It's a glass vial with his name on it and filled with dark blood. Colin's expression doesn't change when he sees it, but his thoughts do. He stares at the thing and wonders why he doesn't have some fit of revulsion at the sight of it. He hadn't wanted to look at it, had hoped it would be destroyed and that would be the end of it, but now he just feels like he's looking at something kind of morbid but otherwise unremarkable. It's gross, but it's not the instrument of his doom. He was never caught because of it. He never had escapes foiled by it. The only time it caused him grief was these last couple of months.
He reaches out and picks it up and it feels warm to the touch, probably from Kostos' hand. Whatever power this held over him in the Circle, he has it now. There's something fortifying about that thought--he has taken back just a little of the power the Chantry held over him for so long. Just a little.
He glances up at Kostos. "Why did you bring me this? I thought you believed in the Circles."
“If the Circles are reinstated,” Kostos says, flat tone edged with humor, self-deprecation like a knife pointed inward, “and those of us who fought are not summarily executed, then I will come collect you myself.”
He won’t. Wouldn’t. He believes in the idea of Circles, accountability, safeguards; he believes in the reality of a few hundred mages, rebels from Circles that rose up and survivors from Circles where the Templars didn’t wait for them to try, packed into a crumbling ruin in the middle of winter and agreeing that whatever they decided to do, fight or surrender, they would do it as one.
“In the meantime,” he adds, “I trust you not to give it to any fanatic wearing a Seeker’s uniform.”
Unlike the Chantry officials who were meant to be watching them. And unlike the Inquisition. He doesn’t know Seeker Pentaghast. She might qualify.
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He reaches out and picks it up and it feels warm to the touch, probably from Kostos' hand. Whatever power this held over him in the Circle, he has it now. There's something fortifying about that thought--he has taken back just a little of the power the Chantry held over him for so long. Just a little.
He glances up at Kostos. "Why did you bring me this? I thought you believed in the Circles."
no subject
He won’t. Wouldn’t. He believes in the idea of Circles, accountability, safeguards; he believes in the reality of a few hundred mages, rebels from Circles that rose up and survivors from Circles where the Templars didn’t wait for them to try, packed into a crumbling ruin in the middle of winter and agreeing that whatever they decided to do, fight or surrender, they would do it as one.
“In the meantime,” he adds, “I trust you not to give it to any fanatic wearing a Seeker’s uniform.”
Unlike the Chantry officials who were meant to be watching them. And unlike the Inquisition. He doesn’t know Seeker Pentaghast. She might qualify.
no subject
"What was happening?" he asks as he tucks the phylactery into a pocket. "When you got there, why...why?"