#they are probably like 3 times my age

[sillinesslolz]

Guys, hear me out. (on both?!)

[xbomboi]

i’ve got a question to ask out of curiosity about the eah community’s general consensus

since the books and the show have different continuities and also within the world of the supplementary Ever After High media, the books themselves differ in continuity depending on series/author, i have a feeling this answer could vary depending on one’s bias…

i’m not adding an “other” option because you’re crazy if you think they met in infancy/as toddlers or if you genuinely believe the beginning of canon in the show (start of legacy year) is legitimately when they first meet.

[mollyrolls]

several hits of my cart in and it’s tasting like it’s time to bite the bullet and write an akaashi series

[moth-spiderling]

Things do get better.

Life can be cruel and unforgiving, like a writer killing off the most beloved characters and making everyone suffer through a lot. Yet every bad moment eventually shall pass.

We don't stop reading a book, just because the writer made things seem grim for a bit. We shouldn't stop living just because we're afraid it'll get worse.

Things can go badly, sure, but they can also turn out for the better. You can also survive.

Even giving up for a day, a month, a year, does not mean your life is not worth living.

It doesn't mean you're gonna be stuck here forever. It just means that for now, maybe for a long time now, things have been rough.

And you need a break, and a hug.

And someone to tell you, that you are very much loved, even if Life (as the most bitter and inspired writer) has decided to take it out on you.

You are loved, you're not weird, and you deserve good, beautiful, lovely things.

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

kids being kids (they're brainstorming ways to rip apart the new initiates)

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

RiAAU Sasha's complicated relationship with her adoptive parents, Percy and Braddock, stems from an awkward mixture of unconditional love, resentment over their inability to protect her from Grime in her childhood, and their fear of what she's become.

[cuteniaarts]

@katkastrofa, circa 40-ish hours ago: Hey, what if our newest bunch of OCs adopted a baby from one of the other brothel girls who knew she couldn’t afford to raise one? That would make for some fun shenanigans :D

Me, with a notoriously non existent sleep schedule, instinct of self preservation or concern for my poor wrist: Alright, bet. Watch how fast I can make you fall in love with this hypothetical baby >:)

Daneli as a gentle and loving caretaker-turned-adoptive-mother is something that can be So Personal, actually, and originally I was going to leave it at this quick sketch, but then I got carried away thinking about what this child will grow up to be like raised by this little gang of misfits, so…

Here she is!! A little older and so, so beautiful, I need more of her in my life immediately, she’s way too precious

And, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t also add a sapphic element to this absolute cinnamon roll, a small crack ship that I’m only half serious about for when she’s a little older still:

All in all, we may be getting impossibly far from canon, but I for one already cannot get enough of sweet darling Kumisai <3

(I fully drew three pieces from scratch in 9 hours I cannot feel my brain or my hands anymore send help)

[pink-lemonadefairy]

bye bye july ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ 🌼🌱🫧🌸🦋🌻🌺🎨 you were lovely

[nero-neptune]

shout out to this movie for teaching me how to spell words that i've never found the opportunity to use in real life lol

[stinkrascal]

you know what though i am gonna change elisen’s vallaslin color

[bonestrouslingbones]

btw one of the things i want to do when i really rap up atbb for real is spontaneously get the energy at will to do actual updated fullbodies of the main 4 since now i actually have the ability to draw them the way they look in my head & have the skills to put some more variety in their shapes. basically i wanna

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[sysig]

When you weren’t looking (Patreon)

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread    

The Art of Prophecy

Wuxia inspired epic fantasy

about a spoiled prophesied chosen one who’s never been in a real battle

the greatest war artist of her generation takes things into her own hands and decides to train him, but things go wrong and they both have to go on the run

martial arts, bounty hunters & assassins, some steampunk vibes, mentor relationships

no romance!

this is so fun and funny I loved it.  the MCs three awesome baddass women and one pathetic teen boy and i love them all

[shift-shaping]

nine arrows

enaste meets the duke of wycome.

rating: m

pairing: solavellan

warnings: still pretty bad latin, blood

<- prev fic | next fic ->

first fic in this series

previous fics | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Enaste and her companions followed Lady Volant's directions to the room where she'd last seen the Duke. She took a moment to heal her finger before they went on; something about facing a blood mage with an open wound concerned her. 

