The spell controlling him wore off and Xai, on his hands and knees below deck, took the opportunity to spit blood from his mouth. If he hadn't been stripped of his weapons and chained to the galley wall the moment the magic had bound him, he'd have taken further advantage of his restored freedom to cut his employer's throat.

"Is there a reason behind this beyond Tevinter sadism?" he rasped, lifting his head so he could at least see the faces of the blood mage and his two imperial bodyguards. "You've hired a Crow and you've been provided one. Pissing him off isn't the most advisable means of entertainment while we sail for Minrathous."

Ivarion was unperturbed. "Of course there's a reason. You are to be a slave of a particular sort to fulfill your task, and this conditioning is to be your disguise when you are planted where we want you. There you will wait until you are required."

"Conditioning?" Xai echoed. He risked rocking back into a kneeling position, resting on his haunches, but did not rise further. The mage might take it as a challenge, and that was to be avoided. "This is unnecessary. Teach me those words you keep using, tell me what they mean and I'll feign obedience. Conditioning will compromise my training, and I assure you Crow Master Anton will not be pleased to hear of this."

"Crow Master Anton won't care. He didn't sign you off on a contract, Xai Merras." Ivarion looked down upon him, sighed, took a slip of folded parchment from his robe and opened it, holding it close enough for Xai to read in the gloom. "He sold you, flesh, blood and bone, back to the Empire—to me. You're no longer a Crow, so please stop thinking their reputation will protect or revenge you against anything I choose to inflict."

The signature looked genuine, as did the papers. Xai had seen plenty of the sort—Crows didn't deal with human cargo as much as Tevinter blood mages did, but they bought their share. He had never heard of them selling a fully trained assassin though. Even failed apprentices didn't get that dubious mercy, their scant knowledge of Crow training deemed too much a secret to be let loose by unchecked lips. If anything, it added to the guild's reputation. That…contract of sale had to be a prop of some sort. Xai was being manoeuvred, like a piece on a game board, nothing more.

He couldn't have been sold.

"It's still unnecessary," Xai said, looking up from the paper. "I can kill your mark however you want, that's what you've paid for, but why even…obtain an assassin if you're going to condition my responses in your little charade? You could have used anyone for that."

"Slaves, like assassins, know better than to ask why." Ivarion stepped back away from him, making an impatient sound. "You were Tevinter before you became Antivan, according to Anton. Were you a slave or a freeman?" The last word was uttered with distaste. "He said you had learned how to dance."

"I did," the assassin confirmed, but carefully, for he wasn't sure of the direction this was going, "in a carnevale. The master of the fair, a mage, owned us all."

The master had owned them, man, woman and child, but he had been no slave driver. Men had joined his troupe of their own free will, and later left with his blessing—sometimes even with coin. Xai had learned more of slavery when whisked to Antiva than he ever had while roving the Imperium. It seemed, a small part of him noted sardonically as Ivarion reopened the cut in his own palm, that his horizons were about to be expanded once again.

"I couldn't use anyone for this," the mage told him. "It didn't have to be an assassin, true, but in Antiva they say the best slaves go to the Crows, and there you were. Not only do you have the strength required to survive the conditioning, but certain attributes that will make you…hrm…appealing. You're perfect."

"I can kill your mark without any conditioning," Xai said. "Just explain to me what you require."

There was a smile in the dimness. "I require that you obey, that you excel at obeying, and that you learn proper obeisance to your betters."

The Crow lowered his gaze. Cooperation would be a stronger ally in this situation than defiance, at least for now. Bowing his head and bending his spine, he dropped back to all fours with his face turned to the wooden decking beneath his hands.

"Good. Now we can continue."

As Xai waited passively for the spell to come upon him again, his mind worked. There was no point in resisting the blood magic, especially since he was also physically chained; it would hurt too much and he needed to conserve stamina during these sessions if he wanted to get away at a stealthy pace rather than a broken crawl. He just had to endure, and maybe, if he was clever and lucky, fool the mage that he had reached his limit before it had really come.

Ivarion would have to stop at some point, to sleep or eat or drain more energy from another.

There would be an opportunity to break free. There was always a window.

"Master Ivarion!" A young, curly-haired mage rushed up the wharf. "A messenger reported sighting your ship. How was Antiva?"

"Wet and filthy, but the slave trade is thriving." Ivarion produced some documents while Xai, his wrists and ankles shackled, his eyes on the ground and his shoulders slumped as they expected of a slave, waited a little behind with the bodyguards. "Here's a manifest of the new slaves I've acquired. There are two mages in there who will need appropriate isolation from the others, and I'll need the White Room set up for this one as a priority. Special order."

"Potential thrall?" The apprentice noted Xai's chains. "Have there been problems training him?"

"He's spirited," Ivarion replied with a dry chuckle. "But we'll fix that. We're making progress, isn't that right, Rhenin?"

"Yes, Master," Xai said without looking up.

"Is he dangerous?"

"He tried to kill me on the first night out of Antiva City. Managed to dupe and kill a slave who brought him water. Near as I can tell he found something on her that helped him break one of his arms free, and when I returned to continue work on him he threw an iron at my head from clear across the cabin. Knocked me out cold."

Xai had no trouble keeping a smile from his lips. He'd tried, he'd failed, and after that they'd been even more careful. Unable to free more than one limb, when they'd returned and seen the corpse he could not have hoped to conceal, he'd acted. Warned by the mage's narrowing eyes that Ivarion would do the smart thing and restrain him with a spell before sending anyone to retrieve the body or check his bindings, he'd taken the only action available. The loosened manacle had been a heavy thing, just right for launching at unprotected heads, and the blood mage had been felled by the unexpected attack. Truthfully, he'd had no plan past that point. A vague hope the guards would come closer to subdue him and he'd use his chains to trip and turn them, steal a dagger here, wrap a sword there—he was a Crow. But they had withdrawn, locked the door, borne their fallen master away, and for two days he'd seen no one, alone but for the servant he'd killed, not even sure if he'd managed to kill his mark.

