“A hundred little things,” Briala said. “At the camp, Mihris was a healer, but gave no sign of being a truly gifted mage—certainly not gifted enough to change the magic in her staff. It was white before, wasn’t it?”
Lienne looked at Mihris’s glowing red staff, because after a question like that one’s natural inclination was to look, even during a moment of stress. Her attention left Briala, just for a moment. Just as Briala had planned.
Briala took one more step with an easy grace that didn’t draw the eye, and then slid her dagger smoothly into Lienne’s stomach.
The young noblewoman gasped, and her face went deathly pale as she staggered.
“You’re quite a healer, Lienne.” As the noble girl fell, Briala caught her and eased her to the ground. “I’m certain you can heal yourself, if you try. But do you think you can heal yourself and hex Ser Michel at the same time?”
Lienne shot her a venomous look, panting through the pain. “I … will see … you dead … you knife-eared bitch.”
It was a noble’s threat. Briala remembered Lienne’s mother, Lady Montsimmard, complaining about the food until the chatelaine threatened the servants with a whipping. That was probably where Lienne had learned it. Talk loudly, threaten the servants, and make it clear that you can do whatever you want to them with no repercussions.
But they were not in Val Royeaux.
“Will you? Then I’d be a fool to show you any mercy, wouldn’t I?” Briala asked, and slit her throat.
It had been for the duel, yes, but a part of her laughed as the knife slid across the skin, the same part that had watched Lady Mantillon die and found some justice in the world.
Among the marble benches, Gaspard’s blade came down, but this time, Michel’s shield caught it cleanly, and Michel’s blade came up and struck a glancing blow off Gaspard’s helmet. The grand duke staggered back, and Michel rose, bloodied but alive, and once again fighting with his full strength.
“I will see Michel dead.” Mihris raised her staff.
“That would be your choice,” Briala said, “Imshael.”
Mihris paused, and Celene gave Briala an incredulous look. Felassan nodded.
“As I was saying,” Briala went on as if she hadn’t just murdered a noblewoman, her mind so amazingly calm that her thoughts felt like pieces of crystal sliding into place in some great dwarven puzzle, “your grasp of magic has increased, and you speak about it with far more knowledge than a simple Dalish healer would have. And right now, you’re clouding Michel’s and Gaspard’s minds to prevent them from seeing us, just like the demon did to tempt Michel out to the circle in the first place. All of it made me wonder why Imshael would spare one Dalish girl, if, as you said, the rest of your clan had been slain.”
“Because she made a choice,” Felassan said. “She wanted revenge against Michel for unleashing Imshael upon her clan, and she was willing to allow herself to be possessed to make it possible.”
Celene looked at Mihris in disgust. “Possessed by a demon?”
“Spirit,” Mihris corrected, and then caught herself and chuckled. When she spoke again, her voice had deepened to that of the man who’d stood in the circle. “Ah, pity. You’re a bit more cunning than you look. Yes, Empress, I offered young Mihris here a little additional power in exchange for getting to come along.” The thing inside Mihris smiled. “None of which explains why I shouldn’t just kill bold Ser Michel now to fulfill my end of the bargain.”
Michel and Gaspard were clashing again in earnest, blades ringing with the uneven pattern of two master warriors, but Briala ignored it. Michel’s life and her plan hinged on her thinking very quickly.
“You could have killed him before, after we first fought. You didn’t. Why?”
“Because Mihris has to choose it,” Felassan answered, as the demon turned to him with a curious smile. “It let Mihris have the choice to attack, knowing we would kill her, or stand down and abide by the truce. She chose to abide.”
“Then she made her choice,” Briala said, looking at Imshael. “And your end of the bargain is fulfilled.”
The demon shrugged. “Possibly, love. But if you and your pretty empress gain the eluvians, what does it matter? All I want is a world to explore and desperate, motivated people to play with. What can your empire give me that Gaspard’s cannot?”
