Vivienne was a master at the Game. She could read a person with a glance, figure out their weaknesses by the end of a pleasantry.
However, there was more to the Game than simple tricks like that. One had to hear the right secrets, eavesdrop on the right rumors, and when she'd been a girl, just rising through the ranks of the Circle, she hadn't had her current network available to help her acquire such juicy details.
Indeed, as a girl, she had been on her own.
Yes, she'd learned posturing and the like. However, she'd been a mage before she was a proficient in the Game, and that had come with another set of skills, one she was careful not to share with anyone.
When she knew things that shouldn't have gotten to her, people decided a maid or guard had spoken, that she had someone from her enemies' homes whispering in her ear.
She let them think as they like. It was fun to leave the Orlesian nobility paranoid. It made them fear her, and that made them cautious when it came to attempts to take her down.
It secured her position and made her network seem larger than it was.
The truth of it was that she did more than a bit of the grunt work herself, behind closed doors.
Her pen stopped as she worked on her latest letter to secure favor from one of her less known acquaintances, and her eyes glimmered a soft gold.
Her spell was working, as always.
She was almost disappointed that the Venatori hadn't noticed it right away. It might have been fun to have a challenge, though this was for the best.
With a soft-spoken word, her pupils blew out, making her irises almost invisible. As they did, her view of the letter on her desk faded out. For a moment, all she could see was shadows and vague shapes, little color to them.
It didn't last long, and soon she was peering into another room, watching as three men whispered to each other. They held a paper between them and kept motioning to it, voices low and frantic.
Tapping her nails against her desk, she walked her hand slowly in a half circle and her view of the room shifted, with just a hint of soft, padded feet moving at the bottom of her image. When she let her hand slip into her lap, she could see behind the mages.
The paper was, as she'd suspected, written in Tevene.
Pity, that.
She leaned forward a little, narrowing her eyes, and her view of the men drew closer.
They were talking in Tevene as well.
Then, the door to the room opened.
Vivienne straightened up, taking in more of the room and frowning when she saw a mage enter. She knew her. Had seen her at least, with some of the Grand Enchanter's mages.
Of course Fiona was too daft to catch a traitor in her midst. She was too busy acting rashly to notice anything important. The old bat ought to just retire already, head off to some secluded grotto and live out her days away from important dealings.
"I heard that things went south in the capital?" the Circle mage asked, accent Nevarran. One of the Venatori hissed at her to keep her voice down, but she persisted. "Are we going to need to make our move then? I haven't had time to talk to many people… I don't know how much support we'd get."
A taller Venatori reached out and smacked her. "Quiet! We do not need people to take the castle."
Vivienne blinked, her room coming back into view as the shadows parted. If they weren't worried about large forces, that meant demons didn't it?
Blood mages always went for demons.
Vivienne slid her chair back and then stepped over to her dresser, plucking her staff from where it rested there. She held the staff, feeling the weight in her hands, and then struck its base against the floor twice.
With the second crack, the staff was gone, and she leaned down to pick up what could have been mistaken as a hair stick. She tucked it up her sleeve and headed out. After all, it wouldn't do to wander around with her staff openly visible. People would suspect that there was a problem, and she wanted to handle this quietly, if possible.
Outside, a small black cat sat on the rail that overlooked the garden, perfectly still until Vivenne's shadow crossed it. It moved with the shadow, shape stretching a moment before it hopped down and trotted ahead of Vivienne, leading to where the traitors were.
There were stories of people who could manipulate animals and the like, but Vivienne had never been one for pets. They hadn't been allowed in the Circles, and after that, she'd seen plenty of nobles brought to tears at the loss or abduction of their favorite little beasts.
Truly, they were a weakness that one had to be damned sure they could overcome.
She'd never found a reason to test the waters to see if she could protect something so small and needy.
Instead, she shaped the shadows.
If she'd ever wanted to try, she likely could have learned to make all kinds of shadow puppets, but real people were so much more fun.
And her cat served its purpose.
It had alerted her to incoming templars—that they'd never noticed a spell watching them was appalling—as well as allowed her to peek into enemies' homes without ever leaving her own. The spell was easy enough, too, sending the shadow out to wander, and to alert her if it found something. If it did, she extend her sight to her creation, for a limited time.
It had taken years to perfect, but it was a masterpiece.
