Actions

Work Header

Butterflies at the End of the World

Summary:

Surana and Amell have spent half their lives confined to the Circle of Magi. Surana chafes at the imprisonment but Amell chooses to embrace the Chantry's teachings. Despite this, they are friends until Jowan forces them to make a hard decision that will change the course of their lives and threaten the foundations of their relationship. The end is just the beginning.

Notes:

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly."
—Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Chapter 1: Prologue (Ostagar)

Chapter Text

A whoosh of movement, the sound of wind, a harsh hard feeling on the back of her head.

Her vision went black. Yet embers danced in her mind’s eye, burning hot and quick with the intensity of souls rushing to leave the horrors of life behind.

She never felt the earth rise to meet her fall. She slipped easily into the fade.

The butterflies there were made of fire. They flocked to her, landing on her, tiny pinpricks of warmth on her skin, wings wisping a delicate crackling song, come away… come away…

 

I hope you have never had cause to doubt that you are special to us,

Ma vhenan, today you are twelve. I will tell you a story my mother told me, a story of her grandmother, when she was twelve…

and that you are loved.

 

They carried her away, in a cloud of amber light pulsing, swaying, soaring ever higher through the dark… singing, buzzing, thrumming with purpose, passing through the fade, on their way to oblivion…

 

I think of you every day.

Now when your great-grandmother was twelve she lived with the Dalish,

and tended to the flock of halla…

 

When she visited the fade in the safety of her cot within the Circle Tower she had dreamt of sunshine and cloudless days, endless grass, fields of lavender, and blue butterflies swarming in the air like ocean waves. They danced on the tips of her fingers, she the conductor, they the symphony.

 

And after that she had no clan, so she ran with the halla all on her own, until she came near the borders of a human town…

I have thought of you every day for these past ten years.

 

What did she know of symphonies? She had neer been to Val Royeaux to see an orchestra play. She had only read of them, seen the pictures in books sent from afar to reside in the Circle Tower library. The dark corners of the library were the only windows from the Circle Tower out into the world.

 

I have told you all the stories I can think to tell.

I believe that you are making your own stories, now.

 

She knew what music was. As a child she had heard the songs of the city elves at night, had danced to them in the cool summer nights. Theirs were the sounds of earthy twangs from a few worn stringed instruments being plucked at in the alleyways, the breathy whistles of a clay flute that played three notes, the rhythmic patter and jingle of hand drums.

 

You are ten, ma vhenan,

Today you are fourteen,

You are nine, da’len,

Eleven is a lucky year,

You are seventeen today.

I was seventeen when I met your father,

when he arrived in a caravan from Denerim with five others…

 

She dreamt of orchestras the size of armies, symphonies that brought down the heavens in exalted marches upon the gods. She had dreamt of Val Royeaux and the opera house, of soaring swelling thunderous music. The Orlesian audiences hung from the rafters like bats, velvet robes folded around their shoulders like wings, glimmering red jewels of eyes peering from masks of silver, ivory, and gold.

The butterflies, blue and fire, invaded the auditorium and carried the instruments away, transporting them to Kinloch Hold, to serenade the mages in their sleep. 

 

We had a grand wedding day, six couples all wed that day, and there was laughing

and dancing

and singing

long into the night.

You are no longer a child.

You are nineteen.

I wonder what people you have met,

what bonds you have formed.

I know the Circle is not like the Alienage, that the mages do not marry

and have children.

But I hope that you have found friends.

Mama Ghil'ana always says said

you were so good with the other children.

I think you must have many friends.

I have thought

 

I have thought of you

of you

I have thought of you every day

for the past ten years

 

every day

 

The butterflies dispersed suddenly, violently, and she was free falling back towards the ground. A blinding light behind her eyelids exploded the world into heat and cold and dirt and screams and the copper tang of blood.

She opened her eyes and saw Solomae’s face aglow in the hot orange apocalypse of the battle torches. Her eyes were white hot, blood red, dark black.

“You are not allowed to die!” she shouted, and her spit sprinkled onto Nelmirea’s face. The echo of healing magic lingered there, saliva tinged with the taste of elfroot and lyrium and prayers to Andraste, Mythal, the Maker, Fen’Harel, anyone who would listen…

Nelmirea reached out a hand, and Solomae seized it, pulling her roughly to her feet.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, her voice hoarse, as if she had been screaming out an endless incantation. Her perfect, shiny black braided hair was in disarray, pearls slipping, dirt and darkspawn blood smudging her skin and slick wet tears painting patterns on her face.

They ran, then, ran as fast as they could, ducking in and out behind cover, fleeing the battle. All was lost. The king was dead, reinforcements had fled, Duncan had fallen, the battle was lost.

Everything was a blur to Nelmiera. She held Solomae’s hand all the way, dragged along, tripping on her robes, stumbling dizzily through the night. The dwarves were there with them, the Wardens from Orzammar, with their hammer and knives. They ran together, Wardens against the wind, until they were lost in the dark cold Korcari Wilds.

She wanted to sleep, to slide away in lines of words written ten years past, carried by the swirl of insect ink back into the fade. Her eyes fluttered shut again and again and again but Solomae was always there, curiously feral, shifting between girl and ghoul, screaming, “you are not allowed to die,” whispering, “you can’t sleep now,” pleading, “you have to keep going.”

Her hand was an insistent anchor to the world of the living.

Chapter 2: A Child of Eight (The Alienage / The Tower)

Chapter Text

Nelmirea was eight years old when she was sent to the Circle Tower.

Before then she had lived in the Alienage of Highever. Her parents worked at Highever Castle, her mother a laundress and her father a stableman. But she had never stepped foot in those halls.

She remembered being raised alongside other elven children, by an aged woman they called Mama Ghil'ana, who looked after the young ones whose parents were absent for whatever reason. For many, their parents spent twelve or fifteen hours a day working in the households of Highever area nobles, like the Couslands, or other jobs, fishing the Waking Sea or working the docks. There were many orphaned elven children, too.

She remembered the hushed voices at night when Mama Ghil'ana confronted her parents, tired from their work at the castle, telling them about the odd behavior she had noticed in Nelmirea, whom she called Young Nelly.

“She had a whole flock of butterflies following her,” Mama Ghil'ana said, hissing as if she had found Nelmirea doing something bad, like throwing stones at a cat or pinching the younger children. “She waved her hands about and they followed her here and there, making the babies giggle. People talk. They’ll be coming soon. You can’t stop it.”

She remembered her mother taking her by the hand. Her mother’s hands were rough and reddened, smelling of lye and lavender. Her eyes were the color of lavender which grew in swathes upon the hills. Sometimes on her days off she would take Nelmirea out to gather herbs and flowers with her, ingredients that she would use to make soaps. Mother was always working, even when it felt like a picnic, when it felt like a special day to Nelmirea because she was not left behind with Mama Ghil'ana and the other children.

Those lavender eyes were watery and those rough hands were trembling, but Mother told her very seriously that she was to be sent away. The nice people from the Tower had been contacted by the Hahren, and soon she would have a new home. “You’re going to a magical place,” she said. “A castle on a lake filled with wonders and secrets and things I can’t even imagine. You will be with people like you.”

The only castle Nelmirea knew was Highever, where her parents went to work, and she asked her mother if she was to work there, to do their laundry.

“No,” Mother said with a laugh. “No you won’t have to do laundry or anything like that. There’ll be servants who do your laundry. You’ll be a student, an apprentice, and one day you’ll be a mage; a very special person.”

It all sounded impossibly wonderful. Nelmirea did not know what she had done to deserve such luck. Why should she get to go to a special school to learn wonderful things and be treated like a human princess with servants of her own, while the other children had to stay in the alienage?

She knew, vaguely, that Mama Ghil'ana had noticed her doing things she said were odd, like the butterflies, but to Nelmirea these weren’t odd. It was like doing a cartwheel, making a doll out of rags, or singing a funny little rhyming song while skipping rope. Something fun to do or something to entertain the children even younger than her.

She and others around her age were now being tasked with taking care of the babies, those just beginning to crawl and walk and get into trouble, because Mama Ghil'ana couldn’t keep tabs on them all. It was hard to keep them all fed, and clean, and calm, and to stop them from throwing fits. When Nelmirea made soap bubbles dance, summoned sparklers in the air, or made the butterflies flock in formation, the babies were not bored. Their small mouths fell open, slack with wonder, and their eye grew wide. They laughed and clapped and said, “More, Nelly, more!”

She remembered the day the templars came. They were tall and frightening, clad all in plate mail and helmets with masks. They were human, when for some reason Nelmirea had imagined they would be elves. Humans couldn’t come into the Alienage without first getting permission from the human guards who stood outside the gates, just like elves had to have reasons for traveling in and out of the alienage for work or travel. The templars came to their house. Mother and Father had not gone to work that day, and Nelmirea had heard them speaking vaguely of how Lady Cousland had been very sympathetic and how lucky they were to have leave to see her off.

She remembered not wanting to go away with the templars, because they were so tall and impenetrable in their armor, and because they had looked at her with beady glimmering eyes through the slits of their visors and asked, “Is this the child?” like one might ask, “Is this the feral dog?”

Still, Mother had held her hand and guided her out to hand her over to her new guardians. She had packed Nelmirea a small satchel of things, tokens of home and some snacks for the journey, and the weight of it was comforting against her back. Father knelt down and told her, as he had told her many times, to be good and polite and calm and not to do anything to make the humans mad.

She remembered the long trip to Kinloch Hold. It was only a couple days ride from Highever, but it felt like a lifetime, because she was all alone with the strange, imposing humans. The templars. They rarely spoke to her, except to give her orders, but they constantly had their eyes on her. Watching her. Appraising her.

She heeded her father’s words. She was too terrified to do anything else. The templars rifled through her satchel, inspecting it. They didn’t take anything, but when they gave it back it felt tainted. They’d had their grasping human hands all over the things her mother had packed, the shabby treasures she had carefully wrapped in handkerchiefs, along with the letters Nelmirea could not yet read.

She had been lagging behind in her studies. Mama Ghil'ana had been so busy she’d not been keeping on the older children to learn their letters and numbers, leaving them more and more to their own devices. With the babies to care for and other distractions to keep them occupied, learning to read had not seemed so very important.

“You’ll be taught to read and write at the Tower,” her Mother had assured her, “And then you’ll have these letters to read, and you can write back to me, and I’ll be so proud that you’ve been a good student.”

Nelmirea thought about running away from the templars and escaping into the woods. She could live in the woods like the Dalish, wild and free, and no one would bother her. There’d be no babies to look after and no clothes to wash, but then she’d never learn to read and she wouldn’t ever know what her mother's letters said. So she didn’t try to run away.

The Circle Tower rose out of the lake like a long, unnatural finger pointing an accusation at the sky. Nelmirea was cold and miserable in the rowboat, seated between the two templars, and she shivered as the spire of her new home rose out of the mists before them. Inside there were more humans, many templars, but also the mages her mother had told her about. Very special people, dressed in robes, looking solemn and averting their eyes as the templars led her past.

She was put with a group of children, other young initiates newly arrived at the Circle. They were all human. Her mother had said there would be people like her at the Tower, but she didn’t see any.

Nelmirea hated it at the Circle. It was dark and dank and cold, no sunlight reaching through the windows into the lower circles where the children were kept. The chill of the lake was omnipresent, and to Nelmirea it seemed that the stone walls were always a little bit damp, a little moldy, a little cold.

The templars were always there, cold and watchful, hiding behind their armor and helmets.

The other children cried a great deal, screaming for their mothers, begging to go home. The longer they were there the quieter they got, giving in to acceptance or despair, but then there would always be new arrivals fresh with the smell of the outside world and the tenacious desire to be free.

It seemed that not all children were prepared for their journey to the tower. Not all parents took them aside and told them they were being sent away, then waited patiently for the templars to come. Some parents lived in denial about their children’s future, tried to hide them, or just ignore the problem until the templars were called on by some concerned neighbor, teacher, or family friend. Sometimes the templars had to rip children away from crying mothers, and those children arrived at the Tower in fits of anger, fear, or deep withdrawn sadness.

Nelmirea kept her head down and tried not to show anyone how she felt. She had learned this in the alienage as an elf and it served her well as a mage in the tower. Just as she concealed herself from the human guards or intruders into the alienage, she shielded herself from the notice of the templars as best she could. Even the other mages, her teachers or fellow students, gave her cause to hide herself, for they were most all human. There were some elven mages at the tower, but precious few, and none around her own age when she arrived at Kinloch Hold.

The first person she could call a friend was a human boy named Jowan. He had been there before her but he was not too far advanced in his learning. The teachers said he did not apply himself and so he had slipped behind his peers.

Nelmirea did not do well in her magical training because she struggled to read the books they gave her. It was not that she could not read at all, but her ability was below what was expected of her. And she could not comprehend the spell books and ancient tomes her teachers assigned to further her understanding of her innate magical ability.

She could feel the weight of their judgement upon her. She was ashamed that she, the elf, could not read at the same level as the humans. She was giving her people a bad name, or making it worse, and it was not fair. It wasn’t her fault.

She’d been too busy helping Mama Ghil'ana take care of the younger children, she’d been too busy making butterflies dance for the babies, too busy picking lavender in the field with her mother. Too busy. Words got all jumbled up when she tried to make sense of them, like some evil wizard followed her around and cast spells on the pages to make the letters get up and dance around, taunting her with her inability.

She had her mothers letters, and when the other children made fun of her and called her “the dumb bunny” and asked her if all the elves in the alienage were illiterate, she wanted to brandish those letters to prove that her people could write. Her mother was educated. See? But she did not. She would never show these nasty children her most prized possessions. That would only invite further torment. They might burn the letters to mock her, using spells that she could not counter to light her mother’s words on fire, jeering as the fragile paper turned to ash. Even if they did nothing quite so mean as that, she did not want them reading her mother’s words when she could not.

Jowan did not tease her. He didn’t call her dumb bunny, or rabbit, or knife-ear, or any other mean-spirited name for elves. He offered to help her learn the basics, to catch up to the others, because he knew what it was like to fall behind.

“I’m not very good at magic, but I can read and write and all that stuff just fine,” he told her. “I could teach you, and when you get good at magic maybe you can help me get better. Fair?”

It was more than fair. It was kind.

He did help her. And she tried to help him, as best she could, for she did seem to have a more natural talent for magic than he did. Still, the two of them continued to lag behind the other children. The teachers had given up on them, mostly, writing Nelmirea off as the savage, dirty elf, and Jowan as a lazy, dim-witted boy. The less their tutors thought of them, the less well they did and the less the teachers were inclined to let them advance to higher levels of study.

“At this rate we’ll always be apprentices, never true mages,” Jowan would sigh. Nelmirea wasn’t as worried about that. Apprentice, mage, enchanter, senior enchanter, first enchanter, grand enchanter… these were all meaningless titles the mages made up to make themselves feel more important than they were. The truth was that every magic touched person in that tower was a prisoner of the templars, dogs leashed to the Chantry, monsters kept in cages.

Nelmirea could see it all so clearly as she grew up within that tower.

She missed the alienage, and the wilderness outside the Highever city walls. She missed the open sky, the grass, the dirt. She missed plants that grew wild in the earth, not in rows inside planter boxes. She missed real sunlight, no spells conjured to mimic the natural light. She missed animals, birds, insects. She missed looking out windows and going out of doors.

Even if they did go outside, there was precious little ground surrounding the tower. It was all water for as far as the eye could see. Lake Calenhad was their true prison warden.

There were some mages who sought to escape the tower, but without official permission it was nearly impossible to leave. One apprentice jumped out a high window, diving into the lake, and swam to shore. They all thought he must have drowned himself until the templars brought him back. He’d made it onto land but hadn’t been able to hide for long.

Not everyone was such a good swimmer, though. And if a child couldn’t already swim before they arrived at the tower, not one was going to teach them.

Chapter 3: Miss Noble Amell (The Tower)

Chapter Text

Two years had passed since Nelmirea’s arrival at the Tower when she met Solomae Amell.

She was younger than Nelmirea and Jowan, but had proved so adept at magic that she joined their class almost as soon as she was brought to the Tower. The fact that a younger child new to the tower was already at their level and would likely soon surpass them made Jowan very irritable. He did not like the new girl at all.

Nelmirea was unsure about her.

She was a noble born child, that was patently obvious, but she was not mean or abrasive like some of the other children, who took out their frustrations on Nelmirea. They had been ripped from their homes and families and caged by the Circle, and clinging to their imagined sense of superiority over Nelmirea as humans over an elf was the only bit of power they had in the world. Solomae did not exhibit any of these tendencies. Still, as a noble the girl must have grown up being waited on hand and foot by elves, the way the Cousland children who lived at Highever castle did.

Nelmirea had never liked the thought of them. Her mother spent all her days washing their linens and doublets and so had missed out on her own child’s life completely.

She wondered, sometimes, if her mother and father would have stayed home more, if they had known that they would lose her after eight years. Would they have worked less? Might they have found a job within the alienage, so they didn’t have to travel to the castle every day? Would they have still let Mama Ghil'ana raise her like an orphan among the other neglected alienage children?

She would never know.

She could now read well enough to open her mother’s letters, but they did not offer insight into that. Not yet.

Mother had written instructions on the outside of the pages, the blank side that was carefully folded over and sealed with wax. They said “Open This On Your Ninth Birthday” and so on, for ten years worth of birthdays, so that Nelmirea would have one letter a year to read.

She had already cracked open the seals on two of them by the time she met Solomae. Jowan had helped her read the first letter, her ninth birthday present, patiently waiting for her to give up on struggling over a word or a sentence before she asked him for help. But the other one she had read all on her own.

Her mother wrote to her from the echo of almost forgetting, reaching out to pierce the veil of monotony that was tower life. The pages of her letters smelled of lavender and smoke, so faint Nelmirea almost thought she imagined it, but on her ninth birthday she brought the paper to her nose and inhaled, shutting her eyes, and was back in the small home at the northern edge of the alienage again. There also came the faintest whiff of cheese and sausage from the food her mother had packed to go with her on that one-way journey to the tower. This scent had faded by the time she read the next letter.

Solomae’s eyes were a bright blue like the wings of the little butterflies that drank from the flowers that grew in Mama Ghil'ana’s alienage garden. She was already quite tall, much taller than Nelmirea, though she was younger, but that was not so surprising. All the human children out-paced Nelmirea, their bones creaking as they sprouted faster and faster every day. But Solomae was also taller than Jowan, which just made him even grumpier around her.

Her hair was darkest black and impossibly shiny, like the gleaming satin of the First Enchanter’s ceremonial robes, and it was twined into long braids that sat on either shoulder, just so.

Nelmirea had to fight the urge to unwind her braids and run her fingers through her hair, combing it out and re-braiding it, making it into a crown or a waterfall. Solomae would have let her. But she didn’t want to be the elven servant girl doing her mistress’ hair.

She had never been a servant. But after coming to the tower she had heard that joke from the humans. Early on she had tried to make friends and had been sitting in a circle of girls, all braiding and combing each others’ hair, her fingers working deftly through the golden tresses of a girl who would disappear not to be seen again within the month. Another girl, who was not as nimble with her fingers and had made the red-headed girl whose hair she braided yelp in pain and complain of her clumsiness, looked over at Nelmirea and sneered.

“Look at the little elf,” she’d said. “She’s so good at braiding hair. Is that what you did instead of learning to read, rabbit? Did you braid young mistress Cousland’s hair while your mother washed her dirty smallclothes?”

A few girls had looked aghast at the bald meanness of her words, but some had tittered, and that acceptance of the bullying signaled the ground rules early on. Girls either taunted her outright, laughed along, or remained uncomfortably quiet, too afraid to speak out of turn to defend the knife-ear.

Nelmirea had not braided anyone’s hair after that.

When Solomae came to the tower she had little pearl tipped pins woven into her braids, small opalescent beads gleaming prettily in the dark satin. This was her prized possession, the only thing left of her privileged noble born life, just as Nelmeira only had her mother’s letters and a little wood carved halla statue to remind her of the alienage.

Another girl tried to steal the pins while Solomae slept, her hair unbound, but Nelmeira woke in the night to see the theft in progress.

She could see in the dark, and it unnerved the humans to think about her large pale grey eyes being fixed upon them as they scrabbled in shadow. Nelmirea jumped out of her cot and said, “What are you doing?” and the would-be-thief shrieked and dropped the pins. They scattered and bounced around on the floor, and that woke everyone up.

They got a scolding from the teenaged apprentice who was in charge of them, but thankfully no templars came. The one who stood guard outside their quarters just told the apprentice to deal with it and went back to dozing.

Nelmirea, Solomae, and the would-be-thief all got scolded for being out of bed, and the apprentice wouldn’t listen to any protestations about how it wasn’t Nelmirea or Solomae’s fault.

“Hush up or I’ll have you sent up to help the tranquil clean out the roosts!”

They hushed up, though begrudgingly. Nelmirea would not have minded being sent to care for the messenger birds, but the tranquil gave her the creeps. They acted calm and collected on the outside, but she could never shake the feeling that somewhere hidden deep inside a mage was screaming.

They were not allowed light, but Nelmirea got down on her hands and knees and picked the glimmering pearls up off the floor. She wasn’t sure why she did it. Solomae had been nice to her but not so nice that she should be scrabbling around on the floor for her, picking pearls from the grit between stones. This introspection did not stop her from doing it, though.

She poured the handful of pins into Solomae’s cold, clammy palms, and whispered, “That’s all I could find.”

“Thank you,” came the whispered reply. Solomae was not looking at her, not directly. She stared at a point just over Nelmirea’s shoulder, her inadequate human pupils fully dilated but still unable to see what was right in front of her. “These belonged to my mother. They’re all I have left of her.”

Nelmirea said nothing, just folded Solomae’s fingers over her palm, over the little pile of salvaged hairpins, and nodded. She went back to her own bed and curled up like a cat, tight in on herself, and reached one small hand under her pillow to feel the familiar pile of letters, tied up with a frayed blue ribbon.

She kept it under her pillow or tucked into her mattress, though the halla she put out on her nightstand, as if daring anyone to take it. She had a little chest with a lock she could have stored these in, along with her stockings and smallclothes and extra set of robes. But that seemed too obvious. Too likely that someone looking to hurt her could magick the lock open and plunder her treasure.

After the incident with the pins, she and Solomae were officially “friends.” Nelmirea combed out the beautiful soft satin of Solomae’s hair and set the pearls in a new crown of braids, smoothing out the flyaway tendrils around her face, and she ignored the bitter tittering in the background. “Look, Miss Noble Amell has a little elven servant to do her hair and guard her riches for her.”

Jowan still didn’t much care for Solomae, but he was not given a say in the matter of who else Nelmirea would be friends with, so he was forced to be nice, lest he be the one pushed away. For several years the three of them were a nigh inseparable trio, always seen together around the lower floors of the circle, except at night when Jowan had to stay in the boy’s bunkroom.

Jowan and Nelmirea were perpetually disliked by their teachers, no matter who the teacher was or what particular subject they taught—enchantment, conjuration, herbalism, healing, et al.

Solomae was just the opposite. She was so bright and eager to please that she quickly earned the reputation as a teacher's pet.

As different as they were, it still made sense for them to stick together. Solomae was always trying to help Jowan the Ungifted and Nelmirea the Illiterate with their studies, and since the other children hated an overachiever, she had few other friends. That suited Nelmirea just fine, as she dreaded the day Solomae might realize that she was being held back by fraternizing with the elf and the boy no one else liked.

Chapter 4: Five Children Gone (The Tower)

Chapter Text

Every year on her birthday Nelmirea would crack open another letter.

She noticed that her mother altered her writing subtlety every year, using longer sentences, bigger words, and wrote to her of what she imagined might be occupying her thoughts as she grew from child to young woman.

Nelmirea pictured her mother in the days before she was taken away to the Tower, finding spare moments in between work to sit and write a letter that would not be read for years to come. She wondered if the idea of a fifteen year old Nelmirea had been more real to her than the small eight year old child that still waited at home, innocently manipulating the world around her, not knowing it would cause her to be sent away.

She might have defied her mother’s wishes and read all the letters at once, as soon as she had mastered reading well enough to do so. By the time she was twelve she thought she was probably better lettered than her mother, and that was as it should be. It only made sense, as she was getting the best education in Ferelden despite her teachers’ lukewarm attitudes towards her. She spent her days studying magic, reading through the tower library, trying desperately to keep up with Solomae so that her friend wouldn’t be moved up to a level beyond her, wouldn’t be put through her Harrowing long before Nelmirea was selected, thus leaving her behind.

She did not read through the letters, however. It was her mother’s wish that she save them, the only yearly birthday gift her mother could give her from afar, and she wanted to savor those special days more than she wanted to devour the contents of the letters. In truth, they did not say much. Her mother, as much as she tried to anticipate the growing young woman her daughter would become, still could only guess at what might be relevant to say to her.

She wrote about her own life, her parents’ lives, and told Nelmirea family stories.

She recounted her first impressions of Nelmirea’s father, who had traveled all the way from the Denerim alienage to marry her sight unseen. It was a custom among the city dwelling elves to arrange marriages for their children to elves from other alienages, in order to avoid intermarrying within the small local communities. They hired matchmakers to arrange such marriages, elves who freely traveled between cities, who kept family lineage records of all the elves in the Thedas. It was dangerous information if it ended up in the hands of the shems, so to be a matchmaker required the deepest sense of honor and responsibility.

She shared stories from Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, who had been a Dalish elf living free in the forest until a calamity befell her clan and left her the sole survivor. Great-Grandmother had sought refuge in the alienage and been welcomed by the elves of Highever, but their family line was always just a little bit different, just a little bit more Dalish in the eyes of their neighbors. In her letters, Mother kept Nelmirea connected to the ways of their people, even as she grew up disconnected within the wall of the Chantry’s circle tower.

Nelmirea remembered the Highever alienage’s vhenadahl tree and the names of the ancient elven gods. She said prayers to Selyse and Mythal as well as Andraste, though she kept these elven prayers to herself. Her mother wrote elvhen words and phrases into her letters, carefully explaining their meaning in common, so that Nelmirea would not forget what she had known as a child growing up at Mama Ghil'ana’s knee.

Mother must have thought she would have a more vibrant social life than she did, for in the letter for her thirteenth birthday she wrote explanations about sex and love and what Nelmirea should and shouldn’t do, how she should behave around boys and what she should not put up with or allow. The frank, detailed instructions for what to do when she did eventually have sex made Nelmirea blush wildly in the privacy of the corner where she had retreated to read her birthday letter.

She knew well enough even at thirteen that many young apprentices were carried away by their hormones and found all sorts of ways to circumvent the circle’s rules against fornication. But that was not a concern of Nelmirea’s. She would need one of those matchmakers who traveled between alieanges to expand their repertoire to include Circle Towers if she was ever to find someone she might be able to think about that way.

Nelmirea had grown far too used to being suspicious of everyone around her to be able to imagine engaging in romantic liaisons with the other apprentices. She knew all the human mages in her age range far too well to want to sneak into storage closets with them, and the small number of other elven mages were all either too old or too young for her.

Not that any of them were making any offers. She had developed a reputation for being anti-social and mean, and no one had ever accused her of being pretty.

Solomae had been pretty the first day she arrived and she only grew more beautiful as time went on. She drew everyone’s attention, and even boys who had been cruel to her when they were younger tried to coax smiles and kisses from her. She kept them at arm’s length, though, not forgetting their unkindness of earlier years, and gained a reputation for being a prissy, too-good, stuck up bitch—a perfect compliment to mean Nelmirea the knife-ear.

So while other teenaged apprentices were getting up to naughty things, engaging in illicit adventures despite the templar’s watchful eyes and the enchanters’ stern glances, Nelmirea, Jowan, and Solomae continued to innocently just be friends. If Jowan had a crush on either of them, he never showed it. As far as Nelmirea was concerned, he was like a brother to her, and not at all appealing.

Solomae’s reputation as a bitch was unfair, because she was the nicest person Nelmirea knew. But the judgement that she was too stuck up to be flirted with was true, in a way… for she was too good for everyone. Nelmirea thought so. She didn’t belong in the Circle Tower, locked away from the world, unseen and unloved. She should have been allowed to stay in Kirkwall, her home, and be the jewel of the Amell family.

Few people got to hear the full story of Solomae’s family. Everyone in the mage tower had a sob story about who they were and who their family was before their magic was discovered. It was all verses surrounding a similar refrain: the Sad Ballad of the Mage Child. Solomae was averse to dwelling on it or talking about it.

She never spoke ill of the Circle or the Chantry. She said that she was glad to have a safe place in the world where she didn’t have to hide her identity. She chided Nelmirea whenever she made a dark joke or said a bitter thing in earnest about the templars who guarded them. “They safe-guard us,” she would say, “they watch over us,” whenever Nelmirea complained about being guarded and watched.

When Solomae was very young her family had lived in a grand house in Hightown, the rich noble district of Kirkwall. Then her oldest brother, Daylen, had manifested his magic, and templars had come to take him away. Her mother lost her mind, abandoned the rest of her family, was never heard from again, and so her father had taken his four remaining children away from Kirkwall.

They went south to Ferelden and lived in Crestwood for a while, in a modest but comfortable house on good farmland. It was not so bad, she said, not at first. They went from nobles in Hightown to landed gentry in Crestwood, but they had not fallen into poverty or dissolution. The Fereldans never trusted them, though, knowing them as the strange Marcher widower and his odd children. Soon enough when Solomae’s older sister Elodie was careless and performed a spell in sight of the neighbors, the templars came again.

They inspected all the children, interrogating them and testing them for magic. Solomae’s father had instructed them all to hide their burgeoning magical talents, but when one child in a family developed magic it put suspicion on the rest. And since the Amells had proven that they would try to keep one child a secret, it was likely they would do it again.

Elodie tried to make up for her earlier slip by concealing her magic in front of the templars and insisting she did not know what the neighbor was talking about. They had imagined it, she said. The templars tried to trick her into casting a spell, tried to frighten her into defending herself, but to no avail. She retreated so far into herself that they could not even sense her magic, and began to wonder if it was nothing more than xenophobic suspicion that made the people of Crestwood send for them.

But then Solomae had disobeyed her father, and given up all, when it came her turn. She lied, at first, because Father had said to lie, had told her the answers to give. But her defenses were not so strong as Elodie’s. The templars had been stern, telling her that little girls who hid their magic would get devoured by demons in their sleep, and that Andraste wanted her to be honest with them. They told her that if she chose to become an apostate she could never reach the Maker’s side when she died, and her soul would be destroyed.

This frightened her terribly. Nelmirea could tell that it frightened her still; that she thought because she had obeyed her father and hid her magic, even for a short time, she was damned.

She broke down and told the templars the truth, that she could do magic, and so could Elodie. The two younger children hadn’t shown any magical talent yet, but they were still so young that it wasn’t a surprise. The templars told her she was a very good girl and that Andraste was pleased with her and would watch over her.

Then they took her and her sister and both of her younger siblings away. Even though they hadn’t manifested magic yet, the templars decided that their father could not be trusted, not after he had actively hidden three magic touched children from the Chantry. If the youngest children never became mages, they would be trained to be templars. But all the Amell children were to be wards of the Chantry, regardless.

Nelmirea thought it was a horrible story, showing the cruelty and entitlement of the templars, the Chantry, the whole Andrastan religion. But Solomae saw it a different way.

“My parents were wrong,” she said, quietly, when she told Nelmirea the full story for the first time. “I will never forget how my mother wailed and carried on after they took Daylen. And then she just disappeared. I sympathize with my father, the strain it put him under, I understand that he felt he could not stay in Kirkwall after the disgrace my mother caused. I can forgive him moving to Crestwood, trying to make a life there. But he was wrong to try to make us hide, to try to turn us into apostates. I wonder often what he was thinking.”

“Probably that he loved you and didn’t want you to be locked up in a tower,” Nelmirea said.

Solomae just smiled, her cheeks dimpling, and shook her head. “This is where we belong,” she insisted. “The Circles were built for us, specifically to keep us safe and allow us to thrive. Out in the world we’re seen as freaks, as monsters. In Kirkwall, Crestwood… we were looked at with suspicion and fear. I can only imagine what would have happened to us if there was no Circle. The villagers would have descended on our house with pitchforks and torches before long.”

“How convenient that the Chantry stirs up fear in the people just so that they can ride in to save the day,” Nelmirea said, dryly.

She’d been an elf before she was a mage, and she knew those tricks all too well. The humans who guarded the alienage claimed to be protecting the elves from the humans outside, but they let humans in when it suited them, when some rich noble had enough coin to slip into their palms so they could go in and steal elven girls, making them disappear. And wasn’t it the Chantry who taught that elves were inferior, savage, heathen creatures who were too far from the Maker’s grace to be viewed as people? But Solomae didn’t understand this. She didn’t comprehend it, because she believed what the Chantry said about mages, what they said about her.

“I don’t want to fall prey to a demon in my dreams,” she said. “My Father couldn’t teach me how to defend against the spirits of the Fade. We were defenseless, like little nugs waiting for the wolves to find us. At least here at the Circle we learn how to control our fears and resist demons.”

Nelmirea was still a child and didn’t have any answers for what to do about demons. They scared her too. Solomae was always able to shut down her complaints about the Circle with dire warnings about demons, repeated as they were from what the Chantry taught them. It had been this way for hundreds of years, and Solomae said that if people hadn’t figured out a better way to stop mages from becoming abominations by now, they never would. It rankled Nelmirea to hear her say that, but she didn’t have any solutions, either. She was just a young girl who could barely read, at the end of every argument, and she felt stupid for thinking that she could solve a problem no mage before her had ever done.

In the end, Solomae blamed her father for the trauma of the day the templars came and frightened her into disobeying him and giving up their family secrets. She did not know where her older sister had been taken, or if her younger siblings ever developed magic or were even now in training as templar initiates. She did not know what became of her father after he lost everything, wife and five children all taken away.

“He was selfish,” she said. “He couldn’t take care of us the way we need to be taken care of and he would never have been able to keep us safe or teach us what to do with our magic. I feel sorry for my father, losing all of us at the same time like that, but I don’t know what he thought would happen. That we would all suppress our magic forever? That we would get married and have children of our own and have to deal with hiding them from the Circle, too? Where would it end?”

“I don’t know,” said Nelmirea. “My parents never tried to hide me. As soon as Mama Ghil’ana noticed me doing magic, they sent for the templars. It was very fast. Barely two weeks before I was banished.”

“Don’t think of it as banishment. You cannot keep living in the past like that. We’re here now. We should focus on moving up, becoming the best mages we can be. I think I could be First Enchanter someday. Maybe Grand Enchanter if I work hard enough. You could get special dispensation to leave the tower, someday, to go serve out in the world. They let mages who are especially good and trustworthy take up positions outside the tower, so if that’s what you want you should focus all your energies on getting better, not being bitter.”

“I know you’re right,” Nelmirea said, because that’s what she wanted to hear, and it made her smile. Flash of dimples. Approving nod. “It’s just hard for me. None of it comes easy to me, not like you.”

“I’ll always help you, Nelly. Don’t ever hesitate to ask.”

Chapter 5: Dareth Shiral, Ma Vhenan (The Tower)

Chapter Text

On her nineteenth birthday, Nelmirea opened the last letter. Ten years in the Tower, ten letters from an ever more distant past.

My most precious daughter,

You are nineteen today.

You are no longer a child. You haven’t been a child in some years, I know, but now you are truly a woman. I am sure that you have grown clever and beautiful and wise in so many ways beyond my imaginings.

We are proud of you, your father and I. We knew when you were born that you would be something beyond us. Though we did not know you would have magic, we recognize now that this is the path that was always destined to lead you out of our lives and into what we believe is a life greater than your humble parents could ever give you. I believe in my deepest heart that as you come into your nineteenth year you will be on a path with the mages that will fulfil our hopes for you.

I hope you have never had cause to doubt that you are special to us, and that you are loved. I think of you every day. I have thought of you every day for these past ten years.

I have told you all the stories I can think to tell. I believe that you are making your own stories, now.

Mythal watches over you, even if you cannot see the moon. Remember this always.

Dareth shiral, ma vhenan.

 

Her mother’s letters always left her feeling sad. But this one in particular crumpled something up within her soul, and she turned her face towards the wall, hiding it from anyone who might pass by her alcove and see her cry.

It was the last new words she would ever read from her mother. No new letters had ever reached the tower, and as a lowly apprentice she was not allowed to climb up to the rookery and send a raven out into the world herself. She had never really expected it, knowing as well as her mother must have, that she wouldn’t have access to a messenger bird to send to the tower. Apparently not even the Couslands, whom Mother had always spoken so highly of, deigned to allow their elven servant use of their birds. Or perhaps Mother never even asked.

Nelmirea had noticed, many years ago, that her mother’s writing could be quite eloquent for a mere washerwoman. She had beautiful flowing handwriting, surprising for someone who worked so hard with her hands all day… those rough hands smelling of lavender and lye… and Nelmirea wondered if she had written these letters herself or dictated them.

She pictured her mother begging her employer, the great Teyrna Cousland, to pen these letters to her daughter. She thought of how her mother had said she was grateful the Couslands granted them an extra day off so they could be there when the templars came to collect her. How many favors would a noble do for their servants? How self-satisfied would they feel, doing those favors?

The first time these thoughts entered her mind she had felt ashamed. How could she doubt her mother had the ability to write a few simple letters? She had spent too many years with the humans, had begun to believe in the image of the poor, dirty, uneducated elves living in squalor that everyone around her accepted as fact though none of them had ever so much as set foot in an alienage or spoken to an elf who didn’t grow up in the tower with them.

Still, the thoughts persisted. She barely remembered her mother, except when she caught the scent of lavender, or watched the Tranquil servants peeling the sheets and blankets back from the beds on washday. She tried to remember ever seeing her mother writing anything, before. Tried to remember reading anything her mother had written. Tried to remember her helping Nelmirea as she struggled to learn her letters. She could not. She could only remember Mama Ghil'ana teaching her.

Perhaps it did not matter. There were two options and they both made Nelmirea said.

One, that her mother was illiterate and needed someone else to dictate these letters to, and all these years it was the embellishments of a stranger that Nelmirea cherished so. Or, two, that her mother’s fine hand and eloquent words indicated a tragic waste of talent. She lived a life of drudgery, scrubbing soiled linens and burning her skin away with caustic liquids. And what was all that work for? To provide for a child that she no longer had, whom she had never gotten the chance to raise?

Nelmirea wondered if her parents had other children after she left, babies to replace her, or if they feared ending up like the Amells… five children and all taken by the Chantry, in the end.

Finally, she reflected on the woman her mother thought she was, compared the one she was in reality. She was nineteen and still alive, a small feat in and of itself, but she did not know anything of this greatness her mother described. She was a mage apprentice of middling magical ability and no scholarly aptitude whatsoever.

Solomae, born under the sign of Bellitanus, might be a great woman someday. She might rise up to First Enchanter and replace Irving someday, but Nelmirea had no such aspirations. She just hoped that she would pass her Harrowing when the time came.

Solomae had already been through her Harrowing, though she was a year younger and had not been at the Circle as long. But that was hardly a surprise. Nelmirea had always known that she would become a true mage before her, though the sting of losing her to the upper levels had hurt well enough.

Jowan was still an apprentice, but he had become distant and cagey as of late. He’d been spending less time with Solomae and Nelmirea for a while before Solomae’s Harrowing came and she ascended past them. It had been some months… perhaps even some years… since they could have been considered a trio of close friends and confidants.

Nelmirea suspected that he had a lover, though she could not guess who it was, and he hadn’t dared to tell her. She didn’t blame him, for the templars cracked down hard on anyone who seemed to be forming strong attachments. A little hanky panky now and then was tolerated, but romance? True feelings of love and devotion? Mages were not allowed that. Too volatile. And if one was in love, one might dream of the privileges of the non-magical—family and children and acceptance. It wouldn’t do.

She was glad he had found someone to love, as dangerous as it might be, and she did not press him. It made her sad, though, and sadder still after Solomae left.

Nelmirea had awoken in the night when the templars came to lead Solomae away for her Harrowing, and had lain awake all the rest of the night waiting for her return, dreading that she would disappear forever like so many others.

Nelmirea always woke up when the templars came to collect a mage for their Harrowing.

Sometimes, in the morning, the apprentice would return to get their things and say goodbye; an apprentice no longer! They would be excited and happy, looking forward to ascending to the nicer accommodations of the upper levels. Some said the Templars didn’t eye them with so much raw suspicion anymore, because they had proven themselves, shown they could resist being possessed by demons. Nelmirea wondered how long that lasted, as she had heard the templars murmuring to each other about enchanters and apprentices alike.

Sometimes, for too often, the apprentice didn’t return at all, or if they were seen again, they were Tranquil.

After Solomae had been roused from her bed, Nelmirea had crept over to the empty mattress and reached under the pillow, drawing out a small pouch that held Solomae’s silver and pearl hairpins. If, Maker forbid, Solomae did not return, Nelmirea did not want these to be taken by someone else. She would never wear them, she could never wear them, but she would tuck them away with her wooden halla and her mother’s letters.

Solomae had come back, and it had been a relief, but still, a bittersweet one. She handed back the pearls and hugged her friend, congratulating her and wishing her well.

“You will still see me around, silly Nelly,” Solomae had said when she cried. “I’m just getting a different bed, that’s all. And it’s not as if you can’t climb the stairs to visit me.”

“I know, vhenan, I know,” said Nelmirea, wiping her tears away, but she felt as if a chasm was opening between them.

She had never told Solomae what “vhenan” truly meant in the elvhen tongue. She had said it meant “friend,” so that Solomae understood it somewhat, but had been too embarrassed even as a child to tell her that the literal translation was “heart.” Ma vhenan, my heart. Perhaps it was this inability to tell her that which made the rapidly growing chasm feel so inescapably deep and wide. Or perhaps it was the long held conviction that Solomae was so much better than her and would surpass her in skill, knowledge, and influence that created the distance and made her keep what small secrets she could to herself.

After that all she could do was wait for her own Harrowing, at once dreading it and impatiently wishing she could hasten its arrival. She wasn’t as good a mage as Solomae—she did not trust so fully in the system the Chantry had devised to prevent mages from devolving into an army of abominations and destroying the world. She was the exact sort of anxious, irascible ne’er-do-well that the templars eyed with extra suspicion, doubting her fortitude and considering her a good candidate for Tranquility.

No one wanted to lead a mage to their Harrowing if possession was a foregone conclusion, thus many times they bypassed the ritual completely and went straight to Tranquilizing the apprentice.

Nelmirea would rather be killed outright.

When her Harrowing came, it shocked her how easy it was to pass, in the end. She was tested not so much on her magical skills as her gullibility, her capacity for trust. And Nelmirea trusted no one. When the Pride demon, who had masqueraded as a mouse of a man, tempted her to allow possession, she did not even hesitate in her refusal. Indeed, she had suspected him of some trickery from the moment she encountered him, as he was so helpful and deferential that she could hardly believe it was not some trap.

And with that, she was a Mage of the Circle of Magi, Proven by the Harrowing.

She wondered if this was the greatness her mother and father had seen for her. She did not feel great, she did not feel as if proving that she need not be slaughtered or mind-wiped was in any way “greatness.” It was survival. In her own way she was living as small and menial a life as that of a washerwoman or stable worker, and perhaps… she was even less than that. For her parents at least got to walk out into the world, they were able to travel from the castle to the alienage, a narrow path to be sure, but wider than the ones she walked every day. The work they did was rewarded with payment and they could love each other, could have children and raise a family, even if it meant hard work and long days, even if it meant giving their children to Mama Ghil'ana to look after while they were away.

At least there were butterflies and lavender fields in the life her parents led.

She could not claim any special destiny which made leaving her parents worth it. But she hoped that they still might be happy that her magic had given her a comfortable life, so far. Nelmirea’s hands were soft, her clothes made of a high quality weave, and there were servants in the tower who cleaned up after her, who made her meals, mended her shoes, and emptied her privy pots into the lake. She was as spoiled as any noble human girl, in that way, and she knew how to read, and write, and do all her sums, and then some. She could mix potions and cast spells, though she did not recommend anyone drink her potions or stand close by while she was casting a spell.

Solomae greeted her with enthusiastic joy when she emerged from her Harrowing, a success. “I made something for you,” she announced, “while I waited for them to call you to your Harrowing.”

She opened up the trunk at the foot of her bed and pulled out a robe made of lavender dyed Highever weave, which was embroidered all over in a pattern of blue butterflies. They looked to be lifting up to the sky in a swirl that began at the hem of the skirt and blossomed out towards the neck and sleeves.

“Do you like it?” Solomae asked. “It’s lined with samite because I know how chilly you always get.”

“I love it,” Nelmirea said, unable to hold back tears. She didn’t even want to hold back tears. “I love it so, so much ma vhenan. I can’t believe you made this for me.”

“Can’t you?” Solomae said with a smile. “Now put it on, I want to see if I sized it right. I’ll be so mad with myself if the shoulders are too wide.”

That had been a good day. One of the best. One of the last truly good ones for a long time.

Chapter 6: Betrayal and Freedom (The Tower / The Road)

Chapter Text

Nelmirea was aware that one of the templars had some grotesque mockery of a crush on Solomae. Templars watching mages with lust mingled in with their suspicion and horror was not uncommon, as were templars who took advantage of their power to force helpless mages into compromising situations.

She watched the templars with as much eagle-eyed suspicion as they watched her. She was careful to make herself unappealing to them as a woman, particularly because as an elven woman she was especially vulnerable to exploitation. Even as a child of eight she had known to be careful around human men, since Mama Ghil'ana, and Mother, and Father, and a host of others had all warned her of them and how they liked to prey on elven girls and women.

This caution had served her well at the Tower.

She made a point to learn the name of the templar who watched Solomae with too much interest. Cullen. It would not do. She murmured obscure elvhen curses to herself at night, in the deep quiet while others slept, invoking his name, hoping some intangible malice affected him. There was nothing magical in those curses, unless one believed that there was something left of Arlathan’s glory and power in every elvhen word.

While she was noticing him and learning his name so that she could curse him in her thoughts and under her breath, Solomae was noticing him and learning his name so that she could encourage him.

Nelmirea was horrified when Solomae asked her to surreptitiously slip him a note.

“Absolutely note,” she said, her whisper a hiss and her eyes expressing all the disapproval she could muster. She pushed Solomae’s hand, and the note, away. Surreptitious note-passing was something to be done to flirt with other mages without the templars noticing, not to flirt with the templars. Fenedhis! Had Solomae lost all her sense?

She could refuse to be complicit in Solomae’s folly, but she could not stop her from carrying on a flirtation with the templar. Notes got passed back and forth by hands other than Nelmirea’s. There were smiles and glances and greetings in the hall which carried a note of yearning that turned Nelmirea’s stomach sour. She had spent years feeling protective over Solomae because she was beautiful and she trusted the templars to be honorable—a terrible combination. It was frustrating to see Solomae completely disregard all her concern and to be unable to do anything about it.

Despite her worries, she could not go to one of the senior templars or Knight-Commander Greagoir to complain about Cullen’s misconduct. Because if she tried to get him in trouble, she would only get Solomae in trouble. They would accuse her of trying to seduce him, of corrupting a champion of Andraste and holy servant of the Chantry… as if she were not just an innocent and foolish young girl. Nelmirea had seen it happen before, to others.

This all happened before Solomae’s Harrowing. Afterwards, Nelmirea saw less of her, and could not be sure if the flirtation was continuing. She hoped Solomae had cast it aside as a childish diversion better left to apprentices. She would not know, because Solomae did not confide in her about it after Nelmirea had expressed such strong disapproval.

But all that time she spent worrying over Solomae and Cullen and what improper lengths they might be going to in order to indulge in a secret forbidden tryst, she completely missed everything that Jowan was doing.

She’d suspected he had a lover but never in a million years had she thought it would be Lily, the Chantry initiate. By Andraste’s flaming ass cheeks, what was the matter with them? Had they both gone completely mad?

She wondered if she had been dreaming her whole life up to that point. She wondered if everything that had happened since she came to the Tower was a feverish Fade nightmare and her friends, acquaintances, and enemies were all demons having a chuckle at her expense. Or maybe she was trapped in one long, endless Harrowing and didn’t know when it had begun or when it would end.

Once she came to terms with the fact that this was all likely quite real, she contemplated how she had allowed herself to be so blind to her friend’s weakness and foibles. Jowan had never been the smartest mage, that was certain, but he had been kind to her and almost single handedly helped her overcome her learning difficulties those first couple of years. Solomae had helped as well, but for the first two years, Jowan had been Nelmirea’s only friend. Her gratitude towards him for all outweighed the fact that he could have quite terrible judgement at times.

Falling so hard for a Chantry initiate that he wanted to escape the Tower and marry her was certainly the worst idea he had ever devised, but it was not the first daft scheme he’d cooked up. But before now she’d always been able to stop him, or talk sense into him, or at least help him.

If the three of them had stayed as close as when they were younger, this would not have happened.

Solomae would see her side, wouldn’t she? Her own flirtation with Cullen was stupid enough, but it was nowhere near the level of idiocy that Jowan was exhibiting. She wasn’t plotting to run away with him, after all.

Jowan revealed his whole plan to Nelmirea and begged her help, saying that he was going to be made Tranquil soon, that he knew First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greigor had signed the order. Lily claimed to have seen the paperwork.

Nelmirea did not trust Lily. What if she had lied about the Tranquility order so that Jowan would feel desperate enough to risk running away with her? Nelmirea did not know a great deal about the girl’s situation, but she knew that Lily had been given to the Chantry by parents who had too many children to provide for, and had no great love for that life. Nelmirea could sympathize somewhat, since she had been given over as well, but it was still different. If Lily ran away it was unlikely anyone would go after her. There was no phylactery for wayward Sisters and she would not be viewed as a dangerous, unhinged apostate in the outside world. If she did not want a life of celibacy and religious contemplation, stationed at the dark and dour Circle Chapel, but also did not want to have to run away all by herself, she had adequate motivation to rope a fearful and foolish mage apprentice into her escape plan.

Nelmirea found her suspicions quite plausible, but what’s more, she wanted it to be true. She did not want to believe that Jowan was truly suspected of blood magic and slated for a worse fate than death, but a deep anxious worry within her told that it was entirely likely.

Later, Nelmirea would look back and realize her first mistake was telling Solomae what Jowan was planning. Or perhaps not the first, but at least, the most foolish. She had trusted Solomae. Her heart. Trusted her not to rat them out, because how could she? They looked out for one another, it had always been them against the Tower, whether it was other children bullying one of them or teachers being cruel and dismissive towards Jowan and Nelmirea while fawning sickeningly over Solomae. She had never bought into the whole Teacher’s Pet thing, not truly. Not truly?

At first Nelmirea thought Solomae was completely on her side. She decried Jowan’s ridiculous notion that the initiate girl loved him and would marry him, and shook her head sadly at his plan to run from the Tower. She dismissed Lily’s claim that Irving and Greagoir had agreed to Tranquilize Jowan because she refused to believe that they suspected Jowan, of all people, of blood magic.

“He’s far too kind and gentle for that,” she had said. “A bit silly and given to worry, yes, but while that might make his Harrowing risky, I just cannot see anyone thinking him a blood mage. Where’s the ambition or the lust for power? It’s too far fetched. Lily must be making it up to gain his allegiance, just as you said. What are you going to do?” she had asked.

“I told him… I told him I would help him,” Nelmirea said, and the look Solomae had given her was of such disappointment it made her cringe away and lower her eyes.

“Nelly,” said Solomae, sighing, “you can’t get mixed up in one of his schemes. We’re not apprentices anymore. We need to be serious.”

Nelmirea arched an eyebrow. “Serious? And are you always serious?”

Solomae blushed, knowing she was talking about Cullen, but brushed it aside. “Jowan has got himself all worked up over nothing. He should just be patient and wait to pass his Harrowing, which I am certain will come to pass. The last thing he should be doing it trying to escape and run off with Lily. She’ll never go through with it, anyway. Marrying him, I mean. She’ll use him to get away from the Tower and even if they’re halfway to Tevinter before she discards him, that’ll leave Jowan with egg on his face.”

“I know. I know. I agree completely,” Nelmirea said, nodding feeling relieved that this idea of blood magic and tranquility was absurd. “But he’s so set on it, and I thought that if I helped him he would at least make it out of the Tower. If they catch him before he can escape I shudder to think what they’ll do to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh come now. People run away and are brought back all the time. Remember Anders?”

“Yes. Yes I do.” Anders was an older apprentice who had swam to his freedom several times, only to be dragged back kicking and screaming every time. Every time but the last, that was. She didn’t know what had become of him. Perhaps he was free, out there somewhere, or perhaps he’d been killed by templars the final time they caught up with him.

“It won’t be good for him, but perhaps it will sober him up, make him realize how foolish he’s being.”

“Or perhaps by trying to escape he will make them actually think he is a maleficar.”

“No one could seriously think that of Jowan.”

Nelmirea shook her head. It might not matter. If he made himself enough of a nuisance they might label him a maleficar just to make it easier to deal with him.  Or the mage-hunters might get carried away and slay him instead of bringing him to Irving and Greagoir for punishment.

“I already told him I would help him,” she said, apology in her eyes even as she stood her ground.

“So? Tell him you have changed your mind. Tell him I talked some sense into you.”

Nelmirea smiled and shook her head. “If I do that, will you do something for me?”

Solomae sighed.

“Don’t sigh at me, vhenan . Promise me that you aren’t still playing at courtly love with that templar boy.”

“Worry not, Nelly. I’m not plotting to jump from the rookery and swim into marital bliss with Cullen,” Solomae said, as if it was all a big joke.

“I mean it. Stop with the fluttering eyelashes and notes and… and all of it. I can’t even fathom how you take any joy in it at all. He was going to kill you if you failed your Harrowing, you know.”

