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If her grandmother could see her now, Zarra Cadash would have a stroke.
Hell, Zarra Cadash may not even recognize her anymore. Sometimes when Maria looks in the mirror, she doesn’t know the woman staring back at her.
It’s not just the arm, although on her bad days that still aches like a pulsing wound. It’s not the Viscountess’ tiara on her head, when she deigns to wear it. It’s not even the chubby toddler that follows her around the Keep because Maria can’t bear to be parted from her when she doesn’t have to be.
...especially when she has to be parted from her daughter too often.
Beneath all those changes, there’s something broken and desperate in her eyes that wasn’t there before. The look of a woman backed into a corner and looking for a way out. And nobody can quite soothe that away, not even Varric, although he tries.
Ancestors, he tries.
But he knows that something is missing. She suspects he’s known it far longer than she has. Maybe he hoped she’d never figure it out for herself, that she’d be blissfully, completely unaware of this hidden part of her soul. It would have been easier. Simpler. Cleaner.
Maria’s life is complicated enough, after all. Her greatest enemy loves her, a cosmic joke without a punchline, but it wasn’t funny enough for the Maker cackling merrily on his golden throne.
No, she had to love him back.
And now here she is. Crawling through an ancient temple trying, most likely in vain, to find anything she can use to stop him. Her shoulder aches, her nose itches, and every breath rattles in the ancient, moldy halls.
This is what she’s doing instead of helping her husband rule his city, instead of teaching her daughter shapes and colors. She’s drenched in the ichor of demons that slipped through the thin veil, more monster than mother, and she hates it.
But there’s no one else to do it. Story of her life.
“It had to be you,” Cole whispers beside her.
It’s Bea that answers on his right with a huff of pure exasperation. “Anyone could have grabbed the magic glowing orb and ended up with their tits out right here. She doesn’t need to be more special.”
“But nobody else could make him pause. Ponder. Paint on his hands the same color as her hair, pain in every breath and she’s in his arms and her heart is pulsing, pounding, pleading for this world-”
“Cole,” they all say it at once, this little group of theirs. Cassandra punctuates it with a noise of disgruntled disappointment.
“I never liked his murals anyway,” Dorian sniffs, lying through his elegant mustache, but Maria doesn’t call him out on it. There’s no point to it now. All she can do is keep moving.
She slips across the battlefield, past Cassandra examining a ghoul shaped dent in her shield. The Seeker looks up, eyes narrowed. “Careful,” she advises, “there is still magic here.”
Maria knows. She can feel it prickling over her skin even though they’ve banished the demons that sprung to life, but she’s not bothered by it. There’s almost something comforting about the feel of it.
If she’s honest, it reminds her of Solas. But she’s not going to be honest. Not now. Not ever.
The artifact spins delicately. It’s made of many intersecting circles, all with tiny glyphs she can’t decipher carved into a metal that shimmers beneath the dim light. She doesn’t know the name of the material, but she’s seen it before in the Crossroads.
She drops her one-handed crossbow, her modified version of Bianca, to her side. Fingertips brush against the circles, stopping their relentless movement. She examines it closely before she plucks it from the altar. “It looks like an astrolabe.”
“For navigating?” Dorian asks keenly, brushing past to peer over her shoulder. “Interesting. What do you suppose ancient elves needed to navigate?”
“Their massive egos,” Bea mumbles, toeing a piece of loose cobblestone with her boot. She sounds so petulant Maria can’t help but smile.
The smile drops in the next moment. Even over the sound of their heartbeats, Bea’s complaining, and the steady drip of water somewhere, Maria hears it. The familiar sound of a bowstring creaking, the twang of it as it snaps.
She launches herself to the side, knocking Dorian off his feet to the slick, slimy stones beneath them. He sputters in distaste for a half a second before the arrow whizzes through the empty air above them and into the darkness.
Everything erupts into action at once. She scrambles up, tightening her hold on the precious artifact. She looks up just in time to see the shadows of Elven archers melting out of the darkness above.
Well if they want it, they’re gonna have to rip it out of her cold, dead hand.
“Help my sister, sweetheart.” Bea sounds completely unruffled, she doesn’t even look at Cole while she speaks. Her hand drops to the tiny vials on her belt and picks one blindly, uncorking it as she eyes the distance.
