Sixty

The Grand Enchanter's quarters were, as Taesas might have expected, grand.

For Val Royeaux, what else was to be expected?

One of Vivienne's first actions when she had taken on the role of the leader of the reformed Circle of Magi was to move the office of the Grand Enchanter from Cumberland to Orlais.

Considering that everyone in power in the Circle now served at the leisure of Vivienne, no one had objected to her fleeing the golden-domed College of Magi in Nevarra. It had been her intervention in the Inquisition that had allowed the Circle to survive its schism and the near-collapse of the Chantry after Justinia's death, so few dared to cross her.

Half of the enchanters had abandoned the Circle anyway during the war and those that remained were tightly leashed to her. Taesas could recall few times in history that there had been such a dramatic rebalancing of power in any nation or organization while also lacking significant upheaval. The power vacuum left after Fiona's foolishness had been contained and completely controlled by Vivienne, wielded to serve her purpose.

And now, she wielded her power by being late.

Whether intentional or not, Taesas was annoyed.. The Templars hadn't given him any leeway to explore White Spire or its deep and sometimes dark history. No, when he had presented himself at the gate, they had ushered him directly upstairs to the Grand Enchanter's expansive quarters. They had claimed those had been her express orders, that she would immediately attend to him upon his arrival.

He doubted that the strict directive to the Templars was meant to expedite his audience. Instead, he suspected it was more to keep him from poking his nose around the dormitories and classrooms of White Spire, to see who remained and what they were up to. No, Vivienne wanted him controlled and corralled, kept safely locked in her quarters where he would be forced to mind himself.

Taesas thought it was a bit heavy-handed, paranoid even, to have the two Templars posted at the door. They remained there, even now, standing sentry. There was nothing in the Circle capable of posing a physical threat or otherwise to Vivienne. The Templars were simply a display of power, not because she needed them for her protection, but simply because she could post them to her door and make them stay there all day. While Taesas enjoyed that he was able to manipulate the Templars in Montsimmard as needed, he was quite certain that the Knight Commander here came to her for orders and not the other way around.

But if Vivienne wanted to keep him confined and bored, that was her prerogative. He had planted himself in the corner of a soft white leather couch and put his feet up on the table. It was uncouth, but just the type of small indiscretion that would peeve Vivienne as recompense for making him wait. After the trouble he had been through, he felt he deserved a moment's relaxation.

Taesas could hear indistinct conversation growing louder from the doorway and the sound of boots loudly stepping up the stone stairwell. His back was to the door, but he made no effort to turn. Vivienne always talked louder than she needed to when she was talking to no one of importance. It broadcast importance to be heard, even by people who didn't need to hear.

"... have the boy transferred away. Whether he has been indiscreet with the girl is irrelevant. I want him gone. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Grand Enchanter," a man's voice said. The sound of footsteps stopped.

"See it done," Vivienne commanded. "You two, leave us."

"Yes, Grand Enchanter," a harmony of men's voices answered, followed by the noticeable sound of armor shuffling as they began down the stairwell.

Taesas could hear the slight jingling of metal, followed by the sound of the thick door being shoved closed. "Get your feet off my table," Vivienne ordered.

Taesas lifted his feet, setting them on the floor as he sat up. Vivienne was marching past, ignoring him, as she stepped to the back of the room to place her staff on a hook behind her oversized, darkwood desk and lifted the dramatic hennin off of her head and placed it down on the tabletop.

Today, Vivienne had chosen gold and white. The long and narrow dress was covered in gold filigree over what appeared to be peerless white silk. She jingled, almost as if she were wearing a coat of ringmail. The slits in the sides of the dress went nearly up to her hip, exposing her legs as she walked flawlessly on heeled shoes steep enough to make his calves sore just by looking at them.

Long, golden earrings of multiple loops dangled nearly to her shoulders. As she turned, she had a brush of gold colored around her eyes and even a subtle shine upon her lips.

