#diredwolves

[siribear]

9a

9b

Amell's heels click across the marble dance floor, where not hours before Florianne overplayed her hand. The bright, golden lights of the ballroom guide her back to the platform where she introduced herself to Empress Celene. Where Florianne now walks astride her brother and Briala to join Celene at her side.

Florianne, she's pleased to note, looks surprised and dismayed to see her. Something even Gaspard picks up on, stepping aside as Amell approaches the Grand Duchess, maskless before the court. All the better for them to see the flecks of blood on her cheek.

Amell throws the woman's own words back at her. It doesn't even take the mountain of evidence they have against her to bring her to her knees. Just the testimony of Gaspard's Fereldan mercenary and one of Briala's people to confirm the Grand Duchess was indeed the one in the royal quarter.

"Take her, Inquisitor. If she conspires with Corypheus against our empire, she is no sister of mine."

With a wave of her hand, two of Cullen's soldiers appear from the wings to take the Grand Duchess away. Leliana, too, peels away to follow Florianne to Skyhold.

"We'll get what information we can from her before turning her back over to you." Samson and Calpernia... the generals that stood with Corypheus at Haven. Maybe they can get something to corroborate Denam's statement. "Your Imperial Majesty."

Celene nods and gestures for Amell to meet her and the others outside. She squeezes Cullen's hand as she passes him on the way out to the balcony.

-

Amell looks out over the twilit garden, aware of the number of bodies no doubt still littering the grass, the blood still seeping into the dirt. The night air is cool against her skin, cutting through the thin fabric of her dress. She shivers, not from the breeze, but a memory.

Demons pouring from a rift she opened. How is it different from summoning them? The Anchor glows red in her palm, lingering longer than usual before subsiding to green.

Solas, in that red future, warned her of this assassination, and now they've prevented it. She hopes, in some way, it makes those sacrifices worth it.

"A copper for your thoughts?"

"Morrigan." Amell hangs her head before looking to her old friend. "It's nothing, really."

By her hum, she's unconvinced, but doesn't push further. "Celene has named me liaison to the Inquisition. Given our history, she thought you wouldn't mind. But I... thought I would ask."

Morrigan's courtly makeup almost hides her worry lines. It's eerily similar to the night she made her proposition that damned them all. Amell could have warned Elissa against the ritual, against old, forbidden magic.

But she didn't.

They were all so young and afraid to die.

Amell blinks. The ritual - it might just help her again. But Elissa... "You know I won't turn you away, Morri." It brings a small smile to Morrigan's face. She was always prettier when she didn't look like she was going to murder them all. "Just - let Elissa know, okay? I don't want to cause any more strife than necessary."

Morrigan bows and catches herself in it with a laugh. "If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't believe you were the Inquisitor. You've changed."

Amell looks back over the garden. "Hopefully for the better."

"We shall see, won't we?" In her periphery, Morrigan nods at someone else approaching. Heavier footsteps than the soft slippers either of them are wearing. "What strange things fate has in store for all of us. I will speak with Elissa - if she will listen."

Without looking, "I have questions of my own once we return to Skyhold, Morrigan. I'd... appreciate your help with something."

There's a hesitation before she answers, "We'll speak later, then. Enjoy your night, Inquisitor."

Once the soft click of Morrigan's heels recedes, Cullen comes to stand next to her with a comforting hand on the soft of her back. His hand is warm against her skin. "What was that about?"

"Just a conversation between old friends." He doesn't pry further, but his terrible poker face doesn't hide his curiosity. "She fought with us during the Blight, but when she left it was... tense. The rest isn't my story to tell."

He relaxes, resumes the small circles he's been rubbing against her back. "I understand. How are you, though? You disappeared after your speech with Celene."

Amell resists the urge to put her head in her hands. Her makeup wouldn't survive it, and they still have to depart the Palace on good terms. She grips the balcony railing instead. "I - " Tears sting her eyes. Crying won't save her makeup, either. "Cullen - "

He draws her to him, and she buries her face in his shoulder. "It's okay. It's over now," he tells her, amid other comforting whispers.

She almost loses it there, sniffling once. She only grips the back of his uniform tighter, wrinkles and Josie's wrath be damned. With a deep breath, she pulls herself away from the comforting warmth of him and the smell of cologne Josie no doubt picked out for her benefit. She preoccupies herself with one of the buttons on the front while she finds the words.

The Anchor glares at her when she turns her hand.

"We were surrounded by Florianne's archers," she begins after clearing her throat. "And Elissa and the rest are good, but all it would take is one lucky shot - "

There's the image again of Elissa with an arrow in her throat, eyes wide and accusatory.

"Take your time," he says.

She keeps her gaze steady on that button. "The Veil was weak in the gardens. Weak enough to open a rift, and I - I opened it. I brought demons into the Winter Palace to save us. Elissa still got hit by an arrow in the shoulder in the chaos."

His hands move from her hips to detach her hands from their death grip on his uniform. "That explains why Alistair wouldn't leave her side." One holds her Anchor-marked hand and the other tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I felt it when the Veil tore, even without - lyrium. I was worried for you."

His fingers are feather light as they trace her jaw. "I did it - "

A kiss to her temple quiets her and the anxiety welling in her chest. "You said. I won't lie, part of me is concerned." She tries to look away, but he gently brings her gaze back up to him. "But you were given the Anchor for a reason, and I trust you in your use of it. Just... please, be safe."

His stubble is rough against her palms as she brings her hands to cup the sides of his face. "You're too good." For me, she thinks just before she kisses him, cutting off the beginning of his disagreement. She deepens the kiss to pull herself flush against him, and he responds immediately with a groan that warms her to her toes.

He only has to take a step sideways to pin her between him and the railing. They part to catch their breath, and Amell watches his eyes rove down the body of her dress once more. "Annwn," he sighs, and holds himself steady with his arms bracketed around her and one leg between hers.

"I know." She kisses him again, and it's with an effort they keep it chaste. "Sorry, I've been watching Elissa and Alistair paw at each other all night."

Cullen chuckles and untangles himself from her. "I don't, uh - I don't mind." He ducks his head. "Obviously. That isn't why I came out here though."

"Oh?"

"I mean - I did want to see if you were all right, but I also - "

Music drifts through the open balcony door. A slow waltz, played beautifully by the band. She looks inside to see others moving away from their clusters around the dance floor to find partners. Amell catches Elissa's eye before Alistair pulls his wife into the dance.

Before her, Cullen bows low at the waist and holds out his hand. "I believe I owe you a dance, my lady."

"You don't have to. I was only mostly kidding," she says, though she still places her hand in his. The pads of his fingers tingle under the scarred skin of her unmarked palm.

He comes out of the bow to place his hand at her waist. He leads them in the dance, surprisingly well. "Did Josie teach you as well? Or do all templars know how to dance?"

"My older sister, actually." His eyes light up at the mention of her. "She insisted all of us know. Though we were all young, and it was... less graceful than this." He smiles, wistful, far and away.

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"Two, actually. One younger, one older. And a younger brother." He quickly shifts his hand to the small of her back when she stumbles. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I just - " She frowns. "I'm realizing I hardly know what your life was like before Kinloch Hold. What your family was like, you know?"

He hums low in consideration. "I don't write them as much as I probably should, but I'd be happy to tell you about them. For now..."

At the end of the song, he leans down and kisses her, and it's full of warmth and possibility and starlight.

-

Amell stops Elissa before she can enter the carriage she shares with Alistair. Elissa steps back from the door, but Amell keeps one hand on it to keep her from shutting her out.

Now, she can see the lines of exhaustion on Elissa's face, where she hadn't known to look before. From Josie's brief upset, Amell learned what Elissa did to the nobles. The things she said, the punches swung. Maybe she shouldn't have left her and Alistair to navigate it alone, but she did what she had to.

And she knows they can handle themselves. The Inquisition will survive a minor Orlesian noble's hurt pride.

"Did Morrigan go to see you?"

"She did."

Amell winces at the clipped answer. "Please don't be angry with me. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Elissa's grin breaks through the tired lines and the make up. "By the look on your face, you've got something planned." And then it's back, that worry. That dread. "Whatever you decide, you know I'll stand with you." It hurts, knowing Amell once said the same.

"Thank you." Amell drops her hand away from the door. "I know I told you this before, but you look stunning. Moreso than when the night began." With her hair loose over her shoulders, windswept by combat. Make up thinned over the course of the night to almost be natural. "I wish we had more time to actually enjoy this."

"You look beautiful yourself, Annie." Elissa inspects the sleeve of her dress. "We can drag these old things out once Corypheus is dead.  How about that?"

They'll let Josie plan the big party she no doubt wants to have. No obnoxious Orlesian nobles invited. "I'm looking forward to it."

With a quick hug Amell leaves Elissa to her waiting husband, and is surprised to see only Cullen waiting for her by their own carriage. "I thought Josie was riding with us?"

He helps her into the cabin. "She, ah, thought we might not want a third wheel. So she's riding with Vivienne and Varric."

She rolls her eyes. It gives them privacy to talk, at least, about all the things they were never allowed to know about each other in the Tower. He tells her of his sisters, Mia and Rosalie, his brother Branson and his nephew. How he wanted to become a templar to be part of an organization that helped people.

Together, they mourn his parents that never made it to South Reach.

-

By the time they make it back to Skyhold, she's helped him pen a letter to Mia, and they keep it personal - nothing like the letters she used to write Elissa from Soldier's Peak.

The returning Inquisition scatters across the fortress, glad to be home, and so it's easy for her and Cullen to break away to her room. Before Alistair arrived, she slept in one of the rooms above the garden, next to Elissa's but now - now she appreciates the quiet and privacy that comes with her tower.

Outside which Cullen stops nervously, despite them sharing a tent for the days they were on the road. "I - I should - "

"Stay." She draws him through the door with a kiss, and he follows. "Stay." He's smart enough to lock the door behind them.

Back is that intensity from the Winter Palace. They don't even make it up the stairs before she's got him out of his shirt. "Cullen," she breathes, and he looks down at her, amber eyes dark and almost swallowed by black. "I like this wall, but my bed is even better."

He picks her up to carry her the rest of the way, and she presses kiss after biting kiss to the junction of his neck. "Annwn," he grumbles in warning, in the same breath he brings her hips closer to his.

"You wear armor all the time," she says, smiling into the next kiss. "No one will see." No one but her.

They break apart long enough to shed the rest of their clothing, before Cullen deposits both of them onto the bed. She falls into the furs of her blankets and the feather down of her pillows. And Cullen hovers over her, propped up on all fours and just - stops.

His eyes soften in the candlelight. "I dreamt of this." His voice is rough and reverent, and he stares at her like she's a sacred relic atop a holy altar.

"Did you?" Let her be one, then. She flips them, straddling him. His hands reflexively go to her hips. She moves over him, and his neck arches back to expose the long line of his throat and the reddening trail she left behind.

"Yes," he gasps when she moves again. "After - Wicked Grace."

When she left the tavern in search of him and watched him wander Skyhold in only his smallclothes. How she wanted to stay with him in his tower and only tasted the alcohol on his tongue before she left. He dreamt of her -

His fingers dig into her hips hard enough to bruise. "Annwn," he hisses between gritted teeth. "Stop."

She does, without question.

"Cullen," she soothes, from the side of the bed. Their only point of contact is her hand in his, held in a crushing grip. "Breathe, sweetheart. You're safe." She slips her arm into the other sleeve of a robe she had beside her bed. "You're safe."

Cullen's next gasp is explosive, like waking from a nightmare, and perhaps he is. He releases her hand to cover his face. "I'm sorry." It breaks her heart to hear the tears there. "It was - " He takes a deep breath at her urging. "With the demon, it was always you - " Above him, smothering. She knows how desire demons can be. "I wasn't ready for it to feel so real, again."

Oh, Cullen. "Would you like me to go?"

That, at least, brings a watery chuckle out of him. He lowers his hand from his face to tuck his fingers under hers, the indent of them still red on her skin. "This is your room."

She bites her lip. "Well, I won't kick you out. But if you're uncomfortable..."

He sits up and kisses her, soft and sweet. Her breath hitches as he moves from her lips to her pulse point, to ease the sleeve of her robe down to move to her shoulder. He eyes the scar on her arm, just now fading, and the ones on the palm of her hand. "Redcliffe?"

"Yes," she whispers, not entirely a lie.

Cullen kisses those, too, each one, then each knuckle on her hand before placing her palm on his heart. "I want this." His heartbeat flutters under her hand. "I want you. I just... need you to be patient with me."

Patience is the least she can give him. "Of course."

This time, when he removes her robe and bears her back down to the bed, he doesn't stop.

-

Amell wakes only because Cullen does, and it's far too early. Morning hasn't even broken over the mountains, and the colorful patterns from the stained glass of her windows have only just started to creep across the floor.

She feels his breathing speed up, then even out into deep breaths that tickle the back of her neck. He sighs, presses close, but never quite relaxes. There's a nervous energy that keeps his legs tense even as they lie tangled with hers.

"Rest," she urges in a drowsy whisper. "Just a little bit longer."

The tickle of breath turns to a kiss behind her ear, and she feels as he finally falls back asleep.

-

They're finally awoken by the sound of the door opening and a giggle at the bottom of the stairs. The servants, not used to knocking. "Inquisitor?"

Cullen quickly pulls the covers over his head. Amell sits up and calls back to affirm she's awake.

"Would you like a bath drawn, Inquisitor?"

She lifts the covers just enough to see Cullen's face, beet red. "Yes, please." With another giggle, they're left alone in the morning light finally spilling radiant color over the bed and walls. "They're gone, for now."

"My shirt - " he grumbles into the pillow. "Bottom of the stairs."

Amell smiles. "Yes, it was." She leans down to kiss him, and he's slow to respond. "I took you for more of a morning person."

"I am," he insists, voice still laden with sleep. "But this is... I think this is the best I've slept since - I can't remember."

"You could stay here every night, you know. The servants, they - well, they're always surprised you aren't."

"I need to be available if the recruits need me." The covers fall back down over his head, hiding everything but his frown.

"I know." He's responsible. And Amell has gotten used to taking advantage of the fact that if no one's awake then no one needs her, then she can sleep in. "But they keep bringing me enough breakfast for two."

"That's why you always bring me food in the morning?" She hums her assent. "So, they were skipping me on purpose..."

She laughs and brushes the covers away again, this time to run her fingers through his hair. The curls smooth out around them, and he leans into it like the lion he wears on his helm. "I suspect Elissa has been setting us up for longer than we realize."

When the servants finally return, she almost has him sleeping once more. But at the sound of the door, up again go the blankets over his head.

She loves him, she thinks, as she dons her robe to help them set up the bath. She loves the man that stands before demons and does not falter, but still hides in embarrassment from servants that have long since been expecting him in her bed.

Cullen joins her in the magic-warmed water and settles over her, and she feels home in this moment. Safe. Like the world outside this room doesn't exist and there aren't responsibilities piling up like the water that puddles at the base of the tub.

Amell loves him, she knows, with every nerve that alights at his touch. Every breath he steals is his to take. And in the cooling water, him draped over her and neither of them any cleaner, she finds peace.

-

Kieran is... a strange boy. Raven haired like his mother, very well spoken and even mannered. Maybe this is what Morrigan was like when she was younger, with Flemeth for a mother. But the child she hadn't even thought was real stares at and through her, and behind eyes that remind her too much of Alistair, she feels the pull of the Old God's soul.

"You're a mage, too," he says. "But where's your staff?"

"I don't usually carry it around Skyhold. It scares some people," she explains.

Kieran nods, almost sagely. "Mother says people fear things they don't understand. But you aren't so scary." He looks to the cloud covered sky and around the blossoming garden. "The castle likes you. It says you remind it of someone."

"You... can speak to Skyhold?"

He shakes his head. "No. I just listen. Can't you hear it? You're an elf, too."

"Half." Kieran shrugs. "But - no, I don't hear anything. I was led here. Skyhold didn't... call me."

The child frowns, as if there's something she just isn't getting. "Who led you, then?"

"Kieran, are you bothering the Inquisitor?"

"No, mother! We were just talking. She's nice, like you said."

Amell raises an eyebrow at Morrigan. "Of course I told him about you," her friend says defensively, tumbling over the words. "All of you. I - the way I left, you all deserved that much. Kieran," this, softer, motherly, "return to your studies."

Kieran, however, still pouts like a regular child would. "Yes, mother."

"This place is old, he's right. Tarasyl'an Te'las, the place where the sky is kept."

"You've done your homework." She's seen the past here, walked it with Solas, and the owners that came before her. Never back to when it was first built. There were no spirits around to remember that, he said.

"Tis an interesting place. I had to know." Morrigan sighs. "I had my own reasons for wanting to join the Inquisition, just as you have your reasons for wanting me here. Tell me yours, and I will tell you mine."

Amell grins at the mirroring of their very first conversation, and Morrigan does the same. So she brings her to a storage room, abandoned to the spiders that have made their home there. And to the new mirror, devoid of dust or cobwebs, that definitely wasn't there before.

"I'm not surprised you were drawn here." Morrigan gestures to the mirror. "But you first."

Amell closes the door with an echoing click. "The ritual." The one that saved and broke them. "I want to know how you did it."

Morrigan's face goes blank. "Tis not something you need to know."

"Morri, it's not like that. This is just... a way for both of us to make amends, to her." By Morrigan's face, Amell doesn't need to explain to whom.

The ritual isn't possible, not without an arch demon soul. But there may be a way, less guaranteed, if they work backwards from Flemeth's spell. That, combined with the updates Avernus continues to send her from his experiments -

And in exchange, Morrigan introduces her to the eluvian.

-

These are the things she learns in the following days: Samson and Calpernia are Corypheus's generals, each in charge of the Red Templars and Venatori; Cullen knew Samson but Calpernia is an unknown; Leliana's scouts haven't returned from the Western Approach, whether by Corypheus's doing or otherwise.

And finally, that Elissa has made herself scarce, at least where Amell is concerned. Considering the woman has an almost magical sense in knowing whenever something happens between her and Cullen, Amell half expected to see her friend standing outside her door that very morning. And yet, nothing.

Maker, she's heard back from Loghain before Elissa.

So when she begins her rounds of checking in on each of the inner circle, she's surprised to run into Elissa outside Solas's rotunda. "Fancy meeting you here," she says. She seems chipper, but Alistair, too, is nowhere to be found.

"Uh, is it?" Amell has a set path she walks around Skyhold, known to pretty much everyone. Predictable enough that the others can tell something's amiss just if she visits them too soon or too late.

Of course, not seeing Elissa has thrown them all off for days.

"Sure is. Walk with me?" It's a question, but Elissa hooks their arms together.

Varric watches them both walk by, and tells her he'll let the others know she'll be late today.

-

Cullen has to admit, Alistair is skilled. The former templar training is there. He feels it each time their blades meet, the downshift and strike that follows. But there's a calculated lack of precision in the counter attacks that keeps Cullen on his feet.

The man has been fighting darkspawn for years, and it shows.

He also lets frustration fuel the power behind his jabs, and it's sloppy. Disorienting. He actually has to brace harder against each block, even if the following parry is easier.

Cullen catches the moment Alistair hesitates, the man's body responding to something he can't see. They lock blades again. "Take a hit," Alistair tells him, grinning, teeth bared.

"Is this how you win your fights?"

"What?" Alistair blinks. "No, just - just take a hit, trust me."

He'd trust the man in any other moment than this. "No. Earn it."

-

Outside, the crisp mountain air tries to bite at them. White puffs of air follow behind with every breath, but, strangely, the longer she stays in Skyhold the less she seems to feel the cold here.

"Have you been avoiding me?"

Her exit from the tower can only mean she met with one of two people, and Amell has noticed Elissa and Dorian have gotten along more than her friend has with some of the other inner circle. If Elissa wants to confide in him, too, then she can only be happy both of them have found a friend in the other.

But Elissa hasn't spoken to her since Morrigan arrived, and her and Alistair aren't currently joined at the proverbial hip - perhaps that's Amell's fault, too.

Elissa picks at her collar and brushes away invisible dust from her sleeve to confirm it.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." There's a smile that actually reaches her eyes. "It's something I have to work through with Alistair."

Steel clashes in the training yard below them. Rhythmically, again, again, again. But it's only one pair of swords instead of the usual clanging from the whole group of recruits. Amell looks down to see Cullen and Alistair locked in combat. Her brother strikes harder than necessary for simple training.

"Seems like you're not the only one that has to work through something."

Elissa joins her in watching, a dreamy look crossing her face. And Alistair keeps pushing harder.

"Oh, Annie, look at Cullen," Elissa coos.

Maker, she is, at the ease with which he fights back, his grin as he enjoys the melee. But if Alistair hurts him, she'll be very cross.

"Must be the templar training. Oh, and the discipline." Elissa looks to her with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows that Amell has somehow come to miss. "He should put that to good use."

Amell folds her arms and grins. "He already has."

Elissa's jaw goes slack for all of a heartbeat before she grabs Amell by the shoulders. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of this? We're sisters, you're supposed to tell me these things!"

It's like being in the Tower all over again. Really, Amell figured one of the servants' gossip would have gotten around to Elissa eventually. But at least she gets to experience this. "Oh. After which time was I supposed to tell you?"

"Annie!"

-

Laughter floats down to the training yard just as Alistair dances away from his strike. Though Cullen falls into a defensive stance, Alistair doesn't come any closer. Instead, he throws his arms to the ground and removes his shirt.

What in the world has he gotten himself into?

He chances a glance upward, to see Annwn and Elissa. The former laughs while the latter shakes her by the shoulders.

"Do you get it now?"

He looks up again to see them watching, and Annwn tilts her head with a smile. Then to Alistair, goading.

Cullen sets down his sword and shield to pull his shirt over his head. Once more, with his weapons back in hand, "Make it a shallow cut."

Alistair twirls his sword with a flourish. "Hey, I just got married. You think I want to die?"

-

Amell blinks in confusion. "Why are they shirtless now?"

Elissa laughs at looks down with a knowing smile. "It was probably Alistair's idea."

Cullen moves slower than he did before. "What if they get hurt?"

He doesn't bring his shield up in time, and Amell is running before she even sees the blow connect. She brushes roughly past Alistair who has the nerve to shrug at her with Cullen's blood dripping from the tip of his blade.

"What?"

"What?" Amell repeats, mocking, not even looking at him. She inspects Cullen's arm, who sits there dutifully and allows it. "Alistair, please don't maim my commander. It's bad for morale."

"Uh huh. Your commander. You're welcome, by the way."

She ignores him, finally finding the cut. Shallow, barely enough to break the skin. When she looks at him, Cullen is flush across his torso. His bruises from their night after Halamshiral are still healing, but dark in stark contrast to the red.

Amell frowns. "He put you up to this, didn't he?" Cullen nods, slowly. She sighs and runs a finger lightly along the cut, the skin mending as she traces it. "You're going to be a bad influence on him, Alistair."

Alistair snorts. "You can only hope. Anyway. The Warden Commander and I will be unavailable for the rest of the day, Annie."

She rolls her eyes. "Gross."