He'd learned just how badly he'd failed on the third day. When Ivarion had finally returned to his cell, his brow wrapped with linens, he'd locked Xai's body motionless with blood magic while the chains were repaired and the room cleaned by cowering slaves. The mage had said nothing, merely holding Xai's gaze with his own until the two of them, besides the guards, were alone.

Then he'd been punished, and punished again, until he'd screamed his throat raw.

"I'm sure he'll learn his place," the apprentice said after a sympathetic wince for his master.

"We'll see. Rhenin's got a slippery mind—haven't you? Compliant, obedient and you don't fight the Blood Control spells. But I know when the fear is feigned. I know when a blood-bag is putting on a show."

He'd wondered. Between the magic and the fey dreams he'd been experiencing during the voyage, Xai had wondered how much Ivarion was gleaning about him. Since there seemed to be little advantage to drooping like a wilted flower or reacting as though the comment had meant nothing to him, Xai stood up straighter and threw his shoulders back, stretching the muscles. Meeting Ivarion's calculating gaze with a smirk, he said, "If you prefer that I don't play along, that's fine by me."

Ivarion smiled. "Don't feel bad. You're not the first tough nut I've cracked, and I expected someone of your former profession to be challenging. Not as tricky as a qunari, but still a worthy test of my skills."

Xai gave him a mocking, jingling bow. "As you are a worthy test of mine."

The mage chuckled again and grinned at his apprentice. "You see? Spirited. Now, I need to update some clients on my recent haul and that's best tended to personally. Be a good boy and set Rhenin up in his new lodgings. Food and water. Leave the chains on."

"Yes, Master Ivarion. Anything else? You don't want me to try breaking him?"

"No, this one requires special attention." Ivarion motioned to his guards. "Take these two with you; I won't be needing them. And I'll be back late, so don't wait up on my account."

When the mage had left the docks, Xai transferred his gaze and smile to the apprentice.

"Looks like he doesn't think you can handle the dangerous Antivan," he observed.

The apprentice coloured.

Perfect.

"Shut your mouth. He didn't say that."

Xai cocked a brow. 'Special attention', wasn't it? That means yours won't be strong enough. No wonder you're running errands and setting up rooms for slaves instead of training them."

"I said be silent! Guard!"

One of the men struck Xai in the side, making him grunt and double over. A second blow across the spine landed him on his knees on the docks, and then the mage's fingers were twisting hard in his hair to yank his head back. Xai covered the sharp pain by laughing at the angry face glaring down at him.

"Physical abuse instead of magical?" he said with exaggerated surprise, voice a little breathless from the earlier punch. "How very mundane."

With his free hand, the apprentice plucked a curiously-shaped dagger from his sash before pressing his face close to the assassin's and snarling, "I'll show you blood magic, slave! I'll have you doing cartwheels all the way to the compound."

The Crow lunged.

Xai's chains had been cunningly constructed so that a short length spanned between both his wrists and his ankles, with a single longer section linking the middle of the two. The long part restricted the freedom of his arms and kept his hands down just above waist height if he was standing erect, but if he was crouched low or kneeling like he was now with his knees near his chest, the extra length allowed more options for his hands. And with the apprentice so close it was child's play to jab him in the throat, straddle his body and wrest the dagger free as he made strangling gasps for air.

Xai pressed the blade to his neck and snapped at the guards, "Back! Or you'll be explaining to your master how you—"

"Enai preno aeth."

At the guard's command, Xai's fingers released the dagger and his whole body relaxed. When the apprentice shoved at him he slid limply to one side and sat there, staring bewildered at the ships and sky and wheeling gulls. That hadn't been a spell. They weren't even mages. Ivarion had used those words in conjunction with blood magic to make him drop weapons, uncurl every muscle and drain aggression. Conditioning, of course, which had joined other commands over the time it had taken to sail from Antiva City to Minrathous, but Xai had harboured hopes the mage's efforts were ineffective. The words were all in the mind, after all; he could disobey or ignore them if no magic was involved. His self-control was strong, and they would not master him with mental tricks.

He looked to the abandoned dagger and tried to reach for it. It felt important, very important, that he make the attempt rather than slump as he was bidden, and to his relief his arm moved, fingers stretched out for the hilt—

A booted foot kicked him in the head and he reeled back, stunned. Before the bright spots of light had completely subsided, he felt the by-now familiar tendrils of invasion wrapping his veins like a crimson strangler fig, clenching, choking, controlling. He was jerked upright so quickly his head snapped back on his neck, but soon he was looking at Ivarion's apprentice again who was rubbing his own throat and sneering contemptuously.

"I see why he likes you," the young mage practically spat in his face. "Spirit indeed, but you'll still kneel, sit up and suck if you're commanded to. Has your training gone that far yet, Rhenin? No?" He leaned aggressively close. "Something for both of us to look forward to then."

The apprentice spun about and stalked up the wharf towards the city, and the spell tangled in Xai's blood pulled him after. He tried to struggle this time, only realising after that encounter how deep he'd allowed himself to be dragged and how hard it would be to surface unscathed, but fighting the magic was like rebelling against his own veins. His blood was compelled to go one way only, and working his muscles against that burned like white-hot knife edges, like his life essence would burst through his skin if he strained too hard in a different direction, and for all his effort he still marched after the mage at a sedate, obedient pace completely contrary to his will.

