Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tevinter turned out to not be quite as bad as Dorian (and others) had always made it sound. Either that, or the pushes for change he’d been making since going home were having some impact. Or maybe the Qunari military, the Antaam, going rogue and properly invading the country had made everyone dial back the elfnapping. Bigger fish to fry and all that.

            Whatever the cause, I could walk the streets of even Minrathous itself without anyone trying to kidnap me into slavery, so long as I kept my hood up. It probably helped that I was barely taller than Varric, so without seeing my ears and vallaslin they might think I was just a tall, very underweight dwarf.

            We were finally closing in on Solas, or so it seemed. However, he was also seemingly close to completing that big ‘end of the world’ ritual he’d been working on for the last decade, so, not the best of odds for us, sadly. After sweet-talking a bartender into telling us where Varric’s Minrathous contact, Neve Gallus, had gotten to (kidnapped by Venatori, because those bastards were still kicking around, being a pain in my arse) we headed off in hot pursuit. And then, of course, the city was attacked by fucking demons.

            “The ritual,” Varric and I said together, Varric adding, “We might still have time to stop him before he completes it.”

            “Alright, come on. We grab Harding, then head to Dumat Plaza for Neve.” I couldn’t say I was wild about the idea of going anywhere near somewhere called Dumat Plaza. It made me think of Corypheus, something that always set off a phantom ache in my ribs.

            “Always good to have a gameplan,” Varric said as we took off running, dodging demons and Venatori and endless waves of bullshit.

            Harding was exactly where we’d left her, in a corner of Dock Town. When we got there, she’d just killed a demon to save a civilian mother and daughter. I called, “Harding, you good?” as we came within earshot, raising my hands when she rounded on us with her bow drawn. “Whoa now, it’s just us!”           

            “Sorry!” she said. “There’s a lot going on right now. I’ve been doing what I can to help, but… The ritual must be weakening the Veil. There are a lot of scared people out there.”

            “Not to mention a pretty scared one right here.” I pointed at myself, eyes on the chaos above us.

            “Make that two,” Varric said. “As well as a whole lot of demons. Haven’t seen this many come through the Veil since the good old days.”

            There were rifts all over the sky by then, cracking open and spilling demons over the city. I reached out with my Marked hand, willing the nearest one closed with the Anchor. It closed, after resisting me harder than any of the Breach-created rifts ever had… only for another one to open just to the left of where it had been.

            “Like playing bloody whack-a-mole,” I muttered, shaking out my hand. “Alright, this thing isn’t going to be any use today, apparently. It’s stopping Solas or nothing.”

            “Right,” Harding said, looking around. “Didn’t you find Neve? Wasn’t she at the meeting point?”

            “Venatori got to her,” I said. “According to our nice new friend, the bartender who desires me carnally, she’s been taken to Dumat Plaza. Wherever the hell that may be.”

            “Oh! I found it when I was scouting the area… and it was crawling with Venatori.”

            “Sounds about right, yeah. Come on, off we pop.”

            She led us onwards, through more demons, more Venatori. At one point the fancy floating palace they had there (Dorian had been right about that much, at least, the south really was Hicksville in comparison, they even had a decent approximation at neon lighting) started blasting everything around us with magic. Just, a really fun trip all round. When we finally caught sight of Dumat Plaza, it was to find the place enclosed in a big bubble of ice.

            “Fuck’s sake!” I hissed. “Why can nothing ever just be... No, it's fine, it's fine, let’s just get down there. I’m good with fire stuff, maybe I can melt through.”

            Thankfully, that didn’t turn out to be necessary. As soon as I touched the wall of ice, ready to start pouring fire into it, the thing burst into snowflakes that fluttered aside to reveal a pretty woman with olive brown skin, a sweep of black hair, and the biggest fascinator I’d ever seen in my life. It was so big, in fact, it took me a few minutes to realise she was also rocking a prosthetic leg. I couldn’t look anywhere but at the headware. Fascinator indeed.

            “Varric,” she said, “Harding. Not the worst timing.”

            “Neve!” Harding cried. “It’s so good to see you. We thought the Venatori had kidnapped you!”

            “They thought the same thing.” She indicated the frozen corpses of several Venatori littering the plaza. They were frozen upright, like statues, and for a moment I was so strongly reminded of the Qunari the last time I’d seen Solas that it felt like being kicked in the chest. It distracted me so much I missed the rest of her explanation, following along in their wake automatically when they moved on, only zoning back in when Varric said my name.

            “Emma, this is Neve Gallus, our local expert. She’s gonna help us find Solas. Neve, meet Emma Rutherford, previously –”

            “Oh, I’m quite aware.” Neve eyed me up and down, paying particular attention to my left hand. I was wearing my habitual fingerless glove to cover the glow, but my sleeve had ridden up and the green veins were just visible in the skin above my wrist. “The woman who fell into Thedas from another world and strolled straight into being the leader of the Inquisition. I heard you’d retired, settled down to live the simple life.”

            “Didn’t suit me,” I said with a smile, because Harding and Varric had both given me worried looks. Three years since Cullen had died, and admittedly I still avoided bringing it up wherever possible, but at least I didn’t burst into tears at every reminder anymore. Usually. “Besides, Solas is… I mean, he was a friend. I feel like it’s on me to stop him.”

            “Well, always nice to have a celebrity on board.”

            “And anyone who’s an enemy of the Venatori is a friend of mine.”

            “Alright,” Varric said, “if you two have finished flirting, maybe we can stop this ritual?”

            “You used to be more fun,” I said, but we set off at a jog all the same.

*

                        Neve said she’d been tracking old elven magic, which was presumably Solas, so we followed her. Through the chaos of the city, through Solas’ hidden base of operations, finally through yet another eluvian. Eventually, we found ourselves right outside the old amphitheatre-looking ruin Solas was conducting his ritual in. We hid behind a wall, peeking around it to see the man himself at the top of a huge flight of steps, the air in front of him rippling and tearing with magic. I surreptitiously tried to use the Anchor on it, but got no response. Whatever he was doing, whatever that slash in the air was, it wasn't a Fade tear as I understood it. Catching Varric's expectant look, I shook my head.

            “Alright,” Varric said, “I’ll take it from here. You three keep the demons off me while I talk to him.”

            I grabbed his arm as he made to duck around the wall, pulling him back. “Hey, no. If anyone’s going up there to talk to him, it’s me. That’s the whole reason I’m here.”

            “We’re not risking you up there,” he said.

            “Maybe it’s better to send Emma,” Harding said. “She’s got that healing hand, and she’s –” She stopped, eyes flicking to Neve and back. “I just mean, Solas probably isn’t going to stop his ritual just because an old friend asked him nicely.”

            “Exactly,” I said.

            “Ah, but that’s why it has to be me.” Varric took my hand off his arm, squeezing it gently. “Because if he doesn’t listen, I’ll still have Bianca.”

            I sighed, but in the end I nodded, because I understood the point he was making. Varric preferred the idea of a peaceful resolution, like me. Unlike me, he was willing to injure, maybe even kill, Solas if it came down to that. So, I nodded, and I stepped back, and I let him turn that corner.

            “I’ll tell him you’re here,” he promised.

            “Good luck, Varric,” I said.

            It was almost impossible to make out what they were saying to each other up there, even when there weren’t demons attacking us. But as time went on it became apparent that their talk wasn’t going as planned. Solas exploding Bianca with his mind was just the tin hat on things.

            “Alright, this is going tits up,” I said. “I need to get up there.”

            Neve grabbed my shoulder before I could move, pointing across the amphitheatre. “Wait. Look at that scaffolding. We take that out, the statue comes down –”

            “Solas has to avoid being crushed and can’t finish his ritual,” I grinned. “I can see why Varric likes you. Okay, I’m going. I can go bird, fly over –”

            “You’re not going alone,” Harding said.

            When I tried arguing she just kept repeating it, over and over, and it wasn’t like we were blessed with an overabundance of time, so in the end I agreed to take her with me, leaving Neve to watch our backs. At least part of why I chose to take Harding with me was because I thought she would actually take a shot at Solas if left to her own devices (probably because she kept saying “I can make the shot”), and some part of me – some stupid, naïve, childish little part – still hoped everyone might make it out alive.

            The scaffolding broke, the statue came down, and overhead I could just make out Solas yelling, “No!” so I thought I must have been doing something right. I kept one eye on them as I ran back to the front of the amphitheatre, watching helplessly as Varric desperately tackled Solas, as the two of them struggled… as Solas jammed the dagger he was using to conduct the ritual into Varric’s chest. As Varric tumbled down all those stairs to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom.

            “No!” I screamed, going bird over the last stretch to get to him faster. Elf again, I knelt beside him, my hands fluttering around the dagger, knowing that pulling it out would just kill him faster, but hating to leave it wedged in there. Why had I never learned healing magic? No, I’d never had a natural aptitude for it, despite trying my best, but had I really tried hard enough to learn? Hadn’t I just given in and played to my natural affinity for elemental magic instead of putting in the work, because it was easier, because it was more fun? And now… “Varric, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh Christ, why didn’t I –”

            “Hey, Dreamer,” he choked out in a horrible wet voice.

            “Don’t try to talk, alright, I…” I placed the Anchor over the wound and willed, wanted, wished it closed, but it did nothing, as ever. The useless fucking thing had only ever worked for me. “Neve! Neve, please! Fuck, Varric, I don’t…” Finally, I looked up the steps at Solas. There was pain in his face, and regret. But all the same, he shook his head and turned back to that rip in the air. Solas, one of the best healers I’d ever met, chose his ritual over helping us.

            Something came out of that rip, even as he turned towards it. One looked mostly like a person, though big, hulking, like an Avvar warrior on steroids. The other was a straight up monster. An elongated humanoid figure surrounded by thrashing tentacles. Solas faced them, seeming much smaller in comparison, and with a flash of light I was slammed back against the pillar behind me, turning the world dark.

Chapter Text

A slideshow of images, blurred at the edges. Harding, her face battered, dragging me back towards the eluvian. Neve had Varric. Couldn’t see if he was alive or… no, he had to be alive. Couldn’t be dead. He was Varric, he’d promised me he’d always be there.

            Blood on my hands. Mostly Varric’s, but now mine too, I could feel the blood streaming down the back of my neck, hot against the chill of the rain. No way of knowing how bad it really was, scalp wounds bled like fuck. Pain, like my brain was too big for my skull. Then, not even that. Falling through darkness… to land in a greyscale wasteland.

            “Oh, da’len,” Solas said, sounding infinitely sad. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

            I whipped around and there he was, wearing armour I’d never have expected from him back in the Inquisition days, even fancier than the Sentinel gear I’d last seen him in. Otherwise, he hadn’t changed a bit. I wanted to punch him in the throat. I wanted to hug him. I didn’t know what I wanted.

            “Hi, Dad.”

            He closed his eyes briefly, looking down and away. “You called me that once before, do you remember? Caer Bronach, after you were shot. I don’t think you even realised you had done it, but the fright it gave me.” He laughed softly. “I thought you knew, somehow. That –”

            “That you couldn’t keep lying to me?”

            “That I would not have the chance to get to know you, before you learned the truth and came to hate me.”

            “Oh.”

            “I was sorry to hear about Cullen. He was a good man, and he loved you deeply. I would not have had you lose someone else close to you so soon after… your family.”

            “That’s why you’re trying to end the world?” I couldn’t help snapping at him, because my options were angry or sad, and I’d done enough crying for his sake. “That’s why you stabbed Varric?”

            “Varric,” Solas breathed, lowering his head.

            “He’s out there right now, hurt, hurt badly, maybe… maybe even dying, and I don’t even know, because you…” I looked around at the bleak greyish landscape. “Where the fuck are we, anyway? Am I… The last thing I remember is blacking out.”

            “Physically, your friends have brought you back to my base of operations, the Lighthouse. As for this place, when you disrupted my ritual, the magical energies dragged me into the Fade. You are here because you shed blood at the ritual site. Enough for me to form a tenuous connection, while your physical body is unconscious.”

            “Huh. You always said you didn’t like blood magic, that it made it harder to access the Fade.”

            “I also said I thought it could be a useful tool, under the right circumstances. Besides which,” he added wryly, “given my present predicament, I feel a little blood magic is the least of my concerns.”

            Glancing around, he went to sit on a fallen stone column, patting the space beside him with a hopeful look. I hesitated, but in the end I couldn’t help but go over and sit there, shoulder to shoulder with him, staring out at the dim wreckage that might have been the echo of the amphitheatre we’d just been in. It could almost have been any of our excursions back in the Inquisition days. Just me and Solas out in the hills overlooking Haven while he taught me about magic or history or politics. There was a tightness in my chest, my throat, a prickle behind my eyes that I desperately willed back.

            “Thanks,” I said quietly, “for what you said about Cullen.”

            “I meant it. He had a troubled past, but you were good for him, and he was good for you. If there was anything I could have done –”

            “You didn’t help Varric. I watched you, you saw how bad he was hurt, and you just went straight back to your fucking ritual.”

            “It was at a critical stage, I could not risk becoming distracted.” He took a deep breath. “I am sure… Varric will be fine.”

            I grunted, then held up the Anchor. “This was no fucking use.”

            “No. That is for you. Only you. I could explain the metaphysical mechanics involved in –”

            “’It only works for me’ is about all I need to hear.” I briefly leaned against him. “But thanks.”

            After a while of sitting there in silence, looking at nothing, he said, “I was not ending the world, da’len.”

            With a sharp laugh, I said, “I know I might be a bit gullible, but I’m not that stupid. Last time we spoke you told me you were going to bring down the Veil, burn the world down to bring back old Elvhenan. And what were you doing last night? Ripping down the Veil. Letting demons pour out.”

            “That is not what I was doing. I was moving the Evanuris from one prison to another. Those who remain, in any case. You recall when I told you their actions threatened the world, that was why I locked them away? It was the blight. They drew on the magic of the blight, corrupting all they saw, until I trapped them.” He sighed. “Now I am trapped, and the blighted gods walk free. That is why I did not run to heal Varric, da’len, however much I might have wanted to. I was at a critical stage in the ritual, and hoped to still keep them contained.”

            “Shit.” I rubbed my eyes. “See, Dad, that’s the sort of thing you tell people. Just a quick note, a ‘by the way, Em, I know you want to stop me from burning down the world, but the next ritual I’m doing is actually’… Why were you moving them, anyway? Why not leave them where they were?”

            “Their prison had started to crumble. I had crafted a better one for them. And,” he elbowed me gently, “would you have believed me, had I sent such a note?”

            “Not once the demons and rifts started popping up all over the shop,” I admitted. “Nah, it was always going to play out like this. Which Evanuris got out, anyway? One of them looked like something I’d be more than happy to never see again.”

            “Ghilan’nain,” he said, “the other was Elgar’nan. They were the only ones still alive, the only ones you will need to deal with.” Rubbing a hand over his head, he quietly added, “And now you will have to face them without me.”

            “I dealt with Corypheus, right?”

            “With the Inquisition at your back, and me by your side.” He shook his head. “All I can offer is my knowledge, my guidance. Although, perhaps –”

*                       

                        Reality crashed back in, along with a pounding headache. I sat up too quickly, gasping as the world spun around me, and pressed my Marked hand to the back of my head, hoping it would do at least some good. I was on a cot bed in a room full of them, a place I’d never seen before… and on one of the other beds was Varric, bandaged, bruised, and with a leg brace, but alive.

            “Well,” he said, “look who’s still with us!”

            “I could say the same for you!” I laughed, pressing a hand over my eyes to fight back the sudden sting of tears. When I spoke again, my voice was shaking. “God, Varric, when I saw you lying there… You’re really okay?”

            “Oh yeah, I’ve had much worse.” He struggled to sit upright, letting out a cough. “Alright, maybe I’ve had a little worse. Don’t think I’ll be joining you in the field anytime soon.”

            “Trust me, mate, I thought I’d gotten you killed. You’re never going outside again. Your job from here on out is strictly sitting at home issuing orders, alright, consider it my apology.”

            “Hey,” he said, “you’ve got nothing to apologise for. Come on, Dreamer, I made my choice to go out there. You tried to stop me, it’s not like you marched me out in front of an executioner.”

            “Mm.” I rubbed the back of my head slowly – there was a scar there now, I could feel it, horizontal, about an inch long, raised and smooth. At least I could hide it with my hair. “We screwed up, Varric. We stopped Solas, but something got out. Elven gods. Bad gods.”

            “And you’ll stop them, too,” he said, with a lot more confidence than I felt. “You dealt with Corypheus, right?”

            “Yeah,” I snorted. “As someone just pointed out, I needed a team to do that.”

            “So you’ll get yourself a team this time, too. You’re good at that, getting people to work with you.”

            “Yeah, maybe.”

            “Emma, you’re awake?” Harding limped in, her face a mess of cuts and bruises, presumably from getting caught by some debris when the statue came down. I felt even more guilt as I realised I hadn’t even looked back at her as we’d gone back to the front of the amphitheatre, all my attention had been fixed on Varric instead. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to barge in. I was looking for elfroot.”

            “It’s fine, no worries.” I stood up, and what I’d been doing with the Anchor must have been of some benefit, because I didn’t immediately fall back down. “Sorry you got hurt, Lace.”

            “Hey, come on,” she said with a smile. “We both got banged up out there. Oh, careful if you’re going outside! Put one foot wrong and you’ll fall forever!”

            Well, that was nice and ominous. “Uh. Beg pardon?”

            “Yeah, on top of everything else, the eluvian took us into the Fade. The place where dreams come from?”

            “Right. Because nothing normal ever happens to us, does it?”

            She chuckled. “No, it does not.”

            Varric announced his intention to have a nap, and he looked like he needed one, so I headed out of what was apparently the infirmary and into a beautiful round room lit by a broken metal circle hovering at eye-level with the upper floor. Down a sweeping ramp there was a little library, to go with the rows upon rows of bookshelves that stretched all the way up to the distant ceiling, all floating in midair, because the ancient elves seemed to have had a real beef with gravity. There was also a circular coffee table and some seating. Overall, it looked like a nice little nook to hang out in.

            Harding had also suggested I track down Neve for a meeting, and there was no sign of her in there. After taking a minute to examine a panel on the wall – it looked like there might have been a painting there once upon a time, but now it was either too faded or too scratched off to make out any details – I headed outside… and froze.

            It reminded me of the places I’d seen through the Crossroads, especially Vir Dirthara. Floating buildings in all directions, and between them nothing but the endless space of the Fade. The building I’d just come out of was a huge round tower, sending an endless beam of light into the infinite sky. It was beautiful, if a tad unsettling.

            Neve stood in the middle of the plaza outside, an open space that linked a number of outbuildings with the main tower. There was a huge statue of a wolf in the middle of the plaza, because of course, what else would there be. She smiled over her shoulder as I hobbled up.

            “Look who’s up and about!”

            “This place is stunning,” I said. “I’ve been in the Fade before, but it was sort of… sad. Broken. This place feels welcoming.”

            “I wouldn’t quite go that far. It’s certainly something, though. A lot to take in.”

            “Yeah. Listen, Harding’s sent me out to call a meeting. She thought we needed a discussion on next steps.”

            “Lead the way.”

            I sat in a surprisingly comfortable high-backed chair, while the girls curled up together on the couch. “Well, we stopped the ritual,” I said. “There’s that, at least.”

            “And Varric paid the price,” Harding said.

            “I mean, none of us came out of it unscathed,” I pointed out, tactfully deciding not to mention that Neve looked absolutely fine.

            “And now Solas is gone,” Harding sighed, “and we’re here, wherever here is, besides the Fade.”

            “Solas called it the Lighthouse. Which, having seen the outside, makes sense.”

            Neve cocked her head. “When was this? I thought he never brought up the Dread Wolf stuff back when he was in the Inquisition.”

            “Oh, yeah, this is new. While I was unconscious he popped up in my mind to tell me off for messing up his ritual. Turns out he’s trapped in some Fade prison he made now, but thanks to my spraying head-blood all over the ritual site he can pop into my dreams as he likes. So. I’ve got that to look forward to, at least.”

            “Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?” Neve raised her eyebrows. “It would be a natural reaction.”

            “Nah.” I held up my Marked hand. “Since having this thing, I mostly have lucid dreams. Mostly. I know what’s a dream and what isn’t, at the very least, and talking to Solas wasn’t a dream.”

            “Not to mention Solas has a history of being able to speak to people in their dreams,” Harding said. “Even killing them.”

            “Then, are you safe?” Neve asked.

            “Yeah.” I rubbed the new scar on the back of my head. “Solas doesn’t want me dead.”

            “What, because you were friends once, ten years ago?” she said sharply. “Look how well that worked out for Varric. You could be in real danger here.”

            “I, uh.” Glancing sideways at Harding, who was staring a hole in the side of my head, I shrugged. “Fine, alright, so… Solas is my dad.” When Harding let out a little hiss, I said, “Listen, if I’m going to be working with someone, I’m not going to tiptoe around this. I’m not a fucking liar. She deserves to know the truth, to go into this with open eyes. Right?”

            “If you’re sure,” Harding said dubiously.

            Neve had been watching us talk with a frown that spoke more of bewilderment than anger, which was just fine by me. I could work with bewilderment. “When you say he’s your dad…”

            I told her all of it. Everything, all the gory details. Product of an ill-advised affair between Fen’Harel and Mythal, a few millennia spent dreaming of life in another world, getting slammed into a stolen corpse thanks to the Conclave explosion, the whole sorry tale. I finished up with, “Also, I’ve got an adopted son who’s a Compassion spirit turned human,” just to be thorough. Afterwards, Neve just sat there staring at me, mouth dangling open.

            “That’s certainly a lot to process,” she said eventually.

            “Tell me about it,” I sighed. “At least it means he’s not going to dream-murder me, though, so.” I did some finger guns at her, then added reluctantly, “If knowing all that means you’re not comfortable working with me, I get it.”

            “No, it’s fine.” She waved a hand airily. “Definitely one of my weirder jobs, but… I appreciate you being straight with me. Anyway, we stopped his ritual, and there doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger, for now.”

            “Ah. Yeah. That’s the other little wrinkle. See, Solas had two other elven gods in a sort of prison, and the ritual we interrupted was him moving them to another one. Only now he’s the one in this second prison, and the other gods are… out.”

            “So those things we saw come out of the Fade tear when the ritual went wild,” Neve said, “those were –”

            “According to the Dad Wolf, that was Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain,” I said. “King of the Gods and the Mother of Halla. For a bit of perspective, Solas, the guy who wants to burn our world down in order to reinstate his own, was pretty clear on the point that whatever those two are going to want to get up to is worse. I won’t lie, ladies, it’s bad. It’s really bad. Solas said they’re blighted. That they use the blight as a source of power. That’s why he locked them away in the first place.”

            “So instead of one ‘god’ running around,” Neve said, “we have two. And they’re not just powerful, they’re blighted. Huh.”

            “We need to get out there and stop them!” Harding said, with admirable enthusiasm.

            “Okay, let’s go back through the eluvian,” I said. “Take a look around the ritual site. Have our detective look for clues. Harding, are you sure you’re good to go?”

            “I’m not going to sit back while the elven gods destroy the world because I have a headache!”

            “Alright, ramblers, let’s get rambling.”

Chapter Text

Back through the eluvian, I was pleasantly surprised to find the place pretty chill, so naturally we were then quickly surrounded by a bunch of frantic elves fighting something that looked like a magically animated suit of armour. Alright. Why not? It ended with some artifact one of the elves was fucking about with being shattered and the suit of armour dropping, at which point things calmed down enough for me to realise I knew two of the elves present.

            “Hi guys,” I said, waving. “Remember us?”

            “Rutherford,” Strife said, sheathing his sword with something of a flourish. He was tall, grey-haired and dark-skinned, and always looked sort of like he was weighing me up and finding me wanting. “Harding.”

            “This is Neve Gallus,” I said. “Neve, meet Strife and Irelin. They’re Veil Jumpers, they investigate magic stuff in Arlathan. We met them on our way through to Tevinter, they showed me around the old homeland.”

            “It’s good to see you again,” Irelin said warmly. She was shorter, honey-skinned, with very big, very dark eyes, and generally didn’t seem to be judging me the same way Strife usually was. “Even under the circumstances.”

            “What circumstances are those?” I asked cautiously.

            “Since the sky ripped open, the magic’s been surging,” Strife said. “Bunch of artifacts that’d been dormant for centuries started coming alive. This is because of Fen’Harel’s ritual, isn’t it? Thought you were supposed to stop him.”

            Oof, ouch, my feelings. “Well, technically, we, uh. We did. We interfered. Uh. You’ll notice the sky isn’t ripping apart anymore?”

            “So why is Arlathan neck-deep in wild magic?” Strife pressed.

            “Uh, so, Solas got sucked into Fade Jail.” What was I doing with my hands? Was I acting out everything I was saying? Why couldn’t I seem to stop? It was the way he was staring at me, it felt like being back with my dad. The one who raised me, I mean. I ripped the curtains down trying to swing from them once, when I was about five, and I swear Strife was giving me the exact same look that my dad had when I tried to explain that I just wanted to pretend to be Tarzan. “But in the process, some… someone else got out. Uh. Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain.”

            “Mythal’enaste,” Irelin said, something that never stopped being weird for me after the Shittiest Weekend.

            They mentioned needing to take their injured team member back to camp, as well as the fact they had dozens of Jumpers out there unaccounted for. And I don’t know, I just felt like it was on me. All those constructs were going wild because of my dad (the wolf one, this time), because I’d blundered in and let those bastards loose, and I couldn’t just wish them luck and go on my merry way. So, I offered to help them, and they asked me to head out and find some artifact expert, Bellara Lutare. I sent Harding off with the Jumpers under the pretence of providing them with back up, because I could tell she was in a lot of pain, and then Neve and I were on our way.

            “You’re a bit of a soft touch, aren’t you?” she said as we tromped off through the woods, following Irelin’s directions.

            “Always have been,” I said with a grin, then shrugged. “If I see someone in need and there’s some way I can help, I like to do what I can to help. Used to just be buying the homeless guy outside the office a Tesco Meal Deal or covering someone else's work if they were swamped, but…”

            She was watching me closely as I spoke. Too closely, as it turned out. “Must be hard,” she said, her tone light but quietly sympathetic. “Having to second guess all your memories, I mean.”

            “You really are the best detective in Minrathous!” I said, with what I hoped would be taken as playful sarcasm, though deep down it had stung, the way reminders of my fake life always did. “Yeah, it’s not ideal. But I’ve got ten years of waking memories now, and the stuff that came before,” I shrugged, “it’s real to me. I’ll always love the family I had back there, but… I suppose there’s some comfort in the fact it’s all one-sided. At least they haven’t lost me, you know? That was something that bothered me when I first got here, that my family just found me dead in bed one morning, but this way I’m the only one hurting, out of all of us. If I could have chosen, I’d probably still have chosen this way. Better it’s just me than… Sorry, I shouldn’t be splurging all of this out on you.”

            “No, it’s good.” She patted me on the shoulder. “You’re an unknown quantity, Emma Rutherford. Good to know the daughter of two gods has such a mortal heart. Even if it does mean I have to go marching through nature.”

            “Don’t worry, city girl,” I snickered. “If we come across any mud, I’ll lie down and you can walk over my back.”

*           

                        We ended up having to fight a gang of those weird suits of armour, only for the last one to have the energy animating it sucked out, straight into the triangle-motif gauntlet of a round-faced young elf woman with dark eyes and a lot of brown hair pulled back into the most enormous bun I’d ever seen. It was genuinely incredible, like she’d tied a cob loaf to the back of her head.

            “Oh, people!” she said excitedly on spotting us. “Where’d you come from?”

            “Hi!” I said with a wave. “I’m Emma Rutherford. Are you Bellara Lutare? Because if you are, Strife and Irelin sent us looking for you.”

            “Neve Gallus,” Neve put in.

            “Oh, hey! I know both of you, don’t I? Your names, I mean. You used to be the Inquisitor down south, right? You came through here a while ago looking for Fen’Harel? I never met you then, but people talked about it! And you, I mean, Neve Gallus, you’re pretty much famous! Wow! Oh, but protocol is to wait a week before sending out a search party. I’ve only been gone three days.”

            “Yeah,” I said, “so, shit’s gone down since you came out here. Things aren’t… going well. The whole hunting Fen’Harel thing ended with two of the Evanuris getting out into the world. Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. And as far as we can tell, they’re also looking to end the world. Just, with more blight, fewer demons.”

            “Oh,” she said, blinking. “Yes. Things really aren’t going well. Okay. Right. I need a second.”

            “Understandable.”

            “It does sort of explain a few things, though.”

            “Like what, exactly?” Neve asked.

            “The surge of raw magic in the area! These artifacts started waking up a while ago, but in fits and starts. One here, a couple there. Then a couple days ago the sky split open. And now? Raw magic, thick as fog. Only a god – or gods – could have done that. There’s something kind of exciting about it. And dangerous. Really dangerous. Dangerous enough that I was going to head back to the Veil Jumper camp, but… See that shimmer?”

            “Weird Fade shit?”

            “It’s a Veil bubble. It’s separating us from the rest of the world, so to speak. You can only pass through it one way. Once you’re in, you can’t get out.”

            “Hotel California Protocol, got it.” When they both gave me confused looks, I shrugged. “Sometimes I just say things for me.”

            “It’s okay, I do that too,” Bellara said with a smile. “Anyway, to generate a bubble like that, there has to be something in the centre causing it. Something powerful. If we can find and remove it – safely I mean – the bubble should collapse.”

            “Better than spending the rest of our lives in the magic roach motel,” I said. “Let’s find this thing and get it removed.”

            “Safely.”

            “Yeah, sure. Come on!”

*

                        Struggling through rough terrain and endless waves of hostile magic armour, nothing seemed to dampen Bellara’s spirits. Fangirling over Neve’s cases, talking excitedly about what exactly the place we were in might have been (she was betting on an armoury), just generally acting like a particularly excitable puppy who’d been unexpectedly transformed into an elf.

            “If we’re in an armoury,” I said, “is there any chance of this artifact we’re looking for being some kind of incredible god-killing superweapon?”

            “I think it’s an archive spirit!” she said. “A creature of the Fade, bound to a focus. Ancient elves used them to store knowledge and help them dream.”

            “Ohhh, yeah,” I nodded. “I met one of those.”

            She stopped in her tracks, turning to face me with eyes gone huge as she whispered, “What?”

            “Years ago, now, it was this whole thing with Solas and some rogue Qunari – before they all went rogue, I mean. Me and my team went through a whole bunch of eluvians and found ourselves in this grand library. There were archive spirits all over the place, though they mostly just told us the last words of dead people, so not exactly party central. Still, they seemed nice.”

            “Wow! Hey, when we’re somewhere that’s not full of animated armour trying to kill us, could I maybe ask you all about it?”

            I smiled. “All the questions you like, I promise.”

            “Amazing! Let’s –”

            She froze, the excitement vanishing from her face. Ahead of us was a dead halla, with something crouched over it, tearing the poor creature’s insides out. The halla-muncher looked horrific, like some sort of nightmarish mangy chimpanzee, with glowing red eyes and raised black veins snaking their way over its skin. Bellara immediately said it was a darkspawn, but I’d seen plenty of the things on our trip through the Deep Roads, and while the ones down there wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests any time soon, this thing looked and acted like a monstrous gremlin. It wasn’t alone, either. A dozen of them came ravening out of the trees, screaming and thrashing like something from 28 Days Later.

            “I never thought I’d see darkspawn this deep into Arlathan,” Bellara said after we put them down and moved on. “As far as I know, it’s never happened.”

            Neve looked over at me to ask, “Could the elven gods be commanding the darkspawn? Solas did say they were blighted.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “He also said they commanded the blight itself, so it’s well within the realms of possibility.”

            “You saw those darkspawn, though,” Bellara said. “Something was different about them.”

            “Honestly,” I said, “that just adds to my ‘the Evanuris are controlling the blight’ theory.”

            It wasn’t far from there to the place where the archive spirit (which Bellara said was specifically called the Nadas Dirthalen) was kept, though we did have to fight an ogre for it. Given my last fight with an ogre saw me breaking half the ribs on my right side, the fact we got through that fight without anyone getting their shit rocked felt like a minor miracle. The Nadas Dirthalen itself turned out to be broken, which was a bit of a pisser, but at least it took the bubble down so we could get back to camp.

            Not that things were much better once we got back there. The camp was in chaos, apparently due to the fact we weren’t the only ones to have been attacked by darkspawn. According to Strife, the damn things were starting to pop up everywhere, destroying everything in their path.

            “Anything we can do to help?” I asked automatically. I thought I heard Neve sigh behind me.

            “D’Meta’s Crossing,” Bellara piped up, patting my arm. “When we came in, I heard Strife and Irelin talking about how they’d lost contact with D’Meta’s Crossing, that there’s Jumpers lost out there. We should go check it out! The three of us, I mean.”

            “Four,” Harding said. “You’re not leaving me behind again.”

            There it was, our next little excursion – saving people and maybe getting on the trail of the gods, as Strife put it. Bellara knew where we were going, so led us to a little boat that we took turns rowing across a lake to a quiet little town. Too quiet, as it turned out. So quiet the phrase ‘silent as the grave’ kept flashing in my mind as we scrambled over a series of crude barricades into the village proper… only to find the whole place absolutely swamped with blight.

            That shit was everywhere. Lumps and cysts and tendrils of the stuff growing out of the ground, the walls, carts and stalls. There were people embedded in some of it, what was left of them at least, walls of fleshy growths blocking off parts of town so that to keep going we had to slither through the gaps, pushing past twisted corpses in various stages of skeletonization. A fissure had split the ground, swallowing houses and aravels and people down into an endless pit of mist and ominous red light, like Silent Hill with mood lighting.

            Eventually we came across a pair of Veil Jumpers, the original team sent to check on the town. One was already dead, partially absorbed into the all-encompassing blight. The other was in the process of going the same way, living just long enough to tell us everything was the mayor’s fault before a blight tendril crushed his windpipe.

            As for the mayor himself, following frantic pleas for help led us right to the bastard, trapped in a clinging nest of blight tendrils. The guy freely admitted to selling the town to the gods for cash. All those bodies, all that carnage, and it had all happened because some dickhead wanted to line his own pockets. Honestly, when a dragon popped out of the ground while we were talking to him, I hoped it would eat the fucker and save us having to deal with his shit. Alas, no such luck, as it just flew off and left us to it.

            “We should leave him,” was Bellara’s take.

            “Yeah, probably.” I rubbed my hands over my eyes. “That’s probably what he deserves.”

            “But?” Harding said with a tiny, knowing smile.

            “But that’s not what we’re going to do.”

            “Seriously?” Bellara squeaked. “After everything he’s done?”

            “Seriously,” I said. “Because we’re better than that. He can do what he fucking likes, but I’m not the sort of person who leaves people to die slowly.” I turned to her. “Unless you fancy killing him yourself?”

            She seemed to consider it, but ultimately turned away with a huff. Looking thoughtful, Neve said, “We let him go, there’s nothing stopping him from going straight back to the gods.”

            “Yeah, there is,” I said, cutting off his desperate attempts to defend himself. “I’ve got a few contacts in the Wardens. If we agree to cut you down, it’s with the understanding that you join the Grey Wardens, or else you pay for everything you did here.”

            “Evka and Antoine?” Harding asked.

            “Alistair Theirin.”

            “Hero of the Fifth Blight Alistair Theirin? You know him?” Bellara squealed. “Right, right, questions later.”

            That was that. We cut him down, dragged him back to the Veil Jumpers, and straight away received a few volunteers to escort him to the nearest Grey Wardens. Maybe he’d make it there, maybe the Jumpers would shiv him on the way and say he made a run for it. I couldn’t worry about that. I’d done my part.

            As we were telling Strife and Irelin about all the horrible shit that had gone down, a crow swooped down, did a jazzy little spin, and turned into Morrigan. I’d seen her a few times over the years, usually bumping into her and Kieran when I least expected it, generally for no more than a day or so at a time. They’d even turned up at the rehab centre occasionally, if they were passing through. Kieran got on well with everyone there, despite being a mage. Morrigan did not.

            Having made a suitably dramatic entrance, Morrigan intoned, “The gods will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power.”

            “Hi, Mor, how’s it going?” I said.

            She laughed. “Yes, you have ever been one for bucking formality.”

            “I’d hug you, if I thought you’d let me,” I grinned. “The lad isn’t with you?”

            “Kieran has his own business to attend, for the moment. However, he did ask me to pass on his regards to his dear Auntie.” She rolled her eyes. “How fares your own boy?”

            “Still on the good-vibes tour with his girlfriend, still skinny as a racing snake. Happy, though. Always happy.”

            “Glad to hear it. ‘Tis a pleasure to see you too, Scout Harding.”

            “Hello, Lady Morrigan!”

            “Morrigan is an old… acquaintance of mine,” Strife said. “I thought she could help. Didn’t realise you already knew each other.”

            “Oh yeah, we go way back. Practically family." I grinned when that made Morrigan let out a disapproving scoff. "So, any advice?”

            “Well, I should hope it goes without saying that leaving the gods unchecked would mean the very end of Thedas. Has the Well vouchsafed any guidance?”

            “Nothing useful,” I admitted. “It hasn’t really had anything to say since the Breach closed, or thereabouts.”

            “Hm. My advice for you, dear Emma, would be to set aside your notions of godhood, and see them for the ancient, powerful mages they are. Standing against them shall require serious magic of your own. When you interrupted Solas’ ritual, did you happen across any of the tools he used?”

            “He had a dagger,” Harding said, “but it got lost in the chaos.”

            “Then you would do well to find it.” Morrigan looked me in the eye pointedly as she said, “’Tis better in your hands than those of the gods.”

            “Cool,” I sighed. “Very cool, living in Solas’ house, using his magic mirror, wielding his magic dagger. The ultimate nepo baby.”

            Morrigan chuckled. “I have heard of the legendary sanctum of the Dread Wolf. ‘Tis said his eluvian, the Vi’Revas, could travel to any eluvian of his choosing.”

            “Right now, it only goes to Arlathan,” Harding said.

            “I can take a look at it!” Bellara jumped in. “Maybe even fix it! I know eluvians better than most.”

            “Happy to have you on board, so long as the Veil Jumpers can spare you,” I said.

            It was confirmed they could, even with the whole team being at battle stations. So, after one more dramatic pronouncement from Morrigan (something about heroes and death, I don’t know, it had been a long day and my head was hurting again), we dropped Bellara off at the Lighthouse to start working on the eluvian, before the rest of us headed out on a dagger hunt.

Chapter Text

Of course, getting the dagger back wasn’t just a case of going to the ritual site and grabbing it off the ground, because nothing in my life could ever just be fucking simple. When we got there, one of those horrible gremlin things had hold of it, and we had to chase the bastard down through some ruins, with a whole lot of other apparent darkspawn trying to stop us. All of them looked weird and different compared to the ones I’d seen down in Heidrun Thaig. No hurlocks, genlocks, or shrieks, these things somehow managed to look even more monstrous, all lumpen and misshapen.

            But eventually we caught up to the gremlin with the dagger, and we killed it. This left the dagger lying alone on the paving, and as I went towards it, Harding gently pushed me back to grab it herself. As soon as her hand closed around the hilt, her skin began to glow an eerie blue.

            “Lyrium,” she said weakly as the glow crept up her veins, disappearing under her jacket only to reappear on her neck, making for her brain.

            “Oh shit,” I said as she held the dagger out to me. “Harding?” She dropped the thing and I caught it instinctively, gritting my teeth in expectation of pain… but there was none. I held it in my left hand, and other than emitting a constant low hum it seemed to be nothing more than a regular knife.

            The effect it had been having on Harding didn’t end once she let it go. She cried out, almost screaming, clutching at her head… and then the ground crumbled away under her, sending her tumbling off the edge of the cliff we were on. I grabbed for her, frantic, but it was no use. She was gone.

            “Oh fuck,” I said, the shock scouring me of all emotion, leaving me hollow. “Oh no. Fuck.” All my magic, all the stupid power I had, and there was nothing I could do. The only thing I could have done would be to fly down after her.

            Before the numbness of shock had a chance to pass, I heard her, Harding’s voice eerily mixed with another as she chanted. “This is the eternal hymn, the prayer and the proclamation. Isatunoll.” A huge chunk of rock rose up in front of me, building into a pillar. “I am. We are. Free again. Whole again. Here again. Here… again…”

            The rock pillar burst open to reveal Harding, seemingly unharmed and shrouded in the blue glow of lyrium, her eyes shining like headlights. I just had time to scramble back with a choked, “Sweet Jesus fuck!” before the glow faded and she collapsed. “Shit, okay. Are you okay?” I scuttled over to put a hand on her back, tentatively at first, as if I was checking whether a stovetop was still hot.

            “I can hear it,” she said, her voice trembling. “The Song of the Stone. What is happening to me?”

            Neve yelled a warning, taking down one of a bunch of gremlins headed our way. Harding yelped, raised her hands, and turned the things to stone. Instant calcification, like Solas did to all those Qunari.

            “Holy moly.”

            “The dagger,” she said, “it did something to me.”

            “I’ll say!”

            “Whatever’s happened, we should get back,” Neve said firmly. “We can talk it through somewhere else.”

*

                        Neve’s response to the situation was hilariously understated, frankly. She basically just went, “Damn, that’s crazy,” and then walked off, leaving me and Harding alone. I thought I should probably try a bit harder.

            “So, welcome to Team ‘I Touched An Artifact I Probably Shouldn’t Have And It Gave Me Glowy Magic’. If you’ve got a suggestion for a better name, please do suggest one, I’m all pointy ears.” I waved the Anchor around. “I can use my glowy stuff as a nightlight, though, so, I think it’s a bit better personally, sorry.”

            She laughed. “You’re taking this really well.”

            “Why wouldn’t I?” I shrugged. “You’re still you, you’re just also magic now. It’s cool, I think. We haven’t heard from Valta since that business with the Titan, so you get to be the official Magic Dwarf now.”

            “Yeah, except Valta got her magic by seeking out the heart of a Titan. I just picked up a shiny knife.”

            “Babes, I got to be Inquisitor thanks to magical nepotism and possessing a corpse who’d decided to grab a bomb. I’m a firm believer in the whole idea of ‘what matters is how you use it’. Just try to see it as a good thing, and we’ll deal with whatever else happens however we can.”

            Harding was shaking her head, but she was also smiling. “Okay. I guess it’s not entirely weird, and it’s not bad, either. I feel… connected. To the… Stone. I never had any Stone sense before, but now I do, and it… it’s stronger than anything.” She sighed. “I hope this really is a good thing. I don’t want to cause problems for you.”

            “Harding, you couldn’t cause problems if you tried.”

*

                        I took a quick break to speak to Bellara, and since it seemed she intended on sticking around to help out, I decided to tell her the truth about me. She reacted as well as could be expected, by which I mean she got extremely high-pitched and asked several dozen questions, mostly without waiting for answers.

            “So, to clarify, you’re happy to work with me, despite all of that?” I asked once she seemed to peter out.

            “Oh yeah, absolutely! I mean, who better to have on our side in a fight against a bunch of gods than another god, right?”

            “Ehh, I’m pretty sure Solas would still be helping, even –”

            “Oh, no, I meant you!”

            “Beg pardon?”

            “I mean, the gods are just powerful elven mages from the dawn of time, right? And you’re a powerful elven mage from pretty much the dawn of time!”

            Christ, there was a thought. “I’m… definitely not that powerful,” I said. “But so long as you don’t hate me, that’s all I care about.”

            “Oh, I don’t hate anyone, really. But especially not you. Don’t worry about it, I can’t wait to work with you. Well, actually, I mean, I’d rather not be working with you, because I’m only working with you since our gods have gone bad and are trying to end the world and all, but it’d still be cool to hang out with you sometime when all that wasn’t happening, you know, like if you were a Veil Jumper or –”

            “Maybe once we’ve saved the world we can go and sit in the woods somewhere with a bottle of something nice.”

            “I’d like that! Except you really shouldn’t get tipsy in Arlathan, it’s best to keep your wits about you at all times.”

            “Duly noted. Now,” I stood up, patting her on the shoulder, “while we’re on the subject, it’s probably time to check in with the Dad Wolf.”

*

                        A room had appeared at the top of the stairs (not that we really had stairs, just a ramp, but it was still hard for me to stop thinking of the upper floor as anything other than ‘upstairs’, so), right beside the infirmary. One entire wall of the room was taken up by some kind of infinite fishtank, which was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I’d always found watching fish going about their business soothing. On the other hand, it was sort of setting off my phobia of deep water. I just told myself it was probably some sort of Fade screensaver, not a literal fishtank, thus I didn’t need to worry about the glass cracking and an infinite abyss-worth of water pouring in on me as I slept…

            Back in the Inquisition days Solas had taught me a bunch of Somniari techniques, in case I ever wanted to do some proper Fade-walking, something the Anchor apparently gave me a head-start on. I’d never really gotten into it, beyond meeting up with him for a Fade-walk on occasion, generally ones he instigated. Right then, however, I thought it was probably the easiest way to get myself back into the Fade prison. Faster, at least. I could always have tried falling asleep, but I was an insomniac at the best of times, and that fucking fish tank wasn’t helping.

            “How goes the search for the gods?” Solas spoke up beside me, which was how I realised it had worked. He was sat on the same pillar as before, looking up at me, head cocked.

            I almost said something like “have you been sat there this whole time?” Something wry and pithy, you know, something that might make him smile. Then I realised I didn’t actually want to hear the answer, because if he said yes, I’d be forced to imagine him sat there, all alone in that almost featureless void, and I didn’t think I could have handled that emotionally.

            Instead, I dropped down next to him and said, “Not great. They destroyed a village. Just razed it to the ground. No one left alive but the bastard who sold it to them and a handful of ghouls. It, uh. It was bad, Dad. I’ve seen a lot of nasty shit since waking up, but this was… Temple of Sacred Ashes corpses bad.”

            “I’m sorry you had to see that. But it will only get worse if the Evanuris are not stopped. What you saw in that village will happen to the whole world.”

            “Then I’ll stop them,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Trying to sound like the thought of the whole world becoming like D’Meta’s Crossing hadn’t turned my blood to icewater. “We’ll stop them, whatever we have to do, we will… we… I… It’ll be done.”

            He looked at me for a long moment, unreadable, then nodded. “The Evanuris will wish to reclaim their dominion over this world. To accomplish that, they will need two things. First, the blight. What exists in this world is a bare fragment of its power. The rest is imprisoned… until they release it.”

            “And how would they do that? Release the rest of it?”

            “Piercing the Veil,” he sighed, “with my lyrium dagger.”

            “Oh, well that’s alright then.” I elbowed him with a grin. “Because we’ve already picked it up.”

            “Excellent. Then they will have to create a replacement of their own. That will give you time.”

            “Stunning. That’s one good thing, at least. I’ll take anything at this point,” I laughed. “Alright, so, that’s thing one. What’s thing two?”

            “They will be seeking followers. They call themselves gods, after all, and what is a god without worshippers to sing their praises?”

            “Speaking of, what happened to all those elves who went off to join you? Are they still kicking about?”

            He gave me something of a forbidding look, but said, “Many chose to leave when I did not produce results promptly enough for them, or else they… felt my plans went too far. Others may make themselves known to you, or it might be that once they hear of my imprisonment they will slip away. And of course, a number of them have unfortunately already perished in my service.”

            “Right, I heard about your ‘don’t be taken alive’ policy.” When he gave me an even more severe look, I added, “Any chance of them going over to the Evanuris?”

            “Very little. I have made the truth clear to them. Even should they attempt to defect, they are unlikely to be taken in. They would have little to offer Elgar’nan or Ghilan’nain. Those two will prioritise finding worshippers among those hungry for power. The cruel, the corrupt, the tyrannical; those who fear their own vulnerability, and seize any chance to feel strong. Hunt them, and you will find the Evanuris.”

            “Can do. I was always having the cruel, corrupt, and tyrannical track me down to lecture me back in the Inquisition days, wasn’t I? Stands to reason that all I need to do is walk out into the world and wait long enough, and some Erimond or Florianne will show up to make a smarmy speech at me. I miss Florianne sometimes, you know. She was a rubbish person, but she made a great court jester.”

            “She did indeed,” Solas chuckled. “How will you get out into the world? Have you uncovered the secrets of my Vi’Revas yet?”

            “We’ll have cracked it soon. We’ve picked up a Veil Jumper, Bellara. She knows all about eluvians, she’ll get it sorted.”

            “If you have faith in her, so do I.” He smiled, but it faded quickly. Turning away from me, he added, “When next you speak with Varric, please would you tell him, I… regret what happened.”

            “I will. See you again soon, yeah?”

            “Good luck, da’len.”

*

                        Back in the Lighthouse, I went straight in to see Varric. Before I even got a word out, he said, “So, Solas told the truth about the gods.”

            “The girls have already been in to see you? It was awful, mate. Like a nightmare, but we were living it.” I sat on the end of his bed with a sigh. “I honestly don’t know how we’re going to deal with this, Varric. Let’s be real, with Corypheus I got lucky by getting a look at the future, and then we just had to react to future-related stuff along the way. Most of the time I wasn’t even dealing with Corypheus, it was just dickheads who wanted to get on his good side. I don’t even know where to start with this.”

            “Well, what did your old man suggest?”

            “Tracking down the people the gods might use as followers. ‘The cruel and corrupt’, he said.” I closed my eyes, rubbing the back of my head. “Which, like, that’s hardly a short list, is it?”

            “No,” he chuckled. “But you spend enough time out there in the world, and I’ve no doubt you’ll find who you’re looking for. Listen, Dreamer. You might think all you did back then was react, but I was there the whole time, right beside you. You made your own choices, and they were good ones. You did a hell of a job. Just get out there and hunt for signs of the gods, take things step by step. What do you say?”

            “I’ll give it a go, at least,” I said, with a somewhat reluctant smile. “Thanks, Varric. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

            “It’s what I’m here for, Dreamer. How’s it going, anyway, life with Chuckles inside your head?”

            “Technically he’s in a Fade prison that has a visiting room inside my head.” I glanced over my shoulder, making sure none of the others were hanging around listening in. “Just between you and me? I don’t hate it. I know that sounds insane, but –”

            “No, no, come on. The two of you always got on well, back in the day, and it’s not like you’ve had a whole lot of quality time together since finding out you’re related and all. It might be better not to talk about it too much with the others, but you’ve got nothing to worry about from me.”

            Smiling, I said, “He wanted me to tell you, he’s sorry about the whole ‘stabbing you in the tit’ thing.”

            “I’m assuming he didn’t use those exact words,” he laughed.

            “Not specifically, but the sentiment was there.”

            “Ah, Chuckles. Always so sentimental. You know, that man could burn the whole world to the ground, and the thing that would make him cry is a single flower with blackened petals.”

            “Yeah, maybe,” I sighed. “I miss those days. Not being the Inquisitor, not at all, that whole thing was a fucking nightmare. But the days where we’d just be out on our own. Us lot, Gael’s people, the Chargers. Just hanging out in camp or taking over some tavern.” I looked down, picking at my thumbnail. “I’d give a lot to go back there.”

            Varric leaned forward, despite the obvious pain it caused him, to take my hand. “Me too, Dreamer. Me too.”

Chapter Text

A quick conversation with the others revealed Neve had a new path forward for us – heading to Antiva to get help from the Antivan Crows. More specifically, their notorious mage-killer, someone known as ‘The Demon of Vyrantium’.

            I was admittedly an eensy bit concerned about adding someone who’d made their name as a mage-killer to a team consisting mostly of mages, but having dealt with the Crows before (by correspondence, at least) I was almost sure he wasn’t going to be a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic who’d mindlessly slaughter any mage within arm’s reach. Like, 90% sure. They prided themselves on being professionals, right?

            To get to Antiva meant using the eluvian, though, and hopefully not travelling all the way from Arlathan. “How’s it going, Bellara?”

            “Shit!”

            “Okay, cool.”

            “No, no, it’s okay, really, I’ve got it. Mirrors are funny things, aren’t they? Reflections, they distort reality. No matter what you try.”

            “… Sure.”

            She muttered a few more odd little statements, fiddled around a bit more, and boom, the eluvian started to glow, and through the glow I could finally see something other than the same view of Arlathan. This time it looked like a sort of courtyard inside an open-faced cave, with one of those rounded tree-looking installations in the centre, the ones the ancient elves seemed to stick up everywhere, like the Elvhenan equivalent of a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ sign.

            “Nice work, Bel!” I grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing gently and making her giggle.

            “What is that place?” Harding asked.

            “If I had to guess,” Bellara said, sounding awed, “it’s part of the Fade.”

            “Didn’t Morrigan say this eluvian could go anywhere?” Neve said archly. “Didn’t think that meant elsewhere in the Fade.”

            “I got into the Crossroads before, when that whole mess with Dragon’s Breath was happening.” I stepped up close to the glass to get a better look, not quite touching it. “It looked similar to this place. It’s not like teleportation, exactly, like you step in here and step out elsewhere, not generally. We had to walk through the Crossroads to find the right eluvian back out. But it’s still faster than going overland.”

            “How do you know which is the right one?” Bellara asked.

            “It’s still the Fade. The real world seeps in, changes the area around the eluvian. Well, that’s how things were in the other section I went through. I’m assuming this one will be the same.”

            “It is alike, and it is not.” A spirit materialised in front of the eluvian, tall and mostly featureless with something that looked like Cole’s hat as part of its head and a voice that sounded distant, close, and part of a crowd all at once.

            “Oh, hi,” I said, since they didn’t seem to be attacking. “Have you been there the whole time?”

            “The Wolf’s Fang,” they said, indicating the lyrium dagger rather than answering my question, which wasn’t especially reassuring. “You carry it now. Old paths. A new journey. Through there. I will wait.”

            “Well,” Neve said as they disappeared again. “Can’t tell if that’s a trap or not.”

            “Nah, I’ve got a good feeling about this guy,” I said. “They sort of remind me of my son. Let’s go. Harding, I want you to stay here, just in case this thing only works with one of us in the Lighthouse.”

            “Why me?” she demanded, indignant, as if her face didn’t still look like a slab of chopped meat.

            “Until we know more about how this section of the Crossroads works, I’d rather have mages with me,” I invented wildly. “Besides, you’re not sure how your new magic works yet, are you? Probably not the best idea to mix unknown magic with an unknown magical zone, right?”

            “Fine,” she sighed. “I guess I can take a look through the books in the library while I wait, see if there’s anything we can use.”

            “Good plan. We’ll see you soon, hopefully with a god-assassin in tow.”

            With the familiar feeling of pushing through a sheet of cool water, I stepped through into the Crossroads, where the spirit we’d seen before was patiently waiting for us. “Hello again,” I said. “So, are you… I take it you knew, know, Solas?”

            “Yes. I am a Caretaker. I go where I am needed. Now, I am here.” They paused, the row of eyes along the front of their face gazing at me. “You are Emmaera. The Wolf spoke of you often.”

            “Oh. That’s… sweet. I just go by Emma, though, if we’re doing introductions. Hey, since you’re an old family friend and all, any chance you could maybe give us some directions towards Antiva?”

            No, was the answer, though they delivered it in a more poetic sort of way. It turned out the gods were trying to break into the Crossroads, using darkspawn and other creepy crawlies to fuck with the place, and the Caretaker was, understandably, more interested in stopping all that bullshit than acting as a tour guide (though they still showed up to crew these floating gondola things that popped up to take us from place to place, because the Crossroads was just a mess of floating islands).

            Still, we found our way to the correct eluvian after a couple of hours spent poking around – after a lot of trial and error we realised you could get a sense of where the mirror let out just by feeling for the magical vibrations. That meant we’d probably need a mage to go out with any group heading through a new eluvian, but since we were so mage-heavy to begin with, I didn’t foresee that becoming an issue. We also dealt with some of the rot the Caretaker had warned us about, and they showed up afterwards to politely thank us for sorting it, so, that was nice.

            Making our way to the meeting point Neve had arranged, we arrived just before dawn, and also before our contact, Andarateia Cantori. The meeting point was on one of the many bridges of Treviso. I’d never been to Venice, but standing in the pre-dawn light of that canal-crossed city, the smell of citrus and perfume and stale water in the air, I thought it was probably very similar.

