Author's Note: Sorry for my delay in posting this week's chapter. I've been sick with the plague (or at least it feels like it) since last Saturday and I've been lucky to accomplish much of anything at all.
Cassandra tensed when she turned the page and saw the title of the final chapter: Farewell to the Knight-Captain. Her breath caught in her throat and she hesitated before continuing, wondering why Varric had even bothered to write the next installment of Swords and Shields for her if he was going to end it in such a tragic way. He knew how she would react to such a thing, and despite all his flaws, cruelty was one trait she had never expected in him. Wood popped in the fireplace, throwing sparks into the air and causing the shadows in the room to flicker and dance. She shivered despite the warmth of the fire, her hand covering the first paragraph for fear of what it might contain.
"Cassandra?" a croaky voice asked suddenly, startling her out of her thoughts.
She nearly jumped out of her chair, but the plush leather made it difficult to get very far. "Inquisitor," she breathed, turning to look at him. He hadn't moved much, but his eyes were definitely open, blinking blearily at her. "You're awake," she said unnecessarily.
"Am I?" He looked blearily around the room. "I'm back in Skyhold... How did I get here?"
Frowning, she tried to judge his level of coherency. He was still a bit pale and gaunt from lack of nourishment, but he looked more aware than she had seen him in days. Perhaps his body was finally recovering from the severe trauma he had suffered in Halamshiral. Morrigan had warned them that although his wound appeared to be healed, all the energy for the healing had come from him, from his own lost blood. That sort of damage took its toll.
"What is the last thing you remember?" she asked gently.
His brows furrowed. "The Winter Palace. Sebastian." He looked down at his chest as if expecting to see a blade protruding from it. "Blood magic." His lips curled a bit on the first word.
"It's been nearly a week since then."
Turning his head to look at her, his eyes widened.
"You've been asleep much of that time. Morrigan said it might take some time for you to recover, but we were all worried."
"Morrigan... Did she...?"
"She hasn't touched you since your healing, but she did follow us back to Skyhold. The Empress sent her to help with our cause."
"So, she's the empress' spy within the Inquisition?"
"That's one way to look at it," Cassandra replied, considering. "But I suspect she follows her own agenda before all others. It is too early to tell if that is a good or bad thing."
Anders smirked at that and attempted to sit up, his smirk quickly turning into a grimace of pain along the way.
Marking her page in the book with a leaf she had been using as a bookmark, she helped him sit and adjusted the pillows behind him to keep him comfortable.
When he was situated, he sighed in relief. "So...a week. How much have I missed?"
"Not as much as you might think," she replied, sitting down in the chair again. "The peace Josephine forged at the Winter Palace is holding, and Corypheus has gone strangely silent. It worries me that we don't know what he's up to, but I'm grateful that it gives us the time we need to recover." Sighing, she shook her head. "The most interesting thing that has happened is the news from the chantry council."
His eyebrows arched. "And what is that?"
Swallowing hard, she considered how to explain, but there was no easy way to broach the topic. "Apparently, Leliana and I are both candidates to be the next Divine. Because of what happened at Halamshiral, of course. The Empire favors the Inquisition, and so now the chantry bandies our names about without even asking us first."
She couldn't read his expression entirely, but the shock was evident in his arched brows and gaping mouth. "That's...the last thing I expected you to say. I don't even know how to react. Is that something you'd want?"
"Why should what I want matter?" she replied stiffly.
He scoffed, brows furrowing, and his outrage on her behalf tugged at her heart. "Why shouldn't it matter? You have the right to be happy."
"It is very simple," she explained. "The chantry needs to survive. To do that, it must change. I have never believed in asking another to do what you are unwilling to do yourself."
"I'm surprised to hear that you think the chantry should change."
She tried not to take offense at that, but realizing that he thought her so rigid stung. "Am I not the same woman who declared the Inquisition against the chantry's wishes? In all my years as a seeker, I did what I was told. My faith demanded it. But now my faith demands something else: that I see with better eyes."
He nodded, a pensive look in his eyes. "That's an admirable goal. If you don't mind me asking, how would you change the chantry if you could?"