All he could do was walk and stare dead ahead while the gleaming mage-towers of Minrathous drew ever closer, as though to embrace him or swallow him alive.

"...discovered in Antiva, specially trained by your regular slave-breaker Ivarion-"

"Magistra Danae," First Enchanter Ambrose interrupted, "I appreciate the thought, but I have no space for another thrall at the moment."

"You'll have space for this one, my lord," the aging woman said hastily, entreating, and beckoned for Xai to come forward for inspection. "Knowing of your fondness for Tevinter folk dances and the theory of patterns, when I felt the blood of this one and learned he was versed in the Arvale-"

"An Antivan who knows the Arvale?" Ambrose interjected suspiciously.

"He was taught by his parents, according to his former master, and they were Tevinter carnivale slaves."

Ambrose leaned back in his high-backed chair with fingers steepled to his chin, sweeping his gaze thoughtfully up and down the thrall. "Strip," he ordered, and Xai swiftly removed his plain white clothes, dropping each article at his own feet until he stood naked. Several mages at the dining table observed and admired, others spared a glance or outright ignored, and all the while the slaves studiously paid no heed and went about their work pouring drinks, serving food or playing the evening's music.

When Xai stood bare, Ambrose and Danae pushed back their chairs and rose to circle him slowly while commenting on his physical features: height, frame, breadth of shoulders, slenderness of waist, tone of muscles, colours of skin, eye and hair, the sinuous and enticing curve of tattoos. Ambrose appeared to like what he saw—or at least his disinterest had vanished, and Magistra Danae was smiling at this, more confident her gift would be accepted.

The thrall scarce noticed. He kept his head subserviently bowed and thought of nothing.

"I notice he's already branded with my mark," Ambrose's drawl was wryly amused at this assumption he'd accept the gift. "but I don't recognise the symbol you've used for the vault."

"A mark of Rhenin's choosing, my lord. You know Ivarion and his fancies. Apparently it's a Rivaini design Rhenin's old master bore."

"Does the mark mean anything to you, slave?" Ambrose asked in an offhand tone.

*It means I will remember to kill him when I return to Antiva.*

*...*

Xai stared at the floor. "No, Master."

"But you chose it. Choice is dangerous for a slave."

"It was my old master's favourite design, Master," Xai kept the lie toneless. "It is what he would have chosen."

Anton valued that mark, for it was a tattoo only Crow Masters of a certain fraternity were permitted to bear. It was seen as a symbol of importance and worth in the guild, though Xai hadn't told Ivarion this of course and Ivarion hadn't cared, saying only he found a perverse pleasure in letting potential thralls choose the design of their first lyrium brand.

The shining blue ink being injected under his skin had hurt worse than anything Xai had ever experienced. He'd passed out.

Ambrose stopped directly in front of him. "The Arvale, hm?"

Xai was silent. It had not been a question.

"Put your pants back on."

As he obeyed this, the First Enchanter made a signal with one hand and was quickly attended by a stunningly beautiful raven-haired woman, an elf, dressed in a curious mail of white scales. Another thrall, then, he surmised. Two swords were slung across her back, and at a word from Ambrose she had both of them unsheathed and offered into his waiting hands. They resembled saw swords, a weapon used by the qunari, but Xai knew at a glance they were Imperial Edges, a masterly crafted Tevinter derivative.

Ambrose held the hilts out to Xai, and when the slave did not move the mage said in an amused but approving voice: "Take them."

So he did as bidden. The weight of the swords sparked a fleeting vision, of blood flying and mages dying and himself laughing, vanishing into the shadows—

—called to heel, made to kneel, bleeding, screaming—

The swords hung limply by his sides.

"Let us see how well you dance. Perform the Arvale for us. Sionava, you will partner him."

"Yes, Master," both Xai and the elven thrall said. The mages strolled back to their chairs, Magistra Danae with a warning frown for Xai. The two slaves went to the wide empty centre of the dining hall where entertainers were regularly brought in to perform during meals, and Xai, absorbed in his personal bubble of fear that he must please, impress, dazzle, almost didn't notice the surreptitious glances the elf Sionava was shooting him.

"You look tense," she whispered. "Are you any good, or am I going to hurt you out there?" When he didn't answer, she flashed him a dimpled smile from beneath pale grey eyes. "It's all right, you can talk to me. Our master favours me above all his possessions. It will please him if you please me."

"I was very good," Xai ventured in a low voice, "but I never performed with swords."

"Claw gauntlets? Staff?"

"Fans."

"Ooh, really? With the prongs? Those are hard with all the snaps and flourishes."

"Those are the best bit," Xai replied with a smile, the expression feeling strangely foreign on his face after so many months, the freedom and honesty of his response even stranger. He fell silent and quickly smoothed his features, but Sionava didn't seem to notice.

"If you can do fans, swords are easy." She took one of his wrists and made him lift his arm straight out, then indicated first the beak-like point, then the serrated edge of the blade that imitated the teeth of a saw. "Here's where you want the mana to diffuse, and how deeply you angle the swords will determine how many teeth it flows over. Don't worry about showing off, just keep the pattern. I'll tell Master afterwards about the fans; he'll be happy, he's always wanted to learn those."

Xai focussed his eyes on a section of tiles by her feet. He wasn't sure what to say, except, hesitantly, "Why speak for me at all?"

"You would please him, I think." Sionava's eyes wandered down his bare chest then up again, and once more she smiled, albeit slyly this time. "And you please me. You look nice."

She backed away from him, still grinning as he stood tongue-tied and confused like an adolescent paid his first compliment by a pretty girl. In Antiva he wouldn't have let a comment like that from a woman like this go unanswered, but he no longer knew how to respond to such things in his old manner. Ivarion had broken his habit of quips and quirks, along with a great number of other things, and the only memory he'd ever been that person was the occasional rejoinder flashing through his mind, always too fast to grasp and too dangerous to voice.