Solomae’s eyes went dark at that. “That’s not true,” she said, the blue icing over. “That’s just a cruel joke the other templars pulled on him. They know he’s a little sweet on me.”

“Yes, which is why they wanted him to kill you. Because they’re sick. They’re sick, evil people, Solomae.”

“Not Cullen.”

“Maybe not. But give him time. Have you asked him if he’s ever killed a mage before? Have you asked him if he knows what happens to all those children too young for Harrowings who disappear in the night? Does he know everything his colleagues have done? Does he joke and throw back drinks with men who had cornered mages and threatened to make them Tranquil if they don't get on their knees and—”

“Stop it, Nelly. You’re unfair. The templars don’t enjoy putting down abominations. They only do what must be done. And as for that other stuff, that’s all just hearsay and rumors. Sometimes children lose control and become possessed. It’s unfortunate but you know some people never make it to their Harrowings. If you were faced with an abomination, you’d have to kill a mage too. You know you would, you wouldn’t just stand there and let it kill you, even if it had once been a child.”

Nelmirea just snorted. She decided to let it slide, for the moment, because Jowan’s current predicament was more important than trying to disabuse Solomae of her trust in templars.

She knew that Solomae would not help Jowan escape, but she had been naive enough to think that she would look the other way if Nelmirea chose to help.

The moment when Nelmirea realized that Solomae had gone to First Enchanter Irving and betrayed them felt like a shattering. To disapprove was one thing. To say it might be best for Jowan to be caught was another. But actively ratting him out was a thing so far outside the realm of what Nelmirea thought she was capable of that for a moment she did not believe it had happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite seeing Solomae walk towards them, close at Irving’s side, her hands folded demurely in front of her as she avoided Nelmirea gaze and looked away instead.

Nelmirea was still reeling from this betrayal when Jowan revealed that he had been practicing blood magic. Cornered, thwarted in his attempt at escape, he used blood magic to get the upper hand. The fury that poured from him was a shock to witness.

He knocked aside everyone who stood in his way—Irving, Greagoir, Solomae, and the templars who flanked them. Nelmirea went immediately to Solomae, checking her for injuries and monitoring her pulse as she lay unconscious. It was Jowan’s blood fury which rendered her insensate on the floor, and for a few terrible moments Nelmirea thought he had killed her.

“What have you done?” she shrieked, even as Lily was cowering away from Jowan, telling him to stay away from her.

“I’m sorry,” Jowan said, “but I had to do something. I can’t just let them tranquilize me. Solomae should have stayed out of it. You shouldn’t have told her, I didn’t ask her to help us.” There was a harsh edge to his voice, and his hand was still dribbling blood onto the floor.

Nelmirea eyed the puddle by his feet. She wondered how much blood it would take to do something truly terrible.

“Just go, just get away from us, Blood Mage!” Lily cried.

The anger drained from his face as he looked from Solomae and Nelmirea to Lily. He reached out his still bloodied hand towards her. “I… I didn’t mean… I just needed—”

“Leave!” Lily cried, backing away.

Jowan looked back to Nelmirea helplessly, and she said what she knew to be the truth. “You better do as she says. They’ll kill you if you’re still here when they come back around.”

“What about you?” he said. “You helped me, they’ll think the worst. You need to come with me—”

“No. They still have my phylactery. I’ll just lead them to you. Go, Jowan. Please.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, stumbling away.

After a time those who had been knocked out by Joawn’s magic started to come around. Nelmirea was holding Solomae’s hand as she sat up, groaning, but as her eyes cleared and she looked around, she said, “Cullen!” and Nelmirea felt it like an ice spike in the heart.

One of the templers who had accompanied them groaned in response to the name. With his helmet on he was anonymous, he could have been any of them, but of course Solomae had known. She had come with them, after all. Nelmiera released her hand without a word as she crawled over to him.

“Are you alright?” she asked, solicitous and gentle.

“Yes, where did the blood mage go?” came his muffled response from behind the mask.

“Gone,” Nelmirea answered for her. “Escaped.”

Irving and Greagoir were also coming to, and she turned her attention to them. It was time to face the consequences.

It did not go well. Of course it didn’t. How could it? She had been caught red handed breaking into the forbidden Repository, in the name of helping a blood mage.

Lily’s reward for her part in the foiled escape was a prison sentence at Aenor, the mage’s prison. Little was known of that place but it was spoken of in hushed whispers, as if it were the Black City itself. For a Chantry initiate with no magic to be sent there was serious indeed, but they suspected that Jowan might have influenced her mind with his blood magic or planted some other treachery in her subconscious, and she was to be evaluated far away from the Tower.

Nelmirea wondered if she would also be sent there, but that was not the case.

Solomae’s betrayal had been a blow. Jowan’s revelation as a blood mage was another blow.

Knight-Commander Greagoir’s insistence that Solomae and Nelmirea be made Tranquil was the third and final blow which made Nelmirea realize that nothing was going to be as it was, ever again.

Solomae was distraught that her loyalty to the Circle was being punished, and Nelmirea wanted to scream and laugh at the same time.

She’d always thought that Solomae’s belief in the moral justifications of the Circle was a coping mechanism—that she chose to believe that Andraste wanted them to be caged this way, to dull the horror of what had happened to her family in Kirkwall and Crestwood. Nelmirea found no comfort in the Chantry’s teachings, but then she was not human and the Chantry had never been for her. Solomae at least had hope that Blessed Andraste and the Maker might love her if she believed in her own inherent corruption and submitted to the templars rules.

If she viewed her circumstances with an ounce of the skepticism that Nelmirea did, she would not be able to live her life at all. Nelmirea had forgiven her some measure of foolishness and complacency for this reason. Let her think that the templars were champions of the just, protectors of mages rather than ruthless jailors, if it allowed her to smile. Let her believe in the necessity of her imprisonment if it allowed her to wake each day and not dash her brains out against the rocks. Let her deal with life as a Circle Mage in her own way, so that she could live at all.

This had been Nelmirea’s way of dealing with having a friend who believed in things she found false. They didn’t have to agree on the Circle at the end of the day because they were both trapped there, regardless. Nemirea chose to endure it and Solomae to embrace it, but it was survival either way.

She’d never dreamed that Solomae would wield that trust in the Circle as a weapon that would injure her. And yet she had, and in the process had injured them both. Had, in fact, sentenced them both to a fate worse than death. She might laugh at the irony, were she allowed to do so.

All three of them were taken to the dungeon—Solomae, Nelmirea, and Lily—to await their fates. Several templars were brought in to guard them, and Solomae and Nelmirea had their hands bound with suppression cuffs and their mouths gagged.

Cullen was one of the templars who escorted them to their cells and stood guard over them while they awaited their Tranquility.

His eyes when he looked at Solomae held none of the admiration Nelmirea had once noted there. He looked at her with strained disappointment, as if he actually believed that she was tainted, or even a blood mage herself. Even though she had turned Jowan in and revealed that Nelmirea was helping him, she was deemed guilty by association. That was templar loyalty, for you.

Or maybe he was just afraid of ending up like Lily. After all, it was an open secret that he’d had a crush on Solomae. Lily’s reckless actions were being punished as severely as possible; she was being made an example of for any servant of the Chantry stupid enough to develop feelings for a mage. Perhaps Cullen was taking the warning to heart.

It was likely that Greagoir had sent him down there to stand guard in order to show him what a fool Lily had been.

Nelmirea only cared as much as it affected Solomae, for surely it must hurt her to have Cullen glare at her with such open disappointment and suspicion. Then Nelmirea remembered, once more, that Solomae had betrayed her. Solomae had to have known that Nelmirea would be there, would be implicated in Jowan’s escape attempt and censured for it, even if she had been too naive to realize that the punishment could be anything as severe as this. No, Nelmirea could not sit there facing Tranquility and allow herself to feel sorry for Solomae because her templar boyfriend was mad at her. If anything, she had more reason for disgust and disappointment than Cullen did.

That made her angry. How dare he stand there with such a wounded expression, as if any of this had anything to do with him? What might he have to worry about? Being tasked with dealing the killing blow?

And then she wondered if the harshness of Solomae’s sentence really was merely because she had been close to Nelmirea and Jowan. Could it be that her flirtation with Cullen made Greagoir want to dispose of her, even knowing that she had turned on her friends and denounced their transgressions? She had always been a shining example of what a mage should be, but tempting a templar to dishonor his vows… yes, that was a sin the Chantry would not abide.

But did it matter? Nelmirea closed her eyes, reminding herself once more that she had Solomae to thank for her current predicament. She had to think about herself, stop fretting over Solomae.

Should she have helped Jowan? Perhaps not, but would it have mattered, in the end? If she kept his escape plans to herself it was likely she might still be here, in the dungeon, magic suppressed and reasons for hope dwindling. Jowan was her friend, and if he had escaped with Lily they would be questioning her. They would never believe that she had nothing to do with it.

Maybe it didn’t matter that Solomae had snitched on them. Maybe all roads were bound to lead here.

Maybe she was fated to end up like this.

She thought of her mother’s hope for her, her parents’ conviction that she was on a path towards something greater. A foolish dream, that. She might as well have stayed in the alienage and been cut down by a guard’s blade or molested by a noble for sport. She was doomed to suffer a pitiable end, either way.

 


 

The Grey Warden arrived like an emissary of Fen’Harel, straight out of the trickster tales Mama Ghil'ana used to tell. He came with a solution, an apparent rescue, but there was a catch. There was always a catch.

He saved them from the death sentence of the Circle’s Rite of Tranquility, but they were not free. They owed their lives to the Wardens now; they had to go where Duncan said, do what he bid, and would eventually face the horrors known as darkspawn. This was a guarantee.

And yet, Nelmirea was suddenly filled with hope. For the first time in a very long time, she felt truly hopeful.

She was going to leave the Tower. She was going to leave the lake. She was going to walk along a road, under the sky, turn her face to the sun, and reach out a hand to feel the grass and the leaves around her. She was going down a path with a purpose, a destination, for the first time in ten years.

Solomae… her heart no longer… was coming with her. Solomae, who had betrayed her, would be a Warden as well.

“How can I ever trust you?” she asked, after they had been ungagged and unbound and sent out of the tower with Duncan and his sandy-haired shadow. “How do I know you won’t betray me again?”

“I didn’t want to leave,” Solomae said, dully. She didn’t even seem herself. “I don’t want to be here, so I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Nelmirea laughed, bitterly. “I don’t know, ‘Sorry,’ perhaps? You almost got me tranquilized. You almost got yourself tranquilized, and for what? Because you thought you could be Irving’s very good girl?”

“I didn’t know Jowan was a blood mage,” Solomae objected, “Did you?” Her eyes were the icy blue of Lake Calenhad on a winter’s day. It was spring, not winter, but a chill enveloped them both.

Nelmirea was wearing her new robe, the one Solomae had stitched for her, but even the warm samite lining did not stop her from shivering. The wind blew in off the lake, ruffling her hair, as if Calenhad was not done with her yet.

“No, I had no idea. He stopped confiding in me when he became infatuated with Lily.”

“Don’t blame Lily. Jowan chose evil, out of fear, and you didn’t even notice,” said Solomae. “You were too busy clucking and shaking your head because I smiled at Cullen too much for your liking.”

That stung, but she barreled right over it, her blood rushing to her cheeks as she retorted, “And that makes what you did right?”

“I went to Irving in order to help Jowan and to keep you from getting sucked into his foolishness,” Solomae retorted. There were lines by her eyes and mouth that belonged on the face of an older woman. “I went to ask him about the allegation that Jowan was to be made Tranquil instead of given a chance to go through the Harrowing. I had to explain that it was Lily who was making the claims.”

“And what did he say?”

“He confirmed that she was telling the truth and that he knew they were dallying with each other, that he knew everything that goes on with the mages in the tower, no matter how secretive we think we are being.” She looked down at her hands, freed from the suppression cuffs but absent a staff to hold.

“So you were afraid he was going to censure you over Cullen, is that it? You gave me and Jowan up to escape your own punishment?” Nelmirea’s voice rose, and the younger warden turned to look at them warily. He had the eyes of a templar, or maybe that’s just how everyone looked at mages outside the Tower. Not Duncan, though. Ser Duncan had kind eyes.

“No! That’s not it at all. He explained why they believed Jowan was unstable and why they thought a harrowing would mean his death.”

“Better that than tranquil.”

Solomae shook her head. “I told him about Jowan’s plan because I thought he would discover it regardless. I wanted him to understand that you had nothing to do with it, not really, that he was just using you and taking advantage of your kindness.”

Nelmirea snorted. “You still betrayed us. I don’t even know you anymore. Maybe I never did.”

“Maybe not,” said Solomae, looking away. “You’ve clearly not been listening to me all this time.”

“Oh? And what have you been saying?”

Solomae’s face looked thin and drawn. No hint of dimples. The pearls in her hair were dull in the overcast sunlight filtering down through the cloud cover.

“I betrayed my family to the Circle,” she said. “And I didn’t regret it.”

That silenced Nelmirea for a good long while.

Chapter 7: Templar Boy (The Road)

Chapter Text

As fraught as things were with Solomae, it could not wholly erase the joy of being outside. 

Spring in Ferelden meant muddy roads, sudden downpours, temperatures that fluctuated between balmy and frigid from one hour to the next. Everything was brown around them, the starkness of winter clinging to the landscape like the lingering memory of a dream, though bursts of brilliant green speckled the bare tree limbs and dusted the hills and valleys around them.

They traveled north through the Bannoran, heading back up towards Highever. Nelmirea could have laughed at the irony of it, that her newfound freedom from the Tower meant going back home, though not for the reasons she would have chosen. They were not going to visit the alienage and reconnect with her parents. Instead, Ser Duncan planned to attend a tourney outside the city gates before turning to Highever Castle to visit Teyrn and Teyrna Cousland.

Nelmirea kept her sudden hope close to her heart. Ten years had passed, but if her parents still labored industriously at the Highever castle, she might be able to find them. If she could break away from the Wardens long enough to visit the stables she might see her father, mucking out a stall, brushing down a horse, or feeding the mabari. She might happen upon her mother carrying loads of laundry across the courtyard, hanging it to dry, or gathering clean water from the well for rinsing.

These imagined scenarios dominated her thoughts as they traveled. It was easier to ignore Solomae, to not even speak to her, than to deal with the betrayal and what it meant, now. For all that had happened, Solomae was the only constant, her old friend, in this wide new world. They would be Wardens together, so there was no escaping the gulf that had opened between, or her own shattered feelings.

Nelmirea did not warm to their new travel companions. She was grateful to Duncan for saving her from the Circle, but she was well aware that he was as much her guardian now as the Knight-Commander and his templars had been. She wondered what he would do if she tried to flee, if she tried to disappear into the woods or waited until they got near Highever and fled to the alienage. Would he chase after her? Would he kill her? Would he send to Denerim for her phylactery and trace her that way?

She did not intend to find out. The Grey Wardens were a legendary, if mysterious, organization. She could do much worse as an apostate elf running for her life, trying to hide from the Chantry. She had no intention of leaving the Wardens. Still, she remained quiet and reserved around them. They were strangers, and though they seemed respectful enough, she did not think she could ever let her guard down around human men.

They camped for the night, halfway to Highever, and Solomae struck up a conversation with the younger warden, Alistair. Nelmirea eavesdropped, pretending outwardly that she did not care, keeping her head down and eyes lowered as she spooned stew into her mouth.

“Have you been with the wardens long?” Solomae asked.

“No, not long. It’s been… oh about six months, I guess. Feels like longer, though. I mean, in a good way. Like it’s the right life for me and sometimes I forget I haven’t always been here, you know?”

“I felt that way about the Circle,” Solomae said. “When I first arrived it felt as if that was where I was always meant to be.”

“Really?”

The dubiousness in Alistair’s tone made Nelmirea surreptitiously lift her eyes to appraise him. She saw him raise one eyebrow and smile doubtfully at Solomae.

“Yes? Why does that surprise you?”

“I just thought… weren’t you caught trying to escape the Tower…?”

“No,” she denied, eyes flashing. He put one hand up in placation and shook his head, but she clarified quickly, “I would never. I got caught up with someone who did, though. A blood mage.”

“Right, I did hear that part.” Alistair glanced over to where Duncan was seated a little ways away, cleaning his armor and giving the younger wardens space to chat over the fire. “Sorry, I got it confused. I didn’t mean to imply… well I don’t know, anything.”

“I was quite happy at the tower,” Solomae claimed, “unlike some,” and she looked towards Nelmirea pointedly. Nelmirea ducked her head, caught eavesdropping, and jabbed her wooden spoon into the thick stew with irritated embarrassment.

“Neither of you are blood mages, though?” Alistair asked, uneasily. “I mean, the blood mage fellow, he escaped.”

“I had nothing to do with his activities. It was all a misunderstanding.”

“I see.”

They were both quiet, and Nelmirea’s scalp prickled with the sensation of being watched. She thought that they were looking at her; contemplating her and wondering if she had been up to no good with Jowan. The suspicion of blood magic would always follow her, now, and she wondered grumpily if she should just start encouraging the idea rather than denying it.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you were happy to leave the tower, you know,” Alistair said after a long moment. “I know I would be.”

There was a smile in Solomae’s voice when she responded, “Oh? You don’t think you would make a very good mage?”

“No, I don’t. I barely made a passable templar,” he said, with a chuckle.

“A templar?” Nelmeria gave up all pretense of not listening to the conversation. She looked at Alistair with new mistrust. “I didn’t know you were a templar.”

He gazed at her in surprise, as if he’d thought she were a mute. “No? I guess… well it didn’t come up. I was never really a templar, though.”

“Explain.” Nelmirea spat the one word out like an interrogator.

Alistair cast a questioning glance over to Solomae, as if to ask if he had to speak to her strange elven friend. Solomae twirled one hand nervously in her hair, playing with one of her pearls, and she just raised both eyebrows at him expectantly.

“I was a templar initiate,” he said, “sent to the Chantry by my guardian when I was a boy. But I never made it to being a full templar—I was never stationed in a Circle, I didn’t take the oaths, and I never took lyrium. I would have done, if Duncan hadn’t come to rescue me.”

“Rescue you?” Nelmirea echoed, narrowing her eyes. “I didn’t know that templars were prisoners.”

“Well, no, but I didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“Are you an orphan?”

He was clearly uncomfortable under her interrogation, drawing back and squirming, continually looking to Solomae or across camp to Duncan as if they might rescue him from the scary elf. But when Solomae was silent and Duncan continued to pointedly ignore their conversation, he said, “Yes,” with such a snappish tone that Nelmirea almost didn’t believe him.

“Still, you’re an adult now, aren’t you? If you didn’t like being a templar you could have left and, I don’t know, gone anywhere?” Nelmirea waved her spoon in the air, illustrating the wide open world of Thedas. “A human man, young, able-bodied, with sword skills? What do you need rescuing from?”

“I’m sorry,” Solomae said, finally, taking pity on him. “Nelly hates Templars. I do not think you’ll be able to say anything that will placate her.”

“I see,” said Alistair, thoughtfully. He relaxed visibly, his shoulders lowering, as if Solomae’s words were a calming spell. He tossed a pinecone to the fire. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I met a mage who hated me straight away.”

“I never said that. Solomae doesn’t speak for me,” Nelmirea denied. “I just never got the impression that the templars were forced to do what they did. It seemed like a rather desirable job, actually.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Alistair disagreed. “I don’t know anyone who dreams of being a glorified prison guard when they grow up. Most of the templar initiates I knew were there because they were poor; orphans, bastards, or just had too many older siblings.” He shrugged. “My mother died when I was born and my father… well he’s gone now, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Solomae said, and reached out to put a hand on his arm. Nelmirea rolled her eyes in disgust, and Alistair looked down at her hand like he’d never seen a hand before and didn’t know what it was. “But you are happy in the Wardens?” she asked.

“Um, yeah. Yes. It’s miles better than the Chantry,” Alistair said, scooching back so that Solomae’s hand slipped away from his arm. “They don’t drone on with the Chant of Light and all that all day long, so, immediate win.”

“Not religious?”

He just shrugged, then decided to elaborate after all, “Sure, maybe there’s a Maker and all that, but I’m not as enthusiastic as the Sisters at the Cloister. And no, I didn’t feel like guarding mages was some holy calling like they said. I figured that was just a way to make the task seem more sacrosanct than it really is.”

Solomae drew her hand back into her lap and fiddled with the edge of her sleeve. “Templars provide an invaluable service,” she said, “safe-guarding the world from uncontrolled magic, and protecting mages from our own weakness and vice.”

“No one protects the mages from the templars’ weakness, though,” Nelmirea said, and Solomae sighed. But Alistair nodded as if she had a point.

“So, are you supposed to be watching over us? Guarding us? Is that why Ser Duncan brought you along?” Solomae asked.

He laughed, a sudden loud laugh as if she’d surprised him with the question, caught him off guard. Nelmirea stared impassively at him, not understanding the joke. It was a reasonable enough assumption, wasn’t it? Bring the ex-templar along to the Mage Tower? Especially since Duncan had conscripted two mages sentenced to tranquility for associations with blood magic.

“No,” Alistair said, sobering up when he realized both mages were staring at him in unblinking stoicism. “No one watches over the mages in the Grey Wardens. You’re responsible for yourselves.”

That might have been the most magical phrase Nelmirea had ever heard. Solomae looked alarmed, though, twisting the edge of her sleeve into a knot in her palm. “What if we become abominations?” she asked.

“Well… don’t.”

Nelmirea allowed a smile to creep its way onto her face, starting at one corner of her mouth. Solomae’s expression of disbelieving wonder was a sight to behold.

Alistair shifted and reached out to poke at the fire with a stick. “You’ve been through your Harrowings, haven’t you?” His tone added an unspoken condescension; You’re big girls, you figure it out.

“Yes,” Nelmirea confirmed. “But what if we are actually evil blood mages, hmm? Cast out of the circle, taken in by foolish wardens, free now to wreak havoc on unsuspecting Thedas?”

Alistair frowned, not appreciating her sarcasm, and said, “I hope that’s not the case. But I’m not the best person to ask about being a mage in the order. There’ll be other Warden mages back at Ostagar, you can ask them how it works. Mostly we’re all just working towards a common goal.”

“And what is that goal, exactly?”

He glanced over towards Duncan again, as if wondering whether his commander had told them anything at all. “Stop the Blight, save puppies, look good in blue,” he said, cavalier, and smiled at her.

Nelmirea stared at him with a flat, level gaze and a neutral mouth that did not hint at a smile in return. She felt self-conscious in her lavender robe with its blue butterflies, and did not wish him to think he could charm her.

“Because the Warden uniform is blue and white,” he clarified, smile faltering.

“I look excellent in blue,” said Solomae, though her own robes were a drab green and brown. “It brings out my eyes.”

“I’m sure it does,” Alistair said, but his posture was uneasy, as if he recognized the attempt at flirtation but did not trust it. Nelmirea hoped he stayed that way, until Solomae gave it up, because she was just about sick to death of watching Solomae flirt with templars.

Chapter 8: Beware, beware... (The Road)

Chapter Text

Highever was a disappointment.

They did not venture near the alienage, and there was no sign of her parents at Highever castle.

The visit to the castle was surreal. Their hosts were the young twins, Elissa and Aedan. She had never met the Cousland twins when she was a child, but she’d known of them. How could she not? They were close in age to her and they represented everything she could not have in life: rich, well educated, pampered, doted on by their parents, and waited on hand and foot by hers.

She had resented the very idea of Elissa Cousland when she was a child. Now she found herself following Elissa around the castle, an honored guest, and she had to listen to the girl’s dreadfully dull patter about paintings. Elissa showed them the library, which she seemed rather proud of, and Nelmirea was glad to be able to one-up her at last, commenting that the Circle library was easily five times as large.

She did not mention that she hadn’t been a very good student and had only read a tiny fraction of the books housed in the Circle Tower.

Elissa did not know if Nelmirea’s parents still worked at the castle, and couldn’t be bothered to go ask Teyrna Eleanor, the true mistress of the household. It was almost more insulting to hear her come up with excuses than if she had admitted outright that she just didn’t see the point and didn’t want to waste her time trying to find out. She did disappear for a few minutes, claiming that she was going to consult the ledgers to see if anyone named Surana was on staff, but she was hardly gone long enough to have made much of an effort.

Nelmirea told herself it had been foolish to hope for a family reunion at Highever. It did no good to dwell on the past.

Her parents might have left the Highever region after she was taken away. Perhaps they’d gone to Denerim, where her father was from, originally, and made a new home there. Maybe they were dead. Or maybe they were still in the Highever alienage, so close but so far away.

She did not ask Duncan to make a detour.

When she had left the tower, she had done so without her mother’s letters or her carved halla. She had nothing but the robes on her back. They had not even let either of them take a staff with them. They would have to get new ones at Ostagar, Duncan told them.

Nelmirea didn’t care about that. She and Solomae had only been allowed basic apprentice level staves and so they were no great loss. But the letters… losing the letters had been like losing a piece of her soul.

She had read and re-read them so many times over the years that she had them mostly memorized, but she feared those memories fading over time. The insult itself was palpable. First Enchanter Irving had said that all their personal things had been seized and were being inspected as evidence of a possible blood mage cabal within the tower, and Nelmirea smarted to think of the templars reading her mother’s letters and… and what? Speculating that they contained secret incantations written in code? It was ridiculous and maddening.

But at least she was free of that place. Free of the suffocating circle, free of the templars’ watchful gazes that she was not allowed to return in kind.

When Alistair watched her she met his eyes, boldly. She jutted out her chin and raised her eyebrows in a challenge, and he would look away, guiltily.

She did not have any particular problem with him, not on a personal level, and truth be told it was amusing when he made sarcastic and irreverent quips about the Chantry. But there was still a wariness about him which reminded her that he’d been trained to see mages as inherent threats, to not let them sneak up on him, and to suspect that somehow they were always up to no good. That deeply ingrained templar instinct oozed from him and grated on her nerves.

So she challenged him. One might even say she tormented him. She refused to laugh at his jokes—she made him explain every one of them until the jest was ruined. She made hints, often, about her love for blood magic and child sacrifice, in such a way that was obviously a joke… or was it? She would speak snatches of elvhen at him and watch him struggle to figure out whether or not it was a curse.

Solomae still tried to deal with him the opposite way, being deferential and complementary, and it was almost hilarious to see how Alistair just retreated more and more from her the nicer she tried to be. Soon she would give up on him. Nelmirea found it raised her spirits to be able to mock Solomae, even if only in her own private thoughts. It distracted from the grief that lurked in quiet moments when she had nothing else to occupy her mind.

After the trip to Highever their numbers grew. Duncan recruited two knights, Ser Jory and Ser Roderick, and then he parted from them to go visit the underground Dwarven city of Orzammar. Alistair was left in charge of the new recruits on their journey back to Ostagar with the Cousland army, and Nelmirea allowed her eyes to glimmer with mischief when he looked her way.

But in truth she had not planned to be a problem. She planned to keep to herself and get to Ostagar without much fuss. She did not intend for things to get bad.

 


 

Whenever the Highever army camped for the night the Grey Wardens followed suit, setting up their tents and bedrolls adjacent to the encampment. But they still stayed a little apart, even Ser Roderick who had so lately been recruited from the Cousland’s personal guard. He, Ser Jory, and Alistair all seemed to be getting along quite well. Though the march south had been long and arduous so far, they still had the energy to joke and laugh and get out their swords to spar with each other in the evenings.

Nelmirea had no desire to mingle with the Highever soldiers or spar with her fellow Wardens. She still had no staff and she suspected that if she started flinging bursts of magical energy their way they would not take to it kindly.

Sometimes when sparring the men would glance over their way, as if to check to see if the young mages were watching and appreciating their warrior prowess. It was all very boring. Almost as boring as the way she and Solomae tip-toed around each other when setting up and breaking down camp, speaking seldom and then only as if they were strangers. Perhaps they were strangers.

It was too much, this cold and silent distance. She had to break it, to make it end, but she did not know how to extend a hand of forgiveness when Solomae had not asked for it, had not apologized, did not think she had been wrong. How can you forgive someone who is not sorry?

So she broke the truce the only way she knew how—with cruelty.

The boys were swinging their swords around and Nelmirea was alone with her bitterness, wondering why she could not be content with the joy of being outside during a Fereldan spring, when she looked over at a Solomae and saw her smiling at Alistair again.

She got up and walked the distance cross camp to sit back down beside her. For a moment she was silent and her gaze was focused forwards. Solomae said nothing and the only sound was the clang and hiss of blades striking blades, and the good natured laughter of the men.

Then Nelmirea said, “You’ve been acting a fool these past few days.”

“Have I?” Solomae responded sharply, giving her a surprised and suspicious glance. “I am not the one making jibes about blood magic at every turn.”

“I am making fun of the templar. You’re trying to get him into your bedroll. Which is the more foolish?”

Solomae set down the soup bowl she had been holding and gave Nelmirea a look so cold it might have caused a blizzard in the Frostbacks. “When did you become such a jealous and judgmental shrew?”

“Jealous?” Nelmirea laughed disdainfully. “Don’t be stupid. I have no interest in him.”

“Nor do I. I am being friendly towards a new comrade who is clearly the favorite of the Commander to whom we owe our lives. It’s called survival, Nelmirea. You may want to self-destruct but I am trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Oh, it’s all strategy, is it? Is that what you were doing with Cullen? All that flirting was just a way to gain an ally among the templars?”

“Why does it matter to you, so much?”

“Because it didn’t work the first time and it won’t work now,” Nelmirea told her. “Cullen did not stand up for you when you were thrown in the dungeon with me and Alistair won’t have your back, either. You keep looking to templars for support and ignoring the people who might actually help you.”

“Are you talking about yourself and Jowan? You still think Jowan a trustworthy friend, even after he revealed himself to be a blood mage?”

“You should have minded your own business instead of betraying us to Irving,” Nelmirea snapped. “If you hadn’t been determined to be so high and mighty, Jowan and Lily would be free and you would still be the star pupil in your precious Circle.”

“And you would still be trapped in the Circle you so hate!” Solomae cried, her voice rising sharply in the air. “It seems you are the only one who got exactly what she always wanted out of this, yet you are as bitter and angry as ever!”

The clang of swords stopped, but Nelmirea hardly noticed that their argument had drawn attention. “I got what I wanted?” she shot back, matching the timbre of Solomae’s shout. “You have no idea what I want. You never did.”

Solomae stood up and made as if to walk away from her, towards her tent, but Nelmirea refused to let it end in cold silence. She got up and strode quickly after her, adding, “We are stuck together and I will not stand by and watch you do the exact same things outside the tower as you did inside.”

Solomae stopped and twisted around. “You don’t control me, Nelly, you don’t get to decide how I behave or whom I make friends with. I tried to help you before, to stop you from getting caught up with Jowan’s schemes, but I cannot keep worrying about you, now. You should stop concerning yourself with my affairs.”

Nelmirea stopped just short of colliding with her, surprised by the quick pivot. “I’m not the one who betrayed you! I didn’t tell Irving or Greagoir that you were flirting with a templar, because I knew they would punish you for seducing one of the champions of the just,” she said, letting sarcasm and disdain ooze from her words. “Do not get it backwards. You are the betrayer. You!”

“Then leave me alone,” Solomae hissed, stepping forward to get up right in her face. Her voice was low, almost a whisper, now. “Play your game the way you see fit and let me do what I think is best. We do not need to care for each other in any way from now on. I release you from whatever burden of friendship compels you to criticize me.”

Nelmirea could feel her breath brush across her face with each word. She inched closer, crooking her lip into a sneer. “If I never had to look at your face again I would be glad of it.”

“Hey now, what’s going on?” It was Alistair’s voice, interrupting them, slightly breathless as if he’d run over to them. Nelmirea did not turn to look at him.

“Nothing,” she snapped, clenching her fists, staring directly into Solomae’s eyes. “Nothing that concerns you.”

Alistair grabbed her arm and pulled her away from Solomae. The move shocked her so much she responded on instinct, her magic rushing to her defense, power coiling in her palms and behind her eyes, on the tip of her tongue. But before she could do anything, Alistair was struck in the middle of his breastplate by a crackling missile of energy, and he yelped in pain and surprise. He let go of her arm and staggered back, clutching his chest.

Nelmirea stared at him dumbly before turning to look back at Solomae. She was crouched in a battle stance, her eyes aglow and her hands cupping balls of white hot mana. But it dissipated in a moment and she straightened, an expression of chagrin washing over her features.

“Don’t touch her,” she said, but her voice was wobbly, as if surprised at herself.

Alistair had been holding his sword, but he sheathed it and raised both hands in surrender. “I’m just stopping the two of you from fighting,” he said. “No one’s trying to hurt anyone.”

Ser Roderick and Ser Jory hovered in the background, keeping their distance but their swords drawn.

“We were having an argument, not killing each other,” Nelmirea said. “It wasn’t any of your business.”

“Look,” Alistair snapped, not bothering trying to hide his annoyance, “I have one job, and that’s get the four of you down to Ostagar alive and in one piece.” He dropped his hands, planting one on the pommel of his sword and the other on his hip. “You looked like you were about to throw down with each other and I can’t have that. I have to answer to Duncan for whatever you do.”

Nelmirea opened her mouth to say I don’t care but what came out instead was, “Don’t worry, templar, we won’t be fighting anymore,” and turned to walk away. She didn’t know where she was heading. It wasn’t towards her tent, because to head that way she would have to walk past Solomae. Instead she strode purposefully off towards the larger encampment where the Highever army was resting.

Alistair did not stop her, though he might be alarmed to see her heading away from the Warden camp off towards the army where she could get into more trouble. It hadn’t been her who had shot a magic missile off at his chest, though, had it? That had been perfect, friendly Solomae, who usually had nothing but smiles and coy words for him. Perhaps all his suspicion of her was finally justified. A mage is a mage is a mage, after all.

Nelmirea stopped once she was far enough away to be out of sight behind a small stand of trees, then sunk down to sit cross-legged in the long grass. Solomae had attacked Alistair because he put his hand on her, and the knowledge created a crack in the ice that threatened to freeze her. She didn’t want that crack to widen, though. She wanted to hold onto her anger. Wanted to cling to the mistrust that Solomae had earned, for if she did not thaw she could not be betrayed again.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the wet spring scent of mud and new grass around her. It awoke memories ten years past of Highever springs before she had been shut inside the circle. Picking lavender with her mother. Playing in the streets with the other children. She opened her eyes. A butterfly, its wings a gradient of purple and blue, was lazily perched on a sprig of white flowers a few feet in front of her.

Nelmirea breathed out long and slow, reaching towards the insect with her mind. It stirred, twitching its antennae and exercising its wings slowly, bringing them together and apart for a few languid moments. Then it fluttered into the air and flew to land on her hand. She flexed her fingers and sent it flying up into the sky beyond the blades of grass, sending out tendrils of magic into the flowers all around her. Several blue butterflies rose up from the undergrowth to join the first, forming into a flock, and they swirled about in pleasant harmony for a few moments, until she sent them back towards camp.

Then she lay down in the grass, not caring that the air was cooling as the sun inched towards the horizon and late afternoon turned to twilight.

 


 

In camp, Solomae was sitting alone, her head down, worried at her own outburst and the fear and distrust she saw on the faces of the men now. She had tried so hard to be seen as something other than an outcast mage, a Circle reject to be feared, and it was all gone in an instant of anger, a protective instinct that burst forth in violence.

After Nelmirea had stormed off into the trees, Solomae had apologized for striking Alistair and asked if he needed healing. The look he had given her was incredulous, then he just shook his head and walked back towards Ser Jory and Ser Roderick. Their glances were no less wary as they turned their backs on her.

To think she had been worried that it was Nelmirea who would alienate their new Grey Warden friends, as she had so often alienated the other mages at the Circle. Nelmirea was the one with the temper, the sharp words, not her. She worked so hard to keep her mind open and her words measured. She would not have thought until a few moments ago that she could be the one to lose control and lash out. But in that moment, when Alistair had grabbed Nelmirea’s arm and yanked her away, her small body jerking like a doll's, all Solomae’s training and self-control was gone in a burst of fear and anger.

The fear was always there. That the templars could do anything they wanted. Even outside the Circle walls. It was a hard instinct to unlearn. After all these years trying to learn to coexist with templars in the Circle Tower, her father's voice still whispered to her, Beware, beware...

She got up to retreat inside her tent, away from Nelmirea’s accusations of betrayal and Alistair’s mistrustful glares. As she stood to go, she saw a flock of butterflies riding the breeze, and paused. They descended around her, circling her in an unnatural fashion, like a gust of wind compelled them to her. The small cyclone of fluttering wings swooshed through the air, causing her hair and clothes to flutter in the wind with them. Then the flock rose up into the sky and dispersed, each insect going its own way once more.

Solomae shivered, and looked out towards the trees. Was this forgiveness, she wondered, or goodbye?

Chapter 9: A Taste of Blood (Ostagar)

Chapter Text

By the time they reached Ostagar they had settled once again into an uneasy truce. They spoke little, and only of inconsequential things, but they kept themselves apart from the others, too.

Solomae no longer tried to flirt with Alistair, having finally taken the hint that he did not trust her as far as he could throw her… or perhaps she just felt awkward that she had unleashed her magic upon him and did not want to push the matter. Nelmirea did not ask. She no longer wished to push the matter, either.

She had gotten her way, more or less. She had been irritated at Solomae’s behavior, but now that she was more subdued it didn’t make Nelmirea feel any better. The three men, Alistair and the knights, still got along very well, and watching them talk, and joke, and laugh, and spar in the evening, made her feel all the more lonely. She wished she could be conversing and laughing with Solomae, or Jowan, but her friends were lost to her, even though one was still so close.

Fresh upon arrival at Ostagar, they were introduced to two other new recruits, both elves, and Nelmirea was surprised and somewhat shy to meet more of her people in the Grey Warden ranks. Korren Tabris hailed from the alienage in Denerim, and Lythra Mahariel came from the deep woods of the Brecilian.

She asked Korren if he knew any Suranas back at the alienage, and to her surprise he nodded, and said, “Oh… yes. There are a few Suranas. Anyone in particular you know?”

Her father had been born and raised in Denerim, and had only come to Highever in order to marry her mother. So it should not be a surprise that more of his family populated the Denerim alienage, but it filled her with unexpected hope. “Did you know Alrand and Iossa?” she asked. “A married couple, they’d be close to 40 by now… maybe they have children, but maybe not.”

He smiled vaguely and tilted his head in thought. “Alrand, yes,” he said with a nod. “That name does ring a bell. Alrand Surana. He works in the king’s stables… came back from Highever a few years ago.”

“Yes… yes! That’s my father.” So Father had gone back to Denerim. But… “What of his wife, Iossa?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t recall him having a wife. Or children. Sorry, I don’t know the Surana family well,” Korren said, apologetic. “But, from what I recall of Alrand, I think he lives with his parents and keeps to himself, mostly.”

“But he was well? When last you were home, I mean.”

“Yes, as far as I know.”

She nodded, fighting to stay calm and composed in front of this stranger. Her father was alive and lived in Denerim with his parents… her grandparents, that would mean. How odd to think she still had grandparents in the world. She did not remember her mother’s parents, they had both died when she was very young, and she had never given much thought to her father’s people. They lived far away in a place she never expected to visit.

But if Father had gone home to his family without Mother… what did that mean? Had her departure to the Circle broken her parents’ marriage? Did they fear having more children because of her magic, because they couldn’t risk another loss, and so they had split up? Or was Mother…? No, she couldn’t think that.

...I have thought of you every day for these past ten years…

More mages arrived at Ostagar, sent by the Circle to aid in the battle, but both Nelmirea and Solomae kept their distance. The other circle mages knew that they had been expelled and nearly tranquilized, and were clearly suspicious of them. They were also all much older; mages who had long ago passed their Harrowings and graduated past apprenticeship, so she didn’t know most of them except in passing. Wynne, she recognized, though the older woman didn’t recognize her. It was just as well.

She was a Grey Warden now and it would be best to never look back towards the Circle and the people who remained there. Jowan was no longer there, so there were no friends to miss or to worry about. She wondered what would happen to him, on the run, using blood magic out of desperation. His phylactery was broken so she did not think they would recapture him easily.

Eventually Duncan also arrived at Ostagar, dragging two dwarves in tow, both of them complaining about the vast frightening expanse of the endless sky. Others made jokes about their ignorant fear, but Nelmirea had been locked in a tower with no view of the sky for half her life, and thought she might understand their discombobulation.

Soon after Duncan’s return, they were all sent into the wilds to kill darkspawn and gather vials of blood as part of the Warden recruitment process.

Lythra and Korren were sent out to supervise them. It bolstered Nelmirea’s spirits to see that two elves were given leadership over the other recruits. It signified that the Wardens were not so prejudiced as other institutions in Thedas, perhaps. But, she reminded herself that they were not mages. She wondered if there would ever be respect and trust for her within the Warden ranks, or if they would always be wary and suspicious the way Alistair and the two knights had been all the way south. Though there were other Warden mages, as Alistair had said, they were all too busy to stop and converse with a new recruit who was not even advanced to the lowly rank of Warden-Ensign.

She saw darkspawn for the first time out in the wilds, and they were terrible to behold. She had never pictured them as being so close in kinship to humans, elves, and dwarves, before. She had read of them in the Circle’s books, but in her minds’ eye she pictured beasts. These were monsters but they were twisted versions of the sentient races of Thedas, and she shuddered to look upon them. They reminded her now of the abominations that the mages lived in fear of becoming.

But she was with a large group, six fighters strong, and so the trip into the Wilds passed without any losses. Lythra and Korren could sense the darkspawn around them and so there was no danger of being ambushed or caught unawares.

Quickly, she became energized by the battles they fought against small bands of darkspawn in the swamp. She had a staff, now, one given to her by the quartermaster at Ostagar, and for the first time in her life she was encouraged—required, even—to unleash the full destructive force of her magic.

She pretended the monsters wore gleaming templar armor instead of the tarnished hodge-podge of scavenged metals the darkspawn clad themselves in, and relished when they fell to the magic from her staff.

Lythra talked of having met a Chasind witch the last time they had ventured out to scout in the wilds, but this time they encountered no one besides the darkspawn. Nelmirea wondered if this was the sort of place Jowan would end up, a hostile wilderness where few civilized people ventured to hunt down apostates. It seemed a depressing fate for him. If only Lily had gone with him it might not matter where he ended up, for at least they’d have each other. But that romantic dream had never been anything but nonsense. How could a Chantry initiate ever truly love and trust a blood mage? Or a mage of any kind?

Once they had killed enough of their quarry and gathered up a vial of blood for each of the new recruits, as proof of their valor in battle, they returned to the camp within the walls of the ruin.

It was only then that Nelmirea discovered the true nature of Warden recruitment, the secret behind the Joining ceremony, and the awful price initiates must pay.

It was blood magic. There was no sugar coating it, for they were made to drink a magical concoction brewed in secret from the fresh darkspawn blood they had brought back from their hunt. It was ironic that she had been censured in the Circle for helping a blood mage, even unwittingly, and now she was part of an order which used blood magic in their secretive rite of initiation.

Ser Roderick was first to volunteer to take the drink, and they all watched in horror as it killed him. His death was painful and prolonged, and there was nothing that could be done to save him, though Solomae tried to cast a healing spell over him.

Duncan shook his head sadly, and said, “You cannot help him. There is no magic which can counteract the Joining’s effects. He will be honored, his sacrifice not forgotten.”

Alistair dragged a hand down his face, looking down at Ser Roderick in dismay, but there was no surprise there. He’d known… of course he’d known, because he’d have had to go through the same process six months back.

In all the time they spent traveling south under his supervision, Alistiar had never breathed a word of warning. Lythra and Korren had been equally tight-lipped while escorting them into the swamp, giving no hints about what was in store.

“This is blood magic,” Solomae stated the obvious, holding Ser Roderick’s lifeless head in her lap, still upset that her healing magic had been nothing to the poisonous brew. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“This is sacrifice,” Duncan said solemnly. “The risk is necessary to become a Warden. You must drink. There is no turning back, now.”

“I never had a choice.”

Her words drew a dour frown from Duncan, and there was a wary glimmer in his eyes that set Nelmirea on edge. He was looking at Solomae now as if she were a threat. Like the templars had always looked upon them. She edged closer to Solomae, wanting to shush her and tell her now was not the time to be speaking out, but Ser Jory drew Duncan’s attention away before she need bother.

“I still have a choice. I cannot take part in this,” Ser Jory objected, stammering and backing away, sweat glistening on his brow. “I have a wife and child. There’s no glory in this. It is one thing to risk death in battle, but this is sucide and folly!”

Duncan turned from Solomae to the knight, and approached him with the goblet. He murmured words in a calming voice, but they were insistent words, telling Ser Jory it was too late to turn back and that he could not refuse the Joining.

Nelmirea watched, frozen in horror, as Ser Jory tried first to flee the ceremony and then drew his sword on Duncan. His defiance was as futile as Solomae’s magic. Duncan paused only long enough to hand the goblet to Alistair before pulling his dagger out and advancing upon Jory. The fight was quick. Jory’s death was assured the moment he crossed the Warden Commander.

Nelmirea moved instinctively towards Solomae, thinking that Duncan might turn his wrath upon her next, because she had spoken out. Solomae stood slowly, letting Ser Roderick’s body slide to the flagstones. Her robes were stained with the blood he had spat up. She gazed down at him with a cold, numb expression, her lips drawn thin and her eyes taking on a faraway look.

The man had been cordial to them, a gentleman, but had never really trusted either of the mages, and had kept his distance from them on the journey south. Nelmirea found it ironic that he should die in Solomae’s arms, that Solomae was the only one who even tried to help him. Alistair, with whom Roderick had become quite friendly, had not even moved towards him when he fell to the ground coughing up blood. Perhaps he’d known the moment Roderick doubled over in pain after his first sip that he was already dead.

Duncan eyed them warily, his dagger still drawn, Ser Jory’s blood dripping from the blade to mingle with Ser Roderick’s on the ground. Alistair held the goblet for him, looking… ashamed, perhaps? Or he was just worried that there would be more non-compliance from the recruits. She met his eye briefly, and he just shook his head.

She was acutely aware, now, of Korren and Lythra standing behind them, their hands on their weapons. They were prepared to follow Duncan’s lead and kill anyone who refused to drink. There really was no going back, now, unless all four remaining recruits united to fight back against the four Wardens. Even then, how could they expect to escape Ostagar after killing the Commander of the Wardens and his right hand man?

Duran Aeducan cut the tension by stepping forward and grimly volunteering to take the next drink. He and the other dwarven recruit took their sips without much fuss, as if to put the human knights to shame for their weakness. Ser Roderick’s constitution had failed to endure and Ser Jory’s courage had failed him… or at least that is how a devoted Warden might see it.

Nelmirea was beginning to think the Wardens were no better than the Circle she had left behind. What was the Joining but a Harrowing, by another name?

Nelmirea drank when it was her turn, because she had no choice. It was either drink and possibly die or refuse and definitely die. She briefly cursed Jowan and his faithless lover before drinking it, but did not curse Solomae and her betrayal, for Solomae was still beside her and needed no curse other than the trial she was about to face.

The potion was disgusting; it tasted of bitterness and bile, of poisoned blood and the sludge of a thousand years of malice. Nelmirea blacked out after drinking it and was surprised when she woke up alive, her head resting on the lap of Korren Tabris, the elf from Denerim.

She sat up slowly, her head pounding and her nauseated stomach threatening to expel both the poisonous elixir and the food she had eaten that day. She tried not to think about lamb stew and instead focus on things outside herself.

She looked around and saw both dwarves, Aeducan and Brosca, already standing again, though they were grumbling about headaches and the bad taste left in their mouths. Duncan was with them, speaking to them in low and solemn tones, though she couldn’t make out his words. Alistair was working on dragging away the bodies Ser Roderick and Ser Jory, and Solomae… Solomae was cradled in the lap of Lythra Mahariel, unmoving.

Nelmirea scrambled to her knees and crawled over to where Solomae lay. “Is she...?” she asked, unable to get the word “dead” out before her throat closed up around it.

“No,” Lythra answered. “She’s still with us, but she hasn’t come round yet. It takes some longer than others. At least that’s what Duncan said.”

Nelmirea wasn’t sure how much stock she should put into what Duncan had to say, anymore. She had been grateful when he saved her from the fate worse than death that the templars had planned for her, but she thought he could have told them the truth about the Joining before the last minute. And poor Ser Jory… he had a wife and a child. If the Wardens had been honest and up front about the nature of their order, would he have joined in the first place? No. What a waste. What a terrible waste.

She was a Warden now, simply by virtue of surviving the ritual, but she still didn’t feel like she belonged. She felt little in the way of kinship with Korren and Lythra so far, though they were of her people. In the Circle she had always felt so acutely elven—her pointed ears, large eyes, long nose, prominent forehead, and slight stature marking her as irrevocably different amongst the human mages. But now that she was with other elves she felt more a mage than an elf. Alistair, of course, had too much of the templar in him for her to ever think she could warm to him, and she knew so little of the dwarves that only time could tell.

And now Solomae was unconscious. She fought back a rising panic which whispered to her that Solomae wouldn’t wake, that though she had not yet choked on the blood and died clawing at her own throat, she would not recover, and they would never get the chance to become friends again. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. It wasn’t fair that they should survive this far only for one to die in so stupid and pointless a manner.

She took Solomae’s hand and felt the faint flicker of a pulse beating steadily away. She looked to Lythra, the Dalish girl who seemed so old and solemn and wise beyond her years, with her intricate facial tattoos marking her devotion to Mythal. The Mother. Though Solomae was human she was held in Lythra’s lap like a child, and Nelmirea thought dully, It should be me, I should be caring for her, I’m the only one here who loves her, who truly cares at all if she lives or dies.

“I’ll stay with her, if you’re needed somewhere else,” she said.

“No,” Lythra said, “you’re my responsibility. Our responsibility,” she corrected, glancing to Korren Tabris who crouched beside them. “We’re the junior Wardens and so we tend to the recruits.”

“Another thing Duncan said?”

“Alistair… but close enough.”

Still holding Solomae’s hand, Nelmirea glanced back up to watch the others. Duncan was with the dwarves, still, and Alistair was tending to the bodies of the knights. He had spent all his time traveling south making friends with those two men, now he was cleaning up their corpses. She wondered if it bothered him, if the Joining kept on bothering the Grey Wardens after they had been witness to it enough times. Maybe that’s why only the junior wardens were forced to attend the Joining of new recruits, perhaps that’s why she hadn’t even met the other wardens yet.

Solomae stirred, her fingers tightening around Nelmirea’s hand. Nelmirea let out a long breath of relief. Solomae’s blue eyes opened, blinking and squinting as she clutched at her head with her free hand and moaned.

“Am I alive?” she asked, woozy. “Did I pass?”

“Barely, sleeping beauty,” Nelmirea told her, laughing to hide the tremble in her voice. “We’ve all been up and about for ages waiting for you to wake.”

“Really?” Solomae gulped, her face pale.

“No,” said Lythra, unamused by Nelmirea’s exaggeration. “Mere minutes.”

Nelmirea realized that she was still clutching Solomae’s hand, and dropped it. She stood up.

“What now?” she asked Korren.

He shrugged. “That’s a question for Duncan.”

It turned out that they would be allowed to rest awhile, while Alistair cleaned up after the Joining and Duncan made preparations for the upcoming fight against the darkspawn. He instructed them to return to the Grey Warden area of camp and rest until called upon again. Lythra and Korren accompanied them to the camp, and they sat in an uneasy circle.

Solomae put her fingers to her temples and rubbed at them, then with a faint glow she channeled healing energies into herself and her face relaxed.

“Does it make it better?” Natia Brosca asked, looking a little suspicious as she watched the mage cast her spell.

“Yes. Would you like me to help you?” Solomae asked.

Natia shook her head. “No, it’s nothing a little time and rest won’t heal.”

“I’ve had worse hangovers from lichen ale,” declared Duran Aeducan, the redness in his eyes belying his bravado.

Solomae raised one eyebrow and lifted a shoulder in acknowledgement. Then she turned to Nelmirea.

“I—”

“You were never any good at healing spells,” she said, and put her fingers on Nelmirea’s temples, silencing her protests. Healing magic flowed into Nelmirea’s mind, a cool soothing balm easing the swelling. Her eyes fluttered shut and she drew a sharp intake of breath.

It only lasted a moment, then Solomae dropped her hands to her sides and took a step back. She sat down on one of the logs by the fire and looked off into the night.

“Did anyone die when you took your Joining?” she asked.

At first neither Korren nor Lytha answered, though the question was obviously directed at them. Then Korren cleared his throat and said, “Yes. A man, Daveth. From Denerim, like me. A common cutpurse, but… not altogether a bad fellow. For a shem.”

“I don’t think I could have kept that a secret,” said Solomae. “Knowing what might happen.”

“You have to, now. You’re a warden, like us,” Korren told her. “The greater world can’t know the order’s secrets. The Chantry would frown on our use of blood magic.”

“I frown on the use of blood magic,” Solomae said, irritable. She clutched the corner of her sleeve in one hand. There was still blood on her clothes.

“It doesn’t matter.” Lythra’s voice was dull, and she followed Solomae’s gaze out into the darkness beyond their fire, beyond the torches lighting the ruins of Ostagar. “The morality of it, the rightness or wrongness of it… the wardens don’t care about your feelings, or what you want, or what you think they should do. If you want to live, though, I suggest you follow Duncan’s orders and keep what you learned here tonight to yourselves.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Just trying to stay alive, no matter what lies you have to tell?”

Lythra smiled without it reaching her eyes. There were entirely too many teeth in her smile. “I don’t want to live,” she said. “I’m just giving you some friendly advice.”

