Where Duty Lies: Chapter 13 - Give and Take
Title: Give and Take
Rating: T for this chapter, M overall
Author: basbaker
Word Count: 3710
9:30 Dragon - Hawke's first year in Kirkwall
The sound of water steadily dripping echoed through the cavern. Its source was indiscernible, lost somewhere in the shadows. The crumbling hallways and vaults were indistinct in the near darkness, the only light coming from stringy patches of lichen that glowed with a pale, eerie radiance.
Tumbled about in grisly chaos, humanoid bones littered every room and passageway. They made piles taller than a man, overflowed from stone shelves, and spilled from alcoves to become pale obstacles for unwary feet. Many had become crushed over time until a coarse powder of bone and dust caked the floor. It muffled sound and rose in little choking clouds when disturbed, as it was disturbed now by slow, careful footsteps and the drag of silk and lace through the grime.
The light of a single lantern held aloft cast crazily dancing shadows and sent invisible things skittering and chittering back into darkness. Lichen dimmed to sickly green in the light, only to glow back to life once the buttery halo passed on. The lantern revealed stonework whiter than the bones that decorated it, as white as the fear-pinched face of the woman who clutched the light in a shaking hand. She was a thin woman past her middle years, with only a few strands of dark mahogany hair left amid the steel gray. Her fine, narrow features, proud carriage, and the rich manner in which she was dressed proclaimed her the noble. She looked, and felt, very much out of place.
Only a day before, she had had no idea that these passages existed. Like so many places hidden in the cliffs below and the hills above Kirkwall, this ruin had been forgotten in the mists of time. It had lain silent for centuries, watched only by the black, empty eyes of the dead - and less savory things. Undisturbed it had been until yesterday, when a trio of workers she had hired to expand her estate had unwittingly broken through one of the walls of the ruin. Bones had cascaded down upon them and a chill deeper than any they had ever known seeped into the room, into their hearts. To a man, they had fled.
Having tried futilely to get the workers to return, at last the Lady Johain Harimann had swallowed her fear and entered the dank, musty passages. She felt an immediate, chilling sense of dread, but she would not be so easily routed as the useless peasants who had created this mess. And so she began to explore. The deeper she went, the more she fancied that she could feel the fixed stares of wicked, hungry things in the darkness, just beyond the small circle of light that her lantern provided. She refused to admit to herself how terrified she was, but the shaking of her hands and the way her head whipped around at the slightest sound, dark eyes wide, told another story. Yet she did not turn back. Exploring this ruin was unwise, perhaps even dangerous, but something compelled her onward.
It was only in the deepest, furthest chamber of the ruin that she found the source of the compulsion. Now, finally, she wanted to run. But a voice spoke to her, holding her suspended even as she turned to flee.
“So... long...” the voice whispered, and it was a velvety caress to Johain's senses, making her shiver. “So long to go without company. Do not leave just yet.”
Lady Harimann turned back hesitantly. Though her mind still screamed at her to run, she found herself taking a cautious step closer.
“Yes, closer. You are afraid, but you have nothing to fear from me.”
As she took another step, the being suddenly came into sharp view in the lantern's light. Johain stood as if turned to stone, her gaze transfixed by the figure before her. She knew what it was. Having been raised a devout Andrastian, she had learned of creatures like these. This was a desire demon, one of the more powerful of the Fade's menaces. Her throat went dry as she remembered every horrible detail the Chantry had taught her of these beings and how they fed off of human emotion until they drained the life completely from their victims. But hearing about one and seeing one were two very different things, and Lady Harimann was reluctantly intrigued.
The demon was tall, far taller than the woman who stood before it, and seemed to float above the filthy floor rather than touch it. It took the form of a woman, and yet it was like no other woman that Johain had ever seen. Her skin was a dusky, pale shade of purple, and it seemed almost to shimmer when she moved, as if touched by a light invisible to mortal eyes. Her figure was perfection. Most of her slender form was bare, with only tiny golden disks at the center of each full, lush breast and a band of cloth slung low around her hips. What clothing she had was clearly designed to entice rather than conceal. Johain considered it shockingly indecent, and yet she looked, and admired, and envied.
