Author's Note:

Of course, some of the inner circle will appear in this fanfic. However, Ava will not indulge in sweet friendships with them; or even in great conversations. She is, after all, only a soldier, not the Inquisitor. Nevertheless, I really like the characters of DA Inquisition and I wanted to let them be a part of this work of fiction, as well. Thanks for the fav, follow and comment – if you have any suggestions, miss the smut (it will return next chapter, though), like or dislike it, please leave a review.

Chapter 4: Spymasters & Enchanters

It was Susannah who saw her first. As she found Ava near the stables, her eyes were wide as the moon.

"She recruited the First Enchanter!" she yelped out breathlessly.

"What? Who?" Ava asked.

"The Inquisitor! She recruited the First Enchanter."

Ava stood silent. To the rebel mages, the First Enchanter was a symbol of everything they had fought against; a mage desperate to restore the circles and thereby, the boundaries they had broken free off.

"Maybe we should leave," Susannah said. "I mean, they can't force us to stay, can they?"

"I don't know," Ava replied. "But that would be treason on Fiona."

"Better a traitor than being chained up again," Susannah said. "First the knight-commander, now this. I mean, she's a mage, isn't she? Why doesn't she understand how this looks?"

"She's an elf. She's never been a member of a circle. Or part of the rebellion. Besides, I suppose the Inquisition needs all the help it can get." She looked at her friend. "The knight-commander hasn't done anything that affected us yet. Maybe the First Enchanter won't either."

Susannah let out a sarcastic laugh. "Of course not. Now, they need us. But what if that's over?"

"I suppose we can still run, then," Ava said.

The other woman looked at her suspiciously. "You are pretty relaxed about all this."

"Maybe I am just tired of running. Or maybe I don't want to leave Fiona behind."

"What? You're brave now? Noble? You're a farmer's daughter, not a warrior!"

"I am as noble as a donkey would be in these stables. And trust me, I am aware of that," Ava replied. "But I don't have anywhere else to go. Or anything else to do. If it's different for you, I say run. If not, you can just as well stay here. The First Enchanter isn't more dangerous than running into a group of templars when you leave."

Susannah looked at her, and her features went softer. "Maybe you're right. For now."

"Maybe I am," Ava said, grateful they had laid down their argument. At least, at the moment.

"So, do we visit the tavern this evening?" her friend asked, a glimmer in her eyes.

"Heaven's, Susannah, why don't you just tell him?"

"Tell him what?"

"I don't know – that you wanna see his other horn?"

For a second, Susannah remained speechless, then, she burst out in laughter.

"Damn, are you giving me dating advice now? You of all people? We know each other for what... three years and you've never even shown the slightest hint of interest in anyone. That doesn't really speak for your expertise."

You'd be surprised, Ava thought, but of course, didn't say it.

"I suppose you're right. I m afraid I have to decline, though. There's nothing interesting in this tavern for me."

Susannah shook her head, grinning. "There's plenty in the tavern for any woman out there. Really, I wonder, what your taste is exactly. Either it's out of your league, or it's completely perverted.

"Maybe it's both," Ava joked.

The joke, however, was actually on her.

Cassandra Pentaghast wasn't a woman who gave up easily. Neither was she a woman who settled for pussyfooting. Even less when she thought one of her recruits held a secret from her. And since Cullen Rutherford was actually one of her recruits, she had no intention to get him off the hook just like that.

Luckily for her, Skyhold hosted a spymaster whose assistance would be indeed helpful. Yet, as she entered Leliana's den, the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Irritated, the warrior looked around, until a familiar voice behind her startled her.

"Seeker," Leliana said.

Cassandra snorted. No wonder the spymaster was feared in whole Skyhold, acting like that.

"I have a personal request," she said firmly.

Leliana turned around and looked at her, her eyes seeming to dig right into her mind. Maker, sometimes she really wondered what had happened to the woman that had turned her into the person she was now.

Of course, she had heard stories about Leliana and the Hero of Ferelden, stories of adventures, even stories of unrequited love, but Cassandra had never been much of a gossip girl.

"And that would be?"

"You have to be discreet. No one must know," Cassandra said.

"I can assure you, I am always discreet," Leliana replied casually, but there was an expression in her eyes Cassandra didn't like. Not at all.

Maybe seeking help from her wasn't the best idea ever. Maybe it was one of the worst she had ever had. But there was no other person in whole Skyhold that could help her without spilling the beans.

"It is about the knight-commander," she said. "I think there is something worrying him and I want to know what it is."

"You mean besides the lyrium withdrawal?"

Cassandra blinked, irritated. "You know of it?"

"I like to know the people I work with."