            Josephine had gone back to Antiva City after the Inquisition disbanded, where she’d gotten married to a reasonably pleasant man who had enough brains in his head to let her run her family business with no more than the occasional piece of advice and total compliance. Antiva City, unlike Treviso, hadn’t been invaded by the Antaam yet, so I at least knew Josephine was safe, though I could imagine how frustrated (or politely furious) she would be at any break in her business’ supply lines. We hadn’t found any eluvians to Antiva City, and I was so catastrophically shit at geography (in every world, my friends back home would never let me forget the fact I was consistently incapable of pointing out Birmingham on a map) I had no idea if it was in easy travel distance or not. All the same, I really wanted to see her right then. I wanted to see any of the old team.

            “Emma Rutherford?” A lean elven woman with dark skin and a gorgeous cloud of brown hair had walked up without my noticing.

            “Oh, yeah, hi. You’re Andarateia Cantori?”

            “Just Teia, please,” she said warmly, shaking my hand with a smile. “Come. My associate Viago is gathering the others. We can talk business when we arrive.”

            She led us through the streets of Treviso, past a whole bunch of Antaam messing with civilians. I tried to keep moving and look unobtrusive, considering the general Qunari outlook on mages and the fact I was the only person on the team carrying a regular staff. Alright, maybe it wasn’t a regular staff, it was a fancy one, but I still thought I’d struggle to explain it away as a walking stick, since the damn thing was made of silverite. I very much didn’t want to get my mouth sewn shut. Then how would I call people dickheads? Luckily, we scrambled up onto the rooftops before anyone could challenge us, and from there it was a hop, skip, and uh, zipline to the Crow safehouse we were heading for, in the rafters of a casino, The Cantori Diamond.

            Viago, Teia’s ‘associate’ (yeah, whatever they said, I was getting vibes), was a lean human guy, with dark skin, light eyes, and a carefully styled beard and moustache. Honestly, if they were a couple, they were both so incredibly hot I actually found myself considering what my response would be if they hit me with the ‘we saw you from across the bar and we liked your vibe’. Part of me violently recoiled from the idea of being with anyone who wasn’t Cullen, even three years later. Another part of me was sort of down with the idea of a threesome, specifically with those two, specifically no strings attached. The duality of Em, you might call it.

            “Can I get you all drinks?” Teia asked, jolting me out of my lustful imaginings. “I promise not to let Viago near them.”

            I was deeply horrified for the ten seconds or so it took me to realise she’d made a poisoner joke, she wasn’t insinuating the guy had a habit of Rohypnoling people or something. Viago didn’t give any of us a chance to accept or deny the drinks, in any case. After giving Teia a look that solidified my suspicion something was happening there, he introduced us to Caterina Dellamorte, First Talon of the Crows, which I was pretty sure meant she was the one ultimately in charge.

            “An honour to meet you, First Talon.” Bowing, I took her hand and kissed the back of it, because even a decade later Leliana’s Game training was engrained in my psyche. I wasn’t sure if that was the appropriate protocol in Antiva, especially not when it came to the Crows in particular, but Caterina looked pleased with it, so I couldn’t have fucked things up too badly. Turning to the guy beside her (pompadour hairdo, good bone structure, very lean) I held out my hand. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name.”

            “Illario Dellamorte.” He briefly clasped my hand in both of his. As he did, his eyes roved over me in a way that suggested he appreciated what he was seeing, and that he wanted me to know he appreciated it, something that sent heat rushing to my cheeks. “Her grandson. What brings you here?”

            “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” I let out an awkward little chuckle, trying to will my blush away. “My team are currently hunting a pair of, uh, elven gods. Technically they’re actually ancient elven mages, very powerful. Neve here told me the Crows have the perfect person to deal with someone like that – your Demon of Vyrantium.”

            “Lucanis,” Caterina said immediately. “My grandson. He was the one who did those jobs.”

            “Awesome,” I said, clapping my hands together. “Very cool, that’s great, so, I have some money left over from my Inquisition days. If you wouldn’t mind putting us in touch, I could –”

            “The money isn’t the question here,” Viago cut over my rambling. “Lucanis Dellamorte is dead.”

            “Ah. Fuck.”

            Caterina gave each of us a hard look in turn before announcing, “What I am about to say does not leave this room. The body our people brought back was not my grandson.”

            Everyone went nuts, while I just stood there feeling like I was watching a soap opera. Who knew there were people in the world who could out-drama the Orlesians? As Caterina talked about faked deaths and blood magic corpse transfigurations, the other Crows yelling about how they should have been told everything before, I found myself desperately craving popcorn.

            She also dropped in the fact that the Venatori had been hunting Solas at the same time we had (I wasn’t best pleased with the idea of being in the same camp as the Venatori in any capacity), and that after everything went tits up and the Venatori freaked out, Caterina was able to track this Lucanis guy down to somewhere called the Ossuary. Oh, and the reason she’d hidden it from the other Crows was because she thought what happened was an inside job. So. That would be fun for later.

            “Find this Ossuary,” she finished up, “free Lucanis. You’ll have your god-killer, and I’ll have my grandson.”

            Cool, cool. Illario led us to a boat, which we’d apparently need to get out to this prison. He seemed mega pissed off about Caterina lying to him, which I fully appreciated, since family lying to your face was also a bit of a touchy subject on my end, you know. Still, he took the time to hold my hand as I stepped down into the boat, steadying me. Then he held on a moment longer, waiting until I looked up at him before kissing my hand.

            “I’ll owe you for this, cara. For bringing home my cousin. Perhaps you’ll allow me to take you somewhere nice, as thanks.”

            The guy was literally hitting on me minutes after he found out his dead family member wasn’t really dead. I had to admire the game, I supposed. “Um. Yeah. I think I’ll settle for help against the gods, but…”

            Illario laughed softly. “We can discuss it later. For now, you go and save Lucanis. I will draw away any prying eyes.”

            “Not a fucking word,” I growled as he took off towards the rooftops, since Bellara and especially Neve looked like they wanted to make fun of me.

            “Wasn’t going to say anything,” Neve said, blatantly lying.

            From there, a stone-faced lady Crow rowed us out into open water before doing some sort of fiddly magic that created a vortex for the three of us to descend through. As it turned out, the Ossuary was down on the seabed. Oh, goody.

            At first, I thought it might be okay. We came out into what seemed to be a regular sort of building, albeit one with a sandy floor. I thought maybe, if I stayed away from any windows, I could pretend we weren’t underwater at all. All the guards were already dead, even, so things were looking up.

            But then we walked to the end of the hall, and it turned out the buildings weren’t what was keeping the water out, because the buildings were in ruins. All that stood between us and the entire ocean was a thin magical membrane, which was leaking in some places. Leaking. As I stared up through all that water to the distant sun, a shadow cruised by slowly overhead. It looked like a shark, only it was the size of a humpback whale.

            That was the final straw. My feet, which had been moving slower with every step, stopped entirely, ignoring my increasingly frantic commands to keep walking. Then, very slowly, my knees folded to drop me into the sand.

            “Are you alright?” Neve asked, sounding more amused than concerned.

            “Nrgh.”

            “Oh, right, Harding talked about this,” Bellara said. “Emma has a fear of depths.”

            “Depths?” By then, Neve sounded like she was barely suppressing laughter.

            “Deep Roads,” I choked out. “Deep water. Think I don’t like,” I waved a hand around over my head, “stuff over me. Like claustrophobia. Only I find enclosed spaces comforting, like, I used to climb in my wardrobe when I was stressed, so fuck knows. Scared of spiders too, if you want to make fun of me over that.”

            “I’m not making fun,” she said, sounding very much like someone who was making fun. “Just concerned about you being able to get this done.”

            “I can get it done,” I growled. “Just… give me a minute.”

            Fair play to them, they gave me five whole minutes. Bellara even came to sit beside me and rambled about the magic that must be at play in keeping the place dry, and why all that meant we were perfectly safe, and while her explanations didn’t help me feel better, the fact Bellara cared enough to offer them did. Eventually I acclimatised to the horror of the place, the feeling came back into my legs and hands, and with a bit of assistance from the girls I climbed back to my feet. Sucking in a breath, I carried on.

            It turned out that a lot of the Ossuary was, in fact, intact enough that I could ignore the fact we were underwater for minutes at a time. We picked our way along until we broke through into a grand chamber where a gang of Venatori, the first ones we’d seen alive, were conducting some kind of ritual.

            “Oi, dickheads!” I called. “Hand over Lucanis Dellamorte and I’ll at least consider not killing all of you!”

            “Interesting strategy,” Neve said quietly.

            “Anything that gets me out of this place faster.”

            Rather than handing the Crow over and letting us leave, the lead Venatori smacked his staff on the floor and started yelling. “Razikale, Dragon of Mystery! Lusacan, Dragon of Night! Hear your faithful call –”

            Before we had a chance to engage, a man burst out of the gaudy crystal art installation in the centre of the room, a man with an incredible set of magenta wings who tore through the crowd of Venatori like Bull going through a buffet. When he was finished, he stood with his back to us, wings still spread, and the pure melodrama of the moment made me smile.

            “Lucanis Dellamorte, I presume,” I said.

            He folded the wings away with a flourish and turned towards us, frowning suspiciously. Light olive-brown skin. Scruffy beard. A fall of dark hair, strong nose, and the most intensely brown eyes.

            Time stopped. Heart lurched. Mouth went dry. Brain stopped responding.

            Deep Trouble Spotted.

            Fuck.

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” Lucanis demanded. “Who sent you?” His voice was softer than I’d been expecting, smooth, even through his suspicion.

            I couldn’t answer initially. It was the first time since Cullen died that I’d actually felt like that about someone. I’d thought people were hot, yeah, on an academic sort of level (I still had functioning eyes, after all), and I’d even joked, internally and externally, about wanting to spend a night with them, like with Teia and Viago. But as soon as our eyes met my heart started fluttering, my stomach went all flippy, and with it came the guilt. I’d loved Cullen more than anyone. Surely I should never feel like that again? Surely Cullen wouldn’t have gotten butterflies in his stomach the first time some assassin looked his way, if I’d been the one to die? Maybe it was the wings, I’d always had a thing for wings, it’s a bit niche, I know, but… and I mean, competency is hot, he broke necks like it was his day job, and the sexiest thing I’d ever seen back home was the Winter Soldier knife fight, so –

            Fuck, I still hadn’t said anything. “Uh, I’m Emma. Emma Rutherford, used to be Emma Morgan. Caterina sent me.”

            “Caterina,” he said, still frowning. “But… you’re not a Crow. Emma Morgan, you said? You were the Inquisitor, yes? Years ago, we worked with your people to eradicate a group of Venatori, along with the noble who was collaborating with them, as I recall.”

            “That’s me, yeah. And I might not be a Crow, but I can turn into one.” The tiniest of smiles encouraged me to add, “Of course, you’ve got some wings of your own. How, uh. How does that work, exactly?”

            “He’s possessed,” Neve said sharply. “By a demon. Aren’t you?”

            Lucanis sighed. “It’s complicated.”

            “Okay.” I rubbed the back of my head. “So, I’m still happy to bust you out of here, on the principle of the thing, but we were promised the world’s premier mage-killer, and –”

            “I can still work,” he said shortly.

            “Cool, so if we get moving –”

            “Ah.” He rested his hands on his hips, looking down. “They have a vial of my blood. They can use it to control me. I cannot leave it in their hands. And… I had a contract when I was captured. One of my targets is here. Calivan. Crows don’t break contracts.”

            “Yeah, alright,” I said. “Let’s do it, then. Kill some Venatori, kill Calivan, then we head back home, and you kill some big scary god-mages. Deal?”

            “Deal.”

            “Sweet. So, any idea where to start?”

            “Blood first,” he said, heading for the door at a jog. “I know where it will be kept. Then we can go for Calivan.”

            As we set off, I realised he was on the shorter side, for a guy, though still taller than my stumpy self, and sort of… compact. He was leaner than Cullen had been, which I supposed made sense. Cullen’s whole thing had been fighting with a sword and shield, all brute force, while Lucanis’ deal was more about agility.

            I shook my head, scolding myself internally. God, what was I thinking? Comparing him to Cullen? It was sick. Twisted. He wasn’t my type, anyway, I told myself firmly. I liked sweet guys, funny ones, preferably a bit soft, a little dorky. This guy was an assassin. Hot he may be, but he was also going to be all suave and sharp and too cool to waste my time with, probably had a girl in every city already. So get your head in the fucking game, Emma, and get moving.

            I was so deep in my own head I jumped when Neve put a hand on my arm. “Be careful with this one,” she said quietly, nodding to where Bellara and Lucanis walked on ahead, Bellara peppering the poor guy with questions he seemed to be carefully sidestepping. “Abominations rarely end up being happy stories.”

            Patting her hand, I said, “I know. We need him, but… I’ll keep an eye on him, I promise.” Fucking wouldn’t I.

            Neve looked unconvinced, but she nodded and let the matter rest all the same. I sped up to walk beside Lucanis, Bellara dropping back with Neve after a moment. He looked sidelong at me.

            “Your turn to pump me for information now?”

            I smiled. “Bellara wasn’t questioning you, that’s just how she is.” I shivered as we walked through a patch of air that was putting out the most rancid vibes imaginable. “I wouldn’t mind getting an idea about what they were doing here, though.”

            Lucanis sighed. “They used blood magic to thin the Veil. Then they’d summon whatever they could from the other side. Any spirit can become a demon. Zara didn’t give them a choice.”

            “Jesus,” I said. “So, they weren’t only torturing people here then, they’ve been messing with spirits the same way. Whoever this Zara is, I think she’s due a good kick in the tits.”

            “Zara is mine to kill.” He was giving me a searching look, which ended with him cracking the barest hint of a smile. “But I would not object to you kicking her in the tits beforehand, perhaps. Though I would not have expected such a physical attack, from a mage.”

            “Sometimes there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good solid booting.” I looked up at him. “Is that going to be a problem? Working with me, I mean, since I’m a mage?”

            “So long as you do not have a tendency towards torture and wanton murder, we should be fine.”

            “That’s cool then. I kill a lot of people, but they’re all dickheads, so fuck ‘em.”

            He laughed, sharp and surprised, and I couldn’t help grinning. Was I blushing, too? Maybe a little. At that point a group of Venatori appeared out of wavering red air. Lucanis had two blades out instantly, a smallish sword and a largeish dagger, growling out, “Mine!” I was definitely blushing then.

            That place was a nightmare. At least our search for Lucanis’ blood mostly took us deeper into the complex, so I could ignore the watery depths that surrounded us. But apart from the Venatori staffing the place, it was also full of undead and demons, along with increasingly common stretches where the air would go cold and a sense of horror or pain or despair would wrap around me like a sodden blanket. Places where the thinning of the Veil had imprinted the inmates’ feelings on the scenery as clearly as neon signs.

            Lucanis led us to a huge round room, apparently following a scent, which wasn’t something I was going to question right then. There were tables scattered around the room, each containing a withered corpse, all drawn up into positions that suggested the poor bastards had died in extreme pain.

            “This is appalling,” Neve said. “These people weren’t just experimented on. They were tortured.”

            “Very few people survived Calivan’s ‘rehabilitation’,” Lucanis said.

            “You did,” Bellara said, barely above a whisper, staring wide-eyed at the nearest corpse. I went over and gently rubbed a hand up and down her back, earning a wan smile in response.

            Lucanis didn’t seem to notice any of this, just smashed a few warding crystals and gestured into one of the rooms leading off the main hall. “I cannot destroy the vial myself. It is part of the blood magic. If you wouldn’t mind?”

            “You two stay out here, make sure we don’t get cornered in there,” I said as I followed him in. I was expecting there to be a vial, you know, the sort of thing you’d see in a doctor’s office. Instead, it turned out to be an ornate faceted crystal vessel roughly the size of a basketball. “Holy shit. That all came out of you?”

            “Not all at once.”

            I snorted. Then, rather than doing anything fancy, I just slammed Tyrdda’s staff into the glass, smashing it like a gory piñata. “How are you feeling now?”

            Lucanis let out a growl, rolling his shoulders and twisting his head from side to side. “It’s finally gone.”

            “Happy to help,” I said, swinging my staff onto my back. “So – Calivan?”

            He flashed me a smile. “Calivan.”

*

                        We took a fancy stone lift up to the warden’s office, which looked like it might have been an altar back in the days when the Ossuary was an elven building. Calivan had actually taken the time and effort to drag a regular-ass desk in there, the thing looking hilariously, pathetically out of place compared to the huge golden mosaic behind it.

            “Ugh,” Calivan said as we walked in. “This was entirely unnecessary! Zara and her little jests. ‘He’s already the Demon of Vyrantium, won’t this be ironic?’” Lucanis and I shared an aside glance, and he gave me this little sideways smile that set my heart fluttering again. Oh, I was down atrocious. “Hilarious. And now look at the mess you’ve made of my facility. She always leaves me to clean up.”

            “Cry harder, bitchboy.” I turned to Lucanis. “I’m right in thinking this is Calivan, yeah?”

            “This is him. The target I was sent after a year ago. A Crow never abandons a contract.”

            “Then let’s fuck him up.”

            It turned out to be slightly harder than I’d expected, since the guy didn’t just come at us with magic, or even the regular demons we’d been facing up to that point, but instead summoned a whole-ass Pride demon. Fucking Pride demons. They’re the last thing you want to get stuck facing as someone with an inclination towards lightning magic. Still, we were a team of badass bitches, and also Lucanis was there, and eventually everyone who wasn’t us was dead.

            “The Crows send their regards,” Lucanis said at Calivan’s corpse.

            “Nice, very Lannister.” When he looked confused, I hurriedly added, “So, job done here?”

            “Yes,” he said, “the job’s done.”

            There was something going on, though. For one, he seemed distracted, his eyes straying to a point just beside me. For another, I could hear… something. Not words, really, nothing so concrete as words, but the sort of hum of a conversation taking place in a nearby room. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

            “Are you… alright?” I asked, looking where he was looking. This time the buzz from the air beside me rose in volume, not by much, just enough for me to barely make out the word ‘right’.

            “You cannot see him,” Lucanis said. “I wondered.”

            “I can hear… something.” I stared hard at the patch of air Lucanis had been looking toward, and as with the sound I thought I might be able to see something, some wobble in the air, like a vaguely person-shaped heat haze. I turned to the girls with a querying shrug, and they both shook their heads.

            “I can’t see anything!” Bellara said.

            “Not so much as a whisper,” Neve confirmed.

            “Alright, well.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “I desperately need to be somewhere that’s not fucking underwater. Is this an emergency, or something we can discuss later?”

            “Something we can discuss later,” he said firmly. “I need some air.”

            “Then let’s get you home.”

*

                        Bellara and Neve hung back when we reached the Diamond, Lucanis and I approaching the Crows who were lingering around up there, Teia, Viago, and Illario. The place was a mess, stuff strewn all over the floor, everyone looked rattled even before they spotted Lucanis. When he asked what was wrong, Illario slammed his fists on the table and whirled around melodramatically.

            “A message!” he spat. “From Zara Renata!” Though he at least followed this up with, “I can’t believe it. You’re home,” before coming over to rest a hand on Lucanis’ shoulder.

            “Zara?” Lucanis said. “Her people got this close?” He paused, looking around. “Where’s Caterina?”

            “She’s…” Teia choked out, but broke off into a suppressed sob before she could say anything more. Ohhh, I had a bad feeling about where this was going.

            Viago stepped forward to rest a supportive hand on Teia’s arm. “The Venatori got her in the confusion.”

            “I get one of you back,” Illario said bitterly, “only to lose the other.”

            Fuck. “Oh, Lucanis, I’m so sorry,” I said. Remembering there were other people around, other than the sad boy I was struggling to keep myself from staring at, I quickly followed it up with, “All of you, my condolences.”

            “I need to work,” Lucanis ground out.

            “Are you sure?” Teia asked. “You should take some time.”

            “I don’t need time, I need a target.”

            So that was that. He said he owed me, for pulling him out of his watery grave and all, and despite a little more quibbling on whether the Crows could even spare him, and Illario insisting on being present for Zara’s eventual violent demise, the outcome was the same. Lucanis came back to the Lighthouse with us.

*           

                        When we got back, Bellara, Neve, and Lucanis headed straight out to the kitchen to talk, while I did a quick check-in with the dwarf duo (both were doing good). I hadn’t been back to the kitchen since we’d first arrived – I’d walked in to find a single place setting at the end of the long table in there, realised it had to be from Solas eating dinner all by himself, and walked straight back out before it could make me cry.

            At least that second visit was marginally less miserable. Someone had cleared the table setting away, for one. Lucanis stood in front of the roaring fireplace, while Bellara and Neve sat on the opposite side of the table. As I walked in, Bellara was saying, “They’re the same thing! Kind of.”

            “Except one will manipulate you,” Neve said, “or kill you, or both.”

            “But how do you get rid of them?” Lucanis asked tersely.

            “Started the party without me, did you?” I said, leaning an elbow on the back of Bellara’s chair.

            “We’re discussing Spite,” Lucanis said.

            “The demon inside Lucanis,” Neve clarified. “When a person gets possessed, the demon usually takes control.”

            “And they turn into a monster,” Bellara jumped in. “The spirit just… moulds them. However they want.”

            “I’ve heard of abominations being cured by killing the demon in the Fade,” Neve said. “That’s not a sure bet, though.”

            “Well, there’s one way!” Bellara said. “But it’s, well… we’d have to, um…”

            “You’d have to kill me,” Lucanis said.

            “Fuck off,” popped out of my mouth automatically. “That’s not happening.” There was that humming sound again, coming from beside me, rather than near Lucanis. “Have you tried talking to him? Spite, I mean.”

            “Have I tried talking… to Spite?”

            I shrugged, but Lucanis didn’t seem to be paying attention to me by then. The buzzing sound grew louder again, and I thought I might just have made out my name through the hum. Then Lucanis’ head rocked back, as if he’d been punched, and his nose started bleeding.

            “Bloody hell!” I cried, as on either side of me the girls leapt to their feet. Lucanis warded us back with a bloodied hand, which was less than reassuring.

            “It’s fine!” he said. “I’m fine.”

            “Oh yeah, looks it,” I snorted.

            “He won’t kill me. He cannot do that and get what he wants. Just… wait a minute. He’ll get bored once everyone leaves.”

            I sighed. “Ladies, could you give us the room?”

            Lucanis shook his head at me impatiently as Neve and Bellara trailed out. “I said everyone.”

            “This is my house, mate.” I smiled to show it was a joke, mostly, then sat on the table and swung my legs over to his side. I was hoping to do it all in one smooth motion, looking suave and debonair, but between the width of the table and the stumpiness of my legs (a decade in, and I was still bitter over the loss of those six inches of height) the result was a lot more ungainly. “Anyway, there’s something I need to tell you, if we’re going to be working together.”

            I told him all of it, the stuff about me and Solas. By the time I finished, he was leaning against the fireplace, watching me with his arms folded and his eyebrows raised. He rubbed a hand over his face.

            “That is a lot of information to absorb at once.”

            “Take your time.”

            “But why tell me? I could have walked out. I could have attacked you!”

            “Are you going to do either of those things?”

            He smiled. “No. But –”

            “One of my best friends used to be a Ben-Hassrath agent. That’s like a spy for the Qunari, right? When he first signed up to the Inquisition, he told me about all that stuff straight away, literally the first conversation I ever had with him, before I even really brought him aboard. I asked him the same thing back then, why would be tell me, and he said, ‘you’d have found out eventually, and you’d have been pissed off’.” I shrugged. “Plus, it wouldn’t be fair to expect you to work with me while I’m keeping some pretty major pieces of information from you.”

            “Well, your candour is appreciated. And it won’t affect our working together. So long as you are not put off by working with an abomination.”

            “Listen, I didn’t grow up being taught to be scared of spirits, the guy who taught me about this world saw spirits as basically people, and my son is a spirit of Compassion who made himself human. You’ll find I give them more leeway than the next person. Your having a passenger on board doesn’t bother me at all. If any of the others try to give you hassle for it, just let me know. I won’t put up with it.”

            “Thank you,” he said, sounding genuine. “But for the moment, I really would prefer to be left alone.”

            “Okay. You know where to find me, if you need me.” With that I left him stood there, in the kitchen by himself.

Chapter Text

Neve took me to Dock Town a few days later, initially to see the sights. While there, she introduced me to a whole bunch of her Dock Town buddies – the Viper, who seemed pretty cool; Tarquin, who I was pretty sure was the Viper’s boyfriend, and who seemed to take an instant dislike to me; Elek, who worked for a crime syndicate but was actually quite nice (also cute); and Rana, a Minrathous templar. Best I could tell, from what she said and what Dorian and a few others had told me in the past, Tevinter templars were basically like police, and operated entirely lyrium free. That was good. That meant I could talk to her without getting upset.

            The two of us, plus Rana, ended up tracking down some relic the Viper warned us about, an idol made of red lyrium, always fun to deal with. We caught the guy, but some senior templar and the guy’s magister dad just turned up to take him home without even a slap on the wrist, so another afternoon well spent there. Still, Neve’s friends seemed nice, other than Tarquin.

            My evening was spent on a quick trip to Arlathan with Harding, who wanted to train her magic. She turned out to have decent control over it, even saving some poor Veil Jumper who’d broken his leg, only to end up hearing some disembodied voice calling her to find them. Nice and ominous. We talked about it back at the Lighthouse, and Harding said she was going to look into it, as in, look into following the voice, which like, okay, cool. Sounded like something that was going to come back and bite us later, but cool.

            All told, I was glad to crawl into bed that night. It was pretty frustrating, then, when I jolted awake barely four hours later, just managing to choke down a shriek. I waited there for a while as my heartbeat returned to normal, lying on the surprisingly comfy chaise longue that served as my bed, hoping the fish slowly drifting around and around would send me back off to sleep, like counting sheep. It didn’t, though. Eventually, with a sigh, I decided to just give in, get up, and go stare into the Fade.

            As I was doing my staring, I realised there was a light shining through the kitchen windows, a shadow occasionally passing back and forth. Curious, I poked my head around the door to find Lucanis pouring himself a cup of coffee. I was about to duck back out and leave him to his business when he said, “Can I get you a cup?”

            I pushed my way in, heading for the chair nearest the fancy coffee-making set-up he’d installed since I’d last seen him. “I wouldn’t say no, thank you. I didn’t mean to disturb you. People don’t usually notice me if I’m in sneak mode.”

            “Assassin,” he said. “Constant awareness of my surroundings is part of the job description.” He sat beside me, setting a cup down in front of each of us. “And you’re not disturbing me. I was awake anyway.”

            “Trouble falling asleep or trouble staying asleep?”

            “I try to sleep as little as possible,” he admitted. “Spite is stronger when I sleep. I do what I can to prevent him getting the chance to take control.”

            “Shit. That doesn’t sound ideal.”

            He chuckled. “No. Yourself? Falling or staying?”

            I took a deep, deep breath, and sighed it all out. “Staying. I mostly have lucid dreams, but every now and then a regular one will slip through. It’s like if I’m too tired my brain just refuses to go into lucid mode or something, I don’t know how it works. Sometimes it’s fine anyway, I just dream about my teeth falling out, or that I’m desperately looking for somewhere to pee but keep getting sidetracked –”

            “I’ve had that one,” he said with a grin. “Less common than the ones where I have to complete a job while naked, though.”

            Giggling, I took a sip of coffee in an attempt to cover the blush that set in at the thought of Lucanis naked. “Oh wow, this is good coffee.”

            “Thank you. Would you like any sugar, or cream?”

            “Nah, this is the good shit. You don’t mess with the good shit.”

            “My sentiments exactly.” Lucanis took a sip of his own coffee, staring into it as he added, “Which was it tonight? Teeth or toilets?”

            “Ah,” I said. “Family.”

            He nodded. “Solas causing you trouble?”

            “Not that family. The ones who raised me.” I sighed, rubbing the back of my head. “I dream about being back there, sometimes. Still weird dream nonsense, like getting stuck in an endless IKEA or somehow getting lost in our housing estate. But with my old family involved, instead of, like, you guys.” I sipped the coffee again. “This one, tonight… My family and I were on the most horrible camping trip imaginable. It started raining really hard, so then the tents all flooded, which was bad enough but then there were sharks and…” I trailed off into a shrug. “It’s stupid, but I just couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards.”

            “It’s not stupid,” he said, speaking in that soft, gentle voice I’d never have expected from someone whose descriptors were ‘Antivan’ and ‘assassin’. “I lost my own parents when I was very young. Another Crow house moved against the Dellamortes, seeking to take the position of First Talon for themselves. Afterwards, Caterina, Illario, and I were the only ones left. That is how he and I came to be raised by Caterina. Now, Illario is the only family I have.” He reached out, a little hesitantly, and patted my hand. “I dream of my parents too, sometimes, even though I hardly remember their faces. You have to try to remember the love, rather than the loss. Use it as a reminder to appreciate the time spent with the people you still have.”

            “Quality time at the end of the world,” I said, smiling. “Yeah. We spent a lot of the Breach days in the pub. It really did make things less miserable.”

            “Perhaps better to remain sober for this one,” he said dryly. “But I will always be here with coffee, if you need company.”

            “I appreciate that. Really. The best part of the Inquisition was that we always had each other. After the Breach closed we stayed in touch – everyone but Solas, obviously – but it was never the same, you know?” I shrugged.

            “Crisis does have a way of bringing people together.” He cocked his head, looking closely at me. “I know that as the leader you might feel like you need to keep your personal concerns to yourself, so I just want to tell you up front that you don’t need to do that with me.”

            “Nah, come on.” I waved a hand. “I’m the one in charge. I’m the one people bring their problems to. It hardly commands respect or breeds confidence or whatever if I’m constantly weeping over my imaginary family.”

            “Don’t do that,” he said, and his voice was still soft, but with a steely undertone. “You don’t have to turn it into a joke. Not with me. Emma, you pulled me out of a living nightmare, and accepted the fact I am an abomination without so much as a raised eyebrow. Keep up a front with the others if it makes you feel better to do so, but you do not need to hide anything from me. You have my loyalty, at least until the job is done.”

            “Well then.” I raised my cup to tap it against his. “Cheers to having a confidante. Be prepared for a whole lot of whining, mind, you’ve really opened a can of worms here.”

            Lucanis laughed. “I look forward to it.”

*

                        Neve came to me the next day to say the Shadow Dragons were having issues, and I thought it would be a good chance to get the whole team out there working together, see how we clicked before we waded into anything god-related. Harding was finally well enough to travel, and didn’t seem likely to accidentally squish someone, Lucanis was ready to rock and roll, and of course the mage ladies were as dependable as ever. So, off we headed to Minrathous.

            The Viper was waiting for us (the guy kept his face covered, but he had a rad voice and some very pretty, very dark eyes), ready to send us into the sewers after some darkspawn. Cheers, mate. Still, it was useful as a test run, and it gave me some insight into an issue with our team composition pretty quickly – while Lucanis (and Spite) fought up close with blades, ducking and lunging around, Harding was an archer and the rest of us were mages. If the darkspawn made it past Lucanis, the rest of us could only really scurry hastily aside, and of course Lucanis was barely better at drawing aggro than Cole had been.

            By the time the fight was over we all had to take a breather. Neve was healing a wound Lucanis had taken to his shoulder, while I was using the Anchor to heal a slash on my upper thigh. Bellara and Harding were sat nearby, leaning against each other, unharmed but panting.

            “We need a warrior on the team, right?” I said, wincing as the layers of skin knit together one by one – it never hurt, exactly, but that rapid healing always felt deeply fucking weird, not to mention itchy. “Like a big guy, or gal, to actually form some sort of defensive line.”

            “Do you think Bull or Blackwall would agree to sign up?” Harding asked.

            “Nah, Bull and the gang are busy with some land dispute on the Nevarra-Orlais border. Anyway, he’d never leave the Chargers, even with Krem and Gael there willing to take over. And Blackwall’s still living in Wycombe with Sera and Dagna.” As well as what remained of Clan Lavellan, who’d been allowed to not only live in the town, but had been given seats on the town council, making them probably the safest Dalish clan in the Free Marches, if not the world. I’d also left Cary Elkwes with them, because it was safer for both of us, since I could hardly stay under the radar while riding a whole-ass elk. Still missed him, though. Him and Sandor Hound both. Shaking myself, I finished with, “If we wanted Wall we’d have to take all three, and I don’t see Sera agreeing to come and live in the Fade, do you?”

            “I guess not,” Harding sighed. “Wouldn’t mind having some of their bee grenades, though.”

            “I’ll get a letter to them, see if they can send us a crate.” I stood up, carefully testing my leg. Good enough to walk on. Since Lucanis was also rolling his shoulder, seemingly fit and well, I clapped my hands together. “Okay. Off we pop.”

            With that we headed back to the Shadow Dragon hideout to give the Viper the heads up that the darkspawn, near as we could tell, had been willingly working alongside the Venatori.

            “How is that possible?” the Viper gasped. “Darkspawn attack all living things!”

            “Darkspawn are blighted,” Neve said. “If the gods control the blight, they might control the darkspawn. That means the Venatori might have learned some magic to protect themselves, or… they could be allied somehow.”

            “Of course they are,” I groaned, rubbing both hands over my face. “Why wouldn’t the sort of dickheads who fawned over Corypheus also fawn over the next lot of blighted mages to happen along? Call it brand loyalty.”

            Tarquin, a guy with great bone structure complemented by a fancy beard, told us about some Venatori activity in a warehouse down by the docks, and off we went again. I wasn’t particularly hopeful, but there was still a part of me that thought we might get lucky, that maybe they’d just found a blood magic technique or some relic that protected them, something we could take away from them that would leave them vulnerable to the darkspawn.

            At that point I started feeling like I was being mocked on a cosmic level, because while I found a note that literally said Elgar’nan had given them a blood-magic-powered relic to control the darkspawn, there was zero mention of anything they needed to do to prevent their control being lost.

            “Is it too much to ask for a ‘by the way, the relic will explode if it gets too cold’ note?” I sighed.

            Lucanis laughed. “My job would be a lot easier if everyone kept a helpful indication of their personal weaknesses on them.”

            “We actually had something like that back home.” I kicked over a box, though all I found underneath was a rat. Cute, but not helpful. I shooed them away from a patch of blight. “If you had an allergy you could get these bracelets that told people about it. The whole point of them was that if someone dropped, you’d be able to guess what had happened to them and stick them with… uh, this, like, potion called EpiPen to heal them. But I could see an assassin being like ‘ah, peanut allergy!’ and then frisbeeing a peanut into someone’s open mouth or something.”

            He laughed even harder at that. “There’s a future challenge for me.”

            “If you ever decide to give it a go, I want to be there to watch,” I grinned.

            “If we’re quite finished,” Neve said, sounding like a teacher facing down a rowdy class as she gestured towards one of the warehouse doors, which now stood open.

            The Viper was waiting outside, having decided to come down and check if we needed help. Very sweet. He wasn’t especially pleased to hear what we’d found, which like, same, buddy. He insisted we head back to the hideout before discussing things, maybe so Tarquin could be filled in as well. Venatori working with darkspawn, Venatori also working with Elgar’nan, all that fun stuff. When I did my usual ‘hey, I’m here to fuck things up if you need me’ thing, Tarquin scoffed.

            “How do we even know we can trust you?” he snapped. “You’re not from here. You’re the one who unleashed these ‘risen gods’ in the first place. Now we’re supposed to just accept that you’re here to help us? What would have helped us is if you hadn’t released the damn things in the first place!”

            I wanted to fight back, but like, he had me there. I ended up just standing there, mouth flapping open and closed as I tried to come up with something I might be able to use to justify myself. Before anything came to mind (and thankfully before I stood there long enough for it to get awkward), a stately woman with short blonde hair and a gorgeous blue enchanter robe strolled in to have a go at him on my behalf.

            “Now now,” she said, “what is it they say? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? The cult has its hooks in the city. Venatori backers sit in the Magisterium Chambers. And now they wield power given to them by the gods. We’ll have to get along if there’s any chance of surviving this. Besides,” she gave me a surprisingly warm smile, “I know for a fact Emma hates Venatori as much as any of us.”

            Before I had time to wonder just how she knew that, the Viper said, “Mae? What are you doing here? You promised you’d lay low.”

            “Tried it. Didn’t much care for it.”

            I was staring at her with my mouth open like an idiot. “Hang on, Mae? Not Dorian’s friend from the Lucerni, Maevaris?”

            “That’s me,” she said with a smile, reaching out to take my hands in hers. “I’m so glad we’ve finally had a chance to meet, despite the circumstances. Dorian talks endlessly about you. You’ve been a very good influence on that young man.”

            “Well, all I did was say ‘hey, maybe slavery… ain’t good’. He did most of the work himself. But it’s great to meet you, all the same. Thank you for the chocolates you sent after… Well, with Cullen, I mean. I was sorry to hear about you losing your seat in the house, those conniving bastards.”

            “Dorian’s still working within the Magisterium.” She shrugged, waving a hand airily. “And I can still be a force for good working with the Shadow Dragons.”

            “Two-pronged attack, I get that.” I had to fight the urge to stick my tongue out at Tarquin, who was still glowering at me, but didn’t seem ready to keep having a go now someone else was being nice. “Anyway, the Dragons have our full support when it comes to the darkspawn, the gods, whatever you need.”

            “We’re happy to have it,” the Viper said.

            “For the moment, however, you have an appointment,” Maevaris said. “The First Warden is waiting for you in the Cobbled Swan.”

            “Oh, nice,” I said. “No idea where the Cobbled Swan is, but I’m looking forward to getting someone who actually knows about darkspawn on board.”

            “I know where it is,” Neve said, shaking her head. “Come on.”

            The Swan was down by the harbour, right next to Neve’s favourite fried fish stall. She’d gotten me some on our previous trip to the city, and while it wasn’t quite the same as good old-fashioned fish and chips back home, it was still good enough that as I headed into the pub I’d already decided we’d be stopping there for dinner after my meeting.

            Everyone else decided to hang around outside, since the appointment had apparently been made in my name alone, and I walked in to find myself in a nice big tavern that was almost deserted. There were two big Grey Wardens, armoured and helmeted, flanking a bald guy with a fancy moustache and huge shoulder pauldrons. I noted the fact he’d deliberately positioned himself at the top of a few steps that separated the room into two levels, meaning he got to look down on me as he gave his introduction.

            “I am Jowin Glasstrum,” he announced before I could get a word out. “First Warden and supreme commander of Weisshaupt.”

            “Yeah, hi. Emma Rutherford, previously the Inquisitor.” I gave him the most winning smile Leliana had taught me. “I had the pleasure of working with Senior-Warden Alistair Theirin some years ago, and –”

            “I am aware of your history with the Order.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I received word of your new organisation’s request for help following an incursion of the blight at D’Meta’s Crossing. I agreed to meet you here in order to gain some insight into how a retired Inquisitor somehow managed to unleash a Blight.”

            Oh, this was going well. Fucking calling me retired. It was technically correct, like, it just made me sound like I needed a blue rinse and a zimmer frame.

            “My team and I were trying to prevent the Dread Wolf from bringing down the Veil.” I tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible, because the way he was looking at me said I was on some very thin ice. “Which we did, if I can just point that out. We imprisoned him in the Fade, in fact. Unfortunately, in the process of imprisoning him, two other elven gods were released. Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. They can control the blight, and the darkspawn, and also the Venatori are working with them.”

            “I didn’t come here to listen to fairytales,” he sneered. “I came here to discuss the blight.”

            “Yeah, and that’s what I’m doing. The gods control the blight. That’s what I’m saying. What they did at D’Meta’s Crossing, the way the Venatori are directing the darkspawn inside the city, we –”

            “It’s becoming clear to me that whatever you did to unleash the blight must have snapped your already weak mind.”

            “Excuse me? My ‘weak mind’? I led the Inquisition for –”

            “Then you marched into the Exalted Council and declared your intent to disband the organisation as some gambit to save the world from a threat you never bothered to identify. Oh yes, I am very aware of your history, Rutherford. It’s no surprise to me that you finally poked at the wrong piece of magic, and have driven yourself insane as a result.”

            “You’d best –”

            “You will be taken to Weisshaupt,” he only talked louder to drown me out, “and placed under heavy guard until the danger caused by unleashing the blight passes.”

            “Really?” I was still smiling, though by then it was more of that teeth-bared grin my face seemed to automatically twist into when I got unspeakably angry. “You think I’m going to just let you cart me off to some prison cell while the gods do whatever bullshit they’re cooking up for the world?”

            “Let me tell you something about the blight,” he said patronisingly. “It is evil, it is implacable, and above all, it is predictable. The blight has not changed in over a thousand years. The Grey Wardens will defeat it, as they always do. And we will do so without you causing confusion with your deranged conspiracy theories.”

            “Deranged?” I said, my pop-eyed grin widening. “I’ll show you fucking deranged, you –”

            “Adamant Fortress, 9:41 Dragon. The Grey Wardens attempted to raise an army of demons. Hardly the models of good judgement yourselves, are you?”

            It was enormously hard to look anything like professional when my best friend had just walked in. Dorian winked at me, and I wiggled my eyebrows in response, as the First Warden drew himself up furiously. 

            “Everyone knows Warden-Commander Clarel acted alone,” he seethed.

            “Acted alone, you say?” Dorian said archly. “Well, I happened to poke about Adamant while my dear friend the Inquisitor was dealing with the demon your rogue Warden called forth, and I discovered this extremely interesting letter in which you authorised Clarel’s actions. I wonder how that would complicate the narrative?”

            “Are you prepared to risk the security of the Grey Wardens for the sake of this deluded girl?”

            “You may be surprised to learn that I care very little about the security of the Grey Wardens.”

            I snickered, drawing a glare from the First Warden. Rather than carry on trying to arrest me, he just snidely told me to mind my business and marched off, his silent Wardens trudging after him. I waited until Dorian and I were alone, then threw my arms around him. He hugged me back just as enthusiastically.

            “I could swear you used to be better at this politics business.”

            “Yeah, well, I’m out of practice.” I stepped back, looking him up and down. “You’re looking good. Teal is very much your colour.”

            “Isn’t it just?” He sat on the end of a table, and I hopped up beside him. “You also look as lovely as ever.”

            “I know, I just got called a girl. I’m choosing to take it as a compliment.”

            “As you should. You haven’t aged a day.”

            My smile wavered a bit. “Yeah, I’d noticed that. The Dad Wolf doesn’t seem to have aged at all, either.”

            “Ah. Melancholy.” He smiled when that succeeded in making me laugh. “You fear you might be long-lived, like your dear old father?”

            “I’m a ghost piloting a corpse,” I shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”

            “You know, some of us would be delighted to discover we might be young and beautiful for eternity.”

            “Some people don’t appreciate what it’s like losing everyone they care about over and over.” When he nodded, I gave myself a shake, leaning in closer to ask, “How goes it with the Bull?”

            “I finally managed to bring him into the city last month. Strangely, the Antaam attacking a lot of people who aren’t us seemed to make things marginally easier for Vashoth and Tal-Vashoth to enter Tevinter without being set upon. He still has to travel with the Chargers, of course, for safety’s sake. I would never recommend he try walking alone through town. But it’s an improvement.”

            “Maybe in another few years –”

            “Maybe so. While we’re on the subject, I’d recommend the same for yourself, and any elves you may be working with. Travelling along with humans should be enough to ward off any serious attempts at kidnap, but try to avoid walking alone, or in elf-only groups. I’d hate to have to come and rescue you from slavery, and I know you’d loathe being a damsel in distress.”

            “Plus, I’ve never looked good in burlap.”

            “My friend, you’d look good in anything. Well, except red. Now, you know what you have to do next, don’t you?”

            “Yeah. First Warden won’t listen to me, so I’ll have to go over his head. I mean, under his head, technically.”

            “Ser Alistair?”

            “He’s off at Weisshaupt. Plus, if a proper Blight is coming, better he stay with the Wardens. Nah, I’ve got an idea. We’re going for the lower levels, people the First Warden is less likely to notice scooting off to join me.”

            “Always a woman with a plan.” He leaned over and kissed the side of my head. “Take care of yourself, Em. You know the Dragons will always stand ready to assist.”

            “And my people will always be ready to help the Dragons, naturally.”       

            “Naturally.”

Chapter Text

“Guess who just saw Dorian,” I sang as I strolled into the infirmary later, dropping down on the end of Varric’s bed.

            “If it wasn’t you, that’s kind of a strange conversation opener,” he said, pulling himself into a sitting position as I laughed.

            “He’s doing well. Still a magister. Saved my arse from getting locked up in Weisshaupt. So good to see him in person, honestly, I think once we’ve put out the fire we should try to organise a proper reunion. Get the whole sword’n’eyeball gang back together, even just for a day. What do you reckon?”

            “Works for me, Dreamer. We could… Hold on. That dagger!” He lurched forward as best he could, gasping and clutching at his chest with the sudden movement. “I’ve seen it before.”

            Raising my eyebrows, I said, “What, you mean when it was lodged in your sternum?”

            “Before that,” he said pointedly. “Shit, it can’t be. Look at it, Dreamer!”

            “Yeah, I’ve looked at it,” I said with the beginnings of impatience. Pulling the dagger out, I turned it over and over in my hands, watching the light play over the faintly glowing surface. “Quite pretty, but…” I shrugged.

            “That blighted chunk of lyrium is what started all this,” Varric said. “In more ways than one. If I hadn’t found it in the Deep Roads...” 

            “Hang on, you’re saying this is the lyrium idol?” I looked down at it again, this time trying to superimpose the drawings I’d seen of the idol over the dagger. Now it had been pointed out to me, I could sort of see it, a little. The circle at the top, at least, and the hilt, though the blade itself had to be fresh. “Well, that’s less than comforting.”

            “It hasn’t been singing to you, has it?”

            “Not that I’ve heard, and I’ve been carrying it around for a while now.” I turned it around and around. “If it’s the same piece, the same idol, that means Solas somehow cleared the Taint from it, doesn’t it? But how? How is that a thing he can do?”

            “Oh, don’t ask me,” he laughed. “I haven’t the first idea. I just recognised the damn thing.”

            “Hm. Well… Oh, hi Harding.”

            “Hi,” Harding said, looking from me to Varric and back. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

            “Nah, just having a brainstorm, mulling some things over.” I sheathed the dagger. “You okay?”

            “Actually, I had some news for you, about the whole Grey Warden thing. I managed to get a message to Antoine and Evka.”

            “I’d almost forgotten about them.” Varric shook his head. “I’m officially getting too old for this shit.”

            “Cool, and did they sound like they’d be willing to work with us, despite the First Warden being a prick and all?”

            “Haven’t gotten that far in negotiations yet, but they’re willing to discuss the subject with me, at least. I’ll keep talking to them, try to arrange a meeting. I just wanted to let you know I’d gotten in contact, that’s all.”

            “Yeah, thanks for keeping me posted. Nice work.”

            “Just doing what I can to help! I’ll, um. I’ll leave you to your mulling.”

            “You don’t have to hang out in here with me,” Varric said once we were alone again. “I’ve got no idea how your old man managed to cleanse that damned thing, and frankly, I wouldn’t argue with being left alone for a nap.” He smiled and patted my arm. “Go on. Run along and find someone more fun.”

            “There is nobody more fun,” I grinned as I stood and stretched. “But fine. I’ll let the old man get his rest.”

            “Always so considerate.”

            Walking across the landing, I paused and leaned over the railing as Bellara called my name. “Because we didn’t have time to stop at the fish stall, Lucanis made dinner!” That was a very polite way of saying they wouldn’t let me hang around after almost being arrested, in case the First Warden changed his mind and came back to grab me. “He sent me to find everyone. It looks good!”

            Didn’t it just. He’d made a sort of tapas selection, a collection of small plates for us all to pick at. Stuff that looked like different types of bruschetta, little stuffed peppers, the Antivan equivalents of patatas bravas and pizza, with cured meats and cheeses and bread, prawns in a garlicky sauce and chicken on skewers and…

            “All this just for us?” Neve asked, filling her plate with her eyebrows raised.

            “I’ve seen what you were all eating before I arrived,” Lucanis said with a snort. “It is a wonder none of you have died of malnutrition yet.”

            “We weren’t that bad,” Bellara giggled. She looked like she was going to say more, but I took my first bite of the tomatoey bruschetta at that point.

            “Oh my God!” I said, far too loud but unable to do anything to moderate my voice. “This is… wow.” I shook my head, gobbling down a little pepper (sweet, not hot, and stuffed with something crumbly and tangy, like feta) and a garlic prawn in quick succession. “Sorry, I was in Ferelden for so long, and I’ve just been, like, existing on the road. This is phenomenal. Thank you so much.”

            “Well. Just glad you enjoy it,” Lucanis said, looking a trifle bemused.

            “Fereldan food isn’t that bad,” Harding protested.

            “Harding, listen, I love Ferelden, alright, it’s my home,” I said. “But multiple people have told me, proudly, that the traditional way of cooking there is, and I quote, ‘throw everything in a pot together and boil until it’s all grey and tastes the same’.”

            “Well, yeah, but only because that’s the best way to cook!”

            I drowned her out by making noises which were, quite frankly, obscene. I wasn’t even doing it on purpose, I just couldn't seem to stop. Bellara was staring at me, cheeks flushed. Lucanis, meanwhile, chuckled and shook his head, though I couldn’t help noticing the way he crossed his legs as he did so.

            Oh yeah. Still got it, baybee.

*

                        A few days later Harding got word back from our Warden friends, agreeing to meet us. The news set off another nightmare, and once again I found myself creeping into the kitchen while everyone else was asleep. Everyone but Lucanis, of course. When he saw me come in, he wordlessly poured an extra cup of coffee and set it down before the seat beside his.

            “Thanks.”

            “Dreams again?”

            “Ye. Worse than the one I had before. They…” I swallowed, shaking my head. “Anyway.”

            It had been darkspawn that time. Cathy and Aiden, my little sister and baby brother, were huddled together on the roof of my mother’s garden shed, screaming for me to help them. Darkspawn massed around them, tearing at the sides of the shed, weakening it. I was on the roof of my old house, safely out of the way, too high to be reached, too high to help, as powerlessly magic-free as I had been back there. All I could do was watch and scream as the old wood finally gave out, and my little siblings, pleading eyes fixed on me, calling my name and begging for me to save them, fell into that seething mass of monsters to be torn to pieces.

            Lucanis sipped his coffee, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “I dream of the Ossuary, when I allow myself to sleep. Some things stay with you.”

            “Yeah. Cullen always had bad dreams, too. He was imprisoned and tortured when he was, what, nineteen? Barely more than a kid, trapped in a tower with a bunch of demons. By the time I met him he’d mostly worked through that stuff, but still, more nights than not he’d have dreams that woke him up.” I smiled, just a little. “He’d never wake me up, though, at least not deliberately. I’d only know he was awake if I had my own nightmares.”

            “Will your husband be joining us?”

            It was like getting a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. At first I recoiled, thinking he was making some sort of cruel joke. Then I realised his expression was entirely genuine, and that meant, somehow, none of us had told him Cullen was dead. Thinking about it, Harding refused to speak to Lucanis unless absolutely necessary, not trusting the abomination, and I didn’t think he and Varric had spoken, at least not for any length of time. As for Bellara and Neve… Did they know? How could I have just not told people?

            “Mierda,” Lucanis whispered, reading some of what was going on in my head on my face. “I’m sorry, Emma, I –”

            “My fault,” I said quickly. “All my fault, don't be sorry. I keep forgetting to outright tell new people. Part of it is I don’t like saying it, I think. And then I spent so long where the only people I spent any time with already knew. Mostly, I think it still doesn’t feel real. Like if I go back to Skyhold he’ll be waiting for me in his office, just like he always was.” I shrugged. “Sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

            “It’s not stupid. Grief is rarely sensible.”

            “I suppose. He went peacefully. There’s that, at least. Died with a smile on his face. Back home they’d probably have called it an embolism or an aneurism or some fancy medical word that means he just stopped living one day. Everything he went through in his life, and he died laughing on a nice sunny day.”

            “We should all be so lucky.”

            I laughed, once, softly. “We should.”

*

                        Neve begged off joining the rest of us in meeting with the Wardens, saying she had something going on with the Shadow Dragons that she wanted to do alone. The rest of the gang set off, the Caretaker gondoliering us to a new part of the Crossroads. We were trotting along, looking for a working eluvian that would get us to the High Anderfels, when I spotted something that looked like a fancy willow bower with a sort of haze across it.

            “Huh,” I said, changing course immediately.

            “Ooh, it looks like some kind of magic barrier!” Bellara said, quickly joining me and peering through the haze as best she could.

            “Dangerous, do you think?” I asked, running my fingertips over the woven lattice of willow that served as the boundary.

            “Let’s see.” Before I could do more than let out a squeak, she’d stepped through the haze. Once on the other side, she turned back to face us, beaming. “Safe! I thought so. I mean, I was pretty sure.”

            Bracing myself, I stepped through after her. It felt less substantial than passing through an eluvian, more like walking through fine cobwebs than a wall of water. No pain or discomfort or anything like that, though. Harding and Lucanis followed more cautiously, trailing behind me and Bellara as we headed deeper into whatever weird anomaly we’d found.

            “Why are we doing this?” Lucanis asked.

            “Curiosity.” I looked over my shoulder to grin at him. He seemed to briefly consider arguing, only to smile and shrug.

            “This doesn’t feel like the Fade,” Bellara said as we trailed along a snowy path. “More like a dream, maybe, or –”

            She broke off as a voice called out, “Andaran atish’an!” up ahead. I stopped dead with a gasp. “That… No, but, that’s Solas’ voice. Are we in my head? Is there a door into my head in the Fade? What the fuck?”

            Before anyone could say anything else, another voice spoke up. “Spirits! Fade-friends, come forth! Enter the circle! Reveal yourselves!” It was a nice sort of voice, rich and deep.

            “Look, up ahead!” Bellara cried out, hurrying off with the rest of us jogging to keep up.

            It was a weird set-up. What looked like the ruins of a building with a glowing circle inside it, the circle full of humanoid spirits. On a stone platform above them stood two men, both in armour. One was an elven man, handsome, with thick brown hair, Mythal’s vallaslin, and (I noted when we got closer) violet eyes. Properly violet, too, not just a fancy shade of blue, them orbs was purple.

            The other elf was Solas. But he had hair. A full-on side-fade-long-back sort of thing. It was not a look I’d ever have expected to see on him. Right then, I realised I’d been thinking of him as having been pretty much shiny bald since birth.

            “Spirits,” the guy with the purple eyes said, “the Dread Wolf asks for your assistance on a crucial mission.”

            “The false gods, the Evanuris, have overreached,” Solas declared. “I shall humble them.”

            “It looks like they’re including us in this, doesn’t it?” Harding whispered behind me.

            “Within their citadel lies a relic with the power to imprison a god,” Solas continued, with a sort of savage satisfaction I’d never heard from him. “With it, I can bring their tyranny to an end forever.”

            “You are spirits of Chaos, Disorder, and Disruption,” the other guy said, sounding a good deal more chill. “We ask you to disrupt the citadel’s defences. Give us the opening to get that relic. For freedom! For the Wolf!”

            The spirit figures around us dissolved into red lightning at that, making me jump. Once they were gone a set of steps manifested ahead of us, inviting us to continue deeper into the illusion.

            “This is a memory, isn’t it?” I said, staring at those steps without really seeing them. “One of Solas’ memories of the rebellion, somehow imprinted on the Crossroads. That’s why it feels more like a dream than the Fade, right?”

            “Seems so,” Bellara said. “I mean, that’s the idea that makes the most sense.”

            “Sense, right,” Harding said with a laugh.

            “Yeah. Weird seeing him like that, but…” I shook my head sharply. “Well, can’t go back, got to push through! The memory wants us to pretend to be spirits of Chaos, so let’s get chaotic with it.”

            “I already have to deal with one demon, I’m not pretending to be another!” Lucanis said in the most hilariously pissy tone imaginable. I just smiled at him, grabbed his hand, and tugged him along after me. He followed without too much resistance.

