#casswall

A Villa by the Winter Palace

“For the final time, I won’t be need any moisturising or scented oils!”, Cassandra bellowed, storming out of the bathroom as the complaints of several elven servants were silenced by the door swinging shut behind her, narrowing the shaft of light from the garderobe into a thin strip, then nothingness.

Blackwall, who stood between her and the rest of the wing of the palace, coughed politely, asking, “Is this an inopportune moment, Cassandra?”

Clutching the towel which was the sole preserver of her modesty to her chest, she turned to him, having just realised Blackwall’s presence. He’d put on the heavily starched trousers they were expected to turn up in for the Winter Ball in a matter of hours, and nothing else.

“What do you think, Blackwall?”, she hissed, actively avoiding sizing up his bare, broad, chest to look him in the eye, only to see his gaze darting around the hallway.

“Well, I…”

“Oh, for the Maker’s sake, Blackwall,” she said, “Don’t pretend as though this is your first time seeing a woman dressed so. It certainly isn’t mine seeing a man shirtless.”

“Right,” he said, his gaze moving to her face. “I was just, ah, surprised.”

“Undoubtedly. What were you doing out in the corridor, at any rate?”, she asked inquisitively.

“To be perfectly frank,” he answered, “It was your protests coming from the bathroom which got my alert. I was half concerned that the Venatori assassin had already struck.”

“How very droll. Wait, is that why you’ve got a poker in your hand?”, Cassandra asked, looking down at his weapon arm.

Scratching the back of his head with his other hand, Blackwall said as he followed her gaze, “That would indeed be the case. Well, seeing as it happens to be a grievance of a much less deadly nature, I’ll let you go your w—”

Cassandra interrupted him, saying, “Wait. Just stay here awhile. Maybe that’ll be enough to deter them from following me with all their damned bathing lotions and perfumed oils…”

She trailed off, having lingered by the doorway enough to notice the scent hanging in the air around her companion.

Finally, she asked him, “You let them put one of those balms on you?”

“…it smelled pleasant,” he defended himself.

“I certainly hope you’re not letting our Lady Ambassador get to you with the pressing need to play the Orlesians’ frivolous games, Blackwall,” she said. “I’d assumed that you had as little time for this pageantry as I did.”

“You’re not wrong there. Still, it’s nice enough to get a decent bath when I can get the opportunity. They’re far and few between on the road as Warden, and I’ve certainly never had one in a palace, mind.”

Turning it over in her head, Cassandra conceded, “I suppose you’re right. Still, I must admit that this is something of a new side from the man who sleeps in a barn.”

“I confess that your protestations are equally surprising, Cassandra,” he said, asking, “Surely growing up so close to the royal court at Nevarra meant that all this sort of thing would be second nature to you, or at least familiar.”

Sighing, she said, “You’re not wrong. Maybe that is why I despise it so—I haven’t had to return to this sort of preening and dressage for years, not even as the Divine’s Right Hand. I had forgotten that this would be a luxury and not a nuisance for many of us. Perhaps I should return to their ministrations lest your perfume overpower my soap’s scent.”

Blackwall laughed warmly. “And perhaps you should let them restyle your hair whilst you’re there, as refreshing as it is to see it down at last. I always did wonder what it’d look like minus that braid.”

“Always?”, Cassandra asked, tilting her head.

“Curiosity, nothing more,” he said carelessly, rapidly changing the subject. “I do hope our Inquisitor is comfortable, though, never having had the privilege or the freedom to get bathed by others quite like this.”

“And by elven maidservants, no less,” Cassandra mused. “It is easy to forget that this palace lies upon the last of their great cities at times, for us anyway. I doubt it’s ever left her mind ever since we received the Grand Duke’s invitation. On the other hand, Solas has seemed more imperious than ever since getting here.”

“Hm. Perhaps he tapped into the dreams of some long-forgotten king, adored by thousands of his subjects and hated by the backstabbers of his court, to get into character,” Blackwall theorised. “That, or he expects the world to bend to him regardless of where he goes.”