Bea flings it in a perfect arch just as Cole materializes beside Maria. She shoves the artifact at him and watches as Bea’s vial explodes into choking green mist. She hears the elves coughing, one of them screaming, and she feels a pang of grief.
How many people have they lost, her and Solas, between the two of them? How many will they lose in the end?
“He wonders too,” Cole whispers from beneath his hat.
Maria doesn’t answer him. She gestures to her team to run. She leads them out of the ritual room, through the gloomy hallways. Another elf appears to block their way, blades flashing in both fists.
Dorian merely waves his staff and lighting arcs down the hallway, dropping the elf into a trembling pile of twitching muscles. They rush past and Maria pauses only long enough to finish the job and put a bolt in his neck. She tries not to look into his tanned face, but she sees enough to know he’s young. Too young.
There’s a group of sentries at the entrance to block their path back out of the ruin, but Maria’s band of killers cuts through them like wet paper. Cassandra and Bea fall on them with shining blades and fiery determination. It’s an elegant, deadly dance. Blades pierce flesh, cut through muscles and tendons, just as magic lashes around them to drop those that wisely back away from the dangerous women.
Not many slip past those three, but the few who do are no match for Maria’s aim. She’s always been a hell of a marksman, and even with one arm and a less powerful bow, her aim is her strongest asset. The elves that think to flee fall before they even finish turning.
All that’s left is for them to pick their way over the bodies and race across the chasm they’d so carefully crossed earlier. There had, once upon a time, been a grand stone bridge crossing to this old fortress. She can almost picture it, stately yet graceful, before it fell into the abyss a thousand years ago.
Their solution had been to topple the biggest tree they could and make a makeshift bridge. She can hear Josephine gasping about how unsafe it is. They scramble over it, but Maria pauses halfway and yells for Bea. “Do you have any acid in that belt?”
“Course I do!” she replies cheerfully. “Catch!”
The vial flies high over everyone’s head and Maria snatches it. She turns back to the ruin, poised high above the abyss, and uncorks it with her teeth.
“Go on!” she yells, carefully tipping the liquid out over the trunk. “I’ll catch up!”
“But…” Cole begins to protest.
“Come on sweetheart!” Bea calls, sounding further away. “Maria’s fine, she’s got plenty of time.”
It’s almost too easy. The acid bubbles as soon as it hits bark, hissing and sending up plumes of acrid smoke. Maria tries not to breathe through her nose, looking up just enough to scan the ruins.
She expects to either see an army of furious elves or absolutely nothing, her luck has always run either exceedingly good or atrocious. Instead, there is only one figure hiding in the shadows of the entrance over the bodies she’s left in her wake. If she were any farther away, she wouldn’t be able to see him at all.
But she can see his silhouette. The sharp jaw leading to his pointed ears, his ridiculous height, the armor he wears, the wolf pelt over his shoulder. There’s a part of her that thinks she would know him anywhere.
Solas.
The acid continues to burn through the wood, but she’s frozen in place. She can feel his eyes on her, even if she can’t see them. She half expects to hear her name across the abyss, the way he yelled it when she fled from him in the Fade.
The Fade. His cream sweater beneath her fingers, just like she always wanted, his lips on her thighs. And then… him in her bed, him beneath her. It all comes back like a punch to the gut, enough to make her sway lightly on the log.
“Do take your time!” Dorian yells from the other side of the log. “We’re clearly in no hurry!”
She needs to go. She needs to run far, far away. But it’s a feat of extraordinary strength to pull her eyes from him, to turn her back on him. He could strike her down. Send the log toppling to the chasm below. She’d never see Varric or Mags again, Bea would have to watch her die, it would be horrible. It would be the way it should end.
But she knows he won’t. And he doesn’t.
It’s a victory, but a temporary one, and Maria knows it. Just because he isn’t chasing her now, doesn’t mean he hasn’t caught her scent.
It’s a cool night, but Maria won’t let them build the fire up higher. Too big a chance of being seen, of attracting attention they don’t need. Something makes her uneasy, and if it were possible to keep traveling through the night, she’d insist on it. But the forest is full of all sorts of fun predators that would love to attack them in the dark.
