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Beyond the hardy pines clinging to the cliff's edge, the Skyhold signal horn rang out. Cassandra stalled her horse to better make out two short blasts: allies coming in. She'd ridden out along the craggy ridge that spread from the end of the stone bridge and tipped into the gorge that made Skyhold all but unassailable. Both the horse and Cassandra herself had needed an outing. One could only wait idly for so long, but with the Inquisitor's expected return so near, Cassandra didn't dare commit to any task that might take her out of the castle.
She gave the mare her head, and they careened down towards the lone road climbing to Skyhold. Pebbles scattered under the horse's hooves. A Fereldan thoroughbred, she was more at home on these mountain meadows and snaking footpaths than her rider.
The party of four cantering towards the bridge seemed truncated. Cassandra sought the silverite edge of Blackwall's shield or the scarlet of Sera's tunic in vain. A guard rode in the front and at the rear in the green hoods of Inquisition troops. The second rider in the group raised her head up, spotted Cassandra on the slope conjoining the road, and waved. As her movement dropped back her cowl, the wind caught her hair like a tattered banner.
The first reason for Cassandra's concern had been the Inquisitor's safe return. The second, more guarded reason, whose growing importance she could sense but not quite define to her satisfaction, was calling out a greeting into the breeze.
She guided her huffing horse down to the road and joined the riding party. "You are a sight for sore eyes, Lady Josephine. Are the others coming?"
Josephine smiled, her green eyes warm and weary, gesturing at her party to go on. The bridge began barely a hundred paces ahead. "Lady Lavellan and your other companions are on their way. We had word of new rifts near Lydes, so I was left to return alone by ship. She insisted."
While the news did little to quell Cassandra's private anxieties, she said, "I understand. It is a duty only she can do."
"Ser Blackwall and Master Solas will not let her come to harm--oh." Josephine's reassurance was halted by Cassandra's horse nuzzling at her sleeve. "I'm sorry, Halimede. I don't have any carrots this time."
"Carrots?" Cassandra tugged the mare's head away. Then, "You know what I named her?"
"Master Dennet, I'm afraid, has spilled your secret. I hear she's quite the firebrand, but you've made fast friends at last."
Cassandra's eyebrows crept into nonplussed curves. "Yes. I believe we have. You find time to visit the stables, too? When do you sleep?"
Josephine laughed, clear as a bell. "I do try to meet everyone that stays at Skyhold. But I've always been fond of horses. When my duties permit..."
"It is a haven?" Cassandra said in a quieter tone.
"A comfort when I need a moment away." Turning her mount, Josephine steered him forward. "I go to the garden or the stables. Master Dennet is kind enough to pretend he doesn't notice when I sneak apples to the horses."
"That's a feat of diplomacy only you could accomplish. How did your visit to Val Royeaux go?"
A remark from Leliana had led Cassandra to understand that Josephine's journey had involved a personal reason. She'd gone on official Inquisition business--her devotion to her work might not have allowed an absence otherwise--but she'd handled some family matter as well as attending the audiences of potential allies.
"Not entirely well." Tendrils of dark hair drifted over Josephine's cheek as her eyes wandered across the stone-strewn gorge surrounding Skyhold. "It seems there is an assassin's contract on me."
Cassandra gaped. It took her a moment to work up a hoarse "What?"
"The House of Repose--you know of the guild, I'm sure--has a contract to kill any Montilyet that tries to trade in Orlais. You know I was hoping..."
Josephine might have calmed her spirits over the matter, but Cassandra had smacked face-first into the shock of it. Her hand went to her sword, as if assailants might clamber onto the bridge at any moment. "You have assassins after you, and you sent you guards ahead?"
Ducking her head, Josephine caught an errant lock of her hair in her fingers. "You were here, Lady Cassandra."
Cassandra loosened her grip on the hilt. Something in Josephine's gentle emphasis made it hard to look at her. "Well. Perhaps next time you wish me to serve as your bodyguard, you'll tell me when I am to begin." Even if she'd striven for sternness, the words came out rather soft.
The wind carried the noises of the raised portcullis and the soldiers toiling at the pulleys, interlaced with the clang of a forge hammer and the shouting of workers in the bailey. The painted gelding Josephine rode stepped restlessly, eager to finish this final leg of a taxing ride.
