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Kirkwall is a shithole.
At least, Ophelia Surana is fairly certain it’s a shithole. She’s put on a boat in shackles and kept under the deck for the entire journey across the Waking Sea, and then shoved onto the docks of the Gallows. Kirkwall’s proper docks are across the bay and huge statues of wailing slaves seem to be abundant. She never sees the city proper. It smells bad from here, but that seems to be a constant feature of cities in Ophelia’s limited experience.
It can’t compare to the smell of the blight. Ophelia should have joined the Wardens when they put her on a battlefield a month ago. She’d be stuck killing shambling darkspawn and hurlocks the rest of her life, but at least no one would be trying to make her tranquil.
A gauntleted hand lays on Ophelia’s shoulder, hesitant, as if she’s something fragile. Or like she’ll lash out and bite him.
“We have to go inside, Junior Enchanter Surana,” Ser Cullen Rutherford says in that strained way of his. Before she was just Ophelia, and he would have said it with a blush up to his ears.
He can’t meet her eyes anymore, since the incident. She knows why. She knows what form the desire demon took when it tortured him.
She lets herself think for a few seconds on if she could have stopped that, something unwanted twinging in her chest, and then casts it aside.
Why anyone allowed them both to transfer to the same Circle, Ophelia has no idea. Ser Cullen is a walking fraternization complaint waiting to come into fruition.
“Of course,” Ophelia says with a weak smile, because that expression is the most appropriate. She neither feels weak nor like smiling at the moment.
They walk through the gates of the worst Circle in Thedas side by side, Ophelia shackled in silencing cuffs and Ser Cullen trying very hard not to look green at the gills.
Up they go through a set of stone steps to a courtyard and a large set of doors. Statues of Andraste and Mafareth guard them, both looking suitably unapproachable and stoic.
At the steps to the doors waits a woman and a man.
The woman is a templar, one of the stern kinds with a firm hand if her posture is to be believed. Blonde, handsome, and undoubtedly important. The man is an elf, robed with the authority of a senior enchanter. He looks at Ophelia’s shackles with a barely hidden distaste, and at her face with open compassion.
A welcoming party. Ophelia notes that the templar looks at her first, eyes going to the shackles around her hands, and then appreciatively to Ser Cullen. As though the man hadn’t had his hands shaking when he put them on her.
The rumors Ophelia has heard about the Gallows are true, then. This will be uncomfortable.
“Ser Rutherford, Junior Enchanter Surana,” the templar says in greeting, hands clasped behind her back. “I am Knight Commander Meredith Stannard, this is First Enchanter Orsino. I trust that your journey was calm?”
Knight Commander Stannard expressly doesn’t ask if Ophelia misbehaved while she was on the very flammable ship, trapped in a little cabin she was made to share with a man that can barely look at her without growing nauseous. She thinks this has been the worst two weeks of both of their lives.
Besides the almost annulment of the Circle, of course. But it is hard to compare anything to that.
“There were no problems, Knight Commander. Junior Enchanter Surana is a well mannered mage,” Ser Cullen says.
“Yes, I trust that she would be, after the thwarted annulment of Kinloch. Still, it was prudent of you to keep her hands bound during the journey.”
Ophelia makes eye contact with First Enchanter Orsino, pondering if they usually speak of mages as if they’re not there at the Kirkwall Circle.
“The bindings are no longer necessary, however,” First Enchanter Orsino says practically, giving Ophelia a strained smile.
“If the Knight Commander is agreeable, of course,” Ophelia murmurs demurely. “My comfort does not outweigh others’ safety. I am not within the Circle yet.”
Knight Commander Stannard gives an approving nod, just as Ophelia guessed she would. The only good sort of mage is one that bares its neck and defers to a templar’s greater judgement, after all.
“Let us go inside, then. You will come with me, Ser Cullen, we have much to discuss about your new post. And you will go with the First Enchanter, Junior Enchanter.”
Ophelia steps inside the Kirkwall Circle and tries not to flinch when the heavy doors shut.
—
“I am unsure of the leniency of Kinloch Circle, but you must be careful here in the Gallows, Ophelia. The templars are…serious, in their threats of tranquility. You must be above reproach to live well here,” Orsino explains carefully within his office.
Ophelia nods, inky dark hair swaying. She knows she is beautiful, and an elf. She knows that means she is all the more at risk. A tranquil mage is far easier to exact lusts and violence upon.
She is also at a disadvantage because of her reputation. Everyone who lives in a Circle covets gossip, she doesn’t doubt the templar and the mages have heard of how she’d ripped through demons and other mages alike.
“I will do my best to keep to myself, First Enchanter. I don’t want any trouble, just to read,” Ophelia says earnestly, clasping her fingers over her lap and looking the picture of an innocent, bookish mage.