“We lived,” said Duran, stoutly. “That’s what matters. No one’s truly a warden until they do what we did. It’s a proving, and a hard one, aye, but that’s why not everyone has what it takes to be a warden. Don’t trouble yourself with thoughts of the fallen.”

Solomae shook her head. “Maybe I don’t have what it takes.”

“You do,” Nelmiera spoke up, looking at her long and hard.

Solomae’s lips curled into a smile, but it did not reach her eyes. “Do you ever get the feeling that you may be trapped in one long Harrowing?” she asked. “That you keep being tested and when you pass one test there’s another waiting round the corner?”

Nelmirea did not smile. “Every day.”

Eventually, Alistair returned, and he brought with him four amulets, explaining that it was a token of their Joining, a small amount of the elixir from the chalice hardened into a black facsimile of a gemstone and set into silver to remind them of this night. Nelmirea did not, particularly, want to remember this night. Except perhaps for the feel of Solomae’s fingers upon her temples and the cool relief of the magic tempering her headache.

Solomae’s mouth twitched dangerously when Alistair said the amulets would help them remember the fallen, and Duran grunted, recognizing the irony. Nelmirea took hers without a word, slipping the cord over her head and tucking the amulet under the collar of her robes.

“Not long before nightfall, now,” Alistair said, taking a seat beside Lythra. “Duncan’s meeting with the King. There’ll be a battle tonight, I’m sure of it.”

“Good,” said Natia, gripping the handle on one of her small, deadly sharp daggers. “If fighting darkspawn is what we do from now on, best to get at it. I think I can feel them already, in the back of my mind. Like they’re out there, teaming about in the swamp, underground… just ready to swarm. I’ll give them a reason to run the opposite direction.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Alistair.

“I could do with a fight,” agreed Lythra, fingering the fletching on one of her arrows.

“So could I,” Nelmirea said, realizing how true it was. She’d almost been happy out there, earlier, zapping the monsters. It was so much easier to fight an enemy you were allowed to hurt, so much more liberating to burn through them with magic than to worry always about keeping under control and beneath templar notice. If she was to feel that way every time the Wardens went into battle, the Joining was worth it, even if it hadn’t been a risk she had been given a choice in taking.

Solomae was the only one who didn’t join in on the affirmations of eagerness for battle. She remained quiet and withdrawn, picking at the flecks of drying blood on her robes. She had the hands of a healer, not a battle mage, and she did not like to fail.

Chapter 10: Wardenmoot (Lothering)

Chapter Text

When the King’s army fell the fires burned bright long into the night.

Nelmirea would barely remember it afterwards. She took a heavy blow to the back of her head and would have died but for Solomae’s fervent healing spells. But even with those spells, she was not herself for several days after.

After fleeing the battle, they hid from the darkspawn in the night, retreating deeper into the swamp to stay clear of the ravaging horde. In the light of day they found their way back to a road and headed north.

The sun hurt her eyes. She became like the dwarves, afraid of the sky, as if she had not wished for the sun in those long years within the dim Circle Tower. She squinted in the light, aching, her head swimming, filled with the buzz of insects, tender fluttering thoughts darting to and fro.

She would have trouble recalling the details of their journey back north to Lothering. It was lost to her except in snatches. She remembered Solomae’s hand, the touch of her fingers on her temples as she whispered something, half healing words, half fretful muttering. Magic flowed from her palms in tendrils of blue light and flowered green behind Nelmirea’s eyes.

She remembered flames and she remembered running. She remembered screaming, not hers, but others lifting their voices to the Maker in supplication, or chanting battle cries, in death, sacrifice .

She only half remembered the travel, the days spent fleeing the wilds, and the night camped uneasily under the arch of a ruined highway, fitfully sleeping, being dragged from slumber periodically by Solomae, who held a water skin to her cracked lips and whispered healing spells into her ear.

She carried on full conversations that she would not remember an hour later.

They met a boy on the road, and at first she knew him, but then she forgot, and remembered again. Cousland. One of the twins, the one who liked swords, not the pretty petty pattering girl with the keys to the ledger… what was the boy’s name? Aedan Cousland. She had met him scant weeks ago, had traveled south with his brother Fergus’s army, yes, she remembered that.

He had come south in search of his brother, bringing news that Highever had fallen and the Teyrn slain. But when they met him on the road and told him of the disaster at Ostagar, the hopelessness of those in the vanguard surviving, he turned back with them to Lothering. His sister was there, taking refuge in the village Chantry, and now that he was convinced Fergus had fallen, she was the only other Cousland left alive.

Never in all her wildest dreams would Nelmirea Surana have imagined that one day she and the Cousland twins would all be refugees and outlaws together. Certainly not when she was a child and they were just names to her, the rich noble family that employed her parents, the epitome of all that was unattainable and privileged about being human instead of elven, mundane instead of magical. But once they were all gathered in Lothering together, hiding out in the Chantry wondering what to do next, she realized that they were on equal footing.

It was not solid footing. The Couslands had fallen farther than she had risen. They were orphaned and homeless, their titles worth very little to them now, and they were wanted dead by Arl Rendon Howe. Meanwhile, Nelmirea and her Grey Warden companions were without a leader or a purpose, and were wanted dead by Teryn Loghain Mac Tir, the new Regent of Ferelden.

Their only consolation was that the darkspawn were coming for them all, the rich and the powerful and the weak, the mighty and the pathetic, alike. Mac Tir labeled the Grey Wardens traitors and lay the blame for Cailan’s death upon their heads, if the wanted posters and the gossiping townsfolk of Lothering were to be believed.

It was like the Circle all over again; Gregoir declaring Nelmirea and Solomae guilty of blood magic or tainted by association. Was she destined to become a scapegoat for every wrong? She wanted to scream to the uncaring, too bright heavens that it was not fair. The Wardens were supposed to be her salvation, her chance at freedom and a life of purpose, not just another disaster beyond her control.

Before the darkspawn arrived, more Warden survivors rolled in from Ostagar. This time it was Duncan’s protégé, Alistair, along with his mabari hound, the Dalish girl Lythra, and someone Nelmirea was quite sure she had not met before.

Morrigan was an eccentrically dressed young woman of indeterminate years, (could be anywhere from twenty to thirty if Nelmirea had to hazard a guess), and she had a haughty, uncaring look about her. She wore a raggedly leather skirt with pants underneath it, and large black boots, and her tunic was a deep purple with a fur trimmed hood. Bird feathers decorated one sleeve, and a gaudy multi-layered necklace rounded out the look.

Nelmirea found her appearance captivating, though the woman did not seem to return the sentiment, her eyes barely skittering over Nelmirea in her blue robes upon introduction. She carried a large gnarled stick that was unmistakably a mage’s staff. So, an apostate. Well, at least there were a lot of them, now. They might all be fugitives with targets painted on their backs, but it was no longer just Nelmirea against the world. It wasn’t even just Nelmirea and Solomae against the world.

“So,” said Morrigan, looking Solomae up and down appraisingly and barely sparing a flicker of a glance for Nelmirea, “You are Circle bred mages, are you? I must admit I am curious. I have not had a chance to associate with your kind before. Oh, Mother told me stories of the mages who allow themselves to be leashed and neutered like cattle by the templars of the Chantry, but I did not expect to meet any out and about in the world. I certainly never intended to get near enough to a Circle to spy you there.”

“We’re not Circle mages anymore,” said Nelmirea, a touch defensively. She didn’t know what she’d done to provoke such spiteful words from the apostate. It wasn’t as if she’d said “I’ve never met a dirty bog hag before” straight away after meeting her. And Solomae had been the picture of politeness.

“No, of course, you are Grey Wardens,” Morrigan agreed. “But you were raised in the Circle, were you not?”

“Yes,” said Solomae. Her voice was mild, but there was a touch of frostiness in her eyes as she returned Morrigan’s appraising look with one of her own. “From the age of ten to twenty; half my life.”

“That tis not so very long. You are lucky to be free while you are still so young,” Morrigan said, with the archness of someone much older than she looked.

“And how old are you?” Nelmirea asked, unable to reign in her curiosity. “And did you spend your whole life in the Wilds? That must be its own kind of confinement.”

“Oh, I am somewhat older than twenty, but no more than five and twenty, I should think,” said Morrigan. “Flemeth never was one for marking such trivial things as birthdays. But I have spent all of those years in the Wilds with my mother, yes. Tis not ‘confinement’ though. I was free to venture out on my own, and did so many times, though I always returned before long.”

“Afraid of being caught by the templars?”

“No,” Morrigan denied sharply. “Only I find human settlements so very… odd. So many villages like this one, all of them the same, all of them so dull and yet so full self-importance.”

“Most self important people turn out to be dull in the end,” Nelmirea commented

“Have you ever been to a city? Gwaren, or Denerim, or Highever?” questioned Solomae.

“No, I have seldom ventured that far from the Wilds. I went to Redcliffe once, years ago, but did not find it impressive. There are Tevinter ruins deep in the swamp that put Redcliffe Castle to shame.”

“Solomae hails from Kirkwall,” Nelmirea said, voluteering the information though Solomae frowned at her. “It’s a city state far to the way north across the Waking Sea, an ancient port dating back to the heyday of the Imperium. And I spent my childhood in Highever, in the shadow of the Cousland’s castle, which is quite a bit larger than Redcliffe, or so I hear. It seems that for Circle mages who were corralled like cattle, we’ve seen more of the world than you have, hidden away in your swamp.”

Morrigan surprised her by smiling at that. “Fair enough,” she said, amusement tinging her voice in a sing-song manner and light dancing behind her golden eyes. “Perhaps you shall have wisdom to impart on me, learnt from all your worldly travels.”

Nelmirea knew when she was being mocked. Ancestors knew she’d been mocked enough in the Tower for her curious elven ways, which she had stamped out over the years. But Morrigan was not laughing silently at her for using strange elvhen words or having pointy ears, but for boasting about her proximity to Highever castle. And perhaps she deserved it for such foolishness.

Her head was feeling better after Solomae’s constant healing spells and some sleep, but talking to Morrigan made the dull ache come back. It made her mad that she did indeed sound stupid, talking about Kirkwall like she’d ever been there, like it mattered. Morrigan was right. Half her life, as well as Solomae’s, had been spent in a cage. Nelmirea would have given anything to have been raised alone in a swamp by her mother.

She thought of Iossa Surana’s rough hands and soft voice, of singing elvish songs together as they picked elfroot and lavender in the fields outside the alienage walls, and she imagined doing that every day for the past ten years. Every day. She envied Morrigan, even if it seemed as if the apostate hadn’t had any friends her own age growing up. Nelmirea thought of Jowan, of Solomae, and wondered if “friends” were the cruelest tormenters of all.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Solomae had saved her life at Ostagar and cared for her all the way on the road to Lothering. She was a healer at heart, and Nelmirea’s injury had been so bad she had become the center of Solomae’s world for a few days. She could not deny that she liked how that felt, despite the unpleasantness of the near death experience and the lasting disorientation of the cracked head. She was starting to miss it, a little, now that she was doing better.

But she was not so much of a self-indulgent child that she’d go on pretending to feel worse than she did just for the attention. While still in Lothering she told Solomae that she felt good as new. As if it had never even happened. There was still a faint buzzing in her ears, like a never-ending high pitched whine, but that too would fade in time. She hoped.

The rag tag group of Grey Wardens and the allies they’d attracted would soon leave Lothering behind, trying to stay ahead of the darkspawn invasion.

Alistair thought their best bet was travel to Redcliffe and to appeal to Arl Eamon Guerrin for help against Loghain before they went about trying to use the Ancient Treaties to rebuild an army.

May the gods help them all, but Alistair was the closest thing to a leader they had at the moment. He’d been a Grey Warden longer than the rest and been at Duncan’s side when the Commander had recruited most of them, so even though he hemmed and hawed and protested a great deal, they held a vote and after much debate, decided that if anyone asked who was in charge, they’d say it was him.

It was not an altogether unanimous decision.

They were camped in a field outside Lothering the night after they’d all reunited in the village, and were seated in a circle around the campfire. The conversation was very serious, starting with debate about whether to go to Denerim and challenge Loghain, go to Redcliffe and seek out Arl Eamon, or try to ignore the political strife altogether and use the Ancient Treaties to recruit the mages, dwarves, and Dalish elves to their cause. When no one could agree on that, the debate turned to who exactly should be making the decisions about where they went and what they did.

Duran Aeducan, the dwarven prince from Orzammar, had put himself forward and said that he knew more about leadership than anyone present. Maybe it was because he was a dwarf and they were prejudiced, or maybe it was because he was altogether too eager to put himself in charge of everyone else, or maybe it was because Natia Brosca told them all that he’d been exiled from Orzammar for killing his brother, but no one raised their hand for him besides Sten.

Alistair said that Lythra Mahariel should lead them, though he didn’t really say why, just that he thought she’d make a good commander. Nelmirea thought it apparent that he had a crush on her, but she cast her vote for Lythra as well. The Dalish girl frightened her a little and that seemed as good a reason to put her in charge as any. Also, Nelmirea just liked the idea of an elf in charge of them all.

Lythra was stoic and quiet, carrying herself with an air of power that Nelmirea had never seen in an elf before. That might just be how all the Dalish were, but Lythra was uncommonly young to be so serious and severe; she was no older than Nelmirea, but she gave off an aura of someone who had lived far longer. As if keeping the spirit of the Ancient Elves alive deep in the wilderness of the Brecilian Forest gave her wisdom beyond the rest of them…. Or maybe that was all nonsense, maybe Nelmirea was allowing the stories her mother had told her about the Dalish to run away with her. Maybe Alistair wasn’t the only one with a bit of a crush on Lythra Mahariel.

Nelmirea pushed that thought of her mind, as she had always pushed such thoughts away.

At any rate, Morrigan also voted to put Lythra in charge, and Lythra had looked between the three of them with a frown and said, “No. I don’t want to lead the Grey Wardens. I never even wanted to be a Grey Warden. I don’t care how many of you vote for me, you can’t force me to be your ‘leader’ the way Duncan forced me to join. It doesn’t work that way.”

She voted to make Alistair their leader, as if in revenge for his nominating her. Natia Brosca also voted for Alistair, but Korren Tabris voted for Lythra.

The people who were traveling with the Wardens but were not officially Grey Wardens got to vote, though none of them were up for the role of the Commander. The one thing they could all agree on was that the leader of the Grey Wardens should be someone who had at least undergone the Joining.

Aeden and Elissa Cousland both voted for Alistair, as did Leliana, the bow-wielding Chantry laysister who said she’d been given a directive from the Maker himself to accompany the Wardens.

That left Sten, the Qunari warrior who had been freed from a cage at the behest of the Couslands and Leliana. He’d been sentenced to a gruesome death by the Revered Mother, punishment for slaughtering a family of farmers days ago. If they hadn’t intervened he would have been left to starve to death or murdered by darkspawn.

He looked around with a stony expression and said, “I do not think any of you are deserving of command over an army.”

“Does that mean you abstain?” Aedan asked.

“No.”

“No you are not abstaining or no you’re not voting?”

“I told you when you released me from my cage that I would help in the struggle against the Blight,” said Sten, grinding out the words slowly as if talking to an idiot child. “I gave you my word that I would follow you so long as you maintained that path.”

“I’m not a Grey Warden so you can’t vote for me.”

“Then we are at an impasse.”

Aedan sighed heavily. “Can we just count that as a vote for Alistair? If Sten is following me and I’m voting for Alistair then he’s following my lead and voting for Alistair.”

“Stone’s sake,” grumbled Duran, “I’m the only one whio actually wants to lead the Wardens and you’re all sitting on your thumbs debating between two people who would rather point fingers at the other one than take any responsibility.”

He glared at Lythra and Alistair, who were the only two that had gotten any votes so far despite their dismay at even being nominated.

“Very well,” said Sten, “if I must vote I will vote for Duran Aeducan. He does not have any experience as a warrior but he is willing to lead. If he fails he will die and we will choose another.”

Duran spluttered a little at that, but it got him one vote beside his own.

“So that’s… five votes for Alistair, four votes for Lythra, two votes for Duran. Did everyone vote?” asked Aedan looking around. His searching eyes landed on Solomae and he raised his eyebrows, saying her name as a question.

Solomae was silent for a moment, suddenly shy under the scrutiny of everyone following Aedan’s lead to look at her. “I vote for Lythra, but I also think that those of us who are Grey Wardens should get two votes and the others should get one. That way there won’t be a tie.”

Her suggestion was followed by thoughtful silence as the others tried to quickly do the math in their heads, but Solomae only paused a moment before elaborating, “That would give Lythra nine votes, Alistair six votes, and Duran three votes. A clear majority.”

“I like the way she thinks,” said Alistair, a touch too cheerfully. There was something decidedly unmanly, Nelmirea decided, about him being so happy to not have to assume any responsibility. It made her more confident in her vote for Lythra, and proud of Solomae for tipping the scales.

But Lythra wasn’t having any of it. She stood up. “Did none of you hear what I said earlier? I’m not your leader, and I don’t care what math you do to make it so. I said what I said. Alistair is determined to fight against the Blight and honor Duncan’s memory, so he might blush and stammer about not wanting to be a leader, but he’ll do it. You know that he will, I know he will, and he knows that he will. But if you try to pin this on me I’m just going to walk away. And I’ve got an arrow for the eye of anyone who tells me otherwise.”

She gazed defiantly around the campfire at all of them, then uttered a curse in elvhen and stalked away into the darkness.

“She’s got backbone and I can tell you admire that,” said Duran, filling the awkward silence that remained. “But it takes more than a loud bark to be a leader. If those of you who voted for her want to change your vote to me, I can promise you I’ve got the backbone and the willingness to lead. I won’t walk away from it.”

“I’d consider it,” said Korren, “if you told me that your brother deserved the knife in the back.”

Nelmirea half expected a fight to break out—for Duran to challenge him to a duel or something equally as dramatic. The dwarven prince was silent for a long uncomfortable stretch of time that seemed to go on forever, but then he finally said, “No. He didn’t.”

“Well,” said Aedan quietly into the silence that followed this admission, “should we all vote again? Alistair, unless you’ve got a dark secret you need to tell us about. A brother you killed?”

He chuckled as he said this, which Nelmirea found rather distasteful. She didn’t much like Aedan from what little she knew of him after the short time she had spent in his company at Highever and now in Lothering. She knew she was biased against the Couslands, always had been and always would be, but she disliked how Aedan seemed to be directing the night’s debate despite not even being a Warden. She got the feeling that even though he wasn’t in the running to be the leader, he would be the one doing all the leading.

“You’re all idiots to even think of putting me in charge,” said Alistair, but he didn’t sound angry or irritated the way Lythra had been. Just a little embarrassed and nervous at all the attention. “But no, I didn’t kill my brother. Even if the whole country believes I was in on some conspiracy with Duncan to do it and I’m wanted for treason because of it.”

“I knew it!” exclaimed Elissa suddenly, and she seized her brother’s arm as she said it. “He looks just like him. I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.”

The outburst startled Nelmirea, and she could tell she wasn’t the only one. Elissa had been very quiet thus far, not joining in on the debate, and when she had cast her vote for Alistair it had seemed like an echo of Aedan’s vote. Even now it was Aedan’s arm she shook, as if she and her brother had had a private debate about this before and she was delighted to have scored a victory against her sibling.

“Knew what? And hold up…” Korren said, the wheels turning in his head. His eyes narrowed as he looked more closely at Alistair. “Does that mean…”

Alistair sighed. “Curse my big mouth,” he said. “And I’d been so good at keeping quiet about it before…”

“King Cailan was your brother?” Solomae asked, speaking what was at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“Yes, yes,” said Alistair uncomfortably, and then he rambled out in one run on sentence, “I’m a bastard and my father was King Maric and I was raised by Arl Eamon until I was sent away to the Chantry to become a Templar but then Duncan recruited me to the Grey Wardens and now I’m here. There—you lot know my entire life story now.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this sooner?” Aedan asked. “This is incredibly important information.”

Alistair made a sour face. “I fail to see how.”

“Now that King Cailan is dead you’re the heir to the throne.”

“Maker’s breath, Cousland. You’re a noble; you know how these things work. My mother was a commoner, I’m a commoner, the throne has never been in my future. Anyway I’m sorry I even mentioned that Cailan was my brother. It has absolutely no bearing on anything.”

“It might feed into Loghain’s story that the Wardens orchestrated King Cailan’s death, actually,” said Duran, stroking his beard. “Did Duncan know this about you?”

“Yes, actually… but he was the only Warden who knew, since it doesn’t matter, and all.”

“Hm, well, Duncan singled you out from the templars, mentored you, clearly favored you over the other Wardens,” Duran said, nodding to himself thoughtfully. “You can see how Loghain might use that against you. Might say Duncan was setting it up for you to be safe away from the battlefield, at the Tower of Ishal, while the King was tricked into going into battle against the darkspawn horde.”

“Except Loghain’s the one who quit the battlefield and left Cailan to die,” said Alistair, angry now. His wry smiles self-effacing stammering mannerisms vanished completely. His face darkened and Nelmirea was suddenly quite sure that if Loghain Mac Tir were standing there before them, Alistair would stab him through the heart without a second thought.

“Easy,” said Duran, holding one hand up. “Everyone here knows what Loghain did was treachery. We were all there at Ostagar. Well, all us Wardens were there. I’m just saying, this is going to matter, mark my words. If Loghain knows you’re the old king’s bastard he’ll use that against you, against us.”

“As if he needed more lies to slander the Wardens,” said Solomae bitterly. “There’s no mention of Alistair being the King’s brother in the bounty out on us now.”

“Give it time. That is, if Loghain knows.”

Alistair shrugged. “I suppose he must. He was my father’s closest friend, they say. I don’t know. I never gave it much thought before. I never gave Loghain much thought before.”

“We all have to give Loghain a lot of thought now,” said Aedan. “But I disagree with Duran about it being a liability. Loghain has proclaimed himself King, or Regent at least, based on Anora’s claim to the throne. He’s stolen the throne, really, and soon everyone will know what we know: that he and Rendon Howe are in league together to destroy the Cousland and Theirin bloodlines so that they can rise to power. We just have to get the truth out there. Alistair and Duncan didn’t conspire to kill the King, it was Loghain and Howe all along. Howe withheld his troops from the battle entirely, choosing instead to stage a coup against my family and station his forces at Highever castle. Loghain withdrew from the battlefield. He won’t be able to convince people that the Grey Warden were somehow the masterminds behind the slaughter when it becomes apparent that only about half dozen of you survived. And if he tries to vilify Alistair for all this, well,” Aedan paused with a scoff, “it will become even more apparent that he is just afraid of the legitimacy of Alistair’s blood claim to the throne over his own.”

Nelmirea found herself nodding slowly. As much as she instinctively didn’t like Aedan Cousland, she found herself agreeing with what he said. About Loghain and the Wardens, at least.

Alistair seemed less convinced by the speech. “Except I’m not going to make a claim for the throne.”

Aedan waved his hand. “That’s a conversation for later. When we go to Redcliffe and talk to Arl Eamon we can discuss what to do about Loghain, and Howe, and the throne. Right now we’re deciding who to name Commander of the Grey in Duncan’s stead.”

“I don’t think we need to make that decision at all, actually,” Alistair said. “Look, you can vote about who should be the leader or you can vote about what to do. Take a vote to decide where we go next.”

Sten spoke up again, “That is a bad strategy. Do all your armies put every decision to a vote? There must always be leaders. Generals. Commanders. Those who are entrusted to make important decisions when there is no time for discussion and debate.”

“We’re not an army yet, there’s a dozen people here.”

“You are seeking to build an army. How will you recruit anyone without a leader? No. You must choose. If none of you can agree, I will lead you.”

“No, you won’t,” Alistair shot back, surprisingly decisive.

“I’m sorry, Sten, but Ferelden isn’t going to unite behind a Qunari,” Aedan said, his tone less peevish, but just as firm. “No one here doubts your skill as a warrior, it's just… well… you’re not Fereldan.”

Sten regarded them with the same inscrutable expression he wore at all times, and said, “I do not understand. You have humans, elves, and dwarves among you. Would the humans of your land unite behind an elf, or a dwarf? Would the dwarves of Orzammar or elves of the Dales agree to follow any but their own into battle? But what truly perplexes me is that you would have nominated a woman to lead you. Would your people unite behind a woman?”

“Oh dear goddesses,” interjected Morrigan. “When will this tedious discussion end? I should think an easier way to decide would be for each of you to take out your manhood for measurement, and the one with the most impressive member gets to lead us womenfolk to our deaths at the hands of the darkspawn.”

“If we did that Sten would definitely win,” said Alistair without a hitch, and at her bemused look he insisted, “What? Come on, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it. Look at him.” He made a vague up and down gesture in Sten’s direction, illustrating the impressive size of the Qunari.

Nelmirea let out a nervous giggle, and it was the worst time to finally laugh at one of Alistair’s jokes, because Sten turned his terrifying gaze upon her for one dreadful moment. She didn’t know why she’d laughed. Morrigan and Alistair’s ribald conversation was not amusing, really, just… uncomfortable to be around.

Solomae nudged her arm as if in reprimand or warning, but it was a belated gesture. Nelmirea simply nudged her back, a little more forcefully, and Sten’s frown deepened as he watched them jostle while they stared forward with innocently bland expressions on their faces.

“I do not see the point of this,” Sten intoned, turning away to look back at Morrigan. “Do Fereldans often judge a person’s worth by the size of their genitals? Is this a human custom, or do dwarves and elves also subscribe to this practice?”

“We are all doomed,” sighed Morrigan, brushing her loose bangs back from her face in a sweepingly over dramatic gesture.

“It was sarcasm,” Duran told Sten, taking pity on him. “She was being sarcastic. And Alistair is always like that. Ignore them.”

“I do not understand why this is considered sarcasm or humor. I believe it is a fair assumption to make, as I am larger than the rest of you in all other ways. It is understandable and likely accurate to assume that—”

“Let’s get back on topic,” said Aedan with the long suffering sigh of one who considers himself to be the only adult present. “Sten, it’s like I said before. You’re not Fereldan. Even though we’re different races everyone else here is Fereldan. Well, maybe not Leliana…”

“I am Fereldan,” Leliana objected, despite her pronounced Orlesian accent.

“Your people do not tolerate foreigners,” said Sten, ignoring her completely. “You have made this clear. I am learning much about Ferelden. Thank you.”

Korren said, “Can we just vote? I’m definitely not voting for Alistair, now, so I suppose I will change mine to Duran. It’s nothing personal, shem.” He gave a stiff nod to Alistair. “But your noble family never did anything for the elves of the Denerim alienage. Didn’t matter if Maric or Cailan was the King; nothing ever got better for us after the war with Orlais was over. It’s still a death sentence for any elf to raise a hand against a human or carry weapons, even in self-defense. We’re starved, beaten, raped, and killed under the banner of the Theirin kings just like we were under the Orlesians.”

“Well,” said Alistair slowly, “no offense taken, I guess. Not that I want you to vote for me or anything, but I don’t consider myself a Theirin. That part of me just… well it never did me any good, either.” He shrugged and looked away. “I’d like to just be a Grey Warden, same as the rest of you. I’m no Theirin Prince, not really.” He shuddered.

“That’s a nice thought, but now that I see the King in your face all I can think of is those damned portraits Cailan spread around. We lived in squalor with his velvet portrait hanging up at the general store. When there wasn’t food or other goods on the shelves there was Cailan on the wall.”

Nelmirea thought back to her childhood in the Highever alienage. It had been a happier time for her, before the Circle, but the poverty and fear of violence had always been at the edges. It had touched her even then, in her parents’ long gruelling days away from home, the way she and all the other children were left to fend for themselves when Mama Ghil’ana couldn’t handle them all, and the constant warnings to stay away from humans and never look them in the eyes. She wondered what kind of things Korren had experienced in Denerim to make him so angry.

He wasn’t done talking. Korren shook his head and went on, “You know, I met him at Ostagar and I told him straight out what I’d done to get conscripted into the Wardens, how I’d killed a nobleman and Duncan had to claim me for the Wardens to keep me from being executed. Do you know what he said?”

“What did he say?” Alistair asked, a weary tone to his cooperative response.

“Nothing, really. It just rolled off his back, like water off a duck. He uttered some empty thing, how the Wardens would benefit from such a fierce warrior in their ranks. I wasn’t sure he’d even heard what I’d said. Too wrapped up in his plans for his glorious victory against the darkspawn.”

Aedan cleared his throat and said, “Some say that King Cailan did not truly rule, that it was Anora Mac Tir, his Queen, who ruled Ferelden from behind the throne.”

“So?” Korren shot back. “Should that make me honor his memory? Should I respect him for his dereliction of duty, for not serving the needs of his elven people or paying attention to our suffering? For not granting us the full rights of citizenship?”

Aedan looked truly flustered for the first time. “No, I meant… well I just meant… look, Loghain is Anora’s father and the two of them have control of the throne now. Do you think they will suddenly start to care for the elves?”

“I never said I had any love for the Mac Tirs,” said Korren, waving one hand dismissively. “I have no love for any noble shem, you included, Cousland. That’s why my vote for the new Warden Commander goes to Duran, not to Alistair… or you.”

“Fair enough,” said Alistair, pointedly, as if to tell Aedan to let it go.

Aedan just nodded silently. “Well, my vote is still the same. Anyone else care to weigh in?”

“I’m voting for Alistair,” said Nelmirea, which awarded her a look of surprise from the former templar. She returned his look with a shrug. He didn’t really need to know why she did what she did.

She wasn’t going to vote for Duran, a royal prince who had killed his own brother and didn’t even have anything to say in his own defense. Maybe it was unfair to judge him, as she had been judged a maleficar and thrown out of the Circle, but still. He hadn’t defended himself, had not even tried to claim that his fratricide was justified.

Solomae eyed Nelmirea and said softly, “I’ll also vote for Alistair.”

“Oh very well,” Morrigan sighed. “I cannot believe I am saying this, but I will also vote for the resident idiot to be our leader. But I am only doing so in deference to Cousland’s vote of confidence.” She threw an arch look Aedan’s way, and the young noble smiled back at her. There was something going on there, Nelmirea thought, or there soon would be.

Once all the votes were recounted, it came out in favor of Alistair.

Sten, Korren, Alistair and Duran himself were the only ones to vote for Duran.

“Well,” Alistair said, throwing up his hands once it was apparent he had been chosen and could not wriggle out of it, “I’m not going to walk away from the Grey Wardens. Lythra’s right about that at least. So if you’re going to make me lead… Maker, you’re going to regret it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyway, my first ruling as your Commander is that you all have to vote on where we go from here.”

This was met with loud groans all around. “Fine,” he relented. “Redcliffe? Yes, Redcliffe. We’ll go to Arl Eamon first. And don’t complain about it if you don’t like it because I gave you every chance to stop me from making the decision.” Aedan gave him an encouraging nod when he looked his way. “Arl Eamon will know what to do from there.”

At first light the next morning they left Lothering, heading north on the Imperial Highway. Nelmirea noticed that they fell into separate, smaller groups, and she observed the dynamics quietly, the same way she had often observed the dynamics of the other mage apprentices back at the Circle.

Korren Tabris stuck close to Lythra Mahariel, possibly because of elven solidarity and possibly because they’d had their Joining together prior to the others, and had been the only two to survive. Alistair seemed to want to walk with Lythra Mahariel, but there was some awkwardness there, either because Korren was so sour on human nobles or some other reason Nelmirea wasn’t aware of.

Aedan split his time and conversation between Alistair and Morrigan, floating between them throughout the day’s hike. Nelmirea decided that Aedan was someone to watch closely, as he had maneuvered himself into a position of leadership by proxy. His interest in Alistair’s friendship was likely motivated by wanting to direct their newly elected Warden Commander’s decisions, and Alistair seemed eager to have someone to follow, so he was happy to lend an ear to whatever Aedan had to say. Aedan’s interest in Morrigan was something else altogether, and Nelmirea though it obvious that he found the swamp witch attractive and alluring.

Duran had much the same idea as Aedan with regard to Alistair. If he had not been named the leader, he would at least put himself near the man who had been, and try to influence him. Natia Brosca was a harder person to get a read on. She had pretty much destroyed Duran’s chances of being elected as Commander by telling people about his past transgressions in Orzammar, and had voted against him herself, but she still hung around the other dwarf almost exclusively.

Elissa Cousland was utterly uninteresting, just as Nelmirea had found her when they’d visited Highever castle. She stuck close to Leliana for the most part, and Nelmirea didn’t think there was much that could be worth paying attention to between those two. She had nothing against Leliana, per se, except of course that she was a devotee of the Andrastan faith, a Chantry laysister who had been living at the Lothering chapel. Perhaps it was unfair, but she reminded Nelmirea of Lily every time she looked at her. Not that they were physically very similar… but memories of Lily praying in the Kinloch Hold chapel were fresh in her mind. At any rate, Leliana’s constant references to the Maker and Blessed Andraste really turned her off.

Sten mostly only conversed with the two mabari hounds, Barkspawn and Calenhad. He was taciturn and standoffish towards the others.

“So, have you figured everyone out yet?” Solomae asked her around midday. Nelmirea jumped, a little startled and embarrassed that she’d been so obvious.

“What?” she asked, trying to sound innocent and clueless.

“I know that look. You’ve been studying our companions more closely than you ever read a single book,” Solomae said, but there was laughter in her voice.

“I am not.”

“Uh huh. Well, keep your conclusions to yourself, if you must. I’m glad you’re feeling better anyway. You are feeling better, aren’t you?”

Come to think of it, Nelmirea had forgotten to even notice the ringing in her ears all day. “Yes, much better. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Nelly.”

“You saved my life.”

“Well of course I did.”

Nelmirea smiled quietly to herself, looking away to hide the grin. Things were starting to feel better, despite how dire their circumstances truly were.

On the surface there was little reason for rejoicing. They were a small band of fugitives who could barely function well enough to choose a leader, and had settled on a bastard boy no more qualified to command an army than he was to become a king. And they were somehow the only ones who could fight against the Blight, a phenomenon that only occurred every few centuries. How unlucky that it should be visited upon the world now, during Nelmirea’s lifetime.

But despite all that, things were starting to feel normal again when it came to Solomae. They could talk, and smile, and be easy around each other once more. The politics and betrayals of the Circle were behind them, part of a different life. They were truly Grey Wardens now, not just recruits, not just fledgling members. They had gone through the fires of the Joining and of Ostagar, and it cleansed them of their troubles without either having to say a word.

Now they watched out for each other, cared for each other, and were of the same mind. Or, well, at least they had been of the same mind last night, Solomae had followed her lead when it came to voting around the campfire. Nelmirea was sure that this was a sign they were back to being a team.

It had taken weeks, it had taken nearly dying more than once, but finally Jowan and the Circle was behind them.

Chapter 11: With the Wardens (Lothering)

Chapter Text

The first time Solomae passed through Lothering, she were heading south towards Ostagar. It was before the Joining, before the battle, before the Blight seemed true and real.

Solomae had slipped out of camp. It had been easy, then. Alistair, for all his talk about owing it to Duncan to see the recruits safely delivered to Ostagar, was not a very attentive warden. There was no one to watch them in the night, not like the Circle and its ever vigilant templars with their rotating shifts. Nelmirea had been avoiding her, and she had been avoiding Nelmirea, so when she excused herself to her tent in the early evening no one was aware that she snuck out the other side.

She did not slip away with the intent to desert the Wardens. She knew that to do so would mean wandering the world as an apostate with no protection. She did not want that.

At times she had toyed with the idea of running away to Orlais or the Free Marches, throwing herself upon the mercy of the Circles there, pretending she was not Solomae Amell, reject of Kinloch Hold, but an apostate who had been raised in secret by parents who had not wanted her taken to a circle. She invented a story that was not so far from the life her father had intended for her—kept apart from others, taught to hide and suppress her magic, not allowed to be herself.

But this fantasy fell short when she imagined their reaction. Even if she lay the blame on her parents, the templars and circle mages would be wary of her. It would also be difficult to pretend she had not undergone a formal Circle education for the past ten years. She did not know if she could be convincingly ignorant enough. She did not know if she could lie that well.

Near Lothering, she left the Warden camp to find the farm outside town where her mother’s cousin Leandra had once lived. She did not know if the Hawkes still resided there, but she remembered them from when she had been a child in Crestwood. Lothering was a few day’s ride south from Crestwood, and they had visited once or twice. But not often.

Father had been cautious about mingling with other transplants from home, especially family. Leandra had married an apostate, they had run away from Kirkwall together, and it had been a great scandal. Almost as much of a scandal as Daylen developing magic and Revka disappearing, consumed by her grief over losing her first born son to the Gallows.

Even though no one in the south of Ferelden knew these details about the Amells and the Hawkes, it would not do to draw too much attention to themselves.

Solomae did not think it likely that they would still live in the same place as ten years past. They probably had kept on the move to keep ahead of the templars. But she felt a curiosity she could not shake, and a small voice telling her that maybe, if they were there, Leandra and Malcolm would have news of her father, would know where he had gone after the templars took away all of his children.

(After she had betrayed him. After she had told the terrible truth.)

She had to go into Lothering, to the inn, to ask for directions to the Hawke family farm. Ten years had gone by and though she could vaguely recall the way the farm looked, the small house, the lane leading up to it, there was no way she could have found it in the night so many years later. So rather than wander from homestead to homestead, she took her chances talking to villagers.

It was not easy to work up the courage. She still felt an instinctual fear of being around the smallfolk of Ferelden. She’d lived in abject terror of her neighbors in Crestwood, as a child, and for the past ten years had soothed herself with the thought that life within the Circle was far better than life outside, surrounded by the fearful and ignorant peasants with their torches and pitchforks. But she was a Grey Warden now, and if anyone questioned her… well, what would she do? She almost wished she had Alistair there, a Grey Warden and a templar to boot, to vouch for her and make the villagers less hostile… but no, she had to stop thinking like that. If she was on Warden business, that would be one thing, but on a private matter, one that she had not asked leave to undertake…? She was on her own. No one out here would watch over her, or protect her, not even a former templar. She had to watch out for herself, speak for herself, and deal with people herself.

She was lucky. The innkeeper knew the Hawkes. They still lived just outside Lothering, and so the man sketched her a rudimentary map to help her find the homestead. He mercifully asked few questions, readily accepting the truth that she was family visiting from the north, and saying that aye, she was the spitting image of young Bethany, Leandra’s youngest daughter. He made a pointed comment about how a pretty young lady like herself ought not to be out traveling alone in the dark, but he seemed more interested in selling her a room for 10 coppers than her actual safety. When she declined and said she was eager to get to her cousins’ house that night, he simply shrugged and wished her well.

The moon was still low in the sky when she reached her destination. There were lights shining from the cottage windows. She took a deep breath and knocked, reminding herself that she had nothing to fear from the Hawkes, for they were family.

A cascade of loud barking came from within the house. Soon there was the sound of claws scrabbling at the door and a woman’s voice saying, “Hush, calm down Bruiser, let me get by. Murderers seldom knock, don’t you think?”

A young woman with a mop of short black hair and piercing blue eyes opened the door. She scanned Solomae with a frank stare, a quirk of an eyebrow, and a saucy tilt to the corner of her mouth. She was just taking a breath to say something when another voice called out, “Marian, who is it? Who could be here so late at night?”

“Hello,” said Solomae, as polite and quiet as she could possibly be. “It’s Solomae.”

She didn’t know if Marian would remember her, but she remembered Marian. She was about Daylen’s age, a little older than Solomae. The second of Leandra’s four children.

Leandra appeared beside her before she could respond. Solomae assumed it was Leandra, anyway. The older woman gaped in surprise for a moment, then exclaimed, “Can it really be? You look like her… but Solomae went off to the Circle years ago…”

“Yes, I did, but I’m out again,” said Solomae, making it sound like an easy thing. “May I come in?”

Marian put out a hand, quick as a dart, but then leaned her whole body across the doorway with a deceptive loucheness. “Oh sure,” she said, “long lost cousin Solomae showing up out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, all alone? That’s not weird.”

“It’s a little weird,” said Solomae, evenly. “It’s hardly the middle of the night, though. By the smell of things you’re only just eating dinner.”

Marian snorted appreciatively, but the suspicion in her eyes did not go away. Leandra batted at her arm, trying to push her out of the way. “Let her in, Marian. Goodness.”

“Are you alone?” Marian asked, not budging.

“Yes, I did not bring a cadre of templars to drag your father away, if that’s what you’re asking,” Solomae said.

“Embarrassing for you if you did,” Marian said with another snort, this time less appreciative. “My father died three years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Solomae said, softly. “Still, no templars. I’m not with the Circle anymore. I’m a Grey Warden now. Or, I soon will be.”

Marian shifted from the doorframe, but instead of going back inside, she slipped out into the lane. She slunk past Solomae, close enough to whisper in her ear, “Well we’ll just have a look around, cousin,” before vanishing into the night.

Solomae blinked, confused about what had just happened, but Leandra pulled her inside eagerly. “Oh, don’t mind her, she sees templars in the rafters, like bats. She’ll be back after she’s patrolled the woods and upturned the haybales to her satisfaction. But tell me, how are you? What has happened? Are you alright? Maker’s breath, but you have grown, you are a woman now, just look at you! The spitting image of Revka, at that age.”

“I’m with the Wardens now,” Solomae repeated, letting herself be led inside to the warmth of the cottage. The dog that had been barking earlier was waiting inside to sniff her up and down. She looked at it warily. It was a great big mabari hound in a studded collar, but it had friendly eyes. She held out a hand as a sign of friendship. “They recruited me from the circle, to help fight the Blight.”

“Yes, the Blight,” Leandra breathed out, apprehensively. “Garrett and Carver left to join the King’s Army, to go fight at Ostagar. They’ve sent letters; there’s been battles with darkspawn and wilder folk. It’s dark times.”

Just then, another young woman came in from a back room. She looked much like Marian, only softer, rounder, more feminie, with long wavy hair and a kerchief tied stylishly at her neck. Marian had been all rough leathers and fur and glints of metal studs and buckles.

“Who’s this, Mother?” Bethany asked, eyeing her curiously. They were about the same age and had played together as children, but a decade was a long time, and children who went away to Circles were soon forgotten.

“Why, don’t you recognize your cousin Solomae?” Leandra exclaimed. Bethany tilted her head to the side and the same look of suspicion that had narrowed Marian’s eyes now darkened hers.

Of course. Why not? Solomae the traitor, Solomae the snitch. Father must have told them what had happened. How she had given them all away to the templars who came looking for them. Elodie, Solomae, Tristan, and Geoffrey. All taken away to Circles, just like Daylen, because of her, because of their neighbor, because of the curse of magic.

She cleared her throat. “Hello, Bethany. How are you?”

“Good. I am well. Surprised, though. I had thought you were gone, swallowed up by the Circle.”

“I’m with the Wardens now,” she said, as she had said twice already, as she felt she must keep on saying for the rest of her life. “We’re on our way to Ostagar to meet up with the King’s army.”

“I was just telling her that Garrett and Carver are already there,” said Leandra.

“Yes,” said Bethany, with a little smile. She sat down at the table. “The menfolk have gone off to war and left us here alone.”

Leandra ignored the jest in Bethany’s tone and said to Solomae, “Marian and Bethany are… special. For once I’m glad of it. I worry about their brothers, facing the darkspawn hordes.”

“Mages will be needed in the upcoming fight,” Solomae said, parroting what Duncan had said when he invoked the right of conscription. “Now will be the time for us to prove our worth.”

“Mages are always valued in times of war,” said Marian, suddenly appearing from the shadows. “But only the ones who wear the Chantry’s collar.” She strolled over to the mabari, Bruiser, and scratched him under his studded collar.

Solomae started when she appeared, her skin prickling, and then tried to play it off casually. Marian just laughed, satisfied that she had the upper hand with her antics. But then she turned to her mother and said, “You shouldn’t be chattering to this one. Don’t you remember what her father said happened when the templars came? She spilled everything.”

“Oh, Marian,” Leandra sighed. “Hold your tongue.”

“I can’t stay long, so I’ll be quick to the point,” said Solomae, not liking the frostiness of the welcome she was getting from her cousins. “I wanted to know if you had heard from my father recently? Where is he living now, do you know?”

“Still in Crestwood,” Leandra said, gently. “As far as I know, he never moved away. The last time we spoke was when my husband, Malcolm, died. I sent word and he came to stand vigil with us.”

Solomae nodded. It was Andrastan custom for families to stand vigil over the pyre of the deceased until it was burnt down to ash. She was surprised to learn that her father had never left Crestwood, though, since she imagined it was very hard to get along with the neighbors. They would view him with suspicion after his children turned out to be closeted mages, and he must surely feel some resentment towards the one who had sent for the templars.

“He stayed in one place in case one of you ever came looking for him,” said Bethany, as if reading her mind. “And he had no one to hide from anymore. Nothing more to lose.”

Solomae swallowed and looked down. It had been for the best. She still believed that. She tried to believe that, as she looked between Leandra, and Marian, and Bethany. She had admitted to the templars that she and Elodie had magic, but she had never breathed a word about the Hawkes. That had not been her secret to tell. Also, the templars had not asked. No one had ever asked. And so, they were still hidden, ten years later. But they were already in more danger of exposure, now that the Blight was threatening to drive them from their home. 

The upheaval of a Blight promised to be like a hand of fate reaching down and lifting up all the rocks and logs and sending the creatures that hid there scattering; all the blood mages, maleficarum, and innocent apostates alike. If it could not be contained to the Wilds, if it spread beyond the last line of defense at Ostagar, it would rip a hole through Ferelden in more ways than one.

It was her job to make sure that did not happen, now.

She said none of this, though. She only said, “Thank you. That is good to know. I don’t know if the Wardens will be traveling near Crestwood anytime soon, but perhaps if I leave a letter with you, you could send it to him?”

“Of course, dear,” said Leandra. “I know he would be overjoyed to hear from you.”

Solomae wasn’t so sure about that. But apprentices were not allowed to send letters, so she had not written to him for years, and then when she passed her Harrowing and was made a full mage, with expanded freedoms, there had seemed little point. What were the chances he lived in Crestwood, and would he even want to hear from her? Had he forgiven her?

“Could I trouble you for some ink and paper?” she asked. She’d had so little hope of success that she had not even prepared a letter beforehand.

“Of course, of course. Bethany, run and bring my writing desk,” said Leandra. Then she turned to the cooking pot over the fire and said to Solomae, “You must have some dinner, too. You look so pale.”

They all looked pale, Solomae thought. It was, perhaps, an Amell family trait. But she did not turn down the offer of food. It had to be better than the slop Alistair had been feeding them on the road.

Bethany obediently went into the back room again. Marian crossed her arms and leaned against a wall, watching Solomae with no less suspicion and judgement than she had before. Solomae wondered what her apostate cousins must have thought of her all those years, after hearing that she had spilled the family secret to the templars. How much had they despised her memory, to still be so hostile ten years on?

As if to answer this question, Marian started to absently play with a pair of small daggers, flicking them back and forth in her hands with no seeming purpose but to be unsettling and weird.

Bethany returned with a small portable writing desk which she set on the kitchen table. Solomae thanked her politely and then was faced with the impossible task of putting words to paper.

In the end, her letter was short and perfunctory. She did not know what to say, and the thought of one of the Hawkes reading it embarrassed her. So she merely told her father the basics, and said that if the Wardens ever camped near Crestwood she would do her best to stop by. She left out everything about the Circle, about Nelmirea and Jowan and Cullen, as if the past decade of her life were not worth commenting on. She did not say that she had been conscripted, nearly tranquilized, accused of blood magic by association. None of that. What point was there? Her father did not need to know any of that, whether it would distress him or whether he might think she deserved it for failing to keep her mouth shut.

Letters were empty things. What she really wanted was to see him again, in person. Only then would she know if she was forgiven. She would never be able to see her mother or siblings again, but perhaps… perhaps… Crestwood was not so far away. And why shouldn’t the Wardens end up there one day?

They had passed by the Bronach bannorn twice already, once immediately after leaving Kinloch Hold when they were traveling north to Highever, and again on their way back south. But they had taken a route that hewed close to the storm coast rather than cutting inward through the forests and grasslands of northern Ferelden, and had been too far away from the village of Crestwood for Solomae to dare slip away from camp. She had thought about it, calculating how many miles lay between her and a possible reunion, but she had been sure her father could not still live in the house along the lakeshore in lower Crestwood, and did not want to risk being chased as a deserter just to go check.

She did not stay long at the Hawke home after finishing the letter, sealing it, and eating dinner with them. She would not have even stayed long enough for the food, but that Leandra insisted and it seemed unconscionably impolite to refuse. She felt uncomfortable the entire time, for though Leandra was welcoming and Bethany was cautiously friendly, Marian never stopped being hostile in a passive-aggressive, sardonic sort of way.

Leandra asked her to stay the night, saying it was far too dangerous to be out on the roads alone after dark. But Solomae could not—would not—stay, she had to be back in her tent before daybreak if she did not want anyone to know she had gone. The Warden camp was not far, not even a full hour’s walk.

She was glad to be alone again. Seeing the Hawkes brought back so many memories she did not like. Memories of years spent in fear of discovery, under the shadow of a family curse that had driven them from Kirkwall. The memory of the last time she had seen her father and siblings—the disappointment in Father’s eyes, the sadness, the desperation when he knew that it was all over. The tears of the younger children because they didn’t understand why they were being taken away. Elodie’s anger, her own shame.

For a long time, Kinloch Hold had been a refuge. A way out of the nightmare. Better to be found than live as a fugitive. Her success as a mage there had been important to her, in ways that Nelmirea had never understood. She needed to prove that cooperating with the templars had been the right choice, that it was a better life than hiding out in hamlets like Crestwood or Lothering, jumping at every knock on the door.

The Circle was no more, and the Wardens were all she had to stand between her and the specter of apostasy. So she returned to her tent, sneaking effortlessly past Alistair who was dozing while standing guard, and tried to get some sleep before daybreak and on to Ostagar.

 


 

When they returned to Lothering after the battle was lost and the king slain, Solomae saw her cousins again. They were among the masses of people getting ready to flee Lothering. Garrett and Carver had returned, deserters from the King’s army, with no other thought than to take their mother and sisters and run. There would be no heroic last stand for the Hawkes, at least not on Fereldan soil.

“Come with us,” Leandra said. “We are going to take a ship to Kirkwall. We still have family there, my brother Gamlen. I know he would welcome you for Revka’s sake.”

“I can’t,” said Solomae. “I am with the Wardens now.”

She had almost said yes. She had almost asked if Gamlen would take in an elf, as well.

Nelmirea had been injured at Ostagar, a grievous head wound that had tested the limits of Solomae’s healing abilities. She was resting in camp while Solomae helped the others make preparations to leave. Solomae was out gathering elfroot when she spotted her cousins moving down the lane towards the highway.

She was with Morrigan, the apostate from the Wilds, at the time. Morrigan was not the least bit interested in her private business, and turned her back as Solomae went to flag them down. Morrigan wouldn’t have cared if she had left with the Hawkes right then and there. The hedge witch could be extremely irritating about the Circle, having no regard for the Chantry or its mages, but she could be counted on for indifference. Solomae was grateful for that.

She thought of Duncan killing Ser Jory when he tried to flee. But Duncan was dead, and none of the other surviving Wardens would have stopped her deserting if that’s what she felt she must do. Maybe Alistair would one day grow into the kind of leader who would skewer deserters on the end of a blade, if he survived enough battles to grow old and stern, but he was a far cry from someone to fear now.

And yet she said no to Leandra. She said goodbye to the Hawkes. Why did she say goodbye? 

Because Nelmirea was not there to go with them?

Solomae wondered what the two of them were even doing caught up in all of this. What madness had brought them here? They were not meant to be warriors battling the nightmare horde. They were not warriors at all. She had little prowess with battle magic and Nelmirea… Nelmirea was meant to dance with butterflies in a field of flowers, not fall in the fires of war. How could they hope to survive?

But she said “no” and watched her cousins leave. She doubted that she would ever see them again.

She was with the Wardens now. They were both with the Wardens now. They could not be called apostates so long as they were with the Wardens.

“Did you send the letter?” she asked, only when Leandra was too far down the road to hear her.

Chapter 12: Bad Blood (Redcliffe)

Chapter Text

“By all that’s holy… you! I can’t believe it.”

Solomae had not thought to see Jowan’s face again. But there he was, in the dungeons below Redcliffe Castle, looking sad and pathetic in a cell. His face blanched with surprise when he saw that it was her. Of course it is you, she thought as she drew nearer, her own surprise fading into a sense of certainty that the Maker had a twisted sense of humor. So this was the dangerous blood mage who had caused all the problems in Redcliffe… still just Jowan the Mediocre and Unambitious, apparently unable to even slip out from behind the bars of a hinterland lord’s prison cell.

There were only three of them in the dungeons below Redcliffe Castle: Solomae, Lythra, and Alistair, plus the dog who followed him around. At first, after Teagan Guerrin had disappeared into the castle, when plans were being made to sneak in through the hidden tunnel, Solomae had not liked the idea of splitting up with Nelmirea. But only a small group was to try infiltrating the castle, hoping to get by unnoticed and open the gates for the rest, and as it was agreed that Solomae was the best at healing spells, she had gone down with Alistair and Lythra to safeguard them. Nelmirea waited, along with the rest of their party and the remaining Redcliffe knights, to be granted entry through the front gates.

Now, standing before Jowan, Solomae was glad that Nelmirea was not there. He would be hers alone to deal with.

As she surveyed him, cowering in the cell, dirty and thin and downtrodden, she could see him through Nelmirea’s eyes. He had been Nelmirea’s best friend, and Nelmirea was her best friend, so she had always tried to tolerate Jowan. Nelly felt indebted to him because he had been kind to her when she first arrived at the tower, a full two years before Solomae had joined them, and such basic humanity had won a decade of loyalty that he did not deserve.