“I will free the elves,” Celene said. “Think of the chaos, the opportunity. The balance of power—”
“Will be carefully managed, just as always.” The demon gave Celene a knowing look. “You will free the elves when you are ready, when it is safe. You offer me a stately dinner,” he said, waving Mihris’s staff idly, “when what I want is the ravening, bare-fisted gluttony of a starving man. The elves, the templars and the mages … they might kill a few thousand people, but that’s just fire and swords. Fire and swords are dull.” His eyes glittered. “There are so many more things in this wonderful world, so many more ways to mark the measure of a man.”
“I will not allow you to endanger my empire,” Celene said, her voice cold. “If letting you walk free put my people’s lives in such jeopardy, I would throw myself upon Gaspard’s blade.”
Imshael looked at her in surprise. “You actually would, wouldn’t you? And here I thought you prized nothing more than your throne.”
“You know, you’ve got a good point,” Felassan said. “Fire and swords are dull. But what if something bigger was coming?”
“I’m listening, Slow Arrow,” said the demon. “What could you possibly do that you and I have not seen a hundred times before while the sweaty mortals lusted and grappled and bled their lives away?”
Felassan said nothing, just smiled, twisting the tattoos around his face.
“Oh, my,” Imshael breathed. “Is that a promise?”
“Well, I was going for more of a threat.”
Imshael turned to Celene, who stared at him uncertainly. “Empress,” he said, “best of luck to you. I do believe you’re going to need it. Whatever happens, I believe that Orlais is going to be quite exciting for the next little while.”
Then light flared around Mihris, and she fell to her knees, her staff flickering back to icy white. For a moment, a smoky shape flickered around Mihris, a haze that clung to her body, and then it was shooting across the room through one of the mirrors on the wall. The mirror flared brilliant red, then darkened back to the inert dullness of its dormant state, and the demon was gone.
Gaspard and Michel broke apart, and both men spared Lienne and Mihris a glance. Then, wordlessly, they returned to their battle.
Briala looked at the labyrinth of runes. The pattern was complex, but while Celene and Michel claimed not to be able to see it, it made perfect sense to Briala’s eyes.
Then she looked at Celene, who gave her a grateful nod before turning back to watch the duel.
And finally, she looked at Felassan, who had told her the story of Fen’Harel tied to the tree.
* * *
“Thought I had you there for a moment,” Gaspard panted as he and Michel broke apart.
Michel made no reply. Gaspard had nearly gotten him with his words before.
His thigh was bleeding, a hot and steady pain, and he could feel the slow drip of blood pooling under his armor. His eyes still burned from Gaspard’s desperate trick with the shield, and the wounds to his side and just above his hip would slow him down before long. His arms ached, and his lungs stabbed with each breath. He hoped it was simple fatigue and not a cut that had gone deeper than he thought.
He damned his carelessness. He had not felt so sloppy since his first days at the Academie. Then, every drill was a threat, every exercise a risk of betraying himself as a pretender, a commoner.
A fraud.
Gaspard came in, and instead of just holding firm, Michel met the charge. The jangling crash of armor rattled them both, but Michel kept his footing and his leverage, got an arm up to knock Gaspard’s awkward short thrust aside with his vambrace, and slammed the hilt of
his blade into Gaspard’s visor. The grand duke stumbled back, and Michel started an overhand blow, then smashed Gaspard with his shield and sent him crashing into one of the benches.
He had compensated for his fear at the Academie with anger. He had lost his temper during practice, fought hard and passionately, and picked fights with the other students. His instructors had seen the anger as the cover it was, and assumed he was frightened of failing. Over years, they had honed him into a fine weapon, forging that aggression into a disciplined fighting fury that had carried him through every battle he had been in.
Gaspard stepped onto the bench and looked down at Michel. “Coming, Ser Michel?”
Michel wasn’t foolish enough to charge a man on higher ground, but if he waited, his wounds would take him down in minutes at most. And Gaspard, the bastard, knew it.
Michel stepped up onto a bench himself, then leaped from it to the next one. Grinning, Gaspard matched him, leaping from bench to bench to close with Michel.
