By Gods Forsaken - inwardtransience (2024)

Chapter 1: By Gods Forsaken

Chapter Text

9:30 Pluitanis 17

Kibannan Circle of Magi, Ostwick, Confederation of Free Cities

Evie might only be nine, but she wasn't stupid. They were afraid of her. She could tell.

Which she thought was rather silly, honestly. She wasnine. She was all little, in her stupid pretty dress her parents had gotten her for the occasion. Which wasextrastupid. It was a silly thing, all white and gold and frilly. She guessed her parents had thought if she was going to die she should at least be all pretty for the occasion. She had absolutely nothing on her she could hurt anybody with.

And she was the only person in the room that was true for. There was First Enchanter Jeria standing right there, looking all slightly nervous, but Evie knew Jeria could set people on fire with her thoughts if she wanted to. And five Templars all standing about with their shiny armor and big swords. The only one she recognised was Knight-Captain Severin, but he never wore his helmet, and most Templars did, so she wasn't sure if she knew the others. But they were all very dangerous people, she knew that. Not that that particularly scared her. She'd been around Templars a lot, so they weren't anything new. The mages were slightly new, she guessed, but they'd all been fine so far, and Jeria was really nice. So, she wasn't scared.

But they were afraid of her. She could tell. Which was just silly.

"Have a seat, Evie." Jeria was trying to sound normal, but there was a slight wiggle, her fingers shaking. She waved Evie to a chair, faded cloth and scratched wood. Old, Evie thought, not beaten up on purpose. Once she had dropped into the chair, Jeria kneeled in front of her with a little groan. She was an old person, after all. Not really old. Somewhere between Evie's parents and grandparents in age, she thought, her oddly brown face marked with a few lines here and there, a touch of grey starting at her forehead. She leaned toward Evie, spoke in an urgent whisper. "Remember, child. You step into dreams. The only thing that is real there is you. Your thoughts, your feelings. Remember that, don't let anything trick you, and you will be safe."

Evie tried not to frown at Jeria. That was a silly thing to say. So far as she understood this Harrowing thing, it was just going into the Fade. Like going to sleep. Though...she had a feeling other people didn't experience the Fade the same way she did. She was pretty sure even mages weren't...she didn't know, completely aware of themselves? Something. She didn't expect this Harrowing thing to be that different from what she did every time she went to bed. But there would be no point to arguing about that, would probably just make them even more scared. People were weird about Fade stuff. So she just nodded.

"Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him." Evie blinked, turned to the Knight-Captain. He was talking in a weird, dramatic voice, being even more silly than before. That was from the Chant, she knew, but she couldn't remember where. "Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children." The Knight-Captain was walking closer to her now, coming into the light thrown from the sunroof, so Evie could see he was carrying a stone chalice. There was something inside, something giving off a sharp blue glow. Even from here, it made her tingle, sparks dancing on her skin. "They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones. They shall find no rest in this world or beyond.

"But the one who repents, who has faith unshaken by the darkness of the world, and boasts not, nor gloats over the misfortunes of the weak, but takes delight in the Maker's law and creations, she shall know the peace of the Maker's benediction. The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next." She recognised this from the Chant too, one of her aunts said it sort of a lot. And now the Knight-Captain was kneeling in front of her too, with a lot of jingling of mail and clanking of metal. From this angle she could see inside the chalice, see the stuff that looked sort of halfway between water and fog, there and not-there, all glowing blue, her skin now on fire with tingles, nose filled with metal and blood. She shifted in her seat a little. "For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire, and go towards Light. The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword.

"Drink, child," the Knight-Captain said, holding the chalice up toward her. "Cast yourself into the abyss, the well of all souls. Among those emerald waters, face the Maker's first children, and find your way back to us."

Despite the serious mood they were all going for, Evie couldn't help giving the chalice a frowning pout. They wanted her todrinkthat? Ugh. It hurt justlookingat it. The tingling on her skin was getting even worse as it got closer, just plain painful now, an ache growing gradually in her head, like when her uncle Renault tried to sing. But, fine, she guessed she could do that. She grabbed at the chalice, barely finding room to hold it around the Knight-Captain's big metal gloves. Wincing as the fiery tingling got worse, she lifted the chalice toward her head.

She never actually drank any. Shetriedto, but before she could get it into her mouth it kind of sprang over her, like steam lifting from the pots in the kitchens, and started sinking inward, burning like fire and crackling like lightning. Evie only had long enough to let out a short scream as the blue whatever-it-was sunk into her eyes, her nose, her ears, forcing its way into her head, pouring down her throat and—

Evie sprung to her feet, hands going to her face, fingers running over her chin, her cheeks, her eyelids, even checking the inside of her ears and mouth. Nothing. It was gone. Well,shewas gone, technically. There was this sort of...floaty feeling? Like she wasn't as solid as she should be, like she had partially transformed into water, might just flow away at the slightest thought.

Because shecouldflow away, slide what felt like hundreds of feet, miles in an instant. She'd learned how to do that here. She thought it might be possible to do it in the real world too, but she only knew how to do it here. She could do nearly anything she wanted here. The Fade was like that.

She glanced around, and found herself frowning. This didn't look like a very nice place. The air was made of greenish fog, as it always seemed to be, but was far darker, looking gloomy and murky. Not the pretty, bright glow it usually was, like sunlight passing through leaves, but instead looking gross and slimy. She didn't like it. The ground under her feet was neither stone nor metal, yet sort of both, hard and craggy and matte black. It wasn't just under her feet, but poking up around her in a few places, bits of it floating in the air at random here and there, as always happened here. But it was such a bad colour, heavy and hard and dark, she didn't like it. The only thing the same as usual was the Black City directly over her head, upside-down, the thin, tall spires of glimmering metal and glass visible through the green murk very familiar. But of course it was, it was always in the same place, upside-down above her, no matter where she was, no matter how far she traveled in her sleep.

She'd known where she ended up in the Fade depended somewhat on where she'd fallen asleep. It didn't seem very consistent, like a mile in the real world was twenty miles here, but on other days only a few inches. And what kind of day it'd been seemed to matter too, how she'd been feeling, how her family had been feeling. She'd only slept for a couple days in the Circle so far, but she'd never seen anything like this yet.

She only had to look around for a few seconds before she decided she didn't want to be here. Shereallydidn't like it. So, she was just going to wake up now. She closed her eyes and concentrated, reaching deep inside herself, groping for her body. It was easy enough to find it. She'd forced herself back to the real world many times, when she found something scary or she'd simply been here long enough, felt her body waking up without her. But...she couldn't get in. It was the weirdest thing. It was like there was a wall between them, glowing a hard blue, that wouldn't let her pass.

She frowned to herself. That wasn't good. That was probably that blue stuff, keeping her out. Watching it, she thought it might be shrinking, weakening, but slowly. She'd have to wait, then. And hope nothing bad found her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, kicked at the hard black ground at her feet. She winced at the pain racing up her leg, then imagined her climbing boots around her feet, shaking her head to herself. Idiot, should have thought of that first. Another kick at the ground, this time she hardly even felt it. Better. And she grumbled to herself, muttering about thestupidTemplars and thestupidCircle and herstupidparents, making her do thisstupidthing...

"Don't let yourself get too carried away now, child." Evie jumped at the voice, spun around on her heel. Sitting on a nearby outcrop of blackness was a boy, right around her age, dressed in simple robes of white and green. Well, it looked like a boy, anyway. Since this was the Fade, though, it was probably a spirit, and she didn't think spirits could evenbeboys. "The power you have bound around you from the rarefied lyrium makes you far too attractive. Unkind things are about. It would do you best to avoid notice as long as possible."

That was as long as it took for Evie to recognise this spirit. Not because of how it looked — it never looked the same twice — or even the sound of its voice — that always changed too. But morehowit was talking, the way it was looking at her. How it felt. She couldn't even say exactly how. She just knew. "Oh. Hello, Mystrel," she said, giving the spirit a smile.

It frowned back at her, but she could tell it was fake. This spirit really liked her, for some reason. A lot of spirits liked her, she wasn't sure why, and she sometimes ended up crowded by them until she had to force herself awake, but this was the one she saw most consistently. Mystrel, as she'd decided to call it, had explained it was a spirit of knowledge, of learning, and found no greater joy than to learn as much as it could, then share what it knew with anyone it could find. For some reason, it'd decided to teach Evie, tracking her down and lecturing at her almost every night.

She wasn't complaining, not at all. Mystrel always had interesting things to talk about, far better than any teacher she'd had in the real world.

But anyway, Mystrel was saying, "You never did tell me why you decided to call me that."

"What fun would it be if I told you?"

Mystrel gave a long-suffering sigh at that, but Evie could tell it was smiling on the inside. At least, as much as itcouldsmile on the inside, spirits didn't really feel things like normal people. "You can conjure a more comfortable seat for yourself, just be careful not to change too much. You don't want to draw attention to yourself. Donotreach for any dreams." It meant memories, hiding preserved just under the surface of the Fade, it always called them that for some reason. "Also, try not to be afraid."

Evie gave it a look at that. She wasn't afraid, really. She had been at first, but that had just been that blue stuff — rarefied lyrium, apparently, not that she knew what that was — it had been all getting all over her, that was scary. She was fine now. It was just the Fade. It might be spooky and bad-looking right now, but it wasn't that bad. Maybe it was just general advice. Mystrel didn't think she was afraid, necessarily, just telling her it would be bad to be afraid, so to try to avoid it. She could do that. "Why would it be bad to be afraid?" She didn't make a seat for herself, she didn't need to. She wasn't really in her body right now, so it was impossible to get tired.

"This is a place of fear," Mystrel said, its voice soft and low. "A mage's fear of the Harrowing. A Templar's fear of the mage. Fear from both of them of demons, the Fade, the unknown. A mage's fear of herself. All that fear, penetrating through the Veil, weakened by repeated use of lyrium, until it is as a beacon, drawing spirits like moths to flame. Surrounding them with fear until it is all they know, the only way they have to interact with your world." Mystrel gave her a sad sort of smile, shaking its head a little. "They don't understand, you see. They see one thing about your people and, since we are in many ways simpler than you, they think the one thing is all. They think the only thing there is is fear. That the best service they could do you would be to fill you with terror until your mind breaks from it. They don't understand. So it is best they not realise you're here until after you've gone."

A shiver tried to come over her, but Evie just ignored it. Which was really easy. This wasn't her real body, it only did what she told it to, so if she wanted tonotshiver with horror — to just let the black, sticky feeling wash over her and fall away, like waves crashing against the hard shore to slide away again — then she could. It was a Fade thing, it was best to not think too closely about it. "Why are they making me do this, anyway? I really don't like that lyrium stuff. Feels kind of..." She trailed off, frowned for a moment, then shrugged. She wasn't really sure how to describe what it felt like, the squishy wall of blue light cutting her off from her body. And shereallydidn't know how to describe it in a way that would make sense to Mystrel, who'd never even had a body. Oh well.

"I think you know that."

"Well, they were obviously scared of me, but I don't know why."

Mystrel just smiled at her again, a sort of look Evie knew it wore when it was...teasing her, sort of, but she wasn't sure the word was right. "I think you know that, too. After all, you've certainly figured out by now that other human children don't make friends with spirits."

Somehow, Evie stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Maybe "teasing" wasn't such a bad word.

"It is truly quite simple, child. You are a Dreamer. They are frightened."

Evie tried to stop it, but she still ended up pouting. That wasn't helpful. "Okay. And what's a Dreamer, then?"

The spirit stared at her for a moment, so still a real person wouldn't have been able to do it. Must have forgot it'd never actually told Evie this. "A mage is to a Dreamer like a hill is to the greatest of mountains. Like a pond is to the raging seas, like a soft breeze is to the sky eternal and all the storms it brings. Like an ant to a dragon. Mages are so far beyond normal men, so much greater in the power they wield, normal men fear them. Dreamers are so far beyond mages, the mages fear them in turn."

Yeah, that wasn't making Evie pout less. Not even a little bit. "Okay, but why? What makes me a dragon? I don't get it."

Mystrel just kept smiling. "All mages can consciously enter the Fade through the use of certain substances, or participation in certain rituals, but even then they are as children. Stumbling, weak, vulnerable. All mages, in their waking hours, can pull the essence of dreams through them into the physical world, and work magic on their surroundings by their will.

"But you walk in dreams. Every night as you sleep, you are here, and you are more comfortable here than most any of your kind would be. You bend our world to your will with nary a thought, shape yourself as you see fit, speak and play with spirits with all the ease you would any person. You are at home here, with dreams and magic, in a way no normal mages are. And when you are awake, your dreams come with you. When you learn to affect your surroundings in the physical world as you do here, you will do so with graceful ease and overwhelming power few will ever be able to match. You are more powerful than they could ever be, both in our world and your own.

"So they fear you, child. And, no matter your youth, they are right to fear you. You are a child now, but the smallest of hatchlings may become the fiercest of dragons, given time."

For a long moment, Evie could only stare back at Mystrel. Well. She hadn't realised she was that special.

She meant, she'd always known she was different. She'd learned very young that other children didn't play with spirits in their sleep. Other children didn't have spirits of knowledge teaching them things their tutors could hardly imagine, other children didn't go exploring through memories long forgotten by men. She'd quickly learned to not talk about spirits and magic and the Fade, because other people were afraid of them. The Chantry said very silly things about them, things Evie knew by now were mostly wrong.

Demons were bad, of course. Some mages did bad things. But saying all spirits and mages were evil was like saying all elves were evil becausesomeof them had done bad things. But people didn't saythat, did they? Elves counted as people. Why didn't spirits or mages?

Evie had been very young when she'd come to the very peculiar realisation that her parents were wrong. The Chantry sisters was wrong, the Chant itself was wrong, even the Templars and mages were wrong! They werewrong, about spirits and magic, very simple things about how they worked, why they were the way they were. And that made her think. If they could be wrong about simple things, why should she assume they were right about anything else? If they were so wrong about something small, how wrong could they be about something big?

Like the Maker, for example, and Andraste. It was certain Andraste was real, she was a real woman who really lived, she was in books and on monuments, Evie had even seen memories in the Fade. Historians knew for a fact that there had been a slave revolt, over a thousand years ago, and the wife of an Alamarri chieftain had had some prominent role. But the details? What she'd believed, what she'd said to her followers, any specific facts about her life? All of that came from the Chantry. And the oldest verses hadn't even been written until over a hundred years after her death. And they were wrong about so much.

Evie wasn't certain she believed anything the Chantry said anymore. It was rather hard to, when they said her best friends weren't people, that Evie herself was a monster in the making, could turn on her family at any moment.

Evie wasn't even certain the Maker was real anymore.

"That is heresy you are thinking, child."

Evie jumped, whirled on her heel, stared out into the greenish murk of this icky part of the Fade. But there was nothing. Nothing new, anyway, nothing worth noting.

"They will find out what you are thinking. They will know."

"Evie?" Mystrel was looking at her, almost frowning, as close as the spirit could truly get to concerned. "Is something wrong, child?"

"You can't hear that?" It wasn't until Evie heard her own voice that she realised she was afraid. It was higher than it should be, slightly shaky, which was a bit odd, because she didn't really feel like—

"You know what these people do to people like you. You are an apostate in heart if not in action. And you know the Templars hold no mercy for apostates."

Evie whirled on her heel again, looking for the source of the voice, but there was still nothing. And she noticed in the whirling that it wasn't just her voice that was shaky. She was almost shivering, her fingers twitching and her breath hitching and stuttering. But that was wrong. She didn't really feel that bad at all. A little uncomfortable, yes, a little nervous, but not scared enough to beshakingwith it. That was just silly...

It only took her a second, thinking about what was supposed to be going on here, that she realised why.

"Is this supposed to be difficult?"

She turned over her shoulder to Mystrel, finding it just in time to catch it blinking with apparent confusion. "You are resisting something's influence."

Evie shrugged. "Well, yes, I suppose I am. It's just...easier than I thought it would be. I barely even noticed it was there. Just a whispery voice, and my fake body thing is acting all like I'm scared, but I'm not."

And Mystrel frowned, not with any real frustration, or confusion, but more an academic sense of curiosity, of picking through its not-brain to try to make sense of this interesting new fact. "Curious. Perhaps you were fortunate enough to have been assaulted by a weak one. Or perhaps a stupid one. You are a Dreamer — history has shown that the best way to overwhelm a Dreamer is to manipulate them into cooperating, and then stab them in the back once they have turned it. So to speak. Your kind are too strong-willed to overpower directly, especially with lyrium running through your veins. A direct assault, as this seems to be, would be most ill-advised."

"Hmm." Well, that was just lucky for her, she guessed.

The demon seemed to realise it wasn't working too.

It came as a wave of blackness, pouring over the icky, scraggly ground like a river of oil, but not splashing as it should, sticking to itself all gross. And it washed over her feet, up her legs, nearly to her waist, all thick and sticky and stringy, and it smelled rather bad, like fruit that had been left in the sun too long. It pooled around her, rising up to curl above her head, the parts touching her turning sharp and scratchy, thousands of little fluttering scratches, like too many insects crawling against her skin, rising up into a vague pantomime of a face, glaring down at her with eyes green and black and red, angry and deadly and terrible.

And she felt its magic, pushing down on her, trying to get inside of her, thick and heavy and sharp. But she just ignored it. This wasn't real, this wasn't really happening, and it had no power to hurt her. Not if she didn't let it. So she didn't let it.

"They will turn on you one day. You are but a child, and already they fear you. The day will come, the day will—"

"That's nice." Evie glanced down at where the demon was clawing at her legs, all itchy and squirmy, it was really quite unpleasant. "Could you stop that? It's a little weird."

The demon let out a hiss, high and low all at once, stabbing into her head that wasn't really her head, making her fake bones shiver. "I can save you, child. When the day comes, I can be there, I can—"

"That's just silly." The demon hissed again, but Evie ignored it, frowning up at the phantom face of black and light glaring down at her. "If you were with me like that, that would be possessing me. That's what abominations are." And since she was apparently a really scary mage, she'd be an even scarier abomination. Sounded bad. "And, really, you think they'd be less scared of me if I were an abomination?"

"I can help you fight ba—"

"But they'd have no reason to fight me if I stayed me. All unpossessed."

"They will, they will one day, they WILL—"

"Mm-hmm." Really, she wasn't certain the demon was wrong. Mages could be scary to begin with, and she was apparently very scary. And Templars were supposed to protect people from scary mages. It was their job. And, sometimes, people can go too far trying to protect people.

Thinking it, she was seeing her mother, bringing her to the Circle, just a couple weeks ago, crying and stroking her hair, telling her she'd be safer here. It might not be very nice, home was much nicer, she might be lonely, and it would be okay, they would visit, they would visit whenever they could, but it wasn't safe for a mage out there, people might be scared and hurt her, she could learn to control her powers here, she'd be safer...

But it wasn't like Evie had evernotbeen in control of her powers. She'd heard those stories about other mages, not being able to stop from doing things, and she didn't understand. She'd hardly done any magic ever, but she'd also hardly ever tried. She didn't think she'd ever done anything without trying. Because magic was all about trying. It was wanting the world to be some other way, then forcing power in it tomakeit that way. She couldn't imagine doing anything on accident. How did that even work?

And as she was showing at this very moment, she clearly didn't have to worry about demons. This was supposed to be hard, apparently. She could feel its power pushing at her, and she guessed this was kinda scary, but it was too easy to ignore. She couldn't imagine ever being possessed. She couldn't imagine how other people could. This was too easy.

She didn't understand why her parents had sent her here. This was stupid.

It was at that very moment, the demon around her screaming a hideous scream as it realised whatever it was trying wasn't working, swirling and shuddering above her in frustration, that she felt it vanish. That blue lightning, the squishy wall separating her from the real world, it was gone. It was like a weight lifting off, something tight around her neck suddenly gone. She glanced around at the rushing black and green and blue walls around her, but she couldn't see Mystrel. So she just said, raising her voice a bit, "Okay, that lyrium stuff is gone now, and it's not very nice here, so I'm gonna go back."

She didn't wait for a response. She wasn't certain Mystrel was even there anymore — a couple times in the past, it'd disappeared when things got too un-knowledge-y, Evie thought things too different from what it was made it uncomfortable somehow. Still ignoring the demon around her being pointlessly annoying, Evie reached deep within herself, groping for her real body back in the real world. And, digging mental fingers in, shepulled—

And she abruptly wished she'd stayed in the Fade. Her headhurt, stinging and pounding, she couldn't help the tears leaking from her eyes. Jeria was holding her, stroking her hair, shushing into her ear, but that didn't make it not hurt.

She wouldn't remember what had happened afterward very well, it was too blurry and painful. But she was certain she'd met Knight-Captain Severin's eyes at some point.

Deep inside, hidden, she swore she saw fear and despair smoldering like fire, green and black and blue.

9:30 Pluitanis 17

Lothering, South Reach, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

She wasn't sure what had possessed her to do it. It was a less than wise thing to be doing — he would surely have Templars about him somewhere, it wouldn't do to be detected. Perhaps it was simple curiosity.

Marian's father had spoken of King Maric Theirin, called the Savior. A man of unimpeachable principle, fierce honor. A good and just man, who was kind when he could be, an unstoppable warrior when needs must. They had never met, of course — Malcolm Hawke had been young when he'd left Ferelden's shores for the Circle at Kirkwall, and, once he'd returned, had had little opportunity to meet a King. But despite his youth, he'd taken a love for his homeland with him to the Free Marches, had followed the news of the Rebellion against Orlais ravenously, and had continued to be one of the King's most outspoken supporters in Lothering.

Father had taken ill shortly after King Maric's demise, hadn't lasted the year. She'd had occasion to wonder, half-seriously, if he hadn't been too heartbroken by the death of his childhood hero to endure. Her father had always seemed a painfully idealistic sort, it wasn't out of the question.

So, here she was. Standing in an alley, as deep as she could in the shadows while still being able to see out. Eyes fixed on an open tent at the edge of town. Inside of which stood a table, around which sat the Arl's son Gareth, the most influential of Lothering's elders, Mother Vichiénne, Knight-Captain Bryant. On the other side of the table, flanked by his closest lieutenants, His Majesty Cailan of the House Theirin, King of the Alamarri, High Lord of Ferelden.

It was hard to tell from here — Marian was hardly part of the conversation, couldn't hear what was being discussed. But she found herself faintly disappointed. He just seemed too...

She wasn't certain what word she was looking for. Clean?

In any case, he looked more a boy dressed up in his father's armor — formal armor, finely wrought and polished to a shine, not intended for battle at all. The way he smiled and bounced and paced, and laughed, he just seemed...

She didn't know. It was hard to believe that boisterous little man was her king, that was all.

Perhaps she was distracted, watching the conversation from a distance, less attention paid to her surroundings than truly should be, with so many more Templars in town than usual. Whatever the reason, she jumped when a voice spoke from just behind her, her heart leaping into her throat. "Well, aren't you a sneaky little thing."

Marian forced some measure of composure into herself. Instead of whirling about to face whoever it was, she glanced over her shoulder, her face cool and uninterested. She almost lost any sense of ease when she saw the man.

She couldn't explain how she knew, exactly, she never could. It wasn't like she could see it. Not exactly. But she knew, immediately, viscerally, that this man was a Templar.

Not that he was dressed like one. He was wearing armor, and not inexpensive armor at that, but the color and design were all wrong. Not the burnished silver or the fiery sword of the Templars, the familiar signs were nowhere to be seen. Instead his steel retained its natural grayish color, a griffin carved into his chest plate, not ornamented in any way, but done with such detail the craftsman would have to have been both incredibly skilled and passionately dedicated.

This man was a Grey Warden. There were few enough in Ferelden, every single one of their paltry numbers moving south to meet the intensifying rumors of surfacing darkspawn. He must be a former Templar, then — the Grey Wardens recruited from all walks of life, their people severing all former loyalties to serve all of Thedas. It would still do to be cautious. Marian couldn't know how this particular former Templar felt of mages these days, couldn't know how he would react to finding an apostate skulking about.

Better than an average Templar, certainly, but that wasn't saying much.

Assuming he could feel her just as she could feel him, which she thought was almost a given. Best to play it safe in any case. "Forgive me, Ser, ah..."

The man's face split into a crooked smile, eyes dancing with some unspoken joke. "Alistair."

"Ser Alistair," she said, nodding. "I'm sorry, but it's not very polite to sneak up on a lady like that, you know."

The smile split wider, wide enough she could make out his teeth — too white, noble-born? — his eyes practically sparkling by this point. "Well, it just seems fair game, doesn't it? Sneaking up on somebody being sneaky." Before Marian could say anything to that, he rambled on. "And forgive me, but I didn't realize they'd made a habit of ennobling apostates in the South. My bad."

Marian didn't think. She reached inside herself, grasping for that secret place hidden deep within, that wellspring of power, whispering forever at the edges of her thoughts. She pulled a handful of magic into her grasp, not to strike but to hide, remove herself from the Templar's perception. It might not even work on a Templar, but she had to try, she had to get home, she had to warn—

"Hey now, hey." The Templar had raised both hands up to a level with his head, empty gloves facing outward. "No reason to start throwing spells about. I didn't come here to fight."

"And I'm supposed to believe you're going to just walk away from a free apostate?"

One of the Templar's eyebrows started slipping up his forehead. One of his hands moved, a single gloved finger tapping at his breastplate with the slightest of metallic tinks, right at the edge of the griffin carved into the surface.

Despite herself, Marian's concentration lapsed, and the uncast spell broke apart. She got the message clearly enough — this man was aformerTemplar, and dealing with apostates wasn't the responsibility of the Grey Wardens. In fact, she'd heard they'd sooner recruit an apostate than hand them over to the Chantry, innocent or not. That didn't necessarily mean she could trust this particular ex-Templar sight unseen, but it was...possibleshe'd overreacted. Maybe. "If you don't care, why'd you track me down in the first place?" That had to be how he'd found her, followed the faint trace of her innate magic to the source. It couldn't be a coincidence that the person who'd spotted her just happened to be a Templar.

The man shrugged, his hands again falling to his sides, apparently deciding the danger had passed. "I felt a mage, seemingly spying on His Majesty. I've been charged with keeping an eye on him during our trip south, and an unknown mage lurking aboutisa potential threat, you can't deny that." His face tilted into a smirk again, eyes dancing. "But, I suppose I can safely assume you're not here to assassinate the King, are you,Marian Hawke."

It took a few seconds for her to find her voice again. "How do you know my name?"

Another shrug. "Bryant told me about the Hawke girls. I've already met Bethany, she was in the Chantry when we stopped by, so you must be Marian."

"But..." She blinked at him for a moment, the implications of that simple statement nearly making her dizzy. "That would... The Knight-Captain knows we're..."

"Well, yes. I understand his predecessor made a deal with your father ages ago. Something about helping with any magical or demonic issues that come up, I expect, Lothering is a bit in the middle of nowhere. No Circles around, you see, if the locals need magical help for something they might not have time for official aid to come all the way from Kinloch Hold. So, arrangement with local apostates. Happens all the time, in places like this. Just don't tell the Chantry mothers, though, they get all snitty."

That...made an odd kind of sense. And explained Dad disappearing for a week at a time here and there — must have been off helping the Templars out in the hills somewhere. No idea why he wouldn't havetoldher. Or why Bryant hadn't brought it up yet, either. Wouldn't he want her to fill in for Dad, now that he was gone? But anyway, "You had far too much fun, springing that on me like that."

The man's smirk stretched wider. "This isn't the cheeriest profession in the world, you know. I take my entertainment where I can find it."

Yes, well, he was the one who'd joined the Grey Wardens. Sounded like his damn problem. Though, she couldn't imagine being a Templar was really any better. "You know, you're a bit of a dick."

"Actually, you must have forgotten, I go by Alistair these days. Not sure if it's an improvement.Bit-of-a-Dick— just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"

Shealmostlaughed at that one, but thankfully managed to control herself. If she'd cracked up atthatthin of a joke, delivered by a Templar no less, she would have been a bit embarrassed with herself. Must be the adrenaline coming off, yes. "With every word that comes out of your mouth, I find myself struggling with the urge to punch you in the face."

And that just seemed to make him even more amused with himself, his eyes practically dancing. This guy, honestly... "Oh, you're not the only one. Happens all the time. Can't imagine why, how could anyone want to do any damage to this..." He trailed off, face taking a more sombre, serious cast, gloved fingers slowly slipping over his face. "...singularwork of art? What has this world come to, travesty, I say!"

Okay. That one was actually kind of funny. She was starting to get the odd feeling she might not actually mind this idiot, if it weren't for the whole Templar thing. Uncomfortable. "Yeah, you're really just making it worse." She managed to keep her own lips from curling into a smirk. She was pretty sure.

"Oh, don't strain yourself trying to hold back, I'm used to it by now. You wouldn't even be the first Hawke today, seriously, all the time."

Aaand now she entirely failed to contain a smirk. She couldn't help herself, the mental image she'd gotten was just too funny. "You really shouldn't have flirted with Bethanyin the Chantry. She hates that. Did you catch the echo? She gets a goodringout of it in there."

"Thatdoessound like fun, but, alas, I managed to control myself. It was your brother, actually. Kid has a mean right hook," he said, rubbing at his chin with a pained grimace.

Marian tilted her head a bit, getting a better look and, holy sh*t, hedidhave a bruise there, just starting to come in. Carver had actually hit him! Yeah, definitely smirking now. "Maker'sbreath, what the hell did yousay? I can count on my fingers the times Carver's gotten into a fight." Mostly over people being, ah,untowardwith Bethany — Carver could be a pain, but he really was quite adorable sometimes.

"Oh, I don't remember," the strange man said, with the unmistakable tone of someone whodefinitelyremembered. "I'm sure it wasn'tthatbad. Might have suggested he'd been taught to hold a shield by one of his sisters. But I mean, really, after having met both of you, can't see why he should have taken that personally! You're very intense women, you know that?"

She was momentarily confused, wondering just why this idiot would have any reason to comment on how Carver held a shield, of all things. Far as she knew, they didn't even have a shield in the house. By the time he was done talking, though, it'd clicked.

And, in an instant, her chest had gone tight and hot with rage.

The King and his army weren't just stopping in Lothering on the way south as a courtesy, after all. They were recruiting. To fight against the Blight, they said, though Marian personally doubted it was a Blight at all. There were old caves and sh*t all over the place down there, darkspawn popped up from time to time, it wasn't unheard of. There was a reason the Crown hadn't managed to convince the Banns to call the levies. But anyway, a full week before they'd arrived, word had been sent ahead. Carver had started talking about joining up, but before he'd even gotten a full sentence out Marian had forbidden him to go. They'd argued, and argued, getting angrier and angrier — Bethany had actually forced them to opposite sides of the room when they'd started shoving each other, which was quite a thing, Bethany avoided using magic at all if she could help it. They'd gone on for hours, until Mother had gotten home, and settled the issue by telling Carver in no uncertain terms that he wasnotleaving, she would never forgive him for abandoning them if he went.

But, apparently, the issue hadn't been settled. Carver, this idiot had just implied, had joined up with the King's army. And he hadn't told them, he was just going to vanish with them, without saying a word.

And she was angry. Ooh, she wasangry, her fists clenching without her meaning to, her teeth aching, the tension so great she was nearly choking with it, could barely breathe.

But, even when she was this overwhelminglyenraged, she thought of her father without thinking, remembered what he'd taught her. Because gettingthisangry could be dangerous, for them. There was a razor-thin line between being filled with rage, andbecomingRage. So, without even really thinking, she let the feeling fill her, and flow through her, like casting any spell. Her anger radiating off of her,like steam rising from a pot, he'd said,like fog flowing off a lake.

It wasn'tfeelingan emotion that was dangerous for a mage, he'd said. It was letting it build up, carrying it inside, letting it consume you,that'swhat drew demons flocking into your shadow.That'swhat would turn your dreams into nightmares,that'swhat could make you weak to their influence,that'swhat might see you Fall one day. She couldn't bottle it up. She had to let it out, she'd been taught to let it out. For the safety of everyone around her, not just her own happiness.

Though, of course, Dad being Dad, he had joked that everyone would be happier if they didn't go around bottling everything up, so he'd probably be giving her this advice either way. Sure, Dad, if you say so.

The idiot had backed off a step, face creased in a frown, hand twitching toward the hilt of his sword. Probably feeling the anger slipping out of her, hot and thick like steam. She didn't doubt that might be a bit scary to a Templar. But that didn't really matter right now. Her voice a low, thick snarl, she said, "Excuse me, ser. I have to go drag mystupid, self-righteous, selfish, cowardly little c*ntof a brother back home.By his ear."

He blinked at her, his hand falling away from his sword. "Um... Have fun with that? I guess?"

"I will, thank you." And she turned on her heel, and sprinted off for the army camp, just to the south of the village. She hardly even noticed the packed dirt flee under her feet, hardly noticed the dingy wooden buildings whip by. She knew she passed people, some even calling out to her, but she didn't spare a thought for them, just kept running. Perhaps too fast, her rage was still burning high, it could be too easy for emotions to pull magic without any conscious choice, which probably wasn't smart, with Templars about, but—

She tore into the camp, passing figures in leathers or scale, a few rare flashes of plate here and there, staring at her, some jumping out of the way, swearing to each other, she slipped through the maze of tents, not sure how she knew where to go, butknowing, she knew, she ran right toward him, he was just past this—

At the southern edge of the camp, where the sea of tents ended, the ground had been trampled even flatter than usual. The field was filled with soldiers in light leathers, each bearing a sword and shield. Not a real sword, she noticed at a glance, but length of iron wrapped in sheepskin. Drills, it only took seconds for her to decide these were recruits in training. Without a thought, she darted into the crowd, slipping around duelling pairs, a few times even ducking under swinging metal, following a feeling she couldn't quite describe.

And there he was. In tattered and rusted old scale armor, it had been their father's, fallen to disrepair since his death. His black hair heavy and sticky with sweat, not even looking at her, trading blows with a larger man, a lord's son, judging by the look of his clothes, the coat of arms on his shield.

It took long enough for Marian to get to him to notice Carver had the other man on his heels, scrambling to defend himself under a rain of blows. Not bad, she had a feeling the other man had even been properly trained, which Carver certainly hadn't.

She wasn't any less furious with him, of course, but she was almost impressed.

With ease born of practice, Marian relaxed something deep inside, something more mental than physical, letting a sliver of the Fade slip into her. Directing the power toward her arm, believing herself to be harder, stronger than she truly was, she reached up toward Carver's ear, barely visible through the thick nest of soggy hair. And she grabbed.

And she pulled.

Carver let out a shocked groan, tipping backward with the force of her magic-assisted strength, latest swing aborted as he stumbled after her. Her ears deaf to his protests, deaf to the muttering and laughter of the men around them, Marian turned north again, back toward the village, yanking her idiot brother along with her.

She could barely hear a thing, her own blood pounding in her ears, could see little but a wide blur of red. She was hardly even aware of what she was doing. And she might have continued on that way for some while if her right arm didn't quite suddenly explode into piercing agony, a flash of white breaking apart her vision. She cradled her arm, nearly summoned the magic to suppress the pain before remembering there were certainly people around, that would be far too obvious. Her breath coming in short, harsh hisses, she waited for the pain to lessen some, enough to properly figure out what just happened.

They were standing in the middle of the army camp, she could see that, dirt turned muddy, the tents flapping in the inadequate breeze. Inadequate because this many men packed into one spot could get quite smelly, some of this mud was probably piss, when she thought about it. This little path between tents was narrow enough, likely not meant for traffic, they were alone, she and Carver. He was panting, stubble-speckled face glaring at her, rubbing at one ear, in his other hand—

Marian blinked. That length of iron, an imitation of a proper sword, the padding had been stripped off, exposing the metal to the air. The sheepskin was instead draped over Carver's elbow. "You..." Marian frowned at her little brother, struggling to form the words. She glanced down, a reddish welt already showing on her bare forearm. "Youhitme." Carver had never actually hit her before. He'd yelled at her, yes, those rare times he'd gotten especially annoyed with her, insulted and cursed her.Threatenedviolence before, yes, but never...

She couldn't quite wrap her head around what had just happened, the last remnants of her anger sputtering out. It just seemed...unreal somehow. Like she had to be dreaming this, it couldn't actually happen.

To Carver's credit, he looked nearly as dazed as she was, eyes wide, mouth working silently. Finally he drew himself up, brow dipping into a frown, with an unsteadiness that told her he was consciously forcing it into place. "Well, you weren't listening, and you weren't letting go."

"You were leaving." Just saying the words brought the anger flaring back. Still small, just a hot ember deep in her chest, but there. "You were just going to run off, you weren't even going to say anything."

His face twisted into a scowl. "There was no real point to saying anything, was there? You never listen."

"Inever listen?!" Marian couldn't help a derisive laugh, shaking her head to herself. "After what I said, after what Bethany said, after whatMothersaid, you were still going to run off! You selfish littlesh*t, don't you care what—"

"Oh, yes, I'm the selfish one, I forget! I'm the selfish one, for wanting to do something about the Blightbeforeit kills everyone I care about! Of course, howselfishof me!"

Marian ignored the bit about the Blight. If itwerea Blight, he might have a point, but she wasn't convinced it was. There were caves leading to the Deep Roads all over the place down there. Darkspawn popped up all the time. This was nothing new.

(The more she told herself that, the less convincing it sounded. She pretended not to notice.)

"This isn't some game, Carver, this isn't one of your stupid stories with knights and and whatever nonsense. This isreal life. If you go out there, you coulddie, and Ireallydon't want to find out how Mother would take that, do you?"

"IknowI could—" Carver broke off, letting out a frustrated growl. His free hand raised to his face, fingers slipping through his hair, rubbing at his cheek. "Yes, I might die, but it's af*cking Blight, Marian! And we're standing between it and the rest of civilization! If nothing is done about it, who do you think will be the first to die? Which village is going to be wiped off the map first, hmm? Because I'm betting it's Lothering."

Marian grit her teeth, her fists clenching without meaning to, pulling at the throbbing ache on her right forearm. There would be no point to yelling at him though, Carver wouldn't be swayed by yelling, so she drew a long breath through her nose, then another, trying to keep herself calm. "Theysayit's a Blight. People say a lot of things are a Blight, Chasind and Wilderfolk can get a bit panicky sometimes. How is this scare different than any other?"

The answer came instantly, flatly, confidently. "Because, this time, it's the Grey Wardens calling it a Blight."

Marian hitched, her response frozen in her throat, then leaned back, frowning to herself. That...was actually a good point. There were darkspawn scares in the far south all the time, but they were generally ignored by...well, everyone who didn't live there. But it wasn't being ignored this time. This time, the King and Teryn f*cking Loghain were marching south with an army, Grey Wardens leading the way. If anyone should be able to tell a true Blight from a false alarm, it was the Wardens.

The rumor was the Warden-Commander was pretty damn sure.

"Then we should run."

Carver jerked as though stung, blinked at her for a few seconds before finding his voice again. Even then, all he managed was, "What?"

"We should run." Marian nodded to herself, more energy slipping into her voice the longer she spoke. "It could be a Blight, fine, but if it is, it won't be stopped before reaching Lothering. The very thought is absurd, no Blight was ever halted that soon. No matter what happens at Ostagar, everyone here will be in danger. So we run. We go back, we get Bethany and Mother, we pick up everything we can carry, and we run."

Still frowning, staring at her as though she had gone completely insane, Carver said, "Run where?"

"I don't know. Up to Highever or Amaranthine, take a ship across to the Marches. Mother has family in Kirkwall, right? I'm sure we'll be safer there than—"

"For how long, though? Do you really think the Blight will stop at—"

"What else am I supposed to do?!"Her throat already hurting from that one sentence, Marian bit her lip, stopping herself from saying any more.

She'd been taking care of everything. Father had died, and Mother had basically fallen apart. Oh, she'd recovered by now, but she'd been completely useless for a couple years, weepy and empty, and they wouldn't have survived a couple years. Carver and Bethany had still been little, then, not even yet ten, and it had just been Marian. She'd kept the farm going, she'd maintained all of Dad's old traps and nets. Using magic to cheat, healing plants that she'd accidentally sabotaged somehow, fixing the traps she'd managed to break, which just made things worse more often than not, she didn't understand the mechanisms involved, he'd died before he could teach her.

More than a few times, she'd been reduced to hunting with elemental magic. She'd wait for an overcast day, rain just on the horizon, track down something, anything edible. Lightning from fingertips, she'd gotten pretty good at hitting the heads, leaving as much of the meat salvageable as possible.

Eventually, eventually she'd gotten a routine down, eventually she'd gotten good enough at this farmer thing that she hardlyneededto use magic any more. After a couple years, Carver and Bethany were old enough to help, and that made it far easier. They weren't on the edge anymore, one minor mistake wouldn't see them starve.

But it had been a close thing. One year, the harvest had come in light, they hadn't had enough to sell to cover all the things they needed to buy. Marian had had to steal. A few simple spells, to distract attention, to levitate coins from purses. She'd only had to do it a couple times, but she had. She still hadn't told anyone about it — not Bethany, not Mother — eventhinkingabout it was...unpleasant, she just wanted to forget it ever happened.

She'd been taking care of everything. The food, the house, the money. She'd made sure, in the worst of her depression, that Mother was properly taking care of herself, that she wouldn't unthinkingly starve herself to death. She'd made sure Bethany learned what she needed to, that she could control her magic, that she could keep it secret, that she would be safe from demons. She'd made sure Carver hadactually goneto his lessons — and that hadn't been easy sometimes, it was a damned miracle that rebellious little sh*t could read.

She'd taken care of everything.

Shecouldn'ttake care of a Blight.

The Maker really had to be a sad*stic little sh*t, when she thought about it.

When she finally found her voice again, it came low, weak, a whisper barely above silence. She was aware of herself enough to be a little embarrassed, the sound of it far too thin and breathy and childish. "What else am I supposed to do?"

A glance up showed all the frustration had been wiped from Carver's face. That didn't mean she was any more happy with what shedidsee, though. She wasn't sure how to read the sudden softness there, the light in his dark eyes, but it put something squirmy roiling in her stomach, she couldn't put words to exactly what. "Come with me." Her dumbfounded disbelief must have shown on her face, because Carver stepped closer, dropping the fake sword still in his hand to grip both of her shoulders leaning close over her.

Itstillannoyed her that the little sh*t had gotten so much taller than her, over the last couple years. The lot of all elder sisters, she guessed.

Whispering low, thin and high enough it wouldn't carry, he said, "I know you're powerful, Marian. I may not be a mage, I may not know much about such things — sh*t, I've never even met a mage I wasn't related to — but I'm not an idiot. I don't need Bethany telling me about some of the things you pull in your little lessons to know that. Don't tell me you don't think you can help, don't tell me that."

She couldn't help wincing a little. Shedidknow she was...well, so far as such things went, she was closer to the top than the bottom. Not, like, absurdly gifted or anything, she couldn't hold a candle to some of the stories she'd heard of Dreamers and the like, but she knew she was significantly more powerful and talented than average. Of course, the only reason she knew this was because Father had told her so. Much as Carver had said a second ago, Marian had never met a mage she wasn't related to, but Father had grown up in the Circle at Kirkwall, so he'd met plenty. He'd said she was a far better mage than he was — it'd taken her some time to believe that, since the first time he'd said anything about it she'd only been seven or eight, hadn't known nearly as much magic back then — would have matched the best of his generation back in the Circle. sh*t, he'd be shocked if, were she in a Circle, she wouldn't make Enchanter by thirty.

Not that she really knew what that meant. She had virtually no frame of reference for what other mages were capable of.

Point was, she would be far from useless, in practically any situation. But it wasn't quite that simple. She could be far from useless and still not contribute enough to make a difference. If it were anything other than af*cking Blight, Carver might have a pretty good point. "Carver..."

"It's nothopeless, Marian!" He looked slightly irritated again, mouth curving down and eyes narrowing, his fingers had tightened on her arms a little, but his voice stayed cautiously low. "Every Blight has been shorter than the last, every single one. It's notimpossiblewe could stop it.Now, before it even gets this far north. Every little bit of help the Wardens get makes it justthat muchmore likely. I mean, Maker's breath, if the Blight is going to be stopped at any point in Ferelden, do you really think anyone is more likely to pull it off thanTeryn f*cking Loghain?"

Marian frowned a little. "Darkspawn and chevaliers are hardly the same thing." Even as she said it, she knew it wasn't a great argument. He was... Well, he wasTeryn f*cking Loghain. There was a reason he was widely considered the single greatest living military tactician in all the South. She'd heard rumors scholars on the subject inbloody Tevinterhad been studying a few of his tricks back in the Rebellion, seriously...

By the look he was giving her, Carver didn't buy it any more than she did. "Itcanbe beat. I know that, that's why I have to help. But you could do..." He broke off with a huff, shaking his head to himself. She could see a shred of bitterness there, envy that had burned so long it had nearly sputtered out. "You would makeso muchmore of a difference than I ever could. You can't tell me I'm wrong."

"I..." Marian sighed, glaring up at him. Damn the little sh*t, he just had to go and be not entirely wrong. The chances of the Blight being beaten so quickly were slim to none, of course, but they were non-zero. And the two of them goingwouldmake those chances greater. By a tiny margin, yes, but it was stillsomething, and Marian going with himwoulddo more to help than the idiot on his own. And, really, running away wasn't even that great of an option. They had trouble enough getting by here, if they let themselves be reduced to refugees they might never get back on their feet.

Not to mention, she realized with a start, Carver getting out of it alive wasmuchmore likely if she was there to make sure of it. And if he was going to run off like a bloody fool no matter what she did...

Her heart suddenly pounding hard in her throat, Marian ran her tongue over her lips. "Well," she said after a long moment of silence, "it's not quite that simple, Carver. We'd be leaving Mother and Bethany on—"

"They'll be fine."

"With planting season coming up—"

"Do youreallythink we'll be here long enough to harvest if the Blight isn't stopped?"

She winced. No. No, she didn't. "Well. This might have slipped your mind, Carver, but I am an apostate. If I start practicing magicopenly..." She trailed off, shrugged. "At my age, I probably won't be sent to a Circle. They'll just execute me."

Carver jerked back a bit at that, a surprised frown crossing his face. Apparently, hehadforgotten about that. "Ah... Well, there aren't any Templars going, that I know about..."

Firstly, therewereTemplars going — the Circle had sent mages to support the army, and that number of mages went nowhere without Templar escort. But that didn't even really matter. "There will be plenty of other people. Even people from Lothering, people who know who I am. If they see me throwing magic around..." She wouldn't be able to come back. If she went with him, and she fought,reallyfought, and if theywon...

He was silent a second, eyes flickering back and forth, clearly thinking. Then, his face cleared, brightened, like the sun spilling from behind the clouds, suddenly seeming far more cheerful, voice even rising a bit too high. "The Wardens! Tell the Wardens you're an apostate, they'll protect you!"

Marian frowned. That was true. The Wardens were infamous for using any means they deemed necessary to oppose the Blight, nowhere more obvious on a regular basis than their recruitment habits — outcasts, apostates, criminals. sh*t, according to rumor the new Warden-Commander in Ferelden had been conscriptedat his own execution. The Wardens would certainly shield her in exchange for her help, but she wasn't sure how far they would go without demanding she join them. If it got bad enough, if the Templars were demanding she be handed over, she would probably have to. So, it would be quite a risk. If she did end up having to become a Warden, she'd never be going back home.

There was no leaving the Wardens. It was a commitment for life. Everyone knew that.

Her heart pounded harder, almost painfully, her blood heavy all through her head, a cold rock sinking into her stomach, as something finally sunk in. It was inevitable. She, at the very last, wouldn't be staying in Lothering. She didn't truly believe the Blight would be ended before it reached Lothering, the whole family would have to flee. If she went with Carver — and he would go whether she went with him or not, the little sh*t would surely sneak out no matter what she did — she would either have to flee the Templars or join the Wardens to shield herself from them. Evenifthe Blight was held back, she'd just learned today the local Templars already knew full well what she was. If the Knight-Captain was replaced at any point, there was no guarantee his successor wouldn't be told about her, there was no guarantee he would leave her unmolested.

She couldn't stay. Even in the best case scenario, be it two or five years from now, she would have to leave eventually. She would have to leave Lothering.

In that moment, even while the horror of the realization still chilled her, she... Well, she didn't think that was too much of a bad thing. She'd admit she'd gotten a bit...tired. Was tired the word? She'd never even let herself consider leaving home, she'd never even let herself consider, she didn't know, getting married, or, or, whatever it was people who didn't want to be farmers ended up doing with themselves. She had to stay, her family needed her. Only now, even iftheycould stay in Lothering, they didn't truly need her anymore. It might be difficult at first, but they would make it. She could...

Well, if she were being perfectly honest with herself, running away wasn't an entirely unpleasant thought. Even if she had absolutely no idea what she'd do with herself. She just...

Marian bit her lip, frowning up at Carver. She doubted he'd put together what she had. She wasn't sure how he'd feel about it if he had. But, in the end, it didn't really matter. He was right, she could help. He was right, Mother and Bethany would be fine for a few months without them. He would be going no matter what, but she could make sure he came back alive. She might be forced to leave, but that was inevitable, no matter what happened. She could help, it would be better if she helped.

And, well, as insane as it sounded, it could even be fun. Joining the King to fight darkspawn would certainly be the most interesting thing she'd ever done in her entire life.

Forcing a sigh through her yet uncomfortably tight throat, Marian shook Carver's hands off her shoulders, stepped around him to start back toward the village. It took a moment for Carver to move, only starting after her once she'd already passed the next tent. "Hey, Marian! Where are you going?"

Without breaking step, Marian glanced over her shoulder, throwing him a glare. "I'm going to go track down Warden Alistair and offer my services. You should go back to playing soldier." With a dismissive flick of her fingers, she turned away, continued on.

She pretended not to hear her idiot little brother's shout of victory.

Somehow, as she left the army camp and stepped back into the village, tracking down that aggravating ex-Templar, she just knew it. There was no way this wasn't going to blow up in her face.

9:30 Pluitanis 17

Brecilian Wilderlands, Kingdom of Ferelden

The first thing Lýna thought on waking was that she would rather she hadn't woken at all. Her blood was aflame, an agonizing heat setting her flushed and shivering, every inch of her consumed with an unyielding ache. Rather like exhaustion, the heavy burn that could set into muscles overused, but evenly throughout her whole body, so universal no exertion could have caused it. Her throat was dry, so severely parched her breath held a slight hint of blood, her stomach roiled with almost dizzying force.

And the hissed arguing from nearby really wasn't doing her head any favors.

"Ooh, you're awake. I was worried you wouldn't."

That was Mẽrhiļ, she recognized her voice after only a moment. She forced her eyes open, and immediately regretted it — the faded light of late evening pierced deep into her skull, blinding and setting her teeth to aching. She couldn't help a groan, reflexively trying to turn away. Whichreallydidn't ease the pain everywhere else.

"Shush, shush," Mẽrhiļ muttered, her voice almost uncharacteristically soft and warm. A short pause, and Lýna felt hands on her, head and chest, only making the pain worse, but just for a second. The talented First didn't hesitate at all, healing magic radiating from her fingers before Lýna could barely twitch, soothing the agony with exquisite suddenness, like cool spring water spilling down a fiery throat, forcing a moan of relief through her lips. "It's okay, Cousin. I have you. You'll be okay."

Despite the clearly dreadful circ*mstances she'd woken up to find herself in — she had no clue what was happening, but how much ithurtit couldn't be good — she felt a thin smile pulling at her lips. She and Mẽrhiļ weren't actually cousins. They weren't related at all, so far as they knew, from two entirely different clans, in fact. Clans they had both left for this one, for their own reasons. They'd ended up close, Lýna couldn't even remember how it'd happened anymore. She'd been young at the time. "I don't feel so great."

"Well, no, obviously." She was trying to keep her voice light, but Lýna could feel her dread, too powerful to be entirely contained.

Something very bad was happening. She was still dizzy with whatever sickness had struck her, not yet entirely awake, she didn't remember. But she knew it. "What happened to me?" If she were more herself at the moment, she might have cringed at the fearful quiver on her own voice.

"We were hoping you might be able to tell us that."

When she heard the unfamiliar voice, despite the pain it had brought her last time, she couldn't stop her eyes from springing open. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as bad this time. It only took her a second to spot the stranger. He was tall and broad, hair a shiny black and skin a deep brown, eyes dark and sharp. He wore glittering armor of an unfamiliar whitish metal, built of tiny scales that shifted and sparkled in the dying light. Two blades hung from his belt, one significantly longer than the other. Despite that he was obviously a warrior, despite the intensity in those glimmering eyes, his face was pulled into something surprisingly gentle, concerned.

Her first thought, when she'd heard the suspiciously thick, deep voice, fluently speaking Alamarri, hadn't been wrong: the man washuman. Even more shockingly, he was human, standing free among the clan, and still carried his weapons.

She had absolutely no idea what was going on.

After staring at him in uncomprehending silence for a few seconds, she noticed the older woman standing just at his shoulder — shorter, slighter, hair a bright silver, features pulled into a worrying look of trepidation, but clearly elven. It took Lýna a moment, her vision still blurred and thoughts still sluggish, to recognize her. "Keeper? Who is..." She trailed off, working her throat to clear the muck from it. Even with Mẽrhiļ's magic running through her, her head spun, and she collapsed back to the ground. Huh, she hadn't even realized she'd tried to sit up...

"His name is Duncan, child." The Keeper was speaking Alamarri as well — surely for the stranger's benefit, Lýna was far from fluent in the local human tongue. "He is a Grey Warden, searching for recruits to stand against the rising Blight. He found you in the forest, deathly ill, and returned you to us."

Lýna felt her face pull into a frown. "How did he know where to find us?"

Somewhat to her surprise, despite that she had spoken in Deluvẽ, the Warden answered without pause. "I assure you, Lýna, your people are in no danger from me. There are persistent rumors of Dalish in these lands, and I made a few guesses where you might be, considering the geography of the region. It was merely good fortune I found you so quickly." His eyes dancing with a hidden hint of sly humor, he said, "I've shared these guesses with no one, nor do I plan to."

For a few seconds, she could only blink up at the man, caught by a few things. For one, he'd pronounced her name...almostcorrectly — better than any of the few northerners who'd ever had the opportunity to attempt it, anyway. For another, assuming he could be taken at his word, this man fully intended to shield them from the locals, or he would if it should ever come up. For another, though his continued use of Alamarri suggested he couldn't speak it, that he could answer her at all meant he could understand Deluvẽ just fine.

She'd only met this man a few seconds ago, and she already had no idea what to think of him.

It took a few moments to collect her thoughts enough to actually speak. It was a little embarrassing, actually, but she was sick with...something, no matter how much Mẽrhiļ's magic was helping, so she couldn't really help it. "Well. At the least the Wardens are doing something about the Blight.Finally."

This Duncan gave her an odd, confused look at that — maybe his Deluvẽ wasn't good enough? When he shot the Keeper a questioning frown, she released a sigh, heavy with all the grief and exhaustion of the last couple years. "Until recently, we've made the Wilds far to the south our home. The Blight may be just reaching Ferelden, but it has been rising in the wilderness for over a year now." Her voice wavered, the minimal accent on her Alamarri strengthening. "Many were lost."

Also switching to Alamarri, her voice sharp and angry, Mẽrhiļ said, "Lýna lost her husband."

She was a little taken aback by the hard glare Mẽrhiļ shot the Warden, intense enough the healing spell flickered a little. Mẽrhiļ being a bit...protective of her wasn't new, in itself. Lýna had still been young when, shortly after bringing her with them to the clan, both of her parents had died — for reasons she still didn't entirely understand, her old clan had a very nasty reputation, and if Mẽrhiļ hadn't decided to look after her she would have had almost no one. But, just how personallyangrywith the Warden she seemed didn't entirely make sense. If he'd brought her here, hadn't he just saved her life? Shouldn't she be pleased with him?

No, something else was going on here.

To his credit, Duncan looked appropriately sympathetic at the news, mouth drooping and eyes sparkling. Voice low, thick with compassion, he said to the Keeper, "I'm sorry, I had no idea. The Wardens have little presence this far—" He broke off with a hum, clearly deciding his excuses would do them no good. He turned back to Lýna. "I'm truly sorry, Lýna."

Lýna just stared back at him, eyes wide with shock. That last bit, he'd spoken in Deluvẽ. His pronunciation was atrocious, barely understandable, but still...

Not that his sympathy was necessary. She wasn'tthatbroken up over Muthallã. They hadn't been close before they'd bonded — he'd been one of the kids who'd bullied her when she'd been younger, actually — and he'd only died...two months later? It hadn't been long, anyway, she hadn't much time to grow attached to him. Really, she and Tallẽ weren't even officially bonded yet, and she already—

Without thinking, Lýna sprung up to sitting, nearly striking Mẽrhiļ's head with her own. Mẽrhiļ jerked out of the way, the healing spell cut off. The pain did come flooding back, but it wasn't as bad as before, just the muscles she was actually using at the moment cramping, only a little. Her voice so thick with panic she could barely get the words out, she hissed, "Tallẽ! Tallẽ was with me! Where is he?"

The Keeper's expression turned even grimmer, looking almost stricken. "I'm sorry, child. He has not returned. The hunters have been scouring the area, but there's been no word."

She grit her teeth, but shook the thought off. "Did you tell them to stay away from the ruins? Theyhaveto stay away!"

"The ruins?" That was the Warden, looking somewhat unsure. "Which ruins?"

Her voice going soft again, pleading, the Keeper said, "Please, child, tell us what happened. If we are to find Tallẽ, if we are to save you..."

She blinked at that. "Save me?" She turned a confused frown to Mẽrhiļ. "Aren't I already...?"

"Well, no, I'm afraid." Face gone stony, Mẽrhiļ was looking a bit away, down at the ground between them, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. "I candelayBlight sickness, but I can't..."

The realization struck Lýna as ice, running hard and sharp through her veins, so sudden and so intense she felt herself on the edge of shivering. Blight sickness. She'd seen it before, of course, several in their clan had died of it over the last months. She knew what that meant, without a doubt.

Even with all their power, all their knowledge of the Ancients, even the Keeper and her First couldn't cure the Blight.

But Lýna forced the thought off as well as she could, drawing a long, slow breath that shuddered only slightly in her throat. If itwasthe Blight, and she trusted Mẽrhiļ enough to know it was, there was nothing that could be done about her, she didn't matter anymore. Keeping her voice as calm and level as she could, Lýna told them about the ruins she and Tallẽ had found, the mirror they had found deep within, black and sick and so thick with magic Lýna's skin had tingled with it.

"A mirror?" For a second, Lýna had thought her Alamarri was just bad enough he needed to ask to clarify what she'd meant — she wastryingto accomodate the Warden, since he'd be the one taking care of all this, but she wasn't very good at it. A glance up at him, though, how he'd leaned back, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in thought, no, that was something else. "Corrupted, obviously, but I hadn't even known theycouldbe corrupted..."

After a bit more frowning to himself and muttering, the Warden jerked, seeming to suddenly remember he wasn't alone with his thoughts. He cleared his throat, shooting the Keeper an odd smile. "Yes, sorry. I'm familiar with these mirrors.Elavúm, they're called, an old Tevinter invention. I've seen one before, though it was long shattered. It is curious they could become corrupted, though, only living things can carry the Blight."

Lýna opened her mouth to argue that, while that hadn't been anordinaryelven ruin, it had no doubt been elven — chances were that mirror had been made by the Ancients, notTevinter. But she caught the significant glance shared between Mẽrhiļ and the Keeper. She knew, somehow, that not only did they know the Warden was wrong, but they knewexactlywhat that mirror was. They knew better than she, and they clearly felt no need to correct the human. So she held her tongue.

And she didn't open her mouth again. It really seemed her participation wasn't necessary for this conversation.

"Ooh, I knew it, Iknewit, I was right!" Despite how weak Lýna had grown — she could barely keep her eyes open, her head pounding with each beat of her heart — she couldn't help a smile at the childlike glee on Mẽrhiļ's voice.

The ever-energetic First had kept an almost constant monologue ever since the ruin had come into sight, alternately rising with excitement and falling with awe. As Lýna had, she'd noticed the odd design of the place, its frequent elven symbolism in statuary and friezes but too thick and rough with too many hard angles to have been built by the Ancients. But, unlike Lýna, Mẽrhiļ actually had an explanation: this place dated to the time of the Ancients, but had beenbuiltby dwarves. A sort of gateway, a bridge between their worlds. The Keeper had told her such places existed, she said, but she'd never seen one herself.

The Warden had just said thatwouldexplain why there were so many darkspawn here. Such a place would have naturally had access to the Deep Roads, after all.

And there had been darkspawn — which was odd, there hadn't been when Lýna and Tallẽ had been here — and quite a few of them, at that. But they hadn't posed any issue at all. There was a reason they'd brought Mẽrhiļ along. She incinerated darkspawn after darkspawn with fire from her fingertips, almost casually, seeming to pay more attention to the ruins, eyes focused on the faded images and inscriptions on the walls. More than anything, she'd just seemed annoyed with the mindless monsters trying to kill them, summarily destroying them with impatient little huffs, waving a hand to blow away the sickening smell of burning flesh. She had handled them so easily, the Warden had long since sheathed his blades, focused entirely on supporting Lýna as she shuffled and stumbled.

Sometimes it was all too easy for Lýna to forget just how scary Mẽrhiļ and the Keeper could be. Mages seemed all too mortal most of the time.

It hadn't taken long at all for them to reach the room with the mirror. As the Warden gently lowered Lýna to her knees, she aimed a glare at the thing. Itwouldbe pretty enough, the elegantly curving frame silver and gleaming, untarnished by age, if it weren't for the taint infecting the glass itself. It was black and purple, the non-colors slowly shifting, as though the mirror were filled with some gelatinous goop. The magic was so thick Lýna could feel it, prickling at her skin and making her eyes itch, but it wasn't just magic. There was something...off about it, something that was justwrong. She couldn't put words to exactly what it was, exactly what it felt like, but it made her eyes water, her stomach clench. The fever Mẽrhiļ's magic had temporarily held back was rising again, leaving Lýna flushed and shivering, breath biting at her throat.

As she watched Mẽrhiļ approach the mirror in a reverent daze, her ears started ringing, low but growing louder, clearer, ever so slowly.

"Do you know what this is?" Mẽrhiļ's voice was low and breathy, so quiet Lýna almost couldn't hear her over the ringing. She reached toward the Blighted glass with one hand, fingers shaking. Before her skin could meet it, a blue-white glow suddenly blossomed at her fingertips, Mẽrhiļ snatched her hand back as though scalded. "Corrupted, of course it had to be. Creators damn whoever made the cursed thing."

She winced. Of course they would be speaking Alamarri. She'd be lucky to understand every word on a good day, and with her headache getting worse this washardlya good day.

"You mean the Blight?" That was the Warden, gradually nearing Mẽrhiļ's back. She couldn't see his face from here (not that that would necessarily help, human faces were shaped weird), but by the tension in his shoulders Lýna was guessing he was very uncomfortable about something. "Nobodymadethe Blight."

Lýna did catch the exasperated glance Mẽrhiļ threw over her shoulder. "Where did it come from, then? Nature does not destroy itself, not on its own."

"It is a curse from the Maker, for daring to go where no mortal should."

Mẽrhiļ shook her head, turned back to the mirror. Her voice light, "Not at all an evil god you worship, this Maker. Seven idiots break into his house, punishes all the world with the Blight. No, that seems the just and proper thing to do, I agree."

That had always bothered Lýna — she didn't see how the humans could worship a god theyclaimedwas responsible for the Blight, especially one who had released it over something so...trivial. She doubted that was a very tactful thing to say to a believer's face, though. At least the Warden didn't rise to the bait at all, just let out a little huff. He almost sounded amused, actually.

"Thisis odd, though."

The amusem*nt on his voice growing ever more obvious, the Warden said, "Is there anything about all this thatisn'todd?"

"Well, no, I suppose not, I just mean— See, here." Mẽrhiļ reached up, pointing at the swirling shapes making up the top of the mirror. "These are wolves. See?"

Lýna frowned, tried to force her bleary eyes to focus. She was right: the top side of the frame had been carved into the shape of wolf heads, a few smaller, but one larger, turned downward to gaze at those standing before the mirror, its bright eyes gleaming. She glanced around the room, the odd feeling only intensifying. The colors had long faded, the shapes blurred, but there were still things to make out. She spotted a few vague shapes in the mosaic on the floor that seemed to be more wolves, though some might be dwarves. The wall to the right, those were dwarves, she thought, it was hard to tell, but the hard lines, the beards, yes, dwarves, but to the left? The scene depicted there was...well, odd. There was a man, an elven man, in green and white robes, holding a long staff, longer than he was tall. Kneeling at his feet were more elves, their heads bowed, curving lines that were probably a spell of some kind flowing from his hand down to them. Behind the man, his shadow rose somehow above them, but it wasn't a natural shadow, threaded through with red and blue, curling over his head in what seemed the maw of a wolf, stretching behind him, contorting and twisting, near the back corner forming into black wolves, a whole pack of them, their eyes blue and their fangs white.

Now that she thought about it, a disproportionate number of the statues out in the rest of the ruin had involved wolves somehow. A couple of dragons, yes, a few that were clearly supposed to be dwarves, or dwarven things, but mostly wolves. One, most curious, an elven woman, with wings of a dragon spread wide in place of arms, curled around her feet, tall enough its head reached her waist even sitting, yet another damn wolf.

She had a suspicion, heavy like a wet cloak draped over her shoulders, who that wolf, who this man was supposed to be. But...that didn't make any sense. It madelessthan zero sense, it was all wrong.

"Is there a problem with wolves?"

Mẽrhiļ turned to give the Warden an impatient look. "Yes," she said, switching to Alamarri, "there is a problem with wolves. Well, I mean, they're notbad, it just doesn't make sense. This is an elven ruin, see, anoldelven ruin."

The Warden nodded, shrugging a little. "I suppose it must be. Seems a little off to me, but..."

"Yes, a little. The dwarves were involved, too. But, see—" Mẽrhiļ broke off, face scrunching in confusion, forcing her lips into a pout. "It doesn't makesense. The wolves everywhere, those could only be one thing. I even saw, there was an inscription that wasn't too faded, it said something about friendship withHe Who Walks Alone. That's another name for the Wolf, you see."

"I don't, I'm afraid."

Mẽrhiļ gave the Warden a flat sort of look, disbelief he wouldn't know something so fundamental written all over her face. At least, Lýna was pretty sure that's what that was — her vision was slowly getting blurrier, she couldn't be certain. "The Wolf. TheDreadWolf."

Joining her in front of the mirror, the Warden let out a long noise of realization, one hand coming up to rub at his scraggly chin. "I believe I've heard of this. That's the evil god who betrayed and sealed away the rest of the elven gods. Right?"

"Yes, precisely. Well—" Mẽrhiļ tilted her head, raising her shoulders in a shrug. "—evil, maybe too strong a word. Doesn't matter, close enough. But, see, the weird thing— Did you see this place! No, this is all wrong. The People do not worship He Who Walks Alone. Give Him wary respect? Yes. Fear? Sometimes. Butveneration?No, no, this is all wrong." Mẽrhiļ spun on her heel, loose stones cracking under her feet, started off toward the mosaic on the wallseeminglydepicting the Wolf, though not in any fashion Lýna had seen Him. Fingers floating an inch over the surface, Mẽrhiļ rambled away, theories pouring over her lips about what this place was for, what relationship the Wolf might have had with the dwarves, wondering if certain myths had been misinterpreted over the years, maybe—

While Mẽrhiļ's back was turned, distracted by her thoughts, the Warden drew the shorter of his weapons with a tight flourish. Blade pointed back toward his elbow, he twisted, jabbing the point straight for the center of the mirror. At the harsh scrape of a sword drawn, Mẽrhiļ had whipped back around, eyes going wide with shock. "No, don't—" She reached out, fingers glowing with rising magic.

But she was too slow.

The metal of the blade, silver glimmering greenish in the thin magical light, struck glass with a tinking sound, reverberating unnaturally deep. A flash of blue light rose from the impact, so dim Lýna was half-convinced she was imagining it, raced across the glass toward the edge. With a high snapping noise, the mirror didn't crack so much asexplode, dozens of razor shards flying out in a rush of sudden motion. Lýna ducked reflexively, wincing as she felt a fragment whip past her ear. Even halfway across the room, Mẽrhiļ was only spared by the flickering green halo of protective magic she'd summoned around herself, cursed glass sparking as it struck.

When it was over, glass raining to the ground with a chorus of tinkling, Mẽrhiļ dropped her barrier, immediately whirling on the Warden, face flushing red. "You— What are— Why— What iswrongwith you?!"

The Warden stared down at her, face pulled into something hard and severe. Casually returning the blade to its sheath, he said, "The mirror was and would remain a threat to any unlucky enough to stumble across it. It had to be destroyed."

"Destroyed? It was thetaintthat was dangerous, not the mirror itself!" Even in her fury, there was a slight hesitation over the Alamarri wordmirror, Mẽrhiļ apparently deciding not to use the proper term at the last instant. She held out a hand, then clenched it into a fist, a sharp sense of magic snapping in the air. Bits of glass slid across the floor, all yanked to pile in a single spot, gathered haphazardly at a spot halfway between the two of them. Lýna could see the shards were still black, sick magic still wafting off of them in a haze nearly visible. "Hmm, still seems tainted to me. Do you have any idea what that was? How valua—"

"Dammit." The Warden had raised a hand to his head, armored fingers rubbing at his temple, a tight look directed at the pile of Blighted glass. "My apologies. I thought that would release—" He broke off, shaking his head to himself. A rueful smile tilting his lips, he muttered, "I suppose I should take these with me."

"You willnot." The way the big Warden startled at the sudden sharpness on the tiny woman's voice was really quite funny. "I will keep them. I'll cleanse them myself." Mẽrhiļ hissed, a grimace twisting her face. "I'm going to need alotof nugs..."

"Nugs? What are you going to—"

"Yes, hello?" Both Mẽrhiļ and the Warden jumped at Lýna's voice, turning to her with matching sheepish winces. Summoning her less-than-perfect Alamarri, she said, "This...fun, but, will cure me now, maybe?"

It only took a minute for the two of them, now that they'd been startled back into motion, to put together the potion that would save Lýna's life, if only temporarily. She felt her lip curl with revulsion as she watched the Warden draw some blood from a nearby grey and black corpse into a goblet he'd pulled from his back. Not that it was a surprise — the rumor among her people was the Wardens used some kind of blood magic to empower themselves against the darkspawn, though nobody knew the details. He'd actually told Mẽrhiļ shortly after entering the ruin to leave at least one he could get blood from. She'd expected it would involve darkspawn blood, it was still disgusting. The Warden poured a couple other things into the goblet, one a glowing blue liquid thathadto be lyrium, swirled it around a bit before asking Mẽrhiļ to prime it with a quick bit of lightning.

And barely a moment later, Lýna was holding the heavy, tarnished goblet in her hands, frowning down at the potion inside. It was black, the magic within flickering like rainbow reflections on the surface, the stuff was thick enough it stuck to the sides where it'd sloshed, only slowly slipping back down. And she hesitated.

The deal had been made, back before they'd left. Lýna would show the Warden to the ruin. In exchange, he would give her the Wardens' very secret almost-cure. It wouldn't cleanse her of the Blight entirely, but it would push it back, delay it. For years, possibly decades. Or it might kill her instantly — darkspawn bloodwashorrifically poisonous, and magic could be unpredictable, it didn't always work. But with how quickly the Blight sickness had struck her, unusually quickly, she'd be dead soon anyway, it made little difference.

But, even if she lived, she wouldn't be going back to the clan. This not-quite-a-cure was the Grey Warden initiation ritual, he'd said. Once she drank, she would be one of them. And there was no leaving the Grey Wardens. It was a commitment for life.

Everybody knew that.

So she hesitated, but only for a moment. What reason was there to not go through with it? She'd be dead if she didn't drink, in maybe a couple days. The life of a Grey Warden didn't sound entirely pleasant, but it was better than nothing. She'd rather protect people from the Blight, even be they perfect strangers, than be dead. When it came down to it, it really wasn't a choice at all.

With a last shaky smile at Mẽrhiļ, ignoring the clenching of her own stomach, Lýna raised the goblet to her lips and threw it back.

The Song overtook her so quickly she was gone before she hit the floor.

Chapter 2: Ostagar — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Pluitanis 19

Kibannan Circle of Magi, Ostwick, Confederation of Free Cities

Evie pushed the heavy door open with both hands, stopping once it was only open maybe a foot. She slipped her head through the gap, leaning around to look inside. "Hello? I was told to..." She trailed off, her words stolen from her. Not quite what she'd been expecting.

It'd been a couple days since that silly Harrowing thing — she still wasn't sure why she'd had to do that, but she was starting to learn normal mages were silly about some things. She'd woken up in an unfamiliar room, told this would be her home for...well, a while anyway. It wasn't abadroom, really, all soft reddish woods and plush carpets and fluffy beds, but she still hadn't been able to help a moody glare at the woman who'd told her. Every time she saw her she still glared at her.

See, when Mum and Dad and Auntie Lyn had brought her to the Circle, they hadn't said she'd bestayinghere. She'd thought she'd be going home, once the Templars were convinced she wouldn't be...she didn't know, going crazy and hurting people or something. She still didn't know what to do with the thought that she wasn't going back. It was too big to deal with, so she avoided thinking about it.

Not that Mystrel was happy withthat.

Anyway, yesterday she'd done pretty much nothing. Just sat in the room she'd be sharing with some other mages for however long she'd be staying here — which was a little awkward, since all three were alotolder than her, even the youngest a grown woman — reading books she'd found lying around. Had slipped over to the Fade for way more time than she'd needed to sleep, she was just bored. Cammy and its friends were always good for some fun, so.

(Actually, could spirits even be friends with each other? Evie wasn't sure if the word was appropriate. Cammy and the others it was almost always around sure acted friend-like enough, but...)

Then the next morning, shortly after breakfast — given in a big hall, the noise of the chattering mages almost painful, Evie feeling a little peculiar, everyone else in the room at least twice her age — a Tranquil man had come to find Evie. Before she could even try to stop herself, she'd cringed, stepping away from the eerily still elf. She'd never seen a Tranquil before being sent to the Circle. Mystrel had told her they existed, an almost un-spirit-like (or at least un-Knowledge-like) curl of disgust to its lips, but that hadn't prepared her. They felt...

Evie couldn't explain it, exactly. They feltwrong. Dead inside, as empty and cold as a rock, but somehow still living, filled with the low tingle of magic she could faintly feel in all living things. It was, just,wrong, she didn't know how to explain it, it just was. It made her sick, being near one, her breakfast crawling up her throat, her skin itching, almost shivering with a chill from nowhere. She tried not to let it show, it just felt rude to react too badly, but...it didn't really matter, did it? It wasn't like she could hurt their feelings. Theydidn't havefeelings.

He'd told her she was expected somewhere, in the enchanters' wing. After barely two seconds, she'd slipped out from the hand he'd put on her shoulder, insisted on keeping a few steps between them as she followed. Touch just made it feel worse, no, no, no.

On the other side of the door she'd been lead to was a room. A sort of big room — bigger than her bedroom, even the foyer back home, but smaller than the State Hall, or the room the mages took their meals in. So, the third largest room she'd ever seen, maybe? Could probably fit twenty of her across the floor, head to toe, maybe more, the ceiling twice as high as a normal ceiling. Actually, she saw with a glance up, there was a balcony along three walls, with doors leading out above her head, so it looked like it wasexactlytwice as high as normal. Only three walls, because the last, to her right, was made almost entirely of glass, the winter sun lighting the dust in the air in slanted orangish beams.

At the sight of the browned grasses, the Sea slightly blurry with fog in the near distance, Evie's stomach clenched, almost as bad as when the Tranquil had touched her. Yesterday, she'd wanted to go outside for a bit, and the Templar at the door had yelled at her, would have shoved her back if she hadn't turned around on her own. They wouldn't even let hergo outside. She could go and do pretty much wherever she wanted in the Dreaming, but still.

Anyway, the room was mostly empty. The stone floor was free of most any furniture, lines and shapes Evie recognized as runic enchantments of some kind carved into the floor. Evie didn't knowwhatkind, Mystrel hadn't started teaching her that yet, said when she was older. There was one table, long, with six chairs behind it. Each of the six chairs had a person in it. Old people, mostly, wearing somewhat finer robes than most of the other mages, rings and necklaces — Evie hadn't really met any, but she assumed they were enchanters. The only one she recognised was Jeria, theFirstEnchanter, so that seemed a good bet. There were a few Templars here too, standing along the wall, out of the way, as though trying to sink into the shadows. Kinda hard to do that with polished armor on, but okay.

She couldn't see very much of it, but it looked like there were people on the balcony above, too.Lotsof people. But she didn't have a good angle, couldn't see very well, tried to ignore it. "Um, you were looking for me?"

"Yes, Evie, please come in." That was Jeria, her voice and face soft with a gentle smile. Trying to be reassuring, maybe, but it really wasn't helping much. Evie slipped inside, wincing when the door slammed closed behind her, tried not to fidget. Everyone wasstaringat her. "Come up here, child, in the middle of the big circle."

For a second, she was confused, but she noticed Jeria's eyes flick downward, followed her gaze. Ah,thatbig circle — the greater part of the carvings in the floor made up a design of concentric rings, unfamiliar shapes and runes sketched in the spaces between, taking up most of the floor. Evie walked forward, trying to ignore how her skin tingled as she stepped over every ring. Stopping right in the middle, she glanced up at the balcony surrounding her, and immediately regretted it. There weredozensof people up there, mages and enchanters and Templars and Tranquil, all staring down at her. She forced her eyes away, looked to Jeria, the only person here she actually knew.

Another of the enchanters at the table, an unfamiliar man with grey hair and wrinkles on his face, shifted one of the papers before him, cleared his throat. "You are Miss Evelyn Trevelyan, yes?"

Evie blinked.Miss?Honestly, she felt most of that society stuff was very silly, but she knew strangers were supposed to, and almost always did, call herlady. Her grandfather was the Arl, after all, and people were supposed to care about that. Jeria didn't have to, because she was friends with Dad and Auntie Lyn, but she had no idea who this old man was. Brushing the thought off, she nodded. "Yes."

The next question was from another old person she didn't know. "I'm not sure if anyone told you, but it was decided you should be put through your Harrowing much sooner than would ordinarily even be considered. Knight-Captain Trevelyan believes you are a Dreamer and it was—" The woman had to raise her shaky voice slightly, cutting over the muttering leaking down from the balcony. "—it was decided precautions should be taken. The first question we meant to ask you today is, is it true?"

It took Evie a second, frowning at herself, to realiseKnight-Captain Trevelyanwas Auntie Lyn. At least, she was pretty sure? Auntie Lyn was a Templar, but Evie didn't know if she was a Captain or not, and therewerea lot of Trevelyans. It took a couple more seconds to realise what the question was asking for. "Oh. Er. I guess so? I'm told I am, so."

"You're told you are?" This enchanter was a bit younger, maybe about Dad's age, her suspicious frown deepening the few lines on her face. "You don't know for sure?"

"I mean, I do, I guess." Evie shrugged. "I'm not really sure what that means. I mean, how it's different from being a normal person." Mystrel had gone on that ramble of being like a dragon among mages, or whatever, but that was really vague. She still had no feel for what thatmeant, what difference it made.

"When you sleep, you can alter the Fade at your whim? Change things?"

Evie frowned at the enchanter. "Yeah, see, I didn't know other people couldn't do that until Auntie Lyn told me so. I just thought that's what dreams are like for everyone." She probably would have gotten sent here way earlier if everyone hadn't assumed the spirits she talked about were just imaginary friends or something. At least, that's what Mum said she'd thought...

"How often do you encounter demons?"

She couldn't help a confused glance around the room at the sudden silence, the cold tension on the air. People always got so ridiculously terrified whenever the subject of demons came up, it was weird. Shrugging to herself, Evie said, "Sometimes? I mean,someone's always there, but they're mostly spirits. The ones that talk to me, anyway. But demons find me sometimes, yes."

Nobody seemed to like that answer, uneasy and fearful expressions taking many people's faces, shifting in place and muttering to each other. Jeria was still smiling at her, though. "What usually happens when you meet a demon?" she asked, the soft calmness in her voice easing a bit of the fear in the air. "You've been stumbling across them your whole life, yet you remain unpossessed. You must have some way of dealing with them."

Evie felt her face twist into a confused frown again. Didn't all magesstumble acrossdemons every once in a while? Even if they couldn't change things, she thought that was just...mage stuff. Whatever. "It's not hard, really." There were a couple shocked laughs at that, Evie glancing up in their direction before shrugging it off. "Sometimes I just ignore them. If they get too annoying, the weaker ones I make go away, but if that—"

"Wait a second." That was one of the old enchanters interrupting, giving her an odd look of disbelief. "You can just...makethem go away?"

"The weaker ones, sure. You can't?" By the looks the entire rooming was giving her, yeah, they couldn't. "I just kinda..." Evie trailed off, trying to describe how it worked. She couldn't, really. Lifting her hands to make a slow shoving motion, she said, "I just kindapush, and if I'm heavier than they are, they get pushed out of wherever I am. They can come back, but it takes hours, I never have to do it to the same one more than once a day."

"If you'reheavier?What does that mean?"

Evie shrugged. "Not, like,heavyheavy,realheavy, but... I dunno how to say it. Only word I can think of. And, ifthey'reheavier than me, and it doesn't look like they're gonna leave me alone, I just wake up. If I wait for a bit and go back to sleep they're usually gone."

The enchanters at the table were giving herveryodd looks. One said, "You can just...wake up?"

What, other people couldn't do that either? Weird. "Sure. That's the only reason it was even a little scary. The, er, Harrowing...thing, I mean. That lyrium stuff wouldn't let me wake up. It was just a stupid annoying fear demon, but I couldn't run away." Scrunching her nose a little, she muttered, "I don't think I like lyrium."

Evie blinked, glanced up at the balconies surrounding the room. Most everyone still looked way too serious, almost like they were at a funeral or something, but a bunch of people were chuckling, muttering to each other. Apparently, that was a funny thing to say. She didn't get it, but okay.

When the noise had died down a bit, Jeria raised a hand, silencing the room like magic. Maybe it was magic, who knows. Turning to the other people at her table, she said, "I hope that alleviates your concerns somewhat. Dreamer she may be, but Evelyn has survived on her own for years, even with little to no true understanding of the inherent risks of her abilities. I believe her survival alone proves we can trust her to safeguard herself during her nightly forays beyond the Veil."

One of the Templars along the wall — that was the Knight-Commander, but Evie couldn't remember his name — let out a sharp huff, shifting in his armor. "If you mean to suggest we should leave the child completely supervised..."

"Of course not." She said it easily enough, but Evie could hear the hint of annoyance, a twitch in one eye. "I am simply suggesting she is no more a danger than any other mage here. I don't believe she requires..." Jeria trailed off, jaw working in silence for a second. "...special treatment."

Knight-Commander Whatshisname sniffed, but didn't say anything.

Another of the old people at the table, sounding really impatient, almost rude, said, "Perhaps, we can move straight to the evaluation, then?"

Evie blinked. Evaluation?

Your Excellency,

I cannot say your fears are unfounded. Yet, I do not feel there is any need for immediate action.
The rumors you heard are correct — it does appear the Trevelyan girl is a Dreamer. However, she survived her Harrowing without incident and, if her word and the Enchanters' opinion is to be trusted, is at little risk of possession down the line. Her explanation wasn't the most coherent, the vague ramblings of a child, but it seems greater magical power translates to greater defences against hostile demons. The First Enchanter, at the least, is confident. I'm inclined to cede to her judgement.
Even were she a threat, it'd be a shame to... I can hardly bear the thought. I don't mean to suggest I'm wavering in my commitment, but sometimes the things we must do horrify me. She is a sweet child. Tiny little thing, even for her age. She certainly appears a Trevelyan, with that Tevene nose and curly black hair, but she isn't old enough for the expected arrogance to set in yet. Honestly, the poor thing just seemed lost and confused. I'm not certain she fully understands what's going on, why she was brought to the Circle. Or what that means, how her entire future has been changed. She's just a child, and it had only been a couple days.
I will admit, her magical ability is somewhat unnerving. Since she'd been sent straight to the Harrowing, the Enchanters had no idea what she was capable of, what magic she'd already learned. So, they tested her, in front of the whole Circle — I believe the First Enchanter was attempting to quiet some of the wilder rumors that had been going around, ease minds as much as she could. And Trevelyan passed all the tests they came up with, though there had been peculiarities. She didn't recognise the names of common magics, had to be told the results of a thing. There was often a significant hesitation, much longer than a mage would normally need.
In fact, I'm left with the suspicion that Trevelyan passed far more of their tests than anyone had been expecting. The Enchanters had paled as the evaluation wore on, the room falling eerily silent as everyone watched. I have little direct experience with what mages fresh from their Harrowing are expected to be capable of, but I get the feeling Trevelyan would surpass most of them, despite her age.
Despite the fact that she'd gotten no formal training in magic at all. Shockingly, Trevelyan claimed that, before the evaluation today, she hadnever cast magic once in her life! I'd never seen shock on so many faces at once before. She claimed she only knew how to accomplish what they were asking of her because a spirit was whispering in her ear through the Veil — she'd been under the impression there would be some negative consequences for failing, perhaps the Enchanters could have been clearer. There was a little panic at the admission, the Templars on the floor with her even readied their blades, but it was settled without any violence. Apparently, this spirit is one of knowledge, has been teaching Trevelyan in her sleep for as long as she can remember. The First Enchanter informs me such things are not unheard of. Rare, of course, but Trevelyan is far from the first to have such a guide, and it's perfectly safe — spirits of knowledge are not the sort to cross the Veil, she is in no special danger from it.
For all I can tell, in the case of Evelyn Trevelyan, no intervention is necessary at this time. I'd suggest keeping an eye on the Kibannan Circle just in case, but I'm not especially concerned.

Your loyal servant,
Cassandra

9:30 Pluitanis 25

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Lýna eyed the familiar spires of the old Tevinter fortress, jagged white monoliths stabbing so high into the air they were easily visible over the trees, watching as they grew ever closer, ever larger. And tried not to be too nervous.

By how her finger kept tracing the grip of her new sword, she knew she wasn't doing a great job of it.

She still wasn't sure what to think of this thing. The sword, she meant. While she'd been unconscious, unable to arrange such things herself, her clan had made sure she'd been sent off with the essentials — since she was going to war, that mostly meant weapons, along with a few potions and tinctures. She'd woken up to find her bow, complete with quiver full of arrows, and her father's old ironbark dagger laid out next to her. That was pretty much it. There were a selection of poisons at the bottom of her bag, along with a fewsurprises, Duncan probably hadn't noticed those, but she hadn't had anything more herself, and her clan hadn't much they could safely send off with her.

So, the sword and the armor were a bit of a surprise. Not to mention Duncan had justgiventhem to her — from what she understood, humans weren't in the habit of just giving her people anything,especiallyweapons. She was under the impression it was actually against the law in most human nations for any of the People to carry blades at all, so. It wasn't exactly of terrible quality, either. The bits of metal Duncan had chosen to supplement her hunting leathers and the sword both were made of silverite. Lýna didn't actually know what silverite was — clearly a metal of some kind, gleaming an almost luminescent blue-white — but she'd been told it was one of the strongest substances known to humankind, and rare too.

She'd protested at the idea of carrying a sword at all, at first — the People generally didn't use longer blades, she'd never learned how. But she'd changed her mind when Duncan had actually shown her the thing (and insisted repeatedly she take it). It was rather shorter than what she thought was typical for swords of human make, the tip curving back somewhat. Small and light enough she could adapt the technique she'd been taught without too much difficulty, with the added bonus of extra reach. The blade was impressively keen, too — her finger had bled justtouchingit — and she'd been told it almost never had to be sharpened. If she'd be fighting anyone with full silverite armor or weapons, perhaps, but how often didthathappen? The stuff was supposedly quite rare, after all, and darkspawn weren't known to use it at all.

Lýna thought the thing wasalmostsuperior to her old ironbark dagger. Not that she'd ever admit that aloud.

It was...reassuring was the word, she supposed, touching it. Ostagar would be packed with humans, an entire army of them, more than she'd ever seen before in her life — and this was after South Reach, which had been filled with more than she'd ever seen until she'd seen it. She, her clan, had been trying to avoid humans, for centuries, and they had good reasons for it. One of her people, thetruePeople, walking into a place like this would normally be suicide. But it wouldn't be for her. She was different. She was a Grey Warden now.

If that wasn't a peculiar thought.

She knew it was true, she knew it'd be perfectly safe, but she still... Well, the little reminder was comforting.

Approaching the fortress, their little party split up — the uninitiated recruits Duncan had picked up here and there were to bring their creaking covered wagon down into the valley below, toward the gathered army at the neck, while she and Duncan continued up the cliffs, toward the fortress proper, where most of the leadership was camped. Peculiar, that they'd decided to separate themselves like this, but humans could be peculiar, she didn't bother giving it another thought. Since the hills in the hinterlands here acted as a natural barrier between separate river basins — the lands immediately to the north were higher than the wilds to the south — the path "up" the cliffs was mostly flat, curving along the side of the valley, descending as it narrowed. They must be approaching the mouth of the valley by now, but Lýna couldn't actually see for sure — the dense forest, the craggy mountainside immediately to their left, an occasional wall or column of half-crumbled stone, all of it restricted her sight to a stone's throw or so.

But she'd been here before. She could tell they were getting close.

Just as the path of pounded dirt and grasping mud shifted to eroded stone, flanked on both sides by rows of half-collapsed columns, voices called out to them from ahead. Lýna's eyes snapped to the approaching horsem*n, hand instinctively going for her bow, but forced herself to stop before it even got halfway. It was fine, these were allies, she'd be perfectly fine. She took a long breath through her nose, darted forward to reclaim where she'd been following Duncan, a step behind and to his left.

Five riders were approaching, all gleaming in plate and scale. Four were more heavily armed than the last, a man in shining golden armor, pale hair whipped into a stream trailing behind him. As they neared, close enough for Duncan, with his inferior human eyesight, to pick out their features, he let out a low curse. At least, Lýna assumed it was a curse, she didn't think that had been Alamarri. "What is?"

Grumbling to himself, Duncan came to a halt, set to waiting for the horsem*n to approach. "The one in the middle, without a helm? That's the king of these lands, lord of all Ferelden. He should not ride out alone like this, with the darkspawn gathered in force so near."

Lýna blinked, watching the man in his shining armor, so pretty with lines so delicate there was no way it was practical, and frowned to herself. In her awkward Alamarri, she asked, "He is fool?"

Duncan winced, shook his head. "I wouldn't say that. One thing Cailin is not is unintelligent. But he is..." He hesitated a moment, clearly trying to think of a word that wouldn't betoounflattering toward such a powerful person. "...exuberant."

"I know not this word."

"It doesn't matter," he said, shrugging it off. Then he nodded toward the King, everything about his bearing signaling an end to the conversation.

Still some feet off, lifting a hand high in greeting, the King yelled, "Ho there, Duncan!" The horses skittered to a halt, kicking up dirt and stones, the air quickly filling with dust and noise and the tang of sweating beast. The King threw himself to the ground with a flourish, the clang of his ridiculous armor rattling almost painful. Making for Duncan in a bouncing stride, smile face-splittingly wide, "I almost thought you wouldn't make it!"

Lýna noticed, as Duncan lightly chided the silly man for recklessly rushing out to meet them in person only to be brushed off with a laugh, that the King's escort weren't nearly so careless as the man himself. They had arrayed themselves two to each side, horses shielding him from the trees, hands on weapons and eyes sharp, moving unceasingly.

She mostly managed to hold in the flinch when one of the heavily armed human soldiers glared down at her. Mostly.

She turned back to the conversation in time to catch the King, arm half around Duncan and energetically slapping his back, cry, "Then I'll have the mighty Duncan at my side after all! There will be songs written about this one day, mark my words."

"As you say, Your Majesty." Lýna hadn't quite gotten the hang of reading humans' strange, too-blocky faces, but she was pretty sure that was exasperation.

"Anyway, my scouts tell me you're arriving with a fresh initiate. Is this—" His eyes turning to her for the first time, the boisterous man abruptly fell silent. "This— My word, are youDalish?"

Lýna tried not to frown at the eager fascination — at least, she was pretty sure that's what that was, their (too hard, too thick) voices were little easier to read than their faces. She hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how she was supposed to respond to that, before giving up and just nodding.

Grin only growing wider, the man released his hold on Duncan, taking a half step closer to her; she somehow managed to not back away. "Pardon me, it's just I've never met a Dalish elf before. I've heard stories, of course, but those tend to be, um..." He shifted a little, suddenly uncomfortable. "...well, you know."

Yes, she was well aware of the ridiculous myths the humans had involving the People — some of them, anyway, she doubted she'd heard even half of them. The one about them abducting human infants to sacrifice them in blood magic rituals to invoke various demons was rather common, far too many seemed to think that absurdity was fact. She considered what she could possibly say for a couple seconds. "I know. Our stories of humans, also not good."

The King winced — she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with her laboured Alamarri. "Yes, well, I'm afraid far too many of us deserve it." Then the grin reappeared on his face, so smoothly it might not have gone at all. "I didn't know there were even Dalish in Ferelden anymore. Not for the last hundred years or so, anyway."

Lýna tried not to scowl. There had once been many clans living in these lands — this was the edge of human civilization, after all, they were far weaker here than in the west, or in the north. The human rulers of the area had tolerated them, for the most part, the People safer here than most anywhere else. They'd even started building villages, true permanent settlements, something that hadn't happened anywhere since the Second Fall. And then, only a couple generations past, the Alamarri had been conquered by the Orlesians, the very same Orlesians who had broken the Republic seven hundred years ago. They weren'tnearlyas tolerant — those who hadn't felt the change in the wind and fled were slaughtered or enslaved. It was only in the last few years the People had started to creep north again.

Seeming to realize he was treading on sensitive territory, the man — Cailan? Was that his name? — moved on, so smoothly he might not have changed topics at all. "Did you grow up in Ferelden? Or did Duncan pick you up somewhere else, I suppose I didn't ask."

Oh, they were going to keep talking, then. All right. Would really rather they didn't. Her Alamarri wasnotvery good — she hated the thought she probably sounded like an idiot every time she opened her mouth. "First I see Duncan..." She hesitated, just for a second. "...by South Reach, but not grown there. We come out south, not long past. Yes?" She thought that all made sense. She'd never realized just how bad her Alamarri was until she actually had to use it. Hopefully one of the Wardens would help her practice, because this was just painful.

It took the King a moment to parse her broken Alamarri, but when he did his grin just stretched ever wider. "The Wilds you mean, far to the south? That's just...fascinating! I've only ever met a few people who have ever been much further south than we stand now. Well, other than the Chasind, of course, but they refuse to speak of their homeland with outsiders. You simplymustjoin me at my fire tonight, I want to hear everything."

Lýna's mouth was already forming the first sound of a refusal when Duncan said, "I think that's an excellent idea." When she shot him a look, he shrugged. "You learn, is good." She was more than a little surprised by the Deluvẽ — it was very far from perfect, but it was good enough she could tell what he was trying to say. Duncan had demonstrated plenty of times he understood a fair bit of her language, but he hardly ever actually used any.

And, well, he did have a point. She'd be using Alamarri quite a lot for the foreseeable future, she'd best practice. Still, it took some effort to keep herself from pouting.

9:30 Pluitanis 27

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

With a sharp hit of a pommel at the inside of the human's wrist, hard enough even through leather to force her fingers open, the mock dagger clattered to the stone.

Lýna relaxed, straightening a bit and letting her hands hang at her hips. After a few days of practice, Marian knew she'd already lost.

For a few moments, Marian paused to gather her breath, bent over with hands planted on her knees as she desperately struggled for air. (Which Lýna thought was a little absurd, they hadn't been working that long nor hard.) Lýna waited for a little bit, but quickly turned away, looking over the valley to the south. They'd gone to one of the more isolated towers in the crumbling keep, across the bridge from where the King and his closest advisors were camped, the incessant noise and overwhelming stench of the army muffled and thin in the distance. Lýna could almost convince herself they were alone up here, just herself, the ancient stones, the trees so stubbornly forcing their way through the crumbling floor, the wind, and the puffing human woman at her side.

Almost.

As should be expected, Lýna wasn't the only new Grey Warden recruit — though apparently that jaunt into those ruins with Mẽrhiļ and Duncan had counted as her initiation, so shetechnicallyoutranked most of them. This Marian was one of them...sort of. As Lýna understood it, Marian had made a deal with Duncan that she would join the Wardens properifthe other humans made a fuss about her being a free mage. She was perfectly willing to provide magical assistance in the meanwhile.

(Lýna still didn't quite follow why the Alamarri had such a problem with mages. It had something to do with their religion, she knew that, but her Alamarri hadn't been good enough to pick up all the relevant details either time she'd asked. For the moment, at least, simply understanding all mages within their lands, human or elf, were forced into slavery — not that they called it that — would have to be enough.)

While Marianwaswilling to cast whatever magic Duncan requested of her, she preferred to downplay her abilities whenever possible. That meant posing as a normal person most of the time. Which meant learning to fight with plain, physical weapons like the rest of them.

It'd quickly become clear Marian didn't have the proper strength for the standard shield and longsword to be practical — which wasn't a surprise, since she'd always been using magic to do the heavy lifting, so to speak. She'd been impressed with Duncan's dual-wielding style when he'd demonstrated it by knocking the piss out of one of the more annoying Warden recruits, and had asked if she couldn't learn that instead. Problem was, Duncan was very busy, so he didn't have a whole lot of time to make the investment necessary to teach her properly.

So Lýna was stuck with her instead.

Finally, Marian seemed to be finished gasping, though her voice still came out a little breathless. "How many times have I died now?"

She felt her lips twitch with a weak smile, too weak to survive more than a second. "Fifty-three." Until it was time for the rest of the recruits to undergo the Joining, Lýna didn't really have anything else to do, so they'd spent some decent time at it, the last few days.

Their little lessons weren'tallbeating Marian up, but...well, they were mostly beating Marian up. It'd given her a dark sort of satisfaction at first, smacking a northerner around, but by now it was just normal. Or maybe Marian was slowly growing on her, as Duncan had, she couldn't say for sure.

It helped that Marian had never been anything but perfectly respectful. She certainly couldn't say the same of most of the other humans in the camp. Not even most of the Warden recruits, actually...

"When you're sitting fifty-three to zero, maybe it's time to sit back and reevaluate the decisions that brought you to this point."

There was a word or two there Lýna hadn't picked up yet, but she got the sentiment anyway. Got it well enough she smiled to herself a little, the expression even surviving for a moment this time. "You are gooder, than you were. Is slow, but is growing."

"If you say so. It's 'better', by the way."

Lýna frowned, turned to look at Marian over her shoulder. She was a rather large— Well, no, she wasn't, actually, Lýna just wasn't quite used to humans yet. They all seemed big to her. The women tended to have narrower faces and proportionately larger eyes than the men, which made them look a bit less alien. Still strange, of course, just not quite as unnervinglywrong. Marian's normally messy hair clung close to her skull, glued together with sweat, looking even darker than it normally did. She was giving Lýna some kind of look, dark eyes sharper than usual, but she wasn't sure which. Human faces were so difficult to read. "Is it? What is 'bet'?"

"Oh, well, nothing, really. I mean, 'bet' is a word, just a different one, it's not important. But, 'better' meansmore good. We don't say 'gooder'."

...That was stupid.

With a sigh, Lýna nodded, trying (and probably failing) to commit yet another irregularity of Alamarri to memory. She'd pick it up eventually, it was just frustrating. She was well aware she sounded like an idiot child most of the time. "Yes. As say, arebetter, than you were. All skill take far."

"Long," Marian corrected absently, seemingly without thinking. Most of her corrections of Lýna's Alamarri were like that — casual and matter-of-fact, pointing out a thing Lýna had gotten wrong and moving on. Helpful, but at once not really making an issue of it. That was on the list of reasons she found Marian less irritating company than most all the humans in the camp. "Forgive me if I'm not exactly cheered with having the sh*t kicked out of me over and over again by a girl years younger than me and half my size."

Lýna couldn't help frowning a little — she couldn't bethatmuch younger (assuming she could read age on human faces accurately, which wasn't a given), and Marian was exaggerating their relative sizes by quite a bit. But she didn't think it worth trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to in a language Marian could understand. Oh well. "I learn long past. Start...mivhe, nine years past. If you nothaving the sh*t kicked out of you, be strange."

To her confusion, Marian just smiled at her. At least, Lýna thought it was a smile. Quite a lot of her teeth were showing, and her eyes almost seemed to dance, in a way that might or might not have been magic. (It could be hard to tell with mages sometimes.) And she just kept staring, that odd crooked grin on her face, for long, awkward moments.

Eventually, Lýna got tired of waiting for her to...dosomething. "What?"

"I'm sorry, it's just—" Marian broke off, blinking to herself. Then, to Lýna's increasing confusion, her eyes tilted away, cheeks noticeably flushing. Looking quite uncomfortable all of a sudden, going so far as shuffling in place a little.

"What?"

Her face only going redder, the shuffling only getting worse, Marian muttered, "Nothing, really. I was just thinking, the accent and sounding so very serious like you do, I just thought... It doesn't matter, forget it."

That really didn't explain anything. But it was clear Marian didn't want to explain properly, and she looked to be getting more and more painfully uncomfortable each second Lýna remained silently staring, so she decided she didn't need to know that badly. By the feel of it Marian hadn't been mocking her, at least. "Ready?"

Marian let out a long, exhausted sigh, but straightened again all the same. Dipping into the light stance Lýna had beaten into her, props loosely gripped exactly as they should be. Marian had little reason to complain about being beaten up all the time, she was obviously picking it up quite quickly. In all honesty, she was learning far faster than any of Lýna's clansmen had, herself included. They had been much younger when they'd learned, but still.

Of course, her greater experience and speed still had Marian laid out on her back against the ancient stone in only a handful of blows.

Tipping against Lýna's knee she clearly hadn't noticed, the taller human hit the ground hard, her breath coming out in a harsh cough, both fake weapons jumping out of her hands to clatter away. She swore breathlessly, a hand rubbing at her side, the spot Lýna had struck with an elbow to knock her over probably already bruising. "I get the point, okay. Just,sh*t, is itreallynecessary to hit me that hard?"

Lýna smiled down at her. "I hit Clan that hard, in practicing. Why think I do soft now?"

Her only reply was a pained groan, Marian's eyes rolling away.

Well, not her only reply — she was sure Marian started to say something after that, but she didn't catch what it was. She was quite distracted by something else. It was a feeling, but not truly a feeling, a ghost of a sensation. Not exactly hot or cold, not exactly wet or dry, but yet all of them at once, tingling like bugs crawling over her arms and down her spine. It was a sound, but not truly a sound, not heavy enough to seem fully real. Like the harsh roar of high wind tearing through a forest, though far quieter. It sounded empty, meaningless noise, but it wasn't really, faint hints of song held deep within, alien, haunting.

"Lýna? What is it?"

She blinked, turned back to Marian. Must have been out it for longer than she'd thought. Marian had stepped rather closer, what Lýna thought might be a concerned frown twisting her too-wide face. "Darkspawn. Not far."

The flash of fear was obvious, similar enough she could read it, but Marian managed to stay mostly calm. "Right, okay. Uh, we should probably tell someone about that."

It took a second for Lýna to figure out what she meant. Shaking her head to herself, she said, "See first. Come." Marian didn't seem at all enthused about the prospect. But she followed along easily enough.

As new as she was at this Grey Warden thing, Lýna had found, on the handful of brief hunting trips she'd taken with Duncan and Alistair, that tracking darkspawn by feel alone wasn't difficult. True, she couldn't sense them from very far away — she was told she would grow more sensitive with time, eventually enough to even get a rough idea of numbers — but within her range she knew in which general direction they were with enough precision to be useful. Not that she could entirely describehowshe knew. She couldn't say anything about the feeling of them pointed her a particular way. It might grow more intense the closer they were, but not quickly enough to give a proper impression. She just...knew.

She was starting to understand a lot of Grey Warden things were like that.

Hardly looking at their surroundings — she could probably do this with her eyes shut if she needed to — Lýna led Marian through the ruins, toward the cliff over the wetlands. She crouched right on the lip, staring downward. The drop was slightly lesser here, fifty feet at the most, and far more gradual, though she would certainly rather avoid picking over that mess of scree. (This particular weakness of the cliff was known, they had sentries and the occasional heavier patrol out this way for a reason.)

In the slanting afternoon light, Lýna could make out shuffling figures, just now crossing out of the trees. Bristling with crude armor, metal shards so haphazard and twisted a couple of them were stained with the bearer's own blood. Their skin was dark, but not dark in the way of some humans — instead they were a sickly, ashen grey, fingers and lips and even their eyes blackened. They carried weapons, short swords and axes in far better condition than their armor, gleaming silver in the sunlight.

Yep. Definitely darkspawn. Genlocks, specifically, which Lýna knew to be generally half a head shorter than her, but built like a boulder, heavy bones and thick with muscle, enough they were easily double her weight. Some of them probably triple. She knew they were beastly strong, the one time one had gotten into melee range on her it'd nearly knocked her sword right out of her hand.

But these ones wouldn't be getting that close. She made a quick count, putting their numbers at a round dozen. She could probably handle that many herself, at this range, but with a mage to help out it wouldn't be a problem at all.

Pulling her bow from her back, straightening just far and long enough to string it properly, Lýna glanced at Marian. "Can spell on arrow? To kill many."

Marian blinked at her for a second, probably trying to put together what she'd meant to say. "Oh. Yeah, I can do that. Any preference on what kind of spell?"

Lýna nocked an arrow, but didn't draw it back yet, tilting her bow so the tip hovered in front of Marian's face. "Fire always good."

With a quick smirk, Marian reached out, tapped a finger to the metal of the tip. It only took a second, a flash of light, a wave of tingling across Lýna's skin, and the magic was set. She must have put quite some power into it too, for Lýna to feel it like that. Casting the thought aside, she reoriented herself slightly, her boots scuffing against the rocks. Her eyes flicking over the darkspawn below, she drew back.

And almost unthinkingly drew back too far, loosening her elbow a bit even as the wood creaked at her. The legends had said Grey Wardens had greater strength and speed than common warriors, but she'd always assumed that was just legend. Turned out, it was true. It hadn't happened immediately, though. Slowly, gradually ever since the day Duncan had taken her, enough she didn't realize it was happening. Until she picked up her bow and she found it noticeably easier to draw than it'd been even yesterday. As disorienting as it could be sometimes, she certainly wasn't going to complain. She was easily as physically powerful as a human her size now, at least, many elves would give much just to get that far.

Of course, she also ate nearly twice as much as she used to, and was nearly faint with hunger whenever one of the camp's regularly scheduled meal times came around. Everything had a cost.

The slight correction put her thumb against her lip, and Lýna sighted down the shaft, angled up only slightly. She picked a spot in the middle of the pack of genlocks, where Marian's magic would do the most good, and waited for a brief break in the wind.

When the moment came, she loosed automatically, the motion so practiced she hardly even realized she was doing it. The arrow darted away, white fletching ruffling in the breeze. A second later, it hit exactly where she'd meant it to, sinking into the neck of a genlock right in the middle of the pack.

And the world in front of her erupted in an explosion of fire.

Lýna fell back, hitting the tile hard, earth shifting under her and heat on her skin. A scorching wind whipped over the edge of the cliff, dust and burning twigs and pebbles flying over their heads. She noticed Marian, still crouched near the edge, seemed untouched by the blowing and the shaking, her hair eerily still, the air around her colored a faint blue. Even as Lýna watched, the human mage drew her hand back, sparks dancing between her fingers, and a bolt of lightning tore away, down toward where the darkspawn had been, leaving Lýna's ears ringing.

Scrambling to her feet, Lýna drew another arrow, leaned back over the edge of the cliff. And she froze, eyes going wide. Whatever spell Marian had put on that arrow had ravaged the forest in a circle eight paces wide, the rocky ground pitted and blackened, trees stripped of branches and bark, reduced to skeletal, smoking husks. It looked like most of the dozen or so darkspawn had been killed with that one spell, but she couldn't confirm it with a count — half the bodies had been completely incinerated. Marian was picking off the last few with narrow, booming strikes of lightning, so Lýna joined her. She only got off two shots before they were all already dead, the blood leaking from the few intact corpses indistinct against the scorched earth.

"That was easier than I thought it'd be." Marian rubbed her hands together, flecks of green light falling from her skin like dust. "I thought darkspawn were supposed to be hard to kill."

For long moments, Lýna couldn't find anything to say. She just stared at the human woman crouching next to her. That display just now... Lýna was belatedly coming to the realization that Marian was, quite possibly, the most powerful mage she'd ever met. Including the Keeper. Even Mẽrhiļ, who seemed to make the Keeper uneasy. That was... Well, she didn't know how to feel about that. Humans weren't supposed—

She meant, humans were supposed to be different than they were, sometimes. That was all.

Also, she was having an idea.

Chapter 3: Ostagar — II

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 3

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Alistair struggled to keep his temper, but the words still came ground out from between his teeth. "Should I have asked her to write a note?"

And the irritating mage just puffed himself up more, chest filling out and face going all red and constipated. Great. In that whiny, posh little voice of his, the man said, "Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!"

"Yes,Iwas harassingyouby delivering a message." It wasn't even his fault! (This time.)Hewasn't the one who'd thought it was a great idea to have him convey Her Reverence's request. Of aLibertarianenchanter. He being aformer Templar. He'd thought it was a terrible idea, but what was he supposed to do, tell off a Revered Mother? He swore, he still had the bruises on his knuckles from when he was a kid.

The mage — a gruff, pasty-faced man, very unattractive — narrowed his face in a glare. Oh, wow, not doing himself any favors, the way the wrinkles bunched up, he looked like one of Eamon's hounds. "Your glibness does you no credit."

"Personally, I think it's one of his few redeeming qualities."

"Marian! Thank the Maker!" He turned and there she was, her attempt at bored face ruined by the smirk twitching at her lips. She didn't lookquiteas uncomfortable in her borrowed leather-and-scale armor as she had at first, but there was still a bit of extra tension in each step. Not surprising, really, not often you saw mages wearing armor. "Are you here to rescue me?"

"If you mean to ask if it's time for the hunt, then yes."

"You're my hero, Marian Hawke. I think I might swoon."

Marian rolled her eyes with a huff, but Alistair wasn't fooled — she still hadn't managed to hide that smirk properly. "Excuse me, ser, but I'm afraid I have to steal away Alistair here. Grey Warden business, you see."

"Oh, you don't need to make excuses just to get me on—"

"Hush, you."

The humorless mage glanced between the two of him, this glare putting his previous one to shame for sheer dog-faced-ness. Without a word to either of them, he turned to stomp away, shaking his head and muttering to himself. At least it looked like he was heading toward the Chantry pavilion, that was something.

Once he was out of earshot, Alistair let out a sigh, high and breathy. "You know, that's what I love about the Blight. How it brings people together."

Marian shook her head at him. (But she was still smiling.) She turned off for the camp, angling toward the gates west. "Yes, I can see how much fun you're having."

"It's like a party." Alistair circled around a clump of men along the edge of the Chantry camp, by the sound of it a few kingsmen and Templars one foul name away from a fist fight. "We should all stand in a circle and hold hands.Thatwould give the darkspawn something to think about."

"I think they'd just kill us faster that way."

"Well, maybe, but they'd be very confused doing it. That's worth something, I think." That bonfire Duncan always had going for some reason was ahead, the flames setting the few crumbling pillars around it glowing a flickering orange, though he didn't see Duncan himself. There was a whole pack of Warden initiates gathered around, though. A couple of them must have seen them coming, nudging and shushing their neighbors.

Marian shot a look over her shoulder. "Can't see how it'd be worth very much."

"No, of course not. It's not what I'd prefer people to feel when I die. Maybe awe at whatever selfless, heroic thing I'd just done. Or, I wouldn't say no to beautiful women wailing with grief. Tears and screaming and rending of garments, yes, that sounds nice. But if all I can get is confusion, I'll take it. Weeks later, it'll still be thinking about it.What the hell was that guy doing?it'll think,I just don't get it. I'll haunt that poor Blighter for the rest of its days."

She shook her head at him again, her face the very picture of exasperation. Except that smile, she wasn't as good at hiding her amusem*nt as she thought she was.

He'd get her to laugh eventually. He just had to...well, stumble on something actually funny and not just kind of stupid, that'd help.

Duncan's voice suddenly cut over the constant noise of the camp, suddenly enough Alistair jumped. "Found Alistair, did you? We can get started, then." Duncan aimed a frown at Alistair around Ser Jory — the knight was big and burly enough and Duncan compact enough he hadn't seen him. "Assuming you're quite finished riling up mages."

A couple of the recruits shot each other looks, a mix of fearful and impressed. The only actual mage in the group — Alim Surana, an elf in Circle robes with hair such an intense red Alistair had to blink the spots from his eyes when the sun hit it just right — just smirked, eyes dark and dancing. (The only mage excluding Marian, anyway, whose back was to Alistair at the moment.) Most normal people would be too scared to "rile up" mages. Alistair shrugged, pasted the brightest, most innocent smile on his face he could manage. "What can I say? The Revered Mother ambushed me. The way she wields guilt they should stick her in the army."

He got a few smiles for that, but nobody actually laughed. Either they all had some impressive sticks up their asses or Alistair really needed to work on his snark. Or both...

Duncan didn't seem at all impressed either, a shade of exhaustion slipping into his disapproving look. "She forced you to sass the mage, did she?"

"I wasn't forced. I just like to."

His eyes tipping up toward the grayed-out sky, Duncan let out a long, tired sigh. When he turned down again, all signs of exhaustion or disapproval were gone, replaced with his stern Warden-Commander face. "The day of the battle nears, and the time has come for your initiation into the Grey Wardens. But first, there is a task you all must complete. You will go out into the Wilds to the south, and each of you will return with a vial of darkspawn blood."

And that was no small number of vials. There was Ser Jory and Ser Keran, knights Duncan had picked up from here or there. A handful of thieves and vagabonds he'd recruited in Denerim, Alistair hadn't caught all their names. And Surana, of course. Even a random elven peasant, a former assistant to some quartermaster in the camp somewhere, he'd just shown up one day last week and asked to join. That was two, three...eight? Not counting Marian, who wouldn't be Joining yet, so yes, eight.

He should get Marian to carry the vials. With his luck, he'd probably break them all.

"Going into the Wilds? Isn't that dangerous?" Alistair hadn't caught who'd said it, one of the baby Wardens from Denerim.

Surana scoffed. "It's just a swamp. It's not going to hurt you."

And now someone other than Alistair was getting Duncan's disapproving glare. "Alim."

The tiny little elven man jerked and shrunk in on himself a little, as though struck. "My apologies, Commander." Surana was a straight-forward, tactless sort, as Circle mages often were, and at times almost adorably excited to be out of the Tower for the first time in his life. But, Alistair noticed, he folded suspiciously quickly whenever chastised. Alistair couldn't help but wince whenever it happened — he had a less-than-pleasant feeling Surana had gotten more than his fair share of rough treatment from Templars.

Duncan must have noticed it too, with how quickly his glare withered. "No matter." He took a breath, turning to whoever it was who'd complained about going for a walk. "You all have your talents. You won't be helpless. And you won't be alone: Alistair and Lýna both are skilled Wardens, and you'll have Alim and Marian as well. I can't imagine you'll run into anything in the Wilds that would pose any serious threat to a party such as yours.

"Lýna was given her own task to complete in the Wilds. You will accompany her wherever she leads, and then come back. You will kill more than enough darkspawn along the way. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I have one," Alistair said. The recruits turned to stare at him, probably confused he wasn't in the loop, being their big bad Warden escort and all. "WhereisLyna?"

Duncan's lips tilted into a smile. "Oh, I'm sure she'll drop in on you before too long."

There were a few more questions from the recruits — what exactly they needed darkspawn blood for came up more than once, not that Duncan actually answered — but before long he was sending them on their way. Alistair led them off, keeping close to the south wall, the thin line of trees stretching into the ruins stitching across the sky overhead. He had everyone trade around names, since he was sure he wasn't the only one who'd forgotten a couple of them. Marian and Jory and Keran and Surana he'd remembered, of course. The group from Denerim were Elen, Daveth, Bron, and Timet — he didn't expect himself to keep Daveth and Timet straight, they were both sketchy, slimy-looking sons of bitches. The elf boy called himself Perry, but he sounded a bit shifty saying it, so Alistair wouldn't be surprised if he was making that up.

The Grey Wardens just attracted the best sort of people, didn't they?

Alistair ignored the chattering behind him, which mostly seemed to involve Jory and Keran trading stories and Daveth shamelessly flirting with Elen. Instead he was looking around, trying to figure out where Lýna was supposed to be. The gate was only a couple minute's walk away from Duncan's fire, they were almost there already. Close enough Alistair could make out the scratches in the watchman's armor. "Okay," he said, coming to a sudden halt, "did Duncan say where we were supposed to be meeting Lyna and I just missed it? Because I have no idea where the hell she—" Something fell to the ground behind him with a light thump and a clangoring of steel. His hand dropping to his sword, he spun on his heel—

—and came up short, putting him off-balance. At least he managed to not fall over. "Maker's breath, Lyna! Do you have to keep dropping out of trees onto my head?"

Because there she was, standing not three feet away from him. Perhaps the tiniest grown woman he had ever seen, hardly topping his elbow and thin as a wisp, she looked somehow even smaller in the patchwork of Dalish hunting leathers and scale and plate she wore, half-shrouded in a fur-lined cloak. Like a child playing soldier. The hood mostly hid her bright, snowy hair — apparently Dalish elves could have naturally white hair, he'd never seen that before — though the asymmetrical tattoos of flowering vines meandering all across her face were still visible. Lýna was unnervingly quiet, at least in part because she didn't speak the language very well. (Notthatbadly, really, but he'd gotten the impression she was self-conscious about it.) Though, he didn't think he'd ever seen her smile, not once, so maybe there was more to it.

And she had a way of just...staring at him. Like she was doing right now. Flat, and cold, and just... It made him uncomfortable.

Lýna's head tilted to the side, the sharpness in the way she moved almost bird-like. "No, don't need. I just like to."

At the unfamiliar sound of Marian's laughter, Alistair's face sank into a pout. That just wasn't fair.

Korcari Wilderlands

After a slow descent along the cliff face, and a plodding trek across a mile or two of rocky borderlands, they'd finally reached the northern boundary of the wetlands Lýna had called home for most of her life.

The land was familiar, intimately so, relaxing away tension she hadn't noticed was there. Everything about it. The air thick with green and rain and fruit and rot. The way the soft earth sank ever-so-slightly under her heel. The unbroken chorus of cricket and frog, the wind setting the trees to dancing, the occasional splash as animals slipped in and out of the water, the distant shuffling of bogfishers and howling of wolves. She couldn't help herself. It was good to be back.

But still she fought to not show her impatience. She'd have been here hours ago if she didn't have to drag along a pack of bumbling idiots. One had nearly dashed his head open on the rocks on their way down, but as annoying as their stuttering descent had been, it hadn't gotten any better.

She didn't know how people could be so...slow, and clumsy, andnoisy. Honestly, she was certain her clan would have heard these idiots coming from miles away, could have picked them off at their leisure — with how little attention most of them were giving their surroundings it wouldn't even be difficult. She felt faintly embarrassed just being near them. It was hard to imagine how the Republic could ever have been defeated by Orlais, if human warriors in the north were all like this.

To be fair, the Republichadmanaged to conquer most of Orlais before the humans rallied and beat them back. The way she'd heard it, if her ancestors hadn't overextended themselves trying to occupy far more territory than they had the numbers to hold they never would have lost. Still.

She paused at the edge of the wetlands proper, on the last high ground they were like to find, trying to trace a path they could take. Not far away, probably three miles or so, a great ruin of an ancient keep stretched out into the air, columns and walls crumbling and green with moss, a small hill putting it easily above the trees. But, save for an occasional gap here or there revealing glints of greenish-brown water, those same trees were too thick for her to chart a way forward from here. She'd just have to find one.

While she'd told Duncan she knew where the ruin his scouts were referring to was, she hadn't ever actually been there. She'd seen it before, on their way north, but her clan had always given the area a wide berth. She-of-Many-Faces made her home near here, only a few more miles to the south and west. The immortal witch had never been particularly hostile to her people — in fact, she might be inclined to favor them, though Lýna had never been sure if she should believe the rumors about her — but it was thought best to avoid her if at all possible. She could be...capricious.

Not that she was particularly concerned. She doubted she'd get lost. It just might be a little bit of a pain, trying to find a way to the old keep with these clumsy idiots on her heels. This would be far easier if she were by herself.

But, then again, maybe not. It'd been building for some minutes now. Her skin crawling, a song half-heard echoing in her ears. She turned to glance over her shoulder up at Alistair, standing at the head of their group a few steps behind her. "Feel them?"

"Oh, I feel them, alright. I feel a great big bunch of them. Should be fun." He spoke with a sort of forced ease, as though hiding a tinge of anxiety. Lýna was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the darkspawn in the area — she'd noticed she made him uncomfortable.

And he wasn't the only one: of their little party, the only one who didn't keep shooting her dark glances was Marian. Not that Mariandidn'tkeep giving her weird looks, they were just a different kind of weird. Lýna was well aware of the sort of stories humans told each other about her people. Some degree of distrust, even fear was just expected, she was mostly used to the way they all looked at her by now. Though, she was a little surprised the elves were just as wary of her. At least, Perry was, so damn terrified he couldn't even meet her eyes. The way Alim looked at her was even more annoying, tinged more with...well, curiosity, that was there, but also a faint sense of...pity? superiority? disgust? Something of the like, anyway. It was irritating.

And then there was the way Marian kept staring at her. She still wasn't sure what that was about. But Marian was the only one who would look at her as though she weren't a savage who might turn around and slit their throat at any moment, so she just ignored it.

Honestly, these people were so ridiculous. They outnumbered her ten to one, and two of them were mages. Even if she'dwantedto hurt them...

"Is that where we're going? For whatever this mysterious task of yours is."

Lýna nodded. Apparently, Duncan had gotten word some treaties obliging various parties provide the Wardens assistance during a time of Blight had remained in magical stasis way out here all this time. He didn't think they would be necessary — people were usually smart enough to do it on their own — but with the Order's complicated history in Ferelden, he'd decided they should grab them just in case. Duncan hadsaidthe Order had a complicated history in Ferelden, anyway, Lýna had no idea what that could be.

What kind of idiot picked a fight with the Grey Wardens? And now they had a Blight rising in their country. Funny how that works.

Anyway, they had a job to do. Lýna took a quick glance around their little hill — most of the recruits had taken the few minutes allowed by her gathering the lay of the land to rest, chatting and munching at tack and jerky. Lýna shook her head to herself. It hadn't been that long or hard of a walk, ridiculous. "If see woman, human woman,attack not."

A few of them gave her weird looks at that. One, a dagger-eyed man with a bow slung across his back, let out a harsh scoff. "Who are we going to find out here? Unless you're trying to claim there are witches about."

"You don't believe the stories?"

"I'll start believing fairy tales about the Witch of the Wilds when she walks up to me and turns me into a toad."

"They're not just stories! My grandpa said he saw Flemeth herself once during the war."

She'd overheard humans tell stories of this Flemeth, whispered over campfires in words thick with fear. Apparently, being so near her supposed home made them anxious. From the first, Lýna had wondered if this was what humans called She-of-Many-Faces. It seemed likely — just how many immortal mages could there be in the wetlands?

"Is this the same grandpa who said a mermaid carried him back to shore in a storm?"

"Well, yeah..."

With a hint of warning, Alistair said, voice raised to carry over the chatter, "They're notallstories, you know. There are mages living around here. Apostates tend to hide themselves away in the wilderness, where Templars are less likely to stumble across them."

Lýna shook her head to herself again. Thereweremages in the south, of course, but only very few of them were runaways from the north. Almost all of them were born down here, elves and Chasind and Avvar — mostly Chasind, many of them claiming to be descendents of She-of-Many-Faces, but Lýna didn't know how much truth there was to that. But they certainly weren'tapostateshiding from the Alamarri's silly magic-hating religion. It didn't exist down here, how could they be?

"Flemeth isn't just myth, either." This was Alim, said with with more than a little eagerness. But then, he seemed to be eager a lot. Lýna would catch him sometimes just staring up at the clouds with a grin on his face, hopping from rock to protruding rock, poking and prodding at bushes and trees. She didn't know what to think about that. "It is a matter of historical record that a famously wise but temperamental Chasind mage, the matriarch of a small band, was an occasional ally of Calenhad the Great. She even called herself Flemeth, in fact. The Circle knows of a tradition of apostate mages calling themselves the daughters of Flemeth, spread all throughout Thedas, and there are a number of incidents on the record of Templars encountering an impossibly powerful mage here and there in the south of Ferelden and the Chasind wilds. Some scholars believe they're the same figure, who inspired the Flemeth in stories developing over generations."

"That's ridiculous! If it was the same person, she'd have to be hundreds of years old!"

Alim shrugged. "The common theory is she's an abomination. Tevinter records suggest some of them can live for centuries."

Nobody seemed happy with that idea. There was much muttering and squawking, and if Lýna thought they seemed scared of her, now some of them looked downright petrified. Perry was standing there shaking like a leaf, she doubted he could take a step, and the rest were little better. Marian and Alistair, at least, hadn't lost their minds completely, but even they looked uneasy, Alistair shifting foot to foot, Marian fidgeting, magic thin but sharp on the air. Alim was the only exception, still grinning to himself like a crazy person.

It was completely ridiculous.

Lýna sprung back to her full (if unimpressive) height, turned on them a hard scowl. "Stop shaking like children. No hurt her, she no hurt you. If see woman, attack not, all is fine."

One of the more frightened-looking ones, a hulking man in full plate, his voice shaking with every word, squeaked, "Do you mean she, she lives around here?"

That didn't seem a wise question to answer. But everyone knew she'd grown up in the area — some weeks travel south of here, actually, but it was all the same to them — and they were all expectantly staring at her. She sighed. "Yes. Few hours walk, there," pointing over her shoulder.

And everyone started shouting all at once.

Marian had never been in a swamp before, but she was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be this quiet.

It was a pretty place, in a dreary sort of way. Branches spread over their heads, the trees rather short but reaching wide, the canopy thick and green despite the season. She'd read the wetlands to the south were filled with trees that stayed green through winter, like pine with leaves, but she'd never seen them herself. They seemed heavier than normal trees somehow, the leaves thick and dark, the branches drooping down to brush against their heads and shoulders. Some touched the ground, like a fountain frozen, stretching up to turn and fall again.

The water — for there was alotof it, lakes and ponds and streams linking them, their feet squelched with each step, would sink to the ankle if they stepped too close to the shore — was thick with reeds and algae, turned a brownish-green to the eye, but even so it glimmered where the light struck it, as though the surface were caught alight. (Not too much of a stretch, with all that sh*t in it she could probably set it on fire if she wanted to.) Despite how cold it still was, the first touches of spring were starting to show themselves, little white and pink buds dotted across the water, preparing to bloom. The undergrowth was thickening among the trees too, leaves and flowers just starting to sprout.

It wasn't bad. A little monochromatic and gloomy but, well, she'd spent all her life around Lothering. She was used to monochromatic and gloomy.

But still, Marian felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise, magic tingle at her fingertips. It'd taken her what had to be a good half mile or so to figure out what was bothering her: the silence.Silence. An occasional breath of wind would have the leaves fluttering, and her party brought a low racket of rattling and chattering and cursing. But under that, perfect silence. No birds twittering, no splashes of frogs or whatever in the water, not even the buzzing of insects.Nothing.

It wasn't right.

They followed Lýna through the maze of trees, streaming two-by-two down the narrow paths she found tucked away here and there. Marian had spelled her own steps light, walking atop moss and mud as though it were solid stone, but the rest of their group were having far more trouble than she was. It was a slog, boots sliding or sinking, their pace slowed to a sloppy crawl, filth splashed up above their knees. Lýna moved ahead of them in little bursts, ghosting across the unstable ground as soft and light as a whisper, pausing at the next curve in the path to wait for them to catch up, an impatient glare half-hidden under her hood. Marian and Alim were the only ones who could hope to keep up.

She'd tried to spell all their boots the way she had her own, but casting it so far out from herself and to so many people at once was ahugepower drain, she'd burn out in minutes. It wasn't even that effective. She could freeze the ground in their path, she guessed, but that raised other problems. Lýna would just have to deal with they slow pathetic humans.

Well, they slow pathetic humans plus Perry, he wasn't doing any better.

After some long, dreary minutes of walking, stone peaked through the branches, smoothed by ages and covered in mulch and vines. The outline was hard to make out, but it looked like a bridge, maybe an aqueduct. Tevinter, obviously. She'd thought Ostagar was the furthest south the old Empire had reached, but apparently not. They were only a few miles away still, maybe this simply counted as part of the same outpost.

Lýna was waiting at the edge of the path, in the shade cast by the towering arches, crouched atop the dried and hardened remains of a fallen tree. As they caught up, her eyes flicked up to Alistair's, her voice low and flat. "Feel them?"

The trying ex-Templar nodded. "Yep, a little bit ahead. Not a lot, probably less than a dozen."

"Go." Lýna pointed ahead, along the narrow, curving trail they'd been following. "I be there." She straightened, pulling the green and blue elven-made bow from her back. A quick test of the string, and she disappeared, silently slipping away into the trees.

"Am I the only one who finds it really creepy how she does that?"

Alistair turned back to the clump of Wardens-to-be, a crooked smile on his face. "I would say you get used to it, but you really, really don't. Blades out, with me."

While the air was split with the grinding of metal drawn through leather, Marian sidled up to Alim. The silly man's enthusiasm hadn't been dampened by the dreary slog through the swamp at all, still grinning like an excitable child. "I'll stick with them. You help Lyna with the archers."

Alim's grin split even wider,somehow, fist thumping against his chest in a sarcastic salute. "Yes, ma'am." And then he skipped off, his steps so light it had to be magic of some kind.

Marian shook her head. There was something off about that elf.

They crept along the path, winding through the trees narrow enough they were stuck going practically two by two. If the silence had been eerie before it was even worse now, her skin crawling with unease, setting her to twitch at the slightest sound of rustling leaves or creaking branches. Marian was at the front of their column with Alistair, squinting ahead, trying to peer through gaps in the greenery, but the branches were too thick here, she couldn't see a damn thing.

Until, suddenly, she could. They stepped out into a clearing, a segment of what had once been a road of some kind, judging by the age-stained tiles visible under dirt and grime, carving between two slight rises. On one of those rises, a stone's throw away, were a group of darkspawn, sitting in a circle and grunting at each other.

Darkspawn were, somehow, even more ugly up close. This group was a mixture of smaller genlocks and larger hurlocks, ashen grey skin and red eyes, their misshapen armor splattered with blood red and black. Their hands were bundles of claws, their heads skeletal and lopsided, maws uneven and filled to the brim with crooked, jagged teeth, so jumbled they tore at their own lips, black lines running down their chins.

And theyfeltwrong. She'd never noticed before, never been close enough, but she could feel it on the air. Like vomit, like rot, something thick and hot andsick, turning her stomach and pinching at her skin. It was visceral, she couldn't even explain what exactly it was, she'd never felt something like this before. It was the magic of the Blight in them, she knew — instinctively, horrified — and it waswrong, in a way no living thing could possibly be, so overwhelming she felt she might puke.

The darkspawn noticed them a second later, leaping to their feet, harsh screams echoing from cursed throats. Much of the pack tumbled down the slope — even their limbs seemed deformed, giving them an awkward, loping gait that nevertheless had them approachingfartoo fast. Some had stayed, drawing bows, but Marian already felt a flicker of magic from that direction, she ignored them.

Before the men behind her could get in the way, she opened herself, let power flow into her. Remembering the crackle of thunder, the taste of a summer storm, she turned a wrist, spreading the nascent spell across the length of her borrowed dagger. With a sharp flick, she released it, the spell snapping ahead in the blink of an eye, quicker than any arrow could ever travel.

The lightning struck the lead hurlock in the chest, knocking it off its feet, blue-white electricity arcing to the next, splitting to touch a couple more, then the rest. It weakened as it went, only the first ended up with a hole blown all the way through it, but the others were stopped in their tracks, writhing in pain, screams splitting her ears. A couple more fell to the ground after a moment, narrow columns of steam lifting from their bodies, still twitching with the last sparks of magic.

Turned out, magic could be focused with silverite pretty damn well. Who'd have thought?

Before she could get another spell off, maybe something that could finish the rest in an instant, the Warden recruits were charging past her, arms raised and yelling at the top of their lungs, putting themselves squarely in the firing range of anything she could do to take out a group. Marian sighed. She'd had this herself, but if they wanted to do it the hard way, fine.

Casting power out of herself and forward, she jolted into the air. Time seemed to slow and her body seemed to stretch, swimming over the Wardens' heads, her peripheral vision turning into a blurry, monochromatic mess. She arced back toward the ground, the world abruptly snapping back into normality as she landed, hard, behind the pack of darkspawn. She darted forward, aiming for the neck of a genlock at the rear, her dagger slicing through the air with impossible speed.

So long ago she could hardly remember, Father had taught her how to push magic into her body, make herself stronger. She could carry far more weight than one would guess looking at her — especially since she could also make things lighter — and she could run farther and work longer than most any normal person. She'd been doing it so long she hardly even thought about it anymore, just a basic everyday thing. Honestly, sometimes she forgot tonotdo it when there were people not named Hawke around.

But, somehow, it had never occurred to her she was only scratching the surface. In their little training sessions, Lýna had told her of a kind of magic her people used. They didn't just make themselves more physically powerful, didn't just extend their endurance, no, they also made themselvesfaster, more precise, narrowed their reaction times. Dalish mages could often outfight their best warriors without using external magic at all, simply by making themselves too quick to keep up with.

Lýna hadn't been able to explainexactlyhow to do it, of course — even if her Alamarri were good enough to get across such complex concepts, she wasn't a mage herself, was only aware the technique existed — but just hearing it waspossiblehad been enough for Marian to figure it out. It wasn't complicated. It worked much the same as the variant she'd already known, drawing power into herself but instead of casting it out letting it flow through her body. Not using it as a fulcrum, an anchor, but willing it to carry her, topushher, to force her to move in a way her body couldn't possibly manage on its own.

She'd only been working on it for a few days, there was still plenty of room for improvement. But she'd gotten to a point she was starting to get hits on Lýna now. Not very often, and Lýna was skilled enough the same trick never worked twice, but just acouplewins was pretty damn impressive, she thought. Considering how seriously scary Lýna was in a fight.

And it was certainly more than enough to get the drop on a darkspawn — the genlock hadn't even noticed her coming by the time she was slicing into its neck.

The silverite blade cut into its flesh like...well, a silverite blade cutting into flesh. She barely felt any resistance at all before there was a dull thunk, the dagger lodging itself into the thing's spine. There was a sudden spray of thick, black blood, Marian jerked away, a hard thrum of terror shooting through her body so hard it hurt. A wave of power was cast out of her without any real active thought on her part, the cursed droplets repelled before they could touch her. Even as the darkspawn collapsed, limp, nearly taking her dagger out of her hand as it went, had to wrench the thing out of its neck, she twisted the magic around her, forming it into a spell she'd invented ages ago, to keep herself dry when out working in the rain.

(Father had particularly liked that one. He'd been taught in a Circle, had spent all his time indoors, they'd never had reason to be taught more practical applications of magic. A lot of times, it'd simply never occurred to him to consider magical solutions for everyday problems. When she'd come up with it, tending to the animals during a cold autumn rain when she'd been seven, was the first timeshe'dtaughthimsomething. It had been far from the last.)

From there, the fight finished very quickly. The darkspawn were few and the Warden recruits many enough that there'd been more than one Warden to every darkspawn — there were after her opening spell, anyway — so they were all cut down easily enough. When the fight was over, she noticed at a quick glance that they hadn't lost any of theirs. Perry, the jumpy little elf, had gotten a nasty-looking cut along his arm, but other than that everyone was fine.

They lingered for a little bit, most of the Wardens taking a little moment to roll the kinks out of their shoulders. Alim had jumped to heal Perry — Marian had never developed much talent with healing magic, she left him to it. Instead, she levitated the darkspawn corpses into a pile she could more easily incinerate, stalling once to let Lýna retrieve one of her arrows from a mangled throat. Lýna must be used to dealing with darkspawn by now: she had Marian burn the blood off of all the tips while she was at it.

The Grey Wardens had been through four Blights by now, so they'd learned a bit about how it worked. Darkspawn blood carried the taint, and anyone touched by it risked catching the curse, slowly sickening and horribly dying. But it wasn't just people who could catch it — animals, plants, even theland itselfcould become cursed, blackened and ruined for all eternity. It was said that the entire region that had once been the southern provinces of Orlais had been ruined by a series of battles during the Second Blight, reducing what had once been the breadbasket of the early Empire into a wasteland of shifting white and purple sands ruled by deformed monstrosities. The area was still uninhabitable eight hundred years later.

The worst effects of the Blight, they'd learned, could be prevented through cleansing by fire. Scorch darkspawn blood with a little flame, and the curse was destroyed. It couldn'tcurepeople already sickened, of course — rather hard to burn a curse out of someone without burning the person — but it could prevent people from sickening in the first place, and it could prevent the land itself from being cursed. This small a number of corpses were unlikely to pose a serious problem by themselves, but every little bit counted.

And besides, it wasn't like she had anything better to do while Alim was busy healing.

The pyre erupting into life with a powerful spell that had her skin tingling and her blood singing, a few more sweeps of her hand lighting up the patches of weeds and mud they'd fallen in in the first place, and their group set off again, thick smoke stretching up towards the sky in their wake.

Supposedly, Wardens were immune to the Blight, but Marian quick taught her little spell to Alim anyway. Between the two of them, they could easily cover the whole group. Just in case.

They passed through another long stretch of forest, though it was considerably easier travel this time. Lýna had them following the road which, while it was weathered and mouldering and missing far too many tiles, had prevented larger plants from taking root, leaving a mostly cleared path. The subtle, dreary tension the others had been carrying lifted away. They held themselves straighter, walked faster, some of them nearly with a bounce in their step. There was chatter, laughter, even flirting from a few.

Apparently, they didn't see what Marian did: Lýna and Alistairweren'trelaxing. In fact, if anything, they were only growing all the more quiet and hard with every step they took. There was another fight ahead. A bad one, she'd wager.

"Look alive, people," Alistair finally said, hefting his shield back into place. "More ahead. Lots of them."

"Oh, good. I was starting to get bored."

"Shut up, you damn..."