Much of the manor was dark, its long hallways lit only by the glow of Enaste's staff and the occasional lantern. She could see beyond the light, the shadows full of depth and detail until their darkest points, but the blackness was still somehow suffocating.

They approached a large room off one of the main corridors. She could hear the rain outside, pounding against glass windows. Something prickled along her skin, and though she scratched at her arms through her clothes, the itch remained.

She looked back at her companions. Jester was directly behind her, bow drawn, a sheathed dagger at each hip and a series of small grenades attached to a sturdy leather belt around their waist. Beside Jester was Elion, as quiet and confident as Enaste had ever seen him with their clan, wielding a larger and more powerful bow than Jester that bore intricate carvings from their clan's craftsmen. Instead of grenades, he bore several flasks of poison on his belt. Cole took up the rear, his daggers glinting in the dark.

All four of them were still dressed in the clothing they'd left Clan Lavellan wearing, all black and deep brown and green as dark as winter pines. They'd chosen colors that would blend in well with the night and make them harder to spot, but now that she eyed her party, she saw that they looked very much like assassins.

As she crossed the threshold, she dropped her hood. Before her was a large room just as lavishly decorated as the others she'd seen in the manor. Several dark red couches and armchairs filled the center, and towering bookshelves occupied the walls. Above them was a balcony that wrapped around the room, supported by several thick columns of black-veined marble. Eyes gleamed in the darkness above them, watching her entrance in tight silence.

A massive fireplace roared against the far wall. Before it stood a stout human man in expensive, yet disheveled clothing. He had a thick silver beard and a mostly bald head. Red armchairs sat on either side of him.

Enaste stepped carefully into the room, feeling the floor first on the balls of her feet, then her heels. "Are you Duke Antoine of Wycome?" Her voice was louder than she expected it to be in the tall, echo-y room.

The Duke nodded. "Are you who I suspect you are?"

Her companions followed behind her. She remained tense. "That depends who you're expecting."

He eyed them with a slight smile. "A Dalish mage with raven-black hair and a glowing green hand? I have seen many elves tonight, but none so striking as yourself, Lady Inquisitor." His voice was gentle and friendly, and rumbled with age. He gestured to one of the armchairs. "Come, please, sit. I would enjoy some conversation, if it pleases you."

She did not move. "My ambassador told me you were under the control of a blood mage in the service of a Tevinter magister. Is that true?"

He looked down at the floor --dark hardwood panels polished to a glossy sheen. He closed his eyes for a long moment, then shook his head. "It was, but I am under no compulsion now. However, I understand if you do not believe me."

Enaste glanced over her shoulder. "Cole? Is he telling the truth?"

Cole frowned, staring at the Duke. "I... Think so. You are you. But you weren't always completely you. Before, at the party, on the walls, you were someone who isn't you, your skin a cloak for someone else. It hurt, you and them, but --you didn't push them away." He shook his head. "There is magic here, but you are not under the blood mage's control." He looked up at the balcony, at the eyes shining in the darkness. "They are."

Enaste stared into the shadows, and with focus came the outlines of at least nine archers, all elven, all completely still. Their arrows were drawn: within less than a second, the most skilled of them could pull back their bowstring and fire.

She reached for her staff, and the Duke held up his hands. "Wait." Her fingers wrapped around the grip of her weapon, but she otherwise stilled. "You have nothing to fear, my lady. The mage, the one who commands them, would not see you harmed. And neither would I."

She narrowed her eyes. "I have already been harmed here, as have my allies."

"And I sincerely apologize for that." His voice teetered between nervousness and earnestness. "It was a terrible error, a miscalculation on the part of Magister Malchus."

