The missing braid is explained at the beginning of the next chapter, which will also be a Zevran chapter, and I promise I will get it up ASAP. My intent is to finish it up after work tomorrow, but feel free to pester me regardless. Thanks to Jenovan for giving this a looksee, and convincing me its only slightly weaksauce and not made of fail.
Amidra insisted that she be allowed to prove her worth by getting them into the trapmaster's cell so fervently that Zevran became suspicious. She behaved as if she had something to hide behind her wicked smile, and over the next month as Zevran began his own reconnaissance of the cell he grew increasingly paranoid. He began keeping false residences, and more than a few times thought himself being tailed, doubling back on pursuers to find nothing.
After two months he was moving on an irregular basis, keeping little stashes of gear in open attics and abandoned, undisturbed places. With the rainy winter of the Antivan coast reaching a dramatic height, days in a row of downpour as great storms swept in from the shores of Par Vollen and down across Rivain, even the Crows kept indoors and tended to their own business, contracts scarce. The little Crow apprentices still looked up to Amidra, temporarily Master of the pens as no one could produce enough evidence to accuse her of anything against Sandro. The most intelligent made excellent spies once Zevran was sure they understood what was at stake. Those children who were dull would remain Crows and be weeded out eventually, or become facilitators instead of assassins. The brightest, the ones who truly comprehended what becoming a Crow meant, were offered the greatest reward of all for their service: choice, to remain with the Crows and receive ideal placement or to fly free with no pursuit or punishment. These children, often the older ones, were diligent in their service, undaunted by the heavy rains, and reported on everything that seemed like Crow business.
Of all of them, Zevran found one he turned to most often, one who insinuated himself into a useful place, a human boy thin and ragged, too tall for his age with dark hair like a tangle of weeds, just barely too old to still be in the pens, who insisted his name was simply Nat. He was tight-lipped and sullen, but moved like the softest of shadows, and the other children respected him so much that they gave their laboriously gathered, preciously hoarded secrets to him with little fuss. Instead of searching out many small groups of children, Zevran only sought Nat, and eventually even began relaying his orders through the boy. By the worn state of his being and the fire that remained in Nat's dark eyes, the Crows had tried to break him and failed desperately, and he knew exactly the worth of freedom from them. This boy Zevran trusted as much as he trusted anyone here in his homeland.
So when Nat brought him news that Amidra was meeting with a member of Master Tullia's cell, Zevran listened carefully before seeking her out. She reported a frustrating lack of progress, not the friendly exchanges between herself and a fair-complected elven man that in Nat's estimation implied some physical relationship. They discussed alternative methods of infiltration, and she shared with him a vague floor plan she'd managed to wheedle out of various cell members.
Zevran grew more paranoid, and knew he could no longer rely on Amidra as an ally, writing her off as a poor choice but necessary at the time, and what information she had gathered proved useful. The children, as well, he grew to rely on as little as possible, save through Nat. The boy understood, after all, what was at stake.
At two and a half months he had lost enough momentum in his fight against the Crows that he had to act soon if he wanted to use his kills as power to bargain instead of killing all of them, something he knew he likely wouldn't survive. Tullia was still his best target, one he had at least some useful reconnaissance on. His chosen entrance to her compound was an emergency exit the children had found, a little tunnel that led to the sewers and eventually down to the canal, the entrance to which was underwater.
They said they'd made it up into the lowest level of the compound before finding anything that even remotely resembled a defense, Tullia's house likely counting on the entrance's submersion to keep any interlopers out. It wasn't especially foolish, as no one went wandering around in Antiva's sewers or swimming in her canals for all the obvious reasons, and some less than obvious—the only people who made use of them were people who would kill a trespasser with no hesitation, Crows and smugglers and apostates, and nearer the shore they partially flooded during high tide. This entrance was something Tullia's cell could afford to be careless about, because they risked very, very little leaving it unguarded, and in his observations Zevran had discovered that despite her cell's paranoia the Master herself was supremely smug.
