The courier had delivered the bundle earlier that day, sealed with a simple ribbon and no identifying crest. Alistair had known instantly what it was, and he had opened it immediately, like a starving man reaching for food. He'd been holding onto the letters like they were glass.
One for him and Mareven. One for Zevran and Shae. One for Oghren and Felsi. One for Morrigan.
He sat with Zevran in the study, near the fire, wine in hand, the scent of old parchment and candle wax between them.
Alistair's hand trembled slightly as he read. Zevran had finished his letter from Tai minutes ago and had been uncharacteristically silent since, swirling his wine slowly as he watched the King read.
When Alistair reached the part about the soulmark, his eyes stopped moving. He didn't blink. Zevran saw it happen, the subtle tightening of his jaw, the way his hand froze mid-sentence.
"What is it?" he asked, already knowing it wasn't nothing.
Alistair passed the letter over, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "She knows."
Zevran skimmed it, his gaze catching on the passage where she said it plainly: I know what it says. Lucanis Dellamorte. I understand why you lied.
He exhaled and sat back, blinking at the flames for a long moment.
Zevran had recognised it immediately, remembering the first time he had met little Evie, a few weeks after her birth. He had never met the boy, but he'd heard of him. Caterina's grandson. First Talon's pride. Even back then, he was making a name for himself.
"I remember when you saw it for the first time," Alistair said, "the look on your face... Told us it wasn't a name we wanted tied to someone like her."
Zevran chuckled dryly. "It wasn't. It still isn't. They call him the Demon of Vyrantium now," he told him.
So they had lied. Leo Andreozzi. A safe, forgettable name. They sat in silence for a beat.
"She asked when she was five," Alistair said, eyes still on the flames. "Just pointed to it and asked what it said. I didn't even hesitate. I just… said it. Leo. And she smiled and said it was a pretty name."
Zevran sat across from him now, elbows on his knees. "Do you regret it?"
"I don't know," Alistair said. "I regret that she knows now. That she had to find out like this, when I'm not there to—"
What? Explain himself? Apologise and beg her forgiveness?
"She doesn't sound angry," Zevran noted.
"No. But she sounds…" He struggled for the word.
"Hurt," Zevran offered gently.
"Maybe," Alistair said. "She sounds like someone who'd already decided her soulmate would be better off without her, and now she feels justified."
Zevran sighed. "Anora's whispers did their work well."
Alistair internally flinched. He had tried to shield Evie from Anora's more barbed words, but even the queen's pretty words had thorns.
They sat in the silence of it for a while, letting the fire and the wine do what little comfort they could. Zevran rubbed at the corner of his eye with his thumb, watching the candlelight flicker across the letter on the table.
"She says Kieran was the one who translated it."
Alistair nodded. "Been learning Antivan, apparently."
"That's… convenient."
"You think they're in Antiva?"
"I think they wouldn't be learning it if they weren't planning to be, at least. And she knows the person the name belongs to; she understood why we lied. They must be in Crow territory to have stumbled across it." Zevran ran a hand through his hair, thoughtful. "It's a dangerous web to walk into."
"I want them out of it."
Then, softly, Zevran said, "If he ever meets her…"
Alistair looked up. "What?"
"If Lucanis ever learns what she is to him. If he sees her soulmark. If he even suspects…"
Alistair's jaw tightened. "You think he'd come after her?"
Zevran leaned back in his chair, the firelight catching in his gold-brown eyes. "No. Not the way you mean. I don't think he'd try to hurt her."
"Then what?"
"I think he wouldn't let her go."
The words sat there between them like stone. Zevran didn't flinch from them.
"Antivans take soulmarks very seriously. The Dellamortes revere them," he went on, voice low and firm. "It's a… legacy thing, almost. Bloodlines. Duty. Fate. They have their own twisted code of honour, and they believe a soulmark is sacred. A gift. A debt owed to destiny. If Lucanis finds out she's his, he will claim her. He will believe she belongs to him."
Alistair bristled. "She belongs to no one."
"I know that. You know that. But I don't know if he will. He's not a man who lets go easily. He's been trained since birth to see every asset, every advantage, every tie as something to hold tightly and never release."
"He's a Crow," Alistair said bitterly.
"He's a Dellamorte," Zevran corrected. "The name matters. The legacy matters. They don't fall in love the way we do. They can be... possessive."
Alistair's voice was hard when it came. "Then we can't let that happen."
"I agree."
"I'll kill him myself if I have to."
Zevran raised a brow, then gave a tired smile. "I believe you."
But neither of them smiled for long. The fire cracked again, and Zevran poured what was left of the wine.
"If they're in Antiva, I'll find them," he said again. "And I'll find him, too. Quietly. From a distance. If he's seen her, if there's even a hint—"
If he knew who Evie was and that she returned to Ferelden, the Crows may very well ignore the rule that they're not supposed to operate in the country.
"Then we bring her home," Alistair said. "Before he tries to make her his."
They sat in silence again, but this time it was different. Heavier. There was a new weight to the danger now, not just the Crows, not just the contract on Zevran, but something deeper and far more terrifying.
Destiny.
-
From the roof, the man looked like a black smudge against the pale cobbles. His cloak flared behind him as he ran, panicked, clutching a pack. Two guards trailed him, not far behind, stiff-backed and sweating. Good.
Evie crouched on the ledge, knee drawn to her chest, the stone cool beneath her palms. Below, the street curved out toward the western gates, where the safehouse lay hidden behind a merchant's false shopfront. She tracked the mark's flight with steady eyes, her breath fogging faintly in the chill.
He'd gotten the warning. She could see it in the tension of his limbs, the uncalculated haste. He knew someone was after him, but not who, not why. Only that he'd been marked for death.
Tai shifted beside her. "That makes six this month," he murmured, brushing crumbs from his sleeve. "Place your bets - how long until the Crows eat each other alive?"
"Soon would be nice," she said softly.
Kieran was somewhere below, near the alley mouth, eyes open in case anyone doubled back. Hirik loitered at the apothecary cart nearby, chewing a fig and pretending to be bored. Just shadows watching shadows. They never spoke to the marks. Never left proof. Never got close.
Only whispers. Only warnings, slipped into pockets, drawn in charcoal above beds, etched behind mirrors or tucked into ledgers.
Some listened. Others hesitated. A few disappeared entirely, changing names, addresses, habits. The goal wasn't to save them, not really. Not all of them deserved saving. The goal was to disrupt. To make it look like someone was leaking information from inside the Crows. Selling out targets, slipping secrets to outsiders. Maybe even choosing who lived and died behind closed doors.
Evie had seen how quickly that seed took root in people like them. Paranoia was a poison. And the Crows were already drinking it.
She leaned forward just slightly as the mark turned the corner and vanished from view. He was alive, for now, and scrambling.
"Let's go," she said, standing. "We've done enough for today."
Tai gave her a hand down, and they melted into the alley's gloom. They were unravelling it. Quietly, patiently, one knot at a time.