She can’t keep them safe if they keep moving, she knows that, but Maria isn’t sure she can keep them safe here in this camp either.
“You have no ideas?” Cassandra asks impatiently above Maria’s shoulder. Maria almost answers before she realizes the Seeker is staring down Dorian while her indelicate fingers are buried in Maria’s hair in their nightly ritual. Bea braids Maria’s long red hair into elaborate loops every morning, fit for the Viscountess she says with a smirk. Then every evening it’s left to poor Cassandra to undo it, but the Seeker untangles the braids patiently, methodically.
Once upon a time, Maria braided her own hair. It’s just not something she can manage any longer, much to her disgust.
“I have a head full of ideas,” Dorian murmurs, examining their new device closely. “I’m even sure some of them are correct.”
“You’ve got detailed notes?” Maria asks, again. Bea’s lips twitch from where she pokes at the fire.
Dorian’s long suffering sigh is enough of an answer. “I’ve made diagrams, to scale, noted all the symbols and the order in which they appear, and even attempted to describe how these hoops are all fastened together. If we are to lose it or damage it, we still have all the relevant information.”
“Give them to Bea,” Maria orders, scrubbing at her nose with the back of her hand.
“That is not wise,” Cassandra answers from above her. “Do you recall-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Bea blurts out. “You lose top secret reports in a brothel once.”
“Twice,” Dorian corrects. “Which is almost impressive.”
“There are so many rules,” Cole protests, one hand settling on the small of Bea’s back. It’s a protective gesture that warms Maria’s heart. “It’s hard to keep track of all of them.”
“Bea can hold onto them,” Maria states again, more firmly this time, despite Cassandra’s noise of disgruntlement above her. Her friend’s fingers comb through her hair thoughtfully while Maria watches Dorian hand over his notes. Bea folds them neatly and stuffs them in her jacket above her heart.
“You are quiet,” Cassandra whispers.
She’s trying to outthink a wolf, it requires concentration. If Solas comes for his artifact, he’ll never think she trusted Bea with something so important as her notes on it, after all.
“I miss Mags,” she says instead.
It’s not untrue. She always misses Mags, finds herself collecting shiny things to bring home to her when she’s gone. She wonders what her daughter is doing now? Most likely curled up against Varric’s chest, a book propped open in his lap so she can look at the brightly colored pictures. She could even be asleep, he could be walking her back to her room, or perhaps laying her in their bed so he can work and watch over her.
The thought makes every part of her ache. Cassandra’s hand falls to her shoulder and squeezes softly. “We are here for her,” she states simply. “She will know and understand.”
This is all for Mags, for the world Maria wants her to have. She has to remember that, it’s the only thing that could drive her on in this hopeless war.
“Go to sleep,” Bea orders, jerking her chin to the tent. “Cole and I will take first watch. We’ll wake you up for second.”
“You’ll wake me up for the second watch,” Cassandra declares. “It is my turn.”
“If you’re in that much of a hurry to volunteer, you can take the first one too.” Bea’s eyes sparkle slyly while Maria stands.
“I could use some company for the third watch, if you are awake.” Dorian sniffs. “It’s so… quaint to watch the sun rise over the trees. Again.”
“You love it,” Maria declares as she saunters past, flicking the edge of his mustache.
“I adore you,” Dorian sighs, “unfortunately. So here I am.”
Maria wonders if Solas feels the same way.
xx
Maria is asleep.
And then she isn’t.
It’s as sudden as someone throwing ice cold water over her. She’s awake, her heart stuttering to a stop, and even though the inside of the tent it black as the deepest part of the Deep Roads, she knows she’s not alone.
Her mouth opens to scream, instinct overpowering rational thought that if someone is in her tent they’ve already made it past whoever was on watch. Before she can make a single sound, her mouth is covered by long, strong fingers that span the breadth of her face.
She bucks against the heavy pressure on top of her, thrashes her head from side to side uselessly. Her hand searches for the dagger she keeps nearby, but it’s wrenched above her head before she can do more than fumble uselessly.
She’s trapped. Trapped. Memories rise to the surface, unbidden, making the bile in her stomach rise, her vision swim. She has been here before, pinned beneath someone’s bulk. Every muscle in her tenses, waiting for the figure to claw at her clothing, to rip it from her while she’s helpless.