Zevran left his fouled, dripping clothing at the iron door separating the sewers from Tullia's basement, pulling fresh out of an oilcloth bag, knowing the smell of the sewers would've given him away as surely as any hard misstep. He had only a vague idea of the building's layout, one of those few things Amidra had managed to provide, and an idea of the Master's movements within the compound. The rest he trusted to luck and observations made along the way, because he could afford no more waiting.
The basement was indeed as abandoned as the children had said, an inch of water standing on the smooth hewn floor, a ladder up slick with algae and slime, leading to a trap door which, the children had said, was locked and they didn't try to go beyond. They knew their uses, after all. From comparing Amidra's rough floor plan to what the children had described and what he now saw with his own eyes, the trap door here would open into a pantry.
At the top of the ladder Zevran hooked his legs around the rungs such that both hands were free to work the lock. In the same breath he quietly thanked Leliana for her insistence he learn this better and stifled a little sound of discomfort. In his motions the chain around his neck shifted, icy from his swim in the canals and his trek in the damp sewers. In that cold metal was the chill of his far away lover's hands after his cold magic, it was the ice in his expression when one of their companions was doing something foolish and could not be made to see reason, that look that meant they must learn folly for themselves and he would be there to patch their wounds, comfortable that the experience was chastisement enough. So his next breath was a quiet apology, because Cadryn wasn't here to pick up the pieces if this went poorly. Which Zevran was almost certain it would, but he wouldn't run away now, cower back in Ferelden while the Crows made ruin of their lives, and he would not kill his way up from the very bottom—someone would get lucky. No, he was just as convinced as that night in Rialto, this was the right course of action, no matter how supremely foolish it seemed.
The little trap on the door that would spew acid in his face was easily disabled, and the lock only a little more difficult because it hadn't been used in so long. The door opened up into the room he expected, and a light touch found his way around the dark room, this next door opening into a hall, stone floors and plastered walls. Little pre-morning kitchen sounds drifted down from one end, and from the other silence and darkness. He slipped out and around the corner quickly, hearing no activity in the adjoining hall, and though it was dimly lit, only every other of the hanging lamps lit at this hour before waking, Zevran found plenty of shadow, passing like a whisper over the stone floor for where Amidra had described a set of stairs. His few close calls were easily dealt with, ducking into conveniently open doors or side halls. No more than a few breaths ever passed in real hiding, and it seemed terribly convenient, but the halls held enough activity that Zevran didn't grow suspicious. He was more concerned with how strangely warm the building seemed, despite the cool winter rains and hard winds battering the city.
The stairs Amidra had mentioned were down a side hall, not the grand staircase he'd glimpsed in the main hall but a smaller one, left rickety and poorly repaired on purpose because it was less convenient to keep an eye on, and no one sneaking about would use a staircase that looked so noisy and uncertain to hold their weight. Zevran knew better, that the thing most certainly would hold up, as it was the stair Master Tullia herself most often used, according to Amidra and her undisclosed sources, and Zevran was deft enough that the thing didn't so much as squeak, very careful in how he shifted his weight going up.
The stairs opened into a hall, and Tullia's offices were one of the nearby doors, but which specifically he couldn't be sure. Amidra had assured him there were no sleeping quarters on this floor, nor any room you would expect bored Crows to be using in the pre-dawn hours, so he could check them without fear of anything but traps, and that he very much doubted he'd find—these rooms saw regular use, after all, and even among masters of the craft it made no sense to place traps where your allies were more likely to trigger them than an intruder. It was warmer up here, the air stale, his skin growing sticky in a most unpleasant fashion.
One of the doors opened abruptly, and at the head of the rickety stairs Zevran had nowhere to hide, but he was on the person in a single breath's time, throwing them back into the room with a blade at their throat.
