It was strange for Kalya not to know the subjects of her assassinations; to not allow the atrocity of their crimes to inspire her savagery. When she asked the infraction of one assignment – a wealthy noble whose death was to look like an accident – Zevran simply smiled and folded his arms behind his head.

"If you do not trust me enough to know it must be done, why trust I will tell you the truth?"

Kalya rolled her eyes without looking up from the blade she was sharpening.

"Don't you have a code?"

Zevran threw his head back with a laugh. "My code is paid in adventure and pride. And a few gold sovereigns."

"You're getting paid for this?"

"How do you think I fund our expensive potion habit?" He patted the fat leather sack curled beneath him as he reclined on the cold warehouse floor. "As it is, however, this man is participating in an elven slave ring."

Kalya's eyes lit up. "Why didn't you just say that?!"

"So you believe me?"

She blinked. Sometimes Zevran could be downright infuriating.

It was becoming increasingly clear that Zevran's assignments were more than simple exercises to hone her skill in the real world. All she knew was that they came from an outside source, but she never pressed for more information. Communicating a mission to Kalya was the only time Zevran's soft expressions took on a deadly serious edge. It was unsettling.

The assassination had to be carried out by week's end. As she was taught, she watched her mark's movements from the shadows, even slipping into his home in the dead of night. It was the safest location to stage an accident and ensure no prying eyes looked on. Any elven servants working the late hours kept to the kitchens, and every night, in the early hours, the man rose from his bedroom on the lavish second floor to use the privy.

Nervous and antsy at perfecting the job, she had wasted the week tailing him to learn his habits, leaving just one last evening to finish the job. So, of course, that night, he came home blind drunk and collapsed into his bed, fully clothed and dead to the world. The instructions requiring a physical accident were very clear. A snapped neck in bed would surely lead to an investigation.

Kalya crouched in wait on the second floor, mind spinning with contingencies. Short of tipping his wardrobe on him, the only solution seemed to be her original plan, which needed him upright. Becoming increasingly bolder as the hours ticked by, she rapped on the walls and creaked the floorboards to try and rouse him. Nothing worked. With the light of dawn rising, servants would begin to arrive at the manor any minute. She crept brazenly into his room, took a deep, steadying breath, and shook the man where he lay. Dark curtains and bleary eyes hid her position when he snorted awake, finally recognizing his full bladder.

Dazed and stumbling, the man didn't notice the elf following him silently out the room and down the hall. Right before he approached the stairs, Kalya leapt onto his back, clasping the sides of his head expertly and wrenching his neck to the side with a satisfying pop. He was dead instantly, but his body weight toppled backwards onto her. She fell into a crouch and rammed forward with all her might, sending him careening down the unforgiving staircase. Kalya slipped out his open bedroom window just as an elf in his manor let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Zevran seemed satisfied with her work in general, never overly complimentary but always pleased, offering helpful alternatives to her technique. It was humbling and informative, and her successes satisfied something darkly gratifying within her. Before, she was a fringe vigilante, a glorified neighborhood watch, likely to be felled anytime by anyone sober and skilled. Now she felt like a finely tuned killing instrument. It scared and invigorated her.

Her more difficult assignments involved the opposite of assassinations. Word reached Zevran, however it did, that an attempt was to be made on the life of someone his "associates" would prefer alive. This mission had almost no information, just that this attempt be quashed at any cost.

"Tomorrow," Zevran began as they shared a spread of fruit in the dusty warehouse, "in the square outside the Chantry, Mother Perpetua will address the rumored Blight to a crowd of people. My associates have reason to believe someone wants her silenced. They don't know where this assassin comes from, just that he is inexperienced."

"It's a man," she said.

"A fact that could change by the morrow."

"So it could be anyone."

"It won't be easy, but I believe you're ready." Zevran's tone sent a chill down her spine. Hesitation in his eyes betrayed his misgivings, even if his deceit was for her benefit.

"And you'll be there."

"I'll be there as a last resort, but on the opposite side of the crowd. When the killer is in your sights, you must not only strike, you must drop him and escape without anyone knowing it was you who dealt the blow."

"And his body?"

"Will cause the commotion that provides your escape. You can do this."