"I... I shall," Josephine said. "I was happy to see you. This was a longer absence than a diplomatic detour to Redcliffe."
Even with her misgivings about lurking assassins, Cassandra couldn't gainsay that. She nodded to confirm Josephine's sentiment, and they let their horses trot the last distance to the shelter of the walls.
* * *
Cassandra climbed the stairs to the old solar with a heap of armour pieces balanced on her shoulder. Once upon a time, the sunny rooms at the top of the main keep had been reserved for some time-forgotten ruling family. In keeping with Antivan tradition, Josephine had commandeered them as a haven for the women of Skyhold. In honesty, Cassandra had only seen Sera slink out of the solar once, and shortly afterwards Josephine's attachée had appeared in a state of towering distress, because Lady Montilyet's ambassadorial seal was nowhere to be found.
The seal later reappeared at the bottom of Cullen's ale tankard at the Herald's Rest. Cassandra had thought of taking Sera to task over it, then thought again. If the Inquisition purported to serve a pure cause, the occasional yank earthward from its lofty station was not a bad thing.
Most often the solar was for Josephine and her scribes, Vivienne sitting in the ample light with her correspondence, or Leliana in a moment of rare idleness, strumming her lute on the windowsill. Cassandra was an uncommon visitor, but if she chanced to come up, her preferred reading place, the settee by the southern window, always seemed to be empty.
This morning one of the dainty Orlesian tables had been pulled to the settee. Fat raindrops pelted the window, but a candle set in a glass lantern spread warm light. Josephine was tapping her quill on a piece of paper already full of splotches and struck-out sentences--a sketch leaf of sorts. She had a pristine, creamy sheet pinned to a writing board at her elbow.
"Good morning." Cassandra looked about, thwarted by this claiming of her spot. On the other hand, she should hardly spread her mess of equipment on the brocade-covered settee.
"Ah." Josephine's head snapped up. "Pardon me, I was lost in thought. I must get this wording right, and my formal Nevarran has gone sadly unused."
Cassandra unloaded her burden into Leliana's window alcove. Josephine eyed the tangle of strips, buckles and riveted leather. "I take it you also came up here to work."
"I thought I would," Cassandra said. "It's a little wet today to do armour repairs in the bailey."
She sent up a brief prayer that Josephine wouldn't mention her dragging the better part of her kit up four flights of stairs. Concealing ulterior motives was far from her forté.
"Please do. There is room." Josephine frowned at her notes and then at the glossary opened on the corner of the desk.
"Why not simply write in Common? Anyone of any importance in Nevarra will know it."
"Yes," Josephine sighed, "but Lord Kalos is... eccentric. And very traditional."
"Clan Kalos of Mount Windspur?" Fragments of childhood lessons fell together in Cassandra's mind. "Maker's breath, have they not tumbled down the mountain with the ruins of their keep yet?"
Josephine gave that husky giggle of scandalised delight that had been Cassandra's entire purpose in choosing her phrasing. "Goodness, well. They haven't, and I must ask a favour of them. I'm not sure if I'm humbly requesting an audience with the head of the clan or, ah, suggesting that we begin a discreet affair."
"That old chestnut." Cassandra finished arranging her armour pieces, rags and tools to her satisfaction. Unbuckling her sword belt, she hung it across a corner of the settee, so she could reach it with a single step from where she sat. "I am a little rusty myself, but I should remember how not to proposition surly clan-lords. Allow me?"
A glimmer of relief lit in Josephine's eyes. "So you are a champion of correspondence, as well as of truth and justice, Lady Cassandra?"
"If it is required." Cassandra had to clear her throat.
"In that case I shall allow you, by all means." Josephine made room for Cassandra to take a seat next to her.
* * *
Leliana had been casting appraising sideways glances at Cassandra for most of the meeting. The Inquisitor and Cullen were immersed in a debate in lowered voices. Lavellan almost never raised hers, but there'd been some mention in a report that had clearly agitated her. Josephine muttered something about a matter she might handle while they finished, and slipped out of the war room in a swirl of skirts.
"I have people watching over her, Cassandra."