The demon's features were too perfect, too symmetrical, and held a cruel, relentless beauty that was difficult to behold. Long, thin horns protruded from either side of her forehead, curving back and away from her face. Where her hair would have been, shadows of black and luminous violet wove together in a sinuous dance. And yet it was her eyes that drew the most attention. They were glinting black orbs with a glowing gray iris, the pupil slit like a cat's. They were fathomless and compelling, holding wisdom and seduction - the full knowledge of a woman's power offered forth, to anyone who had the strength and the will to take it.
The desire demon allowed the woman to look her fill, catching the tendrils of emotion that lifted from her and tasting them. Delicious. It had been centuries since she last had the opportunity to indulge in human emotions, and she was starved for it. It was all she could do to reign herself in, to tread lightly. There was potential here for far more than just one human. The Veil between the spirit world of the Fade and the mortal world was paper-thin here, but the desire demon had not felt any humans here for so very long. But now that the passages had been opened, she could sense others not so very far off. This first one was crucial. She had waited hundreds of years. What was a few days more?
“Wh- who are you?” Lady Harimann finally found her voice. It was no more than a whisper, quivering in the air between them.
“I am called Allure,” the demon replied, and again Johain shivered as the voice's silken cadences seemed to physically touch her. Allure almost smiled. “Please do not fear me. I have been so long alone here, in the dark. I mean you no harm, great lady. I wish only to have someone to talk to, for a little while.”
Johain knew the pitfalls, but she also knew that mages were the only ones truly in danger from Fade spirits. That was why the Chantry kept them locked away. It was common knowledge. So long as she kept her wits about her, she would be alright. And despite the sensual voice, there was a plaintive note beneath Allure's words. It pulled at Johain's sympathies. She knew what it was like to be alone.
“I suppose there is nothing wrong with talking. For just a little while,” she acknowledged, her voice stronger. It was a tone she used for those she considered her social inferiors - polite, but without any marked degree of warmth.
Allure accepted it, and inwardly she laughed. It felt so good after so long. She could feel the ambition, the discontent, in the woman before her. She could almost touch it. Soon she would know this mortal's mind, would experience her desires and feed them. She could play the part of the lackey. For now.
The desire demon spoke at length with Johain Harimann, learning far more than the woman would have thought possible from one encounter. Allure rejoiced. There was indeed much here to satisfy her appetites, and my lady Harimann would serve her every delicious bite, whether or not she knew it.
~*~
Present Day
“I need you to show me more.”
Lady Johain and Allure faced one another, but their relationship was far different now than it had been a year past. Since that day, Johain had visited the desire demon more and more frequently, until the decaying ruin felt more welcoming to her than her own home. She had whispered her darkest secrets and yearnings to the demon and had found Allure eager to help her realize even her wildest fantasies. At first, she had approached this being as an inferior, her carriage proud and erect as nobility dictated. But over time, all unawares, she had become a supplicant. She knelt now upon the dusty stone floor, looking up at her benefactress earnestly.
“More,” the being said slowly, in a voice that was both a caress and a gentle mockery. “You asked for the power to eliminate your enemies, and I gave it. The Vaels had everything that you wanted, everything that should have been yours from the start. And now, thanks to me, you have control of the entire estate and all its riches, and the Vael family is no more.”
“I know. And I paid you for that, did I not? I gave you my husband.”
She remembered it well - the night she had drugged Ruxton in order to draw a vial of his blood. Allure had needed the blood to forge a connection to Lord Harimann, one that she could use from the Fade to feed from him. At the time Johain had been sick, unable even to look at herself in the mirror. But once the demon had kept her promise and all of the Harimann wealth had been transferred to Johain, somehow her self-disgust had faded.
She had been wealthy enough to place bribes with certain people close to the Vaels, leaving them vulnerable. She had hired mercenaries unscrupulous enough to kill innocents, for no Vael of the ruling line could be allowed to survive other than the one she chose. Of course, those mercenaries had failed thus far to kill Sebastian Vael. He had shown little interest in reclaiming Starkhaven beyond petitioning the Viscount for aid, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he moved to take the throne. And now that he was allied with Lady Hawke, that time seemed ever more imminent.
Unable to stand the thought of losing all that she had sacrificed for in the past year, Johain had found another band of cutthroats to serve her needs. They would handle Prince Sebastian where Flint Company had failed, and the allies he had gained in Kirkwall. Johain was poised now to put her own puppet on the throne and nothing was going to stop her. But for that she needed more than money. She needed power.