"You have until the bridge in the music to describe the pattern," Sionava said, magic sparking from her fingertips, "then I'll give you thirty volleys. Can you hold it that long?"

This part of him had been left intact.

He looked up at her and nodded, shifting into a dancer's stance and swords crossing over his heart.

"Easily."

'Dazzle' would be the word.

The musicians started the traditional tune for the Arvale.

Xai began to dance.

And First Enchanter Ambrose watched, smiling.

Xai was prostrate on the floor of his white cell before Ambrose had the field securing the entrance down. The First Enchanter didn't step into the room, but commanded in a tight, angry voice, "Thera rest mher," so he jumped up and followed, bare feet sinking into the snowy carpets as his master's robe swished ahead of him.

He'd quickly learned that the First Enchanter went to Sionava for the bulk of what he wanted: pleasure, company, entertainment, while he and Ambrose's other thrall were chiefly used for blood rituals and when their own personal skills were sought. He was largely left in peace. A few months ago he would have found the isolation in a room such as the one he was confined to maddening. Little to do physically, nothing to engage his mind, nowhere to go, trapped in that colourless windowless cell. But after what Ivarion had put him through in similar surroundings, it had become almost frighteningly easy to be glad of the blank, silent solitude. Fear was what happened when you heard someone coming for you…although his master had started to erode this by periodically bringing Sionava to his cell and leaving her there for hours at a time. Such moments were the most pleasant interludes he'd found in this place, though Xai never tempted fate by asking why they were allowed and just assumed the magister was humouring his favourite thrall to keep her happy.

Ambrose led his thrall upstairs and, unusually, instead of ordering that some slave robes be donned for the rituals Xai was habitually a blood battery in, he strode past a guarded area and into what looked like an armoury. Weapons and protective gear were hanging on walls and laid upon tables, all of fine make and thick with runes and enchantments. The word 'plunder' came to Xai's mind. It was a trove. Everything had an edge of the exotic, much appeared elven, and not a single item looked like the kind of thing one would buy from the average city smith. Here Xai was directed to put on some armour. It was white, of course. All thrall accoutrements were. He'd dared to ask Sionava about that once, but the elf had shrugged to suggest she didn't know for sure and said, "Shows the blood more spectacularly."

As he quickly armed himself, working the straps and buckles of the unfamiliar leather, Ambrose waited somewhere behind him and watched silently for a time, but eventually spoke.

"Sionava is dead, Rhenin."

Xai's fingers stilled momentarily as his throat constricted and his heart gave an unexpected lurch, but he remembered himself and resumed his work.

"Lysander tells me it was a demon...a blood ritual gone wrong. Plenty of witnesses, and I suspect foul play from one of the magisters in attendance. I don't know what Lysander was thinking...I never used her for rites, not once, and my apprentice"—his voice rose sharply and Xai flinched where he stood—"should have known this. She was my duellist, bodyguard and companion, not a battery, even if she was a thrall."

The other thrall said nothing. One part of him felt the loss like a blow and was so desperately upset that Sionava was gone it shocked him. The more practical side was more focussed on what this meant in terms of his own survival, his personal standing with the First Enchanter. Was Xai to play bodyguard now? Was that why he was being ordered into armour?

"I could talk to her," Ambrose said distantly. "More to the point, she would talk back."

The First Enchanter was silent again, and expectantly so. Xai's throat felt dry with sudden uncertainty. He was positive now he was being given the chance to replace Sionava as the pet thrall, if only he would show her initiative and speak. It was the highest place he could ever expect to rise as a slave of this man, but despite Sionava's expressed satisfaction at having had that honour herself, Xai could not help wondering if he would find it a blessing or a curse, being expected to please his master at all times and present himself a façade that he was happy with his place at Ambrose's feet. The problem with taking on any sort of role for an extended period of time was falling for it yourself…forgetting it wasn't your real face…

He'd taken too long to answer. Ambrose said, "I have always felt Ivarion's conditioning methods leave something to be desired. Sionava was my work, you know. I promised when I discovered her I wouldn't let another touch her, not without her permission. And then Lysander takes it into his head to play magister." There was a disgusted sigh. "It should have been you or Farenius. Not that this means I want either of you dead, but you're not as valuable to me and you're mundanes—less of a risk in any blood ritual involving demons.

"I've already been challenged for my staff now that she's dead. No one's dared face me in a serious duel for over two years thanks to her...we killed the last six, and two assassins. Her and me…"

Assassins…

"…now her corrupted corpse is barely cold and my enemies make a move. Word travels fast, doesn't it?"

Xai had the strangest feeling he should be remembering something. The part of him that had once been a Crow was suddenly suspicious, looking for connections and setups, but he couldn't determine if he was supposed to figure in this and if it hadn't all been a simple ploy to get Sionava out of the way and land Ambrose with an unproven duellist. Ivarion had trained him thoroughly for combat responses so he supposed he was properly prepared, no differently to the First Enchanter's other mundane thrall. But Ivarion had also said Xai was a plant…and what purpose had never been revealed. Not even blood magic could make him speak what he didn't know. Logic dictated that if he'd been conditioned specifically for Ambrose's use, there must be some exploitable flaw in his training, or commands had been introduced that Ambrose wasn't aware of but an enemy might use.

If he spoke of his suspicions, maybe he'd be favoured.

Or discarded.

Or…a chill of true dread wracked him…re-conditioned to ensure everything was working properly.

"Rhenin?"

There was the sound of something metallic being lifted from a table, then footsteps. Xai turned to find Ambrose approaching him with the two Imperial Edges in their silver-threaded scabbards.