“Yes. Exactly like that,” Orsino says bluntly, surprising her. Rare is it that an elder Enchanter or any templar can see straight through her. “You are a skilled mage, that much was communicated to both the Knight Commander Meredith and I. If she believes you to be a threat for even a second, you will be given the rite. Do you understand?”
“I do,” Ophelia agrees easily, nodding.
She is settled into the Senior Mage quarters. She spends the entire following night in the Fade planning what exactly to do next.
—
In the Circle, there are clear hierarchies.
Above all others is the Knight Commander. Then the First Enchanter, then the rest of the templar. The Senior Enchanters come at some nebulous point between the greenest templar and the more middling ones, the Enchanters and junior Enchanters firmly beneath the templar.
At the bottom are the apprentices, and below them, the tranquil.
This is, of course, without accounting for the fact that a human will always be preferred over an elf, especially in the case of a templar’s judgement. Those who grow up outside the Circle are more prone to those prejudices and templar all grow up outside.
All this is to say, Ophelia does not act quickly, nor does she do very much at all for her first month within the Gallows. She does not know what this Circle’s hierarchies and members of interest are. Eyes are always on her, watching for any signs of deviance. Mages ask in quiet tones what happened in Kinloch.
Ophelia answers fearfully, innocent as a lamb, and mentions the blood and the talons and how she is glad to be away from there.
And, when the eyes slowly peel away from her, when her newness becomes less interesting, Ophelia observes everyone else right back. Takes in the social dynamics between the templar, the mages, the tranquil. Tranquil do have social lives, despite what the more disgusted and dismissive mages may like to say. Their minds have been cut open, not killed.
Two pairs of eyes never leave Ophelia. Knight Commander Meredith, who seems to find one opportunity a day to look at her for an undue amount of time, and freshly promoted Knight Captain Cullen. He tries not to look at all, but he does anyway. And when she catches his eye, he turns tail and flees.
In Kinloch, there were ways to ensure you had access to favors and safety. Ophelia had known even as an apprentice that Ser Cullen would become important, he was too favored by Greagoir not to be. Months spent catering to his crush, months letting Jowan elbow her about her own supposed crush.
Wasted. All of it. Cullen can barely look at her. That desire demon took the promised safety of his affections. How ironic that they are gone when she needs them most.
So. Ophelia must switch focus.
Knight Commander Meredith stares at Ophelia when she is in the library. Ophelia turns after a moment, as if just noticing, and then meets her pale eyes. She is attractive, Ophelia supposes, in an older, powerful sort of way. She is certainly the most dangerous choice, but her lieutenants are her creatures at their core and will not get away with fraternization for long before being caught.
Ophelia offers Meredith a smile, hesitant and with warmth.
The Knight Commander’s brows furrow, her frown deepening just so. She turns and marches out of the library, Ophelia watching her all the way out.
Yes. This will be slow and perhaps get her made tranquil anyway. But even if the woman isn’t interested in women so much younger than her, being fondly known to her may allow her some grace.
(She can stomach a lot of things, you have to in the Circle. But she can’t stomach pressuring Cullen further. He is her only other option, besides the Knight Commander.)
(Before she had thought him sweet, in the way a dope-ish mabari can be. There is something behind his eyes now that she does not wish to make worse. Fear can turn to anger that makes all men look ugly.)
—
A cheerful greeting.
“Good morning, Knight Commander.”
A bemused look.
“Good morning, Junior Enchanter.”
“Is it sunny out today? I haven’t gone to the courtyard, too busy reading.”
“You are new to Kirkwall. You will find it is rarely sunny, and when it is, it smells.”
“Have you lived here all your life, Knight Commander?”
“Unfortunately. Carry on with your reading, Junior Enchanter. I will not keep you.”
—
“Hello Knight Commander.”
“Yes, Junior Enchanter Surana?”
“Oh, you were just nearby. I thought it would be rude not to say hello. Apologies if I—“
The Knight Commander interrupts swiftly.
“You are not bothering me, no. I see you are studying healing again?”
“Yes. After Kinloch I realized I had a lack of knowledge in the area. I seek to rectify that.”
“What happened at Kinloch will never come to pass in the Gallows. Keep faith in that.”
Ophelia does not feel comforted by that stoic declaration. She keeps her tone as earnest, however.
“I try to, Knight Commander. It is impertinent to admit it, but the templar are much more vigilant here at the Gallows. I feel safer from blood mages.”
The Knight Commander’s expression does not soften, Ophelia suspects that it cannot. Meredith looks like one of the statues of Andraste, locked in a sense of authority and discipline.
“You believe you would falter, if faced against one again?”
Ophelia shakes her head, letting something harder slip into her tone. A surety of purpose that the woman will likely appreciate.
