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Built on Bones
Neve watched the city burn from a spot up on Andoralis Ridge. The dragon had finally relented, turned tail, and flown into the dark. She’d seen the flash of wings through the smoke as it disappeared over the wall. High above the city, the palace had a few lights winking here or there but hung silently through the entire disaster. It was as useful as a child’s toy strung up above the cradle while a snake struck.
She had seen Rook and Lucanis not long after the dragon had vaulted the wall and vanished. They’d been too late to do anything. It had all already gone so far sideways that it was tumbling off a cliff before they showed up. The two of them had taken the grey warden and gone to Treviso. Bellara and Harding had come to stand with her. A pair of archers, a frost mage, and a handful of Shadow Dragons against a dragon. It hadn’t been a fair fight.
It shouldn’t have come to them.
Minrathous was the capital of the imperium. Half the continent flinched when Tevinter’s politics shifted. Minrathous was the jewel in that crown, an unconquerable city. Centuries ago, they’d finished their genocide, founded their city, and built those walls. That was the history they’d all been born under. The trade-off for all that evil, the promise that kept the wheels turning and the people from asking too many questions, was that you were safe here.
Minrathous stood against blights.
Minrathous stood against wars.
Minrathous was eternal.
It had always been a lie. The walls had stood against it all but they were built on bones and blood and suffering. Those walls were held up by slavery and poverty. The promises of safety and eternity and power were promises for only the smallest sliver of the people. It wasn’t a fair fight.
The palace had tried to shoot her down when she’d been caught out on the night of the ritual but it hadn’t fired a shot at the dragon. There were barracks full of templars and a battalion stationed outside the south gate. Every Altus mage in those high towers should have had the training and the power to stand up on the walls and take aim at a dragon. Layers upon layers of failure. Layers upon layers of cowardice and selfishness.
Now they had a layer of ash to drape over the bones of the enslaved and oppressed. Some scholar, in some far distant future, would explore the ruins of Minrathous and find the evidence of every bit of horror.
“You look pissed,” Tarquin said.
“How is he?” Neve said instead of opening the flood gates and letting her thoughts out.
Ashur had been hurt. Badly. No single mage could stand against a dragon in full flight, not even him. He had tried anyways. In a city of unfair fights, Ashur had to pick every single one. Maybe Neve did too. Tarquin pretended he didn’t but he was always right there in the middle of it.
“He's stubborn.”
“And water is wet.”
Tarquin snorted out something masquerading as a laugh.
They stood in silence, leaning against a tattered bit of broken parapet. Neve had a a splitting headache and everything ached. She’d drawn too deep. Always trying to compensate. If she was better, she could fill that gap. She kept trying to level the playing field and it never worked.
Neve was always trying to compensate for someone else’s failing. The templars couldn’t or wouldn’t find your missing friend. The authorities couldn’t or wouldn’t see justice done. The smugglers would sell you that medicine but only for an arm and a leg and your first born child. So she’d put herself in the middle of it all.
One life at a time. One lost friend at a time. One vial of medicine at a time. One freed person at a time.
How many of those lives had been wiped out by a single dragon?
Her hands had blistered at some point during the fight. Poor form. Trying to push too much power out without a proper focus. Her head spun. She pushed herself up and for a moment almost lost her balance. Tarquin turned to her but didn’t say a word.
They’d lost tonight and it hung in the air. The Shadows were always up against an unfair fight and they’d been knocked back before but this loomed large. It wasn’t over. The dragon had destabilised everyone and the Venatori would pour into the gaps. More blood would be spilled as the cult settled into the thrones of power they’d stolen tonight. They would be counting the dead and cataloguing the facets of this particular failure for a long time.
“Don’t leave him alone,” she said instead of goodbye.
“He won’t like that.”
“You can be stubborn, too,” Neve said.