"Inquisitor," Cullen says softly, and it's then she realizes she's been absently running her thumb across the muscle of his arm. Thankfully, most of the crowd has dispersed.

He helps her to her feet. "Well, I didn't expect to see you like this so soon." They both knew they wouldn't be able to see each other as often, once their responsibilities increased after Halamshiral. But he's still her final visit at the end of the day, so she can be with him the longest. "Let's get you changed, Commander."

He follows her up to his office. Behind the closed (and locked - they're learning!) door, his hands go to her shirt but she bats them away.

"Alistair and Elissa have a monopoly on the rest of the day," she reminds him.

Fingers undoing the laces to his pants, she places a chaste kiss to his lips and trails her way down. Between each one a pause, a question. He threads his fingers through her hair and moans the very opposite of "no."

-

Solas asked for a favor, and Amell agreed. As she prepared, so too did Vivienne and Iron Bull. This is how they come to cross the Exalted Plains in search of Solas's friend and a snowy white wyvern.

With every rift they stop to close and every bandit they're forced to fight off, tension coils in Solas's form the longer it takes to find his spirit.

He stalks the roads like a predator waiting to strike.

"Morrigan knows a lot about Skyhold," she says in an attempt to distract him from the empty horizon.

"What she thinks she knows," he bites back, "is inconsequential. It is nothing I have not shown you already."

"I know, but her boy mentioned something about the fortress being... sentient. It spoke to him."

He pulls his shoulder back and at once he looks less like the creature whose jaw bone hangs from his neck. "Skyhold is old, and the magic in its walls ancient. With such a history, places can almost form what we would interpret as a personality."

"He said I remind it of someone."

"I have shown you its past occupants. Unique as you are, no doubt it has seen someone like you over hundreds of years."

"But what do you make of it?"

He sighs, anger and impatience turned to sadness and longing. "That Skyhold was once a place of great importance and regret."

He's saved from her following question by the squelch of blood soaked dirt under her boots. A trail of corpses leads them to a summoning circle and wisdom turned to pride. There's no way to save it, even with the cairns scattered into pebbles around them.

"No senseless death, Solas." She stops him with a hand on his arm. "There's been enough of it here."

He jerks away from her without a word, and the mages that corrupted his friend run free.

-

Bull cuts into the ribs of each fallen wyvern with gusto. Each one Vivienne declares unusable, he takes as a trophy and reminder that Amell might have promised to take him full grown dragon hunting. He promises to make them all necklaces of teeth.

"What is this for?" Amell asks as they wade through the ankle deep water of Ghilannain's Grove.

"A little late to be asking now, isn't it, my dear? We are already well under way."

Like with Solas, she had readily accepted Vivienne's request without asking too many questions. "I'm only mostly asking so I don't have to focus on how wet my socks are."

Vivienne laughs. "A fair point. It's for a member of the council of heralds. You met them at the Winter Palace."

Amell thinks she remembers them. The lucky ones not caught in Florianne's little game. "But it's for an alchemical potion, isn't it? What would they want it for?"

Vivienne's eyes brighten when she catches sight of a slender white tail. "That's their secret, my dear Inquisitor. I would not tell theirs, just as I would keep yours."

When Vivienne holds the bloody heart in her hands, she turns to Amell with the softest expression she's ever seen on her face. "I... don't know what I expected when I asked you to help me retrieve this. Not when your friend and I don't seem to get along."

Amell shrugs. "I can't control Elissa, as much as Josie wishes I could." She places a hand over Vivienne's. The wyvern heart is cold to the touch. "We may not see eye to eye on everything, but I respect you, Vivienne. I was happy to help."

"Please, come with me, then. It's only right you're with me to see this through."

The Ghislain Estate smells of medicine and death, sweet and sterile, as Vivienne stares down at the body of her dead lover.

Age regression potion, Vivienne's notes said when she asked for help applying the heart. He was already dying, and she looked into an unstable, experimental potion just to save him. Vivienne tells her of when they first met, love at first sight.

It's going to be all right, my love.

"I am so sorry, Vivienne," she whispers, as if it'll be enough. "If there's anything I can do..."

"Thank you, but I must do this on my own. You've been... a good friend, Amell."

There's always so much more to do.

-

"It's getting worse. I don't... know if I can stand it."

"You can. You will." Cassandra knows he has weathered worse. He will survive this.

Cullen slams his fist on a table. She doesn't flinch. "I lost where I was yesterday! I looked up and I - I barely recognized Skyhold."

"The Inquisitor knows?"

He unclenches his fist, hangs his head. "She - she saw me at my worst, at Kinloch Hold." Cassandra remembers his dossier. "She knows I'm no longer talking lyrium."

She nods, places a would-be comforting hand on his shoulder. "Speak to her, then, before you decide on anything rash."

Amell sends periodic updates just in case they're waylaid by Corypheus's army. Two weeks out from the Storm Coast and then back to Skyhold.

"She's your anchor, Cullen, she'll return to you soon."

His laugh is hollow, ragged in its amusement. "You've been reading too many of Varric's novels, Cassandra."

She kicks the offending book further under the table, out of his sight. There wasn't enough time for her to hide it before he found her in the armory's loft. "You didn't see anything, Commander."

"No, of course not."

-

They can't hold both positions.

Another wave of Venatori climbs the hill to the Chargers. Against the sheets of rain that blanket the area, Amell can't count just how many but it's too much for the others to handle.

And her own group has dwindled down to almost none.

No more senseless death.

"Fuck the dreadnought, Bull." He stands stock still, frozen in indecision. Caught between his people and his people. "The Chargers are going to die if we don't help them."

"You'd turn your back on the Qun, Hissrad? You'd become Tal-Vashoth!"

A crack of thunder, or a fallen tree. Somewhere, Krem yells, "Horns up!"

"My name - " He unsheathes his axe. " - Is Iron Bull."

-

The Chargers have no idea how close a thing it was, not with the mountain of Venatori corpses surrounding them. But Krem gets it, when he looks out at the ocean horizon and sees the retreating Qunari dreadnought.

"Thanks, Bull," is all he says, with two full tankards of ale in one hand.

The boss grins. "So, how many'd you kill? Bet I got you beat."

Krem laughs. "Fuck no."

-

"Sorry about your alliance, boss," Bull says after they're finally dry and walking through the gates of Skyhold. The Chargers march past them, straight to the tavern.

Amell shrugs. She eyes the stable to see that while Solas's horse is still missing, Vivienne has returned. "Wasn't worth the sacrifice."

A servant appears, carrying a box she and Elissa had requested while they were on the road. Gatt agreed to follow them back to Skyhold if only to take it back with him.

He eyes it cautiously. "What's this?"

"For your Arishok. An apology."

"You could always just give him the letter attached to it," Elissa says. "But if he finds out you got rid of his cookies, that's on your head."

Gatt inspects the plain paper, the twine that holds it together. "Cookies," he deadpans.

"It's... probably best you just go with it. Unless you're under orders to kill me."

Gatt shakes his head and leaves, the box under his arm. The cookies will be stale by the time they make it back, but the sentiment is there. Hopefully.

Dorian finds them there, in the middle of a discussion of how the Chargers are planning to celebrate their survival.

"A party, and no one thought to invite me? I'm offended, Inquisitor."

Amell laughs. "You tried to drink yourself into a stupor at the last one we attended. I thought I'd save you a headache."

Dorian takes a gracious bow. "But I did so enjoy myself, regardless. And on the topic of parenting..."

His father wants to meet him in Redcliffe, but he doesn't look happy about it. Even though she wants for a quick bath, they make preparations to leave before nightfall.

At least, until Cassandra interrupts their slow walk to the castle. "Inquisitor, you're back." She looks at the party, and the fact their horses remain saddled. "Are you leaving again?"

"Just a quick jaunt into town," Dorian explains. "Family business."

Cassandra's jaw sets. "Go see Cullen before you leave. He's - "

Amell doesn't hear the rest. She runs.

[siribear]

7a

7b

Amell has never actually seen her cousin, and Varric had always been entirely unhelpful in his descriptions. "If you two stood together long enough, you might look related." Amell crossed her arms with a huff, and he snapped his fingers and said, "There. That look must run in the family."

Now her cousin stands before them, black hair cut short, the hint of her Hawke family crest tattoo on an arm with more muscle than the average mage would normally have. Mercenary work and life on the run have shaped her. Even the awkward pat Amell receives on her shoulder is heavy, if formal.

"Cousin." A smirk. "Or is it Inquisitor now?"

Amell grimaces before she can stop herself. She really should get used to wearing the title, if only so she doesn't make a fool of herself in front of an important ally. But it won't start with her friends or family. "You've heard, huh? Varric told you?"

They haven't been in Skyhold long, but even still it seems like more people know about her being Inquisitor than she thought. People actually putting a face to the name instead of a featureless title. "Varric told me you dropped a mountain on Corypheus. We saw the remains of Haven." We? "I don't know how I can be of any help, except..." Her cousin's attention goes to Elissa. "I have two friends who very much would like to see you."

Hunted. Elissa and Amell put it together at the same time, and while Amell wonders how the three could have possibly found each other, Elissa  demands, "Take us. Now."

-

This, she learns, is Crestwood: cold rain over a land ravaged by the Blight but recovering; the walking dead shambling from a lake, surface glowing green from a rift opened beneath, to harry a nearby village; and bandits at Caer Bronach assaulting the rest. Almost mercifully, the fragments of Corypheus's army in the area aren't as big of a threat in comparison.

The roar of a dragon, uncorrupted, sounds in the air. A large silhouette dips low into a field before capturing another, smaller, shape, and flying off behind a mountain. Beside her, Bull vibrates with excitement.

"A dragon," he breathes. "Boss?" He looks to her hopefully.

"It isn't why we're here," Amell reminds him. To save him some grief, "But if it's bothering the village, we might have to drive it off, at some point."

Dorian says it's Bull’s answering cheer that attracts the demons that attack them. Solas suggests it's the Anchor that draws stragglers. Cole, deadpan, says, "They would have attacked anyway. They lie, waiting, watching, weeding out the weak."

Vivienne makes a noise of disgust. "You could have warned us they were coming, Cole." The boy's name drips with distaste. "Inquisitor?"

Amell brushes a rogue strand of hair out of her face. "If there was a real threat, Cole would have told us."

The boy-spirit in question lifts his hand to indicate a direction in the curious way he usually does: fingers straight, palm up. "They need help." An offering, a choice. Two points buzzing in the back of her mind. With one look from Elissa, they go.

More demons, stronger near the rift but no match for the entire party, are slain just outside the nearby village. The two Amell had sensed turn out to be two Wardens, Orlesian by their accents, hunting another from the order they claim has gone rogue.

Amell steps ahead to draw attention to herself and away from Elissa as she falls back. Though the cobalt blue of Warden colors lines the underside of her collar, it's the crest of the Inquisition that is emblazoned upon her breastplate. They don't sense or recognize Amell as a Warden, and she wonders how their senses have gotten so clouded. The hum brought on by Corypheus sings quieter in her head in the Magister’s absence, but even with the distraction she can still pick out her own.

"I hope Ser Alistair comes quietly," one of the other Wardens says, clearly uneasy with his orders.

"Do you have any idea where he is? The Inquisition might keep an eye out." If these two know where Alistair is, there might be others close behind.

"No, ma'am. We know he's in the area, though."

"I see. Who gave these orders?" No one in Ferelden would make that call. No one that she knows, anyway.

"Warden-Commander Clarel, leader of the Grey Wardens in Orlais." The ones that have gone quiet, themselves.

"Hunting a Ferelden Warden in Ferelden? We can handle our own." They look taken aback at that. "I assure you, Warden Alistair hasn't gone rogue. It’s your sect that hasn't been responding to our letters."

"We don't answer to you."

Amell steps aside for Elissa to join her. The Orlesian Wardens go for their weapons, recognizing her with sudden shouts of her name. "That's Warden-Commander Elissa. Clarel doesn't give the orders here, I do. You will stand down."

They only grip their weapons tighter. The apprehensive one looks back and forth between his comrade and Elissa, debating which to fall behind. "We've been ordered to take you in as well," the other says, leveling his sword in Elissa's direction. "Come with us."

"I don't think so."

-

It feels wrong to fight other Wardens. Outnumbered as they were, the two held their own before being subdued. One Warden down should a Blight come. While their numbers are greater than they were during the Fifth Blight, and the borders open for other nations, she, Elissa, and Alistair proved a small number can make a difference.

Broken Silverite armor covered in blood and mud. A waste.

"The song they hear isn't their own," Cole says. "They're scared."

Vivienne scoffs, brushing the frost from her hands. "Scared? They seem like fools, my dear. No offense."

"For once, I must agree with the First Enchanter."

"You wouldn’t understand. Corypheus has to have done something to cause all of this." The Calling. It's enough to send the Wardens in a panic. If all of them are hearing it at once and no one knows it isn't real...

"Someone's manipulating them, at least," Blackwall agrees. "The Wardens wouldn't be so rash otherwise."

Amell holds in a bitter laugh. The problem is, she isn't surprised at all by the Warden's actions. Anything it takes to stop a Blight.

-

Bull and Dorian break off to bring the surviving Warden back to Skyhold. Amell wants to wait for Elissa to finish her conversation with the elven woman they saved from the rift, but Hawke pulls her along.

"Those Wardens got close. Your friends deserve to know they're safe, right?"

Alistair can wait five minutes if it's for Elissa, she knows. Loghain on the other hand... "Right."

Varric and Solas follow her with Vivienne, Blackwall, and Cole trailing behind. Hawke leads them into an abandoned smuggler's cove. Skulls fade from the wood supporting the cave, painted long ago.

Amell holds up a hand, signaling for the others to wait. Should Alistair and Loghain sense a Warden coming, they might think they've been caught. She opens the door slowly to see an empty room and a single table with papers scattered on its surface.

There is the sheathing of a blade, a dull sigh, and, "Well, it's about time." Amell whirls on her heel to see Alistair and Loghain flanking the door, putting away their weapons. The former wears a wide smile, and the latter looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else.

In a breath, Alistair has her in a bruising hug. "Maker, am I glad to see you," he says into her shoulder. "We saw what became of Haven, but I knew you weren't dead and - "

"Ali. My ribs." The tears dotting the corners of her eyes aren't just from the joy of seeing him.

"Sorry, sorry." His hands on her shoulders, he looks her over. "You're smaller than I remember. Thinner, too. Do they not feed you in the Inquisition?" He pokes her. "Careful if a strong breeze catches you, you’ll just fly away."

"You're just bigger. And what's this?" She musses his hair, longer than it was during the Blight, and she knows it was never this curly. "Did a rat make a nest up there and leave?"

Alistair juts his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout as he smooths his hair back down. "Ellie likes it. Speaking of, where...?" He looks out over her shoulder and must see Elissa because his entire expression changes. Confusion, disbelief, relief. Then pure, unfiltered adoration.

Amell steps aside just in time for Alistair to launch himself at Elissa.

"We are never separating again," Alistair whines like a mabari left out of a good fight. "Look who you left me with."

Beside her, Loghain sighs again. "It seems I'm to be babysitting you three once more."

"We're older now, Loghain. We don't need watching over like we're children." It couldn't have been easy for him after he was recruited, having to put his confidence in three Wardens shy of their twentieth year.

"Yet your cousin and I had to save Alistair. And now that these two together..." He gestures at her friends, enthusiastic in their reunion and ignoring everyone else. "But it's you I don't know what to do with."

Amell frowns and looks to him. He has more grey in his hair than he did ten years ago, and whether age or stress has added more, only he will know. Though, he's softened around the edges, jaw not to tightly set even at their fellow Warden's borderline ridiculous display of affection. He still wears his own pride on his face. Perhaps a trace of nostalgia in his eyes.

"Me?"

"You advocated for my recruitment. I doubt the young Theirin would have laid his blade aside otherwise and, given how the late Arl Howe was my advisor, the young Cousland wouldn't have suggested it. Then after Amaranthine, you just left.

It was surprisingly irresponsible of you."

Amell opens her mouth to argue, then shuts it. It's exactly what she did. Brought him into the Order, then abandoned him. "I - it was for something I'm working on." It sounds pathetic and petulant even to her ears.

"Have you made any progress?"

"I have!" Once their communications were set back up after relocating, she finally heard from Avernus and Felix. Alexius's son agreed to be Avernus's test subject, and he insisted it was only through ethical experiments. "I'm closer than I was, anyway."

Loghain grunts and crosses his arms. "Good. It better have been worth leaving me with him."

Alistair and Elissa finally part for air. Foreheads pressed together, they're lost to the world until Loghain impatiently clears his throat.

"Good to see you alive, old man."

Amell can see him physically bite back the retort on his tongue. Their following conservation is brief, catching each other up on the details of how they've all come to be here and what everyone knows. Malcolm Hawke's blood was used to seal Corypheus away once, and her cousin's was used to reseal him when the wards began to fail.

It wasn't enough.

Amell keeps quiet when Hawke expresses disbelief that her father would use blood magic. Would brand himself a maleficar, even if it was used to seal away the Magister. Amell thinks she would have liked her uncle.

She looks over to see Varric comforting Cole, the boy with his head in his hands. "Their song is too loud. There's only the song and I can't - "

"I'm gonna get the kid out of here. The way's clear. We'll meet you all back at Skyhold."

Varric and the others, Hawke included, file out of the cove, but Amell stops Blackwall at the door. Better to rip this bandage off now. "Alistair, Loghain, this is Warden Blackwall."

"Blackwall?" A look passes between Elissa and Alistair, the same that she and Elissa shared after they first met him in the Hinterlands. "Then you knew Duncan."

"Duncan!" Blackwall says heartily. Almost convincingly. "He was a good man."

Alistair's eyes still go soft at the mention of him. "He was."

Loghain looks the man over. Blackwall stands with his back ramrod straight like a soldier standing at attention. "He isn't a Warden."

Alistair sighs dramatically. "Well, good to know Warden senses aren't dulled by age, right?"

"Of course I'm a Warden," Blackwall insists. "I was conscripted."

"So," Elissa says, drawing the word out. "You aren't Blackwall. Who are you then?"

There's a subtle shift in the air as Blackwall slowly changes his stance. "It's fine," Amell cuts in, startling him. "We knew." She gestures between her and Elissa. "But I thought it best to bring it up now with the others rather than later."

"He could be a murderer," Alistair argues, albeit weakly, with a glance at Loghain.

And she could be a blood mage. Amell rolls her eyes. "We could do worse than someone who believes the Wardens are honorable, who joined us because he wants to help people."

Alistair puts up his hands defensively. "She recruited an Antivan crow," he points to Elissa, then Loghain, "that he sent. Then you recruited him. I've learned to be a little lenient."

"How princely of you."

"Shut up."

Loghain grumbles. "As long as you all know. I'm in no position to tell you what to do."

"We appreciate your input anyway." To Blackwall, "Wardens have their own secrets, and we can keep yours. Whatever it is. Just don't make a fool of us." Any more than the other Wardens already have.

"Uh," Blackwall says, mouth agape. "Sure."

"Good. We can plan further at Skyhold. Leliana's scouts can find out more about Clarel and her magister." Amell waves Blackwall forward to walk ahead of them.

"By your lead, Inquisitor."

A muscle in her jaw twitches. "Don't you start, Alistair."

"Anything you say, Inquisitor."

Behind them, Loghain doesn't even try to disguise his sigh. Ahead, she swears she hears Blackwall laugh.

-

Skyhold is even busier when they return. More pilgrims come to behold the sight, and with the help of Fergus and Nathaniel's men, more buildings have been repaired to house them all. Loghain points out a horse bearing the colors of the Empress of Orlais.

A stable hand comes to take their horses, and they're swarmed almost immediately upon dismounting. First is Cassandra to approach them like a rolling storm.

"You," she growls, Varric in her sights. "You said you didn't know where Hawke was."

"Funny how things work out, isn't it, Seeker?"

"She could have been there. She could have saved the Divine!"

"Or she could have died."

"You don't know that - "

Hawke, thankfully, steps forward, and begins to steer the Seeker away. "Cassandra, I'm flattered. But since you know so much about me, it's only fair I get to know you..." It's the only time Amell has seen Cassandra be led away willingly.

Varric gives them and exaggerated shrug before heading toward the main hall of the castle. He gives Josephine a cheery wave as she exits the castle herself and makes a beeline toward them.

"Inquisitor, I'm glad to see you made it back safely. There are a few things I'd like to discuss with you," Josephine looks behind Amell with a small but growing smile. "Unless the Commander wishes to speak with you first."

Cullen looks at her like a spooked halla. "Uh, no, I just - I mean." He takes a breath. "If we could talk later...?"

Amell ignores Elissa and Alistair as they begin to whisper together almost immediately. "Of course, Cullen." She watches him turn with a nod and head back toward the battlements, almost at a run.

Josephine, still smiling, continues, "Well. My office then, whenever you're ready, Inquisitor."

Amell sighs heavily once Josephine is out of earshot. Too many places to be at once, too many things to deal with. Maybe she should talk to Dorian about harnessing that time magic just so she can handle it all. When she turns to face her fellow Wardens, it's to Elissa and Alistair wearing matching apologetic smiles and Loghain simply sizing up the fortress.

"Interesting Inquisition you've made for yourself, Annwn," says the former teyrn.

"Times are never dull," she replies, almost fondly, before bidding them farewell and making her way to Josephine's office.

-

An invitation to a ball at the Winter Palace. A great place to stop Corypheus's assassination plot against Empress Celene, for sure, but, "Josephine, I'm going to get eaten alive."

Josephine offers her a reassuring smile. It isn't. "You will do fine, Inquisitor."

"Josie, I grew up in a Circle in Ferelden. I've read about the Game, but I don't know how to play it. And I can’t even dance." Amell buries her face in her hands. "I'm just as likely to get assassinated. Or worse, ruin the Inquisition's reputation."

Josephine sets down her quill to join Amell on the other side of her desk. "First, I believe we must work on your priorities." She places a hand on Amell's shoulder. "Second, you will have the rest of us with you. There is still time before the ball, and Leliana, Vivienne, and myself can coach you on etiquette before we leave."

Amell takes a deep breath. "Okay." She isn't alone. "Okay. And what's the other news?"

It isn't much better. As Inquisitor, she has to decide what to do with their prisoners. Of course, instead of making it easy, she has to sit in judgment in their newly rebuilt main hall. "Why do we have to make a spectacle of it?"

"It is a spectacle for some. Others wish to see judgment passed on those that wronged them. Unfortunately, we must satisfy them both."

"And if we don't?"

This smile is wicked, and strangely most reassuring of all. "Then we satisfy ourselves and convince the others it is enough."

-

That afternoon Amell sits on the throne in the main hall, nobles and mages and her companions lining the walls as Alexius is dragged forward to kneel. She's glad someone at least thought to release him when the Inquisition fled Haven, though his cheeks are sunken, his eyes defeated. He doesn't meet her eyes as Josephine reads off his crimes to the room.

"Do what you must, Inquisitor," he says when it's his turn to defend himself.

"Felix is still alive, Alexius." She leans forward. "Doing well, from what I've heard."

Life returns to the man's eyes. He looks up to her, sunlight from the stained glass window behind her reflecting in the tears in his eyes. "Do you tell me this as a comfort before you kill me?"