Instead, the hand holding hers above her head twines it’s fingers within hers and squeezes. She feels a sharp nose trace the shell of her ear and all the breath rushes out of her before he even speaks.
“It is only me. I… I could not leave without seeing you.”
Fury overtakes her fear, turning her blood from ice to boiling lava in the time it takes to process that if Solas didn’t murder her in her bed in Skyhold, he’s probably not about to do it in a tent in the middle of the Dales. Her sputtered outrage is muffled by his hand, but the tone is perfectly clear.
“I apologize,” and he truly does sound sorry, damn him, “I didn’t mean to frighten you, but I didn’t wish to risk being overheard.”
“By who?” The question she asks is barely audible, but he understands her anyway despite his palm pressed against her lips.
“There are those who think I am foolish in my treatment of you,” Solas murmurs softly. “The fact they are correct is not lost on me.”
He finally removes his hand from her mouth just in time for her to hiss, “What, Abelas doesn’t like me showing him up?”
Solas doesn’t deny it. He simply laughs. A part of her aches for that sound, wants to hear it again, store it away in her mind where she can craft a world where none of this happens. But she has her own questions, and they have to be asked no matter how much she fears the answer.
“What did you do to them?” she demands. “Cass, Dorian, Cole, my sister, where are they? What did you-”
“Hush, Aranel,” he says softly, his knuckles brushing against her jaw. “They are asleep, soundly. They’ve not been hurt.”
The relief that washes over her makes her dizzy. She closes her eyes and slumps back onto her bedroll. “And my artifact?” she asks bitterly.
“It was never yours, Maria.”
“Finders keepers, Solas.”
“In which case,” he responds primly, “I have found it and I intend to keep it.”
“You could have just taken it at the ruin,” she points out.
There’s a moment of silence. His thumb strokes her knuckles thoughtfully before he makes his quiet admission. “I believed you would fight for it. I did not desire to hurt you or the others. I will not hurt you.”
But he is. The fact that he doesn’t seem to see how she is being pulled in two makes her want to tear her hair out. All of it rises up in her throat and sticks there, a jumble of pleas she’s already said and confessions she can’t bring herself to make.
“I thought, perhaps, that one night would be enough. It was beyond my wildest dreams, and I cherish it more than you know. I thought I could have that gift and ask for nothing more... but then I saw you.”
“Yes,” she replies flippantly. “Covered in the blood of your people, running from you with the thing I stole.”
She wants him to realize how ridiculous it is. Instead a soft white light blinks into existence, joined by another and another, little orbs of mage light dotting the ceiling of her tent like stars. They illuminate his sharp features and the way his soft, sorrowful gaze traces her form below his.
“You looked like a warrior queen fresh from battle. No matter how much I wish to curse you, to hate you… I cannot help but love you, moreso today than yesterday. I fear I shall never stop.”
It figures that she can’t force a confession of her own, but Solas is fucking full of them, the kind that go right through her like fine whiskey. He stares down at her, eyes flung wide open, expression for once completely honest.
It’s her one chance to get any question she wants answered, but she doesn’t stop to think about which one she should ask. She simply asks the first one that flies to her lips. “Are you afraid of me?”
“My only fear is that I cannot live without you,” he whispers.
How could any woman ever resist a declaration like that? She swallows, hard, and squeezes his hand. “I’m right here.”
She doesn’t say that she’s his, she’s too afraid to admit it. She’s also not sure it even needs said anymore. They’re frozen, a perfect moment of indecision at the edge of the abyss. It’s one thing to have one secret night to themselves, but a second…
If there’s a second, why not a third? A fourth? How long until he’s twined so far into her life he snuffs out her little flame of rebellion and unleashes the fury he threatens with no obstacles?
“Do you wish me to leave?” he asks.
Her answer is immediate. “No.”
It’s the word to shatter them, a well placed crossbow bolt to his self-control. In the space of one frantic heartbeat, his mouth is against hers, tongue at the seam of her lips pressing for entrance. She yields, control slipping from her fingers in a way that is frighteningly easy.