The seeker glared at her in secret admiration. Maker knew she'd give everything to know just half as much as her, especially about that Quanri. And Madame de Fer. Not mentioning Varric – Maker, why hadn't she left the dwarf alone? Or Sera. Solas... well, everybody she was currently relying on.

"Can you find out?" she asked shortly.

The spymaster nodded her head. "Of course I can."

Cullen was gladly unaware of Leliana's research. He tried to pass his days by busying himself, giving advice to the Inquisitor, coordinating missions for his soldiers, supervising their training. And the days were mostly okay, except for the sudden breakouts of pain and sweat.

The nights, however... Well, they did not deserve this description anymore. He hadn't really slept in days, the pain and the voices in his head keeping him awake. Some people said you couldn't make it through lyrium withdrawal alive and lately, he was wondering if they were right.

In fact, he knew no one who had ever managed, and he had known some templars who had been just as deep in as he was. Most of them had vanished from the grounds of the earth, probably relapsed and died in a dirty alley.

He hadn't seen the mage, not after their last encounter, but in those sleepless nights, his mind often travelled to that one question he had been asking himself for years: Why always mages? Was the Maker testing him? Or was this simply his weak spot, his blindside?

Amell had been the first, but it had been naive, a schoolboy's crush...

He shook his head. No, he wouldn't blame it on his youth. He had forgotten all his vows, his duties, letting her off the hook easily. As she had helped the blood mage, he should have questioned his feelings, but in his head, he had imagined scenarios in which he defended her against the knight-commander, imagined himself as the knight in shining armour.

As she had sided against him, his feelings had turned into the opposite, a rage and hatred that had lasted until he had stood up against Meredith.
It had been too late, then. It had been too late from the moment she had left the circle. She had married Alistair, a better version of him, maybe a version he could have turned into if he hadn't been tortured by Uldred's creatures.

In Kirkwall, there had been Hawke. He had been able to keep his professionalism with her, partly because she had been the most annoying person he had ever met and partly because he knew the woman had fallen for her elven companion. Nevertheless, the champion of Kirkwall had haunted his dreams, mocking, teasing, persuading him and he had woken up often, rock-hard and desperate due to his forbidden longing.

And before Hawke, there had been this mage. The only one he had actually ever acted on, but in the completely wrong way.

It was strange, however. While Amell and Hawke had visited him in his dreams, had taunted him night after night after night, Ava had never.

Memories of their intertwined bodies had affected his dreams, but it had always been one of the others playing the female lead, never the mage he had actually fucked.

He told himself this was a good sign; at least, he didn't feel anything for her; at least, he didn't need to feel guilty for loving a mage, but somewhere deep inside him, a beast roared at the sight of her, wanting to grab her, maybe even hurt her to still its desires – and it appeared to become more dominant with the increase of his pain and sleepless nights.

Two days later, Ava Miller retreated to the battlements at nightfall, unable to sleep and too tired to join some of the other mages for a game of cards, not mentioning she didn't have the money for that. The Inquisition did pay their soldiers and further allies, but gold and resources were short and the pay for common soldiers would have been barely enough to afford food, if the Inquisition hadn't decided to provide them with that.

As she was starring into the darkness, she could hear footsteps coming closer and as she turned, found herself looking at a lately common and unwanted figure.

"Knight-commander," she said.

He did not answer. As she turned her head and glanced at him, she could see the painful grimace on his face.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

"Does it look like it?" he replied sharply. "What are you always doing here?"

"I am sorry. I wasn't aware the places mages could go were limited," she replied sarcastically.

"When there were circles, everything was limited for mages," the knight-commander replied. "You can't have forgotten that."

"So what? The Inquisitor recruits the First Enchanter and now, this is a circle? Do I need to bow?"

"This is not what I meant."

"Sure," she replied. "You really hate us, do you?"

He didn't answer, which as so often, was just the answer needed.

"Do you mind if I ask you why?"

He looked at her, his face unreadable and hard as stone. "You hate templars."

"Which is actually quite understandable, thinking about all the crap they've done to us in the last few years."

"Your kind hasn't behaved much better."

"I have reasons."

"So do I," he said.

Suddenly, he gasped in pain, his right hand gripping for the stone wall.

"Have you been hurt?" she asked and made a step forward. He immediately raised his left and gestured her to stop.

"It is nothing," he forced out. "Just leave me be."

The woman knew she should just do as she was asked, instead of mingling into something he clearly didn't want her to mingle into. And considering he had just admitted to hate mages, which included her, there was no reason at all for her to worry.

Yet, her grandmother had always told her that magic was a gift; healing magic most of all and that it came with a responsibility, a duty which had to be fulfilled.

