Zevran knew he was being followed. So when he reached the door of his apartment, he said rather regretfully to the full bosomed beauty on his arm,
"Not tonight, my love. I believe I may find another Crow in my closet tonight, and I would not have your lovely skin splashed in blood."
The woman pouted. She was a generously endowed woman, wearing a dress that would have been scandalous in Ferelden, but was standard attire in Antiva, and not just for the prostitutes.
"Smile," said Zevran, kissing her forehead. "I would not see you off with such an ugly expression on those luscious lips of yours. I will find you tomorrow, my dear, and it will be so much better for the waiting."
The woman giggled, in a way that would be coquettish was her posture not so loose and open.
Zevran waited for her to turn the corner, than looked out at the street. There were several places an assassin might hide from sight, but they would certainly remain in earshot.
"Please, do come in," he said, to the deceptively empty street. "I find myself in want of company before you attempt to kill me."
Out of the shadows materialized a thin elven woman in dark gray leathers. Dark hair hung to her shoulders and fell across her brow, which was marked with intricate brown lines. A face to intense to be pretty, full lips frowning slightly, a nose too sharp, and eyes that said little but measured everything.
Zevran was silent for a moment, and Eve took pleasure in the shock in his eyes. His feathers were notoriously difficult to ruffle.
He let his eyes travel over that face, wondering how she had ever managed to enter the city without his knowledge. She looked so out of place in her drab armor, hair free and disheveled, that he should have noticed the moment she wandered into Antiva. She used to be so insecure in cities, her feet hesitant and stumbling on the cobblestones, but now…well, she had evaded his notice for who knows how long, had even managed to track him to his home.
"Come in, my dear Warden," he said.
Zevran's home was small but well furnished. A thick rug made from the hide of some exotic animal sprawled before a generous hearth. Everywhere, there were cushions, and the walls bore thick velvet tapestries. Zevran lit a few candles, which threw everything in the room into soft golden relief. It was a home that suited him, a home made for seduction, where everything was soft and sensual and expensive.
Eve did not fit. Her severe face and battered armor made her a stranger in these walls. Had she always been so foreign, Zevran wondered, or had she changed so much in the few years they'd been apart.
Well, he would not allow her to make him awkward within his own home. He sat on a couch covered with cushions, sprawling across it like a cat, all languid muscles that could spring into taut action at any instant.
"What brings the great Commander of the Grey to my humble Antiva?" he asked her. She looked at him. Those eyes were so solemn, had they always been that way?
"Business? Pleasure? A little of both?" he continued.
"I'm not the Commander of the Grey any longer," she said. It was the first thing she'd said to him, and he was relieved that her voice was the same, soft but firm, like steel covered with a layer of silk. If people did not read the subtle power in that voice, they might press into the silk and find that underneath it she was cold and unyielding. He had seen it happen.
"Oh?" he said. Now that she'd said something, he felt a little less uneasy. "Then what brings you here?"
"You," she said. It was all she said. Then those eyes turned on him again, and he felt uneasy. He was not in control of the situation, of her. She was like the Brecilian Forest, beautiful but so strange and deadly.
"You came all this way for me, dear Warden," he said. "Surely you could have found a man in Ferelden to warm your bed."
"You left," she said. It occurred to him that she was not angry, and this seemed strange. She had cared for him a great deal, or so it seemed at the time.
"You wish me to explain?" This made sense. A spurned lover, left behind, seeking him again. That tale he could understand.
She cocked her head slightly to the left. She sat, timidly, on a plush chair, after removing a few cushions. She nodded at him.
"I'm afraid I have no good reason, my dear. It was simply time for me to move on."
She looked at him, eyes gentle, questioning. Was it a lie?
Zevran himself did not know.