“Never, Knight Commander Meredith. Not against a maleficarum. My magic exists to serve man, and if I am called for the removal of a threat to innocents, then I will answer.”
Approval makes its way across the Knight Commander’s face, the twitch of her lips.
“Let us hope you are not called to it again. Knight Commander Greagoir spoke highly of your skills.”
Ophelia demures, turning away and fiddling with the edge of her book, thick page between her fingers.
“Did he? I should be flattered, but I was mostly afraid that night, Knight Commander. And angry. Terribly angry.”
Meredith hums.
“And yet you resisted the temptation of demons and fellow mages stalwartly. Your humility is admirable, but unnecessary. So long as you maintain your iron control, you have nothing to fear.”
They part ways after that. Ophelia lets the satisfaction of progress keep her steady against the newly tranquil faces she sees in the halls.
(And against Cullen, who still will not speak to her.)
—
Slow progression happens over the course of months. Carefully cultivated relationships with the more quiet members of the Circle, and interactions with Meredith when they pass each other.
No one, it seems, has realized the woman speaks to Ophelia at all. Save Cullen, who is always around some corner, and First Enchanter Orsino.
“You are playing with fire,” the old elf says in his office.
“With what?” Ophelia asks, innocently confused.
“The Knight Commander asks after your progress personally. You must stop speaking to her, before you attract her disapproval.”
Ophelia nods, and she continues anyway. Orsino is a man with good intentions and little power to change much. He would have her duck and make herself small, and when she was inevitably victimized by a templar, dry her tears and only be able to ensure she is not made tranquil after the fact.
He is useful, but not enough. Meredith will be.
Meredith is a Kirkwall native. Meredith likes it when Ophelia demures to her judgement without having to be told what she believes. Meredith likes when Ophelia shows a spine, just enough of one to make her interesting.
Meredith sees some part of herself in Ophelia, she thinks. Or perhaps she sees some other mage from a long bygone past in her voice and face. She isn’t sure.
Meredith does seem to find her attractive, though it takes her catching her glancing at her lips several months in to finally show any signs of it. Subtle things. Willingly being drawn into conversation and tilting her body just so towards Ophelia. Eyes straying to her dainty wrists. Her ears. Her throat.
Meredith will not act on such things on her own, of course. She is not known by any of the other mages to have favorites nor to seek pleasures from her charges, and in fact if anyone sees her in the halls they try to escape notice as quickly as they can.
That is fine. Ophelia will be the tempting, innocent mage. She will initiate. That way Meredith can be sure in her own moral superiority when she’s done with her. It will be a connection that could both kill and save Ophelia, and she is good at stacking her odds in her favor.
(Cullen still won’t talk to her. He doesn’t look away anymore, when she meets his gaze and lets her face take on a sad quality of mourning. He just clenches his jaw and his eyes burn with whatever it is he has within him. Shame. Fear. Anger.)
(Sometimes, she lets herself look just a little afraid back. Just for the symmetry. She is afraid, after all. She just would rather not feel it.)
(When is a mage not afraid?)
—
In the end, Meredith is exactly what Ophelia expected.
Ophelia very nervously carries books from the library to her room after curfew directly in the path of Meredith’s rare nighttime patrol. The Knight Commander is the sort who likes to catch mages herself, even at her high station. Her rare patrols she can spare are strictly scheduled, making her only easier to track.
Ophelia is clad in a nightgown and slippers, long dark hair loose and unadorned. Her books? Innocent reading. No blood magic. Just Free Marcher history.
Then, right on schedule, Meredith appears around the corner. She pauses when she sees Ophelia, her stoic frown deepening.
“Ophelia,” Meredith says, quiet and terse.
Ophelia looks bashful immediately, clutching the history tomes close to her chest and sheepishly stepping closer to stop before the Knight Commander.
“Good evening, Meredith,” Ophelia replies, just as quiet. They had become familiar enough for first names a month ago. Usually Ophelia would include a “Ser”, but now is the time for pressing boundaries.
Ophelia looks up at Meredith, taking in the way the candlelight makes her angular, older features look less sharp and more dreamlike.
“It is past curfew,” the Knight Commander says, blue eyes piercing and unerring from Ophelia’s face. “Do you believe yourself above such things?”
“I became distracted, Knight Commander,” Ophelia replies, hefting the books in her arms just so. It pushes up her breasts. She is not wearing her upper smallclothes. It is noticeable in the chill of the halls. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you made a clandestine visit to the library in your night clothes? Fool girl,” Meredith hisses, taking a step closer. She did watch Ophelia’s little move with the books. “Do you believe yourself safe, underdressed in the middle of the night?”