"And you expect me to believe you?" She shook her head, but dropped her hand from her staff. "My allies have seen what you did to the wells. You use red lyrium on your own people."

He sighed. Regret drew heavy on the lines of his face, cast in shadow by the fire at his back. "I realize it is all very confusing. Please, Inquisitor, allow me to explain." He gestured to the armchair again.

She looked at her companions. Jester shook their head quickly. Elion stared up at the balcony of archers. She turned back to the Duke. "I was advised to kill you on sight. Why shouldn't I follow that advice now?"

"Because I have information you would likely wish to hear."

She hesitated. The Duke sat down in one of the armchairs and waited for her to join him. Her mouth was dry, her body heavy. So long as she was in this room at all, she was in danger. She could kill him and leave, risking death from above, or she could figure out some way for them both to escape alive.

And admittedly, that chair looked pretty comfortable.

"Fine," she said finally. She took her staff from her back and drew a barrier around herself for protection. "My allies will be safe as well?"

"Of course."

She stared at him a moment longer, then joined him in one of the large armchairs by the fire. The seat gave in easily beneath her, the cushion soft and pliant. Still she sat near its edge, her back straight, one hand holding her staff in front of her.

"Thank you," he said as he sat back. He closed his eyes for a moment, and his relaxation was at odds with the nine arrows poised to turn them both into pincushions.

She lowered her voice. "Do you even know what red lyrium is? It turns people who come into contact with it mad. It drove the Knight-Commander of Kirkwall insane and led to countless abuses in the city's Circle. It is a tool of Corypheus, and of Tevinter."

The Duke opened his eyes just enough for her to see their gleam in the firelight. "And you are a tool of the Chantry, and of the Orlesian Empire."

She shook her head, exhausted, frustrated, the absurdity of what he said enough to make her head ache. "No, I am not. I know the magister has filled your head with lies about what the Inquisition does, but look at me," she gestured to her companions. "And look at my allies. How could a bunch of elves and apostates be tools of the Chantry?"

He glanced at her party, then sat forward in his seat. "Inquisitor, I would ask that you try to see this from the perspective of the city of Wycome." She sighed, but he went on. "We are a small city on the edge of the world, surrounded by greater nations that would happily swallow us whole. For ages, through Blight and famine and conspiracy and plague, we have scraped out our independence--"

"And you throw it away at the first offer of power."

"Power?" He asked, frowning. He shook his head, bushy white eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "The sky is broken and demons are running about and you think we grasp at power?"

"You wouldn't be the first," she said wearily. She sat back from him, one hand on her staff and the other balled into a fist on the armrest.

He glanced at the fire, then at his feet, then at her. "Your Inquisition. What is its goal?"

She frowned, annoyed that he had been so thoroughly fooled that he even felt the need to ask. "Could you not have asked my ambassador this?"

"I want to hear it from you," he replied evenly.

Something snarled inside her and she rolled her eyes. He was drawing this out, asking inane questions just to test her patience and buy himself a few more minutes of life. "I am very tired, and I'm not here for you to waste my time."

"I understand that." He leaned forward. The firelight danced in his eyes. "Is it not an easy question?"

"It is an easy question." Annoyance bubbled in her chest like acid. "The Inquisition exists to stop Corypheus from destroying the world." Her voice came out clipped, obviously irritated, yet laced with exhaustion. "You could have heard that from my ambassador, or from a pamphlet, or from a child begging on your streets."

He considered this, then asked her another question: "and what then, when Corypheus is defeated?"

"We won't have any reason to exist." Obviously. "There will be no more Inquisition."

"Is that what happened to the old Inquisition?"

"Yes."

He shook his head, but his gentle expression remained. "No. The Inquisition of old became the Seekers and Templars, the strongest arm of the Orlesian Chantry."

"But they did stop being the Inquisition," she cut in quickly, her words short and cold. "That's what I meant."