It was clear that Vivienne had become even more particular, polished and undeniably expensive since rising from First Enchanter to Grand Enchanter. The amount of gold she wore, if melted into coins, would be more than most laborers could dream to earn in a year.

"I might have lain down for a nap, had I to wait any longer," he said, feigning a yawn.

Vivienne was not amused, nor did she make an excuse for her tardiness because anything she offered would sound insincere primarily because it was insincere. She had made him wait because she could, so she had to proffer no explanation.

She poured herself red wine, without offering him any. "Since you're here, I hope that means you were successful in your errand," she said.

"I was," Taeasas said, "albeit at great cost. Seeker Araxii and the wing of Templars he brought with him were all slain. Gruesomely."

"How dreadful," Vivienne said flatly and with little melancholy as she sipped her wine and made her way over to the couch opposite Taesas. "But you were able to overcome her?"

Taesas shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"That was never a concern," he said, remembering the surge of pain after she had broken his shield and his forearm early in their fight. It had been a necessary part of his greater strategy, which had come fully to fruition. "Whether she would be taken alive, that was more of the question."

"And did you?" Vivienne asked as she sipped her wine again.

Taesas paused, watching the way her eyes were watching him. Vivienne never asked questions she didn't already know the answer to. Certainly, she knew. What was she really after, he wondered?

It had only been due to the intervention of the others in their battle that Vell had offered to surrender herself. He had been prepared to kill her, whether it was to preserve his own safety or whether she forced his hand. As he had wrestled her to the ground, spirit blade pressed to her throat, he had tested her resolve and found it stalwart. Had her army of brats not intervened, he might have only been seconds away from opening her throat and being done with the ordeal.

But the Maker acted in mysterious ways.

"It took a bit of," he looked for the right phrase, "fatal ultimatum, to convince her it was her best course of action."

Vivienne continued to sip from her glass, continuing to pore him over. Whatever she was looking for, she made no secret that she was looking for it. Reading the face of another skilled player of the Grand Game was a fruitless exercise. The best could hold a blank expression through torture, if need be.

She placed her wine down on the glass table between them, then sat back up, straight, legs crossed, with her hands folded over her knee. He recognized the posture. While it was meant to look proper and unassuming, he knew it for what it was, broadcasting an impending attack.

"I am confused, Taesas darling. Why did the Templars inform me you arrived here at White Spire alone?" Vivienne questioned.

The Templar who had been working the front gate of the tower had asked the same thing. When he sent the messenger back, the two additional Templars who arrived had the same question before they let him inside and escorted him immediately upstairs to the Grand Enchanter's quarters.

"Because I came alone," Taesas said with a shrug. "Are you afraid the Templars made some mistake? I assure you, their eyes are working properly."

Vivienne, again, was not amused. "Where is she?"

"The girl destroyed a prison facility," Taesas reminded her. "Blew it to pieces. No survivors. Walls, exploded. Such a historic place as White Spire, I would never be able to forgive myself if she was placed in some underground cell and repeated such an act."

Vivienne paused, waiting for him to finish. He allowed himself a smirk.

"Where is she?" Vivienne asked again.

"Safely kept," Taesas said. "You have my word."

Vivienne kept her composure, but no doubt inside she was stewing at his childish behavior. What was she thinking now, he wondered, as her eyes tried to pierce through him again. Certainly she couldn't have anticipated things would go quite this way, so she had to be recalculating in her head, trying to puzzle out his game.

"Perhaps I was wrong to assume it overt, but when one carries an arrest warrant signed by the Divine herself, the arresting officer is expected to deliver so-named person to custody," Vivienne explained dryly, with a slight vibration of her annoyance coming out in her words.

"She is in custody," Taesas pointed out. "My custody."

Vivienne let a bit of her exasperation loose now as she scoffed. "And you're holding her — securely, I hope — for what reason? Have I not already agreed to meet your terms if you were able to quell this threat and bring her to my doorstep."

"You have."

