Chapter Text
Zevran
Ah, Minrathous, the sparkling jewel of Tevinter, with its gilded spires and gloomy Magisterium guarded by rampant dragons. It was almost comforting, how the cobblestones were as soaked in blood as in Antiva City. A similar scent, too: seasalt-laced copper, but with the ever-present whiff of ozone from a land thrumming with magic. A talented assassin could make their fortune in Minrathous; there was never a shortage of contracts, so long as one didn’t mind getting occasionally singed by a bout of flame.
Hot as a smithy, but Zevran had missed the heat after so many years hopping around in the snow like a rabbit. After the Blight, Ferelden and Orlais were in chaos and chaos always turned good coin. Of course, he’d thawed somewhat during a few sojourns to Antiva City to reintroduce himself to old friends. They’d been chatty, once, Guilio and Daniela and Valeria, all so very chatty, but now the only conversations they’d be holding were with the bottom feeders that skirted the Rialto Bay. He’d gotten his answers, in the form of a list of names, which in turn provided more answers, which inevitably led him to Tevinter.
In the past few years, it seemed heads were on a slow swivel northward. He’d tracked operatives from House Dellamorte up and around Rialto Bay and through the Imperium for the better part of the past six months, courting rumors from less savory Magisters until he’d gleaned the crux of the matter.
Change . A faction was gaining power in the halls of the Imperial Senate, advocating for reform. The problem for them was that the Imperium didn’t like to change - or rather, some exceedingly wealthy and powerful individuals in the Imperium didn’t like change and were willing to pay a king’s ransom to anyone who could halt progress in its tracks. It was always the same, in Antiva or in Tevinter or in the backwaters of Ferelden. Someone tries to do something decent for the little people and winds up with a dagger in the back. Not to mention the person wielding the blade would be just the sort of individual that change might’ve helped.
Ah, well. Tragic irony was one of the perks of being an assassin, after all. That and the wine and the beautiful people that were so often at either end of a dagger.
And this particular party was overflowing with beautiful people. Zevran chuckled, sipping from the bottle of Antivan red he’d liberated from a vendor earlier that morning, his ankles dangling off the side of a parapet, eyes raking over the scene below. Magisters in all of their finery, strolling about like the actual peacocks that wandered the lawn. Peacocks . Peacocks and bobbing lanterns and floating gardens. Delightfully distracting, particularly for anyone planning an assassination.
Magic, as it happened, didn’t make the denizens of the city any more likely to look up. Too bad for them.
Luckily for a particular peacock below, Zevran was not so easily distracted as the feather-covered mages.
His mark was dressed as an elven servant carting drinks, waiting for her own mark to arrive. Always with the elven servant routine; it was such an easy matter in Tevinter to slip among the lower castes. If you had pointed ears, the Magisters didn’t even see you half of the time.
Catarina Dellamorte. A slender slip of a thing whom Zevran had never once seen smile. Poison was her method of choice, if an Antivan Crow can be said to have one at all. Sadly, her Widowmaker would go to waste this evening.
He watched her carefully, his eyes never leaving Catarina for long as she milled through the crowd, pouring drinks for the revelers, fireworks booming and crackling over the Nocen Sea, casting the entire party in swaths of color. He watched her slowly amble closer towards her mark, an impeccably dressed Magister with an impressive mustache and too many friends in the south for his enemies in the north to abide. Zevran couldn’t blame him for that; he’d found Ferelden charming in its own way, once.
As Catarina finally managed to work her way to the Magister’s orbit, Zevran quaffed the last of his wine, grappling from the rooftop and slipping into the shadows of the courtyard. It was an easy enough thing to not be seen when there were so many distractions about. Fountains breathing bubbles, explosions of color in the air, even the Magisters themselves were brilliant and decadent. He stuck close to the bushes, ducking around statuary until the two of them - the assassin and her mark - were but a dagger’s throw away.
He waited until Catarina flicked her wrist over the Magister’s goblet to strike, launching a dagger at her trailing sleeve and pinning the silk to a wooden archway.
“What is the meaning of-”
Before the target of Dellamorte’s nefarious schemes could finish his sentence, the woman was moving again, the sound of fabric tearing as she pulled a knife from its scabbard and held it to the Magister’s throat, glancing around the party, looking in the direction his own knife had sailed from.
She was blown back by a wave of magical force, scrambling on the ground until a cage of lightning sprung up around her, making her hiss like a wet cat.
“You should’ve slit my throat when you had the chance!” Magister Pavus hummed, crossing to her as Zevran stepped from the shadows. The chatter silenced around them as all of the revelers turned to stare. “Ah, and who might you be?”
“I may have a few answers to your questions, my esteemed lord,” Zevran swept in a low bow. My, my. The fellow was even more appealing up close. “If you care to hear them. I am at your service, for, at the moment, our interests align.”
“Do they now?” The Magister quirked a very handsome brow. “How very intriguing. Are you, by chance, acquainted with the lady Nightingale?”
“Indeed, I am,” Zevran hummed, lifting his chin. “Perhaps we should find a more private place to chat, my Lord Pavus, and I shall tell you what I know.”
“Lead on,” Dorian nodded, sweeping his arm in the general direction of the manor house. “You have more than my attention.”
Guards came and collected the would-be assassin, dragging her off in chains. And with that, Zevran led undoubtedly the prettiest man in all of Minrathous off to somewhere quiet.
Perhaps, if he were very, very lucky, there might be some chains for himself, during the course of much more pleasurable activities.