Zevran had made a monumental error in being the first one inside after Rhodri.
In the dark, stifling corridor they were now corralled into, the air was soupy with rot. Such was the stench that upon entering, Alistair immediately heaved up his breakfast, the contents of which would no doubt reach Zevran's boots if it hadn't already.
Boots, however, could be cleaned. What could not be washed or polished away was injury, and as Zevran steeled himself and glanced down at the Warden, the chances of coming out of this relatively unscathed had never looked bleaker.
In her place spread-eagled on the ground, Rhodri lay nestled in a small heap of mages and their entrails– though she was blessedly more alive than them. The source of her tripping, it seemed, was a sneaky, slippery loop of intestine that had departed its natural enclosure and covered a third of the cramped corridor floor, now mashed open under her boot and leaving a filthy skidmark over the stone.
Instead of being prudent and putting space between himself and the Warden, Zevran stayed where he was, pinned to the spot by some wretched, abstract sense of debt or loyalty, or, Maker help him, perhaps both. The crash was coming, suspended by a thin film of haze and blood, and the only thing he found himself able to do was sigh for the Warden who didn't yet know it herself.
"What are we going to do with her?" Taliesen asked in a hush.
An 'mm…' was all Zevran could manage, his vocabulary apparently having died with their third member. He shrugged with one shoulder, eyes not leaving the bloodpool glimmering around her like liquid rubies.
"Hey!"
He looked up; Taliesen was glaring at him.
"What the fuck is this?" He gestured at Zevran with a push of his palms. "You were laughing a second ago. Don't go soft on me!"
Zevran raised an eyebrow, saying nothing.
"We did what we had to do," Taliesen hissed. "Who knows how long the little bitch was playing us false? Years, maybe!"
Zevran swallowed down the lump in his throat and nodded. "We should leave her here, behind some of these crates. This warehouse is abandoned, nobody will think to look for her here unless we say something."
Planning was not Zevran's strong suit, but Taliesen was even worse at it. He barely needed a moment to turn the idea over in his head before he nodded.
"Come on, then. Help me shift her and let's get out of here."
"Taliesen."
The other Crow looked up impatiently.
Zevran pointed his nose at Rinna's body. "Close her eyes."
Taliesen's brows knitted, his eyes tightening into a squint, but no emotion came to Zevran strongly enough to change his own face in response. After a brief silence, Taliesen relented with a nod, squatting over her and sliding her eyes shut with his thumbs.
"There, Brother Zevran," he waved his hands with a mocking flourish. "Our betrayer's eyes are shut, as per the Chantry whore's request. Now would you kindly get a grip and help me move this bitch? I need a stiff fucking drink, and I'm not getting it here."
He sighed and took her by the boots to escape the necessity of touching the bare skin of her wrists. With far too much ease, they lifted her and took her over to the back wall.
"Zev."
Zevran's gaze bypassed Rinna's corpse to meet Taliesen's eyes. His friend gave him a wry smile.
"One less traitor."
He summoned a smirk, nodding as they lowered the body behind the crates. "One less traitor."
The Warden, having peeled herself off the revolting floor, summoned fire. Her eyes fell on the source of her accident. She choked; the spell sputtered out.
"Rhodri?" Alistair's voice echoed softly in the putrid dark. "... Rhod?"
The flame returned, weak and unsteady in the trembling hand that had summoned it. Some of the bodies were charred, others exsanguinated, others in halves. In the dim glow, the Warden's face was the colour of ash as she inspected them. Holding his place, Zevran braced himself for the inevitable snap- of sanity, of emotion, of his skin splitting open from a spell or fist thrown in rage.
But wouldn't the fortune-teller in the brothel have laughed now, as a rumble from down the corridor waylaid it all in the nick of time. In an instant, Rhodri's attention was snared.
"What was that?" Leliana whispered as she drew an arrow from her quiver.
"Rage demon," Rhodri grunted. She lurched into a limping run, staff at the ready, and Zevran could have kicked himself for being surprised when she barked, "Stay behind me!" over her shoulder.
The rage demon in question was found one room over, a magmatic slug of considerable size. Zevran toyed with the idea of making a quip about the beast's fiery appearance being poetic overkill on the Maker's part. After all, if they were going to die, they might as well die laughing.