Cassandra turned in mid-step, aborting what she now realised had been an instinctive course to the door. "I... would expect no less."
"If you kept a closer guard on her, you'd be sleeping at her doorstep." Leliana folded back her hood. By now Cassandra was sure she mostly wore it for effect. The sinister, subtle Left Hand, slipping a blade or a well-chosen word into every seam of weakness. The thought distracted her from the unwelcome heat creeping up her neck.
"Of course I am concerned," she said. "Her life is in constant danger."
"I didn't see you trailing Iron Bull's every step when he broke ties with the Ben-Hassrath." Leliana lifted one of Cullen's carved troop markers from the table in what was certainly a loaded gesture.
"Iron Bull is a seven-foot-tall trained killer, Sister Leliana. The comparison hardly stands."
"Josie was quite clear about wanting to do things her way." Leliana's tone sparked a flicker of sympathy in Cassandra. "I told her I could handle the House of Repose."
"She refused?" Cassandra knew that Josephine had requested the Inquisitor's patience in the affair, but it shouldn't have surprised her that Leliana also had a part in it. The long friendship and deep regard between the two were plain to see--and gave Cassandra an incentive to navigate this bog of a conversation with as much grace as possible.
"She has her reasons. I do what I can to make sure she can hold to them. What else is an old friend to do?"
Cassandra shrugged in sympathy, some of her tension dropping away. "She's fortunate to have you."
"Oh, I know." Leliana skipped the wooden marker along the length of the Drakon River. "And you. I never said you should stop, Cassandra. Only that it's rather obvious what you're doing."
An urgent look to their left assuaged Cassandra that the Inquisitor and Cullen were too engaged to be overhearing them. Their tones had settled into something resembling a reasoned discussion, which still stranded Cassandra with Leliana and that unsettling little smile at the corner of her mouth.
"I believe it was you who decided I had no subtlety." Cassandra tried to sound curt.
"Neither did I say that was a bad thing," Leliana said, humming. "It's a good balance, I think."
"A good balance with what exactly?" All that this setup was missing was Varric, or maybe Solas, come up to play Leliana's partner in insufferable riddling.
"Between forthrightness and delicacy, perhaps?"
Before Cassandra could formulate a response to that, the Inquisitor returned to the table, adjusting her fitted jerkin with a self-effacing air. "I believe the commander and I are in agreement now. We can continue."
Leliana dropped the troop marker into the box reserved for them and leaned in beside Cassandra's shoulder. "If you're missing an opening, she's been pining after Antivan firefruit for months. They should just be coming to season in the Minanter Valley."
"I... see."
Cassandra left a good many of her conversations with Leliana feeling as if she'd missed something. That was not new. When Josephine blew back in the door with apologies for her absence, Cassandra focused on the colours and contours of the opened map, so as not to meet someone's eyes and give away her slowly stirring thoughts.
* * *
It could take weeks for Inquisition requisitions to arrive at Skyhold. With summer coming on, supply routes ran as swiftly as they ever would, but Cassandra added her private notes to an outbound purchase order and settled in to wait.
Word flew from Crestwood of a high dragon that had entrenched itself in the ancient ruins at the bottom of a sunken valley. With poorly concealed trepidation, Lavellan asked Cassandra to join her in the attempt to quell the beast. It would claim a couple of weeks of their time, if they were lucky, and bring calm to a harried region and prestige--and influence--to the Inquisition.
Before their departure Cassandra drew Leliana aside and, halting and solemn, reaffirmed that Leliana would maintain a guard on Josephine. Josephine's more urbane efforts to solve the problem hanging over her were bearing fruit, she'd confided in Cassandra one evening over supper. She just needed some more time, and a few additional favours.
Leliana smiled, squeezed Cassandra's forearm and bade her good hunting. Cassandra rode out thinking that for once in her life she had grasped Leliana's meaning.
In the end the dragon lay dead in the fen, the carcase being stripped of useful parts by the chief tanner, her apprentices, and a dozen sweating, groaning Inquisition soldiers. Cassandra yanked off her sweltering helmet to find an opalescent scale trapped in the hinge of the visor. It had fallen from the dragon unscratched. It flexed slightly as she bent it, and shone with hues of vivid amber and violet. The sun gilded the scale a deep tawny colour, green at the edges, and her throat thickened inexplicably.
