Mindless Self Indulgence 60302

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Mindless Self Indulgence 60302

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A long/unwieldly mirror of everything.

chronological organization/outline attempt/TOC

Prequel/Prologue (9:2x): Missionary Girl, Circle of Magi @ Kinloch Hold

DAO/5th Blight

Magi Origin & Duncan Conscripts Emma

⏳Kinloch Hold → Ostagar: ~14–20 days

Ostagar/the Wilds/Ishal (9:30)

Entry, King Cailan intro

Transitions – Ostagar

Muffin intro

Bad PUG – Korcari Wilds

Swooping is Bad/Morrigan intro – ruined GW outpost, KW

ecclesiastical (the Joining), GLORIOUS

Battle of Ostagar, journey to Lothering

Ishal Offense – Ishal Tower/Ostagar (near Kokari Wilds)

Washed up – Flemeth's Hut, Korcari Wilds

Muffin recruitment :)

Conscripts, Retriculating Splines, Grief

insomnia, Space – Imperial Highway, outside Lothering (Alistair dialogue)

⏳Korcari Wilds → Lothering: 2–4 days

Lothering – otw to Redliffe

⏳Ostagar → Flemeth → Lothering: ~1–1.5 weeks

Fear & Lothering

Exposure & Vow, Leliana's intro – Dane's Refuge

vertical, Bounty, Threads, Tilted

Business, death cults 2 (add here: various fetch quests, Moristair banter)

Sten recruitment

Judgement (Morrigan Dialogue) & death cults 1

⏳Lothering → Redcliffe: ~1–2 weeks

Bloom/Leliana's Dream – otw to Redcliffe

shy boy & he will show you why – otw 2 RC

Redcliffe 1

Confession – outside Redcliffe

Trust – followup w Morrigan

Tomas & Siege setup, gossip scene?

Placebo & info management – Redcliffe Village

Dead Siege of Redcliffe – Redcliffe Village

Windmill Sunrise & jealousy – Windmill @ RC Village

Redcliffe Castle

Small Cowardices – Redcliffe castle dungeon

1st revenant – RC castle courtyard

DPS – Redcliffe Castle, Main floor

a false bottom – 2nd floor, Redcliffe Castle

Main hall, meeting Connor, deciding to appeal to Circle of Magi for help

Memorial for the losses, victory celebrated by townspeople

Can't Not – post siege celebrations?

Necessary – RC docks, otw to Kinloch

⏳Redcliffe events (pre-Circle decision): ~3–6 days

⏳From Ostagar → Flemeth’s hut → Lothering → Redcliffe → decision to go to the Circle: 6 weeks

Circle of Magi/A Broken Circle – Kinloch Hold

⏳Redcliffe → Kinloch Hold: 1-2 days, across Lake Calenhad. (TOTAL: 2 months)

Truce & Tautology – Lake Calenhad docks, outside Kinloch Hold

Deconvolution – Kinloch Hold/Circle of Magi

Threshold – Apprentice Quarters, Circle of Magi

Regret – 2nd floor

Revenant

Maleficarum – Great Hall

Lost in Dreams, The Fade (via Kinloch Hold)

Silence – Emma's Dream

Proximity – The Raw Fade

🐭

Pedagogy – Wynne & Leliana's Dream

Syrup & Ash – Alistair's Dream

WAKE UPPPP (Circle of Magi/Kinloch Hold, again)

The Prisoner – in front of stairs leading to Harrowing Chamber

Broken Circle Boss – Harrowing Chamber/Observatory

Clanker – descending Kinloch Hold

goodbye

Redcliffe, again

Boat – Lake Calenhad/Redcliffe

Icky, connor – Redcliffe, & RC chantry

Floating – Lake Calenhad, RC

⏳Redcliffe → Denerim: ~11 days (total: ~2.5 months)

Fate – otw out of Redcliffe

Urn of Sacred Ashes

⏳Denerim stay: ~2 days

Denerim: Market district, Ser Landry

Dirty Laundry

⏳Denerim → Haven: ~12 days

Zevran recruitment

Areli's Prequel/Prologue (9:2x)

Circle of Magi @ Kinloch Hold. Areli Surana, Cullen, Emma (human mage, not Amell) + others (polyamorous)

Missionary Girl

The chantry’s stained glass, a beautiful mosaic of martyrs, pulsed faintly by candlelight; Dramatic lighting for Areli to consider this persistent human. It wasn’t that Kelli had been unkind; in fact, she radiated a bright, missionary warmth.

“You’re not Andrastan,” said the zealot so cheerfully, “but I see and appreciate your reverence. May Andraste bless you.”

She nodded gently to accept the blessing, but wondered why Kelli lingered. She had begun to suspect that her friendliness—possibly flirting—had maybe something to do with—

“Kelli, you're not.. doing this because I’m an elf? are you?,” she felt foolish, exposed, uncertain... until the other apprentice's smile faltered.

In spite of this, she bravely stepped closer to the elf, who stared at the floor, watching the hem of her robes brushing the stone. Areli’s throat tightened. Kelli was also a mage, yes, but a zealot, dripping with piety and shame. She was passionate, beautiful, frightening, pitiable, intriguing, intense. A very weird girl.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Kelli, preposterously.

She’s waiting for the right moment to talk to me about Andraste, Areli thought with dread.

But then Kelli said something that surprised her, “You always carry that same book,” her eyes on the leather-bound tome. “The one with the faded sigil. You read it every time you’re here.”

“Did you know?, you and I,” Kelli paused dramatically, “are the only ones who come here to contemplate the same work. Mine is the Chant of Light, of course. But I wonder... what could possibly hold your attention so steadfastly?”

Areli felt bashful; This chapel was allegedly built a sanctuary, not for an interrogation. For a moment, it occurred to her to lie. She felt she could say anything and it would impress. The title in the faded sigil described Tevinter poetry she'd memorized. She could recite it, and this acolyte would receive the elven apprentice as a fellow pilgrim on a parallel path.

It would be mutual, romantic — two hyper-focused, obedient maidens from different worlds, acknowledging the other in soft respect. She imagined the acolyte’s gaze dissecting her, parsing every flicker of reluctance, every contrary impulse and reaction.

“Don't be shy. What could possibly inspire you to return, again and again, to the same pages?” Kelli repeated this invitation, leaning forward slightly more...Areli smelled lavender, dry starch of parchment, a bit of soot.

Her fingers tightened around the book’s spine. She should have lied, of course.

But she opened the book, revealing a mix of pages, chunks of desperate texts, handwritten letters... a salacious assortment sewn amateurishly into binding that was meant to appear dull. She flipped briskly through these pages, processed her audience's reaction, and snapped it closed again... the plain binding now just so extra defiantly ordinary.

“I'm sorry,” Kelli was flustered, “That's not what I expected.”

“You wanted to know,” for one heartbeat, Areli returned the intensity of Kelli’s gaze at her. Then Kelli stepped back, her smile brittle, perhaps apologetic.

“I… I should go.”

Areli watched her leave, then opened the book again.

^

DAO, the 5th Blight (9:30-34)

an unfortunate novelization. human Warden, not Amell. Aliwarden/Emestair, H/C, slow burn. + unrequited polyamorous yearning.

Transition – Ostagar

The mage encampment was a cordoned section of the fortress grounds, tents clustered around cook fires and makeshift worktables. Templars stood at the perimeter in loose pairs, hands near hilts, not quite at ease. Senior enchanters occupied the spaces nearest the command tent. Junior mages at the periphery. Healers near the supply wagons, where Templars watched them most warily.

Emma recognized the Circle's organizational logic immediately. Familiar geometry imposed on hostile ground.

She stopped at the edge of the encampment, staff grounded, and watched mages she recognized move between tents. Faces from Kinloch Hold. Apprentices she'd eaten beside, argued with through pamphlets, deliberately avoided. She didn't try to cross the boundary. That would turn distance into spectacle.

But then—

“Ah,” Wynne said pleasantly. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Emma had been turning away. She nearly walked straight into her.

Senior Enchanter Wynne stood with hands folded, expression composed into professional warmth. Her gaze passed over Emma with the careful disinterest one might show a stranger at market.

They had met. Multiple times. Wynne had supervised her practical examinations in the healing ward.

Emma felt the old, familiar sting: recognition without acknowledgment. Reality rewritten gently enough to pass for courtesy.

“Senior Enchanter,” Emma said. “I was in your lectures,” She did not add when, or for how long.

Wynne tilted her head, as though searching her memory. “Have you just arrived? The Grey Wardens keep such irregular hours.” Her tone was mild, conversational. “I’m sure we’ll have time to become properly acquainted once things settle.”

“Of course.” Emma didn't correct her. The slight was deliberate, professional. She moved on before the conversation could become instruction.

As an unwilling conscript, she thought Duncan owed answers, but he dismissed her: “Alistair can help you with those.”

A watchman at the fortress entrance had proven more informative than the Warden-Commander. He'd pointed her north, explained which sections of camp belonged to recruits, which to the king's army, which to dignitaries.

“You can't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody important,” he'd added cheerfully.

And so Emma now wandered the camp's northern section, trying to orient herself. Soldiers argued over rations and rotations. Armor clattered. The air smelled of iron, sweat, wet dogs and wetter earth.

She was still processing that when raised voices caught her attention. A mage in Circle robes stood bristling on the highway threshold, posture rigid with offense. Emma recognized him vaguely—bureaucratic, punitive, somehow also libertarian. A walking contradiction she was mildly surprised they'd let out at all.

“What is it now?” the mage snapped. “Haven’t the Grey Wardens asked more than enough of the Circle?”

“I simply came to deliver a message from the Revered Mother,” a young man in splintmail said, haltingly. “She desires your presence.”

“What her Reverence desires is of no concern to me! I am busy aiding the Grey Wardens—by the king’s orders, I might add!”

The mage's eyes glanced past the messenger dismissively. Then past Emma, less than dismissively. as if she weren't there at all.

“Should I have asked her to write a note?” the young man asked, with a bratlike mildness.

“Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!”

“Yes. I was harassing you. By delivering a message.”

The mage huffed. “Your glibness does you no credit.”

“Here I thought we were getting along,” the messenger escalated. “I was even going to name one of my children after you. The grumpy one.”

“Enough! I will speak to the woman, if I must. Out of my way, fool!”

To his credit, the messenger seemed to know exactly how to end the conversation. He stepped aside with exaggerated courtesy, then turned—and noticed Emma immediately. His expression cycled rapidly through surprise and something like cheer.

He was slightly tall, broad-shouldered, face young but already weathered. Sun-bleached copper hair had been mostly flattened by the helm tucked under his arm, but a single cowlick stood upright.

He said: “You know... one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”

“You're quite odd.” Emma planted her staff on the stone, weight shifted to one hip.

“You’re not the first to notice.” He tilted his head. “We haven’t met, have we? I don’t suppose you’re another mage?”

“I am.”

He looked genuinely startled. “Really? You don’t look like a mage.”

Emma's robes hung loose. She carried a staff nearly as tall as she was. Her silhouette was unmistakably that of a Circle mage.

“I mean—you do,” he rushed. “Obviously. I just—” He grimaced. “You seem… normal. That came out wrong.”

“It did.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Wait. I do know who you are. I'm sorry... I should have recognized you immediately. You're Duncan's new recruit, from the Circle.”

“Why would you recognize me?”

“Duncan sent word,” he said. “He spoke quite highly of you.”

That explained a great deal.

“Let me try again.” He straightened slightly, attempting something like formality. “I'm Alistair. The new Grey Warden.” The emphasis on 'new' carried obvious pride, like a child showing off a scraped knee. “Though I guess you knew that... As a Junior member of the order. I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining.”

Emma: “The Joining...Which Duncan refused to explain.”

“Oh. Right. That.” He waved a hand. “Nothing to worry about. Best not to think about it. It’s… distracting.” He pivoted abruptly. “Did you know there've never been many women in the Grey Wardens? I wonder why that is.”

“We’re too smart for you,” she said.

He blinked. “Fair. But then, if you’re here, what does that make you?”

“Incredibly unlucky.”

“Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his breastplate, in mock injury.

The training yard was quieter at dawn, the kind of quiet that wasn't peace so much as exhaustion between shifts. Soldiers moved through the fog in small squads, trading rumours about the darkspawn.

Alistair was alone, checking a shield strap when Emma approached.

“Morning,” he said without looking up. “Sleep well?”

“Well enough.” She had rested. Sleep had not been part of the arrangement.

Emma dropped her pack beside him and crouched, pulling out two items without ceremony.

“I wanted to give you these before we head out.”

He straightened, curious despite himself. An apprentice's amulet. Plain copper, worn smooth at the edges, etched with a modest enchantment for elemental protection. And an ephemeralist's belt, the leather darkened with age, stamped by the Fomari. Its buckle nicked but solid. Tools, not trophies.

“These are Circle issue,” he said carefully.

“They were mine. But I won't use them.”

He turned the amulet over in his palm. His thumb brushed the Circle of Magi sigil, as if checking whether it would burn him.

“You're giving me your gear.”

“You'll need it.”

No sentiment. No explanation. Just an assessment. And an unspoken, correct assumption that he'd be first in marching order.

“Right,” he said after a moment. “Very practical.”

He threaded the belt on, tugged it snug, tested the weight. It fit. Of course it did. She wouldn't have offered it otherwise.

“Thank you,” he added, quieter. “I mean that.”

She nodded once, already straightening. He noticed she didn't seem to want his gratitude. Just accepted the acknowledgment and moved on.

“Duncan wants us in the Wilds after breakfast,” Alistair said, fastening the amulet beneath his mail. “You'll meet the other recruits then. Daveth and Jory. They're… well. You'll see.”

Then, casually, as if the thought had just occurred to her—and she weren't repeating a question he'd already refused to answer:

“And the Joining?”

He stilled. Was this a reason she had given him these things?

“Secret ritual,” she counted on one finger. “Darkspawn blood.” The next finger. “Former templar oversight.” Another.

She met his eyes, waving those three fingers. “Any Circle-trained mage would call this suspicious.”

He exhaled through his nose.

“Then it's good you're not in the Circle anymore,” he said, attempting levity and missing by inches. “Look, Duncan wouldn't— he's not like that.”

“Like what?”

The question was neutral. Clinical. It wasn't an accusation. That was worse.

He shifted his weight, shield strap creaking. “He's not reckless. He's a good man.”

“Good men can still do dangerous things,” Emma said. “Especially when they deem it necessary.”

Alistair frowned, not offended so much as unsettled. “You think this is blood magic.”

“I think it involves blood,” she said. “I think it's secret. There's no informed consent.”

“And you think I'd be concerned, because I was a templar.”

She didn't answer immediately. She watched him answer for her.

“If that's what you're worried about—I'm here because I didn't want to spend my life chanting and hunting mages. Duncan… gave me a way out. He asked me to be here. And I trust him.”

“So you're not opposed to forbidden magic.”

He let out a short, surprised laugh. “Is that what this is? An interview? Do you want to ask me about anything else, while you're at it?”

“A risk assessment.”

“Charming.”

“Necessary.”

He considered that, then nodded, reluctantly. “I spent years in that chantry, hopelessly resigned to my fate,” he said, more bluntly than before. “They raised me. The grand cleric wouldn't have let me go if Duncan never forced the issue. I'll always be grateful.”

“He needed a recruit,” she said.

“Sure,” he said at once. Too fast. “But he wanted to help. Duncan saw I wasn't happy, and figured my training against mages could double for fighting darkspawn.”

He planted his feet like something was about to be taken from him.

“Those things aren't mutually exclusive,” she said.

He went quiet. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its defensive edge.

“Look. I know it's scary. I was terrified. Still am, some days. But the Grey Wardens have fought Blights for centuries. They know what they're doing.”

“Do they?”

He met her eyes this time.

“I have to believe they do,” he said. “Because if they don't, we're all fucked anyway.”

bad PUG

The Wilds swallowed sound sickly. Not silence—worse, a total drone. Insects whining, water slapping mud, reeds whispering. Boots squelched through shallow black muck that released methane bubbles with each step.

Emma scanned automatically: lines of sight, tree density, angles she could fire through. The Circle had trained her in practice halls within the tower's neat spiral geometry. This swamp had too much liquid motion, too much swaying brush. Her stomach churned. The staff at her back felt heavier with each breath.

Ahead, Alistair stomped across a fallen log, steel clanking like he wanted to be heard for miles.

The other Warden recruits lingered with her. Daveth's arrow was half-knocked, as if he meant to draw on the bugs. “Maker’s breath, are we doing this with him in charge?”

Jory whispered, not that quietly, “He said he’s only killed one darkspawn.”

Emma stopped. The others nearly collided with her. Jory clipped her shoulder.

Alistair looked back, startled. Jory and Daveth exchanged glances.

“You go first,” she said flatly to Jory, who scrambled over the log after Alistair. She followed. Daveth moved reluctantly, staring at the marsh ahead, tense on his bow.

Emma caught up to Alistair just as he tried conversation.

“In the Circle, did anyone ever tell you you're very—” He hesitated. “I was going to say 'intimidating,' but that sounds—”

“No.” In the Circle, she'd been ordinary. Outside it, she was frightening by default. Everyone feared a mage. She'd always known this, but living it was strange, how the two recruits just... obeyed.

Alistair opened his mouth again, but froze. His hand shot up. His eyes were distant. Something moved in the fog. A wet, dragging growl. He pointed: “They're moving parallel to us.”

Daveth squeaked, “Following us?”

Alistair: “No. Passing.” His certainty was unnerving.

Jory's hand was already on his sword.

“Jory, don't,” Emma said.

Daveth looked like he wanted to argue.

They waited.

The insect drone dimmed. Reeds bent without wind. Shapes drifted between trees—three darkspawn, moving on warped joints, hunched as if tasting the air. One paused.

Emma's skin crawled.

Alistair's hand tightened on his sword hilt, but he didn't draw. She could smell sweat despite the cold.

The darkspawn kept moving. One by one, they vanished into fog.

Daveth let out a shaky exhale. Jory looked like he might vomit. Emma wasn’t far behind.

The injured soldier was worse than she expected. Gut torn, intestines spilling through ruined armor. Already dead, just slow about it.

Where was the thing that inflicted this wound?

Bait. This was bait.

The dying soldier gurgled something—maybe “run.”

“Maker,” Jory whispered, stepping forward.

Emma grabbed his arm. “There's more.”

“What?—”

“There's definitely more,” Alistair confirmed, shield already half-raised.

Then the darkspawn broke through the tree line. Four of them, one moving faster than the others. Emma cast instantly. Lightning crawled up the hurlock's legs, muscles spasming.

Alistair charged straight through the arc of her spell. Her breath caught—but his armor rang. She felt a ripple of displacement. Her lightning scattered across him. It felt wrong.

His shield slammed into the hurlock’s knee, buckling it. Sword through the throat. Brutal, clean.

A genlock beelined for Daveth. He parried well enough; Emma fried the creature a moment later.

“Jory, LEFT!” Alistair shouted.

Jory spun too late. He screamed as a saw-like blade opened his shoulder. Emma pulled mana through herself like drawing water from a well. The wound clotted and sealed.

“Stay up,” she snapped at him. “You're fine.”

Jory looked at his shoulder, shocked that he was, in fact, fine. The last genlock charged Emma directly. Alistair interposed himself, it's sword scraping off his shield. He kicked it back.

Emma blew it apart. Sticky black meat rained on them.

Silence. Then the drone resumed, like nothing had happened.

Alistair leaned against a tree, panting. Emma moved to the now-actually-dead soldier first, then Jory. She applied a poultice without asking if he needed it.

She stopped in front of Alistair, watching him breathe. “What’s wrong with you?”

Alistair: “Oh... lots of things. Anything in particular?”

“You're bleeding.”

“Am I?” He looked down at himself, baffled, tired.

She pulled at his mail, checking the dented sections until she found padding underneath, crushed flat. Deep bruising. Internal bleeding.

“There.” Emma pressed her palm flat against the metal plates at his side. He flinched.

“Oh. Yes, apparently I am... Huh—I didn't even—”

He felt an odd sensation of blood reabsorbing, swelling receding. Pressure subsided; the internal ache unwound itself.

Alistair: “That's deeply unsettling. You do that very casually.”

“I don't have to.”

“No, please do, I'm not really complaining or anything... Just maybe warn me, next time?”

Emma ignored him, inventorying her satchel. Down two healing potions, one antidote, and far too much lyrium. For an encounter maybe ninety seconds long.

“We need to move,” Alistair said, now thinking more clearly. “More could be coming.”

A raven shrieked somewhere in the canopy. Emma looked up, tracking it, but the bird was already gone.

“What was that?” Daveth whispered.

“Wildlife,” Alistair said, unconvincingly.

Emma studied the trees. Didn't share her doubts.

“We should space out,” she said, warily.

The bridge appeared like a trap someone forgot to bury: rickety, half-rotted, spanning a ditch of filthy water. Emma hated it on sight.

“Something's wrong,” Alistair said quietly.

“What kind of wrong?” Daveth asked.

“The... darkspawn kind?” He thought a moment. “A mage,” he said.

“A darkspawn mage?” Jory's voice cracked.

Fire cracked from the far side of the bridge. It flung toward them. Alistair threw himself forward to take the brunt. The spell hit his shield and scattered—heating, blasting with soot, but not burning. The impact knocked him back. He hit the bridge with a steel-and-splinter crash.

Emma pushed forward, staff already lit. She could see the emissary now—hunched, robed in filthy rags, hands glowing with hateful power.

“JORY, get BACK!” Alistair wheezed, pushing himself up.

Of course Jory did the opposite. He charged past the bridge.

Alistair sprinted after him. The bear trap stopped him, snapping shut on his leading leg with a wet crunch. Alistair screamed. Jory scrambled forward in blind panic. The emissary fired again, enveloping Jory in flame.

Daveth loosed arrows at distant archers.

“Shoot the MAGE!” Emma begged him, as Alistair dragged himself free and hauled Jory back by the collar.

The emissary raised its staff for a killing blow. Emma hit it first: a crackling concussive blast that detonated in its face. The creature staggered, clutching its head, spell collapsing. Daveth finished it with an arrow.

Arrows rained on them, still—Emma advanced through the volley, blasting fire to smash the archers backward for Daveth to pick them off. They shrieked terribly—it was unlike anything human, animal, nor demon.

Alistair hauled Jory off the bridge, both of them collapsing on the bank. Emma yanked an arrow out of her own shoulder as the skin closed around the wound. Then she dropped beside them.

Jory’s burns were bad—skin sloughing, blistering. Alistair’s leg was ruined, bent wrong, swelling fast. The fact he’d carried Jory was absurd.

“The emissary was distracted,” Jory protested weakly as she repaired the burns, gritting her teeth at the cost. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong,” Emma snapped at him, then turned to Alistair. She cracked his leg back into place with a brutal movement.

“OW.” He yelped, offended. “Why didn’t you warn me?!”

She leaned in just enough to be heard, voice low. “You should’ve let him run ahead.”

Jory still heard her. He went silent.

Alistair scowled, crossing his arms. “Right. No. Suddenly I understand you much better.”

Up in the canopy, a raven’s silhouette watched them for a moment—golden eyes bright—before vanishing into the mist.

Swooping is Bad

The Korcari Wilds delivered on every promise of misery the name implied. Perpetually overcast, aggressively committed to the “sunless lands” aesthetic—late summer here merely meant snow had mostly melted. The mist hung low and thick, turning everything beyond twenty feet into a vague suggestion. Cold seeped through armor, through leather, through skin, settling into bone with patient malice.

They searched what remained of the ruined outpost, stone jutting from the marsh like broken teeth. A ramp led up to this platform, crumbling at the edges where the swamp had eaten through mortar and stone. Below them, partially submerged in yellow-green water, a domed structure peaked above the waterline—some other ruin, older, already claimed by the wilds and slowly sinking into them.

The architecture suggested Alamarri origin, when people built fortresses in impossible places and left them to rot when ambition exceeded maintenance. Everything here felt like an argument lost to time.

Emma crouched beside the shards of wood that had once been a chest, where documents should have been. The wood was dry. No mud, no water damage, no rot.

Which meant someone had shattered this recently.

Behind her, Alistair exhaled loudly. “Great. That's just perfect.”

That's when her voice emerged from the fog, circling with the casual precision of a predator who'd already decided they weren't worth eating.

“Well, well. What have we here?”

Emma's pulse kicked up. She didn't believe it.

A witch.

The voice came from above—from ruins so structurally unsound that Emma wouldn't have trusted them to hold a cat. From a woman perched on a crumbling spandrel, perfectly balanced.

“Are you a vulture, I wonder? A scavenger poking through bones long since forgotten?” She descended, boots lined with buckles finding purchase on terrain with ease. The ruins waited to crumble until after she passed over them.

“Or merely an intruder come into these darkspawn-filled wilds of mine?”

Over her shoulders, a velvety hood hung open like a robe, barely covering her. And beneath that—bare skin from collarbone to navel. No armor. No modesty. No apology.

And those intense golden eyes—the kind Emma had seen in stalking creatures of these Wilds.

Emma stared, captivated by this apostate. An illegal mage.

Not because she was beautiful, though she was—but for the way she held herself. Confident. Bare but not vulnerable. What would it be like to move through the world so unburdened?

Never in Emma's wildest dreams did she imagine apostasy could be... like this. Like her.

Behind Emma, Daveth was slowly backing down the ramp, bow half-raised, eyes darting through the mist. Jory made a strangled noise, hunching entirely. Alistair went very quiet, stripped of his usual quipping.

“What say you, hmm?” The woman's voice was young but gravelly, low and amused all at once. “Scavenger or intruder?”

Emma forced herself to focus on the witch's face, not the bare skin, nor the dozens of questions that occurred to her.

“Neither. Grey Wardens built this.”

”'Tis a tower no longer. The wilds have obviously claimed this desiccated corpse.”

Her inhumanly bright eyes never left Emma's. “I have watched your progress for some time. 'Where do they go,' I wondered. 'Why are they here?'”

Alistair recovered his indignance. “Don't answer her. She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby.”

The apostate raised her arms in a sarcastic performance: “You fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?”

“Yes,” Alistair confirmed. “Swooping is bad.”

“You there.” She overlooked him. “Women do not frighten like little boys. Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine.”

“Emma,” who inclined her head in greeting.

“Now that is a proper introduction, even here in the wilds.” A faint smile. “You may call me Morrigan.”

“Shall I guess your purpose?” Morrigan glanced at the shattered wood, then back to Emma. “You sought something which is here no longer?”

”'Here no longer?'” Alistair's voice climbed. “You stole them, didn't you? You're some kind of... sneaky... witch-thief!”

“How very eloquent.” Morrigan's tone could have flash-frozen water. “How does one steal from dead men?”

“Quite easily, it seems. Those documents are Grey Warden property, and I suggest you return them.”

“I will not, for 'twas not I who removed them.” Morrigan crossed her arms, utterly unbothered.

“Who did?” Emma asked.

”'Twas my mother, in fact.”

“Your mother?” Alistair repeated, clearly hoping he’d misheard. “Naturally. Why wouldn’t she be.”

“Yes, my mother. Did you assume I spawned from a log?”

“A thieving, weird-talking log, perhaps.”

Morrigan's smile sharpened. “Not all in the wilds are monsters. Flowers grow, as well as toads.”

Emma: “Would your mother talk to us?”

“There is a sensible request.” Morrigan's expression warmed by perhaps half a degree. “I like you.”

“I'd be careful,” Alistair muttered. “First it's 'I like you,' but then it's 'zap!' Frog time.”

“If you wish,” Morrigan continued, addressing Emma again, “I will take you to my mother. 'Tis not far from here, and you may ask her for your papers, if you like.”

“We should get those treaties,” Alistair said quietly, stepping closer to Emma. “But I dislike this. Her timing is far too convenient.”

His eyes kept darting to Morrigan's chest and away, like touching a hot stove repeatedly.

Emma looked back at Morrigan. “How long have you been watching?”

Morrigan tilted her head, considering. “Long enough to know you are not the first to come seeking these wilds' secrets.”

“She’ll boil us,” Daveth whispered. “Mark my words.”

“If the pot’s warmer than this forest,” Jory muttered, “I’ll take it.”

Emma spoke to the boys, but looked at Morrigan. “Let's see where this goes.”

Morrigan's privately knowing smile returned. “Follow me, if it pleases you.”

Morrigan turned and walked into the forest without checking whether they followed. Only once did she glance back over her shoulder. Her eyes met Emma’s—shining and curious.

Flemeth's Hut

The hut materialized out of the mist like something half-remembered from a fever dream. Twisted wood, smoke curling from a chimney that seemed structurally impossible, surrounded by gnarled trees that leaned in like gossips. The whole structure looked like it had grown rather than been built.

Morrigan stepped inside without knocking. “Greetings, Mother. I bring before you four Grey Wardens who—”

Only Alistair was actually a Grey Warden. It felt odd.

“I see them, girl.” The old woman's voice came from within the hut. “Mmm. Much as I expected.”

She emerged from the shadows. Tall, angular, draped in layered robes of nearly elegant decay.

“Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?” Alistair asked with uneasy skepticism. “That’s comforting.”

“You are required to do nothing, least of all believe.” Flemeth's smile revealed too many teeth. “Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide... either way, one's a fool!”

“She’s a witch,” Daveth hissed. “We shouldn't be talking to her!”

“Quiet,” Jory snapped. “Do you want her to hear you?”

“Oh, I hear everything,” Flemeth said. Her eyes slid to Emma—golden like her daughter’s, but cold. “And what of you? What do you believe?”

“Not sure yet.”

“A statement that possesses more wisdom than it implies.” Flemeth laughed, delighted. “Be always aware... or is it oblivious? I can never remember.”

“So much about you is uncertain... and yet I believe. Do I? Why, it seems I do!”

“So this is the dreaded Witch of the Wilds?” Alistair's eyes were bright. Mischievous.

“Witch of the Wilds, eh? Morrigan must have told you that.” Flemeth's laugher persisted, like wind through dead trees. “She fancies such tales, though she would never admit it! Oh, how she dances under the moon!”

“They did not come to listen to your wild tales, Mother.” Morrigan's voice carried the mundane irritation of a daughter who'd heard this before.

“True, they came for their treaties, yes? And before you begin barking, your precious seal wore off long ago. I have protected these.”

“You... oh.” Alistair blinked. “You protected them?”

“And why not? Take them to your Grey Wardens and tell them this Blight's threat is greater than they realize!”

“I'm sure they'll be eager to act on that advice,” Alistair said flatly.

Emma accepted the leather case Flemeth offered. Checked the seal—intact, recently applied. The documents inside shifted with the particular weight of vellum, not parchment. Expensive. Important.

“It's appreciated,” Emma said.

“Such manners! Now. You have what you came for. Morrigan, girl. These are your guests. See them out.”

“Oh, very well.” Morrigan sighed. “Follow me.”

Emma tucked the treaties carefully into her pack and followed Morrigan back into the mist, aware of Flemeth's eyes on them until the hut disappeared from view.

^

Ecclesiastical

They entered through the side aisle, past the quartermaster's tent. The ruined temple lost most of it's roof long ago. Pine grew through broken arches and vaulted ceiling segments, their trunks black against the darkening sky. Through the gaps between columns and trees, Emma could see a watchtower on the other side of the fortress, glowing with interior light.

“The more I hear about this Joining,” Jory said as they assembled in the circle, “the less I like it.”

“Are you blubbering again?” Daveth's sharp tone sparked on density of the air.

“Why all these damned tests? Have I not earned my place?”

“Maybe it's tradition,” Daveth said. “Maybe they're just trying to annoy you.”

Duncan stood before them near a simple wooden stool. A silver chalice rested on it. The veil around it thinned and rippled.

“I only know,” Jory continued, “If they had warned me... it just doesn't seem fair.”

Alistair stood next to Duncan. His eyes moved across each recruit, briefly lingering on her. She looked back at him and inclined her head toward the supernaturally precarious cup.

He looked away, idly shifting toward her by a fraction.

“Would you have come if they'd warned you?” Daveth asked. “Maybe that's why they don't. The Wardens do what they must, right?”

“Including sacrificing us?”

“I'd sacrifice a lot more if I knew it would end the Blight.”

“But we don't know that,” she said.

Daveth turned to her, surprised. “Don't we? The Grey Wardens have saved the world before. They know better than anyone what it takes.” He turned back at Jory. “Wouldn't you die to protect your pretty wife from them?”

Jory’s hand settled on his sword hilt. “I’ve never faced a foe I couldn’t engage with my blade.”

“At last,” said Duncan, and the murmuring stopped, “we come to the Joining.”

“The Grey Wardens were founded during the First Blight, when humanity stood on the verge of annihilation.” His voice echoed from the crumbling stone, even now amplified by designs for ceremony. “So it was: they drank of darkspawn blood and mastered their taint.”

Daveth made a small, disbelieving sound.

Jory gaped. “We're... going to drink the blood of those... those creatures?”

“As we did before you. This is the source of our power.”

Emma’s vision narrowed. Of course. The secrecy. The evasions. It had always pointed here.

“Those who survive,” Alistair said quietly, “become immune. We can sense the darkspawn. We can slay the archdemon.”

She had suspected. She shouldn't have waited for confirmation, shouldn't have followed them here. There were too many eyes on her now. It was too late.

“And if we're not sure about this?” Emma asked. She wanted to run, to fight. She willed her hands stay loose.

Duncan's non-expression didn't change. “Since the beginning, the Grey Wardens have been charged with finding those who are strong enough to attempt the Joining, for the good of all.” He paused with priestly gravitas. “Not all who drink the blood will survive. Those who do are forever changed. This is why it is a secret. It is the price we pay.”

The feeling in her hands, her arms, left her.

“We speak only a few words,” he continued, “but these words have been said since the first. Alistair, if you would?”

Alistair's voice became formal and rehearsed. Strange. “Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn.” He paused. “And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.”

Duncan presented the cup. It smelled of rot and copper and something else, something wrong that made Emma's sinuses scream.

“Daveth,” he said. “Step forward.”

Daveth obeyed. He took the chalice, glanced into it, and drank. He swallowed hard and steadied himself as he set the cup onto the stool.

He blinked. And almost smiled.

Then his face twisted, his eyes rolled back. He collapsed, back arching, seizing, fingers clawing at nothing as he choked. The sounds of death weren't quite human.

Then nothing. Utterly still.

Emma was struck with contradictory impulses: Step forward to help him. Step away to flee. Her legs felt distant.

Nobody moved to help.

She looked to Duncan, watching patiently. Then Alistair, who'd paled to a pitiful expression.

“Is he—” she started.

“We shall know soon,” Duncan said, turning to the next man. “You, Jory, are next.”

“Maker's breath!” Jory stumbled back. “This is madness,” His knuckles were white on his sword. “I have a wife. A child on the way. You can't ask me to—”

“I'm not asking.”

Jory’s sword cleared half its sheath when Duncan moved to end him in one stoke, too fast to follow. Jory made a wet, surprised sound, looking down at the gash in him, then up at his murderer.

He dropped face-down onto the bloody temple floor.

“I am sorry,” Duncan said. “But the Joining is a secret we guard with our lives.”

Emma couldn't help but to step away. Her hand shot to her staff. Duncan calmly glanced at her, then wiped and sheathed his blade. Unthreatened.

Daveth lay near on the ancient stone.

“I am sorry for Daveth, as well.” Duncan kneeled there next, checking. Then he stood, looking at her. “But the Joining is not yet complete.”

He offered her the chalice, gold interior reflecting the firelight. As she grasped it, time slowed. She counted twelve facets of the cup and base, eight ribs of the stem.

“You don't have to do this,” she said.

The metal was cold. The blood was warm. That felt backwards, somehow. Everything about this felt backwards—poisoning dressed as honor, death as duty.

“I do,” Duncan said. “And so do you.”

She tipped it back.

It coated her throat, thick and foul. Her attempt to swallow aborted as her stomach lurched. She kept swallowing.

“From this moment forth, you are a Grey Warden.”

When she lowered the cup, Duncan was nodding.

Then the pain came like fire in her veins. Emma's knees buckled. The world tilted. She felt herself make a sound, but couldn't hear it.

The floor rushed up to meet her and vanished. She fell through broken stone arches into darkness. Into something vast and writhing and hungry. Thousands of voices, all calling, wanting, desperately reaching.

An Old God answered them, exhaling corruption through long and horrible fangs.

It was skeletal under layers of decay and barbed plating, neck overextended and serpentine, whipping back as it roared.

Then: drums. A heartbeat. Something else's. Something enormous.

And one single, awful note. Old and terrible singing into the deepest places of the world.

GLORIOUS! ✨

Emma's eyes snapped open. She was on her back, staring at vaulted ceiling segments and pine branches. Her mouth tasted like blood and ash. The sky beyond them had gone dark while she was gone.

Her head spun. The desperate calls were still echoing, simmering down to whispers edging out of awareness. She pressed a hand to the floor to steady herself.

“Easy. Don't try to sit up yet,” she heard Alistair's voice.

“It is finished,” said Duncan. “Welcome.”

“Oh,” Emma blinked. “Fuck,” she had the worst headache, in addition to being changed beyond comprehension. Every nerve ending felt raw.

Duncan's face appeared above her. Then Alistair's. Emma overlooked them and rolled her head to the side. Daveth, face down and still. Jory, his blood a spreading pool she couldn't do anything about.

Only a few hours ago, she'd sealed their insides back together in the swamp like rethreading a torn sleeve. The wound was still open. But she'd be stopped if she tried.

Alistair crouched beside her, elbows on knees, following her gaze. “Two more deaths.”

“How do you feel?” Duncan asked.

Emma exhaled slowly, taking personal inventory.

“I can't believe you shanked Ser Jory,” she said.

She thought about his wife. The child. And Daveth— with no one. Different means, the same end.

“In mine, only one of us died. But it was…” Alistair trailed off, then: “...horrible,” a sure understatement.

“It brought me no pleasure,” Duncan said, with the patience of a man who had said this many times. “The Blight demands sacrifices from us all. Thankfully, you stand here as proof they are not all made in vain.”

“Did you have dreams?” Alistair asked. “I had terrible dreams. After mine.”

“Something with fangs,” she said. “Something old.”

He nodded, like he understood exactly.

“Such things come when you begin to sense the darkspawn,” Duncan said. “As we all do. That, and many other things, can be explained in the months ahead.”

Proof. Months. She was still lying on the floor. The stone's cold was soothing.

“Before I forget.” Alistair pulled a pendant from somewhere and held it out to her—plain metal, strung onto cord. In the firelight she could see it was dark inside. “Last part of the Joining. We take some of the blood and put it in a pendant. Something to remember…” He paused. “Those who didn't make it this far.”

Emma looked at it for a moment. She sat up slowly, ignoring the way the room realigned itself around her with a nauseating tilt, and took it from his hand.

The metal was warm from him. She pressed it to her palm and felt wrong, memorializing death in a thing the size of a thimble. Then again, for memory of the dead, she had less of those who'd meant more to her.

Duncan placed a hand on her shoulder. His grip was steady and certain, that of a man who had sent people into this and watched them come out the other side, who had stood over people who hadn't. He smelled of old leather and iron, and beneath that... something faintly bitter, something familiar, that she'd never noticed before.

“I know this is difficult,” he said. “But you are a Grey Warden now. The world needs you.”

Through the gap in the broken arch above them, one winter star burned cold and white.

“Yeah,” she said. “I can tell.”

Somewhere outside the ruins, soldiers were moving, someone shouting orders, the ordinary machinery of war rolling onward.

“Take some time,” Duncan said, pulling his hand back. “When you are ready, I'd like you to accompany me to a meeting with the king.”

She turned her head and looked at him.

“A meeting,” she repeated.

“With the king, yes. He is discussing strategy for the upcoming battle.” Duncan anticipated her next question. “I am not entirely certain why he has specifically requested your presence.”

That was a remarkable sentence.

A king she'd barely spoken to, organizing a war she'd been conscripted into, had specifically asked for her at a strategy meeting approximately one hour after she'd been poisoned.

She looked at Alistair, who was already looking elsewhere.

“All right,” she said, because there wasn't anything else to say.

Emma stood and grabbed her staff. Her angle to the ground wobbled, then settled into something she could traverse. She crossed to Alistair, who was still watching the floor somewhere to the left of Jory's body, in his own private aftermath. Her head still throbbed, heart pounding in her ears.

He looked up at her approach.

“Don't keep him waiting,” Alistair said. “He might get mad. Start crying. You'll feel bad, and—” He waved a hand. “Well. It won't be pretty.”

She stood in shocked silence, barely processing this. The impulse to smirk was there, but didn't quite make it to the surface.

She'd planned on never leaving the Circle. Instead she was dragged out of it by a Grey Warden. Who just happened to be there, when she just happened to make a very uncharacteristic mistake. A mistake she couldn't possibly regret more. And then she incidentally bumped into the King on her way to being inducted into a secret bloody ritual.

And now that King wanted to see her again for what purpose she could not fathom.

Alistair watched her, then nodded toward the exit. “Meeting's not far, down the ramp. You shouldn't need me for this part.”

So she turned without comment and went to find the actual, goddamned King of Ferelden.

The meeting was held on the opposite end of the gutted cathedral. The apse she came from had a better view of the ravine below, where the battle was soon to take place. She recalled it now, as the recruits assembled, all of them still alive, how she looked down into it and couldn't see the bottom.

The crawling vibration she'd woken with, low like a note played just below hearing, faded but hadn't gone. She'd assumed it would.

The walk to the meeting table felt longer than it was. As she neared them, Emma placed the voices of the men immediately, and in the wrong order.

“The darkspawn horde is too dangerous for you to be playing hero on the front lines,” he said, rumbling with a patronizing tone of one watching their belongings get handled by someone else.

Loghain Mac Tir, in the chevalier's armor from the battle of River Dane, stripped of Orleisian heraldry.

Cailan Theirin, son of Maric, beloved of legend, gestured with a great deal of feeling at a map unrolled over a long table. “My father did not win this kingdom by shrinking from danger. But if that's the case, perhaps we should wait for the Orleisian forces, after all.”

Teyrn Loghain stood opposite. He did not gesture. “I must repeat my protest at your fool notion that we need the Orleisians to defend ourselves.”

“It is not a fool notion,” Cailan's voice carried easily. “Our arguments with the Orleisians are a thing of the past, and you will remember who is King.”

“Loghain.” That gold-plated royal armor gleamed in the dark. “My decision is final. I will stand with the Grey Wardens in this assault.” He'd been mid-sentence and his eyes had moved across the tent until they landed on her.

“And here she is — Emelyn, correct?” She nodded. “The recruit I met earlier on the road. Congratulations are in order, I think.”

Emma had not expected to be in the sentence that ended the argument. Cailan studied her — briefly, openly, friendly. But no less an assessment.

She had been evaluated often. By templars with clipboards. By senior enchanters looking for weakness. She knew how to hold herself for an audit. The difference being she'd always known what they wanted.

For the first time she could recall, she could not begin to imagine her purpose when called. This was unsettling, because the King seemed to want something quite urgently at all times.

“Thank you,” she said, then added hastily, “your majesty.”

Loghain, looked over her only briefly, with disdain. As if she were a distraction, or arrived late and unprepared. This she better understood.

“She looks half dead,” said Loghain.

“I'm not half as dead as I look.” She borrowed Alistair's line. Was that really just half a day ago?

Emma stood behind Duncan and tried to look like someone who had not, just minutes ago, been unconscious on a temple floor with darkspawn corruption metabolizing through her bloodstream.

“Every Grey Warden is needed now, more than ever,” said Cailan. His voice carried obvious pride in her retort.

What could this King possibly want from her, that he couldn't get from Duncan? Or Alistair? Or any of the handful of Grey Wardens who were supposedly here, who she'd never seen?

“Your fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing, Cailan.” Loghain had not moved. His voice was flat and final as a dropped stone. “We must attend to reality.”

“This is reality,” said Cailan, and he didn't sound petulant. He sounded completely sincere, which was somehow worse. “The Blight is reality. This is what the songs prepare us for.”

“The songs,” said Loghain, “have killed more men than the darkspawn.”

They discussed the maneuver. Maps came to mind, similar to what sprawled over the table, different places, different dates. The Wardens draw the horde forward, Loghain flanks from cover.

“You will alert the tower to light the beacon, signaling my men to charge from cover.”

“To flank the darkspawn, I remember. This is the Tower of Ishal in the ruins, yes? Who will light this beacon?”

“I have a few men stationed there. It's not a dangerous task, but it is vital.”

“Then we should send our best,” the glow returned to the King's voice. As he said it, she could feel him inflating the moment, tilting it toward legend in real time, “send Alistair and the new Grey Warden, Emelyn, to make sure it's done.”

“It is a beacon, not a battlefield,” Loghain grumbled.

Our best. She swallowed. She felt no false modesty, and she wasn't going to pretend otherwise. They were a good team. Better than the recruits, by the obvious metric of survival. But best?

“I won't be fighting in the battle?” she asked, genuinely relieved, but confused. She may have come off as disappointed.

“We need the beacon. Without it, Loghain's men won't know when to charge,” said Duncan.

“You see? Glory for everyone!” said Cailan. A king assigning his best rookies to flip a switch in a tower that was, by Loghain's own word, already staffed.

“You rely on these Grey Wardens for too much. Is that truly wise?” Loghain was not impressed, which was actually reassuring. They argued again.

“My father trusted the Grey Wardens.”

“Your father trusted Ferelden.”

“Your Majesty, you should consider the possibility of the archdemon appearing,” interrupted Duncan. This she wanted to hear.

Loghain: “There have been no signs of any dragons in the wilds.”

Cailan: “Isn't that what your men are here for, Duncan?”

“I...” He hesitated. The same man who killed Jory without hesitation, then commanded her to drink, now chose his words carefully. “Yes, your majesty.”

A senior enchanter she'd passed by countless times but never spoke to offered to light the beacon at range. A Chantry Mother bickered with him, insisting the mages save their spells for the darkspawn, looking at Emma pointedly as she said so. It all felt very remote.

Loghain called an end to the meeting.

“I cannot wait for that glorious moment,” Cailan was sparkling with anticipation as she left.

“Yes, a glorious moment for us all,” Loghain mumbled tersely. He did not sound like a man describing a glorious moment. He sounded like a man who has already done the accounting and put it away.

^

Ishal Offense

Emma’s breaths were shallow as she crested the stairwell, boots splattering blood on the ancient Alamarri flagstone. Ahead of her, the armored warriors made their best efforts to shake off ash and charred meat, a bit like dogs shaking their fur in their rain. If dogs wore chain.

The other two warriors dragged their feet in flank behind Alistair, their armors and weapons also soiled, but his shield had clearly taken the brunt of this tower crawl. Layers of bloody soot and tainted blood, oozing thick like tar, streaked its once shining insignia beyond recognition.

The two Wardens and the men with them were about to turn a corner– literally. Soft vibrations from Emma’s healing magic lingered in the air, faintly echoing Alistair’s vascular flutter. Without thinking, she stopped behind his defensive stance.

The archer, a wiry man named Leif, pivoted the corner and immediately fumbled his knock. Emma watched one of their good arrows get lost in the dark.

She thought of Jory’s face—still too young, far too trusting. Daveth, who’d known better but grinned anyway, with nothing left to lose. Both dead now. The Joining took them hours ago, though it felt like days.

To her relief, Alistair held back, letting Rorik—the stouter of the two soldiers—launch first at the darkspawn ahead. Un-relief– the carnivorous noises of the provoked spawn sounded like a very large patrol.

Emma volleyed a crackling orb of entropic energy into the unfolding skirmish, the spell detonating in a burst of sickly violet light. Five shrieking genlocks scattered to ash. The risky explosion singed Rorik’s pauldron, but he rallied with a grunt.

Complacent with their momentary victory, Rorik surged forward—too far—and took a darkspawn bolt to the ribs from the line of crossbowman. He doubled over with a wet gasp. Healing magic cost more than what it would take to kill those things. If they could only reach them.

Leif loosed another arrow with shaky hands. It soared through the plume of dust and smoke choking the narrow corridor, disappearing uselessly into the dark.

“Hold!” Emma barked, but the soldiers were already leaning forward, eager to charge.

Alistair shifted laterally, his shield angling to block their advance while still covering the ranged threats ahead. The soldiers scrambled back to utilize the ballistae, instead.

She realized, dimly, that she’d moved without thinking—two steps back and left, aligning her sight-line through the narrowest span of corridor where all five of them remained visible, optimizing coverage as if she were in the Circle’s dueling hall. Her awareness of the men’s movements became geometric: angles, intersections, trajectories.

He watched her hands flicker; Alistair didn’t need to look to understand. The Circle taught mages to command space. The Chantry taught its Templars to deny it. His training drilled this, and its counter, into him. They were a rare pair, with both angles a part of the same front. They stood some chance, he thought, watching her shoulders rolling along this living diagram– itself shifting.

“Leif, left flank!” as they reloaded. “Alistair, hold center—”

He finished a hurlock from the center, already pivoting his shield as another lumbered into view. Emma’s staff pulsed with gathering energy, frost crystallizing along its length. She calculated angles, mana reserves, the distance between Alistair and the hurlock, the soldiers’ positions relative. The hurlock charged.

Alistair braced, shield raised, preparing to absorb the charge. But something was off, one tick. Emma saw his weight shift forward, saw him commit to a defensive stance that would leave him vulnerable to the follow-through—

Wait. Wait.

“GET DOWN!”

He dropped into a crouch instantly, training overriding everything. Emma’s spell crackled overhead, a lance of winter that caught the hurlock mid-stride and froze it solid. Alistair surged upward, slamming into the crystallized monster, shattering it like glass. For a heartbeat, they stared at each other—her body still ringing on the dissipating threat, him still braced for impact that never came.

“Could’ve warned me sooner,” he muttered, but there was something in his voice that wasn’t quite complaint.

“Could’ve trusted my timing,” she shot back.

The stairwell coiled around them; They were climbing toward the light, or what passed for it—the upper chambers where the beacon waited. The stones sweated, mingling with blighted ooze and combat viscera.

So they climbed. Then he felt it—the real ambush, from below. The floor trembled with the massing horde. The darkspawn had been tunneling, ascending unseen. The whole tower was becoming a trap.

“We have to go up.” Toward the beacon. Same as ever. “But there's too many! Maker's breath, what are these darkspawn doing ahead of the rest of the horde? There wasn't supposed to be any resistance here.”

“They're in the wrong place. We're supposed to defend from the top, down,” said Emma.

“Right, because clearly this is all just a misunderstanding. We’ll laugh about this later,” he replied, annoyed.

But their upward offense went well, considering. Their rhythm was devastating: electricity and steel, defense and strike. It still seemed possible they would reach the beacon, call the reinforcements, and win the battle.

The stairwell emptied into the upper hall, a ruin of splintered beams and broken statuary. The darkspawn had stopped coming. The silence, nothing patrolling, seemed worse. Alistair froze mid-step; She stopped in his shadow. The floor heaved, sifting a soft, oily rain from the ceiling.

“That’s not good,” he said.

Emma stepped back.

An ogre met them, defending the beacon: twelve feet of muscle, horns alone more than their reach, dark veins pulsing under ash-grey hide. Their entrance had interrupted its meal—something gnawed past recognition. It looked at them, chewing resentfully.

Alistair: “I think it knows we're here.”

The ogre dropped the corpse, beat its massive chest and roared, spitting at them. The sound slushed through all layers, vibrating into the marrow. Everything Emma had been tracking—supplies, maneuvers, spell rotations—dropped right out of her head, replaced by the high ringing of panic.

Emma didn’t move. Hesitation rooted her in place.

Alistair quickly employed the same strategy against this giant that he'd used against man-sized darkspawn. He drew its attention, taunting it away from the others.

Emma's staff snapped up instinctively, light coiling around her fingers. Off-beat rumbles from the battle told her: no point in running. Holding the top was their best shot. And yet—Rorik and Leif were shaking at the flanks.

“Go!” she screamed at them, as much as herself.

The ogre swung its club-arm in a wide arc. Alistair moved to block, bracing into the blow. The impact slammed him back several feet, boots carving grooves through grit. He was faster, but this thing was three times his size, with more times his reach. It was a grotesque siege engine. How many of those blocks did he have in him?

Emma anchored her staff with one hand and thrust the other forward. Frost and lightning spiraled together, white vapor snapped across the ogre’s hide. It staggered, and their tank dodged the next swing.

He pivoted shield-first, the impact a dull clang, like metal on tree bark. The ogre countered low, its massive hand closing around him—plate creaking as it plucked him off the ground like a toy.

Alistair rammed his sword upward into its wrist. The blade sank to the hilt, black blood spilling over his arm. He wrenched it free as the ogre howled and hurled him against the wall with agonizing force. Monster, men, and stone—a stacked pylon, all screaming.

The mana ripped right out of her. She had never healed so instantly, so thoughtlessly, at this distance. She drank lyrium like water to compensate. Stone cracked and resettled. Blight soaked into new layers. More debris rained from above.

She did not know of the other soldiers, anymore. As she'd warned him, she had to choose. The domed ceiling pulsed magic back at her, healing bruises she didn't know she had. It felt like hers, but also strange. Alistair was cursing.

The ogre charged again. The tower trembled. Emma drove her staff down, pulling from veins in the walls—the blue lines under the stone flared alive. The air sharpened with power. Runes erupted under the ogre’s feet. It stumbled, slowed, but brute-forced through, claws scratching, stone vibrating. For the first time in her life, Emma found herself at the top of a structure, uncertain it could hold.

Emma raised her staff with both hands, weight driving through her shoulders. Fire answered her scream. The ogre's hide ignited, molten cracks racing across it. The blast caught them both in its radius—Alistair following the ogre, negating the brunt of her blast that licked him, armor still flaring with heat.

“How many of those do you have left?” He called. Most of the ground was now ablaze.

“Not many.”

“Right.” He slid between the ogre's legs, disappearing into smoke. It stumbled around, almost aimlessly. Turning its back toward her, she realized Alistair was climbing it, pulling himself up by his sword embedded in its back, bracing to plunge it deeper. Great globs of ichor hit the floor—he had wounded it dearly. It thrashed, trying to throw him off.

She risked another cast— a simple arcane bolt—snapping its head back cracking the ogre’s jaw sideways. Teeth flew. That got its attention. The ogre turned on her. She had seconds.

It charged, faster than it had any right. She dove. It missed, but she hit the stone, dizzied by the crack of her skull. She curled in on herself while the blighted creature rattled her, smacking the floor with massive hands. Her staff was lost, fingers burning, struggling to shape another spell.

She forced herself to breathe, exerting the pressure outward into a ripple of magic, sealing wounds, knitting herself back together, unsticking armor from unburnt flesh. There had never been so much lyrium running through her, but it was gone in an instant.

The ogre lunged again, grabbing at her, its elbow knocking Alistair back mid-swing. He was getting slower, she thought, as it lifted her from the ground. The sound of her own ribs popping, the lag of agonizing pain— clued her into her own loss of time.

What had she kept thinking, what got her through the Wilds, through this unlikely upward offense? Darkspawn die, just like any other creature. Emma was also dying now, just like any other creature.

She heard Alistair taunting it, beyond comprehending words. Its grip loosened. She gasped. Air in her lungs snapped her lost time back onto her in painful frenzy. She hit the floor with more splash than thud. She clawed at her satchel, hoping her last lyrium potion was less crushed than herself. It was not. Her fingers curled around shards, absorbing residue through her skin, from mist in the air, as she'd done from the tower's veins.

Blood rushed back to her head, but she could barely see. It hadn't merely been her injuries; smoke was choking her out. She was aware of a boot skidding past, metal sparking on stone. Backwards. She focused on sounds. Alistair, screaming, backed against a wall, pleading for help. She heard her name.

Crawling as the tower rumbled, somehow she'd found her staff with her knees, and twisted it toward the clamor. Frost crept up the entirety of the ogre, freezing it in place. Alistair dropped like a sack of steel. His cries silenced. She called for him unsteadily, then scooted herself under the frozen ogre, terrified.

Then—an agonized pitch, gasping: “Here—I'm here—shit—”

Emma pushed her hands forward into darkness, fingers grasping around a helm knocked askew, then a pile of metal and bone in a sticky puddle, breathing pitifully under the sound of ice breaking above them.

“Get up.” She poured into him what she had, because... she was too slow to make their last stand, she realized grimly, fear tying her stomach into knots. No more potions. It, or them, would die within a minute. He sat up, wheezing. She quickly dropped the helm back over his face. He grabbed her, rolling them out of the way of a swinging club.

Head pounding, knocked onto her side, Emma looked up over Alistair's pauldron: They'd escaped a killing blow that had embedded the club into stone. The ogre pulled at it uselessly, distracted—Alistair's sword still in it, dripping, smoldering, hissing.

“Stay back.” His voice was soft, hoarse, as he strapped the shield to his gauntlet. “Get the beacon, if you can.” He stood, swordless.

The ogre turned, preparing to charge, but Alistair was already launching. Emma felt around—the air, the sticky puddles on the ground, looking for anything but blood—as Alistair feinted, dodged, swung himself around its shoulders by the hilt lodged in its back.

Emma dragged herself up the wall, staff with her, as he brought the blunt of his shield onto its head. It stumbled, scooping gore from its face, as Alistair bashed again and again. Finally it smacked him off, disoriented, staggering toward her, then fell forward, reaching, screeching ruefully, half its face missing.

Emma didn’t think. She lunged and drove the end of her staff through the hole in its head, silencing it. Then slid back down the wall to the floor.

“We missed the signal,” the other Warden mumbled weakly, pushing himself up, limping toward her. “Can you—?” He pushed the end of a torch before her, but she was falling apart, shaking, having so little to draw on she'd coveted the blood soaking her knees. A breeze blew through crumbling stone, carrying a deathly smell.

“Emma.” She looked up. Nodded. Gripped the end of her staff still wedged at an angle inside the ogre’s skull. Just a spark felt like everything. It was a good position—but how long could they keep a barricade and hold it like this? The pile of wood caught the blaze, lighting the valley of Ostagar below. The tower shook.

“We have to—” Emma tried to stand, slipping on ichor.

His urgency lost, he looked around, noting at last the corpses of the two soldiers who'd come with them.

“I'm sorry,” she said, as he pulled his sword out from under the ogre's carcass.

“No, don't—” He wiped a layer of gore from his face. “Don't be sorry, really. We tried. Thanks for… um, this.” Then he pulled at the staff—blunt wood now fully wedged into skull—and drew it out with a sickening creak.

“Alistair,” she started, “if we barricade the landing, we can—”

“No.” He cut her off. He shook his head, gaze unfocused. He pointed down.

Emma turned toward the stairwell. “Why? The entry is narrow. We’ll choke them.”