He opened his mouth. "You know– atiya Andraste!"
A spell, blindingly bright, had left the Warden's hand and tore through the air with a painfully shrill hiss. Upon reaching the demon, it exploded, flooding the room with freezing mist and ice, cold enough to make Zevran's lungs burn.
"Venhedis!" he heard Rhodri gasp. Another spell screamed through the air and made a boom that rumbled in his chest. "Fall back! Fall back! Wait for me in the corridor!"
"Don't be stupid," Alistair shouted back. "We're not leaving you with a–"
"DO AS YOU'RE TOLD!" she roared. Her voice dropped to a frantic hiss, "No-no-no-focus, you idiot." Another deafening spell preceded a shriek coming from what Zevran dearly hoped was a dying demon. "Focus-focus-focus-focus– ah." The Warden sighed shakily.
The air cleared in a swirl, melting the chill on Zevran's skin until his arms were dripping with condensation. In the middle of the room, a pile of ash was strewn over several stones, and the Warden stood in front of it, her upturned hands twitching violently. She turned and eyed the party one by one, brows pinching into a deep frown.
"I don't have the time," she said forcefully, "to explain to you three why I know my magic or this tower better than you do. I need people I can trust to follow my combat orders, however unpalatable they may seem." Her knuckles whitened as she gripped her staff tighter. "If your hearts insist on virtuousness over compliance, go back to the great doors and stand vigil over my dead students."
Alistair winced. "Rhod, it's wrong," he protested softly. "There has to be some sort of middle ground. It's Ostagar all over again–"
"Don't argue with me, please, Alistair," Rhodri said flatly. "With me or by the door, the choice is yours."
With one last look at each of them, she turned and jogged out of the room.
§
The party checked in each room (most of which were locked and then kicked open with disturbingly little effort on the Warden's part) for the children first, and surviving adults next. The process seemed to go on forever, partly because Rhodri forbade all of them from going into any place she hadn't checked first, and partly because the Tower was a small, endless circle. Hence the name, Zevran supposed wryly to himself.
Even the destruction looked near-identical from room to room. The ravaged remains of mages and Templars alike were strewn from wall to wall; charred, exploded cupboards and wardrobes with tatters of singed robes in the blast radius; books and possessions strewn, burnt, torn. And blood! So much blood! No wonder some of the bodies were shrunken down to skin and bone. Zevran's stomach threatened mutiny whenever he paid attention to the smell of it all too closely.
After what felt like hours, the search had yielded nothing but a variety of greedy Fade beasts. The ash wraiths had made an unfortunate comeback, along with the foul-tempered fire blobs (Zevran refused to dignify them with a fearsome name). Some other wretched thing– Rhodri called it a despair demon– cropped up a few times as well. More times than his preferred number of zero, certainly, not least because the Warden was beginning to tire. Her spells swung between their usual untraceability to crude explosions and as time drew on, she was leaning further into the latter.
Something would have to give, Zevran knew, and he could have laughed with relief when they rounded yet another corner and saw a room of terrified– but living mages. They were mostly children, and with the gauntness to their faces, they could all have passed for blood relations to the Warden. Screams of recognition bounced off the stone walls; Rhodri dropped to her knees. Whether it was relief, exhaustion, or aural agony on her part was hard to say; Zevran fancied it was all three.
Zevran diverted his gaze as the Warden shucked her bloodstained robe and allowed the frantic group to swarm and throw their arms around her– and then each other, when there wasn't a part of her available to cling to. Shrill little voices filled the air like mad birdsong, clamoured and fought for the privilege of being noticed more than the others.
"There's monsters everywhere--"
"A wraith nearly got me!"
"It's so scary-- "
Merciful silence finally came by the third time an older mage called for it. She approached the party with purposeful, if weary strides, surveying them all with bafflement and vague mistrust.
"Why did you come back to the Tower, Rhodri?" she asked, pursing her lips a little. "More to the point, why did the Templars let you in? Are you here to warn us?"
Rhodri held up a hand to the woman and nodded. "I'm coming."
Rhodri looked to the children around her, smiling gently.
