Embrace that Distant Shore [Complete]

Aure regarded the sealed missive in her hand. Her father would not fault her for opening it; after all, she had taken the meeting with the unpleasant gentleman in the unpleasant room. However, she had a request to make of the Marquis Paul Balfour. The young noblewoman had learned her father responded better to sweet cajoling rather than bitter demands. Allowing him to open the letter for himself would be her opening move, her offer of respect.

Her father occupied a superbly appointed study on the second floor of their estate. Though it did not form part of his suite of rooms, it could be accessed from there via a network of narrow passages built into the walls. The Balfours had occupied this house within Val Royeaux for around two hundred years. The previous owners had been the family that commissioned the building of the large estate and so were the assumed architects of the numerous hidden doors and constricted corridors that often connected one room to another. Aure’s room had such a door; she and Kaiera had discovered it in their tenth year and had made use of it many times to pass unseen from the elf’s room to her own.

Aure knocked lightly on the heavy wooden door to the marquis’s study, but did not wait to be summoned. Her father would recognise her touch and would expect her to enter uninvited.

“Aure.” He smiled warmly at her and invited her to sit across from him, in one of the pair of dark leather chairs facing his desk. “What news do you have for me?”

She reported on her meeting, passing across only the information her father sought, the status of his ‘contacts’, and kept the news regarding Kaiera to herself.

Handing across the sealed envelope, the young woman assumed a carefully practiced expression. A sweet smile hovered over her lips, but did not reach her eyes. The blue depths retained a sense of bewildered innocence. The overall effect, she hoped, would be that she had been overwhelmed by her meeting with the bard – a result she imagined her father hoped for – and that she remained innocent of the series of letters he kept in the secret compartment of desk.

Having discovered the secret corridor connecting her room to Kaiera’s, the young girls had spent two years mapping the rest of the household, taking opportunity of the marquis’ frequent trips to the city to do so. She knew of the passage hidden behind the wall in the dining room, the seams of the door flawlessly hidden by the regularly spaced dark oak panels. The pantry had a trap door that led to a cellar, and a series of tunnels spread from there beneath the city and beyond her streets entirely. A small tower on the west corner of the house could only be accessed via a door that did not make itself apparent. One had to first enter a room that resembled a broom closet and move aside the shelves of supplies that covered an unmarked doorway. They had discovered the narrow passage way to her father’s study by accident.

During her twelfth year, Paul Balfour had spent the entire winter at the house in Val Royeaux. Though they often spent months at a time in the city, such an extended stay could only be explained in one fashion. It had to do with the guest that occupied the suite of rooms closest to her fathers. A female guest. The young woman could now look back upon that winter and feel embarrassment and regret at her actions. In retrospect the woman might have made her father a happier man; he had certainly seemed more joyful that year. But the idea of him replacing her mother, a woman she had never met but idolized nonetheless, would not be tolerated by the headstrong girl and so she and Kaiera had schemed and taunted and eventually driven the lady from the house.

Part of their machinations had included locating the secret passage between her father’s rooms and the guest suite. One did not exist. Instead they had found their way to his study. Once there, thinking themselves bards, the girls had then canvassed the entire room looking for clues. Aure had discovered the secret drawer beneath his desk.

She had revisited the drawer over the years, carefully monitoring the contents. Her most recent foray into her father’s private correspondence had turned up the series of letters between the marquis and two other gentleman – a doctor in Denerim and someone who fancied themselves a ghost, Fantome.

After hearing today that Kaiera had set off in a direction that could take her towards Halamshiral, Aure had deduced that her sister must also have read these letters. That would explain her pointed questions the day she had left.

Now, drawing her eyes from the lower portion of the desk, Aure watched her father break the seal and read the message she had delivered. His face seemed to remain impassive, but Aure had studied his features for twenty three years. She saw the tightening about his mouth and the outline of a single vein become more prominent beneath his hairline. The missive did not contain good news.

Deciding that her own look of innocence might carry her, Aure made her first, simple inquiry. “Does the letter not contain good news, father?”

Cool blue eyes met and held hers for several seconds before Paul Balfour blew out a tightly held breath and answered, “No. But it does not contain bad news either.” Casting the note aside, the marquis leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples.

“And what of your enquiries, Aure? Did you find the information you sought?”

“Yes,” she replied. Now she would give him answers to his questions, show she had nothing to hide, allow her father to be her confidant. Perhaps this would encourage him to do the same? “She has traveled towards Lydes.” Or so I think, now for a reason he would believe… “She and Josephine always got along well. Perhaps she sought shelter there?”

