She felt him before she saw him. There was a stillness that settled over her when Lucanis was near, even in a place as chaotic and full of chatter as the market square. Evie didn't lift her eyes right away. She finished the line she was sketching before he stepped up beside her.
"Evie."
Her name always sounded different when he said it. Like he knew it was hers before she did.
"Lucanis." She offered a small smile. Polite, perfectly placed. No warmth behind it.
He noticed, of course. He was too sharp not to. But he didn't say anything.
"I didn't expect to find you here," he offered.
She didn't look up from her sketch. "Did you expect to find me at all?"
"No, but I hope." His tone was lighter than hers. Trying, maybe.
She turned a page with deliberate care. Blank. Safer. "I suppose you're making the rounds again. Business?"
He nodded. "Something like that. Nothing too interesting."
No, just an insultingly obvious trap. She kept her expression still, but the irritation flared in her chest again, low and dull. Did they think they were clever? Did he?
It wasn't even the trap that bothered her most. It was that someone thought so little of her and Tai's intellect that they believed that would be enough to catch them. She would have thought he had more sense than that. More respect, at least. But she said nothing.
"I saw your work in the gallery," he noted.
She glanced up. That surprised her. "You did?"
"The gallery owner wouldn't stop talking about you."
Her smile faltered just slightly. "She's kind."
"She's right. It was a striking portrait."
That caught her. Her fingers curled slightly over the edge of her book. "Thank you."
They stood in silence for a moment, not tense, exactly, but laced with something unspoken. Evie didn't want to press on it; she didn't want to risk revealing more than she meant to. Not when her annoyance hadn't quite settled. Not when she couldn't be sure what part, if any, he'd played in that display of condescension disguised as strategy.
"I should go," she said eventually, gathering her things. "I have to meet someone."
He nodded. "Of course."
She hesitated, then glanced at him one last time. There was a flicker of something softer in his eyes, something quietly confused. He didn't know what he'd done. Maybe he hadn't done anything.
"Lucanis," she said, almost gently.
He looked at her, expectant.
She gave him a smile, small, real this time. "It was good to see you."
And then she turned, slipping into the crowd, irritation still simmering in her chest, not quite gone, not quite sharp. Just quietly, dryly offended.
Evie stepped off the main street, ducking beneath the awning of a shuttered tailor shop, her sketchbook tucked under one arm. She was halfway down the alley beside the shop when a hand caught her wrist and pulled her gently into the shadow of a doorway.
"Easy," came the low voice, amused and familiar. "It's only me."
She didn't resist. Zevran's smirk flickered as he let her go, and she arched a brow.
"Is this the part where you scold me for making eyes at the enemy?" She asked dryly; no doubt he had seen her.
He looked her over and shrugged a shoulder, stepping further into the abandoned shop's gloom to lean against an overturned table. "If I recall, I once made significantly more than eyes at an enemy. Who am I to judge?"
Evie followed him in, closing the door behind them.
He crossed his arms, watching her with that maddening, warm-eyed calm of his. "So," he said at last. "That was him."
She didn't answer. Just dropped onto an overturned crate with a sigh.
"I take it the conversation didn't go how you wanted."
"I don't know what I wanted," she muttered.
"He looked at you like he was trying to hear your thoughts. You looked like you were trying not to listen."
Evie's throat tightened. "It's harder than I thought," she admitted. "Ignoring it."
Zevran didn't look at her, just nodded slowly. "Yes. It is."
"But you didn't ignore it. When you met Aunt Shae, you dropped everything, abandoned the Crows and followed her on a quest to save Ferelden. Kind of romantic, actually."
Zevran chuckled. "Ah, yes. Very romantic. Especially the part where she threatened to kill me if I stepped out of line." He paused a moment, recalling that day. "I wanted to just... kill your parents, complete the contract, and drag her back to Antiva."
"But Aunt Shae was the contract."
Zevran shook his head. "She was initially, but when I received it, saw her name, and showed them my soulmark, they rescinded that part of it. A Crow cannot be ordered to kill his own soulmate. And no other Crow will touch a contract that bears a fellow Crow's soulmate. The plan was to kill Alistair and Mareven and take Shae back to Antiva. That plan changed. Drastically. You've met your aunt."
Evie smiled softly.
"In Antiva," he went on, voice gentler now, "we are raised to believe in the bond. It is not just romantic nonsense. It is revered. We are told to look forward to it, to listen when it calls. And I was lucky. My soulmate did not push me away." He looked over at her now, sharp but kind. "We tried to protect you as best we could. Yet, here we are."
"Well, it has been pointed out that I have an uncanny knack for stupid decisions," she said wryly.
"Strange," he mused. "My son shares the same trait."
He pushed himself off the table he was leaning on and came to crouch in front of her, taking one of her hands in both of his.
"You do not have to do this, mi cielo. The contract on me is not your responsibility. I've lived with it for a long time; I can continue to do so."
"And what? I stop ruining the Crows, surrender to the bond and ruin his life anyway by being..." She gestured towards herself like that explained everything.
Zevran sighed, at the way she'd said it without bitterness, just acceptance and a little levity. The poison she had been drinking since childhood was still running strong, it seemed. He looked at the girl beneath the bard's smile and the archer's aim, to the daughter who had been raised in a golden cage and taught that love was weight, that legacy was rot, and that her very blood was some kind of offence.
"You sound like me," he said softly. "Back when I thought I was nothing more than what the Crows made me."
Evie didn't look at him. Just folded her arms across her stomach like she might hold herself together that way.
Zevran tilted his head. "You think surrendering to the bond would ruin him. But it is denying it that is hurting him now, no?"
She flinched, and that was answer enough.
"I'm not here to fix you, mi cielo. And I won't lie - I do not have the right words to tell you what your worth is. But I know this: you are not the ruin you think you are."
She nodded, but he recognised the blankness in her eyes. She was humouring him. He held back a weary sigh. He regretted he and Alistair had not seen this rotting seed being planted in her until it was too late. He didn't even know what the right answer was in this situation. She would never stop what they were doing, because it would hurt Tai, and she was afraid it would hurt him as well. Her loyalty was commendable.
He reached up, brushing some of her hair back. "Just know you can walk away from this at any time. I will deal with Tai."
The words were pointless, but at least he had put them out there.