“You can hear it, below. In the tunnels. They’ll be moving up. Just like we did.” He swallowed. “The swarm cut us off from the valley flank...from the battle. We’re isolated.”

“We have the height—”

“There's... there's a lot of them. A lot.”

Emma looked back at him. “You don’t know that.”

He almost smiled at that—tired, bitter. He felt it in his blood. It would happen to her, too. If she survived. But she couldn't know, not yet. He had to persuade her.

“I wish I didn’t. I know how how it sounds... preposterous. Please, please believe me.”

The tower gave another low groan, rattling her gently. She crossed her arms. “If I did,” giving him the benefit of the doubt, “holding is our only option.”

His eyes went to the window slit—a jagged wound in the wall, wind tearing through it. Beyond, the cliff dropped into fog and stone.

“No,” he said again. “It's really not. We can jump.”

“Jump? Onto the rocks? No.”

“It’s not a good plan, but it’s the only one I got.”

“You think: we're not holding a fortress we just captured. But we will survive the drop.”

He hesitated. “No. And no. But what if... We could just jump, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the only direction left,” he urged her. It almost made sense, although the risk analysis did not.

“Please, Emma. I’d rather take this chance. But... if you'd rather hold... it's your call. I'll do it.”

“You’re really sure about this?” she asked, as if she were actually considering it. He reached into his belt pouch, pulling a small cracked vial—lyrium dust, glittering faintly blue.

“I'm so serious. Here, Emma, I... I just looted this. Maybe you can soften our landing?”

“That’s powder. Disgusting.”

“Oh well, in that case, just forget it,” he said flippantly, tapping his boot on the floor. He was taut, like a hound catching scent. If they were facing an enemy, she would have easily stepped behind him.

“Emma, they're coming—”

“I hear you—”

“No, now. I can feel them. Scouts, like— a dozen, two dozen— fast-moving. And below...” There was that pitch in his voice, again. She stared at him, then out the window, then back.

“I... I can't soften that drop.”

“But you can try. Please. We need to go now.”

The tower shuddered, its weight shifting below. He was already at the window, one boot on the sill, beckoning with that vial.

“Fine.” She snatched it from him, uncorked, and snorted the powder in one bitter inhale. Her face twisted immediately. “Oh—that's vile—”

She turned, staff in hand, mana crawling down her neck, her arms, in blue threads. The darkspawn burst through the doorway. Scouts, lean and fast, arrows already knocked. As the first one loosed, she bolted after Alistair, at their point of egress. She saw fletching blur past. Felt an impact in her shoulder.

Another arrow punched through her side. Emma staggered, gasping. Alistair was already throwing himself between her and the doorway. Arrows clattered off his shield—he grabbed her with his free arm, hauling her against his chest, her blood spilling over his gauntlet.

“Hold on—” She did. He jumped.

Time slowed. The cliff face blurred past, through the fog and the distant roar of battle below. Alistair felt darkspawn surrounding the tower, climbing the walls like ants covering something sweet and sticky on the ground. He ducked his head down, curling around her, shield angled to protect her—Knowing she was one head-bonk away from them losing their slim chance for her to magic them out of this. Somehow.

She felt herself clamped firmly to his breastplate, running slick with her blood. Frost flared wildly from her fingertips into sheets of ice, dragging down their speed. Layers shattered, blasting them with cold. The ice falling around them created a numbing and violent isolation from the battle roaring in the valley below.

They were falling within in a giant snowball. The world became only cold and impact and cold and impact— She couldn't keep casting and holding onto him, both. Her grip slipped. The mana drained.

The last thing Alistair remembered: hitting something dark and yielding, Emma wrenched away from him by the impact—

And feathers?

Emma turned against the strange bedroll, overheated despite the cool air that spoke of summer's end—lost, it seemed, during the battle for Ostagar. Cries and whispers punctuated her fever. Above her, Flemeth's hand hovered, palm aglow with green fire.

Outside, Alistair sat hunched against the hut's wall. His fingers worked anxiously at his ring, muscle memory of chanter's beads. He thought of her in the Tower of Ishal, eyes far away as fire spread from her hands. Maker, don't let her die in there. Not her too.

“She walks the Fade even now,” was what Morrigan told him.

As Emma walked the fade, cliffs were breaking loose from mountains, cascading tides of mud that spiraled and pulled her undertow. Her lungs convulsed against the murk, but her head and limbs were just heavy.

She endured nightmares of these waters her entire residence at Kinloch Hold. Through the surface she glimpsed the Circle Tower, then Ishal's spires against the sky, lit by lightning. In silhouette, dark wings unfurled feathers over the horizon, thunder rolling in their wake.

The light above dimmed. From somewhere distant, she was treated to a memory of Areli's laugh, quick and soft, the way it came through her nose when she was trying not to be noticed. Her curls of red hair across an open book, their hands pressed together on a single page.

All I ever wanted was to sleep in with you—

Slender brown fingers tied knots one by one, deft and certain. Another's hands, paler, broader, rougher, untied them. The woman sang, her melody rattled in Emma's chest. She reached for it desperately, but it writhed away from her, plunging into darkness. She grasped after it numbly, fingers upon fingers digging in a frenzy, shredding nails and skin to bloody bone.

Something vast inside the earth called to her, called to all of them, screaming and yearning in terrible accord, layered up upon itself in density, then erupted through the soil. The horde spilled over Ostagar like liquid tar, and the great fortress looked suddenly, impossibly small.

She did not want to be taken alive by the darkspawn. Ready to drown in this lake instead. Waiting. Drifting toward that distant shore.

Then she woke quietly, strangely calm. When she opened her eyes, Morrigan's golden gaze met hers.

“Ah, your eyes finally open,” Morrigan said. “Mother shall be pleased.”

Emma’s throat burned when she tried to speak. “Where…?”

“Back in the Wilds, of course.” Morrigan set aside a blood-stained cloth. “I am Morrigan, lest you have forgotten. You are welcome, by the way, as I have bandaged your wounds. How does your memory fare? Do you remember mother's rescue?”

“She rescued me?” Emma shifted, immediately regretted it. The hut tilted. “From the tower?”

“My mother managed to save you and your friend, though 'twas a close call. What is important is that you both live. The man meant to respond to your signal quit the field. The darkspawn won your battle. Those he abandoned were massacred.”

The words stacked, one after another, with no pause between them. Emma stared at the low rafters.

“Your friend...” Morrigan continued, watching her. “He is not taking it well.”

“My friend?” Emma quickly inquired. “You mean Alistair?”

Morrigan smiled, slightly. “The suspicious, dim-witted one who was with you before?”

Emma turned her head toward the small window. Firelight flickered outside. A shape moved beyond it, indistinct, armored. She couldn’t tell who it was.

“That doesn’t narrow it down.”

“Yes. Alistair.” Morrigan’s voice softened by the smallest degree. “He is outside by the fire. Mother asked to see you when you awoke.”

Emma closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she focused on Morrigan.

“Were my injuries severe?”

“Yes. But I expect you shall be fine. The darkspawn did nothing Mother could not heal.”

“What about Alistair?”

“He is… as you are.” Morrigan paused. “I suppose it would be unkind to say he is being childish.”

Emma swung her legs over the side of the bedroll, testing her weight. Everything ached, but held. She stood, steadying herself against the wall.

“Are we safe here? Where are the darkspawn?”

“We are safe, for the moment. Mother’s magic keeps the darkspawn away.” Morrigan gathered her things, preparing to hand them over. “Once you leave, ’tis uncertain what will happen. The horde has moved on. You might avoid it.”

“How did she manage to rescue us?”

“She turned into a giant bird and plucked the two of you from atop the tower, one in each talon.” Morrigan did not smile. “If you do not believe that tale, then I suggest you ask Mother herself.”

She struggled to remember their battle at Ishal. But she knew their offense direction had been upward, and doubted they had been rescued from its top.

Emma looked out the window again. Alistair's figure by the fire circled, restless.

“Mother is outside, come now, end your questioning.” Morrigan said.

Cold air bit immediately when Emma stepped out of the hut. The clearing was quiet except for the fire and the soft clink of armor. Flemeth stood near the flames, her posture effortless, casual. Alistair paced like a caged creature.

“See?” Flemeth said as Emma approached. “Here is your fellow Grey Warden. You worry too much, young man.”

He spun. His face went through several contradictory expressions at once—relief, disbelief, etcetera. “Emma!... you're alive,” his voice was fraught. “I thought you were dead for sure.”

“Me too. but I'm fine,” Emma said. The words felt provisional.

“This doesn't seem real.” He took a half-step toward her, then stopped. “If it weren't for Morrigan's mother, we'd be dead.”

“Do not talk about me as if I am not present, lad,” The elder witch said, dryly.

Alistair flushed. “I didn’t mean— I mean— what do we call you? You never told us your name.”

“The Chasind folk call me Flemeth. I suppose it will do.”

“The Flemeth? From the legends?” Alistair's eyes narrowed. “Daveth was right—you're the Witch of the Wilds.”

“And what does that mean?” Flemeth asked. “I know a bit of magic. It has served you both well, has it not?”

“Why did you save us?” Emma asked.

“Well, we cannot have all the Grey Wardens dying at once, can we?” Flemeth gestured between them. “It has always been the Grey Wardens’ duty to unite the lands against the Blight. Or did that change when I wasn’t looking?”

“It changed when most of them were slaughtered,” Emma said.

Flemeth: “If you think small numbers make you helpless, you are already defeated.”

“Yes,” Emma reminded her: “We were defeated. At Ostagar.”

“We were fighting them,” Alistair faced Flemeth, voice rising. “The king had nearly defeated them. Why would Loghain do this?!”

“Men’s hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature,” Flemeth said. “Perhaps he does not see the evil behind the Blight is the true threat.”

“The Archdemon,” Alistair said.

Emma: “Alistair is the real Grey Warden here. Not me.”

He turned on her. “I’ve lost everyone. All Grey Wardens in Ferelden are gone except for us. For the love of the Maker, don’t back out on me now!”

Emma stepped back from him: “So I should take on a suicide mission?”

“Oh?” Flemeth laughed softly. “It must be suicide, now? My.”

“I won’t let Duncan's death be in vain,” Alistair insisted forcefully, then softer: “Please, Emma... I can’t do this alone.”

“Will you help us fight this Blight?” Emma asked Flemeth; She couldn't look away from him.

“Me?” Flemeth spread her hands. “I am just an old woman who lives in the Wilds. I know nothing of Blights and darkspawn.”

She noted the lie and said nothing.

“Whatever Loghain thinks,” Alistair said, pressing on, “he’s wrong. He betrayed his own king. We have to warn people.”

“And who will believe you?” Flemeth asked.

“I suppose...” Alistair paused. “Arl Eamon wasn't at Ostagar. He still has all his men. And he was Cailan's uncle. I know him. He's a good man, respected in the Landsmeet. Of course! We could go to Redcliffe and appeal to him for help!”

Emma: “You think the Arl would believe us? Over the teyrn?”

“If Arl Eamon knew what he did at Ostagar, he would be the first to call for his execution!”

“Sure,” Emma said. “Like Loghain was an honorable man.”

“The Arl would never do what Teyrn Loghain did.” Alistair's certainty in the Arl pained her. “but...I don't know if his help would be enough.”

“We need the rest of the Grey Wardens,” Emma said.

Alistair: “I don't know how to contact them. We need to do something now.”

“You have more at your disposal than you think.” Flemeth's voice cut through their spiral.

Alistair stopped mid-pace. “Of course! The treaties! Grey Wardens can demand aid from dwarves, elves, mages—!”

“I may be old,” Flemeth said, “but this sounds like an army to me.”

“So can we do this?” Alistair asked finally. “Build an army?”

“I doubt it will be that simple,” Emma said.

“And when is it ever?” Flemeth replied.

“I’d be happy with staying alive,” Emma said.

“That would be nice,” said Alistair.

“Well, do not expect me to do everything,” Flemeth said. “There is one more thing I can offer you.”

“The stew is bubbling,” Morrigan said, emerging from the hut. “Shall we have guests?”

“The Grey Wardens are leaving,” Flemeth said. “And you will be joining them.”

Morrigan froze. “Such a shame—what?”

“You heard me, girl. The last time I looked, you had ears!”

Alistair's expression suggested he was reconsidering the benefits of being dead.

“Thanks,” Emma said carefully, “but if Morrigan doesn't want to join us...”

Flemeth: “Her magic will be useful. Even better, she knows the Wilds and how to get past the horde.”

“Have I no say in this?” Morrigan's voice was tight.

“You have been itching to get out of the wilds for years. Here is your chance.” Flemeth's tone left no room for argument. “As for you, Wardens, consider this repayment for your lives.”

Emma weighed the offer. “We’ll take her.”

“Won’t this add to our problems?” Alistair asked. “Out there, she’s an apostate.”

“If you do not wish help from illegal mages,” Flemeth said, “perhaps I should have left you on that tower.”

“Point taken.”

“Mother, this is not how I wanted this.” Morrigan's composure cracked slightly. “I am not even ready—”

“You must be ready. Alone, these two must unite Ferelden against the darkspawn. Without you, they will surely fail, and all will perish under the Blight. Even I.”

Morrigan went still. Something passed between mother and daughter—recognition, perhaps, or resignation. “I... understand.”

“And you, Wardens.” Flemeth looked at them both. “Do you understand? I give you that which I value above all in this world. I do this because you must succeed.”

Emma met her eyes. Another lie?

Emma: “I understand.”

“Allow me to get my things, if you please.” Morrigan disappeared back into the hut.

They stood in uncomfortable silence until she returned, pack slung over her shoulder. “I am at your disposal, Grey Wardens. I suggest a village north of the Wilds as our first destination. Or, if you prefer, I shall simply be your silent guide.”

“I prefer you to speak your mind,” Emma said.

Alistair evaluated their new addition. “Can you cook?” he asked.

Morrigan put a hand on her hip, eyes narrowed. “I... can cook, yes.”

Emma: “Then you can replace Alistair.”

“Right.” Alistair's voice was flat. “My cooking will kill us. That's all I meant.”

Morrigan looked faintly disgusted.

She closed her eyes briefly. Fire. Smoke. The tower. Alistair’s face when he’d thought she was dead. Then she opened them again.

Conscripts (Korcari Wilds to Lothering)

Morrigan guided them, stepping lightly, unbothered by the sucking mud, her cloak never quite touching the ground. The Wilds thinned reluctantly. Trees spaced themselves out. The air lightened by degrees, as if the blighted world had decided to tolerate them a few hours longer. Maybe a day.

“Well,” Alistair said, apropos of nothing, “that was… quite the introduction to the Grey Wardens.”

Emma didn't respond, but he was bored, and felt chatty: “The Joining, I mean. And then Ostagar. Not exactly what you signed up for.”

“I didn’t sign up for anything,” Emma said, curtly.

He winced. “Right. Duncan conscripted you. I… forgot. How do you forget that?”

“Likely while trying not to die in a tower full of darkspawn.”

“Yes...That's a very plausible theory.”

They walked in silence for a few more steps. Morrigan spoke of a path narrowing, but it was not a path the Wardens understood. Brushes tangled them, slowing them down. Somewhere, something splashed.

Emma looked after the splashing warily, speaking without looking at him.

“How did you become a Grey Warden?”

“Same way you did. You drink some blood, you choke on it, you pass out. You haven’t forgotten already, have you?”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

That made him pause. “You get this look when you’re irritated,” he said, attempting levity like one attempts a careful dismount. “Like you’re calculating exactly which spell would cause the most damage without technically killing me.”

“I’m still deciding.”

He wasn't entirely sure she was joking. But he grinned, a little too fast. “Right. Well. I was in the Chantry before. Trained for years to become a templar. That’s where I learned most of my skills.”

“You don’t seem very religious,” she said; As if she'd said worse to people she liked more.

“Oh, I know,” he said readily. “I was banished to the kitchens to scour pots more times than I can count. And that’s a lot. I can count pretty high.”

“The Grand Cleric didn’t want to let me go,” he went on. “Duncan had to conscript me, actually.”

Emma stopped walking. She looked at him then. “He conscripted you? I thought—”

“That I wanted it?” He nodded. “I did. Desperately. But she wouldn’t release me. When Duncan invoked the Right of Conscription, I thought she’d have us both arrested.”

His voice dipped, not dramatic, just quieter. “I was so lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“When he came looking for recruits,” Alistair said, “I remember praying to the Maker that he’d pick me. I would’ve done anything to get out of there. And he chose me. Out of all the templar initiates. Some of them were brilliant fighters. Real prodigies.”

“Do you think it was pity?” Emma asked, carefully.

He frowned, considering. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d like to think he saw something in me. That it wasn’t just…” He trailed off, then tried again. “I’ll always be thankful to Duncan for recruiting me. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never—”

He paused; It was a heavy pause. Empty. And tried to continue:

“I wouldn’t have…” He stopped entirely.

They stood there. Morrigan did not turn around.

Emma watched him. His shoulders had gone rigid, like he was bracing for impact that wasn’t coming.

She reached out, before she thought— But her fingers met cold armor. Of course.

She pulled her hand back before he could notice.

What were you supposed to do? Pat iron? Knock politely?

Alistair inhaled sharply and straightened, already retreating. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be— It’s fine. He died a hero. They all did. That’s what matters.” He stomped forward, armor clanking, conversation sealed off, barred from the inside.

“Come on. Let’s go. I think I’m done talking.”

Emma followed.

It was small. It was warm. It had, until very recently, been a living creature with opinions about its own continued existence.

Emma had dissected things far more complex than this. In sterile halls, labeled, organized, specimens preserved past protest. She had mapped the lymphatic vessels of a human hand. She knew the precise location of points that could, if pressured correctly, cause unconsciousness or death.

None of that, she discovered, was any help at all.

She started at what she thought was a logical entry point. The skin tore when she expected it to rip, resisting in the places she expected cooperation. She adjusted her grip. Lard soaked her gloves. Removing them didn't help. Adjusted again. A small, wet sound. She shivered, contemplating eating it.

She longed for Circle kitchens. Clean bread. Strained broth. Things that arrived on plates, already decided.

Across the fire, Morrigan had spread a length of oilcloth across her knees and arranged on it a collection of plant matter harvested while they'd walked. Some of it Emma recognized in an approximate way. Her own herbalism instruction had been in a tower in the middle of a lake, using reagents that had been extracted, titrated, concentrated, powdered, preserved, and shipped.

Morrigan worked without reference material. She stripped stems with her thumbnail in one clean motion, releasing a sharp smell. She sorted by mysterious taxonomy Emma could basically reconstruct. Season, maybe. Proximity to standing water. Whether it had been growing in sun or shadow when she'd pulled it.

Emma started trimming. Then kept trimming. The fat came off. The connective tissue. The more ambiguous portions of the interior. She was getting it under control.

Morrigan pinched a small bundle of something dark and pungent. Bog rowan, Emma thought, though the leaves were broader than any specimen she'd studied. This close to the Korcari corridor it was probably flush with iron from the soil. She hung it from a looped cord on her pack to dry. Then she moved on to the next thing, unhurried.

She was also not not watching Emma who turned the carcass over, squinting at it. There was very little left.

Morrigan set down a stem and looked at the remnant. At the growing pile of discarded pieces beside Emma's knee, which was becoming an argument for having not caught anything at all.

“Hm.” The witch appeared at Emma's shoulder without seeming to move. Her hands were still faintly stained by dark vegetables. She reached in and plucked something out of the body cavity: a small sac, intact, but ominously adjacent to something shredded. She tossed it into the dark.

“There. Now you cannot poison us unless you try.” A pause, to survey the wreckage. “The fire forgives many sins.”

She withdrew. Returned to her oilcloth. Picked up the next stem. Emma looked at Morrigan's hands: methodical, unhesitating, moving through material that was half-toxic by any strict reading. Morrigan had selected it from the roadside without pausing, without checking anything, without consulting a single source.

Without you, they will surely fail, Flemeth had said. Emma had no doubt the old witch was correct.

She wiped her hands, gripped her staff, and dragged a wisp of the Fade through the veil. It settled about her shoulders, glowing for her to better examine the carcass.

The joint. The hip socket. She could see it clearly now, a shallow acetabulum. While it lived, it must have walked and ran with pain. The femoral head was still seated. She knew where the capsule was, to disarticulate it cleanly.

She'd done this in the Circle's anatomy practicum, on specimens that were, admittedly, human and already preserved, but the principle was the same. Ball and socket. Find the plane of the joint. Don't cut through bone when you can move through cartilage.

She repositioned her hands and applied pressure at the correct angle. The joint released with a soft, definitive click, and the leg came away cleanly, no tearing, no wasted meat. Then, the other side.

The snap of disconnection felt reassuring. Morrigan's stem-stripping paused for perhaps one second, then resumed. Emma set both legs aside and went back to the rest of it with steadier hands.

The fire was small, damp wood hissing under it, releasing smoke sideways like a filthy tea kettle. Somewhere behind them: the Blight. Somewhere ahead: also, presumably, the Blight.

Alistair had been quiet all day, settled on events he hadn't finished processing yet. He'd walked half a length behind them for most of the afternoon responding with single syllables, eyes going somewhere else.

Now he stopped. He looked at the carcass. He looked at the growing pile of discarded pieces beside Emma's knee.

“No,” he said. Not alarmed, exactly, but approaching it. “No, you can't throw that away.”

He crouched beside her. He smelled like road dust and slightly scorched metal, which Emma was learning is simply what one smelled like after three days of walking through terrain that was trying to kill them.

“The gristle melts,” he said. “If you give it long enough. And the fat... you need the fat. Especially out here. You'll want everything you can pull out of this.” He glanced at her, something sheepish crossing his face. “You'll really want it.”

Emma frowned. He didn't explain, but she had a feeling. A hunger had come, settled in, and never entirely left. A low, persistent thing she'd been politely ignoring. It was easy to blame the road.

“The skin thickens the broth,” he continued, picking up a piece she'd set aside. He seemed almost apologetic, dangling the scrap briefly in the light. “I, uh. I've eaten worse. Considerably worse.” He turned the piece over in his fingers. “Chantry kitchens build character. And other things. Mostly, it builds things in your gut.”

Emma looked at the piece he was holding and endeavored not to display a visible reaction.

“It won't be good,” he said. “But it'll keep us standing. Standing seems like the goal, given the circumstances.”

Somehow, she knew, she had not entirely internalized the reality of this Blight. The history books told her: it meant no markets she could trust, no clean bread, no someone else having already dealt with the difficult parts. Her stomach felt the urgency. Her appetite did not.

She took the piece back from him. She put it in the pot. She put the other pieces in too.

The stew was, as promised, not good.

It had the coloring of some organic ambivalence. The gristle had technically melted but was bitterly present within the broth. Emma ate it with the focus of completing a task rather than enjoying a meal, which was apparently the correct approach. Alistair was eating with the determination of someone who had stopped distinguishing between the two.

“I've had worse,” he said, with exaggerated gravity, examining a spoonful. “Not recently. But in the historical record. There's precedent.”

Emma watched him locate a particularly ambiguous piece, consider it, and consume it without changing expression. The small, internal courage this required was not lost on her. He noticed her watching and nudged the bowl toward her.

“You'll need it more than I will.”

This was, she was nearly certain, a lie. He was bigger than her; He must still be hungry. But he said it with enough conviction. She ate it.

While the fire worked down to coals, Morrigan finished processing what she'd collected. The dried bundle of rowan went back into her pack. The remaining material she wrapped separately, in smaller cloth parcels.

Emma watched her tie off one of the parcels and found herself asking: “Deathroot?”

“Tis the black-stemmed variety,” Morrigan looked up. She retied the parcel and set it aside. “You know the margin.”

“What margin?”

“Between the written measure and what will kill you,” Morrigan said. “Those books of yours were written by domesticated animals, about specimens grown in controlled soil.”

She picked up the next piece of cloth.

“What you found near the millpond would dose differently. The frost slows the concentration. One would want roughly two-thirds of the written measure... If one was using it correctly.”

Emma said nothing. She added that to the running, grim tally of things she hadn't known that she would need to know.

Morrigan finished her parcel. Alistair had stopped eating, bowl empty, staring at a point somewhere between the fire and the Fade itself.

Emma didn't say anything. The stew sat in her stomach, dissolving into something thoroughly undignified, doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

“You’ve been quiet.” Emma dropped beside him. Close enough to register as intentional. She set a cup of tea within reach.

“Do you want to talk?” she paused, adjusted. “About Duncan?”

He didn't look at her. “You don't have to do that. I know you didn't know him as long as I did.”

“No. I didn't.”

Emma didn't withdraw. Didn't argue. Sat there, waiting. The silence stretched, tense.

“But I know what he meant to you,” she added, finally.

His shoulders dropped slightly. He picked up his cup, wrapped both hands around it. It was warm. He focused on that.

“That's...” He finally looked at her, surprised. “You didn't like him much, did you?”

Alistair glanced at her then, wary, as if bracing for a verdict. She didn’t give him one.

“I... don't know. As you said, I didn't know him.”

“But you didn't want to be conscripted.”

“No.” Emma leaned back against a log, casually sipping her own cup. He could smell it. Hers was very strong. “I didn't get a choice. But you did.”

“He saved me,” he said.

“I know. That's worth something. Even if... it wasn't the same for me.”

She looked down into her cup. He turned back to the fire.

“I... should have handled it better.” The words came out rehearsed, like he’d been arguing with himself all afternoon and finally lost. “Duncan warned me right from the beginning that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle. I shouldn't have lost it, not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and... everything.”

“You lost a lot. Grief happens.”

Here she was, with the tea, speaking in terms of cause and effect. Or inevitability. And she wasn’t wrong.

“It just feels like I’m wasting energy,” he said. “Like every moment I spend—” His voice broke, sharp and sudden. He stared into the fire, learning forward, furious at himself for it. “He deserved better. A proper funeral. But there’s nothing left to bury.”

“There can be a memorial, someday. If we survive.”

He latched onto that immediately. “I’d like that.” He fidgeted with the cup, took a sip he didn’t need. “He didn’t have any family to speak of.”

“He had you.”

It hit him harder than she intended. His voice went very small.

“Part of me wishes I was with him. In the battle. I feel like I abandoned him.”

“You'd just be dead.”

“I know.” Exhaustion smoothed the edge in his voice. “That’s the stupid part, isn’t it? That wouldn’t make him happier. It wouldn’t help anyone.”

“Have you—” He hesitated, then pushed through. “—had someone close to you die? Not that I mean to pry, I'm just...”

He turned toward her fully. The firelight caught the red rims of his eyes. Emma's eyes were dark and steady beneath strong brows. They usually gave him very little, beyond the persistent impression of being evaluated.

“Yes,” she told him. “Multiple people.”

Alistair was starting to question that impression.

“Do you still think about them?”

A sharp exhale. “Every day.”

“Does it get easier?”

“I'll let you know if it does.”

He gave a small, crooked smile. “Well. That’s honest, at least.”

They sat in silence. Not comfortable, exactly, but not unbearable either. Across the camp, Morrigan snapped at Muffin over something trivial. The normalcy of it felt cruel, but necessary in equal measure.

“Thank you,” Alistair said quietly. “For not... for not telling me to get over it. Or that it's a waste of time.”

Emma raised her cup of aggressively functional tea in acknowledgment.

Space

Alistair talked when there was space to fill. He always had.

It wasn't that he needed an audience. Most of the time, he assumed he didn't have one. Words drifted into air and evaporated. No follow-up. Gone the moment he stopped making noise.

They were walking on the Imperial Highway, a road of polished stone, tread over so many times the edges had worn down. She didn't look at him when she spoke. She rarely did, not unless something required it.

“So,” she said, after he'd been rambling about nothing for a while, “you said Arl Eamon raised you.”

“Did I say that? I meant dogs. Giant ones. Slobbering. From the Anderfels.”

She waited.

“A whole pack,” he went on, warming to it. “Flying dogs, obviously. Very strict parents. Big on the Chant. You wouldn't believe the curfew.”

“That must have been difficult for them,” Emma said, completely flat.

He looked at her then. She wasn't smiling.

“Well,” he said, “they did their best.”

“And then they sold you to the Chantry.”

There it was. The follow-up. A thing that never happened.

“Oh, there you go,” he said lightly. “Listening again. You'd think you'd have gotten bored by now.”

He waited for her to say something. She just kept walking. Her staff tapped stone in steady rhythm.

“I didn't start there,” he said finally. “The Chantry, I mean. Let me think. How do I explain this...”

He scratched at the back of his neck.

“I'm a bastard. And before you say anything clever, I mean the fatherless kind. My mother was a serving girl at Redcliffe. She died when I was very young. Arl Eamon wasn't my father, but he took me in anyway. Roof over my head. Food. That sort of thing.”

He said it smoothly, carefully light.

“He was good to me. And he didn't have to be. I respect him. I don't blame him for sending me to the Chantry once I was old enough.”

“He wasn't your father,” she repeated. “Do you know who was?”

“I know who I was told was my father.” He glanced at her briefly. She wasn't looking back. “He died before my mother did. Anyway. It isn't important.”

He said it the same way he always did. Would she remember he'd said that, too?

If he were so lucky: After Lothering they'd be heading to Redcliffe. And he’d never worried about it before. Not like this.

Emma nodded once. Alistair kept talking.

“Eamon married an Orlesian woman eventually. Caused a bit of a stir, what with the war and all. He loved her, though. That part was obvious.” He smiled, thin. “She didn't love the rumors about me quite as much.”

“What rumors?”

“The new arlessa resented the rumors which pegged me as his bastard.” He shrugged. “They weren't true, but that hardly matters. She resented my being there. I don't blame her, really. If I were in her place...”

“Anyhow, so off I went to the nearest monastery at age ten. Just as well. The arlessa had made sure the castle wasn't a home to me by that point.”

“That's an awful thing to do to a child.”

He looked up. She was watching him. It made him feel a bit tilted, like staring into bottomlessness.

“She felt threatened,” he said. “I can see that now.”

He paused, then added, quieter, “I had an amulet. Andraste's symbol. The only thing I had from my mother. When they told me I was headed to the monastery, I tore it off and threw it at the wall. Shattered it...stupid thing to do.”

“Did the arl visit you?”

“Sometimes,” Alistair said. “At first. I hated the monastery. Blamed him for everything. I was… difficult.” He waved a hand, trying for dismissive. He knew his voice didn't quite sell it. “Eventually he stopped coming.”

Emma said nothing. He was making excuses. She could hear it in his words, said so reasonably. And of course, he filled the space she left him.

“I was raised by dogs,” he said. “Or I may as well have been. Maybe all young bastards act like that. I wouldn’t know.”

“They do,” said Emma. She'd know. Most mage children are like bastards, more or less.

“The arl is a good man, and well-loved. He was King Cailan’s uncle. If he knew...he has good reason for wanting Loghain brought to account.”

Alistair stared at her. She wasn't looking at him anymore. But something in her posture suggested she was still listening. Still paying attention. It was unsettling, he decided.

“Anyway,” he said. “That’s really all there is to the story.”

insomnia

One of the first things they taught him in templar training was this: sleep anywhere, anytime, no matter how uncomfortable. Sleep in armor. Sleep in the dirt. Sleep standing up if you had to. The Chantry didn't care if your bedroll was damp or your back ached or you were convinced you'd never rest again. Hurry up and wait. Go to sleep. Now get up.

It wasn't easy. But Alistair learned. Everyone did, or they washed out.

After he became a Grey Warden, after he learned to block out the dreams—or at least shove them into a corner of his mind where they couldn't scream quite so loud—he almost slept enough. Almost. Not the deep, restful kind of sleep he vaguely remembered from childhood, but something functional. The kind that kept you upright and mostly coherent.

It was never the same, of course. The taint made sure of that. But it was manageable.

And then there was Emma.

Emma, who appeared to sleep almost none.

Not “very little.” Not “poorly.” None. Or so close to none that the difference was academic.

He'd been watching. Not in a creepy way—just in the way you notice when someone is operating on what should be physically impossible margins. In the Wilds, he'd assumed she was just wired from the Joining. Adrenaline. Fear. Survival mode.

But then they'd made camp. And she'd sat by the fire, staring into it with that thousand-yard stare mages got when they were doing... whatever mages did in their heads. And when he got up for his watch, she was still there. Same position. Same expression.

“Did you sleep?” he'd asked.

“Some,” she'd said.

A lie. A complete and obvious lie. He knew what “some” looked like. Emma's shoulders hadn't dropped in days.

He'd learned to sleep in armor. She'd apparently learned not to sleep at all.

“Bad dreams, huh?”

Emma woke sitting upright, staff already in hand. Not the tower. Not Ishal. Just a camp. Just the road.

The fire had burned down to embers. Across from her, Alistair was sitting on a log, armor off, tunic rumpled, very much awake. He looked like he'd been awake for a while.

Emma set the staff down carefully. Her hands were steady. Her heart was not.

“I don't usually dream.”

“Well,” Alistair said, “that's about to change.”

She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. The air was cold. The ground was wet. Everything smelled like ash and old smoke.

“Must have been something I ate,” she said.

“Drank, more like.” He gestured toward her, then himself. “As in the tainted blood, remember? You see, part of being a Grey Warden is being able to hear the darkspawn. That's what your dream was. Hearing them.”

Emma stared at him. “You're saying the nightmares are... reconnaissance?”

“Not intentional. Just inevitable.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The archdemon talks to the horde. We feel it just as they do. That's why we know this is really a Blight.”

She let that settle. It explained nothing and everything at once.

“So Duncan just... knew?”

“He said he felt the archdemon's presence. Everyone assumed he was guessing.”

“And you didn't correct them.”

Alistair shrugged. “Would you have believed us? Before the Joining?”

No. She wouldn't have. She'd think it was mysticism.

“It takes a bit,” he continued, “but eventually you can block the dreams out. Some of the older Grey Wardens say they can understand the archdemon a bit, but I sure can't.”

Emma nodded slowly. Blocking them out. That implied they didn't stop. Just became background noise. Like the hum of lyrium. Present. Ignorable. Corrosive.

“When I heard you thrashing around,” Alistair added, quieter now, “I thought I should tell you. It was scary at first for me, too.”

Thrashing. She'd been thrashing.

“How long does it take?” she asked. “To block them out?”

He hesitated. “Depends on the person. For me, a few weeks. But I Joined outside of a Blight. The others...the books...they all said it's worse, if you Join during a blight...”

Emma looked at the fire. The embers pulsed faintly.

“Anything else I should know about?”

“Other than dying young and the whole defeat-the-Blight-alone thing?” His voice wennt flat.. “No, I'm all tapped out for surprises.”

“You're not sleeping either,” she observed.

“Nope.” He looked at the trees, the road, anywhere but her. “I don't much, these days.”

“Is that normal? For Wardens?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. But I don't know what's normal anymore.” He stood, brushing dirt off his trousers. “Anyhow, you're up now, right? Let's pull up camp and get a move on.”

Emma didn't move immediately. She watched him walk toward the packs, already sorting through supplies, scavenging a breakfast, already moving forward.

She wanted fruit. Stupid, frivolous off-season fruit from the Circle kitchens. Something that tasted like choice instead of necessity.

Instead, she stood. Rolled up her bedroll. Strapped her pack.

Morrigan materialized from the treeline, ready, already watching. She said nothing.

Muffin stretched, yawned, and trotted over to Emma's side. She scratched behind his ears. He leaned into it, tail wagging.

At least someone was getting rest.

“Ready?” Alistair called from the road.

Emma shouldered her staff. “Ready.”

They walked north. The sun rose somewhere behind the clouds, pale and distant. The dreams would never end, so long as she lived.

They walked in silence for a while. The road stretched ahead, empty and grey. Emma's boots found their rhythm on the packed earth. Alistair's armor clinked softly with each step.

Then he said, carefully: “You know, I'm not sure I've ever actually seen you sleep. Before now, that is.”

Emma glanced at him. “You've seen me sleep.”

“Have I? Because I'm trying to remember, and I'm coming up empty.”

She kept walking. “You were impatient while I slept in Flemeth's hut.”

“You were unconscious in Flemeth's hut. That's different. That doesn't count.”

“It counts.”

“Does it, though?” He was watching her now, head tilted slightly. “Because before that, in the Wilds—nothing. After the tower—nothing. On the road—maybe an hour here and there.”

Emma shrugged. “I don't need much sleep.”

“Apparently.” He made a thoughtful noise. Not disapproving. Just... processing.

“How?” he asked finally. “I mean, genuinely. How do you keep going like that? Doesn't it drive you insane?”

“I'm used to it.”

“That's worse. You know that, right? That being 'used to it' is actually much, much worse?”

“Probably.”

“And now you're a Warden. Which means the nightmares are also going to make it worse.”

“I'm aware.”

“But also—Emma, you can't sustain this. You know you can't. I mean, you can now, obviously, because you're... you. But at some point, your body's going to make the decision for you. And when it does, it's not going to be gentle about it.”

“I know how it works. I've been doing this for years,” she said. “I'll manage.”

“Years.” He repeated the word like he was testing its weight. “Years of what? Two hours a night? Three? Less?”

“Depends. I don't know. It just varies. I'm just like this.”

They walked in silence again. His concern was uncomfortable. She didn't know what to do with it.

“Look,” he said, softer now. “I'm not trying to lecture you. I'm just... worried. You're running yourself into the ground, and I don't know how to help.”

She sighed. “Nobody knows. It is what it is. You don't need to help.”

“You know,” Alistair said, “if you do manage to sleep tonight, and the nightmares come back—I was going to say you could wake me. If you wanted. I'm usually up anyway.”

“That's no good. You don't need to double down on my insomnia, Alistair.”

He chuckled. “I told you. I don't sleep much either these days.”

“So we're both disasters.”

“We're Wardens,” he corrected.

“Fine. If I sleep. If the nightmares come. I'll...at least see if you're already up.”

“Good.”

Fear & Lothering (9:30)

Exposure

The outer ring of refugee tents smelled like wet wool and last night’s porridge. Canvas sagged under its own weight, patched with whatever came to hand: sackcloth, prayer ribbons, someone’s good shirt torn into strips. Cookfires had died early to save fuel. The mud never dried here, just settled into different textures of misery.

Emma knelt in it anyway.

Alistair sat on a rolled blanket that had seen better months, forearm braced across his knee. The gash ran from wrist to elbow. The field stitches had pulled loose in places. Red crept outward from the edges, heat radiating under her fingers.

“Oh, that looks ominous,” he said.

“It’s infected.”

“Well, yes. That's probably true. But it's still alive.” He flexed his fingers, slow and deliberate, as if proving something to himself.

Emma unwound the bandage without answering. The cloth stuck. Alistair’s jaw tightened; he didn’t pull away. She eased it free and dropped it into the mud.

She’d already done everything that was allowed. Rinsed it. Packed it. Wrapped it. Waited.

Just stalling.

Her hand hovered. She could feel the mana coiled in her chest, waiting. A simple regeneration spell would close this in seconds. She knew the shape of it by heart. Pull the skin together. Burn the infection out. Leave nothing but relief and a thin pink scar.

She pulled back and reached for the water instead.

Morrigan stood three paces away, watching everything else. Hands clean. Positioned where she could see between the tents, track movement, count faces.

“How long,” Morrigan said, “do you intend to touch him without helping?”

Emma didn’t look up. “I am helping.”

Morrigan gestured, slight and dismissive, toward the camp.

Emma’s hands stilled.

Someone coughed. A child lingered in the gap between shelters, staring with the intensity of someone who knew they weren’t meant to. A woman adjusted a pack strap that didn’t need adjusting, took her time about it.

No one approached. No one left.

The attention pressed down on Emma’s shoulders. They were fugitives, now. Rumors of magic would end them.

“I have something,” Morrigan said.

Emma looked up. “Define something.”

Morrigan reached into her pack and produced a small pouch. “Here you are. Bog rowan. Marsh ash. Ground deathroot.”

“Deathroot.” Emma’s voice sharpened. “The dosing—”

“—is adequate,” Morrigan cut in. “For his size. For this wound.”

“It’s toxic.”

”'Tis a pain suppressant that will reduce the notice and attention you claim to fear.” Morrigan’s eyes flicked to Emma, then back to the perimeter.

Alistair cleared his throat. “I'm still here, you know.”

Neither of them looked at him.

“That won’t stop the infection,” Emma said.

“No,” Morrigan agreed. “But it will not be so flashy, either. You may choose which failure suits you.”

The mud squelched as Emma shifted. She hated being surrounded by so many normal people.

Alistair tried to smile. “Look, I've had worse. Remember the tower? The ogre? That bit where I was—”

His arm tensed without warning. The movement pulled at the wound. He went very still, took a deep breath.

Emma felt the spell rise on instinct. Just a little. Barely visible—

“If you glow,” Alistair said quietly, “we will attract trouble.”

He’d counted the same risks she had, arrived at the same grim answer.

The mana in her chest felt trapped. Like holding her breath too long.

“Fine,” she said. “Both.”

Morrigan raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll clean it properly first,” Emma said. “Then your remedy. Not instead.”

“That seems quite excessive, Warden,” Morrigan said.

“That’s the deal.”

Morrigan shrugged and tossed her the pouch.

Emma caught it. The leather was soft with use. Even sealed, the contents stung her sinuses: bitter, earthy, something chemically sharp beneath it.

“Alistair,” she said. “This will hurt.”

“Naturally,” he said, somewhere between trust and resignation.

Emma worked fast. She cleaned deeper this time, cut away tissue that had gone grey at the edges. Alistair’s breathing went sharp, uneven. He tensed, but didn’t pull away.

Morrigan handed her things without comment: clean cloth, a waterskin, a thin blade, cleaner than anything Emma had left.

By the time Emma finished, Alistair’s face had gone pale. She mixed the poultice in her palm, thick and dark, and spread it in a thin layer across the wound.

The effect was immediate. His shoulders dropped. His breath evened.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s… actually good.”

“'Tis temporary,” Morrigan said. “You will regret it when it wears off, later.”

“I’ll treasure this moment.”

Emma wrapped the arm with fresh cloth torn from a spare shirt and tied it off. She sat back on her heels.

Alistair flexed his hand. Stiff. Pain dulled. Still usable.

“Thank you,” he said. To both of them.

Emma didn’t answer. Her hands were sticky with blood and paste and mud. She wiped them on her trousers and stood. Alistair folded the blanket one-handed, cradling the injured arm. Emma took both packs before he could object.

Morrigan was already watching the tents again. A man had emerged nearby, scratching his beard, gaze sliding past them. Satisfied, perhaps, that nothing strange had happened.

Behind him, still in the tent, a woman peered over his shoulder. She looked disappointed.

Emma saw both.

“We should move,” she said.

Morrigan vanished between the tents and returned minutes later with Muffin, who had been investigating something horribly biological near the latrines. They strapped the remaining pack to the dog. Muffin wore it proudly, tail wagging.

Dane’s Refuge was less a refuge and more a holding pen. The inn smelled like wet bodies, old grease, desperation fermenting in corners. Every table crowded, every bench sagging under too much weight. Even the air felt tired.

Emma shouldered through the press near the door. Morrigan had already vanished into whatever form offered the best sightlines and the least human contact. Alistair stayed close.

“I’m not sitting,” Emma said. He nodded.

His forearm was bandaged beneath the leather bracer, hidden, still radiating heat she could feel when she brushed past him. The deathroot paste had bought them hours. Not more.

A woman near the bar was bleeding through a rag wrapped around her hand. Too loose. Already soaked. Emma’s feet moved before her brain caught up.

“Let me see that.”

The woman flinched. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” Emma pulled another clean strip of the shirt from her pack. “Hold still.”

The watching crowd shifted. Assessing. Before she thought twice, more followed. Emma unwrapped a hand presented to her.

A deep, clean gash across the palm. Fish knife, probably. Bad binding, worse judgment. She cleaned it with water and vinegar, packed it with yarrow, wrapped it tight with real tension.

“Keep it elevated. Change the bandage tomorrow.”

The woman stared at her hand like it had been returned from the dead. “Thank you.”

An older man with a fever. Willow bark tea. A child with a burn. Honey and comfrey. No glow. No magic. Just speed and competence. Emma moved through the crowd like she was disarming something, one small disaster at a time.

Alistair shadowed her, silent, his presence keeping the press from turning into a crush. People took help and melted back. Nobody mentioned Wardens or bounties or the rumors that had been circulating since Ostagar.

It was working.

Then a young mother pushed forward, infant wailing in her arms. “Please—he won’t stop crying. He’s been sick for days.”

Emma took one look and knew.

The child’s skin was gray. Breathing shallow. Too shallow. This wasn’t something yarrow could touch.

“I can’t—”

“Please.” The woman’s voice broke. “Everyone says you helped them.”

The crowd thickened. Hope spread fast and stupid, like a contagion itself. A man with a suppurating leg. A woman coughing blood into her sleeve. Hands reaching. Voices overlapping.

Too many. Too fast.

Alistair was looking elsewhere. His hand found her elbow. “Emma.”

Boots hit the floorboards, the particular cadence of soldiers. The crowd parted without being told. Refugees shrinking back against the walls.

Four soldiers. The commander had the look of someone who’d survived by listening to orders. His gaze landed on Emma and stuck.

“Well,” he said, smiling thinly. “I think we’ve been blessed.”

Alistair’s tone went light. “Uh-oh. That’s Loghain’s men.”

A younger soldier stepped forward, already reaching for his sword. “Didn’t we spend all morning asking for a woman like her? And everyone said they hadn't seen one?”

“It seems we were lied to.” The commander’s eyes slid over the refugees pressed to the walls, already cataloguing.

A woman in Chantry robes stepped between them. Calm. Earnest. Unarmed, or so she seemed. “Gentlemen, surely there’s no need for trouble. These are only more poor souls, seeking succor.”

The commander didn’t look at her. “Move aside, Sister. You protect traitors, you die with them.”

Emma felt the situation collapse into plausible outcomes. Four soldiers. One exit. Alistair still fever-warm. Morrigan somewhere in the crowd, maybe. Refugees at risk in the melee.

“Let’s talk,” Emma bid to buy time.

“I am not a fool!” the commander snapped. “I served at Ostagar. The teyrn saved us from Warden treachery. I serve him gladly!”

Steel cleared leather.

Alistair drew at the same instant. “Enough.”

“Take the Warden,” the commander barked. “Kill the sister and anyone else in the way.”

The inn exploded.

Refugees scattered. Tables overturned. The sister moved faster than Emma expected, a knife flashing from her sleeve, burying it in a soldier’s thigh.

Alistair caught a blow on his shield, turned it, kicked a knee sideways. He was slower than he should have been. Emma saw it. So did the man facing him.

A second blade came low, under the shield. Alistair blocked too late. Steel bit his thigh. He stumbled.

The killing blow rose.

Emma didn’t think.

Magic tore out of her hands. Raw, uncontrolled. Cool light flared across Alistair’s leg, sealing flesh and blood in an instant. He surged upright and smashed his shield into the soldier’s face.

The commander circled, his smile vanished. “A mage,” he said softly. “Even better.”

Something cold and furious settled into Emma’s bones. The hiding was over. The debt these people had paid for her burned clean away.

Lightning crawled up her arms.

She released it.

The bolt hit the commander square in the chest. He collapsed, twitching, the air around him drying and crackling.

“Drop your weapons,” Emma said.

One soldier ran. The sister took him down before he reached the door.

The last two looked at each other. At the body on the floor. At Emma, still arcing with light.

They dropped their swords.

Alistair leaned on his shield, breathing hard. He was watching her now. Her stomach curdled.

“We surrender,” the commander rasped. “You’ve won.”

The sister lowered her knife. “Good. Then we can all stop fighting now.”

“I don’t want them reporting to Loghain,” Emma said.

The color drained from the commander’s face. “Please.”

The sister stepped forward, shaken. “They’ve surrendered.”

Emma looked at her. This woman in Chantry robes who’d stabbed and chased and cornered without hesitation.

“Then give them a final prayer.”

“You mean...”

Emma nodded.

The sister swallowed. Knelt. Prayed.

Alistair hesitated for half a heartbeat.

Then it was over.

Vow

The inn had emptied fast. Now it held only corpses and the people too stubborn or too broken to run. The drunk spectators had finally found better entertainment elsewhere. A few refugees huddled in the far corners, watching the Wardens.

Emma stood over the commander’s body, wiping blood off her staff with a rag someone had abandoned on a table. Her hands were steady. Morrigan helped her check the other bodies—searching for orders, dispatches, anything.

Then Morrigan leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, radiating bored impatience. “We should be leaving. Lingering seems unwise.”

“We need more information.” Emma was irritated.

The sister was also cleaning her blade—the one she had used to puncture a soldier’s kidney. She wiped it methodically from hilt to point, then slid it back into a sheath hidden beneath her robes. When she finished, she approached the Wardens.

“I apologize for interfering, but I couldn’t just sit by and not help.”

Emma looked up. Calluses on the woman’s fingers spoke to blade hilts, not hymnals. Hair pulled back in a practical braid, nothing like the elaborate constructions Emma associated with Revered Mothers. Young, with an earnest expression.

A pang of nostalgia hit her, for redheaded Chantry women with a hidden talent for violence. Jowan had been lucky only once in his life—he had Lily, who also helped him escape. And probably died for it.

Somehow, Lily had been brutal with a mace. Faith had never softened her. Now Emma would never know why.

“So I see. Where does a sister learn to fight like that?”

Leliana’s smile had an edge to it. Knowing. A little sad. “You’d be surprised what we learned before we repent.”

Not anymore.

“Let me introduce myself properly.” Leliana straightened herself closer to formal courtesy. “I am Leliana, one of the lay sisters of the Chantry here in Lothering. Or I was.”

Emma extended her hand. “I am Emma. A pleasure.”

Leliana’s handshake was firm, brief. When she released Emma, her expression sharpened into something more intent.

“They said you were a Grey Warden. After what happened, you’ll need all the help you can get. That’s why I’m coming along.”

Emma’s eyebrows rose. “Why so eager?”

“The Maker told me to.”

She heard this before—Circle mages claiming divine inspiration for their grants, templars blessing their cruelty, Chantry authorities wielding faith as a cudgel.

“If the Maker wants something,” Emma said carefully, “He’s welcome to explain it Himself.”

Leliana softened, without indignation. “I know you may not believe. I didn’t always, either. But I had a dream—a vision. I know how that sounds, but I know the Maker has love for all.”

Alistair finished searching the bodies. He stood, catching the tail end of Leliana’s declaration. “More crazy? I thought we were all full up.”

Emma smirked despite herself. She almost felt bad for Leliana. Alistair shrugged, unapologetic. She did seem unhinged. Could one drink from the cup of Joining on the strength of a dream?

Leliana pressed on, undeterred. “Look at the people here.” She gestured to the refugees cowering in the corners, to the blood-soaked floorboards. “They are lost in despair, and this darkness—this chaos—will spread. The Maker doesn’t want this.”

“No one wants this. If the Maker cares, He has a strange way of showing it.”

Yet in Leliana’s face Emma recognized the fierce certainty of someone who decided her suffering meant something. Such faith usually ended badly.

“Yes… He is strange,” Leliana admitted. “Whether you believe or not,” her voice lowered, urgent, “what you’re doing matters. People will follow you. Let me help.”

Emma looked at this woman who’d plunged a dagger in a soldier’s kidney, then prayed over the corpses. Who claimed divine inspiration but was so obviously hiding from something. A fighter with zeal that could cover them in a variety of situations.

“Are you sure?” Emma said at last. “We needed you in that ambush. I can’t turn you away.”

Leliana’s face lit up. “Thank you. I know trust is not easily given. I will not let you down.”

She said it like a vow, quietly dramatic. A few in the corners bowed in prayer.

Morrigan made a derisive sound from her perch by the door. “Dear Warden, perhaps your skull was cracked more deeply than Mother suspected.” She pushed off the wall. “I, for one, am leaving. I beg of you, please finish this business quickly.”

Emma nodded once, already turning back to practicalities. “We leave soon. We’ll help them clean up, if they want it. Gather what you need from the Chantry. Be quick.”

“I’m ready now.” Leliana touched the hidden sheath at her belt, the small pack at her feet. “Everything I need is here.”

“Travel light, do you?” Alistair asked.

“I’ve learned to. Possessions can be limiting.”

Emma looked at the bodies. At the refugees creeping back. At Leliana, who had inserted herself into their disaster. She caught Leliana watching her with relief.

Another believer. Another blade.

“Let’s go.”

Alistair moved to Emma’s side, voice low. “She’s very weird.”

“Unlike me?” Emma reminded him. She seemed so normal, he'd said.

“Shows what I know.”

“She’s weird,” Emma agreed. “But we need her. She’s already committed.”

“Yes. Committed to murdering.”

“Then she’ll murder Loghain’s men.”

“They do have very murderable faces.”

They left, Emma bringing up the rear, staff grounded, feeling the weight of eyes following them across the bloodstained floor.

She realized: worrying about what they thought was optimistic. The darkspawn would probably end most of them. Even Loghain’s men, who survived Ostagar, convinced it meant something. Only to follow Emma here, into the dark.

Outside, night finished settling. They took the shadows toward the highway.

Behind them, Dane’s Refuge sealed itself shut. One more bridge burned. If it meant anything, it would only be in retrospect.

vertical

Emma lay on her bedroll with Muffin, eyes closed, listening to the rhythm of camp settling into night. Morrigan had withdrawn to her tent, or perhaps scampered off somewhere, hours ago. Leliana's idle singing marked her watch.

And Alistair was absolutely, definitely not sleeping.

She could hear him shifting in his tent. A sigh. Another shift. The man was conducting an entire performance of attempted rest while achieving none of it.

Emma opened her eyes and sat up slowly, reaching for her pack. She dug out a tin of tea and herbs, along with the small pot they'd scavenged from Lothering. The fire still had enough heat left.

She was measuring the leaves when Alistair's tent rustled. A pause. Then his head emerged, hair sticking up at an angle that suggested he'd been horizontal but not unconscious.

“Oh,” he said. “You're up.”

She nodded.

“I was just—Can't sleep either?”

She set the pot on the coals. “Tea?”

“Please.” He emerged fully. He settled across from her with a slight groan that suggested his back shared her opinion of the ground.

They waited for the water to heat. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, exactly. They'd given up on pretending and weren't sure what came next.

“Is it the nightmares?” he asked finally. “Or just…”

“Just.” She watched the pot.

“Right.” He accepted the cup she handed him, wrapping both hands around it despite the night not being particularly cold.

She took a sip. “You?”

“Well...I assume the darkspawn are very busy.” He grimaced into his cup. “What is this?”

“Tea.”

“That's generous.”

“It's quite nearly the best we got.”

“Nearly?”

Emma pulled a small pouch from the tin—something else Morrigan had procured in the Wilds with a casual “tis an herb that keeps one vertical.” She pinched a bit of the dried leaves between her fingers. They were dark, with an oily sheen that caught the firelight.

She dropped them into her cup. The water darkened immediately, like ink spreading.

Alistair watched this process with slight alarm. “What is that?”

“Something... familiar. That grows here.” Less concentrated, more recently alive than she was used to. It would have to do. “It's stronger than that.”

Emma stirred it with a twig. “You can have some if you want.”

He leaned forward slightly, peering into her cup. The smell coming off it was bitter—something between mint and turpentine, with an undertone that suggested consequences.

“How much stronger are we talking?”

“Probably not enough. I'll find out. Morrigan said it was good for 'sustained wakefulness.'”

“Sustained wakefulness.” He repeated this like he was testing the words for traps. “And you're just… drinking it. Casually. At the wee hour of the morning.”

“I'm counting on it walking me through this.”

He stared at her cup, then at his own, then back at hers. The dark liquid sat there under a thin sheen of oil—the kind of thing that would either keep you awake for a week or make your heart explode. Possibly both, in sequence.

“That's…” He trailed off. Started again. “You know what? No. Absolutely not. I've made a lot of questionable decisions in my life, but I'm drawing the line at mystery stimulants cured by a swamp witch.”

“Your loss.”

“I'm fine with that, actually. Very fine. Completely at peace with missing out on whatever that is.”

Emma took another sip. It tasted like someone had dissolved determination into hot water. Her pupils dilated slightly. She blinked.

“It's working,” she reported.

“Wonderful. Terrifying, but wonderful. Good for you.” He took a deliberately large gulp of his own terrible-but-not-supernatural tea, as if to establish his commitment to the safer option. “Please don't die from that.”

“I won't.”

They drank in silence. Alistair made a face but kept drinking anyway.

After a minute, she said abruptly: “What can a templar actually do?”

He blinked at her over the rim of his cup. “That's… a shift in topic.”

“You brought up your training earlier. I'm asking now.”

“Fair.” He set down the cup, rubbing the back of his neck. “Essentially? We're trained to fight. The Chantry frames it as 'defending the faithful,' but don't let them fool you. It's an army.”

Emma nodded slowly. “A mage-hunting army.”

“Right. That.” His voice flattened slightly. “Draining mana, and disrupting spells. We're effective against mages. Against anyone else?” He gestured at the belt across his tunic. “I'm just a guy in a metal suit.”

“Is it magic? What you do?”

“You could call it that.” He smiled, humorless. “The Chantry doesn't. Since our talents only work on mages, they say it's different. Holy, even. Not the same as your kind of magic.”

Emma's expression didn't change. “Convenient distinction.”

“Very.”

She watched him for a moment. The firelight caught the edges of exhaustion around his eyes. Her own exhaustion was currently being held at bay by whatever Morrigan had harvested from the dark places of the Wilds. She could feel her thoughts sharpening.

“How many mages did you hunt?”

“None.” The word came fast. “I never became a full templar. Duncan recruited me before I took my vows.”

“Templars could run the Chantry. If they wanted.”

“You'd think.” Alistair gave a short, bitter laugh. “But the Chantry keeps a close rein on its templars. We're given lyrium to develop our talents. Which means we become addicted. And since the Chantry controls the lyrium trade with the dwarves…” He made a gesture. “You can connect the dots.”

“Were you? Addicted?”

“No. Thankfully. You only start receiving lyrium once you've taken your vows.” He poked the fire with a stick, harder than necessary. “You don't actually need it to learn the talents. Lyrium just makes them more effective. Or so I was told. Maybe it doesn't even do that. Maybe it's just the leash.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. He wasn't supposed to be telling her this. She absorbed that. The tea had gone lukewarm in her hands.

“The Chantry doesn't usually let templars leave, either,” Alistair added. “Can't have them spreading secrets. I'm an exception.” He smiled without humor. “Lucky me.”

She waited, then said: “You must have been taught how to spot us.” She kept her tone neutral, clinical. “What are the signs?”

“I… yes. There's no great secret, surprisingly. I can feel if someone is casting, but... I don't just know.”

Emma looked into the fire. “Morrigan asked me if I thought she is an unnatural abomination to be put to the torch.”