Kalya took a deep breath. The rest of their meal passed in silence as she stared blankly through the floor.

:::

The Market Square was more packed than Kalya had seen it. There hadn't been a Blight in hundreds of years and everyone wanted answers, regardless of who spoke them. She doubted the Chantry would know – or share – anything of real value, but it seemed she was in the minority.

Humans, elves, and dwarves alike huddled together in the cold square. By the time Mother Perpetua was expected to begin, the crowds reached so far back into the Market District, a quarter of them wouldn't even be able to hear firsthand.

Kalya had gotten there early, shrouded in a hood, and had positioned herself near the front. Zevran believed Templars lining the outskirts would dissuade all manner of troublemakers to leave long-range weapons at home. Chances were good that the assassination would be carried out by a blade hidden in a sleeve.

Worried expressions painted every face around Kalya as she moved silently through the throngs of people. Just perfect. She had been hoping the one grain of fact she knew – that the assassin was inexperienced – would be enough to set him or her apart from the crowd, with a sweaty brow and darting eyes.

When the Mother emerged from the Chantry and made her way to a small, wooden podium, the congregation fell silent.

"Sisters and brothers, it has long been the folly of man to believe this world is our own. In truth, we are but humble servants to the Maker, whose Golden City fell tarnished by the hubris of those attempting to rise above their station."

Kalya rolled her eyes. A human mother next to her hugged a child tight, barely concealing a sneer of distaste at Kalya's heresy.

"Stories have reached the Divine from all corners of Thedas of a coming darkness, a fifth Blight. But are we not always clouded in a veil of darkness as punishment for our shame?"

Blah, blah, blah. Religious types sure liked hating themselves, didn't they?

Kalya tuned out the rest of the droning to study those around her. Most onlookers hung on Perpetua's every word. Many seemed impatient, disappointed. More than a few looked worried, as if finding some deeper meaning in the Chantry's nonanswers. Faces blurred together in the innumerable crowd. A sourness churned at the edges of Kalya's stomach. She didn't know how much the Mother had left to drone, but neither did the assassin. The time to strike would be soon.

Then she saw him. An elf had his eyes closed. Still in his teens, he was shrouded, like her, in a grey hood, but his expression and even breathing looked off in the crowd. A different type of worry. Unless… was he praying? Did people pray out in the open, while trying to listen to a spiritual leader? It had to be him. Didn't it?

His shoulders rose, then fell. He looked like he was about to have a panic attack. Kalya scanned the opposite side of crowd for Zevran, hoping for a nodded confirmation, but he was nowhere to be seen. When she glanced back at the elf, he was off, making his way towards the podium just 30 yards and a mass of people away.

She sprung to life, knocking into a few nobles and merchants roughly to the side. So much for keeping a low profile. But then the crowd itself was shifting, serpentine and riled. She hadn't been paying attention – had Mother Perpetua said something unfavorable? Swarms of people seemed to be moving forward, rotating out anyone who couldn't stand their ground or who had thrown their hands up in disgust and were making their way back to their duties.

The grey hood was pushed sideways, too, away from his target, and Kalya closed the space between them, darting expertly between those less nimble on their feet. In the span of an instant, she was three thick bodies away and then right next to him. Her dagger slid out of her sleeve and into the boy's side with deadly ease. His head jerked around, but his gasp was silenced by the roar of the mob. She twisted the knife, then slammed a fist downward into the hilt before drawing it back out. The organ damage wouldn't kill him, but bleeding out would. He tipped forward, held up by the tight confines for an extra moment before slumping to his knees. Kalya slid the bloody knife back into her sleeve and made her way to the far side of the crowd, where Zevran would be waiting.

But the throngs slammed into her and surged her sideways, away from Zevran's position. Someone's desperate hand clapped her shoulder, and she wrenched free. The crowd was losing itself, and the Templars dotting the edges were already making their way to the center. At the podium, the Mother was quickly ushered back into the Chantry for safety. Raw pandemonium prickled Kalya's skin and tightened her chest, even though her job was successfully done. An elf her size could be trampled underfoot with as little as a misstep.