Dorian's short huff of breath doesn't go unnoticed. "What do you think, Dorian? You saw that bleak future with me."

"Alexius is a brilliant man, when he isn't trying to help break the world."

Amell nods. "Stand, Alexius." His accompanying guard pulls him to his feet without a struggle. "Put that brilliance to work for the Inquisition."

Surprised gasps and murmurs fill the hall. Alexius stares at her in shock. "I could've... I almost..."

"I was there. I saw it." The world torn asunder for one man's love for his son. "Be someone your son would be proud of, Alexius, and I'll make sure he lives long enough to see it."

-

Days later, the same, only this prisoner she didn’t meet before he was captured by Fergus’s men and turned in to the Inquisition.

"... I was only following orders. What else was I supposed to do?"

Former Knight-Captain Denam kneels before her, an Inquisition soldier with a hand on his shoulder forcing him down. Charged with allowing the templars to be corrupted with red lyrium and the murder of his Knight-Vigilant, the man before her begs for forgiveness and leniency. All while being free of red lyrium himself.

"Commander Cullen was a Knight-Captain, like you." Cullen steps forward at his mention, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "And when he disagreed with Knight-Commander Meredith, he stood against her."

Denam's scowl turns to Cullen. "Not all of us can be so noble," he sneers.

"No. I suppose not."

"I say give him to his men. Let them decide what to do with him," Cullen suggests.

Amell almost considers adding Denam to the Inquisition's ranks under heavy watch, until, "I was to serve a higher purpose. The others were cowards too weak to accept it."

Amell stands. "Have Leliana get out of him what she can. Then turn him over to Ser Barris and the others. What they do with him after that is out of my hands."

He puts up a fight when he's led away, thrashing against his bindings and attempting to shove his guards. "They'll kill me. You can't do this!"

Denam elbows a guard and makes a lunge for the throne. Amell readies a barrier, a translucent layering over her skin should he get close enough to her or anyone in the crowd.

Drawing his sword, Cullen rushes forward to intercept and slams the pommel into Denam’s face. Blood spurts from a broken nose. The gathered audience moves in a wave toward the door.

A sucking feeling. Emptiness. A bead of cold in her chest. The spell, shattered. Amell falls to her knees and throws her arms forward to keep herself from collapsing entirely. Cullen spins in alarm, no doubt feeling the sudden absence of her mana.

"Don't kill him." She struggles to her feet, staggers down the steps from the throne. "Just get him out of here."

"My office," Cullen says, low, eying the others beginning to appear from the wings. "You can recover there. No one will bother you."

Amell nods, weakly. Already Josephine begins to calm the crowd, diverting their attention, and with a quick look of understanding between the two, Amell slips away.

-

Cullen's office holds a sizeable collection of books on history and military strategy. What walls don't hold bookshelves display swords of different styles or maps of different areas of Thedas. Amell pulls out a book at random and holds it just to keep her hands from shaking. A Study of the Fifth Blight, Vol. 2 stares up at her. She thumbs through it, glancing through an outside view of their journey.

Of course, the only one mentioned by name is Elissa, the rest of them grouped under The Wardens, at least until Alistair's name appears. Part of her wishes she could go back to the days when she wasn't even worth a footnote in history. She replaces the book and pokes a wooden carving of a mabari sitting on the edge of the shelf.

The knob of the door leading to Solas's rotunda rattles, then opens, and Cullen steps through with a heavy sigh and a bruise forming on his cheek. "Are you alright?" he asks, fully coming into the office. He hangs his coat up despite the fact that it's absolutely freezing.

"Yes, thank you. The worst part is always the fall." Nothing answers when she tries to pull at the Veil for a small healing spell. It feels like running into a solid wall. "Is Denam detained?"

Cullen walks around to the other side of his desk, cluttered with papers and books. From a bottom drawer, he pulls out a vial of lyrium and a small box. "He is. Leliana is aware of what he did, as well." Amell can't quite find the energy to feel sorry for the man. A wonder why. To her, he offers the potion.

Amell swirls the liquid before drinking it. A habit she picked up from Wynne. Helps with the taste, she said. "You just keep lyrium potions in your desk?" Magic stirs within her, little by little. Like a limb waking, except it's within her. "Thank you."

"A carryover from being in the Order, I suppose. You're... welcome to stay. As long as you need."

She considers him through the empty vial. Memories of a conversation held many years ago. "You wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Ah. Yes." He flips open the lid of the box he removed from his desk. Within, the tools one would need to allot a dose of lyrium. "When we are sworn into the templars, we're given our first dose. It's what grants us our abilities. A gift, but also..." He stares down at the offending box.

"A chain," she finishes for him. He wasn't expecting that, it seems. "Alistair told us, after we... " A steadying breath. "After we left the Tower with the mages. Cullen, he said you were lucky to be alive."

He considers it. "It's true. I don't know how long I went without it, but by the time you found me, I - it wasn't just the demons causing me to see things." He closes the lid and returns the box to the drawer. Hands gripping the edge of his desk, gaze straight ahead, he says, "I've stopped taking it."

Stopped - "Is that safe?" He could die. Be driven mad. "For you?"

His laugh is a brittle thing. "It's only been a few months. Cassandra has been watching over me. When I told her I wanted to quit, we started slow. But I... I haven't had any in a while, now."

She wants to reach out to him, and so she does. One hand on his, fingers curling under to break his hold on the desk. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she whispers.

He finally looks at her and pushes away from the desk. He doesn't let go of her hand. "It wasn't - it didn't seem important, with everything else going on." He squeezes her hand, whether intentionally or subconsciously she doesn't know. "But I wanted you to know, now. And if my ability to lead is compromised, I will be... relieved from duty."

"To, what, retire on a farm?"

This time she knows he squeezes her hand on purpose. "Would that it could be that easy."

"Okay." She nods, mostly for herself. "I trust you, and I trust Cassandra. But if there's anything else you need, you tell me."

For the first time since he got back, Cullen smiles. "Of course, Inquisitor."

"Don't do that. I'm not saying this as your Inquisitor. I say this as your friend. And - "

Oh. She could lose him. Cullen, who has come so far and seen so much, and yet he still looks at her like that? And who is she to deserve it? With what she is... can she? She swallows.

Then, she realizes with a sudden clarity: she wants to.

" - as someone who cares about... what happens to you."

"You...?"

Someone knocks on the door.

This time, instead of jumping apart, Amell slowly releases Cullen's hand and goes to open it. Leliana stands on the other side, poised to knock again. Josephine has calmed the nobles, but Elissa and the others want to see her. Between their search for Clarel and the plot at Halamshiral, there is much to discuss.

Leliana's face lights up when she begins to speak of their formal attire. And as her spymaster and old friend leads her away from Cullen's office, all Amell can think is this: he can't know.

If she has to hide the blood magic forever, she will, but he can't know.

-

You didn't have to send all of your people, you know. But Ellie looked happy to see Cousland and Howe banners flying together again.

We found Alistair and Loghain. I haven't seen them in so long, but it seems some things never change. It's good to see Ellie and Alistair together again; she smiles a lot more. It doesn't make him any less of a pain, but I've missed him. Even Loghain is already getting along with the rest here. It's so strange!

Please, stay in Amaranthine. It wouldn't do well for all of us to be affected by whatever Corypheus has done.

Stay safe. Give the others my best.

Your friend,

Annie

An unmarked letter at the corner of her desk catches her attention. She sets aside her letter to Nathaniel and picks up the other. Holding it up against her lantern, she can't make out anything damning in the writing. Varric did say it came straight from Leliana, and she wouldn't give her anything she thought was dangerous...

She tears it open.

Almost immediately, tears cloud her vision, blurring the blocky handwriting she hasn't seen in over a decade.

Imagine my surprise when the Inquisition came knocking on my door. I thought they had worse things to deal with than a runaway apostate.

When we ran into each other in that clearing, surrounded by darkspawn, I thought that was the last time I'd ever hear from you. I asked merchants and other refugees after the Blight, but no one heard about you, so I thought...

Here, the ink is smudged and smeared, like he tried to wipe away a blot of moisture.

Annie, I'm so glad you're alive.

I wish I could see you again, but I'm far outside of Ferelden now. And I have a family. A wife and a little girl. We named her Anne, after you, so even if no one else remembered you, I would.

I miss you. Keep in touch if you're not too busy being Inquisitor, now. Stay safe. I hope to see you again.

Your dearest friend,

L Jowan.

Amell wipes away the streaks of tears on her face and runs toward the rookery. She tries to thank Leliana, but the spy master doesn't know what she's talking about.

"You-you found my friend. From the Circle. Jowan?"

Confusion shifts to understanding. "I remember. The boy at Redcliffe." She grins. "Your Commander asked me to track him down."

-

"Come in," Cullen says when she knocks on the door. She steps in hesitantly, and he looks up from his desk when she shuts the door. "Oh, In - Amell, I wasn't expecting - " He squints as she moves further into the room, and nearly trips over his chair in his haste to round the desk. "You've been crying. Are you - is everything all right? What happened?"

It almost makes the tears begin again, but she takes a deep breath to steady herself. "Leliana said you asked her to look for Jowan."

He reaches out for her but stops short. "Did something happen to him?"

"No, no. He... He has a wife and a child that they named after me." Her heart feels so full, face hot against the cold of his office. "Why did you... do - that? Ask after him."

"I still remember what he did... " Her and Lily covered in blood. The walls, the floor, the templars, all awash in it. "But he's important to you. I thought - I... " Cullen eyes the main door. "Can we talk outside?" He gestures to one of the side doors, leading out onto the battlements.

Outside, they walk in a tense silence, the dull clack of boots against stone and the wind whistling through collapsed watchtowers the only noise around them. Amell rubs her forearms for warmth in lieu of casting a spell, and Cullen drapes his cloak over her once more.

Huddled into the fur, she laughs nervously. "Why did we come out here?"

Cullen stops. "I didn't want to be interrupted," he says. He takes her hands in his and runs his thumbs over her knuckles, the warmth seeping in even through her gloves. "I thought finding Jowan would make you happy."

"Cullen, it's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. But why?"

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Exhales a cloud of air. "I care for you, Annwn. Probably more than I should, since you're the Inquisitor, but I..."

She withdraws her hands. He looks stricken, ready to step away, until she asks, "Are you sure? You were tortured with images of me. Is that - I don't want to - "

Cullen sighs and brings up a hand to cup her cheek. "I know. I'm sure." His gaze drops to her lips as he leans in. She follows suit, like a flower to the sun.

Neither of them hear the door open. "Commander. I have that report from Sister Leliana."

Amell stares into the cold, uncaring sky and wonders if the Maker hates her, in particular. "Cullen," she says when she hears the office door slam shut, "if you need to - "

One hand tangled in her hair, the other on the small of her back, he kisses her with over ten years of pent up longing and months long yearning, and Maker help her she kisses him back.

He pulls away looking only slightly sheepish and not at all apologetic. "Sorry," he says, besides. "I should have asked, but - "

Knowing her luck, if he had waited any longer someone else would have come looking for her. "Cullen." She pulls him closer by the straps of his breastplate. "Kiss me again?"

He smiles, and does.

[siribear]

6a

6b

A broken landscape. A scene stitched together from memory. Spirits drawn in to play the parts: a trapped apprentice, a spirit of Valor, a demon of Sloth, a demon of Rage.

"This is the Fade, within the Fade. What is the significance of this place?"

The apprentice follows as Amell walks, almost glides, down the path to the others. Solas walks beside her, eyeing the other mage.

"Mouse is a demon of Pride." She waves her hand lazily in Mouse's direction. "Was one." Mouse's face shifts into a grin, his features becoming that of the demon's, and then he's gone.

"This was my Harrowing. Valor was here to help keep me on the path, Sloth couldn't be bothered to tempt me, and rage I defeated with Mouse."

"And Pride?" Solas asks. A small mouse skitters across the ground near her boots.

"I was very young to be Harrowed. I excelled in my classes." Pride hardly fit her. She didn't know she was ahead until she woke up the next morning and Jowan told her everything. "I suppose it thought I should Prideful."

She turns to him, and the landscape blurs like a painting in the rain. "Did everyone make it out safely?"

"A great many of us, though many were lost."

He moves his hand in a sweeping gesture, the ruined painting turned to a snowy landscape. Lights float in, out of focus, and there are the blurry outlines of tents haphazardly spread. Dark shapes move around them, featureless until she focuses hard enough.

Two formless shapes hover near a makeshift cot. When she walks over, she sees this: Elissa, swaddled in furs, eyes far and away; and Cullen, hands clasped together in prayer.

"Solas, am I dead?"

"Not as much, though it was close. The Hero of Ferelden said you kept the both of you from freezing in the storm, and in doing so you nearly burned yourself out."

Her hum echoes. Neither of the forms move as if they notice. "You can call her Elissa. She'd appreciate that over Hero."

His chuckle is a soft noise in his throat. He looks at a newly forming shape in the bed. "You should wake soon."

"I've been trying. But every time I try, it... " She looks down at the mark - the Anchor - and finds it present even here. Permanent.

"I have calmed it as much as I can. I assume Corypheus tried to take it from you?" Amell nods. "Even with the power of the orb, all he could do was disrupt the magic within the mark."

A ripping pain, like reaching her arm through a hole lined with blades, like being dragged through a dragon's fire. "How do you know about the orb?"

He closes his eyes, takes a breath, then opens them. "Elissa told us much." Amell can't help the smile at his use of her friend's name. "And there are spirits that were present for the siege of Haven."

"Do you know what it is?"

"We will speak more when you wake. They're waiting for you."

-

Amell comes to, absolutely drowning in blankets. She sits up slowly, every muscle in her body aching with the effort. She looks down to her hands in her lap, one covered in a fur-lined glove, and the other...

A force almost knocks her sideways, and it takes her brain a second to realize it's Elissa, squeezing. Tightly. She taps Elissa's arm to get her to let go, and her friend sits on the side of the bed. "How... " Her mouth won't form words. "... did we get here?"

"We barely did. I had you leaning against me as we went through the snow."

Amell remembers that much. Listening to the wolves getting closer, the wind chilling them to the bone, the howling of both.

"We barely made it to the mountain pass when Cullen and Cassandra showed up." Her friend gives her a pointed look. Amell tilts her head. "He wrapped you in his cloak and carried you to this tent so Solas could start healing you."

Elissa's smile widens into a suggestive grin. Amell finally looks down. Cullen's coat rests on her shoulders, the fur tickling under her jaw.

"It was like something straight out of Varric's terrible novels," Elissa says loud enough for Varric to hear. "The heroine is swept off her feet by the awkward, shy templar. His worries wiped away when she's in his arms."

Amell looks around. The advisors and Cassandra stand across the camp, their backs to her tent. "Stop that," she warns, hiding her blush with the fur brought over her cheeks until she realizes what she's just done.

"He wraps her tightly in his cloak," Elissa continues, voice growing more breathy as she pokes at her. "Her scent will stay with him." She punctuates with an exaggerated raise of her eyebrow.

She sighs, though she smiles. "I think you should let Varric do the writing."

"He'd turn it into a masterpiece."

"I've already started a draft, cousin." He waves from the neighboring tent.

Raised voices carry from across the camp. The advisors, arguing. From the exasperated looks on their faces, it's a familiar argument. "They've been at it for hours," she figures.

"They have. But at least they're able to. That's thanks to you, you know." Elissa places a plate of bread and cheese on the bedside. "If you're not going to sleep, eat."

Instead, Amell hugs her knees to her chest and rests her chin upon them. "Do you believe in the Maker?"

Elissa scoots back into the empty space Amell has left on the bed. "I do, but you know I'm hardly a devout believer."

She wants to laugh, imagining Elissa in a lay sister's robe. "I've always wanted to, you know? I wanted to believe there was someone divine that loved everyone, unconditionally. Even mages. I'm not so sure anymore."

"Hey." Elissa finds one of her hands and holds it tightly. "He does."

Amell rolls her eyes. "You sound like Leliana when we first met her in Lothering."

Elissa squeezes her hand harder, briefly. "Maybe I wasn't just talking about the Maker, you. Talk to me. What did Corypheus do?"

"He's a Magister, Elissa. One of the Magisters, the first... The reason for the darkspawn, the reason why everyone vilifies mages." She buries her face in her knees. "He said the Golden City was empty."

Corypheus has the power to tear open the sky. On accident. He almost did the same to her, just trying to remove the Anchor. Even now she doesn't feel entirely whole. "I don't know if I can survive that again."

"Then tell me what you want to do," Elissa says. "If you want to go right now, we will. We'll steal Cullen away, find Alistair, and go find a nice big cabin to live in."

She pulls Cullen's cloak tighter around her. "I don't think he'll agree to that. He's too noble."

"Well, I love you, but I'm not sharing Alistair. So, what's the plan?"

Her laugh is small. "I have to decide?"

"We're all here because of you. We're alive because of you."

"You should heed your friend's words, Herald." Mother Giselle approaches, hands clasped in front of her, wearing a knowing smile. "They are just as shaken as you, after what they have seen." Amell tries to cast her gaze back to her knees, but Mother Giselle's gentle hand brings it upward. "We saw you stand and fall. And now we see you return."

Amell turns away sharply, swings her legs over the side of the bed, and takes a few unsteady steps away. Elissa stands behind her, a steadying hand ready should she fall again.

"The more the enemy is beyond us, the more miraculous your actions appear. And the more our trials seem ordained." Mother Giselle walks ahead of her, serene. Unperturbed. Confident. "That is hard to accept, no? That we have come to believe that we are brought together to be more?"

"Belief can only carry us so far." It brought Corypheus to their doorstep, a beacon to which he was drawn, and then it abandoned them. Luck and quick thinking from the people around her saved them, not her.

In the dark of night, the camp only lit through scattered torch fire, Mother Giselle begins to sing a hymn to the survivors of the Inquisition. She begins the first verse alone, walking to the middle of camp, before turning to Amell.

Leliana adds her voice to the hymn, then the soldiers, scouts, and pilgrims come forward, drawn into it. Hearing Elissa, Amell turns, horrified, only to see her friend sporting a wide grin. Made wider when she gestures for Amell to turn again, and there is Cullen, eyes closed, joining the rest in song.

It picks up momentum, until Amell fully understands what Mother Giselle has done. At her feet, a hundred people kneel. When the hymn finally ends, a cheer rises up to take its place, casting away their doom and uncertainty.

Amell feels as if she's going to vomit.

Thankfully, the people rise, smiles and laughter all around, and it's in their distraction that Solas steals her away. He continues their conversation, as promised, explaining what he knows about the orb Corypheus used. He worries for the elves of Thedas should the world come to blame them for the Focus. Amell refuses to let it happen, and Solas wonders if it's because she's a half elf that the Anchor responds to her so well.

Amell returns from the conversation feeling something like hope, herself. The advisors, Elissa, and Cassandra stand around their make-shift war table, waiting for her word.

"We go North," she says, pointing further in the mountains. "Solas says there's something there we can use to house the Inquisition."

The advisors scatter to prepare, Cassandra tells the others to begin packing for the morning. Elissa stays and leans halfway over the map Amell is studying. With a wicked grin, "You're still wearing his cloak."

-

Skyhold. A fortress built on top of a mountain, towering walls precluded by a sheer drop into the valley below. One long, narrow and winding path to bring them to the gates.

A place to house the Inquisition, indeed.

Breathlessly, from awe and fatigue, the Inquisition enters the grounds, and already the place seems to come alive.

The first night is to rest, and even though there are plenty of old buildings to keep them safe from the cold, many choose to sleep outside in the comfort of camaraderie.

The following morning they set to work making it inhabitable once more. The Veil isn't exactly thin, but it feels... fluid, accepting of the magic Amell and the mages use to clear away large pieces of debris. Even the templars feel it, Cullen tells her, that strain on the Veil that would lead to it tearing, but it never gives.

Leliana reconnects with her spies, Cullen establishes supply lines, and Josephine calls out to the nobles. They have a new enemy now, a greater threat than the Breach. Corypheus leads his army against them, and the Inquisition is desperate for a leader of its own.

This is how Amell finds out her people have been talking behind her back, when a large crowd begins to form on the grounds and Cassandra leads her up the steps to stand above them.

"We need a leader," Cassandra says, presenting the ceremonial sword Elissa had found tucked away. "The one who has already been leading us."

Amell feels faint. Overwhelmed. Below her are hundreds of people for her to disappoint. The same ones that raised their voices in song now raise their fists, their swords, and swear fealty so loud the sky can hear. She raises her sword to her people - her people - and tries not to fall over from the new weight on her shoulders.

She sees Elissa in the crowd and wonders if this is how she felt during the Blight. Too many people looking up to you, and even more waiting for you to fail.

A mage at the head of the Inquisition. Their Inquisitor. Strange.

-

"How are things going here, Cullen?"

He has his soldiers moving crates into newly emptied storage sheds. Blueprints, found by Solas in a dusty closet in a lavish bedroom that has somehow become hers, are laid out on a table held up by three legs and a bucket on top of a piece of timber.

"Everything is coming along well, Inquisitor." He hands off a sheaf of notes to a nearby soldier.

Amell plasters on a smile. “Good to hear, Commander.” She won’t go through this again.

Cullen walks with her - it’s difficult to be away from people, with all the bustle on the grounds, but he finds a place where people are more engaged in their own duties to be listening to the two of them. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be more appropriate if I…”

“Cullen.”

“Right.” He clears his throat. “Was there, uh, anything else you needed?”

“We’ve been very busy since… Haven.” She frowns. “I just wanted to say thank you. Elissa told me you carried me back to camp.” He wears his cloak now, awkwardly returned only days ago. After so long wearing it, she sort of… got used to wearing it, she had explained. Forgotten all about it.

It’s his turn to frown as his expression goes dark. “Haven. You… gave yourself to that thing to buy us more time. It saved us, but I - we almost lost you. I should have done more. It shouldn’t have come to that.”

Her hand cups his cheek. “It was your plan that gave us that time. Be proud.”

He leans into her palm. “Amell, if you hadn’t made it back - ”

Someone drops a crate nearby, the sound of wood cracking and glass rattling startling them enough to make them jump apart. Sounds she hadn’t realized had fallen away come back in full focus.

The one who dropped the crate stares at them, eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sers, uh, Inquisitor. Commander. I’m so sorry.” They drop to their knees and begin quickly packing up the spilled supplies, the stream of apologies never stopping.

“I should - I should get back to work… Inquisitor.”

It sounds less formal, the way he would say her name. Not the way he had just said it, desperate and yearning - Maker, she sounds like Elissa. “Of course. I need to - to check with the others, anyway. Let me know if you need anything, Commander.”

She doesn’t ascend the stairs as much as she runs up them, hoping she can pass off the flush on her cheeks on the cold.

-

A short few days later, Amell and Elissa sit in the small room off the main hall that Josephine has made into her office, sorting through mail and enjoying the fire.

“You two are the talk of Skyhold.”

Amell puts another letter in a growing pile; lesser nobles offer to marry their youngest sons to the Inquisitor in a grab for power. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even the ones calling her a heretic and telling her she should submit to the power of Corypheus she isn’t allowed to burn in the fire, as much as she wants to.