“She asked you that?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That shapeshifting is a rare ability. That it should be preserved.” Emma's voice stayed level. “But she knows what she is to the Chantry. What she would be to templars.”

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was carefully measured.

“She's… I don't know what Morrigan is. She's very creepy. The way she talks about people, like we're—I don't know. Ingredients. Variables. Things. I don't trust her. I mean, think about it, what if Flemeth sent her with us for some reason, other than what she said? But that doesn't mean—” He stopped. Started over. “I don't think she should be hunted for what she can do. If that's what you're asking.”

“It's part of what I'm asking.”

He looked at her directly then. “What's the other part?”

Emma hesitated. He leaned forward, cup still in hand.

“This isn’t really about Morrigan, is it?”

“You don’t look at me the way you look at her.”

He nodded. He was quiet for a moment.

“No. I don't.”

“Why not?”

“Because you're not—” He stopped himself.

“Not what?”

“Not reckless. Not flirting with demons.” His words came faster now, defensive. “You're trained. You're careful. You understand the risks.” Then, quieter: “Duncan trusted you.”

“So I'm the safe kind of mage.”

“I didn't say that. If you were safe, you'd probably be dead. We'd all probably be dead.”

Both of them smiled, both of them reluctantly.

“If I ever frightened you,” she said quietly, “would you tell me?”

“Frightened me how?”

“The way you were taught to fear.”

“I can’t picture that,” he said quietly. “And if I ever could… I’d ask you. Before I did anything stupid. Or, really anything... that I couldn’t take back.”

Neither of them moved. The fire burned lower. The tea grew cold.

They gave up on sleeping, and relieved Leliana of her watch early.

Bounty (Lothering)

The road north was a refugee artery now—bloated with carts, mules, and people who had nowhere left to run. Most had come from the south, limping and starved, their homes burned by darkspawn scouts.

The smell hit first. Smoke, wet metal, rations gone bad. The sort of air that clung to soldiers after a battle—except there hadn't been one here. Not yet. When word spread that Grey Wardens had been seen passing near the village, that was the final spark.

“I count two dozen,” Morrigan reported from above, circling. No formation, barely any leaders. “Desperation breeds idiocy.”

If they'd had Sten, Emma would have sent him. Let a murderer meet a mob—it balanced out, in her mind. A clean ledger, or as close as it gets. He'd draw their fear and their fury both, and maybe live long enough to absolve something of himself in the process.

Alistair hated the idea. “Let's not feed him more people.”

Morrigan had only shrugged. “'Twould save us the trouble.”

Shouts echoed across the empty fields as refugees—gaunt, desperate, some still clutching empty ration pouches—gathered at the crossroads. Able-bodied men waited at the road's edges like crows, all ribs and fever eyes. Half of them had pitchforks. The other half looked like they'd kill for one.

Leliana's hand lingered near her bowstring. “They had children with them.”

“They have rocks with them,” Alistair muttered. “Let me try to talk them down first. They deserve that much.”

He adjusted the heavy armor, trying to stand straighter. Shiny, conspicuous, and loud enough to make every starving soul turn their head. It had the look of the armor she'd seen at Ostagar. Later, she'd learn it actually was—thank Bodahn for that—but now it just looked like a bad idea.

The others knew better than to step forward. Emma could try anyway, but she was the one who'd ordered two men's throats slit in the inn last night. There were no good options. So Alistair it was.

He rolled his shoulders, greaves clanking. The armor looked ridiculous on him—too big, too bright, like a costume. Muffin's ears flattened, and the war hound shifted forward, eyes darting about the crowd's movements. Even the dog knew this would end badly.

Emma took position behind the half-collapsed fence, staff grounded. Leliana had set up further back, her bowstring whispering under her fingers. They barely knew her. The Chant was still on her lips from the last time she'd prayed over a body. She could collect the bounty herself—Emma, with one shot. Alistair might stand a chance, were they not still ragged from their journey out of the Wilds.

Emma considered the situation—outnumbered, Alistair half-injured, pulling his punches. That's why she'd quietly moved into position, watching Muffin, who watched him.

Muffin had positioned himself between her and the crowd's edge, fixed on the men circling wide, at counter to those who were testing their angles. The war dog could launch and reach a threat before Emma could cast.

Morrigan circled above, a black blur against grey sky, scouting and sulking.

The villagers were shouting now. The words blurred together—something about Wardens, about bounty, about betrayal. Someone spat.

Alistair raised his hands, voice steady.

“Let us escort you north. We're not your enemy.”

Which was true, technically. They didn't care.

“We starve while you play soldier!”

The first rock hit his pauldron with a clang like a tinny bell. Muffin's growl deepened. Leliana exhaled slowly. Two refugees charged; Alistair raised his shield but tried again:

“Please—we're not here to kill people. Just the darkspawn.”

One woman cried out, “The monster is you! The price is on your heads!”

Another rock whistled past his temple and struck the mud behind him. Leliana loosed—her arrow pinned a man's sleeve to a wagon wheel. A warning. The next one wouldn't be.

Three men broke from the mob's edge, approaching at the angle about him where the pauldrons blinded. Muffin surged forward, a verifiable meat torpedo, splitting the front against him, buying time. One stumbled back. The other two hesitated just long enough for Alistair to pivot.

Morrigan descended like a shadow, positioning herself at Alistair's flank.

Emma drove her staff into the ground. The impact jolted through her arms, up into her shoulders. The Fade responded—air shimmering, dust lifting in rings around her. Half the crowd faltered. Half charged.

A man with a cudgel came at their tank, from the left. Muffin intercepted low, jaws closing on the weapon's shaft with a crack of splintering wood. The man fell backward, weaponless, numb. The hound circled back to Alistair's weak side, maintaining the perimeter.

Alistair struck back. Quick, necessary, regretted.

Lightning crackled from Emma's staff, not at the crowd but at the ground before them—a barrier that turned charge into retreat, licking the few pressing through. The mabari moved with her magic, reading its rhythm, herding the wounded back toward the mob.

When it was done, Muffin returned to Emma's side, tongue lolling, eyes still tracking the horizon. His tail wagged. The most cheerful soldier's report. Emma dropped to one knee, praising him as he leaned into her shoulder. Tension uncoiled from his muscles into hers.

The dog had done what she couldn't—bought Alistair time to feel merciful. Timing may have saved a few from the blade. She was not so sure it was truly a mercy.

Two lay dead, four wounded, and the rest had fled toward the marsh by Dane's Refuge. Emma didn't feel guilty. She thought, guilt comes later, when they buried the bodies and Alistair looked at her like she was Duncan's ghost.

But it didn't.

However, Alistair felt guilty enough for all of them.

“They were just—Maker, they were just scared.”

Leliana murmured a prayer for the corpses. “The Revered Mother here will not forgive this.”

“The Revered Mother will forgive nothing,” Morrigan said flatly, eyes tracing the horizon for more trouble.

Threads

Alistair knelt in the dirt, wrestling with a coil of twine that seemed determined to make a fool of him, unspooling and tangling.

“I swear this stuff is possessed. Or maybe it's just—”

“Incompetently handled?” Morrigan suggested, not looking up from where she was methodically cutting canvas into workable sections.

“I was going to say 'temperamental.'”

Emma sat back on her heels nearby, measuring another length of twine with her fingers. She’d been quiet since that ugly business with the refugees.

“It’s long enough.” She marked the spot with her thumb. “Cut here.”

Morrigan's blade flashed. The twine parted.

“There,” Morrigan said. “Your struggles against inanimate objects need not continue.”

Alistair glared. “I don’t see you volunteering to wrangle it.”

“You know,” Emma said, still working the twine between her fingers, “we could just… leave.”

Alistair fumbled another loop. “Leave the tent half-assembled? I mean, I know I'm bad at this, but—”

“Ferelden.” The word dropped like a stone. “We could go to Orlais. Find the Grey Warden veterans. They’d know what to do.”

The twine slipped through Alistair's fingers entirely. “Orlais again. Why? You're joking.”

“Does she sound like she's joking?” Morrigan asked, sharply.

Alistair drew his brow, an irritated stitch. “Emma… the Blight is here. If we run to Orlais, the horde rolls over everyone from here to Denerim. There won’t be anything left in Ferelden.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Duncan trained you for six months? I've had weeks. The Wardens in Orlais are more than two half-trained conscripts. They'd know how to organize a defense, how to—”

“How to arrive after Ferelden has been overrun and half the population is dead,” Alistair cut in quietly.

“But they'd have a chance to stop it from spreading across Thedas.”

“I can’t leave my country to die while I go running to the neighbors for help.”

“You could be getting reinforcements,” she insisted; It's what Duncan wanted Cailan to do. Why couldn't she say it? “Instead of dying pointlessly.”

“Pointless?” His voice was sharp. “Then what did Duncan die for? What did any of us—”

“Going to Orlais, to the experienced Wardens—that's the plan that actually saves lives. Maybe not Ferelden's, but—”

“But not Ferelden's,” he repeated. “You said it yourself.”

“Staying here is more dramatic than smart. We don't know enough. We don't have enough support. Loghain is close to finding us.”

“I'm a Grey Warden; I won't turn my back on the darkspawn to abandon Ferelden. Even if staying means—” He gestured helplessly at the half-assembled tent, the darkening sky, everything. “This.”

“That's not heroic, that's just—”

”—incompetent?” Morrigan suggested again.

”—self-destructive.” Emma said.

“Probably. But Ferelden is my home. Emma, we're the only ones left from Ostagar. If we run, that’s it. No one in Ferelden fights the Archdemon. No one even tries.”

Emma stared at him for a long moment, then stood and dropped the twine. She silently turned and walked away, boots crunching through dead leaves. The mabari hound lifted his head from where he’d been investigating a promising bush, then trotted after her. They watched her go.

“Well...” Alistair said after a moment. “She was never supposed to be a Warden. She didn’t want this. Duncan conscripted her... She probably just wants to go back to her tower and her books and pretend none of this ever happened. Or go to Orlais where there are people who might actually survive.”

The words came out harder than he'd intended. Morrigan continued cutting canvas with methodical calm.

“And the worst part is, she's right. Going to Orlais, finding Wardens who actually know what they're doing—that's the smart plan.”

“How predictably maudlin.” Morrigan's knife paused mid-cut. “Perhaps she simply possesses a functioning sense of self-preservation, unlike certain stubborn fools.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

”'Tis not my responsibility to manage your feelings, Warden. However—” The knife resumed its work. “—should your companion prove as pragmatic as you fear, you would not be fighting the Blight entirely alone.”

“Right.” He should probably feel grateful. He didn't. “Well. Thanks, I suppose.”

“How gracious. You are very welcome,” her voice was acid.

They worked in prickly silence for a moment, Alistair threading twine through grommets while Morrigan arranged the canvas sections. The tent was taking shape.

“I do not believe your Circle mage will leave Ferelden,” said Morrigan.

Alistair looked up. Morrigan was watching the lumpy mound of earth where Emma had gone.

“You sound awfully certain about that. Even though her plan is the one that makes actual sense.”

“I am.” Morrigan's fingers traced an idle pattern on the canvas. “There is a tether between you and her. A fine tether, perhaps, but strong.” Her voice took on an almost musical quality, careful and precise. “Emma may be ambivalent. She may rail against the foolishness of staying. But she will not abandon Ferelden.”

Alistair shook his head. “How can you possibly know that?”

“As of late, your Warden has acquired a rather telling companion.”

“The war dog? What does that have to do with—”

“Everything.” Morrigan cut him off with a gesture. “During that unfortunate business with the refugees, whilst you were busy being heroically stupid, did you not notice the beast?”

“He was... relentless. Until she called him back.”

“And before it came to that?”

Alistair shrugged.

“He was vigilant, all the while your poor attempt at diplomacy invited them to gut you.” She leaned forward slightly, amber eyes intent.

But Alistair frowned. “He's been our off-tank. He guards Emma.”

“Oh, he is devoted to her entirely.”

Alistair stared at the near-tent. He had twisted the twine taught against his palm.

“So what you’re saying is...”

“As I have been saying: she will not abandon you.” Morrigan continued, returning to her canvas. Her voice softened. “Logic and reason would send her to Orlais—'tis the sensible choice. But the tether holds.”

There was something almost sad in her voice.

“You actually feel sorry for her,” Alistair said, surprised. Morrigan's knife flashed in the firelight.

“I merely observe what is plain to see.”

Alistair looked toward the mill again, where Emma sulked off to with her reasonable objections and her loyal dog. He thought about Ostagar, about the jump from the Tower of Ishal, about finding her alive in the Wilds. The wordless relief that had passed between them before the bickering resumed.

He rubbed his forehead. “Maker. I really hope you’re right.”

“I usually am.” Morrigan murmured; She knew Emma and Alistair both were bound to this land. She gathered her cut pieces and stood. “Now, are you going to finish with that twine, or shall I do everything myself?”

Alistair chose to believe Emma was coming back. Just not yet.

“At this point? Probably safer if you do.”

Tilted

From a distance it had looked precarious and top-heavy. Up close, it was worse.

Lothering’s windmill sat on a mound of earth that had been piled, not grown. Its sides were too smooth, too steep to be natural. Though intentionally built, the mound was too small to properly support the structure perched on it.

Emma sat with her back against the building, wood grafted onto stone like everything else in Ferelden. The wooden gallery overhung not just her, but the slope itself, supported by scaffolding driven into the dirt. Built as a temporary measure, settled indefinitely.

Gears churning inside, blades rotating outside. A rhythm pulling sky into earth.

It was an excellent vantage point. Emma could see everything: yellowing grasses, abandoned farmland, a sparce smattering of scraggly trees. Muffin circling, nosing something that smelled like death and probably was. Even their camp in the shadow of the highway. Close enough the sound of screaming would carry. Far enough to look small.

And Alistair, bungling upward, nearly sliding back down. She greeted him flatly, just his name, as he crested the hill.

“Hi,” He said, breathless.

Muffin abandoned his investigation and easily bounded up to greet him, with the enthusiasm of someone who'd never met a bad decision he didn't like.

“And hello to you too, I suppose,” Alistair sidestepped the dog more gracefully than he ascended the hill.

“Did Morrigan send you?” Emma asked.

“No. Well. Sort of. She dismissed me. She made this face. You know the one. Like she was watching someone drown and taking notes for later.”

Emma huffed, fond despite herself, picturing her.

Alistair leaned on the doorframe, looking as though it may collapse out of spite. It held. He looked down at her under the shadow of the platform, but didn’t say anything. Just existed next to her, mail jangling quietly, as far as mail can be quiet. Radiating a particular contradiction of passive-agressive pressure that comes of trying not to apply pressure.

They watched Muffin urinate on the biggest tree he could find.

“You’re not going to try to talk me out of leaving,” Emma said.

“Would it work?”

“No.”

His face was a careful neutral he relied on under strain of thoughts he didn't want to have out loud.

“But you’ll try anyway.” Emma looked up into the dark underside of the gallery, pressing the back of her skull into the masonry.

“I will.” He picked up a stone and turned it over in his hands. “You know what’s funny?” he said. “Not funny. Funny like when you realize something unpleasant. Just. Duncan told him, you know. King Cailan, I mean. Told him to wait for Orlais... but Cailan wouldn't wait.”

“And so...Duncan could've retreated to Orlais, himself. But he didn't.”

“Duncan had backup,” she said quickly. “An army. A king. A plan.”

“He had Loghain,” Alistair said. Then, quieter, “Which turned out to be worse than nothing. And he stayed anyway. Because the darkspawn were here. They are here.”

“If he’d gone to Orlais,” she spread her cold fingers over her heating forehead, “Maybe Ferelden would still have a Warden-Commander.”

“Trust me, I know,” his voice cracked. “That's exactly it. I've thought about it every day since Ostagar. I can spend the rest of my life wishing he'd chosen differently, or I can try to make his choice mean something.”

The silence, from her reluctance to leverage this wound, was long. But finally:

“Duncan had poor choices. Following him into the grave doesn't make his end meaningful.”

Emma had to conclude that she wanted to talk Alistair out of staying in Ferelden as much as he wanted to talk her into it.

“Come with me,” she said, suddenly tired. “If we stay, we die. Everyone stupid enough to follow us gets killed. We shouldn't do that to them.”

“I can’t,” he said. Soft. Final. “When we come back, with people and an army and plans, we’ll find graves. A lot of them. People who waited for help that came too late.”

He looked past their camp, at the earth they'd just upturned for the bounty hunters—just desperate refugees.

“And I’d spend the rest of my life wondering if we were wrong.” A breath. “Wouldn’t you?”

“That's not fair. We're not responsible for that.”

“This isn’t fair,” he said, rushing now, like if he stopped he’d break. “We’re the only Wardens left in Ferelden and we barely know what we’re doing. It’s all completely unfair. I’m—” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Emma stared at him. At the armor that still didn’t quite fit. At the intese earnestness, the dauntless determination to get himself killed.

Well, not completely dauntless.

He was reluctant to kill the assassins who tracked them here, to strike back at the desperate pitchfork wielders. The many who tried to collect their heads by now.

But he did it. He killed them.

“Stay,” he said. Quieter. “We’ll handle it. Or we won’t. But at least we won’t die wondering if we should have tried.”

She exhaled, long and shaky.

“That is the worst sales pitch I’ve ever heard.”

“I know.”

Business

Morrigan claimed she smelled tea. Emma insisted they must barter soon. Maybe even buy, while they still could. After the inn encounter, hoping they'd keep a low profile felt foolish. As did the money in her hands.

“Could you have at least worn a shirt?” Alistair complained. Morrigan wasn't the only one half-dressed, just the least bothered by it. Emma was realizing there wasn't much normal here to blend into.

Many crowded around the wagon of goods, some obviously hoping to regain their decency. All looking haggard, distressed, and dissatisfied by the selection and prices. A ring of canvas tents clung to the walls behind them.

Coins beneath her notice, Morrigan prowled ahead, inspecting turnips and bulbs, a rare salted meat, spartan baskets of dried herbs. The cart was sagging under the heap of poorly-organized inventory.

Emma lurked behind Alistair, letting him approach the vendor as if he were face-pulling a monster. Before they could browse, a Chantry sister began shouting. She was old and frantic with superiority and a large mole near her mouth.

“You profit from their misfortune! I should have the templars give away everything in your carts!”

Leliana waved gracefully to the elder sister, then crossed her arms and scowled at the merchant.

The merchant sneered. “Your men with skirts and swords are mostly gone already, sister. Any of you step too close to my goods, and I'll—” He stopped, attention shifted to Alistair. “Ho! You there! You look able! Would you care to make a tiny profit helping a beleaguered businessman?”

“It's so nice to see everyone working together in a crisis,” Alistair responded with his bright sarcasm. “Warms the heart.” Emma stepped around him to get closer.

“Are you making more enemies than coin?” Emma asked the merchant.

“You could say that, yes.” His eyes flicked to her staff, then away.

The sister pointed furiously. Her voice shook. “He is charging outlandish prices for things people desperately need! Their blood is filling his pockets!”

”'Tis only survival of the fittest,” Morrigan circled back to make a conversational observation. “All of these cretins would do the same in his shoes, given the chance.”

The merchant seized this opening. “I have limited supplies. The people decide what those supplies are worth to them.”

“You bought most of your wares from these very people last week!” The sister's hands clenched. “Now they flee for their lives, and you want to talk business?”

“Look.” The merchant continued his appeal to Alistair. “I've a hundred silvers if you'll drive this rabble off, starting with that priest. I'm an honest merchant, nothing more.”

Alistair shook his head, his voice climbing. “The nerve of these people.”

“Would it help these folks if they could buy no goods at all?”

The sister shouted at Alistair, now. “They spend their very last coin because they are desperate. And this man preys upon them as surely as the bandits outside the city!”

“Bah! I'm not arguing anymore!” The merchant jabbed a finger at Alistair, apparently undeterred by his prior judgement. “Drive off this woman and get yer hundred silvers. Otherwise I'm taking my wagon and leaving!”

Alistair stepped away from him. Refugees watched him from the edges. He chuckled nervously under their eyes as Emma scanned the inventory. Salt, dried herbs, tea, lyrium. Things they needed.

“Tis amusing, how you mutter numbers beneath your breath like curses,” Morrigan hissed at her.

Emma turned the copper pieces over in her palm. “...How many silvers in a sovereign?”

“Forty-eight,” Alistair said quietly. “Or fifty. Depending on whose sovereign it is.”

“That's... not helpful.”

”'Tis useful enough.” Morrigan's smile was sharp. “'Tis proof of the arbitrary nature of these tokens. What an irony to lock away power itself, only to tremble before stamped tin.”

The merchant smelled the coin in Emma's hands. The sister and the refugees followed the merchant's eyes. As he turned to her, Morrigan swiftly pocketed a few bulbs from the cart.

“I'll make you a deal, then. You're obviously not beggars.”

They were all watching Emma, now. Waiting.

“You can compromise with them,” Emma said carefully, “and still make a profit.”

The merchant's eyes narrowed. “Perhaps... if that woman agrees I'm allowed to charge something.”

“So long as the prices don't beggar the needy.” The sister gave Emma a small curtsy. “Thank you, stranger. May the Maker watch over your path.”

The merchant humphed, already rearranging his wares. “Fine, fine. And since you don't look too needy, normal prices for you.”

Alistair offered as if they'd planned it: “How about we give you gems for this sack of salt and the tea? Fluorspar. Fair trade.”

He glanced at Emma. She nodded and clumsily upended the purse into her palm. The merchant eyed the amber stones in the light.

“Done.” The merchant swept up the gems with practiced speed. “Pleasure doing business,” he said, already turning away. “Watch yourself. The bandits are bold.”

Alistair shouldered the sack. Behind them, refugees approached the cart with careful hope. The sound of business faded as they walked toward the Chantry.

“So we have come to solve every squabble in the village, personally?” Morrigan prodded Emma. “My, but the darkspawn will be impressed.”

Emma looked down at the purse in her hands. “I kept ledgers. I knew the price of frostweed in four provinces.”

“You were rich in theory, then,” Morrigan said.

Alistair scoffed. “Have you seen that place?”

Morrigan ignored him. “How do your ledgers avail us now?”

Emma tossed her a coin. Morrigan caught it without looking. The wind rippled through the tall grass, and the faint stench of decay drifted with it, sickly-sweet, like turned milk.

“What we owe,” Emma said quietly, “might add up beyond counting.”

Morrigan trailed behind, twirling the coin between her fingers. “The willows die faster this week,” she observed. “Even the crows fly elsewhere.”

“How cheery,” Alistair muttered.

“If we trade salt,” Emma said, “we can hold onto the lyrium. Tea's lighter to carry.”

Alistair: “See? That's a plan. Simple.”

“Simple, he says. 'Tis never a simple plan, to depend on the whims of merchants and men.”

Emma tucked the purse away. “I still don't trust the sum.”

“Wisdom, at last,” Morrigan said. “This world rarely adds up.”

“It's fine, really.” Alistair glanced back toward the carts. “He didn't even try to shortchange us at the end.”

“He'll remember this,” Emma said. She weighed the refugees who lied for her against the merchant who bent just enough.

“Good.” Alistair shrugged. “We got salt, he got shiny rocks, the refugees got breathing room. Nobody's happy. That probably means it's fair.”

They walked in silence again, their path dipping through low fields. Morrigan had gone ahead, now a silhouette against the sun, fat and gold on the horizon. She called back sharply—something about pitching camp before dark.

Emma rolled her shoulders, adjusting the pack’s weight.

“How long,” Emma asked, “to learn to live like this?”

Alistair glanced at her, then toward Morrigan against the dying brilliance of the day. “I'll let you know when I do.”

death cults 2

They camped near water. Emma knelt by the stream, rinsing blood from her hands, watching it thin and vanish downstream. Alistair was already there, working on scrubbing something gross out of his shield.

“What changes after the Joining?” she asked.

Alistair hesitated. “You mean aside from the whole becoming-a-Grey-Warden thing?”

“I mean physically,” she said. “Not slogans. Not traditions.”

That got his attention.

“…I asked Duncan that,” he said. “All he told me was, ‘You’ll see.’”

She pulled her hands from the water and turned toward him. “Try that on me. Then you'll see.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then smiled reflexively. “I can think of much better lines for you.”

“Is that so?”

“I mean, potentially. Just you wait.” He laughed, a little too fast. “Right. Sorry. It’s not that Duncan wanted to keep it secret. It’s just not something Wardens talk about much. It’s… unpleasant.”

“That’s a red flag.”

“Oh, it's a whole parade of red flags,” he said. “With matching banners. Very festive.”

“Then what?”

“The first thing I noticed was hunger,” he said. “Constant. I’d wake up in the middle of the night convinced I was starving. I’d tear through the larder like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. The other Wardens just watched and laughed.”

“Hm.”

“I was very popular,” he said. “Gravy everywhere. No dignity.”

“Or,” Emma said, “it's a major metabolic change. No one thought that warranted a warning?”

“You know what? You're absolutely right. That should have been mentioned. Right up there with 'drink this tainted blood and try not to die.'”

“Then the dreams?”

He nodded. “Then the dreams. Nightmares. Duncan said that’s how we sense darkspawn. We tap into… something shared. A kind of collective mind. It’s worse when you sleep.”

“You learn to block it out,” he said quickly. “Eventually. It’s supposed to be worse if you Join during a Blight. How has it been for you?”

“Very persistent.”

He nodded. “That tracks,” then he sighed. More bad news. “Most Wardens start having the nightmares again once the taint… progresses,” he said. “That’s how you know you’re nearing the end.”

“What end?”

“Oh, we never had time to tell you, did we?” he sobered, “you don’t have to worry about dying of old age. The taint gets you first. Eventually your body can’t handle it.”

“Thirty years,” he said. “Give or take.”

She stared at him.

“Now you tell me.”

“Well,” he said weakly, “yes.”

She looked away, toward nothing in particular. The road. The trees. Anything that wasn’t him.

Thirty years. If the Blight didn't kill her first. If Loghain didn't find them. If—

She cut the spiral short. Later. That was a later problem.

“All right,” she said finally.

He blinked. “All right?”

“So,” she said, very carefully, “they gave us something we weren’t allowed to understand. It rewrote our bodies on a schedule nobody mentioned. And didn't explain it because it makes for an unpleasant conversation.”

She turned back to face him. The stream kept moving. The world, irritatingly, continued.

“I mean. I figured it out. Duncan explained the dreams... and the untimely death. When he told me, I was angry. But...He put his hand on my shoulder and said this: 'It's not how you die that's important. It's how you live.'”

“It's dishonest.”

He held up his hands. “I’m not saying it isn’t. I'm just— I'm just letting you know. When the time comes, most Wardens go to Orzammar. The Deep Roads. One last battle. It’s tradition.”

“Why Orzammar?”

“Darkspawn are always there. The dwarves respect us for it.”

“Why keep the Joining secret,” she asked, “if the cause is just?”

He hesitated longer this time. “You think if we asked for volunteers, that Grey Wardens would exist? Maybe a few. You wouldn't be here. Neither would I, probably. And the Blight needs to be stopped.”

“Consent obtained through omission,” Emma said. “I’m familiar.”

“Which sounds terrible when you say it like that,” he said. “But here's the thing—Duncan mostly recruited people whose lives were already… difficult. Prisoners. Castoffs. People who didn't have better options.” He gestured at himself. “Case in point.”

“Sounds familiar. But Jory had options,” she said.

“Yes,” Alistair said quietly. “And that’s why he panicked.”

They stood there with the sound of running water between them.

“Duncan told me he’d started having the dreams again,” Alistair said. “Recently. He said it wouldn’t be long before he went to Orzammar himself.”

Emma’s voice softened, just a fraction. “He didn’t get the chance.”

“No,” he said. “And I hate that. I hate that it wasn’t on his terms.”

“He’ll be remembered,” she said.

He nodded. “Ending the Blight should make it worth it. Right?”

Sten Recruitment

The Revered Mother's Quarters, Lothering Chantry

The holy house stank. Behind every prayer and polished icon, Morrigan smelled fear—a spoilt-sour, mewling smell. These sad subjects of their absent God were hiding in a sturdy old stone chapel, barely better than a rotted shack against a Blight. And yet, here they stood, arguing about one prisoner.

The Revered Mother's eyes flicked between the Wardens and the red-haired songbird, suspicion in every wrinkle. Leliana spoke with honey in her voice.

“We wish to return the qunari to his people,” Leliana said softly. “If Ferelden shows mercy to one of the Qun, perhaps the Qunari will remember when the Blight comes to their shores.”

Morrigan smiled. Even honey hides the stinger. She hadn't thought the woman capable of subtlety beyond hymns and heartbreak.

The Warden—Emma—stood beside her, silent, her expression calm enough to fool the typical observer. But Morrigan knew better. This Warden was not Andrastan, but much like them, she troubled by so many absurdities while the world itself was dying. She couldn't let go of them. But, to her credit, she was trying to do so, and so simmered quietly.

The Revered Mother replied, “He butchered innocents. The Qunari have no place among decent folk.”

Emma's muscles tightened—so slight a motion, tilting like a prey animal. No one else might have seen it.

“He turned himself in,” she offered, impulsively. “How many butchers do the same?”

This query was not their plan, and would not play to their advantage. Not coming from Emma. Not in this church. Morrigan admired and pitied her losing move.

“You would set him free?” the Revered Mother demanded.

Leliana stepped in again before Emma could answer. Clever girl.

“We would take him into the Warden's charge. He'll fight the darkspawn—pay for his crimes in service. Let the Maker decide if he's redeemed.”

Ah, groveling to divine vanity. How trite. The Revered Mother hesitated—perhaps afraid? Finally, she nodded.

“Then take him. But his blood is on your hands.”

“Whose isn't?” Emma looked up into the rafters. Morrigan studied her. She did not think for a second this Warden believed in the Maker. To whom was she confessing?

Outside, the air was cleaner but no less oppressive. Clouds pressed low over Lothering's muddy streets. Alistair waited by the Chantry steps, arms crossed, the salvaged armor catching what little light remained in the afternoon.

“Well?” he asked as they emerged.

“We have him,” Leliana said.

”'Have him' meaning...? One more for our murderer collection?”

Emma nodded.

“That's... good? I think?”

“I don't know,” she was looking up again, into the grey clouds.

Morrigan descended the Chanty's steps deliberately brushing past Alistair, without acknowledging him. “You would defend a murderer,” she observed, to Emma, “'Tis a curious moral compass you've cultivated.”

“Not a defense. We got him a different sentence,” she shrugged. Once you start a serious murderer collection, the tendency must be to push it as far as you can.

“And what of the ones he slew?”

“They're gone,” she said simply.

“Be careful now; You sound like you care,” said Alistair.

Morrigan just smirked, refusing to dignify the Wardens with a response.

Death Cults 1

Emma: “Why did you stay a templar,” she asked, “if you hate the Chantry so much?”

Alistair didn’t even look surprised. He glanced down at his armor instead, plain mail, and gave it an approving little tug. “Have you seen the uniform? It’s not just fashionable, it’s well-made. I’m extremely vulnerable to good tailoring.”

“In that case, you should have become a mage.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve noticed. I’m fairly certain templar uniforms are that colorful solely so we don’t look drab next to you lot. Imagine charging at a maleficar in the woods and he points and laughs at your outfit. Ruins the whole intimidation factor.”

“Seems like that might happen anyway,” she said lightly.

He tapped his chest, as if checking for damage. “That was uncalled for. Pride is a delicate organ.”

“You don’t really want the real answer, do you?” he said. “It’s incredibly dull.”

“Then lie,” Emma said. “I’m flexible.”

He laughed despite himself. “I like the way you think. I could make something up. Throw in a tragic backstory. Or I could show you a couple of interesting-looking moles later.”

“…Is that how you change the subject?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

He hesitated, then: “I really did hate the monastery. The poor initiates thought I was putting on airs. The noble ones called me a bastard and pretended I didn’t exist. Arl Eamon sent me there and I took it very personally.”

She waited. He kept going.

“I was determined to be bitter about it,” he said. “But the training helped. Discipline. Focus. I was… good at it. It was hard. But it felt earned. Not like everything else in my life.”

“I never really felt at home,” he added, quieter now, “until the Grey Wardens. Duncan thought the templar training might be useful against darkspawn magic, so I kept it up.”

He looked at her. “What about you? Anywhere you’d call home?”

“If you’re asking whether I miss the Circle,” she said, “it made that decision for me.”

“They’re very good at deciding things for you,” he said. “Monasteries, Circles. Different décor. Same idea.”

“In that way.”

“It won’t always be like this,” he said, hopeful in that reckless way of his. “Blights can last forever. But this one doesn’t have to. I have to believe there’s an after. Once the war ends. We’ll have to think about a real home again.”

Then, softer, “Though that feels very far away. And the Grey Wardens are mostly gone, either way.”

“They can be rebuilt,” Emma said.

He nodded. “I know. We can make new Wardens. We just won’t get them back. I wonder if it would ever feel the same.”

He cleared his throat, the moment collapsing under its own weight. “Anyway. I’ve side-tracked us. We should probably get back to saving the world.”

^

Judgement

Emma found Morrigan sitting apart from the others, as always, staring into the fire with that particular stillness that meant she was thinking rather than watching. She approached slowly. When Morrigan didn't send her away, she sat at a careful distance.

“You asked me once,” Emma began, “whether I’d grown fond of the Circle. My cage.”

Morrigan's eyes were sharp with interest. “And you deflected rather skillfully, as I recall.”

“I did. But I was fond of it. The library, the stonework, the quiet... off-season fruit. Even the isolation...” She paused. “So fond I couldn't appreciate how difficult it was.”

Morrigan studied her for a long moment. “A confession, Warden? How unlike you.”

“I know the difference between solitude and loneliness.” Emma kept her gaze on the fire.

“You think I am lonely.”

“Were you? in the wilds?, surrounded by life, but...”

”...but not one's own kind,” Morrigan finished, her voice softer than usual. “A world full of people and buildings and things was all very foreign to me. If I wished companionship, I ran with the wolves and flew with the birds. If I spoke, it was to the trees.”

“Did they speak back?” Emma was intrigued.

“No. Don't be foolish.”

Oh.

“Such simple pleasures and one-sided conversations will only enthrall for so long. I recall the first time I crept beyond the edge of the Wilds. I did so in animal form, remaining in the shadows and watching these strange townsfolk from afar.”

“I happened upon a noblewoman adorned in sparkling garments the likes of which I had never before seen. I was dazzled. This to me seemed to be what true wealth and beauty must be. I snuck behind her and stole a hand mirror from the carriage. 'Twas encrusted in gold and crystalline gemstones and I hugged it to my chest with delight as I sped back to the Wilds.”

Emma could picture it perfectly—a child, feral and fascinated, clutching something that represented everything she'd never had: A shiny construction of cut, poured, and polished rocks.

“Flemeth was furious with me.” The softness vanished. “I was a child and had not yet come into my full power and I had risked discovery for the sake of a pretty bauble. To teach me a lesson, Flemeth took the mirror and smashed it upon the ground.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Do not be.” Morrigan's tone sharpened. “I was heartbroken at the time, but the lesson was necessary. Beauty and love are fleeting and have no meaning. Survival has meaning. Power has meaning.”

Emma chose her words carefully, “Is the lesson also: beauty is dangerous?”

Morrigan blinked, caught off-guard. “'Tis the same thing, is it not?”

“Is it?”

“Warden, must you do this? 'Tis tedious when you refuse to simply accept what I tell you.”

“I'm asking you to reconsider. It didn't go wrong until Flemeth decided it.”

“She was protecting me—”

“From what? You were a careful thief.”

“As I have told you, it was a needless risk.”

Emma leaned forward slightly. Morrigan stared at her. The black point slightly deepened in her eyes of amber.

“I thought the Circle was protecting me.”

Morrigan did not miss the comparison. She crossed her arms.

“Flemeth is many things, but she is not like your Circle. Any resemblance is mere strategy. The Chantry created the danger. We responded to it, yes. But 'twas they who set the field.”

“That's...very true,” said Emma, sheepishly. “Regardless, judgement can be a greater danger than temptation.”

“And so what, praytell, is the difference between danger and the temptation which inspires it?” Morrigan asked, her tone a mocking near-melody.

“I don't know... but smash something beautiful before it hurts you... too easy. A child can do that.”

Morrigan laughed, bitterly.

“Often, Warden, I get the impression you have never been a child. Or perhaps have always been, and will always remain, a child. I am quite unsure.”

Emma shrugged. Yet another question of all or nothing. She had no way of choosing.

“Human children are no marshsnappers, digging themselves out of the egg and into the water.” Morrigan illustrated. “They aren’t born knowing how to survive.”

Emma: “Most little marshsnappers die. That's why they lay so many eggs.”

Behind them, Alistair and Leliana shared a laugh, probably at Sten's expense, who grumbled non-verbally.

“Perhaps,” Morrigan said finally, her voice very quiet, “my time in the Wilds was indeed lonely. But such was how it had to be. Vanity attracts the attention of strangers. And in the Wilds, strangers lead to death.”

“And who set that field?”

Morrigan turned back to the fire, but her shoulders had loosened fractionally. After a long silence, she said, “'Tis just the nature of the Wilds.”

“I find myself wondering at times what might have become of the girl with the beautiful golden mirror. But such fantasies have no place amidst reality.”

“No way of knowing; But she was real. Unless you're making it up,” said Emma.

“No, I most surely am not,” Morrigan chuckled.

^

Lothering to Redcliffe

bloom

The path to the Imperial highway out of Lothering was rutted by carts attempting to flee faster than the muck allowed. Deep grooves chewed the earth raw, mud churned to a gray slurry that sucked at boots and wheels alike. Every few hundred paces, something lay abandoned: a broken crate, a dropped sack of grain, a child's shoe.

Emma had Sten recovering anything useful. Leliana and Alistair spoke quietly of eulogizing Lothering in song. The bard didn't find this necessary. The town was already done.

They walked until the roofs vanished behind the low hills and the air lost the sour tang of panic. Only then did the party begin to spread out naturally.

Alistair took point by habit. Shield on his arm, sword loose in hand, eyes scanning the tree line for darkspawn scouts. Sten stomped with stoic certainty. Muffin ranged freely, nose low, tail high, delighted by the sheer abundance of new smells. Morrigan stalked somewhere ahead, disdainful of roads entirely.

Leliana drifted closer to Emma as the light began to tilt toward evening.

“You have not asked me about my dream,” Leliana said lightly, as though noting a missing stitch in a tapestry.

Emma kept her eyes on the road ahead. “I assumed you’d tell me.”

Leliana smiled at that.

They walked awhile longer before she spoke again.

“I knew this would come up sooner or later,” Leliana said, and sighed. “I don't know how to explain, but I had a dream... There was a darkness. It was so dense, so real, very pressing...”

Emma’s hand tightened around her staff. “And?”

“And there was a noise,” Leliana continued. Her voice lowered, losing its habitual brightness. “A terrible, ungodly noise.”

Emma stopped walking. Alistair turned, confused, then halted as well.

“What kind of noise?” Emma asked evenly.

Leliana hesitated, searching. “Like… as if the air around me was screaming. I was being pulled.”

Emma nodded once, focused.

“I stood on a peak,” the bard said, encouraged. “I could see everything below me, and the darkness rolled in like a storm. When it swallowed the last of the light, I fell. And it drew me in.”

“You dreamed of the Blight,” Alistair said.

“I suppose I did,” Leliana agreed. “That was what the darkness was, no? The storm, the noise, the way it consumed everything… What else could it be?”

Emma said nothing.

Leliana clasped her hands together, warming to the memory now. “When I woke, I went to the Chantry gardens. As I always do. There is a rosebush there, in the corner by the wall. Everyone knew that bush was dead. It was grey and twisted and gnarled– the ugliest thing you ever saw. But that morning—”

Her voice softened, reverent.

“There was a single rose. Blooming.”

Alistair blinked. “In Lothering?”

“Yes.”

Morrigan let out a quiet, humorless huff from somewhere ahead. Somehow Emma heard exactly what she meant: How quaint.

Leliana ignored her. “It was as though the Maker Himself had reached down and said: even here, even now, there is hope.”

Emma studied Leliana's face. The conviction there was absolute.

“Did you hear voices?” Emma asked.

“No,” Leliana said gently. “Not voices. He spoke to my soul. In a language no human tongue can express.”

“That's convenient.”

Leliana smiled, unoffended. “I know how it sounds. But tell me, what should I believe? What I feel in my heart, or what others insist I must?”

“If the Maker is real, He's absent,” said Emma. To even grant the Chantry the argument of His existence, she still had no inclination to beg for the return of a deadbeat God.

“He is still here,” Leliana replied, “I hear Him in the wind and the waves, I feel Him in the sunlight that warms my skin.”

Emma started walking again, boots finding their rhythm on the packed earth. Leliana fell back into step beside her.

“I'm not saying you're wrong,” Emma said after a moment. “I'm saying… if something pulls you, ignoring it won't make it go away. I've tried.”

Leliana glanced at her, surprised. “You've felt something like this?”

“Storms,” Emma said. “Darkness. The noise you described. That's familiar.”

“Perhaps,” Leliana said carefully, “we are being called to the same place.”

Emma shook her head. “Maybe we're processing what we already know.” Then she added, “But I'm glad you're with us.”

“Yes,” Alistair quipped cheerfully. “Every apocalypse needs a blasphemer.”

Leliana laughed, light and uplifted: “I know what I know, and no one will ever make that untrue.”

Emma’s gaze followed Leliana as she moved ahead, unease budding in her chest.

The road had narrowed to something that demanded a decision. Alistair volunteered to take first watch without being asked. They made camp before dusk.

The fire crackled low. Morrigan built her own fire, somewhere just out of sight. Sten sat with his back straight, sword across his knees, utterly unconcerned with comfort. Leliana hummed softly as she unpacked, a hopeful tune.

Muffin snored at Emma's feet, warm and solid. She stared into the fire and thought, not for the first time, about running. No Duncan to shank her as she ran. No Circle walls. The road was open. Morrigan's existence was proof that apostasy was possible.

She had found recruits. Alistair wouldn't be completely alone without her.

But she stayed where she was. A memory of Flemeth's words surfaced unbidden: It is up to you. It will always nip at your heels.

The old witch had been right about many things, including: Duncan had changed her. Permanently. The Joining was rewriting her blood, cell by cell, into someone else.

Something else. Something that could sense darkspawn. Something darkspawn could sense in return.

She didn't feel it yet. But she would. Soon enough, the connection would snap into place, a chain forged in her marrow.

If she ran now—bolted for Orlais or Kirkwall, found the veteran Wardens who actually knew what they were doing—maybe she could outrun the Blight itself. Get ahead of the horde before her blood sang for them to hear.

Or, she'd just be outrunning Alistair.

He felt them. She'd seen it in the Wilds, the way his head would tilt, his eyes going distant. “They're moving parallel to us.” He'd known without seeing. Without doubt.

So the darkspawn would sense him first. Follow him. Hunt him. And he'd be luring them. To Leliana, Sten, Morrigan—anyone willing to help him.

The other Warden interrupted her thoughts, clearing his throat from the edge of the firelight.

“So... We're still planning to head north... to Redcliffe. Right?”

Emma didn't answer immediately.

“If… if that's all right. Arl Eamon might help. That's something.”

Something. She nodded.

The point of no return passed quietly. Behind them, Lothering burned.

the gentleman thing (Alistair POV)

So we're walking. Imperial Highway. Empty. Very scenic.

Emma's looking at me again. That look. The one that suggests she's preparing to dissect me like one of those frogs the healers use for anatomy lessons. I'm trying very hard to pretend I don't notice, but I'm wearing a helmet specifically so she can't see my face doing… whatever it's doing.

“If you were raised in the Chantry,” she says, and oh Maker, here we go, “have you never…?”

“Never what? Had a good pair of shoes?”

Brilliant deflection, Alistair. Really top-tier evasion. I'm pretty sure she's not asking about footwear, but maybe if I talk enough, she'll forget the original question. This has worked exactly zero times with her, but hope springs eternal.

“You know what I mean.”

She's asking if I've ever—well. Maybe I should walk directly into the nearest darkspawn horde and call it a day.

“I'm not sure I do.” My hands are doing that thing where they gesture at nothing. “Have I never seen a basilisk? Eaten jellied ham? Have I never licked a lamppost in winter?”

There. Perfect distraction. Lamppost. Very phallic, now that I think about it. She's staring. Of course she's staring.

“That last one is very specific.”

Right. Well. In for a copper, in for a sovereign. “Have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?”

Please say no. Please let this absolutely deranged conversational pivot work just this once.

”...No?”

Thank the Maker. Small mercies. I launch into the story. It's a good story. Distracting. Full of comedy and minor disfigurement. Everything a good deflection needs.

I even get her to smirk. Victory. Temporary, yes. But I'll take it.

“I, myself, have never done it,” I add, because apparently I can't stop talking. “That. Not that I haven't thought about it, of course, but… you know.”

Do I mean the lamppost or the other thing? Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure. My brain's turned to porridge. This is fine. Everything's fine.

“I don't. That's why I asked.”

Emma is terrifyingly direct and doesn't believe in subtext or mercy or letting a man drown in his own embarrassment with dignity.

The darkspawn are moving away. Downhill. Opposite direction. Thank every god that's ever existed. I take the helm off because apparently I've decided I want to suffer in full view.

“The Chantry isn't exactly a life for rambunctious boys,” I say, which is true but also completely beside the point. “They taught me to be a gentleman. Especially in the presence of—”

“Don't.”

I stop. She's looking at me like I've just suggested we abandon the mission to open a cheese shop.

“Don't do the gentleman thing.” She gestures at me. At the road. At the frankly impressive amount of darkspawn viscera we're both wearing like the world's worst fashion statement. “You're a Grey Warden. You're covered in darkspawn ichor. You helped me loot several corpses today.”

Oh. Well. When she puts it that way, the gentleman routine does seem a bit absurd. I laugh—actual, genuine laughter, because she's right and somehow that's both mortifying and wonderful.

“Still,” I try, because I'm nothing if not a man prepared to die on any number of hills. “there's more to it than being polite and presentable, isn't there? Being honorable. Considerate—”

“Did the Chantry teach you that?”

Did they? Honestly, I don't know anymore. Maybe I learned it from somewhere. Maybe it's just something I tell myself so I feel less like a fraud.

“They'd like to think so,” I admit. “If I got the idea from them, their books, or sheer improvisation is… debatable.”

“I think it's just you.”

That right there. That's the thing that completely destroys me.

My face is on fire. Actual fire. There's nothing I can do to stop it. She thinks it's me. None of the things I've been hiding behind my entire life. Just me.

Which is either the kindest thing anyone's ever said to me or...

“Is that what you really think?”

“Yes. So. Are you interested or not?”

Interested. Right. The question. The one I've been avoiding.

Am I interested? Of course I'm interested. I've been interested since... far too soon to be reasonable, probably.

“I—yes. Obviously.” Brilliant start, Alistair. Very smooth. “And apparently you have no shame. Am I sweating? This interrogation will haunt me forever.”

“You're interested. Are you sure?”

Am I sure? What kind of question is that? Of course I'm—

Oh, she thinks I'm the kind of person who says yes when they mean no just to be polite. Which, fair, I suppose I am that person sometimes. But not about this.

“All right. I'll play along.”

The moment the words leave my mouth, I know I've made a catastrophic error. Her expression shifts. Not irritation—something worse. Confusion.

“What does that mean?”

Nothing. Everything. I don't know. I'm trying to sound casual and failing spectacularly.

“Nothing. Forget it. I shouldn't have said—look, I have cheese!”

Cheese. I'm offering her cheese. This is my life now.

Her hand catches my wrist before I can reach my pack. I can feel my pulse hammering against her palm like it's trying to escape.

“Alistair.”

Just my name. That's all. But the way she says it makes something in my chest twist sideways. Everything except this moment feels very far away.

“What do you want? Or don't. Just tell me.”

What do I want?

I want to be the person she seems to think I am—honorable and kind and worthy of… whatever this is. But that's not what she's asking, is it?

“You're terrifying,” I admit, and it comes out more honest than I meant it to.

“Is that why you're avoiding me? Or are you just… shy?”

Shy. That's one word for it.

“I'm not avoiding you.” Her hand's still on my wrist. “I'm avoiding… this. The part where I ruin it.”

Because I will. I get close to something good and then I panic and say something stupid or do something clumsy and it falls apart. Like every friendship I tried to build at the monastery. Like Duncan, who saw potential in me and then died before he could regret it.

“Has it occurred to you that deciding in advance what I'll think is already doing that?”

Yes, that has occurred to me. For all the difference it makes.

“…Ah.”

This is definitely going well.

Emma steps back. Gives me space. Her hand leaves my wrist and the cold air rushes in to replace it.

“So. You are interested. You're sure.”

“Yes.” Finally. A simple answer. “I'm sorry. I'm making this harder than it needs to be.”

“Stop apologizing. It's exhausting.”

Right. Right. Apologizing is also making it worse. But she's still standing here. Still looking at me like I'm not a complete disaster. That means... something.

I study her. Her dark eyes. The way she's holding herself—relaxed but stubborn, like she's always ready. She's decided I'm worth this conversation. This patience. This frankly heroic tolerance for my nonsense.

The least I can do is try not to waste it.

“…I'll try.”

“Good.”

Then: “Does this mean the interrogation is over?”

“For now.”

“Thank the Maker. I was running out of absurd metaphors.”

“The lamppost was your best work.”

I smile. Not the nervous kind. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

We're walking again. The road stretches ahead. The Blight's still happening. The world's still ending. But right now, in this moment, I'm walking next to Emma and she knows I'm interested and I haven't completely ruined everything. Not yet.

The road to Redcliffe stretched uphill, monotonous, broken only by the occasional burned-out farmstead. Emma grounded her staff with each step, keeping Alistair in her peripheral vision as he walked ahead with Leliana, arguing quietly about the merits of marching songs.

Morrigan materialized beside her without warning, the way she always did—no footsteps, just sudden presence.

“Have you noticed,” Morrigan said idly, eyes on the treeline, “how some men seem to shrink the moment they are seen?”

“Some men? You don't want to be specific?”

Morrigan smiled, thin and private. “No, I do not.”

Emma kept walking. She waited. Morrigan absently turned a twig as they walked. Eventually, she ignited the twig, only to cast it aside when it turned to char.

“Fine, we shall have it your way,” Morrigan said. “You have been glancing at him for the past quarter-mile.”

Emma didn't deny it. “I'm thinking.”

“Tell me something. When you look at him, what is it you see?”

“Many things. Why do you ask?”

“You seem... drawn to him. I wonder why.”

“He's—” Emma paused, searching for words. “He's good. Genuinely good. I trust him.”

“Good,” Morrigan repeated, as if tasting something sour. “How quaint.”

“True. 'Good' is an old classic.”

Morrigan smiled at that.

“You are quite patient with him. Tis tiresome to watch, truly.”

Emma shrugged. “He’s worth patience.”

“Patience is but a mild description. You explain yourself as if he were a nervous animal who might bolt if startled.”

“Yes. He is that animal.”

Morrigan laughed.

“Your candor tis refreshing, at least,” Morrigan's voice stayed light, conversational. “But that is not my point.”

“There is a particular sort of man,” the witch continued, her gaze still fixed on Alistair's back, “and by that I do mean, an unworthy sort of man,” she emphasized, “He will seem humble. Grateful. Safe, even.”

Something in Emma's chest tightened. “And?”

“If you choose such a man, and persist with him, he will eventually prove himself right.” Morrigan turned to look at her then, golden eyes steady. “He will show you exactly why he believes he does not deserve you.”

“That's—” Emma cut herself off. “You think he’ll hurt me? Is that the warning?”

“I am merely suggesting: Such a man will make his lack of worth your problem. He will give you a reason. One you cannot argue away.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Morrigan tilted her head, considering. “Because you are intelligent enough to hear it, and foolish enough to ignore it. 'Tis a fascinating combination.”

“You mistake shame for a wound,” she added. “You think it can be tended. It cannot. It is a belief. And beliefs, when threatened, defend themselves.”

“Beliefs change.”

“Ever the healer and tender of wounds, I see.”

“I'm good at it,” Emma appeared to be considering the metaphor deeply. She stopped walking. Ahead, Alistair glanced back, checking on them. She waved him forward.

Later, when the truth came out, Emma would not remember the warning whole.

Only the last part.

He will show you why.

Confession – outside Redcliffe

(at that bridge with the watermill)

“So… there’s something I should probably tell you.”

Emma turned her head toward him, distracted but curious. “Hm?”

He began, fumbling despite having rehearsed, “I told you Arl Eamon took me in, raised me until the Chantry got me. The reason he did that was because—well—because my father was King Maric. Which made Cailan my… half-brother, I suppose.”

“…What?”

They’d seen darkspawn in endless tides, abominations clawing through the swamp, spiders bigger than men. But this—this made her blink. In better circumstances, Alistair would be fascinated by this, but for once he could not allow himself to get distracted.

“I would have told you, but—it never really meant anything to me. I was inconvenient, a possible threat to Cailan’s rule, so they kept me hidden. I’ve never spoken of it to anyone.”

“Really?,” she prodded, sharply. He dropped his gaze, shame pulling at his shoulders.

“It’s not like it matters. I didn’t want you to think—”

“You don’t want me to think,” She repeated, folding forearms tight against her ribs. The mill-wheel groaned a counterpoint, “Not after Ostagar. Not in Lothering. When assassins were on our heels. All I do is think about it! But you let me make decisions without knowing—”

She stopped. You let me make decisions without knowing all the reasons why someone might want you dead.

“I just…” His hands came up, open, pleading. She turned her back on him and paced the bridge.

“I didn’t want you to like me because of it. I wanted you to like me for me,” His entire body recoiled at his own words. What was he saying? Why did he keep talking?

“This is—” She broke off, circling back toward him. He expected Emma would continue to yell at him, but she went quiet, simmering. Fatigued. “You’re worried about me liking you?”

Congratulations, you absolute idiot, Alistair thought. You got what you wanted—she certainly doesn't like you more for it. Would that have been so terrible?

“I’m leading fugitives and apostates across Ferelden, fighting the Blight, dodging the most powerful man in the kingdom who wants us dead—” She gestured at him as if he were an accusation embodied. “And you let me walk into this?”

He felt himself shrink into the word. This.

“I didn't want you to know, as long as possible,” he apologized, “I can explain. Everyone who knew either resented me or coddled me. Even Duncan kept me from the fighting because of it.”

“You put me in a blind spot, Alistair,” Emma shivered without the warmth of her anger. She recalled King Cailan at the war table, the night he died: Send Alistair and the new Grey Warden, Emelyn…

Why her? What did Cailan know? What did Loghain know? Her mind was reeling, realizations were clicking into place. The sound of the mill's churning through water made her feel nauseated.

“Maker, Emma, I didn’t mean—I mean, I do see that now. I hated keeping it from you,” Alistair recognized unasked questions in her halting expression. He'd lost her trust; His voice wasn't strong against its absence. “I hated it. But the alternative—if I told you, it would just… change everything.”

Change everything. The words were hollow, for being self-fulfilling.

The Veil pressed down around them, stretched taut and thin. Whatever horror stirred upriver was pulling at the fabric of the world.

Emma planted both hands on the rail, steadying herself. She closed her eyes, reaching inward, searching for guidance.

Nothing, just a dreadful and vague sickness... and the frantic sound of Alistair's anxious, rushing pulse, amplified on her by the veil's tension.

He realized, she wasn't just angry. She was scared... He didn’t know what to do with that, nor could he tolerate the following silence, only the steady flow of water between them.

“So there you have it. Now we can move on. Pretend I’m still just some nobody who got too lucky to die with the rest of the Wardens.”

She was still refocusing their recent past. Of course he had been so upset. He knew all along their posting at Ishal wasn't really just an easy errand for two junior Wardens. His blood had spared and doomed both of them.

“Is that what you think?”

He shrugged, “No... I think I was lucky to survive with you,” and turned on his heel so suddenly she straightened from the rail, while he was practically running away. She let him go.

Trust

“In the wilds, you wondered, why did your mother rescue us? and not the King?”

Morrigan studied Emma with patient curiosity. The fire crackled between them.

“Yes indeed, I asked Flemeth that very thing. The day we pulled you from the tower.”

“And?”

“And she told me nothing useful.” Morrigan shrugged. Mother had smiled that infuriating smile, as if the question were that of a child. ‘All in due time, my girl.’ Due time.

“Now you know: She rescued the other brother. Why?”

“I do not know, Warden.”

“Speculate, then.”

There it was, again—an edge of desperation beneath the command.

“My mother is a complex creature, if not transparent. Perhaps she had grander designs that Cailan could not serve. Perhaps it was no plan at all, and merely circumstance. She may have simply chosen the better swordsman, or the one who is also a Grey Warden. It is logical enough, yes?”

“You really don’t know?”

Morrigan raised her eyebrows.

“Interrogate me all you wish, Warden. My answer will not change, and I have no patience for your doubts. Either believe me, or do not. But choose.”

There was a commotion behind them—raised voices, quickly hushed. Leliana, on damage control. Emma’s shoulders tensed. She wanted to look back.

“You do not trust him now. That much is obvious. And yet— to be fair to you, you’ve shown a real talent for recognizing the hidden depths in mediocrity.”

Emma frowned slightly. “That’s not what this is about.”

“I have complimented your judgment, and you… glower at me? Are you quite sure you do not wish to gloat? I believe the phrase is ‘I told you so’—”

“No.”

Morrigan’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. Oh, I see. You’re worried about him. How tedious.”

“I want to know why we’re here. And why should I believe anything you say.”

“Ah yes, a pitiful inquiry, the philosophy of the weak: ‘Why me?’ Does it matter? Flemeth saved whom she saved. I have no reason to lie to you. The truth benefits me. Your trust—such as it is—benefits me. Shall I continue listing reasons, or would you prefer to waste more time?”

“It matters…Teach me to shapeshift.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Please.”

“Ah. So that’s what this is about, then?” She stood, brushing dirt from her robes. “Very well. But know this—shifting your form will not make you any less yourself.”

“I’m counting on that,” she was more interested in others, no doubt.

“Shapeshifting is not like your magic. It requires you to let go of yourself entirely, even as you remain present. Quite a paradox, yes? It is rather like trust, in that way,” Morrigan prodded, never one to let a difficult subject go.

“Now you’re philosophical.”

“I suppose so. I cannot help but think Mother would appreciate the irony,” Morrigan mused, “—here is this Warden, who she rescued, asking me to teach her the very same skill she used to keep her own secrets.”

“Do you appreciate the irony?”

Morrigan just smiled.