The scale remained wrapped in a square of cloth and hidden in her bag after their return. The short warm months were packed with activity: Cassandra went an entire week without seeing the Inquisitor, Josephine or Vivienne, each submerged in diplomacy of their own particular strain. She took refuge in her sparring sessions with Iron Bull and Blackwall, and, as always, woke even earlier than usual on the day the courier was due.
She'd been hunting for her vanished Seeker brethren since winter. Her most promising lead had withered to nothing at Wintersend. Soon enough she'd have to request Josephine's or Leliana's help; her own resources, never sumptuous, were on the verge of being exhausted.
This sultry, stormy day, she'd kept glancing at the gate throughout the day. When the gatehouse guard signalled an inbound rider, the evening shadows already sat velvety upon the muddy bailey. Cassandra waited for the man to divide his urgent dispatches to the seneschal and to Leliana. Before she could even approach, he sought her attention. "Seeker Pentaghast. I was given something for you."
Wayward hope rose in her heart, only to be replaced by confusion as the courier untied a small wooden crate from his saddle.
"What is this?"
"Antivan firefruit, Lady Seeker. To be carried with all haste, I was told."
Cassandra took the crate, which spread the lush, cloying fragrance of fruit just on the edge of being overripe. "Thank you."
The courier led his soaked horse towards the stables, and Cassandra was left in the quietening bailey to consider. Out of necessity she'd stepped back her efforts to play sentinel to Josephine: her ambassadorial duties demanded a lion's share of her time. As pleased as Josephine most often seemed to see Cassandra, she did try to make time for everyone that came to her. Cassandra could hardly press that principle.
She also had a reason for a brief visit. She could check if Josephine were up, and perhaps exchange a few words. Bring her the blasted fruit at least, while they were still sweet.
* * *
She chose a dozen of the fruit, specimen whose dull brown, springy skin was unbruised and whole, and laid them out on rough, clean linen. It wasn't the most ornamented of gift baskets, but it would hopefully serve.
A stripe of candlelight spilled from beneath the door to Josephine's study, and a watchful soldier stood beside it. Cassandra nodded to the woman with approval and rapped on the door.
"Cassandra!" Josephine scampered up from behind her desk. Her expression opened into surprise from a pensive knit of brows. "Please, come in, I haven't seen you in--are those what they seem to be?"
Shutting the door with her free hand, deprived of her chance to make a courteous gesture of the fruit, Cassandra held them out. "Yes. I hope so, Lady Josephine."
Josephine put away her quill. Her desk was lit with candles shut in lanterns to safeguard the heaps of letters and reports, agreements and ledgers. The late evening showed in her bearing: her chain of office had been unclasped from her neck, and she wore a wide-hemmed, sleeveless kirtle over a shirt of fine linen. She clearly had not been expecting visitors. Then again, neither was Cassandra, in her shirtsleeves and comfortably worn leather breeches, cutting the most dashing silhouette she might have.
Josephine's mouth curled into a brilliant, incredulous smile as she reached to take a fruit. "How did you manage this? Are they..." She didn't seem to dare complete the question.
"They are for you," Cassandra said, then wished she could swallow her blunt words. When she'd scribbled down the requisition, it hadn't truly connected to the moment when she was supposed to present the fruit to Josephine.
"Maker's grace, I won't ask what went into getting them here." Josephine set the basket on a miraculously empty corner of her desk. "Thank you. Thank you so much." She squeezed Cassandra's hand, lingering there, and Cassandra let her shoulders drop loose.
"It was no trouble." It was becoming worth every bit of her expense.
"Have you ever had one? A firefruit?" Josephine stepped back. Her fingers left a trace of warmth on Cassandra's own.
"I do not think so. They do not really look like much."
Josephine laughed. "Appearances can be deceiving. They are incomparable with mint and a scoop of cream, but I could eat them just like this." She tilted her head. "I'm sorry. There's a letter I really must finish, but if you don't mind waiting a moment, we could split one? Or even two?"
"I could start with the one," Cassandra said, and allowed herself to go on, "I don't mind. My duties are done."