The trees parted again, revealing the largest clearing Marian had seen since they'd entered the swamp proper. A few rolling rocky hills rose above the water, inhospitable to all but the hardiest of grasses and bushes. Not far along stood the skeleton of what had probably been an aqueduct, only the pillars remaining, rounded stone stretching up twenty feet, thirty feet, turned pitted and craggy with age, hidden under twisting carpets of lichen and moss. Just beyond the pillars was a thin band of water, connecting a murky pond to the right and a wider, clearer lake to the left, an ancient stone bridge crossing the water that looked questionable enough Marian was glad the water was probably shallow. (She could fly, of course, but she couldn't bring the rest with her.) The road continued on ahead, through a shallow valley between two low hills.

Standing in the middle of the bridge was a single darkspawn. Even as Marian spotted it, it moved, its clawed hands tracing through the air in surprisingly graceful curves.

Lightning crackled between its fingers.

Alim had a barrier up almost instantly, a wall of faint blue-green light snapping into existence a few yards ahead of them. (Marian was a little jealous — she'd never gotten much opportunity to practice barrier spells, she doubted she could cast one that big.) Quick as he was, he'd barely gotten it out quickly enough. A bolt of lightning, white and purple, so bright it stung her eyes, stabbed into the center of it, the shield flaring orange, bowing in from the force. And it spread, splitting into dozens of tiny filaments, a hissing mass crawling across the surface.

Crawlingaroundthe surface. Her heart jumping abruptly into her throat, she reached for her own magic, formed it into a spell she'd cast so many times she couldn't even count, one of the earlier ones her father had taught her. (After all, it wouldn't do them much good if lightning struck the barn and burned the thing down.) Marian spread Father's peculiar lightning-repelling charm all along Alim's shield, and the little fingers of energy were thrown off it, fizzling away into nothing on the air.

A lightning spell that could propagate along a barrier? Damn. She had areallybad feeling about this.

Also, since when could darkspawn cast magic? Seriously, what the f*ck...

The barrier dropped away, and she jumped at an odd thrumming noise, a streak of cold blue light. Alim appeared ahead of them, wreathed in wisps of fog, dug in his heels and zipped along again, popping back into existence some yards further ahead. The darkspawn mage turned on its heel, and then kept spinning, twisting into a contorting cloud of black and green, bouncing away across the bridge. Alim chased after it, skipping across the ground in fits and starts, leaving patches of hoarfrost in his wake.

While the Wardens got over their initial shock at the magic, started their charge toward the bridge, Marian cast herself into the air. The world blurring around her, she arced up, up, dragged her fingers into the air for a second before landing, reality coming back into focus around her with a hard thud. On top of one of the pillars. She teetered a moment, nearly falling forward, but a little push against the empty air and she was settled. From up here, it was quite obvious the clearing across this little stream was packed with darkspawn — a couple dozen at least, it was hard to tell. Already Alim was fleeing back across the bridge, using that odd little ice-skipping spell she'd never seen before, yelling "sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t" loud enough she could hear it from up here.

She shook her head — the only living things she'd fought with magic were wolves and bears, but evensheknew you didn't run off without backup like that. This elf, honestly.

Marian lobbed off a few balls of fire, the sudden heat uncomfortably intense on her chilled face, the wet air hissing in protest, spreading the things out across the clearing, aiming to set as much of it alight as she could. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working very well. The flames sputtered out too quickly, some fizzling out before even reaching the ground. Which meant, she realized, a cold stone sinking slowly down her chest, that the mage was countering her spells. How fastwasthat thing, that shouldn't—

Apparently, the fire was also giving it ideas. With a long, ear-piercing screech, a comet of red-orange flame, the edges flickering an unnerving black, burned its way through the air over the bridge, making straight for the pack of Warden recruits. They yelled, started to scatter, but she knew immediately they weren't going to make it. Alim should be able to get a barrier off in time, but that thing lookednasty— who'd ever heard ofblack fire, what the f*ck — she wasn't sure it would be good enough. Shemightbe able to pull a couple out of the way, but—

Oh. Oh, wow. That was aterribleidea.

Unfortunately, she didn't have any better ones.

Marian jumped off the pillar, the world stretching around her again, snapping back into place a moment later, dropping her in the middle of the bridge. She reached deep, deeper, drawing as much power up as she could in the little time she had, hastily formed it into a thick barrier, intensely focused along the blade of a dagger. The darkspawn's spell was seconds away, hissing and screaming and terrifying, but she waited another couple beats, heart in her throat so hard it almost hurt,now, she swiped across—

She'd timed it exactly right, the flat of the blade slapping against the front of the deadly spell. And, miracle of miracles, her absolutely insane ideaactually worked. The impact shook her badly enough she was nearly flung back onto her ass, but itworked, the thing jolted up and to the side, putting the Wardens behind her well out of danger. It bloodyhurt, though, she was pretty sure she'd just burned all the fingers of her right hand rather badly.

Okay, that was her suicidal idea for the day. Let's not do that again.

Alim zipped past her, a cold wind slapping at her from behind in his wake, appearing at the far side of the bridge, one hand wreathed in flickering orange light. Throwing herself through the air again, she jolted to a stop next to him as his spell crashed into the rousing crowd of darkspawn. It exploded on contact, throwing the nearest off their feet, flames splashing out, a few of the cursed creatures caught, their agonized roars pierced her ears, she grit her teeth against the ache. Again concentrating the magic across one of her borrowed daggers, Marian cast her branching lightning spell, forcing as much power into it as she could.

The first tore into the stymied crowd — there weredozensof them, they weref*cked— burning though a handful before dissipating too much to do any good. The second didn't do any good at all: the mage appeared again in a swirling cloud of black and green, turned the bolt aside with a shivering crack.

The darkspawn were massing again, pulling themselves back together from the chaos wrought by her and Alim's spells, the Wardens behind them just starting to step off the bridge. (Athirdfamiliar arrow was zipping by even now, because Lýna had apparently been running and shooting at the same time.) She and Alim would probably be able to survive, just sitting here and trading spells with the darkspawn mage at close range — assuming some Blighter didn't come around and stick them in the back, that is — but the near misses would likely kill all the others. Which meant they either had to kill the mage immediately, or draw him away.

Marian grimaced. This was going tosuck.

The world blurred around her, and she appeared at the mage's back, slashed at its side under the armor. It didn't get anywhere, the blade skating off a barrier, but that was fine — with the other hand she lobbed a ball of fire at a nearby clump of darkspawn, the genlocks catching alight with a riot of pops and an unholy howling. She saw a blur of blue-white and felt another gust of frigid wind, but she didn't wait for Alim to finish whatever he was doing, shoved herself through the air again. When she did land, she felt a shudder of magic, a peculiar stutteringthump, fully half of the disorganised horde bodily thrown to the ground. Marian reached deep, gritting her teeth, and flames stretched up before her, a hissing wave five feet wide and twenty long, shepushed—

And the mage was back, the fire parted and, with a peculiar, stomach-twisting spell she couldn't make heads or tails of, dissipated, swirling away to nothing in a blink. An odd snap of white light, not lightning but definitely dangerous-looking, arced directly for her heart, but she flew off back and to the side, immediately reaching for her magic again, starting another branching lightning spell, but the mage was already right there — this thing wasso damn fast— the spell fell apart in her hand, another odd snap of light leaping across the air, and Alim flickered into existence next to her, a barrier springing up around them, the mage's spell was turned up harmlessly into the air.

She and Alim kept skipping back, trading spells with the unnervingly quick darkspawn mage again and again, pulling it away from the rest yard by yard, retreating slowly enough to taunt it into following but fast enough it couldn't pin them down, couldn't get off anything truly dangerous. Until, coming to the top of a rocky hill, they caught each other's eyes, and finally stopped, digging in their heels.

The mage barrelled onto the hill in that odd swirl of green light and shifting shadow, landing between them, releasing a wave of power that loomed over Marian like a falling boulder. She cut into the crashing weight, split most of it around her, what little she hadn't managed to turn aside still enough to push her back a couple steps. She shot back with a quick bolt of lightning, hoping to catch it off guard, but it simply stepped out of the way, throwing another missle of black-tinged fire at her feet, she skipped around to the side, checking with a glance Alim wasn't directly behind the thing, threw some fire of her own, but the mage cast a shield whichbentit, putting it right in the path of whatever Alim had thrown — some icy spear-looking things, no idea what that was — both spells dissolving into a wave of steam, then a cloud of greensomethingwas shooting at Marian, she didn't bother trying to block whatever the f*ck that was, ducked out of the way—

It quickly became clear this damn thing wasfartoo fast for just throwing magic at it to do much good, it was somehow managing to keep up with both of them at once. They couldn't just overwhelm it either — it justshrugged offsome of Alim's curses, the few of its spells Marian was forced to block still managing to bring her to her knees, impossible power summoned in a blink, with no hesitation.

And Marian was suddenly all too aware of the fact that she was a (mostly) uneducated apostate. She was powerful, yes, and talented, but Dad had focused on the things that presented any actual use to their daily lives. Combat was not one of those things. A lot of the magics the other two were whipping out Marian didn't recognize at all — sharp white light that stabbed and sliced, invisible hands shoving and pushing and dragging against every move, curses meant to sabotage her body and her mind, subtle enough she sometimes didn't notice until it was almost too late.

One of those was particularly terrifying. Marian hadn'tseenit coming into effect, simply felt the nauseating descent of alien magic, an overwhelming weakness coming over her in a blink. She'd dropped to her knees, the grass around her wilting and blackening, her vision blurring, she'd been on the edge of passing out when there'd been a burst of white light, warmth and life pouring back into her, and she fought off the lingering horror — seriously, what thef*ckwasthat?!— shehadto keep moving, if she stopped she would bedead...

It didn't take long for her to conclude they would never win at this rate. She didn't know about Alim, but she was starting to get tired, sweaty and shaky, her breath hard and painful in her throat. Clearly, magic wasn't going to get them out of this, it was better than the two of them put together.

So Marian slipped over to Alim, handed him one of her borrowed silverite daggers.

Ten seconds later and the thing was lying dead between them, its throat cut so deeply with Marian's magically-augmented strength she'd nearly taken its head clean off. She was numbly surprised with how well that had worked — it was less versatile than her own method, but Alim's ice-skipping spell at least made for anexcellentdistraction.

It was dead. It was definitely,definitelydead. Marian smiled with relief.

Then she fell to her knees, her cheek slamming into the dirt, and everything went black.

Lýna planted her boot on the thing's mangled face and pulled back on the shaft, hard. The head was torn out of the hurlock's thick, muscular neck, black blood spraying across the grass, more than a little bit splattering up her leg.

Trying to shake the cursed gore off of her arrow, she felt her face pinch with a grimace — shehatedthe smell of darkspawn blood.

And the air certainly was filled with it at the moment, her eyes nearly swimming from the sour, nauseating stench. She didn't think she'd ever seen this many dead darkspawn all at once. The corpses wereeverywhere, scattered here and there in little clumps, some scorched from magics and others simply cut to pieces, the dirt of the clearing squelching under her boots. She hadn't been counting, but there had to be at least thirty, probably closer to fifty. If they hadn't had mages on hand, she doubted they would have gotten out of this one alive.

Not that all of themhadgotten out alive. They'd lost two of the humans — Elen, and...Lýna had forgotten the other's name, one of the dirty, unpleasant-looking ones. There were a few injuries, though most of them weren't too bad, the worst the scrape Perry had gotten across his shoulder. (He was whining about it something awful, but he'd be fine.)

Also, the mages hadn't gotten back yet. Luckily, they'd been smart enough to drive the darkspawn mage away, but the booming and crackling of magical battle had ceased, a minute after they'd been wrapping up here. Lýna could only assume they were still alive — if the darkspawn had won, it probably would have attacked by now — they just had to wait.

There were things to do in the meantime — patching up wounds and preparing the pyres, mostly. Lýna left the bandaging to the others, she never had gotten great with that, but it wasn't too much trouble to pile up the corpses while tracking down her missing arrows. She ignored the others, wandering around the big, blood-stained clearing, slowly accumulating a heap of dead darkspawn at the middle. It was strangely easy hefting the things around, had Grey Warden blood magic to thank for that, she guessed.

Though shewasreally starting to get hungry...

Lýna heard a shuffling coming from the west, had an arrow trained on the source in a blink, the fletching tickling her cheek. She relaxed immediately. "You live."

Their mages had both survived, though neither looked so well — both were spotted with grime, Marian's hair was scorched on one side, dried blood streaked across Alim's face. Marian apparently couldn't walk on her own, one arm stretched across Alim's shoulders so he could help bear her weight, but she didn't seem injured, just magically exhausted. (Lýna had seen the look — shivering, pale and sweaty, seemingly only half-awake — on Mẽrhiᶅ more times than she could count, she'd be fine.) Alim had lost his usual cheerful energy, shooting her a moody glare. "Yes, we're alive. Sorry to disappoint."

She frowned — her Alamarri still wasn't great, but she was pretty sure she knew what he meant. "Why say this? Is good you live."

As human as he might behave much of the time, Alim did have an elven face, so his expressions weren't difficult to read at all: this one was surprise, quickly followed by guilt. Before Lýna could ask what that was supposed to be about — had Alim thought shewantedthem dead?why?— Alistair was shouting them over, asking for help with the injured.

Oh well, that would have been an awkward conversation anyway. Her awful Alamarri would have just made itmoredifficult.

All told they were held up at the clearing far longer than Lýna should ever think necessary, trying to hold in her impatience as daylight swiftly burned. They might have stayed even longer, Alistair wanted to rest here for a bit, get a fire and some dinner going, give the men a chance to recover. It took some arguing, and repeated insistence from Lýna that their destination was very near, for Alistair to change his mind, prod the recruits into moving again. (It likely helped that neither of them could feel more darkspawn around, they were all dead.) The only advantage in the delay was that they'd taken long enough for Marian to be rather more awake — she still seemed slightly dazed, but she could walk on her own, at least.

But eventually they were moving again, the bloody clearing burning in their shadow.

Luckily, the old Tevinters had built their little outpost on high ground — her clumsy, noisy companions were hardly any lighter on their feet than before, only stumbling all the more, but the firmer soil had them making much better time. It was still late afternoon when the trees again parted, revealing the crumbling tower before them.

Alistair took pity on the recruits, arguing that they really didn't needallof them coming with just to poke through an old ruin. In the peculiarly blocky clearing at the base of the tower — stones poked out of the grass here and there, Lýna assumed it'd been part of the structure at some point — the rest of their party divested themselves of weapons and armor, set about building a fire. At the suggestion that they really should bring a mage along, just in case, Alim bounced up, some small portion of his usual energy already returned. Lýna would have preferred Marian, the human womanwasrather less irritating, but she'd already collapsed to the ground again, looked to be struggling to remain conscious. So the three of them left the rest behind, stepping into the shadowed old tower.

For this particular part of the mission, Lýna was completely useless. She had absolutely no idea where they could expect to find the documents they were searching for, nor would she be able to recognize them by sight. Why should she? She hardly knew anything at all about how humans would go organizing this sort of thing, and she couldn'tread, honestly. Alistair, at least, seemed to know what he was doing. He led them through the musty, dusty rooms of the tower — stone flaking, wood rotted, metal tarnished — into the lower levels, before long finding a library.

Lýna hadheardof libraries, of course — the Ancients had invented the concept, they featured in the legends — but she'd never actuallybeen inone before. She had to say, she was less than impressed, though she would probably feel differently if she could read, or if the place weren't such an awful mess. The air was thick with mold and sh*t and decay, rodents having long ago made the walls their homes, some of the shelves having broken or simply rotted away, scrolls and books in various states of disrepair scattered all over the place. Alistair and Alim picked over the room, turning over one pile of rubbish after another, lifting up scrolls to squint at the text before dropping them again, while Lýna simply stood leaning against the door frame, watching and waiting.

The voice came with absolutely no warning. Low and smooth, a slight bounce to the words, as though on the edge of song, "Well, well, what have we here?"

Her hand springing to her dagger, Lýna spun on her heel to face the intruder...then froze, frowning to herself. It was a woman, a human woman, obviously Chasind, pale and black-haired, bright hawkish eyes, her face long and narrow (though still blockier than an elf's), clothed in dark leathers decorated with feathers and beads in red and green. Lýna relaxed a little, on reflex — as a rule, the Chasind and the People coexisted more or less in peace, having lived on the same lands for generations. (Not as friendly as the Avvar, but at least peaceable.) Of course, she also knew immediately that this woman could kill Lýna easily if she wished to. Her dress — plain leather leggings and a loose band of deep red cloth over her chest,fartoo brief for the spring chill — the lack of any obvious weapons on her person whatsoever, that she'd managed to get so close without Lýna hearing her coming, this woman was obviously a mage. Unnecessarily antagonizing her would be a bad, bad idea.

Especially since, Lýna reminded herself, they were oh so close to the home of She-of-Many-Faces...

The other two reacted far more dramatically than she had, Alistair drawing his sword, Alim's hands threateningly raised, but the woman just smirked back at them. She kept talking, slow and easy, without a hint of fear on her voice — she sounded more amused than anything. "You'll find nothing of value here, I promise you. Vultures more timely than you have already picked this corpse clean."

"Lyna, get away from her." Alistair's face had gone hard, looking far more stern and serious than she thought she'd ever seen him. "She's an apostate." Alim cursed, magic already crackling between his fingers, white and sharp.

The woman smiled. "One cannot break an oath if one never makes it in the first place." She glanced back to Lýna, brows quirking in mocking question. "And you run with these fools?" she teased, in Deluvẽ — which wasn'tthatstrange, most Chasind hunters Lýna knew spoke at least a little. This woman did have hardly a trace of an accent, though.

With a helpless shrug of her shoulders, Lýna answered in the same language. "Unfortunately, the Wardens accept everyone they can get."

With a low, musical chuckle, switching back to Alamarri, "Oh, I see,Wardens, are you? So I'm not to take you as intruders, then."

"This outpost belongs to the Grey Wardens."

The woman shot Alistair a disdainful look. "I see no outpost, only dust and ghosts long forgotten. This may well have been your land once, Warden, but the Wilds have overtaken it. And we do not easily give up what is ours."

"Put that away, Alistair. Is well."

Alistair and Alim both gave her blank, wide-eyed looks. "How is running into a witch of the wilds in a half-rotted libraryanysort ofwell?"

"Witch of the wilds," the woman repeated, scoffing. "Are you children, to quake at stories so?"

Lýna almost had to smile at that, she'd thought much the same thing back telling them about She-of-Many-Faces. At least...assuming she'd understood that correctly, this woman sort of talked funny. "Chasind. Hurt you if you make her only." She turned back to the stranger, switched again to Deluvẽ. "I am Lýna Maharjeᶅ. How do you go?"

"Oh ho," the woman said, smirking at the men, "now there's a proper greeting. This one hasn't forgotten her manners, at least."

"Manners?" Alim glanced around the library, a sort of reluctant amusem*nt about him. "Have you seen where we are?"

"Our ways may not be yours, Outlander, but we are still a civilized people, we Chasind." The woman turned back to Lýna, with something approximating a smile. "I am Morrigan. I go freely, Lýna Maharjeᶅ—" She said the familiar Deluvẽ form in Alamarri, which was slightly weird, but at least she'd pronounced Lýna's name correctly. Though, she noticed Morrigan didn't use a clan name, which was also weird... "—no thanks to your friends here."

"You expect us to not get a little jumpy when a witch sneaks up behind us?"

"I walked over and announced myself — that's hardly verysneaky, is it?"

Of course, Morriganhadused some sort of magic to get close without giving anything away, Lýna would have heard her coming if she hadn't. But pointing that out wouldn't contribute anything useful to the conversation. Besides, she was too slow with Alamarri, they were already moving on before she could have gotten it out.

"For all we know, her friends could be out there attacking the camp right now!"

"I have come alone. But I could have burned them all alive before following you in here, who can say for certain?"

"We do have another mage out there."

"Yes, I saw. Wore herself out a bit, didn't she, poor dear."

"Youbitch, if you did anything to—"

"Stop!" Alistair cut off mid-word, all three turning to look at her — surprised, concerned, amused. "They are not hurt. She plays, they are well."

Morrigan grinned, bright and sharp. "How can I help myself when they make it so easy?"

Yeah, there was really no point in responding to that either.

"You say this place has already beenpicked clean." Alistair still sounded somewhat suspicious, still looking at the Chasind mage like she'd personally offended him somehow, but he'd clearly decided to let it be for now (reluctantly). "We're looking for some old documents, they would have been magically preserved."

The woman hummed, her head tilting in an almost elven expression of thoughtfulness. "These documents you speak of, would they be copies of treaties made between the Wardens and the peoples of the north?"

Alistair perked up. "You've seen them?"

"How do you know what they say?" asked Alim, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "They would be in Old Orlesian, I think."

Morrigan smirked. "Chantry Tevene, in fact. It just so happens I read Chantry Tevene." The men both gave her doubtful looks — at least, Lýna was mostly certain that's what Alistair's was, she was getting better with human expressions but still had to guess sometimes — and the woman burst into bright chuckles. "Oh, what surprise! Do you think me such a savage, to so expect I cannot read?"

"I cannot read," Lýna admitted, shrugging. She wasn't even certain whatChantry Tevenewas — a Tevinter language, obviously, but...

His lips curling, probably annoyed with being laughed at, Alistair said, "I'm a formally-trained Templar, andIcan't read Chantry Tevene. But that's not important — you've seen the treaties, you know where they are?"

"I do. My mother took them from here long ago, before I was born." The woman smiled. "I can take you to her, if you wish. We leave near here, a fifteen minute walk, perhaps."

"Yes." The men turned to look at her, she shrugged. "Duncan wants them. If She has them now, we go to Her. At least we must ask."

The men seemed to accept her argument, Alim finally relaxing, Alistair returning his sword to its sheath. Lýna tried not to let on that she was trulyfarless confident than she pretended. She hadn't considered where Morrigan had come from, why she hadn't provided the name of her clan introducing herself...but she claimed to live nearby, with her mother. But, nobody lived here, not for miles around.

Nobody wanted to stay too close to She-of-Many-Faces, not for very long. But, if She had Duncan's papers, Lýna truly had no choice in the matter.

She could only hope the immortal mage was in a cooperative mood.

"But first, I am hungry. We eat, then we go."

While the men agreed, with rather more exuberance than Lýna thought the situation called for, Morrigan smiled at them, crooked and toothy, her eyes dancing with half-seen light.

Marian was starting to wonder if she hadn't made a mistake.

They'd decided to camp at the base of the ancient tower overnight, make their way back to Ostagar starting in the morning. It was rather late, the western skyjuststarting to tint with approaching sunset, they wouldn't make it back before dark, and the tower was on solid enough ground it wasn't all soppy and gross. It just seemed the thing to do. While Marian had been taking a nap, they'd gotten a cookfire going, armor and weapons cast about seemingly at random, settling in for the night.

(She hadn't realized until after her nap, sitting down to dinner, that they were short two people. They must have died in the big fight back there, Marian had been so delirious from burn-out that she hadn't even noticed.)

Apparently, at some point over the years one of the local tribesmen had broken into the tower and removed the treaties Duncan had asked Lýna to track down, so she and Alistair were going on a brief diversion with the (slightly creepy) Chasind mage to retrieve them. They'd clearly expected Alim to go with them — she assumed so they'd have magical backup, just in case — but it had been just as plainly obvious to Marian that Alimreallydid not want to go. Uncomfortable with the people of the wilds, she assumed, and also just tired. So, before he could refuse or be guilted into joining them, Marian volunteered.

And maybe that hadn't been such a good idea. After taking a nap and getting a little bit of food, shewasfeeling much better than she had after the terrifying fight with that cursed darkspawn mage — burn-out wasunpleasant, sure, but it never took her all that long to come out of it. (Assuming she didn't push so hard she seriously hurt herself, at least.) But she hadn't realized until they'd already been walking a couple minutes that she wastired. She'd been up since early morning, and doing things practically the entire time, walking hours and hours and hours. Exhaustion clawed at her, making her feel slow and clumsy, and there was a low, stiff ache all through her legs, her stomach and her back. Sort of like after her spars with Lýna, sometimes, but worse.

And, it might be her imagination, but Lýna looked...wary? Maybe? Marian had never met an elf in her life before leaving home for Ostagar, but she'd quickly noticed that their faces could be kind of difficult to read. It wasn't that the expressions they used were especially different, or anything, but theirfaceswere shaped different — their chins too narrow, their faces seeming to come down to a point, which made their thin-lipped mouths look almost too broad for the space available, despite humans' actually being larger, their eyesobviouslytoo large for the size of their heads, their brows wide and too smooth andhairless, none of the elves she'd met so far had eyebrows — so it could be kind of hard to tell what was going on, at first glance. In Lýna's case, the tattoos didn't help either, obscuring what few lines her face had, just confusing.

That went both ways, apparently — Lýna had implied she had just as much difficulty reading expressions on human faces. (Or at least, Marianassumedthat was what she'd meant, she was still picking up the language.) The other elves had grown up around humans, but Dalish would obviously have less contact with them, so she wasn't quite used to it. Which did make sense, it was only logical that if elven faces were opaque to Marian, Lýna should have the same trouble in reverse, seemed obvious.

So, shecouldbe reading it wrong. But as they got closer to wherever it was they were going, Lýna seemed to be going stiffer, tenser, quieter, her too-small mouth set in a narrow line, bright, too-large eyes sharp and watchful.

If it came down to another fight... Well, Marian probablycouldfight, still, but she might not do very well. And againstat leastone mage, and possibly two... At least they werealsoinformally-trained apostates, so they'd likely be on rather more even footing. Still, she didn't particularly like her chances. She guessed she'd just have to hope the Chasind proved friendly. Hmm...

Marian twitched — she was staring at Lýna again,sh*t, she forced herself to look away, glancing after the Chasind leading them, not far ahead. She kept catching herself watching the Dalish girl, she didn't know why she did that. It was uncomfortable.

Her father's warning to always be honest with herself ringing in her ears — even if she couldn't be perfectly open with anyone else, she should always do so with herself, leave demons fewer delusions to exploit — Marian grit her teeth, choking back a huff of annoyance. Right, fine, she knew exactly why she kept staring at Lýna. She thought she was pretty. She thought she was pretty, and it was honestly sort of distracting sometimes — that was why.

Itwasvery confusing, though. She meant, she'd really never thought someone was pretty before. Well, okay, she could look at someone and recognize they wereobjectivelybeautiful, but it was just a fact that she knew, not something shefelt. If that made sense. She supposed the way to say it was, she'd never found someoneattractive, before.

Once upon a time, she'd simply assumed that was normal. She'd known sexexisted, of course, but she'd always just categorized it as a thing that married adults did. Since she wasn't married — or even grown yet, at the time — she'd put that knowledge away somewhere at the back of her head, and just forgotten about it. If she'd had occasion to wonder about it (which she mostly hadn't), she would have assumed marriage was something someone did when they wanted children and a family and everything, that sex and the like was a necessary component to all that, and outside of those particular contexts it just...wasn't a consideration. Since she had zero interest in getting married — and really hadn't been able to at the time, with her family still so heavily depending on her — she'd had zero interest in men, or sex or whatever. And she'd just assumed that was normal.

She didn't start figuring out how very wrong she was about that until Bethany and Carver had started growing up, and she'd suddenly had to confront the confusing reality of her younger siblings going through experiences and having feelings she'd literally never had, ever. Especially since she taught Bethany magic the way Dad had taught her, which involved quite a lot of discussion about how they felt about things, Marian had been slapped in the face with it very explicitly. Because Bethany and Carverdidfind people attractive,didhave interest (or at least curiosity), entirely separate from the question of marrying or starting a family or the like.

And that had been, just, completely alien to Marian. She'd ended up talking to Mother about it, asking if she was...broken somehow, if there was something wrong with her. Mom had been surprised Marian didn't have those sort of feelings ever — she'd said, somewhat guiltily, that she'd assumed Marian had denied herself those things because the family needed her, it'd never occurred to Mom that she might just not be interested in men or marriage or any of it at all. Though, now that she actually knew what was going on with her, Mom had beenveryinsistent that, no, there wasnotsomething wrong with her, that there were all types. Women who wanted men, women who wanted other women, and women who wanted nobody at all, that it was just how people were, and not something to get worked up over.

(Marian had been rather more relieved than she'd let on. It'd been really bothering her, at the time, more than she'd wanted to let her mother know.)

She'd never been attracted to anyone before, but she was pretty sure that's what was happening now. Though, she suspected she wouldn't recognize it for what it was if Bethany hadn't described her own feelings for her. Sometimes just...uncomfortably warm and...squirmy, she guessed, which shemighthave misinterpreted as embarrassment, if she didn't find herself watching her for no real reason, if she didn't...

She wanted to touch her, sometimes. She couldn't even sayhowshe wanted to touch her, even, she just...wanted to. To be closer to her.

It was distracting. And uncomfortable.

She didn't like it.

It didn't help that... Well, it was just sort ofweird, wasn't it? She meant, the first person she hadeverbeen attracted to, and it was an elf? Did she just...have a thing for elves, or something? Was that even something that happened? She meant, it was true she'd never met an elf before...but Lýna was really the only one she'd noticed much of anything with. Of course, the only other elf she'd had much contact with so far was Alim, and she thought he was kind of...weird, and annoying, maybe that made a difference.

(From what Bethany and Carver had said, she didn't think itshouldmake a difference, but maybe that one was just Marian being different.)

And, it was also uncomfortable because...wasn't Lýna...kind of young? She meant, it was a little hard to guess how old an elf was, but she was pretty sure Lýna was around Bethany's age, maybe a little bit older. Which was stillold enough, she guessed — back home, there were a couple girls about a year younger than Bethany who'd gotten married last fall — it wasn't like she was so young it was... Hell, Lýna claimed she'd already been married and widowed once, which was absurd to think about. Just, Marian kind of felt like it was a little,well, even though she shouldn't.

She was Bethany's age, and Bethanywasgrown up now, but most of the time Marian still kind of thought of her baby sister like she was still a little kid. It was just...uncomfortable.

But, just because it made Marianveryuncomfortable didn't mean it wasn't happening. Not that she planned on doing anything about it. Not that she would know whattodo about it, even if she wanted to — which she didn't, not really. At a war camp preparing to fight the Blightreallywasn't the time and place to...try to figure this sh*t out. So. Even if Lýna were amenable to...whatever, she wouldn't.

Lýna didn't know about it, she was pretty sure. She got the feeling Lýna thought she was being weird and confusing sometimes, but Marian was confident she didn't know why. And it was going to stay that way.

As pretty as she was, Lýna was alsoveryscary. Yeah, Marian was just going to...not bring that up. Ever.

(Of course, how quiet and cold andscaryLýna could be didn't seem to discourage Marian from finding her attractive, not even a little bit, which was just... Marian was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with heragain, but this really wasn't the time to pay too much attention to that. There was aBlighton, Marian,concentrate, dammit...)

So, with how distracted Marian was with Lýna being pretty, and thinking about Lýna being pretty (and thinking about thinking about Lýna being pretty), finally arriving at their destination came as something of a relief. Even if they might end up getting in a fight with unnerving Chasind mages — dealing with people trying to kill her wasfarsimpler than dealing with how she felt about Lýna (or how she felt about how she felt about Lýna).

They were on relatively stable ground, a brief flat patch before the hill descended down to a lake not so far away, more of those drooping trees scattered here and there. In the shade of an especially tall and wide tree, not far from a large, free-burning pit fire, was a little house, too small to have more than one or two rooms inside, formed entirely of somewhat aged-looking planks of wood, the roof a thick mass of dried grasses, adhered together with some kind of tar. Hanging outside were a few rough animal skins — cleaned, but not yet shaped for their eventual purpose — alongside a few completed garments of cloth and fur, strewn with the beads and feathers Chasind seemed to like.

Morrigan skipped a few steps further ahead, announcing herself. "Mother! I have returned with guests — three Grey Wardens, who wish to—"

"Yes, I see them, girl." Marian jumped, eyes flicking over to the old woman standing next to the fire. Where hadshecome from, she could haveswornthere hadn't been anybody there a second ago... "Come, come, be welcome at our fire — and let me get a better look at you."

Lýna and Alistair shot each other a loaded glance, but they obeyed, Marian following close behind. Morrigan continued past the fire, disappearing into the little house, while they approached the fire, arraying themselves around the elderly Chasind woman waiting there.

Once they were within a few feet, Lýna choked, her shoulders twitching up a few inches. Abruptly, Marian and Alistair both turning to stare at her, Lýna dropped to one knee, quick enough it took another second or two for her cloak to settle. Her head bowed, eyes fixed on the dirt, she said...something, it was in Dalish, complete nonsense to Marian's ears.

That was...odd. Marian glanced toward Alistair, to see if he had any better idea what was going on than she did, in time to catch him shooting her a very similar look. Apparently not, then. It wasveryodd, Lýna didnotseem the sort of person to go kneeling to people — she didn't even bother bowing oranythingto the King. (Lýna's failure to show the proper respect obviously annoyed his entourage, but the King himself didn't seem to mind, which was sort of funny.) It was almost surreal, honestly.

Though there was...somethingabout the old woman. Marian couldn't put her finger on what. She looked perfectly ordinary — or at least perfectly ordinary by Chasind standards, which were somewhat odd. She was wearing a long, heavy dress covered in beadwork, a dense sash, mostly made of more beads and little bits of shining metal hung over one shoulder crossing down her chest to rest over her hip. Feathers blue and black were worked into the other shoulder, matching ones braided into her silvery hair here and there. She was clearly quite old, her face a mass of deep wrinkles, but her eyes were still bright, keen.

Marian blinked — her eyes wereyellow.

She'd learned, recently, that unusual hair and eye colours were perfectly ordinary for elves. Lýna's snowy white hair simply didn't exist in humans, though according to Alim was quite common among elves (especially Dalish), her eyes blue, but a deep...dramaticblue, almost violet. Humans could have red hair, but nothing like the intense, brilliant red Alim had, like the sun peeking over the horizon, and the vibrant orange of his eyes was strikingly unusual as well.

But that was normal forelves. The Chasind were human. But, this woman's eyes wereobviouslyyellow, the longer Marian looked the more certain she was of what she was seeing. Now that she thought about it, Morrigan's eyes were rather yellow-ish too, though with a bit more green in them, that was just...

And her magic felt...odd. Static on the air, like lightning about to strike, but also... There was a peculiar echo to it, something only half-heard, something larger than the woman, reaching out into...

There wasclearlysomething different about her, Marian could tell that much. But that didn't really explain why Lýna was kneeling to her.

A hint of exasperation crossed the old woman's face, just for an instant. She spoke to Lýna, also in elvish, gesturing for her to stand up with one hand. To the two of them, she said, "I feel the People are far too quick to debase themselves, these days. But maybe that is not their fault, at the heart of it — sometimes the blood remembers what the mind all too easily forgets. Squishy things, minds..."

"Right," Alistair said, the word drawn out long and skeptical. He clearly thought she was insane, or perhaps simply demented. "Ah, your daughter thought you might be able to help us, we're looking for these treaties, you see..."

"Yes, yes, I had expected you would come — and just in time, too."

"Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?"

"You are required to do nothing, least of all believe." The woman's head tilted, setting beads to clinking, her eyes narrowing on Alistair. "And whatdoyou believe in, boy? Certainly not the Chantry that raised you, no, not any longer. Come!" she barked, beckoning him closer, "Let me get a better look at you."

Alistair didn't seem to like that idea but, with an encouraging nod from Lýna (who was standing again, though still looking rather overwhelmed), he took a few steps closer. The old woman reached for him, and he twitched, but let her touch him, look into his eyes, turn his chin this way and that.

"Mm." She clicked her tongue, shaking her head a little. "Holding on by a thread, aren't you? One too many disappointments, one too many crises of faith — you are too eager to trust, boy, and not discerning enough with who and what you trust yourself to. All your father's heart, all your mother's...complicated luck. Be careful, lest you allow yourself to be broken completely."

"Wait, you know my mother? Who was she?" Weirdly, Alistair didn't seem equally curious about his father — generally speaking, if someone was uncertain of the identity of one of their parents, it didn't tend to be their mother.

(Also, he didn't seem as unnerved as he should be that this woman knewanythingabout him, but perhaps he didn't know enough about magic to know how unsettling that was.)

The old woman smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. "Now, boy, I can't tell you that. Names are such stiff, human things, and heavy, too. On the other side, they are one of the first things that are shed. You, girl," she said, beckoning to Marian now, "come here. Let's see whatyoubelieve."

"I believe you're a Dreamer." It was theon the other sidethat had tipped her off — by the look on his face, Alistair thought she meant his mother was dead, but Marian was pretty sure she'd been referring to the Fade, that spirits had told her of Alistair's mother for some reason. But despite her wariness, Marian obeyed, stepping within arm's reach. She got the feeling that this woman could crush her like a bug, so long as she wasn't asking anything too onerous there was no harm in playing along.

The woman cackled, low and harsh, loud and sudden enough Marian almost backed away. "You're further from the truth than you think, but closer than you might be."

...Okay.

Fingers on her cheek, rather softer than she'd expected, Marian tried not to twitch at the tendrils of tingly magic reaching for her. But they didn't touch her, instead reaching past her and... She couldn't tell what they were doing, actually. The old woman's head tilted, craggy lips twitching with a smile. "Well. Youarean interesting one, aren't you. Your road leads north, child, and into... And perhaps... Yes, yes..." She patted Marian on the cheek. "Try not to die to the darkspawn, girl. I would be most disappointed."

Becausethatwasn't unnerving at all. "Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint."

The woman smiled. "No, you would not. Pity — you might be happier if you would."

...What wasthatsupposed to mean?

"And you, child," she said to Lýna...before switching to Dalish again. She went through the same process with Lýna she had the other two, touching her face and saying a few sentences in a spacey tone, seemingly only half present and the other half floating away somewhere and somewhen else. Marian could be reading her wrong, but Lýna looked like she thought the woman was being just as frustratingly cryptic in Dalish as she had in Alamarri.

After talking back and forth with the woman a couple times, Lýna switched back to Alamarri. "You will give treaties,Venýriś?"

"Yes, child, I will. I have kept them safe all these years, waiting for you to come for them. Girl! Bring them here." Morrigan had returned at some point, Marian hadn't noticed, now carrying a small wooden chest. The thing practically glowed with magic, runes etched with blood and lyrium into the surface.

Alistair must recognize the blood magic too — he was scowling a little bit, accepting the chest from Morrigan, bit back a comment with what looked to be some considerable effort. (Any time Alistair managed to keep his mouth shut was always vaguely surprising.) He did say, "You...protected them?"

"And why not?" The old woman almost sounded offended. "The Blight does not just come for your farms and cities, young Warden. It comes for Chasind and Dalish and Avvar just the same, it sweeps through the wilds, seeps into places old and hidden and forgotten. It kills everything it touches. Not just the parts you condescend to see."

"Right..." he muttered, wincing at the icey poison on her voice.

With a dismissive flip of her wrist, "Oh, don't mind me. I'm old and forgotten myself, why need you mind me any more? Take these to your Grey Wardens, boy. They will need them. Tell them the dangers are greater than they know."

Marian blurted, "What isthatsupposed to mean?" She didn't realize that dangers got much worse than af*cking Blight— how was that supposed to getworse, exactly?

"Isn't that obvious? Either the dangers are greater than they know, or they know of fewer of them. Perhaps they know none!" The woman chuckled, a half-mad grin splitting her face. "But how I go on, I've gone on long enough! Go, get out of here! There is much work to do, and precious little time to do it in! Go!"

Alistair cringed away, as though struck. The old woman still waving her hands in dismissal, Morrigan openly grinning with amusem*nt, the three of them turned (Lýna with a last respectful bow and a few words of elvish), and started off. The swamp ahead of them looked completely indistinguishable from any other patch of swamp she'd seen today, she could only assume Lýna knew how to get back to the camp from here. That was the tower there, she thought, barely visible above the trees against the ever-darkening sky, but she'd probably lose it somewhere between here and there.

They'd hardly taken ten steps before there was a call of, "Girl!" Marian twitched to a stop, looked over her shoulder. The old woman was staring at her, her head tilted and eyes narrowed in thought — looking not at her, but through her and past her, examining something Marian couldn't quite imagine.

Looking into the Fade, presumably, the spirits moving in her shadow. That hadn't stopped being creepy.

The words coming slow, heavy, the woman said, "When He rises...you will See." It almost had the feeling of quoting something, but not quite, carrying a sense of importance Marian couldn't put words to.

Whatever it was, it had the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. "Uh... What will I see?"

She smirked. "You'll see it when you see it, girl. Go."

...Okay?

Marian caught up with Lýna and Alistair quickly, the latter glancing between her and the old woman, brow stitched with a suspicious frown. His voice pitched low, so it wouldn't carry, "What wasthatabout?"

She shrugged. She hadn't a f*cking clue.

Chapter 4: Ostagar — III

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 6

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

The Joining turned out to be far more grisly than Marian would ever have guessed.

The morning after their return to Ostagar, Duncan found Marian and Alim at the cookfires, drew them away to help prepare the initiation for the new Wardens. He led them toward the back of the crumbling fortress, far from the activity of the King's encampment, beyond even the Circle pavilion — which was essentially the outside edge of the camp, since they'd put the mages as far from the King and his guards as possible — to a little platform hanging over the ravine, facing north and east. On a crumbling altar were a small collection of goblets, the vials of darkspawn blood they'd collected in the Wilds, a few glass bottles.

After a moment, Marian noticed the shape of the room, marked out by the mostly-crumbled walls, was more or less hexagonal, the lower frame of the windows hinting at the Chantry sunburst. This must have been a chapel, once upon a time.

Duncan explained that there was a potion that each Grey Warden drank upon their initiation, the formulation passed down one generation to the next, ever since the First Blight over a thousand years ago. It took magic to prepare, though the magic required was very simple, even the meanest mage could do it — gathering the materials was much more difficult. The common herbs, elfroot and prophet's laurel, weren't hard to come by, and lyrium water was rarer, obviously, but always available to those who had the gold.

One ingredient, there was only one place to get it: in their lands in the Anderfels, the Wardens grew dragonthorn and Silent Plains roses, brewed a liquor made from the berries of the former and the buds of the latter. (Not adrinkableliquor, the process of making it was just similar.) Technically, each Warden-Captain, Warden-Lieutenant, and Warden-Constable was supposed to carry a small bottle with them at all times, the supply managed by the Commander of the Grey.

Due to the rather sorry state of the Wardens in Ferelden, Duncan was currently acting as Commander, their sole Captain,andtheir sole Constable, and while he was grooming a few Lieutenants none had been officially promoted yet — he was the only person who had any of the stuff in the entire country.

The final ingredient was, of course, darkspawn blood. Marian had assumed it must be, when Duncan had implied gathering darkspawn blood was necessary for the newcomers' initiation she'd thought that was the obvious conclusion. Alim, though, apparently hadn't put that together. His lips curling in disgust, eyes narrowed with doubt, he asked if they werereallygoing to be doing blood magic, how that could be in any way acceptable.

Duncan gave the elven mage a stern look (which he immediately softened when Alim cringed a little), and said simply, "The Wardens oppose the Blight, by any means necessary." Which, Marian could have told him that, they were sort of infamous for not giving a damn.

Not that Marian thought it was that big of a deal. She understood Alim might not know this, she didn't think the Circle really taught these things — especially since Alim had said he'djustgotten through his Harrowing before being conscripted, he likely hadn't had access to restricted texts — but there were multiple different kinds of blood magic, and some were far less horrifying than others. According to Dad, there were two kinds of blood magic, which he referred to as sacrificial and sympathetic, but when a Circle mage saidblood magicthey mostly meant the sacrificial kind.

Sacrificial blood magic itself came in two types, differentiated by what kind of sacrifice they were talking about. A mage could spill someoneelse'sblood, use the energy of their life to perform some kind of magic — either to augment the power of their spells directly, or to attract the attention of a demon and trade that life energy for a favour. Old Tevinter was infamous for doing this kind of thing all the time, and at horrifying scales, but it was illegal even there these days. (It stillhappened, of course, but anyone who was caught doing it was immediately executed — without even a trial or anything, they were considered too dangerous to be allowed to live.) Dad said this kind of magic was not onlymorallyreprehensible, but was alsoverydangerous, due to the attention it often attracted from demons. At least, sacrificingpeoplelike this was dangerous, doing it with animals was mostly safe (and also legal in Tevinter and a couple other place in the north).

Mostlysafe. Sort of.

The other kind of sacrificial magic was for the mage to spill theirownblood, to augment the power of their spells or to offer in trade to a demon. The latter was obviouslysuicidallystupid, but Dad didn't recommend doing the former either. It wasn't dangerous in the same way dealing with demons was, but to get anything out of it the mage would need to seriously weaken themselves — that's how the magic worked, the power you got out of it was tied to how much strength was sacrificed — so it was almost never actually worth it. Maybe in an emergency as a desperate last-ditch effort where you were about to die anyway, but most of the time, no.

Though, Dad had actually taught herbothkinds, just in case. She didnotlike spilling her own blood as a sacrifice — drawing on her own life to fuel a spell was, just,viscerallyterrifying, she couldn't even really explain how. The other kind, they'd caught a few rats to use, enough to do a few practice spells (after which they'd never touched the stuff again). That had just been messy. And also kind of...unsettling? She meant, she'd been able tofeelthem die, which was just unnerving, it wasn't something she'd ever do again if she could help it.

The other kind of blood magic, the sympathetic kind, that stuff could also be pretty scary. Basically, the blood of something or someone was, on a magical level, still considered part of them, no matter how far it got away from their body, and a person could exploit that connection in various ways. Like, if you had a vial of someone's blood, there were horrible curses you could do, though that wasn't enough of a danger to really worry about — if the blood dried at any point, it was dead and couldn't be used anymore, so it didn't matter if you bled a few drops here or there, nobody could use that. Getting someone's blood to use was so impractical it wasn't really a danger.

Though, it was possible to use yourownblood to influence someone, if you could get it inside of them. Put a few drops in a drink, and you can pretty much make anyone say or think or do whatever you want. Dad had recommended sheneveraccept a drink from anyone she didn't trust for this very reason. (Even if they weren't a mage themselves, they could be working with one.) He'd even taught her how to do it herself, just in case. He'd used the example of, if she wasbeing raped— by a Templar, he meant, which apparently happened in Circles often enough he'd been all too aware of it — bite down on her cheek or something until she bled, or just try to get herself hit in the teeth hard enough, then spit her own blood in his face and dominate his mind. Which,Maker's breath, Dad, that was onehellof a conversation for a nine-year-old girl to have with her father...

Though, as unpleasant as it'd been, she understood why he'd felt the need to do it. She hadn't taught Bethany any sacrificial blood magic, or evenmentionedit as anything more than thebadblood magic nobody should ever do, but shehadtaught her the sympathetic kind, complete with that same example. Just in case. (She'd waited until Bethany had been thirteen, though, becauseholy sh*t, Dad, she hadn't even knownwhat rape wasyet, so he'd had toexplain thattoo — that conversation, just,Maker...)

The really scary thing about blood magic was potentially attracting demons, resulting in abominations and the like, but the sympathetic kind didn't attract demons at all. And Marian was pretty sure the Joining was sympathetic blood magic. It had beenveryobvious that Lýna and Alistair could feel the presence of darkspawn somehow, and were also stronger and quicker than people of their size should be. Marian guessed they were tapping into the magic of the Blight somehow — that was sort of a scary thought all by itself, the magic of the Blight feltvile. But she didn't think this was particularly dangerous.

Well, no more dangerous than darkspawn blood was to begin with, she guessed. That sh*twaspoison, after all — the Silent Plains, the Anderfels, the Western Approach...

Duncan talked Alim down without too much trouble, and, after extracting another round of promises from Marian that she wouldn't share secrets of the Order with outsiders — Duncan fully expected he'd end up recruiting her eventually anyway, so he didn't tend to make a big deal about it — they got down to actually making the potion. Shredding up the leaves of the herbs, dissolving them in the lyrium, mixing in a few drops of the liquor, and then pouring in the vial of darkspawn blood, a whole vial in each waiting goblet — one each for Alim, Keran, Jory, Bron, Perry, and Daveth, six total. A quick flash of lightning into each goblet, and they were done.

Peering into the steaming, black fluid in one of the goblets, rainbow sparks flickering over its surface, Marian shook her head. Wow, it evenlookedpoisonous, like amagicsort of poisonous. Poor bastards.

A few minutes later, the rest of the initiates arrived, led by Lýna and Alistair. She didn't think it was her imagination, she thought both of the full Wardens looked rather more solemn than usual. The difference was much more obvious in Alistair, but she thought even Lýna looked somewhat more tense, her eyes sharper. With a few gestures, Duncan and Alistair guided the initiates, including Alim, into a semi-circle facing the altar. Lýna stepped a bit to the side, setting down her bow and her quiver and her sword, whipping off her cloak, and then peeling off her gloves and even her boots, leaving her standing barefoot on the ancient stone.

Marian frowned, glancing between Lýna and the other Wardens. They weren't removing their weapons or anything, just Lýna, for some reason. A Dalish cultural thing, maybe? Lýna did do some sort of weird things sometimes, seemed like a good guess.

"At last," Duncan said, his voice low and soft, "we come to the Joining. When you came to us, you were knights, servants, mages of the Circle, thieves or murderers. Humans and elves. Some of you came to us, volunteered for service, others came because you had nowhere else to go, some of you were snatched off of the gallows. Who you were, where you came from, it doesn't matter now.

"You are no longer knights, you are no longer servants, you are no longer mages of the Circle — though you may yet thieve and murder," Duncan said, a sliver of humor on his voice; Alistair next to him rolled his eyes, Keran and Jory looked almost scandalized, Alim and Daveth giggled. "Starting today, you are Grey Wardens. That is all that matters, to me, to your brothers and sisters, and to the rest of the world.

"Our Order was founded during the First Blight." Duncan nodded at Lýna, who stepped forward with silent elven grace, started handing out the goblets to the initiates, one by one. "The peoples of the world had fought the darkspawn hordes for more than a century, with no end in sight. Entire nations had been killed, swallowed up by the Blight, their lands poisoned, plagued with mutated monstrosities. Generations were born, lived, and died under the Black Sky, sick and weak and hopeless. Surely, they believed, they were living in the end of days.

"Until we came. From all over the world, soldiers, scholars, and mages came together. Instead of simply fighting their foe, they studied it, to find patterns, tendencies, weaknesses. In time, they developed a weapon, a secret kept by the Order all these centuries. With this weapon, they beat back the Blight, killed the Archdemon, and returned life to the land. But they did not lay down their arms, because they knew that was not the end, they knew the Blight would return. And so they waited, honing their weapon until the day came to use it again. Today, you learn that secret, and take up our weapon for yourselves.

"Every Grey Warden drinks of darkspawn blood, and by the use of old magics comes to master its taint. We draw from it the strength to fight the Blight — toe to toe, blade to blade, blood to blood."

None of the initiates looked particularly pleased about that. They looked into their goblets, giving the potion there suspicious looks, glanced among each other, seemingly waiting for someone else to speak first.

It ended up being Alistair. "The potion gives every Grey Warden immunity from Blight sickness, and even acts as a sort of cure for those already tainted." The fear on Perry's face lessened somewhat, now looking more curious — it was still very early, but they were certain Perry had been infected during their trip into the Wilds, he'd be dead in six months anyway. "The power we draw from the Blight makes us stronger, and harder, and faster. Through it, we can sense and track darkspawn, and even slay the Archdemon itself, a feat no one but a Warden has ever matched."

"This is our secret, our strength, and our sacrifice. Not all who attempt the Joining survive, and those who do are forever changed. This is the price we pay to shield all the peoples of this world."

"Those who survive?" That was Jory, eyes wide with horror. "You mean this cankillyou?"

Daveth next to him scowled. "Of course it can, you big damn ponce, it'sdarkspawn blood." He scoffed. "One way or the other, innit? Die by the blade of a Blighter, die when the taint gets into the food, die right now trying to kick its ass — what difference does it make?"

"But I... There is no glory in this."

"Glory." That was Lýna, but Marian almost didn't recognize her voice — elven voices were normally thin and high and soft, but the disdainful growl she'd put into it, it didn't sound like her at all. "War is noglory, ljèma õ fasethĩ dy-śẽvh."

Marian didn't speak elvish, but she had the feeling Lýna had just called Jory a stupid c*nt, to his face. Which was kind of funny, because she was a tiny little girl and he was a knight in armor, he had to be twice her age and three times her size.

"Is itglory, when your lords make war, kill not each other, they make all on their lands kill theirs — burn villages, kill all there? You think itglory, yourExalted March? Break towns, rape women, kill children, kill aPeople, make them stand never new? You think itglory? No. War is noglory, boy. Glory live only in stories. War is blood, war is fire, war is death. You wear blade, you are nochild, this you must know!"

Surprisingly, Jory actually looked chastened, cringing away from Lýna as she lectured him in broken Alamarri, eyes turned down to the floor, pink and shame-faced. Not that Marian could blame him, she wouldn't want to be yelled at by Lýna either — that girl could be seriously scary sometimes. Of course, a lot of the stories and songs he'd probably grown up with would have been set during the Exalted March on the Dales, so she also just had a good point. "I'm sorry, Warden, I... I didn't mean it like that."

Lýna sniffed in clear disbelief, but dropped it.

(...Now that Marian thought about it, how did the Dalish take the way people tended to talk about the Exalted March on the Dales? Not well, she'd wager. No wonder Dalish were so suspicious of humans, bragging about destroying the elven homeland had been part of their culture for centuries...)

Duncan didn't comment on the byplay, just waited for them to finish before moving on. "We speak a few words before every Joining, a litany passed down from one generation to the next, all the way back to the beginning. Traditionally, it is the most junior Warden who thus speaks. Lýna Maharjeᶅ," he said, nodding, "welcome them."

"Join us, brothers and sisters." Lýna didn't stand in one spot in front of the initiates, as Duncan was. Instead she walked among them, slowly drifting between and around them, touching one on the elbow here or there. "Join us in the shadows where we stand, vigilant." The words came slightly awkward, stilted, she'd clearly taken care to memorize it. "Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn."

It could be her imagination, but Marian thought Lýna shot Jory a heavy look with that one. It probablywasjust her imagination — she kind of doubted Lýna even knew what "forsworn" meant.

"Should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And one day, we shall join you." Lýna had come around back to the front now, came to a stop facing them. "In war, victory; in peace, vigilance..."

She raised both hands, palm up. The initiates took that as an order to drink which, somewhat to Marian's surprise, they all did. Some rather more reluctantly than the others, fear practically dripping off of them, but none of them hardly even hesitated. She was kind of impressed, honestly.

"...in death, sacrifice."

For a moment, there was silence. But only for a moment.

Alim let out a soft choking sort of noise, before toppling boneless to the ground — his reaction was the least dramatic. Keran and Perry and Daveth cringed, let out gasps and cries of pain, falling to their knees and clutching at their heads. After a few moments, pained breaths drawn through gritted teeth, they collapsed too, but weren't so still and quiet as Alim, twitching and moaning.

The other two were horrible. Jory let out a blood-curdling scream, reeling and clawing at his ears, while Bron fell to his knees, shivering and crying. Bron pitched forward and puked, thick black and red, then heaved again, bleeding out of his ears and his eyes, and then a third time, a harsh rattle wrung out of him, before he fell to the floor, covered in red and black smears, obviously dead.

Jory whirled back around, also bleeding from ears and eyes, but his eyes had goneblack, the taint spreading in dark lines under his skin, still wailing and keening, ear-splitting, his shaking hand went to the grip of his sword—

And then, in a blink, Lýna was there, the odd greenish-black blade of her dagger vanishing into Jory's stomach up to the hilt. Jory fell to his knees, Lýna stepped out of the way, blood splashing onto the tile, and then she was standing behind him, lifted her dagger above her head with both hands before driving it down into the back of Jory's neck. The inhuman screaming cut off instantly, and he fell, dead.

Calmly and methodically, her face perfectly blank, Lýna wiped the blade clean on Jory's trousers before returning it to its sheath.

"Maker..."

"I think Alim will make it." Duncan had moved, was crouching over Alim, one gloveless hand resting on the elf's chest. He was frowning, his eyes unfocused. Nodding, "Yes, he'll be fine. Alistair."

"Commander." Alistair's voice was quiet and solemn, uncharacteristically so — also, he'd just actually used Duncan's title, Marian had never heard him use it before. He bent over and, gently, scooped up the elf, stood with him cradled in his arms. Marian had known Alim was a small man, she'd noticed elves tended to be, but he had so much energy, always bouncing around and laughing. Now he looked absolutely tiny, weak and helpless, Alistair carried him as easily as he might a child, down out of the old chapel. He laid him out on a waiting bedroll, pulled the blanket up to his chin — he pushed the hair back off Alim's brow, the gesture weirdly gentle, for Alistair.

"Marian, come here. I could use your help."

She jumped, turned to Duncan. He was kneeling over Daveth, who had gotten worse since last she'd looked, shaking against the stone of the floor. Duncan was trying to hold the younger man in place, his jaw clenched and his face tight with frustration. "I'm not much of a healer," she said, though she approached anyway, kneeling next to him.

"You don't need to be. You can feel the magic of the taint?"

"Yes." Of course she could, it was f*ckingdisgusting, like decay but ten times worse.

Duncan nodded. "Push it down. Hurry."

It turned out, what Duncan wanted from her wasn't particularly difficult. Closer to Daveth now, she could feel the vile magic rising in him, climbing and crawling like fire, she could contain it, surround it and squelch it down. She couldn't snuff it outentirely, no, but she could hold it back, for at least a little bit. Like tamping down a fever, but it kept bucking and resisting, much more difficult to keep it controlled.

Keran was moved over to the bedrolls while Marian struggled against the rising taint — at least two of them would make it. But Daveth was getting worse. The Blight was pushing against her harder and harder, harsh and cruel and unyielding, Marian leaned into it as hard as she could, her muscles twitching and sparks dancing in her eyes, but she couldn't hold onto it, it pushed, itjerked, she slipped—

A thick, black fluid started leaking out of Daveth's mouth, mixing with the blood from his nose and his ears. And then he coughed, tainted spittle spraying into the air, Marian flung herself back on instinct, magically pushing the cursed droplets away, and Daveth was vomiting a stream of black-streaked blood—

"sh*t!I'm sorry, I didn't, I can't—" Marian reached for him again, but he was a mess of hard edges, she couldn't feel out where Daveth ended and the Blight began.

"He's gone," Duncan said, flat but soft. And so he was — with a last strained convulsion, Daveth went still, as dead as the others. "It's all right, Marian. Sometimes, there's simply nothing you can do. Come, Perry might yet make it."

Kneeling on the hard, cold stone, her eyes squeezed shut in furious concentration, Marian fought the Blight again. It was a hard, slow struggle — it would gain an inch, Marian would push it back, she would gain an inch, only to be pushed back again, back and forth and back and forth, no obvious progress being made in either direction. Absorbed in their silent contest, Marian entirely lost track of time.

Eventually, she didn't know how long later, the magic of the Blight in Perry started to... It was difficult to explain, exactly. Like a lake starting to ice at the approach of winter, crystallizing in the middle and gradually spreading toward the edges. The evil magic didn'tgo away, but it froze in its place within Perry, still alive but contained — for the moment.

She kept pushing until the last bit of it stilled, and finally relaxed. She sat back, gingerly, her legs stiff and aching, her knees flaring with pain. "He made it." Her voice came out strained and hoarse, and Marian suddenly realized she wasverythirsty.

"He did." She couldn't see him, her vision too blurry at the moment, but that was Duncan's voice. "That was very well done, Marian. Thank you."

Marian's throat was dry and sore enough she didn't feel like trying to speak again. She just nodded.

Her vision cleared up over the next few minutes, the shivering exhaustion in her limbs gradually fading away. It didn't reallyfeellike she'd nearly burned out but, when she thought about it, she probably hadn't been in danger of that — burn-out was usually a consequence of casting abigspell, or holding for too long something that pulled magic from her quicker than she could pull from the Fade. She didn't think...whatevershe'd been doing to Perry had actually taken that much magic, probably a tiny trickle. She'd just been actively focusing a spell for some time, constantly, without taking a break even for a couple seconds.

Stretching her legs a bit, trying not to wince as her calves throbbed in protest, Marian looked up at the sky. It felt like she'd been working on Perry forhours, but it couldn't have really beenthatlong. Though...the sun was rather higher in the sky than she remembered it being. It had to be nearly midday already. So. Nothours, but maybeanhour.

Which was completely absurd. Most things she did with magic didn't require more than ten seconds to cast. Spelleffectsmight last a lot longer than that, yes, but putting the spell in place usually only took a few seconds of active effort. No wonder she was so tired.

In fact, she kind of felt like she could use a nap. She was having a little trouble keeping her eyes open...

(That little sh*t better be grateful when he wakes up, focusing magic for however f*cking long like that, Marian was lucky she hadn't given herself an aneurysm or something.)

She twitched at a light touch on her shoulder, looked up— "Oh, Lyna." Marian hadn't been paying attention to what was going on around her. They'd tucked Perry in with the others, and the bodies had been moved, leaving streaks of taint-flecked blood behind. Duncan and Alistair were a short distance away, packing the potions supplies and discussing something, and Lýna was leaning over her, holding out a wineskin.

Oh. Yes. Water sounded great. Marian took several gulps from the thing, a little leaking out and trailing across her cheek and down her neck. Twisting it closed again, she made to hand it back, but Lýna, sitting next to her now, didn't reach for it. Okay, just going to hold on to this then, she guessed. "Thanks."

Lýna nodded. She didn't respond otherwise, silently staring at the bloodstains in the middle of the old chapel, face almost eerily still and blank.

After a couple moments of silence, and a couple more gulps of water, Marian was starting to feel vaguely uncomfortable. "So. That was...intense. Is it always like that?"

A few more seconds passed, enough that Marian wondered if Lýna had even heard her at all, before she finally moved. "I don't know. When I..." Lýna trailed off for a moment, the tip of her tongue tracing her upper teeth. "It was me, alone. This is new, for me."

Right, Marian had been vaguely aware of that — Lýna had mentioned something once about getting sick, Duncan coming by, though she hadn't said much more than that. It sounded like she'd joined the Wardens in exchange for not dying a slow, horrible death from Blight sickness, which was perfectly understandable, really. "You okay?"

Lýna's kind-of-not-quite-purple eyes flicked to hers, just for a second before looking away again. "Yes. It is... I learn. How the Wardens are, how I can live like them. I think, with that."

"Ah." She would say getting a taste of the creepy blood magic the Wardens apparently got up to, and how violent their lives were, might have gotten Lýna to take a step back and reconsider what she'd gotten herself into. But Marian very much doubted it. She remembered, when it had become clear that Jory was becoming a ghoul —veryquickly, that shouldn't be possible, but blood magic — how Lýna hadn't hesitated for a second. This was someone she'd known, for at least a week or two now, someone she'd shared a camp with, fought with. And, when it had become necessary, she'd killed him — quickly, effortlessly, without the slightest hint of doubt or regret.

No, Marian didn't think this fiasco had weakened Lýna's resolve, not at all. If anything, she got the feeling it'd only shown Lýna she fit in with the Wardens more than she'd realized.

Which was a bit unsettling, but Lýna was kind of scary, and the Wardens in general seemed to be kind of scary, so really, that just made sense, didn't it?

A long silence fell upon them again. Lýna hadn't retrieved her cloak yet, leaving her rather more exposed than usual. Marian hadn't realized how form-fitting her trousers and vest were, smooth, pale leather, presumably Dalish-made. Of course, it was mostly covered up by scrounged bits of scale and plate fixed here and there, so it wasn't weird Marian might not have noticed before. Just, without the armor, if it were only the clothing underneath, that would bescandalousby the standards Marian was used to, her mother would have a fit if she went out to Lothering wearing anything that...revealing. Must be different with the Dalish.

And she wasn't wearing gloves, her arms below about her elbows bare, Marian had only seen her a handful of time without them. She was sitting with her feet planted on the ground, her knees bent, her arms resting on her knees just under the wrist, her hands hanging limp. Her wrists were too narrow, the base of her thumb taking up much less space than a human's, her fingers long and thin and delicate. They looked so fragile, but Marian knew Lýna could probably kill her with her bare hands if she wanted to (if Marian didn't have magic to stop her, anyway). Certainly couldn't guess that just looking.

Since she didn't have a hood over her head at the moment, Lýna's hair was flittering around a little bit, the light wind tugging bits of it this way and that. She still thought it was slightly weird how verywhiteLýna's hair was, not like in a bad way, she was just saying, human hair never looked like that. For a moment, Marian watched one lock rub back and forth against her cheek, a couple of the tiny flowers tattooed into her skin flicking in and out of view, before noticing how strands were almost constantly tracing the length of her ears — she wondered, did that ever tickle, a little? Marian thought that would be distracting. Maybe that was why Lýna usually wore a hood...

Hmm...

"Six to the Joining, and three survived."

Marian jumped at Duncan's voice, coming suddenly fromfarcloser than she'd expected it, hard enough her breath caught and her boot scritched against the stone. She'd been staring at Lýna again, she hadn't noticed, how long had she been doing that,damnit...

"And three died. They didn't go easy, either."

"Death isn't easy, and it should never be. Half of the initiates making it through is...not as good as we might wish, but it can be much worse. I once witnessed a Joining where only one initiate out offourteensurvived to see the morning." Duncan, only a few steps away now, turned to Marian with a grim sort of smile on his face. "I wanted to thank you again, Marian. Your assistance over these last weeks has been much appreciated, and now Perry would be dead if not for you."

"Oh, um." Marian scrambled for words for a second, feeling unaccountably twitchy. And was sheblushing, f*ck, why was she blushing... "Ah, it's no problem. I'm glad to help." Grateful for the opportunity to keep an eye on her idiot brother, really... "I just wish, Daveth..."

"Don't let that trouble you too much. Even the most powerful, most talented of mages might not have been able to save him — sometimes, there is simply nothing anyone can do. All any of us can do is all that we can. And for that, the Grey Wardens owe you a debt."

"That's, ah..." She trailed off, watching how Alistair was glancing between Marian and Lýna, the corner of his lips curling. f*ck, had he caught Marian staring? Dammit. Knowing Alistair he wasdefinitelygoing to be an ass about that. Marian really hoped she got all the teasing, she still had no intention of letting Lýna know, doing anything about it... "I mean, that's really not necessary, Commander. Covering my ass with the Templars is thanks enough."

And if this battle coming up wentbadly, hopefully she'd be able to snatch Carver out of here and cart him off back home in one piece. If she were being perfectly honest, she didn't actually care that much about the rest of it, the King and the army and the Wardens or whatever. She was here to look after her brother, the rest was secondary.

She'd probably spend a lot more time spying on him if this damn elf weren't soannoyinglydistracting.

(She wassodamn pretty, she just wanted to reach over and—Maker, what waswrongwith her,focus, damn it...)

"Right!" scrambling up to her feet, "I am very tired, from all that stopping Perry from dying, so I'm going to go take a nap. Right now. Bye." Without waiting for a response, Marian stalked off in the direction of the Wardens' camp, putting the horror of the Joining and the distractions of Lýna and Alistairfirmlybehind her. And apparently she'd forgotten to give the wineskin back, oops, she guessed this was hers now.

The whole way, she pretended she couldn't feel Alistair's mocking eyes on her back. The smug bastard.

9:30 Nubulis 10

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Alim watched the meeting in progress, trying to pretend he couldn't hear the Song.

The darkspawn were getting closer. And they were many.

Which was what King Cailan and Teyrn Loghain and their commanders and Duncan were discussing right this moment, he knew — the approaching darkspawn horde, and how exactly to arrange their forces to meet them. Alim wasn't part of this conversation, wasn't close enough to hear what was going on. The Teyrn wanted guards watching over their strategy session, to ward off possible darkspawn incursions or unwanted interruptions (or Orlesian spies, apparently, because the Teyrn was weirdly paranoid), and the King had suggested the Wardens fill the role. And so they were, watching over the big hats around their table, pairs of Wardens scattered in a circle around them.

Somehow, Alim had ended up paired with Perry...which he guessed did make alittlesense. He had been a blacksmith's assistant before leaving for the Wardens — anassistant, not an apprentice, because having elven blacksmiths running around simply wouldn't do — so Perry didn't have the combat training most of the others did. He was almost certainly their weakest fighter at the moment. In fact, he was the only one of them who'd gotten injured atbothof their little skirmishes out in the Wilds...but he'd also survived where two others hadn't, so he was skilled at not getting dead, if nothing else.

He was also not bad with a knife, andverysneaky — almostsuspiciouslysneaky. Alim suspected Perry had actually been a thief, and he was lying about the blacksmith's assistant thing (or maybe he'dalsobeen that, who knows). Which, sure, whatever, he didn't care. Duncan had made a whole thing, both before and after their Joining, that it didn't matter where they'd come from and what they'd been before, they were Grey Wardens now. Besides, Perryhadbeen an elf living in South Reach, it was very possible he'd taken to stealing because he hadn't any other choice, that he'd needed to to survive. Alim knew other people would still say he was responsible for his own choices, or whatever, but he personally thought the world was more complicated than that. (Alim doubted Jowan would have resorted to blood magic if he hadn't been in desperate fear for his life.) And, well, Duncanalsoliked to make the point that Wardens fought the Blight byany means necessary— who knows, maybe the skills of a thief ended up being very useful down the line.

Assuming they survived the battle, anyway. But if they didn't, whether Perry was a thief or not didn't really matter, did it?

So, if they were going to be put into pairs, putting their strongest asset — excluding Marian (debatably, it was a toss-up which of them was the better mage), who didn't really count, Alim was the only mage the Wardens had right now — with their weakest fighter just seemed like common sense. Even if part of Alim couldn't help wondering if Duncan had done it just because nobody else wanted to spend too much time with the shifty elf.

Because, they were the only elves in the Ferelden Wardens right now — Perry, Lýna, and Alim himself. There were the more senior Wardens Duncan had brought with him when he'd come to reform the Order in this country. They were all northerners like Duncan, Revainis and Antivans, and all human men. None of them spoke much Alamarri. The only other senior Warden wasn't at Ostagar, holding the fort back in Denerim. Riordan's parents were Fereldan — obviously, his name wasRiordan— but he'd actually grown up in Jader. So, while he did speak fluent Alamarri, he had a noticeable Orlesian accent — according to Duncan, the Teyrn had accused Riordan of being an Orlesian spy more than once (because he was weirdly paranoid). He was back at the Wardens' lodge in Denerim, because politics.

The point was, none of the ones here spoke Alamarri, so they'd all been paired together. Since there were only six of them, that worked out.

Then, there were they junior Wardens — Alistair and Lýnalessjunior, and then the rest of them, Alim and Perry and Keran. Keran had been a member of the Denerim city guard, apparently, and was a more proper, knightly type. (Supposedly her father was a bann, though Alim didn't recognize the name.) So, she and Alistair got along, more than she did with most anyone else in their motley group, so they'd been put together. And Lýna was...

Well, honestly, Alim wasn't certain where Lýna was. The ruin of the building they were in did have a few crumbling columns stretching over their heads, like the bare ribs of some stone beast — maybe Lýna was up one of those, or hiding in a bush or something. She wasn't paired up with anyone, but they had an uneven number of Wardens, and nobody could sneak around quite as well as a Dalish hunter. She was probably more effective, keeping an eye on their surroundings without some clumsy human around to distract her.

And probably happier — Alim got the very clear feeling Lýna didn't like any of them very much. She'd probably avoid them all the time, if she could help it.

Or...hehadgotten that feeling, before. He wasn't certain how much of that impression he'd gotten was actually the way Lýna felt about them, and how much was her being very Dalish andveryforeign. (And also maybe traumatized a little — word had trickled through the Wardens that Lýna had been orphaned as a small child, and had alreadybeen widowed, which was ridiculous, she was what,maybesixteen? He knew the Dalish expected their children to grow up fast, compared to civilized people, butcome on...) Out in the Wilds, when Alim had dragged Marian back to the group after killing thatf*ckingdarkspawn mage (that thing,Maker...), she'd just stared at him, said,Oh, you're alive, all flat and cold in that way she had, and Alim had apparently read...somethingout of that that he no longer thought had actually been there. When Alim had joked that there was no reason to sound so disappointed they'd survived (onlymostlyjoking), Lýna had seemed taken aback, confused and maybe slightly offended.

He'd been watching, since then, and he thought she was just... That she was quiet, and cold, and a little creepy, but she wasn't being a bitch on purpose? That she was just like that, she didn't mean anything by it. And, at the Joining, giving her wholewelcome to the Wardensspeech, she'd been being softer than usual, touching each of them, and...

Marian focused on her brutal execution of Jory, how she hadn't hesitated a blink — she was clearly horrified by the whole thing, but just as clearly still wanted her, which was hilarious (especially because she didn't realize Alim knew, theyallknew, she wasn't that subtle) — but Alim rather thought Marian had missed the important part. Lýna hadtouchedthem, she'd touched all of them. She did all the time now, just little things, here and there. And she wasDalish.

Maybe Marian didn't know enough about the Dalish to pick up the significance of that. But Alim did.

He remembered particularly, it'd been a couple days ago now, he'd been sitting with the newer Wardens, talking about how...weirdsome of this Warden stuff was. And he'd mentioned the Song, and been a little confused when the rest of the Wardens had said they didn't hear music. They could feel the taint, of course, but they couldn'thearit, not really — at least, outside of their Blight dreams, anyway (and holy sh*t, those wereterrifying). Alim had been a little confused, but just brushed it off, maybe he was imagining it.

Lýna had sat down next to him, taking his hand, her fingers slipping between his. And she'd said, she heard the Song too, magic felt different to elves than it did to humans. (Whichwassomething he was aware of, obviously, the Circle just didn't know very much about the magic of the Blight.) The Archdemon wassinging, through its connection to the darkspawn and the blood connecting the Wardens to them, calling to them.Don't listen to it.He couldn't helphearingit, of course, butdon't. Listen.

And then Lýna had just gotten up, walking away again. The rest of the new Wardens had given him odd looks, asked what the hell was up with that, he'd just shrugged it off. He didn't know how to answer.

He was all but certain Lýna had decided the Wardens were her clan now. With everything that came with that.

Dalish could be very...intense, about their family.

So, as weird and creepy as she could be sometimes, if she was hiding somewhere unseen keeping an eye on them, that didn't really bother him. It was oddly comforting, honestly. In anI-have-a-primitive-barbarian-super-deadly-assassin-watching-my-backkind of way, which wasweird, but hey, he'd been conscripted by the Commander of the Grey before the Templars could execute him for using blood magic (which he hadn't) and undergone ancient blood magic to tap into theBlight itself(ironically) and had an evil dragon godsingingat him. Life was weird.

Sometimes, though, he really did wish the Archdemon would shut the f*ck up. All that creepy, eerie singing really was quite distracting. Lýna said he'd get used to it, which, any day now would be nice...

The big hats were having some kind of argument at the table, though whatever it was was settled quickly. Over the next minutes the group broke up, the commanders heading back toward the camp, the army gathered below. While the King and the Teyrn continued bickering, Duncan waved them over. Alim and Perry started picking across the rubble toward the table, the other Wardens trickling in around them.

He noticed Lýna halfway to the table. He hadn't seen where she'd come from, she'd just appeared, as though out of nowhere. That girl was a ghost, honestly.

As they neared, Duncan spoke — in Antivan, which was related to Orlesian but different enough Alim only caught a few words. With the thumps of fists on chests, the senior Wardens turned right back around, disappearing into the camp, leaving the five junior Wardens behind.

"...it would perhaps be wiser for you to remain with—"

"No, Loghain," the King said, somewhat wearily. "I know where I am needed, and it is at the front."

"Ibegyou reconsider, Cailan!" Teyrn Loghain looked, somehow, older than Alim had expected — his face long and lined and strained under his heavy brow, silver threading the edges of his hair — which was weird, that shouldn't be a surprise. He had to be in his fifties by now, at least... "The darkspawn are a dangerous foe, and they are too many. We cannot guarantee your safety if you insist on this foolishness."

Alim blinked — just, coming right out and calling the King a fool to his face? He guessed, the Teyrn had been King Maric's closest friend for decades, had known Cailan his whole life, and was even his father-in-law and everything. But still...

"Which ispreciselywhy I am needed at the front, with Duncan and the Wardens at my side. You have a brilliant mind for tactics, Loghain, but some things you still overlook too quickly. Why should our men and women risk their lives facing a foe so frightening their king cannot bring himself to fight alongside them?"

The Teyrn reared back a little, his mouth working silently for a moment — probably because that was actually a good point, Alim didn't think he'd expected that. (Fereldans were averywillful people, their leaders usually had toconvincethem to fight for them, mass desertions had been frequent issues in their history.) "In the numbers they have gathered here, I am not certain we can prevail, even if all goes according to plan. What use is there, throwing your life away in such a place as this?"

The King hummed, nodding. "Perhaps we should wait for the Orlesians to join us, after all."

His shoulders squaring, gauntleted hands clenching, the Teyrn growled out, "We do not need theOrlesiansto defend ourselves!"

"No Blight has ever been halted by one country alone. We do not have the men to hold back the darkspawn indefinitely — you have said so yourself, as I recall."

"Then send word to the Marchers! Kirkwall, Ostwick, Starkhaven! Even Markham or Tantervale, if we must!"

"Loghain, the Marchers have no standing armies to send. Except Starkhaven and Tantervale, but the latter is too concerned over border conflicts with Nevarra and Tevinter, and the former with Antiva and Kirkwall. If we want to stop the Blight before it consumes the Bannorn, Orlais is our only option."

"I willneverstand aside to see Ferelden be handed over to those who enslaved us for a century!"

"Then we'll just have to end the Blight here and now, won't we?" The King turned away from the Teyrn, bluntly ending the conversation, to turn a pleasant, sunny smile over the gathered pack of Wardens. (The surly glare the Teyrn was aiming at the back of his head lessened the effect somewhat.) "So, Duncan, this is the team you've selected for the role?"

"They are, Your Majesty." Duncan shot the Teyrn a brief, uncomfortable glance. "They are all junior Wardens, but fully capable — and all native Fereldans. With the exception of Lýna, of course." The point beingno Orlesians, Alim suspected.

"Good, good. Come," the King said, gesturing them closer, "let us briefly go over the battle plan."

Ostagar sat right at the boundary between two drainage basins — to the north emptying into the Amaranthine Ocean by way of the River Drakon, and to the south through the Korcari Wilds, presumably emptying into the Frozen Seas somewhere. The arlings of Redcliffe and South Reach form a sort of bowl, Lake Calenhad and the Drakon at the bottom, sloping up to the west, south, and east, the rim a band stretching from the foothills of the Frostbacks all the way up to Dragon's Peak, not far south of Denerim. The difference of elevation between the rim of this bowl and the basin the southern wilds sat in was rather dramatic, cliffs a couple hundred feet high stretching for hundred and hundreds of miles, steeper in the west and slowly shifting into a line of rocky hills far to the east and north.

Here and there along the length of the cliffs, the stone had crumbled, forming thin, craggy valleys allowing passage between Ferelden and the wilds — beds cut by ancient streams, perhaps, though they were mostly dry now. The old Tevinter fortress of Ostagar had been built over one such valley, one of the more navigable ones. The larger part of the complex was situated over the western side, facing south and east, and there was a smaller structure on the eastern side, facing south and west. The eastern fortress was smaller in size, but it was in rather better shape than the western, having been in use more recently. The general structure of the few outlying buildings were easier to make out and the Tower of Ishal at its center still stood, though it was unstable and leaky enough it wasn't really considered liveable.

Stretching over the narrow slit of a valley, connecting fortresses west and east, was a wide stone bridge, from which old Tevinter guards could fling arrows and spells down at Chasind attempting to travel north, from at least a hundred feet over their heads. Surprisingly, given the thing was over a thousand years old, the bridge itself was still in good condition — some cosmetic damage here and there, but it still stood, and likely would for hundreds of years to come.

From what their scouts could tell, the darkspawn were heading directly this way. It appeared they intended to ascend into Ferelden through this very valley, after which they could spill over the Hinterlands and Redcliffe to the west or South Reach to the east, or perhaps push straight north into the Bannorn, driving a dagger into the heart of the country — if the darkspawn penetrated the Bannorn, Ferelden would probably never recover. Given the relative openness of the lands between here and the River Drakon, Ostagar was the best place to try to prevent that from happening.

Their battleline was drawn across the little valley below them, the bulk of their army dug in there. When the horde approached, the ballistae and trebuchets on the bridge and cliffs would cut into them, hopefully slowing their charge a bit. When they got into bow (and spellfire) range, they would loose the hounds, a portion of their infantry charging out behind them. This would break their lines, hopefully. They would then retreat, drawing the darkspawn in behind them, pinning them between the cliffs to the left and right, the army ahead, and continuing fire from above. Then, once the horde was in place, the Teyrn would lead the cavalry around behind, surrounding them.

According to Duncan, darkspawn had a tendency to go into a frenzy when trapped. While this did make them fight more wildly and fiercely, theyalsotended to strikerandomly— if all goes well, a good quarter of the darkspawn might end up being killed byother darkspawn. The standard tactic for fighting battles against darkspawn was to encircle them if at all possible, entice them into doing some of the killing themselves. Given their respective numbers, they had to pull the same trick here, it was the only way they could win.

The cavalry would be lying in wait, some distance around a bend in the cliffs. In order to keep themselves concealed somewhere they can charge into place in short order, they couldn't actually be in view of the battle itself. So, when the commanders on the ground gave the signal, a fire would be lit at the top of the Tower of Ishal —thatthe Teyrn would be able to make out from his staging field, the cavalry would move as soon as they saw it. It would take some minutes for them to cross the distance between them, the people on the ground would just have to hold out that long.

Alistair figured out what was going on first — or at least he spoke up about it first, anyway. "No! Duncan, I should be on the ground with you."

The King just looked faintly amused, but the Teyrn gave Alistair a stiff, unimpressed glare. Duncan's expression was actually very similar to the Teyrn's, hard and stern. His voice low, cold, without the usual gentle rumble, "Youshouldgo where I put you, Warden."

Alistair winced. "Yes, Commander. I apologize." He almost seemed legitimately sorry, voice meek and eyes downturned, but Alim wasn't certain whether he should buy it.

Duncan held his steady stare for another couple seconds. "Don't fret too much, Alistair. Darkspawn are drawn to civilization — if any manage to sneak around our lines, they're more likely to show up at the Tower than anywhere else. I imagine it's not unlikely you'll come across a few small parties, at the least."

"And we should probably come down to join the rest after the Teyrn comes in," Keran said. "There will be more than enough Blighters to go around, I expect."

A smile twitching at his lips, Duncan nodded. "Just so. Now, we have other business to discuss. Your Majesty, Your Grace, if you would excuse us?"

"Of course, go. I think we're done here." The King swept them all with another warm, sunny grin. "It was an honor to met you all, Grey Wardens. I wish you luck in the battle to come."

With a few bows and mutters ofthank yous andYour Majestys from all the Wardens — with the exception of Lýna, of course, who just gave him a polite (but wholly inadequate) nod — they started off, in the general direction of the Wardens' camp. Practically the moment their backs were turned, the King and the Teyrn started bickering again. Alim confessed to being a little surprised how...undignifiedKing Cailan Theirin and Teyrn Loghain Mac-Tir had turned out to be, but he probably shouldn't be, when he thought about it. The Fereldan kings were not exactly known for being particularly cultured, and the Teyrn had literally been a thief living on the run from the Orlesian magistrates before joining the Rebellion, so.

Duncan spoke as soon as they were out of earshot. "After lighting the signal, you will not rejoin the battle."

"What?!" Alistair had jerked to a halt, the rest of them stopping one by one as they each realized Duncan had stopped too. "What are we supposed to do, sit up the Tower and—"

"We may lose this battle, Alistair."

"Exactly, that's why we need every—"

"No! If we fall here, the darkspawn will move on into the rest of the country — a country with no Wardens! Theremustbe a second line. If we lose this battle, you five will retreat to Denerim. You will meet up with Riordan, and together you will bring together any allies you can find — the Marchers, Orzammar, whatever Dalish clans might be in the country at the time — and you will prepare to continue the fight."

Alistair lookedextremelyunhappy, jaw clenched so tightly the tendons in his neck were sticking out, but after long seconds glaring he finally nodded. "I understand, Commander."

"I hope so. It is an important duty I am leaving in your hands," he said, eyes flicking over the rest of them. "Surviving to prepare the rest of the country for the rising Blight in the event of our failure is more important than killing a few darkspawn in the battle. You may not think itglorious—" He gave Lýna a significant look, clearly referencing that little outburst of hers at the Joining. "—but those things most critical to victory often aren't. If we do appear to be losing, do not hesitate. You turn, and you leave. I don't ask this of you because I think you are cowards, or incapable of acquitting yourselves in a battle — in fact, the very opposite. I ask this of you because it isnecessary.

"Lýna," he barked, the soft, solemn tone to his voice falling away to be replaced by something more stern and military-sounding. The voice of the Commander of the Grey, Alim guessed. "I am promoting you to Warden-Lieutenant, as of this moment. I have already sent a hawk to the First Warden informing him of my decision, but it will be some time before a reply comes. Consider it so anyway."

Lýna's eyes widened, just slightly, the only sign she was even a little surprised.

"You will be in command of the team at the Tower for the battle, and will lead them to Denerim should I die. Should we fall here, and should anything happen to Riordan, you will be the ranking Warden in Ferelden. Do you understand?"

Her eyes widened a little further. She nodded, slowly. "Yes, I think. I will do."

"I know you will." Turning back to the rest of them, "We expect the darkspawn will be attacking midday tomorrow, at the earliest. You may have the rest of the day to yourselves. All the Wardens will be meeting at the bonfire at sunset, until then you're dismissed. Lýna, come with me — we have some officer business to discuss."

Duncan started off in the direction of the Warden camp, Lýna a step behind him on his left, as silent as a shadow. Before Alim could hardly blink, Perry was slipping away, disappearing off toward... Was the quartermaster that way? Picking up a last few supplies ahead of the battle, probably. So, in the space of a few seconds, Alim was left with Alistair and Keran.

Keran spoke first, turning a narrow-eyed concerned sort of look up at Alistair. (Keran might be big for a woman, taller than Alim, but Alistair was a big guy.) "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Hmm?" he hummed, distractedly.

"Lyna being promoted out from under you. Don't you have seniority?"

Alistair actually seemed to be considering it for a moment, lips quirking in thought. "No." Letting out a heavy sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head to himself. "No, I'm not command material. Duncan knows that. Lyna would do a better job than I ever could, I think, it was the right decision."

Well, Alim wasn't about to disagree — it was pretty damn obvious Alistair just didn't have the temperament to make difficult decisions. Thought too much with his heart. Which wasn't abadthing, of course, just not necessarily the kind of person ideally suited to a leadership role in an organization like the Wardens. "Yeah, Alistair would get us all killed in a week, tops." Alistair shot him a betrayed look, comically over-exaggerated. "Did you notice how Duncan pointed out Lýna could easily end up Commander of the Grey in Ferelden if things get bad?"

"I did, yes." Keran seemed vaguely concerned, biting her lip staring unfocused in Duncan's general direction.

Alistair seemed much less bothered, which was sort of funny, given Lýna had basically just usurped him as the senior Warden around here. "Yeah, and did you see how calmly she took it? Allyesser, I understand ser— I would've been losing it if it were me. No, Duncan knows what he's doing, it's fine."

Then again, Alistair seemed to have a very realistic understanding of his own limitations, despite his occasional self-adulatory dramatics.

Keran shook her head. "And you're certainshenoticed that?"

"I'm sure she did." Keran's doubtful look turned to Alim now, he shrugged it off. "Lýna didn't barely react because she didn't understand what he was saying, Keran, Lýna barely reacted because she's Lýna. She's just like that. Try not to worry about it too much. Lýna doesn't know anything about Ferelden or its people — she'll still be asking us for advice all the time, I'm sure. Running the Wardens in Ferelden would turn out to be done by committee, I expect. And that's assuming it comes to that, it might not."

"And how likely do you think it is we'll win this battle, exactly?"

Alim sighed. There was that. "Right, well, if this might be my last day before I meet the Maker, I think I'm gonna spend it drunk. Who's with me?"

9:30 Nubulis 11

Ostagar, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

"She likes you, you know."

Lýna frowned. "What?"

"Marian. She's got it bad."

That 'explanation' didn't make her anylessconfused. Turning away from Alistair, Lýna glanced in the direction Marian had gone off in — not that she was there anymore, she'd jumped right off the bridge to get back down, because mages did things like that sometimes.

It was right just after sunset now, the sky to the west still brilliant with red and orange fire, bright enough even the humans should still be able to see well enough. After some discussion, they'd decided they would wait for the battle to start toward the east of the bridge over the trail, closer to the Tower but somewhere they could still see what was going on. Leaning against the edge, the fires and torches through the army's encampment extending across the trail were clearly visible, in the increasing darkness yet illuminating the figures there, so small from this height she could cover them with a finger, but also starting to throw wildly dancing shadows against the cliffs, too indistinct to make out the shapes, flicking in and out of existence.

There were also fires to the south, just starting to emerge from the trees a few miles away. Torches, hundreds of them, thousands of them, the little points of light blurring together into a single uniform glow, outlining the size of the horde coming at them. (Darkspawn didn't actually need the torches to see, they had better night vision than elves did, they just liked setting things on fire.) It was hard to tell, but Lýna thought they had maybe half again the numbers of the Alamarri army (including the cavalry, who she couldn't see from here). Which, according to Duncan, was a problem, but not an insurmountable one — with superior weaponry and superior tactics, itwasstill winnable.

More concerning was the Song. It was always there, after almost a month she hardly even noticed it most of the time. The eerie, wordless singing was louder now, but with a harsher edge to it, evil magics crying out in gleeful hatred.

The Archdemon wasexcited.

There was some debate, Duncan said, over how clearly the Archdemon could see through the eyes of its enthralled darkspawn. It also wasn't certain exactly how...coherent the Archdemon itself was — it was intelligent, but it was less certain just how clearly it was capable of thinking, or if the Blight drove it fully into wild madness. But Wardens in previous Blights had noted the feeling that an archdemon could identify threats to it, and work to eliminate them in particular.

The Archdemon knew the humans' greatest leaders in Ferelden were here, with a Commander of the Grey. It was eager to kill them.

It also wasn't here. That was part of the news Marian had flown up to give them.

Lýna had heard stories of mages who could fly, but Marian was the first she'd met who could actually do it. Alim could zip around a bit, seeming to disappear from one spot and appear in another, but it had a limited range and only went in a straight line, he couldn't fly like Marian could — apparently, the Templars controlled what magics the imprisoned mages of the north were allowed to learn, and they didn't want them to be able to fly away whenever they wanted. (Which was incomprehensible, people making sure old knowledge was forgottenon purpose, these people's magic-hating religion still seemed very strange to her.) He'd said he'd also heard stories about it, and he'd tried to get Marian to teach it to him, but the way she'd described it had been very confusing and he hadn't been able to figure it out. The feeling Lýna had gotten from Alim was that he thought Marian was a powerful mage, but ignorant and poorly-trained, the few occasions she knew magic he didn't and he couldn't figure it out seemed to irritate him a little.

Their only warning had been the sound of a cloak flapping in the wind, and then a formless, blurry shape had appeared over the lip of the bridge — the brown and silver of her clothes, the black of her hair, streaks of orange light and dancing green sparks, the colors all mixed up into an indistinguishable mess — startling the soldiers manning the ballistae to either side (and Perry and Keran, Alim and Alistair would have felt the magic first), the swirling colors resolving into Marian as she landed, more green sparks skittering across the stone as she skipped to a stop. Ignoring people shouting in surprise around them, Marian had turned to Lýna, told her Duncan said the battle was about to start, and that the Archdemon wouldn't be showing up.

And then Marian had paused for a moment, giving Lýna a look she hadn't been able to read — but Marian did that sometimes, it wasn't really worth noting.

Lýna had already known that, about the Archdemon...though she couldn't sayhowshe knew. Her vague feeling was that the Archdemon was somewhere to the northwest, and far enough away that it was simply impossible it would be participating in the battle. Which meant, on the one hand, they didn't have to worry about actually fighting the thing — Archdemons were like fully-grown dragons, butworse, they were very deadly and very hard to kill — but on the other, this could not be the final battle of the Blight. No matter how many darkspawn they killed, the Blight wouldn't end until they took down the Archdemon.

Which did make sitting here waiting for the darkspawn to come at them seem sort of pointless...but they couldn't let the darkspawn pour north into Alamarri lands either. The chaos they would spread would make it much harder to organize the forces necessary to hunt down the Archdemon, they needed to stop the horde here if at all possible.

After that inexplicable hesitation, Marian had hopped up onto the waist-high wall lining the bridge, and thenjumped off. They were so high up in the air, and she justjumped!Lýna heard the whip of her cloak again after she dropped out of sight, she didn't doubt Marian could fly back down to Duncan perfectly safely — she had flown up here in the first place, after all. It wasn'tnearlyas dangerous as it looked, but that didn't mean it wasn'tveryimpressive, when Marian did things like that.

Marian being impressive, but also not an awful person, was what had started getting Lýna to actually think well of her — the second human ever she'd formed much of a positive opinion of. (Or, northern humans anyway, Chasind and Avvar didn't count.) Though there were a few more now, she'd simply never gotten to know many very well before Duncan. So, turning back to Alistair, she said, "I too like Marian. But, what is bad?"

Alistair grinned, enough his teeth were showing very clearly. "I don't mean it'sbadbad, I think it's great. You should have went for it, gotten in a big dramatic moment of romance before the battle."

...There were a couple words there she didn't catch. She wasn't even certain it was all Alamarri — "romance" in particular sounded very Orlesian. "I don't understand."

An odd sing-song tone coming into his voice, he chirped, "Lýna and Marian sitting in a tree, 'kay Iess essI and gee."

"What...?"

Alim bounced over from where he'd been helping one of the ballista teams with something, sighing with exasperation, but also smirking with amusem*nt. "Oh, honestly, Alistair, you know Lýna can't read. Poor girl has no idea what that means. And she never would have heard the rhyme before either."

...What did Lýna not being able to read have to do with anything?

"Right, right. I was saying, Marian would like to be alone with you, if you know what I mean."

Lýna blinked. No, she did not know what he meant. They'd spent quite a bit of time alone, actually, teaching her how to fight, but she was pretty sure he wasn't talking about that.

He must be able to tell she still didn't understand, rolled his eyes. "I'm saying Marian wants to get herself some sweet elf ass — yours in particular."

...Okay, now it sort of sounded like Alistair was referring to cannibalism, andthatcouldn't be right...

"Oh, come— I'm saying she wants you. You know." Lýna blinked. "Pleasetell me you know what sex is, you're notthatyoung..."

"Sex, I don't know this word."

The disbelief on his face vanished, and he was grinning again. "You see, Lyna, when a man and a woman love each other very much — or, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or sometimes a man and his dogs—"

Alistair was cut off when, at the sight of a flaming arrow rising from the camp below, the ballistae fired all at once. The clanking and the twanging was ear-splitting — Lýna winced, cringed away from the noise instinctively. In the distance, she could barely make out the man-high bolts slamming into the figures of charging darkspawn, killing a dozen at a time, half of them torn to pieces. A moment afterward, fired from the trebuchets set up on the cliffs, large boulders started falling from the sky, most of them wreathed in flames, each crushing another dozen darkspawn on impact, then several more before they rolled to a stop. Some trebuchets had instead lobbed over barrels and smaller pots filled with fire potions, exploding as they hit the ground, flinging liquid flames in all directions, spreading over the darkspawn and leaping one to the next. She could hear the monstrous screaming from here.

Lýna watched the devastation, unmoving and unblinking, thankful she was on the humans' side this time — this sort of thing was why her People didn't attack human towns anymore.

"Maybe thisisn'tthe time to fool around?" Keran had to raise her voice to be heard over the men reloading the ballistae, Alim breathlessly giggling.

"I don't think you know me very well, Keran."

Alim finally calmed enough to cry, his voice strained with laughter, "And– And his dogs! Because, Fereldans, get it?"

Keran sighed, her eyes tipping to the sky for a moment. "Yes, Alim, I get it." Lýna didn't get it, but she was used to most of the jokes the other Wardens told each other going right over her head. "It wasn't that funny."

"Well,that'sa filthy lie, I'mveryfunny."

"I know Fereldans love their mabari, but—Maker, I needed that..." Alim let out a long sigh, wiping at his nose. "So, that's the battle getting started. Should we be going now?"

"Yes." It didn't take that long to get up the Tower, Lýna expected they'd get there in plenty of time, but they should be waiting at the top when the signal went off. The longer it took for the cavalry to come in, the more people would die. Lýna checked quick to make sure Perry was with them, he hadn't said anything in some time — the man wasfarbetter-armed than he'd been on their hunt, a hand axe on each hip and many little knives stuck into his belt, Lýna approved. Not that she was assuming he'd fare better now, but they'd find out. "Come."

Lýna set off at a light jog — internally cringing at the racket the others were making, they hadn't muffled their things — but they hadn't even made it to solid ground when there came a sharp, high keening and then a heavy rumbling from ahead of them, the stone shivering under her feet.

She had heard that sound, only once before: dwarven explosives. They were coming up from below. Taking a quick second to string her bow, slipping it back in place, she skipped ahead, "Come, come!"

The eastern fortress was very noisy, the trebuchets to the south still firing in a constant rhythm, the soldiers operating them shouting at each other. Standing on the circular trail cutting through the fortress — from there following the cliff before turning north, then turning west until it met the road north, where stood ruins of a Tevinter town, then continuing west, turning south to the cliff, then into the western fortress through to the bridge again — were a couple dozen Alamarri soldiers, standing around uncertainly, looking through the gaps in the old wall toward the Tower.

Through the gate ahead, Lýna could see the first signs of smoke, curling out of doors and windows to twist up into the air.

"Come, come!" She passed the soldiers, stepping backward through the gate, beckoning them onward with both hands. "Come!"

Thankfully, a few seconds later there was a deep bellow in a human voice, "With the Wardens!" and then a bit she didn't catch, covered by more creaking of trebuchets and the scraping of swords being drawn.

Between the Tower and the wall ringing it was a narrow courtyard, overtaken by grasses and bushes, the faded outlines of what Lýna guessed must have been housing for soldiers long ago sticking out of the green here and there. The spiky arched main door into the Tower was belching smoke, flickering orange from the firelight inside.

Lýna was about halfway there when a pack of darkspawn started running out to meet them. About twenty of them, looked like, maybe a little more.

Just as her first arrow brained the lead hurlock — the wretched beast, the size of a large human man and leaking black blood from the seams of its ill-fitting armor, collapsing backward to the grass instantly — a streak of blue light passed by on her left, frigid air clapping over her back, and Alim was in front of her, both hands wreathed with flames he planted his feet and threw a thick stream of fire at the darkspawn, pouring over the center of the group, setting alight three, seven, ten. A dense pack of arrows, maybe a dozen total, cut into the flailing, burning darkspawn, a few clattering into armor but most finding flesh, a couple more dropping dead.

Alim hadn't caught all of them, archers had already split off from the pack, Lýna spotted three slipping away to the left. She paused for a second on the ball of one foot, loosed, ran a few steps as she reached for another arrow, her first shot taking one of the archers in the throat, she drew, paused, loosed, running and reaching, her second shot was as perfect as her first, there was another streak of blue as Alim zipped over to the right, an ear-splitting crackle of lightning tearing through four archers on that side all at once, she drew, paused, a couple arrows hit the archer she was sighting, one skipping off its chest plate and the other digging into its shoulder, it reeled from the hit but it wasn't down, she was tipping over waiting for it to slow so hopped to her other foot, paused,now!a feathered shaft sprouted through the genlock's visor, it flopped down to the dirt—

The other three had passed her, Alistair and Keran tromping over still-smoldering grass to meet the remains of the pack, Perry flitting along in their wake, hitching to a stop, a two-handed swung bringing the head of his axe down and around and up into the neck of a scorched darkspawn as it tried to rise, Alistair slammed into a hulking hurlock with his shield at full speed, knocking the thing to the ground, ducked and sidled forward past the swing of a heavy axe from another hurlock, his foot coming down right on the first one's neck, Keran stabbed the one with the axe under the armpit, another round of arrows from behind finished the rest of the injured, Alistair slapped away an incoming sword, twisted around on his heel to cut down at the genlock's neck — also probably crushing the throat of the one he was standing on, the black hands scrabbling at his knee had gone suddenly limp — Keran whirled around to smack a genlock across the face with the edge of her shield, Lýna picked off the second genlock approaching her with a shot in the throat, Keran yanked her sword out of the hurlock she'd stuck it into and whirled it around to cleanly cut off the thing's head, Alistair ducked under a swing from a hurlock and stabbed it in the knee in the same motion, drove up shoulder-first to knock it off its feet, the genlock Keran had slapped was coming back, she was busy gutting another at Alistair's back but Perry was there, smashed the back of its elbow with the solid back of the blade, knocking its sword from nerveless fingers, whirled around to chop into the back of its head—

"Help!" Alim was a bit ahead, facing an absolutelymassivehurlock, over a head taller than Alistair and as broad as him and Keran put together, sheathed in more carefully-crafted armor, black with ribs of white traced with bronze, twisted horns stretching from its full-face helmet. The shield Alim had been carrying on his back was strapped to his arm now, he slipped out of the way of an overhead swing from the thing's mace, tried to scramble back but it darted ahead after him, a few arrows clattered uselessly against its armor, a sideways swing came in at Alim but he turned to catch it on his shield, the force of the impact still taking him off his feet, crashing to his back and rolling over his shoulder he popped back up, teetering dizzily back a few steps.

Lýna frowned — why didn't Alim just kill it? Was that armor magic-proof? Was there such a thing?

Alistair charged as Keran and Perry finished off the last of the pack, barrelled into the huge hurlock shield-first again, only knocking it back a few steps — though successfully distracting it from killing Alim. It swung at Alistair, the blow caught on his shield, pushinghimback a couple steps, he sidestepped a jab, stabbing it in the gut, but the point glanced off its armor. Alistair staggering, off-balance from the turned stab, the hurlock raised its mace, Lýna's shot struck it in the throat, but the arrow bounced off, didn't seem to do any real damage — though it did make the hurlock retreat a step, shaking its head as though dazed, distracting it from killing Alistair.

Keran slashed at its arm, her blade too skipping off its armor; its return swing was caught directly on her shield, Keran fell hard on her back. Dropping to her knee, Lýna drew another arrow, and she waited, the fletching tickling at her lips. Alistair stepped in to cover Keran, turning its mace aside and giving it a good kick, forcing it back a few steps. He traded blows with the thing back and forth for a moment, sidestepping or redirecting its blows instead of catching the full weight of them, his deft swordsmanship — quick and darting, slipping in and out before the hurlock could react — drawing a few guttural shrieks as he penetrated its armor, but they were only shallow cuts, hardly slowing it down. Another volley of arrows came in from the Alamarri, clattering against the thing's armor, forcing it back again, Keran was on her feet, coming in to—

Slipping in from behind with a hard two-handed swing — probably the most powerful he was physically capable of, even using the momentum of dropping to his knees — Perry buried his axe in the back of the hurlock's knee. The force of the blow tore the haft from his hands, Perry scrambled away, but the axe had cut deep enough it stuck where he'd put it.

The hurlock screeched in pain, a wild flail of its mace forcing Alistair and Keran to retreat a step, it raised both arms and bellowed out a challenge, and—

Lýna's arrow stabbed deep into its armpit.

It screeched again, Keran came forward, slashing for its wrist, it stepped back, nearly collapsing as it put weight on its injured knee, Alistair was charging again, it tried to bring its mace up but its arrow-pierced shoulder didn't quite cooperate, before it could get a good swing going Alistair had crashed into it. Overbalanced, it couldn't backpedal quickly enough with a bad knee, it fell heavily onto its back. Alistair hopped to its left side, then forward, driving the point of his sword into its throat.

The hurlock was still screeching, though it sounded strained this time, wet with blood. Alistair set his shoulders, leaning hard against the pommel.

It abruptly went silent.

"What thef*ckwas that?!" Alim's voice sounded rather higher than usual, jittery with an edge of panic. He was staring down at the monstrous hurlock, his eyes wide and his fingers shaking, stuttering, "That– It– I couldn't— Was that adarkspawn Templar?!"

Oh, okay,that'swhy Alim hadn't just killed it — it had anti-magic, like Alistair. That made perfect sense, then.

His sword already wrenched out of the fresh corpse, Alistair moved to stand on its thigh, so Perry could retrieve his axe. Giving the hurlock a speculative look, he said, "Right, Duncan said some of these can do that. Congratulations, recruits: you just took down your first alpha. Hard sons a bitches, and some can nullify magic too — keep an eye out for them."

Looking horrified and a little green, Alim shivered.

"All well?" she asked, stepping up to them, idly reaching around to count the arrows she had left with her fingers. Most of the ones she'd shot had been set on fire or crushed or were too far out of the way, not worth retrieving any.

"I'm good to go, boss lady."

Perry finally managed to get his axe out of the hurlock's knee, stumbling back a couple steps. Wiping at his forehead, he nodded. "I'm fine."

Still staring wide-eyed at the hurlock, Alim said, "If I ever have to see another one of those monsters in my entire life it'll be toof*ckingsoon, but I'm all right."

"Strained my shoulder a little," Keran said, tenderly stretching her arms, "but I'm okay."

Lýna nodded. "Alim, help her."

Keran opened her mouth to protest, but before she could get a word out Alim was already there, hands glowing white with healing magics, so she shut her mouth. Good — there was no point letting one of their swordsmen walk around injured when they had a mage on hand, that was just begging to get her killed.

Around this time, the Alamarri finally caught up. They were looking around at all the darkspawn corpses, wide-eyed, some of them open-mouthed. Impressed, clearly, some of them cheered a bit, smiling and joking with their neighbors. Their leader, a tall, barrel-chested man with a very hairy lip — which always struck Lýna as odd, elven men didn't grow hair on their faces like humans did — gave Alistair a look. "Sure you need our help? You lot took care of them pretty well on your own."

"Don't be so sure, there's a lot more where those came from. We may need you yet."

"Well, we were guarding the Tower anyway, not about to walk away. Press on?"

Alim had just finished healing Keran — not surprised, probably just a little bruising from that one good hit from the big hurlock — so Lýna opened her mouth to— "Hold on, a friend taught me a spell to shield you all from the Blight. I just need a second."

Lýna nodded. "Okay." It was probably that rain-blocking spell Marian had mentioned, if Alim thought he could keep that up on all of the soldiers and still fight she trusted him. She started toward the door, but at a walk, slowly enough the others could catch up easily once Alim was finished.

She hung back a bit, not far from the entryway — the flood of smoke had cut down somewhat, still trickling out but not quite so thick and dark as it'd been before. Glancing around for a second, she spotted Perry, sidled over to him, set her hand on his shoulder. He jumped at the contact, whirled around to face her. "Ah, uh—" He coughed. "Yes?"

She still made Perry nervous, apparently. "This was good. From now, keep their backs, Alistair and Keran." They hadn't discussed his place in a fight beforehand, Lýna hadn't been certain he'd be much use at all, but that had actually worked out very well. She was pleasantly surprised, honestly.

Perry blinked, taken aback. "Oh. Sure, I can do that."

Once they'd all caught up, Lýna nodded, and Alistair and Keran charged through the entryway, closely followed by Perry and a few of the better-armored Alamarri soldiers. Lýna slipped in after them, glancing around the bottom floor of the Tower. Once she'd learned what her role in this battle would be — and once Duncan was finished talking her through a few things Warden-Lieutenants were expected to know, which her improving but still terrible Alamarri hadn't made easy — Lýna had taken a couple hours to explore the Tower and its surroundings, mapping it out in her head. Each level was roughly circular and somewhat smaller than the one below it, the bottom one so wide Lýna felt certain it was the single largest closed space she'd ever been in. Well, mostly closed, there were a couple big arched doorways and a few narrower windows here and there, but still, it was huge, larger than the Wardens' camp, the ceiling high over her head. And almost completely empty — along the outer wall there were a few racks of falling apart wood and bits of equipment so badly rusted she couldn't tell what they were supposed to be, but other than that, flat tile floor and nothing else.

That flat tile floor had been ruined. A big hole had been punched through it, wide enough for five hurlocks to walk side-by-side, chunks of stone scattered across the room seemingly at random, the smaller pebbles and the larger bigger than Lýna. The explosion had clearly set everything in the large room on fire, but there wasn't much to burn, only small fires still smoldering fitfully here and there, some of the debris smoking, the air thick enough she couldn't make out the ceiling.

And there were, of course, more darkspawn.

A thick pile of debris to the left mostly blocked off that side, the others were curving around the hole in the floor to the right, but Lýna noticed a few hurlocks on the other side of the rubble, already raising crossbows. "Alim! Left!"

Alim zipped past her, smoke curling in his wake, reappearing on top of one of the chunks of displaced stone, his boots skidding. He shoved out his hand, there was an odd hard thrumming noise, and the archers were flung backward, in the direction of another several darkspawn back that way. To the right, Lýna picked off an archer aiming for their people, and then another just before it got off a shot, loosing the arrow in its death throes but too high, skimming past a soldier's shoulder and across the room before clattering against the wall over Alim's head.

A messy scrum had developed ahead, three Wardens and several Alamarri warriors meeting the main pack of darkspawn in a melee too chaotic for Lýna to follow, but at a glance it looked like their people had the advantage, Lýna ignored it in favor of picking off another archer. There was an ear-splitting roar of thunder and a crackling of electricity coming from the direction Alim had shoved those archers, probably taking out the whole group he'd pushed them at all at once while he was at it. She was just sighting what she believed to be the last archer when the genlock was stuck with a hail of arrows, few of them well-aimed enough to be deadly on their own but together more than enough. Darting closer to the melee, she scanned the room, looking for—

Her heart leapt into her throat: standing not far from the doorway leading to the stairs was a genlock, fingers of lightning flickering around its hands.

Lýna loosed without thinking, or even pausing to aim properly, the arrow thunking against its chest and bouncing off. But she'd distracted the darkspawn from whatever it was casting — she assumed the same really dangerous lightning spell the one they'd met in the wetlands had used, might have killed the whole group with that. It twitched, turning to look at her, its hand raised, greenish-white light gathering in its palm—

Another shot was already streaking in at it, it abandoned the spell again, smacking the arrow out of the air. It tried to ready another spell, but Lýna had already loosed again — it couldn't cast faster than she could shoot, she just had to hold it there long enough for Alim to finish up—

The darkspawn mage twisted, stretching into a swirl of black shadows and flickering green light — it had taken flight, just as Marian could. (The magic lookedverysimilar, Lýna assumed it was the same.) Lýna watched for a second, it was movingtowardher, apparently assuming she'd be more vulnerable at melee range, she dropped her arrow and yanked out the silverite sword Duncan had gifted her after her Joining. It would probably try to come up behind her and— Yes, it was curving to the left, Lýna stepped back, spinning to the right, a back-handed slash arcing down and—

With a warm brush of wind and a snapping noise the darkspawn landed, magic crackling in its hand, silverite dug into its leg, just above the knee, black blood spraying across the shimmering white-silver metal. It staggered, but it wasn't down, it would take a moment to get the blade out of its leg, Lýna released her bow and drew her dagger, a burst of icey air slapped against her face, she rose to slam it home under the rim of the darkspawn's helmet, deep enough the hilt clinked against the metal. It toppled back, limp, nearly dragging her with it, a torrent of dark blood spilled over its chest when she managed to slip her dagger lose again.

A foot against the darkspawn's knee helping her wrench out her sword, she gave both a harsh flourish, blood and gore whipping off them to splash to the tile — and nearly cutting Alim, whoops, she hadn't realized he was standing that close. He blinked at her for a second as she sheathed both blades and bent to retrieve her dropped bow and arrow. "Well, Iwascoming to rescue you, butnever mind. Remind me not to pissyouoff,Maker..."

She was lucky, really — if that mage had been smart enough to appear a couple steps further away that never would have worked — but she smirked at him anyway.

At that point, the fight was already pretty much over, only a few more injured darkspawn to finish off. While the others wrapped up, Lýna walked to the edge of the hole in the floor, leaned over to look down into it.

And then leaned back again, the bolt from a crossbow whizzing by inches from her nose. Well,thatwas closer than she'd like...

Before she could even open her mouth to say anything, Alim tossed a fireball from somewhere behind her, drooping down into the tunnel — there was a crackling of released magic, a fwooshing of fire exploding to life, a screaming of dying darkspawn. "This," she said, pointing, "you..." She trailed off, frowning to herself. "Fix, can you fix?" That wasn't quite what she meant to say, but it would do.

Alim came up next to her, leaning over to gaze down into the hole. Scowling a little, probably at the smell of burning darkspawn flesh, he nodded. "I think so. Give me a minute." He reached for his belt, a pouch hanging there, and flicked a large pinch of glittery powder into the air, a pale violet with a silvery shimmer to it. Lýna blinked — was that lyrium dust? Before it could fall very far, Alim shoved out a palm, the dust freezing in the air with a heavy thrum, sparks shivering across the floating specks. The dust attracted to his finger, he drew a shape in the air, glowing a sharp blue-white, then paused a long moment, frowning to himself in concentration.

Mm, some kind of enchantment, probably — Lýna had seen the Keeper do something similar on two occasions. Leaving him to it, she wandered back to the rest of the group, checking up on them quick. A few of the soldiers had gotten minor scrapes, only one hurt badly enough to be out of the fight. Alistair and Keran were completely untouched. Perry had caught an elbow or something in the face, which would bruise pretty badly if Alim didn't take care of it, but was otherwise fine.

If Perry was going to be in the thick of it all the time, they should probably find him a proper helmet. Humans didn't tend to shape them with elves in mind...

"Hey, is he okay over there?" Alistair said, nodding over at Alim. "That's a hell of a lot of magic he's pulling."

Lýna just shrugged. Alistair wasn't wrong, Alim's spell was powerful enough the air tingled, and she could evenhearit — a much more pleasant song than the Blight's, bouncy and cheerful. She could probably count on her fingers the number of times she'd been around magic powerful enough she could hear it. But Alim knew his limits better than they did, there was no point in second-guessing him.

Alistair was about to say something, but he cut off as a high, clanging snap ran through the air, followed by a noisy rumble of stone grinding against stone. A few of the soldiers teetered a bit as the ground shuddered under the feet, only for a few seconds before settling into place, the noise ended. Whatever Alim had done to the hole in the floor, it had thrown a cloud of dust into the air, grains of sand raining down all the way to Lýna, halfway across the room.

It had also clearly taken quite a bit out of Alim — he was doubled over, his hands on his knees, taking thin, shaking breaths. Alistair started moving toward him, Alim plucked a little glass vial from somewhere, threw his head back and downed it. "Woo!"Alim threw the vial away, shattered glass skittering across the tile. All signs of strain gone he was bouncing on his toes, "Let's kick some Blighter ass, let's go, let's go!" clapping his hands with eachgo, little blue sparks flung out with the hits.

The Alamarri soldiers looked a little disturbed, even Keran and Perry a bit, but Alistair chuckled. "You know, you're going to be feeling that tomorrow."

Alim turned a grin on him — wide and toothy and half-mad, his eyes sparkling. "You shiny c*nt, I'm already feeling it. Let's go!Woo-hoo!"He hopped off the bit of debris he was standing on, started skipping toward the stairs up.

"He is well?"

"He's fine," Alistair said, lip curled with an odd sort of smile (reluctant?), "it's just a lyrium high. It'll wear off in a few minutes. But if he takes too many more of those he's gonna regret it tomorrow — the hangovers from lyrium potions are brutal."

Well, they might not be alive tomorrow, so that didn't really seem like a problem to worry about too much right now. Lýna nodded, to let him know she understood, waved for their group to get moving again.

The wide stairs led them up to the second level, which was somewhat more closed in than the first, both in that the ceiling was lower and that the space was split up into multiple rooms. Well, sort of, the internal walls weren't innearlyas good of shape as the outside — they were thinner, and made out of a different material, Lýna thought — so they were crumbling apart a bit, little holes showing, in a few places sections entirely collapsed. Which was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. Her People, as a rule, didn't tend to spend much time in hard-walled enclosed structures. The Chasind did, more often than not — Lýna had visited this one village's lodge a couple times, and she didn't like it, felt uncomfortably surrounded, she didn't know how they could stand it. (The humans all around had probably played a big role in feeling surrounded, yes, but the solid walls didn't help.) The inside of the Tower was open enough, enough holes poked through it here and there, that it didn't bother her the same way.

(If theydidn'tdie today, Lýna would leave to live with the Wardens, mostly in human spaces in the north. That was going to take some getting used to.)

Oddly, there didn't seem to be any darkspawn on the second floor at all. They hadn't killed all of them yet, Lýna could still feel them around, they must have continued climbing. Lýna lead the Wardens and the Alamarri on a few shortcuts through holes in the walls, the quickest path to the way up — at least, it was the quickest path for her, she hadn't realized some of the larger men would have trouble getting through a couple of the gaps. It took a little longer than she would have guessed, but before too long they made it to the stairs.

In the lead, Alistair jerked to a stop, his shield whipping up in front of his face even as a hail of arrows fell on them. She heard a few high clinks of arrowheads hitting shields and armor, a few shouts of pain, bodies falling down the stairs, one caught in the hood of her cloak, yanking it back off her head, she ducked in behind Alistair, using his larger, better-armored body as a shield. While the others scrambled out of the way, Alistair lingered on the stairs longer, leaning up to peek over the top of the stairs a couple times; Lýna waited, pulled the darkspawn arrow out of the cloth of her hood, confirmed it was in good shape with a quick look over before sticking it in her quiver. Finally, Alistair was moving, carefully stepping backward, his shield held between himself and the steady stream of arrows falling from above.

They'd taken a few nasty hits this time. Naturally, they'd been going up with the most well-armored people at the front, just in case they did run into an ambush exactly like this one, but some had reacted to the attack quicker than others — they'd lost three men to unlucky shots in the throat, a couple others had arrows sprouting out of shoulders and thighs. Alistair would have a few bruises on his legs tomorrow, but his armor had done its job, and the rest of the Wardens were fine. Alim set into quick healing the less serious injuries — the leader of the soldiers argued at first, but Alim pointed out the ones with the worse injuries would probably live without his help (probably), but with it the less injured would be able to fight on, so they were the priority, which their leader accepted — and the rest quickly settled in to working out how to push through the darkspawn's position.

Lýna wandered around, scavenging darkspawn arrows from the mess scattered across the floor, turning the problem over herself. They could have all their people carrying shields make as solid of a wall as they could, but they didn't have the equipment for that, even if it went perfectly they might end up losing several more people before they got to the archers. Someone suggested Alim cover them with a barrier, but Alistair shot that one down. Barriers against physical objects were harder to cast than ones against magic, and he could only cast one spell at a time — he might be able to hold back the arrows, but he'd have to go first, which meant one of the darkspawn could just run up and gut him, and he probably wouldn't be able to react quickly enough to save himself. (Mages wereverydangerous, but they were just as vulnerable to a blade in the gut as normal people, as Lýna had just proven downstairs.)

Frowning to herself, she measured the distance with her eyes. If the top of the stairs wasthere...they would want to have some cover, just in case, and given how the walls on the third level were placed... If Lýna were setting up an ambush, she'd put her peoplethere, andthere...which meant...

Alistair, Keran, and the Alamarri leader were still talking strategy, so Lýna slipped away, sprinting through the crumbled rooms to the outside wall, about a third of the way around the Tower from the stairs. There was a gap in the outer wall here, a window that had been worn away by time, cutting a gash into the stone. Gripping the edge with one hand, she leaned out as far as she could, looked up the outside of the Tower. There was another gap in the third floor, exactly where she'd thought, more to the side than straight up, and... Yes, that looked good.

The men were shouting at each other when she got back, Alistair and the Alamarri, about...Lýna herself, it sounded like. They both sounded rather angry, actually. She didn't have the context to get what they were talking about, but it probably didn't matter. She drew attention to herself with two quick claps of her hands — she doubted she'd be able to make herself heard over a few human men yelling at each other. Everyone turned to look at her, surprise and relief flicking over a few faces. Confusingly, Keran looked almost guilty, Lýna probably wasn't reading that right.

"There you are, Lyna!" Alistair said, grinning — though, there was an odd, crooked edge to it, Lýna wasn't sure what that meant. "Figure out a plan?"

She nodded. "Which can climb?" Lýna raised her hand.

"Climb? You mean the outside of the Tower?"

"Yes. We climb, attack from the back. Those here, they go up stairs when they hear. Both side, kill easy."

"Oh, that's good, I like it. Let's do that." Alim raised his hand.

Hands started going up, Perry first and then several of the Alamarri, somewhat more reluctantly. "Right, I'll stay down here — my armor's too heavy to climb the Tower, I think." Well, obviously, Alistair was wearing heavy plate, Lýna would be seriously impressed if he could keep up in that sh*t. Waving at a group of the Alamarri, "You lot go with them. Is there a signal we should be listening for?"

"Lightning," Alim said. "Lots of lightning."

Alistair's lips twitched. "Right. See you on the other side."

Back at the gap in the wall, Lýna slipped through it, her feet coming down on a narrow ledge at floor level. Looking at the others over her shoulder, she pointed, "Left." She sidled along the ledge for a bit, jumped across a narrow gap to one of the Tower's ribs — at least, that's how she thought of them, bits that stuck out a few feet, made of a somewhat lighter stone than the main body, strips running to the ground and curving all the way up to the base of the top floor. Lýna had noticed at a glance they had ledges at regular intervals, very climbable.

There was a bit of mumbling behind her, she looked down to see two Alamarri leaning around, doubtfully eyeing the gap between the ledge and the rib. "Oh, honestly, Lýna. Hang on." A shelf of blue-ish ice crusted with white frost sprouted out from the stone, and Alim stepped way from the wall, standing on the ice. The ice spread, Alim drifting forward to form a platform at the end of the ledge, the ice then spread from both sides across the gap to the rib. Alim took a breath, clenched his fists, and the texture of the ice changed, turning spikier, rougher. He skipped across his little bridge — proving it was both sturdy and not too slippery — lightly pulled himself up onto the rib. "There you go, gents. No more than two on the ice at once, please." He then glanced up at Lýna, rather exasperated. "You know, not everybody grew up running around in the wilds."

Lýna clicked her tongue, continued up without answering. She hadn't given that little gap much thought, honestly — they weren't that far up, if they didn't want to make the jump they could have just lowered themselves to the ground and climbed the rib from the bottom. But fine.

She was nearly to their hole in the third floor, all of them climbing the rib now, when she twitched at a noisy clattering, arrows hitting stone, coming fromfartoo nearby. Leaning around, there were a few darkspawn at another hole in the wall, looked like the fourth floor. At least they didn't have a good angle, she might have been hit before she'd even noticed they were there. Scowling to herself, Lýna reached for her bow — aiming while trying not fall off wouldnotbe easy, but maybe she could...

She heard the familiar sound of Alim zipping around, she glanced over to find he'd thrown himself up and back,away from the wall, he hung there for a moment, blue light blooming around his feet, and then a streak as he wentzip, right past the darkspawn shooting at them.

A second later, three dark, twisted figures came flying out into the open air, plummeted down to slam into the ground.

Lýna climbed up through the hole a minute later, turned to help up the Alamarri man just behind her. When about half of them were up, Lýna heard that noise again, waved at the next man in line to wait. There was anotherzip, blue light streaking past her and frigid air slapping her over the head, Alim skipped across the floor, running right into one of the soldiers. She waved them to start coming in again, left them to it.

"Whoops, sorry. I've never tried doing that in mid-air before, dismount could use some work." The men chuckled, gave him a few muttered thanks, friendly pats on the back. Alim winced once he caught sight of Lýna walking toward him, cringing just a little. "Yeah, I know, I shouldn't jump out ahead like that."

"No, is good." So far as Lýna could tell, the only times so far Alim had been in serious trouble had been that big fight in the wetlands, and just now against the alpha — she'd trust him to know his own limits until he gave her reason to think otherwise. He should certainly know them better than she did, she had very little idea of what mages from this Circle of theirs were capable of. "You are very brave."

Alim just stared at her for a second, before breaking into a crooked grin. "I believe the word you're looking for iscrazy."

"Yes, this too."

He laughed.

Their ambushers turned out to be exactly where Lýna had expected them to be, crouched behind two half-crumbled walls a short distance from the stairs. A nasty branching lightning spell from Alim took out several of them, a volley of arrows took several more, Alim got off a second lightning spell just as Lýna was setting up her fourth shot, and the other half of their people were charging from the opposite side, Alistair in the lead. Lýna closed the rest of the distance with four quick steps, stabbing a darkspawn trading blows with Keran in the kidney from behind, shoved it away with her foot, brought her sword back around and sliced another across the throat.

And it was finished, they were all dead.

Lýna took a quick glance around, confirming they hadn't lost anybody, and started off again. They didn't run into any more darkspawn on the third floor, and no more than five on the fourth — Lýna, Alim, and one of the Alamarri archers downed them all easily, Lýna barely slowed. The fifth floor was the top, a single room much smaller than the first. There was a large, circular hole in the ceiling, a net of metal descending a couple feet down in a little bowl, at the moment filled with straw and wood.

There were a few bodies scattered across the floor, three humans and four darkspawn. It looked like the ambushers on the third floor had come up here to kill the people manning the signal before going back down to prepare for them, or perhaps the stragglers on the fourth floor had been on their way down after the fight here. Either way, they were alone — assuming the work Alim had done sealing up the tunnel was holding, it would stay that way.

There was some talking and laughing among the Alamarri, but Lýna didn't bother paying them much attention, could hardly understand half of it anyway. She walked up to one of the windows, looked down in the direction of the bridge. Yes, good, she could see it from here. They hadn't called in the cavalry yet, they'd made good time.

She heard a shuffle and a chinking of metal come up behind her — Alistair. "Did you notice, they were trying to stop us from getting to the signal fire."

"Yes."

"How did they know?"

Lýna shook her head.

Over the next minutes, the Alamarri soldiers left, descending back through the Tower to return to their posts on the circle trail. Alistair and Keran had both removed portions of their armor, Alistair on his legs and Keran over her left shoulder, healing magics dancing over Alim's hands. Perry was just wandering back and forth around the room, seemingly at random, fingers nervously tapping at his axes.

There, a green light flared to life just where the bridge met the western cliff, obviously magical — that was the signal. "Alim, now."

The darkspawn had put out the torches when they'd been up here, but it didn't matter, Alim set the signal fire alight with a wave of his hand. He then pushed more magic into it, the fire spreading unnaturally quickly — the old, scared human with the rest of the army would be able to see it sooner, good thinking.

Lýna took a second to reinforce the idea that she should tell Duncan how well Alim had done tonight. They'd all fought well, of course, but Alim had shown creativity, initiative, a willingness to take additional risks onto himself to look out for his people, and had remained in rather good spirits the entire fight — she didn't know how humans thought of these things, but her People considered those to be leadership qualities. The Fereldan Wardens were short people just in general, but they especially needed people who could be depended on to help Duncan run things. He should keep Alim in mind.

Honestly, Alim knew much,muchmore than Lýna about the people of this country, he had grown up here, and she'd gotten the impression being able to read was...sort of important? Alim was probably a better choice for Warden-Lieutenant than Lýna, but he did act sort of silly most of the time, Duncan might not have realized that.

Though even if he had, he might not have picked him. Duncan had told Lýna, in their private talk, that one of the most important reasons why he'd promoted Lýna and not Alistair was because he wasn't certain Alistair would be able to make terrible but necessary decisions. The Grey Wardens fought the Blight, byany means necessary— Alistair didn't understand that, and Duncan wasn't certain he ever would. Lýna did.

Judging by how he'd reacted to the Chasind mage out in the wetlands, Alim probably didn't either. Oh well.

Lýna turned over all that on the way back down the Tower, mostly ignoring the other Wardens chatting around her. (She wasn't even certain what they were talking about, it was all too easy to miss a few words and completely lose track of what was going on.) Before long they were crossing the courtyard again, walking past the corpses from their first fight — they really should burn those, but they'd keep until after the battle. The eastern fortress was a bit more of a mess than it'd been when they'd left, scorched remains of darkspawn arrows scattered all over the place, one of the trebuchets at the cliffs on fire. It looked like the army on the ground was justbarelyin bow range, blindly lobbing flaming arrows over the edge. There were even a few darkspawn corpses here and there, but not many, a few had probably climbed over the cliffs trying to stab the people at the ballistae and trebuchets in the back. They were still firing, though, it hadn't worked.

On the way to the bridge, Lýna came close enough to one of the darkspawn corpses to make it out — she scowled, her stomach turning. It was obvious that hurlocks sort of looked like humans, in their size and the proportions of their limbs, genlocks rather more like dwarves. These, which the Wardens called shrieks, looked vaguely elven, in the roundness of the shoulders and narrowness of their limbs and the shape of their heads, but twisted into uncanny monsters, their bodies stretched, arms rather longer than they should be — in fact, they often ran on all fours, with an awkward wolf-like stride — their fingers lengthened into claws, each fixed with deadly razors.

Her People didn't have a name for these, they preferred not to speak of them at all. The others were bad enough, but the shrieks would come in the night, silently picking off scouts only to slip away again. And their appearance, a corrupted mockery of elves, their voices, high and screeching and teeth-grating, the way they fought, light and sinuous and too-graceful, absolutely deadly. Shrieks had been viscerally horrifying to her clan in a way the other darkspawn weren't, and Lýna didn't disagree, these things just lookedwrong. And they were scary — she and a few other hunters had gotten in a fight with a small pack of them once, probably the single most terrifying experience of her entire life.

Tearing her eyes away from the vile thing, Lýna forced her feet into motion, following the other Wardens back to the bridge.

The darkspawn had reached where the Alamarri were dug in some time ago, and the battle seemed to be going relatively well. Squinting through the darkness, Lýna could see the fortifications and trenches were doing their jobs, funnelling the darkspawn into a thin enough trickle the Alamarri spearmen could kill them all without too much difficulty. As she watched, a wave of shrieks came bounding over their defences — her fingers itched out of want for her bow, but there was no way she could shoot accurately from this distance, not a target moving that quickly — aiming to cut down the spearmen from behind, but they were wiped out in rather short order, torn apart by bolts from crossbows and men with sword and shield. Lýna even spotted Cailan in his shiny golden armor, fighting side-by-side with one of his commanders, that might be Duncan and a couple senior Wardens. Cailan managed to kill three of the shrieks himself before returning to watching the line.

Lýna hadn't been particularly impressed with the Alamarri leader, thought him soft and silly, but it looked like he was actually pretty damn good in a fight. She stood corrected.

"Dammit, I can't see anything down there," Alistair groaned, leaning over the side of the bridge. "What's going on, has Loghain come in yet?"

"The line holds." The humans turned to her, eyes widening as they realized she could see — Perry looked surprised too, which was weird, he should be able to see just as well as she could. "Duncan lives, and Cailan."

But they couldn't hold out for too much longer, Lýna didn't think. The darkspawn had brought in ogres — huge things, two to three times the height of a human and many times their weight, with clawed hands and long, twisted horns, rather like a halla, save for how they bent and kinked in places. (She'd seen an ogre only once before, her clan had fled rather than try to fight it.) They had been tearing at the fortifications, trying to open up holes in them. Obviously, the Alamarri couldn't let that happen, there were a dozen massive corpses along the trench, scorched by magic or impaled with bolts from ballistae. But they were doing damage, they'd break through eventually. And the constant fighting was taking its toll on their warriors, mostly the spearmen, some darkspawn slipping past to harry the swordsmen at their backs.

They still had some time left, but it was starting to fall apart.

Lýna looked up, toward the south. She didn't see any horsem*n. How long had it been, since they'd set the signal? It should take some time for them to come around, but...

The humans were arguing, Alistair saying they should go down to help, Keran insisting Duncan had ordered them not to for a reason. And Lýna watched, and she watched, looking for the cavalry to come around from behind, close the noose around the darkspawn.

Lýna glanced over at Alim. He turned to meet her eyes, cold and angry, his arms crossed rigidly over his chest. Grimacing, he nodded.

Loghain and his men weren't coming.

Lýna closed her eyes for a moment, gritting her teeth, forcing back the familiar dread coiling in her stomach, the murderous rage crawling up her throat. Her People had fled from the darkspawn, from the Blight, they'd run so many times. Lýna was so tired of running. But she had a job to do.

Byany means necessary.

Chapter 5: Interlude

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 12

Lothering, South Reach, Chasingard, Ferelden

Wake up.

The land stretched below her, living green and gold speckled with red and blue, rising and falling, rolling to the horizon. She flew lower, the wind playing at her hair, swept over the trees, squirrels dancing in their branches, birds flicking about, deer following the course of a river, a pair of wolves stalking them not far behind, and then she was past, farms spreading out below her, men and women working, the giggling of playing children, she could see it all, spread out beneath her, she—

There was a rumble from the south, dark and deep and ravenous, hatred crawling over her, purple lightning flashing at the horizon.

Wake up.

The rumble grew louder, and louder, andlouder, until the hateful notes were stabbing into her eyes, tears streaming down her face, her bones shivering—

Wake up, little raven.

Blackness spread from the south. An unnatural, sickly thing, a thick, sticky substance that poured from hill to hill. It covered the plants, and it covered the deer and the wolves, it caught the birds, and it consumed them all, suffocating them and dissolving them. And the black spread, and spread, it swept over the town, the people screamed and ran but they couldn't run fast enough, it crashed over them and smashed them to dust, and even swept the dust away, their homes crumbling until there was nothing left, there was nothing left—

The rumbling coursed through her, hatred and rage, high and clanging, the clashing of metal and the ringing of screams—

Wake up.

All below her was black, so thick and empty andnothingshe couldn't even see the curve of the hills anymore. Above, dark clouds threaded with unnatural violet lightning, below, black, black, black, there was nothing left,nothing—

She saw a glimmer, color,there!There was something in the midst of the black, something alive, she made out more detail as she flew closer, a stalk, leaves green threaded with hints of yellow-orange, the splayed petals of an orchid. Its form was that of embrium, but the color was wrong, not deep red, but white —intenselywhite, like a cloud on a sunny day, freshly-fallen snow, pure and unblemished.

The sick hatred pulling at her loosened, just a little, something light and giddy bubbling up her chest, the flower grew out of the black, and it was beautiful, and looking on it she—

Wake up, little raven.

Wake up.

Sucking in a harsh gasp, Leliana bolted upright, nearly toppling right out of her bed. She felt like she'd been running, her breath hard and thin, her body shaking, muggy with sweat. Folding her legs, she leaned forward, rubbing at her face, she struggled to control her breathing, to calm down.

The Blight. She'd dreamed of the Blight — what else could that have been, that hateful blackness, consuming all the world?

The King's party had passed through town not so long ago, accompanied by what few Wardens Ferelden had. Mother Vichiénne hadn't believed the stories of a Fifth Blight rising in the south, still didn't, and neither did many others.

Leliana herself had been skeptical. People could frighten easily, and a frightening tale gained teeth with each person that told it. But now...

Her dreams were never wrong. Confusing, difficult to interpret, sometimes. But notwrong.

(Though she still didn't know why the Maker called herlittle raven.)

Still shaky, her bedclothes sticking to her sweaty skin, Leliana levered herself out of bed, crawled across her tiny little chamber to her altar. She lit her candle, for a moment simply stared into the flame, her head still spinning with the rumbling howls of inhuman hatred, bodies crumbling to nothing, screams and cries.

Composing herself, she bowed her head, found her voice with a brief hum. "Holy Andraste, Chosen of the Maker, carry my voice to Him, so that He may hear me; Holy Andraste, Chosen of the Creator, carry my Song to Him, so that He may have mercy.

"Glory to you, O Maker, may Your Song rise from every land, now and forever and evermore, have mercy on Your people;

"Praise to you, O Creator, save Your people from ruin and deprivation, may they find community in Your chosen, may they find peace;

"Glory to you, O Maker..."

Leliana found her thoughts wandering through the dawn prayer, more than they should. Even on an ordinary day, she found it difficult to concentrate on these things, sometimes. She knew the words, of course, and she was sincere, of course, but...

"...Holy Andraste, beg us His mercy; Oh Maker, give us peace..."

She didn't know what it was, really. Perhaps she would get used to it in time. She hadn't been here long, she hadn't even taken her solemn vows yet. Maybe...

"...O Creator, see me kneel: for I walk only where You have bid me; stand only where You have blessed; sing only what You have placed in my throat..."

She didn't say such things aloud to Mother Vichiénne, but honestly, she thought all this singing and praying in cloister was sort of silly. She understood the idea of it, that they were singing for those who could not, interceding on their behalf much as Andraste did for them all, but...

"...O Maker, hear my cry: seat me by Your side in death; make me one within Your glory; and let all once again see Your favor."

...but...

"For You are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only Yours to give."

...butthatwasn't true, was it? Leliana trailed off, sat back on her heels, frowning absently.

She'd gotten into arguments with the other Sisters about this, more than once. She'd gone to the Chantry partially because she had nowhere to go — all the way out here, the south of Ferelden, about as far from home as she could possibly get without braving Tevinter or the Qun... She'd been running away, yes, but that hadn't been the whole of it. She'd been runningtowardsomething as well.

After her confrontation with Marjolaine, after hereverythinghad fallen apart, it had been Mother Dorothea who had drawn her into the Chantry. She hadn't intended to, she didn't think, she doubted Dorothea knew where she was, what she was doing. She couldn't even be certain Leliana was still alive. But as the world shifted around her, as she'd been left lost and alone, Leliana had grasped atsomething— and she'd remembered Dorothea.

Revered Mother Dorothea was loved by the people of Valence. A sizeable town in the Heartlands, not so far from the capital, Valence had wealth enough but, as was too often the case, the common people saw little of it themselves. In the region, Dorothea was most well-known for her charity, for feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, building shelters for itinerants and orphanages for children. She sent her Templars after brigands, sometimes even against the men sworn to local lords. She interceded on the people's behalf, begging lords rule with wisdom and tribunals show mercy.

Thatwas the Chantry Leliana had imagined. Teach the Chant, yes, bring its wisdom to the powerful and its hope to the powerless, its comfort to those in despair, yes. That wasn'tunimportant, of course not.

But the Chant fed only the soul. A body still needed to eat.

The Chantry she imagined wasn't Sisters shut up in cloister, singing for the ears of Andraste and the Maker alone, no. The Chantry she imagined was one closer to the people, one active in their lives. One that spoke not only to their spiritual needs, but their material ones as well. Perhaps once she was a Mother, she'd have more freedom to do as she thought they should, but...