Ophelia has always noticed how tall humans are, but now that Meredith looms over her it does thrill her just slightly. Her shoulders are made broad by her armor, and she is tall even for a human woman.
“But you are the one who caught me, Knight Commander. You would not hurt me,” Ophelia says innocently, looking up at Meredith with wide, dark eyes. She reachest a hesitant hand to touch the woman’s chestplate.
Meredith would hurt her. Though Ophelia imagines some of the appeal would be in hurting someone who thinks you wouldn't.
Meredith’s gauntleted hand darts up and grasps Ophelia’s wrist, cold and firm. She does not pull Ophelia’s hand from her armor.
“I should have you punished for this impertinence,” Meredith states cooly, eyes carefully looking Ophelia up and down.
Ophelia nods simply, wetting her lips. Meredith watches that too.
“You should.”
Ophelia is dragged to Meredith’s office in a tense silence broken only by the quiet echo of Meredith’s steps. She does not regret anything she has done. Perhaps she will, later, but there are other concerns for now.
The thick wooden door is opened and Ophelia is shoved within, carefully attempting not to drop any of her books. The door is shut again, and Ophelia hears the click of a lock.
The room is dim, candles low and needing a change soon. Bookshelves of ledgers and holy books line the walls, interrupted by the occasional frosted window.
Before Ophelia has time to think, Meredith is stating orders.
“Put the books upon the desk.”
Ophelia quickly obliges, moving forward and dropping them on the heavy, large oak desk. Greedily she also tries to read the paperwork there, upside down as it is. She can only guess it’s about orders for lyrium before Meredith speaks.
Her voice is cold, accusatory.
“Did you mean to meet some other templar on patrol? Ser Cullen, perhaps?”
Ophelia blinks, surprised. Behind her she hears steps and the jingle of keys meeting something muffled. A pocket.
The sound of armored boots growing closer, calm, unhurried. Clack. Clack. Clack. They stop just behind Ophelia, and a gauntlet lays itself upon her shoulder. The fingertips of it are shaped like claws, drawing her attention from the corner of her eye.
The touch is almost gentle, if not for the way the templar’s claws curl into her nightgown, bunching the fabric.
“I have seen how you look at him,” Meredith murmurs, voice brushing the back of her hair. “Fraternizing even before you transferred, according to your old Knight Commander. Pitiful.”
With a firm jerk, Meredith turns Ophelia around and gets closer, forcing Ophelia to lean against the desk. The edge of it presses uncomfortably into her lower back.
Ophelia looks up, wide eyed at the armored woman before her. She’s pinned like a shiny beetle to a corkboard. Meredith looks down at her much like one would a bug. Fascinated and disdainful.
“You must know his patrol is soon after my own,” Meredith continues, fully collected as she moves her hand from her shoulder and tucks Ophelia’s hair behind her long, twitching ear.
Ophelia is mildly surprised. She didn’t know that, no, and she hadn’t wanted to catch him unawares. Maker knows what he would have done to her if he had. The last time he saw anything with her face in the Circle so late at night, it was a demon.
“No, Meredith—“
“Knight Commander,” Meredith corrects, voice like steel.
“No, Knight Commander. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do such a thing. I truly was being thoughtless,” Ophelia says, tone beseeching. She lets her eyes go a little dewy. Her body is humming with some unknown energy under her skin. Not magic. Something completely physical.
“If Ser Cullen saw me like this I’m not sure what he would do,” Ophelia adds, pitifully.
Go grey as a ghost and look ready to throw up his dinner. Or, more interestingly, threaten her. She’d seen him be far more harsh with other mages lately. Untrusting and far more willing to assume wrongdoing. Much like Meredith herself.
It is funny. Ophelia had thought him far more tame than most templars. But all templars are the same, in the end.
“I am certain of what he would have done.” Meredith cups Ophelia’s cheek, the cold of the gauntlet and the sharpness of its fingertips faintly scratching her ear. Then it slides carefully down, closer and closer to her throat as she speaks. Claws tingling across her skin. “He is a good Knight Captain. Lenient, at times, but he will become more strict with age and experience. I believe he would have fallen for your temptation easily.”
Ophelia reaches out as Meredith’s gauntlet clasps around her throat, pressing her palms against the other woman’s chest.
“Am I a temptation, Knight Commander?” Ophelia asks softly. Meredith’s thumb caresses her pulse.
Meredith does not blink, nor stop Ophelia’s speaking. She keeps as still as a statue. Perhaps she wishes for her to prostrate herself, as she does in the Circle’s Chantry.
Perhaps she wants to see how far Ophelia will go.
“Do I tempt you?” Ophelia continues, a hand brushing over the dark templar symbol on Meredith’s chest.
The metal is so cold against her skin. She shivers.
Meredith’s hand tightens around her throat, pressure going from gentle to firm in an instant. Ophelia lets out a little gasp.