“They say he leaned in before you were interrupted.” Elissa adds the letter she was reading to the marriage pile. “That poor soldier. Hopefully Cullen didn’t throw them off the mountain.”

“Are you saying you weren’t there watching?” Marriage pile. “I’m shocked.”

“That’s for me to know.” Corypheus pile.

“It was very sweet,” Josephine says and collects the piles once they’re done sorting. There’s only a handful of letters Amell needs to reply to personally, one of them being from Nathaniel. Elissa has one of her own from her brother. “It will keep everyone’s minds off Corypheus for a short time, at least.”

Amell pouts. “Glad I can help.”

A knock on the door interrupts their conversation, and Varric enters with another letter for Amell. “Nightingale said this one’s for you. And about that thing you asked me about before, cousin? I’ve got something to show the both of you.”

Amell looks to Josephine. “Distract Cassandra.”

-

Varric takes them to the battlements above the newly established tavern. The Herald’s Rest, they’re calling it, was the first building they fully opened for operation. Through a cobweb filled tower and along the wall, Varric eventually waves them forward to a single figure standing on an empty landing.

Mage staff. A spiked pauldron leading down to leather and chainmail armor. Amell spares a moment to be disappointed it isn’t Alistair, before the figure turns around.

“Hawke!”

[siribear]

5a

5b

You should know, she was having nightmares.

Cassandra said she didn't see what happened between Elissa and the demon and this boy named Cole. Except that afterward it was only Ferghus that could console her.

And perhaps she should speak with Vivienne.

Nightmares?

Amell's stomach churns. Nightmares during a Blight are to be expected; they all had them those years ago. Nightmares during what should be a time of peace - or, at least, the time between Blights - can only be one thing. Elissa is hearing her Calling. Just like Alistair. One by one her friends are falling, the foundation of her world crumbling around her ears.

Amell walks through the score of templars streaming into Haven. Cassandra and Cullen can deal with them for now. It isn't difficult to find Elissa in the throng, the part of them that makes them Grey Wardens calling to the other. Already Elissa's hasted gait slows until she can catch up. They fall into step easily. "The templars," she sweeps her hand out toward their numbers, "as promised."

"Elissa, if I had known what was waiting for you..." She shakes her head. "But I knew you could do it." Elissa has always been the strong one between them.

"And the mages? Did you drag Fiona kicking and screaming back here?"

Fiona. Legs made of red lyrium, her body swallowed by it. Resigned to die.

"The mages are here."

"By the sound of your voice, it doesn't sound like it was easy." Elissa must see the same haunted look in her eyes echoed in her own. She winces. "Let's go to that cabin over there. We can talk." Elissa links their arms together like she used to when they first set off together, just the two of them and Duncan. When the only way they could keep themselves together was to hold on to the other.

And they do, tightly, when Elissa finally lets go. "How do you know I'm me? What if Envy came back with and..."

Ah. If these are her nightmares, then she can handle this. Amell takes her hands between her own. One year, and everyone else believed her to be dead. Not Elissa. "You're my sister. I'll always know it's you." That Elissa killed her and Alistair... "It wouldn't be you if you'd hurt me."

Elissa, gasping for air through her own blood.

She explains what happened in Redcliffe, in fuller detail than she gave the advisors. The three of them knew what they needed to: Celene, army of demons, the Elder One. But Elissa, she tells everything. Once again, almost everything. Her outburst of blood magic only Dorian will know.

Amell loves Elissa, dearly, and if there's one thing she can protect her from it's herself.

They agree that Envy's and the future's Elder One must be Corypheus. Unfortunately, it seems the Architect was right about something, and it grates. But the puzzle pieces are beginning to fit together, now, in some semblance of a bigger picture.

She will have Varric send a word to Hawke. She doesn't believe a word when he says he has no idea where her cousin is.

-

Cullen was right to worry. Fiona and the mages aren't happy the templars are at Haven much less that they arrived after. They assume the templars were brought to keep an eye on them, despite Amell's promise, and it takes a joint meeting between Ser Barris and Fiona with Amell mediating to assuage Fiona's fears. There are still a handful in the groups that pick fights, Cassandra and Amell running ragged just to keep the peace.

They all know what they were brought here for, and tensions will run high until it's done.

-

"Are you surprised, Herald?" Vivienne comments. "Fiona's mages running about like this, the Veil in tatters, with little to no supervision. Of course the templars are uneasy."

"You have no sympathy for our own?"

Vivienne scoffs, a wisp bobs around her fingers. "It's not about sympathy, my dear. It's about abominations. Demons walk the world even without blood magic, and your mages could just as easily succumb to possession. If the templars aren't here to watch them, who will? The Inquisition soldiers aren't trained against magic like they are."

"Cullen is training them. He was a templar."

"And if a mage tries to cast a fireball, will an Inquisition soldier smite them? Or do we wait until there are already innocents burning before the mage is put down?"

Amell sighs. "They're being watched, Vivienne. But I will not turn the Inquisition into a prison for them. It didn't work before, and it certainly won't work now."

"I see. I told you I believed in the Circles, my dear. The power we command at our fingertips?" She clenches her fist and the wisp winks out of existence. "Nothing is more dangerous to a young mage than a lack of knowledge. And without the Circles, how are they to get it?"

"From you, me, their fellow mages here. Mages don't have to be locked up to learn."

"So we should take in children to the Inquisition? So that they may learn? I'm sure you have plenty of time to teach them how to summon fire without burning themselves alive."

She has her, there. Vivienne smiles, knowing it. The Inquisition isn't a place for children. "It's not as simple as bringing back the Circles."

"Nor is it as simple as abolishing them and letting mages run free without supervision. The Circles weren't perfect. This war is proof enough of that. But there must be a place to send young mages that they can learn about their gifts."

"A proper school, then. With those that would see to mages' safety, instead of lording over them." She looks around, to the groupings of mages and templars never mingling. "But I'll speak with Cullen. Our people can at least be trained."

Vivienne smiles, and this time it reaches her eyes. "Perhaps you aren't so blinded by idealism, Herald." Amell feels suddenly as if she's passed a test. "Now, about this boy, Cole..."

-

Cole is... she doesn't know what Cole is. Vivienne says demon, Solas says spirit, Varric says Cole is Cole.

"Cole hasn't possessed anyone; he is not a demon." They stand outside the cabin Solas has claimed for himself, just outside Adan's.

"They said he helped Elissa defeat the Envy demon, right?" Amell pinches the bridge of her nose. "We can be cautious until we know more about him, but if he did help save her I won't send him away so soon."

Cole walks by a pair of patrolling soldiers, neither of them paying him any mind. "Helping. Protecting. Father would be proud." He looks to the other. "Stick thin. Mouth watering. Never enough to eat. Flissa is almost finished cooking. If you hurry, you won't have to wait." The two soldiers jump at Cole's sudden appearance before hastily nodding and turning into the tavern.

"He can... read their minds?"

"Passing thoughts, I suspect."

Cole walks up the stairs toward them, his oversized hat covering a mop of blond hair. When he stares between them, his slate grey eyes seem to look through them. "Stifling secrets. They can't know. If they did, it would break them." His shoulders sag, his eyes clear. "They would understand. It would hurt them, but they would understand."

Amell's breath catches. "Cole - "

"Thank you, Cole, but I don't think that's the case." Solas closes his eyes with a sigh.

Cole bows his head, apologetic. "I won't tell. That would hurt more." He looks straight at her. "I only want to help. I can help here."

"Okay," she says shakily. "Help them."

-

Finally, after days of preparing, it's time. The war room, with only its handful of people, still buzzes with activity. Josephine and Leliana discuss how best to move supplies for the new mages and templars; Cullen and Cassandra haul the map back onto the table to indicate where best to position their people at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Cullen and Cassandra will stand at the head of the templars. Solas, with his knowledge of the Breach, will coach the mages. Amell will stand at the middle of it all and pray everything they've gone through has been worth it.

Amell listens as the advisors go on, contributing when she can even though she doesn't know how it's going to work. She hums along to a tune she's suddenly got stuck in her head.

"So, boss," Elissa leans against the table next to her. Must have picked up the nickname from Bull during their game of cards. "Everything ready?"

Amell takes a steadying breath. She pans the room, looks to her advisors, her friends. "Let's end this."

-

The Temple of Sacred Ashes. Amell stands where the larger rift once was, where the Fade showed them the last memory Amell has of the Conclave. No such memory plays out again. Aside from the gentle hum from the red lyrium, the air is quiet and still.

Solas, Dorian, and Vivienne stand with the mages. Cullen and Cassandra line up the templars. The rest of her Inner Circle surrounds her in a semi-circle should anything try to pass through during this attempt. Elissa stands at her side, one hand on her shoulder.

"You can do this."

Laughter bordering on hysterics bubbles up. "I think I know how you felt now, before you killed the Archdemon. Though it's certainly less chaotic."

Amell looks back to see the others waiting on her. She lifts the mark to the sky. Magic cascades down around her. She raises her other hand to shield her eyes in time to see Elissa take a step back.

For a brief moment, Amell has the horrifying realization that she absolutely cannot do this. The pull from the Breach threatens to take her with it, every step she takes not her own. She'll be torn to pieces. Lost. The broken future come true -

But then the pull weakens, and her footing steadies, and when she looks back again she sees the mages and templars focusing as one.

"Annie!"

Her will strengthens, bolstered by the mages, and she pushes back. The Breach, weakened by the templars, finally gives. The magic around her suspends in midair, then fires upward, coalescing into a single bolt that rockets back into the Breach.

It explodes on impact, the shockwave similar to when she closed that first rift. She flies backward, her back skidding across the ground until she comes to a stop. She hears someone run over to her, and when she opens her eyes, everyone takes that first gasping breath with her.

"You did it." Elissa props her up to see the sky. Clear blue, with only the swirl of clouds as any evidence the Breach ever existed. Elissa hugs her tightly. "I knew you could."

-

When they return to Haven, those that weren't present at the Temple greet them with a chorus of cheers. There's music again, the same tune, but a band of bards plays loudly outside the tavern. Iron Bull hauls the casks outside, and it isn't long until the party is in full swing.

All Amell wants to do is sleep, but Sera and Bull drag her into a dance with way too many spins. Elissa laughs from the sidelines, Varric and the boy-spirit Cole next to her. Dorian teaches her a dance from Tevinter, completely off-beat from the band's song, but she enjoys it anyway.

She hasn't laughed like this in a long time.

Somehow managing to separate herself from the dancers, she joins Elissa on the sidelines just as Blackwall finishes speaking with her. Or her with Blackwall. From the look on his face, Amell can't tell which way that one went.

Amell holds out her hand. "I'm no Alistair, but dance with me?" Elissa is worried for her lover, she knows. Her friend beat her to sending a letter to him after Redcliffe. Amell misses her twin herself, the antics they'd get up to that earned them their nickname for each other.

Elissa's eyes cloud over before she smiles. "You’ll dance better than him, at least," she says, before taking her hand. They swing and spin until even Elissa is laughing.

Another song begins, over the current melody. Amell turns to see if one of the band has lost the beat, but they're all still playing the same song.

"He should be here with us, Annie."

"I know. Leliana has scouts looking for him, right? And Loghain. If he wants to be found, she'll find him. And if he's safe enough to send a letter, he will." Amell leads her back to the sidelines. "Something's going on, that much is obvious. But I know my twin. He loves you, Ellie, he'll find his way back."

Elissa smiles again. "Speaking of love." She puts her hands on Amell's shoulders and spins her so she's facing Cullen, far off to the side and talking to Leliana. "Go ask him to dance."

"He - what? He won't want to - " She spins back around. "He's busy."

"Oh, really? So busy that he's coming over here?"

Coming over is a stretch. Amell turns just in time to see Leliana nudge Cullen forward. Two hands on her back make the same push toward him. Not the most subtle, their friends. She continues toward Cullen if only to commiserate.

"You looked like you were having fun," he says.

"I was." She looks over into the mountains and the stars beyond. "It's been a long time since I've had cause to celebrate like this." Not since killing the Archdemon. "It's honestly kind of exhausting."

Cullen laughs. "I can understand that. It's been a long day, as well. I, uh, I hope you're not too exhausted for-for one last dance?"

Her heart rate speeds up. "Cullen, I - " She extends one hand toward his -

Bells. All around Haven, ringing out.

The band stops playing. The music doesn't. Amell falls to her knees with the pain of it, so loud she can't hear her own thoughts. Something's coming. Something powerful. Cullen tries to pull her to her feet. To a soldier nearby, "Get to the walls! See what's out there!" To her, "Amell, are you okay? What's wrong?"

Maker, she can hardly bear it. "El-Ellie? Is this - ?" Amell looks over to see Elissa bent over double in Leliana's arms. The Calling, come for them both.

Blackwall stands there, somehow unaffected, until  Elissa barks at him to do something. He does immediately, directing the civilians to safety.

"The Elder One," Cole says, suddenly next to them. "He's here, and he's angry. You took his mages, and his templars." He points high into the mountains, and Amell can feel it. The source of the song, that insufferable keening in her head. The snowy white mountains glow with the sea of torch light flowing down them. "He wants them back."

Amell gets to her feet. "Well he can't have them. Cullen, what do we do?"

Cullen stands up to his full height. "That army will overrun us if we let it. Haven isn't built to withstand a siege." He releases her hands. "Use the trebuchets to slow them down. The rest of us will get the others to safety."

She's impressed and so incredibly proud.

Amell goes to Elissa, and the two of them rally the others. Blackwall cranks the first trebuchet while they fight wave after wave of Venatori. Whoever Alexius had in Castle Redcliffe must not have been all of the cult. Barely a handful, if the numbers still pouring down the mountain are the Elder One's full force.

At the second, they fight the worst thing Amell has ever seen, next to dark spawn and demons. Just like the future at Redcliffe, templars with red lyrium growing out of their bodies, armor bent and curved around it. Amell has been smited before, felt that sucking sensation of all her mana gone in an instant and the hollow emptiness that follows. But when one hits her while she aims the second trebuchet toward the mountain, she feels crawling under her skin, the mana screaming as it's wrenched from her body.

Cassandra finishes the job, the trebuchet fires, a portion of the Elder One's army buried under the snow.

"Fuck yes! Take that!" Bull cheers.

A shadow passes swiftly over them. The snow underfoot kicks up with a hard beat of wings. A roar, the one she heard in the future.

"Ellie, is that - ?"

"I don't know!" Finally she sees it. They all see it. Diving from the clouds, a large, corrupted dragon, covered in bone plated armor. It opens its maw, red lightning crackling in its throat. "Move!"

It swoops - and part of her that wants to break down in hysterics thinks: swooping is bad - and breathes corrupted flame down upon them. The trebuchet explodes, as do the buildings caught in its path.

Haven is on fire.

Blackwall stops and sees Harritt trying to recover his tools from within his burning shop, and even though they all know there's no time, he still stops and helps him. "He would've done it anyway," he explains when he catches up near the gates. "And at least now he's alive."

Which is more than they can say for the others they were too late to save.

Cassandra escorts Lysette back to the Chantry. Iron Bull breaks down a door to save Seggrit. Sera to Flissa. Solas and Vivienne to Adan and Minaeve. Varric saves Threnn from Venatori and Red Templars approaching from behind.

Cole and Dorian pick Chancellor Roderick off the ground, a dead Red Templar and a scared but unharmed citizen next to him.

Cullen rounds the corner when they finally make it into the Chantry. He stops just short of her. "You made it. You're the last ones."

The hall is full, now. Civilians and soldiers alike wander the halls, status of templar and mage forgotten as everyone awaits their fates. And though it's the most people the Chantry has seen all at once, it's still much less than what originally had been at Haven. Too many lost. And more coming.

"What's it looking like here, Cullen?"

He sighs, gesturing around him. "Not good. That dragon cut a clear path for the army. At this rate, everyone in Haven will be killed."

Cole separates himself from Dorian and Roderick. "The Elder One doesn't care about the village. He only wants her."

You took his mages and his templars. This is her fault. "If giving myself up will save these people..."

Cullen and Elissa pale at that. "He doesn't care. He'll kill you then the others. First or last, he'll crush them all."

Amell could scream. Cornered. "Cullen - "

"The avalanche bought us some time. One more and we might bury more of his army."

"We'd bury Haven with it."

"We're already dying." He doesn't know the half of it. The song in her head - "But this way we can choose how."

It can't end this way.

"Annie, wasn't there that back exit out of the Chantry? I swear we went through it when we fought that dragon worshiping cult."

Roderick groans and shifts to sit up in his chair. "She's right. I walked it once, on a whim. There was no need for me to... It was so overgrown." His is a hacking cough, coming away red. "Perhaps-perhaps this is why we were sent here. Perhaps Andraste brought us here, Hero, for this."

She has a faint memory of the path. Winding caves to exit on the other side of the mountain. "Okay. Elissa, go with Roderick. Lead them to safety." She turns to the others. "Bull, take the Chargers and protect the townspeople from any of the army that sneaks through. The rest of you, the same. Solas, help him," she gestures to the Chancellor, "as much as you can."

“It won’t save him, Herald,” he says.

“I know. But the road to his death doesn’t have to be painful.” All the Chancellor did was shout her down, try to pin the blame for the death of the Divine on her, but she wouldn’t wish this slow death upon him.

One by one they file out, until all that’s left is her, Cullen, and, frustratingly, Elissa. “I’m not leaving you alone,” she argues when Amell frowns at her. “Scowl all you like. You’re my sister, remember?”

“But Alistair…”

“I didn’t say I planned on dying.” Elissa winks.

“Do you know how you’ll escape, then?” Cullen asks.

She doesn’t. And despite Elissa’s comment, she’s not sure her friend has a clue, either. But they’ve faced worse odds, she thinks. The skittering dark of the Deep Roads, every time. The clutches of werewolves. The Archdemon itself.

That uncertainty must show in her smile, because it gives him pause. But they both know he can’t tell her not to go. Not if it means saving so many more lives. “We’ll send out a signal once we reach the treeline.” He stops her with a hand on her forearm when she turns to go. “Amell - ” Once more, words fail. Or any words he can find aren’t enough. “ - She will know no fear of death, for the Maker…”

“Shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword. Right?” She raises her left hand, the one some believe marked by Andraste. “I remember.” Other templars in the tower used to recite from Threnodies whenever the mages were around, to remind them of their sin. Not Cullen. “Go.” If he stays any longer he’ll be left behind. “Please.”

Let him remember her like this: steadfast and brave, ready to face what comes with Elissa at her side. Not as she is: terrified, fear with a vice grip on her heart.

-

“That was the weirdest,” Elissa punctuates with a grunt, another turn of the trebuchet wheel, “way to say, ‘I love you, come back to me.’” The trebuchet, loaded and taut, just needs to be turned toward the mountain. The waves of Venatori and Red Templars hadn’t made even that easy. It feels like they’ve been going for hours, now, but still there’s been no signal from the mountains.

“Because he wasn’t and he doesn’t.” Amell locks the final Red Templar, a hulking monstrosity with fists like boulders and arms the size of trees to bear them, in a cage of lightning. “That was just… one of the prayers he used to say.”

Elissa kicks the crank the rest of the way. The trebuchet finally faces the mountain. “I say he should have just kissed you. I could tell he wanted to.” She turns and fires off a hail of arrows into the caged Red Templar.

Amell releases the spell when it finally dies. “You’re imagining things.”

They talk to not hear the song. To forget they might not come back from this to see Alistair or Cullen ever again. The corrupted high dragon, Archdemon, whatever it is, circles back around to their position. Amell prepares a barrier to shield them and the trebuchet, and while the spell takes the brunt of its flame, it still scatters the two of them to opposite sides of the field.

Her ears ring, everything else somehow, blessedly, silent. Elissa - Amell tries to stand, but the force of the dragon’s breath sapped the last of her mana in keeping the barrier. Flames, everywhere, licking up the sides of the spiked fences around Haven. Her Warden sense kicks in - something on the other side of the ring of fire, Elissa or - no.

The shaded figure they all saw at the Temple couldn’t have captured the feeling of terror that washes over her. Darkspawn, taller than the Architect, the same archaic Tevinter robes, ribs lined with red lyrium, skin stretched straight over bone. Its shoulders are dwarfed by an armored mantle, and a piece of a darkspawn breastplate is fused into its chest. Amell stares into the face of an old Magister, the ones the Chant compares them to - sin to Heaven, doom upon all the world. It walks through the flames toward her, twice her size, and pulls an orb from within the scraps of a pocket.

The orb lights in a familiar green. Her mark responds in kind.

The dragon lands behind her, shaking the ground beneath her feet, and stalks around her like she’s prey. The Elder One - Corypheus - holds up a skeletal hand and the dragon seizes in its pacing, though watches her in case she intends to run. As if she could.

“Are you Corypheus, then?”

He grunts, and it sounds uncannily human, like the Architect did, distorted and wrong to her ears. “Who are you that you would know me?”

“I’m from the Order that’s sworn to kill those like you. A Grey Warden.”

“A Warden.” He lifts the orb and her hand with the mark follows suit. “And the one they call the Herald of Andraste. Twice toying with forces beyond your ken. Tell me again, Warden Herald, how you would know me.”

Amell scans the field, then the mountains. No Elissa, no signal. “We found another one of you, another Magister. He called himself the Architect. We were told you would be coming.”

He looks at her, unimpressed. “A fool still crying out to a god that will not answer. It will not save you.”

“Why are you here?” She tries to lower her hand, but it won’t move of her own accord. “What do you want?”

The orb goes red in his palm. “I am here for the Anchor.” The mark flares, the magic within it coming alive under her skin. “The process of removing it begins now.”

Corypheus tells her everything. Calmly explaining the purpose for the Anchor while he tries to draw it out of her. Her veins feel like they’re being pulled from her body, inch by excruciating inch. Amell falls to her knees and buries her hand in the snow if only to numb it from the pain. She has to hold on. At least until the rest are safe, and Elissa…

“What - ” She looks up at his towering form. You will kneel. “ - what was the Anchor meant to do?”

He stalks closer to her, the orb in his palm still coursing with magic. “Assault the very heavens.” He digs his fingers into the snow to pull her up by her wrist, her feet dangling above the ground. “I once breached the Fade in the name of the Old Gods of the empire in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers.”

He grips her wrist tighter. She cries out. “For a thousand years, I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty.”

He flings her into the trebuchet, her skull ringing with the impact against a metal brace.

“The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling.”

Once again, Amell crawls to her knees, vision swimming. But there, tucked in the corner of the trebuchet, is Elissa, bleeding from a head wound. Amell reaches down, draws from the mark any little bit of mana she can siphon, to pour a healing spell into her. Elissa wakes with a gasp and a wince of pain. “Up. Now.” Amell pulls her to her feet and out from the trebuchet’s braces.

“Two of you,” Corypheus notes. “It matters not. You must die.”

There, in the sky, sails a searing arrow.

Forehead bloody, lip split, Elissa laughs with one arm slung over Amell’s shoulder. “You expect us to fight?”