The benches were just a pace apart, close enough to fight from. They crossed blades, careful now, checking their balance and measuring each strike. Gaspard leaped to another bench, and Michel jumped over as well, and again they slashed, parried, blocked, and gauged each other’s strength.
Michel saw Gaspard move to leap again, leaped as well, and realized mid-air that Gaspard had faked his jump, and was waiting to strike as Michel landed. With a twist, Michel wrenched his shield up, landed, and immediately dropped from the bench and charged forward. Gaspard’s blow clipped the top of Michel’s battered shield, and then Michel plowed straight into Gaspard with all the weight of his body.
He had not been the human-blooded elf-brat on the street for more than a decade. He was Ser Michel de Chevin.
All that remained of that boy was the lingering fear of being helpless, of hiding in the trash and hoping that the chevaliers didn’t find him on their rough adventures in the alienage, of watching every face in the market to make sure that none of them recognized the boy who had run away.
That, and the anger.
As Gaspard stumbled back, Michel came up with a fierce uppercut that tore Gaspard’s shield out of position, then lashed out with a kick that blasted Gaspard from the bench.
The grand duke landed on his back on the ground and forced himself up, and Michel’s flaming blade bit into his shield as Michel struck. Gaspard cut at Michel’s leg, and Michel blocked it and came down with another overhead blow, this one angled past Gaspard’s shield.
It caught Gaspard on the right shoulder, the one with the pauldron that had already been damaged, and this strike ripped away the rest of it and cut deep just past the collarbone. Gaspard shouted wordlessly and stumbled back, clutching his injured arm.
He was Ser Michel de Chevin, champion of Empress Celene. He breathed the words to himself as he leaped down from the bench and ran at Gaspard, who still staggered back.
He lashed out with his shield, battering Gaspard’s shield out of guard, then thrust.
And Gaspard, not as injured as he seemed, leaped onto the bench and struck down with his shield as he landed, bringing the full weight of an armored chevalier to bear against the striking sword.
He had aimed perfectly at the tiny nick in Michel’s blade, the minute imperfection that could spell the death of even the finest silverite blade.
Caught between the shield and the marble bench, Michel’s blade snapped, metal shrieking as it tore apart.
Gaspard leaped down from the bench, his own blade raised, and Michel stabbed upward with the jagged remains of his broken sword.
He caught the long scratch that had marred Gaspard’s breastplate, and the jagged silverite slid, then caught and ripped through.
Grand Duke Gaspard landed on Michel, and the two fell to the ground together, then rolled apart.
“Oh, Maker, I thought I had you again.” Gaspard gasped the words, looking down at Michel’s sword. Despite the broken blade, Michel had buried it almost to the hilt in Gaspard’s side. “Caught that nick in your sword perfectly. Damned if you weren’t noting my armor last night, just as I watched your sword.”
Michel allowed himself to smile. “As one of the greatest chevaliers once told me, honor does not preclude tactics.”
Gaspard forced a laugh, grimacing at the movement. “Why did you ever listen to that old fool?”
Michel got to his knees, pulled his blade free with an effort that made Gaspard groan, and stood over the grand duke.
He looked at the blade, then tossed it aside and recovered Gaspard’s blade from where it had fallen. The grand duke deserved to die a clean death, and Michel doubted that the jagged remains of his own sword could deliver it.
Gaspard saw what he was doing, and nodded his thanks as Michel approached. With an effort, the grand duke rolled to his hands and knees, and then pushed himself up so that he knelt with his head held high. “Well fought, chevalier.”
“And you, chevalier.” Michel raised the blade.
“Ser Michel!” came a cry from behind him, and Michel turned.
It was Briala.
“I call upon your debt.”
As the dread fear wrapped its cold hands around Michel’s heart, Briala looked at him and nodded.
“Yield.”
* * *
Celene felt the air go still around her as she turned to Briala.
“What are you doing?”
Briala didn’t answer. She stared at Michel, who looked stricken, his flushed face going pale.