Zevran startled, blood already on his hands, finding Taliesen pinned beneath him, lips blue and ice in his hair. Drawing back, pushing himself up, Zevran almost forgot the dagger, pulling it instead from Taliesen's chest rather than away from his throat. It was Taliesen in his moment of death, and that the killing blow made while Taliesen was shaking off Cadryn's magic. Taliesen struggled up, unaffected by the blow but ice crackling in his armor, and stood before him bleeding out from that chest wound and a dozen others, half-frozen. "Some hello you have there. I'd expect you to be happier to see me."
"You're dead." The moment the words escaped him Zevran felt supremely foolish, but it was all he could manage, grasping frantically for reasons behind this sudden vision. At a hand on his shoulder Zevran turned, dagger up in a defensive grip but not lunging out this time—Rinna stood there, glorious dark hair unbound and spilling over her shoulders, plainclothes a mess, slender neck split open with a horizontal line of red and spilling blood down over her breast.
"We had to welcome you home, Zevran." Blood flowed from the wound with every word, and her strong voice wheezed with the unintended intake of air through the wound. She reached out for him, carefully maneuvering around the dagger to grasp his wrist. Her hands were still sure and strong, the sort of hands a man would want at his side, defending him, and her touch was cool and dry in the stifling heat, still growing oppressive around him. "You're home with us."
Amidra slunk in over Rinna's shoulder, laying her hands on the elf's shoulders, burying her face in the girl's hair for a moment. "You were wise to come here, before you could kill another lover." Her lips were red, red as Rinna's blood, her aroma carrying into the room a warm breeze of rose and sex and blood, and suddenly the paint on her lips was no longer makeup but blood spilling across their perfect bow. "You save him from the Crows, you save him from yourself. But, you remember the rumors before you left... you can't save him from the nobles, from the Chantry. He was too innocent in all the wrong ways, for you to leave behind."
"But don't worry." Another hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch, but the hand too large to be Taliesen—to his side now Zevran found Cadryn, face neutral as his voice had been, hair shorn close and a red mark marring the center of his forehead, all light gone from those soulful green eyes. "We're at peace."
"No," a whisper. He wasn't sure what he felt just yet, only that he needed to run from it, too much truth in these specters. "No!" Zevran struck out, blade slicing through Rinna and Amidra in front of him with no resistance, no effect. And he understood, suddenly, this wasn't something he could run from. He'd been here before, but strapped to a rack and convinced he was being tested as an apprentice again. All he could do was wait, helpless and hopeless, so Zevran sank to the plush carpet, curled up against one wall, dagger still held defensively in front of himself.
Amidra disappeared, but the others remained, his lovers betrayed watching him. The two Crows began conversing amicably, as he'd remembered them in life, as if they were not standing there with bleeding wounds and one covered in ice that didn't react to this terrifying heat. The mage, his dear Warden, stood aside from them, silent, expression unwavering, and more frightening in this tranquility than either of the others in their gory moments of death. No, Cadryn was just staring at him, utterly impassive.
"Help me," was a pathetic whisper, useless. Zevran wasn't sure when this had happened or how he'd gotten here, but it had taken the mage to bring him out last time.
A gentle, almost patronizing smile broke the neutrality, but it was far from reassuring, clearly meant to calm and placate. "I'm not real. You've already figured this out. As such, I can do nothing."
"The man you are meant to be would kill himself before being reduced to such a state," Zevran argued. "And I would have helped him, given no other options. So what you are is impossible."
"Perhaps. However, I am legitimate enough for your fears."
"He would not keep me trapped here." Zevran searched for any hint in the mage's face that this was working, that in having this ridiculous argument Zevran was tricking himself, changing his own dreamscape, still found no light in those eyes. "He would free me."
"And he would explain to you why this would not work." Still that patronizing smile, and Zevran was suddenly struck with an urge to punch this specter, to strike out in some fashion and vent his fear and despair. "You are no mage. Your will here has little effect."
"I am trapped by some demon, then? Fitting, for a master of traps to employ such a thing."