“Yes, you gave me your husband,” Allure acknowledged, satisfaction threading through the throatily spoken words. “And he has proved to be quite... interesting.” Devout Andrastians made for such exquisite sensations. They had so much pent up emotion and desire, smothered by guilt but always percolating just beneath the surface. Ruxton's desires seemed endless, but the truth was that Allure was using him up quickly. Soon he would be nothing but an empty shell, and then he would be dead.
“But what you ask of me is no small thing, dear lady.”
“You said you could show me,” Lady Harimann whispered, daring to raise her eyes to meet those of Allure fully. “The nobles of Starkhaven will not just accept that fool, Goran. They have their own schemes now that the throne sits empty. With the blood magic, I could persuade them otherwise.” She knew what she was asking, the evil of it, but with her goal in sight, there was no measure too great.
“Oh yes, I can show you that and many other things. But my services are not without price.” Allure said, her voice seductive. She ran a hand tipped with sharp crimson nails unconsciously over her form, sparking a sudden heat deep inside Johain. The woman swallowed, closing her eyes as images flitted through her mind, leaving her breathless.
“My son... Brett,” she heard herself say, and a tiny, appalled voice cried out inside her. It was only for a short while, she told herself. This would be the last time she would need Allure's help. With the power she promised, Johain would be able to accomplish anything. It was only for a little while.
“Your son,” the desire demon purred. “Yes. We have a bargain. It is as before. Bring me a small amount of his blood, and the magic that I know will be yours.”
She swayed closer, cupping the noblewoman's face in one slim hand, caressing. “You are wise, Lady Johain. Small sacrifices must often be made in order to remove the obstacles that bar our way to what we truly desire most, to what we deserve. You will be a formidable ruler, as you should have been all along.”
Johain smiled up at Allure, a faithful hound to its mistress. “I will bring you the blood this very night.”
“I will be waiting.”
~*~
Sebastian hovered on the edge of awareness. The fever that had ravaged him for the past three days had finally broken, leaving the prince weak. He heard masculine voices nearby, but he recognized neither of them, and opening his eyes to look was too much of an effort. His body felt heavy and ungainly. The throb of pain in his side communicated itself faintly even in his half-awake state, making him that much more reluctant to come fully around. But the voices persisted in their steady, quite drone, prodding him slowly from sleep.
“...unsure whether or not he would pull through, but he is strong. The blood loss alone would have been touchy, but combined with the fever - most men would have been dead. He is very fortunate.”
“The men I sent to scout reported back. He killed three of them, probably that night of the storm.”
“No mean feat. But he has certainly paid for it. Now that he's out of danger, he should recover fully. Keep that wound in his side clean. I had to lance it to drain the infection. The stitching will take some time to heal.”
“Have no fear, serrah. I am not about to let the Prince of Starkhaven die in my very house. My daughter is skilled in the healing arts, and she will tend to him personally. We will have him back on his feet in no time.”
“It is my honor to do so,” a quiet, feminine voice entered the conversation. The clear, cultured tones brought Sebastian more fully to awareness. Slitting his eyes, he looked around, but was frustrated in his search for the voice's owner by the curtain that was drawn around the bed he occupied.
“He is in good hands then,” one of the men said, a smile in the words. “With your leave, I will return home.”
“Thank you, Richard,” the other man replied, and Sebastian heard the hearty clap of a hand to a shoulder. “You have done my family a great service, and you will be rewarded for it.”
“Not at all, my lord. It was my pleasure. If you have any further need of me, just send for me.”
“Farewell, serrah,” the woman said.
The sound of a door opening and closing preceded the lord's next words. “Well now, Daughter, do you have everything you need to tend to our patient?”
“Yes, Father. The healer was very thorough in his instructions.”
“He said that the prince spoke at times in his delirium. That he spoke one name often - Hawke. Do you have any idea who this is?”
There was a palpable silence before the woman responded. “A friend. Perhaps more. Whatever his dreams or memories of this Hawke, they seemed to bring him little ease. He recited the Chant of Light more often than not, though. Perhaps the rumors are true, and he has become a brother.”
Sebastian closed his eyes, suppressing a groan. Even delirious, he had been unable to keep Hawke out of his thoughts. He wondered what he might have said, and felt himself blushing as those memories of the fiery mage intruded. Maker, anything but that.