Meredith opens her mouth to speak, and then—
A sudden knock on the door.
Ophelia jumps, her blood turning to ice when she hears the groggy, familiar voice at the other end.
“I am reporting for my patrol, Knight Commander,” Cullen says, muffled through the door.
Meredith stares at Ophelia, hand tightening like a vice around her neck. She could not speak if she wanted to. She can barely breathe .
“Go then, Ser Cullen. Be certain to make an extra sweep at the library, I have heard of apprentices sneaking there at night,” Meredith calls, voice strong. Her other hand reaches for Ophelia’s hip, slowly hiking up her night gown in a slide up her side. Cold air caresses Ophelia’s calves, then her knees.
“Yes, Knight Commander,” Cullen replies, unaware of what’s happening through the door. There are the sounds of a few muffled steps and then nothing.
Ophelia is getting lightheaded.
Silence for a long moment, save the sound of linen shifting and Meredith’s breaths. Ophelia’s pulse pounds around unyielding fingers. There is an impulse to call up her mana, an animal kind of fear that Ophelia disdains the moment she recognizes it.
Meredith will not choke her to death in her office, of all places, and certainly not when she’s edging closer and closer between her legs and lifting her skirt.
Ophelia is not afraid.
Meredith smiles, a small, flinty thing that is proud and liable to cut. She must see something she likes in Ophelia’s expression. Her grip slackens again to nothing but a careful hold. Ophelia takes a deep, shuddering breath, blinking away a few hot, stinging tears. They blur her vision and trail down her cheeks, one, then two, then three.
“Pitiful thing. He would be unhappy to have seen you in such a state,” Meredith comments. She’s stopped the glide of her hand at her hip, holding her there and revealing her thighs to the dimly lit office. Every brush of air and the slight pinch of the gauntlet fills Ophelia with a need.
There is the physical, of course. She can’t help but be intrigued by the physical. But the true satisfaction comes with a plan well done. The cusp of a triumph masquerading and mixing with lust.
“But you do not dislike my state,” Ophelia counters in a rough voice. Meredith narrows her pale eyes, adjusting her grip on Ophelia’s neck just so. Ophelia realizes her slippers are barely touching the ground, now. Meredith’s armored hips have eased their way between her bare legs and are holding her up.
“I am only showing you some small measure of what could have occurred in your carelessness. Do you think yourself the first pretty little mage to beg for a templar’s attentions?” Meredith asks.
Maybe she is the first to beg this one’s attention, considering she is so convinced that Ophelia wants her second in command and not her. Ophelia pouts quite believably instead of saying so.
Meredith suddenly lets go of Ophelia all at once, stepping back. The move forces Ophelia to fumble to stay upright against the desk, hands reaching back to steady herself and feet hitting the floor flat.
The Knight Commander keeps a foot between them and just stares, stares at Ophelia’s wet eyes and aching throat and her long, pale legs that have been revealed from beneath her nightgown. She knows what she looks like, she knows anyone with their right mind would want more.
There is a sudden war in Meredith’s face, a small flex of her hands. She holds herself with the stiffness of stifled movement, of denial. She wants , she wants to badly Ophelia can see it burning plainly in her eyes, a fire as hot and undoing as Andraste’s pyre.
Ophelia cannot allow the templar to deny herself. She’s gotten so close to what she wants. So close to ledgers and knowledge and safety. To Knight Commander Meredith’s soft underbelly. Ophelia’s fingers twitch, feeling the paperwork upon the desk slide. Feels the heat between her thighs and the cold of the room.
She goes for the kill.
Ophelia’s face shudders, just so, as if implying some great emotion. It’s something she’d seen Jowan do at his most vulnerable. Her eyes trail Meredith’s body, each joint of her armor and curve of her body. Veneration in her gaze, like she had seen from Lily when she looked at Andraste’s unseeing statue.
She lands finally on Meredith’s face. Curls her way around her lips and up to her eyes. Then she begs, so quiet it may as well be a whisper.
“Will you punish me, Knight Commander?”
Meredith’s nose flares, and she scowls fiercely enough that Ophelia thinks she’s made a mistake for a moment. That she has overplayed her hand. Meredith takes a short step forward, so quick Ophelia flinches.
“You behave like a mewling vestige of desire!” Meredith hisses harshly, a condemnation. Another short step. Her hand clenching into a fist. “You wish to be punished? Then turn, girl, lay over the desk. I will punish you.”
The way she says punish implies that the punishment is more for the sexual frustration Ophelia is inflicting than anything else.
Ophelia does as she asks, promptly and with no complaint. With a swift turn, Ophelia lays herself across the lacquered desk, papers sliding beneath her chest and close enough to read.