            We had to fight some memories in there, though none of them hit particularly hard, and they all went down easily enough. Solas and the hot guy briefly turned up again, discussing their plans, before we fought on a little further and then, you know, exploded. Apparently, that was what had happened to all those poor spirits on trying to breach the doors of the citadel, they’d gotten blown up by Elgar’nan. That was less than fun to experience.

            As I patted myself down, making sure it was only memory-me that had exploded, rather than real me, I heard Solas’ friend talking again. That seemed like a pretty good sign that my parts were all still attached.

            “Disruption fought to the last, and it was all for nothing,” he said sadly. “We couldn’t take the citadel.”

            Spinning around to make sure the others were similarly alive and well, I looked back as Solas said, “It was not for nothing, my friend. The distraction the spirits gave us allowed our agents to retrieve the relic.”

            “Distraction?” the hot guy and I said in unison.

            “No force could have breached their citadel,” Solas said, seemingly unconcerned. “But it was necessary for the enemy to believe we were committed. A heavy sacrifice, but one that gave us a real chance to end the war.”

            “You knowingly sent all those spirits to their deaths? Solas, we’re supposed to be better than that!”

            “You tell him, hot guy,” I mumbled.

            Solas shook his head. “They died true to their natures, doing what they loved, Felassan.”

            There was more, but I didn’t hear it. My head snapped around, and I sidled closer to the hot guy, getting a better look at him. “Felassan?”

            “Do you know him?” Lucanis asked.

            “I keep finding notes around the Crossroads signed with the name Felassan,” Bellara said. “I think he was Solas’ general back in the rebellion days. He seems nice, from the notes.”

            “I think Solas killed him,” I said quietly.

            For a moment we all had to close our eyes as the memory ended in a gale, leaving nothing behind but a wolf statuette made of some glimmering blue crystal. Bellara briefly cocked her head at it, then turned back to me. “What did you mean when you said you think Solas killed him?”

            “Something Cole said. My son, you know, part of his Compassion spirit deal is picking up things that are troubling people, things that hurt. A while ago, when we were first chasing Solas through the Crossroads, Cole said this thing about the slow arrow breaking in the sad wolf’s jaws. That the slow arrow had to die because he believed that people were, you know, people.”

            “And Felassan means slow arrow in elven,” Bellara said, nodding.

            “He ‘believed people were people’?” Lucanis asked, raising his eyebrows.

            “Solas… Solas slept for millennia after he made the Veil,” I explained. “When he woke up, he had trouble seeing modern day people as people, at least before the Inquisition. And Felassan, at some point before all of that he ended up as a sort of mentor to my mate Briala, and…” I shrugged. “The slow arrow broke.”

            “Well, we just watched as the guy sacrificed over a dozen of his loyal followers for a ruse,” Harding muttered. “I don’t have a lot of trouble believing he’d also kill his friend for risking his grand plan.”

            “I don’t feel like I’m the right person to judge Solas for the citadel stuff,” I admitted. “I mean, I’ve sent plenty of people to their deaths, haven’t I? Haven, Adamant, the Arbor Wilds, the –”

            “That’s not the same!” Harding protested. “Yeah, you sent people into battle, but you always did what you could to minimise risks. You never sent people into certain death just for a distraction! It’s not the same at all!”

            “Feels the same, as the person with that blood on my hands. But anyway, I was going to say that while I can’t really judge him for that part of it, I cannot imagine killing someone I counted as a friend.”

            “That is comforting to hear, at least,” Lucanis said, winking when I looked at him, which managed to make me smile.       

            Bellara and I inspected the wolf statuette, and we both came to the conclusion that it was magical, but not dangerous. Since it was also lighter than it looked, Bellara eagerly said she’d put it in her pack to take it home for later study. With this done, we were off again, through a gate that had opened as we’d picked up the wolf, back into the regular Fade, and on to the Anderfels.

Chapter Text

Considering how bitterly cold the Fade surrounding the Anderfels eluvian was, the real-world place turned out to be surprisingly warm, with desert rather than snow and hardy little cacti dotted all over the landscape. As we walked around a corner into a canyon, we came across a pair of Grey Wardens, who were just recovering from a battle with some darkspawn. They were a married couple – a dark-haired dwarf woman with a geometric tattoo across her face wielding a hammer, and a skinny elven archer with a sweep of black hair and an Orlesian accent, though I didn’t hold that against him.

            “Hi guys!” I called as we strolled up, because Antoine had just put his hand on Evka’s face in a manner that suggested kissing was imminent, and I didn’t want to open negotiations by perving on them.

            “Ah!” Antoine said, sounding genuinely pleased that we were there. “You made it! We meet again!”

            “Antoine, Evka, you look well,” Harding said.

            “Good to see you both,” I said. “Shame about the circumstances.”

            “Yes, your letter was quite desperate,” Antoine said.

            “The elven gods are changing the blight, and the darkspawn,” Harding said. “There was a village, D’Meta’s Crossing. They overran it with blight in a matter of hours. We saw the aftermath.”

            “We have reason to believe that the gods’ plan relies strongly on the blight,” I added. “It’s their go-to weapon so far. We’re going to need Grey Wardens to deal with it, and the First Warden has so far proven to be… uh… I don’t want to say ‘unrelenting dicknozzle’, but nothing else is coming to me.”

            Antoine laughed. After a moment, sounding thoughtful, he said, “Manipulation could explain… oh, but…”

            “Don’t tell me,” I said, “you’ve already noticed a difference in the darkspawn you’re dealing with?”

            “Don’t get me wrong,” Antoine said, “the idea that the elven gods walk the land is hard to process. But we’ve already been looking into oddities with the blight. It’s… altered. I can feel it.”

            “A lot of what you’ve said lines up,” Evka summarised, “to say nothing of the different, strange darkspawn that have started popping up lately. The question is what to do next.”

            “If the First Warden believes that village was an aberration, or that it did not happen as you say –”

            “Oh, no, he definitely doesn’t believe me,” I said with a sharp laugh. “The guy was dead set on hauling me off to the Weisshaupt dungeons on account of me apparently being ‘deranged’.” Lucanis snorted a laugh behind me, and I gave him an attempt at a quelling look, though the effect was slightly spoiled by the fact I couldn’t help smiling.

            “Well, sadly we’re not exactly his favourites either,” Evka said. “And your word, our theories, that’s not going to be enough to win over the whole Order.”

            “I could probably get Ser Alistair and his lady wife on board too, once he gets my message,” I said. “He and I go way back.”

            “Ser Alistair and Ser Neria have a dedicated group of Wardens on their side,” Antoine said. “But they have become somewhat insular, particularly in recent years. Their support will help, but it will not be enough to turn the tide of the Order, I am afraid.”

            “Fuck, okay.” Being Inquisitor really did mean nothing by then. I squeezed the knot of muscle forming at the back of my neck, which was undoubtedly going to turn into a stress headache before the day was out. “We can… come up with something, I’m sure.”

            Evka blinked, looking like something had just occurred to her. “If the darkspawn really are changing, Davrin might help. Even among Grey Wardens he’s known as a monster hunter.”

            Clapping my hands together like an overenthusiastic teacher, I said, “Monster hunter, cool, sounds like someone we could do with.”

            Davrin was apparently on assignment somewhere deeper in the mountains, so off we all went, setting out on a fun little nature walk together. Well, Bellara and I were having fun, anyway, pointing out new kinds of bird and shiny scuttling lizards. Harding and Lucanis were walking behind us, and at first I was glad, thought they might be bonding. Then I actually listened to what was being said back there, and I realised that, in fact, Harding was threatening Lucanis (or, technically, Spite) with some sort of magic arrow.

            “Harding, come on, team spirit.”

            “I’m just letting him know that if he tries anything –”

            “It’s alright, Emma,” Lucanis broke in. “If Spite really does take over and poses a threat to people’s safety, we need to have someone who’s willing to… deal with him.”

            “No,” I said, “we’re not doing this shit, alright? Christ, how come every time I have to be in charge of something I end up with some spirit-adjacent guy trying to force me and the rest of the team to promise that we’ll murder him if he gets out of hand, like, that’s a weirdly specific thing to have happen more than once, isn’t it?”

            Before either of them responded, Bellara – who’d kept her eyes on the path ahead, I think pretending our argument wasn’t happening – grabbed my arm and shook it. There was a campsite a little way away, just off the path, a tent, a campfire, some provisions, and a handful of darkspawn corpses.

            “Doesn’t bode well,” I muttered as we cautiously approached the camp. The tent was partially overgrown with blight, and I carefully peeked inside, bracing myself to see something horrible. Nothing in there but bedrolls and blight, however, so that was a small mercy.

            “The fire’s low, but it’s still burning,” Harding said. “Whatever happened here, it can’t have happened too long ago.”

            Something screamed in the distance, a sharp, high-pitched noise unlike any I’d heard from darkspawn, old or new. The shrillness of the sound had me concerned we might be facing some new and improved version of shrieks, and the idea that we might be about to fight invisible versions of those gremlin bastards was deeply unappealing.

            With another shriek, a figure leapt down from a ridge overhead and lunged at me, all snapping beak and slashing claws, flapping wings and lashing tail; it was a griffon. Even as it clawed at me, I could only stare at it open-mouthed, sure I must be hallucinating or that someone was messing with my brain, because it was a griffon. About the size of a wolf and a sort of dusty grey all over, and it was a griffon. Holy shit.

            “Assan!” The buffest elf I’d ever seen jogged around the corner of a ridge and the griffon immediately stopped harassing me to scurry over and press against his side instead. The elf had deep brown skin (very smooth, too, I'd have to ask about his skincare routine), big dark eyes, and a very square jaw, with vallaslin over his forehead marking him as having been Dalish at some point.

            “Griffon,” I said stupidly, pointing, as if anyone could have failed to notice the half-bird-half-lion that had just been attacking me. “That. Griffon. Huh.”

            “Por le sangre del Hacedor,” Lucanis muttered behind me, whether in awe at seeing a live griffon or horror at my word failure, I couldn’t say. Either was valid.

            “He is a griffon,” the buff elf snapped. “Trouble is, he’s not sure what you are. Neither am I.”

            “Well, I’m Emma Rutherford. Used to be Emma Morgan, the Inquisitor, now I’m just like… a freelance problem solver, I suppose? Would you happen to be Davrin? Evka and Antoine told us to find you.”

            “Yeah, I’m Davrin.” He was a bit less confrontational by then, at least. “Mind telling me why Assan thinks you smell like darkspawn?”

            “Rude,” I said automatically, and I noted the way his lips quirked, like he was trying not to smile. That seemed like a good sign. “Oh, when we first got here, I checked the tent to see if anyone needed help, maybe there was a bit of scent transference from that. Also, like, I’m currently ankle-deep in darkspawn corpses. Can’t imagine that’s helping.”

            “Blight?” he barked. “Where are Lancit and Remi?”

            “The place was empty when we got here,” Harding said. “No sign of anyone.”

            “Oh, right,” I said. “Davrin, this is Harding, the best scout in the Inquisition. Or out of it. That’s Bellara, and Lucanis. If something’s happened to the Wardens you were out here with, we’re ready to help.” Especially given Neve wasn’t there to make fun of me for it.

            A horrible shriek echoed through the mountains, and Davrin seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. Then, “Just, keep up.”

            We set off, and I stuck close to Davrin, watching as Assan leapt from tree to cliff to rocky outcrop overhead. “Griffon,” I grinned, shaking my head slowly. “Never thought I’d see the like.”

            “You weren’t meant to see the like,” Davrin grumbled. “We’re trying to keep it quiet, hence training them all the way out here.”

            “Them? There’s more than just Assan?”

            “Not many more, but yes.” He gave me a sidelong look. “The Inquisitor. You were involved in all that Adamant business.”

            “Yeah,” I sighed. “Not my favourite memory. Still, it ended up alright. Not for most of the mages, sadly, but still.”

            “Clarel was a fool,” he said gruffly. “There are some Wardens who still see you as the villain of that whole debacle, as if you should have stood aside and let Ser Alistair deal with it all single-handedly.” He snorted. “Personally, I’ve always wanted to thank you for intervening before Clarel made us look even worse. Not to mention the fact you chose to ally with the survivors afterwards. I know that can’t have been a politically popular choice.”

            “Yeah, I definitely caught a bit of flack for that one.” I smiled up at him with a shrug. “Less than when I brought the Redcliffe mages in, or drank a spooky pond, though, so.”

            “You… what?”

            “The Wardens more than made up for it, anyway. They did some great work in Orlais, once they signed up to help.”

            “Glad to hear it.”

            Following the griffon through the mountains, we ended up fighting off a horde of darkspawn, and finding one of Davrin’s fellow griffon-keepers, Remi, who’d unfortunately been mortally wounded before we got there. Bellara leapt towards the woman, summoning a handful of healing magic, but Remi waved her back.

            “Don’t waste your energy on me,” she wheezed. “The thing came out of nowhere, Davrin. Darkspawn were following it. Lancit ran on ahead.”

            “It’s back?” Davrin asked.

            Remi gave him a weak smile, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Remember, Davrin; a light touch. Assan’s still learning.”

            With that, she was gone. Davrin stood up, turning away sharply. I gave him a minute, which it felt like we didn’t really have the time for, but I certainly wasn’t going to push him. When he turned back, he nodded to me, once, and said, “We have to keep going. Let’s move.”

            As we went, he filled the rest of us in on the thing we were helping him chase, something they’d dubbed the Gloom Howler, a monster that seemingly preferred to target Grey Wardens. Also, darkspawn listened to it, did its bidding. Oh, and it screamed. We heard it as we were running, the damn thing was shrieking like something insane being disembowelled. Not really something I was eager to catch up to, but such was the job. We found Lancit along the way, also horribly killed, until finally we burst through a gate to find ourselves surrounded by a whole… pride? flock? of griffons, all caged.

            “More of them!” Lucanis said, resting his fingers on the bars of the nearest cage, like he too wanted to pet the little guy.

            “Let’s get these cages open, shall we?” I said.

            “Can’t,” Davrin muttered, “some kind of blood magic on the locks.”

            “Bel, you’re good with wards.” As she went to work on one lock, I did my best with another. When I couldn’t do it, I assumed it was just me failing at doing anything that required finesse again, but Bellara eventually stepped back from the one she’d been working on, shaking her head, so it seemed it was just some very strong magic.

            “Killing a mage usually unravels the magic they’ve cast,” Lucanis said. “If the Gloom Howler is the one who did this, perhaps the same will hold true for it.”

            “Worst comes to worst, we kill the thing and then get some dwarves up here to cut through the bars,” I said.

            It was hard to press on. Not because of all the darkspawn we had to fight through, that was all par for the course by then, but because there was a whole bunch of griffons and I was fighting my urge to shove my arms into their cages, to either pet them or let them bite my hands off. As a treat.

            Then we found the Gloom Howler. It was a long, skinny, pale thing that looked like it was entirely made out of slimy bone; there were ragged, jutting plates of bone across its whole surface, including something that looked like a crown atop its head… or maybe its skull had burst open, then kept growing…

            “Their blood is mine!” it cried in a warped, damp, clogged sort of voice.

            “Nope, don’t like that,” I muttered.

            Davrin shouldered past me, sword extended as he barked, “I’ll spill mine before I let that happen!”

            It turned to face us, giving me a better look than I wanted at what seemed to be a grotesquely extended spinal column sticking out the front of its chest. “And I’ll collect, Warden! On all of you!”

            “Have you noticed we’ve got you well outnumbered here?” I snorted. “Hand over the griffons now, and –”

            “They belong to me!” the thing shouted. “They have always belonged to me!”

            It raised a hand, and for a moment I was so fixated on how horrible its hands were (one was a fairly standard monster claw, but the other looked like it had been whittled to a point, like a human hand that had been shoved into a giant pencil sharpener), I didn’t even realise it was casting some sort of magic. Not until we were all buffeted by a sudden tornado, which lifted the cages full of griffons.

            By the time the magic had cleared, the griffons and the Gloom Howler had all disappeared, leaving just us and Davrin, who was screaming up at the sky after them. He went quiet and turned to me as Assan crept to sit beside him, making the saddest chirping noises I’d ever heard.

            “There are only thirteen griffons in Thedas,” Davrin said heavily. “That monster just took twelve of them.”

            I stared at him for a moment, then at Assan. Ignoring the spectre of Neve mocking me as a soft touch, I said, “Then we’ll get them back.”

            Davrin let out a short, sharp laugh. “Just like that? In my experience, people don’t help strangers just out of the goodness of their hearts.”

            “You really don’t know Emma,” Harding said under her breath behind me, making Bellara stifle a laugh.

            “If it makes you feel better, we can turn it into a trade,” I shrugged. “I need a blight specialist. There’s a Blight coming, maybe the Blight, and we’re going to need someone who knows what they’re doing to deal with it. I tried getting your First Warden on board, and he, uh. He called me deranged and tried to have me arrested.” I smiled when that made him snort a laugh. “Just laying my cards on the table. Evka and Antoine are also on board, unofficially, but we’re very much operating without official oversight. We’ll do what we can to save the griffons, but you’d be working with the deranged.”

            He looked down, weighing the sword in his hand, then sheathed it slowly. “You fight well. And if you can help get the griffons back…” He glanced at Assan, who chirped excitedly. “Okay. Come on, Assan. Let’s get to know our new friends.”

            Cool, check ‘hire Grey Warden’ off the to-do list. We even found one that came with a griffon. Now I just had to hope he wouldn’t kill me when I told him about the Solas shit.

Chapter Text

I let the others go on ahead before I told Davrin everything, sending them through the eluvian and hanging back in the mountains. I think my thought process behind it was that if he went for me, I could hop through the mirror and escape, leaving him out there. Always best to have an exit strategy, right? This ended up not being necessary, anyway, since Davrin took everything astonishingly well.

            “We can’t choose who our folks are,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve been doing good work since you got here or back or whatever. I’m not going to judge you just for being half Dread Wolf.”

            “Good to hear. Honestly, I keep expecting people to break out the torches and pitchforks, and people keep being surprisingly chill about it.”

            “I do try to avoid being too predictable. Helps keep the prey from knowing my next move.”

            Stepping through the eluvian, we found Lucanis waiting for us. He visibly relaxed when we came into view with neither of us trying to kill the other. Gesturing to the path ahead, he said, “The ladies went on. I thought I would hang back.”

            “You didn’t have to do that,” I said as we set off. Davrin pulled ahead of us, trying to corral Assan, both of them seemingly following Bellara and Harding’s tracks. Lucanis slowed down beside me, putting more distance between us and Davrin when I automatically fell in step.

            “Emma,” Lucanis said softly, “you asked us to leave you alone with a large elf carrying a very large sword as you told him your father is the villain from all the legends he grew up hearing. Of course I stayed back, in case you needed a hand.”

            I looked up at him, feeling very warm all of a sudden. “You were worried about me?” I said, keeping my voice light, trying to make it a joke, trying to turn my big dopey grin into something teasing.

            “Of course,” he said. “You’re my employer. Had he killed you, I would have had to amend my contract, which is quite the headache.”

            “Oh, right.”

            Snorting, he elbowed me in the ribs. “Also, I would be bereft without our nighttime coffee chats.”

            “That’s more like it,” I grinned, bumping my shoulder against him. We jostled back and forth, until Davrin called from up ahead.

            “There’s a spirit…”

            “Oh, that’s just the Caretaker!” I sped up to reach them. The Caretaker was standing at their usual post in the boat, passively observing Davrin, who had a hand on his sword hilt. “It’s alright, they’re a friend. They help us get around the place. Caretaker, this is Davrin. He’s new.”

            The Caretaker nodded. “Welcome, dweller. I have already conveyed the others of your party to their destination.”

            “They’re fine,” I assured Davrin, hopping into the boat, closely followed by Lucanis. After a moment Davrin and Assan followed suit.

            Davrin spent the ride over with one hand gripping the edge of the boat and the other clinging to Assan, like he expected to fall into the abyss at any moment. When we got to the other side, he hopped out with an easy smile, as if he hadn’t just been freaking out.

            “So, you live in the Fade, huh?” he said.

            “It’s a little pocket in the Fade, technically,” I said. “You’ll get used to it, I promise, it’s actually –”

            “Emma!” Neve was charging towards me, Bellara and Harding right behind her, all of them wide-eyed and frantic. Shit.

            “What’s happening?” I asked as they slid to a halt in front of me.

            “I just got word back from Minrathous,” Neve said. “They’re under attack by a blighted dragon.”

            “It’s worse than that,” Bellara said. “There’s also word from Antiva. Treviso is under attack, too, by another dragon.”

            “A coordinated assault, then.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Got to be god-related. What –”

            “Treviso’s a merchant city,” Lucanis interrupted me. “It has no defences, and the canals run everywhere. If we don’t stop that dragon, people will die. Innocent people. My people. They either die right away from the dragon, or slowly from blight in the water. We need to go to Treviso!”

            “And leave Minrathous to burn?” Neve snapped. “The Shadow Dragons will fight, right to the end of it. But we’re the only ones keeping the Venatori in check. And if we fail, the Venatori will take advantage. They’ll make a push for the throne, and hand the gods the entire Tevinter Imperium.”

            Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. My brain suddenly felt like a hamster wheel, a whole lot of frantic motion without achieving anything. Desperately stalling for time, I said, “Do we know what sort of –”

            “Damn it, there’s no time!” Neve barked. “I need to go home. I need to be in Minrathous!”

            “And I must go to Treviso.” Lucanis paused, briefly resting a hand on my elbow. “Go where you feel you must, Emma. We cannot wait.”

            He and Neve took off towards their respective eluvians, the Caretaker silently dematerialising, presumably to run the ferry for them. At least the two eluvians were near each other, so the Caretaker would only need to do one run for the both of them. Harding asked me what the rest of us were going to do, and I just locked up, like a car on ice. Only a few seconds passed while I stood there, frozen, but it felt a lot longer.

            The first time someone proposed the Trolley Problem to me, I only asked one thing – do I know any of the people tied down?

            But this was different. This wasn’t the Chargers versus some anonymous dreadnought crew. I knew people in both places. I knew Dorian best, of course, but I also knew that Dorian had faced four aggro dragons in the past, and much more nonsense besides, and I trusted him to get himself through another battle.

            I had to trust that, because for all I’d frozen, I knew exactly where I was going to end up. One city was crammed full of mages and had a floating castle capable of firing magic lasers down on the city. The other had a bunch of knife-wielding Batmen, and maybe some gaatlok if the Antaam could be bothered to get involved.

            Fuck.

            “Bel, Harding, you go with Neve to Minrathous,” I said. “Davrin, do you and Assan mind joining me in Treviso?”

            “Lead the way.”

*

                        Charging through Treviso, following the directions of panicked Crows who seemed to be the only people on the streets, I came to understand that my idea of the place being defended with ‘maybe some gaatlok’ was being very optimistic. The Antaam seemed to be using the commotion to go after the Crows.

            That’s what I thought was happening at first, anyway. That they were just making a run at the Crows in the confusion. That was until some big burly bastard bellowed, “For the glory of the risen gods!” as we ran down a flight of stairs, before firing a gaatlok canon at me from about three feet away. Really proving correct that old adage about a rocket launcher being a close-combat weapon if you weren’t fussed about consequences. Thank God for Fade stepping.

            Thank God for Davrin. I’d missed having a warrior on the team, someone to slam into the Qunari shield-first, drawing their fire and their attention while I got to slip around the sides of the room, lobbing in spells until they were dead. We kept on, Assan dropping from the sky to shred anyone Davrin didn’t stab and I didn’t shock, until finally we ran out into a plaza containing Teia and Lucanis.

            “Emma!” Lucanis cried when he saw us hustling towards him, relief clear in his voice. “You came.”

            “Of course I did,” I said with an attempt at a smile. “Couldn’t sit this one out, could I?”

            Together we hastily came up with a plan to draw the dragon down (which boiled down to just making a lot of noise until it went for us, something that made me think of Haven and so set my teeth on edge), and jogged into the next section of plaza to get the job done.

            “This is my fifth dragon thus far, lads,” I said as we went, trying to sound more confident than I felt, as if two of those dragons hadn’t survived my meetings with them, one of whom was actively my ally. “They’re very killable, trust… oh.”

            It wasn’t just the dragon, as it turned out. Up on a section of battlement, high above us, was a… thing. It looked like it had crawled out of some kind of Lovecraftian hentai nightmare factory. A body with another half a body stacked on top, each torso complete with a set of arms, plus tentacles, just, everywhere. It was the thing I’d seen coming out of the Fade prison, and that meant…

            “Shit, it’s Ghilan’nain.”

            “Despair,” she said, her voice gargling and echoey and wrong. “Ignorance. Mortal confusion. Yet this city offers nothing better than a pawn of the Dread Wolf.” She paused, seeming to peer closer at me, as best she could over the distance. “Ahh, but you are no mere pawn, are you, child? The Dread Wolf’s Pup herself has come to yap at me. How Mythal could ever have lowered herself to whelp with that mongrel escapes me.”

            “From what I hear, ‘batshit insane blight-infested hunter’ is more your style,” I said. “So yeah, I can imagine you’d struggle to see the appeal of Solas.”

            “You have no right to speak of Andruil!”

            “Oh what, so you can talk shit about my family, but I can’t say anything about your lunatic girlfriend?” I grinned, feeling like I had back when I was bullying Florianne at the Winter Palace. “Hey, actually, I heard at least one legend where your psycho ex was very interested in getting Fen’Harel into bed, willingly or otherwise, so if you don’t understand the appeal, maybe you should have asked her. When you had the chance, I mean.”

            Ghilan’nain let out a strangled sound of fury, which she followed up by snapping to her dragon, “Retrieve the knife, and whatever remains of their bodies. Elgar’nan need not know.”

            “Fuck, I was too mean again.”

            The dragon cruised down towards us, and I was immediately glad we’d brought Davrin. The man was an absolute unit, charged straight into that scaly bastard as soon as she landed. I slammed the best barrier I could around him, which was marginally better than back in the Inquisition days but still wasn’t the most solid, but he hardly needed it anyway, ducking and weaving between her grasping paws, batting claws aside with his shield. I sent spell after spell into her scaly hide, while Lucanis flew from spot to spot, slashing and stabbing. That was pretty distracting. It turned out guys with wings was very much my type.

            Personally, I still thought we were probably doomed, but right as I was wishing we’d brought at least one extra mage with us Ghilan’nain yelled something I didn’t catch, given I was diving out of the way of a blast of ice at the time, and just like that they were both gone.

            I lay where I’d landed, getting my breath back, until Lucanis appeared to offer me a hand to my feet. Teia ran over as I dusted myself off, calling, “You drove it away!”

            “Ghilan’nain called it back,” Lucanis snapped, shaking his head. “If she hadn’t –”

            “But she did.” I poked him gently in the ribs. “And now we’re still alive, and Treviso’s mostly still standing. Not a bad outing, all told.”

            “I agree,” Teia said with a pointed look Lucanis’ way. “As would anyone with a home still standing.”

            “You’re right.” Lucanis turned to me, coffee-dark eyes fixing on mine. “If you hadn’t come here, things would have been worse. I cannot imagine how much worse.”

            “I barely did anything,” I said with a weak attempt at a laugh.

            “You distracted Ghilan’nain.” He stepped closer. “You. If you –”

            “We still have to help with the dragon in Minrathous,” Davrin said, sounding like he thought we were blithering idiots. Which, like, fair.

            “Shit! Teia, will you be alright if we –”

            “Go!” She waved us towards the exit, and off we went.

*

                        By the time we got to Minrathous, a lot of it was on fire. We managed to track down Bellara and Harding, who were sat side by side in an alley, staring into space. I crouched beside them, shaking Harding’s knee to get her attention.

            “Hey, we’re here,” I said, trying desperately to smile despite the way my stomach was roiling. “What’s happening?”

            “Oh, you’re alright!” Bellara grabbed for my hand, squeezing it tightly. “Good. Neve… Neve’s in that plaza up ahead. She’ll want to see you.”

            “Lads, why don’t you hang back here a minute?” I said, before steeling myself and setting off. The plaza turned out to be a tiny little square, where Neve and Tarquin were standing beside a crate that was serving as a makeshift hospital bed for the Viper, who was curled in on himself in a way that suggested he’d been wounded. I licked my dry lips and asked, “What’s happening?”

            “Look around, I don’t know where to start.” Neve sounded on the verge of tears, and the look she gave me made my insides twist in on themselves – disappointment, primarily, with anger and sorrow vying for second place. “Treviso’s alright? Lucanis?”

            “Yeah, Lucanis is fine. Treviso is… less fine, but it…” I swallowed. “It could be worse.”

            Neve let out a bitter laugh. “Worse.” She shook her head, looking up at the Archon’s palace, floating high overhead. “The Venatori had a clear shot at the palace while we fought a dragon we could barely hurt. The Viper drew it away from a safehouse, and took a claw to the gut as thanks. A healer could fix the wound, but the blight’s already in him.”

            “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Tarquin stood up suddenly, and I couldn’t help flinching back. All the things I’d faced that night, and a grieving man with hate in his eyes was what made me want to run away.

            “This is all you!” he barked at me, jabbing an accusatory finger my way. “The risen gods. The blight. The dragon. Now the city’s lost to the Venatori!”

            “I’m… I’m sorry, I –”

            “Are you? Really? Because you let those things out, and then when one of them attacked the city, where were you? How do we know this isn’t what you wanted all along? How do we know you –”

            “Emma isn’t to blame,” the Viper said, sounding far surer about it than I was, “and she isn’t working against us. It is what it is.”

            “Tension’s a little high,” Neve said. “You should go for now. I need to be here a while. See to things.”

            “Yeah,” I said quietly, backing away. “You take all the time you need. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

            I turned and started walking briskly away, and before I even had the chance to realise I hadn’t asked after Dorian he was there, standing right in front of me, bedraggled but only in a sexy sort of way, and entirely unharmed. I let out something close to a sob in my relief, and he opened his arms for me to run into them, both of us holding each other tight.

 *          

                        “I mean it, Dee, if I thought you lot couldn’t have handled a dragon, I’d have been here.”

            We were sat on a low wall a street away. I looked up at him, afraid I was going to see the same disappointment in his eyes as Neve’s, or worse, hatred. But I should have known better. He was just the same old Dorian, sad but understanding. He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, making me smile.

            “Don’t worry, my friend, I’ve seen the chap you chased to Treviso. I’d have abandoned you for him without question.” He laughed and elbowed me as I spluttered disjointedly. “That is what we Tevinter call ‘teasing’. I know you made your decision based on your long-standing familiarity with my many talents, and it’s not a choice I envy you. Besides which, while I’m also familiar with your many talents, you’re still only one person, Em. You could hardly have rescued the city single-handedly.”

            “Except I’m the reason Treviso got off so lightly,” I admitted. “Ghilan’nain wanted the dagger, and she stopped attacking the city to come at me. She had plenty to say about my parents.”

            “Ah, dynastic squabbles. The Evanuris really do remind me of home.” He rested his head against mine. “Your distracting Ghilan’nain wouldn’t have stopped the Venatori. I know how much you love taking the weight of the world on those svelte shoulders of yours, but in this case, I think you can only accept so much blame.”

            “I’m the one who let them out,” I whispered.

            “No,” he said firmly. “You stopped a ritual. This is Solas’ fault, not yours. Don’t make me have to slap some sense into you, Em, please. There’s been quite enough violence tonight.”

            I huffed a laugh. “Thanks, Dee.” Sighing, I looked over at where the team sat together, making listless conversation. “Lucanis really is gorgeous, isn’t he?”

            “You’re a lucky woman, alright,” Dorian said with a chuckle. Squeezing my hand, he added, “Nice to see you moving on.”

            “Nah, I’m just… Like you said, the fine Tevinter art of joking.”

            “Hmm. If you say so, dear girl. Whatever you say.”

Chapter Text

When we got home everyone went to their respective corners (Bellara promised to find a place for Davrin and Assan to live), and I headed straight up to do the Somniari thing and popped in on Solas. He was waiting for me on the same fallen pillar as before, smiling wanly at me as I dropped down beside him with a sigh.

            “When last we spoke, you intended to assault the cruel and corrupt in search of servants of the Evanuris. Has your search been successful?”

            “Yeah,” I laughed. “Turns out the Venatori and Antaam are both working for them, despite the Venatori’s established feelings about elves, and the usual Qunari outlook on magic.”

            “It is not so outside the realm of possibility,” Solas said with a shrug. “The Venatori may despise elves, but they are also obsessed with discovering magical secrets, and gaining more power for themselves in the process, which is something the Evanuris can freely offer. As for the Antaam, they desire only the power to destroy any who oppose their brutal expansion. As with Dragon’s Breath, they are willing to compromise aspects of their beliefs to accomplish their goals.”

            “It gets worse,” I said. “I met Ghilan’nain herself, which was a real treat. And she’s got two attack dragons working for her. She attacked Treviso, pretty much razed Minrathous.”

            “Dragons? That is worse than I had feared.” He turned to me. “Are you alright? Did she harm you?”

            I squeezed his arm. “I’m fine, I promise. She had some choice words to say about you and… and Mythal, mind.”

            “I can imagine,” he scoffed. “Do you know how she is controlling the dragons? If it is blood magic, it may be possible to disrupt the control.”

            “Blight. It’s always blight. They’ve got the Venatori controlling darkspawn, too.”

            “Then Elgar’nan has decided that darkspawn are to serve as the main force of his army, while Ghilan’nain will view them as new subjects for her… modifications. This is the fate the Evanuris plan for the world. Corruption and slavery.”

            “Hm.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “As well as talking shit about you, she said something about Elgar’nan that struck me as weird. She told the dragon to kill me, and then said that Elgar’nan didn’t need to know. Why would he give a toss? He murdered Mythal, and he hates you, yeah? He can take the dagger off my corpse. Why would he care about keeping me alive when Ghil clearly doesn’t?”

            Solas looked away. “I… could not say.”

            Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “That means you could say, you just don’t want to.”

            “Da’len…”

            “Come on, hahren. Knowledge is power.”

            He sighed. “It is… possible that a despot like Elgar’nan will feel the need for a… a consort, once he has consolidated his power. Most powerful men prefer to appear with a beautiful younger woman on their arm, do they not? To appeal to their own vanity?”

            I laughed disbelievingly. “And that’s me, is it? Not any of his Venatori lackeys, not Ghilan’nain herself, he’d rather have me there waiting to set him on fire as soon as his back is turned?”

            “The Venatori are human. He would not stoop to the level of a human consort, no matter that he may ally with them. Ghilan’nain is, to him, a sister, rather than a lover. You, however, are an ancient Elvhen, a powerful mage,” he took a breath, “and it would hurt me. That, I fear, would be his primary motive, how it would tear at me to see you standing beside him. If he can find a way to manipulate you, or better yet, break your will, into accepting him, you would be the perfect ornament to his reign.”

            I nodded slowly, letting the full weight of all those implications sink in. My skin was prickling with goosebumps at the thought that being swallowed whole by Ghilan’nain’s dragons might be my better option. All the same, I leaned in, rested my chin on his shoulder, and doing my best to sound unruffled said, “Also, I’m pretty.”

            Solas laughed softly. “Also, you are pretty.”

            “Damn straight.” I sat upright, twisting my head sharply so the tight muscles in my neck crackled and loosened a little. “Should probably get back and have a team meeting. Treviso was bad enough. Minrathous was even worse. They’re going to need a bit of a pep talk, I imagine.”

            “Of course. I hope Dorian is well? He was not wounded in the fighting?”

            “He’s fine. Sad his home’s on fire, but fine.”

            “Good.” He gave me a quick one-armed hug. “My recommendation would be to seek a dragon specialist, as well as a Fade expert. You might have slain a few dragons in your time, but –”

            “Always when they’ve been actively coming at me, and when I had no choice but to fight them, I get it,” I said, standing up. I gently kicked him in the ankle. “You’re my Fade expert.”

            “I am trapped in here. The Evanuris are trying to invade the Crossroads. They, and their Venatori, will undoubtedly wish to control demons as part of their arsenal. I cannot help you from this prison, and though you may be a rift mage, you are hardly an expert in the workings of the Fade.”

            “Alright, you’ve made your point. See you soon?”

            He smiled. “Whenever you like.”

*

                        I called the crew together in the kitchen and gave them the rundown. Nobody seemed especially pleased with the news I was taking Solas’ advice, but as I pointed out, it wasn’t like it was bad advice. I liked spirits and could do rift mage stuff (I briefly wondered where My Trainer was, and hoped she was doing okay), but I had no more idea how the Crossroads worked than the others, and my ability to manipulate spirits relied entirely on how willing they were to be nice to me. As for dragons, even monster hunter extraordinaire Davrin had faced fewer than me, and all I knew was ‘it try kill you, kill it first’. I managed to convey this at least well enough to get general agreement on commencing Operation: New Best Buds, albeit grudgingly.

            As the crew dispersed – Bellara to contact a Fade expert, Harding tracking down a dragon hunter, Varric heading back to the infirmary, Davrin presumably preventing Assan from launching himself into the void – I sat on the edge of the table, rubbing my eyes. It wasn’t until I lowered my hands that I realised Lucanis was still there, settling himself beside me with a half-smile.

            “Long day,” I sighed. “Very long day.”

            “You might actually get some sleep tonight.”

            “Wouldn’t that be nice.” I gave it some consideration. “Is it still night?”

            “It is hard to tell in this place. I don’t believe anyone would argue if you got some real sleep for a few hours.”

            “What about you? Going to get some rest?”

            “Rest, yes. Sleep… we shall see.” Before I had the chance to argue he grabbed my hand and pulled it to his lips, planting a small kiss on the back. “You saved my city today, Emma. I will not forget that.”

            I could have said a dozen different things – that it was an entirely head-based decision, that I did it because I thought the Crows were less competent than the Shadow Dragons, that I barely even saved the city given it had still gotten monumentally fucked up – but I was so exhausted my brain was barely functioning anyway, and the press of his lips against my skin completely short-circuited me. God, I was pathetic. In the end I just smiled and said goodnight, then went on my way. I slept and, joy of joys, I didn’t dream.

*

                        A few days later I woke up and decided to do The Tour, starting with visiting Varric, who could just about walk again, but who still wasn’t ready to head back out into the field. “Turns out getting stabbed with a fancy magic dagger leads to a long recovery time,” he said dryly.

            “Yeah,” I snorted. Something occurred to me, and I cocked my head at him with the ghost of a frown. “Hey, so, Harding got Stone magic powers just from touching the lyrium shiv, right? So then how come –”

            I broke off with a gasp as a bolt of pain shot through my head in a sort of lightning-strike migraine. For a second or two the inside of my head was clear of everything but agony, like someone had set off a flashbang inside my skull. Then the pain was gone, leaving only a fuzzy feeling. I dug my fingers into the knot at the back of my neck with a grimace, twisting my head to try to free it up.

            “You alright there, Dreamer?” Varric asked, halfway between concern and amusement.

            “Didn’t drink enough water yesterday,” I muttered. “And I’ve started carrying a lot of tension in my neck, for some reason. Wow, that was horrible. Anyway, better check in with the others.”

            “Sure. I’ll be here, catching up on my reading. Remember to stay hydrated.”

            Bellara’s room was next. She’d switched on her ‘visitors welcome’ light, so I strolled in without knocking (genius innovation, excellent call, ancient elves), and came to an abrupt halt as I caught sight of her visitors. One was a stately woman in a long leather coat, with black hair that was pulled back into a neat ponytail. The other was, near as I could tell, a shroud of mist wearing a cloak, gloves, and gold bracelets.

            “Uh. Hello, Bellara’s guests.”

            “Hi, Emma,” Bellara chirped. “This is Lady Myrna and Vorgoth.”

            They each greeted me in turn. Myrna sounded about how I expected, her voice rich and refined. Vorgoth sounded like James Earl Jones trapped in a well. I was immediately very interested in what Vorgoth had going on.

            “I take it you’re here about our search for a Fade expert,” I said.

            “Yes,” Bellara said. “I was already corresponding with a senior mage who I thought might fit the part, but he’s on an expedition right now, so I contacted his colleagues instead, to find him. They’re necromancers. Mourn Watch ones, I mean.”

            “Your friend’s request for a Fade expert was urgent,” Myrna said. “How darksome are things outside Nevarra?”

            “Pretty darksome, yeah,” I said. “Getting darksomer by the day, sadly. Blight. Ancient god-mages. Dragons that are also full of blight. Probably demons at some point.”

            “I… see.” Myrna seemed a bit put-off, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of what I’d said, or just because I hadn’t spoken with the gravitas she’d expected of me. She pulled herself together enough to continue. “Bellara’s correspondent is Professor Emmrich Volkarin, a Fade expert and powerful psychagogue.”

            “YOU WILL NEED HIM,” Vorgoth added, thankfully saving me from having to admit to having no idea what a psychagogue was. I thought I had it for a second, then realised I was actually thinking about the word psychopomp instead, and I didn’t know shit.

            “Sounds good to me.” I clapped my hands again. I really needed to stop doing that, I looked like a scout leader. “You said he’s on an expedition, yeah?”

            “The professor is currently delving the Shrouded Halls in the Grand Necropolis,” Myrna said. I tactfully chose not to mention the double-entendre potential of what she’d said, wishing Sera had been there to hear it. She’d have got a real kick out of it. Oh yeah, baby, delve the Shrouded Halls of my Grand Necropolis shit Myrna was still talking. “We will grant you passage to look for him. Ware the dead. Lately they grow… restless.”

            “Much appreciated. Bel, could you see Lady Myrna and Vorgoth out? I’ll rally the team.”

            When I checked in on Harding, she let me know she’d been speaking to someone called Taash, who was pretty much the official dragon hunter for the Rivaini treasure hunting outfit, the Lords of Fortune. Sweet.

            “Result!” I said. “Bellara’s found us that Fade expert too, in record time. Methinks you’ve both earned yourselves cookies.”

            “I always do my best work for baked goods.”

Chapter Text

Ever since Dorian had told me about the Grand Necropolis, I’d wanted to visit the place. I’d always been a certified spooky bitch, I used to visit manor houses notorious for hauntings on the reg back home, always taunting the ghosts to hurl me down the stairs or something equally definitive while I was there. Now I got to visit the biggest haunted house in any reality.

            We trooped in, past a whole bunch of spooky scary skeleton statues, until we bumped into a guy with a flaming skull for a head, which was a new one for me. Ghost Rider reanimated a skeleton, which immediately went tottering off to join a sort of skeleton chain gang that was pickaxing at a wall, then turned to us with the expansiveness of someone who’d found unexpected guests on his doorstep.

            “Visitors! What a marvellous surprise! Any trouble with the lift? Our last guests were stuck for hours, poor souls! Professor Emmrich Volkarin, of the Mourn Watch.” With a fancy gesture the flaming skull was gone, replaced with the face of a handsome middle-aged white guy, with salt and pepper hair and a pencil-thin moustache. Weirdly, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Vincent Price.

            Bellara lunged past me to grab one of Emmrich’s hands in both of hers. “Hello, Professor! We’ve never met, well, in person, but I’ve been writing to you!”

            “Bellara?” Emmrich cried. “My dear girl, what a pleasure! Surely you didn’t come all this way just to see me?”

            “Actually, we did. You see, I’ve need of a Fade expert, I mean, we need a Fade expert, that is, and um –”

            Sensing Bellara was about to spiral (as someone very familiar with spiralling), I stepped up beside her. “Nice to meet you, Professor. I’m Emma Rutherford.”

            His eyes went to my left hand immediately, where I’d left the Anchor uncovered for that very reason. “My word! Emma Rutherford the Inquisitor? Charmed to meet you, truly.”

            “Likewise, Professor. Loved that flaming skull thing, by the way. I’ve seen some stuff in my time, and that one’s pretty impressive.”

            “Oh, it’s nothing really,” he said, waving the compliment off. “Just an evocation of the Flame of the Last Steps.”

            “Well, it wasn’t nothing to me.”

            “Thank you. You know, I’m never quite sure how these spells strike someone from outside Nevarra.”

            Something screamed off in the distance, and of course, the team got roped into clearing a shitload of Venatori out of the Necropolis, finding something called a Hand of Glory (ha) that they’d been using as we went. Par for the course by then, really. I supposed it made sense, on a team bonding level. Show the guy up-front that we worked for each other. Didn’t think anything quite reached the level of pulling Lucanis out of torture-prison, but getting rid of all those Venatori and demons was still a pretty good introduction in my estimation. We even saved some poor sod those Vint bastards had brought there as a blood slave.

            As we travelled, the team and I filled Emmrich in on all the bullshit happening in the world beyond the Necropolis, why we wanted him on board, the whole shebang. By the time we got back to the entrance Myrna was waiting to back us up. Emmrich seemed surprisingly excited about the whole thing… and then a skeleton wearing a rucksack turned up with a tray of tea. Outstandingly good.

            “Ah, thank you, Manfred!”

            “Hi, Manfred!” I said, genuinely delighted. I don’t know, there was just something in the way the little guy held out his tea tray that was immediately endearing. He let out this cheerful little squeak in response, and I was fully in love. Emmrich could do what he liked, but I was leaving that place with Manfred.

            “YOU SPOKE OF DANGER TO THE FADE,” Vorgoth rumbled, drifting out of the shadows. God, he was sexy. 

            “The Evanuris have to tear into the Fade to get hold of enough blight to work with,” I explained. “And my previous Fade expert is, ironically, trapped in the Fade. That’s why we’re looking to recruit you, Emmrich. Bellara says you’re just the man we need.”

            “Many Watchers never depart Nevarra,” Myrna said, “but with events so dire…”

            “I’d be delighted to assist!” Emmrich said cheerily. “Elven gods? Ancient magics? I couldn’t bear to miss this!”

            So, there it was, we had our corpse-whispering Fade expert on board. We headed back to the eluvian, Emmrich and I lagging a little behind with Manfred pattering along in our wake. I turned to smile at the little guy, and he squeaked happily.

            “I must say, I’m impressed by your manner with regards to spirits,” Emmrich said. “So many people see them as tools to be used at best, figures of fear and hatred at worst.”

            “Oh, yeah, my mate Dorian learned necromancy here, and his view of spirits in general is, uh. Let’s say utilitarian.”

            “Yes, I had heard Master Pavus joined your organisation,” he said, sounding politely irritated. “He always did show a particular lack of respect for our spirit friends. I’m pleased you feel differently.”

            “I think it helps that my mentor was very big on the idea of spirits being people. Plus, like, my son is a spirit of Compassion, which can’t hurt.” I couldn’t help giggling at the goggle-eyed look he gave me in response.

            “That was a joke?” he said uncertainly.

            “Nah. He’s adopted, if that helps it make sense. Cole, that’s his name. He sort of willed himself human before the whole Breach incident, and then I unofficially adopted him during the Inquisition days. It’s a big, weird thing, but he’s a sweetheart.”

            “Remarkable! Would you be willing to discuss this in more detail, once we’re settled? Perhaps I could also speak to the young man himself? There could be a whole thesis to be written on the subject.”

            “Yeah, I’ve been hoping for a visit from him anyway. I’ll see what I can organise. He’s travelling with his girlfriend right now, so it might take a while to sort out, but…” I took a deep breath. “While we’re on the subject of weird family situations…”

*

                        Emmrich also declared my whole deal worthy of a research paper, which was nice of him, before I sent him off to get settled into the Lighthouse with Bellara. The rest of us followed Harding to a Rivaini eluvian, where we came upon a tall Qunari woman who was in the process of absolutely mullering two Antaam. She turned to face us with a distinctly unimpressed look when Harding called her name, giving me a better look at her – angular features, with a lot of gold jewellery that included a lip piercing, one horn that looked to have been replaced with Veil quartz, and a long grey braid hanging down her back.

            “Hey,” she said.

            “Hi. Emma Rutherford. You’re Taash?”

            She scanned us all with another unimpressed look before saying, “The Lords want to hit a cave on the coastal cliffs. Big vinsomer makes her lair there. We get her out, the Lords go in, we go home and get drunk. Might be more Antaam.” She hacked the head off the one Qunari at our feet who was still groaning and growled, “Don’t get in my way.”

            “Uhh.” I had to jog to catch up to her, Harding and the lads falling in behind us. “Sorry, are we killing this dragon?”

            “Scared?” she grunted disdainfully.

            “No, I’ve killed dragons before –”

            “You?”

            “Wow, okay. What I mean is, dragons are cool, and I don’t want to kill one just so some treasure hunters can scrounge up a bit of gold. Not unless she’s also eating villagers or something.”

            “Dragons are cool.” She paused, looked down at me, and nodded sharply. As she set off again, she said, “But nah, we’re not going to kill the vinsomer. She keeps herself to herself, mostly eats marine life. We’re just going to feed her some drugged bait, let her sleep it off somewhere while the Lords do their thing.”

            “Alright, cool. Sounds fun.”

            She made a sound that might either have been a scoff or a laugh. A little further on, sounding like the words were being dragged out of her, she asked, “So. What do you guys do?”

            “We’re sort of trying to keep the world from ending right now,” I said. “There’s these elven gods who are blighting dragons –”

            “Dragons don’t get blighted,” she said immediately. “They’re too smart for that.”

            “Usually I’d agree with you, but these gods have control over the blight, and they’re using it on the dragons. Don’t know how they’re doing it yet, but we’ve seen the blighted dragons. They’ve been attacking cities. It's pretty conclusive.”

            “Oh. That’s messed up.”

            Well, she had a real talent for understatement, I had to give her that. She was also good at her job, getting the dragon to take the bait with surprisingly little fuss. I couldn’t help giggling like an idiot as we watched the big purple and yellow dragon gobble down a heap of freshly killed deepstalkers before taking off into the crystal blue sky.

            Taash also wanted to check out some ruined castle nearby, which turned out to be full of Antaam. Antaam who were looking to poach the vinsomer. The vinsomer who we’d just drugged and turned into an easy target. Always a fun day with the away team.

            The Antaam had the dozing vinsomer chained down by the time we made it back down to the sand flats. We bunched up on a cliff overlooking the place, crouching down far enough back from the edge to keep from being obvious to the Qunari below.

            “Right,” I said, “Harding, you and I are going to stay up here and hit them from range. If –”

            Taash stood up and bellowed something in Qunlat, charging down the slope to confront them face to face. Harding and the lads turned to stare at me, maybe waiting for me to give them the order to get stuck in. Right then, however, I was too taken aback to do anything but stare.

            “Maybe she’s trying diplomacy?” I said feebly.

            After a brief exchange in Qunlat, Taash suddenly breathed fire at the guy that seemed to be the leader of the poachers. Breathed fire. Just opened her mouth and boom, fire.

            “Oh, holy shit, okay,” I said, fumbling for my staff.

            “That doesn’t look like diplomacy, Em,” Lucanis said helpfully.

            “Just, boys, get down there and help her out. Harding –”

            “Hit them from range, on it!”

            It didn’t take long to get the job done. Afterwards, Harding and I slid down to join the others. I cautiously picked my way over to Taash, who was breathing heavily. “So,” I said, “fire, is it?”

            “Yeah.” She jerked her head towards the dragon. “You can unchain her now.”

            “She won’t try to eat us?” Davrin said disbelievingly.

            “Nah.”

            “So she’ll understand we’re helping her?” Harding asked.

            “No. She’s a dragon. But she probably won’t waste time eating us when all she wants is to go home and sleep.”

            “I’ll do it, no worries,” I said quickly.

            The vinsomer’s eye opened as I approached, but other than letting out a low rumble she didn’t react. I smiled, empty hands held out towards her. I reached out with the Well, too, in case that did anything, while also mumbling about how I was there to help her for good measure. She didn’t kill me horribly, so something must have worked.

            One by one, I undid the chains pinning her to the ground. Right before loosing the final one, I rested my palm against the skin of her leg. Scales, hot to the touch and smooth as glass. Giggling like a fool again, I unhooked the last chain and hurried back over to the others.

            “Amazing,” I said as the vinsomer shook herself awake and lumbered groggily off into the sky. “God, I’ll never get tired of seeing dragons.”

            Taash looked me up and down. “Cute,” she grunted. “Come on.”

*

                        Back at the Lords’ base of operations, I was finally introduced to the one and only Isabela. “Varric’s told me all about you,” I said as we shook hands. “Great to finally meet you, seriously, great.”

            “Right back at you.” Isabela, deeply tanned and gorgeous, wearing something like a blue bikini with a peacock tail and half her very toned body weight in gold, pulled me in closer to push an errant strand of hair back behind my ear. “Those eyes really are something, aren’t they?”

            I swallowed hard, just about managing to mumble, “Funny, coming from you, a compliment somehow manages to feel like even more of a compliment.” By Christ, I’m stupid.

            “It would feel like a seduction, if this wasn’t a business arrangement.” She leaned in even closer. For a second, I thought she was actually going to kiss me, and I was surprised to realise I was down with it. Very down. Instead, she whispered, “Also, if that gorgeous lad with the beard didn’t look ready to stab me over it.” Leaning back with a beaming grin, she patted my cheek. “Let’s talk shop, shall we? Your people can wait for us at the bar outside. First round’s on me.”

            As I nodded to the others, dismissing them, I snuck a quick look at Lucanis. Isabela was right. He quickly hitched on a smile and nodded back, but before that he’d been scowling at her like he was about to actively leap between us. Well, that was certainly something to consider later. At length. Obsessively.

            Isabela, Taash, and I took our seats inside, around a table with a fancy stone tablet on it. The thing looked a bit like one of those bread bag clips Tumblr went nuts for, a thought I kept to myself. As we settled in, another Qunari woman took a seat beside me with a reserved thanks for helping find the thing.

            “Emma, this is Shathann,” Isabela said. “She’s our expert when it comes to Qunari artifacts.”

            “This piece precedes the Steel Age by centuries,” Shathann said before I could so much as open my mouth in a greeting. “It comes from an earlier attempt at settlement, one that left no survivors.” She gave me a measuring look before turning to Taash to disapprovingly say, “You used your fire.”

            “What? No!” Taash said, giving big The Happening energy.

            “Were you seen by the Antaam?” When Taash just folded her arms, scowling, Shathann said, “You promised you would be careful, Evataash. You need to be away for a while. It is good you are joining Emma’s team.”

            “I’m what?” Taash barked.

            Hoo boy. “You, uh. You didn’t know we were here to hire you?”

            “I thought you and your mother had agreed on this?” Isabela said.

            “Nope!” Taash said.

            “Okay.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Just out of interest… what did you think we were doing here today?”

            “I dunno! You got all excited about dragons. I thought maybe you were some noble who’d paid the Lords to do dragon crap!”

            “Huh.”

            “Well, you’ll work it out,” Isabela said confidently. “You always do. For gold and glory, Taash. You’re welcome back whenever.” She turned to me with a smile. “Pleasure meeting you, Emma.”

            “Pleasure’s all mine,” I said. At least, that’s what I tried to say. Every word came out muddled, because I am always smooth.

            Taash was glaring at Shathann. “Mother, what did you do?”

            Hang on.

            “I thought you would enjoy the chance to work with Emma’s team. Do you not wish to stop these blighted dragons?”

            They had a bit of a domestic squabble, which felt like when you’d be at a friend’s house as a kid and had to be as unobtrusive as possible while they got a telling off. Just sinking down into my seat, wondering if turning into a bird and hopping away under the table was a viable escape option. In the end, Shathann ordered me to keep Taash safe before sweeping out of the room, leaving the two of us to stare awkwardly at each other.

            “So,” I said into the silence, “my mother was a bit like that, actually. I did gymnastics for six years, just because she wouldn’t let me stop. She thought it was good for me, socially or whatever. I was so uncoordinated, it’s a miracle I didn’t break my bloody neck.” She was still staring at me. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Anyway, sorry you got forced into joining, but we really do appreciate any help you can give us.”

            “I’ll get my stuff,” she grunted, heading for the door. I sighed, and was rubbing my eyes when she said, “Hey. It wasn’t my choice, but… it’s what I wanted, anyway.”

            Funny how things work out.

Chapter Text

Before our newbies fully had time to settle in, Neve was back. I hoped this meant I was forgiven, but the first time I spoke to her alone the words “I know you won’t turn up for Dock Town” were uttered, so, probably not. Harding came to tell me Morrigan had asked to meet up as I came out of Neve’s room with my hands trembling, and I was more than happy for the two of us to set out right away.