He presses his body to hers. For the first time she realizes how much of him there is. It’s not as if she’s not used to being literally dwarfed in Varric’s thick arms, but Solas seems as endless as the darkness outside her tent. His free arm easily circles her waist, hauls him to her chest and presses her tight against the length of his torso like he wants her to feel her smallness in every singing nerve.
Maria’s not one to give in without a fight, even when she feels overwhelmed. She slips her tongue past Solas’ and arcs her spine to drag herself along the hard line of his body while she delights in the low groan falling from his lips.
It makes her bold enough to press her advantage. Her teeth catch his bottom lip and she opens her eyes just in time to see the inferno of dark, turbulent lust spiraling in his eyes.
“Are you going to take what you came here for?” she asks against his kiss-swollen lips.
“I came here to hear my name fall from your lips, Aranel.”
She trails her lips down the long column of his throat until she finds his pulse throbbing under moonlight pale skin. The kiss she presses over it will leave a bruise, a mark of her own on the Dread Wolf. She wonders if Solas will leave it.
She hopes he will. That he’ll treasure it.
Maria lifts her chin and finds the sharp line of his pointed ear with her nose. Her lips twist into a smirk he can’t see while she breathes her challenge against his sensitive skin. “Make me.”
Every line in his body goes rigid. His fingers dig into the silk shirt she wears, twisting the delicate material like he could rip it with nothing but those elegant hands and the strength of his desire.
“If you insist, Maria.” Solas’ dark whisper echoes in the dimly lit tent. His words curl somewhere deep inside her core where they pulse dangerously.
He releases her arm and for a fleeting moment she thinks to regain the upper hand. Then those long fingers are over her mouth again, muffling her noise of protest while his own pointed nose traces down the soft curve of her cheek, the point of her chin.
The first sucking kiss will almost certainly leave a bruise. It tears a soft gasp of pleasure from her lips and sends a jolt of adrenaline to every inch of her. It’s followed by his teeth pressing into her skin, his tongue soothing the bite. She chokes on a tiny whimper that’s more pleasure than pain. His mouth drops lower, leaving the same marks on her shoulder as his free hand roughly yanks her long shirt up her torso to reveal her unbound breasts, the curve of her stomach, the thin scrap of fabric covering her most secret parts.
His hand crawls slowly back down her exposed skin while he latches onto the hard point of her breast. His mouth isn’t gentle, all desperate force and searing heat, but the touch of his cool fingers is a delicious counterpoint. He switches his attention to her neglected breast, showering her with the same ravenous hunger, but his hand swirls delicately over her stomach like he’s painting one of his murals.
He’s the most maddening lover she’s ever had. But just when she’s about to start screaming beneath the fingers pressed to her lips, so long they curl around her cheeks and brush her ear, his fingers slip beneath the waistband of her smalls. She bucks up and he laughs against her skin.
“Patience, Maria.”
She has been patient long enough. She rolls her hips in blatant invitation, glaring into his face. He has the audacity to simply look amused while his fingers dip lower with the same infuriating pace.
But then he brushes across her slick folds and the moan that escapes her echoes in the tent, even choked by Solas’ hand. His eyes go dark with lust while he strokes her lightly, exploring her delicate skin while she writhes beneath him. Every touch does nothing but tease, sending fluttering pulses of want to the growing knot of frustrated desire in her belly.
She is being tortured. She’d rather he slit her throat than continue to drive her insane with his slow, soft touches. The noises she makes come unbidden, half choked sobs, frustrated whines. Each one makes his eyes go darker until they’re as black as the abyss itself.
Just as she’s about to start begging, he parts her folds and slips his long fingers inside her. She throws her head back against her bedroll, muscles clenching tight as he explores her. Her hips twitch, a desperate desire to ride his hand, to come on those long fingers and then lick herself off them.
“You are beautiful like this,” he whispers. “Worthy of worship.”
She swears beneath his hand, but his thumb finally brushes across her aching clit and it trails off into a long, needy moan. Solas smiles, pleased with himself, and teasingly circles the bundle of nerves while he spears her with those long, elegant fingers. “Are you ready, Aranel?”
She’s a trembling, needy mess. She’s already covered in a thin layer of sweat and so fucking wet she can feel slick coating her thighs. If he asked her for anything, she’d give it, if only to come.