There was the matter of being vulnerable while seeing through her spell's eyes, but that was why she reserved it for special occasions.
Vivienne stilled as her cat did. She could hear voices ahead, and so she dispersed her shadowy guide with a curl of her fingers. She was in the lower levels of the castle, near the kitchen, she guessed, though she wasn't overly familiar with this area. She could, however, see candle light flickering ahead.
Stepping lightly, she moved to the doorway, pausing there to peer in.
She pursed her lips when she saw that there were nearly twenty mages there to assist the Venatori—and eight of them rather than three.
Unfortunate.
She was confident she could take care of a handful of fools, but this…
She would need help for this.
Even as she thought it, she noticed a slight movement at the other end of the hall.
As she watched, one of the grey wardens that Herald Finley so adored stumbled into the light, a tankard in one hand. He swayed a little as he looked around before slurring, "Is this a party?"
One of the mages closer to Vivienne's corner of the room leaned to another. "Is he really drunk or is he trying to throw us off?"
The other shrugged. "Does anyone actually believe that drunkards just wander into this sort of thing?"
Fire and frost came to life at their fingertips, but before either could cast, Vivienne darted out of the hall and into the room. With a flick of her wrist, her staff slipped out of her sleeve and returned to its regular size. As it did so, she summoned a spirit blade and shoved it through the fire mage's back. As the ice mage turned, surprised, she withdrew her sword and sliced across his throat.
No sooner had she made her move, Warden Alistair was flipping one of the Venatori into another and pulling another in front of him to get hit in the face with a fireball that had been aimed at the warden. Warden Alistair finished off the screaming mage and then took out one of the Venatori as they stumbled to their feet.
As Vivienne moved to meet him in the middle and help cover him in the fight, taking out another fool who was too slow to act quickly, lightning cracked down on another of the Venatori.
Solas stood on the side of the room that Warden Alistair had come from. She froze an idiot who tried to come up behind her and smashed him to pieces with her staff.
How had they found out about this little gathering? Was the mysterious messenger giving them hints as well?
And even then, how had they been able to tail the mages getting down here. She hadn't seen them.
Irksome as it was, she froze another mage and then impaled yet another with her spirit blade. As she smashed the first, she caught a glimpse of a young blonde boy with daggers taking out another of the mages.
How many people were here?
Good as it was to even the odds, she found herself oddly disappointed that so many had figured out the problem. Who would be here next, the grand enchanter?
So much for handling this quietly.
As she moved toward another mage, casting frantically to try to shield themselves, Warden Alistair slammed into them shield first, shoving them back into the wall and then gutting them.
There were cries to retreat mixing with the din of the fight, and then receding footfalls.
Vivienne managed to catch one with frost shards before he could get far down the hall, only to have Solas moving ahead of her, heading to the hall. He paused just long enough to say, "We'll go after them! You two stay here to make sure no one else comes!"
And then he was gone.
The gall that he would order her to do anything aside, it did make sense to see if this was all of their traitors.
She looked around, taking in casualties.
At a count, there were nineteen dead, five of which were Venatori.
Most, but not all.
"Seven's still a bit much for one mage, don't you think?" Warden Alistair asked, cleaning his blade as he stepped over a body to meet Vivienne.
She appraised him carefully. He wasn't nearly as bad as Warden Blackwall—that man was hiding something. While this warden no doubt had his secrets as well—all of the Order had secrets, after all—they didn't weigh him down the same as Warden Blackwall's did.
It was hard to explain, but it made her trust Warden Blackwall all the less.
"I believe took that boy with him," Vivienne replied, though seven to two odds weren't particularly good, either.
"What boy?"
Vivienne sighed, "Come now, warden dear. Don't they teach you to be aware of your surroundings? There was a blonde boy with daggers here…" The thought that he could have fallen struck her, though a quick appraisal of the dead proved that he was not among them.
"I don't…remember a boy." Warden Alistair reached up to rub his temple, frowning.
Even as he spoke, Vivienne felt a faint tug at the back of her mind. A spell. The second she noticed it, it was gone.
Narrowing her eyes, she looked after Solas. Solas had said 'we', she was sure of that. So what was trying to make her forget that the boy had been there? Shrinking her staff again, she motioned to the hall. She would worry about that after they'd caught the remaining traitors.
"Shall we, darling?"