“Perhaps. But it makes no difference. He is the last of his line, with all the responsibilities that entails. He will do the right thing.
“Call me when he is awake. I would like to find out exactly what happened on the road.”
“Of course, Father.”
Footsteps sounded, moving away, and once again the door opened and quietly closed, leaving Sebastian alone in the room with the unseen woman. Listening for it, he heard her quiet tread as she moved closer to the bed. Deceit went against his nature, and so when the curtain was pulled back by a slim, elegant hand, his eyes remained open. When he saw the face of his nurse, they widened.
She was quite simply breathtaking. Eyes the green of a forest pool peered at him from a heart shaped face framed by soft, guinea-gold hair. Her complexion was clear, the skin pale as cream with touches of rose in lips and cheeks. The gentle features matched the voice that he had heard perfectly. Sebastian did not bother to hide his admiration any more than he would have hidden his admiration for a masterful painting or sculpture. This was exactly the sort of woman that he would have pursued in his youth. But that was before the Chantry, and it was before Hawke. Unconsciously, he had already compared the beauty before him to Hawke, and found her lacking.
For her part, the woman was studying Sebastian quite seriously. Whatever she thought of him, it did not intrude upon her serene countenance. Without ceremony, she put a cool hand to his brow and nodded once in satisfaction.
“The healer wanted me to give you a draught to keep you sleeping, but I prefer my patients to be awake as often as possible. You will heal faster if you are aware and taking an active part in the process.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said, or tried to. But his throat was dust-dry and his voice refused to obey him.
The woman smiled slightly and left his side, returning after a moment with a goblet. Sebastian tried to take it from her, but found himself too weak to do much more than lift his head from the pillow. The wound in his side made itself felt with a sharp stab of pain.
“No you don't,” the woman admonished him softly. “Here.” She set the goblet down long enough to slide an arm under his shoulders, lifting him. When she placed the goblet to his lips, he drank the water down greedily.
“Thank you, lady,” he managed finally as she lowered him back.
“Your strength will return,” she promised him gently. “You've had a fever ever since the merchants brought you to us. It broke only this morning. I am actually surprised to even find you awake. But then, the healer said that you are exceptionally strong-willed.”
“Stubborn, many would say,” Sebastian smiled crookedly. “But if it keeps you from having to wait on me as you would a babe, stubbornness is a good thing.”
“Oh, you aren't such a bad patient. And Father would suffer no other to tend to you, all things considered.”
“What things? Who is your father? Forgive me, but the last thing I remember is being attacked in the night.”
The woman perched carefully on the side of the bed, looking down at him with her calm, serious eyes. “Yes, you were attacked. Most of your wounds were superficial, but two were quite bad - one in your leg that must have bled terribly. And another in your side. You apparently cauterized it yourself.” The last was said with a look of undisguised admiration. “And it was a lucky thing that you did. You would have surely bled to death by the time the merchants found you.
“They brought you to Tantervale, and since you were obviously no commoner, my father was called. He recognized you.” She smiled then, nodding at the understanding that dawned in his eyes. “Yes, my father is Lord Windborne, Second Chancellor of Tantervale.”
Sebastian's brow furrowed as he tried to remember the events of that night. But all he could bring to mind were disjointed images. He remembered grabbing his bow and quiver and running into the woods. He remembered the smells of damp, loamy earth and fresh rain. He remembered loosing his arrow and the feeling of satisfaction as it hit his target. And Maker help him, he remembered the glow of his knife before he pressed it to his own flesh. He shook his head slightly, letting his eyes slip closed once more. Andraste's mercy, but he was tired. When the slight weight next to him on the bed lifted, he forced his eyes open to find his nurse.
“Wait,” he whispered. “What is your name?”
She turned her head back, looking at him over one slim shoulder. “Genevieve.”
“Thank you, Genevieve.”
“Get some rest. There will be plenty of time later for talk.”
She disappeared once more around the curtain that kept him isolated from the rest of the room. By the time the door closed quietly behind her, Sebastian was already asleep.