Steps, then a firm hand gripping Ophelia’s rear. Her nightgown is roughly pulled up to her hips, revealing her smalls.
They’re a nice pair of smalls. The kind she had to trade favors for in Kinloch. Normal favors, not things like—
A gauntleted hand smacks into her ass. the leather part over the Knight Commander’s palm contrasting with the sharp pinch of metal at her fingertips.
Ophelia lets out a little yelp, resisting the urge to look back.
“Months, you have begged with moon eyes for firm correction. I was wrong to have stayed my hand,” Meredith says in a low, threatening tone as she caresses the place she struck her. Her hand is so close to Ophelia’s core that she presses her thighs together, to seek some relief.
“Count, Junior Enchanter,” Meredith orders in a hard voice.
“How many, Knight Commander?” Ophelia asks, and from her angle with her chest laid flat on the desk it makes her voice come out weak.
Meredith does not answer, just squeezes her cheek firmly and then lifts her hand again.
Smack! The pain spirals, there and then leaving her stinging.
“One,” Ophelia speaks, planting her cheek onto the soft paper about lyrium orders. She shuts her eyes.
“One, Knight Commander,” Meredith hisses, and she smacks her hand down again before Ophelia can speak.
“One, Knight Commander!” Ophelia repeats in an only half faked breathy tone. The pain is real. If nothing else about her creating this relationship is real, the sting and the cold air brushing her hot skin are real.
Ophelia counts, and in between, Meredith begins to speak.
“Is this what you wanted?” A switched side, pain made fresh all over again. Her other hand sliding up Ophelia’s back and back down. As though to soothe her.
Smack. A whimpered, not at all faked, “Seventeen, Knight Commander.”
Ophelia has the wherewithal to think it’s amusing that they’re playing bad mage good templar right now.
“Is this what you needed?” in a far darker tone.
Perhaps it is. All she can think about is the hot sting Meredith’s hands leave behind and the growing wetness between her legs.
Meredith’s hand lifts, and Ophelia tenses for the next strike, only for her to cup her core over her smalls. Up and down she rubs her there, achingly close to her clit. Just close enough for her to know Meredith is avoiding it purposefully. Ophelia lets out a breath that trails into something that could be a moan.
“Poor sweet girl. You decided any templar would do for your desecration,” Meredith murmurs, tone falsely pitying. Ophelia is so wet that the fabric of her smalls have turned each rub of Meredith’s hand into a smooth, slick glide.
“I want you ,” Ophelia finds herself saying, and meaning. “Please, Knight Commander. Please .”
She edges back, pressing into Meredith’s hand and wincing as her rear burns from its rough handling. It is a good thing she’s been spending so much time learning healing magic. For now the pain makes her throb with need, though in the morning it will likely be different.
Meredith’s hands leave her and Ophelia whines.
Then she hears the sound of metal and leather, and feels something being dropped onto the desk beside her.
Bare, callused hands tug Ophelia’s smalls down and let them slide to her ankles. Then a pair of fingers appear in front of Ophelia’s face.
“Suck,” is ordered.
Ophelia takes the digits into her mouth with ease, tasting sweat and leather and the tang of metal. She slides her tongue carefully along them, chancing looking back at Meredith as she does so.
Meredith’s usual composure has cracked, in some ways. Her eyes are unerring from her plush lips. This, Ophelia has some familiarity with. She did tumble with other apprentices before her harrowing. Never had they spanked her, but there had certainly been some sucking between them.
Meredith presses the pads of her fingers down on Ophelia’s tongue. “Like a dog begging for praise. Turn around.”
Ophelia does as she’s bid. Meredith’s fingers are pulled from her mouth with a wet noise, and Ophelia licks away the spit that gathered at her lips.
Meredith does not hesitate, pressing her fingers into Ophelia’s cunt in a slow press. Ophelia lets out a breath, tightening herself around them.
“How many have you spread these pale legs for?” Meredith wonders aloud, voice lowering. Her other hand brushes up the back of her thigh, the skin of her butt still stinging when she grazes it. The hand lowers, a thumb finally caressing her twitching clit.
Ophelia allows herself to get lost in the motions of it, the fingers quickening their pace within her, the thumb drawing over her clit steadily. The air in the office is so cold, but the coiling pleasure in her stomach is warm. The hands on her are warm. Meredith’s more measured touch is a relief compared to the spanking.
She glances down at the papers, eyes half lidded and quiet moans leaving her lips. Her vision is blurring. She makes out that one is about upcoming harrowings, names pulling into her mind alongside dates. She prays Meredith does not think she’s cognizant enough to realize what she’s being defiled on. She rolls her hips into Meredith’s motions, satisfied when the Knight Commander hums with something bordering on pleased.