^

Placebo

Emma found Alistair by the village well, checking the fit of the new suit. The plate she'd acquired for him gleamed dully in the afternoon light—practical, sturdy, nothing ostentatious. He'd been wearing leather for weeks now, staying low, staying quiet. But tonight they'd need the steel.

He looked up as she approached, wariness on his face before he schooled it away.

“Got something for you,” Emma said.

The ornate leather belt lay across Emma's palms like in offering. Wolves embossed in the leather, silver threading through like morning mist. The buckle itself was just solid, functional. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with vanity.

His eyes dropped to the belt. Something shifted in his expression—nostalgic.

“That's...” he took it in. “That's nice.”

“It's an upgrade.” She held it out. “To hold against what's coming tonight.”

This new belt would replace the first piece she'd ever handed him, back at Ostagar. When the stakes felt manageable. He'd worn it every day since.

Alistair took the new belt. “You've been gearing me up.”

“You're my tank,” Emma said flatly. “If you go down, we all do.”

“Right.” His voice was careful. “Tactical.”

She nodded. Emma by now had replaced his pauldrons, his gauntlets, his boots. Piece by piece, she'd been armoring him. Making him harder to kill.

Alistair unbuckled the old belt slowly. The leather was worn soft where it had rested against his hips, darkened with sweat and road dust. He hesitated before setting it aside.

“The wolves are a nice touch,” he said, threading the new belt through his armor. “Very ferocious.”

“They hunt in packs,” Emma said. “Seemed appropriate.”

“Thank you.”

She turned and left. More fortifications to see to, no doubt.

Owen's forge was cold when Emma found him, hunched over a cup that smelled like poison, layered in residue from being filled several times already. The stench hit her before she crossed the threshold. She suppressed an expression of disgust.

“Murdock needs you to repair the militia's armor,” Emma said without preamble.

Owen didn't look up. “Does he now.”

“They'll defend you better if they're not worried about their straps breaking.”

“They'll die regardless.” He took another drink. “Just slower.”

Emma dragged a stool across the floor and sat. The forge was a gutted thing, ash scattered across the floor like dirty snow. “Your daughter's in the castle.”

That got his attention. His head jerked up, eyes red-rimmed and desperate. “You've seen her?”

“No. But if we live through the night, I'll go in. I'll look for her.”

“Will you.” It wasn't a question. His voice was flat, hopeless. “Murdock said the same damned thing and I didn't believe him either.”

“I'm not Murdock.”

“No.” Owen set his cup down hard. “You're something else entirely, aren't you? A mage. A Grey Warden. Someone who actually might—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “I want a promise. Promise me you'll look for her. That you'll bring her back if you can.”

“What's stopping me from lying to you?” she asked Owen.

“Nothing besides your conscience.” His voice cracked. “You got one of them?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Then I'll take what I can get and leave the rest to the Maker's grace.”

He was drunk, but not a fool. Did he not just ask her to lie, to give him hope? He knew the truth.

“I promise you. I'll find her.”

Owen's shoulders sagged. “I'll accept that. It's something to hope for, at least.”

He rekindled the forge with shaking hands. “I've got a lot to do now,” he said to no one in particular. “So you'll have to excuse me.”

Emma left him to it. The sound of the bellows followed them out onto the landing above the lake.

Sten waited. Emma felt his shadow before she saw him, the Qunari looming at the entrance like a disapproving monument.

“Is this a promise we will not keep?” Sten spoke squarely.

Owen looked up, startled. “What's this?”

“I said nothing to you, human.”

“We'll keep it if we can,” she said quietly.

“And if we cannot?”

“Then I'll have lied to a desperate man to get him to do his job. Would you prefer I let him drink himself to death?”

“I would prefer we speak truth.”

“Truth doesn't forge armor.”

Mother Hannah's quarters in the chantry were sparse, ascetic. A single window let in weak afternoon light that did nothing to warm the stone.

“Ser Perth needs holy protection for the knights,” Emma said, sighing.

The Revered Mother's expression didn't change. “I have done all I can for them. I pray for them each night and seek the Maker's forgiveness for their sins before they face their deaths. What Ser Perth seeks is not in my power to give.”

“Can't you just bless them?”

“I can pray with them and give them my blessing.” Mother Hannah's voice was patient, practiced. “But Ser Perth wants me to call upon the Maker to shield them from evil.”

Alistair shifted beside Emma. “Well, can't you just tell him the Maker will watch over him? Morale is a powerful thing, you know.”

“You mean you want me to let them think the Maker protects them in a real sense?” The Revered Mother's tone sharpened. “I will not lie to them like that.”

Emma felt the words forming before she fully understood them. “But if they think it helps them—”

Leliana made a small sound of protest.

Emma kept going, voice level. “—That's protection.” Arguably real.

Mother Hannah's hands clasped together, knuckles white. “It just seems like trickery.”

“Not if it works.”

The silence stretched. Mother Hannah's gaze moved between them—the Wardens. One an ex-templar, another a Circle mage. Accompanied by a woman who carried herself like a lay sister. Three people who should have known better.

“Very well,” she said finally. “If it keeps them alive, I will do what I must.” She moved to a locked chest, producing a velvet pouch. “I have a number of silver-cast holy symbols. Tell Ser Perth that wearing them will confer the Maker's protection.”

The pouch settled heavy in Emma’s palm.

“Now please,” Mother Hannah said, voice carefully empty. “Let me tend to these poor folk.”

They left in silence. Outside, Leliana finally spoke.

“Must we do this? The faith that will protect these men must come from their hearts, surely.”

“Their hearts wanted silver,” she said.

The amulets clinked softly in the pouch.

Ser Perth accepted the holy symbols with reverence that made Emma's stomach turn.

“Mother Hannah has seen sense at last,” he said, holding one of the silver medallions up to the light. “These are blessed by the Maker himself, not the work of mages.”

Emma bit back the obvious response. The symbols were silver. Expensive. Well-made. Something to make the knights fight harder, or clutch while dying. Regardless, they'd believe they could survive. That had value. Didn't it?

She didn't like it; But she didn't owe them truth.

“I do not approve of magery and such,” Ser Perth continued, apparently oblivious to the mage standing directly in front of him. “But the symbols of the Chantry are holy and righteous.”

These men were more fools than Owen, taking for granted her magic that would more literally help them in the coming battle.

“Right,” Emma said flatly. “Very righteous.”

Alistair's face was divided by a warning look, a smirk, and something else. She quickly looked away.

“We'll hold the windmill,” Ser Perth declared. “With the Maker's protection, we cannot fail.”

As the sun set, Redcliffe village hummed with anxious preparation. Ser Perth's knights pinning emblems to armor straps. Murdock's voice cutting through the evening air, trying to organize fishers and farmers into something resembling a defensive line. The smell of fish mingled with wood smoke.

Emma sat by the campfire in Redcliffe’s makeshift staging area. Close enough for warmth, far enough for shadow, between the militia’s supply tent and the chantry’s edge. Her legs stretched out, boots crossed at the ankle. The empty velvet pouch still in her hands. Muffin curled against her hip, nose twitching in his nap.

She told Owen she'd find his daughter. She'd given Ser Perth his amulets.

The worst part was knowing it worked. The militia would fight better. The knights would hold longer. Owen would survive the night because he had something to live for, even if that something was built on her bullshit.

Duncan had done the same thing to her. Given her a role she never asked for, made it necessity, made her complicit.

She'd also done real things. Owen's equipment was real. So were the mercenaries she bullied to join the fight. The spy. Even the bartender. Lloyd was no fighter. Why? Because he was a prick, that's why.

And she'd equipped Alistair piece by piece, armoring him against a world that wanted him dead. Against himself, sometimes.

It felt good. But how is weaponizing a person better than weaponizing belief and empty promises?

The amulets would help. The promises might hold. The suit might keep Alistair alive. Long enough to stand in front of her.

Emma tucked the pouch away. Leliana approached her with careful footfalls, soft but audible. She carried two tin cups, steam rising from both.

“Tea,” she said, offering one. “I made it very strong.”

Emma took it. It was moderately strong. “Thank you.”

Leliana settled beside her, close. They sat listening to the fire crack and people speaking too loudly, moving too quickly, trying to outpace the knowledge that darkness would bring monsters. Alistair’s distant voice rising in debate with Sten.

“You've been quiet,” Leliana observed.

“I'm always quiet.”

“More than usual.” Leliana sipped her tea. “Is it about what we discussed earlier? The... information management?”

Emma's fingers tightened on the cup. Information management. A very serviceable euphemism.

“Partly,” Emma said. “You've been helpful. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Leliana's voice stayed light, almost cheerful. “Dangerous secrets have a way of escaping at exactly the wrong moment. Better to control the narrative.”

Another competent phrase, from someone who'd done this before.

Emma studied her profile in the firelight. Young face. Warm expression. The kind of approachability that made people confess things.

“What were you doing in Lothering's chantry?” Emma asked abruptly.

Leliana blinked, surprised by the pivot. “I was a lay sister—”

“What was someone like you doing there?”

“Someone like me?”

“Someone dangerous.”

A small smile tugged at Leliana's mouth. “Did you think I was always a cloistered sister?”

“No.” Emma sipped her tea. “I couldn't decide if you're a terrible liar or a brilliant one. Now I know.”

Leliana laughed—a genuine sound of delight.

“The bird incident— is it true?”

“Lady Elise's hair disaster?” Leliana's eyes crinkled. “That was true!”

“It's absurd, but I believe you.”

Leliana smiled. “Oh, you pick things up when you travel, as you know. People talk. I learned to listen carefully.”

“I was a traveling minstrel in Orlais. Before the Chantry. Tales and songs, performances for coin...” She paused, considering her words. When she spoke, her voice had lost its usual lightness. “And yes. Sometimes the performance extended beyond the stage.”

“And the information management?” Emma asked mildly.

“Sometimes you find yourself in situations where knowing who to trust becomes complicated.”

“In Orlais, a single misplaced word can destroy you. Everyone believes you're something you're not, and the truth becomes irrelevant. So you learn how to speak carefully. How to make sure the right people hear the right things.”

“And the wrong people don't,” Emma finished.

“Exactly.”

“But that life is behind me now. The Chantry provides succor and safe harbor to all who seek it. I chose to stay and become affirmed.”

“Affirmed?”

“We affirm our belief in the Maker, in Andraste and the Chant. But other than that, there are no vows taken. We're free to leave.”

“I never imagined leaving would look like this.” Leliana smiled, rueful. “But the Maker's plans are rarely what we expect.”

“You don't have to tell me everything,” Emma said finally. “But I need to know where I stand.”

Leliana met her eyes. “You want to be sure I won't let you work with false assumptions.”

“Yes.”

Across the chantry courtyard, Sten's voice rumbled something disapproving at a militiaman who'd just dropped his spear. Alistair laughed, then immediately tried to help the man recover his dignity.

“You're angry at him,” Leliana observed, “but you're also protecting him.”

“Well,” Emma was taken back. It should have been unsurprising. She drank the tea, letting the bitter heat settle in her chest. “Of course.”

“I won't.” Leliana's voice steadied. “I promise. If something matters—if it could hurt you or the people you're protecting—I'll tell you.”

Emma nodded once.

“Thank you.”

“Have I ever told you... I do like the way you wear your hair,” Leliana said, pivoting with practiced ease.

Emma's hand moved to her hair before she could stop herself. “I grew it myself.”

Leliana chuckled.

“Oh, I see. It's very practical. Simple. Not like the elaborate styles in Orlais—I told you about Lady Elise and her birds, when feathers were fashionable. We were weaving ribbons and jewels into these towering...” She gestured above her head. “Architectural achievements. It took hours.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It was.” Leliana's voice was warm, easy. “I suppose we don't have much choice on the road. No ladies' maids to help with complicated braiding.”

Emma felt something twist in her. She suppressed a memory of Areli's hands working through her hair each morning. How she'd cut it all off, after.

“No,” she said. “We don't.”

If Leliana noticed the shift in Emma's tone, she didn't acknowledge it. She just kept talking, filling the space with stories about Orlesian fashion disasters and court gossip, and somehow it was... comforting. The steady stream of words asked nothing of Emma except to listen.

“I feel very comfortable talking to you,” Leliana said after a while. “Like I could say anything and you wouldn't judge me.”

Emma considered this. “I might judge you silently.”

Leliana laughed. “You see? You play along with me. Not many people do that.” Her voice softened. “I haven't felt this close to anyone in a long time. I really enjoy your company.”

“Do you often enjoy the company of women?”

Leliana's smile was mischievous. “And what would you do if I said I do? Very much so, in fact?”

“I'd be flattered you like my company.”

“There's no one else I'd rather spend time with.” Leliana's was steady, warm. Direct. For a moment. Just a moment, while her blue eyes held Emma's with an openness that felt both inviting and vulnerable.

Then she stood, brushing off her leather pleated skirt. “Come on then. If I recall correctly, you have some important earth-shattering business to attend to? Villages to save, that sort of thing?”

Emma stood as well, feeling the ache in her legs. “Something like that.”

Attack at Nightfall (Dead Siege of Redcliffe)

Night draped itself over Redcliffe. Torches sputtered in the cold air, scattering light down the slope where the militia's knights waited in formation. The castle loomed above them, windows dark but for an occasional sickly green flicker.

Emma stood near the center of the defensive line, staff planted in clay. The lake shimmered far below them. She focused on the hill; she’d memorized every route they could force the undead through.

“Remember,” Murdock's voice was confident, “they'll come down fast. Hold them at the bottleneck. Don't get drawn out into open ground.”

Sten positioned himself to Murdock's left, his massive two-handed blade resting against one shoulder. The qunari said nothing, his expression as if carved from basalt. He tested his grip on the weapon's hilt.

A distant howl rolled down the rocky hillside. The sound was neither human nor animal, twisted by demonic magic into a mockery of life. Morrigan positioned herself, choosing high ground. Her golden eyes met Emma's, then drifted toward the lake.

“Here they come,” Murdock warned.

“Leliana, ridge position,” Emma called their strategy for the militia. “Perth—spears center. Alistair—forward wedge.”

Murdock echoed her orders. The repetition steadied the line. The unmistakable stench of rot carried on the wind. Something tripped on the slope and kept coming.

Then another.

A shambling corpse hit the torchlight at a run, armor clanking, jaw working soundlessly. Two more followed, then a dozen, sliding downhill on loose gravel in uneven clusters. Some gripped maces with boney fists.

Ser Perth's knights braced their shields, forming a wall of steel. Emma lifted her staff. Electricity gathered at the tip—mana humming steady and deep in her veins.

Morrigan struck first.

A sheet of frost blasted across the hillside, freezing corpses mid-lunge. They became brittle obstacles. The next wave stumbled into them, tripping, tangling.

She didn’t get time for a second cast.

Emma released the spell. Lightning chained corpse to corpse along the line Morrigan had prepared, the current dragging through her arms like a whipcrack. It skipped wider than intended, scraping a shield rim hard enough to jolt the knight behind it. He swore, barely keeping his footing. Frozen flesh shattered to glittering shards under thermal shock.

Alistair barreled into the corpses still standing, his shield turning them to rubble with each blow. The knights pushed forward behind him.

Shouts of villagers echoed up the hill. Leliana’s arrows pierced skulls. More shambling corpses arrived before anyone could catch a breath.

A wet shuffle. A dry-dragging moan. Morrigan heard it first, head snapping toward the water.

The lake’s surface rippled outward. A bony hand punched through the surface and grabbed the dock.

“They are flanking us,” Morrigan announced, lips curling.

Corpses surfaced like drowned lumber—limbs tangled in soaked cloth, ribcages glistening with algae and lake-weed. They clawed onto the dock in a series of wet slapping thuds, half-sliding and half-crawling across the planks.

Villagers near the water screamed. Tomas shouted from the evacuation posts for reinforcements. Alistair reacted instantly, helping redirect militia downhill while the knights held the front.

A handful of terrified villagers sprinted toward the water. Emma pivoted, staff lifting. A corpse lurched toward the civilians on the dock. Her lightning struck it back.

“Morrigan—go. Take the lake,” Emma ordered, as recoil shuddered up her wrists.

The witch moved without hesitation, rolling downhill as a dark blur, emerging as a massive spider to web the dockside undead in sticky nets. Leliana shifted position, nailing stragglers that slipped through gaps.

A second villager screamed from the shallows as skeletal hands grasped at her legs. Alistair sprinted to intercept, his blade cutting through a half-rotted corpse before it could drag the woman under the water.

The undead converged from both sides—the castle hill and the lake shore.

Alistair darted through the chaos with reckless precision, intercepting blows aimed at farmers still holding with their spears, clad in hastily repaired leathers.

A spear slipped from numb fingers and skidded across the planks. The man who dropped it turned and ran. Two others followed.

Emma thrust her staff sideways. The shockwave caught the fleeing men mid-stride and flung them back toward the fight, into the mud.

Her lightning cracked; Her heal propped up another spearman before he fell. A corpse turned toward her immediately. She scanned the hillside front—Perth's knights were holding but taking injuries. Sten held the left flank almost alone, his blade scattering bone and meat in brutal arcs.

Another wave surged from the lake, water streaming from empty eye sockets. Emma swept stunning electricity across the water around them.

The skeletons struggled against the stun as fish bobbed to the surface. Alistair peeled them off as they dragged themselves into her aggressive current.

“They’re coming from everywhere—” He yelled, throwing an axe into one closing on her.

She barely heard him. Every time one fell within her field, she felt its echo. Each death fed her back a pulse of strength, sharp and intoxicating. Her magic was a turret of artillery and panacea, a conduit routing energy from a layer of death.

The hillside roared with chaos—gravel skidding under boots, steel ringing on bone, magic cracking through wet air.

A villager staggered too close to the shallows. A corpse grabbed his coat. Emma blasted it without blinking. Electricity convulsed through the skeleton and dumped it back into the water, sizzling. Alistair pivoted to finish another.

The militia at the lake were being overwhelmed. There were too many on Sten. They were reaching Murdock and his men, his voice hoarse with pain.

Lloyd crushed one skull flat. The body folded. Three more stepped into its place. A militiaman beside him went down, clutching a gaping wound. Alistair was calling for help, hacking toward them, but from the other side.

Emma's fingers clenched around her staff. The lake—she'd been letting Morrigan handle that flank. But the witch turned spider was struggling to web the endless stream of waterlogged corpses crawling from the depths. She looked back; Perth's knights were pinned at the choke point.

She was the only one who could move.

Emma sprinted downhill toward the lake, heart pounding, robes whipping behind her. She shouldered past fleeing villagers, dodged a fallen barricade, and skidded to a stop near the water's edge, behind Alistair as he tried to break through the melee. The docks were slick with algae and blood.

Corpses surrounded the militia on three sides. Lloyd swung his club again, cracking a skull, but a skeletal hand raked across his back. He staggered. The man in front of him was already down, unmoving.

Emma raised her staff. Her mind reached out, slamming into the corpses like a battering ram, a sphere pushing out with psychic force.

The world went still.

Corpses locked in place around her, mouths open, weapons half-raised. For a heartbeat, nothing moved but her own shaking breath.

“Now!” Emma screamed.

Murdock and his militia surged forward, hacking down the stunned undead. Lloyd drove his club through a rotting skull. Sten thundered into the fray from the left, his massive blade sweeping through the paralyzed corpses like wheat.

But Emma was exposed. A corpse lurched from behind, its mace rising. She spun, staff coming up too slow. The mace whistled downward and brained her, knocking her to her knees into the dock. Her vision became clouded, burst by stars.

Steel punched through a ribcage inches from her face. The corpse collapsed. Alistair kicked it aside. He shoved her behind him, hitting her shoulder hard enough to spin her, shield already up, deflecting another blow meant for her head.

Emma tried to raise her staff again. Nothing came. Her head rang, mana guttered.

Sten arrived beside them, his greatsword carving space in an arc, positioning himself between the Wardens and the water.

Emma downed a potion; She couldn't waste the opening. She poured healing into the militia—Murdock's bleeding shoulder sealed shut, a villager's broken ribs knitted enough to breathe. She blasted stunned corpses with lightning, converting their deaths into mana she needed.

But Lloyd was already down. She didn't even see, only felt. No beat of life to catch. Just a puff of mana where he had been. She channeled it into everything she had left. Lightning crackled across the docks. Healing pulsed through her companions in a wave.

The undead finally broke. The last waterlogged corpse collapsed under Sten's blade, its skull split clean through. Silence rolled across the docks, broken only by ragged breathing and the lap of water against wood.

Emma lowered her staff slowly, face bloody, swaying on her feet. Trembling with her energy dispersing into the damp ground. Alistair caught her shoulders, steadying her.

Murdock knelt beside Lloyd's body, his weathered face stony. The fallen militiaman lay a few feet away, eyes open and empty.

Emma looked around in a daze, toward the lake. The water had gone still. The surviving militia stood in stunned silence. Perth's knights regrouped at the barricades. Morrigan scuttled toward them as villagers stared warily.

“Help her,” she heard Alistair demand, distantly, while he nudged her to sit. Morrigan reformed and keeled next to them, pressing a poultice to Emma's bleeding temple.

“If you hadn't— Maker's Breath. You were incredible,” Alistair said quietly, removing his helmet. Sweat matted his hair to his forehead, and a manic grin of surviving by inches split his face.

Leliana approached from the ridge, offering Emma a waterskin. She took it, grounding herself with the weight of it in her hands.

“I will help check the villagers,” Leliana said softly. “Some are injured, but hiding it.”

“Pride is a dangerous thing on a battlefield.” Morrigan scoffed.

Emma nodded. Forced herself to focus. “Hannah’s ready for the injured. Tell everyone else to hold positions. We need the perimeter secured before any more surprises.”

Murdock stood slowly, leaving Lloyd's body. His expression was hard, controlled. “We hold,” he agreed. “For the ones we lost.”

Her mind was already moving ahead. She looked over the hillside, counting bodies, intact shields, broken spears, evaluating how long they could hold if dawn didn’t come soon enough.

Almost everyone survived.

Sunrise @ the Windmill

Somewhere behind them, the militia dragged water-logged corpses into piles. The scraping sound carried across the empty square. The sky lightened to ash-grey.

Emma sat on the windmill steps, pressing a field dressing to her forehead with one hand. The wound had closed cleanly under her hands, but the jelly inside her skull remained scrambled.

Alistair approached from the direction of the barricades, armor caked in layers she didn't want to identify. He stopped a careful distance away, close enough to speak without shouting.

“Murdock's organizing the cleanup,” he said. “Ser Perth wants to burn the corpses before noon. Smart. The smell's already...”

He trailed off. She nodded once.

“How's your head?”

“Better.”

He sat across from her, in silence.

He knew this was coming since they left Lothering. Known it, dreaded it, spent several days hoping maybe a sinkhole would open up and swallow him before they arrived. No such luck.

“I should've told you,” Alistair said finally. “Before we got here. Before any of this.”

Emma lowered the bandage. The blood on it was old, darkening at the edges.

“Yes.”

“I kept thinking there'd be a better time. Or that it wouldn't matter. Or—” He stopped himself. “There's no good excuse.”

She was watching the lake, expression empty.

The lake curled around the cliffs, under them: grey, vast, deeply familiar in a way that made Alistair's chest tight. He spent half his childhood sneaking down to the shore beneath. Skipping stones. Pretending he was anyone else.

“I'm... Maker, Emma. I'm so sorry.”

Pretending didn't work then, either.

“You trusted me with... everything,” Emma said quietly. “The village—” She gestured vaguely at the survivors, the wreckage.

“Everything,” she repeated, frazzled. “but not this...?”

“No, please don't think that. It's not that I didn't trust you. It's...”

“Then why?”

“Anyone who's ever known has treated me differently. I stopped being Alistair and became the bastard prince.” He swallowed. “I liked that you didn't know. That you just... saw me.”

Emma looked at him. He looked down.

“And then after Ostagar, when I should have told you... I don't know, it just seemed like it was too late.”

Emma studied him. The sunlight caught the edge of his pauldron, still smeared with grime. He felt suddenly, acutely exhausted.

“Why now?” she asked. “Why tell me here?”

“Because we're at Redcliffe.” He said it simply. “Because Arl Eamon raised me. Because I couldn't...I just couldn't risk you finding out from someone else.”

“Considerate.”

“I know how it sounds.”

“Do you want to be king?”

“No.” No hesitation. No equivocation. “Maker, no. The very idea terrifies me.”

“I need to know something.”

“Anything.”

“When you stepped back—” She met his eyes. “Is it because you're avoiding something?”

“Probably. That's not the only reason.”

She waited. He forced himself not to rush.

“I'm good at fighting. I can hold a line. But planning ahead? I miss things. The obvious things. And the quiet ones.” He shook his head. “You don't.”

She didn’t deny it.

“And yes, maybe part of me is relieved not to carry that weight. But it's not—” He struggled for words. “You're better at it. You are.”

“You'd step in if I couldn't.”

“Of course I would. If you were dead or captured or—” He stopped himself. “Yes. I'd have to. But I'd probably mess it all up. Maker help us, if we had to do it without you.”

His voice got soft. Like it was an actual prayer. She let out a slow breath.

The militia's voices drifted across the square—shouts, laughter, exhaustion.

“I need to know your judgment wasn’t just dodging destiny,” she said.

“Fair,” he said again, quieter this time. “That's... more than fair. I just trust you with this,” he said. “That's why.”

They sat in silence. The sun climbed higher. Somewhere in the village, Leliana was singing—a working song.

Then, he heard Emma take a sharp breath, indignant. Something short of a laugh.

“You trust me to save the world. You just didn't trust me with you.”

“That's—” He stopped. “Yes. That's exactly it.”

“I know.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I heard you the first time.”

More silence. This one felt different. Less careful.

“For what it's worth,” Alistair said, “you put me on the front line last night. You could have pulled me back. Treated me like something fragile.”

“Why would I?”

“Because I'm a—” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Problem. A liability Loghain would love to get his hands on.”

Emma's expression sharpened. “Pulling you back wouldn't keep you out of his hands.”

He exhaled. “Thank you. For not doing that.”

“There's nothing else you're keeping from me?”

“No. Just the prince thing.”

The singing stopped. Someone called for water.

“We should check on them,” Emma said, standing carefully.

He held out his arm to her. She took it without comment.

“Are we... all right?”

She considered that longer than he liked.

“I don't know,” she said. “We are. In the ways that matter most.”

Later, when the bodies were burning, Emma found herself alone by the chantry.

She thought about Lothering.

The inn. The assassins. The decision she'd made in under a minute.

Alistair had objected. Quietly. But he'd backed her anyway. She was so certain. Two threats eliminated before they could report back. Leliana was horrified.

She'd been right. More right than she'd known.

Emma stared at the chantry's doors, at the scorch marks where fire had licked stone, at the village that had survived because she'd made a slow accumulation of decisions she couldn't take back, justified by outcomes she'd never fully understand.

Jealousy

The windmill loomed over them, its blades slowly rotating against the afternoon sky. Morrigan hadn't bothered to descend from her perch on the mill's upper platform, to oversee the noble crisis to unfold below her.

Bann Teagan stood unarmored before the mill, arms crossed in his fancy doublet. He stared at the castle across the lake, where ships floated idle.

“Odd how quiet the castle looks from here,” he said. “You'd think there was nobody inside at all.”

The quiet was ominous. Redcliffe Castle should be teeming—servants, guards, dogs. Instead: nothing.

Teagan seemed reluctant, but—

“I shouldn't delay things further.” He turned to face them. “I had a plan—to enter the castle after the village was secure. There's a secret passage here, in the mill. Accessible only to my family.”

“Convenient,” Emma said.

Alistair bit back a comment about how every noble family had a secret passage. It was like they competed: Oh, your ancestral home has a hidden tunnel? Well, ours has two, and a murder hole.

“Perhaps I should have gone in earlier, but I couldn't leave the villagers—”

The Bann stopped mid-sentence. His face went slack with shock.

A woman and a man in mail skidded down the hill behind them. Her gown was mud-stained but unmistakably expensive.

Arlessa Isolde.

Emma hated her on sight. All aristocratic panic and weaponized fragility. The kind of woman who'd learned to cry on command. With a very real reason to cry, besides.

“Teagan!” She rushed forward, desperately clinging to Bann's brocaded sleeve. “Thank the Maker you yet live!”

“I don't have much time to explain,” Isolde continued, breathless. “I slipped away from the castle as soon as I saw the battle was over. I must return quickly.” Her eyes darted between them, settling on Teagan. “I need you to return with me. Alone.”

“Why don't we all go?” Emma asked.

Isolde poorly masked her offense with confusion. “What? I... who is this woman, Teagan?”

Alistair sighed. Loud enough to be pointed.

“You remember me, Lady Isolde, don't you?”

Her face passed through recognition, then disgust, then a brittle attempt at composure that failed to stick.

“Alistair? Of all the—why are you here?”

Some things never change.

“They're Grey Wardens, Isolde,” Teagan said quickly. “I owe them my life.”

“Pardon me, I...” Isolde smoothed her skirts with trembling hands. The fabric was wrecked. “I would exchange pleasantries, but considering the circumstances...”

“Please, Lady Isolde.” Alistair stepped forward, carefully neutral. “We had no idea anyone was alive in the castle. We need answers.”

Isolde's eyes flicked to Emma, then back to him, looking like she'd bitten something sour.

“I don't know what is safe to tell,” she hesitated. “There's a terrible evil within the castle. The dead waken and hunt the living. The mage responsible was caught, but still it continues.”

“And Connor...” Her voice cracked. “Connor is going mad. He's seen so much death. He won't flee the castle.”

Connor. Right. The son who belonged.

She was gripping both of Teagan's hands now. “You must help him. You're his uncle. You could reason with him. I don't know what to do.”

“Tell me about this mage,” Emma said.

Isolde's head snapped toward her. For a moment, her fragility hardened to something cold and calculating.

“He's an infiltrator. One of the castle staff. We discovered he was poisoning my husband. That's why Eamon fell ill.”

“Eamon was poisoned?” Teagan's voice rose.

“He claims an agent of Teyrn Loghain hired him.” She released Teagan's hands, stepping back. “He may be lying. I cannot say.”

Of course. Loghain again. As if the man weren’t already haunting every corner of Ferelden.

“But Eamon's alive?” Alistair asked.

“Yes. Kept alive by...” She hesitated, choosing every word like picking through broken glass. “Something the mage unleashed.”

“So far it allows Eamon, Connor, and myself to live. Once it was done with the castle, it struck the village. It wants us to live, but I don't know why.”

From above, Morrigan shifted. Alistair caught the witch, hopping forward slightly, as a bird. Suddenly very interested in Isolde's word choice.

“It allowed me to come for you,” Isolde said to Teagan, “because I begged. Because I said Connor needed help.”

“You're not telling us everything,” Emma said. Alistair suppressed a smirk.

Isolde drew herself up, offense crackling through her posture like lightning through a rod. “I beg your pardon! That's a rather impertinent accusation!”

“Not if it's true.”

“An evil I cannot fathom holds my son and husband hostage!” Isolde's voice climbed toward hysteria. “I came for help! What more do you want from me?”

“The truth,” Emma said.

Isolde turned away, back to Teagan.

“I don't have much time. What if it thinks I'm betraying it? It could kill Connor.” Her voice dropped to a plea. “Please come back with me. Must I beg?”

“It's in control,” Emma warned the Bann.

“A demon, likely,” Alistair agreed.

Teagan's face had gone carefully blank. The look of a man making a decision he already regretted.

“The king is dead,” Teagan said quietly. “We need my brother more than ever. I'll return to the castle with you, Isolde.”

“This is a mistake,” Emma said. “You're going to get yourself killed.”

“I cannot let Isolde return alone.” Teagan met her eyes. His jaw was set. “Perhaps I can help Connor. Or Eamon. Perhaps this is a trap.” He glanced at Isolde, then back. “But this is my family. I must try.”

Alistair stepped forward. “Teagan—”

“I have no illusions of dealing with this evil alone.” Teagan cut him off gently. “You, on the other hand, have proven quite formidable.”

He pulled his signet ring from his finger, weighing it in his palm.

“Here's what I propose: I go in with Isolde. You enter the castle using the secret passage. My ring unlocks the door.” He held it out to Emma. “Perhaps I'll distract whatever's inside. Increase your chances of getting in unnoticed.”

Emma didn't take the ring immediately. She just looked at it.

“I can't let you do this,” she said. “It's insane.”

“What choice do either of us have?” Teagan's smile was thin, tired. “If your business with Eamon is important, you'll have to go inside to find him.”

“He's right.” Alistair's voice was quiet. “Without Arl Eamon, we'll never get the support we need.”

Teagan pressed the ring into Emma's palm. His hand lingered a moment too long. His fingers curled around hers, thumb brushing her wrist.

Alistair's jaw tightened. He felt the spike of irritation before he could stop it. He hated himself for it immediately.

Really? Now? When Teagan was about to walk into a demon-infested castle and probably die? Alistair had no claim on Emma, no excuse. This was exactly what Isolde had done: Seeing threats where there weren't any. Making everything about herself.

Teagan probably didn’t even notice. He was always like this. Charm without effort. Touches that meant nothing and everything, depending on who you asked.

Emma pulled her hand away and stepped back. Alistair exhaled carefully.

“Ser Perth and his men can watch the castle entrance. If you can open the gates from within, they'll move in to help.” Teagan mirrored her, also stepping back. “Whatever you do—Eamon is the priority. If you have to, just get him out. Isolde, me, anyone else... we're expendable.”

Eamon. The man who'd raised him, then sent him away. The man who'd stopped visiting. Stopped pretending to care. Now they were risking everything to save him, and Maker, Alistair wanted to save him. Except—

Emma closed her fingers around the ring.

“I understand,” she said. “I'll do my best.”

“You're a good woman.” Teagan's voice softened. “The Maker smiled on me when He sent you to Redcliffe.”

She crossed her arms and nodded once.

Leliana stepped forward, unable to contain herself any longer. “We're just going to send him with that woman? It seems so dangerous!”

Isolde's head turned sharply. Her eyes raked over Leliana—the road dust, the simple clothes over leather, the lute strapped to her back. Leliana held her ground, chin lifted.

“I can delay no longer.” Teagan clasped Emma's shoulder briefly. “Allow me to bid you farewell. And good luck.”

He turned toward Isolde. She took his arm immediately, possessive, already pulling him toward the castle path.

They watched them go. Isolde's skirts swept the ground. Teagan walked very straight, very rigid. A man going to his execution.

“Well,” Alistair said after a moment. “That's all very concerning, to say the least.”

”'Tis a trap,” Morrigan announced from above. “Obviously.”

“We know it's a trap,” Emma said.

“And you're walking into it anyway.” Morrigan descended the ladder with lazy grace. “Shall we begin rescuing kittens from trees?”

Emma turned the ring over in her palm. Teagan's family crest glinted in the light.

“The noblewoman knows,” Morrigan said.

Leliana looked at her. “Knows what?”

“What's controlling the castle. What happened to Connor.” Emma explained as she pocketed the ring. “She's protecting something. Or someone.”

Morrigan's eyes gleamed. “The boy, most likely. This nobly foolish family shows such suicidal loyalty.”

“And she wears Ferelden fabric with an Orlesian cut,” Leliana added, distressed. “The worst of both worlds.”

Alistair smiled as Emma started toward the mill entrance. The others fell in behind her.

“And the mage?” He asked.

Emma paused at the threshold and looked back at him.

“We'll deal with whoever it is,” she said. “Isn't that why you're here?”

“Sure,” Alistair said, sighing. “And here I hoped my mage hunting would be limited to darkspawn.”

Inside, the mill was dark and close. Wooden beams groaned overhead. He watched Emma's fingers trace the stone as she searched for the door.

Emma found the door easily—small, iron-bound, ancient. She fitted Teagan's ring into the lock. It turned with a soft click.

Cool air breathed up from below. Stone steps descended into darkness.

“Right,” Alistair said behind her. “Secret passages. My favorite.”

He tried very hard not to think about how many times he'd wished he could go home. Funny how wishes worked. You got what you wanted, just not the way you wanted it.

Home. What a joke. Getting jealous over nothing, like Isolde. Risking his neck for people who'd never cared about him in the first place. But what else was there to do? Walk away? Let Eamon die? Let Redcliffe fall?

No.

Emma summoned a wisp. The stairwell illuminated in pale blue.

“If anyone asks—we were invited,” she said. He could hear the smirk in her voice. And the weariness.

Morrigan's answering laugh echoed off stone.

“Oh yes. Most cordially.”

They descended.

Small Cowardices

The secret passage stretched under the lake, through the stone, and opened into the dungeons under the castle. When they emerged into the dungeons, the first thing Emma noticed was the smell—not just decay, but active decay. Fresh corpses shambling around in various states of disagreement with their own demise.

The positioning was impossible. Corpses didn't angle politely from one direction. They erupted from cells, dropped from ceiling grates, materialized from side passages.

Alistair had point because of course he did. The dungeon refused to cooperate. Emma caught aggro almost immediately.

Three corpses broke from the shadows on her flank. Her staff came up—glyph, blast, the usual—but one got through. Its hand closed on her shoulder with surprising strength. She felt stitches tear in her side, a wound from earlier reopening with a wet heat that spread down her ribs.

“Shit.”

She blasted electricity point-blank, the smell of charred flesh mixing with dungeon rot in a combination that would haunt her sinuses for days. Her hand pressed to her side, magic flowing automatically. The skin re-knitted. The bleeding stopped. The lyrium in her blood burned cold.

Alistair: “It's like a perverse surprise party.”

“Perhaps,” Morrigan observed, “we might consider not splitting the party in dungeons designed for maximum ambush potential.”

“Noted,” Emma said, teeth gritted.

Alistair was vibrating with suppressed concern and frustration. His shield work had gotten sharper, more aggressive.

Which was touching. Also slightly unhinged. Also not entirely unjustified.

They pushed deeper. More corpses. More healing. The dungeons provided enough death to keep her lyrium reserves fed. All she had to do was cast fast, and stay alive long enough to keep casting.

They stopped to take a breath.

“You know, I locked myself in a cage once, when I was a child. For an entire day. Ahh, good times,” said Alistair idly, impatiently bouncing on his heels.

Emma rubbed her forehead, smirking ruefully.

The Circle would've mobilized templars. Heads would roll. Punishments would cascade through anyone remotely responsible for losing track of a child for even an hour. Care weaponized into total surveillance, every body accounted for, every minute documented.

But Alistair could disappear for an entire day, locked in a cage.

The dungeon opened into a hallway lined in cells, and there was a familiar voice—

“Oh no—get away from me!”

Emma's entire body went cold in a way that had nothing to do with blood loss.

No.

“Was that a person—?” Alistair started.

She obliterated the next corpse without bothering to aim properly. Lightning crackled wild, scorching stone, leaving scorch marks. They rounded the corner.

Jowan.

He looked like shit. Thinner than she remembered, bruised, chained to the wall.

Leliana: “Oh, you poor thing.”

He looked up. His eyes went wide. He took the water from Leliana, but stared at Emma.

“By all that's holy... you? I can't believe it.”

Outside his cell: a small pile of charred corpses, blackened and smoking. Blast radius defense. Amateurish, but effective.

Not blood magic. Probably.

Emma stared. Her grip on the staff tightened until her knuckles went white. Behind her, she could feel Alistair's posture shift—not quite drawing his sword, but close. Ready.

“Maker's breath,” Jowan continued, words spilling out in that familiar nervous rush. “How did you get here? I never thought I'd see you again, of all people.”

She said nothing. Just looked at him. At the chains. At the pathetic wreckage of someone she'd once known. Someone she'd once helped.

“So you're the mage Lady Isolde mentioned,” she said finally. Her voice was flat enough to serve drinks on.

His face fell. “You've spoken with her. Then... you know I poisoned Arl Eamon. For all I know, he's already dead.”

“He's not dead. Yet.”

“He's not? That's a relief. I can't tell you how much—”

The thing was, she could tell he meant it. That made it worse somehow. Jowan had always been sincere. Sincerely desperate. Sincerely catastrophic.

“Please,” he said, leaning forward as far as the chains allowed, “I know how it seems. Poisoning the arl was... a terrible thing. But I'm not behind everything else happening here, I swear!”

He paused. Took a breath that rattled in his chest. He was sick.

“Before I say anything else, I need to ask you a question. You can do whatever you feel like you need to afterward, but I need to know...” His voice dropped to a whisper. “What became of Lily? They didn't hurt her, did they? The thought that she may have been punished for my crime...”

Emma studied him. She could lie. She could say nothing. She could let him twist in uncertainty for the rest of his miserable life.

“The Chantry sent her away,” she said. “To Aeonar.”

The color drained from his face like someone had pulled a plug.

“Oh my poor Lily.” His voice broke. Actually broke. “She must hate me now, if she even lives. What have I done?”

“You should have known better, Jowan.”

“You're right! I should have!”

Somewhere in the dungeon, water dripped. Morrigan watched like she was observing a particularly fascinating dissection. Alistair stood with his hand on his sword hilt.

Leliana looked pitying. Of course she did.

“So,” Jowan said finally. “Here we are again. The two of us. What happens now?”

“Are you responsible for this?” Emma gestured vaguely at the dungeon, the corpses, the general ambiance of supernatural disaster.

“I... I know it looks suspicious, but I'm not responsible for the creatures and the killings in the castle. I was already imprisoned when all that began.”

She waited.

“At first, Lady Isolde came here with her men demanding that I reverse what I'd done. I thought she meant my poisoning of the arl. That's the first I heard about the walking corpses. She thought I'd summoned a demon to torment her family and destroy Redcliffe.”

“She had me tortured. There was nothing I could do or say that would appease her. So they... left me to rot.”

“Why did you poison Arl Eamon?”

Jowan swallowed. “I was instructed to by Teyrn Loghain. I was told that Arl Eamon was a threat to Ferelden, that if I dealt with him Loghain would settle matters with the Circle. All I wanted was to be able to return.”

His voice turned bitter. “But he abandoned me here, didn't he? Everything's fallen apart. I never thought it would end like this!”

Emma didn't feel sympathy. She'd been abandoned too. She hadn’t been allowed to rot.

All your fault, Jowan.

He hadn't asked about that. She didn't explain it.

“Maker, I've made so many mistakes,” Jowan continued, sliding into self-flagellation with practiced ease. “I disappointed so many people... I wish I could go back and fix it. I just want to make everything right again.”

Emma felt a smile pull at her mouth—wry, humorless, the kind of smile that meant nothing good. She almost laughed. Almost. Alistair was starting to recognize that particular expression, and it was making him nervous. (Were the smirks for his dumb jokes even real? He was developing concerns.)

“Why did you listen to Teyrn Loghain, of all people?”

“Why wouldn't I? This is Teyrn Loghain we're talking about. The Hero of River Dane, for Andraste's sake! Why wouldn't I believe him?”

“At least let me explain what I was doing here,” Jowan said quickly, sensing he was losing her. “Connor had started to show... signs. Lady Isolde was terrified the Circle of Magi would take him away for training.”

Alistair: “Connor? A mage? I can't believe it!”

“She sought an apostate,” Jowan continued, “a mage outside the Circle, to teach her son in secret so he could learn to hide his talent. Her husband had no idea.”

“Perhaps her son is responsible,” Emma said.

“I thought that, too. Connor has little knowledge of magic, but he may have done something to tear open the Veil.” He was warming to the topic, slipping into familiar academic patterns—the Jowan she remembered. “With the Veil to the Fade torn, spirits and demons could infiltrate the castle. Powerful ones could kill and create those walking corpses.”

“Arl Eamon had no idea of his son's abilities?”

“No. She was adamant that he never find out. She said that he'd do the right thing, even if it meant losing their son. And that infuriated her.”

Emma could see it now—the whole pathetic chain of events. Isolde's desperation. Jowan's weakness. Loghain's manipulation. All of it collapsing into corpses and chaos. A chain of small cowardices broke an entire castle.

“The arl's a decent man,” Jowan said quietly. “I wondered how he could possibly be the threat Loghain said he was, but I did it anyway. I'm such a fool.”

“Yes,” Emma said. “You are.”

Jowan didn't look away. “I'm just sick of running away and hiding from what I've done. I'm going to try to fix it, any way I can.”

“We were friends once. I know I don't deserve to call you that, after what I did...”

“No,” Emma agreed.

His voice dropped. “If it ever meant anything, please... help me fix this.”

Emma felt the weight of everyone's eyes. Morrigan. Alistair. Leliana. Even the damned dog.

“I helped you once in the name of friendship,” she said.

“And I betrayed you. And Lily. I'm sorry, so sorry!” He was crying now, openly, tears cutting tracks through dungeon grime. “Please, I'm begging you! Won't you help me try to do one thing right in my life?”

Morrigan spoke: “I say this boy could still be of use to us. But if not, then let him go. Why keep him prisoner here?”

“Hey, hey!” Alistair stepped forward. “Let's not forget he's a blood mage! You can't just... set a blood mage free!”

“Better to slay him?” Morrigan's eyes gleamed with that particular light that meant she was enjoying herself. “Better to punish him for his choices? Is this Alistair who speaks or the templar?”

“I'd say common sense. We don't even know the whole story yet.”

Leliana's voice was soft. “He wishes to redeem himself... doesn't everyone deserve that chance?”

“Like yourself, you mean?” Morrigan asked.

Alistair looked at Emma. “He's your friend. You know him best.”

“Give me a chance, please!” Jowan begged.

Emma studied him. Broken. Desperate to be forgiven without having earned it. The lyrium in her blood was still burning cold. Her side ached. Alistair was wound tighter than she'd ever seen him, and part of that was her fault—trust, once broken, didn't reassemble cleanly.

“So how will you make things right?” she asked.

“I'd... well, I'd try to save anyone still up there. There must be something I can do.”

She waited for him to elaborate. To offer specifics. A plan. Anything resembling actual competence.

He just looked at her hopefully.

Emma exhaled slowly. The sound echoed in the dungeon. “That's commendable,” she said. “If true.”

Relief flooded his face. “I'm glad you think so. So what now?”

She turned away from him, staff already moving to light the next corridor. Somewhere above them, a demon was possessing a child. People were dying.

“I will wait,” he said to her back, already walking away. “If you change your mind, I will be here.”

The dungeon stretched ahead.

the First Revenant

They knew the courtyard was likely to be a graveyard.

Emma stood at the far wall, staff raised, watching Alistair cross toward the gate. Morrigan circled overhead, black wings cutting lazy arcs through smoke still rising from the village siege.

Skeletons lined the parapets. Slow. Fragile. Easy to clear.

They'd planned for that. Ser Perth's Knights waited on the other side of the gate.

Alistair reached the lever and threw his weight against rusted iron. The portcullis groaned upward.

Then suddenly, something yanked him backward.

Behind him, an oversized corpse crawled out of the dirt. It raised one skeletal hand, wrapped in tattered robes and malice.

Alistair flew backward and crunched against the parapet. He hit the ground and didn't get up.

The revenant turned toward him, bony fingers coiling, preparing another strike. It was a spellcaster— once a powerful mage, before death upgraded it into something worse.

The archers on the walls pivoted. Emma's staff flared. Her spiritual decay threaded through them—they shattered in an instant. Ser Perth's knights charged through the gate, shields high.

She was already sprinting. The thing was still moving. It stopped advancing on Alistair, who'd managed to roll onto his side, shield half-raised, wheezing.

It turned to her. She stopped, violently, too late. Her knees hit the ground. Its spectral chains yanked her ankles, dragging her into the stone. It scraped through fabric, then skin.

The revenant stood over her. Up close it was worse. The skull cracked down the middle, green light leaking through. The jaw hanging wrong, dislocated. It raised it's skeletal hand and began to cast.

Emma twisted, staff trapped beneath her, and shoved raw electricity into its face. The spell misfired—lightning arcing wild, scorching her palms, her sleeves and the stone around her. The chains loosened.

She wrenched free and rolled, already healing her burns and scrapes in a rush of heat and nausea. Behind her, steel rang on bone. The knights had engaged. She scrambled to her feet and ran.

She dropped to her knees beside Alistair. Her hands reached out, then stopped. Up close, the damage was obvious.

“Can't—” he started. His eyes were alert, but his chest barely moved. He'd lost most of his color already.

“I know.”

The breastplate had buckled inward, folded by the parapet. The mail underneath had collapsed with it, rings buckling into flesh that had nowhere left to compress. Healing him now would seal flesh around broken ribs while the armor kept crushing him.

Behind her, someone screamed. Steel shrieked. The revenant was doing something—she didn't turn to look.

“Help me get you out of this,” she said.

“Belt first,” Alistair gasped.

Emma found the buckle—crushed partially shut. She yanked, then pulled her dagger and cut. The sword dropped. The cuirass shifted fractionally. He sucked in half a breath and choked on it as an arrow whistled past her ear.

“Pauldrons. Un-under mail. There's a knot—”

“Where?”

“Higher—left side—no, not that—”

The sound of combat shifted. Grew louder. Closer. Emma didn't look. Kept her hands on the armor.

“Keep talking.”

”—cut the strap, the leather—yes—”

The right pauldron came free. The left one stuck. She wrenched it sideways and he made a sound something short of a grunt, cut by the ribs where his lungs should be.

“Sorry.”

“Keep going.” His hand found her wrist and squeezed once.

Someone hit the wall hard. A wet crunch. She heard Ser Perth shouting orders that nobody could follow.

“Wait—” Alistair's grip on her wrist tightened. His eyes tracked the fight. She was here, kneeling beside him, while men were dying ten yards away. “Go,” he said. Barely audible.

“No.”

“Em—”

“No.” She hooked her fingers under the bent edge of the breastplate. It wasn't about to lift cleanly. The inward fold had jammed the lower edge under the opposite side. Trying to pull it straight up would just lever it deeper into him.

She had to pry. One hand braced against his shoulder—trying not to put weight on his chest, but failing. The sound he made— she cringed.

“It's stuck,” she said.

His jaw clenched. For a moment she thought he'd refuse. Then: “Angle—sideways—if it slips—”

She nodded. The edge was sharp- it would gouge him open. Alistair's eyes were on the fight, watching Perth's line collapse.

“They're dying,” he said.

“So are you,” she said, and pulled. Metal scraped. Mail caught. Alistair grabbed her arm, knuckles white. Not directing her anymore—just holding on.

The crushed cuirass creaked free, giving him room to expand and her room to work. She threw it aside. Magic flared from her. It was visceral, invasive. Ribs snapped out under her hands, rended muscle closed. He sobbed, spitting blood, an agonized sound. But also gasping with air in his lungs.

“Mail next,” she said.

The hauberk was crushed rushed inward, the rings had locked into each other, redistributing force in all the wrong directions. The padding beneath had swollen with blood and sweat, making everything tighter.

She had to peel the layers, dragging the mail over bruised ribs, tearing skin and the gambeson underneath. Clearing the mail, she then pulled the last layer open to expose the damage.

Dark bruising spread like spilled ink across his left side. But finally, her hands pressed against bare skin. Ribs finished realigning. Tissue mended. His lungs filled properly.

When she looked up, the courtyard was quiet.

Three of Perth's knights were down. Two of them definitely dead. The third maybe breathing. Perth himself was leaning on his sword, barely upright. Leliana was already moving between the wounded.

The revenant was a collapsed pile of bones near the gate.

Alistair was staring at the dead. He said nothing.

Emma reached out and turned his face toward hers. “I need you alive.”

His eyes searched her for something. She let go.

“Stay here. I'll help them.”

She crossed the courtyard to where Leliana was kneeling beside the knight who'd been thrown into his companion. She fixed what she could and moved on. There were more broken ribs, torn flesh and internal bleeding. A broken arm.

And three dead.

When she stood, Perth was watching her.

“Warden,” he said.

She just nodded.

Alistair was sitting upright now, watching her work. Emma looked at the discarded armor beside him—the crushed breastplate that had nearly killed him—then at the dead knight near the gate.

“Is it just me,” Alistair said quietly, “or did I do really badly in that fight?”

“We need to find you something heavier.”

He watched her as she studied the massive plates. A pauldron bigger than her head.

“From him?”

“Yes.”

“We're looting him.”

“Apparently this situation called for massive armor.”

Alistair pushed himself upright, slowly. “Wonderful.”

Emma offered him a hand. Even stripped of half his armor, he was almost too heavy for her to pull up. Almost.

DPS

The dungeons had a variety of casualties—bodies scattered, half-eaten, some crushed. But upstairs, only the moving dead.

The halls spread vast and hollow. No furniture. No tapestries. The banners that should have hung from the rafters were gone, leaving only the iron hooks that once held them.

“Where is everything?” Leliana whispered.

Alistair stepped forward, shield raised, scanning the shadows. “Moved. Or burned, maybe?”

“Perhaps eaten,” Morrigan suggested wryly.

They advanced slowly. The emptiness pressed in—not peaceful, but curated. Deliberate. As if someone had swept the castle clean and then waited to see who would notice.

The chantry was stranger still. The pews had been shoved neatly against the walls. The floor was scrubbed bare. No candles. No offerings. Just space and echoes and the faint, cloying smell of rot beneath incense that had long ago burned out.

Emma knelt, running her fingers over the stone. The grain felt smooth. Too smooth. Recently scubbed. She straightened, uneasy.

“This is very creepy,” Alistair said quietly.

They moved deeper into the castle. The swarms of undead grew larger with each room—corpses lurching from alcoves, from behind doors, from stairwells. Their squads grew to a size they couldn't stand against without aggressive offense. Emma was detonating every group.

The explosions hit Alistair square each time, rended meat and shards slapping across his armor in force. He staggered, cursing, but stayed upright.

“I hate that spell,” he gasped. “It's so gross.”

He did not reach for a potion. He never did, not while Emma was behind him. She was already casting, fixing her damage as soon as he registered the pain.

“Yeah,” she wasn't fond of it either. But there was no better way to inflict massive damage to enemies. And friends.

They methodically cleared the rooms. Alistair braced at every doorway, shield angled, waiting for the press.

And then, in a servant's hall near the kitchens, they found signs of life. Pews arranged before tables. Blankets folded neatly over them. A chessboard mid-game. A fire still burning in the hearth, embers glowing soft orange. Food on the table—bread only just starting to go stale. Fruit, not fresh, but edible.

Someone had lived here. Recently.

“Finally,” Leliana breathed.

Alistair moved to the fire but didn't sit. He crouched to warm his hands, armor creaking.

Emma nodded, already cataloging their supplies. They hadn't used any potions yet. Her fingers trembled slightly, rifling through.

Morrigan leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Do not grow comfortable. This sanctuary is borrowed.”

They hovered. Two minutes. Maybe three. No one sat down. No one took off their pack.

Then Morrigan stiffened. “They come.”

Everyone braced.

Alistair surged forward: “Time to taste steel.”

The doorway was narrow—barely wide enough for two men abreast. Morrigan moved first, her staff flaring with cold light. Frost spread across the threshold in a sweeping arc, catching the first wave of corpses mid-stride. Jaws open. Knees bent. Every one of them paused at the exact moment they intended to kill.

Alistair was already charging into the ice. Emma stepped up behind him, staff raised.

She could see them now—nine, maybe ten corpses surging through the hallway. And behind them, something worse: an elite caster, robes tattered, hands glowing with sickly green light.

Emma tried to drain its mana through the fade. Her thirsty threads hooked, then slid off. Feedback stung her palms like touching hot metal.

She tried something else. Her glyph lit at the caster's feet. It stumbled, limbs seizing mid-step, caught in the spell's grip. For now.

The first corpses hit Alistair's shield like a wave. He grunted and pushed back. Steel rang against bone.

The bottleneck held. For a moment. Then the press intensified.

Something caught the edge of his shield and wrenched. He staggered. One corpse slipped past his shield. Then another.

Leliana's bow snapped, arrow punching through a skull. The corpse staggered but didn't fall. Morrigan's frost swept wide, catching three more mid-lunge. They froze solid, limbs locked mid-motion.

Emma knew it wouldn't last. She pulled for shock. The shape came out wrong. She corrected.

Alistair felt the dry charge build and stutter in the air. The frozen corpses began to thaw. Motion returned in jerks—fingers twitching, jaws working soundlessly.

He called her name, sharp with panic. The warning snapped her focus back. The caster had broken free of the glyph. Its hands flared, green light coiling into a bolt for Alistair. He dipped, shield scraping stone.

The thawed corpses piled against him, clawing, biting, forcing him to pivot, to turn his shoulders just to keep the line. He couldn't hold the doorway straight anymore.

She reached for him automatically, trying to shape the heal.

Too slow.

Alistair swore and finally tore a potion free with his teeth, glass cracking between his molars as he spat the cork aside. He drank while blocking, red spilling down his chin to soak into the padding at his throat.

No time.

Leliana screamed.

Emma turned. Two corpses closed on the bard. Leliana loosed an arrow point-blank, but they kept coming. One grabbed her arm. She wrenched free, stumbling backward into the wall.

Emma's mind raced. Too many. Too close. They were surrounded now—Alistair at the center, Morrigan and Leliana at the flanks, Emma trying to hold the back line.

Their enemies weren't taking enough damage. Their tank was burning potions now. She could hear the glass break. That could not last.

Emma thrust her staff forward, pouring what little mana she had left into Walking Bomb. The spell latched sunk into its chest as it lurched toward her.

She darted away from Leliana, luring it. But it would not chase her. It staggered once. No warning. No delay. The spell found a fault she hadn't known, exploding it mid-stride.

Too soon.

Leliana's bow clattered uselessly across stone. She crumpled. Emma felt the debris splatter past her, singeing her robes.

Morrigan staggered, magic flickering as the blast tore through her defenses.

Her vision swam. She could heal herself. She could heal Morrigan. She couldn't do both.

Her hands moved before she could think. The spell snapped to the nearest certainty—her own pulse. Her body had already decided she was worth more. Warmth flooded her chest, ribs knitting, burns fading.

Guilt arrived a heartbeat later.

Morrigan was on her knees, gasping, frost crackling weakly around her fingers.

Only three left. They were clawing at Alistair, trying to reach the one who exploded their mage. Alistair drove one back, shield-first. Another filled the space it left. There was no gap. There was no finish.

She cast the bomb on the first to slip past him. She ran away from him, as they closed in on her. The corpse exploded mid-stride. The blast caught her.

She hit the floor hard, staff clattering from her grip. Her vision whited out. She heard steel on bone. A wet crunch. Alistair's boot scuffing stone. Another impact. Then silence.

When her ears stopped ringing, Alistair was kneeling beside her, plates rattling, hauling her upright. He did not let go.

Emma sagged against his arm. Blood pooled beneath the corpses. She looked around. Morrigan was with Leliana, who was panting, eyes unfocused. An arrow lay snapped underfoot.

a False Bottom

Emma's fingers brushed dust from the desk drawer's false bottom, finding resistance where there shouldn't be any. She worked the wood panel loose.