A/N: Sorry this took so long. After my last entry came Easter weekend, which meant family time. Then I got sick, so I was out of it for a couple of days. I took a couple of days after that to play Mass Effect 2 (again :P), and then when I came back to what I had already written for this chapter, I hated it and scrapped it all. So here is the freshly minted chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
Rating: T for this chapter, M overall
Author: basbaker
Word Count: 3710
9:30 Dragon - Hawke's first year in Kirkwall
The sound of water steadily dripping echoed through the cavern. Its source was indiscernible, lost somewhere in the shadows. The crumbling hallways and vaults were indistinct in the near darkness, the only light coming from stringy patches of lichen that glowed with a pale, eerie radiance.
Tumbled about in grisly chaos, humanoid bones littered every room and passageway. They made piles taller than a man, overflowed from stone shelves, and spilled from alcoves to become pale obstacles for unwary feet. Many had become crushed over time until a coarse powder of bone and dust caked the floor. It muffled sound and rose in little choking clouds when disturbed, as it was disturbed now by slow, careful footsteps and the drag of silk and lace through the grime.
The light of a single lantern held aloft cast crazily dancing shadows and sent invisible things skittering and chittering back into darkness. Lichen dimmed to sickly green in the light, only to glow back to life once the buttery halo passed on. The lantern revealed stonework whiter than the bones that decorated it, as white as the fear-pinched face of the woman who clutched the light in a shaking hand. She was a thin woman past her middle years, with only a few strands of dark mahogany hair left amid the steel gray. Her fine, narrow features, proud carriage, and the rich manner in which she was dressed proclaimed her the noble. She looked, and felt, very much out of place.
Only a day before, she had had no idea that these passages existed. Like so many places hidden in the cliffs below and the hills above Kirkwall, this ruin had been forgotten in the mists of time. It had lain silent for centuries, watched only by the black, empty eyes of the dead - and less savory things. Undisturbed it had been until yesterday, when a trio of workers she had hired to expand her estate had unwittingly broken through one of the walls of the ruin. Bones had cascaded down upon them and a chill deeper than any they had ever known seeped into the room, into their hearts. To a man, they had fled.
Having tried futilely to get the workers to return, at last the Lady Johain Harimann had swallowed her fear and entered the dank, musty passages. She felt an immediate, chilling sense of dread, but she would not be so easily routed as the useless peasants who had created this mess. And so she began to explore. The deeper she went, the more she fancied that she could feel the fixed stares of wicked, hungry things in the darkness, just beyond the small circle of light that her lantern provided. She refused to admit to herself how terrified she was, but the shaking of her hands and the way her head whipped around at the slightest sound, dark eyes wide, told another story. Yet she did not turn back. Exploring this ruin was unwise, perhaps even dangerous, but something compelled her onward.
It was only in the deepest, furthest chamber of the ruin that she found the source of the compulsion. Now, finally, she wanted to run. But a voice spoke to her, holding her suspended even as she turned to flee.
“So... long...” the voice whispered, and it was a velvety caress to Johain's senses, making her shiver. “So long to go without company. Do not leave just yet.”
Lady Harimann turned back hesitantly. Though her mind still screamed at her to run, she found herself taking a cautious step closer.
“Yes, closer. You are afraid, but you have nothing to fear from me.”
As she took another step, the being suddenly came into sharp view in the lantern's light. Johain stood as if turned to stone, her gaze transfixed by the figure before her. She knew what it was. Having been raised a devout Andrastian, she had learned of creatures like these. This was a desire demon, one of the more powerful of the Fade's menaces. Her throat went dry as she remembered every horrible detail the Chantry had taught her of these beings and how they fed off of human emotion until they drained the life completely from their victims. But hearing about one and seeing one were two very different things, and Lady Harimann was reluctantly intrigued.
The demon was tall, far taller than the woman who stood before it, and seemed to float above the filthy floor rather than touch it. It took the form of a woman, and yet it was like no other woman that Johain had ever seen. Her skin was a dusky, pale shade of purple, and it seemed almost to shimmer when she moved, as if touched by a light invisible to mortal eyes. Her figure was perfection. Most of her slender form was bare, with only tiny golden disks at the center of each full, lush breast and a band of cloth slung low around her hips. What clothing she had was clearly designed to entice rather than conceal. Johain considered it shockingly indecent, and yet she looked, and admired, and envied.