"She expressed fondness for you. You'll do the honours in the duel tonight."

If he kept silent until he'd done whatever he was meant to do, maybe they'd let him go free.

A pretty delusion.

But having hope in lies was better than having none.

The thrall bowed low and took the blades. "Thank you, Master."

The ritual chamber was a sight Xai was familiar with, if not fond of. When empty, it looked especially huge and dark.

There was a mage on the wisp-lit dais he did not know the name of but had seen on occasion, an older man with steady eyes and a calm face. At his side stood a thrall, female and human and in white, armed with a shield and a long sword that spat lightning.

There was no one else. Ambrose gave the guards outside some cursory instructions, then proceeded ahead and locked the door behind himself and Xai. They descended the dark steps of the amphitheatre and circled the dais until standing at the opposite side to the pair already present, Xai a few protective paces in front of his master.

"A thrall?" Ambrose enquired dryly of the other mage. "I didn't think you were the sort."

"As the challenged, Ambrose, you pick the weapons and the arena," came the equally arid response. "It was this or fight unarmed."

There was a smirk in the First Enchanter's voice. "Where did you find one on such short notice?"

"I've had her for a while, just not in Minrathous."

"Surprising, coming from a man who speaks out in the Senate against the evils of blood slavery."

"We must all make sacrifices to change the Empire for the better."

"And better to sacrifice slaves than our magister selves, yes? A shame. You were doing so well until now…true, your noble volunteers never succeeded, but they stuck to their morals and died like true Aequitarians."

The other mage stared hard at him. "Maker willing, you will be the last sacrifice and the only one to die this day."

"Spoken like a true Supremacist…who has forgotten the thrall he already did away with so spectacularly. Turned into an abomination, I hear." Ambrose readied his staff. "Maybe you'd be a worthy successor after all."

Xai felt his lips twitch into a feral grin at the way the challenger's face froze, and how his slave looked suddenly aghast.

Perhaps being the First Enchanter's pet wouldn't be so bad after all. Crows or Magisters, if he still got to see that look on people's faces before sending them to the Void…

He let out a slow breath, stretching his muscles as he spread his blades wide. The dance sessions had helped him grow accustomed to the heft and weight of the unwieldy Edges, but he'd never fought with them. He hadn't fought in far too long, and the old pulse of battle-blood was stirring anticipation, sparking heat through his being. This was just a different kind of dance, and one he knew well.

Ambrose incanted softly, and then Xai felt the brush of magic against his senses. Spell after spell wrapped him, one for speed, protection, precision, power, another that shot frost down the lengths of both his swords and made the air around them fog. Finally, after his master drew a short blade and opened his own palm with a quick slice, Xai felt his brands sting as life energies were drawn out. A sphere of red mist around Ambrose. The draining effect was significant and there was a weird sense of…being in more places than the one he stood, but Xai found that the other enchantments upon him were working to counter that and keep him grounded. Better than grounded. The feeling of so much enhanced magic working in his favour was more than a little exhilarating.

"If my commands stop coming," Ambrose ordered quietly, "keep his thrall from me. Subdue her but don't kill. To the victor goes the spoils."

"And your rival, Master?"

"A question, Rhenin?" The First Enchanter chuckled, though not without approval. "Only tackle him if the thrall is incapacitated—subdue, don't kill unless commanded. I want answers before he dies."

It wasn't how Xai would have handled it in Antiva, leaving the enemy mage as the last target, but he would obey.

The other mage had finished empowering his slave and she moved to the centre of the dais, where she was met by Xai.

"My master will treat you well," she said softly, in a reassuring tone.

Xai gave her a half-smile. "After I was re-conditioned, you mean."

"He wouldn't. I am not." Her shield came up and sword cocked back as she crouched. "I serve willingly because he is worthy, more worthy than Ambrose. He will change the Circle for the better."

The smile turned mocking as he took his own stance. "I am not sure that my dead lover would agree after being fed to a demon."

"That is a filthy lie—"

"Preni nuhen avah!"

Xai attacked.

It was the strangest fight he had ever been in. While he slashed at the slave's admittedly fine defences and blocked her attempts to run at his master, magic raged overhead and around, sometimes through, and "Nunashiv!"—Xai would bounce aside without knowing what was coming: ice, lightning, spirit energy, kinetic force. Ambrose always got him out of the way unscathed. The warrior slave, on the other hand, was not being commanded. She would dodge some, but most struck her shield and when the command came to resume the offensive Xai could take advantage of her moment of blindness behind that metal barrier to flank her and execute stinging assaults.

It became obvious very quickly that her magic resistance had been enhanced; while spells hit her and pain registered, she never suffered any of the nastier effects like being frozen. That would have been quite handy. As it was, for all Xai's skill, he was tiring fast. A frontal one-on-one attack was not the way he did things, especially against an enemy with good armour. Ambrose's efforts against his adversary were faring slightly better, in that the other mage had retreated behind another impervious barrier spell. Unfortunately for his thrall, whenever that happened it meant she wouldn't be getting healing or any other aid, and it was a cue for Xai and Ambrose to attack even more ferociously.

A vicious onslaught of magic and a twist of steel and she staggered with a gasp, blinking; Xai ducked in to sever the leather strap securing her shield then slammed the flat of one sword against her skull and again she reeled. Cracking the pommel to her head once brought her to her knees, twice took her out.

The mage's shield dropped and he began casting something with desperate haste as Xai flew across the dais. He expected an arc of lightning or another protective field, but nothing happened when the spell was done and his swords whipped back—

"Ekrahs!"