"And yet, you fail to make delivery," Vivienne said. "Did the girl concuss you so that you fail to remember these things, or do you have some reason for failing to complete this simplest of legal transactions?"

Taesas smirked again and reached across the table, clutching his fingers around the top of Vivienne's glass of half-drunk wine and taking it for himself. He brought the glass to his lips and took a sip as he reclined back into the couch. A good wine. Tevinter red, out of Marnas Pell maybe? The grapes from that region had a certain distinctness to them.

"You said something interesting earlier. Something that caught my ear." He stopped, waiting for Vivienne. Her eyes settled across him, further annoyed that he was leading her into the conversation instead of just speaking.

"And what was that?" she asked, playing her part.

"You mentioned that I showed up here at White Spire alone," Taesas said. He took another drink, regarded the glass with a nod and tipped it in approval to Vivienne. "I couldn't have said it better myself. Not in the literal, physical sense, of course. But in the greater sense of the word. I have been feeling alone of late."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Vivienne said half-heartedly.

"But why should I have to feel alone?" Taesas asked himself. "If I go to Halamshiral, bring back Vell alive, return her to Val Royeaux to the care of the Circle, then you have agreed to take me as paramour. I'd be ever in your company, maybe not immediate company, mind you, but always in spirit at least, knowing that you are just a short trip away should I choose to make it."

"That was our agreement," Vivienne agreed to continue his dialogue.

"But I admit, there have been a few other things on my mind. Tangentially related, but related nonetheless," he said. "At that slovenly chapel in Halamshiral, when Hugh came to arrest the girl, she denied the allegation with such ardent furor that, I must admit, I almost believed her. I mean, why would a malcontent who literally killed her way out of the hallways of this Circle willingly walk into a hidden Chantry prison? Not only to exact revenge upon the Templars, but to completely destroy the building itself?"

Vivienne raised a hand, unconcerned. "I apologize, I'm not particularly adept at rationalizing the actions of the irrational."

"That was the thing, though, Vivienne, was that it didn't sound so irrational," Taesas continued. "She claimed that she had done it because the Seeker had abducted her teacher, had baited her into the fight."

Vivienne chuckled. "And you believed her? Taesas, darling, for as long as you've played the Grand Game, I didn't think you one to take such bald lies at their face value."

Taesas reached inside his robe, retrieving a folded piece of paper. He unfolded each of the three folds, slowly creasing the paper in the opposite direction so that it wouldn't roll back in on itself, then tossed the paper until it twirled and landed on the table between them.

"Not only did my contacts in the Dales confirm that the old woman's cabin has been empty for days, weeks even, a friend with connections in the Chantry was able to retrieve that document for me, at great cost," Taesas said.

"'Request for enactment of the Rite of Tranquility,'" Taesas quoted from memory. "The name on the document is clearly falsified, but the dates are within the right period. And the signature on the bottom, I thought, was interesting. 'Seeker Hugh Araxii.'"

Vivienne regarded the document on the table lazily, not bending down to pick it up and inspect it closer.

"Then I remembered the warrant that I had been presented, the one to arrest Vell. That too, had been attested to by Araxii. For the arrest of Vell, to be taken into lawful detention at White Spire, Val Royeaux," Taesas continued.

He paused to see if Vivienne cared to interject. She didn't. Because she was smart. The less she said, the better for her. He continued.

"The more I thought about it, I found it odd. Although we've all heard rumors about the many sub-levels of White Spire, why not take such a dangerous mage someplace more secure? It is more of a trip, but arguably some place like Aeonar would be the best place. Better yet, the Seekers of Truth had seized the prison, following the outbreak of the war. Why wouldn't Seeker Araxii, Maker rest his soul, want to take her there?" Taesas asked.

"Sadly, I am unable to answer questions posed to dead men," Vivienne responded.

"I have a thought, a theory," Taesas said as he pointed over the lip of the wine glass with a finger. "I don't think he could have taken her anywhere else in Thedas outside of Val Royeaux, because you, Vivienne, are here in Val Royeaux."