She spoke to him a little while. Right off the bat, he asked her about Lily, wanting to know if his lover was alright, wanting to know if she had been punished for her actions. It disgusted Solomae that he did not ask what had become of Nelly, who had risked all to aid and abet with no thought to her own self-interest.

“Nelmirea is here with me,” she said, “not that you care. The Grey Wardens recruited us both. Not Lily though; she, they sent to Aenor. The Wardens were only interested in saving us because we have skills.”

Alistair, who was hanging back with Lythra, letting Solomae talk to the prisoner because she’d recognized him, mumbled something about how the Wardens didn’t recruit as an act of charity and the Joining was dangerous.

Once he had recovered from his distress over Lily, Jowan told her what he thought had happened at Redcliffe. He claimed it was Connor, the Arl’s son, who must have unleashed a demon upon his people. Jowan had been hired by the Arlessa to train the boy so that he could hide and control his magic. Poisoning Eamon had been the only task Loghain asked of him, in exchange for a promise of fixing things with the Circle. There had been no plot to destroy all of Redcliffe… just accidents and incompetence.

Solomae did believe him, in the end, because she had always thought him a small minded, unambitious lout, and inadvertently mucking things up seemed a lot more his style than being an evil mastermind. It seemed he had trained the boy just enough to make him dangerous. So like Jowan to be a terrible teacher and make things worse instead of better.

“You have always been mediocre,” she said, disdainfully. “If you weren’t a mage there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, but magic requires exceptionalism. And you were never cut out to be a mage. But you dragged Nelmirea down with you, you know. She could have been so much more, if it wasn’t for you.”

He hung his head.

“What are you going to do with me?” Jowan asked, looking at the warriors behind her. Alistair with his sword and Lythra nervously holding her bow at the ready, an arrow nocked, her fingers playing at the feathers.

They would kill him, Solomae knew. All she had to do was say the word. She could vouch for him or condemn him and let her companions do the dirty work. Nelmirea was not there to witness it. She could be done with Jowan once and for all. If Nelmirea did find out, she could blame Alistair, say it was his Templar training, his distrust of mages. Nelly might even believe her.

“We’ll let you go,” she said, the words slow and leaden on her tongue. “But you have to leave. Get out of here and make sure I never see your face again.”

Jowan sighed, slumping against the bars. “I’m so tired of running and lying,” he said. “I thought Loghain would help me. But now…”

“Would you rather we kill you or leave you here to die?” Solomae said, sharply.

He gave her a miserable, limpid look in answer. By the Maker. He really did want to just give up and stop fighting, didn’t he? She shook her head and unlocked the gate with a simple spell that Jowan himself could have performed. “Go,” she said. “Run. I don’t want you going anywhere near Nelmirea though, do you hear me? She’s been through enough on your account already.”

“I’ll go,” he said, slipping out past her, keeping his distance from Lythra and Alistair, eying the mabari warily. “I wish I could help you fight, but I’m no hero, I—”

“I know that,” Solomae said. She almost added, I’m no hero either but every day since you ruined my life I wake up and I fight. But she did not. Jowan had never been her friend. She should never have even gotten involved in his plot to elope with Lily, she knew that. It had been her own inability to let Nelmirea misbehave that had compelled her to meddle. She wouldn’t stand there wasting precious time arguing with Jowan or trying to make him feel more guilty than he already did. They had to save Teagan, and probably, it seemed, confront the abomination that was the boy mage Connor.

“Are you sure about letting him go?” Alistair asked, edging closer, holding his sword. “I mean, he’s your friend, you know him better than we do, but he’s still a blood mage…”

“I do know him better than you,” Solomae said, as Jowan scurred off into the darkness of the tunnel. “Don’t worry. That’s not a big scary maleficar, it’s just a stupid boy in over his head.”

“Fools with more power than they have the sense or strength to control are scary enough,” said Lythra, lifting her bow and training her arrow at Jowan’s retreating back. For a moment Solomae thought she was going to loose an arrow between his shoulder blades, and she lifted a hand to stop her, to knock her aim askew with a misdirection spell, but Lythra lowered her arms and shook her head, saying, “But I will do what you think is best.”

“Thank you,” said Solomae, allowing the bit of magic gathered in her hands to dissipate. She didn’t want to carry with her the sight of Jowan tripping and falling, an arrow piercing his heart through his back. If she did she’d be seeing it every time she looked Nelmirea in the eye.

Alistair shrugged and lifted up his shield, and they carried on through the basement, making their way up to the castle courtyard where more undead awaited.

When they opened the castle gates to let the others in, Nelmirea rushed forward to hug her quickly, a gesture of relief. Solomae did not tell her that they had found Jowan in the dungeon below the castle, thankful she did not have the guilt of his death to weigh on her. She hoped he had escaped out the secret entrance into the windmill and would disappear into the Hinterlands after that, to be hunted by templars or killed by darkspawn, it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t her problem and she would not let him be Nelmirea’s problem anymore.

That, at least, is what she had hoped.

Once they entered the castle with the full force of all the Wardens and the Knights of Redcliffe, and released Bann Teagan from the mind control Connor had placed him under, Jowan reappeared.

They were debating what must be done about Connor. Isolde, his mother, was crying and begging for mercy even though it seemed clear that the boy was gone, an abomination. Solomae was quiet, though rattled. Isolde was so like her own father and mother… it was like reliving the past; the weeping of her mother, the vain secrecy of her father. These people, these non-magical parents who did not know well enough to send their children to the Circle… this is what they wrought. This is what might have happened to Solomae or one of her siblings, if she had not spoken up, had not given them away to the templars....

“He doesn’t have to die,” said a voice from the shadows, interrupting an argument between Alistair, Nelmirea, and Morrigan about whether or not Connor was beyond help. Solomae had been lost in her own private thoughts, but she cringed when she heard the familiar voice, and saw Nelmirea’s head whip around in surprise.

Out walked Jowan. “You!” cried Isolde, pointing an accusatory finger. “You did this! Who let this man out of his cell? I thought he was dead by now!”

Jowan held up his hands. “I only want to help,” he insisted. “To make amends. Please.”

Nelmirea turned towards him, her large grey eyes widening beyond surprise. “Jowan? What are you doing here? What—”

“This is the mage who poisoned Eamon?” Teagan asked, taking a defensive stance.

“Yes,” said Isolde. “This is the man who put a demon in my Connor!”

“I didn’t summon a demon to possess your son!” Jowan denied. “I’m sorry. I know I did the wrong thing in poisoning the Arl, but you have to believe me, I never meant for all this to happen. I want to fix it. I think I know a way to get the demon out of your son.”

Isolde, desperate for any option that did not involve Connor’s death, was willing to listen. He explained his idea to send a mage into the Fade to confront the demon and kill it, freeing Connor of its control. Nelmirea also listened, her eyes darting to Solomae periodically. Jowan’s plan sounded insane, using blood magic to fix a problem, as if blood magic could ever be used for good rather than evil. She did not see how trading an innocent person’s life for Connor was at all defensible. He would be forever an abomination. There could be no saving him, and the idea that he could be brought back from demonic possession went against everything she had ever been taught to believe. That fact that Jowan, of all people, had the hubris to think he could do such a thing, rankled her.

She said as much, challenging him in front of the nobles, whose eyes darted back and forth between the two former circle mages as if trying to reconcile their hope with the awful truth they must surely recognize. But in the end, Jowan was more persuasive.

“I will do it,” Isolde said, her voice resolute, her eyes seeming unafraid for the first time since Solomae had met her. “I will be the sacrifice. Anything to save my son.”

“I’ll need someone to go into the Fade when I cast the spell,” said Jowan. He looked nervously at Nelmirea.

Morrigan, though no one had asked her, said, “Twill not be me, I can assure you.”

“Wait,” said Solomae, still trying to stop them from engaging in this foolishness, “do you really need to use blood magic? What you are suggesting is like a Harrowing, isn’t it? There are four of us here, if Morrigan will deign to help. Three mages to channel the spell and send you into the Fade. Isn’t that enough?”

Jowan shook his head. “It would take half a dozen seasoned enchanters, at least, and copious amounts of lyrium, to muster that kind of power without blood magic.”

“We could go to the Tower,” Solomae suggested. “There are mages there and they would have enough lyrium… And we need to visit them with the Treaties, anyway, don’t we?” She looked to Alistair.

He nodded slowly. “We do,” he said. “If we could get help… and avoid any more death, that really would be the best option.”

“No,” said Isolde, her distress mounting, “that will take too long. Even if you take a boat across the lake, and even if they agree to help us, who knows what will happen to my Connor, or what he might do, while we wait. We have to do it now. I am not afraid!” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“I cannot condone using blood magic,” Solomae said, and Alistair nodded in agreement.

“You don’t have to condone it,” said Nelmirea softly.

“No,” Solomae said sharply, her raised voice a stark contrast to Nelly’s quietly resolved tone. But she couldn’t help it. She recognized the look in her friend’s eyes. Nelmirea was going to let Jowan rope her into doing something stupid and self-destructive, yet again.

Solomae could see Morrigan rolling her eyes and shot her a glare. The apostate had been getting along well with Nelmirea as they traveled west from Lothering, even attempting to teach her shapeshifting spells, but Solomae didn’t care for her disdain for the Circle. Nelmirea ate it up, of course, telling Morrigan all the scary evil templar stories she could think of, while Morrigan scoffed and said she could make any templar beg for mercy on his knees and didn’t fear even a whole tower full of them. Funny how she was so fearless but was the first to say “not I” when the prospect of entering the Fade to battle a demon came up…

“Will you give us a moment?” Nelmirea asked, directing her question to Lady Isolde and Bann Teagan. They nodded, and she took Solomae by the arm, walking a little ways away. Once they were out of earshot Nelmirea hissed, “You are not in charge, here, Solomae. Let me do this.”

Solomae shook her arm free and said, “I cannot believe this. Helping Jowan when you did not know about him was one thing, but now you see how far his madness is taking him. Blood magic? Entering the fade to battle a demon? And for what? You are just trading one life for another, and killing the wrong person.”

Nelmirea narrowed her eyes. “Isolde is sacrificing herself to save her son, just as we are expected to sacrifice ourselves to save Fereldan from the Blight. I would rather let her do this, willingly, her eyes open, than to kill a young boy whose only crime is being born a mage.”

“His only crime?” Solomae hissed. “He invited a demon in. He’s no longer even a boy, he’s an abomination. What will you do when Isolde has been sacrificed and you find that the demon is too—”

“Enough! Stop thinking like a Circle Mage,” Nelmirea seized both her arms and shook her. “Stop talking like a Templar. Jowan thinks the boy can be saved and you saw yourself that he’s not fully gone, not the twisted inhuman monster they taught us to expect. He’s still just a boy.”

“A boy who summoned a demon.”

“I’m going to help Jowan do this,” Nelmirea said, resolutely ignoring her argument. She let go of Solomae’s arms and drew herself up to her full height. “We’re Grey Wardens now. That means thinking for ourselves. That means not shrinking away from a plan just because it means getting our hands dirty. I think there’s a chance this could work. I want to try.”

Solomae turned on her heel and stalked back out to rejoin the others. She felt a hot anger at Nelmirea and Jowan both welling up inside her, but it was Alistair she approached. “Are you going to just stand by and let this happen?” she asked him. “This goes against all your templar training. You should put a stop to this.”

He looked at her, taken aback, startled by her demanding tone. Nelmirea was trailing behind her and he looked to her helplessly for a moment, before replying, “It’s not up to me.”

“But—”

“You heard Teagan and Isolde. They are willing to let Jowan try this. If Nelmirea wants to go into the Fade that’s her choice.” He said this with more confidence, nodding to Bann Teagan and Isolde.

“Her choice? You’re supposed to be our leader,” Solomae argued. “Tell Nelmirea she can’t do this.”

Nelmirea walked past her, bumping up against her arm hard enough to jostle her to the side. “If we do not attempt to save Connor, Alistair may need to kill him, using his templar tricks. So I doubt he’ll be eager to stop us from preventing that situation.”

Alistair took a step backwards and lifted his hands. “Help the boy if you can. I’m not going to get in the middle of this.”

“And what happens if Nelly comes back from the Fade possessed?” Solomae objected, scrabbling for anything to discourage them from going through with this. She could feel it all slipping out of her grasp and knew she sounded desperate. She looked back at the other Wardens and soldiers of Redcliffe, who were scattered around the hall licking their wounds after the battle against Connor and the guards under his control. No one would meet her gaze.

“You have so little faith in me. I’ve passed my Harrowing and you think I can do nothing against a demon, still? I’m just a stupid dirty city elf who doesn’t know what’s best, aren’t I?” Nelmirea said, and the vitriol in her words shocked Solomae.

“No,” she said, “that’s not fair. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“Then step aside and let me do this,” Nelmirea said, lowering her voice. “You can stay and watch or you can leave, but you don’t get to stop me.”

Solomae stood with her fists clenched, shaking her head wordlessly. She looked around and saw that the others were eying her warily now, as if weighing whether they would have to restrain her or drag her away before Jowan and Nelmirea were allowed to perform their dark blood magic ritual.

Leliana, the Chantry sister from Lothering, crept up and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I do not like this either,” she said in her lilting Orlesian accent, “but it’s not up to us. Let them do what they must.”

Her shoulders slumped as she realized that everyone was against her. Even those who should be firmly on her side, the templar and the laysister. It was like a bad dream where everyone was stupid and helpless against the insidious seductive power of blood magic. She shook Leliana’s hand free and walked away, putting as much distance between her and Nelmirea and Jowan as she could without leaving the hall. She told herself she was most disappointed in Alistair, for what was the use of a former templar in the Warden ranks if he would not stand up against reckless and evil magic. But she knew that nothing he did or thought or said could bother her as much as Nelmirea’s foolishness.

The Redcliffe soldiers eyed her warily, as if calculating whether or not they would have to stop her from fighting back. As if they thought she might run upstairs to kill Connor where he had fled to his room, knowing they would have to honor Lady Isolde and Bann Teagan’s wishes and stop her if she were mad and reckless enough to try it. She hated herself in that moment for being too cowardly to do it, too timid to even try to slip away while the others were preoccupied. If she could she would end this madness. But that was not her. She did not think she could do it all on her own. She did not have Nelmirea’s hubris.

She watched as Jowan made his preparations for the rite, as he drew a circle on the floor and lit candles around it. Did he have any idea, truly, what he was doing? He still looked to her like a boy playing at being a blood mage.

She watched numbly as Lady Isolde took her place within the circle, Nelmirea and Jowan flanking her.

It was all so simple and quick. Jowan waved his arms and Isolde’s body was lifted up into the air, her head thrown back as she levitated. Blood began to seep from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Then she jerked with a sudden scream, her body convulsing and folding backwards unnaturally, her spine snapping and a gush of blood erupting from her chest as if Jowan had driven an invisible sword through her. She hung there in the air, skewered on nothing, like the gruesome etchings of people impaled on spikes as depicted in history books Solomae had read within the safety of the circle library. Then Isolde’s limp body plummeted to the floor, her blood still hanging midair, hovering there as Jowan drew upon it. His eyes were rolled back in his head as lines of red magical energy ran like cracks along his skin. He kept waving his arms, drawing in the blood and the magic, until he held it all within him.

Nelmirea had been standing and watching the whole thing in transfixed horror, but now as Joawn turned his attention to her, her head jerked back and her eyes turned white. Her arms lifted like a marionette and then she too collapsed.

Solomae barely had a moment to think what she was doing before she was by Nelmirea’s side. She shadow stepped from all the way across the hall to the edge of the summoning circle in an instant. She caught Nelmirea as she felt, her hands braced under those slight elven shoulders right before Nelly could crack her head open on the floor. Her knees were bruised from diving onto the flagstones and she shook from the effort of transporting herself across the room.

“How long will it take?” she asked, not taking her eyes from Nelmirea’s face. Nelly’s eyes were still open but unseeing; at least, not seeing anything this side of the Veil. Her hands and lips twitched as if dreaming, but her eyes were fully rolled back into her head, showing only the whites and the red veins, her lids quivering without blinking. Solomae dared not look at the dead body of Isolde lying in the circle, her blood pooling around her, inching towards them.

Jowan took a moment to answer. He was now slumped over and breathing hard from the effects of the spell. She could sense his fatigue without looking at him. It was part of the healing specialization she had trained in at the Circle. She could sense when someone nearby was drained of mana and suffering from wounds or exhaustion. She had no desire to help Jowan out, however.

“It’s in Nelmirea’s hands now,” he said. “She has to find the demon and confront it. How long it takes is up to her.”

Chapter 13: Bargaining (Redcliffe)

Chapter Text

“I offer much. Power. Knowledge. Pleasure. What is it you desire?”

The demon shimmered and shifted. It had first worn the face of Connor, then had taken the form of a beautiful and seductive creature with the body of a woman and the horns of a ram, like a lurid illustration of a Qunari woman as Nelmirea had seen in the pages of books. Now it changed once again, its face and body shifting into Solomae’s image.

Nelmirea bristled. “How about you leave and I do not destroy you?” she retorted, pretending she did not feel on the edge of death, telling herself that her wounds, the burns and the cuts, were not real, because nothing here was real.

“I… see,” the demon said, tilting her head thoughtfully, wearing a look that belonged to Solomae. “Though you are alone in my domain, I do not doubt your power. I am not one for taking risks. Have it your way. I relinquish my hold on the boy if you allow me to leave, unhindered. I can offer nothing better.”

Nelmirea smiled through the blood which stained her teeth and dribbled from the edge of her mouth. “On the contrary. I believe you can offer more.”

“I see. Name your price, then.”

She answered without hesitation, “Arcane secrets. I want to learn the art of blood magic.”

The demon was silent, the eyes which were Solomae’s and not Solomae’s glimmered dangerously. Nelmirea wondered if she had overplayed her bravado. The demon had offered to leave, and never return, that should have been enough. But it was never enough. She needed to learn everything there was to know about magic, to not be helpless or in the dark ever again. She needed to know the things the Chantry would never allow, from Morrigan’s shapeshifting to Jowan’s blood magic, to whatever else remained to be discovered.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of thought, the demon changed its face once more. Evidently having decided that Solomae was not what she desired, truly, that the secret yearning it had detected in her heart was a lie, after all, its frame slimmed down and its stature shrunk, its face narrowed and hair lightened from black to brown, irises faded from blue to grey, until the eyes which stared back at her were her own.

“Very well. You force my hand, but you shall have it,” said the demon, in Nelmirea’s own voice.

She felt a probe in her mind, not unlike when the demon had tried to suss out her desires, but now it was an offering, a transfer of knowledge entering into her rather than being extracted from her. She did not fight it. She wondered briefly if this was how abominations were made, if she had allowed herself to be tricked after all.

It only lasted a moment, but suddenly new thoughts lived in her head, understanding of things and knowledge of secrets that should have taken years of study to uncover and learn.

“You have your way, and the boy is free. We are done here.”

The world faded away.

 


 

Nelmirea opened her eyes, blinking heavily, and immediately found herself looking up into Solomae’s worried face.

“Oh, thank the Maker,” Solomae breathed out, scrubbing at her cheek with one hand, her eyes gleaming with a suspicious wetness. Nelmirea last remembered her refusing, angrily, to support her decision to enter the Fade and face the demon.

Nelmirea pushed herself up into a seated position, bracing her palms against the floor. She felt Solomae’s hand on her back, helping her up, and she looked around the room at the apprehensive faces of those gathered around.

“It’s done,” she said, rubbing her neck as she reacclimated to the real world. Solomae dropped back on her heels and removed her hand from Nelmirea’s back.

“The demon is gone?” Teagan asked, half hope and half disbelief.

Nelmirea nodded, and the Bann turned and hastened away, followed by two of the surviving guards. He practically ran out of the hall towards the upper levels, where the demon-possessed Connor had retreated and locked himself in his room earlier.

Solomae stood and reached down a hand to help Nelmirea up to her feet. Nelmirea took the offering, not forgetting how staunchly Solomae had disagreed with this course of action, but unwilling to continue the argument now that the ritual had been done. She glanced towards where Isolde’s body had fallen during the ritual, but the Arlessa was gone, only a blood stain remaining.

Alistair, following her line of sight, said, “The soldiers took her body away while you were in the Fade. She’s dead.”

Nelmirea nodded. She had not thought the Arlessa would survive, but she was glad that the woman was not lying there for her son to come see. Connor had given himself to a demon to save his father and now might lose both parents for the bargain. But somehow, she could not blame the boy for his folly. It was a tragedy and an impulse she well understood.

Jowan was still there, but his hands were now clamped in iron manacles and he was flanked by two Redcliffe guards. She could have pointed out that without magic suppression runes, the cuffs were useless, but she only asked, “What is Teagan going to do with Jowan, now?”

Alistair rubbed his neck, wincing with an evasive shrug. “I don’t know. If Connor is really fully recovered maybe they’ll show some mercy, but honestly… after all that’s happened…”

Nelmirea took a step towards him. “We should conscript him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Alistair said. “He’s still a blood mage.”

“I’m done with blood magic,” Jowan spoke up. His chains jangled as he lifted his bound hands in a contrite motion. “It’s caused nothing but sorrow and I won’t do it anymore. But a Grey Warden? I’m not sure I’m cut out for that.”

“What choice do you have?” Nelmirea asked, turning towards him. “What are your other options? To rot in this dungeon or be executed by the Bann for everything that’s happened because you poisoned Eamon?”

Jowan hung his head.

“Surely the Bann won’t agree to release him into our custody,” said Solomae.

“We have the right of conscription,” Nelmirea insisted. “If Duncan could get us out of Kinloch’s dungeon we can do the same for Jowan.”

Alistair sighed heavily. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he repeated.

“I just battled my way through the Fade to save that little boy. I want you to tell Teagan that we are taking Jowan with us.”

She could sense the complaint welling up in Solomae, who stood just behind her, but she kept her eyes focused on Alistair. He squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze, then said, “Well why don’t you ask him yourself, then?”

“Oh you know. I’m an elven mage, you’re… well don’t you know him? You were raised here. I think he’ll listen to you over me.”

“The last time he knew me was ten years ago when I was a mud-covered boy who lived in the stables,” Alistair said, but Nelmirea just shook her head at his obstinacy.

“Just do this for me, please? Jowan won’t cause us any trouble, will you Jowan?”

Jowan recoiled under the weight of several sets of eyes turning on him at once. But he nodded weakly and said, “I won’t use blood magic anymore, I promise. This ritual was the last time. You have my word.”

“Whatever that means,” Alistair muttered. But his shoulders sagged and he said, “Fine, if the others are okay with it, that is. I’ll at least talk to Teagan about it.”

“Another vote?” Nelmirea sighed, grinding out the words. “Jowan is as good as dead if we leave him here like this… the templars will get word of it and come for him and that ends only one way. I’m not putting that to a vote.”

“What are you going to do if he says no?” Solomae asked, edging closer to insert herself in the conversation. “Run away with Jowan?”

Her tone was dismissive, but her eyes were wide and she picked at her sleeve nervously.

Nelmirea did not answer right out. Something told her to be cautious with her words at that moment. But she knew in her heart that she would have to do whatever she could, even if everyone else refused to help. She could not leave Jowan here to face an uncertain fate.

Instead of answering Solomae’s question she kept her focus on Alistair. “What would Duncan do?” she asked. “Jowan has proven that he can be of help, he could be an asset to the wardens, and I am personally vouching for him as a well-intentioned and honorable person, despite his past mistakes.”

“Fine. Alright.” Alistair lifted up his hands in surrender. “If Teagan will agree to it, we’ll take Jowan with us. But I’m holding you personally responsible for him.”

“Thank you,” she said, jumping and clapping her hands reflexively with relief, before trying to compose herself.

“Don’t thank me yet. I have no idea if Teagan will even go for this.”

“We have the right of conscription. He has to agree to it!”

“If Duncan were here, maybe. But I’m no Duncan.”

“We’ll do it together. I saved Connor. You’re his… what… brother’s ward? That has to count for something.”

“I used to call him Uncle Teagan when he visited…” Alistair said, a note of fond remembrance coloring his voice. “Silly because we’re really no relation, but he tolerated it.”

“That’s good. Lean on that.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a very manipulative person?”

“No?” she responded, taken aback. She looked to Solomae for reassurance, but the other mage just crossed her arms and turned, walking away. Her face had set into something between disappointment and disapproval. The wordless rebuke stung.

And yet, perhaps there was something to it. After all, she had just forcefully negotiated with a demon and won. And the secrets it had taught her included ways to bend others to her will. But how was that any worse than other destructive magic? Still, she knew she could not reveal to Solomae or Alistair that she too was now, technically, a blood mage, even if she had yet to put it into practice.

But she hardly had any time to mull it over.

Teagan reappeared at the entrance to the hall, flanked by Redcliffe soldiers. “It’s remarkable,” he said. “The boy has completely returned to normal. He has no memory of anything that happened since the demon took over his mind.”

“I told you,” said Nelmirea, “the demon has been dealt with. Jowan was true to his word.”

“It would seem so. I haven’t told Connor what happened to his mother. I’m keeping him confined to his room for the time being… I’m not sure I know how to tell him that she died because of him. It’s too much of a burden for one so young to bear…”

“Tis a lesson he needs to learn,” said Morrigan. “Perhaps knowing how gravely his foolishness cost him will teach him not to meddle with demons again.”

“Yes, well, perhaps in time,” Teagan said, clearly not appreciating the advice. He looked over to Jowan. “You were true to your word, blood mage. Now I think it is time you return to the dungeon. My brother will decide your fate when he recovers.”

Nelmirea looked at Alistair pointedly, jerking her head to the side when he hesitated. He cleared his throat and said, “Actually, Uncle Teagan, we’ve been discussing it and think it’s best if, um, the mage comes with us.”

“I’m sorry, Alistair. I know you need people for your war against the Blight, but this man has done too much to harm Redcliffe. My brother is still the Arl, and while he lives I would not want to release such a prisoner.”

Alistair glanced at Nelmirea as if to say, I told you so.

“Bann Teagan,” she said, hoping against hope that the nobleman would listen to her, “I am sure that if your brother were capable of making a ruling he would see that the Blight is more important than revenge.”

“It’s not revenge, it’s a matter of justice,” Teagan argued, furrowing his brow. “Still, Eamon may very well see things exactly your way and agree to release him into your custody. But as the Arl of Redcliffe and the wronged party, I will leave it up to him.”

“With all due respect, sir, leaving a capable and willing mage to rot in a dungeon during a Blight is irresponsible.” She lifted her chin defiantly even though her heart was racing and her nerves buzzing. To talk to a human noble so boldly, to even look him in the eye, went against everything she had ever been taught, whether at the alienage or the tower. “We will invoke the right of conscription if we must.”

Teagan narrowed his eyes at her, then looked to Alistair. “Are you so determined to free this man?”

Alistair just tilted his head towards Nelmirea and answered, “The lady wants him to join us.”

“And what do you think?”

Alistair looked at her again, and she stared back with the most nakedly pleading eyes she could muster. She had no pride in that moment, she couldn’t afford it. If he didn’t side with Teagan would dismiss her, like everyone had been dismissing her for her entire life.

He sighed heavily, but said, “Since she just went into the fade and faced down a demon to save your nephew, I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”

Teagan continued to frown, but there was a note of defeat in his voice when he said, “I still don’t think that Eamon will be pleased to hear that I freed the man who poisoned him and is responsible for Isolde’s death.”

“You’ll be releasing him into our custody, to pay his debt by fighting against the darkspawn. Surely Eamon will understand that.”

“My brother is an honorable man, but I won’t speak for him, especially when it comes to matters so personal.”

“With all due respect, Bann Teagan, the only thing keeping Jowan in your dungeons is himself,” said Nelmirea. “You haven’t got the magic or the templars to hold him against his will. Consider that.”

He regarded her with a pinched expression for a long moment, and she held her breath. If he took her words as a veiled threat she might be getting Jowan even deeper into trouble.

“Very well,” he said at last, sounding unspeakably weary. “Have it your way, young lady. If you and Alistair will vouch for him, I will release him into the custody of the Grey Wardens. I hope that will prove justice enough for what he has done.”

He nodded curtly to one of the soldiers, who went over to Jowan with a key and released the manacles that held him symbolically bound. “Thank you, Bann Teagan,” he said, straining to seem as humble and innocuous as possible, lowering his head as he rubbed his wrists. “I will serve the Wardens as best I can.”

Teagan addressed Alistair, “If you want the help of my brother’s army, then I suggest you guard him well. If the ashes can be recovered and Eamon revived, you may have Redcliffe’s help, but I can’t guess what my brother will think of you denying him justice.”

“I understand,” said Alistair, sounding miserable. She knew he was angry at her for badgering him into sticking his neck out for a blood mage, but she didn’t care. Alistair was all complaints and whining when it came to things he did not like, but so far she had not seen a spine to back any of it up. Maybe she was manipulative when it came to their resident Warden-Commander, but she knew she wasn’t the only one. So be it.

“I must go attend to my nephew and the village,” said Teagan. “You are welcome to stay the night, but I am certain you will want to be on your way soon.”

“Yes. Of course. We’ll want to track down Brother Genitivi and find the ashes to help Eamon,” Alistair agreed.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He left, giving them all another wearied parting look.

Alistair sighed again. Nelmirea had lost track of how many times he’d sighed heavily at her that day alone. “Maker, I hope this doesn’t backfire,” he groaned. He gave Jowan a deeply mistrustful look. “Never thought I’d be allying with a blood mage.”

“Jowan isn’t evil. You won’t regret it,” Nelmirea assured him.

“Teagan isn’t happy with this arrangement and if Eamon doesn’t recover he’s going to be the one we need to help us against Loghain,” Alistair said. “I just hope that Jowan is worth risking all that.”

“Loyalty and compassion are important to the Grey Wardens, aren’t they?” Nelmirea said. “And even if that is not so, I couldn’t live with myself if I left a friend to die.”

Jowan shuffled towards them. “I appreciate it, Nelly, I really do, but there are other things more important than me. I don’t want you to jeopardize your mission on my account—”

“Well she already did it,” Alistair interrupted. Then he, too, walked away, shaking his head as if trying to figure out how he’d been roped into defending and recruiting a blood mage.

 


 

The Wardens were at odds with each other once again.

Before they left Redcliffe they could not agree on where to go. Some wanted to strike out towards Denerim, to seek out Brother Genitivi or challenge Loghain. Others thought it better to concentrate on gathering up allies using the ancient Grey Warden treaties. They found themselves at a standstill before they could even pack their bags and leave the castle, because Denerim was to the east, and Orzammar and Kinloch Hold were to the north.

Nelmirea found herself struggling to care. She knew that as a Grey Warden she had a say, an important vote to cast if it came down to a group decision, as a fully joined Warden. She knew that she could influence others, now, for it had been the force of her insistence alone which had gotten Alistair to side with her and convince Teagan to let them take Jowan.

But all she really cared about was keeping her friends safe. As long as everyone had each other’s backs, she would go where she needed to go and fight the foes she needed to fight. And so she found the endless debates about how best to battle the Blight mind-numbing and distressing.

She pulled away from the group, where Duran Aeducan was arguing with Aedan Cousland over the path ahead, while Alistair rubbed his temples and sighed. She went over to where Solomae was sitting alone quietly sewing up some tears in her robes where the undead armies had slashed at her with swords and daggers.

Solomae wore a borrowed dress and looked strange, transformed almost into a different person by the change of outfit. It was a simple garment, possibly gotten from one of the castle servants. She didn’t look like a mage, anymore, and could have passed for any one of the other servants who were nearby cleaning up bodies and broken furniture as they sought to set the castle to rights agan.

Seeing her bent over her stained robe working to stitch up its tatters reminded Nelmirea how she had made the blue robes for her to celebrate her harrowing. She fiddled with her sleeve self-consciously. Her robe was much sturdier than Solomae’s, with fabric imbued with magical protections that made it resistant to staining and not easily torn, custom made as it had been by an expert hand. It was unfair that Solomae still wore stabby tower issued robes herself, patched over several times and stained with blood from Ostagar that wouldn’t wash out completely. Nelmirea wondered why she did not make a robe as fine as for herself.

Sensing Nelmirea standing there wordlessly watching her, Solomae lifted her head. “Yes?”

Nelmirea took a breath and said, “I know you’re upset about what we did to save Connor. And Jowan is probably the last person you wanted to see joined up with the Wardens.”

“He’s not a warden,” Solomae said dismissively, tying off some thread and turning her robe over to assess her work. “There’s no one who knows how to do the joining anymore.”

“Still.”

“What do you need, Nelly? Have we decided where to go yet?” Solomae asked, nodding towards the others, who were still actively embroiled in their debate.

“I just want to make sure that we’re alright.”

Solomae’s fingers rustled through the fabric of her robe as she checked for more holes. “I stood aside,” she said after a moment. “That’s what you wanted. But if you are looking for approval, you won’t find it.”

“I don’t need approval. Or forgiveness. But I want us to be…”

Nelmirea drifted off, unable to find the word for what she wanted. “Alright” seemed like too small a word.

“It seems we can never be in agreement anymore,” said Solomae, filling in for her. She bunched up the robe in her lap, trying to fold it but having trouble getting the fabric to cooperate. “Still, you’re alive and the boy is saved and you’ve received a pardon for Jowan as your reward. It’s all worked out just as you hoped. My objections were nothing but irritating noise so I should learn to stop meddling in your affairs.”

“You are upset that it worked,” Nelmirea observed. “Would you rather I’d perished in the Fade or come back an abomination, so you could tell me I told you so?

Solomae stood. “Don’t be vicious. I don’t know what you want from me. Congratulations, Nelly, blood magic saved the day, and all it took was the death of an innocent woman. I am glad for you and Jowan, both. Truly. You make such an excellent team.”

“His was the only solution that would spare the boy. You know that if we had gone to the circle they would have simply killed him, they don’t believe in saving abominations. Not if it means using forbidden magics.”

“It’s done, Nelly, you don’t have to keep trying to convince me that you made the right call.”

“Then why are we fighting?”

“I don’t know, I was mending my robe, minding my own business. I assumed you would be off learning forbidden magics from Jowan.”

Nelmirea reached out and snatched the robe from her hands. Solomae was too startled to keep her grip on it, and the drab patchworked olive and orange fabric snapped out of her hands. Nelmirea shook it. “These are rags, stitched up ten times over and caked in darkspawn blood. You should burn them along with all the other refuse.”

“I haven’t got another,” Solomae responded, too surprised by the abrupt change of subject to say anything else.

“Why don’t you make one? I would give you back the one you made for me but it would not fit you,” said Nelmirea, squeezing the bunched up fabric of the haggard old robe and resisting the urge to rip it up and toss it on the ground.

Solomae made a scoffing, choking noise, her eyes flashing. “You… you are really too much. That was a gift.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how hard it was to get that fabric? That fine weave? And then to get a skilled enchanter to spell it… no, you’re right, I should have made a robe for myself. I was foolish.”

“You may as well be wearing a muslin daygown into battle if you keep patching this thing up,” Nelmirea said, tossing the old robe back at her. “You ought to ask for some armor instead, some leathers like Leliana wears.”

“Oh really and who shall I ask? I’m not the one who saved the Arl’s son; I can’t go around making demands.”

“It’s just a suggestion.” Nelmirea turned away.

“Nelly.”

“What?” She paused.

“He’s not your friend. I am. I can’t just stand by and pretend everything’s alright.”

Nelmirea kept her back to Solomae, but answered, “You don’t trust me. You think I’m becoming corrupted.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. I know what you’re thinking. That Jowan is going to teach me blood magic and we’re going to be summoning demons.”

“He’s a bad influence.”

“The circle was a bad influence on you. It taught you to fear yourself and other mages. We’re free but your mind is still locked inside those walls.” Nelmirea looked over her shoulder. Solomae was standing with the robe twisted up in her fists. In her borrowed dress she could have been anyone, could have been the daughter who had never ratted her family out to templars.

“After what happened here, after what Connor did to this entire village… and you think the circle is the problem, still?”

“It was fear of the Circle that caused this. Don’t you see?” Nelmiea turned all the way back around so that she could face her fully. “If mages were allowed to live as others do, then Isolde could have hired a legitimate mage to tutor her son, instead of a scared fugitive. And that mage could have properly trained Conner and this demon would never have gotten ahold of his mind.”

“You don’t know that. A single mage tutoring a boy in his family’s castle is all well and good until something goes wrong and there’s no templars around to stop—”

“No templars stopped him now! That was me, that was us,” Nelmirea waved her arm back towards the group of Grey Wardens.

“The Circle—”

“Is a pestilence upon this land. Thieves who steal children from their parents. That is what allowed Loghain to gain a foothold, to exploit Jowan and Isolde’s separate desperations in order to get to Arl Eamon.”

“Of course. It’s not Jowan’s fault, it’s not Connor’s fault, it’s not even Isolde’s fault. It’s Loghain’s fault,” Solomae scoffed, “and all the Templars and the Chantry itself. You would blame even Andraste herself over Jowan.”

“You mock me. But I would. You forget that Andraste means nothing to me. The Chantry can burn to the ground, can be swallowed by the Blight, for all I care. Let it take the Divine and drown—”

“Stop it!” Solomae hissed. She dropped the robe on the ground and stepped forward, seizing Nelmirea’s arms and giving her a quick shake. “Stop talking like a maleficar. I know this isn’t you.”

“A maleficar,” Nelmirea echoed, disbelieving. “I’m an elf, Solomae. Just try seeing the world through my eyes for once and maybe you’ll understand.”

“Nelly…”

“No! I fought a demon. In the fade. I went through a second harrowing and I came out on top. Again. And you still don’t have any faith in me. You have no idea what I went through to save that boy and all you can do is judge me for trying. Endlessly. I’m tired of it, Solomae. Tired.”

She shook herself free and twisted away. She noticed the eyes of the others on them, as if their argument had distracted them from their own disagreements about where to go next. That’s what they did, didn’t they? Fight, shout, make a scene. At least Alistair no longer rushed to intervene.

She retreated to her own private corner. Now more than ever she was convinced she could not tell Solomae the truth of what had transpired in the Fade, how she had struck a bargain with the demon. It would not matter that she had been clever and bold, saving the boy’s soul and extracting secrets from the demon without losing herself to it. Solomae already labeled her maleficar simply because she did not believe in the Chantry’s god and his human prophetess. She refused to believe that knowledge was power, that knowledge of the forbidden arts could only save them, like Jowan’s knowledge had saved Connor in the end. All people like Solomae saw was the cost, not the reward.

She heard the hesitant noise of someone softly clearing his throat, and looked up to see that Jowan had found her. He sat down next to her and smiled, but it was a pained smile.

“Quite the interesting bunch of new friends you’ve made,” he said, nodding to the clump of arguing wardens.

“We’re hardly friends,” she said. “It’s not like we all travel together because we love each other’s company. We’re all thrust together by the Blight.”

“You could leave, though, if you hated them all. It’s not like the Tower.”

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “I stay because it’s better to be with others than trying to fight it alone. And they’re not all bad. Morrigan is a good person, though she can be prickly at first. We get along. She’s teaching me how to shapeshift. Lythra and Korren are the first elves I’ve gotten to know since I was a child, and… well you wouldn’t understand all that, but it’s been good to know I’m not alone.”

“You were never alone. You had me, and Solomae.”

She just smiled. It wasn’t the same. But she let it go.

“It may take the others a while to learn to trust you. Fear of blood magic runs deep. But the longer you stick with us, the more they will warm up to you. Even Alistair might learn to like you if you save his hide enough times.”

Jowan looked at the floor. “I don’t need them to like me. And I don’t expect anyone to trust me, not after all I’ve done. Dabbling in blood magic was the worst decision I ever made, and I—”

“Stop flagellating yourself for doing what you had to do to survive. They were planning on tranquilizing you no matter what. Don’t forget that.”

“I heard what you said to Solomae. Well, shouted at Solomae. About the Circle and the Chantry.”

“I guess everyone heard it.”

“I appreciate you standing up for me. But I shouldn’t have lied to you, or Lily. Hiding it from you both while expecting you to help us and her to… to run away with me… it wasn’t right. I know that now. I wish I could save Lily, I wish I could find where they took her and—”

“Maybe you still can. We’ll be travelling all over Ferelden.”

“I don’t even know if she’s still in Ferelden. Aenor could be in the Anderfels for all I know.”

“Well, the Grey Warden fortress is in the Anderfels. Who knows, we could go there someday, when this Blight is over.”

“Lily won’t last that long. Not in Aenor. The things people whisper about that place…” He trailed off with a shudder.

Nelmirea sighed. She had only been trying to make him feel better. She didn’t have much hope for Lily, either. “It’s not your fault, Jowan. Knight-Commander Greagoir made the choice to punish Lily for associating with you. That’s what they do, at the Circle. Punish people; for existing, for caring, for trying, for loving, for wanting to have even a crumb of the kind of life experiences everyone else takes for granted.”

“But I—”

“I’m not going to let anyone punish me any longer. And they’re not going to punish you, either, not while I have any say in it.”

He smiled weakly. “I’m still giving up blood magic for good,” he said.

“If that’s what you think is best. But you couldn’t have saved Connor without it.”

“I’m still not sure Connor should have been saved, not if it cost Isolde her life.”

“That’s the Circle talking.”

“Is it?”

“Isolde died saving her son’s life. She valued him even though he’s a mage. The Circle teaches us that we’re worthless and no one should care about us. Let Isolde have some dignity in her death, by allowing that she was right to value her son’s life.”

“You manage to make it all sound so noble.”

She shrugged. “It’s all in how you look at it.”

“I’m sorry you and Solomae are fighting because of me. She’s always disliked me and I’ve not been too keen on her, either, but I never wanted to get in between the two of you.”

“She’ll come around. She’ll have to.”

Chapter 14: Talking in Circles (The Road)

Chapter Text

War was endless marching.

That is what Solomae had come to realize as their ragtag band of Wardens and misfits trekked further through the darkspawn infested countryside of Ferelden.

She had once dreamt of becoming a full Enchanter and being allowed to leave the Circle Tower on missions abroad, like other seasoned and trusted mages. She had looked forward to seeing more of Ferelden—beyond Lake Calenhad and beyond the northern fishing town where her father had settled their family after fleeing Kirkwall. And here she was. She had seen quite a bit more now. It was all brown and bloody, the forests on fire and the muddy roads churned up from the armies that had marched south to Ostagar only to scatter and flee in all directions.

For a time they were stalled in Redcliffe, that accursed lakeside castle, deciding where to venture next. After some debate a vote was taken. Two options lay before them: should they go to Denerim to find Brother Genitivi, to pursue the mythological healing ashes of Andraste to revive the Arl, or should they lay aside bedtime stories and focus on the treaties? All besides Alistair, Aedan Cousland, and Sister Leliana seemed inclined to leave Eamon languishing upon his deathbed and seek allies among the conscious.

Alistair and Aedan wanted to do whatever it took to revive the Arl, and Leliana was intrigued by the legend of the ashes. All others looked upon the quest with skepticism. This was a disappointment to Alisitair, but he had made his own bed when he refused to decisively lead the Wardens, instead insisting that a vote be held for each big decision. His method of command was egalitarian, to say the least.

Duran Aeducan loudly championed the idea of going north to seek out the help of the dwarves, confidently saying that his father King Endrin would honor the old treaties and send forth the Legion of the Dead to show the topsiders how to properly fight Darkspawn. His argument was rousing and effective, and since most had never seen the fabled halls of Orzammar, there was no small amount of curiosity.

To Solomae it seemed a waste to abandon Arl Eamon after they had fought so hard to protect Redcliffe and spare the life of the abomination, Connor. And yet she did not think fruitless questing for old myths was the best thing to do during a Blight, when the hourglass was quickly running out. She believed in Andraste. She did. But the hunt for the ashes seemed a mockery of the faith, somehow. To view the ashes of Andraste as little more than a potion ingredient, like unto a rare herb… was it faith or forgery? Well, they would never know. They would not go chasing after that fable. They had come to find aid from one of the most powerful men in Redcliffe and all they had left with was… Jowan.

She took Nelmirea’s advice and threw away the tattered old apprentice robe from her days at the Circle. She replaced it with a set of leather armor from the blacksmith in Redcliffe, who, grateful to have his daughter returned to him, offered to outfit the Wardens ith whatever they needed, at no charge. She would have paid, had she any coin, but she was penniless and so accepted the gift, though she personally had done nothing in particular to help save the girl, Valena, who had hidden herself away and survived the abomination’s attacks all on her own.

The new armor was nothing fancy but it was sturdy and would offer her protection. She realized after donning her new kit that she looked indistinguishable from any non-magical person. Her staff could be mistaken for a quarterstaff, with the sharp blade Brosca had helped her attach to the end drawing most of the attention. This suited her just fine, as her strengths had always lain in healing spells and potion making rather than battle magic, so using her staff as a club or spear in defense often felt more natural than casting offensive spells.

On the road they ran into marauding bands of darkspawn, as was to be expected, but they also found bandits and mercenaries running rampant, taking advantage of the chaos to indulge in lawlessness and slaughter. There were battles aplenty as they trekked north to visit the home of the dwarves.

Nelmirea, meanwhile, had learned the bestial art of shapeshifting from Morrigan, and during battle Solomae often saw her transform herself into a cloud of vicious, stinging insects.

Such arts were considered questionable by the Circle. While not completely and utterly taboo, like blood magic, it was frowned upon enough to not be taught. She couldn’t think why, though she could use her imagination to picture the senior enchanters saying something about their human forms being gifts from the Maker and it being a sin to emulate the more base creatures of the world. Or something.

The thought of Jowan practicing blood magic among them, now that still curdled her own blood. But this animal magic… it didn’t seem to directly harm the practitioner or invite demons. So it could not be inherently evil. And yet seeing Nelmirea gleefully transform and fight beside Morrigan, who often took the form of a magnificent spider, made her feel unsettled.

She had tried to learn it, herself, but to no avail. She remembered clearly the first moment, on the road between Lothering and Redcliffe, when Nelmirea had successfully transformed into an explosion of blue butterflies, as if her dress had come to life, and a moment later had returned to her natural form, laughing like a child. Solomae could knit a wound together with magic but could not begin to fathom changing her entire form.

She didn’t know how Nelmirea had done it and could not replicate her triumph. Morrigan had tried to be patient explaining it all, but Solomae could tell that the witch found her to be infuriatingly slow on the uptake. She just couldn’t imagine herself as anything other than herself. The more Nelmirea succeeded, the more Morrigan focused on helping her hone her skills, and the more she ignored Solomae struggling to grasp the basic concepts.

It was frustrating. Solomae had always been such a good student at the Tower, praised by all her teachers. Morrigan’s disinterest in her—the unspoken, thinly veiled disdain—was hard to swallow. She was so far out of her element outside the Circle that she had become a dullard. Maybe, she thought, she should turn her back on magic altogether, let her healing skills fade with disuse, and just use her staff as a physical weapon.

But that was a fantasy. She had learned as a child that you couldn’t stop being a mage no matter how hard you willed it, no matter how hard you tried to pretend otherwise. There was no ignoring the pull of the Fade. If she could not learn Morrigan’s particular brand of magic, it was simply not meant to be.

Solomae was not surprised that Nelmirea took so readily to the wild magic. Nelmirea had always had some arcane connection to insects. Even in the tower, where wildlife was few and far between, she would play with moths and dragonflies that managed to hover by the Tower windows. The bugs were drawn to her like she were the flowers in the sunlit greenhouse where some lucky mages got to cultivate plants for herbalism.

There had once been an apiary housed in the greenhouse. It was tended to by an elderly mage who had built it up from a hive that had been found tucked into the crevices between the stones of the Tower’s foundation. She was granted a handful of apprentices under her tutelage, and Nelmirea wished for nothing more than to be allowed to join those ranks when she was old enough. But the hives were removed after too many templars were stung by the bees.

Nelmirea had cried bitterly into her pillow the night they found out that the apiary would be no more. Solomae wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. She just lay awake pretending to be asleep, listening to the nigh imperceptible sound of muffled tears. She wanted to climb into Nelmirea’s bed and hold her till she was consoled, to brush the tears from her face and assure her that all would turn out well, in the end. But something stopped her. A fear.

A swarm of bees came into their barracks, then, and landed softly upon Nelmirea’s quietly heaving shoulders. Solomae had watched from her own bed, breathless, as the tiny insects seemed to administer a comforting hug. Nelmirea’s form was outlined beneath the undulating blanket of buzzing wings, until her sobbing subsided and her hiccuping breaths turned to the gentle cadence of a deep sleep. And then the bees lifted up and disappeared.

Solomae said nothing about it. She questioned, at times, whether or not she had imagined the moment. This was a child the bees had no reason to gather round, logically. Nelmirea had only hoped to earn a place in the apiary, and had never gotten to tend to the bees, so they did not know her. Still, they came to her.

The next day the bees were all gone, transported over the waters of Calenhad to a new home. The Beekeeper had gone with them. It was only supposed to be temporary—she was meant to oversee the hive’s relocation to a farm just outside Kinloch Hold and then return to the tower, but she never did. Templars reported that she had disappeared. Like the bees, she was free.

After Redcliffe, on the road north, Solomae was apart from the other mages. She had been upset with Nelmirea, true, perhaps had spoken too freely and too harshly against Jowan’s blood magic and his recruitment into the Wardens. It was as if she had done something wrong by objecting to the ritual that claimed the Arlessa’s life and pitted Nelmirea against a demon. Back at the Tower, everyone would have agreed with her that this course of action was madness, but as she kept having to be reminded, she was no longer at the Tower. Morrigan, Jowan, Nelmirea… none of them thought as she did.

She could not worry herself into tatters over the company Nelmirea chose to keep. She did not trust Jowan, despite his disavowal of blood magic and his claims that he was turning over a new leaf. And she had never trusted Morrigan. Perhaps that had hindered her ability to learn shapeshifting magic from the witch. How could you learn from a teacher you did not trust?

Solomae left Nelmirea to her own devices, and to the company of Morrigan and Jowan. She felt as unwelcome among them as if she wore the armor of a templar. The longer they traveled the colder things seemed to get. They all might fight side by side on the road, protecting each other and the non-magical members of their party, but at camp she would take herself to her tent and stay there alone until it was her turn to stand watch.

Her isolation from the others seemed to draw the attention of Leliana, the Laysister from Lothering. Leliana had previously spent much of her time on the road and in camp in the company of Elissa Cousland, but the young noblewoman had stayed behind at Redcliffe Castle. Leliana had been trying to tutor her in some basic self-defense techniques and teach her how to shoot a bow and arrow, but Elissa was deeply unhappy with the vagabond Warden lifestyle and insisted that her skills lay elsewhere, and that she could only do good in her element. And so Elissa had remained, standing beside Bann Teagan Guerrin on the ramparts of the castle and waving goodbye as they started their long march north.

Leliana was uncharacteristically glum at first. One might think she was merely disappointed that she had failed to make a fighter out of a pampered noblewoman in just a few weeks, but it seemed that perhaps she had genuinely liked the Cousland girl. Solomae had not paid Elissa much mind, to be quite honest. Ever since she had left the Tower there had been a never ending parade of new faces, some who ended up dead shortly after first meeting. She had not become close with any of them, and it seemed for the best.

It was difficult, however, to be standoffish around Leliana. For whatever reason, they were often paired up to keep watch together, and one night Leliana said, “Have I ever told you I really like the way you wear your hair? It’s very nice, and it suits you. Simple. Not like the elaborate hairstyles we wore in Orlais. They involved flowers, ribbons, jewels. One year, feathers were all the rage, and Lady Elyse decided she needed to outdo everyone else, and actually wore live songbirds in her voluminous hair. The chirping was quite charming, for a while, but you must realize, terrified little birdies often have loose bowels. You can imagine what she looked like by the end of the evening.”

That was what Leliana was like. She could talk and talk and talk without needing any input, and she was full of stories about her younger days back in Orlais. Solomae was at first a little rankled, wondering if Leliana meant to insult her by calling her “simple,” but it seemed the young woman was more interested in telling her story about Lady Elyse’s hair than making insinuations.

So all Solomae did was murmur, “Dear Maker,” with the appropriate level of amusement.

“Anyway,” Leliana said, fidgeting with the cuff of her sleeve, “I meant to say something nice to you, wasn’t I? Forgive me, my mind wanders so.”

“It’s fine. There’s not much else to do all night but let the mind wander,” said Solomae, wishing she had a fun story about some antics at the Tower she could share. But nothing sprang to mind that didn’t involve Jowan being foolish and Nelmirea covering for him, which lacked amusement for her these days.

“I enjoy the nights at camp. The nights always seem peaceful to me. Safer. I feel the night grants us a reprieve from the troubles of the day. Silly, isn’t it? The darkspawn never sleep. And they lurk in the shadows. I enjoy when we stand watch together, talking to fill the hours. Well, I talk, and you listen, mostly.”

Solomae just smiled. They talked a great deal, but she still felt as if she barely knew the Bard. She had learned more about the goings on of the gentry in Orlais than about Leliana herself. And she, quietly listening most nights, had given up precious little about her past.

“I really do like your hair,” Leliana reiterated, a tad too earnestly. “It’s different.”

“I think it’s common in Kirkwall. Or it was fifteen years ago.” This got big questioning eyes in return, so she elaborated, “It’s just how my mother used to style her hair. These were her hairpins.”

“Oh,” said Leliana. “It must have been difficult to leave her to go to the Circle.”

Solomae thought for a moment about telling the whole sordid story about her mother’s despair, her apparent suicide, the rest of the family fleeing Kirkwall to settle in Ferelden, but she only said, “It was.”