A tiny crack of a smile. Losing the Viper was going to reverberate down through the Shadows and out into the city. He had made himself a folk hero. He’d set himself up as the face of a faceless organization. He’d done it well. He wasn’t dead yet but it was only a matter of time. Maybe Rook and Harding’s grey warden, the one they’d dragged down off a mountain and into this mess, would be able to do something. Warden Ashur, dutifully following the First Warden’s orders and tromping around swamps in the Anderfels. It was almost funny to imagine. Almost.
“Get some sleep, Gallus,” Tarquin said.
“I won’t.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
Writ Small
The rains began in earnest as Neve headed down the hill. Somewhere a small team of mages was doing something good for this city. Rain was just water and air and the right mix of hot and cold. Neve had taken those classes years ago. Her affinity for ice would have made her a good addition to a weather circle. She just didn’t have the personality for it. The dutiful repeated duties of casting the same spell in tandem with the same people on the prow of some rich man’s boat sounded like hell. She didn’t have the right stuff for it but someone did and they were bringing in a storm.
The smell of the city shifted as the rain started to hammer down. The flames guttered and hissed. Smoke grew thicker and then it too was beat down by the rain. Neve was wearing the same white leather coat she always wore and it was sturdy enough to keep her from getting soaked to the skin but her hair was wet and her boot was squelching by time she made it down to Dock Town proper.
Seeing the horror writ large across Minrathous’s face had set her thoughts turning on questions of empire and misery and layers of bones.
Seeing the horror writ small on the faces of people she had seen day in day out for years was different. Dasha worked the corner by the butcher and the butcher’s front window had been caved in by a falling piece of debris from a high tower. She stood beside Dasha, smoking under the askew remains of the tattered awning. The sign hung on a single rusty chain, creaking in the wind that had come in the with the rain. Neve nodded to them.
“You got someplace, Gallus?” Dasha asked.
“I’ll be alright,” she said. “You?”
“Yeah. The view might be better after tonight, at least it won’t be cold.”
Neve laughed at that and Dasha echoed it. The laugh tasted bitter but she felt a little less alone for having shared it. The butcher gave a nod but didn’t say a word. There were a few other familiar faces here or there, some of them standing. Some of them laid out for final goodbyes. It was a grim walk but Neve found something loosening each time she caught another familiar face still standing.
The man who kept pigeons must have lost his aviary on the rooftop because he had a bunch of his birds squashed into a cage that was too small for them and he sat with a friend tucked into a doorway. He wrapped long arms around his birds glanced up sharply when she walked by. When he realised it was just her, he relaxed.
Gloria - who had taught at the elementary school for decades before retiring to a little one room full of ceramic animals that always smelled of cookies - had been laid out by one of her daughters in the front room of a building that no longer had doors. A few other bodies had been laid out there for identification and goodbyes but Gloria was the only one that Neve knew.
Jin passed her a cup of coffee. He had every light in the little shop blazing and people were gathered inside like it was a sanctuary against the dragon. The coffee was watery and bad but she drank it all and lingered in the circle of light for a few minutes, listening to the news. None of it was good but the voices helped.
One of Andale’s kids waved from a window where she watched the fire across the way gutter and smoke. Andale’s wife had disappeared a few months back and Neve had tried to find her but the trail had gone cold in Vyrantium. Neve kept it in the back page of her note book. Maybe someday she’d have an answer for that little girl.
It could have been a short walk if she’d kept her head down but she lingered in Dock Town before finally turning towards home and the sleep she wouldn’t get. She drew it out, relishing everyone who was still alive, and letting her thoughts churn and swirl.
She turned the corner and stared.
It took a long time for the scene to settle into something that made sense.
The apartment block in Leaside was gone.
A burnt out husk had collapsed in on itself in a cluttered mess of black brick and charred wood. The fourth building, the one on the east side, where Elly and Garrick lived, was still half standing but there were still flickers of orange from inside. Had they got out? They were trying for a baby and they’d been so excited to get one of the shitty shoebox apartments in Leaside because the building was warmer and drier than their old basement place. Neve hoped like hell that they had gotten out.
She needed dry clothes.