Vivienne chuckled at the accusation. "As is the Divine, the headquarters of the Seekers of Truth, the Empress and anyone else worth anything."

Taesas nodded as he drank from the wine glass again. "True, true," he acknowledged. "Which is why I said it was only a theory. You know, maybe the Grand Game is finally getting to me. Maybe I'm finally becoming paranoid. The beginning of the end for the greatest players."

"Think nothing of it," Vivienne assured him with a friendly smile. "You've been through quite an ordeal."

"Several ordeals," Taesas said with an exhausted snort, thankful of his luck for her particular phrasing. "Several. In a rather short stretch of time."

He sighed. "I am having a bad year."

"My sympathies," Vivienne offered. "Now, regarding the malcon-"

Taesas interrupted as she started. "The Circle at Montsimmard appears to be crumbling before my eyes and despite my efforts to try to hold it together, it continues falling apart. I have Cecille Colieux breathing down the back of my neck and there is little I'm able to do as she stays sheltered in the arms of her Duke."

Taesas motioned to his left, to the no one who was sitting there. "I find myself separated from one of my most treasured confidants, in part because I castrated her husband with a crossbow at her daughter's betrothal, but in part because forces have been moving to isolate her from me."

He turned to his right, regarding another empty space on the couch. "In tough times, I might turn to my trusted patron Marquis Brevere for assistance. Yet he has, regrettably, gone to the Maker in recent months."

Taesas then looked at the floor in front of him. "Then suddenly, and seemingly without provocation, the rebel girl blows a Templar stronghold to the Fade, bringing a Seeker of Truth and the Grand Enchanter of the Circle to my doorstep seeking my assistance in bringing her to heel."

He rubbed his hands over his face in feigned exhaustion. "I can't believe my poor fortune of late. I must be cursed. Perhaps my dissolute ways are finally catching up to me."

Vivienne was silent, no longer proffering feigned sympathies. Perhaps she could sense his self-indulgent bemoaning was merely in jest, a prelude to where he was truly traversing. And perhaps she recognized the route that he was leading her to, knowing.

"Or, perhaps there are common threads here, imperceptible strands of sticky silk stretched out along the path I walk, that I have unwittingly stepped into and become tangled because I was not looking for them?" Taesas said, raising his eyes to Vivienne. "Would you happen to know anything about that, Vivienne?"

The Grand Enchanter remained stone-faced, not stepping into his web that he was rapidly sprawling out across her well-appointed quarters. Taesas had to admire that, that even in the moment, when faced with as direct of an accusation that maybe anyone had dared to make against her in years, she surrendered no secret.

He had not seen it before, because he had not been looking. He had operated under the assumption that they were allies, that she would support him and he would support her. For years, he had served in her interest as well as his own. In the back of his mind, he had always known that she could and maybe someday would dispose of him, although he had naively thought that maybe he would get the courtesy of a formal declaration of the severing of their alliance.

No, instead for months there had been an undercurrent, at first undetectable but eventually becoming more and more apparent as one event stacked upon the next. Even as the thought had crossed his awareness, reconfiguring his eyes to see the threads that stretched out to fetter him had been a task.

He had come to White Spire alone, because he had been being systematically isolated. There was no one else with the knowledge or the means to strike so accurately and so discreetly as all of it was done through clever proxies. Cecille, Guillaume de Targele, the Marchioness Brevere and Hugh Araxii. But behind them all there was another hand guiding their actions.

"Where is the girl?" Vivienne demanded instead of answering his question. Madam de Fer brought that iron to her voice now, as cold and grim as steel.

"Why do you want her so badly?" Taesas asked.

"She is dangerous," Madam de Fer answered.

"No," Taesas disagreed. "Not any more."

"Have you fallen for this girl? This reject of the Circle?"

"She's no longer a threat," he said, ignoring her.

"She possesses a dangerous magic, one that cannot be allowed to continue to exist!" Vivienne began raising her voice.