Ophelia crests not in some overwhelming wave, but a slow building thing, more ambling than the spanks. She imagines Meredith is indulging herself. Enjoying having a warm body happy to take whatever she gives. She’s surprised the woman is bothering to touch her clit at all.
But it comes. Meredith presses down a bit harder on her clit, searches her walls for that inside place that makes her toes curl, all the while they fill her office with slick noises that seem so loud to Ophelia’s ears.
“I should not reward you for your behavior,” Meredith murmurs derisively, seemingly more to herself and far less cross than she had been at the beginning of this. But her hands do not still, even as Ophelia chases her touch more fervently, pressing herself into her thumb.
“Please, Knight Commander,” Ophelia pleads weakly. She’s exhausted and will be at least half displeased if she doesn’t get to cum after all this. Her insides flutter, closer, closer.
“Am I not already giving you what you want?” Her tone is indifferent.
A few more plucks of her clit and Ophelia moans, stretching her legs and clamping down on the Knight Commander’s fingers. Meredith doesn’t pull her thumb from her clit until she’s whining with overstimulation, trying to move away from her.
Ophelia breathes deeply, blood rushing in her ears. Meredith removes her hands from her cunt. Distantly, she realizes the woman has picked up her gauntlets, and she hears the rustle of them being put on once again. She’s rested her forehead onto the desk, and she’s sure it will leave an unflattering red mark on her forehead.
“You will return to your room, Junior Enchanter Surana. I trust that you can walk?” Knight Commander Meredith says cooly, as if the past half hour never occurred. But it has. Ophelia will be benefiting from that in the future, provided the Knight Commander doesn’t elect to turn her tranquil.
Ophelia shivers, then gets her hands under herself and pushes herself off of the desk. The move makes her disoriented for a moment, the room looking odd. She blinks with her eyes feeling a bit watery and looks back.
Meredith seems to be drinking in the sight of her with those sharp blue eyes, no matter her frown. Ophelia is sure she’s a sight now, dark hair tousled and body bearing the marks of the Knight Commander’s harsh treatment.
“Of course, Knight Commander,” Ophelia manages to sound almost normal. Her throat is still a tad rough. “I’ve learned my lesson about travelling after curfew. Your reprimand was most thorough.”
If one were to overhear them, they would never guess she’s in nothing but a nightgown against the templar’s wide desk.
Conflict wars in Meredith’s eyes, but Ophelia does not give it time to settle. She pushes herself back to her feet with tired legs and pulls on her smalls from where they gathered on the floor. She winces at the feel of the fabric rubbing her tender skin. She’ll have to heal that when she gets back to her room.
Meredith watches as she runs her fingers through her hair into a more managed state, watches as she picks up her books from her desk.
Silently, the woman heads to the door and Ophelia follows. She unlocks it, and Ophelia is free.
(She is anything but.)
—
Cullen finds her just before she reaches her room.
Ophelia hears him before she sees him, the steps of his armor echoing just as Meredith’s had. Ophelia does not hurry her steps. There would be no point, not when her room is but three hallways away.
“Who is out of bed?” Cullen asks sharply behind her. Not loud, considering they’re right by the Junior Enchanter dorms and waking anyone would spell more trouble.
Ophelia looks back, struck with an odd sense of deja vu as she hugs her books to her chest and sees the boy she had wanted first.
It’s dark in this hall, half lit by moonlight thanks to a pair of windows. Moonlight pools along the floor between them.
Cullen pauses in a sudden jolt, eyes widening at the sight of her. He has bags beneath them. He’s cut his hair shorter, now. She can barely see the curls.
“Hello, Cullen,” Ophelia says quietly.
“Ophelia,” Cullen says in a halting sort of way. Half afraid. Half surprised. He gives her an up and down look, taking an aborted step forwards. That’s the first time he’s said her name since the almost-annulment.
His eyes catch on her neck, mouth parting. He comes closer with quick steps. “Your neck—?” he whispers sharply, stopping with two feet between them. His hand twitches up, as if to, what? Get a better look?
How ugly. He never asks after anyone else when they have odd bruises. She knows, because she’s seen him quite happily spend time around templars who inflict them. At least she’s sure the Knight Commander left a mark, now. Another thing to heal.
“Stop it,” Ophelia says with a sigh. She’s too tired. She should have never let them transfer her to this circle. She’s almost certain Greagoir did it in some disgusting, unasked-for favor for Cullen. If only he weren’t terrified of her now.
“Stop it? Stop what?” Cullen says in the same tone, glaring. That familiar anger is etching across his face again. He stops looking as boyish and more like a man when that happens. She doesn’t think it’s a good thing. “Who did it?”