Sometimes, she wondered if she should have returned to Valence instead of coming to Ferelden. She wasn't even certain why she'd come here.

(The storm came out of the south, black and terrible, no, she knewexactlywhy she'd come here.)

Before long, they were called to morning service. Her thoughts had wandered too much, she was behind, she had to scramble a little to get dressed. She trailed into the chapel after the other Sisters, got a rather reproachful look from Sister Kendal as she slid in next to her. By some miracle, Leliana managed to not smirk tauntingly back at her.

The morning service was mostly the same every day. A very abbreviated version of Andraste's story which, despite howverymuch the liturgy cut out, still took half an hour. There were a few portions that were swapped out on rotation, this time a couple passages from Trials.

Leliana smiled, mouthed,I have faced armies with You as my shield, and though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing can break me but Your absence.That was in Trials, but it wasn't one of the versus sung, she didn't know why she thought of it.

Toward the end, Mother Vichiénne gave a brief sermon, reading a passage from the Divine's latest encyclical and elaborating on it a bit. Leliana couldn't help frowning a little at the message — lecturing the faithful to not concern themselves with earthly matters, tosing only the Chant, to seek the Maker's wisdom above all else. Not for the first time, she got the impression that the Divine was...perhapstoo deeply engrossed in the culture of Orlesian nobility. It was all well and good to tellthemto not get so wrapped up in earthly matters, accumulating greater wealth and playing their petty politics. It was another thing entirely to give the same lecture to the people of a rural village like Lothering, those in attendance mostly farmers and low craftsmen.

(She realized it might be impious of her, but Leliana didn't think she liked Divine Beatrix much.)

After that, there were a few more songs, mostly quoted from Exaltations and Transfigurations, and it was done. Leliana sat for a moment longer, watching the Sisters and the people who'd attended — who weren't many, the people of Lothering tended to prefer evening services, and a significant portion of the village had left south with the King — as they moved about, chatting with each other. Mother Vichiénne was standing before the altar, Knight-Captain Bryant nearby, a short line of penitents forming to speak to her. At the back of the line was a familiar girl — fifteen or so, long curly black hair, fidgeting at her sleeves with obvious nervousness.

Smiling to herself a little, Leliana stood up, silently slipped over to the girl's side. "Maker watch over you, Bethany."

The girl twitched in surprise, squeaking a little. "Oh, don'tdothat!" she hissed, lightly whapping Leliana on the arm. "Honestly, Sister Leliana, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days."

She really meant she might accidentally kill Leliana if she was startled too badly — the Mother and the Templars knew the Hawke sisters were hedge mages, half-trained by their father, an apostate from Kirkwall. (The Sisters didn't know, and Leliana wasn't supposed to, but joining the Chantry hadn't put an end to her habit of eavesdropping.) So far as Leliana could tell, the danger of a mage accidentally hurting people around them in an emotional outburst was far less than people made it out to be, she wasn't worried. "Mm, maybe if you weren't so distracted, you would have heard me coming."

"Ineverhear you coming. I don't know how you can be so quiet in those Chantry robes."

Practice, mostly. "That's a secret of the Sisterhood, I'm afraid." Some of the Sisters, including Leliana, teased Bethany aboutsecrets of the Sisterhood, things they could only speak of with other Sisters (or Mothers), most of which was nonsense. The other Sisters were pretty sure Bethany would be joining them before too long, but that was impossible — they didn't know Bethany was a mage, mages were forbidden from taking vows.

Bethany pouted at her.

"Yes, you're very adorable. I still can't tell you. What do you wish to speak with the Revered Mother about?"

"Oh." The girl frowned, leaned around one of the local merchants to eye the head of the line — the Mother was wrapped up in a conversation with Miriam, appeared to be going nowhere very slowly. "I wanted to ask for a benediction."

"Now, Bethany, we are friends, aren't we? You can tell me if you feel you need intercession."

Bethany opened her mouth to speak, then immediately closed it, her cheeks pinking. There were multiple sorts of prayers a lay person might seek with a Sister or Mother. A benediction was, in general, asking the Maker for a blessing of some kind, good fortune or good health or the like. An intercession involved asking the Sister or Mother to beg forgiveness on the penitant's behalf for some sin or other — in Leliana's experience, the sins in question were most often sexual indiscretions.

The girl fidgeted in embarrassment for a moment before Leliana took pity on her. (Bethany wassucha shrinking violet, if she were growing up in Lydes with Leliana one of her aunts would have dragged her off to a brothel to get it f*cked out of her by now.) "I'm sorry, Bethany, I jest."

"It's all right," the girl muttered, shrugging.

"What do you want a benediction for? I know most of them, I think, if you want. It looks like the Revered Mother might be a while."

Bethany sighed. "It's... Carver and Marian, they're both at Ostagar, we haven't gotten any news, and... I don't know if they're even still alive," she finished, voice falling to a whisper and her eyes turning away from Leliana's. Anxious, scared, embarrassed.

"There's no shame in fearing for them, Bethany — they're your family, it's only natural. But, as it happens, Idoknow this one. If you want to sing with me instead of waiting for the Revered Mother."

"Oh. Yes, I would like that," she said, lips turning with a shy smile. "Thank you."

She just bet she would, Bethany would probably beg her for stories once they were finished. When she'd been a child, Leliana had had an obsession with stories and songs, she'd collected all kinds of them, from books or from Lady Cecille's friends and servants or from minstrels and even bards — her own time as a bard had only resulted in her acquiring ever more, even composing a few of her own. Bethany didn't come into town too often — the Hawke family farm lay some miles out of the village, Leliana only very rarely saw her at morning service — when she did they frequently ended up spending hours talking in the gardens.

Bethany sought her out consistently enough Leliana sometimes wondered if she were trying to get in her pants, but she was almost certain it was innocent.

(Sisters took vows of chastity, of course, but nobody really expected them to keep to them. Just last autumn, one of the Sisters had been found to be with child, she'd happily left the Chantry to marry the father. These things happened.)

A few moments later, they were out in the early spring chill, crossing the gardens toward their usual spot in the corner. They were hardly halfway across when Leliana froze. Her heart rising up into her throat, she stared wide-eyed at a particular patch of dirt, hardly able to breathe.

Halfway through Nubulis, it was still early in the season. Some trees and bushes were budding, some wildflowers and the like just starting to sprout, but it wasn't even quite planting season yet. An enterprising farmer or two might be getting started early, but... Herbalists, it was much too late for winter planting, spring planting didn't usually start until Eluviesta, maybe the last weeks of Nubulis. Nothing should be flowering now, not until early Molloris, mid-Eluviesta at the earliest.

Stretching through the grass, under the shadow of a row of bare, budding bushes, stood a strand of herbs. Leliana had tried planting several last year — she'd told Vichiénne she had some experience with potion-brewing, and the Mother, pleased, had suggested she plant some healing herbs in the gardens. She hadlessexperience with that side of the process, some of her seedlings had done well, others not so well.

Embrium was a rather finicky plant. Requiring a particular mix of sun and shade, relatively rocky soil, but not too acidic, it took an experienced herbalist to grow embrium consistently. Which was unfortunate, because embrium was even better than elfroot for healing potions, especially in salves for burns and frostbite, the difficulty in raising it kept prices relatively high. Leliana's amateur attempt at growing embrium had hardly produced sprouts before they'd all died.

Those right there, deep green stalks, lighter leaves streaked with orange, those were...

Numb, Leliana stumbled slowly to the herbs. There should not be embrium here. Especially notbloomingembrium. There should not. Her embrium had died, every one. And it wasfartoo early for embrium — in the wild, embrium sprouted in Eluviesta and didn't fully bloom until Matrinalis, and herbalists hadn't managed to subvert its natural coursethatfar.

"Those are pretty. Orchids? Did somebody transplant them from somewhere up north? It's too early for orchids."

A breathy whisper, "They're embrium."

Bethany was silent a moment. "Aren't embrium red?"

"They are," Leliana said, slowly nodding. These were embrium, the placement of the leaves, the form of the flowers, unmistakable. She stretched out a hand, shaky fingers approaching inch by inch, before touching them...

They were real. They weren't an illusion, Bethany had seen them too, she couldn't be hallucinating. They werereal.

White embrium, exactly like in her dream.

Feeling the grin pulling at her own face, Leliana pushed herself back up to her feet, turned back to Bethany. "Shall we get started? I have a good feeling the Maker will be listening."

On their way to their usual corner, she couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, her eyes drawn to the impossible flowers, blooming wildly out of season and in the wrong color. Looking upon them, she had the same feeling that had come to her in her dream, giddy and cheerful and light...

Leliana had nearly forgotten what hope felt like.

9:30 Nubulis 13

Southron Hills, South Reach, Chasingard, Ferelden

Marian stumbled into the clearing, giving the little space a skeptical look.

This far off the road, there were occasional places where the topsoil thinned too much for trees to take root, the ground too hard and rocky for anything but grasses and hardscrabble bushes to grow. The trappers and hunters of the arlings of South Reach and Redcliffe greatly appreciated these — no matter how deep into the hills they went, there were always places to camp. Marian had grown quite familiar with them herself, over the last couple days, they were far more convenient to sleep in than the depths of the forest, where there might be stalks and branches from bushes or the like all over the place.

For a moment, she considered simply passing through, continuing on until she came to the next clearing, or possibly the next. But no. Her limbs were shaking with exhaustion, her back a mix of stings and aches. And worse than that, the flow of strength supporting her was wavering, the magic keeping her going fluttering with her breath, the back of her eyes itching, an odd metallic tingle at the back of her throat, an unpleasant sickly heat spreading through her chest — she'd been channelling too much magic for too long, teetering on the edge of burn-out. There wasn't much daylight left, if she had to cast some light on top of everything else...

No, she couldn't keep going. She needed to rest, for a couple hours at least.

Toward the middle of the clearing, she bent over, carefully setting Carver's limp form down on the grass, his legs first, pushing his chest back over her head and down. Then she released the familiar spells strengthening her body, and collapsed next to him.

She was sotired.

She felt like she was being pressed into the dirt, a heavy weight resting on her head to toe, took an irritating effort even to lift a finger.Everythinghurt, aching and shivering, carried over from the exertion of the battle itself, and then carrying Carver through the hills for...

Had it been two days? She was pretty sure this was the second sunset she'd seen since the battle, which had itself started just after sunset. So it'd been, what, a day and a night and a day and another night and then yet another day since she'd properly slept? She'd gotten a few minutes here and there, but she couldn't stop, she had tokeep moving...

She'd opened up some distance from the darkspawn, but not enough to risk a full night's sleep. If she let her eyes stay closed she would... As soon as she wasn't in danger of burning out anymore, she had tokeep moving.

(Marian forced down the frustration and exhaustion, bit back tears, with ease of long habit.)

With a groan, Marian rolled over onto her elbows, shakily pushed herself up to her knees. Carver hadn't woken up this time. He looked somewhat lopsided, with the armor and clothing over one arm missing, showing bare skin from shoulder to fingers — he'd taken a nasty cut, she'd had to cut it off treating him and quickly decided it wasn't worth trying to repair. She wasnotmuch of a healer, but she had managed to reverse the damage, seal the cut up, mostly by throwing all the magic she could at it and praying for her stupid little brother tolive dammit. It'd worked, but the effort had thrown her straight into burn-out, she'd passed right the f*ck out, probably for an hour or two.

And just in time too — the darkspawn had caught up while she'd been unconscious, she'd barely managed to pick Carver up and get away.

Her inexpert healing had managed to keep Carver from bleeding out, but she'd obviously donesomethingwrong. Ever since, he'd been terribly feverish, his face still looking flushed and streaked with sweat, his wet hair messily pasted here and there contributing to his general disheveled appearance. He'd woken up a few times, but never very long, and when he had he'd been a bit delirious, hadn't seemed to quite understand what was going on.

She thought he might be getting better. Maybe. Stretching out with her still-shaky magic, she could feel the fever burning at him, tamped it down on instinct. (What she'd done at the Joining felt very similar to helping control a fever, no wonder she'd figured out what to do so quickly.) It could be her imagination, but she thought it was weaker than last time she'd done this. It didn't take quite as much power to keep Carver's temperature down as it had at its worst, it didn't resist quite so strongly as it had before. She couldn't be certain, she wasnota healer, but it looked like he was going to make it.

She bit her tongue, took a second to wipe at her eyes (or maybe more than a second). He'd had her worried there, the little sh*t...

There was a low, breathy moan, a scrape as Carver shifted. "Dad?"

Maker, that wasn't helping with the whole trying not to cry thing. She wished their father were here too, he'd been amuchbetter healer than she was. He'd said they'd get into it eventually, but that it was very finicky, to do it properly required a lot of knowledge about magic and also how all that sh*t in bodies worked. It was anenormoustime investment, and very advanced, they'd get to it when she was older.

And then he'd died before she could get older. She'd been younger than Carver and Bethany were now, and they'd beensolittle. Bethany had been inconsolate for weeks, crying at the drop of a pin. Carver had tried to be strong, acting all solemn and quiet and dignified (which had been kind of hilarious, coming from a little kid). Marian hadn't bought it for a second, of course — she'd known the twins sinceliterallythe day of their birth, if they wanted to fool her they had to try a whole lot harder than that. Theystillcouldn't fool her, much as they sometimes thought they could. There was a difference between them getting away with it and Marian deciding toletthem.

(That incident with Carver lying to Mother's face and running off to play soldier notwithstanding.)

Choking back unwanted damnfeelingsagain, Marian brushed Carver's hair out of his face — still damp with sweat, but not so bad as before. "It's me, little brother."

Carver let out a hum. He turned to her, his eyes opening a little. He seemed to be having trouble focusing, eyes flicking to the side now and again and squinting a little, but it was the most coherent he'd looked in some time. "I was just... That spell just now..." His eyes closed again, shaking his head. "Dad... That time I fell in the river, you know, around Wintersend? He stayed up with me, and..." Hesoundedmore coherent, too, so, that was good.

And yeah, she remembered that, of course she did. She and Dad had been out hunting, and the twins had been running around getting into trouble like little idiots — Carver had fallen through the ice on the river (a little brook, really), which he'd been walking on around Wintersend like a f*cking moron. (He'd been, what, five or six at the time, butreally.) He might have been swept away to be drowned or frozen to death if Bethany hadn't managed to yank him out with magic. And he'dstillalmost died, ended up catching pneumonia, he'd been terribly ill for a week.

That was, in fact, when Father had taught her to help people with fevers in the first place. "That wasn't Dad, that was me."

Carver's brow creased in an absent sort of frown. "He stayed up with me for days..."

"No,Istayed up with you for days." Dad had had too much work to do, with spring on the horizon, he hadn't had the time to stay at Carver's bedside stopping his fever from turning his brain to mush for days straight.

"He read to me..."

"Still me." There were an abnormally large number of books in their house given they were just farmers — some Mom had taken with her when she'd left home, some Dad had stolen from the library at the Kirkwall Circle, some they'd picked up over the years. Keeping that spell on Carver hadn't beendifficult, but she'd had to stay within a couple feet of him, so reading was really the only thing she could do to pass the time. Half the time, when her voice cooperated, she'd read out loud because...well, why not? Carver had been pretty out of it, she hadn't realized he remembered that. "You ass."

"Oh. I thought..." He trailed off, still frowning to himself.

Probably thought the idea of Marian diligently sitting with him in sickbed looking after him for days straight was unimaginable. She knew Carver thought she didn't like him much...for some reason, she didn't really get it. Bethany was much more forthcoming about it than Carver ever was. Apparently, it had started when Dad had still been around — he'd been a bit jealous, that both of his sisters spent so much time with him on their special magic lessons and everything, a little resentful for taking Bethany away. (She and Carver had been inseparable when they'd been little, still were close, if somewhat less so.) And then after, Marian had hardly had much time for him at all, but she'd still kept up the magic lessons with Bethany. Eventually, he'd come to the conclusion that Marian simply didn't like him.

Which, that was just f*cking stupid. Yes, she hadn't had time to play around with Carver or whatever, but she'd been kind of busy — you know, making sure there was food for him to eat, and clothes for him to wear. The magic lessons were a priority too, unless he wanted Bethany to be outed to the villagers, or accidentally kill herself somehow, or get possessed by a f*cking demon, that waskind of important. But, she'd been too busy to fool around with Carver, so clearly she was a terrible big sister. Her bad.

Despite Bethany explaining it a couple years ago now, she'd never brought it up with him. It was irritating, she'd probably end up yelling at him, and that wouldn't do any good.

At some point, her hand had found his, their fingers lacing together. She hadn't meant to do that. "I'll always take care of you, little brother."

...

"Even when you're being an annoyingly little sh*t."

Carver let out a guffaw, shifting into a cough. After a few seconds he stilled again, smiling blearily up at her. "f*ck you too, Marian."

Yeah, he'd be fine.

(She bit her tongue again, blinking, dammit,notthe time for that sh*t...)

"Here." Marian unhooked a wineskin from her belt, warmed it a bit with the tiniest application of fire magic, scrunching and shaking the contents around. She twisted off the cap, started levering her arm under Carver's shoulders. With an exasperated sigh, he pushed himself upright, swaying dizzily. "Woah, hey, slow down. You okay?"

He'd managed to steady himself, breathing harder than he should, but he hadn't fallen over again. "Yeah. Well, no, I feel like sh*t, but I'm fine." He took a swig out of the skin, then gagged, one hand covering his lips. "Andraste's— Whatisthis?"

"Water."

"That doesn't taste like water."

"I added shredded elfroot and crushed tack." She shrugged — she'd had to keep Carver goingsomehow, it'd been the only thing she could think of.

"That's f*cking disgusting, Marian."

"Yes, well, it's the only elfroot we have, and you're still not well, so either you drink it or Imakeyou drink it." Reaching into her pack, Marian pulled out a square of tack — or, a vaguely rectangular chunk, anyway, she'd already eaten half of it. "Unless you'd rather trade?"

Carver grimaced, probably at the idea of eating tack without broth of some kind to soften it in. He gave her a surly pout, but he took another gulp from her concoction, coughing again at the taste.

"That's what I thought." She cast one weak spell to freeze the cracker, immediately followed by another to heat it up again. Tack was pretty much impossible to eat without softening it in something, but she'd found freezing it then heating it could loosen it enough to get bites off — it was still hard, made her teeth ache, and of course very dry and terribly bland and stale, but it was edible, at least.

Carver managed another gulp, gagging some more. Taking pity on him, she handed him her last piece of jerky. They had to be nearly to Lothering by now anyway.

Or, halfway, at least? She wasn't certain, she'd been avoiding the road...

"Where are we?"

She shook her head. "Somewhere between home and Ostagar. I've been walking a couple days, but it's been slow going."

"Ostagar isn't that far away."

"It is when you're carrying someone bigger and heavier than you on your back."

Carver had nothing to say to that.

"We'll rest, for an hour or two." The unpleasant tingling of burn-out was starting to recede, Marian cast a fire with a wave of her hand — sitting right on a protruding bit of rock nearby, nothing was actuallyburning, magic could be interesting like that. "If you can walk on your own by then, that'll help. I think we might make it home tomorrow. If not, the next day."

Nodding along, Carver hardly seemed to be listening. He was poking at his naked arm, an odd look on his face, distant. "You pulled me out of the battle."

"Yes." It hadn't been easy, either — she'd had to kill like twenty darkspawn single-handedly, and flying with him had beenhard.

It almost looked like he was going to protest, her saving his life and dragging him away from the battle like a disobedient child. "The King?"

Oh. Maybe that hadn't been fair of her. "I didn't see." She'd left the King and the Wardens the moment she'd noticed Carver's position being overrun, she hadn't looked back. "I haven't heard anything, but..."

"But?"

"It was pretty bad, Carver. I don't think he made it."

Carver sighed, rubbed at his forehead with the fingers of one hand. Marian looked away, pretending not to see whatever reaction there might be on his face, chewing at her tack. (She'd set a few trees on fire to blow off steam when she'd put together what must have happened, she understood.) "And the Teyrn?"

"He wasn't at the battle. The Teyrn or his men."

"What?" His hand dropped into his lap, nearly spilling her concoction — which she was certain Carver would deeply regret if he did, what a tragedy. He stared at her for a moment, face blank with incomprehension.

No, not incomprehension —disbelief. That Teyrn Loghain Mac-Tir couldrun awayfrom a battle, abandoning to die his best friend's son, his own son-in-law, betraying Ferelden and her King... Marian wouldn't have been able to imagine such a thing could happen. She hadn't put it together until afterward, why the battle hadn't gone according to plan — not until she'd been on the road, and some of the Teyrn's men had started killing some of those who'd managed to flee, just, butchering them on the road from horseback. Marian had escaped into the trees with Carver by the skin of her teeth, she'd avoided the road ever since, fleeing from the darkspawnandthe f*cking Gwaren army.

(That was when she'd set the trees on fire — when she'd realized not only that the King had died, but that the Teyrn had betrayed him, and was even now killing the men and women who'd survived the battle, loyal sons and daughters of Ferelden who were guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time — the rage building in her chest too great for her usual methods to contain it, she'd needed tobreaksomething.)

(She'd sort of scared herself, honestly, she didn't want to think about it.)

"That... No, that can't be. Teyrn Loghain wouldn't just... Are you sure?"

"Yes, Carver, I'm sure. The Teyrn wasn't at the battle. He left." She wasn't going to tell him the rest of it, not now. When he was in better shape, sure, but stressing him more than necessary wouldn't do him any good.

Carver flopped onto his back, his hands coming up to rub at his face. "I can't believe it. This is... I just can't believe it."

"Yeah."

"We're f*cked. With the Blight on, and Loghain killing the King, all theWardenswere there... Ferelden issof*cked."

"I think Lýna and Alistair's team probably made it." She hadn't seen them since before the battle started, but they'd been up on the cliffs, well away from the fighting — in fact, she suspected Duncan had kept them out of danger on purpose, so Ferelden would still have Wardens if the battle went badly. "But you're right. There will be a civil war, on top of the Blight."

From what she understood, compared to the rest of the world Ferelden was an unstable country at the best of times. Calenhad the Great hadn't so much "united" the Alamarri as he had won the fealty of various chieftains and petty kings (not all of whom had even been Alamarri at the time). When Calenhad had been born, the teyrnirs of Denerim, Gwaren, and Highever had been independent kingdoms; the modern arlings of South Reach and Redcliffe had made a fourth, and the West Hills and Edgehall had made a fifth. (They were called Chasingard and Avvarskild these days, though that's obviously not what they'd called them then.) And then there were the Bannorn, they hadn't been one kingdom then but a whole bunch of tiny ones, or tribesmen with no loyalty beyond their own kith and kin.

Calenhad the Great had won their loyalty, yes, but the King was really the only thing keeping the scattered regions of the country together. It was often assumed by foreigners that the son of the King became King, and that was that, but it was actually more complicated than that. Nobody was acknowledged as King of Ferelden simply because his father had been, he must be accepted by the Landsmeet first. If the King had an obvious heir, he (or she) would run the kingdom until a Landsmeet could be called, but they didn't always confirm him. Some transfers of power had been...more contentious, sometimes breaking out into civil wars small or large.

There had beentwoin the Exalted Age, Calenhad's sonandgrandson both contested by various nobles. There had been a tiny blip of one halfway through Steel, and then a much larger one at the very end, carrying in to the first years of Storm. There were a couple more little ones throughout Storm, and then an especially bad one in the early decades of the Blessed Age — they'd still been weakened from fighting each other when Orlais invaded in 8:24, it was why Orlais had been able to take the entire teyrnir of Highever and arling of Edgehall, and parts of the West Hills and Redcliffe, relatively quickly and easily. Civil wars were a common feature in Ferelden history, and were always a possibility when a King died.

Especiallywhen there was no obvious heir available.

Queen Anora would be in charge, until a Landsmeet could be called and a successor elected. But, as she thought about it, Marian didn't think it very likely the Queen would be confirmed. She didn't know much about what the political landscape looked like right now — she might be awell-readfarmer, but she was still just a farmer — but there was absolutely no way the Landsmeet would accept Anora after what Loghain had done. (And they would find out, Loghain was trying to kill survivors but he wouldn't get them all, and his own men could still talk.) It might not be fair, but the Queen was still young, and her father wasTeyrn f*cking Loghain— the lords would assume she was his puppet, even if she wasn't. They would not accept a puppet of the man who'd killed the King, no matter how widely beloved he might have been previously.

Highever would certainly oppose Anora (Loghain) — their Teyrn, Bryce Cousland, might even be selected as the next king in her place. So would Redcliffe — their Arl was the King's uncle, it was personal to him. Both arlings of the Avvarskild, certainly.MaybeSouth Reach, it depends, and Marian didn't know enough about the people involved to guess what the hell would happen in the Bannorn. Anora (Loghain) would have Gwaren, Denerim,maybeSouth Reach, and whichever banns go to their side. Unless something extraordinary happened to stop it, the country would split itself east and west, and set into killing each other.

Just in time for the darkspawn to come up from the south. Because af*cking Blightwas thebesttime to have a civil war, obviously.

"What are we going to do, Mari?"

Well, that was actually averyeasy problem to solve, despite how complicated it all seemed — Blights and wars between idiot teyrns and arls were not their problem. "We leave. Ferelden, I mean — as soon as we get home, we're leaving for Kirkwall."

She expected Carver to argue. He had last time this had come up, insisted that they couldn't justleave, not when their country was facing a Blight, not when they might be able to help. Instead, he was quiet a brief moment, lying there with one arm covering his eyes. "And if the esteemed Lord and Lady Amell aren't pleased to see us?"

That was a serious concern, she knew — as she understood it, Mom had run away with Dad against her parents' wishes. They might not react at all well to their estranged daughter crawling back with her three children (two of them apostate mages), with nothing to their names but what they'd been able to carry.

And that was assuming they were even still alive. Mom had never gotten word from them, but neither had she truly expected to, she'd been prepared to be cut off entirely when she'd left. But, it had been over twenty years, Marian's Marcher grandparents must be old now. They had to be...Maker, in theirseventies, maybe? She wasn't certain how old they'd been when her mother had been born, but yeah, they might well be dead by now. They might end up dealing with her uncle instead.

Uh...Ganner? Gamleigh? She didn't know, Marian had never met the man.

"Then I guess we just figure something out. It's that, or stay here and take bets on what kills us first. My money's on the contest — South Reach is between Denerim and Redcliffe, you might have noticed."

Carver didn't say anything, but she could practically hear him scowling. "Right. Get some sleep. I'll keep watch."

She nearly protested that Carver wasn't well...but he'd been asleep for days, and he was doingmuchbetter. He probably couldn'tfightyet, but his eyes still worked. So she couldn't use that as an excuse. "I'm fine."

Pushing himself upright again, leaning back on his hands, he said, "Don't give me that sh*t, Marian. When's the last time you slept?"

"This morning." He gave her a flat, doubtful look. "Okay, it was only for like an hour, but—"

"Marian."

...

Well, itwouldbe nice. She'd been trying to ignore how worn down she was feeling, but...

She bit her lip, glanced up at the sky. "Wake me up at full dark."

"That's hardly enough to—"

"We need to keep moving. The darkspawn aren't that far behind us — I'dliketo get home a day before them, at least. And, I won't be able to keep that fire going if I'm asleep. We don't have any torches, and darkspawn are damned frustrating to spot in the dark."

Carver scowled, but nodded. "Fine. Full dark."

Marian intended to keep up a bit of banter about her baby brother growing up to beso bossy, and he'd been such a sweet kid. But the second she set her head down, she was already drifting off, losing her train of thought.

Oh well. She'd let Carver off easy,thistime...

9:30 Nubulis 15

Palace Hill, Denerim, Ferelden

Shianni didn't think she'd ever seen the square so full.

Public executions were rare in Denerim. Most of the time, if someone had committed a crime that warranted being killed for it (and sometimes even if they hadn't), they would simply be killed on the spot by the city guard, or vanish into Fort Drakon never to be seen again — executed quietly or dying from torture during interrogation, perhaps, but mostly from disease. The only reason to execute someone in a big public show was to deliver a message to the people of the city, it was rarely considered necessary.

As rare as they were, there was still a place set aside for them. Right where the road leading up to Fort Drakon met the avenue marking the border between the noble district and the rest of the city was a square. As large as the market in the northern city, but completely empty, bare tan tile stretching from the road to the low wall following the river. On festival occasions, major holidays or whenever they decided they wanted a party, the nobility and the wealthy merchants would fix the place up with tents and tables and decorations and whatever else, have themselves a festival. Shianni had seen them from a distance, of course, she'd never attended one herself. (Elven peasants weren't invited, obviously.) The rest of the year, it was barren, the only feature a raised platform on the western side, a little row of stone blocks on top.

Chipped and scraped from repeated hits with axes, streaked with layer upon layer of bloodstains.

And Shianni had never seen the square so full. There was always an announcement the day before an execution, but nobody was actually required to attend — they didn'tneedmany people to come for all to know, the people of the city gossipped. And theyhadgossipped, everybody knew what had happened. The square was filled with people, from one end to the other, even spilling out down the avenue and alleys into the city, hundreds of people,thousandsof people. The common people of the city, a sea of drab, threadbare clothing and solemn, angry faces.

Everybody knew what had happened. The city guard had made their announcements, shouting from market stands and street corners, notices posted to walls all over the place (especially around the elven quarter). The story the officials told was that a band of elven criminals had broken into the Arl's estate, made off with valuables after murdering everyone inside. Including the Arl's children — Bann Vaughan, two younger sons, and a daughter. For no reason, apparently, listen to the city guard and it sounded like the men involved had just attacked the place for the hell of it.

But their story came too late. The people of Denerim gossipped. By the time the officials made their announcements,everybodyknew the truth.

Standing among them, Shianni could feel the crowd seethe with frustrated anger. Not just the elves, but the humans as well, a tide of hatred that the presence of the guards standing on the platform only stoked higher, higher, the air so thick and hot with palpable fury she felt she might choke on it.

The anger only rose as the prisoners were dragged up onto the platform, in view of the entire crowd. Gethon, Nelaros, Taeodor, Cyrion...

Darrian and Soris.

Mutters swept the crowd. They'd clearly been beaten, their faces bruised and scraped, Cyrion was limping a bit, Nelaros was missing a fair bit of his left ear. Darrian and Soris in particular, her brave stupid cousins lookedterrible, she was amazed they were standing upright. And theywerestanding, despite being covered in bruises and wincing with each step, their heads still held high, glaring defiantly at the guards manhandling them.

Shianni's teeth clenched, her vision blurred, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She wasn't going to look away, she wasn't going to leave them. She could repay their bravery that much.

There was some important person up there now, along with a Chantry Mother — not the Revered Mother, and not Boann either, Shianni didn't recognize her. (Someone attached to the Palace or one of the nobles' estates, probably.) A scroll was unrolled, and a proclamation from the Crown read out. Shianni could barely hear him over the crowd, and she wasn't really listening anyway. Everyone knew that, though things like execution orders might be signed by the King (or Queen, in this case), they certainly weren'twrittenby him (or her). Some other official would have handled that. The Queen hadn't actually said any of this, there was no point listening.

Not that Shianni thought the Queen actually gave a damn what happened to a few elven peasants, none of the big hats did, but that wasn't really the point.

The first three were forced to their knees in front of the blocks. Cyrion, Gethon, and Taeodor had helped the other three, had killed a few of the Arl's guards, but they hadn't actually entered the estate, they were lumped together under lesser crimes. Once they were in place, the Chantry Mother went to Taeodor, offered to hear his last words on behalf of Andraste (she knew, Shianni couldn't actually hear her). Taeodor was crying, shaking his head, whatever he said the Mother gently placed a hand on his head, sang something before moving on to Gethon. He glared up at the Mother for a second before turning to the man who'd read the proclamation, spitting in his direction. One of the guards stepped forward, punching him across the face, knocking him back.

Hisses swept the crowd, a few started into motion before stopping again, swaying like grass.

And then Cyrion. Her uncle blandly stared at the Mother a second, before glancing toward Darrian, looking at his son one last time. Then he slowly shook his head, and closed his eyes, calm and impossibly serene.

Shianni wiped at her eyes again.

Hands on their shoulders, the three men were forced forward, bent over double. Three guardsmen with heavy axes approached. At a signal, they all together raised their weapons, and brought them smoothly down.

Nearly all at once, out of sync only instants, three heads fell to the platform.

Shianni hadn't known what she'd expected to feel, watching her uncle be beheaded, his blood splashing over the leg of his executioner, dripping down to the platform.Uncle, he was more a father, really — he'd taken her in after her mother had died, when she'd been eight or so. She didn't really remember her own father, and her mother faded further every day. Cyrion and Adaia were who she remembered. Adaia had died, a couple years back now, and now Cyrion...

Watching him be murdered, she'd expected horror, grief.

She hadn't expected rage.

The crowd shuffled around her as the bodies were shuffled away, Shianni grit her teeth, her fists clenched and shaking at her sides, her cousins and Nelaros were moved into their place, forced down to their knees in the same places the others had just died. (At least the guards had the tact to not put Darrian where they'd just killed his father, though she couldn't be certain they'd meant to avoid it.) The crowd was actually quieter than it'd been before, words shocked out from throats, but she couldn't hear so well anyway, her breath scraping in her throat, her heart pounding in her head.

The Mother came to Nelaros first. He hesitated for a moment, rocking on his knees a little, his face working silently. And then he yelled, loud enough to echo through the square: "The sick son of a bitch deserved it!"

Nelaros got a gauntlet in the face much as Gethon had before him, there was some shuffling and arguing going on up there. A mutter went through the crowd, angry hissing, whispers passing one to the next.

Sympatheticwhispers.

Because the sick son of a bitchhaddeserved it.

Everybody knew about Vaughan Kendalls. The Arl's son and his friends, mostly children of lesser nobles, had made a game the last few years of terrorising the people of the city. It hadn't been too bad, at the start. A few drunken fights breaking out in one tavern or another, the occasional unwelcome pawing at one serving girl or another. And then it wasn't just in taverns, he and his friends started accosting women out in the open, wherever they happened to run into them.

Before long, things had escalated. They didn't just harass women anymore. They abducted them, dragged them away to the Arl's estate, raped and brutalized them. Some were never seen again.

Some were outright murdered, their beaten and violated corpses left out in the street for their families to find.

For a time, Shianni had assumed they only targeted elves — the elves and the humans of the city lived somewhat apart, it was only natural she would hear of the victims taken from among them first. Nearly a year ago now she'd learned, no, he took human girls too. Probablymorehumans, in fact. It hadn't taken long for the elves to put together what had happened — people gossipped, and the elven quarter was somewhat more tight-knit than the humans of similar means — and it had become less than entirely safe for Vaughan in the elven quarter. As soon as he stepped foot on their streets, he was shadowed.

If he and his friends tried to snatch a girl directly from the elven quarter, Shianni doubted they would get out alive.

He certainly hadn't gotten away with it for long, at least.

A week ago, they'd come in force. Vaughan and his friends, backed up by several city guards, had waltzed right into the Square, all crude and swaggering. And he'd started pawing at Nola. Just, out in the open, in front of her family andeveryone— in the shade of the Tree! Even if he were welcome, even if he were a local, that was just— That was justunacceptable.

Shianni hadn't even meant to do it. One moment she'd been a few steps away, watching. The next she had a bottle of wine in her hand, and Vaughan was laid out on the ground in front of her, half-conscious. Then a gauntleted fist was flying at her face.

The next thing she knew she'd been waking up with ahorribleheadache, locked in a small, unfamiliar room — richly appointed, the rugs and tapestries and furniturefarfiner than anything an elf in Denerim could ever afford. Neslara had been there with her, and Seda. Valora and Nola had been taken too, they'd said, but they weren't in the room with them.

Shianni had been able to hear them, on the other side of the door. Screaming.

The door had been locked, Shianni had torn through the room like a storm, searching for something,anything, finally she'd noticed Seda's bracelet, snatched it off her wrist. A few hard smacks against the edge of a bookshelf, and she'd twisted some of the wires away, kneeled in front of the door, started picking at it, tried to ignore Valora and Nora's cries, the men laughing, Seda and Neslara behind her egging her on. She hadn't gotten enough practice with this, it wasn't easy, and the noise hadn't helped her concentrate...

And then, with much yelling and clanging, quiet. Shianni had scrambled away from the door, and seconds later it was kicked open. Darrian, a blade in each hand andcoveredin blood. He'd taken a brief look at her — standing between the other women and the entrance, the mangled jewelry brandished like a weapon, ready to leap into action — and he'd smirked. Not a pleasant smirk, dark and horrified and furious, but still amused with her.

Neslara had leapt into her brother's arms (which had then gotten blood all over her dress, because he was as filthy as Darrian), and Soris had been there too, holding his crying wife (they'd been too late for Valora), blood-streaked and shaking with fury. Vaughan and his friends had been scattered about the room, most of them underdressed, all of them very,verydead.

On the way toward the exit, Darrian had tightly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "Don't scare me like that, Spitfire," dropped a kiss on her hair.

Vaughan and his friendshaddeserved it.

The big hats, the Chantry Mothers and the nobles and the guards and whoever, they might not know that. But the people making up the crowd, oh, they knew it. They knew it too well.

Next, the Mother came to Darrian. He scowled up at her, scowled at the guards. And he didn't hesitate for an instant. His shoulders firming, his head thrown back, "Mïen-harel!"Darrian got a punch in the face too, and there was a bit of squabbling, but Shianni couldn't hear it.

The crowd was shuffling, anger tipping to the boiling point, a whisper running through the square as the phrase was translated for nearby humans who might not know. None of the elves in Denerim actually spoke elvish anymore, and the few words and phrases they remembered sounded rather different from what the Dalish spoke. But there were still some things they remembered. Curses, sometimes, a few words for extended family, some kinds of food, some for clothing and decoration. The Tree in the elven quarter had a proper elvish name, but Shianni couldn't pronounce it.

That one in particular, that was a phrase all elves knew.

They were the words of Shartan, it was said, the oath around which he'd called elven slaves into revolt against Tevinter. They were the words on the lips of the old Dalish warriors, going to war against Orlais. They were still spoken, sometimes, when elves all throughout the world rose up in rebellion, or simply wished they could, whispered in unseen corners, boldly painted on the walls of manors. In Ferelden, in Orlais, in the Marches, in Tevinter, everywhere.

Justice through blood.

Eventually, the fluttering up on the platform was settling down — Shianni would just bet humanleaderswould recognize that particular phrase, even if peasants didn't — and the Mother was moving on to Soris. The crowd was noisier now, shuffling and muttering, but she could still hear Soris shout, "Mïen-har—" He was cut off, one of the guards shoving him down, his head slamming into the block. There were shouts in the crowd now, as Darrian and Nelaros were pushed down, the executioners moving into place, rushing a little, compared to before, egged on by—

"Justice by blood!"

"Murderers!"

"Let them go!"

"Mïen-harel!"

The axes came up, and then they came down. Her cousins' blood splashed on the stone, and her vision seemed to fill with it, everything going red and hot and angry—

Shianni bent over, picked up a loose stone, and threw it up toward the platform. The big hat who'd read the proclamations — she didn't know who it was, some minor noble or chancellor or something — it hit him in the chest, winding him and knocking him back a few steps. And then more rocks were falling, thrown at random from the crowd, pinging off of the guards' armor, one striking the Mother over the head.

The guards had drawn swords now, pressing in on the crowd, trying to push them away from the big hats. Some were trying to flee, but Shianni pushed toward the front, she saw in her peripheral vision she wasn't the only one. She bent to pick up another stone, threw it up at the platform, bouncing off the helmet of one of the guards, "Mïen-harel!"the cry echoed in dozens of throats, elven and human—

There were screams, and shouts of anger, the crowd pushing tighter around her, for a second she could barely breathe, she levered her shoulder through, forcing her way forward. Over shoulders she saw the guards had formed a line, shields out and swords raised, Shianni made it to the front, there were a couple bodies on the tile, blood pooling over—

"Mïen-harel!"The portion of the crowd to Shianni's right surged toward the line, the shields turned them away, blades biting into flesh, the smell of blood already thick on the air, and there were screams, not of fear but of anger, each strike just seemed to make the crowd more and morefurious, stones flicking over their heads in a constant thin hail now, one of the big hats on the platform had been knocked out, carried away by guards—

The crowd around Shianni moved, seemingly without the conscious choice of any one person, rage carrying them forth on each other's shoulders, the guardsmen were barely a few steps away now, and Shianni's whole body seemed to thrum with terror but she didn't listen to it she was pushed into the line—

She thumped into a guard's shield, her momentum and the push behind her shoving him back a couple steps, and the human woman next to her was cut down, the crowd around her thinned as they instinctively backed away from weapons, but Shianni didn't let go, she had one arm wrapped around the top of the shield, gripping it with both hands, and when space opened up behind her shepulled.

Unprepared for the sudden switch between being pushed back and pulled forward, the guard stumbled after her. He recovered after a moment, his arm turning to stab down at her over his own shield, sheyanked, dropping to her knees and turning, the guard fell, crashing down and flopping on to his side, and people were pulling his shield away and kicking at him—

(Thank you, Adaia. That was two times in one week she owed her life to her aunt's illicit self-defense lessons now.)

Shianni was kneeling on his chest, she was somewhat surprised to find her work knife in her hand, but she didn't think, she plunged it into his throat, all her weight enough to get the dull blade to sink through several inches. While he twitched and gurgled, Shianni plucked his sword off the tile, tossed it up to a nearby human man who held it aloft, "Mïen-harel!"and off he went. She drew the guard's dagger off his belt, left her knife where it was in his throat — this would be better for fighting with anyway.

Looking up, Shianni wasn't the only one who'd managed to pull one of the guards away from the others, there were gaps now, furious peasants meeting nervous guards with pilfered swords and shields. Just ahead of her, the man she'd handed the sword to was trading awkward blows with one of the guards, he wasn't going to last long, Shianni ran up and dove, rolling to a stop at the guard's right side, turned and sliced across the unarmored back of his knee, while he flailed the man with the sword chopped into his neck, droplets of blood raining over Shianni, the blade had stuck deep in the collapsing guard, one of his fellows gutted the man before he could recover it, but then five more were there with knives and fists, falling on them.

The fight was absolute chaos, Shianni could hardly follow what was happening, and she didn't really try to. Bodies bumping against her, she tried to stay low, while guards were busy with other people slipping around behind and stabbing them in the back. She got an elbow in the head more than once, her left ear was ringing a little, she'd gotten hit over the shoulder with a shield pretty hard, fallen enough times she'd be bruised something awful tomorrow, she'd gotten a cut along her arm but it wasn't bad enough to worry about, so many others had been killed, but she hadn't, she'd killed them first, four or five of them, she thought, but she didn't think about that, she'd never killed anyone before, but—

There was a hard twanging of crossbows going off, a chorus of screams from the north. Shianni turned that direction without thinking, leaving her fight behind, she ran toward the platform, right at its base there was a fight between a guard and two elves and a human going on. She came up behind him, slipped her stolen dagger through a seam in his armor at the waist, then again a bit to the side, the man started going limp, she shoved him against the platform, one of the elves only barely dancing out of the way. Stepping up on the man's shoulder, she got her elbows over the edge of the platform, started pulling herself up, someone was pushing her up, she glanced down to see it was the human, the guard's sword in his other hand.

And Shianni was up on the platform, nobody had moved Nelaros and her cousins' bodies, but she couldn't look, she didn't look. Running across the platform, she looked out over the crowd, her bloody dagger held to the sun, "Mïen-harel!"a vicious grin pulling at her face as the cry was echoed from all directions at once, an unbearable giddiness filling her chest. Still running, she leapt off the side of the platform, landing on top of one of the crossbowmen, taking him to the ground, slitting his throat before he could get up, ducking a jab from the butt of a crossbow from the next, stabbing him in the groin.

The distraction had been enough, the enraged crowd surging forward, spilling over the crossbowmen, setting upon them with knives and stones and fists, weapons taken from their belts and their hands, hefted into the air, cheering, "Mïen-harel!"

"The Palace!"

"To the Palace!"

"Burn the Hill!"

"To the Palace!"

Shianni was swept along with the rest of the crowd, turning to the south, the Palace Hill ahead of them, the sprawling estates of all the banns and arls and teyrns, at the center the Landsmeet Hall and the Royal Palace itself. The heart of the Kingdom of Ferelden.

And its own people were about to hold a knife to it.

"To the Palace!"

"Mïen-harel!"

Chapter 6: Lothering — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 14

Lothering, South Reach, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Lothering wasn't quite the same as Lýna remembered it.

She'd passed through the town briefly once before, with Duncan and a few recruits (Keran the only one still living). It was a midpoint on the way to Ostagar from South Reach, if somewhat closer to Ostagar, so had been a convenient place to stop by and pick up some supplies. They'd stopped in the tavern to eat — Lýna had spent the whole time with her hood up, carefully shielding her face, nervously fidgeting — and one of the recruits (she forgot which) had complained about not staying there for the night.

Not that the tavern had actually had any space for them — even then, Lothering had been somewhat overrun with refugees from the south. All the rooms had been full, and even if they weren't, they were charging far more than Duncan would be willing to pay when they could just camp out by the highway. Which had seemed perfectly reasonable to her, that one human had still griped about it, though.

(Though, she had been a little blindsided that Alamarri apparentlydemanded moneyin exchange for allowing travellers aroom to sleep in. That was just...absurd. Her people wouldneverdo something like that — they didn't use money at all, actually — and the Chasind and Avvar both kept lodges to house hunters and travellers, available to all. The idea of demanding payment for that was justweird.)

They hadn't quite reached the village yet, but it was visible from the old Tevinter road — solid, flat stones raised a bit off the ground, the surrounding landscape (a lot of flat farmland, a few clumps of trees here and there) laid out around it — so Lýna had a good vantage to see the place looked...different. The core structures of the village still looked more or less the same. There were two dozen or so little buildings made of wood and straw, in a few cases stone — these were homes, mostly, a few little shops. The tallest building was a tower with big cloth wings attached near the top, forming a sort of wheel that spun slowly in the wind — the mill, Duncan explained, where grains were ground into meal (because they didn't use magic for that, apparently). The largest, not so tall as the mill but wider and longer, was an arched structure of wood, its shape sort of looking like a split log lying on the cut side, smaller blocky bits sticking out of the sides, at the front edge two spikes reaching into the air, supported between them a large metal sunburst — the Chantry, what the Alamarri called the temple where they worshipped their weird magic-hating god. That was all the same.

Whatwasn'tthe same was the camp to the south of the village. When Lýna had passed through before, a sizeable field to the south of the village had been pounded into mud, footprints and lines from wagon wheels left behind. The army had camped there, Duncan had explained, on the way to Ostagar. The field had been empty before, but now at least a portion of it had been filled up again, dozens and dozens of little tents, much like those they'd used back in Ostagar, spread around in a random mess, like fallen leaves scattered over the dirt. Many people didn't have tents, beds of straw laid out on the ground surrounding a dozen little cookfires — just for warmth, she thought, it wasn't near one of the times Alamarri usually ate. The tents and the refugees easily doubled the size of the village, making the thing look weirdly lopsided.

Lýna wasn't surprised. Chasind had been fleeing north for some time, just as her clan had, and the several smaller villages between here and Ostgar they'd passed on the way south had been far emptier on their way north again. Lothering was, apparently, a necessary stop on the way into the rest of Ferelden — it wasn't really, it was easy enough to avoid it by traversing the hills east or west, but Alamarri liked their roads — so this would be a natural place for refugees to stop to rest fleeing from the Blight.

Honestly, the surprise on Alistair and Alim's face was more of a surprise to her than the thing itself.

The five of them were only a couple minutes away from the ramp down to the village when a few figures further ahead on the road rose, started sauntering toward them. It wasn't unusual to find people hanging around at the edges of the road, especially when a settlement was nearby, Lýna hadn't given the ones around much of a second thought. But these men were armed, with a haggard, hardened look to them, desperate. And it wasn't just the five...eight ahead of them, there were another four coming up from behind.

Hmm.

Lýna caught Alim's eye, tilted her head back over her shoulder. He glanced that way, an uneasy grimace crossing his face, but he nodded.

"Greetings, travellers!" one of the men said — his clothing looked rather more fine than the others', a dark leather with a purple-ish sheen, his boots accented with bits of steel, Lýna marked him as the leader. The man must have made his own calculation, and gotten it slightly wrong: he was focusing on Alistair. "I imagine you're weary, and eager to get into the village."

One of the other men, taller than Alistair with a rather scruffy, asymmetrical beard, leaned over to mutter (very loudly), "Uh, maybe we should let these ones through, boss."

"You should listen to that one," Alistair said, pointing at him. "He's smart, I like him."

The leader just smirked at that, a few of the men chuckling. "Nonsense! Everybody has to pay the toll — where would this country be, if nobody obeyed the King's law?"

Keran scoffed, repeatedtoll?under her breath. Lýna didn't know what that word meant, but she did understand they were being extorted for money, the words they used didn't really matter. The men were focusing on Alistair, but what few coins they had Lýna had actually given to Keran. Lýna herself had only the simplest understanding of the concept, and between the rest Keran was the most level-headed — she'd assumed that if Keran agreed it was worth spending it on something, it was probably fine. With how disdainful and disgusted Keran sounded, Lýna guessed these men weren't getting their money.

(She was pretty sure they were all going to be dead in a couple minutes.)

"So you're toll collectors, then." Lýna didn't have an angle on his face, but it sounded like Alistair was smiling.

"Indeed! For the upkeep of the Imperial Highway! It does look a mess, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh," Alistair hummed,veryskeptically. "Well, this is adorable, lads, but I'm afraid we're not paying you squat. It's sort of a Grey Warden policy, you see, to not pay off brigands."

Lýna snorted — it was absolutely no such thing. If they didn't need what little money they had to buy supplies in town she would probably tell Keran to just hand the coin over and move on.

"Grey Wardens, huh? With that kind of bounty, we can retire." The other four were reacting to that, with what sounded like a mix of surprise and anger — it hadn't seemed particularly anger-worthy to Lýna, but therehadbeen a word in there she didn't know — but they didn't get a chance to respond. The leader was reaching for the hilt of his sword, started saying, "Let's be heroes to—"

Before he finished the sentence, Lýna slammed shoulder-first into one of the men to her left, one carrying a crossbow. He crashed onto his back, his head coming back to knock against the stones, she crouched over him — the air filled with shouts and the harsh scrape of blades being drawn, an odd heavy thrum shaking the air the way they'd come — while he was disoriented Lýna slit his throat with her dagger.

She glanced around to get a picture of the fight. The four men who'd come up behind them were handled, splayed out on the ground by some spell from Alim — one wasn't dead yet, clutching his throat and writhing, his boots kicking against the stone, but he would be soon. Perry had apparently moved at the same time Lýna had, in the opposite direction, one of the other archers was dead at his feet, his axe bloody, as Lýna watched he pulled one of his tiny knives from his belt, a flick of his wrist and it appeared in another archer's chest, he went down gurgling. The melee, it looked like at least some of their attackers weren't actually bad, the leader in particular was holding up against Alistair relatively well — onlyrelativelywell, because when Alistair took a step back after the last exchange a seemingly casual flourish of his sword, as though reorienting for the next attack,just so happenedto slice across the stomach of another man coming in at his side, that wasfartoo elaborate of a trick for Alistair to be able to pull off if the leader were actually pressing him that badly. Keran was also doing alright, locked in a fight with the third bandit, a fourth dropped to his knees, blood bubbling past his fingers around his throat.

Therewasone archer left, aiming down at Lýna. She sprinted his direction, she saw his elbow twitch, dove over her shoulder at an angle to the left, heard the tink of an arrow bounce off the stone, his aim adjusted but not quickly enough. He was reaching for a dagger at his belt, but too slow, her dagger sunk into his side, clicking off his hip bone, while he reeled she drew her sword, swiped across his neck.

"Woah, hey, hey! Okay! We surrender!" The leader and the one Keran was fighting were the only ones left now, and the latter was injured, a weeping cut running down his arm. The leader had dropped his sword, raised both hands in the air, his own remaining companion following his lead, and Alistair and Keran...just stopped, kicking the dropped weapons aside while sheathing their own.

Lýna frowned — did they mean to just...let them live? Why?

His arms crossing firmly over his chest, Alistair gave the leader a glare. "I'm not cutting you down, but I'm not about to just let you go, either. We'll drop you off with the authorities down in the village, and you all can have a nice chat."

The leader blanched even further than he had at the swift and easy dismantling of his party. "There are no authorities in Lothering! The Bann left with his men, following after Teyrn Loghain — there's nobody but a few Templars in the village, they'll just execute us."

Alistair grimaced. "So, you thought you could just shake down poor souls on the Highway, because with the Bann's shields gone there's nobody to stop you."

"Well," the man grunted, shrugging.

"What's this about a bounty on Grey Wardens?" Alim was rejoining them now, looking a little shaky, rather paler than usual. "And what twisted Fade-dream did someone have that gave them the idea to do something crazy likethatduring aBlight?"

"Teyrn Loghain, he's offering gold for Wardens, alive or dead — ten soveriegns a head."

...So, this 'bounty' thing was when one person paid another person to kill people? Okay. So, Loghain had not only turned his back on the battle, and had his men kill soldiers trying to flee, but he wasalsotrying to make sure none of the Wardens survived. That was... What the hell was hedoing?

There was some shouting in anger and disbelief from the others, interrogating the man about this bounty. It turned out Loghain was blaming the Wardens for killing the King, which was almost clever, when she thought about it. The Wardens weren't trusted in Ferelden, due to something that had happened hundreds of years ago Lýna didn't really understand — if they tried to claim it was Loghain who had betrayed the King, who were people more likely to believe?

Of course, if he reallywasdoing what he thought was necessary to stop the Blight, as Lýna had considered before, killing off all the Wardens was not the intelligent thing to do. She was just confused now.

And the conversation with the remaining "toll collectors" was still going on, arguing about whether or not they'd be brought down to the village to face execution for their crimes. Oh, Wolf take them all, this was pointless. Lýna stepped up behind the injured bandit, stabbed her dagger into his kidney, and then a second time to make sure she had it, hot blood spilling over her fingers. Everybody was yelling, the leader stepping away, Lýna darted forward, her sword coming up and biting down into his neck. The blade caught in his spine, but she'd done enough damage, he'd be dead in seconds. She pushed at his shoulder with a foot, wrenching her sword loose, bent down to wipe the blood off on his clothes, ignoring his pitiful choking and gurgling.

"Lýna! What thehell!"

Wiping off her dagger now, Lýna looked up at Alistair. He was clearly unhappy with her, his jaw set in a solid glare, his hands fists at his sides. The others didn't look much better, Keran wide-eyed and horrified, staring at her like she'd just done something completely awful and unforgivable out of nowhere, Alim and Perry vaguely nauseous. "What?"

"You can't just go around killing unarmed people, Lyna!"

Lýna coughed out a laugh. They were only unarmed because they'dmadethemselves unarmed, so silly 'honorable' people like Alistair would hesitate to kill them. That did not make them innocents. "The Templars, they kill them later, or we kill them now.Unarmed, for both. What difference?"

For a second, Alistair actually seemed a little stumped, the anger fading from his face for a second, blinking down at her. "Well... It's not the same thing, it's just not."

"...Why?"

"And we don't know they would have executed them! They were sh*t-heads, sure, but last I checked the sentence for petty thievery isn't death."

She noticed he hadn't actually answered her question — shealsonoticed Perry give Alistair a very uncomfortable look, maybe Alistair wasn't quite right about that. Straightening again, she said, "Not thieves. Killers." At his blank look, she pointed at the ground. "There is blood, on stone."

Alim's lips twitched with a half-hearted smirk. "Uh, Lýna? We just killed twelve people. Of course there's blood."

She sighed. "Therewasblood. Before. Look." Walking across the road, toward the opposite side of where the village sat, Lýna leaned over the edge of the bank. As she'd expected, there were a few bodies piled up at the bottom of the ridge the old Tevinter road sat on — three, five...nine, it looked like. Pointing down at the corpses, she turned back to the others. "See? Killers."

While they gathered on the edge to look, Lýna went back to the dead men. At a glance, it didn't look like any of them had anything worth taking — they must have things hidden away somewhere, at least some food, but it wasn't anywhere obvious. The exception was the leader, he had a little leather bag on his belt, bulging with the hard edges of coins. Pulling it off and peeking inside, it looked like there were several of the big gold ones, which Lýna knew were the most valuable — she hadn't any idea how much of anything you could buy with one, but she knew that much.

"Looting the corpses now, Lyna? Do we need to have a talk about how one behaves in a civilized society? For the record, killing people and taking their things is generally frowned upon."

She bit back another frustrated sigh. "He doesn't need these now." They were coming back, done whispering looking over the murdered refugees, Lýna tossed the bag of coins at Keran.

The human woman didn't even twitch. The bag of coins smacked against her chest with a heavy clink, fell to the ground. And Keran stared down at her, eyes heavy, disapproving, disgusted.

"Are you children?!"Keran and Alim both twitched with surprise, one of Alistair's eyebrows ticked up. Popping up to her feet, she stepped closer — Perry sidled to the side, putting Alistair between them, Keran leaned away a bit. "I do not understand you people. You say we need coin for food. Okay. I find you coin." She bent over to pluck the bag off the ground, pressed it against Keran's chest. "We can not end Blight if we do not eat."

Keran ground her teeth for a second, still glaring down at her. "It's not about th—"

"Itisabout that! Yousayit is not, but itis! You think what?" Lýna lifted the bag from her chest an inch, pushed it back against her armor with another clink. "You walk in town, say—"Clink."—oh, I am Grey Warden, they give all we need?"Clink. "Loghain says, we kill their King. Think they help us now? Eh?!"Clink. "I kill him, you don't want his coin. Before Grey Warden, you aresoldier!"Clink."You take coin to kill people! What difference now? Eh?"Clink.

The anger on Keran's face had faded somewhat, looking a bit more uncertain — about the anger part, she meant, her lip was still curling in what Lýna was pretty sure was disgust. "I was in the city guard, not a soldier."

Somewhere behind Alistair, Perry snorted. "You're all thugs, you ask me."

Keran's eyes flicked in his direction, her face twisting in a snarl. "There is a world of difference between the city guard and hired thugs!"

"The f*ck there isn't!" Perry leaned around Alistair, and Lýna was quite surprised by the cold fury on his face, the intensity on his voice. Perry had always seemed very timid and quiet to her. "Folk you arrest and drag on down to the pit, how many ever see sun again, you think?"

"They were all criminals!"

"So a hungry child what steal a loafdeservesto die, that it?"

"What? No!" She said it confidently, but Lýna saw the doubt on her face, eyes turning uneasily away from Perry.

Clink.

"Oh, would youstopthat!" Keran shouted swiping the bag of coins out of Lýna's hand. "I don't care if we need the money, I'm not going to just sit back and watch you steal from and murder people!"

"What I do here, I kill killer, and steal from thief. I see no bad here." Keran didn't seem very pleased with that, but Perry, still peeking out from around Alistair, was giggling. "And you, Alistair. You fight this one. He want to kill us, for coin. But he see he loses, his friends all die. So he drop his sword, oh," she said, raising his hands, putting on a higher, mocking sort of tone, "I am sorry, I amunarmed, please don't give to Templars." She dropped her hands, shot him a glare. "He was killer. After drop his sword, he was killer yet. What difference?"

Thinking over his response for a moment — or, perhaps, trying to figure out how to say it in a way she might understand, he was good about that sometimes — Alistair pouted at her. "Ah, well, it's just not a very honorable thing to be doing, going around killing unarmed people."

"Honor," Lýna scoffed. "Like yourglory, this one. You Alamarri like your pretty words. It is honor, to leave enemy alive? This give you no honor. This give youdead," she snarled, shoving him in the chest with one hand. Alistair was a very large man, at least compared to her, so he barely tipped back a step, but he seemed to get the point, his eyebrows both ticking up. "He try to kill us, I kill him. And I am not sorry.

"Here I am the only one with head in our job?" she asked, turning to look over the other three. Keran wasn't looking at her, staring at the bag of coins in her hand; Perry, apparently over his initial shock at her killing the two men, seemed to be fighting more laughter; Alim was still unusually pale, but a more solemn cast was coming over his face, his eyes steadily meeting hers. (She'd wondered, before, if Alim was quite ruthless enough for the Wardens, but it looked like he was coming around at least a little bit. Good.) "I am most young, of all, but I am only one who notsilly child!Your pretty Alamarri words, your glory and your honor, you do what is needed and you feelsadafter, this isnothing!

"This isBlight!"she yelled, pointing back the way they'd come, Ostagar and all those who'd died for no benefit. "We do not stop it, andallyour people die! And you fret so forthis sh*t?!"She gave the leader's corpse a solid kick, tipping him halfway over, his partially-severed head flopping. Keran flinched, Alim went even paler, Alistair's eyebrows just went up a little higher. "He is nothing. He try to kill us. You cannot—" She pushed Alim a little, the man stumbling back a couple steps. "—stop theBlight—" She pushed Keran rather harder than Alim, but she weighed rather more than him, steadied herself with a single step back. "—if youdie!"she finished, with one last shove, harder, with both hands.

Alistair, of course, was huge, and hardly even seemed to notice.

For a moment, Lýna glared at the other Wardens, gaze slowly flicking to one, to the next, to the next. They all stared back at her, silently. Lýna couldn't really guess what they were thinking, couldn't be certain she'd gotten across the message she'd meant to...but at least their anger and disgust with herdishonorablebehavior was gone. They looked more solemn, at least, thinking about it. That would have to do for now.

Lýna turned on her heel and started off without a word.

She was down the ramp onto the ground, only a couple minutes away from the village now, when Alistair finally caught up. Clunking and clanking up next to her (his armor really wasverynoisy), he said, "I'm sorry."

She glanced up at him quick, but it didn't do any good, she wasn't certain how to read that look. Slightly nervous, but...that wasn't quite the right word. Cautious? "Why?"

"You were fighting the Blight for a long time before you ever joined the Wardens, weren't you? I forget sometimes."

Biting out a frustrated sigh, Lýna jerked to a stop. Sometimes she forgot that too, that the Blight hadn't come to the north yet — that it wasn't real to them, not really. Oh, they'd fought darkspawn, but they were warriors and armies, in a fortress that had been abandoned long ago. They knew stories, passed down throughhundredsof years, but that was it. They didn't know what they were fighting, really.

She sighed again. "I first see darkspawn..." Oh, crap. "How say age?"

"I'm nineteen years old," Alistair said. "You can leave out theyears old."

Giving him a double-take, Alim chirped, "What, no, really?"

"Yes, really. I know I don't look it — I am a very rugged, handsome man, after all."

Keran snorted.

She wouldn't have guessed Alistair was so young, but mostly because he was very large and his face was too square, made it impossible to tell. "Yes. I first see darkspawn when I was nine."

For a second, the four just stared at her, wide-eyed. Finally, Alistair breathed, "You werenine? Maker, what happened?"

"I was..." Oh, she didn't know how to saythisin Alamarri either. "Ah, I learn to hunt, with adults, two children. We find darkspawn, they attack. We had all bows, we kill them." Lýna had managed to hit one herself, even, though her child-size bow hadn't had the power behind it to do much real damage. "One hunter, later, he get Blight sick. He died."

"I'm so sorry, Lyna."

Lýna gave Keran an impatient look — honestly, that had been nothing, she was just starting. "Then, they were few. Little groups, here, there. They grew bigger. Where we live, was Chasind village. We were...not friends, not well, but. We know the other, see? When I was twelve, darkspawn kill the village. All." She snapped her fingers, fluttered them in the air, like leaves flying in the wind. "Men, dead. Children, dead. Women, dead...some gone."

"...Gone?"

"Darkspawn take women, sometimes." The four looked a little horrified — they must not have known that. Duncan had told herwhythey do it just a few days ago, she hadn't known until then, but he'd also said it wasn't terribly important for the others to know. Unless they intended to spend some time in the Deep Roads, which didn't seem particularly likely. "We know notwhy, but we know. We learn soon. Bodies gone. Hunters on watch, sometimes, they never come back. Sometimes, we hear. They don't..." Lýna knocked herself on the side of the head with the palm of her hand. "They grab, they pull. The women scream.

"One time, we stay with Chasind. They have walls, and..."Houses having legswas how it was said in her language, she had no idea how to explain it in Alamarri. "Tall, above ground. I watch from wall, my part, and I hear screams. I look out, I see five genlocks, with Ashaᶅ. My parents died, when I am very young, Ashaᶅ took me. She was hunter, they come in and are hit. Ashaᶅ is taken, too far, it is too late. So I..." She mimed drawing a bow, flicked her fingers. "I was thirteen."

That had been the single most difficult shot she'd ever taken at the time. She hadn't beennearlyas experienced then as she was now, and Ashaᶅ had already been very far away, how the darkspawn had been dragging her not been giving Lýna a very good angle. And...well, it was Ashaᶅ. The fact that she'd beenkilling Ashaᶅhad made the already difficult shot even more difficult. But she hadn't had time to run and get one of the older hunters, they'd befarout of range by then, and while they hadn't known what the darkspawn wanted their women for theyknewit couldn't be good, so... Years later, and she still couldn't quite believe she'd pulled it off.

She wasdefinitelyglad she had, though. If she hadn't managed an impossible shot and killed Ashaᶅ before she could be dragged away, and Duncan had told her about broodmothers... Yeah. She doubted she would have taken that well.

(Which was slightly disconcerting to think about — she hadn't realized she had anything left to lose.)

"Maker's breath, you had to..." Alistair didn't get any further than that. Keran couldn't even manage that much, her hand was covering her mouth, her eyes wide and...

Alim, with averyserious look, drawled, "That's some dark sh*t, Lýna." Keran yelped out his name, turned around to smack him over the shoulder, said something about not joking about this, this is serious.

Lýna shrugged. "It's okay, I'm okay." It was years ago now, and she'd done what she'd had to. There was no point to feeling badly over it. "As I say. My clan, when we come to forest," she said, pointing to the northeast, "half dead. More. And my clan? We do well. Many, not so well. Some clans, all die. Villages, all die. Every person, one village, another, another. Word for the number, I don't know. Too many. Men, women, children.

"This is not war, soldiers fight soldiers. No. This village?" she said, pointing. "When Blight comes here, all die.All. Men, women, children. And the next village, and the next, and the next. All the Alamarri, all the world, if not stopped. So, if I kill, if I steal, I'm not sorry. To stop the Blight, I doanything.Any means necessary— you see, now?"

Looking at their faces, they didn't, she didn't think. But they were closer, a little bit. It would have to do for now.

The first time they saw a whole village slaughtered, they'd know. Just give it time.

As they approached the village, Lýna reached up, pulled her hood low over her face — she wasn't going to let the humans here get a good look at her if she could help it. Alistair, his joking tone a little thinner and more awkward than usual, said that wasn't really doing any good, the hood wasn't hiding her ears. Which, obviously, it wasn't supposed to. If she didn't want the villagers to know aboutthat, she would have tried to get Alim and Perry to cover up too, wouldn't she? It was her face she was concerned about. Humans could beverystupid about the People, she just didn't want to draw undue attention.

Besides, her hair was alsoverydistinctive. It hadn't been so uncommon growing up, but it wasn't a hair color humans could have at all, and it was apparently more rare among the Alamarri elves. Loghain knew the battle plan, so he had reason to suspect the five of them might have survived, and Lýna was the most different-looking of them — it was quite possible he'd given his men her description specifically.

She wasn't particularly surprised Alistair hadn't put that together, but she was still slightly irritated. She guessed this was why Duncan had put her in charge.

Their entry into the village was uneventful. There were rather fewer people hanging about in the open dirt between the buildings than the last time Lýna had been here — there had been refugees sitting around here and there, but she guessed they'd been relegated to that field now. There was still a noisy crowd of refugees near the Chantry, a man standing on a wagon selling his wares, a few men in armor looking on, silent and unmoving. Their armor was identical, save for minor size differences, heavy plate with a skirt of mail and dark leather studded with metal scales falling around their legs, beaten into their chests an image of a sword surrounded by these little squiggles...

Oh, fire, a sword wreathed in fire. These would be Templars, then, Lýna hadn't recognized the uniform at first. She'd never gotten close to any of them. She still thought the Alamarri magic-hating religion was weird, and a little bit unsettling, and the idea of Templars in particular made her uneasy — religious fanatics on a holy mission to contain magic, to capture or kill mages who didn't use their gifts in a way they approved of, no, that was just— It made her uncomfortable. It didn't help that they supposedly didn't approve of people just not worshipping their god either, whether they were mages or not. Especially since the Templars actually had some significant respect and power in the north. No, she didn't like Templars, she'd prefer to stay as far away as possible.

Alistair had admitted he'd been in training to become a Templar since he'd been a child, until he'd left to join the Wardens about a year ago. Lýna thought that averygood decision.

Unfortunately, she ended up getting pretty close. Alistair insisted they stop by the Chantry quick, inform the Templar Knight-Captain and the Revered Mother (a shaman of some kind, she understood), who were probably running the town in the absence of any other authorities, that the darkspawn should be only a couple days behind them. That was actually a good idea, so Lýna didn't argue, silently followed along into the largest building in the village.

The inside of the Chantry was nice enough, if very foreign. The entire main section, the big log-shaped part, was open, without any walls dividing the space up as humans tended to do with larger buildings. The ceiling arched high above her head, and the room was...well, not further thanLýnacould shoot accurately, but a human archer probably couldn't. (Humans had poor eyesight and could be very clumsy sometimes, she'd noticed their archers tended to have terrible aim past fifty paces or so — even Chasind archers, and they tended to be better shots than Alamarri, in her experience.) The decoration was minimal, just a few hangings here and there in red and orange, a few more metal sunbursts. At the far end was a raised altar of some kind, dozens of candles on, around, and fixed into the wall above it. The floor was mostly bare stone, save for a long red rug running down the middle from door to altar, and a few big metal...things...that must have some kind of fire going in them, since they were letting off a thin haze of smoke. There was a bit of pale, thin smoke in the place, enough the edges of the wood beams in the ceiling were slightly blurred, stinging at her eyes just a little, but it wasn't irritating her throat to breathe it. It was strangely sweet-tasting, actually.

The place vaguely reminded her of Chasind lodges, the open space and the smoke and all. Except more red. Alotmore red.

Lýna didn't participate in the conversation with the Templar leader, she wasn't needed. She kept an attentive eye on the people in the Chantry, listening. The Templar recognized Alistair, from when he'd passed through with the King a month ago, even seemed faintly relieved Alistair had survived Ostagar. (She got the impression they'd talked a bit while Alistair had been here.) The Templar explained a bit more in detail about this 'bounty', but he didn't seem to have that much more to offer than the men on the Highway had. It seemed like he thought the idea that the Wardens would outright murder the King was absurd on the face of it, but he warned them that that probably didn't matter — offer someone enough money, and they could believe most anything.

When Alistair got to talking about the Blight, the Templar waved over the Revered Mother. She was an older woman, Lýnaguessedold enough to be a grandmother but not truly elderly yet, her skin peculiarly dark the way some humans were — like Duncan, but not quite so dark as he — wearing long robes in yellow and orange that just lookedveryuncomfortable, and her name was Orlesian. (Was that...Vishjẽny? Sounded almost elvish, honestly.) Her voice, low and soft and gentle, sounded Alamarri though, so perhaps it was just the name. The Mother greeted all of them, seemingly unphased to see Wardens streaked in blood both black and red.

At some point, Alistair noticed her hood was still up and, somewhat exasperated, told her to show herself. Alim explained, it was considered rude to step into the Chantry with one's head covered at all, andespeciallywhen speaking to the Revered Mother. Lýna shot him a glare, but...well, she guessed she had been getting a few odd looks from the people around since stepping inside, but she'd though it was just, well, the streaks of black and red blood on them. (She would have wondered if it were because they'd stepped into a sacred space armed, but they were hardly the only ones.) If it were just because she was wearing a hood...well, everybody within earshot already knew who they were anyway, it didn't really matter.

Besides, if the locals reacted badly to one of her People being in a Chantry, of all place, they could definitely fight their way out if they had to. So she obeyed.

The Templar twitched, his hand starting for the hilt of his sword before stopping himself, Lýna caught hisses of drawn breath from a few people here and there. But the Revered Mother just smiled, reached for Lýna's hand — she had to fight not to pull away, the woman was harmless — patting the back of her wrist, saying something about all of the Maker's children being welcome here, something about the Liberator Lýna didn't quite follow.

Lýna wasn't certain whether she should be annoyed at the presumption that she was one of their god's people, or relieved that the Mother wasn't going to make a scene. Instead she said nothing, just nodded and retreated a couple steps as soon as it seemed polite.

The conversation about the approaching horde lasted far longer than it really needed to. Neither of them doubted Alistair and Keran that the darkspawn were nearby, but the Mother (sounding very tired) was a little frustrated they weren't offering to stay and help. Which, that was aridiculousthing to ask — Alistair insisted this village could not be defended, certainly not with five Wardens and a handful of Templars, the only thing they could do was run. After a bit of arguing, the Mother admitted that she expected it to be difficult to get the people of the village to pick up and flee, that they would be reluctant to leave their homes behind, which...

It hurt Lýna's head, a little bit, trying to think through the logic of that. The things Alamarri considered worth risking their lives for continued to baffle her.

Finally, they were done. Alistair and Keran in front, they headed back for the doors out into the village, Lýna pulled her hood back over her face. After stopping quick to ask one of the Templars, Keran led the way toward one of the shops in the village, though with a trace of annoyance about her — with all the refugees about, she thought they might have trouble getting the supplies they needed, she said.

Lýna wasn't particularly worried about it. Some food would be nice, just in case, but they could hunt and forage on their way to wherever they were going. Things like oil for their armor, things to clean and sharpen their equipment, those weremoreimportant...thought not anemergency. They would need such things eventually, but they could hold out long enough to get to Denerim without doing any serious damage. (Unless they were fighting darkspawn every step of the way, which didn't seem likely.) The others wanted to pick up some tents and bedrolls and the like — they didn't like sleeping in the wilds without them, which Lýna thought was honestly just silly. She'd taught them how to get by, setting a fire to keep away wolves and bears (and also give themsomelight in case darkspawn attacked), sleeping with their back to a tree to partially shield them from the worst of the rain (spread around to cover all the angles of approach between them), but they complained about it incessantly, were always rough and irritable in the morning.

That the rest of the Wardens considered the way things had been at Ostagar to be thebare minimum acceptable(and onlybarelyacceptable at that) way to live for any length of time was honestly one of the most surprising cultural differences she'd run into so far. Honestly, the camp at Ostagar wasn't far from the easiest living she'd had in her life (since she'd been a child, anyway) — enough there'd been hours she hadn't been certain what she should be doing with herself, because she simply didn't have anythingtodo — and they thought thathardship? That these people considered sleeping out in the open, to live off only what they could hunt or find among the trees, for almost any reason for any length of time, to beunthinkable, to think she was slightly insane for not having any problem whatsoever doing it indefinitely, was just...

She'd thought the Chasind were soft (excluding their hunters and their mages), but the Alamarri werefarworse. Sometimes she felt like the only adult taking a few little kids out on their first hunting trip, it was ridiculous.

(She knew she was the youngest person in their group, but it honestlyneverfelt like it.)

They were exiting the first shop, mostly empty-handed, when Lýna caught a glimpse of yellow and orange. Halfway across the village, heading toward the only other shop in the place, she took a glance over her shoulder, drawing as little attention to the movement as she could. There was a woman, with bright red hair — or what humanscalledred hair, it looked far too orange to be red to her — wearing the same yellow and orange robes the Mother had been. Or, not quite the same, they seemed lighter, less ornate. Probably a priest of a lower rank than the Mother, then.

The woman was trying to be subtle, to stay as far back and out of their line of sight as possible. But the village was not that big, and those robes wereveryeye-catching, so she wasn't doing a good job of it.

Lýna considered her for a moment, frowning. That probably wasn't anything to worry about. Perhaps the Mother was simply more concerned with having some heathen barbarian walking around in her village than she'd made it seem, and had tasked one of her people with keeping an eye on her. This woman didn't appear to be armed, probably expected to call for help if Lýna did anything unacceptable.

That was irritating, but not really that badly, she'd expected something of the like. After all, her clan would hardly let outsiders walk around their camp unobserved. It was slightly odd that they'd chosen to assign the job to an unarmed priest but, well, Alamarri were odd. It wasn't worth Lýna spending too much time thinking over.

So she turned back ahead, casting their tail from her mind.

The instant Leliana had seen her, she knew.

Leliana had been going through one of the bookshelves in the chapel, sorting through the Chantry's collection to determine which were rare enough to be worth bringing along, and which were easily replaced, safe to leave behind when they evacuated. A fair portion of the volumes were written in Cirienne and Chantry Tevene, brought with Vichiénne when she'd been assigned here — the Revered Mother was originally from Montsimmard, not that her accent showed it — and Leliana was the only one of the Sisters who could read both languages. Cirienne was uncommon among ordinary people in Ferelden, and the well-born who could speak it normally didn't advertise it for political reasons, and of course only people who'd gotten an intensive traditional education could read Classical or Chantry Tevene.

She'd been going over a possibly unique version of the entire Chant (excluding Silence and Shartan) — bilingual in Chantry Tevene and Alamarri, complete with musical notation from cover to cover, probably copied by hand from an older text — when she caught sight of a group of armed men pushing open the doors and stomping inside. They got a few uneasy looks from Sisters and clerics and townspeople — and why not, they were a dangerous-looking group of people.

Three among the five were elves — not a single elf lived in Lothering, some of the villagers had literally never seen one in their lives before the King's army had come through. One was armed with a pair of axes and a row of little knives hanging from his belt, and was a rather shifty-looking fellow, quick-fingered and jumpy. A second had a dagger and a curved short sword, and...she? It was hard to tell, she was wearing a hood — how the hood jutted out slightly to either side halfway down the head and the overall shape of the profile revealing this was an elf, but little else — but Leliana suspected this one was a woman. Anyway, this one also had a bow and a quiver slung over a shoulder, a second quiver latched to the small of her back. This one had a subtle, quiet grace to the way she moved, almost seeming to glide after the others more than walk, and Leliana pegged her for Dalish at a glance — she'd only met a handful, but that was enough (and it would also explain the hood). Just as she marked the third elf, taller with brilliant red hair, for a mage — he wore leather and scale like the other two, a light shield hung at his back, but no weapons, and his hands were far too soft and uncalloused, a dead giveaway in this company.

The two humans, a man and a woman, were both wearing plate, though rather heavier and covering more of his body in the man's case, sections of the woman's instead scale or mail as appropriate. Both were carrying a sword and shield — she caught a glance at her back, the woman's had a design on it that was probably the heraldry of one noble house or another, Leliana didn't know Fereldan nobility well enough to identify it. The man seemed faintly familiar, but she was rather far away, she wasn't certain—

Just as Leliana was wondering whether she should do something about such a lethal-looking party walking into the Chantry, the human man started talking to Bryant, his voice floating faintly across the air, and oh, it was Ser Alistair! A junior Warden accompanying the King, they'd spoken briefly when they'd passed through Lothering. He was a good man — or, well, his heart was in the right place, at least — she'd wondered if he'd survived Ostagar.

Good. Far too many good people had died there, every one that had managed to slip away was a blessing.

While Leliana stepped over to thekeepstack — the contents weren't unique, of course, but this book was hand-written, and she suspected the Alamarri translation might be original, she'd have to go over it later — Mother Vichiénne had approached the group. After a brief moment of discussion, the elf woman had thrown her hood back and—

White. Her hair was white.

Like a cloud on a sunny day, like freshly-fallen snow, pure and unblemished.

Like the flower blooming out of the black in her dream, the embrium that had miraculously sprouted in the garden.

Frozen in place, Leliana had stared, shock crashing over her so intensely she could hardly breathe. She was probably lucky she hadn't dropped the book.

Leliana had known, the instant she'd seen her. She hadn't dreamt about the Blight. Or, shehad, but notjustabout the Blight. The Maker hadn't needed to send her dreams for her to know the Blight was coming, obviously, it was hard to miss that.

That dream, that vision, that flower growing out of the black, it had been this elf woman. She knew that, instantly on seeing her, not a hint of doubt.

The Maker had wanted Leliana to recognize her when she came.

After some minutes watching, and not really seeing much, other than the white of her hair, that it'd beenthis, that this woman wasimportant, somehow, even if Leliana couldn't begin to guess why or how, she finally startled out of her reverie. And not because anyone had gotten her attention, or because her mindless daze had actually ended, no — their group (Wardens all?) had turned around, they wereleaving.

The woman with the white hair wasleaving.

Leliana followed her.

It wasn't something she did with conscious thought, truly. She just...like she were anchored to the woman with a length of rope, she was drawn forward, numbly, unthinkingly. She didn't snap out of it until the Wardens disappeared into Tindor's shop, and Leliana realized she was standing out in the middle of the village, staring at the door, standing out in the open in her Chantry robes and—

Oh my, she still had that book in her hand. She really had spaced out there, hadn't she, hmm.

The door into Tindor's clicked, and Leliana jumped, darted around the corner of Stefan's house, ducking out of sight...for some reason. She didn't know why she did that, just acting on instinct, she supposed. Andraste help her, it'd beenyearsnow since her time as a bard had come to an end, but she just...

The Wardens came out, mumbling about not finding what they were looking for, wondering if it were even worth going to the other shop. (Probably not, the constant trickle of refugees and the army passing one way and then the other had seen Lothering drained of most all their goods for sale of any value.) Waiting for them to open up some distance, and trying not to feel too self-conscious (what was she doing, this wasn't a job, she could justwalk up and talk to them), she noticed a few children nearby, a young boy giving her a big open-mouthed look. She probably looked ridiculous, crouching at the corner of a house in her robes, an aged copy of the Chant cradled under one arm.

She grinned at the boy, brought a finger to her lips, winked. Giggling, he mirrored the gesture, then skipped back to playing with his little friends.

Halfway across the village, she spotted the woman's shoulders shift as she took an awkward step over a rut in the dirt, just a little — oh, that was very subtle, but Leliana had far too much experience at this game not to recognize that for what it was. She'd been spotted. Not that it would have been possible to hide, there was nowheretohide, the spaces between all the little homes too wide open, the crowd notneardense enough to lose herself in. If any of them had glanced back more than once, they would have known.

Still, the prospect of getting caught had her heart skipping, a reckless smile quivering at her lips, fingers twitching for weapons she no longer carried. Shehadn'tcarried, for years, Maker, what was wrong with her...

Surprisingly, the Dalish woman didn't react to the realization that she was being followed, just continued on with seemingly no added tension at all. Which was...interesting. Of course, it wasverypossible she'd simply marked Leliana and evaluated her to be no threat to her and her friends...which, at one level (one she'd thought she'd long ago let go of), that was almost insulting, it was also fair — Leliana was unarmed, and they had a mage.

Once they'd disappeared into another shop, Leliana hesitated, her fingers tapping at the cover of her (accidentally) stolen book. She'd overheard them, earlier — they intended to go to the tavern once they were done with their shopping, take a hot meal before again braving the road. Leliana didn't have to follow them, she could just beat them there.

So that was what she did.

The Dane's Refuge was the sort of place her friends growing up would have saidhad character— by which they meant it was a disgusting dive they wouldn't step foot in to save their lives (unless their parents explicitly told them not to, of course). Leliana would say it wasexactlythe sort of place that came to mind when she imagined a Fereldan tavern. The building was made entirely of wood, no care at all taken to conceal the functional siding on the walls and braces holding up the roof (which would be considered horriblycommonin Orlais), stuffed heads and horns taken from various animals hung here and there on the walls (which would be tantalizing exotic back home, it was just normal here). The place was somewhat full, men and women scattered at the tables here and there, most in the plain and rugged clothing of local farmers, but no more than she would expect on an ordinary Nubulis day — too early to plant yet, there was little enough work to attend to, and the refugees hadn't the coin to come here regularly.

A few people called to her, she just smiled back, didn't approach any who waved to her. (Ordinarily, if a Chantry Sister came to a place like this, it was because she was looking for someone to...spend some time with, but she'd have to disappoint.) She came up to the counter, asked Dalan if she could use the Bann's table for a while — she had some friends coming in, you see. Dalan agreed easily enough, it wasn't like anyone else was using it. There was a little alcove off to the side of the center room, "reserved" for the use of the Bann or the Arl's son or other persons of note passing through, but it was usually open to anyone who asked. It wasn't entirely closed off, so it was stillsomewhatnoisy, but it was better than the main room, at least.

Her (accidentally) stolen book set on the table, Leliana hadn't even time to sit down until the Wardens were entering the tavern. She hadn't been watching the door — and why was she suddenly so very aware of the fact that she'd gotten out of the habit of keeping an eye on the entrances, that was uncomfortable — but she didn't need to to pick up on the nervous quiet sweeping across the thin crowd. The tavern hadn't beencompletelysilenced, but there was a sudden drop in the noise of conversation, enough it was very conspicuous. Leliana could think of few things that might have caused that.

She turned back to the main room, but even as she moved there was a tromping overhead, heavy boots on the second floor, the balcony looking over the rest of the tavern, heading for the stairs. "Well! Look what we have here, men! I think we've just been blessed."

The Wardens came into sight, clumped just inside of the door, and then armored men casually waltzing onto the floor from the stairs. Leliana was behind the latter, she had a good view of the shields on their backs: a dragon, yellow on black, Gwaren colors.

Oh, dear...

"You're kidding me," Alistair said, in the tone of grumbling under his breath but loud enough Leliana could hear it from halfway across the tavern.

"And here we spent all morning looking for a party of this very description." The leader — probably a knight of some stripe, his equipment looked slightly finer than the others' — sauntered on closer to the Wardens, his people curving out into an arc. Patrons abandoned the nearest tables, picking up their plates and their drinks and retreating further into the tavern, even as Leliana moved closer, coming up behind the Teyrn's men. "And here the traitors fall right into our laps. Lucky us."

Ser Alistair sighed. "Look, we've already done this song and dance once today. Can we just...not? Please?"

"No, I don't think so." The man raised a hand, preparing to give a signal, the Wardens' stances shifted, preparing to move.

"Gentlemen, please!" Leliana hopped forward, bringing her hand up over the man's elbow. He turned to look down on her, she smiled, sweet and gentle. "Surely there is no need for this. We can sit down and settle—"

"Stay back, Sister." The man's shoulders turned, shoved her in the chest — not painfully hard, but enough to push her back a few steps. "We wouldn't want you to get hurt now, would we?"

One of the other Gwaren men muttered something that soundedverymuch likemad Orlesian c*nt, she couldn't help huffing to herself a little. Maybe she'd laid the sweetness on alittlethick...

As hands went more openly for weapons, the scrape of steel against leather ringing in the air, Leliana glanced around the room. Five Wardens, one was a mage, five Gwaren men on the ground, three with blades and two with crossbows, two more on the balcony with bows drawn.

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head to herself.

Her hand on the grip of his dagger, when the leader stepped forward to meet the Wardens his dagger didn't come with him. (My Creator, judge me whole...) Gripping the leather at the back of his neck, Leliana yanked one of the crossbowmen back, drew the dagger— (...find me well within your grace...) —across his neck, blood weeping over his skin in a thick river, he gagged, his eyes wild and shocked— (...touch me with fire that I be cleansed...) —panicky hands dropping his weapon. Releasing him, Leliana picked up the crossbow, spun down to a knee, sighting up to the balcony, she depressed the trigger, her arms thudding with the release, the bolt appearing pierced through a man's skull.

(...tell me I have sung to your approval.)

"Stop, stop! We surrender!" The leader lived, one of the men at his side, the other crossbowman, though he was injured, clutching his shoulder, blood dripping down his side. Only one of the men who'd attacked the Wardens had died, the man whose throat she'd slit, and the one she'd shot...

Leliana blinked — the other archer was down too. The white-haired elven woman was up on the balcony now, bow drawn and aimed down at the Gwaren men...but her own bow was still on her back, she must have killed the other archer and taken it. How had she even gotten up there? The fight had only lasted seconds, she hadn't had nearly enough time to go up the stairs...

His sword sheathed again, Alistair raised a hand toward the elf. "Don't shoot him, Lyna."

The woman frowned. Her hood had been pushed back during the brief fight, her unbound, chin-length hair tousled, her face sketched with meandering vines, little flowers here and there. "They try to kill us," she said, low and cold.

"They were just following orders. It's the mangivingthe orders we have to worry about," he insisted, "not the poor sods just doing what they're told."

For a second, the elf just stared at Alistair. She loosened the bow, dropped it over her shoulder (right on the corpse of its owner, possibly), bent to pick up a blood-streaked sword. (Plain design, but cast from silverite,veryexpensive, definitely Warden crafting.) Her open hand on the rail, she jumped over, landing feet splayed on one of the tables not far from the Wardens, hopped lightly down to the floor.

Had she...jumped, up to the balcony? Leliana knew that elves were lighter than humans, but... Huh.

The white-haired elf walked toward the leader of the group, her eyes darting between the surviving men, Alistair and the other Wardens, Leliana, the tavern patrons. Strangely, everyone was quiet, waiting — the patrons being quiet sort of made sense, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, and clearly the Gwaren men didn't want to make things worse, but the Wardens... Were they waiting forherto make a decision about letting them live? Leliana had sort of assumed Ser Alistair was in charge...

(Though, she guessed, her dream hadn't been about Alistair, had it?)

"Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just." Not that she probably recognized the Chant, her Dalish accent had beenverynoticeable. She might not even understand the words.

The elf looked at her, examining her, her head tilting in thought. (Ooh, pretty. And, the tattoos were nice too.) She glanced back at the terrified patrons, waiting with bated breath. She made a disdainful sort of sniff.

She stepped closer to the leader of the Gwaren men, and he tensed, hand twitching in want of a weapon. Looking up at him, meeting his eyes hard and steady and cold, the elf brought the flat of her sword against his arm. She slowly drew it down, wiping the blood off onto his sleeve, flipped it over and did the other side. Then, the motion slow and smooth, she returned her sword to its sheath. With a dismissive flip of her wrist aimed at the door, "Go. Take your dead, go."

Over the noise of the surviving men breathlessly thanking her, scrambling to collect their things and their fallen friends, Leliana heard Alistair scoff. "What, so you'll listen to a cute redhead, but not me? Is that it?"

The elf gave an impressive death glare for someone so little.

Leliana had been watching their interaction, half an eye on the Gwaren men, she somehow didn't even notice one of the other Wardens come up to her. The red-haired elf, the one Leliana was pretty sure was a mage — though, she hadn't seen him cast magic yet, the fight had also beenverybrief, they hadn't really needed him to. Probably trying to avoid attracting attention. With a soft, sympathetic sort of smile, he said, "Are you all right, Sister?"

"I am uninjured."

"That's not what I meant." The mage glanced down, Leliana followed his gaze.

There was blood on her hand, from when she'd cut that crossbowman's throat. She couldn't feel it, really, but she could see it, streaking across the back of her hand, dripping off her fingers. Her hand was shaking. "Oh! I..." She clenched her hand into a fist, swallowed.

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt around her, her stomach twisting, an ache building in he chest. Staring fixedly at her knuckles, she focused on the weight of her robes wrapped around her body, the smooth metal of her necklace against her chest, the smell of bubbling stew and baking bread and ale and mead on the air. The memories flickering at the edges of her eyes faded, she took a long, slow, breath.

She still felt a little queasy, but she tried to summon a smile for the man anyway.Barelya man, really — she couldn't be certain, but she suspected the Warden mage was younger than her, probably by several years. "I am fine, I... It's been a long time, since I've killed a man."

The young Warden winced. "Yeah. I've never killed anyone until today." Gently, narrow-wristed and long-fingered elven hands taking hers, magic rubbing over her skin cool and slippery, he quickly cleaned away the blood, leaving not a speck or a hint of a stain behind. Definitely a mage, she hadn't guessed wrong. "There were bandits, on the road," he explained, almost defensively.

"Ah. Yes, the Templars have been trying to deal with them, but they would just run away and return a couple hours later."

The Warden shook his head to himself — not surprised, just irritated. "Killing darkspawn, that's fine. Even a bit exciting, really. Killingpeople, though, I don't like killing people."

Maker, he was so young... "That is as it should be." Covering the back of one of his hands — he hadn't let go of hers, still staring down at it, oddly blank — she offered, "I would lead you an intercession, if it troubles—"

She cut off as the elf let out a sudden twitter of laughter, his solemnity vanishing behind a crooked smile. Releasing her hand, he called over his shoulder, "It's not a disguise, Alistair, I think she really is a Sister."

Had he... Had he been playing her? No, that had been too sincere a moment ago. He really did lament what he'd had to do on the Highway, she believed, he justalsofound the idea of a Chantry Sister doing what she'd just done absurd.

"Well, I can't say we don't appreciate the help, but..." Approaching them from the counter — probably apologizing to (and possibly bribing) Dalan for the trouble and putting in dinner orders — Alistair finally got a good look at her, hitched to a stop. "Sister Leliana? It is Leliana, right?"

She smiled. "Hello, Ser Alistair. I was glad to see you survived. Far too many died at Ostagar."

Alistair scowled a little — not at her, at the ordeal he'd just so recently gone through. Perhaps bringing it up had been tactless, but she wasn't certain what else she could say. "Where'd you learn to do that? I didn't think they taught Sisters how to fire a crossbow."

"You didn't think I came out of the womb swaddled in Chantry robes with apoitrailearound my neck, did you?"

He didn't seem to have an answer for that.

"Come," Leliana said, tilting her head toward the Bann's table. "Let's sit down and talk. We have much to discuss." She led them over, trying to gather her scattered thoughts again, trying not to stare at the Dalish elf.

She hadn't put her hood up again, her hair still clearly visible. White as a cloud on a sunny day, as new-fallen snow, pure and unblemished, like the flower in her vision, the miracle embrium in her garden.

From somewhere, she couldn't say how exactly, a sense of warm approval brushed over her shoulders,Yes, little raven, yes...

Leliana smiled.

Alim didn't really know what was going on anymore. But he guessed that was okay, it didn't look like anyone else did either.

They'd spent rather longer in Lothering's tavern than they'd initially planned. Honestly, he was a little surprised the other patrons had just gotten over the fight breaking out, and a couple people justdyingright there in front of them, it was damn weird. He would have expected, he didn't know, someone running to get the city guard or something...except therewasno city guard, Lothering was tiny and in the middle of nowhere, and the Bann's men and the knights and the like that would normally be called in for this sort of thing were all marching east with Loghain. So, there wasn't anything theycoulddo, it was just strange how easily they'd gone back to their own business.

Alim realized he was rather sheltered, having lived locked up in a tower for literally as long as he could remember, but he didn't think it should be that easy for people to just shake off that kind of thing. People had been nervous getting too close to the Wardens after, sure, butstill.

And they'd ended up sitting in the tavern so long because they had to decide what to do with the crazy Chantry Sister hanging around. It wasn't just a one-off thing, apparently she'd only been there to intervene in the fight because she wanted to volunteer to join them doing...whatever the hell it was they were going to do. (They were still working on that.) Leliana introduced herself to each of them all nice — even spoke to Lýnain Dalish, which was a surprise (though apparently it was thewrongDalish, Alim hadn't even realized there was more than one kind) — sweet and smiling and pleasant I-am-a-kind-and-helpful-Chantry-person, let's all be friends, walk in the light of the Maker and all that...

Which, honestly, Alim wasn't certain whether Leliana realized howunnervingthat was. She'd just killed two people, cold and brutally efficient, and sure, she'd been kind of in shock afterward, but still, it was just...creepy?

Getting explanations for the Sister being creepy hadn't made herlesscreepy.Apparently, before coming to the Chantry Leliana had beena hand-to-Andraste Orlesian bard. Not the plucking at a guitar and singing songs kind, no, they called those minstrels over there, he meant telling stories at fancy parties betweensneaking around and breaking into private rooms to get blackmail material, and, well, if their patron isparticularlyruthless, maybe coming back after the party tomurder the host. Because,clearlythe thing they'd been missing was aprofessionally-trained spy and assassin, they were all set now.

Oh, and, why Leliana had gotten it into her head to follow them in the first place? No big deal, just, the Maker hadsent her a visionto do just that, so coming along and helping them was the thing she was supposed to do. Because the Maker had told her. Because, He spoke to her.

So, not only was she an Orlesian bard who'd retired to the Chantry when it'd gotten too hot to handle, but one who'd apparently had some kind of religion-themedpsychotic break. Wonderful.

And Alim wasn't the only one who was seriously unnerved about all this — Keran kept looking at Leliana like she was a venomous snake that might bite her at any moment, and Perry was keeping as much distance between the two of them as reasonably possible at all times. Worse than he was with Lýna even...though he didn't seem nearly as frightened of Lýna as he had been before, even since this morning he'd softened toward her a bit. Which was absurd, they'd just watched her straight murder two people earlier today, you'd think that'd make Perry go back to being scared sh*tless of her again. He had the feeling Lýna had said something in her little rant on the Highway that had changed Perry's mind about her somehow, but he had no idea what it was.

Granted, theyhadbeen murderers themselves, and they would have just been executed anyway. And, well, if Alim was being perfectly honest, he didn't really have a problem with what they'd done in principle. He'd killed those four men, and... Well, he'd never killed an actualpersonbefore. It was...uncomfortable. After throwing out the spell — spirit magic, basically shredding their internal organs into goo, flashy elemental magic was a bad idea so close to Lothering — Alim had just stood there for a moment, staring at their corpses. Cringing, because his aim hadn't been perfect, one of the four had only been nicked by the tail end of the curse, he'd died more slowly, choking and convulsing, and Alim probably should have put him out of his misery, but he could barely move, just staring down at them and...

It'd been awful, honestly. He didn't like killing people. He was certain he was going to see that one man dying again in the Fade tonight, he wasnotlooking forward to it.

But, he didn't really feelbadabout it. If they'd been innocent people, sure, but there was really no question they hadn't been. Alistair and Keran were clearly hung up on whether they had the right to just kill off murderers, instead of handing them off to the proper authorities sotheycould kill them instead, but Alim honestly thought that was kind of silly. They were going to die either way, he didn't see the point in getting worked up over it. Who knew how many they might have killed if Alistair had gotten his way and let them live, no, Alim didn't regret that they were dead.

What did bother him washowLýna had killed them. Just, out off*cking nowhere, executing them without a hint of hesitation or warning — Keran had been in the middle of a sentence! Then acting all confused, as though she didn't understand why they might be just alittleupset with her outkilling two peopleright in front of them, Maker, that girl was allkindsof f*cked up.

(Of course, shehadbeen forced to kill her adopted mother to prevent her suffering a worse fate, when she'd beenthirteen, and that's on top of half her clan dying, and who knows how many other Dalish and Chasind she'd been familiar with, and Alim knew she'd been widowed already, and she wasnotthat old, shehadto be younger than he was, and... Yeah, "all kinds of f*cked up" seemed like a pretty good summary.)

Lýna and Leliana were just differentkindsof creepy. Lýna had the whole violent, uncivilized tribesman aesthetic about her, which was unsettling, but in athis foreign person behaves weird and I can't really guess what she's thinking or might do nextway. Once Alim had put together Lýna thought of them as her people now, yeah, she was still weird, but it didn't really bother him that much anymore. Leliana, on the other hand, was not only a trained killer, but alsof*cking insane, so was creepy in thethis person is clearly mentally unbalanced and possibly unsafeway, which was just... Okay, they'd already had enough crazy in the group, with whatever was going on with Perry, and there was definitely something up with Alistair, and, oh sh*t, Lýna beingall kinds of f*cked up, she was probably just as unstable as Leliana, Maker, was adding another f*ckinglunaticto the groupreallynecessary?

If he wasn't certain he could reduce them both to ash with a wave of his hand, he'd be more concerned, but as it was they were just creepy, and he did not want to have to deal with it.

Not surprisingly, since they were bothsuper creepy, so they had that in common, it had been Lýna who'd decided Leliana could come along. Though, thatwasa little odd, because Alim had gotten the impression Lýna didn't think much of the Chantry, he'd expect ifsomeonewould think it would be a good idea to bring a Sister along it'd be Alistair or Keran. (They might have, if Leliana weren't obviously insane.) Lýna had taken the claim that Leliana was here becausethe Maker told her toremarkably calmly,especiallycompared to the rest of them, which...

Huh. Come to think of it, Lýna wouldn't realize that was heresy, would she? If the humans she'd been around growing up were all Chasind and Avvar... Didn't their priests claim to be able to speak with their gods, like, that was what made a priest a priest? Alim was pretty sure that was how it worked, the Chantry claimed their "gods" were actually demons — which seemed very plausible, honestly, but he wouldn't actually tell any of them that to their faces. He was just thinking, the claim that Leliana received visions from the Maker might not strike Lýna as unusual. In fact, she might be under the impression that was something that happened to Sisters just in general.

Right, he had to have a serious talk about the Chant of Light with that girl at some point, before she said something unfortunate to the wrong person.

And the day wasn't over yet. They weren't done picking up unnerving, deadly, possibly insane tag-alongs. Because apparently the Maker had taken it upon himself to f*ck with Alim, that was really the best explanation for this.

They couldn't sleep in the tavern — there were rooms for rent, but they were full up. Also, Lýna thought it unsafe to sleep somewhere like that, given Loghain had put a pretty considerable price on their heads. Which was, unfortunately, a good point. Alim would have to put up with sleeping out in the damn forest again, for who knew how long. They hadn't even been able to find canvas to make tents, and there were bugs, ugh. Anyway, they'd dipped into the trees off the Highway, just north and east of where the Kingsroad met the North Road, had a fire going. Which wasn't really necessary, it wasn't even quite full dark out, but Lýna preferred to have the fire lit with plenty of extra wood set aside long before night fell. He hadn't argued, certainly not as much as Keran had, just assumed Lýna had some reason for doing things the way she did and went with it.

And they were sitting in a circle, arguing. Back at Ostagar, Duncan had given them very clear orders: should they lose the battle, the five of them were to regroup with Riordan in Denerim, and help coordinate further efforts with Queen Anora and her people. Lýna did outrank the four of them, being the only Warden-Lieutenant of the bunch, but Riordan had seniority, so Lýna's mandate only reached so far as getting them to Riordan, and ceding to his leadership. The obvious thing to do, then, was to go to Denerim and find Riordan — Keran and Perry supported this plan, along with Alim himself.

Alistair had a different opinion. Duncan's orders hadnottaken into account the possibility of Loghain turning traitor on them. Loghain and his army were going to get to Denerim ahead of them, and Riordan would be forced to flee into hiding — if Loghain had sent runners ahead, he might have already. Finding a fully-trained Warden who was doing his best to not be found was going to be pretty much impossible. Even if theydidfind him, they couldn't exactly coordinate with Queen Anora and her people, sinceher peopleincluded Loghain and his men, andtheywere actively trying to kill them. Events since Duncan's death had made his final orders obsolete. Instead, Alistair wanted to go to Redcliffe, and seek the assistance of the Arl there.

As the argument went on, Alistair's idea started to make more and more sense. Itwastrue that they might not be able to find Riordan, and it wascertainlytrue they would have difficulty, to say the least, working with the Queen while her father was trying to have them killed. The Arl of Redcliffe was the King's uncle, and he'd never really liked Loghain or the Queen much, so it shouldn't be particularly difficult to convince him of the truth.Especiallyif the truth was coming from Alistair — it took him a while to mention it, but Alistair had actually been raised in the Arl's household until he'd left for Templar training, Arl Eamon was the closest thing he had to a father. (Thatwas a hell of a coincidence, but he'd take it.) Put it all together, and Alistair had adamngood point, Alim switched his vote to Redcliffe after a half hour or so.

Leliana, of course, wasn't a Warden, so she didn't get a vote. She just sat there, her Chantry robes practically glowing in the firelight, watching and listening, occasionally volunteering a bit of information or an observation here or there.

Lýna had hardly spoken a word.

Which, that wasn'tunusual, most any conversation they had Lýna spoke very little. Her Alamarri still wasn't very good — though she could follow along without too much difficulty, so she clearly understood it better than she spoke it — and she just seemed to be a quiet person to begin with. (A little melancholic andseriouslytraumatized, Alim was pretty sure, but as long as she held herself together it wasn't really his business.) But it was a little odd in this particular context. He meant, shewastheir commanding officer, technically, and in all this disagreement about what they should be doing going forward, she hadn't expressed an opinion yet.

She just...let them argue. Practically unmoving, one leg folded up to her chest and wrists wrapped over her ankle, her white hair gone an odd pale orange in the firelight, her eyes following one to the other as they spoke, still and silent and emotionless, even as the argument grew more and more impassioned. She listened, she wasclearlylistening, but she hardly said a word.

It was just kind of weird, okay. She was in charge here and she wasn't...well, taking charge. He didn't know what to think of it.

And the argument went on, and on. Mostly Alistair and Keran bickering, honestly — and, if Alim was beingveryhonest, he suspected the larger part of Keran's stubbornness that they track down Riordan was less out of a disinclination to so flagrantly disobey orders, and more a desire to find a senior Warden to help them manage all this whowasn't Lýna. It seemed Keran waslessleery of Lýna than she'd been before... Well, no, that wasn't right, she still thought Lýna was a brutal heathen savage, just had more sympathy for her, after hearing some of what she'd gone through in the southern wilds. That didn't mean she liked her, anddefinitelydidn't mean she wanted Lýna in charge.

Which, in the absence of a new Warden-Commander or big hats from Weisshaupt or whoever waltzing in, they were kind of stuck with her. Lýna had had that big long meeting, while Keran had been getting hammered with Alim and Alistair, where Alim assumed she'd learned more Warden secrets and operational stuff and whatever, who knows how much of the picture they might still be missing — Duncan had consciously chosen to maybe put dealing with the Blight in Lýna's hands, and they just had to live with that.

They'd been at it for...sh*t, must be nearly two hours now, when Alim perked up, frowning in concentration. It was subtle, but...he'd feltsomething. Some kind of magic, tingling at the edge of his awareness, but he didn't recognize it. "Hey, shut up." Keran threw him a fiery glare, her mouth opening to shout at him. "I felt something."

"Oh, you felt it too?" Alistair was frowning, glancing carefully around them — not that he could probably see anything, with human eyesight being terrible and the trees all around them throwing crazy shadows. "I thought I was imagining it. It was so little."

"No, there was definitely something—" Alim broke off as Lýna moved, picking up her bow and popping to her feet, drawn and aiming...somewhere to Alim's left.

Oh, there was a person out there. She was too far away, too many shadows dancing between here and there. At least, Alim assumed it was a woman, it was kind of hard to tell at this distance in this light. Definitely human, by her figure, those reflections dancing over her legs looked like leather, and those odd fluttery bits here and there, blurring her outline, those almost looked like...feathers?

The woman came closer, stepping into a strip of firelight unfiltered by shadow, and Alim let out a groan.You havegotto be kidding, Maker, another one...

The Chasind witch they'd met in the wilds — and itwasher, the same one, he was pretty sure, what was shedoinghere — called out to them...in Chasind, maybe? It wasn't Alamarri, but Alim suspected it wasn't Dalish either. Lýna hesitated for a moment, then responded in the same language, somewhat more awkward-sounding (but better than her Alamarri). The witch called out again, in Dalish this time, Lýna responded.

Then Lýna relaxed, stowing her bow away again. "Be welcome at our fire, Morrigan."

"Yes, yes, hello, grand to see you again and all that, what thehellare you doing here?"

As the witch stepped closer to the fire, enough the humans could certainly make her out now, she gave Alistair a flat, irritated look. "Clearly, I came to further expose myself to your sograciouscompany."

"I do have that effect on women."

"Mm, I see you've acquired one," Morrigan said, eyes turning to Leliana, "but lost another. And just where is dear Marian? I liked that one, she was feisty."

Alistair turned back, sharing a couple uncomfortable glances with the other Wardens. Marian had been on the line with Duncan, the foreign Wardens, and the King — none of them had seen her since just before the battle. She might have survived, shecouldfly (which wasso damn cool, he was very jealous), but they had no way of knowing one way or the other.

Also, "feisty" wasn't the word Alim would use, but okay.

While Leliana muttered something under her breath about beingacquired, Morrigan reached their circle, unbuckling something from her belt over the small of her back. "If you must know,healwize do—" Alim guessed that was an insult in Chasind. "—my mother insisted that I deliver her gift back to you." She lifted up a small wooden case, dropped it in Alistair's lap with a painful-sounding thunk.

Alim stared at the thing, wide-eyed. Old wood, sketched on the outside glyphs in blood dusted with lyrium — the Grey Warden treaties. They'd been back in their camp when the battle began, with the excitement of the fight in the Tower, their argument over retreating when Loghain's troops failed to show, they'd completely forgotten to go back to get them.

Alistair had shouted in annoyance at having things dropped on him, but he cut off quickly, staring dumbfounded at the familiar case in his hands. He was thrown enough, all of them were thrown — except Leliana, who obviously had no idea what it was — that Lýna actually spoke first. "Thank you, Morrigan."

"I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart, I assure you. You may thank my mother."

Lýna blinked, looking faintly taken aback, then said something in Dalish. (Definitely Dalish, they clearly both spoke Dalish and Chasind but the languages were distinct enough he could tell.) Whatever it was, Morrigan rolled her eyes, scoffing.

"How did you get to them? The place must have been crawling with darkspawn." Keran didn't sound disbelieving, really, more suspicious than anything.

The witch smirked. "Quietly."

"No, really," Alistair said, "I'm curious. I mean, I guess you could just chuck magic at them—" Leliana looked faintly alarmed at the revelation that their guest was a mage, but she bit her lip, kept her mouth shut. "—but I'm pretty sure they would have followed you, and even mages get tired eventually."

Alim laughed. "She couldn't have justchucked magic at them, Alistair — I don't carehowgood you are, there's a f*ckingarmyof the things. And they have their own mages too." Not to mention freakingdarkspawn Templars, those were things of nightmares right there, Andraste save him. "Concealment magics? You must be really damn good to have pulled it off."

"Mm, I suppose you could call it that." The witch was smiling, her eye dancing in the firelight, as though on the cusp of telling a funny joke. "Darkspawn concern themselves with not but people, you see, humans, elves, and dwarves. Their taint may corrupt all that lives on the land in time, yes, but they do not seek to harm directly naught else."

"Uh..."

Morrigan's smile broadened into a toothy smirk. That magic he'd felt before sparked into the air again, tingly and strangely diffuse, her form seemed to blur, colors shifting, and...she...

The witchturned into a wolf. A full-size mountain wolf, would probably be higher than Alim's waist standing, fur a solid black, silver threaded here and there seemingly at random, the eyes the same yellow-ish green as the woman's. Was... Was she awerewolf?Ailm hadn't thought those were real, just legends! No, no, wait, she was a hedge mage, she was probably a shapechanger. Still,veryneat.

The wolf-witch let out a low, sharpwoof, and then all of them turned to Lýna. Because, with a woman f*ckingturning into a wolf right in front of them, Lýna had still managed to do something evenmoreattention-drawingly unexpected: she waslaughing, bright giggles that were just... Had Alim ever heard Lýna laugh before? He didn't think so. He couldn't help but stare, apparentlyallof them couldn't, because he just... Not only was it unexpected that Lýna would laugh atthat, especially since she hadn't at anything yet (not that Alistair's jokes were that good, but still), but he definitely hadn't expected her laughter to be so bright and high andgirlish, it was just f*ckingweird.

Eventually, she managed to settle down enough to speak, saying something to Morrigan — again, in Dalish. The witch shifted back, crouching on her heels between Alistair and Lýna. Smirking down at Lýna, she replied — again, in Dalish. Shaking her head to herself, a last few giggles bubbled up before Lýna finally went silent again, an uncharacteristically goofy-looking smile lingering on her face.

...Alim wished he understood Dalish, because he was really curious just what the hell that had been about. By how Leliana was watching her, he wasn't the only one.

Shaking off his confusion, Alistair asked, "So, you picked up our treaties...as a wolf."

"'Twas not difficult, given thought and care. Charging the horde like a heroic warrior out of legend simply wasn't an option — I understand if alternate strategies are difficult for you to imagine."

Alim coughed out a laugh, quickly fought to smother it. Alistair shot him a betrayed look. "I, uh, smoke, from the fire. You know."

"Uh-huh. If we can put a hold on mocking me for a minute—"

Morrigan smiled. "For a minute."

"—we do owe you for putting yourself in so much danger for us." Alistairalmostsounded like admitting it was mildly painful, but he was too nice of a guy tonotbe grateful for someone doing something as completely absurd as grabbing something out of the middle of ahorde of darkspawnfor them.

"'Twas not done from kindness."

"I'm shocked, of course."

Morrigan hummed, smirking a little. "I thought I would bring it along as a peace offering of sorts. I understand you Wardens have run into some ill fortune, since last we met. I am here to offer my assistance in your efforts to end the Blight."

The offer was met with several seconds of dead silence. Alim glanced around, to see the other Wardens were giving each other similar looks. Alistair didn't like the idea at all, a corner of his lips pulled down in a grimace. Keran was glaring, like she'd sooner put her sword through Morrigan's heart than speak to her — which she very well might, thiswasa Chasind apostate, and Keran was rather pious (Alim had overheard her praying in the morning and everything). Perry looked mildly freaked out at the idea of having another weird wilder tribesman around, but he kept shooting Lýna questioning glances, Alim could tell he was already going to go along with her judgement on this one — which did sort of make sense, Lýnadidknow the wilders better than any of them did. Leliana didn't look too pleased about the idea either, but again, not a Warden, she didn't get a vote.

Lýna, of course, didn't look uncomfortable with the offer at all, was even smiling, just a little. Which, okay, thatdidsort of make sense, when Alim thought about it. The two might not have known each other before, but the witch was Chasind, who were still much more familiar to Lýna than Alamarri. Ferelden was a foreign country to her, the other Wardens (and Leliana) alien people of an alien culture speaking an alien language — on the other hand, the Chasind and the Dalish in the south shared the land, and it'd been made clear already they spoke each other's languages better than Lýna spoke Alamarri. It wasn't unexpected that Lýna might be more comfortable with Morrigan than, say, Alim himself (another elf), regardless of her being an apostate mage with uncertain motivations (and also human).

...Though, her being a mage probably didn't hurt. The wilders didn't have the same wariness of magic most civilized peoples did, Lýna wouldn't distrust Morrigan simply for being a mage, but shewouldconsider the potential advantages of her aid. Having one mage was great, but havingtwomages opened up a whole wealth of tactical options that wouldn't have been available to them before. Lýna had likely decided to let Leliana tag along because any help was better than no help, and she seemed good enough in a fight — part of Lýna's wholeby any means necessarykick she'd picked up from Duncan, she wasn't going to turn down allies when they waltzed over and offered themselves up — but a skilled mage was worth ten hardened warriors any day.

Assuming they could be trusted at least. "And why would you do that, exactly?"

Morrigan turned the sameare you an idiot?look she kept giving Alistair on Alim. "What a foolish question. Doubtless you've noticed, little boy, there is a Blight rising. It has already overrun my home, I cannot go back. If it takes all the world, even weevil heathen witches," said with maximum sarcasm, "will have nowhere to go."

...Good point.

"Did you stick your mother somewhere, or do we get to look forward to her tagging along too?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's entertaining herself somewhere. If you are very fortunate, you will never see my mother again — future meetings are unlikely to be so friendly."

Yeah, Alim didn't disagree with that sentiment at all. He hadn't actually met Morrigan's creepy mother — who was almost certainly a Dreamer,maybean abomination of some kind, and possibly the actual legendary Flemeth, which was just absurd to think about — but he'd heard the experience recalled by both Marian and Alistair. Marian had described what sounded very much like the old witchcommunicating with spirits while conscious, some of which might involve events thathadn't happened yet, and oh, also, she might not be entirely sane. No absurdly powerful demented barbarian mages for him, thanks.

Alistair had said something else, Alim had been too distracted being grateful Flemeth hadn't come along to pick it up, Morrigan letting out an irritated scoff. "If youmustknow, my mother ordered me to assist you. I would no more like to see the Blight sweep over this land than you, but neither do I enjoy forcing myself to remain in the company of those who despise me."

"So why don't you go, then?"

"Mother will know. She always knows." Yeah, because that wasn't creepy at all. "I'm not some helpless little girl tagging along for the adventure." Here she gave Leliana a blank sort of look, probably taking her for a Chantry Sister and nothing else; Leliana returned it with a brilliant grin, cheerful, but almosttoocheerful, if that was even a thing. Morrigan's eyebrow twitched, smirking a little. "I am well-practiced in a variety of magics I would guess your little boy here might not have well heard of."

Alim couldn't help it — he'd actually been one of the better initiates at the Circle, and first Marian showing him up, and now this hedge witch dismissing him, it was irritating. But instead of going off on that, he just said, "Hey! How young do I look, anyway?"

"Twenty or so." Oh, she'd actually guessed high, hmm... "I was not using the term literally, but in the sense of experience — tell me, boy, how long ago did they let you out of that gilded prison of theirs?"

...Oh. "Okay, that's fair."

The Sister and Keran both looked like they wanted to say something about thegilded prisonremark — which, Alim didn't disagree so they could both shut their f*cking mouths, what did they know about it — but Alistair jumped out ahead again. "Can you cook?" Oh, sweet man, he must have noticed Keran and Leliana were about to say something potentially offensive and blurted out the first thing he could think of so they couldn't. He meant, Alim couldn't imagine why else he'd said that — the only person here whocouldn'tprepare their own meals was Alim himself. That was something all ordinary people had to learn at some point or another, unless they were filthy rich, but, yeah, gilded prison.

Morrigan actually seemed a little taken aback, blinking over at Alistair. "I...cancook, I suppose," she drawled, her tone suggestive, a too-sweet smile pulling at her lips.

Alistair shivered. "No thanks, I'm good, never mind." He turned to Perry, muttered loudly enough everybody certainly heard it. "Remind me to never eat anything the Chasind touches."

"Oh, there's no cause to be so reticent,Alamar. If you'reverygood, I might see fit to use one of the less painful poisons."

"That's very generous of you."

The witch hummed, smirking. "So. Am I staying, or do I need to pretend to leave?"

"Pretend?"

"Ididsay my mother ordered me here. If you do not allow me to travel with you, I will need shift into something quiet and stalk you from the bushes."

Nobody seemed particularly pleased with the thought of the Chasind witchstalking them from the bushes, even Alistair struggling for words this time, his mouth silently moving. For the first time in a while, Lýna spoke. "Yes, stay," then something in...this one was Chasind, he thought. Smiling, Morrigan responded in the same language, then tipped back off her heels to sit, folding her legs loosely in front of her.

"This is a terrible idea," Alistair muttered — probably not intended to be heard this time, but all the elves in the group would have, at least. "Yes, Morrigan, welcome, why not. Try not to kill anybody important."

Smirking with clear amusem*nt, the witch drawled, "I shall endeavor to restrain myself."

"It was saying," Lýna said, which was completely incomprehensible until she added, "Denerim or Redcliffe." Getting right back to their previous business, apparently.

Over the next minute or two, the Wardens processed the sudden addition of the unwelcome apostate, and then filled her in on the question of the day. Morrigan frowned through the second half of the explanation of their little dilemma, and spoke just as Keran started again insisting they needed to find Riordan before doing anything else. "'Tis obvious which is the better decision, is it not? You go to Redcliffe."

"Well, it's not really your decision what— Oh," Alistair cut himself off, blinking in surprise, "you're on my side, never mind."

"Yourside? My apologies, I didn't realize this wasyouridea. Denerim, then."

Keran gave Perry, her only solid ally in this argument, an irritated look — probably didn't appreciate him bursting into giggles like that. "I fail to see how explicitly disobeying our orders should be theobviousthing to do."

"I suppose you mightn't," Morrigan said, in a dismissive tone that suggested that was meant to be an insult. "As impressive and talented as I'm certain you all are," this time suggesting she was not certain of that at all, "no party so small could oppose the Blight alone. No, you need allies. If the simpleton here tells true, you may find them in Redcliffe. You will find only enemies in Denerim."

"I have friends in Denerim."

"Friends who are surrounded by warriors commanded by a powerful foe, and may even now believe you participated in a plot to murder their King — and you expect that meeting to go well?" this time suggesting she thought Keran might well be mentally ill.

And the argument kicked off again from there, but this time with theentirelyunhelpful presence of a snarky witch with more venom than tact. It didn't go on for very long, though, before Lýna called, "Stop." But she had a soft elven voice, not nearly strong enough to be heard over Alistair and Keran shouting at each other. She tipped up onto her knees, leaned forward and slammed both hands down on the ground in the middle of their circle. The gesture wasn't nearly as loud as it would have been if they'd had a proper table between them, but the movement was more than enough to draw everybody's attention. "I need know more.

"What happens now?" she asked, eyes flicking to Alistair. He didn't answer immediately, probably uncertain what she was asking for. "Your King is dead. What happens now? Is Loghain king? Someone new? The clans meet and pick new king? What?"

Oh, right, Lýna didn't know sh*t about Ferelden, she wouldn't know what was supposed to happen next. They probably should have explained that.

"Ah... Well, it's complicated, I guess."

"Anora is Queen," Keran said.

Alistair shrugged. "I mean, technically, Anora is Queen, yes. The King's wife," he explained for Lýna, "she'll still be Queen, for now. But she's young, and the nobles don't like her much — Loghain won'treallybe king, but people will probably listen to him as though he is. He's the Queen's father, and much more well-liked than she is."

Lýna had seemed faintly confused for a second, but she nodded at that last clarification. "Queen, this is word for king?"

"It's 'king' for a man, 'queen' for a woman."

"...This is stupid. Okay. You sayfor now. Why?"

"Well, the Landsmeet..." Alistair paused for a moment, thinking, his fingers tapping at his knee. "A person doesn't become king just because their father was. See, there are all these noble families across the country — powerful clans, if you like — they control all the land and all the soldiers and so forth. After the king dies, they come together in something called a Landsmeet, and pick a new king. Since Anora was married to Cailan, she's still the Queen, but only until the Landsmeet makes a decision. They might pick her, they might not. I'm betting not,especiallyif what happened at Ostagar gets out. Which it probably will — Loghain's men couldn't have killedeverybodywho fled from the battle, and his men will probably talk too."

"Who?"

Alistair shrugged again. "Dunno. I would have said Loghain was a shoe-in, but, betraying the previous king isn't exactly good for one's image. Bryce Cousland, maybe — his men were at Ostagar, but he wasn't, he must still be in Highever. Leonas Bryland?MaybeUrien Ken— Oh wait, no, he was with the King, not him. Eamon would be a long shot, he's too old, but it's possible."

"We can go to them?"

"Um, Iwouldsay Leonas would listen to us, but Loghain's men are probably all over his arling right now, this might not be a good time to approach him. I don't know Bryce well, but I do know his sons — Fergus and Aedan. We'd probably find Aedan at the tavern in town, he could get Bryce to meet with us, but Fergus would be— Oh, Fergus was at Ostagar,damn it!"Alistair paused for a moment, his fists clenched in his lap, glaring furiously at the dirt — apparently he hadn't realized until just now one of his friends was probably dead. "Right. We could probably get Leonas and Bryce on-side, but it might be tricky. Eamon will be much easier, we can just walk right into his house and talk to him."

Alim snorted —his house, like it was no big deal, that was a hell of a way to refer to Redcliffe Castle...

"Good," Lýna said, nodding. "We go to Redcliffe."

"But what about—"

"Stop!" Keran's voice died in her throat, probably more at the look on Lýna's face than the single word — she might be tiny, but Alim wouldn't want to be staring that head-on either. He wouldn't be surprised if this girl couldglaredarkspawn to death. "We can't stop Blight alone. We need army. Riordan can't give us one. Queen will not. Eamon may, by Landsmeet. We go there, protect him."

"Wait, why do we need to protect him?" Alim asked. "I mean, I guess the arling is in the south, but he has plenty of soldiers of his own — I doubt they'll make it is far as Redcliffe so soon."

"Not darkspawn. Alistair say, before, Eamon is strong in Landsmeet?"

"Uh, yeah." Alistair seemed a little surprised she remembered that — that was a point he'd brought up much earlier, when arguing with Keran before Morrigan had turned up. He might not have realized she'd even understood all of that. (Alim doubted she'd understoodallof it, there had been a lot of cultural stuff she didn't know, but probably enough.) "Redcliffe is a wealthy arling, and he's well-connected and well-liked, he'll probably be one of the stronger voices in the Landsmeet, yeah."

"Loghain knows this?"

"Oh sh*t, you think Loghain might try to kill him?"

Lýna nodded. "Maybe. He tries to kill Cailan's men, protect himself. More, he may kill big hats who be threat." Alim couldn't help smiling a little, he hadn't realized she'd picked up that bit of slang. "Eamon is big threat on his leaderness, yes?"

"Leadership, but yeah, probably the biggest one after Bryce and Arl Urien — and Urien is already dead, and his son is...not the kind of man he is. Yeah, if he's willing to assassinate lords to hold on to power, Bryce should be first on his list, and Eamon second." Alistair looked rather concerned over it now, an anxious frown dragging down his eyebrows. Apparently, that possibility hadn't occurred to him...which was fair, it hadn't occurred to Alim either.

Though, when he thought about it, it probably should have. If the Teyrn was willing to leave the King to die, to slaughter survivors of the battle who might have been witness to his treachery, it stood to reason he might be willing to knock off members of the nobility who might challenge his control over Ferelden. No matter how absurd that was to consider, Loghain Mac-Tir becoming this kind of... Set aside the principle of it, for a moment, that Loghain might have loyal lords of Ferelden killed, Teyrn Bryce Cousland and Arl Eamon Guerrin werepersonal friendsof his! They'd fought together during the Rebellion!

Granted, from rumors Alim had heard (and books he'd read), there was some bad blood between Loghain and Eamon. The Queen Mother... Or, it was just Queen Rowan now, Alim guessed, since the King was dead. Anyway, Queen Rowan had been Eamon's sister, she'd been betrothed to King Maric since they'd been small children — apparently, their relationship had even been somewhat awkward, due to having been practically raised as siblings, that can make being engaged to be married a little weird. (This wasn't common knowledge, but Kinloch Hold wasn't far from Redcliffe, they'd picked up rumours.) During the Rebellion, according to rumor, the Queen had become involvedwith Loghain, back when he was just one of Maric's military commanders and not anything so respectable as a teyrn yet.

Again, according to rumor, Loghain had severed their relationship himself, insisted Rowan go through with the marriage to Maric, ended up marrying a merchant of some kind from Gwaren — Loghain had then left his wife in charge of their teyrnir, spending most of his time in Denerim assisting the King in the management of his kingdom. There had long been whispers that the true power in Ferelden was Loghain, even in King Maric's time, those whispers only getting louder as his son succeeded him. There had been other, far more scandalous whispers, wondering if Loghain weren't also usurping the King's place in...othermatters as well. Some even questioned whether Maric was truly King Cailan's father at all.

Naturally, Arl Eamon wouldn't take kindly to these rumors. The relationship between the Arl of Redcliffe and the Teyrn of Gwaren had soured enough it was obvious even to common people, the rumors so thick on the ground it had practically been common knowledge in the Circle.

And Teyrn Bryce Cousland, well... The Couslands were an old and influential family, the only one in the country that could be said to match the Theirins. When the Landsmeet had been called after the death of King Maric, many nobles had been uncomfortable with the leadership of his son — he'd been young then, and seemingly more concerned with poetry and sparring with his retainers than the affairs of the kingdom. There had been a significant minority who'd thrown their support behind Bryce instead. He'd disavowed any interest in the throne, asked his supporters to support Cailan, but...

Given the deterioration of the relationship between Teyrn Loghain and Arl Eamon, and the serious damage to Loghain's image news out of Ostagar would inevitably do, it was almost a certainty that the next Landsmeet would choose Bryce Cousland as their king. Loghain must realize that — he'd been born a commoner, yes, not so at home with the politics of the nobility, but he wasn't an idiot.

The two greatest threats to Queen Anora remaining on the throne were Bryce Cousland and Eamon Guerrin. If Loghain were truly willing to kill to keep his daughter in power, those were definitely the two he needed to start with.

And Gwaren men killing survivors of Ostagar certainly suggested he was willing to kill.

As everybody else processed this terrible sequence of ideas, Lýna nodded, smooth and calm. Of course, why shouldn't she be, it wasn't like this was her country, these were just names to her. "So, to Redcliffe. Agree?"

Alim and Alistair assented immediately, quickly followed by Perry and even Keran — as much as she would prefer to follow orders and find Riordan, there were pressing reasons to go to Redcliffe instead, even she'd been convinced now. She didn't seem entirely happy with the idea of being stuck with Lýna's leadership (and Leliana and Morrigan's presence) for the foreseeable future, but since Alistair, their only other senior Warden, seemed unwilling to take over in her place, there wasn't really a whole lot she could do about that, was there.

"Good. We go at dawn. Sleep." With a final nod, Lýna popped up to her feet, slipped off toward the trees, probably finding one to prop herself up against for the night. Leaving the rest of them sitting in a circle suffering from conversational whiplash, their long, impassioned argument over what their next move should be shifted around to focus on an entirely different central question and then tied up so quickly and neatly Alim still felt like his head was spinning. The Wardens and Leliana stared blinking at each other, as though feeling thereshouldbe something else to be said, but not certain what it was.

He suspected this was going to be a common feeling over the next months.

The Chasind witch wasn't nearly as dumbfounded as the rest of them, just sitting there smiling, like a small child on Satinalia morning. "I think I like that one."

Alim sighed — yeah, the next few months were going to be justwonderful.

Chapter 7: Lothering — II

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 16

Southron Hills, South Reach, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Marian was dragged from sleep gradually, painfully, specters half-seen and voices half-heard lingering, pulling at her. Numb and delirious, it took her a moment to feel the cloth against her face, the hand against her shoulder.

The voice calling from above, high, panicky. "Wake up! Mari, you have to wake up, there's smoke coming from the village! Marian!" Bethany.

She jolted into motion, rolling over to sit up, quickly enough her head almost knocked into Bethany's. And then Marian winced, bent over hugging herself, as her entire body seemed to thrum with pain, overworked muscles aching and twitching with exhaustion.

She was so damn tired.

They'd managed to get home ahead of the darkspawn, though not by as wide of a margin as Marian would have liked. Setting eyes on her home — their land tucked in a valley between hills, hidden from the prying eyes of neighbors, Marian had been relieved to see the place still standing. She'd been certain they were ahead of the darkspawn, but the Teyrn's men... Well, she'd been glad to see nothing had happened to Mother and Bethany, that was all.

By the time they'd gotten home, Marian had been starving and exhausted, practically dead on her feet. She'd carried Carver half the way from Ostagar, but he'd been mostly recovered by then, and he'd ended up carrying her the last leg of the trip. She'd been light-headed from hunger and delirious from lack of sleep when they'd stumbled through the threshold, she'd remained conscious long enough to get down a few gulps of water and a sizeable bowl of porridge, telling the others to prepare to leave as soon as possible, before passing out right there in the kitchen.

She was in their bedroom now, she could see, hers and Mother's — it had been her parents' originally, but when the twins had been twelve or so she'd moved in with Mother to let them have the kids' to themselves. It was clear Mother had been through here, the linens cast about in a mess, the dresser practically disassembled in her haste to get to one item or another. Marian was surprised it hadn't woken her, she must have really been out of it.

Bethany was standing nearby, dressed and ready to go, thick leather and fur, a wineskin hanging at each hip, a third slung across her chest. "Are you hurt? I can try to—"

"I'm fine," she said, brushing off her sister's hands. All the magic Bethany knew Marian had taught her in the first place, she wasn't any better at healing than Marian was — besides, she wasn't actually injured, just sore from carrying Carver over her shoulder for miles and miles. "You said, smoke?" Marian pushed herself up to her feet, her legs shaking, then cringed, her hands bracing against her hips as her back flared in protest. Okay,ow...

"From the northwest. I think Lothering is burning," Bethany said, an obvious note of horror on her voice — and with good reason, all those people... "Carver said to wait to wake you as long as we could, and we haven't seen any darkspawn yet, but the village—"

"It's okay, Beth, I'm okay, let's go." She checked over herself, shaking her head in amusem*nt despite herself. Apparently, Carver had just picked her up and dropped her in bed without bothering to undress her at all, she was still wearing the silverite scale armor Duncan had set her up with. Even her boots were still on, her daggers at her hips. Not that she was complaining, she'd waste less time getting dressed again this way. "Are we about ready to go?" Her first few steps were unsteady, her stiff legs not quite cooperating, but she smoothed out as she walked into the kitchen.

The place was a mess. The others had clearly torn through it, clothing and tools and cookware and trinkets scattered all over the place, four bulging packs sat waiting in the middle of the floor. Carver was there, still looking rather lopsided from Marian cutting at his armor healing him, looking half-panicked, torn between irritation and something else she couldn't quite read. Mom didn't look much like herself at the moment, bundled up much like Bethany — Marian couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Mom wearing pants — her dark hair, threaded with strands of grey here and there tied back in a slapdash knot, bits of it escaped in an asymmetrical mess. She had cradled in her arms a thick ceramic chest, lined in bronze accents. From the way her shoulders bent holding it, it was rather heavy. Mom and Carver were arguing, though she hadn't heard much she assumed over including the chest in their supplies.

Marian didn't have to listen to know exactly what was going on: she wasn't likely tonotrecognize her father's urn.

Mom and Carver both turned at her entrance, both speaking to her — Carver asking her to back her up here, Mom wondering if she was okay, if she'd slept enough, they hadn't woken her up too early, had they? Without a word, Marian stepped right up to Mother, wrenched the urn out of her arms. She whirled around, her boots scraping on the wood floor, returned the urn to its place above the hearth.

"Marian," Mom said, her hand coming to Marian's elbow, "we can't just leave him here, the darkspawn—"

She bit her lip, holding in an aggravated sigh. She knew that thin, shaky tone on her mother's voice, had heard far too much of it not so long ago — she was too damn tired to deal with Mom losing it over Dad again. "It's too heavy, Mother."

"We'll— We can move some of the things out of my pack, and—"

"No, Mother." Marian started toward the packs to give them a quick once-over, if Mother had been involved who knew what unnecessary sh*t she'd put in there.

"We can't just— I said I'd never leave him and I'm not going to start now, surely you or Bethany could—" Use magic to take off some of the weight, she meant, but she didn't know what she was asking. Yes, she and Bethany could use magic to make things weigh less, but they'd probably be doing that withalltheir packs (excluding maybe Carver's), and with how long they would be walking — and possibly running, for the first stretch — the amount of magic they'd have to put into that... The extra weight of the dense ceramic could well push one of them into burn-out. And ifoneof them burned out...

Sorry, Dad, but it's the only way I'm getting your family out of here in time.

Marian stormed back to the hearth, picked up the urn. She raised it above her head and — magic coursing through her body so thick it stung, the strength it gave her making the urn feel so light she hardly felt it — she threw it down, as hard and fast as she could, slamming it against the floor.

The wood cracked under the force, and the thick ceramic shattered, bronze-edged shards noisily dancing away, thick trails of white-gray ash dumping themselves across the floor.

"No!Marian, howcouldyou—?!" And then Mother was bursting into tears, reaching for the urn, but Bethany wrapped her up in her arms first, holding her in place as she cried. She sent Marian a scandalized look, not so devastated as Mother but clearly offended all the same.

Carver, grim and solemn, just nodded.

While Bethany comforted Mother, wailing over Father's defiled remains — she hadn't likeddoingit any more than Bethany had liked seeing it, but they didn't have time to talk Mom around — Marian stalked over to the packs, quickly searched through them. Food mostly, it looked like, some more water on top of the wineskins Bethany, Carver, and Mother were all carrying, some valuables, what little jewelry Mom had brought with her when she'd left Kirkwall, a few things acquired since, some fine lace, a couple little trinkets. Good thinking — they didn't have a whole lot in the way of coin, but they should be able to sell much of this when they got to Amaranthine, should get enough to buy their way across to the Marches. There were a few books in each pack, she noticed, which was fine, it was a toss-up whether Mother's jewelry or Father's books would fetch a better price. Almost nothing in the way of clothing, but that was fine, clothing was more easily replaceable, especially if they had money.

Speaking of money, Marian walked over to Carver where he was bent over one of the packs, rearranging things to be easier to carry, drew the sword he'd picked up during his short stint in the King's army. He jumped at the sound, whirling around to ask her what she was doing, but she didn't answer, went over to the door outside. She counted slats in the floorboards from the jam, one two three four, jabbed the point of the sword into the seam, leaned against the pommel. There was a creak of a strained nail, and then a pop, the floorboard coming loose. Marian handed Carver his sword back, dropped to her knees, pulled a small wooden box out of the hole in the floor.

"What's that?"

Instead of answering, Marian slid the cover open a few inches — inside were silver coins, a few dozen of them. Most buying and selling that ordinary people dealt with was done in bits, so when Marian did pick up a silver here and there she'd gotten into the habit of putting them away, saving them up in case of an emergency. She doubted it would come out to a whole sovereign added up, but with the bits they'd already distributed through their packs it was probably pretty close. Marian clicked the box closed again, held it out to Carver. "Put that in Mother's pack." She was the least likely to lose her things if there was to be any fighting.

"Right, good idea."

On her feet again, Marian whipped her coat off its peg, pulled it on. This had been her father's, heavy leather lined with fennec fur stretching past her knees, with a hood that neatly hid her face — it had always been big on her, she'd let Carver have it for all of a year before he'd gotten too broad in the shoulder. With her armor filling it out a bit, it was actually a pretty good fit now. "I'm gonna check the trails north quick. We're leaving as soon as I get back."

"We'll be ready." Carver tossed her a wineskin, she scrambled to catch a biscuit, bits of apples in the hard bread, a whiff of cinnamon reaching her nose. "Go."

Marian was out the door, stopping only briefly at the well to get a drink and fill her skin before, her breakfast held between her teeth, she drew magic around her like a whirling wind, and threw herself into the air.

The farm smeared into an indistinct blur of color under her, five feet, then twenty, then thirty. Normally, flying so near home she'd hug close to the curve of the hills, letting them break line of sight with the other farms to the west and north, but this time she didn't bother. She flew in an arc up, high enough the landscape for miles around was laid out before her — though in only vague features, the spell obscuring her vision too much to make out much in the way of detail — flew for a minute or so before crossing the river, arcing down again, hitting the ground with a heavy thump, skipping to bleed off speed. Biting through her biscuit, she twirled it in her fingers as she chewed, looking down on the large flat patch of land the village sat in.

It was later than she'd thought, the sun only a couple handspans above the horizon — she'd actually slept a decent bit there, which explained how awake she was now, once she'd gotten herself moving. She was standing on a hill about a half mile south-east of the Chantry, a good four miles away from home, looking down on the village from an angle. The sun lit up the column of smoke rising from the village from behind, the dark cloud almost seeming to glow with a moody light, an orange mass hanging over the valley. Half the village was on fire, misshapen figures by the dozens weaving between the burning buildings.