Neve stood and watched the rain bounce off the broken bits of stone for a few minutes. The sock on the prosthetic didn’t fit right if it got too wet and she was already limping. Her boot on the other foot was soaked through. Water streamed off the blackened bits of a door frame. It was wood but the surrounding stone hadn’t fallen down so the charred wood just clung to it, dripping rain water.
There were no dry clothes here.
It was as close her thoughts could get to accepting the charred mess.
Neve turned away from the husk of the building without a real plan in mind.
She could go back to the Lighthouse. The office room and the cot in the corner. She had a few extra clothes stashed there. It would be bright and dry.
Rook would be on to the next thing. She’d be full of ideas about trying to figure out how to leverage this in their fight against the gods. Could they track the dragons? How had they been called and controlled like well trained attack dogs? There would be questions. There would be notes to compare. How had the dragon in Treviso behaved? How did that compare to Minrathous?
Gloria was laid out in room with no doors. The butcher’s shop, which had been passed down for generations, had caved in. Elly and Garrick’s plans had been burned to the ground.
Dry clothes or not, the fade was not where she wanted or needed to be.
Instead, she went back to the safe house. Lorelei had the door shut and Hector stood in a big black leather rain coat, arms crossed and face streaked with soot. He nodded at her without a word and signalled to someone she couldn’t see. They let her in.
There were people here being ruthless about trying to figure out the next thing as well. What had the Venatori hit? Who had been killed? What did that mean? Had they hit this magister or that one? Had anyone heard from Maevaris? Without Tarquin or Ashur at the head of the ship, the main room of the shop was in chaos. A big piece of paper was laid out on one of the tables by the bar for people to write the names of the dead on it. There were too many.
Alonso sat beside it with his head down on his arms. Someone whose name Neve didn’t know sat beside him, eyes on the paper like staring at it might change who was there and how they’d died.
She slipped through the chaos and found a quiet corner downstairs where she could brace her shoulders against the wall beneath the stairs. She took off the wet boot and socks and laid out the soggy jacket in hopes that it dried. She had told Tarquin that she wouldn’t sleep but the exhaustion crept up on her like a mugger in an alley. She was out before she knew what hit her.
Safe House
She awoke in the dim light to the sound of an alarm bell. For a brief, chaotic moment, Neve had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten there. Her head still hurt and her back ached from the position. She was sleeping barefoot and sore, in damp clothes, beneath a staircase.
The world snapped back into focus in a crack of adrenaline and panic.
The bell rang again and people in the cots in the safe house across the hall were scrambling to their feet, getting children up. Asking confused questions and looking around for answers. Maker. Was she supposed to have answers? She was a Shadow Dragon. Who was watching the safe house? Where was Marisa? Was Marisa still alive?
Neve pulled on the wet jacket and got both feet under her. She was scrambling as much as the people in the cots. She must look like a mess. That was a hilarious and vain thought. She had gone up against a dragon and lost. Her apartment was a smoking ruin. The list of the dead was still growing. Some corner of her mind was worried about her nail polish and the state of her make up.
Feet slammed down the stairs. Shouting above. Shouting down below them. Everyone was in movement. Marisa - wide eyed and breathing hard - nearly crashed into Neve as they both headed for the safe room door.
“Neve,” she said and it sounded like relief in her voice. Neve didn’t feel like someone anyone would be relieved to see in that moment. She was fighting down the flutter of panic and a torrent of questions that would paralyse her if she let them in. She held Marisa’s gaze. Made herself calm. Be the person they need. She could fall apart later. The job wasn’t done yet
“What’s happening?”
“Venatori.”
“Here?”
“Can you bring down the stairs? Collapse it on the door? If they can’t get through, they can’t follow us. You’re a mage. You can do that. Can’t you?”
Marisa was calm and steady. The safe house was her domain because she was the type of person who set you at ease even if you’d just spent three days running from a death squad. Tonight, Marisa was not steady. Her hands shook and there was blood on her sleeve. She looked up at every thump and yell above them.
“Who’s still up there?”
“Can you do it?” Marisa asked again. Sharper. Desperate.