The amulet rolled into her palm, surprisingly heavy. Andraste's symbol, stamped in ceramic. Worn smooth at the edges. Cracked and repaired with care. Safely hidden.

Everything else in this office had been ransacked—papers scattered, shelves overturned.

She knew it immediately.

I tore it off and threw it at the wall. Shattered it.

She remembered Alistair's voice, as he walked along the highway, describing a ten-year-old's rage at being sent away.

And the vision repeated: Ser Perth's knights clutching their silver amulets at the windmill, eyes bright with faith.

The amulet was warm from her grip. It was the same symbol. This one was just older, a different material, a different mold. Broken and repaired.

The Maker is absent was the whole point of the Chantry. And yet the lie worked anyway.

Practical. Efficient. The knights had fought better, lived through the night. Results she couldn't argue with. She'd signed off on it without hesitation.

Except it did bother her. Had been bothering her for close to a day now, in the exhausted half-conscious moments between combat and collapse when her mind wouldn't settle.

Half of them died to the Revenant in the castle courtyard, less than 24 hours later. But before then, they defended the village. She'd helped make that happen. That meant something.

And here in her hand: an object that mattered because someone decided it did. Repaired by a man who'd taken in a child that wasn't his, kept a secret that could have destroyed a kingdom.

Emma stared at it and felt the last of her plausible deniability collapse.

She was worried. Not only about herself. Or the mission.

It had nothing to do with tactics or marching order and everything to do with the sick twist in her chest when she thought about what would happen if people found out. When they started looking at him the way those knights had looked at their stupid amulets.

Alistair had a type of story people like to believe in. A story that would make them braver, more loyal, more compliant.

Ferelden would eventually want him to mean something, and none of it had anything to do with who he actually was or what he wanted or what he was good at.

She didn't want them to have him.

Which was how she knew she was completely fucked.

Alistair was checking the perimeter, his boots echoing down the stone corridor. She heard him long before she saw him, clanking through the castle, impossible to ignore.

“Find anything?”

She should just give it to him. Stop making it complicated.

But it was complicated. And now she was holding proof that Alistair—pragmatic, self-deprecating Alistair who joked about everything—carried his own desperate need to believe, that he'd mattered to someone, that the abandonment wasn't inevitable or deserved.

Emma closed her fist around the amulet. Her throat felt tight.

“Em?” He approached her, concerned.

“I found this.”

Her voice was carefully neutral. The same tone she used for an inventory assessment or debrief. It sounded wrong even to her own ears.

He stopped mid-step. Stared at her palm.

“This... this is my mother's amulet. It has to be.” His voice cracked slightly. “But why isn't it broken? Where did you find it?”

She should say something like congratulations, probably. Something that acknowledged what this meant to him without—

“It was in the false bottom of his desk.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “The arl's desk?”

The vision would come back. She knew that already. The amulets would haunt her again. She'd lie awake, wondering.

“Yes.”

“I thought it was gone. I was so angry, I just—” He turned it over, examining the repair work with something close to reverence. “He kept it. He fixed it and kept it all this time. I don't understand, why would he do that?”

“Maybe he meant to give it back to you.”

Alistair was quiet for a long moment.

“Maybe he did. He might even have brought it with him one of those times he came to see me at the monastery... not that I would have given him a chance, as belligerent as I was to him.”

He looked up at her, open and hurting and grateful all at once.

“Thank you. I mean it. I... thought I'd lost this to my own stupidity.”

“I'll need to talk to him about this,” Alistair continued, quieter. “If he recovers from his... when he recovers, that is. I wish I'd had this a long time ago.”

His face sharpened suddenly, looking at her.

“Did you remember me mentioning it? Wow. I'm more used to people not really listening when I go on about things.”

“Sorry?” Emma's voice was flat. “Did you say something?”

“Ho, ho, ho.” He made an obscene gesture, grinning. “See this gesture I'm making? Can you hear that?”

She felt herself smiling.

Alistair had already tucked the amulet inside his armor, close to his chest.

^

Castle main hall: meeting Connor, deciding to appeal to Circle of Magi for help

Memorial for the losses, victory celebrated by townspeople, tavern rowdyness, laughing and crying, etc

Can't Not – RC

“So,” Alistair said, to no one in particular. Then, to Emma: “Can I ask you something? A personal question.”

Emma didn't look up from her pack. “Sounds serious.”

“Probably.” He paused. “This isn't… I'm not going to make a joke about it.”

That made her look up. It was unusual enough, with no pre-emption, to be its own kind of signal. She waited.

“Leliana,” he said.

Emma closed the pack. “What about her?”

“I just—The two of you have been. You know. Friendly.”

“She's a friendly person.”

“She is, yes. Very. With you especially.”

He was again mapping a perimeter. She knew the shape of it by now. She'd liked it — the cleverness, the oblique approach that once included her. Lately it was starting to feel like a locked door.

She tried to read his expression. Didn't like she felt like trying.

“You want to ask me about her?”

“Are you and Leliana... involved?”

It was a good question. Emma arrived at her answer by process of elimination.

”—No.”

“I—” He blinked. “Oh.”

“Were you expecting a longer answer?”

“I didn't know what I was expecting.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought… the impression I had was that… I mean, I wasn't trying to assume, but it seemed like—I wasn't going to say anything. I almost didn't.”

She was glad he said something; She still wasn't sure if he really wanted to know.

He was quiet for a moment.

“Do you…” He started carefully. “Do you have feelings toward me? Still, I mean. In that direction.” He sounded like he was asking whether a bridge would hold his weight.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“I'd... hoped that was the case.” He said quietly. “And Leliana?”

“Do I have feelings for her? Is that what you're asking?”

“It doesn't seem right to lead her on. Or... well, to lead me on, to be honest. Either you're with someone or you're not.”

“So, if I'm not with her, I'm with you. Is that how it is?”

“From your tone, I guess you just don't see anything wrong with...?”

“I'm asking what you think.”

She watched him try to locate the version of this answer that didn't sound like an ultimatum.

“Well... maybe there isn't anything wrong with it. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the idiot that grew up in a hayloft and doesn't know any better.”

There it was. She'd been waiting for the hayloft. It never came at a good time for her to ask why that was relevant. “I need to think about this.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I’m not stalling.”

“I know.” He let out a breath. “That’s the problem.”

She watched him struggle with the next part.

“I don’t want to make you choose,” he said. “I just… I can’t...” he trailed off.

“You need me to choose. Even if it's not you?”

“Even then. Then I’ll live with it.” The words cost him to say. But he was committed, one way or the other.

“You won’t,” she said quietly.

“I didn't say it would be easy. I...I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won't lose me,” she insisted, before she thought better of it. “I just need to think,” she added quickly.

She stood, straightened her pack, and left him with the campfire.

Leliana was sitting at the water's edge, as if she'd known to wait there. She spoke before Emma reached her.

“I know what you're going to say.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I've been praying for clarity,” Leliana said. “It rarely arrives gently.”

Emma sat down beside her.

Leliana: “You've chosen. Haven't you? Do you think you are the first to dissapoint me?”

Emma longed for Areli. She would know what to do.

“Yes. I've chosen. I'm sorry, Leliana.”

Choice: the description felt like a farce. But to say otherwise was cruel.

She didn't want to reject Leliana. She couldn't not choose Alistair.

Leliana looked out at the water.

“I… had a feeling. I think I've had a feeling for a while and found it more convenient not to act on it.”

Nobody wanted to act on anything. Emma had made a decision, had come here to say it, and somehow she still had less room than she'd had with Alistair, who could rarely speak seriously and had suddenly needed to know exactly where he stood.

Leliana smiled, slightly crooked. The grace arriving.

“I hope you are happy together,” Leliana said. Emma wondered if she meant it.

“How did you know?”

“You soften with him,” Leliana replied. “You think no one notices.”

Morrigan noticed. Emma hadn't realized Leliana did too. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

“I hope he understands what he has,” Leliana said quietly.

“He will.” It felt so certain. Strange, to be so sure of him, but not of this.

“I didn't want to hurt you.”

“My dear. Wanting is rarely the deciding factor.”

Redcliffe Docks

The dock planks creaked under their boots. Lake Calenhad stretched out ahead, flat and gray under the overcast sky. Emma planted her staff and stared at the water.

Alistair shifted his weight. “So. At the castle. Near here, in Redcliffe.”

Emma glanced back, rolling tension from her shoulders. “What about it?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.” He tugged at his gauntlet strap. “Lot of thinking time waiting for boats.”

He should've kept his mouth shut. But the words came out anyway, halting and indirect.

“You know. When you... when that thing had me pinned. You were dealing with the archers.”

“Yes.”

“And then... you ran straight at the thing that just crushed me like a tin can.”

Emma's expression didn't change. “You were dying.”

“Right. Yes. Dying. Which is... a thing that happens. In combat. To people. Sometimes.”

“Not if I can prevent it.”

He tried again. “The knights—”

“Yes. They died.”

No apology. No justification. Just acknowledgment.

“I'm not saying you made the wrong choice,” he said carefully. “I'm saying... the numbers. There were more of them than me.”

“There are more knights in Ferelden than Grey Wardens.”

“That's—” He stopped. Started over. “That's cold.”

“We would've lost more if we'd lost you.”

“Maybe. Can you decide so easily?”

“You're not replaceable. There are two Grey Wardens in Ferelden. If one dies, the other is alone. You'd do the same.”

He wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that she was the one with actual strategic sense, that she was the healer keeping everyone alive, that she was—

“You're more valuable than I am,” he said instead.

“I see. Can you decide so easily?”

He crossed his arms. “If you go down, everyone goes down.”

“If you go down, I go down.”

Exactly the kind of reasoning he'd expect from her. Why did hearing it hit him so hard? Was it something in her tone, or lack thereof? What was he trying to say?

“You could have gotten behind them. You didn't have to get that close,” he said finally.

Emma stopped looking at the water. He turned to face her properly.

“You think I can do this without you?” she said. He swallowed, she continued. “I had to. I didn't do it for fun.”

“I know.” His voice was rougher than he liked. “I was there, remember? Watching you crawl through active combat while I couldn't do anything about it.”

“Of course you couldn't do anything. You were incapacitated.”

“Exactly.” He made a vague, shapeless gesture at the lake. “You're supposed to stay at range. That's the point. You don't—You don't expose yourself like that.”

“Like what? I've entered melee before.”

“No, not like that. I covered you. Sten covered you.”

“You have done the same. Multiple times.”

“That's different,” he tried. “Because I'm—I'm supposed to take damage. That's what I do.”

“I'm supposed to keep you alive.”

“It's not the same,” he repeated.

“You don't like watching me take risks. I don't like watching you take risks. But we do it anyway.”

She sounded so much like Duncan, sometimes.

But standing there on the dock, looking at the fading burns on her palms and the way she held herself like she wasn't still hurt, all he could think about was her hands shaking while she tore through his armor.

“It was just hard,” he said quietly. “Watching you do that.”

“I know,” she said. “It was hard watching you suffocate.”

They stood there. The water lapped against the pilings.

“We're the only two who can do this,” Emma said finally. “That's why we have to keep each other alive. That's—it's a priority.”

“Right. Very necessary.”

“Yes.”

Everything she'd said was objectively, demonstrably true. But something in the way she said it made his chest tighten.

Alistair looked at her. The clinical assessment in her eyes. The careful distance in her posture. The absolute certainty that she would crawl through fire again if circumstances required it.

Her gaze had drifted back to the water. Not watching for the boat—just staring. Her jaw was tight. Her staff planted a little too firmly.

Something was off. He couldn't name it. Just a prickling at the back of his neck, the way his shoulders tensed before combat started.

“You know,” he said, “if you'd died there, trying to save me...”

Emma looked over.

“I would've been very annoyed. Extremely annoyed. From a purely tactical standpoint.”

She smiled. Maybe a real smile. “Noted.”

“Because then I'd be the only Grey Warden left. And I barely know what I'm doing. Complete disaster. Strategically speaking.”

“Mmhm.”

The boat rounded the far point, oars cutting through the gray water in steady rhythm. Emma's shoulders shifted. Nothing dramatic. Just a fraction of tension settling deeper.

Alistair's frown deepened. “You all right?”

“Fine.”

The boat pulled up alongside the dock. The ferryman secured the line and gestured them aboard.

Emma shifted forward—then stopped.

Alistair offered his arm. Reflex more than anything. The sort of thing you did automatically, even for someone you thought unlikely to take it.

She took it.

He helped her onto the rocking planks. She stepped carefully, staff first, boots following.

He followed, weight displacing the boat in the water.

Emma braced. Just a fraction. Knees adjusting, balance redistributing.

Alistair settled onto the bench across from her, still frowning. Still trying to shake the feeling that he'd just watched her decide something he wasn't going to like.

Truce

Spoiled Princess Inn, Lake Calenhad Docks

Emma sat by the window, watching the tower rise from the lake. Their crossing had been mercifully brief.

Kinloch Hold seemed now as Emma remembered it: round, indifferent, wet stone and narrow windows. Heavy and watchful. Its solidness reassured her the moment her boots struck the dock. The sensation of a held breath, old and patient.

Alistair returned from the bar with two mugs and a plate of something allegedly edible. He set them down carefully.

“They claim it's rabbit stew,” he said. “I have my doubts.”

Emma wrapped her hands around the mug.

“I noticed, while we were sailing,” he sat, not quite meeting her eyes, “You turned approximately the color of this alleged stew.”

“Yes. The waves make me nauseous,” she eyed the soup warily.

He remembered how she had leaned forward next to him. Small. Braced. He had wanted to do something. He still didn’t know what.

“Are you alright?”

“I will be, soon.”

Alistair accepted that, because that was what he had learned to do lately.

Across the room, Leliana was smiling at the innkeeper in a way that usually preceded secrets changing hands. Morrigan was nowhere to be seen. The tower’s silhouette pressed against the window, dark and patient.

“I miss you,” Emma said.

Alistair looked up, startled. “I’m here.”

“Not really.” She met his eyes.

“I thought,” he said carefully, “after… everything… maybe it was better if I didn’t say the wrong thing.”

“So you said nothing.”

“Yes.” He winced. “Which appears to be worse.”

She watched the surface of her drink settle.

“You used to talk to me,” she said. “You’d just… talk. About templars stealing lyrium. About setting evidence on fire.”

“That was an accident.”

“I know.” A pause. “That’s why it was funny.”

He smiled automatically, then stopped when he realized she wasn’t.

“I didn’t mean to pull away,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “After Leliana, I just—started thinking maybe this was a sign. That I was out of my depth. I’m a rube who grew up in a hayloft and you’re…”

“What?” Emma said, lost.

He didn’t finish. She didn’t push. She looked back into the mug instead, annoyed.

“What if I can’t—” He cut himself off. “I just can’t treat something like this casually.”

He went quiet.

“But why...” Emma sighed. She felt serious. It wasn't helping. “You think one wrong word and I'll stop talking to you? Decide you're not worth the effort?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “I don’t know how to do this. Not without getting all... stiff and wrong.”

She leaned back, letting the chair creak.

“But it wasn't like that. Now you assume I'm fragile.”

“I'm not—”

“You are.”

“So… what are you saying, exactly?” He sighed.

“We can stop. You're uncomfortable with this.”

“Right. Of course.” He looked away. “I understand.”

“No, no—” Emma corrected so quickly, Alistair had to look back to her, difficult as it was, “I preferred when you weren't trying so hard. Now— I think you got scared. I—”

She hesitated.

“I don't want to scare you.”

Emma saw it hit—his shoulders eased like he'd been bracing for a blow that never came.

He realized she was worried. about him.

“If I say I can't—if I'm too tangled up—you'd just... prefer to go back to how things were?”

“It's a truce. Until you stop panicking every time you talk to me.”

“I’ll take it,” he said immediately, then softened, with a nervous smile. “If that’s what you want. Very romantic, by the way.”

“I’m not good at romance,” she said. She picked up her mug. It was cold, now. “You should learn this.”

“That’s tragic.”

“For both of us.”

Silence, again. Less difficult, this one.

“Can I ask you something?” he said. “Another something.”

She nodded.

“Leliana. When you—when you let her down. Was that because of me?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed. “So you chose this.”

“I did.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said. His voice was careful. “I should tell you… I don’t know if I’m ready for anything else. Not yet.”

Emma frowned, trying to follow the logic. Jealous, but retreating. It was contradictory. She let it go.

“I’m not worried about doing that,” she said. That much was true.

He looked down. Something tightened in his shoulders.

“I don’t know where this goes,” he said.

“So?” She raised an eyebrow. “The truce.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. Nervous. Relieved. Both.

Tautology

She could feel the Veil here, thinned and ragged, pressing too close. The air itself felt wrongly textured, like fabric worn through in places, the Fade bleeding through the gaps. Magic pooled dangerously, slick as lamp oil, fibrous and quivering, waiting to ignite.

The dock creaked under their boots, wood swollen and warped by decades of lake water. Emma stopped at the edge, looking across the water. The tower rose from the inner island like an accusatory finger.

Alistair: “Must be strange. Coming back.”

Emma didn’t answer at once. From here, the tower looked smaller than her memory.

“I left two months ago. Feels...so much longer.”

“Time’s funny like that.” Alistair leaned against a piling, the wood groaning under his armor. “The Monastery feels like a lifetime ago for me. Or possibly several.”

“Lucky you.” Emma turned away from the tower, facing him instead. “Is that true?”

“The reincarnation? Unlikely. The rest?” He paused. “Mostly. Some days I can barely remember what it was like. Other days I remember everything, usually at the worst possible moments. It's very inconvenient.”

“You remember the Circle perfectly, don't you?” he added, looking at her.

“All of it.”

“I suppose the Circle doesn't let you forget.”

“No.” She thought of Areli, of Anders, of all the small rebellions that felt enormous until they were.

“It's designed that way. Memory as discipline.”

“Cheerful. And speaking of cheerful things, how are our two most compatible party members getting along?”

“Morrigan thinks Leliana's delusional. Leliana thinks Morrigan needs saving.”

“So, poorly.”

“Exactly as expected.”

His smile faded, shadowed by something doubtful.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just...do you ever wonder what that would've been like? Being raised outside the Circle?”

“You're asking if I wish I'd been apostate.”

“No! Well. Maybe?” He grimaced. “I'm asking—I'm just curious about what you think.”

“I've thought about it.” She looked back at the tower.

“And?”

“No.”

Alistair blinked. “That's it? Just no?”

“Just no.”

“Well. That was succinct.” He shifted his weight. “So does that mean you liked it there? At the Circle?”

“I did.”

“Really? They trained you well?”

“Well enough,” Emma said carefully. “I'm not ungrateful, but the library offered more than the instruction.”

It was mild, but it felt like a confession.

“Is that what you liked most?” He ducked his head down, but looked up at her with a small smile.

“No...” she paused. You don't really want the real answer, do you? She shook his untimely voice out of her head. The veil was too thin.

“The tower had silk sheets,” she said, distracted.

He raised his brows. “The sheets.”

She collected herself. “The Circle was a prison. But it was also a fortress. It had...highly concentrated reagents. Off-season fruit. Decent embroidery. Fireplaces somebody else maintained.”

“And silk sheets,” he said. “Can't forget those, for sleeping. Which is what people do with sheets, generally. Except for you, I presume. It's ironic, really.”

She chuckled. “Not really. I was very aware to appreciate them, during curfew.”

“That makes sense.”

The wind picked up, carrying the smell of lake water and distant rain. His hand found the rail beside hers, not quite touching.

“But if you could choose—”

“I can't.” Her voice went flat. “No one gets to choose.”

“I know. I just meant…” He stopped, then tried again. “Morrigan hates the Circle. Everything it represents. And I get it—don’t tell her—but sometimes I think she also hates that she was alone. That Flemeth was all she had.”

“You had people there,” he said.

“Yes. People who understood what it meant to be what we are.”

“Were you close to anyone?” He hesitated. “That Jowan fellow, maybe?”

“No. Not Jowan.”

“Then... how did you know him?”

She turned slightly, angling away from the Tower. “It’s complicated. There was someone. Someone who was like a sister to him.”

“Do you hope to see her again?”

“No.” The word landed hard. “She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. Do you—”

“No. But thanks.”

There was something in the way she said it. Maybe... appreciative. He felt a bit less foolish. Like the offer itself mattered, even if she didn't want it.

The tower's reflection wavered in the lake, fractured by the wind.

“The Chantry liked to teach that wanting things was prideful,” Alistair said eventually. “That desires were distracting from service to the Maker. Very dour, really. Like if we wanted things too much we'd all spontaneously combust.”

“The Circle taught the same thing. Different risks, I suppose. Desire demons, preying from the Fade.”

“Right. So we've both had that particular lecture.” He paused. “Morrigan didn't, though. Flemeth wasn't exactly big on the whole 'suppress your desires' thing, from what I gather. Different kind of nightmare entirely.”

He might be surprised. But it wasn't her place to say.

“She might say they had freedom.”

“Very dangerous freedom, no doubt,” Alistair said, with a slight smile. Then he got serious. “Do you think they're right? About desires being dangerous?”

Emma looked at him properly then—at the earnest question in his face, the way he asked it like he genuinely didn't know the answer. She thought about Areli, who had wanted everything.

“Probably,” she said. “Depending on what you want.”

A wave slapped against the dock pilings. The boat rocked. Emma swallowed.

“What if you want beautiful things?” Alistair said quietly. “Dangerous things?”

“That's just tautology.”

“I'm sorry...What?” He rubbed the back of his neck. He was begining to understand why Emma defaulted to monosyllables.

“Dangerous things are dangerous.”

“Right. Yes. Obviously.” He made a face. “Well, you got me there. That was very wise. I feel appropriately chastened.”

“Don't,” Emma shrugged, apologetic. “You can want them and still be careful. It's not one or the other.”

He looked at her. “Do you really believe that?”

“I used to doubt it,” she said.

“And now?”

Something about his expression made her insides constrict. It started in her stomach, then crept into her chest. Emma turned that over.

The tower reflected in the water, doubled and inverted.

“Now I'm reconsidering.”

Another small smile. Hopeful. “Good. Because I've been thinking—”

“Dangerous.”

“—that maybe the truce was a mistake.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t want to pretend we don’t—I don’t want to go back.”

“You said you weren't ready.”

“I'm not.” His voice was steady now. “But still... I don't want to go back. I want to go forward. Wherever that goes.”

“I miss the way we used to talk. It's not worth it.”

“I know— I'm sorry.” he said, steadier now. “But I just don’t want to stop trying. I'd rather be this. Whatever this is. Even if I'm terrible at it.”

“Alright,” she said.

“Alright?”

“We'll figure it out.”

The relief in his face was immediate and a little embarrassing. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“So enthusiastic.” He smiled, then caught himself. “Though I reserve the right to panic later. Possibly frequently.”

“That's expected.” She crossed her arms, those questions about what he wanted mounting. Questions with no answers. Emma turned toward the boat, frowning.

A shadow passed over them.

“She’s going to be insufferable about this,” he murmured.

“They all will.”

“Fair.”

Morrigan descended from her scouting flight, feathers dissolving into flesh as she landed lightly beside them.

“The upper floors are compromised,” Morrigan said, brushing a stray feather from her shoulder. “I saw movement in the windows. Neither mage nor templar.”

“Abominations,” Alistair said quietly.

Emma's gaze tracked upward, along the tower's curve. Somewhere inside, people were dying. Or already dead. Or something worse, caught between the two.

Deconvolution

Emma breathed in. Familiar corridors. Familiar pressure. The walls pressed close, as intimate as skin. She had spent years learning this place. Every stair, every blind corner, every hiding spot. She had been nobody here.

She re-entered the tower in barbarian's robes, flanked by a man in Warden's armor and an archer in studded leather. Morrigan followed and circled near them, feline.

A few Templars held the ground floor in a ring of sanctimonious steel. Knight-Commander Greagoir stood at its center, jaw locked, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion. His men looked like they'd been awake for days, fighting on borrowed time.

“I want two men within sight of the doors at all times,” he was saying. “No one opens them without my express consent. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Then we wait. And we pray.”

Alistair leaned closer to Emma. “The doors are barred,” he said quietly. “Are they keeping people out? Or in?”

She shrugged. That much hadn't changed.

“Well. Look who survived.” The Knight-Commander greeted Emma. “A proper Grey Warden now, are we? Glad you're not dead.”

“You don't mean that,” Emma said.

“We're dealing with a situation that does not involve you,” Greagoir replied.

“What happened?”

“Plainly? The tower is no longer under our control. Demons and abominations infest the halls.” He paused, measuring his words. “We were complacent. First Jowan. Now this.”

Emma heard Morrigan's attention sharpen behind her. She stretched and purred. Greigoir's eyes narrowed at the animal.

“Don't think I've forgotten your part in his escape,” Greagoir added.

“His escape is small,” Emma said. “Compared to this.”

“True enough.”

“Your Templars failed,” she said flatly.

The Knight-Commander's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. “They did what they could. It wasn't enough. We were prepared for one or two abominations. Not the horde that fell upon us.”

“And you're still waiting here?” Emma asked Greagoir, surveying the few templars left. “How many are inside?”

“I don't know. They came from above, from below, everywhere at once. We fell back,” he said. “We barely held long enough to seal the doors.”

“You shut everyone in there. The mages. Your own men.”

“The doors will not close forever,” Greagoir said. “Everything inside must be eliminated. I've sent for reinforcements. I've petitioned Denerim for the Right of Annulment.”

Alistair's voice, when he spoke, was low and certain. “The mages are probably already dead. Everything left needs to be dealt with. No matter what.”

Emma turned on him. “Dealt with?“

He met her eyes steadily. “I'm not— I'm not eager to kill innocents. I'm saying maybe...there aren't any.”

“If any still live,” Greagoir interrupted, “the Maker himself shields them. It is too painful to hope. There is no alternative.”

Emma looked between them—Greagoir's exhausted certainty, Alistair's pessimism, Morrigan's cold contempt. Three different conclusions, all arriving at the same end: everyone inside was already lost.

She thought of the apprentices who'd slept in rooms above hers. The enchanters who'd supervised her practicals. Even the Templars who'd watched from doorways, hands never far from sword hilts.

Alistair swallowed. “All the Circles have doors like these,” he said. “To keep abominations from getting loose. An unprepared village could be wiped out by one.”

“Like the unprepared Templars here,” she noted.

Greagoir’s expression hardened. “We held the line as long as we could. Some of us are still holding it.”

“We've fought abominations,” Emma said. “We can help.”

Greagoir cleared his throat. “Very well. A word of caution,” he said. “Once you cross those doors, there is no turning back. I will open them for no one unless I have proof it is safe. Only if First Enchanter Irving stands before me and tells me so. Otherwise, the Circle must be destroyed.”

Irving was not the Circle. Emma knew that. She also knew this was the only opening she would get.

“Let us in,” she said.

Greagoir hesitated for a moment, then gestured sharply. His men pulled back the barricade with the groan of straining wood. The great doors loomed, bordered in old Alamarri carvings—spirals and geometric patterns that predated the Chantry by centuries.

The tower had been built by hands long dead, had survived conquest and reclamation and sanctification. The Circle had papered over it with rules and schedules and doctrine, but it had always been a fortress. A watchtower. A place where people looked out at the world instead of being locked away from it.

It would survive this. The people inside might not.

“Once you're in,” Greagoir said, “we seal it behind you.”

The doors opened.

The smell hit first—blood and hellfire-stink, the acrid residue of arcane missiles. Chalk sigils smeared across the floor, half-finished, abandoned. Someone had tried to hold a line here. It hadn't worked.

The doors shut behind them with a final, echoing boom. The chatter and prayers of the Templars faded. Ahead, the tower spiraled upward into darkness and distant screaming—some of it human, some of it not. Some caught between the two in ways that made the distinction meaningless.

Emma drew on her mana and set the spell.

Stone climbed her calves, crept over her knees, locked around her forearms in gray facets shot faintly with blue. The magic settled with a low, grinding sound, like masonry shifting into place. She had learned this spell here, pressed against these walls, learning to become. Learning to disappear.

Alistair's eyes moved from her stone-plated arm to the tower walls behind her. The same grain. The same cold texture. The same faint blue threading the gray. It was like the tower had taught her to wear its skin.

“You blend in a bit too well,” he said quietly.

She said nothing. Her fingers traced the wall beside her, cold with accumulated magic. Centuries of mages drawing power from its foundations.

Morrigan reformed. The transformation was seamless, practiced—one form flowing into another without resistance.

“Curious. The Chantry may have built their Circle here, on doctrine,” she said. “And here you are, wearing stone like a second skin.”

“It's resistant,” Emma said.

“Mmm. And what of those who remain inside? What shall we find of them, I wonder?”

“I don't know,” Alistair said. “But it won't be fun.”

They advanced slowly, boots whispering over stone dust and residue. The corridors narrowed into the apprentice quarters—rooms that had once been quiet and orderly, where children learned to fear themselves in incremental doses.

Now the bunks lay overturned, blankets soaked with blood and worse. A staff lay broken across a doorway. Someone's primer on elemental theory had been torn in half, pages scattered.

“You know how this usually ends,” Alistair said, his voice carefully neutral. “Once a demon's inside someone, there's a point where there isn't a person left to save.”

“I know,” Emma said.

“I was there for a Harrowing. Only one. She fought it for hours. Said all the right things. And when it broke her, it happened fast. We didn't hesitate. We couldn't.”

His admission settled between them. Emma swallowed.

“…I didn't have much interest in becoming a templar after that,” he added, quieter.

She slowed, then stopped. Stone scraped softly as she turned. “What was her name?”

He looked down. “I don't— They never told us.”

“When?”

“It was awhile ago. A few years back.”

Emma exhaled. It might as well have been Areli he was describing. But it technically wasn't.

“I'm not asking you to forget what you know,” she said.

He looked at her. Torchlight caught in his eyes, restless and bright. His pulse was too fast—she could feel his life intensely, seeping through the uneven texture of the Veil.

She closed her eyes, focusing on him, and brought more beats into focus— Leliana. Morrigan.

Others. Distantly, barely, arguably alive. Thralls, perhaps. They faded away. She couldn't keep them in sight.

“You've gotten… braver,” Alistair said. “Coming back here, of all places. For the Circle. For Connor. For people who might already be gone.”

“We keep winning,” she said lightly. “It's made me cocky.”

“You're not cocky. You're—Emma, you're terrifying. Because from where I'm standing, you look like someone who's about to throw herself at every demon in this tower if it means saving one more person.”

“And that's usually your job.”

“Maybe. Probably. But that's not—I'm supposed to be the stupid one here.”

“You were,” she corrected. “Now look at you. So wise.”

Behind them, Morrigan made a soft sound of disgust. “'Tis touching, truly. Shall we discover whether this foray is justified?”

Alistair studied Emma for another heartbeat, cold fear and something warmer entangled in his gut. “Just so we're clear—if I see an abomination, I'm not asking it nicely to surrender.”

She turned and started forward. “Fair. Stay close.”

“Always do.”

The stone resonated under Emma's boots. It remembered her.

The apprentice quarters spiraled upward, contents flung beyond visual recognition but the underlying geometry still familiar by touch.

Bodies lay scattered across the flagstones in interrupted motion: running, falling, reaching. Youth, mostly. Some very small. The abominations had, she realized, killed the most obedient first. Each corpse marked a rupture, a place where the thin boundary chafed between the material and the Fade.

She felt Wynne's magic before she saw her. It was slightly wrong. Complete, but frayed, numb.

The senior enchanter stood before the stairwell to the basement, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other raised in a warding gesture, flickering at edges. Ash and blood stained her robes. Behind her, pressed to the wall, a knot of apprentices and junior enchanters watched with absolute stillness.

Wynne’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened.

“You?” Genuine surprise. “You’ve returned to the tower? How?”

Emma halted. She let the stone plating dissolve, revealing herself plainly.

“Through the front door.”

Wynne’s mouth tightened. “Forgive me, but I am in a rather unpredictable situation. The templars have barred the doors. They will only open them if they mean to attack us. Why did they let you pass?”

Emma didn’t answer at once. She watched the apprentices instead. One girl clutched a primer to her chest like a charm. A boy with burn scars along his arm kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

She knew this posture. The waiting.

“Greagoir petitioned for the Right of Annulment,” Emma said. “He’s waiting on reinforcements from Denerim.”

Wynne absorbed this without flinching. “Then he believes the Circle beyond hope. Dead, or worse.”

“He does.” Emma’s gaze returned to Wynne. “You’re evidence otherwise.”

“They have abandoned us,” Wynne said evenly. “But trapped as we are, we’ve survived. If the Right is invoked, however, we will not withstand it.”

The Veil pressed close around them, pocketed and punctured. Not demons yet. Fragments. Curious things. The Fade’s fingers probing at mortality. The tower felt feverish with it. Every death fed the pressure, and there had been many.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

Wynne’s composure settled into place, lecture-ready. “A revolt. Led by an enchanter named Uldred. When he returned from Ostagar, he attempted to seize control of the Circle. As you can see, it did not end as he intended. I do not know his fate, but this is unquestionably his doing. I will not see the Circle lost to one man’s pride.”

Uldred. The name meant little to Emma, even having met him at Ostagar. Another enchanter. Another loud voice in endless debates. She had likely passed him a hundred times. He had killed nearly everyone she’d known, and she still could not summon the energy to hate him specifically.

“I told Greagoir I’d clear the tower,” Emma said.

Wynne considered this. “If he sees that the Circle can still be made safe, I trust he will tell his men to stand down. He is not unreasonable.”

“He’ll only reopen the doors if Irving vouches for what’s left,” Emma said.

A pause. Then a nod. “Then Irving must be found. I sealed the passage into the upper tower to protect the children. The barrier will not permit entry while it holds, but I will dispel it if you join me.”

Emma studied the spell. Golden light stretched across the doorway like a living membrane, pulsing faintly in time with Wynne’s breath. Spirit magic. Anchored in endurance. Elegant. And costly.

Wynne’s breathing was too careful. She was managing pain.

Behind them, Emma heard Alistair’s armor settle against stone. Leliana’s near-silent step. Morrigan she did not hear at all, but felt nearby in the way one feels a storm building.

They had become a machine. Adding Wynne would change the rhythm.

“The children,” Emma said, glancing back. “They’ll be safe here?”

“Petra and Kinnon will guard them. If we slay all the fiends we encounter above, nothing will reach this place.”

The basement was defensible. Narrow access. Easy to barricade. Anything that broke through would have to come through Emma first.

“You should stay,” she said.

“No.” Wynne didn’t hesitate. “I know this tower, and I know what we face. And if the Circle is lost, I will see it with my own eyes.”

Emma suppressed a sigh. Wynne wasn’t just a healer. She was Senior Enchanter. Areli’s mentor. A name that carried weight in ways Emma’s never would. If Irving was dead—and Emma gave that even odds—then Wynne was the next best thing.

Possibly. If Greagoir stood to reason- less than even odds.

“You know more than the templars,” Emma said finally.

Wynne inclined her head. The barrier dissolved like mist under sun. The stairwell exhaled darkness, char, and iron.

Alistair arrived at Emma’s shoulder. Leliana flanked her. Wynne gathered her robes and followed.

“This is Senior Enchanter Wynne,” Emma said. “She’s joining us.”

Alistair straightened slightly. “Senior Enchanter.”

“A Grey Warden,” Wynne said, taking in the stance, the sword, the bearing. “I'm pleased to meet you.”

Then Leliana. Then Morrigan, where her expression shuttered into practiced neutrality. And back to to Emma. “You were in my lectures, weren’t you? Years ago.”

Emma had stood in them for three years.

“I was.”

Morrigan pushed off the wall, words sharp and deliberate. “You would have us rescue these pathetic mages? They submit to cages and call it order. Now their keepers choose death for them. Let them have it.”

Wynne turned, startled. Emma did not.

“You could have been one of them,” Emma said. “If things were different.”

Morrigan’s eyes narrowed. The strike landed.

“Had my mother not intervened, perhaps,” she said softly. Then harder. “Am I to feel gratitude for that? Things are as they must be.”

“You’re consistent,” Emma said.

“Yes,” Alistair said. “Boundless generosity.”

Wynne disengaged to speak with the apprentices, her voice low and steady, the tone of practiced reassurance.

When she returned, Emma looked at her once more. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll manage,” Wynne said, granite beneath the politeness.

They moved toward whatever was left.

“Right. Well. I'm Alistair, by the way. This is Leliana, and the charming woman currently glowering at all of us is Morrigan. We're here to help. and slay evil. more or less.”

“So I gathered.” Wynne softened. “Your company is certainly eclectic.”

“We're well-rounded,” he said brightly. “Covers all the bases. Someone to fight things, someone to heal things, someone to set things on fire. Someone to disapprove of everything...”

“How very diplomatic,” sneered Morrigan. “Have you forgotten, 'someone to march through caltrops'?”

“Yes, that's everyone,” said Emma.

regret (Broken Circle – Tower Crawl)

Her hands brushed the stone as they ascended. Stone under her palms, familiar as a pulse. The party fell into its rhythm as she led them through its narrow hallways and spiraling stairs.

They cleared the floor methodically, the last abomination collapsing in a wet sprawl that echoed down the stairwell. Emma pressed her back to the wall, breathing through the residual hum while Alistair checked the landing ahead.

“Clear,” he called back, then paused. “For now.”

She pushed off the wall and joined him, but he didn’t move on. He stood there instead, helmet tucked under his arm, eyes fixed on the stairs. Lingering, hesitating to face her, working up to something.

“What?” she asked.

“I was just thinking,” he said carefully, “about what you asked me. Back in the Wilds. How I became a Grey Warden.”

“Yes?”

“But you never really—I mean, you haven't said much about...” He shifted his weight. “Duncan conscripted you, too. From here.”

“He did.”

“Because of Jowan.”

There it was. She'd been waiting for this since Redcliffe, since they'd found that pathetic, terrified man in the dungeon. Since Alistair had looked at her and not asked.

“Yes,” she repeated.

“The blood mage,” he went on, too quickly. “The one who poisoned Arl Eamon.”

“I know who he is.”

“I didn’t mean—” Alistair stopped himself. “I know you didn’t know he’d do that.”

“I didn’t.”

“But you helped him escape.” His voice was gentle, but she heard the edge underneath.

“I knew what the templars were going to do to him.”

“He was practicing blood magic,” Alistair said, a fact he’d been turning over too many times. “In the Circle.”

“They accused him first,” Emma said softly, then louder: “They were sharpening the knife; He twisted it.”

“Emma—”

“He was...” her friend? Not quite. “He was desperate. And he was one of the only people I had left.”

That gave him pause.

“They were going to make him Tranquil,” she continued. “Or kill him. Quietly. Officially. So yes, I helped him.”

“And then he poisoned Eamon.”

“And then he poisoned Eamon,” she said, without flinching. “And Lily was sent to Aeonar.”

Alistair looked at her for a long moment. “You feel guilty.”

“Of course I do.” Her voice cracked, just slightly. “I thought I could save someone the Circle had already condemned. Now our best shot at an ally is dying.”

She turned away, staring up at the spiral of stairs they still had to climb. The stairwell groaned faintly above them, something shifting in the dark.

“If I hadn’t helped him,” she said, “he’d already be dead. Or worse. And I’d be living with that instead.”

“It’s not the same,” Alistair said. His hands curled into fists.

“No,” she agreed. “I didn’t want Duncan to drag me out of this tower. Jowan didn’t want to poison anyone. But here we are.”

He stared at her, realization hitting hard: “If I hadn’t helped him,” she went on, “Duncan wouldn’t have conscripted me. I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be a Grey Warden.”

“So what,” Alistair said at last, voice tight, “we just accept that people die and it’s inevitable and none of our choices matter?”

“No.” Emma sagged slightly. “I don’t know. I just—”

People die. It's what they do. The veil was thin. She often heard the voices of the dead, or...something else. This one chilled her.

She shook her head. “I can’t undo what Jowan did. I can’t save Eamon from what’s already happening. But I can save whoever’s still alive in this tower.”

“And if there isn’t anyone left?”

“Then we tried.” She turned back to him. She met his eyes. “That has to be enough. Remember?”

Alistair was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded, just once.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “For keeping secrets. For making you lead blind. After everything...”

She didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was softer, reluctant.

“I still trust you,” she looked at him— pitiful. Like it was a burden. He would have longed to hear these words, but not like this. He absorbed it like a blow.

“I’m sorry too,” she added. “For Jowan. For Eamon. For all of it.”

As they climbed, he spoke again, quieter.

“For what it's worth—I understand why you did it. Helped him. Even knowing how it turned out.”

“Do you?”

“Duncan saved me from the Chantry. If he hadn't, I'd probably have done something stupid. Maybe hurt someone in the process.” He glanced at her, making more excuses.

“We're all just one bad decision away from being Jowan,” he added.

“Probably true.”

“Isn't it?” He managed a weak grin. “Let's try not to prove it today.”

The corridor smelled of ozone and old parchment, smoke and something sweeter underneath—blood, cooling on stone. Emma moved through the book-choked hallways fortified in the tower’s own simulacra. A summoned wisp coiled at her shoulders, ready to lead their enemies astray.

Owain confirmed what they suspected: The abominations had been summoned by blood mages. She focused on the voices, whispers of the living and the dead, while leading the party through the halls. They now followed living voices ahead—low, urgent, edged with the particular desperation of people who'd chosen wrong and knew it.

“—should never have listened to Uldred—”

“Too late for that. We agreed. Loghain would free us from—”

“From what? Look around! This isn't freedom, it's—”

Emma raised one hand. Alistair, pacing ahead, heard her, going still mid-stride, shield already half-raised. Leliana melted into the doorframe's shadow. Wynne's hands flickered with potential light, held in reserve like drawn breath.

The blood mages were clustered in what had been a reading room. Shelves torn down, books scattered like broken birds. Three of them: two women, one man, robes stained and torn, hands crackling with stolen power. They were arguing over a corpse.

Emma watched their patterns. The way the taller woman kept glancing toward the far door. How the man's fingers twitched—not nervousness, muscle memory, preparing a specific cast. The third mage standing slightly apart, already regretting, already beaten.

She didn't announce herself. She stepped just far enough into the threshold for light of the spell wisp to bound around the corner, so Alistair could be seen.

The effect was immediate. All three mages turned, power flaring instinctively. The tall one's hands came up, blood magic already coiling—

Alistair took exactly three steps forward and stopped. Just there, shield angled, a wall made manifest. Visible. Threatening. Bait.

“Oh, Maker,” one mage breathed. “Templars—”

“No,” the tall one hissed. “Wardens.”

Emma had already cast. Mana Drain, silent and surgical, threading through the Fade to puncture the tall mage's reserves. The woman gasped, stumbling, her prepared spell guttering like a candle in wind. Blood magic demanded fuel—mana or health, take your pick. Emma had just forced her hand.

Leliana's bow unleashed a pinning shot, perfectly placed—the man's shoulder bloomed red and he jerked backward, his casting arm suddenly useless, spell collapsing into sparks.

“Hold,” Emma said. Not loud. Barely more than conversational. But the room heard it.

The third mage—the one who'd been apart, who'd been doubting—raised her hands. Surrender? Or another cast? Emma's staff shifted fractionally. Waiting.

The tall woman snarled and drew on her own blood. The spell came fast and vicious, a lash of crimson force that cracked toward Alistair—

—and shattered against his shield with a sound like breaking glass. Something in his armor rang, a discordant note that made Emma's teeth ache. The magic dissipated around him, like heat cooled by water.

But the tall mage was committed now, health-cost casting, desperate and accelerating toward her own death. Perfect.

Emma patiently injected the truth she already knew. He was already finished. The spell sank in quietly, unraveling what kept him upright. The mage didn't feel it. He was too busy bleeding herself dry for one more strike—

Leliana's second arrow found her throat. The mage went down in stages—on knees, falling forward, landing. Then still.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Emma felt the corpse hollowing.

Then, it bloomed.

The explosion was concussive, beautiful, precise. It caught the man mid-cast, still trying to work around his pinned shoulder, and the force threw him into the bookshelf with a bone-crack on wood. He didn't get up.

The third mage screamed and ran—not toward the door, toward cover, fleeing—

Emma blasted her mid-stride. A punctuation mark on their victory. The mage's ankles folded and she hit the stone, stunned, defenseless.

She pulled from the two corpses. Emma felt a correction. Like water in a bowl, finding its level after being tipped. The tower was pouring into her now. It had been draining into her since they'd climbed past the apprentice quarters. Every death returned, a closed circle, elegant and terrible.

She watched the stunned mage, calculating. Wynne's eyes darted toward Emma, then away, moving forward, her Group Heal still uncast, held like insurance.

The mage on the floor was breathing in hitches, consciousness returning in stages. Young. Emma's age. Her fingers twitched toward a spell she didn't have the mana for.

“Don't,” Emma said quietly.

The mage froze.

Leliana emerged from the shadows, arms taught, ready to pull her arrow against the string. Alistair shifted his weight, clinking an audible threat.

Emma crouched, just out of reach. Her mana thrummed aggressively. For a moment, she considered ending her.

“Em?”

Alistair hadn’t moved. Shield still up. Still angled. Emma could feel her own mind on all pistons, what he didn't say: Are we doing this? Is this the cost now?

She relaxed, slightly. And asked the blood mage with one word: “Uldred?”

The mage's eyes were wide, terrified, but coherent. “Gone mad. He—we thought—Loghain promised—” Her voice cracked. “We just wanted to be free.”

“I know.”

“We wanted what you have. To choose.”

Emma smiled bitterly. She didn't smile often, but for this?

This mage who'd chosen blood magic for freedom and found only a different cage. The blood mage was young enough to still beg, old enough to know begging rarely worked.

Behind her, she felt Wynne's disapproval like weight. Felt Alistair's tension, his Templar instincts warring with whatever he'd become. Felt Leliana, still waiting.

“The Chantry won't take you back,” Emma said. “And you'll die alone.”

“I know.” Barely a whisper.

Emma stood. The mage watched her, desperate hope and resignation shining alike in her eyes.

“Good luck,” Emma said. “Don't let me see you again.”

The mage nodded too fast, scrambled up and ran, stumbling, not looking back.

Alistair exhaled slowly. “That was—”

“Mercy,” Wynne cut in, but her tone was complex. Not quite approval nor censure. Understanding, perhaps. Or recognition of something she wished she didn't understand.

Emma was already moving toward Irving's study, where she knew forbidden knowledge was waiting for her. Her hands were steady. Her reserves were full. Death Syphon had seen to that.

Behind her, Leliana lowered her bow and crossed herself, whispering something in Orlesian that might have been prayer or might have been regret.

Alistair fell into step beside Emma, shield still ready, armor silent in negative of the ringing that had been.

They had found survivors. And now saved at least one Circle Mage.

Emma felt the weight of it—not guilt, exactly. Something colder. She was learning which deaths paid for others. The Spellwisp coiled tighter at her shoulders. Rock Armor settled deeper into sinew.

Emma crouched beside a Templar's corpse, its armor gone cold. Blood had settled into the stone's grooves, dark as old wine. A sparkling amulet was half-hidden, clutched in the corpse's gauntlet—silver with Andraste's flames etched into the metal.

She cleaned it against her sleeve with careful deliberation, then held it up.

“Leliana.”

The bard turned, bow lowered. “Yes?”

“This looks nice,” said Emma. “Do you like it?”

Leliana's face brightened. “Oh, how dear of you! Thank you so much!” She clasped it around her neck, pressing it to her chest as though it might warm her. “It's beautiful.”

A small, almost-smile flickered across Emma's face—then she turned back to the wreckage.

Wynne studied the ceiling with elaborate concentration. Alistair watched from his post at the doorway, head tilted. Neither spoke.

The Chantry lay gutted. Cabinets torn open, candles crushed underfoot, holy texts scattered like autumn leaves after the first hard wind. Emma moved through the debris with the method of someone conducting an inventory, or perhaps an autopsy. She checked bodies without flinching. Opened drawers that groaned on broken hinges. Pocketed reagents, a cracked ring, vials whose contents she recognized by weight and color.

Behind an overturned statue—Andraste herself, face-down in dust—Emma found what she had been looking for: a glass vial. Blood sloshed sluggishly inside, old and dark.

A phylactery. Her breath caught.

She held it up to the light. She hoped—

The crystal was fractured through the center, hairline cracks branching like frost.

Not hers. The blood was too dark, the seal decades old.

The vial grew hot in her palm.

“Emma—” Wynne began.

It shattered.

The blood didn't spill. It rose, spiraling upward. Bone erupted from the vortex's eye, snapping into place with splintering sounds. Armor manifested around the assembling skeleton—rusted and pitted, bearing unfamiliar heraldry. Orlesian, maybe. Old.

The face inside the helm was skeletal, empty sockets glowing with rage.

Emma barely had time to swear before it pulled them.

The force hit her like a hook in her sternum. Her boots skidded across stone as she slid toward it. Wynne staggered. Leliana grabbed for a bench and missed, her bow clattering away.

“Spread out!” Alistair shouted, shield already up as he charged to intercept.

Emma pulled herself up by her staff. Stone locked around her limbs. She struck first with mana drain—probing, testing if it had mana. It didn't. She adjusted. The spellwisp flared, orbiting tight and frantic.

Leliana recovered her bow and loosed a shot. The arrow struck true and shattered against ancient plate. The revenant’s gaze fixed on her. Alistair shouted her name. It pulled again.

This time she had nothing to brace against. Her boots left the floor. The blade met her halfway. The sound was brief and wet. She crumpled.

Wynne's power flooded the room, golden light washing over Leliana's still form. It bought seconds. The revenant raised its sword again.

“Alistair-!” Emma cast on it spitefully. The magic burrowed inward, spirit warring against spirit. The revenant didn't care. It kept moving.

“I'm trying!” Alistair slammed into the ancient steel; It turned. He took a blow on his shield that rang like a bell. It sent him skidding backward.

Wynne followed with shimmering wards, hands glowing steady as the revenant's spectral chain whipped past her shoulder.

Emma hurled lightning. It crawled across the armor and grounded into the floor. Something flaked away. She was hurting it. Slowly. Too slowly.

But she had its attention now. It drifted toward her.

She thrust flame between them—fire to buy distance—then turned and ran. Hot air scattered papers and shattered glass. The revenant staggered through the fire—

—and pulled again.

The force drove Emma to her knees. Her staff spun away. She slid helplessly forward and collided with it. Stone armor spared her from being split open. It shattered instead, the impact knocking the breath from her, vision clouding as she tumbled into debris.

She heard Alistair's boots hammering stone, catching up, always catching up...

Her hands were empty. Just stone, blood, and the sound of his shield taking blow after blow.

Wynne tried to reposition. The pull caught her mid-incantation and slammed her down hard enough to knock the sound from her lungs.

Emma rolled, trying to break the pull’s geometry. Pain lanced through her side as a chain caught and dragged her back. Her spell guttered out. The wisp died.

Leliana and Wynne were still. Emma lay near the shattered phylactery, blood darkening the stone beneath her.

The revenant turned its full attention on him.

“Oh,” Alistair breathed. “Maker.”

The pull came for him.

He drank without thinking. One potion, then another, bitter burn barely registering. He was ready—shield braced, knees bent. The revenant's blade came down.

The impact on his shield drove him to one knee. His arm shook.

“Not—today—” he grunted, and shoved back.

The revenant barely moved. It raised its sword again.

Alistair threw his first bomb. Frost crept across rusty plate in a thin shell. The revenant's next swing came slower. Not much. Enough.

He rolled aside, came up in a crouch, fumbled for another potion. He tossed it back, then threw another bomb. Shock. Lightning ripped through the frost-slick metal. The revenant convulsed and sagged.

He slammed into it, shield-first, then retreated as the pull dragged him back in. He caught himself on a bench that shattered under his weight.

No bombs left. Three potions. A sword that felt like lead. If he didn't—

The revenant roared, advancing, pulling, refusing to die, slashing at him. Had he been slower, it would have carved him. His shield cracked. His arm went numb. He pushed back anyway.

The revenant raised its blade again.

Alistair raised his shield.

But the revenant collapsed.

Chains clattered as it imploded, unraveling into ash. The pressure in the room vanished. Silence rushed in to fill the space it left behind.

Alistair dropped to his knees, chest heaving, shield slipping from his fingers.

“Stay down,” he muttered. “Just stay down.”

It did.

He laughed weakly, looking over the smoking remains in disbelief, ashes drifting over him. His arm shook violently now that he wasn’t forcing it to work.

Then he heard Emma groan, and he was on his feet again. She lay near the shattered phylactery, arm over the base of a ruined dais, pulling herself up. Blood soaked her robes along the ribs.

He knelt, a health potion already in his hands, pressed to hers. “Drink.”

She did, wincing. The wound began to knit itself back together with the potion's reluctant magic. He scooted her staff toward her with his boot.

“Leliana—” Emma tensed with effort.

“I know.” He was already looking past her, scanning the room. “I'll get her. Just— Don't go anywhere.”

She nodded.

Leliana lay twisted, one arm beneath her, bow shattered nearby. A faded echo of Wynne's magic clung to her. He rolled her carefully and lifted her head to press another potion to her lips.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Don’t make me explain this later.”

She swallowed. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Did we…?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he answered. “Barely.”

Wynne stirred next, rolling onto her side with a pained sound. She drew in a careful breath, then another, testing herself. “That,” she said faintly, “was deeply unpleasant.”

“That’s one word for it,” he replied, looking her over. She nodded. He returned to Emma.

She'd managed to sit upright, staff planted like a crutch, hands trembling as she uncorked a mana potion. She drank with her eyes unfocused.

He sat beside her. She heard him in the armor, still shaking.

“You killed it.” Her voice was quiet, focusing. His cracked shield. The bruising beneath mail. The way he'd favored one leg.

“We did,” he replied.

“I didn't see the end.” Something tightened in his chest at the way she looked at him—wide-eyed, unguarded.

“I did,” he said. “I threw every bomb I had. Drank nearly every potion. Threw at it whatever I could grab. It went down. And stayed that way.”

She leveraged closer, using her staff. He felt her magic ease bruising, returning feeling to his arm. No flourish. No light.

“Next time,” he said quietly, “let's not shatter mysterious bloody vials.” She reached up and unbuckled his helm. His voice broke as her fingers brushed his neck and lifted it.

“Sorry—” she started.

He shook his head, refusing apology. She exhaled.

Behind them, ash settled. Wynne helped Leliana sit. The tower creaked around them. Emma looked past, surveying wreckage.

“We should keep moving,” Wynne suggested without conviction.

“Em,” he said quietly when she didn't respond.

“In a minute.”

He knew that look. She was reconstructing the fight. He could see it in her eyes—the pulls, the failures, the moment everything went wrong. Processing debris, bomb casings, scattered glass. All the desperate improvisation that had bought them life.

Another lesson learned.

The parchment was thin, old and dry, the ink bleeding through in places where the vellum had worn translucent. Emma read without blinking, eyes tracking enchanted symbols that rearranged the longer she looked.

It knew.

She knew.

Blood magic, the scroll declared in its careful, academic hand, is not separate from the natural order but woven through it—the body's covenant with itself, the magical currency by which flesh purchases its own continuation.

She sat on the cold stone floor of the Great Hall, surrounded by the quiet aftermath of violence. Lyrium residue clung to the walls like frost, glittering faintly in the light of her spell-wisp. The wisp hovered at shoulder height, less companion than captive, its glow sullen.

The scrolls hadn’t even been hidden. The maleficarum had been bold. Or careless. They lay scattered among mundane reports and lesson notes, buried by boredom rather than secrecy. She’d found illegal correspondence, yes, but most of it had been tedious. These she’d found by accident.

Or by instinct.

She spread the scrolls across her lap, one after another. Pieces of something larger. A theory. A practice. A justification, or perhaps a confession. The handwriting shifted from cramped and frantic to smooth and assured, the pen of someone who believed their work would outlive them.

Creation magic assumes equilibrium, one scroll read. It seeks to restore what was, to maintain the fiction of balance. But the body knows better. It only moves forward. It must. The body is always in deficit, always borrowing against its own future. Life is debt.

She thought of Wynne in the classroom, years ago, standing before a diagram of the four humors. “Creation is the most difficult school,” Wynne had said, “because it requires you to listen—to the body, negotiate with the Fade, to the delicate interplay between what is and what could be. You cannot force Creation. You can only guide it.”

Emma had been a mediocre student of creation. Not incompetent—she could stanch bleeding, mend bone, coax infection from wounds—but never exceptional. Never like Areli.

Areli, who had brightly moved through Wynne's lessons, effortless. Areli, whose hands glowed with that particular gold light that marked true healers, the ones who didn't just repair damage but understood life. To her, the body was a language. A song. Something to be answered, not commanded.

Spirits listened to her.

Which was why the Templars watched her most closely.

Areli’s talent, and her beauty, had always drawn their attention.

“You’re trying too hard,” Areli had told her once, during a late-night study session in the observatory. They’d been practicing on mice. Small cuts. Broken legs. Harmless injuries, if you knew what you were doing.

Emma’s mouse had survived. Barely.

Areli’s was scurrying around its cage within minutes, bright-eyed and unbothered.

“I followed the process,” Emma had said, defensive.

“You followed the steps,” Areli corrected gently. “The body wants to heal itself, Em. You're supposed to help it remember. Don't push it.”

Emma had nodded and tried again. And again. Over months, over years, she’d improved. She became competent. Useful.

She’d assumed it was practice. Repetition. The slow accumulation of skill.

But sitting there now, Banastor’s scrolls spread across her lap like an accusation, she understood.

It hadn’t been Creation at all.

The mind is no more sacred than the knee, the small toe, or the ear. It's man's origin of reasoning, nothing more. And true reasoning requires connection to the rhythm of the blood, the tireless pounding of life.

It was beautiful. Familiar. And then:

Interupt this, and even the mind is yours to control.

She pressed her palms against her eyes, hard enough to see stars.

Areli had been a natural healer because she'd understood Creation. She'd listened to the body's song and harmonized with it. Her magic had been gentle, generous, a dialogue between self and other.

Emma's magic was nothing like that. Now she was discovering what it meant. Where it may lead her.

She was stealing—from the Fade, from the residual heat of recent deaths, from the tower itself, which had been so saturated with violence.

She was bleeding her enemies to keep her allies breathing. It was battle, yes. But also...

And it worked. It had always worked. Better than Creation ever had.

She stared down at her hands. Reagent ink darkened her palms. Old blood stained the creases. Capable hands. Hands that saved lives.

Hands that took without asking.

She didn’t hear Alistair approach until his shadow fell across the scrolls.

“You've been sitting there,” he said. “Leliana's worried you fell asleep sitting up. I said that was impossible, but she made me come check.”

“Still awake.”

“What are you reading?” he asked, gesturing at the scrolls.

“Theory,” she said.