Thankfully, it looked like the village had been mostly evacuated by the time the darkspawn had shown up. It was hard to tell from this distance for certain, but she spotted far fewer dark shapes on the ground than she might have expected, only a couple here or there. Marian hadn't been particularly close with anyone who lived in the village, she wouldn't say, but it wasn't like she wanted them to all die either. And Bethany would be relieved by the news too.

But she noticed a bigger problem than the state of Lothering itself: the darkspawn had hit it a while ago. By the state of the Chantry, nearly a burned out skeleton already, it could have been as much as an hour already, maybe more. And they were spreading across the field to the north, out toward west and east.

Perhaps, already between home and the road to Amaranthine.

Marian swallowed, stuck her biscuit back between her teeth, and took off again. Flying more east than straight home, she watched the land passing beneath, trying to make out familiar features through the distortion. There, that might be— She landed on top of another hill, and yes, that was the dirt trail threading along the eastern edge of the farmland surrounding the village, the informal border between the Bannir of Lothering and the unincorporated wilds of this part of the Southron Hills. Marian glanced around quick, launched herself into the air again, passing over the smeared shape of one hill, another, another, another—

Smoke, ahead.

Tipping back down to the ground, Marian landed rather harder than she meant to in her haste, ploughing into the dirt on her knees, nearly dropping her biscuit. In a dip in the land ahead was another farm. Glancing around quick, taking in the shape of the land around them, yes, this was Dennel's family — Marian had known him growing up, their time learning to read from the Sisters in the village had overlapped, though he was three or four years older than her. They'd been sort of friends for a while, but they'd fallen out of contact when he'd been getting married and Father had died, both of them suddenly very busy. They did some pretty regular trade these days, Marian offering skins from fennec and elk she brought down for whatever bits and bobs they needed he might have.

Dennel's house was on fire. Darkspawn were scattered here and there across his land in a teeming mess, though moving generally north and east.

Marian caught a glimpse of bright red-orange in the field, not far from the house, hair teased out by the acrid breeze — Seda, Dennel's daughter. Couldn't be older than, what, five or so, she was a sweet girl, Bethany had been a terror at that age...

Gritting her teeth, Marian turned her back on the murdered family, threw herself back into the air.

When she landed again a couple minutes later, her family were stepping out of their home, Bethany practically dragging Mom along. Mom wasn't openly crying anymore, but she did seem very out of it, her face almost eerily blank. She was cradling something in both hands, her eyes unerringly fixed on it: a shard of heavy ceramic, a vein of bronze along one side.

Marian swallowed.

"How's it look out there?"

Wrenching her eyes away from her mother, Marian said, "Ah, not good. Dennel's farm is overrun." Probably the only reason their land hadn't been hit already was because it looked like the darkspawn had hit the village first before spreading out — which meant the horde was south and west and north of them. "We'll have to go by the game trails, through the hills."

Blanching a little — at the thought that Dennel and his family were maybe dead (which Marian wouldn't be confirming for them right now), or just that they were uncomfortably surrounded — Carver nodded. "Come on, let's go," he barked, starting off toward the east. "If they're already at Dennel's we don't have much time."

"I'll be along in a moment."

Bethany and Mother already passing him, Carver paused to stare at her, frowning. Then his eyes widened a little, putting together what she planned to do. For a moment, Marian thought he might say something, argue, or maybe even cry, his eyebrows dipping and his chin quivering. But he just nodded, took a last glance at their home, then turned around, skipping ahead of the other two to lead them up into the hills.

Marian had actually been born in Redcliffe, they'd lived there her first few years, but it hadn't been easy getting by. Most of the land in the Arling was held by Banns or knights or freeholders already, and good work had been relatively scarce. Also, so near Kinloch Hold there had been many more Templars. Marian had already started to show signs of magic as a toddler, and Dad had been doubtful of their ability to hide her indefinitely — Mom said Dad had told her in no uncertain terms that he would rather die than let them take Marian and lock her up in the Tower, they had to move further away.

Lothering had been a convenient choice. The village had been the site of a major battle during the Rebellion, nearly flattened in the fighting, most of the farmland in its periphery abandoned. It'd filled up in the years since, but there had still been some good land for the taking by then. Her father had built this house. Not on his own, with some assistance from men from the surroundings farms, and not from nothing — there had been a farmhouse here before they'd come, but it'd been abandoned years previously, only some of the stones making up the hearth at its center remained.

Marian vaguely remembered coming here for the first time, she would have been three or four, she thought. It hadn't been finished yet, only the kitchen enclosed, they'd still been working on what was now her and Mother's bedroom. She remembered Father carrying her on his shoulders, looking around their little valley, explaining this wastheirland, it wastheirs, no worrying about banns or knights pushing them around anymore, sitting in front of the hearth that first night, Dad explaining his family had been freeholders once, somewhere near Redcliffe (that he barely remembered them, taken away to the Circle at a young age), explaining what it meant, that this was theirhome, it wastheirs. Not the words, she'd been too young to remember exactly what he'd said, but the meaning of it, reinforced over years working the place — each bite of a hoe into dirt, each nail in the walls.

Marian had helped build the second bedroom. Bethany and Carver hadn't been borninthis house — Mother had spent the last month before and the first month after their birth in the Chantry, like most women of lowly means in the Bannir — but the moment it turned out they'd had twins (and that they'd both survive), Dad had decided they needed another room added to the house that would be the kids' when they got older. Marian had been little then, she hadn't been able to help much more than carrying tools or planks of wood from place to place, one at a time, hold things where they belonged while the first couple nails were driven through. She mostly remembered the breaks, sitting in the middle of the half-finished room with stew and cider (and the occasional bit of maple-almond brittle, a rare luxury), Dad and a few men from the area (including Dennel's father, actually), talking through the work to do yet, joking and laughing.

Dad had died in this house. In the bed Marian and Mom still slept in, in fact. (Mom had refused to ever leave it for some time afterward.) They'd held a vigil there, for a week, friends coming around to visit, and Carver was...

Her hand pressed against the scuffed wood next to the hearth, memories flickered behind Marian's eyes. Sitting around the fire, cooking or working on this thing or the other, Dad telling old Fereldan stories he'd picked up at some point over the years, the less dramatic of their magic lessons, between her and Father or her and Bethany, Dad getting revenge on Carver for hitting him in the back of the head with a snowball, the three kids all getting drawn into an extended tickle fight, Mom sitting in her chair poking at some sewing project or another, clicking her tongue in irritation but failing to hide her smile...

Their home.Theirs.

And Marian would rather die than let those damn Blighted monsters go tromping through it.

Smoke rose from the wood against her skin, and then it burst into flames, quickly spread into crackling life, branching up and to the sides. Marian stepped into the kids' room, setting the very flammable bed alight first, then the dresser, painting a few streaks of flame across the floor and walls, the curtains Marian had stitched herself when she'd been, oh, eight or so, going up with a suddenwhoomf. She moved to hers and Mother's bedroom, giving it the same treatment, until it was consumed in flickering red and yellow, the roaring echoing in her ears, back out into the kitchen, flames flying from the fingers of both hands, she didn't slow walking through the room, fire spreading behind her, covering everything.

She stepped back out into the open air through the thick, acrid cloud spilling through the doorway. The stinging in her eyes and the ache in her throat had nothing to do with the smoke.

She caught up with her family after a brief flight, just at the crest of the nearest hill to the east, the twisted, rolling landscape ahead hidden by brush and trees. They'd all paused, turning around to face their land, staring at their burning home as though transfixed. Carver was solemn, but unsurprised, he'd realized what she was doing, Bethany looked shocked, her mouth hanging open and blinking against tears.

Mom just looked empty.

Gently taking her shoulder, Marian turned Mom around, her other arm looping over Bethany. Pulling them both, "We have to go, now. Come on." Reluctantly, they allowed themselves to be directed away, their land before long vanishing behind the top of the hill.

Marian could hear the fire behind her, faintly crackling and hissing, but she didn't look back.

Just to the east of Lothering, between the River Drakon and the Highway both running east toward Denerim, was an outcropping of rough, jagged hills, protruding rock alternating with dark soil, the contours of the land creating natural trails between the bare stone at the peaks, steep and difficult to traverse, and the green valleys, trees and brush thick enough to slow travel. The hills made pretty decent hunting land, filled with all manner of birds, deer and elk, goats, the rare druffalo, occasionally boar or a pack of wolves might wander through. Marian had stumbled across a huge damn bear once, surprised enough she unthinkingly set it on fire, ruining its pelt — which was a shame, those things were valuable. (The meat had still been good, at least.) The place was craggy enough the hills broke line of sight in all directions in a pretty short distance, it'd been a relatively safe place to practice the more flashy magics. Marian had spent quite a lot of time in these hills over the years, practicing or hunting or gathering wild plants for one purpose or another, and so had Bethany and Carver, they were all comfortable out here.

Mother? Not so much.

It hadn't occurred to her just how rough the terrain might be for her. Marian forgot this sometimes, but Mom was starting to get up in years — she had to be in her mid-forties by now (Marian knew her birthdate but not what year she'd been born in, exactly), and she hadn't lived the easiest life in the world. She'd been a relatively pampered noblewoman back in Kirkwall, and the much harder living of a Fereldan peasant had taken a toll on her the first couple years here. Marian had been told, she used to get ill frequently — once rather badly while she'd been pregnant with Marian, Father had been concerned he might lose them both — and it had taken her a while to adjust to rougher furnishings, to working with her hands, she'd been tired and aching for years at the beginning. She'd gotten used to it by the time Marian had been old enough to remember, but it'd been a struggle.

She had participated in the fieldwork and the like, once upon a time...before Father's death. She'd been thrown into a persistent melancholy, it'd taken her months to even willingly get out of bed, years before she was evensomewhatback to normal. She had her moments even now, she still wasn't the same. Marian wasn't convinced she ever would be. But, the point was, for a few years there Marian had taken on all the more strenuous work, assisted by Carver and Bethany first just a little bit, then more and more over the years. By the time Mother was active again, they'd had everything settled, she hadn't reallyneededto do anything.

So, Mother hadn't done anything more strenuous than little things around the house, a walk down to the village, foryears.

She certainly wasn't in any condition to be rushing along these rough hunting trails.

They'd started off at a pretty good clip — not running, but definitely quicker than a normal walking pace, sometimes jogging on the down slopes — and Mother might have been able to keep up with that pace. Maybe. If it were on flat ground, the inclines were clearly harder for her. And then there were the steps up, occasionally, when wind and rain had worn away stone enough to form clefts, she would struggle with the steeper ones, sometimes needing a hand up to make it, where the others might have just easily hopped over. They didn't keep their initial pace for very long, picking across the hills significantly more slowly than Marian and the twins would travel on their own.

She'd been hoping they'd be able to get ahead of the horde to loop up to the Highway around South Bend, but at this rate, she didn't know if they'd make it. When they had to stop entirely so Mom could catch her breath for a moment, after a distance that couldn't be more than a mile and a half, Marian shared a worried glance with Carver.

"Bethany, do you think you can project Dad's strengthening trick outside yourself?"

She didn't have to explain why she was asking — Bethany glanced at Mom, worrying her lip between her teeth. "Ah, I think so. But the packs, and I won't be able to help..."

"Don't worry about those, I'll handle it. Let go of them now." Marian felt the tingling magics lightening the packs on the twins' backs vanish, Carver tilted a little at the sudden weight, Marian immediately re-upped them herself. "Focus on Mother. If we run into darkspawn, Carver and I will handle them. If they get too close, go ahead and fry them, but leave it to us otherwise." She paused for a second, trying to think if she'd forgotten anything. "Oh, and my rain-repelling charm will keep the taint away from you. Don't spend the effort keeping it up all the time, just when they get too close."

Bethany nodded. "Okay. If you need help, just say so. If we're stopped in a fight, I'm sure I could drop the spells on Mom for a minute." She'd practically have to — Dad's strengthening spell took a fair bit of magic, if she tried to keep it up on herself and project it into Momandthrow sh*t at darkspawn she'd probably burn out instantly.

Of course, if they were surrounded by darkspawn thickly enough they actually had tostopfor a minute, they'd probably be f*cked. But Marian just said, "Sure. We good to go?"

With Bethany's magic coursing through her, Mom was somewhat lighter on her feet. It was an obvious improvement, but not quite so much of one as Marian had been hoping for — projecting a spell that was supposed to work internally like this one was much more difficult than casting it on oneself, Marian assumed Bethany was giving her as much as she could. For a moment, Marian considered throwing in a little bit herself...bit she didn't know how their magic might interactinsideof a person like that, and Marian already had several spells going at once herself. At least it looked like Bethany was doing alright, her magic still coming steady and strong after some minutes, so Marian guessed that would just have to be good enough.

They'd gone what Marian judged to be about three miles, the western sky burning with sunset even broader and more colorful than normal (from the smoke, maybe?), when they came across the first darkspawn.

They were curving along the southern side of one of the rocky outcroppings, Carver reaching where the southern trail met the northern one at the same time as a trio of darkspawn. He didn't have time to slow down, so he didn't bother, rammed into the lead one shoulder first. The thing coughed with the impact, a thin rain of droplets flung from its mouth — Marian cast her rain-repelling charm on Carver in a blink, before any of them could land — knocking it off its feet. He scrambled a couple steps back, reaching for his sword.

Marian threw herself into the air, arcing over Mom and Beth's heads, landing behind one of the trio, a magically-augmented stab of a silverite blade piercing nearly all the way through its neck. Carver cut down the one yet standing without difficulty, still reaching for his shield, moving to execute the one he'd knocked over, so Marian turned to the trail they'd come from.

These three clearly weren't all of them: rushing down the trail after them were...well, Marian didn't have time to count, but several, maybe as many as a dozen. Temporarily dropping a couple of her spells (if she burned out they were all dead), Marian flung a wave of energy out at the charging darkspawn, knocking them all flailing to the ground. So they would stay conveniently stationary long enough for Marian to incinerate them all with a single spell.

Their high-pitched screams cutting off in a couple seconds, Marian turned back around. The three were dead, Carver was uninjured — there was a thin smear of black blood over his shoulder, they'd have to take care of that later, just in case, but it would keep for now. Bethany and Mother were staring at the dead darkspawn, wide-eyed and horrified.

Of course, they'd never seen darkspawn before, had they? Theywereunpleasant-looking things, ashen and jagged, leaking vile black fluids here and there. Misshapen, like someone had thrown them into the mill, grinding and breaking them, haphazardly pasting them back together afterward.

But they didn't have time to sit around and marvel at how completely disgusting the things were. Marian could hear inhuman howling to the north, still in the distance but far too close.

Over the next minutes, they stumbled across two more packs of darkspawn, both easily dealt with. Carver led them off faster, trying to get ahead of the darkspawn, but having to slow down to kill them quick didn't help — they never actuallystopped, but the fighting did slow them down — and Mom was clearly starting to flag a bit, even the assistance of Bethany's magic not enough to keep her going forever at this pace.

After another half mile, they got into another fight, this one with a good twenty darkspawn, spread out enough Marian couldn't just kill them all with a single spell. While Carver held the trail as well as he could, stopping them from passing him and getting to Bethany and Mother, Marian flew up the slope a bit, coming up to a boulder overlooking the trail below. It took a few spells, fire and lightning, but she chipped away at them quickly enough, killing them all before they could overrun Carver.

They were just finishing them off when there was a yell from behind, a hissing flare of fire. Whirling around, Bethany had laid down a wall of flame, blocking offanothergroup of darkspawn coming up from down the slope, two of them caught up in it, flailing and screeching. Marian threw off a bolt of lightning, flew back down to land near Bethany, the world snapping back into clarity just as her spill fizzled out, four steaming darkspawn laid out in the bushes. With a brush of her hand three more were launched off the ground, hit a pair of trees hard enough to smash bones to dust, streams of blood squirting out of their corpses, and eventhroughthe trees, the trunks splintering from the force, starting to tip over. Bethany tossed a fireball, immolating the last clump of them. Squinting through the mess, the blood and the smoke and the trees she'd wrecked just now creaking and crashing to the ground, and yeah, that was all of them, good.

Bethany had bent over, her hands on her knees breathing fast and deep, and Mom had actually fallen down, the sudden absence of Bethany's magic supporting her sending her right to the dirt. Marian stepped closer to her sister, opening her mouth to ask, but no, she could feel a crackle of wild magic around her, sharp with fear — she hadn't burned out, but it'd been close, she would need a moment to recover. (She must have thrown that fire before dropping her spell on Mother,veryreckless, but she'd probably only had an instant to react, so.) Not that they reallyhada moment, theyshouldkeep moving, but they didn't have a choice in the matter.

"I'm slowing you down." Mother's voice was low and flat and empty-sounding, despite the breathlessness from their run. Marian didn't like it, reminded her too much of her down-swings. (Shehatedthose, she never knew what to do, always felt terribly useless.) "You should— You could make it without me, just..."

"No," Bethany snarled, her voice surprisingly thick for how obviously out of breath she was. "We're not leaving you." This was followed with a glare at Marian, almost challenging.

As though accusing Marian of considering it. Which she wasn't — she shared a quick look with Carver — at least not yet. If it came down to it, if the only options were to leave Mother behind and get the three of them out, or all die together, she would leave her behind. Even if she had to knock Bethany out and carry her over her shoulder. Though, she wouldn't have to — that shared look had been enough for her to know Carver would do it himself, if it came down to it. It might seem heartless, to even think privately that she'd leave her mother behind if she had to...but she was certain Mom would rather spend her last moments praying they might make it thanknowingher children would die with her.

Not that she planned on saying any of that aloud. Besides, it wasn't looking that grim yet. "Bethany's right. Take a breather, have a drink, a quick bite if you need it." She was looking at her sister as she said it, trying to make it clear she was speaking to her as much as their mother. "I'm going to hop up there," she said, nodding to the rocky peak of a hill over their heads, "take a look around quick. I'll be back in a minute."

As much as her father might have been less powerful and had less intuitive talent than Marian (according to him, anyway), he had known alotmore varied and intricate magics than she could ever come up with on her own. There were all kinds of things he'd learned at the Circle that had either been esoteric enough they weren't really worth studying for a farmer or required too much finesse for a child to pick up very well, and a few things that required other knowledge Marian simply didn't have. She might be relatively well-educated compared to the average person around — most people she'd spoken to in the Bannir could read, at least, if only barely — but she didn't have anything even comparable to what Father had had after years and years of constant study in the Circle.

One of the spells he had sharpened eyesight, to either look at something nearby in much finer detail or bring something at a distance into clear view. Dad had tried to explain to her how it worked, going off on a ramble about lens curvatures and reflective indexes for some minutes before realizing she didn't understand a single word of what he was talking about. She coulduseit, probably one of the more intricate, finicky spells she could cast, but he'd had to dumb down the language quite a bit to explain to her how to focus the damn thing.

Sometimes, Father had completely forgotten she didn't know any of the maths and sciences and sh*t he'd already known learning these kinds of spells. It had been extremely frustrating, and also sometimes made her feel very stupid, it'd been her least favorite part of her lessons with him.

The glow of sunset on the western horizon was dimming, night falling, enough the narrow valleys that made up these hills were rather too dark to make things out easily — but that was fine, she had another spell to help with that too. (And no, she didn't really understand how this one worked either.) Even with the assistance of magic, they were difficult to make out, but shedidnotice shifting forms in the trees here and there. There were signs of darkspawn to the west, to the north...

Taking a wider look at the features of the land around her, making a guess at where on a map she would be standing right now, Marian bit out a curse. Best she could tell, the darkspawn had already cut them off from looping back up to the Highway around South Bend. They might be spreading across the Kingsroad already. She was guessing here a bit, but she suspected they were cut off from the Highway, they would have to go further south and follow the river for a while — the horde would be slowed once they started getting to more well-defended lands further into the arling, but that wasn't for miles yet.

Or, possibly, turn south toward Gwaren. By an odd trick of geography, the major port cities of Ferelden — Denerim, Highever, Amaranthine, and Gwaren — were all more or less the same distance from Lothering. Thetraveldistance to Amaranthine was longer, since sticking to the Highway you first went past Highever by the North Road or Denerim by the Kingsroad, but they were pretty close to the same picking straight across the Bannorn. Similarly, Gwaren was harder to get to. The Teyrnir was somewhat isolated, huddled against the sea at the southeast corner of the country, hemmed in by the Southron Hills to the west and the Brecilian Forest to the north. There were two ways into and out of the Teyrnir on foot: one following the White River north, through the trees toward Denerim, the other roughly northwest, cutting through the Hills toward South Reach.

If they crossed the river around South Bend, then traversed the wilds of the Southron Hills going east-southeast, they would eventually stumble across the road connecting South Reach and Gwaren. The isolated city did most of its trade by sea, looping north around the Brecilian Wilds to Denerim, or further north into the Marches, Wycome and Ostwick. It shouldn't be difficult to find someone to ferry them to Kirkwall from there. They might have to stop in Denerim or Amaranthine first, find someone else to take them across the Waking Sea, or maybe go up to Ostwick and walk to Kirkwall from there, but it was very doable.

Crossing the wilds to Gwaren was also very doable. On a straight line between Lothering and the Teyrnir, it was pretty much all unclaimed wilderness, but it wasn't a wasteland — there would be plenty of plants and animals for them to live off of, it shouldn't be a problem. The biggest threat would be bears, and maybe Dalish, but it was safe enough. It would be a hard trek for Mother, a week or two hoofing it over the rocky, forested hill country, but...

Yes, Gwaren. They were going to Gwaren.

Her mind made up, she dropped back down to the others, explained to them the change of plans. Mother looked exhausted just at the idea of travelling so far through the wilderness, but she didn't argue — especially not when Bethany backed her up immediately, Carver after another moment of thought. By now, Bethany had recovered from her near burn-out, Mother had caught her breath, so they set off again.

They travelled another half mile, coming across another two groups of darkspawn (both easily dispatched), when it started getting dark enough it was difficult to watch where they were stepping. So, after a moment of concentration, Marian filled the air around them with fadelight, the constant pale green glow illuminating their surroundings well enough nobody was going to turn an ankle, at least. She did find fadelight vaguely creepy — it didn't really seem to comefromanywhere, the shadows it threw thin and at random angles, andnonatural fire was so consistent, no hint of flicker — but they were still being pursued by darkspawn, they didn't have the option of stopping to rest until the sun rose again. They'd just have to deal with the eerie magic light for now.

They'd just crestedanotherhill, they had to be only a couple miles away from South Bend by now, when Marian made out clanging and shouting from ahead. Someone else was out here, probably on the other side of the bend just there, in their own fight against a group of darkspawn. Marian paused a moment, glanced back at her family, thinking. Normally, there was no way in hell she'd consider travelling with strangers — she and Bethany would be openly using magic, there was no telling whether they'd be able to trust them or not. But the area was stillfilthywith darkspawn, Bethany had just had to drop her spells on Mother to defend them a second time...and they wouldprobablybe people from Lothering. That didn't necessarily mean they wouldn't be stupid about magic, but it it was possible whoever it was actuallyknewthem. They'd hesitate, at least.

Marian glanced at Carver, tilted her head questioningly at the noises ahead. He nodded. "We could probably use the help."

"Right. Come on," she said, waving Bethany and Mother onward, "hurry!"

And it was a good thing they did: the fighters ahead were pinned against the rocky incline and on their last legs even as Marian and Carver rounded the bend. Taking a quick look at the placement of the dozen or so darkspawn, Marian threw herself into the air, arcing over to the other side of the fight. Aiming carefully around the beleaguered men, Marian summoned a thick column of flame, flaring almost painfully bright in the night, throwing dizzying shadows, carving through the pack of darkspawn. That had shaved off about half of them at once, but the rest were in too close, it'd have to be hand to hand from here. Spreading her rain-repelling charm over herself, Carver, and the two fighting men — dammit, only two, she'd hoped for more but oh well — Marian drew her daggers, darted across the charred streak on the ground, the stone hot even through her boots.

Between the four of them, the remaining few darkspawn were cut down quickly and easily. Well, three, one of the men wasn't fighting, leaning against the rock breathless and sweating, but that was fine, the other fought well enough for three or four men all on her own, swiftly and efficiently cutting down three of their attackers in the time it took Marian and Carver to each get one. Onherown, because the figure Marian had taken at a distance for a man was close up obviously a woman, with bright orangish-blonde hair tied back in a tight bun (the edges gleaming vaguely blue in the fadelight), a pale, freckled face — surprisingly, because she was wearing heavy mail and scale armor in the red and yellow and white of the King, blazoned on her shield the twin mabari of House Theirin. She must be a knight personally sworn to the King to wear his colors, which was odd because Marian hadn't realized any women—

No, wait, Marian recognized her. They'd never spoken, but this woman had been one of the King's commanders at Ostagar. Right, okay.

With Marian and Carver's arrival, what had been a hopeless last stand quickly turned into a rout, all the darkspawn dead on the ground in seconds. As the last darkspawn fell — at the woman's hand, its axe knocked out of its hand by a slam of her shield, then neatly stabbed through the heart — the woman gave them both a hard look. The glare immediately softened, though, when Bethany and Mother stepped into view, apparently marking them as refugees fleeing for their lives and not worth worrying about.

"Keep back," the man said, a shaky hand appearing on the woman's shoulder. He quickly abandoned his attempt to pull her away, and instead ended up leaning on her, the woman nearly dropping her sword in her scramble to help support his weight. In his other hand was a heavy longsword, but he was clearly too weak to hold it properly, the tip not quite pointed at Marian. "She's an apostate."

Bethany groaned. "Great, in all the wilds we just so happen to run into a Templar? What are the odds on that?"

Pretty much zero, she thought. Marian hadn't even noticed until the man had started waving his pointy metal stick in her face, but yeah, that was the flaming sword of the Order etched into his chestplate. Perfect. "Yeah, sure, I'm an apostate — an apostate who just saved your lives."

"Wesley," the woman muttered, tired, worried.

"The Order dictates..." The Templar, Wesley, wasverypale, sweat streaking his face, he could barely seem to catch his breath. He tried to point his sword threateningly at Marian's face, but it wasn't really working, the point wavering around drunkenly. "The Order..."

Choking back a flare of irritation, Marian slapped the flat of the blade with the back of her hand, "Get that thing out of my face." Somewhat to her surprise, the light hit was enough to knock it out of his hand, noisily clanging down to the rocky ground. The Templar must be even weaker than she'd thought. If he couldn't even hold on to his sword, there was no way in hell he'd be any help in a fight.

In fact, eyeing the blood seeping out of the seam in his armor over his hip, spilling down his thigh, Marian suspected he wasn't going anywhere.

"Love, it's alright," the woman said. Her voice jarred against her appearance a little, weirdly light and soft coming from such a large, rough-looking woman. "They saved us. The Maker would understand."

The idea that it was permissible to not kill them on sightjustbecause they'd rescued them was a little absurd — the way Marian understood it, so long as she didn't use her Maker-given gifts to abuse and dominate the people around her, she wasn't doing anything wrong. But people tended to read it as Andraste sayingmagicis bad, despite that particular passage obviously being aboutpeople who misuse magic, and this was deeply-ingrained enough of a concept it usually wasn't worth trying to argue about it.

(According to Father, there were some scholars who believed Andraste herself had been a Dreamer, those most powerful of mages, and there was good reason to suspect. In the Chant, Andraste journeys fully conscious through the Fade (at the Maker's side), as a Dreamer might do — possibly she'd been dreaming in the Fade when she'd attracted the Maker's attention in the first place — and there's, well, something that's supposed to be a quote of the Maker speaking to Andraste, goes like this:Those who oppose you shall know the wrath of heaven, field and forest shall burn, the seas shall rise and devour them, the wind shall tear their nations from the face of the earth, lightning shall rain down from the sky— you know, poetical ways to refer to a powerful Dreamer with an army at her back seriously kicking Tevinter ass. Marian couldn't say for certain one way or the other, of course, but it didn't seem like an irrational thing to think to her.)

Not that she would have gotten the chance to argue about it even if she'd wanted to. After a brief hesitation, the Templar nodded at the knight's reassurance...and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, nearly taking the woman with him.

Yeah. Marian didn't think the Templar was going anywhere.

They were apparently taking another rest, Mother sitting on a nearby cleft in the hill, Bethany's magic on her lifted, Carver chugging from one of his skins, digging in Bethany's pack for...oh, more biscuits, looked like. Catching the one Carver tossed at her, Marian crouched down next to the woman. She'd unbuckled a few things, exposing bandages wrapped low over the Templar's hip, soaked through with blood.

"That doesn't look good," Marian observed, took a bite of her biscuit. The woman grunted, didn't look up. "Marian Hawke. That's my brother Carver, my sister Bethany, and our mother Leandra."

The woman glanced up at her, just for an instant before turning back to the Templar, carefully peeling at his bandages. "Aveline Vallen. This is my husband, Wesley."

Marian bit her lip — Templars were sworn Brothers, like Chantry Mothers, they weren't allowed to marry. But okay.

"Wait, Aveline like Aveline of the Dales? The knight in the story." It wasn't a story Marian recognized, Bethany must have heard it from that new(ish) Sister at the Chantry, the Orlesian one. Leliana? Shethoughtit was Leliana, they'd never really met but Bethany mentioned her often enough.

Aveline nodded, perhaps about to say something, but was distracted before she could. She had a bottle pulled from a pack, presumably a healing tincture of some kind, intending to treat her husband's wound. But as soon as his bandages were pulled away the hole in his sidegushed, Aveline flipped the bandage back over, leaned down with both hands. The Templar groaned with pain, his head rolling against the ground.

"Uh, Marian? More of 'em over here!"

There were more darkspawn, coming around at them from the northwest, but they were easily dealt with, a couple spells from Marian killing them all while Carver slew the few that slipped past. A few seconds glancing around to make sure they were alone again, Marian returned to the couple, crouching down across the Templar from Aveline.

For all the tension in her, visible mostly by the taught lines showing in her neck, Aveline's face was remarkably expressionless. It was in the eyes, mostly — a vibrant green in the fadelight, darting over her husband, their surroundings, as though looking for some solution,anything— in her gloved hands — pressed tight against his side, unmovingly, as though she meant to hold his blood inside his body somehow.

"Neither of us know healing magic," Marian muttered. "Not for something like this. I'm sorry."

Forced out in a low hiss, "I'mnotleaving him."

...Should they just leave? Aveline was clearly a damn good fighter, sure, but that wouldn't do them any good if she refused to abandon her dying husband even with darkspawn closing in. No obvious solution presented itself to Marian — she'd shattered Father's urn to help get Mother moving, but she somehow doubted Aveline would be willing to travel and fight with them if Marian killed her husband in front of her.

"Aveline." The Templars hand was coming up, unsteady and wavering, Aveline shifted the placement of her hands over the hole in his side so she could remove one of them, clasp his. "You...have to let—"

"Youcan'task this of me!" The woman's voice had gone harsher, warmer with anger, but with a cracking edge to it, her eyes narrowing and her lips twisting. "Wesley, I won't..."

Oh, they would. Wesley was going to ask Aveline to put him out of his misery, to leave him behind, and Aveline was going to do it. Marian could see it, in the agony in his face, the hint of desperation, how tightly she gripped his hand, her jaw set, teeth grit so hard Marian thought she might hear it. She didn't need to wait and watch to know what was about to happen.

So she didn't. Marian stood, joined the twins around Mother, giving the couple a moment of privacy.

"How are you doing, Mom?"

"I'm okay," she lied. Mom's face was streaked with sweat, her hair, going gray at the temples, wet enough it was slightly shiny in the fadelight, plastered to her head. The fingers holding her biscuit (which she'd hardly taken a bite out of) were even shaking a little. But she didn't seem particularly focused on how difficult she was clearly finding their trek through the woods, her eyes drawn to Aveline and the Templar. She seemed slightly absent, looking at them but not really seeing

Marian assumed she was thinking about something to do with Father, but she really couldn't guess what.

"Are we almost to the river?" Bethany asked.

"It's another couple miles to South Bend, I think. After that, we'll be able to slow down some." It was common knowledge, wisdom passed down over generations, that darkspawn couldn't swim, but also that they preferred not to pass through water at all, if they could help it. That could be part of why the darkspawn had gone straight for Lothering, to use the bridge over the River Drakon there. At South Bend, the Drakon was shallower than in most spots along its length, enough one could simply walk across it, but was also spread much wider. The darkspawn wouldn'tneedto swim, but Marian was betting they wouldn't cross it anyway.

A sound slithered across the air, the wetshrunkof a blade sinking into flesh, the thin gasping and coughing of a dying man. It didn't last long, though, only a couple seconds — at a guess, Aveline had neatly pierced her husband's heart, killing him almost instantly. A bare moment later, Aveline was joining them. Her round-cheeked face was taught with stress, the glow of the fadelight revealing red in her eyes, a tear at one corner she'd missed while wiping the rest away. Really, she was bearing what she'd just been forced to do remarkably calmly.

Marian made a mental note to try not to annoy her. Scary lady, this one.

A quaver of grief on her voice — but, again, with impressive control — Aveline asked, "I suppose you intended to invite us to travel with you."

"That was the idea," Carver said, not unsympathetic, but gruff and casual. Making a point about not making a point about the Templar's death, she guessed. "Security in numbers, and all that."

"All right. Where are you headed?"

"Kirkwall, by way of Gwaren."

The knight blinked at Marian for a second, then nodded. "I can travel with you as far as Gwaren, at least. From there...we'll see." She probably didn't want to leave Ferelden — if she'd been personally sworn to the King, her duty had ended with his death, but she might feel some obligation to Anora up until the Landsmeet.

"Good. If you can—" Marian cut herself off as a long, deep growl split the night, echoed by dozens of higher screeches. That low one could be an ogre...or a bear had gotten into a fight with some darkspawn, that was also possible. Either way, the noises were coming from some distance off, not their problem just now. "If you could stay with Bethany and Mother, watch our backs while Carver and I take the front. Bethany is a mage, but she'll be busy helping Mom keep up, and she's not really much of a fighter anyway."

Aveline's eyes widened a bit, giving Bethany a speculative glance — she'd seen Marian cast magic, but she probably hadn't realized Bethany was a mage too. But after a second she nodded. "All right. I had little idea where we were going anyway," she admitted. "I'm not from around here."

"Somewhere around Highever?"

"Well, yes," the knight said, clearly surprised. "West Hill, it's not far from Highever. How did you know?"

Marian shrugged. "Accent." The Alamarri spoken along the northern shore sounded more Marcher-ish, and Aveline wasdefinitelyan Orlesian name — her parents must have either lingered in the country after the Rebellion or moved here for some reason, either possibility suggested somewhere toward the west of the country. So, Highever. "Anyway, let's get going. We're almost out of the woods now. Metaphorically, of course, not literally."

Carver rolled his eyes at her weak, terrible joke. He tossed a biscuit at Aveline, who was surprised enough she barely managed to catch it, before starting off toward the southeast at a jog.

Their short break was long enough for Mom to regain some of their strength, they made pretty good time over the next mile or so. She was even in good enough shape to talk to Aveline a bit between darkspawn attacks — and they did run into a few more of those, no more than a dozen at a time. (Aveline did more than well enough keeping them away from Mother and Bethany, enough the attacks hardly slowed them down.) Marian wasn't certain what they were talking about, the noises of Carver and herself clanging along, their breath hard in their throats, was enough to cover up the muttering from behind them, only the occasional word getting through.

She probably should tell Mom to save her breath — this was hard enough on her as it was, and the more she wore herself out the harder it would be for Bethany to keep her going — but she didn't bother. Mom was actuallytalking, she'd been all quiet and solemn and miserable since leaving home. Reminded Marian far too much of those awful melancholic moods of hers. If talking to Aveline was helping pull her out before she sank too far into it, well, Marian was glad for it.

Besides, they couldn't be that far from South Bend now. It was full dark now, the stars glittering overhead, they had to have gone, what, five or six miles at least. They couldn't be more than a mile, a mile and a half away from the river. They just had to keep going, and they would—

"sh*t!" Carver yelled as they rounded the curve around another hill, his boots skidding on the rocky soil. On the opposite side of the hill, to the north, was a column of darkspawn, dozens, more than dozens, a hundred. Charging in their direction.

Standing a couple rows in, sickly glistening beads accenting its somewhat more carefully-crafted armor, was something Marian recognized from her short stay in the Korcari Wilds, something she hoped to never see again: a darkspawn mage.

Thankfully, Marian only spotted one of them. Pointing, Marian shouted, "South, go!" Drawing one of her daggers, she threw herself into the air. As close as the darkspawn were, only thirty feet or so back, she traversed the space between them in a blink. Zeroing in on what shehopedwas the mage, details were so blurred she couldn't be certain, she arced over the heads of the front ranks, then slammed back down, landing not on the ground but directly on the mage (itwasthe mage, good), the force of her impact driving the silverite blade right through the scale armor covering the mage's chest, through its sternum and its heart to clunk into its spine.

The darkspawn she was perched on toppling over, Marian dropped the various spells she was holding, the green glow of fadelight blinking out, and called fire to her hand. She cast a circle of flame over her head, poured power into it, the burning ring expanding in a blink, the darkspawn around her screamed as the magic seared into them. And then she pushedmorepower into it, her eyes itching and her throat tingling, the flames burning higher and hotter, rushing out from her like ripples cast across water.

Wrenching her dagger from the mage's chest, Marian took a second to catch her breath — hot and dry from the fire around her, tainted with the sick reek of burning darkspawn flesh, too familiar already — to let the strength she'd expended trickle back into her from the Fade. Once the tingles and the light-headedness had passed a bit, she shouldn't be in danger of burning out anymore, Marian took flight again.

Her family (plus Aveline) hadn't managed to get very far. That was possibly Marian's fault — to pull off a trick like that, she'd need to drop the fadelight and her magic lightning the weight of their packs, that didn't make rushing along easier. But, thankfully, Marian had incinerated the first few ranks of darkspawn, that overpowered fire spell she'd improvised probably taking out a couple dozen of them at once, and the rest of the darkspawn had slowed in their advance, reeling in animal confusion. For a second, Marian wondered if they were repulsed by the few lingering wisps of fire, but the Grey Wardens knew certain more powerful darkspawn had some degree of control over portions of the horde. Killing their leader must have dazed them for a moment.

But only for a moment — they recovered quickly, thundering after them in a black tide, screeching, inhuman howls splitting the night. By then, Marian had already reupped her spells, their group had returned to their previous speed — a bit faster now, with the encouragement of the approaching horde — her crazy gamble had opened up several yards between them. Carver in the lead, forging through the wilds toward the river more south than southeast now, Marian stayed at the rear, mostly scrabbling backwards, throwing fire and lightning back at their pursuers.

She was killing so many of them, oily smoke gradually filling the air in that direction, but there was only so much she could do and keep her other spells up at the same time, she was already pushing on the edge of burn-out, warmth building in her chest and her heart thudding in her ears, odd metallic tingles stretching from the tip of her tongue down her throat and up the back of her nose, dizzy enough she stumbled now and again, nearly falling down on her ass. And there were more of them, and more, and more, andmore. How many of the f*cking thingswerethere?

She couldn't keep this up for much longer. They had to be near the river by now, right?

Hearing shouts from ahead, Marian whirled around. Another group of darkspawn was ahead, only seconds away from Carver, she couldn't see the whole group from here but too many for her brother to kill on his own. And, stretching above the pack, was that—

Yes, that wasdefinitelyan ogre. Marian had seen them before, helped kill a few at Ostagar, contributing to massed spellfire from a safe distance. She'd never been this close to one before. The thing washuge, easily ten, twelve feet tall, its hard, muscular limbs as thick as tree trunks, the torso a thick mass of rippling flesh, you weren't hitting anything important in there with anything short of a hard steel spear or a brilliant shot with a ballista. Its face was unnaturally skeletal, the skin stretched thin enough it was noticeably paler than the blue-ish gray tone elsewhere on its body, twisting, kinking, asymmetrical horns stretching from the back of its head, like some horrible fusion of a giant and a ram.

It bellowed, low and harsh and teeth-grating, temporarily overpowering the howling of the rest of the darkspawn. Right, that had been an ogre she'd heard before, not a bear. Good to know.

(Not really, it was pointless to know, they were all going to die.)

They couldn't stay here, far too many darkspawn to fight off quickly both ahead and behind, they could go downhill to her right, into the trees, but no, the brush would break line of sight and make it impossible to hold any kind of line, the darkspawn would just surround them and pick them off one by one, which left—

"Climb!" she shouted, pointing up the steep, jagged edifice to her left. "Up, go!" It wasn't ideal, but darkspawn were relatively clumsy, would come up slowly enough they wouldn't be overwhelmed so easily, and at the top they'd have the advantage of being able to see in every direction, Marian and Bethany could throw magic at anyone getting too high. The others hesitated, staring at the steep hill face, "Go!"

They started climbing, but Marian didn't follow immediately. Instead, she threw herself through the air toward the ogre. It had started lumbering toward Carver — crushing another darkspawn underfoot, because darkspawn were shockingly terrible at not killing each other by accident — its motion slowed and its features blurred as the magic took her over. The only weapons she had on her were her borrowed Warden-crafted daggers, which were excellent for dealing with smaller darkspawn, but simply weren't long enough to cut all the way through to an ogre's heart. So she aimed higher than she had with the mage before.

Which meant she was flying right at jagged, taint-speckled fangs and the thing's huge damn horns, but she tried not to think about that.

Even in the blink it took Marian to reach it, its head lowered a bit, lumbering forward and reaching for Carver with clawed hands, throwing off her aim, Marian cut off the spell in mid air. She reached for one of the horns, looping her elbow around it, her upper body coming to a halt with a tendon-tearing jerk, she funnelled magic into herself almost instinctively to take the edge off, her feet continuing on past her, swinging up over her head. A careful flick of force pushed "up" at the ogre "above" her, a little help from the Dalish speed- and balance-improving magic Lýna had helped talk her through, and Marian's feet landed on the ogre's shoulders, her hips slamming into the back of its head, squished between the base of its horns, her hand slapping down on the top of its head stopping her from flipping right over.

The ogre had staggered back at the weight dragging at one of its horns, abandoning its attack on Carver, reaching for her instead, but its sharp, jagged fingers never reached her — leaning forward over its face, Marian lifted her dagger with both hands, and jabbed it into the ogre's eye. It screamed, her ears ached, lurching under her, but that hadn't killed it, her dagger was too short to pierce its brain, but she'd expected as much, an instant later she channeled lightning through the silverite blade, directly into theinsideof the ogre's skull.

Putrid steam pouring out of ears and nose and eyes, the ogre went silent immediately, started teetering over.

Marian threw herself into the air again, using the motion to pull her dagger out of its ruined eye socket, flying straight to the top of the hill her family were still climbing. A quick fire spell incinerated the gore sticking to her dagger — becausethatwas disgusting — she took a quick glance over the top of the hill. Wind and rain had worn the tip of the stone down to something mostly flat, not alotof space but it would be enough room for the four–fiveof them to move around a bit. Though, small was also good, less circumference for Marian and Bethany to watch. Right. Okay.

(She tried not to think to herself that it looked like a good place to make a dramatic last stand, like something out of those stories about knights and old heroes Carver liked so much, itwasn'ta last stand, they were going to live, sherefusedto seriously consider the possibility they wouldn't.)

Oh, Maker's breath, that was the riverright there!They couldn't be more than a half mile away! Son of abitch...

Carver made it to the top of the hill first, quickly followed by Bethany and Mother, Aveline just behind them. They all took off their packs, piling them toward the middle, where Mom stood anxiously flanked by Carver and Aveline, waiting with swords drawn. With a bit of fiddling, Marian modified her fadelight spell, forming it into a ring, shining on the sides of the hill, none of it hidden in shadow.

She could see now the group they'd run into was somewhat smaller than the one that'd been chasing them. But they were enough. The smaller group to the south spreading across the base of the hill on that side, the larger on the north side, meeting both east and west somewhere in the middle, they were completely surrounded. And there were more darkspawn, a trickle coming in through the trees, along the narrow trails in all directions. Darkspawn received orders of a sort through the magic of the taint, Duncan had said, from the Archdemon or the more powerful darkspawn. Apparently, somebody up the chain had decided to put a coordinated effort into killing the people responsible for wiping out so many of the darkspawn in this portion of the wilds.

It was almost something worth bragging about, she thought, that theArchdemon itselfconsidered her (and her family and Aveline) enough of a threat to eliminate specifically...if it didn't look like the evil thing might very well succeed.

Between herself and Bethany, it wasn't too difficult to keep the darkspawn from climbing up the rocky hill — a bit of fire here or there, the burning figures would tumble down the side, hitching against the legs of the horde surrounding them. Marian kept the heat of the flames lower than she might normally, partially to save her strength, and also because (mostly) whole bodies provided a much better obstruction than incinerated ones. Torch a few darkspawn, and they fell flailing, in their death throes knocking over a few more, if she wasverylucky even setting a few of them alight from contact, the slowly rising ring of bodies forming a barrier the approaching darkspawn had to pick their way over to even get to the hill, slowing them down a little.

Which was good, because keeping this going wasn't exactly easy. Between her fadelight spell, forcing enough strength into her limbs to keep moving, and the almost constant flinging of fire, run over here, toss some more, and here and here and here, around and around, despite the simplicity of the magic involved it was still pushing her spell-casting abilities to the limit. And then throw in the arrows... There weren't very many, probably because the darkspawn didn't have a great angle to hit them at — they didn't have direct line of sight on Carver and Mother and Aveline, that wasn't exactly an easy shot to make — and there seemed to be few archers among the horde here, so they didn't have to deal with a constant rain of arrows. (Mom was still huddled down among the packs, just in case.) But a few would find their way toward Marian or Bethany now and again, they'd have to slap them out of the air, and that wasanotherbit of magic expended, and...

Marian paused for a moment — bent double with her hands on her knees, breathing heavy — because shehadto, if she burned out now they would all die, and she could feel herself teetering on the edge, the river of power flowing into her from the Fade churning and flickering. And she heard a clang of steel on steel, whirled around in time to catch Aveline slice a hurlock open shoulder to hip, give the thing a solid kick, knocking it back into a second darkspawn crawling over the edge, both of them toppling off, and Bethany was there — her hair shaken out of her braid, messy and tangled, her face streaked with ash and sweat — a flash of fire following the two down, presumably torching several more Marian couldn't see from this angle.

She had tokeep moving. Drawing a shaky breath, she forced herself to walk, toward the opposite side of the hill from Bethany, aching muscles shivering with every step, fire reluctantly sparking to life in her hand.

She didn't know how long they'd fought at the top of the hill, shuffling around in circles, throwing fire at anything that moved, Marian and Bethany both slowing enough darkspawn were starting to slip through, though in a thin enough trickle Aveline and Carver could handle them, but it would get worse, she could barely see straight anymore, her skull seeming to vibrate with her magic's exhausted protest, the thread connecting her to the Fade strained, fraying, nearly torn, trying not to cough from the vile smoke rising off burning darkspawn, it could have been hours, or minutes for all she could tell, the whole thing one long blur, a nightmare of flames and screams and shifting shadows under the eerie green glow of fadelight...

She was finally pulled out of her single-minded struggle by a voice splitting the air. Not a human one,fartoo loud, harsh and high, a screech that seemed to stab into her ears, lower tones beneath it, the stone underfoot seeming to vibrate. Marian blinked to herself for a moment, shocked out of motion, but no, she had to keep moving, they would die if she stopped.

"Is that another ogre?" Carver shouted over the noise of the battle. But no, that wasn't an ogre, their voices were much lower than that.

"No." Aveline had gone still and... It was hard to tell, in the fadelight, but she looked pale under the flush from exertion, staring toward the southwest her eyes wide with something not too far removed from terror. "No, I think that's a—"

There was a deepwhoomfsort of noise, the air around them seeming to shudder once, hard, Marian's head ringing from the pressure, she teetered dizzily. And then anotherwhoomf, nearly taking her to her knees, and then another, this time accompanied by a repeat of the stone-shivering, ear-stabbing cry, high and low and too loud, monstrous.

Marian had never seen one before, not even from a distance, but she still knew what that must be, approaching from the southwest.

Dragon.

The strength went out of her legs, her knees slammed into the stone, the fadelight flickering out, the only light the stars above and the smoldering fires below.

Marian couldn't fight a dragon. On any other day, when she was fresh,maybe, but now? teetering on the edge of burn-out, half-dead on her feet, surrounded by darkspawn she was already justbarelykeeping back? No, she couldn't fight a dragon, not like this. Especially not if it was the cursed Archdemon, swooping down to finish them off itself — and what elsecouldit be, a dragon coming toward themnow? — no, she couldn't fight that.

They were going to die. She couldn't even fly out with the twins, not now, not with a dragon tailing them. They were dead.

She'd failed.

Before she could barely even articulate the thought to herself, the dragon was looming out of the darkness. An absolutely massive creature, too big, she reeled instinctively, it was as large as their whole damn house and then some. And it was beautiful, in its way. Scaly skin glinting a reddish violet in the firelight, and despite its size it had a grace to it, its narrow body (relatively speaking, the thing was huge) twisting sinuously as it wheeled to a better angle to sweep past their little hill, almost seeming to dance on the air, despite the violence of its wing-strokes, sharp shadows thrown by even, symmetrical, smooth-lined teeth as light spilled from its mouth, and Marian couldn't look away, tears pricking at her eyes, as fire surged into life from between the dragon's gaping jaws, slicing across the air, a cloud of flame stretching down to the earth, and...

It missed.

The fire struck the earth like a physical weight, the stone under her seeming to jerk with the impact, and the noise was incredible, darkspawn screeching and fire roaring and rock splitting from force and heat...to Marian'sright, a wave of flame washing over the ground at the base of the north face of their hill. The heat did tear at them, yes, more intense than the hottest summer day, sand picked up by the scorching wind stinging at her skin, but...

What?

The dragon banked to the south, keeping up a constant stream of deadly fire, the volume of it incredible, far more than Marian could ever hope to cast, covering the ground to the east. Its body tilted up, backflapping hard, its tail a dark shadow whipping through flames reaching for the stars, it turned to face west, impossibly light on the air, some instinctive part of Marian declared it simply impossible, this thing could not be real, and it was spewing out another burning river, this time covering the south face of their hill — Carver was standing too close to the edge, cursed at the hot air slamming against him and yanking his hair around, stumbling backward and fell on his ass — the dragon tipped forward (again, it shouldn't be able to do that, it had to be magic), curving around the south side of their hill to the west, covering the ground in a thick blanket of heat and light the whole way.

No, seriously,what?

Turning back around, the dragon dipped closer to the ground, there was a cacophony of crashing and cracking, one clawed paw dragging through the trees, shattering everything in its path. And then the dragon was wheeling right toward them, slowing with a couple hard backflaps, the air shuddering, this was it, it was finishing them off now,Maker, this thing was big, it reared back, its serpentine spine curving, its rear claws gripping the edge of the hill, and yellow-orange light spilled out of its skin, too bright, like the sun suddenly appearing in the middle of the night, Marian winced and had to look away, and there was a roar of wind, flipping her hair over her head, and...

The dragon was gone. In its place, a harsh silhouette against the flames still stretching high behind her, was a woman, the head of a genlock gripped in her hand. The woman lifted it up to look at it face-to-face — shehadto be strengthening herself with magic, but even then Marian doubted she could pull that off herself, genlocks were f*cking heavy — and shespoketo it. It wasn't Alamarri, Marian didn't know what it was, harsh and sibilant and cruel, and there was magic on her voice, something clawing at her throat, stinging at her eyes, a threat beating her over her head, she couldn't help but cringe away.

Was this woman...speakingthrougha genlock...tothreaten the Archdemon?Marian couldn't imagine what else was supposed to be going on here, but,Maker, how was that even a thing...

Her message delivered, the woman dropped the genlock over the edge, into the fires waiting below. And it was then Marian recognized her, finally. Long hair, a solid silver-gray from age, matching the thick wrinkles stitched over her face, her hands, wearing a long dress in a Chasind style, littered with beads and feathers, glinting in the firelight and fluttering in the breeze. Her eyes, almost seeming to glow in the night, a pure brilliant inhuman yellow.

It was that witch. The one Marian had met in the Wilds...she hadn't caught her name, Morrigan's mother. She-of-Many-Faces, Lýna had called her.

The one that was almost certainly a Dreamer, perhaps an abomination, and, Alim speculated, maybe possibly theactual legendary Flemeth.

She'd just appeared, out of nowhere, in the form of ahuge f*ck-all dragon, and saved their lives.

...What?!

Marian felt a gauntleted hand on her arm, looked up expecting to see Carver. It was actually Aveline, her eyes, green even without the fadelight reflecting off them, fixed on the impossibly powerful Chasind witch, sword held ready in her hand. "Are you with me, Hawke?"

For a second, she just blinked stupidly up at the knight — nobody called her that, the only person she'd ever heard be called just "Hawke" was Father. "Oh, uh, I'm—" Marian cleared her throat, wiped at her face quick, the silverite backing her glove scraping at her cheek. "Yeah, I'm not hurt, just tired." A glance over her shoulder, and Mother was fine, Bethany wrapped up in her arms. It looked like Bethany had burned out, or at least gottenveryclose to the line, pale and sweaty and delirious, but she was still breathing, she'd be fine. Carver was uninjured too, standing between their sister and mother and the Chasind witch, his sword and shield raised and ready — though, Marian noticed, the tip was wavering a little, Carver exhausted enough he probably didn't have much fight left in him. But he was fine, they were all fine.

Huh. With how many darkspawn they'd fought their way through, that they were all alive and uninjured had to be some kind of miracle. And here Marian wasn't even certain whether she believed the Maker truly existed or not — Bethany and Mom were the religious ones, she and Carver had always been more agnostic. She almost felt like thankingsomeone, but she didn't know whether anyone was even listening, which...was kind of awkward...

Well, how about thanking the creepy shapeshifting mage, that seemed like a good start.

While Marian pulled herself to her feet — with rather more help from Aveline than she liked, her knees shivering so badly she could barely stand, her back flaring with agony — the old witch spoke, her voice low and smooth, cracking only a little with age. Quiet enough Marian was surprised she could hear it over the continued crackling of the flame. "Well, well, what have we here?"

The witch sauntered across the few steps separating her from Marian and Aveline, with all the swaying grace of a lady at court despite being, well, a barbarian Chasind wilder. Aveline's weight shifted, easy for Marian to feel it hanging on to her arm, the better to put herself and her sword between Marian and the witch. Marian tightened her grip around her arm, when Aveline glanced down gave her a hard look, glanced at the naked blade, shook her head. Averyskeptical look on her face, Aveline sheathed her sword anyway — probably hadn't been enthusiastic about fighting a mage who can turn into a f*cking dragon to begin with, hadn't taken much convincing. Marian turned to gave Carver the same look, but he didn't move right away, doubtful eyes flicking between Marian and the witch.

"I hear of a great battle," the witch continued, her voice with that eerie absent tone again, "a band of heroes fleeing the Blight, entrapped in a desperate last stand against the rising tide. I come, and I find...you." She stared at Marian, but not really at her, instead through and past her, looking into something here and not-here.

For a long moment, nobody spoke, the air filled with the roaring and snapping and crackling of the fires all around them. Marian's mouth opened, and before she could really think about it, "You know,hero, I don't think anybody's ever called me that before," spilled out. Oh, that was stupid...

The old woman's lips twitched with half a smirk. "They will."

...Marian had no idea how to respond to that. So she didn't. "Thank you, for coming. If you hadn't we would have..." She trailed off, notquitewilling to voice the thought in earshot of her family, weirdly embarrassed.

"You would be dead now, yes. And that is..." The woman's head tilted, eyes narrowing slightly, Marian felt herself stiffen at her attention, like fingers brushing the back of her neck. "...undesirable. Your road was supposed to lead you north, child."

Okay, why was Marian dyingundesirable, exactly? She meant, obviouslyMarianwould rather not die, but she wasn't certain she liked the implication that the old witch had some kind of interest in her life one way or the other.

Before she could figure out what the hell to saynow, Carver was appearing at her other side — his sword, thankfully, sheathed. "We are headed north. To Kirkwall."

"Kirkwall, hmm? Yes..." She trailed off, staring at Carver now — he tensed, his hand twitching, as though resisting the urge to go for his weapon. "What a twisting, jagged path fate has laid out before you. Even standing in the shade of the tallest tree, little boy, the smallest ant casts a shadow all its own. It would do you well to pay more mind to the path ahead of you than the footprints left behind. Not that I imagine you'll listen, no, not until it's far too late..."

By the lopsided frown on his face, Carver seemed to have no more idea what to make of the witch's cryptic ramblings than any of them had meeting her in the Wilds. Marian, having already been exposed to it once, recovered first, moved on before Carver could find his voice again. (She would have to explain that later, she could feel the other's curiosity on the air, that she wasn't acting as surprised as she should.) "I don't suppose you could lend a hand, burn all the darkspawn between here and Gwaren."

"Why would I do that?"

...Good question. "Could you teach me how to turn into a dragon, then? Because that just looks damn useful."

The woman smiled, slowly, her lips gradually stretching, too-yellow eyes sparkling in the finally fading firelight. "I could, perhaps, if it is something you truly desire. Though you may find the first step too high a barrier."

"Um...what's the first step?"

"First," she said, softly, barely above a whisper, "you must die."

"...Oh." Of course, she was talking to acursed-in-the-sight-of-the-Maker abomination, she'd nearly forgotten. "Right, I'm good, then. I'll figure something out myself, I guess."

The witch chuckled, deep and rumbling — less like the voice of a little old woman, Marian thought, and more that of a dragon. "Yes, you do manage that, don't you." Her voice going absent again, her eyes out of focus, "Cast into chaos you fight...and all the world shall tremble before you."

Those who oppose you shall know the wrath of heaven.

Marian swallowed. "Uh..."

"We are both in luck, I think," the witch said, smiling all nice, abruptly returned to the here and now. "I may just help you yet."

Oh, um. "Well, that would be great. Anything you can do to get us past the darkspawn..."

"And we're just supposed to trust you?" Leaning in to Marian, Carver hissed, "We don't even know what she is!"

"I know what she is," Aveline said, her voice sharp despite the unease on her face. "The Witch of the Wilds."

The woman's smile widened. "Some call me that. Also Flemeth. The Harbinger of Vengeance. She-of-Many-Faces. The All-Mother. That mad old hag who talks too much." Her eyes flicked to Marian, her lips twitching. "Ahuge, f*ck-all dragon."

"Ah...did I say that out loud?"

Chuckling, the witch admitted, "No."

...Okay. Because that wasn't creepy at all.

"In exchange for my assistance sending you on your way, I would require a...small favor."

Carver twitched, suspicious, but Marian cut him off with a hand on his elbow. "And whatsmall favoris this, exactly?"

"Nothing you would find too onerous. It is adelivery, you might say." The woman — who apparentlywasreally Flemeth, the witch in the old stories, she'd just given the name herself (which meant she was, what,six hundred years old, at leat?) — raised her hands, pulled her hair aside, reached for the back of her neck. After a moment of fiddling, she pulled a necklace out from under her dress, silver glinting in the starlight, the dim glow of fires below. Pooling the chain up in her hand, she held it out toward Marian.

The metal was warm against her skin, more than she'd expected, almost hot to the touch. It was obviously enchanted, magic tickling at her. The pendant was vaguely triangular, several bands curving in what looked sort of like claws, or fangs, it was hard to tell, at the center a tiny little crystal container holding...well, Marian wasn't certain what that was. Swirling green light, like the Fade, though dusted with sparks blue and silver and red and violet, shifting around in their tiny space as though caught in a slow dance. It was pretty, if very weird. "What is it?"

A sharp note of impatience slipping into her voice, Flemeth (it felt so strange using that name for her) said, "A complicated bit of old magic I haven't the patience to attempt to explain to an untrained child. Suffice to say, it is a device of incredible value, but one that is absolutely harmless. Your family will be in no special danger travelling in its vicinity."

That was really all Marian needed to know about it, honestly. Of course, Flemeth was probably only saying it because she realized that was all she really needed to know, which was sort of creepy, but Marian was trying to just run with it. "Okay. Good to know." Marian managed to get the necklace clasped around her own neck, might have fallen over without Aveline's hand on her shoulder. It took a bit of fiddling around — the armor she'd sort of permanently borrowed from the Wardens had been fitted to her as much as was possible for something that hadn't been shaped with her in mind, there wasn't a whole lot of room — but she shoved the pendant under her collar, the warm, tingling metal coming to rest over her heart. "Where am I delivering this to, exactly?"

Flemeth was smiling again, the expression slightly crooked — the kind of tolerant smile adults gave silly children when they did adorable, childish things. "Not so far from Kirkwall, there is a mountain. Sundermount, the locals call it. The area is abandoned — it is an old place, and a scarred place, the site of battles long forgotten, the land still littered with the bones and the spirits of the fallen."

"Sounds pleasant."

The witch's lips twitched. "So long as you carry that pendant, they will not trouble you. Some time after your arrival in Kirkwall, you will hear of a Dalish clan lingering near the foot of the mountain. You will approach their Keeper, and show her the pendant. She will know what to do. Follow her directions from there, and your debt will be paid."

"Right." That didn't sound...toobad. Spirits and sh*t walking around in the real world was always a scary idea, but if the pendant would protect her, fine. (Flemeth wouldn't lie about that, right, she wanted Marian todosomething with it, she had to be able to get there.) Approaching the Dalish might be iffy. She'd learned from Lýna that Dalish weren't really so hostile as a lot of people made them out to be, but they could still be... Well, Lýna was a scary girl,veryintense, Marian didn't think she liked the idea of being surrounded by a whole clan of them. Especially after what little Lýna had said about their mages, they sounded...well, scary, they sounded scary. But it was fine, they probably wouldn't just out and kill her for no reason. Probably.

She wasdefinitelygoing alone, though. It sounded like it would probably be fine. Certainly no more dangerous than Ostagar, or their flight through the hills just now. But she still wasn't going to drag the twins into that.Shewas the one making the deal with the creepy old witch,shewould fulfill the terms, alone. If it did go badly, and she got hurt — by demons, by undead, by Dalish, whatever — at least her family would be safe in Kirkwall.

"Okay. You've got yourself a deal, Witch of the Wilds," Marian said, holding out her hand. Flemeth took a couple steps closer, clasping her arm — her skin was cold, that was unsettling. "Get us to Gwaren, and I'll make your delivery."

"Marian—"

"It's fine, Carver. I know what I'm doing." Well, no, she didn'treallyknow what she was doing, but that wasn't exactly an unfamiliar feeling was it? She'd figure it out. She always did.

The ancient witch chuckled, seemingly delighted, inhuman yellow eyes glinting in the night.

Chapter 8: Highway — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 15

Hinterlands, Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

If Alim had thought the trip to Ostagar was bad, their walk to Redcliffe was something else.

It would perhaps not be much of a surprise to anyone to hear that mages in the Circle didn't exactly get a lot of exercise. It wasn't like they just sat around at their desk readingallthe time — they did move about some, there were a lot of stairs they ended up going up and down multiple times a day, and some forms of spellcastingcouldget pretty strenuous when you really get into it...but that was about it. The heaviest thing Alim had regularly carried was a stack of books, sometimes as far as his room but usually just from a shelf to the table he was using at the moment. The longest walk he would ever take was from the initiate bunks on the bottom floor — well, thesecondfloor, the Templar barracks and storerooms and such were under that, but they weren't allowed to go there — up to the refectory on the fifth which, yes, was a significant number of stairs, but it wasn't really that far, was it? He'd done it multiple times a day, for literally as long as he could remember, and he was fit enough it didn't get him winded or anything, but still, carrying books up and down a couple flights of stairs was the maximum amount of physical exertion he ever put into anything.

Sinceleavingthe Tower? Yeah, not so much.

Alistair had gone relatively easy on him, at first. He'd been with Duncan when they'd stopped by the Tower, but while Duncan had looped north via the Pilgrim's Path — along the way picking up Keran, Lýna, and several Warden initiates who'd died since — he and Alistair, along with the mages and Templars who'd volunteered to go to Ostagar, had turned south, to link up with the army around Lothering. A big group like theirs took rather longer setting up camp and breaking it down again in the morning, and was also kind of slow, what with all theotherweak little mages about. Alistair had made it clear that Alim could go at whatever pace he wanted, Alistair would stick with him, if he needed to slow down or even take a break, that was fine.

Or if he wanted to poke around in the dirt or chase birds or whatever, that was also fine. Alim had been locked in a big stone box his whole life, okay, he'd never seen these things before. He'd seen a bird in real life, once, when one had gotten into the library somehow, made a nuisance of itself — Alim had been eleven, he remembered, because he'd literally never seen a bird before outside of pictures in books. And, outside they were, just, everywhere! They were migrating back into Ferelden after the thaw, and they wereeverywhere, all twittering and cawing, these big flocks of them here and there, several times when Alim had seen a bunch of them hopping about in a tree, or scattered across a field, he hadn't been able to help himself, zipped on over, startle them into flight, yelling and honking and flapping all around him, giggling to himself like a...well, like a child, he guessed.

And everythingsmelled!The air smelled different — which, Alim had known it would, they'd been allowed to prop open windows on occasion — buteverythingsmelled. The horses and the hounds were shockingly terrible, all the different plants had a variety of spicy tangy scents all their own, even ones that hadn't even started budding yet, thewatersmelled, thedirtsmelled! The water probably just had things in it, whatever, but the dirt, he hadn't realized dirt evenhada smell!

Also, there were bugs. Everywhere. Alim was starting to dislike bugs quite a lot.

And yes, he did wear himself out a bit, running around like a crazy person, or a small child who'd been allowedfartoo much syrup, it really hadn't made the walk itself easier. That first day, he was mostly just exhausted, passed right out once they were down for the evening. After that, he'd been f*ckingmiserable.Everythinghad hurt. And the second morning had been worse than the first, he'd practically needed a hand from Alistair just tostand up, he'd been so stiff and aching. Flopping down at their camp that evening — arriving some time behind the rest, the consequences of Alim's earlier antics making him even slower than the rest of the mages — Alim had proclaimed, in his most melodramatic tone, that this was it, he was done for, he was never rising from this spot again, Alistair could just go ahead and put him out of his misery, thanks ever so, go on without him. Only beingmostlysarcastic.

He'd mostly been better by the time they finally got to Ostagar. A couple days resting and recovering at Lothering had really helped, but he assumed his body was also just adjusting to actually being made to do things. By the time the initiates were making their journey into the Korcari Wilds, he'd built up enough endurance that, with a little help from magic, he'd been the least slow and clumsy person there — or, the least slow and clumsy person who wasn't Lýna, and possibly Marian. Marian was bigger and heavier than Alim — because he was frustratingly tiny, it was honestly the single most annoying thing about being an elf — but she was also better at spelling her steps light, and had much more experience hanging around in forests, so it was a toss-up which of them had fared better on the unstable ground of the swamp. (The real surprising thing was that even without magic Lýna had somehow managed better than both of them, he realized she lived there but that was just unnatural.) Their time in the wilds had been exhausting, but less because of the travel itself and more because, well, it turns out fighting with magic wasreally hard, spells useable in combat were some of the most energy-intensive and snapping them out like that wasn't easy, andholy sh*tfighting that darkspawn mage had been the most terrifying experience of his life, worse than the Harrowing, until it'd been topped a week later by thatdarkspawn Templar, Andraste save him, that thing, and there were apparentlymoreof them out there, Maker...

The walkbackto Lothering, after the battle, had been easy enough too. It was about what he imagined walking south with Alistair might have been like if they hadn't had a big slow group to stay with and he weren't going easy on Alim. Just, casual sort of stroll, for hours and hours and hours, not taking any breaks but not going at a particularly strenuous pace either. It'd taken them two days and change to get from Ostagar to Lothering, which was faster than the army had travelled the same distance, but notthatfast. They really weren't that far apart.

Redcliffe was notthatmuch further from Lothering than Ostagar was. Half again the distance, maybe? Not quite that much. It was roughly 70 miles, he thought, he couldn't remember precisely. Neighbors, relatively speaking, but the distance seemed greater in person than it appeared on a map.

Lýna wanted to get theretomorrow.

This was...possible. Technically. At the slow, casual walk they'd been going at before, no, but if they took it at a somewhat quicker pace, and kept at it constantly from sunrise to sunset, they could, theoretically, knock out fifty miles in a day with no problem. Which meant they could, theoretically, make it to Redcliffe by early afternoon tomorrow. Theoretically, that seemed perfectly reasonable.

Actuallydoingit, though, was perfectlymiserable.

At the head of their little group, setting the pace for the rest of them, was Lýna, obviously. She'd decided to not actually take the Highway, instead paralleling it across field and forest just to the north — with the bounty on their heads, that was reasonable, Alim hadn't argued — and she tore across the uneven terrain with ease. Skipping along at a light jog, skidding down into game trails, sometimes leaping over dips, hopping atop protruding stone or fallen trees, light and easy as anything. Didn't seem winded at all, even after hours, as though this were no more difficult than wandering around the camp at Ostagar.

Surprisingly, Leliana was right there with her. The crazy Sister had abandoned the heavy outer layer of her Chantry robes, leaving her in plain cloth pants and shirt, the latter cutting off significantly above her elbows. Alim would think she would be cold, but maybe the exercise helped. She was right on Lýna's tail the whole time, matching her pace at a light, brisk walk — elves being tiny, the human Sister didn't have to jog to keep up — even copying her hopping around, echoing her footsteps seconds behind the lighter elf. It was taking more out of Leliana than it was Lýna, her face going red, her hair darkened and plastered to her head from sweat after a couple hours, but she stayed right on her anyway, as though determined to prove she could keep up, for whatever reason.

And Lýna had noticed. After an hour or so, Alim noticed she'd started cutting glances back at Leliana now and again, watching her. It could be his imagination, but he thought Lýna had gradually keyed up how much hopping around she was doing, looking back to check if Leliana had done it too, making their dance over the earth slowly more difficult. Like playing some kind of game.

His mind wandering, Alim found himself wondering if it were some weird Dalish flirting, but no, that was ridiculous. If anything, it seemed more like the kind of game their hunters would play with the children they were training up. Which was stillweird, but if Lýna wanted to entertain herself while also getting a feel for just what one of their new tagalongs was capable of, well, more power to her, Alim guessed.

(He thought itmuchmore likely Leliana was doing it as some kind of weirdOrlesianflirting, but she was barking up the wrong tree. Dalish had a whole thing about fraternizing with humans — supposedly, Dalish caught doing it were expelled from their clan, there were even stories about the couple both being murdered for the "crime" — and Lýna was so completely oblivious, if Leliana just came right out and propositioned her Alim was willing to bet Lýna somehow wouldn't notice.)

(Of course, that was assuming a Chantry Sister would even get it in her head to try flirting with a Dalish elf, Alim didn't think it wasactuallyhappening, he was just saying, Leliana was both Orlesian andinsane, it would be far more likely than his first thought.)

Just behind them was Perry, but he wasn't doing the hopping about the women were, just following along. And also sweating like mad, panting, and cursing up a storm, but hewaskeeping up, so. Just behindhimwere Alistair and Keran. They were both tall enough they could follow at a walk, though a somewhat rushed one — after a couple hours Keran was flushing a little from exertion, her breath not so labored as Perry's, but definitely thinner, her conversation with Alistair slowed somewhat. Alistair, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine, but hehadbeen in training to become a Templar since he'd beenten, Alistair was inridiculouslygood physical shape, Alim hadn't expected anything else.

Alim was at the back. And he wasdying.

Okay, not really, it wasn't even as bad as those first couple days after leaving the Tower. And he'd figured out a trick — he could use a certain healing spell he'd learned ages ago, which was supposed to be for when someone couldn't breathe on their own for whatever reason, to take a bit of the edge off, so he didn't get out of breath. He wasn't certain whether that was safe to use for hours straight, or if it was even safe to use in this context at all, but it didn'tfeellike he was hurting himself, so he was probably fine. The cool air was more of a problem. If it were a couple weeks earlier it might have been even worse, but after an hour or two his throat and way back in the inside of his nose started to hurtterribly, stretching down further into his chest, teasing out the urge to cough, which then made it evenharderto keep up with his breathing, and...

Sometimes, he thought he faintly tasted blood. Was that bad? He was pretty sure that was bad. He started just healing the surfaces of his breathing passages every half hour or so, which hedidhave to pause a moment to do, but it only took a quick sprint to catch up again, it was fine. He'd rather have to play catch-up every once in a while than start coughing up blood or something.

He was keeping up, mostly, but he was absolutelycoveredwith sweat — which then made him feel uncomfortably hot and cold at the same time, because yes, working hard, but also the early spring wind wascold, sh*t. And, by early afternoon, he was passing theI did too much sh*t my muscles hurtstage and into theI did too much sh*t I can't stop shakingone. It wasn't that bad, most of the time, while he was moving he didn't even notice, but whenever he slowed to drink his fingers were annoyingly unsteady, far too difficult to get the damn cap twisted off, and he kept accidentally slopping water over himself. He didn't know what the hell that was, but itcouldn'tbe good, could it? He was getting kind of light-headed too, maybe it just meant he needed to eat something, hmm...

So, no, he wasn'tactuallydying, but he kind of wished he was, if only so he would have an excuse to lay down andstopfor two minutes.

After taking another quick break to heal his insides and take a drink of water, Alim was just catching up when Morrigan appeared again. She was staying with them, yes, but she hadn't taken to running along in human form — why the hell should she, when she could lope around as a wolf, or turn into a f*cking bird andflyon ahead? Humans (and elves) really were desperately inefficient at traveling long distances on foot compared to some animals, it was just the reasonable thing to do, if the option were available.

Which, okay, he was alsosojealous. First Marian's flying, and now Morrigan's shapechanging, why didn't they ever teach them anythingfunat the Circle? (Stupid question, he knew the answer to that.) He'd looked into the subject, it had been his illicit curiosity like Jowan's had been Fade-walking (and blood magic, apparently), but there wasn't really anything useful in the library at Kinloch Hold. Well, there might be in theEnchanters' library, higher up the Tower, but Alim wasn't allowed in there. Just story after story about the ancient elves, and hedge witches over the centuries, and it was something some Dalish and wilderfolk still practiced to this day, and it was a disgusting, unnatural ability, blah blah blah, nothing actually at all helpful in figuring out how todoit.

That was by design, he was certain. After all, the primary reason he'd wanted to learn how to do it was so that he could change into a bird and fly right out of a window and get the f*ck out of the Tower forever. Like they hadn't had anything similar to Marian's flying thing around either, Alim assumed the Templars didn't want them seeing anything they could use to easily escape.

Alim didn't want to learn it for the same reason anymore — joining the Grey Wardens was a commitment for life, he would never be going back to the Circle. Besides, if he tried to go back, they'd probably immediately execute him as a maleficar anyway. Which was f*ckingabsurd, he hadn'tdoneanything,Jowanhad been the one practicing blood magic, andeven hehadn't actuallyhurtanyone either! But sure, cut off the awkward, harmless mage's head, andalsokill all of his friends, that's a reasonable reaction to this incident, of course.

(He hoped Jowan was okay, wherever he was. The Templars hadn't caught him, had they?)

Anyway, Morrigan was perched on a protruding bit of rock — crouching over her heels, arms propped over her knees — watching as their group walked by. Not watching their group, watchingAlistair— her head was tilted at a thoughtful angle, smiling very faintly, eyes widened, somewhat more on one side than the other, with a cold kind of amusem*nt. The amusem*nt of a cat watching a helpless mouse passing by, contemplating when best to pounce.

...It was, Alim suddenly realized, a veryelvenexpression.

Human and elven faces were shaped somewhat differently so, naturally, to change the lines of their faces to make clearly-visible expressions they had to do somewhat different things. According toveryold Tevinter records, the first elven empire had actually had a very extensive system of nonverbal communication, complicated enough the Tevinters never managed to fully document it before it fell out of use, that communicated so many specific shades of meaning with such subtle cues the humans had trouble even figuring out what was going on. The old elves had been infamously practiced at the art of saying one thing and meaning another, and the Tevinters had speculated this was actually a form of sarcasm — that there was something nonverbal that cued when they were being less than entirely truthful, and perhaps even why, but that these went right over the heads of people not trained in these gestures. (Which also included many elves, this particular game was one largely limited to their nobility.) According tolessold Orlesian records, something similar had developed among the elves of the Dales too, it seemed to be something they just did naturally.

But even just with normal facial expressions, the difference was noticeable. See, humans had rather more prominent jaws, and the fleshy bits of their cheeks, while elves had larger and more expressive eyes. Elvescoulddo things with their lips, like smile and smirk and the like, obviously, but the subtle shades in those sorts of things humans could do were less obvious, so the eyes made up some of the difference. There was also a lot of head-tilting, different directions and different angles combined with various expressions carrying different meanings — the ears made it alotmore obvious exactly how an elf was tilting their head than a human, they could make fine distinctions humans really couldn't.

The differences werelessextreme in mixed environments, like in the Circle, but Alim had noticed it was very obvious with Lýna. Both that her expressions were kind of off, and sometimes completely unreadable, and that she had trouble figuring out theirs too. Especially if someone's hair or a helmet or something was covering their brow — an elf would still have their head-tilting and would naturally exaggerate tone carried on their voices, but humans didn't seem to think to do that. (Human voices were also somewhat less expressive in general, one of those things that had beenweirdgrowing up around mostly humans, realizing that his vocal range and his hearing were just better than everyone else's.) He thought he was figuring her out quicker than the others just because, well, elven sight and hearing, picking up the little details and then pattern recognition, so. He was kind of figuring out Dalish (elven) nonverbal communication, a little bit.

Which was what made this thought f*cking weird, because he was just noticing that Morrigan's expressions wereveryelven — mostly carried through the eyes and the voice, he meant, with a lot of head-tilting — and that was just...why? It was almost like, he didn't know, what might happen if a human were raised by Dalish elves, picking up their mannerisms as best they could. But that didn't make any damn sense, because Morrigan's mother was human, and she wasclearlyChasind, and...

Or, maybe Chasind just had elven-esque mannerisms to begin with. It wasn't like he'd met many Chasind before, he had no idea. The Chasind and the Dalish had been in close contact ever since the Orlesian invasion, at the latest, so that wouldn't becompletelyout of the question. It was just kind of weird.

And, also, not really important right now? He was a little light-headed, okay, and also a rambly, easily-distractible son of a bitch. Once, he'd been with Lacie, they were literally half-undressed already, and he'd gone off on a rant about something he'd read that day, and must have said something that had annoyed Lacieverybadly, because she'd shoved him into the wall, sorted out her clothes and left without a word. Jowan hadn't stopped mocking him over it for a month. Of course, he had absolutelynoright to judge, because one time he was trying to talk to Lily andnotcome off like a total ass, he—

No! Focus, Alim, you were thinking a thing!

Right! Morrigan! Shapechanging! Neat magic he could totally learn now that he didn't have asshole Templars breathing down his neck! Woo!

Also, maybe would be nice to distract Morrigan before she picked a fight with Alistair for no good reason — she did seem to like doing that, he had no idea why. "Hey, Morrigan."

The witch's eyebrow twitched. "Yes, little boy?"

Oh, she was going to keep calling him that, apparently. That was very cute, and not at all extremely irritating. Passing by her perch, "Walk with me, I want to talk to you."

She let out a long, put-upon sigh, but she did hop down after a couple seconds, slid up next to him. "If you insist. I did wonder when one of you would see fit to prod me for information."

He tried to stop himself, hereallydid, but he couldn't help it if she was going to just set him up like that. "Is there something else I should be prodding you for?"

Morrigan was surprised enough she paused for an instant, falling a step behind, letting out a single shocked chuckle,uh-heh!"I shall pretend I didn't hear that. Go on, then, ask your questions."

"Right." Circling a puddle of mud, Alim considered what the hell he was supposed to say. He somehow suspected blurting outteach me how to turn into a bird!would go badly. "Ah, so, you grew up in the Wilds? I mean, obviously, but it was just you and your mother? I didn't see a lot of Chasind around."

"What sort of question is this?" Morrigan muttered, huffing a little. "For nigh as long as I recall, 'twas simply Flemeth and I. Is that thought so strange to you?"

The thought thather mother was literallytheFlemeth, sure, but. "I mean, I grew up locked in a stone box packed in with a bunch of other children and constantly overseen by armed guards watching for the smallest excuse to murder us all, so,everybody'supbringing is foreign to me, when you think about it."

"Hmm." Alim felt her eyes on him, but he didn't glance over to check her expression, just focused on keeping up with the others. "For the most part, yes. The Chasind are uncomfortable in my mother's presence, and avoid her should they have no pressing concern to address."

Oh, really? Couldn't imagine why...

"When I was a girl, we would visit a village on occasion. Flemeth wished for me to have some knowledge of our people, so I must find myself now and again forced into their company. Festivals, ceremonies, the like. Our stays were always brief, and I but rarely made such visits on my own."

"Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious? They all know who I am — and who my mother is. They fear they may by word or deed cause some minor offense to me, and thereby invite upon them the legendary wrath of the Witch of the Wilds. My mother always knows, you see." It could be Alim's imagination, but he suspected that was a note of bitterness on her voice. "In time, their fright grew tedious, and I never visited again."

I would no more like to see the Blight sweep over this land than you, but neither do I enjoy forcing myself to remain in the company of those who despise me.Alim nodded — that clicked together nicely, didn't it. "I can hardly imagine that, myself. Living out in the wilds, I mean, I can't remember ever being outdoors before Duncan recruited me into the Wardens, and that was...a little over a month ago, I think?" Alim actually wasn't certain what the date was anymore, he'd lost track. Huh. "Did you know dirt has a smell?"

Morrigan chuckled. "Of course dirt has a smell, you ridiculous man." Oh, he'd been promoted fromlittle boytoridiculous man, neat, he'd take it. "In fact, it has a wide variety of smells, depending upon the composition of the soil."

"Yeah, well, I'd literally never touched dirt before, so, news to me." He couldn't leave it right there, that'd be giving her an opportunity to ask him about the Circle, and if they were going to talk about him he'd rather be able to dictate what the topic would be. "I'm sorry, that just seems...quiet. I mean, maybe it's just me, at the Tower we're all packed in there, there are always people around. I can't imagine living with only one other person."

"'Tis not so quiet as you imagine. The Wilds are unbound and ever-changing, place to place and day to day always new. There are all manner of living things, ruins long ago forgotten by men, even the occasional spirit come to experience our world first-hand. The Wilds are my home, 'twas never a burden to live as I did." Morrigan paused, just for a moment, but Alim was more concerned with picking over a fallen tree than checking her expression. "In fact, were the choice available to me, I would remain in the Wilds rather than submit myself to what you termcivilization." The scorn on the word wasveryobvious.

Of course, ifcivilizationwas a thing where she was feared and reviled for an accident of her birth, was bound by law to either surrender herself to a Circle or face execution, that attitude made perfect sense, didn't it? "It's not all bad — some of the villages around the periphery seem like pretty nice places to live. But yeah, I'm not particularly impressed with civilization either. Ostagar was an idiotic, beareaucratic, political mess beginning to end, and the Bann of Lothering can suck the biggest,smelliestdick."

Morrigan let out another surpriseduh-heh!"Well. 'Tis the banns who are the problem, are they not? Banns and arls and kings, obligations and lands and gold. 'Tis an unforgiving and cold place, your world. I often wonder why anyone should choose to submit themselves to it."

Most of the time, they didn't — a person couldn't help the circ*mstances they'd been born into. But that wasn't really the point. "Chasind might not have the rest, but theydohave lands."

"No," she said, flatly, "we don't. We might say a manlives uponthe land; we do not say heownsit. What an absurd idea this is,owningthe land! Is the land a thing one might pick up and carry off? You might as well say youownthe air you breathe! The farmer who works the land, it no more belongs to him than the pond belongs to the frog, or the sky belongs to the hawk. This business human society engages in of drawing lines in the earth and calling one side theirproperty, 'tis a foolish, childish notion. And, in fact, the root of most of their troubles."

...Well, she wasn't wrong about that last part. When it came down to it, economy was all about who controlled the lands that produced wealth, and how that wealth was (or was not) distributed to those who didn't. From a certain perspective, he could see how one might think the ever-accumulating wealth of the few and the miserable poverty of the many was an artificial imposition on the peoples of the world created by the private ownership of the land. There had been peasant revolts over the centuries that insisted much the same thing, actually. And, well, that was ultimately what most wars were about, wasn't it? a dispute over who should get to control which valuable lands, or, at larger scales, the tax revenue and markets produced from them?

Though, honestly, it hadn't occurred to him that people could just...notown the land. He meant, there were the Dalish, obviously, but practically everywhere in the world somebodysomewherehad ultimate ownership over the land people lived on. Even if it wasn't invested in asingleperson, but a community in general...but not really even then. Most villages in Ferelden, and Orlais and most other countries, were organized under a form of the old Orlesian commune system — that is, the land the village sat on, and the farms around it, were said to be held by the people of the village in common. Exactly how that worked place to place varied, but basically, no one person had exclusive rights to any of it, and whatever work needed to be done or retasking of particular bits of it or whatever, all that was agreed upon by the residents. But, really not even then, becausetechnicallyall that land wasreallyowned by the local lord, the management of it was just left to the peasants. It was just assumed land that was actually used had to be owned bysomebody.

The more he thought about it, Alim couldn't honestly say he knew why that was. Obviously, lords and kings and what-notwantedit to be that way, since their control over the land was the core of their own wealth and power, but other than that.

...And he'd gotten completely distracted from what they had been talking about by politics and economy and... He knew he'd been trying to build up a little bit of a rapport before asking after neat magic, but he'd sort of lost track of what angle he was coming at. Damn. He was blaming it on having to keep moving along while also trying to think his way through the conversation, he was too damn tired and light-headed for this. Oh well. "Yes, people will be asses to each other, this is how the world works. So about that turning into animals thing."

"Oh? What of it?" It could be his imagination, and he couldn't really spare the attention to look — they were scrambling through a particularly rocky bit of forest right now, up and down and up, ugh — but she sounded somewhat wary. Like she thought he was about to go on a rant about it being a disgusting, unnatural ability that blah blah blah.

So when he said, "How did you learn to do it?" he thought he heard her steps hitch for a moment in surprise.

After a couple seconds hesitation, "'Tis a skill of Flemeth's, taught over many years." Oh, that probably meant it was hard to learn, then. Damn. "Though, 'tis not one I used where I could be seen. The Chasind have tales of shapechangers."

Fereldans did too, though they mostly involved Chasind mages changing into wolves and eating people — so, probably not thesamestories. "Oh? What kind?"

"They tell of witches who watch their clans from hiding—"

"Or stalk them from the bushes?"

"One might say," Morrigan purred, amused. "Little Chasind boys are warned that if they do not behave they might one day be left out in the Wilds, alone and helpless. And there a witch will snatch him up, drag him off kicking and screaming, deep into our secret haunts to be devoured." Oh, so theywerebasically the same stories, then, never mind. "I hear it is quite effective in silencing tedious tears and complaints."

"I bet it is. I wouldn't want to get dragged off by your mother, either." Morrigan let out another chuckle at that — and howwasshe managing to not be out of breath, his voice was coming out all thin and breathless, and here she was laughing and not having any difficulty, ugh. "That reminds me, about your mother. I was wondering."

"Must you?"

Yes, he really must — he wondered about everything, he couldn't help it. Of course, he also wasn't certain exactly how to ask what he wanted, so... "Is she...really what she seems to be?"

And Morrigan laughed again, because that was a sort of vague question, wasn't it. "That depends — what does sheseemto be?"

He knew what he wanted to say, but... Eh, it would probably be fine. He'd gotten the feeling Morrigan found other people's unease with her mother amusing, she probably wouldn't take offense. "Human?"

"Oh, she was," she said, her voice lower, softer — slightly uneasy. "Tell me, how much do you know of the tale?"

"About Flemeth? Well, I know several." There wasn't a whole lot to do in the Tower, after all, he'd done alotof reading over the years. "Most people might think of the legend of Cormac Wolf-Hunter, but sources disagree on that one, the earliest versions don't mention Flemeth at all. Her alliance with Calenhad the Great is a historical certainty, but there is disagreement over whether the Chasind matriarch mentioned was trulytheFlemeth, or coincidentally shared the name. And there's the story of Lord Conobar of Highever, of course — there are multiple legends that claim to explain the 'true' origin of Flemeth, but that's the most popular one."

"And 'tis the one that, according to my mother, approaches nearest the truth. How do the Alamarri tell it? I confess I've never asked."

"Oh, well." Pausing to heal his throat and take a drink, Alim considered how best to summarize the story. Clearly, all the context of the War of the Crowns wasn't really important to what they were talking about, that could be edited out. The politics between the (mostly) Andrastian Alamarri and (mostly) pagan Chasind and Avvar, very different peoples sharing the Teyrnir in...relativepeace, also wasn't important...but the Chasinddidcome in later, trying to chase Flemeth down, but the politics that went into getting them to agree, didn't need to get into that.

Okay, he had it. Starting to jog after the others again, he started, "Right, well, it starts with a Lord Conobar, a Bann sworn to Teyrn Talemal of Highever. Highever was at war with the Teyrnir of Denerimandthe Arlings of Edgehall and Redcliffe — though, Edgehall and Redcliffe weren't called that then, they were Avvar kingdoms at the time — so everything was a huge mess. Lord Conobar's wife, Flemeth, was a mage, and— Oh, that would have been in the early Towers Age, the Three Twenties or Thirties probably, mages in Chantry lands weren't remanded to the Circles until the First Exalted March on Tevinter during the Black Age, over a hundred years later. Anyway. Because of the war, people were moving all over the place through the Teyrnir, fleeing battles or famine and the like. One day, a poet and storyteller ended up in Conobar's town. Osen, I think his name was, uh...Avvar? Is 'Osen' an Avvar name?"

"He was Chasind."

...Suggesting he'dactually existed, but okay. "Well, a pagan anyway — non-Andrastian, that is — that's the point most of the versions I've read linger on. Anyway, Flemeth quite liked this guy, and either they were caught in a tryst or Lord Conobar simplysuspectedFlemeth of infidelity, different versions disagree on that. Either way, Flemeth was locked up in their keep, and Osen was killed. Here, versions differ again — either Flemeth called on spirits for help, or sympathetic servants released her. Either way, she killed Conobar on her way out.

"So, now she was wanted for murdering a bann, which is generally not good. There were all kinds of people after her now, chasing her into the hills in the west of the Teyrnir. Hounded for weeks, she finally turned to a demon for help, and became an abomination. The Teyrn asked anyone he could think of for help killing the monster now stalking his lands — Chasind, Avvar, the Templars even sent a few teams of demon-hunters — but after many, many deaths Flemeth fled to the south, and was never seen again. The damage done by the abomination and the face the Teyrn had lost weakened his rule considerably. He ended up being killed by the Arl of Edgehall in a battle near the River Dane, and Highever was pretty much out of the war then."

There was a brief silence, Morrigan turning the Alamarri version of the story over in her head, he guessed. "That is not so different from what I was told. I cannot say much about the war and your lords — these were not things that concerned Flemeth, so of them I know little. But, according to my mother, 'twas not the Lord who was her husband. She was the wife of Osen the Chasind storyteller, instead. The war had cast them from their home, and their clan came to this Lord Conobar's lands, hungry and desperate. 'Twas this Lord Conobar who desired what was not his. In exchange for Flemeth, he offered Osen riches, and their people new lands to settle upon."

Morrigan paused there, despite her story obviously not being over. To wait for his reaction, perhaps? He guessed the thought of a man selling his wife to another might seem abhorrent and unthinkable...to someone whowasn'thungry and desperate. If their entire clan could be provided for in exchange for just one of their number, well, that was a perfectly rational thing to do, wasn't it? Especially since, well, Flemethwasa mage, they couldn't exactly force her into anything if she didn't agree to it, she'd just fry the man alive. "Not a bad deal, I suppose."

"No," she admitted — some kind of tonedefinitelyon her voice, but Alim couldn't read it. "In fact, 'twas Flemeth who convinced her husband to agree to the arrangement. And all would have been well had the Lord kept their terms. But he was a foul, jealous man, and a faithless one at that. Mother's clan were not allowed the home they were promised — instead, the Lord chased them off his lands entirely. Osen was slain, his body left in a field to rot."

Alim winced — he knew little about Chasind customs, but even he knew you didn't abandon someone's body alone in the middle of a field. That was just insult on top of injury.

"The spirits told Flemeth of the deed. The Lord had proven himself a liar and a cheat, an oath-breaker — you may not know this, but to Chasind the making of an oath in bad faith is the worst of crimes, unforgivable." He hadn't known that, actually, interesting. And, for the spirits to tell her anything she must have been a Dreamer evenbeforebecoming...whatever the hell she was now. That wasn't so unexpected, he guessed, it was believed Dreamers had once been rather more common than they were now. (Others suspected Dreamers wereexactlyas common as once they'd been, they just kept their talents to themselves, but naturally there was no way to know for certain.) "Flemeth begged the spirits grant her justice, and 'twas they who slew Conobar.

"'Tis true Flemeth called for help, though your story forgoes telling why. After Flemeth'sbetrayal," said with a sort of amused disdain, "after she killed the first few men sent after her, the Lord's family tracked down her clan. Every single one was put to the sword — men, women, children, all slaughtered."

"Oh, Maker. That seems...disproportionate, for a blood debt."

"The Chasind and the Alamarri measure the weight of blood differently. To the Chasind, he murdered her husband, so she murdered him — the debt was paid. To the Alamarri, she murdered her lord, and yet evades justice for the deed — and so her family's lives were forfeit. 'Tis foolish, as such things often are, but there was naught to be done about it."

"I suppose not." From what he'd read, blood feuds could so often get messy and all too complicated, there was a reason the Kingdomtriedto mediate these sort of conflicts between families before they could get out of hand.Tried, because for it to work the people involved had to agree to pay attention to the 'proper' authorities in the first place, which they often didn't. And this was back in the Towers Age, there wouldn't have been a Crown to appeal to. "And so she called down a demon to help her, then. Rage? Desire? Vengeance?"

"All of these, and yet none." Her voice dropped, taking on a solemn yet theatrical sort of awe — a little over the top, because shewastalking about her mother, but she was also telling a story, so, fair. "Something did answer Flemeth's prayers, yet 'twas no demon. There are things that yet linger, in quiet places all but forgotten. Old things, powerful things. The entity that came to Flemeth was no spirit, no demon. No," she said, so low Alim almost couldn't hear it over his own breathing, "'twas somethingelse."

That was vaguely creepy, sure, but it was alsofartoo vague. Which was just making Alim even more curious. "What was it? Whatis she, I guess?"

Morrigan hesitated, briefly. "She tells me her first people called her All-Mother. More than that, I cannot tell you."

"She always knows?"

"Yes."

Right, so Morrigan couldn't tell Alim who and what her mother was — or the thingpossessingher mother, but Alim suspected the distinction was meaningless, after six hundred years in direct contact — because she'd been told not to. That was fine. Slightly frustrating, Alimhatedleaving interesting questions unanswered, but that wasn't Morrigan's fault. Ifhismother were an ancient abomination, he suspected he would be leery of disobeying her too. "I understand, I won't ask again. Despite howfascinatingthis all is, and how every curious bone in my body isburningto know, I will control myself."

Her previous more serious tone lifting away, Morrigan chuckled. "I do apologize. I understand how difficult that must be for you."

"You really don't, it's physically painful, honest."

"I expect you shall understand my own curiosity, then? I imagine your mother is not like to be an abomination of legend, but I am curious nevertheless."

Alim shrugged — which was awkward to do while jogging along through the forest, but he managed it. "There's not really anything to say."

"...I see." That was odd, she sounded...slightly irritated? Why?

"Oh! No, I'm not trying to be evasive or anything, it's just there really isn't anything to say. I've been in the Circle for as long as I can remember. The Circle's records say the Templars took me from the elven quarter in Denerim, but that's literally all I know."

"My apologies, I didn't realize."

"It's alright. I'dliketo learn about my family someday — I mean, it doesn'tmatterto me so much, just idle curiosity, I guess — but I long ago accepted that I probably never will." If he went to Denerim and asked around the elven quarter whether anyone remembered the Templars stealing a little red-headed boy, someonemightbe able to tell him something...maybe. It was a long time ago now, there was no guarantee anyone still around would know anything. "Butanyway, this wassupposedto be a conversation about shapechanging."

"Yes, I recall," Morrigan drawled, amused. "'Twas you who led us along other paths once and again."

"I know, I have trouble following one topic all the way through sometimes. See, something else interesting will occur to me, and then I'll need to know about thatright now, and completely forget what I was doing." It was even worse when he hadn't slept very well, or was a bit tired. So, like right now. "But anyway, shapechanging, uh..." Blurting outteach me how to turn into a bird!didn't seem right yet either, hmm. "Uh, what's that like? Turning into an animal, I mean?"

"Do you refer to the process itself, or what comes after?" she asked, though she didn't wait for him to say which, went on immediately. "The process 'tis uncomfortable, but not painful. Truly, it is... I don't want to say terrifying. Unsettling? There 'tis a moment where I'm not one shape nor the other. Naught but power and will, driven to a single purpose. 'Tis intimidating, I confess, to cast oneself into the ether so."

So, the transformation worked through spirit magic, was what it sounded like. She must be translating the substance of her own body into another — which was pretty f*cking impressive when he thought about, it would be so easy to kill herself on accident — in the interim her consciousness unmoored from physical form, essentially making her a spirit. A very short-lived one, an artifact of the process of the spell, which wasn't unheard of in the more advanced magics...though the caster floatingtheir own consciousnessthrough one was a bit absurd. Alim could imagine how reducing oneself to a spirit, if only for an instant, might be existentially terrifying.

As intimidating as the thought was, Alim couldn't help smiling a little bit. Just from the hints she'd given in a couple sentences, he'd figured out more about how it was supposed to work than he had from months and months and months looking this sh*t up in book after book after book — with the thought of exploiting transubstantiation to reshape his own body while bridging his consciousness out of and then back into it through a spiritual construct, he could probably recreate the effects on his own. It'd be difficult, and somewhat dangerous, but it was still exciting, that he'd made so much progress on something he'd been dreaming of foryearsin only a few seconds.

"And after, well, 'tis both different and not. 'Tis not the experience ofbeingthe animal that is reached, but being in itsshapealone. And that which was new to me may not be to you. The ears of a cat and the eyes of a hawk seemed so much finer to me, revealed shades of my world I'd never known, but it mightn't seem so different to you." Because humans had sh*tty eyesight and hearing, she meant, though Alim was pretty sure hawks could see even better than elves. Also,elves couldn't fly, he thought that was important to keep in mind. "You might be amazed at what the nose of a wolf can tell you, be you so surprised thatdirthas asmell."

If Alim weren't busy trying to catch up to Alistair and Keran — they'd fallen a little behind at some point, he wasn't certain when that'd happened — he would have thrown Morrigan a pout. "Gonna keep teasing me about that, then."

"In turn for suffering yours, I must have my own prodding, you see."

"Oh, ha ha." It was possible she was just messing with him, she clearly enjoyed picking fights with Alistair for the fun of it, but it didn't sound the same. Was she... Was the barbarian wilder hedge witchflirtingwith him? He suspected the barbarian wilder hedge witch was flirting with him. He didn't know for certain, of course, it was very subtle, but... That was...slightly unsettling. He probably hadn't done himself any favors with that "prodding" comment ages ago now, especially not with the tone he'd said it in, but he couldn't help himself, being set up like that...

Anyway, he was just going to...ignore that. Yes.

"That's a very impressive bit of magic, now that I'm thinking about it. I mean, I'm making a guess about how it might work, but it's quite complicated, and the raw power that would go into such a thing..."

Morrigan chuckled again, sort of rueful — and also not struggling with her breath,still, how was shedoingthat, Alim was struggling to speak and keep moving over here... "'Tis not so complex as you imagine, I suspect. Using only the limited, sanitized arts practiced by your Circles, perhaps 'tis so, but there are arts unknown to the so-called civilized world. New magics innovated over the centuries, or traditions of magic passed down generation to the next through uncounted ages."

"Really?" The general assumption among Circle scholars was that hedge mages were largely untrained, what magic they did know improvised by each individual mage. Self-taught, and bereft for it. The Dalish had their own traditions, but it was thought they'd lost much of what had been — forget Arlathan, even from the time of their kingdom in the Dales, it'd been seven hundred years now, who knows how much might have been lost in only that time? Avvar shamans were known to exist, which suggested the assumptions about hedge mages weren't necessarily true for them either, but... "Is shapechanging one of these old traditions?"

"Yes. It's old elvish magic."

"Wait, old elvish like theancientelves? You mean, pre-Tevinter Arlathan?"

"According to my mother? Yes."

...Andraste's tit*, he hadn't thoughtanythinghad survived from back then! Well, most anything — supposedly Tevinter had picked up some things from the old elves, but not a whole lot. They had difficulty translating elven texts, so most of what they learned from them was from observation in battle, or analyzing various artifacts they looted from one site or another, or literally off elven corpses. Interacting with elves certainly refined archaic Tevinter magic somewhat, motivated them to systematize their own approach to spellcasting, but this was less due tolearning fromthe elves and morereacting tothem. It was thought the vast majority of the old magics of Arlathan had been lost in the Tevinter conquest.

But then, Circle scholars weren't likely to ask barbarian tribesmen elf or human, were they?

"That's amazing, I had no idea. Are there other ancient elvish arts still out there?"

"A fair few," Morrigan said — lightly and casually, as though she didn't even realize she was saying somethingabsolutely incredible. "And 'tis no small feat that they yet survive. The zealots of the Chantry wish to uproot and obliterate all traditions that don't conform to the limited magics they deign to allow. I believe they would do away with magic itself, if they could. But where the Chant is weak, the old ways yet live. Weakened and scattered, yes, but they are not gone."

"Well—" Alim nearly tripped over a root, dammit, stupid nature... "Good, that's good. That they're not lost, I mean. I always thought it was...very sad, that it was all gone. 'Sad' is too small of a word, but you know what I mean."

Morrigan was silent for a few seconds. "Yes, 'tis a tragedy, I quite agree. But I confess I'm surprised you would think so, being a Circle mage as you are."

He couldn't help chuckling a little, and then immediately regretted it, he need to focus on just breathing for a moment. Were they going to take a break soon? Because a break would be nice. "Ah, yes, but I was about to be executed as a maleficar before Duncan conscripted me — clearly I was aterribleCircle mage."

"I see. And what crime did you commit that you deserve such a sentence?" Somehow, she managed to imply both that she couldn't imagine someone like him doing anythingthatbad, but also kind of half-hoping that he reallyhadbeen getting into some kind of forbidden magics, because that would at least be interesting.

"Nothing." He could practicallyfeelher disbelief, so he insisted, "No, really, I didn't do anything. If I did I'd admit it — the Templars have no right to judge Wardens, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm not a maleficar, but my closest friend is."Was?Alim honestly wasn't certain whether Jowan was still alive.

"Oh?"

Because of course she would ask after that. Bluh. "Yeah, he did blood magic, right in front of me — and the First Enchanterandthe Knight-Commander, like the big dumb idiot he is. I honestly think it was the first time he ever used it." He'd been so panicky at the time, hysterical, he'd hardly seemed to know what he was doing. "Do you know what the Harrowing is?"

"I've heard tell of it, yes. Disgusting, barbaric practice."

Alim wasn't about to disagree, though itwasa little funny to hear a wilder using that word. "Well, Jowan was f*cking terrified of it. I tried to tell him he shouldn't be — it'sscary, yes, but as long as you don't agree to anything the demon asks you, you'll be fine — but he didn't listen to me. Fear isn't a rational thing, necessarily, and I've always been better at magic than him, he probably dismissed it as me saying yet another thing he found difficult was easy, you know. A couple months after my Harrowing, Jowan was talking to Lily — one of the Sisters in the Tower, they'd been screwing for a while by then — and they came up with an idea to escape. But they needed my help, because I had access to areas of the Tower they didn't. Also, they needed me to swipe something off one of the enchanters and forge a couple signatures, long story."

Morrigan chuckled. "A story I would like to hear someday, I think. I wouldn't have imagined you had such talents."

Biting his lip, Alim managed to not blurt out something aboutothertalents he'd developed over the years, which would have soundedfartoo suggestive. And then he needed to take a moment to breathe again, becausedammit, that was not helping. "Right, um, sure, someday. Anyway, long story short, we broke into the Templar vaults, and destroyed our phylacteries, so they wouldn't be able to track us. Lily then led us out through a laundry chute—" And Morrigan started laughing at that, but that was fair, the whole thing had been very silly. "—which was unpleasant and Jowan even got stuck, had to use magic to get him out—" And she was laughing harder now, because of course she was, that had actually been pretty damn funny. "—but we got to the bottom floor, snuck out to the back door.

"Only to find several Templars were waiting for us there, including the Knight-Commander himself, along with Irving, the First Enchanter. Greagoir accused us all of being maleficars — or, conspiring with maleficars, in Lily's case — and Jowan panicked. He pulled a knife, slashed open his wrist, and then... I'm not sure what happened, exactly. I woke up in a cell. They told me that I was clearly a maleficar as well, or at the least a collaborator, so would be executed as soon as they got the paperwork squared away. A few days later, I was let out, I fully expected I was being led to my death. Instead, Duncan showed up with Irving, and invoked the Right of Conscription."

"And so you are free."

"Well, relatively speaking — joining the Wardens is a commitment for life, so I can't reallyleave. If I do, I'd be a maleficaranda deserter, I'd have TemplarsandWardens after me. But this is definitely ahugestep up, I'm not complaining." Even with the archdemon nightmares, and a Fifth Blight rising in his homeland they had to deal with, and Lýna being a f*ckingbrutaltaskmaster sometimes, no, he didn't wish he was back in the Tower, not even a little bit. "Honestly, this last month has probably been the best of my life, despite all the sh*t that's happened. I wouldn't tell the others that because, well, they'd take it the wrong way, but it is what it is. I'm satisfied with the idea of being a Grey Warden for the rest of my life, however short it might be, even if I had somewhere to go I don't think I would leave. So, I guess I am free, yes."

Morrigan let out a hum, but didn't say anything. Not that there was really anything to say.

"Wanna know a secret, though? I actuallywastrying to study forbidden magic, just not blood magic. All of us had our little fascinations with one thing or another we weren't supposed to be looking into. Well, all the initiatesItalked to, anyway, but I mostly avoided the boring ones, so. My fascination? Shapechanging."

"Truly?" Morrigan asked, the note of surprise obvious.

"Yep. I read everything in the library I could find about it, which unfortunately wasn't much. I used to have dreams about turning into a bird and flying out through a window and getting the f*ck out of there forever."

"I imagine living in the Circle to feel rather like a bird caged." There wasn't a trace of pity on her voice, but there was definitelysomethingthere. Alim couldn't tell what it was, but it didn't sound like abadsomething, so he decided to just ignore it and move on.

"Of course, now that I'm out of the Circle I can study whatever the f*ck I want, and there's nobody who can do a thing about it. Except Lýna, I guess, she is my superior officer and all, but she's also very Dalish and doesn't give a damn."

An edge of laughter on her voice, she drawled, "Do you intend to ask something of me, Alim?"

Lurching to a stop, bouncing on his toes, "Can you teach me to turn into a bird?!"

Uh-heh!"Ah. This is what you truly wished to ask me, is it not?"

"Yes!"

Morrigan smiled, her shoulders shaking with half-suppressed laughter. "I see. 'Tis not simple magic, and you may find it difficult to achieve. But if you truly wish to learn, yes, I will teach you."

"Yes!Thank you thank you thank you! Oh, this is going to be great! But, uh," he cut himself off, pointing in the direction the other Wardens had disappeared in, "we're falling behind, so, maybe not right this second."

"Perhaps not." It could be Alim's imagination, but it looked like she was biting the inside of her lip. Stopping herself from laughing at him, maybe.

"Right. Later, then." He set off jogging after the others again, rather reluctantly. Now that he knew the Chasind witch would be willing to teach him shapechanging, just,ah!Running along like this wasterrible, he'd much rather be learning neat new magic right now, but he could wait, it was fine. It just made concentrating on keeping himself going and not falling too far behind even more difficult was all.

After a long moment, Alistair and Keran again coming into sight ahead, Morrigan said, "You are a very strange man, Alim Surana."

Yes, he was aware. Also, he was faintly surprised Morrigan knew his surname, he didn't think anyone had used it since she'd turned up — the only one of the Wardens he was certain even knew it was Alistair. Maybe he'd just missed it. "Hey, it could be worse. I could be stupid and boring instead."

"Oh, and what a tragedy that would be."

Well, she didn't have to sound sosarcasticabout it...

The wind turned, the thin smoke rising from their lowly-crackling fire curving over her, setting the stars above to twinkling.

The night sounded different here. Quiet.

Like the great forest far to the east, in some ways, but in other ways not. The wetlands she'd lived in most of her life, for all that there had been Chasind villages dotted here and there, had still been mostly wild. And they were noisy, even at night — sometimesespeciallyat night. There were all manner of animals that preferred to live in the dark. Owls in particular, wolves and bogfishers. Monkeys sometimes, especially in the summer.

And bugs, all kinds of bugs, enough that in the dead of night their calls were so thick as to cut over those few nocturnal birds, clicking and chirping, a low buzz that was subtle enough it was noticeable mostly in its absence. Higher in the hills, perhaps — not quite into the mountains, but yet mostly Avvar lands — or further to the south, where the land was firmer, drier. Or in the dead of winter, the lakes and the rivers frozen, a thin blanket of snow covering the ground. The night was silent, then, save for the occasional howl of a wolf or coo of a halla, a creaking of trees or the cracking of their fires, below that lulling quiet, as though all the world slept, save for those few who kept vigil, waiting for the thaw to come.

The forest — the Brecilian, the Alamarri called it, which soundedsort oflike Èvhreshiļsã, Lýna assumed they were the same word — had been similar in some ways, but different in others. For all that the soil in the wetlands was thick with water, ponds and lakes and streams and rivers everywhere, it actually rained very little — the water didn't fall there, but flowed in from elsewhere, from the mountains to the west and north, the forest to the northeast. In that great forest, it rained, in some places seemingly without end. Rarely a heavy rain, though those did come with great fury on occasion, but a constant, slow drizzle, speckling the land and everything on it day after day after day. Even when it wasn't raining, it was still wet, a persistent fog that at its thickest obscured the trees only a dozen paces away, water beading on their things, the cool air damp against her skin.

The forest wasn't home to bugs the way the wetlands were, more like the rocky hills to the west, but it was noisier than they, in its own way. Those lands were home to all manner of creatures, from the smallest mouse or squirrel to the largest bear or elk, and they were always crashing about, their breath snuffling, bears roaring or wolves yipping. And there were even wilder things there. Èvhreshiļsã was a place of old and forgotten things, and as in many such places spirits had more a presence there than most — there were sylvans, many of them. She'd been told they would sometimes repel humans invading from the south, Gwaren, but they mostly left the People alone. These spirits had been friends to the Ancients who had once lived there, were perhaps echoes of the Ancients themselves, they recognized the People as kin, however distant. Sometimes, one would call out to them as they passed, speak in riddles and trade in minor favors, but for the most part they didn't react to their presence, perfectly still as though ordinary trees.

In the night, Lýna could hear them breathing.

And of course, there was at least one storm dragon. They hadn't gotten close, but they'd still heard it, the beating of giant wings and the cracking of thunder shaking the air. Their Keeper had wisely decided to turn further west to avoid it.

And while the forest had much fewer bugs, there was the rain. The ticking and pittering of drops striking wood and leaf and stone, like a million tiny drums all around. Very quiet, most of the time, a low hiss that was different from the buzz back home but close enough to feel familiar, sometimes louder pattering and splashing when the wind blew, tossing the thick green ceiling over their heads, the water they'd slowly collected falling all at once. No, it was never quiet there either, not really.

The night was quiet here. Notsilent, no, but quiet, too quiet.

There were sounds of life in the trees, yes. Since night had fallen, Lýna had heard a couple owls, the barking of a distant dog. Occasionally, she caught a soft rustling in the brush — there were deer in these woods, she knew, she'd seen several over the course of the day. But there wasn't as much as there should be. The Alamarri had chased the wilderness out of their lands, slowly pushing at the world over centuries, and so it was quiet.

Even after she didn't know how many nights, she still found it... She wasn't certain. It felt... It felt like it should be winter. The land sleeping, waiting, only the occasional sound of a passing creature, the trees creaking in the wind, their fires cracking, low chatter now and again. But it was too warm, the plants not yet blooming but still long after the thaw...and yet the land slept.

Or, perhaps as though this were a place the darkspawn tred, their presence scaring away the wildlife, their taint poisoning the water, killing the bugs. But there were no darkspawn here, if there were Lýna would be able to feel them.

Instead, it was just quiet. It was unsettling.

She knew the others assumed she always brought them into the trees to rest for their shelter, but no, that wasn't it, really. It was far windier here than in the wetlands, the trees set to slowly dancing, creaking and hissing and rustling —thatwas why she slept under them. The noise the trees made wasn't so like the buzz of the bugs back home, or the hiss of the rain in the forest, but it wassomething, enough to cover the unnerving quiet here. Tonight, she'd brought them close to the shore of the lake — the largest she'd ever seen, like the sea, water stretching beyond the horizon — the soft lapping of waves against the shore another layer of noise to keep everything from feeling so uncomfortablyquiet.

The Alamarri towns and cities were a foreign land too, but even their fields and their forests were alien to her. And something, she didn't know what, something instinctive, told her she didn't belong here. These were not her people, this was not her home. Part of Lýna, a weak, childish part,desperatelywanted to go home.

But there was no home to go back to. Her clan had already moved on. They should be seeking passage across the sea, perhaps even now stood on lands Lýna had never before seen, only heard tell of in stories.

And that was not for her. As much as the old, Delẽ Lýna might want to be with them, she was a Grey Warden now. With these strange, foreign people in this strange, alien land — this was her place. What remained of that old Lýna just had to accept that, and adapt.

She had no doubt she would. That was what her People did, after all.

She just wished it wasn't so quiet.

At least the stars were the same. Or, mostly the same — she had the feeling they weren't quite in the same places she was used to, but it was pretty close, and they tended to move around a bit anyway. The Wolf had already risen, its pack following along behind it, chasing the Dragon across the sky. Stories echoing in her ears from long ago, she would have been a child, watching the Wolf and the Dragon, and she was reminded of that ruin, that odd statue of what was clearly supposed to be the Wolf and the All-Mother. That, picking through that ruin toward the mirror, was the last time she'd seen Mẽrhiļ, the last time she'd seen any of her clan.

It felt like years ago, but it couldn't be so long. A month, maybe? Felt like longer than that.

Staring blankly up at the stars wavering and twinkling through the thin smoke, remembering and not-remembering, she didn't notice the figure approaching until they wereveryclose, only a few steps away. Her fingers twitched, nearly going for her father's dagger by instinct, but she stopped herself — it would be someone in their group, one of the Wardens or Morrigan or the Alamarri shaman. It was fine.

After a brief pause, the person moved, laying on the ground a short distance away, it sounded like. They let out a sigh, enough for Lýna to recognize her voice. She glanced up and to the left quick, the grass tickling her ear, spotting Leliana's head nearby, several inches away, her light orange hair seeming to glow in the firelight. Another glance around, and Lýna saw they were alone, for the most part. Perry was at the edge of the pool of light cast by the fire, meticulously sharpening his weapons, the little knives laid out in a glinting row next to him, but the others must be off in the trees, settling in to rest.

Lýna wasn't surprised — she'd expected the shaman to find a moment to speak with her alone before too long. All the Wardens had been present when Leliana had explained that her (their?) god had sent her a vision of the Blight, had commanded her to assist the Wardens in their efforts to oppose it. The others had reacted very strangely to this, giving the shaman odd, unpleasant looks, which was just baffling. But Lýna suspected they'd been too distracted withwhateverthat was that they hadn't noticed that, in speaking of the message from her god, Leliana had been... Well, she spoke of the Blight, but she'd been looking at Lýna in particular as she said it.

This was just a suspicion at this point, but Lýna had a feeling the Alamarri shaman had been instructed to assistLýna specifically, not the Wardens in general. If that were the case, Lýna would be a fool to turn her away. The others had clearly expected her to, were still a bit unnerved by Leliana's presence...

...which was also justconfusing. Wasn't Leliana a priest oftheirgod? Shouldn't they be pleased? If a shaman were sent to aid her by the All-Mother or the Wolf — and it would have to be one of them, the other Creators were all locked away — she thought she would, well, she wasn't certain how she would react, but notbadly. In fact, the All-Motherhadassisted them — first by preserving the papers Duncan had wanted, and again by tasking Morrigan to help them. (And Lýna still wasn't certain how she felt about that, it was an overwhelming thought.) Maybe she'd feel a bit more ambivalent if it were the Wolf offering help, but she'd certainlytakeit. Even if it weren't one ofhergods, say if it were an Avvar shaman sent by their Lady of the Skies, she wouldneverturn away any help such a powerful god had to offer. And the Maker these Alamarri worshippedmustbe a powerful god. She meant, supposedly these Templars were given their magic-nullifying gifts by the Maker himself, and she'd been told there werethousandsof Templars — the power it would take to sustain those gifts inso manypeople all at once was, just,incredibly...

If Lýna were being honest, she didn't think shelikedthe Alamarri god much — most of the things she'd heard about him and his followers were...not exactly pleasant. But she wasn't going to turn away whatever help he might offer. That would just be stupid, and childish.

So, she'd known Leliana would find time to speak with her before too long. She couldn't guess what about, but that she would hadn't been a question.

Speaking hardly above a whisper, with that peculiar accent on her Alamarri, Leliana said, "They are beautiful, aren't they? The stars."

And that was not what Lýna had expected to be the first thing the shaman would say to her, but all right. "Yes."

"There is a story in Orlais about those, just there." Leliana was pointing up at the sky, Lýna tried to follow along, but it was sort of difficult, from this angle. The Twins, maybe. "About Alindra and her soldier. Do you know it?"

"I know little of Orlais." Besides the human empire's history with the People, she knew practically nothing.

"Alindra was born long ago, the only daughter of a wealthy lord. She was beautiful and gentle, and had many suitors — but spurned them all, for she did not love them."

"I don't know this word, suitors."

"Ah, I suppose you might not, I am sorry." Leliana paused for a moment, humming to herself. "It is common in Orlais, and many other places, for marriage to be a matter decided upon by the couple's families. A father might receive several offers for the hand of his daughter, so a potential husband will try to endear themselves to the woman as well. So that she might tell her father she prefers him, you see? A man approaching a woman in this way is called a suitor. Does that make sense? I don't know how Dalish do these things."

Assuming Lýna correctly understood what she was talking about, itdidmake sense, though it was sort of odd they had a special word for it. "The clan choose. Can say no, but, is rare." Due to the circ*mstances the clan had been in at the time — and because a lot of the other kids her age and most of the elders had never really liked her, superstition surrounding her parents' clan she still didn't entirely understand — Lýna hadn't felt she was in a place she could refuse the decision she would be bonded with Muthallã. She might have, had things been different. Tallẽ, she'd been a true hunter by then, the clan and Lýna's role within it more secure, so shecouldhave refused, she just hadn't wanted to. "But, we don't have word for this. We saybe nice."

Leliana giggled, high and bouncing. "Yes, the nobles do like to have their fancy words, don't they? But, Alindra, refusing all her suitors. She would often sit at a window, look out into the sky and sing. For hours, she would sing. One of her father's soldiers would hear her, and linger under her window, entranced by her voice. In time they met, and he fell in love with her, and she with him. When Alindra told her father about the man she had chosen, he was furious — for Alindra was high-born, her love nothing more than a common soldier."

Lýna frowned to herself, confused, but didn't interrupt. She had long ago come to think of their hunters, Chasind hunters, and Avvar warriors as being more or less the same thing — there were differences, of course, but the skills they had and their worth among their people were similar enough. Her first assumption had been that Alamarri soldiers must be the same thing again...but she knew now that wasn't true, not at all. Soldiers were expected to fight — andonlyto fight, their skillsets only partially overlapped with hunters or warriors — at the command of their lords — which wasanotherconcept Lýna didn't entirely understand, sort of like the elders of huge clans, but not really. Except, they were often forced into these fights, sometimes with very little in the way of good equipment or training, and were almost always paid —yet anotherconcept she still didn't really get. And, payingsoldiersto kill people was apparently fine, but putting "bounties" on people, payingnon-soldiersto kill people...wasn't? was, in fact, morally reprehensible?

She didn't understand the distinction, to be honest. But there were a lot of fine distinctions Alamarri made about things that seemed very superficial and sometimes just stupid to her, not getting it wasn't unusual.

Anyway, her confusion came in because, amongherPeople, a hunter would be a perfectly acceptable partner for the daughter of a keeper — in fact, many keepers were themselves bonded with hunters. Hunters, among the People and the Chasind, and Avvar warriors, they wereimportantto a clan. It took years of training, strength and endurance and intelligence many people simply weren't willing to build, and their skills were absolutelyessentialto the survival of their people. There were reasons Lýna had decided to do her best to become one as soon as possible — she'd never been entirely welcome in the clan, never quite considered one of them, but as a hunter there was no question who she was.

Leliana said, Alindra's father was a lord, and the mannothing more than a common soldier, as though it should be obvious that made him an unacceptable partner for her, but... Well, Lýna knew, in her head, that the Alamarri didn't think of these things the same way the People did. But in her heart, what the shaman was saying simply made no sense at all.

"To keep them apart, he had Alindra imprisoned in the highest tower of his castle and sent her soldier to war." That... No, Lýna wasn't asking, Alamarri were weird, move on. "Alas, not a month had passed before news of the soldier's death reached Alindra. Alone in her tower, she wept for her love and beseeched the gods to deliver her from this cruel world."

This time, Lýna got as far as opening her mouth to ask before changing her mind and closing it again. She didn't really understand what was going on — she understood thewords, mostly, there must be something assumed but not stated that she was missing — but tracking down the heart of her confusion would take a while, it wasn't worth asking.

"So earnest was her plea that the gods themselves were moved. They gathered Alindra into their arms and lifted her high into the heavens, where she became a star. The gods also raised up the soul of Alindra's soldier love and there he dwells," Leliana said, pointing toward the east, "across the horizon from her. The band of stars between them is a river of Alindra's tears, cried for her lost love. They say that when Alindra has cried enough, she will be able to cross the river to be reunited with her soldier."

Lýna vaguely recognized this story, actually. There was a narrow band of light stretching across the sky, dim but easily seen on clear nights. The Avvar had a...somewhatsimilar story, though in their version the couple were both warriors and had been bonded before their deaths — they had done something dishonorable, Lýna forgot exactly what, so the Lady of the Skies had separated them as punishment. They would remain separated until the woman's hair, unfurling behind her as she flew over the earth, grew long enough the man could reach it. The stories were different, but also similar enough Lýna assumed they were basically the same, one Avvar and one Alamarri.

Or Orlesian, she guessed, hadn't Leliana said it was an Orlesian story? Didn't matter, if Lýna was being honest she wasn't certain what the difference was anyway.

Lýna remembered quite liking the Avvar version when she'd heard it, translated into Deluvẽ by their storyteller what felt like forever ago now. She assumed she didn't understand Alamarri people well enough to really get this one. But she was sure it was fine, and also didn't want to be rude...butalsodidn't know what one was supposed to say now. So, out of a lack of other options, she muttered, "Midhèra ny-sa."

"Sherana-ma."

Lýna blinked, it took her a second to figure out what the human woman was attempting to say. "Śelna ny-la. But, this is odd. We most sayma ghý śerynĩ dy-la, short isśerynĩ."

"I am sorry, I don't understand. I was trying to saythank you?"

"Yes.Śelna ny-lais..." She trailed off, frowning to herself — she very much doubted her Alamarri was good enough to explain Deluvẽ well. "Not lift. Go up?"

"Rise?"

"Yes! This is it. This thing you do, I rise for it, I am higher now. See? But, we don't say this. We say...I am lifted by you?Ma ghý śerynĩ dy-la, I think, yes, I am lifted by you is best. See?"

"I think so. That's pretty," Leliana breathed, slightly surprised, "I didn't know that's what it meant. I only knew it was how you saythank you, but that's nice, I think."

Lýna guessed so, though she wasn't certain how meaningful it was. Deluvẽ and Alamarri said things in different ways, but that was just the way they were, she didn't think comparing them like that was really fair. "Where you learn Deluvẽ? Is odd, how you speak." It came out sort of blunt, unfortunately, her Alamarri wasn't good enough to say it more delicately. Itwasodd, though. She could kind of see where it might have come from — she'd heard it saidshelna-ma dh'albefore, by Avvar, it was why she'd recognized it — but it was sort of an unnatural-feeling thing to say.

"I learned a bit of..." The shaman sighed. "In Orlais, when we say 'Dalish' —Délois— we mean a language that is spoken in the Dales. Many people live in the Dales now, and most of them are elves. There are two separate Dalish languages, one of which is a kind of Cirienne, and the other is elvish. I learned a little bit of elvish when I lived there, but not very much. That Dalish is different from your Dalish, I think."

"You lived on Delzã?"

"Oh, yes. I grew up in Lydes, which is a city not far from Halamshiral. Close to the same distance we are from Lothering right now."

It took a second for Lýna to recognize the mispronunciation of the name, but she couldn't think of anything to say once she did. Instead, they both fell into silence for a moment, staring up at the stars overhead.

Lýna had never been to Delzã. She'd never met anyone who had.

"These are the Twins."

"I'm sorry?"

"These stars. We don't say...people aremadestars, no. We use stars to remember, stories. These are the Twins."

"Oh? If you're willing to share, I would love to hear it." Leliana certainly sounded sincere, soft and curious. Lýna hadn't expected that, none of the Alamarri she'd met had asked her really anything about the People at all — even after Lýna had asked after one or another Alamarri thing which, honestly, wasveryrude.

There were a few different peoples who lived in the south, and when they met it was normal to share their languages, their stories, their ideas about things. That was just...being neighborly. Lýna had held off offering anything about the People at first because she didn't speak the language very well — and simply hadn't been in the mood to speak to anyone much at all, really — but it had quickly becomeveryclear that the Alamarri didn't think much of them. Thought her People were savage brutes, not worth learning about. Nobody had ever asked, so she didn't volunteer anything.

Honestly, Lýna had grown accustomed to Alamarri being irritatingly prideful, and very,veryrude. She hardly even noticed most of the time anymore.

So when someone actuallydidask, Lýna didn't hesitate. "I don't know what you know. There is, First of the Sun and...Protector? I think this is the word. The Father and the Mother to the People. Their first children, brothers, are together one. The Owl cannot fly without Shadow, and the Shadow lives by the Owl.

"The Owl, since he be very young, he is brave, and... I don't know the word. Wanting to know things, to look?"

"Curious, I think."

"Yes, this." That was right, Lýna did know that one, it just hadn't come to her in the moment. "Yes, he is very curious. He go where in fear none go, to see, to know. One day, he walks alone, and finds deer. She is sick, near death. The Owl, in kindness, he sits with her in the last breaths, and he lifts her spirit and he flies." Lýna lifted a hand, smoothly brushed at the air, her fingers fluttering — the same gesture one of their storytellers used speaking of the Friend to the Dead crossing into the Beyond, she realized, she hadn't done that on purpose. "He goes with her to the places of the dead, in friendship. And he stays, he speaks with the dead, he teaches and learns of them.

"In time, the Shadow is alone, he wish to find his brother. But the Owl flew far, more than Shadow can follow. He goes Beyond, and soon is lost. There, he finds cruel spirits, they wish to lead him away. One is Fear, the other...lies, that he deceives? Deceive...ship?"

With a little warm amusem*nt, Leliana corrected, "Deceit."

How diddeceivebecomedeceit, exactly? Oh well, it wasn't important. "Yes, Fear and Deceit. But the Shadow, he is clever. He wins games they play, and so he wins them. They lead him to the Owl. And they return, together one anew. From then, the Owl is Friend of Dead. He goes with them, in kindness, so they no more are alone. The Shadow, here his new friends are ravens. They fly, they watch and they listen, they come to the Shadow and tell what they know. From then, the Shadow is Keeper of Secrets, He-Who-Knows and Teacher-of-Teachers."

The shaman was silent, a brief moment. Then, her voice sounding oddly thin, brittle, she said, "Ravens are... Your people believe ravens are, what, the spies and messengers for a god of knowledge? In most cultures, ravens are a symbol of death."

"I know." Well, she knew they were with the Chasind and the Alamarri, it was more complicated with the Avvar. The Avvar funeral ritual involved the body being picked apart by birds, which usually included a lot of ravens, so there wassomeconnection to death there...but not really. To Avvar, birds belonged to the Lady of the Skies — they were her eyes and ears in the physical world, her messengers. Their ideas about ravens were closer to the People's than the Chasind's. (Actually, the Avvar were more like the People than the Chasind in alotof ways, Lýna had always thought that was weird.) "For us, owls are with death. Ravens are with the Keeper of Secrets."

"Oh." Leliana laughed a little, softly under her breath, but light and cheerful. "That's wonderful, I love it. I never knew how..." She trailed off. After a brief moment of awkward silence, the fire cracking and the trees hissing, the shaman continued, her voice low, cautious. Almost afraid...but that wasn't quite the right word. Something near to it, anyway. "The Maker... When He speaks to me, He calls melittle raven. I never... I didn't know how to feel about that, you know? In most human cultures, ravens do not have a...good image. They are...carrion-feeders, they follow war and spread plague. But maybe He means it in the elvish way — and elves are his children too, that would not be so strange. That's... That's a lot better, I like that."

"May be." For a second, Lýna hesitated. She wasn't at all certain Leliana would take what she kind of wanted to say well — she'd noticed many Alamarri didn't like elves much. Eventheirelves, Perry in particular had been the target of a lot of snide comments and pushing around back at Ostagar. But Leliana had bothered to learn elvish, at least a little, and actually cared enough to ask about the People. It would probably be fine. "The Beyond, it's hard to know us, with them. They see spirit, not body. If you be human, or be elf, your Maker may not see."

The shaman let out a laugh, high and bright. "Oh! I can't..." She broke into giggles for a moment, and then another moment, enough she sounded rather out of breath for a bit there. "I am sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I just imagined thelookon the faces of some people I've known, if you told them humans and elves are indistinguishable in the eyes of the Maker— Oh! Oh, that's funny." With a last short giggle, Leliana let out a breathless sigh. "Thank you. That was a wonderful story, I will remember it. What did you say before?Midhe..."

"Midhèra ny-sa."

"Yes, thank you.Midhèra ny-sa," she repeated, carefully.

"Śerynĩ dy-la." Lýna hardly thought her awkward, stilted delivery was worthy of praise — her Alamarrireallywasn't good enough yet to do this sort of thing. Honestly, she was pleased enough that Leliana had asked at all, she didn't need to thank her for it.

"And, thank you for..." Her voice falling lower, again with that wariness from before, she said, "For believing me."

Lýna blinked. "What?"

"Nobody has ever, just, without even..." Leliana paused a moment, her mouth working wordlessly, Lýna heard her swallow. "I've told people the Maker speaks to me, before. There were a few people who played along, humored me, but only one person haseverbelieved me. And now you. Everybody else... They think I'm lying, or else mad."

"...I don't understand. These Mothers, these Sisters, they too speak with Your Maker, yes?"

Sounding almost shocked, "What? No. No, no, no, no. That is, we don't— Even the Divine herself, the head of the Chantry,shedoesn't claim the Maker speaks directly to her. It's not... That's not something the Chantry does. It's, ah, heresy. Actually."

Okay, and now Lýna wasveryconfused — what were all these Chantry people, if not priests? "I don't know this word."

"Heresy? Ah... The Convocation of the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux, led by the Divine, make judgements about what beliefs and practices are acceptable. Heresy is something the Convocation has said is wrong. The accepted teaching is that humankind has sinned, and the Maker will not return until all the world sings the Chant. He watches us, but He does not intervene, and He does not speak to us, directly. To claim the Maker speaks to me is heresy, it conflicts with some of the most important beliefs of the Chantry. Iknowthis, but..." Low, almost bitter, "Iknowwhat I feel. They may not believe me, may think my beliefs are heretical, but it doesn't matter. I know."

And as Leliana explained further, Lýna was only gettingmoreconfused. That happened sometimes, learning Alamarri things, it was very frustrating. "You say... People who follow your Maker, the Mothers, the Sisters teach them. But the Mothers, they don't speak to your Maker. Others teach them. People."

"Yes."

"So...they say, we speak for god, but their god doesnotspeak to them?"

"Ah..."

"And peoplelistento them?Why?" That was just...incomprehensible. Lýna had assumed these Chantry people had the authority to speak for their god because...well, because he'dtoldthem what to say, that their authority was his. But, if theydidn'tclaim to be in communication with their god... How did that even work? She didn't understand.

"Lyna..." Leliana said her name (mispronounced) with an odd note of shock, disbelief, Lýna wasn't certain what was going on over there. Probably just as surprised and confused as she was. There were a few quiet, barely noticeable sounds from that direction, the shaman's breath hitching a little — Lýna glanced that way to see Leliana had turned over, lying on her stomach and propped up on her elbows. Staring down to Lýna, eyes wide and face unreadable. "When I said the Maker speaks to me, did you believe me so easily because...because you think it is ordinary? expected?"

Okay, Lýna didn't know how to read her face, or the tone on her voice, she didn't think she liked it. She looked away, staring blankly up at the stars — and tried her best to not feel like an idiot. "Yes. I see Chantry, and I think... The Chasind, the Avvar, they speak to their gods."

"Their gods are spirits."

"Does your Maker have body? No? So he is spirit."

Lýna wasn't looking, but she could hear Leliana's mouth open, then close again. Finally, "I... I never thought of it that way." She was quiet for a moment again, thinking. "The Dalish believe their gods are locked away, yes? Nobody should speak for them either."

"Wedon'tspeak for them! No one say, oh, the All-Mother, she tells me, you do this, or, the Firekeeper wants this. No one say this. We tell stories. And we know, many are not true. Stories arejust stories! Your Mothers, they say they speak for god, but theylie.Thisis your 'heresy'!" Realizing she'd basically just called this whole Chantry thing, a group Leliana belonged to, a bunch of manipulative frauds, Lýna winced, took a breath. "I am sorry. This, they say they are chosen but they are not, this is...bad."

Leliana didn't speak for a moment, humming to herself. "It's alright, Lyna, I'm not angry. I understand why you might feel this way. I am...just trying to understand." Well, Lýna doubted she could help with that, she wasn't certain she correctly understood what it was Leliana didn't understand. "The Chantry... The Mothers don't claim to speak for the Maker. Well, they do, I suppose, but the things they say don't come from nowhere. The Chant of Light is the basis of most of the things the Chantry says about anything. Much of the Chant was composed by Andraste herself, or her closest disciples, and shewaschosen by the Maker."

The People spoke of Andraste too — that wasn't what they called her, but Lýna had figured out who the Alamarri were talking about pretty quickly — though a lot of this Maker stuff was a little bit off. She meant, the People accepted she was a shaman, but some of the things the Alamarri said about her relationship with their Maker were...odd. "They say, your Maker doesn't speak to any. But he spoke to her."

"Yes, but Andraste was an exception."

"What is this?"

"She was special. The only one. The Chantry teaches that the Maker cast us away from Him after the First Sin, and ever since then Andraste is the only one He ever showed Himself to."

Lýna had no idea what theFirst Sinwas, but it also didn't really matter. "They know this for true? How?"

She heard Leliana open and close her mouth again. "The Chant says... But then, Exaltations was written by Kordillus the First, describing a vision from the Maker, so shewasn'tthe only one, was she? I always just thought... You think there are others out there, even now?"

"Yes. Why not?" Lýna had never met nor heard of an Avvar clan whodidn'thave a shaman tied to their Lady of the Skies, and several of them might be speaking to their Lady at once, and this was fine. Because gods could be in more than one place speaking to more than one person at one time — that was one of the things that separated gods from ordinary spirits. The thought of this Maker of theirs only speaking to one person in all the world was just absurd.

"I... Well, I don't know. I've never thought about it. I've never heard of another before. Not since Kordillus."

"Your Chantry says this be heresy. So, people like you, they don't say it. Yes?"

Leliana chirped out a laugh, sharp and sudden, muffling quickly — glancing up toward her, Lýna saw only her hair, her forehead pressed against the dirt. And she stayed that way for a while, even after her laughter had died down, her hands folded over the back of her head, fingers dug into her hair.

"You are well? I speak badly?"

"No, I'm okay." The shaman took a quick breath, then propped herself up again, one of her hands coming around to wipe at her face. It...hadn'tsoundedlike she'd been crying there, and she really hadn't had time to. Maybe she'd just gotten dirt or grass on her face. "I'm okay. This is...not what I expected, talking about this. Not bad! I just... I don't know. It's...comforting, the thought that I might not be the only one. And—" Leliana chuckled a little. "The way you are about this, I don't...

"Sometimes, I wonder if I didn't lose my mind when– a couple years ago. The way you speak of these things... It makes me feel less crazy. I think I really needed this conversation." Her lips pulling into a warm smile, eyes dancing in the firelight, "Śerynĩ dy-la."

Lýna had absolutely no idea how to respond to any of that. So she just nodded.

"Well. I have enjoyed talking to you, but I should get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."

That was certainly one way to put it. "Yes. Good night."

Pushing herself up to her feet with a little groan, she smiled down at Lýna, her orange hair almost seeming to glow in the firelight. "May you walk in the light of the Maker, Lyna Maharjel." And then she was gone, vanishing into the forest to Lýna's left.

...Okay, so that had been confusing. Lýna still wasn't entirely sure what a lot of that stuff toward the end had been about. It could be difficult and overwhelming to be a shaman, she guessed — especially in a culture where shamans didn't seem to be a thing? So, there was that. It sounded like Lýna had helped...somehow, she didn't quite get it, but she got that much. And Leliana had been nicer than most Alamarri she'd ever met, and seemed to like Lýna well enough, so, even if Lýna didn't get what had just happened it was probably fine.

So she definitely had the shaman following her lead, and Alistair. Morrigan would, if only because her mother had told her to help them, and she thought the other Wardens were all soft, delusional idiots. (Which they sort of were, compared to Morrigan and Lýna, so that was fair.) Perry was coming around, so that meant she only had to work on Alim and Keran now. Keran was the big problem, Alim was far more willing to listen to her — he just thought she was ignorant about how the Alamarri world worked, so could hardly be trusted to know what she was talking about. (Which she definitely was, compared to Alim, so that was also fair.) After they met this Arl of Alistair's, and Lýna proved she wasn't just a vicious savage and could actually handle these things, that would probably go some good way to convincing Keran. Maybe she would be willing to listen to Lýna without first exhausting herself bickering with Alistair long into the night, or without a few dead bodies on hand to drive in the point a little. And then she'd have all of them behind her, their loyalty won without them even realizing she was doing it.