Suddenly, the same hand grasped her tight around one forearm. Then the other arm, a second person. A third crashed into her from behind and clutched the back of her neck with a heavy grip. Like a ragdoll, she was steered toward the outskirts of the crowd, where no Templars stood.

Her hood obscured a view of the men, but the moment her feet found purchase, she dropped her weight and twisted under one arm, trying to crash the two holding her arms into each other, but they were too nimble. The men dressed in all-black leathers wrenched her forward. Dull pressure pressed against her kidney, until something burst through her leathers with the tip of its blade. The shock of pain stuttered her, and she was all but carried from the crowd.

"Keep up and stay quiet, bitch," the huge man snarled in her ear from behind her.

She flexed both wrists. The men had slipped the twin blades from her sleeves. Shit.

Kalya was pulled through a series of alleys, entering backrooms of establishments whose workers ignored them, then exiting into backstreets inaccessible from the main thoroughfare. In all her time spent sleeping outside and tailing thugs through Denerim, she'd never seen this part of town.

Maybe because she'd seen their black leather armor before at the Pearl, or maybe because her wound was distracting, instinct to spout a sarcastic or threatening comment lost out to self-preservation. Outnumbered, unweaponed, and confused, she made a point of squeezing her eyes tight, allowing them to lead her without a fight. If they were taking her somewhere she shouldn't see, she wanted them to know.

When she nearly tripped over a jutting cobblestone, the slick-haired man to her right elbowed her throbbing kidney, popping her eyes open.

"It don't matter if you can see where we're going. You're not coming out."

:::

The men in black never knocked her unconscious. It almost would have been better if they had.

Kalya was awake as they shoved her across the threshold into a long building with a score of sneering onlookers dressed all in black. She was awake as they marched her through a dirty antechamber, with tables of serrated blades and rods and straps that made her want to retch. She was awake as they led her down cobbled serpentine halls and shoved her hard onto her knees into a round, stone prison.

The mildewy keep was puddled and freezing cold. When her kidnappers' footsteps got far enough away, Kalya scrambled to the shadowy perimeter and curled into a ball. The bleeding in her side subsided at some point, and she shivered there for hours, knees bruised and soaking wet through her leathers.

Distant dripping in a nearby cell lulled her to placidity as time passed. When exhaustion finally set in and she nodded off, the door clattered wildly, jerking her awake with a hammering heart. Minutes passed. She quieted her nerves with a deep breath and closed eyes, only to have the cycle repeat. The wooden door nearly rattled off its thick hinges. Kalya began pacing her cell, hopping and stretching, just to stay awake and avoid the primal panic.

There were no windows, no indication of passing time besides her base exhaustion. When a small skin of water was pushed through the door's slot, she estimated she had been imprisoned for a day and a half.

At the two-day mark – maybe? – a human strode through the door, dressed head-to-toe in the same dark leathers. He eyed her up and down with a smirk, hands upon his hips.

"The Dagger of Denerim," he announced with a foreign timbre she couldn't place. "You're not at all what I pictured."

Kalya gulped and balled her fists. Lack of sleep had her on edge and the rush of adrenaline set her eyes wide and wild. Ready to fight or flee, though she doubted she'd get very far with either.

The man's smirk never faltered. He almost looked proud as he spoke. "You've wreaked a bit of havoc these last few months."

His wolfish grin oozed menace, but if he wanted to kill her, he'd had every opportunity. This was psychological. Words spilled out of her on their own volition. This self-preservation thing was humiliating.

"Whatever I did, whatever… reason I'm in here… I'm guessing you didn't lock me up to ask me to leave town, but I absolutely will."

His nostrils flared in amusement. He said nothing for a beat, studying her. "You know, my associates don't think you will survive, but I… I see the spark of fight in you, even still." His eyebrows quirked with a nod. "Good thing, too, or we'd have just killed you weeks ago. I hope they are wrong."

The way he relished her terror, tasting each threat before it rolled off his tongue was so eerily familiar it pricked the hairs up along her skin. Blood rushed through her ears in a pulsating rhythm. "Survive what? I don't even know who you are!"

"How rude of me. I presumed you knew." The man tucked one ankle behind the other and bowed deeply. "I am Johann, of the Antivan Crows. And we own you now."