"Me?" she asked, uncertain and nervous and finally hopeful.
"Shall I find us a ship?"
"Me?" she repeated, and then she sat up, gripping the purse of stones. "... A Bann deserves her time off."
"And I have stayed in this country for far too long. Give me sun, and sea, and the open air, and I will be a happy man."
Shianni's lips twitched. They curved into a smirk, and then a smile, and finally a grin. Yes, she thought, and the numbness, the chill, the terror faded, leaving only determination.
"Then let's go play hero."