—his boots almost skidded on the floor as he turned a tight circle and dashed back towards Ambrose. The female thrall had been revived and was staggering for the First Enchanter, shield discarded, sword in both hands. An ice spell launched by Ambrose exploded into shards of frost around her as she almost seemed to strike it aside.

"Look out behind you!" the rival mage yelled and she glanced back, saw Xai with widening panic-stricken eyes, whirled to face him and struck a curious pose while swinging her sword around and down. An odd blast of energy erupted from her, like a sudden wash of fresh air, and Xai abruptly felt his enchantments blown away. His swords were heavier, his pace slowed, and the sting of his brands as Ambrose's blood magic shield continued to swirl about him became much more noticeable. His heart laboured.

"Templar!" Ambrose shouted, sounding both startled and furious. "How much lyrium did you feed her before bringing her here, you coward?"

Whatever the reply was, Xai didn't hear. He plunged bodily against the armoured woman because that's what he'd been ordered to do, but she'd braced herself and stood firm, knocking him back, then ran at Ambrose with her sword gleaming. The First Enchanter let out an angry cry and yelled, "His ma vansk!"

Xai rolled to his feet and charged.

To Ambrose's eyes, it probably looked like his thrall was sprinting for his enemy from behind. But while she turned to defend herself, he didn't engage her and instead passed her by, dark eyes fixed on him and teeth bared in a killing snarl.

"His ma vansk!" Ambrose ordered again, stepping back. "KILL HER!" He raised his staff as though about to cast or give a countermand—

"NOW!" the other mage cried.

The templar roared a word that brought a blaze of silver-blue flames raining down upon Ambrose, draining and stunning—

Xai's swords slid point-first through the crimson field and through himself and…

…he…

…screamed.

The blades dropped from his suddenly nerveless hands and two great gouts of blood fountained from his chest, but he couldn't stop his forward momentum. The shield had fallen and Ambrose fell too, under the weight of his thrall. The bloodletting dagger was snatched up and stabbed down and mana flowed as bright and hot out of the mage's body as blood did from of the assassin's.

Dead…dying…is he dead? If he isn't he will kill me—

Half-crazed by whatever was happening, terrified of punishment for having failed, he ended up freeing the blade and stabbing again, the aim wild with his darkening vision, the repetition frenzied until he was soaked red and his arms ached.

"Well done, Xai. Excellent. It's done."

Xai stilled at the sound of his real name. At the sound of approval. At healing magic knitting his gushing wounds shut. Sense returned to his bewildered mind, but the burning fear did not go away.

My name.

Whoever the mage was, he knew and was involved. He had condoned...all this. Complete subjugation of will, utter control of flesh, and torments no poison could rival. Crow training was brutal enough with its physical and psychological trials, but thrall training...it was dehumanising. The Crows put you back together after they broke you, in their own fashion. The magisters, on the other hand, wanted you to keep you shattered.

The mage spoke again. "The legalities of First Enchanter succession made it necessary to defeat Ambrose in a lawful duel-the staff goes to the most powerful. Death by assassination, poisoning or other nefarious means would have had him replaced by vote in the Senate or at the Archon's will. This way his replacement is certain. To the victor goes the spoils, as they say."

"And you could not defeat him without having an edge," Xai dared to reply. His back was to the mage, and he used the cover of his own body to clean the dagger so it would not be slippery and unreliable in his hands.

"Ambrose was a superb duellist in the way mages conduct these affairs, and even a templar couldn't have stood before his magic coupled with his elf-slave's. As the challenged he always had the right to dictate weapons and arena; he always chose thralls and blood magic, both of which I and others like me find...abhorrent. But sometimes we have to dabble in small evils to remove greater ones. Previous challenges by our best failed to win honestly, so yes, we resorted to cheating rather than lose any more good men or women.

"For what it's worth, I am sorry for what you've been through, Xai Merras. The killer had to be a thrall, and you could not know details that might be revealed by blood magic, under duress or in dreams.

"But that is now past. You are mine, and you will find me a kindlier master by far than Ambrose was. The fortunes of slaves will only improve with me bearing the Circle Staff."

Xai looked down at the staff in question, still clutched in the stiffening fingers of his former master, whose corpse he straddled. "Why not destroy my phylacteries and let me go? I have served my purpose."

"The law would have to be changed before I could start freeing thralls. In time, I hope, but sadly not today."

A lighter voice, feminine and close by, said, "You can trust Dumathus. He will respect you and treat you well. Many who are free fare worse. He will value you."

Without warning, a hand rested on his shoulder and Xai…reacted. His dagger snapped up, straight into the woman's face, and as she screamed and bled the mage shouted in horror and rushed towards them. Xai didn't pause to consider the spell that began to coalesce might be one of healing; he jerked away and threw his weapon at Dumathus' throat, and the magister fell.

More mana coursed through his brands. Maddened by the agonised throes of the templar, he snatched up her own sword and silenced her.

He was shaking when he recovered and felt as skittish and frightened as a raw recruit who'd just had his first taste of blood.

"Steady!" he whispered to himself aloud, needing to hear the command he forced into his voice to master himself. "It's all in your head. Relax."

A few deep breaths seemed to help, but the marking over his heart tingled and he knew he couldn't linger. What the mages were plotting concerned him not at all, he was done here and intended to get out before he was missed.

Just take Dumathus' clean and serviceable robe and walk out. Find a ship or steal a horse. Get away. But calmly, or the mages would look at him and suspect.

All those blood mages…

…all in my head.

He started up the stairs. Just the two guards outside. And mages beyond. Mages everywhere. Steps slowed…stopped, until he stood trembling and immobile and had to force himself back down.

There had to be another way out of here.

Someone was working at him through his phylacteries.