            It meant visiting Minrathous again, and that was… hard. The Venatori were hanging people in the streets. Piles of corpses were stacked on wagons and left to draw flies. It turned my stomach, and I could see why Neve was being so cold with me. Harding and I walked closely together all the way to the Cobbled Swan, my ears very carefully hidden under a deep hood. When we got there, it turned out Morrigan wasn’t the only one waiting for me.

            “Christ alive, little man, I’m sure you should have stopped growing by now!”

            Kieran laughed as he pulled me into a hug, lifting me off my feet and spinning me around. “Maybe you’re just getting shorter, Auntie.”

            “I wouldn’t put it past me, I’ve got previous.” Once he set me down, I held him at arm’s length to get a proper look at him. He was so tall, well over six feet, and muscular for a mage, broad-shouldered, with his mother’s black hair that had grown shaggy from his time travelling, and hazel eyes. His actual features, now he was basically an adult, were very similar to his father’s – I’d been officially told he was Alistair’s son a few years earlier, so didn’t have to worry about accidentally letting that slip anymore. “What the hell is this on your face?”

            “I believe Kieran likes to imagine it makes him look older,” Morrigan said wryly, as her son rubbed ruefully at his scrubby attempt at a beard, jet black against the pallor of his skin.

            “Just making sure no one here mistakes me for a magister,” he said.

            “Trust me, there’s magisters with sad attempts at a beard like that.” I prodded him with a grin. “The ones who want everyone to believe they’re the sort of man who stays out all night.”

            “Always love these family reunions,” he snorted. “By the way, I saw Cole the week before last. He said he’s going to visit as soon as he gets Maryden settled. Another few weeks, maybe. Yes,” he grinned as he pre-empted me, “he looks happy, and like he’s been eating well. As much as Cole ever does, I mean.”

            “Sweet boy.” I patted his cheek. “Now, not that I’m not happy to see you both, but am I right to assume this isn’t just a social call?”

            “There is indeed another reason we invited you here,” Morrigan said. “Kieran brings news of the south, for one.”

            “I do, yes,” he sighed. “It’s not great, but things could certainly be worse. Briala and I managed to convince Celene that isolationism would help no one, so she’s working with Queen Anora and Archdean Vivienne to defend the south. Orzammar isn’t speaking to anyone at the moment, but the Avvar got in touch with Leliana, who’s marshalling what’s left of the Inquisition loyalists. They’re willing to work with the ‘lowlanders’. Apparently, some Thane Sun-Hair’s got them all stirred up about a blood debt to, quote, ‘Inquisitor First-Thaw’. Oh, and I’ve almost got the Chasind on board. After I leave here, I’ll be heading back down to work on them some more.”

            “A glorious display of cooperation,” Morrigan said, with such vicious sarcasm I couldn’t help laughing, despite the news the south was apparently in such a bad state that it needed all that cooperation. “I believe there was something else you wished to share with Emma.”

            I braced myself for something even worse, but Kieran only turned to rummage in his pack, pulling out a small statuette in the shape of a howling wolf, glowing with a faint blue light. Hang on. I pointed at it with a surprised little ‘huh’.

            “You have seen one of these before, I take it?” Morrigan asked.

            “We found one in the Crossroads,” Harding piped up, since I was too busy gently running my fingers over the statuette. It was warm to the touch, and gave off this palpable air of sadness. “After watching one of Solas’ memories.”

            “Trapped in a parent’s memory,” Kieran said with a melodramatic shiver. “Can’t imagine anything worse.”

            Chuckling, I slid the wolf back down the bar towards him. “It feels the same as the one we found, too. Where’d you get this one?”

            “Cole found it,” Kieran said. “Wouldn’t get especially specific about where or how, just said a little poem even I couldn’t interpret and asked me to get it to you. He said it turned up around the time Papa Wolf ended up in the Fade. I brought it straight up here for Mother to see.”

            “I’ve examined it,” Morrigan said, “and ‘tis certainly tied to the Dread Wolf. Solas is ancient, and his magic is tied intrinsically to him in a way far beyond that of mortals. I suggest you take it back and see if something in the Lighthouse responds to it, to potentially glean insights into your… old ally.”

            I slipped the statuette into my bag with an apprehension I tried to hide from the others. The one bit of insight I’d gotten into Solas had been the memory of him willingly, unrepentantly sending his followers to their deaths before arguing with one of his closest friends over the morality of all that. The wolf statuette felt so deeply, painfully sad, I thought it might be a while before I could bring myself to find out whatever it was the damn thing had to say.

*

                        We hung out together in the Swan for as long as I could, but given we were also meant to be meeting the gang somewhere called the ‘Hossberg Wetlands’ (great) that wasn’t as long as I’d have liked. With a hug for Kieran and a polite nod to Morrigan we were away, slogging back through the Crossroads to come out in a place about as miserable as I’d been expecting when I heard ‘blight-infested swamp’. An awful, damp place full of depressed villagers and these weird pale animals that looked like if a crocodile had a baby with a tadpole.

            Fuck the Hossberg Wetlands.

            The team members who’d decided to join us – Davrin, Lucanis, and Bellara – were hanging around outside the eluvian when we arrived. “Neve’s staying back at the Lighthouse with Taash and Professor Volkarin,” Bellara explained. “I think so they can get to know each other.”

            “Can’t believe they’d want to miss out on this place,” I said.

            Evka and Antoine had set up a sort of makeshift laboratory in the old ruin the eluvian was set up in. Evka greeted me with, “Welcome to the Hossberg Wetlands. I’d say make yourselves comfortable –”

            “But that would be a physical impossibility, yes.”

            Long story short, the blight that had spread through the area was weird, and they wanted us to go out and take samples for them while they watched over the village. I really was a soft touch, because I barely even asked questions, just headed straight out. I even stopped to talk to a nearby villager who was clearly troubled and offered to look for some of her missing friends into the bargain.

            Still, maybe if we got a bunch of samples, that would be enough to prove to the First Warden that something was up. So, off into the bog we trudged.

            “I fucking hate this place,” I spluttered the second time Davrin had to haul me out of a hole I hadn’t noticed, lifting me out of the water by the scruff like a drowned cat.

            “It certainly leaves something to be desired.” Lucanis patted my sodden shoulder in commiseration, and was kind enough to only shake his hand clean when he thought I couldn’t see him.

            “How could the blight take over an area this quickly?” Harding asked, mainly directing it Davrin’s way. “The people in the village barely had time to escape. Darkspawn might rip through somewhere that fast, but I remember the Fifth Blight, at least a little. The blight itself, the… the Taint, it never behaved like this.”

            “New darkspawn, new blight, new Taint,” Davrin said gruffly. “Normally you’d be right, but I’ve never seen half the things I have so far. Whole new world.”

            “I’ve seen better new worlds,” I muttered. Another step forward, and the water closed over my head again, Davrin pulled me out and set me down again, coughing out brackish water. “Fuck this swamp.”

            “Are your eyes even open?” Lucanis asked.

            “Doesn’t seem to be making a difference,” I said. “I just can’t seem to make out the difference between watery ground and weedy water.”

            “I can see it well enough,” Harding said with a giggle. “Permission to lead the party, Em?”

            “Granted. So very, very granted.” I trudged on, falling into step beside Lucanis. “Before we go back to the village, do you think you could pop the wings out and flap them really hard to dry me off?”

            He laughed. “No! Don’t you want them to see how hard you’ve worked on their behalf?”

            “I’d really rather not turn up to talk to Evka and Antoine again looking like a drowned rat.”

            “Rats don’t drown, they swim. I’m from a canal city, trust me, I know.” He looked at me for a moment, mouth open like he was going to say something else, but then something seemed to happen in his eyes. A flicker, deep down. Whatever it was, he smiled and looked away, eventually adding, “And I’ve never seen one look as good wet as you do.”

            I could only laugh in reply. Mostly because I’d suffered a sudden catastrophic word failure.

            We made it to the village without further dunkings, grabbing a few blight samples along the way. Long story short, the family we’d gone there to find were dead. Extremely dead. Something from the well apparently started whispering to them, and then they all went insane and/or got blighted. Pretty standard, really. Probably half the missing person cases I got roped into investigating ended with "and then everyone died horribly and gruesomely", I didn't know why I still bothered looking for people. 

            “Looks normal,” I said, peering over the stone wall of the well. “No ominous glow, no growths. Davrin, you picking anything up?”

            “Anything up?” the well said.

            “Not sensing any blight,” Davrin said, shaking his head.

            “I think I can feel something,” Bellara said thoughtfully. “Magic, of some kind, though I can’t really feel what kind, or…”

            “Alright,” I sighed, “everything started because this thing was uncovered –”

            “Uncovered,” the well agreed.

            “So maybe if we seal it up, that’ll –”

            “Seal it.”

            “Uh. I feel like… that’s, uh… Am I right in thinking that’s not my voice?”

            “Not your voice,” the well hissed.

            “Nope, fuck that! Fuck that, everyone back up, we’re sorting this now.”

            “What is your plan?” Lucanis asked as he retreated to a safe distance.

            Rather than answering, I hit the well with the biggest bolt of lightning I could muster. There was a horrible hissing, gurgling scream, and the walls of the well collapsed inwards, starting the process of burying the thing. I wasn’t as good with stone and earth magic as lightning and fire, but that creepy bitch had freaked me out so much I managed to dump in a whole bunch of the surrounding soil all the same.

            “Wow,” Lucanis said after a moment.

            “Come on,” I said, wiping sweat off my forehead. “Let’s get these samples back to Lavendel.”

            “How much lyrium did you take today to do all that?” Bellara laughed as we set off back the way we’d come, Harding again taking the lead.

            “None, I never touch the stuff. I just… can’t, not after seeing what it did to Cullen. I know it’s meant to be different, mages compared to templars, but all the same, I’d rather not risk it.”

            “You don’t take lyrium?” She sounded surprised. “Never ever?”

            “Never ever,” I grinned. “That’s not that unusual, is it?”

            “Every mage I’ve known has used it at least a few times,” Lucanis said. “Usually before doing something requiring a great deal of magical energy expenditure.”

            “Like blowing up a haunted well single-handedly,” Davrin mumbled.

            “You have to be really powerful, magically speaking,” Bellara said. “Which, I mean, I guess makes sense, given who your parents are and all, but still, it’s something to see it in action. Oh, and imagine if you ever do take lyrium? That could be cool, we could do tests, like have you do a piece of magic before taking a potion and rate how easy you felt it was to do, and then –”

            She kept it up until we reached the village, where we delivered bad news and blight samples. We hung around until Antoine was finished with his experiment, just chilling on the steps of the ruin they were set up in. The girls and I chatted. The boys mostly sniped at each other. I could see that becoming an issue, probably something to keep an eye on. When Antoine called us back in, it turned out he could hear something in the new blight, using some sort of extra Warden sense. Whatever it was, it confirmed to him and Evka that there was some sort of consciousness calling through the stuff.

            “This is great!” I said. “If you –”

            “I give you two rein, and this is where it leads? Chasing Rutherford’s lies?”

            “First Warden,” I said through gritted teeth, “how nice of you to –”

            “Stay away from the blight and the Wardens,” the First Warden barked. “How many times must you be told?”

            “I don’t know, three, maybe four more?” Not helpful, I knew that, but I could see exactly which way the wind was blowing, and trying to form a proper argument was just going to be a waste of time.

            “First Warden, please,” Antoine said hurriedly as the man inflated with fury. “Emma’s telling the truth. I can hear it in the samples! The blight has changed, and that changes everything.”

            “It changes nothing,” the First Warden sneered. “Your sensitivity to blight is useful, Warden Antoine. But you’ve had more than one snake in your ear.”

            “This is just getting ridiculous now,” I said. “You won’t listen to me, you won’t listen to your own bloody Wardens, what –”

            “You cannot seriously be attempting to exert moral superiority over me? You tampered with a ritual that unleashed blight. You did not know what you were doing then, and you don’t now.”

            “If gods control the blight, we need to change how we approach it –”

            The First Warden cut off Evka before she could say anything more, snapping, “Archdemons control blight, and we’d sense if one had risen. We’d make the sacrifices needed to fight it. The blight has increased. Now is not the time to lose focus. Wardens Evka and Antoine, are you sworn to combat the blight?” When they grudgingly said they were, he finished with, “Then report back to Weisshaupt and do so.”

            Evka waited for him to march away before saying, “That went poorly, even for a talk with him.”

            “Seems pretty par for the course in my experience.” I rubbed my eyes.

            “We’ll keep tracking the darkspawn and the blight,” Antoine said. “No matter what he says.”

            “And if we find out the gods’ plans, so will you,” Evka added.

            Since that was about the best we could hope for that that point, we nipped off back to the Lighthouse, where I had a nice hot bath to make up for all the freezing cold dips I’d accidentally taken that day.

            Fuck the Hossberg Wetlands.

Chapter Text

A few days later Bellara asked me to come and do some Veil Jumper errand with her, and since she seemed oddly anxious about asking me out there, I agreed without question. We met up with Strife, Irelin, and a few other Veil Jumpers, one of whom got a bit arsey over the necessity of checking the artifacts we were out there to check as often as Bellara wanted to. I was genuinely caught off guard when Bellara, rather than going on some excitable rambling tangent about magical harmonies, snapped back at her, so sharp the other Jumper apologised.

            Bellara assigned me as her partner and led me towards artifact storage (a term that forcibly reminded me of The Magnus Archives, yet another thing to throw on the homesickness pile), and the whole time we were heading there I was dithering over whether I should be asking about the snapping or not. But the way it had specifically gone down – mention of doing something right so nobody got hurt, leading to a genuine, contrite apology – made me think there was something a bit deeper going on than just a clash of personalities, and I didn’t want to push her on something like that.

            When she sent me off to find a power crystal, I had a quick nosy around the placards outside the various artifact holding cells. One set everything on fire. One combined multiple living things into a single being (marked as being ‘usually fatal’, what in the Secure Contained Protected fuck), while another broke everything in range down into its separate parts. One made you float off into the upper atmosphere, never to be seen again, which again, Magnus Archives vibes rising (pun intended).

            There was also a cheese wheel being contained with no explanation, so, like, alright, and finally there was a note saying Bellara had checked out an artifact for her own use. On reading that note I experienced a brief moment of hysterical panic so strong it felt like my stomach had climbed into my mouth to hide, until I realised she must be referring to her funky magic gauntlet thing, rather than anything more sinister.

            “Great!” Bellara said after inserting the crystal I’d retrieved into some sort of glowing, spinning art installation. “And the artifact didn’t collapse the room!”

            “Awesome!” Hang on. “Was that a thing –”

            “Okay, let’s keep going!”

            I followed without argument, helping her get the next artifact up and running without any issues – we were outside for that one, at least, which I hoped took the ‘roof might fall on us’ aspect out of play. From there it was on to the third artifact, same deal as before, and I was having a nice day out, honestly. Weather was good, no one was trying to kill me for once, Arlathan might be a deeply weird place, but nobody could deny it was an absolutely stunning deeply weird place.

            “Everything’s looking good,” Bellara said brightly, drawing my attention back from the shimmering aurora overhead. “Thank you, by the way. For helping out. You have better things to do, I know.”

            “Oh yeah,” I laughed. “If I weren’t here, I’d have a packed schedule of drinking coffee and staring into the void. What a shame I’m having a lovely day out in the woods with my friend instead.”

            She giggled, then hesitantly said, “We’re friends?”

            Oof, ouch, my feelings. “Oh. Uh, well, I suppose we haven’t known each other that long, but I just –”

            “No no no, it’s good! I’m glad, I mean, I thought we were friends, but sometimes I can get kind of overly familiar, and I didn’t want to scare you off by being, you know, weird or whatever.”

            “Weird is good,” I said, giving her a one-armed hug. “Means we’re on the same page.” When I let her go and stepped back her smile wavered, and she looked away. “You alright?”

            “Oh, I’m fine. Or will be. It takes a lot out of you, all these little magic bits. Not hard, just… exhausting. But it needs to be done, and done right.”

            “I get that. There were some things back in the Inquisition days that I just had to do myself, to make sure it was done right, or so other people didn’t get put in harm’s way. Plus, you know, I was the only one who could do anything about the rifts. Still, sometimes I’d have to admit defeat and pass things on to other people, people I trusted. Because you can’t be everywhere, do everything, can you?”

            “I can at least try.” The smile had completely disappeared by then, her fingers twining around each other. “Because maybe then I can make up for it.”

            “For?”

            “For not being good enough. When it counted.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t, not right now.”

            She took off running, and I stood there for a frozen moment, trying to work out if I’d somehow caused that. Giving myself a shake, I set off after her, prepared to go bird to catch up with her if need be, only to realise she hadn’t made it any further than a nearby railing looking out over Arlathan. I stood next to her in silence, still not wanting to push her.

            “My brother,” she said after a moment. “That’s why I have to be everywhere, do everything. It’s for him. For my brother. Wherever he is.”

            “Shit, Bel, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

            “It’s okay.” She squeezed my hand. “Well, no, it’s not okay, but not because of you.”

            It all came out then. How she and her little brother, Cyrian, had both gone to Arlathan to hunt for the Nadas Dirthalen. How Cyrian had gradually started taking more and greater risks in the process. How an artifact Bellara had personally checked had activated, presumably killing him, while she tried and failed to save him.

            “And now he’s gone,” she finished, her voice breaking, “because I wasn’t good enough.”

            “Nope,” I said firmly. “We’re not doing that. It wasn’t your fault, Bel.”

            “Then why does it feel like it was?”

            “Because brains are irrational. Because it’s… it’s easier to blame yourself, or maybe someone else, than it is to accept that sometimes things just happen. When Cullen died, I did the same thing. I kept telling myself I should have noticed something, I should have reacted faster, that maybe… All any of it did was make me ill. Varric had to sit me down and give me a good talking to, because when you’re preoccupied with making something up to the person you’ve lost, you’re not taking care of yourself. Cullen wouldn’t have wanted me to rattle myself apart over what-ifs, and from what you’ve said about Cyrian, he wouldn’t have wanted you to punish yourself for his sake.”

            “I’ve tried. I have. Told myself I couldn’t have done anything, and my head believes it, but my heart doesn’t. So I try to make up for it. Honour him. Learn about our people. Find the truth. Maybe when I do, I’ll feel it.”

            “Feel…?”

            “That he forgives me. And that I deserve it.”

            I couldn’t think of anything to say that might help. Especially since, despite having learned how to talk a good game on the subject, and despite having stopped actively putting my life at risk every chance I got, I’d never actually stopped dwelling on all the things I should have done to save Cullen. All the ways losing him was my fault; for not noticing something was up, for not getting to him faster, for not bothering to learn healing from Solas when I had the chance. If I kept pushing her on it, I’d have felt like I was being disingenuous, you know? Instead, I settled for holding out my arms in silence. She stepped into them immediately, holding me tightly enough that I could feel the way she was shaking. I held onto her until the shaking stopped, or at least subsided a little, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders as we turned back towards the Veil Jumper camp.

            “Thank you,” she said softly, resting her head against mine as we walked slowly along. “For being here.”

            “Whenever you need me,” I said, “whatever you need from me.”

*

                        “Cup’s ready for you, just how you like it,” Lucanis said as I slipped into the kitchen that night. He grinned when I looked surprised. “Caught sight of you crossing the plaza through the window. Bad dreams?”

            “You know it,” I sighed, dropping into my usual chair and taking a sip. “Kept seeing my sister from back home getting sucked into a Fade rift. Sucks.”

            “I have dreams like that about Illario sometimes. More common, now that… After Caterina, I mean. It started after this contract in Vyrantium, Forfex. He was forcing red lyrium into his slaves, so he could use their hair for twisted art shows. Magically manipulating it into different shapes, that sort of thing.”

            I stared at him, aghast. “Not seriously?” When he nodded solemnly, I said, “That is beyond fucked up. I’m glad you had a contract on the bastard. You did collect that one, I take it?”

            “I am a professional.” He looked so absurdly offended I couldn’t help giggling, which made him smile. “I broke an artifact Forfex was using to strengthen the Veil –”

            “Um. It wasn’t, like, round, with a sort of lump towards the top, crackled with green energy when it was working?”

            “You’ve seen one?”

            “Yeh, a few.” I tried my best to smile, but wasn’t sure how natural it looked. “Back when there were rifts everywhere, Solas had us track down a whole bunch of the things. Relics left over from his days, I assume. He always said they were meant to strengthen the Veil, but hardly anyone I tried asking about them even knew what I was talking about. Suppose I should have known I needed to ask a Vint, they do love cribbing things from the ancient elves.”

            Lucanis had been watching me closely. “You thought it was another lie,” he said softly. “That the artifacts did something other than what he told you.”

            Still giving him my best attempt at a smile, as if that wasn’t something that had haunted me ever since I’d learned what Solas’ actual plan was, I said, “So, you broke the artifact.”

            “They were all possessed pretty much immediately,” he said, speaking quickly and matter-of-factly. “The wig-slaves, I mean. The red lyrium, combined with the magic, their misery, it had all thinned the Veil so much that without the artifact to hold them back, demons stepped straight through. They attacked Forfex, he ate a fair amount of their hair, which turned him into a hair-based abomination, and he managed to do quite a lot of damage to me before the possessed wig-slaves ended his miserable life, at which point the demons, their vengeance complete, went back to the Fade of their own accord.”

            “Je-sus,” I said emphatically, making him laugh. “That’s insane. Hang on, did you know the demons would leave once Forfex died?”

            “I was quite confident, yes.” He smiled sheepishly. “It’s possible that seeing how badly those people were treated caused me to make something of a rash decision. It all turned out alright.”

            “We really do live singular lives, don’t we?”

            “We do.”

            “Hang on, this happened in Vyrantium? Is that –”

            “Why they gave me the name of demon, yes. Anyway, the point I was making is that Illario was there with me. I had him evacuate with Forfex’s non-wig-slaves before everything happened, but in my dreams he stays, and I have to watch him die over and over. Torn apart, slashed throat, turned into an… an abomination himself.” He looked down at his hands, gaze suddenly distant.

            “Sucks,” I said.

            Lucanis chuckled mirthlessly. “Sucks.”

            “So, what was all this damage Wigfex managed to do?” I tried to sound as bright as possible, because seeing that sadness, almost despair, in him made my chest hurt. “How’d some wiggy abomination mess up the great Demon of Vyrantium?”

            He made this sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan, and it had such an unexpected effect on me I almost missed his actual words while I tried desperately to look like I wasn’t squirming in my seat. I even had to remind myself to breathe normally. Stupid sexy Lucanis.

            “Broke a few of my ribs, grabbed me with razor-sharp hair in a few places.” He pushed the collar of his shirt aside to show me a scar over his collarbone, and I reacted like a Victorian guy catching a glimpse of ankle.

            “Hrh, uh, yeah, broken ribs are the worst,” I said, looking down into my cup. “Corypheus bust most of my ribs before I knew what the Anchor could do, and it was a bloody nightmare.”

            “He hit you?”

            “Threw me into a trebuchet. The ogre that broke the ribs on my right side did hit me, though.”

            “Both sides?” he grinned.

            “Yeah, pretty sure I’ve got, like, three solid ribs to my name.”

            “Singular lives,” he said softly, still smiling.

            The kitchen door burst open, causing Lucanis and I to jerk away from each other. For a moment my head swam and embarrassment shot through me, as if I’d been caught doing something other than quietly drinking coffee with a friend. Davrin tore into the room, eyes wild, and the clear distress on his face had me on my feet immediately.

            “What –”

            “Caretaker just got word to me from Evka,” Davrin said. “The First Warden’s called everyone but me back to Weisshaupt, and a massive darkspawn horde is marching on the fortress. There’s even rumours of an Archdemon travelling with them.”

            “Shit,” I said, “that’s got to be god activity, right?”

            “Looks like.” Davrin shook his head. “Warden lore says Archdemons only show up during a Blight. Doesn’t say anything about elven gods.”

            “Corypheus had a dragon that was pretty much an Archdemon.” I dug my fingers into the knot at the back of my neck. “And we all know the old Tevinter magisters basically stole everything they knew from the ancient elves. I should have expected something like this, I’m sorry.”

            “I don’t think anyone could have put that together,” Lucanis scoffed. “You can’t be expected to predict everything, Emma.”

            “I’m going to talk to… to Solas. You two wake the others, all of them, get them ready to head out.”

            “Yes, ser,” Davrin said, hurrying back out with a nod. Lucanis paused long enough to down what was left of his coffee and give me a reassuring smile before following him out.

*

                        “Dad?” I called as soon as I landed in the prison, spinning around to look for him.

            “Are you alright?” It seemed he’d been lying on the pillar, staring up at the fuzzy sky. With my arrival he was on his feet immediately, hands out to steady me. “You sound rattled, da’len.”

            “There’s a darkspawn army marching on Weisshaupt, apparently with an Archdemon on board.”

            “… Ah.”

            “There’s a link, isn’t there? Cole always said the lyrium dragon was like that Archdemon he saw in the Fade, and that was magically linked to Corypheus. And I can’t help noticing there were as many Tevinter Old Gods as there were elven gods, if we take you and Mythal out of the picture. And now there’s an army marching against the Grey Wardens with an Archdemon on board, and I just… Can you tell me the truth, please?”

            He sighed. “There never were Tevinter gods, da’len. The Archdemons were never anything more than the tools of the Evanuris. As with Corypheus, the dragon’s life force is bound to its corresponding Evanuris as both power and protection. You will not be able to kill, or even truly harm, one of the gods until their dragon thrall is slain.”

            “Right.” I rubbed both hands over my face. “So, we kill the big fuck-off dragon, and then we get a chance at whichever god happens to be present. Simple.”

            “Even with the dragon dead, it will not be easy.”

            “Shocker.”

            Solas bit back a smile. “The Evanuris are powerful, and they are well protected. You will need to use the dagger. It can pierce their enchantments and strike them down.”

            “Of course, kill the big fuck-off dragon and then stab a god with a piece of cutlery. Easy-peasy, no worries.”

            “Listen to me, da’len.” He gently took hold of my shoulders. “Even a single opportunity to strike the Evanuris down will be rare, fleeting, and… likely costly. You will not have another chance to catch them unaware. When you strike, you must be fully prepared.”

            “Of course. You know me, and I’ve got a good team on my side. We can do it. I know we can.”

            He sighed and pulled me into a hug. “I would spare you from having to see what Ghilan’nain has done to her Archdemon, if I could. I know you have a soft spot for dragons. I would give anything to at least fight alongside you. As it is, all I can do is wish you luck.”

            “Thanks, Dad,” I said, as the prison wavered around me. “See you soon.”

Chapter Text

The whole crew had gathered in the library by the time I got back to reality (something something gravity), some of them still pulling on their gear as I hurried down the ramp. “Everyone ready to rock and roll?”

            “More or less,” Neve said, as I started leading them down to the eluvian room. “Still not fully sure I believe what I’m hearing.”

            “Neither am I,” Davrin said, shaking his head. “They’re attacking Weisshaupt. Weisshaupt! The Wardens aren’t prepared for that.”

            “I know,” I said. “We’re going to get this sorted, I swear. Solas just told me the only way to take an Evanuris down is to kill their Archdemon first, then stab them with this.” I patted the hilt of the dagger. “It specifically needs to be this. They’ve got all these magical protections on them, apparently, and the dagger’s designed to cut through them.”

            “I can do it,” Lucanis said. “Just get me close enough.”

            “Don’t take any stupid risks,” I said without thinking, hastily adding, “All of you. I want everyone to come back from this one, alright?”

            “We’ll do what we have to, Em,” Davrin said gruffly.

            “Who gets to tell the First Warden we’re dropping in?” Taash asked, sounding amused.

            “I was thinking of turning up unannounced and saving the day,” I shrugged. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that jazz.”

            “Nice,” Taash said with a grin.

            “They’ve got an eluvian in storage,” Davrin said, “down in the vault. It was a gift from the Dalish.”

            “Give me a minute,” Bellara said, slipping past me to fiddle with the eluvian. “I think I can get this working so it sends us right to the mirror we need.”

            “Alright,” I said, patting her shoulder, “alright, so… we go in. Davrin, Lucanis, you stick close to me, yeah? We keep our heads down and we keep moving until we find someone we know. Evka, Antoine, Alistair, anyone other than the First Warden.”

            “Then?” Neve asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Then… we… kill a god, look, the plan is fluid at this stage, alright? Once we have a nice quiet chat with whichever Warden friend we can find, we’ll work out our next steps. Sound good?”

            “All done,” Bellara said.

            None of them had any arguments, so I stepped through the eluvian, hoping I looked more confident than I felt. Even that fake confidence took a hit when we stepped out on the other side and Davrin immediately announced that we weren’t in the bloody vault. Then, because the universe loves watching me suffer, the wall behind the eluvian blew out and the mirror itself toppled through the hole. Only me, Davrin, and Lucanis had made it through, Neve hopping back inside right before it went airborne.

            “At least it didn’t break!” Davrin said as we looked down at the eluvian lying flat on the ground.

            “Venhedis!” Neve yelled up at us, clambering awkwardly out of the glass.

            “Stick to the plan!” I called down as the others hauled themselves through. “Find good Wardens, stay out of as much trouble as possible!”

            “Take care of yourselves!” Emmrich shouted as we all set off in our different directions.

            As we turned back into the room we’d found ourselves in, a little voice hissed, “Shh! Darkspawn outside!”

            “Uh.” I stepped in front of the boys, cocking my head at her. “Hello, unattended child. We are inside Weisshaupt, aren’t we?”

            “Yeah,” the kid said, in a tone that suggested she thought I was an idiot. “And there’s darkspawn right outside that door!”

            “Not possible,” Davrin said. “There cannot be darkspawn inside Weisshaupt.”

            “Well, there are.” The kid pulled a face at him.

            Lucanis snickered. “What’s your name?”

            “Mila.”

            “Nice to meet you, Mila. Now, you stay hidden in here, and –”

            “No chance,” she snorted. “I need to find my dad!”

            “Then you stay hidden until we’ve killed everything,” I said, “and then follow us. And we’ll keep doing that until we find your dad. What do you say?”

            “Fine.”

            I had to hand it to the kid, she was a ballsy little thing. The lads and I killed our way through hordes of darkspawn, and the whole time Mila was right there with us, pointing out shortcuts and even yelling warnings about darkspawn we hadn’t noticed. We were making good progress, fighting well, feeling surprisingly optimistic.

            Then I opened a door onto a nightmare. A giant emotionless mask of a face loomed out of a roiling maelstrom of storm clouds, booming out demoralising messages in Ghilan’nain’s voice, amplified beyond the capabilities of any sort of megaphone back home, so loud it rattled my teeth. Through all this flew her Archdemon, maybe twice the size of most of the dragons I’d seen to that point, a scaly jumbo jet of a monster that killed a group of Wardens right in front of us before, mercifully, flying on.

            Mila prodded me in the back, which was how I realised I’d just been standing there, mouth agape, legs turned to jelly. How were we meant to fight that shit?

            It was in that moment that I realised, despite all of Solas’ warnings, despite everyone talking about gods this and gods that, the whole time, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I dealt with Corypheus easily enough. Surely one ancient magister with delusions of godhood and a pet dragon is much the same as another?” Yeah, I wanted to approach the situation as safely as possible, not to lose any of my new mates before the afterparty, but deep down I was certain we’d win.

            But right then, as I realised it wasn’t actually nighttime, but that Ghilan’nain had blotted out the sun, that the reason the ground outside the fortress looked weird was because it was a roiling carpet of darkspawn swarming against the walls, right then was when I realised the mistake I’d made. Right then was when it properly struck me that the most impressive things Corypheus ever did – destroying, and later lifting, the Temple of Sacred Ashes – he accomplished using the power of Fen’Harel’s orb. The second-hand power of the least of the elven gods.

            Oh, man. We were fucked.

            Davrin and Mila had both made comments in an attempt to get me moving, neither of which I really heard. It was only when Lucanis slipped his hand into mine and softly said, “How do I kill a cloud with a dagger?” that I found myself able to move again.

            “You’ve got wings, haven’t you?” I squeezed his hand before I continued leading my little team along the wall, hoping being decisive enough would be enough to cover up my freak-out.

            Before too much longer we found ourselves in a room with a gaggle of Grey Wardens, including Antoine, Evka, Alistair… and the First Warden. Bollocks. Part of me wanted to just wheel around and walk back out before he spotted me. A much larger part was absolutely furious as soon as I saw him, and was fully ready and willing to deck the guy if he pushed me at all.

            “Send word to Commander Janos,” the First Warden was barking as we walked in, Mila sidling off to check the crowd for her dad. “Rally outside the walls.”

            “Janos won’t be doing any rallying, sorry,” I said. I was at the stage of anger where I was smiling, lips stretched in a fixed grin, voice bright and brittle. “He’s dead. He died defending your fortress, just like a lot of your people have. Maybe my people are dead by now, too. I fucking warned you about the Evanuris. I warned you all of this was coming, didn’t I? And what did you do? You called me deranged and tried to arrest me. And now look where we are, you fucking idiot.”

            “You shouldn’t be here,” he snapped, “and I will not be spoken to like that in my own fortress.” He jerked his head to a few nearby Wardens. “Arrest her, and her friends.”

            “Ser, I’ve known Emma Rutherford for a long time,” Alistair broke in. “If she says we’re facing gods, then that’s what’s happening. She’ll be more use to us with a staff in her hand than locked in a cell.”

            “Gods!” The First Warden barked out a derisive laugh. “Do you hear yourselves? There’s no such thing as gods, you’re just looking for reasons to be cowards. We’ll stop the enemy outside the walls.”

            A Warden grabbed my wrists, trying to yank them behind me to get the handcuffs on (you fool, that’s my kink), but stopped and hesitantly stepped away when an elven woman laid a hand on his arm. She was unassuming, pretty and pale with no vallaslin, a lot of curly brown hair tied carefully back out of her angular face, and very wide brown eyes. I looked at her, then the staff on her back, and realised I was finally meeting the Hero of Ferelden herself, Neria Surana. No time to process that right then, however, despite the way it made my heart skip a few beats. I just gave her a grateful nod and spun to snap at the First Warden.

            “What fucking walls? The darkspawn are already inside the fortress! That’s to say nothing of the bloody dragon!”

            “I won’t ask good Wardens to turn tail and run. We’re an army of steel holding back the blight.” Gesturing like he was giving some sort of inspirational speech, he finished up with, “Order every blade out of Weisshaupt!”

            “We’ll all die, ser!” Evka shouted.

            “That is an order, Warden!”

            He turned and marched towards me, and everything in me wanted to hit him. My knuckles itched, the muscles in my punching arm jumped and spasmed with the urge to just haul off and smack him in the teeth as hard as my spindly little elf-mage arms would allow. Then I noticed that there was blood trickling from his ear, I saw the panic deep down in his eyes, and suddenly I was back in the Western Approach, frantic Wardens staring at me with wild, haunted eyes.

            “You’re hearing the Calling, aren’t you?” I said, not snapping, not snarling, just making an attempt to sound reasonable.

            “What do you know of it?” he sneered.

            “I was at Adamant, remember? I’ve seen what happens when Wardens make decisions under the influence of the Calling. That Archdemon is fucking with your mind, ser. I understand the desire to tell yourself everything’s normal, that if you just ignore all the weirdness, and lock me up so you can deal with the problem the way you normally would, that everything will be okay. But I am telling you, if you try to bury your head in the sand and keep pretending this is just another Blight, you’re going to go down in history as the First Warden who sent his people out to die pointlessly as Weisshaupt fell. That’s if there’s anyone left alive afterwards for there to be history books.”

            The First Warden inflated, but before he could answer Neria Surana herself spoke up. “Have you looked outside, ser? Emma’s right. I’ve seen a Blight, and this isn’t one. This is something else. The song of this Archdemon is stronger.”

            “Like I said,” Alistair said cheerfully, “if Emma says the problem is gods, the problem is gods.”

            “So, which will it be, ser?” I said. “The First Warden who lost Weisshaupt, or the First Warden who stood against a god?”

            After a long moment of fixed eye contact, he nodded slowly. “They will know our steel.”

            Then the room exploded, presumably courtesy of the Archdemon. The First Warden himself tackled me into cover, which was nice of him. I ended up huddled against Neria, who smiled and held out her hand.

            “Nice to finally meet you,” I said, shaking her hand as the First Warden barked something about a dragon trap at Antoine. “Alistair, Leliana, and Morrigan have told me a lot about you.”

            “Same to you,” she said. “Glad to have a chance to thank you in person for taking care of the lummox during that Clarel business.”

            Before we had a chance to say anything else the First Warden spun back to me. “Rutherford, get to the trap, get it working.”

            “Beg pardon?”

            “You were right. I wasn’t. Now go show this god what mortals are made of. We’ll have your back.”

            The madman actually sounded like he thought sending me out to be the bait in a millennia-old, untested dragon trap was a favour, a reward for being right. Wardens, man, they’re all fucking insane. Case in point, Alistair and Neria both agreed to come along with me and my lads. Of course, I wasn’t going to argue with having two of the most accomplished darkspawn fighters in the world on board.

            “I really thought you were going to punch the First Warden back there,” Lucanis said as we headed for the trap.

            “I was close,” I said with a grin. “Ultimately, I thought trying to get the Wardens on side after I decked their leader in front of them wouldn’t be especially productive. If he hadn’t listened, then I’d have smacked him.”

            “We’d have supported you, if you had,” Alistair assured me. “The man’s an ass.”   

            “More politician than warrior,” Neria agreed. “Still, at least he made the right choice in the end.”

            Not that it did him much good. As we fought our way to the library, which the Wardens all agreed was the fastest way to cut through to the dragon trap, we spotted the First Warden standing on a wall, laying about himself with a sword, before getting dragged away by some sort of horrible squishy blight tendril. Well. Alright. We also picked up Mila again along the way, when she threw down a ladder to get us out of a tight spot.

            Finally, we made it to the library, where we found the rest of the team holed up together, all of whom were thankfully uninjured. They were also in there with Mila’s dad, Holden the blacksmith. Something in my chest loosened a little as Mila hugged her father. I’d been certain the guy was dead, and we were going to have to deal with telling the kid that she was an orphan now, per my usual missing person cases, you know? That was one good thing, at least. Someone was happy.

            “Thank the Maker you’re alive,” Harding said. “Oh, hello, Ser Alistair. And…” Her eyes widened as she realised who Neria must be. “Oh, wow. Hello!”

            “By the way,” I whispered to Alistair, while Davrin asked Holden about the dragon trap, “that thing you said back when we first met, about all the constant ‘oh you’re the Alistair’ stuff –”

            “Getting sick of constantly being told you used to be the Inquisitor, are you?” he said with a grin.

            “It’s great fun.”

            “Emma,” Davrin called, gesturing for me to join him. “Say again, Holden.”

            “I said, I’m certain the trap will work,” Holden duly repeated, “that isn’t my worry here. The concern is getting that bloody dragon to land.”

            “I… think I’ve got the solution for that.” I pulled out the lyrium dagger, tapping it. “Ghilan’nain wants this, badly. If I wave it around a bit, that big scaly bastard will come down and try to take it.”

            “So our plan is for you to be eaten by an Archdemon?” Lucanis said sharply.

            “No, the plan is for the dragon to set off the trap when it tries to grab me. Then Davrin stabs the dragon, presumably that gets Ghilan’nain to reveal herself, and you stab her. Job done. It’s a little stab-heavy, as plans go, but I think it’ll work.”

            “You make it sound so simple,” he said.

            “Hey, maybe something will go wrong. Then we’ll improvise, adapt, overcome.” Seeing he was about to protest some more, I grabbed his shoulder. “Listen, I believe you can stab her. Just believe I can be dragon bait, okay?”

            He didn’t look happy, but he agreed in the end. I didn’t want to risk dragging anyone who wasn’t strictly necessary to the plan out there, so I insisted the rest of the team, plus the world’s most famous Wardens, along with Holden and Mila, should go and get the eluvian up and running in case we had to make a hasty retreat.

            “You know you can’t actually give me orders, don’t you?” Alistair said.

            “She can’t,” Neria agreed, grabbing his arm. “But I can. Good luck, Emma. Hopefully we’ll see you later.”

            “Hopefully,” I said, chuckling weakly.

*

                        Davrin led me and Lucanis through the library, down to the dragon trap, which was of course griffon-shaped. The Wardens did love their theming. I pulled out the Wolf’s Fang, took the deepest breath I could around the incipient panic attack, and yelled, “Oi, Squidward! Looking for this?”

            That enormous cloud-face swirled into existence directly above me, Ghilan’nain’s voice so loud it made my bones wobble as she boomed, “The Dread Wolf’s knife? Retrieve it!” Then, reluctantly, “Try to avoid killing the Pup in the process.”

            “Ah fuck,” I said as the Archdemon landed with an earth-shaking thump behind us. Which, thankfully, put the damn thing on top of the trigger for the trap. It danced about for a moment, and I felt a brief clutch of fear at the thought that we might have dangled ourselves out there, only for the thing not to take the hook.

            Then dozens of massive chains fired out of the wings of that giant stone griffon, embedding themselves in the Archdemon’s flesh, pinning it to the ground. It looked like it might actually have been mortally wounded from that alone, and soft touch that I am, some part of me still felt bad about seeing an animal in pain. Still, it was down, seemingly no longer a threat, and life as a thrall was no way for a proud, smart creature like a dragon to exist. Time to end it.

            “I’ll do it.” Davrin drew his sword and looked at me sadly. “Give Assan a hug for me.”

            I was briefly confused, since things seemed to be going well, before I remembered the whole ‘the Grey Warden who kills an Archdemon dies’ thing. Fuck. “Dav –”

            “Stand down, Warden.” The First Warden limped down a nearby set of stairs, looking surprisingly healthy for a guy I’d been sure was dead. “Let an old man spill the blood today, and make amends for his mistakes.”

            “Glad you came around, ser,” I said, grabbing Davrin’s arm, just to make sure he didn’t do anything drastic.

            “Better late than never, as they say,” he said with a bitter chuckle. He made his way to the Archdemon, and while he was limping and panting his voice was strong as he announced, “We mortals have a saying. In War, Victory! In Peace, Vigilance! In Death, Sacrifice!”

            Despite everything, I found myself respecting the guy, just a tiny bit, as the First Warden’s blade came down… only for Ghilan’nain herself to appear from a mass of roiling clouds, lifting him high into the air and punching a hole straight through the poor sod’s chest. I let out a yelp of horror and disgust as she shook his blood onto the fallen Archdemon, chanting in elven all the while. I let out another cry as she tossed him aside like a broken toy, before the Archdemon melted into a gooey puddle of flesh, the dragon reforming into something like a fucked-up moray eel that shrieked and lunged at us.

            “Bring the Pup to me with a minimum of external damage,” Ghilan’nain told the eel-dragon with no real conviction.

            Cheers.

            That fight was hideous. Every time we managed to land some solid hits on the damn thing, Ghilan’nain would just do some horrible tentacle magic and send it back out with an extra head, like some nightmarish hydra. Thankfully, after we killed its three-headed iteration, she seemed to run out of steam, giving Davrin the chance to lunge forwards and ram his sword through the monster’s head. He flinched back as a crackling ball of energy ascended from the eel’s head, drifting past him and up towards Ghilan’nain, who shrieked in fury.

            “You good, Dav?” I called, getting a somewhat confused thumbs up in response.

            I tossed the Wolf’s Fang to Lucanis, who caught it deftly as he took off, gleaming wings carrying him up towards the raging god. He slashed at her, but she moved just as quickly, clawing at him with one horrible spidery hand. For a second, as he spiralled through the air, I couldn’t tell if either of them had been wounded, and my stomach turned over, my blood suddenly icy. Not at the thought of Ghilan’nain being untouched, but at the prospect that she might have hurt Lucanis.

            Thankfully he landed with incredible grace, given how far he’d fallen, and was uninjured. As I hurried to his side to make sure he really wasn’t hurt, Ghilan’nain let out a gasp, followed by an inarticulate sound of rage. Looking up at her, I realised this was because while he might not have been able to kill her, Lucanis had managed to slash her face. I was allowed a brief moment of triumph, before she started summoning a giant mass of blight.

            “Leaving,” I said, tugging at Lucanis’ sleeve. “Leaving now, come on.”

            “Give me another shot!” he said, eyes blazing.

            “Don’t be a dickhead!”

            He followed me, somewhat reluctantly, Davrin already charging on ahead. The eluvian was up and running, and we piled through one after another, inches ahead of those clutching, writhing tendrils.

            Excellent outing, as ever.

Chapter Text

We had a team meeting around the kitchen table the next day, once everyone had a chance to catch their breaths. It started out low energy, as Davrin and Harding talked about how the handful of surviving Wardens were making their way towards Lavendel, and then somehow managed to get even worse when Davrin and Lucanis started accusing each other of secretly working with the gods.

            “This is helping no one,” I said frustratedly, cutting off their sniping. “We killed a bloody Archdemon yesterday. An Archdemon! We shivved a god in the face! Tearing into each other because we couldn’t do even more does nothing but screw over any hope we have of working as a team!”

            There was a bit more grumbling, but everyone ended up going to their rooms without any further argument, leaving me to slam my head down on the table with a groan. Varric settled into the chair beside me, chuckling.

            “That was exciting, as meetings go,” he said. “It kind of reminded me of that time Buttercup filled Chuckles’ bedroll with lizards.”

            I laughed, sitting back upright. “God, yeah, that was a whole drama. I was sure he was going to strangle Sera in her sleep for like a week afterwards, then he kept telling her she might be magic to get back at her. It was like dragging a bag of cats around some days. Remember that one trip where he kept trying to start fights with you and the Bull about cultural stuff?” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Thinking about it now, I wonder how much of that was a guilty conscience. He’s weirdly bad at outright lying, isn’t he?”

            “That’s why he does all that sneaky double-talk, I imagine,” Varric said brightly. “He knows he can’t get away with bald-faced lying, so if he really wants to sell you on something he says things that are technically true, if a little misleading.”

            “Man’s the Riddler,” I agreed, folding my arms as I leaned back in my chair. “What are we going to do, Varric? Ghilan’nain is a god. An actual god, not some two-bit magister who thinks he’s the shit. The stuff she was doing out there was magic on a scale I’ve never seen, and according to legend, Elgar’nan makes her look like a little bitch.”

            “Come on, Dreamer, it’s not like this would be the first time you’ve done something people thought was impossible. You just need to take a breath, get the team to pull it together, and… Well, wait for the Wardens to sense the gods through the blight.”

            “Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’d better check on the boys.”

            “You do that. Personally, I’m heading back to bed.” He patted my shoulder as he limped past. “Oh, and maybe check in with Solas, too? I’m sure he must be worried about you.”

            “Will do. Thanks, Varric.”

            “It’s what I’m here for, Dreamer.”

*

                        I was already in the kitchen, so went to check on Lucanis first. I was definitely motivated by proximity, and nothing else. When I slipped in, he was sat on his bed, staring at his hands, but he stood quickly once he realised I was there.

            “So, how we doing?”

            “I’m fine,” he said brusquely.

            “Yeah, sounds it.”

            The faintest of smiles tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he shook his head sharply. “I had her. She should never have gotten away from me. This was our contract, Emma. I don’t fail my contracts.”

            “You stabbed her in the face, Luc. That’s better than any of the rest of us managed yesterday.”

            He shook his head again. “You shouldn’t go easy on me, I –”

            “You came home alive!” It came out snappier than I’d intended, making him blink. Taking a breath, I managed to follow up with a marginally calmer, “So long as we’re all alive, we can go for her another day. What matters is we all made it back here safe. When she grabbed at you, I thought… I’m just glad you’re alright.”

            “I feel the same way. About you, I mean.” He sighed. “But… When I left the Ossuary, I thought I could at least continue being a professional. If I cannot even do my job –”

            “It was one slip up! Listen,” I grabbed him by the shoulders, “you came as close as anyone could be expected to, under some insane circumstances. You’ll get her next time. Just get some rest, shake it off, and try not to strangle Davrin.”

            He laughed. “I make no promises on that last one. But thank you.”

            Patting his arm, I headed off to check in with Davrin. Assan was with him, watching as Davrin rearranged the wooden figures he spent his downtime carving. I gave the griffon a little scratch under the chin before asking, “How’s everyone in here?”

            Davrin turned to face me with a bitter little laugh. “Can’t say I feel great.” Gesturing to some of the wooden figures, he said, “We used to argue; who’d be the one to take an Archdemon down? Who’d die so others could live? Not sure any of us believed it’d actually happen.”

            “You did it,” I said. “We might have missed Ghilan’nain, but her dragon’s dead, and you did that. That’s something.”

            “Is it? Because I’m still here. They’re not.”

            “I’m sorry about your friends, Davrin, really, but I’m not going to lie and say I’m sorry you made it home in one piece.”

            “You don’t understand,” he said impatiently. “Killing an Archdemon – only Wardens can do it, and it’s not something we’re meant to survive. The fact I’m still here… maybe it’s a sign I’m no sort of Warden at all.”

            “I think I know why that is, actually. Why you’re alive, I mean. Corypheus, back in the day, he did the same sort of thing as the Evanuris, put some energy or whatever in a dragon. While his power was in the dragon, he couldn’t die. If his actual body was killed, he’d be reborn from the body of the nearest Tainted creature, darkspawn or Warden.”

            “But that’s,” he said, before cutting himself off so sharply his teeth audibly clicked together.

            “That’s how Archdemons work, I know. My mate Morrigan told me. Just between you, me, and Assan, that’s how Alistair and the Hero of Ferelden both survived the Blight, by the way. Morrigan did some ritual, so the Archdemon’s soul got trapped… uh, somewhere else, instead of going into a Grey Warden and them both dying.”

            “You’re not really meant to know how any of that works,” he said, but he was smiling.

            “I’m not meant to know a lot of the things I do. Anyway, when we killed Corypheus’ dragon, this big glob of power came out of it and floated back into him, and that’s what it looked like out there, right? The power didn’t need to go into you, because its real owner was standing right there, waiting to slorp it back up. The reason that never happened before –”

            “Is because the power couldn’t make it through the Dread Wolf’s barrier,” he said thoughtfully, nodding slowly. “That’s why there’s only two gods loose. Five Blights. Seven Evanuris.”

            “That’s what I’ve been thinking.” I ruffled Assan’s feathers again. “The rules are different now, what with gods walking the world and all. You did your job as a Warden, you were ready and willing to lay down your life.” I shrugged. “It’s not your fault killing Archdemons works differently now.”

            Davrin leaned back against his display table. “That makes sense, but…” He sighed. “All Grey Wardens know they have an expiration date, Em. When I took my blade to that Archdemon, I made peace with the fact I’d reached mine. Now I’m meant to, what? Just carry on?”

            “You’re going to teach this fuzzball how to be a griffon.” I ruffled Assan’s head with both hands, really getting in there, eliciting a happy little chirp. “Not to mention saving all his brothers and sisters. Well, and I’d appreciate some help killing a pair of gods and another Archdemon, if you’re on board.”

            “I am,” he smiled. “Thanks, Em. Guess I got kind of stuck in my own head on this one.”

            “As someone with a great deal of experience with getting stuck in my own head, I’m just happy to have had the chance to extricate someone else for once.” Giving Assan one last fuss (there was something so satisfying in pushing my hands through those fine, dusty feathers), I headed back outside. Varric had been right. Now the lads seemed to have calmed down, it was time to talk to Solas.

*

                        “The fall of Weisshaupt reverberated across the Fade.” His voice rang through the still air even before my vision cleared. “As did the fall of an Archdemon. But unless I am mistaken, both Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain yet stand.”

            “We tried,” I said, looking around. “I, um. It’s possible I underestimated what we’re dealing with.”

            Solas was standing a few feet away from his usual seat on the pillar, and he held out his arms when I spotted him. I stepped into them, letting him enfold me in a hug so tight I thought I heard my spine crackle.

            “The important thing is that you are safe,” he murmured.

            “We all made it back safe, thankfully,” I said. “Sound is a different story. The team’s taken a bit of a knock to their morale.” I laughed, once, sharply. “So have I.”

            He released me and we went to sit on the pillar together. “You defeated an Archdemon. That is no mean feat.”

            “She was a face in the clouds, Dad. She blotted out the fucking sun, and then she did some magic that melted a dragon into something awful. I just don’t know how we’re meant to fight something like that, and I’ve got to keep the team together, and keep them willing to go out there and fight, and I just… I don’t see how.”

            “We both know you have a talent for engendering loyalty and trust from those around you,” he said, nudging me with his elbow and giving me a little smile. “We both know you can lead people into situations others would flee from. Your team may be shaken for the moment, but they will recover, and they will follow your orders anywhere. To their own deaths, if need be.”

            “No,” I said immediately. “No, I… You’re right, you do know me. So you know me well enough to know that’s not something I’ll do. I won’t order people to their deaths. Absolutely not.”

            “You must at least be prepared to make that sacrifice, when the time comes.”

            “If a sacrifice has to be made, I’ll be the one making it.”

            He rested his hand on my shoulder with another sad little smile. “And that is why your team trusts you, and why, despite being shaken, they will recover and follow wherever you lead. One final warning – you have faced Ghilan’nain twice now, and survived both encounters. Few still live who can make such a claim. But her power pales in comparison to Elgar’nan’s. Should he take the field himself, please, remember that escaping to fight another day is itself a victory.”

            “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, as the world wavered around me and I was spat back out into my room. I’d barely had time to stand and stretch before Bellara ran in.

            “Oh, good, you’re here! So, uh, Spite is trying to break out through the eluvian.”

            I was out the door almost before she’d finished speaking, going bird to get downstairs faster. Taash and Harding were also in the eluvian room, Taash blocking the mirror itself, Harding standing closer to the door as she yelled, “Back, demon! No further! Isn’t standing up to them supposed to work?”

            “Let Lucanis go!” Taash barked. “Don’t make us hurt both of you!”

            “Hi,” I said. “Bel told me Spite’s making an escape attempt?”

            “It’s taken over Lucanis and it’s trying to make him leave!” Harding said.

            When Lucanis turned towards us his eyes were glowing with the same magenta light as his wings did, and his voice had an unsettling hissing reverb edge to it as he said, “Smells like… jam and brimstone.”

            “Listen, Spite, mate,” I said, “you’re not walking Lucanis out into the Crossroads alone. If going for a walk in the Crossroads is something you want, we can have a discussion about it, but that’s Lucanis’ body, not yours, and walking him out there without backup will probably get him hurt. I can’t allow that.”

            “You don’t! Command me!” he snapped.

            “Yes I do. While you’re under my roof, you’ll obey my rules.”

            “Nice,” Taash snorted.

            “No!” Spite barked, glowing eyes fixed on me, taking a step closer. “Emma doesn’t command! You help us!”

            “Oh. Well… yeah, of course I’ll help, if I can, but you have to –”

            Spite let out a frustrated growl, and then Lucanis was blinking at me in surprise. “How did… Emma? Taash… Ah…”

            “You… tried to walk through the eluvian in your sleep,” Harding said. Behind her, Bellara and Emmrich appeared in the doorway, presumably as extra backup in case things went tits up.

            “Spite wanted out,” Taash clarified.

            “I need coffee,” Lucanis said with a sigh.

            “You were awake when I left, and that couldn’t even have been an hour ago,” I said. “Is that really how quickly he can take you over?”

            “That is why I try to stay awake as much as possible,” he said.

            “Alright, but that’s not really a long-term solution,” I pointed out.

            “I think that would actually kill you,” Harding said. “Staying awake forever, I mean.”

            “I’ll be more careful in future,” he said.

            “Look, what if I have a chat with Spite, try to –”

            Lucanis shook his head, cutting me off. “He’s ‘Spite’ not ‘Learning’. He doesn’t listen to anyone.”

            “I just think since I’ve got experience –”

            “He’s not Cole! Your experience is no use here!” He sighed. “Just… don’t worry about it. This won’t happen again.”

