The flat smelt like spiced meat and sweet pastry, warm and rich with Tai's handiwork. Four mismatched plates were already laid out on the table, each one stacked high with Evie's favourite dishes. She sat cross-legged on the mattress, wearing one of Kieran's oversized shirts and a circlet of dried wildflowers Hirik had proudly plopped on her head when she'd woken up this morning.
"Eighteen," Tai said with mock gravity as he placed the final dish in the centre of the table. "That means you're officially old enough to boss us around all day."
"I already do that," Evie replied.
"You really do," Hirik added, flopping down beside her with a grin. "But today we're letting you."
She beamed, half-buried in the blankets from their mattresses. There was a faint blush to her cheeks, not just from the heat of the food, but the warmth of being seen and loved like this. Here, no court, no whispers, no eyes judging her existence. Just them, and a birthday not being had on the road in the middle of nowhere like the last two. She'd turned sixteen just weeks after leaving Denerim. And seventeen in Tevinter when they'd passed through on their meandering journey to Antiva. They had taken a lot of detours.
Kieran raised his glass. "To Evie," he said. "The only person who can't boil water."
They all clinked together with tin and ceramic mugs, and laughter filled the tiny flat.
Later, with full bellies and the last of the birthday sweets melting on their tongues, they were sprawled in various states of post-dinner relaxation, splayed out across the mattresses with their heads meeting in the centre.
"Best thing I've eaten all year," Hirik declared, arms flung dramatically wide. "I'd marry you, Tai."
"Too late. I'm spoken for," Tai replied, raising his hand up to show the mark on his wrist. "Very alluring. Probably deadly. Might kill me for snoring."
"I hope she does," Kieran muttered, smiling faintly.
That set them off. A flurry of comments followed, speculating on what Tai's soulmate might be like, where she was, what she'd do when she found Tai. The general consensus was that he would say something stupid and she would slap him.
Evie listened, smiling faintly. She loved them like this. Loud, a little stupid, and safe.
"What about yours, Hirik?" Tai asked, nudging him with his head.
Hirik raised his wrist, frowning at the Qunari script. "Still can't read it," he said. "I asked someone a few weeks ago. They just said it was a name. Like I didn't already know that."
"Well, I'm sure she, or he, is wonderful," Kieran said. "Hopefully they like happy-go-lucky dwarves with more heart than sense."
Hirik beamed. "You see me."
"What about you?" Tai asked Kieran. "What do you think Bellara will be like?"
Kieran's ears flushed. "Kind. I think she'll be kind."
Evie hoped she was; Kieran deserved kindness.
"Boring," Tai declared.
Evie tried not to smile, but the urge faded when Tai grabbed her wrist, pulling back her sleeve.
"You still keep it covered?" He asked, untying the cuff to take a look.
"Why wouldn't I?"
Just because she had left the castle didn't mean she would start casually displaying it. She didn't want anyone seeing it, certainly not her soulmate.
Kieran's brows furrowed, and he took her wrist from Tai.
"We were told it said Leo Andreozzi, right?" He asked.
Evie nodded, confused. "Yes. That's what Uncle Zev said. What Father told me."
He turned it toward the light and leaned in, studying the flowing Antivan script. He had been learning the language since they came here. His face paled.
"What?" Evie asked, nerves blooming in her gut.
"That's not what it says."
Both Tai and Hirik tilted their heads to see it too.
"It's Lucanis Dellamorte," Kieran said softly.
None of them moved. Tai sat motionless, Hirik's mouth had gone slack, brows furrowing with the slow, dawning horror of it. Even Kieran, who had said it, looked as though he couldn't quite believe the words that had left his own mouth.
Evie just stared at her wrist, as if seeing the mark for the first time.
Lucanis Dellamorte.
It came to her slowly, like the tide creeping in, gentle at first, then impossible to ignore.
Her father had never liked to speak of soulmarks, he had never smiled when hers was mentioned. When she got older and Tai teased her about the name on her wrist, her father would laugh too, but it always rang hollow. Now she saw it for what it was. He had known.
Of course he had. Uncle Zev would have told him the moment he'd read it, back in her infancy most likely. Lucanis Dellamorte. The words must've hit him like a knife to the gut. And still, he had held her, raised her, loved her fiercely and desperately. And lied to her.
Because what else could he do?
It explained so much. The flicker of pain in his eyes when he'd catch her looking at it, why he never encouraged her to dream about it, why he always changed the subject when others brought up fate or love. She had thought it was because she would be expecting to marry someone of his or Anora's choosing. She may have been a bastard, but she could still be useful.
But maybe he hadn't wanted her to hope for someone like that. And he hadn't wanted to watch her grieve the truth.
"Shit," Tai breathed. It wasn't loud, but it carried.
"Lucanis?" Hirik asked, half like a question, half a curse.
Kieran's lips were pressed thin. "He's not just a Crow. He's the Crow."
And she was born with his name on her wrist.
Evie didn't say anything for a long moment. She just touched the mark, the ink-like scar burnt into her skin since birth, the one they'd all thought said Leo Andreozzi. A harmless name. A fiction and a comfort. Now it felt like something else entirely. A joke. Or a curse, maybe.
"Does this change anything?" She asked quietly. Her voice was calm. "We were already dismantling them. This doesn't have to change that."
Tai's jaw flexed. "He's your soulmate."
Evie nodded. "Yes."
"He's also a cold-blooded killer who's family tried to have my father assassinated. More than once."
"Yes," she said again.
"Evie," Kieran said softly, "you know what this means, don't you?"
She met his eyes. "It means I don't have to wonder anymore."
Silence stretched.
"I never wanted to meet him," she said. "I used to dream about it when I was little. But even then, I think I knew it wasn't for me. That kind of story..." She smiled a little, brittle and raw. "And now I know for certain."
"Evie—"
"It's fine," she said, before Tai could argue. "I mean it. I'm not sad. I'm relieved. I don't have to inflict myself on him, and I don't have to be disappointed when he turns out to be the kind of person who would kill a man for a bag of coin."
Tai looked stricken, and Kieran seemed to wilt a little.
"It doesn't change anything," she repeated. "We keep going. We break them apart. All of them. And when if get to him…" she hesitated, then shrugged. "We'll deal with it."
Hirik reached across and took her hand, no grand words, no promises, just a solid, warm grip that grounded her in the room.
"I just can't believe Zev and Father lied to you about this," Kieran murmured.
"I can," Evie said softly. "Because they love me."
And they had been trying to spare her. Because they had known all along what this name meant. And now, so did she.