After all,tellingsomeone you were going to try to win their loyalty too often just made them defensive. It would work best if they didn't realize Lýna was at least partially doing it on purpose.

She wondered if Duncan hadn't known this, when he'd simplytoldall of them he was putting her in charge of their little group. Or whether, perhaps, Duncan had known thatLýnaknew this, and of the five of them would be best able to hold them together if everything fell apart. Honestly, she didn't think so — it seemed to be an Alamarri thing that people were often expected to give their loyalty to people for no good reason, sometimes people they'dnever even met.

But what Duncan had intended didn't really matter. Lýna was going to manage things the way she felt appropriate anyway.

By any means necessary.

Chapter 9: Unrest in Denerim — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 17

Palace Hill, Denerim, Kingdom of Ferelden

Aedan didn't realize he was walking to his death until it was almost too late.

For all that people played up Denerim, the birthplace of Andraste herself and all that, Aedan had always rather disliked the city. Unlike Highever, the growth of Denerim had been mostly unplanned, gradually sprawling out from the Palace Hill in a random, disorganized mess. The oldest parts of the city were the Palace Hill itself, sitting in the shadow of the towering Tevinter-built Fort Drakon, and a small section on the shore at the mouth of the river — these areas at least had some sense to them, streets and plazas of tile and brick, structures well-built of stone, regularly-cleared gutters drawing away waste and trash. They would be perfectly liveable...

...if it weren't for the company. Because, of course, most of the Hill was parceled out to the various lords of Ferelden, estates owned by one noble family or another here and there and everywhere. By royal decree, every teyrn, arl, and bann was required to have an estate in Denerim, in fact, where their representatives could remain in direct contact with the King, and where they would stay during the Landsmeet. The lords themselves usually stayed on their own lands, only coming to Denerim for the Landsmeet or the occasional holiday or the like, instead leaving a brother or a son or a nephew or whatever in charge instead. Which meant the place was filthy with insufferable noble kids pretty much year-round.

Aedan had spent some considerable time in Denerim, growing up. Fergus would be Teyrn of Highever one day, which made Aedan the spare, meaning it was expected he would end up managing the family's affairs in the capital for more or less his entire life. Since he'd been seven or so, Aedan had spent roughly half of every year in Denerim, leaving home after Wintersend and returning by All Soul's Day. Of the various things expected of him during his time in Denerim, he was to socialize with the other high-born kids. Most of them were in Denerim for the same reason he was, they'd be peers of a sort one day, they were expected to form relationships and learn to get along and the like.

And, Maker, hehatedthese sh*t-heads. Aedan didn't know what it was, he'd just never really gotten on well in society circles, ever since he'd been a small child. Fergus was the good son, when they were little he could consistently be found doing what was expected of him — patiently attending his lessons, working with Dick in the training field, sitting down to interminable lunches with this bann or that merchant or other visiting notables, blah blah blah. They usually had to drag Aedan to these things. He couldn't count the memories he had of being tracked down up a tree in the grove, or messing around with peasant boys in town, or playing cards in one of the taverns dotted here and there. Often dirty with scraped elbows or bruises on his face, boys played rough, sometimes inebriated.

On one particularly memorable occasion, literally with his pants down — Mother had once showed up at the brothel to drag him back up to the castle by his hair, the whor* he'd been with at the time laughing her ass off. Fergus had expected he'd be angry with her after that, but honestly, it'd been f*cking hilarious, he didn't even mind. The tavern across the street had named one of their brews after the incident the year after, it was practically a local legend around there these days. Which was slightly humiliating, yes, but he already had enough humility to acknowledge, yeah, it was damn funny, laugh it off.

If it were Fergus, Aedan was sure he'd bemortified. Hewasthe good son, after all.

Aedan had made even more of a nuisance of himself in Denerim than he had in Highever — his excuse was the expected routine here was moreoffensivethan boring, but Father never quite bought that. He'd spent uncounted nights drinking and gambling in one tavern or another, which Father really didn't like, butAedanthought was perfectly acceptable. If he were losing a lot of money, sure, but he always made more than enough playing cards to pay for his drinks and have plenty left over. Aedan suspected that Father's larger concern was that someone would try to rob him on his way back home...which had happened, several times. But it wasn't like the average thief or bandit had the formal training Aedan did, even three sheets to the wind it usually wasn't difficult to lay them out and continue on his way.

Father only knew about a couple of those incidents, because Aedan usually didn't even bother reporting it. The times he thought he'd actually been in real danger, the more well-trained, well-equipped criminals, sure, those he turned over to the guard, but most of them were just hungry and desperate, had no other means to turn to. More than once, when the person trying to rob him seemed particularly pathetic, after knocking out the poor saps Aedan would drop a couple silvers on them before walking off.

He hadn't told Father about that, but he had once told Mother Mallol, saying it was his own personal brand of almsgiving. She hadn't thought it was funny.

Perhaps the worst incident, the one that had made the most trouble for Father, was this one time he'd kicked the teeth out of Vaughan Kendells — literally, he lost two teeth and a third had to be removed later. Father had actually ended up paying blood money to the Kendells for that one. And Aedan wasn't sorry, the son of a bitch had had it coming. Vaughan'sown fatherhad agreed, Arl Urien had admitted to Aedan he'd only demanded recompense for appearance's sake, so as far as Aedan was concerned he had the right of it.

Besides, he'd gladly pay good gold to do it again. Vaughan was an ass.

The company outside the nobility on the Hill, at least, was less irritating — there were reasons he spent so much time back at Highever in the city hanging around common folk, the principle applied here in Denerim too. The problem wasn't the company, no, it was the environment. The patch between the Hill and the dockyard on the shore wasn't...toobad. They had been slums once upon a time, springing up as workers moved in to support the growing economy of the city, and they'd been there long enough some work had been done in the area. Sanitation-wise especially. A lot of streets were packed dirt, but gutters had been put in as well, it could be a lot worse. The problem was mostly fires — many of the buildings here were wood, fires were a frequent nuisance, that whole strip of city had burned to the ground more than once.

Though, the reason it wasn't so bad here might be because whathadbeen slums had since been taken over by various craftsmen and traders over the years. They had the money and influence to demand the Crown at least do somebasicwork on the area. The exception was the elven quarter, on the northern side of the area abutting the river, which Aedan assumed hadn't gotten the same work done. (Assumed, because he'd hardly set foot in the place, the elves were very private.) It was somewhat odd that the elves lived in what was a relatively decent area of the city, but it made perfect sense, really — the nobles preferred to hire elven servants, mostly because they could get away with paying them less. It was just convenient to have them nearby.

The other half of the city, spread haphazardly over the other side of the river, was awful. There was one little square that wasn't so bad, presumably because that was where the Chantry had put their cathedral — the area was kept relatively clean and orderly, a few shops and a nice tavern around the square. Everywhere else was a mess. Ramshackle, leaning buildings, so thin voices could be heard through the walls and so flammable they went up as easy as kindling, andMaker, the place smelled! They weren't nearly so careful with sanitation over there, it wasn't unusual for trash and sh*t and on the rare occasion even dead bodies to be, just, left out on the street. The whole place smelled of rot and sh*t and sick andugh, Highever never got this bad. He avoided going over there if he could at all help it.

Sometimes, on days the wind coming off the sea weakened, the stench wafted up to the Hill. The lords had planted all kinds of flowering bushes and trees and the like around their estates, trying to insulate themselves, but it didn't really work that well.

So, if Aedan could do as he liked, he would never step foot in Denerim ever again. But that wasn't an option. Especially not when he desperately needed help.

Approaching the city, Aedan could immediately tellsomethingwas off. The first clue was, still some miles out on the Highway, spotting an encampment just west of the gates. Once he made out the black and yellow banners, he cursed, pulled his hood over his head — Gwaren men. He knew Howe and Loghain were close, he couldn't guess what Howe might have told him. Until he had a clear picture of just what stories Howe was telling, it would be safer to go to Urien, have him talk to Cailan for him. Or Anora, he guessed, Cailan was probably still in Ostagar.

The staging square just beyond the gates was filled withmoreGwaren men — a lot of elves for a military camp, Loghain was the only lord in the Kingdom who armed elves, he was famous for it — which was...weird. Thiswaswhat the staging square was for, but it was only supposed to be used if they had reason to suspect they might be put under siege. Speaking of, why the hell were Gwaren men here at all? Shouldn't they be at Ostagar?

He got his answer the moment he walked into the Chantry square. The banners flying here and there around the square were usually red, white, and gold — the King's colors. Now they were black and green. Draped over the shield borne by the statue of Andraste in front of the cathedral was a flag Aedan had seen once before, five years ago: the sun of the Chantry, cast in white, on a black field.

Cailan was dead.

It might have been selfish of him, but at the realization his King was dead Aedan's first thought was of Fergus. If Cailan was dead, the obvious conclusion was that the army had met the darkspawn in the deep south, and the battle had gone badly. Fergus had left for Ostagar over a month ago now, leading Highever's forces off in anticipation of Father catching up later. He should have been at the battle too. He likely wouldn't have been on the front line, but if it had gone badly enough the King was dead...

Aedan grit his teeth, his fists shaking at his sides. No. He refused to believe Fergus had died. Fergus might not be as crafty as Aedan, but he was a damn good fighter, and smart enough to get out when the getting was good. He was fine. He wasfine.

He had to be — Fergus was the only family Aedan had left, now.

It took a few long, calming breaths for Aedan to get moving again. Before heading toward the bridge across to the Hill, he checked the notice board quick. The stand looked strangely rough, with far fewer posters than he'd expected, chipped and scratched here and there, hints of paint that had only been mostly scraped off. Must have been vandalized recently. Unsurprisingly, the largest poster was one announcing the death of the King.

Surprisingly, the Crown was claiming Cailan had been killed by the Grey Wardens. That seemed...doubtful, to put it mildly. A flagrant f*cking lie, to put it less mildly. The Grey Wardens could often be morally, well,gray, but Aedan had met the Warden-Commander a few times now, since Maric had invited the Wardens back to Ferelden, and he wasveryconvinced these were the opening days of a Fifth Blight. Assassinating the king of a country with a rising Blight, especially a king who wasfully cooperating with the Wardens, was a f*cking idiotic thing to do. Aedan didn't believe it for a second.

But that was an understanding reached at least partially on having known both the King and the Warden-Commander. Aedan could imagine far too many people were going to just accept the claim at face value. Which was just great, looked like the next few months were going to be even more fun than this last one, he hadn't realized that was possible.

Oh wait, sh*t, Cailan never had managed to knock up Anora, had he? f*ck, they were so screwed...

Crossing a wide stone bridge, rising at a noticeable angle as it crossed the river, Aedan stepped onto the Palace Hill — and he immediately got the feeling something wasverywrong. There werefartoo many armed men about, city guards and Gwaren men and knights with black cloth covering their colors (the King's men, presumably). And there was a scent on the air, something that didn't belong here. Blood, and rot.

Carefully picking through the soldiers towards the Arl's estate, Aedan noticed splotches of pinkish stains here and there. There had been a fight. A big one, by the look of it.

Before long, he was standing across the street from the gates, and he paused for a moment, watching the men flanking the entrance to the home of the Arl of Denerim. Those were...alotof guards. A dozen standing in wait at the gates, another four city guards, joined with two Gwaren men, tromping down the street, the stone tile scraping under their heavy boots. Looking around, Aedan noticed a few men through windows here and there he suspected were archers. That was alotof security for a location that was already in a walled city currently hosting an allied army. And this wasn't the only place, most of the other estates he'd passed had beefed-up security as well.

Somethinghad clearly happened in Denerim. And whatever it was, it didn't look good.

But that didn't really matter did it? He had to talk to the Arl, ask him to intercede with the King on his be— Except, Cailan was dead, which meant Anora was in charge...which meant Loghain was in charge. And Loghain might be rather less willing to listen to these kinds of accusations against one of his closest friends.f*ck!

Oh well, he should still meet with Urien anyway. If nothing else, Aedan could at least sleep in his house and eat his food until he was in a position to do something about Howe. Assassinate him somehow? (Turn-about is fair play, after all.) Anora would want to help, if she knew, but contacting her would probably be difficult. Get a letter off to Nathan, maybe, wasn't he still in Starkhaven? He was a good sort, he'd probably be horrified by what his father had done...

Still turning over what thef*ckhe was supposed to do now, the guards at the gate stiffened, a few hands moving toward weapons. Before any of them could demand to know what he thought he was doing here, Aedan threw back his hood, gave them his best irritated-nobleman-who's-far-too-important-for-this-sh*t look. "I need to speak with the Arl."

The tension dribbled out of the men, but through the slats in their helmets Aedan could see they were mostly just amused with him. "Look, kid, the Arl doesn't have time for any gutter—"

"I'm certain your lord will beverypleased when he learns you turned away a Cousland seeking his help."

Half the men froze, the other half twitching with surprise. "You're a Cousland?"

"Yes. Aedan Cousland. Teyrn Bryce Cousland of Highever is my father."Hewasyour father, he corrected himself. His voice dripping with condescending irritation, he drawled, "May I please speak with the Arl now?"

For a brief moment, the men hesitated. Then one nodded, sinking into an almost-proper bow. "Of course, my lord, I apologize. The Arl is away on business right now, but I can escort you inside to wait for him, if you like."

"How long will he be?"

"Not long, my lord. An hour or two, maybe."

Aedan nodded — it was rather rude to just waltz into someone's house while they were away, but he also didn't want to stay out in the open, where someone unsympathetic might recognize him. His hand brushing dismissively in the air, he said, "Right, yes, good. Let's go."

The man bowed again, one hand waving invitingly through the gate. "After you, my lord."

A couple steps past him, Aedan glanced back quick. Four of the men guarding the gate were turning to follow him in — couldn't have a stranger sitting around the house unsupervised, after all, even if they were a Cousland (or at leastclaimingto be one). Shaking his head, Aedan continued on, set off across the courtyard toward the tall double doors of Urien's entrance hall.

Wait. Urien. Hadn't Father said Urien had left with Cailan and the army, headed to Ostagar? Yes, Aedan was positive, he'd said something about Fergus catching up with Cailan and Urien in Lothering. Oh sh*t, Aedan hadn't even considered that. If Urien had died at Ostagar, that would makeVaughanArl of Denerim now. Andthatwas unfortunate — Urien had intended to pass it to one of the other kids instead, probably Bran, but if he'd died suddenly away from the city he might not have had the opportunity to arrange things. Also, it would make this conversation...awkward. Vaughan never had forgiven Aedan for that time he'd kicked his ass.

And then kept kicking, until he was spitting out teeth and coughing up blood. Aedan realized it had been kind of excessive, but in his defense Vaughan was a sh*t-head and he completely deserved it.

Or maybe Urien had gotten out alive. There were Gwaren men all over the place, presumably Loghain had made it back, maybe Urien had too. Good, Aedan would rather avoid dealing with Vaughan as much as possible, just the hour or two or however long until Urien got back was already going to be—

Aedan hitched to a sudden stop, a wave of unpleasant tingles washing over his skin, ice dropping into his stomach.

There was a wagon sitting in the courtyard, loaded with a few crates and sacks. Passing within a few feet, Aedan could make out the tax stamp on one of the sacks: a great bear on a white and yellow shield.

He'd stopped suddenly enough the men behind him didn't react quickly enough, the two in the lead stepped in front of him, just a little. Both men had on their backs the same shield: four segments, two white and two gold, over it the same image of a bear.

The colors of the Arl of Amaranthine.

Howe.

Howe's men held the estate of the Arl of Denerim.

Why?!What washappeningin this city? Had the entire world gonef*cking mad?!

The realization sinking in, a few quick calculations clicked in Aedan's head all at once. He couldn't go with these men into the Arl's manor — if he did, he probably wouldn't leave alive. He also couldn't go back out through the gate — there were more men waiting there, and he'd be out in the open on a major street, Loghain's men and city guards all over the place, no. Which left only one option. An absolutelymadoption.

Oh, Maker, this was gonna be sh*t-show...

Before Howe's men could react, Aedan slid closer to the man ahead of him on his right, pinned the sheath of his sword against his thigh with a knee, yanked it out. Without turning, he stepped back, stabbing out under his armpit — he felt a jerk of resistance as the point hit armor and then slid through, a shocked, pained cough coming from the man behind and to his right. The men were shouting now, reaching for their weapons, Aedan left the one he'd stolen in the dying man, took two quick steps before ramming into the man ahead and to his left, knocking him off his feet.

And Aedan kept running further onto the grounds, his cloak noisily whipping along behind him, curved to the left to put the gate tower between himself and the archers across the street. He could see movement in the windows over the main door, more archers scrambling into motion, but they slipped out of sight as Aedan rounded the corner, hugging the old, dark gray stone of the manor. There was a narrow gap between this side of the building and the outside wall, with the bushes lining the wall barely enough room left for two people to walk side-by-side — there was no way anybody was getting a shot at him at this angle, the next chance they would have was in the garden in the back.

Except for a spot about in the middle, where the manor wall dipped inward a few feet before moving back out again, creating a tiny little square with enough space to move around in. (A memory flicked by behind his eyes, sneaking out here with a servant girl late in the evening, hiding away during one of Merrin's birthday parties, he forced it back.) He could hear clanging and huffing from behind him, a glance over her shoulder showed it was only the other three men who'd been escorting him, the rest must be further behind. In fact, rather further behind, he didn't hear more coming.

Aedan dug in his heels and whirled around to face the approaching men. A faint ringing scrape split the air as he drew his mother's sword, the pale silverite blade almost seeming to shimmer in the sunlight.

The first man was within a few steps already, Aedan feinted high, he lifted his shield up to block even as his sword came around to slash low, so he was completely unprepared when Aedan's hand dropped, stabbed him through the gut. One of the other men was passing by on his right, Aedan lifted a foot to shove the dying man away — maybe stabbing him like this had been a bad idea — staggered a bit at a heavy blow over his back, the shield hanging under his cloak protecting him from the worst of it.

Aedan skipped over the collapsing body, by the grunt from his left just barely dodging a blow from the other man. Turning on his heel, the two men were approaching, somewhat more cautiously than before, shields hefted and stances wide, one a couple steps behind the other. Thinking his options through for a split second, Aedan stepped forward, slashing in low at the first man's left leg, the shield came down, slapping the blow wide and leaving Aedan open, the guard jabbed forward. Good, that would work — he darted closer, turning his shoulders so the stab passed inches in front of his chest, hooked his arm around the guard's, dipped under his armpit, turning on his heel along the way, his sword slicing into the man's thigh as it passed, and he yanked at the man's arm, down and then back and up, too far at too awkward an angle for his shoulder to tolerate, his momentum and the cut at the man's thigh enough to pull him off his feet, crashing noisily onto his back. The man's sword wrenched from his hand in the process, Aedan tossed it away.

And the second guard was on him. He led with an overhead swing, Aedan leaned out of the way, tried to nip in at his side but his shield was there in time, the guard reset his stance, shifting to turn away another jab from Aedan, his sword propped on the top of his shield, he leaned and dipped, stabbing toward Aedan's middle. Aedan turned on his heel, slipping to the side, gripped the edge of the man's shield and yanking him off balance. While he staggered, Aedan came up behind him, slashed the vulnerable back of a knee, bringing him halfway to the dirt. Turning the hilt of his sword around in his hand, Aedan gripped the ridge on the man's helmet, tipped his head back, than stabbed down under his collar, the blade sliding into flesh between his shoulder blade and clavicle, blood pouring out in a flood as he removed it again.

Turning from the dying man, Aedan flipped his sword back around the right way, pointing at the man he'd disarmed. He'd gotten up to one knee, a hand clamped over his bloody thigh — it was leaking through his clothes a little, but not badly, he'd live. "Stay down."

"Yes, my lord," the man groaned, falling back on his ass. "Thank you."

Aedan ran.

He didn't have time to get it out from under his cloak, so he sliced through the leather band crossed over his chest, snatched up the shield as it fell. Which made it somewhat awkward to hold, but that was okay, he didn't plan to use it the way it was meant to be. The yard opened up as he crossed behind Urien's home — in the back was a large open space, at one side a seating area around a fountain (still deactivated for the winter), on the other side a sizeable vegetable garden (Urien's mother had put it there, supposedly, Aedan had never met her). That was his destination.

The back courtyard was mostly empty...mostly — a pair of guards were sprinting his way. Aedan charged right at them, threateningly brandishing his sword and shouting at the top of his lungs like a maniac, until they were about to meet, near the bottom corner of the garden. At the last second, he darted to the side, planting a foot on one of the beams of the fence surrounding the garden, used his momentum to spring himself over, his boots thudding into the hard dirt.

As he ran across the currently barren garden, the pair of guards still scrambling to get over the fence, he heard noises from behind — the heavy jangling of mail and plate, more men streaming into the back courtyard, on the balcony thudding and shouting, archers stepping out. Glancing over his shoulder at the people coming after him, he grimaced. This was going to be close.

Just past the fence was a little shack, housing tools and seed and the like, Aedan ran straight toward it. Again he met the fence, but didn't leap over it, instead stepped onto the top beam and jumpedup, releasing sword and shield onto the roof just in time to grip the edge with both hands, the rough clay of the shingles biting into his skin. His arms burning in protest, Aedan pulled himself up, rolling around behind the peaked roof of the shack for cover even as arrows started to fall, clattering and snappingfartoo nearby. There was his shield, he glanced around for his sword, crap, it was skittering down the tile, he pinned it with a heel, dragged it back up to him, slid it home in it sheath.

Waiting for a lull in the deadly rain, Aedan took a last look at his shield. It was several years old now, the metal scratched and dented along the rim, but the Cousland arms — two crossed sprigs of laurel, green on blue — lovingly repainted time and again. This had been a gift from his father, when he'd turned fifteen. The whole thing had come with a speech about upholding the honor of their family and their responsibilities to their people, which Aedan had barely listened to, if he was being honest. He didn't need to hear the fancy words to know what it meant.

It was the only thing he had left from Father.

The break he was waiting for came. Curling his arm around the rim of the shield, Aedan popped back to his feet, turned toward the balcony the archers were firing from, wound up andthrew. The shield cut through the air, falling slower than it should, crossing the back courtyard andjustmanaging to skim over the railing of the balcony into the archers. It wasn't heavy enough to do any damage — if it were, there was no way in hell Aedan would be able to throw it that far — but it wasn't supposed to. The archers scattered anyway, leaning out of the way, a couple tripping over bits of furniture. Aedan whipped back around, ran across the brief length of the shack roof, andjumped...

...toward the outer wall.

He slammed into the stone at full speed, knocking the breath out of him, but he'd hit high enough his elbows were hooked over the top. After a moment hanging, dazed from the impact, he levered himself up, rolled over the narrow wall. He lowered himself down the other side, hanging from his elbows again, before dropping the eight feet down to the alley. He scraped his palms on the stone catching himself, but didn't linger for a second, pushed himself up to his feet and kept running.

Thatwent well, Aedan was almost impressed with himself. He'd known he could get onto the roof of the shack, but he'd obviously never had need to attempt the jump over to the wall before, and that gambit with his shield had just been insane...

He had to keep moving, Loghain and Howe's men must be after him. Fortunately, the number of ordinary soldiers who might recognize him were very few — except maybe among the city guard, now that he thought about it, but the ones who'd recognize him would also know him, and might hesitate to bring him in — so as soon as he got far enough away and lost himself into the city they shouldn't be able to find him again. He couldn't take the bridge from the Hill down into the north city, that was too out in the open, but if he went east toward the shore, that was much better. There were always all kinds of riff-raff down there, near the Pearl even all kinds ofwell-dressedriff-raff, he shouldn't stick out. Shouldn't be a problem.

Getting to the barrier road went easy enough — Aedan just took a quick but casual stroll down the streets. He had to keep his hood up, since there were plenty of people on the Hill who might recognize him, but covering one's face waslessconspicuous than barrelling down the back alleys like there were demons at one's heel. But when he got to the road, the wide avenue that divided the Palace Hill from the rest of the southern city, it was to find the placefilthywith guards, dozens of them. And some of them were wearing Howe colors.

Well, f*ck.

With a bit of luck, healmostmade it across undetected. A small group of young ladies happened to be leaving the Hill just then, turning to follow the avenue north — he recognized Kaitlyn, and then Anna Curwen, but not the other three, must be younger daughters of banns he hadn't met yet. Taking yet another mad gamble, Aedan folded himself in just behind the servants trailing along after them. One of them, an elf maybe around his mother's age, gave him a suspicious glance, but she didn't say anything.

It went pretty well until, only a few short feet away from where he planned to cut away into a street heading east, they happened past a handful of Gwaren men...lead by Ser Cauthrien herself, becauseof course, that was just Aedan's luck these days. Cauthrien, like the thoughtful, responsible person she was, asked the young ladies if they realized they had such a shifty-looking man following them. The girls, of course, proceeded to make a big scene, shrieking in surprise and demanding to know who he was.

Irritated, Aedan pulled his hood back again. "For f*ck's sake, Codie!" The ladies gasped, more at his familiar face than the language, Cauthrien's mouth dropping open in surprise. "Are youtryingto get me killed?"

Cauthrien started saying something, but Aedan hadn't stuck around to listen — he'd already whipped around, sprinting toward the street east, shouts to stop him already springing from Howe's men, the noisy clanging of their armor filling the air.

He couldn't be certain, it wasn't like he was watching, but Aedan suspected revealing himself to Cauthrien had actually been a good move. Aedan only followed the street for a little bit before ducking into an alley, zig-zagging his way through the shadowy crevasses between buildings, skipping around the occasional drifter or vagabond, little groups of people probably making less-than-legal business deals, in one case a man on his knees sucking off another leaning against the wall — which, you'd think they could find somewherecleanerto do that, but fine, whatever gets their rocks off. (Besides, Aedan was hardly one to judge.) He'd gone through several alleys before he realized nobody was following him, at least not close enough to keep eyes on him. Maybe Cauthrien's demands to know what the f*ck was going on had slown them down enough to give him a comfortable lead.

Okay, maybe he actually owed her an apology now for that time he'd, ah, come on a little strong. In his defense, he'd been very drunk, even wasted he hadn't gone as far as pawing at her or anything, and also Cauthrien had slapped himreally hard, he'd sort of thought they were already even...

In fact, it seemed like they'd lost him entirely, sending search parties out to try to track him down in the alleys. It was just his f*cking luck he happened to bumble right into one like a f*cking idiot.

There was hardly enough room to move in the little alley, but Aedan still slipped past and gutted the only one carrying a crossbow before any of them could stop him. He whipped back around, getting a good cut down a second one's arm, but it wasn't a serious injury, Aedan was turned away knocking an axe aside before he could finish him off.

And then Aedan was trapped in a narrow alley, surrounded, outnumbered five to one. Basically, he was dead.

But he wasn't going to surrender. His father was a Cousland, with all that came with, and he'd mostly been taught to fight by his mother, whose family were only a generation or two from beingliteral pirates— he wasn't going down until theyputhim down. It was a dangerous dance, keeping at least one of the soldiers between himself and two or three of the others, wrenching them around by their shield or shoulder if he had to do, sometimes blocking rapidly-falling blows from two of the men at once, his mother's sword flicking around him as fast as he could get his arm to move,clang clang clang clang clang, scoring blows whenever he could, but just in passing, none of them deep enough to take any of them out of the fight, slowing them down a little but not enough, the whole fight a chaotic mess he could hardly keep track off, it was hardly conscious, justacting, reacting, on and on and on...

Thinking of it later, the vicious, unthinking...trance he'd fallen into, almost, he'd be reminded of a story Mother had told him, boarding an Orlesian ship during the War, finding they had far more soldiers aboard than expected. Mother hardly remembered the fight at all, just a hazy smear of action and reaction, until she'd stumbled to a halt a half hour later when the last Orlesian finally fell, the decks of the ship soaked with blood.

If it was the same phenomenon, Mother had clearly been a better warrior than Aedan was — he didn't even manage to kill any of them.

The dance came to a jarring, disorientating end when, darting around behind one of the Howe men, he turned around, Aedan hopped over the low slash aimed at his knee, only to slam right into the shield whipping around into his chest. Aedan crashed down on his back, the grip of his mother's sword jumping out of nerveless fingers, breathless, his head spinning.

Two of the Howe men stood over him, breathing heavily, the patches of their faces visible through their helmets flushed and sweaty. After a brief moment collecting themselves, one said, "The Arl prefers you alive,my lord," drawled with thick sarcasm. "Will you come peacefully, or do we have to knock you out and drag you there?"

Aedan forced his lips into a humorless grin. Even breathing painful, his ribs were probably bruising, he gasped out, "Go f*ck yourself."

The men scowled. One turned the haft of his axe around in his hand, likely intending to knock Aedan over the head with the flat side. He tensed, preparing himself to move, maybe he would be able to find his sword in time to—

As he prepared to swing, the axe rising, there was the familiar heavythunkof a crossbow firing, blood sprayed into the air as a bolt punched through the man's head.

And then there was a lot of noise and yelling, the guards scrambling to defend themselves from attackers appearing out of nowhere, seemingly slipping out of the damnwalls. Aedan rolled over to his hands and knees, grimacing as his chest flared with a dull ache, spotted his sword, one of the soldiers' boots nearly crushing his wrist when he reached for it, twisted out of the way, snatched it up.

His rescuers were an unlikely, motley group. Clearly not professionals — they were wearing undyed, threadbare clothes, bearing axes and knives. Not daggers, no,knives, the kind that could be found in a kitchen, or a butcher's. Onlyonehad a proper sword. They outnumbered the Howe men, but normally their equipment disadvantage, the fact that they weren't wearing any armor,at all, would mean theyshouldbe cut down easily. But for all that they looked like untrained peasants, they'd clearly fought together before. They were surprisingly coordinated — keeping the soldiers separated so they couldn't form a shield wall, one enticing them to attack while another came around to knife them in the back. Even as Aedan watched, the poorly-equipped, untrained peasants cut down two better-armed, better-prepared professional soldiers, their only injury in return a shallow scrape over one shoulder.

They were...veryimpressive, actually.

With Aedan back on his feet and rejoining the fight, the rest of the Howe men were dead in short order. It was only then, as the sounds of battle faded away, his rescuers setting about stripping the corpses of their weapons, that Aedan noticed something peculiar: of the nine men and women in the alley with him, six were elves, and three were human.

...Huh.

One of his rescuers, the one with the sword, stepped closer to him, giving Aedan a hard, steady stare. He brought his weapon down in a loose hold, the point aimed at Aedan's foot. The elf glanced at one of the humans, the one with the crossbow — she had Aedan fixed in her sights, clearly ready to stick him the instant he made a wrong move. His voice low, sharp, almost challenging, the man said, "Mïen-harel."

At the familiar, nigh-legendary word, Aedan felt both of his eyebrows stretch up his forehead. That was... Was there anelven revoltbrewing in Denerim? Thatwouldexplain the blood he'd seen on the Hill, he guessed, if a riot had stormed the Hill and been suppressed. But if it'd beensuppressed... Little revolts happened all the time, among peasants both human and elven, but once they were put down by the sword they almost alwaysstayeddown. But it looked like they were still ambushing guards in the alleys, which was...notunheard of, for a slow trickle of violence to linger for months afterward, but itwasquite unusual.

And, Aedan noted, glancing around again, this time humans and elves were apparentlyworking together.Thatwas pretty much unheard of. In a particularly honest moment, Loghain had once told Aedan that the nobility intentionally stoked tensions between the humans and the elves they ruled, to entice the common people to take out their frustrations with their lot in life on each other instead of the people actually responsible — the reforms he'd made in Gwaren where elves were concerned, unique in Ferelden and even nearly all the world, were because he saved his stick for Orlesians, he preferred to use the carrot for his own people. (Also, elves made f*cking incredible archers, he'd sort of backed himself into a corner on this issue when he'd decided to recruit a bunch of them during the Rebellion.) But, itsoundedlike there was a revolt brewing, even after being put down hard once, and itlookedlike elves and humans were in together on it.

An unpleasant tingle worked its way down Aedan's neck — this could get...very bad. To put it cautiously. To put itlesscautiously, the peasants might bide their time until the Landsmeet gathers and, if they're not careful, murder everybody in their beds, knocking out theentiretyof the country's leadership in one fell swoop. Certainly explained the greater presence of armed men all through the Hill, didn't it?

That was definitely what the more paranoid among Aedan's peers would be afraid of. But he personally doubted anything like that would ever happen. He'd done a bit of reading on past peasant revolts (mostly in Orlais and Nevarra, they kept better records), asked around in Highever and Denerim, and for the most part the demands peasants made of their rulers were pretty modest. Occasionally, they did ask for someone's head...but it was usually someone who damn well deserved it, for one reason or another. Whatever it was this revolt was after, it would probably be bloody, yes, but not full-onkill everybody with a title and lands to their namebloody.

And if theywerelooking to kill a few people, he had someone with a title and lands to his name who definitely f*cking deserved it.

It was starting to look like Aedan might not be able to get at Howe through legitimate means. So, he was forced to consider illegitimate ones. Rebellious peasants wereexactlythe sort of people who might be willing to help him assassinate an arl. And, after his family reclaimed their lands, Fergus —notAedan, because he refused to believe his brother was dead — would be in a position where he could give the disaffected peasants whatever they wanted, without being tarred for appeasing a rebellion. Clearly, he'd just be repaying a debt, which was a perfectly honorable thing for a man in his position to do. Given the circ*mstances, allying himself with these people was probably the best possible decision he could make right now.

Also, that woman still had a crossbow trained on him — they'd probably just kill him and loot his body if he reacted badly. So there was that.

Aedan brought his own sword around, touching the flat of the blade against the elf's. "Mïen-harel." Thatwaswhat they wanted him to do, right? If there was some kind of code he didn't know about he was f*cked...

But the elf just nodded, returned his weapon to its sheath, so Aedan did the same. "You know, friend, you've got half the city crawling with the Regent's thugs."Regent?That must be Loghain, but... "What did you do to make them want you so bad?"

Aedan considered how he could answer that. Admitting that he was a Cousland, and that Howe wanted him dead so he could claim his family's Teyrnir without opposition,probablywasn't a good idea. Maybe just... "Howe wants me dead. I refuse to oblige him."

The elf tilted his head, curious, but he didn't press. "That's a fancy sword you got there."

An understatement, that — this was enchanted silverite, dwarf-forged. Swords simply didn't get better than this. It was hundreds of years old, never stained and never dulled. Mother claimed she'd literally cut straight through lesser weapons in the Rebellion, and Aedan could believe it, this thing wasliterallymagic, and possibly the best thing he'd ever owned, he loved it. "It's a family heirloom."

"That so?" the elf asked, a suggestive note on his voice. Assuming Aedan had stolen it, most likely.

"I didn't steal it, if that's what you're asking. Though itisstolen, I guess — I'm told one of my mother's pirate ancestors took it off the corpse of an Antivan prince. But her father gave it to her and she gave it to me, somypossession of it is perfectly legal." All of that was even true, supposedly.

One of the other men, Aedan didn't catch which, coughed out a chuckle. The elf in front of him just smirked a little.

A rock fell next to the elf's foot, skittering on the stone. Aedan glanced up, spotted another elf on the roof — she made some kind of sign with one hand, pointed to the south, and then slipped silently out of sight.

Aedan couldn't help a slight shiver — as tiny and harmless as elves seemed most of the time, the image of elven rebels armed with bow and arrow sneaking around on the rooftops was literally the stuff of nightmares for most of his peers. Thankfully, he was putting himself on their side, because otherwise this would beseriouslyunnerving. It still was, a little.

As the others packed up stolen weapons and coin pouches, slipping back into the shadows — there was a section of a wall that popped away, Aedan saw now, probably a smuggler's backdoor — the elf he'd been speaking to turned back to him. "Do you have somewhere to go, friend?"

"Not really." He knew plenty of people in the city, of course, but he doubted it would be safe to approach any of them at the moment.

"If you want to stay with us, you'll have food and a place to sleep. We don't have much, but we take care of our own." The implication being that they were willing to put up Aedan, but only if he joined their little rebellion.

Aedan took a quick, deep breath — in for a silver, in for a sovereign. "Lead the way."

It didn't take very long before Aedan completely lost track of where the hell they were.

The route his new outlaw friends led him on was long and convoluted. The hole in the wall leading them out of the alley went into a seemingly abandoned warehouse, mostly empty and very dirty, dusted with cobwebs. Across this space was a storefront, also abandoned, through another side door was what had been home for whoever had last run this place, now a nest for rats and nugs — along with cases of what looked very much like smuggled liquor left in a corner (he didn't see a single tax stamp), a couple other boxes Aedan was willing to bet were filled with more illicit goods here and there.

In the filthy, half-rotted remains of what had once been the bedroom, one of the elves pulled open a trapdoor, and they descended down a narrow flight of rickety stairs into one of the many tunnels criss-crossing the city. (Much of the place had originally been built by dwarves, and dwarves liked their subterranean tunnels.) While they walked along the dim, dank passage, Gaenor — the elf with the sword, seemingly the leader of this little group — explained to "Dane" — Gaenor had practically rolled his eyes when Aedan had given the name, obviously knew it was false, but hadn't pressed — that there had long been a system of getting around the city undetected by the proper authorities, probably going back centuries. Mostly, it was used by smugglers, occasionally by people wanted by the guard for one reason or another to escape the city.

There had been a riot on the Hill a couple days ago — that was what the smell was from, the bloodstains, probably the largest riot Denerim had seen in a generation or two had broken out in response to a controversial execution. Gaenor didn't say who was executed, and Aedan didn't ask, concerned his ignorance might be suspicious. Apparently, the mob had killed a couple dozen armed men — city guards, the personal forces of this or that noble, even a couple Templars — and a small number of others. The worst damage was to two of the estates on the Hill, belonging to a couple Banns, Gaenor didn't know which, that had been broken into and looted — supposedly, both manors had been empty at the time, nobody had been hurt.

The mob had mostly been focused on the Royal Palace, and had gotten as far as chucking rocks over the walls and clashing with guards at the gates before reinforcements from Fort Drakon had showed up to crush the uprising. Nobody knew how many of the rioters had been killed in the chaos, the proper authorities weren't exactly inclined to show the dead much respect, but Gaenor believed it wasdefinitelyover a hundred, maybe closer to two hundred.

Yeah, thatwouldexplain the bloodstains and the smell lingering over the Hill, wouldn't it?

The vanguard of the army, returning from Ostagar, had arrived the next day — only the cavalry and a few of the more fleet-footed regiments, the rest of the army was still a few days out. In a matter of hours, Loghain had announced Cailan's death, declared himself Anora's regent, and started calling for reinforcements to meet the darkspawn still gathering in the south. The same day, he'd named Rendon Howe the interim Teyrn of Highever — Aedan barely stopped himself from hissing with fury learning that — and also regent over the Arling of Denerim, the former position to be confirmed and the latter properly filled by someone else at the next Landsmeet. In the meantime, the city guard, the Fort Drakon garrison, and Gwaren and Amaranthine men went about locking down the city.

According to Gaenor, while the authorities blamed the uprising on the elves, the humans among the common people of the city were just as deeply involved in all this as they were — in fact, he suspected humans actually outnumbered the elves among the rebels. The northeast of the city — some of the worst, most desperate slums Ferelden had to offer, the residents predominantly human with a sizeable dwarven minority — was still practically a battlefield, the locals openly attacking guards and soldiers who approached too near their homes. After losing a couple dozenmorepeople there to the rebels, Loghain had apparently decided to leave them be, and turned instead to the elves.

Aedan assumed Loghain expected the peasants would either cool off or turn on each other if left to their own devices for long enough. History did suggest that was how these things went...sometimes. Leaving them alone was really tossing the dice and letting them fall how they may, Aedan thought, but he wasn't the one trying to hold this mess together, was he?

The elven quarter was, essentially, under siege. When the Fort garrison turned up to put down the riot, the rebels had retreated, some across the bridges to the northern city but many, elves and a number of human compatriots, fled into the elven quarter instead. The entire district was surrounded with surprisingly sturdy walls — originally, they'd been built to contain potential uprisings among the city's elven residents, sometimes sealed up to starve them into submission over one disagreement or another, but now they were being used against the Crown. Only a small number of soldiers had gotten through the gates before they'd been sealed up by the retreating rebels, and all of those had been quickly overwhelmed and killed. In the two days since, there had been three attempts to storm the walls, but all three had been repulsed.

So Loghain and Howe's men had instead decided to surround the elven quarter, and starve the rebels out.

Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for Aedan and his new allies, that wasn't going to work. In the immediate aftermath of the riot, even as the fighting at the gates still dragged on, the nascent rebellion had assumed control of the network of tunnels under the city. According to Gaenor, the various criminal syndicates who usually operated down here had either thrown their weight in with the rebels or had decided to stay out of Denerim for the duration of the uprising, so they could still move about much of the southeastern two-thirds of the city as they pleased. The rebels holed up in the elven quarter were exploiting the tunnels to keep food and supplies moving in, their men moving out, ambushing patrols here and there outside of the elven quarter, hopefully to distract attention enough to keep them from gathering overwhelming numbers at the gates.

All things considered, their rebellion was going remarkably well, two days in. They'd mostly lost contact with their allies in the north of the city — the tunnels didn't cross the river and the bridges were being watched, it was risky to cross. But they were staying alive. Given the example of past uprisings in Denerim, that itself was an impressive achievement.

In the course of catching up with Gaenor, "Dane" was led through one underground passage, up into a seedy tenement near the docks, ducked quick across into a warehouse that smelledverystrongly of fish and vinegar, then down into another tunnel, and then... Well, there were a few more turns, Aedan lost track pretty quickly. Pointing out how confusing their route was, Geanor said they were still working out a system of signs to mark the way to various destinations, and then admitted they didn't trust him yet, so Gaenor was taking them the long way around.

Fair point.

In time, they finally came to... Well, it looked like it'd been a warehouse of some kind, once upon a time, but it certainly wasn't anymore. What had been a single wide room, the ceiling propped up with columns here and there, had been split off into several smaller rooms, the material of the added walls obviously different, the wood less worn, newer, and lighter in color — in some places, there were curtains hanging in place of proper walls. The structure of the building itself was plain and undecorated, bare wood in uninviting, blocky shapes, the general design suggesting to Aedan a place that hadn't originally been intended to house people.

But it certainly was now. The first people they came to were at the entrance, standing over the yanked open trapdoor — and pointing crossbows in their faces. They pulled back immediately, recognizing Gaenor, Aedan climbed up into what was clearly a storeroom of some kind, not particularly large, smaller than the pantry back home. Aedan noticed a stack of big canvas sacks, probably grains of some kind, casks of beer and cases of vinegar. From there he was led into a hallway, the floorboards at the center pounded smooth by a thousand boots. One side of the hall was dark, aged wood, the other a motley of newer, more roughly-hewn planks, in some places thinner slats, one section a large heavy tan cloth, stitched around the rim with leaves and flowers, sprawling across the middle a complicated, spiraling design Aedan recognized as an elven style. Before long they came to a smaller gap blocked off with a curtain, Gaenor pushed it aside and led Aedan through.

The room he walked into was larger than he expected, about twice as long as it was wide, and had clearly been inhabited for some time. The exposed wood had been coated in some kind of resin, giving the rough surface a slight sheen in the thin lamplight, some of the harsh corners covered with curtains, stitched with more curving elven designs, a few threaded with beads. Along the sides were more exits, more curtains and no actual doors. There were multiple tables down the center of the room ringed with chairs, few of them matching and all dinged and scratched, most clearly aged and well-worn.

And there were several people about now. More than several, probably a couple dozen. Some gathered around a nearby table, armed with a motley of mismatched weapons much like Aedan's escort, pointing at something on the table and debating — by the few words he caught, planning a raid on an uncooperative merchant to acquire some medical supplies. There were people around the other tables too, most of them with a mug in hand, a few steaming bowls here and there. Talking low and solemn, stressed, the noise of combined conversations more low rumble than bright chatter.

It rather reminded Aedan of a common room in the multi-family houses many common people in the city (and in Highever) lived in, where the people who shared the building came together to talk and eat. In fact, he suspected that wasexactlywhat this was — as he looked around an elf woman stepped through one of the curtains, yawning, pale hair still disheveled from sleep. This hadn't been a warehouse for some time, converted to residential space instead — judging by how old some of the modifications looked, perhaps a couple decades ago. Depending on how large the warehouse had been, there could easily be room enough to house a dozen families, more. If there was a second or even third floor, well, they could easily fit a hundred fifty people in here, enough for a small village.

Or, perhaps, the heart of a much larger rebellion.

Maker save him, what the hell had he gotten himself into? This little peasant uprising brewing here was starting to look seriously dangerous, and here he was, a f*ckingCousland, just walking right into the hornet's nest like a big damn idiot...

For all of his increasing misgivings, things went perfectly smoothly...at first. They sauntered into the room, half of his escort peeling away elsewhere but the rest sticking with him and Gaenor, the elf explaining this was a hub of sorts, a place where they could rest, move people and supplies around — not the only one, there was one other running right now, and they were working on setting up a couple others they could expand into or simply flee to if they were discovered. (This operation of theirs was looking more and more concerning the more Aedan learned...but also reassuring, in a way, Howe wasso f*cked.) They ducked through an open doorway into a much smaller room, the air warmer and slightly steamy — a kitchen, obviously. There was nobody doing the serving, unsurprisingly, though there was a woman in here poking around, probably keeping everything filled and ready for people coming by to help themselves. So Aedan just followed the others' lead, scooping himself up a bowl of a very plain stew of some kind — looked like fish, barley, and dilsk, light on the fish — and then a mug of beer.

Not exactly appetizing, if it hadn't been a week since his last good meal he probably wouldn't bother. Also, the beer looked unpleasantly lumpy, like very, very watery porridge. Ugh, unfiltered small beer, of course — he was staying with a bunch of dirt-poor peasants, after all, what had he expected. Spotting a can of molasses nearby, he dribbled a bit in...and then rolled his eyes at a rain of comments from his rescuers for being a little baby, ha ha, very funny.

It was while he was being mocked, looking away with an exaggerated huff, playing along, that Aedan noticed the elf, the woman who'd already been in the kitchen when they'd come in, was staring at him, her eyes gone wide in surprise. Or, hethoughtthey had, anyway — elves already had huge damn eyes, it could be sort of hard to tell. A few seconds after Gaenor and the others led him out, Aedan glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch the woman slipping out, darting across the room and vanishing through one of the curtains, slinky and almost eerily quick that way elves could get sometimes.

Hmm. Aedan hadn't recognized the woman, but he had the feeling she'd recognized him.

Gaenor and their group ended up arranging themselves in such a way that the only available seats put Aedan's back to the main entrance, which didn't make him feellessnervous. Not that it made any difference — even if hedidsee someone coming, he had zero chance of fighting his way out of here. He just had to try to talk his way out, then. Just perfect.

This could very well be his last meal on this earth, and the beer wasn't even good.

Thankfully, he didn't have to sit marinating in his nerves for very long. It'd probably only been a couple minutes, still talking about their operation here and just what the hell was going on in Denerim, when one of Gaenor's people, Brona, cut off mid-sentence. The hard, cold blade of a knife pressing against Aedan's throat probably had something to do with that. "Don't move," said a voice from behind him, a woman's.

All at once, the low conversation filling the room dropped to a nervous whisper.

Aedan set down his bowl, raised both palms next to his head, splayed and empty. He jerked at a tug on his belt, then stopped himself — moving too much would be a bad idea, what with the weapon at his neck right now. Someone was taking his sword off his belt, not the same person holding the knife. "Ah, please don't lose that."

"You're in no place to be giving orders right now,my lord." Gaenor and his people, arrayed all around Aedan, showed various looks of surprise, glancing around at each other.

"Not ordering, just asking."

"Uh-huh." Aedan disarmed, the knife pulled away from his skin, just a little. "Move. Not you," she said, a hand lightly pushing down on the top of his head. "All of you, up. We need to talk with your little lost lordling here." His rescuers looked a bit baffled, maybe slightly reluctant, but they obeyed with a slew of mutters and nods, the table around him emptying. The knife tilted, the flat pushing against the edge of his jaw, tilting his face up and to the side — toward the nearest lamp, he noticed. "Marya, get another look. You're sure it's him?"

The elf from the kitchen slipped up from the bottom of his vision, leaned in a little to get a good look at his face. But she didn't look long, straightened after only a second. "Oh yeah, that's him. Aedan Cousland. He dressed down and hasn't brushed his hair in a week, but I'd recognize that face anywhere."

Well, no use trying to deny it. It wasn't like he'd actually expected to remain unidentified for long anyway. "Now you're making me feel bad," he said, moving his jaw as little as possible to keep from cutting himself. "I don't remember you at all." Not that he would have expected to. He didn't exactly know many elves personally, and she was very plain-looking, didn't even have one of the weird elven hair colors, just an ordinary sandy brown — not someone who looked unique enough to have stuck in his mind.

Marya smiled, one eyebrow rising. "You didn't watch me beat Vaughan Kendells unconscious." Ah, well, that would do it. She must work at...whichever tavern that had been — Aedan honestly didn't remember what it was called, he hadn't been welcome there ever since he'd gotten Vaughan's blood all over the floor. Her eyes flicked up, speaking to the person holding the knife on him, she said, "Bryce Cousland had to pay off the Arl over it and everything. It was big news with all the big hats, two years ago or so."

"Vaughan Kendells?" Knife lady sounded surprised, a shade doubtful.

"Yep."

"Why?"

It took Aedan a second to realize she was asking him. "Does it matter? Vaughan's an ass."

"He was bragging," Marya said.

"Bragging?"

Looking a bit uncomfortable, the elf shrugged. "When he got far enough in his drinks, he'd brag, sometimes. You know,I can do whatever I want, this city is minekind of bragging. I think, that time it was... He was talking about Solin."

"Solin," the knife lady repeated, clicking her tongue. "Oh, Arna's girl, Solin?"

"I think so. I remember it was, ah..." Now lookingveryuncomfortable, Marya shrugged. "He was being pretty, uh, obvious. What he was talking about, I mean."

The great, incomparable ass had been bragging about beating and raping a girl and getting away with it, she meant. As Aedan had insisted to anyone and everyone who had ever asked him about it, the sh*t-head haddefinitelyhad it coming, Aedan wasn't sorry — he'd refused to apologize when called to in front of the entire damn Landsmeet, his father had beenfurious.

"You expect me to believe you give a sh*t about what your friends do to the people of this city?"

Aedan grit his teeth. If the knife lady were determined to think he was an enemy, he wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. So, it didn't really matter what he said, did it? "Miss, I don't give a sh*t what you believe. Vaughan is an ass, and he's always been an ass, I've hated his guts since we were children. Put us in a room together and give me half an excuse, and I might do it again."

There were a few suppressed chuckles from behind him, but not from the knife lady, the blade against his throat barely twitched. She did hesitate for a long moment before speaking again. "Why are you here, Aedan Cousland?" She sounded less skeptical now, at least, so he was probably making progress.

He turned it over a second before asking, "Honestly?"

"I insist."

"I was hoping you would help me kill Rendon Howe. If helping you with whatever you have going on here makes his life miserable before I take it from him, so much the better."

There were a few more chuckles, a bit of muttering. "I guess that'll do." Then, finally, the knife pulled away.

While Aedan rubbed at his throat, rolling some of the tension out of his shoulders, a few more figures appeared, walking around the table. Five people, a mix of elves and humans, all of them armed — the largest of them, a burly human man, was even wearing proper armor, though it was a bit lopsided and mis-matched, obviously cobbled together from multiple sources. Aedan immediately focused on the only woman among them, who must have been his interrogator. Of course, it helped that she had one of those eye-catching elven hair colors, in her case a vivid red — not "red" in the human way like Aedan's, which really looked more orangish, but a pure red, like roses, or the heart of a sunset (which made him feel embarrassingly poetical, but he'd seen this on other elves before, he always thought it was neat) — and also happened to be carrying his mother's sword. There was a bit of muttering between them and Marya, the elf who'd recognized him, before most of them wandered off, leaving the armored man and the red-headed woman with him.

The armored man sat, dragging one of bowls of stew to himself and started to eat, shooting Aedan a narrow-eyed suspicious look over the rim, but the woman didn't. Peering at Aedan's sword, she pulled the hilt up a little, revealing only a few inches of the blade, the enchanted silverite sparkling even in the thin lamplight as she turned it in her hands. "This is a fancy sword you got here."

"It was my mother's." Mostly out of a desperate attempt to act casual, Aedan took a gulp of his beer — and then held back a grimace, swallowing a gag as best he could. Maker, this sh*t was disgusting...

The elf opened her mouth to say something, but then froze, her eyes widening (he thought). Staring down at the blade, her voice suddenly oddly flat, she said, "Your mother. Eleanor Cousland."

"Yes."

"You mean...this is the sword the Seawolf used in the Rebellion."

"The very same."

She let out a breathless sort of laugh. Slowly, almost reverently, she drew the blade out the rest of the way, the metal making a clear, lingering ring. She hefted the blade, eyes slowly travelling along its length. Then, a smile twitching at her lips, "Hey, Lark, how many Orlesians you think this thing's killed?"

"Lark" let out a little coldly-amused huff, but didn't otherwise respond. "Probably hundreds," Aedan offered. "It was carried by literal pirates for centuries before it got to my mother."

"Hmm." The elf gave the blade another lingering look, before slowly sheathing it again — also somewhat awkwardly, like she'd never handled a full-length sword before (she probably hadn't). Smoothly slipping down onto the bench across from him, she grabbed one of the abandoned stew bowls with one hand, took a quick gulp out of it. "Before I give this back to you, I want to know what your game is here."

"I told you—"

"You want the Arl dead," she said, speaking over him, "right, I heard you. Why?"

...Had an elfeverinterrupted him before? He didn't think so. Not that he cared, he was just saying.

Aedan took another gulp of his own stew, mostly to give himself time to consider how much he wanted to say (and also because he doubted it'd be any more appetizing cold). Though, the more he thought about it, the less reason he saw to not tell these people everything. They already knew who he was — if they wanted to kill him, or hold him for ransom or whatever, they would have made their move already. Normally, he'd have to be concerned with how the story made him and his family look, losing face and all that, but that was a game for the nobility. The common people rarely gave a sh*t, and that was if they even realized it was happening at all. He had nothing to lose, and if he was lucky the story would work toward getting them to trust him, at least a little bit.

The fact that he didn'twantto talk about it was sort of irrelevant.

Aedan washed down the bland stew with the terrible beer, took a long breath. "Gaenor told me Howe was granted our Teyrnir. You must have heard my family was killed."

"Yep. Bandits, I heard." The woman sounded slightly skeptical — she was probably always skeptical of the sh*t nobles said. Though, perhaps it didn't help that the idea of common bandits taking Highever Castle, especially while Mother was in residence, wascompletely absurd.

"That's nugsh*t. They weren't bandits." Aedan considered his words for a moment, swishing the swill in his mug around. "You know it wasn't always the Teyrnir of Highever. The city was once part of the Arling of Amaranthine, which was ruled by the Howes. A long time ago, Highever broke with the Howes, and declared themselves independent, taking nearly half of the Arling of Amaranthine with them. Later, there was another war, and the Couslands took over most of the north, and it all became the Teyrnir of Highever. Yes?"

"I didn't know that," she admitted, "but why does it matter?"

"See, during the Orlesian occupation, they made the city of Amaranthine their capital — it's a better harbor than Denerim, a lot of trade with the north goes through there." Of course, the reason the Fereldan kings stayed in Denerim were partially historical, yes, but also because trade through Amaranthine was more easily cornered by raiders in the Straights of Alamar, as people like Aedan's mother had proven during the Rebellion. But he wasn't about to start complaining about Orlesians being f*cking stupid. "As part of that arrangement, they split our Teyrnir in half, the Arling of Amaranthine directly beneath their Pretender, just like the Arling of Denerim these days. After the war, Maric restored the Teyrnir of Highever to its pre-occupation borders, meaning the Howes were our vassals again."

A scowl twisting her eyebrows, the elf said, "I'm guessing Howe wasn't happy with that."

Aedan shook his head. "They weren't bandits. My father had already sent most of our forces south toward Ostagar, but even so, there isno way in hellbandits could take Castle Highever. There is no way even any proper army could take it as quickly as they did — it was so quick I didn't even realize anything was going on until a couple of them kicked in my door while I was sleeping.

"You know why they managed it so easily? Because theydidn'ttake it." Leaning forward a little, his voice a harsh snarl, "They wereinvited. They were Howe's men, accompanying him to join my father on the way to Ostagar. They were let in the gates. We sheltered them, fed them and watered them. And then, in the dead of night, they murdered us in our beds. All of our fighting men, yes, but also Mother Mallol, who ran the chapel, old Master Aldous, who kept the library and taught the children. Our guests — Lady Landra of Oswin and her son Dairren, along with her handmaiden Iona." Aedan had actually been spending the night with her, she'd been cut down right in front of him, becauseapparentlyit had been necessary to kill even her. Bastards. "They didn't spare any of the staff, they were all killed — Nan managed to stick one in the eye with a knife before they got her, tough old bitch.

"And then, yes, my family. My father, my mother. My brother's wife, and their son — Oren wassix." His voice dropping to a whisper, "If you don't believe that I care about your little rebellion here, fine, I honestly don't. But believe me, Miss, Andraste carry my oath to the Maker, I will kill Rendon Howe, if it's the last thing I do. If playing along with this whole mess is the only way I can do it, well, then that's just the way it is, isn't it?"

Lark grunted, spoke through half a mouthful of stew. "Good enough for me."

Her eyes narrowed in thought, one finger tapping on the hilt of his sword, the woman stared at him for a long moment. Then she nodded, slowly. "What about after? If we live through this, what then?"

"You honestly think we're gonna live through this?"

The elf ignored the question. "We're not gonna put you up here, around all of our people, just to watch you turn around and stab us in the back once you got what you want."

"You want to know if I'll represent you at the Landsmeet." Pushing away his empty stew bowl, Aedan leaned back in his chair. Oh, absolutelyeverybodywas going to hate that. Especially if whoever it was who'd been executed, starting this whole mess, if they'd done something especially bad... He let out a heavy sigh. "I'm not the Teyrn, you understand, my brother Fergus is — he should have been at Ostagar, and at least for the moment I'm going to assume he made it out. So, I can'treallypromise you anything.

"But I can promise," he continued, raising his voice a little as he saw the woman's mouth start to open, "that I'll talk to him about it. Fergus is a reasonable guy, and I can be very...annoying. Give me evenhalfwayreasonable demands to take to him, and I'll do my best to talk him into bringing it before the Landsmeet. If all else fails, so long as my brother takes the Teyrnir back, at least you and your people can flee to Highever. We can protect you there."

Again, the elf paused a long moment, giving him a thoughtful stare. Finally she nodded, set his mother's sword down on the table. "I think we have a deal,my lord," said with an obvious hint of sarcasm. Her hand lifted off the scabbard, leaving the sword on the table.

Aedan huffed. Taking his weapon back, returning it to its proper place at his hip, he said, "Just call me Aedan."

"Shianni. There are a few people you need to meet, and we'll have to have a talk about what you can do here. Unless you need to rest — you did just get back to the city?"

"No, I'm all right." He took a quick glance at his mug, but at this point it was mostly just sh*t that'd settled out of it over the last minutes, ugh, no thanks. "We can get started now. I figure, committing treason is the sort of thing you should jump into with both feet, or just not do at all."

The elf, Shianni, smirked. "Let's go, then."

Chapter 10: The Arl of Redcliffe — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 16

Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Redcliffe was the oldest settlement in western Ferelden, and second in importance only to Highever. The village sat at an important crossroads between the Imperial Highway, west toward Jader and east toward Denerim, and the water route north, reaching the Waking Sea and all the trade lanes there by way of Lake Calenhad and the River Dane. The southwestern hills of Ferelden were rich with ore and fur, lucrative trades both, almost all of which passed through Redcliffe on the way into the rest of the country or out to sea.

Originally a Chasind settlement, the Tevinters had put an outpost here, protecting the trade coming through the harbor on the lake. That outpost was later destroyed when the Avvar invaded these lands during the First Blight, fleeing darkspawn rising in the west, and Redcliffe became an Avvar town — the modern name is even an Alamarri translation of the one the Avvar gave the place. Redcliffe remained a powerful Avvar arling until it was conquered during the War of the Crowns by an alliance of what were now West Hills (Avvar) and South Reach (Chasind) — in the aftermath, Redcliffe became a Chasind kingdom, initially under South Reach but soon breaking away. And it remained Chasind country until these lands were conquered by Calenhad the Great in the Exalted Age four hundred years ago, absorbing the Arling into what would become the Kingdom of Ferelden.

Though, really, the vast majority of the population of the Arling was of Chasind (or Avvar) descent, and it was even said Chasind was still spoken in some of the more remote villages in the Hinterlands. But the settlement of Redcliffe itself was indisputably Alamarri.

The village sat in a little inlet off the lake at the mouth of a narrow river — the Red River, because people were very creative like that — shielded on both sides by cliffs, carved out of the stone over eons by the flowing water. There were a few dozen little houses and such, mostly made of wood and straw, very little in the way of stone to be seen. Despite how well-shielded of a harbor the cliffs made this, the shore dropped off too slowly, would require irritatingly long docks to reach a depth boats could safely launch from...so the villagers had builtout onto the lake, storehouses and whatever propped above the water by thick posts, stretching a couple buildings deep past the shoreline — only fromtheredid the docks stretch out into the water. Essentially, Redcliffe's entire dockyard was just...out on the lake. Not very far, true, but still, what the hell.

The road leading here from the Highway, a mile or two south of the village, didn't actually go down into the harbor, instead just abuttted the edge of the village, passing a larger building that was probably a tavern or something, before curving to the right and leading up the cliff on the east side of the harbor, vanishing into the trees and bushes covering the hillside. That had been the site of the original Tevinter fort long ago, later converted into an Avvar shrine, and then a Chasind one, and then finally a Chantry in Calenhad's time — though that one had since been abandoned, there was a modern Chantry opening into the little square at the town's heart instead. There was a second road in the village, turning somewhat south before curving west, and then north, a few houses and the mill perched precariously on the cliffside, before finally reaching Redcliffe Castle atop the western cliffs.

Redcliffe Castle was perhaps the largest fortress in Ferelden built by the locals, the only real contender the Couslands' seat in Highever. It was a sprawling edifice of hard-angled walls and crenellated towers, cast in the same dusky reddish stone as the cliffs looming over the village, seeming to grow out of the hillside. Perched right on the edge of the cliffs, preventing any approach from the east or south, the walls thick and tall and unclimbable, Redcliffe Castle was popularly considered to be unassailable. This wasn't strictly true, of course — the castle has been taken at least three times, once by Calenhad (though it had been smaller then), once by some Orlesian commander (Alim couldn't remember their name offhand), and then again by Loghain not thirty years ago (famously relying on elven archers to pull it off) — but ideas like these can sometimes persist despite obvious evidence to the contrary.

The place was rather pretty, Alim thought, the village nestled between the reddish cliffs, threaded with trees here and there, a few crumbling Tevinter columns poking through the brush to the east, the sun sparkling off of the gently-undulating water of the lake stretching out into the distance. Not pretty enough to justify running a day and a half to get here, but still, pretty, sure, fine.

They were following the road downhill toward the village — the very last leg of their journey, the village spread out invitingly before them, only a couple minutes away — when Alistair inexplicably came to a stop, calling on Lýna to hang back a moment. Alim wanted to scream. He'dsobeen looking forward to their brutal pace beingover, at least for a little bit, to get some proper food, maybe a nice stew or somebread, when was the last time he'd had bread (realbread, hardtack didn't count), to sit down,in a chair. Reluctantly, he stood not far from Alistair, the overworked muscles of his legs uncomfortably twitching, his back aching, biting his lip to keep himself from glaring at the (much) larger man.

Lýna and Leliana had to backtrack to get into a comfortable conversational distance, the Sister flushed and sweating a bit, a little out of breath from trying to keep up with the Dalish girl hopping around like a hyperactive rabbit. Lýna herself didn't look the least bit winded by the exertion, just faintly annoyed. "What is?"

"There's, ah, something I have to tell you all." He was addressing Lýna, but a quick glance around suggested he was really speaking to all of them. Before going on, he lingered on Morrigan with a suspicious, hesitant sort of look — whatever this was about, he clearly didn't trust her with it, but also didn't think he had much choice.

Alim was slightly surprised Leliana didn't get the same look, given that she wasinsane. But she was also a Sister of the Chantry, and Alistair was trained as a Templar — he would have been told since childhood to respect the Chantry, it's hard to break that kind of training.

"Right, ah, before we get to Redcliffe... How to tell you this? Did I explain how I know the Arl, exactly?"

He had. Nobody else was jumping out to answer right away, so Alim took it. "You said you grew up here, that Arl Eamon practically raised you."

Nodding, Keran said, "I think your exact words werethe closest thing I have to a father."

"Yes, that. Well, see..." Alistair sucked in a breath, then blurted out, distinctly uncomfortable, "I'm a bastard!"

Alim failed to hold in a snort — honestly, like that was such a great shame, a quarter of the people in the country were probably bastards. The big dunce hadclearlygrown up around the nobility, they were the only people who cared about that sort of thing.

His eyes tipping up to the sky, doing everything but openly shuffling in place out of awkwardness, Alistair continued. "My mother was a seving girl at Redcliffe Castle, she died when I was born. Eamon took me in and raised me until I was sent to the Chantry."

Leliana gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth — very Orlesian, that. "Oh my, is the Arlactuallyyour father?" she asked, her voice nearly a chirp, delighted.

"What? No! No, no. It's, ah, it's worse than that." Alistair sucked in another long breath, then set his shoulders, tensing head to toe. As though expecting a blow. "Eamon told me he took me in because...because my father was...King Maric."

Dead silence.

The wind blew, trees creaking. Dogs barked somewhere in the distance. Birds tweeted.

Nobody said a f*cking word.

Probably, like Alim, taking a good look at Alistair's face, and trying to spot any hint of familiarity with— Alim gasped. "Andraste's saggy ti— Eep!" He clapped his hand over his mouth, painfully jabbing his lip on his teeth. Eyes flicking guiltily to Leliana, he muttered out a muffled, "Sorry."

Leliana raised a bemused eyebrow at him, smiling a little, her face clearly saying,You sweet silly boy, I've heardmuchworse blasphemy than that. Which, to be fair, yes, he was being silly, but he'dalsobeen taught since childhood to respect the Chantry — it's hard to break that kind of training.

Alim cleared his throat, tried not to look as embarrassed as he felt by his stupid little outburst. (Morrigansmirkingat him didn't help.) "Ah, I just noticed, you and the King are practicallyidentical. Cailan, I mean." Well, saying they wereidenticalwas over-selling it, but. Alistair's brow was wider, his eyes more brown than hazel, his nose slimmer, his hair sort of a pale reddish-brown, auburn-like, while King Cailan (and Maric before him) had beenveryblond. But, ignore the hair and the resemblance wasveryobvious, once Alim saw it he couldn't un-see it. It was uncanny.

All of them were now staring at Alistair, wide-eyed — except Morrigan, who clearly didn't care, and Lýna, who was squinting at Alistair with an obvious sense of confusion. Probably didn't see the resemblance herself. To be fair, the small differences were enough it would be unlikely they were closely related...if they wereelves, Lýna probably hadn't gotten used to that yet. In fact, how many human families had Lýna ever even seen? Probably not very many.

"Well," Keran said after a moment, her voice flat from shock. "I wasgoingto ask how that could be known for certain, but now that Alim's pointed it out, I believe it."

Perry was giving Alistair a narrow-eyed, suspicious sort of look, his arms crossed rigidly over his chest. "You been the King's brother all along, and you ain't say nothing?"

"Oh, and what was I supposed to say?" His voice softening and rising a few notes in pitch, Alistair breathed, "Hey, by the way, I exist becauseHis Majesty Maric the Saviorknocked up one of the servants while visiting his brother-in-law, because apparently he was secretly ahuge ass. What, do I have any proof? Nope! Just what Arl Eamon told me — you know, the Queen's brother, I'msurehe has no personal investment in the storyat all." Alistair rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that conversation never goes well, believe me."

...When Alistair put it like that, he actually made a very good point. About maybe King Maric being a huge ass, he meant. Alistair had said he was nineteen, so the Queen Mother should have already passed away by the time he was conceived...butbarely, probably less than a year. If Maric really had been screwing around with the servants in Arl Eamon's house so soon after his sister's death, yeah, Alim could imagine he might not have appreciated that much. He wouldn't put it past a devious person to claim some random bastard was the King's just to use Alistair to f*ck with him later — in fact, Alim wouldn't be surprised if that was exactly why Eamon had taken Alistair in in the first place.

He didn't doubt Alistair really was Maric's son, though. The resemblance between him and the King was just too obvious to be a coincidence.

There was a little bit more bickering, mostly between Keran and Perry, and Alistair and Morrigan — Perry apparently didn't like the idea of Alistair being Maric's bastard son, for some reason, and Morrigan just thought it was funny — before they were cut off by a sharp clap of Lýna's hands, drawing attention to herself. "I don't understand. What difference for this?"

"Oh, nothing," Alistair said, almost cheerfully. "It doesn't matter. I just thought I'd tell you because, well, if we stay in Redcliffe long enough, it's going to come up. Get the surprise out of the way when we don't have an audience, you know."

Keran was gaping at him. "What do you mean itdoesn't matter? Alistair, you're theheir to the throne!"

Well, sort of, but also not really. Itwastrue that, ordinarily, the brother of the king would be the natural person to take over if the king died childless, but that would still have to be signed off on by the Landsmeet. It was possible Alistair could show up at the Landsmeet and end up being picked...ifhe had any proof of his parentage — he'd just admitted a minute ago he didn't, it was only Eamon's word, which many of the rest of the nobles might not accept. If Alistair had spent a lot of time in their circles, they might be willing to overlook that, but he said he'd been sent to a monastery when he was ten, and had been a Grey Warden for a year or two now. The chances of the Landsmeet selecting to be their new king some stranger who wastotally King Maric's bastard son, trust mewere practically zero.

Before Alim could say anything about all that, Alistair blurted out, "What? No! Getthatout of your headright now, Keran," jabbing a finger at her, "that is aterribleidea. I don't know thefirstthing about being king or whatever, it would be a complete disaster."

"But, you—"

"No, Keran. I don't know what you're imagining my upbringing was like, but whatever it is is wrong. I was notraisedthe King's son, I didn't learn most of all what the nobility gets growing up. For f*ck's sake, half the time I slept out with the dogs in the kennels! I don't belong—"

Leliana drew in a sharp gasp, eyes gone wide, her hand coming up to cover her mouth again. "Truly? That'shorrible! Who would do such a thing to a child?" Perry seemed much less surprised than Leliana was about the idea, but the irritation on his face had cleared up a bit — oh, he'd probably been worried Alistair was suddenly going to turn into some self-important royal bas—

Ha! Royal bastard! That was funny, Alim was going to have to remember to use that later.

Anyway, Keran, Perry, Leliana, and even Alim were all staring at Alistair waiting for an answer, horrified or curious or a mix, with the exceptions of Lýna and Morrigan, both looking rather bemused — if Alim had to guess, they probably thought children sleeping with the animals was perfectly reasonable, if only to be on hand if something happened in the night or whatever. Under the weight of their gazes, Alistair's eyes tipped up to the sky again, cursed under his breath for a second. Reluctantly, he admitted, "Isolde, the Arlessa, despises me. There have always been rumors going around that I'mEamon'sbastard, and, I don't know, she just didn't like it. I swear, she was out to make me miserable from the day she walked into Redcliffe. Half the reason I left to join the Templars was just to get away from her."

"And he didn't do anything about it?" It was obvious from her tone that Leliana disapproved — whichwasfair, it really should be on Eamon to resolve those kinds of conflicts in his own household, sitting back and doing nothing about it wasextremelyirresponsible and unbecoming of a lord of any kind anywhere.

"He didn't want to pick a fight with Isolde, and I don't blame him. He loves that woman, and what am I to him, really? I never expected him to take my side, not even when I was little, and I wouldn't have asked him to. I mostly regret that me being around was making life difficult for him."

Leliana frowned, clearly not pleased with any of that either, but she didn't say anything. Alim thought she might actually be biting the inside of her lip to stop herself from going on a tirade. Which, fair, even from that little bit just now Alim had gotten theveryclear impression the Arlessa had done a number on Alistair when he'd been a kid — Maker, to not even think his mistreatment was worth bringing to the attention of the man even he claimed was the closest thing he'd ever had to a father...

He'd still been better off than Alim and the other mages growing up — Alim doubted whatever Isolde had been doing tomake him miserablewent as far as beating him, and therehadbeen someone he could go to about it if he decided he wanted to, and at the very least he'd had the option of running away. Could have been worse, but still, harsh.

"This is nothing," Lýna said, her voice flat and careless in that way she got when speaking about silly Fereldan things she didn't think were important. "From the Joining, the life before has died, and you are Grey Warden. Alistair is Grey Warden. What was before, is nothing."

With a relieved sort of smile, Alistair nodded. "Yeah, what Lýna said. I'm not telling you all because I think it's a big deal or anything, or I think it should change anything. I just thought it was best we not make a scene in front of other people if it comes up."

"Yes, this is good. Now, come." Lýna turned on her heel and started off for the village again, abandoning the conversation about Alistair's parentage as though it were just as unimportant as both senior Wardens claimed.

Which, when Alim thought about it, it probably was. The chances of Alistair becoming king were practically nonexistent anyway. And, well, it was kind of a Warden thing, that the relationships and obligations of their previous life were void upon joining the order. The major exception were certain familial ties — unlike with, say, Templars, the marriages of Wardens weren't considered annulled the instant they joined, and they could still inherit and pass down property like anyone else — but their loyalties to outside lords and kings, debts they might owe, even sentences for crimes they might have committed, all of these could no longer touch them, by the terms of the treaties all the major governments had signed with the Wardens ages ago. Wardens could accumulatenewdebt or commitnewcrimes for which they could be held liable, yes, but such things could not follow out of their old life into their new one.

(And, generally, the Wardens would cover most debts and claimed jurisdiction over punishing their own members...ornot, as the case might be — nobody wanted to pick a fight with the Wardens, so sometimes their less honorable members got away with quite a lot, if the order were unwilling to do anything about it themselves.)

As far as the Wardens were concerned, the Alistair who had been might well have had a claim to the throne — a flimsy one, but a claim nonetheless. Alistair the Grey Warden did not, and had little reason to pursue that claim in any case.

Regardless, Alim lingered for a moment, trading glances with Keran and Leliana. It just...felt like there should be more to this. It was like something out of one of those ridiculous old stories, you know, the lost son of a king returning from exile to enact vengeance on evildoers and redeem his fallen kingdom, blah blah blah. It was like, one of those stories hadstarted, in real life right before his eyes, before abruptly just ending, with the noble-hearted true heir claiming he was perfectly happy remaining a humble farmhand for the rest of his life, thank you very much. It was...awkward, just awkward. The topic felt disorientingly unfinished, as though Alim were left waiting for a conclusion that would never come.

Shaking the feeling off, Alim forced himself into motion, following Lýna and Alistair down the road, the two senior Wardens huddled in a whispered conversation as they walked.

Their group were met by armed men where the road met the village, near the building Alim suspected was a tavern. Peculiarly, they weren't professional men-at-arms, but a motley band of men and women, mostly humans but Alim spotted a pair of elves too, mostly carrying rough hunting bows and axes that had probably been intended for chopping wood. Only two had weapons built for the purpose, a pair of polearms, and none of them were wearing much in the way of armor, undyed threadbare peasant clothing. Militia, then.

Which then raised the question of what militia were doing watching the road coming in to the town. The Arl had sent men to Ostagar — led by one of his knights, no one from the Guerrin family had made the trip themselves — but surely he hadn't senteveryone, he should still have a few around to keep the peace.

Unlike in many other countries, Orlais and Nevarra in particular, Fereldan lords generally preferred to not press peasants into service — the people of this country could be very...willful, it often ended badly. Walking up to as important of a town as Redcliffe to find it was being guarded by unequipped and untrained peasant militia was very peculiar.

Alistair asked the welcoming committee what was going on here, and they were quickly treated to an outburst of overlapping claims of the town basically being under siege, attacked every night by...walking corpses? Base demons inhabiting the bodies of the dead and walking around in them, it wasn't an unusual phenomenon — it was, presumably, why virtually every culture in the world had a means of disposing of their dead in a way such that the bodies were made unusable for the purpose. (Cremation was the most common, it had been common practice throughout the Imperium even before early Andrastians had given it a theological meaning.) The rambling bunch of people weren't making much sense though, seemingly halfway hysterical, so Alistair requested they be shown to whoever was in charge of this mess.

Bann Teagan, apparently. Alim was about ninety percent sure that was the name of the Queen Mother's youngest brother. Whoever he was, one of the militiamen peeled off to lead them into the town.

Alim had noticed from a distance that there seemed to be something going on in the Chantry square, though he hadn't been able to make out what. Walking into the square, it was damn obvious what was going on: Bann Teagan was raising a militia. Dotted here and there across the wide open space were men in mail and plate, probably knights of some stripe — Alim caught glimpses of arms here and there, some Redcliffe colors but others were unfamiliar, probably wealthier freeholder families in the area — leading masses of common people in training exercises. Mostly polearms, which made sense — they tended to be cheap to make and required relatively little training. There were a few people practicing with one-handed weapons and shields, but not very many, since a higher degree of skill was needed to be competent at that sort of thing. (Also, the weaponry itself was more expensive and harder to improvise on short notice.) There was a shooting range at one end, a few rough-looking people with rough-looking bows taking shots at improvised targets of wood and straw, but rather fewer archers seemed to be around than Alim would expect for a force this size...whichalsomade sense, since shooting with a bow was skill-intensive, and he doubted they had many crossbows sitting around.

It seemed the people who'd met them at the road hadn't been messing with them, this certainly looked like a town preparing to defend itself from attack. It was just...odd. A couple corpses being possessed by demons now and again, sure, but theyneverattacked in the kind of numbers the scale of preparations here suggested. Demons simply didn't cross the Veil that frequently. Also, where were thebodiescoming from? No, none of this made any sense.

They were following their guide through the crowd, Lýna's hood covering her face to avoid attracting attention from all the jumpy people with weapons, when Alistair abruptly stopped, again. "Are those Highever colors?"

Following his pointed finger, Alim stepped closer to him so he could see around a formation of practicing pikemen. Oh, hey, he was right — a pair of spears crossed over a raindrop, those must be knights sworn to the Teyrn of Highever. There weren't many of them, less than a dozen, their armor looking a little worse for wear, though not obviously injured. "You're right, those are Highever men. What are they doing here?" Highever was at least a week away from here — or, three or four days at the brutal pace Lýna had set here from Lothering, but anyreasonableperson would probably take closer to a week and a half. Going by boat was quicker — north across the lake and down the River Dane to the Waking Sea, then looping around West Hill up to the city, depending on the winds and how high the river was at the time it could be as short as three days easy — but still, this wasn't exactly in the neighborhood. Maybe they were returning home from Ostagar, the water route was quicker than walking the whole—

Alim blinked. One of the men, tall and broad-shouldered with long braided hair a flaming Alamarri orange, had just turned around, showing his back to them. Particularly, the shield on his back: paired sprigs of laurel, green on blue.

Cousland?What was a Cousland doing in Redcliffe? That wouldn't be so strange, ordinarily, butnow?

Before anyone could say anything, Alistair was already flouncing off, ploughing through the crowd with the sort of ease available to only the very large or very bull-headed, Lýna slipping neatly into his wake. The rest of them were a few steps behind, by the time Alim — following Keran much like Lýna was Alistair, because he was annoyingly tiny and easily trampled — caught up Alistair was stomping up to the Highever men, calling out, "Fergus, you son of a bitch! What are you doing here?"

...Fergus? He meant,Teyrn Bryce Cousland'seldest son? Had Alistairreallyjust called Fergus Cousland ason of a bitch? People have literally been killed for lesser offenses...

The Cousland in question obviously wasn't the type to flip out and murder a mouthy peasant, though. The large man, even bigger than Alistair which was justunfair, twitched at the sudden shout, then turned to look over his shoulder. As soon as he caught sight of Alistair, the hard edges to his face loosened somewhat. "Alistair, you son of a whor*!" he called, grasping Alistair's hand as he came into arm's reach, and they yanked each other into a sort of manly half-hug, slapping each other's shoulders.

For a couple seconds, Alim could only stare, blinking dumbly to himself. Apparently, Alistair and the famous Teyrn's son knew each other. Huh.

Wait, hadn't he said something about that a couple days ago, outside Lothering? About knowing both the younger Couslands, actually, he'd even been a bit broken up at the sudden realization that Fergus might have died at Ostagar. It was just...kind of odd. Alistair had claimed he hadn't much to do with the nobility of the country, but he clearly knew the Guerrins and the Couslands at least...

"I'm glad to see you made it out of Ostagar. Though I should have expected as much, you sly little bastard."

"And you! We were up in the Tower for the battle, but wouldn't you have been down with the King?"

"Ah, well, no." Some of the good cheer at Alistair's appearance was already dripping off Fergus's face. He was still smiling, but it seemed false, strained and empty. He did have quite a bit of stubble going on, and there were dark circles around his eyes, clearly hadn't been sleeping well. "I was out scouting the cliffs to the west with some of my men, we ended up getting cut off from the trail back to the fortress. We all might be dead now if a passing clan of Dalish hadn't stumbled across us while we were fighting off a pack of darkspawn."

"Maker. Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'll live. Lost a few friends, though. In any case, it didn't look like we'd be able to fight our way back to Ostagar, so we went north instead. I had planned to loop back around, perhaps help form a second line near Lothering, but the news was already coming in by then."

Alistair winced. "So, you've heard the rumors."

"That the Grey Wardens are responsible for Cailan's death?" Fergus scoffed, all but rolling his eyes, some of his men, clearly eavesdropping, let out dark, humorless chuckles. "Absolute nonsense. My brother tells me Cailan used to trail after the Warden-Commander like a curious pup, a dead-obvious case of hero-worship — which I do understand, Duncan is an impressive man. My point being, Duncan has doted on Cailan in turn, ever since he was a boy. The suggestion that Duncan plotted to murder him is simply preposterous. I can't imagine what Loghain thinks he's playing at, spinning such falsehoods."

"I don't know. I don't think Loghain liked that most of the Wardens were foreigners — he seemed particularly concerned over the idea that some of us are Orlesian spies, or some such nonsense."

The nobleman's face pulled into a smoldering frustration, eyes turning to the sky as he let out a heavy sigh. "I always wondered when Loghain's obsession with Orlais would get the better of him. You know, he once suggested that in marrying an Orlesian I was leaving myself open to subversion by our enemies."

"Yes, he said something similar to Eamon once, he just about kicked him out of—" Alistair cut himself off with a very inarticulateguh. "Wait, isn't OrianaAntivan?" An important distinction, given that Antiva was literally on the other side of the continent from Orlais — only Rivain and Par Vollen itself were further away.

The scowl only deepend, looking at once furious and somehow brittle. "She was, yes."

"Did... Did something happen?" Alistair asked, his voice going delicate and awkward. Alim hadn't even noticed the use of the past tense at first.

"You haven't heard?" At Alistair's denial, Fergus bit out another harsh sigh. His jaw worked in silence for a moment, glaring up at the sky, his eyes burning with repressed...fury? Maybe fury, maybe something else, hard to tell. "The Castle was taken, a couple weeks ago now. Everyone inside was killed. I may well be the only Cousland left."

"Maker, Fergus..."

The conversation went down a predictable path from there, everybody in their group expressing condolences for the murder of his entire family — with the exception of Lýna, who was watching the crowd instead of participating, and Morrigan, who clearly didn't give a sh*t. Fergus claimed, entirely reasonably, that he didn't want to talk about it, or even think about it, to stay focused on other things until he was in a place he could deal with it all andnotdescend into a depression-fuelled alcohol binge, which in the present circ*mstances would probably end in his death and that of who knew how many others. (Alim added those last details, but it was pretty obvious reading between the lines.)

There was a short diversion as Keran asked after Aedan, Fergus's younger brother, who she apparently had some familiarity with. Being noble children of a similar age (Keran's father was the Bann of Portsmouth, she provided when asked), they'd seen a bit of each other in Denerim, and then Keran had seen rathermoreof him after joining the city guard, said in a way that suggested some salacious things about Aedan's character that had Perry snickering to himself. Fergus said the story was that the Couslands — Bryce and Eleanor, Aedan, along with Fergus's wife and their young son — were all dead. Fergus himself was even presumed dead at Ostagar. But he insisted Aedan was a slippery little sh*t, it was definitely possible he'd managed to get out with none the wiser. He couldn't say for certain whether his brother was still alive, but Fergus was going to assume he was until he had explicit confirmation one way or the other.

Really, if Alim were to assumeanyof them would get out alive, it would be Eleanor Cousland. The woman had a...certain reputation, built up during the Rebellion. But, because of that reputation, the people hitting the Couslands — the official story said bandits, but Fergus suspected Rendon Howe, the Arl of Amaranthine — would want to makeespeciallycertain to take out the Teyrna.

After a bit, they finally got back around to Fergus, who should technically now be Teyrn of Highever, explaining just what he was doing here. He'd arrived only the day before to find Redcliffe in a mess, desperately trying to pull themselves together to fight off the dead pouring out from the Castle every night. Given that going home with Howe's men in control of Highever would probably be suicide, he'd decided to stay here and help out. His long-term plan was to accompany Arl Eamon — or Teagan, if everyone up at the Castle was already dead, which did seem likely — to the Landsmeet, where he would press his claim against Howe in front of the gathered lords of Ferelden. And possibly, he admitted, depending on exactly how things with Anora and his feud with Howe go, Fergus might end up making a play for the Crown himself.

It was an odd thought Alim was having because, given that the King had no obvious heir and that Ferguswasa Cousland, it was actually pretty likely the Landsmeet would choose him. There was the bastard son of the previous King right there, and it was theotherguy who might take the throne. Weird.

Anyway, after a few more condolences and back-slaps back and forth, Alistair turned back to the militiaman (whose name Alim had forgotten), and they continued on into the Chantry, where Bann Teagan was apparently waiting. The Redcliffe Chantry was significantly larger than the one in Lothering, and also a complete f*cking mess. There were people scattered all over across the floor of the main hall, filling all but a few narrow corridors through the crowd, clustered into little groups here and there — those unfit to fight, for the most part, disproportionately children and women — the occasional armed person pausing to chat with them, Sisters flitting about through the crowd seemingly at random, tending to this person or that, passing food around or tending to the injured or grieving or intervening in arguments just sparking to life. Supplies had been moved into the Chantry, mostly basics like grain and beer, the recessional on the right practically filled with sacks and casks and crates. And it was noisy, the accumulated weight of a hundred voices speaking all at once, and it stank, incense and body odor and the occasional more offensive whiff of waste mixing together into a sickening haze, impossible to ignore, Alim felt his eyes watering after only a few breaths.

They were getting a lot of glances from people near the door, only intensifying when Lýna, probably remembering the lecture she'd gotten back at the Lothering Chantry, pulled back her hood, revealing the obviously Dalish tattoos all over her face. Alim caught more than one person yanking children further away from them as they passed, protectively shielding them from the tiny elf girl. (The addition of the very obviously Chasind Morrigan also probably wasn't helping.) He couldn't help rolling his eyes a little. Sure, Lýna was Dalish, and very deadly in a fight, butcome on...

Their guide was leading them to a man standing near the altar, in a heated-looking conversation with an older woman in Chantry robes, probably the Revered Mother. The man who was presumably Bann Teagan was wearing expensive-looking armor, mostly in black and red, that had definitely seen better days — there were a couple dents here and there, an obvious rent in the mail near his left elbow. As they got closer, it became clear his dark hair was a tangled mess, ash smeared across one of his cheeks, face taut and exhausted and anxious. Hardly the picture of a Bann most people would imagine.

"Ah, Tomas, was it?" the Bann said as they approached — abandoning his conversation with the Revered Mother with rude abruptness. He had one of those deep rumbling voices, the kind elves simply couldn't have, the upper-class accent more obvious as he continued. "And who are these people with you? They're not locals."

"No, milord," their guide said, bowing his head a little. "They came down the road just now, I thought you would want to meet them."

Shooting them all a narrow-eyed sort of look, probably taking in their finally-made arms and armor — though without any obvious Grey Warden heraldry, Alistair had picked up a cloak to cover the griffon on his breastplate — the Bann slowly nodded. "Yes, thank you, Tomas. You may return to your post." As the militiaman quickly bowed and scurried away, the lord grumbled, "My name is Teagan Guerrin, Bann of Rainesfere, and brother to the Arl of Redcliffe. Might I know who you are, and what you are doing here?"

The note of suspicion was obvious, maybe thought they were particularly well-funded bandits, or mercenaries or something. (Having Lýna and Morrigan standing there looking very foreign and intimidating probably didn't help.) Alistair gave the Bann a dopey smile, spoke softly, as though trying to lighten the mood with his very presence. "I remember you, Teagan, but you might not recognize me. Last time we met, I was much smaller...and covered in mud."

"Covered in— Oh!" Some of the anxiety lifted from the Bann's face, breaking into a pleasantly surprised grin. "Alistair?Is that truly you?"

"In all my questionable glory, yes."

The Bann barked out a laugh, stepped forward to roughly clasp arms with Alistair, their armor jangling at the impact. "You're right, I didn't recognize you at first.Maker, you're all grown up!" He clapped Alistair on the shoulder with a hard thud before letting go of his hand. "Aedan wasn't joking when he said you'd turned out handsome, was he."

"I like to think so. Unfortunately, so few seem to respond to my charms as they rightly should. Women, I tell you."

Keran coughed, the sound somehow mocking all by itself, and Leliana covered her lips with a hand again, her eyes dancing, clearly smothering giggles. (She really wasveryOrlesian sometimes.)

"I heard you were a Grey Warden these days. Were you not at Ostagar?"

"No, we were, but we weren't posted on the front with the rest. Duncan assigned us to defend the siege engines instead. We had orders to retreat if the battle went badly, to assist Ferelden as the horde moves into the country." His tone was casual enough italmostwasn't clear that he'd absolutely despised those orders when they were given, and still sort of did — no matter that he understood their necessity.

The Bann nodded, a sympathetic dip to his brow at Alistair's unspoken displeasure. "Yes, I'm not surprised. The Warden-Commander always did seem a practical sort to me, I would be astounded if he hadn't planned for defeat at Ostagar. So, your companions are also Wardens, then?" he asked, glancing over the rest of the group with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah, most of us, yes. Um, I should probably—" Alistair let out a huff, his eyes tipping to the ceiling for a second. "Lyna, could you tell him your name? I always say it wrong." Alim didn't blame him, thatývowel was a bitch — it was a characteristically elvish sound, also appearing only in certain elvish-influenced dialects of Tevene and Rivaini. Not something most Fereldans had probably ever even heard before.

She shot him a blank look, but turned to greet the Bann with a nod. "Lýna Maharjeᶅ."

"Right, that. Duncan made Lyna—" Alistair still mispronounced it, of course, coming out more like AlamarriLinna. "—Warden-Lieutenant just before the battle, so she's actually the boss of us." The Bann's eyebrows ticked up a little in surprise, he'd probably assumed Alistair was in charge, but didn't interrupt, let Alistair go along naming them all.

Once he was done, Teagan drawled, "It's a pleasure to meet you all, of course, but you must forgive me the lack of proper hospitality. We are in desperate straits at the moment. Any assistance you could provide us in protecting the town would be greatly appreciated."

"Ah..." Somewhat warily, Alistair glanced at Lýna — probably uncertain whether the cold, callous Dalish girl would agree to risk their lives fighting undead to protect a bunch of humans. Alim had spotted a couple elves here and there, but not many, outnumbered by even dwarves. (There were a lot of dwarves in the western arlings, but still, mostly humans.) "We came to meet with the Arl, actually."

Teagan huffed. "Well, I'm afraid you're not likely to have much luck with that. The gates are barred, and they only open to release another wave of walking corpses upon the town. We haven't had word from inside the Castle for going on a week now."

...Well, that didn't sound good. Alistair seemed shocked into silence, so Alim asked, "Is the Arl even still alive?" If he wasn't, they would have todrasticallyrethink their plans. Fergus Cousland was out in the village — he would be just as good a person to ally with going into the Landsmeet, though he could provide much less support in the months leading up to it, with Highever occupied...

"I honestly can't tell you. There was a rumor coming down the hill that something was wrong in the Castle, that perhaps Eamon or Connor or both of them were ill, but the gates shut before we could confirm anything. That was the last anyone heard."

That led to a conversation of what exactly they'd been facing over the last week, mostly between the Bann, Alistair, Keran, and the Mother. The little Alim caught sounded absolutelyhorrifying. By the sound of it, the dead had been small in number at first (probably the Castle's servants), but they had quickly multiplied — they started with freeholder homesteads up in the hills, a couple smaller villages here and there, killing the residents and dragging their bodies back to the Castle to be possessed themselves. They'd only started hitting Redcliffe once they'd had the numbers to attack in force. Even with the residents fighting back, the undead still grew every night, dragging away more and more corpses to add to their numbers.

Teagan had realized what was happening relatively early, sent out runners to beg others in the area to flee to Redcliffe to join the defenders here, or to just leave the area entirely, but by then possibly hundreds had already died and joined the army of possessed. He had evacuated as many of the people as he could, sending them out across the lake on fishing boats and barges — they were waiting not far away, one checked back every morning to make sure the town still stood — but as many as a fifth of the entire population of the area was dead, another quarter still at risk here, between the people packed into the Chantry and their defenders outside.

Alim did not like the idea of watching undead kill someone and drag them off, only to see that same person again the next day, shuffling down the road with the rest. Again and again and again, every night for a week. That was just,yeesh, not good, he could understand why the people here seemed so frightened.

There wasn't reason to be anymore, though. They had two mages and a Templar — they could theoretically dispose of any number of possessed corpses. It was whoever was summoning them that Alim was really worried about. Spirits didn't cross the Veil in these numbers naturally, after all.

But Alim didn't hear much of the conversation the others were having, because before too long Lýna sidled up next to him. Appearing out of f*cking nowhere, of course, girl was so tiny and quiet he sometimes lost track of her entirely. "The gate, what shield Castle. You know it?"

Alim blinked. "I...know what a gate is, yes? Are you asking if I knowwhereit is?" Was Lýna thinking of running off and attacking what was causing this at the source? That wasn't abadidea, really. Except, Lýna could probably climb right up the outer wall at the gate, like a f*cking squirrel, but the rest of them would be hard-pressed to follow.

"No,whatit is. Like..." Lýna tapped one of the silverite scales over her her hip, then the steel and leather grip of her sword, plucked at the softer leather of her gloves.

What it was... "Oh! What's itmadeout of. Um, it should be mostly dried hardwood — oak, probably."

"This is the tree, oak?"

"Yeah, the tree. It'll be heavy and thick, but it's mostly just wood. There will be iron bars through the door too, but probably just a little bit, to hold the wood in place. Why?"

"You can break it?" She flicked her wrist and drew a couple lines on the air with her finger — imitating the casting of a glyph, maybe. "If we go, you can open?"

Alim opened his mouth to ask if she was serious, but then closed it again. As far as he could tell, Lýna was pretty much always serious. And she wasn't a mage herself, theabsolute insanityof what she was asking might not be obvious, magic was just magic to normal people, she wouldn't know that...

Wait a second.

Couldhe destroy a castle gate? If theentire doorwere sheathed in iron, probably not, but that was really quite rare, there would only be a few supports here and there. Iron was meltable, and rods of it were deformable. The wood would be dense, and hard, andold— organic materials that had been dead for a long time were often more difficult to manipulate. (No one was really certain why, magic was strange like that sometimes.) But he wouldn't need tomanipulateit to set it on fire. It'd have to be white fire — an intensely hot, almostgaseousmagical fire that could be forced into materials to burn them from the inside out — but it was theoretically doable. And that kind of heat woulddefinitelysoften the iron, even if he failed to bring down the gates himself they should befareasier to smash open.

Huh. That sounded oddly feasible. He woulddefinitelyburn out, even with the assistance of lyrium — chances were he'd be taken out of the rest of the fight. But, planning out the glyphs he would use, doing some rough math in his head, it...shouldbe possible. Without immolating himself, he meant. It would be playing it closer to the edge than he was comfortable with, but it was possible.

...Was he actually thinking about bringing down thegates of Redcliffe Castleall by himself? The f*ck did he think he was, a Tevinter magister?A Maker-cursed battering ram?

Incinerating a door with white fire and smashing the remains inward would be one hell of a knock.

He tried to speak, but his throat was weirdly dry, he had to swallow before his voice would cooperate. "Ah, maybe? It would take most of my lyrium, and I'll probably be knocked out of the fight, but I think I could do it."

Lýna nodded. "Good. This is your job. Be ready, tonight."

Oh, so she did plan on sticking around to help the locals a bit, then. Alright. "Okay, I can be ready by then." No matter how f*ckinginsaneit sounded, he'd figure it out.

If Jowan heard he was about to crack Redcliffe Castle single-handedly he would flip the f*ck out...

By the time Alim checked back in, the Bann was asking — begging, really — Alistair to help them any way they could. They had few enough trained fighters, and even thepresenceof the Grey Wardens fighting alongside the townspeople could do quite a lot to lighten their flagging morale. (Teagan and Fergus had already both assured the locals that the rumors about the Wardens betraying the king were nugsh*t.) And, of course, any idea they had to make the fight easier, perhaps the Templars knew something about undead he didn't. Once the battle tonight was over, Teagan swore he would assist the Wardens in breaching the Castle, but they needed to—

"Yes," Lýna said, cutting the man off in mid-sentence. "We will help. Tonight, fight the dead, and go to Castle."

The mix of surprise and gratitude from the Bann was almost funny, the relief on his voice painful. He clearly hadn't expected Lýna to agree. (To be fair, Dalish had a history of not giving a sh*t what happened to humans — they'd completely ignored the Orlesians' pleas for aid during the Second Blight, for an infamous example.) There were also noticeable signs of relief among the other Wardens, tension lifting from Alistair and Keran in particular; Leliana whispered something Alim didn't quite catch, but he suspected it was something from Trials.

The only person whodidn'tseem pleased was Morrigan. Her lip curling with disdain, she let out a harsh scoff. "This is ridiculous. This is not our fight — why mire us in this pathetic mess?"

"What, you don't approve?" Alistair snapped his fingers — or tried to, at least, that didn't really work so well while wearing gauntlets. "Damn, and I thought we were just starting to get along. Oh well, there's the door, do let it hit you on the ass on the way out."

Morrigan co*cked up one eyebrow. "Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't hear mention of any darkspawn in this man's plea. You are Grey Wardens, are you not?"

"We can't just leave all these people to die," Keran insisted, with all due offense.

"Do you intend to pause to sort out the affairs of every poor soul you meet on the way? 'Tis a marvelous strategy to stop the Blight, that. The fate of this town, 'tis unfortunate, to be sure, but—"

Lýna snapped out, "Morrigan," flat and cold, cutting the Chasind witch off practically in mid-syllable. Then she spoke...in Chasind, because of course she did. It sounded like a question, which Morrigan responded to with only one or two words. Lýna then followed that up with a short ramble, ending with another question.

Clicking her tongue, Morrigan's eyes turned up to the ceiling for a second. "I confess you've a point, so much as I may dislike it." Forcing a strained, venomous smile onto her face, she drawled, "It appears I shall be playing the hero today."

Alistair guffawed. "Try not to strain yourself too much."

Passing over Morrigan's (reluctant) consent to assist the town with nothing but an affirming nod, Lýna turned back to the Bann. "The dead attack on sundown? What do now?"

The announcement that the Grey Wardens would be joining Redcliffe in their hard battle against the dead was made on the steps of the Chantry, Bann Teagan flanked by the Revered Mother and Alistair — his cloak removed to reveal the griffon rampant etched into the silverite over his chest, faintly glistening in the wan sunlight. The reaction among the crowd of defenders was subtle, but significant, and entirely as expected.

Throughout most of the world, the reputation of the Grey Wardens was...complicated. It was certainly true that Wardens were a somewhat isolated order, with their own culture, their own rituals and traditions. They were, in most cases, a law unto themselves. In every country in the world — with the exception of the Anderfels, where they had a large degree of political power — the Wardens made a point of placing themselves outside the jurisdiction of their home country's laws, and generally had little contact with the people around them. They set themselves apart, intentionally, and so many common people saw them as strange and alien, at times even dangerous, a potential threat.

It didn't help that, while the Wardens were almost universally Andrastian, they tended to prefer the Black Chantry. The northern Chantry, led by the Divine in the Tevinter city of Minrathous — also dominant in the Anderfels, Hasmal, the far north of Nevarra, as well as parts of Rivain and Antiva — had far looser prohibitions against mages and the use of magic, which was more in line with Warden sensibilities. The southern Chantry, which took a far more restrictive stance on mages and magic, frequently disparaged the Wardens for their leniency, but this was just pointless prattle, there wasn't really anything they could do about it.

For Fereldans in particular, the Grey Wardens had featured prominently in a civil war two centuries ago. It had started with a king dying childless, the two most obvious successors the cousins Arland Theirin and Sophia Dryden. After a long, fierce debate in the Landsmeet, Arland was selected; shortly after his coronation, Sophia was arrested, and slated to be executed. This wasn't actually unusual, it's common for the winner of such a contest to dispose of the loser — in fact, many in Orlais consider doing so to be necessary for the long-term stability of one's rule. But Sophia was still very popular among a certain segment of the nobility, who appealed to allow her to join the Wardens instead. Sophia proved very successful as a Warden, before long being raised to Warden-Commander. Around that time, Arland was proving himself to be a tyrant, and many of the nobles wished to have him removed and replaced with a less vicious king.

Now, it's uncertain exactly what happened next — first-hand accounts of the events in question have all been lost, Arland's accusations against Sophia the only narrative that remains. Arland claimed Sophia was plotting a coup, that she intended to usurp him and take the throne herself, with the help of certain traitorous nobles. Reading between the lines, it seems plausible that the nobility wished to convene a Landsmeet and choose from among themselves a replacement king, something the nobility of Ferelden have the right to do. However, they didn't feel safe doing so in Denerim, since Arland would likely have had them all imprisoned or executed, so they needed somewhere else to meet. The Bannir of Griffon's Rest, which contained the headquarters of the Wardens in Ferelden, seemed a safe place to do it.

How much Sophia Dryden had had to do with anything was still debated to this day, but Arland accused the Wardens of orchestrating a rebellion anyway. Griffon's Rest was conquered by the King's army, the Warden fortress of Soldier's Peak sacked, and the Wardens were expelled from Ferelden. But the civil war didn't stop there — the vicious conflict dragged on for decades, entirely wiping out dozens of noble families and killing thousands upon thousands of common people by the end. When Orlais invaded a hundred years after the attack on Soldier's Peak, Ferelden still hadn't recovered, and the Wardens hadn't been welcome in the country until King Maric invited them to return barely twenty years ago.

For all that Maric and Cailan had attempted to rehabilitate their reputation, the Grey Wardens were still viewed with some suspicion in Ferelden. Few places in the world would such an outrageous claim like the one Teyrn Loghain had made be entertained for even a second, much less accepted at face value by so many. The deep distrust Fereldans had for the order was almost unique in all the world.

But even then, a good story was a powerful thing.

Everybodyhad grown up hearing about the Blights, and the essential role the Grey Wardens had played in ending them, every single one. Everybody knew the names of their greatest heroes, the ones who had personally slain the Archdemons — the Tevinter tragic lovers Corin and Neriah, the exiled Orlesian son of a blacksmith Sommarde, the brilliant and charming Garahel of Ansburg, his name still on the lips of young elf boys everywhere. But it wasn't only these singular heroes, no, for all that they were revered they were relatively unimportant.

There was a sort of romance about the Wardens as a whole. People who had chosen to sacrifice their lives, to give up wealth and family, the prospect of having any kind of future for themselves, in order to put themselves between the people and the worst evil this world had ever known. It was hard not to admire such people, who had chosen to give upeverythingin order to shield the rest of the world with their very lives. It was a desperately noble sort of thing, no doubt about that.

Also, one of the things that most irritated the rulers of the world was something that greatly appealed to the common people. The Wardens recruited people from every walk of life — nobility and knights, yes, merchants and craftsmen, yes, but also farmers and peasants and slaves, thieves and criminals of all sorts. The Grey Wardens were one of the few places in the world where it truly didn't matter where a person was from, who their parents were, whether they were wealthy and well-born, or not. These things were as nothing. Once a person became a Grey Warden, they were a Grey Warden, and everything they had been before, whatever their status, was irrelevant. It was undeniable, thatwasattractive to ordinary people all over the world. It was no accident that most Grey Warden recruits came from among the most desperate, the most destitute.

Sommarde might have come from a relatively comfortable background, but Garahel had been a dirt-poor nameless orphan, and Corin had literally been born into slavery — and they were revered all the same.

People might have their suspicions of what Wardens get up to during peacetime, yes, but in times of crisis? Then they might as well be storybook heroes, swooping down to perform an unlikely rescue, just in the nick of time.

And it was no different now. The sorry men and women defending the town, ill-equipped and frightened, they didn't cheer at the news or anything that obvious. Leliana didn't even spot very many smiles on their faces. No, their reaction was more subtle than that. It was an easing of despair, weight lifting off of shoulders and darkness behind eyes softening. It was in the way they whispered to each other, how, as they got back to their work preparing, their steps seemed somehow lighter, the chatter just a little bit brighter.

Because in a time of crisis, where the Grey Wardens walked they brought hope with them.

Once the announcement was over, everyone returning to their work, they were led to Murdock, the mayor of the town and the man tasked with coordinating much of their defense. Dark-haired and bearded and gruff, he was a rather large man, fit and muscular, clearly having been a farmer or soldier or the like. It could be Leliana's imagination, but by how sharply he greeted the Wardens, she got the impression he wasn't particularly optimistic.

After some discussion, plenty of military things that went right over Leliana's head, they decided on a strategy. Essentially they would use their more well-armored men — Alistair and Keran, Fergus Cousland and his people, the handful of local knights they had on hand — to form a barricade of sorts, a shield wall the rest of the defenders would stay behind, casting arrows over their heads or jabbing with spears past their shoulders. In the few hours they had left before dark, they would set a trap on the road down from the Castle which would hopefully take out most of the first wave. Their wall would then press up to the gates, and then through them, taking the courtyard before breeching the Castle itself.

By this point, Murdock was looking rather less pessimistic, nodding along as Alistair wrapped up with the claim that, being Templar-trained and all, it shouldn't be particularly difficult to deal with whoever was causing this mess so long as they could actually reach him. "It's a good plan," he admitted, "or at the least the best we're like to come up with. These traps, what are you thinking of? We haven't much time to set anything up, and I'm not sure what would do any good against undead."

Smirking a little, Alistair drawled, "Fire is always good. The magics that sustain walking corpses often dissolve in the presence of flame, it's the best way to deal with them."

"Oh, I didn't know that. How are we supposed to get that much fire going, though? If we set a bunch of fires on the road, the undead will just go around them."

"A town this size, you've got to have plenty of lamp oil around. Gather as much as you can, set up a killing field just outside of town. I would say hit them earlier, but we don't want the survivors to just go around us."

Murdock nodded, a little reluctantly. "I'm not sure how much oil we got sitting around, but—" He cut off in mid-sentence, turned to bark an order at a few nearby people to track down as much lamp oil as they could find.

"Also, we'll have two mages to toss fire around, I wouldn't worry about it too much."

The mayor turned back to them, a little wide-eyed — Alistair hadn't yet mentioned they had mages among them — and Alim nodded, giving the man a friendly smile. "I'll need to take it easy to make sure I'm still fresh for the gate, but I'll be able to help a bit."

From what Keran had told Leliana of their fight at Ostagar, by "help a bit" Alim probably meant he'd incinerate half the undead on his own — he was apparently averycompetent mage.

Murdock looked somewhat flabbergasted, staring wide-eyed at the elf man. "You're going to bring down the gates. By yourself."

"Yep!" he chirped, his friendly smile stretching into a slightly manic grin. "I've never blown up something that big before, and there's only asmallrisk of me accidentally immolating myself. Should be fun."

By the doubtful look Murdock was giving him, he thought Alim was exaggerating about the risk to himself, but Leliana didn't think he was. The power it would take to destroy the gates of a fortress like Redcliffe Castle... Thatcouldn'tbe the sort of thing most mages were capable of — if it were, wars would be fought rather differently, wouldn't they. Shewasa little concerned the boy would overestimate his abilities and get himself killed, but she didn't knowthatmuch about magic, she simply had to trust he knew what he was doing.

And also pray for him, but she was going to do that anyway.

"Fire 'tis not a strength of mine, I'm afraid." Morrigan's voice was oddly delicate, wary, as though she would rather not admit such a thing. "I shall be at the front with your shield bearers instead."

"Uh, no offense," Alistair said with every hint of offense, "but if you can't defend yourself up there, you'd really just be in the way."

Flatly, simply, as though it were a perfectly ordinary thing to say, "I can turn into a bear. I assume that shall suffice?" she drawled, with a venomous sort of smile.

"Ah... Yes. Yes, bears are...good. Yes." Alistair turned away, muttering to himself — something about begging Andraste to save him from crazy apostates.

Murdock was equally unnerved by the thought of a Chasind witchturning into a bear, really now, but he went on smoothly enough, requesting that Morrigan demonstrate it for their men at some point before the battle so they wouldn't be startled later. With a clear note of distaste with the idea, Morrigan nonetheless agreed — probably recognized the logic, even if she didn't like it. There was a bit more discussion, things they could do to prepare, before Murdock mentioned that the town's blacksmith, an older man named Owen, was barricaded in his forge, if they could do something about him it'd be a great help.

When Keran pointed out that there wasn't time for him to do any real work before night fell again, Murdock explained they didn't want him todoanything — they just wanted the already finished equipment in his forge. Last time he'd checked, there'd been several shields on the walls, various pieces of armor, plenty of mail just sitting around ready to be used, maybe a dozen polearms. Owen's forge operated as a sort of backup storage for the Castle guards, there should beplentyof useful equipment in there, Murdock just wanted them to convince Owen to let them have it.

By the hard look on Lýna's face, Leliana suspected there was going to be very littleconvincinginvolved.

After finishing up with Murdock, they decided to deal with Owen immediately. The forge was nearby, just off the square, and was one of the sturdier buildings in all the town — much of the structure was stone, roofed with clay shingles, the only wood to be seen in one section tucked off to the side, probably living space. To prevent fires, presumably, smithies were a consistent hazard in many towns all over the world. (One town in the Dales Leliana was familiar with was locally infamous for having major fires almost every year.) As they approached the heavy front door, Alistair skipped ahead of Lýna to arrive first, his gauntleted hand pounding against the surface with reverberating thuds.

"Go away, curse you!" a low, gravely voice called through the door. "Leave me in peace!"

Muffled though it might be by the thick door between them, his voice still came through clear enough Leliana could tell the blacksmith was slurring his words — he wasdrunk. She scowled, glaring at the door a little. The people out here were suffering, dying, and he'd locked himself away with equipment they desperately needed, just sitting in there drinking by himself? Ugh, Leliana just didn't understand some people...

The conversation between Alistair and Keran and the inebriated blacksmith was swiftly going nowhere. They gave up after a couple minutes, shooting each other an exasperated glance. Alistair turned back to Lýna, tilted his head suggestively at the door — asking permission to break it down, it looked like. Lýna nodded without a second of hesitation. (Not a surprise, the cold, hard look on her face had only intensified during the brief argument, probably no more pleased with Owen than Leliana was.) Alistair retreated a little, waving for the rest of them to step back, and—

"Wait!" Alim skipped past Alistair, coming up to the door. "Let me try something first." He pressed a long-fingered hand against the door, just over the lock. He paused a moment, staring unfocused into the near distance above Alistair's head, his fingers and his left eye twitching now and again. After a short moment, he lightly hit the door with his palm, one two three four — on the fourth hit, it swung open, sunlight cutting into the dark and dusty interior.

Alistair, Keran, and Lýna slipped inside immediately, before Owen could even think of closing the door again. Lingering just outside, Alim stood smirking, self-satisfied. At a curious look from Morrigan, he said, "It's a finicky little trick, but the magic isn't difficult. I can teach you later."

"I will take you up on that." Morrigan sounded uncharacteristically grateful, which was odd, it didn't seem that— Oh! She was probably thinking if she learned how to magically open locks, it eliminated any threat of being held by the Fereldan authorities ever. That wasn'tentirelytrue, since most Circles had cells that neutralized the casting of any magic inside them, but Morrigan didn't necessarily know that.

Leliana followed the others on in, though Alim and Morrigan didn't, waiting just outside, chatting about magic. The inside of the smithy was a mess. The room they stepped into was a shop space, a counter at one end, racks along the walls, armor stands here and there. It was hard to make out a lot of it, the lamps had gone out, but in the light thrown from the door it was still clear Owen had had some kind of fit — the stands and racks were overturned, equipment and arms scattered all over the place, books and papers forming a nest in a corner near the counter.

It smelled strongly of liquor and piss. The breeze coming in through the door helped, but,ugh...

The man himself was standing not far away, brandishing a hand-axe and in the middle of a shouting match with Alistair. He was a bit disheveled, his clothes ruffled and crooked, his hair in disarray, face patched with uneven stubble. He raved on, words slurred and half-incomprehensible, eyes bloodshot and mad.

"We're going up to the Castle," Alistair said, his reassuring tone somewhat lost in his own irritation. "Your daughter will be safe once it's over, just like everyone else."

Oh, was this man's daughter up in the Castle? Leliana guessed thatsort ofexplained his descent into drunken depression...but not really, that was just making excuses for him. If he wanted todosomething about his daughter being in danger, surely he should have been contributing to the town's efforts to end whatever was happening here, not lock himself away and drown his despair in liquor. If anything, what he'd done made itmorelikely his daughter would die.

"That's not good enough!" he barked, practically frothing at the mouth. "Murdock said the same thing, and I didn't believe him either. I want a promise. Promise me you'll look for her!"

Before anyone else could react, Lýna was already moving, darting in toward the raving blacksmith. He swung wildly down at her with his axe, but she slipped under the blow easily. Her hand coming up to grip the collar of his shirt, she forced him back and, showing strength Leliana wouldn't ordinarily think an elf should be capable of, slammed him against the counter, his back bending awkwardly over the edge. "You are foolish child," she hissed, her voice sharp and cold, enough it nearly put a shiver in Leliana's spine.

"Shut up, elf, you don't—" Owen was cut off with a pained gasp, Lýna bending him back further over the counter.

"Your child is threatened, and you hide alone? What parent are you, to do this?" Leaning in further, almost nose to nose — that couldn't be pleasant, Leliana was certain he smelled awful — Lýna snarled, "If you want her back for true, help, orgo out. The children are in the Chantry."

Owen stared up at her, face twisted a bit in pain, his mouth working in silence. "You're fighting up to the Castle. You got Murdock and everyone coming with you."

"Yes. We go this night."

"Fine, if that miser Murdock is finallydoingsomething, I'll help. Let go of me."

Lýna released him, took a step back to let him straighten again — she even handed him back his axe, she'd taken it from him at some point in the short scuffle. He didn't keep it though, carelessly tossed it aside to clatter against an overturned rack. Pointing at Leliana, Lýna said, "This one needs things. Armor, for one." Lýna then turned to her, ticking up a questioning eyebrow.

"Ah, I'm best with a bow, I think, but I'm also decent with a saber."

Over the next couple minutes, the room became a storm of activity, a couple knights followed by several people in peasant garb sweeping in and scooping up polearms and mail and shields and axes and whatever seemed useful. A few, Owen's assistants perhaps, materialized at some point, some set about slapping together a few more polearms, a couple others helping him with Leliana.

It only took a little poking around before a sheathed sword was yanked out of the mess made of a knocked-over stand, handed over to her — by the curve and how light it was even with the scabbard, probably afauchon. Leliana gripped the hilt and drew it, running her eyes along the blade (and trying to ignore the uncomfortable tingles crawling down her spine). It was very plain, no decoration anywhere to speak of, but how the light played off the metal, it appeared Owen was a competent smith, at least. She whipped it around in a couple tight flourishes — the tingling only getting worse as half-forgotten muscle memory surfaced, Leliana hadn't realized she remembered how to hold a sword — testing the weight and the balance. Pretty light, definitely couldn't go hacking at things with this, but she preferred it that way, anyway. (The tingles got worse at the thought of actually killing people with this, she tried to ignore it.) The edge could be finer, but sunset was still hours away, she had more than enough time to get to it.

It would do.

One of the assistants also produced a bow from somewhere, tossing it in her direction from halfway across the room. It didn't quite reach her, Leliana wouldn't have caught it before it fell, but Lýna snatched it out of the air and handed it to her. This was finer work than the sword, a grip of fine steel wires wound around the wood, tinted blue and twisted into curling, almost floral shapes. Probably commissioned by someone of means, one of the local lords or knights, but if they were handing it to her whoever it was must not be coming for it. She managed to string it with some difficulty, tested the draw.

It felt rather heavier than she preferred...but she was also painfully aware that, after a couple years at the Chantry, she was very much out of shape. Keeping pace with Lýna running here shouldn't have beennearlyso difficult — shehadmanaged it, of course, but she'd pushed herself to the very edge of her endurance, still a bit sore and twitchy even now. (She thought she'd won a fair bit of respect from the others for it, especially Lýna and the Chasind witch, so it'd been worth it.) She should definitely practice before the battle — it'd been averylong time since she'd done any of this — but she would get used to the weight, she suspected.

In an unexpected bit of luck, Owen even managed to produce armor for her, too. Nothing particularly fine, just a simple gambeson — several layers of heavy linen a pale brown, absent any decoration at all. There were a few strips of iron riveted into the cloth here and there, probably intended to be a layer of splints over the entire surface, but if so it was unfinished. Conveniently, one of the areas thatwasfinished was the arms, which should be solid enough to deflect an incoming blade if she was caught out. Bending the stiff cloth between her fingers, itfeltlike it would do some good — it wouldn't hold up to heavy weaponry, of course, but it might be able to take a couple blows from light arms, and could probably bounce most arrows just fine. Crossbow bolts would punch right through it, but sometimes those even made it through heavy plate, so.

It didn't fit quite right — the person it'd been fitted for was somewhat wider in the shoulder than her — but it was close enough to be getting on with.

It was also quite warm, which she was grateful for. Both nights on the road so far, Leliana had woken up freezing, had needed to move much closer to the fire. The trousers and chemise she was wearing now were intended to be underclothes, they would always have robes over them, not really insulated sufficiently to be sleeping outside in the spring chill.

Getting the gambeson settled around her chest, she'd pulled herpoitraileout of her collar — the man helping her (thankfullynotOwen himself, she wasn't certain she could handle the smell) noticed it immediately, judging by the odd look flicking over his face. He slipped off and returned a moment later with a leather belt and an empty quiver, still frowning at her. "Are you sure you want to do this, Mother?"

"Oh, no, I'm only a Sister — I haven't even taken my solemn vows yet." Depending on where exactly following Lýna took her, it was very possible she never would. Presumably, if that kind of service were what the Maker wanted from her, He wouldn't have told her to leave.

The man gave her a crooked, doubtful sort of frown. While she reached for the belt, he said, "Okay, Sister, but your hands are shaking."

Leliana glanced down — so they were. She clenched her fingers around the hard leather of the belt, took a slow, deep breath. "I'm all right, child, I just..." Numbly winding the belt over her hips, she trailed off. She didn't really know what was wrong, not for certain. How could she have, she'd hardly noticed anything. Now that someone was drawing her attention to it, she did feel...unsettled.

She'd thought she'd left all this behind. Tools of slaughter, blood and death, shehadbeen familiar with these things, once upon a time — and she still was, instinctively, how her hand had so easily found its place upon a sword was proof enough of that. She'd been trained very well, once upon a time, in the arts of spycraft, politics and seduction, archery and swordplay. Assassination. And she'd lived by them, once upon a time. She literally couldn't count the number of people she'd killed, either by her own hand or indirectly, the consequences wrought by the squabbling between the nobility she'd gleefully contributed to.

And ithadbeen gleeful, she... She'dlovedit. Her life as a bard had been...exciting, and glamorous, anddangerous— that she could have been caught and killed at any moment had only made it all the more thrilling.

Until she'd been betrayed. Theonlyperson she'd truly trusted to have her back, and Marjolaine had stuck a knife in it. Literally.

(Honestly, she suspected the only reason she was still alive was because the Maker wished her to be.)

After fighting through Marjolaine's collaborators and undoing the disaster she'd unwittingly helped set into motion — the documents they'd planted would almost certainly have led to Orlais declaring war on Ferelden, Leliana wouldneverhave gone along with it if she'd known — Leliana had dropped her sword, and she'd walked away. Not from the cooling bodies of the traitors she'd just dispatched, no, fromallof it. From her friends, from her contacts, from Halamshiral, from Orlais, from all her life. Dorothea's voice, discussing just what kind of mess Leliana had gotten wrapped up in (she still couldn't guess how the Revered Mother had known about all that), the voice she'd heard in the dungeons, waking her up, urging her to move when, really, sheshouldhave simply died (the Maker's voice, she was convinced now), both of them bouncing around in her head, and she'd just walked, not reallytowardanywhere so much asaway, east and south...

She hadn't intended to go to the Chantry. But she'd found herself in Lothering, standing in front of the simple, rural Chantry, and she'd been hungry, and cold, and alone, andso tired... It'd just seemed the thing to do.

She'dthoughtshe'd left it all behind. But it seemed as though she was being drawn back. Not into the same sort of life, of course — assisting Grey Wardens against a Blight was afarmore noble endeavor than anything she'd done as a bard. But even so, she would be carrying a blade again, she wascertainshe would kill again, and she...

It was unsettling, was all. The things she'd done, the life of lies and blood she'd left behind, she could feel it hanging over her, the threat of the person she'd once been like a knife at her throat. Leliana didn't want to be that person again.

And she wouldn't. She was different,thiswas different. Those deadly skills she'd been given, and turned to such vile purpose, they could be put togoodthings. That wasgood.

If this was how the Maker wished her to serve, she would gladly do it. She just had to...remember that.

Leliana smiled at the man, the expression as soft and reassuring as she could manage with how very uncomfortable she felt at the moment. "I'm okay, truly. It's just been a long time since I've done this sort of thing — but the Maker bids me fight, and so I shall."

The man still looked doubtful, but he nodded. "If you say so, Sister. Is there anything else I can try to find for you?"

"Hmm. Boots and gloves would be nice."

"Ah, well," he said, wincing, "I can't help you there. Owen gets his leatherwork from Jessar, and his shop was cleared out of everything useful days ago. I'm sorry, Sister."

"That's all right." She'd just have to stay back from the bulk of the fighting and focus on her shooting — itreallywasn't safe to wade through a melee in the soft cloth shoes she was wearing. "Thank you, for the help. Do I owe Owen for...?"

The man waved it off. "No, no, don't worry about that. Owen will get what he needs out of the Arl after all of this. You're fine."

"Okay. Thank you again."

"No problem, Sister. Try not to get killed out there."

Her fingers tapping at her hip, Lýna did her best to try not to appear visibly irritated.

There were many things she found peculiar about Alamarri, even more than she'd expected. She'd known they'd bedifferent, of course, but she'd assumed they'd be different like the Chasind were different. And the Chasindweredifferent from the People, even compared to the Avvar, enough they'd often been strange and confusing to her. She'd come to the conclusion that she would neverfullyunderstand the way Chasind did things sometimes — which was what it was, their ways didn'tneedto entirely make sense to her. They understood each otherenoughto get along, most of the time, and they didn't truly need any more than that. Some of the more baffling things the Chasind did, those were relatively unimportant, in the end.

And the Avvar, well, her People never really had trouble getting on with Avvar. In many ways, Avvar tribes and their clans operated very close to the same. Their cultures differed in the details, yes, but it was like speaking a different language — they used different words, and went about things in a slightly different way, but the core of their ways were very similar. The most obvious difference was that the Avvar were still in communication with their gods, like the Chasind, but the People had old stories of once having had a similar relationship with the Creators, so that wasn't so alien as it might have been.

Lýna was still trying to process what she'd learned last night, that those who spoke for the Alamarri god didn't evenclaimthat he spoke to them. That... How did that work, even? She didn't understand, it'd probably take a much longer discussion about what role the Chantry played for the Alamarri to come even close to figuring it out.

The Avvar, in fact, were familiar enough that they sometimes considered each other to be distant cousins of a kind. Which wasn't so unusual as it might sound to Alamarri — there were Avvar tribes entirely made up of elves, and it wasn't unusual to find a few among human-dominated tribes either. Once she'd even met a pair of bonded warriors, one elf and one human. (Which had been and still was confusing — elves and humans couldn't have children together, she'd been under the impression that was the whole point — but it wasn't her business, and didn't truly matter.) The only dwarves Lýna had ever met were Avvar. To the Avvar,whata person was was far less important thanwho, what onedid. It didn't matter to the Avvar that the People were elves, and their ways were similar enough to the Avvar that they fell in an odd middle place — not kin, but not truly outsiders either.

That itself was another way the People and the Avvar were similar. Since she'd left with Duncan, she'd met several people who spoke of the People and the Alamarri elves as though they were of a kind, seemed to assume she should have some sense of kinship with their elves that she didn't with their humans. That had, from the beginning, struck her as peculiar. She didn't know how the Alamarri thought of these things, but the elves here werenother People. They spoke the Alamarri language, worshipped the Alamarri god, dressed and walked and acted like Alamarri. Just as the Avvar elves were Avvar, so the Alamarri elves were Alamarri, and nothing else.

By the same logic, the Avvar weremorelike the People — to the point that they were not kin, but not truly outsiders either — than were the Chasind. In a way, she'd sort of thought as Chasind as beingmore humanthan Avvar, if that made sense. So, she'd assumed the Alamarri would be, sort of, more Chasind than the Chasind, if that made sense — they would be the ways the Chasind were different than the People, butmore, with less of the familiar things.

She hadn't expected them to be so...different. She hadn't known peoplecouldbe like this.

Lýna had understood that their soldiers, their not-hunters, were the ones who fought, and that not all of their people were soldiers. Obviously, no clan would function if they only had one sort of people, they couldn'tallbe soldiers. But, the camp at Ostagar, that had been far afield from their villages, it hadn't been surprising they'd been mostly soldiers — much as she'd expect only hunters or Avvar warriors to range so far from their homes, it was the same idea.

But, when a threat cametotheir villages, and their soldiers were away...

It was completely incomprehensible. Walking into the Chantry, seeing the dozens and dozens and dozens of people packed inside, sitting andwaiting, unarmed and unprepared, justwaitingfor the end, whatever that end might be... It had taken all the focus Lýna had to actually pay attention to the conversation with Teagan, because it was just so– soconfusing, that these people would just sit in here and...what, exactly?

The idea that all those people wouldn't contribute to the defense, even so much as just digging trenches or building barricades, was so completely alien she couldn't even make sense of it. Lýna had spotted a clump of them making arrows, at least, but...

If her People were being attacked, or the Avvar or Chasind, thatanyonewould just sit back and not contribute was... It was simply not done. Even if they hadn't enough proper weapons to go around, wielding whatever was lying around, or even reduced to knees and fists, tonot even tryto help, just sit back andwait, wasunthinkable. Anddetestable, Lýna wouldn't be surprised if the elders questioned a person's loyalty to the clan should they behave so — after all, if they couldn't even stand with them when the lives of the entire clan, including theirownlife, was under threat, how could they possibly expect them to stand with them when they had even less incentive to do so?

The Avvar she thought might send their uncooperative fellows away until after the fighting was over — not simply to have them out from underfoot, but out of fear of a knife in the back.

Lýna didn't think these people were traitors, they seemed too frightened for that. But she just didn'tunderstandthem. She wanted to shake them by their shoulders, demand they explain why they so little valued their own lives — didn't they understand that the dead would kill them, would killallof them? They hid in the Chantry, but this did not make them safe! Did they value the lives of their fellows so little, that they wouldn't offer any real help to the ones whoweredoing the fighting, did they value the risk others were taking on their behalf so little?!

Sure, maybe many of them in there couldn't fight themselves — which Lýna doubted, it wouldn't take much skill to stand on one of the roofs and jab at passing undead with a spear, toss torches down at them — but that didn't mean there wasnothingto do! They could be reforming wood from the buildings in the village into spears, there wasplentyof metal about to adapt into rough points, they could be digging trenches and setting barricades to funnel the enemy so the defenders didn't get surrounded, they could be shaping arrows, they could be making torches, setting traps all around the village — there werecountlessthings they could be doing to help!

Instead they justsatin the Chantry on their hands andwaited!It– just—Why?!

And not only did these people donothingto defend themselves, but those whoweredidn't seem to care! They acted as though this arrangement wasnatural, that they would hardly expect anything else to happen in such a situation. It was...

She didn't understand.

Morrigan thought they were pathetic, and Lýna agreed wholeheartedly. Those not raising a finger in their own defense,andthose who accepted that behavior without complaint... Itwaspathetic. Were the former nugs, to be raised and slaughtered without resistance? Were the latter slaves, to fight and bleed and die at the whim of the former? Both of them werepathetic, and...

...alien. She hadn't imagined even the most foreign of humans would act likethis, and think it perfectly ordinary. She hadn't realised this was even a thing thatcouldhappen.

She would fight with the others come sundown, but she was no more happy about it than Morrigan was — she was just better at hiding it. She wished to form an alliance with this Eamon, which would mean, in the terms that both the Chasind and her People understood these things, that she was obligated to work to the welfare of his people. Ideally, they would also be looking out for theirownwelfare, but she somehow doubted Eamon would acceptthe pathetic morons wouldn't do a damn thing to protect themselves, so I assumed they didn't value their lives enough for me to safeguard themas a good enough reason to stand back and let them be slaughtered by possessed corpses.

They needed Eamon's help, so they needed to fight for his people, even if they wouldn't fight for themselves. Morrigan had, reluctantly, accepted that argument.

It probably didn't hurt that Lýna had called them all pathetic halfwits —healwize, she'd noticed that was Morrigan's favorite insult — who didn't reallydeservetheir help, but she was in a position she had to give it anyway. She suspected admitting that she found this distasteful had, ironically, made Morrigan more willing to go along with it.

Possibly for the same reason Morrigan was still following her around — among this sea of alien Alamarri, each other were the only people here who made any damn sense.

After sitting through the announcement they would be assisting the village — Lýna would never understand the Alamarri impulse to give big speeches about things — and breaking into the smithy to loot the place — the smith was a stupid, selfish piece of sh*t, but at least his work wasn't bad — she'd returned to the square, filled with villagers practicing with weapons. They were clearly unfamiliar with them, clumsy and uncoordinated, but they were getting the basics down, at least. Besides, spears and axes didn't really takethatmuch skill to use effectively, they'd be fine.

Right away, Lýna had found the more heavily armored people, in plate and mail carrying longswords and shields, who'd be forming the wall they'd be pushing up to the castle with. Some of them were Eamon's men — or maybe Teagan's, but Lýna wasn't certain if there was even a difference — some of them here with Fergus, who Lýna remembered from their talk about potential allies in Ferelden. (If Eamon was dead, which seemed likely, she expected they'd be working with Fergus and Teagan instead.) Getting them together, Lýna waved over Morrigan, explained in her awkward Alamarri that Morrigan would be in the front with them. And so the Chasind witch had demonstrated her transformation magic for them.

Lýna had seen a lot of magic in her life. From what she'd seen so far, the average Alamarri wasmuchless familiar with magic than she was — whether that was because their magic-hating religion stomped it out, or if magic was more rare here so they were afraid of it andthatwas why their religion was silly about magic, she wasn't sure. The humans in the south, the Avvar and the Chasind, they weren't nearly so strange about magic, every tribe had a few mages around. Many were very limited in what they knew how to do, but there was still magic going on, all the time.

The People tended to have the most capable mages in the south. Some of it was remembered from the Ancients, yes, or taught to them by spirits at some point between then and now, arts passed from Keeper to Keeper to Keeper down generations. The People considered magic to be a part of their heritage, a remnant of their lost past they did everything they could to preserve. Elven mages all over the world sought out forgotten magics, spending their entire lives trying to recover even the tiniest sliver of the wisdom of the Ancients, to share what they might discover with the rest of the People. There were things their mages could do that even the humans in their Circles could not.

Lýna wasn't easily impressed, when it came to magic. Morrigan turning into a bear wasveryimpressive.

Shehadseen this sort of magic before — shapechangers were common among the People and the Avvar, though not the Chasind. (They had superstitions around it she suspected were related to history with She-of-Many-Faces.) Her clan's Keeper could take the form of a few different birds, for example, sometimes used it to scout out the day's travel, guide hunters to useful resources or interesting landmarks. It wasn't something Mẽrhiļ could do, though. From what she'd said, it required an incredibly detailed knowledge of how the animal was formed, and a degree of power and focus that was difficult to maintain through the transformation. It took years to learn one new shape, and the process quite nearly needed to be redone from scratch for each additional one.

One conversation she remembered, Mẽrhiļ had said size differences weren't easy to deal with. If the animal wassmallerthan the mage, the extra stuff was sort of tucked away into the Beyond, almost, it wasn't too difficult — but if the animal waslarger? That stuff had to come fromsomewhere, the power to shape it fromsomewhere. Shapechangers only very rarely took the form of animals larger than themselves, because the power necessary for such a feat was often too much to handle properly.

Morrigan didn't take the shape of a roughly human-sized black bear, or even the larger brown bear.

No, that was agreatbear.

She washuge, Lýna's head level with her shoulder, on her hind legs would stretch easily twice Lýna's height, even higher. A rippling mass of muscle, hidden in a thick bed of shaggy fur, brown traced with honey-gold, jagged, vicious looking claws as long as Lýna's hand, a deadly, tooth-filled maw Lýna's head would probably fit inside...

It wasveryimpressive.

The Alamarri had been obviously frightened of the display, but they didn't lose their minds, seemingly trusted that, whatever else Morrigan might be, she was at least on their side for the moment. The distrustful glances people were still giving her some time later weren't much different than the ones Lýna was getting, so.

(Every time one of the Alamarri glared at her, Lýna liked the idea of risking her life fighting for them less and less. She didn't expect she'd die tonight, of course, but it wasn't making her any happier with this stupid situation she'd been forced into.)

That was all done with now, Morrigan returned to human shape, hovering irritably behind her shoulder. The rest of the Wardens were around, helping out with one thing or another. Alistair was with Fergus and his knights, drilling people with spears and other long weapons; Keran had been with another group, but she'd wandered off at some point, talking with the Mayor now. (Lýna wasn't clear on what a mayor was, but it hadn't seemed important enough to ask.) Perry was huddled with a sizeable group of elves and smaller humans, mostly women and young men, most of them armed with axes and short blades — by the few words Lýna had caught passing by, he was giving tips on how to quickly slip in and out of range.

Which they would have to do. The polearms had the best range, but it wasn't really practical to fight undead with them. Without certain magics available, the only way to dispatch walking corpses was to behead them or set them on fire — spears and the like could cripple them, but not finish them. Their strategy was to use their heavily armored swordsmen to halt the undead advance, the spearmen aiming jabs over their shoulders at joints to weaken them, the people with small arms then slipping through to help dispatch the injured corpses before falling behind the shields when it was time to advance again. That put the people Perry was speaking to at some considerable risk — the spearmen would still be in range to help, and they'd be fighting alongside the swordsmen, but some of themwoulddie.

If Perry could impart even a small part of his talent for dancing through a messy fight without getting himself killed, it would probably do them a fair bit of good. That was probably the best thing he could be doing right now. Passing by, Lýna had just nodded at him and moved on.

(Perry was surprising useful in a fight, really, Lýna hadn't expected that.)

The handful of people practicing with bows, shooting at straw targets with concentric circles sloppily painted on them, were just sad. Lýna had never been particularly impressed with human archers. Humans did have advantages on elves — they were larger and thicker, heavier, more physically powerful, more resistant to injury (particularly broken bones), could maintain their strength longer without sufficient food (though they required more to begin with). But on the other hand, they were slower, and clumsier, both in their balance and their coordination, stiff and inflexible, their endurance wasn't particularly great — Lýna was very surprised and honestly a little impressed Leliana had proven able to keep pace with her — and they hadterribleeyesight, especially in darkness, and their hearing was bad too.

Put all together, humans simply weren't capable of archery anywherenearthe standards Lýna had been trained to, and never would be. It was one area elves would always,alwayshave an edge on humans. In a direct contest of strength, the elf will lose every time; in a blade-to-blade fight, it comes down to skill, and luck; butat range, especially in the cover of the wilds? The human dies, probably without even realizing anyone's out there.

But even by the lax standards of human archers, these were awful. The line of amateurs firing at the targetsclearlyhadn't gotten much training at all, their handling of their weapons uncertain and awkward. Too many flinched as they loosed, shocked by the snapping, some catching their forearms far too badly. Their form wasn't great, too stiff and unmoving, like a tree dead and dried doomed to splinter in the wind. And their aim wasterrible, all over the place, some missing their targets entirely, wood-tipped practice arrows sent tumbling through the alleys of the village, pinging into nearby walls. A couple weren'tcompletelyhopeless, might actually manage to stick a few corpses if they were lucky, but the rest?

It was like watching little children fumble their way around practice bows for the first time. It waspathetic— Lýna almost felt embarrassed just watching them.

And then Leliana joined them. She seemed to appear out of nowhere, separating from the crowd in the square and joining the people practicing at the range so smoothly most of them didn't even know she was there at first. The men (theyweremostly men) spoke with her for a moment, many seeming surprised and confused, Leliana just sweetly smiling at them.

Lýna probably would have guessed before too long that Leliana was a shaman even if she hadn't said anything. There was something about her manner — calm and tranquil, smiling all warm and friendly even when it seemed peculiar in the moment, her tone soft and contemplative and slightly absent — that was so familiar from her experiences with shamans both Avvar and Chasind, it wasobvious. It affected different shamans to greater or lesser degrees, but they all had it, a natural effect of so often hearing whispers from the other side, Lýna thought, leaving them just a little detached from the physical world.

Nottoodetached, of course — there would be no incentive for people to have a shaman around if they didn't stillcareabout the people around them. Not so alien as the spirits themselves, no, just a single step away, enough that anyone who knew what to look for should see it easily enough.

The others (excluding Morrigan)couldn'tsee it, apparently. They all thought Leliana was insane. Which was honestlyveryconfusing, but Lýna just expected Alamarri to be weird and confusing at this point.