There were protocols. Tarquin liked protocols. Ashur liked his grand statements far more than he liked the nitty-gritty details of running an organization. Neither of them could have run it on their own. Tarquin had set all the evacuation protocols. Neve looked at the ceiling like it would show her what was happening up there. She knew it. Everyone did.
When the safe house was full, the shop took the hit. That was how it went. That was the protocol. There were people who had volunteered to go down fighting when it came to it. They’d fight so the people here, would have the time to get out and into the tunnels.
Those people were up there, fighting because it had come to it.
“Go. I can do it,” Neve said.
Marisa turned into the room. She had perfect faith in Neve’s ability to get it done. She was herself again as she started calling out order. Calm. Steady. People settled as Marisa took control. Doors were opened. People were divided up into squads and given instructions on where to go and how to get there. The chaos upstairs was getting louder but down here, everyone settled.
Everyone settled but Neve. She didn’t actually know how to bring down a staircase. This building was stone and it was ancient. Don’t let the question in. Fall apart later. Just finish the job. She backed up into the doorway and gathered up a shaky amount of power slammed it into the support beams on either side of the stairwell.
It wasn’t a spell. Not really. It was a mess of magic that was dreaming of being ice but certainly wasn’t getting there. She took a few hits before the support beam went out and the stairs creaked under their own weight. Creaked but didn’t collapse.
This again. Just like at Solas’s ritual.
Was she going to have to go and push it?
That would mean going down with it. Survive a dragon and die in a basement.
Neve was so damned tired. She gathered another blast, this was probably going to be the last one. How much magic did she have left to pull on? She’d already reached the point were her palms blistered and her fingers ached. There was a chance someone would have to drag her out of here because she was losing her balance.
Behind her, people were calling and arguing and gathering up their things. She looked back to see a child with big brown eyes get scooped up by their father. Marisa would be leading the way down into the catacombs. They were preparing to run for their lives.
Just one more blast. It didn’t have to be a good spell. Just enough force to knock those creaking stairs in on themselves. There was a yell and Neve looked up to a see a Venatori foot soldier, faceless in a robe and carrying a wicked curved sickle.
Now or never.
Just another job.
She pushed magic out in a wave. Up and out and it wasn’t the stairs that went. It was the ceiling. It cracked above her and she had to stumble backwards as it fell in a cascade of dust of splintering wood. The supports snapped with a thunderous sound and the stone work groaned as it gave in. Neve pushed the man and the child ahead of her as she stumbled deeper into the safe house. Someone was screaming.
“Go, we have to go now. They’ll be in the catacombs as well. Stay with Marisa, she knows those tunnels better than anyone,” Neve said giving the father a shove in the shoulder. She was stumbling and shaky but hadn’t gone down yet. If Marisa made a wrong turn or if the Venatori had been mapping the catacombs faster than they were, there wasn’t going to be much left for Neve to do. She wasn’t going to survive the next fight if there was a next fight.
They were due a bit of good luck, weren’t they? A straight shot down into the catacombs, into those lost tunnels that Marisa and her friend had been mapping. Somewhere down there, there was a route to the sea and if they got to the sea, they could swing around to the docks. From the docks, they could disappear into the city again or bribe their way onto a ship. That was a lot of things that needed to go right.
Just one more bit of good luck. Please.
Her thoughts were wandering as she fell into step with Jakon and they brought up the rear of the retreating pack of refugees. That’s what they were, weren’t they? Refugees within their own city. She glanced back at the big dragon mural someone had painted in turquoise and red on the catacomb wall. Jakon was carrying the only lantern in their part of the group and so as he moved on ahead, it was swallowed in shadow.
Fugitives
Neve had annoyed a lot of powerful people over the years but she’d never made anyone mad enough that they put her face on a wanted poster. That was new. It wasn’t a terrible likeness. The Venatori had hired a good artist. She was a recognizable enough face around Dock Town that the name would be enough but this had been posted across the city. A lot of the Shadows had been identified in the aftermath of losing the shop. The Viper had held onto his anonymity, or maybe, the cult was holding back that secret for their own reasons.
