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There were a few sounds that Josephine would never forget, no matter how long she lived.
Yvette’s laughter, the day she took her first steps and fell against Josephine, throwing her baby arms around her neck.
The sound of her mother’s voice, at once warm and distant.
The clear, brilliant purity of a minstrel’s voice at a Funalis gathering when she was seventeen, the second year she was in Orlais.
The cracking thud of her assailant’s skull hitting the stair, moments before she pulled off his mask and realized that he had been a friend, and she had killed him.
The echo of that crack as Inquisitor Lavellan shoved Bathram Abend against the wall, her hand on his throat.
“Inquisitor!”
There was a haze around Reshlyth’s fingers as she pinned the terrified man to the wall. She was a full head shorter than him, but strong. Josephine knew just how strong. They never denied their relationship, but in front of the court everything was strictly business.
However, just now what was making Josephine’s heart beat faster was not love but terror.
“Inquisitor—Reshlyth—stop!”
Reshlyth glared up at the man for another heartbeat before she let go of him, turning away with a gesture of disgust. Bathram Abend staggered away from the wall, choking, his face red and his eyes terrified. “Get him out of my sight.”
“Inquisitor. The man has what most would consider a reasonable request.” Josephine put a warning in her voice.
Reshlyth arched a brow as she sat back down on the throne. Three months after Corypheus had died, they were seeing a steady flow of petitioners into Skyhold. Some wanted to meet the Inquisitor. Others wanted favors in exchange for loyalty, land, or arms.
Bathram was one of the latter. I will need to start screening the petitioners. It had gone well until the man had gotten through the obsequious speech praising the Inquisitor and Andraste and made his request.
There is much fertile land in the region known as the Emerald Graves, but there are packs of wolves in the forest, and demons, and roving bands of elves. I have several families willing to move into the region and begin its resettlement, but we need protection while they’re getting established. I was hoping that the Inquisiton might—
That had been when Reshlyth had slammed Bathram into a wall and threatened to use the man’s guts for garters.
“Tell me. Do you humans make a practice of building farms over your own graveyards? Do you forget that easily? You see trees in the Emerald Graves. I see tombstones.” She rose from the throne, her dark eyes snapping with pale fire. “Humans ripped through the last of the elvhen and put up monuments where their bodies lay. You would build houses on our bones. And that, I will not allow. Keep your people out of the Graves, Bathram Abend. Find somewhere else to resettle.”
The man opened his mouth to argue. Reshlyth just looked at him.
He turned and left, with no further argument.
“Court is over for today,” the Inquisitor said, and her voice carried to the farthest rafters of the great hall. She stalked out towards the war room to the accompaniment of rising murmurs, and let the door close hard behind her.
“Clear the hall,” Josephine murmured to the guard, and went after her.
Reshlyth hadn’t gone far. Just to the window in Josephine’s office. She looked out, her back poker-straight, her thin shoulders stiff. The afternoon light poured golden over her.
Josephine put her hand on Reshlyth’s thin shoulder. “Love,” she said softly.
She took a breath that shook her whole body. “Don’t tell me you know how I feel.”
“I don’t,” she said. She closed her mouth on the next thing that she wanted to say, is alienating allies the best way to go about this? It wasn’t worth the fight it would cause. And she knew Reshlyth. If allies stood between her and what she needed, she would trample them. She might think about it beforehand, and she would be sorry afterwards, but she would do it.
So much of the last two years had been spent managing the Inquisitor. Josephine loved her, but she was also not blind to who she was.
And what.
After a few more heartbeats, Reshlyth’s body softened and she leaned back against Josephine. “It’s almost done,” she murmured. “Just a little while longer.”
Josephine blinked. “What is?”
Reshlyth was still looking out the window. She might have been a statue in the afternoon light, for all her expression changed. “Coincidences coming together to make a pattern.” She twisted so she could look at Josephine. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“Reshlyth, what have you done?”
“Addressed a very old injustice.” The Inquisitor smiled at Josephine, and there was again that strange, pale fire in her eyes.
“Gaspard is livid. We are receiving such letters.”
“The Inquisition can withstand a few letters. I hope.” She leaned on the battlements of Skyhold, looking out across the deep valley that was now wearing the green of early summer. “The Dales belong to the elves.”
“The Winter Palace—“
“Is unharmed. And will stay that way. As long as the humans of Orlais leave the elves alone.”
Josephine resisted the urge to hug her letterboard to her chest, mindful of the lit candle. “The consequences—how could you—“ She reached for words, and they failed her.
Reshlyth looked over at Josephine, and a small smile flicked across her lips. “Every last monument to the Exalted March of the Dales has been destroyed. Boundary markers have been placed at the edges of the Emerald Graves, and the last of the villas there torn down. I trust Leliana will not be so foolish as to call an Exalted March, even if she wanted to—and if the Black Divine does, Orlais will protest what will look like an invasion strongly. With armies.” The corner of her mouth quirked. “The civil war emptied the Dales. There is room.”
Josephine’s mouth was dry. I am not the Herald of Andraste, she had told Josephine once. That’s a convenient fiction.
She had forgotten. In the rush of victory, they had all forgotten that Lavellan was, first and foremost, Dalish.
“Cullen will not forgive you using his people so,” Josephine said, but her voice was tremulous.
“Probably not.” Reshlyth returned her gaze to the valley. “He can shout at me later.”
Josephine looked at her love and barely recognized her. She retreated without a word.
We are the last of the elvhen.
And never again will we submit.