Cassandra let a smile cross a face. “Who knows? Perhaps both are true. Very well, I shall return to that blasted garderobe to let them do what they will. Maybe we’ll present a nice enough picture for Josephine to relax a little.”

“We could be the picture of the next Age’s styles and she’d still be fretting,” Blackwall chuckled. “Still, stay any longer out here and you may well catch a chill, and ruin the beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs she’d made for us by sneezing all over them.”

“It’s almost charming when you worry about me,” Cassandra said, “Go on, then, and put the rest of your uniform, Blackwall. I’ll see you in the main hall along with Rivka and Solas.”

With that, she was gone, leaving Blackwall to gaze after her as she turned back round to finish her bath, absentmindedly noting her bare back and its muscled form, marked but far from marred by the small scatter of scars upon it, before he retreated to his quarters.

Heading back towards the door she’d almost slammed into an elven servant, Cassandra, too, idly wondered what her companion would look like in the fresh, if gaudy, uniform that had been picked out for the ball. Certainly, he’d be filling it out rather nicely, if nothing else.

-

Blackwall sat in his barn next to the stables, running a grindstone along the edge of his axe as he occasionally checked on his armour drying by the fire.

The entirety of the keep was bustling with activity late into the night, with sergeants barking orders at footsoldiers to check and double-check the kit they’d need for the arduous trek down the mountain path, and scouts on horseback thundering through the main gate, headed towards the bases in the Hinterlands and the Exalted Plains with the aim of mobilising the forces there for the great endeavour the Inquisition was about to launch.

There had been no good news from Hawke and Warden Loghain concerning Adamant Fortress—the corrupted Wardens were indeed holed up there in force, and while the citadel had been allowed to fall into disrepair, it still remained a formidable barrier to the Inquisition’s attempts to rid the Venatori saboteur’s influence over the Orlesian Wardens.

To this end, the Inquisition would besiege it and set an overwhelming army upon them, with the aim of opening a large enough breach in the walls to slip a small party through led by none less than the Herald of Andraste, where Rivka and some others, Hawke and Loghain included, would seek out and terminate Erimond’s command—with extreme prejudice. The perfumed coats and patterned masks of the Winter Palace had been one kind of danger. This was different, and far greater. Nothing else after the catastrophe at Haven could hope to match this in peril.

Like then, he’d be backing up Rivka and her fellow master over the rift’s magics, Solas, but unlike then he wouldn’t have Cassandra guarding his back and him hers (Cole instead replacing her), with her role being to command the rearguard and tie down any Wardens hoping to retreat into the keep and stymie Rivka’s task force. Exhaling hard as he gave his the blade of his axe some last few passes, he planted it onto the ground, handle-first with a grunt of frustration.

Thinking back to the journey home from the Western Approach, whose steps they’d be retracing en route to Adamant, he remembered how perturbed that strange spirit boy, Cole, had been about Erimond’s actions, amounting to the closest thing to total moral outrage he’d ever seen from the lad. Solas, too, seemed to have some special insight on the total insanity of their plan. Little surprise that Rivka had chosen them both for her task force.

And him? Were Warden Loghain to fall fighting his comrades, history would need another to have stood steadfast against Clarel’s mistakes, didn’t it? He stood up, looking upon the Warden armour they had fished from some chest or other whilst following their trail. He’d resisted wearing it up till recently. Nevertheless, with corruption rife in their ranks would it not fall to another Warden to ensure that their reputation emerged from this debacle intact? He found himself letting loose a bitter laugh, turning the irony over in his head.

“Forgive me,” a familiar voice sounded, “but am I interrupting?”

Recognising it, Blackwall drew in a sharp breath, turning around. “Not at all. But what are you doing here, Cassandra?”

It was indeed the Lady Seeker, whose gaze was partly cast to the ground as she approached him. She said, “I understand you have volunteered to join our Inquisitor in hunting down our latest Venatori foeman.”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s right. The Wardens have made a catastrophic error. A Warden needs to—”

She reached out, grasping his shoulder with gauntleted hand. “You don’t need to explain. It was not so long ago that I did much the same for the Seekers. I just…”

Drawing her further into the barn as he gently took her by the wrist of that same hand, he asked, “What is it? You seem troubled.”