“I can barely remember my mother,” Leliana mused, a touch of sadness creeping into her voice. “She died when I was very young. All I really remember was her scent; the dried wildflowers she kept with her things.”

What little Solomae did know about Leliana was that her mother had been a servant to an Orlesian noblewoman in Denerim before King Maric took back the kingdom, and that she had followed her lady back to Orlais. Leliana had shared that much personal information early on because she wanted the others to understand that she considered herself Fereldan, not Orlesian, despite her lilting accent and the fact that she had spent most of her life in Orlais. Solomae had understood perfectly well; after all, though she had spent most of her life in Ferelden, she would always be a Marcher at heart.

“I am curious to see Orzammar for the first time,” said Leliana, changing the subject. All Solomae needed to do was voice her agreement, and Leliana launched into a long story that was only tangentially related to the topic of dwarves. Solomae listened, making all the required noises of confirmation or wonder, but part way through she became distracted by the sight of Nelmirea crawling out from her tent and pacing up and down in the shadows at the opposite edge of camp.

She wondered if Nelmirea was having trouble sleeping, for it was not yet her turn to stand watch. She and Jowan were meant to take over for Solomae and Leliana, but not for another hour or so.

She didn’t notice at first that Leliana had stopped talking, but then realized that her companion was uncharacteristically silent.

“Oh?” she blurted, as if belatedly reacting to a statement. She looked at Leliana blankly.

“I asked if there were many surface dwarves in Kirkwall or if you were too young to remember.”

“Ah. Oh. Quite a few I suppose. The carta had a presence there. But really that was ages ago. I’ve been in Ferelden most of my life.”

“The Tower, yes?”

“Crestwood, for a while, and then the Circle.”

“You and Nelmirea and Jowan, you were all quite close, yes? A circle within the Circle?”

“No I wouldn’t put it that way. I was good friends with Nelmirea, and she was friendly with Jowan. We were all apprentices of similar age. I wouldn’t call Jowan a friend. Why?”

“Oh nothing. I don’t mean to pry. I just couldn’t help but notice how apart you have been since Redcliffe.”

“Well. You were there. You saw what happened.”

“Yes. That poor woman. Such a tragedy.”

“The whole village suffered because of that poor woman.”

“You blame her for what happened? I thought you were upset with Nelmirea over her death.”

“I don’t care about Isolde, or Connor, or the Arl. Or any of them really,” Solomae said frankly, making Leliana’s eyes widen. “I care about Nelmirea. I worry about her, especially with Jowan back in her life. He’s a bad influence.”

“Nelmirea always struck me as quite independently minded.” Leliana observed. “Not one to be easily led astray. But you know her better than I do.”

“Perhaps.”

“Have you told her of your concern?”

“Oh yes. That’s why we’re not talking.”

“To some, such concerns could seem… controlling.”

Solomae sighed. For a non-mage, Leliana was surprisingly insightful.

“She’s always been on the outside of things, being one of a few elves at the Circle,” she observed. “I know we never saw eye to eye about things. It just never seemed to matter, until this year. Everything just keeps going wrong. She thinks I betrayed her to the First Enchanter.” She paused. “I did betray her. I think she forgave me, until Jowan turned up again.”

Leliana nodded thoughtfully. “I know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you love and trust. It can shake your whole world apart. What I would wish… more than anything… would be an explanation. An apology. But I’m not sure I could ever trust her again.”

Solomae eyed her sidelong. Despite her regular chatter, that was the most personal thing Leliana had said all the nights they stood watch together.

“This person… what did she do? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“She framed me for something she had done. Something bad. That’s why I had to leave Orlais.”

Solomae nodded. “And you don’t know why she did it?”

“To protect herself, obviously. I understand it if I look at it without emotion. She feared I would betray her so she betrayed me first. I just… I just wish I knew why she felt she couldn’t trust me. Why she thought I would want to hurt her. I was concerned, that’s all.”

“To some, concern can seem controlling.”

Leliana smiled wryly. “You do listen when I am talking.”

“Sometimes.” Solomae shrugged with her own small smile in return. “I can’t speak for this person. But I didn’t mean to hurt Nelmirea. I thought I was saving her.” She bowed her head and scraped a rune into the dirt at her feet, then erased it again. “Or maybe I just didn’t want her to leave. To choose to escape with Jowan rather than stay with me.”

“Have you told her that?”

“That wouldn’t help anything.”

“But it would be the truth.”

Solomae raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know Orlesian bards prized the truth so highly.”

“They don’t. But that’s not what I am,” Leliana claimed.

“Oh come now. I may have been raised in a tower, but I’ve read books about it. If you were just a simple minstrel in Orlais then how did this former confidant betray you so terribly that you had to flee the country?”

“Hmmm.”

“Admit it. You were a spy. Living a life of intrigue and romance until you had to go into hiding. That’s why you jumped at the chance to join us in Lothering. The air of tormented desperation we gave off was too much to resist.”

“Uh huh. Just what kind of books about bards do they have at the Circle?”

“Only the ones that are highly accurate.”

“Hmph. Maybe I will tell you stories that are true, someday. But not tonight. You should go talk to her.”

“I shouldn’t. I’ll just make it worse.”

“I don’t think it can be worse. Go on. You ought to tell her how you feel.”

“And how do I feel?”

“That’s not for me to say. But I think it’s more than she knows.”

Solomae crossed her arms. Leliana was clearly just bored and jonesing for some more drama. The silence and avoidance was not enough.

“Fine,” she said. “But if things do get worse I’ll never take your advice about anything ever again.”

“Noted.”

Solomae stood up, slinging her staff into its holster on her back, and slowly meandered across the camp until she came near to where Nelmirea stood.

There was never any sneaking up on Nelmirea, and Solomae was not even trying, but she pretended not to notice her. She was peering off into the distance, which to Solomae held nothing but darkness, but she knew that those elven eyes could see farther and clearer in the night.

“See anything?” she asked.

Nelmirea turned her head. Her eyes, which were a soft grey in the daytime, shone back with a silvery glow as they caught the reflection of the moonlight. “Nothing worth reporting,” she said. “If there were Darkspawn near you would be able to sense them as well as I.”

Solomae didn’t know what to say. She stood awkwardly holding onto her elbow with one hand. Then she observed, “It’s not your turn to stand watch yet.”

It had been several days since she had last spoken directly to Nelmirea, so she was not altogether surprised when her observation got a suspicious look in response.

“Do you want to know why I’m skulking about? Nothing nefarious is afoot, I assure you,” said Nelmirea with more than a little ire.

“I just thought you might be having trouble sleeping.”

“Why? Hoping my conscience weighs upon me?”

She wanted to say “Why must you always be so difficult?” but she bit the inside of her cheek to hold back the words. She did not want to rehash their argument at Redcliffe, for there was nothing but an impasse waiting at the end of such a discussion. She wanted to put Redcliffe behind then, for better or worse, so after a moment, with the coppery taste of blood at the back of her throat, she said, “You look weary. Pale.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you need something from me, Solomae?” she asked, turning to face her more fully. Her jaw was set forward pugnaciously and her arms crossed. She seemed unusually agitated, jittery, even.

“No,” came the hasty reply, unbidden to Solomae’s lips. The denial was automatic. She fell back slightly, unnerved by Nelmirea’s anger.

“How is Jowan?” she asked, trying to change direction.

“How is Jowan?” Nelly echoed incredulously. “Do you care, truly?”

Solomae shrugged. “I am curious.”

“He’s sad. He is upset that Lily is imprisoned and we don’t know where Aenor is. You shouldn’t have told him that they took her there.”

“He asked me. And it’s true.”

“You should have told him that Lily was forgiven her indiscretion, or at least allowed to go home.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it would ease his mind. It would be kind.”

“It would be untrue, and wouldn’t change Lily’s fate.”

“Nothing can change Lily’s fate. Duncan could have saved her, if he had conscripted her…”

“If she survived the Joining. Or Ostagar. Probably she was better off at Aenor. They may have released her, for all we know.”

“No one ever comes back from Aenor.”

“If you knew where it was, would you go after her?”

“Me? Risk my life storming the mage prison for Lily?”

“Not for Lily. For Jowan.”

Nelmirea made a slight scoffing noise. “The best thing for Jowan is to forget about Lily. She turned against him when he cast a bloodspell to save her. Good riddance.”

Solomae held her tongue once more. She was in no position to defend Lily, as it was her own interference that had sealed the Sister’s fate. She had not thought highly of the girl, finding it strange that anyone would break their vows to run away with Jowan, of all people. But she hadn’t expected such a dire punishment to befall her.

“Is he happy joining the Wardens, otherwise?”

“You could ask him that yourself.”

“He’s sleeping.”

“What are you getting at, anyway? Are you trying to figure out if he’s going to run away? Did Alistair ask you to keep tabs on him?”

“What? No. I don’t care if he runs away. I don’t even think Alistair does either. You’re the only one who wants him around.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about Jowan.”

“You brought him up.”

“I regret it.”

“Why do you hate him so much? And don’t give me the whole ‘blood mages are scary’ line. You’ve never liked him.”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t know why I should like him, though. He’s always just been… irritating.”

Nelmirea made a strangulated sound of frustration. “Do you know what I think? I think you’re just jealous.”

“Of Jowan? Hardly.”

“I think you’ve always resented him.”

“I have good reason to resent him. He’s always held you back and fed into your negativity.”

“That’s just it!” Nelmirea held up one finger as if having an epiphany. “You’re jealous because I have more in common with Jowan than I do with you. We were Circle outcasts before you ever entered the Tower. We’ve always been able to see the hypocrisy of the templars and the delusions of the senior enchanters. You cannot stand that I didn’t turn my back on him. That I didn’t strive to become a Model Mage. But it’s not Jowan’s fault that I can see the truth and you cannot.”

“I’ve never been blind to the dangers associated with being a mage and living in the Tower,” Solomae said, keeping her voice as quiet and even as she could. “I just tried to make the best of it and avoid becoming an abomination or a target for the templars.”

“I’ve never had a choice but to be a target,” Nelmirea said, motioning towards her ears. “And Jowan tried harder than both of us to improve his control over his magic. I forgive him for turning to blood magic. You need to do the same or I don’t know why you are even bothering trying to talk to me anymore.”

Solomae hated that they were once more going in circles about Jowan and his blood magic. She had tried to be neutral about Jowan, tried to avoid pushing the issue, but Nelmirea clearly wanted to focus on that one point they just could not agree upon.

“I gave Jowan a chance to escape, to go looking for Lily,” she said. “I let him out of his cell in Redcliffe castle, I told him to get as far away from that place as he could, despite everything he had done. You think I want him dead, but I don't.”

“You want what you’ve always wanted, which is Jowan out of the way. You'd like to see me kick him in the face so that you’re my only friend in all the world. You’re selfish.”

“You’re bleeding,” Solomae said. A rivulet of blood had begun to snake its way from Nelmirea’s nose as she spoke and pooled on her upper lip. When Solomae drew attention to it Nelmirea wiped at her face, looking down at her bloodstained hand in surprised confusion.

Solomae took a step forward and put her hands on either side of Nelmirea’s face, by the base of her jaw where ears met neck, and tilted her head back. The action was quick and instinctual—she was midway through a healing spell before Nelmirea could react.

“It’s nothing,” said Nelmirea. She held still, looking up into Solomae’s face. “You don’t need to heal a little nosebleed.”

“Your head injury—”

“Is long past and healed ten times over.”

Solomae hesitated, her fingers still lightly held against Nelmirea’s face. She thought again how wan and tired she looked, her normally faint sprinkle of freckles standing out starkly against her face and dark circles growing under her eyes, which were bloodshot and watery when they were usually so clear and sharp. Her lips turned downwards into a pinched frown. They were scabbed, as if she'd been chewing on them again, a nervous habit that she'd always had. Once upon a time in the Tower Solomae had mixed her soothing healing balms to rub on them, but she hadn't asked for any more of it since they'd left. Of course she wouldn't.

Those large grey eyes were staring back at her, but Solomae did not know what she saw in return. The face of a concerned friend, lonely and cast aside, or a jealous and hateful stranger?

“I meant what I said,” Nelmirea spoke, finally. It could only have been a second, or less, but Solomae blinked, feeling as if she had gazed too long into the other’s eyes.

“What?”

“That if you cannot accept Jowan’s presence here among us then you needn’t bother trying to make amends with me. If that was the reason you approached me.”

Solomae dropped her hands down to her sides and took a step back. “I can tolerate and accept but we will never be friends. He and I have never had much love for the other. I feel he always resented my coming late to the Tower, as I did. I imagine he was happier when you and he only had each other.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, again. Jowan’s never been possessive over our friendship.”

“Possessive?” Solomae echoed. She opened her mouth to remind Nelmirea of how resentful she had been over Solomae’s friendship with Cullen, disguising her jealousy with objections to fraternizing with Templars. She thought to point out how negatively Nelmirea had reacted when she tried to make friends with Alistair. But then she stopped. They’d had this fight before. It made no difference.

“Yes,” Nelmirea said into the silence that Solomae’s self censored response created. “Possessive. You are as jealous of my friendship with Morrigan as you are with Jowan. I’ve seen the way you glare at her.”

“Ah yes,” Solomae said with a pointed scoff, looking away, up to the moon which hung ominously large in the sky above. “I am scheming to have you all to myself.”

Nelmirea insisted, slowly and patiently, “I was never one to have many friends when we were in the Circle, and yet you still resent the one other good friend I had. Now that I am accepted among the Wardens you are upset that your narrow Chantry indoctrinated viewpoint is no longer supported and validated by all around you. I am no longer the outlier needing correction, and you cannot stand it.”

“I could have had a different life within the Circle,” Solomae told her. “When I arrived I could have become friends with any number of young apprentices… but I fell in with you and Jowan. I chose that, I admit it. But you don’t seem to understand that I had other options.”

“Why didn’t you take them, then?”

“I don’t know. Did you know that Senior Enchanter Wynne pulled me aside once and told me that she was worried for me? She told me that you and Jowan were holding me back, that it was unlikely either of you would pass your Harrowings, and that I should look for other friends. Fool that I am, I thought she was being overbearing. Perhaps I should have listened.”

“Oh but you did. Do you deny that you drew away from us? That you started spending your time flirting with templars…”

“One templar. One! He seemed a kind hearted boy who saw a person when he looked at me. I would have been a fool to ignore the safety that sort of friendship offered.” Solomae seethed. How could Nelmirea keep twisting around and blowing her brief friendliness with Cullen so far out of proportion? Jowan was the one who’d had a full blown affair with a Chantry initiate and tried to run away with her, for Maker’s sake!

“We would have been safer together,” Nelmirea declared, oblivious to the irony. “You should have been more loyal to me, to Jowan, even if you didn’t like him. I don’t care if he was dabbling in blood magic. He was doing that merely to survive, just like you did what you thought would help you. Look, I’m not surprised the older enchanters were telling you to shun us. The fool and the elf, that’s how they saw us. They never tried to help us, to really prepare us for life in the Circle. For years mages like Wynne took one look at us and decided we were nothing more than demon bait. That’s how her and her ilk got to be so old, I suppose.”

“That’s not how it was at all. You prided yourself on being a subpar student, as if excelling at magic studies was beneath you. At least Jowan tried, I’ll give him that. You were too… I don’t know… angry.”

“I had a right to be angry. I never wanted to excel at being a singing bird in a cage,” Nelmirea said, her eyes flashing stubbornly. She wiped at her nose again, even though the blood flow had stopped.

“I know that. You’ve been telling me that for years. Well congratulations; you got out of the cage. And now I must endlessly apologize to you for just trying to stay alive inside it.”

“I never faulted you for it until you ratted me out. You didn’t have to tell Irving what Jowan was doing, or that I was helping him. It would have cost you nothing to pretend ignorance.”

“I was afraid.”

“I know you were. You were afraid that I’d leave with Jowan and you’d be left all alone in the Tower, blamed for our disappearance. Weren’t you?”

Solomae wondered if Nelmirea had overheard her conversation with Leliana earlier, and if she had been mulling over that admission this whole time “Were you really thinking of leaving with him?” she asked, not bothering to deny that accusation.

“I considered it. Of course I did. But they’d moved my phylactery to Denerim already. No point in running when they still had that to hunt me down.”

“I could have left the Wardens, you know. Gone to Kirkwall. My family asked me to come with them but I chose to stay.”

“What?” Nelmirea cocked her head to the side, frowning. “Your family? What are you talking about?”

“I had some cousins who lived in Lothering. I saw them after Ostagar. They were going to flee the Blight and return to Kirkwall. I could have gone with them. I thought about it. There seemed to be no Grey Wardens anymore, just a handful of scared and scattered recruits. The man who conscripted us was dead. It wouldn’t have been wrong to leave. But I stayed. Not to fight the Blight or because I’m a Warden. I stayed because I wasn’t going to leave you behind.”

Nelmirea blinked a few times, her eyes seeming to grow more tired by the second. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that information,” she said, at last. “You didn’t ask me to go to Kirkwall. Do you want me to say that I would have stayed in the Circle given the chance to leave? For your sake alone?”

Yes, Solomae thought. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Perhaps you should decide what it is that you do want from me,” Nelmirea said. “I did not ask you to stay in Ferelden and fight this Blight. If you regret not fleeing to the Marches I am sorry but that has nothing to do with me. You could have left then. You could leave now.”

Solomae nodded, backing up a few steps. “I see. I understand.” She turned, clumsily, tripping slightly over a discarded stick, a toy one of the mabari had left lying around camp. Embarrassed and unnerved, she did not dare look back at Nelmirea. “I have to keep watch,” she muttered at no one in particular, and then took herself to the other side of camp as quickly as possible.

She did not pause when walking stiffly past Leliana, who was strumming her lute lightly and doing a bad job of pretending that she had not been eavesdropping on the entire conversation. Solomae was afraid of what she might say to the bard if she did. Leliana had said that talking to Nelmirea could not make things worse, but she was so, so wrong.

Chapter 15: Lost in Dreams (The Tower)

Chapter Text

Nelmirea stood in the tall grass on a hillside sloping down to the sea and watched the Dalish travel along the shore road. It was spring and the fields were all aflower, a riot of colors swaying in the breeze while bumblebees hummed among the petals. The halla were tall and proud, carrying their crowned antlers high as they pulled the aravels through the sandy tracks. There came the faint sound of singing as they traveled.

“They are beautiful,” she said. “Just as you described them.”

“They are going to the Arlathvhen,” her mother told her. Iossa Surana stood with a basket of lavender hooked over one arm and shielded her eyes from the sun as she gazed out over the bluffs.

“We should join them,” Nelmirea said. The idea of it warmed her. “We could run and fetch Father from the stables and then leave Highever behind, join their clan… go back to the woods. It’s what your grandmother would have wanted.”

“I would like that,” Mother agreed, and lowered her hand to stroke the side of Nelmirea’s face. Her eyes shone with affection and pride. Her fingers were cold. Nelmirea shivered, and the world shimmered in her eyes like a fleeting illusion. For the smallest second everything turned upside down and sickly, the air stopped moving, and the sweet scent of the meadowflowers soured into a rancid stench like rotting flesh.

She blinked and the sun shone bright again. Birds sang a sweet tune. The butterflies fluttered by. Still the smell lingered.

Mother looked just the same as Nelmirea remembered her. Young, as if ten years had not passed. Shiny. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, smiling with too many perfect white teeth. “We’ve missed you so.”

“I missed you,” Nelmirea said, a hitch in her breath. “I needed you.”

Mother’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction.

“But I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Mother’s brows furrowed into a frown which ran deep, deep, into her otherwise flawless features.

“The Tower,” she said. “The mages.” It was a far off memory, as if something she had been doing years ago and only now remembered.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” said Mother. “That life is behind you now. You are with me now.”

“You’re not my mother,” Nelmirea said, backing away, out of reach of those cold fingers. The tall grasses brushed at her robes, entangling her legs, the blades like sharp hands twining up from the ground. She staggered. “You’re not real.”

Mother’s eyes glimmered dangerously. “I am real, Nelmirea. Are you real?”

She remembered, then, where she truly was.

She was home, yet not home.

She had been many places since she left this prison behind, familiar places and other places both wondrous and strange.

Not so long ago they had been in Orzammar and toured the many wonders of the Diamond District, perused the wares of the Market District, gawked at the Proving Grounds, and ventured into the poverty stricken streets of Dustown. They had gotten a round of drinks at Tapper’s, until they were told that they were not welcome, Wardens or no, for there was a Kinkiller among them.

What they had not done was confirm the ancient treaties with the King of Orzammar and raise a Dwarven army to fight the Blight, for Orzammar had no King. They had emerged from the underground city back into the light and turned their steps towards the north of Lake Calenhad. Back to Kinloch Hold. Back to the Circle.

She remembered when they arrived back at her former home. The hints that not all was well. Knight-Templar Carroll manning the ferry instead of Kester, the old man who had taken her and Solomae across with Duncan. The Templars guarding the doors, Greagor barely disguising his disappointment in seeing her face again. Wynne, huddled with what little children she could spare, waiting for help that would never come. Except it had come. It was them. They were the hope—the rejects of the Circle, expelled on suspicion of Blood magic, sentenced to Tranquility, given over to the Wardens to serve or die.

And what had happened after that? She had trouble remembering. Fighting, surely. Death, most assuredly. Magic and mayhem and fighting. She remembered Morrigan saying they should leave the cattle to die in their pens. She remembered that.

Morrigan had initially expressed a cautious interest in visiting the Circle, and spoke of a grimoire that had once belonged to her mother but had been stolen by Templars long ago. She seemed keen on gaining access to the Circle to see if they indeed had possession of the ancient tome, which she claimed held untold wisdom from Flemeth’s many years of study. Nelmirea had agreed to keep an eye out for the book.

But when they found out that the Tower was lost to demons and maleficarum, Morrigan had objected to the idea of saving the survivors, voicing her approval for the Templars being left to invoke the Right of Annulment: “They allow themselves to be corralled like cattle, mindless. Now their masters have chosen death for them and I say let them have it. Look at how they live; servants of the Chantry. They have lost respect for themselves and their own power. Why should I respect them?” 

It shocked Nelmirea that any mage would advocate for the mass slaughter of other mages, especially when many of the survivors were children who had come to the Tower through no choice of their own. It rendered her speechless for a moment, long enough for Solomae to interrupt their conversation.

“Enough,” she said, her voice quivering, her eyes hard. “Keep your poisonous thoughts to yourself, you cruel harpy.”

Morrigan made a small scoffing noise.

“She’s right,” said Nelly, finding her words at last. “You are being cruel and unfair. If your mother had not shielded you from the templars, you would be one of these cattle, just as I was for so many years. There are others like me trapped inside and they don’t deserve to die like this.”

“You are not like them, not one bit,” Morrigan said, amending her words too late. “You got free of this place, why risk your life defending complacent fools? Did you not tell me once that you grew up an outsider, with precious little in the way of friends, despised by prejudiced human mages just like this preachy school mistress for whose hopeless cause you are now so eager to risk everything?”

That gave Nelly pause, and she glanced at Wynne doubtfully.

“Why don’t you go back to the camp?” said Solomae, stepping towards Morrigan almost as if she would slap away the next words that came out of her mouth before they could be uttered. “No one’s asking you to risk your life for anyone or anything here. And we don’t need your help. This was our home and we will defend it without you.”

“Uh, I think we actually might need—” began Alistair, finally trying to intermediate between the mages he only technically commanded.

“No, no, tis fine, have it your way,” Morrigan cut him off, shaking her head and raising a hand so quickly that she almost struck him. Her eyes never left Solomae. “I have seen quite enough of your Circle. It has fulfilled all my expectations, and I shall be on my way, gladly. I will tell the others not to expect any of you back soon, if at all.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Nelmirea, setting aside her doubt, though she did not feel confidence in her heart. “But you are right; someone should tell the others that we will be delayed. Warn them of the state of the Tower.”

She hoped Morrigan understood that the warning was specifically meant for Jowan, who had stayed back at camp in a gully outside of the Hold. He had not been part of Uldred’s uprising, but he was still wanted for the many sins of being a blood mage, destroying his own phylactery, and seducing a member of the clergy. Even before knowing that the Tower was overrun with demons, they had all agreed that it was too dangerous for him to show his face back at the Circle, regardless of whether or not Alistair and the other Wardens vouched for him as a Warden-Recruit. Now that the other blood mages had revolted, he was no doubt even more of a persona non grata and if any of the templars were patrolling outside the Hold and came across their camp, things could go badly for him.

Morrigan hesitated, as if waiting for them to change their minds, to implore her to stay and help them. Perhaps she still wanted to search for the grimoire, or perhaps she regretted her cruel words and worried that they would need her. But no one did any begging. And so she left.

It was just four of them, in the end, going up the stairs to face the horrors that lay within. Nelmirea, Solomae, Alistair, and Wynne. Three mages and an erstwhile templar against an entire tower overrun with demons. Promising.

Somewhere between venturing into the forbidden wreckage of the Tower and now she had become trapped in an illusion. Someone had dug their fingers into her mind and pulled out her memories of Highever, her mother, and even her imagination and longing to reconnect with the Dalish clans her great-grandmother had once belonged to. It was a trap so complete that only the cold touch of the demonic hand could open her mind to the horror of her situation.

The demon never shed her mother’s face. Nelmirea fought with her in the dark ruins of what had once been a dream of Highever. She fought the Dalish clan, all demons, all false. She ripped the grasping grass hands from the fields and spilled the blood of the sacred halla, and they did not shed their disguises till the bitter end, till she had killed them and covered herself in their blood. Not blood at all. Demon ichor. Not blood. Not their blood. No blood. No flowers, no fields, no birds. She was not home. This could not be home.

She stumbled out of that nightmare, into the raw fade, and found Niall. He was in a bad way, his spirit broken by the Sloth demon and the Fade. But he was lucid enough to speak to her and remember who she was. She had not known him well inside the Circle, he was one of the younger of the senior mages, somewhere around 40 perhaps, and had not been responsible for teaching the young apprentices, so their paths had not crossed. But she knew him by name and he recognized her simply by reputation. Everyone in the Tower had recognized her upon her return, even if they had never had cause to even look at her before she was conscripted by Duncan and taken away.

Niall had lost all hope and motivation. He stood listlessly in place and eventually stopped talking to her, simply repeating a single phrase: “I don’t want it to end like  this. Do you feel it? It’s getting cold…”

He was of no use so she left him to his repetitions and went searching for the others. Solomae, Wynne, Alistair. They have been standing with her when they entered the chamber where the Sloth demon held Niall’s limp body. Nelmirea had forgotten that, until she came upon Niall in the Fade. The concrete memories of their mission came back to her slowly. They had to find First Enchanter Irving or Knight-Commander Greagoir would kill every last living being inside the Tower, demons, abominations, and mages alike.

Nelmirea had little reason to love anyone in Circle beyond Solomae and Jowan, but she could not let it end like that. Not when she was there to deny the Templars what they had always wanted.

Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps, as Morrigan had said, slaughter and an end to magekind was the logical conclusion of such a place. She could have walked away with Morrigan, returned to camp, warned Jowan and fled before the wrathful Templars could exact their brand of justice upon him.

Perhaps they would now die slowly in the clutches of Sloth, their minds withering inside the Fade as their bodies petrified without.

But she did not give up. She fought and bled and crawled through the twisted maze that was the Sloth demon’s lair. It was like unto the Tower and yet totally different, its halls and chambers a cruel mirror of reality. To Nelmirea it was fitting, though. This ever shifting cursed realm had always been lurking behind the solid stones and mortar of the Tower, just beyond the Veil, watching to encroach upon the world. The division between nightmare and waking world had weakened with every year that misery upon misery was compounded in that unyielding place, a cauldron of human and elven suffering which could only ever end one way.

The longer she traversed the dreamworld the less like herself she felt. She was a mouse, a golem, a spirit, a burning form running to escape its own suffering. Even when she was herself she felt stretched and twisted, careening from one illusionary form to another. It was easy to shed her own skin. The shapeshifting that Morrigan had taught her had prepared her for this, and the demon at Redcliffe had taught her powerful mind magic that could be wielded against the carnival of madness that she was caught up in here.

She almost forgot herself but she never forgot her goal: Find the others, free them from whatever dream held them transfixed, and escape.

Wynne was the first person she found. The old woman refused to listen to anything she said, dismissing her in a daze with all the scorn and condescension she had shown her in her former life as an apprentice. All Wynne saw when she looked at Nelly was a disrespectful child. It was left to Nelmirea to fight the demons who rose up from the ground, when they finally shed their pretence of death. When she had fought them off, Wynne faded from view, and Nelmirea was confused. Was Wynne’s refusal to trust her the reason she had slipped away? Would her private nightmare resume in some other corner of the Fade?

She found Alistair next. Unlike Wynne, his cage was made of warm and loving bonds. His trap was like Nelmirea’s own had been: a promise of family, of being able to lay all the struggles of war and duty behind. All he wanted was soup and a home with his sister and her children. It might have seemed like a foolish dream to some; a hope for complacency, quiet and contemptible in its smallness. She had felt the same pull when she watched the caravan of aravels slowly traversing the shore road, on a journey to nowhere. How wonderful it would be just to wander with them.

He fought her efforts to make him see reason. “I’m trying to save you, you stupid oaf!” she finally snapped, exasperated.

“Huh,” he said, seeming almost to break from his happy stupor for a moment, then his eyes unfocused and he finished, “I’m not sure how to react to that, so I just won’t.”

She gave upon him and went over to the demon who looked like a simple, pleasant young woman. She smiled, though Nelmirea could see the flickering glow of magic and madness emanating from within that deceptively human shell.

“Are you sure you won’t stay for supper?” she asked.

“Let’s just fight and be done with it,” Nelmirea snapped. She would get no help from Alistair, but she had gotten no help from anyone so far, and she had been in this hellscape for what felt like a lifetime.

After she had slaughtered the false Goldanna and her demon spawn that masqueraded as children, Nelmirea thought she had succeeded. Alistair came back to lucidity and seemed embarrassed at how thoroughly he had been fooled by the demon. “Goldanna?” he said, looking at the demon who had been his sister and then around at the unnatural place that he had thought was a homey kitchen. “I… I can’t believe it. How did I not see this earlier?”

Nelmirea, exhausted, stood with her hands on her knees and shook her head. But she felt a prick of hope, because he sounded more like himself, and she said with a touch of humor in her tone, “I don’t know. Maybe you’re just not that intelligent.”

He glared at her with real irritation for a split second, before realizing that she was smiling. “Yes, uh, well, try not to tell everyone how easily fooled I was, hm?” He rubbed his neck ruefully.

“Of course, Warden-Commander,” she replied. “Come on, we need—”

But before she could catch him up on what exactly was going on and what they needed to do, he began to fade from view in a nauseating shimmer of magic. “Wait, where are you going?” he asked, but the rest of his words were swallowed into nothingness.

Nelmirea sank to the ground, feeling close to defeat for the first time. It didn’t matter that he had come to his senses in the end, he had disappeared just the same as Wynne, leaving her alone again. Would she be stuck here forever, chasing the ghosts of her allies, going in endless circles trying to break them of their mental bonds? Had she even truly encountered Wynne and Alistair, or were they just more demons, cleverly disguised in order to break what was left of her spirit?

It was true, each trap had seemed to be tailored for Wynne and Alistair, but it was a shallow enough sketch of their inner lives to have been drawn from her own assumptions about what each would fear or want. Wynne was a teacher who cared for the children and had been guarding them when they found her, and Alistair’s homey scene reflected her own desire for family. She couldn’t be sure either of them had been real.

She wondered why she had not yet encountered Solomae, or even an illusion thereof. Was the demon saving that trick for last, knowing how cruel it would be? Would she have to fight Solomae, as she had fought her mother? Or would she be beset by demonic Templars while an uncaring Solomae watched from afar? Oh, she could think of plenty of nightmarish scenarios involving Solomae all on her own. Best not give the Sloth demon any more fodder than it already had.

She went on. She dreaded what she would find, but still, she went on.

 


 

Finally.

It was the day Solomae had anticipated for so many years. Today, she would ascend to the head of the Circles, to be named the Grand Enchanter. She was raised up to lead all the Mages and she would now have the ear of the Grand Divine herself. She could hardly wait to begin shaping the destiny of the Circles within the Andrastan sphere of Thedas. Things would be different. Better.

But first, visitors.

They had come from all around, specially, for her.

Daylen, from Kirkwall. Elodie, from Starkhaven. Deana, from Montsimmard. Shaelindra, from Ostwick.

And Father and Mother. Smiling. Beaming. Standing at either side of the table, flanking the empty chair that sat at the head, waiting for her.

They had come from all around, from so very far away.

She hosted them in a grand banquet hall in Cumberland, under the majestic Sun Dome where the First Enchanters had convened and elected her to the highest position of honor in the Circle of Magi.

But it was just her family there with her, now. A family of mages, all powerful and prosperous within their own circles. The Amells, a force to be reckoned with. As it should be.

Solomae approached the banquet table. She looked to Mother, who doted on Daylen just as she always had, but who had a proud smile for Solomae as she nodded her encouragement. She looked to Father, who had eyes on only her as she descended the stairs and took her seat at the head of the table.

The finest dishes from all over Thedas filled the entire length and breadth of her table. This was her long awaited coronation feast. And who better to share it with? She looked at their faces, one by one, and thought someone was missing. How she wished Nelmirea had come to celebrate this triumph with her. Where was she? The thought flickered away as soon as she had it, though, and her mind was turned back to her family. Nelly danced at the edges then fluttered away, like a moth drawn to some other flame.

“Do you remember the last time we all sat together like this?” she asked, looking from face to face, drinking in the sight of them.

“Oh, I do indeed,” said Daylen. “It was the night before I went to the Gallows.”

“No, no,” said Solomae. “It was that very night. We were at the table when the Templars came.”

“So we were,” Mother acknowledged, her arm entwined possessively through Daylen’s. “I was expecting them. I called them to the house, yes. I was so happy when my son displayed an aptitude for magic. I knew he would go far. Of course I have been with him every step of the way since then. I could never leave his side.”

“Is that what happened?” Solomae asked. “You went to live with Daylen in the Gallows?”

“Yes, of course. Do you not remember?”

“I suppose I do.” Solomae wrinkled her brow. There was a fuzziness around her memory of the night they took Daylen away, and all the days after. But now she was sure, yes. The Templars had escorted Daylen to the Circle in Kirkwall and Mother had accompanied him. That was where she was still, unwilling to leave her firstborn son’s side. It seemed right. It felt wrong.

“I missed you,” she said. “I needed you.”

“Needed me? Psh!” her mother scoffed and laughed. “You didn’t need me. You are strong and wise and good on your own. Look at you now. Grand Enchanter! Why, even your brother Daylen is merely a First Enchanter.”

Daylen raised a goblet and said, “Let’s not make this night about me, though. This is your celebration, little sister. We’re all so proud of you.”

“Here, here,” said Father, pounding the table.

“You’re not upset with me?” Solomae asked, though as the words left her mouth she was unsure why she had thought to speak them.

“Why on earth would I be?”

“You didn’t want me to talk to the templars. I talked to the templars. I told them—”

“Nonsense,” said Father. “You did exactly as a good daughter should.”

“I did,” Solomae mused. “Didn’t I?” She looked at Elodie, who sat silent at Father’s side. “I remember, Father said never to use magic, and so I didn’t. But you did.”

“I was reckless,” Elodie replied. “You were always so much better and well-behaved. But I’m not sorry I was caught doing magic. Otherwise I would never have been sent to the Circle where I’m allowed to do it freely, all day long. They’ve taught me so much. I’m so happy.”

“Are you?” Solomae asked.

“Why do you doubt me?”

“I don’t know. I just… I remember you running so much. Running and dancing. I could never picture you in a Circle. No matter how hard I tried.”

“Why would I run?” Elodie laughed. “Where would I run to? Who would I dance with?”

“I don’t know.”

Solomae looked at Deana and Shaelindra. The younger girls were curiously silent, just staring at her and smiling.

“Don’t trouble yourself with memories,” said Father, putting a hand on her arm. Mother mirrored him, reaching out moments later to rest her hand on the other arm. Their touch was cold through the sleeve of Solomae’s robes. She was wearing fine, flowing, new robes. Clothes befitting her station as the Grand Enchanter. But she felt cold and naked. Their fine hairs on her arms prickled and a shiver ran down her neck.

“And are you all happy,” she said. “Are you all well?”

“Of course, darling,” said Mother. “Of course.”

You’re dead, her heart whispered, you’re all dead, but it could not quite touch her mind. She looked into her mother’s face and could not let it. Once she thought it, or said it, it would become true. “I’m happy,” she said, and felt something wet and warm trickle down her cheek, lingering on her chin before staining the front of her new robes. “I’m so happy.”

 


 

Nelly found Solomae in what appeared to be an ornate dining hall, though it bled at the edges and anyone with clear eyes could see that it was but a corner of the Fade wilderness. Solomae was seated at the head of a long table laden with food, and there were demons all around her. Nelly counted six altogether, arrayed down the length of the table, three to either side of Solomae. They looked human, but Nelmirea knew better.

Solomae sat like a queen on her throne, her head held high. Was she real? She was not eating the food. Her hands were laid out flat on the table, palms pressing into the smooth mahogany surface. She wore a thin, closed lipped smile and her eyes were fixed straight ahead. Dried tears streaked her face.

Nelmirea drew nearer, cautiously. The demons paid her no mind, focused completely on Solomae. The one who sat to her right put its hand over Solomae’s and leaned in. Its lips moved slowly and Nelly couldn’t make out what it was saying as it whispered.

Solomae swallowed, unblinking as a new tear escaped, tracing the same path as the old, and she said, “Nelly, good, you’re here. I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

Some of the demons looked at her with hostility, but others held a hunger in their guarded eyes, as if they thought they could draw her into the trap. It was the same covetous malice the demon Goldanna had held in her eyes when she invited Nelmirea to supper.

Nelly held out one hand and beckoned. “Of course I made it. Come here, I want to show you something.” It hadn’t worked with Alistair or Wynne, but she was desperate to make Solomae see the truth. She knew, somehow, with a strange sense of assurance, that it was no demon who wore her friend’s face. Solomae was the only thing that felt real and alive in this place.

Solomae shifted in her seat as if she would stand, but the demons to each side of her put their hands on her arms and held her down. “Darling,” cooed one, which wore the face of a dark-haired woman nearing middle age, “no need to get up. Your little friend can come sit with us.”

Solomae sank back into her chair and stared out at Nelmirea with naked helplessness, as if to say, I know, I know, I know. But nothing can be done… Just like Niall, aware of his predicament but too weak to do anything about it.

Nelly knew then that she must fight alone. Again. She pounded one fist into the table and said, “I’m not so little,” as she felt her heart and skin and bone turn to stone. The golem took her place.

Chapter 16: Well Fed (The Tower)

Chapter Text

Her demons were well fed and strong, glutted on fear and despair. Solomae sat at the head of the table, pinned between Mother and Father, who looked less human to her eyes, now. Underneath their smiles she saw the demon shapes shrouded by lies. They held her down, their hands digging into her as they cooed possessive words of affirmation.

“You are ours. Our bright, beautiful girl. We will always be here, we will never leave you, never send you away. You are ours, ours, ours…”

She did not know how long she had been there. Minutes, hours, days, years. She could not move. All the blood in her body seemed drained and she was but a shell, a husk.

Is this what possession feels like? She wondered. Was her mortal body even now a shambling monster as her spirit lingered here, trapped forever in this place? It had been a fear of hers for so long. To be tricked into losing herself to a demon while she slept. To not know if she were awake or walking in the Fade. It was a fear that all mages shared—to be taken over, to lose oneself.

She was not lost, but she was trapped. And that was almost worse. Worse than all her fears had been. To be surrounded by demons and know their lies. To be taunted with a happy dream. A happy, impossible dream.

When Nelmirea came, Solomae tried to stand, but she was too weak. Mother pulled her down and whispered a cold breath into her ear. “It’s a demon wearing your friend’s face, my love. We will protect you.”

But it wasn’t a demon. It was Nelly. She did not know how she knew, but she knew. Nelly shone like a light in the dark, one small glimmer of reality walking into the dream. Even when she shifted her shape, and wore a monstrous form, there was a clarity about her that the demons could not imitate, could not suppress.

Mother and Father held Solomae down, their hands growing larger and colder and harder as they pinned her in place. Their fingers were sharp, their eyes glowed with a joyful malice. The other demons, the ones who wore her siblings’ faces, stood up from the table and shed their skins. They became things of terror, Pride and Rage and Despair.

Nelly fought her way through the demons. She smashed the table and sent the food flying, revealing its falseness. It was not food but heaps of slag and rot. The table crumbled and the demons fell to her, one by one. Elodie, Daylen, the twins… they were each crushed by the golem’s might.

Then it was just Mother and Father, tendrils dug deep in Solomae’s skin, fingers laced into her mind, drinking in her helplessness, licking the tears from her face.

The golem shuddered and shimmered into a girl, again, and it was Nelmirea the Elf who stood before them.

“Let her go,” she said, and her voice was deeper and wider and more powerful than ever Solomae had heard it before.

The Father-Demon hissed and laughed, snaking a great long tongue out at Nelly. “Never,” it said. “She is ourssssssssss.”

“You will have to kill her to kill us,” said Mother-Demon with a grotesque cackle of glee.

“Solomae,” Nelly said, and her voice was soft again, the voice of a girl. “Let them go.”

Solomae didn’t understand what she meant. The demons were the ones holding onto her, pinning her down. She looked down at her hands, which were resting on the table. But the table was gone, destroyed, a pile of splinters on the ground surrounding the fallen demon-siblings. The foul food was scattered and the dishes all shattered. Solomae’s hands did not feel like her own; she could not feel them at all, but she saw each one clutching a demon’s hand with white knuckled ferociousness.

“I can’t,” she gasped. She could not feel her hands or make them move. They were paralyzed and she was immobile. “I can’t,” she repeated, feeling as if the words themselves were choking her.

The demons crouched on either side of her, each with one hand on her head and one hand holding hers. Their shrieks of laughter echoed in her mind.

Nelmirea held a look of wearied disappointment in her eyes. She nodded, wordlessly, holding onto her staff like an old woman might lean on a walking stick.

“Nelly… Nelly…” was all Solomae could get out. “KIll…” She felt her mouth freezing, like her hands, her arms, the whole of her body. Kill me, her mind reached out to Nelmirea though her lips were silent, unable now to move. Kill me. Don’t let me become an Abomination.

“No,” Nelly said, out loud, raising her staff. Instead of hurling a spell, she tilted the bladed end up like a spear, and rushed forward, stabbing into the Father-Demon, which let out a tortured bellow.

Solomae felt the stab too, though the blade did not touch her. But she felt the wound as it sliced through the demon. Nelly brought the blade back and struck again. Solomae made no noise even as she felt the cold cut of the metal tearing through her. The demon’s ichor spewed forth but it laughed, it laughed in Nelly’s face as Solomae silently took in all the pain of the blow.

“Let go,” Nelmirea said, even as Solomae’s head slumped forward and her eyes shut.

Her demons were well fed and strong, glutted on fear and despair, and their hold did not waver.

Nelmirea stepped back, stabbing the spear tip of her staff into the ground, and threw her head back, spreading out her arms. In a moment she was wreathed in fire, a flame that did not consume her even as it burned her. She brought her arms forward and a cone of flame hit the tableau of three. The full force of the fire hit Solomae, and she felt as if she were burning from the inside out.

The demons did not let go. They burned with her, screaming as she did not, but their pain was hers, her pain was her own, their hands and arms melting as one.

“Let go!” Nelly shouted, fire spewing from her mouth with each breath.

Solomae felt her blood boiling and her mind splitting three ways. There was fire within and without. Her muscles contracted and spasmed, her head jerking backwards and her limbs twisted violently, threatening to break themselves. The demons gripped her tightly and tried to hold her place, but she flung them off, her strength not her own, her limbs not her own. She stood up and saw in Nelmirea’s eyes that it was she who controlled her. When she lifted her arm, it was Nelmirea who lifted her arm. When she flung the demons away from her, it was Nelmirea who tossed them aside.

She fell back to the ground, crumbling to the earth in a limp heap. She shut her eyes and let go, and everything went black.

 


 

She was twelve years old. She had been allowed to pack a small bag and awaited her journey with the Templars. She was quiet and compliant and still they looked at her with mingled suspicion and contempt. The one who had interviewed her was the only one who spoke to her, telling her that she had made the right decision and that the Maker smiled upon her.

She waited as they struggled with Elodie. Her sister was not going quietly. Not meek or wise, she was thirteen, the eldest daughter, headstrong and convinced of her own rightness in all things, old beyond her age and frustrated with her lot in life. Mother had abandoned her most of all, in her mind.

The Templars had to use their Templar magic on her to quell her, and then they put these odd looking wrist cuffs on her, and a gag in her mouth. When they put her in the wagon next to Solomae, the nearness of the cuffs made Solomae feel tired and weak, as if they were draining her energy. They seemed to have the same effect on Elodie, as she slumped against the wagon’s side, but her eyes were on Solomae and they burned with a cold fury that made her shrink away.

Next Deana and Shaelindra were hoisted into the wagon. At just six years old, the twins had not yet displayed any magical prowess. Father had begged and pleaded with the Templars not to take them, to leave them, had even promised to allow yearly visits from the Circle to evaluate whether or not they had inherited the magic that ran so prevalent through the family line.

Once upon a time, the name Amell had meant something good. Father had taken his wife’s surname and joined the Amells, because it was the older and more powerful name, and Revka had been poised to inherit a large fortune. But now it seemed a curse. A guarantee of magic.

“Why should we trust you?” the head Templar asked. “And with three older siblings all Mages the likelihood is high the twins will develop it as well. If not, they will become Templars. Consider this the Maker’s judgement for hiding your other children from the Chantry. Who knows what horrors you might have inflicted upon this village if you were not discovered in time. Be thankful we are not seeking harsher justice.”

Father looked so much older in the morning light. Solomae sat in the wagon with her younger siblings huddled against her. They usually went to Elodie for comfort, but not today.

The Templars climbed into the back of the wagon and pulled them away from her, making them sit apart from each other. The twins both started crying, then. As long as they had each other they had remained stoic, their eyes wide with fear and uncertainty, but their eyes dry. Now they began to sob.

“Please,” said Solomae, as meekly as she could. “They’ll stay calm if you let them stay together. They don’t have magic so they can’t do anything.”

“Silence,” said the Templar nearest to her. She put her head down and folded her hands in her lap. “If you speak again before we get to the tower we’ll gag you like your sister.”

Solomae almost said “I understand” but instead just nodded.

Knight-Captain Hannalore, the one clearly in charge of the hunting party, and the one who had interrogated Solomae, entered the wagon last, and said, “No need for that, Donner. Let the little ones sit with her.”

“But—”

“Save your energy for the rebellious one.” Hannalore motioned needlessly towards Elodie, who was slouched over but in whose eyes still burned a thwarted anger. “Our young friend Solomae is an ally, not an enemy. Is that not right, Solomae?”

Solomae nodded.

They shuffled around, allowing Deana and Shaelindra to sit with Solomae, while the two Templars under Hannalore’s command sat on either side of Elodie. Hannalore situated herself in the middle, between the two groups, and signaled to their driver that they were prepared.

Solomae was taken to Kinloch Hold, the first to reach her destination. They said that Elodie would be taken to a different tower, and the twins would be sent to a monastery until it was decided if they were to be Templars or Mages.

She wondered why they dropped her off first. She would have thought they would want to see Elodie safely deposited within a Tower first. Later she would wonder if Elodie ever even made it to a Circle. No one would ever tell her. She never saw Knight-Captain Hannalore again. She never saw any of them again.

Her last memory of Elodie was at the Kinloch Hold docks. She was to be ferried over the water to her new home. Elodie still wore the cuffs—cleansing cuffs, as the Templars referred to them—but her gag had been removed. Hannalore had removed it.

“Say farewell, and safe journeys,” said the Templar, to Solomae. “Your sisters have a different path to walk with the Maker now.”

Solomae didn’t know what to say. Elodie was angry with her for cooperating with the Templars, that was more than clear, but it was likely the last time she would see her. So she said, “Maker bless you, sister.”

“Maker damn you,” Elodie said, uttering her first words since the gag had been loosened. “You are no sister of mine.”

Donner roughly pulled the gag back up and shoved it in her mouth, as if he thought she would start spitting real curses out. Solomae just turned away. She could feel Elodie’s fiery eyes upon her as she walked down the hill towards the ferry, a new Templar from the Circle escorting her away from Hannalore’s hunting party.

“Come along,” said this new Templar, leading her with a hand on her back.

Solomae looked up at him, trying to decide, as she always would from that day forward, if he was more of a Hannalore or a Donner. If he saw her as a person or a frightening animal who needed to be corralled. He seemed unafraid, a little bored perhaps, as if he did this every day.

The wagon trundled away, until Solomae could no longer see it. She hoped Elodie would be safe. She hoped the twins would never develop magic. She hoped Father would find a new wife, start a new family. One without magic. She could not bear the thought of him all alone. 

She hoped she would be safe inside the Circle Tower. She hoped Daylen was thriving in his home across the Waking Sea, and she hoped that Mother’s soul was at peace. She hoped the Maker would watch over them all.

 


 

Nelmirea was able to dispatch the last two demons with relative ease once she had severed their connection to Solomae. They ran from her, suddenly seeming weak and small in comparison to some of the spirits she had fought in this place. All their strength had been siphoned from Solomae, stolen power with stolen memories, fraudulent hopes and dreams. Nelmirea chased them down and burned them to cinders and ash.

Then she turned back to where Solomae lay, a motionless heap of rag and bone on the shifting Fade sands. Nelmirea sank to her knees next to her friend and lifted her head up. Her face was serene, but her eyes darted beneath her lids as if dreaming. Here in the Fade they were already dreaming, but Nelly did not know how deep the dream could go.

“Wake up,” she said, shaking her gently at first, then harder when she did not respond. “Solomae, wake up.”

Solomae’s eyes opened slowly, and she stared back at Nelmirea with the same wide blue apprehension that she had the first day she had come to the Circle Tower. She blinked, and sat up, then looked down at her hands as if expecting to see the demons still clutching them.

“Are you alright?” Nelly asked, the words seeming small and inadequate.

Solomae touched her own face, feeling it with an expression of wonder, as if she did not expect to find skin there. “I should be all burnt up,” she said.

“It’s not real,” Nelly told her. “Our spirits are here in the Fade but our bodies are still in the Tower. It’s all a dream. A long, terrible, dream.”

Solomae’s hand moved from her own cheek to touch Nelmirea’s. “You feel real,” she said.

Solomae’s touch felt real, too. Her hand was warm as her fingers traced the curve of Nelly’s cheek and trailed over her lips. But Nelmirea just shook her head, swallowed, and insisted, “We’re dreaming, and every moment we spend here the Sloth demon feeds upon our spirits and drains our life force, feeding itself. It’s well fed, since it’s had Niall to feast upon for a long time already.”

“Niall?” Solomae’s brow wrinkled.

“I’ll explain later. When we’ve woken up.”

“How do we wake up?”

“We kill the demon who holds us captive. It’s the only way.”

Solomae shimmered, and said, “Nelly…”

“Don’t go,” Nelmirea said, gripping her arms and trying to hold her in place. She had the same eerie glow as Wynne and Alistair had just before they faded away.

Solomae flickered. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, even as she dissolved into nothingness.

Nelmirea was let sitting alone in the ruin of Solomae’s dream. She felt a ghostly warmth on her cheek where Solomae’s hand had briefly lain. She sat there for a while, battling the weight of despair, and then she got up. She retraced her steps back to the mirror and stepped through, finding herself once again back where Niall stood, listless and lost.

But now there was a new light, a new doorway in the world. She stepped towards it, feeling the inexorable pull of strong magic. Sloth lay beyond, hidden no longer, and she could feel the bonds of his world breaking. She passed through the light, ready to fight alone and die alone, if necessary.

She found Sloth in the center of the dream, confident in his power and dismissive of her existence. The demon called her a rebellious minion, an escaped slave, and she thought that was true enough. “My my,” he chuckled, “But you do have some gall.”

“Yes,” she said, “I sure do.”

She had been escaping all her life. First the alienage, then the Circle, and now the web of dreams. She would make him regret the day he trapped this little spider.

Suddenly, Wynne was beside her. The older mage pulled her shoulders back and looked around, startled. “There you are, child,” she said. “I thought you had gone.” Then she looked at Sloth and said defiantly, “You will not hold us, demon. We found each other in this place and you will not stand against us.”

Nelmiera heard a heavy footstep behind her then, and turned to see Alistair walking towards them, his sword drawn. “Right,” he said, “I’ve had just about enough of these games. You just disappeared! No matter. Let’s get out of this funhouse. I’m starving and nothing here looks particularly appetizing.”

Nelmirea spun around twice, looking about the twisted landscape. “Where’s Solomae?” she asked.

“I’m here.” The voice came from directly in front of her, and suddenly Solomae materialized out of the nothingness of the Fade. Her eyes were serious and dark; she no longer wore the confused and shocked look of a new apprentice.

“Now, now,” said Sloth, “no need to make such a fuss. Playtime is over. If you go back quietly, I’ll do better this time. I’ll make you much happier.”

Solomae turned away from Nelmirea to face him. “I’ve had enough of happiness,” she said.

“Can’t you think about someone other than yourself? I’m hurt,” said Sloth, a petulance in his voice that did not match his monstrous form. “So very, very hurt.”

“You’ll be more than hurt when we get through with you,” said Nelmirea, readying her staff in a battle stance.

“So be it,” sneered Sloth in response. “You will learn to bow to your betters, mortal.”

