Cassandra strode into the Chantry, gaze sweeping the main hall. The few people who were present gave her respectful nods or scurried out of view, seeking reprieve from her critical eye. Her already present frown dipped deeper when she couldn't find the flare of orange hair that she was looking for. She paced slowly into the building, searching both sides of the hall, the candles casting eerie shadows across the floors and walls.
She had been very clear about meeting in the Chantry.
The Herald was proving to be too paranoid and unwilling to cooperate. Perhaps it was trauma from what had happened at the Conclave, but they couldn't afford to have her acting thus. She needed to be a pillar.
They should have stemmed the rumors before they could reach so far.
Cassandra didn't want to bring her to Val Royeaux and have her treating the Revered Mothers like she thought they were each going to put a knife in her back. That would go over beautifully. And worse, if they said something that made her feel cornered, she'd likely start some winding ramble admonishing the Chantry, and then they'd be damned regardless.
As Cassandra reached the back of the room, she paused, stepping up to Josephine's door and knocking lightly on the frame. The ambassador looked up from her work, a pleasant smile on her lips. With a nod of acknowledgement, she motioned for Cassandra to step inside before going back to her writing.
"All is well, I hope?"
"I was wondering if you've seen the Herald. I needed to speak with her."
"Ah," Josephine replied, her smile tugging upward a bit. She dotted something on the page and then rested her elbows on her desk, fingers laced together, quill sticking up from them. Leaning her chin on top of her hands, she met Cassandra's annoyed look with an amused one. "You just missed her, actually."
"She came to see you?"
"With a warning," Josephine arched her eyebrows. Then she donned a serious look, trying to keep her mouth a straight line, though that twinkle in her eyes kept towing up the corners of her lips. "'If I go missing, the seeker did it,' was her message."
A disgusted noise caught in Cassandra's throat as she threw her hands up in front of her. "Of course she said that."
"I believe she headed to the war room," Josephine offered, straightening up and returning to her work. "I have to say I was surprised, but when she left, I heard that door."
"Thank you," Cassandra murmured, offering a short bob of her head before turning and heading for the war room. They needed to keep that locked better. It wouldn't do to have enemies sneaking in and finding out their plans. Not that many had deemed them important enough to warrant sneaking in in the first place.
When she entered, she wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it hadn't been to find the Herald where Cullen usually stood, one arm crossed in front of her, propping up her other elbow, her other hand drumming her fingers lightly against her chin. For just a moment, she looked like someone invested in what was happening, like someone who belonged there with the rest of them.
Cassandra could almost see her looking over war reports with the others, tapping the paper, offering insight.
As soon as the Herald looked up, Cassandra drew herself from her thoughts. If that vision was to be, it was a long ways off, especially with Cullen currently scowling at the mere mention of their dear Herald. "Should I take this, and the recent recruitments, to mean that you have decided to join us officially?"
"I wasn't aware I hadn't," she replied, her expression making it hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or earnest. She plucked one of the reports from the edge of the table, tapping her fingers against the paper as she skimmed it.
"You've certainly made a mire of your interests," Cassandra commented. She scanned the table, wondering if all the place markers were where they were supposed to be. "Why did you decide to recruit them, if I may ask?"
"Why shouldn't we have done so?"
"The templars who would be reliable allies have already drawn out of the warzones under the commands of their higher ranking members, rather than hunting and slaying terrified mages."
The Herald didn't respond to that. Her nose twitched as she leaned closer, letting herself be engrossed in whatever the report said. Or was she just pretending to be interested to let their current topic die?
"They will be watched, but it is good to see you reaching out."
"Have I done the Inquisition proud?"
Twisting her mouth to the side, Cassandra scoffed when the Herald's gaze flitted toward her, a spark of something in her eyes. It was gone too quickly for her to see what. "That remains to be seen," Cassandra finally said. "However, I am surprised you would be so open to recruiting more templars, when you already dance around the ones we have as though their mere presence were a curse."
"You've a plan to yell at me about my treatment of our dear commander, haven't you?"
"I will get to that, yes," Cassandra crossed her arms. "Josephine seems to think you to be some poor, terrified damsel to be handled with care, and she's convinced Leliana to be careful around you as well. It has made addressing some of the issues arising a bit…daunting."
The Herald paused, lowering the report and meeting Cassandra's gaze solemnly. "And what do you think?"
"I think you are stronger than they realize, than perhaps you realize." Cassandra motioned toward her and began to pace around the table slowly. "What happened to you at the Conclave must have been terrible, but you survived. More, you survived in the Wilds for years, decades even. I assume you were out there during the Blight?" The Herald's gaze had left her, instead staring off into the void, memories of something filling her senses, leaving her lost to the present.