Cassandra shook her head. “It’s just that from what the rest describe, Erimond’s hold over the Warden mages seems absolute. If the Calling is truly so powerful…”

Blackwall stepped forward, close enough to her that they standing head-to-head. “I’ve told you before, it seems that being distant from where Corypheus had made his attack on the minds of the Wardens means that it seems not affect me as much as them, or even Loghain—so far, anyway.”

“And yet still you throw yourself directly at the instrument of his will,” she said, not moving to look at him, but opening her eyes to stare upwards into his. At this range he saw them brimming with wetness, and his heart slowed for several beats.

Breaking away, he said, “You knew full well that whatever had affected the Seekers could well have been present at Caer Oswin, Cassandra.”

“I’m…I’m aware,” she finally says, choking between breaths. “I…forgive me, I am letting my judgement here be clouded.”

“Clouded?”, he asked, closing the distance between them again.

Glaring at him with tears rolling down from her eyes in long streaks, she spat, “Don’t be fulsome, Blackwall. I would rather see you dead than turned into a…tool…of Corypheus, but above that I wish to…I wish not to lose you.”

“I also don’t wish to lose you, Cassandra,” he said, his heart growing heavier with every word. “But when we reach Adamant, there’s every possibility…”

Nodding as she wiped dry her cheekbones, she said, “You’re correct, of course. We shouldn’t pretend as though the business of the Inquisition isn’t perilous.”

Casting his gaze at his arms and armour, Blackwall said, “I can’t deny I’m worried for you, either. You and the Inquisition’s vanguard are going to be right in the thickest of it, between Erimond and the rest of the Wardens.”

“I’m well aware,” Cassandra said just as distractedly. “Neither of us are going to have it easy come the siege.”

“It won’t be easy,” Blackwall said, finding words to fill the space. “But I don’t think Rivka could’ve chosen anyone better to hold the line.”

He heard the faint echo of a laugh from her, before she said, “You always did know how to flatter me.”

“It’s hardly flattery if it’s the truth,” he said, smiling, before adding, “I must be taking up your valuable time. There’s a great deal to prepare tonight as it is.”

“No, not at all,” Cassandra said. “I think we’ve done enough drills for one night. There’ll be plenty of time down the mountain trail to remind the vanguard how to hold their line. I came down here…because I wished to.”

“You wished to?”, Blackwall said, the gears in his head turning achingly slowly from Cassandra’s perspective.

“Yes,” she simply said as she felt her eyes brimming with tears again. “Here, tonight, together with you.”

She reached forward, drawing him in for a deep kiss, then another, then another, clinging on to him as though letting go would mean losing him forever, until they both came up for air, his hands on her own shoulders firmly but slowly pushing them apart.

Blackwall looked into Cassandra’s eyes as she gasped for air, her chest rocking with each breath and anticipation—and concern—written on her face.

Finally, she managed a nervous, “No?”

Glancing at the stairs to the loft, he whispered into her ear, “Not here.”

-

[Continued on AO3, or it’d be far too long for one post]

Blackwall was seated by the fire in the barn, carefully tooling a chess piece.

Dorian had taken his frustration from losing five consecutive games to Cullen out on the board, setting some of them on fire and ripping one to shreds with necrotic energy. Although Josephine had promised to send someone to Val Royeaux to shop for a replacement set, the Warden had taken it upon himself to carve replacements until their envoy had returned.

Besides, since the Inquisitor had decided that she only needed the Iron Bull to hold the line as she explored some recently uncovered ruins in the Emerald Graves, he was getting bored out of his mind, having completed the rest of the tasks he needed to do for the day.

Accompanying Rivka were the self-designated elven expert, Solas, and in what he assumed to be a deliberate provocation of her apostate lover or at the very least a representative of an alternate perspective, the self-designated elven skeptic, Sera. This, along with Vivienne following their envoy to the Orlesian capital and Cole doing…whatever he was doing…left a scarce few of their companions back at Skyhold, including the Lady Seeker, who’d seemed to have been troubled by something ever since settling in.