The demon's features were too perfect, too symmetrical, and held a cruel, relentless beauty that was difficult to behold. Long, thin horns protruded from either side of her forehead, curving back and away from her face. Where her hair would have been, shadows of black and luminous violet wove together in a sinuous dance. And yet it was her eyes that drew the most attention. They were glinting black orbs with a glowing gray iris, the pupil slit like a cat's. They were fathomless and compelling, holding wisdom and seduction - the full knowledge of a woman's power offered forth, to anyone who had the strength and the will to take it.
The desire demon allowed the woman to look her fill, catching the tendrils of emotion that lifted from her and tasting them. Delicious. It had been centuries since she last had the opportunity to indulge in human emotions, and she was starved for it. It was all she could do to reign herself in, to tread lightly. There was potential here for far more than just one human. The Veil between the spirit world of the Fade and the mortal world was paper-thin here, but the desire demon had not felt any humans here for so very long. But now that the passages had been opened, she could sense others not so very far off. This first one was crucial. She had waited hundreds of years. What was a few days more?
“Wh- who are you?” Lady Harimann finally found her voice. It was no more than a whisper, quivering in the air between them.
“I am called Allure,” the demon replied, and again Johain shivered as the voice's silken cadences seemed to physically touch her. Allure almost smiled. “Please do not fear me. I have been so long alone here, in the dark. I mean you no harm, great lady. I wish only to have someone to talk to, for a little while.”
Johain knew the pitfalls, but she also knew that mages were the only ones truly in danger from Fade spirits. That was why the Chantry kept them locked away. It was common knowledge. So long as she kept her wits about her, she would be alright. And despite the sensual voice, there was a plaintive note beneath Allure's words. It pulled at Johain's sympathies. She knew what it was like to be alone.
“I suppose there is nothing wrong with talking. For just a little while,” she acknowledged, her voice stronger. It was a tone she used for those she considered her social inferiors - polite, but without any marked degree of warmth.
Allure accepted it, and inwardly she laughed. It felt so good after so long. She could feel the ambition, the discontent, in the woman before her. She could almost touch it. Soon she would know this mortal's mind, would experience her desires and feed them. She could play the part of the lackey. For now.
The desire demon spoke at length with Johain Harimann, learning far more than the woman would have thought possible from one encounter. Allure rejoiced. There was indeed much here to satisfy her appetites, and my lady Harimann would serve her every delicious bite, whether or not she knew it.
~*~
Present Day
“I need you to show me more.”
Lady Johain and Allure faced one another, but their relationship was far different now than it had been a year past. Since that day, Johain had visited the desire demon more and more frequently, until the decaying ruin felt more welcoming to her than her own home. She had whispered her darkest secrets and yearnings to the demon and had found Allure eager to help her realize even her wildest fantasies. At first, she had approached this being as an inferior, her carriage proud and erect as nobility dictated. But over time, all unawares, she had become a supplicant. She knelt now upon the dusty stone floor, looking up at her benefactress earnestly.
“More,” the being said slowly, in a voice that was both a caress and a gentle mockery. “You asked for the power to eliminate your enemies, and I gave it. The Vaels had everything that you wanted, everything that should have been yours from the start. And now, thanks to me, you have control of the entire estate and all its riches, and the Vael family is no more.”
“I know. And I paid you for that, did I not? I gave you my husband.”
She remembered it well - the night she had drugged Ruxton in order to draw a vial of his blood. Allure had needed the blood to forge a connection to Lord Harimann, one that she could use from the Fade to feed from him. At the time Johain had been sick, unable even to look at herself in the mirror. But once the demon had kept her promise and all of the Harimann wealth had been transferred to Johain, somehow her self-disgust had faded.
She had been wealthy enough to place bribes with certain people close to the Vaels, leaving them vulnerable. She had hired mercenaries unscrupulous enough to kill innocents, for no Vael of the ruling line could be allowed to survive other than the one she chose. Of course, those mercenaries had failed thus far to kill Sebastian Vael. He had shown little interest in reclaiming Starkhaven beyond petitioning the Viscount for aid, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he moved to take the throne. And now that he was allied with Lady Hawke, that time seemed ever more imminent.
Unable to stand the thought of losing all that she had sacrificed for in the past year, Johain had found another band of cutthroats to serve her needs. They would handle Prince Sebastian where Flint Company had failed, and the allies he had gained in Kirkwall. Johain was poised now to put her own puppet on the throne and nothing was going to stop her. But for that she needed more than money. She needed power.