And since her grandmother had been the only one in her family not afraid of her, the only one that had always supported her, the only one that had written to her as she had been at the circle, Ava could not ignore that statement.

"Let me help you," she said and raised her hands.

"No, don't..." he contradicted, but she didn't listen.

A grave mistake, she had to realize. In the moment the spell broke free from her body, he jumped at her, pushing her onto the ground.

It was almost as if they were back in that forsaken town, unless this time, his fingers weren't lying motionless at her throat. They were choking her.

She tried to wriggle him off, but his body felt like dead weight upon her, his eyes shining with a deeply manifested rage that scared her more than the fact that the air was sucked out of her lungs.

Stars started to cloud her vision and she felt her body going limp, unable to do anything to save her ass this time.

And then, suddenly, through the fog she could hear a voice saying something completely ridiculous, something like...

"Curly, are you out your mind?" Varric shouted and tried to rip the knight-commander off the motionless body under him. An almost impossible task, given the fact that the man only growled at his attempts.

"Damn it, Curly!" he shouted once more and used a well-placed kick to the knees to get his attention. Gladly, it worked.

The knight-commander raised his hands, backing up from the figure under him, staring at Varric in complete irritation.

"Andraste's ass, what are you doing?" the dwarf asked and bent down towards the woman.

It was one of the mages, he realized, a slender, dark-haired one. He had seen her in the tavern together with a luscious, beautiful blonde.

"Did she attack you?" he asked while he tried to bring the girl back to her senses by slapping her on the cheeks - not the method a gentleman would have used, but according to his experiences, gentlemen were seldom of any use.

"No, I..."

The mage came back to it with a nasty, coughing sound. Her throat was flushed with red fingerprints as she gasped for air with a desperate noise, her face convulsed in a terrorized expression.

"It's okay now, girl," Varric said. "Take it easy. Breath slowly."

The woman curled onto her side, still panting heavily, trying to lift her body from the stone floor.

"Hey, slowly," Varric said and tried to take her arm, but she shook him off. Like a wounded animal, she rose on all fours, crawling away from both of them, finally pulling herself up near the stairs. With unsure steps, still coughing, she stumbled down, out of their sight.

Varric shook his head to the stubbornness, then turned towards Cullen.

"What was that about?"

The knight-commander just looked at him, his face completely pale. "Nothing," he said and turned on his heels.

"Curly, come on, you can talk to me," Varric said, but the man neither stopped, nor reacted in any other way.

"Damn it, thinking I said Fenris and Anders were difficult," Varric growled, retreating to the tavern for a drink.

Cassandra was reading a report from the Fallow Mire as a voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.

"It is a mage," Leliana said.

"What?" Cassandra asked, startled by her sudden appearance.

"The knight-commander's sorrow. It is a mage."

"A mage? But why?"

"Why he sleeps with her? I am afraid I don't exactly know," the spymaster said casually.

"Sleeps with her? Here?

Leliana laughed out shortly. "There is nothing wrong with that, seeker."

"Of course not," Cassandra said, narrowing her eyes. "I think it is a distraction, but of course, the knight-commander can share the bed with her if he pleases. Why does he worry, then? If it is just this?"

"It appears to be complicated. One of my... sources say he has met that mage years ago, even before Kirkwall, and ravished her on the battleground."

The seeker's eyes widened. "You mean he... raped her?"

"Not exactly... The source said she did seem to enjoy it. She let him live afterwards, though she could have killed him."

"I don't understand," Cassandra said.

A little smirk ran over Leliana's face. "Not all of us indulge in romance, Lady Cassandra."

The seeker felt her face redden and it angered her, probably even more than the spymaster's impudence.

"That doesn't change the fact that she complicates the situation. The withdrawal is already straining enough, I will not have the knight-commander in trouble because of some mage. We have to get rid of her."

"An easy task. I would not propose this at the moment, though."

"This could affect the Inquisition. I will not risk that for one woman."

"You risked a lot more for the Inquisitor," Leliana said.

"The Inquisitor isn't replaceable."

"Remind me to never get on your list of spare parts," the spymaster said, sounding amused. "However, I think we should postpone any action against her for now and see where it leads. And where this trouble comes from. Maybe it can give us a better understanding of his lyrium addiction and help us figure out a way to support his withdrawal."

Cassandra wrinkled her nose. "Maybe you are right. But if it gets worse..."

"If it becomes clear that she is an annoyance, I promise you I will get rid of her. Without needing to hide her body, of course."

Cassandra looked at her sternly. "Fine, then. But do keep me informed."

The spymaster nodded and left. Cassandra shook her head and sighed. Damn the interpersonal nonsense; it was the last thing they needed now.