Speaking of which, that definitely was her coming down the long stairs leading from the main keep. As he turned his attention back to the eyes of the miniature warrior he was working on in wood, he idly wondered what precisely she could be up to down in this courtyard; the surgeon’s tent was comfortingly empty, and it was hardly as though she did much in the way of shopping amongst the stalls which greeted new arrivals.

Looking back up, it seemed to him that she was heading directly to his barn. The breath caught slightly in his throat as he saw her approach him, then dissipated as she went past the barn to look at the stables, leaning on the fence with great consideration, then sighing in that way she usually did.

Putting down the chisel, Blackwall walked towards her, asking from behind, “Is there something in the stables you needed, Lady Seeker?”

Cassandra turned towards him, mildly surprised. “Ah! No, I do not think so, Warden Blackwall. Unless…”

“Unless?”, he asked inquisitively.

“Have you had much experience horse-riding?”, she asked, then shaking her head. “Of course you must have, being a squire in the Grand Tourney and excelling in it, then a Warden alone on the road. Forgive my foolishness.”

Blackwall chuckled slightly, saying, “No need to chastise yourself, Lady Seeker, but yes, I’ve been on the road for quite a fair bit. Surely you also must have needed to ride to wherever you needed for…Seeker business?”

Cassandra sighed deeply, looking distantly. “You would think so, but on the whole I much preferred following a carriage. There have been markedly few occasions where I needed to ride at length, and certainly not in battle. Animals do not tend to react well to uses of Seeker abilities.”

“I can imagine,” Blackwall mused. “I was always much better at the mêlée on foot, but I performed well enough on horseback to get as far as I did during the Grand Tourney. Is there a particular occasion which needs you to ride forth, Lady Seeker? I trust it isn’t an emergency?”

She turned around, sitting back on the fence as she looked in his direction again, noticing the sudden edge of concern in his voice. “Oh, nothing of the kind. Well, not a pressing one. I…have been receiving reports that some malefactors of the recent war are still at large and asked the Inquisitor to inform me if she came across intelligence concerning them.”

“To what end?”, Blackwall asked, filling in the brief silence.

Her gaze steeled. “To bring them to justice, of course. Their victims will never rest easy until they are found and made to pay for their crimes.”

He drew in a breath, responding, “Ah, of course.”

“You don’t approve?”, she asked.

“No, not at all. It’s a worthy creed,” he said carelessly. “But I fail to see what this has to do with my experience riding horses, to be perfectly honest.”

Staring into the distance, through the end walls of the stables, again, Cassandra explained, “I instructed Rivka to send word to me of such intelligence where she went, and I’ve just received Leliana’s raven with a message saying they’ve reached the Emerald Graves. I shall ride to join them upon further news.”

“And you’d be travelling yourself to join them should that happen,” Blackwall finished, comprehending the situation.

“Precisely,” Cassandra said. “However, I had failed to account for the fact that we are high up in the mountains, and I shall be responsible for taking myself and a steed down the mountain paths, and I haven’t had the time to familiarise myself with any of the horses that made it to Haven.”

“I see,” he said, nodding. “Undoubtedly Horsemaster Dennet can give you better instruction—”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Master Blackwall,” The old stablemaster said, leading a large pony from the stables. “I think even the stable boys could get Princess Mairyn here eating out of the Lady Seeker’s hand. Why don’t you give it a shot? Seems to me you’ve been doing nothing but whittling wood all day, anyway.”

Cassandra turned to him, glancing over the fence at the horse.

“With such a glowing testimonial, how can I refuse?”, Blackwall said dryly. “And this is the thanks I get for baling your hay when I’m not woodworking, Master Dennet.”

With a twinkle in his eye, Dennet remarked, “You’ll thank me later, lad. Meant to be reading the latest news from Seanna anyway. Wonder who’s been besting the circuit lately.”

As she approached the Dalish All-Bred, Cassandra asked, “Does it ever concern you that the Inquisition’s stablemaster also organises races on the side?”

“I can’t imagine why it would,” Blackwall said, crossing the fence. “Shall we see how you get on, Lady Seeker?”

Turning to him, she said, “Cassandra.”