“Thrilling.”

“Mm.”

He studied her, then leaned back against the bench. There was a cut above his eyebrow, scarred already, a thin white line that stood out against his skin. “You seem… somewhere else.”

“I'm here. I'm tired.”

“We're all tired.” He paused. “This is something different.”

She began rolling the scrolls with careful precision. Slow. Methodical. As if they were nothing more than tedious paperwork. The parchment crackled softly.

“Emma,” he said, quieter. “This was your home. You don’t have to talk about it. But if something’s wrong—I'm here for you. You know that. Right?”

She hung her head. She thought of Areli, radiant and doomed, too bright to ignore. Jowan, bumbling and desperate, tolerated until he wasn't. And herself... slipping through the cracks because nobody thought to look twice.

“It’s strange,” she said. “I lost everyone I cared about before…” Her throat tightened. “Before Areli died, I never would’ve considered helping Jowan.”

Alistair stilled. He’d been tugging at his gauntlets, undoing them, pretending to be busy. “Areli?”

Emma nodded. She couldn't look at him. “She would have been good at this. Wynne taught her—she was going to be a spirit healer. She understood it like a native language. She was so good, Alistair.”

He had so many questions. But he went with: “And you weren't?”

“I was... above average. But I never had her instinct for it. I never…” She trailed off, fingers tightening on the scrolls. “She helped people because she understood them. I save people because I'm stubborn.”

“Stubborn works.”

“Does it?” It does. But what does it cost?

“You've saved me countless times. Sometimes while half-dead yourself. I'd say that's evidence in favor.”

She looked at him. He took it as an invitation to sit close. Earnest and unguarded. Bloodied with compassion that made him so dangerously easy to trust.

“What if I told you I don't understand how I did it?”

“I'd say nobody knows how they do half the things they do in the moment. You just… do them. And then you might figure out the how later.”

“And if the how is wrong?”

“Emma, you're scaring me a little. What are you getting at?”

She hesitated. I think every life I've saved has been paid for in ways I didn't understand. I think the Circle taught me how to hide what I was doing. From them. From myself.

But instead she said: “It should have been her. She should be doing this. Not me.”

“That... sounds familiar. You talked to me about this. When we talked about Duncan.” Alistair swallowed. “You're alive and she's not,” he said quietly. “It's just what happened. None of this is fair. You know that, but for what it's worth... I know it's hard to accept. And I'm so sorry.”

“If I hadn't— If I had protected her—”

“You were a kid yourself.”

“I'm not much more, now.”

“You are. And you did what you could.” He reached out, hesitated, and took her hand. She looked down, watching. Her fingers over and through his, tightening. The blood in his wrist, pulsing. “You can't save everyone. No exceptions for the people you love.”

“I’m not who I thought I was.”

He considered that. “Would that be so terrible?”

“Probably.”

“Well.” He squeezed her hand. “Whoever you are, you're the person who keeps pulling my sorry ass out of the fire. So I'm pretty fond of her, actually.”

Emma blinked back tears.

“Especially if she’s stubborn,” he added. “Areli sounds like the kind of person who’d be proud of you.”

He didn’t know what he was saying. Not yet.

But he wasn’t wrong.

The scrolls rested heavy in her lap, their secrets pressing close.

“You’re right,” she said quietly.

Lost in Dreams

Emma felt herself dispersing into the green-yellow murk that had haunted her dreams since childhood. Muddy. Viscous. Bile-green blotched by the dark colors of things rotting beneath standing water.

She had fallen into this place often enough that the descent no longer frightened her. The pull downward, the roots at her ankles, the patient tug of something that would wait forever.

Then the ground firmed.

Stone replaced mud. Cool, familiar. Emma’s boots found purchase on worn flagstones. Light of the morning's angle filtered through arrow slits of Kinloch Hold.

She was standing in the library.

Not the Circle’s library. No tidy rows, no chained tomes, no careful cataloging she'd tended. Books lay open on tables and benches, spines cracked, margins crowded with notes in several hands. Charts overlapped. A cup of tea steamed beside a stack of vellum, forgotten but not cold.

A productive chaos of mages working, rather than being worked.

And a woman moving between the shelves.

Emma knew the line of her body before she saw her face. Light-footed. Unhurried. Ginger curls loose around her shoulders, faintly streaked of crimson.

Areli turned, saturated in freckles, smiling. An impossibly vivid image.

“There you are,” she said. Pleased, as if Emma had stepped out for ink. “Did you get lost in those charts, again?”

The voice hit her harder than the image. The rise at the end of the sentence. The certainty pretending to be a question.

“I was—” Emma started, but her voice caught. What was she doing? Where had she been? There was something she was supposed to be doing. Something urgent.

“Working,” Areli said, fondly. “You always are.”

She gestured with the book in her hand, a restricted volume Emma once requested and been denied.

“Come on. Jowan and Lily will be here soon, and you know how he gets if dinner’s late.”

Emma didn’t remember moving, but the library gave way to the hall. Warm stone. Herbs drying from a line near the hearth. Someone had repaired the crack in the south wall.

“What is this?” she asked.

Areli arched her brows, just slightly. “It’s Tuesday.”

That didn’t help.

“You said you’d help me recalibrate the lenses tonight,” Areli continued. “After dark.”

Emma looked around. Everything was… fine. Comfortably worn. No tension in the air. No sense of being watched.

“There’s no Chantry here,” Areli said gently, anticipating the thought. “No templars. No Circle.”

It was a lot of explanation for a Tuesday.

“Why would there be?” Emma asked, and meant it.

Areli laughed, soft and musical. “Exactly. We left all that behind years ago. After everything went wrong.”

She spoke of it like a closed chapter. Finished.

“It’s just a tower now,” Areli said. “For people like us.”

She crossed to the window and beckoned.

The courtyard should have been empty.

It wasn’t.

Mages moved through the garden plots, older ones arguing amiably over soil amendments, younger ones practicing the same simple cantrips again and again. Sparks of harmless color. Controlled. Identical.

Children ran between the beds, shrieking with laughter.

“Jowan’s twins,” Areli said. “Terrorising the herbs. They’re supposed to be helping. Lily says we’re too permissive.” She smiled. “After everything we went through, I think a little chaos is medicine.”

The children’s magic flared again. Red. Blue. Green. The same colors. The same shapes.

“How?” Emma asked. She hated how much she wanted the answer.

“You helped,” Areli said, simply.

Emma turned back to her, studying her face. The smile was right. The warmth was right.

But Areli had never been like this.

“I know it’s not perfect,” Areli said, reading the hesitation. “Things still break. People still argue. But it’s ours.”

She reached for Emma’s hand.

“Isn’t that better than dying for someone else’s war?”

The words landed softly. Too softly.

Emma’s fingers brushed against wood. She looked down, startled to find not her staff but a walking stick, polished smooth by use. Balanced. Unnecessary.

There was no danger here. Why would there be danger?

She closed her eyes.

Don't look now, but, well, look now!

and opened them.

Emma understood with sudden, terrible clarity what the demon was offering. Just these mages. The ones she'd known. The ones she'd loved. Permission to care for them and nothing else.

The demon wasn't merely offering her Areli.

It was offering her permission to stop.

“No,” Emma said.

Areli blinked. “What?”

“This isn’t right.”

Confusion flickered across Areli’s face, followed by something sharper. Need.

“You’re tired,” she said. “You’ve always pushed too hard.”

Emma's voice gained strength. “You wouldn't want me to stop.”

Areli’s smile trembled. “We had to. The Circle was going to break us.”

“You tried to break free,” Emma said quietly. “It killed you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But it doesn't have to be that way. If we’d just— if you’d just—”

“If I'd just what?” Emma demanded. “Let the blight and the war kill everyone?”

“Yes,” Areli said, the word tearing out of her. “Yes, Emma. Just us. Isn’t that enough?”

Through the windows, she could still see the courtyard, the children. It would be so easy to step into it. This circle she could hold in her arms.

Yes. It would have been enough for her. But Areli wanted more.

“Stay,” Areli begged. “We earned this.”

The figure straightened.

When she looked up again, something vast and patient stared out through Areli’s eyes.

“You could have this,” the demon said. “All of it.”

“You would have hated this,” Emma said finally.

“I was wrong,” the demon replied. “Look what happened when I tried. Look what happened to the tower. You knew better.”

“Yes,” Emma said. “I did.”

And now she knew what it cost.

She listened. Past the illusion. Past the peace and quiet.

She heard Leliana’s prayers, her lovely blasphemy. Morrigan’s sharp observations, alive with friction. Wynne’s lectures, infuriating, but real. The mabari’s bark. The sound of people who would die if she closed her eyes.

And Alistair, who'd learned to disrupt silence just to make sure someone was still there.

Just checking.

And the silence that would come if she stayed.

Proximity

The observatory was gone. Areli was gone. The balcony plots, the carefully curated peace—all of it dissolved like frost under sun.

What remained was the Fade’s familiar architecture. Putrid standing water. The quiet tedium of dreaming resumed.

An enchanter stood near the edge of the stone platform, staring at nothing in particular, as if the nothing might eventually blink first.

She pushed herself upright, staff already in hand, stone armor settling into familiar weight against her limbs. Her hands were steady. That worried her.

She moved without sound. He didn't turn.

“Who are you?” he asked. Then, immediately, “No. Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter.”

“I'm Emma,” she said. “I left with the Grey Wardens.”

The man nodded once, as if she’d confirmed something he’d already misplaced. Then he turned. “Right.”

A pause. He frowned, searching the air beside her face.

His face showed something short of an expression. He straightened slightly. “You wrote something. About proximity. Or distance. Or… managing risk.”

“You read that? I'm sorry.” Even the ego-obliterating murk of the fade couldn't dull her embarrassment.

“…I think so.” He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his sleeve, again and again, a motion worn smooth by repetition. “Perhaps more than once. It was very sensible. Someone sensible wrote it.”

Emma didn’t correct him.

The silence stretched. Emma watched him gaze into the stone pedal, ringed with runes. Fingers moving again, tracing patterns that led nowhere.

“I’m Niall,” he added, after a beat. “Sorry. I should have started there. Names come later now. Sometimes they don’t come at all.”

“Owain mentioned you,” she said.

“Owain. Yes. He kept count. Of things. He was good at that.” A faint, almost embarrassed smile flickered and died. “I don’t think I ever paid him back.”

“You were fighting the demon,” Emma said. “The sloth demon.”

“I was trying to save the Circle.” He winced, just slightly. “That’s not quite the same thing, is it?”

“You escaped its dream,” he said. “That’s… good. Well done. The demon traps everything that comes here in a dream it thinks they can't—or won't—try to leave.”

“I thought I'd escaped, too. I stood there telling myself I was free. And then I started walking.” He gestured at the empty expanse around them, rippling. “I've been walking ever since.”

“How long?” she asked.

“I don't know.” He said it without inflection. “It felt like weeks. Then years. But I realized I don't know. It doesn't matter. There's nothing to measure against.”

Emma remembered meeting the demon on the 4th floor. Falling to the ground with fatigue, her companions sprawled around her. Staring into the face of Niall.

He stood there, hands on stone, and she saw him clearly: a man who cared for the Circle more deeply than she had, but never got as far.

“You're still alive,” she said.

“Am I?” He considered this, seriously. “Nothing dampens your spirit, does it?”

Niall immediately regretted it. He looked away. “I used to sound like that. I'm sorry.”

Emma stepped closer. “It's alright. It's as you said. This place traps you.”

He gestured at the runes.

“You see that pedestal? I've studied these. The sloth demon itself is on the center island, but you can't get there. The five islands around the center somehow form a protective ward.”

He paused. “I thought I was clever for noticing.”

“You almost solved it,” Emma said.

“I made it to the fire river once,” Niall said, too quickly. “I stood there a long time convincing myself it was symbolic. That if I waited, it would calm down. It didn’t.”

“There are always obstacles,” he went on. “You can see the path. That’s important. Seeing it keeps you here. A door that shows you freedom through a keyhole. A passage too small to fit your hand through.” He hesitated. “I saw a mouse. Once.”

“A mouse?”

“Yes. Going back and forth. Very busy.”

“I met a mouse in the Fade, once...” she strained to remember.

“I thought if I could ask it what was on the other side…” He shook his head. “Silly.”

“You could have become smaller,” Emma said. “Like it.”

“I thought about that.” His eyes flicked to her, sharp for half a second. “I thought about it for a long time. Oh, there are many. Many dreamers. Some think they are mice, others wolves, nightingales... or octopuses.”

“My companions,” she said. “Could they be on the islands?”

“I don't know.” Niall's voice gentled, just slightly. “There are many dreamers,” he repeated, “You might find a way to reach them... if you're lucky.”

“Tell me about the ward.”

“The sloth demon has placed lesser demons on each island. I've seen them.” He paused. “Defeating them may be the only way to reach the sloth demon. But you have to get to them first. I...”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn't. I was too afraid to try.”

“I'm not afraid,” she lied. “There must be a way out.”

It worked.

Niall looked at her. Really looked, for the first time since she'd arrived.

For a moment.

“I never thought I’d die here,” Niall said. “In a place like this. Alone.”

—self-destructive.

“I’m here,” Emma said.

He nodded, distracted. “Right. Some apprentice. You were always writing things down. Very serious.” A pause. “I’m sure you were very important to someone.”

“I don't want it to end like this,” Niall whispered. “Do you feel it? It's getting so cold.”

Emma felt something cold slide between her ribs. Bloodlessness crept up her extremities.

No-

She forced herself to catch her breath.

I KNOW-!

The cold deepened.

“What do you know about the Litany of Andralla?” she forced herself to ask, forced her fingers to flex.

🐭

The inertia goes wrong...Wrong, like pre-sick. Tenderness before a bruise. But not pain. No friction, something pushing back. This is subtraction. My bones hollow out from the inside, marrow drained. Structural integrity swiftly imploding, dissolving. There’s nowhere to fall, but to become less. The space I’m supposed to occupy is shrinking faster than gravity can keep up.

Morrigan used to say the mistake novices make is resisting the loss. Loss implies something was taken. You are trading, not surrendering. The wolf does not weep for its lack of wings.

My perspective lunges. Either the ground surges up or I’m dropping. Same sensation: vertigo. The yellow mud-stone thrusts and stretches into a series of trenches and cliffs. Dust motes balloon. The air thickens.

The Fade is still jaundiced. Everything stained resin-yellow and sickly, blurring all sights. Even as a mouse, the world of dreams reappears as the exact same cage.

My spine compresses. Vertebrae fold into themselves like a telescope being packed away. Ribs curl inward, cage tightening, lungs shrinking to match. This is where it's impossible not to panic. Because breathing changes. Faster. Shallow. My heart accelerates until it’s no longer a beat but a vibration, a thrumming insect. Just as sticky and small.

The moment you notice your pulse, you have already departed from the form.

How am I supposed to stop thinking about that?

Blood vessels thread themselves thin as silk. My pulse buzzes in my teeth, which are growing, sharpening, pushing forward as my jaw elongates and narrows into something built for gnawing. I taste metal. Stone. Old fear baked into the tower like seasoning.

My hands go last. I watch it happen, because of course I do. Fingers shorten. Nails harden into claws. Fur erupts from my wrists in a crawling wave, patchy and electric at first, each follicle a needle of sensation, like my entire body is being tattooed from the inside out. Then it settles. Dense. Sleek.

I am suddenly not cold anymore.

That part surprised me. Morrigan never warned me about the relief. The way your brain, desperate for continuity, files fur under clothing and moves on. The mouse part doesn’t bother with metaphor. It just accepts this as self.

The worst part. Or the best. Depends how attached you are to being human.

The senses rearrange.

Vision dims. Color drains away until the world is rendered in slate and motion, edges and threat vectors. But hearing sharpens to the point of violence. Every footstep is thunder. The slow drip of water quakes. The yellow fog hisses as it moves.

And then there’s my nose.

Maker’s breath.

The world detonates into scent. Trails and layers and histories stacked on top of each other. I can smell where people walked hours ago. The salt-and-fear residue of blood mages who died screaming. Lyrium veins in the walls singing their metallic hymn. I can smell time. Fresh versus old. Recently touched stone versus stone that hasn’t known contact in years. The Fade doesn’t bother to hide any of it. It’s proud of its data.

For a few seconds I am both. Human mind jammed into rodent. Thoughts. too big. for skull. Try to stand, immediately faceplant. Four legs. Updating locomotion rules. I try to speak. Produce a squeak. It is, objectively, humiliating.

Morrigan would have laughed. Not kindly.

The mouse logic isn't learned; It's remembered. Pre-verbal. Ancient. Whiskers sweep the air. Tail adjusts for balance. Paws grip mud and clay that my boots would have slipped on. I am small. Horrifyingly small. A boot could be an extinction-level event.

But I am fast.

And quiet.

And suddenly there are gaps where there were none before. Cracks are invitations. The yellow fog parts for me. I belong here. This is the scale the Fade travels.

Humanity receding, distant. Even now, can’t stop analyzing my disintegration.

But the mouse doesn’t wait.

The mouse moves.

Along the baseboards. Following scent-trails that curve and loop and lie. Heart races at a speed that would kill a human. Seems fine. Perfectly correct now.

Access is power.

I slip into a hole in the stone, yellow world stutters, rearranges itself around my small, clever trespass. I finally become mouse.

No, this is not how Morrigan became animal. I have not learned dominance over form. I learned the Fade sees me as prey. and how much effort it takes to keep moving anyway.

The world stutters as I emerge from the mouse hole. Not smoothly. The transition is wrong—skipping out of time. For a heartbeat I'm both: anatomically impossible and cognitively unbearable.

Then I snap back into myself with a sensation like rubber bands retracting through my skeleton.

The corridor ahead branched into identical yellow-hazed chambers. Two darkspawn lumbered at the intersection—genlocks. They hadn’t noticed her yet. Good.

Emma drained their mana through the Fade’s sick-yellow atmosphere. One genlock staggered as its reserves hemorrhaged into hers. The second charged, which meant thrusting fire as it came toward her.

It hit hard. She fumbled through applying her defensive magic. It was typically automatic, typically never forgotten. Now applied too late.

Killing fake darkspawn was still physical, visceral, wrong. She still metabolized their cessation. As she did, for a moment, she felt the real-world stone under her sleeping form. Her companions on the same floor, alive and breathing. And Niall...barely.

Through the next door: more hurlocks. These saw her immediately, which meant she was thinking like a human again—standing at sword-height, visible, an acceptable target. The mouse would have stayed low. Would have been smarter.

Lightning cracked across the lead hurlock. Flame Blast caught the cluster. She didn’t wait to see them fall. She was already moving toward the western wall, toward the next mouse hole, toward the next reduction.

The transformation is faster. Or I'm accepting it faster. Spine contracting, heart whining, the world becoming scent. Yellow mud and old fear and something, someone new—

Blood. Fresh. Human-shaped. Not human.

The Templar Spirit is ahead, surrounded. I can smell him. Ozone and righteousness and lyrium.

The institutional cocktail that makes templars what they are.

It's holding a line. Shield up, sword arcing with methodical precision. Three darkspawn pressing, maybe four. It doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t need to. Impact absorbs undynamically.

The darkspawn are focused entirely forward—sword-height. Design flaw. The emissaries hang back, casting from safety. Collectively stupid. I surge through the hole, whiskers catching residual mana like static.

The Templar Spirit doesn’t acknowledge me. It’s creating the opening—holding aggro, drawing everybody. Being seen so I don’t have to be.

I weave between legs and boots, tasting stink of blood in the air, my tiny heart hammering. The emissaries never look down. Why would they?

I emerge behind them.

The world lurched back into painful clarity as her spine snapped to human proportions. Both emissaries turned, but she was already casting. Mind Blast caught the first mid-incantation. The second pulled on its own life to accelerate—classic blood magic. Over-correction and desperation.

She seeded her spiritual bomb and stepped back. The Templar Spirit pivoted, shield raised, corralling the front line into a tighter cluster. Giving her detonation radius. The bomb went off.

Meat and magic scattered across the tar-stained stone. The Templar Spirit cleaved through. Then it turned to her. Assessed. No gratitude. Precise. Inhuman.

Familiar...but uncanny. No bad jokes. No guilt over the collateral. It had been slower, less dodging, more a wall. Just function. Shield, sword, purpose.

And she had worked with it perfectly. Exploited the space it created. Killed what never saw her coming.

No concern, no convalescence, no checking on the other before moving on.

I think we work well together...

“You fight well,” the Templar Spirit said.

“I had practice.” The thought made her stomach drop in a way that had nothing to do with shapeshifting.

It gestured, and something shifted in the air. Not hostile. Transactional. The Fade rearranged itself around this offering—a spirit form, crystallizing into accessible knowledge. She felt it settle into her consciousness like a key sliding into a lock she didn't know she had.

Now she could walk through walls until she couldn't anymore. The labyrinth just became negotiable in ways Sloth never intended.

The Templar Spirit, already fading: “The Essence of Willpower lies ahead. You'll need it.”

It dissolved before she could ask.

She tested her spirit form cautiously. The world went gossamer-thin. Her body—or the idea of her body—phased through matter like mist through screens. The yellow Fade pressed closer, more intimate, almost curious. She could feel its attention.

The Essence of Willpower appeared, suspended in that particular Fade aesthetic—glowing object, no context, take it or don't. She reached through a wall that should be solid and wasn't anymore. The Essence pulsed once as she touched it, then collapsed into her.

Somewhere behind her, she heard darkspawn. Ahead, another corridor branched into identical chambers.

Which mouse hole did I come through?

The Fade had already erased the answer. No landmarks. No trail. But a growing awareness that she fought best with a shield in front of her, now alone again, lacking one. The mouse form waited in the back of her mind, patient and small and humiliating.

She picked a direction that felt less wrong and kept moving.

Senior Enchanter Wynne knelt in the center of the balcony, surrounded by bodies.

“Death,” Wynne said quietly. Her hands moved methodically, straightening a child's collar, smoothing another's hair. Performing last rites through sheer muscle memory.

“Can you not see it?” she continued. “It's all around us.”

Emma crouched across her, studying the “bodies”. Even with Wynne's arrangement, they were wrong. Death without struggle, violence without consequence. They looked instructive.

It was fake, but true. Somewhere in Kinloch Hold, children had died like this.

Not exactly like this, but close enough to sting.

“You're in the Fade,” Emma said, standing. “This is a dream.”

Wynne's hands stilled. She did not look up.

“Your disregard for the souls of the dead strikes me as profoundly inappropriate.”

There it was. The reflex. Offense, deployed as discipline. Structure imposed as a should that went unsaid.

“You taught half the Circle about the Fade,” Emma said. “Why are you pretending not to recognize it now?”

Wynne rose sharply to her feet. “I beg your pardon? Where were you when this happened? I trusted you. You were nowhere to be found.”

“I was removed by force,” Emma reminded her. “I’m here now. In the Fade. With you. We need to go.”

“The Fade…” Wynne faltered. She looked around the sickly-yellow facsimile of the tower balcony, its proportions slightly incorrect, a copy without depth. “I have always had an affinity for it. I should recognize this.”

“Should doesn’t apply here.” Emma pressed her fingers to her temple, irritated by the rebound of her unsaid words.

“Something is interfering,” Wynne said.

“Yes,” Emma said. “That’s the point.”

Wynne drew a careful breath. “Perhaps distance will help. A change of perspective.”

She turned.

The “bodies” moved. Gently.

Not with jerky, abominable animation. They simply... stirred, the way children do when they're pretending to wake, after pretending to sleep. Or when they believe they're about to be called on. They sat up in their neat rows, faces turned toward Wynne.

“Don't leave us,” they whispered in unison. “You're not finished.”

“Holy Maker!” Wynne staggered back, staff snapping up. “Stay away, foul creatures!”

But she hesitated.

“You didn't answer,” said one.

“You said later,” said the next.

“You told us we'd understand. That we'd be grateful.”

Another tilted its head. “Was it something we missed?”

The voices overlapped, eager, breathless, competitive, self-correcting.

“We should have listened—”

“Been better—”

“We could have stopped it.”

“It would have never happened.”

Wynne's staff lowered. Emma watched the way she straightened; Responsibility reshaped itself into terrible, desperate hope. A copy of authority without depth.

“They're lying,” Emma said quietly.

Wynne turned on her. “You don't understand. It's simple. If we had only—”

“I was one of them,” Emma said. “I learned exactly what you taught.”

Her voice hardened. Authority snapped into place.

“The Circle rejected the result. That's why I wasn't there.”

The demons leaned in.

“She refuses responsibility—”

“She doesn’t understand how much you saved—”

“How many you protected—”

“I saved some,” Wynne said hoarsely. “I bought time.”

“Yes,” Emma said. No forgiveness. No accusation. “And the Circle still burned.”

Something in Wynne broke. “These are not my students,” she said.

Her magic erupted. Not the careful demonstrations of the classroom, but furious, intent without instruction. Emma braced the shape of Wynne’s spell so it didn’t tear itself apart. They dispatched the demons easily, collapsed to ash before they could finish their bleating chorus.

When the light faded, Wynne straightened, smoothing her robes. Returning to propriety diminished by the lean on her staff. Like a crutch.

Emma watched her. In a place built on lies, this uncomfortable truth felt like solid ground.

The cloister garden bloomed, roses opening simultaneously.

Leliana knelt among them, pruning shears in hand. Her working rhythm soothed—cut, gather, cut again. The sun warmed her shoulders through her habit. Somewhere beyond the wall, bells marked the hours with patient certainty.

“There you are, child.”

The Revered Mother stood at the garden's edge, hands folded, her presence settling over the space like benediction. Leliana rose, brushing dirt from her knees.

“Forgive me, Mother. I was finishing the bouquet.”

Its perfume was thick enough to taste.

“Of course you were.” The smile was kind. “You've always been so dutiful. We have given you succor when you were lost, haven't we? We showed you the way and now you're one of us.”

One of us.

“I am happy here,” Leliana heard herself say. “This is all I ever wanted.”

And it was. Wasn't it? The garden needed tending. The sisters needed her voice in the choir. The world beyond the walls moved in violence and chaos, but here—here was a great path worn into the world, footsteps from a faith of centuries. A path tread by pilgrims holding back the dark.

A voice interrupted Leliana's reflection, sharp and familiar. “You left. Don't you remember why?”

The Warden stood at the garden gate, solid in magical armor of stone. The same stone as the Tower...what tower? Leliana blinked. The roses wavered.

“I remember...” The words came slowly, pulled from somewhere distant. “There was a noise. a darkness. a sign.”

A rose. Not this abundance of perfect blooms, but a single flower rising from dead wood, impossibly alive, blooming in the autumn chill.

The Revered Mother's voice gentled. “We have discussed this... sign of yours. The Maker has already spoken. He won't interfere in affairs of mortality. This 'vision' was likely the work of demons.”

“She would know,” The Warden said. “As a demon, herself.”

The accusation should have been shocking, but Leliana felt recognition—truth spoken plainly, cutting through the garden's perfumed air. This peace was too perfect. Nothing questioned. Nothing reached.

“The Maker cares for us,” Leliana insisted. “I believe He misses His wayward children as much as we miss Him.”

The Revered Mother's smile deepened, encompassing even this doubt. “Yes, child. And He still speaks to us, in a way. Through traditions that survive individual doubt. Through the continuity of faith, the order that shelters you even now.”

For half a breath, Leliana felt it—the pull of that logic, its terrible reasonableness. Wasn't order safer than chaos? Wasn't structure better than the void? The garden walls held back so much darkness. To stay would be to accept shelter, to trust in something older and wiser than herself.

But that wasn't what her dream of the one rose had promised.

“My vision may not be from Him,” Leliana said, voice steadying, “but it guides me to do what is right. My revered mother knew this. She trusted me to act on my faith... you are not her.”

“You've come to your senses.” Emma nodded, reaching out, her fingers gesturing: come.

“Let us leave.” Leliana obeyed. “My head has not yet cleared, but there is something familiar about you... I believe you. I...think I trust you.”

The Revered Mother's expression didn't change, on the surface, but it cracked. Revealing the hollow underneath. “This is your home, your refuge. Do you truly wish to leave the comfort of this place behind? Stay, and know peace.”

Peace. The word hung in the air, beautiful and terrible. Peace was what she'd always wanted, wasn't it? An end to running.

But peace wasn't the same as quiet. And the Maker's peace—the true peace, the one that moved in her chest when she sang—was animated. Even loud, when called for.

“There is no need,” Leliana said. “I carry the peace of the Chantry in my heart.”

The demon's face twisted, composure fracturing, scattering to ash. “You are going nowhere, girl. I will not permit it. She's ours, now and forever.”

“If this were my home,” Leliana said quietly, “I would not need your permission to leave.”

Emma moved forward, staff rising. “We're going.”

The garden collapsed inward, roses withering to ash, walls crumbling to reveal the Fade's sick-green expanse beyond. The Revered Mother's form stretched and twisted, becoming something vast and patient and utterly inhuman—a thing that had worn kindness like ill-fitting clothes.

They fought. Emma's magic tore through the illusion; Leliana's arrows found gaps in the demon's defenses, guided by the wisdom in her arms and shoulders, memories older than doubt.

When it fell, the silence that followed was different—not the suffocating quiet of the garden, but the living silence of possibility, of breath held before movement.

“Maker preserve us,” Leliana whispered. “She... she was a—”

“A demon, yes.”

Leliana pressed her palm to her forehead, feeling the weight lift by degrees. “My head feels heavy, like I've just woken from a terrible nightmare.”

She looked at Emma— the careful distance, steely confidence and quiet persistence. Her stance was similar to one holding a door open.

They left the false garden behind. Some silences, after all, needed no filling.

The Fade prison was Sloth's architecture, recursive and patient. Emma's limbs felt heavier with each step. The Fade itself thickening around her, air becoming syrup, sludge becoming amber.

Emma followed the Desire demon's trail—a cloying scent like overripe fruit—through passages that bent wrong, walls that breathed. But this new space felt... exceedingly comfortable.

Wheat taller than she rose on every side, from every angle. Everything in itself golden and swaying, without horizon, only the dry whisper of grain, starchy stalks scratching her skin and tangling in her hair.

These fields rippled with, endless gold, disorienting, bending...

A child’s laughter drifted through. She followed the sound until the wheat parted like a curtain.

She now stood before a cottage: serene, whitewashed timber, climbing ivy, nestled in bushes of roses, so starkly red.

Smoke billowed from its chimney, smelling of hearthfire and fresh bread. Pleasant, domestic banality. Syrup of a metaphorical type.

And on the steps, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair bright as new copper in the impossible sunlight—Alistair. Unarmored, in a simple tunic, homespun. He looked different, younger. Softer.

When he saw her, his face lit up. He stood immediately, gesturing for her attention. Her breath caught; Her stone armor dissolved.

She could barely look back at him, squinting. It was painful behind her eyes, like staring into the sun.

“Hey, Emma! I was just thinking about you. You made it.”

The dream folded her into the scene. She'd been expected.

“This is my sister, Goldanna,” he continued. “These are her children, and there's more about somewhere. We're one big happy family, at long last!”

Hearing him, speaking so calmly, content without irony. It induced a vertigo in her.

Beyond the doorway, golden light spilled across weathered floorboards. The smell of bread baking. A woman's voice, warm and instructive, correcting a child's posture at the table.

She looked at the woman—someone he'd never known, and yet his “sister” was a strong construction; Desire had no trouble reading the lack in him.

Alistair reached for Emma, easily, his hand on her back. She felt herself being led to a chair at the table. He sat next to her. Affection radiated from him.

The children giggled. One tugged at his sleeve, demanding a story. He obliged without hesitation, his voice taking on a sing-song quality—theatrical, performative, utterly unlike him.

She watched Goldanna slip behind him, hands tightening on his shoulders. Possessive. Anchoring. The fake sister smiled down at him.

“Well, Alistair, is your friend staying for supper?”

“Say you'll stay,” Alistair urged, leaning forward.

“Goldanna's a great cook. Maybe she'll make you her mince pie. You can, can't you?”

“Of course, dear brother.”

She could stay. Let him have this. Let the dream keep him warm and fed and loved until Sloth consumed them both so gently they'd never know.

The tea was already being poured. The exhaustion in her bones ached for this. And something else. To let the moment stretch into hours, days, forever.

“It's not real,” Emma said.

“What? No, just look—This is... I mean, I know it seems sudden, but—”

“They're demons,” she insisted, but he laughed.

“Yes, everyone says that about their family,” He shook his head. “You don't understand. You've never had this.”

“No, and neither have you.”

“I… don’t think I’ll be going.” He was gentle, apologetic. “I don’t want to spend my life fighting, only to end up dead in a pit.”

“I don't want that for you either,” She was still squinting, vision blurring beyond comprehension.

“Right?” He thought she was agreeing with him. The children's laughter looped in the background, perfectly timed, perfectly wrong. “Not when I could have this. Isn't that what we fought for? So people can have lives?”

People. He didn't know this word was already edging her out.

Emma reached for something—anything—for leverage. The Fade pressed against her thoughts, numbing the edges, making it hard to think.

She said: “Think about this. How you got here. Think carefully.”

“All right, if it makes you happy.” Alistair's brow furrowed.

The light in the room flickered; The walls of the cottage were melting around the edges.

Then he continued: “Maybe—maybe we deserve a life too, you know?” and smiled, a bit more himself, trying to reassure her. The wood of the chair was so warm. Waiting. “After everything.”

“Deserving has nothing to do with it.”

She sounded harsh. He dimmed, the stalks of wheat outside shivered in response. They bent toward the cottage like spectators leaning in.

“I meant—” but Alistair interrupted her.

“No, it's all right.” He shied away, shoulders tightening. “You said it yourself, many times. We're probably going to die. The Blight's going to kill us, or Loghain, or—”

He turned to look at her, bitter. He was remembering.

“But here, I could just be someone. Not a Grey Warden. Not a bastard. I could just be... some guy who lives with his sister.”

“You won't be anything. You can't stay.” Emma's voice was steady now, cutting through the dream's warmth. “You'll die here, too.”

“Does it matter?”

Emma could feel Desire calculating. Recalibrating. It was negotiating, waiting for this exact moment. Whispering to her.

You want him awake. So you can use him.

Emma pushed through the distance he'd opened, and leaned against him. Shoulder to shoulder.

She had come for him last—fought for the others first—because she'd felt him pulling her across the Fade, ensuring everyone else was safe before he'd let her reach him. She was certain of it.

“You're scared,” he said, surprised. His arm went around her. So strange, how simple it was, in the Fade. “Of dying?”

And now she would deny him this peace he'd never had, this family he'd never known, this life that would kill him so gently he'd thank it for the privilege.

“Of leaving you behind.”

He sighed. He was faltering.

“I'd miss you,” she continued. “If you stayed here. I don't—I can't leave without you.”

“Maybe don't leave,” he suggested hoarsely, his arm tightening around her. “Someone else could—Why not? You could stay with us. With me. We could just... one real supper, just for once. There's nothing wrong with that. They don't need us.”

She went through all of this, already. While he persuaded her. She just had to remind him.

“There's no one else. Not after Ostagar. Just us. Remember?”

He frowned. The cottage dimmed.

“That's...Fuzzy. Strange.”

The sky choked out with smoke, her fingers finding him in the dark. Arrows striking his shield, her blood on his gauntlets. The jump.

She had trusted him then, when she had good reason not to.

He owed her this.

Emma hugged him. He clutched back instinctively, speechless, the ease he'd had fading.

“I’m glad it was you,” she said into his shoulder. “I’m glad I survived with you.”

“Em—”

He couldn't finish. He pulled back, wide-eyed and gutted, scanning the room as if seeing it for the first time. The cottage groaned, beams flexing.

Goldanna’s voice rose behind them, sharp now, over-bright. “Wash up before supper—”

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “This—this isn’t right. I remember a... tower. The Circle. It was under attack.”

“That's when we got trapped in the Fade,” Emma confirmed.

“Goldanna?” Alistair's voice cracked. “How did I not see this earlier?”

The dream shuddered. The walls bent inward, protesting. The demons portraying Goldanna and the children closed in on them.

He stood slowly, pulling her up with him: “uh, well. Try not to tell everyone how easily fooled I was...”

The children's hands slipped from his clothes.

The smell of bread soured, yeast rotting in the air. Outside, the wheat blackened from the tips down, stalks collapsing into ash without flame. Laughter looped, then fractured into something wet and shrill.

They ran.

“Don't look back,” she told him, terrified he'd change his mind.

Behind them, the dream collapsed, revealing a dark path.

“What's happening?” he asked.

Her grip on his hand tightened. “Just move. Follow me. Don't stop.”

Sloth's influence crept up her arm, cold and insulating, trying to sever their connection. Her grip on Alistair loosened despite her will.

The demon's voice rose, screaming from somewhere internal.

You'll drop him. You'll leave him. It's not too late to turn back.

Behind her, she heard him stumble. She could hear him fighting, swearing, breath ragged. Something grabbed him and he tore free, step by step, choosing her back over the warmth clawing at him.

Her vision tunneled, every instinct screaming at her to turn. The darkness of the dream itself dissolved, sliding away like water.

Emma hoped dimly she felt him near her still, if it was not another illusion.

Perception constricted until she felt nothing, no one.

Then— She was awake.

On her back, looking up into the spandrels of Kinloch hold, spattered in demonic viscera. The details were already escaping—wheat and water, syrup and ash.

Alistair.

And fear— had she lost him?

But his arms locked around her immediately. Alistair hauled her against his chest, encased in metal, cold and hard. The worst, and the best, hug.

“You're here...”

“I'm here.” He pulled back just enough to look at her, gauntlets gripping her shoulders. “I'm here, Emma. I was right behind you.”

She just nodded, dazed. Details were escaping him, too— he wasn't entirely sure what he was saying. But whatever it was, of course he had followed her. He could not imagine ever doing otherwise.

Memories were gone, but emotions still lingered. How he had pitied her so deeply it ached. And now, too aware of that for comfort.

He stood, offering Emma a hand up, but she stayed grounded for a moment, shifting to observe Leliana stirring awake from her own dream, before accepting.

“Well, huh...” Alistair started, his voice unsteady as he surveyed the carnage. “There's nothing quite like a stroll through everyone's nightmares, on a dreary Tuesday afternoon.”

She paced around, checking on everyone. They'd all come back— except for Niall. Emma knelt next to him, tapping her staff gently to the stone, channeling a mild energy to kill what little was left mimicking life. Then, from his cold hands, she took the scroll he died for.

“We still have Uldred to deal with,” Emma rose, tucking the Litany of Andralla into her belt's satchel.

“That's the spirit,” Alistair dutifully adjusted the straps on everything that had shifted out of place in his sleep.

“Yes, indeed. He'll be an abomination, by now,” said Wynne, as if they didn't already know.

a prisoner (Alistair POV)

The arcane dome pulsed with that sickly violet glow that meant probably demonic nonsense or blood magic shenanigans. Possibly both. Inside it: one Templar, kneeling, looking like he'd been dragged backward through hell.

The only Templar survivor they'd found so far. Lucky them.

His plate was dented. Blood everywhere—his? Someone else's? Did it matter? His eyes had that thousand-yard stare Alistair had seen on veterans who'd witnessed things they couldn't unsee. He was muttering prayers or curses or maybe a shopping list, for all anyone knew. His hands were raw from clawing at the barrier.

Emma stopped walking. Her conjured armor made that grinding sound. It meant she was thinking. Or calculating. Or possibly planning something unpleasant.

“Cullen,” she said.

Oh. Oh no.

Alistair had overheard that name recently. He hadn't understood the context, but it wasn't a casual conversation. It meant something. Something bad.

He didn't look like much now. Hard to imagine this wreck as anyone's villain. But then again, Alistair had been raised in a Chantry. He knew how quickly devoted men became monsters.

“This trick again?” Cullen's voice cracked. “I know what you are. It won't work. I will stay strong.”

Wynne stepped forward, doing her wise-grandmother thing. “The boy is exhausted. Rest easy—help is here.”

Boy. Right. He was probably Alistair's age. Maybe younger. Hard to tell under all the trauma and grime.

Could've been him, kneeling there. Would've been, probably, if Duncan hadn't yanked him out of the monastery. Just another broken Templar who'd done terrible things because someone told him to.

“Enough visions.” He lurched upright. “If anything in you is human, kill me now and end this game.”

Alistair felt Emma's magic spike. Not a gentle rise—a surge. The kind that made his Templar senses scream warnings even though he'd never actually finished his training. The kind that suggested something violent and permanent.

He didn't flinch. Much.

Leliana moved closer, waterskin ready. “He's delirious. Here—”

“Don't touch me!” Cullen hit the barrier so hard Alistair worried he'd knock himself out. “Stay away! Sifting through my thoughts, tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never have... Using my shame against me, my ill-advised infatuation with her—a mage, of all things.”

The silence that followed could've cut glass.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Even the barrier seemed to quiet down, like it was trying to hear better.

Oh, this is not just bad. It's very bad.

Alistair had suspected. Of course he'd suspected. Emma didn't get angry easily. But suspecting and knowing were different things entirely.

“I am so tired,” Cullen whispered. “All these cruel jokes. These tricks. These—”

“Which mage, Cullen?” Emma's voice could've frozen the Fade itself.

Alistair had never heard her sound like that. This was different. This was personal.

“Enough,” Cullen snapped. “I won't listen. Begone.” Eyes squeezed shut. Opened again. Emma still there. “Maker help me.”

His focus finally sharpened. Recognition dawned. “You,” he breathed. “You're real.”

“I'm real.” One step closer. Alistair had seen her stalk their enemies across battlefields with less intensity. “Answer the question. Which mage?”

He stared at her like she'd materialized from his nightmares.

She probably had.

“I... She...”

“Say her name.”

“No—I can't. They made me watch. Over and over. She kept telling me to... to surrender. To trust her. I knew it wasn't real. I knew.” His hands shook. “But sometimes I forgot. Sometimes I—”

“Do you even remember her?” Emma asked.

That did it. His head snapped up. “I remember exactly.”

Emma nodded once. That blade-sharp attention of hers, focused completely. “Then say her name.”

He didn't.

“Areli.” Emma said it for him. “—may that Maker-of-yours damn you!— she was Areli Surana. What happened during her Harrowing?”

Areli.

Alistair tried not to think about how Emma had said it.

“I was... I was doing my duty. Following orders. She was—the demon was—”

“She passed every test before that night,” Emma said quietly. Too quietly. “Every single one. Everyone said so. She was the best student in Wynne's cohort.”

“Then why did she fail?” Cullen's question sounded like a demand. Like an accusation. “Why did the demon—”

“You tell me.” Ice. Pure ice. “You were there.”

Alistair stepped up beside her. Close enough that she'd know he was there without having to look.

Cullen's face twisted. “I had no choice. The demon was already—she was already—I couldn't—” Breathing hard now. “There was nothing I could do.”

“So you killed her.”

“I saved everyone else! I protected her from herself!”

The load-bearing lie. Alistair had heard every variation. I had no choice. It was necessary. The Maker's will. All the excuses people made when they did something horrible and needed to sleep at night.

He'd probably have said the same thing. Would've believed it, too. That's what he'd been trained to do. Thank the Maker someone here had better instincts than him. He'd left the Chantry to escape that kind of thinking.

Turned out he hadn't escaped far enough. It was still there, lurking in the back of his head, ready to surface whenever things got bad enough.

“If I hadn't acted, if I'd hesitated even a second longer, it would have torn through the entire tower. You don't understand what I saw. What it made her—”

“I understand,” Emma cut him off, “that you want me to believe you had no choice. But it didn't get there by itself, did it?”

Wynne touched Emma's arm. “Emma. He's been through—”

“Poor Cullen.” Emma didn't look away from the prisoner. “Kneeling now. But he was upright when Uldred took this Tower. He was armed when Areli was trapped.”

She paused. Let that sink in. “The demons and blood mages kept him alive. On purpose. Why?”

Cullen made a sound like he'd been gut-punched.

Alistair understood the implication. They all did. They'd kept him alive using his guilt, his memories, his—

His feelings for her.

Maker's breath.

“Stop—”

“Did she beg you to stop?” Emma's voice was surgical now. Precise. Cutting. “Does some part of you believe you loved her?”

“Stop!!” He pounded on the barrier. Alistair was ready to grab her if he somehow got through. Not that he thought he could. But better safe than disemboweled.

“Did you even wait to see if she could fight it off?” Emma continued, relentless.

“You weren't there! You don't know what it's like to watch someone you—to see them become—” Gasping now. Hands pressed to temples. “I see her every time I close my eyes. I see what she became.”

“What they made her become.” Emma's correction was quiet. Devastating. “What it, and you made her...”

There was something else she wanted to say. Alistair could see it in the line of her shoulders. The way her hand tightened on her staff.

He didn't know what the words were, but he knew what they meant. Betrayal.

Cullen collapsed back to his knees. “Why did you come back?” Hollow. Empty. “How did you survive?”

“This is my home,” Emma said. The words sounded dry. Brittle. “Or it was.”

“As it was mine. Look...look what they've done to it. They deserve to die. Uldred most of all.”

Finally, something they could agree on. Though Alistair suspected their reasons differed.

“Where are Irving and the other mages?” Wynne asked, trying to steer the conversation somewhere less personal.

“The Harrowing chamber. But you can't save them. You don't know what they've become.”

“And you do?” Emma asked.

“They've been surrounded by blood mages—” His eyes were feverish now. The look of a man who'd stared into the abyss. “Their wicked fingers snake into your mind, corrupt your thoughts. You can't tell who's been turned. Who's still human.” He looked directly at Emma. “You have to end it. Now. Before it's too late.”

“End what, exactly?”

Alistair had a bad feeling about where this was going.

A familiar bad feeling.

“All of it.” He said it simply. Like suggesting they check the weather. “To ensure this horror ends, to guarantee that no abominations or blood mages survive—you must kill everyone up there.”

Behind him, Leliana inhaled sharply.

Everyone.

Alistair had said the same thing. Hours, maybe a day ago. When they'd first arrived and seen the carnage. When he'd thought there was no way anyone could've survived this. When the cautious part of his brain—the part trained by Templars—had calculated the risk and suggested they just... end it.

Lock the doors. Burn it down. Make sure nothing escaped.

Emma had looked at him then like he'd grown a second head.

He'd miscalculated. There were survivors. People who'd fought. People who'd resisted. People worth saving.

He would have made the same choice Cullen was advocating now, without ever knowing.

But Emma knew better. She knew some of the mages would fight and hold.

“Everyone,” Emma repeated. “Even the ones who fought Uldred. Even the ones who resisted.”

“You can't tell maleficarum by sight.” Cullen's voice gained strength. Certainty. The voice of a fanatic who'd found his cause again. “Just one could influence the mind of a king, a grand cleric. The risk is too great. If you care about Ferelden—if you care about anyone outside these walls—you'll do what's necessary.”

Necessary.

That word again. The word that justified everything.

Alistair stood next to her. Close enough that his mail almost brushed her shoulder. Close enough to feel the gritty chill radiating off her stone armor.

Emma felt a painful irony, poison in her second pulse. A bastard prince stood at her side, listening. A future king, maybe, hopefully not. Influenced, right now, not by blood magic but by herself, her choices.

“If he wants us to kill survivors,” he said quietly to Emma, praying she caught the apology in the words—”we're not doing that.”

Cullen's head snapped toward him. “You don't understand. You weren't here. You didn't see—She's one of them—”

One of them. Right. Alistair should understand, apparently.

And the worst part? He was right. Alistair did understand.

“I know exactly what you saw.” He paused. Chose his next words carefully. “The memory of your friends' deaths is still fresh in your mind. You're not thinking straight.”

Cullen stared at him like he'd been betrayed. “You... you would trust her?” Gesturing at Emma like she was the demon here. “She let Jowan walk.”

Yes. Alistair had been there for that horrible follow-up conversation.

“We know. And she's about to save whatever mages are still alive up there.”

Cullen's mouth fell open. Shocked. “You're making a mistake.”

“It's worth a shot,” Alistair said.

“We've come out better for our mistakes, so far,” Leliana added. Optimistic as always. He appreciated it even if he didn't quite believe it.

Emma wasn't paying attention to either of them. She was still looking at Cullen. Her hand drifted toward her staff.

Everyone saw it. Everyone understood what it meant.

She turned to Wynne. “Can you drop the barrier?”

Wynne didn't answer. But she was ready. Ready for whatever Emma was about to do. Alistair wasn't entirely sure what she was planning. But he was fairly certain it involved violence.

Emma's fingers closed around her staff. The bubble hummed louder.

Cullen didn't move. Just watched her with those wide, hopeful eyes.

Like he wanted her to do it.

Like it would prove him right.

“We need him alive,” Wynne said carefully. “If we kill his last man, Greagoir won't hear us.”

“I know.” Emma's voice was too steady. The kind of steady that meant she was holding herself in check by pure force of will. “When this is over, your boss will want to know why the maleficarum kept you. You'll tell him we saved lives, and the Chantry men who wanted to slaughter everyone were wrong.”

“And if I don't?”

There was a threat in that question.

Emma didn't answer directly. Didn't need to.

“You will. Because you'll need them to believe you had no choice—again.”

Brutal.

She walked past the bubble without looking back. Alistair followed immediately, because that was what he did. Follow Emma into terrible situations and hope they both walked out the other side.

Leliana prayed with Cullen softly, before trailing after them.

“It's just cruel,” Wynne sighed.

It was. But it was also... Alistair didn't know. Emma had a way of making things complicated. And thank the Maker for that.

As they climbed toward the Harrowing chamber, he opened his visor. Trying to get a better read on her. Trying to figure out what she was feeling. Trying to understand what had just happened back there.

Failing at all three.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Stupid question. Of course she wasn't okay. Nobody who'd just confronted their... friend's killer was okay. But he had to ask anyway. That was what he was there for. Asking stupid questions.

“No,” Emma said.

She didn't slow down. Didn't look at him. Just kept climbing.

But she answered. That had to count for something.

Emma's throat tasted of iron, her voice wavering through the Litany. She was no Chanter, but the ancient words still caught at something in the Fade, unraveling Uldred's hold on his thralls as he pulled them.

Leliana's arrows punctuated Emma shaprly, flying past her ear. Wynne's wards burst open in domes of light, buying them precious seconds. But the spirits of rage kept coming, their warped bodies shrieking, and Emma knew: if Uldred didn't fall soon, they'd be overwhelmed. For every spirit they ended, more encroached.

Uldred's abomination led the assault, its distended mouth spitting gouts of flame. It needed to end her litany. But the chamber's architecture had become her weapon—Emma had positioned herself on the raised dais, using the stone platform's height. Between her and the abomination, a seething mass of thralls formed a living barrier, puppeted through the fade.

Uldred, always the most resourceful, had also an assault of insult bouncing around the chamber from the abomination's multi-throated roar:

“Ah, little Emma. Irving's stray pet. I never took much notice of you.” She ignored him.

“You blended in so nicely—obedient, quiet, unremarkable.” Uldred laughed, dripping with contempt.

“and Jowan,” he mused, conversational despite the carnage. “The fool. He really thought you could help him, before I broke him.”

Emma's hands tightened on her staff. She could see Jowan's terrified, bloody face in her mind, betraying her—

Alistair's blade cleaved through the fray, a negating edge that split magic missiles into harmless sparks, and dulled Emma's own wild arcs before they could sear him. He was fighting both sides of the battle, carving toward her, desperate to close the distance.

“He was a terrible student. Don't blame yourself. But he did bleed beautifully.”

The abomination had learned. Every time Alistair gained ground, it would release a pulse of telekinetic force that sent furniture, bodies, and debris sliding across the blood-slick floor. He had to keep his shield raised just to avoid being brained by flying masonry. The distance between them might as well have been miles. He couldn't dispel and advance simultaneously, not against this many.

“Not like your other friend—the one with all the fire. Areli, was it?”

Emma's voice cracked mid-word.

Uldred himself flickered through the chaos, his semi-corporeal form phasing through fallen pillars, splintered benches. He would reach Emma easily enough through the Fade, but the Litany was her own disruption, forcing him to manifest physically to attack.

And manifesting meant vulnerability to Leliana's arrows, which had already forced him back twice. He circled like a predator, waiting for her concentration to slip.

Hold on, I’m almost there, he thought, breath rasping inside his helm. Every step forward felt like dragging an anchor through a lightning storm.

“So precious. Such passion. Such naiveté. And you handed her over yourself.”

Emma's spell lashed out, wild and burning. Uldred's laughter swelled. Alistair vaulted over some twisted brass equipment, carved through another shrieking demon, his blade ringing, sliding forward through the blood.

“Such noble intentions. But you and Irving both- I will enjoy watching you die.”

Emma kept chanting, kept hurling power, felt it building inside her like a storm—

The abomination's limbs thrashed, grotesquely elongated. Alistair ducked a whiplike arm, slammed the shield upward to jam it, twisted under and carved through the joint in one ugly stroke. The limb fell, thrashing.

“Did you really believe he recognized your power? No. You were convenient. Disposable. A pet they hold by the ears, afraid you'll bite.”

Uldred's latest insult, she thought, the one meant to be the killing blow—to her pride— was miscalculated. Lightning crackled from her fingertips, uncontrolled, beautiful, vicious.

There was a horrible, bloody charge in the air. Alistair couldn't route it. He shouted a warning, but Emma didn't hear. She dealt the abomination a mighty blow, delivering the spell disguised as chant with a vengance. Thralls fell limp. Spirits dissolved into air.

Alistair's blade finally found its mark. Steel cleaved through the abomination's center mass with a sickening crunch.

For one heartbeat, Emma thought they'd won.

Then Uldred lurched forward, the remaining arm lashing out with impossible speed, whipping her, tossing her back with a sound like kindling snapping. The Litany tumbled from her hand.

The hungry abomination was already looming over her broken body, moving with supernatural speed. His form flickered—half-man, half-demon, all blighted, wholly wrong. His hand plunged into her chest. Into her, robes sizzling around its wrist.

Emma's screamed as her own blood eagerly rose to meet him, leaving her in hot, pulsing streams—felt Uldred drawing on it like a well, felt herself becoming the conduit for something vast and hungry. She slumped, and dared not look up.

“Blood answers blood,” Uldred whispered, almost tender. “Yours is strong. I can use that.”

Power surged through him, fed by her life. The chamber filled with crimson light. Emma thought to move, to speak, to cast—but she realized: struggling would only give him more power.

Stillness was her only option. She cooled as he drained her. Her vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

Alistair—

Uldred: “You'll lose control. But perhaps that's what you want. You could let me in. We could finish what Irving started—together.”

Alistair: “Nope.”

He didn't hesitate. Templar training took over— skills he'd hoped never to use. He slashed through the fade, cutting a void into the space between Emma and Uldred, severing that bloody thread of stolen power.

Emma felt that void slide through her: cold, absolute, merciless. The deathly and sudden absence of magic; Her body bloodless, unable to heal. Her heart stuttered, and stopped.

Uldred shrieked, his form destabilizing. Alistair pressed his advantage, blade draining Uldred of everything it had. With his shield, he crushed the abomination's skull— still human-shaped, until he shattered it. The monster collapsed.

Emma's chest lay open and still, blood pooling. Not pulsing.

“No—” Alistair dropped everything, greaves scraping stone, knees displacing the growing pools, blade and shield clattering uselessly besides.

“You fool—she was the abomination's conduit!” Morrigan was livid.

“Come on, Em—” His hands shook, he spread them over her, trying to keep in there whatever she had left.

Morrigan batted him away, sinking green vapor into her. Flesh repaired, but still cold.

“You severed her life, you imbecile!”

“I KNOW—! please, Wynne!” His shouting cracked through the air as her lightning had been, just seconds ago. “WYNNE!”

The old mage was already moving, shoving past, briskly articulate. “The BOTH of you, get OUT of my way.” Golden light flared between her palms, pouring into Emma's still form. Alistair shifted back, exchanging glances with Morrigan, seething at him. She turned away.

It's up to Wynne now.

Alistair grabbed her limp hand from the stone, bent his head over Emma's knuckles, coldness absorbing his own living warmth in vain. He prayed, in silence. The seconds stretched like hours. Then, a gentle breath, hardly audible. Barely, but alive. Her fingers twitched in his grip. Color crept into her grey face.

“Wynne—” His voice broke. “Maker, I owe you—”

The healer shushed him. He watched, the relief snapped from him. Morrigan muttered something about templar stupidity, pacing. But then, Emma convulsed, head rolling. He looked to Wynne, who nodded and sat back, professional despite the tremor in her hands.

“Em?” Her clammy hand returned the squeeze he'd held for her. His relief rebounded. “Hey... we won. And you scared the life out of me.”

“Your Warden needs rest. Hours of it. Preferably a full day,” said Wynne.

Alistair nodded, and thought, whatever it takes. But what he said was: “Hours? But... we don't have hours.”

Her eyes opened, unfocused but aware.

“Then you'll have to make them.”

Oh, sure. But he was quiet. Wynne's tone brooked no argument.

“Redcliffe needs us to hurry,” Emma echoed him.

“You're not going anywhere,” he snapped, but she agreed far too quickly. With a sinking feeling, he realized he'd overcommitted.

“You, go ahead. Take...take them. I'll stay.”

Alistair shook his head. “Absolutely not, we don't split up the party. Not after—” Her eyes flickered briefly to the surviving mages and Templars who would be accompanying them.

He looked back to her, with resignation.

“I can't leave you here.” His mouth had not quite caught up with that resignation. “There was a moment, I thought— well. I thought it would be like... what nearly happened already. Emma, I'm so sorry, I...”

“You did the right thing,” she said.

“I-I did?” She nodded. He had to look away. “When I smashed through that thing, and I realized— if Wynne hadn't been there—”

“I felt it,” she said. “If you hadn't— I would not have come back.”

He wasn't sure if he could have lived with either end. He looked down at his hands—still shaking, still slick with blood on his gauntlets—

“You did the right thing,” she said again, quieter. “Thank you.”

“Don't thank me for that. I'm the reason you needed saving.”

“It was Uldred. Not you,” she insisted.

He looked at her for a long moment. Then at the room. At the surviving mages already collecting themselves, at Wynne watching him with professional patience.

“I know,” he said, which wasn't quite true. “Stay alive while I'm gone. We'll move fast. And you'll catch up.”

“I will.”

Clanker

The descent was a special kind of torture. But at least it was a distraction from having recently watched Emma die.

She was weak, after everything, and could hardly sit up, so he understood why Wynne insisted she could not move. Alistair caught her with a grunt that would've been embarrassing if she hadn't been distracted by much bigger problems.

“Right,” he muttered, adjusting his grip. “This is happening.”