“Yes, you gave me your husband,” Allure acknowledged, satisfaction threading through the throatily spoken words. “And he has proved to be quite... interesting.” Devout Andrastians made for such exquisite sensations. They had so much pent up emotion and desire, smothered by guilt but always percolating just beneath the surface. Ruxton's desires seemed endless, but the truth was that Allure was using him up quickly. Soon he would be nothing but an empty shell, and then he would be dead.
“But what you ask of me is no small thing, dear lady.”
“You said you could show me,” Lady Harimann whispered, daring to raise her eyes to meet those of Allure fully. “The nobles of Starkhaven will not just accept that fool, Goran. They have their own schemes now that the throne sits empty. With the blood magic, I could persuade them otherwise.” She knew what she was asking, the evil of it, but with her goal in sight, there was no measure too great.
“Oh yes, I can show you that and many other things. But my services are not without price.” Allure said, her voice seductive. She ran a hand tipped with sharp crimson nails unconsciously over her form, sparking a sudden heat deep inside Johain. The woman swallowed, closing her eyes as images flitted through her mind, leaving her breathless.
“My son... Brett,” she heard herself say, and a tiny, appalled voice cried out inside her. It was only for a short while, she told herself. This would be the last time she would need Allure's help. With the power she promised, Johain would be able to accomplish anything. It was only for a little while.
“Your son,” the desire demon purred. “Yes. We have a bargain. It is as before. Bring me a small amount of his blood, and the magic that I know will be yours.”
She swayed closer, cupping the noblewoman's face in one slim hand, caressing. “You are wise, Lady Johain. Small sacrifices must often be made in order to remove the obstacles that bar our way to what we truly desire most, to what we deserve. You will be a formidable ruler, as you should have been all along.”
Johain smiled up at Allure, a faithful hound to its mistress. “I will bring you the blood this very night.”
“I will be waiting.”
~*~
Sebastian hovered on the edge of awareness. The fever that had ravaged him for the past three days had finally broken, leaving the prince weak. He heard masculine voices nearby, but he recognized neither of them, and opening his eyes to look was too much of an effort. His body felt heavy and ungainly. The throb of pain in his side communicated itself faintly even in his half-awake state, making him that much more reluctant to come fully around. But the voices persisted in their steady, quite drone, prodding him slowly from sleep.
“...unsure whether or not he would pull through, but he is strong. The blood loss alone would have been touchy, but combined with the fever - most men would have been dead. He is very fortunate.”
“The men I sent to scout reported back. He killed three of them, probably that night of the storm.”
“No mean feat. But he has certainly paid for it. Now that he's out of danger, he should recover fully. Keep that wound in his side clean. I had to lance it to drain the infection. The stitching will take some time to heal.”
“Have no fear, serrah. I am not about to let the Prince of Starkhaven die in my very house. My daughter is skilled in the healing arts, and she will tend to him personally. We will have him back on his feet in no time.”
“It is my honor to do so,” a quiet, feminine voice entered the conversation. The clear, cultured tones brought Sebastian more fully to awareness. Slitting his eyes, he looked around, but was frustrated in his search for the voice's owner by the curtain that was drawn around the bed he occupied.
“He is in good hands then,” one of the men said, a smile in the words. “With your leave, I will return home.”
“Thank you, Richard,” the other man replied, and Sebastian heard the hearty clap of a hand to a shoulder. “You have done my family a great service, and you will be rewarded for it.”
“Not at all, my lord. It was my pleasure. If you have any further need of me, just send for me.”
“Farewell, serrah,” the woman said.
The sound of a door opening and closing preceded the lord's next words. “Well now, Daughter, do you have everything you need to tend to our patient?”
“Yes, Father. The healer was very thorough in his instructions.”
“He said that the prince spoke at times in his delirium. That he spoke one name often - Hawke. Do you have any idea who this is?”
There was a palpable silence before the woman responded. “A friend. Perhaps more. Whatever his dreams or memories of this Hawke, they seemed to bring him little ease. He recited the Chant of Light more often than not, though. Perhaps the rumors are true, and he has become a brother.”
Sebastian closed his eyes, suppressing a groan. Even delirious, he had been unable to keep Hawke out of his thoughts. He wondered what he might have said, and felt himself blushing as those memories of the fiery mage intruded. Maker, anything but that.