Amell, confident now with Elissa next to her, finds herself grinning. “You won. Congratulations.” She kicks the crank to the trebuchet. “Here's your prize.”

The boulder flies into the mountain. Snow rushes toward Haven, faster than Corypheus’s army can escape, though their leader is saved from their fate by his dragon. Elissa and Amell see none of this as they fall into the shaft of an abandoned mine.

-

“Don’t get up so quickly.” Amell winces when she does exactly that. “I warned you.”

“You did. Where are we?” Around them, walls of ice. Beneath them, cracked pieces of rotten wood. Ahead, a tunnel.

“No idea.” Elissa hands her half of a lyrium potion. “But I’m not dying down here, and neither are you. Let’s go.”

Amell downs the remainder of the potion, wincing against the headrush. She clears their heads with a spell, and then they go.

-

The tunnel empties out, like all things in the Frostbacks because there’s nowhere else to go, into a valley between the mountains. A blizzard harries them with ice shards and snow, blinding them to their way forward. But Elissa is a rogue, and adept at tracking, and in no time finds a trail of abandoned equipment half buried in the snow. With no tracks to follow, it’s their only lead to find the other survivors, and, at the very least, leaves them with the hope that even Corypheus’s army can’t follow.

Ice shards form at the edges of their armor as they trudge through ankle deep snow, but the cold doesn’t touch them, much. Amell weaves warmth between them to stave off the worst of it. Wolves howl all around them, tracking them, waiting for them to fall and the pack to have an easy meal. Amell is in no condition to fight, spent as she is, but if she can keep Elissa from freezing to death, she will.

-

“I’m not gonna last much longer, Ellie.”

“You can and you will. Annie, stay awake!”

Just one second. One second to close her eyes won’t hurt. A little rest and she might be able to bring up the spell again -

Amell closes her eyes and doesn’t open them.

-

They shouldn’t have left them behind. Cullen shouldn’t have left her behind. He left markers where he could - broken and useless equipment scattered through the valley, in a vain hope it might lead Elissa and Annwn back to them. But it’s been hours now, and no sight of them since Haven went under.

Solas lifts his head from Chancellor Roderick’s bedside.

“At the top of the basin, where the mountain splits,” Solas says with an urgency Cullen hasn’t heard from the elf, at least not where the Breach wasn’t concerned. “Hurry, Commander. She is dying.”

Cullen goes, stopping only to gather Cassandra and a few other soldiers, and doesn’t think to ask how Solas knew.

[siribear]

homeward bound just passed novel length and i think that’s very sexy of us

[siribear]

8a

8b

"Twin! I need your help with something."

The door to the war room swings open hard, cracking against the brick wall. Amell and her three advisors turn to stare at Alistair, who stares at them sheepishly. Leliana covers a laugh, Josephine grins, amused, and Cullen pulls away from just handing her a report. Amell rolls her eyes with a sigh and leafs through it. "Cullen, have your people keep travelers away from the valley."

"Of course, Inquisitor."

"Really," Alistair draws out the word to the brink of annoyance, "need your help."

"If you made Elissa mad somehow, that's your own fault."

"I didn't! Well, okay, maybe, but not really?"

Amell finally looks up from an update out of the Hinterlands: a high dragon has moved in to the valley near one of the Inquisition camps. Alistair shifts on his feet nervously, as if he'd rather face that dragon than have this conversation. With another sigh, she calls the council to a close. Cullen leaves with a kiss to her cheek.

"You two are adorable," Alistair says dryly.

"Don't start with me." She tucks the report under her arm. "Are you okay? I heard about Fiona."

Isolated as Skyhold is, gossip travels quickly within its walls. That, and Elissa hadn't exactly been quiet with her dressing down of the former Grand Enchanter. She and Vivienne heard it all fun the upstairs balcony.

Alistair ceases his fidgeting and closes the door only to lean heavily against it. "Oh." He stares at the floor. "Yeah."

Amell jumps up to sit on the edge of the table. "I know you've been hurt, Alistair." She remembers Goldanna, a handful of hungry children, their arms open for coin and not comfort . "But Fiona's a mage, and we don't... you remember Wynne telling us her child was taken from her? That's the only thing we've ever known, until the war happened."

"So you want me to just forgive her?"

"If my mother showed up now and asked for forgiveness, I wouldn't give it. But she had options. Fiona... mages don't usually get a future, Alistair."

She touches her cheek. If it weren't for the Grey Wardens, the war, and the Inquisiton, she wouldn't have one. And not everyone can be so lucky.

"Future..." He blinks. Suddenly his entire demeanor shifts as he goes from contemplative back to buzzing with nervous energy. "Fiona isn't why I wanted to talk to you."

She cants her head sideways. "What then?"

"I, uh." Alistair runs his hands through his hair, the sun catching the highlights in the blonde. One of the more superficial reasons they call each other twins. "I want to ask Elissa to marry me. You're her best friend, and her sister, and I wanted to ask you first."

Amell throws herself at him in a hug to rival his in the smuggler's cove. "It's about time. I was beginning to worry."

"I know. I don't want to wait any more." He pulls her off him by the shoulders. "So that's a yes?"

"It is. But remember," she presses a finger gently to his chest, right over his heart, "I loved her first. If you hurt her, there won't be enough left of you to sweep off of the floor. Am I clear?"

Alistair takes her hand and twines their pinkies together. An old ritual, not forgotten. "If I hurt her, I'll deserve it."

"Good. Now, what do you have planned?"

-

Cullen stands next to her, after the ceremony, his fingers barely touching hers. They're still feeling their way around how affectionate to be in public, even if everyone here knows them. Old habits that need to die hard. She laces their fingers together and leans into him.

"You did well," Cullen says, and she watches his gaze sweep across the crowd of guests to land on the arch.

"It wasn't all me. Josie put a lot of it together." Really, all Amell did was hand her a guest list vetted by Alistair. And stop Josephine from making it a huge affair instead of the small garden party it is. "I'm happy for them."

Cullen clears his throat. "Have you ever thought about...?"

"After a few nights in the Tower, I dreamed a prince would come rescue me on the back of a dragon and we would get married and live in a castle." Amell rests her head against his shoulder, thankful he decided to forgo his full armor. "Then I met Alistair and now I think princes are overrated."

Cullen laughs, and Amell thinks she could listen to that sound forever.

"What about you? Do they even let templars marry?"

"Some do, yes, with Chantry permission. But me? Ah," he grows quiet. Across the garden, Elissa laughs loud at a crude gesture from Sera while Alistair turns a furious shade of red. "I hadn't considered it."

"That decides it then," she says, and he looks down at her, confused. "We're doomed to die unwed, together."

"Ah. Poor us." He hums a contented sigh. "I wasn't going to ask if you would, by the way."

"No?"

"No. I want to do this right."

"Are you going to court me, Commander?"

"If you would have me, Inquisitor."

This is why she's glad she's never been to a wedding before now, she thinks as she settles more heavily against Cullen. He shifts to accommodate her. It would have broken her to know it was something she could never have.

"I'm sorry to interrupt Inquisitor, Commander."

Cullen chuckles. It's their own inside joke, at this point. "Cassandra."

Her eyes are still red rimmed from tears. Worse than Amell's, she thinks. How far Cassandra and Elissa have come from drawing steel at Haven.

"Could we speak, Inquisitor?"

Amell pulls away from Cullen's shoulder reluctantly but nods. Thankfully, Dorian sweeps in to take her place. The last she sees is the two of them sitting down at a chess table before Cassandra leads her around the corner of a hedge row.

Cassandra invites her to sit next to her on a bench, shaded by the trunk of a large tree. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to start a scandal."

The corners of Cassandra's mouth twitch into a smile. "Don't think I haven't grown used to you and your friend's teasing." She folds her hands in her lap. "I believe I have been... unfair to you."

Amell needs more than two hands to count the number of times Cassandra has saved her life. "Unfair?"

"I've been chasing Elissa and Hawke for years, hoping that maybe they could have done something to prevent all of this."

Not unreasonable, Amell thinks. People are more likely to listen to Heroes and Champions in times of strife.

"After the Conclave, I wondered if they were there they could have saved the Divine. But you were there. If you could have saved her you would have. I know that now.

I am trying to focus on what I can change, instead of dwelling on what I cannot. The Maker chose to send you when we needed you most, and you answered. I could ask for no more."

Where there was doubt, Amell feels something else begin to replace it: worthiness. "Thank you. I... That actually means a lot, coming from you. I just hope I can live up to the title."

Cassandra claps her on the back, and they rise. "You are."

-

"Cassandra and Inky sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. Better watch out, Cully-Wully!" Sera dances away when Amell half-heartedly swipes at her.

"Oh good," Dorian says from the chess table. "Distract him for me, would you?"

Amell wraps her arms over Cullen's shoulders and places a kiss to his temple. "I'm afraid you're a lost cause, Dorian," she tells him as she inspects the board. "Two moves, tops."

"Commander, have you been toying with me?"

Cullen chuckles, and she feels it rumble against her chest. "I had to kill time until she returned."

Dorian throws up his hands after Cullen moves his last piece. "Alright, alright." He points to Amell. "You're going to help me beat him one day." At her nod, Dorian finds and follows Bull out of the garden.

Cullen absently traces a finger along her arm. "You and I should play some time."

Elissa calls the both of them over. Almost everyone else has left, and those that remain only do so to enjoy the garden. "I owe you a game, and you owe me a dance." She draws him up from his seat. "Let's go see what the newlyweds want, hm?"

-

There's no time for a game, or even for them to spend much time together, with her lessons in etiquette and dancing and learning exactly how to speak to the nobles without giving anything away.

It's exhausting. Worse than tiptoeing around templars. It's a relief when she's called to clear a rift or deal with an offshoot of Corypheus's army elsewhere, but even that comes to a stop the closer they come to the ball.

And then there's the dress.

Cobalt blue, like Elissa suggested, with a neckline that plunges down to her navel. A leather band cinches it at her waist and hips, with cords to keep the light, sheer fabric defined around her legs. A shawl, powder blue, drapes over her shoulders, held in place by more leather cords, to flow down almost to the floor with the rest of the dress. The back of it is wide open, an easy target for an arrow or blade, metaphorical or otherwise.

"Josie, what if we're drawn into combat?"

"Don't," says the ambassador as she pins up half of Amell's hair. The rest tumbles down between her shoulder blades.

Her mask, the top fashioned to look like Andraste's  crown, hides the blush on her cheeks but the cut of the dress gives the rest away.

"Even speaking at Halamshiral will be like combat, my dear." Vivienne adorns Amell's hair with sapphires. "This will be your armor. The rest of your accoutrement we will have ready should you need it, of course."

When they're finished, Amell turns to look at herself in the mirror. The shawl hides the scars from Redcliffe still lingering on her arms, and the faded white on her hand without the Anchor she can pass as defensive scars. Without those, she hardly recognizes herself.

Leliana sweeps the dress away from her slippers, strapped at the ankles and the only practical part of the ensemble. "These should be easy to move in. And a small dagger can be slipped in here," she points at a small sheathe hidden in the straps, "and here," another sheathe tied around her thigh and anchored at her hip. Both hidden in the waterfall of blue fabric, even if she does have to dance.

"And you were worried." Amell looks over her shoulder, back to Elissa in her own formal dress. "You're gonna knock them all dead before they even get to Celene."

Amell takes a deep breath, watches her chest rise and fall with it. "Right." She steps down from the short stool in front of the mirror. "One dance in this thing, Josie, just so I know how it'll move?"

Josephine smiles and takes her hand while Leliana counts her into the steps. By the end of it, she feels only slightly lightheaded but, honestly, from the quick glimpses she caught of herself in the mirror, beautiful. In the mask, she can pretend she's someone else entirely, and maybe that's the point.

Though she still feels most comfortable in her casual tunic and pants that makes up her Skyhold attire.

Elissa claps her hands together once they're both changed and all the jewels have been removed from their hair. "Great. Varric's hosting a game of Wicked Grace soon, and I'm not missing it."

His idea of preparing their poker faces for The Game, he said, but sometimes she thinks he just misses everyone he met in Kirkwall. He and Leliana share in their big hearts and using their connections to watch over those they care about.

Or maybe he just wants to have a good time and take everyone's gold while doing so.

Elissa grabs her hand. "Come on. Varric said he talked Cullen into playing. Let's go!"

-

"The poor recruit ran out into the dining hall in nothing but his knickers," Cullen laughs at the memory. The poor man standing in shock as mage and templar alike turned to look at him. The slow roll of applause as everyone began to realize exactly the kind of dare he had taken on and fulfilled.

"What did he do after?" Elissa asks with a wicked grin after Alistair coughs heavily into his drink.

"Saluted," he continues. "Turned on his heel and marched out like he was in full armor."

The table bursts into laughter. Alistair tries his best to hide behind his mug, and Cullen grins. It grows into a full blown smile when he hears Annwn laughing harder when she puts together exactly who the recruit was.

"Now there's an idea," Dorian posits, eying the dwindling piles of silver around the table. "We can always bet our clothes when the coin runs low."

-

Cullen shouldn't have agreed to play Wicked Grace that night. Should never have agreed to Varric's "lesson in deception and trickery and maintaining a poker face while getting shit-faced."

He realizes this after he's down to only his breeches, staring at yet another terrible hand through his fingers. Two knights. The lowest hand anyone could possibly have. He sneaks a look around as the others add their gold to the growing pool, drawing and discarding as each turn passes.

Varric, Elissa, Josephine and, surprisingly, Solas haven't lost a hand yet. Blackwall, Bull, and Alistair have split wins and losses. And Annwn...

Annwn has spent the last few hands staring determinedly at the wall.

In the distraction of another round of drinks bought, Cullen feels the light tingle on his skin that can only be a mage pulling at the Veil. He looks up from his hand that hasn't gotten any better to see Amell holding a conversation with Varric and the barmaid while also bending the light around a second card she isn't supposed to be pulling. He finally catches her eye when she discards two cards, again against the rules.

Her wide eyes tell him she forgot that he'd notice that little use of magic. It's up to him then. Call her out on it, force her to fold so she's forced to lose an article of clothing, or...

"Pay attention, Curly. Your turn."

She smiles, resigned. No one else noticed, apparently, Alistair too preoccupied with Elissa and the others concerned with their own hands.  If he doesn't call her out on his turn, he'll surely lose. One more lost hand would put him out in the cold, more than half naked.

Cullen calls and says nothing.

Annwn's surprised gaze goes from his face, to his chest, and back to the wall as they both turn a matching shade of red. Elissa whispers something in her ear, staring at him the entire time, her malicious grin not entirely hidden behind her hand.

"I will hex you. I'll find a way to turn you into a toad, I swear."

"You wouldn't. That would be proving Alistair right."

Cullen, unsurprisingly, loses quite badly. Elissa whistles sharply when he's forced to divest himself of his pants. Annwn can no longer look at him.

"I believe that's me out of the game for the night," he says. Cullen stands, using his discarded clothes to cover what he can of himself. He isn't as embarrassed as he thinks he should be. Not after telling his earlier story and remembering the equally embarrassing things he had to do himself. And the failing way Annwn pretends not to look at him between her fingers only bolsters his confidence.

That is, until Bull rumbles, "Why? You've still got one more piece to lose."

Elissa and Bull high five when Annwn begins to choke on her drink. "Okay, enough. Let him - "

Sera, quicker than he can react, snatches the clothes from his hands and flees the tavern. He nearly trips over his chair chasing her out. Light blinded, he can hardly see into the night. But he can hear Sera cackling and tripping over crates in the distance.

He won't be able to look his people in the face once this gets out.

It's a few minutes he spends stumbling through the dark, searching through crates and barrels, that a lone wisp comes to his rescue. The little mote lights the way and even directs him to his clothing, haphazardly stuffed into storage crates. Once he gets his shirt back on, it bobs up and down excitedly.

"Uh. Thank... you?"

It bobs up once and flies away, toward a woman walking in his direction. "A little spirit of curiosity. It thought it might be fun to help you search."

Annwn, with the little wisp in her palm, approaches, smiling. "Oh. Thank you. Did-did you leave the game just to come out here?"

"Actually, I lost after you did. I just found my clothes a lot sooner." She strokes the core of the wisp, and, like a cat, it leans into the touch.

He never thought he'd be jealous of a wisp, of all things. "Really?"

"You shouldn't have lost first, then you'd know." She takes his hand and walks with him back to his tower.

A quick drink is all it was supposed to be. They're to be leaving early in the morning for the ride out to Halamshiral. But when she puts her cup down on the edge of his desk and asks him why he didn't call her out for cheating all while worrying her bottom lip, he finds himself more interested in that than the time.

"Not that I minded the view after you lost, though."

He coughs. "Maker's breath, that's not how I wanted you to see... well."

She stands, leans forward with her hands on the arms of his chair, bracketing him between them. "Cullen," she breathes, and his heartbeat increases enough to make him lightheaded. "How did you want me to see?"

He doesn't know how he got them up to his loft, only that she's there beneath him, cheeks flush in the moonlight streaming in through the hole in the roof he doesn't know if he'll ever get patched after this. Not when it highlights the blue of her eyes, what little there is with her pupils blown wide as she stares up at him. She calls to him and he answers in the only way he knows how.

He's felt something like this before. Tainted and twisted, and every time he woke he felt sick with it, stomach roiling until he'd empty it on the bloody floor. Demons taking what little he had left, scraping his insides when he thought himself long empty, to find the scraps of his soul he'd hid away. And then the cycle would continue until she finally found him and saved him, and her reward was he barely thought she was human.

Cullen opens his eyes with a gasp and an empty bed beneath him. He buries his face into his pillow and thrusts forward in a desperate beg for friction. When he finishes, it's with a groan of relief and a sigh as the sky above him grows light behind the clouds.

He's exhausted, but it doesn't feel like the same bone-tired emptiness it used to be. The only sickness he feels in his stomach is from hunger, and the following headache doesn't pulse behind his eyes. It's a welcome change from the usual nightmares and their after effects.

Compared to those, the pit of vipers they're about to throw themselves into seems, at least, survivable.

-

Once they reach Halamshiral, Cullen doesn't see Annwn until the ball. Josephine has them stop in the High Quarter before heading into the Winter Palace proper, both for them to change into their formal wear and for him to begin moving his people into the Palace before the others arrive.

Sera, along with a Red Jenny contact within the city, helps to sneak most of his men into position to watch for any sign of Venatori. "No hard feelings, yeah?" She twirls an arrow between her fingers. "About your clothes and stuff. You found them eventually. Know that. Also saw you walking with Inky. So - maybe some Hard feelings."

"Have you seen anything yet?" he asks, ignoring her comment.

She blows a raspberry that he has to cover with a heavy cough when the nobles in the courtyard turn their way. "Been five minutes. Calm down, Cully-Wully."

"Sera, this is serious - "

She swings her feet from the branch she's perched in, narrowly missing the back of his head. "I got it, sheesh. Hey, Briala's the other one here, right? Ambassador or whatever." Another kick whiffs next to his ear. "Whatever. But there's a lot of elves moving around here. Too much purpose to just be serving people, yeah?"

"Keep an eye on it," he advises. One of Gaspard's men begins to move his way, and already he sees Josephine and Leliana heading into the vestibule.

"Sure, Cully. More fun than watching these snobs," she says and disappears into the tree just as the other soldier makes it to him.

"They're waiting for you inside, Ser."

He nods, pretends he doesn't notice the shadow crawling along the garden wall, and heads inside.

-

Cullen has just enough time to wonder what's taking Annwn and Elissa so long to enter before the Grand Duke swings open the ballroom door. Behind Gaspard is Elissa - beside Cullen, Alistair's breath catches - and then...

He understands now why Josephine and Leliana ensured he never saw her before the ball. Alistair nudges him and points, as if he hadn't been watching. As if his eyes weren't drawn to her the moment she entered the room.

He could be walking the gilded streets of Val Royeaux, its buildings adorned with golden statues of the prophet Andraste, and he would always notice her first.

"I believe our commander needs help picking his jaw off the floor," Josephine whispers behind him.

"Breathe," says Leliana.

He does, clearing his head in time to remember to greet her with a polite, "Inquisitor," when she passes by him on the stairs. And the back - his mouth goes dry and he prays to the Maker he makes it through tonight from that dress alone.

"Lady Inquisitor Annwn Leigh Amell, of the Ferelden Circle of Magi. Daughter of Lady Revka Amell of Kirkwall. Veteran of the Fifth Blight. Seneschal of Soldier’s Peak."

She steps down onto the floor and approaches the Empress with a grace he didn't know she possessed. Perhaps the nights away with the others were worth it. He can barely turn his gaze away from her to watch the balcony for any signs of a threat.

"Vanquisher of the rebel mages of Ferelden, crusher of the vile apostates of the Mage Underground."

Her hand twitches. Alistair leans once more to him and says, "You saw that right?" The warden grins. "If we were anywhere else, he would have gotten a face full of fireball."

"Champion of the Blessed Andraste Herself."

She turns the twitch smoothly into a bow once she reaches the platform below Celene. From this distance, he can't hear their conversation, but something must have pleased the Empress because she smiles and waves her further into the party.

Elissa is announced next, and Alistair leaves his side to join her. Then he and the other advisors, followed by the remainder of Annwn's inner circle. Sera and Cole's names are absent, even though Cullen can see the boy wandering the vestibule.

When he reaches the top of the stairs after greeting the Empress, Annwn and Leliana are gone.

-

"You're telling me Morrigan's here? As Empress Celene's... occult advisor." Alistair and Elissa are not going to be happy. "Leliana, you have to start telling us these things sooner."

"I didn't suspect her until we arrived. Amell, she has powerful friends now. I'm not sure if we can still trust her."

Morrigan always hated when Elissa chose to help someone when she thought it was unnecessary, but to assassinate the Empress on behalf of an old Tevinter Magister? "I won't believe Morrigan would be subservient to Corypheus."

"Maybe not Corypheus, but perhaps she or one of her allies would benefit from Celene's death."

They still know nothing of what she could do with a child with the soul of an old god. If that child is even still alive and the soul not within her. But with the worry she came to her and Elissa with, when she suspected Flemeth would possess her... it doesn't add up. "Have you seen her at all tonight?"

"Not yet." Leliana smiles behind her mask, a less intricate version of Amell's own. "But with the entrance you and Elissa made, I don't doubt she'll find her way to us soon. Until then, all our leads point to the guest wing. Start there."

She finds Sera - or, rather, Sera finds her - and directs her up the trellis to the second floor. The presence of Alistair and Elissa in the courtyard provides enough distraction for Sera to scramble up without drawing attention. The nobles are too invested in their recent nuptials and why, oh why, didn't they have a grander party, and why wasn't this person and that invited.

Three ladies representing Empress Celene inform Amell that the Empress will support her once Gaspard is dealt with. Amell simply smiles and acknowledges the offer, promising nothing.

A low whistle sounds across the courtyard. Amell pretends not to notice, speaking in nonsense to Dorian, and watches Sera motion for her to meet her back in the vestibule.

"Well, she certainly got the fun part of the job, didn't she?" Dorian retrieves another glass of wine from a passing servant. "I suppose I'll be here, drinking the night away. I almost expect my mother to appear."