            With that he walked briskly out of there, head down, avoiding making eye contact with any of us even as he slipped past Bellara and Emmrich. I watched him go with a sigh, and couldn’t help thinking I should be going after him to have another talk about how he was feeling. But no, it didn’t look like he’d have appreciated me chasing him down, so instead I just trailed out of the eluvian room with the others. We ended up sitting in the library and quietly discussing a book Bellara and I had recently read, which turned out to really lighten the mood, even after everything.

            “We should make this a thing!” Harding said brightly, flicking through the book to look for the points we were raising.

            Thus, Book Club was born.

Chapter Text

A few days later Bellara scurried into the library, where a handful of us had been hanging out (Harding, Emmrich, Taash, and me, as it happened, I was trying to give them a synopsis on what Bellara had picked out for that week’s book club). She looked worried as she said, “Hey, glad you’re here. The Caretaker just brought me a note from Irelin, apparently some Veil Jumpers have gone missing. She was wondering if we’d help try to find them. Can we?”

             We headed out without argument, and took off into Arlathan, wading through a fuckload of demons as we went. The scenery was as stunning as ever, at least, though the vibes of the elven ruin we were poking our way through were so rancid I was glad we’d left Lucanis (and Spite) at home. Something about it was reminding me strongly of the Ossuary, the thought making my skin prickle. The demons attacking us didn’t seem entirely right, either. It was nothing I could put into words, just a general sense of something… wrong.

            Harding tracked the Veil Jumpers all the way to this ruined hall, where we found two of them encased in some sort of… crystal? Ice? I reached out to touch the nearest one, but a flash of energy stopped me before I could make contact, shocking me back a step.

            “Are you alright?” Emmrich asked.

            “I’ve had worse,” I said, shaking my hand out.

            Beside me, Bellara was feeling out the air around the encased Jumpers. “We have to stop it. Get them down.”

            “I’m all ears, if you’ve got a method that doesn’t involve me getting tased again.”

            “Vora’shivan?”

            A guy had come up behind us while we were distracted, a dark-haired elf wearing Veil Jumper orange and a heavy golden mask. He glanced around at all of us, wary, before his gaze locked back on Bellara, who looked astonished.

            “Hang on,” I said slowly. “Hummingbird. Isn’t that what –” I stopped as Bellara laid an arm across my chest, gently pushing me behind her. She gave the others a pointed look, and all three of them also sidled around until we were a united group, facing the guy who was calling Bellara by the nickname she’d told me her brother used for her. Oh shit.

            “I can’t believe it,” he said, not seeming to have noticed our cautious reactions. “It’s really you. I’d hoped you might come. But I didn’t let myself believe it.”

            “Cyrian,” Bellara said. Ohh, shit.

            “Bellara?” Cyrian sounded genuinely confused, as if he hadn’t just come back from the dead. “Are you alright?”

            “You’re dead,” she whispered.

            “No,” he said. “No, nothing could be further from the truth.” He took another step closer, and I realised his eyes were a stark, flat red. Probably not a great sign. “He delivered me. As he will deliver us all.”

            Ohhh shit, this couldn’t be going anywhere good.

            “Who’s ‘he’?” Bellara asked, also sounding concerned. “Who are you talking about, Cyrian? Who saved you?”

            “I did.” A black-robed figure materialised out of a cloud of black mist behind Cyrian. He was tall and lean, with a mask and antlers that gave off deer skull vibes. Something about him instantly set my teeth on edge. Maybe it was the glowing red eyes, or the hollow reverb effect to his voice.

            “And who might you be, exactly?” I asked cautiously.

            “One who has sought this form to speak to you all,” he rumbled. “Who cannot yet manifest. Soon, though. With Cyrian’s aid. I am Anaris. They call me –”

            “A Forgotten One,” Bellara said.

            “Forgotten, but not gone,” Anaris said. “The sixth and seventh roam free, and the way stands clear. I will guide your – our people to ascension. As the others have found. As these two will soon find.”

            “The demons,” Bellara said with leaden horror, looking at me. “They were the Veil Jumpers.”

            “Abominable,” Emmrich murmured behind us.

            “That’s messed up,” said Taash, queen of understatement.

            “It’s monstrous, is what it is,” I said.

            Anaris’ red eyes dropped to the Anchor and back to my face. “Ah, Fen’Harel’s whelp. A pleasure. I crossed paths with Imshael some years ago. He did not recall you with fondness.”

            “Yeah, he wouldn’t,” I said through a toothy grin. “Not after I kicked his arse back into the Fade.”

            “He always was disappointingly feeble,” Anaris purred, his tone a warning. “Truly, the runt of the Forbidden Ones. To allow a mere puppy to send him cowering home? How embarrassing. Though I hear you have now done the same to your father? Locking away your most powerful ally, just as you release the Evanuris. A strange ploy indeed, child.”

            “Yeah, well, I can hold my own without needing Solas to help.”

             “I’m sure,” he said, with such paternalistic patronisation it almost made my head explode. Bellara had been having a go at Cyrian over the fate of the Veil Jumpers in the meantime, leaving her brother spluttering helplessly. Anaris turned from me to snap, “Alas, a regrettable possibility, if the ritual is done wrong.”

            “You told me it would give them strength!” Cyrian cried. “Purity! You never said it could kill them!”

            “I had assumed you could handle such a trifling task, Cyrian.” A sort of red smoke had begun to billow from the eyeholes of Anaris’ mask as he turned to Bellara’s brother. “Perhaps I chose my herald poorly. If you lack the conviction to see your people ascend…”

            Bellara jumped in to keep poking at her brother, which was good, because the word ‘herald’ being thrown out by a gangling creature with an echo-reverb voice had made my whole body clench. I hadn’t minded being called Inquisitor, but the title ‘Herald’ always took me right back to the night Haven burned, Corypheus mockingly throwing the title at me (this is your fault, Herald) before he broke 50% of my ribs. I shook my head, forcing myself back to the present as Cyrian reached for his sister, and Bellara stumbled back. I quickly stepped between them, hand out to ward him off.

            “Why couldn’t you stay a memory?” she whispered.

            “Come now, Cyrian,” Anaris said, sounding suddenly bored. “We will leave your sister and the Pup to their contemplation.” He turned and began to sweep away. “As well as other things.”

            Cyrian trailed dejectedly after him. Before anyone could say anything else, more demons appeared, and by the time we fought them off and cracked the surviving Jumpers out of their crystal coffins there was no sign of Cyrian or Anaris.

*

                        Talking to Strife and Irelin when they came to help take the Jumpers home (both of them having thankfully survived their coffins) revealed that the fancy faceware Cyrian had been wearing was something called a ‘bond mask’, which magically linked the wearer with a god. I had a brief moment to hope this might mean Cyrian was being mind-controlled, that we could kick the shit out of another Forgotten or Forbidden One or whatever and give Bellara her brother back… But no. The mask shared their emotions, it didn’t mind control the wearer. Bugger.

            When we got back to the Lighthouse, Lucanis was in the eluvian room again, with Neve and Davrin. I was concerned until I realised his eyes were their usual deep brown. As I came into view, he gave me a vicious grin.

            “Excellent, I was hoping you’d be back in time,” he said. “Viago found something – Venatori in Treviso. It might be a line on Zara.” His enthusiasm faded slightly. “Ah, but you must be tired.”

            “I’m fine,” I said quickly. “If it’s a chance to hit Zara, I’m fine. You guys can all go and relax… Uh, Bel, unless you want to talk –”

            “It’s okay,” she said with a feeble attempt at a smile. “I don’t want to talk right now. At all. You go, help Lucanis.”

            Taash said she was happy to head back out too, and off we went, making our way across the rooftops of Treviso, taking down pockets of Venatori as we went until searching one body for information turned up a note suggesting Zara herself was in town. That spurred Lucanis on, and it was hard to keep up with him until we bumped into Illario, just hanging out on a rooftop by himself. Ah, the Crows.

            “What are you doing here?” Lucanis demanded.

            “I’m coming with you, cousin. No arguments.”

            “This is my job.”

            “This is Crow business.”

            “How did you even know we would be here?”

            There was something sweet about it; I’d bickered with my sister Cathy in much the same way, a lot, and despite the ache in my chest I couldn’t help smiling a little. Illario must have noticed and thought it was for his benefit, because he gave me a charming grin and said, “Emma, cara, always a pleasure. Touring the city with my cousin? You must allow me to show you the sights properly one of these days.”

            Lucanis bristled beside me. I chuckled, patting his arm as I said, “Oh, I don’t know, your cousin has already taken me to so many nice places, introduced me to so many interesting people. Admittedly, that’s mostly rooftops and people we’ve ended up killing, but…”

            Illario laughed. “Then perhaps you’d allow me to take you on a gondola ride instead, once we have dealt with Zara? Wine, good food, under the stars.”

            Oh fuck, I’d thought it was like with Dorian, flirting as sport. But that sounded an awful lot like a genuine invitation on a date. I was saved from having to answer by Lucanis, who snapped, “This isn’t your type of job, cousin. There is no one you can charm into dropping their guard. Only fanatics. All you can do is get yourself killed.”

            “You think I’m not good enough?” Illario asked sharply. God, had I started a domestic incident?

            “Are you?”

            They stared at each other for a while, before Illario scoffed. “Have it your way, cousin,” he said, venomously adding, “You know best.”

            “Let’s go, Em,” Lucanis said. “Zara is waiting.”

            “Good luck, all of you,” Illario called after us. “Emma, come find me afterwards and we can talk.”

            I looked up at Lucanis as we hopped from rooftop to rooftop, the others trailing along behind us. “So, uh. I’m really bad at letting people down. Think it’ll break your cousin’s heart when I tell him it’s a no on the gondola date?”

            “Gondolas aren’t your style?” he said roughly.

            “Oh, no, that all sounded great. Illario’s not for me, that’s all.” I smiled and shrugged when he looked at me. “Meaning no offence, obviously, I know he’s your family and all.”

            We jumped another roof, and Lucanis quietly said, “Most people find Illario is for them.”

            “Nah. Honestly, that might be part of the problem, you know, like he’s too smooth? My type is more… someone who matches my awkwardness, I suppose.” I smiled at him again, and he gave me the most gorgeous, genuine smile in response. And then he had to yank me back as I almost walked off the roof.

            “Good,” he said, so soft it was barely audible.

*

                        Fighting, fighting, fighting. Everyone we came across was an even bigger pain in the arse to deal with than the one before, so when I marched through a door after killing two guys Lucanis said were Zara’s personal bodyguards I was ready to be done with the whole thing. Maybe going straight back out after the thing with Anaris, never mind a few days after Weisshaupt, wasn’t the best idea, I thought, as I stepped into a fucking charnel house.

            “What is this?” Davrin asked in a hushed, horrified voice, staring at the corridor before us. The corridor that was covered in naked, pallid corpses scored by deep wounds, the air thick with the copper tang of blood, the sickly-sweet stink of rot, and the buzzing of innumerable black flies.

            “Blood magic,” Neve and Lucanis said in unison, which Lucanis followed up with, “My eyeballs are itching. Someone’s using blood magic, lots of it, close by.”

            “This is messed up,” Taash growled, one arm pressed against her face. “Can’t wait to kill this bitch.”

            “Same here,” I muttered, trying to breathe through my mouth without inhaling any flies. “Come on.”

            Blood magic was putting it mildly. When we finally found Zara Renata, she was naked in an Olympic swimming pool-sized bath full of blood. “Lucanis,” she purred as she stood up, gore clinging to her like the world’s most upsetting modesty screen. “It’s terribly uncivilised to drop in on a lady unannounced. Now the evening’s ruined.”

            “Yeah, I can’t say I’d be pleased to have people walk in on me in the bath,” I said. “I don’t tend to bathe in the blood of the innocent, though, so.”

            “Hm. Maybe you should, dear.”

            “Uh, get fucked.”

            Her face twisted into a snarl. “Uncouth little knife-ear.”

            “Enough, Zara!” Lucanis barked. “This ends with my knife through your heart!”

            Zara just laughed, drawing the blood around her into projectiles. “Temper, temper, Lucanis.”

            More of her people charged in through the doors lining the walls, all of them using the blood pool as weapons or barriers or whatever their little hearts desired. I’m not exactly squeamish, but that shit was a lot, all the same. Finally, it came down to just Zara, alone in the toe-deep remnants of her bloodbath, dragging herself upright using one of the wide bases of the columns, injured but alive.

            “So serious, Lucanis!” she gasped out. “Why don’t we talk? I can tell you much about Venatori… and our pet Crows.”

            Something was up with Lucanis. He was shaking his head, scowling, but not in a way that suggested any of it was related to what Zara was saying. I reached out to cautiously take hold of his shoulder and said, “Hey, Spite, mate, maybe give it a rest for a minute, yeah?”

            “You want to know who betrayed you, don’t you?” Zara pressed. “Who sent you to the Ossuary?”

            “Talk,” Lucanis – definitely Lucanis, not Spite – snapped.

            “I knew you were –” Zara broke off as Illario dropped to the ground between us and her. For a moment she looked weirdly hopeful. “Amatu –”

            Illario spun around, quick and cat-graceful, and broke her neck in one fluid motion. I had a second to flail in bewildered surprise, before things got much worse.

            With a yell of, “No! Mine!” Spite manifested with a surge of energy that sent the rest of us flying back. By the time I managed to blink away the afterimages and sit up, my skin tingling like a bad sunburn, Spite was already on top of Illario, trying to jam Lucanis’ dagger into the guy’s chest. Illario and Lucanis’ left hand were both trying to push the blade away, but Spite was slowly winning.

            “Get… Illario… out!” Lucanis ground out, sounding like the effort of just speaking was costing him.

            “Shit.” I staggered to my feet, whatever Spite had hit us with still making my skin, along with the muscles underneath, twitch uncontrollably. I was better off than the rest of the team, who were still writhing on the ground. “Spite, leave him! Oi!”

            Lucanis shook his head, looking back over his shoulder to yell, “Em, I can’t –” before his words broke off into a cry of such hopeless pain it made something twist in my chest. But I couldn’t get there in time, my legs just weren’t cooperating. I’d have to hit him with a spell, the thought of it making my stomach clench, even as I fumbled for my staff.

            Then Illario snapped, “That’s enough,” and clenched his hand around a brooch pinned to his jacket. Spite vanished instantly, Lucanis falling backwards into a limp heap, staring up at his cousin with hazy eyes. I dropped down beside him, not caring about the congealed blood I was kneeling in as I gently turned his face towards me. His eyes were empty, like someone with a severe head injury.

            “What did you do?” I demanded, looking up at Illario.

            “Me?” he said disbelievingly. “That thing controlling him tried to kill me!” He shook his head. “Keep him away, Emma. From Treviso. From the Crows. He’s a danger to the family.” Turning away, he called over his shoulder, “My offer to you stands. Just come here alone.” Then he was gone.

            “Fuck off,” I muttered. Patting Lucanis’ cheek gently, I said, “Hey, think you can walk?”

            He blinked up at me, the faintest crease between his eyebrows. “Em?” he said feebly, like he wasn’t sure.

            “Bloody hell.”

            “It’s okay.” Taash put a hand on my shoulder with what was, for her, astonishing gentility. “I got him.”

            Hefting him over her shoulder, we made our way all the way back to the Lighthouse, Taash dropping him off in his bed. I patted her on the back. “Thanks, Taash. I’ll take it from here, you guys go and get cleaned up.”

            “I’m not leaving you alone with him,” Davrin snorted, even as the others slipped out. “You saw what he did back there. It’s not safe.”

            “Look at him, Dav. He hardly knows where he is. I’ll be fine, I promise.”

            “Just leave him there. You don’t need –”

            “He’s fully dressed, fully armed, and covered in blood. Go on. It’ll be fine, if he tries anything I’ll send the Caretaker to get you. Right, Caretaker?”

            “Of course,” they said, materialising beside me with a bowl of warm water, bowing and disappearing again.

            After a little more grumbling, Davrin headed off. Lucanis had just been sitting there the whole time, slumped back against the wall, eyes wide but never seeming to focus on anything. He blinked owlishly when I pulled him forward so he was sitting upright. 

            “Okay,” I sighed as I knelt next to the bed, pulling off Lucanis’ gloves, then unbuckling his belt to set his sword and dagger aside. “I feel like you’d mind lying there covered in blood more than you’d mind me doing this. I think I would.” Off came the boots, then the breastplate, and after a moment’s hesitation the jacket underneath. I tried very hard to remain professional, despite the fact I was now uncomfortably aware of the fact he was all lean muscle. “They changed my clothes while I was unconscious a few times back in the Inquisition days, actually. I kept blacking out, Breach stuff. Still don’t know who dressed me, now I think about it. Probably some poor servant, but I wonder if Cass –”

            I froze as his hand came up to my cheek, thumb slowly tracing the mark of Sylaise there, smoothing over my eyelid as it went. After a pause he gently ran the knuckle of his index finger down the scar on my other cheek, then lightly trailed his thumb over my bottom lip, his eyes still mostly unfocused.

            “Hermosa,” he whispered.

            “Sorry,” I said, trying to laugh, trying to turn it into something silly and funny, as if everything in me didn’t want to just close the distance between us. Because that would be taking advantage, and if he hadn’t just had his brain turned into scrambled eggs he wouldn’t be doing any of it. “Sorry, I, uh. I took Orlesian in school.” I swallowed hard, ignoring the heat in my stomach (and lower regions) as his fingers began to trail down my neck, fingertips resting against my pulse for a moment before continuing. Just as his palm brushed against my collarbone, starting to push the neck of my shirt aside, I caught hold of his hand and laid it down on the bed with a pat. “Come on, now. Time to get… Uh… Bedtime.”

            Smooth as ever.

Chapter Text

After getting Lucanis into bed in the least fun way imaginable, I took a cold bath and got a few hours’ sleep before Emmrich came knocking tentatively at my door, needing help with his Hand of Glory (still a hilarious name, 10/10, no notes). Certified Spooky Bitch that I am, I loved the little haunted house tour he took me on, though Davrin and especially Taash (the only people who felt in a fit state to join us) had much less fun. It ended with us finding out that one of his old colleagues was trapping both people’s souls and Fade spirits in a fancy magic lantern, and had become a half-lich.

            “That’s a thing?” I asked as we trailed back through the Crossroads. He’d told me about liches before, at the same time as confessing his phobia of death (something I assured him I was absolutely not going to judge him for, what with my own stack of debilitating fears) and how getting liched was a way around that.

            “Sadly, yes,” he sighed. “Should someone attempt the process of becoming a lich without correctly releasing their mortal concerns, they can remain trapped in a half-transformed state. They cannot learn any new magic, nor can they enjoy the full benefits of lichdom.”

            “Sorry we’re going to have to deal with your old friend,” I said. “Even if she did call me a hanger-on.”

            “Johanna made her own choices,” Emmrich said. “It is a shame, but… I say, did the air just change?”

            “Hey, Corpse Guy, is this you?”

            “Please call me Emmrich, Taash!”

            “It’s not Emmrich’s doing,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “I’ve been through this before, it’s one of those interactive memories we talked about.”

            “Huh,” Taash said, peering around like she was on a walking tour. “So, this is going to be something about your dad, right? Hey, is that him? He’s hot.”

            “That’s Felassan,” I said. “He was Solas’ general, back in the rebellion days. Come on, sounds like if we save some hostages we can leave.”

            “How come you don’t call your dad your dad?” Taash asked as we pressed on through the memory. “You keep calling him Solas. We all know he’s your dad, it’s fine.”

            “I, uh, I don’t know,” I admitted.

            “Do you not call him dad when you’re talking to him?”

            “Uh, yeah, I do.”

            “So then why not say it when you’re with us?”

            “I suppose it’s like… yeah, you know, but still, if I keep calling him Dad… it… I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, maybe.”

            “I don’t feel uncomfortable.” She turned to the lads. “Hey, Davrin, Corpse Guy, would it make you feel uncomfortable if Em started calling Solas ‘dad’?”

            Emmrich sighed at the persistent, unwanted nickname, but said, “Of course not. Whatever you’re most comfortable with, Emma.”

            “It’s kind of weird thinking about the Dread Wolf having kids,” Davrin admitted. “But I guess that would be an issue either way, so go ahead.”

            “See?” Taash said.

            “Thanks, mate,” I said quietly, earning a grunt in reply.

            We carried on through the memory, through fights with dream bastards, once again seeing Felassan and Solas-with-hair (“That’s him?” Taash said. “Guess he’s kind of hot too.” Lord give me strength) until finally we were spat back out into the Crossroads, wolf statuette in hand.

            There’d been something in the way Felassan had looked at Solas, right at the end of the memory. Solas was in pain after having had some kind of Mind Fight with Elgar’nan, and the look on Felassan’s face when he’d checked on him… Loyalty. Devotion. Love, even. You could see it in him, he’d have done anything Solas asked of him. Anything except taking the eluvians back from Briala, anyway.

            Solas could kill someone who cared about him like that, I thought as I placed the statuette on a shelf beside the other two. Remember that. Call him Dad, enjoy your Fade-mandated visitations with him, take his advice if it seems decent, but don’t ever forget who he really is. Because he’s the scorpion, and everyone around him is the frog, so don’t let yourself get caught out ferrying him across the river.

            Giving myself a shake, I went to check on Lucanis, who was bright-eyed, fully dressed, and pacing his room. “Hey,” I said brightly, “look who’s back with us.”

            “Ah, yes.” He stopped and faced me, though he couldn’t seem to meet my eyes, both hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. “I have been trying to figure out what to say to you.”

            Uh oh. “Look, I’m sorry about undressing you and all that, but you were covered in blood, and I know it’s not comfortable to sleep in armour, and –”

            “You’re the one who undressed me?” He let out a soft laugh. “That is a relief, actually. I was sure it must have been either Davrin or the Caretaker, and neither option held much appeal.”

            “Oh, okay. So if that’s not the problem, what else have I done?”

            He stared at me, open-mouthed. “Emma, you are not the problem. I have been struggling to come up with the correct words to truly apologise for what happened.” Finally looking up enough to meet my eyes, he said, “I never wanted you to see me like that.”

            “It didn’t bother me.” When he looked sceptical, I said, “I’m being honest here, alright. I, uh. I care, about you. You’re my friend. Watching you get a bit more possessed than normal… Well, yeah, it was a bit upsetting, but only on your behalf.”

            Lucanis looked away again, though this time he wore the ghost of a smile, which faded as he said, “We still need to talk about Illario.”

            “How much do you remember?”

            “I remember attacking him. Then, nothing.”

            “Right,” I sighed, sort of glad and sort of disappointed that he didn't remember any of the face touching. Probably for the best, realistically. “Well… He said you had to stay away from the Crows. Because you were a… danger.”

            “He’s not wrong. If I cannot stay in control…” He shook himself, sounding more confident as he said, “He used blood magic to control Spite.”

            “That thing he did with the brooch, right? I noticed that, but with you all concussed and stuff it didn't seem the time to lay into him over it. It… it must have been given to him by a blood mage.” I chewed at my thumbnail. “Listen. When you were kidnapped. Did Illario know where you were going to be?”

            “Yes.”

            Shit. I wanted to tell him about Zara’s last word. Because maybe Lucanis hadn’t spent enough time around alive Tevinter to know, but my best friend was a Vint, and I’d spent plenty of time around him and his partner. Enough to know that ‘amatus’ was a term of endearment between lovers. Enough to understand that brief look of hope on Zara’s face when Illario appeared, and his haste to kill her. But how was I meant to tell Lucanis any of that, about the only family he had left in the world? Especially when I only had a brooch and half a word as proof.

            “Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation,” I said.

            “There better be,” he muttered.

            “Hey,” Harding said from behind me, making us jump. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve been writing to someone in Kal-Sharok, and he’s agreed to meet with me. I was wondering if you’d come?”

            “You go,” Lucanis said with a nod. “I’ll be fine. Thank you, by the way. For taking care of me.”

            “My pleasure,” I said, slipping out after Harding.

*

                        We weren’t visiting Kal-Sharok itself, as it turned out, but rather a trading outpost, which was slightly less exciting, but whatever. The dwarf who met us at the gate, Stalgard, had a beard that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Viking (or the show Vikings, at least), with an intricate circular face tattoo and a weirdly flat affect. Harding started to introduce us, only for him to interrupt her.

            “Lace Harding, of the Inquisition. And Emma Rutherford, once the Inquisitor.”

            “That’s me,” I said. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”

            “You are gracious in your address,” he said, with zero inflection. “It is not necessary. Tell me what you wish.”

            “I’m looking for someone touched by the ancients,” Harding said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

            “Yes. She has been waiting for you. Follow.”

            “Hey, I think we worked with some of your people,” I said as he led us through what looked like a pretty standard dwarven outpost, though with a lot less shouting about fine dwarven crafts. “Back in the Inquisition days, I mean. Venatori kidnapped a bunch of dwarves, we tried to help, and Kal-Sharok dwarves led us to an underground Venatori encampment as, like, a thanks.”

            “You followed instructions well,” was his only comment. Alrighty.

            He led us down into a sort of… cathedral, I suppose, filled with lyrium. Raw lyrium, so much of it the song came through to me clearly and my head swam. I had to fight to listen to Stalgard as he warned us to behave ourselves appropriately.

            “Yes, of course,” Harding said, as if I didn’t have a well-established history of telling important people to eat me. “But who are we meeting?”

            “I will let her speak for herself. But we of Kal-Sharok revere her deeply for being one with the Stone. They say she was once from Orzammar, but she speaks little of her past.”

            That made my ears perk up, though I didn’t allow myself to get too jazzed. That turned out to be the right call – rather than meeting Valta again, a dwarven woman maybe sitting on a fancy throne as I’d been expecting, there was a giant dwarven statue of a woman. I thought that was all I was looking at, until the eyes of the statue glowed and a voice that was Valta’s but also not boomed out.

            “Thank you for leading them here, Stalgard. They call me the Oracle.”

            “Hi, Valta,” I said quietly. “I’m glad you… found your way.”

            “Thank you, Emma Rutherford, formerly the Inquisitor. It is good to see you again, although this meeting is not for you and me. I am glad you are alive and well. My greetings also to you, Lace Harding, once scout, now… something else.”

            “All this,” Harding said, awed. “Is this what I am? Am I like you?”

            “I cannot tell you what you are. Look within, and remember. Remember when the earth was alive, and the Titans walked the land. In one voice they sang. A chorus of creation, and of connection.”

            “Isatunoll,” Harding said. “The Song.”

            “When the Titans fell, we awoke,” said the Oracle (because that’s who she was now, I realised with a quiet sadness; she might once have been Valta, but she wasn’t that anymore), “but the melody was already lost.”

            “The dwarves,” Harding said.

            “We were always just shattered fragments of a greater whole.”

            “The Stone sense… my magic. It’s Titan magic. But why? Why did this happen? Why do I remember Isatunoll? What happened to the Titans?”

            Right then, a big honking rock statue came alive and tried to murder us. Because of course. Of course it fucking did.

            We killed the thing, just me and Harding, since Stalgard was precisely zero help. I ended up having to hit it with a Hossberg well-level of lightning before the fucking thing would go down. I felt like having a little lie-down afterwards, especially with all that raw lyrium singing at me, turning my stomach and making me so dizzy it was hard to walk straight, but Harding was already running back to the Oracle, so I heaved myself after her all the same. Didn’t want to miss anything.

            “Did you feel it?” the Oracle said. “Fury. Such fury. And with you as its mark. There are horrors in the depths. They have awakened to you now. Look within for your answers… and beware.” With that, the glow faded, and the presence with it. We were left with nothing more than a hunk of rock.

            “She does that,” Stalgard said, showing a bit of life for the first time. “Riddles, riddles, riddles, oh, I am a rock.”

            I laughed. “Yeah. ‘Horrors in the depths’, as if there’s anything else down there. Thanks for narrowing it down.”

            Stalgard’s beard twitched with something that might have been a smile, but Harding was much less amused. “She gave me nothing!” she shouted. “Come back!” Eyes glowing blue, she turned back to Stalgard, another voice creeping in with her own as she barked, “Make her come back!”

            “Whoa, now.” I slid myself between the two of them, genuinely concerned for a second that she was going to go for him. “Lace, take a breath.”

            Harding gave another snarl, and for a second I felt her power pulse out from her, turning the air around us thick. Before I could get too worried about us maybe having to fight her, she shook her head, the glow disappearing as she said, “It’s alright. I’m alright. Sorry, let’s just get out of here.”

            She stormed off ahead, leaving me and Stalgard in the rear. “Sorry about all that,” I said quietly. “She’s usually a lot chirpier.”

            “I am used to it,” Stalgard said, with such an absolute lack of emotion I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Most people leave the Oracle frustrated.”

            “Hm. Still, at least she must be happy. The Oracle, I mean. When I knew her all she wanted was to know, well, everything, but Titan stuff in particular. It’s a shame I can’t have a real chat with her, but if she’s happy, that’s the main thing.”

            Stalgard stared at me impassively. “Perhaps you and I could speak about the time you spent with the Oracle, before she was the Oracle. I will admit to having wondered about her past.”

            “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “I’ve always loved to reminisce.”

*

                        I managed to snatch a quick chat with Harding about what had happened on our excursion (the upshot being that she felt bad about her outburst, and I told her not to) before Neve stuck her head in and asked for help with something in Dock Town. Remembering her ‘I don’t expect you to turn up for Dock Town’ comment I agreed to head out immediately, despite being knackered and lyriumed to the gills, and we ended up saving a crime boss from being possessed by a blood mage called Aelia, which was fun, at least. Less fun for Neve, who saw Aelia as a nemesis, though. And I suppose the crime boss probably wasn’t having a great time, either.

            As we trooped back through the eluvian, Davrin caught my arm and said, “Hey, I’ve got something too, if you have the time.” I could have screamed, but instead I smiled and nodded, and soon enough found myself sat in a quiet corner of Arlathan.

            “So,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, “what are we here for?”

            “Having dinner.” He was unloading a series of wrapped packages from his pack, which turned out to be enough sandwiches to feed the whole team.

            “Sorry?”

            “You looked like you needed a break. If you were in the Lighthouse, people would keep asking you for stuff, and I know you’d keep saying yes. Besides which, spending all your downtime in the Fade can’t be healthy. So, you’re out in nature, you’re eating a meal. Time to relax.”

            I laughed. “Seriously? You’ve given me the afternoon off?”

            “You’ve been running yourself ragged since… well, pretty much the whole time I’ve known you. I think you’ve earned a few hours off.”

            “Thanks, Dav. I really appreciate it,” I said quietly, unwrapping a cheese sandwich and taking a bite. That first bite reminded me of how long it had been since I’d eaten (how long had it been? I hadn't eaten breakfast before I headed out with Emmrich, and I'd been on the go since then. Had I really not eaten anything since the day before? Maybe it wasn't the lyrium that was making me feel dizzy), and I inhaled three more sandwiches in quick succession before flopping back onto the grass with a sigh, feeling a bit sick, but full, at least.

            “Want a nap, too?”

            “Nah, I couldn’t –”

            “Go right ahead.” He took a block of wood from his pack and set to whittling. “Assan and I have you covered.”

            I tried to argue, really, I did. But I was asleep in seconds, holding onto consciousness just long enough to wrap an arm around Assan as he came to curl up beside me like a warm, breathing cuddly toy. I only slept for about two hours, but it was the best sleep I’d had for a while.

*

                        “Thanks for this,” I said as we set off back to the Lighthouse, Assan bounding ahead. “Really. I know things haven’t been easy for you lately, so for you to take the time to think of me –”

            “Hey, you talked me through my stuff, right?” he smiled. “I know you’re in charge around here, but that just means we all need to have your back, same way you have ours. So, any time you feel like you need to take a break, count us in. Assan needs to stretch his wings on occasion anyway.”

            Astonishingly, nobody needed me for anything when I got back. I got a full four more hours of sleep before Taash was shaking me awake to drag me off to the fucking Wetlands, saying something about finding out how dragons were being blighted.

            Begin again.

Chapter Text

Taash started growling when we waded through the wetlands, only to discover that the dragon we were there for wasn’t in her lair. Incidentally, that was how I found out the two of us had gone there, alone, with the intention of fighting a dragon in her own lair. Jesus Christ, Taash.

            “Okay,” I said, trying very hard to sound like I wasn’t just realising we were on a suicide run. “Well –”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Taash snapped. “I can still look for clues. See if she’ll turn into a monster like Ghilan’nain’s Archdemon did. I have to figure this out! I’m a dragon slayer! I have to kill this thing!”

            That’s when she noticed the ropes. Antaam ropes. Realising the Antaam had been the ones blighting the dragons (which suddenly put the whole thing with the vinsomer in a new light) sent her into something of a meltdown.

            “I’m getting the feeling this isn’t just about the dragon,” I said eventually.

            “What?”

            “The thing you and Neve were talking about in the kitchen a while ago –”

            She cut me off with an angry snort, before her face fell. When she spoke next, it was with more sadness than rage. “I’m a crappy Qunari. I’m not really Rivaini. I’m no good as a daughter. I’m not even… I can’t even be a woman right. I have to be a dragon slayer.”

            “Ah. Then it is about that thing with Neve. Did you end up talking to those Shadow Dragons she was going to put you in touch with?”

            “Yeah.” She sounded a little calmer as she said, “They said there are people who use ‘they’ instead of he or she. They’re not men or women. And I like how it feels when I imagine myself that way. But… I’m not supposed to breathe fire. Am I not supposed to feel like this?”

            “How you feel is how you feel,” I said, shrugging. “Who you are is who you are. ‘Supposed to’ doesn’t come into the equation. It’s your life, Taash. Fuck what anyone else thinks about things. You only get one life, and it’s already hard enough in this shithole of a world. You can’t waste the time you have being miserable, dwelling on what other people will think about you.”

            “You’re right,” she said, nodding slowly. “I’m not the daughter my mother wanted. That Taash… She was never really me. The real Taash isn’t a woman. Or a man. The Shadow Dragons had some fancy terms. But using ‘they’, and knowing that? It feels… good.”

            “Then that’s what matters.” I looked up at them as we slogged back through the marsh towards Lavendel. “There were a lot of people like you back home, you know. I know this stuff isn’t talked about as much over here, but people were a lot more open about it there. So don’t feel like you can’t talk to me about any of this, you know? And if anyone tries to hassle you about it, let me know, and I’ll kick them in the junk.”

            “Sure.” They trudged along next to me for a few more feet before quietly adding, “Thanks.”

*

                        When we got back to Lavendel it was to find it swarming with Grey Wardens. Alistair flagged me down before I made it up the steps into the ruin, and I scurried over to give him a very professional hug. “Glad you made it out,” I said.

            “I always make it out. I’m like a rat that way.” He gave me a beaming smile. “But a very tall, handsome sort of rat, of course.”

            “Goes without saying.”

            “We’re not going to be here long, I’m afraid. We’re just getting our breath back for a day or so, then a whole lot of us are going to link up with the Wardens who were too far away to get back to Weisshaupt in time to defend it. The south needs defending, and the Wardens owe it a debt.”

            “I can’t say I’m happy to lose you up here,” I said. “But knowing someone with a bit of sense is going to be taking care of the south really takes some of the weight off my shoulders.”

            “You know, I think that might just be the first time anyone’s described me as having a bit of sense.”

            “I was talking about Neria.”

            “Ouch! You and Morrigan really are related.”

            I laughed. “Where is your lady wife, anyway?”

            “Keeping an eye on some rogue elements.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, where Neria sat in quiet conversation with a group of Wardens. “That mayor you sent us is one of them. He actually saved half his squad from an ogre on the way here, sending him to us was a surprisingly good call. There’s a few more lads known for making trouble, a couple of problem drinkers. And – now, keep this to yourself, alright? – Anders.”

            “Anders?” I choked out, just barely managing to keep my voice low. “Not Kirkwall Anders?”

            “Kirkwall Anders,” he agreed. “Neria oversaw his Joining, back in Amaranthine. After he heard what happened to Hawke, he surrendered himself to the Wardens, and Neria appealed for his life. For old times’ sake, you know?”

            “Is he… I mean, is he still…”

            “An abomination? No. After Kirkwall, then losing Hawke, he must have been no more use to Justice or Vengeance or whoever was rattling around in there. By the time he got to us, it had left him.”

            So we could always cure Lucanis by completely breaking his spirit, then. That was good to know. “Holy shit. That’s a pretty extreme case of being left holding the bag.”

            Alistair laughed. “Yes it is.” He cocked his head at me. “Want to meet him?”

            “No, no. After what I did to Hawke –”

            “Not still blaming yourself for that one, are you? Come on. You’re both friends of Varric Tethras. I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it.”

            Reluctantly, I followed him over, sure that as soon as Alistair introduced me, the blond man with sad brown eyes would attack me for leaving Hawke in the Fade. Instead, he held out his hand for me to shake, and the smile he offered was weary but genuine.

            “Good to meet you at last,” he said. “Between Hawke’s letters and Ser Alistair, I feel like I know you already.”

            “Likewise, yeah.” I gestured to the wall beside him, and he nodded for me to take a seat. “I met Isabela recently, too, and spent some time with Carver and Aveline when Varric took me to Kirkwall. Getting to know the Kirkwall crew one by one.”

            “I’d recommend giving Fenris a miss, with you being a mage. How did you find Kirkwall?”

            “It was alright, yeah. Seems to have calmed down. I did cause some minor chaos myself, though. Varric gave me the key to the harbour the weekend I stopped being Inquisitor, and the damn fool let me try it out when we visited, since he thought I needed cheering up. Still, they got traffic moving again eventually.”

            Anders actually let out a little laugh at that. Hesitantly, he said, “Alistair has told me you made an honest man of Cullen. I can’t say he and I got along… in any way, ever. But it was good to hear he softened over time. And I’m sorry for your loss, at least.”

            “Thank you.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about Hawke, too.”

            “Thank you. It’s been a while, now, but… I suppose some things only lessen over time, they never fade entirely. I imagine you understand that well enough.”

            “Yeah. Um. But I… When I said –”

            “Hawke made a choice, and you respected it,” he said, gently, but in a tone that allowed for no arguments. “You don’t need to apologise for that.”

            “Feels like I do,” I sighed.

            He smiled, shaking his head. “She was always the same, you know. There wasn’t a problem in Kirkwall she didn’t feel was hers to fix. Oh, she complained about it, she'd be viciously sarcastic the whole time, but she always did whatever she could for anyone who asked. An endless parade of waifs and strays she felt it was her responsibility to save. Sometimes I can’t help but feel that’s why she loved me.”

            “Because you were running a clinic to help all the sickly waifs and strays?”

            “I was speaking in terms of my being another of her strays, in fact,” he said, his smile widening. “But that’s a lot more flattering of an interpretation, thank you.”

            “Sorry to interrupt,” Neria said. “Emma, your friend Davrin just arrived, he’s waiting inside with Evka and Antoine. Something to do with griffons.” She broke into a beaming grin. “He had a griffon with him, too. A real one.”

            “I’ll arrange for you to pet the little guy later,” I said as I stood. “Assan will love it, he never gets tired of scritches.” Turning back to Anders, I added, “It was good to speak to you, glad I got the chance.”

            “Same to you. Thank you, by the way. After Kirkwall, most people would not have been so civil.”

            “I try not to judge,” I shrugged. “My son and more than one of my friends are murderers, and my dad… Let’s just say, I’ve learned to be very lenient with people’s actions. Take care of yourself.”

            “You too. I hope we meet again someday.”

            I took the time to say goodbye to Alistair, too, in case their little breakaway group left before the next time I saw him. Neria seemed to be able to tell I had more to say, and she walked me up the steps, waiting patiently. “So,” I said eventually, “it’s… Cullen told me that you, Alistair, a few other people, were the ones who saved him from Kinloch Hold.”

            “Oh, yes. I knew him before, too. We actually –” She cut herself off, pressing her lips together.

            “I know he had a crush on you, it’s alright,” I laughed. “Didn’t know you felt anything back.”

            “I suppose I have a type,” she snorted, looking back at Alistair.

            “He would have wanted you to know, he was sorry for how he spoke to you back then. He never went into detail, not about any of it, and I never pushed him. But from the few things he did say, I could tell it bothered him. If he could have, he’d have wanted to apologise.”

            For a moment, Neria only looked at me. Then she hugged me. The Hero of Ferelden hugged me. “Sweet girl,” she said. “I never expected an apology from him. It shouldn’t have weighed on him.” She stepped back and laid a hand on my cheek. “Don’t let it weigh on you any longer, either.”

            With that, I headed up to join the team who were talking to Evka and Antoine – Taash, Harding, Emmrich, and Davrin, who greeted me with, “There’s a place out there called the Cauldron.” Steering me straight out into the bog, he added, “Kind of a Warden dumping ground. We’ve all heard rumours about it, but hardly anyone’s been out there. Last night Evka and Antoine lost contact with a patrol in the area… right after they reported hearing odd screeching.”

            “Gloom Howler?” I asked.    

            “That’s what I’m thinking. Assan! Stay close.”

            We found the place without too much trouble, and shortly afterwards found that the gate had been smashed in, the missing patrol lay dead in the courtyard, and the door into the Cauldron itself stood wide open. I was getting a really bad feeling about it all, something that didn’t improve when we found a bunch of doors dated with the years Blights ended.

            “That’s probably fine,” I said, prompting a snort from Taash.

            Then, of course, it got worse. We found bones. Loads of bones, literally heaps of them, a genuine ossuary. And they were from griffons. There must have been hundreds of them in there. I started trying to count the skeletons, only to realise there was a level beneath the floor we were on, and the bones continued on down there.

            “Davrin,” Emmrich said, cautiously examining a pot full of skeletons, “how exactly did the griffons go extinct?”

            “They died out fighting the Fourth Blight,” Davrin said, sounding uncertain.

            “Why were they all just dumped in here?” Taash asked. “Didn’t you guys wanna give them a proper burial or whatever?”

            “I don’t know.” He absently reached out to stroke Assan’s head as the griffon chirped in an unsettled way, resting against him. “It’s like they were keeping it secret.”

            “The bones,” I said, having joined Emmrich. “They look… wrong.” I pointed to the black threads growing through them, careful not to touch anything.

            Davrin’s jaw clenched. “Let’s keep moving,” he muttered, leading us through another door, only to freeze on the threshold. “An Archdemon.”

            We’d walked into a huge room, empty aside from what looked to be a dragon skeleton laid out on an elevated metal platform. There were blight growths dotted around the room, and the atmosphere was thick. Evil. Like the air itself hated us.

            “That’s why they don’t talk about the Cauldron,” I said quietly. It felt wrong to speak into that oppressive, weighty stillness. “Why there’s all those doors dated with Blights. It’s a tomb for Archdemons.”

            “I think you’re right,” Davrin said grimly. “This one would be Zazikel.” He shook himself. “The Gloom Howler must be in here somewhere. Let’s find it.”

            As if he’d summoned it, the thing let out a scream of, “Secrets long buried will have their day!” before it started sending darkspawn after us, more and more darkspawn until we were forced to back ourselves into Zazikel’s bony ribcage, using it as a buffer.

            “Whatever you are, face me!” Davrin shouted, sounding a lot more confident than I felt right then. Emmrich and I had both cast barriers across the ribs, but with how unreliable mine were, it couldn’t be long before the bones themselves were all that stood between us and a horde of ravening darkspawn. The Gloom Howler listened to him, though, and as it rose up behind the horde he barked, “What are you?”

            “A ward against the darkness,” the thing said in that gobbling, watery voice.

            “You are the darkness!” Davrin shouted. “You’re a monster!”

            “To those who made me.”

            God, the thing’s mismatched, wet-looking hands were making my skin crawl. “Oi! Where are the griffons, dickhead?”

            “I liberated them! To free them from the tyranny of the Wardens!”

            “Grey Wardens rid the world of horrors like you!” Davrin yelled.

            “They created the horrors – the bones of griffons abandoned in this ‘Cauldron’. Proud warriors, forgotten.”

            Davrin and I looked at each other. “Who are you?” he asked, sounding more uncertain.

            “Their salvation,” the Gloom Howler gurgled, then drove a dagger into the nearest Archdemon bone, coating the blade in thick black ichor. It turned back to us, holding the dagger out with an unsettling earnestness. “The blood offers protection.”

            “Archdemon blood?” Davrin said, horrified. “You’re blighting them?”

            “Protecting them. The same blood runs through your veins, Warden. Join with us, and honour their future!”

            I turned to look at Davrin, and his horror and uncertainty was so great it made him look much younger. I rested a hand on his arm, and he drew himself up to snarl, “I’d die first!”

            “Then this is your tomb!”

            The thing screamed, the darkspawn redoubled their attempts to get at us, and in the same moment Assan swooped down to swipe at the Gloom Howler. My stomach turned over as the thing slashed at him with that stained dagger, and as my concentration wavered my section of the barrier winked out. Taash and Davrin threw themselves into the fray, and with that we were fighting again. By the time we dealt with them, the Gloom Howler was nowhere to be seen.

            “It’s okay,” Davrin said. “Let it go.”

            “I take it this is some elite monster hunter tactic?”

            “Uh huh. Never hunt things you don’t understand. The Gloom Howler is more than a monster. I got what I needed, in any case. Assan ripped a piece from its clothing. Gives me something to go on.”

            “I might be able to help with that,” Emmrich said. “Back at the Lighthouse.”

            So, home we went.

Chapter Text

Before we made it through the eluvian into the Lighthouse, a voice called, “Emmaera, daughter of the All-Mother and the Dread Wolf.” When the whole team whipped towards him, the man raised his empty hands. “I come only to speak.”

            “It’s alright,” I said, feeling a bit dizzy as the recognition hit me. “I know him. You guys go on, I’ll be through in a minute, now.”

            They went reluctantly, leaving me alone with Abelas, no longer in Sentinel gear but something closer to what Solas had worn during the Inquisition days, presumably to help him travel incognito. He took a few rapid steps towards me, and I had a second to worry that I’d screwed up, that he’d actually come there to kill me for getting Solas trapped, only for him to drop to one knee before me, head down.

            “My lady,” he said, eyes on the ground. “Final bearer of the Vir’abelasan. Word has reached us of the Dread Wolf’s imprisonment. I have come to offer our allegiance to you, in his stead.”

            “You were part of the group working with him.” It wasn’t a question, more a realisation spoken out loud, but he agreed all the same. “Then, I… I accept your allegiance. Please stand up so I can speak to you properly.”

            He stood, though he still couldn’t look me in the eyes. “I must apologise, my lady. When last we met, I did not treat you with the proper deference due for the daughter of Mythal.”

            “That’s alright, none of us knew who I was back then.” Except Solas, of course, but that didn’t seem worth mentioning to him.

            “But I called you a shemlen, my lady. I am ashamed.”

            “Honestly, it’s alright.” I patted his shoulder, the way I would any of the others, and he finally looked me in the eyes with an expression of… something close to worship. It made me so incredibly uncomfortable, it felt like my skin suddenly didn’t fit right. “Um. What… did my father have you doing? What were your last orders, I mean, before he was imprisoned?”

            “To hold position until the Evanuris were safely contained within their new prison. Then he wished for us to do what we could to shield the shemlen elves… that is, the modern Elvhen from the worst of the upheaval his ritual was to cause.”

            “Right, so… if I were to ask you to work with Marquess Briala, to protect the elves in the south from the surging blight… Does that sound like something you’d be willing to do?”

            Abelas cocked his head, giving me a searching look. “We are yours to command, my lady. ‘Willing’ does not enter into it.”

            “All the same,” I said, “I’m not going to force you to do something you really don’t want to do.”

            He blinked at me, his face unreadable. “Thank you, my lady. We have worked with Briala in the past. I would be willing to stand with her against the Evanuris’ blight. If you are certain you have no need of us here?”

            He’d worked with Briala, had he? Briala, who kept inviting me to the palace, who sent flowers when Cullen died, who made sure to send me letters at least every few months to keep in touch. And she’d been working with Solas. It shouldn’t have surprised me, given her whole deal was making things better for elves. Maybe she hadn’t even known she was working with Solas, maybe Abelas just helped her out on the side. Maybe I should have told her what Cole suspected about Felassan. Maybe I should just get used to everyone in my life lying to me.

            “I think you can do more good there,” I said, successfully managing to sound like none of what was going on in my head was going on.

            Abelas nodded slowly, then finally offered me the most reserved of smiles. “I see your father’s tales of you were true.” Well, that could go either way. Resting a hand over his heart, he said, “Should you change your mind, the Caretaker can get word to me. Until then, be well, my lady.”

            “You too. Stay safe, Abelas.”

            Well, that was a weird little aside, and I might be having words with Briala later, but at least the south should be alright with everyone we were sending down there to defend it. That did mean we were potentially hamstringing ourselves up north, of course. Shaking my head, I slipped through the eluvian, heading straight for the kitchen. After that business, I felt like checking in with Lucanis. When I walked into his little nook of a room, though, it was to find him sat on his bed, the imprint of Spite’s wings burned into the wall behind him. Taash was just inside the door.

            “Demon’s back,” they said on noticing I was there.

            “Oh great, I wanted a word with him actually.”

            “Better you than me,” they grunted. “He’s acting weird.”

            “He’s a demon, that’s sort of in the job description.”

            Spite inhaled deeply, hissing out, “Smells like… melon, and woodsmoke.” He stood up, eyes glowing brighter.

            “Hey!” Taash barked. “No! Sit your ass back down!” They sounded like they were talking to a misbehaving dog, which made me smile.

            “Listen, I’ll have a talk with him,” I said. “Maybe grab a couple of the others and camp out over the eluvian room?”

            “Sure thing,” they said, taking off.

            Spite grinned as the door closed. “Alone.”

            “Yep. We need to have a discussion about your recent conduct.”

            He breathed in deeply again, letting it back out in a contented sigh. “Smells like home, and sadness. Want to talk.”

            “Okay,” I said slowly, “we’re talking. Listen, you tried to –”

            He cut me off with a disgusted noise, jerking his head. “Boring! Don’t want. Boring talk. With you. You help us.”

            “Okay,” I said again.

            “Lucanis. Made a deal. He hasn’t kept.”

            I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you mean? What deal?”

            “Break our chains. Kill. Escape our prison. And live.” Another deep breath, and his glowing gaze dropped to the Anchor. “Mm. Home,” he said, almost to himself, taking a step forward.

            “Uh.” I rubbed the back of my head. “Listen, I don’t want to tell you your business or whatever, but I’m pretty sure Lucanis has already done all of that.”

            “No!” Spite barked. “I want out!”

            “You do go out! Last time we took you somewhere you tried to murder Illario, and you hit me with a magical bloody taser!”

            “Didn’t hit you!” he said sharply, sounding… what was that, offended?

            “No, I meant you got me with that –”

            “Would never hit you!”

            “Well, that’s… that’s good to know.” The little gremlin seemed entirely genuine, too. It suddenly occurred to me that Lucanis had effectively sworn himself into my service for saving him from the Ossuary, but from the way he told it, Spite would have suffered in that place just as much. Had I won myself a demon bestie when I pulled them out of there? “But still, we –”

            “No!” He shook suddenly, both hands coming up to grip his head. “No! He promised! Tell him! Make him –” When he lowered his hands, his eyes were coffee-dark again, blinking at me in confusion. “Em?”

            “Hi. Spite and I were just having a little chat.”

            “Did he hurt you?” he asked with surprising force. Though given what happened in Treviso, I supposed I got it.

            “No, not at all. We just stood here, talking about how he wants to get out more. He promised not to hurt me, in fact, quite sweet of him.”

            Lucanis nodded, looking away. “I didn’t want you to see that. Again.”

            “Oi,” I said, but gently. “How many times do I need to tell you that Spite doesn’t bother me?”

            He smiled wryly. “Three, maybe four more times.” When that made me laugh, he shook his head. “How do you always do that?”

            “What?”

            “Break apart my perfectly gathered clouds of doom.” His smile faded slowly. “You deserve better than to deal with my mess.”

            I made a show of thinking. “So, this would make it two, maybe three more times left of telling you I’m happy to deal with all this?”

            Lucanis let out a breathy chuckle, then began to amble across the room towards me. There was a softness in his eyes I hadn’t seen before, along with something else, something that made the room suddenly feel a lot smaller, and about ten times hotter.

            “This isn’t a good idea,” he said softly, placing one hand on the wall beside my head, giving me a really good look at his tanned, toned forearm as he did, thanks to the way he’d rolled his shirtsleeves up. His other hand came up to gently – so gently – press against my hip, easing me backwards until I was flat against the wall, the stone cold against my hot skin, even through my shirt.

            Something about it, about that cold solidity at my back, reminded me of my first kiss with Cullen, and for a second or two my head swam with indecision. I reached up to toy with one of the little silver crow skulls that studded Lucanis’ collar, to anchor myself, and as soon as my fingers grazed him his gaze dropped to my lips and back. Just like that, I was back in the moment. Painfully aware of just how many layers of clothing there were between us.

            “Let’s be real,” I said breathlessly, “’bad’ is the only type of idea I ever have.”

            He let out a low, husky laugh that threatened to unlock my knees and dump me right onto the floor. “So long as we’re on the same page,” he whispered, leaning in, so close I felt his breath ghost across my lips, coffee and mint. I thought I heard something over the thundering of my heart, something like a scream or a cheer so distant as to be almost inaudible… and then Lucanis jerked away from me, blinking. “I… need to clear my head.” He avoided my eyes as he laid a hand over his chest and backed away, mumbling, “Excuse me.”

            I stood there, slumped against the wall as he left, sure I must be wildly misinterpreting things, that he was just making sure the door was locked or that there was no one in the kitchen to overhear whatever we got up to. But then he didn’t come back. I stood there, waiting, as the burning in my face changed from excitement to shame, then to anger. When I was sure he wouldn’t be back, I walked briskly through the kitchen (empty), across the plaza (nobody but Assan, napping), and into the library, where I found Taash and the girls.

            “Oh, hi!” Bellara said brightly as I burst in. “Taash said Spite had made an appearance, and that you’d –”

            “Is there something wrong with me?” Uh oh, ability to properly modulate my voice busted, I’d pretty much shouted that. I tried to deliver my next statements in a more reasonable tone, but the result still wasn’t great. And I was pacing, round and round the edge of the library, why was I pacing? I looked insane. “Like, am I repellent in some way? Hideous? Off-putting?”

            “Nah, you’re hot,” Taash said. Harding elbowed them, and they looked down at her, confused. “What?”

            “Well, there’s got to be something! Fucking… As if, as if I’m going to have an issue with the demon thing! I’ve got Cole, and the Dad Wolf, and, fucking, my mother’s out there somewhere possessing a witch, but no, no, I… God, is it hot in here or what?”

            “Uh,” Bellara said as I marched past her, “I think I might be missing a little context here. Did Lucanis say something, or…?”

            I made an inarticulate sort of barking sound that might have been a laugh. “Oh yeah.” I rubbed at the back of my neck, hard, digging my fingertips into the knot of tension like I intended on ripping it clean out of me. “Yeah, he… I… It’s not like it’s straightforward for me either, you know? It’s only been three years since Cullen… Fuck, it’s already been three years. But I’m still willing to give it a go. Shit.”

            “Ah,” Neve said in tones of dawning comprehension, as I dropped into the high-backed armchair and started gnawing at my thumbnail.

            “What ‘ah’?” Harding asked.

            “I think Emma and Lucanis just had a moment,” Neve said teasingly.

            “We had half a moment,” I muttered. “Then he walked off. Is it me? Am I the problem?”

            “Are you joking?” she scoffed. “That boy can’t keep his eyes off you.”

            “But he walked away?” Bellara said, forlorn. “Just kissed you and walked away?”

            “Didn’t actually get to the kissing bit before he walked away, but yeah, more or less.”

            “Ouch,” Taash said.

            “Yep,” I sighed. “I just feel so stupid. I… After Cullen, I thought there was never going to be anyone else, you know? And I was fine with that. Fine with being a widow forever. If I couldn’t be his wife, I could at least… But then there was Lucanis, and I was putting myself out there, and it felt a bit like I was disrespecting Cullen, but it also felt right, and in the middle of all that he fucking walked away.”

            “Hate to play the neutral party here, but he really is dealing with a lot of his own stuff right now,” Neve said gently. “Not just Spite, everything with his family. Give him some time.”