The battle against Sloth was like none of the creatures she had encountered before. His power seemed endless. He was well fed. Glutted and strong on the hopes and fears of countless mortals ensnared in his domain. Even compromised, he battled long and hard, shifting his shape to all manner of demons and monsters, coming back to full strength in a new form every time she thought they had him beaten.

Nelmirea shifted to keep up with him, pulling on every talent she had, every skill she had learned, everything she had ever practiced in waking or dreaming. She was the golem, the burning form, the spirit, a spider, a bear, a wolf, a swarm. She used every attack she knew, from arcane bolts of energy to gulfs of fire to blizzards of raging ice. When she had no more energy to spare she cut herself, mindless of whether the others saw her using blood magic. No secrets mattered in that moment, when the only alternative was to die, or wither away in Sloth’s trap like Niall.

When Sloth fell, and the dream began to break, Nelmirea could feel her spirit being pulled from that place. It no longer felt so real, so concrete, and she could begin to feel the cold stone tiles of the tower floor beneath her. She felt a moment of fear. What if the others did not wake up. What if she were the only one rousing from the dream?

She reached out to Solomae, instinctively, grasping her by the arm and pulling her towards her, holding her tightly. She could not bear the thought of rising to the surface all alone, of seeing the others fade away from her again.

That was when she awoke, holding no one. She lay on her back on the floor, staring up at the chamber ceiling. Her body felt aged twenty years. She sat up, stiff and sore and utterly exhausted.

But the others were also waking, moaning and grumbling as they too sat up. Solomae, only a few feet away, was shuffling to her feet already. Alistair was bitching about the humiliation of the whole ordeal. Wynne went over to Niall, the only one who still lay motionless on the ground, and after a few moments of trying to revive him with spells, she sighed and stood up.

“Is he still in the Fade?” Nelmirea asked, crawling towards them.

“No, child,” said Wynne. “He is dead.”

“But—”

“He spent too long trapped in the Fade,” Wynne said, drawing a wearied hand across her forehead. “Too long. We would have suffered the same fate if we had been trapped there as long as he was.” Then she took a deep, resolute breath, and bent down to take a scroll out from Niall’s robes. “We will mourn him later. For now, he has left us with the Litany of Adralla. It should help against Uldred and the other blood mages.”

She pocketed the scroll. Nelmirea, at the mention of blood magic, looked guiltilty at Solomae. She was sure that Alistair and Wynne had been too preoccupied with their own battle against Sloth to pay attention to what she was doing, but Solomae must have noticed. She had felt Solomae’s healing spells wash over her even as she was bolstering her own battle magic with her life’s blood.

Solomae was looking back at her, but her expression was unreadable. Her eyes were dark and grim, her face pale, hair disheveled… but that was to be expected after their lengthy ordeal in the Fade. She said nothing, just held onto her staff and turned to follow Wynne, who was leading the way up towards the staircare where yet more horrors no doubt awaited them.

Chapter 17: Maleficarum (The Tower)

Chapter Text

They found Cullen just outside the Harrowing chamber, locked within a magical cage, looking starved and half mad with torment.

Solomae was shocked to see him, but that initial surprise gave over to relief. When they had come to the tower, she had looked for him with hope that she could say a proper farewell to him, unlike when she had been banished from the Tower into the Warden’s care and he had been forbidden from speaking to her. His cold silence while guarding her had stung, especially as she was being punished for her loyalty to the Circle. She’d thought he might also be in trouble, for fraternizing with a mage now associated with maleficarum, but had resigned herself to never finding out. Like so many things about her life in the Tower, her friendship with Cullen had been cut short and relegated forever to unfinished business.

Now that she was a Grey Warden, fully joined and no longer beholden to the authority of Irving or Greagoir, she’d thought a visit to the Circle might be an opportunity to lay that business to rest. To at least part with the understanding that he did not believe the accusations against her and bore her no ill will. To at least know that she was still remembered as a friend. But he had not been among the garrison of Templars who had made it to the other side of the door before Greagoir ordered it shut. She had been saddened, sure that he was dead. But here he was, alive, if a bit worse for wear.

“Cullen,” she said, relieved to see him still conscious and breathing, unlike so many Templars they had passed by on their way up the tower steps. She knelt down by the strange purplish barrier that encased him, testing it with one hand. He was on his knees with his hands in fists over his head, rocking back and forth and muttering the Chant of Light feverishly to himself. “Cullen,” she repeated, “are you alright?”

He paused and looked at her with reddened eyes. There was a sharp sting of hatred in his gaze which she had never seen before. Even when she had been banished to the dungeons to await judgment and he had been sent to stand watch over both her and Nelmirea, his sidelong glances had been filled with discomfort and shame, but not hate. It took her aback.

“This trick again,” he moaned, scuttling back away from her. Panting, he said with defiance, “I know what you are. It won’t work. I will stay strong.”

“It’s no trick,” she said. “It’s me, Solomae. Don’t you recognize me?” She continued to test the magical boundary with one hand, gingerly. It was an uncommonly strong spell, far beyond her meager abilities to break, and it burned a little with an arcane acidity when she touched it.

“Recognize you? Only too well,” he said with a strained laugh. “How far they must have delved into my thoughts…” He shook his head again, turning from her, resuming his muttering as if he thought prayer would make her go away.

Solomae looked back at her companions. Nelmirea’s face had soured upon seeing Cullen, which was no surprise, for she had no love for any Templar and least of all Cullen. How little she had approved of Solomae’s friendship with him, accusing her of impropriety and foolishness. It had been the first hint that a wedge could be driven between them, that their different ways of dealing with life in the Circle could become an irreconcilable difference, and that things might soon fall apart.

“Can we help him?” she asked, twisting to look up at Wynne.

Wynne stepped up behind her and put a hand on Solomae’s shoulder. “The boy is exhausted, and this cage… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Solomae sighed. If this barrier was beyond Wynne’s abilities there was little hope of breaking it.

Wynne looked kindly upon the young Templar, and said, “Rest easy, lad. Help is here.”

He moaned as if her kind words were a blow to the stomach. “Enough visions,” he begged. “If anything in you is human, kill me now and stop this game.”

“He’s delirious,” announced Nelmirea, with a touch of scorn.

“Of course,” said Solomae. “He’s been tortured, denied food and water… Maker only knows what they’ve been doing to him.”

If it was anything close to what she had endured in the Fade at the mercy of Sloth and his demons, there was little wonder he doubted his own eyes.

“Cullen, this is no trick. We’ve come to save the tower. We’re here to rescue you.”

He just shook his head, swaying back and forth like a wounded animal. “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…” He was talking to himself, but loud enough for all to hear, and Solomae blushed guiltily, not daring to look up at Nelmirea or Wynne, sure they were judging her for this.

“Well, that’s awkward,” said Alistair, filling the ensuing silence with a statement of the obvious.

Cullen wailed, “I am so tired of these cruel jokes… these tricks… these—”

Solomae quickly cut him off: “Please, stop. You’re embarrassing me.”

That got him to uncover his face. “Silence!” he yelled, then stood up. “I’ll not listen to anything you say. Now begone!”

“We should do as he says and leave,” said Nelmirea. “There’s no breaking this barrier and he’d probably attack us if we did, so if you don’t relish the idea of killing him we should go on.”

Solomae stood along with Cullen, and directed a frown at Nelmirea. “He needs our help.”

“He’s out of his mind. He thinks you’re a demon. There’s nothing you can do for him.”

“He was my friend, I’ll not abandon him to torment like this.”

“I’m afraid I believe that Nelmirea is correct,” said Wynne, softly. That surprised Solomae, as Wynne had been suspicious of Nelmirea and cautious around her thus far. Everyone in the Tower knew how she had helped Jowan. “We may need to forge ahead and face Uldred before we can do anything for this boy.”

“Are you still here?” cried Cullen from behind his cage. “That’s always worked before. I close my eyes…! But you are still here when I open them.”

“That’s because we’re really here,” said Nelmirea.

“And you,” he said, with a touch of confusion. “I can’t imagine why the demons would show me visions of you… I never…”

“You can stop there, I don’t need to know what you never thought about me,” said Nelmirea, and gave Solomae a pointed look.

“Can it be?” Cullen mused, looking back and forth between all three mages with a more lucid expression.

“Yes,” said Solomae, encouraged by the way he quieted and stopped his rocking and moaning. “It is truly me.”

“Makes you wish you hadn’t said those things, doesn’t it?” Nelmirea asked him.

That set him off again. “I am beyond caring what you think,” he shouted with a viciousness that made Solomae take a step back. Though he responded to Nelmirea, his eyes were fixed on Solomae with the same brittle hatred as when he had thought her a demon. “The Maker knows my sin, and I pray that he will forgive me.”

She instinctively lowered her eyes and shied away, the ingrained response to a Templar’s rage, even though he was on the other side of the barrier and could not touch her. “I-I am sorry, Cullen,” she said to the floor. All the smiles, the flirtatious jokes, the passing of notes… she had never thought to take it any further. “I never meant to lead you on or… or to tempt you,” she said, feeling the inadequacy of such a statement in the face of his wounded fury. “It would never have worked out between us.”

His anger faded into another anguished cry. “It was the foolish fancy of a naive boy. I know better now.”

Nelmirea moved between them, shielding Solomae though her slight stature made the act seem more symbolic than useful. She reached behind herself to lay a steadying hand on Solomae’s arm. “Pull yourself together,” she said, and though she faced Cullen she might have been talking to both of them.

“Why have you returned to the tower?” he asked, calming only slightly as he looked at Nelmirea instead of Solomae. “How did you survive?”

“We’ve returned with the Grey Wardens looking for aid against the Blight, and found the Tower overrun by blood mages and demons with no one else willing to face the abominations. We survived through quick wit and talent, of course,” Nelmirea told him. Solomae might have thought her flippant, if she did not know how harrowing their trials had really been. Nelmirea would never show vulnerability to a Templar, though. It was not her way.

“Yes, how proud you are of your power,” Cullen snarled with no attempt at concealing his contempt as he peered down at Nelmirea. There was no love for her within him, not the wounded feelings he held for Solomae, just sneering disdain. “Proud and self-assured, just like Uldred. And look what’s become of him now.”

“I know what’s happened to him,” said Nelmirea. “That won’t happen to us.”

He seemed not to hear her, suddenly caught up in his terrible memories with a faraway look. “They caged us like animals, looked for ways to break us.  I… I’m the only one left,” he moaned, shuddering. “They turned some into monsters. There was nothing I could do.”

“Where are Irving and the other mages?” asked Wynne, her voice soothing and sympathetic.

“What others?” Cullen asked, the faraway look disappearing as he snapped back into focus. “What are you talking about?”

“Irving and the other mages who fought Uldred. Where are they?” Wynne reiterated.

“They are in the Harrowing chamber. The noises coming out from there… oh Maker…”

“We must hurry,” said Wynne, turning to Alistair. “They are in grave danger, I am sure of it.”

“You can’t save them!” Cullen objected, naked terror returning to his face at the idea. “You don’t know what they’ve become!”

“We know,” said Solomae. “We’ve seen the rest of the Tower.”

“But you haven’t been up there, ” he said. “You haven’t been under their influence. They've been surrounded by blood mages whose wicked fingers snake into your mind and corrupt your thoughts.”

Nelmirea’s hand tightened on Solomae’s arm at these words.

“His hatred of mages is so intense,” Alistair mused, shaking his head. “His memory of his friends’ death is still fresh in his mind.”

Cullen, as if noticing Alistair for the first time, pressed as close as he could get to the barrier and said, with a tone of renewed hope lighting his voice, “You, friend! You are not a mage. They are so sure that they can resist, but I know better. You have to listen to me. They will become like all the others. End it now, before it is too late.”

“We’ll do what we must to end this,” said Alistair, rubbing the back of his neck with obvious discomfort. He avoided meeting Cullen’s imploring gaze and looked to Wynne instead.

Cullen’s plea came with the obvious suggestion that Alistair turn on the three mages in his company and try to slaughter them before they could be turned. The subtext was not lost on Solomae. She had no fear that Alistair would take such an idea seriously, but it hurt her that Cullen would think it an option, all the same.

“We will fight Uldred, and save everyone who can possibly be saved,” said Nelmirea, stoutly, not even sparing a glance at Alistair. Solomae thought that If he was daft enough to think Cullen’s suggestion a good one, Nelmirea would probably kill him before Solomae or Wynne could get in a word.

“Are you really saving anyone by taking this risk?” countered Cullen. “To ensure this horror is ended… to guarantee that no abominations or blood mages live, you must kill everyone up there. Otherwise you will just become one of them.”

“No,” Solomae answered before Nelmirea could. “This isn’t you talking, Cullen. You don’t really believe this. Do you have so little faith in me? And how could anyone in good conscience abandon mages who have been fighting back against corruption with all their strength?”

“I was a boy the last time you knew me,” he said darkly, and turned away, refusing to even look at her. “A lot has changed since you left the Tower. I’ve learned who I can trust, and it clearly isn’t you. It was never you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nelmirea dismissed him before he could wound Solomae further. “We’re not killing innocents, and that’s final.” She looked around briefly, challenging Alistair or Wynne to disagree.

“I’m certainly all for saving innocents,” Alistair said, putting up his hands as if to plead no contest.

“Thank you,” said Wynne. “I knew you would make a rational decision.”

“How is this rational?” Cullen spat. “Do any of you even understand the danger?”

“I know full well the dangers of magic,” Wynne answered with unending patience, “but killing innocents because they might be maleficarum is no justice. I know you are angry—”

“You know nothing! I am thinking of the future of the Circle. Of Ferelden!”

“I won’t condemn every mage in this Tower to death for the actions of a few,” said Solomae, keeping her voice as low and steady as possible even as he shouted and beat his hands against the barrier in vain. “I would hope that if I still lived in the Tower and was trapped by Uldred, someone would have faith in me to resist and survive.”

“I am just willing to see the painful truth, which you are content to ignore.”

“Enough of this,” declared Nelmirea. “We have made our decision.”

“You are right,” Cullen agreed, unexpectedly, with a bitter laugh. “Enough of this pointless arguing. What can I do? As you can see, I am in no position to directly influence your actions, though I would love to deal with the mages myself.”

“Good,” said Nelmirea with no small amount of satisfaction. “Then you can’t cause any trouble.”

He smiled back at her with venomous eyes. “My cage is of Uldred’s doing… or one of his mages. Once they’re dead, I will be free, and I will do what I must.”

Solomae did not like the coldness in his voice. Nelmirea might be right, he might attack every mage in sight once he was let loose, and they would have to put him down like a rabid dog. Was it the torture that had done this to him, or was this always how he had felt, truly? She didn’t know, but it pained her to think that Nelmirea had always been right; you could never trust a templar to view you as a person, rather than a monster in waiting.

“If we succeed in killing Uldred and saving Irving, Greagoir has given his word that he will not seek the Right of Annulment,” said Nelmirea coolly. “If you ignore that, you are ignoring your Knight-Commander’s wishes.”

“How can I believe anything you say?”

“Believe it.” She bit off each word.

He sighed, defeated without being swayed. “You won’t win against Uldred if you go up there. You’ll see. No one ever listens, not until it’s too late.” With that, he knelt back down onto one knee and resumed his prayers. “Maker turn his gaze on you,” he said between grinding teeth. “I hope your compassion hasn’t doomed us all.”

They left him there, for there wasn’t anything more to say.

 


 

All of Cullen’s doom and naysaying turned out to be for naught.

Nelmirea did fear the power of the blood mages, she would be a fool not to after seeing how it had brought the Tower to its knees. But though the fight against Uldred was long and difficult, they were victorious in the end. Wynne wielded the Litany of Adralla every time Uldred tried to seize their minds and the minds of the other mages, for there were indeed survivors who were not yet under his control, and together they brought Uldred to his knees.

Nelmirea was careful not to reveal the added power which she drew from the forbidden well, biting the inside of her cheek and feeling the pulse of magic flow into her mouth along with the copper tang of blood. It was just a little boost, no showy stormcloud of blood wreathing her in a demonic mist. She had been practicing ever since Redcliffe how to subtly use her own blood as an amplifier for her other spells.

Irving was badly wounded after the battle with Uldred and needed to be helped down the stairs. Alistair and Solomae supported the First Enchanter between them as they made their way down. The other survivors followed, leaning on one another.

The spot where Cullen’s magical prison had held him was empty when they passed by that place, and he was nowhere to be seen. When they found him again, he was not terrorizing the surviving mages, but standing at Greagoir’s side. He was still arguing that Annulment was the only answer—saything now that the Circle had been compromised once there could be no telling who among the survivors were blood mages. Nelmirea could only hope for the sake of the Circle Tower that his desire to kill every last mage was a passing fever that would subside.

But the Circle was hardly her concern. Irving was alive, and that was all she could do for them.

They left the Tower with Irving’s assurances that the Grey Warden treaties would be honored and that the mages would be available to fight when called upon. It was a much smaller force than they had hoped, since so many had died, but it was better than nothing. It would have to do.

Wynne volunteered herself to leave the Tower and travel with the Wardens as an emissary of the Circle. Nelmirea wanted to refuse the offer, to tell her that she was of better use at the Tower. She knew that Wynne would be upset when she learned that Jowan was among the Wardens. But Alistair seemed to temporarily forget about that, or didn’t stop to think through the repercussions, because he gladly accepted Wynne as a travel companion before anyone else could get in a word of objection.

This new arrangement was bound to end poorly. Not only was Jowan a known practitioner of blood magic, but the longer Wynne traveled with the Wardens and fought beside her, the more likely the Circle mage would notice what Nelmirea was doing. There was always going to be a danger of Alistair, Solomae, or Morrigan recognizing blood magic techniques, even subtle ones, but she hardly feared them. She didn’t think any of them would actually do anything about her dabbling in blood magic, even if they greatly disapproved of her choices.

There were two main fears people had when it came to blood magic. One was demonic possession, as it was commonly accepted that practicing blood magic required opening oneself up to demonic influence. But she thought that was bollocks. She had come face to face with several demons ever since her first duel in the fade during her Harrowing, and had bested them all. Even the one who wore her mother’s face. She felt no more tempted now to surrender her personhood to a demon than she had at the first. And the notion that blood magic required surrender to a demon was a falsehood. She was not bound to Connor’s demon and nor was Connor, thanks to her deft bargaining.

The second objectionable aspect was the killing of innocents for the power of the blood that ran through their veins. That she vowed never to do. Isolde did not count—that had been a willing sacrifice and a necessary exchange; the Arlessa’s life for her son’s. Nelmirea would not allow anyone to tell her otherwise, even if Solomae would always be upset over it and judge her for participating.

She’d heard the stories of how Tevinter magisters killed their slaves like cattle to fuel blood magic, and it disgusted her. She did not know if it was merely the Chantry waging a propaganda was against Tevinter, as she had never been there or spoken to a magister or their slaves. But she could believe it, for she could believe anything when it came to the shemlens. People from all corners of Thedas were capable of committing any amount of barbarism against elves.

The story of how her great-grandmother’s Dalish clan had been wiped out was one of her earliest lessons. Mother told it to her soberly, without embellishment, for it was not meant to frighten or titillate, but to educate and warn. Their clan was traveling through the woodlands along the storm coast when they crossed paths with a hunting party of human nobles. The nobles were Orlesian, for that was back during the days of the Orlesian occupation, but they had Fereldan servants and retainers with them. They were out hunting bears, and when they saw the elves they decided to hunt them down for sport, instead.

It was a small clan, whittled down over the generations by strife, and many of the remaining members were children and elders. The few young and able fighters among them were not enough to ward off the human attack. The noble hunting party was large and well armed with high quality Orlesian steel. They rode fine fast stallions, and ran the elves down, hacking them to pieces with swords, filling their bodies with arrows. But it was the Fereldan huntsmen who set their pack of mabari hounds upon the children, ripping them to shreds.

Great-Grandmother had been the only one to escape. She ran and ran and ran, until she came to Highever and found safety inside the alienage. There was no justice for her clan or punishment for the shemlen who had slaughtered them, but she told the story to her children and their children so that her clan would not be forgotten. Mother had told it to Nelmirea and written the tale down in one of her letters, so that Nelmirea would not forget.

She loathed those who hurt innocents and preyed on the weak and vulnerable. That would never be her.

She had coaxed a little information from Jowan about how he had come to learn blood magic within the tower, and though he at first did not want to speak of it at all, he had eventually told her that he had come across some odd looking tomes while cleaning up in the library. It was the job of young apprentices to clean up after the enchanters, and any of them… Nelmirea, Solomae, Jowan… could have happened across the books while tidying and reshelving. If it had been Solomae who found them, she might have gone straight to Irving and turned over the contraband. Nelmirea was not sure what she would have done, though she would like to think she would have been suspicious of the carelessness it must have taken to leave forbidden things lying out in the open, almost as if it were not an accident at all.

Jowan had kept the books and read them in secret.

He could not tell Nelmirea why he had done it, exactly. He’d recognized that this was not the sort of thing that belonged in the Circle library, and he understood the dangers of blood magic. He did not think so highly of himself that he had no fear of corruption. But he had been worried that giving them to Irving would get him in trouble, that even having glanced through the pages of just one tome to determine what kind of spellbook it was would doom him in the eyes of the Chantry. But to actively read them? To learn the spells? To practice them when the other apprentices slept? That went beyond indecision. He could not say what made his curiosity overcome his doubt.

He had been terrified of destroying the books, as if they might fight back, demons springing forth from the forbidden pages. Eventually he began to fear that keeping them was foolish, too, as they might be found during a surprise shakedown. Worse yet, a vengeful blood mage might come looking for the fool who had stolen their stash. So he ended up putting them back in the library, scattering them about mishelved in different sections, hoping it would become someone else’s problem.

“Someone must have known I’d had them,” he’d told her, one night while they sat watch together on the road between Redcliffe and Orzammar. “Irving knew about it. Lily found out that they were going to tranquilize me, but she didn’t know why, and I couldn’t bear to tell her I’d been dabbling in blood magic. I hadn’t even tried out half the spells in those books, for how could you without bringing down the whole tower? There’s spells to rip a man asunder, to control people’s minds and make them do terrible things to each other, or even to themselves. You can boil a person’s blood, cause them to hemorrhage till they’re dry, or suck the life force out of them and take it all for your own… and even worse things. Any horror you could imagine, there was a spell for it. What I had to do to Isolde, it was a mercy compared to some of the stuff I saw in that book, but it marked my soul all the same. I don’t feel right about what was done.”

“She gave her life to save her son. Plenty give their lives to save what they love.”

“I know. But it still… I still felt wrong afterwards. I’ve killed people before—had to, after I left the Tower and was on the run. But just stabbing someone who was standing there, no defenses… like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered… no, I don’t want to do that anymore.”

She put a hand on his back, feeling him tremble. She understood, and also did not. Killing took its toll, no matter how justified. Seeing death all around you day in and day out took its toll. But she had seen far more terrible deaths than Isolde’s since leaving the Circle. Ends far more meaningless and cruel. Isolde, though she did not know it, had a Grey Warden’s end. People said there were none so noble. In death, sacrifice.

Isolde had a better end than Ser Roderick, at least. Nelmirea thought of the spell for sudden violent hemorrhaging that Jowan alluded to and remembered how Roderick had spontaneously bled after drinking from the goblet his Warden Commander gave him; how he’d coughed and choked, bleeding from every orifice as he went down. As far as she was concerned, she’d become a blood mage the moment she drank the bespelled darkspawn blood, took the poison into herself, and did not die.

She didn’t burden Jowan with any of those macabre thoughts, however. He was adamant in forswearing blood magic and she didn’t want to press him, and didn’t want to make him afraid of what might lay before him should he ever take part in the Joining. He was lucky Alistair didn’t know how the potion was made and there was likely no Grey Warden left alive in Ferelden who did.

Nelmirea had felt so alone among the Wardens and their followers, even with Jowan added to the company.  She did not know if she would ever find someone she could speak her truth to. She did not want to worry Jowan or complicate things by telling him that she had started down a path he considered ruinous. She didn’t think he would understand why she did not think blood magic was to blame for his troubles. It was ill luck and trusting the wrong people that had filled him with such regrets.

It was not an easy path, though the Circle mages who taught her in her youth had decried it as the contemptible path chosen by the weak and foolish. She had to practice alone in the night away from camp when the others thought she was in her tent sleeping. There were sores on the insides of her cheeks from biting them so much, and she was finding it more and more difficult to heal the cut marks on her arms, the pricking of her fingers. There were little scars forming, which she took care to hide. The real trick was not to draw blood, rather to siphon the power of what was inside, to make herself into a walking font of raw magical power, rather than simply a conduit for Fade power. But to do so without exhausting herself or revealing herself to others would take lots of careful practice.

Nelmirea waited until they had all left the Tower and were past the docks in Kinloch Hold, to pull Alistair aside and express her concerns about Wynne. She did not want to speak of these matters while still marooned on that island and beholden to the Templar controlled ferry for passage across the water.

They were all heading to The Spoiled Princess to stock up on supplies before heading out to camp, where the others waited for their return. “Alistair, a moment?” she said, beckoning him away from the others. Wynne and Solomae had gone to browse the wares of one of the merchant stalls outside the inn.

“What?” he asked sharply, no doubt seeing something in her expression that told him he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

“Let’s go inside,” she said quietly, jerking her head towards the door to The Spoiled Princess. “I don’t want to talk out here.” Wynne’s back was to them as she chatted with the merchant, but Nelmirea was not comfortable that they were far enough out of earshot.

He huffed, but followed her lead anyway as she walked inside the little lakeside inn. She nodded to the barkeep, and they sat down at a table in the far corner of the room.

She could not decide if Alistair looked like a grumpy child or cornered animal, sitting awkwardly in his armour and glancing everywhere except at her.

“I know Wynne,” she said, sparing any preamble. “She will not tolerate a blood mage, even a reformed one. She is going to cause problems for us when she finds out that we conscripted Jowan.”

“I’d rather have Wynne as an ally than Jowan,” Alistair said, testily, leaning back in his chair until it looked like it might tip over. “You’ve seen them both in action, you know that Wynne is ten times the mage Jowan is. You can’t turn down that kind of help, not when we’ve been scrabbling through every battle we face.”

“She won’t fight alongside us. She’ll go back to the Tower to send Templars after us,” said Nelmirea plainly, wondering how he could be so obtuse. How could he not see the logical outcome of this? Especially as someone raised in the Chantry, groomed to be a Templar.

He merely shrugged. “After what maleficarum did to the Tower, you can hardly blame her.”

“Alistair,” she said, forcing herself to sound patient though she felt anything but, “you promised me that you wouldn’t turn Jowan over to the Circle for punishment. If you let Wynne do it for you, you’ll be breaking that promise.”

He sighed heavily and dragged a palm down his face. “Maker take it, Surana,” he said, letting his chair clap back down onto the well worn floorboards. “I can’t make everyone happy. Look. If Wynne doesn’t like it we can have a talk about it then.”

“And what happens when you fail to sweet talk her? I don’t think you want to find out.”

“Well, it’s true she might be surprised to find out we’ve been traipsing merrily across Ferelden with a maleficar… sorry, former maleficar. But she might also look sideways at a few of our companions. We’ve got quite the colorful bunch, if you hadn’t noticed. And she’s already met our favorite apostate Morrigan, so there’s also that.” He made an exaggerated face of disgust, as he was always compelled to do when mentioning Morrigan, which he found reason to do often. “The fact remains that as a Warden-Conscript Jowan’s past crimes have been annulled and no one can hold him accountable except the Wardens. That’s how it works.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to work, and maybe it would if Duncan were still Warden-Commander. But are you willing to fight Wynne to protect Jowan?”

The mention of Duncan made him glower at her, and she thought she might have gone too far by comparing him to his deceased mentor. “Wynne will just have to understand that if she travels with the Wardens she’ll have to respect the Right of Conscription,” was all he said.

“If you don’t let her come along we won’t have to worry about it either way.”

“I already welcomed her enthusiastically to our company,” he said, drawing circles in the soft wood of the inn table with one guantleted knuckle. “What do you want from me? Should I go out there and tell her ‘oh sorry actually we’ve decided you’re too old, get back on the boat and kindly fuck off back to the Tower’?”

“That seems fine to me. But come up with any excuse you must.”

“No,” he said, with surprising decisiveness, his hand forming into a fist upon the table. “We did all of this to ensure that the mages would help us. They’re going to have to find out about Jowan sooner or later. Honestly, this is your mess as far as I’m concerned and you can deal with it once we get back to camp.”

“Oh, I will deal with it. Of that you can be certain. If you let this continue you know that we might have to kill Wynne, don’t you? I will kill Wynne if I must, do you understand me? Jowan is under my protection.”

“You are not killing Wynne,” he said, then he got to his feet. He was about to simply walk out on the conversation.

Nelmirea was left fumbling for some kind of retort as he strode carelessly away. Finally, she slapped a hand upon the table as she shouted after him, “I can’t believe I voted for you!”

“A mistake we’ll all surely regret!” he yelled back, jabbing one finger at the ceiling in a gesture of sarcastic triumph. He did not even turn to look at her as he headed for the door.

“You were the second choice,” she muttered, falling back into her seat, remembering how Lythra Mahariel had rejected the burden of leadership in Lothering.

If Alistair heard her, he gave no reaction. Just as he was leaving, Solomae entered the inn. He pushed past her with uncharacteristic abruptness, and she looked surprised a moment before spotting Nelmirea fuming in the corner.

“What were you two arguing about?” she asked, approaching the table.

“Wynne,” Nelmirea said, seeing no reason to conceal it from Solomae. “I didn’t want her to come with us, for obvious reasons.”

Solomae nodded. She brushed her hair back from her face. Her normally carefully styled braids were still disheveled and loose from the fight through the tower. She still looked lovely, somehow, even tired and dirty as she was.

“What are you planning to do?” she asked. She did not sit down.

Nelmirea shook her head. “I don’t know. Alistair is being an ass about it. I think it’s obvious he’d like to be rid of Jowan.” Her own words brought her up short, as she remembered that Solomae had not wanted Jowan around either. She peered up at her and said, “I suppose it depends on Wynne, now, and if she will accept that Jowan has forsworn blood magic, or not.”

“I don’t particularly want to fight Wynne,” said Solomae, turning her gaze to some vague point on the wall. The candlelight from the inn’s sconces reflected in the dark blue of her eyes. “We’ve seen enough mages die for one day.”

“You needn’t,” said Nelmirea. “As I told Alistair, Jowan is under my protection, whether anyone else will stand by him or not.”

“So you and Wynne are to duel over Jowan’s honor, is that it?”

There was a wryness behind her words that surprised Nelmirea. 

“I will try to reason with her,” she answered. “Perhaps Alistair is right, in a way, though I’ll never say that to him. If we’re going to have the Circle as allies they’re going to find that we have Jowan with us eventually, and perhaps we might as well deal with it now. I just didn’t think we’d be welcoming Wynne of all people to join us.”

“Jowan’s presence was always going to complicate things,” said Solomae. She returned her gaze pointedly to Nelmirea. “Blood magic tends to do that. Even if you think you can control it, it will end up controlling you.”

Nelmirea opened her mouth, not knowing what might come out. Denials? Defense? Words died in her throat. She did not want to argue with Solomae. Not now.

Solomae had not been in high spirits after what had all happened at the Tower. The gauntlet of the Fade, and Cullen’s harsh words outside the Harrowing chamber, had muted her mood. Irving had called her into his study to have a talk with her before they left, pointedly excluding Nelmirea from the meeting, and even that show of forgiveness and favoritism had not seemed to cheer her.

“I have something for you,” said Solomae, as if her last words had meant nothing, had just been an observation about Jowan’s folly and little more. She reached into her knapsack and pulled out a small bundle, extending it towards Nelmirea. It was wrapped up in a scrap of plaid weave.

Nelmirea let out an involuntary gasp and then covered her mouth. She recognized it instantly. How could she not? That little bit of cloth was all that was left of the bag Mother had given her when she set out for the Tower.

Shaking a little, she took the parcel and unwrapped the fabric. The four corners fell away to reveal the wooden halla standing atop the stack folded parchment. She had turned those worn pages over and over in her hands throughout the years, tying and untying the twine until it broke and needed to be replaced.

“My letters,” she said, hesitantly, as if speaking it out loud might make them disappear. As if they might crumble in her hand. “When did you find these?”

“I didn’t,” said Solomae, and finally she sat down opposite Nelmirea. “Irving gave them to me. He was full of words of gratitude and observations on how the Maker had ordained our exile in order for us to return and save the Circle, in the end.” She sighed, as if finding Irving’s gratitude and his affirmation of faith grating. “I told him that after everything we had done for him and Greagoir it didn’t seem right for them to keep the items they had confiscated from us. I didn't really have anything of value for him to return, though. So I told him I wanted your letters.”

Nelmirea was fighting back tears, but not well enough, for Solomae reached out and brushed some from her cheek. “There’s more,” she said.

Then she reached back into her knapsack and pulled out a small square of folded paper.

Nelmirea heart beat against her ribcage like a hammer. Another letter? Had her mother sent her one extra message by raven, and they had kept it from her? She took the paper and ran her fingers across the broken wax seal which bore no emblem. She didn’t want to open it there, in that shoddy little lakeside inn with strangers all around, some of them already darting suspicious glances at the Warden mages.

“Did you read it?” she asked, breath barely above a whisper.

“No.”

Nelmirea shoved it back into Solomae’s hand. “Read it.”

She kept the halla and held onto it so tightly the little wooden antlers dug into her palm.

Solomae studied her face dubiously. “Are you sure?”

Nelmeria nodded, biting down too hard on her lip.

Solomae unfolded the paper and scanned it for a brief moment before saying, “Nine Twenty One, Dragon. Daughter—”

“Don’t read it out loud. Just tell me what it says.”

Solomae’s eyes flickered over the paper quickly. Then she folded it, quietly, deliberately, and held it under her palm against the table. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Nelly…”

“It’s not a very long letter. Tell me what it says.”

“Not here.”

“Then I already know,” Nelmirea told her.

“Nelly—”

“Keep it.”

Solomae paused for a moment on an intake of breath, preparing to say more, but then she just nodded and slid the letter back into her bag.

“We should head back to camp,” said Nelmirea, all business, as she scrubbed at her cheek and stood up. “We’ve been away far longer than planned and the others will surely be worried if Morrigan told them what was happening at the tower.”

Solomae stood and reached out to catch her hand as she passed her by. Nelmirea stopped only a moment before pulling away.

Chapter 18: Vir Lath Sa'vunin / We Love One More Day (The Road)

Chapter Text

When they got back to camp and rejoined the others, all Nelmirea’s fears over Wynne not tolerating Jowan proved immaterial. For Jowan was not there.

“He left,” said Morrigan, meeting with Nelmirea and Alistair at the edge of camp. “As soon as I told him what was happening at the Circle, he fled, for fear that you would be lost and that the Templars would hunt him down so near to the Tower.”

“Did he say where he was going?” Nelmirea asked, struggling to believe it.

“No, but he did say that if you did return, to give you his regrets. He has some vague notion that he will find and rescue the girl he was in love with. What was her name? Lana? Lorelei? Ah well, tis of no consequence.”

“Well, there you go, problem solved,” said Alistair, with infuriating flippancy. “Though I won’t like having to tell Teagan that he ran away, after all the fuss we made to recruit him… Still, if we never cross paths with him again I won’t be sad.”

“He was my friend,” snapped Nelmirea. “I worry for him, out there all alone during a Blight. If you had been more welcoming maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to flee.”

“Are you seriously blaming me for this? Sounds to me like Morrigan scared him away with her complete and utter lack of faith in our ability to survive the Tower.”

“As surprised as I am to see you alive and irritatingly sound as ever, I did not paint any more dire a picture of the Tower than was appropriate,” Morrigan countered, crossing her arms and leveling an arch gaze at him. “I do believe he was readying himself to leave before I returned and was indeed surprised to see me back so soon. For all I know his fear of the Templars was but an easy and welcomed excuse to do what he had already intended.”

“No,” Nelmirea objected. “He wouldn’t have left like that, without telling me.”

Morrigan shrugged, uncaring, rolling her gaze languidly from Alistair back to Nelmirea. “I had half a mind to leave as well,” she said, “lest I be pursued by vengeful templars with little else to do but slay apostates once the Tower had fallen. Although… It has been a long time since I had the pleasure of destroying a group of mage hunters.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully and smiled at the idea.

“I wish you would,” said Alistair.

“You wish I would… what? Leave, or destroy some mage hunters?”

Alistair chose to ignore her completely at that point, just turned and strode away across the camp, leaving them with little more than an irritated huff. Evidently that was his new way of dealing with bothersome mages, these days.

“My my, he must not have had a good time playing with the blood mages,” Morrigan said, watching him go. “Alistair usually tries to at least get the last word in, even if his wit fails him utterly every time.”

“No one had fun,” said Nelmirea, and though she had reason to be upset with him, she could not help but add, “At least Alistair stood with the mages, unlike some people I can name.”

“Oh, hiss hiss,” Morrigan brushed her off. “Anyway, I am not terribly happy to see Wynne tagging along after you. Why did you bring the schoolmarm back with you?”

“Thank Alistair for that. I didn’t want her.”

“Tch. Typical,” Morrigan said, giving Alistair a look across the camp which he mercifully did not see. Then she swiveled back to Nelmirea and asked with practiced indifference, “By the by, did you happen to find the book we discussed?”

“No, we didn’t see anything close to what you had described,” Nelmirea lied to her outright, though she had indeed found Flemeth’s grimoire in Irving’s study and even now had it nestled within her backpack.

She had been planning to read over the book herself when she had more privacy. Once alone in her tent at night she would light a candle and see if she could make heads or tails of Flemeth’s ancient wisdom. Perhaps she would give it to Morrigan at some later date when she was not so cross with her for her attitude at the Tower, but for now it gave her some small wicked satisfaction to keep it from her.

Morrigan narrowed her eyes in brief suspicion, but let the matter lie, and opted instead to pursue Alistair, in order to continue their bickering over who had less faith in the other’s abilities, or whatever it was that they were constantly at each other’s throats about.

Nelmirea was left alone. She told herself that she was glad of it. But as soon as there was no one to talk to, the desolation began to creep around her heart. She reached into her robe and fingered the edges of parchment tucked within.

There was a camp full of people all around, but still she felt a shiver of a memory of the Fade, of the isolation of her solitary battles through Sloth’s realm.

She went to the fire, for there was still some old stew in the cookpot from when the others had eaten supper prior to their arrival back at camp. She must keep her strength up, she reminded herself, so she took a seat by the fire, trying to absorb all its glowing warmth as she ate the mixture of mutton, peas, and assorted root vegetables. The rustic stew tasted as delicious as any Feastday repast after such a day. 

She thought briefly of going after Jowan, though he had about a day’s head start already. It was already twilight by the time they returned to camp, after losing an entire day to the Tower’s troubles. She wondered, if she found him, could she talk sense into him, discourage him from trying to find Lily? Nelmirea did not think there was even a small chance that he could find her or save her from Aenor, all on his own. Maybe a more generous friend would offer to leave the Wardens and help him on his rescue mission, but she did not want to leave the Wardens. Not for that. What was the fate of one wayward Chantry Sister weighed against the Blight?

His leaving weighed upon her the more she dwelled upon it. Was Morrigan right? Had he been planning an escape from the Wardens and only needed this opportunity? It was the first time since rescuing him from the Arl’s dungeons in Redcliffe that she had left him behind at camp, and they had not been gone a full day, having left early in the morning with promises of returning by midday. And late though they were, she’d thought he would wait at least through the night before giving up on them. Unless… he knew full well she would return and did not want to be there when she did.

Sadness enveloped her at the thought of his mistrust. If he had truly wanted to leave, she would not have stood in his way. And the others viewed his conscription as merely a formality to appease her wish to save him, so they would not have stopped him either, though Alistair might have made a few lackadaisical efforts at keeping his promise to Teagan. He could have at least said goodbye.

In the end she knew, despite allowing herself to contemplate it, that she would not go after Jowan. He was free from the Templars, at least, and there was Wynne’s presence to contend with now.

Though she thought about Jowan as she ate, her eyes found Solomae, almost involuntarily.

Solomae had undone the braids of her hair and was sitting upon a boulder, trying to smooth out the tangles with a plain wooden comb. As Nelmirea watched, Leliana approached her, and murmured a few words. Solomae handed over the comb, and Leliana began to chatter away, telling some tale as she ran the comb, and her fingers, through Solomae’s hair.

How many times had Nelmirea done the same? Too many times to count over the years. She felt a pang of remorse for avoiding Solomae after they had left the Lake Calenhad docks, and an irrational moment of anger at Leliana for so easily waltzing in and taking her place.

They were talking, quietly, companionably, the way they had slowly taken to doing over the many nights at camp. It had not been lost on Nelmirea that they had often stood watch together. She’d been woken up by Leliana’s laughter more than once and lay there listening to the stories the bard told to Solomae, feeling as if she were stealing a tale not meant for her.

She could not hear what they were talking about now, but at least Leliana had the decency not to be laughing. If Solomae was telling her about the day they’d spent at the Tower there was nothing to laugh about.

Leliana combed out all the snarls and tangles from Solomae’s long raven locks, and wove it into one long braid down her back. Then Solomae stood up, and Nelmirea quickly pivoted away to make it seem as if she had been staring out into the night while she sat at the fire spooning up the last of her broth.

She knew that Solomae was walking over to her; she could hear the fall of each footstep, and she felt afraid. Her heart pounded in her ears and she was paralyzed with the thought that Solomae was intent on making her read the letter. Otherwise surely she would have retreated to her tent to rest rather than coming over to sit with her.

I am stronger than this, she thought. She, the one who had broken through the lies of Sloth’s domain, who had killed the demon who wore her mother’s face, who freed Solomae from the clutches of her false dream. She, who had been all alone and had not faltered. Not once.

She wished she could become the golem again. She wanted to become a mountain of rock, impervious to every mortal frailty. She wanted to be the burning figure, consumed with flame radiating outward. She wanted to be the spirit, cold as ice and lighter than air. Not this small elf afraid of the truth.

Solomae sat down next to her, but said nothing at first. Leliana had disappeared into the shadows, but soon she returned with her fat lute in hand and sat herself down opposite the fire. The flames crackled between them like a wall, but the soft sounds of her humming wordless melodies as she strummed the chords floated over the waves of heat.

It was peaceful in camp. Alistair played fetch with Barkspawn across the way, and Wynne was setting up a tent busily, making herself at home, while Korren Tabris sat at the end of Bodahn Feddic's cart, talking with the dwarven merchant and his odd son. Aedan Cousland was playing a game of Wicked Grace with Duran Aeducan, the cards set out on the smooth cut edge of a log propped up between them. Aedan’s mabari Calenhad sat at his side, with his large rounded head resting on his master’s knee. Lythra Mahariel and Natia Brosca were already inside their respective tents, sleeping, and Morrigan had left Alistair alone, returning to her own solitary little corner of camp. Sten was seated not far away from the main campfire, impassively sharpening his massive sword, providing the steady background noise of a whetstone being dragged across metal.

Solomae poked at the fire, sending little sparks up into the darkening night, then inched closer to Nelmirea.

Nelmirea silently held out her hand. Just as silently, Solomae placed the small square of folded paper with its brittle old broken seal into her palm.

The letter was written in a different hand than the ones her mother had written to her. It was thicker and messier, quick strong strokes racing after one another. The ink was badly smudged in places, which made it difficult to read.

9.21 Dragon

Daughter,

 

I am leaving Highever, and your mother has left already. She told me to write to you so that you would know not to search for us here if you ever leave the Tower and travel the world, as we are told mages sometimes do when they've grown up and mastered their magic.

 

You did not know but your mother was sick before you left. She has struggled for years, but we always did our best to keep it from you. We wanted you to be happy and carefree for as long as possible. I will not trouble you with the burdensome details of her sickness, as she would not want that. She is free of suffering now. She wanted me to tell you that she has followed Falon’Din into the Beyond and is dancing with her ancestors, now. You know I never really bought into all that old Dalish stuff, like she did, but still it makes me smile to think of her that way.

 

I am going back to Denerim, to be with my family. I know I have a good job here in the stables but Highever isn’t my home, at least not without you and your mother here. If you are able to come to Denerim someday that’s where you’ll find me. I’m sure your grandparents would like to meet you, too. I hope you are being good at the Tower and remembering everything we taught you.

 

Love Da

 

Nelmirea lowered the paper. She didn’t stare into the fire, or up at the stars, or out into the dark forest. She didn’t know where she looked.

“Nelly…” Solomae’s voice was in her ear.

She turned, but Solomae’s face was a blur. She could not see her. “I knew,” she said. “I knew when Korren told me that he knew my father in Denerim. I knew.”

“I’m sorry.”

“9.21,” she said, holding up the letter. “That was only a year after I was sent to the Circle. Only a year.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What have you to be sorry for? Did you keep the letter from me? No. It was Irving. Why… why… what reason could he have for denying me this news?”

“Apprentices are not allowed news of their families,” said Solomae, as if by rote, but at Nelmirea’s sharp look she quieted. She reached over and took Nelmirea’s free hand. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, maddeningly. “I know that even if you suspected, it’s hard when those fears are confirmed. Believe me, I know.”

Leliana stood up, and Nelmirea remembered her presence only then. The bard’s gentle humming had ceased at some point, probably when Nelmirea’s voice rose and she forgot her surroundings. She stared as Leliana rounded the fire and sat down beside her, wondering what she could possibly mean by inserting herself into such a moment.

“May I sing a song for you?” Leliana asked.

Nelmirea could only gape at her in surprise. That was not what she had expected. But Leliana interpreted her lingering silence and wide eyed stare as a yes, evidently, since she began to play out a melody on the strings.

Nelmirea was further shocked when Leliana began to sing in elven. She realized that she knew the song, had heard it before, though the memory was half formed, fuzzy. She had been very young, years before being sent to the Circle. Her grandmother had passed away, and all the elves in the alienage had gathered at the vhenadahl to bid farewell to her, lighting candles against the dark.

The Elder had stepped forward and sung the song that Leliana sang now. “Hahren na melana sahlin. Emma ir abelas. Souver'inan isala hamin, vhenan him dor'felas. In uthenera na revas…”

Mother had told Nelmirea that Grandmama had followed Falon’Din into the Beyond, where she would find her own mother and father waiting, as well as all the members of her mother’s clan who had passed on before her.

That memory was buried in a time so long ago that up until hearing the words of the song, Nelmiera would not have been able to conjure up the details or describe what had happened. But with each verse that left Leliana’s lips, she remembered. She could see once more Grandmama’s still face, her hands folded over her chest, and the little bouquet of flowers that lay between them. She could feel Mother’s hand, holding onto her own.

She remembered eating hearth cakes and drinking diluted elderberry wine, as the elves danced and shared stories late into the night. It was a celebration, Mother had said. They celebrated Grandmama’s life, honored her memory, and rejoiced in her going home. Nelmirea had fallen asleep outside, nestled in the crook of Mother’s arm, and awoken the next morning in her bed to find her parents had already gone, heading out to Highever to work.

When the song ended, with its final hopeful line, “ vir lath sa'vunin (we love one more day),” the camp was bathed in silence. The mabaris were unusually quiet and even Sten’s slow deliberate strokes against the sword’s edge had ceased.

“Why do you sing that?” It was Lythra who spoke. She had emerged from her tent during the song and now stood over Leliana, the moonlight shining down upon her as twilight gave itself over to dark. Before Leliana could answer, she said, “That is an elvhen song. An ancient Dalish song. It is sacred. It is a song for the dead. You should not sing it.”

“I am sorry, I didn't mean to offend,” said Leliana, setting aside her lute and looking up at Lythra with an expression that was open and unashamed, despite her apology.

“Where did you learn that? Surely that cannot be just another tune bards use to serenade the Orlesians.” Her voice was ragged, as if the idea of the spoiled Orlesian noblewomen with their extravagant coiffures chatting to each other over lines of the song and then politely clapping at its conclusion might turn her to violence.

“No,” said Leliana. “It was taught to me by a kind old elven woman who comforted me when my mother died. She was another servant of Lady Celisse, a cook in her kitchens, and I remember spending many nights at the hearth listening to her stories. This song made quite an impression on me. You see, I do not not have many memories of my mother. She died when I was only four. It seems the day of the funeral is when she began and ended.” Her face clouded for a moment and she gazed into the fire, distantly, as if looking through it beyond time. “No, that is not quite right. I remember standing with her upon the terrace of an Orlesian villa, the warm sun on our cheeks as we looked out at the Waking Sea in the distance.” She held up one hand, poised in the air with her finger crooked, drawing the memory to her. “Directly below us were gardens of sweet orange and lavender. She held my hand in hers, and I remember… I remember the scent of my mother’s dress, clean linen and flowers. She kept dried flowers pressed in her clothes, Andraste’s grace, very rare in Orlais but abundant in Ferelden. I think. I thought. I haven’t seen any since coming here.”

She dropped her hand to her lap and blinked, then looked back up at Lythra. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble on and on. I only meant, I sing for our mothers. I hope I don’t dishonor their memories with my blundering.”

Lythra just stood a moment, still as stone. Then, “I see,” she said, cryptically, and left without another word.

“Well,” Leliana said with a soft sigh, “I have angered her. I am so stupid sometimes. I hope she will forgive me.”

“She’s not angry. You’ve made her sad,” said Nelmirea, speaking to the flames. “And she doesn’t know how to be sad.”

Leliana contemplated this for a moment. “I hope I did not make you sad. It’s not a sad song, not in the end. The elven woman who taught it to me, she said that we should not fear death, or hate it. Death is just another beginning. One day we must all shed our earthly bodies to allow our spirits to fly free. That is what the song is about.”

“I know,” said Nelmirea.

She stood up. She did not want the others to see her now. Not Leliana with her funeral songs, or Sten with his face as hard as the stone with which he sharpened his sword, or Alistair who still cried about Duncan all the time, or Korren who knew her father’s name but could not recall Alrand Surana having a wife. Not Aedan, who spoke often of revenge for his parents’ bloody deaths at Highever, and not Duran Aeducan who had shed not a single tear upon returning to Orzammar to find his father gone. Certainly not Wynne, and by all that was holy not Morrigan, whose only reaction to the notion of Motherhood was contempt.

She struck out towards her own tent without a word of farewell, clutching the letter, wanting only to be sheltered from view by the meager privacy the canvas offered. Then she might shed a tear for Mother, who had been dead every day for these past nine years.

Solomae stood and followed after her.

“Don’t,” she said, waving her away with one hand behind herself as she walked. “I want to be alone.”

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

Nelmirea no longer trusted herself to speak, so she just kept her head down until she reached her tent. While not as far away from the center of camp as Morrigan’s, she had calculated her spot to be enough on the edge of the firelight for her to slip away unnoticed in the dark to practice without drawing immediate notice.

Solomae kept following, like a relentless hunter, undeterred by the flight of her prey.

Nelmirea ducked between the flaps of her small tent, but she did not bother to secure them by tying the straps together. She just lay down on her side and hid her face in the crook of her elbow, curling her knees up to meet her chest and holding onto them with her other arm.

Solomae lowered herself slowly to the ground just behind her, and Nelmirea could sense the form of her, hunched over, hovering like a solicitous bird perched above a tiny sad little rodent quivering on the ground.

“It’s alright,” she said, softly, resting one hand feather light on Nelmirea’s shoulder.

“It’s not,” Nelmirea said, voice muffled in her sleeve.

“It’s alright to cry.”

Nelmirea shook her head, though lying down the movement was awkward and she just rolled her forehead to and fro against her arm. “No. She wouldn’t want me to cry. She would want me to be strong.”

Solomae was silent a moment, then with a small sigh she lay down. No longer hovering, but lying on her back, with her arm just touching Nelmirea’s curled up form. “You are strong already. You could stand to be weaker. It might be better.”

“What does that mean?”

“You don’t have to be alone.”

Nelmirea laughed with a shudder, gulping out a half cry. “I am alone and I always have been,” she said, lifting her face up from its hiding place and twisting around to see Solomae. She lay with her hands folded serenely over her stomach as she stared up at the canvas. There was just enough light from the fire outside to light the edge of her face in a warm orange glow.

“You have me. I’m a poor friend to have and you needn’t count yourself lucky for it, but you have me all the same.”

Nelmirea settled onto her own back and stared up at the same indistinct expanse of greying weather worn canvas. Shadows of the surrounding trees danced overhead. She let the silence lay over them for a while, then, “She lied to me.”

Solomae said nothing, but turned her head to look at the side of Nelmirea’s face.

“All those letters, pretending she’d still be alive at the end of it, but she knew she wouldn’t be. I don’t know if it’s a kindness or a cruelty. But she lied to me. Told me that the Tower would be a wonderful place, that I was special and destined for great things, that the Circle was a palace not a prison. And she sent me away. Didn’t fight to keep me, didn’t run away. Maybe sent for the Templars herself, I don’t know. Why didn’t she fight? Because she was sick? We could have run away, left Highever, gone to find the Dalish. Why didn’t we? Why didn’t she put that in her letters?”

She quieted again, her voice too choked to speak, words failing her. It only took a little movement to roll over and find herself in Solomae’s arms, her face pressed to the long braid that draped over her shoulder. It didn’t smell like flowers or sweet oranges, it smelled like oil and sweat and grime. It was the hair of someone who had been travelling on the road for weeks, fighting battle after battle and sitting in the smoke of a campfire every night.

“I don’t know,” Solomae said, “I don’t know,” and the repetition was somehow soothing though there were no answers. She held Nelmirea close and stroked her hair, short and scrubby and full of knots, not brushed out and braided. The short bob Nelmirea had always favored had grown out since the Tower but she’d not yet figured out what to do with the strands that hovered around her shoulders, just tucked the lengthening mess behind her ears and got on with the business of Wardening.