"Because it is truly a danger or because you want everyone to believe it's a danger?" Taesas said, trying to keep his calm.

"If you cannot see that any more then perhaps-"

"You're trying to start another war!"

His voice did raise now, as loudly as it could go without cracking, as he laid the truth as bare as it could be. He had always found that the lies had to be spoken most delicately in order to be effective. But the truth, the truth could be displayed as harshly and bluntly as necessary as the cudgel it was.

In the end, it was the only conclusion he could logically reach when he had pulled himself out of the situation and observed it from an objective distance above the entire game board that was Orlais.

Vivienne did not act rashly, capriciously, foolishly, not except for matters regarding her late lover Bastien. When it came to the Game, no one looked further into the future calculating every possible outcome and mitigating possible negative influences or variables like Vivienne. There was never madness in her method, only method in her method.

And when it came to her unshakable interest in the rift mages, there was only one logical explanation to describe her actions. If the rift mages could be seen as a threat and if they could be provoked into manifesting that threat, what choice would there be but for the Chantry to bring the full force of its wrath upon them and any who associated with them? The fledgling College of Enchanters would be undone as quickly as it had been done.

Vivienne took a deep breath and calmed herself from her earlier outburst.

"We both know this balance Inquisitor Trevelyan and that fool of a Divine who serves as his fuck puppet have tried to strike is unsustainable," Vivienne said rather crudely. "The Circle has existed for centuries because not only is it necessary but because it is the best way to protect both the public and the mages. I know this. You know this. That butchish incompetent Pentaghast used to know it, before Trevelyan poisoned her feeble brain.

"Whether it happens now or a year from now or a decade, we both know the end result will be the same," Vivienne said. "The College of Enchanters will fail and your malcontent and Fiona and all the rest of their cohort will have to be brought to account. I am simply of the opinion that it is better to attend to the matter now before these foolish notions become too entrenched and therefore much harder to remove.

"In the end, we both know the Circle will survive because it is not only best but it is also right," Vivienne said. "What I do, as ever, I do for the Circle."

Taesas had divined that too, when he had given himself the space to evaluate it objectively.

In the end, Vivienne's motivation was the same as it had always been. To preserve the Circle and, thereby, preserve her own power. As long as power and influence flowed to the Circle, it flowed to Vivienne.

Every action she took served that purpose, both unselfish and selfish at the same time. To think that her singular motivation had changed would be to give into lunacy.

And, for how many years he had willingly played that part too?

Taesas nodded, clasping his hands.

"I know," he said softly, almost a sigh. "I have always known that. I too, had adopted that as my own code of conduct. In service to the Circle. In service to you. I would do anything to preserve my belief, my trust, my love, for both."

Vivienne was quiet. "I am glad to hear that, darling."

"No," he stopped her, before she tried to coo him back into submission. "At the chapel, where I battled Vell, I was prepared to kill children. She threw herself in front of my spell to protect them, suffering a mortal wound.

"There was a girl, a rabid urchin of a girl, who threw herself at me wildly to protect her mistress," Taesas recalled. "There were others, companions, townsfolk, even the children, who rushed to her aid. I was prepared to kill them all, too, to see my duty done, to put an end to this rivalry and finally set the record straight that I was the greater, that I had overcome and dominated her."

"And yet, even as she stood supported and inches from death, she looked me in the eye and she called me weak."

He nodded. His throat grew tight. He could remember that icy arrogance in her eyes as she tilted her chin up to expose her neck to his shackles. She knew exactly what she was doing.

He had beaten her physically. But she was invariably the victor.

And she had been right.

Why had he driven himself to surpass and overcome Vell if not for his own pride that he would throw her down where he felt she belonged, to prove his dominance over her?

Taesas reached to his chest, grabbing the badge of the First Enchanter from his robe and unpinning it, placing it down on the table between him and Vivienne.

"Consider this my resignation as First Enchanter of Montsimmard," he said, sliding the pin across the glass table. "If Cecille serves your purpose better, so be it."