            “No, you’re right,” I muttered. “You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Maybe I should just take this as my sign to back off. Neither of us are ready for something like this, just, wrong place wrong time, story of my life. I should –”

            “What, go back to being a widow forever?” Taash scoffed. “No. You’re going to wait him out.”

            “Wait him out?”

            “Yeah. Cause he’s clearly into you. So you just act like it didn’t happen. Be all cool, you know? Keep being you, because obviously he likes all that. Wait him out.”

            “As plans go, it’s not the worst,” Neve said.

            “Oh, but this is all so romantic!” Bellara cooed, going all heart-eyes. “The yearning, the longing, they want to be together, but circumstances push them apart! But then –”

            “Come on, Bel, don’t spoil the ending for me,” I said with a grin.

            She went on to talk animatedly to Neve and Taash about how our situation reminded her of some romance novel or other. Technically she was talking to me and Harding as well, but Harding had come over to lean on the arm of my chair.

            “Hey,” she said softly, “you know Cullen would want this for you, right?”

            “An abomination assassin?”

            “Alright, maybe not Lucanis specifically,” she chuckled. “But he’d be on board with you moving on. He’d want you to be happy.”

            I squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Lace.”

            Right then is when Davrin, Emmrich, and Manfred piled out of Emmrich’s room to tell us all about how the Gloom Howler used to be an elf (technically Manfred just hissed, but he sounded jazzed all the same), and then everyone remembered Abelas showing up, so I had to explain all that business, and thus we moved on from my disastrous liaison. Still, it had been nice to get some girl (and Taash) time in.

*

                        A few days later I woke up and just lay there, staring into my big horrible fish tank. At least, I thought that’s what had happened at first. Something about it felt weird, though I couldn’t really put my finger on what, exactly. There was just a sense of something being… off. Almost fuzzy around the edges. For a second, I wondered if I'd somehow been chugging elfroot tonic in my sleep.

            As I sat up, I froze, my breath catching. I’d heard movement; rapid, clicking footsteps approaching me from the doorway. There was something in there with me, seeming like it was trying to hide behind the back of the couch I slept on.

            Before I had a chance to freak out (or start blasting), a rough voice said, “Don’t be scared. Won’t hurt you.” It was weird, dual-layered. One was rough and unfamiliar, but the other was hissing and Antivan-accented.

            “Spite?”

            “Yes. Want to talk to you. Don’t be scared.”

            “Yeah, okay. Am I… am I asleep?”

            “Half asleep. Can’t find you in dreams. Lucanis won’t let me see you awake.”

            “Okay, well, come here so I can see –”

            The words caught in my throat as he shifted around the couch, climbing up onto the end of it. I don’t know what I’d been expecting exactly, but if pressed I’d have thought he’d at least be humanoid. Instead, I was looking at a head somewhere between a crocodile and a wolf, a body that seemed to be made up of swirling black ink, with half a dozen spindly, multi-jointed legs and two huge sets of magenta wings, each one covered with lidless violet eyes. It was giving me some real ‘biblically accurate angel’ vibes.

            “Don’t be scared,” he said again, surprisingly softly.

            “Not scared,” I said quickly. “Just, uh. Surprised, is all.” I pulled myself up so I was sitting cross-legged against the arm of the couch, trying very hard to look unphased as he slid closer. “What did you want to talk about?”

            “Emma has to help us. We’re trapped. You got us out. Get us out again.”

            I shook my head slowly. “Spite, I don’t… You’re out. I don’t know how I can be any clearer about that, you’re out, you’re safe. It’s alright.”

            “No!” he said frustratedly. “We’re still trapped!”

            “Are you… Is this, like, you don’t want to be with Lucanis anymore? Is that what you mean, you want me to find some way to separate you?”

            “No! Lucanis is mine. I’m Lucanis’. We’re us. Us isn’t the problem. Being trapped is the problem.”

            “Then I don’t… I’m sorry, I just don’t understand what you’re saying. You go outside a lot, you’re not trapped in the Lighthouse. You don’t feel trapped in Lucanis. I just… I want to help, but I don’t get it, you know?”

            Spite let out a frustrated growl then, to my surprise, rested his head on my knee. There were three eyes on his head, two where you’d expect them and one in the middle, each like pools of ink with a single pinprick of white light in the centre. All three pinpricks seemed to be focused on me as he lay there. “But you want to help?”

            “Yeah. Of course I do.” Hesitantly, I rested my hands on what seemed to be the back of his neck, prompting something like a contented sigh from him. “I want to help you both out. Shame you communicate like a mystical rat that speaks only in riddles and Lucanis –”

            “Lucanis ran away. From kissing you.”

            I sighed. “Yeah.”

            “Stupid Lucanis.”

            Laughing, I looked down at those ink-pool eyes. “My sentiments exactly.”

            “Shouldn’t have run away. Not from Emma.”

            “You wanted us to smooch, did you?” I grinned. “Hope you gave him shit after he walked off.”

            “Yes. Called him stupid. Emma saved us. Makes us calm. Should have held you, and touched you, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed.”

            Alright, hadn’t been expecting that. I instantly went red hot all over, and couldn’t help wondering if I was blushing. Would dream-me blush because real-me was? “Um,” I said, swallowing hard. “Well, good… good to know I’ve got you on my side, mate.”

            “Always.” Suddenly he sat bolt upright, one set of weird, clawed hands grabbing my shoulders, another gripping my wrists. “Don’t wake up yet! Don’t leave! Stay! Please stay!”

            “It’s alright, I’m not –”

            It felt like another hand, one I couldn’t see, grabbed my upper arm and shook me. With that, I was awake, really awake, lying on my couch bed with Davrin crouched beside me, shaking me gently.

            “Hey, sorry,” he said. “Evka just got word through. Apparently, the dragon that attacked Treviso just turned up in the wetlands, she wanted to know if we were on board with helping them kill it.”

            “Damn straight we are,” I said, wondering if I was still as red as I felt. “Let’s rock and roll.”

Chapter Text

Between us, Davrin and I woke the others pretty quickly, and everyone saddled up (metaphorically speaking) and headed out within the hour. We fell in another Solas memory on the way, this one tragically Felassan-free. It was about Ghilan’nain’s blight workshop, which was about as horrible as one would expect, and ended with Solas implicitly killing one of his agents who’d been blighted during their infiltration.

            The others were disgusted by his actions, and as I shoved another wolf statuette in my backpack I made a big show of feeling the same way, though deep down I wasn’t sure. If I had the chance to stop the blight completely (as far as I knew), at the cost of having to kill Gael or Marcus or Krem, could I do it? When I thought about the dreadnought versus the Chargers incident I thought I probably had my answer, but did that make me better or worse than Solas?

            We got to Lavendel without further incident, where Alistair and his team had already left, but Evka was ready and waiting for us. “We’ve tracked the dragon to a ruined tower nearby. Probably licking its wounds after the fight with you.”

            “Not sure we managed to do that much damage, truthfully,” I muttered.

            “Either way, we have ballistae ready with clear shots on the tower,” she said, “but it won’t come out into the open. Already lost eleven Wardens trying to pry it out.”

            “Only another dragon can fight a dragon in a tight space,” Taash said. “Anything else gets shredded. No room to dodge or keep your distance. We need to lure her out to have any chance.”

            “I take it you have a plan?” I asked.

            They smiled grimly. “Get me inside the tower. I’ve got a call that’ll grab her attention.”

            Sounded as good a plan as any. Evka said the Crows had been contacted but had done the medieval equivalent of leaving them on read, so it was just us and the Wardens. I sent our ranged team members to the walls surrounding the open field we’d chosen to fight the scaly bastard in, only taking Davrin and Lucanis with me (to be joined by Taash once they goaded the dragon, naturally).

            Before we could pass through the gate into the arena, Lucanis gently took hold of my elbow, leaning in close to say, “You should be on the walls with the others.”

            “I lead from the front, and this isn’t my first dragon.” I smiled, patting his shoulder. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

            “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He looked like he was going to say something else, but Davrin called back to us impatiently, so instead settled for simply saying, “Just try to be safe.”

            I wanted to slap him. I wanted to kiss him. Instead, I just said, “You too,” and hurried after Davrin.

            Taash did whatever it was they needed to do to get the dragon coming at us. The Wardens with the ballistae followed Taash’s instructions to rip holes in the dragon’s wings, and as she crashed to the ground in the arena Taash hurled themself down on top of the thing, while Harding and the mages peppered her legs and sides with arrows and blasts of power.

            It went well. I couldn’t believe how well, actually, but the whole lot of us, Wardens included, laid into her like it was a pheasant shoot. Eventually she managed to flap awkwardly onto a rise, overlooking the arena, swaying and letting out such pathetic, mournful cries I had to keep reminding myself that she must be suffering under the blight, and that killing her was a kindness, like putting down a rabid animal. She called to the sky… and a shadow emerging from the clouds called back.

            “Other dragon!” I bellowed uselessly, as the newly arrived Minrathous dragon spat a line of fire across some Wardens on the walls.

            The Wardens nearest the ice dragon quickly tried to finish the job, even as their siblings-at-arms screamed and burned, but before any could get within striking distance Ghilan’nain emerged from a puddle of blight, tearing through half the nearest squad in seconds.

            “Wardens!” she boomed. “You defied me at Weisshaupt! Stole my Archdemon! I will have blood for that!”

            With a wave of her hand, she summoned a horde of darkspawn that washed over the fighters on the walls. Another gesture, and the ice dragon was healed, both dragons leaping down into the arena to loom over my little team. All I could do was stand there, knowing I should be doing something, I should be issuing orders, but what the fuck could I say? Two dragons versus four of us. The writing was on the wall.

            Then a row of ballista bolts slammed into Fire, making her stumble and shriek. I could hear Viago shouting in the distance, and while I couldn’t make out his words, it was enough to know he’d brought extra ballistae. That might help, though probably not enough. We were still four people fighting two dragons in a death arena.

            A tight space, you might say.

            What was it Taash had just said about fighting dragons in tight spaces?

            I spun, taking advantage of the dragons’ brief distraction (Ice was yanking the bolts out of Fire, making low rumbles that sounded like she was trying to comfort her, something that honestly made me feel Not Great) to grab the neck of Lucanis’ breastplate and bark, “Get to Viago, tell him not to hit the third dragon.”

            “What are you –”

            “Please! Don’t argue, just tell him!”

            Looking very much like a man who wanted to argue, Lucanis nevertheless popped out his wings and shot off to join the Crows. Davrin and Taash were staring at me in bewilderment, Davrin asking, “What’s the plan?”

            “I’m either about to do something really cool, or I’m about to kill myself,” I said. “Possibly both. Nothing ventured and all that.”

            They both tried asking further questions, but I was already changing. It seemed to take longer than usual – becoming a bird took seconds, and felt sort of like when you miss a step while walking down stairs. This time it felt like I was being ripped apart, as if I was going to look down and find my skin hanging in ragged tatters, my joints and muscles popping in a way that made me think of a chicken being deboned. Staggering, shaking my suddenly much longer, larger head, I quickly looked down to make sure I was in one piece, only to see clawed feet and iridescent green scales.

            The ultimate Welshwoman’s dream. I was a dragon. Not red, though, tragically.

            “Awesome,” Taash laughed.

            As the blighted dragons turned from the Crows to face the new threat, I realised I wasn’t going to be able to hold the form for long. I was haemorrhaging power, like a fuel tank with a crack in it. That just meant I had to kill them quickly. I let out a satisfyingly intimidating roar, then launched myself at Fire.

            My new long, sharp-toothed maw clamped down on Fire’s snout, trying to twist her head sideways hard enough to break her neck, while my hind claws kicked furrows into her sides. Ice shredded my wings, seemingly in an attempt to draw my attention from her pal, which hurt like fuck but I just kept telling myself that they were extra limbs and I didn’t need to worry about them. When I ignored her ministrations, she hit me with an ice blast instead, and I felt my weird lizardy body respond by trying to go into a sort of torpor.

            Spinning to face her before she could put me in a coma, I only meant to scream for her to back off. Instead, I hit her with a wave of electricity that sent her stumbling back into the path of a ballista bolt. Breathing lightning. Huh. It felt sort of like projectile vomiting, which spoiled the romanticism of it slightly.

            We fought together from there, Davrin and Taash dancing about between our feet, hacking and slashing mostly unnoticed by the other dragons as we clawed and bit and breathed elemental ruin at each other. The Crows occasionally sent a bolt into one or other of the blighted dragons, thankfully avoiding me every time.

            It was a hell of a fight. Fire and Ice obviously had more experience at being dragons, and they had me outnumbered besides, not to mention they were both a little bigger than me. But they were also animals, and blighted. Between the human ruthlessness, and the joy of finally getting to just go feral and fucking bite someone, I thought I could probably have held my own even without the others backing me up. Despite the fact I was moderately concerned the power expenditure alone was killing me, I’d never felt so alive.

            As soon as the second dragon fell dead (I stuck my snout into a ballista hole in Fire’s neck and breathed lightning so hard it almost completely decapitated her) I let myself melt back into elf-form, dropping to my knees as I gasped for air. Davrin was beside me a second later, resting a hand on my back, the question of whether I was okay in his eyes. I nodded feebly. It was done. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and felt like I had the flu, but they were both dead, and we weren’t.

            Of course, then Ghilan’nain started reanimating the fucking things. I wouldn’t survive going dragon again, and while the darkspawn were all dead and most of the Wardens weren’t, if we had to keep fighting those big scaly bastards again and again…

            My gaze locked on a stray ballista that one of the dragons had knocked into the arena with us, already set up and ready to fire a bolt. “Fuck this,” I growled, and I staggered across the rough ground, almost in tears with exhaustion as I twisted it around and fired the bolt clean through Ghilan’nain’s midsection. She cried out and collapsed, and the blight tendrils pouring power into the dragons fell at the same time, leaving them both dead.

            “Press the attack!” someone yelled, and all remaining forces began converging on Ghilan’nain. But they’d need the dagger at my belt, wouldn’t they? The Wolf’s Fang was the only thing that could kill her. Fuck.

            “Maker, look at you,” Neve said, appearing beside me, hands already glowing with healing light.

            “Get me up.”

            “No chance!”

            “Neve, I’ve got to get the dagger into her. Get me up!”

            With a sigh, she slipped one of my arms over her shoulders and heaved me upright. We only made it three steps before a crackling ball of indigo energy appeared beside the fallen Ghilan’nain, hung there for a frozen second, then exploded, throwing everyone who had almost reached the bleeding god back. A figure stepped from the energy, tall and broad, his size only amplified by the robes he wore, which had some truly phenomenal shoulder-pads. Everyone around me froze in place, though Neve at least got a shield up before the spell caught her, saving us from being launched back into the arena.

            Elgar’nan. It had to be. Suddenly I could see what Solas had been talking about, since I seemed to be the only person able to move. If he’d wanted us dead, he could have strolled through the crowd lopping off heads at his leisure, like a gardener trimming roses. Luckily, he mostly seemed concerned with Ghilan’nain, pulling the bolt out of her and gently caressing her face.

            We were too far away for me to make out what they were saying. I slithered out of Neve’s grip and managed to take a few staggering steps towards them before my knees folded, which at least put me close enough to catch the word “Arlathan”. They both turned on noticing the movement, and I got a better look at Elgar’nan; grey-skinned, like a Qunari, with a big square face and long, curved ears.

            “One resists,” he said, sounding almost intrigued.

            “The Dread Wolf’s Pup,” Ghilan’nain said disgustedly.

            “Such defiance.” He definitely sounded into it by then, and actually took a step towards me. I set my jaw, trying not to look as freaked out as I felt, because given the state I was in he could have just scooped me up like a kitten. Luckily, Ghilan’nain grabbed his hand, reminding him she was there and injured, and so with one last appraising look my way he led her into another flash of indigo light, and everyone started moving again.

            “Crushed it,” I mumbled, as Neve hurried over to start healing me. “Think I’m going to have a nap, if that’s okay.” Then, slumping onto my face, I blacked out.

*

                        I was unconscious for a few hours, during which time our mages managed to heal most of my injuries. Afterwards, I found out that the dragon scales had caught the worst of the wounds, so I didn't come away with too many gnarly scars, at least. There was a nasty one on my back, presumably thanks to the wing-shredding, but beyond that I just had a few dozen faint white lines spread across my torso and limbs. It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.

             When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a crate with Lucanis sat beside me, his head in his hands. I prodded him in the upper arm. “Oi.”

            “You’re awake,” he said breathlessly.

            “I am.” I sat up slowly, with his help, and tested how I was feeling. Not a lot of pain, surprisingly, though the flu feeling seemed intent on hanging around. With a flash of panic, I asked, “Am I blighted?”

            “No,” he assured me quickly. “Thank the Maker, no. Emmrich says you’ve just pushed yourself too far. You’ll feel terrible for a few days, but otherwise you should be fine.” He shook his head. “You took an insane risk, cara.”

            “Fucking worked though,” I said, making him laugh.

            “It did,” he conceded, “and you made a majestic dragon. Very sleek, very shiny.”

            Evka realised I was awake and came over to say, “You know what lesson I learned today? Never bet against Emma Rutherford. Just when you think all’s lost, she turns into a dragon.”

            “Don’t know that it’s something I’m going to be rushing to do again,” I admitted.

            “The dragons are dead, but the gods got away,” Lucanis said grimly. “And now Elgar’nan has stepped from the shadows.”

            “I prefer to focus on the first half of that statement,” Antoine said cheerfully as he and Viago also drifted over to join us. “We came to kill a dragon, and instead killed a pair!”

            “And we have our revenge,” Viago said, giving me a nod. “As does Minrathous.”

            “We won the day,” Evka put in, “but Lucanis is right, the gods are still out there. How do we find them?”

            “Arlathan.” I shrugged as they all turned to me. “I couldn’t make out most of what they said, but I definitely heard them mention something about Arlathan.”

            “When did you have time to overhear anything?” Evka raised her eyebrows.

            “Whatever Elgar’nan did, I wasn’t affected. I just couldn’t make it to them in time to do any stabbing.”

            “The Veil Jumpers couldn’t be here today because they were having trouble with Venatori,” Antoine said. “That feels like it’s more than a coincidence.”

            “You’ll still need to track them down,” Viago pointed out. “Arlathan is a big place.”

            “Yeah, but that’s tomorrow’s problem,” I said. “Excellent work today, everyone. See you all soon.”

            I intended on punctuating that sentence by hopping up and strolling towards the eluvian, but it turned out I couldn’t walk. I just sort of stood up and then dropped straight back down. Taash had been hanging around nearby, and they wordlessly came up and slung me over their shoulder. Not the most dignified exit, maybe, but I was beyond arguing by that point.

            “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, by the way,” they said. “The dragon thing, I mean. You breathed lightning. Really awesome.”

            “Thanks, mate,” I said to the small of their back.

Chapter Text

I slept for most of the next day, waking up on a cot in the infirmary. Varric smiled when he realised I was conscious, and I managed to haul myself over to sit on the end of his sickbed with a huff.

            “Guess I missed a wild party, huh?” he said. “You turned into a damn dragon, and then Elgar’nan finally decided to show his face. Shame I wasn’t there for it. How did you know you could do the dragon thing, anyway? Ten years, and I’ve only ever known you to turn into a bird.”

            “It was something Mythal was meant to be able to do,” I shrugged. “And Flemeth, as well, she could go dragon. Since it was give it a go, or get eaten, I thought I might as well try.”

            “Wish I could have seen it,” he said.

            “Yes, it was a very impressive ten minutes, before I blacked out,” I scoffed. “If we’re talking about impressive magic… Elgar’nan teleported in, froze everyone, then teleported back out with Ghilan’nain, all with what seemed to be barely any effort.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I had no idea how we were going to deal with Ghilan’nain. Now there’s this.”

            “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a guy who can’t even turn into a dragon,” he teased. When he saw my sad attempt at an answering smile, he mumbled, “Well, shit.”

            “It’s just… something my dad said, that the guy would want me as a, you know. A consort. And I thought maybe he was wrong, that all the ‘bring the Pup in sort of alive’ stuff was about using me as a hostage against Solas or whatever. But the way Elgar’nan looked at me out there…”

            “You think Chuckles might be right?”

            “I think I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make sure we never have to find out.”

            As we sat there in silence, mulling that one over, the Caretaker materialised beside me, making me jump. They bowed, holding out a slip of paper. “Apologies for the interruption, Wolf’s Pup, but Dweller-who-is-Spite asked me to deliver this to you.”

            I took the note, thanking the Caretaker, who bowed again and disappeared. “Shit,” I muttered as I read the message, leaping up (as much as I could leap in that state) and heading for the door.

            “Everything okay?” Varric called after me.

            “Note from Lucanis, saying he’s trying something with Emmrich and if it goes wrong he’ll ‘deal with it’.” I paused in the doorway. “You don’t mind –”

            “Go,” he waved me away. “Stop him before he blows himself up.”

*

                        Thankfully, when I charged into Emmrich’s room there was no exploding happening. There was a corpse laid out on an embalming table, though. Zara’s corpse, as naked and bloodstained as the last time I’d seen it.

            “What the fuck have I walked in on?”

            Lucanis smiled. “Zara spoke to Illario before she died,” he said. “Emmrich’s going to talk to her. I have to know.”

            “I wouldn’t have offered my skills if I thought it was unsafe,” Emmrich said, with just a touch of reproach. He woke her up, and while I might have been a self-admitted spooky bitch who enjoyed hanging out with spirits, there was something about corpses hissing their secrets at me that set my teeth on edge.

            Zara (or the spirit puppeteering her corpse to make it speak, can’t imagine why I found that unsettling) started out by calling Illario ‘amatus’ again, which was a bad sign. When pressed, she added, “He fooled us both. You took what he wanted most in this world… more than coin… pleasure… family…”

            “The title of First Talon,” Lucanis said sadly.

            “Um,” I said. “But… he obviously still wanted you alive, right? Because Zara took you away, rather than killing you. So…”

            Zara’s corpse chuckled. “Death was the original plan… but this one doesn’t waste those with potential…”

            Well, fuck. I risked a look at Lucanis, who seemed caught between heartbroken and furious as he said, “And Caterina? Did Illario hire you to kill her?” Thank fuck the answer to that one was ‘no’, I didn’t know how he’d have handled it.

            “Uh,” I said hesitantly, “that brooch thing Illario used to put Spite down. What’s that about?”

            “Our risen god… gives many gifts…”

            “Right.” I slowly rubbed my hands over my face. “He’s working with Elgar’nan, of course he is. God, maybe that’s why he asked me –” I broke off, pressing my lips together, because what I’d been about to say as pretty much a joke – maybe that’s why he kept trying to get me alone in a boat with him – suddenly seemed too serious to take so lightly. ‘A gondola ride with good wine’, with that in mind, sounded more like ‘isolate yourself and enjoy a spiked drink’.  

            “He wanted to get you alone with him, so he could hand you to Elgar’nan,” Lucanis said, his voice chillingly calm. “Let her go, Emmrich. I’ve heard enough.”

            I looked up at him again, barely resisting the urge to reach for his hand. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

            “So am I,” he growled.

            “Where do we go from here?” I asked.

            “I take everything from him,” he said, stalking out of the room.

            “Listen, Emmrich, thanks for sorting this,” I said hastily, already backing away. “Really appreciate it, but I’d better –”

            “It’s alright,” he said, with a look of such indulgent knowing I was suddenly certain someone, most likely Bellara, had spilled the beans about me and Lucanis. “Make sure Lucanis is… as well as can be expected.”

            I hurried outside, though it turned out Lucanis hadn’t gone far. He was stood on the upper walkway with his head down, his hands clenched at his sides. I murmured his name, reaching out hesitantly to touch his shoulder, and he moved faster than I expected. Before I even realised he was turning, my back was against the wall and his mouth was on mine.

            Everything happened so fast, in fact, that for a few seconds I just stood there, not processing, arms by my sides. Then he nipped at my bottom lip, only gently, just enough to jolt me back into the moment, and I obligingly opened my mouth to deepen the kiss, letting him in, warm tongue and surprisingly soft lips.

            As I’d been wanting to do since the Ossuary, I reached up and wound my fingers into his hair. He let out a groan that was close to a growl and pressed closer, full body flush against mine, hands gripping my hips possessively tight before sliding up under my shirt to trace lines of heat over the bare skin of my stomach and ribs.

            It was good. It had been so long. I let out a pathetic little sound, more squeak than moan, and pushed back against him. Realising he was already hard drew another little squeak from me.

            Except…

            Except we were still on the upper walkway, in full view of anyone who happened into the library area, and I couldn’t say I was wild about the idea of another of my first kisses becoming a public spectacle. Let alone anything else promised by the way he was grinding against me, responding to my squeaks by rolling his hips against mine, trying to draw more sounds from me.

            Worse than that was the fact that Lucanis had just been really upset. Maybe that was why this was happening, I thought, he was hurt and messed up and had decided this was a way to make himself feel better. In which case I was taking advantage of his vulnerable emotional state, and he was using me as stress relief, which wasn’t healthy for anyone involved.

            “Lucanis,” I mumbled against his mouth. I tried to pull back, put some space between us, space to clear my head, but he only chased my mouth with his until my head was pressed back against the wall with nowhere to go. “Lucanis, hang on.”

            Freeing my hands from his hair, I got my arms between us and pushed him back far enough to look him in his eyes. His eyes which were glowing magenta. Ah, fuck.

            “Spite,” I said impatiently, pushing harder at him as disappointment slammed me in the chest. “Come on, don’t be –”

            Spite let out a definite growl then. Grabbing my wrists, he pinned them to the wall above my head, then went right back to kissing me, hungrier this time, biting harder at my lip when I tried to keep my mouth closed, hard enough for me to start worrying about bruises. Still weak as I was, post-dragon, I had no chance at slipping free.

            And God help me, part of me wanted it. Wanted to just give in and let him hold me there, to melt against him, to let him have his way, whatever that way was, because it was still more or less Lucanis, and Spite… Christ alive, was I so desperate for any sort of affection I was willing to take it from Spite?

            But then he seemed to realise I wasn’t going to kiss him back and switched to my neck instead, alternating lush, sucking kisses with sharp nips that succeeded in pulling little gasps from me. In the same moment he switched his grip so both my wrists were being held in his left hand, while his right hand dropped, first pawing artlessly at my breasts with a low groan, then pushing up my shirt to rest against the bare skin of my stomach. He paused there for a moment, as though gauging my reaction. When I didn’t respond quickly enough, caught up in my indecision as I was, his hand slid lower, fingers dipping below my waistband, at which point one thought lit up my brain like a neon sign exploding.

            What the fuck am I doing?

            A pulse of power burst out of me, slamming him back against the stone handrail, and for a sickening second I was sure he was going to tip over and plummet headfirst to the floor below. Then his wings burst out and flapped once, righting him. He stared at me, magenta eyes hurt, mouth open, as if he couldn’t believe what I’d done. Unfortunately, it made him look super hot, which only made me angrier.

            “When I tell you to back off, you back the fuck off!” I snarled, only managing to keep from shouting by reminding myself that Emmrich, Varric, and possibly Taash would be able to hear if I did.

            “But. You. Wanted!” Spite sounded hurt and confused, and the realisation that he hadn’t meant to upset me, that as a spirit he’d been acting without understanding things like nuance or repressed feelings, only served to make me feel worse, fuelling the fury in the process.

            “I wanted Lucanis! You… you doing this, it wasn’t fair on me or him. You’ve used his body to touch me without either of us giving you permission, and that’s fucked up!”

            “But. He. Wants!”

            That one was a real kick in the box, let me tell you. I had to take a deep breath before I could say, “Then he can tell me that himself. Unless that happens, you keep your hands to yourself.”

            Spite cocked his head, something vaguely predatory in the angle. “If he says. It’s okay. It’s okay?”

            “I swear to Christ –”

            But he was gone, the wings and the light in his eyes vanishing to leave nothing but Lucanis, leaning against the handrail, ruffled and confused. “Em?”

            “Hi. What, uh. What do you remember?”

            “Wh… I left Emmrich’s, and then…” He trailed off, looking at me, really looking at me, with my wild hair and rumpled clothes, lips bitten red and neck slowly purpling. His hand drifted up towards his mouth, before dropping lower and then, hastily and ashamedly, stripping off his waistcoat to hold it in front of him. “Mierda. That bastard.”

            “I thought it was you,” I said quickly. “You know that, yeah? When it started I thought it was you, and I couldn’t… I’d never take advantage like –”

            “Emma, I’m not angry because I think I was the one taken advantage of!” He shook his head. “This is why I… He cannot be trusted around you.”

            “I’m not scared of Spite, Luc, I just –”

            “Please.” He shook his head again and hurried down the ramp to the front doors. “Don’t. I have to be by myself.”

            I called after him, but he didn't even look back. Left standing alone again, I trudged off to my room, sat down, and for the first time in a while, I had myself a cry.

*

                        Davrin took me for another little picnic a few days later, to fill me in on a meeting he’d had about the Gloom Howler. Apparently he'd spoken to the woman who’d found Assan’s preserved clutch of eggs, along with a written account of just how the griffons had gone extinct.

            “It’s a Grey Warden, Isseya, who blighted all the griffons to death under orders from her First Warden, back during the Fourth Blight,” I repeated slowly. “Well. No wonder she’s so pissed off.”

            “But she’s going to use that anger to make the exact same mistakes all over again,” Davrin muttered.

            “No she’s not,” I said firmly. “Because we’re going to stop her.”

            He smiled. “Yes we are.” I realised he was looking closely at me, and had to resist the urge to cover the love-bite Spite had left me with. Nobody had mentioned it over the previous days, though I couldn’t help noticing the way their eyes kept straying to it when I spoke to them, and I was still too messed up post-dragon to want to risk Anchor-healing. Part of me wondered what they thought had happened, while a much larger part of me was very happy to let them remain in the dark. Instead of anything about that, Davrin said, “You know, you always get this look on your face out here. Arlathan, I mean. When the others aren’t around, when you’re not busy doing something else. Thoughtful. Kind of sad.”

            “Ah. It’s nothing, honestly, it’s stupid.”

            “Go on, you’ve got me interested.”

            I sighed. “It’s just… This is my homeland, you know? Like if things had been different, better, this is where I’d have grown up. Proper Arlathan, I mean, peak Arlathan. I might even have been born here, though I suppose she could have popped me out down in the temple where we found the Well of Sorrows. Maybe I should have asked Abelas about that, when he was here.”

            “Right. So, when you’re here you, what, feel like you missed out?”

            “That’s the thing, I don’t. I feel like I should, I feel like I should be all homesick or whatever. We've got this word back home - where I grew up, I mean, Wales. Hiraeth. The meaning's a bit opaque, but generally it means something like homesickness, especially for a place or a time that's been lost, and I feel like I should be getting that for Arlathan, right? But I just… don’t. I keep waiting for it to hit, keep telling myself I should be feeling it, but,” I shrugged.

            “Makes sense,” he said. “You were, what, in your twenties when you woke up? And then you spent a couple extra years thinking you were a human in an elf in Ferelden? Hard to build that longing for an ancestral homeland when you were already an adult before you found out you even had one. To you, your ancestral homeland is that Whales place.” I swear, I heard him misspell it.

            “Huh,” I said thoughtfully, picking at my thumbnail. “You know what, that makes sense. Thanks, Dav.”

            “Happy to help. Trust me, you don’t want to waste your time worrying about all the things you’re supposed to be. Nothing good ever comes from that.”

            Given he’d already told me about how he’d walked out on his Dalish clan to join the Wardens, chasing his desire to do something more with his life, I thought he probably knew better than me on the subject. And it made sense, on both fronts. Arlathan wasn’t my home, and even if it was, it wasn’t my grief to carry.

            Not a bad little picnic, all told.

            As we headed back to the eluvian we bumped into Bellara, hanging out in the Veil Jumper camp, wringing her hands. She hurried over when she caught sight of me, grabbing my hand with a feeble attempt at a smile.

            “Hey,” she said, “listen, so, I might have set up a meeting with Cyrian out there in the forest, and I kind of don’t want to go alone, just in case, so I was wondering if you’d maybe come along with me?”

            “Yeah, of course!”

            “We’ve got your back,” Davrin agreed.

            “Oh, sorry Davrin,” she said, immediately contrite, “but I’m meant to be meeting him alone anyway, and Emma might not scare him off too bad, but –”

            “Alright, I get it,” he said with a smile. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

            “As you should, you big strong man,” I teased.

            “All the same, I think I’ll at least come part of the way,” he said, his tone clearly saying we wouldn’t be able to talk him out of it. “That way, if anything goes down, I’m just a yell away.”

            “Thanks, Davrin,” she said quietly.

            Off we went, Davrin hanging back behind one last line of tree cover. Bellara and I found Cyrian already waiting for us in the appointed clearing, blinking at us.

            “Bellara. You came. I am surprised.”

            “I almost didn’t, with everything that happened… I didn’t want to. But… you’re my brother. Still. Even with all that.” She looked around uncertainly. “Did you come… alone?”

            “Yes.” Cyrian looked at me, mildly accusatory as he said, “Though you didn’t.”

            “I’m just here for moral support,” I said. “Though fair warning, if you try to turn Bellara into a demon, I will have to bite you in the face.”

            “What happened to the Veil Jumpers… that was not the intended effect,” he said. “The ritual should have granted them purity, strength. That it did not… that is my failure. I was not worthy. I will do better. I must do better. For Anaris. For our people.”

            “Oh yeah, Anaris, great guy,” I scoffed. “One of the guys elven legend remembers as being even more of a bastard than the Evanuris.”

            “So says the daughter of Fen’Harel,” he said pointedly. Well, fuck, he had me there. “Anaris is willing to do what he must to save us. To make the hard choices. The Evanuris, Solas,” he gestured towards me, “they would sacrifice us to their ends.”

            “He’s a warlord!” Bellara snapped. “That’s all he is. All he ever was!”

            “So said the Evanuris. But the victors write the histories. He fought to make our people great. And the Evanuris fought to keep them in fetters. He showed me the world as it once was, as it could be again!”

            “Yeah, that’s what Solas was trying to do, too,” I said. “Forcibly restore the glory of Ancient Elvhenan, never mind what that did to the people of today.” I gave him one of my too-many-teeth grins. “That’s why we put him in Fade Jail.”

            Cyrian’s jaw tightened. “Anaris will not be so easily cast aside. He is a great man, and together we will make the sacrifices necessary to restore our people.”

            “No,” Bellara said, “this isn’t you, this isn’t the Cyrian I know. Anaris is influencing you through the mask, he’s poisoning your thoughts!”

            “My thoughts remain my own, Bellara. Why can you not accept that I chose this willingly? Through this mask I feel what he feels. When he thinks of our people rising once more… Have you ever felt the warmth of a god’s happiness? Or the cold bite of their fear?”

            I jumped on that right away, narrowing my eyes as I asked, “Anaris is afraid of something? What’s he afraid of?”

            “I’m not sure,” Cyrian admitted. “But it haunts him. Consumes his thoughts. I must help him.” He turned to Bellara. “Help us. To face whatever it is.”

            “So he hasn’t told you,” Bellara said. “What it is he’s afraid of?”

            “No, but… no doubt he keeps it from me for good reason.”

            “Oh yeah, no doubt,” I said. “Jesus, he’s asking you to kill people, to warp them into demons, and you’re not even questioning why he’s doing it. You’re just blindly obeying because hey, he’s a god, he must know best! Not like every other god in the world has turned out to be a monumental bell-end.”

            “This isn’t you.” Bellara walked closer to him, and I had to fight the urge to yank her away, in case he tried something. “You were my anchor, Cyrian. You kept me grounded. When my thoughts lied to me, you always told me the same thing. Do you remember? ‘Trust your heart, Vora’shivan. It’s a good heart, and it’ll never lie to you’. So why won’t you trust it now?”

            She took his hands in hers, and for a moment it looked like he might be coming around. But then he dropped her hands, stepped away, and in a flat voice said, “I must do what I must.”

            “Me too,” Bellara said softly.

            Cyrian walked one way, and we went the other. I put a tentative hand on her back and quietly asked, “Are you okay?”

            “No,” she said, trying to smile. “If it’s really him, if the mask isn’t controlling him, then… I can’t help thinking, what if I go the same way? What’s to stop me from going over and serving a bad god, too?”

            “Hey, we aren’t our family. You’ll notice I’m not trying to burn the world down right now.” When that prompted the tiniest of smiles, I pulled her into a hug. “You know what’s right, Bel. You’re not going over to the bad side, because you’re a good person, and you know better.” I stepped back, cupping her face in both hands. “And if you ever need a reminder, you’ve got a load of good friends ready and willing to kick you back into sense, yeah?”

            She smiled tiredly. “Thanks, Em.”

            “Of course. Look, I know how hard it is, to have someone you love while also wondering how they can do such horrible things. But that doesn’t have to change who you are. And it… it doesn’t have to mean that’s who they’ll always be. People can change.” I shrugged. “Maybe he just needs time. Now come on, let’s get back to Davrin before Assan gets bored and eats him.”

Chapter Text

A few mornings later, I woke up and looked at all those wolf statuettes lined up on my desk and just thought… today’s the day. I grabbed one and marched out into the library, directing a thin stream of magic into it, to see if anything happened. The statuette began to hum softly, almost feeling like it was pulling me, like an iron filing seeking a magnet. I let it lead me to a pedestal under one of those empty patches of wall that looked like they might have been painted once upon a time.

             Placing the glowing wolf on the pedestal, my vision wiped, and as the mural grew back onto the wall (in the same style as the ones back in Skyhold’s rotunda, because of course), I found myself almost… living a memory. A memory of Solas begging Elgar’nan and Mythal not to become tyrants.

            “What the fuck?” I mumbled. I reached out cautiously, resting a finger on the wolf’s back, and the… whatever it was replayed, exactly the same thing over again. “Oh shit.” I thought of the other statuettes upstairs, of the other empty panels of wall, empty pedestals. “Oh shit!”

            Charging upstairs, I knocked on Emmrich’s door as politely as I could, until he answered. “Hello, Emma, is there –”

            “Can you go and round the others up, please? Get them all together around the table downstairs?”

            “Well, of course. Are you alright?”

            “Yeah, I just… I’ve found something out, and I want the team to know too. Full disclosure, right? I’ll grab Taash, just, summon the others, please?”

            “Very well, I shan’t be a moment.”

            As he set off, I hurried back to my room, picking up the remaining statuettes until my arms were crammed full of them. Time for a binge-watch.

*

                        Binge-watching turned out to be a bad idea, emotionally speaking. The team huddled around me as one by one I set down statuettes, triggering memories each time, though we ultimately ended up being one short. Once we were finished, we trailed over to the table and sat around it, except for Bellara and Lucanis, who stayed standing. Nobody spoke for a very long time.

            “Well,” Emmrich managed eventually, “those were… certainly revelations.”

            Fucking weren’t they just. The second memory involved Solas asking Mythal to run away with him, while mentioning that the Evanuris wanted to use the blight. The third was pretty straightforward, at least; Solas fucking up the ritual to seal the Evanuris away and forming the Veil in the process. The fourth… the fourth revealed that the Firstborn of the elves were spirits who chose to build bodies for themselves, stealing lyrium from the Titans to do so… and the fifth memory covered the fallout from that. Solas and Mythal ending a war with the Titans by turning them Tranquil.

            “Hey, Lucanis,” Taash said, “could Spite turn into an elf?”

            Lucanis stared at her, really seeming to consider his response before he settled for just saying, “No,” in the tone of someone stating the obvious.

            “We…” Bellara said, wide-eyed. “We were spirits. Spirits who chose to take physical form.”

            “To be clear,” Emmrich said, sounding even more professorial than usual, “that particular memory only shows that the first elves originated from spirits. You are no more spirits than anyone else conceived naturally.”

            “I’ll have to ask my mother,” Davrin said, quietly amused.

            “Does that go for me, too?” I wanted to sound calm and rational and unbothered, but watching those memories had been a little bit like being dragged into a dark alleyway and beaten to a pulp for my psyche, and my voice wouldn’t seem to stop shaking, no matter how hard I tried. “Do I count as… Because I always wondered how they managed to stash me away in the Fade for so long, and I’m, what, like... a secondborn? The spirity ones were called the Firstborn, right, so does that... So, what am I? Am I just a spirit? Just a… Christ, I’m just a spirit in a corpse, I’m literally an undead.”

            All those undead tottering around the Grand Necropolis, the bodies we’d fought in Crestwood and all those elven ruins, and I was no better than any of them. I was just an idea that had infested some poor dead girl's remains. For the first time in a long time my chest tightened, my throat closed up, and I realised I was having a full-blown panic attack. Ellana Lavellan’s body became a choking, strangling weight, and I would have run off to my room, if my legs hadn’t gone numb.

            “Hey.” Lucanis had crossed the room without my noticing, and he took one of my hands gently. “Listen to me. You are Emma Rutherford. You used to be the Inquisitor, and now you’re saving the world, freelance. You’re my… my friend. You’re you. That is what defines you, not any of this.”

            “He’s quite correct, Emma,” Emmrich said. “If you’ll allow me to speak as something of an authority on such matters, you are not an undead. I cannot speak as to how it was accomplished, of course, but your body truly is your own. You are not a spirit. You are a soul, a person, like any other.”

            “Except you can turn into a dragon,” Taash put in.

            I laughed, the pressure on my chest starting to let up slightly. “Thanks, guys.”

            “But of course.”

            “Any time,” Lucanis said, squeezing my hand once before he backed away to perch on the arm of the couch.

            “There’s one thing I’d like to say,” Harding spoke up, her voice tight. “Solas made the weapon that killed the Titans. No, not killed. He cut away their dreams and left them broken and mindless. He passed me in the halls of Skyhold for a year. He made polite conversation, and he knew. He knew what he did.”

            “I’m so sorry for what my people did to yours,” Bellara said.         

            “You don’t need to apologise,” Harding said.

            “Someone does,” I said. “I’m sorry, Lace. I can’t apologise enough for what they did.”

            “Emma…”

            “We aren’t our family,” Bellara said, soft but firm.

            “I feel like there’s a fucking limit to that.” I tried to smile, though it faded quickly, one hand coming up to rub the scar on the back of my head. “Mythal and Solas destroyed dwarven society. Then she was murdered, so Solas destroyed elven society. Then he had a nap, woke up, and decided to end human and Qunari society, too.”

            “At least he’s thorough,” Neve said, and that did make me smile.

            “Solas, Mythal, and Elgar’nan are the ones who need to apologise,” Harding said firmly. “Not Emma, not Bellara, not any other elf.”

            “Thanks, Lace,” I mumbled.

            “To do such a thing,” Emmrich said. “No wonder regret eats at Solas.”

            “That isn’t what Solas regrets,” Davrin said. “You heard what he said in the memory. ‘Those severed dreams will be driven mad. A disembodied blight of pain and anger’.”

            “Mierda,” Lucanis muttered, his gaze flicking back to mine.

            Bellara gasped out, “You can’t… That’s not possible!”

            “When a Warden hears the Calling, it’s like a song in the mind,” Davrin said. “Sound familiar to you, Lace?”

            “The song of lyrium,” Harding said. “Of the Titans.”

            Davrin nodded. “We think of the blight as this monstrous force with no mercy. No compassion. Evil incarnate. Instead, it’s a caged animal, mistreated and imprisoned for centuries, until all it knows is fear.”

            “If the blight is a corrupted dream,” Emmrich mused, “that would make darkspawn mindless manifestations of their anger.”

            “So, they Tranquilised all the Titans,” I said slowly, working through it as I spoke, “all to have unfettered access to lyrium, so they could build themselves bodies. That created the blight. Elgar’nan and the others wanted to use the blight, Mythal tried to stop them, so they killed her. Then Dad locked them all away, but destroyed Elvhenan in the process, and the blight started leaking out anyway. Probably when Corypheus and his gang of nerds broke into the Golden City…”

            I broke off as the realisation hit me, hoping it might keep the others from coming to same conclusion I just had, but I was too late. Harding let out a little gasp.

            “The Golden City,” she said. “It was meant to be the seat of the Maker, but… It was really the palace Solas used to trap the Evanuris in, wasn’t it? Which would make the Chant of Light… wrong.”

            “You’re saying we might have just disproved the entire Andrastian faith,” Lucanis said.

            “Did we?” Harding looked back at me.

            “The Maker could still be a thing,” I said, choking down the hysterical laughter I felt bubbling up my throat. Of course I’d just destroyed Andrastianism. Destroying culture was the family business, after all, wasn’t it? God, I hadn't even tried, it really must have been genetic. “The Evanuris didn’t make the world, did they? Who knows if there’s something above and beyond what we know. If it brings people comfort, let’s not fuck that up.”

            “Right, you’re right,” she said quietly.

             The others discussed religion a little while longer, and I tried to pay attention, really, but something was nagging at me. Rubbing the back of my head, once the others fell silent I said, “There’s another one of these things left, and I just… I don’t know how I’m going to… One of my families turned out to be imaginary, and the other can’t stop ending fucking civilisations.”

            “All of this,” Lucanis said, “where elves come from, the Maker, the Titans, it’s all a problem for after we have dealt with Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain.”

            “And then I want Solas to look me in the eye and answer for what he did,” Harding said, clearly still seething.

            I nodded, stood, and walked back to my room without another word. Dropping onto the couch that was also my bed, I stared into the fish tank and briefly considered doing my Somniari thing to have a go at Solas over… well, everything. In the end I decided against it. We still needed his help, and I didn’t think screaming my way into his prison and smacking the shit out of him would be productive.

            “Em? Are you alright?”

            “Thought you didn’t want to be alone with me,” I said, making a valiant attempt to smile as Lucanis came to sit beside me. “Sure you don’t want to call Taash in here to chaperone?”

            He didn’t say anything for a while. “I thought we agreed you could talk to me about things.”

            “Yeah,” I sighed. There was a loose thread on my not-jeans, and I started tugging at it, rather than risk looking at him. “You know… You know that’s the first time I’ve heard my actual mother’s actual voice? I sort of met her at one point, before I knew that’s who she was, but she was possessing another woman at the time, so she sounded different, and I’m not even sure how much of her was, you know, her. So that’s the first time, ever, I’ve actually heard her speaking. And it was her telling Dad that she just had to work with Elgar’nan. Fuck’s sake.” Crying again. Real banner month, Rutherford. I pressed a hand over my eyes, so he wouldn’t have to see, but he just responded by sliding closer and pulling my hand away, to first kiss it, then hold it.

            “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “To find out those things about your family would be one thing, but I can’t help feeling that reading the truth in some dusty book would have been less upsetting than having the memories played directly into your brain.”

            I gave a soggy laugh. “Ye. Can’t say that helped.” Shaking my head slowly, I said, “I’ve known he was a bastard since I found out who he was, obviously. But still, this is a whole new level of bastardry. The blight…” I hiccupped, shaking my head.

            “At least you’re in good company in being let down by family. Illario. Cyrian.”

            “Illario didn’t end the world, Lucanis.”

            He put a hand on my cheek, gently turning me to face him. “Neither did you,” he murmured. “So don’t torture yourself.”

            Lucanis’ thumb gently swept back and forth across my cheek, at first wiping away the tears, then, as far as I could tell, following the lines of my vallaslin. He mumbled something in Antivan, and I swallowed hard… and then someone started yelling my name downstairs.

            “Mierda,” Lucanis sighed, pulling away. “What now?”

            “It’s always bloody something,” I said, hurrying for the door.

            Out on the upper walkway I leaned over the handrail to look downstairs. Harding was yelling something at Taash, while the rest of the team were tensed up, ready to fight the skinny guy dangling limp as a scruffed kitten from Taash’s hand.

            “Harding says you know this guy,” Taash called, lifting the prisoner higher. He waved cheerfully.

            “Hello, Emma!”

            “Hi, Baby Bird!” I started hurrying downstairs, calling, “Taash, you can put him down, Harding’s right. That’s my son.”

Chapter Text

“Maryden isn’t with you?” I asked as I set Cole's clothes right and handed him back his hat. “You didn’t come through the Crossroads alone, did you?”

            “It’s alright, the spirits were very helpful. Hello, Scout Harding!”

            “Hi, Cole,” Harding chuckled.

            I quickly introduced him to the others, and thought Emmrich was going to have a heart attack over actually getting to meet the spirit who’d just decided to become human one day. Bellara was hardly any more reserved, shaking his hand so enthusiastically even Cole – Cole – began to look concerned.

            When I introduced him to Lucanis, who greeted him warmly, Cole said, “Oh, and you have a –” only to break off with an astonished, “Oh!” while both Lucanis and Emmrich gasped.

            “I am so sorry about him,” Lucanis said.

            “No, it’s alright,” Cole said. “He’s allowed his own opinion.”

            My poor Baby Bird got hate-crimed again.

            “Maryden went with Charter,” he explained as we all sat down. “They’re putting a lot of the non-combatants from the Inquisition days in Skyhold, for their safety. Easier to defend that way. Your parents are already there, Scout Harding. So are the Rutherfords.”

            “That’s good to hear, Cole, thank you,” Harding said.

            “You’re going straight there once you leave here,” I said. When he opened his mouth, I put a hand on his arm. “That wasn’t a question, just to be clear. You’re going somewhere relatively safe, and protecting the people there.”

            “Alright,” he said. “Um. I know you’re sad, but I can’t see why past the Anchor.”

            “Go around and touch all the wolf statues in here,” I told him.

            Cole blinked at me, but did as I asked. A few minutes later he came and sat back beside me, looking sad… but not surprised.

            “You knew,” I said tonelessly. “All of it?”

            “Please don’t be angry,” he whispered.

            I grabbed his hand quickly. “I’m not angry with you, Baby Bird, I know you don’t tell hurts that aren’t yours to share.”

            “Please don’t be angry with Solas, either.”

            My jaw clenched. “Everyone, would you mind excusing us for a few minutes?”

            Keeping hold of his hand, I pulled him, gently but inexorably, to the infirmary. Varric sat up as we came in, looking delighted as he cried, “Hey, kid!”

            “Hi, Varric,” I said brusquely, before turning back to Cole. “Don’t be angry with Solas, yeah? Look at what he’s done. The laundry list of heinous bullshit, starting with creating the blight and ending with stabbing one of our friends in the fucking chest. It’s a miracle Varric is still alive. Though I can’t imagine you’re too surprised to hear he could do something like that, given you’re the one who told me what he did to Felassan. I’m not angry at you, Cole, please don’t think that for a second, alright, but you can’t keep making excuses for Dad.”

            Cole had been staring at Varric in abject horror, turning wide eyes on me as I spoke. He gazed at me for a long moment, mouth working silently. Eventually, he choked out, “Emma, I –”

            Before he could say anything else I tossed my head, which must have pinched a nerve in my neck. I gasped, clapping a hand to the side of my head and grinding my teeth together as pain spiked through my brain like a lightning-strike migraine. I frantically dug my fingers into the muscles at the back of my neck, and when the pain faded Cole was holding my shoulders, looking concerned.

            “I’m alright,” I said. “I’m alright, Baby Bird, I’m fine, I just… I maybe need a massage, that’s all.” I gently patted his cheek with a little laugh. “I’m okay, I promise. Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so mean. I’m so happy to see you, it’s just you… you’ve come at a bad time.”

            “Or maybe I came when I could help you,” he said. “You’re upset because you’ve finally found out the truth, but –”

            “Cole, babydoll, my darling son-boy, if you try to sell me the sad-wolf shit again –”

            “But he is!” He grabbed me by the elbows, his eyes taking on that hazy, distant look they often got when I first knew him, but which had become less common since he yelled at that ex-templar. “You need to make him see the truth. He’s caught in his steps, bound and burdened, blinded to better ways, but his dream can make him see another path to walk.”

            “Okay.” I quickly pulled him into a hug, rubbing his back. “Thanks, Cole, I’ll bear it in mind, I promise. Now, want to hang out with my new friends for a bit?”

            “Yes.” He paused in the doorway. “Goodbye, Varric.”

            “Sorry, would you –”

            “It’s alright,” Varric chuckled. “The team are more fun than I am right now. Just, maybe look in on me later, because I’m a little lost over here.”

            “You’ll get the full story, I promise.” I gave him a grin, then wrapped an arm around Cole’s shoulders and walked him downstairs.

*

                        Somehow, Cole being there succeeded in cheering me up. I’d have thought nothing had the power to do that, but watching him with the team – Bellara and Emmrich peppering him with questions he was only too happy to answer, discussing proper dagger maintenance and preferred techniques with Lucanis, chatting about old times with Harding – turned out to be exactly what I needed. He even stayed with me overnight, sleeping on a bedroll on my floor, though he had to set out first thing the next day.

            When I woke up it was to find him already gone. I was hurt for a moment, thinking he’d taken off without saying goodbye, but no, I could hear his voice outside my door. I hurried out to find him talking animatedly to Manfred, who was still only hissing and squeaking, but in a way that suggested he was having a good time. I sidled up to Emmrich, who was watching them with a fond smile.

            “Lovely to see our boys getting along.”

            “Manfred does so love meeting new friends,” Emmrich said. “Your son is a fine man, you know. You must be very proud.”

            “Technically he did most of the hard stuff himself,” I smiled. “But yeah. I love the little guy.”

            Cole hugged Manfred as part of his goodbye, sending the skelly lad into paroxysms of delight, then came over to say, “It was nice meeting you, professor. If you have other questions, please write to me. I like getting letters.”

            “Of course!” Emmrich said cheerfully. “And feel free to correspond with me, Cole, on any topic you like.”

            “Wonderful, thank you!”

            “Come on, I’ll walk you out.” I slung an arm around his shoulders and we traipsed on down to the eluvian. “I can’t thank you enough for coming, Baby Bird. You know you’re welcome here any time you like, yeah?”

            “I know, and any time you need me I’m just in Skyhold. Everyone there would be happy to see you.”

            “I’ll bear it in mind.”

            Stood before the glass, he hugged me tightly, whispering in my ear, “Think about what I said.”

            “I always do,” I teased. “But fine, I’ll think about the Dad stuff especially. There’s one panel left out there, by the way. Can you maybe give me a heads up?”

            “No.”

            “No, because you still don’t feel like it’s your place?”

            He squeezed me even tighter. “No, because I wouldn’t be able to narrow his regrets down.”

            Oh, Dad. I let Cole go and stepped back, patting him on the cheek. “Be safe, little man.”

            “You too, Emma.”

*

                        I’d barely gotten back upstairs before I was accosted by the entire team. It seemed a whole Dalish encampment had gone missing, but at the same time Teia and Viago had asked for an urgent meeting in Minrathous. I was about to suggest prioritising the Dalish when Bellara spoke up.

            “So why don’t Emma and Lucanis go to Minrathous, and the rest of us can head out to Arlathan?”

            “Right,” Neve said, and something in her voice made me immediately suspicious that I was being set up somehow. “You two can always fly out to catch up with us after your meeting.”

            So that was that, Lucanis and I headed off to the Cobbled Swan, mostly making polite conversation about Cole along the way. The Crows were waiting for us in the pub, and they wasted no time in telling us why we were there; Caterina.

“I’ve got my eyes on Villa Dellamorte,” Viago elaborated. “One of them brought back one of Caterina’s rings.”

            “It had been thrown out with the trash,” Teia added. “Illario would never do that. He’d at least pawn it somewhere.”

            “You think it’s a message,” I said, glancing at Lucanis. “That she’s saying she’s still alive in there.”

            Teia gave me an approving nod. “Her opal ring, Lucanis. You know what that means!”

            “She gave that ring to my mother,” Lucanis explained for my benefit. “It was a mark of her favour. House Velardo killed my parents and sent it back to Caterina to demand she surrender the seat of First Talon. She’s alive!” He frowned. “Illario, you idiot.”

            “We need more eyes in the villa to say for certain,” Viago cautioned.

            “Illario would tear the city apart searching if he lost this,” Lucanis said. “How could she be alive? What is he thinking? How am I supposed to deal with this?”

            I stood there, unsure of how much I was allowed to intervene, as Teia demanded action and Viago cautioned restraint and Lucanis got more and more upset… until finally his hand shot out to grab my Marked one. The world paused around us, and Spite looked at me with those glowing eyes to hiss, “Help us.”

            After a second in which I considered telling him to go fuck himself, I sighed and said, “Of course. What can I do?”

