Twenty-four

Asariel, 9:39 Dragon

"Stay close to me," Cassius said as he watched the dark figures skulking in the treeline, "There might be more of them."

Andria huddled closely behind him, her fingers touching his upper arm lightly as she hid herself from sight. She was trembling as she crouched slightly, breathing loudly and deliberately as she tried to calm herself. Cassius reached his left arm across his body to place his fingers over her hand on his arm in an attempt to reassure her everything would be fine.

"Where do you need me Terro?" Fiora said as she jogged up the beach, coming to his side with her saber bared.

"Right here," he said without moving his eyes off the trees. "Protect my wife, and if I tell you to run, you run, do you understand?"

The darkspawn along the coast hadn't noticed them yet. There had been reports of small bands seen in the region, bubbling up from a crevice somewhere that hadn't been found. There had been Grey Wardens patrolling the region, searching for the source, and not finding anything yet. The mood in and around Asariel had been tense. The city had doubled its watches during the day and tripled its watch overnight to keep an eye out for any darkspawn that might try to breach the city walls. It was costing the local magisters deeply, but the price was small in comparison to the cost of panic.

Magister Arrentius had armed all of the household staff except for the slaves, just in case, and at least one person was tasked with patrolling the manor at night. Cassius' turn had come three nights past and it had been quiet and uneventful, except for when Valerie came strolling out of her room four hours before sunrise, unable to sleep, and had joined him in his walk around the house for quiet conversation that made the hours go by easier.

Today, with Magister Arrentius' express permission, he and his wife had opted to take advantage of partly cloudy skies and a cool breeze off the Nocen to go walking along the beach. There had been no signs of darkspawn within twenty miles of Asariel, and it seemed safe enough.

The sense of safety was an illusion.

There were three of them that Cassius could see. Hurlocks, tall but bulky like a human, with pallid, gray dead flesh and wearing blackened scraps of clothing. From this distance, it didn't look like any of them were wearing armor, but he couldn't rightly tell. They were poking around in the treeline, sniffing and scratching around under the shadow of the trees and away from the sunlight, as if they were looking for something.

"What are you going to do Terro?" Fiora asked, spinning her sword in her hand in anticipation of using it. Her body bobbed from side to side as if she were hoping for a scrap, probably dreaming of hacking up a couple darkspawn and then bragging about it to the other slaves when she returned home.

Cassius considered his options. Turning around slowly and heading back to the house was the obvious safest answer. But if there were more darkspawn about, he didn't like the idea of returning home without a good picture of whether this looked like an isolated incident or whether there was more cause for concern. If he did that, Magister Arrentius would likely want to come himself on a return trip and, if there were more of them, such a sortie could put him in great danger.

If he attacked, though, in an attempt to dispatch these few and determine their purpose, he might just be swatting at a wasp's nest, killing three but alerting a much larger swarm to the threat of his presence. That could put himself, his wife and Fiora in danger and, if he stirred up some kind of larger group, they either might flee inland or start reaving outward.

He chewed his options over in his mind for a moment and resolved himself.

"I'll take care of them," Cassius decided. "You stay here."

Andria's fingers gripped around his arm, holding him in place. "Are you sure?"

No, he thought to himself, but instead said, "You'll be fine. Fiora and I will protect you."

Whether Andria was actually assured or not, he couldn't be sure, but she released the hold on his arm and turned her head away. "They're just so horrible. It makes me sick to even look at them."

"I'll be quick," Cassius assured her and wriggled out of her grasp, stepping forward along the sand and leaving his wife in the care of his slave.

Darkspawn, with their tattered rags and dried, rotting flesh were more susceptible to fire, although it wasn't his strongest suit when it came to primal magic. Fire was powerful but raw and wild, and he had never liked the feeling of it as he tried to transform mana to magic and shape it into flame. It always felt unstable, like it was trying to escape from his grasp, hard to be controlled.