"No." Rinna suddenly spoke, her voice still wheezing through her torn throat. "We are you. We are your guilt. Each of us in our turn, betrayed or abandoned in your fear."
"Ever the coward, Zevran." Taliesen moved up to crouch in front of him, pushed Zevran's dagger away when it was brandished at him. "You run from anything you can't solve with your cock or your blade. If only you'd been brave enough to take matters into your own hands, some of us would've still been alive."
"Cadryn would still have killed you," Zevran choked out, batting at Taliesen's face when the man got too close, but his fingers passed through the man's form like smoke. "And he would have died in Denerim." Cadryn, standing behind Taliesen, no longer appeared as one recently made Tranquil, but broken and bloodied as he'd been on the battlements of Fort Drakon after slaying the Archdemon. "I saved you, just as you had saved me. Do it again."
"You have no power here," he repeated, voice broken and worn as his body, "and I am just a figment of this vision."
"I have no power here," Zevran's voice grew steadier, more sure, and he swallowed down the knot of fear in his throat, "but a mage would. I have done you no betrayal; Alistair would not have failed in delivering his letter, and I will return to you. I know that you would believe this. So free me from this place, specter. Use the power I know he has."
The others disappeared, leaving him with Cadryn standing before him as on the night they'd exchanged their vows and the chains they wore, gentle smile genuine now, just a slight drawing up of the corners of his mouth, nervous, eyes full of admiration. Despair fled for a sudden surge of heavy emotion, a swelling sensation within his chest, things Zevran had no words for but they were stronger than ever at this moment. No, this Cadryn wasn't real, but it was the part of his lover Zevran carried with him, the indelible mark left on his soul by their time together. The specter offered him a hand up, which Zevran took, casting aside his dagger.
"You do have power," the specter told him, and the chain around his neck was suddenly so cold it burned against the oppressive heat. "Let no one convince you otherwise, especially after this. Just... don't leave me waiting. Most importantly, live."
:::
Zevran woke with a jerk, the world spinning, his lungs on fire as if being burned from the inside with acid. He was being held down bodily, at shoulders and waist, as someone strapped him down to a table, and he struggled weakly but found there wasn't enough power in his muscles to so much as buck against them with any respectable strength. He'd been stripped, too, and everything was gone, including the chain. Once he was properly restrained the people holding him down withdrew, revealing a withered little elven woman behind them, her fingers gnarled around a vial which she shook at him, fine blue crystals inside sliding around.
"There is one poison no Crow is immune to, fledgling. And this is a lesson you would do well to remember, should you somehow survive your stay with us." The vial disappeared into a pocket on her vest. "I will ask politely, once: who has been helping you?"
Zevran had enough of his wits about him to manage, "I must say, I am surprised that a woman of your years would be in such fine shape. I am curious as to what might lay beneath that distressingly utilitarian and drab garb."
She gestured with one gnarled claw of a hand, somewhere a lever was pulled and gears shifted, and the tight bonds around his wrists and ankles began moving apart. Pacing around the rack as it moved, she watched owlishly, her eyes made wider by how tight her skin had drawn over the fine bones of her face. "I have been made to understand you passed these tests exceptionally well, fledgling, and I have been assured that I will have nothing out of you unless I resort to a very particular method. We do this first to give you a chance. You are strong, and you have proven your value to the guild. We would welcome you back with open arms if you reveal to us who has been helping you since your return to Antiva." She stopped very close, leaning in until her breath was hot and stale on his face, the glimmer in her gray eyes that of a knife in the dark. "But I will not hesitate to lock you in the darkest, loneliest little hole I can find and wring those secrets out of your moldy bones. You would be no loss to us. Do we understand one another, fledgling?"
He strained against his bonds enough to plant a kiss against her nose, and laughed riotously when she looked up to whoever manned the lever and barked out, "Faster!" This was a game he knew how to play, the rules already written into his flesh and his soul, and one she could not win. He would come up with some nonsense, feed them a pleasant lie when they had done enough and be on his way.