...Except, wasn't LelianaalsoAlamarri? See,confusing.

After a moment of chatting, Leliana took a spot on the firing line. The instant she took her stance, Lýna instinctively knew Lelianahadgotten training — she stood easier, looser, standing at a slight angle to the direction of her shot. Part of Lýna — the part of her that had expected to be teaching new hunters one day, and was justembarrassedwitnessing thispatheticperformance — wanted to run up, grab idiots by the hair to turn their eyes on Leliana, yell,Look, see!This is how you stand!Learn it!

Instead, she stayed where she was, hidden at the edge of the crowd nearly out of sight, her lips twitching a little. Plucking a practice arrow out of the bunches stuck into the dirt nearby, Leliana rested the shaft against her wrist, and drew back — and grimaced, her elbow quivering a little, tensing with strain. Assuming Lýna had picked apart the Alamarri correctly, Lelianahadbeen a capable warrior once upon a time, but that had been years ago now. She still knew the forms but she was out of practice with them, her arms weak from disuse.

Though shehadstill managed to keep up, so Lýna wasn't certain how much her skillsreallycould have degraded. Even as Lýna watched, her elbow steadied, the tension in her back easing. She took a breath, a serene stillness falling over her (veryshaman-like), and released — the shot went wide, still hitting the target but high and to the left, enough she'd likely have missed a person completely. Leliana scowled, plucked up another arrow and, the movements smoother and easier this time, loosed again. Her second shot buried itself right in the middle of the target, probably only a few fingers from the center of the painted circles.

Lýna smiled.

Apparently realizing they had someone who actually knew what they were doing, the men swarmed Leliana. Asking her for tips, probably. After getting a couple more shots in, making sure it wasn't just a fluke — and hitting dead in the center with each, of course — she started going through them one by one, prodding at them with a foot or a hand, occasionally slapping one with the shaft of an arrow, fixing their stances. Just that much improved their aim somewhat, but she wasn't finished there — by the gestures she was making, Lýna guessed she was giving more advice on aiming, what wasdefinitelyan explanation of proper follow-through, helping them loosen up a bit so they'd be better able to root themselves on the move. Some minutes of her demonstrations and lecturing, and the amateur archers were hardlyexcellent, but their aim was obviouslymuchless scattered, most all the shots at least hitting the targets now.

Still smiling to herself a little, Lýna turned away, slipping out of the square toward the docks.Thatwas going well, at least. Most of the villagers' haphazard, last-minute instruction in the various weaponry they had to hand was going well...but that didn't mean Lýna was pleased with the preparations, not at all. She still thought they should be building barricades and digging trenches, to keep the undead on the road up to the keep as much as possible.

Lýna had actually suggested fortifying the town — perhaps leave that job entirely to the villagers huddled away in the Chantry — and instead move all of their fighters up the road, wait for nightfall right outside the castle gates. They could meet the undeadright there, push their way through the gates killing as many of the undead as they could on the way.

They didn't actuallyneedto kill them all. After further discussion with Teagan, Alistair had decided they weren't dealing with spirit possession, but direct animation through the vilest of magics — they weren't acting independently, someone was controlling them. (Which at least explained how so many spirits had crossed over all at once: theyhadn't.) The upshot was, if they killed the mage or demon that was controlling them, they should all collapse immediately. Any fortifications they put around the townshouldhold the undead long enough for them to deal with the one responsible, and if not they could always fall back to the Chantry and buy a few more minutes. Seemed the best plan to Lýna.

Her Alamarri being as awkward as it was, Alistair, who'd put together what she was saying first, had needed to explain her idea to the men in charge for her. Fergus had seemed uncertain, but willing to try it. Teagan had refused, insisting he wouldn't abandon the village — he then stubbornly failed to understand her argument that that wasn'tat allwhat she was suggesting. (Even Fergus had seemed a little annoyed with him.) Of course, he'dalsorefused to get the people pointlessly hiding in the Chantry to get out and work on the fortifications, saying instead they should have some of their fighters do it;thatwas just stupid, they clearly needed all the training they could squeeze in in the next few hours. So Lýna had just told them to forget about it, stalked off without another word.

(Honestly, this whole thing was annoying enough without the self-destructive idiotsmaking it harderfor no good reason.)

But Lýna had another idea, one which tookmuchless work to set up. Teagan would probably find some way to mess it up — Fergus seemed reasonable, by Alamarri standards, but Lýna wasnotimpressed with their preferred ally's brother — which was why she didn't plan on telling him at all.

"What are you looking for?"

Lýna was going through the buildings on the docks, searching them one by one. It never took very long, a quick sweep from one end to the other before moving on — she'd know she'd found it when she saw and smelled it. She was on her third building now, but this one was also a bust. Slipping back out the door, walking past Morrigan on the way to the next, she said, "I have an idea to make this stupid mess go much easier."

"Something with more chance of success than throwing untrained farmers at a horde of walking corpses, I trust."

She scoffed. "I'd have to try very hard to be worse at this than that soft-cheeked halfwit Teagan." Pushing another door open, Lýna swept into the little building, frowning into the dusty shadows. "Watching them in a crisis such as this, I can hardly believe the Alamarri have survived this long."

"They were not always so — the Alamarri are cousins to the Chasind, and long ago they were much as we are. They grew as all warrior peoples do, through conquest and alliance, solidified their power in these lands by holding the best farmland and lucrative trade with the north and the west. The wealth they gained from these achievements allowed them to outbreed us — they may have grown soft and lazy, but there are far too many of them for we Chasind or your People to unseat them now."

There were a few words there she hadn't caught (her Chasind was better than her Alamarri, though still not perfect), but she'd gotten the general idea, she thought. This building too coming up empty, Lýna let out a sigh as she passed Morrigan again. "That sounds near on. And they callusrabbits."

Morrigan chuckled. "Yes, quite. Might I know what you're searching for? So long as I'm to be pressed into this distasteful, insulting endeavor, I might as well do something useful with my time."

"There will be much you can help me with in a moment." Lýna pushedyet anotherdoor open, got a single whiff of the air inside. "Ah! Here it is."

It was dark inside, the walls blocking out the sun entirely, but the light spilling around her through the door was more than enough for her to see by. There was plenty of equipment about she didn't recognise — neither the People, Avvar, nor Chasind fished the way Alamarri did — but none of that was particularly important. Lined and stacked against the wall were a dozen barrels, each as high as her waist and as thick around as Alistair. Using her ironwood dagger, Lýna cracked the top of one open, dipped her finger into the fragrant, slick liquid inside.

Fish oil. And there wasa lotof it, the village must have been gathering it for years and years.Perfect.

Morrigan had followed her in this time, skeptically eyeing the barrels. "You intend to make fire traps for the corpses to stumble into?"

"What better to be rid of undead with than fire?" Wiping her fingers off on a nearby bit of cloth hanging on the wall, Lýna slammed the barrel back closed with the silverite-armored back of her hand. Mm, that was still going to leak, they'd have to be careful with that one.

"This is hardly lamp-quality oil — it hasn't been refined nearly enough for such a purpose. It will burn very slow."

"Hot enough to cleanse undead." It didn't take much, really.

"That I do not doubt, but how do you intend to light your traps? Arrows dipped in this will snuff out in flight, and Alim must save his strength for the gate. I cannot cast fire without assuming again my natural form — turning back and forth will exhaust me very quickly."

Well, of course, Lýna was a little surprised Morrigan didn't seem the least bit tired after changing into that huge damn bear evenonce. "We wish to not be flanked by the undead, yes? It seems to me the best way to do that is make sure they have only one direction to go."

"To accomplish that you would have to..." Morrigan trailed off, inhuman golden eyes widening. "Lýna," she purred, her lips tilting into a bloody smirk, "do you intend to set theentire hillside on fire?"

She smiled, as innocently as she could. Probably doing a terrible job of it. "If these idiots won't make barricades of wood, we instead must give them barricades of fire. No?"

Throwing her head back, Morrigan let out a high cackle, her eyes practically sparking with vicious glee. "Oh, Idolike you. Come, let us find some men to carry these cursed things — perhaps Fergus shall be amenable to the idea, he struck me as being not quite so foolish as the rest. His reaction to what we want it for should prove entertaining..."

"On the way you can explain to me what a 'bastard'is. I understood that conversation for the most part, but I have the feeling I was missing something."

Morrigan had time enough before they found Fergus to give an explanation about the intersection of marriage and property, the complex rules of inheritance among the Alamarri, and how, exactly, a person having children by someone who was not their bonded partner could make all of thatmuchmore complicated. By the end, Lýna was onlymoreconfused than she'd started.

She wasnevergoing to understand Alamarri, she just knew it...

[Alim didn't blame him, thatývowel was a bitch] —Let's talk about the elvish vowel system for a bit. More conservative dialects (like Lýna's) tend to have an eight vowels. You have your basic five cardinal vowels, writtena e i o u —theais a back vowel/ɑ/, like in "box" or "hot", and theoisn't diphthongised like in most English dialects. The close-mid/e/(like in "may") is contrasted with an open-mid/ɛ/(like in "bed"), writtenè. (Some dialects will also contrast/o/and/ɔ/, but Lýna's doesn't.) The other two vowels are slightly strange.

The first is writteny, and is an open central vowel. Its exact realization varies a bit, anywhere from/ɐ/to/ə/, and will sometimes absorb lip rounding from the environment, coming out more like/ɞ/. Most of the time, it kind of sounds like the English schwa, just think of it like that and you're fine. The other, writtený, is a close central vowel, the exact realization again depending on the environment somewhat, lowering a little or gaining lip rounding around certain consonants. The plain vowel is/ɨ/, which doesn't really exist as a phoneme in most European languages (except Welsh, because Welsh). It does turn up occasionally as an allophone — it appears in"roses"in my dialect of English, for example.

These last two vowels are one of the major differences between Lýna's elvish and Leliana's elvish. In the Dales, theyhas now merged withaorè(depending on context), andýhas merged withioru, depending on roundness.Later vowel shifts, mirroring the Orlesian spoken in the area, hadushifting to/y/(a front rounded vowel, spelleduin French). So, theyandývowels in Lýna's dialect don't exist in the elvish Leliana learned — for example, she pronounces Lýna's name/ly.na/, as would be spelled "Luna" in French, which is wrong, but close enough Lýna can tell what she's trying to say.

[they'd completely ignored the Orlesians' pleas for aid during the Second Blight] —This is the generally accepted story, and was even used by Orlais as one of their excuses for attacking the Dales not long afterward, but it's not really true. By the time Orlais asked for help, the Dalish were already themselves repelling darkspawn invasions from the east and the south, as well as trying to keep peace between their people and the mostly Avvar refugees fleeing ahead of the darkspawn. (Fun fact: the Dales had a sizeable human minority, mostly people descended from slaves in old Tevinter but also many Avvar, and some of the elves who fled after the Orlesian invasion ended up becoming Avvar instead of wandering Dalish — there are elvish Avvar clans in the Frostbacks to this day.) They didn't join the rest of the world dealing with the Second Blight because they had their own mess at home to deal with.

[she'd been left in the dungeons below the Winter Palace] —The events of Leliana's Song have been moved to Halamshiral. This does require alterations of major details, but it makes far more sense — if nothing else, the Revered Mother of Valence would have little reason to be in Denerim.

[elves and humans couldn't have children together] —The tendency for people in fantasy and science fiction whoshouldn'tbe able to breed nonetheless doing it anyway is one of my pet peeves, so I'm axing that entirely. The exception are dwarves and humans, as well as male elves with female kossith (the reverse always ends in miscarriage), but these children are always sterile and often plagued with serious health issues (especially the elf/kossith ones). There are a few things that need to be changed due to this little worldbuilding detail, probably the largest being Enchanter Fiona is human now — if you don't know why, it'll come up eventually.

As long as we're talking about significant changes from the canon worldbuilding, the bit about Dalish only allowing so many mages in a clan is not a thing. Personally, the first time I stumbled on that I called bullsh*timmediately, for reasons Lýna just explained:[the People considered magic to be a part of their heritage, a remnant of their lost past they did everything they could to preserve]. The idea that the Dalish should have the same fear/caution around magic everyone else does is just ludicrous. I mean, we're told theirleaders are mages, honestly...

Mages do get traded between clans a lot. That's not to prevent a clan from having too many, but to make sure everyone has enough — every clan requires a bare minimum of two, the Keeper and their First, and preferably a Second (an heir and a spare). Magic tends to run in families, so it's not unusual for certain clans to have more mages, who sometimes leave for clans who have fewer for whatever reason. Lýna's clan only had their Keeper, so Merril was sent to them; inversely, the Lavèlã have several, one of them is even Elana's baby cousin. (Yes, Ellana Lavellan does exist in this fic, though she's only like five or six right now.) In fact, the Lavèlã have enough extra they're going to send two to replace Merril when they realize their new neighbors' only mage is their Keeper.

Because, of course the Dalish don't think havingmoremages is a problem. Also, if there are more around they feel less alone, and are under less pressure to do all the magic for the clan...so, the stress that might lead to them becoming abominations isreduced? Seems obvious to me...

That's enough rambling, I think. Bioware is silly sometimes, moving on.

Chapter 11: The Arl of Redcliffe — II

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 19

Southern Amaranthine Ocean

It didn't take Marian very long to decide that she hated boats.

The Chasind witch who was probably an abomination and apparentlythe actual legendary Flemethhad somehow managed to teleport them across a couple hundred milesinstantly— Marian suspected it'd involved crossing the Veil at some point...or maybe just skimming along it? She wasn't certain, there'd been color flying all over the place, and it'd made herverydizzy, Marian hadn't been able to tell what was happening. One second, they were in the Southron Hills just outside Lothering, the next they were in the hinterlands of the Teyrnir of Gwaren, only a few hours' walk from the city itself.

Flemeth had just pointed in the direction of the city, visible only as a dim collection of flickering lights low on the horizon, and told them to go. They hadn't needed telling twice.

Marian was pretty sure long-distance transportation magic was supposed to beimpossible— the Imperium had had to build all those bloody roads for a reason. Of course, being able to turn into ahuge f*ck-all dragonwas also, well. She didn't want to try theterrifyinglypowerful mage's patience lingering after she'd been shooed off, and apparently everyone else hadverymuch agreed.

Gwaren was the largest city Marian had ever set foot in, the only place really deserving of being called one, and also the oldest and the wealthiest. After taking a quick nap on the roadside, Bethany filled their ears with stories she'd heard about the city (mostly from Leliana) — apparently, it had originally been built as a dwarven outpost long ago, before the Imperium had even stretched this far south, the dwarves' primary access to the sea trade lanes. When the dwarven kingdoms fell apart in the early years of the First Blight, the subterranean half of the city had been abandoned, its residents coming up to mix with the humans and elves on the surface.

Which she guessed explained howweirdthe city looked. It was damnhuge, yes — buildings and buildings and buildings andmorebuildings, the city had to be a mile across, which wasridiculous— but while the wooden homes and shops and such stretching out from the center in a random, tangled mess seemed perfectly normal, pluck one out and drop it in Lothering and it wouldn't seem out of place — though, they did have tall, pointed roofs, she assumed they got more snow around here — the city center itself was...odd. Stone, some of it pale granite and some reddish-yellowish sandstone, made all in sweeping lines and arcing curves, looking strangely fluid and graceful considering it was all made out ofsolid rock.

From a distance, Marian had recognised a number of thin, needle-like towers, their edges hard-angled and almost crooked-looking —thatwas definitely Tevinter sh*t, which did make sense, the cityhadbeen around back then. Under them, what Marian had taken to be oddly even little hills not far from the shore, covered in tile, at second glance were actually more buildings, their roofs looking like bowls set down on their rim. That was... No, thatcouldn'tbe right. Even if they could shape stone to make a curved ceiling like that, how would they prop it up? No, she must be imagining it, must be something else going on there.

Walking through the city was sort of miserable. The outer city didn't look much different from Lothering, the buildings packed a bit closer together, and obviously there were many,manymore of them. (Also, much less friendly — nobody called out to them at all, which wasweird. Travellers walking through Lothering would always get stopped bysomeonefor a chat, unless they looked particularly scary...which she guessed they sort of did, three of the five of them armed and armored and streaked with ash and darkspawn blood...) More or less familiar, anyway. The smell was new, though, that wasawful. She guessed with all these people in here, their sh*t (both metaphoricallyandliterally) had nowhere to go, so, thatdidmake sense. She still rushed them through as quickly as possible though, because,ugh.

And peoplechoseto live here? Maybe you got used to it...

The inner city was...lessfamiliar. Completely alien, really. The streets were paved with stone, the bricks fitted together in complex, interlocking shapes, all the homes and warehouses and...guildhalls? Marian wasn't entirely certain what aguildhalleven was, but that's what the signs on the outsides said. Anyway, they were allhuge, some of them striking her as sprawling palaces, larger even than the Bann's estate up by the Highway. And there were metal accents on things here and there, gleaming silver and bronze and gold, sometimes shiny enough the glare from the sun hurt her eyes, there was glasseverywhere. Decorative, yes, stained a rainbow of colors and fitted together into murals of all sorts, but there were alsowindows. Marian hadheardof glass windows before, but she'd never actuallyseenone — glass clear enough for the purpose wasextremelyexpensive, not something anyone in Lothering or even Redcliffe could ever afford. But it wasall overthe place! Marian had thought at first a lot of these buildings just had holes cut into them, which seemed a foolish thing to do, given the wind cutting through the streets, constant and heavy with water and salt, but eventually she noticed the shimmer of sunlight reflecting off of them, it wasglass, so pure she'd hardly even noticed it was there, and there wasso muchof it...

Also? Those inverted bowls reallywerethe roofs of buildings, a whole bunch of them not far from the dockyard, the edges traced with complex swirls and figures of bronze, stained glass lining the walls beneath. That... How did theydothat?! Marian was tempted to try to see if she could get inside one of them, just to see how the roof was propped up, because she was pretty sure that shouldn't be possible, and also they weremuchlarger than she'd thought from the hills outside, could probably fit the Chantry back in Lothering in some of them, and, just,HOW?!

Probably not a good idea, though. Even just walking into the inner city they'd nearly been stopped, a few heavily-armed men in the yellow and black of the Teyrnir asking them what they thought they were doing here — if Aveline hadn't handled it, Marian didn't know if she would have been able to talk their way out, might have gotten ugly. Trying to force her way into one of these things to see how their roofs worked probably wouldn't go over well.

Besides, Gwaren wasold, this might well be Tevinter construction. They were probably magic.

The dockyards also smelled pretty bad, but a more salty, fishy kind of smell, which was somewhat more tolerable...and also confusingly familiar. People back in Lothering did do a little fishing on the river, but not at any kind of scale, nothing that would produce a stench like this. She knew Redcliffe was on Lake Calenhad, but she didn't remember living there, not really — she'd been very young when they'd moved to Lothering, she had only the vaguest impressions of anything before that. Also, they hadn't lived in town, she didn't think? But she couldn't figure where else she would have been around anything like this. Hmm.

Also? The ocean was f*ckingbig. As soon as they'd gotten around the warehouses and things, stepping out onto the edges of the dockyard, their view mostly uninterrupted save for a few sails here and there, Marian had frozen, just staring out over the water — and she wasn't the only one either, she was pretty sure both of the twins had a similar reaction. A deep greenish-blue, sunlight sparkling off the undulating surface, stretching on and on and on, andon. Marian had an odd moment of vertigo, the way the water seemed to rise to meet the horizon an impossible distance away, fuzzy and indistinct, it lookedhigherthan the shore, her head swimming as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at...

Obviously, Marian would never have seen the ocean before — she'd been born in Redcliffe, had spent most of her life in Lothering, had ranged as far south as Ostagar and as far east as South Bend, and that was really it. The largest body of water she'd ever seen was Lake Calenhad, but she didn't really remember that. There was a finger of the lake that stretched east only a few miles short of the Crossroads, Marian had been there with Father once (though so long ago she couldn't remember why). She knew she'd swum in the lake there, which was the largest body of water she actuallyremembered, but that little bit of it wasn't so big, small enough she could see the opposite shore no problem. Kind of fuzzy and gray with distance, yes, but still definitely visible.

This wasn't like that. Just, in all directions,everywhere, it was...

Big. It was big.

(Marian tried not to think about it.)

It was, surprisingly, not difficult at all to find someone willing to bring them north. After only maybe an hour of asking around, she managed to find someone to take them up to Denerim. They were hauling a bunch of things up the coast, most of the cargo the same apple vinegar Marian traded for with Cenna. It was one of the more valuable trades coming out of Gwaren, she knew, supposedly the sh*t was all over the place throughout Ferelden and the Free Marches. This ship would be going up to Denerim, where they'd sell the vinegar and whatever else they could offload, use the coin to buy up a bunch of wool sourced from the sheep raised in the Bannorn, and then come back to sell it here. They were more than willing to take five passengers along for the ride, especially if they were being paid for it.

Marian left the negotiations up to Aveline — she knew absolutely nothing about these things, couldn't begin to guess what would be fair. Even after Aveline negotiated the captain — a big, barrel-chested man with a scraggly, gray-threaded beard, named Osik (wasn't that an Avvar name?) — down to two silvers for the lot of them, Marian didn't quite hide a wince. That was kind of alotof money in Lothering...but Lothering didn't reallyusemuch coin, just in general. Between themselves, the people in the area would swap a thing they had for a thing they needed someone else had, made deals and traded favors, which got everyone by just fine. Coin was mostly only used for outside trade — which everyone did need to do alittlebit of, since they couldn't make everything they needed in Lothering, but that didn't come out to very much for most people.

Two silvers was more than she'd spent all at once in herentire life. Or, notreally, but if she was buying something she was almost always also selling something, she usually came out ahead, so it certainlyseemedlike it. They had roughly a whole sovereign on them, but still...

Trying not to cringe, Marian had handed the man a silver, telling him he'd get the other when they arrive. Thankfully, Osik hadn't taken that personally, just chuckled a bit and told them to be ready to go by high-tide. (He'd conveniently pointed at the spot in the sky the sun should be at when they all looked uncertain.) Once he was gone, Aveline had handed her a smaller silver coin to cover her share, though it took Marian a second to recognize it — it was a half-shilling. Marian hardly ever saw them, she preferred to gather the full silvers, just because it was easier to count if all her coins had the same value. That made Marian feel alittleless uncomfortable, so.

That was also the first that Aveline had indicated she was coming with them, at least as far as Denerim. Though Marian wasn't surprised — she was pretty sure Aveline was headed to Denerim, so she could go back to doing her duty serving the Queen. Marian had expected her to tag along at least that far.

Now, well, they'd just have to see now.

They'd been on the water for a couple days now, and Marian had hated absolutely every single second of it. There was no privacy to speak of, which clearly bothered Bethany and Mother, but Marian didn't really care so much. It wasn't like there was really any privacy at home either (or at Ostagar, of course). These were strangers, sure, but Osik's men were friendly and polite enough. Honestly, it wasn't any worse than the times she'd gone swimming in the river back when she'd been a kid — better, really, since it wasn't like she was planning on getting completely naked here or anything. There were always people around, and yes, relieving herself was slightly embarrassing, but she wasn't that bothered, really.

Actually, it wasbetterthan Ostagar, in some ways. At least none of the sailors had tried to hit on her yet.

(The way Carver stuck close to Bethany at all times, presumably to make sure none of the sailors got it in their heads to try anything, was really quite adorable.Honestly, Carver, she was a mage, she could blow up the whole ship if she wanted to...)

No, instead it was just horribly cold, andwet, Maker, she didn't know it was possible to feel this wet all the time. Not, like, soaked through, like it were raining or something — that she'd be able to deal with, just put up her rain-blocking spell, or suffer it as she had when she was a kid before she figured it out. Fine. But it was just a...constant, low-leveldampnessthat she couldn't avoid, her underclothes and her hair sticking to her skin, the leather in her (sort of stolen?) armor squeaking whenever she moved, and she felt cold and clammy and gross everywhere,constantly, it was awful.

If she didn't have magic, she suspected she would have ended uptoocold at some point. She'd been keeping a close eye on Mother and Carver and Aveline just in case.

Also, everything keptmoving, all the time. It hadn't bothered her at first — there'd been a brief moment of disorientation when the ship had first started moving off the pier, her mind taking a second to make sense of the city slowly sliding away, but she'd adapted quickly. Bethany was completely miserable, they'd only been on the water for a few minutes before she retreated belowdecks, and even then the gentle rocking of the waves had her terribly dizzy, she laid down on her bunk rather than attempt to walk without falling over. (Which made Carver's self-appointed mission of following her aroundmucheasier.) So long as they'd been in the harbor Marian had felt fine,somewhatuncomfortable, but certainly not debilitatingly nauseous...

...but then, some hours before sunset still, they'dleftthe harbor. The waves out on the open sea, even this close to the shore, came higher and faster, the ship tilting and rolling andcreakingaround them. Not only were the noises the ship made as the water tossed it aroundseriouslyunnerving — Marian was repeatedly struck with a paranoid certainty that the damn thing was breaking apart around them — but the constant, randommovingmade herterriblysick. It'd come as enough of a surprise that she'd barely made it to the edge of the ship in time to avoid hurling all over the deck, and after her stomach was emptied she'd felt less sick, but notbetter, exactly — without Aveline's help, she wasn't certain she'd have been able to stagger her way down to the bunks set aside for them, her head was spinning just too damn much.

Carver seemed to find it funny, that the mages were so badly affected and they ordinary mortals were just fine. After his teasing had gone on too long, Bethany had kicked him in the side, but Marian hadn't enough energy to do anything more than flip him off, and beg for the sweet release of unconsciousness.

(Not that she managed it, she'd barely slept since they'd gotten on this damn thing.)

Their first full day out, they'd passed through a storm. It was practically always raining along the east coast of the country, so Osik had expected they would. He hadn't warned her just how f*ckingawfulit would be. The inside of the ship somehow getting even colder and wetter than it'd been before, the rocking gotmuchworse, occasionally a hard thrum running through the ship as they hit a wave at an odd angle, suddenly tossing them one direction or another. Several times she heard somethingsomewhereknocked loose, the sailors yelling at each other to firm up one thing or another, occasionally laughing and joking with each other, because they were clearly allf*cking madmen.

Aveline had gone out to help a little — she didn't know any more about sailing than Marian did, but she was more than strong enough to lend a hand here or there — but Marian and her family had spent the whole time hunkered down belowdecks, all of them completely miserable. The storm was enough that Mom had been getting sea-sickness too, and even Carver a bit (though never bad enough to make him sick up, the lucky little sh*t). That would be bad enough, but the f*ckingnoise, the groaning and the cracking had beenfartoo much, Bethany had clung to Carver, her face pressed against his shirt for hours, refusing to let go, Marian curled up on her bunk, Father's coat wrapped around her head, her arms squeezing it tight around her, trying to muffle out the noise, praying for this stupid bundle of sticks to hold itself together...

Now, the sea was calmer, just little lapping waves like what there'd been back by Gwaren. They'd come into the Firth of Drakon earlier in the day, though it'd still taken a while for Marian to recover at least a little, enough to stumble her way up. Leaning weakly against the rail ringing the deck, Marian looked out over the water toward Denerim.

She'd never seen the capital before, but of course she hadn't — Marian had never been this far north in her life. She didn't think Mom had ever been to Denerim either, when she and Dad had run away to Ferelden they'd made for Redcliffe by way of West Hill and the River Dane, they'd never gotten any further east than Lothering. None of her family had been to Denerim, which was somewhat unusual among even the people of their village. It was, supposedly, the birthplace of Andraste, it was a tradition going back who even knew how long for everybody to make a pilgrimage to the city at least once in their life, which was much easier for people who lived as close as Lothering to do than it was for people in say, northern Orlais, or something. But, travel like that wasn't agreatidea with young children, and now... Well, the only one of them who was particularly religious was Bethany, and she had plenty of time to do that kind of thing on her own later if she really wanted to.

Marian had no idea why she'd want to do such a thing, though. She'd spoken to people who'd made the pilgrimage before, and most had admitted to it being a disappointment. Nothing in the city remained from the time of Andraste — of course, that had been over a thousand years ago, not much lasted that long. (Fort Drakon pre-dated Andraste, she guessed, but no Chantry pilgrim was coming to see that.) Therehadbeen a very impressive cathedral in the city once upon a time, supposedly holding relics of some of Andraste's first disciples in its catacombs, but it'd been damaged in a civil war and thenentirelyruined during the Orlesian invasion, the relics mostly lost in the chaos. The Orlesians had decided to rebuild the Cathedral of Our Lady Redeemer in Amaranthine, claiming it was a better place for such a thing, considering it had been Andraste's city more than Denerim — Andraste's husband had been an early Avvar arl, Amaranthine the heart of his kingdom, her first sermons had been given there.

That Amaranthine happened to be the city the Orlesians had decided to rule Ferelden from was just a happy coincidence, Marian guessed.

The point was, Denerim might be the capital city, but it wasn't really anything more than that — a city. It wasbig, obviously, even bigger than Gwaren. Marian couldn't see in much detail from here, floating a mile or two out on the water, but the northern city, on the right side of the river, sprawled out like a dirty brown-gray bruise, the streets making random crosses and curls, hundreds and hundreds of buildings of all shapes and sizes, blurring into an indistinct mess from this distance. The left side was less flat, ascending the slope of a hill leading to the enormous blocky shape of Fort Drakon, the tower stretching up to the sky, dwarfing everything else around, even the sunburst of the Chantry across the river looking like a couple little pins stuck into the fabric of the city by comparison. That half of the city, the buildings looked large, mostly made of stone, and more colorful, but Marian really couldn't make out much from here.

They weren't getting closer, she'd noticed. And they weren't the only ones, there were what had to be dozens of ships just sitting out in the harbor, masts looking weird and skeletal without their sails flying. Just...waiting.

A little skimmer had come up to them a while ago, shouting up at Osik and his men, before peeling off again. There'd been some discussion, the sailors clearly deciding what to do. And then they were running off getting to work, the sails unfurling, and the ship slowly jerked into motion...

...turningawayfrom the city.

As soon as the pack of sailors around Osik had cleared up a bit, Marian sidled up to him, asked him what was happening. She listened, grimly, for a minute or two before agreeing, yes, they were perfectly fine with going on to Amaranthine instead, she wasn't going to hold out his second silver on him. (Especially since they were goingfurther, that would be a kind of sh*tty thing to do.) Except, they were going to have to go through the Straights of Alamar, that was going to beterrible— she grimaced at the thought, Osik just laughed at her. But fine, sure, she was fine with that.

Except, now she had to have a talk with Aveline. This was going to be fun...

Since Marian was kind of working on a deadline — as soon as they got too far away from the city, deeper out of the Firth, she'd be completely useless from sea-sickness again — she started looking for Aveline right away. She'd expected to find her helping the sailors again, so it took some minutes before she finally spotted the knight below-decks, sitting alone in the middle of the cargo hold, her bag at her feet...writing? Yes, she was definitely writing, a rough, somewhat sloppy-looking leather-bound book laid out in her lap, scratching at it with a little pointed length of charcoal. (Or, probably notactuallycharcoal, it justsort oflooked like it, Marian didn't know the proper term.) That was...odd. Also, seemed somewhat impractical — she'd think all the dampness everywhere would just make the paper all soft and useless, the charcoal washed out of it. But okay.

Shaking the thought off, Marian walked over, plopped down on a nearby barrel of something (mead, she thought). She glanced around quick to make sure they were alone, then cast a narrow chink of fadelight over her book — there were lamps around, but it was rather dark, Aveline should barely be able to see what she was doing.

The woman startled, glanced up at her. "Oh, thank you, Marian." She sounded sincere enough, but she didn't keep writing, folded the book closed and leaned back a bit. Must be private, whatever that was. "Are we finally coming in to harbor? I thought I felt the ship start moving again a moment ago."

"Yeah, that's what I'm here to talk to you about." Marian paused a moment, giving the older woman a quick once over. (Though she couldn't bethatmuch older than Marian,maybeas old as thirty, but she kind of doubted it.) After a couple hours at sea, Aveline had stripped off her armor, stashing it under her bunk, leaving her in tight-fitting leather trousers and a linen shirt. Without it, it was even more obvious it wasn't just her armor making her look it, Aveline was a big woman. Only a few inches taller than Marian, she was alotthicker, probably the single most muscular woman Marian had ever met. Not nearly as burly as some men she'd seen, of course, but for a woman it was still... Well, she could probably kill Marian with her bare hands, just leave it at that.

She'd caught Carver sneaking glances at her, which was understandable, she guessed. Did nothing for Marian, though.

(Of course, the only person who everhaddone anything for her had been aDalish elf girl, which wasn't something she wanted to think about right now. Or possibly ever.)

When she wasn't helping out somewhere on the boat, Aveline had mostly been hanging around the family — she talked quietly with Mom (they got on surprisingly well), or shared stories of her time with the Kingsmen to distract Bethany from her misery. She...seemedto be doing okay? Marian had never seen Aveline beingobviouslymiserable, she meant. She was alwaysdoingsomething, not sinking into that empty listlessness like Mom had after Dad died, or talking tosomeone, always perfectly calm, her voice firm but kind. Besides those few tears she'd spotted back immediately after putting her husband out of his misery, Marian didn't think she'd seen Aveline cry, or even seemmildlyout of sorts.

Though, she didn't spendallof her time around them, she did disappear for a bit here and there. She was probably just keeping her grief to herself.

The point was, she seemed mostly fine, which was good, because Marian had no idea how she'd react if Marian asked if she was okay. It wasn't like they werefriends, after all, they hardly knew each other, and Aveline came off very stiff and formal, so. Yes, good. "Ah, we're not stopping in Denerim. Osik decided to move on to Amaranthine."

Aveline's only reaction was to raise both of her eyebrows a little. After a couple seconds, she said, in that low, smooth voice of hers, "I see. Did the Captain explain to you why he changed his plans on us?"

"His plans sort of got changed for him." Marian hesitated for a second. "This might be...not fun to hear. Just, before we get into it, everyone's fine. No, I mean,obviouslynoteveryoneis fine, but the Queen is safe, is what I meant."

A suspicious frown narrowed Aveline's brow at that — since, if she thought it necessary to reassure her the Queen was fine,somethingbad must have happened. "Just tell me, Hawke."

Thatstill sounded weird, Marian was used to "Hawke" being her father. Aveline was really the only person who'd ever called her that, a couple times back running from the darkspawn...and also a couple times when she was annoyed with her. Right. "Okay, then: there was a peasant uprising in Denerim a week ago."

Aveline winced. "Ah. So they're searching all the ships coming in and out, then."

"Yeah. And since so much trade comes through Denerim, that's alotof searching to do. Especially since a lot of their men are tied up in the city making sure nobody tries anything." The impression Osik had been given was that there were still some people trying to fight, which was pretty crazy — when peasant rebellions went down, they usually went downhard. Apparently, the people of Denerim had some serious fire in their blood, if they were still fighting back. "People in little boats are going out and explaining the situation to everyone, and Osik was told it could be a couple days before we can even get to shore. We can get to Amaranthine faster than that, and he can do all his trading just as good there anyway."

"That does make sense. Amaranthine is only a few days' walk from Denerim — it's inconvenient, but I'll make do."

"Yes, well, there's more." Marian paused for a moment, biting her lip. She didn't understand a lot of what was going on — and Osik hadn't been able to tell her much anyway — but she was pretty sure Aveline wasnotgoing to like this. "Something happened to the Arl of Denerim's family, I don't really know what." Maybe related to that peasant rebellion? "Rendon Howe is running things until the Landsmeet can pick a new one."

Aveline grimaced, a dark cast falling over her face. "Putting him in charge of the capital in the aftermath of a peasant uprising is very foolish. Arl Rendon is... He had a hard go of it in the Rebellion, and I'm told he hasn't been the same man since. I fear he will only make things worse."

Yes, Marian had heard the same rumors — though not until Ostagar, people in Lothering had little reason to gossip about the local lords of a place so distant as Amaranthine. Of course, since Avelinehadbeen serving the King directly, she'd probably met the man before, she would know better than the people spreading the rumors. "That's Osik's feeling, another reason to go to Amaranthine instead. There was another bit of news, though, our brave Captain didn't know enough to get the significance of it."

"Spit it out, Hawke."

"Sure: Teyrn Loghain was named Regent, he's ruling in the Queen's name."

Aveline went very,verystill. "Loghain rules Ferelden."

"Yes."

For long seconds, Aveline didn't say or do anything, sitting there silent and unmoving. It took a bit for Marian to realize it wasn't shock, or something — no, Aveline was frozen withrage. Her hands in her lap had tightened into fists, her shoulders rigid, barely visible in the darkness the tendons in her neck sticking out, clenching her jaw. She just glared at the wall, steely with quiet fury, almost seeming to hold her breath.

...Honestly, Marian had expected an explosion. Which was really quite silly when she thought about it, she'd had noreasonto expect that, Aveline had never given any sign that she was ever anything but entirely in control of herself. Even when she was clearlymurderouslyenraged, here she sat, quiet and...mostlycalm, and...

Scary lady, this one. That's all she meant, that it was, just, vaguely intimidating, sitting next to Aveline while her entire life imploded and she just...calmly simmered. It might not be so bad if she hadn'talsoseen Aveline fight,Maker...

Of course, when shewasn'tangry, chatting with Mother or sharing stories with the twins, or even just walking through the streets of Gwaren, standing next to Aveline made Marian feel rather stupid and clumsy,verymuch the...poor, classless farmer she was, she guessed. Which was a different kind of intimidation she guessed, so, not anunusualfeeling. Still.

(She kind of hated it, if she was being honest, but that wasn't really Aveline's fault, she was trying not to hold it against her. Marian hadn't exactly spent a lot of time around people who wereliterallyfrom the royal court in Denerim, she wasn't used to people this...classy. She'd get over it.)

Marian was drawn out of her thoughts when Aveline finally spoke. "I can't go back to Denerim, then. Loghain will have me killed if I show my face there. I do have friends in the city that I could try to find, but..." Aveline sighed, absently rubbing at the side of her head. "And do what, organize a conspiracy to remove him from power? I wouldn't even know where to start. I expect I would only get myself and all my friends killed."

That seemed very likely, yes — Aveline wasn't a schemer, Marian didn't think. Too honorable. "I'm sorry." That seemed...terribly inadequate, but she didn't know what else to say. Mostly just so Aveline wouldn't have to find some way to respond to that, Marian asked, "So, what are you going to do now? You said you were from...West Hill, was it? That's a little further from Amaranthine than Denerim, I think, but..."

Aveline sighed. "No, I haven't been back there in years. My family returned to Orlais after the Rebellion — my father and I were the only ones who stayed behind, and he died several years ago now. There's no place for me in West Hill anymore." There was a brief silence, in which Marian almost heard an unspokenThere's no place for me inFereldenanymore. "I'll have to...think about it. When did Osik say we'll be in Amaranthine?"

"Tomorrow. Maybe the next day, if the winds catch us bad."

"I'll have time to think about it, then." Her bit of not-charcoal pulled out from somewhere and — after a quick glance at Marian, probably checking she couldn't read it from this angle — she peeled her book open, splaying it across her lap. "Could you put that light on again?" Marian had let her light spell lapse a while ago, she hadn't been paying attention to it. "It is dark in here, and I'm guessing it's only going to be darker on the Storm Coast."

She didn't doubt it, supposedly they never got any damn sun up there. "I could. I'm pretty sure I can't hold it through walls though, so I'd have to stay here."

"Never mind, then."

"I wasn't saying I wouldn't do it, just not sure you want me hanging around when you're trying to do...whatever you're doing. What is that, anyway?"

Aveline glanced up, her lips twitching a little. "Haven't you ever seen anyone keep a diary, Hawke?"

"Um...no? What's a diary?" At the surprised look on the knight's face, Marian rolled her eyes. "I grew up in Lothering, Aveline. There aren't exactly a lot of books around — my parents are literally the only people I knew growing up who owned any." Excluding the Chantry and the Bann, obviously, they didn't count. "If it's a writing...thing only big hats do, I'm not likely to have heard of it."

There was a slight scoff at the low-class term, but Aveline nodded. "I'm sorry, I didn't think of that. It's a practice of organizing your thoughts in written form. It can help you see patterns or work out complicated problems, or just to record events in more detail than you could remember later on. It's quite common among people of means, I picked it up at court."

...That seemed absurdly indulgent — books wereexpensive. But all right. "Okay, no, I've never heard of that before. I kept a book back home, but that was just to help keep track of the trades I was doing." And most of that was just names, tally marks, and numbers, so.

"That's called a ledger."

"Sure." Honestly, Marian didn't give a sh*t what the 'proper' term was. It wasn't like anyone hadtaughther to do it, with fancy words attached to the whole thing, just something she'd figured out herself to keep everything straight. "Anyway, I can stay here and keep the lights on for you, if you like. You'll have to carry me back to my bunk, though — I have the feeling the Straights of Alamar are going to bemiserable."

Aveline smiled, just a little. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

"You don't have to. It's not like I have anything else to do." Besides, shedidkind of owe her — Marian wasn't certain they would have survived long enough for Flemeth to swoop in and save their asses without Aveline's help. At theveryleast, they would have had to leave Mom behind, and maybe Carver too...and getting Bethany to agree to fly off without them would have been impossible, so.

Marian didn't even want to think about that.

She cast a chink of fadelight again, after a moment of thought binding it to the book. As narrowly-focused as the glow was, she wasn't even certain it'd be visible from the other side of the hold, which was good for reasons of not getting caught out for an apostate while in the middle of the damn ocean, and it should follow the pages if Aveline moved around. But, "It might stick to the pages, if it's not still lit up right when you turn to the next one tell me and I'll recast it."

Aveline hardly reacted to the sudden appearance of magical light at all, just gave her a firm nod. "I understand. Thank you, Marian."

"No problem." Fadelight hardly took any effort to cast, it wasn't like it was a big ask...

Marian slid down to the floor to lay down on her back, wooden boards hammered smooth by the passing of hundreds of feet and weight of who knew how many loads of whatever to be shipped around. Once they got onto open water, she wouldn't want to be sitting up anymore anyway — besides, despite how cold and vaguely damp it was, it was comfortable enough. She stared up at the murky ceiling, the faint greenish glow barely visible above her to her left, Aveline slowly scratching at the page in silence.

She made it a few minutes before her itching curiosity got the better of her. "You know, no one's ever, just, casually asked me to do something little. Like cast a light for them, I mean."

"No? Not even your family?"

"Nope." Of course, they didn't really need to, Marian or Bethany took care of most anything Mom or Carver would ask for on their own anyway. "A few people have found me out before, but... Well, you seem unusually comfortable with magic, is what I guess I'm saying."

"You're wondering what I think about you and your sister being apostates," Aveline said, an almost sly sort of drawl on her voice.

"Yeah, I guess, if you want to be blunt about it."

"I see." Aveline was silent a moment — Marian couldn't see her face right now, but she assumed it was hesitation, picking over how she wanted to word something. Or, come to think of it, taking care not to say something cruel, worried she might get a lightning bolt in her face if what she said was taken badly. (She'd rarely dealt with people who knew what she was, but she hadn't forgotten how silly the Warden recruits had been about her and Alim.) "Honestly, I'm not sure what I think about it. I have met mages before, but I never knew any of them very well. And none of them were apostates."

Meaning she only had what the Chantry said about magic to go on, and whatever her Templar husband might have told her. Not likely to be a charitable perspective, then.

"I'll admit what I've been told is...not flattering." Called it. "But that doesn't mean I... My father used to say that words are fluid things, malleable in a way the world is not. That what is said of a time or a place or a man might be very different from the reality. Rumors might have a grain of truth in them, but it's foolish to judge a man entirely on what you are told — instead, watch him, and let him show you who he is by his actions."

That seemed like common sense to Marian — she'd even heard a dozen little proverbs from one person or another over the years that said more or less the same thing, and here Aveline was quoting her father like it was some great secret wisdom he'd passed down to her. But, who knows, maybepeople of meansneeded to be told these things. "So my actions don't match the stories, then."

Aveline snorted. "You know the things people say about apostates. Listen to the Chantry, and you might think they're all going around practicing blood magic and consorting with demons."

"You're not watching me all the time," Marian teased, smirking up at the ceiling. "Maybe I do exactly those things."

"I don't believe it for a second. All I've seen of you, Marian, is an honest woman trying to do her best by her family. And Bethany is such a sweet girl. I can't imagine either of you doing something so horrible as blood magic."

Joke's on her: Marian hadtaughtBethany blood magic, so they'ddefinitelyboth used it. Not the sort of thing Aveline imagined when she thought ofblood magic, but still.

"Leandra assured me your father was Circle-trained, and did his best to make sure you would be safe, and that you passed his lessons on to Bethany." Oh, had she? Marian had completely missed that conversation happening somehow. "So, I'm not sure. Am I uneasy travelling in the company of apostates? A little. Magicisdangerous. But so is a blade, and no man is held accountable for every atrocity committed by the sword simply for carrying one. Your actions so far have shown me no reason to distrust you, so I'm trying not to.

"I have no plans to turn you in to the first Templar we come across, if that's what you're worried about."

She had been, a little bit. After all, this woman hadmarrieda Templar, she'd expect Aveline's loyalties to be more with them than Marian and her sister, two strangers she just happened to meet on the road. Sure, those two strangershadsaved her life, but still. "Okay, I get it. You can relax, Aveline, I'm not going to set you on fire for being a little awkward about this."

"Oh good, glad to hear it. Being set on firewouldput a damper on our friendship, you know."

"Ha! Yeah, let's avoid that. Anyway, it's just as weird for me as it is for you, honestly, before Ostagar I've never really been around people who knew I was a mage. Other than my family, obviously."

"Really? I'd think that'd be hard to hide in a place like Lothering."

"Oh, we didn't live in the village — our land is a few miles east, right on the edge of the Bannir. There are these little hills all around, breaks line of sight with the surrounding farms, if we're doing small stuff. If we wanted to practice big stuff, we'd go out into the hills. During a storm, preferably."

"That makes sense. Even so, you must have been very careful to go that long without being discovered. I can't imagine how—"

The only warning Marian had was a slight shiver running through the floor, and then it canted under her, first one way and then the other, the frame of the ship creaking around her. Her stomach immediately lurching, a wave of nauseatingly warm tingles rushing across her skin, Marian grimaced. "Andraste have mercy, not again..."

Aveline laughed.

9:30 Nubulis 17

Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

As the sun dipped below the hills to the west, the defenders gathered on the road outside the lodge, at the edge of the village. And they waited for the attack to come.

Lýna did her best to conceal her annoyance. She still thought gathering here, waiting for the dead to come down to them instead of meeting them at the gates, was a stupid idea. She didn't much like the plan in general. But there was only so much she could do about that when the people making decisions wouldn't listen to her. She lead the Wardens, sure — the only one who might not follow was Keran, but she could tell joining forces with the villagers was getting her more on-side, so that might change soon — but everybody else followed Teagan. And Teagan, Lýna was now thoroughly convinced, was an idiot.

Not in terms the Alamarri would use — she had no doubt he knew all the things these bann people (she still wasn't clear on what a bann or an arl was) were supposed to know, had almost certainly read more books than Lýna had ever even seen. But Lýna had the very clear feeling Teagan had never lead his people into battle before this thing with the dead, had probably never been in a serious fight in his life. And it showed.

But she'd done all she could to fill in the gaps Teagan missed in his ignorance, all she could think of in the time she had. And she was out of time to agonize over it. All that was left to do was to carry it out, to push their way through who knew how many walking corpses and take out the mage or spirit causing this mess.

Fighting, at least, was something she was very good at.

The humans and dwarves (mostly) shifted around her, some rather more nervously than others. She barely stopped herself from throwing an irritated glare at a pair of men nearly shaking in their boots, their voices high and squeaky as they discussed the battle to come — she wasn't wearing her cloak right now (washing it after would be a pain), she actually had to watch her expression.

On either side of the heavily-armored humans (and Morrigan) who'd be pushing up the road, and the spearmen and bowmen huddled behind them who'd be taking stabs over their shoulders, were wings of lighter-armored, quicker men and women carrying a few swords but mostly axes, who would sweep in from the sides once the front lines of the dead were broken, clear them out so the center could advance. (And also protect their sides, but Lýna didn't like their chances if the dead actually tried to flank them.) One of Fergus's more fleet-footed men was leading the right wing — Perry was also over there, but he hadn't been put in charge — and Lýna the left. The dozen or so people in her wing kept shooting her wary glances, eyes repeatedly tracing the blades at her hips, the vines across her face. If they meant to hide how uneasy they were with her, they were terrible at it.

She assumed glaring back at them would just make this stupid battle even more difficult than Teagan had already made it.

Luckily, both for Lýna's patience and her wing's nerves, they didn't have to wait very long. The western sky was still warm with orange and red, night not yet fallen, when Lýna heard an odd clanking and grinding from the direction of the castle — quiet, hardly noticeable from this distance. From among the archers, Alim shouted, "They're opening the gate!" the call immediately repeated in a much louder, deeper voice. (Fergus, Lýna thought, but she wasn't sure, so many of these human men sounded the same to her.) A frisson shot through the crowd, people stiffening with fear or anticipation, discordant scrapes shivering across the air as blades were drawn from sheathes.

She didn't bother reaching for hers yet — the first ranks wouldn't be making it this far anyway.

Her arms crossed low over her hips, Lýna waited, one minute, another, the people around her shifting and hissing. She spotted them before she heard them, crossing over the curve of the hill up the road, still a few minutes away. At this distance, they were nothing more than a shifting mob of color, too many bodies and limbs mixed up with each other to make out much in the way of detail. Apparently the humans could see them too (though probably in even less detail than she could), because the shivering got worse, the nervous chatter abruptly cutting off.

The dead spilled down the hill, mostly following the road into the village but spread out too wide to fit, many stumbling clumsily down the hillside. There were more than Lýna had thought. It was impossible to count them, obviously, but there were dozens in view now, more still spilling over the curve of the hill. Had to be at least a hundred of them, probably more.

Lýna took a glance over the huddled group of defenders, fought the urge to sigh. Altogether, Wardens, knights, and villagers, they had maybe sixty or seventy — that should have beenmorethan enough to deal with the undead, even before they and Fergus's people had shown up. Walking corpses were hard to put down, yes, but they were clumsy and stupid, completely incapable of any kind of tactics or strategy. With a bit of preparation, proper use of barricades and shields and what oil they had lying around, this should have been easy to deal with. Seeing a horde of dead people rushing at you could be unnerving, she didn't doubt that — she'd never evenheardof this many corpses being raised at once — but the difficulty then was to avoid being surrounded. That was the basic,firstproblem the villagers should have been addressing, but they hadn't dug any trenches to direct them at all. There were afewbarricades in the village itself, blocking off certain routes between buildings, but no more than that. Disagreeing with Teagan's dramatic claims, Fergus said theyhadcome out ahead the last couple days, steadily chipping away at their numbers, but...

This whole thing was stupid, it should never have happened. Lýna was trying not to think about it, because if she did she would only get annoyed, and she still hoped to negotiate a proper alliance tonight.

The dead were almost halfway down the hill now, close enough she could start making out individual corpses. The magics that raised them didn't stop them from rotting, and some of them had clearly been dead longer than others — some still looked mostly human, pale and marked with terrible injuries but mostly intact, others bloated and blackened, streaked with putrid fluids, others hardly more than skeletons, bits of thoroughly unrecognizable flesh still stuck to them here and there, fuzzy mold sprouting white and blue-ish.

Lýna grimaced — this was going to bedisgusting.

Some distance away, maybe a quarter of the distance up the hill, two lamps were sitting on the road, one several paces higher up than the other, their lights thin but constant in the increasing darkness. The dead, shifting and unsteady, stumbled past the first, the little flame flickering in and out as half-rotted limbs got in the way. Lýna heard a crackle of flame behind her and to her right, and a ball of fire appeared in the air, arcing up, up, and then dropping again, searing down to the ground, splashing over the road around the closer lamp.

There was a second where the oil caught, with a windywhoomfLýna heard from here, the dead who'd just started to approach the spot where the fire had landed, a few unlucky corpses caught alight, flailing and screeching. (Lýna winced at the high, bone-grinding sound, but it didn't seem to bother the humans.) Twin trails of flame shot down both sides of the road, stretching a few paces away from them, and then turning down into the ditch left and right.

There was a crackle of energy, blue-purple fingers of lightning flashing, just for a blink. And then the front ranks of the deadexploded.

At the piercing sun-white light, the deep boom that shivered in Lýna's chest and stabbed into her ears, she cringed away, looking down to the ground, her hands rising halfway to her head before she stopped herself. Okay, thathurt. Shaking off the faint nausea left behind by the too-loud noise rattling her skull as well as she could, Lýna looked back up. A large circle about a quarter of the way up the hill was aglow with fire, burning bright and hot enough she almost thought she could feel it on her face from here, dozens of corpses bodily thrown off their feet, some ripped apart by the force of the explosion, clotted blood and even viler fluids splashed around and then boiled in the heat. Dozens of the survivors were aflame, flailing about for only a couple seconds before the magics animating them failed, collapsing limp to the ground here and there, still fitfully smoldering.

The explosion had seemingly flung streams of burning oil in all directions. Some had ended up falling their way, streaks of fire burning out as she watched, leaving thin trails of char across the hillside. The front third or so of the horde of walking corpses — Lýna could make out the rear now, had a better grasp of their numbers — had been devastated, scattered and burned, others further back still picking themselves clumsily up from where they'd been thrown, the charge entirely halted for a moment.

So,that'swhy Alim had wanted to know where the village's apothecary was. Supposedly, he'd also taken a bit of lyrium out of the Chantry's supply (which they had for some reason that hadn't been explained) — it looked like he'd made a liquid version of dwarven explosives, more suited to splashing burning oil all over animated corpses.Veryclever, Lýna admitted, smiling to herself.

Once Weisshaupt caught up with Duncan's death, Lýna wasdefinitelyrecommending Alim for promotion. Constable, maybe? She'd think about it.

Even while the fire on the road burned out, its fuel consumed, flames continued to spread out away from the road. Lýna hadn't knownexactlywhat their trap on the road was going to be, but she hadn't needed to to plan accordingly: the fire thrown by the explosion lit off the oil she and Morrigan had borrowed a few people to dribble over the dirt. It spread slowly, the low-quality oil she'd found notnearlyas volatile as the explosives Alim had mixed up, but it would burn longer. (With how much the hillside had soaked up, probably for hours in places.) It didn't spread evenly, but along the lines they'd taken across the hillside, splintering away from both sides of the road like the branches of a tree, many spots left untouched but each of these islands surrounded by low-burning flame, impassible.

It would take some minutes for every line they'd set to catch, but it didn't matter — the dead wouldn't be able to leave the road and come around behind them. Even as she watched, some of the dead further back who'd left the road stepped over lines of fire, not bursting into flame so much as licked at up to their knees. But it didn't matter, even that much was enough to disrupt the magics keeping them moving, every one that stumbled into the fire was collapsing motionless a few seconds later. Whoever was directing the horde realized the problem quickly, the dead awkwardly cramming themselves onto the road, spilling into the shallow ditches on either side (which Lýna had left clear so they'd have room to maneuver), but especially close to the front there wasn't enough room, the dead on the fringes quickly falling.

Lýna smiled. Well, at leastthathad worked perfectly.

There was some surprised shouting from around her — most of the defenders, including Lýna, hadn't expected the explosion, and few were aware anything else had been done to prepare — but soon they were laughing, the fearful tension suddenly lifting away. Almost like they were realizing they might actually live through this. (Of coursethey were going to live through this, the Wardens alone could probably deal with this many walking corpses if they really had to, with the proper preparation.) Rising above the chatter came a deep, booming voice, maybe Fergus, "Up to the gates, lads! Shield, advance!"

The men in heavy armor started up the road, a great honey-brown bear looming in the center of the line. Lýna waited for a handful of seconds before, drawing her gifted silverite sword, waving for her wing to follow, trailing behind the line on the left side of the road.

At the slow pace the line set (itwashard to move very fast wearing all that metal), it was a couple minutes before they met the first rank of corpses. While they were still a few paces away, arrows skimmed over their heads to fall into the horde — most of them weren't particularly good shots, arrows sprouting from chests and shoulders and limbs, but it didn't really matter, the damage would make the dead even slower and clumsier. (Besides, it didn't look like any of the dead were wearing armor, so their aim didn'tneedto be very good.) A few lucky shots struck in the head — crossbow bolts tearing straight through skulls, one Lýna spotted had an arrow shaft stuck through its eye socket — a handful falling limply to the dirt.

The volley staggering the horde for a moment, the shield-bearers took advantage, "SLAM!" skipped forward a few steps with speed Lýna hadn't thought them capable of, crashing into the dead shield-first, knocking a dozen off their feet, the force of the impact halting their advance in its tracks, Morrigan lifting up on two paws for a second before crashing down on the middle, crushing a pair of them into the dirt. The shield-bearers didn't trade blows so much as stand there and take them, trusting in their armor to protect them, spears jabbed over their shoulders wounding the dead, Morrigan's claws tearing corpses into scattered pieces with a single swipe.

The shield-bearers held the road, but faced with the solid wall the dead started to flow around to the sides. Some were pushed out onto the fitfully burning hillside, but several trickled through the gap between the left-most man and the fires, the nearest spearman catching the first in the gut. Lýna darted forward — the nearness of her fire trap like a physical thing, pushing at her hotter and heavier and drier than the harshest summer winds — swinging with both hands, the hilt jerking only a little with the impact, the almost skeletal head neatly severed from the corpse's shoulders. (Apparently, the magics holding the dead together weren't doing a very good job.) Her right hand coming down to hold the spear in place, Lýna kicked at the corpse, freeing the spearman's weapon for him.

Lýna skipped up to the next corpse clumsily waddling through the gap, ducking under the wild swing of a sword — it glittered in the firelight all around, finely-crafted, perhaps one of Eamon's guards', though the corpse holding it was plainly dressed — swiping across the corpse's hips as she went, deep enough its legs went limp. One of her wing was coming in, an axe swinging down toward the back of its neck, so she moved on. The next in the line had what looked very much like a work knife in its skeletal hand, she side-stepped the wild stab and severed the arm at the elbow, kicked it out of her way to be set upon by two of the men behind her. Another was charging at her, this one unarmed but rather less falling apart, could almost be alive if not for its stiffness, how deathly pale it was, the empty, glassy stare of its eyes. Lýna turned her shoulder to it, shifted to a two-handed grip again, waited for it to take another couple steps before darting forward and low, slashing up. This one sturdier than the first she'd beheaded, her blade stuck in its spine with a bone-shivering jerk, the force knocking it to its knees, the incredibly sharp silverite easily sliding out, Lýna whirled around and slashed downward, dropping to a knee as she struck, with a wrenching jolt this time cutting all the way through.

She jumped to her feet, sidling out of the way of a particularly vile-looking corpse, she could smell it even through the smoke and the lingering oil, swiping as she went, the blade clicking awkwardly off its hip bone, the corpse sent staggering, knocked onto its back by an axe in the chest, a second falling for its throat. Another was stumbling through the gap at her, Lýna deflected its sword to the side with a smooth flick, instinctively followed through to stab the corpse low over its hip — which was pointless, obviously the dead didn't need to worry about blood loss. Before the corpse could bring its own weapon back around, Lýna slid closer, snatching out her father's dagger and driving it up under the thing's jaw. She must have severed its spine, because it went limp instantly, she wrenched both blades out of the rotting corpse, grimacing at the putrid smell surrounding the thing like a physical weight.

By this point, the ranks of people with spears and other long-handled weapons had reorganized themselves somewhat, some still stabbing out over the shield-bearers' shoulders but others angled to the side, jabbing at the dead attempting to slip through the gap between armor and fire. The were no calls for the wings to move in, the shield-bearers instead picking their way forward, executing the wounded corpses as they went, a slow but steady tromp up the hill, a few of the men grunting out a low chant of some kind to set the pace. Apparently, they'd realized the dead squeezing past them meant the wings couldn't get around, so the original plan wouldn't work.

Which, Lýna could have (andhad) told them that. There was no reason to expect the dead would politely stay on the road to face their shield-bearers —Lýnadidn't stay on the roads travelling, she failed to see why an attacking force of walking corpses should. (She still wasn't sure what the point of roads was, honestly.) Squeezed between the shield-bearers and the burning hillside, a few spearmen and Lýna's wing could more than take care of the few who slipped past.

But if shehadn'tfound that oil and set her trap up, though, they would be in serious trouble right about now. She wondered what Teagan had thought was supposed to happen if the dead just went around their line...

With that slight adjustment, the fight went smoothly enough. The shield-bearers slowly pushed forward step by step, most of the dead slipping past wounded by the line of spears, damaged enough they were hardly a threat, easily dispatched by Lýna's wing. She focused on the lucky few who got by without being tagged, or any carrying weapons — less than half of the corpses were armed — leaving the rest for her wing to handle.

Most of the time, she didn't even bother taking the time to properly decapitate them, instead disarming them or crippling them badly enough the people in her wing, mostly untrained, could finish them off without too much difficulty. (Her fine silverite sword was extremely sharp and she suspected it was enchanted into impossible durability, but too lightweight, axes were still better for this kind of work.) She would only spend a couple seconds on each corpse she faced, a single slash at a hip, one of the armed ones she might turn a blow aside before cutting the arm to or through the bone, maybe kicking one into the nearby flames if the opportunity presented itself, before moving on, pausing only long enough to spot the next corpse in line.

Her wing had reorganized a little, there were two men with swords in the front with her, quick crippling the dead for the rest to handle in their wake. She noticed quickly that they both hesitated a little when one carrying a weapon slipped through, so Lýna made sure she took all of those she could herself, both men growing more confident as they easily pushed their way through the horde, cutting down one after the other after the other.

Walking corpses were hardlychallengingto fight, the routine so easy it was almost mindless, but that didn't mean it wasn't hard work. There were alotof them, and they didn't exactly have the space to move back and catch their breath, so the fighting was constant, Lýna moving from one clash to the next to the next without an instant's pause. Before, she definitely would have been struggling; after the Joining her breath was hard in her throat, her sword arm aching a bit, but it wasn't so bad. Even constantly running around as she was, darting back and forth to catch the more threatening of the dead, she could probably keep this up for a long while.

One of the two swordsmen at the front with her took a nasty scrape across his shoulder at one point, after dispatching the corpse that'd done it Lýna reached up to grab him by the collar, pushed him back out of harm's way, called for him to be passed back to the healers following behind. It might have come out in the wrong language.

The worst part was the heat. By this point the flames had spread across the entire hillside, to her left all she could see was flickering orange and red, almost painfully bright in the darkening night, stretching on and on until the trees rose on the slope up to the opposite cliff, muted by smoke and blurred by heat. The air was thick and hot, smoke clawing at her throat and her eyes, sweating from the heat, leather clinging uncomfortably to her skin, her hair to her neck, more than a few times dripping into her eyes, once nearly blinding her at an inconvenient moment, she had to abandon a parry to dodge instead. By the time they'd been fighting for...she wasn't sure, they had to be halfway up the hill by now, the thirst was starting to get to her.

As uncomfortable as it was, the alternative — allowing the dead to spill across the hillside freely, to surround them and overwhelm them — was undoubtedly worse. They'd just have to suffer it for a few more minutes, there couldn't bethatmany left...

The fighting went on and on and on, in a constant stream of motion and reaction Lýna was really only half-conscious of. Until, abruptly, it ended. Turning to move on to the next walking corpse, she couldn't find one, staggering a bit as the movement came up short. There were still sounds of fighting to her right, a glance over there showed the shield-bearers were in the process of executing the last few of the dead. (Was Alistair's swordglowing? Hmm.) But that was it, the rest were gone. They were only a few paces from the top of the hill, the fires at their backs, the flat, open space clear of threats all the way to the moody red walls of the castle a short distance away.

Right. That was the first part done.

Instead of immediately moving on to the castle, their group hung back to catch their breath for a moment. Lýna drained her wineskin dry, traded it with a runner for a fresh one. Taking a gulp, Lýna noticed a tang of vinegar, made a face but kept drinking anyway — she knew by now Alamarri usually put vinegar in their water or just drank beer instead, so it would keep without being contaminated, and Lýna didn't like their beer much. (She thought the similar drink the Chasind made was much better.) After making sure nobody in her wing was seriously injured — they'd be splitting up from here, but it seemed the thing to do anyway — Lýna tracked down the Wardens and their companions to confirm they'd made it through all right.

Alistair and Keran were both bruised and winded, Keran more than Alistair, but otherwise fine — Alistair was cheerfully joking with Fergus when she found them, so. Morrigan, human-shaped again, had little scratches along her hands, arms, and face, weeping thin trails of blood here and there. They might have been rather deep cuts as a bear, but as a much smaller human they were hardly even a nuisance — Morrigan set about healing them, seeming more annoyed than anything. Perry was uninjured, but exhausted, laid out on the ground trading breathless comments with several other men in his wing. Alim and Leliana, having hung back with the archers the whole time, were perfectly fine, the second looking out over the scattered corpses grim and pitying, the first practically bouncing on his toes with excitement.

He'd been strangely cheerful, even more than usual, ever since they'd decided he'd be bringing down the gates. Lýna didn't know what that was about, but she also didn't care. Maybe he just liked blowing things up?

Noticing her watching them, Alim turned to her, chirped, "Was that you? All of...that," waving at the hillside below them, still blanketed in flames. Lýna followed the gesture instinctively.

...A couple of the buildings at the edge of the village were on fire. Oops? Oh well, they'd already been abandoned and stripped of anything useful anyway. "Yes, my idea, so they don't come around. Good trap you made."

"You thinkImade a good trap? Lýna, you set theentire hillside on fire. That'sinsane."

"May be, but it works."

Alim burst out giggling; standing nearby, Leliana was apparently trying not to smile, and not doing a very good job of it.

After everyone had caught their breath, roughly half of their group — the Wardens, Fergus's people, all of the archers and a few people from the wings — moved on toward the castle. The rest would be staying behind, making sure any walking corpses they might have missed didn't get down to the village while they were distracted, and also keeping the road open for their runners. (Lýna didn't think that was necessary, with her big fire trap in place, but she also didn't think they'd need the rest of them to find and deal with the person behind this anyway.) Half of their half stopped at what Lýna guessed to be the outside of bow range from the top of the castle wall, their more heavily-armored fighters continuing on toward the gate with Alim tucked between them, their shields raised.

And good thing they did, too: they were halfway there when a handful of crossbow bolts suddenly speared into shields, the men staggering with the impacts. There was one cry of pain Lýna picked out, one of the men on the left side cringing — squinting, she saw a bolt had pierced far enough through the shield to stab into the man's arm just under his shoulder. But, hissing and cursing loud enough Lýna could hear it from here, he continued advancing with the others, their shield wall unbroken.

Okay,someAlamarri weren't soft and pathetic, she'd give them that much.

Just as Lýna was wondering how she was supposed to get up there to down the archers — the walls looked too smooth to climb very easily — there was a tingle of magic from behind her, and a crow went fluttering into the air, heading toward one of the...little round rooms on either side of the gate. (Lýna had no idea what those were called.) Black feathers in the shadows, Lýna couldbarelysee the bird slip through one of the narrow windows, instantly followed by a noisy crashing and heavy flanging of magic being unleashed in an enclosed space. Shortly after silence fell again, Morrigan appeared on the wall, strolling toward the opposite little round room, beheading a lone corpse over the gate with a narrow flash of green light, not even breaking stride. She disappeared inside even as a second volley of bolts fell, this one rather thinner, half of the bowmen already gone. There was another explosion of noise, a spray of dust gusting out of one of the windows.

Then a crow was soaring out again, lazily gliding over toward Lýna. Only a few paces away, there was another flicker of magic, the bird's form twisting, and Morrigan reappeared, skipping to a halt a little to Lýna's right. "Thank you, Morrigan," Lýna said, in Chasind. "I had no idea how I was going to get up there."

Morrigan smirked at her, the sheet of flames behind her throwing her face into shadows. "I'm sure you would have figured it out somehow."

"I think I would have gotten shot trying to climb the walls." She still would have tried, of course — Alim was the only one who could get the gates open, they couldn't risk him being hit with a lucky shot — but she doubted it would have ended well.

"I guess it's fortunate for you I'm here then, isn't it?"

Yes, it was. Lýna would definitely be doing something to give her thanks to the All-Mother tomorrow.

(It was still surreal, the thought thatthe All-Mother— who was still alive, even active in the physical world, if in the body of a Chasind human — had sent herflesh and blood daughterto help Lýna against the Blight. She had absolutely no idea how to feel about that, it wastoo big, she tried not to think about it.)

While Lýna had been distracted by Morrigan, the shield-bearers had reached the gate. They still kept Alim covered just in case, there were enough big human bodies covered with metal in the way she couldn't make out the comparatively little elf at all. After a few seconds, though, Lýna felt a bone-deep thrum rush across the air, a dim flash of blue light — Alim must have started his casting. He was using several glyphs, he'd warned her, it would take at least a couple minutes for him to bring the gate down. At the time, they'd been worried about keeping him protected from any walking corpses still around, but there didn't seem to be any. So Lýna waved her group forward, started walking toward the gates.

They were about halfway there when Lýna started hearing it. The song of the magic Alim was casting was bright and eager, almost viciously ecstatic, but tight and precise, the notes falling in a clear repeating pattern, exact. Stepping closer, she felt it prickling at her skin, but not unpleasantly, a shiver running down her spine, Lýna had to shake her head to clear it, rolling her shoulders.

That was alotof magic.

The song seemed to rise to a fever pitch, there was a flash of intense white light (Lýna blinked spots from her eyes), the shield-bearers let out shouts of surprise, stumbling back as little white filaments raced up the huge door, branching lines of fire — not on the surface of the wood, butinside, the glow oddly diffuse — stretching high over Lýna's head. They burned brighter over the next few seconds, until the entire huge wooden barrier was entirely filled with it, a solid mass of gleaming white.

The humans having backed off, she could see Alim now, crouched on a knee with one hand pressed against the wood, wreathed with burning white glyphs, so bright he was only visible as a silhouette between Lýna and the light, throwing wild shadows behind him. Squinting through the blaze, she could see Alim set his shoulders, his hand twisting, and several of the glyphs winked out — instead of dimming, the light only seemed to become brighter, paired with an ear-grinding roar of fire, the shape of the gate wavering as its surface crawled with flame, steam from absorbed water bursting out in a single puff, smoke already starting to curl thick over the walkway on the wall.

After a couple seconds, Alim reached up, his free hand touching a set of glyphs floating in wait near his shoulder, these a steely blue. They blinked out immediately, for a moment his hand glowing with the power the spell contained, but he quickly turned, slamming his palm against the door.

Agony crashed over Lýna's head, the echo reverberating in her chest in one large thump she felt all the way to her toes — sound, too loud for her to even saywhat kindof sound it was, justnoise, the single loudest thing she'd ever heard, her bones shivering and her head spinning. Badly enough, her ears aching and her brain wobbling in her skull and her stomach churning, for a moment she thought she'd actually be sick.

She jumped at the touch of a hand on her shoulder, squinted through the colorful blotches left in her vision. Leliana, that was Leliana. "What?" Her voice felt funny, echoing uncomfortably through her head.

"Are you all right?" She sounded oddly thick and muffled, the subtle edges smoothed off a bit, leaving it flat and impersonal.

Lýna shook her head — and instantly regretted it, it just made her more dizzy. "I am well. Too loud."

"Yes, elves do have more sensitive hearing, don't they." Her voice still too flat for Lýna to really tell, the blotches in her vision were clearing enough to make out what she was pretty sure was a concerned expression on Leliana's face. "Do you need to stay back? I'm certain Alistair and the others can—"

"No." She glanced up, and— "Hyy..."

The gate — or, the wooden part of the door, at least, the arch of stone surrounding it was mostly untouched — was justgone. The entire span, three men high and four or five wide, was now open, the space beyond streaked with debris, much of the scattered bits still burning with stubborn white flame. There were a few trees inside, crumpled shapes she assumed must have been more walking corpses, but they'd all been caught aflame, the branches of a tree Lýna could see from this angle blazing like a torch in the night.

Fires of the First, that was... That wasseriouslyimpressive. Lýna didn't know much about castle gates, obviously, but she knew enough about magic to appreciate how exceptional this was.

Alim had passed out, but even so.

Lýna made for the shield-bearer scooping the unconscious mage into his arms (ignoring how wobbly her first few steps were), stopped the human to check over Alim quick. His heart was still beating, breath thin but there. He'd burned his hand a little bit, but she was pretty sure that was just from touching the door while he incinerated it — it didn't look like he'd actually injured himself channelling too much magic at once. She wasn't an expert, but she thought he'd be fine. Good. He waved the man carrying him off to the healers, to get those burns looked at if nothing else.

The rest of the shield-bearers, Alistair and Fergus at the lead, were already walking through the gates, so Lýna followed after them. Directly past where the door used to be was a big open space, looked roughly as large as the square back in the village. The white fire had gone out by now, leaving scattered streaks of ash behind — and also large globs of twisted metal here and there, still glowing as though in the heat of a forge. Where Alim's extremely destructive spell touched off other things, mostly trees along the edges and bits of equipment too ruined for Lýna to identify, those were still burning orange and red, quickly filling the square with smoke.

Up a set of stone stairs as wide as the gate on the other side of the square was another large door — shorter and narrower than the gate, but still thick and heavy, the edges glimmering with metal. These were hanging open, though, they wouldn't need Alim to blow this one.

As Alistair and Fergus reached about the middle of the square, more walking corpses started shambling out of the door. Two, four, six...less than a dozen, not anything to worry about. Hardly thinking, Lýna's bow was in her hand, she drew and loosed, aiming for the head of one in the lead — and missed, badly, her arrow clattering against the wall behind it. Cursing to herself, she returned her bow to her back, drew her sword again instead. Her head was still pounding a little, the world listing slightly around her, apparently she wouldn't be able to shoot again until it stopped.

"REVENANT!"

Lýna didn't know that word, but by the frightened cursing from the Alamarri, it couldn't be anything good. At the rear of the approaching dead was a figure wearing intact armor, its shield showing the same tower on a red hill as Teagan's (Eamon's) men. It was much less clumsy than the others, descending the stairs smoothly and gracefully, longsword held in a more confident grip. Also, the air seemed to waver around it, like heat over the earth on a high summer day, under its helmet its eyes glowing a harsh red-purple.

Oh, she knew this, "revenant" must be what Alamarri called Dread Knights. When a person died, obviously their connection to the Beyond died with them — spirits who possessed living bodies could usually cast whatever magic they liked, but those possessing corpses couldn't. But, sometimes, if a spirit were powerful enough it could reach into the Beyond itself. Not very well, she'd been told, the magic they could do was limited, though they were stillverydangerous.

Lýna had only heard of them, never seen such a thing before herself. But, from what she'd heard, depending on what kind of spirit was in there they could be in very serious trouble.

"Leave it to me," Alistair called, "keep the others off me!" He barreled through the column of corpses, whapping some with his shield or pushing them aside with his shoulder, one he casually cut the legs out from in passing. The Dread Knight drove its sword into the ground, the stones cracking from the force, freeing its hand for a moment, magic sparking around its gauntleted fingers, a casual wave flinging several of the dead out of the way, opening up the space between them.

...Alistair's sword wasdefinitelyglowing. She'd thought it had been before, but she hadn't been able to make it out very well at the time, and therehadbeen fire everywhere. But as Alistair approached the Dread Knight, this time it wasveryobvious, soft golden light starting from his hand and quickly spreading up toward the tip, wavering like the surface of a mug of mead, the shadows thrown much deeper and longer than such a soft light should cast.

That must be Templar stuff. She knew Alistair did have some kind of anti-magic abilities, though she'd never actually seen him use them before. Back when they'd been talking about the battle, he'd claimed he also had things he could do against animated corpses and abominations. This must be that.

Okay, then. Dread Knights were seriously dangerous, but if Alistair thought he could handle it on his own, she'd just leave that to him.

With the numbers of shield-bearers and corpses, especially with half of the dead already flung onto the ground, it didn't take long at all for them to be dealt with. Darting forward, Lýna stabbed down through the throat of one that hadn't managed to pick itself up yet, the silverite digging a little bit into the stone underneath. She wrenched it out, putrid blood splashing over her boot — her lip curled with disgust, washing this all later was going to beawful— she came up behind a corpse flinging itself at a man's shield, sliced low over its hips. The corpse stumbled, the human's sword caught it in the shoulder, holding it in place steady enough Lýna could neatly lop off its head with a heavy two-handed stroke.

And that was it, they'd all fallen. Alistair and the Dread Knight were still fighting, the shield-bearers keeping back, hands shifting on hilts, waiting. Despite its loose one-handed grip, every swing of the dead abomination's sword was so quick and heavy it parted the wind, whistling and keening. Alistair didn't bother meeting its blows, dancing and ducking around them, with more agility than Lýna had thought he could manage in that heavy armor. (More thanshecould, that was for sure.) In the moments between swings, Alistair's sword would nip in, biting at the thing's sword arm, one leg from knee to hip, once slipping over its shield to jab into its shoulder. Most hits bounced off its armor, but when the glowing blade edged through gaps to the corpse beneath it would let out a screech, staggering a little, pale smoke leaking out of its wounds, some kind of magic at work.

Or, not-magic, she guessed — she had absolutely no idea how this Templar stuff worked, she should ask at some point.

With each wound, the Dread Knight was slowed a little more, its movements turning more awkward and clumsy. Apparently realizing it was in trouble, it lurched away, striking out toward the nearest of the shield-bearers. Lýna sprinted off toward him, reaching out to—

Alistair's shield bounced off the back of the abomination's head, spinning away to clatter to the ground. It staggered with the impact, turned around and belted out an inhuman screech — Lýna's head shivering with dizzying pain, she grimaced, grinding her teeth. Alistair just ignored it, stomping steadily forward, mail jangling. The Dread Knight raised its sword, but Alistair got there first, skipped forward to drive his glowing blade into the thing's chest. Somehow, the golden light flashing brighter for an instant, the blade stabbed right through solid plate, the possessed corpse within, and then through the plate on the other side, soft light spilling out of the thing's back.

While it reeled — that would kill a person, but not an animated corpse — Alistair's free hand came up, tore off the thing's helmet, pressed his hand against its face. There was another flash of golden light, burning deep in the Dread Knight's open mouth and its empty eyes, reflected shimmering in Alistair's. It screamed again, thin trails of smoke wafting off of its withered skin.

Then, abruptly, it went limp, dead once more. Alistair let it crumple to the ground, with a boot on one of its shoulders wrenched his sword free — the metal looking perfectly ordinary again, pale silverite streaked with half-rotten gore.

Well. That was...interesting.

The other shield-bearers, a few others who'd followed with Lýna, bowed their heads, gauntlets clanking against breast-plates or mail. A few of them muttered a few words, though she didn't pick any of them out in particular. The gesture seemed peculiarly religious to her...which, when she thought about it, made perfect sense. Weren't the Templars gifted their anti-magic abilities by the Alamarri god? Watching a person use those gifts to strike down a seriously deadly magical threat right in front of them would be quite an experience for people who actually followed their weird magic-hating religion, she would think.

Wait, did that mean Templars were shamans too? Or,onlythe Templars, since Leliana had said the people Lýna hadthoughttalked to their god actually didn't. She didn't know, Alamarri were confusing...

After only a moment to gather themselves, Alistair plucking his shield up from where it'd fallen, they moved on. The shield-bearers heavily tromped up the stairs, Lýna lightly skipping up the incline alongside — even Alistair seemed slower now, she assumed his unusual speed during his fight with the Dread Knight had been another Templar not-magic thing, like Mẽrhiᶅ and the Keeper could do. They poured through the heavy door, stepping into a hallway made of more red stone, colorful things hanging on the walls Lýna didn't bother taking in. There were a couple doors off to the sides but, after confirming there were no dead lying in wait to ambush them, Alistair and Fergus ignored them, leading their group onward.

The opposite end of the hallway opened up into a much wider, high-ceilinged room. Rugs criss-crossed the floor, hanging from the walls richly-dyed and embroidered tapestries, old shields and weapons. Straight across from the door they entered by, the wall was dominated with an over-large fireplace, a moody fire flickering low within, glinting off the golden accents here and there on the stone hearth. On either side of that line down the middle were long tables, a row of finely-carved wooden chairs on the far side of each.

There were also about two dozen more animated corpses in the room, gathered in tight ranks between the tables, but not only those — a single figure stood on the raised floor in front of the fire, the hearth framing them from behind. It was relatively short for a human man, its figure so narrow as to be almost skeletal, but it clearly wasn't another of the dead. Its skin was obviously the wrong color, a sickly yellowish-blue, pock-marked with purple sores. The body was also still intact, though only in the sense that it wasn't in the process of rotting: the limbs were oddly kinked, the trunk looking slightly lopsided, the lips set in an angry gash so wide Lýna wasn't sure humans were normally capable of it. The eyes, she noted, were entirely black — not just the pupils, but the iris and even the whites, a pair of shadowed pits in the discolored face — streaks of frost sparkling in its hair, along its clothes, its shadow seeming much too large, darker than it should be, stretching all the way to them by the door and also branching off to the sides and across the ceiling, seeming to twist and shimmer, as though cast by something moving around the figure unseen.

Thatwas definitely an abomination, in the sense of a living mage possessed by a hostile spirit. And it was a powerful one too, if it were capable of animating so many dead at once.

The abomination spoke, its unnaturally deep voice — undercut with a higher, moaning whisper, as though speaking with multiple throats at once — echoing off the hard stone walls, but nobody paused to listen to it. Alistair and Fergus both charged recklessly toward the dead, the rest of the shield-bearers hesitating only an instant before following after them. Hissing with rage, the abomination raised a hand, the air seeming to shimmer around its fingers, the colors of the hearth behind it blurring, magic clanging harsh and discordant in Lýna's ears, she heard another twitter behind her, Morrigan scrambling to stop it from finishing its spell.

But Alistair got there first. Slapping the first of the dead aside with his shield, his sword trust into the air over his head, there was a flash of white light and the abominationscreeched— Lýna grit her teeth at the piercing noise, her skull seeming to vibrate with it — sent reeling and staggering as though it'd been physically knocked over the head. When it straightened, it stared over the dead directly at Alistair, and she thought she could see fear in its night-black eyes, almost seeming to cringe away from the grim Alamarri warrior's presence.

Instead of trying to cast again, or join in the melee with its dead puppets, already in the process of being methodically torn apart by the shield-bearers, it turned away, and it ran. The movement unnaturally quick and graceful, it flew over the floor, heading for a door to Lýna's right. Pinned by the dead, the barrier of the table between them, it was impossible for the heavily-armored men to get there in time.

But Lýna was lighter, and faster.

She darted to the side, easily hopped up onto the table (though she teetered a little once she was on it, the world around her still unsteady), crossed it in four steps. She leapt straight down at the abomination, only a few paces short of the door out of the hall, her sword flying in at its neck. The abomination noticed her too late, spinning around, its black eyes wide. Its figure shimmered, the colors bleeding out, a desperate clangoring of magic on the air, and then it seemed to shrink, its head noticeably dropping — it was changing its shape, trying to avoid her blade by simply not being in its path anymore, Lýna yanked down, adjusting her swing to—

Silverite bit into pale, peachy flesh, jerking to a sudden stop against bone.

The rest of the world seemed to fall away, the noise of the battle behind her an inaudible murmur, the sight before her all she knew, an instant that lasted too long, Lýna hanging in the air, frozen in time.

The abomination was gone.

Instead, standing in front of her was a human child. A boy, perhaps somewhere between seven and twelve years of age — Lýna wasn't confident in her ability to guess. Young, though, definitely a child, shoulders narrow and face soft and delicate, warm golden-brown eyes larger than in grown humans, his hair a dark auburn, altogether lookingalmostelf-like.

Blood slipped down his neck, vivid against his skin, staining the bright green collar of his shirt.

The sword,in her hand, had just cut halfway through this boy's neck.

The too-long instant unstuck, Lýna's momentum carrying her forward, the boy falling to her right, the movement enough for the blade to easily slip out. A tingling, creeping, nauseating horror crashing over her all at once, her sword clattered against the floor, fallen from nerveless fingers, she dropped to her knees next to the boy, her hand instinctively coming to the bloody gash in the boy's neck—

"Keep pressure on it, child," Ashaᶅ said, her voice confident and firm, a reassuring grip on Lýna's shoulder lifting away as she stood. "I'll be back with our First as soon as I can." And she was gone, Lýna leaned a little harder over Fẽvharĩ, he hissed, his unnervingly pale face twisting with pain, she washurtinghim, but she didn't back off, she'd been told to keep pressing down, it was okay, she murmured, Mẽrhiᶅ was coming, help was coming, he'd be okay—

—but she knew it was pointless, a wound like that, even with the most skilled of spirit-healers immediately to hand he might not make it, her ears buzzing and her head pounding, something sick and painful clawing up her throat, and she was babbling, she hadn't even meant to say anything, the boy paling second to second as she watched, shaking fingers clutching at her arms, his eyes wide and uncomprehending, blood smeared all over his throat, the cloth over his shoulder sopping red, meaningless blithering spilled past her lips, she hadn't meant to, she hadn't known, hardly even aware of the words, probably not in a language he'd understand anyway—

"...I'm sorry, child." It sounded almost painfully inadequate for the circ*mstances, but by the strained, exhausted look on her face the Keeper knew that. Besides, Lýna doubted Sula understood a word of it, thrashing against the men holding her back as Menaś led Irivhẽ away — they couldn't cure Blight sickness, death was a mercy, but killing a child in front of her mother was unnecessary cruelty — tears streaming down her face, Sula screamed for her daughter, curses filling the air, the hunters restraining her grim, Keraśĩ nearby quietly weeping—

—the boy's eyes were swimming with tears, his mouth moving, as though he were trying to say something, breathless gasps too weak and thin, drawing ever thinner, he was almost gone already, but she hadn't meant to,I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...

Until his breaths stopped, the blood slowed against her fingers, and the focus went out of his eyes, staring up at her unseeing. An unnatural stillness settling over him, and he was gone,she'd killed him. Her hands jumped away from his skin as though scalded, and she jerked away, falling hard on her rear, her vision swimming and her head pounding, her chest filling up with something tight and hot and unpleasant, until she thought it would burst out of her—

It was a boy, pale skin and black hair, Chasind, laid out in the middle of what had been a village. His limbs were splayed at random, a wicked bloody gash carved into the side of his neck, pain and terror left frozen on his face. Lýna's eyes were drawn back to him again and again, as the hunters scoured the area for lingering darkspawn, she could hardly move, frozen to the spot. She nearly jumped when Ashaᶅ appeared next to her, an arm coming around her shoulders, she didn't know what was wrong with her, she'd seen dead people before. "It's always harder when it's a child, Lýna. If the sight of a murdered childdoesn'tbother you,thatwould be something to worry about..."

She'd killed him.

She hadn't meant to, she hadn't known.

She didn't...

It hadn't been darkspawn who attacked the village — their stores had been ransacked. No, the hunters were sure, it had been a competing tribe, probably other Chasind. Curses were bit out from multiple directions, invoking the First of the Sun, wishing the spirits of the dead here would find their vengeance in the Beyond. Lýna thought she might be sick, one of the other apprentices actually was, this boy had been murdered by other humans, and he wasn't the only one here. The kind of person who would murder a child — and hardly even seem to hesitate, by the look of the place — Lýna hoped, no matter how desperate the clan became, she could never become that, even if they were human children, she didn't...

A sound she couldn't identify was wrenched out of her throat, the pressure tearing at her chest almost too much, she couldn't stand it.

She hadn't meant to.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...

He was moving, magic bubbling and sparking on the air, echoing in her ears, the boy's body wrenched at unnatural angles, his blood running black, tendrils blue and purple whipping around him, the wind icy and vile. The abomination lurched to its feet, face pulled into an eerie, inhuman grin, looming over her, reaching for magic, for the kill.

Lýna didn't move.

—wishing the dead would find their vengeance—

She'd killed him.

It was only fair for the boy to kill her back.

And then Alistair was there, his golden-glowing sword vanishing in the abomination's heart, his hand on its face, light burning out...

And then it fell to the floor again. No, not it,he. The boy lay on his back on the stone floor, still in death. The vicious bloody gash in his neck was gone, she saw, instead a furrow carved through his chest, blood streaking down his front, already starting to pool around him. Blood leaking from his nose, his eyes, rolling down his face like tears.

But she remembered. She'dput itthere. She saw it again and again, every time she blinked, blood vivid against pale skin, the boy's eyes pained and panicking, she couldn't stop it, she hadn't meant to—

Alistair was kneeling in front of her, frowning with...fear? No, concern, she thought that was concern. (Human faces were so blocky and unreadable sometimes.) His mouth moved, he said something but she couldn't hear it, his voice muffled and far away. His hand fell on her shoulder, but she barely felt it, feeling all too numb and distant, still frozen in that moment, her hand pressed against the dying boy's neck, words spilling thoughtlessly past her lips, she didn't meant to, she didn't know, she was—

There was a flash of golden light, not only outside butinside, soft warmth shooting through her. Something heavy and suffocating in her head broke apart, and her mind was her own again — she hadn't even noticed she'd been under the influence of something until it was gone. That pressure in her chest lurched, a thick, harsh noise of some kind wrenched itself past her throat, she clamped a hand over her own mouth.

Her hand was wet, warm, tacky. Blood.

The boy's blood. The cut was gone, now, but at the time it had been real. His blood was still all over her hand.

Jolting apart, blood was left behind on her cheek, smeared across her lips, she moaned with disgust, scrubbed at her face with her arm, silverite scales painfully clawing at her skin, she couldn't get itoff, her stomach clenched, bile clawing up her throat—

Alistair grabbed her wrist, pulled it away from her face. Before she could protest (her throat so tight she probably couldn't speak anyway) he'd pulled a cloth out from somewhere, started mopping at her face with it. There was a bizarre moment where nothing felt quite real, like she was seeing this from the outside, Alistair wiping her face like a dutiful father cleaning up a messy child, and then reality came crashing cruelly back, her skin still twinging with horror, her eyes stinging with tears, and she could barely breathe, her hands were shaking as though shivering from deathly cold.

The boy's blood was still on her hand, she couldn't un-see it, his accusing eyes meeting hers whenever she blinked.

"Lyna," Alistair murmured, his voice quiet, soft. He still couldn't say her name right. "Can you hear me?"

She wasn't sure her voice would work right now, so she settled for nodding.

"The abomination tried to enthrall you. Ah, I mean, it messed with your head, your feelings, to stop you from killing it. Whatever you saw, it wasn't real."

It sure seemed pretty f*cking real to her. "I killed him. The boy."

"No, Lyna, you didn't."

"The blood." Alistair had moved on to her hand now, wiping her glove, gently along her bare fingers. "His blood." It must have been real, if his blood was still on her hand.

"Connor was possessed, Lyna." She blinked dumbly — was that the boy's name? how did Alistair know that? "The demon had already taken him. There was nothing you could do."

"I– I'm not... I—"

Suddenly, she jumped at the unexpected movement, Alistair's arms were around her, loosely hugging her to his chest. Whichwasrather uncomfortable, given he was in full armor, the edge of his breastplate digging into her throat. But that something in her chest lurched again, bubbling up, she couldn't— "It wasn't your fault, Lyna. You didn't kill him. You're okay."

Before Lýna realized what was happening, a harsh sob was torn out of her chest. And once it started, she couldn't stop.

There were a few minutes where she hardly realized what was happening around her, clinging instinctively at a seam in Alistair's armor, shuddering tears agonizingly wrung out of her (she couldn't remember the last time she'd cried) until she was left raw, everything justhurt, exhausted to the point she could barely think straight. She didn't know how long it was, indistinct voices flittering back and forth over her head, eventually she was pulled shakily to her feet, the room blurry and instinct around her. Alistair was letting go of her, handing her off to...

Oh, Leliana. It took a moment for Lýna to recognize her, her eyes refusing to quite focus properly and her head too stuffed and fuzzy, but that was the soft-voiced, orange-haired Alamarri shaman. Right.

Alistair was telling Leliana to get her out of here, somewhere far away from all the dead bodies lying around. Maybe outside somewhere — didn't Dalish like being outside? And then Alistair was walking away and—

"Wait." Alistair halted, only a few steps away, turned back to look at her. It took her a moment to put together why she'd stopped him. "The... With Eamon, I..."

His voice still unusually gentle, he breathed, "I'll take care of it, Lyna. I know the Arl, remember, it'll be fine."

"I..." She was supposed to handle these things. Warden things. It was her job. She remembered that, no matter how distant and fuzzy everything seemed at the moment, she still had a job to do.

Alistair's face flickered, but she didn't really have the energy at the moment to figure out what that expression was. "I broke the demon's spell on you, but it'll still take a while for it to wear off all the way. You need to focus on recovering, Lyna. I'll take care of everything until you're back to normal."

...He was right. She was no good for anything like this. She could barely think straight. It was still almost painful, forcing herself to give in, the "okay" mumbled thick and unsteady.

A blink later, and Leliana was guiding her away — her right arm wrapped up with Lýna's, her left around her shoulders — back into the hallway toward the square outside. "Lyna?" Lelianaalsocouldn't say her name right, but she was closer than Alistair. "Where do you want to go? The trees are just off the road up here..."

"No, the lake. I...really want to wash up right about now." It wasn't until after she finished the sentence that she realized she'd said it in Deluvẽ.

"...Ah, the lake?" Oh, right, Leliana knew a little elvish. Good. "We can go to the water. The other side of the old Chantry is best, I think. Come on, this way..."

Lýna let Leliana lead her away, numb and stiff and tired, leaving the hall, the dead boy far behind. But she remembered, she couldn't un-see it. She tried to keep her eyes open, as much as she could, not really processing anything she was saying. She just didn't want to close them.

Every time she blinked, his accusing eyes found hers, red blood vivid against pale skin.

Chapter 12: The Arl of Redcliffe — III

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 18

Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

Alim was pretty sure the barbarian wilder hedge witch was flirting with him.

Brushing off his unease with the suggestive tone on Morrigan's voice — shewasdoing that on purpose, right? her voice did just kind of sound like that... — he threw his hands up over his head, started down the stairs ahead of her. "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to learn how to magically pick locks. A dungeon has plenty of them just sitting around." Coming around a curve in the stairwell, Alim was definitely below ground-level now — he cast a wisp of greenish-yellow fadelight, binding it to follow him over his shoulder.

Morrigan had hesitated a moment, but he could hear she was following now, a few steps behind. "To be honest, I had nearly forgotten. There has been much going on."

Alim snorted. That wasoneway to put it. He'd originally made his impulsive promise to teach her his lock-opening trick before the battle, even — he guessed it was fair to assume he might have forgotten about it in all the excitement. Especially given he'd burned out so hard he'd literally fainted.

Which was slightly embarrassing, passing out right in the open like some kind of scandalized Orlesian maiden, but hehadjust single-handedly taken down the gates ofRedcliffe f*cking Castle, so he was pretty sure it was a wash.

"By the way, did you ever get a look at the Arl? I figure, you know some pretty esoteric magic, you might be able to figure something out." Because, of course, taking down the abomination hadn'tentirelysolved the problem. After sending Lýna off with the Sister — given how hard of a time Lýna had had with the Blight in the Wilds,maybeputting her in the same room as an abomination hadn't been a great idea — they'd searched the castle, looking for any survivors.

There were a few, members of the staff the Arl's son would have been familiar with. They'd clearly been under the influence of the demon, compelled to keep working and act like everything was fine — now, the spell broken, most of them were inconsolate, clearly traumatized by the experience, though they'd probably be fine given time. The Arlessa also lived. She hadn't been bespelled, and from her panicky rambling she'd been trying to reach therealConnor through the demon controlling him. (Which, that wasnothow possession worked, sheshouldhave gone down to the Chantry to get the Templars the second she noticed something was wrong.) Once she'd found out Connor had been killed, there had been a lot of enraged, tearful screaming; someone must have told her the details, because her despondent sobbing now traded off with demands forthat heathen savage rabbit's head. In Orlesian, so most of the armed men around didn't understand her anyway, but still.

Thankfully, Bann Teagan, Fergus, and their men were in absolutelynomood to accommodate her there. They might not like Lýna much — Teagan in particular obviously found her unsettling to talk to, though Fergus just seemed to think she was funny — but theydidowe her, for their help defending the village...and shehadcrippled the abomination long enough for Alistair to finish it off —Alistairhad killed the abomination, but for some reason Isolde fixated on Lýna — preventing who knew how many additional deaths. Even Teagan, the boy's uncle, could admit she hadn't done anything wrong. Despitetheoreticallybeing the person who should be in charge with her husband incapacitated, the Arlessa was shut up in her rooms, her every need provided for but otherwise left to marinate in her misery.

And "incapacitated" was the correct word — the Arl wasalive, but not available. The moment Alistair had exorcised the demon, all the animated corpses remaining had suddenly dropped, like puppets with their strings cut, but only active magics were bound to the life of the caster. Whatever it had done to Arl Eamon was more complex than that. Helookedto be in a deep sleep, lying motionless in his bed, but he couldn't be woken. After a brief examination, Alim had found the Arl was in some kind of stasis, the magic somehow tied off into the Fade itself — that would have been a smart thing for the demon to do, since it didn't have to constantly expend the effort to maintain the spell. However, Alim wasnota fade-walker, or a spirit-healer, or any kind of mage who might have the expertise to break that kind of magic. He couldtry, but he might easily kill the Arl on accident.

So, the plan was to go to Kinloch Hold, on the Lake less than a day north by sail, and recruit assistance from the mages there. They'd already chosen the party that would go to the Circle — including Fergus, who as a Cousland of Highever (and the rightful Teyrn) might have better luck convincing the Templars to release some mages to them — but they were waiting for the villagers out on the islands to be ferried back to Redcliffe first, and also just for things here to settle down a bit. Not that the delay of a few days really mattered, in stasis as he was the Arl would live pretty much indefinitely. Not only was his condition not worsening, he technically wasn't evenaging— he'd outlive them all, he could wait for them to get their sh*t together.

That whole trip could be put off if Morrigan could pull the Arl out herself. They would be going to Kinloch Holdeventually, since Lýna still planned to recruit the Circle, mages and Templars, to join the fight against the Blight, but still.

Personally, Alim would like to put it off as long as possible — he didn't relish the thought of returning to the Tower, foranyreason. And they needed him to come, so he could explain what was wrong with the Arl with the proper magical jargon intact, to make sure they got someone who could actually help. Ugh.

Morrigan's voice floated down to him, somewhat muffled by the rough stone walls of the stairwell. "Your fellow Warden may not respect the wishes of our hosts so much as to hand over his commander to be slaughtered on the whim of a pampered fool, but that doesn't mean he'll force them to allowune païenne sauvageto ply her evil magics on their lord." She sounded faintly irritated, but mostly just amused, a slow, overly-precise feel to her words Alim knew by now was sarcastic.

He blinked, nearly turning around to shoot her a look before dragging his eyes back to the stairs in front of him. They weren't quite even, not looking at where he was going sounded like a great way to fall and break something, which would be even more embarrassing than fainting after blowing something up. "You speak Orlesian?" He'd assumed she wouldn't have understood a word of the Arlessa's raving...

"Of course. What manner of barbarian do you take me for?" That wasdefinitelyamused.

"Uh, the barbarian kind? That is what the wordmeans, you know," he drawled, with an air of sarcastic nasally condescension, "that you don't know anyproperly civilizedtongue."

"For a people who think themselves to have so risen above their base natures, you northerners have a peculiar obsession with our mouths."

...Alim was pretty sure the barbarian wilder hedge witch was flirting with him.

The stairs led to a wide but low-ceilinged hall, rough and undecorated. There were a couple lamps affixed to the walls here and there, fadelight glinting off the metal, but none of them were lit. To the right, he spotted a flicker of warm firelight through an open door — the storerooms were that way, probably. Which meant the dungeon was most likely in the opposite direction. Alim turned off to the left, waving his fadelight to float ahead a bit, so he could see where he was going. A doorway loomed out of the darkness, the room beyond nothing but slashing shadows and flickering dust.

It was a short walk to the dungeon, down a featureless hall and, surprisingly, another flight of stairs. (He wondered how deep the builders of the castle had carved into the cliff.) Finally, through a heavy door reinforced with iron bars, was what he was looking for. The place was rather larger than he'd expected — low ceiling, yes, but in front of him was a hall between two rows of cells...five long, it looked like. There was a turn before the first cell to the left, so there might be more aisles of them down there. It also didn't smellnearlyas bad as he might have expected — especially since it wasn't at all unusual for prisoners to die in custody and be left to rot — the air thick and musty, left untouched for years but not actually home to anything too unpleasant. As rough and old as the stone was, the iron of the bars gritty and rusted with age, it was actually rather clean, no hints of grime or refuse or anything.

Which did make sense, when he thought about it — Redcliffe probably almost never had prisoners. Minor crimes would be dealt with down in the village, and though this was the home of the Arl the local magistrate was actually out at the Crossroads. The prison here probably hadn't seen much use since before the unification of Ferelden. Well, maybe during the Occupation, but it would have been built to a different purpose.

Old prisons in Ferelden, or traditionally Alamarri lands in the Marches, tended to be relatively humane by most modern standards. So far as the amenities went, anyway — it wasn't unusual for cells meant for a single person to be relatively large, with some basic furnishings, in a few exceptional cases even running water. The reason for that was deceptively simple: they were built to house enemy soldiers caught in battle until their release could be negotiated. At the very least, the local arl or teyrn (or whatever the warlord was calling themselves) would have to wait for a response to come back before figuring out what to do with them. If nobody wanted to pay to get them back, they were usually just executed, but they were treated relatively well until then.

Of course, it was theimportantprisoners who were executed if nobody wanted them, the common soldiers were usually just let go. Ordinary people weren't really a threat if they were released, after all, and building good will with the natives could only be a benefit if the warlord ended up conquering those lands later. For all that this region had had a reputation for being a land of violent barbarian tribes, they'd been surprisingly civilized in some ways.

Thatusedto be how things were done, anyway — the percentage of criminals who survived through the squalid prison conditions long enough to stand trial washorrifyinglylow, especially in major cities. The point was, thedesignof the place was relatively nice and open, at least so far as these sort of things were concerned. Nicer than the cells of theTevinter-made jail in Kinloch Hold, anyway.

Alim made for the nearest cell door, leaned in to peer at the mechanism. Hmm, no lever or anything. Must be a ward lock, then. He bet in the guard room (wherever that was) there was a single key that opened all the doors — which was itself a security feature, since that meant they could only open one cell at a time. Lightly slapping his palm against the surface, pushing magic into it, yep, that was a ward lock. All right. Ward locks were actuallymucheasier to open with magic than pin locks, so, good thing to start with.

"Okay," Alim said, turning back to Morrigan. She was standing a short distance away, the fadelight glittering in her hair, her lips pulled into a faint crooked smile. Probably because he'd just gone awkwardly silent at her flirting a moment ago, that hadn't been his greatest moment. "This here is a ward lock. They're probably the most common kind out there — they're the cheapest to make, and much less finicky, fewer moving parts in there than pin locks. Generally, if you just see a block of metal on a door without a handle or lever or anything, chances are you're dealing with a ward lock."

"Like the door on the forge?"

"No, that one was a pin lock — they'reusuallyward locks, but not always." It'd been a pretty complicated one too, the blacksmith had probably designed it himself, but it worked just like a normal pin lock. "Now, basically, to open a lock the way I do it is just doing what the keywoulddo, but with telekinesis. That's pretty hard to do with a pin lock, requires holding multiple points of pressure on very small areas all at once, but ward locks are easy. But to do that, you have to understand how the lockworks, first."

After a brief moment of concentration, Alim cast some more fadelight, but this time twisted into a very particular shape. It took a little fiddling, tweaking the color of some parts of it to make the contrast more obvious, but soon he had a projection of the inner workings of a ward lock, as though someone had come along and cut away the front face of it — the hole for the key, the track the tines would be rotated down with little obstructions sticking up, the lever at the end of the track. A rough impression, but it looked fine.

Once he was happy with it, Alim turned the projection around to face Morrigan. "Okay, so here's a basic idea of what the inside of a ward lock looks like. The key goes in the yellow hole, it's rotated through the green track — those little nobs in the track stop a key with the wrong shape from getting through — until it reaches the lever, in red here. When the lever is pushed up, the latch pulls in, and the lock is open. Most locks, there will be another hole at the end of the track, so the key can be pushed in further and hold the lever in place.

"Oh, also, I forgot: the locks on cuffs usually work on the same principle. In case you find that information in any way relevant."

By the very attentive look on Morrigan's face, shedefinitelythought that information relevant.

"What you need to do is push magic into the device, dense enough you can feel the shape of the bits inside — which is kind of awkward to do, if you haven't done that sort of thing before you might need to practice." It'd been a basic exercise in their enchanting lessons, but he realized someone living out in the wilds her whole life might not have practiced that sort of thing. Marian, for example,certainlywouldn't be able to pick this up very quickly. "Then, all you have to do is find the lever, and push it up out of the way."

Alim bopped the device with his palm again, flooding the innards with magic. An instant of concentration to find the precise location of the lever, the tiniest mental push against it, and a second bop sent the door creakily swinging open. The entire process only took the space of a single breath — Morrigan's eyebrows ticked up a bit.

"Easy." He grabbed one of the bars, yanked the door closed again. "Go on, give it a shot."

Morrigan didn't get the door unlocked nearly as quickly as Alim had — he would be shocked if she did, it'd taken him occasional tinkering over weeks to figure it out the first time. For some minutes, she hovered over the device, her palm pressed against it and her face held only a couple inches away. Her eyes were squinted shut in concentration, her lips twitching with near-silent words, even at this distance Alim could only hear a faint hissing of breath.

He leaned a little closer, until he could pick out a few syllables here and there. Not that it did any good, it definitely wasn't Alamarri. Chasind, he was pretty sure — he didn't speak it, obviously, but itdidsound familiar, like something stood halfway between Alamarri and Anders. Though, a lot of the vocabulary was weird, a slew of borrowings from Avvar and elvish, where Alamarri had borrowed from Orlesian and dwarvish instead. So, only vaguely familiar, but enough he was pretty sure that was Chasind.

Finally, after what was probably a minute or two, Morrigan gave the cell door a shove, and it went swinging open. She straightened again, her face splitting with a grin. There wasn't a trace of the usual sardonic edge, just pleased, uncharacteristically cheerful — almost childishly gleeful, really.

Alim triedvery hardto not find it adorable.

"Good work," he said, breaking eye contact for a second to wrench his wandering mind back to the topic at hand. "Managed it much quicker than I did the first time."

"I imagine you hadn't known exactly how it was to be accomplished." Morrigan reached for one of the bars, pulled the door back toward herself — the latch clanged off the frame, she hadn't held the lock open.

Easily reaching forward to push the latch up (he remembered exactly where it was, didn't need to look again), Alim pulled the door closed himself. "No, but I did have more...direct incentive. You don't want to get through this door as much as I did that one."

"Oh?"

...She was going to turn this into an opportunity to flirt at him again, he just knew it. "Ah, back at the Circle, the apprentices all slept together in a big dormitory, but they were separated by sex, one for boys and one for girls — and we're locked in there overnight. I was fourteen when I first figured this out, I'm sure you can imagine why." A smirk blossomed across Morrigan's face, he moved on before she could say anything. "Go ahead and give it another try. Once you got it smooth and easy we'll see if we can track down a pin lock — those aren't nearly as common, but they're much harder to deal with."

Morrigan raised a knowing eyebrow at him, but she stayed blessedly silent. After a moment of concentration, she unlocked the cell again, quicker than last time but still pretty slow. One more attempt at it, and they moved on to the next cell — the iron of the first one was saturated with too much magic by this point, making it much easier than it would normally be. Morrigan opened this one easily enough, and while she didn't really stumble with it it was still slower than it should be.

After a brief discussion, Alim realized Morrigan was simulating the action of the key — that is, projecting a band of force through the keyhole that she then rotated through the track, pushing the lever up at the end. That really wasn'tat allnecessary, she could just reach straight through and push the lever up. "You surprise me, Alim. I hadn't marked you for a man who cuts to the heart of the matter."

...This was going to be more flirting, wasn't it? "Really? I've been told I can be very blunt sometimes." Not that that was really his fault, in the Circle they hadn't bothered teaching them the properties normal people grew up with. Alim honestly hadn't even known "table manners" were a thing until Keran had gotten snippy at him back at the tavern in Lothering.

Also, openly talking about sex was consideredextremelycrass. He still didn't understand that one. He meant, it was perfectly natural, everybody did it, what was the big deal? He realized howbraggingabout one's encounters could be boorish, but...

If she spent even just a half hour with the apprentices at Kinloch Hold, Alim was certain Keran would come out the other side absolutely scandalized.

The barbarian wilder hedge witch was smirking at him again. "Even so, I imagine you prefer to...linger. Or am I mistaken?"

He probably shouldn't, but if she was going to go giving him openings like that he really couldn't help himself. "Well, Idolike to do the job properly — you saw what I made of the gate, right? I wouldn't—" Clearing his throat, Alim cut himself off. "Ah, I just realized using my opening of the gate as an innuendo probably isn't great imagery, considering the condition it was in when I was done."

Morrigancackled.

With his last bit of advice, Morrigan got her unlocking down to the space of a few quick breaths — not as quick as Alim himself could do it, or even Jowan, but not bad, certainly good enough to be getting on with. She kept working at it, now trying to hold up a conversation while also casting the magic. This slowed her down some, her voice occasionally trailing off, once letting go of the spell too soon, pushing at the door only for it to stay stubbornly in place.

She gave the disobedient lock a forbidding glare. Alim also tried not to find that adorable.

They were at it for a while when, in a lull in the conversation, he heard a shuffling of cloth against stone, coming from somewhere further in the prison. For a mad moment, Alim thought they'd missed one of the dead, but that wasn't possible — the magics animating them had dissolved upon the abomination's death. There really shouldn't be anyone else down here, though. It didn't look like Morrigan had heard anything...but then, she was human, with terrible human hearing. Mm.

He only had a couple seconds to consider it before a voice came wafting from the same direction. "Is there somebody out there?" The voice was thin, hoarse, made even thinner by the corner it had to turn before reaching them. Weak with thirst, wavery with exhaustion, he could barely hear it.

Even so, that was enough. It might not have been, if Alim hadn't heard this voice so many times similarly breathless before — huddled together in the library, muttering to each other so passing Enchanters wouldn't overhear, crammed together on one of their beds in the night, the sheet pulled over their heads, trading whispers so soft, held back to avoid disturbing their neighbors, there was no way the Templars out in the hall would hear. There was no context in which Alim would evernotrecognize that voice.

"Jowan?!"Alim jerked into a sprint, rounding the corner at the beginning of the cells, it went back further than he'd thought, there must be more down here...

"Hello? Is it over? I haven't seen..." Jowan, of course, hadn't recognized his voice right away from the opposite side of the prison — human hearing continued to be terrible. There were multiple aisles of cells, it looked like, but now that Alim was out in the hallway it was much easier to pinpoint where Jowan's voice was coming from: the very next aisle, partway down the right side. He was in the third cell, each hand gripping one of the bars, blinking and squinting from the fadelight still following over Alim's shoulder.

Itwashim. He wasalive. Several Templars had gone off looking for him, he hadn't known if...

"Alim?!What—?"

Alim slapped the lock on Jowan's cell door, a hard push of magic shoving it open. Holding on to the bars, Jowan was pushed with it, staggering back a bit, he hadn't recovered before Alim was on him, his arms snapping around him. He let go after hardly a second, cringing back like he'd just run head-first into a Templar's nullification. "Maker, Jowan, you smellawful." Now that the shock was starting to trickle away, that was finally registering, sweat and piss and sh*t lingering in the air in his cell, clinging to Jowan's clothes. It wasn't so bad Alim had noticed it from the first aisle, but he'd clearly been left in here for a while.

"Oh, excuse me for offending your delicate elven sensibilities," Jowan said, automatically. It'd been a recurrent argument some years ago, when Alim had been twelve or so but smelly adolescence had been hitting his human friend full force — Jowan was a couple years older than him — Alim had insisted Jowan was disgusting sometimes and had to bathe more often if he ever again wanted to stand within a couple steps of him, which Jowan had teased him for incessantly. Jowan seemed to realize what he said the instant after he said it, something soft yet sad at the same time flickering across his face.

Andraste have mercy, helookedterrible too. It might be Alim's imagination, he had always been kind of pasty, but he seemed even paler than usual, his skin turned a sickly green in the fadelight. He was dressed in linen trousers and a loose chemise, the material relatively fine, and both colorfully dyed — borrowed, presumably, he'd been in much cheaper plain Chantry wool when he'd fled — though he still had the soft cloth shoes the mages wore around the Tower. All of it was completely filthy,especiallythe shoes, practically black with dirt, the chemise stained and the pants torn in a few places. The way the chemise hung off his shoulders, he was noticeably thinner than Alim remembered — the plentiful food in the Circle and their sedentary lifestyle meant the mages tended to be a bit soft, especially the more bookish ones like Jowan, but the paunch was gone, his wrists boney and his cheeks flatter. His looked rather drawn in general, strained with worry and exhaustion, deep hollows around his eyes, his lips cracked and stubble thick all along his neck and jaw.

"Maker, Jowan..." Alim's hands drifted over to his friend despite the smell, clasping each of Jowan's with one of his own. (There was a thick metal band around each wrist, the tingle of an enchantment against his skin — Templar work, Jowan probably couldn't cast a spark at the moment.) He was far enough away he wasn't quite gagging, but his nose still burned, his stomach twisting a little, he tried to ignore it as best he could. "What are youdoinghere? I was worried you'd died, the Templars..."

Jowan grimaced. "I crossed the lake west, I probably lost them right away." Hecrossed the... Walking across water was trivial for any competent mage, but Kinloch Hold wasdozens of milesaway from the western shore — that was possible, sure, but it would have beenexhausting. Not to mention seriously f*cking cold. "Alim, what areyoudoing here? I thought you'd be back in..." He trailed off, a wary frown aimed over Alim's shoulder.

"Oh, that's Morrigan. Don't worry, she's a friend." More or less, but it wasn't really important to explain that weird situation right now. Distracted by the thought of Morrigan's mother, who happened to bethe legendary Flemeth, sending her to help them fight the Blight, his mind bounced back the other way, a stray thought summoning a bubble of inappropriate glee into his chest. "She's going to teach me to turn into a bird!"

Jowan smiled, shakily, as though his lips didn't quite remember how to do it properly.

"Never mind whatI'mdoing here, what areyoudoing here? Why come to Redcliffe? Wait, are you imprisoned here? Why?"

"Ah, please, Alim, too many questions, you're drowning me over here." He hesitated just for a second, glancing over Alim's shoulder again, before letting out a thin, tired sigh. "I thought the Templars might have been waiting for me at Highever before I got there, so I came here instead. I planned to take the Kingsroad to Denerim, maybe Gwaren, find someone who'd be willing to take me north."

That wasn'tterriblethinking. The Templars had probably assumed Jowan would be trying to get out of the country as quickly as possible, so would be headed to Strike-over-Dane, or maybe further to Highever — looping around south would have been unexpected. If it were Alim, he thought he would have tried to make for Orzammar instead — various dwarven merchant companies were always looking for mages to bring in new enchanting techniques and guard the Deep Roads entrances and their shipments to the surface — but he could see the logic of it.

"But, I was passing through the village, seeing if anyone would take me across the Lake east, down toward Lothering, when a Templar found me. I think he felt my magic, I don't know. I thought I was dead, that they'd caught me and I'd be brought back to the Tower to be made Tranquil." Jowan took a short, girding breath, his hands tightening around Alim's — involuntarily, it felt like, from nervousness. "They took me to Lady Isolde instead. She said she'd protect me from the Templars if I'd help her with a...problem, she had."

Alim winced. "She wanted you to teach her son, didn't she?" She'd known her son was a magebeforehis possession? That just made itworse— he'd assumed the Arlessa had been blindsided by her son becoming an abomination, but if she'd known about his magic, and kept him hidden and ignorant...

Finding the boy a tutorwasthe right thing to do, so he'd know how to keep himself safe from demons at least, but she should have found someone willing to teach him in secret from, Alim didn't know, Nevarra or Rivain or something. He didn't doubt it should be possible for an Arl's wife to find an apprentice Mortalitasi or Seeress who'd be willing to take a couple years in Ferelden to teach him. Plucking some random runaway Circle mage off the street and coercing him into it was acatastrophicallystupid thing to do. Jowan wouldn't do anything bad with the opportunity, but the Arlessa didn't know him the way Alim did — she could have invited a seriously dangerous maleficar into her home, for all she knew.

"Wait," Alim added, frowning to himself, "was it already too late? If I have the timeline in my head right, you couldn't have gotten herethatlong before Connor was possessed."

Jowan sighed — tired and frustrated and sad. "I think the demon was already talking to him when I got here. I don't know, Connor didn't quite... He didn't trust me yet, I was still a stranger. I was starting with, you know, basic things, fun little harmless spells, before I started trying to get him to open up to me about his dreams and his fears and all that."

Whichwasthe right thing to do, honestly — in Alim's experience, a kid had to like the person they were getting advice from to listen to it at all. If Jowan had waltzed into his life telling him what to do and how to think, Connor probably would have just blown him off. Alim knew he would have when he'd been that age. Honestly, if Uldred and Wynne hadn't given him the same lines about the danger of demons and all that as the other more irritating Enchanters, Alim wasn't sure how much would have sunk in back when he'd been an annoyingly contrary little kid. (In retrospect, Alim had beensucha little sh*t.) Itreallywasn't Jowan's fault that it'd already been too late for him to build up the trust necessary...

"I was barely here for a week before Lord Eamon fell into a sleep he couldn't be woken from. Lady Isolde blamed me immediately, said I'd cursed him or some such nonsense — I wouldn't even knowhowto do that to someone! Not without dooming them to death, at least, and last I heard the Arl was still alive."

Alim nodded. "He lives, though he's still in stasis."

"Oh, good." Jowan sounded honestly relieved, a little bit of the tension going out of his shoulders. "Lord Eamon's a good man, he's been so kind to me. Anyway, I was locked up here before I knew anything had happened to Connor. There was an interruption in the meals coming down, and when the servants appeared again they seemed...off. Not quite themselves.

"Then the next day, Connor came to see me, but...itwasn'tConnor. The evil thingtauntedme," Jowan snarled, "saying how it'd tricked Connor into letting it in. Lord Eamon was going to join his men in Ostagar, you know, Connor was afraid he would be hurt, that he'd never come home. The demon offered to stop him from leaving, tokeep him safe. It said Connor hadn't required much convincing to let hisbest friendhelp."

"Yeesh," Alim hissed, wincing. "Yeah, that would do it. Poor kid..."

Jowan nodded, grave, a hint of simmering hatred in his eyes. "The people that Connor knew, it didn't harm those — that would be breaking the terms of their deal, you see. Smug bastard. Everyone else, it started raising an army...tokeep them safefrom the darkspawn. Bragging to me about it, it was so proud of itself, that it was giving Connor exactly what he wanted while still causing so much suffering...

"Is he..." A reluctant, fearful twist to his lips, Jowan muttered, "Is Connor...?" He couldn't manage any more than that.

"It's not your fault, Jowan."

"Alim..."

"He didn't make it. The demon is gone, the dead have fallen, the village is safe. But Connor didn't make it."

Jowan let out a long, hissing breath, his eyes closed. He was still a moment, his fingers in Alim's shivering a little. "I thought he might be. If you're here, and... I know possession can be rough on the body, but I still hoped he could be saved."

"It was probably too late by the time we got here." There were cases of people surviving possession, but the window wasverynarrow. A few rare examples were in the literature of people surviving week-long possessions — though italwaysresulted in serious damage, both physical and psychological, often irreversibly debilitating — but in cases of hostile possession by a demon of any significant power, the deadline was closer to a single day and night. From what Alistair had said of how Connor's body had been deformed by the demon in him, how long he must have been possessed, there was absolutely no chance he could have made it through any exorcism alive. "And, well, we had no idea what had happened here. Our priority was to stop the attacks on the village — when our people spotted an abomination, they just attacked. Trying to save the boy simply never occurred to any of us as an option."

"No, that was the right thing to do. How long Connor had been possessed, any effort to get the demon out of him would have just killed him anyway. There was nothing you could have done."

"Exactly," Alim said, voice firm, squeezing Jowan's hands. "There was nothing you could have done."

His lips flickered, a little. "What are you doing here, Alim? I thought, back at the Circle..."

Alim gave his old friend a wry sort of smirk. "Jowan, I'd just been caught helping a maleficar escape justice."

Jowan winced at the use of the wordmaleficar— guiltily, Alim thought. Then his eyes went wide, his jaw dropping, his skin somehow goingeven paler, that didnotlook healthy. "You—Maker, Alim, I didn't think— Oh no, I'm so sorry! I thought,youhadn't done any forbidden magic, you couldn't have been held responsible for whatIdid!"

"Yes, well, Templars aren't exactly known for being reasonable, are they?" Jowan winced again, avoiding Alim's eyes. "Afterwhateveryou did to knock everybody out, I woke up in one of the cells under the Tower. I was in there for...a couple days, I think? They pulled me out eventually, and IthoughtI was being brought to my execution. Instead, they brought me up to the Warden-Commander — Duncan, remember, he was at the Tower recruiting? Before I could even open my mouth to ask what was going on, Duncan told Greagoir he was invoking the Rite of Conscription, and demanded I be released into his custody."

His mouth dropping open in shock, Jowan's eyes had gone wide, sparkling in almost childish excitement. "You're aGrey Wardennow? That's amazing!"

"Oh, yeah, itdefinitelyis, I'm not annoyed with you leaving me holding the bag for the whole incident with the escape and the blood magic at all, since it brought me here. I mean, you were just desperate, which is perfectly understandable, but also if you hadn't I'd still be stuck at the Tower, and f*ck that." Jowan still looked faintly guilty, but some of the awkwardness went out of him, at least, instead looking an odd combination of tired and relieved and fascinated. "I would have gone with Duncan to join willingly, but Irving wouldneverhave let me go — crusty old c*nt never did trust me."

"Alim, you set his robes on fire."

"I waseight!"Hewouldclaim it had been an accident, but Jowan knew full well it hadn't been.

"And there was that time you asked if you had a dream where a demon said—"

Alim cut him off with a laugh. "That was a joke! The self-righteous, pedantic sh*t always did take himself too seriously."

That doubtful, disapproving raised eyebrow wasveryfamiliar.

"Anyway, I'm here with the survivors from the battle at Ostagar — I guess you haven't gotten news, trapped down here, but the battle didn't go well. Wewerecoming to Arl Eamon for protection and also for help in the Landsmeet, but we have to wake him up first."

"The Landsmeet?"

"Oh, right, you wouldn't have heard about that either. Teyrn Loghain stabbed the King in the back at Ostagar, the King is dead and the Teyrn is blaming the Wardens for it, it's a whole big mess." Jowan gaped at him, the disbelief clear on his face, but Alim moved on before he could ask any confusing, complicated questions. Not like Alim could tell himwhyLoghain was doing any of that, he had no idea. "It's been a crazy...what, a bit over a month now? maybe almost two? Yeah, I've fought darkspawn, met crazy, multi-centenarian abominations, been subjected to secret ancient blood magic rituals, participated in the battle that saw the end of the line of Calenhad the Great, got in skirmishes with highwaymen and soldiers serving a traitorous usurper, joined forces with ex-Templars and Dalish hunters and thieves and Chasind wilders and a crazy Chantry Sister, fought a legion of undead before single-handedly incinerating the gates of Redcliffe Castle—"

Somehow, Jowan managed to gape at him even wider. "You didwhat?!"

Alim gave him a gleeful grin. "Don't look so surprised, Jowan — I'm amazing, you know this." Somewhere behind him, Morrigan let out an amused huff.

"Maker..."

"Anyway, yeah, everything has been completelymad, I'm not gonna deny that. Also, the Archdemon tries to talk to Wardens in our sleep — itsings, it is the most creepy thingever, you can't imagine. I could definitely do withoutthat." Just thinking about it, Alim fought to repress a shiver. "But I wouldn't go back to the Tower if I could. I'mfree, Jowan, the Templars haveabsolutely nolegitimate authority over Wardens. I'm never going back,ever. So, it was kind of stupid of you, just whipping out blood magic like that, and youdidalmost get me killed, but it's fine. I wouldn't go back and stop it from happening, if I could."

Jowan, apparently, had no idea how to respond to that. He just stared down at him in silence for several seconds, slowly blinking, his face slack with...surprise, Alim was pretty sure. This could happen sometimes, the world charging on past him fast enough Jowan hadn't been able to follow along, had to take a moment to catch up. Mostly when people were joking and trading innuendos that went over his head, but still.

"Anyway, this place isawful, let's get you out of here. You could use a bath, at least."

Drawn out of his stupor a little, Jowan's lip twitched. "I can't really help it, Alim. They haven't exactly shown much concern for hygiene, sticking me down here and forgetting about me."

"I know, I know. Come on." He let go of one of Jowan's hands, turning around back toward Morrigan...and made it two whole steps before he suddenly jerked to a stop. "f*ck!"

"Li...?"

"Ican'tjust break you out. The Arlessa issucha bitch, and she already hates us — if I just take you, when the Arl wakes up she'll tell him, complete with her accusations about you being responsible for his little nap in the first place. We're trying to make an alliance with the Arl, if I go around freeingevil maleficarumI'll sink the ship before it can even set sail. Lýna wouldkillme. Well, notreally, but..." Furious frustration simmering through his chest, Alim punched downward with a shaking fist, a roar of fire tearing the air, a ball of flame splashed against the floor and licking away across the stone in a flickering wave. (Jowan yelped, skipping a bit to the side behind him, which was silly, even distracted by rage Alim had the presence of mind to aim away from his friend.) Setting things on fire usually made him feel better, but unfortunately that hadn't helped. "I, I can't— f*ck f*ck,f*ck!"

There was a short pause before Jowan spoke, his voice gone softer, hardly above a whisper, a weak, shaking tone to it. "If you... Stopping Loghain and the Blight is more important than me, Alim, I understand that. If you have to leave—"

Alim whirled around to glare up at Jowan, quickly enough the taller man backed off a couple steps in surprise, the hand Alim still had a grip around jerking in his. "I'mnotleaving you down here, Jowan. There must besomethingI can do."

Behind him, Morrigan cleared her throat. Alim jumped — she hadn't said a thing this whole time, he really hadn't expected her to involve herself. "I have a thought, if you'd like to hear it."

He half turned, so he could easily look between the people to either side of him. "If you have a way out of this, I'd love to."

"The Grey Wardens have won no small amount of good will with the local rulers." Italmostwasn't obvious from her expression that Morrigan had opposed fighting the dead to protect the village in the first place. "Perhaps not this Isolde, 'tis so, but Teagan and Fergus owe you much — and Eamon, though he doesn't yet know it. It seems to me, if the Wardens were to demand Teagan hand this Jowan—" Her eyes twitched away from Alim's, looking over his shoulder, just for a second. "—over to you, he may be inclined to listen. Especially if Jowan is so innocent as he claims."

"I am, I hadnothingto do with what happened with Connor and the Arl." Jowan sounded rather annoyed, almost offended, as though Morrigan had meant to subtly accuse him of ensnaring the Arl or summoning the demon that had possessed Connor or something.

Morrigan glanced up again, her head tilting and her lips quirking and one eye widening a little in a very elven expression of disdain. "'Tis notmeyou must convince, boy. I haven't the power to decide what happens to you one way or the other."

Jowan was spluttering a bit, before he could rise to defend himself again — Morriganwasjust f*cking with him, but he didn't know her well enough to realize that — Alim cut out ahead of him. "You're saying I should go get Lýna."

"Yes. And perhaps the oaf as well — he's somewhat competent in explaining her intent to Teagan, if nothing else." That was perhaps the nicest thing Morrigan had yet said about Alistair since she'd joined their group a few days ago now. Whichreallywasn't saying much, it hadn't beenthatnice, but still.

"And if Lýna and Alistair can't convince Teagan to let him go?"

Morrigan smirked. "Lýna has a far more practical mindset than most accustomed to the ways of your people. I'm sure, given the circ*mstances, that she could findsomeuse for someone practiced in blood magics."

...Conscription— she was suggesting that, if Lýna couldn't convince the local authorities toreleaseJowan, she could invoke the Rite of Conscription and simplytakehim. That was an...interestingidea, to be sure. Alim didn't know if they could do his Joining any time soon — they needed that liquor stuff to make the potion, which Duncanmighthave given Lýna some of when she'd been promoted, but if he had Lýna hadn't said anything — but if they couldn't that might actually be a good thing, since there would be a much lower chance of Jowanimmediatelydying. And Alim doubted Lýna gave a damn about Chantry prohibitions against certain kinds of magic. Allshewould see was another potential asset who could bring evenmoremagical heft to their efforts, one with somewhat exotic areas of expertise at that, and also one who already had a connection to one of the people on their team, so would both be easier to integrateandhad personal motivation to perform well.

Huh. That...actually might work.

Behind him, Jowan was saying something about notreallyknowing that much about blood magic — which, Alim suspected that was true, but Jowandidknow a bit about fade-walking and magics involving the Veil, and was a better healer than Alim, which couldalsoturn out to be extremely useful anyway. Therealproblem was that, "Jowan is one of the worst fighters in the Circle. Don't even bother trying to argue with me," Alim said, glancing back at him over his shoulder, "I knock you on your ass every time in combat magic lessons." Jowan winced, probably remembering getting his ass kicked in practice bouts over and over — and overand over, he really was quite terrible at it.

Which might have something to do with why he'd been so terrified to face the Harrowing, come to think of it. Perhaps Alim should have been clearer about there not being any actualfightinginvolved... Oh well.

"Forgive me if I'm mistaken," Morrigan said, a lilt on her voice showing she wascertainshe wasn't, "but the Grey Wardens put great value on scholars as well as warriors. Perhaps he can't fight, but 'tis possible he has other uses. The taint carries through blood — who can say what secrets a Warden familiar with blood magics may discover? Or, perhaps, do you have any skill with enchantment, boy?"

"Oh!" Jowan started, faintly surprised at being addressed. The faintest hint of excitement slipping into his voice, he admitted, "Some, though I haven't gotten as much practice at it as I would like — we need approval before attempting any of our designs, and the Templars prefer to leave all the enchanting to the Tranquil. They think it's safer, you see. I have all kinds of ideas, though I don't have my sketchbook on me, obviously..."

Morrigan smiled, just barely. Amused with Jowan's enthusiasm, he guessed, but trying not to show it too much. "There you have it. I can't say what Lýna will choose to do, but surely she'll consider it, at the least. 'Tis the best option you have, I think."

...Right. Alim turned back to Jowan, giving his old friend the most reassuring smile he could manage. "I guess I have to go have a talk with my boss. Come on, let's put you in one of the clean cells in the meanwhile. And I'll see about getting you some food, you look like you'restarving..."

It was only circ*mstance that led to Leliana spotting her at all.

In the aftermath of the battle against the dead, she had found there was very little for her to do. Leliana was a mediocre medic, but the injuries they'd taken were sparing, the healers they had more than enough to handle what was needed. The people who had fled the area, squirrelled away on islands in the lake or across the shore, were in the process of returning, flooding the village with more idle hands than there was work to be done — Murdock and a few his assistants were directing people toward various jobs all through the town, sending others out to reclaim smaller settlements that had been abandoned during the disaster, her help wasn't needed there. She'd poked around the castle a little, tidying up a few messes she'd found, tracking down food for the Wardens that first morning, but the castle had quickly been restaffed — older orphans mostly, she suspected — so there was little for her to do around here anymore either. They would be leaving for the Circle with Fergus and a couple of his people, and it truly wasn't far, so she needn't worry about provisioning for their trip either.

There was much in the way of arrangements for the dead to be made, but she was no use there at all. She wasn't from the area, so she was helpless to identify even the most recognizable faces. Attending to the bereaved, preparing the pyres, that was something sheshouldbe able to help with — she hadn't finished her initiation, but shewasa sworn Sister, she'd even helped with a few funerals back in Lothering. She knew all the rites, all the songs, by heart. And she had offered, the local Mothers had been pleased to have the extra help.

At first. It hadn't taken very long before she'd started to make the Mothers and Sisters here...uncomfortable. It'd barely even reached noon the first day before the Revered Mother, a refreshingly down-to-earth elderly woman named Hannah, had apologetically asked her to leave.

Not that she was entirely surprised. Leliana had neverquitefit in among the Sisters at Lothering, no matter how much she'd tried — she realized she went spouting heresy pretty much every time she opened her mouth, but what else was she supposed to do?lie? Besides, if she was being honest, what she wassupposedto say to people in these situations often seemedhorrible. She knew the words about trusting themselves to the will of the Maker, to trust in the certainty that He had a design by which the world was ordered. That such things happen with purpose.

But to say that to people who had justlost loved onesin some terrible tragedy, to her that felt...cruel? Was that supposed to be a comfort, that theMakerdecided they should live while those they love should die? She didn't... She didn't like the image of the Maker that kind of statement drew. For one thing, it was itself heresy — there was nothing in the teachings of the Chantry that could lead one to think the Maker tookthatdirect of a hand in earthly events — and for another, it made Him sound heartless, and almostevil. If an earthly lord were to indiscriminately slaughter his own subjects so, no Fereldan would consider such a man worth giving fealty to, Leliana was certain.

There was no grand design in this. A young boy had known too little, and a demon had taken advantage of his weakness to cross the Veil and bring suffering into their world. The Maker had no part in any of that.

It was not providence that the survivors lived, but circ*mstance. And it was only right to mourn those they had lost, yes, but that darkness should not be allowed to overwhelm the light they had known before their deaths. They should remember the happiness and love the lost had brought into their lives, to hold it close to carry them onward — like an ember of holy fire, constantly burning away at the center of their souls. They lived, and they shouldrejoicein that, seek out all the wonder and joy and love this world has to offer — and in their wonder see the glory of the Maker's creation, in their joy feel His light upon them, in their love see a shadow of the realisation of what He desires for all of His children.

The Revered Mother didn't want that kind of talk in her Chantry. Leliana had been disappointed, and a little offended, but not really surprised.

Leliana had spent most of the remainder of that first day crafting arrows to replace those she'd lost during the battle. Acquiring the materials turned out to be something of a pain — the points weren't a problem, there were baskets of the things sitting waiting outside the forge, but the wood and fletching took some time to figure out. In the end she'd gathered an armful of branches out in the woods on the hill opposite the castle, and after a bit of searching around brought down a pair of geese with two of the few arrows she had left. Between them Leliana had more than enough feathers, and they'd also contribute to feeding the ever-hungry Wardens.

When he'd found her at work in the guest hall in the castle, where the Wardens were staying for the moment, Alistair had stood over her table for a long, silent moment, as though considering whether he should say something. But in the end, he'd walked off without a word, shaking his head to himself. She had the feeling she made the former Templar nearly as uncomfortable as she did the Mothers.

It was now the second day after the battle, and Leliana had absolutely nothing to do.

After puttering around inside the castle for a bit, looking forsomeminor chore to occupy herself with only to find everything of note had already been handled, Leliana had taken to just wandering around the outside of the castle at random. The transition between winter and spring, that liminal time that was too warm for a proper freeze but to cold and dry for the land to awaken, always seemed to drag on too long in Ferelden, especially so far from the Sea. But now, in the waning days of Nubulis, spring proper wasfinallystarting to bloom — the wind coming off the Lake was missing the bite of even only a few days ago, a hint of warmth sweeping over the land, heavy and faintly fragrant with a promise of the rains soon to come. Finding herself atop the outer walls of the castle, she looked over the lake, the shore to the northeast a hazy mass in the distance, to the north the water stretching on, and on, and on, until it met the horizon and dropped away, unknowable.

Leliana gasped at an abrupt flare of aching homesickness, bent to let her forehead fall against the stone in front of her. About a day's travel north of Lydes was a port town, Valsienne — like many places in the Dales it had originally been an elven city, connecting their major population centers around Halamshiral and Verchiel to sea trade. On a hill outside the town stood the remains of an old elven fort, picked clean centuries ago and left abandoned. Looking north from a surprisingly sturdy tower the opposite shore was justbarelyvisible, faded and blurry — on a very clear night, she could almost convince herself she could see the lights of the capital just to the west, sparkling off the water like colorful stars — to the east the sea stretching on, and on, and on...

She'd spent some significant years in Valsienne, when she'd been young. She'd loved it there — smaller than Lydes, the breeze off the sea fighting back the smell of too many people in one place, covered further with flowers and exotic spices, the port town scattered with people and things from all over the world, mixing to create a complex character of its own, lively and energetic,somethingalways happening. She hadn't been there since...oh, not long after she'd met Marjolaine, before she'd truly become wrapped up in the Game. She would have been...seventeen? eighteen? It felt like another lifetime...

Leliana hadn't realized she remembered what the view from the old tower looked like.

When she straightened again, she turned away from the Lake first, not wanting to look over the water and again see another place, another time. Anotherher, the girl she'd been then hardly recognizable to her now, she might as well be a stranger. She'd left Lydes and Valsienne so far behind,so muchhad happened, it was... Remembering, it was disorienting and painful, she'd rather not dwell on it.

So, it was by complete chance that she spotted Lýna. Not far away was the jumble of halls and towers that made up the main keep. The nearest tower, slightly above Leliana's head and some distance away — too far to comfortably shout, or make out small details, but a skilled archer could definitely hit people on the wall from the tower — a figure sat on the flat rim of the peaked roof shielding the inside, legs dangling off the edge. Leliana was far enough away, if it weren't for the subtle color of the tattoos on her face and the brilliant white of her hair she might not have recognized Lýna at all.

It was somewhat difficult to tell from here what Lýna was up to. Leliana suspected she was working on something, her hands making little repetitive motions in her lap, but at this angle she couldn't see anything. Curiously, it looked like Lýna was at least partially undressed, her dangling legs bare at least up to her knee, above the waist perhaps wearing a breast-band or vest of some kind, or perhaps completely uncovered, it was hard to tell.

...What was shedoingup there?

Curious, and also a little concerned — Lýna had been even quieter and further withdrawn since her close scrape with the demon, and she hadn't been in the guest hall this morning — Leliana found her way back down to ground level, then picking upward through the keep. She tried to keep track of which way was north, how far she'd walked into the structure, but the floorplan inside the keep was surprisingly complex, she got lost at least once. Eventually, Leliana found the staircase leading up what she waspretty surewas the right tower — she wasn't certain until she'd reached the watchroom at the top, through the windows the Lake visible over the jagged edge of the outer wall.