Bookwise, however, an advantage was an advantage. He wasn't being scored by the enchanters for an exam, so there were no points considered for style. Even if his firemongering was sloppy, as long as it ended with piles of charred, dead darkspawn, that was all that mattered.

As he slowly edged closer to the trees, the darkspawn stopped and snapped to attention like any wild animal. They craned their monstrous faces up, sniffing the air, necks jerking from side to side as they sensed for what was wrong. Then the first one turned its head in his direction, gave a sniff and made eye contact. The hurlock bent backward and howled, a bubbling, guttural type of croak to alert the others and they answered with whistling shrieks of their own. A second later they bounded out of the wood, recoiling at the light of the sun but charging forward nearly on all fours like an animal.

Andria screamed in terror as they charged out of the wood, which drew the attention of the darkspawn and only made them move quicker as they were boosted forward by their own bloodlust.

Cassius focused his mana into his staff, letting the liquid magic flow up through his arms where it felt like it boiled and bubbled in his bloodstream until the head of his staff began to glow yellow-orange as it condensed the heat of his magic. He struggled to hold back the wildness of the fire as it began to swirl into an orb, tongue of flame twisting and tangling and orbiting one another like a ball of snakes constricting around prey. The fire quickly grew in size until the tongues all tangled into one solid mass and formed into a ball, at which point he thrust his staff forward, aiming for an empty spot in the sand between the three hurlocks where all would be just a few seconds later.

The fireball rocketed out on a line, Cassius using the speed to keep it aloft even as gravity tried to pull it down into the ground. As it burned past the first, to the hole in their formation where the other two trailed, he cut his staff hard downward, forcing the magic into the ground and smashing his orb, where it erupted in a flash and roar, spraying fire out in every direction. The ground shook as plumes of flame lashed out, engulfing the darkspawn.

They wailed and flailed as the fire overtook them, lighting them ablaze. They floundered on the beach, running around wildly as they waved their arms and tried to extinguish the flames, the motion only drawing more air into the fire and intensifying the heat.

Cassius didn't wait for the fire to die out as he eyed the closest and drew his power back into his staff, snapping off small bolts of fire, the bits of flame striking his target and intensifying the blaze. After the third, he slammed the head of his staff into the ground, sending a pulse of fire through the ground on a line until it bubbled up under the feet of the monster, a sharp pillar shooting up into the air, incinerating what was left.

The next closest was spinning in a circle, barely able to keep standing as the fire consumed it. It stumbled and fell to the ground, clawing against the sand toward him but soon falling still as the fire overtook it and melted it into a pile of boiling flesh and charred material.

The last had managed to halfway extinguish itself – one arm was a blackened stump still smoldering at its side as it hung limp and dead – but it continued to charge Cassius, now enraged. He shifted his weight back, bracing his staff against his side and couched under his arm as if he were bracing a spear against a charging horse. As the darkspawn closed, he met its advance with a jet of fire, spraying out in one constant stream. The hurlock continued to run through the flames, fire licking and burning off its flesh as it continued to charge directly into the attack, disintegrating piece by piece. Cassius pumped his power into the staff, intensifying the flame, the cone of fire broadening outward in both distance and width, the flame at the head of his staff pulses from red to orange to yellow until it glowed hot blue.

The hurlock was melting before his eyes but still came fangs and claws bared and ready to tear him apart. Andria was screeching, screaming so loudly he could hear her terrified cries even over the roar of his fire and the shrieking of the hurlock, but Cassius held, pouring flame down until the enraged hurlock slowed, its legs falling out from under it is they cracked and broke away like tree limbs collapsing under brushfire. The smoldering remains of the last hurlock collapsed in the sand just a few feet in front of him. Cassius lurched forward and struck its charred skull with the head of his staff, crunching the burned bone like an eggshell, just to make sure it was dead.

Cassius twirled his staff back and drew it across his body in a defensive position, scanning the trees for any other sign of activity. As his eyes darted bacj and forth along the trees, he saw nothing, and then relaxed, lowering his staff and taking a breath to recover himself. If attacking and killing three members of their hive and Andria's terrified screaming hadn't stirred up anything else, he was confident there was truly nothing else out there.