"Of course." He conceded. He was mocking her. "So you understand then, that the Inquisition became a weapon of Orlais?"

"That's not true, you're twisting the facts," she spit back.

"And the modern Inquisition, with its Orlesian castle and Orlesian leaders and Orlesian priests, it is different from that?"

"Our leaders aren't Orlesian. I'm the Inquisitor, and I'm not Orlesian. I just told you we aren't a tool of the Chantry, I-- I barely know the language."

"But your founders are the former left and right hands of the Orlesian divine?" He spoke faster now, his voice more certain. "And your territories are spread throughout the empire? And you seek the support of the Orlesian empress?"

"I'm not --I didn't choose any of those things." She hadn't wanted any of this. She only came here to protect her clan --she didn't even care what happened to his nobles and their wells. This conversation was pointless and she was falling for his trap but she couldn't see its purpose –and she couldn't find a way out. "Why are you asking me this as if it's my decision?"

He was quiet for a time then, looking away from her and up to the balcony where the archers stood in tense, heavy silence. Enaste's cheeks burned. She stared at the fire.

"Inquisitor," he spoke softly, but she kept her eyes on the flames. "I am asking you these questions so that you understand what I mean when I tell you that a choice between two empires is hardly a choice at all. I allowed Malchus to stay in Wycome because he and his Venatori promised this city its independence, and their protection."

He was stupid, and naive, and cowardly; that was explanation enough for her. Her upper lip curled in disgust. "Did we not promise you independence as well? But you didn't trust us, so instead of taking our word, you betrayed the Inquisition and let an agent of Corypheus experiment on your human population --leaving the elves to clean up your mess." She glanced at the balcony. "Though I suppose you're used to that."

"You are an elven prophet in the Orlesian Chantry." She grit her teeth. "If we fully allied with you, we would be giving our support to an organization that threatens everything about our way of life." He shook his head and leaned towards her.

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, suddenly recalling why Bran had wanted him dead in the first place. "Your way of life. How often does it involve cutting off servants' hands?"

He looked confused for a moment, frowning, then his expression fell to one of deep regret. He shook his head and directed his gaze elsewhere. "Only once. It was a terrible and complicated situation."

"How complicated could it possibly be?" She scoffed. "Your kind call mine savage, but not even the worst of my people would resort to such brutality."

He looked up at the balcony again. Did the archers above them understand their conversation? Did they bristle, somewhere inside, at the reminder of the 'terrible and complicated situation' that led to the destruction of their Vhenadahl?

"I understand why the story you likely heard would be upsetting, Inquisitor." He shifted in his seat. "It was not a decision made lightly."

"Given your other decisions, I find that difficult to believe."

"It was a compromise. The servant you speak of stole from both myself and my guests." The floor creaked underneath them. Rain pounded at the windows. "We learned he took something from one guest that she could not replace: a pendant passed down from her mother, who had passed away long ago. She was devastated. Her husband demanded the servant's head." He paused, looking at the fire. "I recommended we exile him instead. It was not enough." He exhaled slowly. "She said if she couldn't have his head, she would have his hands." He shrugged --tired, hopeless. "I agreed."

Even if she saw logically why he'd done what he did, it was still cruel and unnecessary. In a place like this, where the only work left to elves was hard, grueling, menial labor, such a thorough disfigurement was hardly better than killing him outright. She tried to imagine it, opened and closed her hands and tried to imagine what she would do if even one were gone.

And to think that was the lesser of the Duke's cruelties. "You sent him back to the alienage like that. And you were surprised when the elves were angry."

"Anger, I understood," he said quietly. "Even hatred. So long as they knew who to be angry with." He swallowed. "I was foolish to think they would save their rage for myself."

"The leader of the alienage said you called a few petitioners a riot."

He hummed. A dark, aching heaviness weighed on his voice as he spoke. "It was not a riot. It was an assault." He cleared his throat and looked up at her from under his eyelashes. "Inquisitor, in all your time in this castle, in all your ambassador's time, have you or your allies seen any members of my household besides myself and my servants?"