Vivienne stared at the badge on the table for a moment, then scanned his face to puzzle his purpose. He allowed his intent to display, surrendering that, yes, this was truth, not some subterfuge.

"I accept," she said, leaving the badge where it lay.

And, as expected, Vivienne returned to her sole motivation.

"Bring me the girl," she said. "I will file for your transfer here to White Spire and will find a position suited to your talents here in the Circle. And I will fulfil the terms of our agreement."

"No," Taesas said as he stood from the couch. "I'm leaving the Circle, as well."

"For the College?" Vivienne asked with comic disbelief in her voice.

"No," he answered. "I'll be taking a leave of absence from Montsimmard immediately. Indefinitely."

"And where will you go?" she pried.

"Away. Until I'm ready to return."

He gathered his resolve. He had been preparing himself mentally for this since stashing away Vell in safekeeping. The Grand Game required great planning and strategy, carefully measured moves and prepared countermeasures.

He had done none of that.

When he had resolved this, he had left it at that. Let what consequences may come, come. He would deal with them in turn. Somehow, despite his nature, he had convinced himself that this seemed best.

He turned toward the door and barely got a step away.

"Taesas, stop," she commanded.

He did, out of courtesy. He could hear the jingling of metal as she stood from the couch.

"This is madness, Taesas darling," she cooed. "Yes, I confess, I have been moving to push you out of the First Enchanter's position in Montsimmard. It is my failing, I should never have acquiesced in the first place. I overestimated my reach, that I might cow the other enchanters to accept the appointment, but they were more obstinate than I anticipated. I had hoped to act more subtly but time is, unfortunately of the essence.

"I must also confess, I failed to realize how valuable you are at my side, in my close confidence and employ, until I had placed this separation between us," Vivienne said, speaking as honestly as Taesas ever thought he might have heard her speak to anyone except her Bastien. "I have become weakened without you."

He appreciated that she could find the bravery to speak the words. In truth, he had some doubt that she might ever be able to admit some shade of weakness in her fortress of iron.

He had, setting arrogance and overconfidence in himself aside, recognized that as well. For years she had leaned on him as her agent, perhaps becoming too reliant on his interference in their common opponents and his support of her motives.

"Reconsider, Taesas," she said. "Join me here in Val Royeaux. Together, we can rebuild the Circle."

He smiled, softly. He knew what she offered and that she could deliver it. Together, with the full influence of the Circle at her command, she could deliver him even more power and they could reshape the Circle, the Chantry, perhaps even Orlais itself.

"No."

With that short utterance, he could see the spike of frustration, annoyance, anger flash behind her eyes, even if her brow and mouth held steady amid the blast of defiance to her face.

Vivienne reached up, her elbows bending until her fingertips plucked the shoulders of her heavy, golden dress, pulling them outward and away from her body, letting the garment fall off her like a waterfall of gold until it piled into a clump around her feet, leaving her body full exposed to him.

"Is that what you want then, Taesas?" she asked, standing before him in the nude, still confident, still powerful even as she bared her naked form to him. He felt himself stiffen, confronted by temptation. "Claim your final prize. I am yours, to use as you need, to fulfil your hunger and erase your doubt."

Had he expected this? No, he couldn't say he had. He had expected her to order, to bargain, even threaten. But this, this was beyond his previous reckoning.

He could not say he was surprised, if anyone had known the inner workings of mind these many years it would certainly be Vivienne. He had expressed admiration, infatuation, love, modest entendre even from time to time when feeling particularly daring.

But the more lewd fantasies, those he had never dared to vocalize, out of common decency and respect.

And now, she surrendered herself before him.

"Beg," he commanded. This would not be as freely given as he had imagined, but it was close enough. If Vivienne wanted him to stay, let him see how far she might go to hold him.

She paused, no doubt roiling inside at the notion. But, to his amusement, she obeyed.

"Please, Taesas darling, take me, here on the floor, like animals," she played.

"Tell me you want me."