Cassius stepped forward, his staff out in front just in case, as he carefully examined the smoking corpses of the darkspawn, nudging their remains with the butt of his staff. There wasn't much of any of the three left, and nothing that he could see that would give him any clues as to where they came from or what they were doing. As far as he could tell, it was little more than a few random rovers, not an entirely uncommon occurrence anywhere in Tevinter. It had been nearly a thousand years since the First Blight, but the darkspawn were never truly defeated and they had never been fully exterminated from the north.

The question as to where they were coming from would have to be left a mystery, but one more piece of information that could be sent to the Wardens as they attempted to root out a source.

Cassius backpedaled across the beach in order to keep his eyes on the treeline the entire time, until he was greeted by the sounds of Andria's sobbing as she rushed up and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest, crying and saying something muffled and therefore unintelligible as she smothered herself against his body. He placed his staff across his back and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him as he stroked her hair gently in an attempt to calm her down.

"Shhhh, shhhh," he cooed to her as she squeezed her arms around his body and showed no sign of letting go. "I'm here. I'm here. You're safe."

She said something into his stomach, again, completely unintelligible amid her sobbing.

"You're safe. You're safe with me."


Minrathous 9:42

Cassius slammed his fist against the door as hard as he could.

He didn't care if he woke the entire floor, the entire magisterium, the entire city, if he had to. He stopped, waiting two seconds, and when the door didn't open, he pounded against it again.

"Open this door!" Cassius shouted as he stopped pounding, waited a second, heard no answer, and then pounded again. He stopped just long enough to shout, "Mae, I know you're in there!"

He could hear sound on the other side of the door and it finally cracked open, chained so that it could not open any wider than a crack. Inside that crack, Mae's blonde-haired page peeked out, her eyes half closed at being roused out of sleep.

"Open this door," Cassius demanded, his brows bent and his voice steely to show that he was not playing games. "Or I will break it down."

"Master Terro, it is–" the girl tried to say and Cassius slammed his fist against the door, rattling the chain and startling her as the door groaned at being pushed to its limit.

"Open this door, now!" he shouted into the crack. He began pulling his magic to his fist, ready for the next blow to come accompanied by a healthy dose of force magic that he was convinced would shatter the frame even of one of the thick magisterium doors designed to be resistant to such magical assaults.

The page appeared in the crack again, turned her head back toward the interior of the room, and then turned back toward him, her hands working the chain and releasing the door. Cassius didn't wait for her to open it for him, instead shoved his way inside, sending the door flying back on its hinge and knocking the page out of his way. As he barged inside, he realized that all of the lights were on in the magister's quarters. The door to the back room was open and, within the frame of the open door, he could see Magister Tilani sitting at the table where they had dined before. She folded down some papers she was reading, raised her hand and casually waved him back, as if he were an acquaintance dropping in for a social call.

Cassius stomped ahead as the page attended to the open door behind him. As he approached the back room, another woman stepped out from inside where Mae was sitting. She was a bulky woman, ginger-haired with freckles across her face and a hard scowl. Before Cassius had a chance to shout at her or attempt to dislodge her from his path, he sensed a sudden shift in the Fade and a strange sensation as it felt like all of the air was sucked out of his lungs at once.

Cassius crumpled to a knee at the unseen assault, his head pounding in an instant like a migraine as he felt suddenly weak and drained. He reached out to touch the Fade and draw his magic and found that he couldn't, as if he was being crushed under a massive weight, leaving him paralyzed and unable to move, barely able to think or breathe. He struggled to keep his head up, noticing a subtle white glow emanating like an aura around the burly woman's feet. He also, for the first time, noticed the gold threading on the long skirt that flowed out from under her fauld and the sunburst pattern it made.

Templar, he realized, but not one like he had ever encountered before in Tevinter. She was a guardian of the Chantry, but not the Imperial Chantry, he realized as he suffered the force of the infamous anti-magic of the southern templars for the first time in his life.