“I envied you so much,” she said into Solomae’s shoulder. “Your father tried. He tried. Mine… I barely remember a thing about him… he was always at the stables, working. Always so tired when he came home, just slept and went back to work. He was probably relieved to see me gone, knowing Mother was dying, and he’d have a little girl on his hands and—”

“Stop, Nelly, shush… those are your own thoughts. You can’t know what your father wanted. All you can know is that he wants for you to come find him now that you've left the Tower. That’s what his letter said. That’s the only thing you can say for certain. He’s in Denerim. He wants to see you, he’ll be happy to see you. That’s all you know. That’s what’s real.”

Nelly breathed out, trying to quiet her mind. She nodded a little, wiping at her face with one hand. She was newly aware of the beat of Solomae’s heart against her ear and the way the hairs loosened from her braid tickled at her face.

“And there’s no lie in your Mum telling you that you’d be a great mage someday,” said Solomae, squeezing her arm. “You have become very strong. You’re the strongest mage I know.”

“Oh don’t,” said Nelmirea, truly irritated by the false praise. She sniffed. “I’ve never been anything special. Just a mediocre apprentice, barely skating by with the help of her friends. We both know you have always been the superior mage.”

“Me? I’m terrible,” said Solomae. “I was good at reading books and answering questions and being pretty and smiling politely at our teachers. I was good at being a good student. I’ve never been a good mage. I know that now.”

“You don’t need to put yourself down to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. Let’s be plain, Nelly. I was lost in the Fade. The demons had me. Maker… the worst thing any mage can fail at, and I failed. You saved me.”

“You knew that wasn’t your family. I could see it in your eyes. You weren’t fooled by those demons,” said Nelmirea, refusing to let her pretend otherwise.

“Does it matter? They had me trapped all the same. I’d be there now, cold on the floor, or worse, an abom—”

“I know you fear possession,” said Nelmirea, “but that’s the thing. The fear itself is what trapped you. You have to realize those demons are just… wisps… spirits… nasty ones yes but just bits of nothing really, clawing at reality. They were nothing without you, without the power they siphoned from you.”

“Nelly, just accept what we both know. You don’t have to prop me up. I see it every day. You learnt a whole new wild form of magic from Morrigan in a matter of weeks, and I can’t even begin to fathom it. There’s no stack of books I can read or a teacher who likes me that I can impress out here, not like in the Tower. I think I can do more damage in a battle just stabbing at things with the end of my staff than I can with my spells.”

“You heal us. You’re a better healer than me by far.”

Solomae did not try to contradict her then, just sighed a bit, her breath brushing against Nelmirea’s hair. “And there is so much of that to be done,” she said, and Nelmirea found it in herself to laugh, just a bit.

“But you are missing my point,” Solomae went on. “I am not feeding you with false flattery. I’ve known for some time that you were more naturally gifted than me. I always told you—”

“That if I rebelled less and tried harder I could be a great mage, a Grand Enchanter, yes I know.” Nelmirea pulled away, feeling a little rueful to leave the warmth of Solomae’s arms but knowing she must, for she could not get too comfortable there. “And I never wanted to make anything of myself, so a perpetual underperformer was I.”

That had been the old chestnut of contention they used to pass back and forth as apprentices. Solomae wishing that Nelmirea would embrace the path to success the Circle laid out, and Nelmirea stubbornly refusing.

“But you’ve been different,” said Solomae. They lay now each on their sides, facing each other, a few inches apart. The tent would not allow much more distance than that. “Ever since we left the Tower you’ve grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve seen it. Even Morrigan sees it. She’s impressed by you, I can tell. Not me. When she sees me she sees a stupid sheep like all the other Circle mages she wishes the Chantry would just get on with annulling.”

“Morrigan’s an ass.”

Solomae chuckled. “Maybe. But you’re a bit alike, you two. I thought maybe…” The chuckle died as her voice trailed off in silence.

“What?”

Solomae shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. That you’d be of a mind about the Circle. That you’d think it was just as well that it was lost, and that we should leave them to their fate.”

“You couldn’t truly think that of me.”

“You hate the Circle. You’ve said you’d like to see it all burn. This was your chance to let it.”

“I’d let the Chantry and their whole smug terrible religion burn down with them,” Nelmirea said in a whisper, mindful that they were camped alongside several devotees of Andraste. “But even after the Right of Annulment the Tower would still stand. It would just be empty, scoured of all the lives within. And that wouldn’t stop the Chantry from building anew, it wouldn’t stop the Templars from cleaning the blood from their swords and setting off to steal more children to fill the Tower again.”

Solomae’s face twisted up suddenly, as if she too might start weeping and carrying on, needing to bury her face in Nelmirea’s shoulder this time. But her features quickly smoothed out again, and just one tear escaped and trailed down her cheek. “Perhaps,” was all that she said, and only the first part came out with sound, the other half mouthed.

“I knew those people,” Nelmirea said. “I lived beside them for years. We supped together, played together, learned together, slept in the same rooms night after night. I don’t know. Even if I hated some of them… I just don’t know. They didn’t deserve that fate. And the children… Morrigan thinks they’re better dead than living in a cage, but she’s wrong. I lived in that cage. I never wanted to die.”

Solomae wiped the errant tear from her face and said, “Sometimes, I thought you did.”

“No. Never.”

“You never liked for people to see you cry. You always waited until the darkest part of the night, when you thought everyone else was asleep and it was safe to be weak. But I heard you. I wasn’t asleep. I was never asleep.”

“I was just lonely.”

“Just lonely,” Solomae echoed, “as if that were such a small thing.”

“Everyone was lonely in the Tower. To be a mage is to be lonely. To be an elf among shems… loneliness upon loneliness. Even my closest friends could never truly understand. In the alienage I was never alone, even when my parents worked long hours and I saw them only a sliver of each day… I had all the other children around me, and we were all the same, and we didn’t have secrets, not from each other.”

“You don’t need to have secrets.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

Nelmirea just shook her head. “There are things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you. And that’s just the way it is.”

“I know.”

Nelmirea’s heart beat faster. Solomae’s inflection was too pointed, too deliberate to be a simple acknowledgement of ignorance. “Oh? And what do you think that you know?” she said, speaking in a whisper. They had fallen in quieter and quieter tones as they talked, and not even a dedicated eavesdropper crouched outside their tent could have heard the words.

“What you’ve been doing. What’s Jowan’s been teaching you.”

“Jowan’s taught me nothing.” It was true enough and she whispered it without hesitation.

“You think I don’t notice what you do when we fight? And how tired and pale you’ve become?” Solomae reached out one hand and put her thumb on the lower of Nelmirea’s lips, touching the scabs that were forming from biting down on it too often. “Don’t mock me for an idiot. I know. I know.”

Nelmirea felt the ever slight tingle of warmth as Solomae channeled a spell of healing into her chapped and scabbing lip.

“Will you tell?”

There was a wearied sadness in Solomae’s voice when she answered. “Who would I tell? What good would it do?”

“I’m not hurting anyone. No innocents.”

“What about yourself?”

Nelmiera grimaced, knowing that Solomae, though her weak human eyes probably could not see a thing, would still feel the movement beneath her fingers. “No mages are innocent, isn’t that what the Chantry teaches? Anyway, I’m strong enough; I can bear it.”

“Don’t say that. Nelly, you’re not invincible.”

“But I know my limits.” Or at least, she was learning her limits. But she did not voice that, as it would not sound as confident as she would like Solomae to hear it.

“It’s become more and more difficult to heal you,” said Solomae, tracing her thumb lightly over Nelmirea’s lips. “That’s how I began to know. It’s like there’s a curse upon you when you fight, making you… weak and strong at the same time. And no matter how much I try I can never make you feel right. A good healer can sense, can feel it, and I’m no expert healer. But Wynne is. You know she’ll realize it sooner or later.”

“I didn’t want Wynne with us. That was Alistair’s doing.”

“He’ll notice, too. He’ll say he’s not a Templar till he’s red in the face but oh, put an enemy mage in front of him and suddenly the magic cleansing makes it hard to do a damn thing.”

Nelmirea was momentarily shocked by the casual vulgarity with which Solomae cursed. It wasn’t the harshest speech anyone had ever uttered, but it was so unlike her, Miss Noble Amell. Her whisper spilled over into a too loud hiss when she said it, and drew her hand away from Nelmirea’s face.

“There’s two people to tell,” Nelmirea whispered into the ensuing silence, licking her lips, testing the newly healed flesh with the tip of her tongue.

“Do you think I hate you?”

There was such wounded angst in Solomae’s voice that she almost wanted to assure her that she would never doubt her loyalty, but she steeled herself and said, “I don’t know. I do know that you hate what I am.”

“Never.”

“You hate what I am learning to be. Yes. I’m dabbling in blood magic. Just like Jowan.” Then, to hammer the point home, she said slowly, drawing out the hated word, “I’m becoming a maleficar.”

“You are not. You are good. You are a good person. You are…” Solomae paused, searching for words, frustration edging her hushed voice as she clambered to make sense, “you are Nelly.”

“Every blood mage has a name.”

“Don’t.”

You don’t. Not now. I don’t want to argue.” Nelmirea turned over, and put her back to Solomae once more. She curled herself into a small ball, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Solomae said nothing, but after a moment she scooted closer, and put an arm around Nelmirea, turning her face to nestle her cheek against her shoulders, close to the nape of her neck. She clung there like a child holding onto their favored doll. Nelmirea closed her eyes, and inched her hand up just a little bit, until her fingertips brushed against the arm Solomae had put round her.

“I’m afraid,” said Solomae, tilting her face up, the words tickling against Nelly’s ear.

“Of what? Of me?”

“Of the lack of you. You’ve been slipping away from me for so long.”

“Me?” How strange the words sounded to her, as if she should be the one speaking them, not Solomae. “It’s you who have been slipping away from me, little by little, ever since we stopped being just girls trying to survive and started to become women looking to the future. Before the Wardens, before our Harrowings, even before disagreements over Cullen and Jowan and Circle doctrine.” She fell silent, fearing her own rush of words. From some unknown point she had been suffering the loss of something she’d not even had, a longing for something she could not name. “I've been wishing you were beside me all this time.”

“I’ve always been right here,” said Solomae. Then she sighed and turned her face, pressing her lips to Nelmirea’s neck. The kiss lingered longer than a tender peck good night or even gentle farewell. She kissed her again, up against the edge of her jaw, where her throat was exposed and vulnerable, cool in the night air. Solomae’s lips against her skin were warm, and Nelmirea, surprised, twisted to look at her. Her mouth caught half of Solomae’s kiss, just at the corner.

It shocked her. She thought it a mistake, that she had turned her head too fast and caused a friendly caress to go amiss. But then Solomae kissed her again, full on the mouth, lips parting as she tilted her head to the side. Her hand slipped down and tightened round Nelmirea’s torso, clutching her robe a little as she pulled her in closer. Nelmirea let go of her surprise and acted on instinct, reaching up to catch her shoulders, holding onto her for dear life as she returned her kisses. She pressed herself against the soft ample curves of Solomae’s body, feeling her heart pounding as fast and recklessly as her own. Nelmirea felt awkward and breathless and starved for every inch of Solomae’s lovely full lips, and did not allow herself to dwell on anything else for a few ecstatic moments. She did not feel sad, or tired, or afraid.

Then Solomae drew away. She did not let go of Nelmirea, but pulled her head up and paused, breathing hard, her chest rising and falling near to the other’s face. Nelmirea lay in her arms and gazed up at her with lips parted, eyes wide and pulse pounding, adrenaline flooding her veins. She felt not unlike one of those damsels depicted in the illustrations of tawdry novels that often found their way into the Circle as contraband. She’d never been able to picture herself in them before, as the illustrations had always shown the lady in the embrace of a rugged man with the buttons of his shirt undone and his breeches fairly bursting.

“I’m sorry,” said Solomae. “I shouldn’t have—”

Nelmirea pulled her down by the neck and kissed her silent. She did not seem sorry enough to resist.

Chapter 19: Onward (The Road)

Chapter Text

In the morning, Solomae woke alone in Nelmirea’s narrow pup tent. She pulled herself up and peeked outside at the camp, which was still suffused in the rosy haze of early morning. The others were already up and about breaking down their tents and scrubbing away the telltale signs of anyone having been there. She crawled out and sat on the ground, yawning, with her knees up to her chin. She’d never been a morning person and even these long hard months on the road, with the early morning wake up calls to break camp, had not cured her of that failing.

She did not see Nelmirea bustling about with the others, and wondered where she had gone. The irrational fear that Nelly had fled the Wardens in the night took hold for only a moment, before she pushed it aside. Likely Nelly had simply ducked into the trees to do her morning business or was just out of sight helping to pack up camp.

Solomae wondered if she had made a mistake the night before. Not that she had not wanted to do what she had done, and Nelmirea had seemed keen enough to return her affections at the time, but perhaps in the morning light the other had regretted it. Yesterday had been a taxing and emotional day for both of them. She had wanted nothing more than to soothe Nelmirea’s sadness, to hold her and let her cry herself to sleep, to not let her wash away by herself in a storm of her own private grief. She’d spent too many nights within the Circle lying stiff and wakeful in her bunk bed, keeping a proper distance and listening to Nelmirea try to muffle the sound of her crying in the night, never going to her. No wonder she had felt so lonely within those walls, with naught but such a frightened and rigid friend, who had no comfort or support to give besides half hearted words of encouragement.

She had not planned to kiss her, but it felt natural in the moment, and Nelmirea had kissed her back. But perhaps she had taken advantage of her friend in a moment of emotional distress. Perhaps Nelmirea did not want to see her now.

Solomae did not really know what to do in a situation like this. She was not any good at this kind of thing.

She had been taught in the Circle to repress all such feelings of attraction, as mages were not allowed to have lovers. Some did manage it in secret, of course, but the Chantry officially forbade it, as love and sex were deemed too strong a passion for mages to indulge in. As young apprentices they had all been forced to sit through lessons, taught by dour old Chantry sisters, on why it was a sin for a mage to bring children into the world. The children of mages were likely to inherit the magical taint themselves, and a non magical child did not deserve the horrendous misfortune of having a mage for a parent, thus any mage devious enough to get with child was forced to relinquish her offspring to the Chantry for safekeeping. And a mage who fathered a child—well he best keep his mouth shut and never own up to it. It was common enough gossip around the Circle that most children born to mage women had templars for fathers.

Little was said in those lessons about having a predilection for one’s own sex. Even if there was no danger of conceiving a child, any carnal pleasure was too dangerous for a mage, as passion might overwhelm their better judgment, and romantic love was a selfish thing for those whose only purpose was to serve others. Mages did not belong to themselves, and if you did not belong to yourself, how could you give your heart or your body over to another?

She had once walked into the watercloset and been shocked to find it already occupied by two girls, one with her robe hiked up around her waist and one on her knees with her face buried between the other’s thighs. They had somehow forgotten to latch the door, careless in their lust, and Solomae had slammed the door shut and fled, scandalized. Of course she had told Nelmirea what she had seen, and they had giggled with nervous glee at the awkward hilarity of it, but she had never dragged Nelmirea into a secluded corner to kiss or fondle.

Maybe she should have. Maybe things would have been easier between them if she had.

She stood up and started to dismantle the tent. She needed to keep busy, and not think about things that just made her nervous. Or anxious. Or sad.

She’d gotten it collapsed and was rolling it up into a bundle to load onto Bodhan’s cart when she heard the unmistakable tread of Nelmirea behind her, and turned round.

“Good morning,” said Nelly. Her eyes were bright and her face looked fresh and clean and dewey, as if she’d just splashed fresh water on herself. Perhaps she had. Her hair was a bit damp and slicked back behind her ears.

“Good morning,” Solomae said, blushing for no real reason. She smiled and folded her hands in front of her, then thought she must look silly and released them, then felt awkward with them just dangling at her side and put them behind her back.

Nelmirea opened her mouth to say something, but Duran Aeducan chose that moment to stride by with the scoured soup pot on his shoulder and bellowed, “Why are you two standing around gadding about like that? All the other tents are on the wagon already! Come on, we’re burning daylight!”

Duran had only recently learned that particular topsider phrase, and liked to say it every morning, like their self appointed rooster. His admonition both embarrassed Solomae and gave her some relief, in that she turned hastily to resume gathering up the tent rather than standing shyly fumbling with her own hands in front of Nelly.

Nelly helped her tie up the tent, saying nothing about last night. They were to set out for a long trek across the north of Ferelden that morning. Their destination was Denerim, and it promised to be a dangerous journey, for there was news of civil war across the bannorn… with many skirmishes between those who pledged their loyalty to “King Loghain” and those who, like Teagan Guerrin, accused Loghain of quitting the field and betraying Cailan. The news of these fights seemed to travel quickly afield, and there was talk of it in every hamlet and village they had passed through along the coast of Lake Calenhad. The North Road ran between the Coastlands to the north, controlled now by Rendon Howe, and the war torn Bannorn to the south. There had been plenty of debate between the Wardens and their companions about the best route to take to Denerim, and whether they should even be going to Denerim while Loghain was still in power, at all.

All of that was of little importance to Solomae. Wherever they went they would find mercenaries, bandits, blighted wildlife, or darkspawn. When she looked at the map, her nervous gaze always landed on Crestwood.

They had passed by Crestwood twice already that year, but it had been before the battle of Ostagar, in the earliest days after she and Nelmirea had first left Kinloch Hold. It seemed like forever ago now that Duncan and Alistair had come to the Tower on their recruitment mission, and then taken their new conscripts north to Highever. After Highever they had turned around and headed back south, splitting from Duncan who had made his detour to Orzammar while Alistair led the other recruits directly to Ostagar. Both times they had circumvented Crestwood, just one village among many. The Cousland army had stopped at Caer Bronach on the way south, and when they had camped that night she had thought of Crestwood, so near but so far. She had thought that perhaps now was the time for her to get up and just walk away from the Wardens. Duncan wasn’t there to frighten her into obedience, and she did not think Alistair had it in him to cut down a conscripted mage who was trying to escape.

But she didn’t go. She lay awake almost all through the night, thinking about it. But she did not go. She had got up in the morning and followed the Cousland army down to Ostagar.

She’d told herself that her father would not still be living in Crestwood. He’d want to leave that accursed little hamlet behind. They had betrayed his family of apostates to the templars, after all. She told herself that there would be nothing in Crestwood but the memories, and she didn’t need those.

Leandra Amell had told her in Lothering that as late as five years ago her father had still been in Crestwood. Still in the same house. Just waiting there in case any of his daughters found their way back home. But she was sure that he was not waiting for her. He would not want her back again.

It had been easier last night to focus on Nelmirea’s pain, to focus on the old news that the long neglected letter had made into a fresh wound. It was preferable, even, to think about that and to not think about what Irving had told her.

“The debt the Tower owes to you and your companions is too great to ever repay,” he had said solemnly.

“The aid of the mages against the Blight is all we asked for,” she’d responded, stiffly, still not sure why he’d asked her to come into his wrecked study for a private audience. He’d already given Alistair his oath that the mages would honor the Grey Warden treaties, and Solomae did not feel as if she were owed any special thanks. Nelmirea had done more than any one of them to ensure the Tower did not fall, as she had saved them all from Sloth’s nightmare prison in the Fade. But then, Irving had always overlooked Nelmirea and undervalued her talents. Some things never changed, it seemed.

He had tried to utter an apology for what had happened to her after she had told him about Jowan’s plan to escape. But it was undermined by clumsy attempts at attributing her expulsion to an act of divine providence. She was meant to be driven from the Tower in disgrace only to return to save it, or some such nonsense. It tired her to hear it, though once upon a time not so very long ago she would have hung on his every word, hungry for the praise and acknowledgement of the First Enchanter.

She had gotten Nelmirea’s stolen letters from him, but he still seemed rueful that he had no special award to give her, not even the return of some precious totem that had been taken from her. But her mother’s pearl hair pins were her one cherished reminder of home, and she had already carried those safely from the tower in her braids. Everything else was just detres of a life that was no longer hers.

“Do you know where my sisters were sent?” she asked. She did not expect him to know the placement of every stray mage child in Thedas, but he did talk to Greagoir a good deal, and the templar commander may have let slip some information about where Hannalore and her templars had intended to travel. Even then Solomae did not have any great hope of him remembering such a trivial bit of knowledge from eight years ago.

His face had clouded with some unmistakable recognition. It was as if she had requested the one favor he’d hoped she would never think to ask for.

“You do know,” she said, in the wake of his silent forbearance. “Tell me.”

“It won’t be a reward,” he said. “Let the past lie. It is not in our best interest to look back and dwell on the life we left behind.”

She looked down at the sad little bundle that Nelmirea held so dear.

“I saved your tower,” she said, willing now to take credit for what she had not truly done. “Tell me.”

He sighed with resignation and folded his hands together. “The hunting party that brought you to Kinloch Hold was meant to travel on to Jainen to deliver your older sister to the Circle there. They would have gone by boat since it is the fastest way to traverse the northern islands of the Waking Sea Bannorn. But their boat never reached the Circle.”

“How do you know?”

“When you were brought to the Tower, Knight-Captain Hannalore sent a letter on the ferry, with instructions that we should send it via raven to the Jainen Circle, to alert them to the impending arrival of a potentially dangerous and volatile young mage. Your sister was not as sanguine about her new life as you were; she was quite unhappy to be taken to the Circle.”

“I know,” she said, flatly. First Enchanter Irving had never met her sister, and nothing Knight-Captain Hannalore had jotted down in a letter about Elodie could have conveyed the fire in her eyes as that wagon had trundled away.

“We dutifully forwarded the missive on to Jainen, and some weeks later a raven returned with a message from First Enchanter Jendrik saying that they were still nervously awaiting their new charge, but that no one had yet arrived. Greagoir sent a few templars out to investigate, and they determined that Hannalore had chartered a boat from Brivaford, but it never made landfall in Jainen. There has never been news of any aboard the boat, since. Not the templars, not your sisters, and not the crew of the boat. It was decided that Hannalore must have lost control of your sister, who then sunk the boat.”

“That… that’s ridiculous,” Solomae objected, feeling anger flush through her. “Elodie wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that.”

Irving’s eyes had been sad, and tired, and gentle. “My child,” he said. “It pains me to think of it, too. But there are many apostates in the world who would choose death over the Circle. You have yourself seen what Uldred and his ilk did to wrest their freedom from the Chantry.”

“Elodie would not have chosen death,” she repeated. “Especially not with the twins on board.”

Irving sighed. “It is probable that the two youngest children were dropped off at a Chantry between here and Brivaford. The information about Hannalore’s party was scant. The locals of Brivaford only knew that she had booked passage for herself, the templars under her command, and a mage child.”

“And that is all you know? Did they not search for them?”

“Search for whom? The missing boat, or the youngsters?”

“Anyone.”

Irving lifted his shoulders in a shrug. The motion seemed helpless. “I do not know all the details, my child. I only know what Greagoir saw fit to share with me. You could ask him, but I don’t know that he would remember a matter like that, from so long ago.”

“Three templars were lost. Wouldn’t that mystery weigh upon him over the years?”

“Many templars tasked with the finding of apostates are lost,” said Irving. “It is a dangerous task to root out maleficarum in the wild.”

“Elodie was not a maleficar. She was a child.”

“A frightened and desperate child who was never trained to control her passions can be more dangerous than the most depraved blood mage.”

Solomae hung her head. She had witnessed the truth of that in Connor, just ten years old, and the devastation he had wrecked on Redcliffe out of fear for his poisoned father. But that had not truly been Connor. All he had done was invite the demon in, and the demon had done the rest. The thought of Elodie, possessed, laughing as the boat sunk, made a shudder run all the way through Solomae. She could not believe it. She would not.

“It is a sad thing,” Irving said, putting what was meant to be a comforting hand upon her shoulder. “I would wish to tell you something better. But I won’t lie to you, Solomae. You deserve the truth, at least.”

She left his study in a chilled daze. She tucked the package for Nelmirea into her knapsack and shuffled away like a zombie. She had not cried, and she wondered if she was still dreaming, still caught up somehow in Sloth’s web of deceit.

She walked past Cullen, and their eyes met briefly before he pointedly turned, pivoting his whole body away from her as she passed. That was all the thanks she would get for her part in saving him from Uldred. She felt numb to his contempt. She did not want his thanks. She did not try to speak to him, or to look back, just looked ahead as she went to find Nelmirea. She did not speak of Elodie to her, had only given her the package, and then they had rejoined Alistair and Wynne, boarding the ferry to leave the Tower behind. Solomae looked down at the deep, cold waters of Lake Calenhad, and for a moment she imagined Elodie gazing into the waters of the Waking Sea. And then she put it out of her mind.

Now they were all on their way east, to Denerim. If they made good time it would be only a day and a half before they passed by Crestwood. And there Father would be, still. Of course he would. He would be waiting at home, in case any of his daughters found their way back to him.

She need only speak up, and ask for them to make camp near Crestwood. Even if it slowed their progress it would not take all day, not like their trip to the Circle Tower. She didn’t even have to ask Alistair to stop for her, she just had to ask someone else, someone he liked, to suggest it to him. If she went to the Lythra Mahariel he wouldn’t say no or complain about the delay. But she might have to explain to Lythra why she wanted them to go to Crestwood, a place of no consequence. She could ask Nelmirea to ask Lythra to ask Alistair, and hope to the Maker that he did not ask everyone to vote.

As they marched along the road that morning she slipped one hand into Nelmirea’s. The sky was overcast and the road was muddy, but it was warm. Spring had given itself over to summer by now. To cling to each other’s hands while walking would make them sweaty and uncomfortable before long. But she wanted to know that Nelly was still there, to feel the familiar touch of those hands that had comforted her for years, and had touched her in new ways last night.

“We’ll be nearing Crestwood in a day or so,” she said.

Nelly surveyed her with solemn grey eyes. “I’ve heard that many refugees from the south, from Lothering and the Hinterlands, have gathered near Caer Bronach,” she said. “Or so Bodahn heard, at least.”

Many Fereldans were fleeing north, trying to get to the coast to take ships from the port towns to ferry them across the Waking Sea. They were fleeing to the Marches, thinking that darkspawn couldn’t cross the water. But there were darkspawn in every nation. The Deep Roads were said to go so deep they stretched under the water, and there was no escaping their reach.

Solomae realized she might be thinking of the Hawkes, and remembered the bitter words they had exchanged when she had told Nelmirea about her cousins and their invitation to leave Ferelden. “I did not ask you to stay in Ferelden and fight this Blight. If you regret not fleeing to the Marches I am sorry but that has nothing to do with me. You could have left then. You could leave now.”

“I expect my cousins will be long gone by now,” she said. “I hope they made it to the Marches.”

“Ah,” Nelly said. “I had forgotten about them. I had forgotten about—” She paused, and frowned, turning her face away for a moment, as if she did not want Solomae to see what emotions played across it. Then she turned back and fixed her eyes on Solomae with a searching look. “You do not still want to flee, do you?”

“No. It’s not about that.”

“I see. Well, the others won’t like going near Caer Bronach,” Nelly said, with a decided shake of her head. “Bronach will be sure to have soldiers loyal to Loghain on the lookout for Wardens.”

“I don’t want to go to Caer Bronach,” said Solomae. “Just Crestwood.”

“What do you think you’ll find there?”

Solomae hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she would find. Not forgiveness. And not good news. She didn’t want to repeat what Irving had said about Elodie. She did not want to speak it. Deep in her foolish heart she believed that when she walked into the old farm house, Elodie would be there. Shaelindra and Deana would be there. But to say it out loud would be like trying to describe a beautiful dream only to have it sound nonsensical in the light of the day’s harsh reality. Such thoughts belonged to the Fade.

“I just need to see my father.”

She would have to tell him, she knew. Tell him not to wait any longer, to leave Crestwood behind. Go back to Kirkwall, like the Hawkes had done, because no one was coming home to Crestwood to find him.

“I can go with you.”

She squeezed Nelly’s hand, then let it go. “You don’t have to.”

“But I want to.”

Solomae opened her mouth to refuse again, but shut it without a word. She didn’t really want to go alone, but there was no one she wanted by her side, save Nelmirea.

“Your father will be overjoyed to see you,” said Nelmirea.

“No, he won’t. But I have to see him, all the same.”

Nelly didn’t try to argue the point. She knew how Solomae had left her family, how it had been her first betrayal.

“I’ll go with you to Crestwood, and you will come with me to the Alienage when we get to Denerim.”

Solomae glanced at her sidelong. “What will your father think of you bringing home a shem?”

“I don’t know,” Nelmirea said, with simple and direct honesty. “What will your father think of you bringing home an elf?”

Solomae hadn’t even considered that. Any unexpected prejudice her father might or might not bear for elves seemed a laughably insignificant thing compared to having to break the news of Elodie’s reported death and the utter lack of knowledge about what had become of Shaelindra and Deana.

“I don’t know,” she responded. “My father is not a prejudicial man. At least, I do not remember him that way.”

“Well, good. I doubt my father will be concerned, either. He will be glad to see me alive and well and will be happy I have any friends at all. As will yours. And if not?” She ended with a shrug, and a deceptively nonchalant utterance of one of her favorite curses, “May the Dread Wolf take them both.”

Solomae allowed herself a small smile, and reached out to find Nelmirea’s hand again. There was still so much unsaid between them, so much uncertainty, but in that moment, she felt it might be alright. It might be worth fighting the Blight to have a future together, two Grey Warden mages not beholden to the Chantry and not afraid of their own feelings. She just had to face Father, and then, perhaps, she could put it all behind her.

Chapter 20: Memory of the Drowned (Crestwood)

Chapter Text

The Wardens crossed over a bridge coming up the South Road and entered the outskirts of Crestwood. Even though 8 years had passed Solomae thought she remembered the landscape well; the rocky slopes to the north and the fens to the south, where the farming homesteads spread out beneath Caer Bronach. Further on to the north would be the village along the water in the shadow of the dam. That is where she had spent a few years of her childhood after they fled Kirkwall, and that is where father’s house would be.

It was the height of a northern Ferelden summer, early in the 7th month of Solis, and it was just as she remembered summers in her youth. Wet and warm, with the brutal rains of the storm coast drenching the land many a night, and the afternoons broiling in the high summersday sun.

She’d spent those long ago summer days tending to the garden with Father and Elodie, or going out fishing for trout. Elodie had become restless and would be often away, leaving Solomae to care for the twins alone. She would sometimes take them out into the village to play, but not as often as she would have liked. The Amells seldom fraternized with other children of the village, due to Father’s ever growing fear that they might be found out. They were a reclusive family, keeping to their house and their yard, which Father had built a tall stone fence around. Solomae was not sure where Elodie would go when she went off roaming, but she imagined her sister had secluded spots in the meadows and caves outside town. As she entered her teenaged years the eldest Amell daughter had resented being saddled with her younger sisters upon their mother’s death.

Father had often talked about moving further out into the countryside to purchase a homestead, to raise crops and herd druffalo even further away from the village and the danger that neighbors presented. He dreamed of an arrangement not so different than the Hawke’s had in Lothering, with their quiet secluded farm a good walk away from the village proper. But that had never happened, not so far as Solomae knew. They were still living in the village with just their walled garden and coup of chickens to tend to when it had all come to an end.

Now, the Wardens were careful to skirt Caer Bronach as they traveled up into the northern plains from the lake country to the south. There had been some idle talk of attacking the fort and wresting control from Rendon Howe’s men, coming from young Lord Cousland, whose father had once controlled these lands as part of the Teryner of Highever. But now that Highever was Howe’s, so was Caer Bronach, and being this close to a fortification controlled by his sworn enemy made Cousland itch to take what revenge he would.

But they were not here to wage Aedan’s war. There was little benefit in it as far as fighting the Blight and darkspawn was concerned, and as Wardens that was always their main concern. They had often been forced to defend themselves against bandits and bounty hunters and the like, but to attack an entire fort of Fereldan soldiers seemed foolhardy at best and contrary to the Wardens’ purpose at worst.

They made their camp in the rocky slopes to the north, but once the other wardens were settled for the evening, Nelmirea and Solomae struck out once more, just the two of them riding along with Bodahn and Sandal in the dwarves’ cart. It would be easier to slip into the village this way, without a whole band of armed warriors drawing attention.

There was something off. Something was not quite right, and Solomae had begun to feel it even before they made camp. She set aside the feeling, calling it nerves, calling it anxiety, calling it the slow creeping dread of a reckoning far overdue. But there was something in the air, and it was growing ever stronger as Bodhan’s cart trundled along the road leading towards the village.

They came to upper Crestwood, and the area was far more built up than Solomae remembered. The hills over the village had been dotted with homes and farms in years past, but now it seemed its own village proper. There were tents all over, and evidence of new construction, and Solomae wondered if this was due to refugees fleeing from the south and settling in Crestwood.

They stopped their cart, as Bodhan wanted to take advantage of the waning late afternoon to sell his wares to anyone willing. Solomae was impatient  to be on, wanting to get to her father’s house before the sun was too distant a memory behind the hills, and so she and Nelmirea continued onwards on foot.

The people milling about gave them suspicious, appraising looks. Solomae hoped they did not look too obviously like mages; they had left their staves with Bodhan and wore ragged traveling gear over their other clothes—Solomae’s leather armor and Nelmirea’s blue mages robes—in order to blend in. But they were strangers in a strange time and it was no wonder that they at least got looks. Solomae was certain that none would recognize her as a girl once stolen from their midst eight years ago.

Eventually, from their vantage point on the bluffs, they could see down to what should have been the village, if Solomae’s memory served well. There had even been a signpost on the road pointing to the Village of Crestwood, but when they followed its lead all they saw was the water. There was more of it than Solomae remembered; a lake spread itself out before them, higher and wilder than the river that she recalled winding away at the base of the dam.

Solomae stopped and Nelmirea paused at her side. “What is it?” Nelly asked.

Solomae didn’t answer at first, just climbed over the low stone fence on the side of the road to better climb up to the high ground and get a decent view of the lowlands.

“Solomae?” Nelly said her name, worry creeping into the elf’s voice.

“I don’t know,” said Solomae, as the wind picked up and whipped at her cloak, reddening her cheeks and pulling her hair loose from its pins. It was a damp northern air, carrying the sting of sea salt down from the coast. Rain would be coming soon.

Something was wrong here. She looked out across at the dam and saw that though it stood, as it ever had, the water level was far higher than she remembered. Nelmirea followed her off the road and mirrored her gaze, taking in the waters below, and slipped a hand into hers.

“Is this the right way to the village?” Nelmirea asked.

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, it has to be, but it can’t be. It should be there.” Solomae waved her hand out over the water. “I don’t remember this.”

“Perhaps we should go back to Bodhan,” said Nelmirea. “He’ll have been talking to those villagers and perhaps—”

“It should be there,” Solomae insisted. She felt as if she were going mad, as if her memories could not be trusted. Had it really been so long that she had forgotten which road to take? Was the village further north, just around the bend, out of sight? But…. “It’s there,” she said. “It used to be there.”

“Let’s go back and ask around. Perhaps they moved the village to higher ground,” said Nelmirea. “It has been eight years since you were last here. Things change.”

Solomae turned silently and followed her back down to the road. That feeling of dread gnawed at her insides again, that feeling of wrongness in the air that even the wind could not whip away. The sun was setting now, coloring the sky a brilliant red orange over the waters and over the dam. She had to shield her eyes from it.

They retraced their steps up the bluffs and found Bodahn and Sandal once more. The dwarves had attracted a modest amount of villagers to peruse their wares, but most people seemed to be in their houses or tents for the night already. Solomae looked more closely at their faces, trying to reach back into memory to recognize one of her old neighbors.

“Any news?” she asked Bodahn as the small crowd dispersed, some empty handed and some clutching a few purchases as they scurried off into the impending dark.

“Aye,” said Bodahn, “though none that’s cheerful. And no point in venturing on down to Crestwood proper, I’m afraid. Though if you’ve been down that way you’ve already seen it.”

“What happened here?”

“About two months ago now, the Darkspawn attacked here,” said Bodhan. “Loads of ‘em. People say they didn’t come up from the south but came up straight from underground, from the caves. Folks say there are caves all over these parts, and the blighted monsters came up and went rampaging across the whole area. They broke the dam open and flooded the village, completely wiping it out, taking half the villagers and most all of the refugees that had come here from Lothering and other parts down south.”

Solomae heard his words, but they seemed distant, unreal, and she almost asked him to repeat himself, to say it again so that she could understand it.

But it was Nelmiera who spoke. “Is this all there is left, then?” She glanced around at the new village, mostly tents and hastily constructed ramshackle shelters.

“Aye,” Bodahn confirmed. Then he shrugged. “Beyond that, I don’t know much, as folks weren’t too chatty and wanted to get inside before dark. Most of the darkspawn drowned in the flood alongside the villagers but it’s still not too safe to be out after sunset. Me and Sandal are going to pack up our cart and head back to camp.”

Solomae turned away from the cart and looked around, her breathing steady and measured, feeling curiously calm. She scanned the buildings and tents until her eyes landed on an old woman who was slowly pulling wash down from a line outside. Without a word to the others she strode over, steps carrying her past barred doors and shuttered windows and tattered tents with their flaps tied down tight.

The old woman straightened from her washbasket with some effort when she noticed the stranger making a beeline for her door. “Hello,” Solomae said, calling out before she could gather her clothes and retreat in doors.

“We don’t want to buy nothing,” the woman said, mistaking her for some pushy assistant of Bodahn’s.

Solomae ignored the assumption and said, “Do you know who is in charge here? Who can I speak to about the flood?”

“Why would you want to speak to anyone about the flood?” the old woman asked, eyes narrowing.

“I am looking for someone,” Solomae told her. “Someone who lived in the village. Is anyone keeping a record of who was lost? Of who survived, and where they went?”

“Ah,” the woman said, inching backwards towards her door. “You’d want to see the Mayor or Sister Vaughn about that. They’re making a list of all who went missing, carving the names into a stone marker up the way there.” She jerked her head to the north. “But best wait till morning, as it’s not safe for travelers. You best get back with your dwarf friends there and find shelter for the night.”

With that she ducked into her home and shut the door with finality.

Solomae recognized the name of Sister Vaughn. It dredged up old memories of the tiny chapel that had served as Crestwood’s Chantry. They had no Reverend Mother, just one young Sister sent from Denerim to preside over the needs of the village—she was there to perform weddings and funeral rites and lead the people in the Chant of Light at worship times. Solomae had always gone to join in the Chant, dutifully, and prayed to the Maker for protection for her family and forgiveness for their sin—for the magic that they concealed. She had felt guilty pretending normalcy to Sister Vaughn, but had never said a word to the Sister about her family’s magic.

It had been Elodie casting magical spells in the garden which had been noticed by their neighbors. Elodie healed the plants after the killing frost, keeping them alive too long despite Solomae’s warnings. She’d said they needed the vegetables to thrive just a little longer to get them through the winter months, stubbornly rejecting Solomae’s fears. That was Elodie, that was her way, always certain that she was right. Elodie never went to the chapel or recited the Chant of Light. She was like Nelmirea, always scornful of the Maker and Andraste. It was her blatant Apostasy that had given them all away, that had brought the Templars, and Solomae could not lie to them.

And yet, she had sometimes wondered if, despite her best efforts to obey her Father in defiance of the Maker, Sister Vaughn had seen the magic in her. Maybe it was not just Elodie casting spells to make the vegetables thrive and the fruit trees blossom. Maybe it was Solomae, kneeling at the statue of Andraste in the chapel, hands outstretched to the Maker, eyes full of light, heart full of lies.

Nelmirea came up beside Solomae and said, “Do you want to go back to camp and try again in the morning?”

“No,” said Solomae, deciding that she did not want to seek out Sister Vaughn—not now, not ever. “I want to find this stone marker.”

“Alright.” Nelly’s voice was quiet, cautious, but Solomae barely noticed. She stalked back over to Bodahn and said, “We’re taking a short detour on our way back to camp.” Ignoring his protestations about how it was already too late for safe travel, she hoisted herself up onto the edge of the cart and pulled hers and Nelmirea’s staves from where they had been concealed from villagers, wrapped up in spare tarping for tents.

She tossed Nelly’s staff over to her, and the elf caught it in one hand, but gave her grave grey eyes. “What if the marker tells you nothing?”

“Then we will find the Mayor or Sister Vaughn,” said Solomae. “The Mayor will know if my father moved away from the village, or left on a boat with the Hawkes, or something.”

Nelmirea nodded. Even as Solomae uttered the name “Hawke” she realized that her cousins may have been among the southern refugees caught in the floodwaters. Hadn’t Leandra said that they were heading north and that they hoped her father might come with them on their return to Kirkwall? They may very well have reached Crestwood and been staying in Father’s house as guests when the attack came.

But she stopped that wild train of thought and gripped her staff tightly. The curious calm came over her again. First she would visit the marker and read the names, to see if Father’s had been carved into it.

Despite his complaints, Bodahn steered the horses north, and soon they reached what must be the marker the old woman had described. It was in the middle of the ruins of some ancient fort, the walls of that place long since crumbled. But there was a boulder in the center with torches lit all around it, and stone cutter’s tools lay nearby. They were clearly working to shape the stone into a monument of some kind. The half formed shape of two human bodies embracing was emerging from the stone.

Solomae slid from the back of the cart and approached the memorial. There were bundles of flowers strewn at the base of the stone—clutches of bluebells, daisies, embrium, and Andraste’s grace, some wilted and some fresh.

Below it were carved the words:

 

On the 8th Day of Bloomingtide, 9:30 Dragon, we fought the Fifth Blight.

We remember the night the dam broke open, drowning the darkspawn in floodwater.

We remember the cries of those swept away, our families and good neighbors.

We remember refugees who took shelter with us, also lost in the dark.

We give their souls to the Maker. Beloved Andraste, guide them to His side

 

The list of names beneath it stretched out in a depressingly long chain. Each one had been carved carefully into the stone, and Solomae knelt down, running her fingers across the grooves of each letter. The light from the torches was dim and guttering as the wind threatened to extinguish their flame.

She was vaguely aware of Nelmirea walking up behind her and standing over her, one hand gently resting on her shoulder. She whispered the names under her breath as she searched. Willow Mayfield, Garold Sharp, Delia Donbury, Pleasance Therenbalm…. They seemed not to be in any particular sort of order, alphabetical or otherwise, and so she forced herself to concentrate on each line going down.

The rain came, with a rumble of thunder and a flash of light as electricity spread across the sky. The drops struck her, cold sharp needles driving against her cheeks and forehead. Nelmirea hovered above her, a quiet presence, a small distant figure lashed by the wind as it bent over her. It seemed as if she were not a girl, nor an elf, but a tree spreading its branches over her.

Solomae’s fingers were wet as they slid over the letters F R E D E R I K A M E L L. She held both hands to the rock and dug her fingernails into it as if she could scrape out the letters, fill in the grooves and smooth them over until the truth was erased.

She pressed her forehead against the rock and tried to whisper a prayer, an apology, anything at all. Her voice didn’t come. The words stuck in her throat. She was too late. Too late. Eight years and two months, too late.

Chapter 21: Prayers (Crestwood)

Chapter Text

The storm had begun naturally enough. First came the uptick of wind and the drop in air pressure as the night time cooled in the absence of the blazing late afternoon sun. The rain that started falling on them as Solomae studied the mourning stone began as a cold listless drizzle, but quickly thickened into fat drops that hammered the earth. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Nelmirea shielded her face from the rain with one hand, keeping the other on Solomae’s shoulder.

It was as if Solomae did not even feel the rain or notice the thunder and the jagged strikes of lightning that split the sky. She was running her hands along the stone like a blind person, feeling the names, but eventually she halted and slumped forward, pressing her face into the ground at the base of the stone. She began to rock back and forth as if she were worshiping the memorial, a feverish supplicant.

At first she made no sound, but then she started to moan like a wounded animal. It was a frightening, guttural sound from deep within that rose to a  keening wail.

Nelmirea did not know what to do. She felt foolish and useless, just hovering there solicitously, no real words of comfort to offer. She knew only too well the pain that Solomae was feeling, but it shocked her nonetheless to hear such a sound escape from someone normally so reserved. For years all Solomae had done was deflect any accusation that she missed her family or regretted the circumstances that had brought her to the tower, drawing inward at the barest suggestion of remorse. Only in the Fade had any hint of her inner torment been allowed to take shape, to show its face.

Her wail sharpened into a scream now, grief turning readily to anger. She knelt before the stone and screamed, as if the monument before her was responsible for all that had gone wrong.

It infected Nelmirea with a sense of panic that she fought to tamper down.

Surely the storm was too sudden, too ferocious, too coincidental to be real. The winds rose to the sound of Solomae’s voice, lightning screaming across the sky in tandem with her anger, the thunder shaking the ground like a warning that here was a mage finally coming undone.

Were they still in the Fade? Nelmirea let the doubt in. Was this all dreams and nonsense? Had she stumbled into another of Solomae’s nightmares?

Nelmirea bit the inside of her cheek. It steadied her to feel the trickle of warm blood mingling with saliva. It quieted the fear that rose to the surface, whispering that they were still trapped, would always be trapped in that endless labyrinth of dreams.

Bodahn jumped down from the cart and ran over, ducking his head against the sudden storm. “Someone’s coming,” he said, gesturing up the hill just past the ruins.

Nelmirea looked out and saw two people approaching them. One held a lantern aloft, its flame dancing frantically behind the hazy glass, and the other had a sword raised. She did not know where they had come from, but clearly Solomae’s wail had drawn them out. As they neared Nelmirea recognized the wimple of a Chantry sister and the burning sword emblazoned upon the armor of a templar.

The dread wolf take them! The last thing she needed was Chantry folk, right now.

“We must go,” Nelly said, taking hold of Solomae’s shoulders with both hands and pulling her up and out from the mud.  It took all her strength, for Solomae resisted as if she wanted to become one with the ground. When Nelly wrested her from her genuflection there was moss and mud clinging to her face and hands.

“Solomae, come on, we need to leave,” she said, kneeling down to hug Solomae from behind, to wrap her arms around her and talk soothingly in her ear, trying to make the storm stop.

Solomae shook her hands away and fell forward again, fists punching into the earth with a squelching sound. She looked for a moment like she was trying to burrow into the ground. Nelly didn’t know if Solomae could hear her, if she could register words anymore or if she was lost in a blind fury of grief and madness.

Several things happened at once, then.

The Templar finally came close enough to halt in his march towards them, and he drew himself up in that particular way Nelmirea recognized as preparation to cleanse an area of magic.

Nelmirea straightened herself up as tall as she could stand, gathering her strength and staggering against the torrential wind and rain, preparing to strike out at him with a bolt of magical energy before he could unleash the cleanse and render her helpless.

Solomae rose up from the mud like a reanimated corpse from its grave, still on her knees, and lifted her face to the rain. A massive finger of lighting shot up from the ground where the templar stood and burned through his body in an instant, illuminating his armor and turning his body to a charred and smoking ruin before cutting through the sky.

Then the rain stopped. The wind died instantly. All was eerily quiet. Solomae was silent, and so was the sky.

The Chantry Sister was untouched by the lightning strike, though she had been walking beside the templar. She cowered in fear, her hands in front of her face. In a moment she looked up past this paltry defense, eyes flicking between Solomae and Nelmirea.

Solomae got up slowly from the ground, struggling from her knees to her feet, squelching in the mud. She pushed a wet and muddied clump of hair away from her face, then took a few slightly staggering steps towards the frightened nun. “Do you remember me?” she asked, and her voice rasped as if recovering from a long sickness.

The woman cringed away from her. “Eh…El… Elodie?” she asked, stammering over the name as if dredging it up from memories long left unexamined.

“No.” Solomae’s response was flat and decisive, but she offered nothing else.

A flicker of doubt and confusion played over the frightened face, then, “Solomae?” the nun guessed, disbelief bordering on wonder reducing the last syllable to a whisper.

Solomae said nothing for a moment, just stood there like a lifeless statue. Nelmirea came up beside her and gently took hold of her wrist. It was cold. Nelly threaded her fingers through Solomae’s, squeezing her hand, and Solomae neither resisted nor squeezed back. She seemed as if she might topple over and not resist should the fallow ground swallow her up.

“Sister Vaughn, is it?” Nelly asked, trying to remember the name Solomae had mentioned earlier.

There was a glint of recognition in the woman’s eyes, all the confirmation needed that it was indeed her name. But she did not answer, just said, “Brother Griffon was a good man. A good lad, hardly more than a boy. He did nothing to deserve that.”

It took a moment for Nelmirea to realize who, and what, she was talking about: the smoldering remains inside the scorched templar armor which had so recently been a man. It was almost commendable, her bravery in the face of such destruction, defenseless as she was.

“Was it you?” Solomae asked, seeming not to even notice. “Did you send for them?”

“What?”

“The templars. Did you send for them, did you call the mage hunters to come take us away?”

“I… oh, sweet Maker, no. No, it wasn’t me, child,” said Sister Vaughn, still shrinking back, but calmer now, as if the danger had passed.

Solomae took a half step towards her. “Then who was it?”

Sister Vaughn shook her head. “I don’t know. Andraste help me I do not know. Does it matter? It was so long ago, and it could have been anyone. Your sister was so… incautious.”

Solomae faltered in her advance. “You knew? And yet you didn’t send for them?”

Sister Vaughn finally put her hands down and straightened, defenseless in the stillness of the night. It all seemed so strange, this eerie dead calm after the storm, even to Nelmirea who knew what magic could do.

“I should have. I know that I should have. But she was so… so good at what she did. I thought perhaps the Maker intended it to be this way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know. The healing. She helped so many people. I thought surely it couldn’t be wrong. I’m ashamed. I’ve been ashamed of myself for years, to have been so selfish, to keep a child from the Maker like that. I didn’t send for the Circle but I should have done. And now look at you… oh stars, girl, you were always so sweet and full of light. What has happened to you, Solomae? Are you a maleficar now? An apostate… with this… this heathen elf?”

Nelmirea snorted involuntarily. She had done nothing, and yet of course she was to blame. So typically human and Andrastan.

“Do not speak to her that way,” Solomae said, imperiously, as if giving Sister Vaughn an ultimatum from the Sunburst Throne itself.

“In what way should I speak to her? Does she believe in the Maker and Andraste, his prophet?” Sister Vaughn asked. “Or does she worship the animals of the forest and the pantheon of elven gods?”

Nelmirea had half a mind to shapeshift into a bear just to give the woman a fright, but instead she smiled overly wide and said, “ She can speak for herself, though she doesn’t see what this has to do with anything. Look around you, Sister Vaughn. You had better worry about yourself rather than what this little elven apostate believes.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Sister Vaughn asked, eying Nelly with fear, as if it had been her who had burned the templar where he stood.

“You said Elodie was a healer,” Solomae prompted, side-stepping the question and steering her back to the topic of her sister. “Why?”

Sister Vaughn shrugged helplessly. “Because she healed people.”

Solomae frowned. “I didn’t know anything about that. ”

Sister Vaughn uttered a nervous little laugh, and brought her hands together in front of her as if in prayer. “The folk around here swore to keep it a secret, to keep her safe—our Angel of Crestwood—but rumor traveled, as it always does.”

“Elodie, an angel? A healer and an angel?” Solomae laughed again. Then she became more reserved, as if swallowing her giddy shock down. Quietly, to Nelmirea, she explained, “She was hardly angelic. She used to slap me and call me a dullard whenever I did something she thought was wrong. She was so impatient with us and got so mad at me when I told Father that she was using magic too often. I thought someone would see her working in the garden, bringing the plants back from the frost and making the vegetables double in size. I never knew what she did when she was away from home. I didn’t think she would be so foolish as to do magic on the villagers.”

Sister Vaughn spoke up, interjecting with misplaced excitement, “Oh yes, she did. She was drawn to helping people, despite the risk. I looked the other way because… because it seemed like the Maker wanted me to. Was it my place to deprive my people of one they held so dear? Was it wrong for this child to use the Maker’s gift to help others? I thought, if they take her to the tower, who will help Crestwood? The Circle does not send healers here, to this little hamlet of no consequence. I thought, perhaps Andraste has guided her to us. She could mend broken limbs and cool fevers and save babies born too soon, and…” she stopped, and laughed again, a tired laugh as joyless as Solomae’s incredulity. “...And now most of them are dead anyway. It is cruel, I know. Has the Maker abandoned us? I cannot believe it, and yet… these past months have been hard. Very hard.”

“My father,” Solomae said. “Is it true?” She motioned to the monument.

Sister Vaughn nodded, clasping and unclasping her hands like a nervous little bird getting ready to take flight. “I’m sorry. People took care of him, you know. Those who Elodie had helped, who felt indebted to her memory, to her… goodness. They were good to him.” She nodded, quickly, her wimple fluttering with each bob of her head. “We were good to him.”

“Good to him,” Solomae echoed, but lost her voice before she could finish forming the words.

“Solomae, I know your father would not have wanted you to turn away from the Maker’s light, t-to give yourself over to hate and violence.”

“What do you know of it?” Solomae snapped, and Sister Vaughn flinched away.

She was not cowed for long, though. “He lived here peacefully for many years in acceptance of what had happened,” she said. “I counseled him in his grief and helped him understand that his daughters were where the Maker willed them to be. He even prayed to the Maker for forgiveness in leading you astray.” She pressed her palms together, earnest piety shining from her eyes. “We prayed together many a time, he and I. I repented of my selfishness and the wayward thinking that helped keep his secret for so long. We thanked the Maker that the templars came and took you all to safety before any harm was done.”

“Safety? Safety? My sister drowned herself and took a whole boat full of people with her down into the Waking Sea.” Solomae’s voice shook with quickly boiling anger, until it broke. It was a wonder she had any voice left. “She chose death over the Maker’s will.”