She watched him. Something tightened in her chest. "No. I have not." She should have noticed that earlier. A man of his age and wealth, with no family to speak of, would be extremely unusual.

He nodded. "The elves took out their rage on them." The wind howled outside, and in its strange, hollow moan lent his words an undercurrent of painful, haunting grief. "What happened that night left my son unable to care for himself. His wife feeds him from a spoon. My grandson suffers severe headaches and can scarcely leave a dark room. My granddaughter--" he stopped and shook his head. "Has yet to remember what was done to her. I sent them far away, to a place I hope none will follow."

Enaste didn't want to believe him. This version of the story could easily have been invented to sow mistrust between herself and her allies. It felt wrong to doubt him when his eyes looked so hollow and the lines of his face were wrought with so much guilt and pain, but she knew an expert could wear any mask convincingly. Regardless, she still saw the destruction of the Vhenadahl as a step too far: why punish the entire alienage for the actions of a few monsters?

"What I ordered my men to do was unjust and unworthy. It was a decision made in grief and anger." He finally looked at her. "I wanted them to feel the hurt I did. I wanted to send a message. But what I did was cruel, and unnecessary." He glanced up at the balcony. "And I am deeply, unspeakably sorry."

She sucked in a slow, shaky breath and closed her eyes. "If you're so sorry, why did you use elves as the scapegoat when your red lyrium started making people sick?"

He was quiet then, brows furrowed, apparently considering his answer, before he frowned at her in confusion. "Inquisitor, I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to."

She sighed, frustrated again now that he was back to wasting her time. "You hired mercenaries to attack my clan so you could convince your nobles you were doing something about the 'elven plague.'"

For the first time in their conversation, the Duke looked genuinely lost. Even when she had pushed back at him or been outright annoyed, he'd remained poised and confident. Now he was taken aback. "I... I'm sorry, Inquisitor, I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

She threw up her hands. "How do you expect me to trust anything you say if you won't admit to the one thing I know you were responsible for?"

"He's trying to confuse you," Elion said quietly, and Enaste looked at him. He stood stoically a few feet away, bow still in his hands. His eyes shined like a cat's in the dark.

The Duke glanced at him, then brought his attention back to Enaste. "How are you so confident in my involvement?"

"Because I found your mercenaries and talked to them myself," she replied, exasperated. "They told me you hired them to harass my clan."

He blinked in confusion and shook his head. "Inquisitor, with all due respect, the only information I know about your clan is that it is your clan. The only reason to attack your people would be to draw you, personally, to Wycome. If I wanted to do that, I would send a letter." He ran his hand over his beard. "Deliberately invoking the wrath of the Inquisition by attacking the family of its leader would be suicidal."

"You are a very good liar," she spat.

"No," Cole said suddenly. Both Enaste and the Duke turned to look at him. "He's not lying. He really doesn't know."

She frowned, not understanding. Perhaps the magister hired them then. Or another noble on behalf of the Duke. What did it matter anyway? She knew it was done on his behalf, whether he knew about it or not. "Cole." He stared at her, unmoving. "Is the blood mage still here?"

He looked up at the balcony and squinted at the dark. "Yes."

Enaste stood slowly. Tension strummed tight and thick around her. She turned in a circle, taking in the archers, glaring into the dark, looking for anyone out of place. "What do you want?" She called out. Her voice echoed amongst the towering vaults of the ceiling. "I know you are loyal to the magister. I also know you are an extraordinarily gifted mage." She took a deep breath. "I don't want to fight you. I just want to talk."

Silence met her words. She peered at the blinking eyes of the elven archers, their bodies painfully, almost unnaturally still, like statues atop a castle wall. Then she heard a quiet shuffling, and the floor above groaned amidst the ghostly wind.

She turned around and looked up at the balcony. A thin young man with short, dark hair and shining eyes leaned into the railing, arms crossed, watching her. Blood dripped from his hand to the hardwood floor below.