The wooden shutters over the windows had been pushed aside in one place, the spring breeze flowing in uninterrupted. Just in sight at the upper corner of the gap hung a single pale foot. Recognizable as a foot, but looking a little off, too long and narrow, the bones in the ankle formed slightly different, making the heel appear somewhat pointier, the toes too long, flexible — elven, obviously, Leliana had seen more than enough of them to know that's what elven feet were supposed to look like.

"Lýna?" she called, walking up to the open window.

The foot stilled, just for an instant, before settling into an idle sway again. "Leliana. What is?" Her soft voice was nearly blown away by the wind, Leliana could barely hear it.

"May I come up?" It was only polite to ask first, since she suspected Lýna wasn't exactly presentable at the moment.

There was a brief silence, and then a sigh so quiet she might have imagined it. "Okay. Don't fall."

A giggle bubbled up her throat — she couldn't help it, the way Lýna said it all flat and casual, it was funny. Leliana poked her head out the window first, glancing up. The rim of the roof wasn't even, jutting up and down at regular right angles like tiny little merlons. It wasn't very high, but it was nearly a footout, she'd have to reach out andforwardto get to it. She suspected Lýna wouldn't have any trouble at all getting back inside, but Leliana would have to be very careful or else risk missing the window ledge.

Given how far down the bushes hugging the keep below were, such a mistake would be a fatal one.

It wasn't at all difficult for Leliana to getup, though. Her left hand braced against a stone support to the side, she crouched low on the bottom of the window, bringing up first one foot then the other, reached forward with her right hand to find the rim of the roof. Wrapping her hand around a tiny merlon, she turned carefully on the balls of her feet, pulling with her right hand as she stood, reaching high enough to get her left elbow around a peg of stone. Letting go with her right for just a blink, only long enough to fold it around the same tiny merlon as her left, and she lost purchase on the window ledge, her legs swinging out under her, a thrill of instinctive fear thrumming through her as she came to dangle by her arms over the deadly drop.

At the all-too-familiar feeling of giddy excitement, Leliana grinned.

She levered herself up, her shoulders burning a little with the effort — it'd probably been too long since she'd tried anything like this, jumping straight to something this dangerous might not be wise — until her waist met the edge of the roof. Pushing her lower body one way before using the momentum the other, right shoulder coming down and left hip up, she rolled over the edge and up. That was a little uncomfortable, the little merlons jabbing into her stomach and her side, but it worked.

The slope of the roof, coming up to a point over her head, didn't start immediately, a narrow shelf leading up to the edge not quite wide enough to comfortably walk along, the surface of the stone rough and striated from generations of wind and rain. Lýna was sitting in this little flat part, her thighs tucked into the gaps within the tiny merlons. Set in an orderly sort of chaos around her were bits of leather, metal, cloth — a couple wineskins, a little pouch Leliana could just make out a bit of cheese through the lip, bundles of dark leather and shining metal that... Oh, Lýna's armor! Or, her clothes, Leliana guessed, she suspected Lýna just affixed scraps of metal to what had been ordinary wandering Dalish clothing for a bit of protection. She must be doing work on it, okay.

Now much closer, she could see Lýna was wearing loose shorts made of linen, or perhaps very finely-spun hemp, the soft cloth plain and undyed. There was a row of laces on both sides, from the top low on her waist to the bottom high up her thighs, holding the bit of cloth in its shape and in place over her hips. Other than that, she was entirely nude.

For all that people focused on the ears, there really were plenty more differences between humans and elves than just that. Herself, Leliana had always focused more on the eyes than the ears — elven eyes were much larger than humans', colorful and expressive, the dominant feature of their faces. She'd noticed in daylight there was often a faint shimmer to them, in the night they seemed almost reflective, like a cat or an owl. (Lýna's were a rich blue-ish violet, a color humans couldn't have at all, very striking.) And their hands, longer and slimmer, the fingers thin and graceful, delicate, their feet similarly stretched out.

And the rest of their body was built noticeably different too. From a distance, the most visible was the slightly off proportions — their limbs were longer relative to the rest of their body — and their somewhat rounded shoulders, an arch to their upper back humans didn't really have. Their chests were also built somewhat differently, the sternum set into their bodies a little further, making their ribs seem to bow out just a little — not alot, but enough it was noticeable. As a consequence, the hollows up by their shoulders and under their ribs were more noticeable, their clavicles more prominent. Their legs, hips, and lower spine were also fitted together somewhat differently, though it was subtle enough it was really only obvious when they were moving around, the elven gait identifiable to anyone who knew what to look for, even if all their features were obscured.

(Leliana assumed the differences in how their hips were put together had something to do with why childbirth was rather easier for elves, though she hadn't been told for certain.)

The differences in their skeletal structure meant elves tended to have less range of motion than humans in their shoulders and elbows, but more pretty much everywhere else. It was uncomfortable for elves to fold their arms behind their backs, and it was pretty much impossible for them to reach straight behind themselves. Reaching straight up was also a problem, but not as bad. On the other hand, they could turn their wrists and ankles to all kinds of weird angles, often without losing any strength or dexterity, and from knees to ribs could be very bendy, humans would badly tear something trying to imitate it.

Leliana had once known an elf woman who'd demonstrated for her. Laying face-down, she'd propped her chest up on her folded arms, arching her back so far around she'd folded her anklesunder her own chin. Also, sitting in a split, one leg going out straight to other side, she'd been able to turn both her legs and bend her knees so her toes were pointedup, then lean over to touch the side of her head to the ball of her foot.

That second one had hurt justwatching, Leliana had begged her to stop.

It was actually Marjolaine who had taught her a lot of this — she'd met plenty of elves before that, of course, she'd just had no reason to pay that close of attention. Elves were physically weaker than humans, butfaster, and fighting with blades they tended to prefer sideways slashes, building momentum with steps and turns, that momentum sometimes suddenly shifting in surprise jabs. It wasn't hard to follow, but their footwork was completely different than what humans learned, so Leliana had needed to be taught to recognize both. Also, since joints and pressure points worked differently, she'd had to practice grappling with elves too.

And Leliana had gottencompletelydistracted, she'd lost track of her thoughts, just kneeling here blankly staring in Lýna's general direction. Shaking her head, she smiled. "Nice place you have here." She did kind of mean it, Leliana had always liked being high up, though it was a little hard to get here. "What are you up to?"

Lýna tilted the bit of leather in her lap Leliana's direction. It took a second to process what she was seeing: her trousers, but only half of them (the back half, she thought), the inside facing up. She hadn't realized Lýna's clothes were lined with fur, a honey brown streaked with black and silver here and there, the hairs squished flat and smoothed from so long pressed tight against her skin. The lining had been partially stripped away, the length all down one leg flapping a little in the wind. In one of her hands she held a little tool of some kind, a couple metal hooks on the end.

"Ah, I see. Getting too warm in there, then."

"Spring comes," Lýna said, nodding. She reached toward her other side, pulling another bit of leather into her lap — the other half of her trousers, the fur lining replaced with a layer of cheap southern linen. Not the same material as her shorts, Leliana guessed the lining was local and her shorts were Dalish-spun. Putting it back, she said, "Also, I have more armor, for my legs. I will do that after the Circle."

Leliana let out anahof understanding, nodding. After a quick glance around, making sure she wouldn't be sitting on anything, she sank down next to the underdressed woman, sticking her legs through the gaps to hang over the edge. The spaces were narrow enough Leliana could feel the stone against both sides of her thighs, but she fit comfortably enough. "Do you always do that? I mean, do the Dalish all make their own clothes, or are you only doing it because the people who would do it for you aren't around?"

Picking out a stitch with a hook, Lýna shook her head. "Always. But we don't make all. This," she reached over to pinch a bit of the lining, "some it is their job to make. To shape them, this we all do."

"I see." That wasn't at all unusual, really — common people tended to make their own clothes, since most hadn't the wealth to afford a tailor. Leliana herself had never learned how, which the other Sisters back in Lothering had thought was very peculiar. She'd had to learn, since Sisters were largely responsible for their own wardrobe, but she hadn't any confidence in her ability to do it properly, she'd needed her hand held the whole way through.

...Belatedly, she realized Lýna haddesigned and built her own armor. She hadn't forged and shaped the metal she'd stuck on here and there, true, but that was still kind of neat.

For a short time they lapsed into silence, Lýna silently working, Leliana alternately gazing out over the water and watching her. She really thought Lýna would be cold, but she wasn't shivering or anything — a little pinked here and there by the wind but she seemed fine. "Oh! Those are pretty. I didn't realize the Dalish tattooed anything besides their faces."

Lýna's lips twitched a little. "You not seen much ofDelje, I think."

...Delje, not Delen? Hmm. She knewDelenmeantDalish, the people collectively and just as an adjective. A lot of feminine words ended with thatje, so, did that just mean a Dalish woman? Probably, seemed like a good guess. "You're not the first I've met, but if you mean that literally, no."

"Literally?"

"I haven't seen one with their shirt off before." There might have been a little bit of an arch lilt to her voice, almost teasing, she hadn't meant to do that...

Because, Lýnadidhave more, sketched across her chest and both of her upper arms — Leliana had been trying not to look too closely, not wanting to make Lýna uncomfortable, it'd taken her embarrassingly long to even notice. The designs on her chest were rather complex, dense figures framed with the gently curving, colorful lines Leliana recognized from a lot of elvish art. That was, perhaps, a fennec, the curl of its tail transitioning into drops of rain — no, blood, it was red — the blood condensing into the twining horns of a halla, its nose bumped up against... She couldn't make it out, the curve of Lýna's breast was hiding the rest from this angle.

The drawings on her arms were somewhat... Well, they weren'tsimpler, but less pictographic — still with the colorful swirls, but instead of framing shapes of recognizable things the center was a single unbroken line a steely silver-black, curving and switchbacking and curling, occasionally meeting another curve or dash, that— "Is thatwriting?" Leliana asked. She leaned in a little, getting a closer look at Lýna's near arm, fascinated. She didn't think she'd ever seen native elvish writing before.

"Yes." Dropping her hook in her lap, Lýna leaned back a little. Her finger following along her chest, from dancing fennec to blood to halla — Leliana could now make out the halla's nose had pushed through a mirror, it looked like, broken glass forming into a downward-facing arrow, then into a mass of more lines like those on her arm — as she went slowly speaking, "Savhrajeᶅ lĩ, Maharjeᶅ enashẽ, Lýna õ dirthuvenĩ iśa, õ gal-sýtalĩ Muthallã õ boghĩ dy-sa."

"That's very pretty, but I have no idea what it means." A couple words sounded vaguely familiar, and she thought she heard Lýna's name in there somewhere, but...

"Oh. Let me try." Lýna paused for a couple seconds, her eyes tilting up to the sky. "Blood of Savhraj, daughter of Maharjaj, Lýna that...fire swore? No, promise.Fire has promised."

"That's your full name?Lýna that fire has promised?"That was...dramatic.

"Name?" One shoulder lifted in a little shrug. "I don't know how to say, but is not name. A thing parents choose, when child is young. I can't explain. From here,that bonded with Muthallã that is lost to her." Before Leliana could ask, Lýna pointed at her right arm, "She that protects her people," then the left, "She that finds the way. All hunters have these. Parents and elders and mages have more. Or, if you do something big. The Keeper chooses if it is big enough to write in blood."

Leliana felt her eyebrow twitch. "Write in blood?"

"It is long story." Something on her voice made itveryclear Lýna didn't want to talk about it — which was fair, the Dalish could be very secretive at times. She wouldn't be surprised if they were getting uncomfortably close to the sort of thing Lýna wasn't supposed to be talking about with outsiders.

Speaking of which, "Is this okay? I have the feeling I shouldn't be seeing these at all." The ones on her arms were maybe fine, but Leliana wasn't sure about the ones on her chest. To begin with, they were on a part of her body hardly anyone would ever see, and also they just seemed...kind of private. Maybe if Leliana were Dalish, then it would be fine, but she couldn't help the suspicion this was...kind of a big violation of propriety or privacy or something.

But Lýna shook her head. "Is okay. I am far from them, now, it's no difference."

...That sounded like Lýna's clanwouldhave a problem with Leliana seeing her like this, but since they weren't around they couldn't kick up a fuss about it. Which suggested thiswasinappropriate...and now she felt vaguely guilty. She reallyshouldn'tbe, Lýnahadsaid she could come up, but. "You know, if I'm bothering you you can tell me to go."

Slowly and precisely, taking care to say it correctly, "You are not bothering me."

Okay. Still felt a little awkward, but she wasn't going to belabor the point.

They lapsed into silence again, Lýna studiously picking stitches out of her disassembled trousers, as though Leliana weren't there at all. Normally, such a thing wouldn't trouble her, but the quiet was quickly making her a little uncomfortable. For one thing, Lýna was... Well, Lýna wasalwaysquiet — at least partially because she was self-conscious about her awkward Alamarri, Leliana suspected — but this didn't seem like the same kind of quiet.

Some quiet people, Leliana got the feeling they were that way simply because they had nothing to say, or at least nothing interesting. While Lýna didn't really talk much, there was always this intensity about her — energy held back from motion, a subtle tension, as though there actuallywasa lot going on in there, she was just keeping it to herself. Lýna was always watching, always listening,somethingalways turning in her head. Leliana couldn't help being deeply curious about her — she probably would have been anyway, but the Maker had specifically directed her towardthis person, so her interest was much keener than it would have been — honestly it took some effort to not ply her with questions constantly. She was curious, yes, but Lýna didn't know her, she didn't want to...put her off.

But anyway, this wasn't quite the same quiet. It was subtle, her posture somewhat looser, without her normal rigid intensity, some of the constant observant acuity in her eyes faded. In fact, she seemed...kind of tired. It was hard to tell, but she thought so. Lýna's face seemed lax and drawn, her focus not as sharp as it should be, picking at the stitches a bit slower than Leliana knew she could — it was possible she was just taking her time, but. Once, Lyńa let go of her trousers for a moment, rubbing under her eyes and over the bridge of her nose.

Hmm. Leliana had been faintly concerned before, but it was only worse now.

Besides, not only that, sheshouldfind something to distract herself. Sitting here with nothing to do, Leliana...looked. More than she should, she caught herself more than once. She was trying not to, she didn't want to make Lýna uncomfortable, but she couldn't help herself. It wouldn't be the first time she looked, and Lýna not wearing very much at all was making it harder to avoid it.

Leliana had always had a weakness for pretty things, she was aware of this. It was even worse with prettypeople, she could be...distractible, sometimes. And elves always had a delicate, graceful sort of beauty to them, she thought, one the subtle lines of muscle visible along her limbs and her middle, the old scars scattered here and there, didn't detract from at all. Also, the tattoos were pretty. Leliana wastryingnot to stare, really, but she feared she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

So, something else to focus on would be good, yes. Tearing her eyes away from Lýna for a second, clearing her throat, Leliana asked, "Did you sleep alright? I didn't see you in the guest hall this morning." She'd checked after waking, Lýna had been nowhere to be found, her abandoned bed already cold.

"I slept, there." Lýna's head tilted in a nod, toward the southeast — toward the hill on the opposite side of the village, topped with crumbling ruins and forest. Reaching across herself, she picked up a wineskin, held it up toward Leliana.

Why was she— Oh, she must think Leliana had cleared her throat a second ago because she was thirsty, okay. Shecoulduse a drink, so she took it, downed a gulp of vinegar water quick. (Blech.) Anyway, there was something veryDalishabout sneaking out to sleep in the woods when she had a perfectly serviceable bed in a perfectly nice room inRedcliffe Castle, of all places, Leliana found herself smiling. "Do you not like your room?"

Lýna's eyes narrowed a little, her lips pursing, a faint elven scowl. "Sleeping in stone is... It's toostill. Quiet. I will learn but, now..." She shook her head. "Also, with the sun I...pray? I think this is the word you use. To All-Mother."

...She'd been under the impression the wandering Dalish didn't do that sort of thing — after all, they believed their gods were locked away somewhere, there was really no point in trying to talk to them. (With the exception of the Wolf, of course.) Though, Leliana didn't really knowthatmuch about Dalish beliefs. She knew of the All-Mother, of course, she was one of the more important ones. Human scholars tended to oversimplify her into a goddess of motherhood, of love and of the family and so forth, but Leliana was pretty sure that was wrong. Elvish stories, even the ones the elves living in Orlais remembered, portrayed her more like a goddess of justice — often of the eye-for-an-eye sort, a balancing of the scales, but sometimes ironic punishments, bringing the guilty low by highlighting their crimes or personal flaws in horrible but amusing ways — and also a great protector of the innocent. Rather like Toth, she thought, the old Tevinter god and the elven All-Mother were strangely similar in some ways.

Though, one of the weird things Leliana knew about the All-Mother was how divided elves were about how her story ended. All the others, there was no deviation — the Wolf walked the Fade, and the rest were locked away somewhere. Some said the All-Mother had been locked away with them, but therewasdisagreement on that. Some claimed the Wolf had killed her shortly before trapping the others. Other stories said she'd been murdered by another of the gods, either the First of the Sun (the All-Father, her husband) or their god of the dead, though Leliana hadn't heard a great explanation for why — usually just written off as the other gods being jealous of the elves' love for her. One Dalish man Leliana had met once had claimed the All-Mother was still out there, somewhere, to this day executing her justice for those who sought it. If Lýna were one of the Dalish who believed their All-Mother was still in the world, then Leliana guessed it wasn't so strange at all.

"It wasn't your fault, Lýna."

She blinked, shot her a confused glance. "What?"

"What happened, with Connor. With how long he was possessed, there was nothing anyone could have done — he would have died in the end, one way or the other. If the All-Mother truly punishes only the guilty, you have nothing to fear."

Lýna's eyes widened, just a little. Surprised Leliana knew even that much about her gods, perhaps? "No, with All-Mother, that is other thing. The boy, I know that." There was something on her voice there, a tension Leliana couldn't read.

"The nightmares haven't stopped yet." She'd gotten maybe only a couple hours of sleep after the battle, slipping out to occupy herself with something else she'd woken Leliana up, still very early. Now, ithadonly been a day and a half, and according to Alistair these things can stick with people for a little while. A week or two, maybe. That Lýna might still be having trouble sleeping was notsurprising, exactly.

"Yes." Lýna's hands stilled in her lap, her head tilted back a bit, letting out a thin sigh. "Ashaᶅ, this time."

...Normally Leliana wouldn't ask after her nightmares, might be too private, but Lýna was sort of inviting her to, wasn't she? "Who is that?"

"What? Oh, you weren't here for that talk. Yes. My parents died, when I was very young. Ashaᶅ kept me. Other hunters they..." Frowning out toward the Lake, Lýna hesitated a few seconds. "Many in the clan, they don't want me there. Because my parents' clan, there are things, long story. Other hunters, they don't want to teach me, but Ashaᶅ was one too. If not for her, I be... I don't know. Not hunter."

So then, her adoptive mother, and also her mentor. Okay, noted. She was a little curious what it was about Lýna's parents' clan that made other Dalish so leery of them...but it probably wasn't important for Leliana to know about internal Dalish politics right this second.

"She said many things, on what we are, do. When it is right to hurt someone, what kind of hurt, when not." Lýna was silent a moment, steely glare fixed on her hands in her lap. In a low mutter, her voice thick, the wind nearly swallowing it up, "She says she's shame, for me."Oh, poor thing... "I mean," she said, one hand raised to flutter around near her head, "in dreams. Ashaᶅ is dead, I know."

"You may understand it's not real, but that doesn't mean it isn't painful to hear. I'm sorry you have to go through this, Lýna." Unthinkingly, Leliana reached out, her hand finding one of Lýna's in her lap. Going almost painfully rigid, hardly seeming to breathe, Lýna stared down at their hands — she didn't pull away, or do much of anything at all, her face expressionless. Leliana shouldn't have touched her, she knew — the wandering Dalish could beverystand-offish, especially so with humans (doubly withOrlesianhumans) — it'd been impulsive. And now it was too late anyway, so she slipped her fingers through Lýna's, gave her hand what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. "There was nothing you could do. In every way that mattered, that boy was already gone. All you have done is save lives that would have been lost otherwise. You havenothingto be ashamed of, and I'm sure Ashaᶅ would understand that."

Lýna didn't respond at all for long, heavy seconds, just staring down at their hands in her lap. Silently, blankly. Finally, she twitched into movement. "I know." She made to lift her hand, so Leliana let her go. Picking up her trousers again, the fur lining by now almost fully removed, shifting in her seat a little as she set to work again, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. (That had been a mistake, Leliana shouldn't have touched her.) "The demon makes it real, but when I wake I know.

"Mostly, I do. It is..." Lýna hesitated, the hook in her hand shaking a little, before she steadied herself again. "I never kill child, before. Iseechildren die, but, by sword in my hand is...bad."

Maker, Leliana didn't doubt that — even with all the things she'd gotten mixed up in, she didn't think even she'd ever seen a child die before. Actuallykillingone would be... No, she didn't judge Lýna for being shaken by this, not at all.

"The demon used that, it—" Leliana jumped as Lýna suddenly jabbed out in front of her with her hook. "—struck me, deep. Alistair says, I will heal, but. Until then, nightmares."

That was what he'd told the rest of them, yes. Keran had wondered aloud yesterday evening whether Lýna was still fit for command (the implication on her voice being that she would prefer it if she weren't), so Alistair had taken the time to explain what had happened, and what the long-term consequences would be — in short, none, though Lýnawouldbe somewhat fragile for a short time. Obviously, Alistair must have talked to Lýna about it at some point too, and it almost...

There was a faintly defensive tone on Lýna's voice, as though Leliana were suggesting that she should...well, she wasn't sure what Lýna thought, exactly. That she was broken enough that she shouldn't be listened to, that she should be kept back from the fighting still to come. Which, of course Lelianadidn'tthink that. Perhaps in an ideal world, they would have the opportunity for Lýna to relax through her recovery, but with a Blight rising and the kingdom on the knife-edge of civil war they didn't really have the time to sit around. That was unfortunate, maybe, but they didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.

But, Lýna hadn't directly drawn attention to that line of thinking, so Leliana wasn't going to either. Instead she'd jump back to something else she'd been wondering about, while Lýna had been explaining her tattoos — something of a change of topic, true, but somewhat related? "I was wondering, earlier, that was your husband's name, Mutha..."

"Muthallã."

"Muthallã," Leliana repeated, committing the name to memory. At first, she'd thought that was...somewhat unsettling, the idea of women being branded with the name of their husband...except, presumably, the husband himself would be marked somehow too, so that wasn't so bad, then. Kind of romantic, the more she thought about it, carrying some small piece of their love with them at all times...but perhaps an unpleasant reminder of what was lost, should one die. "Oh, if this is a painful topic for you, we can talk about something else."

Lýna's eyes narrowed, a little, but she shook her head. "It is fine." The fur lining fully removed now, she tossed it over her shoulder to fall against the slope of the roof, dragged over the waiting linen.

...As much as Lýna said she didn't mind, Leliana still got the impression from that little frown that she didn't want to talk about him. Fair enough. "I was wondering, earlier, do you have children back home?" It certainly seemed plausible. She thought Lýna was younger than her, but not bythatmuch — the wandering Dalish started families early, so she was no doubt old enough to be a mother, especially if she'd been married and widowed once already. And, obviously she wouldn't have been able to bring kids along into the Wardens...

But, by the flat look Lýna shot her, she thought Leliana was being silly. "No, of course." She pointed at herself, around her waist a bit to the side, a little over the curve of her hipbone, but—

"Oh! Right, I'm sorry." She'd mentioned, earlier, that parents got something for their children, but she didn't have anything of the kind, so. Oops. "That seems a little sad. I mean, that Muthallã is gone and you don't—"

Lýna let out a shocked laugh — not much, just a single suddenheh!but Lýna hardly ever laughed, it was still surprising. Smiling to herself a little, shaking her head, "No, is good. With Muthallã, I was very young, not ready. It is good I didn't. Even so, we were not well, the clan — I was needed, hunting, wayfinding, fighting. Also, in the Blight, many children didn't live."

That made sense, she guessed. "How old were you?"

"When bonded? Thirteen. He died months later."

...Oh.

Never mind, that wasperfectlyreasonable — she hadn't realized Lýna had been quitethatyoung at the time, and if they'd only been married a few months, well.

Andraste wept, ofcourseshe hadn't been ready. WhenLelianahad been thirteen, she couldn't imagine, that would have been adisaster...

"And of you? You think so, that you are sad for this?"

It took a moment, distracted by her thoughts —thirteen, Maker... — for Leliana to put together what Lýna was trying to say. "DoIregret not having children, you mean?" Focused on her sewing, Lýna just nodded. "...Maybe a little, sometimes. I did intend to marry, when I felt the time was right — I wasn't born to nobility, but Lady Cecille always said she would be able to find someone suitable, the second- or third-born son ofun baron o un comte."

That would probably have seemed peculiar to her peers, for Cecille to arrange a respectable marriage for the bastard child of a lowborn handmaid, especially one who'd already been dead for a decade by then. But, truthfully, her mother hadn't been a handmaid — Cecille and Leliana's mother had been lovers. When she'd been twelve, she'd been told the only reason she hadn't been taught to speak of Cecille as a second mother growing up was so she wouldn't slip up in public. So, arranging a respectable marriage forher daughterwas only appropriate. Her peers would have thought it strange, there definitely would have been gossip, but it probably would have blown over before too long.

Anyway, "I always thought I would, when I imagined the future, you know. At this age, I thought I'd be living with some kind, charming lord — probably in the south, outsideMontsimmard o lo Val Firmin— along with our, oh, at least two or three children by now. But around the time I came into courting age, I..."...met Marjolaine. "There was always something else that had my attention."The Game. "In time I chose to leave Orlais behind, and...so there I was in Lothering, when you came through," Leliana finished, somewhat awkwardly, summoning a weak smile for Lýna.

"Cecille?"

By this point, it was very obvious Lýna was trying to deflect the conversation away from herself — perhaps legitimately curious, yes, but Leliana suspected she'd shared as much as she was going to today. (Touching her probably hadn't helped.) So Leliana took the bait, and babbled off about her old life in Lydes for a while. Cecille, kind and patient, but with a razor wit usually only shown in private, her gaggle of gossipy, meddlesome siblings and cousins. When she'd been maybe eleven or twelve or so, and started showing interest in story and song, finding excuses to visit places minstrels would be performing (Cecille normally hated mingling with her peers), hiring tutors to teach Leliana.

A memory struck her, sitting on a balcony with the city laid out below them, the wind playing with Leliana's hair, her old eight-course lute in her lap, reciting something she'd been working on, Cecille reclined on a chair nearby, asking questions, picking over the weak points with her, her voice warm and gentle. The flash of memory was intense, like it was only yesterday, Leliana had to pause to blink back tears.

(Cecille had approved of her interest in minstrelsy, but she hadn't liked the turn her studies had taken after meeting Marjolaine. Leliana regretted how they'd drifted apart, but Cecille had passed years ago now, it was too late to fix it...)

They passed some minutes, Lýna steadily stitching at her trousers while they chatted about music. Apparently, it was also common among the wandering Dalish for stories to be accompanied with music, much like in Orlesian minstrelsy, though it wasn't quite the same. They didn't have lutes at all — in fact, Lýna had no idea what a lute even was, Leliana had to describe it — but they did have a variety of flutes and the like. Of course, a person couldn't play a flute and speak at the same time, those were a separate thing. From how Lýna (haltingly) described it, Dalish storytellers were perhaps more rhythmic than lyrical — like speaking in verse, dramatic and emphatic and deliberately paced, accented with an instrument that sounded very much like a tambourine. Sometimes, there'd also be a flautist or several backing the poet up, but that was harder to arrange (especially for a people who didn't write any of this down), so that was less common.

It did sound sort of fascinating, honestly — Leliana had heard elven music before (often actuallyinelvish), but the traditions and techniques of those in the modern Dales were quite different from what Lýna described of the wandering Dalish. Unfortunately, Lýna claimed to not be much of a storyteller, even in her native language, it just wasn't something she'd practiced much. She had played around with a flute some — she claimed all of her people did at some point, and most owned at least one — but she didn't think she'd ever been very good at it.

Leliana teased that they should find her a flute, so she could hear it and judge for herself. Lýna had turned that right back around, that they should get her a lute, which,Maker, she wassoout of practice. She wasn'topposedto the idea, it would just be...awkward, at first.

Besides, getting back up to scratch with her archery and swordplay was more important at the moment.

Leliana was explaining what minstrels actuallydo— the concept of a person who travelled around making their living singing tales was clearly fascinating to Lýna — when they were finally interrupted. Of course, Lýna noticed first, her wide-eyed curiosity compressing with a vague frown. "What is it?"

"Someone comes." Lýna's head tilted back the other way, her frown deepening for a second. "Alim, I think."

How good even was elven hearing, Leliana didn't hear anything out of place at all. "Lýna? Are you up there?" Okay, she heardthat— that was definitely the excitable young Warden mage, an uncharacteristic note of tension on his elven-smooth voice.

"Yes. What is?"

"I need to talk to you about something. Hang on a second, I think I can pop up there..."

"Wait, no!" Next to her, Lýna twitched at the sudden outburst, shooting her an odd glance. "Ah, Lýna isn't decent right now. You probably shouldn't come up."

There was a short pause. "What are you twodoingup there?"

Leliana tried not to look flustered at the suggestion — Lýnawassitting right there, she didn't want to give the wrong impression. "Nothing untoward, Alim. Lýna's removing the winter lining from her clothing, and I'm simply keeping her company."

"...Right. Okay."

Frowning a little with confusion — did Lýna not get what Alim was implying? — she said, "You need me for what?"

"Sorry, boss, I know we were, ah... I was showing Morrigan my lock-opening trick, and I found someone in the jail under the keep."

Leliana gasped. "Someone's been down there thiswhole time?"

"Yeah, the abomination was remembering to feed him, apparently. I'm worried the Arl is going to have him executed when he wakes up. He didn't do anything wrong! But he happens to be an old friend of mine, and...I was hoping you could do something about it."

"Old friend? He's a mage?"

"Yes."

Lýna let out a hum, her eyes tipping up to the cloud-streaked sky for a short moment. "Wait a little, I will dress first."

"Right, yeah, um, thank you."

Pulling her legs back through the slots, in a couple seconds Lýna had one half of her trousers under her, the other laid over top, quickly hooking the pieces together down the insides of her legs. Leliana had half-stood, preparing to get back down but also giving her feet more room. Though, she was kind of thinking she should wait for Lýna to go first — how far out the ledge was, she would really like someone down there to give her a hand through the window. Alim was still down there though, Leliana could hear him pacing, it was probably fine. He could just pluck her out of the air with magic if he really had to.

"Lèlja." Lýna had paused, her eyes on her hands paused a little below her knees. With her face turned down, it was especially hard to read her expression — uncertain, maybe, wary. It looked like she was about to say something, but—

Oh! That word there,lèlja, was that supposed be an elvish nickname for Leliana? Shethoughtso. It'd taken her a moment to get that...

Finally, barely above a whisper, Lýna muttered, "Śerynĩ."Thank you.

Leliana wasn't entirely sure what she was being thanked for, but it didn't really matter, did it? Giving the younger woman her best warm smile, she said, "It's no trouble at all, Lýna. How do say that,you're welcome?"

Her lips twitched. "Śerynĩ."

That sounded the same as— Oh, itwasthe same! One person says,what you've done, it lifts me up, and the other person says,doing so lifts me also. That's so nice, shelovedit! "Well then,śerynĩto you too, Lýna."

Lýna gave a little bobbing nod, then went back to seemingly ignoring her, picking at laces along the outside of her legs.

Okay, then. Let's see about getting back through that window...

One note here because I rambled too f*cking long for the end notes to fit:

[un baron o un comte] — Leliana is slipping into Délois, in the sense of Dalish Orlesian (irl Occitan). Yes, I know it's "ou" in French, but it's not French.

Chapter 13: None Are Alone — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 19

Kibannan Circle of Magi, Ostwick, Confederation of Free Cities

Everything was cold, and dark.

The thing about being a Dreamer was that sleeping was pretty much a continuation of whatever she'd been doing or feeling or whatever when she was awake. Evie...didn'tthinkit was like that for normal people? Mystrel said even mages were less aware here than she was, that there was a break — apsychic discontinuity, Mystrel called it — between their waking self and their dreaming self. That the Fade, and who they were while here, was separate from them, at least a little bit.

Apparently, it was evenmorefor normal people. She'd been told normal people were barely conscious at all when they were here, that it was fuzzy and distant and weird, didn't make any sense at all, like a jumble of any random thought just thrown together into a confusing mess. Not that they noticed how confusing it was, since they were barely here, and once they were gone they didn't remember most of the details.

Which was justweirdto think about. Evie was pretty sure she'd had moments of not being fully awake,psychic discontinuitiesin her moment to moment being, but she'd been very little — she couldn'trememberthem. She was nevernotawake, in a way. She was awake in the real world, of course, and when she went to bed she just laid down, got comfortable, and then stepped right into the Fade. There was nobreak, nodiscontinuity, one went right into the other. The same thing when her body woke up, she just...went back, and she was there. No break.

Mystrel said how life was for Evie, each moment flowing right into the next to the next to the next with no break at all, was what a normal person (even a normal mage) would think of as just never going to sleep at all. Which wasweird. If thispsychic discontinuitywas what normal people thought sleep was, Evie hadn't slept since she was...she didn't know, two or three? Mystrel said normal people would get very tired trying to do this, which, yes, herbodygot tired, she had to let it sleep, and her mind did too sometimes, but when that happened she made somewhere soft and warm and pleasant and just relaxed for a bit, she didn't...let things go black, and stopbeing her, whateverthatwas like.

Sleep for normal people sounded...kind of scary, honestly? If she had a break like that, when she stopped being aware of herself, and woke up hours later with only a vague idea of what had happened, that would be... She didn't like that thought. She'd probably be really freaked out when she woke up, and run off to find Mystrel and ask what was wrong with her.

But, sometimes, she kind of wished she could just...stop. Even only for a little bit.

The problem with always being awake was, when she went to sleep, she brought all of her with her. Normal people did some of that too, but they did itless, not everything got through thatpsychic discontinuity, some of themselves left behind. But whatever Evie was thinking, whatever she was feeling,allof it came with her.

So if she felt awful while she was awake, she felt awful while she was asleep too. It seeped out of her into the Fade around her, making everything hard and bland, like the colours had run out of everything, andcold, her breath fogging in a little cloud in front of her. (She hadn't even known her breath coulddothat here.) Going to sleep, she hadn't thought aboutwhereshe was going, and she'd ended up in a tiny little room. A box, really, there wasn't enough room for her to stand up, or even lay across the floor in any direction — maybe if she put her head in one corner and stretched out the long way, maybe. Not that it mattered, she wasn't moving, sat still against the wall, her shoulder leaning against the corner, her knees hugged to her chest, just...

The colours were washed out, nothing looking quite right, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything to look at. The walls flickered from one thing to another, like looking through a dirty window — the view of the Waking Sea from the cliffs the Circle stood on, so close but so far, the Templars wouldn't let her go outside; one of the Templars at the door, turning her away all cold and hard, and more Templars flashing by, always there, always watching; the other mages, all so much older than her, most didn't talk to her at all, some days she wenthourswithout talking to anyone, just blank uninterested faces all around; the Tranquil, looking like humans and elves butempty, there wasnothinginside them, like someone had taken a bunch of clay and shaped it into the form of a person, did some magic to make it move, but it wasn'treal, it wasempty, and—

Jeria, explaining to her that, no, there was no time she'd be allowed to go home, she'd be staying here. For the rest of her life. Forever.

Evie could do anything she wanted in her dreams. But she didn't have the...the energy todoanything, the misery that had been following her around for a couple weeks now weighing her down even here. She could go find some dream-books, she guessed — books in the Fade were neat, because while she was reading them what she was reading about was painted into the world around her, real books were so much more boring — or maybe find Cammy, Cammy could always cheer her up. Obviously, Cammy was a spirit of joy, cheering people up waswhat it did.

But going to find Cammy would take effort. More than usual, since she would need a thread to follow to Cammy, and she didn't know what she had that she could use right now. And she didn't really want to anyway. She wanted to just...not.

For once, she was jealous of other people's ability tonot be, even just for a little bit.

There was a tingle crawling across the magic of her little box, a sharp smell that made her think of dry leaves crunching with autumn frost, the air around her feeling even colder than it'd been a second ago. In a low whisper, felt more than heard, like fingers on the back of her neck, "I can help yourest, child."

Evie scowled — great, it wasthisdemon again. It'd found her almost every night the last week or so, she could slip away pretty easy but it was still annoying. She didn't bother responding to the thing, or doing anything else but fly away from her little box, letting it crumble apart behind her.

Not really aiming for anything, just reaching and pulling, Evie stumbled into Amalia's dream — she was the closest person to her right now, back in the real world, it made sense she would end up here. Evie glanced around and—

Oh dear, Amalia was having a sexy dream.Thatwas embarrassing. Well honest, Evie didn't care, and it wasn't like Amalia even knew she was here, but she knew Amaliawouldbe embarrassed if she knew Evie saw this, and it was just polite not to look. So Evie left right away, blindly grasping for one of her own memories.

She was sitting at a desk, in the blue study —herdesk, child-sized, put here when she'd been old enough to start writing lessons. There was a quill in her hand, one of the cheap, plain ones she'd learned with, a paper in front of her half-covered in lines of sloppy, jagged cursive. Mother was sitting nearby, in a soft gold home-dress, sipping at a cup of tea, her elbow resting on the edge of Evie's desk. There was giggling coming from behind her, she glanced over her shoulder, playing in the middle of the floor were baby Max and Sedma. Max was so little, and how bad Evie's handwriting was, this must have been a few years ago.

She washome.

A thrum of hot pain shooting through her chest, Evie froze the memory with a thought, everything going too still and silent. She turned back around, staring at the wall over her desk. Tingles calling over her arms, her throat almost painfully tight...maybe coming here had been abadidea.

Sneaking a quick glance at her mother again, she blinked. Wait a second, she could go intootherpeople's dreams, whenever she wanted. And Grandfather was the Arl, maybe there wassomethingthey could...

Evie felt like an idiot. She should have thought of this earlier.

But, she couldn't just go over to someone's dream and expect them to remember it, what with thatpsychic discontinuitything, but therehadto be a way to make it stick. She'd never tried, though, she didn't know it.

Which meant she had to find herself some knowledge. Evie closed her eyes, concentrated, focused on Mystrel, on all the things the patient, helpful old spirit had taught her — parts of Mystrel that she carried with her always. Pulling on those threads, Evie reached out, and shemoved...

Evie stepped out into soft sunlight warming her skin, a gentle breeze tugging at her hair, herbs spicy and flowers sweet tickling at her nose. She glanced around, finding herself in...a garden of some kind, she thought. But not like any kind of garden she'd ever seen, all the plants — almosttoocolourful, leaves a hundred shades of green, but also a purple-ish red, glimpses of blue and yellow, some of the branches a dark almost silvery black, and flowers and flowers in every colour imaginable, some of them withseveralcolours all in one blossom — let to grow in curving, twisting shapes, pretty but not what they'd do left to themselves, or the nice symmetrical, orderly shapes most real world gardens were forced into. The paths between them were marked with tiles, a silver-blue with an almost glass-like sheen to them, but not pressed right against each other, grass still allowed to grow between them, in a few places trails of violets stitching through.

Evie knew what this was, not where butwhen. How everything seemed to havetoo muchcolour, the giggling giddy thrill of magic against her skin so thick she could almost touch it, the clear blue sky above her streaked with faint smears of green and orange and violet — this was a memory of Elvësan, the land of the ancient elves before the Fall. She hadn't seen very many of these, but the sky was kind of a giveaway.

After a short walk through the super-colourful bushes, she came to a sort of amphitheatre thing. The grassy ground sloped down away from her, zigzagging weird to form benches, faintly shining with enchantments of some kind. Scattered across the benches were about two dozen people — well, she was pretty sure they were all spirits. Some looked like elves, with weirdly-cut clothes glimmering with polished stone here and there, but others had less obvious shapes, blobs of light with only vague features, faces and hands, too young to keep a constant form yet.

From what Mystrel had said, spirits got smarter and more complex as they aged. Making themselves look like a very particular thing, especially something with as many fiddly little details as a body, and keeping it the same all the time, was actually kind of hard, the younger spirits often couldn't do it at all. You could kind of tell how old a spirit was just by how normal they could make themselves look — except demons, who sometimes made themselves scary on purpose — from blobs of light like many of the ones here (very young, and mostly boring), to ones who could hold a shape but couldn't get the colours or the details right (old enough to be a person, but still very single-minded), to ones that could lookmostlyright but messed up some of the details, like the hair or the eyes, going even more wrong when their attention slipped (the oldest in the audience were these ones), to spirits like Mystrel and Cammy, who could look like normal humans if they wanted to, Evie couldn't tell the difference.

The oldest here was definitely the one at the lectern at the centre — well, there wasn't a lectern, just a flat little round spot at the bottom of the slope, all the benches facing toward it, but that's where a lectern would go if there was one. The spirit looked like an elf woman, maybe in her thirties, face stern but friendly, eyes such a bright green Evie could see it from here, her very blonde hair plaited through with glinting strands of silver and gold. She was wearing a sky-blue dress, knee length and sleeveless, covered in complex swirling stitching in yellow and white and green — Evie knew enough to tell some of the squiggles were written elvish, but she couldn't read any. There were rings around her arms and ankles, silver sketched with the glowing blue of lyrium, her ears run through with glimmering silver and gold and emeralds in multiple places, which was wild, Evie had never seen an elf with pierced ears before. The elf was in the middle of giving a lecture of some kind to the other spirits, the air bending in colourful swirls around her as she illustrated whatever it was she was talking about.

Evie knew the elf woman was Mystrel. She couldn't sayhowshe knew that, she just did — the Fade was weird like that.

"Now, none of that." Mystrel cut off her babble, the swirling colours around it vanishing, and glanced up at Evie. There was an oddclang, felt more than heard, and...somethinghappened to the Fade around her. Like the air she was breathing, her magic, was being bent back, away from the nearest row of benches and over her shoulders to trail away. In a blink, Mystrel was standing next to her. "It appears my mortal friend here needs something of me. Farewell for now." Mystrel's hand came down gently on Evie's shoulder, and the amphitheatre smeared away into nothing.

Evie found herself standing in a place that couldn't exist. They were on a beach, the sands a gently glowing pinkish-white, looking out over a softly lapping sea, the water intensely blue,tooblue, the sea didn't actually look that blue. The sky was the bright green of the raw Fade — soft and pleasant, like sunlight through leaves — dotted here and there with islands just floating in the sky, some flat with the ground but some at weird angles, one she spotted completely upside-down, covered in grasslands and forests and cities, tiny in the distance, a river running off of one to tumble down, down, down, down,milesdown, before finally splashing into the sea, maybe only a hundred feet from the two of them on the shore.

The Black City was, as ever, upside-down directly over her head, murky in the distance, stained metal and glass sickly glimmering in the directionless light.

It was weird and impossible, but itwaspretty. As fun as exploring dreams and memories could be, Evie had always liked the raw Fade.

"I would prefer you call for me when you're in distress, Evelyn." Mystrel had taken a couple steps away, her back to Evie, drawing on the air in swirling curves, a trail of light following her finger before quickly sinking away — warding this spot against other spirits or demons who might come bumbling in, she knew. Evie could see now her dress was backless from the waist up, held in place by the front coming up and tying behind her neck, which,thatwas scandalous, Evie had never even heard of such a thing before. Maybe it'd been fine back in Elvësan. "It is not wise for spirits so young as some students of mine to be in close proximity to such strong feelings. At least, not until they learn to hold a more coherent sense of themselves and who they are."

"Oh, right." Evie knew that, that just being close to people feeling things could have an effect on spirits, and since Evie was a fancy special Dreamer or whatever the effect she had was even bigger. If she went around feeling too miserable around baby spirits for too long she might turn them into demons on accident. (Humans and elves were as dangerous to spirits as the other way around sometimes, though nobody at the Circle seemed to know, which was weird, weren't they supposed to be experts?) "I wasn't thinking about that, sorry."

"No harm done. Only something to keep in mind in future."

"Right." Evie glanced around for a second, thinking about how to ask what she wanted to ask. But first, she was wondering, "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you look like an elf before."

Mystrel gave her one of those flat, expressionless looks it did all the time — or a similar thing but more elfy, she guessed. "This is what I looked like, once." It glanced down at itself, hands sliding down its sides, came to loosely fold over its hips. "Or as close to it as I recall — it has been averylong time."

Evie blinked. "You used to be an elf? Can people just become spirits?"

"Certainly." In the space of the word, Mystrel shrunk down to about Evie's height. She still looked like an elf — even thesameelf, the blonde hair and brilliantly Fade-green eyes — but a girl instead of a woman, the piercings in her ears vanished, the backless dress traded for a loose vest and tiny little shorts that might pass for underclothes. (Evie was starting to think the clothes had been weird back in Elvësan.) "I was born a being of flesh and blood, a very, very long time ago — before the raising of the Veil, before the foundations of the Golden Spires were laid, before humanity as you know it even came to exist. The uncounted eons are as scattered dust in my mind, so ancient even I can scarce recall."

Okay, Evie had sort of already known Mystrel was really old, but still, holy crap. "The Golden Spires? I don't know what that one is." It was hard to appreciate how stupid old her spirit friend was if she didn't even know what one of the measuring sticks was.

"The court of the self-proclaimed gods of the ancient elves — you know it by the name Tevinter recorded: Arlathan." Saying the word, an odd lilt on its voice, Mystrel pointed up...

...toward theBlack City.

Evie hadno ideahow to respond tothat, she just gaped back at Mystrel, breathless.

Wait, if the Black City, which used to be the Golden City,reallyused to be Arlathan...that meant itcouldn'tbe the city of the Maker then, right? Which meant the Chantry was wrong about that. (Not that that was a surprise, the Chantry was wrong about a lot of magic stuff.) Which, thatalsomeant everyone was wrong about where the Blight came from — she'd always thought that was kind of stupid anyway, but the Maker couldn't curse people for breaking into His house if it wasn't His house. So...wheredidthe Blight come from, then?

Also, why was Arlathan stuck in the Fade? Also also,why didn't anybody know this?!

(Because they didn't have absurdly old spirit friends, that was why.)

"Like all creatures of the waking world, elves came to be out of the meeting of earth and sky, spirit given flesh." While Evie had been distracted by thedazzlingly hugehistory fact dropped casually on her head, Mystrel had moved closer to the shoreline, sitting on a rock that hadn't been there a moment ago, bare toes dipped into the water. "From the beginning, there have been people who decided they wished to return to the sky that birthed them, to leave their body behind and walk among the spirits as one of their kind, forevermore. Never very many, as it was a frightening thing to contemplate, but a few."

Oh. Yes, thatwaskind of a crazy thing to do, wasn't it — in fact, it sounded a lot like dying, just without the...not existing anymore part. Just letting your body die and hoping nothing went wrong soundedveryscary. Plopping down onto the rock next to Mystrel — the water wasverywarm, warmer than the Waking Sea ever got, and while there was a hint of salt on the air it actually smelled really sweet, almost syrupy, which was weird — Evie asked, "Is that something anyone can do? or are elves just special, allmeeting of earth and skyor whatever."

Mystrel turned a faint smile on her. "Humans are spirit given flesh the same as elves, the process by which you came to be differing only in the details — so far as anyone can say such things with certainty, of course, nobody remembers a time before elves. Yes, humans can do it too. It is not a simple process, requiring the use of certain potions and meditations, and the art was lost with the Fall and never rediscovered, so I'm unaware of any human ever accomplishing it. I will not be teaching it to you, at least not yet. I fear you would be tempted to use it to escape your current circ*mstances, which would be an extreme course of action to take, to say the least."

"Well, okay, yeah, I might, maybe." Especially if she didn't get used to it, if being stuck at the Circle just stayed miserable, and it went on and on and on and on, and Evie couldn't get a break from it at all... Yeah, she might just decide to leave it behind. She thought being here would be alotbetter if she knew she didn't have to go back. "But! I had a different idea about that, that's why I came to find you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I think, maybe Grandfather will be able to yell at people and get them to let me out? I mean, I wouldn't be able tostayout, I'll always have to come back, but even being able to go home for a little bit every once in a while will help, I think."

With a slow, solemn sort of nod, Mystrel said, "It might at that. And it is quite probable the Circle will be amenable to such an arrangement — it isn't unusual for the children of the nobility or other influential personages to be given special treatment. They will likely assign your father's sister to keep an eye on you while you're on the outside, however."

Oh, well, that was fine, Auntie Lyn was nice! Auntie Lyn was the Knight-Captain at the Chantry in Kibannan, which was only a few minutes' walk from the big Trevelyan house in the city, so it wouldn't even be that far out of her way, that they'd ask her to do that made a lot of sense. (Itwaskind of silly that they thought somebody needed to keep an eye on her in the first place, but people were silly about magic.) "Okay, good, I thought that might work. But, to do that I need to talk to someone outside. I can go in other people's dreams, but... Is there a way to make themrememberit, so they'll know to actually do something about it when they wake up?"

Mystrel smiled.

What followed was one of the shortest and easiest magic lessons she'd ever had with her (apparentlyvery) old spirit friend, but also one of the more interesting. Before, their about every other day lessons weren't on magic, mostly history and languages and whatever fun interesting thing came to mind, but now that she was in the Circle, surrounded by magic stuff all the time, Mystrel had switched to mostly magic lessons. She said they'd be getting back to other stuff in a few months once she was caught up a bit — since she'd done that Harrowing thing before casting magic even once in her entire life (well, maybe a couple times, but never very much), she was behindallof the full mages...but also not really, because even the youngest were literally twice her age. Most of theapprenticeswere older than her, even some who'd just gotten here, throwing someone as young as Evie into the Harrowing was something they didnever, finding a Dreamer they'd freaked out justthatbadly. Evie hadn't understood what was going on enough to be as annoyed about that as she should have been, but she didnow.

Anyway, magic lessons. Magic was actuallyreallyeasy most of the time, or at least the simpler stuff was — if you could imagine it, and you could throw enough power at it, it would happen — so Evie was catching upreallyfast. Enough some of the other mages and the Templars were kind of creeped out, she thought, but it wasn't like this stuff washard. The more complicated stuff, sure, and it didn't help that the words Mystrel used to teach her and the words Circle people used to describe the same things were different — Mystrel talked very artsy-like, all about enforcing one's will on the world and introducing uncertainty into the unchanging, but Circle magic was all fields and schema andequations, big long words formed by tacking together roots from Classical Tevene...but not always used with theiractualmeanings — Classical Tevene was one of the languages Mystrel was teaching her, though they'd barely started, focusing more on Orlesian (which she'd already known pretty well), modern Tevene, and Orzammar dwarvish, and obviously Orlesian and modern Tevene had lots of the same old roots in them, so she knew what they weresupposedto mean — which only made itmoreconfusing. Back in the real world, she spenta lotof time reading, trying to catch up on how theytalkedabout magic, which was going much slower than the actualdoingmagic part.

But, yeah, dream stuff. This Mystrel described as kind of doing magic in the real world but backwards, introducing certainty where there was none. Evie could talk to people in their dreams using this — mages, yes, but normal people too — and there were also other neat things she could do. Normally, she couldlearnthings in the Fade but, like,practicedidn't carry over, she couldn't exercise here and have it do anything to her body in the real world.But, if she trained in a skill that used a lot of little fiddly precise things, like playing the lute or swordplay or something, using this samemaking dreams realtrick she could make themuscle-memorycarry over. Which was kind of neat, she hadn't known that.

Also, Mystrel warned her, it was very possible to hurt people doing this. If she hurt someone in the Fade, the wounds wouldn't carry over, but that didn't mean bad things couldn't happen. Doing damage to their fake Fade body couldn't damage theirrealbody, but itwouldhurt, and could mess people up pretty badly, emotionally. If shekilledsomeone — in the way spirits could be killed, the magic and thought and stuff that made them up scattered enough it couldn't pull itself back together — normally someone would just wake up, but if shemade it realfirst... Well, they might wake upreallymessed up, maybeinsane, and might just never wake up at all. It wastotallypossible for Dreamers to murder someone in their sleep, and most people had no way to stop them at all.

AaandEvie suddenly understood why everyone was so weirdly scared of her. Okay, then.

Anyway, actuallydoingit wasn't hard — she just reached out to all the... It was harder to explain than it was to do. The magic in the Fade felt all wispy, like smoke filling a room flowing around and curling, she just had to reach out and make the wispsstop. Same with a person in the Fade, make all the little bits of magic and thought and feeling or whateverstop, and somehow not flickering around back and forth and all over the place made people's minds actually work right, and they would be fully awake here and would remember it and everything. Though, it was afakeawakeness, they couldn't change things as easily or thoroughly as she could, but it was more than enough to have a conversation they wouldn't forget right away.

Mystrel had her practise for a bit, but not on any actualpeople, just on the magic of the Fade on their little seashore here. It only took her a couple tries to get it to feel right, it wasn't hard — it helped that Mystrel could demonstrate it for her, she just had to make it feel like it did when Mystrel did it, it wasn't hard. (Apparently Mystrel could do Dreamer things, which, she'd kind of known that already, with how much control it had over the Fade, and also it'd probably been a Dreamer back when it'd been an elf? So, that made sense.) And then she practisedon Mystrel, which looked like it made it uncomfortable — notpainful, really, more like sitting wrong, shifting on its rock and frowning a little — but it just broke her magic with a thought, told her to do it again until she had it right. It only took a few more tries before Evie had that down too.

So that meant she could go find Mum, and beg her to get her out of here. But first, she could feel her body twitching through the thread connecting them, she should see what was going on with that. After politely thanking Mystrel for the help — because Evelyn Trevelyan was a well-mannered young lady, of course, or at least knew how to act like one when she wanted to — Evie reached inside, following the thread down, down, and shepulled—

Oh, she was thirsty. She should take care of that, and maybe get a snack while she was at it. Besides, it felt like it was late enough for first sleep to be over already — Mum might not even be asleep right now. Amalia's bed was empty, so, seemed like a good bet. She had time.

The Circle was quieter during the night, but it never was entirely silent. In the big, sprawling manor house the mages and Templars were set up in — it had been built by the Orlesian governor ages ago, when the Empire had taken over the Marches during the Second Blight (replacing the Tevinter governor in Kibannan, Evie's several-times great-grandfather), and added on to here and there ever since — there were a couple of different wings, each set to a different purpose. The Templars had one wing, on the north side of the manor, opposite the shore and closest to the gates. Evie had only been there passing through when she'd been brought here, since then had only seen the main entrance to it, flanked with Templars in their shiny armor, the air crackling with isolation wards.

The apprentices, which was what they called people who hadn't done the Harrowing yet, had another wing on the east side. All of them were put in four big rooms, two for boys and two for girls, filled with rows of beds and desks. The apprentices were mostly kids, and there were some grown people too, but seeing anyone older than twenty or so would be weird. Their hall also had a few lecture halls and stuff, one big lounge with a view over the cliffs, a dining hall connected to the kitchens at the base of the tower. The people living there weren'tallapprentices, there were a few full mages and a couple Enchanters who had some rooms, keeping a closer eye on all the kids and stuff.

In the middle of the manor was the tower — it wascalledthat, but there were a few halls and stuff attached at the base that weren't part of the tower itself, but not part of any of the wings either. Underneath were the storerooms and kitchens and stuff, also where the staff lived. The baths were down there too, everything clean and pretty and enchanted, Evie privately suspected it was Tevinter work. (Nobody denied they'd beenverygood at building that kind of thing, and still were, really.) Above that were some lecture halls, the big room Evie had had that weird evaluation thing in, a few halls with wards all done in the floors where people could practice bigger, flashier magic without breaking anything. The tower itself wasn't tall, a big wide circle but only five levels high. The staircase wound halfway through it, and on the inside was the library, on the outside rooms holding magic junk — like things for potions and enchanting and all kinds of magical artifacts gathered by the Circle, that sort of thing — and also private apartments for Enchanters, the youngest Enchanters at the bottom all the way up to the Senior Enchanters on the top floor.

Jeria's office and her rooms were up there, it was the only part of the top floor Evie was allowed to go to. The four levels in the library — the bottom floor of the tower was thebigdining hall — were all different, had different kinds of books in them. The first floor everybody could go to, just like history and science and the basic magics and stuff — this was the only one apprentices were allowed in, it was directly connected to the second level of their wing. The second floor all the full mages could go to, and apprentices with permission from a teacher; the third floor the apprentices weren't allowed in at all. The top floor normal mages could get in if they had permission, but otherwise it was just for Enchanters.

Not that Evie spenta lotof time up there, but she had taken tea with Jeria up in her office once a week since coming here. Jeria was nice enough, but it was kind of irritating, because Evie had to remind herself to be proper and all, when really she just wanted to complain at Jeria about howterribleit was here, shehatedit, shewanted to go home. But Evelyn Trevelyan was a well-mannered young lady, and that wasn't how she'd been taught to speak to people in a forum like taking tea with the First Enchanter of the Kibannan Circle of Magi, so.

(She was pretty sure Jeria knew something was wrong, but she was too polite to say anything.)

The last wing was where the full mages lived. There were a few lounges here and there, but most of it was a sprawling web of apartments, the kinking halls laid out haphazardly, as though more had just been tacked onto the place whenever they decided they needed it. Evie had only been in hers, but she assumed they were pretty much all the same. The thing was split in two parts, one a sort of sitting room thing, with a couple chairs and sofas and bookshelves, and the other a bedroom. The bedroom had sort of been divided in half, but not with a solid wall, instead these flimsy wooden slats thatdidblock light, but not really sound much. Close to the door the slats could be pulled out or pushed in a bit — they had to be pushed back to get through the door, but at night they were usually all the way to the wall, blocking it off as much as possible.

On each side of the thin little wall were a pair of beds and desks — on the other side were Jona and Sadie, on this side Amalia and Evie. Of the four of them, Sadie was the oldest, a squat, smiling-eyed woman of around thirty-five. (So, about Evie's parents' age.) Sadie had kept trying to be nice to her, all talking soft and grabbing at her hand to lead her places, Evie had been here for about a week before telling her off — Evie might be a little kid, but Sadie wasnother mother — and she was still pleasant but more distant now. (She got the feeling she might have offended Sadie a little bit.) Jona was twenty-seven (Amalia said), tall and Orlesian blonde, and had hardly talked to Evie at all, so she couldn't really say what she was like.

Amalia was nice enough. She was the closest to Evie's age of the three, at seventeen...which meant she was onlynot quitetwice as old as Evie. She was Antivan — or, herparentswere Antivan, she'd been born in Wycome — with dusky bronze skin and glittering black hair, a slight lilting accent on her Alamarri. (Which was familiar, Mum was from Antiva, she had the same accent but much stronger.) She'd done her Harrowing only a few weeks before Evie, and didn't really know many of the full mages either — she did have friends here, but they were mostly still apprentices. Evie wouldn't say she was a friend, exactly, but she was friendly, telling Evie how things worked around here (casually, not all annoying and condescending like Sadie), showing her around the library, what she should be reading to catch up, what was just fun to look at.

They'd even practised magic together a few times. Evie, of course, didn't know the words the Circle mages used to talk about magic stuff, and she hadn't been practising magic as long as Amalia had. What shedidhave was a spirit teaching her almost every night as she slept. Mystrel didn't use the same special words the Circle did, so it was often hard to describe things in a way Amalia could understand, but apparently it was helpful. (Amalia wasn't just saying that, Evie couldfeelher casting get smoother sometimes.) Actually seeing someone cast a particular thing correctly was also useful for Evie — magic felt different in dreams, getting it to go right in the real world could be kind of awkward — so it was amutually beneficial arrangement.

She wasprettysure that was right. Orlesian was annoying, even when it was Orlesian pretending to be Alamarri.

In her room it was quieter than it would be during the day, especially with Amalia already gone, but not entirely quiet: Evie could hear muffled moaning through the wall — probably Jona touching herself again. The first time that had happened, Amalia had gotten all flustered, maybe worried she'd have to explain it to Evie, but obviously she knew what sex was. The older mage had been surprised for all of three seconds, becauseduh, Amalia, Fade-walking, she'd known all about it since she she'd beenfive. She kind of thought it seemed weird and gross, but adults did weird and gross things sometimes, so she'd just shrugged it off every time she stumbled across a memory or dream of it somewhere and moved on.

Like she did here and now. Evie slipped out of bed, plucked her cloak out of her wardrobe and wrapped it around her shoulders — her nightdress was fine as long as she stayed indoors (and she wasn't allowed outside), but itwasthe middle of Nubulis, it could get cold in the halls. She pushed the slats out of the way so she could get at the door, a surprised squeak coming from the other half of the room, Jona probably heard the clacking, but Evie sidled through the door without a word, closing it behind her.

The hallways through the next door were also quieter than in the daytime, but not silent. There were a few people scattered here and there, their faces shadowy and blank in the darkness, huddled up close in little clumps, the air filled with a hiss of whispering, too quiet for Evie to pick out any of it but a single word now and again. Maybe a footstep, a rustle of cloth, a suppressed giggle.

Standing not far from the door was Amalia and a willowy blond elf, it took Evie a second to realise it was Weyrden, one of Amalia's friends. He was still an apprentice, he would have had to walk across the whole Circle to come find her — Evie thought they might be together, but neither of them had said anything about it, and always acted normal around her. It just meant Weyrden was around a lot when Evie was with Amalia, which was fine, he was nice enough. Amalia noticed her right away, said they were just about to go down to the kitchens to nick some leftovers, if Evie wanted to come with.

The walk down toward the kitchens was quiet, hardly any people around, a couple more going the same way they were or on their way back, but otherwise nothing. There were a couple Templars standing guard by the doors up the stairs to the library, but they were going the opposite direction, taking the stairs down underground. The kitchens were low-ceilinged, but really long and wide, columns splitting it up here and there, cabinets and baskets and ovens and all kinds of things scattered all over the place, smelling like ash and a mix of spices that had Evie sneezing a few steps inside. (Only a couple times, though, just getting used to it.) There were some people about, mages slipping down to get a midnight snack and chat for a bit, along with several people (mostly elves) in rougher wool, who Evie assumed were staff. She'd seen them around, of course, but during the day they had a uniform of sorts, at the moment she could guess which were mages and which were staff because one mostly wore linen and the other wool.

(Evie's silk-blend nightdress stood out in that way, it was one of the things she'd taken with her from home.)

There was a basket of leftover buns sitting on a counter, so Evie grabbed one of those — they were cold and a little dry from sitting out for several hours, but she just needed her stomach to shut up so she could go back to sleep, no big deal. After a few minutes bumbling around, Amalia ended up at a stove, sparking it to light with magic. She started mixing up a drink, several people nearby telling her to add them to the list, she asked Evie if she wanted somemoretta intersognante, which Evie still wasn't sure what that meant —intersognantemight be "between-sleeping", but she didn't knowmoretta— but she'd had the stuff before, it was good, why not.

Before long, Evie was perched on one of the counters, kicking her feet in the air, another bun and a steaming mug in hand. The drink was mostly milk, but it also had rum or brandy (whichever one Amalia found first), along with a few spices — mostly nutmeg and cinnamon, she thought? Something Amalia remembered from before she'd been brought here, she made it every few days. It wassupposedto have coffee in it, if she was making it during the day it did, but, that wasn't really something people wanted in the middle of the night, was it. A lot of people liked it, it'd become a whole thing long before Evie had gotten here.

Even one of the Templars standing guard upstairs came down when he smelled it, setting down his helmet and peeling off his gloves so he could properly hold a mug. Evie was a little nervous when she saw the shiny armor in the shadows, but some of the mages greeted him by name, a few minutes later sat on counters chatting and joking, so apparently this one was nice.

After a few minutes, the mages started playing a game. They would make a glowing ball, some kind of annoying or embarrassing spell held inside, and would then toss it at another person; the person had to catch it, which was hard to do, because they needed to push out magic that held back the ball without breaking it; then they'd change the magic of the ball and the prank spell inside (which was also hard to do without breaking it), then toss it to a new person, who did it again, and again, and again. The prank spells held inside were harmless things, mostly — a burst of frost was the most common, just hitting the person with a sudden freezing wind, probably because that was the easiest thing to do. Evie had seen the mages at it a few times, but she'd never played it herself. She was a little kid, so they didn't think to include her in stuff, and also she didn't usually hang around very long. Soon they had a dozen or so people at it, mostly younger mages (and probably a few apprentices), tossing the magic ball around, teasing each other, laughing when one burst on someone.

Then Weyrden shot her a look, the blue-ish ball of magic bobbing in his hand. Oh, okay. Evie set her mug aside, held up her hands to catch it. The chattering mages went quiet, watching, but she didn't have a moment to think about that, Weyrden gently tossed the ball over at her. As it came within arm's reach, Eviepushedher magic at it, surrounding it — the tingly, tickly magic of the ball wiggled, shivering sparks running through it, so Evie shifted her magic a bit. It was difficult to explain what that was like, kind of like singing at different pitches? but also she could do more than one pitch at once, so that wasn't quite right. But anyway, she just slid the texture of her magic around until she found a way to hold it that didn't make the magic of the ball shiver, and there, she had it.

Evie reached into the spell inside the ball — mm, it was...sharp, and prickly, would probably pinch at a person's skin if it hit — and tweaked it a bit. Instead of poking at someone, the little bits should burst into a bunch of colourful sparks, which might tingle a little bit but wouldn't hurt, just be surprising. Changing the magic of the ball was harder, since she still had to hold it at the same time, so she did something simple, making it all smooth and shiny — the colour of the ball changed while she was at it, turning into a soft yellow-white. Once it was done, she picked someone out of the circle (didn't know their name), waited for a blink to make sure he was paying attention, and tossed it over. He caught it, but Evie had expected him to, her ball spell should be easy to hold on to.

Glancing around, Evie noticed most of their circle was looking at her. What? Why? She hadn't done anything weird, had she?

Or maybe figuring this out the first time she tried, when she was nine, was the weird thing? Okay maybe, but Weyrden must have thought she could play, he wouldn't have tried throwing it to her if he didn't...

After her turn came a couple more times, she decided to try something more complicated. The inside spell, she remembered what Cammy's magic felt like, all giddy and bouncy and eager, pushed the best copy she could make in there, tweaking it to jump out at a person, to sink into their skin. The ball spell, that she made more complicated. Like,reallycurly hair, going in tiny circles and kinking this way and that, but a couple layers of it, and made into a big ball. Holding it tight while making it, when she let go the threads of magic blew out into a tangled, sizzling mess, Evie had to scramble to hold it together.

Mm, nope, this was too unstable, it wouldn't last long enough to get across the circle. She wrapped a thin layer of magic around it, much weaker than the rest, it would only last a couple seconds once it was out of her hold. There, much better. Evie picked out a woman in the circle, maybe about Jona's age — her balls had broken on people a few times, but she'd never gotten hit yet, so, seemed fair. Carefully, she lobbed the ball over, violet streaked with silver.

The woman reached out to catch it with one hand, confident smirk on her face — she had maybe a half second to jump in surprise at the feel of the ball before it burst with a sizzle of magic. The spell took before she could stop it, and she was taken over with breathless, helpless laughter, going on for seconds, until she'd fallen to the floor with her back against the cabinets, arms wrapped around her stomach, her breaths thin and gasping and tears in her eyes, before the energy of the spell finally ran out and she stopped.

There was some joking around, most of their circle teasing the person who seemed best at this game finally getting hit with something, Evie kicking her feet in the air, giggling to herself. The woman grumbled a little, but she didn't seem too annoyed, still smiling and everything — it probably helped that Evie's spell would have felt really good, so.

Amalia leaned over to ask what that spell was. Evie didn't know how to explainit's what one of my spirit friends feels like, but made to jump out at you, so she put it in another ball, this one far more stable (it should hold together on its own without any help), and handed it over so Amalia could see what it felt like.

Evie was down in the kitchen for maybe a bit over an hour before she decided it was time to go. She'd had a second mug of Amalia's stuff, and there wasn't very much liquor in it but she was starting to feel all warm and tingly, which was when her parents stopped giving her wine, so she should probably stop. Besides, she was getting sleepy again. After tossing a last ball at someone — it burst, giving him a light shock, but softened so it just stung a bit instead of twitchy painfulness — Evie slipped off her counter, put her mug in a wash basin with the others, and made back for the stairs up.

When she got back to their rooms, Jona was on the sofa in the sitting room part with a book. Avoiding Evie's eyes, voice all awkward and her cheeks pinking a bit, she said sorry, she didn't mean to wake Evie up. But she hadn't woken Evie up, and also she could go straight back to sleep whenever she wanted to, so even if Jona had woken her up it wouldn't be a big deal. Jona was still being all weird and shifty, probably because she'd been doing a sexy thing and hadn't known a little kid could hear her, and adults could be weird about that...sometimes, Evie was pretty sure her parents had had sex with her in the room before. She would have beentiny, she didn't really remember, but still.

It took a little bit to get through that talk, like, it wasfine, Jona, Evie didn't care, before she finally got back into her bedroom. Putting her cloak away, she slipped back into bed. It only took a quick moment of thought — closing her eyes to focus inside, following her magic down, down,down— and Evie was opening her eyes in the Fade.

Finding her mother shouldn't be hard — getting around in the Fade was actually easy. Her biggest worry was that Mum hadn't gotten back to sleep yet, since it wasn't very late, she didn't think, but she might as well try. Standing in a Fade-copy of the kitchen, sloppily-formed spirits tossing glowing balls of magic back and forth with echoing giggles, Evie closed her eyes, and focused. She'd never gone to a sleeping person before, but she'd done it with spirits, it wasn't hard. She just thought about her mother, memories flicking behind her eyes, found the thick bundle of threads leading away, and she reached out andpulled—

Evie was slapped over the head with sudden heat, thick and stifling, the steady wind cutting it down only a little bit. There was a lot of shouting going on, creaking and splashing, but muffled with distance, Evie couldn't pick out a single word. Nearer by was a laugh in a deep, booming voice, then a much higher voice snapping back, annoyed and almost whiny — this time, she couldn't pick anything out because it was in Antivan. (She couldrecogniseit, because it was her mother's first language and she used it sometimes, but she couldn't really speak any.) Evie opened her eyes, looked around.

She was...standing out in the middle of the water. Once she realised that, she started to fall, dipping down to her knees before she stopped herself, the water much cooler than the air (though warmer than back home), ocean salt stinging at her nose. Okay, then...

She was in a harbor, the shore maybe a half mile away — all that noise was coming from the dockworkers, the piers hidden by dozens of great big ships, ropes running here and there in all directions, the painted sails a dizzying mix of colours. The city, stretching across the mouth of a narrow river, was all made of brick, pale yellow and orange, glinting with glass and criss-crossed with curtains and banners, though she was too far away to make out much detail. She could pick out the Chantry, and what was probably the local lord's keep, but most of the city was a colourful haze, the stone near glowing in the high summer sun.

Treviso? It must be Treviso, but Evie had never been. They were planning to make a trip out for a season, once they were sure baby Lettie was old enough to travel safely...but Evie might never go now, what with the Circle beingstupid. Boo.

Not far away — it'd probably been closer before she'd gotten distracted, drifting further along — was a boat, much smaller than the ones over at the docks. This one was a tiny, graceful little thing, long and narrow, hugging low over the waves, only enough room on it to fit a few people. Small enough one person could sail it on their own, if they had to. There were two people on the boat, a grown man and a girl, both with the bronze skin and glittering black hair Evie thought of as Antivan, the man at the rudder and the girl tugging at one of the ropes running up somewhere over their heads, she lost it in the mess up there.

Evie flew over to the boat, landing a couple steps away from the man at the rudder. Looking at him, she could almost see two people at once — one a smiling human man, eyes warm and beard cut precise and dramatic, broad-shouldered and jovial...but also a spirit, under the magic of the dream its form vague and shifting. The spirit (a friendly one, by the feel of it, she wasn't worried) must be pretending to be Nonno Elvio. Evie had met...well, sherememberedmeeting her Antivan grandfather all of once, when he and Nonna Audria had visited after baby Lettie was born, they'd stayed for a few weeks before leaving for Antiva again. He'd been a lot older then, with grey in his hair and looking thinner and weaker, but he still smiled the same.

The girl also looked much younger than her mother, no older than thirteen or so, and she was also dressedweird. She had on baggy linen trousers, the cloth rippling in the breeze, a wide cloth belt wrapped low over her hips, and the shirt wastiny, hugging close to her skin, her arms from fingertips to shoulder, her clavicles, and the bottoms of her ribs showing.

For a couple seconds, Evie could only stare at her, blinking. Not only was the shirt so tight, the curves of her chestveryobvious, but it was so little! Her navel was showing! They wereoutside! That was, just,scandalous...by Ostwicker standards, must be fine in Antiva, she guessed? Mumwasfrom a respectable family, if it weren't okay Nonno would have made her cover up more before leaving the house...

Shaking off her confusion, Evie took a second to concentrate. So, she just had to reach out toward Mum (ithadto be Mum, who else), the flicking wisps of her magic, and she made themstop.

Mum gasped, stumbled, nearly fell over — she might have, if she didn't have a rope right there to hold on to. "Che?Cos'è que... Treviso? Sono a Treviso?"

"Um, Alamarri please, Mum." She knew "che" waswhat, and"Treviso"was obvious, but...

Mum jumped again, whirling around to face her. "Evie?! What are you... What's going on?" She looked around, the boat, Nonno (who'd gone still when Mum woke up, no dream to work off of anymore, smile now looking a little blank), the city on the shore. "Is this real?"

"That is all a dream," Evie said, waving her hand around. "Your dream. I'm real, I came to find you."

"You..." Mum slowly turned back to her, her eyes wide. There was an odd tingling on the air, the colours around her smearing a little — feeling things can do that in the Fade sometimes. It didn't feel like abadthing, but... She meant, it wasn't fear, or surprise either, something deep and big, and... Evie didn't know what that was. "So, you aresognatrice..."

What did she just say about the Antivan? Thatmustmean Dreamer, it sounded vaguely like the Classical Tevene word for it, and really what else could she be talking about? "Yep, that's me, weird scary magic person over here. This is really a dream, and I'm really here, we're in the Fade right now. This is really happening."

"...Oh." Mum stared blankly at her for another couple seconds, wide-eyed and silent.

And then, in a blink, arms were around her, yanking her in to press her face against Mum's chest — which was less cushiony than normal, since Mum was young enough in this dream her breasts were much smaller — fingers digging through her hair. There was some babbling in Antivan, which Evie only knew a couple words of, but it didn't really matter, Mum's soft, warm voice carrying the meaning anyway. After only a couple seconds Evie's chest was starting to feel too full, clawing at her throat, because itwasher — it might not look like her or smell like her, but itfeltlike her, the little tingly bits of her mind (thespiritpart of Mystrel'sspirit given flesh, she guessed), louder here without her body in the way but still obviously her. Evie wasn't surehowshe could tell, she just did.

Mum leaned a little away again, sitting on her heels in front of Evie. (She was also shorter than she was in real life.) One hand cupping her cheek, "Oh,cara mia, how I have missed you. It's too early for you to be taken from me like this." Part of Evie doubted that — it wasn't like Mum had really tried to stop them from dragging her off to the Circle...but she didn't know how much choice Mum had had about that? Once the Templars knew what she was, it'd probably been too late, and that was really Evie's fault, babbling off about her spirit friends to Auntie Lyn...

Still, she could feel it bubbling up, but Evie brushed the feeling away before she could start crying — crying sort of made it hard to talk, it'd just get in the way. She probably wouldn't have been able to just stop it like that if this were the real world, but her fake dream body only did what she wanted it to, so it was easy. "I've missed you too, Mum. It's, um, why I came to find you." Part of it, anyway.

"Oh?" Her eyes narrowed, giving Evie a very canny look — it didn't match the age Mum looked like nowat all. "Are you all right? Did something happen? We haven't heard anything, the Revered Mother hasn't gotten back to us with news yet, and your aunt Adelynn said..."

"No, nothing— Nobody'shurtme or anything, just..." Evie took a careful breath, brushing away the urge to cry again. Still, there wassomethingshaky on her voice when she said, "Ihateit here! They never let us do anything, and all the other mages are so much older than me so they hardly ever talk to me — most of them, some are nice, but still — and its big and cold and the dreams are mostlyterriblehere, but I can always get away so I guess that's not a big deal, it's just that it's every night and it's annoying, and the Templars are, ugh, all these big people all in armor carrying swords everywhere, it's kind of scary — none of them havedoneanything, but that doesn't matter, being everywhere all the time, andwatching, they'recreepy— and they say I have to stay here forever, and they won't even let mego outside!"

"Evie—"

"I want to go home!"

And then Mum was hugging her again, her fingers running through her hair, softly hissing into the side of her head,tsee tsee tsee tsee(that's what Mum said instead ofshh, she assumed it was an Antivan thing). It was harder to brush away the urge to cry this time, clinging at her throat and stinging at her eyes. She wished Mum were wearing a proper dress, there wasn't anything to ball her fists in. "I'm so sorry,dolcezza."

Oh, that meantsweetness— Mum called her that sometimes, Evie never really wondered what it meant but it sounded really similar to the Tevene word. Maybe she should add Antivan to the list of languages to learn, but Orlesian was the big important language in the south, and Tevene the one in the north, so those were bigger priorities right now...and also old elvish for magic reasons, she guessed...and maybe Qunari, if she had the time...

"I shouldn't have left it so long, I thought— Well, it doesn't matter." Mum leaned back a bit again, but her hand didn't leave Evie's hair, still slowly combing over her temple and down, down... "I'll talk to your grandfather tomorrow, I promise. There must besomearrangement that can be made. Back in Antiva, sometimes mages are allowed to go home now and again, and inRivain, well..."

Evie almost had to smile at that. There were barely Circles at all in Rivain — there was one in Dairsmuid, but it ran like the northern Circles, just places mages could go to learn things and then go back home whenever they liked — and in Antiva they let people get away with things sometimes, worried if they were too harsh Antiva might switch to the Black Chantry. (Theywerecloser to Tevinter than Orlais, and their nobility had a lot of business deals and intermarriages and stuff.) But still, rules were bent and broken all the time, that's how the world worked. "Please do. I just, Ireallydon't want to stay here..."

A worried sort of look crossed over Mum's face, then softened, her eyes warm and...something. There was a flicker of green-gold magic, but Evie didn't know these things well enough to tell what it was. "You know, you won't be... A mage is always part of the Circle. Even if they let you come home sometimes, you'll always have to go back."

"I know that." Evie had read up a bit about that...and then asked Amalia, because the book she'd found was really dense. Legally, her parents weren't her parents anymore, in the sense that they didn't get a say in what happened to her. Mages couldn't own property — even their personal things, like their clothes and stuff, were owned by the Circle (which was owned by the Chantry), and could be taken away whenever they wanted — and if they made things, like enchanted stuff or wrote a book or something or got paid to do a job for someone, they didn't get to keep whatever money they made off it, it belonged to the Chantry. They couldn't marry, at all ever, and if they had children they didn't have any say, the Chantry decided what happened to them. The Chantry had the right to do whatever they wanted to them. What they did when, where they went. They could do the Rite of Tranquility on or even just kill any mage, at any moment, for any reason — there were rules about it, but it was the Chantry who made the rules, the Teyrnir couldn't try a Templar for murder for killing a mage if the Chantry said it was okay.

Basically, mages were slaves owned by the Chantry. They didn't call them that, but that's what they were. If Evie went home, it would only be because the Circle said she could, and no matter where she went or how long she stayed there they would still own her.

Evie hesitated for a second, biting her lip. She wasn't...reallysure this was okay to say? She meant, she used to tell Mum about her spirit friends all the time — mostly Cammy and its friends, when it was Mystrel she more talked about the things it had taught or shown her, which Mum must have thought she'd just read somewhere (or made up) — but Mum hadn't thought they wererealthen. She'd thought they were, like, imaginary, just people she'd made up...for some reason. (She didn't really get it.) But, Mum hadn't freaked out over the dream stuff, so, probably fine. "Ah, one of my friends, Mystrel? It said the Circle will probably let me go home sometimes, they'll just want Auntie Lyn to keep an eye on me. So, maybe talk to her too, so she can talk to the Chantry about it from the inside?"

"That's good thinking, clever girl." Then Mum blinked, frowning to herself a little. "'It'?"

"Mystrel's a spirit — I don't think spirits reallycanbe girls or boys...though it just told me tonight it used to be an elf woman a really long time ago? I don't know. Calling them 'it' does sound kind of rude, but I don't know what other word to use."

"...What kind of spirit is this Mystrel?" Mum sounded kind of wary, like she was trying not to be scared or worried or something.

Which was silly, because she really didn't need to be. "Oh, Mystrel's a spirit of knowledge, I guess it's called. It likes to learn stuff, and then teach it to other people. It's always giving me lessons in things, mostly like history and languages and stuff — it's why I went through stuff faster than Master Clément thought I would, remember? Mystrel was giving meextralessons in my sleep. I can introduce you sometime, if you want?" She didn't see why not, if she could find Mum and Mystrel in the Fade she should be able to get both of them in the same place at the same time. And, usually a child's parents should know who their tutors were, that just seemed appropriate.

Mum seemed a little taken aback by that, twitching away a little, blinking at her. "Oh, well. Maybe some other time, Evie. As long as you're already here, I think I'd rather catch up with just you tonight. Could we, ah..." Mum glanced around their little boat, but there wasn't much else to see — the dream no longer working right with Mum awake, it'd started to fall apart, the shore in the distance faded away, the boat left bobbing in a little circle of water a hundred yards wide or so, the world beyond shifting greenish fog. The spirit that had been pretending to be Nonno Elvio for Mum had left at some point, Evie hadn't been paying attention.

"Go somewhere else? Sure." Evie focused for a second, then pushed a memory of somewhere else out into the Fade around them. The floor stopped rocking under her feet with the waves, the sea salt gone, the breeze instead a little flowery, a bite of green on the air.

They were standing on one of the balconies at the family's estate on the fringes of the Crossroads, about ten miles north of the city — the Arling was named after the city Kibannan, but the Arl, Evie's grandfather, actually lived out here, near the keep guarding the meeting of the roads leading to Kibannan in the south, Ostwick and then Markham in the east, Kirkwall in the west, and the mountain trails north. All the land trade going between the west — Kirkwall, Wildervale, Nevarra, sometimes all the way to Orlais — and the east — Markham and Ostwick, and sometimes Hercinia and even Ansburg or Wycome — came through here, so itwasimportant. The estate here was on the north end of the town, overlooking the thinner trail heading north, after going over a few rolling, grassy hills vanishing into the trees, a few miles later the trees going up, and up, rocky cliffs showing themselves here and there, the foothills of the Vimmarks blotting out the horizon.

It was kind of pretty, but mostly Evie had picked this place because she didn't live here, she was less likely to get homesick.

There was a spindly, graceful metal table and chairs (Orlesian-made, carved very fine and fancy) nearby, while Mum was looking around wide-eyed with wonder Evie guided her to them. So, they were in the Fade, but Evie was basically hostessing right now, if in a weird dream way, so she should do good hostess things, right? "Do you want some tea, or coffee? I can do that. Snacks too, if you like. They're notreal, obviously, but they'lltastereal." As close as Evie could imagine it, anyway. "Oh, maybe those little cakes, the ones with the orange in them that Grandmother has here sometimes? I know you like those..."

Suddenly enough Evie jumped, Mum let out a high, delighted laugh.

It was just after lunch on the second day after her dream visit with Mum that Evie saw results. Though, it was kind of scary at first, really.

Evie was sitting at a table in the apprentice library, with one of the basic texts all the mages were supposed to read spread out in front of her — there had been at least a dozen copies of it on the shelf, it was read enough they needed that many. On one side she had a long scroll of paper, already covered with a couple feet of her notes on all the big complicated words and stuff Circle people used to talk about magic. She wastryingto take notes, and not just be angry with thisstupidbook.

By this point, Evie had...mostlycaught up on the basic stuff all the apprentices were supposed to know before doing the Harrowing. She hadn't learnedallthe magic they did, but the differentkindsof magic, all the special words they used, she had most of that already. Or, she'd taken notes on all of it, she wouldn'trememberit all, but she'd go over her notes and read more advanced stuff, it'd all sink in in time, she was sure. Since she'd done basic magic stuff inthisworld, she'd decided to catch up on how the Circle talked about the Fade. It hadn't been at the top of the list because, well, she already knew all about the Fade, and spirits and stuff, she didn't think she had much to learn. The basics, anyway, there werealwaysnew things to learn in the Fade, but how itworked, that she got already. But, there might be terms she needed to know here too, or some special ideas she didn't know already, might as well go over this stuff too, just in case.

This book was about the Fade, in particular how spirits and demons worked. And it waswrong, about...almosteverything, really.

Evie hadn't had very high hopes just reading the introduction. It started out with what was said of the Fade and spirits in the Chant, probably thinking everyone reading the book knew that stuff — she did, so that wasn't aproblem, really. Except, the Chant was wrong about some things, and this book didn't question those. Like, most of this was from Threnodies, okay. That said the spirits were the first people created by the Maker, and yeah, spirits were here first, that was fine. The Maker not being happy with them also sort of makes sense. There's this one line,They shone with the golden light / Reflected from the Maker's throne— spirits take in stuff, and they kind of become it? so if the only other person around back then had been the Maker, obviously they'd just reflect Him back at Himself. Thatwashow spirits worked.Thatline was neat, Evie took it as a sign that whoever had written it at least got spirits a little bit.

But it got worse as it went on. Threnodies then talks about the Maker creating humans — everybody knew elves came first, but take it to mean elvesandhumans and it was still fine — but how spirits react to that makes...no sense whatsoever. Just none. The Chant said the spirits were really jealous of humans, and the physical world the Maker had made for them. And also just the humans in general, because the Maker liked them better, older children jealous of the new baby, you know. The Chant says the spirits appeared to humans in dreams, and demanded they worship them as gods.

Thatmade no sense at all.

See, spirits were like... How it worked was, the things people did and how they felt about them kind of...leakedthrough the Veil. Spirits ran into these thoughts and feelings, and thought and felt them like they were their own. That was kind of fun, so then they looked formorethings to think and feel — most of the time, they looked for something like the first (or if not the first, the clearest and strongest) thing they'd come across, so they found another thing, and another thing, and another. Over time, as they absorbed more and more thoughts and feelings, they absorbed the magic of the Fade with it, so they got stronger and stronger, and also smarter and smarter. (Wisps, the youngest spirits, couldn't really think at all, like babies but without the bodies other people had to take care of.) They also got more and more complicated.

Because, an experience was neverjust one thing, people were complicated, a happy memory might have bits of nervousness or sadness or all kinds of things mixed in. So while a spirit might have followed one thread as much as it could, it might understand one thing better than anything else, it still got little shades of other stuff, and the more thoughts and feelings it absorbed the deeper those shades were. This was why younger spirits might seem really flat and simple, but older spirits have real personalities,differentthan normal people but no doubt stillpeople, can think and feel for themselves.

Spiritsas a wholedeciding they were going to do something just wouldn't happen — they were evenmoredivided than people in this world were. See, as much as humans didn't like each other sometimes, they at least had a lot of things in common, like the need for food and shelter or families and stuff, that spirits didn't really. Also, spirits didn't have...kingdoms and religions and laws and stuff? They didn't work together in the same way humans did, mostly just because they didn't need to — they didn'tneedthings, so there wasn't really any point to teaming up to get something done.

Also, theI am a god, worship mething was...weird. Oh, that might happensometimes, sure! But, spirits were made up of the thoughts and feelings they ate, and there weren't a lot of people going around sayingI am a god, worship me, so that...wasn't something they'd come across very often? So there couldn't be very many spirits who got that idea in the first place. There were the Old Gods, but they were great dragons and not spirits, so they didn't count, but theycouldhave put thatideainto the Fade, but still not a verybigidea, since it didn't keep happening much. If that made sense? She thought that made sense.

And the book took thatwrongidea and ran with it. It was right that spirits and demons were really the same thing, but they used thiswrongidea from Threnodies to explain how the different things theydomade demons demons, but that waswrong. The book said it all fancy, that demons wanted to take over people as a part ofthe eternal design of corruption, that they were trying tosubvert the Maker's favourite childrenaway from Him, which...that...wasn't how that worked?

Not even a little bit?

She meant, all spirits wanted more of whatever kind of thing they'd absorbed to make them what they were — like how people wantedfood, it was just what they did. How theygotmore was the difference. It wasn't even that demons were the ones who'd taken inbadthings, as the book said later on, it was that they chose to get more of their stuff bytakingit from people. It was a difference not inwhat, buthow.

Like, for example, if a spirit of fear, like a lot of the ones around here, just wandered around absorbing the fear leaking through the Fade, that was a spirit. If that same spirit decided to find a person in the dreaming andmakethem scared, and absorbthatexperience, that was a demon. If a spirit of joy, like Cammy, wanted to trick someone into letting it possess them, so it could go around having fun and making people happy in the physical world, that wasstilla demon, no matter that the thoughts and feelings it was made from were good. If that same spiritaskeda human (or elf) friend and the person agreed, sure, that sounded like a great thing to do, and they went off having fun and making people happy in the physical worldtogether, that was still a spirit andnota demon — despite actively possessing someone, which this book said wasonlya demon thing. It was a fine line, but an important one.

The book ignored that line, didn't really explain it at all. Instead it was all this stuff about how demons were evil, that they were angry with the Maker and were doing bad things to humans to get back at Him somehow, and that was justsilly. The other spirits were harmless, but also boring, because obviously they couldn't do anything fun or neat, they just spat back out whatever had come to them, so there really wasn't even any point in talking to them.

If Evie thought about it too hard, this book made her very,veryangry.

Really, getting a distraction from this stupid book wasn'tbad— it just wasn't great that it came in the form of a Templar. There were always Templars guarding the doors, but they hardly ever wentinthe libraries, one of the few places Evie could go where there weren't any hanging around. So when she heard the tromp of heavy boots and the clinking of mail coming up behind her, Evie's heart about jumped out of her chest. It didn't help when the Templar said she was to come with him.

She gathered up her scroll, wedging it into the wide cloth belt of the weird robe thing everybody in the Circle wore, leaving the book open on the table, and trailed out of the library after him, trying not to feel too nervous. It couldn't be abadthing, could it? It wasn't like she'ddoneanything, and... Maybe Jeria just wanted to have tea again. She usually sent a Tranquil to collect her, but Evie had told her howwrongthey felt, so she might have decided not to this time. A Templar wasn'tbetter, really, but...

Oh, no, they weren't going up to Jeria's apartments — they wentdownthe stairs instead of up, and then...took a right down a hall... There wasn't anything but the Templar wing over here. And that was where they were going, the pair guarding the doors pushing them open to let them through. That was just making hermorenervous. Evie cringed as she walked through the isolation wards, the anti-magic crawling over her skin, meaningless hissing in her ears quickly giving her a headache. Once they left the wards on the other side the hissing went away, but the headache was left behind, pounding away behind her eyes.

Anti-magic wasreallyuncomfortable. Evie should ask Mystrel if there was something she could do to push it off, if only to keep her head from hurting.

For a few turns around hallways, they walked through the Templar wing. There weren't a lot of people here at the moment, the Templars who were out of their armor, wearing plain trousers and tunics — mostly giving her unpleasant looks as she went past, suspicious. She didn't think this wing wasthatbig, they had to nearly be on the far side already. Eventually, they came into a bigger room, with some sofas and a big hearth and stuff, a few people standing around. (Waiting for her, probably.) The gold-accented armor, that must be Knight-Commander Whatsisname (everyone just called him the Knight-Commander), and there was Jeria, another Enchanter and a couple Templars. Standing chatting with them was—

"Auntie Lyn!" Evie dashed across the room, jumped at Auntie Lyn, her arms coming up to— Her face bounced off the hard metal of a Templar breastplate, Evie stumbled back, rubbing at her aching cheek. "Ow,stupid..." She fixed it quick with the easiest healing spell in the world, but still, that was a dumb thing to do.

Auntie Lyn laughed, low and warm. "Hello to you too, child." Adelynn was Father's sister, older by a couple years, with the same narrow face and curly black hair (though Lyn's was chopped short to better fit in a Templar helmet), lines just starting to show at the corners of her eyes. The story went, when Lyn had been fourteen or so she'd decided she didn't want to do the proper young lady thing and get married to some nice young lord or whatever, and had run off to start Templar training instead — she'd been one of the Templars at the Chantry in town for longer than Evie could remember. When Mum and Dad had to be away at some social or political event, Lyn usually came over to keep an eye on things at home, so Evie had seen a lot of her growing up. She was nice! Teased them a lot, but still...

"Hi!" she chirped, her chest near bubbling, enough she might almost be bouncing on her toes. She couldn't help it, it'd beenso longsince she'd seen someone she actuallyknewin this place. Well, Jeria, she guessed, but she didn't count. "What are you doing here? Not that I'm not happy to see you, of course, but your post is back in town."

Giving her a crooked smile, Auntie Lyn said, "Generally speaking, mages aren't allowed to travel alone — you would needsomekind of Templar escort to bring you back into town, so I volunteered. I hope you don't mind."

Evie blinked. "I'm going home?"

"Yes, child. Unless you would rather stay?"

"No! No, going home is good." Evie sipped over to her side, slipped her hand into Lyn's, the leather of her glove hard against her skin. "Okay, let's go."

"Do you need to get anything from your room?"

"Nope, let's go."

They didn't actually leave right away, Jeria had to explain the rules first. Her grandfather the Arl had demanded she be let out now and then to spend some time with her family, which the Templars had decided to allow — by how Knight-Commander Whatsisname stood there all stiff, arms crossed over his chest and glaring at Evie through the holes in his helmet,very reluctantly. She could spend one week a month at home, plus holidays and family events like weddings and stuff. If she left the grounds of their home in town, Auntie Lyn had to be with her at all times; she could go as far as the Crossroads, but any further than that would need permission from the Circle and a couple more Templars to keep an eye on her.

And Templarswouldbe keeping an eye on her — or at least Auntie Lyn would be. As long as she stayed at home, Lyn didn't have to be thereconstantly, but she was supposed to check up on her every six hours. That kind of seemed like a lot, but okay. Speaking of a lot, Jeria said that, since Lyn had to be with her whenever she left home, she should keep in mind that Lyn still had her job at the Chantry to do, so, try not to make ittoohard on her. Also, if she broke the rules the Templars could make changes to these rules or take away her visits home altogether, but they promised her grandfather they wouldn't unless shedidactually break them, so as long as she did as she was told there shouldn't be any trouble.

Evie listened to the rules parts, but mostly ignored the lecturing parts. It didn't seem that important, all speeches telling her tobehave yourself young ladywere mostly the same when it came down to it, and she wanted togo.

She was nearly skipping when theyfinallyleft, and Evie was out in the sunlight without a window in the way for the first time it what felt likeforever. Warm and soft, the wet, salty wind off the sea nearby tickling at her hair and playing with the hem of her robe, it wasgreat, if Lyn weren't leading her along by the hand she'd probably be skipping ahead right now. Waiting in the courtyard was a carriage, all in Chantry colours, the familiar sunburst on the door — Auntie Lyn must have borrowed it from the Revered Mother. Lyn helped her up, then climbed in after her, and the carriage jerked into motion, and they weregoing.

Leaning against the door, Evie stared out the window — the south side, the grassy land stretching off toward the horizon not far away, the wind constantly tugging at her hair — watching the land crawl by as they went down the hill toward town, her feet kicking, cloth shoes lightly scraping the floor each time they passed. Her chest so tight with it it almost hurt, she was so happy she could hardlystopgiggling, each breath just coming out like that, but she also thought she might cry, the shining sunlight blurring a little in her eyes, which wasweird, that was a silly thing to be doing right now...

They were going for some minutes, maybe halfway down to town (the Circle wasn't very far away from Kibannan proper), when Auntie Lyn spoke. "I have some advice, Evelyn."

Evie perked up a little — Lyn only used her full name when it was something serious. She peeled herself away from the window, forced herself to sit straight in her seat, hands folded in her lap, held her legs still. "Yes, Auntie Lyn."

Lyn's lips twitched, just a little. "I understand adjusting to life in the Circle can be...difficult. Some mages, I've found, never do. A spirit like yours, I imagine you will always find life there oppressive."

"I have the same feeling," Evie said, trying not to sound like she was grumbling. It was hard though, because the Circle wasstupidandterrible.

Lyn smiled, warm but a little crooked, dark eyes dancing. "I'm not surprised. But you needn't surrender to your fate, Evelyn. There is a course you may take within the Circle that I think will ease the burden on you quite a lot. You see, Enchanters, both by their thorough understanding of the dangers of magic and their respect for the institution and traditions of the Circle, have earned some measure of trust. They are allowed certain personal freedoms above and beyond that granted to the rest of the mages of the Circle."

"Oh." She hadn't paid that much attention to the Enchanters, really, she hadn't thought there was much difference besides having their own rooms. "Would I be allowed to leave the Circle?"

"To a degree, yes. With sanction from the Knight-Commander, you could even be permitted to live at home. You would still be required to regularly check in with the local Templars, and Enchanters do have responsibilities to their Circle, but so long as you don't break any of the rules you can do as you want."

That sounded...pretty great, actually. Why did the Enchanters stay at the Circle at all, then? "Um, how do you become an Enchanter?"

"You must contribute an original work to the Circle." Evie frowned at her, she added, "A book, child, you must write a book — or a treatise, it needn't be so long as the word 'book' might imply. It can be about anything you like, so long as it adds something worthwhile to the knowledge the Circle has gathered over the years. Once it is finished, you will be called before a panel of Enchanters to defend the merits of your work. If they agree it's worth other mages reading, it will be added to the archives at the College of Enchanters in Cumberland and the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux, and you will be affirmed as an Enchanter of the Circle, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof.

"The youngest Enchanter on record," she continued, her voice a little lower, her lips twisting with a smirk, "was nineteen when he was affirmed." Auntie Lyn leaned forward, her voice lowering even further, an odd drawling curl to it, like sharing a joke. "You're a smart girl, Evelyn. I think you can break that record. What doyouthink?"

Evie grinned. "Yes! Thank you! I'll do that."

And she knewjustwhat she would write about...

Chapter 14: Broken Circle — I

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 20

Kinloch Hold, Danesmouth, Highever, Kingdom of Ferelden

Lýna had never been on a boat before.

She hadseenboats, of course. South of the wetlands, east of the hills her clan had most often made their home, the river emptied out into the sea. There was a city there, or the closest thing there was to such a thing in the south — it was perhaps the size of Redcliffe in the winters, though larger in the summers. (Or, therehad beena city there, she guessed.) The entire area was dotted with Chasind villages, even some of the People who'd settled there slowly over generations, the flat, fertile land farm after farm after pasture after farm, eventually leading into the city itself at the mouth of the river, a colorful mix of square Chasind homes and lodges painted with clan signs and decorated with glass and furs, here and there rounder buildings, curves coming to graceful points, painted with dense, curling lines in a brilliant rainbow of color, murals of half-recognizable animals and people.

Those were theelvenbuildings. The city was one of the places in the south where humans and elves lived together, perhaps one of the People for every three Chasind — and theywerestill People, no matter that their way of life was so different from that of Lýna's clan, still spoke the same language and knew the same stories, blood-writing clear on their faces. It was also one of the few points of contact they had with the north. Gwaren was not so far away by boat, two or three days' sail up the coast, trade trickling back and forth. The People didn't make these trips, of course — Alamarri lands were still thought to be unsafe for them, even with the Orlesians gone — but the Chasind did, an occasional adventurous Alamarri trader coming the other way. To speak with the few Alamarri traders in the bay was the reason Lýna had started learning the language in the first place, though it was a skill she'd never actually had to put into practice, the clan fleeing north before it'd been asked of her.

Lýna had first visited the place when she'd been eight or so, and had been shocked to learn many of the People there could read and write. The clans in the town even kept an archive, records of bondings and births, written copies of stories and histories of the local clans, records of agreements made with the local Chasind. Lýna had never heard of the People doing such a thing before, in her clan only the Keeper and the First could read and write, maybe a tiny handful of others, the other clans she'd met no different.

Of course, all that history, gathered over generations by then, was probably lost — the city had been attacked by darkspawn about a year ago now, the entire region ravaged with blade and fire, the archive would have burned with the rest.

The boats in the bay, there was (had been) some variety among them. The People who lived there sailed in boats long and narrow, graceful, the sails cut in sweeping angles, dyed in brilliant colors that she assumed were clan symbols, though she hadn't recognized many of them. Their boats looked very similar to the ones the Avvar used, in the lakes up in the hills — she assumed the Avvar had learned it from the People, or perhaps the other way around. The Chasind boats were flatter and wider, usually less colorful, but larger, more suited to braving the open sea.

To Lýna's eyes, Alamarri boats were very similar to the Chasind ones, though larger (at least some of them), and rather more intricate in their design. The one they were taking north across the lake was maybe the largest boat Lýna had ever seen — it was hard to guess without anything familiar around to eyeball it with, but she was guessing the floor was maybe three lengths wide and ten or eleven long. The points at either end were mostly flat, without the curl up boats made by Avvar and the People had. There was space below the floor, divided into a few rooms for different purposes, though it was sort of cramped — the ceiling was low enough Lýna could easily reach up and touch it, Fergus had to hunch a bit walking around — and another level further down, below the water line, but not one people were meant to stay in, instead storing supplies. That middle level had a couple windows in it, sealed with slightly foggy glass, holding back wind and the occasional spray of mist from the lake.

The inside was bigger and more complicated than any Chasind boat she'd seen — she assumed, she'd never been on one — but the outside was different too. There was a fence all the way around the floor, in places the sides carved with intricate designs, the jagged up down up down lines, like the tops of the towers and walls at the castle, an occasional leaping dog or bird with wings spread, all in the stark red and white of Redcliffe. It was normal for the Chasind boats she'd seen to have a single large square sail, often with a second more triangular one angled down toward the front point of the boat. This one had...five?

Instead of one big post standing in the middle to hold the sails up, there weretwo, not quite spaced evenly across the floor, the one in the front a bit closer to the tip. They also didn't stand quite straight, leaning a little back — it wasn't by very much, but still, she didn't think she'd ever seen that before. The one at the back had one big sail, though it wasn't square, the back edge maybe half again the length of the front edge, the sail flaring out as it went; and it made sense to say it had a front and a back edge, because the sail wasn't centered on the post, like Lýna had seen before, but fixed to it along the front edge, the back edge hanging over the water past the left side of the boat. The front post had a similar lopsided sail, but it was smaller, maybe three-quarters the size. Tied high up between the two posts was a small squarish sail which...didn't seem to be doing much?

At the front, a pair of triangular sails were hung. The closer one was shorter and wider, one corner tied somewhere between the two sails on the front post, the other right at the front tip of the floor, the third not quite reaching the post, propped up a couple feet away, low enoughLýnahad to duck under it. The further one was narrower, but longer, one corner meeting the tip of a pole sticking out in head of the boat, like a spear outstretched, the second ending in a rope that reached up to the very top of the front post, the third corner attached to another rope tied right around where the closer sail met the front of the floor, held loosely, letting the sail bow out in the wind.

Lýna wasn't really sure how that was supposed to work. She thought the point of sails was to catch the wind, let it pull the boat forward...but these triangular ones were aligned at a similar angle to the floor of the boat which...seemedlike wind caught by them would push the boatsideways? Or,mostlysideways, they were it a little bit of an angle, but still.

She didn't doubt the Alamarri sailors must know what they were doing, since the boatwasskimming along at a pretty good speed, Lýna just didn't know about these things. She had, after all, never been on a boat before.

She did decide pretty quickly that she liked it.

Not all of them were coming along for the trip, but they didn't needallof them — really, they only needed Alim, to tell the mages what kind of help Eamon needed, and Lýna, to talk to the mages and Templars about helping with the Blight. Alistair had suggested he should come too, he thought the Templars would be more comfortable letting a couple healers out to help with the Arl if they knew he would be around. (Also, so he could clear anything up if Lýna was having difficulty making herself understood, but he didn't say that part out loud.) Fergus had volunteered to join them once they'd begun making plans for the journey, a couple days ago now — he was the rightful Teyrn of Highever (not that Lýna was sure what that meant), and the Circle wasinHighever, so he thought his presence would lend their request some weight it might not have alone.

During their downtime between the fight against the dead and their departure for the Circle, Lýna and Fergus had made something of an alliance. The terms hadn't been entirely worked out yet — they both wanted to speak to Arl Eamon before deciding where to go from there — but Fergus had made clear his intention to aid the Wardens against the Blight, in exchange for the Wardens helping him against a man named Rendon Howe, who Fergus claimed had murdered his family and stolen their lands. Lýna, obviously, had no idea who that was, but Alistair had explained Rendon Howe was an Arl, making him a very powerful person on the same level as Eamon (there were only six in all of Ferelden), and one of Loghain's most important allies. So, agreeing to help Fergus really cost them nothing — since the Wardens would need to do something about Loghain, they'd probably end up fighting this Rendon anyway. It was still a very loose, casual agreement, but Lýna fully intended to hold up her side of the bargain, which would probably lead to a much more solid alliance somewhere down the line.

When Fergus had walked out of the room after making their agreement, Alistair had explained that that had been a much bigger deal than Lýna had realized at the time. The Couslands were one of the most important families (clans) in Ferelden, and with the rest of his family gone Fergus was the rightful Teyrn of Highever — Highever was possibly the wealthiest region in the country, and the teyrns were the highest of their lords (jarlar), even more important than these arl people, enough there were onlytwoof them. (The only other was Loghain, apparently.) Once he reclaimed his lands at the Landsmeet — which hewoulddo, Alistair assured her there was no chance of them ruling against him — he would be quite seriously one of the most powerful Alamarri in existence, she could hardly ask for a better ally to assist the Wardens against the Blight.

Also, he wasmuchless annoying than Teagan, at the very least. And not a bad fighter either — he'd been one of their shield-bearers in their battle against the dead, kept pace with them all the way up to the end. So. That worked out nicely.

When he'd volunteered to accompany them to the Circle, along with a pair of his knights, she hadn't thought about it for a second, welcomed him along immediately.

She still wasn't certain what a knight was...

Leliana was the last of their party coming along. Lýna had expected her to come — she did seem to prefer to stick close to Lýna, and she'd seemed strangely listless since the battle, out of place. (She admitted the other Chantry people had refused her help with the funerals and the like, which wasstrange, but okay.) Coming along to see the mages was at least something she could do with herself.

Keran and Perry had both requested to stay behind. In Keran's case, she'd argued someone should stay to represent the Wardens while they were gone, if only to make sure Teagan didn't forget he still owed them for their help — thatwasgood thinking, and Keran got along best with the Arl's brother and the local knights (liðsmenn?), so Lýna had agreed. Keran had seemed surprised, as though she'd expected Lýna to refuse her. Perry had also asked to stay, mostly just because he was uncomfortable with the idea of going to the Circle (Lýna assumed, he hadn't said). While he was waiting for them to come back, he planned to help with the rebuilding work being done around the town, which Lýna thought was a good thing to be doing — and a good thing for a Warden to beseendoing — so she'd left him to it. Perry hadn't been surprised, but hewasrelieved — hereallyhadn't wanted to come along.

Morrigan had flatly refused to come with. When Lýna had asked why — switching to Chasind, in case it was something she didn't want to admit in front of the others — Morrigan had given her an annoyed sort of look, insisted that she had no intention of going anywhere near so many Templars. Which was perfectly reasonable, once Lýna had thought about it, if she were a free mage she probably wouldn't want to go anywhere near the Circle either. Morrigan had set herself up in the Arl's library, and promised to make sure Jowan was cared for in their absence.

Because Jowan was, unfortunately, still imprisoned. Lýna still had to bite back frustration every time she thought about that whole situation. She hadn't realized the Alamarri law against blood magic wasquiteso intense as it was — itwasdangerous, but they seemed to take it a little far. Among the People, using such magics was frowned upon, but thereweresituations it was called for...most unambiguously as a desperate last stand, the mage sacrificing their life in a single powerful spell to ensure their clan could escape a threat safely, but still, they were at least open to thepossibilityof its use being justified. The Alamarri apparently believed thesmallestbit of blood magic called for the mage to be put to death, without question — they'd nearly executed Alim just forbeing next tosomeone casting blood magic, which was just...

Lýna was pleased Alim was with the Wardens, but how he'd been recruited in the first place was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard — and she'd had no idea before talking to Jowan about it, neither Duncan nor Alim himself had ever mentioned it. The Alamarri and their ridiculous magic-hate, just...

Anyway, Lýna had tried to talk Teagan into letting him out. She'd assumed it would be easy, since she couldn't think of a good reason for him to still be imprisoned in the first place — they'd thought he'd put that spell on the Arl, but that was before they'd known the boy had been possessed, it was obvious what had happened looking back on it. Itmighthave gone better if Teagan hadn't been sitting with Isolde when Lýna found him.

The Arl's wife didnotlike Lýna. She'd demanded multiple times for Lýna to be executed for killing her son...which,thatdidn't make any sense. Her son had already been gone, the demon had taken him, but even so,Alistairhad killed the abomination, not Lýna. (The young boy choking on his own blood, going still with death, Lýna had been frozen with horror and guilt, she would haveletthe abomination kill her.) Isolde didn't like Alistair either, but the worst of her anger and hatred was directed at Lýna...for some reason?

Morrigan had suggested it was entirely because Lýna was one of the People, and she was going to have to assume that was it until someone gave her a better explanation.

(Lýna now knew the Orlesian word for "rabbit" — Morrigan had translated Isolde's screaming for her.)

Isolde refused to listen to reason about Jowan. She insisted he'd summoned the demon which had possessed Connor, which... Okay, Lýna wasn't a mage, but she waspretty surethat wasn't how that worked. Teagan, still very tired from dealing with the crisis and in mourning over the death of the boy, hadn't been willing to make a choice about it one way or the other. After a circular, pointless argument, Teagan had said it was out of his hands, they had to wait for Eamon to make a judgement.

Given what his wife would probably tell him once he was awake, Lýna doubted Eamon would be willing to listen to reason either. She was pretty sure she was going to end up Conscripting Jowan. She had already asked for his consent — forcing people to join the Wardens didn't sit right with her, but if she asked the person first she had no problem using that power to save people facing execution — but she suspected taking him while Eamon was still unconscious would not go over well. She didn't expect it to do any good, but she was going to wait until she could explain herself to him first. Jowan wasn't happy about it, but he was willing to stay in his cell for a few more days — especially since the Wardens were making sure he was being fed now, and Alim had even brought him books to pass the time.

As far as Lýna was concerned, Jowan was already a Warden — they just had to go through the motions for everyone else first. In any case, he obviously couldn't come along on their trip to the Circle.

They set out from Redcliffe late in the evening, the sun already dropped below the hills to the west. Their party of seven — Lýna, Alistair, Alim, Leliana, Fergus, and his two companions — weren't alone on the boat, accompanied by a team of sailors. Lýna wasn't certain how many, they moved around too much. Pulling out of the harbor, the boat had been a noisy, chaotic mess of activity, Alamarri sailors running this way and that, dragging ropes around before retying them, wood creaking and metal clanking — they only settled down once they were well off into the water, the people in the village tiny in the distance, for the rest of the journey making but small adjustments now and again.

And it was... Well.

Lýna remembered this one time, she would have been...six or seven, maybe younger, not long after her mother had died. They'd moved up into the hills for the summer, lingering for some time near an Avvar tribe — Stone-River, they returned there almost every summer, one of the tribes they had the best relationship with. Lýna remembered being sad a lot of the time back then, still mourning her parents, the other children of the clan not particularly friendly to her. (That was even the year before Mẽrhiᶅ joined the clan, she thought.) She remembered, when she wasn't busy with one chore or lesson or another, she was often off playing with some of the human children (which had only been allowed because her People considered Avvar to be barely human at all) — it was a big part of why her Avvar was so much better than her Chasind (or Alamarri), she'd started learning it early.

There had been a time, a long time ago, when she'd seriously considered running away and joining Stone-River Hold. Avvar didn't much care whether someone was a human or an elf or a dwarf or whatever, and she'd been young and lonely, they'd been much nicer to her than her own clan most of the time. But she'd gotten closer to Ashaᶅ, and then Mẽrhiᶅ had joined them, and then they had to deal with the Blight, people too busy to pick on the Savhrajeᶅ girl, and she'd gradually forgotten about it.

Anyway, one day they'd climbed up the cliffs at the edge of the river valley — which was dangerous and something theyreallyshouldn't have been doing, Ásta's father had beenveryannoyed with them — by the time they got to the top Lýna had been sweating from the effort, her limbs shaky and soft as jelly. But she'd kept climbing, leaving the other kids laid out on the ground, she'd made her way up one of the nearby trees, up up up, until the branches had been getting thin and weak enough she couldn't climb anymore. And since she'd been a little elven girl, that wasveryclose to the top, enough the tip had started wavering with her weight as she moved around.

The branches had been thin enough that the wind cut through mostly whole, the tree swaying a little with the gusts, tugging at her hair, whipping it this way and then that, brushing her cheeks and tickling her ears and neck. The entire valley had been spread out before her, miles and miles in all directions, Stone-River Hold cradled against the water, the entire breadth of her clan spread out not far away, tiny in the distance, and then further, trees and hills and cliffs, on and on and on. She'd felt unmoored, in a way, like she'd been caught on the wind — or perhaps like the Lady of the Skies had plucked her out of the tree to carry her away, as her Avvar friends might have put it.

And that wasn't entirely inappropriate, because ithadbeen an...almost religious experience, she guessed. For a brief moment — the valley laid out quiet and beautiful before her, the wind rocking her tree, back and forth and back and forth — it'd all seemed so small, so far away and...unimportant. Her parents' deaths, being forced to live with Ashaᶅ, who had been nice enough butnother mother, the other kids of the clan being so awful much of the time, it all fell away, just for a moment, as though she were flying through the skies far above it all, leaving her own life behind, and... It'd been invigorating, almost ecstatic, she'd felt free and pure and untouched, just for a moment.

And then a couple hunters had stumbled across the kids on the ground beneath her and asked what they were doing up here, and the moment had been over. But it'd been amazing while it'd lasted.

Skimming across the lake on this boat, it felt a lot like that. The boat wasn't high up, obviously, but it felt just as removed from the rest of the world as the top of that cliff had. When they'd set off, the shore had been easily visible behind them, of course, fuzzy and gray in the distance to the east and west, but as the sky darkened they faded even to her sight. When true darkness fell — the stars spread out as scattered glittering dust above them, blotted out here and there by the sails and streaks of clouds — the sailors made some more adjustments, bringing their speed down so long as they couldn't see anything, and...

The night was quiet, and still. The chatter of their party and the sailors, the lapping of the waves, the low, gentle roar of the wind, the boat creaking and clinking against the wind — and that was all there was, the darkness around them almost seeming to have a physical weight, pressing in on all sides. Too dark even for Lýna to see that far, the shore was gone, and it was only their boat, and the water, and nothing else.

After sleeping for a short time, Lýna had returned to the top, leaning against the fence and looking out over the lake. And for a quiet, peaceful moment, everything seemed so far away. The rest of the world might as well have ceased to exist, the irritation of Teagan and Isolde, the complicated, confusing politics of the Alamarri, the delicate relationships between the Wardens Lýna was still trying to figure out how to manage — even the Blight itself, the Song at the back of her head had quieted, enough she could barely hear it at all. (The magic of the Blight did poorly in open water, for some reason, supposedly even the Archdemon wouldn't fly over a lake so large as this one.) It all fell away, the wolves snapping at her heels and the weight pulling down at her shoulders gone as though they'd never been.

Struck by a random whim, Lýna had climbed one of the posts — the one at the rear, which she recalled was slightly taller. There were pegs stuck into the wood, worn smooth with the weight of a hundred hands and feet, so climbing it wasn't difficult at all. With each step up, Lýna felt the world trickle off her — like stepping out of a scummy pond she'd fallen into, clinging to her slick and slimy, dropping away bit by bit the further she climbed. She left behind the ghosts of all those who'd died in the south, her confusion with the Alamarri's inscrutable ways, her frustration that nobody would justexplainthese things properly, Ashaᶅ and Mẽrhiᶅ and Tallẽ, her simmering dislike of Isolde, her worries that the woman's dislike of her would only make things more difficult, her worriesKeran's dislike and distrust of her would cripple the Wardens at the worst moment, her fear they wouldn't be enough to stop the Blight, especially with the Alamarri determined to fight among themselves despite the common threat, that she would fail in the task Duncan had trusted her with, that she would watch the Alamarri suffer and starve and die as she already had the People and Avvar and Chasind...

...the boy, Connor, her sword cut deep into his neck, choking on his own blood, wet and hot on her hands as she fruitlessly tried to hold the horrible wound closed, his eyes watery with tears, echoes of countless other dead dancing in her head, Ashaᶅ's disappointment ringing harsher than Alim bringing down the doors of the castle...

...it all fell away, left far below, like her Avvar friends waiting sweaty and tired down on the ground under her, leaving only the wind and Lýna — whoever she even was anymore, Lýna had long ceased being certain by now. The wind tugging at her hair, brushing her cheeks and tickling her ears and neck, the boat over the waves sending the post gently rocking, back and forth and back and forth, and she was left feeling clean and unmoored, as though the wind had swept in and plucked her up, leaving everything else behind.

Lýna had found a place to sit near the top, her back against the post, sitting on a leg folded over one of the pegs, her other foot set on the pole the big sail hung from, the rope at the top of the sail hanging between the posts tucked under her arm. Her head tipped back, the stars spread out above her, absolutely nothing else around, the world small and unimportant and so very far away. Without really thinking about it — hardly thinking at all, letting the rocking of the boat and the gentle touch of the wind carry her away — Lýna found herself singing under her breath, praise and thanks to the Lady of the Skies, a song she'd learned... Oh, she couldn't remember who she'd picked it up from, it would have been years ago. No matter, it was pretty.

Not that she actually followed the Lady of the Skies, of course. The People accepted that she existed — it would be hard not to, as many Avvars shamans there were in direct contact with her — but she wasn'ttheirgod. Not that the Lady herself cared whether someone was elf or human, or even whether someone was Avvar that much. She did have the proper respect anyone should for a god as powerful as the Lady of the Skies, but Lýna certainly didn't mean this kind of song the way an Avvar would.

But the Lady should know what she meant by it as well as Lýna did. If she chose to listen, that was fine, Lýna didn't mind.

Somehow, Lýna managed to fall asleep up that post — she was honestly surprised she hadn't fallen off at any point in the night. And she must have slept for some time, when one of the sailors shook her awake the eastern sky was afire with the sunrise. Lýna woke cold, having been out in the spring wind for so long, but she also woke calm and clear and rested. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept so well. It might have been so long as before the Blight started thickening in the south, she might have been a child...

Leliana found her a few hours later, sitting on the fence at the front of the boat, looking over the waves ahead of them. The rest of their party had mostly left her alone all day, which was fine, Lýna intended to enjoy the boat trip while it lasted. But Leliana came bearing bread and cheese, and she wasn't bad company anyway, so Lýna didn't mind. Taking the offered food, she said, "Thank you, Lèlja," in Deluvẽ.

"My pleasure," Leliana said, smiling — having gotten a little practice, this at least she could say flawlessly. She waited a brief moment, Lýna chewing at her bread, Leliana's bright orange hair dancing in the wind. "Forgive me, but you seem better, than yesterday. Did you sleep well?"

Lýna wasn't certain why she'd need to forgive Leliana for asking that, but okay. "Yes. I like it out here. It's..." She couldn't think of the word in Alamarri. "...aţishas.Friðsælt?"

"Ah,peaceful. I think, I'm guessing."

"Yes,peaceful, this is it." She recognized the first half, at least, it just hadn't occurred to her at the time. Also, she could never guess when she was supposed to use-fuland when it was-some, as in Chasind, very confusing. "I never go on boat before. I like it, here."

Leliana just hummed to herself for a moment, smiling. "I've never been out on the water much, myself. It's the quickest way to the capital from Lydes, I have taken ferries across a few times, but no more than that. It's very popular with some people in Orlais, though, I've known people who go out sailing for fun."

She wasn't surprised. If she had an opportunity to go out just for the sake of it, and there weren't more pressing issues demanding her time, she didn't doubt she would take it.

"Now that I have you alone, there was something I was thinking of talking to you about."

Lýna turned away from the water to frown at her. "Yes?"

"As I understand it, you are the closest thing Ferelden has to a Warden-Commander right now, and will probably be raised to that position once the rest of the Wardens catch up on what's happened here. Yes?"

"Mm...maybe? Riordan in Denerim is also Warden-Lieutenant, but we don't know where he is. He may not live." Lýna thought it possible he'd gotten out of the city alive — Loghain might have gotten lucky and trapped him, but Wardens had the advantages the magic of the Blight gave them and were usuallyverywell-trained. But they had no way of knowing one way or the other for now. "Weisshaupt may raise him over me. Or they may send someone new. I don't know, but maybe."

Leliana nodded. "Warden-Commanders must deal with their own country, but they're also involved with the surrounding kingdoms. So far as they must to keep their people supplied, at the least."

"Yes?"

"The language of trade and diplomacy in the south isCirienne." At Lýna's blank look, Leliana smiled. "Orlesienne?"

"Ah, this isodluvẽ." The language of the Orlesians, to the west of here — though Lýna didn't even know howfarwest, honestly, she didn't know the north very well. "What does— You say, I must learn this? I still learn Alamarri."

"Youhavelearned Alamarri. At this point what you need is practice, there is little more to do there. And the language I would be teaching you in would be Alamarri, so it would help with that too, you see."

"I... Yes, I see." That was how she'd learned Alamarri in the first place, through Chasind, as part of trades with nearby villages. "How big isodluvẽ, here?"

"Very big. It is the most common one people learn as a second language, through all the south — if you are speaking to someone from a foreign land, most often it will be inOrlesienne."

...Oh. Yes, if shedidend up becoming such an important person as the Warden-Commander, she saw how she might have to know that. Damn.

Giving her a bright, warm smile, a subtle light dancing in her eyes, Leliana said, "We could make it a trade, if you like? I would love to learn your language. Then I would be able to appreciate your people's stories better."

Lýna found herself smiling — she couldn't help it, none of the other Alamarri bothered offering this kind of exchange. (Which was reallyveryrude, but she was used to it by now.) "Okay. This is well."

"Good, not well."

"I hate this word."

Leliana giggled.

Their first Orlesian/Deluvẽ lesson wasverybrief, just covering basic things — giving one's name, basic pleasantries, asking how to say something, that sort of thing. Because the humans of the north had to make everything complicated, Lýna ran into something annoyingly difficult right away: the Orlesian word forlawas completely impossible to pronounce. It sounded like it was halfway between"shy"and"ᶁy", and Lýna couldnotget it right. Eventually, Lýna got pretty close — or at least close enough that Leliana said it was clear what she wastryingto say, which would have to do for now.

Why did Orlesians have to make even such abasicword so difficult? That was, just,veryannoying...

They sailed through the day, quiet and uneventful. By the time the western sky started to redden, the shores to the east and west had loomed out of the fuzzy distance, approaching ever nearer, until the thin finger of a tower poked over the horizon. It wasverytall, Lýna making out the top of it long before the rest gradually came into view — she thought shehadfinally seen the bottom, but minutes later she noticed there was a jagged, rocky island under it, it was even higher above the water than she'd thought. Beyond the tower, just coming into view in the last moments of daylight, the eastern and western shore finally met, curling back out of sight to the east.

That was the River Dane, she was told. This lake was sort of peculiar in that it fed two separate rivers. One was the same river they'd crossed once at Lothering and then again following the Highway west — the River Drakon, as it was called, flowed east through Alamarri lands, the city of Denerim sitting where the waters met. The River Dane flowed north, after about two days' travel emptying into the sea...which was confusing, because Lýna had thought the sea was to theeastof here. Apparently, there was a narrow finger of it stretching through the land, about as wide as the distance they'd sailed on this lake, but much,muchlonger, hundreds and hundreds of miles. After a bit of asking Alistair and Leliana, Lýna eventually figured out the Dayscourse River — the Minanter, Alistair called it once he figured out which she meant — was on the other side of this strip of sea from Ferelden.

The Dayscourse River happened to be where her clan had been headed before Lýna had left for the Wardens, but she hadn't realized there was a span of open water in the way. Despite how pointless it was, she was struck with a distracting tingle of worry, wondering whether they'd made it across safely. And in foreign land, with foreign people speaking foreign languages... Therewerealready People there, of course, that's why they'd been headed there of all places, but...

There was nothing she could do about that.

The tower itself, Lýna instantly recognized as Tevinter — describing this region of the country (the same talk including the information about the rivers and the finger of sea), Fergus claimed the tower had been built by Avvar ages ago, but Alim behind him rolled his eyes, so Lýna assumed he was wrong about that. Besides, it certainlylookedTevinter. The grayish-white stone almost unnaturally smooth, more perfectly round than seemed quite real — the Tevinters used magic to do that sort of thing, she knew — the tower stretched far over their heads, almost obscenely high. That cliff she'd climbed and the tree above it...was probably actuallylowerthan the top of the tower, which was crazy to think about. There were cliffs along the mountains far to the south thatmightbe higher, but still, Lýna was pretty sure this tower was the single tallest thing she'd ever seen in her life.

Like the Tower of Ishal, this one had little ribs on the sides. Five of them, it looked like, but instead of just running straight into the ground at the tower base these spread out to the sides, sprawling across the little island, each of them eventually rising into a much narrower, much shorter tower, right over the water. The ribs didn't go all the way to the top either, but melded into the sides of the tower maybe two-thirds of the way up, leaving the stone above there perfectly smooth and unbroken. At the very top,ridiculouslyhigh, the stone jutted out again, forming a little round platform.

Lýna found shereallywanted to go up there. How tall this thing was, what theviewmust be like! Hopefully they'd be lingering here long enough for her to check it out, it looked like it'd beincredible.

(She started humming that song to herself again without meaning to, quickly cut herself off.)

Oddly, there appeared to be smoke coming out of some of the windows, wispy little curls trailing off to the southeast. Lýna, having never seen the place before, assumed this was normal — they must have fires to keep the place warm, and maybe they did some forging or something, what did she know? But Alim, lingering at the front of the boat, his head tilted back a little to take in the tower, grew more worried as they neared, his face settling into a glare and his fingers tightening against the fence hard enough she could hear the leather of his gloves squeak against the wood.

Then, there was a flash of green-purple light, coming from somewhere about halfway up, a low boom echoing out over the lake. There was no waythatcould be normal.

They were not so far away when night fell — the tower almost seemed to glow a pale silver in the night, the orange of fire now obvious flickering in some of the windows. The water was rocky here, the sailors wanted to stop and wait for morning but, his voice tight and harsh, Alim insisted they go on. He cast magelight out over the water, the soft, gentle green of the Beyond, and alotof it, Lýna had never seen so much before. Reluctantly, the sailors picked their way through the rocks looming now and again out of the night, murky but clearly outlined by Alim's magelight, their progress slow and cautious.

Finally, they approached a pier on the island, poking out into the water toward the north. Waiting for them on the floating wooden platform were three figures, the angles their profiles made suggesting they were wearing armor — and then Alim's magelight swept over them, revealing gray metal, red leather, and gold cloth, etched into the plate covering each of their chests the flaming sword of the Templars.

They were still a short distance off when one of the Templars called to them, voice turned thin at range. "The Circle Tower is closed to all visitors! Turn around now!"

"I am Fergus Cousland of Highever!" Lýna cringed — standing so close, Fergus's deep, booming voice echoed painfully in her head. "I demand magical aid on behalf of Arl Eamon of Redcliffe!"

There was silence for a long moment, their boat crawling ever closer. Finally, "We heard you were dead, Your Grace."

"So that traitor Howe wishes! I need to speak with your commander. May my people come ashore?"

"...As you wish, Your Grace, but I don't know what help we can offer."

There was a bit of chaos as the boat met the pier, sailors leaping off to tie down this or that thing, a storm of noise over their heads assomethingwas done with the sails. Distracted, Lýna didn't notice their people were leaving the boat until Leliana got her attention — Alistair, Fergus, and one of his men were already on the platform. The second of Fergus's men was climbing over the fence as she came over, clutching on and cautiously extending his foot over; Lýna just skipped up, planted a hand on the fence and vaulted over, bouncing to a halt next to Alistair. Alim came shortly behind Lýna, Leliana almost as smoothly and easily as the elves, and only then did Fergus's man finally find his feet on the pier.

Lýna remembered the constant rocking of the boat had made this oneverysick, that probably didn't help his balance getting off. Personally, the sudden stillness of the floor under her feet was making Lýna feel unsteady, like she was constantly coming up short and nearly tripping over herself, hopefully she'd get back to normal before too long.

One of the Templars, she saw now, had an extra sash around his waist, purple stitched with gold — must be an officer of some kind. Alistair and Fergus were clanking up to this one, Fergus asking what was going on, was the toweron fire, but he never quite got an answer. Before any of the Templars could say anything, they caught sight of Alim. There was a harsh scraping of metal against leather, two of the Templars instantly drawing their swords.

Normally, Lýna wouldn't think twice about Alim facing down three large humans so well armed and armored, but Templars were said toallhave those anti-magic powers gifted to them by their magic-hating god — Alim had been completely helpless against justonedarkspawn with a similar talent. Lýna didn't know if a fightwouldbreak out — Alistair was moving to stand between them, reaching for his shield, Fergus's hand on his own blade — but she wasn't going to take any chances with one of her people.

Darting forward, Lýna tugged Alim back by the elbow, putting him firmly behind her, coming up on Alistair's left. Her sword was already to hand, waiting hanging to her left to intercept any advance. The Templars twitched at her appearance, and possibly the fact that she'd drawn her weapon on them — they had first, of course, but theyweresworn warriors of the Alamarri god, that might be part of why Alistair and Fergus hadn't yet. In a low, threatening grumble, one of them asked (to Alistair), "Why do you have a savage with you?"

"I am Warden-Lieutenant Lýna Maharjeᶅ. Alim is of mine, and you will not harm him."

"Oh, Lýna, soforceful, I think I might swoon." It took some effort not to turn a glare back on Alim — she had to keep watching the Templars for sudden movements, no matter what weird thing Alim said.

The Templar, of course, didn't speak directly to her, instead to Alistair next to her. She'd noticed Alamarri do that a lot. "Order her to stand down, Ser Alistair."

"Can't," he chirped, mail clinking as he lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I'm afraid Duncan promotedthe savageout from under me — I followherorders, not the other way around." He spoke light and casual, almost cheerful, but Lýna didn't buy his act for a second. He was still standing between the Templar officer and Alim, his hand not quite on butnearthe hilt of his sword, his posture tense and ready.

Sounding aghast, "You're a Templar!" Lýna guessed he was offended by the idea of a Templar following asavagelike her. Or, maybe it was just because he was defending anevil blood mage, could go either way.

"Not anymore, I'm not — my vows to the Order were broken when I joined the Wardens, you know that."

"Warden." This was the one with the sash, his voice somewhat smoother and calmer than the other Templar. Of the three, he was also the only one who hadn't drawn a weapon at the sight of Alim. "I am Hadley, Knight-Captain of the Holy Order of Knights-Templar."

Lýna nodded, but didn't respond, closely watching the nearest Templar.

"I realize you might not have known this, but you are harboring a mage who has been sentenced as maleficar."

"Oh, Andraste have mercy," Alim groaned, "that sentence wasnugsh*t, Hadley, and youknowit! I never touched any forbidden magic!"

"That's not what I heard."

"Then whoever told you that wasf*cking lying!Last time I checked, beingin the roomwhen blood magic is cast bysomeone elsedoesn't call for execution! If Duncan hadn't Conscripted me Greagoir would have had me killed forsomeone else'scrimes — and Irving would have just let him do it without protest, like the cowardly, sniveling oldbastardhe is!"

The Templars tensed at the shouting, Lýna shifted her stance a little in response — the left-most Templar would get to her first, she had to cripple him before he could reach Alim, Alistair would stop the right-most, but she didn't know what Fergus would do... "Surana, you are not doing yourself any favors by—"

"As if any of you ever listen to a damn word we say anyway!"

"This is not the time to argue about—"

"Stop!" By some miracle, the Knight-Captain actually cut off at the snapped word — Lýna's voice wasmuchsofter than the big human's, she hadn't been certain that would work. "Alim is Grey Warden now. What came before, is as nothing."

"I understand that, Lieutenant, but—"

"No but! He says he not do it, I believe him. Even so, if he did do it, Ido not care." Obviously — shedidintend to recruit the person who wasactuallyguilty of the 'crime' they wished to execute Alim for. But these Templars didn't need to know that. "He is Grey Warden now, and you will not harm him."

For a moment, there was quiet, the waves gently lapping on the shore, the sailors nearby still working away. Lýna even heard a faint clinking of mail as the men breathed. There was a wary tension on the air, their two sides glaring at each other. She noticed an odd...notscent, exactly, but neither quite sound, either. Something like the tingling, crackling song of magic, but no melody rose out of it, more like the buzzing of a fly in her ear — the Templars doing their anti-magic thing, maybe? She hadn't noticed it a moment ago...

"If I may, Knight-Captain," Fergus said, stepping forward a bit. The Alamarri man — looking almost Avvar, unsettlingly tall and large, the lack of helmet revealing long curly hair, orange streaked with yellow — stepped forward a little, the right-most Templar tensing, his sword hand angling a little toward Fergus. Hadley's hand snapped out to close around the Templar's wrist, dragging his hand down to his side. "If I remember the law as it pertains to these matters correctly, Lýna is correct: the Templars have no jurisdiction over mages who have joined the Grey Wardens."

The left-most Templar bristled. "If the Wardens shield maleficars, are we supposed to stand back and donothing?"

"Not a maleficar," Alim sang, his voice light and bouncing.

"Hold your tongue, you—"

"Ser Cordin," Hadley barked; the Templar froze instantly. "This isn't something I can make a decision on one way or the other. The Commander is inside — you should both bring your business to him."

"But ser, with what's happening in the tower right now, we can't possibly allow a—"

"Templars, stand down."

The left-most Templar froze, again. After the shortest hesitation, both men returned their swords to their sheaths — though the tension didn't entirely fade, both still rigid, the one on the left all but shaking with fury, fists clenched at his sides.

A path led up from the pier, weaving back and forth over the uneven, rocky island. Loose stones were scattered across the path, in some places a thin covering of pebbles, one of Fergus's men nearly lost his footing once. One caught Alim, his foot skidding out from under him, he might have fallen off the side of the path if Leliana hadn't snagged him by the wrist. After the surprisingly treacherous walk, they eventually came to the doors — they were huge, wide double doors arcing up, up, had to be at least two timesFergus'sheight. Shockingly, theyappearedto be made out of metal of some kind, glinting darkly in the night, the black inlaid with designs in silver, a twisting tangle of vines, dancing between them great birds and dragons with wings outstretched. (Definitely Tevinter.) Where did they even get that much metal? That seemed like a very wasteful use of materials. Absurd...

Inside the door was a wide, tall hallway, all made of stone save for the doors, the occasional metal lamp or decoration along the walls. The outside of the tower had looked very Tevinter, but the inside was different — she assumed the Alamarri must have redone everything at some point. The metal, mostly gold (bronze?), attached high up on the walls formed itself into a dog now and again, seemingly running and leaping off the corners of the door frames — that was an Alamarri thing, dragons and birds and these fennec-looking things were more Tevinter — the walls and ceiling bare gray-white stone, the floor all made of little six-sided tiles — she'd noticed their Chantry places used a lot of six-sided shapes for some reason — some of them plain white and black, others with the Chantry sunburst in orange traced with gold. Halfway down the hall, the regular pattern was broken with a big circle all in black, six of these little almost serpentine designs in blue and green, didn't know what those were, arranged in a circle around—

Lýna froze, staring wide-eyed down at the symbol shaped out of the floor tiles. A black circle inside a tapered, seed-like shape, this one white, spreading out from it thick lines in red and green, each wavering back and forth a couple times before coming to a point, gently, like kelp wavering in water — or more like, tendrils of the Beyond trickling through a rent in the Veil. She knew this, she'd seen it many times before. The number of tendrils around it was never quite the same, and the colors were a little off, but she knew it.

The Eye of the Lady.

"Lýna?"

Not turning to Leliana, her eyes refusing to pull away from the tiles at her feet, Lýna pointed down at the Eye. "This. What is this?"

"Ah, the Witness Unseen, the All-Seeing Eye." Leliana's voice sounded a little absent, as though she were only half aware of what she was saying. "It's an old symbol of the Maker, from the time of the Inquisition. It troubles you. Why?"

That... The Lady of the Skies wascertainlyolder than Andraste — perhaps not this Maker person, but Lýna didn't know if he'd even been worshipped at all before the Rebellion. She waspretty surethe Eye had been the Lady's first. Did Andraste's people end up using it? Why? From what she understood of the Avvar faith (which was quite a lot), that...didn't seem to make any sense... Maybe Andraste had had old Avvar allies who'd marched under the Eye, but...

Wrenching her eyes away from the tile, Lýna shook her head at Leliana, and started off again, skipping forward a few steps to catch up with the others.

At the end of the hall was a large circular room, perhaps nearly as long as two good shots across, the ceiling propped up here and there with thick columns — the base of the tower, she assumed. The door they came through was one of five, each probably leading into the points stretching out from the tower, along the walls crates and bundles of supplies. (Lýna couldn't tell what any of it was, hidden by wooden slats or covered with canvas.) Beyond those storage spaces the room was mostly empty, a wide floor with some kind of intricate mosaic in colorful tile, how wide across it was and how high the ceiling she was certain it was the single largest enclosed space she'd ever been in. It didn't even feel like she wasinside, really, the space open enough that distracting niggling of discomfort at being surrounded with heavy stone failed to set in.

The ceiling was higher after the first row of pillars, revealing the big middle part was actually cut out of the second floor too, a railing all around glimmering silver in the light, five more doors placed directly above the ones on their level. That...seemed like a waste of space? She meant, they could have put a lot of things on the second floor here, but just leaving it open was kind of silly, especially since it couldn't be easy to build a place like this. She wasn'tcomplaining, exactly — having all this open space made it feelmuchless cramped than the fortress at Redcliffe, for example — but it still seemed like a lot of effort for little benefit to her.

In the big room were Templars, all over the place — there had to be a couple dozen of them, at least — all in that now familiar armor, but with a little more variety than she'd noticed before. With so many in one place, it was more obvious that each set was actually slightly different, the form altered a little to accommodate different statures, lighter or heavier depending on the strength and size of the wearer. Lýna noticed a few women, she'd never seen a woman Templar before — from what she could tell, they tended to have more mail and leather (layered with splints, of course), though still with a few sturdy plates here and there, especially over the chest, featuring the same flaming sword. Several of them had an entirely different design, splinted coat falling nearly to their ankles, tight along their trunks but flaring out below their hips, sturdy enough to intercept incoming blows but loose enough to allow freer movement; these Templars had the same chestplate, but no heavy armor over their shoulders, less constrictive, their gloves leaving the last couple joints of their fingers free. Archers, thosehadto be archers.