Her father nodded and she could see that he cared little for the elf’s purpose or destination, that he had only asked to be polite, to divert attention from his own letter.

“If I were to travel after Kaiera, I would be in the Dales. I could deliver your response personally.” Aure indicated the discarded parchment. “Perhaps that would give it more weight?” By naming Kaiera as her primary purpose, perhaps she could fool her father into thinking that was her only purpose…

But she had witnessed his distraction and agitation. She had read the letters. Aure loved her father and wanted to see him happy, but she also realised that helping him achieve his aims helped her achieve her ambitions. Could she not do both?

Her father’s eyes snapped open and regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and anger. Both faded before cool calculation. Fingers leaving one temple, the marquis waved his hand through the air. “Aure…”

He will not let me go.

Aure had prepared for this possibility, she had expected it. She had a new line of reasoning ready.

She did not need it.



The marquis looked at his daughter, really looked at her, and hated himself for the first thought that crossed his mind. He could send her; he could use her as both messenger and message. He could use his most valuable asset, his own daughter, to further his aims.

Orlesian nobles often realised their ambitions through their children, grooming them for a certain position, partnership or marriage. Paul Balfour had subtly done so with Aure, though not in the usual methods. He had not married her off at the age of seventeen and had politely dealt with the flood of inquiries and requests that continued to cross his desk. She did not need a husband to make her position stronger. But many a husband might require her – her name, her position, to strengthen their own ambitions.

If the suggested alliance proved advantageous, he answered positively and arranged for Aure to make the acquaintance of the young man in question. Neither of them saw any point in alienating people simply because they did not need them that day, that year. One such match might have been Jeremie Du Montilier, the son of his rival. In a very short time, Aure had rejected the young man, however, informing her father that she would not, could not, consider marriage to him. Despite the advantage of such an alliance, Paul had breathed a sigh of relief. Wisdom suggested keeping your enemies close, but to have the son of Du Montilier in his house might have been more than he could bear.

Though she currently had no official suitor, Aure did have two or three preferred gentleman that she played off of one another, beneath the watchful and amused eye of her father.

Could he bring himself to use her in this way though? To involve her in a plot he’d tried to keep from her? Paul examined the reasons he’d kept it from her. He knew what he sought was an object of power and though he did not know what influence the Tevinter orb would imbue its holder with, he knew it would be advantageous. He did not plan to use it to overthrow the Empress of Orlais. He told himself that every day. But he could use it to drive from power his rival, the Marquis Du Montilier, and therefore firmly secure the Balfours as the most powerful family in Val Royeaux. The reins of power did not always follow blood. If Celene attained old age, if she remained without an heir, she would have only distant cousins to succeed her…

If he procured this orb, he could arrange things for his daughter without involving her. Aure would remain innocent of his influence, or so he had hoped. Now he regarded her with a fresh perspective and realised that his hunt for this artifact had drawn his attention from her for too long. She had grown and matured. She was twenty three years of age!

He had underestimated her in many ways. He had known she cared for her companion, for the elf, but he had not quite realised the depth of that care. He had discouraged her from referring to Kaiera as a sister, but obviously Aure had only not done so. While the inference had not dropped from her lips in his presence, it obviously had between the two women. His daughter had been… difficult in the week following the elf’s departure. For two days she had behaved like a spoilt child. For another two days she had been bereft and refused any consolation. Then she had started scheming. He had hoped sending her to the meeting this morning might have discouraged her further, it had not. He could see the calculation behind that all too innocent blue gaze. He could see the tremble behind that sweet smile. Aure saw a way to satisfy two purposes – whatever had driven her father nearly to madness and to be reunited with the elf.

Could he bring himself to use her in this way? Would he not have eventually shared his prize with her? Perhaps she was better equipped to deal with the repercussions of using such a device than he had anticipated. Would he be corrupting her or helping further her own ambitions?

This was not the first time Paul had conducted this inner dialogue, but Aure had not before sat across from while he did so.

Du Montilier’s son was in Denerim. Was he the tool of his father?

He would not use Aure in that way, he decided. If he sent her, it would be with all the knowledge he possessed. It would be at her own behest.

“Alright,” he finally said. She seemed to gasp quietly in response. “But first we must talk.” He reached down to retrieve the letters from the secret drawer beneath his desk. “I would not send you there in ignorance, daughter.”

Had he damned himself to Oblivion for this action? Perhaps simple possession of the orb might have been enough to do so…



Aure blinked and lost her composure. Fear and elation then warred for dominance and she gasped lightly before pressing her lips together and seeking to curve them in a gracious smile.

Leaning forward in her chair, she feigned interest in the letters she had already seen.