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 Morrigan had withdrawn to her tent, or perhaps scampered off somewhere, hours ago.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 gave way to sleep. Sten was on watch, a statue in the darkness.

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 to Redcliffe.”

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 tonight if she was an unnatural abomination to be put to the torch.”

“She asked you that?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That shapeshifting is a rare tradition. 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 Sten of his watch early.