“Perhaps. But it makes no difference. He is the last of his line, with all the responsibilities that entails. He will do the right thing.
“Call me when he is awake. I would like to find out exactly what happened on the road.”
“Of course, Father.”
Footsteps sounded, moving away, and once again the door opened and quietly closed, leaving Sebastian alone in the room with the unseen woman. Listening for it, he heard her quiet tread as she moved closer to the bed. Deceit went against his nature, and so when the curtain was pulled back by a slim, elegant hand, his eyes remained open. When he saw the face of his nurse, they widened.
She was quite simply breathtaking. Eyes the green of a forest pool peered at him from a heart shaped face framed by soft, guinea-gold hair. Her complexion was clear, the skin pale as cream with touches of rose in lips and cheeks. The gentle features matched the voice that he had heard perfectly. Sebastian did not bother to hide his admiration any more than he would have hidden his admiration for a masterful painting or sculpture. This was exactly the sort of woman that he would have pursued in his youth. But that was before the Chantry, and it was before Hawke. Unconsciously, he had already compared the beauty before him to Hawke, and found her lacking.
For her part, the woman was studying Sebastian quite seriously. Whatever she thought of him, it did not intrude upon her serene countenance. Without ceremony, she put a cool hand to his brow and nodded once in satisfaction.
“The healer wanted me to give you a draught to keep you sleeping, but I prefer my patients to be awake as often as possible. You will heal faster if you are aware and taking an active part in the process.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said, or tried to. But his throat was dust-dry and his voice refused to obey him.
The woman smiled slightly and left his side, returning after a moment with a goblet. Sebastian tried to take it from her, but found himself too weak to do much more than lift his head from the pillow. The wound in his side made itself felt with a sharp stab of pain.
“No you don't,” the woman admonished him softly. “Here.” She set the goblet down long enough to slide an arm under his shoulders, lifting him. When she placed the goblet to his lips, he drank the water down greedily.
“Thank you, lady,” he managed finally as she lowered him back.
“Your strength will return,” she promised him gently. “You've had a fever ever since the merchants brought you to us. It broke only this morning. I am actually surprised to even find you awake. But then, the healer said that you are exceptionally strong-willed.”
“Stubborn, many would say,” Sebastian smiled crookedly. “But if it keeps you from having to wait on me as you would a babe, stubbornness is a good thing.”
“Oh, you aren't such a bad patient. And Father would suffer no other to tend to you, all things considered.”
“What things? Who is your father? Forgive me, but the last thing I remember is being attacked in the night.”
The woman perched carefully on the side of the bed, looking down at him with her calm, serious eyes. “Yes, you were attacked. Most of your wounds were superficial, but two were quite bad - one in your leg that must have bled terribly. And another in your side. You apparently cauterized it yourself.” The last was said with a look of undisguised admiration. “And it was a lucky thing that you did. You would have surely bled to death by the time the merchants found you.
“They brought you to Tantervale, and since you were obviously no commoner, my father was called. He recognized you.” She smiled then, nodding at the understanding that dawned in his eyes. “Yes, my father is Lord Windborne, Second Chancellor of Tantervale.”
Sebastian's brow furrowed as he tried to remember the events of that night. But all he could bring to mind were disjointed images. He remembered grabbing his bow and quiver and running into the woods. He remembered the smells of damp, loamy earth and fresh rain. He remembered loosing his arrow and the feeling of satisfaction as it hit his target. And Maker help him, he remembered the glow of his knife before he pressed it to his own flesh. He shook his head slightly, letting his eyes slip closed once more. Andraste's mercy, but he was tired. When the slight weight next to him on the bed lifted, he forced his eyes open to find his nurse.
“Wait,” he whispered. “What is your name?”
She turned her head back, looking at him over one slim shoulder. “Genevieve.”
“Thank you, Genevieve.”
“Get some rest. There will be plenty of time later for talk.”
She disappeared once more around the curtain that kept him isolated from the rest of the room. By the time the door closed quietly behind her, Sebastian was already asleep.
A/N: Sorry this took so long. After my last entry came Easter weekend, which meant family time. Then I got sick, so I was out of it for a couple of days. I took a couple of days after that to play Mass Effect 2 (again :P), and then when I came back to what I had already written for this chapter, I hated it and scrapped it all. So here is the freshly minted chapter. Hope you enjoy it!