She makes a noise that’s a strangled sound of assent beneath his fingers and half a sob. It’s the victory he needs to be merciful. Before she can start begging, which she’s far beyond caring about, his finger presses down on her clit and his fingers curl inside her.
She explodes like one of Sera’s trick arrows, shatters into a thousand pieces while she screams and thrashes beneath his steely grip. The blood rushes to her ears like the sound of the ocean crashing on Kirkwall’s harbor, she swears the ground shakes beneath her and the lights in the tent flicker.
Then she melts, boneless, back into her bedroll while Solas looms above her, his eyes flicking over her trembling form with that same look Varric gets sometimes. The one where she swears he’s trying to commit her to memory to spill it all out in ink later.
Varric has miles of dirty poems about her hidden in all his journals, sometimes she can even catch herself in the background of his stories. She wonders if Solas has a sketchbook filled with little drawings of her, portraits half-remembered, fantasies dreamed so often he can’t help tormenting himself with them.
She doesn’t get the chance to ask. Solas moves quickly. He releases his hold on her mouth for only a moment, just long enough to lie down beside her and wrench her on top of him, her back to his chest. She barely catches her breath before his arms are around her like a vise, fingers against her mouth again.
She protests for a second, but he’s knocking her thighs open. His hold on her loosens while he shifts, but when his other hand returns to dig into her plush hips it’s joined by the feel of his long, hard cock sliding past her folds.
He whispers something into the darkness, a snatch of Elvhen she doesn’t understand but it’s probably absolutely filthy, and then he drives into her so quickly she can do nothing but scream at the sudden stretch of him. He thrusts into her mercilessly, driven wild by his own lust. She feels him bottom out deep inside her before he pulls out, only to repeat the process while she wails her pleasure.
Solas takes her like a man on the edge of insanity. Takes her until tears pop into the corner of her eyes, until she doesn’t know where she begins and he ends. His hand on her mouth never moves, but the other one is everywhere. It rolls her nipples between his fingers, digs into her thigh, holds her fast to him.
But when it sinks to the junction of her thighs again she sees stars. Her breath catches in her throat and Solas growls in her ear. “Scream my name, Aranel.”
His hand from her mouth is gone just as he finds her breast and strums her clit. He buries himself inside her with a groan, swelling before his scalding out seed begins to fill her. She feels something in his fingers, a pulse of energy that is unlike anything she’s felt before.
She does scream, just like he wants, as she clenches on him. “Solas!”
Her orgasm is so intense that she swears she’s blacked out for a moment. She comes to in the loose circle of Solas’ arms, still trembling, while his breathing comes ragged beneath her.
He says nothing while she turns, drawing herself up his body and propping herself up on her one good arm, muscles shaking while she braces herself on his chest. In the dim light, she can see his eyes are closed, his chest heaving. He is beautiful, covered in the same sweat she is, still riding the throes of their pleasure.
He’s also completely vulnerable and she can see clearly in the light of his magic. Her dagger, long and wicked, is right beside the bedroll where she couldn’t quite find it. It would take one quick moment to grab the handle, the barest flick of her wrist to embed it in his defenseless throat beneath the Adam's apple still trembling.
He would destroy the world, the only one her daughter has ever known. She should try. She has to try. It’s for Mags, for her future, her safety, and she would do anything for Mags. She would cut her own heart out for her child.
It may not work. But it’s the best chance she’s ever had to stop him, she can’t deny it.
She also can’t help but wonder if he’d open his eyes and look up at her with that same insane, desperate love she’s seen there as he bleeds beneath her.
She can’t grab the dagger. She can’t bring it to the smooth line of Solas’ beloved throat. She loves her daughter, loves her more than anything in the world.
And she loves Solas. She fucking loves him, she can’t kill him. The knowledge of that curdles in her stomach and she closes her eyes against the tears pricking at them. She has failed, she will always fail, because if it comes to it she will never be able to end his life and see his blood on her hands.