"These are your Aunt Leliana, and your Uncles Alistair and Zevran," she gestured at each party member respectively. "We brought you all a present. Go and get it, and stay with them while I talk to Wynne, yes? You'll be safe with them, and I'll be over here where you can see me."
Zevran had to bite his tongue to conceal his shock as Rhodri mouthed a ' thank you' at the three of them and led the other mage to the other end of the cramped room. Before the panic could set in, there were a batch of wary but intrigued children approaching them.
To Zevran's relief, Alistair appeared to have some experience with children and strode forward to meet them halfway. He kneeled down, and even from that height, he was taller than some of them.
"'Ello," he greeted them with a grin. "I'm Uncle Alistair. You'll never guess what we've brought for you."
Leliana, who had been carrying the cookies, stepped forward with a warm smile on her face, standing beside Alistair now as she opened her rucksack and fished around for the bag. The children calmed at once, interacting with the two adults readily. There was no need to complicate things with his distinct lack of expertise with the smaller folk; Zevran stayed put,
In the first pause he'd had all day, he cast an eye around the room. It was large enough that everyone could have laid down without touching each other, but ten children and three– no, there was a fourth mage on her knees in the corner– trapped in here for Maker-knew-how-long seemed a particularly unpleasant way to wait out a war. Books lay on the ground in a neat row along the back wall, undoubtedly serving as pillows overnight—-
Something warm wrapped around Zevran's fingers. Forcing himself not to reclaim his limb to smite the offender dead, he gazed down and saw a small elven girl-- he doubted she could have been more than eight-- holding his hand and scrutinising him with liquid brown eyes. She could almost have been him at that age: same dark skin, same flaxen hair, only hers had some waviness to it. It was unnerving. He reassured himself with the reminder that he was unlikely to have offspring wandering around, especially in a Fereldan Circle, when the people he seduced died within hours of their coupling.
"Are you really my uncle?" the girl asked in a thick Fereldan accent, squinting at him pensively.
Zevran was thunderstruck- he had knives strapped to his back and blood spattered on his cheeks, and yet this child saw fit to simply approach him and take his hand. This had to be where Rhodri got that absurd trustfulness from; the Tower mages were so naive it almost defied belief. Doe-eyed foolishness had stayed Rhodri's hand when he lay at her feet, and that same quality made this girl so sure that she was safe with him. A lucky guess for her.
Wherever the reason, the girl was still grasping his hand; he was no threat to her, and she made it clear she wanted an answer when she gave the occupied hand an impatient squeeze.
Zevran chuckled and raised an eyebrow at her. "Your uncle?" he echoed. "I might be. Do you come from Antiva?"
She frowned and shook her head. "I come from a farm."
"We have farms in Antiva."
The girl took in the information with a nod. "We had cows. Big ones, with black and white patches. Do you know my ma and papa? They're farmhands."
Zevran stole a glance in Rhodri's direction; she was speaking too quietly for him to make anything out over the din of children talking and crunching away on their treats. It was clear that she was resolute about something, though, with all the forceful gestures she was making at her audience of the woman called Wynne and two adult mages.
Another squeeze of his hand informed Zevran that his answer was too slow coming. He laughed again.
"I might know them. I have met many people on my travels." He pointed at Alistair and Leliana. "You do not want some cookies for yourself?"
The girl's eyes darted between Leliana and him. She looked uncertain as she shook her head.
He gave her an arch smile. "I find that hard to believe."
Slowly, the girl took her hand out of his. "Wait here," she instructed, stepping away and approaching Alistair, who had just taken the bag from Leliana. He gave the girl a pat on the head and held up three fingers as he tipped the bag forward for her to put her hand into. The girl nodded, pulled out three cookies, and spoke a hushed thanks as she beetled back over to Zevran. She glanced up at him furtively and pressed one of the biscuits into his hand.
"Here, Uncle," she murmured, closing his fingers around it.
Surprised by the way the gesture moved him, he had to clear his throat before he could give a nonchalant chuckle and shake his head.
"Ah, no, you should have this. I will be going back outside again soon, and there are cookies for sale everywhere out there."
That was apparently an insufficient reason for the girl, who shook her head back at him.
"Family shares," she insisted. "That's what Papa said, and you're my uncle. Or you might be." She ate her own cookies in four bites, the first experimental tastes lasting far longer than the second bites that made the rest of the snacks disappear. "These are good. Eat yours."
