Free as a Broken Heart [open]

It had begun to rain. That seemed about right. Tiberius stood just within the columbarium, a slightly squashed bouquet of embrium in hand. It was late afternoon and dark had come early but there was nothing frightening about these empty halls. The only host a demon might find here was him.

And his was pleased indeed, glutted on its namesake. It brought to mind a nice, fat leech – attached where? Mouth? Heart? Belly button, perhaps. Tiberius shouldered through the heavy door and trailed his bare fingers down the orderly rows. Bronze plaques dark with age, engraved names and epithets. Very tidy, for the most part. Runs of plagues and disasters and family names. Jumbled near the end, as he turned toward the newest chamber. Of course, with the darkspawn besieging the city, loved ones now had less recourse. No one was being shipped home to ancestral estates.

Still, there had been only so many highborn deaths. He found what he was looking for by touch, though he hadn’t visited in more than a season. A personal failing, that. He conjured an orb of light into his empty hand, casting half a dozen shadows.

The engraving was so short, one wondered if they were charged by the letter. Just her name and dates.

“Mélodie, I –” He swallowed, tipped his head forward, chin to chest to hold back his grief. Slow count in his head, breathing coming back under control. There was a bench against the wall and he sat down, hunching over to place the flowers carefully down. “I wanted to tell you: I’m going home very soon. They say that damn wall’s fallen down.

“Your parents have been … Well, ever themselves. They want me to marry your sister.” The Nicolliers would be pleased and – most importantly – Grandfather wouldn’t throw him out of the House for coming home with nothing to show for six years gone. “I’m sorry. I know that it’s shit. But it seems as though I should go along.” He’d been unforgivably rude this morning, as good as calling the girl’s parents liars.

“It’s the fastest way home.”

Cecilia was a woman of childlike stature, even with the high-heeled decadent, gold embossed leather boots ( for Orlesian high fashion mocks practicality), the tip of her black head only would come up to many a guard's lower chest. Despite this, when she stepped into a chamber, she had a knack for filling it up with a peculiarly tall, vast, dark energy. And when there was no ceiling to contain her, she loomed like a shadow at dusk.

Cecilia worked for the Princess of Orlais. The princess, in recent news, had been disinherited in favor of her little brother. This of course affected Cecilia's status, but the charisma of her former self had hardly relaxed. If anything, this new hardship had in fact teased open the flower of her great and terrible aura, petals like the teeth of a worm. Tea time at last, she called it.

Her black cloak was undecorated, an irregularity for her, but she had grown into more serious a woman since her Princess had been evicted by Morrigan. She held a lacy black parisol, edges tassled with beads that clicked as she walked.

Oh Tiberius she announced in her sing-song voice, drawling out the last sylllable of his name with courtesanly flair. I heard about the wall and you were the first man to pop into my mind. Of course you're here, she huffed, flashing him a nasty look while picking a flower from a nearby rosebush. Its stem snapped effortlessly with her gloved fingers. She stepped closer, twirling it, until she stood beside him in the rain.

Still not over it, are we? Remind me how long its been, she gestured by breaking the intense, aggressive stare she'd levelled at him this whole time, glancing at the woman's grave before back at him, with a heavy look of faux concern and worry. You poor thing.

She had always found the Tevint man as soft as salt water taffy, and she wasn't shy about implying it. Nothing quite like yanking a man by the tail of his feelings when she had an agenda. And he deserved it, too, because this rain could go fuck itself.

Despair noticed her before he did. There was a terrible phantom sensation of overlong loose-skinned arms wrenching his head around. By the time Tiberius was done swallowing his disgust, he was curious. There wasn’t much that frightened his demon, and yet frightened it was – the physical symptoms were unmistakable. His heart raced, the hair on his neck and arms stood on end.

It was thrilling, really. Like waking from one nightmare into another. In this one, his grief was small enough to put aside – if only for a moment, as his demon recognized another predator and misliked its chances. Etiquette slowly won out over instinct and demonic urging both. He rose to his feet; a gentleman should not be seated while a lady stood, shackled as she was by uncomfortable looking shoes. It felt rather pointless though, with the staring and the sniping.

“You have me at a disadvantage, madame.” As to her question, he only gestured at the plaque. Seven months and eighteen days – while six months was the prescribed mourning period for a man to grieve a spouse. Perhaps he’d been more reclusive than others, self indulgent in his sorrow. It was not her business. He turned to face her, returning her animosity with appraisal and shuttered eyes.

This petite woman in black was a stranger or near to one, seen perhaps a few times at a distance. Not highborn, at least so far as he knew. But the princess’s loyal creature all the same, a power that would wax and wane with Giada’s fortunes. And weren’t they calling the boy Emperor now? Even as detached from the world as Tiberius lately was, that could hardly escape his notice. The light in his hand floated lazily to his shoulder and he hooked the thumbs of his empty hands in his pockets. It wasn’t wise, letting this person get a rise out of him. Yet the irritation was there just the same, at war with his demon’s blind scrabbling. Stupid creature; running would only invite a chase.

“Do you have some business with me – or has your mistress suffered some misfortune lately?” The latter, addressed to the graveyard at large. It was an unsuitable place for royalty but you never knew with poor relations. And you could say she was dressed for mourning.