"There are some books on the bottom shelf." Josephine gestured towards the nook set up by one high window: a settee framed by a bookcase and a many-branched iron holder where two candles burned. "I'll only be a moment."
Tilting the scabbard at her hip so she could sit comfortably, Cassandra pulled out a volume of Orlesian poetry. The author's name was lost to time, but their chanson de geste rendition of the Battle of Ayesleigh roused and held her interest. Josephine's quill scratched paper in a measured, efficient rhythm. One of the candles guttered, and Cassandra rose to cut away a bit of the soft tallow to reveal the wick.
She was sliding the candle back onto its stick when the door was turned. "Yes?" said Josephine. The sound of her quill halted.
She'd hardly spoken by the time a scout, his hood raised, stepped up to her desk and sketched a respectful half-bow. "Word from the spymaster, Lady Montilyet."
"This late? What is the matter?" Josephine pushed her chair back, heavily, so that its feet ground against the floor. She never looked away from the scout, her shoulders strung with tension. "I thought Leliana had retired."
Across her brightly illuminated desk, the man raised his arm. Cassandra made to shout and then snapped her mouth and eyes shut as the smoke bomb smashed onto the stone floor.
It had been thrown to incapacitate Josephine, who'd had the sense to keep the large desk between herself and the attacker. He was in the light, Cassandra herself in the half-shadow created by the lone candle. She had a crucial instant before he spotted her movement.
Exhaling the last of her lungful, she drew her sword and moved. The dregs of the grenade fouled the air, stinging her nose. A strangled hacking came from her right, but she couldn't go to Josephine now. The attacker rolled under her first swing and tumbled onto his feet, his face obscured by the cowl. He struck with a spare, precise economy of movement, the dirk in his hand glancing from Cassandra's hastily turned blade.
She shouted as she riposted, knowing time to be on her side. Josephine's study was right off the main hall; even with the late hour, a commotion could only go unheeded for so long. They circled, the assassin doing his utmost to crowd Cassandra and her longer blade in the confines of the room. She struck a gash in his forearm. He sidestepped towards the desk, spattering the papers with blood. Flinging a book from the desk into her face, he used that distraction to hammer a hobnailed boot heel into her knee.
Thwarted by her own reflexive hobble, Cassandra almost collided with the tall candle holder. She spied Josephine's dishevelled hair behind the desk and heard her give a wretched, gagging sound. As the would-be assassin loomed closer, dirk at the ready, Cassandra grabbed the candle holder and heaved it forward with all her strength.
The candle went out at her pull, but the liquid tallow spilled across the man's head. Candle spikes caught in his short sleeve.
Reaching out as he fell, he seized a firm handful of Cassandra's shirt front, and she stumbled forward after her balance. Her breath tore out of her as the dirk sank into her stomach, a vicious, stubborn stab. She straightened with a tooth-gritting effort, trod on the man's weapon hand and swept the blade away from him with her boot.
"Not. A twitch." Her sword's point found his throat. Blood soaked her hip and thigh. It might have been a lucky blow, but the wound bled too swiftly for her comfort. If the blade had gone deep enough, she might have a punctured organ.
He stayed silent. In another moment she might have approved of his discipline, but trying to focus consumed her faculties. He also might not wish to live to test the Inquisition's powers of interrogation. "Josephine?" Cassandra called, her voice going faint. Her hand on her stomach could not suffice to stem the bleeding.
"Cassandra?" Neither did Josephine sound her best, but her feet shuffled for purchase.
"Call for help. Now." Short, straightforward command. The essence of their need. She had to stay lucid.
Snake-quick, the assassin grabbed for the blade of Cassandra's sword. His reinforced glove made for a grip that almost unarmed her, before she pulled back her weapon, swore at the stars flaring in her eyes, and plunged the blade down into his leg. He screamed.
As if that blow had cost her too much, she teetered, her sword clanging to the floor.
"Oh," Josephine said, anguished, from somewhere very far away. "Oh, my dear."
A cloud of papers billowed up from the desk as Cassandra staggered into a corner of it, her head ringing. Josephine’s choked voice rose into a shout for help. Cassandra, for her part, tasted copper and bile, and everything went dark.