Amell laughs. "Don't drink too much or I'll just have Bull drag you out of here."

Dorian takes a too-long sip. "Do not tempt me."

-

Easy to find in the ballroom are Varric and Josephine, stood with the ambassador's younger sister and one of the members of the council of heralds. Leliana and Cassandra are with their own group of attendees. Vivienne stands on the other side of the ballroom, pointedly ignoring Cole who has been tasked with listening to Celene, Gaspard, and Briala. Solas trails behind her, playing the part well of the elven manservant he was so poorly announced as. But it works for him, apparently, moving through the crowd as invisible as their boy-spirit.

Everyone accounted for, except...

"Are you married, Commander?"

There, stuck in the middle of what she can only describe as a murder of nobles, is Cullen. Arms folded, creasing the formal suit in the way Josephine warned the rest of them not to, looking as unapproachable as he possibly can. Not that any of the nobles surrounding him seem to notice, or care.

"Rescue him," Solas says with a discrete touch to her arm to get her attention. "I will meet Sera."

Thankful, she nods, and watches him disappear into the ballroom.

"No, I'm not married."

"Oh, then are you single?" A woman reaches for him, and he flinches away from the contact. It doesn't stop her from trying again.

His roiling sea of admirers parts at her approach, with only a few hangers-on vying for his attention. He doesn't give it, relaxing by degrees the moment she comes to be next to him. Close, but never touching per decorum.

"Inquisitor." His is a sigh of relief. He turns his attention fully toward her, much to the annoyance of the woman that reached out. With a scorned huff, she storms away, leaving them alone as they can be in the crowded ballroom. "How are things going?"

"Sera might have found something. Solas went ahead to meet with her." She stops a passing servant with a polite excuse me and thank you as she retrieves a flute of wine from the tray. It's sweet on her tongue. "How are you? That was quite the crowd of admirers you had there."

Again, that defensive posture, but her hand on his arm brings them back down. "It's frustrating. I don't know where they're coming from."

Oh. He has no idea, does he? "You're handsome, of course." She very deliberately reaches past him to put her half-full wine flute on the table behind him. "Very distinguished titles. Is it any wonder?"

This close, she watches his eyes rove down her dress. He leans toward her before he stops himself. "Maker's breath, that dress," he sighs.

She curtsies, and his gaze follows the movement. "You can thank Josephine and Leliana. I'm beginning to like it, myself."

His voice drops an octave lower when he says, "As am I. You look... You are beautiful."

"Thank you." She turns away, conscious of how little her dress hides of her growing blush. "As for your admirers, I could always place a glyph beneath you. Make sure they don't get too close?"

Cullen laughs, still a little throaty. "Don't think I'm not considering it. I can bear it, however."

She wiggles her fingers. "If you're sure. They're already aware I'm a mage." How none of them were aware before, she has no idea. Denial, likely.

"No need to scandalize the court on my behalf, my lady."

My lady - Maker’s breath is right. Though, it’s too late for that, by the looks his former crowd is giving the both of them. "Save a dance for me, then? You do owe me one."

His face goes hard behind his mask. "No."

"Oh." She tries not to visibly deflate. "I'm sorry."

"No, I - " He tries to pinch the bridge of his nose, but the mask prevents it. "I'm sorry, I've been denying requests all night, I'm doing it automatically. If-if there's time, maybe."

"If there's time. I should go find Sera and Solas - "

He takes her hand, brings her knuckles to his lips. "Please be safe."

Before she leaves the ballroom, she whispers in Leliana's ear, "Look after him for me?"

"Jealous, Amell?"

Amell eyes the lords and ladies slowly creeping closer in her absence. "I wish that was all it was."

-

From Solas, she receives a handful of missives. Some scandalous secrets, others negotiations between Gaspard and Celene. Servant movements to Briala. A letter to Morrigan. Blood on the marble floors, and all anyone can say about it is someone else isn't playing the Game very well.

Shoes click down the stairs above them. The first bell chimes, beckoning them all to the ballroom. "Take these to Leliana. She needs to see them."

Solas bows and departs, and Amell can't help notice he seems to be enjoying himself more than she thought he would.

"Must I always catch you snooping around places you don't belong?" Amell looks up at the stairs to see Morrigan descend. She hasn't bothered with a mask, herself, but her dress mirrors the Empress's. "It's good to see a familiar face here, Annwn."

Amell takes her hand and leads her the rest of the way down the stairs. "If it was somewhere I didn't belong, I wouldn't be there, now would I?" She squeezes her hand before releasing it. "I'm afraid I might be the only friendly face here."

A sadness crosses her golden eyes. All of them became close over the course of the Blight, but Morrigan's deal was a shock. And a profound betrayal. The wedge between her and Elissa paling in comparison to the valley now between Elissa and Morrigan.

"I understand. Know my duty is to protect the Empress, just as it is yours. And take this." She presses a key into her palm. "I cannot leave Celene's side, but it seems you have people enough to investigate."

Another bell chimes.

"Enjoy your dance, Inquisitor. Grand Duchess Florianne has been waiting for you all night."

-

Amell survives the dance, just barely. She only stutters near the end when Florianne suddenly switches to lead. But she learns that Florianne suspects her brother of planning something, and that Amell doesn't trust Florianne at all.

Lelianna suggests perhaps they should let the assassination take place. That all Orlais needs is a leader to subvert that dark future, and as long as that leader is willing to lend them troops, does it matter if it's Celene or Gaspard? It does, because Amell won't stand idly by and let someone die.

Bull, Sera, Solas, Dorian, Vivienne, as well as the new Cousland-Theirins meet her at the entrance to the servants' quarters. Vivienne helps Amell out of her dress, and Dorian carefully strips Elissa of hers, to be even more carefully stashed away once they're back inside the Palace.

"Could you guys, I don't know, turn around... or something?" Alistair whines as he not so subtly steps in when Dorian tries to help Elissa with her armor.

"Alistair, I've seen you both in your undergarments before," Amell reminds him. Though all three of them were mottled with bruises and near-broken bones from torture. Still. Solas clasps the last buckle on her breastplate before she turns and helps him with his. "We don't have time for modesty right now."

"Yeah, but - " he pouts. Quieter, "It's not you I'm worried about."

-

The emissary to the council of heralds lies dead in the garden, blood pooling in the grass and a dagger sticking out of his back. The fountain next to him runs red, a servant caught in the crossfire floating face down in the water.

"Gaspard isn't dumb enough to leave his weapon right here to implicate him, right?" Elissa turns the dagger over to reveal the Chalons crest. "That would be too easy. Who tipped you off?"

Amell sighs. "You aren't going to believe me."

"If you say Gaspard, I might just. It's ridiculously Orlesian enough." Alistair grins.

The Venatori sneaking through the gardens are unorganized. Uncoordinated compared to the three that once spent a year straight fighting assassins and worse. It makes talking while they chase a masked harlequin through the gardens easy.

"It was Morrigan. She's an advisor to Celene."

Alistair strings together a colorful series of curses he could have only learned from Oghren. Elissa gets that same sad look in her eyes before calming Alistair. "We'll deal with it later," she says, though Amell knows there's more on her mind.

It's with brutal efficiency that they cut down the remaining Venatori. When Briala arrives the assassin is already dead and she points the finger once more to Gaspard.

They don't bother returning to the ballroom. Briala already knows they're moving about the Palace, and Florianne already told her about the royal wing. It's their last place to check.

-

"I found these." Cole holds up an armful of decorative halla statues. "They missed their herd. I wanted to bring them back together."

They place them in little nooks around a locked door and find more blackmail in the form of one of Gaspard's men tied spread eagle on a bed.

"That's too good," Sera snickers. "Idiot."

"He didn't want to be tied up, so why...?" Elissa covers Cole's eyes while Sera works on the man's bindings. "He would say yes if you asked."

She looks to Alistair. "I'm not going to."

He sighs with relief. "Oh, good."

Amell groans. "This is far more than I need to know about the two of you."

"C'mon, boss. It's all good fun."

Cole turns to her, his head shifting under Elissa's hand. "He wouldn't like it."

"I know!"

-

They follow the sound of a man yelling further into the royal quarters and the Jardin de Rêverie. Through a door, a man in a mercenary’s outfit tied to a pillar, and a dozen archers all with their arrows pointed toward the party. On the upper balcony, Grand Duchess Florianne walks out to greet them.

“I had no idea if you’d taken my bait. The others in your Inquisition hid your absence well, but I have been watching.”

Solas takes one step toward her. A Venatori draws his arrow back in warning. It’s close enough. “Do you see it?” he whispers in her ear. A weakening in the Veil, a precursor to a rift, shimmers in the air between them all. None but he and Amell seem to notice it. She nods, slightly. “The chaos could be what we need.”

“You made it too easy to place the blame on your brother. What’s your game here?” The Anchor sparks in her palm. Amell makes a subtle gesture to Elissa - be ready.

“Celene’s death is a stepping stone on a path to a better world.” She grandstands up on the balcony, spreading her arms wide. “You have no idea what Samson and Calpernia have planned, do you? Poor you, if only you could be there to see it.” Florianne snaps her fingers, and the other archers pull back their bows. “I keep you out of the ballroom long enough to strike, and Corypheus gives me the world.” She turns, takes two steps away from the balcony, and snaps again. “Kill them.”

“Now!”

Chaos erupts in a quick flick of her wrist. There’s a scream - pain, rage - then more as demons tear through the Venatori archers. From her place where she threw herself down to the ground, Amell spares a second to think, in horror: I did this. I summoned demons into the world.

Solas pulls her up to her feet in time for her to see Elissa rip an arrow from her shoulder. Alistair goes to his wife, but Elissa waves him off and continues to fire arrow after arrow at the demons. The Venatori are dead, body parts scattered across the grass and blood splattered on the white marble pillars. The demons finally defeated, she closes the rift just as easily as it opened.

The mercenary promises to testify against Gaspard if necessary, and, with the elven servant she sent to Cullen for safety, it leaves them with enough evidence to implicate everyone in tonight’s attack. “Politics,” Solas says, almost to himself, with something like a fond smile.

Amell presses a healing spell into Elissa’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“She ripped it out of her shoulder!” Alistair’s pitch rises high enough for his voice to break. “Right out of her shoulder. Did you see it? She was…”

In that moment, she understands Loghain all too well. Amell rolls her eyes. “Can you please let me heal her before you forget yourselves again?” He restrains himself for a whole thirty seconds, enough for her to heal most of the damage, before she considers them a lost cause.

“Come,” Solas holds out his hand and once more helps her to her feet. “Sera and The Iron Bull have cleared the way forward. Now, all that is left is to save the Empress.”

There’s something in the way Cole stares at Solas and Solas at her. “You’ve been… comfortable here.”

He drops her hand and walks forward, hands behind his back. “I have seen many of these events in the Fade. It has simply been interesting to experience one myself.”

-

In her dress once more, hair only slightly tousled, Amell walks full into the ballroom and stands just long enough for Florianne to notice her entrance. Against the white powder of her makeup, Florianne goes ghostly white.

“You’re safe,” Cullen breathes, approaching her at a jog. “I - you were gone so long.” He looks to Elissa nursing her arm and Alistair hovering around her protectively. “What happened?”

“It’s Florianne. She’s the assassin.”

“What? The Empress is beginning her speech soon. What do you want us to do?”

Amell takes a steadying breath. Just one last thing, and then it’s over. “Be ready. I’m going to have a word with the Grand Duchess.”

“There’s no time!”

She turns to him with a tired smile. “Trust me."

[siribear]

2a

2b

You'll always be Annie to me.

Amell leads Elissa through Haven, ducking her head when Inquisition soldiers bow and pilgrims take the knee. This isn't her. This wasn't supposed to happen. The chantry, once filled with dragon cultists some time ago, now stands as a bastion for the Inquisition. She hopes this isn't history repeating itself.

Cassandra is there when Amell opens the door, arms crossed and mouth turned down into a heavy frown. "I take it she isn't happy to see me," Elissa says at her shoulder.

Amell isn't sure where the hostility is coming from. Should she not have sent for her friend? Cassandra knows the Inquisition can use all the help it can get -

"It seems Leliana hasn't told me the whole truth."

"Cassandra," Leliana warns in a steely tone. "Now is not the time."

Cassandra ignores her entirely, stalking forward. Amell and Leliana share a look, and with that, the bard is gone. Cassandra doesn't notice or care, instead choosing to shout at Elissa.  The two argue, volume rising until she's sure all of Haven can hear them. It doesn't look good - the same soldiers and pilgrims that showed her reverence only minutes ago now gather around the courtyard to watch the spectacle. They're supposed to show a united front. What does it say about the Inquisition to be arguing with the Hero of Ferelden?

Amell raises her unmarked hand and aims it between the two. "That's enough!" A glyph glows on the ground, runes curving in a perfect circle to bar Cassandra and Elissa from moving closer. A simple spell to any that can cast magic themselves, but it is still magic. Already the crowd begins to whisper again: the Herald of Andraste is a mage? I thought that was just a rumor... "This isn't the place, Cassandra. Elissa - " she frowns. "Stand down."

Cassandra fights against the glyph, just short of dispelling it. "You don't understand - " The Seeker is angry. Lashing out, if only to have someone to blame again. Old wounds, old what-ifs rising once more. The idea that someone could have prevented this...

"Oh, she understands. I'm sure everyone here understands!" Elissa, thankfully, sheathes her weapons. Her old friend is just as fervent as Cassandra, and still just as humble, unwilling to take all of the credit for defeating the Blight. That's why only she could have taken the title, Amell thinks. Anyone else would have taken the glory that came with it. "Even if you consider your anger justified, it won't change what happened. I suggest you focus on what you can change," she finishes with the same passion that swung the Landsmeet in her favor.

The argument officially comes to a close when Cullen appears just behind them. Amell drops the glyph immediately, old fears refusing to die, though she bites back the shame. With a thankful nod from Amell, he leads Cassandra away.

The crowd still hovers near the door, as if waiting for something else to happen. When nothing does, it finally disperses. There will be consequences for this that they can't afford. She has to know why.

Cassandra had sought Elissa out, she learns, to join the Inquisition in its infancy. Leliana had been the one to actually make contact, finding her easily at Vigil's Keep. Amell had never known they were so close, already believing Elissa to be at Weisshaupt. Then again, with how curt Amell had been in her own letters, she isn't surprised Elissa never told her.

Amell ushers her back to the make-shift war room. The map of Thedas spread across the table and every marker for their forces reminds her that this is actually real. Amell wards the door against eavesdroppers and toys with one of the markers in lieu of speaking.

"Was that Cullen I saw?" Elissa grins again, back to her old self. "The Maker really does have a wicked sense of humor, doesn't he?" Her raised eyebrow causes her to blush, and Elissa smiles at the reaction she knows she was expecting. And then she sighs and looks to the door.

"Don't go," Amell pleads immediately. She reaches a hand out toward her friend, but drops it. "I... was being truthful in my letter. I need you here. I can't do this without you. Things have been... " She can't say, throat suddenly tight.

This smile is warmer, understanding. "We do have a lot to talk about. Tell me everything."

She does. Well, almost everything. At least in as far as anything she knows about what occurred at Haven and the events leading up to it. As for after it, she tells all that she remembers, along with the few memories supplied by the echoes of the Fade near the Breach.

"The voices you heard... one of them was the Divine, you said?" Amell nods, shakily. "And no one recognized the other?" It had chilled her, that voice, chased her in her dreams before she awoke the second time at Haven. Deep and guttural, fitting for the skeletal silhouette of a hand that pointed her way and ordered her death. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Annie. I really am."

Amell hangs her head. "I'm glad you weren't there," she says quietly. Both to see how close to death she had gotten, and knowing that if Elissa had been there, her friend would surely have died in the blast. A chill runs up her spine. Maker only knows what she would have done, then.

She's surprised when Elissa places her hands on her shoulders and squares her own. Something is coming, Amell knows. "Are you alright?" Amell tilts her head. "Have you had... any dreams lately? Like the ones we had during the Blight?" Elissa elaborates carefully, slowly, then shakes her head and worries her lip as if she can't find the right words.

And then it comes: "Alistair's hearing the Calling, Annie."

"No. He can’t be." Denial. It comes out before she can stop it. He can't be, he's - he wasn't a Warden much longer than they were, right? They should have years to go, yet, right? Her research...

"He says it's different," she explains further, tears lacing her throat, her voice gone rough. "He doesn't know how he knows, but it is." Not a song, but a voice, she says. A strong one. "And I know the reason why we haven't spoken is because of the Architect, but he's given us a name: Corypheus."

Amell stiffens at the mention of the Architect. A name, a voice, a Calling. Corypheus. Perhaps...

"He believes he's woken an Old God, but there's no Blight. I will do what I can here to help you, but when Alistair comes with news, I must find this thing."

She means to fight this thing herself. This Corypheus. Amell removes Elissa's hands from her shoulders and takes them in both of hers. Her heart hurts. Everything she's done has been for her friends, and now -

"Ellie..." Amell closes her eyes, ashamed. She doesn't feel like she has the right to use that name anymore. Like she has to earn it back. "I am so, so sorry. I - " Her own eyes well with tears. "The reason why I secluded myself in Soldier's Peak, why I've been working with Avernus... I've been working on a cure for the corruption. So we never have to suffer the Calling."

She takes a deep breath. "I didn't say anything because I only wanted to tell you when it was finished." Competing with a darkspawn. An old Magister. Of course it was foolish. "I didn't want you to have to rely on the Architect. I - I wanted you and Alistair to be happy."

And now she could be too late. All the years spent cooped up in the mountains, refusing to see the others, wasted. And now the Calling, forced and fake or real and inevitable, is coming for them regardless. "But I... I would go with you to fight this Corypheus, if you would have me. Whoever this is could know something about our dark figure and the murder of the Divine, right?" It's what she'll tell anyone that questions why she's leaving, and they can just try to stop her.

-

It’s a while before they compose themselves enough to leave the war room.  The chantry hall has become crowded with chantry priests and Inquisition members alike in their absence. Mother Giselle catches her eye just as they exit the room, and Amell makes her way over to her with Elissa in tow. Odd feeling, that. The Mother smiles warmly at both of them. “It is good to see you have close allies, Herald. We have placed much upon your shoulders but, as with many things, they need not be shouldered alone. Even Andraste had friends, allies… and a husband, for a time.”

Elissa elbows her in the side, not so subtly. She elbows her back. “I’m grateful for all the help I’ve received so far, Mother Giselle. Ah - ” she introduces Elissa and Mother Giselle quickly. “ - but I have to wonder if any of it will be enough.”

“It will be. We have to hold on to hope, Herald.” Raised voices can be heard on the other side of the chantry doors, and those within look at the entrance with worry. Mother Giselle dismisses them with a nod and watches their every step as they make their way toward the entrance.

When she opens them, it’s to a crowd, larger than the one that gathered for Cassandra and Elissa’s argument. On her left, a group of templars staring down the group of mages on her right. People she’s seen walking around Haven - their own people, fighting.

“Your kind killed the Most Holy!”

“Your kind let her die!”

The templar moves to strike the mage, lunging forward. Before anyone can react, Cullen cuts through, shoving them both apart. The templar tries to appeal to Cullen’s title - former title, he reminds them. “We are all part of the Inquisition.”

Chancellor Roderick strides forward from behind the group of templars. “And what does that mean, exactly?” He gestures to the crowd, then to her. ���When your own Herald uses her magic against you? We all saw her cast a spell against Seeker Cassandra, did we not?”

Amell schools her face into impassivity. She knew this was coming. It was only a matter of time.

“That’s not what happened! What you saw was between me and Cassandra. An - The Herald had nothing to do with it. She was trying to stop us,” Elissa reasons.

“See?” Roderick works the crowd again. “I wonder how your Inquisition will restore order when even this so-called Herald of Andraste’s,” he spits the title, “allies turn against you.”

Elissa takes a step toward the Chancellor, hands twitching. Bryce’s little spitfire, she said she was called, and she was about to live up to the name. Instead, Amell grabs Elissa’s hand and shakes her head. He isn’t worth it, she says with a look. Roderick, however, tilts his chin up and smiles.

Cullen waves both sides away, ordering them back to their duties. The mages and templars - the Inquisition forces - disperse, though Roderick stays. The Chancellor crosses his arms, his smug smile now gone. “I do hope you’re pleased with yourself,” he sneers. “Causing all this, and now look at you. Herald of Andraste.”

“Why is this guy even here?” Elissa wonders aloud.

“I’m beginning to wonder that myself,” Cullen agrees.

“Chancellor, please. Without the help of the mages and templars, we won’t be able to close the Breach for good.” The advisors - she refuses to consider them hers, she isn’t leading the Inquisition - urged her to approach either group for aid, though with the chantry denouncing them and her, especially, neither will even speak to them. “If you could just speak with the clerics in Val Royeaux - ”

“No. You show up with that mark on your hand, the Divine dead, and demons raining from the sky. And now you want the power of the mages and templars? Someone has to see you for what you are.” With that, he turns on his heel and disappears further into the camp.

“Bastard,” Elissa sneers. She looks between Cullen and Amell. “To Val Royeaux, then? Guess I’ll go prepare.” She waves over her shoulder without looking back.

Cullen, surprisingly, doesn’t leave. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m… today was a lot. How’s Cassandra?”

“Leliana spoke with her. I didn’t think I’d be very helpful in that conversation.” He shrugs. “I was questioned enough about Hawke when Cassandra found me.”

“Oh, that’s right. You were in Kirkwall, weren’t you?” Once again in the thick of things. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he’s a magnet for bad luck, but she isn’t sure he’d appreciate it. Still, he survived and doing well for himself.

He turns to her, fully. “I… yes, I was. How’d you know?”

“Varric. It’s - well, it’s how he found me. Said you mentioned an Amell after Hawke was raised to nobility.” Varric’s how she found out she’s a half-elf, from some partially burned letter one of her mother’s old servants had written. A child from a scandalous affair with one of the servants, but she turned out to be a mage and left forgotten in a Circle, far enough away from Kirkwall that no one would think twice. “He’s very resourceful.”

Cullen coughs suddenly. “He, uh, he told you? Er… What did he say?”

“Not much. Just like I said. The majority of the letter was Hawke asking after Carver.”

He nods quickly. “I should go check on the troops, make sure Roderick hasn’t riled up any others.” He takes one step, then turns to look back. “Be safe in Val Royeaux. We’ve yet to receive word on what the chantry has planned for you there.”

“You saw Elissa. I’ll be alright.” She smiles. “But thank you.”

At the mention of Elissa, he looks convinced, and leaves her with a nod.

Amell exhales heavily. Val Royeaux - she’s never been, but she wishes they were visiting under better circumstances. She’s heard tales of the library at the university and all the knowledge it holds. But if there’s one good thing to be said about Roderick, it’s that he’ll have prepared them for what the chantry will throw at them.

She just hopes she makes it out alive.

[siribear]

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

Amell laughs softly, more of a cough than anything. The taste of Darkspawn blood coats the back of her throat. “And I’m glad you’re still here.” She allows Elissa to pull her to her feet and brushes dust off her robes.