“I beg your pardon?”, Blackwall asked.

“If you’re going to be judging my riding, I think you can save on the syllable and use my name, Warden Blackwall,” she said, sizing up the saddle and the stirrup on Princess Mairyn’s left side.

“I’ll thank you to do the same for mine…Cassandra,” Blackwall said, feeling her name roll off his tongue, and idly thinking he liked the sound of it.

Still sensing her smile curling her lip, she stood on the stirrup and, with an effort, mounted the pony, adjusting her seating and getting her to trot, then break out in a gallop after a while as she took the pony around the picket a couple of rounds, coming to a hard stop in front of Blackwall, reins tightly in her hand. She looked down at the Warden, who was scratching his beard mirthfully.

“Oh, out with it already,” she said, “What was so terrible?”

“Well,” Blackwall started, “You’re still in the saddle, so….”

Her eyes narrowing, she said, “Don’t make me kick you from over here, Blackwall.”

Raising his hands defensively, Blackwall said, “I was merely stating a fact, Lady Seek…Cassandra. But I think I do know why it is you prefer galloping to trotting or cantering, although you won’t be able to make poor Princess Mairyn gallop all the way down the Frostbacks.”

“And why is that?”, she asked.

“As it stands,” Blackwall explained, “You’re riding this poor pony hard by gripping her as tight as possible with your legs when she’s trotting and essentially holding on for dear life once she gets up to speed after you’ve kicked her in the sides to get there, and it’s not helped when you’ve got a death-grip on her reins.”

Cassandra bit her lip, exhaling as accepted took the criticism.

He continued, “Well, it’s not as though you wouldn’t be doing much the same in a fight, but…”

“…it’s hardly appropriate for a gentle ride down the mountain path out of here,” she finished.

“Quite so,” Blackwall said. “If you promise you won’t go any faster than a trot, I’ll try to walk alongside you.”

“Very well,” Cassandra said, waiting for him to do so. He reached upwards with his hand, finding her wrist and guiding it gently as she got Princess Mairyn walking.

“Relax your grip, Cassandra,” he said gently, also glancing at her side. “At this speed you don’t need to clutch her tight with your knees either. Same holds for trotting or cantering, really. Just sit back and guide her gently. You can get her trotting with a slight kick.”

The pony started speeding up a little, and Blackwall broke into a light jog, finding the breath to say, “That’s good—don’t forget to relax. Break into a canter when you’re able to, and try that for a couple of rounds instead of forcing our poor Princess into a gallop.”

Moments later, she did that very thing, passing Blackwall thrice before bringing the pony to a far gentler halt than her first attempt, gingerly dismounting before him.

“It seems your prowess is well-earned, Ward…Blackwall,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I think you’ll find the ride down far easier without you attempting to choke Princess Mairyn with your thighs this time,” Blackwall said, before coughing politely and skipping a beat, continuing, “Should you need further guidance and should I be away on other business I’m sure you tear Dennet from his betting book.”

“I’m sure I can manage,” Cassandra said, smiling as she gazed back over to the barn. “Perhaps once you’re done making replacements you could bring them up for a game of chess. I’m sure I owe you that much, Blackwall.”

“I, ah,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “I’m hardly any good at the game, I fear. I mainly find the pieces to look pretty.”

“Oh?”, she asked, genuinely surprised. “Well, that’s even better.”

“How so?”, he asked in return.

“I get to teach you something in return, of course,” she said. “If within a month you manage to make Dorian break the board, I’ll consider it a victory.”

“I believe the pawns you play with in chess are meant to be on the board, not your friends,” Blackwall retorted.

She smiled then laughed a brilliant laugh, nearly a giggle, and turned away, saying, “It’ll be a memory to keep me warm on the mountain path to be sure. Until then, Blackwall.”

With that, she was gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the thought of seeing her again across a chessboard, and perhaps the lingering mental image of the Lady Seeker’s thighs astride that horse. No, it surely couldn’t be that. And surely Horsemaster Dennet wasn’t chuckling to himself from across the paddock, having watched the whole thing from his little shack.

