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.