A messenger from the King arrives and asks after Duncan. At his orders, the new wardens trail behind him, far enough not to interrupt the last minute war council. Uldred stands in the council as well, offering advice Amell is too far to hear.

“We should cover them,” comes a voice at her shoulder. Elissa still stares the lifeless bodies of Daveth and Jory, their bodies covered in shadow, tall walls of the Ostagar ruins preventing the moonlight from reaching them. “Daveth and Jory didn’t deserve that. They deserve a proper burial.”

“I’m sure their bodies will be treated once the battle is won,” says Amell. “The Wardens - we - will honor them.”

“I’m sorry,” Alistair says, just behind them. “There isn’t time. The sisters from the Chantry will take them after the victory.”

Elissa takes a step toward Amell, and that’s the end of the conversation. Alistair takes his leave from them, sparing only a single glance for the war council, and Duncan. She follows his gaze for the moment to see Loghain angry, the King exasperated, and Duncan carefully neutral.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Elissa tells her.

“It isn’t.” The bodies from the failed Harrowings, Amell is sure they were taken care of, burned or otherwise. Too much of a risk to keep them around, especially in such a place. But there still had to be some decency.

“You know you’re the only one I trust,” Elissa continues in a whisper. Amell frowns, heart sinking.

She’s silent for a moment, long enough to catch what it is King Cailan wants them to do, what Loghain doesn’t trust them to do. They’re to break off from the other Wardens and light a signal fire in the Tower of Ishal.

Amell sighs. More towers. “We’ll get this job at the tower done, and we’ll be out to join the others,’ Elissa reassures her. For the moment, she almost feels better about their chances.

She twists the enchanted ring on her finger and rubs her thumb across the pendant hanging from her neck. She tightens her ponytail from where it fell loose after the Wilds and the Joining. “We’ll be alright,” she says. Then, “we’ll be alright, we’ll be alright,” lower and lower under her breath. Maybe if she says it enough it’ll be true.

Duncan motions them back over to the bonfire, the open area surrounding it now completely empty, everyone else, other soldiers, mages, or runners, already in their places. Alistair joins them once again, and his hopeful look contrasts heavily with the exhaustion Duncan clearly tries to hide. He looked more confident talking down Greagoir, and hardly anyone can do that save Irving. Here, where he’s supposed to be in his element, surrounded by trained soldiers and heroes and the King himself, Duncan already looks… resigned. And it terrifies her.

The Warden Commander repeats their orders, mostly for Alistair who had stepped away, and to officially give them their task. The plan had been the Kings, but Amell did see Duncan talk Greagoir out of making her tranquil by Warden rights alone.

“Shouldn’t we be there with you?” Elissa steps forward, now openly questioning. “With the other Wardens?”

Duncan closes his eyes for a long moment, like a father dealing with unruly children. “It is the King’s wishes, and we will go with his plan,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.

“Just so you know,” Alistair begins, tone bitter yet light enough not to be defiant, “if the king ever asks me to put on a dress and dance the Remigold, I’m drawing the line. Darkspawn or no.”

Elissa murmurs something, head tilted toward him, and whatever she says earns her a self-satisfied grin. “For you, maybe. But it has to be a pretty dress.”

Amell groans, unable to help herself, and is amused to hear the trailing end of Duncan’s own low grumble. Elissa winks at her, but Amell only rolls her eyes, and for the moment it’s almost like they aren’t about to charge off, alone, to fight Darkspawn.

“From here, the three of you are on your own. You’re Grey Wardens, and I expect you to be worthy of the title.” A little flutter kicks up in Amell’s chest, the same response as when her tutors asked her to cast a spell and she was eager to please. Her fingers twitch once before she remembers herself, the somber moment hitting her once again.

“Please stay safe,” Elissa begs him, and Amell chimes in with a small, “We’ll meet you once the beacon is lit.” Duncan nods at them both before heading for his own post.

“I’ll keep to the rear if you want to stay between Alistair and I,” Elissa tells Amell once Duncan’s retreating form melds into the night shadows. Alistair hesitates, then begins walking toward what Amell assumes is the direction of the Tower of Ishal. She nods, and Elissa’s mabari keeps pace with her while his master falls to the back.

Tension fills the air, even during their walk across the high bridge to the other side of camp. Archers stand at the ready with their bows and their fellows shift next to the loaded catapults. Amell pulls the staff from her back and holds it close to her chest for comfort.

Halfway across the bridge, the tension snaps like a taut string, and battle erupts around them at once. Hails of arrows fly downward and large boulders fly upward. Below, Darkspawn larger than she’s ever seen hurl rocks at the bridge, slamming into catapults and the soldiers manning them, careening into one side of the bridge and rolling right across to the other. Alistair hurriedly waves them forward, shield out as he blocks small pieces of rubble and flying debris, and Amell follows suit, creating a barrier for her, Elissa, and the mabari. The three of them barely manage to make it across, along with a handful of stragglers, before the middle of the bridge collapses, raining large pieces of stone down to their soldiers below.

And Maker help them, the screams.

The other side of camp fared better, if only because soldiers hold the Darkspawn at bay. But when they reach the path to the tower, one soldier runs past them, yelling that the tower is overrun by Darkspawn before an arrow catches him in the throat. Amell covers her mouth but follows Alistair forward. For every one of Elissa’s arrows that streak past her, Amell shoots lightning from the tip of her staff, stunning the monsters long enough for Elissa’s arrows to strike true and Alistair to finish them off.

Inside the tower, their number of allies thin, and just past the entrance, only the three of them cut through the swaths of Darkspawn. The further they fight, the more Darkspawn and death bodies they find. However, instead of pushing into the tower, the Darkspawn they find seem to be rushing out to meet them, as if they had already occupied the tower.

Near the top, they free a pack of caged mabari, and though Amell urges them to flee, the war hounds fight alongside the group. When they push into the next room, the mabari simply stand guard in the room with their cages, as if waiting for their owners. An anguished look is all Amell can spare them before the others are flung into combat once again, this time against a Darkspawn that wields its own magic.

Alistair catches a nasty spell across his arm. The magic is darker, sicker than any she knows, and what should be a careful tug against the Veil feels more like a sharp tear as spell after spell pours out of the Darkspawn’s staff. Elissa and Amell dispatch the smaller Darkspawn around it, and Amell turns in time to see Alistair pulling his sword from the caster’s chest. He’s winded, they all are, but Amell only has time to cast a minor healing spell over all of them before they’re forced to move again.

Somehow, it gets worse.

What they had only seen below the bridge, far in the valley below as it hurled rocks at them now stands alone in the center of the room at the very top of the tower. In its hand, a half eaten corpse, and in its throat a bellowing roar that makes even Alistair take a step back.

A pride demon stood before her when she began to wake from the forced sleep of her Harrowing. It took the shape of a former apprentice, and she watched as his grin grew and stretched into a mockery of a smile until the towering form of the demon loomed over her. Then and now she stands paralyzed, and maybe if she waits again, she’ll hear that voice ringing in her head again and she’ll wake up, and it’ll all be over. Irving and Greagoir, a handful of templars, and him standing there poised to strike - she’d take that over this being real.

Elissa runs up next to her, claps her on the back, notches an arrow, and fires. Her mabari charges in after Alistair, who has his shield raised as he lures it away from the two of them. From there, the battle is longer and harder than the others, but eventually the Darkspawn goes down, a screaming Alistair flying through the air, sword catching the monster in the forehead. It goes down with a loud thud that rattles the stone underfoot, but there’s no time for celebration.

“Light the beacon!” Alistair yells, pulling his sword from the creature’s skull.

Amell rushes toward the small bundle of kindling, and with a thought a fire roars just before her, beacon lit and signal sent. She takes two steps backwards and falls to the ground, back against the Darkspawn’s legs.

Movement from the stairs catches her eye. Maybe they did it, she thinks, sighing heavily. Maybe they made it in time, and these are reinforcements come to relieve them -

“No!”

Amell sits up straight and turns to the window, to Elissa shaking her head, arms over her mouth, to Alistair looking like he’s ready to jump out of the window to join the battle below.

She opens her mouth to ask after them, and that’s when she feels the first arrow pierce her chest.

[siribear]

Chasind mages? Apostates. Witch of the Wild? Apostate.

The Tower tried very hard to keep tales of free mages out of the library, but children hear stories before they’re sent to the Tower, and children tell tales to keep themselves from cowering in the night. Free mages, and one, free, powerful mage out there that evaded even the most dogged of templars. (“Too bad I never found her,” reminisces a familiar voice in her head.)

And while Amell is an apostate, now, herself, it wasn’t through her own doing, her own cunning, her own power. Power, she feels rippling even out of Flemeth, this witch of the wilds, and Amell half wonders if Elissa’s manners are born of upbringing or respect. Either way, Amell greets her politely, in silent camaraderie between mages as well as a healthy, respectful fear.

The treaties pass from Flemeth to Elissa to Amell. Dust kicks up just as her fingers graze the parchment, but she feels the lingering enchantment Duncan and Flemeth spoke of. Long gone, now. “I think I might break them,” Elissa tells her. And before Amell can protest, “Alistair might lose them.” Loud enough for him to hear, of course. His ears go slightly red, but he smiles, and Amell sighs a little inwardly.

With far less Darkspawn between them and the camp, and Morrigan leading them through the Wilds far quicker than they had made their way through previously, they return to camp just as the sun sets. Before they left, Ostagar had been bustling with preparation. Runners delivering messages and arms, soldiers praying and others practicing, commanders shouting drills to their men. Now, with the shadow of night cast over the camp, it’s eerily quiet. Tense, like the few hours before her Harrowing, wringing her hands under the covers as she mentally recites every spell she knows. Anything to help her make it through the night.

She can only hope things here go far better than it did after her Harrowing.

Alistair leads them back to the large bonfire near the center of the ruins. Duncan stands, arms crossed over his chest, in front of the smouldering embers. Amell hands over the treaties, and Duncan accepts with little ceremony. He leads them to a secluded area of the camp, surrounded by old walls, and the only exit is the entrance. Alistair hands Duncan his own pack, and, from it, pulls out an old chalice. The others reel back when the Warden-Commander begins to pour their collected Darkspawn blood into it.

Amell’s stomach churns. I am not a blood mage.

“Is that what it’s for, then?” Elissa asks, her pitch rising with every word.

Daveth chuckles. “Would you have continued on our journey if you knew?” he asks, laughing again. “Because I wouldn’t have.”

“It connects us to them,” Alistair explains. He holds his arms up, placating.

You have to make a deal with a demon -

“It allows us to fight them,” Duncan cuts in. He sounds tired, resigned. “Allows us to match their strength and sense when they’re near.”

No wonder Greagoir wasn’t keen on Duncan’s presence in the Tower. First, taking mages, and second… Grey Wardens do what they must. Including blood magic.

But, Maker, she is scared. Any of the prayers she knows from passing by the Chantry fly from her head. Her heart.

“Is there more to this?” Elissa’s pitch hasn’t come down.

Duncan shakes his head. “We speak only a few words prior to the Joining. But these words have been said since the first. Alistair, if you would?”

Alistair recites the words, and it replaces any prayer she can fumble.

The chalice first goes to Daveth, who steps forward when the rest of them don’t. He brings the cup to his lips, he drinks, and - his head snaps upward, his hands shake, and he nearly drops the chalice were it not for Duncan. Daveth falls to his knees, hand around his throat, coughing, choking - dead. Duncan steps over him, to Jory.

“This is wrong!” Jory draws his greatsword, holds it steady between him and Duncan. Him and death. “I have a wife! Children!”

Duncan places the chalice on a small ledge behind him. He draws his dagger from his belt, eyes cold, dull, accepting. “There is no turning back now.” They know too much, all of them. The Grey Wardens ask undying loyalty from members they can’t even tell the truth because this - who would risk this?

A dull weight settles in Amell’s stomach.

Beside her, Elissa draws her bow, ready to defend their fellow recruit, but Alistair stops her with a hand on hers and a whispered word.

“Isn’t there enough death already?” Maybe the burning torches outside smells too much like a burning castle Cousland. “Amell,” she whispers, but Amell holds her tongue and her ground. In front of them, Duncan lowers Jory’s motionless body to the ground, his dagger slipping from between the warrior’s armor plates with a sick, wet sound. Duncan steps over him, to Elissa, blood on his gauntlets, staining the white chalice red.

Elissa catches her eye, and she tries to offer whatever mental strength she has. “See you on the other side,” Elissa says, and drinks. It’s the same as Daveth; lips to cup, she drinks, her eyes go white, and - and…

Elissa falls to the ground, and Alistair is quick to check on her. He nods to Duncan, who returns it. Amell sighs with relief, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

And then the chalice is in her hands, cold weight of pressing against her fingertips. Alistair stays near Elissa’s side, watching for any signs of her waking. Duncan’s attention focuses firmly on Amell.

It’s like the Harrowing. Secret, with strict rules never to tell the other apprentices, but - well, no one really listened to those. “What good is it to keep it a secret anyway?” one mage had whispered to a group of five apprentices. “It won’t help.” At Daveth’s words, she had understood. Would she have continued on this journey, had she known?

Yes. Because the Joining is like the Harrowing, except failure allows the solace of death.

And she has little else to fight for, now, except the woman resting next to her on the ground.

-

A dragon, corrupt, looming, eyes clouded white like the Darkspawn, like Daveth, like Elissa, roaring loud and louder, echoing in her head, and she feels it shake the very core of her being until the sound fades, and the vision settles into an empty, welcoming black.

-

“Amell… ”

Two minutes, Jowan.

“... wake up.”

Two -

“Please, wake up.”

Her hand flies to her forehead, pressing against the headache pulsing behind her temple. “Jowan, just two minutes,” she groans, and, Maker, the Harrowing really had taken a lot out of her hadn’t it?

When she opens her eyes, she isn’t in bed, it isn’t the Tower, and it isn’t Jowan. It’s the ground, it’s Ostagar, and it’s, blessedly, Elissa.

She’s alive, and they’re Grey Wardens.

[siribear]

I’m going to worry.

They’ve hardly been traveling together for a week, and yet - Amell is only used to the Tower, to the forged friendships there, because if you can’t trust your fellow mage, then who? But Elissa...

“Does it say something that I’m more worried of what Jory would do than the Darkspawn?” Amell quickly covers a laugh with a cough, gazing ahead to ensure the knight in question isn’t listening. He isn’t, instead keeping close to Alistair as they push further into the mire. “I’m fine, my friend,” Elissa says. Amell looks away. “Stay close to me if we face these things again. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I will,” she responds, with an edge of melancholy. Her last friend - her last true friend…

“Keep up,” Alistair calls from ahead. “We’re almost there.”

In the distance, another Tevinter tower.. This one, however, stands half the size of those at Ostagar, beaten and weathered by war and rain and the humid climate of the wilds. The wilds are silent here, save the sound of animals in the distance or small ones flittering through bushes or trees. Above that, Darkspawn chittering, waiting, but the group holds their ground and so the Darkspawn keep their distance. Amell grips her staff tighter regardless.

Alistair heads inside the crumbling tower to the broken chest waiting within. Even with magical protection, she’d be surprised if the treaties were still in one piece - or even still there. Alistair’s shoulders slump as he stands back up, and Elissa whispers, “Nothing.” They had come so far, battled so many Darkspawn… for what?

She remembers the vial of blood in her pack and groans softly.

Elissa’s mabari growls, alerting the party. A woman walks around them, dark hair pinned back and eyes golden like a cat - or an elf - caught in the dark. Her shirt - if she could call it that, really - hangs loose off her shoulders. And on her back, a staff. An apostate, then, since she hasn’t known anyone but Anders and… Jowan, that’ve escaped from the Circle.

“What have we here?” The woman croons. She calls them scavengers, even as she stalks around them like a predator bearing down on prey.

“We’re looking for something,” Elissa answers the woman’s next question, and even then the woman cocks her head.

She’s been watching them, following them, tracking their progress through the wilds. Never lifting a finger to help, even when they were ambushed.

“And now you disturb ashes that none have touched for so long. Why is that?”

“Don’t answer that,” Alistair cuts in before Elissa can respond again. “She’s Chasind, and others may be coming.” He adjusts his grip on his sword even as Elissa lowers her bow.

Outnumbered as she is, even with Elissa complying, the woman refuses to give ground. “Do you fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?”

“Yes. Swooping is bad.”

Amell resists the urge to roll her eyes, if only because she agrees. She’s had enough of being ambushed for one day. She does roll her eyes when Daveth warns that she’ll turn them into toads. Judging by the woman’s short laugh, she noticed.

“You don’t honestly believe that, right?” Amell asks, having had enough. “We can’t really turn people into toads.”

“They wouldn’t teach you that in the Circle,” Jory counters. “Or else your people might use it on the Templars.”

Your people. So much for Grey Warden camaraderie.

“Have you no thoughts of your own?” The woman chides, just as finished with the others. “You two, there.” It isn’t difficult to notice the woman has singled out her and Elissa. “Tell me your names and I shall tell you mine.”

The woman hasn’t technically done anything yet, and if Amell knows how to do anything… it’s comply. The two give their names, and the woman’s gaze softens. “And I am Morrigan.”

Alistair and Morrigan bicker further, until Elissa breaks through and, surprisingly, asks kindly for Morrigan to take them to her mother who holds the treaties.

“Such a sensible request,” Morrigan says. “I like you.”

“I’d be careful,” begins Alistair, once more unable to hold his tongue. “First it’s, ‘I like you,’ then zap. Frog time.”

And yet he continued to antagonize her. At least, past their initial misgivings, Daveth and Jory had kept quiet. Mostly out of fear, but quiet enough.

“What do you think?” Elissa asks in an aside, startling her. “Should we bother with her?”

“We aren’t getting anywhere by arguing.” Though Alistair and Morrigan look as if they could keep going for the next few hours. “It’ll be dark soon, and Duncan is expecting us to have those treaties.” She sighs. “However we have to get them.”

[siribear]

They get no more clear answers out of Alistair than they did Duncan. But the Joining sounds no different than the Harrowing and both are hush-hush rites of passage with no explanation of what to expect.

Here, she’s free, Amell reminds herself. Here, no templars, no tranquility.

“Are you the new Warden recruits, then?” Alistair asks, finally. “You wouldn’t happen to be mages, would you?”

Elissa shifts. Amell sighs, shrugs, and supposes she should be thankful he didn’t immediately notice the staff on her back. “Only one of us.”

“Ah. Right. Not that there’s anything wrong with mages, of course. Very delightful people. Great senses of humor.”

Before Amell can respond, Elissa takes control, linking her arm with Amell’s. “Now that we’ve found you, I’m sure Duncan would like to see us.”

“The other recruits - ”

“I’ll smack him for you, if you’d like,” Elissa whispers.

Amell smiles. “I’m sure they’re around camp somewhere!” she says over her shoulder.

Behind them, Alistair sighs.

-

Jory makes Alistair look like the spokesperson for mages, by comparison. When he and Daveth found their way back to the bonfire to meet Duncan, his eyes darted to her staff more than once.  Then again, he eyes Elissa with that same, weary suspicion, so perhaps it’s a women thing and not a mage thing. Still, if they’re to be Wardens together, they’ll have to get along. Eventually.

They’re to find old Grey Warden treaties in the Korcari Wilds, in the ruins of some tower. Duncan’s jaw tightens when Jory asks what they’re needed for, but the Warden Commander explains it will allow them to conscript armies should this prove to be a Blight. In the following silence, Duncan continues, instructing them to fill four vials of Darkspawn blood.

“More secrets,” says Elissa, but it likely goes deeper than that.

Blood magic.

Amell grits her teeth, annoyed at her gut reaction. Jowan’s actions are still under her skin, and all her chantry-fueled teachings tell her to scream no, to yell blood magic, to wonder how Duncan and Alistair can stand there and condone it -

When Duncan glances in her direction, she looks away.

Duncan had told her, before everything fell apart, that it isn’t magic that is evil, but the purpose. That Grey Wardens will do anything to end a Blight.

And maybe that includes blood magic. Bargaining with demons to save the world.

-

A guard allows them through the gate leading to the Wilds, nodding at Alistair as they pass through. Scribbles and notes in books couldn’t have prepared her for the water soaking her cloth slippers or the difficulties of walking on uneven and, frankly, disgustingly muddy ground. The others don’t seem to mind - their leather and chainmail boots surely help - and so Amell keeps quiet. Instead, she falls behind Elissa and steps in the path she paves through the marsh.

The wolves are a short lesson. Jory and Daveth jump the first time - and Jory the second, as well - her magic careens past them and into the animals. Elissa knows where she aims, catching her arrows in the fire that burns past her. And Alistair… Alistair moves while she’s casting and somehow knows exactly when to step away.

“Perhaps you could warn us next time you use magic?” Jory suggests.

And so Amell feels incredibly ridiculous calling out “left!” and “right!” whenever she casts, but at least it keeps the others in sync. She’s even kind enough to warn them when she sets their weapons ablaze.

It isn’t deep into the marsh when they find their first patrol, or what’s left of it. Bodies litter the small clearing, some already scavenged by the forest wildlife. Amell muffles a small cough behind her hand as the others head further into the site. There’s barely anything left on the bodies, stripped clean of anything except armor pieces too scored to be of any use. No weapons, no supplies, no one alive -

“Please, help.”

Elissa finds the survivor before the others, and Amell nearly fumbles when she asks for a poultice.

“We don’t have time to stop,” Jory protests as Amell hands a poultice to Elissa. “There could be things waiting for us. Darkspawn, waiting for us to let our guards down before they ambush us.”

“Just because you’re afraid of the woods doesn’t make the rest of us cowards or cruel,” retorts Elissa.

Jory’s hand immediately goes for his blade, and Elissa’s for her bow. “I am no coward,” he growls.

“Enough.” Alistair puts a hand on Jory’s arm and forces him to lower his blade. He reaches out a hand for Elissa, but Amell is there already, turning her attention back toward the injured man instead of the one with wounded pride. “We don’t have bandages.”

“Then I’ll make one to help.”

Elissa tears at her tunic for a makeshift bandage, and Amell helps hold the cloth in place as Elissa wraps it. She tops it off with a weak healing spell, not enough to close the wound completely but enough to get him to Ostagar. As the man rises to leave, Elissa freezes for just a moment before coming back to herself.

Though Elissa doesn’t speak as she forges ahead through the Wilds, Amell puts herself between Elissa and Jory, and as Alistair walks beside her, she thinks he’s doing just the same thing.

-

An ambush does come, only much further into the Wilds, when tensions are high and they’ve been fighting for hours and the only thing keeping Amell going is the adrenaline high. She manages a small barrier just before two more Darkspawn appear from the shadows only to crash through it, but by then Alistair and Jory, with their weapons alfame, are upon them. Sparks of lightning jump from her staff into a third Darkspawn, stunning it long enough for Alistair to run it through.

She sways on her feet, unsteady but for her staff firm on the ground. Amell blinks once, twice, tries to regain focus, but it’s like she’s viewing the world from underwater, opened her eyes under the bath and all she can see is the blurry outline of a burning wall sconce.

Something heavy falls behind her, splashing marsh water high on her robes. Amell shakes her head, and her vision clears to the sight of a dead Hurlock at her feet, an arrow lodged cleanly in its skull.