“You’ve avoided me for months, you thought someone wouldn’t try staking a claim?” Ophelia says bluntly. She savors his flinch. It’s cruel. She has never claimed to be otherwise. Jowan had been the kinder of the two of them, and he’s dead.
Cullen sets his jaw. “That doesn’t make sense. No one would— I have not been avoiding you!”
“I don’t want to do this right now.”
Ophelia doesn’t want to be doing any of this. She should have died with Jowan and Lily, speared against templar blades because of Jowan’s blood magic. She should have died when the other enchanters decided to summon demons. She hadn’t. She doesn’t want to die. She should have.
All her life she has fought to be what the circle wanted most to survive. She’s melded herself into the perfect little mage, inoffensive and boring. And then she’d had to slaughter demons and it ruined all her fucking work.
Now she’s stuck in this hallway with a boy she’d been half invested in, the both of them growing more unfamiliar to the other by the breath. She hates Kirkwall. She wants to be—
“You— you know what happened,” Cullen hisses in wounded anger. “You know .”
Yes. She knows what that desire demon did with her face. With her body. She knows why Cullen Rutherford looks at her like a man hunted, as if he isn’t the one with a blade.
“Well, now we’re more even,” Ophelia tells him. They aren’t really. Ophelia had taken advantage of a predator she knew was lying in wait. He had never expected something that looked like her to hurt him.
She reaches up a hand to her throat and calls her mana. Blue light pools at her fingers, easing the leftover ache in her throat and making Cullen jerk back. His fear only lasts a second before he grasps her wrist, startling her from her spell.
“Who?” he repeats, dark eyes searching her face. They’re closer now, a foot between them. She can see the small freckles on his face, his chapped lips, the hairs of his eyebrows.
“I can’t tell you.”
“I’m the Knight Captain. I outrank every templar in this circle save one.” Even as Cullen says as much, a slow horror dawns over his face. No doubt remembering all those times he had seen her and the Knight Commander together.
“No,” Cullen murmurs, looking sick. His grip on her wrist slackens. She pulls it from his hand.
“I never should have been sent to this circle. Neither should you. It’s made both of us worse,” Ophelia observes distantly. “I wanted to be with you, I think. I really did.”
She didn’t understand what drove Jowan to kill himself over Lily. Not really. She could understand liking the idea of what she and Cullen could have mimed, though. She remembers the secret kisses they had shared. He’d been so easy to make blush.
“You can’t just say that. It’s wrong. What you’re doing now is wrong,” Cullen says. He has a grey pallor to him.
“You have no right to say if I’m wrong. Your new friends Ser Ryswell and Ser Justine like to try out apprentices after their Harrowings,” Ophelia says.
“They aren’t apprentices if they’ve been Harrowed—”
Pedantic.
“I’m going to sleep, Cullen. I highly suggest you don’t mention this to the Knight Commander. I imagine she’ll make me tranquil if she thinks you know.” Ophelia turns on her heel and starts down the hallway. Her slippers are silent against the stone.
“Did she force you?” Cullen asks, something desperate in his voice. “She can’t have forced you.”
Funny. He did seem to find her to be a great mentor. She’s likely ruining his impression.
“She’s the Knight Commander. What does it matter if she did or didn’t? The choice was the same.”
And Ophelia had known that when she started.
“Don’t walk away, Ophelia.” She can hear him following her, armored boots echoing.
“Forget this happened, Ser Cullen.”
“When did— Maker , in her office? When I was just outside?” he sounds horrified.
Down this hallway, to the left, then to the right. That’s all she has left.
“I’m just another enchanter, Ser Cullen. How the Knight Commander chooses to reprimand me is above my humble—”
His hands grasp her shoulders, halting her. In a dizzying turn her back is pressed to the wall. Ophelia grunts, dropping the books in her arms. They land loudly onto the ground in the silence of the tower.
“This is not finished!” Cullen hisses, leaning down and looking at her. Ophelia wants to wrap her hands around his throat.
“You don’t get to care now!” Ophelia answers in kind, pushing his chestplate and feeling him barely jolt. Anger is finally worming its way up her chest and into her throat. “You don’t get to have an opinion, or ask anything of me! You ignored me for months while your fellows leered at me—”
He kisses her. His chapped lips pressing against her own in something terribly chaste if not for the pressure.
Ophelia hates him. Ophelia hates demons. Ophelia hates Meredith Stannard. Ophelia hates Jowan and Lily and all the rest. Ophelia hates having had magic at all, calling lights to her fingers and barely old enough to speak in full sentences.
She reaches up and puts her hands around Cullen’s throat. His hands lift from her shoulders and cup her cheeks.
Perhaps there was no winning in the circle. Perhaps this was it. Dark hallways and gauntlets and too wide desks.
Ophelia bites Cullen’s lip till she tastes blood. He curses. They do not stop.