The first night had been thick with dreams that showed him everything he'd imagined his escape should be. A stealthy passage, a few slit throats with none the wiser, a ship bound for Antiva. The dreams presented other scenarios ranging from the improbable to the impossible: the Tower empty of mages, a Crow cell waiting to answer his orders, a cache of weapons and poisons…a bedroll and blankets in a brightly coloured pavilion, a warm meal around a fire with sprightly music and dancing…just outside wherever you're hiding…just come out…

When that had failed to draw him out of the hole he'd hidden away in, the nightmares began, attempting to drive him out, and he'd startled awake.

Ivarion had been better at it, Xai thought as he huddled cold and wretched in the black stair, trying not to doze off. But it was only a matter of time before he lost this fight.

He'd remembered the lecturer preparation rooms at the top of the amphitheatre. One of them was reserved for the First Enchanter, and all he'd had to do was take Ambrose's keys to get in and lock the door behind himself. There'd been cabinets of potions and reagents, some of which he'd stolen, and most importantly a narrow stair, passages between the walls, all which led down, down to the library. He should have felt beside himself with joy for effectively bypassing three entire floors of the Circle Tower, but the door at the bottom, with the voices on the other side, had defeated him. He'd crouched there on the stone for hours at a time waiting for them to go away, then dreading their return, then waiting for them to go away again.

Now he sat a little up the stair so he couldn't hear a thing, surrounded by blackness with his left arm tingling, and not knowing how to get past the fear the mages had spent so much time sowing, watering and harvesting. Reason told him he only had to open the door, walk out. The magisters knew he was in the Tower but not where—between floors, in the stones and mortar of the walls? They could tell roughly where he stood, but not how he'd gotten there. Not yet, anyway.

Get up, walk out, don't think.

Don't. Think.

He almost managed that bit. But not the rest.

"Did you hear that?"

"Mmm?" Aelius, who'd been backed against the shelves and quite enjoying having his neck nuzzled, blinked. "Hear what?"

"Sh!" Salus held her breath.

This part of the vast library was usually very quiet, the reason the two apprentices picked it for extracurricular activities, as it were.

"I thought I heard someone," Salus murmured.

Aelius shook his head after another second of intent listening. "I don't hear anything. Probably just people wandering in the stacks."

"No, it wasn't talking. It was drawn-out. Like crying or a long scream."

Well that wasn't a total mood-breaker. Aelius shivered and ran his fingers through his mussed hair as Salus moved away from him with her head cocked, trying to pinpoint the source of the phantom sound. "So then it's someone's slave. So what?"

Salus ignored him. There was a door set into an alcove between some shelves over this way. It was always locked and she didn't know where it went, nor had she ever really cared. The Tower was full of little niches like this, built by whatever long-dead architect had thought it a good idea, and the library had a dozen locked doors like this one. But when the portal suddenly shuddered with a loud crack as though something had just fetched up heavily against the other side she gave a little scream and jumped back.

"What? What?" Aelius came over anxiously.

"I don't know! There's someone in there!"

They both stood there. The door didn't move.

"I still don't hear anything."

Salus frowned and went to try the handle, which turned despite her expectations. She jumped back again with a choked cry when the portal burst open and the body slumped against it rolled out onto the library floor. It was a human man in robes, quite still, dark eyes staring.

"Toth's Flames," Aelius swore quietly. "Is he—? Old Gods, Salus, we should get someone. Someone killed a mage and stuffed him in there?"

The girl was still frowning, her eyes going from the dead face to the key-ring swinging from the inside of the door's lock. "A murderer wouldn't have left his victim with the keys. Plus, I don't think that's a closet." While her companion went to the door and summoned a wisp of light to check out the stairs, she pulled down the neck of the corpse's robes to feel his throat for a pulse like they said you always should, and besides noticing how warm the flesh still was saw he had armour on beneath the magely garments.

"Aelius," she called softly when she'd opened the robes to reveal the white, blood-saturated leather, and the other apprentice crouched beside her. "You know how the Enchanters have been hunting for that runaway thrall for the past four days?"

They looked at each other then as one worked to unbuckle the leather cuirass, hunting for a lyrium tattoo that would confirm his identity. Aelius rocked back on his heels when it was revealed, glinting bright blue, but Salus glided her fingertips over the mark with a breathless sort of excitement.

"Think they'll reward us for finding him?" he asked finally.

"The right person will, if he's alive and able to talk about that duel. Gods, we might be given real apprenticeships for this if we approach someone who really wants him. We could become magisters!"

Aelius drew back when Salus took the dagger from the man's belt and cut her palm. "Whoah, wait a minute, what's going on? Blood magic? Are you crazy? You don't know how to use that!"

"Don't worry, this isn't magic I don't think." She pressed the wound to the tattoo over the thrall's heart. "I saw a magistra do this for her thrall once when she overdrained him. Come on…" She shifted her palm, leaving a bloody smear. "Maybe there's more to it." Brows knitting, she concentrated energy through the blood and felt a sudden wrench of life force sacrificed—

Xai stared into the reflected face of a stranger. He looked older, and there was something in his eyes he didn't like…a hunted look. Marks sometimes had a look like that, when they knew their time was running out. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out, tried staring himself in the eye again with a bit more glare, then ruined it by sneering at his own attempt.

Idiot.

The only way to stop feeling like prey was to turn it around and become the hunter again—the assassin, not pose in front of a looking glass.

He ran a hand over the growth of beard stubbling his chin before picking up the razor, but when a voice called him from the door he almost dropped it, knees buckling out of habit. At the last instant his fingers tightened, but instead of setting the tool down he slid it into his belt before choosing to prostrate himself.

The trick…with many a lesson…is to start small and build up successes from there.