“Maria?” he asks softly, his fingers stroking her cheek as if he senses her distress. Her moment has passed, she has let it slip through her own fingers, and she’s stupidly glad of it. “Have I hurt you? Are you-”
“No,” she blurts out. She won’t let him think that, that he’s forced her or hurt her or given her anything she didn’t want. “No. I just…”
He waits, stroking a path over her cheekbone, while she swallows her grief. The words taste bitter in her mouth, but less venomous than the thought of his murder. “If something happens to me, to Varric, you need to take care of Mags.”
“Nothing will happen to you or Varric,” he whispers. She shakes her head, opening her eyes and stares into his face.
She can’t kill him, but she can’t stop trying to stop him. Someday, eventually, she’ll die in the process. A demon will gut her, Abelas will put an arrow in her skull, a rogue agent will poison her goblet rather than risk her continued interference. She will die in this war, and Varric won’t let her go alone, but she can keep Mags safe. “You can’t promise that. But you can promise to take care of my daughter, Solas. You owe me that.”
He is silent. Then he nods, eyes grave beneath her. “I swear. She is safe and will always be safe.”
It’s the reassurance she needs to collapse against him, to bury her face in his neck. He soothes her with a soft sound, his large hand stroking down her skin. She feels his magic, but she snatches his hand away before he can touch the marks he’s left.
“I want them,” she states.
He pauses, unsure, before he lowers his hand.
The next thought comes like a flash of lightning, both devastating and illuminating. She can’t kill him. She can’t stop him.
But perhaps something else can.
His hand touches the curve of her stomach and the lie comes to her lips like a magic spell. “You don’t need to do that either,” she whispers, “the midwives said… the birth was hard. I was lucky enough to have her after… after the anchor.”
He wrenches his hand away like she’s burned him. The only solace is that it is better to hurt him like this then slit that beautiful neck or see her daughter grow up without a mother or father.
Perhaps she’s a monster, but she never claimed to be the Herald they called her or the idol they worshipped. She’ll do what it takes, whatever it takes.
“I am sorry,” he whispers.
Maria swallows and hides her face in his shoulder. “Me too.”
She wakes alone in the eerie gloom just before dawn, deliciously sore, the spot beside her still warm. She stares at it for a moment, blinking slowly, before she scrambles up and unlatches her tent to fly into the cool, crisp air.
Solas’ wards glisten at the edge of camp, fading slowly with the sun creeping over the horizon. It’s oddly sweet of him to leave them, although she supposes it’s the least he could do with her people deep in magical sleep. Maria knows nothing will cross them, that she’s safe in this bubble of his making.
But she’s got a wild, reckless urge to surge past the wards and into the darkness. To chase him down, to throw herself at a dragon, a bear, anything just to make him stop and think for a moment.
Instead she stands in the middle of her camp. Alone. Hair mused, his spend on her thighs, and waits.
Perhaps it’s best that Bea wakes first, although Maria thought she would. Dwarven resistance is still Dwarven resistance, even when the mage in question is a god. Maria hears her stir from where she’s dropped, where she had kept watch against an enemy they can’t run or hide from.
The blistering torrent of cursing that spills from Bea’s mouth is enough to make her smile as her younger sister realizes what’s happened. Maria stays rooted to the spot, eyes on the sun breaking through the trees, arms crossed over her chest. She tries to school her expression into something neutral while she still has a moment to do so. “I’m assuming you’ve still got our notes?”
“Of fucking course I do,” Bea snaps. “But I’d really like to have the sodding artifact you dragged me out here for.”
He was never going to let her keep it. He’s never let her win anything, but she still can.
She still can.
“Maria?”
Bea’s voice shifts into suspicion. Maria smoothly looks over her shoulder, face a calm mask. She watches Bea’s eyes take in her wild hair, still tangled from Solas’ fingers. Her shirt hanging off one scarred shoulder, the arm that Bea had so neatly rolled up now hanging again. Empty and fluttering in the light breeze.
She wonders if the mark of Solas’ lips are visible on her shoulders, her neck. Knows in the bright, furious flash of Bea’s eyes that they are.
“Who?” Bea snarls, low in her throat like a wounded animal.
“What?” Maria asks in the most nonchalant, monotone voice she can.
Bea crosses the camp at lightning speed. Her nose twitches and Maria knows she can smell the lingering scent of sex. Combined with her swollen lips and disheveled state, Bea has come to the absolutely correct conclusion, and at the same time, the completely wrong one. Her lips press together, fingers twitch to her daggers. She can see Bea trying to wrap her head around the thought of Solas, bookish, nerdy Solas, ravishing Maria in a tent.