Carrying someone down a spiral staircase while wearing full plate armor is an experience exactly no one should have. The metal shrieked at every movement. His pauldrons scraped stone. Emma's head lolled against his chest plate with each step.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

“I'm starting to agree with Irving,” he said, mostly to fill the horrifying acoustics, “these towers are a bad idea. Who builds these things? Sadists?”

Emma made a noise that might've been agreement or might've been pain. Hard to tell. Her eyes cracked open, unfocused.

“You're... loud.”

“I'm loud? I'm wearing the loudest outfit in Thedas. This is a walking bell tower. This is—” He paused mid-rant, adjusting his grip as they rounded another turn.

The stairwell seemed to go on forever. His arms burned. His back screamed. Emma was small, but armor plus injured mage plus approximately four hundred spiral steps added up to a very specific kind of misery.

“You know,” he said, because his mouth apparently couldn't stay shut, “the last time I carried you, we were jumping out a window. This is somehow worse.”

Her fingers caught on his mail, hooking there, trying to remember the last time he held her against his plate.

“At Ishal,” she said slowly. “You grabbed me.”

His begging her to make a decision that should've killed them both. The darkspawn pouring in. Emma turning to face them.

Without Flemeth, it certainly would have killed them.

But he was correct.

“At least that was quick. This is just—” Clank. Clank. “—endless suffering. With acoustics.”

A sound that might've been a laugh fogged against his breastplate. He'd take it.

Then she said: “That's when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“You'd keep doing stupid things. And I'd have to keep you alive.”

He laughed despite himself.

They were halfway down—he hoped they were halfway, Maker let them be halfway—when they took a break on the landing. He sat her down against the wall. Sat next to her. Probably the worst time and place for it, but he had to say something before he left her in this tower.

“I know it might sound strange...” He paused. Started again. “We haven't known each other very long. But I've come to care for you. A great deal.”

The armor still clanked. He tried not to move too much.

“I think it's because we've gone through so much together. Or maybe I'm imagining it. Maybe I'm—” He stopped himself. “Am I fooling myself? Or do you think you might ever feel the same way about me?”

Emma blinked at him. She slowly focused on his face like she was working out a complicated problem. The stairwell echoed around them.

“You're asking,” she said carefully, “if I care about you?”

He nodded. And held his breath.

“Of course.” She sounded tired. Confused. Hoarse. “Of course I care.”

His stomach constricted horribly.

“You—You really didn't know?”

“I had to check. I'm wearing eighty pounds of metal and my arms are about to fall off. Give me a break.”

“Now you know. Don't forget it.”

They should go. He really should pick her up and continue this nightmare descent. Instead he leaned in—then hesitated. She reached up, fingers hooking his gorget, and pulled him down. Pressed her lips to his forehead. Brief. Warm. Deliberate. When she pulled back, he was fairly certain his brain had stopped working.

Lake Calenhad remembered everything. Barefoot children playing along the shore. Dry seasons and storms. Nets heavy with fish. Bodies that went down and bodies that came back up. Centuries of Circle mages crossing its surface in shackles or hope or both. Their recent battle against the undead.

Now it carried her back to Redcliffe.

The boat rocked gently as it crossed. Emma watched the water with drowsy mistrust. It felt different than when she’d crossed it weeks ago. Less choppy. More hollow.

Morrigan perched across from her, arms folded, the faintest curve to her mouth suggesting she’d been waiting for something.

“Warden, if I may: what does it feel like to cross the same lake the Templars used to ferry you to your prison?”

Emma swallowed, suppressing rising nausea.

“You look as though it offends you greatly,” Morrigan observed.

“It makes me sick.” Her voice came out thin. Everything felt distant and soft-edged; the lake’s surface was eerily calm. Water lapped against the hull with slow, patient indifference.

The shoreline emerged from the mist in small, pale shapes—then the familiar silhouette of Redcliffe’s docks, and a handful of figures waiting on them. One of them pacing.

“He has been keen since dawn,” Morrigan said. “Like some forlorn hound.”

Even from a distance, Emma recognized restlessness in the way he moved. As the boat drew closer she watched him stop mid-stride, one hand lifting to shade his eyes against the afternoon glare.

The boat bumped the dock with a dull thud. Alistair was already there, steadying the hull before the ferryman even reached for a rope.

“Emma. and Morrigan. Hello. Long time no see,” He greeted them, flippant but strained.

Emma took his offered hand. The dock creaked beneath them; the motion made her stomach curdle. His hand was warm, textured, anchoring. Everything the lake wasn’t.

“You look terrible,” he said.

“Thank you. I feel worse.” She swayed. His other hand shot to her elbow.

“Alright, that’s enough standing. I'm picking you up now.” he said, swiftly shouldering her.

Her stomach lurched as he lifted her off the dock. “Oh— I might get sick on you.”

“I’m not worried.” His voice lightened as she instinctively slipped her arms around his neck. “I've had worse on me. Darkspawn ichor, for instance. Or that time in Lothering when— Nevermind.” He stopped abruptly, readjusting his grip as he started up the dock.

“You took your time,” he murmured.

“Connor?” she asked.

“Safe. The ritual worked. Isolde is… let’s call it profoundly grateful. She actually cried... on me. It was deeply uncomfortable. But he’s recovering. He asked about you.”

“You seem…” He hesitated. “Alive. Mostly.”

Her fingers curled into the strap of his leathers. “I’m alright.”

“You’re not alright,” he said softly.

“I just need a bit more time,” she said.

Around them, the village hummed with recovery—hammering, shouted instructions, the thump of crates being moved. Ordinary sounds reclaiming the space after disaster.

“I missed you,” Alistair said at last. “It was one day. I felt like I’d lost a limb. It’s pathetic.”

“I missed you too.”

“Morrigan said you spent the whole time reading. Barely looked up.”

“Morrigan exaggerates. I looked up once. To miss you.”

He groaned, over-dramatically. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

They entered the Chantry—still the village’s makeshift command center. A portion behind the bookcases sat empty now, hollowed of people returned to their homes. Wynne had ensured there was still a cot pushed against one wall.

Alistair lowered her carefully to sit, then crouched until they were eye level. “How bad is it? Really?”

“Better. The boat was worse than Uldred.” A jest, but rooted in feeling.

Alistair had been trying very hard not to think about Uldred. He sat back on his heels, something dawning in his expression. His eyes widened.

“Wait. Emma, please tell me you can swim.”

He didn't know why this occurred to him; Plenty of people get sick on boats. And yet...

“…swim?,” she echoed, barely more than a breath.

Alistair leaned in, tone all brittle cheer. “Yes. That thing people do in water. Tell me you can.”

She exhaled, eyes drifting toward the floorboards. “I… can't, no.”

“You can't—? Emma, why didn’t you ever say anything? You were on a boat this morning.”

“I would've,” she said, apologetic. “If we had time to do anything about it.”

“We have time now—We will. If I could teach you, even a little— Let me take you to the lake, soon, before we leave. We can't keep keep dragging you across Ferelden like this. One day we might not have a boat, or a bridge, or—”

“I know.” Emma gave him a long look, hesitating. She closed her eyes, trying to focus. “But, that lake…”

“I'm sorry... I know it couldn't have been easy on you, how the Chantry built the circle out there, using the lake like a moat...”

“Just… let me look out for you with this. Alright?” She nodded. He'd offered her a very decent explanation for everything.

Alistair finally eased back only far enough to help her lie down properly—boots off, blanket drawn up, fingers lingering at the corner to make sure she was settled.

The Chantry buzzed faintly beyond the bookshelves, a world still turning. They both knew the moment of calm wouldn’t last. Wynne would come. Teagan would want debriefing. Murdock had plans that needed reviewing. The mages needed coordination. And beyond all that, the next impossible decision waited.

The injury wasn't life-threatening—Wynne had said so in that brisk, professional tone that meant she'll live, but she'll hate it—but it was complicated. The kind of damage that required time, not miracles.

So Emma was stuck. Surrounded by the Chant, incense, and the Revered Mother’s quiet disappointment.

Alistair found her surrounded by books like a dragon on a hoard, except instead of gold it was Genitivi's research notes on Andraste's pilgrimage routes, a technical treatise on Nevarran necromancy practices, and a thesis on Spirit Healing certification requirements.

“You know,” he said from the makeshift entrance, leaning on a shelf, “most people use recovery time to, I don't know, recover.”

“What kind of spirit magic is legal in Nevarra but not in Ferelden?” she responded.

“Why would I possibly know that?”

“There's death-adjacent magic that's legal there.”

“Yes, the sandy country full of creepy mausoleums. That suits them.'”

“Not legal here. Theological reasons, other than the obvious. Such as,” she flipped some pages, “it's icky.”

“And you're researching this because...?”

“Genitivi's treatise on pre-Chantry burial practices.” She said, quickly.

“Ah, multitasking, I see.”

“Did you need something? Are you just hovering?”

“Hovering. It's one of my best skills.” He settled into the chair across from her, leathers creaking. “What are you actually reading?”

“I'm actually reading Genitivi's fieldwork.”

Alistair eyed the stack nearest her elbow. “Really? You're reading Chantry scholarship? Voluntarily? Because it looks more like you're building a fort.”

“He's less of a quack than I thought.”

Alistair sat up straighter. “Wait. You think it's real?”

“The documentation is strong.” Emma's eyes were scanning the pages with her particular intensity of a puzzle worth solving. “It might not be what the Chantry thinks it is. But there's a pattern. Locations with unusual activity. Places where the Fade bleeds through in specific ways.”

“You don't think it's Andraste's actual ashes.”

“I think there might be a magical artifact that produces effects consistent and exceeding spirit healing.” She shrugged slightly. “Andraste's ashes or no, I won't argue with the results.”

“That's—That's the most you thing I've ever heard.”

Alistair had been talking to Eamon. Well, at Eamon. The man was unconscious, which made him an excellent listener and a terrible conversationalist.

“So we're chasing the Urn of Sacred Ashes,” he told him, pacing beside the bed.

“I know. It sounds insane. But this Genitivi fellow seems to think it's real. And Emma— Emma thinks he's onto something. Which is... I don't know. She's been reading everything he's ever written. Plus about six other books. Simultaneously. While recovering from being gutted by a malificar.”

Eamon's face remained peacefully unconscious.

“She's brilliant, by the way. Did I mention that? You'd be terrified of her.” He'd paused, suddenly self-conscious. “I'm talking about her a lot, aren't I?”

“Right. Well. There's something else.” Alistair had reached into his collar, pulling out the amulet. The ceramic had been carefully repaired, the broken chain mended with such precision you could barely see the mend. “This was—I threw it. Shattered it like an idiot. You remember.”

“Did you fix this? I didn't expect—I mean, you had no reason to. I was just some angry child making your life complicated.” He'd held it up to the light. “If Emma's right, and we find that Urn, and you wake up... I'd like to talk about this properly. But if not—”

“Thanks.”

“D-Do you want to talk about what happened...at the Circle?”

Alistair managed the courage to ask, the next morning.

“Sure. Not here. Later.” It felt very odd. Later. Like there was an appointment scheduled for falling apart and she was running behind.

Wynne disapproved of them leaving, but didn't argue for long. Alistair guessed that meant she'd recovered enough a small journey probably wouldn't kill her.

Connor found her first. The kid appeared in the courtyard, with the exact abruptness of a child getting away with something. He looked like someone who'd spent weeks possessed by a demon should not look—clean, fed, normal.

“You're her!” Emma looked at him, launching across the yard. She barely processed this before he was hugging her. “You saved me!”

Over Connor's head, she looked at Alistair, bewildered. He thought it was adorable. She did not.

“I—yes,” Emma managed. “I did. You're welcome.”

Connor had pulled back, grinning. “Mother says you're very brave. And that I should thank you properly. So thank you!” He paused. “Are you really a Grey Warden? Do you fight darkspawn all the time? What's it like? Can I see your staff?”

“You shouldn't be here, young man,” Wynne said from the doorway, but did nothing.

He didn't let go of Emma entirely, hands still gripping her sleeves. “But I wanted to meet her! She saved my life! That's important!”

“It is important,” Alistair agreed, taking pity on Emma. “Which is why you should probably let her breathe.”

Connor looked up at Emma's face and took a large step back. “Sorry. Mother says I'm too enthusiastic sometimes.”

“You're fine.” Emma's voice was steadier than she felt. “I'm not used to children.”

“That's okay! I'm not used to Grey Wardens! Did you really fight a whole demon by yourself?”

Quite a few. In a dream space that erased her identity and stretched across time. Emma looked to Alistair again. He gave her an encouraging nod that was spectacularly unhelpful.

“Yes,” she said. “We—it was complicated.”

A harried elven servant caught up to Connor. Emma narrowed her eyes at them.

“Can I visit tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Emma said.

“You did good,” said Alistair, as they left.

“I did nothing. I stood there.”

Connor's voice faded away, as he explained to the elven woman all about the Grey Wardens who'd saved him and the Urn they were going to find and how Emma was going to save everyone from the darkspawn even though she was scared of children.

Alistair was grinning at Emma's expression. “He's not wrong.”

“No,” Emma agreed, deflated.

“Fighting a demon? Sure. Fighting several, why not? Hugging a kid? Very scary, apparently.”

“Only the Maker knows the deepest fears in the hearts of men,” Emma dryly quoted what the Chanters did not allow her to forget.

The bridge was right where he'd left it. The last time they'd stood here, he'd told her about being a bastard prince, which had gone approximately as well as setting yourself on fire and expecting applause. She'd been furious, simmering with restraint, like watching someone disassemble a trap without touching it.

And then she yelled at him.

Now she was leading him back.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

She looked exhausted. Apparently, no sleeping was her normal. Recently, she hadn't eaten much, either. But Wynne had talked to her about all of this. What was the point of him nagging her, too? None. He had only one good guess about what to do, now.

“About the Tower? I know, uh, Areli—”

“Not about her.” Her voice was flat. “About something else.”

That was worse, somehow.

She glanced around—village walls, sentries, the waterfall recently drowning a distant sound of Teagan arguing with someone about grain supplies. She stepped closer to the edge of the bridge where the water churned loudest against the pilings.

“Emma...”

She reached into her pack and pulled out the scrolls. They looked old, vellum thin as tissue, ink bleeding through in places.

“I found these in Irving's study. In the sealed texts section.” She held them out. “Read them.”

He took them. She watched him very carefully. Like they might detonate.

The text was... he squinted. Turned the scroll. Squinted harder.

“I can't—” He stopped. Tried again. The letters kept sliding around, refusing to form words. It gave him a dull ache behind an eye. He looked up to her. “What is this?”

She turned away, pacing. It felt uncomfortably similar to the day he had confessed his lineage to her. Like he had done something wrong.

“It's an illusion,” Emma said. Her voice was very calm. Very controlled. The kind of calm that preceded disasters. “A ward. To keep people from reading it unless they... qualify.”

“Qualify how?”

She took the scrolls back from him, rolling them carefully, sliding them back into the case.

“It's a primer. For blood magic.”

“Oh,” he said. Then: “You shouldn't have this. Why are you showing it to me?”

“I... had to be sure. But I can read it. Every word.”

“You...” He stopped. Started over. “When you say 'read it'—”

“The actual text. Not the illusion.” She wasn't looking at him anymore. “It's vetting readers, but... I don't know how. That's the problem.”

“Well,” Alistair ran a hand through his hair. “You must have a theory,” and it worried her.

“I don't know.” Her voice cracked slightly. “The scrolls recognize something in me. That and... the amount of damage I am repairing, the speed—that shouldn't be possible with creation magic.”

“Magic does that though, doesn't it? Manifests under stress?”

“Not at my level. Not without—” She stopped.

“Without what?”

She looked at him for a long moment. The water kept churning.

It should have been her. He now understood she had never wanted to talk about Areli, although she had. Because they were not, at that time, next to a very loud mill wheel.

“Do you think it's possible to use blood without realizing?”

This was a horrifying question. She had often acted like he should know things he did not. Which made sense, as Templars were meant to hunt malificar. But maybe those are secrets you learn after taking vows, which he hadn't.

“I-I don't know. I doubt it. There has to be another explanation.”

“There is,” she sighed. “Necromancy. Apparently, it is useful to begin with. If you'd like to get into blood magic.”

“That's... good?” he swallowed.

“Except I never learned it. It just—” She clenched her fists. “It just happened. And... I don't really know. Not for sure.”

Alistair thought about every single time Emma had reached out and pulled someone back from the edge of dying, including him, especially him, and how he'd never questioned it because she was just good at it.

He thought about the Joining. About Duncan. About forbidden rituals performed in the dark.

“I'm not trying to be dramatic,” she said. “I'm trying to be careful. I need someone to know. Someone who'll tell me if—”

“What am I looking for, exactly?”

“I don't know yet. That's what's so—It might be blood magic. Or it might be something that becomes blood magic. It might be necromancy. It might be something else. Maybe I've invented something new. Or something I won't find information on. Probably for a reason.”

“Maybe because it's just icky,” Alistair suggested, hopeful.

“Maybe.” She sat in the middle of the bridge. exhausted. Not from the injury—from this. From carrying this alone. The weight of questions with no good answers.

“I'll watch,” Alistair said. “If that's what you need, I'll watch.”

Emma had almost convinced herself she'd escaped the consequences of admitting she couldn't swim. A foolish hope, she knew, when Alistair appeared in the Chantry doorway, arms crossed, boots dusty, jaw set in that righteous angle she recognized too well.

Emma, who had been quietly reviewing Genitivi’s notes on Haven and pretending to be engrossed, looked up at him. “Now?”

“Yes, please. Before Teagan traps us in another meeting where we argue about the requisitioning of shovels.”

Wynne didn’t even look up from reorganizing poultices. “Go,” she said. “Both of you need air.”

Morrigan smirked as Emma passed. “Do try not to drown, Warden.”

The walk to the water’s edge took them down the titular cliffs of rocky red clay, past carpenters rebuilding porches and children chasing each other between drying laundry lines. Redcliffe was a village awkwardly getting itself back together. In the quiet between hammers, the lake glinted like nothing had ever happened.

“We’re not going far,” he said. “Just the shallows. The shallowest part of the shallows, in fact. It's where the castle groundskeeper taught me to swim.”

They reached a stretch of shoreline where reeds clung to the mud and the water lapped in gentle, careless strokes. Alistair kicked off his boots and rolled up his trousers with the casual competence of someone who grew up doing this.

Emma did the same, slowly, like she was preparing for combat and not… this.

“Right then,” he said, stepping in so the water reached his shins. “Come stand with me. I won't let you float away, or drown, or anything...”

She did, inch by inch.

He held out his hand. She took it. They waded deeper, until the lake reached her knees.

Emma gasped as the cold bit up her legs, but the real sting was the strange threading of something insistent under her skin. An extra wetness, unreal, leaking from the fade. The drowned magic humming. She swallowed. Alistair squeezed her fingers.

“Doing okay?” he asked.

She gave him that small, honest, miserable half-nod of hers. “It’s… loud. Under the surface.”

“Loud? How?” he asked, but she didn't clarify. Couldn't, really.

“We'll go slow then. No rush. We can pretend the darkspawn will wait. Just… breathe, alright? In and out, like you've been doing your whole life.”

Emma nodded, keeping her eyes off the water, on him. He'd never seen her like this—not without an enemy looming, something to fight. This was different. Worse, maybe.

“So,” he said. “You just need to let the water hold you up a little.”

“It'll swallow me.”

“No, see—this whole village depends on this lake. It supports way more than it swallows. Literally,” he argued.

“That’s debatable.”

“Well, look. What I mean is—you're not sinking while you stand here, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. So now, hands on my arms. Just to balance.” His voice had gentled completely, stripped of any foolishness.

Emma placed her palms lightly on his forearms. He stepped backward so only their fingertips brushed, trying to project confidence and not think about how she was touching him, or how the sun caught in her hair, or—

“Now lean back. Slow. Don’t fight it.”

Emma’s breath hitched. “Alistair—”

“I'm right here. You're fine. I've got you.”

She let herself tilt, tension bowstring-tight through her body. The lake pressed cool against her back. For a split second she felt the drop—

Alistair's hand cupped the back of her shoulder immediately. “Hey. Stay with me. Just breathe, remember?”

Emma forced air in, tremoring with panic. The water steadied. She blinked up at the sky, not drowning, not falling. Just… floating.

After several seconds she whispered, almost betrayed, “It’s holding me.”

“See? What did I tell you? I'm occasionally right about things. Don't spread that around.”

She let out something between a laugh and a shaky exhale. “I hate this.”

“I know. And you're doing it anyway.”

She closed her eyes against the brightness. “Alistair… I need to tell you something.”

He stilled, hand still anchoring her shoulder. “Alright. I'm listening.”

But the water tensed under her.

“Later,” she whispered.

“Okay. Later, then.” No rush. Except for the Blight. And Loghain. And that thing with the Urn. But other than that...

They stayed like that—Emma terrified of buoyancy, Alistair steady beside her. Slowly, her muscles unclenched.

“There. That wasn't so bad, was it?”

“It's terrible.”

“But you did it.” His grin was genuine, proud even.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Enough.”

He helped her up. Together they waded back, the water falling away from her limbs like it was reluctant to release her. She didn’t relax until her feet stopped sinking into the mud.

Emma wrung out her sleeves. Then she gave up and removed the tunic.

He stopped himself from turning away, then resisted the urge to actually look. He stared into the grass, deciding on not changing the direction of where he was looking at all whatsoever. When they reached their discarded clothing, he wrapped his cloak around her.

“There,” he said, relieved, voice gentler than his grin. “You faced the lake, and the lake did not, in fact, eat you.”

Her hands trembled once, barely, before she pulled the cloak tightly around her.

“It tried,” he heard her say.

“…It maybe considered it. Briefly. But I wouldn't let that happen.”

She just stood there, gaze lowered.

He wanted to know what she’d meant back in the water. That I need to tell you something, then, later. It tied him into an internal knot. He’d been replaying the tone of it, the hesitation, the way the lake seemed to lean in—Maker, get a grip, man.

“Let’s sit a minute,” he offered.

They dropped onto a patch of sun-warmed grass, clothes clinging, boots abandoned somewhere behind them. For a few moments they just existed, side by side, listening to Redcliffe on the hill above.

Emma tucked her knees up under her chin. Alistair rested his elbows on his thighs, staring out at the water haughtily, as though daring it to look at her wrong.

He also pretended he wasn’t dying—quietly, politely—waiting for her to speak.

“Alistair,” she murmured.

He sat up too fast. “Yes?”

“About before. In the water.”

He tried to keep his expression level. But failed. He had to look away and pretend to adjust his damp sleeve.

“Oh. Right. That. When you said you needed to tell me something, and then immediately decided the lake wasn’t the right audience,” he said, and it came out very normal.

She looked up, a bit apologetic, a bit fragile, but with a smile— thin but real—made something in him unravel. She could see right through him. Of course she could.

“And I’d like to know what it was. If you want to tell me. If you’re ready. Or even semi-ready.”

Her brows lifted in a weary little arch—the kind she gave him whenever he was being simultaneously charming and inelegant. He took it as permission to keep going.

“I’m not prying,” he lied, poorly. “Just… nudging. With extremely good intentions.”

“It’s not about you,” she said, glancing sideways at him.

“Yes. Good. I mean—not good that it’s something else, but—well. You know.”

“I do.”

She stared at her knees for a long moment. Then lifted her gaze to the lake again, briefly.

“It scared you,” he said, quieter now. “Whatever it was.” That scared him.

“It's difficult. I don't talk about it, but...”

Emma sighed. He turned toward her fully.

“When I was young, in the Frostbacks… We followed the high paths in summer.”

”—you're Avvar.” He hadn’t expected that. It explained things—her instincts about spirits, the focus beneath her fear and the steel beneath her calm. He couldn't believe he didn't see it before.

“I was. Not a large hold. No stone walls, no banner, nor a name worth songs. Just terraces and cairns. A place we claimed for generations.”

“That year the melt came early. Too much sun, then a storm. The ice above the pass cracked. Not loudly. Just… gave way. It came down. Ice, rock, whole trees. All of us were already on the path.”

She swallowed.

“The mountain decided we were done.”

Oh, Maker.

“Emma,” he said softly.

“It swept everything and everyone away. It...happened so fast.”

His arm went around her shoulder and she leaned into him—actually leaned—and suddenly he couldn't breathe. This was the first time. The first time he'd been this close to her, and still. Not carrying or steadying her because she was too injured to stand. Not ducking her behind his shield with darkspawn bearing down on them. The first time it wasn't brief and terrified and over before he could process it.

This was different. This was her choosing to be held.

Part of him fought the urge to run away from this. Part of him wanted to never move again. All of him was acutely aware that she was trembling and he had no idea what to do with his other hand.

Her tragedy was unbearable. Her trust was euphoric. The combination was going to kill him.

She stared down at her palm, willing it still.

After a long moment, she exhaled shakily, reminding him to also.

“I didn’t think you’d want to know,” she said.

“Are you joking? There is nothing about you I don’t want to know.” He decided not to put his foot in his mouth, not this time.

She folded her knees and shifted into him, hugging his waist. His other arm wrapped around her, pulling her close.

“Well, nobody understood why we all drowned, but I lived. I mean, magic, obviously.”

She said it so lightly. Her voice resonated in his chest.

“Except I hardly knew any, and there were elder mages. It didn't make any sense. The Chantry questioned me for days... I think they suspected I caused the flood. Or...” she trailed off.

“I know you didn’t survive because you did something wrong,” he said, voice steady, so sure about something he couldn't know.

“It's possible. I don't know.”

“Whatever happened, you fought to stay alive. Anyone would've done the same.”

“Sure... and I was young. So they sent me to the Circle, like any other mage.”

“Em... I’m so sorry.”

“Don't be. It was... surprisingly easy, The tower… it let me forget. Or ignore it. I dreamed about it, sometimes...”

“And now that you’re out here…”

“Now, I know I cannot cope with a natural body of water. Embarrassing, really.”

“For what it’s worth,” Alistair added, trying for lightness but cracking in the middle, “if I’d gone through anything remotely like that, I’d probably still be hiding in a broom closet.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Absolutely would,” he insisted.

“Liar,” she pushed back.

They were camped on the edge of the road, firelight spitting sparks. The wind was thin and cold, carrying the scent of pine and distant rain. Alistair felt ridiculous, effort-fully protecting a flower from being crushed by his gear, during a march of all things. He couldn't carry on like this. He couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Here,” he said, pulling the rose from a leather bundle protecting it, tilting its face towards her. “Look at this. Do you know what this is?”

Emma hadn’t seen a living rose since before leaving the Tower. She touched a petal, tentatively, then pulled back. For a moment he thought she might refuse... but she pretended she'd cut herself on a blade.

“Your new weapon of choice?”

He took eagerly took advantage of her opening.

“Yes, that's right. Watch as I thrash our enemies with the mighty power of floral arrangements! Feel my thorns, darkspawn! I will overpower you with my rosy scent!” He paused, his smile turning sheepish. “Or, you know, it could be just a rose. I know that's pretty dull in comparison.”

“Sentiment can be a potent weapon.” Emma looked up at him with those dark eyes, which in twilight seemed all pupil and no iris, deeply absorbing as if possessing their own gravity... Oh, if he didn't speak now, he'd never...

“That obvious, am I? I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I picked it in Lothering.”

Emma recalled the doomed town, and by the highway, hearing of Leliana's dream—She pushed the thought aside. Whatever it meant, it could wait.

Alistair studied her, uncertain. She was even as ever. He hoped that was good.

“I remember thinking how strange it was,” he said, “that something so beautiful could grow in a place so full of despair. I should’ve left it, but I couldn’t. The darkspawn were coming. It would have been destroyed. So I kept it.”

The rose trembled slightly as he extended it toward her.

“I thought I might give it to you, actually.” She reached for it. This was going well.

“In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you.” Her fingertips brushed his palm, traced his knuckles. Deliberately.

He was used to armor, steel, and callouses. Emma was unlike any of that; although impossibly soft, her touch may as well have been a lightning bolt, bridging them with a crack of intensity. He went very still, pulse hammering visibly at his throat.

“You think of me as a gentle flower?” She withdrew, reaching past him to pinch the stem of the rose instead.

“A gentle flower? No... I don't know that I'd put it that way. I guess it's a bit silly, isn't it?” He kept talking, despite suddenly feeling remote.

“Here I am, doing all this complaining… and you haven’t exactly been having a good time of it yourself…You've had none of the good experiences of being a Grey Warden since your Joining. Not a word of thanks or congratulations. It's all been death and fighting and tragedy, and I realized...”

He hadn’t realized. He’d procrastinated. He was afraid to say it, like he may have made a mistake, unlikely as it now seemed.

“I've never even thanked you. For staying and not walking away when you had every reason to.”

Emma looked down at the rose, turning it slowly.

Emma: “You know I thought about it. Duncan didn't give me a choice. But you… He freed you. And it meant I got to know you.”

He wasn't prepared for that. It took a moment for his head to catch up to his still‑wild beating heart.

“I just wanted to tell you,” he said, “that you’re a rare and wonderful thing to find in all this darkness.”

“So… are we a thing now?”

He barked a laugh. “Ha. Please. You don’t catch me that easily. I know I’m quite the prize, after all... I guess it was just a stupid impulse. I don't know. Was it the wrong one?”

“No. Thanks, Alistair.”

Alistair felt an internal convolution loosen breathlessly. He wished to say something clever, warm, anything. But if he kept going much further—

“I’m glad you like it. Now, if we could just skip the awkward embarrassing part and jump straight to the steamy bits, that’d be great.”

—He might say something foolish and insincere, like that.

“Alright,” she said flatly, unsure what he'd do. “Clothes off.”

“Bluff called! Damn!” He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Maker’s— you’re cruel. Absolutely ruthless.”

“You’re cute when you’re bashful.”

“I’ll be—” he choked on his own fluster “—standing over here. Until the blushing stops. For safety. You know how it is.”

^

Denerim

Market District

The city watch patrolled the market in pairs, moving with the particular confidence of men who knew nothing bad would happen to them. Emma clocked them immediately. Medium armor. Good steel. Bored posture of the genuinely comfortable.

Alistair had been watching them too.

“Noble bastards,” he said, not quite under his breath.

She looked at him. He was looking at the nearest pair like they'd personally wronged him.

“They give you that slot,” he continued, voice going peculiarly flat, “acknowledging you exist but don't actually do anything with you. Like storing something in a room you don't use.” He paused. “I spent ten years in a monastery that felt like that room.”

“And now?”

“Now I'm here,” he said, with the cheerfulness of someone who'd decided the alternative was worse. He shouldered the ash warrior's axe and added with intended irony, “A Grey Warden. And it's fine. Totally fine. I'm fine.”

He kinda was, she thought. More or less. The resilience lived right next to the wound, the way scar tissue runs alongside nerve.

Morrigan had located a cartful of dried goods and was inspecting it with skepticism, her torn neckline and general aura of unconcealed power making the merchant sweat. Emma was aware that she, herself, did not look like a humble traveling companion. The robes were gold-trimmed Tevinter silk, stripped off a blood mage in the worst room of the Circle Tower. They said: I saw what they do to mages. I took the coat.

She could feel the eyes of the city watch when they passed.

“Could you have picked something less visible,” Alistair murmured, not quite a question.

“I had limited options.”

“You could have not taken the dead blood mage's fancy robe.”

“And worn what,” she said. “My Circle uniform?”

He grumbled. The Circle uniform had not survived. Little had survived. They were all wearing, in one way or another, the evidence of what had happened to them.

Leliana moved through the crowds with the practiced ease of someone who had been in and out of a great many places without being invited. She'd vanished into the chantry's outer colonnade ten minutes ago, and returned now with a satisfied expression and a clink in her bag.

“Perpetua had two lyrium potions in the most obvious place,” she said pleasantly. “Right there in the vestibule. Practically in a dish.”

“You stole from a chantry sister,” Alistair said.

“I borrowed, in a moment of need. Besides”—she tilted her head—”a templar had another one under the bench in the antechamber. So we're well-provisioned.” She smiled. “I left a candle lit.”

“For the templar?”

“For everyone.” She looked genuinely serene. “It's the thought.”

Morrigan said nothing. Her neck had been a ruin this morning and she moved now with the precise deliberateness of someone redistributing agony into something she could work with.

Emma's own skull was a dull specific pressure, like something lodged behind one eye. Alistair had a matching one, acquired separately, and they'd discussed it briefly over camp with the particular exhausted honesty of people who've run out of other things to talk about.

“It comes and goes,” he'd said.

“It comes,” she'd agreed.

Ser Landry

He appeared from near the fountain—older, red-faced, carrying himself with the moral certainty of a man who'd already decided how this conversation ended.

“I recognize you.” He stopped in front of Emma and then redirected toward Alistair, which she was used to. “From Ostagar. Andraste's blood, you're a Grey Warden.” His voice had the carrying quality of someone accustomed to being obeyed across distances. “Duncan's apprentice. You killed my friend and good King Cailan. I demand satisfaction, ser.”

Alistair just sighed, then slammed down the visor of his helm. The man blinked. It was not the response he'd planned for.

“The charges against the Wardens are false,” Emma said.

“So you would compound slander on top of treason?” He rounded on her, now, which was its own kind of answer. “You dare smear Teyrn Loghain's word?”

“Loghain abandoned his king to die. Think, man. Wardens wouldn't help the darkspawn.”

“We're very much against darkspawn,” Alistair said. “That's sort of the whole thing. The core of it, really.”

Ser Landry squinted at them. The weapon stayed sheathed.

“I do not like your tone, ser.” He said it with less heat than he'd started with. “But you may be right. I may regret this.” He straightened, as if returning to a posture he'd left. “I cannot duel someone who may be guiltless. Leave, Warden. If I find proof, we will meet again.”

He walked off the way he'd come, with the stiff dignity of a man renegotiating something he thought was already settled.

Leliana said, brightly, once he was around the corner: “That went well!”

Alistair turned to look at her.

“Did it?” he said. “I feel like I need to lie down.”

“You were very restrained,” said Leliana.

“I was so restrained. I was the most restrained person on this entire street.”

Sister Theohild

The chantry smelled like beeswax and old stone and the particular anxious quality of prayer in places that have seen too much of what it doesn't fix. A sister and Mother near the front. The Mother sat with her hands folded. The other—older, small, absolutely certain—was leading the Chant of Light from a lectern, loudly, and incorrectly.

“The one who repents, who has faith unshaken by the darkness of the world, and roasts not over the misfortunes of the weak—”

“Boasts,” said the Mother, with the weariness of someone who had made this correction many times. “It's 'boasts,' Sister. Not 'roasts.'”

“Hmm.” She returned to the page. “She shall know the peas of the Maker's benediction—”

“Peace, Sister. Peace.”

“The Veal holds no uncertainty”—she raised her voice slightly, as if volume would resolve the matter—”for the Maker shall be her bacon and her shield—”

“There's no Veal in the Chant!” Mother Perpetua, unawares of the missing lyrium that had until recently been under her bench—pressed her hands together. “You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?”

Emma said, “I like her version better.”

Alistair started laughing, a little unprepared for that admission. “Me too.” He watched Sister Theohild continue, serene and incorrect, through the next passage. “No one ever taught me that when I was a templar.”

“Pedagogical failure,” Emma said.

“Bacon and shield,” Alistair repeated. “Actually, that's—that's better. Bacon is a protection against the world.”

“A very meaty theology,” Emma said.

“Exactly. I could have gotten behind that.”

Dirty Laundry (Denerim)

The house smelled like wet linen and too many people sleeping in too few rooms. Practical poverty.

Goldanna was already watching them from the doorway, arms crossed. The look of someone who'd answered too many knocks and found nothing good on the other side. Her hands were red from work.

“You have linens to wash? Three bits on the bundle. Don't trust what that Natalia woman tells you either, she's foreign and she'll rob you blind.”

Emma didn't see this going well.

Alistair's voice came out carefully. “I'm... not here for washing. My name's Alistair. I'm—this may sound strange, but. Are you Goldanna?”

“I am Goldanna, yes... How do you know my name? What kind of tomfoolery are you folk up to?”

“I suppose I'm your brother.”

Goldanna went through suspicion and then recognition—one emotion draining out as the other flooded in. “You! I knew it! They told me you was dead—the babe was dead along with mother—”

And Alistair, who had been braced for nothing, who had no defenses prepared for this, went utterly still.

Emma said, “Just listen to him,” and Goldanna was already building steam. The babe. The coin they gave her. The castle, the lies, her five children, the years—all of it landing on Alistair like he'd personally arranged each one. In her peripheral vision, Emma tracked the careful hope in his face dissolving in real time.

“That's not his fault,” Emma said, when Goldanna got to the part where he'd killed their mother by being born.

“And who in the Maker's name are you? Some tart to follow him around?”

Alistair snapped to life. “Don't speak to her that way. She's my friend, and a Grey Warden.”

Goldanna was true to her name, transactional in the way only real desperation manages, just arithmetic. She wanted money. What she'd actually wanted was a different life, but that was unavailable, so money would have to do.

Alistair offered fifteen sovereigns with the air of someone hoping to be corrected, told it was enough, told he'd done well.

“For the children,” said Emma reluctantly, when he asked.

Goldanna finally threw them out, slamming the door closed on them. The street outside was Denerim-gray. Market noise from two blocks over. Someone's laundry strung between buildings overhead, dripping.

Alistair said: “Well. That was.” He stopped. “I'm sorry I gave her any money. This is the family I've been wondering about. I thought—I suppose I expected her to just. Accept me. Isn't that what family does.” He watched the laundry drip. “I feel like a complete idiot.”

Then: “The only person who ever cared about me was Duncan. And he's gone.”

Something in her chest constricted, hot, with the frustration of watching him look directly at a thing he didn't see. She'd told him, plainly, seriously—and he'd filed it under pleasantry, or mistake, or things people say.

“What did I tell you.” It came out sharper than she meant.

He blinked. “I'm—sorry?”

“I care about you.” It came out less playful than she'd aimed for. “I told you not to forget.”

He stared at her. The helm was under his arm. He looked very young and very tired and also like someone who'd just been blindsided.

“I... thank you,” he said.

“I'm not the only one,” Emma said. Steadier, now. She thought of Leliana and Wynne, who were warm with him. “You have people.”

And even Morrigan, which would have appalled her. The contempt between them was real and mutual and entirely unambiguous—but Morrigan had his back, freezing enemies before they could reach him.

He'd taken a hit for her in the Tower that left him staggering for ten minutes afterward.

The sentiment wasn't there. The actions were.

“You have rivals who treat you better.”

He almost smiled. The strained kind that doesn't quite make it.

“I'm glad you came with me.”

She looked at him thinking about the fifteen sovereigns he'd handed over without hesitation. The way his voice had pitched into careful hopefulness when he'd said I'm your brother to someone who was never going to be glad to hear it.

She reached up. Her gloved fingers slipped under the mail at his neck—the articulated links warm from his skin despite the air—and she felt, even through the leather, the frantic beat of his pulse. His heart working too hard. Body still in the aftermath of something it'd been bracing against for years.

He bent toward her. She pressed their foreheads together. He closed his eyes as the blood rushed to his cheeks. She let him have a breath of it.

“You won't forget?” she asked.

His eyes were still closed. She could feel him swallow.

“Emma...” Just her name. Like that was the only thing he had.

“When she blamed you for being born.” Her voice was quiet. Even. “You didn't say a word.”

He opened his eyes. “What was I supposed to say?”

“Anything.” She didn't move away. “You defended me in a breath. She called me a tart and you snapped. But you—” she paused. His pulse under her fingers was still so fast. “If you don't want to defend yourself—do it for me.”

They stood there.

“Let's go,” he said finally, voice rough at the edges. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.”

She dropped her hand.

Somewhere behind them the city kept its noise—shouting, commerce, the particular hostility of individuals who knew something was wrong but hadn't decided what to do. Here, at the edge of it, a fire, a dog, and two Wardens.

Emma heard him sit next to her. Quiet, for him, now unarmored.

“I've been thinking,” Alistair said.

She'd known since the street outside Goldanna's house. The way he'd gone silent and then stayed silent.

“You've been circling the fire for awhile.”

“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”

“No,” she agreed. “They're not.”

He was quiet long enough that she glanced up. He was watching the fire, forearms on his knees, hands loose.

“Em, Look... back there,” he said. “With Goldanna. I kept thinking about what you said after. About standing up for myself.” He turned a pebble over with his boot.

He looked up then. “I've been through that whole house in my head, thinking—she blamed me for existing, and I just—And then she called you a—” He stopped.

“And... Maker, I never even thought about it. Funny. She can say whatever she wants to me. I've heard it my whole life, from different voices. But you—” He shook his head. “That I couldn't let sit.”

“Like when that blood mage had you frozen behind the barricades,” Alistair said, quieter, “I stopped thinking. I just went.” He looked at his hands. “I cut through the whole line. I do that for you—I go, every time—but if I don't protect myself— then you have to.”

Emma slipped her arms around him. Something she'd been longing for outside Goldanna's house, when he was plated save for the helm he'd removed to meet someone who did not care for it. Without the armor there was just him—the give of a linen shirt, warmth that shouldn't have surprised her but did.

“I don't want to be someone who only exists to absorb things,” he said, his voice going rough as he hugged her. He held on. “I mean, I'm pretty good at it. I won't stop. There's a difference between stepping in front of a sword and just...I don't know. I'll try. To pick my battles. I think. I'm working on that.”

“And I don't want you thinking you don't matter when I say something like—” He winced. “—Duncan was the only one who cared. You were standing right there.”

“You are a true friend,” he said. “The first real one I've had. Meeting you has been the one bright spot in all of this. And... I love you.”

He didn't look away. Didn't qualify it or immediately find something self-deprecating to say.

“Good,” Emma said.

He blinked.

“Is that—” He seemed to recalibrate. “Is that all you're going to say?”

“What else? That covers it.”

“I don't know. Something. Anything. You could—you could tell me I'm an idiot. That would feel familiar.”

“You're not an idiot.” She squeezed him for emphasis. He let out a long breath. “And I love you.”

“Right,” he said. “Okay.” Something in his chest unknotted. “Good.”

He squeezed her back, and rested his chin gently on her head. They settled there. The fire crackled. Muffin snorted in his sleep. Somewhere past the edge of camp, Denerim continued its argument with itself.

“For the record,” Alistair said, after a while, “I thought there'd be more fanfare.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“And I had a whole speech.”

“I could hear you rehearsing.”

“Maker's breath.” He shuddered. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“Was it—”

“It was good, Alistair.”

“Okay,” he said again, softer.

She could feel him thinking—the slight shift of his jaw, more words, before they became words. Then he stopped trying to think and just stayed. She could feel his heartbeat against her temple, steady where it hadn't been.

26030114600

A long/unwieldly mirror of msc.

Stuff from the fic that doesn't fit, too far ahead of myself, or I'm not sure what to do with, but still kinda like. or am starting to dislike, or something.

9:2x

Portrait 1

Scope

9:30

Portrait 2

Truce – Alistair POV

Prisoner – Emma POV

9:31-ish

Lost Save – Urn of Sacred Ashes

Flemeth – Kokari wilds

9:33-34??

Objectification – Orzammar

Proof – Orzammar Proving

Prison Break – Fort Drakon, Denerim

????

Knight monologue

Accident

Portrait (Diptych)

(9:25, 5 yrs ago) The portrait hung in a narrow alcove on the way to the chapel, gilt frame bright against weathered stone. King Maric, forever mid-stride, cloak wind-tossed, smiling bravely. The hallway choked with apprentices pressing close to it, trading rumors. Two Templars stood beneath the frame, helmets tilted, pretending to supervise while obviously eavesdropping.

Areli spotted Emma passing quietly behind the crowd, and nudged through to meet her. Emma acknowledged her with a look, which moved across the students then Templars: unimpressed by the sudden gravity in the air.

Areli loved that about her.

“Let's go,” she murmured. They climbed up the narrow, curling flight of stairs into the higher floors.

The Chantry's guard recognized them and waved them through at the wrong hour. Their work was so dull and specialized no one had bothered memorizing their schedule. The restricted top level level had become used to them.

“You knew,” Emma said. Proud.

“King Maric's dead,” Areli confirmed. “Lost men don't survive at sea for long.”

“Did they find anything? Wreckage?”

“Nobody knows,” said the Templar in the doorway. “But Cailan's the new king. Long may he reign.” His gaze lingered on Areli in a way that had nothing to do with what he was saying.

The room still smelled faintly of incense from a recent Harrowing, the Veil wobbling thin in the air, cut by the silhouette of the telescope. They set to work on the star charts, shoulders brushing more than necessary, until the Templar's footsteps faded down the corridor.

When his patrol stretched long enough, Areli produced a tiny satchel of herbs from her sleeve. They passed it between them, the mild haze softening nervous edges in the chamber.

“Did they think the legendary king Maric was riding back to them, out of a storm?” Areli rolled her eyes, summoning a soft breeze to scatter the scent.

“To the late King Maric,” Emma responded dryly. “And his son.”

“Yes,” Areli agreed, with sardonic gratitude. “Bless their very large problems, far from us.”

Downstairs, the portrait had devolved into theater. Even First Enchanter Irving hovered at the edges, observing the chatter spiral and settle. A cluster of enchanters clucked about the new king. “So young,” one said. “So tragic.” The older apprentices exchanged glances. Someone giggled.

Wynne swept in like a winter gust. “This is not amusing,” she snapped, launching into a lecture about Maric's campaigns against Orlesian occupation, reciting dates and battles.

She scowled at their irreverence and assigned extra reading. The tower had stripped these children of any country outside stone walls. In time, she promised, they would mature and understand the importance of national freedom. The Good King Maric had ended Orlesian tariffs, saved the Circle's budget. That meant something.

When Areli and Emma finally descended for evening assembly, the hallway had emptied. Only Jowan remained, hunched over like a wet sock.

“My parents must be upset. They loved him.” He laughed bitterly. “So—whatever. Fuck them. Fuck the King, this one and the last.”

His words came out small, shaky. He braced for reproach. Behind him, Emma made a crude gesture toward the portrait—a sharp, repetitive flick of her wrist that implied Maric was a monumental wanker.

Areli laughed, bright and unbothered. Jowan flushed pink but smiled, convinced he'd said something clever. Emma looked smug. The tension eased.

Night settled. Assembly passed. And sometime later, a new portrait appeared in a different hall: Cailan, all gold and hope and hero's posture. Almost nobody noticed it at all.

(9:30, “now”) The Circle was a ruin. Emma had been warned, but warnings couldn't blunt the shock of walking through halls where barely a tenth of the mages had survived. Doors hung splintered. Curtains streaked rust-brown. Some apprentices had been found hiding in wardrobes, others dragged half-conscious from crawlspaces. The Templars had retreated behind the ground-floor barricade.

The weeks under Uldred's occupation had left grime and gore smudged across stone. Barely visible on the wall was a pale rectangle. A ghost of a ghost. The place where Maric's portrait had hung.

Now Maric's face rose unbidden in her mind, more vivid than she had any right to remember. The strong lines, the bright eyes. She'd thought the portrait a little idealized back then. Now she wasn't sure.

Alistair looked like him.

It must have been a good likeness, if she could see the resemblance so clearly in hindsight. Why hadn't she seen it before?

Cailan's portrait… she couldn't even place it in the building. She remembered the man more than the image: On the day he died, gleaming in golden plate at Ostagar, that impossible armor, cheerfully greeting her. Later, in the command tent lit by torches, he'd stood beside Duncan, Loghain, and Uldred—yes, Uldred, smiling like a man who hadn't already decided to damn the tower.

Only weeks after Jowan betrayed her. And in turn, mere weeks before Uldred slaughtered nearly everyone here. In the space of a season she'd gone from nameless apprentice to nameless Grey Warden, standing before a king, being told to follow Alistair to Ishal.

He was just some rookie Warden, as far as she'd known. And he still was. But he'd known more about being a Warden than she did, and she'd leaned on that knowledge. He hadn't known much—but he'd been open with her. Or she'd believed he had.

But not about this.

Even while they became criminals, fugitives, hunted by Loghain as traitors to Ferelden.

There had only been time to act. Leliana had spoken to everyone, returned to Emma with sweet, pointed assurances she'd ensure the truth stay quiet. Redcliffe was begging for help. Connor needed freeing. Bandits and monsters tore apart everything along the roads. And so easily she resumed trusting him—to draw fire with clumsy, dependable courage, or outmaneuver enemies in alleys too narrow for his shield.

Emma sank down against the cold stone beneath the vanished portrait and lit the herbs she and Areli had once used to celebrate Maric's death. Now just a dry cope. She inhaled slowly, chest tight.

Areli, the Circle, the King with all the Grey Wardens, were gone.

She and Alistair were younger than even Cailan had been.

And it was so, so tragic.

Scope

The old observatory at the top of Kinloch Hold was a forgotten chamber, a dusty and round stone hollow, its windows narrowed to slits. Dust clung thick to the grooves where benches had once been dragged for lessons. At its center loomed a great brass telescope on a cracked dais—a relic and silent witness, perpetually looking up.

Emma sat cross-legged under its lens, her codex with its false hymn-book cover spread open across her knees. A scatter of textbooks and loose papers sprawled around her, some destined to be stitched into the codex later. Her quill scratched steadily as she copied constellations, weaving together her own observations, the actually accurate bits of existing charts, into something her own.

Areli also laid amongst the sprawl of papers, books and scrolls, freckles lit by a narrow strip of light from the mostly-covered windows.

“Tell me something, Em,” she said lazily. “Why is it that we could—” her eyes flicked toward Emma with a wicked grin, “—sneak off for a quick tumble up here, and it’d get us a scolding at worst. But if they caught us asleep or late to morning chant, we’d be scrubbing the dorm floors for a month?”

Emma did not look up from her page. “One’s more predictable than the other,” she murmured, adjusting the careful angle of a tiny star-line.

“Predictable,” Areli scoffed, rolling to her side to watch Emma’s fingers. “One is more sinful, supposedly. Or are we more dangerous asleep than scandalous?”

“Possibly.” Emma raised her brows in mock solemnity.

Areli laughed softly, reached across to doodle in Emma’s margins.

“Still… I’d rather like to nap.”

Emma’s quill paused. She’d been working out the puzzle of how to gift Areli that: a morning with their attendance covered, the smallest rebellion. So innocent, so nearly impossible.

They lapsed into a companionable hush. Eyes half-lidded, Areli slowed her doodling: faceless figures resembling them, entwined beneath a starburst.

“See? Perfect,” she murmured, head sinking onto Emma’s shoulder. The ink on the page wobbled. “Wake me in a century.”

Before Emma could answer, a soft hiss broke from the stairwell. Lily rounded the entrance to the observatory, hurried and flushed.

“They’re on rounds.”

Areli shot upright with a groan. “Lily, you’re a saint and a curse.”

Emma already had the hymn book tucked away, her chart half-finished. She held Areli’s hand to tug her gently toward the exit. Their footsteps echoed down the stairwell, hearts pounding, quietly laughing as they rushed to slip back into the bunk. Above them, their telescope kept its patient gaze toward the sky.

Truce (Alistair POV)

Spoiled Princess Inn, Lake Calenhad

The stew is suspicious. Alistair sets it in front of Emma with the care of a man offering tribute to something arcane and unreadable. Now he's sitting across from her, not meeting her eyes, and thinking about the stew.

The stew is a good thing to think about.

Rabbit, allegedly. He has doubts. He relayed these doubts aloud because that's what he does — releases whatever forms first, then evaluates the damage in real time. He has been trying, lately, to stop doing that. To think first. He's been trying very hard.

It's going spectacularly.

She's looking at the soup now instead of him. He looks at the table. Then at Leliana, who is doing something conspiratorial at the bar. Then at the window, where the tower sits in the lake.

Emma's going back in there tomorrow. With him, and everyone. Back into the place that made her. He doesn't know what that means to her and he's been afraid to ask because every time he opens his mouth she looks at him with that particular expression — not unkind, just confused.

“I miss you,” she says.

He looks up. What? like a stuck door. “I'm here,” he says.

She meets his eyes. “Not really.”

Right. Right. Yes. He's been aware, in the way you're aware of something you've also forgotten, a stone in your boot that you've decided you'll deal with later and then you've been walking on it numb. Gone stiff. She'd used that word once, talking about something else, and he'd filed it under things that apply to me, specifically, right now.

“I decided to stop embarrassing myself,” he says.

She says, Oh, which does not make it better.

He explains. He's explaining. He tries to sound like someone who has thought about this calmly and rationally and not like someone who, in the business with Leliana, lay awake rearranging the same thoughts in increasingly baroque configurations until sunrise. Maybe it was better if I didn't say the wrong thing. Very sensible. Very measured. He'd been trying. He'd been doing her a favor, actually, by not filling every silence with whatever falls out of his head.

“So you said nothing,” she says.

“Yes.” He winces. “Which appears to be worse.”

She's looking at her drink now, and she says something about how he used to just talk to her. About anything. About nothing. About templars stealing lyrium, about — and here she names the incident. She remembers, in detail. The lyrium, the fire, the accident — and he says that was an accident, and she says I know, that's why it was funny, and she says she misses it, when you tell me the first thing that comes to your head, and something about that specific phrasing...

He explains: after Leliana, he panicked. He doesn't use the word panicked. He says he started thinking this was a sign, that he was out of his depth, that he doesn't have a lot of experience with this — which is a spectacular understatement, he has exactly no experience with this, he grew up in a hayloft and then a monastery, and then the Wardens and the Blight started, there was not a lot of time for — anyway. He thought she deserved better than an idiot with a mouth running ahead of his brain.

“I liked the idiot,” she says.

He almost smiles. He tells her he's trying to be worthy of it, because that's what it felt like — like this mattered enough to become the kind of person who could handle a conversation without constantly putting his foot in things. Like he owed her a better version of himself. Like the version he'd been wasn't enough.

“Please stop,” she says, and there's something in her voice that makes him go very still. “You were enough when you weren't trying. That's the problem.”

He was enough.

He processes this.

He was — all right, the problem with that is: if he was enough, then why — but that's not a productive line of thinking. He's really not going to think about why she was flirting with Leliana if he was already enough. Nope, not in a public inn where the stew is dubious and he's already on thin conversational ice.

He can't treat something like this casually. He's trying to say that.

He looks at the table. Then his hands. Then at Emma.

And Leliana, murmuring at the bar.

Fine. He asks about Leliana. He'd been saving this question, turning it over, still not sure if it was ever any of his business. She'd shut something down with Leliana, and he'd watched it happen from a tactical distance of approximately fifteen feet, and he'd thought: because of me? possibly because of me? And then he'd talked himself out of it, because that was probably arrogant, to assume —

“Yes,” she says.

So she chose this.

“I did,” she says.

He was going to say I wasn't sure, which is true, and then he was going to say I didn't know you felt that way, which is also true, but then something else comes out of her—

“Why would you ask me to choose you and then stop being you?” — it is unfairly accurate and it lands somewhere under his sternum.

He puts his elbows on the table and puts his face in his hands and looks at her. There is nowhere better to look, and she asked a direct and reasonable question that he does not have a direct and reasonable answer to. The answer is: being chosen felt so improbable that when it happened he immediately started trying to earn it retroactively, which is not how that works, which he knows, which has not stopped him.

But he asks, “So, where do we go from here?”

She says they could stop. He looks away, says right, of course, I understand, and means it in the bleakest possible way, because of course that's how this ends, because he did something stupid and overcorrected into a different kind of stupid, the full arc of a genius—

She says no, no, so quickly he has to look back. You don't understand.

“You got scared. I—”

She hesitates.

“I don't want to scare you.”

That he was not prepared for. His shoulders drop about an inch, like something that had been braced too long finally accepts that the hit isn't coming. She was worried. About him. About scaring him.

He'd been so busy trying to be careful with her that it hadn't occurred to him that she might be doing the same thing from the other side. Two people handling the same object so gently it was floating untouched in the middle.

And then she asks: my magic. Is that it?

He stares at her for a second. Of all the — he's fought abominations. He says this, almost before he means to, with more heat than he intended: he's fought darkspawn and ogres, they've fought them together, he's not afraid of her. She tells him she doubts it's that simple, and he tries to regroup — what did you mean, then? That I see you as a risk? As something to manage?

She doesn't answer.

He's quieter when he says: “I know what you are. I've always known. It's never once been the part that worried me.”

She crosses her arms and tells him he can barely look at her.

He has to think about that. He has, in fairness, been looking at the table a lot. The drink. His hands. The alleged stew. Things that don't look back with that particular, specific expression that makes him feel as though he's melting internally. But not because he's afraid of her — afraid of magic, afraid of Emma — that's not it, that's never been it.

What worries me, he says, reluctantly, is me ruining this.

She looks at him like she was expecting something substantially worse.

“That's it?”

Yes, he says, and he is, frankly, a little irritated now. Yes, that's all. Merely—

”—Just the little matter of I don't want to take you for granted. And how I'm trying to, for once in my life, think before I say something stupid. Is that so horrible?”

She asks why, and she looks tired. The chair creaks when she leans back, and she tells him he was never wrong in the first place, “Now... you act like I'm fragile,” she says.

Which makes no sense. She's the least shatterable person he's ever met.

He starts to say I'm not— because she absorbed the Joining and the Blight and all of this fighting and tragedy like something uncomfortable and inconvenient.

“You are. You think one wrong word and I'll stop talking to you? Decide you're not worth it?”

He hadn't — he hadn't thought of it that way. He hadn't thought of it as thinking she was the problem, as treating her like something that would shatter if mishandled.

“I didn't realize it looked like that.” He sits back.

That's — yeah. She's right. He's been treating her like that. But he's the one who is fragile. The whole time.

“Do you think I don't know what you are?”

She knows who he is.

She's saying it like it's obvious. Like she has to point it out because he's forgotten, and the thing is — he has, a bit.

He's been so busy trying to construct a version of himself that was worth the choosing that he let the person who got chosen in the first place evaporate quietly into the background.

He tells her he was trying to do her a favor.

“I don't need that favor,” she says. Irritated, arguing. Because she knows who he is, and wants him. Maker, he'll try to stop. but he's not sure he knows how to stop flailing.

“I didn’t do you any favors. I know that now.”

She says it's not an audition, which is — he opens his mouth, and he says he's sorry, he's doing this all stiff and wrong, he'll try — and she says please again, like she's actually begging, “I need you to actually be here.”

She asks about going back to how things were. He can hear what he's not saying: even though you let Leliana down for this, even though you burned something for this, you'd just—

“It’s a truce. We don’t escalate. We don’t audition. We just… talk.”

“I'll take it,” he says, immediately, and then something human reasserts itself and he hears himself call it extremely un-suave, which it is. She says she's not good at romance, like it's a fact about her, some practical information for navigation—

”—you should learn this.”

“That’s tragic,” he replies.

“For both of us,” she's so dry, so even, always.