Amell leans heavily against a stone pillar while the others fill the vials, and Elissa is kind enough to fill Amell’s for her. “Did you count them?” Elissa asks, handing her the filled vial. Inside, black ichor swirls in the glass, catching and coating the sides. She pockets it.

“We have to move on,” Alistair says. He carefully cleans his sword of Darkspawn blood and makes sure Jory does the same. “The treaties aren’t far.”

When Amell pushes off the pillar, at least the world isn’t swimming so much. Alistair presses another vial into her hand, this time a blue liquid hums within, even trapped as it is.

“You didn’t look too good back there. Take this.”

She does. The world rights itself the moment she swallows, everything coming back into neat focus. Alistair, bloodied and looking concerned, Elissa much the same, only muddier. Even Daveth and Jory are waiting, though Daveth scans the nearby area.

“Thank you,” she says, and tucks the half finished potion into her belt.

“Are you alright?” Elissa asks. “Don’t push yourself.”

They fall into step behind the others as Amell explains. “We aren’t trained to fight this long. Or this much.” She frowns. Or at all. “Or these things.” Her bubble of laughter pitches on the edge of hysterical. “I’m-I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” A sigh. “How are you holding up?”

[siribear]

“Yes, please.”

Amell smiles, pleased she can do… something. Anything, to distract the both of them. Amell with the distant threat of tranquility hanging over her head, her friend a wanted maleficar, and now Elissa with the death of her family - they both deserve something better to look forward to. By the tense set of Duncan’s jaw, however, and the way he stares in the direction of Ostagar, longer with each day they spend on the road, it doesn’t seem things are going well at all.

Occasionally, Amell has to correct Elissa’s form, and she, at least, falls into a familiar routine. Sometimes, Elissa grounds the roots just a little too long, and Amell doesn’t care to stop her until her fellow warden-to-be begins grinding at the mortar itself. Poultices are, thankfully, forgiving of grief. The consistency will feel different from the others, but it’ll be just as effective. So Amell tells Elissa, each time the other woman begins to look guilty for losing concentration.

Duncan circles back to the camp occasionally and nods at their productivity. It’s the only interaction they’ve gotten from him other than his small updates the nearer they get to Ostagar.

Elissa’s mabari joins them just as Amell packs away another stack of poultices in her bag. “I think he likes you,” Elissa says. The marbari sniffs at Amell’s hands and sneezes at the smell of Elfroot on her fingers. “Marbari are a good judge of character.”

Amell slowly raises her hand, tentatively reaching out for the dog’s head. He licks her hand - a small part of her imagines Jowan would have laughed at the squeak she made - and nudges her side.

“We didn’t have mabari in the Tower.” None that she can remember, anyway. “Only cats. For the mice.” He lets out a heavy huff at that, and Amell laughs at his understanding.

But Elissa seems to be somewhere else again, for when Amell looks up, the woman’s eyes are watering. She looks away. “I think it’s time to rest.” Elissa’s mabari whines and joins her at her side. “I imagine we’ll be off soon enough.”

Amell finishes Elissa’s abandoned poultice, tucks it away, and, not long after, they’re on the road.

-

Ostagar is the loudest place she’s ever been. With soldiers practice sparring and captains shouting orders, Amell hears Ostagar even before she sees it. The Tower of Ishal looms high overhead, peaking above the trees and the rest of the fortress walls of Ostagar. She’d seen pictures in books - because other than studying and practicing, reading is all one does in the Tower - but staring at rough sketches and reading paragraphs has nothing on seeing the real thing. Amell quickens her step and almost keeps pace with Duncan just to try to see everything.

Duncan clears his throat to bring her back to herself. Her mouth clicks shut. Elissa smiles at her, and Amell tries her hardest not to blush.

But the presence of the King of Ferelden makes her forget herself again as he strides toward them, golden armored, golden haired, grinning and greeting Duncan like an old friend. Duncan doesn’t get a chance to introduce the two of them before King Cailan begins speaking to them like they’re on even ground. Equals.

Like she still doesn’t have her staff strapped to her back, announcing to all the world that she’s a mage.

“You’re Duncan’s new recruits, are you not?”

His armor is… blinding, and his smile utterly unreal, and Amell nearly forgets to bow before the king calls her out of it. Behind him, Duncan nods.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’m - my name is Amell.” She looks up to see him - finally - notice the staff on her back.

“A mage, then? Good. We could certainly use your magic when fighting these Darkspawn.”

Her jaw threatens to drop again. “I - yes, Your Majesty. I will do my best.”

Thankfully, he turns to speak to  Elissa, and Amell tries not to sigh too audibly. Duncan, however, still seems less than pleased, and after Cailan finishes relaying information about Elissa’s brother - and how awful that they just seemed to miss him, but at least he’s here - Amell learns why. He refuses to listen to Duncan’s council, and instead wishes to fight at the front lines with the rest of the Wardens.

To seek glory.

Amell bows again out of reflex when King Cailan leaves. Elissa hardly moves, even when Duncan gives them their first, official orders as Warden recruits. They’re to find another senior Warden in the camp by the name of Alistair. He gives them a brief description of how to find him, what he looks like, though he’s oddly sure they’ll know who he is. Perhaps this Alistair is well known among the Wardens? Fame too young to have books written or songs sung about him just yet, maybe.

“He’s not even here,” Elissa mumbles. “Fergus, I mean.” Amell frowns, wishes there were something she could do. Magic Fergus there, somehow. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

There’s a fragile thread of longing in her voice. Amell makes a note to tell her about Jowan, sometime.

“Let’s get this over with and find this other Warden, yeah?”

When they enter Ostagar, Amell feels lightheaded all over again. There’s the same Tevinter walls around her, but the sky is so open, and - and the bridge. Maker, the bridge. She keeps close to Elissa as they cross, and feels, for once, grateful for the high windows in the Tower. If she had ever looked down -

She tries not to make it obvious she practically skips back onto safer ground.

In the larger area of the camp is where it’s the loudest. Upon a loft, a chantry sister blesses the soldiers listening below, and Amell thinks she sees a familiar face nearby, but Elissa doesn’t stop long enough for her to investigate.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take them long to find Alistair. He’s exactly as Duncan described, though his face is strangely familiar, and he - he seems far too young for them to just know who he is, as Duncan had implied.

And yet.

Not a minute later, the mage he had been arguing with almost bumps into her - she may have seen him in the Tower as well, but he’s too angry to acknowledge her anyway - and Alistair looks far too pleased with himself. Elissa shoots Amell an amused look, but it’s not exactly the best impression.

Alistair finally acknowledges them. “You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”

Elissa laughs.

Amell wonders what she’s gotten herself into.

[siribear]

The castle is bigger when they’re searching for Elissa’s family.

Amell couldn’t look when they found Oren and his mother, cut down in the middle of the room, Oriana covering her son. They closed their eyes before they left, but there was no way they would be able to do the proper rites. With the fire all around them… maybe it would be enough. Amell had said a prayer, given Elissa her moment to mourn, and they continued searching for Elissa’s parents.

It isn’t easy, searching through a burning castle, arrows and magic (sometimes not hers) flying and swords clashing (and at least Elissa can handle those herself) and everyone around them screaming. Amell enchants Elissa’s arrows as she fires, arrow tips gleaming with frost and sparking with electricity.

But mobile combat is nothing Amell was ever trained for. None of Howe’s men stand to wait for her to cast, and no one takes turns, and her flimsy barriers are always up a half second before a sword or arrow would hurt her or Elissa. By the time they make it to the great hall, she’s magically and physically exhausted, eternally glad for the reprieve finding Ser Gilmore and the other Cousland troops gives them.

While Elissa speaks with Ser Gilmore, Amell catches her breath and readjusts her hair back in its tie. One of the Cousland mages spots her and leaves his post by the heavy double doors. He slips a potion in her hand that she downs in two swallows. The lyrium sings in her veins for a moment before it ends, and the dull ache in her chests recedes. The mage leaves, and she thinks maybe she saw him in the Tower, once, some time ago. If she could just place his name -

Elissa calls her back over, and Amell casts one look back at the mage before heading to Elissa’s side. “Through the courtyard and in the kitchen, there’s a secret passage out of the castle,” she explains. “My parents would meet there, expecting us, as well.” Expecting their daughter, surely. But some near-apostate mage? She needs to find Duncan. “I’m sure Duncan will find his way.”

Together, they cut through swaths of Howe’s men on their way to the kitchen larder. When the door opens, the sight is only slightly better than when they found Oriana and Oren. Amell lingers by the door. Teryn Cousland’s wounds are only stymied by the Teyrna keeping pressure on them. If she were a better healer, maybe - maybe she could, but when Elissa turns to her for help, all she can do is look away.

Watching the three of them hurts, more than just the situation they’ve found themselves in. Another family torn apart, but they fight - they fight so hard to stay together, Elissa begging her mother and father to come with them, refusing to leave them behind.

She catches a figure standing next to her, just at her shoulder. It isn’t ominous, and when she turns, Duncan is still standing there, watching.

“Warden Commander?”

The Teyrn looks up at that and begs Duncan to take Elissa with him, and Amell watches as Duncan coldly requests that Bryce give his permission to recruit his daughter. And there they are, again, discussing someone else’s fate as she stands and watches her life crumble around her. Elissa is silent as she stands to leave her parents, as she lifts the trap door to the secret passage and heads through. Duncan nods at the two behind them and follows Elissa down.

Amell kneels near the door and mutters, “I’m sorry,” before she leaves.

-

Their trip south is worse than the trip north. The three of them smell like smoke and blood, and grief hangs over at least two of them. They had gone to Highever for Ser Gilmore, and while Amell isn’t upset they came out of it with Elissa instead, she wishes it had been under much happier circumstances.

Elissa keeps to herself for days, and Amell keeps her distance, except to pass on dinner.

Whenever they stopped for camp, Duncan would gather supplies for food and fire, Elissa would separate herself with her mabari, and Amell would gather herbs. The fight through Highever Castle had been eye opening, and until she has the chance to practice and build up her endurance, she’ll have to rely on lyrium potions.

Today, instead of going out to find more herbs, she sits in the middle of camp, grinding together her supplies with a mortar Duncan had secured for her. She goes through the motions, through the steps she learned in her herbalism classes and the books she read. Elissa speaks to her mabari, just on the other side of camp, and it’s… interesting, that it seems like the dog understands.

She looks up at the sound of rustling fabric to see Elissa sit next to her with a smile. “I never thanked you for helping me find my family.” Amell offers a small smile in return. Find, but not save. “We’re to be Wardens, then.”

Amell laughs softly, bitterly. “Whatever that means, I suppose. There isn’t much written on the Wardens, in the Tower, at least. Outside of how they stopped the Blights, of course.”

“Is there something you need help with?” Elissa looks down at Amell’s stalled hands. “I need to keep busy because I keep thinking…” A pause. “Please say yes.”

Amell hums thoughtfully. “Do you know how to make potions? I could… I could teach you.”

[siribear]

Amell follows Elissa through the castle, soft mage slippers barely making a sound against the stones. Not that she truly has to worry, she thinks. Elissa belongs here, and surely any passersby wouldn’t question a warden recruit speaking to the youngest Cousland. Hopefully.

And then Elissa leads her to a wall covered in vines growing up to the second floor and a convenient ledge, just outside one of the windows looking into the main hall. She gapes as Elissa scales the vines easily, confidently, and Amell only tugs at the makeshift ladder experimentally. Despite her misgivings, it holds fast and, not daring to look down or think too much of how ridiculous it is (though it’s hardly worse than scaling the tall library bookshelves), she begins climbing. Elissa offers her hand once she reaches the top, and Amell takes it, allowing herself to be pulled up the rest of the way.

“I gather that you’re here for more recruitment.” Amell rests her head back against the wall, sighing, when Elissa looks at her. “If one could be so lucky.”

Lucky. That’s certainly a way to put it. An alternative to a fate worse than death, another.

But Amell remembers Duncan did want to recruit Elissa, and the woman certainly seemed eager. “Well, Duncan actually had thought - ”

“Absolutely not!” Teyrn Coulsand’s raised voice startles her, and she almost thinks the man is talking to her, until Duncan responds.

“I’ve come for the best warrior that you could offer…”

Amell looks over to Elissa, leaned against the window pane and pressed close to the glass. Amell kicks the heels of her feet softly against the stone, idling listening. “She is my daughter,” Teryn Cousland argues back.

To have family so adamant to keep you…

“My brother is heir.” Odd, then, that they would send him off to battle against darkspawn of all things, but Amell doesn’t truly understand. “What does it matter?” Elissa says, mostly to herself, but Amell thinks she can sympathize with her desire to leave. Her days on the road were long and tiring, but they were also the most free Amell has been in her entire life.

Elissa’s next question startles her. “Do you have any family?” Then, quickly, “Was that insensitive of me to ask?”

Mages know better than to ask about family, in the Tower. Many don’t remember, and the ones who do never have anything good to say. Either the Templars tore them from their parents’ arms or their parents handed them over willingly. Amell sighs, softly.

“I used to.” A young boy that held her hand when she was scared of the men in steel armor who kept her from feeling so alone, even in the large dormitories with beds crammed together.

Amell doesn’t listen to the rest of the conversation between Duncan and the Teyrn once it shifts from Elissa’s rejected recruitment and the actual recruitment of another candidate, the Sir Gilmore that will accompany them to Ostagar, to troop movements and positions. Even Elissa frowns when the conversation leaves talk of the Wardens, and she grows less and less interested in matters that will not concern her come morning.

“I should really see you to your room,” Elissa says, finally, and Amell gratefully follows her back down to the first floor.

-

Amell actually peers inside the room when Elissa leads her to it. Cozy, for guest rooms, she thinks. A bed larger than her own at the Tower, an end table with a lamp, and a small writing desk make up the space, and even the walls are decorated with paintings. If the guest rooms look this comfortable, Amell is sort of curious what Elissa’s bedroom would look like. Or the master bedroom.

“If you need anything, I’ll be down the hall.” Elissa gestures further down the hallway, past a set of double doors.

Before Amell can actually enter her room, the sound of someone running down the hall straight for them catches both of their attentions. Elissa opens her arms and squeezes the little boy that runs right into her before Amell realizes what’s going on. Amell blinks. “This is my nephew, Oren,” Elissa says, smiling.

“Are you the mage that came into the castle?” Oren asks, arms wrapped around Elissa and standing on his tip toes to look over at Amell. The Cousland family is apparently a very curious one. Or… well. Maybe they don’t see mages often in Highever.

“Oren, this is Amell.” Elissa fixes Oren’s hair, mussed when he ran into her arms. “She’s visiting the castle.”

Oren’s eyes go wide. “With the Grey Wardens?”

Amell manages a nod, calming. He reminds her of the children in the Tower, once they get over their fear. Always curious about this and that and the next thing. “I am a mage,” she confirms, and Oren gives her a pleased smile. “And I’m here with Duncan, yes.”

“I’ll be a Grey Warden when I grow up.” He turns to Elissa. “Do you think? Or a soldier, like father?”

Elissa smiles, brushing at Oren’s hair again. “Of course. We should let our guest rest for the night, Oren.”

“Oh. Okay." He pouts.

Before Elissa can shepherd him away, Amell closes her room door without entering.

“Um,” she starts. Elissa turns. “I’m sure I can catch up on sleep on the way to Ostagar, right?”

They both know it’s a flimsy lie, but Elissa smiles at her all the same. Amell summons a small wisp for Oren, who tries to catch it like a firefly as it bobs around him. She’ll regret the lack of sleep and miss the luxury of a soft bed in the morning, but for now - for now she’ll stay with those who don’t seem to mind what she is.

 -

By the time Amell leaves Elissa’s room, most of the other residents of the castle have long since retired. Hopefully Duncan didn’t have to speak to her. Though, if he did, it can wait until morning.

She barely has time to enter the Fade when a knock at her door startles her awake. She wakes up coughing, the air thick with smoke and alive with flame. Once she fully comes awake, she can feel the tugs at the Veil. Other mages casting, spirits pressing up against the Veil, drawn in by death.

Again, the noise at her door - banging, not knocking, almost drowned out by the clash of swords. Amell nearly stumbles over blanket, twisted around her legs, as she jumps out of bed. At the door is Duncan, a sword in his hand, already red with blood.

“Good, you’re all right.” He edges slightly into her room. “Find the youngest Cousland. Her brother has already left for Ostagar.” Duncan looks around the doorframe, into the hallway. Finding it clear, he turns back to her. “I need to find the others.”

Amell nods, and Duncan leaves, heading the opposite direction of Elissa’s room. She grabs her staff near the door and heads down the hallway. Corpses litter the hallway, blood seeping into the stone. She notices a figure at the end of the hall, just outside Elissa’s door. She runs.

The man bashes the door with the pommel of his sword, then kicks at the door. Amell casts and directs a cone of freezing air through the tip of her staff, aiming for the man. He turns to her when it hits, but her spell slows him, long enough for her to build up a current of electricity that wreaths her staff in lightning.

Elissa’s door opens just as Amell fires a bolt of lightning at the attacker and whirls to catch another that had attempted to sneak up on her. The two fall, writhing against the floor, until they finally die. Bloodless, but no less terrible.

Amell heaves a sigh, leaning heavily against the wall as Elissa steps over a body and kneels to inspect it.

“I knew the crest they wear,” she says, and Amell’s glad she didn’t attack one of the Cousland’s men. But Elissa’s voice is cold and low. “It’s Howe.”

“Arl Howe?” Amell asks. Was he not an ally of the Couslands? Why else would he - and then she remembers the looks of the men as she and Duncan passed into the castle. Grinning, buzzing with energy, knowing this is how the night would go. She grips her staff tightly in her fist.

“I have no right to ask you but, please, help me find and save my family.” Elissa looks up at her, fierce and angry, even with tears shining in her eyes.

Amell pushes herself off the wall. She’s only known Elissa for a night and her family even less, but she can’t leave the other woman. Not like this, not now.

“I’m with you.”

[siribear]

“Tranquility.”

The word falls from her mouth like her stomach to the floor, and all she can think is I trusted you, I trusted you - we trusted you. Lily to Aeonar, and she to… to… It doesn’t matter. She won’t be herself after, left to catalogue the library and the storage if she’s lucky. If not? Well, she won’t feel anything, regardless.

Amell understands why Jowan ran away, even agreed to help him when he came to her just hours before. But then she watched him plunge a dagger into his palm and - and - Maker, why him?

Geagoir and Irving argue, and the Grey Warden - Duncan - interjects as he sees fit. Amell just wants to hide. Perhaps this is another test, another trick of the Fade, but - no. The blood drying on her slippers and her robes is too real.

“Mage Amell.”

Her head snaps up, and Irving still looks disappointed and Geagoir angry (but undermined) and Duncan… hopeful.

“Will you go with Duncan and join the Grey Wardens at Ostagar?”

She wrings her hands, and her gaze falls momentarily to the ground before she meets Irving’s stare. “I have nothing else left.”

That settles it. She’s sent to her room to pack; there isn’t much, really. Just a spare robe and the mage staff Irving promised for completing her Harrowing. 

And a pendant that sits heavily in the pocket of her robes.

-

The boat ride across Lake Calenhad is as long as it is quiet. The pair of templars accompanying the group doesn’t argue when Amell sits close to Lily, and she takes the woman’s hand in hers as they sail toward their respective fates.

-

Duncan never mentioned horses. Not that Amell is ungrateful for not having to walk to Highever, but… horses. The first time she takes the reins, the horse nearly bucks her off, and it sets the tone for their trip north. Amell attempts to curtail her anxiety, Duncan soothes her horse, and they travel in strained silence. She doesn’t get any more answers about the battle or the darkspawn than those he gave her when she questioned him in his quarters at the Tower, but he does tell her their reason for heading toward Highever first instead of straight south to Ostagar.

“Teyrn Cousland has a promising recruit for the wardens, and I aim to recruit him.” Amell nods. She’s heard of the Couslands. Or, at least, read about them. Their power and influence ranks only second to the royal family. “There is a young woman I would like to recruit as well. However, I doubt Bryce would part so easily with his daughter when he and his son will ride to Ostagar ahead of us.”

That night, Amell learns she likes camping. Even surrounded by thin tent walls, she is still warmer than she ever was in the Tower.

-

Highever is lovely, and the weather only seems to compliment it. They pass straight through to Castle Cousland, but Amell eyes the buildings and the bustling people. Ranks of soldiers march by them, and Duncan introduces them as Rendon Howe’s men amongst Bryce Cousland’s own. There’s a buzz of energy around them, excitement and nerves all in one, and, given what Duncan has told her of the darkspawn, Amell can only wonder why the men are grinning.

Once in Castle Cousland proper, Amell trails behind Duncan, far enough to be out of his way, but close enough that the guards recognize her as a Warden. Or a mage-in-the-custody-of-Grey-Wardens. Some of the guards eye her staff as they head through to the main hall, but otherwise remain silent.

Duncan discusses marching matters with Teyrn Cousland and who she suspects is Arl Howe. He, too, gives her robes and staff a once over, but otherwise entirely dismisses her presence. With nothing else to do or elsewhere to go, Amell hovers at Duncan’s back. Before she can wonder much longer why she’s still there, a door on the far side of the main hall opens, and a woman steps through. She carries herself with an air of importance as she walks toward the Teyrn, who greets her and introduces her as his daughter, Elissa.

Duncan bows in greeting, and Amell quickly does the same, ducking her head when Elissa turns to her.

“I’ve never met a mage before,” Elissa says, and she seems… amused? Curious, if anything, with none of the open skepticism Amell has learned to bear from others. Amell only bows her head in acknowledgement, unsure of what to say that wouldn’t offend her. Thankfully, the Teyrn comes to her rescue, both from Elissa’s comment and further discussion.

Elissa leads them through the castle, up to the guest rooms where they’ll be staying, and Amell even gets her own room, her own four walls to sleep in. It’s the novelty of that that distracts her from realizing that Duncan has entered his own rooms and leaves Amell alone with the youngest Cousland.

Though they stand in front of another closed door, Amell’s room, likely, Elissa doesn’t move from in front of it, instead leaning toward Amell, eyes gleaming. “I didn’t get your name. Are you a Warden too?” Amell opens her mouth to speak, but Elissa continues. “Do you really want to go to your room or do you want to hear what the men have to say?”

Elissa stares at her expectantly, and it’s all Amell can do to keep her head from spinning. “I - my… “ She takes a deep breath. “My name is… Amell. And I think so. Duncan recruited me from… the Tower, but he says there’s more to do before I’m a Warden.” Some test, likely. Can she throw a fireball without harming others around her? Hopefully nothing like a Harrowing.

Amell coughs, eyeing the door to her room. The first two days on the road were refreshing with the open sky high overhead, no cold Tower walls around her, and no sound of Templars patrolling the corridors. But now - now she misses sleeping on a soft bed and bathing and the rest of the week had been a nightmare. But maybe -

She finds herself smiling. “Let’s go,” Amell says.

She has to stop herself from taking Elissa’s hand and imagining a mop of black hair as Elissa leads her away.