* * *
A tart-sweet smell in the air slid into Cassandra's awareness. She'd fallen into a light sleep, her pains cushioned by a draught of elfroot and blood lotus. For the first time since her initial recovery of consciousness, she scanned her surroundings: the grey stone of the main keep showed on the ceiling and the walls, which were hung with simple, floral tapestries. Neither the infirmary nor her quarters above the forge, then.
"You're awake," Josephine said from beside her, soft as a breath. Cassandra veered, well as she could lying down, and slumped back into the bed as the movement tore at her abdomen.
"Yes," she said, exhaling. "Where is this?"
"My room." Josephine set down the round-tipped silver knife that she was using to peel a fruit. "Your lodgings are rather noisy, and the infirmary... Well. I insisted."
"The lady ambassador is not concerned for the propriety of a wounded woman in her bed?" She ought to have been proud of how she did not stutter. But Josephine's voice was too low, too careful.
"I'm sharing with Leliana until you are better. Besides, I'll give my bed to my saviour if I so wish, and any wagging tongues may go tie themselves in knots." Josephine brought her hand to Cassandra's hair, which was certain to be matted and mussed by the pillow. Her fingers held the same tangy fragrance that Cassandra had smelled.
"I came to see you on a whim." Her own words were a whisper. She let Josephine stroke through her hair.
"Your whim saved my life." When Josephine sought her gaze, Cassandra made herself meet her. In the afternoon sun, her eyes were the colour of the dragon scale, green striated with gold.
Because anything she did could not help but be foolish, Cassandra drew Josephine in with a sleep-heavy hand until their heads rested together. "I'll return your bed posthaste, I promise. And... you should thank yourself. If you had not stalled him, I wouldn't have realised anything was wrong."
"I recognised him," Josephine mumbled. "He was hired as a stonemason, not as a scout."
Cassandra almost pointed out that the truth would be drawn from the man. It would have been an idle observation, and not one she wanted here souring the quiet nearness, the moment strung between them.
"Bless your memory for faces."
Josephine shifted, one knee on the bed, curved meticulously beside Cassandra so as not to disturb her injury. "I do wish he'd never come. I thought I had the time to solve this without any more lives being lost. I almost did, Cassandra."
"You did not choose when he would act," she said, knowing it to be little consolation.
Josephine's sigh blew against the crown of Cassandra's head. "I'm going back to Val Royeaux to finalise the arrangements. The Du Paraquettes will have their status restored, and this will be over."
"It must be difficult sometimes," Cassandra said, half to herself. "Living as if the world were a much better place than it is."
A moment passed, sunlit and silent, before Josephine spoke. "I believe it's worthwhile. Every time a bann lays down her sword and speaks to her freemen instead of killing one as an example, or someone shows mercy instead of the door to a vagrant... I am a drop in a river. I know that. But it is said that everything precious is worth striving for."
She meant, of course, her bright, unreachable dreams of peace in a world groaning at the seams as it was. Cassandra heard a gentle opening there, an unwitting one, perhaps, and how many had she already missed in the last months?
"When you return..." She couldn't quite sit up, but she could lay a light hand on Josephine's side. Josephine's eyes widened. "If you do not think it too forward, we should speak. You and I. There is the matter of..."
"Of us?" Josephine's mouth curled, her teeth tugging at her lip and then releasing it and a breathless laugh alongside.
"Perhaps. That is, I..." Why had she opened her mouth? There was no way out, she was trapped in this bed and in Josephine's glimmering eyes, free and adrift.
"Oh, my dear," Josephine said again, in a note of fathomless fondness, and kissed her.
After the first stunned breath that almost derailed the kiss, Cassandra let herself fall into it in all its newness and tenderness. Her hand clasped Josephine's cheek. Josephine slotted her own fingers over Cassandra's to keep it securely there.
"I... take it that I was not too forward," was what she managed to put together as Josephine withdrew.
"If you'd made me wait all through a month of sailing and riding, I'd have sent a strongly worded letter with every raven. And let Leliana read them first."
"Ah. Neither is the lady ambassador above resorting to blackmail, I see." Josephine's back was warm under her hand, bent towards Cassandra.
"Kiss me again, and it may not be needed."
Cassandra did, soft and studying, laced with laughter.