She did not hesitate this time, continuing her feigned attraction for him with effort to sound sincere. "I want to feel your body on top of me. I want to feel you inside of me. I want to please you and only you."

That was a nice touch, Taesas thought, suppressing a smirk. He was throbbing, a hardness verging on the border of pain through the coursing rigidity in his groin.

And now, to see how far Vivienne would truly go to keep him at her side.

"Kneel."

Of all his fantasies, no matter how many positions he imagined, no matter how many times he fantasized of himself sliding his cock as far as it would go down her throat; or ravaging her from the front or behind, him on top or her on top, in secret or in public; or sliding into her wet and waiting vagina or slathered with spit and pressed into the too-tight clench of her anus; or pretending to finish his ecstasy inside of her, or across her body, over her chest, into her hungry mouth or splattered across her face — nothing, nothing hardened him in his masturbatory dreams equal to the thought of her on her knees.

Vivienne was the pinnacle of power and pride. To think that she would lower herself in service of another, of anyone outside of her beloved Bastien, was simply insanity. The nobles, the Circle, the Templars, the Empress, the Divine, he doubted any of them could command her to be cowed.

He waited, poring over her naked flesh.

Vivienne lifted her feet, stepping out of the heap of golden dress and took one step forward to the clearing of the carpet and bent slowly, lowering until she rested upon both knees a few short feet away. Vivienne clasped her hands behind her back, pushing out her chest as she glanced upward at him, her gaze a mix of seductive submission on the surface but boiling with a contemptuous fury beneath.

Taesas looked at her, bowed before him, naked, waiting, surrendered.

Of all his wildest dreams, he had come to this day.

Her disdainful obedience spoke with the truest intent of her desire to keep him, to let him stand at her side, that they might play the Grand Game together and hold all of the Circle, all of Orlais, in their grasp. Together, in this new world that had been rebuilt by the Inquisition that they had bolstered and guided and bled for, they could take an even larger slice than they had ever dared to hope for.

Forgetting her ploy to entice him, seduce him, snare him by his basest instincts, he garnered no illusions that Vivienne would not and always remain the master over him. She might acquiesce to his carnal cravings, to the private and public illusions that they were together as one. In Orlais, in the Game, truth mattered less than appearances and she had pledged to give him as much as a former Dalish elf, raised up to the highest heights within the Circle and the Orlesian court could rise to.

There was nowhere greater to go, than to be in the closest confidence of Madam de Fer, to slide inside her in a shared bed at night and to play the Grand Game and know that there were none others in the Empire, not even Celene, who could best them.

It was power in its most pure and unadulterated form. It was the fuel that had driven him ever since their first fateful meeting in the library at Montsimmard, when she had offered him the world if he was smart enough, shrewd enough, strong enough to claim it.

He could. He had. The many roads he had walked had always led to this moment, to claim victory over Vivienne, even for one, amorous, fleeting moment.

Taesas stepped forward across the carpet, the fabric of his clothes rubbing his erection screaming for release. He stopped before her, as she craned her head upward to keep her eyes on him, as he looked down to hold her gaze.

Taesas lifted his hand, running it under her chin and cradling her cheek, lifting her head as he bent at the waist, bending his lips down to meet hers. She closed her eyes as he approached, tilting their heads in opposite directions without word, a natural understanding, a connection, until his lips hovered just above hers.

He held it there, just for a moment, remembering the way she had teased him thusly upon the Exalted Plains before shooing him away to Serault, basking in her control over him that she alone decided when and if to kiss, that she might make him hold for eternity and he would be forced to sit and wait upon her whim.

He was not that cruel. He only made her wait a second or two before taking what he wanted.

"Farewell, Vivienne."

He whispered the words across her lips before bending upright, stepping back and turning once again for the door, leaving her knelt, naked and bewildered on the carpet.

All the while, it was his now-departed friend, mentor and patron Marquis Brevere in his mind. After his defeat in the Tirashan, as the marquis bathed him and pried into his business, he had, as always, struck directly to the heart with clear-sighted wisdom.