Hesitating, she realized that she was walking into a minefield with this topic. She was talking to the man who had blown up a chantry to prove a point, after all. Anders had strong opinions about what the chantry should and shouldn't do, and while she believed he was a man of faith deep down, she wasn't sure if he felt that there was any purpose to organized religion at all. A small part of her, the part that admired him for his kindness and believed that it was his compassion that had driven him to such an extreme action in the first place, wanted to make him happy with her answer. She had a deep respect for his dedication and resolve and hated to disappoint him, but she also had to be true to herself. She would not lie about something that was so close to her heart.
"Surely it was never meant to be like this," she said reasonably. "The chantry, the circle of magi, the templars. This cannot be what they intended when it all began."
He nodded, and the reaction gave her courage to continue.
"The chantry should provide faith, hope. Instead it cannot veer from its course, even in the face of certain death."
"Exactly," he said eagerly. "A chantry that allows injustice to fester and refuses to take a stand is worse than providing no oversight at all."
"We must be vigilant, but we must also be compassionate to all peoples of Thedas, human or no. We must reform the circle of magi," she continued, so wrapped up in passion for the topic that she failed to notice when his expression fell. "Let mages govern themselves with our help. Let the templars stand not as the jailers of mages, but as protectors of the innocent."
The disappointment in his eyes was every bit as crushing as she had expected. "And when the templars overstep their bounds? When they inevitably begin to see restricting the mages' rights as protecting the innocent?"
"Then I will teach them otherwise," she said firmly.
"How? Where will you draw the line? As long as templars are put into a position of power over mages, eventually some of them will attempt to take advantage of that power."
Anger flared in her chest, and she felt a blush heat her cheeks. "I don't have all the answers yet, but I will figure them out."
"I'm sorry," he said, closing his eyes. "I know you have good intentions, but what you're proposing is not enough to create real change. The old system was broken. And attempting to reinstate it in any way will only lead to the same problems in the end."
"You sound like Leliana," she scoffed. "She says she wishes to follow Justinia's legacy, but she and I remember a different person. Justinia knew her fellow clerics and the people would only accept so much change. Like you, Leliana prefers to cast it all aside and start over, but that would only lead to chaos for us all."
Swallowing and looking away, he said quietly, "The world is already in chaos. I agree that order must be restored, but must it be the same order that existed before? Isn't this an opportunity to build a system that is better than the one that was destroyed?"
"Every system has its flaws." She shook her head. "But there is a reason the previous system lasted as long as it did. On some level, it worked."
Smiling bitterly, he nodded. "From your perspective, I suppose it did."
She could see in his expression that she had lost his respect—at least in part—and that realization hit her harder than she would have expected. But she was also disappointed—even though she shouldn't have been. He had always been clear about where he stood on such issues, and she had only forgotten the truth for a while, imagining that they might have more in common than she'd first believed. But they were very different people with very different experiences of the world.
"I'm sorry you disagree," she said finally, trying hard not to sound defensive. "But you did ask for my opinion."
"I did," he agreed, still avoiding her gaze. "I'm feeling a bit tired, now. I'd like to rest for a while, if you don't mind."
She nodded, reading between the lines. "Are you hungry? I could have someone in the kitchens send up some food for you."
"Not right now. I don't have much of an appetite. But thank you."
Feeling suddenly uncertain, she gathered up her book and stood to leave, studying his profile with a frown. He looked strangely fragile, his hair mussed from so many days in bed, his cheeks hollow and pale. Although she didn't regret speaking her mind, she regretted their quarrel. He was barely recovered from a near-death experience and she'd taken the first opportunity she had to launch into a discussion on politics. She should have known better.
She wanted to say something to make everything normal again, but she couldn't think of anything that would fix things. So she pressed her lips into a thin line and turned away, her boots echoing mournfully as she crossed the room to the stairs.
She suddenly felt like finishing that chapter now, and planned to give Varric a piece of her mind when she was done.
Author's note: Poor Cassandra. But it was inevitable that their viewpoints would clash eventually again.