Because if it was and he’d somehow engineered the whole damned thing, Blackwall swore that this was the absolute last time he baled hay for the man.

-

“Where are we going?”, Blackwall asked Cassandra as they broke off their dance, with the Lady Seeker leading him up the stairs to the Royal Wing where they had put the final pieces of Florianne’s plot together, defeating the Venatori agent’s henchmen just in time to make the dramatic entry of the century.

She turned to him with a glint in her eye, saying, “You’ll see soon enough.”

Blackwall scratched his head, hoping that all his talk of spontaneity and the half-dozen glasses of Antivan wine she’d been sipping between fights in the Winter Palace (not to mention the additional ones after they’d foiled the assassin) hadn’t gotten to her own. She certainly wasn’t behaving like she had been for the entirety of the night beforehand.

He ascended the stairs from the study into the hallways overlooking the atrium, noting the corridors leading to the courtyard in the far corner where Florianne had revealed herself to be the chief malefactor in the night’s intrigues, and the doors behind which the Empress and her relatives had been hiding their secrets—secrets which the Inquisitor had employed in her last-ditch efforts for peace, which thankfully had borne fruit.

For that matter, it was one of those very doors which Cassandra was opening, with the window still wide open from when Rivka had—

Letting his voice finish his thoughts, Blackwall asked, “Isn’t this the room where we found that harlequined assassin threatening…”

“Yes,” he heard Cassandra’s voice behind him say, along with the sound of the door closing, “This is the room which the former Grand Duchess used to live in.”

Turning around, he asked her, “Is there some reason you’ve brought me here?”

“Well,” she said, adjusting the top button on her uniform, “I knew full well that it would be the one room in the entire palace which would be unoccupied tonight.”

Looking at its four walls, he said, “That’s true enough. So, what is it that you had to show me which warranted us coming here?”

“Nothing that you haven’t seen already, to be honest,” Cassandra said, exposing her bra-bound bosom to him and letting the flaps of her uniform hang by her sides.

Blinking as he tried to keep his eyes focused upwards of her throat, Blackwall asked carefully, “Are you perhaps feeling feverish, Cassandra? I was getting concerned about all that Antivan wine you were—”

She crossed her still-sleeved arms under her breasts, interrupting him, “I am certainly not, and I don’t see a point to you being so obtuse, Blackwall. When are you ever going to get the chance to have a tryst in the Winter Palace?”

“Cassandra,” Blackwall began, “When I teased you about spontaneity, I didn’t quite have this in mind.”

“Did you not?”, she asked, closing the distance between them and turning him so his back faced the bed. “If you’ve truly been taking notes from Varric and his works, how else am I supposed to interpret you filling my ears with talk about romance late in the night, after a grand ball, in this setting of all places?”

Finding there to be no space left between the bed and his calves, he sat back and down upon it, Cassandra’s statuesque figure towering over him more so than she usually did.

Looking down on him as though a mile away, she continued, “For so long after I dared to love once again, I’d read such things, dreaming of someone to enter my life and sweep me off my feet. We have come too close to danger, separately or together, for me to leave such affairs to chance anymore.”

“I…” Blackwall stammered, “I…don’t know what to say.”

“Then stop thinking,” Cassandra responded, ordering, “And just kiss me.”

She leant in and he tilted his head up, and the familiar feeling of her lips on his filled him with a sudden warmth and passion. He eagerly nipped at her lip as her tongue danced upon his, the two of them breaking away and coming back together once, twice, then too many times to count easily.

He felt her weight lean into his as he came to lay on the Grand Duchess’ bed, their lips still locked together as he sank backwards. Cassandra came up for air for a moment. Spotting the long scar upon her cheek, Blackwall set several kisses upon it, causing her to tremble just a touch.

“You know me, and what I enjoy so well,” she said between hoarse breaths. “I couldn’t very well let this opportunity go to waste, could I?”

“No,” he answered, “Not at all.”

She smiled, cupping his face with her hands as she stroked the sides of his beard with her thumbs, then planting them on either side of him as she leant forward, drawing her knee up between his legs.

“I seem to recall that you liked this very much,” she said, gently rolling her knee towards his groin and feeling him get harder with each stroke.