"I know I can never have you for my own. And, by the Maker, it drives me mad."

He had been too injured, too weary, too drunk to truly understand the marquis then. But, as he always had, Antone had showered upon him the greatest gifts, arming him with the tools he needed to carve his own path through his tribulations.

It had taken the decision by Matteo to resign the Inquisition after Adamant. It had taken the pregnant belly of Alycine, her woeful eyes and mournful words, and the final acknowledgment that she could never be his when she did not follow him away after he shot a crossbow bolt into her husband's penis. It had taken seeing Antone deceased and disgraced upon an altar, stolen away from the world by spiteful daggers reaping collateral damage in an effort to find purchase in his own back.

It had taken Vell.

It had taken the fiery resolve to die rather than be shackled, it had taken the bravery of children, the display of blind ferocity of devotion and love for her, the ring of commoners and warriors who had come to her aid prepared to lose their own lives in defense of hers.

It had taken her final words, her last glimmer of defiance and the slight crook of her chin upward to freely give him her life to protect those of everyone else around her.

There was power in denial.

To deny someone their truest desire and purpose, to hold it and keep it from them, to selfishly wield it as a blade to cut down any independence and compel them into obedience, that was a wicked and corrupt power beyond all others.

It was the collar and leash he had let Vivienne put on him, the one he had thought he wore willingly in pursuit of his own power.

And when he had carefully gathered it, cultivated it and wielded it, he had only risen so far to find his greatest desire was hollow. He had not risen to strength in his own right. He had done it through manipulation, coercion, duress and through the efforts of those he surrounded himself with.

In the end, when he had looked at the rebel girl, an urchin, a failure of the Circle whom he had despised from the moment he was first forced into her company, he had found that while she had failed to stand equal against him in single, martial combat, her true power flowed outward and was bolstered by the weaker who rose to her ideals.

There was power in denial.

She stood in communion, empowered by those who followed and believed in her.

He stood alone, a slave to his own personal ambition, illusions of strength and dominance and the machinations of a mistress who pulled a little bit every day to tighten the golden noose placed around his throat.

Without thinking, without purpose, without carefully plotted schemes and gardened influence moved precisely this way and that in just the right weights and measures, Vell had denied him the victory he had so voraciously hungered for.

There was power in denial.

Like the Empire and the Orlesians who filled it, those noble who wore opulent masks to project grandeur in order to cover up their flaws, he had placed the mask upon himself, only ever looking outward and see behind it.

He had despoiled the bedchambers of many nobles, completing sexual campaigns as if they held true value while reaping money and secrets in influence as the spoils from the carcasses of conquered women and men above his station.

He had pressed ever forward, eyeing the next marker on his path and pressing ahead at whatever cost to achieve it.

All the while, the worth he attempted to sow and fill himself with, in the end, was simply a mask, a mask covering the undeniable truths that he refused to confront.

He was dinner left for the jaws of Fen'Harel.

He had no worth.

He had been discarded.

Ever since, he had denied it, walked away from it, did everything in his power to convince himself that it was not true, that he might surround himself with magical prowess and riches and women and influence to show that they were wrong.

And yet, no matter how much treasure he piled around him, he could never fully deny, defeat and extinguish that truth that had been carved into his core.

Standing alone, his imagined worth was stripped bare and confronted by another elf who had no worth. And when he compared their value with clear eyes, he had found that he had nothing and she had everything.

To follow the path that was truly laid before him, not the avenues he had followed in pursuit of false ideals, he would need to walk all the way back to the crossroads and travel the other route.

With that, his back turned to Vivienne, to the Circle, to the Grand Game, Taesas opened the door of the Grand Enchanter's quarters, stepped out into the hallway and left.

Taesas had resolved that he would no longer let denial hold power over him.

He would deny Orlais. He would deny the Circle. He would deny Vivienne.

He would wield that denial as the root of a new power.

He could no longer deny his own weakness.