Ouch, Cici pouted, dropping the flower, as if it were trash, onto the headstone. Then, she smiled. But why waste breath worrying about my problems, Tiberius? Yours are so much bigger, and she bit her lip suggestively. In fact, why would I ruin my favorite parasol to find you given what a busy woman I am? Your homeland's gates just opened up. Tevinter? You remember the border disputes, don't you? You know, I know why they let you stay here. Now, do you think Orlais is just going to let you waltz back home? Hmm? Like a little messenger pidgeon to its roost? An insinuation Tiberius was considered a spy. In fact, its about time for another war with them and their silly black divine. Copy cats, she grumbled.

Cici folded her arms, tilted her head to the side, and settled her briefly ruffled feathers. No, Tiberius, you're not going home just yet, she cooed in a voice one pinches a baby's cheek with. 

'Unless, you ask nicely for Cici's help,' but these words came to him as a slither in his head, tickling the surface and skinned in his voice.

That … Well, that seemed to have touched a nerve, somewhere. The princess might not be dead – but there was something more to her situation. Something that could spur her cantankerous servant to drop pretense for a moment. His brows lifted, listening carefully. Considering. It had been some time since anyone had bothered to threaten him. His life back home was ever a foregone conclusion while everything here was gauzy and immaterial.

“And just what secrets do you think that I’ve learned, shopping the Val Royeaux marriage market?” He smiled, a brief fickle thing, gone in a flash. “Only which scheming mamas might sell their daughters to a heretical northern mage. I’m sure my Imperial masters are sweating in their silks, waiting on that report.”

The rest of it, well. She was full of shit. The crown didn’t want him. Where were the soldiers? The harlequins? Would they be dragging the Nicolliers from their beds right about now? He doubted it.

“You know, madame, I don’t see a nation ready for war. I see only that someone has put an obvious puppet on the throne – and that there are hundreds of miles of darkspawn and undead between here and Minrathous.” A day ago, he might have entertained this for the novelty alone. For the lovely frisson of danger that cleared his head for the first time in months. “I wish you luck with your war. If I know my country, they’ll be ready by the time any of your poor starving bastards make it there.”

Now? She’d have to kill him. Tiberius wasn’t staying in this city a moment longer than he had to and very few prisons could hold a properly motivated abomination mage of his talents. He did not think a disfavored princess had access to any of them.

“I do not think you want nice, Cici. Though you may bill me for the parasol.” He looked her up and down, slowly, as though he might actually be interested in her charms – shrouded though they were. A game, an othering, exclusively cultivated for pissing off powerful women. What would it be like to unlace those boots? He’d take it very slow. The picture would serve her right for digging in his head uninvited.

“Now where am I going, if not home?”

Cecilia allowed his lust, leaning into it like a plant into the sunlight, the sway of her dark, curling frame welcoming the advances.

Why, Tiberius! Don't play coy with me. Painting yourself as an innocent, lonely, heartbroken, frivolous bachelor. You are not innocent, Cecilia smirked. Especially, if you go around calling the emporer such treacherous names. Naughty, naughty. She waggled her finger and wriggled her nose, and the vision of him from her perspective calling the emperor a puppet echoed in his mind. You're trouble, she mused, as the rest of his anti-Orlesiam sentiments repeated in his mind.

Oh darling, why are you ever so riled up? Innocence in satire of his own. Do you want to mediate your political thoughts over drinks with the captain of the guard. He makes a hell of a Margharita! Her eyes brightened. Yes, the Captain of the Guard was entirely numb with violence. Yes, that would be entertaining. Her smile widened as she thought about it, then abruptly died as she planted her feet back into the moment.

Ignore me amd go home, and I will share your thoughts with our beloved Captain. Also, I will exhume the remains of your dead lover and pour them down the sewer. I know, I'm petty when crossed. It's a real character flaw, I tell you. Or, her voice sharpened with assertion, Do my bidding, allow me to make your life harder, and I will make your life better. I will restore her to you, alive and complete. She placed her hand possessively on the bronze plaque. And you still get get to go home, just with a minor delay and some extra chores, she finished, her voice musical with a troubador's coersion. Stepping closer, she offered him her hand to kiss. What do you say?

Was he being particularly treacherous or troublesome right now? Tiberius did not think so. The king-emperor-whatever was quite weak – and obviously so if he needed his disgraced sister’s pet to threaten foreign dignitaries for saying it. The echo of his own voice bouncing around in his head was beginning to hurt. If this came to blows, it seemed mind magic might be the route she took.

Tiberius had no talent with that whatsoever. And yet, there was one way to counter it that was open to him. It would involve Despair and it would not be pleasant. Still. Cecilia’s breath fanned against his collar as she pressed ever closer. He forced himself to consider her breasts, and then a slow procession of vulgar acts that were quite at odds with the venom in her words. Maker – he hoped he wasn’t giving himself some sort of complex.

“Okay. Let’s see some magic then.” And commit an actual crime while we’re at it. There was nothing else to be done. No matter what happened, he’d be leaving this country tomorrow. If he didn’t do this right now, Mel would always be in this cruel stranger’s reach. He raised his hand to the wall of the columbarium, to that hated bronze plaque. Lightning arced between his fingers, sawing open the sealed niche that held Melodie’s remains. He had to remind himself it was nothing but ash and bone fragments and teeth, all wrapped up in a perfumed chantry shroud. Her soul was elsewhere, wherever souls went once they passed through the Fade.

This was dear to him still, regardless. But no mage could restore the dead to life. Tucking the bundle under his arm, he accepted Cici’s gloved hand in his but did not bow to kiss it. Instead, he merely admired the stitching of her fine gloves.

“I admit I don’t know what kind of monster you are. But I say no. Swallow me up now if you can.”