He broke the cookie in half and held one piece out to her. "Family shares, I am told," he said through a smirk. It was an oddly satisfying succession of lies, much more enjoyable than what he had usually had to tell on the job. This career change had been a good idea.
The girl needed little convincing, not trying to give it back as he put it in her hands and pretended to eat his half, wrapping his fingers around it to keep it concealed.
"I want to go with you and Rhodri," she said out of nowhere. A second passed before her eyes moved up to meet his.
This career change had been a terrible idea.
He was not paid enough to handle these sorts of situations. Emotional outbursts had usually been handled with a soft word and a quick, merciful cut around the throat. They didn't even have the time to cry, usually.
This , however, was something else entirely, and he was damned to the Void and back if he knew what to do.
He pulled his mouth into a wry smile and quirked a brow at the child.
"Are you quite sure about that? Rhodri and I fight monsters all day, and sometimes through the night, too. We have to sleep in tents in the cold, and I do not imagine our food is as nice as what you eat here."
Any hope he had had of convincing the child of the superiority of life in the Tower disappeared as her eyes started to fill with tears.
Brasca. Brasca. Brasca.
"I miss Ma and Papa," she uttered in a wobbly voice. "The Templars said nobody ever leaves this place, and I'll be good. You can just drop me at the farm and I won't tell anyone."
Zevran felt his muscles ache as he forced the smile to stay in place. His eyes darted to Rhodri; she had finished talking with Wynne, and was making her way to Alistair and Leliana. Relief. Turning back to the girl, he chuckled.
"Ah, the Templars say that to frighten children. I know for a fact that a number have left the Circle to travel, and you are very young yet. A little more time, and who knows where you will go, hmm?"
She looked somewhat mollified, which soothed his surprisingly frazzled nerves in turn.
"I must go and speak to Rhodri, but allow me to show you a small magic trick before I do, hmm?"
As the girl nodded, he made one quick movement with a hand and pretended to pull the other half of the cookie from behind her ear and held it out for her to take. She stared at the piece with wide eyes (had mages never heard of sleight of hand before?).
"Are you a mage?" she breathed, letting him deposit the snack in her hands. "How do you conjure these?"
"I am not a mage, but I am a magician, and a magician never reveals his secrets," he returned with a grin. "But if you think on it for a while, perhaps you will work it out for yourself, no?" Surprising himself as he gave the girl a tiny pat on the head, he left her staring at the cookie and strolled over to rejoin his teammates.
The party, now with the senior mage, clustered by the doorway boasting a humming, purple barrier. Shafts of lightning writhed like snakes in its confines, and the barrier swelled like a cushion. Zevran refused to acknowledge the amount of self-control he had to exercise not to simply poke it, and scolded himself again for not paying attention as Wynne stepped past him and dispelled it with a wave of her hand.
The two mages strode through first; Rhodri had barely passed through the doorway before spinning around to face the rest of the party.
"This is your last chance to turn back and stay with the children," she said, watching each of them in turn with a grave expression. "If you come with me, you must obey my orders."
Alistair tsked irritably. "That was meant for me, wasn't it?"
"It was meant for all of you. You three are out of your depth now, and I need you to trust Wynne's and my expertise. Here or with the children, both are worthy choices."
Between being repeatedly begged by the little mage girl and keeping an eye on the fool Warden, even with the occasional order to do so from afar, the choice practically made itself. And really, a little distance never hurt anyone. If anything, it made for a good excuse to use his bow and arrows for once.
With a smooth smile, Zevran stepped closer. "I am ready to do precisely as you ask of me, my lovely Grey Warden," he declared, touching a hand to his chest with a tiny flourish. "Direct me."
Leliana and Alistair shared a look, and stepped forward together. "Us, too," she said simply.
There was something rewarding about the way the Warden's face softened. At him, at the other two, and it made Zevran's guts twist. There was not a hope this side of the Void that he deserved it or the resulting warmth it brought, and still he guzzled it unabashedly. But Maker be praised, he had no time for self-flagellation. Rhodri was beckoning them through the door so that Wynne could seal it, and with his stolen moment still in his possession, he marched forward.