"That's not necessary, Belinda," he could hear Maevaris say from inside the room. "Master Terro is a guest."

"Are you sure, Mae?" the templar said as she made no attempt to move from the doorway, only continued to pulse her power that kept Cassius pinned to the floor. "He looks pretty mad."

Cassius could hear a laugh from within to that and the rustling of papers. "If he's here for the reason I suspect, I suppose he has good reason to be angry with me. But no, I am quite safe. You may stand down."

The negating force lifted just as suddenly as it had come on and Cassius gasped for air, rising unsteadily to his feet and stumbling backward a step as he reached out as he reached out his senses and could once again feel the Fade flowing behind the curtain of the Veil. Was that what it felt like to be Soporati, he wondered for an instant, then pushed the notion away, knowing that anyone without the gift couldn't perceive the immensity of the Fade in the first place, so how could they feel the denial of something they never knew?

"Chantry devil," Cassius sneered at her, quite unlike himself but inflamed by the sudden, unprovoked assault. If she was bothered by his remark, she made no indication of it, slowly stepping aside to clear the way to the back room.

"That was unkind," Maevaris said as she placed her reading material down on the table and slid it to the side, gesturing to a chair on the other side of the table, not at all perturbed by his sudden invasion of her quarters in the depth of night. She obviously hadn't been asleep, as she sat at her table still dressed in her jewels and an immodestly cut blue dress that plunged far from the neck.

"Belinda is a gift from Dorian and his uptight friend Commander Cullen at Skyhold, to help protect me from some rather forward Venatori sympathizers unhappy that I keep spoiling their dessert," she said, seemingly uninterested in Cassius' own rage as he refused the chair, stalking up the table and looming over it like a stormcloud. "It's a fabulous trick she does, isn't it? She shared it yesterday with a couple thugs they sent my way after yesterday's vote. She handled them a little more roughly than I might have – I'm afraid the one poor lad will be walking with a limp for the rest of his days after the way she swung her hammer into his knee. A dreadful cracking sound, just dreadful."

"What did you say and do to Valerie?" Cassius demanded, ignoring her light banter as he shoved an accusing finger into her face.

Maevaris lifted her own finger and used it to push his gently aside, peeking around him as she addressed the templar instead. "See? I told you he had good reason to be angry with me."

"I'm not playing, Mae," he said, trying to sound as threatening as he could, although she didn't seem impressed by his show of bravado.

"Please, sit, and I'll be happy to tell you whatever you want to know," Maevaris offered.

Cassius held his finger for a second and then withdrew his hand, disarmed by her continuing indifference. He shouldn't have been surprised by that, he knew, as she had been scheming this entire time and no doubt had fully anticipated for this moment to happen at some point in time. He pulled back the chair, scraping it loudly across the floor to signal his continuing annoyance with her, and then plopped himself roughly into it, pressing his hands into his thighs as he continued to project wrath in his body language.

Satisfied that he had agreed to sit but slightly perturbed by his poor posture, Maevaris crossed her legs and rested her hands atop her knee and smiled politely. "I met with her the first night she arrived, a friendly dinner, like you and I shared last time you were here. I explained to the young lady who I was and what my intentions were, and then told her she would provide me information about her father's dealings and the Venatori, or that I would have you killed."

Cassius' hands curled into fists at her blunt admission. "Why?" he demanded.

"Because I have been working to break her father, and she was an excellent opportunity to expedite my work," Mae said, showing no sign of remorse. "I surmised that threatening your life would be the proper lever to pull to get her to comply. Just to be sure, I had some associates trail you for the next three days, invisible to you, but conspicuous to her after I provided her with a description of what they would look like, to demonstrate that I was fully capable of delivering on my threat. She acquiesced shortly afterward."

Cassius hadn't felt anyone trailing him, which bothered him after she mentioned it. Furthermore, he hadn't recognized that anything was amiss with Valerie in those days. If she had been noticing hired blades following him, she not only hadn't said anything to warn him but also had made no outward showing of fear. She was as stone-faced as an expert Wicked Grace player. Before Cassius could squeeze in a word, Maevaris continued.

"She did much better than I anticipated," Mae said, which could have been a compliment if not for the circumstances. "I figured she would have been caught much sooner than this. I'm heartened that it was you that discovered her and am also gladdened that you came to confront me directly. It shows spine, initiative. I'll assume then that you found the reading material I sent home with you last time to be rather illuminating, yes?"

"Leave her alone," Cassius growled, ignoring the flow of the conversation to make his intention clear.

"See, now this is a bit too single-focused and unnecessarily aggressive," Mae commented, rolling her eyes as he showed no signs of amusement, and then offered, "Yes, of course. I hear you're leaving the capital tomorrow anyway, but if it will ease your mind, I pledge to you, Cassius, she is discharged from my influence. I had hoped she would see my threat to assassinate you for being as empty as it was, but alas, she's new to all of this. I'd offer an apology, but I'll spare you the disingenuity of it, because she did turn out to be rather helpful and I'm not sorry for doing it."

"Do you have any shred of decency? Any idea what you've done?" Cassius asked.

"Yes, quite," she answered, again, without remorse. "I have successfully pushed Flavius Five-Daughters to the point of bankruptcy. The Venatori are all but defeated in the south and rather than acknowledge a lost cause and suffer his sunk cost, he has foolishly continued to throw everything he has at them. As you well know, he was grossly overextended before. That was six months ago. Now, well, when the debt collectors come calling…"

She punctuated the thought by simply shaking her head.

Cassius hovered on the edge of his chair, uncertain whether he should slouch backward and accept defeat or lurch forward and punch her in the jaw. The latter might make him feel better for a moment, but he was sure there would be severe ramifications for it. He remembered the templar was still hovering over them just a few steps away – not close enough to stop him from hitting Magister Tilani if he wanted, but close enough that he wouldn't get away with it for too long after doing it.

"Don't look so crestfallen," Mae said, taking note of his sour face. "Because this is the part where I give you a chance to save your dear Flavius and his family from ruin."

That perked up his ears. "What do you mean? What could I do?"

"You could stop him, before it's too late," Maevaris said, "Although you'd have to unbind yourself from your blind loyalty in order to do it."

"I'd never betray Magister Arrentius," he said, to restate and reinforce his devotion.

"Even though he's betrayed you? Betrayed his daughters, your wife, your child, with this continuing folly?" she snorted derisively at the thought. "Pride is a vice, and it won't serve you or anyone when you're evicted from Asariel on the Water and forced to who knows where, humbled and disgraced, left to the charity of Flavius' relations, if they're not too embarrassed to take him and his family in."

Cassius wanted to argue, but instead just swallowed and lowered his eyes to the floor, because he knew she was right. If Flavius was brought to ruin, he would lose his seat in the Magisterium, lose his estate, lose his holdings. He and Junia and their daughters would be destitute, cast to the wind, to whatever cruel end the Imperium might have in store for them. How would Cassius provide for Andria, for Anna? He was only Praeteri, a graduate of the Circle, yes, but with little status of his own. He could take up work in Minrathous and draw some kind of wage, but what kind of life would he be able to provide for them? What future would his daughter have, stripped of the prestige of her family name? The possibilities turned his stomach with anxiety.

And yet, the prospect of bending to Magister Tilani's will made him feel equally ill.

"What would I need to do?" Cassius said quietly, not looking up from the floor, too ashamed of himself to meet her eye, that he was even considering cooperating with her.

"When you were in the south, I believe Dorian asked that you 'do what you believe to be right,' as a condition of your release," Maevaris said, reminding him of the hot spring conversation he had with Dorian what seemed like an eternity ago. That meeting, with the Inquisition's spymaster eavesdropping on their conversation, wasn't so unlike this one now with the southron templar behind him. "It's time to make good on that promise.

"The Inquisition is ready to dismantle the last of the Venatori. We've already taken care of Porenni's idiotic plot in Nevarra – Calix is decorating the exterior of his father's walls by noose and the mercenaries and soldiers sent to to try to fake an incident are feeding mongrels and darkspawn in the wastes of the Silent Plains," Maevaris said, making no secret that she was proud of how effortlessly she had dealt with it, no doubt with help from Valerie leaking her whatever information she could get her hands on.

"With Porenni and his clumsy plotting foiled, Flavius' pet project in the Hissing Wastes is their last bastion of strength outside of Tevinter. Inquisitor Trevelyan is prepared to crush the opposition, if necessary," Maevaris informed him. "But, that seems unnecessary to me. I'd prefer to end the threat peaceably, if possible, before he arrives.

"This is where I hope you can be of assistance to me. I have Inquisition agents at my disposal and I intend to detain Flavius and force him to abandon this cause once and for all," Maevaris said. "That being said, I fear that, if backed into a corner, he might choose to resist instead of surrender. I would like you to ensure that this ordeal ends without bloodshed."

Maevaris fell quiet and waited. That couldn't be all, could it? Cassius waited for her to continue, but she didn't. He lifted his head, finally, to look at her again, and found her face to be drawn and serious, without the kind of arrogant confidence she usually displayed.

"And what would you, or the Inquisition, do to him?" Cassius asked, afraid of the answer.

"I will force him to abdicate his seat in the Magisterium and pass it to a more worthy successor," Maevaris said, lifting the top hand off her knee and turning it over in his direction. "You."

"You can't be serious," Cassius said, taken aback by the preposterousness of her suggestion, even though she continued to look at him with that same focused seriousness scrawled across her face.

"I am," she replied, her voice tinged with slight annoyance at being questioned. "You are already married to his daughter, which is helpful. It is within Flavius' power to officially adopt you into his house, to bestow upon you the same legal rights and privileges as if you were born of Arrentius blood. And, once completed, he could name you as heir, step down, and pass his house into your stewardship."

"But I'm just a Prae–" Casius started before Maevaris sharply interrupted him.

"Don't!" she shouted at him, her eyes flaring with fury. When Cassius stopped and showed no signs of continuing, she nearly hissed at him. "I told you once before, your birth has no bearing on your worth."

She waited, to see if he was willing to challenge her on this point. When he didn't say anything, she continued.

"If you're willing to turn House Arrentius from the Venatori, I will see to it that it is restored, as best I am able," Maevaris offered.

"And how would you do that?" Cassius asked, skeptical of her offer.

Maevaris laughed, bringing one hand to her mouth to cover the chuckles escaping from her lips. The rage in her eyes faded and was replaced with mirth for a moment, as she gave one more hearty laugh, touched her fingers to her closed lips, stifled another chuckle and then dropped her hand back toward her knee.

"Oh my dear," she said, suppressing the last aftershocks of her laugh. "Who do you think has been buying up all of Flavius' debt?"

She crooked her head to the side and smiled as Cassius' eyebrows raised in surprise. She only gave a short dip of her head to indicate, yes, it indeed had been her.

"You-" Cassius started but was interrupted again.

"His land, his goods, the provisions he's been purchasing and trying to send south before my friends have intercepted them and reclaimed them. And I've been getting them at quite a discount, too. As a matter of fact," she raised her hand and snapped her fingers loudly, drawing her blonde-haired page into the doorway. The poor girl still looked half asleep, and her haphazard attempt to make herself look presentable was betrayed by the sagging features of her young face. "Please go get the gift I had set aside for Master Terro."

The young girl nodded and obeyed with a yawn, slipping out of the magister's chambers into the hall, off on her errand despite the lateness of the night. What gift? How long exactly had she been expecting him to show up at her doorstep?

"I'll be happy to return it, well, most of it, to House Arrentius if it's put under new management," Mae said.

"Won't you lose thousands of sovereigns?" Cassius said, remembering the expansive loans Flavius had taken out against his name and his estate. He wasn't playing with pocket change in his funding of the Venatori, which is how he had driven himself so far underwater that he had little chance of escaping.

"Yes," Maevaris admitted, "But to dismantle an enemy, save an Altus house from ruin, rescue it from embarrassment, set it on a better path going forward and show others still loyal to the Venatori that it's not too late for them to follow suit and abandon their foolishness? Money well, well spent, in my opinion."

"The Magisterium would never accept me," Cassius said, thinking of the ways the Altus magisters sneered at the Laetans, and the ways the Laetans looked down on the Praeteri. Now she expected him to stand up in these hallowed halls and rule, an Altus pretender, carrying the title in name only.

"They'll have to. While I have my doubts about some, the majority of people here still have the most basic respect for the law. If you are elevated properly, they will have no choice but to acknowledge you," Magister Tilani continued. "At least officially. Behind closed doors and under their breath, I surrender the point that, yes, you will likely face obstacles. But, then again, the magisters don't call your lord 'Flavius Five-Daughters' out of love and respect for him, either."

"And what of Flavius, himself?" Cassius asked.

"What of him?" Mae responded, somewhat flippantly. "He can enjoy an early retirement. Spend time with his grandchild. Take up a hobby. See to his health. As long as he is no longer at the reins of the house, honestly I'm not really interested in what his future looks like. You'll be the head of the household. He'll be at your disposal, however you need him."

The notion seemed absurd. How could he ever expect Flavius to follow him? How could Cassius usurp everything he had, his seat in the magisterium, his house, his very family, and expect the man to ever look at him in the eye again? It would kill him, if he didn't kill Cassius first for his betrayal. How could he even be considering such a slight against his lord?

And yet, Cassius knew that Flavius would always do whatever he could to protect his family and Cassius was no different. The Arrentius family had been made his own too. Did he not have to put their best interest first? Maevaris was right – Flavius' support of the Venatori was destroying his house and certain to lead it into ruin. And yet, he couldn't acknowledge it, couldn't turn away from it, because he had put all of his hope into it as the one way to rescue them.

His devotion to the Venatori was not some fervent belief in the Elder One or ludicrous claims that they would reclaim the Maker's Golden City for Tevinter. No, the Venatori had always been a means to an end for Flavius. He was no different than Magister Alexius, who had done it in a vain and futile attempt to save Felix's life. Could Cassius be surprised that the two men from Asariel were not so different, that both had fallen into this life in hopes of helping their families, even if the measures proposed sounded extreme?

They were men who loved their families, their children, so dearly that they would destroy themselves in the process trying to save them. Could Flavius, could Gereon be faulted for that, for being willing to sacrifice everything for the ones they loved and cherished most?

Could Cassius?

Was the best way to save Flavius and his family to stop him?

He had lost track of time in his own mind, realizing that he had been staring at the floor, crunching the possibilities in his head as Maevaris sat quietly across from him waiting for him to process it. The door opened behind Cassius and then latched shut and his eyes were drawn up as Maevarius lifted her hand to wave them in.

"Cassius, allow me to demonstrate my goodwill and good intentions, and attempt to prove not only the truth of my words but the sincerity of my offer," Magister Tilani said, sweeping her hand out to the side.

Cassius lifted his eyes as a figure came alongside them, a single plume of long black hair and a long, curved scabbard hanging from a hip crossing his eye level as he hunched in his chair. He turned his gaze up from the floor, knowing what he saw, but unable to believe what he saw.

"Hey Terro," Fiora said, standing off to the side, her arms crossed over her chest.

Cassius leapt out of his chair at her, forcing her to catch him in her arms as he wrapped her in an embrace, squeezing her tightly to his body. It hadn't even been a full day in reality, but it had felt like years since he had turned her over at the slave market, knowing that he would never see her again and fearing where she might end up and what might happen to her.

"All right, Terro, don't start bawling on me now," Fiora as she squeezed him back, sounding like she might have something caught in her own throat. "I'm here. I'm good."

Cassius held her for a bit longer before letting her go, stepping back and brushing the side of his finger across the corners of his eyes, wiping away the joy that had pooled there. He turned to Maevaris, who only smiled.

"As much as I'd hate to let this one go – she has a filthy mind and mouth to match," Mae said with a smirk. "I'd be happy to return her to you, as a down payment if you agree to accept my offer."

"Terro," Fiora said, her dark eyebrows bent inward, almost pleading. He had lost her once already in what had been outside of his control, but now he would lose her again and it would be his fault and only his fault if he did. While in the back of his head he knew that this was nothing but an underhanded bargaining ploy, meant to manipulate him and twist a knife in his heart to get him to comply, he couldn't bear the thought of sending her away because he wasn't willing to do what it took to rescue her.

This wasn't the type of decision to be made lightly or on a whim. He had come to Magister Tilani's chamber to scream and shout at her for her meddling, for manipulating Valerie, for destroying their house. And she had so easily disarmed him and turned the table on him that he couldn't feel anything but uneasy.

And yet, she gave voice to doubts that had been growing in his head, doubts that he had shoved away and buried deeply below the foundation of his loyalty to Flavius. He thought of Plinius, of the way his colleague had so bluntly analyzed and doomed the Venatori, how he felt peace about it, but how he continued only out of duty to his blood. Given another, better option, would he seize an opportunity if given?

Cassius was bound to Flavius, to Junia, the Andria, to Valerie and the other girls. He was bound to their house, his life, his name, his dedication tied to House Arrentius. He was bound in service to them, to aid them and serve them in whatever way he was required, for their wellbeing and prosperity.

And if all those bindings were to unravel and break, what was left? What was he, but just a Praeteri, suddenly cast out into the cold, unmoored from everything that had given him direction and purpose?

"What do you need me to do?"

Cassius asked the question as he formed all of his resolve into a tight, firm ball, no different than if he were shaping and focusing his mana into a spell. It took all of his concentration, all of his being to make that transformation, and it would require all of his will to maintain it lest it blow up in his face.

"All I need is for you to identify the right opportunity," Maevaris said. "I trust that you will know when the moment is right. And, when it is, all you need to do is contact me and I will send my Inquisition friends to aid you."

Cassius nodded, unsure of exactly what she had in mind, but knowing that she trusted him to make that determination. He tried to imagine what that day would look like, and how he would approach it. How could he stand before Flavius and reveal his heart, his treachery, to the man who had given him everything? He pushed that thought of his head for now, but it would be something that he was sure would gnaw and nibble at him day by day until it became an unbearable pain and forced him to act, to end it.

"And Fiora?" Cassius asked.

"She'll stay with me, for the time being, so as not to alert Flavius of your intent," Mae said, giving his slave a short nod. "She will be well kept in my protection."

Cassius nodded slowly, his neck suddenly feeling heavy with the weight of his decision, that he wore like a iron chain around his throat, now that he had bound himself to a new and dangerous path. If he failed, if things did not go as planned, such a collar might truly manifest itself at his throat, to be worn for the rest of his days as the price of his deceit, a worse fate than the quick and instant release of death.

What else was there to say? What else did he need to know? What else could he do at this point?

His stomach felt suddenly hollow and his body empty, as if he had opened a valve and drained out all of his substance, leaving a paper husk behind.

"Is that all?" he asked, unable to think, unwilling to ponder anything else. He only wanted to slink away from this place, to crawl back to his hole where he could curl into himself and finally come to terms with what he had done, what he intended to do.

"No," Maevaris said. "There is one other loose end that will need to be tied to ensure the success of this plan."

As she explained it to him, the emptiness that Cassius felt at his own betrayal was replaced by rage at learning of another even more treacherous betrayal, one vile scheme that threatened House Arrentius, one that only he would be able to stop and one that he would stop, no matter the cost.