"You're an elf," she said softly.

He looked down at his bleeding hand, his expression distant, and drew some of the blood up and swirled it around his fingers. Then it vanished into the air, likely to feed the spell he used on the archers.

"Do you know who hired the mercenaries that attacked my clan?"

"I'm afraid he speaks precious little common, Inquisitor," the Duke said gently.

She looked at him over her shoulder. He had stood up as well. "What does he speak?"

"Tevene alone, as far as I'm aware."

"Dirthas elven?" She asked the blood mage. He said nothing, and she took that as a 'no.' "Tell him I just want to talk."

The Duke cleared his throat, then repeated her words in a different tongue. The blood mage raised his chin, as though appraising them all, then spoke to her in heavily-accented common. "I do not wish for you to save me."

Her brows furrowed. "When did I offer to save you?"

He paused, reflective eyes flicking over her, then shook his head. "You put me back in chains."

"No," she said clearly. "I have no interest in that. I told you, I just want to talk."

"I do not want to talk to you." He stepped back from the balcony, towards the shadows behind him.

"Wait. Just wait." She didn't understand any of this. What did he know about the mercenaries? Why was he so loyal to the magister? Why did he think she would put him in chains? Who was he?

The Duke called out to him then, in swift, shaky Tevene. "Si non manseris, indicabo ei quod de te scio."

The sudden volume and confidence of the blood mage's voice surprised her. "Tu nescis quid mihi nocere posset."

"Nullum?" The Duke called back. "Quid de nomine tuo?"

The blood mage gave a disinterested shrug. "Multa nomina habeo."

For a brief moment, she heard only the rain, the fire, the breathing of the many people in the room. Then the Duke shifted his weight, and gave the blood mage a pitying look. "At nemo tam magnus est quam ille Malchus in cubiculo suo te vocat."

The blood mage's eyes widened. He stepped towards the railing again, and Enaste saw his eyes glow white with power. "Quae utilitas vestra superstite?" He hissed.

Cole jolted forward and grabbed Enaste by the shoulder. She whipped around to look at him, and in that instant nine arrows sliced through the air. Pain erupted on the side of her face. Jester called out to her. Warmth covered her cheek as she stumbled past Cole, ignoring his pleas.

The arrows weren't meant for her, or for her allies. Each one had sunk deep into the Duke's head and chest, every shot lethal. His knees collapsed and he fell heavily to the floor. His eyes were wide and searching, stuck in a permanent state of shock. Enaste wiped moisture from the side of her face, and earned herself a bright, stinging pain that sent shockwaves across her right eye.

"Inquisitor!" Jester gasped. The amount of blood in Enaste's eye was so rapidly overwhelming her periphery that she could barely see them. "You're hurt, here, let me help you." They started pressing a bandage to Enaste's face, but she pushed them away.

"The blood mage--" Enaste started, but no matter where she looked she saw only blurry shadows.

"He's already gone," Cole said softly.

"How is that possible?" Enaste asked. The pain blooming over the side of her face made speaking difficult.

"He knew the way out," Cole replied.

She looked over at the body of the Duke, at the arrows jutting from his body. They were obviously elven arrows. Someone must have taught the elves of the alienage how to craft them like her people did.

She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. Even if they removed every arrow, the assumption was obvious –a group of elves had killed the Duke of Wycome. There would be no going back now: the coup Bran had wanted so badly had begun.

translation notes — "si non manseris, indicabo ei quod de te scio." - if you do not stay, I will tell her what I know of you.  "tu nescis quid mihi nocere posset." - nothing you know can hurt me. "nullum? quid de nomine tuo?" - nothing? what about your name? "multa nomina habeo." - I have many names. "at nemo tam magnus est quam ille Malchus in cubiculo suo te vocat." – but none so important as what Malchus calls you in his bedroom. "quae utilitas vestra superstite?" - to what end are you still alive?

<- prev fic | next fic ->

follow on ao3 here!

[bmpmp3]

fish......