The names and details and other locations had come from the Shadows who held the line while Marisa got Neve and everyone else out through the catacombs. Blood magic meant talking wasn’t a matter of strength or fortitude. A decent blood mage could pull any secrets they wanted out of you. The marks on the bodies still looked distinctly like torture but with the Venatori, that might have just been for fun.
“I’m going to wipe every last Venatori off the map, I’ll feed them to a dragon myself,” Tarquin said. He was uncharacteristically vitriolic today which probably meant he had been fighting tooth and nail with Ashur over something or other. Tarquin didn’t care deeply enough about anyone else for them to piss him off the way that Ashur could.
They’d taken one of Ashur’s perches, a precarious rooftop spot with good sight lines of Glandivalis Square. The square was supposed to be full of boxes and tinkers. Beggers and grifters. The sight lines were better now with some of the buildings cleared out by dragon fire. That was a bleak thought. Neve sighed and leaned out to look down.
Now the square was home to rows of gallows. Bodies hung heavy, bloodstained clothes fluttering and black hoods obscuring their faces. There were those that Neve could pick out, even at this distance.
“Some of the safe houses survived,” Neve said.
“Are you the glass half full one today, Gallus? Really?” Tarquin grumbled.
Was she? She didn’t feel like the optimistic one. She wasn’t really built for optimism. Not like Bellara or Harding. Maybe that’s what they needed. They needed Harding to come down here and give a speech about barrelling on despite the odds. Ashur or Mae might have done it too. Bring the Light. All of that. Neve and Tarquin weren’t the most optimistic of the Shadows on a good day. This was about as far from a good day as one could get.
“Do you want to go and turn yourself in? There would probably be a show trial, maybe a public execution in front of a crowd,” Neve said. “They could probably swing the whole rebel templar into a good little fear campaign against the rest of the order. Don’t set foot out of line.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not turning myself in. They’re going to have to do the work of finding me first,” she said.
“Do you think you’ll get a show trial too?”
“No, I probably get turned over to whichever high ranking Venatori is most pissed off at me today. My money’s on Aelia though if Lucanis and Rook keeping pissing off Zara Renata, she might make a bid too.”
“That’ll probably be worse,” Tarquin said.
“Probably.”
“I guess we shouldn’t get caught.”
In the serials, going on the run always seemed dramatic and slightly romantic. In reality, being a wanted fugitive was a lot less glamourous. There were a variety of safe houses scattered around the city and between that and calling in a handful of favours, she hadn’t been sleeping in the catacombs much. Just a few nights here or there.
She’d had to get a second leg because her very well fitting and perfectly balanced one was a little bit too distinctive for a fugitive. Her proper back up had been in the apartment that burned down so this one was brand new and fit badly. It wasn’t snug enough to run on. It was close but not quite the right length which led to limping and it was made of wood not metal so it was too light which kept her balance off. She’d put on the proper one to climb up here with Tarquin but she was going to have to swap back at ground level and just the prospect of that irritated her.
She’d also found herself the most nondescript set of dock workers clothes imaginable and had taken to scraping her hair back high and tight and covering as much of her face as possible with a big floppy fisherman’s hat. It was working. A little.
Most of what she did required a network of people. She needed information and information came from people who weren’t terrified to talk to you and who you could trust to tell you the truth and not turn you over to the blood mages. The reward on the wanted posters and the claustrophobic fear that came from living within sight of the gallows made most of Neve’s neighbours hard to trust. She couldn’t even blame them for it but it still hurt.
There were parts of the city that did not have public executions. The Venatori knew how to play politics in Minrathous. There were plenty of districts where the richest and most powerful lived exactly the same as they had before. There were lots of people who could write off the shift in power as a political kerfluffle in the wake of the Archon’s tragic death. The dragon had been spun. The dragon had been driven off by the new Archon who everyone knew was a blood mage but everyone just ignored the Venatori connections. It was safer to not ask questions.
Things went on.
Across Minrathous, things went on.
Despite it all.
Things went on.