            “He’ll listen! He always listens to you! Come!”

            Spite tugged on my hand, hard, and my vision went white. When it cleared, I was in the Ossuary. Only it wasn’t really the Ossuary, it was… Well, not the Fade, either, or somewhere like the Fade prison, or even Solas’ memories, but at the same time it felt weirdly similar to all three.

            “Hey, Spite? Where are we?”

            “Lucanis is here.” Rather than the weird creature he’d been in my dream, Spite still looked like Lucanis in there, albeit a glowing purplish version. He sounded entirely like the second voice I’d heard from his real version, rough and gravelly with no trace of Lucanis’ accent. Alright then. “Always. Behind locked doors. I can’t break through.”

            “Okay. So let’s find him.” I looked around as we set off, Spite sticking close. “He’s here… Is this why you keep saying you want out? You think you’re still here?”

            “We are. Still here,” he growled.

            I dropped down a few broken slabs of floor, and then made the mistake of noticing a shadow on the floor and looking up… at the enormous whale-shark-thing cruising through that fathom-deep water…

            My legs unlocked, threatening to dump me to my knees in the sand. Except, Spite caught me. Got an arm around my waist and took my weight against him, looking confused, and maybe a little concerned.

            “Hurt?” he asked, looking me up and down.

            “Nn. Water,” I choked out. “Deep water. Got a bit… phobia.”

            “Hm.” He looked up, then back at me. “Not real water. So don’t be scared.” The hand that was wrapped around me patted my ribs firmly. “Can’t hurt you.”

            I couldn’t help smiling. “Appreciate it, mate.”

            “Hm.”

            Feeling a little better now he’d pointed that out, I managed to get my legs under me, Spite reluctantly letting me go. When we set off again he stuck close to me, watching intently, as if expecting me to keel over at any moment. Which, like, fair.

            “So…” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable under that constant scrutiny. “What do I have to do to find Lucanis? Oh Christ, please don’t tell me… Last time I had to do something like this, I had to fight a load of spidery bastards, I don’t have to do anything like that this time, do I?”

            He looked at me like I was an idiot. “You have to get past the guards. It’s a prison!”

            “Ohh, thank fuck.”

            Spite kept staring at me. “Scared of spiders?”

            “Yep.”

            “Hm. I’ll keep them away. From you. If we see any.”

            “Oh. Well, thanks.” He just gave me another ‘hm’ in response, but he looked less scowly, at least.

            It turned out I didn’t have to fight anyone, in any case, not even the jailers. I had to smash a warding crystal to get through a door into a sort of storage room, one I recognised from the real Ossuary, but nothing actively tried to prevent me from progressing. Just inside the room I found a series of notes that felt uncannily similar to the books I’d read in Vir Dirthara, moments captured on paper. In this case, it was things I’d heard Lucanis say, coupled with the thoughts he’d been having at the same time. Thoughts about Caterina and Illario. All I have left, all I have left, all I have left…

            “I don’t think I should be here,” I mumbled.

            “You should,” Spite said firmly. “Emma’s the one who opens doors. You help us. There – jailer.”

            It was Caterina, or something that looked like her, at least, yelling at me for promising to bring her grandson back and returning an abomination instead. “Old stale fear of disappointment,” was Spite’s input. Helpful.

            “Is this… another spirit, or…?”

            “No, Lucanis is mine, they won’t dare,” Spite snapped. “Thoughts live here. Ideas. Feelings.”

            “This is how you think Caterina would think about you?” I said disbelievingly. “Lucanis, come on. She’s not going to stop loving her grandson, who she raised, just because you’re –”

            “Possessed by a demon!” she said stridently.

            “So? The demon’s mostly chill, look at him.” I gestured towards Spite, who gave Caterina an endearingly smug smile. “He’s fine. Would you stop loving Caterina if she got possessed?”

            Caterina stared levelly at me for so long I was worried I’d fucked up somehow, that we were just going to be stuck in there forever. Then she morphed into a warding crystal. After I broke it, opening the next door, Spite grabbed me by both shoulders, just for a second, squeezing. I smiled at him, and we carried on.

            It was Harding next (funny, if we were going to have a team member shouting at him, I’d have expected Davrin), who tried to convince me there was no Lucanis, only Spite. That was pretty easy to get through, given Spite, who was a very different guy, was stood right next to me the whole time. The mind-notes I kept finding (kill me and Spite dies, Spite is waiting, Spite is winning) only made me feel worse and worse, which Spite picked up on right away, watching me as closely as he was.

            “You want me to go,” he muttered. “Want to take back Lucanis. Just Lucanis.”

            “No, I don’t,” I said, and even as the words came out, I realised they were true. I’d gotten attached to the little freak. How about that? “I want you two to work it out. To figure out how to live with each other, I mean, to work together properly. I don’t want either of you without the other, not so long as you’re willing to get along.”

            Spite whipped around so he was blocking my way, staring into my eyes with his head cocked. “Want me?”

            I swallowed. “Uh. Yeh. Want you both, if that’s… an option…”

            He grinned. “Want me,” he said. Then he put a hand on the back of my neck, pulled me in, and kissed me.

            Given he was technically in his own body in that dreamscape, I let myself kiss him back for a while. Running my hands through his hair, pressing myself against him, I sighed contentedly. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it. Just being held by someone who cared about me, his hands rough but not aggressive as they ran over my hips and back, groped at my breasts. They roved over me continuously, as if he wanted to touch as much of me as possible, and I loved it. I felt wanted, you know?  

            Of course, then he dropped a hand to rub between my legs, and for all I wanted to just drop down onto the sand and have him right there and then, we had other business to attend to. The thought of explaining to Lucanis that I left him trapped in his nightmare prison to have a quickie with the demon possessing him was enough to make me put my hands on Spite's chest, pushing him gently. Unlike in the library, he pulled back immediately, though with a disgruntled growl. His upper half pulled back, at least. His hand kept moving against me, as if trying to tempt me back. Not a bad call on his part, honestly.

            “But right now,” I said, breathless, my head spinning, “we need to get you both out of this place.”

            For a moment he stared at me with such intensity I thought he was going to go right back to kissing me, and I wasn't sure what my response would have been if he did. In the end, he just sighed, said, “Later,” and we carried on.

            Imaginary Neve came next (imaginevery?) and other than the fact even Lucanis’ projection of Neve called me a soft touch, the main point of interest in there was another memory-note. “I didn’t want you to see that. Again. (I’m not this. I cannot be this).” Oh, Lucanis.

            Last up was Fake Illario, and his flirting was doubly weird that time given a) it was a projection from Lucanis’ psyche, and b) the whole thing about how Illario was just trying to seduce me for Elgar’nan.

            Spite looked amused. “Sharp,” he said. “Jagged edges. Hurt with every breath. Grief and relief. Hope and anger. Mixed.”

            “I’m so sorry,” I said. “After everything you went through, you shouldn’t have to deal with this dickhead too.”

            “He. Put. Us. Here,” Spite growled. “Tried to steal Em.”

            “You’ve got to leave this be, cara,” Illario said, giving Spite a disdainful look. “You turn my cousin loose, it’s only going to cause more grief.” When my only response was a dismissive wanking gesture, he ground his teeth together. “Do you really think he made a deal with a demon? Or do you think maybe he just found one there already?”

            “That’s not how this works!” I said derisively. “That’s not how any of this works! You’re literally possessed by a literal demon, Luc, this isn’t a fucking metaphor. Here he is, look. Spite.” I patted the demon in question on the shoulder, and he smiled proudly.

            Fake Illario vanished with a disgusted, “You have no idea what the consequences will be.”

            “Don’t care, didn’t ask.” I smashed the last crystal, and we finally found Lucanis, standing with his shoulders slumped in the old torture room. “There you are!”

            “Em?” he said, astonished, as we jogged up. “What are you doing here?”

            “Are you joking? As if I was going to leave you trapped in your watery mind palace. Now, come on. We’re busting you out, time to go home.”

            “No. You should just go. It’s better I stay here than risk losing you.”

            “You see?” Spite barked. “He breaks. Our agreement. His mind. Is still here. He wants. To stay here. So he keeps. Me here!”

            “Mierda! Why would I want to stay? Even in my head, this place is a nightmare!”

            “Because it’s easier than trying to move on.” I shrugged when he blinked at me. “I’ve got some insight now, remember. I think I know what’s up. In here, the real Ossuary, I mean, it was all about surviving. Just… not dying, day to day. And then you got out and you had to work out how to live an actual life again, this time with a demon on board, and with all the family stuff dropping on you as well, and it would just be… I don’t know, easier, to stay in a situation you’ve already dealt with, rather than trying to fix all the other stuff.”

            “No!” Lucanis shouted. “I… this is not… Damn it, Em!”

            “Make him leave!” Spite yelled.

            “Alright, you’re both going to stop raising your voices at me right fucking now.” When they both looked appropriately chastened, I nodded. “Right. So, we’re going to find a way to deal with this that makes everyone happy. If it kills me.”

            Lucanis shook his head. “I want to, but… it’s just so much. I cannot see how to begin.”

            “I said that to Varric, about all this god shit. He told me to just work things out a bit at a time. Start small, build up, step by step.”

            “Emma wants us both!” Spite told him, in a tone that suggested he genuinely believed that would help, somehow, the fucking lunatic. Lucanis looked at me in bewilderment.

            “I, uh.” My cheeks flared so hot I was worried my whole head might catch fire. “Yeah. True. But I’m not sure that’s a big help right now.”

            “Hm.”

            “Really?” Lucanis said, clearly caught between amusement and intrigue.

            “I mean, he’s like… a gremlin version of you, what’s not to like?” I said, longing for death.

            “But you pushed him away in the library…”

            “Well, yeah. I’m not going to use your body without your permission, and you were upset, and… I don’t know, there was a lot going on.”

            “A contract then!” Spite burst out, cutting off Lucanis’ smirking.

            “Contracts are for clients,” he said. “Call this an alliance. But on what terms?”

            “I feel like that’s obvious,” I said. “Save Caterina, give Illario a kicking.”

            “I cannot kill Illario, even –”

            “A kicking, I said. There’s a long road between killing someone and kicking them in the slats a few dozen times.”

            “Emma’s my favourite!” Spite said delightedly.

            “Do we have a deal then?” Lucanis asked him. “We free Caterina together?”

            “Together,” Spite agreed, “we will fight.”

            Everything went white again, and the next thing I knew Viago was asking what was wrong with us, which like, mate, we didn’t have all day. I looked at Lucanis, who was blinking a lot but looked like himself, and said, “Yeah, we’re good. We’re good?”

            “Better than good,” Lucanis said quietly, smiling.

            He asked them to keep an eye on Illario, and then we returned to the eluvian together, hand in hand. I still wasn’t entirely sure what we were to each other, but at least he was holding my hand. Right then, that was enough for me.

Chapter Text

By the time we made it to Arlathan the gang were already back at the Veil Jumper camp, talking with Strife and Irelin. Absolutely nobody present looked in any way happy. Shit.

            “What did we miss?” I asked, reluctantly releasing Lucanis’ hand as we walked up.

            “The Venatori have kidnapped a whole Dalish clan,” Strife said. “Glad you could join us.”

            “Wh – Bu – How? No, sorry. Why? A whole clan?” I said, like a dumbass.

            “They’re going to sacrifice them,” Bellara said. “At least this clan, maybe more. Oh, but we’ve worked out where they must have been taken! Kind of. There’s this old lake, in a crater Tevinter blasted into the land back in the day, and Neve did some detective work, and I’m sure that’s where they’re being taken!” She turned to Strife and Irelin. “We have to help them!”

            “We will,” Strife assured her. “But it’ll take time to put together a rescue party.”

            “Well, as soon as you’re all set, get word to us,” I said. “You’ll have our full support.”

            “Uh huh,” Strife said, and it occurred to me that maybe choosing the Crows over the Veil Jumpers, even if it hadn’t really been my personal choice to do so, hadn’t exactly endeared me to the guy. Maybe I could make up for it by getting the Dalish back. “We’ll be in touch.”

            “Thank you,” Irelin said, and she smiled, so hopefully it was just a Strife thing.

            The whole lot of us trooped back through the Crossroads together. As we walked, I realised I enjoyed being out in a big gang like that. It reminded me of the good old days, when Cassandra refused to let me travel in a group smaller than half a dozen strong.

             Bellara grabbed my arm, pulling me back to allow Lucanis, Davrin, and Emmrich to walk on ahead, the lads quietly filling Lucanis in on everything we’d missed. I was expecting to get a similar briefing of my own, until Bellara whispered, “So, how’d it go with Lucanis?”

            “Oh, right. Well, it turns out there’s a chance Caterina’s still alive, so –”

            “While that’s certainly interesting, it’s not exactly what we were asking,” Neve said. “We were asking how things went. With you, and Lucanis.”

            “So this whole thing was a set-up then? Like an enforced date?”

            “Yeah,” Taash laughed smugly.

            “We saw the way he ran off after you when you were upset yesterday,” Neve added, “and decided we couldn’t stand back and let you two blunder about any longer.”

            “Cheers, yeah.”

            “What happened?” Bellara shook my arm.

            “Well, on that front… God, I don’t know, the guy’s super hard to read.”

            “D’you guys make out?” Taash asked.

            “No,” I sighed, hoping nobody noticed the blush creeping up my neck. It wasn’t really a lie, I didn’t kiss Lucanis, did I? “We held hands, though.”

            “That’s sweet,” Harding said with a smile.

            “I think he’s on board. Spite’s very much in.”

            “Really?” Neve said. “How do you feel about that?”

            “She was making out with him a couple days ago, so I guess she’s into him too,” Taash said. When I stared at them in open-mouthed horror, they only grinned. “Walked out my door and saw you two going at it. I was gonna help out, when he started getting pushy and all, but you seemed to have it in hand.”

            “You what?” Bellara squeaked.

            “The situation,” I hissed. “They meant the situation, nothing else was in hand, Jesus Christ.”

            “Your boobs were.”

            “I’m going to kill myself.”

            “So, what, you’re going to be with both of them?” Harding asked, sounding like she was barely holding back laughter. “How does that work?”

            “Honestly, I don’t know at this point,” I said. “Spite’s been very clear in his intentions. It’s a bit refreshing, actually. Lucanis… less so. But I think they’re both on board. I really think so.”

            “But won’t it be weird, being with a spirit?” Harding said. “Or demon, or whatever?”

            “Nah,” Taash waved a hand airily. “Em’s kind of a spirit and kind of not, right? Makes sense she’d be with someone who’s the same.”

            The girls looked at me, clearly worried I was going to be upset. Instead, I smiled and said, “Match made in the Fade.”

            “Hey, cackling hens!” Davrin called.

            “Hey, fuck you!” I called back, making him laugh.

            “Got one of those big blight nests up here. I thought maybe since there were so many of us out here, we could deal with it before heading home.”

            “Works for me, if everyone’s feeling fresh enough,” I said.

            The general consensus was agreement. As it turned out, it was a good job we did it with the whole team on hand. The hordes of undead weren’t the issue, we went through them easily enough, but the thing commanding them was like a revenant on steroids. When it telekinetically yanked me across the room, the force was so great I swear it almost broke my neck on its own. Emmrich’s barrier (as sturdy and reliable as the man himself) shattered after one swing, slamming me down onto the ground with the air knocked out of me.

            I rolled aside as the blade came down, clearly intending on chopping me in half lengthwise. The sword was swung with such force it embedded into the stone beside me, giving me a few seconds to scramble away before the revenant could free it. Lucanis landed beside me, wings out as he easily lifted me to my feet and spun me away. I expected the thing to go after Davrin or Taash next, since they were both hacking away at it, but it just continued lumbering towards me.

            “HIS BACK, TURNED!” it roared as it brought the blade down again, moving so fast I had to Fade step to avoid it. The revenant turned the blade before it would strike the floor, spinning it into a smooth sideways stroke that I barely avoided, while the others hammered attacks into its back unheeded.

            “Why does it feel like it’s trying to kill you, specifically?” Lucanis asked as he slashed up into the revenant’s descending arm, arresting its movement just enough to allow me to slip aside.

            “A lot of people try to kill me specifically,” I panted. “I try not to take it personally anymore.”

            He wasn’t wrong, though. Whatever I did, the revenant kept coming after me, shrugging off everything the others could throw at it in its determination to cleave me in half. It absorbed all the damage while barely slowing down, making me worried just how much longer I was going to have to keep up my retreat.

            “FOR FREEDOM!” it roared. Taash had intercepted its sword, pinning it between both their axes, so the revenant settled for slamming me with its shield instead.

            I might have been able to avoid it, but the thing’s words had briefly taken me out of the moment. I’d heard that before. Somewhere in the Crossroads. Why was that familiar? Why did it make me sad?

            Oh, right, I was lying on the ground. I Fade stepped myself upright, pressing the Anchor over the cut on the side of my forehead – turning my head at the last second had saved my nose, at least. As the Anchor flared, the revenant let out an ear-splitting howl and sent out a cloud of something that looked like glowing fog in the form of a screaming skull-face. The cloud picked me up and launched me through the air, dropping me across the room from the others, slamming me onto the steps below a sort of throne with a bone-rattling thud.

            Before I could catch my breath, the revenant leapt across the room, literally hopped over the heads of my friends and fell at me, sword extended, ready to drive it through my chest. I rolled away again, but it slammed the edge of its shield down on my outstretched arm, snapping the bone clean in two.

            I screamed, and the revenant leaned down over me, glowing eyes staring into mine as it rumbled, “FOR THE WOLF.”

            “Felassan?” I whispered, even though it was ridiculous. There were no ghosts in Thedas, the souls of the dead were gone for good… except in cases like Cole, and the version of Divine Justinia we’d met in the Fade. Was this a demon that had latched on to Felassan somehow? Feeding off his sense of betrayal? No wonder it hated me.

            Between the pain and the revelation, I hardly noticed as it raised the shield again, this time bringing it down towards my head. Luckily Emmrich and Bellara both hit me with barriers before impact, preventing my head from exploding like a ripe melon. Then Davrin ran into the revenant at top speed, sending it stumbling into the knot of blight tendrils behind the throne, and Taash lifted me to shove me behind them.

            “Are you alright?” Lucanis demanded.

            “Arm’s broken. Left arm,” I said, my voice tight with pain. “Don’t think the Anchor can… Oh, come on.”

            It was already charging back at me, and I’d lost my staff when the glow-cloud hit me. Casting without a focus was difficult, not to mention exhausting, but my other option was to keep running away, and fuck that noise, not with a broken arm. I held out my good hand, focused, and lightning arced from me to the revenant, going full Palpatine with it. I poured power into the bastard until I couldn’t anymore. Thankfully, as I collapsed, so did that damn thing.

*

                        Bellara was beside me seconds later, pouring healing energy into my arm. Lucanis was on my other side, holding my right hand as Bellara willed the bone to knit back together, and what can I say, I’m a simple woman, because just having him there made me feel ten times better.

            “The Anchor can’t help with this one?” Neve asked as the rest of the gang trailed over.

            “Maybe it could,” I admitted. “Concentrate through the Anchor, try to run the power down my arm. But after that last shot, I just don’t have it in me to try right now. Nice to have someone take care of me. Sorry, Bel, unless you don’t –”

            “I’m happy to do it,” Bellara said firmly.

            “This thing really hated you, huh?” Taash said, kicking the fallen revenant.

            “Uh. Yeah. Think it was honing in on the Anchor. Thanks, by the way. All of you. If I was by myself, I’d definitely have just gotten minced into a fine paste.”

            “That’s the point of teamwork, right?” Davrin said.

            “I can carry your staff back for you,” Emmrich said as I struggled to my feet. He stood nearby, running a hand over the silver-blue metal of Tyrdda’s staff. “I’m glad to have a closer look at it, in truth. It’s really quite beautiful.”

            “It’s an antique,” I said, clenching and unclenching my left hand. Not perfect, I wouldn’t like to do any heavy lifting with it, but the bone seemed to be set, at least. “Thanks, Bel. It belonged to Tyrdda Bright-Axe, this old Avvar warrior from myth. I got it for getting half my ribs broken.”

            Lucanis laughed. “She means the battle for Haven. Unless you received it from that ogre, somehow?”

            “Nah, it was the Haven thing.” Something caught my eye as I stood there. The revenant had crushed a chunk of blight when it had fallen against the tendrils behind the throne, and now something was sticking out of the mess. A hand. Barely visible, barely free of the tendrils, but clearly a hand. “Holy shit. Someone’s in there!”

            I hurried over, the rest of the gang trailing after me, chattering, speculating on what it could be, how it had to be a spirit to be in there, surely, wound up in all that stuff. I got the Wolf’s Fang out and sawed into the tendrils over where the face seemed likely to be, wanting to get an idea of what we were dealing with before we committed to freeing them. No sense busting a demon out, after all. Yanking out a chunk of blight I peered in, and everything inside me lurched like I’d just stepped off a staircase too early.

            “Taash,” I said roughly, stepping back and grabbing for them. “Axes, Taash, axe, now, axe me, give me axe, get him out!”

            They raised an eyebrow. Rather than handing over an axe, as requested, they gently shunted me aside and set to themselves, hacking off chunks of crumbling blight as easy as a woodcutter. As I backed away, giving them space to work, the others clustered around me.

            “What is it?” Lucanis asked. “What did you see?”

            “I’m… I’m not sure. Wait until he’s out. I thought… But it can’t be.”

            Before anyone could press any further, Taash gave a satisfied grunt, reached into the hole they’d cleared, and dumped the figure within onto the floor in front of us. I dropped to my knees, rolling him onto his back, ignoring the ache in my left forearm as I did, then gently eased one eyelid up to check on his irises. Then I checked his pulse, which was slow, but honestly the fact he had a pulse at all was fucking bizarre.

            “Hang on,” Bellara said, leaning over my shoulder. “Isn’t that…?”

            “Felassan,” I said, letting out a startled laugh. “It’s Felassan. I don’t know how, but…” Looking up at Taash and the guys I added, “Someone help me get him home? Please?”

*

                        We dragged one of the infirmary cots into the music room, and laid him out on that, after which I told the others to go about their business. Some were more reluctant than others, but I pointed out that the Caretaker was there to alert them if necessary. Then I just sat there and waited to see if he’d wake up.

            He looked just as he had in the memories we’d seen, tall and broad (for an elf) with thick dark hair and Mythal’s vallaslin. I sat on the side of his cot and just looked at him, trying to work out how exactly he could even be there. Cole had said he was dead. What the fuck, Cole?

            After a while he stirred, frowning and muttering in his sleep. “It’s okay,” I said, patting his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing the armour he’d had on in the memories, but rather a ragged brown cloak over a simple tunic and trousers, with no shoes. It was how Briala had always described him. Basically the same as Solas had worn back in the Inquisition days. Like they’d both dressed themselves from the ‘I’m totally a regular elf, guys, honestly, don’t question it, please’ collection. “You’re, uh, safe now.”

            Felassan’s eyes inched open, and for a moment he only peered hazily at me. Then his hand snapped out, fingers wrapping around my chin with surprising force. We stared at each other, him frowning inscrutably, me wide-eyed and wondering if I should be calling the Caretaker. He blinked.

            “Emmaera?”

            “Uh. Ye. I mean, I mostly go by Emma, but. Yeah.”

            He smiled. The hand gripping my chin loosened, one index finger prodding my tattooed cheek before pulling away. “Why are you wearing Sylaise’s brand, Da’Emmaera?”

            “It came with the body.” I gestured towards the rest of me.

            Felassan frowned again, just a little, then put a hand on my chest as if he was feeling my heartbeat. Nodding slowly, he said, “I wondered how he’d bring you home. I might have suggested a different method, given the opportunity. Still, it means he wanted you back as expeditiously as possible. That’s… sweet.”

            “How do you know who I am, anyway? What with the body-snatching and all.”

            Snorting, he said, “We’re in the Lighthouse, and you’re a young woman with the Mark of Fen’Harel on her hand, wearing the Wolf’s Fang on her hip. It was hardly a complex riddle to solve, da’len.” He sat up, stretching as he looked around. “So, where is the old wolf? I feel like he and I need to have a… chat.” When I opened my mouth without managing to say anything, the air of amused frustration drained from him, replaced with something close to horror. “Not dead,” he said, grabbing my face and turning it towards him again. “He can’t be dead.”

            “Not dead,” I said hastily.

            For the next few minutes, I went over all of it – everything from the explosion at the Conclave to finding him trapped in a wall of blight, the whole sorry tale. By the time I’d finished speaking, he’d swung his legs around and was sat beside me on the cot, chin resting in his palm.

            “Hmm,” he said when I finally stopped speaking. “So… Bria went back to the shemlen empress?”

             I laughed, really, properly laughed. “Afraid so. They’ve been together for almost a decade now.” Leaning closer to him, I whispered, “I got them back together.”

            It looked like Felassan bit back a retort, letting out a snickering, snorting little laugh instead. “Such a soft-hearted little dream.” When I looked confused, he said, “Has Solas not taught you elven?”

            “I’ve never been any good at languages,” I admitted. “I only speak Trade because it’s also English.”

            “Then you don’t know what your name means?”

            “I know Emma means, like, my, or mine…”

            “It means Dream of Mine. Or My Dream. Depending on how you feel like translating it. Elven is very conditional, you know.”

            “… Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Um. Who chose –”

            “Solas,” Felassan said firmly. “Though I might have had a little input. Your father is… a complicated man, da’len. I know that better than most. And I realise after what you’ve been through, and after some of the revelations you’ve been subjected to lately, you might not be especially well-disposed to the man. But you should know that he has loved you from the very first moment he knew you existed.”

            “Oh,” I said in a tiny voice.

            Nudging me with his elbow, he added, “I was looking forward to being an uncle, as well.”

            I laughed, though it was still a little feeble. “Oh yeah? What, were you going to take me to the park and teach me to skim stones?”

            “Is that typical uncle behaviour?”

            “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had one before.”

            “Well, my actual plans were to teach you magic, feed you lots of treats that your father didn’t want you to have, absolutely ruining any real meals you were due that day, and probably teach you to swear.”

            “You’re way late to the fucking party on that last one.”

            Felassan laughed again, looking down at me as he shook his head slowly. “You’re so like him.”

            “Uh.” I snorted and shook my head. “Was that meant to be a stealth insult, or did you want me to know you were calling me a miserable sod?”

            His smile faded. “Ah, da’len. The war, then the rebellion. It changed all of us. Before that, he was actually funny. In a wordier sort of way than most, perhaps, but funny.”

            “Oh, so you’re saying I’m funny. That’s alright then,” I said primly, making him laugh again. “To be honest, he is still funny, sometimes. Usually when he's being bitchy."

            "Ahh, then he really hasn't changed."

             I chuckled. Picking at my thumbnail, I said, "But… I mean… My son, he said Dad killed you. That you had to die because… because of Briala, I suppose. ‘A slow arrow breaks in the sad wolf’s jaws’.”

            “Well, nice to know he was sad about it.”

            “It’s, uh. It’s haunted me. Everything you were to him, and he could still kill you, for one choice he disagreed with. I kept thinking… what if I’m the same? What if I could… But then here you are. Alive. Are you alive? I only met my mother after she was already dead, like, what are we dealing with here?”

            “Ah, the barrage of questions. Also very familiar.” Felassan sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He killed me. That’s true. But as you’re already aware, we ancient Elvhen don’t die quite so easily. I can’t be sure exactly what happened, I remember talking to him and then just darkness until I woke up here. But it’s possible he rendered me Tranquil, rather than truly killing me. Locked me away in the Crossroads to dream, and left my body out there, somewhere.”

            “So you’re just in here, then? Stuck in the Fade?”

            “Unless he took the time to also hide my body and set wards around it, yes. Even then, you’d have to find it, somehow. The only other option would require the deaths of hundreds, not to mention a level of magic I feel as though we are unable to easily replicate.” He nudged me again. “Why do you ask? Sick of having your old uncle around already?”

            I looked at him for a moment, then wrapped my arms around him. He sat there, stock still, clearly taken aback. In the end, he hugged me back, resting his chin on top of my head.

            “You’re welcome here for as long as you want to be here,” I mumbled.

            Felassan swallowed, though he covered it quickly with a small laugh. “Then perhaps I’ll settle in.”

Chapter Text

The next day I sent the Caretaker off to deliver a message to Abelas, without telling anyone else. No need to get anybody’s hopes up, after all. Then I called everyone to the kitchen to meet Felassan. By the time I got everyone out there, old Slow Arrow was sat on the kitchen table eating coffee beans. Raw, near as I could tell. Lucanis was staring at him in mute horror, and for once I didn’t blame him.

            “Guys, this is Felassan, my dad’s old general and my uncle, more or less.” I introduced each of the others in turn. “He’s going to be living in the music room for a while. Also, he’s kind of dead, don’t make a thing out of it.”

            “Succinct, da’len,” Felassan said.

            “It’s so great to actually get to meet you,” Bellara said, rushing forward to shake the hand that wasn’t full of coffee beans. “I’ve read so much about you, and what with you being dead and all I thought I’d never get the chance to actually speak to you! I’ve got so many questions, I found this Archive Spirit and I’ve been getting some answers from it, but it used to belong to Anaris so –”

            “Ugh, Anaris,” Felassan said. “Don’t worry, da’len. I don’t have all the answers – I’m but one man, and I was very busy back in the day. But I’ll share what I can.”

            “Thank you so much!”

            I’d taken the opportunity to sidle over to Lucanis, accepting a cup of coffee from him with a smile. He put an arm around me, resting his hand on my hip with a smile of his own, then turned, mouth open, ready to ask who else wanted a cup. We both froze on realising Felassan was watching us with his eyes narrowed, chewing slowly.

            “What are your intentions towards our Little Dream?”

            “That’s me,” I muttered in response to Lucanis’ baffled look. “In elven my full name means Dream of Mine, apparently.”

            “That’s pretty,” Lucanis said softly, with something of a googly-eyed grin.

            “Thank you.” Then, warningly, “Fel!”

            “You introduced him as an assassin with a demon in him,” Felassan shrugged. “Forgive me for being concerned for your welfare.”

            “I am a grown woman, Felassan, and in front of a load of my friends isn’t the forum to be doing this.”

            “It’s alright.” Lucanis slipped his hand into mine as he sucked in a deep breath. “My intention is to court Emma. Respectfully. For as long as she will have me.” He paused, looking sideways at me uncertainly. “As long as she will have us, I suppose.”

            “Sounds good to me,” I said, and for the first time I got to kiss Lucanis, real Lucanis. It wasn’t a full make-out sesh or anything, just a single firm kiss, but it was still enough to make my head swim. Also, I was officially two for two on my Thedosian first kisses taking place in front of everyone I worked with, so like, way to maintain those standards, Rutherford.

            “Well then,” Felassan said primly, “that’s alright.”

            “How often have you been slapped, Fel?” I asked, sipping at my coffee. “Just out of interest.”

            “I’m several thousand years old, Da’Emmaera. It’s safe to assume I’ve been slapped many times.” He gave me a smug grin, and I couldn’t help cracking a smile in response. “There’s a griffon outside,” he added, and walked from the room without another word. Alright then.

            Most of the others trailed out after him (with Davrin in particular looking quietly concerned by this development), leaving just me, Lucanis, and Taash. Taash looked uncharacteristically nervous as they looked from me to Lucanis and back. I smiled and nudged him.

            “Mind giving us the room?” I said quietly. Lucanis squeezed my hand and followed the others out, leaving me to gesture for Taash to speak.

            “First of all, nice,” they said, pointing after Lucanis. “Second of all, my mom’s coming over next week, for dinner, and I’m gonna tell her. About me, I mean. And I was kind of hoping you’d be there. Sort of like backup.”

            “Yeah, of course,” I said, smiling despite the cold sweat I’d just broken into. Oh God, family drama inbound. Still, I was their friend, and this was the sort of thing friends did for each other. I’d gone with Dorian to have a go at his dad, hadn’t I? I could do this. I even had a few days to emotionally prepare. It was going to be fine.

*

                        It was not fine.

            We commandeered the kitchen. Lucanis offered to cook, bless him, but Taash insisted on doing the food themself. I waited in the kitchen while Taash went to collect Shathann from the eluvian, so I was just sort of awkwardly lingering in there when they came back in, like, yes, greetings, welcome to the kitchen, don’t go in the pantry it’s where we store my boyfriend.

            Lucanis was spending the afternoon in the library with the rest of the team and Felassan, holding book club, and I was pretty disappointed to be missing out on all that awkwardness (as well as book club). Felassan hadn’t gotten any friendlier with Lucanis over the preceding week, though he seemed to get along with everyone else well enough, at least. Including Spite, for whatever reason. I supposed I’d just have to enjoy the awkwardness out there in the kitchen. My skin twitched with the urge to go bird and hide in a dark corner.

            “Hi, Shathann,” I said as the two Qunari swept in, making me feel itty bitty. “Glad you could make it.”

            “My child wished to show me where she now lived,” Shathann said, reserved as ever. I was confused when she said ‘child’, thinking Taash had already told her, but no. Still, she was clearly happy to use gender neutral terms. That seemed like a good sign.

            “I made food,” Taash said, marching off.

            Oh shit. I sat down at the head of the table very carefully, as if any sudden movement would make her maul me. I’d maybe spent too much time dealing with bears. Fucking Hinterlands. Still, I managed to smile as Taash set plates down in front of each of us – half a loaf of crusty bread, a cheese wedge, and a big chunk of ham.

            “Armada Special,” Taash declared. “It’s what the pirates eat when they come into port.”

            “This is too rich for me,” Shathann said, and I hated to admit it, even to myself, but she had a point. I was concerned for my gallbladder. “Perhaps you could prepare some vegetables.”

            Taash looked at me, and I gave her the tiniest of nods. No sense fighting over something so small. They sighed, muttered, “Fine,” and marched away again. Shathann gave me a severe look.

            “A few weeks in your company, and my child has lost what little civility she had.”

            I bit my tongue, hard, because “Ay, fuck you” almost came out instinctively. After taking a breath and hitching on my Game smile, I said, “Oh, no, we’re very civilised here! Lucanis,” I paused, going into a proper smile, and had to scold myself (keep talking, you dopey tart!) before hastily continuing. “Lucanis cooks a lot of Antivan cuisine, Neve has some great Tevinter recipes, Bellara’s been introducing us to a lot of Dalish food, and I –”

            “Then my child respects every culture except her own,” Shathann interrupted archly. “This is what I face for removing her from the Qun.”

            “Yeah, you did,” I said sharply. Couldn’t seem to stop myself. “You took Taash to Rivain because you knew that would be better. You can’t get angry when something you did worked.”

            She glared at me, jaw tight. “I was never taught how to be a mother. Under the Qun, children are raised by those suited to such pursuits.”

            “Tamassrans, I know. One of my friends used to be Ben-Hassrath.”

            “Then you will be aware of the compartmentalisation of our people. As a scholar, I was taught to think critically, to analyse without passion, and to correct mistakes. You need not tell me that I am an inadequate mother, I am aware.”

            “That’s not what I was saying at all!” I protested. “I just meant that… I mean, if you hate Taash living like a Rivaini, and you hate Taash living here with us, then why –”

            “When I see my child in danger, I act.”

            Taash came back then, a plate of raw broccoli, carrots, and baby corn in hand, and thank fuck they did, because trying to have a heated conversation about someone while avoiding using any pronouns for them was like conversational hard-mode. They dropped into their chair, and before they were even fully seated said, “So… I’m non-binary.”

            Holy shit, just like that. I kept my eyes fixed on my plate, shoving a chunk of cheese in my mouth. Hadn’t expected them to just drop it with no preamble like that, but then again, that was probably on me. Like, of course that was the way they decided to do it. Of course.

            “What does that mean?” Shathann asked.

            “It means I don’t feel like a man or a woman.”

            “If you’re neither a man nor a woman, then what are you?”

            “Non-binary. I just said. And I’m going to use ‘they’ instead of ‘she’ from now on.”

            “If this is because I have criticised your dress or your manners –”

            “It isn’t,” Taash snapped, clearly barely holding it together.

            “Some people are just born like it,” I said quickly, praying I’d be in any way useful, rather than just a stump. “Nothing wrong with it, nothing causes it, that’s just who they are.”

            Shathann looked more confused than anything. “Under the Qun, the term for one whose gender does not match the one given to them at birth was ‘aqun-athlok’. Perhaps you are like that.”

            Neatly sidestepping the fact that gender was government issued based on job description under the Qun there, but I appreciated that Shathann was just trying to link what she was being told to something she already had context for. Sadly, I seemed to be the only one present who appreciated that, and before I could get out more than, “Ye –” Taash had cut me off.

            “Why do you have to keep picking at it?” they barked. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

            “Evataash, shokra toh ebra.”

            “So I’m supposed to struggle with who I am? Even if I don’t feel like I fit? Even if I feel wrong?”

            “No, you misunderstood –”

            “Then say it better!” Taash was fully yelling by then. I anxiously gnawed at a chunk of ham, living a vivid flashback of the many, many arguments between Cathy and our mother, which usually ended with both of them turning on me. “Why am I never enough for you?”

            “I will go.” Shathann turned to me, sitting there wild-eyed with a mouthful of ham as I was. “Thank you for inviting me to your home. Panahedan.”

            “Y – uh – Th- Thanks for… coming.” She was already out the door. I looked back at Taash. “I’m sorry, mate. Wish I could have –”

            “Hey, no, c’mon, you did fine. Thanks, for agreeing to be here with me.”

            “Yeah, of course. Whenever you need me, you know that. She’ll come around, I’m sure. She just needs a minute to adjust.”

            “Whether she does or she doesn’t is up to her,” they said, sounding genuinely happy despite everything. “I’m not hiding anymore. Now come on. We’re not letting good food go to waste.”

*

                        We’d barely finished (well, Taash finished, I didn't think I could physically consume that much) before Bellara burst in, blurting out, “Strife got word to the Caretaker! They’ve found the Dalish! They’re asking for our help!”

            I barely managed to bite back "and the Lighthouse will answer", because nobody would have got it anyway. Instead, I just grabbed Lucanis’ gear from his room and met him halfway across the plaza, handing it over with a smile. He took it all from me and kissed me at the same time, just a simple little thing that made me feel so disproportionately happy.

            “Thought I’d save you the trip.”

            “Always looking out for me, mi amor.”

            Felassan was hanging around in the library, languid in the middle of everyone getting ready. He followed me up to my room as I hurried to get my things, running his hand along the wall and generally looking unruffled.

            “I want to show you some magic,” he said as I collected Tyrdda’s staff.

            “Is now really the right time, hahren?”

            “It’s the perfect time. I read the note your Strife sent. Trust me, you’ll want to know this.” He snagged the staff from me, twirled it with a flourish, and then with a burst of green light reduced it to no more than a piece of metal a handspan long. Grinning delightedly, he allowed me to snatch it from him without protest. “I wondered if I could still do that.”

            “What did… Is my staff just fucked now?”

            Felassan gave me a look, snagged the metal rod back, and with another green flash it was a full-sized staff again. “Like so.”

            “… Show me.”

            He grabbed my hand. “I’ll show all your lovely new friends, da’len. I can’t come out into the world with you, but I can at least share my knowledge.”

            It turned out to be a finicky little spell that required a decent bit of power to get right, though I managed it after a few tries. We headed out as soon as everyone was set, Veil Jumpers leading us on a trek to the crater, a place I was sure would have been skin-crawlingly unsettling even if it wasn’t swarming with Venatori. Which it was. Hundreds of the bastards.

            Strife and Irelin were waiting on a cliff overlooking the elven ruins the Vints had claimed as their camp, Strife greeting us with, “They’re waiting for something. There’s talk of a sacrifice.”

            “Do they mean the clan?” Bellara asked feverishly. “They mean the clan, don’t they?”

            “The tracks suggest the captives are on the other side of the ruin,” Strife said. “Like I said in my missive, you’ll have to go through the crowd.”

            “Excuse me?” That would teach me for assuming people would fill me in on the salient details of anything sent to us. I was really going to have to start reading my mail. “Not that I don’t appreciate the direct approach, but I don’t see us being much use to the Dalish after we’ve been brutally murdered by a hundred Venatori.”

            The corner of Strife’s mouth twitched. “I found you some disguises.”

            Most of us quickly climbed into our stolen Venatori gear. I didn’t waste time putting Taash or Harding in them, just sent them straight off with the Jumpers. Humans could pass for Venatori with little problem, and elves would most likely just be dismissed as slaves, but a dwarf would draw more attention than I was comfortable risking, and a Qunari? Forget about it. So, off they went into the trees, while the rest of us crossed to the ruin, pausing just outside.

            “Neve, you’re on point for this one,” I said. “You’re the one who knows best how to deal with them.”

            “Sadly true,” Neve said with a smile. “Humans, just keep your noses in the air, act like you think you’re better than everyone else. Elves, keep your eyes down, stay behind us, and try not to speak unless spoken to, and then as little as possible. I know that’ll be hard for you, Bel.”

            “I can manage it! I’m sure I can. Probably. Most likely.”

            “Alright, now everyone get into character,” Neve said. “Two minutes, and we’re going in.”

            I quickly shrank my staff and Bellara’s bow, since Davrin could pretend to be a bodyguard and so keep his sword. Then I obligingly tried to get into character. That was made slightly more difficult when Lucanis walked up behind me and kissed me on the exposed patch of skin where my shoulder met my neck, his arms wrapping around my waist.

            “Just so you know,” he said against my skin, “if anyone calls you a word I find unsuitable, I will find a way to kill them, cover or no cover.”

            I reached up to pat his head with a smile. “We’re not all dying at the hands of the Venatori just because some stupid Vint called me a knife-ear. But I appreciate the sentiment, all the same.”

            “If you guys are ready,” Davrin said.

            “Alright, lads and ladies,” I said. “Time to mingle with our social betters.”

Chapter Text

For all my big talk about not breaking cover, we barely made it three steps inside the ruin before I started fighting the urge to murder people. They were sacrificing a halla. A sweet, innocent deer that just stood there, blinking trustingly around at them with big dark eyes, until they started bleeding it. It seemed like they were doing it just for fun. Just to hurt something Dalish.

            “Keep moving,” Neve growled, fingers clamped around my bicep like a vice even as power started crackling off me. I grudgingly allowed her to haul me on, reaching back with my free hand to grab hold of Bellara, who looked close to tears.

            Thankfully, nothing else we saw on our way through the crowd was quite that bad. It was still one of the most skin-crawling things I’d ever had to do. We picked our way through that seething mass of people, trying to remain unobtrusive. I kept my head down, hands clasped in front of me, my expression carefully arranged to suggest neutrality with just the right amount of fear. All around me, the cultists talked cheerfully about who’d killed which family member to amend the line of succession, how many rivals they’d taken out, the slaves they’d had to bleed to get it done.

            Then, “What do you think Rutherford’s like in person? Do you think she smells nice?”

            I froze. Despite knowing I had to keep my head down, I couldn’t help staring at the Venatori who’d spoken. Just some blandly attractive guy in his twenties with a nice voice, talking to his quite rightly bewildered friend.

            “What is wrong with you?” the friend asked, and like, yeah. Same, lady. “Have you forgotten which side you’re on?”

            “Uh, no,” he quickly backtracked, before continuing dreamily, “I mean… Think about if we could turn her. Riding beside Emma Rutherford, at the head of Tevinter’s vast armies…”

            “Knock it off. You know the risen god has claimed her for himself.”

            “I could stab him for you,” Lucanis said softly, “on the house.” Behind him, Bellara, Neve, and Davrin were barely managing to contain their laughter, while even Emmrich was rubbing at his face to hide his smile.

            “I am going to kill everyone in this fucking place,” I said through my teeth, “and then myself.”

            “Let’s just move on, shall we?” Neve said, her voice trembling with suppressed laughter.

            Another few steps and some hooded guy held up a hand, barking, “Stop! Who are you? I don’t recognise any of you.”

            “You don’t recognise me?” Neve said, affecting such a tone of haughty offence even I felt like scurrying away with my head down. She let the Venatori stumble over his words for a bit before looking back at Emmrich with an ostentatious roll of her eyes. “Appalling. They’ll hire anyone these days.”

            “I’m sorry, my lady,” the guy spluttered. “I was given instructions to –”

            “Tell someone who gives a damn,” she sneered. “Why am I still waiting? Where are the gods? When does the ritual start?”

            “G-gods? But only the lord Elgar’nan is here, and he is still preparing –”

            “Useless. Out of our way.”

            “But… but these elves, my –”

            “Now you’re trying to deprive us of our entourage?”

            The guy withered, stumbling aside as Neve waved a dismissive hand and swept past, the rest of us trailing behind her. “That was genuinely frightening,” I mumbled. “Very impressive. But frightening.”

            Neve chuckled. “They expect strength and power from someone like me. Show them what they expect, and you don’t get questions.” She paused, turning back to us. “Ghilan’nain’s not here.”

            “We were always going to avoid whichever god was running the show,” I said. “The plan hasn’t changed, we scurry around, find the Dalish, get out. Elgar’nan never has to know we’re here.”

            “He’ll know once we rescue the Dalish,” Bellara said worriedly.

            “That’s a problem for later,” I said. “Now come on, that guy’s still looking at us.”

            Down a flight of steps and through a smaller ruined building, where I started feeling this… pressure on my skull. Like fingers were prying at the bone, trying to find a way in. Not quite pain, just pressure. It came with a sound, dim and distant, like someone talking in another room.

            “Whoa,” I said, missing a step, rubbing at the side of my head. “Is anyone else –”

            Before I could finish speaking, it hit me full force, those fingers digging into the meat of my brain, as a voice – Elgar’nan’s voice, resonant and rich and slimy – said, “Da’len. Garas lasa, da’len.” As I stumbled to a stop, the fingers dug even deeper. “Dear child, you were born into obscurity, sorrow etched on your bones. I see you. I feel your pain.”

            My stomach turned over, and God help me, I actually turned to bolt. Luckily Bellara was right behind me, and she gripped me by the shoulders, holding me in place as she whispered something I couldn’t make out through my panic. We were still surrounded by Venatori, I was putting us all in danger, I knew it, but that oily voice worming its way inside my mind…

            “What’s the matter?” Neve hissed.

            “He knows,” I said, frantic, but just about managing to keep my voice low. “He knows I’m here, he spoke to me, he… he’ll kill you all to get to me, I can’t –”

            “He spoke to us all,” Lucanis said gently. He couldn’t do much more to comfort me, not in that crowd, but he rubbed my arm. “Not just you.”

            “But he said… born into obscurity… sorrow…”

            “He said that to us, too,” Bellara whispered, smiling reassuringly. “Standard boilerplate for elves, I guess. Right, Davrin?”

            “He sees us, feels our pain,” Davrin scoffed.

            “He did?” I took a few steadying breaths, then nodded. “Thanks. Thank you. Sorry, guys, I… Sorry.”

            “This guy’s really rattled you,” Neve said.

            “I haven’t seen you this upset since the Ossuary,” Bellara added.

            “Yeah, sorry, I just… got spooked. Thought he felt the Well, you know? I’m fine. It’ll be fine.”

            We pushed through another row of Venatori, and there he was, the big cheese himself, giving some pompous speech about the Old Gods. Just as I was thinking it was pretty typical self-congratulatory nonsense, a fucking dragon exploded out of the lake behind him. Bigger than any dragon I’d ever seen, dwarfing even Razikale. A real monster of a lizard. The Archdemon Lusacan.

            With that, the world was gone, as quick and complete as if someone had stuck a sack over my head. There was nothing left but a hazy sort of darkness and Elgar’nan, like he was standing under a spotlight in a shadowy room, the world silent save for his voice, which in that sunken place suddenly seemed… appealing.

            “Child of my children,” he purred. “I will shower you with the glory of the ancients. All you must do is obey me. Worship me. Love me. And kneel.”

            In that sunken place, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I even began to move forward, meaning to push my way out into the open. I was going to walk out there in front of everyone, kneel before him, announce myself, and let –

            The real world crashed back in, cold and hard and sharp as glass breaking. I blinked a few times, swaying, as Bellara whispered in my ear, “I’m trying to conceal us, but he’ll know someone broke his hold.”

            “Move,” I growled through my teeth. “Now.”

*

                        The Venatori came after us faster than I’d have hoped, Elgar’nan’s voice blasting into everyone’s minds. “Venatori, there are uninvited guests here. Bring them to me.” Then, darkly, “The Marked one will be brought in unharmed.”

            “Someone’s getting special treatment,” Neve said.

            “Yeah,” I said. “Dad mentioned that he might… I mean, with me technically being an ancient elf and all, with my parents, he thought Elgar’nan might, uh. Take an interest in me. Hence my earlier freak-out, you know. Don’t want to drag you guys down with me.”

            “Hey, we’ve got your back,” Davrin said. “Screw that guy.”

            I didn’t feel like mentioning that was exactly what I was trying not to do.

            Things weren’t going terribly, despite all the Venatori and darkspawn coming after us. Taash, Harding, and the Veil Jumpers had even cleared out a few places ahead of us, making it easier. So yeah, things were going decent. Then we ran through a fog bank and found ourselves in a kind of green-tinted glade.

            “Ah, fuck,” I said. “This can’t be good.”

            “We have to keep going,” Bellara said, jogging past me. “The Dalish need us.”

            “Ahhh,” Elgar’nan said into our heads, so loud it made me stumble. “So that is what you’re after. The Elvhen have been chosen to serve. A glorious purpose. But you, Emmaera. You I have other plans for.”

            Thankfully, the others seemed too distracted to have picked up on the last part of what he said, given the winding canyons we were jogging through, a maze that kept resetting to the beginning, fresh pools of blight sprouting with every lap. When he next spoke, it was clear the words were beaming into my head alone.

            “Why resist me? I can raise you up beside me, a god, like your mother. Your defiance holds some charm, I will admit. I admire a woman with spirit. But do not push your luck.”

            The path restarted again, and just before I started screaming in frustration Solas’ voice whispered in my mind. “Emma, can you hear me?”

            I slid to a stop, the others running on a few steps before coming back to bunch up around me. Lucanis touched my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

            “Yeah, it’s just… I think I heard my dad.”

            “You did,” Solas said, and I was grateful to realise than unlike Elgar’nan’s voice, which felt like someone ripping at the inside of my head, with Solas it was more like he was standing behind me, speaking quietly into my ear. Thank fuck for small mercies. “Elgar’nan’s magic has thinned the Veil, allowing me to speak to you directly.”

            “Can you help us?” I asked, ignoring the fact everyone was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “Dad, he’s stuck us in some kind of infinite loop, I… I feel like he has us just hanging around in here until he can come and get… us.”

            “I can help, da’len. You get to the elves, and I will deal with Elgar’nan.”

            “Thank you,” I said weakly, “what are you –”

            “Elgar’nan!” he yelled inside my head, making me wince. He followed up with a string of elven, the only bit I could understand being ‘Evanuris’. His tone did a lot to convey the meaning, though.

            The girls are fightiiing…

            “What’s happening?” Lucanis asked.

            “Dad’s going to start a mind-fight, distract Elgar’nan. We have to keep moving, come on.”

            What followed was an absolute fucking nightmare. Moreso than usual, I mean. Solas goaded Elgar’nan into arguing with him, rather than focusing on messing with us. Unfortunately, all of Elgar’nan’s responses to him were beamed directly into my head, like I’d been turned into a radio for the duration, and every time, it felt like my skull was being sledgehammered. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone coming at us specifically wanted to take me alive, I’d have been screwed.

            “So, the Dread Wolf has arrived to defend his Pup.”

            “You will not lay a hand on her.”

            “Won’t I? But she is rightfully mine, Fen’Harel. The only woman in this worn and faded age who comes close to being worthy of my glory.”

            “You speak as though you had any claim to her!” Solas said, almost shouting. “You, who murdered her mother!”

            There was a pause, before Elgar’nan chuckled smugly. “Only the first time, Dread Wolf.”

            Solas was silent for a long time afterwards. My stomach was suddenly cold. ‘Only the first time’. I hadn’t seen Flemeth since that time we met her in the Fade, and as far as I knew neither had Morrigan or Kieran. Had someone… But then, where was Mythal? Had any chance of speaking with my mother gone out the window with the stroke of some overzealous templar’s sword?

            “Are you alright?” Bellara asked, grabbing my arm and turning me around as I started wandering in the wrong direction.

            “They’re arguing through my head. Elgar’nan has no fucking volume control.”

            “How uncouth, Pup,” Elgar’nan piped up. “I can see you will require a firm hand. If you cease your struggle now, I will be merciful. Come to me of your own accord, and I will spare your friends.”

            Struggling to keep my breathing steady, we passed through another fog bank and found ourselves back in the real world. “Thank fuck for that,” I muttered, flinching when Solas spoke up again.

            “You should be near where you need to be. With luck, you can still save the elves.”

            “Thanks, Dad.”

            I hoped that would be the end of the telepathic bullshit, but right as we ran into the next group of Venatori, Dalish alive and in sight, albeit trapped in a magical cage, the argument started up again. It was like they just couldn’t help themselves. Solas said something about how relying on the blight was weakening Elgar’nan, the big guy shot back that he’d never seen Solas as anything more than an irritant. Just, getting really bitchy with it.

            Then, “Your whining comes from envy, Fen’Harel, but it does not have to be so. There is a place for you at my side in a new, glorious empire. Your wisdom may guide a dynasty that begins with your own grandchildren. Imagine that.”

            Solas started ripping him a new one, going over all the dead gods who actually contributed to Elvhenan society, while I just stood there in frozen horror at the one-two punch of ‘dynasty’ and ‘grandchildren’ and all their implications. It wasn’t until Lucanis cupped my face in his hands that I realised the others had been trying to talk to me. It seemed they’d already broken the locks on the Dalish’s cage.

            “Time to run, mi amor.”

            “I can guide you to one of my old safehouses,” Solas said. “It is not far from here.”

            He told me the directions as we ran, and I gabbled them out loud for the rest of the group. Good job that I did. Around the final bend from the safehouse, Elgar’nan spoke just one more word inside my head.

            “Stop.”

            It was instantaneous. Every one of my muscles immediately followed his command, locking me in place. The others ran on without me, since I’d been at the back making sure nobody was left behind (ironically), but Neve had also been playing rearguard. As I frantically tried to force myself to move, even just an inch, she looped back to me.

            “What’s the matter, Soft Touch, haven’t killed enough Venatori yet?”

            “Take the dagger,” I ground out through a jaw that was refusing to cooperate. “Safehouse won’t open without it. And my staff, don’t want them getting it.”

            “He’s in your mind again, isn’t he?”

            “Please, Neve!”

            I’m glad it was Neve who stayed. The others might have argued more, or wasted time trying to drag me, or heal me, or defend me, and they’d probably have died as a result. But not Neve. Not clever, pragmatic Neve, who was maybe still nursing a tiny bit of a grudge after the Minrathous incident. She just grabbed the Wolf’s Fang and Tyrdda’s staff, gave me a nod, and bolted off after the others. Barely a second after she’d vanished from view, I heard the Venatori walking up behind me.

            “It’s her!” one said eagerly. “She has the Marked hand!”

            “The risen god will reward us well for bringing you to him,” another hissed in my ear, as they collectively lifted me over their shoulders and carried me away.

Chapter Text

They hauled me off to a mostly non-ruined building and bundled me onto one end of a fancy couch that must have been new, because it was actually good, the wooden arms and back still shiny, the red velvet upholstery still smooth and comfortable. Quite a nice couch, all told. If it had been left there since the Elvhenan days it would have been dust instead.

            The rest of the room was kitted out like a fancy study. There was a heavy oak desk covered in papers, with a high-backed chair behind it, plush drapes hung around the walls to soften all that stone, and there was even a big, patterned rug on the floor. I realised that must be where Elgar'nan had staged the Venatori dance party from. There weren’t any windows, but there was a gap up near the ceiling, a single missing stone half-covered by drapery, barely big enough to allow a raven to squeeze through.

            Unfortunately, the part of my brain that dealt with magic had been switched off. The suppression in my muscles started wearing off as I sat there, but I kept trying to go bird and it was like trying to grab an eel, it kept slipping through my grip. I thought I could undo the enchantment, given time, since he’d left most of my brain functioning, but it was like trying to untie a fiddly knot while your hands were shaking, and also greasy.