He tells her, then, carefully: he doesn't know if he's ready for “—well, you know.“

She says she's not worried about that.

“You chose this,” he said again, like he was testing the shape of it.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not… reconsidering.”

“No.”

He looks down. I don't know where this goes, he says, because that's the truest thing he can produce at this particular moment, and it's the one thing he can actually say out loud without it turning into something he hasn't sorted out yet.

“So?” She raises an eyebrow. “The truce.”

“Although—” He starts. Stops. He'd been about to say something. Something in the vicinity of —that maybe the truce is a mistake— and then he looked at her and the sentence died of its own accord.

She looks at him.

“Nothing,” he says. “It's fine. Truce.”

He believes this approximately sixty percent.

Prisoner (Emma POV)

The arcane dome pulsed faintly with violet light. Inside it, a Templar knelt on stone. The only one to survive, so far, and they'd nearly reached the top.

His armor was dented and blood-streaked, eyes wide and glassy. He was muttering something—prayers, denials, negotiations with invisible demons. His hands were raw from clawing at the barrier.

Emma stopped. Her stone armor settled with a soft grinding sound.

Cullen.

He was nearly unrecognizable, but for his voice. She had been braced for hysteria, for the Templar’s frothing terror, but not this. Not specificity.

“This trick again? I know what you are. It won't work. I will stay strong.”

Wynne moved forward, hands raised in a gesture meant to be pacifying. “The boy is exhausted. Rest easy—help is here.”

“Enough visions.” Cullen lurched upright, swaying. “If anything in you is human, kill me now and end this game.”

Emma's manna spiked so aggressively that Alistair suppressed a flinch. She'd have obliged him, gladly. Her restraint was immense.

Leliana stepped closer, waterskin already in hand. “He's delirious. Here—”

“Don't touch me!” Cullen recoiled so violently he hit the curve of his containment. “Stay away! Sifting through my thoughts, tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never have... Using my shame against me, my ill-advised infatuation with her—a mage, of all things.”

Everyone felt terribly uncomfortable with this. When he stopped talking, one could hear a pin drop. Even the bubble's hum seemed to quiet.

“I am so tired,” Cullen whispered. “All these cruel jokes. These tricks. These—”

“Which mage, Cullen?” Emma asked. It would seem that the demons of the Fade had a lot of practice tempting its captives with the image of this particular mage.

“Enough,” he snapped. “I won’t listen. Begone.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, breath stuttering when she was still there. “Maker help me.”

Cullen's eyes focused for the first time. He recognized her. “You,” he breathed. “You're real.”

“I'm real.” Emma took one step closer. “Answer the question. Which mage?”

He stared at her like she'd materialized from his nightmares. Which, in a way, she had. “I... She...”

“Say her name.”

“No—I can't. They made me watch. Over and over. She kept telling me to... to surrender. To trust her. I knew it wasn't real. I knew.” His hands were shaking. “But sometimes I forgot. Sometimes I—”

“Do you even remember her?” Emma said.

That did it. His head snapped up. “I remember exactly.”

Emma nodded once. Her attention was a blade, held steady. “Then say her name.”

He didn’t.

“Areli—may that Maker-of-yours damn you!— she was Areli Surana. What happened during her Harrowing?”

“I was... I was doing my duty. Following orders. She was—the demon was—”

“She passed every test before that night,” Emma said quietly. “Every single one. Everyone said so. She was the best student in Wynne's cohort.”

“Then why did she fail?” Cullen's question was a demand. “Why did the demon—”

“You tell me.” Emma's voice was ice. “You were there.”

Alistair stepped up to flank her. A warning, or a comfort. Emma couldn't tell which.

Cullen's face twisted. “I had no choice. The demon was already—she was already—I couldn't—” His breath came in hitches. “There was nothing I could do.”

“So you killed her.”

“I saved everyone else! I protected her from herself!” The load-bearing lie, spoken like a prayer.

“If I hadn't acted, if I'd hesitated even a second longer, it would have torn through the entire tower. You don't understand what I saw. What it made her—”

“I understand,” Emma said, “that you want me to believe you had no choice. But it didn't get there by itself, did it?”

Wynne touched her arm. “Emma. He's been through—”

“Poor Cullen.” Emma didn't look away from the prisoner. “Kneeling now. But he was upright when Uldred took this Tower. He was armed when Areli was trapped.”

She paused. “The demons and blood mages kept him alive. On purpose. Why?”

Cullen made a sound like he'd been punched.

“Stop—”

“Did she beg you to stop? Does some part of you believe you loved her?”

“Stop!!” He pounded on the barrier. Alistair shifted closer to Emma, by inches. She had provoked Cullen to frenzy. For a moment, they all thought he might try to attack her through it.

“Did you even wait to see if she could fight it off?” Emma continued.

“You weren't there! You don't know what it's like to watch someone you—to see them become—” He was gasping now, hands pressed to his temples. “I see her every time I close my eyes. I see what she became.”

“What they made her become. What it, and you made her...”

She trusted you; I trusted you. Emma couldn't say it.

Cullen collapsed back to his knees. “Why did you come back?” His voice was hollow now, all the fight gone. “How did you survive?”

“This is my home,” Emma said. The words felt dry. “Or it was.”

“As it was mine. Look what they've done to it. They deserve to die. Uldred most of all.”

“Where are Irving and the other mages?” Wynne interjected.

“The Harrowing chamber. But you can't save them. You don't know what they've become.”

“And you do?” Emma asked.

“They've been surrounded by blood mages—” Cullen's eyes were feverish now. “Their wicked fingers snake into your mind, corrupt your thoughts. You can't tell who's been turned. Who's still human.” He looked directly at Emma. “You have to end it. Now. Before it's too late.”

“End what, exactly?”

“All of it.” He said it simply. “To ensure this horror ends, to guarantee that no abominations or blood mages survive—you must kill everyone up there.”

Emma felt something cold slide down her spine. Behind her, Leliana inhaled sharply.

“Everyone,” Emma repeated. “Even the ones who fought Uldred. Even the ones who resisted.”

“You can't tell maleficarum by sight.” Cullen's voice gained strength, gained certainty. “Just one could influence the mind of a king, a grand cleric. The risk is too great. If you care about Ferelden—if you care about anyone outside these walls—you'll do what's necessary.”

Alistair stood next to her, close enough that his mail almost brushed her shoulder. It had picked up the cold in the air. She could feel it.

Emma felt a painful irony, poison in her second pulse. A bastard prince stood at her side, listening. A future king, maybe, hopefully not. Influenced, right now, not by blood magic but by herself, her choices.

“If he wants us to kill survivors,” that bastard said, quietly. Not to Cullen. To Emma. “We're not doing that.”

Cullen's head snapped toward him. “You don't understand. You weren't here. You didn't see—You're one of them—”

“I know exactly what you saw.” He paused. “The memory of your friends' deaths is still fresh in your mind. You're not thinking straight.”

Cullen stared at him, something like betrayal dawning in his eyes. “You... you would trust her?” He gestured at Emma. “She let Jowan walk.”

“We know. And she's about to save whatever mages are still alive up there.”

Cullen opened his mouth, slack, shocked. “You're making a mistake.”

“It's worth a shot,” Alistair said.

“We've come out better for our mistakes, so far,” Leliana added.

Emma wasn't paying attention to them. She was still looking at Cullen. Her hand drifted toward her staff. Everyone in the room saw it.

She turned to Wynne. “Can you drop the barrier?”

Wynne didn't answer. But she was ready to intervene. Ready to heal. Emma's fingers closed around the staff, tight with potential violence. The bubble hummed.

Cullen didn't move. He just watched her, eyes wide and almost hopeful. Like he wanted her to do it.

Like it would prove him right.

“We need him alive,” Wynne said carefully. “If we kill his last man, Greagoir won't hear us.”

“I know.” Emma's voice was steady. Too steady. “When this is over, your boss will want to know why the malificar kept you. You'll tell him we saved lives, and the Chantry men who wanted to slaughter everyone were wrong.”

“And if I don't?”

Then I'll come back. And we'll finish this conversation.

“You will. Because you'll need them to believe you had no choice—again.”

Emma abruptly walked past the bubble without looking back. Alistair followed immediately.

“May the Maker watch over you.” Leliana cast one more troubled glance at Cullen before trailing after them.

Behind them, muffled by stone and distance, they could hear Cullen start to pray.

Wynne lingered, following last.

“It's just cruel,” she sighed.

As they climbed the stairs toward the Harrowing chamber, Alistair opened the visor of his helm, trying to get a better read on his fellow Warden. Failing that, looking for something to resolve the unease he felt.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Emma said. She didn't slow down. Didn't look at him. Just kept climbing.

Alistair nodded. Asked nothing else. Stayed close.

Morrigan materialized from raven-form on the landing above them, golden eyes sharp. “The chamber above reeks of blood magic and desperation,” she said. Then, studying Emma's face: “And I heard you have encountered someone from your past. How interesting.”

“You have no idea,” Alistair muttered.

“Oh, I have some idea.” Morrigan's smile was knowing, indeed. “So much guilt and rage and misdirected devotion.”

Emma said nothing. Alistair's polished armor caught the light from above—the sickly green glow of illegal, horrible magic filtering down the stairs.

“Well,” Morrigan continued, “are we now pretending that restraining yourself from ending him is a noble act? We have spared the jailer of Circle mages we also meant to aid. 'Tis a tangled contradiction you are weaving.”

“She didn't kill him because it wouldn't have helped,” Alistair said.

“How pragmatic. And here I thought it was mercy.”

“Mercy is conditional,” Emma said quietly. “I haven't decided if he's used his up.”

even more disjointed now btw

Lost Save – Haven (Urn of Sacred Ashes) – 9:31ish

They stood before the column of fire, the air around it rippling with heat that somehow failed to burn.

“Right,” Alistair said, eyeing the flames. “So we just… walk through it. Naked. In front of everyone.”

Emma was already disrobing, quoting, “Those who carry nothing but truth may pass unharmed.”

“An absurd religious hazing ritual. Appropriate, I guess.”

He glanced back at their companions, who had tactfully turned away—except Zevran, who was laughing, delighted by the spectacle.

“You can wait here,” Emma offered, unbuckling her belt. Glass vials and metal clasps clinked as she dropped it onto the stone.

“And let you have all the fun? Absolutely not.”

She helped him undo a series of buckles. The intimacy of it—the ritual stripping-down, the preparation for trial—more vulnerable than the nakedness itself. He dropped the last of his gear beside hers, catching her eye. The holy fire cast strange halos around them.

Finally, he pulled the loose edges of her robe aside, lowering it over her shoulders, revealing her. He’d seen her unclothed before—privately, closely—but not like this. Not illuminated by something holy and terrible while their companions half-giggled behind them.

Only now, in the clarity of that bright fire, did he appreciate how she’d changed: leaner, firmer, a little less mage and a little more soldier. He shivered without his tunic.

She smirked. He returned a shy smile. The tension softened into something conspiratorial.

“Well,” he said as she took his hand, “if we die, at least we’ll die beautiful.”

Emma laughed, tugging him forward, stepping into the fire.

There was no heat. No pain. Only the sensation of being lifted—unmade, then remade.

They were nowhere.

Then the fire spat them into elsewhere.

A vast, unfamiliar void. Naked. Weightless. Colors churned like storm-glass caught in a whirlpool—violets, deep blues, greens—spiraling around a central ring of shining chrome. The spiral elongated, collapsed, reformed around an unseen axis. A strange beat pulsed from within it, perfectly regular, felt inside their ribs.

The beat flattened into a steady hum. The ring hovered in impossibly smooth rotation.

Emma’s breath caught. She was certain she was not meant to witness this. Its symmetry was perfect—unnervingly so. Forbidden. A truth stripped of myth. She knew as they were here, looking at it, they were also within it. Spinning. Perhaps as they'd always been.

“This isn’t the Gauntlet,” she whispered.

“It’d be nice if it were.” Alistair tightened his grip on her hand, following as she stepped forward, compelled.

Colors thinned, stretched like paint dragged over glass, then drained away entirely, leaving only a white needle of light and brushed metal.

The bare metal.

It was clicking.

“Listen.”

The clicking sharpened into rhythmic friction, precise and mechanical.

“I am,” Alistair murmured. His voice sounded small. Something pressed at the boundaries of the space, making the air itself shiver. His skin prickled.

And then Valor stepped out from the spaces between the clicks.

“Greetings.”

The spirit had no fixed form—light given a silhouette, its edges bleeding into the void. Broad-shouldered. Steady. Familiar. His voice carried the cool edge of conviction.

“We have come far,” he said. “But not far enough.”

Valor did not look at Alistair at all. He stepped between them anyway, hands gripping her shoulders. “Emma, How do we leave?”

She stared past him, transfixed.

“I know what you seek,” said the spirit. “Strength to change the fate of nations.”

His voice pressed against her chest like a hand.

“And—rarer still—the knowledge of why things are as they are.”

The spinning disk dilated. Details sharpened into impossibly fine metal tracks and pits, each groove vibrating with something sublime.

Writing.

“I can give you both,” Valor said.

“Emma,” Alistair warned, voice tight. “Don’t.”

“Let me show you.”

“Please—”

But she was already reaching—toward the light, toward understanding—

Alistair struck.

His heel slammed into the disk’s edge. It wobbled, skipped. The clicking broke, grinding into a shriek of metal on metal. Emma cried out. Alistair yanked her back, holding her tight.

Light shattered. Static filled the void. Color peeled away. Valor’s form fractured into jagged, glitching shards.

The space buckled, ruptured, collapsed—

Everything tore open in a single violent instant, revealing an impossible window:

A cramped room. A humming tower of black metal. A glowing CRT monitor. A person slapping the side of the tower as the disk inside shrieked.

“Shit! I didn’t save—”

Another voice: “Dude! I told you to get an SSD!”

The metal whine crescendoed and ground to a stop. Then it was all gone. They slammed onto cold stone, naked, fire roaring behind them. The Gauntlet stretched ahead—ordinary. Too ordinary.

Emma gasped like she’d been struck. Something inside her felt torn out—she didn’t even know what it was.

Alistair’s eyes darted to her. For a moment, he feared someone else might look back.

They’d made camp in an abandoned antechamber. The stone still held the day’s warmth. Alistair had gone through all the motions—set gear down, adjusted bedroll, tried to sleep—but his attention kept drifting toward her, then away again.

She noticed.

“What is it?” she asked quietly, not looking up.

He startled. “Am I staring? I’m— well. Maybe I am. Sorry.”

She shrugged, but lifted her gaze, questioning.

“Emma… do you remember what happened? In the fire?”

She paused. “We walked through. It was bright. It felt… strange. Then we were on the other side.”

A crease formed between her brows. “Why? What do you remember?”

“I—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s the problem. I don’t know. I know something else happened, but when I reach for it it’s like trying to remember a dream the moment you wake. I know it mattered. I just… can’t get to it.”

“That’s the Fade,” Emma said, though something inside her tightened. She set aside her staff entirely. “Especially here.”

“Right. Yes. That’s what I keep telling myself.”

Then, quietly:

“After that... I had this dream,” he said. “And you were there. Something was… reaching for you. From inside. Hands coming through your ribs like they were growing out of you.”

Alistair’s voice roughened. “I wanted to stop it. I tried. And I couldn’t. When I woke up, I felt—Maker, Emma, I don’t have words for it. Just that something’s waiting. Patient.”

She watched him; His fingers kept flexing. The fire popped a flash of light, highlighting his intensity.

“We've fought many demons. If something had tried to possess me, one of us would know,” she said.

“I know. That’s what scares me. This didn’t feel anything like that.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. She moved closer until their knees nearly touched.

“Back at the Circle, fighting Uldred… For one horrible second, I thought—you know... but I understood everything. I could see it. I still remember. I remember everything.”

Emma looped her arm around his, grounding him. He shut his eyes at the contact.

“But this... whatever I saw, those hands...I don't even know,” he repeated. She pressed into the flexion of his arm, gently releasing his fingers. He grumbled, ducking his head to rest heavily on her shoulder.

“You need rest,” she whispered, stroking his hair as a silent reminder: I’m here. I’m fine.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try.”

“Emma—”

“I know you won't sleep through anything dramatic,” she promised, lightly.

He hesitated. She kissed his temple. Once, twice, steady. Convincing. He settled onto her lap. She watched as his breathing slowly evened, shallow. Tightly wound. Barely, but asleep.

Emma stared into the fire, frowning. She remembered nothing.

^

Flemeth Fight, Kokari Wilds (9:31)

“Do not think her gone soft in age,” Morrigan had warned them, before they left her behind. “My mother is many things. ‘Forgiving’ is not among them.”

“We need a plan.” Emma spread the map across the damp ground, weighing down the corners with stones. Her fingers traced the route through the swamp, pausing at each water crossing marked by the Chasind scouts. “Flemeth's hut is here, deep in the wetlands.”

“Lovely.” Alistair crouched beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his armor. “Nothing says 'friendly visit' like trudging through a swamp to meet an ancient witch of legend.”

“The water paths will be our main challenge. We should establish signals for crossing formations.”

Zevran lounged against a tree, cleaning his nails with a dagger. Alistair shot Zevran a warning look. She ignored them and continued,

“Sten and Alistair take point, I'll coordinate from center with support, Zevran and Leliana on flanks, Wynne on barriers. If we encounter deep water—” she paused, “Zevran's on reconnaissance.”

“How delightfully practical,” Zevran purred. “Our fearless leader seems less than enthusiastic about getting her feet wet.”

Alistair had already deliberately placed himself between her and Zevran's knowing smirk. “It's called tactical positioning. Emma coordinates better with full field visibility.”

“Of course.” Zevran's smile widened.

“We leave in an hour,” Emma interrupted, “Check your supplies.”

As the others dispersed, Alistair lingered.

“Remember what we practiced at Redcliffe. If—”

“I remember.” The swimming lesson felt like a lifetime ago—his patient hands supporting her back, her death grip on his forearms, the mortifying panic when water touched her face. She'd managed to float for exactly three seconds before scrambling for shore.

“But the swamp won't be like the lake,” she added. Emma had also been anxious of Lake Calenhad’s cold, semitransparent depth; But now found herself nostalgic for it. His hand found hers on the map.

“Don't,” Emma responded, pointlessly, while squeezing back. She had noted the way he angled himself, as if he could shield her from this as simply as he could a physical assault. This was plain for Zevran to read, at least, and probably the others as well.

Embarrassing, but maybe better they all knew, or suspected.

“Don't what? Don't stand here? Don't breathe? Don't fail to notice that you're gripping that map like it's trying to escape?”

“Someone needs to keep you from making terrible jokes at inappropriate moments.”

“My jokes are perfectly timed, thank you very much.”

The swamp had reclaimed itself—water risen, thick black and sucking. The Korcari Wilds pressed in on all sides, thick with rot and fog that turned the midday sun to a sickly yellow smear. Their boots squelched through mud that grabbed at every step, and Emma forced herself to focus on the rhythm of movement rather than the sticky air and soggy ground saturating her entirely.

“Cheerful place,” Alistair muttered, slapping at something with too many legs. “Really captures that 'slow descent into madness' aesthetic.”

“Shh.” Leliana held up a hand, arrow already half-nocked. “Something moves ahead.”

They fell into formation without thought, weeks of travel having honed their movements to near-telepathy.

“Just a giant leech,” Zevran reported, reappearing from the mist. “Already dead, thankfully. Though the size suggests we should watch the water.”

“There.” Alistair pointed through the trees. The hut squatted in the swamp like something grown rather than built, all angles wrong. The Wardens exchanged glances. It had not, until this moment, felt much like the same swamp where they'd been rescued, almost a year ago. It had been here the two of them had learned they were the only Grey Wardens in Ferelden. His visor was open, exposing a knot of grief in his brow, once so familiar. She realized she couldn't recall the last time she'd seen it.

“Well, well.” Flemeth stood silhouetted in the doorframe, and Emma's blood chilled. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge, ancient and amused and probably inhuman. “The young Warden and her merry band. Come about my daughter's little request, have you?”

Emma wasn't interested in talking. She looked at her companions—Leliana already reaching for her bow, Sten simply waiting for orders, Wynne's face grave but unsurprised. Zevran twirled his daggers with anticipation. And Alistair...

Alistair stepped closer to her, voice low. “We can walk away.”

“And let Morrigan be possessed? By her own mother?”

“No— I— You're right. Of course.”

Everything was their problem now—the Blight made sure of that. Morrigan was one of theirs.

Then the bog itself seemed to inhale. The wind dropped. The reeds bent outward. And Flemeth rose from the muck. Not the woman, not the hag of the Wilds—something else. Her dragon form tore through the canopy, swamp water sliding off her scales in sheets.

“Great. A disapproving parent who is also a dragon,” Alistair raised his shield, bracing in the muck.

“Form up,” Emma commanded. “Spread out, don't group where her breath can catch us all. Wynne, barriers on the melees. Leliana, Zevran—”

Leliana crossed herself and knocked an arrow, cold eyes calculating angles, “Aim for the wings when she lifts. Bring her down,” she called to Zevran, her bardic voice lilting through rain.

“Already on it,” he vanished into stealth.

Emma saw the telling glow building in Flemeth's throat. “MOVE!”

Fire turned the swamp to steam. Emma threw herself behind a twisted tree, bark exploding above her head as flames licked around either side. She heard Alistair's war cry, the clash of sword on scales. The surface of the swamp was slick and black as oil.

Emma called out from the left flank, sending a bolt of energy that sparked harmlessly off dragon hide. The enchanted arrows flew true, a dozen striking in rapid succession. Flemeth roared, whipping around with her tail catching Sten full in the chest. Their off-tank flew backward, hitting a tree with a crack that made Emma wince.

“Sten!” She started toward him, but Wynne was already there, blue light flowing from her hands.

“Focus!” Wynne commanded, ever the teacher, even now.

Emma turned back to see Alistair dancing between Flemeth's claws, his shield taking gouges that would have eviscerated him in leathers. Zevran appeared and disappeared, leaving bleeding wounds that re-sealed behind dragon scales. The dank smells of iron and peat hit her in waves.

“We're not hurting her enough!” Alistair yelled, diving under another swipe.

Attempting to make advantage of the wet, Emma hit Flemeth with a storm of frost and shadow, but it dissolved uselessly in a spark of violet. She resists cold.

Her staff pulsed with white fire, enchanting their weapons to flame with an unspoken command: Burn her.

Flemeth reared to fight fire with fire, breathing a blast that rolled off Alistair’s shield like molten sunlight, briefly lighting the field beyond seeing anything. She heard Leliana’s arrows sing over their shoulders, each one striking softer flesh—between scales, under the jaw, along the wing joint.

Emma's mind raced. They had done this before, with the dragon at Haven. But Flemeth was older, smarter, and she knew their tactics. Every time they seemed to gain advantage, she adapted. Then she saw it, when the dragon reared back for another breath attack, there was a pause, a gathering of energy that left her exposed.

“Alistair!” Emma shouted. “When she breathes—”

“Come on, then!” understanding, he provoked the dragon who obliged him, diving with a crash. Emma channeled a forcefield around him, preventing him from being split with the blighted water. The spell held, barely. And that was now a new problem.

Emma looked at the positioning—Flemeth was too mobile, too reactive. Unless...“Leliana, Zevran—drive her toward the water!”

Zevran laughed, breathless. But they moved anyway, harrying Flemeth toward the deep pool at the clearing's edge. Emma felt her chest tighten as they got closer, the dark water reflecting nothing, promising everything she feared. Flemeth, focused on the immediate threats, didn't notice her back claws sink into mud, until it was too late. She reared up, wings spreading for balance—

“NOW!” Emma screamed. Arrows soared. Her spell, a concentrated lance of arcane entropy, struck the exposed point. Flemeth’s roar reverberated through the air. Furious at the resistance, her slit-pupiled gaze swept to the next threat — Zevran, shooting too close, loosing arrows with reckless rhythm. Her tail lashed, spraying mud, and she pivoted toward him like a serpent scenting prey. The amateur archer lowered his bow, eyes flicking to Emma with a quiet plea for help.

She looked back— just in time, the force-field dissipated, their tank charged toward them. Flemeth rounded swiftly in a mighty surge of motion, rocking the peaty surface. He was determined to draw Flemeth’s wrath away from their archers, covering their retreat. He slammed his sword into Flemeth’s hind leg with a resounding crack. Her retaliating claw caught him mid-turn.

It wasn’t a clean hit; worse, it was a crushing one. The strike flung him back into a deeper part of the bog, where he vanished beneath the surface. The splash was deep and sickening. Then, nothing. No shout. Just the ripple closing in on itself.

Emma went after the depth where Alistair had vanished, waded toward the rippling spot where the bubbles still broke. Her next spell fizzled in her hand. Every instinct screamed at her to stop, to let someone else—anyone else—She could just wait, and hope.

Zevran was already there, looking to their leader; Oddly slow, struggling not to freeze in fear. He estimated their odds of surviving this fight, her typically stoic command broken, the other Warden underwater. Not good.

In an instant, she reflected rapidly on a series of past and present: “Water erodes even the strongest mountain, and remembers everything it swallows.” Areli sleeping soundly in a bunk, before she was lost to the Circle. Alistair in the lake of his boyhood home, where he moved through the water with an ease that made her envious, promising not to let her drown. If he could surface on his own, he would have already. She did not want to go on wondering if she could have done something, anything different, not with another.

Zevran barked at her, “Warden! Go, or he’s gone. I’ll cover your back.”

Emma stumbled after, trembling, the swamp closing around her waist. She searched for Alistair’s pulse, distant under the water — but it slipped away, sinking. He was drowning because she insisted they come here.

“His armor,” she gasped. “It’s too heavy—”

Flemeth was already rearing again, wings spreading to take flight. Leliana’s arrows whistled in arcs of red flame, and one struck deep. The dragon roared, staggered—its wing faltered. Zevran seized the opening, a rare shot into the same wound. Leliana’s last arrow loosed — divine fire trailing like a comet — and slammed through Flemeth’s eye.

Emma got a glimpse of the dragon reeling backward as she plunged into the liquid darkness, thick with sediment and plant matter that turned everything to shadow. She propelled herself forward, despite wanting to surface, to breathe, to escape. The signs of life she had been following dissipated against the fade. Somewhere ahead, something metallic glimmered faintly—a shoulder plate, bubbles leaking through a helm, anchored motionless at a wretched angle into the mud. He’d hit hard and cratered into the bottom. Emma’s lungs burned already.

She kicked through the muck toward him, every stroke fighting suction. Zevran, somehow not far behind, his eyes were narrow slits behind the dim gleam of a dagger he’d drawn—his “knife for close conversations.”

Emma reached the fallen Warden, desperately clawed at his plates, fingers sliding off the mud-slick steel. Zevran appeared at her flank and mimed cutting. But there was no leverage, no air. Every tug sent clouds of silt blooming around her like smoke. To her horror, she discovered the swamp’s pressure had sealed him into the suit, like a coffin's lid pinned down by the earth. They couldn't access the straps or cut them.

Her spell fizzled, her staff-less hands burned—the fade’s current muddled by the water’s density. Her magic didn’t travel well here; it hit resistance like sound underwater. She tried again. Her hands found his breastplate seam and she pressed her palm flat. Her glyph flickered and she reversed the spin, forcing the pressure out.

The spell detonated in silence, a concussive bloom of blue and white. The mud Alistair was embedded in loosened, clouds of silt boiling up like smoke. And the damned breastplate buckled, separating by a finger’s width—enough for her to jam her hand in and wrench the straps. The leather, swollen and tight, refused to give. She summoned a thread of flame to the dagger in Zevran’s hand, mana draining rapidly to keep the the blade burning faint gold underwater, but the rogue managed to saw through.

Emma jammed her own knife under another strap. The effort was blind, desperate. Her knife and hands were meant for chopping herbs. Zevran followed her fast, sawing through the leather buckles of the breastplate, swollen and gritty, practically glued together. She moved on, looking for anything else to get through, so desperately grasped and stretched the doublet underneath, cutting him out of careful stitches and strong wool. Her lungs convulsed to remind her she was also running out of time. Her entire will compartmentalized her fear of submersion, suppressing the urge to surface, refusing to leave without him.

She tried and failed to pry the armour open as Zevran he cut through the last strap. He was still too heavy, the water too thick, and she could feel her head getting light, her limbs getting denser.

I'm going to drown. We're both going to drown.

With her last bit of mana, Emma forced the next repulsion glyph, veins now burning with her lungs. She heard the unmistakable sound of bone cracking, but it worked. The cloud of debris they had created sucked inward, toward the vacuum of the breastplate pried open at last. The force ripped through the mud and kicked both of them upward. Armor peeled away in chunks—breastplate, spaulders, gauntlet.

She thought of nothing but up, of firmly dragging the other warden behind her, thought of nothing but them breaking the surface, thought of nothing but—

Air.

She gasped, choked, gasped again, treading poorly while struggling to keep hold of him, his helmet heavy against her shoulder. The rain hammered down harder now, drumming against her face, turning the swamp’s surface into a boiling skin. Leliana was bounding toward them.

“Help!” The word came out as barely a croak.

Her vision was cloudy, but she felt hands on them—Zevran, pushing, Leliana hauling them to shore. As they emerged from the swampy pool, its water released them with a slurp, and they collapsed onto solid ground.

Leliana rolled Alistair onto his side. His visor was still locked down; Emma slammed the heel of her hand against the hinge, but it didn’t budge. She used her knife as a lever, wedging it beneath the visor seam and prying. The visor gave way with a splintering crack; The knife snapped. Air hit his face. He didn’t breathe.

“You’re not done yet,” she insisted, tearing open the satchel of vials at her belt to chug a mana potion. The spell bridged the gap between them; she felt his heart’s heavy stillness inside herself. Emma pushed harder—pulled harder, mimicking the rythmn of her own heartbeat—until, finally, with Leliana shoving at his back, viscous bog water gushed from his mouth. He sputtered, coughed, groaned, an ugly sound of drowning undone. The glow around her hands dimmed as she saw his eyes open.

Zevran sat back, running a hand through his hair, exhaling slow. “Maker’s mercy. Remind me to never fish for Wardens again.”

“You owe me a new bowstring,” Leliana said softly; She secured it poorly in her haste to pull her companions out of the water.

The swamp was still again, except for the hiss of cooling scales. Zevran looked away, under the pretense of watching the corpse steam in the distance. Leliana carefully removed her ruined bowstring, stealing glances at the Wardens, her eyes shining.

Alistair took in Emma, crouched over him, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her face, her palm pressed to his sternum and radiating an unnatural warmth into his lungs. Feeling returned to him in stabbing pins and needles. He became aware of her other arm curling around him, pulling him up against her as he ejected goo on every other exhale.

“You... can't swim.”

“Neither can you, apparently.”

“Meant to...”

“Shut up. Just breathe.”

Alistair’s eyes fluttered, unfocused, a hand pawing at his torn doublet. He wheezed something and promptly choked on it.

“Get us potions... and a tent,” she said to Leliana.

“Em, where...?” he managed.

“Don't worry. Sit, please...” He tried to straighten, but pain constricted him. He was limp and heavy. Emma struggled with the angle for his lungs to drain.

“Keep him upright,” Wynne said sharply as she reached them. “He’s aspirated half the swamp.”

Leliana arrived with the potions, then sprinted off again to start assembling camp. As Emma eased him up with a poultice, she spotted among the vials: Her phylactery with the amulet of Andraste chained around it.

Somewhere behind them, Bodahn and Sandal must have already retrieved some things. Leliana’s romantic streak had saved their asses more than once, and apparently today was no exception.

“It's safe. We found it.” She assured him; He didn't respond.

“Alistair.” She could feel everything. Still breathing. Still going to be fine, eventually. But she bid him anyway. Slowly, the arm she held him by latched onto her.

He felt her gasp, heard her cry, felt tears hot on him as she pressed her face into the dampness of his hair and neck.

Leliana looked back at them before she shook out a bedroll onto the driest patch of land available: a massive tangle of roots forming a platform above the mire. Together, they dragged Alistair onto it. Leliana and Zevran built a tent around them.

Wynne swept in with an armful of supplies. “Out of the way, dear. Let me see him.”

Emma shifted back, allowing her the elbow room, watching as Wynne's practiced hands moved over Alistair's torso. The older mage's expression darkened.

“Broken collarbone. Possibly cracked ribs.”

Emma withdrew a pungent bottle of brandy, wincing as Wynne narrated her own observations. She recognized exactly which injury she’d caused cracking the breastplate open. Flemeth had done the rest.

“And his lungs,” Wynne added grimly, already warming water into steam. “Fluid. We need to keep it from settling. I’ll handle that. Warden, tend the fractures.”

Alistair blinked at the bottle. “—getting me drunk?”

“Very.” She tipped it to him, slowly, patiently holding it back as he coughed.

“Your bedside manner has improved considerably,” Wynne remarked without looking up. Then, lowered, a precisely calculated volume: “At this particular bedside.”

Emma ignored her.

“Em...” Alistair squinted at her, breaths deepening as the alcohol took effect. “Did you—?”

“Drink.” Emma held it steady while he coughed and tried again. His eyes were glassy as he slumped. She held him up, fumbling with the nearly empty bottle in her other hand.

“Alistair.” She squeezed his better arm; discarded the bottle and found the nape of his neck. “Focus. Sit up. Please.”

“I wanna lie down...”

“Don't.” He obeyed, slowly, straining.

“Leliana,” Wynne said, “hold his shoulder. When Emma manipulates the bone, he’ll try to pull away.”

“Manipulate wha—?”

“We’re putting your bones where they belong,” Emma said, palms sliding into position as he squirmed. She felt the misaligned ends through swollen skin.

“Try to be still. It’ll hurt,” she warned him.

He groaned with contempt. “—already hurts!”

“Wynne, the ribs—”

“Wrapped already.”

Wynne began a slow, practiced healing pulse over his ribs while Emma prepared herself.

“Leliana,” Emma said. “Brace him.” Leliana planted a knee beside his arm.

Emma met Alistair's eyes. “Ready?”

He nodded, steeling himself, a steady gaze on her.

Emma pulled and pushed in one sharp motion. Bone ground, clicked, and he cried through clenched teeth, arching against Leliana’s hold. She pushed back, until it settled into place.

“Done,” she murmured.

Alistair slid down again, panting, drenched hair sticking to his temple.

“Sit up,” Emma insisted, stuffing her cloak behind him as Leliana lifted him forward.

“Mmhmm,” his hand was searching again for the pocket inside his absent tunic. While Wynne pushed him away from her bandages, Emma quickly slipped the phylactery with the amulet into a dry pouch.

The Senior Enchanter gathered her supplies: “You did well.”

“Thank you.” Emma's tone was flat. “Please leave.”

Leliana followed her out, casting one last concerned glance back.

“Leliana,” Emma added, “thanks for the potions.”

“Thanksss...” Alistair echoed as they left.

Emma silently splinted and bandaged him, her hands deft as she secured his shoulder around his good side. Finally, she slipped the pouch under the bandages, where he had been searching. His hand met hers there.

“Hi,” he whispered, smiling faintly. “You saved me.”

“Don't mention it.”

“I will. Endlessly.” His breaths were rough but steadying. Better. “Stay?”

She nodded, settling on his better side.

“Good.” His breathing deepened, he stopped squirming. Then, barely audible, he mumbled: “Love you.”

Probably not conscious. Probably the brandy. Probably true.

Emma still didn't want to put her own pack back on, as they moved the camp up bit by bit, away from the heart of the swamp. She herself hadn't looked directly at the water since she escaped it. The thought made her stomach turn.

They had to go slowly, and couldn't go far. She still had Bodhan on the recovery of Alistair's broken armor, which she knew he'd be eager to get back and repair, if possible... Unfortunately, some parts were still missing.

Zevran crouched near the fire, leathers half-off, his hair plastered to his face in humid gold tangles. He glanced at Emma's fingertips, cleansed but still stained of poultices.

“Not the best element for you, no?” he says softly, voice light. “And yet, you pulled off a rescue. That’s a fine irony.”

Emma nodded and stared into the fire. “You could’ve run. Thank you.”

Zevran gave her his most quicksilver smile. “Sure, I could’ve. But then who would ruin your reputation for calm under pressure?” He patted her shoulder, resigning himself to internalize his performance of comradery. “Besides, the bastard owes me a drink now.”

“I'll make sure you get it.”

Emma and Muffin circled the camp, distantly supervising Wynne fussing over everyone. Then she found herself sitting outside Alistair's tent. Couldn't bring herself to go back in, but couldn't leave either.

“Em,” he called, detecting her presence there. She pushed herself through the tent flap.

“You're worried about me,” it was dark, but his tone was pleased, lightly teasing. She knew his expression exactly.

“You drowned.” The tent had them close. He felt her shiver.

“Just briefly,” was his best attempt at reassuring her. “Besides, I’ve seen you die twice. Fair’s fair.”

Emma settled back to her spot next to him, still warm, listening to his steady heart and ragged breathing. For a while, neither spoke. The tent canvas hissed under the rain.

“You saved me,” he reminded her. Again.

“You'd do the same.”

“Yes, but I didn't—” He stopped. “Sorry.”

“No, don't...” she refused the apology.

”—and then you stayed here with me. All night.” He squinted, struggling to remember what he'd been through. Mostly, he remembered how closely Emma held him as he struggled to breathe.

“I just... keep seeing you go under,” she admitted.

“Leliana told me you didn't even hesitate...”

“Oh... I hesitated.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “I really didn't think I could.”

“But you did... That's... no one's ever...”

“Alistair—”

“I know we don't talk about it,” he interrupted. “This thing between us. We joke and we flirt and we dance around it because there's a Blight and you're, well, you're you. And I'm... well, I'm an idiot. I really don't know how to do this. But when I was underwater, when everything was going dark, all I could think about is that I hadn't told you—”

He trailed off. It was cruel, what he had wished he had said had seemed so clear, and now—

Emma thought: he had told her. Probably. Now he was struggling. She decided to save him the trouble.

“I think,” she said slowly, “I'm falling in love with you.”

It wasn't easy for her, either.

“Emma— You think?” he countered, stunned.

“Why not?” She looked at him, feeling as though she should ask permission somehow, after guessing at where he meant to go.

He chuckled nervously, “Well... I've lost everyone who ever mattered to me. Duncan, the other Wardens... But you're still here. We're still here. For now.”

“For now is all anyone has,” she gently pressed her forehead into his arm.

The sensation dimly recalled a new detail: How he'd wanted to comfort her. He'd held his arm held to hers, but she cried. Her face as she stifled the sound on him.

“Emma, I—”

“I know, I know...”

He pulled her close, his elbow locking around her, as she had done then.

“I love you,” he insisted. “I love you.”

Emma woke to find herself still in Alistair's tent, still in all of yesterday's clothes, his unsplinted arm curled around her shoulder. Outside, she could hear the camp stirring. Leliana's soft humming, Sten's heavy footfalls, Zevran making some inappropriate comment that had Wynne scolding him.

“We should get up,” she murmured.

“Mm, no.” Alistair tightened his hold. “The Blight can wait.”

“I failed to consider this. When did you get so wise?”

“When I took a nap in soup. Who knew?”

He hugged her, pressing her into bruised ribs. Painful, worth it, although this didn't go unnoticed. She slipped away all too quickly.

“Thanks for not dying,” she said.

“Anytime. Well, no. Let's never do that again.”

The camp was subdued when Emma emerged. Morrigan had caught up with them. She sat apart from the others, the grimoire open in her lap but her eyes unfocused. Leliana was trying to maintain normalcy, preparing breakfast while humming nervously. Even Zevran was quiet, sharpening his blades with unusual focus.

Emma approached Morrigan slowly. “May I?”

Morrigan gestured to the log beside her without looking up. “Come to ensure I'm not planning to transform into a dragon and eat you all?”

“Are you?”

“Alas, I think not,” Morrigan closed the grimoire. “This book... it's not what I expected. It's... history. Memories. Some things she never told me.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it's all lies, stories crafted to manipulate me even now.” Morrigan finally looked at Emma, who had no answers.

So Morrigan changed the subject. “You entered the deep swamp, I was told. For that fool templar.”

“He's not a templar,” she insisted.

“So I've heard. You did this, although you could barely swim. More the fools both of you.”

“True.”

Morrigan stood abruptly, crossing her arms.

“I will need time. To study this, to understand what mother—what Flemeth intended.”

“Naturally.”

“I want you to know that while I may not always prove... worthy... of your friendship. I will always value it.”

Emma found herself strangely moved, but she knew Morrigan would not appreciate any added sentimentality.

“I don't expect anything more.”

As Morrigan walked away, Alistair slowly approached with two cups of tea.

“That went better than expected. She didn't threaten to turn anyone into a toad.”

“There's still time,” Emma accepted the tea gratefully, warmth seeping into her still-cold hands. She thought maybe she wouldn't mind being a toad, temporarily.

“So what now? We've killed the terrible witch, you've conquered your fear of water—”

“I doubt that.”

But Emma was thinking of Morrigan with the grimoire, of Flemeth's knowing smile before she was, apparently, slain. She unhunched herself, sat upright, squaring her shoulders.

As they broke camp, she caught Morrigan watching her with an unreadable expression.

“What?” Emma asked.

“I am... concerned, perhaps. For I believe you have changed. If you make decisions based on feeling rather than logic, you may yet get yourself killed.”

“Not this time,” she watched Alistair helping Leliana restring her bow, making her laugh. No regrets.

“Oh, this time, sure. And what of next time?” Morrigan adjusted her pack. “I wonder, who shall you choose, when you must choose between saving one and many?”

“Many, obviously,” Emma said. “In this aim, we cannot lose a Grey Warden.”

This was a real and logical answer. It hadn't satisfied Wynne, either. But this was an upside of leadership: Emma didn't need them to accept her reasons. For now.

^

Rose's Thorn (Orzammar) ~9:34

Orzammar’s merchant quarter glittered like a forge turned inside out—iron, gold, and greed on every step down toward the Diamond Quarter. Torchlight slid over steel and gemstone. The air tasted of iron, lamp oil, and the dry rot of a city that had never known rain.

Emma drifted between stalls, half-listening to Oghren haggle loudly over a greataxe while Alistair stood nearby, arms crossed, looking very tall and uncomfortable.

Among the broad-bladed axes and sturdy dwarven shortswords, one piece stood out—a slender dagger, the steel dark as red wine, its pommel wrought into a blooming rose. Fine work, too fine for its company. She could not help but be reminded of the blooming rose from Lothering. Even now, the last living one she'd seen.

“For the elf?” asked the dwarven merchant.

Emma glanced back at Zevran, who was examining a set of throwing knives with professional interest. She picked up the dagger, examining its weight. Light, balanced. The sort of weapon meant for quick, precise work. Zevran would appreciate it. She caught his eye and gestured him over.

“What do you think?”

Zevran took the blade, turning it in the torchlight. His fingers moved with practiced ease, checking the edge, the balance point, the way it sat in his grip.

“Very nice.” A slight smile; He seemed pleased. “Though I confess, Warden, this would serve better in the hands of a fighter who knows a shield.”

“You mean Alistair?”

“He carries daggers, does he not?” Zevran spun the blade once, then offered it back to her. “This is made for someone who fights with their off-hand occupied. See here—” he indicated the grip, “—drawn quickly while holding something else. Shield, torch, struggling victim...” He shrugged. “Your templar-trained man would make better use of it.”

The merchant nodded. “Elf’s not wrong. That’s an off-hand blade. Called the Rose’s Thorn.”

Emma considered this. Alistair did keep daggers—he'd used them effectively enough in the Deep Roads when they'd been pressed too close for his sword. It wasn't his preferred weapon, but, if Zevran thought it suited him...

“Tell me about it.”

The smith snorted. “Pretty name, ugly story. Old forge-line made it generations back. Fine work—but it killed a king in a duel that wasn’t supposed to be deadly. Ended the noble line, and stained the house’s honor. The whole forge was blacklisted, erased from the Memories.”

“A curse by another name,” Zevran said.

The dwarf gave him a flat look. “If losing your clients counts as a curse, sure. We call it bad business. Steel’s good as ever. A name’s all that’s tarnished.”

Emma looked at the blade again, at the rose and thorn, at the dark steel that had ended a king's life.

“Perfect,” Emma said, reaching for her coin purse. “How much?”

“Oh, my Warden, so poetic. Sometimes curses can be weapons, no?” Zevran chuckled. Quietly. Emma nodded an agreement.

The merchant named his price—steep, but not unreasonable for a weapon of this quality. The Rose's Thorn sold for around one hundred and fifty sovereigns. The dwarf grumbled something in dwarven that likely translated to “reckless surfacers”, and accepted the coins.

“Just don’t tell anyone where you got it.”

“So,” Zevran said softly as they moved away from the stall, “you buy a cursed blade that hungers for noble blood, and intend to give it to your royal bastard.”

“Alleged curse. Alleged bastard.”

Emma glanced back to make sure Alistair was still occupied with Oghren. Zevran studied her, but she was unreadable. They rejoined the others as Oghren sealed his deal, the dwarf looking pleased with himself and his new greataxe. Alistair glanced at Emma.

“Successful shopping?” he asked.

“Very,” she said. “I'll show you later.”

Something in her tone made him pause, but before he could press, Oghren clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make him stumble.

“Right then, Wardens! Let's get back to camp before I spend all my coin on ale instead of decent steel.”

That evening, after they'd settled into camp and the others had dispersed to their various evening routines, Emma approached Alistair with the wrapped bundle in her hands.

“I have something for you.”

He looked up from where he'd been maintaining his sword, grease cloth in hand. “Oh? Should I be worried?”

She held out the bundle.

Alistair took the cloth-wrapped package, his expression shifting to curiosity. The fabric was rough under his fingers, probably cut from someone's old cloak. He unwrapped it carefully, revealing the dagger within. The torchlight caught the rose pommel, making it gleam. He stared, then let out a low whistle.

“It's beautiful,” he said, genuine surprise in his voice. Then he looked closer at the blade, at the thorn etched along its length. “Wait, this is—Emma, this is high-quality work. This must have cost—”

She sat beside him. “It's called the Rose's Thorn.”

“Fitting, I suppose.” He turned it over in his hands, testing the balance. Like it had been waiting for his hand specifically. “Where did you—?”

Emma paused, and he recognized that look. either very good news or very complicated news. Sometimes both.

“Near the Diamond Quarter. It has a history. It killed a dwarven king, ruined a forge, that sort of story.”

Alistair smiled, then grew serious again, studying the blade, feeling the edge. Sharp enough to cut through anything. He looked back up at her, brow arched.

“So... you bought me a king-slaying dagger.”

“Apparently,” she said, unbothered.

“That’s—Maker, Emma, that’s dark even for you.”

“Depends on what you’re cutting. This blade ended a dynasty.”

He went quiet. The fire popped between them.

“Oh—I see. Well—Emma, Not that I want the throne, everyone knows that. But...”

“I know,” she said, gently. “But in Orzammar, there's always an alternative, isn't there?”

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Em—that's either the most brilliant or insane gift anyone's ever given me. I can't decide which.”

“Both,” she shrugged.

“With you? Usually is.” He picked up the dagger again, more carefully this time, balancing on one fingertip. “I have to admit, there's a beautiful logic to it.”

“Zevran called it poetic.”

“He would.” The metal felt warm now, like it had absorbed heat from his skin, or maybe from the fire. Or maybe from whatever mad magic Emma had woven into this moment.

“He said it would suit you best.”

“Zevran suggested—really?” Zevran, who'd tried to kill them. That Zevran?

“I'm also surprised.”

“The world really is ending if Zevran's thinking about someone other than himself.”

“Admittedly... I thought of you, when I saw it,” she smiled at him, “But, you'd use it well.”

“Thank you,” he said finally. “For this very pointed irony.”

He sheathed the dagger carefully at his belt, where it settled like it had always belonged there, like a fitting armor. Another curse worth keeping.

From across camp, Zevran caught Emma's eye and raised his wineskin in salute.

Proof – Orzammar

Rendered lives pressed on her: elves in chains, men burning in Tevinter plazas, ghosts of paths not taken. They crushed her without mercy, relentless, flattening, sharpening, pointedly thin and cruel. A bitter blade.

And yet where the dwarves should have been, a hollow, a vast ache, a bottomless well of gravity in the center, swallowing all sound and beauty, like a socket where an eye had been torn out… forever open.

Beneath it, something older and harder locked into clutch. Shoulders braced, spines pushing stone just as worms push the dirt, rock yielding with a slow groan. This beat poured into her bones, thick and molten at first, but solidifying. She tried to resist, will herself to dissolve into the stone and be done with flesh. but she was not strong enough. The rhythm offered a deep solace, but tragically, it wasn’t hers. She felt wretched and cursed to walk the surface as meat.

Only once, in a dream or through Caridin himself, the stone did sing to her, and she remembered:

“Our Stone will never forget you, nor will we, so long as we may shape it.”

She remembered Kinloch, how its tower moaned and flexed under winter winds. She remembered Ostagar’s stones humming faintly beneath the soldiers’ chants. This was older, deeper, like Caridin’s forge: hammer, anvil, earth, the rhythm of labor itself written into the world.

The Proving ring gathered it all. It was no pit but a bowl, stone carved so perfect it seemed to drink sound and return it magnified. Standing at the center was like standing in a singer’s chest. Every step, every clash of metal, every shout from above rippled across the walls and poured back, layering until the air itself trembled.

It was less an arena than a great instrument, a singing bowl struck by anything that had ever moved. The crowd throbbed above, the forges pounded beneath, and the overtones shook her teeth while the undertones rattled her ribs. Spellweaver hummed in her palm, hers only a moment in time. It was a much older, greater being, already mourning for her.

Emma fought in time. Spells broke like percussion, lightning cracking on the downbeat. She barely thought—the dance of combat bore her up, pulled everything into sequence; But none like the Silent Sisters, with no need to speak. In their wisdom, the Sisters knew to explain would profane this, command and communion both. She realized why the dwarves called it Proof: not of strength or honor alone, but proof they still resonate with themselves.

Knight Monologue

She had learned, over time, that armor was never just protection.

From a distance, a knight was a moving structure, an assembled thing. Nested plates, hinges answering hinges. Weight distributed with the kind of care only given to weapons or sovereigns. If you had lived a life without violence or wealth, if iron usually meant nails or ploughshares, the first sight of one promised force that would stop you cold. Contained. Directed. Loyal to whoever had paid for its making.

Up close, it was more. The hot smell of oil. Leather darkened by sweat. Metal scored and polished again and again, loved into submission. Enchantments hummed faintly, not loud enough to hear, but if you knew you could feel it. It was machinery in a world that pretended it had none. Pistons in spirit, if not in name. An iron body built around a human core, turning flesh into a system.

People talked about knights as if they were men first. She knew otherwise. They were logistics. Group decisions. Someone, somewhere, had decided this one would be given the good steel, the rare runes, the fittings that didn’t fail.

Someone else had gone without.

War was always a question of need and greed dressed up as honor. The best-equipped were sent first. Investment demanded return. Victories paid for the next layer down.

She understood this too well. The man inside, the object that made him terrible. And the way the machine loved its operator back, if he learned it properly. You could touch a breastplate with more reverence than a body, because the plate had kept him alive when bodies were cheap.

Blacksmiths spoke about their work the way priests did, hands scarred, eyes bright. They needed furnaces hot enough to liquefy stone, tools precise enough to coax obedience from metal. Even here, in a place that claimed to be simple, there were engines. Rare. Arcane. Half-forgotten. The knight who stepped out of that process was not so different from the ancient golems, moving soldiers of stone.

She had written pages about armor already and left most of them buried. This was the part she hadn’t said aloud yet. That what she loved was not the romance of chivalry, but the intimacy between a person and the machine that kept them alive. The way history, craft, violence, and care all converged around a single body and said: you will be more than human today, or you will die.

Accident

Leliana claimed she didn’t believe in blasphemy; she only believed in beautiful stories that frightened the wrong kind of people. So when the campfire burned low and everyone’s nerves frayed thin from walking too long with too little food, she’d start in on her favorite: soulmates who tripped through their lives over and over, dying and being reborn, meeting again in new shapes, new names, new weather.

“Two souls,” she’d say, tracing a slow spiral in the dirt with her stick, “always drifting toward one another. Even when they shouldn’t. Even when the world tries to keep them apart. They find each other, lifetime after lifetime.”

Morrigan would roll her eyes. Alistair would pretend to be annoyed. And Emma would sit there, contemplating, looking blank.

Leliana insisted it was harmless fancy—“fictions for comforting the mortal heart.” She said it with the serene confidence of someone who had personally broken half the Chantry’s restrictions and still managed to sleep soundly.

The tales made Emma feel strange nostalgia, a shape of a truth, twisted.

She and Alistair would talk sometimes, hypothetically, about the life they might’ve had without the Grey Wardens. He’d imagine some goofy, domestic future: a garden, a mabari that always rolls in the mud first thing after a bath, a kitchen he keeps burning things in. The most normal fantasy in the world; Nothing wrong with it, really.

Emma couldn’t describe the same. Maybe after this war, she could join him in that life; She could imagine herself satisfied with just surviving, able to take for granted a roof and a warm bed.

But without Duncan, and the Grey Wardens? She couldn't imagine anything so pastoral: She'd think of the Tower of Magi reformed into something that wouldn't murder and maim its inhabitants. A place that didn't render Emma someone so lost that Duncan's conscription into a brutal war was salvation.

But the more she listened to Alistair—the stubborn way he held onto hope, the way he believed deeply in small goodness—the more she understood:

In any other world—any other version of Thedas, any other “lifetime” as Leliana would put it—Emma would never have met him. Never have looked at him twice. Never have loved him. He’d have been in a monastery. She’d be in the Circle.

Their lives only collided because the war made these places sloppy with their rules. Because everything went wrong at the same time.

Without the Blight, without Duncan’s eye for strays, without catastrophe… what are they? Two parallel lines. No point of intersection.

so Leliana liked to imagine lovers chasing each other across centuries. Emma understood it differently: only the blight could have brought them together. When Leliana finished her tale and everyone drifted off to their bedrolls, Emma stayed awake a little longer.

Reincarnation, destiny, cosmic choreography— or else, a single, unrepeatable accident. The later cannot be taken for granted.

prison break – Fort Drakon, Denerim (~9:34)

Emma goes still in the chains, pupils dilated, breath leveling in a way Alistair knows down to the bone. A familiarity that comes from counting someone's heartbeats in the dark through the manna in her veins.

The guard doesn't notice. He's leaning against the far wall, tossing a bruised apple in boredom. But Alistair feels the Fade flex like a pulled thread— that awful prickling sensation.

Please tell me that wasn't magic.

For a second he's convinced he imagined it. He doesn't know how long they've been in here (at least a day), his stomach feels like stepped-on clay, and there's a persistent ringing in his ears. Emma's gone so quiet he thinks she's passed out.

Then the shackles clink softly against stone. Not wrenched open. Not forced. Just… empty. His heart slams against his ribs.

The space she’d been displaces the air softly. The templar by the door glances over, frowning at something he can't quite place. If Emma had cast anything, even slight, this man should be on her like a hawk on a mouse. But the guard just shifts his weight.

Alistair's nerves are lighting up anyway. He's ninety percent sure Emma just did something impossible. Ten percent doubtful, maybe he's hallucinating. One hundred percent sure he should not be the one playing mage-detector right now. He wants to call for her, but he's too concerned she actually pulled something off to risk alerting the guard.

The templar starts pacing. He finally looks over properly and freezes mid-step.

“Where—Maker's breath—WHERE IS SHE?“

There it is. Panic. Steel scraping from the scabbard, boots skidding on damp stone.

Alistair shoves himself upright against the wall, chains rattling. “Maybe she, uh… evaporated? Very tragic. You should write a report.”

The templar growls, steps forward—

—and a rat scampers out from behind the waste bucket.

Right past his boot.

The templar jumps, jerking back with the kind of full-body flinch normally reserved for stepping on caltrops. For one beautiful moment, he's entirely distracted by the rodent.

That's when Emma hits him.

She's halfway back into her body, still disoriented, still naked, still shaking from bones that just finished being the wrong shape. But since she met the arcane warrior in the ruins, and found that sword, her magic made her strong— albeit, a strength of little finesse. Her fist lands with the force of someone who's accidentally discovered she can punch like a sledgehammer.

Surprised, he folds like a kicked stool, armor clattering as she shoves him toward Alistair, who finishes him with the chain.

He stares, as their enemy is struggling, asphyxiating, and going limp. “Right. So that's new.”

Emma's breathing hard through the recoil of this impact on her, arms wrapped around herself. “Don't… don't ask me to do that again.”

“Absolutely not. Once was plenty.”

She fumbles with his chains, fingers still trembling. The manacles are heavy, old, built specifically for restraining magic, but there's that strange strength still simmering in her hands, and she manages to snap the pin just enough for him to wrench the rest open.

It feels like a miracle. Please don’t let us die naked.

They fight the next pair of soldiers: dirty and desperate. By the time they're winded enough to lean on each other, they are very aware they cannot keep doing this.

“Maker's saggy left— oh.“

Two Chantry sisters sweep through the corridor. Suddenly he was embarrassed to be talking about the Maker's tits, even after all this time.

But they're Leliana and Morrigan wearing veils.

Leliana radiates serenity, hands folded. “We found your things. Well… some of your things.”

Morrigan looks like she's contemplating war crimes. “This costume itches. It chafes. And I despise it with the fire of a thousand suns.”

They hand over a small bundle: some clothing, a belt with pouches, knives, Rose's Thorn still in its sheath.

Alistair blinks at Morrigan's disguise, then laughs heartily. Emma's looking devious, trying to suppress her smirk.

“Do not speak to me.” She rips the Chantry robe clean off and hurls it at the wall.

Leliana sighs at the discarded habit with the same disappointment normally reserved for burnt pastries.

Emma's half-dressed, buzzing from unfamiliar, desperate and illegal magic. Morrigan studies her with the air of a teacher dispensing faint praise.

“So,” she says, “you finally managed a transformation. Congratulations are in order, albeit modest ones.”

Emma, still flushed: “I turned into a rat.”

“A beginning.” Morrigan's smirking, “You are, as ever, painfully slow to adopt instruction.”

You could practically feed Emma that backhanded praise as dessert. She's beaming despite everything.

Alistair, fastening his belt: “Wait, so that was?— I thought— I felt something! I also thought maybe I just had a concussion...”

Emma: “You definitely had a concussion.”

Morrigan flicks him a look. “It takes very little to fool a Templar, particularly when it comes to magic which is both ancient and esoteric.”

Emma ties her hair back with still-shaking hands, jaw set. They're not free yet. They're bruised, under-equipped, drastically outnumbered. But the party's together again. And the next goon who tries to stop them is in for a very disappointing day.