“Briala!” Celene grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing the elf to look at her, but it was no better. Briala’s face was devoid of expression. She might as well have been dead. “Why?”
Beside them, as Celene’s moment of victory slid sideways off the path and into the darkness, Felassan began to laugh.
Celene shoved Briala back, shaking her head to clear it. Whatever this was, whatever foolishness had taken her, Celene could deal with it later. She turned to Michel. “Michel, finish this!”
He stared at her, then back at Briala.
“You are my champion.” But even as she said it, she knew it for a lie. If that were still true, he would already have struck. And his eyes would never have strayed to Briala.
“He is a chevalier,” Briala said, and when Celene looked over, she was still looking at Michel. “Death before dishonor.”
Gaspard, still on his knees, looked at Celene, then Briala, before turning back to Michel. “Michel?”
Michel stood stock-still, sword still raised.
“I am Ser Michel de Chevin,” he said, finally. “But I am also the bastard son of an elven mother.”
The sword clattered as it hit the ground. “I yield.”
Universities whose libraries were filled to bursting. Restored roads busy with richly loaded wagons. Elves in the markets, smiling as they served the greatest empire in the world. A cup of hot tea served every morning before sunrise. Small, strong fingers gently peeling the mask from her face.
Two words from her champion dashed a hundred dreams.
Celene spun at Briala, her daggers drawn. Briala stepped away, two steps carrying her out of range. She did not draw her own blades, but she was certainly looking at Celene now, and Celene cursed herself for a fool as she saw the anger in her lover’s eyes.
“Why?” Celene gripped her blades so tightly that her fingers burned.
“Tell me again how you will free my people.”
“I gave you my word!” Celene stepped forward, a dagger raised. “I swore!”
“And I think you even believed yourself.” Briala swallowed. “But when the nobles protested, when it threatened to weaken the empire, you would have let it go. You would have ignored your promises to me, knowing that I would always forgive. That I would always stand at your side.” Now her blades came out. “After all, I believed in you even after you killed my parents.”
Celene waved it away. “That was Lady Mantillon! Whatever you think—”
“Gaspard
!” Briala shouted. “When did Lady Mantillon give you your ring?”
Gaspard had sunk to his side, leaning against one of the benches. “After I’d proven my worth.”
“And how did you do that?” Briala didn’t look over. Her eyes were locked on Celene’s.
Gaspard coughed. “I ordered a man’s death as part of the Game.”
Celene looked at Briala’s anguished face, and remembered, as she did so often in those predawn hours of the morning, her meeting with Lady Mantillon.
“You have impressed me, Princess,” Lady Mantillon said, her face hidden behind layers of makeup. “My own son believes that you are certain to accept his suit should I support you. Comtess Jeannevere’s son, coincidentally, believes that you will accept his suit.”
It could have been a threat. Celene did not flinch. With a winsome smile, she said, “One cannot be held responsible for what young men think.”
“Florian is failing,” Lady Mantillon said, “but with all the efforts of the empire, he might live on for years yet, weak, ineffectual, allowing chaos to grow around him. If I introduced you to Marquis Etienne, could you keep your support intact until your uncle felt the hand of the Maker upon him?”
Another test. “If I could not,” Celene said, still smiling, “you would not have extended this lovely invitation, Marquise Mantillon.” After a heartbeat, gauging the noblewoman carefully, she added, “But for the good of the empire, it were best decided quickly.”
She was sixteen years old, orphaned and alone in Val Royeaux, and she had just asked this woman to murder the emperor of Orlais.
“If we are discovered before we move,” Lady Mantillon said, tapping an elegantly lacquered fingernail on the polished wooden arm of her chair, “we will fail, or we will be killed. Neither is acceptable.”
“Then we must not be discovered,” Celene said with a confidence she did not feel, and curtsied to Lady Mantillon. “Do what you must. I am ready.”
“Are you?” Lady Mantillon asked, looking at her curiously. “How carefully have you moved? How circumspect have you been? Are there any who could, through bribery or threats or even trickery, betray your intentions?”
Dragon Age: The Masked Empire Page 34