She was a mage, but as far as he could tell not a blood mage. An apprentice not fully recognised in her powers. And she was trying to use him.

In other words, she was prime prey.

"Rhenin!" Salus scolded in that nonetheless-secretly-pleased voice when he dropped to hands and knees. "You know you don't have to do that anymore. I got you out of the tower, didn't I? I'm trying to help you."

"Apologies, Mistress." He sat up slowly into a kneeling position then stood, making no secret of watching her as she swished inside. Salus, he'd noticed over the past few days, was making a concentrated effort to win him over. She'd already coaxed most of the details of the duel from him while nursing him back to health and sanity—honestly he wasn't sure just how much he'd revealed, or if it had been limited to the fight. But now that he'd recovered enough sense to remember caution she was combining cajoling words and constant reminders of her acts on his behalf with flattering robes, intricate hairstyles and pouty lips. He hadn't yet decided what the thrust of her game was, but playing along while he regained his strength had worked so far. Fortunately it was proving much easier for him to fool a young mage apprentice than his own reflection.

Time had run out though, he decided. His restored health and mental acuity was motivation for her to decide what she wanted to do with him, and he'd rather not discover if her plan was to trade his whereabouts to the highest bidder. He was physically strong enough to leave, the Tower was out of sight and out of mind, no one knew he was here except for Salus and one other apprentice…and there were people in need of death.

"Have you found a ship bound for Antiva?" he asked, and she looked at him from over one smooth shoulder.

"Not yet. It's too dangerous, Rhenin. They're looking for you and I don't have any influence. I'm just a student barely able to afford her own lodgings."

If they were looking for him, they weren't doing so very diligently. And his dreams since the stair, while still black with memory, had not possessed that quality he'd learned to recognise as being influenced by another.

"Forgive me," he said, ducking his head. "I know you are taking risks for me."

She waved that off. "I had an idea about your conditioning, actually. I think I can help you get rid of—um…unlearn it? You understand what I mean. Would that interest you?"

He drew a few steps closer and nodded slightly, keeping hold of her eyes. "Very much."

"Do you trust me?"

"You saved my life," he pointed out, keeping his voice quiet and shooting a generous dose of sincerity into it. "You said you almost died doing so. Trust is the least I owe you, my lady." When she smiled at the title, he asked, "Is there some trick to breaking it?"

"Well…" she drew the word out, seeming to hesitate for a moment. "Common sense would suggest that those words of yours are the key. If you could be made to forget them, or if you could learn to override them, or if we just change what they do—"

"You mean re-condition me. With blood magic?"

"No, no!" She paled, and it didn't look like an act. "Hear me out. If you could tell me your words—"

He shook his head quickly, tensing at the mere suggestion, and kept menace from his tone with a conscious effort. "I can't. We can't speak our own commands."

"That's just a result of your training, but all right…it's a setback. I suppose you can't write, being a slave?"

"I'm literate," he said, to her evident surprise. Slaves were forbidden to read. "But I don't know if I can—"

"Try. Then I can tie you to a chair, or to the bed, read them to you, and you won't be able to obey, will you?"

Xai's incredulous stare was more or less genuine. "Would that work?"

For answer she gave him an exaggerated shrug. "Isn't it worth a try? It might take a while but you want to be free, don't you?" She hazarded a smile. "Should I get some parchment?"

"It sounds…too good to be true."

She smiled in a way that was probably meant to be encouraging rather than hungry and slid past, making sure to brush against him on the way to the door.

Xai gave her a one second head start, then followed on silent bare feet and flipped the razor up into one hand.

When he returned to the armoire a minute later after the mana-buzz wore off, the reflection was more to his liking. He cleaned off the blood and cut his hair rather than wash it—he'd grown weary of it being long ages ago, and it was too easy to grab and wrench. The stubble of beard stayed, and the overall result satisfied him. Ivarion wouldn't recognise him, even if the mage was lucky enough to see him coming. Neither would his apprentice. Anton would be sharper, but Xai wasn't mad enough to attempt a direct confrontation with a Crow Master, least of all one who'd been in league with the man who'd conditioned him. No, he'd have to flavour that murder with blackmail, and a certain slave manifest receipt in Ivarion's possession might serve him there.

Pushing away from the mirror with a smile, Xai hunted for and found Salus' purse and some small jewels he could easily sell, a pair of fine daggers, and her alchemy table. It was the work of an hour to mix a suitably lethal firebomb to rig the front door with. He doubted it would be enough to burn the house down, not with so many mages around who could use their ice magic to quench the flames, but when Aelius visited in the evening he would be immolated before anyone could blink twice. A crude solution to a loose end perhaps, but effective.

Xai closed the door with extreme care after his preparations were done. He cast his eyes once towards the looming silhouette of the Circle Tower, but in broad daylight, surrounded by other towers and from the outside…it wasn't as daunting. He'd hoped that would be so. Glancing aside with a small grin, he strolled easily out into the afternoon sunlight and warm wind, mind already turning towards the murders he had planned for the night's entertainment.

He felt better already.

Author's Notes: Originally published as a five-part miniseries in 2011 on the old Bioware Social Network, this was a prize for Corker (Corkerite on this site, I think!) for winning the weekly Zev Fanfiction Prompt. She asked for "What really happened on Xai's mission in Tevinter."

If you don't know who Xai Merras is, he's an original character from my fanfics "Dragon Age: The Hunt" (first appearance in Chapter 9) and "Dragon Age: The Kill", and the bastard seems to have become something of a favourite to some readers. :) And no, I haven't forgotten that I've left "The Kill" in limbo for some time now. Sorry, I just haven't been writing anything since I went on hiatus...but I haven't forgotten about it either, so don't consider it abandoned just yet. ;)