“I wanted him,” Maria admits softly.
It does make Maria’s heart ease just a little that Bea finds that easier to accept than the thought Solas forced her. Her eyes are still hard, but there’s no blood lust in them any longer. Just the indignant fury Bea wears whenever she thinks Maria has done something extremely foolish.
“I make the bad choices about bedmates, not you,” she hisses. “Sweet Ancestors, Maria. What would Nanna say? What would Varric-”
“Varric knows,” Maria whispers, holding Bea’s eyes.
That shocks her. Bea’s bright red lips pop open. “Varric knows? This has happened before?”
Maria doesn’t say a word. It condemns her just the same as a denial. Bea continues impatiently. “How many times?”
“Just once,” Maria admits softly.
“Before you knew who he was or after?” Bea demands.
“After,” Maria admits. “A few months ago. In Skyhold.”
Maria watches Bea reach back into her memory, an always difficult task for the woman who lives moment to moment. Then her piercing gray eyes shut. “You went to Skyhold after we found out about the dwarves.”
“Yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Maybe. Most likely. “He loves me.”
“Varric loves you. Your daughter loves you. I love you although why is a bleeding mystery at the moment. And we’re not trying to destroy the world.”
Maria’s lips twitch in spite of herself. “Bold assumption on Mags’ behalf.”
“Maria this isn’t funny!” Bea’s hands come up to clutch at her shoulders and Maria knows she’s in serious danger of being shaken. “What are you doing? Why?”
Maria stares into Bea’s sparking gaze. She moves her hand to cover her sister’s and drags it down her abdomen to rest on her stomach. She’d been lucky, for a dwarf, getting knocked up so soon with Mags.
Maybe she could get lucky again.
“We can’t win. He’s always going to find us. He’s always going to take what we have. Unless we give him something else,” Maria says slowly, deliberately.
Bea doesn’t understand. Her brow furrows, her lips part. Maria drags her hand more insistently into the curve of her stomach, staring her sister down, begging her not to make Maria say what she’s come to.
The realization hits Bea like a sucker punch. She sways on her feet, but she doesn’t move her hand. In fact, her fingers only curl into Maria’s shirt like a lifeline. “You’re insane,” she whispers.
It’s the only way. It’s the only way to stop him, to save their world, to make him see reason. If he loves her, he’ll love his child, and he won’t be able to hurt them. He’ll stop, he has to.
She can still have everything she wants. She can still win the game, she just has to cheat.
“Does Cassandra know?” Bea’s getting frantic. “Dorian? Varric?”
“Varric will go along with it.” She’s confident about that. Varric loves her too. Varric is used to swindling to win too.
“If people find out-”
Maria interrupts her quickly. “Then they don’t. They don’t find out.”
Bea struggles against the implication for a moment. Rebels against the sheer mind-numbing insanity of what she’s implying. But Maria knows what to say to push her over the edge. She feels it on the tip of her tongue, savors it for a moment, before she puts the nail in Bea’s coffin. The one that will make her just as complicit as Maria is.
“Cole said we could save him.”
Bea doesn’t trust much in life. Sometimes, Maria isn’t even sure she trusts her. But she trusts Cole. She always has, she always will.
Bea’s fingers dig into her scarred shoulder for a moment, brutal and bruising, before she releases her grip. Her eyes have turned into steel, her shoulders tense with it.
Bea doesn’t like it. Bea hates it, in fact, but Bea is going to go along with it, and for some reason that makes Maria want to weep into her shoulder in relief.
“We need to wash you up then,” Bea says resolutely. “Before everyone else wakes up. You look like you spent a week at the goddamn Rose.”
“You’d know.”
Bea rolls her eyes skyward, the same exact way Nanna did when she was asking for patience, before tugging Maria towards the river.
“Oh no, you never get to make those jokes again. This tops any reckless thing I’ve ever done.”
Yet, Maria thinks fondly, allowing herself to be pulled away. By the time the others wake, she’ll be pristine as snow. Fearless as she always is.
That’ll be enough to hide behind. It has to be.