“Oh,” said Sister Vaughn, letting the syllable escape her as if it had been punched out of her. She covered her mouth, but could not hide the horror in her eyes.

“And harm... do you want to know about harm? I thought it was my fault for years because the templars interrogated me until I broke and told them the truth. But now I know that nothing I said mattered. They already knew. Half the village knew of Elodie’s magic, apparently. All those stories about the Angel of Crestwood would have been more than enough justification to take her away, to take all of us away. Why did they need my confirmation? They didn’t. They just wanted to torment the little mage child with stories of demonic possession and eternal damnation. Our fates were sealed long before they arrived at our door and foolish, silly, stupid little Solomae believed that if she had just been stronger she could have outwitted them,” she railed in bitter mockery at her younger self, with laughter that was harsh and brittle. She had begun to squeeze Nelmirea’s hand, tighter and tighter.

Then she took a deep, calming breath, and said, “Tell me, again, that it wasn’t you who summoned the mage hunters.”

“It was not me,” said Sister Vaughn. “But if you wish to exact revenge upon me then do what you will.” She threw her shoulders back resolutely. “Burn me to ash and I will join Andraste at the Maker’s side and sing with joy.”

It seemed to Nelmirea that the Sister wanted to be martyred, but she didn’t know if hers was a mad zeal to die as Andraste had, or just the desperate wish of a woman who had seen too much death; a wish for it to all be finally, mercifully, over.

“She’s not worth it.” She tugged gently but insistently at Solomae’s hand, fearing what might happen if they stayed talking to this Holy Sister of Andraste any longer. She knew that whatever Solomae did in rage or despair in this moment would haunt her later. “We should go,” she whispered. “We’re already too long away from camp.”

Bodahn had long since retreated back to the wagon, and perched expectantly in his seat, holding the reins.

Solomae hesitated for the briefest moment, then nodded and turned away from Sister Vaughn. Still holding onto Nelmirea’s hand, she walked toward the cart. They climbed up to sit on the edge, backs pressed up against the merchandise covered in its tarps. This left them facing Sister Vaughn, the half carved shrine to the dead, and the smoking heap of what had once been a man.

“We are not maleficarum. We are Wardens. We fight the Blight,” said Solomae, shouting it at Sister Vaughn as Bodahn chirruped at the horses and the wagon jerked into motion. “We save people from the Darkspawn. We help people. We’re good.”

Sister Vaughn said nothing, just stared at them ashen faced with her hands pressed together over her heart.

“Andraste never answered any of my prayers. She won’t answer yours,” Solomae called, a parting blow, her voice hollow. And then she fell silent.

Chapter 22: Maleficarum (Crestwood)

Chapter Text

They sat in silence for a good long while, just the sound of the wagon creaking and the wheels rumbling over the road as the horses jogged on. If Bodahn was worried about the strange magic and the slaying of a templar, he wisely kept it to himself.

It was a good earnest dark night now, and Sandal lit a lantern to hang from the front of the cart to illuminate their way. They might be easy prey for darkspawn or highway bandits, or patrolling soldiers coming down from Caer Bronach. Nelmirea knew that she could put up a fearsome fight, but she did not know about Solomae. The same girl who had nearly washed them away in a storm and killed a Templar in a single strike looked like a pale limpid ghost now. She let the wagon’s sway jerk her to and fro like a raggedy doll and her shoulders were slumped, her eyes darkened and distant.

Nelmirea just held her hand and said nothing.

Finally, Solomae spoke. “Are they right to fear us?” she asked, though she didn’t look at Nelly and uttered it almost as if she were talking to herself. Before Nelly could even think to form an answer Solomae went on, “I want them to. I want them to feel the fear and the helplessness and the unceasing dread. I want them to feel just a fraction of the terror I’ve felt every day of my life. Like a monster could tear out my heart from the inside at any moment.”

Nelly looked out into the darkness. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know that fear. She’d never feared her own heart, her own darkness. All she had ever wanted to do was make butterflies dance to entertain the younger children. The Chantry had tried to teach her self-loathing and fear at the Circle, but they had failed. They had taught her violence and anger, instead.

“I wish you could see,” she said at last, “that there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with us. There was nothing wrong with your sister. None of us deserved any of it.”

Solomae shook her head, or maybe the wagon wheel just hit a rock in the road and jostled her. “I think I’m going to drown,” she said. “Like my father, my mother, and my sister. I can feel it coming, somehow.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Maybe I want it to happen.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that,” Nelmirea hissed, tightening her grip on Solomae’s hand until her fingers whitened. “You’re all that I have, Solomae. You’re not allowed to give up.”

Solomae looked at her, startled into meeting her gaze. Her eyes, once so blue, were dark as the night. She looked like a wild thing with her hair come undone and her face caked in mud.

“I’m damned,” she said, with a tone of incredulity, as if she could not understand why Nelmirea did not see it. “I am unforgiven, and I always will be. Unless the dead can forgive, and I don’t believe it.”

“Shh,” said Nelmeria, smoothing back her hair from her forehead. “You just need to rest.”

Solomae turned her face away. “He was alive when left the Tower. I should have gone then.”

“Perhaps. But you didn’t. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“I can. What good is being a Grey Warden when we let whole towns succumb to the Blight? Where were we two months ago? Fleeing Ostagar, abandoning Lothering, saving Redcliffe? Mucking about in Orzammar accomplishing nothing? I don’t even know. It doesn’t even matter.”

“It’s not our fault. It’s not your fault. We’re the last tiny group of Grey Wardens left in all of Ferelden; we cannot be everywhere fighting every battle of the Blight. You know that.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do understand, Solomae. I do. Look at me. Look at me! I know despair and anger and bitterness. I’ve felt it my whole life. I’m trying to hold it together because we can’t both want to die. Not at the same time. We can’t both give up. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”

Solomae began to respond, but all that got out was a sad, “I—” before Bodahn interrupted.

“Riders ahead, coming this way. And they don’t look friendly,” he called over his shoulder.

Both Solomae and Nelmirea turned, craning their necks to see. A contingent of riders was approaching swiftly, taking up the whole of the road. An encounter was inevitable. They held torches aloft which glinted off armor, and carried banners with sigils marking them as soldiers from Caer Bronach.

“A nightly patrol,” she said. “We should be able to pass as innocent traveling merchants.”

Solomae’s response was to dig into her satchel and pull out a globular vial that glimmered blue in the faint moonlight. She knocked back the large draught of lyrium potion and, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, said grimly, “These are Howe and Loghain’s men.”

Some color returned to her face and her eyes went from black to blue again. Nelmirea was heartened to see that she was at least willing to fight. Nelly looked back, trying to count the number of riders galloping towards them. Two dozen, maybe more? Too large for a simple patrol, it was a ranging party that had left the castle on some urgent errand, more as like.

The riders advanced, signaling Bodahn to stop. He obediently pulled up on the reins and the wagon shuddered to a halt.

“Evening, good sir,” said Bodahn good naturedly, giving nothing away. “What can I do for you?”

“State your business,” the captain of the patrol said, gruffly. “It’s late to be out on the road. You are in violation of curfew.”

“Apologies, m’lord,” Bodahn replied with an affable nod. “We’ve no knowledge of any curfew, as we’re just passing through these parts on our way to Denerim. This is my boy, Sandal, and my hired hands there in the back. We’re traveling merchants.”

Several of the riders had canted along the side of the wagon, shining their torches over the wares in the back. They reached Solomae and Nelmirea seated on the back edge of the wagon and shined the light in their eyes.

“By order of General Admiron of Caer Bronach, these roads are to be kept clear past sundown. Too many bandits and darkspawn roaming the hills at night. You should be bedded down for the night at an Inn.”

“Aye,” agreed Bodahn. “But they were full up back at Crestwood, what with the resettlement and all, so we decided to forge on towards the next village rather than make camp hereabouts. We was warned about the beasties and didn’t want to wake up with our throats slit in the night.”

“Hmm,” the Captain said, half suspicious and half in acknowledgement. “We’ve gotten reports of fugitives making camp in the hills,” he added. “Enemies of King Loghain. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“By the stone, surely not,” said Bodahn. “Me and my boy, we’re just fresh from Orzammar and don’t know much about the surfacers, begging your pardon. Oh we pick up a bit of gossip here and there, you know how it is, but can’t say as I’ve seen any Wanted folk in my travels.”

The soldier waved a hand to one of his men, who handed him a scroll, and he unrolled it with a snap before Bodahn’s face. Nelmirea, peering up from the back of the wagon, was still able to recognize a poorly sketched drawing of someone who might be Alistair or might be some other generic male human warden. “Have you seen this man? The leader of the Grey Warden traitors who orchestrated the death of King Cailan at Ostagar. They call him The Bastard.”

“Hmmmm, no, don’t think so,” mused Bodahn, stroking his chin. “Mind you I’ve seen a lot of raggedy folk running up from the south telling tales of the battles there, but this one don’t look familiar. What do you think, Sandal?”

“Enchantment,” said Sandal dubiously, with a small shrug.

“What about these two,” said the Captain, turning towards Solomae and Nelmirea. “Your daughters, I suppose?” he added with evident sarcasm.

“Oh, those lasses are my hired hands. They help out with protecting the merchandise, since my son and I aren’t fighting men, oh no no. Gives us peace of mind to have them, especially when traveling through these dangerous parts.”

Nelmirea nodded curtly, and the Captain narrowed his eyes at her.

“What gutter did you drag this one out of?” he scoffed. “Who’d hire a knife ear for protection?”

“You watch your fucking mouth,” said Solomae.

The Captain looked startled, as if he hadn’t expected the human to be the one to rise to the bait. Nelmirea was a little startled, herself.

“You’re out past curfew,” the Captain said, turning back to Bodahn as if refusing to deign acknowledgment that Solomae had spoken. “I’m on an urgent mission and cannot spare the time to deal with you, but I will have a pair of my men escort you back to Caer Bronach. You and your son will be safer there.”

It was not lost on Nelmirea that he said nothing about Bodahn’s “hired hands” finding safety in the fort. She glanced at Solomae, and saw a look of deep concentration upon the other’s face.

The men wore the livery of Amaranthine, so there was no doubt they were Rendon Howe’s men. Besides that they were, by their own declaration, aligned with Loghain Mac Tir, out hunting the Wardens, no doubt riding towards the camp to ambush Alistair and the others. This was enough.

There was a moment where nothing happened, but they could all feel the gathering electric energy in the air. The horses neighed and shook their heads, some rising up in rebellion against their riders, who fought to maintain control. Nelly’s face itched and her hairline tingled. And then a sliver of bright bluish white light bisected the sky and branched out over the soldiers like an upside down tree. It struck several of the riders, and the sounds of screaming horses and shouting men rose up like a cacophony of alarm.

Nelmirea sighed heavily, but prepared herself for battle. She centered herself and summoned upon the meditative trance state that Morrigan had taught her. Soon, she rose from the cart as a cloud of poisonous stinging insects. This form put her into fugue state; her thoughts and feelings as an elf fell away and a focused rage overtook her fractured consciousness. The lights of the soldier’s torches drew her, and as a cloud of vicious murderous wasps she spread herself out over them, devouring.

But eventually Nelmirea could not hold the cloud of insects together anymore. She felt herself returning to the surface, solidifying back into elven form. When she came back she would be utterly drained, weak and open to attack. Normally at a time like this she would be depending on one of the other mages being there to bolster her immediately, restoring her health and mana so that she was not like a helpless baby on the battlefield. Failing that she could fumble with the lyrium vials on her belt and hope to take a restorative draught before being knocked down or pierced by arrows.

But she had the blood magic now, and before she had even fully formed back into herself, she was drawing upon the blood of the slain and wounded enemies around her. It filled her up with strength and vitality. There was no pause at all between the exhaustion of the shapeshifting’s end and a heady feeling that she could take on the world. There was blood aplenty to be siphoned, and she turned upon the surviving soldiers and drove them to shrieking madness as they boiled within their veins.

Solomae was there, fighting. She had jumped down off the cart and was swinging her staff around, stabbing at enemy soldiers with the sharp bladed end. She looked fierce, face streaked with mud and wet hair swinging wildly as she fought. She’d been learning from Leliana how to fight without magic, and she’d learned it well.

Nelmirea, blood drunk and mind still buzzing with the last remnants of insect form, tore into the men around her. Soon there were none left standing.

It was almost too easy. Frightening in its ease. She’d never been so free with her blood magic before, always so cautious around the other Wardens and especially Alistair. But she felt unleashed and untethered, now. The unfortunate soldiers had never stood a chance. The idea of raiding Caer Bronach didn’t seem quite so unreasonable, now. She could see herself razing through the entire garrison, feeding off their fear and their screams, absorbing the power of their blood in a frenzy fueled by dark magic.

A dying moan sounded from one of the men who lay on the ground, pinned beneath his horse. Nelmirea could sense the blood pumping weakly through his veins, falling out of his body and pooling rapidly on the ground. She didn’t need it, but it called to her nonetheless.

Solomae walked over to the dying man. Nelmirea followed behind her.

“Maleficarum…!” he gasped out as he looked up at them, mouth twisted in disgust even as his eyes were black with terror. It was the last word he spoke. Before he had fully breathed out his curse, Solomae lifted her staff up and drove it down straight through his face, pinning his head to the ground momentarily before she pulled the staff back up and out.

It made a sickening squelching, crunching noise. But Nelmirea realized that she felt numb to it, that it didn’t even seem gruesome to her anymore. She closed her eyes and focused on the blood cooling wastefully beneath the body, drawing its lingering power to her before all the life ran out and the magic dissipated. That was the thing about blood magic. It had to be running through the veins or freshly spilt or it didn’t carry any power, not like lyrium dust which could be mixed into a potion and bottled up for later. This was the fear, then, that it would never be enough. That after a while no amount of fresh blood could sate the maleficarum’s hunger.

She didn’t feel hungry, though. She felt sick, as if she had overeaten a Feast Day meal, one too rich for her palate.

She opened her eyes and met Solomae’s gaze. She had once feared judgment and disgust in those eyes should she ever unleash the power of the blood in front of her. But what she saw there now was nothing. Solomae looked tired and dirty, eyes drained once more.

Nelmirea stepped up to her and put her hands on either side of her face. She channeled the excess of power that thrummed through her into Solomae, whose eyes closed and lids fluttered as she absorbed the energy with a gasp. Nelmirea had never been much of a healer, that had always been Solomae’s talent. But this wasn’t healing, for Solomae had no wounds, not physical ones, anyway.

She pulled her face down and kissed her, tasting the salt of tears and the grit of the dirt upon her face. “It will be alright,” she whispered, smoothing Solomae’s hair away from her face. “You won’t always feel this pain.”

Truthfully, she did not know. The news of her mother’s death delivered too late was still fresh in her own heart. She did not know if time would ever make that go away, or if the memory of the drowned would ever cease to haunt Solomae. But it seemed the right words of comfort to offer, a promise of better days.

“When I fight I feel nothing,” Solomae whispered back, burying her face against Nelmirea’s neck. “It’s the first time I’ve wished the fighting would never end. That we would never run out of foes to kill.”

“There will be more,” Nelmirea assured her, though she did not think Solomae would find this such a good thing after her grief was cooled. “We need to get back to camp and gather the others. I fear all of Caer Bronach will be upon us before morning.”

Bodahn shook his head as they climbed back into the cart. “I knew casting my lot in with you Wardens would be a good idea,” he said, though his cheer seemed overly forced to Nelmirea’s ears. “You fight like an entire Legion of the Dead. Safest place to be is in your wake, isn’t that right, Sandal?”

His son agreed with a forthright, “Enchantment!” and they were off again.

It did not take much longer before they trundled into camp. It was quiet, and only Alistair was still awake, keeping watch and idling, tossing a stick for his mabari hound.

He took one look at Nelmirea and Solomae as they jumped down from the cart, and said, “Maker’s breath. What happened to just making an inconspicuous visit to the village?”

Nelmirea looked at Solomae, covered in mud and blood, and then down at herself, similarly splattered in the telltale signs of battle waged. “Things got complicated,” she summarized. “We need to pack up camp and head out. There will be soldiers here before sunrise, I expect.”

“Soldiers? What did you do?”

“Met some soldiers. Didn’t make friends.”

“You swore you would stay out of trouble if I let you go out alone.”

“Well I suppose we lied,” retorted Solomae, walking past him. “We’re mages, after all, not to be trusted.”

“It’s not funny, you know,” he said, exasperated, putting his hands on his hips in a pose he often struck when irritated with them. An odd stance and tone for a boy of 20 to take, but Nelly was sure he puffed himself up like that to overcompensate for the fact that despite being their leader he was seldom listened to at all. The fact was that he had not “let” them go out alone at all, but had been too tired to argue the point when Nelmirea told him they did not want company on their errand.

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “Neither of us are laughing.”

“Fine.” He threw up his hands. An easy defeat. “You can wake the others and explain why they’re not getting any rest tonight.”

Nelmirea was going to just go ahead and do that, not really caring to engage with his pissy attitude, but Solomae wheeled back around and pulled the tattered wanted poster from her satchel, waving it at him. It was singed from the lightning magic, and stained with blood and mud from where she had picked it up from the ground after their battle. “They were out looking for you, Warden-Commander,” she snapped, layering her words with ample sarcasm. “If we hadn’t encountered them on the road they’d have found this camp. You’re welcome.”

Alistair took the poster from her and frowned down at his likeness. “This doesn’t look anything like me,” he said, petulantly. “They’ve got my nose all wrong.” Then he crumpled it up and said more seriously, “I didn’t want to make this detour to begin with. I told you Crestwood was too near Caer Bronach. I hope your visit home was worth it.”

Nelmirea feared for a moment that Solomae would lash out at him with magic, the way she had felled Sister Vaughn's young templar, but Solomae only said, “It was,” and turned away.

Chapter 23: Vhenan (The North Road)

Chapter Text

They rode through the night and all the next day, leaving Crestwood and Caer Bronach behind. When at last they had traveled far enough and had not been pursued, as far as they could tell, they made camp again. Morrigan had flown far above as a raven, watching for raiding parties leaving Bronach, but none had been sent. The decimation on the road would surely be noticed by other patrols, but whether it was to be blamed on the Wardens or bandits or darkspawn was not to be known.

Everyone was bone tired and out of sorts by the time they finally stopped. There had been more sniping and arguing amongst the Wardens than usual, and Wynne’s chidings were met with hostility or contempt. Nelmirea steered well clear of her, feeling an uncanny fear that Wynne would be able to smell the use of blood magic on her like a perfume.

She didn’t know what would happen if the staunch Circle Mage suspected her of that practice. Would it be open warfare? And who would the others side with? She could imagine Alistair being easily swayed by the old woman, as he seemed to be one of the few who found her old mother hen routine and judgemental cluckings charming rather than off putting. He and Nelmirea had never been friends, certainly, and she often got the feeling he still blamed her for Isolde’s death at Redcliffe, somehow. Morrigan could be counted on to stay out of the fight, at least. Though their friendship had soured as of late, the hedge witch still had even less love for Wynne’s Circle apologia than Nelmirea did. The others were anyone’s guess.

For once, she was sure that Solomae would stand beside her no matter what. That was enough, she thought. Even if the Wardens and their rag tag group of followers decided to cast her out from their ranks, Solomae would go with her.

For the first time in days they were able to pitch their tents in a safe enough seeming location near a shallow running creek, and they all took turns in smallish groups going down to wash in the water. The Blight had not reached this far north yet, and the water still ran clear over the pebbled sandy creekbed. Everything was rocky here in the Coastlands: rocky and rainy and tinged with the smell of saltwater breezes wafting in from the Waking Sea. It filled her with a comforting sadness, memories of her early childhood in the Highever alienage never far away.

It was just her and Solomae in the creek, the sky turning pink above them. The creek only came up to their waists at its deepest part, and they waded out, striping their crusty clothing off and bending to dip their snarled hair into the stream. It felt colder than having Winter’s Grasp flung straight into your face, at first, but Nelly welcomed the invigorating sensation. She shivered as she squatted down in the middle of the creek, the water rising to her shoulders, and she leaned back to let her hair soak.

Solomae had a small bar of brightly colored purple soap, which smelled of elfroot blossoms, and she offered to lather Nelly’s hair. Bodahn had sold the soap to her at a greatly reduced price. As of late he had taken to offering the two mages special trinkets and other items he thought they would like. Nelly wasn’t sure if he had taken a liking to them on their excursion to Crestwood, impressed by their fighting, or was frightened of them and trying to appease them. She supposed it didn’t matter, either way, so long as they had become favorites of the dwarf who had an uncanny ability to stock the perfect items in his bottomless cart of wonders.

Solomae started to hum a little as she worked the soap into Nelly’s hair, coaxing tangles free and massaging her scalp. Nelmirea closed her eyes, shivering again, but for a different reason. It had been a long, long time since anyone had washed her hair for her. So long she’d forgotten what it felt like; the comfort and trust she’d felt when her mother had pulled her in from a day of playing outside to scrub her body clean in a tub next to the fire in their kitchen.

Nelly twisted around to face Solomae, taking the soap from her hand. “Your turn,” she said, pulling her down into the water. Solomae obediently dunked her head all the way under, her chin dipping between her knees as she made herself as small as possible, then she popped back up, raven black hair breaking the surface tension. Nelly saw a rare smile on her lips as she rubbed droplets from her eyelashes and squinched up her face in mock objection to the coldness of the water. There had been little smiling and no laughter from her since Crestwood, and seeing that brief forgetting on her face made Nelly want to rock forward and kiss her. So she did.

They stayed in the creek until the sky had gone from pink to violet to a deep blue black, and the little bar of scented soap had been spent, then gathered their things and returned to the camp. They huddled close over the warm glow of the fire, drying their hair in the crackling warmth. The smell of smoke and stew mingled with the elfroot blossom still on their skin.

Leliana was playing her lute, and everything felt peaceful. It would be another week or so of travel to reach Denerim, and Nelly thought about how she would finally see her father again. She would be able to introduce Solomae to him, she hoped. But there was something she must do, first. It had been weighing on her mind for a long time, but was especially present since Crestwood.

She waited until they had retreated to their tent, when they were curled up under their blanket, the safest she could ever feel in this world full of danger and heartache.

“I have to tell you something,” she said. It felt right, and necessary, though the fear that Solomae would still be suspicious, angry, fearful, and judgemental lingered there and made her heart pound.

She felt the rhythm of Solomae’s heartbeat against her, steady and calm. “What is it?”

“I know that you assume I learned blood magic from Jowan…. I didn’t.”

Solomae said nothing, but her pulse quickened. Perhaps a circle mage’s automatic response to the very idea of blood magic, or perhaps surprise that Nelly would dare whisper the forbidden truth here in camp surrounded by the others.

“He forswore it,” Nelly went on. “And I didn’t want to burden him, so I never even asked.”

“Then where did you learn it?” Solomae’s whisper tickled the still damp hair near Nelly’s ear.

“In Redcliffe. The demon that possessed Connor. Before I banished it to the Fade.”

“Banished?” echoed Solomae. “I thought you killed it.”

“I bargained for Connor’s freedom. And for knowledge. That was the price for sparing the demon and letting it return to the Fade.”

Solomae was silent, processing the information. Nelmirea let her be silent for a time, but eventually broke down and asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering why you’re telling me this.”

“Because I don’t want to have to lie to you,” Nelly said. “I let you assume what you did about Jowan because I knew you would disapprove of the truth even more. You were so upset at Redcliffe without even knowing what exactly had happened in the Fade. I didn’t think I could tell you. But… but to continue lying by omission seems worse.”

“I don’t know what to think. Bargaining with a demon? You say you saved the boy… but what if he’s still possessed? What if the demon waited for us to leave and went back to—”

“It’s gone,” Nelmirea said, firmly. “Connor was free of possession. I was not fooled. You have to trust me on that.”

Solomae turned over in the dark, no longer heartbeat to heartbeat with her. “You’re the master of the Fade, you proved that at the Tower,” she said, but the words seemed stiff. It was hard to judge emotion from a whisper, but Nelly understood the turning away.

“I swear to you, on my ancestors, that I know what I’m doing. I have it under control.”

“I believe you,” Solomae said. “That’s not what troubles me. I know you’re strong, Nelly. I know you’ve faced down so many demons and none of them of ever fazed you, not even a little, but—”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I had a dream at the Tower, too. You weren’t the only one. The demon Sloth made me a place to die just as beautiful as yours. More beautiful, even.”

“What did you dream?”

“A demon wore my Mother’s face. But it smelled of sickness and death. I can’t tell you more. Don’t ever ask me to tell you more.” Nelmirea wanted to sound calm, and firm, but her voice caught in her throat at the memory of that terrible ordeal.

Solomae’s voice was soft again. “You saw my dream, Nelly. You’ve seen the worst of me, the worst of my fears.”

“I know. But it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I was alone. You weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry. I should have been there. I should have been stronger. I should have saved you, not made you come to save me.”

“Why? Why should you have to save me?”

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

Solomae’s elven pronunciation was stiff, slow, and very human.

“Do you even know what that means?” Nelly asked.

“I know what it means,” Solomae said, low and serious. “You used to say that to me all the time. You called me Vhenan like it was my name. So easy and natural. But then you stopped, when we grew apart, and I’ve been waiting for you to say it again, but… I don’t know that I deserve it. I haven’t done anything to deserve it. You’ve been alone, and strong, and in control of everything, and I’m still afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid you’ll go where I can’t follow. I can’t best demons or learn blood magic.”

“You don’t have to. You hold your own just fine, Solomae. I think you proved that in Crestwood.”

“I lost control, in Crestwood. If you hadn’t been there, I probably would have killed Sister Vaughn. Not because I wanted to, but because she was there, and…”

“But I was there. And I’ll help you, if you want me to, as much as I can. To learn how to trust yourself, if nothing else. To trust your own magic, and not fear it, or think you need others to control you.” Nelly twisted around to face Solomae where she lay on her back staring up into the dark canvas tent. She wished for a moment that they could sleep beneath the stars, though the tent offered far more privacy. She lay one arm over Solomae and buried her face in the crook of the other girl’s neck. She still smelled of elfroot, and campfire, and river water. “I’m here,” she said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Solomae rested one cool hand over hers and gripped it. “Promise?”

“I promise, vhenan.”

Chapter 24: Butterflies (Denerim Alienage)

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The vhenadahl tree at the center of the Denerim alienage offered shade and shelter, and the perfect place to roost.

Nelmirea chose what she thought to be an inconspicuous disguise--a small brown bird, which if one did not look too close one might mistake for a starling. She had not mastered the form quite yet, so if one did look too close one might be frightened at the shifting, temporal nature of the bird. It was a dream of a starling. But through its eyes she could see and through its ears she could hear, and observe the alienage in a way that was currently forbidden.

They had come to Denerim on a different errand, searching out a Chantry Brother named Genitivi, still questing for a magical cure to Eamon’s poisoned coma. Nelmirea cared so little for the Arl of Redcliffe and the quest to revive him that she had not even gone with the others to seek Genitivi out. As soon as they had entered Denerim, she had sought out the alienage.

Korren Tabris, who one might think would be eager to return to his home after month’s away, was surprisingly reluctant to show her the way or make any introductions. True, he’d been expelled for murder, the killing of a human noble, escaping with his life only by Duncan’s intervention. Now being a Warden was not so much of a protection as it had seemed back then, and he said he did not want to bring any more trouble there than he had already. He just asked her to find out if his father and his cousins were doing alright. She thought him foolish, based on how sad he looked about it, but she agreed. And so Solomae was the only one who accompanied her, while the others sought out Brother Genitivi.

That ended when they found that the alienage was shut up and that no outsiders, elven or no, were allowed inside.

This was only a barrier to those who could not shapeshift or sneak their way in through the sewers or some other cunning means. A barred gate and a stern guard was nothing to Nelmirea. All she needed was a secluded spot in an alley and Solomae to keep watch, and soon she became the starling.

Her memories of the Highever alienage were distant and fuzzy, clouded by years and given that comforting glow of childhood. But still, she was shocked at the state of the Denerim alienage. It was marked by violence, death, and despair. She could tell, even from the eyes of a bird, that repeated disturbances had destroyed property and left blood stains in the streets. There was even a dead wardog left festering right in front of a building, as if the elves who lived there were too afraid of it to even clean it up. There were other animals wandering or lying about, stray dogs and cats, still alive but looking bone thin and filthy. She remembered playing with and pampering the street cats who lived in the Highever alienage, setting out bowls of milk for them and with her friends coddling them, so their fur always shone with the gleam that came from being petted by friendly hands.

There were no roving bands of carefree children here, not that she could see. No matronly Mama Ghil’ana watching over those whose parents were away at work. There was an almost familiar smell of sea salt air, though a different ocean than the Waking Sea was responsible for it. Denerim lay on the easternmost coast of Fereldan, on the Amaranthine Sea. It smelled different than home; a sour, dank smell, like old brine and rotting seaweed. There were no fields of lavender lying just outside these city walls.

She didn’t know if this was the normal state of the alienage, or if it, like so many other places, was suffering due to the Blight. Denerim itself seemed largely insulated from the Blight, behind its walls, the people going about their lives only gossiping about the rumors of hamlets to the west being overrun by Darkspawn. But the warnings of plague and the talk of recent riots painted a dire picture of the alienage that was not allayed by what she could see now from the tree.

Nelly would have to alight soon. She could not spend the whole day perched in the tree observing the people and listening to their furtive talk. So she flitted and jumped her way down the branches, then soared down towards the ground and landed on human feet. Anyone who was watching the tree would have seen the magical sight; a dream of a starling turning into the solid form of an elven woman. But no one was. Hardly anyone was outside in the street, and those who were had their heads down.

She went to the nearby merchant. Alarith, Tabris had said his name would be. His shop would be the best place to start, easier than seeking out the Surana or Tabris clans on her own, Tabris had told her, and it seemed like good advice.

A few people looked up at her curiously as she passed, and one beggar asked for coin, which she gave over. She didn’t have much on her, but she handed it out readily. Coin was easy enough to come by during the Blight, as there was always some to be found on dead bodies or in abandoned homes, and Bodahn gladly bought anything of value off her that she might find. It made her feel a little less like a carrion crow when she gave the coin away.

Nelly entered Alarith’s shop, and found the man inside. He looked up from his work and his expression was immediately quizzical. Not unfriendly, but definitely surprised. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” he said, voice world weary and gravelly. “Are you from Highever? Redcliffe?”

“Highever,” Nelly said.

“Hmm. I’m surprised you got in here, no outsiders have been allowed in since the purge.”

“I go where I please,” she said, and he lifted both eyebrows.

“Well, in that case, welcome to Denerim… but be careful. I don’t know what it’s like in Highever, but elves who test the nobles of Denerim bring down death and destruction on the heads of fellow elves.”

This was an attitude she was well acquainted with in the Circle, only then it was mages and templars instead of humans and elves. She remembered the lessons she had been taught in the Highever alienage just as well, though. Keep your head down, don’t look any human in the eye, be quiet, be timid, and if at all possible, don’t even be seen. She wanted to argue, to tell Alarith that no good came of hoping that people who despised your very existence would just leave you alone. It hadn’t worked for the mages of Kinloch Hold and it was not, apparently, working for the elves of Denerim.

But she didn’t argue, because what was the point? She hadn’t come here to try to convince other people to be fearless and bold.

“I’m very good at keeping out of the way,” she replied, instead. It was true enough, since she had learned to shapeshift, at least. “I was told that you were a good man to go to for directions in the alienage.”

“Oh? And who told you that?”

“A friend,” she said. “Korren Tabris. Do you remember the name?”

“Korren,” he uttered the name like a curse. “Yes, I know him. I thought he’d be dead by now.”

“He’s very much alive. He asked to come here and ask after his family, to see how they are faring.”

“Hm,” Alarith grunted again, and he was looking at her even more closely now. “Korren went off with a Grey Warden. Are you one as well?”

“What if I am?”

He shrugged. “We’ve heard things, even here in the alienage, even with the gates shut. King Loghain put a bounty on the head of any Grey Warden. Is it true what he claims about Ostagar? That Duncan and the bastard son of King Maric conspired to kill Cailin and steal his throne?”

Nelmirea smiled thinly, her palms feeling clammy and her heartbeat picking up. She’d come here alone not thinking to find any trouble, thinking that the elves of the alienage would welcome her as one of their own. Maybe she had been naive. Maybe her judgment had been clouded by her too sunny memories of Highever alienage, where everyone was like family and she had always been safe. Safe until they’d sent for the templars to take her away.

“If I was a Grey Warden, would you betray me to the humans for coin, whether what ‘King’ Loghain said is true or not?” she asked.

“I’ve got no love for human nobles,” Alarith said, “whether it be Loghain or Cailan or King Calenhad himself. But you should be cautious. There’s folks here who spit on the name of Korren Tabris, who blame him for the purge, who know he ran away with a Grey Warden and left the humans still itching for revenge. If you go around dropping his name you might find yourself in trouble real quick.”

“What was the purge?” Nelly asked. She’d been told outside the gates that the alienage was closed due to plague.

“It was sometime after Korren left, but people still bring up his name. Arl Howe led soldiers in to slaughter elves, saying there were riots and that the elves needed to be pacified. But there was no riot, not before the humans came in and stirred things up. People think it was delayed judgment because Korren escaped punishment for killing Vaughn Kendells.” He shook his head. “I don’t know that I believe that; in my experience humans don’t need an excuse if they want to kill some elves. But it made things hard. Korren’s cousin was living here with his new wife for a time, but I had to turn them out. Soris being here was bad for business. Since Korren isn’t here for people to be angry at, his cousin had to do.”

“Where did he go?”

“Back to live with his uncle, Cyrion. Soris and Shianni are still there, as far as I know. I suppose those are the ones Korren is asking after. It’s a shame what happened to his fiancee.”

“Korren doesn’t talk about that much.”

“It’s not a pleasant story to tell,” Alarith said. “If you’re from Highever, perhaps you knew Nesiara, and the others who came down for the wedding last spring.”

“I haven’t lived in the alienage for some years,” Nelmirea admitted.

“Alienages are small places,” Alarith countered. “You’re of an age, these girls would have been known to you as children, at least.”

She wasn’t sure if he was interrogating her to catch her in some sort of lie. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want to just announce that she was a mage from the Circle, even here, to another elf. Somehow, being a mage always trumped every other bond of kinship.

“Korren told me what happened to his fiancee. It was terrible. I’m glad he killed Vaughn Kendalls like a dog,” she said, staring unwaveringly into the man’s curious eyes. “And yes, I knew Nesiara, once. But it’s been a long time.”

“I suppose Korren was too afraid to come back here himself,” Alarith said, seemingly satisfied that this was all he would get out of her. “Probably for the best, but it surprises me he learned some caution. Showing his face around here might stir up hard feelings.” He rested his elbows on his shop counter. “I don’t believe I got your name, stranger.”

“Nelmirea,” she said. “Surana.”

“Surana,” he echoed. “That's a common enough name here in Denerim. Or was, at one point. Most of the Suranas are dead or gone from here, now.”

“Do you know Alrand Surana? Korren said that he worked in King Cailan’s stables.”

“Aye, he did,” said Alarith, and the past tense of it made Nelmirea’s stomach plummet.

She had put off the question, talking about Korren’s family and the general unrest in the alienage long enough, dancing around what she really wanted to know. Alarith caught her expression, and said, “He’s been out of work ever since the troubles started. He almost went south with the King, you know, tending to his horses at Ostagar like he did here in Denerim. But he stayed behind to care for his parents, who were getting on in age. And then Ostagar happened and the purge happened and the plague happened, and every elf who used to have a job outside the alienage is cut off from the world. No one comes or goes as they please, anymore. Save yourself, of course.”

She ignored the sarcasm in his last remark. “Where does Alrand live?”

“I can give you directions, but I’ll warn you, he’s not too keen on visitors. Both his parents died early on when the refugees brought back the plague.”

Nelly blanched. The casual way he announced that her grandparents were dead caught her off guard, and she didn’t know how to feel. Sad? Outraged? She had never known them, but they were her grandparents, all the same. Did Alarith even realize that? She hadn’t said as much, but she’d thought he could put two and two together. Alienages were indeed small places, and anyone who knew Alrand must know he’d left for Highever as a young man and come back home a childless widower. She wondered if her father had ever spoken to anyone here about her, or if having a daughter taken away by the Circle was that much of a shame that he let them think he’d never had a child, or that she had died. Perhaps Alarith thought her some distant cousin and nothing more. She would let him think what he thought, then.

“How bad is the plague?” she asked, and was surprised how normal her voice sounded.

“How bad is it?” he responded, with a dry, humorless edge to his words. His eyes were flinty as as he went on, “Do catastrophes come in different sizes? One day, your child comes home with a cough. The next day she’s fevered, seeing things, hearing voices. And the day after that, she’s dead, and your wife’s coughing. All that you can hope is when the last person in your house takes sick, he’ll open a window—so the smell will bring someone to take your bodies out for burial. Is that bad enough for you?”

She let his barrage of hopeless words and misplaced ire wash over her. She wondered if she should apologize for asking, should apologize for even being there. But it had been a long time since Nelmirea Surana had apologized to anyone. Instead, she fished a scrap of parchment out of her satchel and slapped it on the counter.

“Please, directions to Alrand’s house, if you would be so hospitable,” she said, stiffly, matching his gruffness with an edge of her own.

He grunted, but drew a quick map of the turns she must take to reach Alrand’s home. She left with it clutched in one fist, saying a curt “Good day,” to the shopkeeper.

She felt as if her hastened steps were each a lifetime. She had witnessed Solomae being only a few months shy of her own father’s death, and somehow a terrible fear that Alrand would catch the plague and die within minutes of her arrival took hold of her, however irrational it might be. She had taken too long conversing with Alarith, too long on Korren’s business instead of her own.

She was knocking at the door before her heart could stop pounding, and her knocks were not casual taps but panicked beats.

“What is it?” said the elven man who opened the door, his eyes wide, looking around and behind her at the street as if he expected to see the alienage on fire or mobs of humans attacking everyone in sight. When all he saw was a lone elven girl, and nothing else, he blinked in confusion.

Nelmirea realized that she did not remember what her father looked like. She only remembered him in bits and pieces: the sound of his voice, the feel of his embrace when he returned home from work at the stables and took her up in his arms, asking her what she had learned from Mama Ghil’ana that day and if she had been good. The man who stood before her now was older looking than she would have thought. Her parents had been young, too young to die of some mysterious lingering illness and too young to look so tired and gray.

“Iossa?” he said, taking a step back as if he’d seen a ghost.

“No, Papa,” she said, suddenly calm, and it came out gently chiding, as if he’d asked her a silly question. Then, “I got your letter.”

“Nelly,” he uttered her name, and then without further hesitation he reached out to pull her into the embrace she had not forgotten. “You’ve grown to look just like her. Just like her.” He held her out to look at her, then backed into the house, pulling her along. “Come in, come in, it’s not safe out there. Plague everywhere. Why did you come here? Never mind. You’re here. Come in, come in, sit down.”

She laughed a little at the sudden, manic display of concern and happiness that had come over him. He didn’t look so old, after all. She realized that she was laughing through tears, but she didn’t know when she’d begun to cry.

“I got your letter, so I came,” she said, repeating herself, smiling and wiping at her eyes, feeling foolish and not knowing what else to say. “I just got it, or I would have come sooner.”

He nodded, wiping a hand across his forehead, looking at her in near disbelief, as if marveling that she stood before him, flesh and bone, not some plague fever induced dream.

“They let you just leave the Tower to come visit, like that?” he asked.

Her smile faltered. She shook her head. “They never even gave me your letter. No. I only got it because I’m not part of the Circle anymore. I left there for good.”

“Can that happen?” he asked, incredulous, but then before she could answer he stood up straighter and looked around. “I’m sorry it’s such a mess here. Things have been… well things have been a little… I’m not the best housekeeper. My mother used to take care of all this and I haven’t been very good at it. I can muck out a stable but, cooking and dusting, well—” he laughed “—that’s a different story.”

She looked around, taking in the surroundings. The home was shabby, but it still had a respectable tidiness about it. She could see at a glance that her grandmother had been a woman who took pride in her home, even if she was poor. Embroidered curtains hung on the windows, though they look a little moth eaten, and a well trod upon woven rug covered the only somewhat dusty floor. There was a vase of dried flowers on the table, and the walls were lined with sturdy looking shelves stocked with dishes, tools, books, decorative trinkets, and all other matter of homely clutter. The hearth was burning, a little fire crackling and giving off enough warmth to fend off some of the chill that permeated the rest of the alienage. She caught a glimpse of a quilted bedcover through the doorway into the back room.

Her father’s self deprecation aside, it was a far more warm and welcoming place than she had been for a very long time. Probably since she had visited Highever before its fall, had sat in the drawing room and been shown around the library and gallery proudly by Elissa Cousland. Funny thought, that. Months had gone by and the first nice place she had been since a teryn’s castle was this humble little abode.

She felt a dull thud of sadness that she had been too late to meet her father’s parents. This prompted her to step forward and hug him again. If she closed her eyes and tried very hard she could almost pretend she was eight years old again.

“I left to the Circle to go fight the Blight,” she said, her words muffled into his shoulder. It wasn’t a lie, though it was somewhat an omission. She did not mention that she had been conscripted rather than face tranquility. “I joined the Grey Wardens.”

“The Wardens,” he said, a hitch to his voice. “Well, I’ve heard tales of them. Great warriors, respected mages…” Despite his words, she could tell that he was not pleased to hear this. The Wardens may be known far and wide as great warriors, but no one mistook their lives for an easy time. She drew away and he asked. “Were you at Ostagar then?”

She nodded. “I was there,” she said. “One of the few who survived.”

“Oh Nelly. Child,” he said, shuddering. “If your mother heard such a thing…”

Nelmirea wiped again at her eyes. “I suppose Mama thought I would be safe and happy at the Tower and never face any dangers.”

“Sit down,” he directed. “I’ll get you some food. You’re skin and bones. Do the Wardens ever feed you?”

She laughed at that. She couldn't help it. “Alistair does his best,” she said, “I suppose.”

“Alistair?”

“A Grey Warden. He cooks.”

Alrand nodded, but was now barely paying attention, as he hurriedly went to the cupboard. “I don’t have much,” he said, ruefully, pulling out bread and cheese. “Supplies have been tight ever since… well ever since I can remember. Things were easier in Highever. The Couslands were good lords to have. Here in Denerim…” He just shook his head.

“You don’t have to feed me, Papa. I get plenty to eat, really. Save these stores for yourself.”

He just kept shaking his head. “I don’t eat that much, and there’s food enough here for three people.”

“The shopkeeper told me that your parents—”

“Yes,” he cut her off, his voice shaky. “Within a day of each other. I suppose it’s fitting. They were friends since childhood, inseparable. Ma went first and Pa just couldn’t bring himself to hold on after that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They’re at peace now. With the ancestors, as your mother would say.”

“Dancing with Falon’din,” she said.

“Yes.” He smiled. “She would say that.”

He set the food down on the table and sat across from her. She reached out to take his hand. “Papa,” she said. “How long have you been alone here?”

“Oh,” he sighed, looking up thoughtfully. “Well, the refugees started arriving with the news of Ostagar. People fleeing the Blight. They brought the plague, and since they’d all been funneled into the alienage, it hit us hard. That was a month ago? Two?”

“Close to three, now,” she said.

“Aye.”

“Isn’t there anyone you can move in with? Cousins? Korren said there were lots of Suranas here.”

“Korren?”

“Korren Tabris.”

“Ah, yes. Cyrion’s boy. Good lad. Bold, though. Hasn’t had life humble him yet.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” she said, though she felt that was far over stating it. Tabris was too wary of mages to form anything resembling friendship, though they had on occasion exchanged weary glances across camp when one of the shems was being especially shemlike.

“You’ve found friendship among the Wardens,” Alrand said, smiling. “That’s good.”

“Well, it is just us against the world, or at least that’s how it feels. You can’t help but bond a little.” She shifted in her seat. “I met a girl. Well, I met her at the Tower, long before the Wardens came. But she left with me. She’s my closest friend. She’s more than that, she’s ma vhenan. I wanted you to meet her, but what with the alienage being closed off—”

“No, no, it’s good for people to stay away. You don’t want them getting the plague.”

“I’m not sure Wardens can get this sort of plague,” she observed. “I’m more worried about you, now. Denerim isn’t a safe place. This alienage… it’s not a good place.”

“I’ve heard bad things about all of Ferelden, these days,” said her father. “What little news we get now is all bad. Is it true that Blight has laid waste to the south and the wars between the Bannoran have razed the north?”

She nodded. “Still, there are places you could go.”

“Where? Back to Highever?” he laughed dismissively. “I hear the Couslands were all murdered—some accusations of treason against the crown, sounds about as trumped up as whatever excuses they come up with to raze the alienage here every few years. Rendon Howe has made himself lord there now, and he’s the one who led the purge here a few months ago, before the plague came and took even more souls. I’d not be surprised if he did the same to Highever alienage after taking control. I don't think it's the place you remember as a girl.”

“No. I wasn’t suggesting another alienage.”

“Then where?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe further north. There are ships taking people across the Waking Sea. I’ve heard people are going to the Free Marches, where it’s still safe enough. Kirkwall, Starkhaven, maybe.”

“And what would I do there? No family, no friends, no place to settle but some other crowded alienage?” He shook his head, smiling at her as if she were just a naive little girl of eight. “There may be fewer and fewer of us by the day here, but this is still where my friends and family are. My cousins.”

“I can’t stay here with you, Papa. I have to go with the Wardens.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to stay here, Nelly.” He reached out a worn hand, roughened by years of hard work, and caressed the side of her face. “Look at you. The very picture of your mother at that age. She’d be proud of you, I know. Afraid to hear about the battles you’ll be getting into. But she always knew you were destined for something greater. It’s why she sent you off to the Tower.” He dropped his hand to the table and looked down. “I fought the idea. I didn’t want to let you go. I said we could run off, as a family, find the Dalish. Do anything to stay together. But she said no, that you were meant for something more, and you had to go away and learn to be a mage.”

“I have done that,” said Nelmirea, “but I’m not sure the Tower was what Mama thought it would be. It’s more like an alienage than you would think. Another corral to stable the unwanted.”

“Nelly—”

“It's not your fault. You would have run to the Dalish…”

“Please don’t blame your mother. Whatever happened there. She thought it was a good place.”

“I’m not sure there are any good places,” said Nelmirea, thoughtfully. “Perhaps the best we can hope for in this world is to find good people in the bad places.”

“And did you find good people?”

She nodded. “Yes. I did. I have. I’ll be alright, and it’s no use to dwell on the past, anyway. Not when the future is still uncertain.” She leaned forward. “But truly, Papa, if there’s plague here… go. Go somewhere safer, if you can find it.”

He smiled. “It was already here, in this house. It took your grandparents, but it didn’t take me. I’m just lucky I guess. Too much like an old mule to die.”

She sighed, but did not press him further. Her time with him was limited, she could already feel it ticking away. No sense in spending it arguing. So she didn’t.

She stayed there for the rest of the day, just talking, letting him share his meager food stores with her because he couldn’t abide having her stay in his house without feeding her. He made up a quick batch of hearth cakes with small dried berries, and poured her a cup of weak ale from a jug hidden behind a loose panel in the wall. His father’s special stash, he said, conspiratorially, as if his dead mother might still walk into the room at any moment, and disapprove of it. Meanwhile, he insisted she tell him everything about the Wardens, and her life in the Circle Tower before that.

Nelly told him as much as she could, but found herself censoring herself to leave out the worst parts. She just didn’t want to spend her time reliving the bad parts of her life, and she didn’t want to paint him a picture of torment and fear. She didn’t want to put that guilt on him. So she dwelled on heavily edited stories about her childhood that focused on the friendship she had forged with Solomae and Jowan, remembering the good times when they were a little trio of sorts. And then when it came to why she left, well, she just kept editing out the parts that would sadden him, or that would make Solomae look bad. She wanted him to think well of Solomae, so their departure from the Circle sounded a lot more voluntary than it had been, when she retold it.

She didn’t just talk about Solomae, as much as she wanted him to know how important she was to her. She told him what could pass for funny stories about the other Wardens… about Leliana and her colorful stories of Orlais, about Morrigan the haughty apostate from the wilds, who had taught her to shapeshift so that she could go anywhere she willed. She told him about the dwarves from Orzammar and their fear and fascination of the sky, about how two Couslands were still alive, and how she now fought beside a lordling whose castle Alrand had once worked in, and they both marveled at how strange life was in those little ways. She made Alistair sound like a more competent leader than he actually was, in her estimation, just because she wanted her father to think the Wardens were on the right track, were going to save everyone from the Blight, and didn’t want him to worry that they were all being led to their deaths by a hapless fool. She told him about Korren and the new friend he’d made just before they came to Denerim, the Antivan elf named Zevran. And of course, she told him about Lythra Mahariel, who had seemingly walked out of one of Mother's stories about the Dalish into reality. But she left out a lot. She left out the horrors of the abominations that had overrun the tower, and she left out much of the distrust and infighting that went on among the Wardens.

Maybe he could read between the lines, but it didn’t matter. Time was ticking, and she found that she wanted less to unload her burdens on her father than she wanted him to not worry for her, to be glad she had joined the Wardens. Things had been bad, but things would get better, and she would make them better. Somehow.

In return she listened to her father tell her how life had been since she’d seen him last. She wondered if he edited his stories the same way, trying to make things sound better than they had been so that she would not be sad for him. There was no editing the fact that Mama had died, and then his parents had died, and he was all alone, as much as he talked about friends and cousins he could not leave here.

Her mother had always been weak, he told her. Ever since she was a girl, she’d been a pale, thin thing and given to episodes. The matchmaker who had set them up had claimed that she was strong and healthy, would make an excellent wife, would give birth to many strong children. That hadn’t turned out to be entirely true, but Alrand hadn’t cared. He hadn’t felt conned or wronged by the matchmaker, because he said he’d still have chosen Iossa over any other girl he found at the Highever alienage. But she had not been strong, and years of work as a washer woman had not helped. His only regret, he said, was that he couldn’t give her a life where she did not need to work. She should have been a noble lady, who busied herself with artistic hobbies to pass the time, instead of scrubbing out smallclothes day after day. She had such beautiful artistic hands, he said, despite the way they became roughened by lye soap over the years. She had such beautiful handwriting, surely Nelly had noticed that when she read the letters.

“Your mother stayed up all night the day before the templars came, writing out those letters,” he said. “She wanted to be there with you for all your namedays.”

“She was,” said Nelly, fighting back tears over her cup of ale. “She was.”

After Nelmirea was sent to the Tower, her mother’s health had declined more sharply. Having more children was out of the question, as one pregnancy had been extremely hard on her and the midwives had marveled that both mother and child had survived that. Iossa was staunch in her belief that Nelly would have a better life at the Tower, that her daughter was meant to be more than a washer woman or a serving maid in the home of a human lord. And only at the Circle of Magi could she be anything else.

“But she missed you,” Alrand said. “She missed you terribly. I think she tried to stay strong, for me. But the fight had gone out of her, and the next time she had one of her episodes, she just never recovered.”

“I didn’t want to leave.”

“I know. But she’d happy to see what you’ve become. You have to focus on that. You were her everything, you know. And she was my everything, so.” He smiled, sadly. Nelly felt her heart break for him. Was he no one’s everything? Mama had wasted away pining for a daughter she had sent away herself. Why oh why hadn’t they run away to the Dalish? What could their lives had been if they’d done that instead?

And now, she had to leave. It was near twilight and Solomae would be waiting for her. Given the choice between staying in her father’s home in the alienage for a night, and going back to Solomae, she chose Solomae

Maybe her mother had been right, as senseless as it had always seemed to Nelmirea. Maybe she was meant to leave home, maybe she had to become a mage, to find Solomae at the Tower, and maybe she had to take that path to become a Warden and help fight against the Blight. Perhaps the hard path was better than whatever life they might have had, if she could still make something good out of it in the end. It still seemed a terrible price to pay. Why couldn’t she have had everything, Mama and Papa and Solomae too? Why couldn't she learn magic without the horrors of persecution and separation, and why couldn’t she fight against the Blight without first having lost everything? Sometimes it felt as if Fen’Harel himself had written the story of her life, delighting in her pain. What tricks did he yet have in store for her?

“When this is all over I’ll come back,” she told her father. “When the Blight is done and the plague is over, and the alienage is opened again, I’ll bring Solomae with me, and you can meet her. She’s a shem, but you’ll like her. She tries. She really does.”

He smiled, and touched her face again. “I believe you, daughter,” he said. “Come back when you’ve saved the world, and bring your girl, and I promise we’ll have a good hearty meal together. I’ll be better prepared next time. Tell Korren to come home, too, and we’ll all get together. Cyrion and Shianni and Soris and Volora, and all the cousins.”

“I’d like that,” she said, lingering in the doorway as the sun dipped behind the alienage walls. “We’ll get the whole alienage involved. And I’ll be sure to bring something.”

It was considered polite in elven circles to bring a dish when visiting someone’s home, not as a slight to the host’s ability to provide, but as an offering of gratitude.

“We’ll have a proper feast,” he said.

They both pretended that they believed each other. That they did not fear this was the last time they would see each other, and that times of peace and plenty were just around the corner.

With those brave lies, they hugged once more, and then Nelmirea turned away, and where once his daughter had stood, Alrand Surana saw a flock of butterflies lift away into the evening sky.

Notes:

If you enjoyed this and want to see more of these characters please subscribe to the series We Few Against the Wind for updates. Current WiP: Deep In the Heart of the Forest, which follows Lythra through the Nature of the Beast questline and features Solomae and Nelmirea as prominent side characters.

Series this work belongs to: