the secret garden

Tarquin watched warily as Mercar — Rook, he supposed, these days — stood in the corner with Gallus. For once, his face was serious. He was giving this some thought. They all were, Tarquin guessed.

Where did they go from here?

He knew what he’d told Rook, when the other man had asked. And he’d meant it. They needed to gut the whole thing. When the foundation and beams of a house were rotting, you ripped it down to nothing and built a new one. Something that infested couldn’t be fixed with small changes.

Tevinter was rotting. Had been his entire life and several lifetimes before that. How many people would collapse under the weight of this diseased structure if they tried to move along without taking hammer and axe to the thing?

Tarquin could feel Ashur watching him. Knew what he’d say, if Tarquin were to ask.

How many innocent people would die when the walls and the roof were gone before they could build a new one? And, in their haste to give people a home, would the building of it be shite again?

Tarquin didn’t have an answer.

Maevaris Tilani and Ashur were in agreement on what they should do; no surprise in that, they usually were.

But wasn’t that the problem? The unspoken but always present spot of discomfort in everything they did? That so much of their leadership were Altus?

Tarquin couldn’t claim to know how it felt to be a highblood — not like they’d had the same experiences he had — but that was the exact problem. Most of Tevinter was like him. Like Rook and Rana, like Lorelai and Bren. The Soporati and the slaves were the largest classes in Tevinter by far, the fragile bridge of the Liberati between them more like the sleepers and the slaves than the mages. The Altus class was tiny. And, despite that, that tiny number of families — bolstered by the Laetan mages just below them and aspiring to join that coveted status — had controlled Tevinter, had shaped and ruined lives, since before the time of Andraste.

Should those same few, and their limited view of what the real Tevinter was, really get to choose for them all again?

It wouldn’t be people like Ashur or Tilani who would suffer while they all tried to convince Tevinter to overturn generations of shite by using words.

It wouldn’t be people like Dorian who would suffer if his proposed strong-armed destruction of the old ways devolved into civil war.

Funny how that worked out.

He could give credit where credit was due. Tarquin knew that even by asking for opinions from him, from Gallus, from Rook, all three of the highbloods had done something rare. Still, Tarquin wasn’t sure it was enough. For him. For the other Shadow Dragons. For the rest of the forgotten and ignored in the Imperium.

Ultimately, though no one would ever say so — probably Mercar least of it — it would likely come down to Rook. Tarquin didn’t envy him. How could one man, no matter how many dragons or gods or whatever he’d killed, speak for millions?

By the lack of ill-timed jokes and sharp sarcasm coming from the corner in which Rook now stood, Tarquin could tell the weight of his decision wasn’t lost on him.

He looked sick.

Rebellion or reform? Those were his options. From where Tarquin sat, there was only one real answer. Paint wouldn’t fix a rotted foundation.

But Tarquin knew he had the dubious luxury of his opinion not mattering all that much — what else was new? — and Rook didn’t. The outcome would rest on Mercar’s shoulders, whatever the fairness of that, and he would bear the consequences.

How many people would suffer for Tilani and Ashur’s caution?

How many people would die in Dorian’s purges and the ensuing chaos?

It was only ever meant to be a quick drink between acquaintances.

But now the fire burning behind the cast-iron grate throws shadows against the wall that crash together and break apart like waves in a storm, twisting and turning in tune to the breathless gasps, soft sighs, and desperate pleas playing out across the kitchen table.

Bodies moving in breathless synergy, strange shapes in strange places. All familiar to the Fade.

Davrin though… Davrin doesn't recognise himself like this, his jaw working and his muscles straining and all of his consonants faltering past his lips. "I’m f—!" Fuck. "I’m fff—!" Fuck.

He knows this isn’t the time but honestly? After the misery of the past three days, it feels damn good to just let go with a stranger. Even if they don't feel like strangers, couldn't be strangers any more.

Not after everything.

Tofana barely manages to throw their arm across their face in a breathless bid for dignity, but considering the state of the kitchen table… that ship has long since sailed.

"Fuck, Davrin—!" A single, perfect tear clings to Tofana's lashes, trembling, euphoric, on a knife edge… and spilling over.

Fuck.

Davrin comes undone, barely managing a pathetic hiss before the broken wheeze emanating from the elf doubled over to his left sends his lungs scrambling again, his head slumping gently onto the table as yet another cascade of laughter erupts from somewhere deep inside his belly.

Upon which Tofana proceeds to emit a truly hideous squawk, gloved fingers batting through the air as they flop about in their seat, the firelight playing with their Crow leathers.

They've been laughing like this for a good ten minutes now, the observation that brought this on long since lost.

"This isn't funny," Tofana chuckles weakly, shaking their head and rubbing their eyes.

Davrin pinches the bridge of his nose, his shoulders still shaking. There’s nothing to say.

Tofana slides him a look and coughs up a few final syllables of watery mirth.

Then, silence.

Heavy, dark, complete.

Davrin tries for a sip of his whiskey, but the amber catches the light all wrong and flashes far too brightly to be anything but burning and screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming.

It repeats in her head. Over and over and over again. The way they left things.

The way she left things.

Don’t talk about after.

Trouble hadn’t looked surprised, just…sad. His hangdog expression in her mind’s eye breaks her heart all over again. Neve didn’t think it was possible. The stupid thing was shattered days ago, how much smaller can she grind the pieces?

Her shirt — or, more accurately, the shirt she took from his room — is soft where it touches her. Well-worn and threadbare, untouched by anyone but him, it still carries the scent of the oils he used before his last bath.

If she closes her eyes, and inhales deeply, she can almost imagine she’s back in his room with him.

Almost.

Her fingers find the hem, toying with the tiny frayed threads she finds there.

Frayed like her nerves before they’d left. Pulled too taut to withstand the pressure by an ominous gut feeling and a fear so deep in her stomach that it was like a mythical beast.

Fear enough to keep her from acknowledging it, lest her fears come true.

Stupid, really, in hindsight.

“I think about the night we almost said it but didn’t,” she tells the linen. She’s not sure why she started talking to his things in his absence, really. It’s an odd affectation, never something she’s done before. It feels hopeful and pathetic at once. But she hasn’t been able to stop. “I think about it more than I should.”

And you…I let myself…

She’d known how that sentence ended, even at the time. Knew she loved him. That thinking about a future without him in it might crack her resolve.

He’d known it too. Bloody bastard had always seen through her in a way she found enticing and frustrating.

Trouble had known she loved him. He’d have said he loved her too, had she let him.

Neve wondered if that was worse.

It feels worse. He had come to her before they’d all attempted the unthinkable. He’d known the risks; they all had. And knows, deep down in a bruised and damaged corner of her soul, she’d chosen cowardice in that moment rather than telling him the truth.

And Rook had known she had. All she’d been able to admit to at the time was fear, and she’d focused so intently on it she’d put him off. Had denied them both those words.

At the time, Neve had wondered if speaking those words aloud, giving those feelings solidity and permanence by putting them to words, would make the pain worse. For her. For him.

Now he’s gone, and she knows it made no difference. She feels like she’s taken one of Trouble’s poison draughts. Burning alive, eaten up from the inside out.

That night plays in her mind again. His somber and defeated face haunts her. She almost wishes he’d been angry instead.

He hadn’t been. Wouldn’t be. Neve wishes she could hate him for it, but she can’t; all she has left is herself.

“I should have said it,” she murmurs. His shirt listens, without judgment or comment as tears drip onto it. “I should have told you, Trouble.”

She can picture his face at that admission, and adds, “I should have let you tell me. You said you would follow my lead…”

Neve’s voice feels so thick in her throat she could choke on it. “Look where that got us.

“I’m a mess. And you’re…” missing, possibly dead, a gaping hole in my chest. She swallowed. “You’re gone.”

You know I’ll try. The most frightening of his statements that night, because it had been so accurate. He would try. He always did.

Words meant to comfort feel like an accusation, here in the dim light of the eclipse the filters into her room.

“I should have tried harder.”

She looks down at his shirt, temporarily stained with tears. Fitting, she thinks, even as she wonders when she became so maudlin. Self-pity isn’t helpful; not on a job, not to her, and not to him.

Rook would tell her that everything will be okay. She knows that in her bones. She wouldn’t believe him if he did. She doesn’t believe it now.

It’s okay to be scared.