Any answer was lost as his breath caught in his throat, Cassandra wantonly stroking him through her trouser leg and his, kissing him again then diving further forward and filling his view with her bosom.

“Your hands are free, are they not, Blackwall?”, she gasped, glancing at the bra still restraining her breasts. “Use that clever tongue of yours as well.”

Blackwall practically ripped the gloves off his hands, casting them into the far corners of the room as he slid his fingertips along the curves of Cassandra’s ribs, causing her to shudder momentarily, tracing them to the clasps that held her bra together. He got them to separate with some little fiddling, and he slipped the whole thing off her chest, discarding it to the side where it joined one of his gloves.

Taking her command, he lapped at her pert nipples gently at first, then again and again as his hands moved down her sides, snaking their way into the gap between her trousers and the seat of her smallclothes. Cassandra hurriedly got up to undo her belt and the button at her waistline, giving his hands just enough purchase to grasp a cheek each, groaning his name as he did so and feverishly massaging him with her knee.

His breath ragged, Blackwall gasped, “Wait. If you keep this up…”

Cassandra looked down and below at him, a smirk on her face. “Oh. I see the fabled Grey Warden stamina is rather over-vaunted?”

Shaking a drop of sweat off his brow, Blackwall said, “Something like that. Besides, you’ve barely given me the opportunity to undress myself.”

“It’s hardly my fault,” Cassandra retorted, “but very well. I might perhaps do without this jacket as well since we’ve come this far.”

She released him, standing up to let the sleeves of her top slide off her arms, the jacket landing on the floor with a gentle flumph as Blackwall sat up, removing his own and leaving himself wearing only his trousers—much the same as when they’d run into each other in the corridors of the villa where they’d freshened up prior to this very ball, on reflection.

And much like then, she was now as bare as the day she was born, albeit with no towel in sight this time. Her boots and pants, too, had been discarded, and she was now slipping her smalls down one of her long legs.

Blackwall gazed upwards at Cassandra, taking in the sight of her figure as though he’d never see it again, not like this anyway. Internally he gave thanks to the Maker for bringing this woman into her life, and for her to consider him worthy despite…well, time enough for that later. He was sure that he was mirroring the desire which filled her eyes as she gazed at him whilst unhooking her panties from around her toes, carelessly throwing them away.

Realising that he’d only gotten half the job completed, Blackwall reached for his belt before he felt her hands on his wrists.

“Wait,” he heard her say. “Let me.”

Idly thinking that this was going beyond his wildest dreams now, he released his grip and placed his hands on the edge of the bed. The tongue of the belt slipped ring by ring past the clasp, and soon he felt it loosen from around his waist, the only thing keeping his trousers on being the buttons running down the front of them.

She reached for them, saying, “Imagine this, Blackwall. If we could be like this forever…”

Asking through ragged breaths, his pulse hammering in his chest, he said, “What do you mean?”

Looking up at him, she said, “Just the two of us alone, ignoring the rest of world, making this instance last for eternity, without a care at all, of course. Is it not tempting, even momentarily?”

Letting silence descend after the question, Blackwall perked his hearing, realising that it was total silence—not even the ambient noise of the partiers or minstrels who had been providing the music for the drunken revellers after the successful conclusion of the peace forged at the Winter Ball sounded anywhere around where they were.

Sensing his discord, she asked, “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing, I…”, Blackwall trailed off, unable to put words to his uneasiness.

Smiling, she continued her work working off button after button, saying, “I don’t think we need worry. We aren’t liable to missed, not for now. Perhaps for a while yet, even?”

A deep chill running through him, Blackwall reached for her wrist, firmly guiding her hand away from the fly of his trousers. Surprised, she glanced up at him again.

“Is something truly wrong?”, she asked.

Thinking for long seconds and praying to the Maker he was wrong, mouthing for Him to forgive him should he simply be asking this question misguidedly, he eventually forced it out, feeling his eyes water at the implications of what he was about to discover.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

The woman bearing Cassandra’s likeness stood above him, hurt. “What do you mean?”