Somethinghad definitely happened: many of the Templars were injured, tended to by more Templars and several people in Chantry robes, more people in modest wool Lýna assumed were locals or servants. Laid out on the floor on pallets covered in furs, armor removed to get at gashes cut straight through steel, or weeping burns. Some had odder injuries — flesh contorted and bubbled (like stew on the fire, though frozen in an instant), little shards of bone rearranged to spear up through their skin in a dozen places, one man's arm was floppy and shapeless, as though the bones inside had simply dissolved, some their wounds took on odd colors, blue and green and purple, in a couple cases browns and blacks of advanced rot, nothing that couldpossiblyhave come to be attached to a living body, not by natural means.

This was the aftermath of a magical battle. Lýna had never seen such a thing before, but the results she did see couldn't be anything else.

Hadley led their party through the room, toward a table set up some paces away from one of the doors. Gathered around it were several people, all in Templar armor. One had a sash around his waist, like Hadley, but also with extra golden accents tracing the edges of his armor — which was scorched along the left side, metal blackened and the lines of the bit over his shoulder smeared, as though melted and allowed to reset, his left arm bandaged and held in a sling, leaving him looking absurdly lopsided. Another of them stuck out, a tall willowy man, hair sheared nearly to his skull, wearing a coat much like the archers though with a different design, overlapping scales covering his shoulders and most of his chest and back, instead of splints the lower half of his coat stitched with complex sigils Lýna recognized as enchantments. His gloves didn't match, one simple leather, backed with tiny scales from his elbow through the back of his hand, the other a heavy greave like the other Templars', plate and mail.

They were about halfway to the table when Lýna noticed, abruptly, that she and Alim were the only elves in the room. All the Templars, the Chantry people, even the probable servants, there could be as many as a hundred people and every single one was human. That was...odd. There hadn't been many elves in Redcliffe, but there'd still beensome...

Walking nearby — carefully in the middle of their group, ensuring there was always at least one person between him and the Templars — Alim ground out a curse. At Lýna's glance, he nodded toward the table. It was hard to tell at this distance, but Lýna thought he was looking at the man in the leather-and-scale coat. He muttered, low enough his voice wouldn't carry, "Knight-Enchanter Kenrick. Not looking forward to having to talk to him, self-righteous bastard."

On his other side, Leliana hissed, "There is clearly something terribly wrong here, and what concerns you is having to deal with the company of someone you dislike?"

At the obvious disapproval on her face, Alim awkwardly looked up at the distant ceiling, gave a helpless shrug. "I know, but— Look, you don't know how much of a sh*t this guy is, trust me, he's going to be a problem."

They approached the table soon enough. Hadley started introducing them, but the man in the lopsided gold-lined armor interrupted before he could get more than a few words out. This man was older than Lýna would have expected, face deeply lined and hair streaked with gray, though obviously having retained the bulk of his strength, tall and thick. "My Lord Fergus, welcome to Kinloch Hold — wish that it were in better circ*mstances. You have my condolences for the loss of your family, Your Grace."

His outline obscured somewhat by heavy plate and mail, Lýna still caught how Fergus tensed, just a little bit. "Thank you, Knight-Commander. But this isn't a personal visit — I come directly from Redcliffe, which has just experienced a serious magical catastrophe, and Arl Eamon requires magical healing. It appears you have your own troubles, however," he added, glancing around at the injured Templars around them.

The Knight-Commander, who Lýna assumed must be in charge around here, grimaced. "That would be an understatement, Your Grace. First, might I know your companions? Some are Grey Wardens, I assume — hello again, Ser Alistair."

Introductions quickly went around the table. The man in the gold-traced armor was named Greagoir, and was, indeed, the person in command of the Templars. (Whether that meant all the Templars in all of Ferelden, like the Warden-Commander, or just the Templars here at the Circle, that wasn't specified.) There were a couple more Knight-Captains — though Hadley was gone, he'd left to stand watch over the boats again — and one Knight-Lieutenant. Of the Templars, the Knight-Enchanter Alim disliked was introduced last — which wasveryconfusing, since this Kenrick was apparently a Templaranda mage, Lýna hadn't realized it could work like that. Wasn't having a mage among their number sort of a contradiction of their weird magic-hating beliefs? Perhaps they just wanted a loyal mage around to help them deal with magical threats, Lýna didn't know.

The introductions the other way around were mostly uneventful. Greagoir seemed a little surprised that Lýna lead the Wardens, bushy eyebrows twitching up his face, but he didn't comment, just gave her a solemn nod and moved on. Of course, the Templars already knew Alistair, probably from back when he'd been training to become one of them. Lýna had expected the Templars to show the same poor reaction to Leliana most Alamarri did — she got the feeling that war-shamans didn't exist up here (unless they were Templars), the Alamarri were uncomfortable with the idea of one of their Sisters fighting — but to her surprise they just pleasantly nodded, welcoming their Sister among them easily enough. She would just think it didn't bother Templars as much as it did ordinary Alamarri, but Lelianadidmake Alistair uncomfortable sometimes...or maybe that was just the "heresy"...

It was when Alim came up that things didn't go quite smoothly, but still not as bad as Lýna might have feared. Introducing Leliana to the Templars, their group had shifted around a little bit, Alim no longer hidden behind Alistair and one of Fergus's men (that one was Sedrick, she thought). Kenrick, the Templar mage, spotted him first, or at leastreactedfirst, his lips twisting into a faint scowl. "Alim Surana. I didn't think you were stupid enough to show your face here again."

"Hullo, Kenrick," Alim chirped, light and cheerful — seemingly ignoring the way the Templars within earshot stiffened, hands hovering over hilts. "How are things? Did you ever try out that poultice I recommended?" Leaning a little closer to Leliana, he said in a fake-whisper, "He spends so much time on his knees, you see."

Kenrick twitched, eyes narrowing in anger. He clearly felt he'd been insulted, but Lýna didn't really get how. "I wonder, are you talented enough with healing magic to prevent scars from forming on your wrists?"

"No, by the time the Warden-Commander made Greagoir over here get those manacles off me it'd been too long, I wasn't able to reverse all the damage. I'll carry those marks forever, I'm afraid."

"Oh dear, how awful. Perhaps I could take a look at—"

"Ser Kenrick," Greagoir said in a sigh, his eyes tipping up toward the ceiling for a second. "This is no time to revive petty feuds with the more willful of our charges."

"The elf is a maleficar, Commander."

"He is a Grey Warden — the Chantry is a signatory to the Blight Accords, and so we are bound." Greagoir stared down Kenrick and a couple of the other Templars around for a few seconds, eventually getting grudging nods and mumbles of agreement from all of them. Then he turned to Lýna. "Do understand, Warden: upon joining your order, hispreviouscrimes are void. If the Templars have reason to believe he has committednewcrimes within the lands we protect, we have the right to pursue justice as we see fit."

Lýna doubted that — she was pretty sure the Templars didn't have the right to enforce their religious law on the Wardens at all ever — but she also didn't care. Alim had never actually used blood magic before, and he wasn't careless enough to cast anything the Templars considered forbidden right in front of them — it would never become a problem. "Even so," she agreed, nodding.

As Greagoir turned back to Fergus, all the other Templars set to ignoring him, as though he weren't even there, tension seemed to lift out of Alim, his stance looser than it'd been a second ago, as though he'd expected a blow that had never come. Lýna even caught the hiss of a sigh, though probably low enough none of the humans could hear it.

The conversation that followed — mostly between Alistair, Fergus, and Greagoir — was too quick and heated, bouncing back and forth between questions and explanations, people quite nearly talking over each other, enough that Lýna with her slow, awkward Alamarri couldn't participate. She did mostly follow it, though.

At the request of the King, the Circle had sent a couple dozen mages to support the army at Ostagar, along with an escort of maybe twice that many Templars. They'd participated in the battle, and most of them were presumed dead — however, a couple days ago several of the mages had turned up here, dirty and exhausted but alive. A day later, the rebellion had started. Perhaps as many as a fifth of the mages had banded together to strike at the Templars, seeking to fight their way down through the tower and escape into the countryside.

The rebellion was led by an Enchanter Uldred. Alim groaned — that was one of his favorites of the Circle's elders, he admitted to Lýna in a whisper.

At first, their attacks had been careful and targeted, taking out Templars by surprise before they could suppress their magic, quickly and efficiently. But it hadn't taken the Templars very long to realize something was happening, so they closed ranks, and started striking back. At that point, though, they'd had no idea who was part of the rebellion and who wasn't, and they'd been jumping at shadows — Greagoir admitted they'd killed a number of innocent mages in those early hours. Templars randomly killing mages who'd done nothing wrong made the mages whohadn'tbeen part of the rebellion scared and angry, so many of them started fighting back to protect themselves.

From there, it didn't take very long for the Circle to descend into open battle. Between the meticulously deadly tactics of Uldred's men, and the unpredictability of the other terrified mages — and also the occasional abomination, though there'd "only" been a few of those — the Templars had faredverybadly. After nearly an entire day of fighting, they'd retreated into the lower levels, sealing the tower behind them.

Even with the Templars gone, the fighting in the tower had continued. Of course, they didn't know exactly what was going on up there, but they assumed the mages were putting down the abominations that had cropped up. There'd also been fighting between groups of mages. From what little the Templars had been able to piece together, there were at least three factions: the rebels, mostly Libertarian and Isolationist mages along with their friends and apprentices, led by Enchanter Uldred; their opponents, Aequitarian and Loyalist mages, led by First Enchanter Irving, the leader of the Circle; and then there was a third group, mages who wanted nothing to do with any of this and were just trying to stay alive, who the last the Templars had seen had started to congregate around Enchanter Wynne, who'd been mostly focused on protecting the children. One of the Knight-Captains said they thought Irving had the advantage of numbers, but Uldred had all the better fighters, the core of his rebels with experience with the kingdom's forces against darkspawn or outlaws in the north. It was really anybody's guess which way the fighting would end up going.

Lýna had no idea what some of these words were supposed to mean, like Libertarian or...whatever, but it also didn't seem important to ask right now.

While the Templars healed their wounded, regrouped and rested, the fighting had continued over their heads. It'd gone on most of the day, but it'd finally started winding down not long ago. Greagoir had sent word to Highever and Denerim for reinforcements, and had asked the Grand Cleric — an important Chantry person, Lýna gathered — for permission to invoke the Rite of Annulment.

"What?!"Alim blurted out. The shock hit hard enough his magic flared, a hint of tingling music on the air, the taste of a storm about to hit; the Templars shifted anxiously, must feel it too. "You can'tdothat!"

One of the Knight-Captains sneered at him. "The Commander can do whatever he feels is necessary to prevent this chaos from being loosed in our country."

"But they didn't—!"

Alim's voice died in his throat when Fergus's over-sized hand came down on his shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt him, Lýna didn't think, Alim was just startled. "Forgive me if I'm mistaken somehow, Ser, but Annulling the Circle strikes me to be a drastic over-reaction. Surely, whatever crimes Uldred and his rebels have committed should be upon them alone, and not laid at the feet of every resident of Kinloch Hold."

Ah, Law-Giver Hold, she just got that. That was an Avvar name, they must have held it for a time, which explained why some people apparently thought the Avvar had built this place, at least. Alright then.

While Lýna puzzled over that, Greagoir was talking. "You misunderstand me, Your Grace — the precise enforcement of the Rite is at the discretion of the Knight-Commander. Assuming Wynne has successfully safeguarded the children, they are to be spared, as well as any mages who have assisted her. All will be put to the question, but if they are found to be innocent, I see no reason they should be harmed. Irving's people we will be more cautious with, but they will also be given an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty. The rebellion, however, must be suppressed, lest this Circle be permanently contaminated. The Rite gives me special authority to pursue that end by any means I feel are necessary, nothing more."

For the first time in quite a while, silence lingered around the table, though not exactly a calm one. Alim next to her was still simmering with fury, though now controlled enough Lýna couldn't hear magic on the air; Alistair and Fergus looked reluctant, as though unhappy about whatever they were talking about but willing to accept it, Leliana a shade relieved. The Templars across from them, though, most of them seemed tense, frustrated — like a hound tugging at its lead, held back.

The silence held long enough for Lýna to finally get a word out. "What is this Rite?"

A couple Templars glared at her, Alistair and Leliana shifting with obvious discomfort, but Alim answered right away — not happy about it, his voice thick and hot, biting back anger with some effort, but he got it out. "If the Templars decide a Circle isn't to their liking, they can destroy it, utterly. Dismantle any magical artifacts they've gathered over the years, burn all the books, and kill every single man, woman, and child inside, the innocent alongside the guilty, scatter the ashes to the winds and start over from scratch. It's called the Rite of Annulment."

For a second, Lýna could only gape up at Alim, her mouth hanging uselessly open. They could... They... There was awordfor it?! "This is allowed? Truly?!"

Alim, bafflingly,smiled. Just a little, the expression thin and twitchy, but still, Lýna couldn't guess what could have inspiredthat...

"The Rite is only exercised in the most dire of circ*mstances. We—"

"That you do itonceis—" Lýna abruptly cut herself off when she realized she didn't have the words in Alamarri to finish that sentence. Glaring up at the Knight-Commander, her fists clenched at her sides, she hissed, "May the Wolf chase all of you beasts into the Void, how right in this? You have word for this,lawfor this, and you callussavages?Tevinterdid not do slaves so!"

There was a bit of clinking, armored men shifting in place a little. One of the Templars spoke, his voice a low growl, "You don't know the dangers of allow—"

"Shut up!"That came out in Deluvẽ, but it didn't matter, the outburst was enough to startle the Templar into silence — his hand twitched in the direction of his sword, but didn't quite reach it, the man seemingly stopping himself. "You don't deny you will kill child, onnothing, I care not what you say!" Turning to Leliana nearby, "This is good with you?"

Her interruption over with for now, Fergus and Greagoir resumed their discussion, but Lýna wasn't listening, staring up at Leliana. The human woman looked a little taken aback, blinking down at her, it took some time for her to find her voice. When she did, low and cautious, flowing under the harder voices of the men nearby, it sounded as though she were reciting something, a story or a song she'd learned, not her own words. "Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children."

Lýna scowled at theterribleanswer. Perhaps there would be a point there, but this Rite of Annulment allowed for Templars to slaughter people, including children, who were perfectly innocent — Alim had claimed so, and nobody had attempted to say a word to refute him! She opened her mouth to say, she wasn't sure exactly, but—

"But that isn't..." Leliana eyes turned from hers, unseeingly gazing off to the side. "The Chant also says,All men are the work of our Maker's hands, from the lowest slaves to the highest kings. Those who bring harm without provocation to the least of His children are hated and accursed by the Maker. I don't know how... I suppose I never thought about it before."

...Good. If Leliana actuallyapprovedof these Templars slaughtering their enslaved mages for no good reason, for that ability to be enshrined in their law, Lýna... Well, she wasn't sure, but she wouldn'tlikeit, no doubt about that. At least Leliana was thinking about it now.

When Lýna turned back, Fergus and Greagoir were arguing about getting magical assistance for Eamon — Greagoir claimed that wouldn't be possible for some weeks, they would need to hold the mages to confirm their innocence once they retook the tower, which Fergus clearly thought was a waste of time. Lýna didn't disagree, seemed to her the best way for the mages to demonstrate their good intentions was to help out where needed. (And that was assuming the mages should be enslaved at all, which she still hadn't heard a good reason for, but that was beside the point.) She didn't really need to contribute to the conversation, though, Fergus could argue for them better than she could. Especially since she doubted the Templars would feel like listening to her after she'd just called them evil child-murderers to their faces.

Which...mightmake it more difficult than necessary to get their cooperation fighting the Blight. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut...

"That will not be necessary." The voice came not from anyone around the table, but a short distance to Lýna's left. A human man's voice, deep and heavy, but smooth and level, perfectly calm despite the desperation and horror around them. Appearing out of the crowd was another armored figure, not large for a human man, no taller than Leliana, relatively slight, his pace as they walked up to them easy and graceful. His face was round and plain, and completely expressionless, an old scar stretching from the edge of his brow into his close-cropped hair over his ear. He wasn't a Templar, or at least he didn't look like one. This man's armor was much darker, a reflectionless night-black, the edges traced with dull silver — relatively light-weight, even, thick plate guarding chest, arms, hips, and shins, but otherwise showing the leather beneath, dark but not quite black, faintly purple. There was a straight sword on one hip, a long dagger on the opposite, the edge of a shield visible over his shoulders.

Lýna felt her eyes widen — the man wore, traced in silver large on his chest, the Eye of the Lady.

When the man appeared, all the Templars around the table straightened a bit — unconsciously, as warriors in the presence of their chief, or children realizing a parent was watching them at practice. Even some of their group reacted, Leliana most noticeably, drawing in a hissing gasp. There was a beat of silence, Fergus finding his voice first. "Seeker Esmond. I'd worried you were lost in the fighting."

The man nodded at Fergus. "I could say the same of you, Your Grace." This Seeker Esmond came to a stop a pace away from their table, a small pack of Templars following him — two swordsmen, two archers — keeping a short distance back. "Fortunately, we both yet live, Maker be praised."

Fergus repeated those last three words, but not very enthusiastically. He probably wasn't in the mood to be thanking the gods much, considering his entire family had been murdered not long ago. Lýna really couldn't blame him for that.

"Forgive me, Your Grace, did I overhear something about you needing magical assistance?"

"Ah, yes. Not for myself, truly — Redcliffe recently suffered from the machinations of an abomination of considerable power. With the help of the Wardens here," Fergus said, nodding to Lýna, "we were able to push through the dead it had raised to destroy it, but the Arl remains trapped in a deep sleep he can't be woken from. We'd hoped the Circle would be able to send someone to break the spell."

Greagoir added, "Surana there claims the Arl is under a stasis spell tied directly into the Veil. It would require complex spellwork to break such a thing, as I understand it."

It didn't quite seem like Esmond was listening, leaning a bit to peek around one of the Templars. "Oh, that hair could only be one Surana. Hello there, Alim, it is good to see you yet live. And how are you faring in the Wardens?"

The Templars seemed a little displeased with Esmond's friendliness with Alim in particular, shifting in place and glaring, but clearly too intimidated to actually say anything about it. (Which was weird — who was this man? Lýna had never heard this "Seeker" title before...) Alim, for his part, was rather taken aback, sounding oddly flustered. Lýna even thought his ears might be pinking a little, but it was hard to tell for sure against his hair. "Ah, really good, actually, Seeker, um, thank you. Good to see you're alive and...not angry?"

"Why would I be angry with you, child?"

"Um, I don't know." Alim glanced at the other Templars around, shrugged. "I've kinda been gettingkill the evil blood mageglares the whole time I've been here."

For the first time, this Seeker person actually showed an expression: it was very faint, barely there, but Lýna was certain heglaredat the Templar commanders gathered at the table. Seemingly all at once, half of the Templars winced, the other half at least glancing away. "No matter the circ*mstances, you are not guilty of your friend's crimes. I would not have let them execute you over that debacle, child. I was in the process of arranging to transfer you to the Ostwicker Circle when the Commander of the Grey offered to take you. I thought permitting you to join the Wardens was a better solution. The Wardens had desperate need, and you likely would have been in that cell for weeks before all the details of the transfer could be arranged — I didn't want to risk you sickening and dying down there in the meanwhile."

Alim blinked. "...Oh. Um." He couldn't seem to think of what to say to that. After a few seconds just staring, wide-eyed, he jumped. "Wait a second! If you're here, why is Greagoir waiting for a response from the Grand Cleric? Can'tyousign off on the Rite of Annulment?"

One of the Seeker's eyebrows twitched up his forehead. "Yes, I can. I have refused, however, so the Commander wishes for the Grand Cleric to overrule me. But that will not be necessary — by the time word returns from Denerim the crisis here will have been resolved." He turned to Greagoir, his voice low and sharp, calm but with a clear note of command. "I am prepared to ascend the tower. If there are volunteers fit to join me, gather them now; if there are none, so be it — I will deal with the rebels myself. We will return when Uldred and his lieutenants are dead. You will order your men to bring down the wards and let me and mine through."

Reluctantly, Greagoir nodded. "Once you're in, I'll be sealing the doors behind you. I won't open them again until I have Irving's word the rebellion has been dealt with."

His voice going even sharper, cold, Esmond snapped, "You will open that door when I tell you to, Knight-Commander."

The larger man grimaced. "Yes, ser."

...Okay, Lýna was pretty sure this Seeker person was in some sort of position of command over the Templars, which at leastpartiallyexplained what was going on there. That was good enough of an understanding to be getting on with for now, she'd ask Leliana about it later.

The Seeker's call for volunteers was spread through the big room, passing person to person, though only a small handful of Templars answered, Esmond's pair of swordsmen and archers growing to six of the former and three of the latter. Kenrick, the mage Templar Alim so obviously disliked, also offered his assistance. Lýna overheard muttered comments from several people around to the effect that they'd prefer to wait for word from Denerim — apparently, they were reluctant to enter the conflict without permission to kill every man, woman, and child they might find.

Lýna decided shereallydidn't like Templars.

While they waited, Lýna told Esmond she would be coming along; Alim echoed her a couple seconds later, though only after a meaningful stare from her. It would be better for their negotiating position later if they were seen helping the Templars resolve their problems here, and also with the mages that the Wardens were assisting the faction among the Templars whodidn'twant to kill every single one of them. Also, at theveryleast, they needed to ensure enough mages with the skill to revive Eamon lived through this — Lýna needed to be there in case she was forced to Conscript suitable mages out from underneath Templar blades, and she needed Alim there to identify who would be suitable. Esmond's intentionsseemedto be to save as many mages as possible, so she doubted she'd need to do anything so drastic, but just in case.

Before Esmond could even respond to their offer, Alistair and Leliana also volunteered — and then Fergus too, somewhat warily. "Forgive me, Your Grace," the Seeker said, "I'm afraid I must refuse your assistance. Under no circ*mstances should a person the like of the Teyrn of Highever be unnecessarily exposed to such dangers. You have obligations to the Kingdom and, as the last Cousland, to your family I would not wish you forsake."

After the briefest hesitation, Fergus nodded. "You make a convincing argument, Seeker. Though I'm not happy about it."

The Seeker's lips twitched. "I suspect no one is happy with our present circ*mstances. However, I would be honoured to fight alongside the Grey Wardens," he said, turning to give Lýna a solemn nod. "Ser Frideswith, fetch more arrows for them."

Lýna thought that was an odd command, obviously she and Leliana had plenty of their own, but these weren't ordinary arrows. They appeared normal enough — well-made, the shafts straight and the fletching even, the quivers they were carried in thick leather in a wood frame to prevent breaks — but plucking one out to take a look Lýna could feel the tingle of magic in the sharp metal points. They were enchanted to disrupt magic, Esmond claimed. The area of effect was very small, they couldn't end an active spell just shooting a single arrow at it, but theywouldpunch straight through defensive barriers with little resistance.

Of course, once a mage noticed that, they would employ alternate strategies to protect themselves — knock them out of the air somehow, conjure ice to intercept them, burn the shafts, whatever they could think of. They might only get one shot in each fight, so Esmond advised them to make sure the shot counted.

Nodding her understanding, Lýna accepted the quiver of enchanted arrows. She swapped it with the one slung over her shoulder, leaving the spare quiver where it was at the small of her back, just in case. She handed hers off to one of Fergus's men (they'd both be sticking at their lord's side), asking him not to lose it. The arrows were replaceable (half of them were even scavenged), but the quiver was the same one Ashaᶅ had made for her years ago...as a gift on her bonding to Muthallã, which was hardly ahappymemory, but that wasn't why it was meaningful to her — it was the only thing Lýna had of Ashaᶅ now. She didn't explain that, but it didn't matter, the human warrior found her intimidating enough she was sure he wouldn't want to risk angering her.

It wasn't long then that they were moving. Up a wide set of stairs was the second floor — these first two were mostly living and training space for the Templars, as well as for the servants, she was told. Just inside one of the doors looking over the big round room, at the base of the tower, were more stairs, partway up another heavy metal door. The air was thick from the enchantments on it, Lýna's ears ringing, intensely enough she was a little bit dizzy, kept blinking in an effort to keep her eyes properly focused. The door was flanked with a group of six Templars, who moved to get the door open at Esmond's command. The process took longer than Lýna would have thought — apparently, there were enchantments holding it in place that had to be brought down, and there wereseverallocks, complicated bits that had to be operated just so, sometimes at the same time as another, it was a mess.

While the Templars worked at that, Esmond came up close to Lýna, leaning in toward her a little, his voice dropping to a low mutter. "I understand a Blight has risen in the south, and the Wardens of Ferelden are desperately underprepared to deal with the threat. The Arl needs healing, yes, but I expect part of your reason for coming here is to enlist our help with the Blight. Am I correct?"

Flatly staring up at him, Lýna said, "Yes." It might have come out slightly suspicious — she didn't know what the Seeker was getting at, having this conversation now.

"The Circle, Templars and mages both, will help defend the people of this country when it is time to face the horde. The Knight-Commander may be reluctant to open our doors so soon after a rebellion of this scale, but I will ensure it happens. I will remove him from command if I must — I realize you may not know much of how these things work, but I assure you, this is within my power."

...She understood now. "What do you want?"

Esmond smiled, just a little, the slightest curl at the corner of his lips. "You may feel inclined to Conscript rebels or even maleficarum facing execution. I will cooperate. In exchange, I would ask that you leave the leaders of the rebellion, Uldred and his closest followers, to us. I would also ask that you only claim the guilty who surrender without a fight, but if you truly believe you can trust those who do not, I suppose that is your risk to take."

"I think I understand. We help you clear the tower, leave Uldred and his commanders to you; in return, you make Templars let us Conscript as we like, and the Circle will fight the Blight."

"That is what I'm offering. Is this agreeable?"

"Yes." Especially so after she'd been confronted with just how completely unreasonable the Templars were. Shereallyhadn't expected that — Alistair hadn't beennearlyso bad about Morrigan as these Templars were about Alim, and he hardly seemed to care Alim was a mage at all. It was a good deal on its face, butmuchbetter than she could expect if she were stuck dealing with Greagoir.

Esmond nodded, held out a hand. They clasped arms quick — to seal the deal, Avvar did the same thing — and that was that.

Lýna found herself smiling. The fight hadn't even started yet, and it appeared she'd already gotten everything she could have wanted out of this trip to the Circle. Now if only her dealings with the Alamarri lords could go so smoothly...

Chapter 15: Broken Circle — II

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 21

Kinloch Hold, Danesmouth, Highever, Kingdom of Ferelden

Stepping into the isolation field, Alim ducked his head, gritting his teeth.

There were two primary strategies the Templars had at their disposal when it came to dealing with magical threats. The first one, the more common, was referred to as disruption. In order to shape undifferentiated potential pulled from the Fade into a coherent result, that energy had to be transformed into very particular formations. It didn't have to be quite precise — no mage could resolve theentirevolume of magic they pulled into the spell they wanted, the excess energy released to dissipate into the environment (ultimately, sinking back through the Veil into the Fade). One of the things they worked on in their spellcasting lessons was to form spells more efficiently, to get as much of the energy they pulled to resolve as they possibly could. As a mage grew more familiar with a particular scheme, they found those magics less exhausting, allowing them to cast higher-intensity spells that might have been beyond their capacity before; a relatively weak but more precise mage might be able to pull off greater magics than a more powerful one, just by using the power they did have more effectively.

There had been a little bit of this going on with Marian. Alim had absolutely no doubt at all that Marian was the more powerful mage between them, but he'd gotten the very clear impressionMarianhadn't thought so — she'd been particularly impressed with the shield he'd cast to intercept that lightning spell, the concussion waves he used to knock down dozens of darkspawn at once. But see, he'd gotten thorough, systematic training from experts at a Circle, and Marian hadn't: his casting wasmuchmore efficient. Marian was actuallyverysloppy, waves of tingling magic crashing over him whenever she cast the bigger spells, enough it'd actually been a little distracting. By comparison, Morrigan's casting wasverytight, under such rigid focus he could barely feel any sublimation from her at all — for that exact reason, it was kind of hard to tell how powerful she was, but he suspected she was both more preciseandmore powerful than him, which was honestly slightly terrifying.

To disrupt a spell, a Templar introduced interference into the energy a mage was attempting to resolve; even small disruptions destabilized most schema very effectively, it didn't take very much power behind it for a spell to just fall apart into nothing. Casting through a Templar's disruption waspossible, but a mage would have to have both razor-edge focus, keeping impeccable control over the form of a spell, and beextremelypowerful, so even with the disruption picking away at the edges the spell still had enough coherently-formed energy to resolve properly. Since they hadn't any more magic of their own than an ordinary person, the disruption a Templar could castwasrather weak, but it didn't take very much interference for a spell to falter...and they all chugged lyriumconstantly— casting through it wastheoreticallypossible, but practically not something that ever happened.

Being under a Templar's disruption was vaguely uncomfortable, pins dragging over his skin and mosquitos buzzing in his ears, but not reallythatbad. Distracting, could be rather disorienting to run into one without warning, but not really painful. Trying to cast through it, the magic came to hand the same as always, but forming it into a spell was like carrying water cupped in his hands...and then trying to roll it into a ball.Frustrating, yes, but it didn't hurt or anything.

Isolation wards, on the other hand, wereawful. Where disruption worked by dispersing the magic in the environment, preventing it from resolving into a spell, isolation prevented magic from coming into the environment in the first place. Basically, an isolation ward firmed up the Veil, pushing the Fade even further away from the physical world, while also reinforcing the stability of the physical world within its range. While a spell was prohibitively difficult to form inside a disruption, evenmakingthe attempt was impossible within an isolation field, a mage couldn't pull magic from the Fade to begin with; a spell tossed within its range will just blink out of existence, the world there refusing to be altered.

A determined Dreamer could probably cast through a disruption, but in an isolation field even those most powerful of mages would be helpless.

Luckily, Templars couldn't justmakeisolation fields the way they could disruption, but it could be done through enchantment. Cells meant to hold mages usually had isolation wards. Not only could mages not cast at all within them, but they were so completely cut off from the Fade that they couldn't evendream— which meant it was literally impossible for them to resort to making a deal with a demon and become an abomination, so Alim understood why the Templars used them, in principle.

That didn't mean they were pleasant to be stuck under. A disruption was kind of itchy, but its effects were entirely external. An isolation ward, on the other hand, penetrated all the way through a person, stabbing deep inside and cutting away at him on a level Alim wasn't usually conscious off. Ithurt, like icy needles jabbing into him, not only into his body but into hissoul, scattering his thoughts and leaving him reeling. Thereallypainful part only lasted a moment, once the magic was pushed out of him leaving him with just a constant, low-level ache — unpleasant, but mild enough he could mostly ignore it — butexhausted, weak and slow and unfocused. Sleeping under one had honestly been a little disconcerting, consciousness sputtering out and returning with only a vague sense of time having passed, but without even the fuzziest impression of dreams — not even an impression ofnothingness, but as though he'd ceased to exist for a time, he might as well have died and been revived a few hours later, he hadn't...

He hadn't liked it, no, not at all. He'd tried to avoid sleeping after the first time for as long as he could, but he'd been in there for a while, and it wasn't like there'd been anything to do to distract himself, and the isolation field itself had dragged down on him, he hadn't been able to prevent it...

There were a few places in the tower the Templars had designed as strongpoints, to keep mages from passing through if they really had to. There was one at the only entrance to the library reserved for Enchanters — Alim had never seen it, he only knew it existed because Cera complained about having to pass through it every time she needed to look something up. There was another inside the vaults, blocking off the most heavily restricted items in the Circle, including all the mages' phylacteries — Alim had gone through that one once, with Jowan, while Lily kept the guard distracted. (She hadn't saidhowshe intended to distract him, but Alim had a pretty clear suspicion he'd been tactful enough to keep to himself, especially right in front of Jowan.) The only other one he knew about was on the staircase joining the Templar and servants' quarters at the bottom and the mages above, the only way in or out.

This door might as well have been the edge of his entire world. Alim knew he'd been born in Denerim, but he couldn't remember it — all he'd known was the tower, the apprentices' quarters and the lecture and practice halls and the library, occasional glances higher up, he'd never seen the other side. He could see out the windows, of course, but the view was so small, so distant, not quite real, as though paintings hung on the walls. This thick, heavily-warded door, always guarded with at least four Templars, was the barrier that stood between everything he knew and everything else, the other side alien and mysterious.

Alim knew he must have passed through this door once before, when he'd been a small child, but he didn't remember it. In their desperate gamble to escape the Circle, he and Jowan had circumvented it entirely — it was impossible to get past the guards, so they'd gone down the laundry chutes instead, coming out in the lower levels below ground. He'd never seen the main entrance they'd come through some minutes ago now — he, Jowan, and Lily had left through one of the side halls — he'd never seen the Grand Gallery — drawings of it, yes, but not in person. He'd never seen the hallway just on the other side of the door. Now, climbingupthe stairs,intothe tower, was the only time he could remember passing through it.Ever.

And he was goingthe wrong way.

Even before he'd stepped into the isolation field, that had struck him as, just,wrong. He'd dreamt so many times of passing through this damn door theotherway, toleave, he'd wished for nothing more than to escape the Circle for so many years, that stepping onto these stairs to goupfelt instinctively, viscerally abhorrent. He'd had to pause for a moment, fists clenched at his side and breath hot in his throat, before he'd been able to suppress the mild sense of panic, force his stubborn legs to climb.

Crossing into the isolation field only made it worse. Daggers of numbing ice stabbed into him, he cringed, shivering from the assault, sudden weakness bearing down on him, his shoulders slumping and his head dipping. Glaring up at the men ahead of him, his jaw clenched so tight it hurt, he lifted his foot up to the next step, the motion shaky and uncertain, hauled himself up, taking far more effort than it reasonably should. And then again, again, again.

Eventually, after what felt like several minutes (but could only have been brief seconds), Alim stepped into the familiar curving hallway of the lower apprentices' quarters, and he finally broke through the other side of the isolation field. Magic surged back into its proper place, he stumbled forward a couple steps, gasping for air. He ended up bent over, his hands planted shaking on weak knees, trying to steady his breaths and fight back the headache the brief isolation had left behind.

He jumped at the hand on his back, then bit his lip and forced himself to relax — Lýna, it was just Lýna. Leaning close, her voice low enough the humans around them probably wouldn't hear, she hissed, "Is okay. I won't let them keep you, in any case."

Despite himself, Alim felt a smile twitch at his lips. "I know. I just..." It probably wasn't worth explaining that, sure, he didn't like being back here, but that wasn't all of it, the isolation field was just unpleasant all by itself. He didn't know if Lýna would have felt anything going through it at all. He pushed himself upright, tried to roll some of the stiffness out of his shoulders. "I'm good. Thanks, boss." Not for checking up on him just now, of course, but she would know what he meant.

Her hand finding his, she gave it a quick squeeze, before slipping away again, silently darting up toward the front of the group next to Alistair. The royal bastard muttered a teasingly suggestive comment aboutgiving Alim a hand, but Lýna seemingly didn't get it, glancing up at him head tilting in a confused frown. Not a surprise, those kinds of comments almost always went right over Lýna's head — and this time that wasn't a joke about her being so damn tiny.

It really was quite remarkable how oblivious Lýna could be, considering she'dsupposedlybeen married at least once already. (There had been a couple mentions of a second man, but the context hadn't been very clear.) It could just be the language barrier but, after over a month being around her, Alim didn't think that was it, she just had a...weird, inexplicable blind spot when it came to love and sex. Hereallydidn't know what to think about that.

Though, he doubted Lýna would react very well to Leliana's (seemingly impulsive) flirting, or the looks Alistair gave her sometimes...or that one time— Alim was pretty sure Morrigan had flat-out propositioned her once, the afternoon before they'd left Redcliffe — in Chasind, but her tone and body language had been pretty damn clear — but Lýna hadn't seemed to notice at all. So, maybe it was better she was oblivious about these things, he guessed.

The floor plan in the tower was, for the most part, very consistent level to level. There was a single circular hallway looping all the way around — though, the stairs came up into the hallway, so it was blocked off at at least one point on every floor, it wasn't possible to go all the way around. The hallway wasn't on the outside edge, more roughly in the middle. The rooms on the outside of the hall — which added together were larger than the center, because basic geometry — had the most variety level to level, the center almost always just one big open room. What wasinthat room varied, meeting and dining and lecture halls, libraries, practice rooms, but it was usually just one big room. The only exception he could think of were the vaults, those were divided into smaller sections, so mostly.

By the time Alim was collected enough to pay attention to what was happening around them, the group had already moved up the hall a bit, coming to a halt outside one of the doors to the right — one of the girls' dormitories, he knew. (This floor was for the young apprentices, mostly prepubescent.) At the noise out in the hall, the door had creaked open a sliver, a feminine voice squeaking with surprise. There were too many tall people in the way, dammit, Alim slipped up and around to—

Oh! It was Keili! Alim let out a sigh of relief — and then frowned, blinking to himself. Why was he so happy to see Keili had made it through this mess? Theyhatedeach other, always had. Well, maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but theycertainlyweren't friends. Alim vaguely remembered Keili being brought to the Circle — he would have been, what, seven or eight? — and she'd been completely insufferable from the off, whining and crying about being cursed, that she wasevil. She'd settled down somewhat, no longer quite so noisy about it, but she'd never gottenbetter. Even the week before their escape attempt, meeting up with Lily in the Chantry to plan, they'd been interrupted by Keili coming in to pray. She was always praying, begging the Maker to cure her ofbeing a mage— not because living in a Circle was terrible, but becauseshewas terrible, she must be, why else would the Maker curse her with something so evil and awful as magic? Just, she was annoying.Very. This was probably the first time he'd ever been happy to see her.

Talking to Esmond, wide-eyed and breathy, she finally noticed Alim. She jumped hard enough her feet left the floor, letting out a frightened squawk, and then started babbling about evil blood mages, in not quite so many words asking the Seeker why he hadn't killed Alim yet. Thatdiddampen his relief to see Keili alive somewhat.

(If Keili knew the Warden initiation was a blood magic ritual, she would lose herentiresh*t...)

It took some seconds to reassure Keili that everything was under control here, he wouldn't let Alim do anything unpleasant, get back to explaining what was going on. Not that she had a whole lot to say. The rebels who'd pursued the Templars down here had immediately turned right around once their quarry had retreated through the isolation wards, rejoining their fellows fighting the loyalists upstairs. Keili couldn't tell them anything about the current state of the battle, it'd mostly been going on several floors up and she'd stayed well away from it. Enchanter Wynne was just over their heads, on the older apprentices' floor — after an abomination had come down and attacked the apprentices, she'd put her own wards over the stairs, had been holding it ever since. That had been hours ago now, Keili was supposed to stay here and keep an eye on the little girls, she didn't know anything more.

Once she was finished with her (uninformative) story, Esmond praised the jumpy girl for looking after the children — Keili blushed almostpainfullyred, but smiled, clearly pleased — told her to close the door and wait it out. One of the other Templarsstartedprotesting, something about checking for abominations among the little kids, but Esmond shot him an icy glare over his shoulder, the Templar choked off in mid-syllable.

Esmond led them on, taking the first left into the central room — this one was a lecture hall, a raised platform in the middle surrounded with a circle of low, child-height benches, along the wall cabinets stocked with props and diagrams here and there. Alim was struck with an abrupt flashback, sitting on one of the benches, his feet idly kicking in the air, singing that damn alphabet song with about a dozen other little kids, led by Teacher Cera. (They called the mages who looked after them "teacher", Cera hadn't been an Enchanter yet back then.) sh*t, that wasagesago, Alim would have been what,four, maybe. It looked pretty much exactly the same as he remembered.

Except there hadn't been a couple Templar corpses laying around, obviously.

There were only two of them, in the open space between the benches and the cabinets, the quickest route between the stairs up and the stairs down. One of them had clearly been hit with a progressive spirit magic curse of some kind — save for the odd smearing in the armor over his right shoulder, there weren't any obvious injuries, he must have gotten tagged somewhere else and made it this far before the curse did enough damage he couldn't go on. (Which was a little weird, a Templar should have been able to purge the curse no problem, but maybe he'd been too distracted to notice.) The second Templar showed a river of blood down his back, leaking through his armor from near his kidney, his throat slashed.

If Alim had to guess, the first Templar had faltered, the second had paused to help him, and gotten stabbed in the back in a surprise attack before being put out of his misery. The rebels must have broken into the vaults — there were enchanted weapons in there that would be very useful against armored opponents, with the added benefit of Templar abilities not working against enchanted objects. Sort of like the spirit blade Kenrick carried, though not quite so complex. Of course, mages weren't trained in the use of bladed weapons like Templars were (with the exception of Knight-Enchanters, obviously), but many of the enchantments Alim was thinking of could probably cut straight through an ordinary sword, so that probably didn't matter.

Aaaand Alim was remembering Uldred talking to him and a few of the more rebellious apprentices about weapon enchantments. How long had he been planning something like this?

(Alim was trying not to think about the fact that Uldred would almost certainly be dead soon. Helikedthat sarcastic old bastard...)

The Templars fussed over the bodies for a little bit — a couple of them simmering with rage, probably didn't help that there was no real outlet for it, the responsible parties nowhere nearby — before moving on, making for the stairs up. There weren't isolation wards on these ones, obviously, Alim lightly skipped his way up, slipping around a couple Templars, taking a spot right behind Lýna and Alistair near the front of their group. Just at the top of the stairs, there'd clearly been another skirmish — a strip of the hexagonal floor tiles had been ground into powder by a dissolving curse (spirit magic, serious sh*t), a couple splatters of blood here and there. Enough blood at least one person had certainly died, and probably more than one, but there weren't any bodies lying around, someone must have moved them.

The hall was empty, quiet, but other than that seemed the same as always. Alimhadlived here, not even that long ago — up until his Harrowing, which had been... sh*t. It was late Nubulis now — or Drakonis, he guessed, outside of fancy educated circles people didn't use the old Tevene names anymore (though it was kind of weird thenon-Tevinter name was literallyDragon, Emperor Kordillus Drakon's coronation had been in early Nubulis) — and he would have left the tower with Alistair, um, just a couple days after Wintersend, he thought, early Pluitanis (Guardian, whatever), and his Harrowing had been less than a week after First Day. So...two and a half months or so? Huh, seemed like longer than that.

Anyway, the same place — the old gray stone, enchanted into permanence by old Tevinter architects, not quite covered with more modern accoutrements, the floor hexagonal tiles emblazoned with golden Chantry sunbursts and the red closed torc of the Circle, the doors (which would have been mostly stained glass in bronze frames originally) heavy oak and pine, stained a rich reddish-brown, the frames carved with birds and dogs, here and there twisting into a glyph for protection or strength or serenity (inactive, purely decorative). It was almost painfully familiar, Alim felt. It hadn't been so long since he'd left, and for all that he'd felt suffocated in some ways by Circle life it'd still beenhome, the only home he could remember. He hadn't expected to ever step foot in this place again, it was...uncomfortable.

Of course, it wasn'texactlythe same. It was eerily silent, it never got this quiet here...and, not far down, a segment of the hall had been damaged, channels carved into the stone, in other places melted and refrozen in rows of jagged spikes, scorched black, the nearby doorframe completely burned away, the arch left empty. This must have been where the fight against the abomination Keili had mentioned had taken place. There was still a faint tingle of magic on the air, smooth and sweet, but it wasn't from the battle — instinctively, Alim recognized it as residue from healing magic, Wynne's. He wasn't certain how he could identify it as Wynne's casting, he just could.

Through the blasted open door, a few mages were cautiously peeking through, one stepped out, and— Oh sh*t, it was Petra! A human woman some years older than Alim, one of Cera's students, her red hair was a bit disheveled, uneven — she'd been hit with fire magic, some of her hair burned away, scorch marks streaking her left side, patches of her robes over her shoulder even missing. (The skin underneath unmarred, Wynne must have healed the damage.) Walking out to meet the approaching group, her hands were held low at her sides, palms facing backward, moving slow and cautious, unthreatening.

A couple of the Templars did tense, bows creaking, but Esmond held up a restraining hand and they instantly relaxed. "Hello, child," he said, his voice its normal low calm — Esmond was almost creepily placid, Alim wondered if all Seekers were so emotionless — but almostpointedlyso, if that made sense. Like, suggesting with his tone of voice that it was fine, he had no intention of siccing the Templars behind him on her.

"Lord Seeker, I'msorelieved to see you." She didn't come out and say it, but probably thinking the Templars werefarless likely to just slaughter them all if Esmond were in charge — some of the Templars could be disturbingly bloodthirsty at times, but their Seeker observer tended to rein them in more often than not. Which was really quite fortunate for them, because according to Anders their Seeker was the most mage-friendly one he'd ever met, and he'd been in a few different Circles so he was kind of the expert.

There were a few Templars the Kinloch Hold mages liked just fine, but most of them actuallytrustedEsmond. Alim had been just as relieved as Petra when he'd spotted him.

"And you as well, child — I see you've had trouble here."

Petra's face flickered. "Rage took Moran."

Grimacing, Alim spat out, "f*ck," before he could stop himself. Moran, an apprentice from South Reach right around Alim's age (though she'd come to the Circle some years older), had been raped by a Templar a couple years ago now. Alim only knew it'd been Knight-Lieutenant Thibault because one day Esmond had walked up and back-handed him out of nowhere, publicly stripped him of his rank and all but dragged him away by the ear — last Alim had heard he'd been sent to Val Royeaux for punishment and penance. Moran hadn't said anything (she refused to talk about it, understandably), but the way she'd been acting, sitting with some of the other apprentices later that afternoon, distracted and twitchy, Alim had assumed. She'd never really...

Ifsomeonewere to be taken over by Rage, Alim wasn't surprised it'd been Moran — and hereallycouldn't blame her, she had every reason to be angry at the Templars. But just,sh*t, they'd beenfriends, and— Alim grit his teeth, swallowing down the hot tension in his chest as best he could.

(He wondered how many of his friends would be dead by the time this was all over.)

Petra's eyes flicked his way at the outburst, then gave him a double-take, her lips twitching with a half-hearted smile. "Alim! My, I didn't expect to see you here again."

He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out slightly shaky. "Hello, Petra. I didn't expect tobehere again."

"I'm glad our Lord Seeker here was able to get you into the Wardens. Jowan shouldn't have done what he did, but I can'tbelievethe Commander was really going to execute you for it."

Alim snorted. "You have more faith in Greagoir than I do — Ientirelybelieve it."

An odd look twisted Petra's face, but whatever she was thinking she didn't get out, Esmond spoke first. "I'm moving to reclaim the tower, before the situation spirals even further out of hand than it has already. I understand Enchanter Wynne is holding the line here."

"Oh! Um, yes, she should be in the open shelves, just there," she said, pointing at the door toward the middle room. A few faces were poking around the blown open doorway behind her, pale and wide-eyed. "I haven't heard from her in a bit. She tasked some of us to look after the children — reading, chanting, anything to keep them occupied, keep them from getting too frightened." To reduce the chances of any of them caving to a demon, she meant. Petra was the sort who'd be all nice with the kids anyway, but to reassure the Templars they had things under control was probably why she wassayingit. "It seems things have calmed somewhat, though, she must still be there."

From the room behind her, he heard a hiss ofIt's Alim!some more whispering as it was passed around. Honestly, he was a little touched the girls sounded so pleased, but they were sort of busy, he couldn't really walk over and say hello.

While Alim had been distracted, Kenrick said something about checking the apprentices for possession before moving on. Petra scowled, a little — none of the mages liked Kenrick much. "Enchanter Wynne has already thoroughly checked over both of the apprentice levels. If you doubt her work, Ser, I suggest you to take that up with her."

Kenrick shifted his stance slightly — probably imagining the polite-but-scornful lecture he'd get if he questioned Wynne's skills to her face. Alim had to bite his lip to keep himself from giggling.

"That will not be necessary," Esmond said, the faintest hint of amusem*nt on his voice. "Return to your duties, child. This should all be over soon. Andraste keep you all."

"And may she watch over you all, Seeker, good luck up there."

With a final nod, Esmond moved on. The Templars trailed after him, some a little stiffly — they clearly didn't like the idea of having mages they hadn't checked over at their backs, but just as clearly didn't want to get into an argument with the Seeker about it. After all, thiswasa guy who could casually backhand them in front of everyone with no consequences, and then send them off to Val Royeaux for reeducation at the hands of the Knights-Divine. Not someone you wanted to annoy without averygood reason.

The mages trusted their Seeker; the Templars liked him just fine, thought of him as a kind of mentor, but were also just a little bit terrified of him. It was honestly hilarious sometimes.

They'd barely been walking a few steps, Esmond not quite having reached the right door, when there was a shout of "Alim!"coming from the dorm. He twitched to a stop, turned toward the voice, it was kind of hard to tell when she was squealing like that, but he was pretty sure that was—

"Guh!"Alim's breath was knocked out of him as a body crashed into him, he stumbled back a few steps, arms wrapping over his shoulders, he bumped into the wall behind him, night-black hair fluttering over his face — definitely elven hair, a deep blue-ish tinge to it here and there. Veryfamiliarhair, yes, he knew who this was. He was honestly a little taken aback, he'd thought she'd be annoyed with him...

"You bastard, just running off to Ostagar, I'd thought you'd died!" Oh, yep, annoyance, there we go. Lacie had tipped back a bit, her fingers still tightly gripping the leather of his collar, pale elven-orange eyes simmering, glaring up at him with averyfamiliar angry expression.

"Oh, um, we were nowhere near the main battle, Duncan put us aside in case it went badly, to make sure there would still be Wardens in the country, you know, but there was still thisf*cking terrifyingdarkspawn Templar, how is that even—" You're babbling, Alim, quit that. "Ah. Things have been crazy, is the thing, I'm not sure how I'd even get word to you here anyway, but I'mmph!"

Oh. Kissing now. Okay, Lacie couldn't betooannoyed with him, then?

Her fingers digging hard into the base of his neck, Alim winced — okay, no, still annoyed...

After some seconds — despite the situation Alim managed to somehow lose track of his surroundings, his (unfortunately gloved) hands at her hips, pulling her closer, her fingers in his hair (pulling a little, but he kind of deserved it), breathing her in, and— There was averyOrlesian-sounding giggle coming from nearby, Lacie twitched, tipped back off her toes to shoot Leliana a glare.

Once he got his eyes to focus properly, he noticed their group had kept moving, half the Templars through the door already, though Lýna and Leliana had hung back. Leliana had a hand politely covering her mouth (veryOrlesian), her eyes dancing; Lýna's eyes were flicking between Alim and Lacie, looking a little bemused. "Sorry, uh..."

Lýna's eyes narrowed in a frown, just for a second before smoothing again. "Is well. The fight is above." So, she didn't actually need him paying too close attention...but she wasn't going to leave him alone with Templars around, he guessed. This girl sometimes...

Her voice coming out with a wavy edge of laughter, Leliana asked, "Are you going to introduce your lady friend?"

Maker,introduce his lady friend, what did Leliana think this was a formal event or something? Fine. "Warden-Lieutenant Lýna Maharjel, Sister Leliana," pointing to each of them, "Lacie Surana." Leliana's lips twitched, Lýna's head tilted thoughtfully. "Uh, no relation."

The Circles kept track of all the mages under their custody — they had a lot of paperwork floating around just in general, actually, they had papers identifying each mage and marking various important events, it got pretty involved. And that paperwork required surnames, to help keep everyone straight. Problem was, the vast majority of commoners didn't really have surnames, so whoever was doing the first round of paperwork when they were brought into the Circle would just pick something. Some kind of epithet, usually, referring to where they'd been found or a family trade or their hair color, something.

"Surana" was a really common one they used for elf kids, particularly ones who had more uniquely elven traits, like Alim's hair or Lacie's eyes. The word itself was from a Chantry Tevene borrowing of an old elven word meaningto sing— it'd long been used to refer to elven converts to the Chant. Which, that was kind of annoying, honestly? Alim knew sh*t about his family, but he'd been born in Denerim, presumably he'd been raised into the Chant; Lacie was from the elven quarter in Highever, her parents were Andrastian, and their parents and their parents, back centuries. Lacie even clearly remembered the Chantry back in Highever, her parents had been devout as anyone.

Sometimes, no matter how many generations back their ancestors had sung the Chant, some humans still considered elves outsiders to the faith. It wasextremelyannoying.

"Hello," Lacie said, slightly absently. He noticed her eyes were lingering on Lýna, curious. She'd probably never seen a Dalish elf before, or at least not from so close — Alim hadn't before he'd met Lýna, but Laciehadlived outside the Circle longer than he had...

One of Lýna's eyes twitched, just a little, ticking wider before relaxing again. She was clearly trying to hide whatever that was, the expressionverymild, but Alim was pretty sure she was laughing on the inside. "Hello." She glanced at Alim quick, then half turned away, looking toward the door the tail end of the line of Templars was stomping through just now — he would guess, giving them a thin illusion of privacy while also politely making it clear they did need to get going. Or as polite as Lýna ever got, anyway.

Or maybe just the latter, come to think of it. Alim kind of doubted Dalish really understood privacy as a concept, they probably didn't get much of it in their little camps.

Leliana obviously got the message too, turned all the way around. She leaned a little closer to Lýna, muttered something about this being sweet, they werejust adorable— he and Lacie probably weren't supposed to hear that, humans constantly underestimated elven hearing. Lýna all but rolled her eyes, but whether that was at what Leliana was saying or her failed attempt to be quiet about it, Alim couldn't guess.

Lacie let out a little huff, turned back to Alim. "If you die up there, I'll be very annoyed with you."

He smirked. "Fortunately, I'll be dead, so that won't be my problem." Her eyes narrowing in a glare, Lacie flicked her fingers, a twitter of magic, Alim was smacked over the back of the head — nothard, but enough his head ducked forward with the force, his hair fluttering over his eyes. "Hey,ow! Socruelto me, Lacie..."

She gave him a flat, unimpressed sort of look. "Maybe I should be coming with, keep you out of trouble."

"Youaretrouble." Alim nearly followed that up with a joke about Lacie previously not seeming to have a problem with Alim beingin troubleon a regular basis, but there was a Sister standingright there— Leliana would probably just giggle some more, but still — so he kept it to himself. Though Lacie was just as bad as he was, her lips were twitching, weakening the glare she was still fixing him with somewhat. "But I'd, uh, rather you didn't." She could handle herself, of course (more than Jowan could, at least), but if she were in a fight with them, it... He would worry, it'd be distracting.

(He'd nearly invited her along on their escape attempt, but... Well, she was good enough at playing nice she didn't attract unwanted attention from the Templars. Alim would rather Lacie be safe than be with him.)

Lacie let out another huff, but she didn't argue. "We'll talk before you leave again." That wasn't a question or a statement, said with averyclear tone of demand. Not that Alim had any intention of refusing, as long as he was here there was no reason not to make time for her — especially with the mess here, they'd probably linger for a few days. Lacie tipped up onto her toes to drop a final soft, warm kiss on his lips before retreating, turning on her heel quick enough her hair fwapped across the face. Which she'd done on purpose, of course, this girl...

By the time Alim, Lýna, and Leliana stepped into the central room — this one a study area, little desks dotted across the floor, the walls lined with a ring of bookshelves two layers deep (mostly history, philosophy, and religion texts, perfectly harmless for apprentices to poke at) — Esmond was already talking to Wynne. He'd admit he was a little relieved to see she looked well. Her hair was a little disheveled, a few bits escaping from her braid here and there, her robes scorched and torn in places, but otherwise fine.

He frowned — she seemed...unusuallywell, somehow.

Wynne was one of the older mages of the Fereldan Circle, aged enough she'd been an Enchanter here since long before Alim had even been born. She'd been a big woman once, very tall and very blonde — it was commonly assumed she was Avvar, from high in the hills to the west, they tended to be large people — and while age had stolen some of the strength from her limbs it'd left most of her height, her slightly fragile-seeming frame long and willowy (almost elf-like, in a way, though with human-style joints andwaytoo tall). Alim could vaguely remember seeing her with pale Avvar-blonde hair, back when he'd been a small child, but it'd gone silver years ago now, always held back in a plain, simple braid, gentle face thoroughly lined. Wynne wasn't entirely certain when she'd been born, but she must be in her sixties by now, though she didn't really seem like it — she was sounder in body than Irving, andmuchsounder in mind than Sweeney, and Alim thought the three elder Enchanters must be all around the same age.

But, over the last few years, Alim had noticed that Wynne had started to seem...well,old. It wasn'treallyobvious, like it was with Irving and Sweeney — Irving had serious trouble with the stairs some days, and Sweeney couldn't even remember Alim's name half the time — but just as though her daily routine was taking more out of her than it used to. Just,tired, her face drawn, her voice sometimes falling into a breathy groan. Once Alim had spotted her, just, sleeping in one of the chairs in the blue library, a book splayed out in her lap, as though she'd run out of energy entirely and fallen asleep where she sat.

It was a little bit distressing, if he was being honest. He could count the Enchanters he actuallylikedon one hand — Wynne, Uldred, Leorah, and now Cera, that was it. Wynne in particular, she'd kind of been... Well, okay, he'd beenveryyoung when he'd been brought to the tower, and Wynne spent a lot of time with the kids, doing basic magic lessons, or just hanging around to be available if anyone needed anything, and she was justnice, dammit. But not, like,boringnice (like Chantry Mother nice), still with an edge of humor to her, so while she was nice she was alsofun, which was a combination that really wasn't common among the Enchanters and Teachers. And, Wynne had also been brought to the tower very young — so young she didn't even knowher real name, she'd been named after the village nearby where she'd been found — so she'd made a point of being around, helping him adjust, so he'd...

It was sort of how he thought normal people might feel about their grandmothers, he guessed? She was just...you know,Wynne, everybody loved the sh*t out of that woman, he wasn't at all alone in that. The reality that she was getting old, there might not be a whole lot of time left to her was, just,miserable. He tried not to think about it, honestly.

He'd been startled to find her in the group of mages and Templars leaving for Ostagar. She shouldn't be fighting! She was all...old!And, andWynne! He'd beenveryrelieved to hear, in the discussion downstairs, that Wynne had survived Ostagar...but also not really surprised, because she wasWynne, she'd always been around, of course she'd made it back. Wynnenotbeing around was just...that just wasn't a thing, it wasn't entirely conceivable.

(He was going to be devastated when she died, he just knew it.)

But now she... He didn't know. Standing a little straighter — he hadn't even realized she'd developed a bit of a stoop to her back until just now — her shoulders back and chin up, facing the Templars arrayed before her without a hint of hesitation. Not that Wynne was ever frightened of or particularly obsequious toward the Templars, she had ahilarioushabit of lecturing them like a disappointed aunt, but she seemed...

She looked...normal? He meant, like there wasn't anything wrong at all, people hadn't been dying like crazy, the Templars weren't on the edge of purging the whole tower, just an ordinary day. Especially with hermuchmore nervous helpers right next to her — Cera and one of the younger full mages, uh, Gareth? (he thought it was Gareth) — Wynne's placidity was...a bit odd. Her voice, the same low, husky drawl that'd grown familiar by now (but that had actually only developed over the last decade or so, her voice dropping as she aged), just thefaintesttinge of a hill country accent on some of the vowels, sounding perfectly smooth and calm, almost serene, yet firm and confident speaking to the Templars, it... There was an air of, well,serenityabout her, that was really the word, like she were just a step removed from her surroundings. Honestly, it was a little eerie.

Also, was sheglowing? Thathadto be his imagination. He wasn't entirely convinced he was seeing it at all, just the faintest golden sheen on the air around her, probably a trick of the light, and if she wereactuallyglowing he was certain Esmond and the Templars wouldn't just betalking— a mage glowing was a possession sign.

Once he shook off the disorienting mix of relief and concern and confusion, Alim slipped closer to Lýna, leaned over to whisper over her ear. "The tall, silver-haired woman is Enchanter Wynne — she was at Ostagar, don't know if you remember. She's the best healer in the Circle, if anyone can help Eamon it's her."

Lýna just nodded.

By the time they finally caught up, Wynne and Esmond were just finishing up their discussion of what was going on in the tower — Wynne had been more in the thick of it than Keili or Petra, presumably. Vibrant blue-green eyes flicked in his direction, and Wynne cut off practically in mid-sentence. "Oh, Alim. It's good to see you well. You haven't been getting intotoomuch trouble, I hope," she said, a lilt on her voice that suggested she was certain Alim had been getting intoall kindsof trouble.

"You too, Wynne — I had no idea whether you'd gotten out of Ostagar." Alim came to a stop right next to Alistair, conveniently putting the big man between himself and Kenrick. "And ofcourse, I'm brilliant and amazing, nottrouble.Lacieis trouble, you know."

The corner of Wynne's lips curled with a smile. "Ah, yes. I imagine you haven't the time to get too deep into trouble lately."

Alim choked out a surprised cough — that was very...direct, for Wynne. Or, maybe he just counted as an adult it was okay to make innuendos in front of now, that was possible. "Um. I don't know if you remember the Warden-Lieutenant," he said, jerking a thumb at Lýna.

"I believe we met briefly, yes." Her head dipping in a nod, "Virghilãje, arava aƫishas."

...Alim had hadnoidea Wynne could speak Dalish. It must not be a surprise to Lýna, she just nodded, replied with, "Falõśe, arava aƫishas."

He'd understood literally a single word of that. At least, he was pretty sure one of those wasfriend, it'd changed a bit from the old word the Tevinters had written down. He didn't know this elven crap — which just made it evenmoreannoying that the Templars had stuck him with a name for a convert, but not the point.

Anyway, Wynne said she would be coming with them to clear the tower, as though stating a fact; Esmond agreed immediately, without even pausing a second to consider it. Perhaps he thought Wynne would be of some help convincing the fighting mages over their heads to try talking first — shewaswell-liked by pretty much everyone in the Circle. But, maybe he hadn't even really thought about it? Alim meant, Wynne had always had a rather...authoritative presence, like —you're adorable, sweetie, but I've been doing this longer than you've been alive— but now it... Inviting herself along so firm, but casual, as though the idea of Esmondnotwelcoming her were completely unthinkable, the absolute, serene confidence, just,naturallythey would want Wynne's help, there was no world in which she would not be coming along.

Alim felt the skin at the back of his neck itch, his scalp tingling — there was somethingdifferentabout Wynne. He couldn't quite put a name to it, it was just a little unsettling.

The problem was, if Wynne was coming along with them she wouldn't be able to stay here to make sure the children were safe. They would be going up the tower, but it wasn't inconceivable something might slip past them, Wynne didn't want to risk it. Cera was here, and she was a pretty decent enchanter — the wards they had over the door leading upstairs were actually hers — but she wasn'tnearlyas good of a fighter, she didn't have confidence in her own abilities to protect the children from an abomination or the like. Esmond thought that was reasonable, they could leave a few Templars behind here to guard the doorway.

Or, Wynne said, they could move the children down into the lower levels, on the other side of the isolation wards. This time, Esmonddidhesitate, but after a moment of thought he agreed that was probably safest. Go round everyone up, they'd get them all through the wards right now.

Shuffling the kids downstairs didn't require all their participation — the Wardens and about half the Templars lingered outside Cera's wards, patiently waiting for the rest of their number to return. (Esmond had gone with them, probably to make sure the guards actually opened the door, and almost certainly to warn Greagoir there'd be consequences if any of the children were harmed while he was dealing with the rebellion.) The man Alim was still only about half-certain was named Gareth had run off to the boys' side, soon reappeared crossing the library toward the stairs down trailed by a couple dozen apprentices. Alim, of course, recognized all of them — theyhadbeen roommates not so long ago — he got waves and shouts from a few of them, but he stayed where he was, just waved back as they passed by.

They all vanished through the door before long, leaving this level evenmoreunsettlingly quiet, filled only with the distant tromp of feet and the occasional muttering between the Templars. After maybe a couple minutes, Leliana shuffled closer to him — smiling in that creepy way she had, all warm and sweet and slightly absent. "Lacie seems nice."

He almost had to laugh at that — she'd nearly pulled out some of his hair, and then used magic to whack him over the back of the head, which was abigno-no to Chantry types. (Even pulling little harmless pranks on each other, the Sisters here had given him and most of his friends theworstlectures.) He liked her just fine, of course, he was just saying, "nice" wasn't a word most people who'd met Lacie tended to use. "I suppose. Your point?" Because, Lelianadefinitelymeant to saysomething, she seemed far too pleased with herself for such a banal comment to be all she was getting at.

"You know, if you two marry, she won't even have to change her name."

That was kind of a sh*t thing to joke about to his face, but okay. "Um, wecan't?"

Leliana blinked. "What do you mean?"

...What didshemean? "Mages of the Circle can't marry. Chantry law." NotFereldanlaw, of course, but for a formal marriage to be recognized by the Crown there had to be a record of it, and the local Chantries kept the records. "Well, I guessIcan marry now, theoretically — it only applies toCirclemages, not Wardens, but whatever Chantry Mother I'm talking to might not know that — but Lacie certainly can't. Youdidknow that...didn't you?"

Because itreallydidn't look like it. As he'd said it, Leliana had let out a high gasp, her eyes going almost comically wide. Standing nearby, Lýna's face had collapsed into a narrow-eyed glare, so she must not have known that either. (Alistair, though, definitely did, shifting awkwardly in place and avoiding their eyes.) After a moment of just staring at him, she all but shouted, "No! No, I didn't know that! I've never been to a Circle before, I—Really?!"

Huh. She actually sounded kind of horrified. Okay, then. He guessed she was forgiven for joking about it, couldn't have realized she was saying something insensitive. "Yes,Sister, really. Mages are slaves of the Chantry — its Templars have absolute authority over every single aspect of our lives. Even so far as whether we live or die."

"Magic exists to serve man."

Somehow, Alim doubted Andraste had intended Transfigurations 1:2 to suggest all mages should be enslaved, but there was really no use arguing the point right now. Or ever. "Sorry, Kenrick, didn't catch that — maybe get Hadley's co*ck out of your mouth first."

The Knight-Enchanter throwing out that particular bit of the Chant seemed to make Leliana evenmorehorrified, her face visibly paling a little bit. Shehadjust quoted the same line to Lýna downstairs, so. "I didn't... Well, that'shorrible! Love itself is a gift from the Maker, that we might know his love through ours — there isno possiblejustification to refuse mages that!"

Alim was pretty surethatwas heresy, but it was putting her on his side of the issue, so he'd take it. "You're telling me, Sister."

"I don't understand how— Lýna is right,Tevinter slavesare more free than mages here —they, at least, aren't forbidden tomarry! Oh..." Her hand coming up over her face, Leliana teetered back, ended up plopping down onto a seat on a nearby desk. After a couple seconds, shoulders slumped and face hidden, Alistair drifted over, moved to put a hand on her shoulder but she slapped it away.

He...probablyshouldn't find this funny. He realized Leliana was probably having a significant crisis of faith just now — in the institution of the Chantry, he meant — which couldn't be at all pleasant to go through, but he couldn't help it. He managed not to laugh at her, at least.

After some minutes, the other half of their group rejoined them, Esmond in the lead with Wynne and Cera. Alim was rather surprised Cera was here, given they'd just been talking about how she wasn't good enough of a fighter to hold the door, but apparently she had to unravel the wards for them before they could go through. Of course, the door back into the lower levels was already sealed, so Cera would have to stay on the apprentice levels — while waiting for their group to pull themselves back together after some minutes just sitting around, Cera assured him she planned to hide in one of the child-minders' apartments one floor down and ward herself in, she'd be fine.

It didn't take very long for the wards to come down, once they were all ready. Cera pulled a knife out of a pocket, one of the ones meant to carve glyphs for enchanting work, scored a line through a glowing row of glyphs worked into the door frame. She reached out into the air, as though grabbing for something, after a couple tries her fist clenched, she yanked back — the blue-white barrier sealing the staircase exploded into a burst of mist, which then quickly dissipated, the way ahead cleared.

"Good luck up there, everyone," Cera said, stepping to the side to let them through. "Andraste watch over you all."

They started filing through, Alim toward the rear half of the group with the archers. But as they came to the door, Esmond, Alistair, and the lead Templars already climbing the first steps, Cera's hand snapped out, snatching Alim around the arm. "Stay with me for a second, I need to have a word with you."

Alim managed to hold back a wince. "All right." He slipped out of the group to stand next to Cera, trying not to look uncomfortable.

Cera was the youngest Enchanter in the Fereldan Circle right now, and had kind of been around a lot when Alim had been a kid. She was rather tall for an elf, right around Leliana's height, with short-cropped red hair — though not the intense, elven kind of red Alim had, more brown in it (almost fennec-like, actually) — about ten years older than Alim. Which meant she'd actually been the youngest of the mages teaching the little kids, but she'd been one of Leorah's apprentices at the time.

Leorah was one of the senior Enchanters, one of Alim's favorites — she was kind of scatter-brained and forgetful when it came to everything thatwasn'tenchanting or alchemy, both of which she was a genius with. Her apprentices ended up needing to make sure minor day-to-day things didn't get forgotten while Leorah was distracted with one project or burst of inspiration or another, like putting away books or equipment, cleaning up alchemy labs...reminding Leorah toeat, seriously, it was kind of ridiculous.

Generally speaking, the Enchanters who dealt with glyph magic a lot were responsible for teaching the little children of the Circle to read and write, as well as history and science lessons and the like. As their Master of Artifice, Leorah wastechnicallyresponsible for running all of that...but practically, her apprentices were in charge — if they left it all to Leorah, she'd probably get halfway through the alphabet, then get distracted explaining why Dalish elvish doesn't have any words with a P in them despite their script having a letter for it, then go on a long ramble about the history of the Tevene alphabet, how it was actually mostly derived from a simplified version of old elvish (with some dwarven influences), before the lesson was broken up an hour later for lunch with Leorah never having gotten to thesecondhalf of the bloody alphabet.

Being her youngest apprentice at the time, Cera got stuck with the boring easy lessons none of the others wanted to deal with, like absolutely basic learning to read stuff. So, Alim had actually seen a lot of her, since his earliest days at the Circle. He'd advanced in his lessons at roughly the same pace Cera had gained seniority among Leorah's apprentices, so she'd been stuck with him a lot, all the way from singing that bloody alphabet song with the other little kids to enchanting lessons only a couple years ago. She was very familiar, if nothing else, though he also liked her just fine — she had kind of a no-nonsense air about her, her humor dry and sarcastic enough it'd honestly gone right over his head until relatively recently.

So, when Cera pulled him aside, part of him felt...weirdly embarrassed, like he were still a little kid about to be given a lecture for spelling his mashed potatoes to fly at the back of someone's head or something. (In his defense, Sewin wasreallyannoying.) It didn't help that his escape attempt had involved exploiting Leorah's distractibility to trick her into signing papers shereallyshouldn't have.

...Leorah hadn't gotten in trouble for that, had she? Alim had expected the Templars wouldn't be able to put togetherexactlyhow he and Jowan had broken into the phylactery vault. If they'd thought Leorah had actuallyhelpedthem...

Yeah, he was definitely about to get a lecture.

While he waited, annoyingly uneasy over something so small, he heard Lýna up ahead explaining the situation with Eamon to Wynne. And there Wynne agreed to come help them with that as soon as they were done here. So, that wasthattaken care of already, convenient.

Once everyone was more or less out of earshot — the humans, anyway, Lýna might still be able to hear them — Cera whispered. "I want you to keep a close eye on Wynne for me."

"Oh, uh." Okay, apparently hewasn'tgetting a lecture — he might be feeling relieved about that just now if he weren't so very confused. "She seemed okay...kind ofweird, I guess..."

"She is, but..." Cera winced, glanced toward the stairs. The Templar's backs weren't visible anymore, but she still leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a breathy hiss. "There's something... Wynne tried to stop Uldred, right at the beginning. She was hit, with a spirit curse, in the heart."

Alim cringed — Andraste have mercy, Uldred had— He'd nearlykilledWynne?! That was just... He couldn't even imagine that, they— This whole thing wassof*cked up, justawful. "Ah, she seems okay..."

"No, Alim, you don't understand." Her hand clenching tighter around his arm, her voice shaking a little, "Shedied. Her heart wasliquefied, she wasdead. And shegot up. I was there, Alim, Isawit, she was dead and then shewasn't. And she wasglowing."

...Oh.

Oh, sh*t.

"Wynne is an—"

"Don't say it!"Cera hissed, frantic. "It's fine, she— It's still her...mostly. She– she is different, but it'sher, and... She's been... I think something happened at Ostagar."

...

So, not only wasWynne an abomination, but she'd been possessed forgoing on a monthnow — any attempt to separate her from whatever was latched on to her wouldalmost certainlykill her.

Alim's eyes drifted closed for a moment, he took a long, slow breath. "What do—" His mouth felt weird and clumsy, numb, as though he'd had too much to drink, he stumbled over his words. "Um. What do I do?"Thatcame out embarrassingly shaky and, almost,whiny, ugh...

But, come on, it wasWynne, he didn't...

"Make sure she doesn't get hurt. I'm certain it's a friendly spirit, and it'sstill her, but if the Templars find out they might just kill her."

"Right." Yes. He could do that. He'd just...stick close to her. f*ck, he'd take a curse for her if he had to — she could heal him, but healing herself might be...suspicious. "Okay, I can do that. Yes. Oh,Maker, Wynne..."

"I know." For a second, Cera moved like she was about to hug him, but she apparently changed her mind, ruffled his hair instead. "Good luck, Alim."

"Yeah." Because today seemed like aluckyf*cking day, didn't it...

Alim hated it when he hated being right. He'd known something was different about Wynne, he kinda wished he'd just been imagining it, because, Andraste have mercy,Wynne...

He caught up to their group on the next floor — mostly life stuff, the refectory and baths and whatnot. (Running water on thefifthfloor, because Tevinter engineering was neat.) Their group had mixed up a little bit, the archers still in back but Wynne tucked in the middle of the swordsmen near Kenrick — whose job in a fight would be to fadestep right up in their opponent's business, he needed to be toward the front to be in range — visible to anyone they might come across but still with a layer of protection in the form of Alistair, the Seeker, and a pair of Templars. (Alim wasn't sure which, they all looked the same under those damn helmets.) Lýna had moved up too, sticking right next to her — presumably, she wanted to make sure Wynne survived to heal Eamon. Unsurprisingly, Leliana had joined them, she always tended to follow Lýna around if feasible. (It was a little weird, honestly.) Alim darted through the ranks of archers and then the first bunch of swordsmen, slipped into place on Wynne's other side, putting her squarely between himself, Lýna, and Alistair.

Biting his lip, he tried not to stare at her. He didn't want to attract attention, maybe give away to the Templars that something was wrong, but... This was, just, he didn't want to think about it, Wynne being possessed, he— He couldn't think about that right now, he had a job to do. Just, focus on what he was doing, yes, he could do that.

It'd be kind of hard to fight if he was too busy sobbing like a damn child. Not to mention, kind of suspicious...

The Seeker took them through the entire floor, glancing quick into each room before moving on. He probably didn't want to accidentally leave an abomination to their backs, thatdidmake sense, but still, it was slightly tedious — not to mention, the tower was bloodyhuge, this was going to takeforever. A little nerve-racking too, tension keying up whenever they came to the next corner or the next door, relaxing as it turned out to be empty, again, again, again.

After several minutes wandering around, they moved up to the next floor — one of the apprentices' libraries, along with a few rooms with, like, sitting rooms and stuff, for hanging around reading or chatting. This one was just as empty as the last one, though in rather worse shape. There'd been a fight in one of the sitting rooms, most of the chairs and sofas torn apart or reduced to twisted, scorched wrecks...blood splattered here and there, several bodies laying around, both mages and Templars. Alim spotted Eadric — his chest rent with a horrible bloody gash, pale strips of bone visible through the torn mess, the boy's face frozen in a rictus of terror — and grimaced, forced himself to look away, fixed his eyes on the ceiling.

Stupid boy, what was he evendoingup here? He should be downstairs with the apprentices...

Oh, Maker, how many of thechildrenhad been killed? He didn't want to think about that, nope, if they could move on now that'd be great, thanks.

Esmond and a few of the Templars checked around quick — for what, Alim had no idea — the whole while Leliana muttering under her breath. He hadn't been paying attention at first, started catching it around, "...not left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

Ah, Trials 1, a prayer for the lost. Sections of it were often sung at funerals, he knew — not that he'd ever heard such a thing himself, Circle mages didn't get funerals. Some of the apprentices would hold little vigils if someone died at their Harrowing, but that didn't happen very often, really, and they didn't use the standard prayers, so...

"Draw your last breath, my friends. Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker's right hand, and be Forgiven."

...Alim was in the uncomfortable position of feeling grateful to the crazy, creepy Sister following them around. She might be insane, hearing voices and all — he still had to have a talk with Lýna about the Chantry, he kept getting distracted — and shedefinitelyhad some weird, heretical ideas about the Chant, but... Well, it was sweet, almost. There was actuallyfeelingon her voice, not just something she did rote. He meant, obviously she'd memorized it at some point, but it didn't feel like she was doing it because, well, she was a Sister, and it was just something Sisters did in this kind of situation, but like the sentiment was actually genuine —couldn'tjust be a performance, he and Lýna were probably the only people in the room who could even hear her clearly, and...

Ugh. He was very conflicted about Leliana, okay. She was clearly insane, andveryunnerving, all sweet and friendly but also aretired Orlesian bard, and how was that even a thing, she wasfartoo good at killing things for aChantry Sister, it was just kind of eerie, but... Well, she was aChantry Sister, and obviously one of the more genuine, well-intentioned ones at that. He had no idea how to feel about all that, it was just f*ckingweird.

And he was just noticing now that that slightly-absent, serene sort of calm about her wasverysimilar to the weird air Wynne had now...and Wynne waspossessed(at least partially). That... WasLelianaan abomination too? Or, maybe just in close contact with a spirit, the Fade pulling at her leaving her with that vague sense of detachment that just made Leliana's incongruously pleasant smiling in tense situations evenmorecreepy than it might have been from anyone else. Maybe there actuallywassomeone talking to her. Almost certainly not theMaker, of course, but...it didn't seem like whatever it was wasmalevolent, but...

Ugh, he had no idea how to feel aboutthis, either! He hadn't expected this trip back to the Circle to give him so manyseriousproblems to muddle through, they weren't even finished yet and he was alreadyexhausted...

The floor above that was another library floor, but this one with elementary alchemy and enchanting labs — and it was, unfortunately,notcompletely empty.

The first sign something was wrong was a lingering trace of magic. That wasn't really suspicious in itself, practicallyeverythingin the tower was magic on one level or another — Tevinter architecture used enchanting and alchemy, obviously, but it'd been home to a sizeable population of mages forcenturiesnow, there was a lot of enchanted sh*t lying around. Not to mention, so much magic being used by so many in such a small place over such a long span of time by itself thinned the Veil, the tower was inherently more magical than most places. (Though Alim hadn't really noticed much of a difference waking, his dreamshadseemed slightly less vivid...until the Joining f*ckedthatup, anyway.) It wasn't unusual to feel the buzzing of energy against his skin, wandering melodies of active magic just at the edge of hearing.

This was...different. Like sparks in the air, stinging, but not really in an unpleasant way. Or at least not at first — they lingered, thick and warm and slimy, dribbling down his skin, like sweat on a hot day, muggy and uncomfortable. The hiss in his ears intensified, a single strain slowly rising, wandering and eerie, the occasional sharp note jumping out, disjointed and disorienting.

Thatwas a demon, no doubt about that. And as they got closer...well. First it was a tingle against his skin, pins and needles, the song emanating from the demon getting louder, and then...amoan. Whispering, breathless and wordless, a giggle, cut with a gasp of... Well, it was pretty clear whatthatsounded like. Quiet, but carryingmuchfurther than it should, buoyed along by the abomination's magic, echoing in his ears.

Of course it had to be adesireabomination they stumbled across. This was going to be bloody uncomfortable...

After clearing all the rooms around the edge — the way the magic carried it, it was impossible to tell which direction the voices were coming from — Esmond gave a last glance back at them all, hands tightening around weapons and shoulders squaring, before throwing open the door into the central room. This one was a practice room of sorts, somewhere they could test enchantments or alchemical products, or sometimes the less destructive magics, without worrying about breaking anything if it went wrong. The floor was mostly clear, an occasional pillar here or there. There were more bodies around, mages and Templars both, some of them rather grisly, bones shattered and flesh torn and twisted.

Standing together were a clump of Templars, Alim couldn't tell how many from here. Too many people in the way, he couldn't make out much detail...but he waspretty sureone of the Templars was f*cking a nude woman against one of the pillars, the others stickingveryclose, whispers and kisses passing around.

This was a surreal f*cking thing to walk in on, but okay.

(Heh,surreal f*cking...)

The bewitched Templars immediately started moving at the interruption, the abomination letting out a high, piercing, reverberating scream, the magic in the air turning cold and sharp, stabbing in at his head — Alim grimaced, but ignored the pain as well as he could, shouldering through the door alongside Wynne. Kenrick's blade snapped into existence with an odd sort ofspangnoise, hard white-silver spirit magic extending from his hand, and he disappeared with a whisper of blue light—

One of the bewitched Templars raised a hand, a harsh, scraping hiss rung through the air, and Kenrick reappeared, a couple feet short of the group — five, Alim could see now — staggering and nearly falling. The bewitched Templars must have thrown up a disruption, dragging Kenrick out of his fadestep early — Alim almost felt sorry for the bastard, that wasreallyf*cking uncomfortable. At the same time, another of the five was stepping forward, sword shimmering gold with that weird Templar sh*t swinging in at Kenrick's shoulder, he tucked into a roll to get out from under it, coming to a knee and slashing in at the back of the Templar's knee, but another caught the magical blade on his shield — it would have gone straight through ordinary wood and steel, but Templar shields had someseriousanti-magic enchantments on them — Kenrick popped to his feet, dipped back, parried another blow—

A stream of arrows fell upon the Templars, carefully aimed high and wide to avoid Kenrick, clinking and clattering against shields and helms and breastplates. None of them did any damage, but they did distract the bewitched Templars, gave Kenrick a second to catch his breath, a green-white stasis spell flying from his hand to crash over one of the Templars — they must have been distracted enough for the disruption to break — but it was dispersed into harmless sparks by the man's armor. And then Kenrick's backup was there, Esmond and Alistair and another three swordsmen joining the melee first. Even in the first couple seconds, Alim could tell their people were avoiding killing blows, probably hoping the bewitched men would be freed once the abomination fell, but they weren't being given the same courtesy, it didn't seem to be going very well.

But that wasn't the most important problem: where thef*ckwas the abomination?! Alim slowed, shuffling along behind Wynne — she was casting protective spells at their people in the melee, uselessly, the bewitched Templars kept disrupting them — desperately scanning the room for—

There!Halfway across the room, near the left wall there was a patch of shadow that really shouldn't be there, almost seemed solid, that wasdefinitelysome kind of concealment magic. A breath of concentration, Alim gathered a spirit curse in his hand— "Lýna, left!"—and released it in that direction, a flickering ball of white light zipping through the air and—

—dissolving into a rain of sparks as it was dismantled by a disruption, still yards away from the unnatural shadow.Dammit!Of course the abomination had to have Templar backup, that just wasn't fair.

The abomination had also been caught up in the disruption, its concealment falling away. The thing was obviously a woman — orhad been, at least — though thankfully she wasn't at all recognizable. She'd seemed perfectly human a moment ago, but now the demon's magic had twisted the body it was riding — limbs turning bony and angled, hands extended into vicious claws, skin fading to a deathly white, patches of black and red splotching seemingly at random, eyes gone black and mouth a deep red, as though filled with blood, even as he watched its hair flying back and...fading...until it didn't seem to be hair at all, tendrils of darkness extending from the back of its head, reaching back to join its shadow, much larger and deeper than it had any reason to be, splitting andmoving, flickering along the walls and floors and ceiling, almost like—

An arrow darted ahead — Lýna — the abomination threw up a shimmering blue barrier but the enchanted arrow pierced straight through it, meeting the abomination high on its right shoulder — that was the single worst shot Alim had ever seen Lýna make, he assumed the barrier had jostled the arrow slightly. The arrow didn't stick in the abomination so much as tear straight through it, its body quickly dissolving into wisps of shadow, by the time more arrows fell, Leliana and the Templars, it was already gone.

What the f*ck wasthat?!

Screams rent the air, Alim spun around, magic sparking at his fingertips. The abomination had reappeared among the archers, its form somehow even more distorted, crumpled and twisted — wreathed in too-solid bands of shadow, fluttering around it like grass in the wind, others straight and jagged, coming to hard points. Several of them had sliced through one of the archers, finding weak points in his armor, spearing the man through with three different bands of solid blackness — the sight of it lookedwrong, Alim's brain refusing to process a shadowcutting througha person, making him a little dizzy — blood welling up without resistance, because of course, he'd been cutwith shadows, there was no blade in the way of his blood escaping...

An arrow — Lýna again — carved through the abomination's head, but it just dissolved into scattered wisps again, this time only parts of it, the bits swirling around for a second to reform a bit to the left, the blades of shadow pulling out of the impaled Templar, he dropped limply to the floor, swinging around in a blur, Alim and Wynne both got barriers up at the same time, shielding the archers, the weird shadow things bounced off in an oddly musical twitter. And then Leliana was there,right nextto the thing — he could hear her singing through the noise of the fight,take from me a life of sorrow— reaching forward with an arrow in one hand, swiping the enchanted tip through the abomination's weird shadow-hair, and it staggered, letting out another bone-shivering screech — Alim grit his teeth against the pain, formed a dissolving curse, and then instantly lost it when a disruption field came down from multiple directions at once, his skin crawling, he staggered from the weight of it, shaking his head.

The abomination, the shadows wreathing it not completely faded but gone thin and wispy, whirled away, skittering across the floor unnaturally quick — on all fours, twisting itself around at angles a human body shouldnotbe capable of, or even an elf for that matter, were its knees bending the wrong way? — and Leliana fired the same arrow she'd severed its shadows with a moment ago, it stabbed into its hip, actually sticking this time, steaming black blood speckling the tile, the abomination let out another scream, losing its footing, stumbling and rolling in a whirl of limbs—

By the time more arrows fell it'd dissolved into wisps again, shadows flickering across the wall, and—

"It walks through the shadows," Wynne called. She took a deep breath, and then magic surged, from so nearby soft and warm butintense, and theentire roomwas filled with gentle greenish fadelight, not bright buteverywhere, filling every shadow in the room. The abomination let out another scream, coming from the right —there, it was falling from the ceiling, the colors around it swirling and blurring, its misshapen form wreathed in orange and violet. He pulled magic to form another curse and—

—immediately lost it when he was hit with another disruption, forf*ck'ssake! The fadelight blinked out, even as arrows lanced out toward the abomination, but Alim didn't have time to worry about that, one of the bewitched Templars had somehow managed to separate itself from the fightstillgoing on in the middle of the room — just kill the bastards already,come on!— making a bee line for Wynne, shimmering blade drawn back to swing.

Alim balled his fist in Wynne's robes, started pulling her back, and Lýna was already there, shouldering her way in front of the Enchanter even as she drew her sword, she slapped the incoming jab up and away, the Templar staggered forward a step, Lýna twisted back around, her blade neatly slipping right into the seam over the Templar's knee, digging deep. He groaned, made a wild backhanded swing in Lýna's direction — leaving her sword where it was, her bow clattering to the tile — she ducked under the swing,towardhim, gripped theinsideof his shield with both hands, and—

He wasn't sure how she did it exactly. One second, they were both standing, the bewitched Templar unbalanced from the sword stuck in his leg and his desperate swing, Lýna's back pressed up against his chest, hands on his shield; then Lýna dropped, turning, and the Templar staggered, spinning around to bring his back to Alim and Wynne, falling to his knees; and Lýna was standing at his back, one hand yanking at his helm, her dagger in the other; a moment later, the bewitched Templar had fallen to the floor, one gauntleted hand clutching at his bleeding throat, choking and twitching, Lýna casually wrenching her sword out of his leg.

...Holy crap. He realized Lýna was good at this, but still, that was aTemplar, and she'd made it lookeasy...

(Yep, he was definitely sticking close to the crazy Dalish girl from now on, thanks ever so.)

A wave of tingly, musical, spicy-sweet air falling over him, Alim unthinkingly threw up a barrier, snapping it off a second after Wynne, the wall of light shivering as it was struck with a hail of shadow —ping ping ping ping ping ping ping. The barrier collapsed asanotherdamn disruption field crashed over them, the abomination staggered, passing only a couple feet from Alim, Lýna slashed low across its hips — probably intending to hobble it, get the damn thing tostop movingfor three seconds so they could kill it — but it exploded into flittering wisps of shadow again, swirling around them, streaks of darkness obscuring the room, starting to reform behind—

Alim leaned around Wynne, the abomination reappearedjustin time to take Alim's curse full in the face. The thingscreamed, Alim cringed, his hands jumping up to clench around his skull before he could stop himself, it burst apart, shadows and glimmering violet light scattering across the room. The scream broke into a manic giggle, and the magic clinging to Alim's skin, like sweat on a hot day, shifted and changed, turning sharp and warm and silky-smooth, but Alim took a focusing breath — the demon's magic reached inward, grasping for his mind, but he shook off its influence, his mouth going dry and skin flushing a little, but otherwise unaffected.

...Was the demon trying to...arouse him? That was kind of funny, honestly.

A few of the swordsmen had peeled off from the main group some seconds ago, apparently realizing their archers were being attacked, and the shadows suddenly contracted — the magic thick on the air lifting away, the demon's influence weakening, Alim let out a shaky breath — and the abomination stepped out of thin air just behind the approaching Templars, blades of darkness slicing in at one's back.

But, somehow, Esmond was there before the blow could land — Alim had no idea how he'd turned around and stepped in the way so quickly, that was just inhuman. (But, well, Seekers, nobody was entirely certain what all they could do.) The shadows fell against his shield, and Esmond's other hand came— Where was his sword?! Had he dropped the thing? What was hedoing?!

Esmondreached throughthe deadly cutting shadows, andgrabbed the abomination by the throat. There was more screaming, the demon's influence again coming down hard, but the Seeker ignored it completely, and there was ahissing, high and sizzling, like bacon on the pan, and the abomination was screaming andscreaming...

The abomination fell to the tile, the mangled mass of flesh hardly recognizable as a human body...most of its neck and strips down its chest and up its face scorched black, peeling in crumbling white flecks, like a log in the fire.

What in the name of...

For a handful of seconds, Alim could only stare at the dead abomination, amazed. He hadno ideahow Esmond had done that, that wasso neat...

He was drawn out of it by the clanging of metal, a shout of frustration — the bewitched Templars were still fighting. The air crackled with disruption fields one after the other, the swordsmen clashed for another fifteen seconds or so before Esmond bit out a curse. "They're bound with blood magic. Kill them."

The Templars hesitated. But only for a moment.

Less than a minute later, it was over.

Alim took a few seconds just to breathe, trying to force his heart pounding in his throat to settle the f*ck down. That fight hadnotbeen fun, creepy overpowered abomination and Templarsat the same time, nope, no thanks,Maker...

He recovered quickly, and moved to help Wynne with the healing. They only had a couple scrapes, nothingtooserious — the worst was a stab one of the swordsmen had gotten in the shoulder, a slash along an archer's arm by that weird shadow crap. That latter one was f*ckingscary. It wasn't particularly deep, just superficial, the man had only been grazed, but the thing had sliced through his armor like it were butter. The splints on his sleeve were sliced neatly in half, not even theslightestbit bent from the impact, just... Yeah, that was some pretty dangerous sh*t that abomination had been throwing around.

In retrospect, he was kind of impressed they'd only lost one man. Theyhadoutnumbered the bewitched Templars handily, but the way the abomination had been teleporting around throwing ridiculous shadow-blade crap at them, they were really quite lucky it'd gone so well.

Anyway, Wynne didn't actuallyneedhis help, of course — she was the person who'dtaughthim healing in the first place, she could handle flesh wounds like these on her own no problem — but he still assisted anyway. If Wynne pushed herself too hard, well, Alim was concerned she might unintentionally do something...suspicious. Likeglow, for example. Which meant patching up their people took a little longer than it might have if they'd split up, but it was more than worth it, he thought.

Wynne gave him a curious look at his offer of totally unneeded help, but hadn't said anything about it. Which was good, Alim wasn't certain if he would have been able to come up with a believable excuse.

By the time they were done with the healing, Alim glanced around the room, checking if anyone else needed anything, and finally noticed...somethingwas going on with Lýna. She was bent over a little, hands planted on her knees, her head bowed enough her hair was over her face, Alim couldn't make it out from this angle. She seemed to be shaking slightly, as though shivering from cold, which, that seemed unlikely. Leliana was standing nearby, by her stance having just retreated a step, her expression rather bemused.

Okay, what the hell wasthatabout? Alim decided to go check it out — on the way over he noticed Alistair, talking with Esmond, was shooting Lýna occasional glances. He was...concerned? Had Lýna taken a hit in the fight? Alim hadn't noticed...

Getting closer, he noticed her breathing wasn't particularly labored, but it did sound sort of thin and shaky. And, he had a better angle now, he could see she was rather flushed, darkest under her eyes, the top edge of her ears, and low on her throat, beads of sweat running down her neck, her hair gone a little silvery where it brushed against her skin, damp. Huh, that blush kind of looked like...

Oh. Oh, dear. Alim had had the suspicion that the abomination — adesireabomination, most likely — had attempted to distract them toward the end there...withlust. He'd brushed its influence aside without too much difficulty, but he had some experience with such things, had incentive to learn how to do it. ButLýna...

Alim suspected Lýna wasextremelyaroused right now.

He bit his lip — he had the feeling she wouldn't appreciate it if he laughed at her.

Once he'd gathered himself again, he reached out, searching for a hint of magic lingering on Lýna. There didn't seem to be anything, or at least nothing out of the ordinary. The demon's influence must have dissipated when Esmond had killed it, or she'd been hit with a disruption at some point, whichever, its magic wasn't still acting on her. She was just taking a moment to recover. Um. Though itwastaking a while, it'd been a couple minutes...

Okay, there were two possibilities he could think of. This sort of manipulation tended to hit a lot harder if the demon had something to work with. That was why that abomination at Redcliffe — something like despair or fear, Alistair wasn't certain exactly and these things were actually a lot fuzzier than people often spoke of them as — had been able to mess up Lýna so badly because she'd had a lot of experience that particular demon was skilled at leveraging. The rest of them, hit with the same thing they might have been fine (orlessaffected, anyway), buttheyhadn't grown up in a Blight, had they? Among the people involved, Lýna had been uniquely vulnerable, she'd just gotten unlucky.

So maybe Lýna justreallyneeded to get laid. That wasdefinitelya possibility, Alim wasn't ruling it out...but he didn't think that's what it was. No, there was a more likely possibility. Amuchmore concerning one.

Lýna might not be fully recovered from her last encounter with an abomination. Serious mental assaults — in the physical world, at least, it didn't work the same in the Fade — created a psychological injury that took time to heal. Exactly how much time, well, that varied person to person, and depended on the duration and intensity of exposure. There hadn't been much research into these things, though. This kind of mental influence only came from a few sources — abominations, shades, and blood magic. (Also Dreamers, theoretically.) None of those were common enough for previous generations of mages to manage any thorough study of the phenomenon, just the absolute basics.

But that was all it took for Alim to know Lýna's spiritual defenses might be compromised. She'dseemedbetter, so he hadn't really thought about it too much — also, he hadn't realized there would be abominations running around until after they'd gotten here, obviously. But, well, Lýna was pretty quiet to begin with, she wasn't exactly going around sharing her inner thoughts and feelings with the rest of the Wardens. She could still be struggling horribly, for all Alim knew. Which, that wasn't aproblem, exactly, shewouldrecover — and the girl was tough as nails, he didn't doubt she'd get through it just fine — but that wasbeforehe'd known she'd be stumbling across more abominations. She might well still beterriblyvulnerable to mental assault.

Which was...not good. Shereallyshouldn't be here.

"Ah, Lýna?"

"Yes." Her breath sounded a little thin, her lungs not properly cooperating. Her eyes flicked up to him, but then immediately glanced away — embarrassed, he was pretty sure.

Which, he couldkind ofsee that, on the face of it, but it wasn't really her fault she had this particular weakness. "Do you need to, ah, take a moment?" The lingering effects would fade away on their own, of course, but it'd go more quickly and probably less annoyingly if Lýna just got off. If it were anyone else he might jokingly offer to help with that — he might be shameless but he wasn'tsuicidal, okay — but Lýna could just go take care of it herself quick...

Leliana obviously got what he meant, her lips twitching with a badly-repressed smirk; Lýna, though, he wasn't certain she did. She shot a glare at him, hissing, "No, I am well." She gradually straightened, her eyes dropping closed for a second, her jaw clenching — Alim imagined (not like that) her clothing shifting against her was probablyverydistracting right now. One of her ears even twitched, he had to bite his lip again. Her shoulders rolling, she folded her hands behind her back, crossing enough that would actually be uncomfortable for an elf, she must be trying to distract herself. Her eyes opened again, fixing Alim with an approximation of her usual level stare. "We are ready?"

Uh-huh, nice try, Lýna, nobody was buying it. Unfortunately, they really needed her at her best if there was another fight ahead of them, so they'd just have to do this the hard way. Gathering frost magic in his hand, Alim said, "Right, well, this is clearly uncomfortable for both of us, so, please don't hurt me." And he tossed off the spell — weak, just a brief burst of cold washing over her head to toe.

Lýna jumped with a yelp, surprisingly loud, enough Alim jumped a little himself. She gave his shoulder a shove, tipping him back a couple steps, rattled off something in elvish, rather sharp but also weirdly babbly. (Or, maybe Lýna onlyseemedso quiet because they didn't speak her language? Alim honestly wasn't sure.) She cut herself off, apparently realizing Alim didn't understand a single bloody word, paused to take a long breath.

Alim frowned — the way Leliana was watching Lýna was kind of... Hmm. IfLelianawas suicidal, he guessed that was her business.

His little cold spell wouldn't have straight gotten rid of it, obviously, but her blush had already gone down a bit, and she seemed a little less...well, on edge. Lýna finally opened her eyes to shoot Alim a narrow glare. "That was mean."

"Yeah, but it worked." Mostly, anyway. "Lýna, I was..." ...thinking shereallyshouldn't be here. She needed to be at Kinloch Hold for negotiation purposes, gaining allies to face the Blight and all that, they didn't need her too badly for this whole mess. She'd already gotten Wynne to agree to help Eamon, and they wouldn't be able to make a more long-term arrangement with the Circle until after this was settled — there was no urgent reason she needed to participate in the fighting part. And therewasan urgent reason sheshouldn'tparticipate: there might well be more abominations up there, and Lýna had absolutely no business being around them before she fully recovered from the incident at Redcliffe.

...But if he said all that, Lýna would just brush him off. Worse than that, really, he suspected she would take it as...questioning her ability to...do stuff. He wasn't really sure how the Dalish did things, but he was aware that among the Avvar a warrior openly expressing doubts about their war-leader's capacity to do their job was a pretty big deal. Of course, he only meant it pertaining to this specific thing at this moment — he'd been more skeptical than he'd claimed at first, but shewascapable, and she'd demonstrated she was willing to listen to their advice, so, he was fine with her being in charge now — but he wasn't sure Lýna would take it that way. And she probably wouldn't appreciate Alim (apparently) questioning her leadership with potential allies standing right over there.

He let out a sigh. "I'm carrying lyrium potions. If it looks like we're coming up on another abomination, I want you to take one. It will, um...make your mind heavier, harder for a demon to push at." That wasn't a great metaphor, honestly, but the technical language it would require to explain it properly would be completely incomprehensible to her.

Just barely noticeably, a little tension lifted out of Lýna's shoulders — so shewasworried about it, as much as she was pretending otherwise. "Yes. Thank you."

"No problem." He'd be stocking up as long as they were here anyway. "The buzz is kind of wild, and the hangovers are a bitch, but there shouldn't be any detrimental effects. Uh, they won't hurt you, I mean, or f*ck up your shooting." Actually, it'd probablyimproveher speed and precision, which was a terrifying thought. "Sister, you okay?"

Leliana startled at the question, blinking. "Oh! Yes, I'm fine. I, ah, didn't notice much at all, honestly."

He blinked. "Wait,really? How did you—"Ooohh, obviously if shewasin direct contact with a spirit of some kind, that would give her some resistance to outside influence — such people's minds were grounded into the Fade, basically, mind-influencing magics just flowed right through them and dissipated away. Or, there could be a much more mundane explanation. "I heard you singing the Chant during the fight, that's probably why. Just keep doing that, you'll be fine."

"Singing the Chant can protect you from demons?" she asked with a frown, skeptical.

"If you concentrate on it hard enough?" He shrugged. "It's called locus of mind, one of the basic techniques mages are taught to resist demons. Usually it takes practice, but if it's something like the Chant, something you have memorized and has deep personal meaning to you, people who don't have any training at all can sometimes get lucky." Leliana pulling it off so well she didn't evennoticethe demon's influence with no training at all was...improbable, but it wasn't actually impossible. He did still suspect she was an abomination, or more likely just a weird kind of fadewalker who wasn't even a mage (however the f*ckthatworked), but therewasan other explanation. "Oh, Lýna, if you know a song or a poem or something, you might try reciting it to yourself, that might help. It has to be really important to you, though."

Lýna nodded, staring off to the side thoughtfully. Maybe she had something, then. There was no telling how much good it would do but, between an amateur attempt at enforcing her locus of mind and reinforcing her presence with lyrium, perhaps they'd be able to protect her from being affected too badly. Hopefully.

He wouldn't bet on it, but maybe.

(Oh, this was aterribleidea...)

For as difficult as their first fight during their ascent had been, the second was dead easy. A couple floors up — another refectory this time, for full mages and apprentices who didn't want to go all the way back down again — they stumbled across another abomination. There was less warning this time, this demon less powerful, but still enough that Alim could feel the harsh crackle of magic on the air before they got to it. (Rage, he thought, though he wasn't certain.) So, Alim was able to pass a little vial of lyrium over to Lýna before the fight started.

Though he doubted that had even been necessary. They found the thing in the kitchens — again, its form was twisted enough Alim couldn't recognize the person it'd been, though he suspected an elf, probably male. This one was glowing a little, the light shivering and wavering like flame, and it also had backup, though in the form of a dozen animated corpses — mostly kitchen staff, Alim noted with a wince (Maker, that was Cecilia, sh*t...) — which for all their gruesomeness were amuchlesser threat than enthralled Templars.

It wentverysmoothly. Before their whole group had even gotten through the door arrows were flying, the abomination ducking behind the work counters, skittering away, the scratching and ticking of its claws against stone setting a shiver down Alim's spine. The first rank of swordsmen were falling on the undead, Alim wreathed himself in slippery magic andjumped, his vision washed away in blue-white for an instant, skipped to a halt on one of the counters halfway across the room, lit up three of the undead at once with a ball of fire, catching a fourth with a flick the other way. A second later Kenrick was taking his second fadestep of the fight, crossing half the room in a smear of blue light, appearing nearly right on top of the abomination — Alim hadn't even spotted it there yet, half-hidden behind a pillar — neatly lopped off its head with a casual stroke of his spirit blade — though he didn't just leave it at that, casting more spells at its corpse, making sure the demon inside was properly dispersed. (Decapitationalmost alwaystook out an abomination, but better safe than sorry.) The undead didn't fall when the abomination did, either possessed by independent spirits or the spells properly anchored, but they weren't exactly difficult to deal with. Alim fadestepped over to another counter, torched two more corpses, and then they were all down, the other half either incinerated by Wynne or dispatched by the Templars.

Standing atop his counter, Alim quickly scanned the room, looking for any remaining threats, before nodding to himself. That went well.

He coughed — he realized the smoke was mostly his fault, butugh, gross...

As they started filing out again, Alim skipped up to Lýna. "I'm curious, do you have magic in your family?"

Lýna was still a little bouncy from the lyrium, twitched at the question, turning her head to look at him sudden and sharp, like a bird. Heat tilting with a sort of curious stare, "Yes, my grandfather is Keeper of Savhraj." She twitched, glanced away, awkward — Alim got the very clear impression she regretted admitting that, might not have if she weren't slightly high right now, though he had no idea why. (By how Leliana's eyebrows shot up, she might, but he couldn't exactly go asking just now.) "Why?"

"Oh, nothing, just felt the lyrium hit you is all. You're not a mage, but you're pretty close." People usually spoke of being a mage as though it were a yes or no sort of thing, but it was really a matter of degree — everybody hadsomeconnection to the Fade (except dwarves), the vast majority of the time it was just too weak for a person to actuallycast. The lyrium hitting her system had been like fanning dying coals, encouraging the fire to return to life, even now Lýna was smoldering away, the faintest spark of magic flickering just out of reach. She was close enough to proper magehood that he was positive she could learn to cast elementary spells, if only with the assistance of lyrium.

Magic was at leastpartiallyheritable, as centuries of careful breeding in the north had proven. In the south, it wasn't unusual for a mage to turn up every couple generations in the same family, but among Tevinter nobility it wasuncommonto have a childwithoutmagic. In fact, it was interesting to note that while the magical population of Tevinter had steadily grown over the years, the south had seen a sharpdecreasein mages as a proportion of the population since they were remanded to the Circles — southern mages hadveryfew children, so that just made sense, didn't it? Of course, their ancestors had long-term screwed themselves, since Tevinter, the Anderfels, and Rivain nowfaroutstripped southern nations in magical capacity, the south would be completelyf*ckedin any large-scale conflict, but that was beside the point. Thepointwas someone as close to being a mage as Lýna was was very likely to have magic in her family, he'd just been wondering.

After quickly explaining all that, he added, "Any children you have will also bemuchmore likely to be mages than any random person off the street. Just something to keep in mind."

Lýna frowned. "I can't. The Blight will kill it."

"...Oh. Oh, that's obvious isn't it, I'm a f*cking idiot. Sorry."

She didn't seem bothered, at least, just shrugged it off. (Of course, she'd already known, probably since Ostagar, Alim was the idiot who hadn't thought through to the natural consequences of the Joining.) Leliana actually looked sadder about it than Lýna was, which, that was almost funny just on its own.

Aaaannd Alim just got ahorriblemental image of a ghoulified baby messily clawing its way out of the womb. Hereallyhated his own brain sometimes...

The rest of this floor was clear, and the one right above their heads. Above that were the living quarters for full mages of the Circle — in these levels the loyalists were holed up. They did have wards over the stairs, probably to keep back the abominations they'd killed on their way up, but they weren't as solid as Cera's work. Esmond had a brief conversation with the mages keeping watch — Devon and Erin — assuring them that, no, he had no intention of killing any mages still loyal to the Circle, nor standing back and allowing the Templars to do so. It did take alittleconvincing, but not as much as it might have, since it was the Seeker doing the convincing. The wards were eventually brought down, and they stepped through.

The mages' apartments were somewhat nicer than the apprentices' dormitories, though not really in the quality of the furnishings. The curving hall they stepped into didn't look any different, the same as any of the other floors they'd passed through, and while Alim's new bed had been noticeably larger, adult-sized, and came with a surprisingly warm quilt, it felt to be made of the same materials. The major difference was that the full mages were granted more privacy than were the children. These floors were split up into smaller sections, roughly ten to a floor, each intended to house two or three people — so, notcompleteprivacy, but a great improvement over the open spaces downstairs.

There were a little less than a hundred full mages in the Circle, so they needed five of these levels to house them all, though there were actually seven, the unneeded space either converted into sitting or meeting rooms or just shut up for now. (The Circle had been devastated in the Orlesian invasion, mages either killed fighting for the Crown or fled to Kirkwall or Ostwick, and Amaranthine and Gwaren mostly sent their mages to the Free Marches these days, the Circle's numbers still haven't fully recovered.) The middle rooms were mostly meeting rooms or libraries, one holding the low-security vault, the enchanted or alchemic paraphernalia the mages were allowed to play around with, though often only with permission from an Enchanter. It was there Alim had gotten the equipment to break into thehigh-security vault, the papers required to take the stuff out either signed by an absent-minded Leorah or straight-up forged.

In retrospect, he probably could have just asked Uldred to authorize the withdrawal...though hewouldhave asked what Alim wanted it for — not as a condition of signing off on it, just curious — and Alim doubted he could have lied convincingly. Besides, thatdefinitelywould have gotten Uldred in trouble with the Templars when Alim was caught.

...Which might have prevented this whole rebellion. Oh well.

They didn't see many people on their way through. Which didn't mean thereweren'tpeople around — Alim could hear them moving, muttering to each other, huddled away in the apartments. Some moaning, breaths coming hard or thin, injured. Wynne's eyes were always drawn by sounds of pain, but that wasn't what they were here for, their group moved on, climbing up into one floor, another. There was a brief incident when someone in one of the libraries — Enchanter Florian, looking rather worse for wear, his robes streaked with ash and blood and hair disheveled — startled at the sudden appearance of Templars, but they managed to calm him down before anything unfortunate happened.

Before too long, they came to the leaders of the loyalist mages, huddled together arguing about something. They were in the enchanting lab, gathered around Leorah's desk, just outside the doors into the vault. There had been fighting here, walls and floor crumbled and cratered in places, one of the bookshelves had been blown to pieces, blood only partially washed out of the stone, leaving pale pink blotches behind. Thankfully, there weren't any bodies lying around.

There was a high slap of palms hitting the table, the chatter immediately cutting off. "Seeker Esmond! Thank the Maker you are here!" Between the Templars around him and the crowd of mages around her, it took Alim a moment to spot Leorah. She looked even more frazzled than usual, deep blue eyes gone wide with anxiety, dirty blonde hair escaped from its normal braid to scattered all over her head, tangled and frizzy. "Pleasetell me you're here to take over, because I have no idea what I'm doing!"

Alistair snickered. Alim shot the back of his head a glare, but...well, couldn't really blame him, Leorah was kind of silly even on a good day.

After assuring the gathered mages — Alim recognized Enchanter Torrin, but he didn't know the full mages as well as he did the apprentices — that he was indeed here to take over, Esmond got an update on just what the situation was up here. In the absence of the Templars, the fighting had continued, though not with the same vehemence it had before. After all, the rebels considered the Templars the enemy, the other mages of the Circle weren't the problem — misguided, perhaps, but not people they truly wished to fight. Though even so, many had died. The Enchanters here weren't precisely certain how many mages remained with Uldred, perhaps a dozen, which by their head count meant roughly half the full mages of the Circle were dead or missing.

Alim bit his lip to keep himself from gasping out loud — Andraste have mercy, that was...more than he'd thought.

The last skirmish of the battle in the tower had been a couple hours ago now. The rebels had dug in in the Enchanters' apartments, a few levels above where they stood now, magically reinforcing the area against intrusion by the loyalists. There'd been a final raid, Uldred leading the attack personally — a few had been killed, but that hadn't been their goal. They'd captured two people: one was Ser Cullen, the last living Templar up here they knew of (he'd been separated from his brothers and decided to stick with the loyalists instead of striking out on his own and maybe getting killed); the other was the First Enchanter himself. They might or might not be alive, the mages here had no way of knowing.

Partially because of the rebels' wards, yes, but there was another problem: shortly after Uldred had pulled back, an abomination had turned up on one of the floors between the mages' and Enchanters' apartments. None of them had actually gotten close enough toseethe thing, but they knew it was there, they could feel it from the floor below — which wasabsurd, Tevinter whitestone was a magical conductor, that abomination must beridiculouslypowerful.

About an hour ago, Niall had gone up — a man some years older than Alim, he'd just finished his thesis a couple months ago, under consideration to be promoted to Enchanter. Niall wasverytalented with concealment magics, he'd decided he would scout out what was going on up there. Torrin had tried to talk him out of it, that it was too dangerous, but he'd gone anyway. He hadn't come back. They assumed the abomination had gotten him, but they really didn't know.

So. Ashorribleas this all was, that wasn't...tooconcerning. The abomination might be difficult to deal with, but therewasonly one of them — the Templars they had on hand should be able to handle it. Their abilities weredesignedto fight these sorts of things, they had advantages mages simply didn't, shouldn't be a problem. As scary as fighting a dozen mages sounded — and how much he kind of didn't want to, since he probably knew most of them, andUldred, nope, not looking forward to that — that should be doable. Theydidoutnumber the rebels, if the loyalists' guess at their numbers was correct, and the Templars could make them practically helpless. Depending on the wards and traps they had set, and if they were still holding hostages, things might get complicated, but Alim didn't doubt their group would come out ahead.

This would all be over soon. Hopefully.

Of course, that would mean Uldred would bedead, which Alim wasnothappy about — helikedthat sly, sarcastic bastard. Also, Alim's personal sympathies were definitely more aligned with the rebels than the loyalists,f*ckthe Circle, honestly. If Alim hadn't tried to escape, ended up with the Wardens, he might well have joined Uldred's people. But hewasa Warden now, and the Wardens needed the Circle's help, so. This was just the way it had to be.

Hehatedthis, just, all of it. Hopefully Lýna would be able to Conscript some of them off the gallows, because,ugh...

They didn't linger for long — the longer they delayed, the more time the rebels had to fortify their environment and torture their captives. Wynne did make a point of asking if they had any people seriously injured, badly enough they might not survive if they weren't given healing now. The whole conversation, Torrin watched Wynne, steady and unblinking, a feeling about him that was too vague to really put a word to. Alim suspected Torrin had reason to believe something was up with Wynne. Maybe he could just tell, like Alim had before he'd gotten specifics...but maybe he'dseenWynne die, Cera couldn't have been the only person around. Whatever was going on in his head, he was tactful enough not to draw attention to it, hardly spoke a word to her.

As much as he might not be comfortable with what had happened to her, at least he didn't want to see the Templars murder her. That was something, Alim guessed. Torrin was kind of a c*nt, so, couldn't honestly hope for any more thannot getting Wynne killed.

Before too long, they were moving on. Leorah came with them, at least as far as the wards — they were her work, none of the others were confident in their ability to bring them down without hurting themselves. It was kind of impressive actually but, well, Leorah. There were dozens of glowing glyphs worked into the walls and ceiling around the stairs a floor above the vault, the doorway entirely sealed off with a solid wall of light, swirling green and blue and silver, solid enough Alim couldn't see even the vaguest impression of shape beyond it. Leorah didn't bring the wards all the way down, instead — one hand pressed against one of the glyphs, the other tossing a pinch of lyrium dust to cast a couple on the air — somehow interrupted the action of the enchantment, the barrier dissolving into sparks and fizzling out. The glyphs were still glowing along the wall, it'd probably come right back up once she stopped...whatevershe was doing.

"Go on, then," Leorah said, her voice slightly strained, nodding toward the stairs. "I can't hold this open forever. Knock when you want back in." Alim wasn't entirely sure what she meant byknock, but Esmond just gave her a bland nod, led the way through the door.

The no-man's-land between the loyalists and the rebels was in worse condition than the lower levels. Now and again metal or stone cracked or ground to sand, sometimes melted, resolidified in twisted, uneven blobs. Cloth and wood had burned or been torn apart, in some places dissolved into this oddly fluffy dust, discolored with rot, or just sliced into strips and tossed about at random. And there were bodies about, left abandoned here and there — most were badly damaged enough, scorched and rotten and torn apart, they weren't really recognizable as the people they'd been, which was kind of gross but better than literally stumbling over familiar faces.

One room was particularly bad, the floor of a study hall scattered withat leasta dozen dead Templars, three, five...eight mages? And one form, twisted into a jagged, lopsided monstrosity, hands extended into claws and toothy jaw openedfartoo wide, that was definitely an abomination. It was dead, but Kenrick threw dispersal magics at it just to make sure.

Crossing the central room — a practice room this time, the floor carved with enchantments to contain magics within, currently inactive — Alim felt a hint of magic in the air, droning slow and flat in his ears, a cold wind plucking at his shoulders. That would be their abomination, then. The Templars shot wary looks up at the ceiling — apparently they could feel it too, which, how sensitive were Templars to magic, exactly? Alim had never had occasion to test it, and it'd never really occurred to him to ask...

Anyway, Esmond meticulously checked the whole floor before moving on. The next one up was the first of the Enchanters' apartments — they actually got their own bedrooms, most of them with attached sitting rooms and offices, some with bathrooms. For some reason, when taking down some walls and putting up new ones to accommodate the floor plan, on the Enchanters' levels the ring-shaped hallway every other floor had had been broken into segments, so it wasn't actually possible to walk all the way around the ring. People had to pass through the center — a sitting room, he thought — to get from one segment to another. The stairs up and the stairs down were in different segments, of course, so they would have to go through there no matter what.

By the freezing cold on the air, magic slippery and heavy, Alim was certain that was where the abomination was waiting.

The Templars took a moment to collect themselves, checking weapons and tugging at gloves, some bowing their heads, clasping each other's shoulders, muttering snippets from the Chant. Leliana, eyes closed and gently wavering back and forth on the balls of her feet, seemed to be praying too, but quietly enough Alim couldn't pick out the words, just a barely audible musical hum.

Alim frowned at Lýna for a moment, fingers tapping at the potion vials tucked into his belt. She was...probably fine? He could still make out the flicker of borrowed magic, her last dose of lyrium hadn't worn off yet. And while hemightthink better safe than sorry, might as well toss her one, takingtoo muchlyrium was a bad,badidea — especially for people who weren't mages without it, it was too easy for them to accidentally pull magic from the Fade and break something. Especially if they were too damn high to focus on not breaking things. Sheseemedokay, bouncing impatiently on the balls of her feet, glaring at the door, so...

Yeah, no lyrium. If the abominationdidend up mind-f*cking her hard, oh well, he'd apologize for his caution later. But he probably wouldn't have to, she'd be fine.

(Later, he'd decide it probably wouldn't have made any difference.)

Chapter 16: Broken Circle — III

Chapter Text

9:30 Nubulis 21

Kinloch Hold, Danesmouth, Highever, Kingdom of Ferelden

Esmond's eyes, cool and calm, moved over their group, from one to the next to the next — confirming they were all ready to go with a look. Once he'd gotten a nod from every single one of them, he threw open the door. The swordsmen charged through first, the door narrow enough they had to go two at a time, Kenrick disappeared in a flicker of blue, Alim elbowed himself in front of Wynne, bounced in next to Lýna and stepped through the door into—

—a wave of nausea, his head spun, magic hissing and crackling around him—

—into the atrium.

Alim hitched to a halt. Blinking, he gazed around at the room. It was an atrium — aƫestozătu, to be more specific. Alim had read such things described before. Certain ancient Tevinter cities — only the most populous and wealthiest, such as Minrathous, Quarinus, Treviso, and Cumberland — had had blocks with these large stone buildings, several stories high, housing multiple families on each floor.Insulae, they were called. In the early centuries, especially in poorer areas, these placesreallyweren't very nice, cramped and dirty, sometimes shoddily built, basically vertical slums. (And rather dangerous, too, there were incidents in the literature whereinsulaecollapsed, usually killing dozens.) They did improve over time,somewhat, especially as enchanting grew more commonplace and the standard of living of the urban populace improved.

During the Qunari invasions, every Tevinter city except Minrathous had been conquered, by the end of the war much structural damage had been done, even Minrathous itself half-ruined — Tevinter had practically had to rebuild from scratch. So they'd decided to do it properly. The new apartment blocks were built with modern materials and enchanting techniques, the old standard entirely redesigned, incorporating elements from the traditional, more upper-class single-family home. Some were nicer than others, of course, but they weredefinitelyan improvement. Even the homes of literal slaves in the major cities were probably nicer than those of peasants in places like Denerim or Highever — a little cramped, maybe, but sturdy and private andclean, at least.

Alim had neverseensuch a place, of course, not in person. But he had seen drawings. So he could tell, at a glance, that he was standing in the atrium of a modern Tevinter apartment.

The surfaces were, he knew, mostly porcelain, though he would never guess that just looking around. The floor tiles looked like they could be granite, though very smooth and polished to a shine, black and red and white. The walls looked to be stone — and they should be, mostly, the porcelain was only a thin upper layer, panels two feet by four. The dominant color was a creamy off-white, but there were designs dyed into it, swirling lines in a rainbow of color, dancing around each other, in places condensing into flowers — rather tropical, bright colors and complex blossoms — in others birds in flight, or prancing deer— No, halla, those were halla, the long curling corkscrewing horns gave it away. The artwork struck him asveryelvish, actually, though that wasn't a surprise — Tevinter had a significant elven population, they'd had a large influence on their art going all the way back to the classical era. And, there were the elves of the Arlathan Forest, of course, the Tevinters had had andstillhad close cultural contact with them, so.

The dominant feature of the atrium was the skylight. In the original design, in stand-alone single-family homes, it would just be a hole in the roof letting in light, rainwater collected in a pool beneath to be used for whatever purpose. Of course, modern Tevinter had running water pretty much everywhere now, so they didn't need to do that sort of thing anymore, and obviously they couldn't just put a bunch of holes down through a multi-level apartment building. Instead, a square section of the ceiling and the floor right under it, maybe two feet to a side, was made out of clear glass, an array of mirrors on the roof collecting sunlight and directing it downward, more mirrors and lenses and amplification enchantments built into each floor level keeping it going. It was surprisingly intense, a shaft of pale gold slashed through the center of the room, mirrors fixed on spindly little frames redirecting some of it up at the ceiling, the pale porcelain there almost seeming to faintly glow, filling the room with light — not bright enough to be unpleasant on the eyes (though he wouldn't want to stare at the center of it too long), but definitely more than enough to read by.

It was quite pretty, actually. The drawings he'd seenreallyhadn't done the thing justice.

But, well, pretty as it was, itreallyshouldn't be here — the Tevinters hadn't invented this sort of thing untillongafter Kinloch Hold had been built. Also, he thought he would have noticed at some point? Also, it should still be dark out...

Feeling a little dazed, numb, Alim drifted through the room — weaving between chairs and sofas and little tables, stepping over children's toys strewn across the floor — passing the doors to both sides without a glance, making for the back right corner. It looked like there was a little alcove over here, light spilling out that didn't seem to be coming from the skylight...

Yep, there was a window over here, sunlight illuminating a little reading nook, two poofy armchairs and a couple bookshelves along the walls. Alim leaned close to look out the window, practically pressing his nose against the glass. Straight across was another tall building, white stone practically glowing in the sunlight, shadowed here and there with ornamentation in, well, probably more porcelain. (Tevinter used porcelain for f*cking everything these days.) They were on a curving little street, dense with people wandering around, carts pulled by dracolisks — he was pretty damn high up, more than he'd thought, he had to be on the sixth or seventh floor, maybe higher — he looked to the right, more buildings, the sea a mile or so away, to the left—

Oh.

Those were the Glass Spires, home to the Convocation of Grand Clerics of the Black Chantry, and the Imperial University of Minrathous. Yep, he was definitely in Minrathous.

He waspretty surethere wasn't some kind of gateway to Minrathous in the Enchanters' apartments. As far as he knew, magical transportation at this range was...well, notimpossible, theoretically, but certainly impractical. He couldn'tactuallybe here.

He must be in the Fade. They'd been about to fight an abomination, apowerfulabomination, and...

Sloth. It must have put them to sleep and trapped them in a comfortable dream, somewhere they wouldn't want to resist, would want tostay, until their bodies back in the real world withered away.

WhyTevinter, though?

Where else can a mage live free?

Orzammar? That was where he'd been planning on going, when he'd attempted to escape. Also, the Anderfels, Rivain. sh*t, the Dalish would probably take him, if he asked nicely — and agreed to forsake the Chant, obviously, but still.

"Alim? Is that you?" He twitched, looked over his shoulder. Even as the doorway at the back room came into sight, somebody leaned out of it.Somebody, like he hadn't known it was Lacie just from the sound of her voice. She looked older, but not by a whole lot — late twenties, maybe — her hair longer, tied back loosely, deep black curls spilling down her back. She was in a sky-blue northern-style dress, scandalous by southern standards — her knees, arms, and most of her shoulders were uncovered, the material flimsy enough the way it draped over her figure was, um, kind of distracting. Of course, itwasf*cking hot in Tevinter, clothes up there tended to be briefer and thinner than anything worn in the south.

By everyone except whor*s, of course. Like he'd said, scandalous by southern standards.

Blinking in confusion, the only response Alim managed was, "Uh..."

"I was wondering whether you'd make it back for lunch — Crina didn't hold you up too long this time?"

...The f*ck wasCrina?

"Come on, we were just sitting down." Lacie disappeared back through the door. The kitchen would be through there, Alim knew. He didn't really decide to move, before he knew it he was walking through the door — still in a daze, confused — had barely got a chance to look around before—

The breath was knocked out of him as something hard slammed into him, low on his stomach, little arms wrapping around his thighs. "Tătic!" What...? Oh, right, Tevene,Daddy... And the girl was babbling away, still in Tevene — despite not speaking Tevene (at least not the modern language), Alim understood every word, in that instinctive way things just made sense in dreams sometimes. His hand having found its own way to the girl's head — her hair was red, though darker than his, yet fire but colder — Alim just stared down at her for a few seconds, blinking dumbly. She had Lacie's eyes. There was a second kid sitting at the kitchen table, younger, Lacie was already over there fussing over him.

Alim snorted. "That the best you got? Tevinter Enchanter, complete with wife and kids?" He...wasn't sure how he knew he was supposed to be an Enchanter, teaching at the University, he just did.

Lacie looked up at him, smiling, but her voice wasn't quite her own, too flat and deep — the demon speaking through her, he knew. It was unsettling, to say the least. "And why not? This is a good life, calm, peaceful."

"Peaceful? Tevinterisat war with the Qun, you know."

"There is no war here. Just your studies at the University, your students, your family. Mock it all you like, but you would be happy here."

"Uh-huh," sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "If you think this is what I want, I don't think you know me very well."

Abruptly, blink and he'd miss it, Lacie was replaced with Cera.

"...That kind of wasn't the problem."

And now she was Solana.

Alim glanced down at the girl half-hugging him — still elven — and back up at the demon. "How is that supposed to work, exactly?" Solana was human, so...

And now Lýna.

He coughed — yeah, he was givingthatidea a hard pass. "Right, well, I'm just going to go now." Shoving the little girl away, Alim turned right around, moving back for the atrium. He half expected hissing and shouting from the demon, but its wheedling was softer than he'd think, going for a suggestive, seductive tone.

Which, if it'dreallywanted to make him stay, maybe it should have tried not being Lýna. That was just f*cking creepy.

Alim wasn't a Dreamer, obviously, but the Fade was a funny place. Space in dreams didn't work the same way they did in real life — everything in the Fade was connected to everything else, travel done more through following a thought from one end to the other. So, when he came up to the shaft of light slicing through the room... Wynne, he was the most familiar with her, and as a mage she'd have the clearest presence in the Fade. He thought of Wynne, focused on his memory of her as intensely as he could, he stepped into the light—

—a wave of nausea, his head spun, magic hissing and crackling around him—

—stepped out of it. Into a sitting room, one of the mages' apartments in the tower. It was nice enough, the floor covered with rugs, padded armchairs arrayed here and there. The place was obviously lived in, books and little trinkets scattered around. People-wise, the room was empty, save for a woman in one of the chairs.

...Thathadto be Wynne, but she was hardly recognizable. She wasmuchyounger than Alim had ever seen her — maybe about his age? Her face rounder and softer, completely absent the familiar wrinkles, her long hair the pale straw blonde common among people of Avvar blood, left loose to tumble in thick curls over her shoulders. Also, she was wearing what was clearly a nightdress of some kind, and Alim would rathernotsee the closest thing he had to a grandmother underdressed, thanks. Even if she was alotyounger and kind of—

No, brain, stop,damn it!

She had something cradled in her arms that— Oh, an infant. Tiny, maybe a year old at the most, sleeping bundled up in blankets. Seeing Wynne with a kid in her arms wasn't actuallyunusual— this young, he guessed, but still — but the look on her face, gentle but intense all at once, was sort of...

Did... Did Wynne have achild?

"Yes, I did."

Oh! sh*t, he hadn't meant to say that aloud. "Um, sorry. I, uh, didn't know that."

Wynne glanced up at him — she might be weirdly young, but her soft blue-green eyes were still the same — a gentle smile pulling at her lips. "It's not something that's spoken of often, and few of us who were there are still around. It was so very long ago..." Her gaze was drawn back to the baby, one finger playing at a wisp of hair.

Right. Well.Thiswas awkward.

Births at the Circle wereveryuncommon. Which it didn't really seem like theyshouldbe, considering the mages (at least the younger ones) were screwing around pretty much all the time. He meant, they were locked up in a tower together, there wasn't really much else to do — except read or practice magic, and a person could only tolerate doing that so many hours a day. But, because they did have magic and alchemy of all kinds available to them, there were all kinds of methods they could use to avoid it. No technique to prevent conception worked one hundred percent of the time — except sticking to the same sex or the opposite race, he guessed — but ending a pregnancy was trivial, and perfectly safe in the early stages.

Alim had actually helped Lacie get the potion together once — he wasn't exactly a genius with alchemy, but she hadn't been confident in her ability to do it properly. Though, that had been kind of awkward. He meant, it didn't bother him in principle, and he was perfectly willing to help a friend who needed it, especially when it wasn't very difficult. But, he...kind of thought it'd been his? He wasn't theonlyperson Lacie screwed around with, but he'd counted back weeks, and it'd seemed pretty likely. Not that heminded, exactly, it'd just been...weird. Standing around brewing the thing, he'd kept thinking he should, he didn't know, apologize. Except, not that, exactly? Saysomething, at least, but he had no f*cking clue what, so instead they'd just stood there in awkward silence, and it'd beenseriouslydamn uncomfortable.

And, there werereasonsbirths were so uncommon aside from mages just not wanting to deal with it. Sometimes the Templars themselves ensured pregnancies never came to term — after all, the Templars in general would rather mages didn't exist at all, so letting them breed was counterproductive. They would even force an abortion on mages who wanted to keep it, though that almost never happened, because there werevery good reasonsto not. For one, a child of two mages wasverylikely to be a mage themselves, so, any child mages of the Circle had would probably be doomed to a life lived in captivity, fanatics with swords watching them day and night.

The Templars didn't even let the childrenplay outside. Given the environment they lived in, having children seemed horribly irresponsible.

Also? If a magedoeshave a child, they aren't allowed tokeepit. The infant would stay with the mother for a time — several months at least, two years at most — but only until the Circle decided it was safe to relocate them. The child would be moved to a different Circle, probably in an entirely different country. They would never see each other again. Often, the Templars would even change the kid's name, never tell them who their parents were, destroying any chance of them ever finding each other down the line.

The women of the Circle, quite reasonably, didn't want to go through that. Even those who had moral qualms with killing a child in the womb often thought it a lesser evil.

And Wynnehadgone through that, apparently.

Alim had had no idea...

He was about to come closer to... sh*t, he didn't know, dosomething. But he noticed there was... They weren't alone. At first, it was just the faintest presence on the air, a warm, tingling weight. Then, little wisps of gold-white light brushing over Wynne's shoulders. Its form gradually resolved, the wisps becoming hands, extending up into arms, and finally a recognizable human form, draped over the back of the chair — the gold-white light took on the color of hair and cloth and flesh, but transparently, inconsistently, the spirit beneath the illusion still leaking through.

Alim swallowed — Wynne's partner spirit, it had to be.

Resting its chin on the top of Wynne's head, looking down over her at the infant, it said, "He is a sweet child." Its voice sounded vaguely elven, but with a peculiar echo to it, reverberating through the magic of the Fade.

"Yes, he was." The sadness on Wynne's voice was painfully obvious.

"He is well, you know."

"I know." Wynne looked up at Alim again, giving him a distracted sort of smile. "Greagoir has been keeping me informed. He's an Enchanter at the White Spire now. Rhys of Lydes."

Alim gaped at her. "Rhys of Lydes? You don't mean the same Rhys of Lydes who was apprenticed to the Circle's ambassador to Tevinter, and was sent back for injuring three apprentices in a drunken brawl?" That had been, what, nearly fifteen years ago now? It'd been a bit of a diplomatic sh*t-storm back in the day...though the northern Circle hadn't madetoobig of a deal about it, the ambassador had even been allowed to remain in the country — the impression Alim had gotten, reading about it a decade after the fact, was that the authorities had decided Rhys had been in the right...and had maybe been a little impressed he'd been the only one conscious at the end of the fight, despite being outnumbered three to one.

Wynne smiled up at him, a little crooked, her eyes dancing. "Alim, silly boy, why are you so surprised? He's half-Avvar, after all."

He bit his lip to keep himself from giggling. Not that it did any good, echoes carried through the magic around him anyway, stupid Fade...

Its voice low, soft, the spirit muttered into Wynne's hair, "We have to go,Elska."

"I know." For another brief moment, Wynne stared down at her son. Before Alim could decide if he should be doing or saying anything, she moved, rising to her feet more smoothly and easily than she would be capable of in real life. The dream-infant was, abruptly, gone, dissolved back into the Fade. "We are dreaming. I assume the demon is holding us here."

"Yes." The spirit burst into wisps of light, flittered over to Wynne in a blink, reformed itself next to her, joined at the elbow. "However, its attention is divided. It should be easy to break yourselves out of its grasp if you gather yourselves together, give your presence more weight than it can compensate for."

That didn't really make sense to Alim, but apparently it did to Wynne, she just nodded. "You can carry the both of us along my intention?"

"Ah, I'm afraid using you as a focus would be...complicated."

...Because she was an abomination, right? Alim assumed that might do weird things with how everything in the Fade was all mixed up — drawing a line between Wynne and someone else might end up getting the spirit drawn in somehow. Or something, he didn't know.

The spirit turned a smile on him. It looked a bit wrong on its fake, stiff human features, but the soft, gentle glow of its magic — warm and soothing on his skin, a pleasant twitter in his ears — prevented it from seeming too creepy. "Now, sweet boy, that's a horrible thing to call someone."

"But you are, right? I mean," Alim grimaced, said to Wynne, "I'm not going to—Noneof us are going to say anything, we don't want... You know. But, youarean abomination now. Right?"

Wynne's lips tilted into a sardonic smile. "I believe the term isspirit-healer."

"I'm pretty sure spirit-healers are justfriendlyabominations."

An edge of dry humor on her voice, "Be a good boy, and maybe I'llstayfriendly."

Alim giggled. It was a little embarrassing, actually, but he couldn't help himself.

The spirit started explaining what they were about to do and what it needed from him, but stopped immediately — it was clearly reading his mind somehow, must have realized he already knew. Alim stepped up to Wynne, taking her free arm. He wasn't certain whether all of them touching was actually necessary, it wasn't like any of this was real to begin with, but just in case. He closed his eyes, focused on...

Oh. "Um, the people who came with us, a lot of them I don't even know their names. I doubt I can find them in here."

"That's all right," the spirit said, smooth and reassuring. "We simply need to gather enough weight to pull yourselves free. Your Seeker can easily return the others to their bodies once the demon is dealt with."

Right, so they were just trying to wake up so they could help Esmond kill the thing. Got it. So, starting with the other Wardens... Lýna, he'd find Lýna first. He concentrated, pulling forth memories of his time with the Wardens, Lýna being so veryLýna, holding them in his head as solidly as he could—

—a wave of nausea, his head spun, magic hissing and crackling around him—

"Hey, Alim! Sit down, sit down — Goldanna's just finishing up with dinner, I think." Well, apparentlysomethinghad gone wrong, because that was definitely Alistair's voice.

They were standing in a combined kitchen and dining room, rather modest. Probably a peasant home in a city somewhere — in the homes of people with any significant wealth this space would be two separate rooms, and they'd have servants to work them. Too, the furnishings were pretty basic. The table, chairs arrayed around it, was rough wood, simple and undecorated, surfaces smoothed by years of constant use, chipped here and there from impacts. There were cabinets on the floor here and there, counters along the top side, holding baskets filled with a variety of things — bread, vegetables, dried herbs, a little one had several eggs. Various cooking implements and pans and such were hung on hooks on the wall, mostly inexpensive earthenware and iron.

There was an old wood stove made of roughly-hewn granite bricks, scorched black in places from repeated exposure to fire, shuttered vents at the top forming a simple hob. Inside, Alim could see, suspended over the smoldering coals was a pan of some kind, probably a cheap imitation porcelain — sturdy enough to survive the heat of the fire, but it'd likely shatter if dropped. (The secret to making Tevinter ceramics was fiercely protected by its producers, southern manufacturers hadn't yet managed to reverse-engineer it.) There was some kind of pie cooking in it — a savory pie, most like, vegetables and gravy and meat — a greening copper teapot on the hob, a few buns held a little above the heating surface on a sort of rack — must be a lot of gravy in that pie, if they would be having more bread with it. Either that, or the cook was accustomed to feeding Wardens, he guessed.

Tending the fire and watching the teapot was an auburn-haired woman, maybe thirty at the oldest, wearing a plain but well-cared-for woolen dress, peasant wear. Alistair was seated at the table — he looked the same as always, though his armor had been removed, leaving him in the linen trousers and shirt Alim knew he wore under it. He was cheerfully grinning up at them...bouncing a little boy, maybe around two years old, on his knee.

There were a few other children running around too — the oldest was a boy of maybe ten, though there were two younger girls and...Alim wasn't certain whether that one was a boy or girl, children tended to be dressed the same regardless. While the woman at the stove (Goldanna, was it?) said something about yes, welcome, Alim, go ahead and have a seat, almost done, one of the kids ran up to him, chattering away, bouncing excitedly on her toes, begging her "Uncle Allie" to show her magic tricks.

Refusing to allow himself to be drawn into the scene with a quick focusing exercise — dead easy after years and years practicing magic — Alim turned to Wynne. "Why does this demon keep trying to ply me with small children? I don't evenlikekids."

"Maybe it knows something about you you don't," Wynne said, slyly, smiling mockingly at him.

"I was recently informed I can't have children. Warden stuff."

"Family is more than biology, sweet boy. And I do believe this precious girl," Wynne said, reaching out to ruffle her hair (the girl giggled), "isn't claiming you as a father in any case."

She wasdefinitelyteasing him. "Whatever. Right, Alistair, we don't have time for this."

"Oh, don't be like that, Alim," Alistair whined. "The Commander isn't going to begrudge us taking it easy for a single evening. Besides, it's not like there's anything urgent going on, Wardens aren't really needed when there isn't a Blight on, are we? Go on, sit down! Goldanna's mince pie is excellent..."

"I'm sure it is." Theywerein the Fade, after all, it would be an idealized expression of the concept of mince pie — food here was always excellent, if a little...weird. "The problem is that Blight thing, you know, wearekind of needed."