She's got the devil's eyes
Heartfire has never been particularly attuned to the gentler emotions. A regrettable circumstance, no doubt, but one she has never found the ability to rectify. Instead she had always sought to use it to her advantage, despite the obvious pitfalls such a lack might contain. Still, even she can feel the faint tendrils of understanding them seem to branch so uncertainly between them. A mutual desire to move past old wrongs.
Whether she is becoming softer with age, or whether it is simply because it is a peculiar magic unique to Leliana, she’s not quite certain. But she chooses not to question it.
She nearly smiles when the Tephran queen blasaically acknowledges her lack of surprise at Heartfire’s knowledge. Truthfully, it would have been far more shocking had Leliana not suspected Heartfire of gathering information so religiously. For all that she is older now, sharper and harder than she had once been, she has not truly changed that much. She had merely learned subtlety.
She had discovered much more than she would impart today. But then, there is much more than could be shared in a day. She is silent for a long moment in the wake Leliana’s unassuming statement. Her companion’s distaste for prying leaves her with the decision of what, and how much, to share. Always a double-edged blade, that choice.
Still, today, she hasn’t much desire to wield it. Not as she had when Lepis had offered her only silence.
“Castile’s reach is not nearly so long as he seems to believe,” she finally offers rather bluntly. She’d never been one to beat around the bush. “I only needed one weakness, but he has offered me many.” She does smile at that, though there is nothing joyful or kind in it. “And, as it turns out, his own alliances are not very… stable, as it were.”
She had gleaned much more, of course, but for the moment, it’s less relevant. She knows Nerine is in his crosshairs, but he had made a mistake in not moving immediately. A mistake she has every intention of taking full advantage of.
She would not begin any wars. But if war were brought to her, she would end it as quickly as it could begin.
and they'll cut you like a weapon