Rebuttoning his trousers and keeping his gaze fixed on the face of the stranger before him, Blackwall said, “No matter how besotted she was with someone, there’s no chance that Cassandra would ever consider a dereliction of her duty like this—certainly not whilst playing the part of a coquettish Chantry sister. And finally, we never…consummated…until after this night. Maker knows why I even went along with this charade in the first place. I’m going to ask you again, woman. Why are you pretending to be the Lady Seeker?”

“I don’t know,” she asked. “Why are you pretending to be the Warden-Constable, Thom Rainier?”

He stood up to confront her, his boots letting him reach her eye level—the real Cassandra otherwise stood a good inch taller than him—explaining, “Warden Blackwall dies two days from now, as does Thom Rainier. Once again.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the woman said, her eyes briefly flashing a demoniac purple.

“What do you mean?”, Blackwall demanded, adding, “And for the Maker’s sake, put some clothes on. I don’t need you wearing her skin so vulgarly.”

She conceded by simply wrapping the jacket around herself, exposing the rest of said skin to the rest of the world—which seemed to solely comprise of Blackwall at the moment.

“It’s hardly so complicated, Rainier,” she said. “All you have to do is sleep in too long and you’ll simply never make it to Val Royeaux on time the day after. Your secret dies with Mornay, and you can just lie when the Inquisition catches up with you here.”

Anger rising within him, Blackwall spat, “That’s all this is? Your great temptation is just the truth never coming to light?”

“No,” she said, “I had simply been offering you one final chance to experience a night with your love, without her suspecting you or your identity in the least. She certainly will be turning the meaning of that note again over and over in her head every night from now till when…when your lives go the way all things go. Why ruin this, Rainier? You seemed perfectly eager minutes ago after all, Blackwall.”

“But it’s a lie!”, he protested.

“So too has your life in all of its aspects for nearly half a decade,” the apparent demon with Cassandra’s face retorted. “What does it matter?”

“It matters. Maker forgive me for taking so long to realise this, but the truth matters. It matters to the men I’ve left to hang for my cowardice, but it matters because…because the woman you’re masquerading as deserves the truth,” he said. Bitterly laughing, he added, “It’s in her job title, after all.”

Realising he couldn’t control his laughter, and realising it wasn’t laughter at all, but the grief of years finally erupting in terrible sobs, he collapsed back onto the very bed where, if his imagination and this woman had reigned supreme, would’ve been witness to the multitude of pleasures the flesh was heir to, but now just seated a miserable shell of a man.

“Maker, forgive me,” he begged, “Cassandra, forgive me. Not for what I’ve done but for…not even then. Forget me, Cassandra.”

The spirit with her visage, now fully dressed in the same armour he’d seen the Lady Seeker wearing when they had first met on the shores of Lake Luthias, stepped forward, gently grasping his temples and planting a kiss on his forehead.

“Only the Maker knows how His children will decide to act, but I think I understand something now that I didn’t before, Thom Rainier,” she said gently. “You know your purpose, and I now know mine.”

“Purpose?”, he asked blandly.

“I…now remember a time before this,” she said, continuing, “Your fitful sleep practically screamed out to me, and I thought you to simply be easy prey at first. But this…is different.”

“I don’t understand.”

Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t either, and we may never truly do so. But I’ll see to it you have a full night’s rest and see to your own purpose, Blackwall, or Rainier. You’ve a long ride ahead from here to the capital, after all.”

With that, she stepped out of the door, the walls of the palace, along with the floor under Blackwall, breaking apart and floating through the ether as he felt himself falling, falling and falling…

=

…and waking up in cold sweat on the hard bed in the tavern. Refusing to let himself piece together the strange and disturbing dream which he’d just experienced, Blackwall threw his clothes onto himself, vaguely remembering tossing a sovereign to the innkeeper and saddling Princess Mairyn after doing so, half-dazed and half-aware as he went through the motions of leaving the place.

On the road leading out of Halamshiral he stopped at the crest of a nearby bund, turning back to look at the horizon and the dim outline of the Winter Palace for some long moments, before galloping at full speed towards Val Royeaux, where his destiny lay.