Cassandra had noticed this happen more than once, and she reached out and put her hand on the Herald's shoulder, shaking her from whatever it was that haunted her. When the Herald blinked past the disorientation of coming back to the present, Cassandra nodded to her. "One does not live as you do without developing a certain resilience."
The Herald looked everywhere except at Cassandra, gaze finally settling on the report in her hand. They stood there a moment before she finally let out a sigh. "What terrible atrocities have I committed then?"
"Nothing so dire," Cassandra said, the corner of her mouth quirking up in time with one of her perfect eyebrows. "However, you must be seen as in agreement with us. It is not just you," she added, when the Herald's shoulders slumped. "If Cullen were to begin snapping at all of our ideas and dismissing our opinions, it would look bad. If Josephine or Leliana or I did so, it would look bad. I realize that you did not come to this willingly, as we have, but that mark…"
"You don't have to give me the full lecture," she interrupted quietly. She held up her hand, staring at her palm. The mark was mostly dormant, only a faint green hue glimmering in its outline. Every now and then, the glimmer faded just so, making it look like it wasn't there at all. The Herald put her report down and traced the mark slowly. "I won't just leave the sky torn, Seeker. Too much would be hurt." She let her right hand fall to her side and slowly closed her other. "I just…I don't see why I need to be important, why I need to be the one people see, that they flock to." She motioned to Cassandra. "I'd feel better if you were the face of the Inquisition, honestly."
"I think Josephine would cry if I was," Cassandra gave her a dry laugh. "I am not exactly patient with the nobility. Or anyone, for that." She held up a hand before the Herald could start throwing out other names. "Leliana needs to be in the shadows for her to do her job efficiently. Cullen cannot run an army and court popular opinion, even if he does seem to find more hours to do things than there actually are in a day."
"What about Josephine, though? She understands people. She can calm just about anyone. And she's quite charming." She nodded, as though the action would help cement the idea in Cassandra's head. "She would make an excellent face for the Inquisition."
"Word has already spread too far that you are the Herald of Andraste," Cassandra said, frown in place. Like Cullen, she'd wished that they not allow such rumors to reach so far, though she'd had to admit the potential in their sway after seeing the outcome of so brief a visit to the Crossroads. "Too many people have seen you, Herald. Too many people know of you. For you not to speak with at least some of our allies, and speak on behalf of the Inquisition would either make you appear a fraud, or imply that the Inquisition was not actually favored by the Maker's chosen. Either way would cause us greater problems when trying to recruit help."
"I truly have no choice in this, do I?" she leaned against the table, some of her loose hair falling over her shoulders. It was short enough around her face, coming down to her jaw at an angle, that it blocked her face from view as she leaned forward. "I don't mind the part where I help; I really don't. I want to close the rifts." She swayed toward the table and back a few times. "I don't want to deal with people, though. I don't want to be 'the Herald'. I don't want to be some religious symbol."
She grew quiet for a moment, and Cassandra sighed. Even as she tried to think of a way to explain that being a symbol need not feel like such a burden, she stopped herself. As someone who had never been such a thing, how could she truly say? How could she ask this apostate to take on such a burden when she herself would never need to?
And what if this woman hadn't been chosen by divine providence? What if she really was just a poor soul whose blind luck had helped her, only to throw her into a world so foreign to her that it was debatable whether she'd truly been saved?
She straightened up, placing her hands on her back and arching it. When she was done stretching, she looked at Cassandra. Beneath her eyeliner, dark circles added to the shadows around her eyes, making her look so worn. "I don't like all this attention."
"If I could promise you that there was a way to let you do your work in quiet peace, I would," Cassandra sighed. She cracked her knuckles slowly. "I cannot. Since you stepped out of that rift, the world's eyes have turned to you, and as you close the rifts, as the Inquisition becomes stronger, it will only get worse."
The Herald—Finley frowned. Cassandra had suspected that being a Wilds' apostate had meant Finley was more of a hermit, but she hadn't known how to breach such a subject. She wasn't someone people came to for support. She was good with a blade. Beyond that… Cassandra felt like she was throwing words at her, hoping that a few would stick or mean something more or somehow carry a weight that she couldn't put to them.
"You should talk to Mother Giselle," Cassandra suggested. When she merely made a face, Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Faith is…powerful. People have decided you must be a sign of faith, hope in this frightening turn of events. They need to see you. Seeing the one who came out of a rift march out to deal with them… that is… inspiring."
"And when I don't live up to those expectations?" She shifted her weight. "When I'm too wary or don't curtsey properly or use the wrong utensil or…" Finley trailed off with a defeated slump of her shoulders. "What happens when they decide I've been tricking them all this time?"
"That will not happen." When Finley simply slouched forward onto the table, Cassandra patted her shoulder. "I will help you. We all will. You need not do this alone." Cassandra waited until Finley straightened up, resigned to her fate. She crossed her arms. "And that brings us to Cullen."