            After a while the compulsion in my body faded enough to allow me to slither to my feet. Fuck it, I thought. We’re still in Arlathan. I’ll just make a run for it. A really wobbly, slow run, like a baby deer. Cool. Fine.

            Before I’d even taken a step he was there, filling the whole damn doorway. We stared at each other for a long, frozen moment, I managed to say, “uhhh,” and then he crossed the distance between us in two steps. Placing one big meaty hand on my shoulder, he slammed me back down onto the couch, holding me in place.

            “Did you truly believe that would work?” he said softly. Something passed from him to me as he spoke, magic leaching into my skin, a kind of warm, tingling numbness. It reminded me of elfroot tonic, the refined stuff. I had to fight to keep my brain working as he crossed to a cabinet beside his desk and poured himself a drink.

            “Can’t believe you brought a whole actual office in here,” I said derisively, slurring slightly.

            “A god need not sacrifice his comforts.” He yanked off the robe he was wearing, giving me a brief clutch of panic, but it turned out he had a full set of Sentinel-esque armour underneath. Stripped of the robe’s shoulder-pads he was a little less obnoxiously huge, though the guy was still built like a brick shithouse.

            “No, you just sacrifice your people.”

            “My people,” he said disgustedly, tossing the robe onto a nearby coat rack, because that freak had even brought one of them in there. “Watered down echoes of the true flower of Elvhenan.”

            “Yeah, much better to work with humans and Qunari, obviously.”

            “At least they understand obedience.” He dropped onto the other end of the couch, which was far too close for comfort. He even draped one arm along the back of the couch as he regarded me over his glass, fingertips almost brushing my shoulder. “Though I suppose I should have expected such… wilfulness from you, given your heritage. I am sure that given adequate time and correction you will learn your place. Vhenan.”

            I didn’t know much elven, but that was one of the words I’d picked up. Vhenan. Literally it meant ‘heart’. Figuratively, poetically, it was also a term of endearment for a romantic partner.

            When we went to the Emprise du Lion down in Orlais, the time we dealt with that fucker Imshael, to get to the keep he was hiding in we’d had to climb up into the mountains. In a quiet moment I’d walked out to the very edge of one of the cliffs, looking out at the frozen river and little village down below, just enjoying a moment of peace while gazing at that snowy wilderness.

            Then Bull had called, gently, like someone trying not to spook a horse, “Hey, Boss, why don’t you head back over here. Slowly.” I looked over my shoulder to find him stood at a distance, flanked by Cole (wild-eyed) and Dorian (hands over his face).

            They’re called cornices. My mother told me about them – my human one, I mean, that woman loved her hiking. Some sort of weather phenomenon where packed snow forms an overhang, they look solid from a distance, and if they’re dense enough they can even take a person’s weight, for a while. But if you step onto one, there’s nothing separating you from the abyss but a crust of snow. And if I’d fallen through, the snow falling with me would have weighed, wetted, my raven wings down, meaning going bird likely wouldn’t have been enough to save me.

            That day in Arlathan, as Elgar’nan called me vhenan, that cornice was all I could think about.

            “What is my place, exactly?” I asked through something that could have passed for a smile. Inside my head, my mental fingers were fumbling frantically at the binding around my magic.

            “By my side, of course,” he purred. “I meant what I said earlier, you know. Give yourself to me freely, willingly, and I shall see to it that your friends, and even that old ragged wolf, will live the rest of their days in safety and comfort.”

            “And if I say no?”

            “I’ll give them all to Ghilan’nain.” He was still using that wheedling tone, but now there was a cold abyss beneath. Tucking a stray piece of hair back behind my ear, he ran his fingers over the point at the tip, and for just a second, he pinched it. Not hard enough to hurt, not quite, but enough to know he could do some real damage if he wanted to. “One by one, to do with as she pleases. She has been so withdrawn since you killed Razikale. I must find some way to lift her spirits.”

            “As if you care about her feelings,” I scoffed.

            His hand snapped out, gripping me by the jaw. “Do not presume you know anything about us,” he snarled, the smarmy good-humoured mask cracking open to reveal something dark and roiling underneath. “You insolent child, you know only what little Fen’Harel has deigned to share, and his teaching is as a warped mirror. You, who wear the slave brand of my dead sister with pride, you dare presume to correct me on my feelings towards a trusted friend and confidante I have known for millennia longer than you have even been alive.”

            Elgar’nan finished up by shoving my head back, hard enough that I was in no doubt he could have broken my neck with barely any more effort. Taking a sip from his glass, he made an obvious effort to get himself back under control.

            “But… but if I agree to, what, a political marriage, you’ll let them all live?” I said, rubbing at my aching jaw with a trembling hand. The worst part was, I couldn’t even really tell what had just happened. Was he actually that mercurial, or was that seething hatred always there, and he was just hiding it to try to get me on side?

            “Even the Warden that dealt the killing blow to Razikale,” he said, with an attempt at his earlier indulgent tone. “All save the assassin, at least. He struck Ghilan’nain, and that cannot be allowed to go unpunished. That much is non-negotiable. In recompense for her pain and indignity, she has requested him for her experiments. Something to do with ‘crafting a form more fit for a demon’.” He chuckled fondly. “But the others will be held safely, so long as our bargain is maintained. As for the nature of our… union. I am not naïve enough to expect love, though I hope you will come to view me with fondness in time. But I would, of course, require the production of heirs.”

            If it hadn’t been for all the Game training I’d gone through, I’d probably have gotten myself killed right then and there. As it was, I just barely managed to marshal my expression against the twin blows of it being confirmed that Elgar’nan intended on using me as a broodmare, and the thought of what that psycho bitch planned to do to Lucanis.

            Not only that, but the way he’d just said it – “the others will be held safely” – made it clear that the threat to my friends would never end. They’d be hostages, the constant threat to their lives acting to keep me in line. Forever. And having just seen how quickly he could turn, how easy it was to set him off… Would one word out of place, one sidelong glance, one rejection be enough to make him kill his way through the people I cared about, one by one? I couldn't help wondering what would happen first, if I gave up and took him up on his offer. Would he completely break my spirit, or would I just go insane? 

            “I’ve never really been into big guys,” was all my idiot brain would give me, as the image of empty lovely eyes staring sightlessly up at me thrummed over and over inside my head.

            “Dirthara-ma,” he said, through a deeply unsettling grin that I think was intended to be seductive, as he set his drink on the ground beside him.

            “Uh. Solas never got around to teaching me elven.”

            “It means – may you learn.”

            I sat there, frozen and wide-eyed as a deer in the headlights, as he slithered closer, took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and pulled my face up and around. The realisation that he was about to kiss me hit me like a ball of cold jelly. A scream bubbled up my throat, sickness rising, the urge to lean forward and bite him in the face hammering against the inside of my skull. Maybe I could –

            Click.

            The suppression in my brain let go all at once, a combination of my own frantic efforts and Elgar’nan’s distraction working to give me back my full autonomy, movement, mind, and magic all. Still, I was going to have to choose my moment. With all the power that guy had, if I messed up my escape attempt, I wouldn’t get another chance.

            Feeling sick, I realised my best hope was to let him think he’d won, that he’d talked me around. Let him kiss me. Technically, my best chance would probably be to let him start having sex with me (or even just go whole hog, uh, as it were, and slip off afterwards), but I couldn’t entertain that idea for more than a second or two. But I’d kissed people I didn’t want to in the past. I could manage that much. Probably.

            In the time I’d been distracted, Elgar’nan had closed the distance between us. The hand holding my chin slid around to grip the back of my head, while his other clamped onto my waist, both bruisingly, controllingly tight as he pressed his lips to mine. I returned the kiss as best I could, keeping him sweet, keeping him unsuspecting, letting him think he’d won me over as he pressed me back against the couch.

            A minute later he sat back with a smug grin. He’d finally taken his hands off me, though they continued to pen me in, one on the arm of the couch, the other on the back, gripping just behind my head. “There,” he said, in this grotesquely soft, indulgent sort of voice. “That wasn’t so awful, now was it?”

            I smiled, took a breath, and slammed my forehead into his nose as hard as I could. As he reeled back, shouting curses in elven, I pressed my Marked hand to his chest and opened a rift.

            It wouldn’t be enough to kill him, sadly, not with all the wards and protections woven through him (this close I could feel them, hanging thick around him in trailing threads of energy), but while it was in there, he was more focused on dealing with it than compelling me. Even in his agony he managed to lash out, clearly meaning to punch me in the face, a blow that would at least have knocked me out, possibly torn my head clean off my shoulders. I was already a bird, though, racing for that hole in the roof.

            Night was falling outside, limiting my vision. I could still make out the Venatori below converging on Elgar’nan’s office as he screamed, but not a single one of them looked up at me. I was nothing more than another bird wheeling in the sky as they prepared to come home to roost. For just a second, I felt the whisper of those spectral fingers snag a corner of my mind, only to slip free as I winged my way over the rim of the crater. Arlathan was below me, Arlathan proper, and I cawed relieved laughter into the sky. The sound echoed back from my fellow birds, none of whom knew why I was laughing, all of whom were just happy their strange new friend was happy.

            I love crows, man.

*

                        The Veil Jumpers were hanging around back in their camp, along with Morrigan and my team. Lucanis was shouting as I wheeled overhead. “Who knows what he could be doing to her? He could be torturing her right now, and we’re all just standing around and –”

            “Emma is more than capable of taking care of herself,” Morrigan said. “Besides which, Elgar’nan will certainly view another ancient elf as a potential consort. He is unlikely to harm her, so long as she keeps her wits about her.”

            Lucanis stared at her, open-mouthed. “That is hardly better!”

            I dropped from the sky, turning into an elf right before I hit the ground. It wasn’t as smooth a transformation as the one Morrigan had pulled in the same place, since I’d had a long day already, before flying all the way back from the crater. Still, I only staggered a little, and managed to smile and say, “Good to see someone believes in me.”

            Lucanis let out something between a groan and a sigh and leapt across the distance to wrap his arms around me. “When I turned around and you weren’t there…”

            “He got into my brain,” I said. “Couldn’t move, the Venatori literally had to carry me back to his office. The big freak had them set up an office for him out there. Really weird.”

            “But you are uninjured?” Morrigan asked, and wonder of wonders, she sounded genuinely concerned. 

            “He barely got a chance to touch me. I’ve spent most of my time away being carried in and then flying back out. And also being lectured. As an aside, I’m pretty much done with people lecturing me.”

            “How’d you get away?” Harding asked.

            “Headbutted him, then opened a rift in his chest.”

            Lucanis, who was still clinging to me, laughed against my neck. “Of course.”

            “So, is he dead?” Taash asked. “That means he’s dead, right?”

            “As his Archdemon survives, and he was not slain by the Wolf’s Fang, ‘tis unlikely,” Morrigan said. “Though I cannot imagine he is overly fond of our dear Emma at present.”

            “Good,” Lucanis said. He finally let me go, only to kiss me instead.

            “Yes, very sweet,” Morrigan said, so caustically I had to pull away from Lucanis to laugh. “Now, you have all saved the day and lived to tell the tale. I recommend you get some rest, before the next crisis arises.”

            Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Felassan was pacing around the library table. When the team arrived he stopped, sucked in a breath, and strode towards me. He came to an abrupt halt one step away, a flicker of hesitance crossing his face as he held out his arms. I stepped into them, feeling him sigh as I hugged him tightly.

            “They told you, then,” I mumbled.

            “They turned up here with a group of rescued Dalish and your personal effects, but not you,” he said. “I utilised my incredible powers of deduction to figure it out for myself.”

            “Okay,” I said once he let me go. “I’m going to have a word with Dad, and then… sleep for like a week, probably.” I cocked my head. “Fel, should I –”

            “Don’t tell him I’m here.” He tried to make it sound like a joke, even managed to smile, but he spoke too fast, and there was something else in his eyes. “Just… if you could keep it to yourself for now. Please.”

            “Of course.” I squeezed his hand, turned aside to kiss Lucanis on the cheek, and said, “Brilliant work today, all. We saved lives, and only my stupid arse got caught.”

            After various people assured me it wasn’t really my fault (cheers) I trooped off to my room and did the Somniari thing. “You’re alright,” Solas choked out once he realised I was there. Like Felassan, he paused just near enough to allow me to close the distance. “Are you alright?”

            “I’m fine.” I said, accepting the hug gratefully. For every person I trusted who laid hands on me, I felt a little more reassured that I really had gotten away from that bastard, you know?

            “Good. When I lost contact with you…” He stepped back, resting a hand on my cheek. “He did not harm you? And the Dalish, were they freed safely?”

            “I’m fine, and the Dalish are safe. Everything turned out alright.” I raised my eyebrows at him as we went to sit on our usual pillar. “It’s weird, seeing you being concerned about the Dalish.”

            “Ah,” he sighed. “It has been a long time since the Inquisition. I have worked with many of our people since then, and my opinion of them has… softened. It was good to help them.”

            “You’ve been working with Abelas, too?” I smiled as his head snapped around. “He came to see me. Pledged himself to my service, since you’re indisposed and all. I sent him to help out in the south.”

            “Well chosen.” He smiled. “I am glad I was able to help today. The chance to infuriate Elgar’nan was a reminder of simpler times.”

            “Simpler,” I snorted. “Yeah, back when everyone was either a spirit or fighting a war with the Titans.”

            Solas went very still as I internally cursed my stupid, thoughtless mouth. I’d wanted to make a joke, and had just forgotten that he didn’t know I knew, had forgotten that it was my first time seeing him since watching all those regrets. It had been a long, long fucking day.

            “Sorry,” I said quietly. “Sorry, I… I’m tired, or I wouldn’t have just dropped it on you like that.”

            “No, no, you’re not the one at fault, da’len. Did…” he cleared his throat. “Did Cole…”

            “Nah, Cole would never. Weirdly, it was the décor.”

            “I see.” Solas looked down at his hands. “What you must think of me.”

            “It was both of you, though, wasn’t it? Both my parents working together to destroy civilisations, like a weird family business.” I rubbed the back of my head. “Maybe that’s why I keep getting drafted in to save the world. Some sort of cosmic balancing.”

            “You keep volunteering to save the world,” he said, “because you are a better person than your mother or I ever were.”

            I nodded, picking at my thumbnail for a while. “Did she ever love me? Mythal, I mean.” When I looked up at him, he’d closed his eyes. I nodded again. “About what I thought.”

            “She did care for you, in her way. Mythal was… complicated. She had so much love to give her people. Sometimes those closest to her had to come second to her role of the All-Mother.”

            “Right. But even then… I mean, she has vallaslin assigned to her, doesn’t she? And Abelas, all the Sentinel elves were wearing it. Felassan, too. I, uh, I’ve seen, like, memories of him out in the Crossroads. And Cole said something once, when he was having one of his turns - ‘it left a scar when he burned her off his face’.” I looked at the little notch above his eyebrow. “She had slaves. She might have been the best of them, the Mother. But that didn’t stop her owning people, did it? She might have loved you all like her children, but she still branded your faces so you’d know whose property you were. So yeah, maybe… maybe I should have known how she’d feel about me. Just another possession, but one that jeopardised her sham marriage to that bastard, right?”

            The look Solas turned on me was as pained as the one he’d worn back when he told me the truth about my family. Part of me hoped he’d tell me I was wrong, that I’d gotten completely the wrong vibe from the situation. Instead, he said, “Things were complicated, da’len. In order to help her people, she had to… maintain certain standards. Keep up certain appearances. The Evanuris needed her calming influence, and she had to do what she must to continue to provide it.”

            I wondered if he actually believed that. “So, as soon as I was born…”

            “She gave you over into my care, before too many could realise you existed. You lived with us, for a time, myself and my… my general, Felassan. Then I took the steps necessary to put you beyond the reach of any who would seek to harm you as a means of harming me.”

            “Okay.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose, taking a deep, slow breath. I wasn’t crying, at least. That was good. Very cool. “So, what spirit was I, back in the day?”

            “None. You are a person, a true person, all your own.” Cautiously, he rested a hand on my back. “But if pushed to choose, I would say there is a reason you resonated so strongly with Cole.”

            I laughed weakly. “I’d better not tell the gang. If Spite finds out, I’ll just get hate-crimed by my new boyfriend, and nobody wants that.”

            Solas smiled. “We shall keep it between us. You have a new partner?”

            “Oh, yeah. I’m with Lucanis, the Crow guy, and the demon possessing him, Spite, it’s a whole thing. I know it’s a bit weird, maybe…”

            “All that matters is that he makes you happy. Or that they make you happy, I suppose. You are owed some happiness, Emma. Besides, I would hardly take issue with you seeing a spirit as a person worthy of your affection, would I?”

            “No, I suppose not,” I said, smiling a little.

            “There is something else.”

            “Isn’t there always?”

            “The new dagger the gods will be attempting to create, in order to unleash the full power of the blight? They will require an eclipse to complete it. You have until the next one to stop them.”

            “Any idea when that might be?”

            “I cannot tell from in here, I am afraid.”

            “No worries, one of our mages will know, I’m sure.” I rested my head against his shoulder. “Thanks again, for helping out today.”

            He leaned his head against mine with a sigh. “What little help is mine to offer, I give it freely.”

Chapter Text

The next day I woke up late (wonder of wonders) and wandered off to look for someone to hang out with. The first people I bumped into happened to be Felassan and Manfred, sat together with their legs dangling over the void. Felassan looked over as the door closed behind me, and waved for me to join them.

            “Hello, da’len,” he said, shifting aside so I could sit between them. Manfred hissed cheerfully.

            “Morning, lads.” I kicked my legs for a moment, then looked up at Felassan. “Dad said I lived with you for a while, when I was little. I didn’t tell him you were here,” I clarified hastily. “He volunteered the information, just called you his general. Was that here?”

            “It was. You were such a tiny little thing.” He smiled, staring out into the void. “I couldn’t believe it when he brought you home, I never knew anything could be so small. But you screamed like a Rage demon, it was incredible. You started walking, before… before. Also, running. That was a real treat, I had to watch you like a hawk, as if I didn't have enough going on. I swear you wanted to throw yourself into the Fade.” Leaning over, he rested his head against mine. “Should have known you’d grow up to be a trouble magnet.”

            “Why change what works, right?” I said, huffing a laugh. “How long was it, before-before?”

            “Eighteen months, perhaps? He held out hope, for a while, but after Mythal… Better safe than sorry, I suppose.”

            “Right. Right. So, what were you boys doing, before I so rudely interrupted?”

            Manfred hissed and pointed out into empty space. “Observing the Fade,” Felassan translated.

            “Cool. Anything in particular, or…?”

            “Just observing.”

            “Huh.” Admittedly a bit confused, I nevertheless looked out into the distance, just sort of spacing out. I didn’t realise how spaced out I’d gotten until Bellara sat down on Felassan’s other side, making me jump.

            “What are we all looking at?” she asked brightly.

            “Whuh.” I blinked hard, rubbing my face. “That was weird. How long have we been sat here?”

            “Well, I walked through to speak to Neve half an hour ago – I said hi, but you didn’t seem to hear me – and on my way back I stopped and watched you for about five minutes before sitting down, because I was trying to work out what you were doing…”

            “It’s mindfulness, da’len,” Felassan said. “Use the Fade to take a break from all those worries. Right, Fred?”

            Manfred squeaked. I patted his bony shoulder and Felassan’s meatier one and hefted myself to my feet. “Greatly appreciated the break, hahren.”

            “I live to serve, Little Dream.”

            Leaving them to get hypnotised by the Fade some more, I ambled on into the kitchen to find Lucanis busy with the little stove. He froze when he spotted me, wearing a bashful sort of smile as he said, “Oh, hello.”

            “Hi. You look a bit sneaky, what, uh, what are you up to?”

            “Celebratory dinner. It was meant to be a surprise.” He shrugged. “I possibly should have asked someone to divert you away from the kitchen.”

            “Possibly,” I said with a grin. “Hang on, so you’re surprising me?”

            “I was.”

            “Well, I can always turn around and pretend I haven’t seen anything,” I said, turning for the door. I started giggling when he leapt across the kitchen to grab me around the waist, pulling me back against him and kissing up and down my neck. “Though I could be persuaded to stay.”

            “Please do.” Lucanis turned us around and gently propelled me towards the oven. “If I cannot give you a surprise, we can at least work together to surprise the others.”

            “And anyone else who wanders in can be press-ganged into helping too!”

            “It’s the Antivan way.”

            “Listen, given we’re together-together now, I feel like I need to tell you… When he had me yesterday, Elgar’nan, you know, kissed me. I didn’t –”

            “Mierda, that bastard,” he said, immediately turning to put a hand on my cheek. “Are you alright? Was that… was that all he…?”

            “Yeah, I used it as a distraction to do the rift thing, never got any further than kissing, thank Christ. I was just worried… You know, I didn’t know whether that counted as cheating or not.”

            “No! Emma, no, please.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Don’t think anything like that, not for a moment. You did what you had to, to get yourself out of there. All I care about is that you’re alright, and you’re here. I cannot imagine that was at all pleasant.”

            “It really wasn’t,” I laughed. When he stepped back, I kissed him, and he kissed me back enthusiastically enough for me to tell he meant what he said. “Still, I got the chance to headbutt him out of it. That’s nothing to be sneezed at.”

            “No, it is not,” he chuckled.

*

                        Dinner took a lot of work (and half the day, and by the end of it we’d also dragged Bellara and Emmrich into proceedings), but it was well worth the effort. A whole selection of plates to choose from, like the first meal he’d cooked for us. Bruschetta and little stuffed peppers and a flatbread that was almost pizza, with a chocolatey hazelnutty torte for dessert.

            “He’s good,” Felassan said after putting a bit of everything on his plate. He stood, patting me on the shoulder. “Turns out the shem can cook.” With that, he wandered off outside, plate in hand.

            “High praise,” Davrin snorted.

            Everyone made token efforts at helping us clean up once we were done, though it wasn’t long before Lucanis and I were left alone again. Once everything was cleared away, I leaned back against the table and looked over at him, where he was putting plates away in the little kitchen cupboard.

            “I couldn’t help noticing that everything you made today was stuff I’d already told you I particularly liked.”

            Lucanis blinked at me. “Yes. When I told you I was making a surprise celebratory dinner for you, what exactly did you hear?”

            I laughed. “You just said ‘celebratory dinner’ and that it was meant to be a surprise for me! I thought you meant it was like a general sort of celebration, because we saved a load of people, but you wanted to surprise me with it because I’m sort of in charge. I didn’t realise it was for me.”

            “Of course it was.” He made his way towards me, with that languid walk I was sure he’d somehow picked up from those romance novels he and Bellara were always reading. “We’d just realised what we were to each other, then I thought I’d lost you, only for you to come back to me. Also, we saved a lot of people.”

            “Well, when you put it like that, it all sounds very dramatic.” I grinned as he came to stand between my legs, easing me back until I was sat on the table, my heart racing. “Maybe it was worthy of a surprise dinner.”

            Lucanis laughed, barely more than a breath, and murmured, “In my opinion, it certainly was.”

            We kissed, and there was a passion to it there hadn’t been since my kisses with Spite, which was admittedly a weird thought, one I was very much keeping to myself. Lucanis ran his hands slowly up and down my sides, gripping my hips, pulling me tighter against him. I started off winding my fingers into his hair, before the heat built and I trailed my hands down, over the lean muscles of his chest, over his stomach, down to –

            To where he grabbed my hands, pulling them away from his belt and holding them by my sides instead. He pulled back from the kiss at the same time, letting out a pained hiss and a stream of muttered Antivan.

            “Sorry,” I said hesitantly, because I could feel something pressing against me, and it absolutely wasn't a dagger. “I thought you wanted –”

            “I do!” He kissed me, releasing my wrists to rest his hands on my thighs instead, gripping gently. “Mi amor, I do want to, believe me. A lot. It’s just… I don’t have an immense amount of experience with these things. I care about you, a great deal. I believe I might love you, in fact. This, what we have, it means more to me than I ever dared dream, even though I know it is still early to be saying that.”

            “In fairness, we’ve been dancing around this for a while.”

            “We have,” he smiled, kissing me again. “But… I do not want to rush things. We have time, and I want to… to savour things. All our firsts. I want to take things slowly, to really take the time to appreciate…" He laughed softly. "Am I making any sense?”

            “Yes,” I said, grinning. For a second, I was back at the Winter Palace with Cullen. Rather than making my head spin, the way reminders of him had before, I just felt like laughing. “You’re right. And honestly… honestly, with my history, maybe not rushing things is better for both of us. Like you said, we take our time, and we make the most of it.”

            There was a sound, like a faint, distant voice screaming, “No!” Lucanis chuckled, his thumbs rubbing slow circles on the insides of my thighs. “Spite is less than thrilled.”

            “I think I can hear him,” I giggled. Taking Lucanis’ face in both hands, I looked into his eyes and said, “Spite, trust me – it’ll be better for waiting.”

            That distant voice hissed, “Fine!”

            “There’s my good boy,” I said.

            Lucanis cocked his head. “You can hear him now?”

            “I could always hear something. Maybe since we did the mind meld thing it’s made it easier, I don’t know. Weird times.”

            “Weird indeed.”

            I kissed him and made to slide off the table. “So, we –”

            “Ah ah.” He held me in place, hands still on my thighs. “Where do you think you are going?”

            “You said –”

            “I said slow, not stopped.”

            Grinning, I raised my eyebrows at him. “Oh? And what did you have in mind?”

            Rather than answering me, Lucanis kissed me again. His hands slid up to work at the buttons on my not-jeans, and he trailed kisses along my jaw and down my neck, applying just the barest hint of teeth to the soft skin over my jumping pulse as he slipped his hand down, inside my waistband and –

            God, it had been so long. I’d barely even done any self-care for years, I just couldn’t while we were on the road, and even since getting to the Lighthouse it wasn’t like I’d had much time to myself, always sure someone was going to need me and burst in. Admittedly, we were in the kitchen, so that could very much still happen, but right then I couldn’t seem to give a fuck.

            Lucanis pulled back – not his hand, thank everything, that was still in place, fingers tracing against my clit – just enough that he could see my face. Maybe he didn’t have a lot of experience with romantic entanglements or whatever, but the guy could read people really well, and it turned out that was all he needed right then. Watching me closely the whole time, he sped up and slowed down, pressed harder or softer, whatever he needed to keep that pressure building.

            One of my hands gripped his shoulder, fingers winding into his shirt, while my left hand clung to the table for dear life, as his free hand trailed up and down my inner thigh, occasionally stopping to squeeze gently. His eyes were fixed on me, intense, pupils so wide they’d almost fully swallowed his irises, and he was breathing almost as heavily as I was. One last thought shot through my brain, bright and crystal clear – thank God he decided to take things slowly, because if we were having sex right now my head might actually explode.

            Then I came, suddenly, so hard I had to shove the side of my hand in my mouth to keep from screaming loud enough to be heard outside. Lucanis let out a low, shaky groan, squeezing my thigh tight, while I sat there shuddering and gasping and making pathetic little whimpers as I tried to get a single brain cell to function. After a moment he slipped his hand free, fastidiously doing my buttons back up before shyly slipping his fingers into his mouth, something that made my hips buck again.

            “Jesus wept,” I said weakly. “I hope nobody asks about the handprint I just burned into the table.”

            He laughed raggedly, still staring at me with those big doe eyes. His left hand came up to stroke my cheek. “You’re beautiful like this.”

            There was this look in his eyes, such naked softness I almost couldn’t face it. I kissed him, then slid my hand between us, only for him to grab my wrist again.

            “Hey,” I said, “reciprocity is the name of the game. I won’t say I’m the least selfish lover out there, but I at least try.”

            “I understand, but…”

            With a sigh, he released me, allowing my hand to slide lower… where this time I felt nothing but a sticky patch. My eyebrows rocketed upwards, the smuggest of grins creeping onto my face. “Really?”

            “You are… very beautiful like this.” Smiling bashfully, he ducked his head. “I promise to last longer when we have actual sex.”

            “Considering how good you are with your hands, I’m not even worried,” I said teasingly. “Oh, and just so we both know where we stand – early days, yes, but..." (say it, say it you fucking coward, if he can say it so can you), "I think I love you, too.”

            Grinning delightedly, Lucanis made to kiss me again, only to pull away as the kitchen door burst open. “Harding,” he said, hastily sitting down, “is everything alright?”

            “I just got word from Kal-Sharok,” Harding said breathlessly. “Something’s happened to Stalgard and a lyrium mining team he was leading, they… Sorry, have I interrupted something?”

            “No, no, it’s…” I was on my feet and facing her, trying to look like my legs weren’t still wobbly and bits of me weren’t still so sensitive it kept making me flinch. Part of me wished people would stop wandering in on my romantic escapades. A more rational part pointed out that if I stopped having romantic escapades in public places, it would probably help. God, maybe Dorian had been right, maybe I was a closet exhibitionist. “Is Stalgard alive?”

            “We don’t know, his whole team failed to check in,” Harding said. “I’m sorry to ask for help so soon after Arlathan, but –”

            “It’s fine,” I assured her. “Stalgard’s cool, if I can help him out I will. If not, I can at least avenge him. Just, uh. I’m going to go and change, you know, get my gear on. Luc, are you staying here?”

            “Yes, I… still have things to do. I will see you both later.”

            Harding was looking back and forth between us, eyes narrowed, the barest hint of a smirk on her lips. “Yeah. Hopefully see you soon,” she said.

*

                        Down into the fucking mines again. I’d never be free. The Kal-Sharok outpost and Oracle’s temple hadn’t freaked me out too badly, they were open enough for me to tell myself we were just in a very solid building, but this shit was very obviously a mine. Narrow passages, the walls rough, steep drops all over the place. Fuck my life, man. Fuck it all.

            Harding and I walked along at the head of our group, which right then consisted of Taash, Davrin, and Neve; Emmrich and Bellara had headed off to the Necropolis straight after dinner. She glanced up at me after a while, smirking again as she asked, “So, what did I walk in on back there?”

            Ahh, things really could always get worse. “Me and Lucanis were talking about us, sort of said we loved each other.”

            “Really?” she said, too loud, as it turned out.

            “What’s happening?” Neve asked.

            “Sorry,” Harding said as I rubbed a hand over my face.

            “Lucanis said he thinks he loves me, I said it back, then Harding walked in,” I said wearily, playing it up, because if I looked embarrassed enough about that the others were less likely to think something else had been happening. God, I’m a genius.

            “Nice,” Taash said.

            “Aw, isn’t that sweet?” Neve teased.

            “Kind of soon for that sort of thing, isn’t it?” Davrin said.

            “In fairness, we’ve been dancing around the subject for a while now. Like, we’ve just officially got together, but it’s not like we only met last week or whatever, you know? We’ve almost gone for it a couple of times, but with Spite and that...” I shrugged.

            “Yeah, you’re right,” he sighed. “Just don’t want you getting hurt is all. But if it’s getting serious, I… guess I could try to be nicer to him.”

            “It would be wildly appreciated!” I shot him a smile over my shoulder, and on facing forwards again I froze. “What the fuck is that?”

            What the fuck that was turned out to be a lump of red lyrium serving as a prison for a Kal-Sharok dwarf. I was briefly very concerned, but this red lyrium didn’t feel like the stuff I was used to dealing with. It was red, yes, but otherwise seemed like regular lyrium, none of the creepy extra-loud singing or infecting people. Which was weirder, really. At least Tainted lyrium was a known quantity.

            We made our way through the mine, Harding busting dwarves out of crystal cages all along the way, until eventually we found Stalgard, thankfully unharmed. He had the same story as all the other dwarves we’d broken out – they’d heard ominous sobbing in the distance, seen something red out of the corner of their eyes, and then pow, crystal prison.

            “And it’s after me,” Harding said. “The only way to stop it is to face it.”

            “Don’t!” Stalgard said, with more emotion than I’d ever heard from him. Which still wasn’t a lot, admittedly. “It will consume you.”

            Harding told him to get some rest, then told me we needed to carry on into the ‘Titan’s Heart’. “We’re in another Titan?” I said, looking around. “It’s not as fancy as the last one.”

            “Sorry to disappoint,” she said wryly.

            Carrying on, we came out in a chamber that looked unsettlingly like a huge ribcage, complete with a giant crystal heart. Less gorgeously scenic than the last Titan I’d been in, more uncomfortably organic. As we stood there, staring up at it all, a figure burst out of one last lyrium clump. This one wasn’t any trapped dwarf, however; it looked like Harding, except made out of living red lyrium. Shit.

            “Look at me!” Lyrium Harding screamed. “Don’t you remember? They broke us into a million pieces, and this is all that’s left!”

            Lyrium Harding started lifting the ground under us, only for our Harding to cut the plateau between us, so she and her spiky doppelganger were alone up there. Harding slowly approached Lyrium Harding, both of them speaking too quietly to be heard over the rumbling of the cavern. Harding slowly reached out to touch the other’s face… and the crystal version responded by grabbing hold of her wrist.

            “Run!” Harding shouted.

            Before we had a chance to process any of that, a rocky robot-looking thing popped out of the ground and started attacking us, as overhead Harding and her doppelganger argued. We took the thing down, with a fair bit of effort, and were left standing there in a collapsing cave.

            “We have to go,” Davrin said, catching hold of my elbow. “This whole place is coming down on us.”

            “No!” Taash yelled.

            “Not without Harding,” I agreed. “I’m not forcing anyone to stay, but I’m going up there.”

            “Damn straight,” Taash said.

            “Emma,” Davrin said frustratedly.

            “I don’t leave people behind!” I snapped. “Alright? That’s not… Never… I’m not leaving anyone behind, I'm not leaving her trapped down here alone, I can't, okay? If you want to go, then please, go, get somewhere safe. I mean that, get yourselves to safety. But I’m not leaving her here.”

            Taash was already running for the column the Hardings were on top of, and as I ran after them Neve and Davrin followed. Up we went, scrambling out into the open where now only Harding stood, caught in the middle of a swirling cloud of energy, her eyes glowing red. When she spoke, her voice was a mix of hers and the doppelganger’s.

            “I told you to run!”

            “Like that was going to happen,” I said. “We’re not leaving without you.”

            “I remember all of it! Everything the Evanuris did to the Titans! And now the world will remember!”

            “Alright, so you’ve been taken over by the Titan’s need for, what, retribution?” I cautiously crept closer, gesturing for the others to hang back, just in case. “Well, I just happen to be the perfect person to offer up penance for what was done to you. You want vengeance for what Solas and Mythal did? I’m your pound of flesh, Lace. Don’t take it out on the world. You take it out of me. Whatever it takes to get you right again. Take whatever you need.”

            Harding blinked, shaking her head sharply. “Em?”

            “You’re my friend, Lace.” I risked a few more steps forward. “I’ve known you pretty much the whole time I’ve been in Thedas. After Cullen died, you… you’re the reason I’m still here, you and Varric. I owe you. If you need to take something from me to get you back to the sweet, kind Lace Harding I know you really are, then you do what you have to. Just leave the world out of it, alright? For your sake, leave the world be.”

            “You took everything from us,” she said, stepping forward to meet me, “and you thought you won. But we’re still here. We’re different, but we’re not gone. We will thrive… in spite of you.”

            Taking a chance, I dropped to my knees and hugged her. For a moment she went rigid, and I felt power seize in the air around us, pressing against me, driving the air out of my lungs, preparing to do something drastic... But then it eased off. A second later Taash launched themself at us, wrapping us both in their arms, and after a pause the others glomped on top. Harding blinked rapidly, looking around at each of us in turn. Then she smiled.

            “Good to have you back, Harding,” I said as the maelstrom of power faded away to nothing.

Chapter Text

“You’re really alright?” I asked as we stepped back through the eluvian into the Lighthouse.

            “Yeah,” Harding said. “I mean, it’s still a lot to deal with. But I know now that I’ve got a friend who’s willing to walk into all that chaos for me. That means a lot.”

            “Taash was also very keen to step in,” I pointed out.

            “All of you were so brave,” Harding said, completely missing my insinuation, sorry Taash. “But… You know what you did was insane, right? Handing yourself over like that? I could have killed you!”

            “I’m wildly aware,” I smiled. “I don’t know, I was banking on being able to get through to you. Call that Plan A.”

            “So what was Plan B?”

            “Go out in a blaze of glory saving the world,” I shrugged. “What better way to die, right?”

            “Like I said,” Harding said, shaking her head with a smile, “insane.”

            “Ah, you’re here!” Emmrich said, charging down the stairs with Bellara and Lucanis in tow. “Marvellous! It’s Johanna. She’s hosting a party, seemingly for everyone who’s ever slighted her. She’s almost certainly intending on using the lantern.”

            “Then let’s get her,” I said. “Everyone who just came out is exempt –”

            “I think I’ll come along all the same,” Davrin said.

            Taash and the girls headed off upstairs, while Manfred joined the away team, coming along to be our spy for the evening. Little guy turned out to be surprisingly great at it, full on infiltration specialist shit. Then, when we had to ask a corpse how to get down to the level Johanna was storing the lantern on, Manfred spoke. Like, literally said hello.

            “This is a banner day for the gang,” I said as we set off again. “Harding’s got control of the Titan stuff, Fred’s talking –”

            “Emma and Lucanis said they love each other,” Davrin said, somewhat smugly.

            “You did?” Bellara squealed.

            “Yeah,” I drifted closer to Lucanis, grabbing his hand. “More or less.”

            “You already told people?” he said softly, looking confused.

            “Harding knew she’d walked in on something and started pushing me on it,” I whispered. “I think I panicked.”

            Lucanis laughed. “Ah. In that case, I don’t think I would have done any better.”

            “You have to go over all the details with me later,” Bellara said eagerly. “So I can put it in my… uh… memory.”

            Christ, there was a thought. “Yeah, sure, all the details, you bet,” I said, ignoring Lucanis’ stifled laughter.

            We fought our way down to the lower levels, only to discover that Hezenkoss’ plan also included some kind of horrible skeleton Jaeger, powered by the lantern, which responded to us finding it by bursting through the ceiling to start draining the life force out of all the guests. Fantastic. Back upstairs we went. God, I was tired.

            Crouching behind a fallen pillar in the ballroom, I spotted the lantern, hanging off the front of the Jaeger. “There. Emmrich, think you can smash it? Or whatever you need to do to get it powered down?”

            “That might kill me, and not even work!” Emmrich protested. “No living thing can approach it and –”

            Manfred stood up abruptly. “I go!” he said in his new squeaky little voice, before sprinting for the lantern, as fast as his bony little legs could manage.

            “Oh, Jesus.”

            “Manfred!” Emmrich cried. “Come back!”

            But he didn’t. The little guy made it, ripping the lantern free and tossing it towards us. I felt a brief moment of triumph, before the bone golem swatted Manfred like a butterfly. Bellara and I both screamed, while Emmrich gasped out his name. I grabbed the necromancer by the front of his shirt.

            “He got you the lantern,” I said sharply. “He did his part, alright, now you do yours!”

            “But –”

            “Emmrich, you bloody listen to me right now. You can do this. I know you can do this.”

            “Don’t let Manfred’s sacrifice be in vain,” Lucanis added.

            Taking up the lantern, his jaw set, Emmrich stepped out of cover, chanting and doing some fancy magic. Hezenkoss screamed abuse at him, and then just screamed as all the trapped spirits rose from the lantern, swirling in the air before they descended on her like a shoal of weird piranhas, or maybe a green Sharknado. I took a moment to make sure all the partygoers had survived, which it appeared they had, though everyone was obviously pretty shaken up by the whole business. Then I went looking for Manfred. Emmrich was already there, cradling him.

            “Is he…?” My voice trailed off as Emmrich looked up at me, his expression telling me all I needed to know.

            “We have to go to the Necropolis.”

*

                        Emmrich said we couldn’t all go trooping into the room where he laid out Manfred’s remains, but he allowed me to join him in there all the same. After Emmrich gave what seemed to be a brief eulogy, I asked what I’d been thinking during the whole trip over there.

            “Can you bring him back? One of my dad’s friends, this spirit of Wisdom, got turned into a Pride demon back in the day…” I was briefly sidetracked by the realisation that Solas was probably so upset by that whole debacle because he’d known her since they were both Wisdom spirits together. That was a rough one to have to quickly shake off, but I managed it. “She died in the process, but he said something like her could probably come back, one day. Not her, exactly, but something similar. But with Manfred, and you being Mourn Watch… I mean, could he…?”

            “I will ask.”

            He did some fancy moves, but it wasn’t Manfred who responded. Instead, a hollow, rasping voice called out, “Emmrich Volkarin. You were not expected so soon.”

            I looked up at a balcony above our heads to see a hulking figure with glowing eyes wearing what looked like a spiky crown peering back at us. “Um. Hello there,” I said, waving.

            Emmrich patted me on the back, so I assumed I’d sounded polite enough, and said, “My lord, I come regarding Manfred, my fallen companion.”

            “Yes,” the guy said, and as he did I realised this must be one of those lich lords Emmrich had told me about. “There are ways to restore his spirit. But should you do this, lichdom falls from your grasp.”

            “How’s that fair?” I said before I could stop myself.

            “Lichdom is long,” Emmrich said. “If I am to stand outside death, I must make peace with others passing through it.”

            “What would we otherwise become?” the lich said. “How many exceptions ‘til tyranny? Revive him and remain mortal. Or let him slumber, and join us.”

            I looked up at Emmrich, who looked lost. “Manfred chose to help us,” he said. “Am I too weak to accept his well-earned rest? I yearn for lichdom, Emma. That leap into something greater, that everlasting light! Do I retrieve him and live out my days? Or do I honour death by letting him rest, and protect this world through immortality?”

            “Can I give my take on things?” I asked hesitantly.

            “But of course!” Emmrich looked genuinely surprised. “Those were not rhetorical questions, Emma, I would value your advice.”

            “Okay.” I glanced up at the lich, still looming over us, and wished he’d give us a bit of space. “So, I might be immortal. I haven’t noticeably aged since I’ve been awake, and with everything… It’s a possibility I’ve had to consider, you know? That one day Cole might be dead, and Dorian, and all my Inquisition friends, and now Lucanis and our whole little gang, but I won’t be. I’ll still be here, like this. After Cullen first died it kept me awake most nights. I’d just lie there in my bedroll while the others were asleep thinking, like… maybe this will keep happening. With everyone I get close to. Forever.

            “When I think about it too hard… It feels the way you’ve talked about your fear of death, actually. This sick, strangling sort of feeling, as if someone’s reached into my chest and compressed all my organs, like I can't catch my breath properly. The thought that someday, a hundred, a thousand years from now, there might be this woman walking the world still using my name and still wearing Ellana Lavellan’s face, only she’s cold and hard and detached from everyone around her.” I shrugged. “How will she keep doing good in the world when there’s nothing to tether her to it?”

            “Perhaps her fundamental good nature will continue to drive her,” Emmrich said gently.

            “Maybe. Maybe not.”

            Emmrich nodded slowly. “And that is what you believe will happen to me, should I become a lich?” He smiled, just a little. “Or is this your roundabout way of asking me to stand against eternity beside you?”

            “Listen, if you really want to become a lich, I’m behind you one hundred percent, and I’d love to have a friend who’s also immortal to hang out with me. But if I am immortal, it’s not something I’d ever have chosen for myself. I suppose what I’m saying is you just need to think about what actually scares you more. The thought of your own death, or the thought of… well, everyone else’s.”

            He let out a long sigh, closing his eyes for a second. “Death’s abyss always recedes with someone to brave it for.”

            “Well, I might be immortal, and I’m pretty hard to kill besides.” I waved the Anchor. “So, I’ll be around for as long as you can put up with me. And I think you’d have to fake your death to get away from Bellara. But Fred is… I can see how much he means to you. I know I’d give up a hell of a lot for Cole.”

            “Yes,” Emmrich sighed. “He has so much potential. Manfred, I mean, though I don’t doubt Cole also…” He shook his head. “Oh Emma, he has so far to grow!”

            “Are you going to give him the chance?”

            For a while he stared at Manfred’s empty skeleton, then up at the lich, who was still watching us impassively. Finally, he smiled. “Yes. I’ll need your help.”

            “You’ve got it.”

            He nodded sharply as the lich faded away in silence. “We shall need assistance finding Manfred’s wisp and drawing it back into his body.” He did a quick little ritual, and two spirits materialised on the other side of the table, each looking like a neon-dyed central nervous system wearing grim reaper cloaks. Very normal. Like fucking Disco Vorgoths. They also looked vaguely familiar, and after a second I realised they were the spirits who’d turned up on the little walk Emmrich had taken me on through the Necropolis gardens. As if hearing my thoughts, he said, “You’ve met these spirits before, but I’ve never properly introduced you. Emma Rutherford, allow me to present two Necropolis guardians; the Keepsake of Ages, and Farsighted Curio.”

            “Hello,” I said, giving them my patented awkward wave. “Nice to meet you both properly. Thanks for coming to help us.”

            “How polite!” Curio said delightedly. “How fine!”

            Keepsake approvingly added, “Good manners in mortal kind, beyond the Spirit Callers, at last.”

            As I smiled up at Emmrich, very glad I hadn’t showed him up in front of his work friends, Curio’s… head? dipped as though looking at the Anchor. “Oh! But of course our visitor is polite, she…” I kept smiling as best I could, even though I knew what was coming (that I could only be nice to spirits because of the Dad Wolf) and it kind of bummed me out, as if I couldn’t see spirits as people of my own accord. But Curio paused, looking back at my face, before finishing up with, “She is a friend of our sweet Manfred. She must be more open-minded than most.”

            “Well, I try,” I said, with a proper smile again.

            “Friends,” Emmrich said, “my assistant… my ward, Manfred, sacrificed himself to save us.”

            “There are many flickers of Curiosity in the Fade,” Curio said.

            “And only one you seek,” Keepsake added. “Draw his wisp near.”

            “How do I help?” I whispered.

            “Think of Manfred, please,” Emmrich said. “A memory of him, something you felt about him. Hold it in your mind.”

            I did, thinking about sitting with him at the edge of the Fade, of letting him win at rock, paper, scissors, of him squeaking happily as he hugged Cole. Then I remembered something the Augur of Stone Bear Hold had said, when we’d been down in the Frostback Basin dealing with that Hakkon-dragon business. That the Anchor acted as a sort of beacon for spirits. I poured energy into it, not enough to activate it, just enough to, hopefully, elevate that beacon to a lighthouse.

            Emmrich did a ritual as I stood there, hand stinging and glowing, and a wisp drifted its way down into the skeleton… which sat upright. “Manfred!” Emmrich cried.

            “Hooray!” the little guy said, and my concerns that he might have forgotten himself or regressed as a person or anything like that vanished. Then his hands started glowing with spectral fire, and I found myself with a whole new set of concerns. “Magic!” he squeaked. “Like you!”

            They hugged, and it was really sweet, and I swear I was only moderately concerned that he was going to end up burning the Lighthouse down. It would be fine, probably. The place was mostly made of stone.

*

                        “You have such interesting friends, da’len,” Felassan said a few days later, as we sat on the steps that curved around the outside edge of the Lighthouse, watching Manfred run around on the plaza below, showing off his new powers to Neve and Harding.

            I laughed. “Yeah. I do seem to collect all the weirdoes. Still, life’s more interesting that way.” Lucanis walked out of the kitchen and stood watching the chaos. Even at that distance he spotted me on the steps and waved. I waved back with a big dopey grin… and froze as Felassan slowly leaned in until his nose was touching the side of my face.

            “What exactly is happening with you and that boy?”

            Laughing again, I pushed him away. “You were there for the ‘courting’ talk, weren’t you? You bloody instigated it, as I recall. Anyway, we’re in love, as it happens. More or less. Don’t worry, it’s all above board.”

            “Hmm.”

            I cocked my head, eyeing him. “Alright, Uncle Fel, listen up. I’ve never been one of those girls who’d put up with a guy deciding he gets to dictate who I go out with just because we’re related or whatever. Newsflash, I’ve already been married. I’ve got nothing to save up.”

            “This isn’t like that, da’len. If you were dallying with Davrin I would be thrilled for you.”

            “Oh, so it’s a shem thing!”

            “Not entirely. Should you have chosen the professor, I would be less reticent.”

            “Oh good, so Lucanis is the only one of the lads you wouldn’t have approved of. Good to know. What is it, the abomination thing?”

            Felassan looked at me like I was an idiot. “He murders people for money, Emma,” he said in a tone that said it should have been obvious, adding off-handedly, “Personally, I quite like Spite. He’s a character.”

            “I kill people too.”

            “You kill people who are already trying to kill you, or who pose a danger to others, or that –”

            “Doesn’t make them any less dead. Doesn’t make their potential any less squandered, their families any less bereaved. I’ve still killed more people than I could ever hope to count, they’re all still just as dead.”

            “But if they earned it, then –”

            “That’s my point. Why am I the one deciding who deserves it? Was this how they started? Solas, Mythal, all the Evanuris? At first it’s all justifiable, and then when it’s no longer justifiable you find a way to keep justifying it all anyway. Was that how it went with them? You’d know, wouldn’t you? So yeah, I’m not going to judge Lucanis for… for impersonally taking on assignments, due to a system he was born into, when I’m choosing to go out into situations where I know I’m going to have to kill people, of my own volition.”

            He looked closely at me. “This isn’t just about Lucanis, is it?”

            I shook my head, rubbing the back of my neck. “I don’t feel it anymore.”

            “Feel what, da’len?”

            “The deaths. The killing. The first time I ever killed someone, it hurt. Really, really hurt. And for a long time afterwards it was still awful, even if it was justifiable. And then it was an unpleasant necessity. I don’t know when that stopped, but lately it’s like it’s just another thing I do.”

            Felassan sat with his head on one side, still staring at me. “I fail to see how your ceasing to self-flagellate is an issue, if I’m being completely honest.”

            “Because once I’ve stopped seeing my enemies as people, what’s stopping me from seeing my allies the same way? As just meat for the grinder? I saw a memory out in the Crossroads, where Dad sent a whole lot of spirits on a suicide run, just to get hold of some artifact. You were his most loyal supporter, his friend, and you only had to mess up once for him to kill you.”

            “Technically I didn’t mess up, I deliberately chose not to –”

            “Fel!” I shook my head sharply, my voice starting to shake. “I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be like them, I don’t want to be them, I… I’m just so fucking scared that I’m going to start ordering people to their deaths and not feel anything about it, like my friends, people who believe in me, are going to become nothing but expendable pawns, and I don’t –”

            “Shh, now.” Felassan wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against him. “Oh my poor, sweet Little Dream. You won’t end up like your father, and do you know why?”

            “Why?”

            “Because you already know exactly where that road leads. I trust in your ability to learn from others’ mistakes. If you’re afraid of becoming like them, let it guide you. Keep it in mind. Use it to only make decisions you feel you can live with.”

            A memory hit me suddenly – sitting in a hut in the Hinterlands with Solas as I sobbed over the first man I ever killed. “Remember this feeling,” he’d said to me. “When the time comes to make decisions, for your own people and those who oppose you, remember this moment. Remember the first life you ever took. Do not allow yourself to become just another despot, who sees the lives of those around her as no more than pieces on a board.”

            Because he knew, of course. He knew what it was to walk that path, and with me being his daughter, he must have thought there was at least a chance that I’d go the same way. He planned on making me Inquisitor, to make sure he could stay close enough to power to potentially retrieve the orb, and he was worried I’d go down the same route he had as soon as I was in charge of an organisation like that. Something about the thought made me so incredibly, indescribably sad, it felt like I’d sink through the floor.

            “Anyway,” Felassan said, kissing me on the forehead, “I’m sorry I questioned your taste in men.”

            I let out a surprised, soggy sort of laugh. “As you should be. That’s what you get for tugging on threads.”

            “Consider me taught.”

Chapter Text

About a week later I was woken by Bellara, shaking me and looking frantic. “Hey, so, remember how I told you I’d set up an artifact to warn me if Cyrian and Anaris started another ritual?”

            I’d only been awake for about ten seconds at that point, so wasn’t 100% that I remembered my own name, but all the same, I muttered, “Yeah, sure.”

            “Well, they did, and it’s big, really big. Arlathan big, maybe.”

            “Okay.” I hauled myself to my feet. “Are the others ready to move?”

            “Taash and Harding have gone to Rivain, and Neve’s with the Shadow Dragons,” Bellara said, her fingers twining together. “But everyone else is awake, at least.”

            “Alright, just let me get dressed and we’ll head out.”

            Felassan was leaning on the handrail outside my room. “Not that I doubt your abilities, Emma,” he said, falling in step with me, “but don’t underestimate Anaris. He’s a self-aggrandising bastard, yes, always has been, but he didn’t come to be known as a god without reason.”

            “I’ll keep it in mind, hahren.” I gave him a quick hug before slinging Tyrdda’s staff onto my back. “We’ll be safe, I promise.”

            “I wish I could come with you,” he muttered as the others started arriving.

            “One day you will,” I said. “Alright, lads and ladies. Let’s go give our warm-up god a good kicking.”

*

                        Arlathan in general only felt as weird as normal, but as we followed Bellara through one final door the whole team froze in place, Bellara quietly asking, “Do you feel that?”

            Fucking didn’t I just. It felt like something was pulling at my whole body, like being caught in a strong crosswind, but deeper. As if the crosswind wasn’t just pulling at my limbs and hair, but my organs and bones too. The thought was a bit too Chernobyl for comfort. I quickly rubbed my hands up and down my arms, as if that would be enough to hold everything in place.

            “We’ve got to stop this, before it goes any further,” I said without thinking. “Shit, Bel, I’m sorry. This can’t be easy.”

            “I thought maybe he’d listened,” she said quietly. “Even if it took him a while. But he didn’t. So let’s go stop my brother.”

            We set off, Davrin and Lucanis talking about Wardens, which probably meant I was going to have to referee before long. That tugging feeling came again, and I rubbed my arms frustratedly. “What is that, anyway?”

            “That pulling apart feeling?”

            “Ye.”

            “It’s you being… well. Pulled apart. Just, really slowly.”

            “Right. Naturally.” Fucking magical radiation, of course. “Well. Maybe we just don’t give it time to finish pulling us apart.”

            “I like that plan.”

            What would happen, I wondered, if the ritual worked and my body, Ellana’s body, was pulled apart cell by cell? Would I go back to dreaming in the Fade? Would I be like Felassan, conscious but bodiless, spending the rest of eternity trapped in the Lighthouse? Or would I just become a demon, maybe kill some people before the Veil Jumpers managed to put me down? I wondered how much of me would be left, if it was the latter. Imshael, despite being a demon, had clearly been capable of reason and rational thought and such. Was I old enough that I’d be myself, just with an urge to do demon shit? What sort of demon would I be, anyway? Despair, maybe.

            Bellara tracked down the amplifier that was beaming the magical radiation out over a wider area, and with a bit of effort we broke the damn thing. I say a bit of effort. We had to fight a few dozen of those magical armour constructs, plus some weird Fade plant-monster guys. Still, fight them we did, the amplifier fell through the floor, and we all stood there looking down into the hole.

            “Does this mean the ritual has ended?” Emmrich asked.

            “Half holiday, milkshakes all round!” I said cheerfully. “Not great, not terrible.”

            “Sorry, it’s still going,” Bellara sighed. “But we slowed it down, and bought ourselves a little time.”

            “Oh sweet, so we’re not getting pulled to bits anymore?” I asked.

            “Um. We’re getting pulled to bits slower?”

            “Alright, fuck it, everyone in the hole.”

            In the hole everyone got, still following the pulling sensation to its source. Bellara was right, it might have been weaker by then, but it was still there, trying to turn us all into Godzilla. We made our way through a whole bunch of unsettling architecture, like, shit was weird even by Arlathan standards. Floating islands with reduced gravity and stuff.

            “Spite hates this place,” Lucanis muttered after we’d completed another weird floaty jump.

            “He’s not the only one,” I said, accepting a quick squeeze of the hand before continuing onward. That was one benefit of having a boyfriend who’d come out into the field with me like that. Yeah, I was also constantly worried I was going to have to watch him die, but still, I got little kisses and stuff on missions, so, swings and roundabouts.

            Eventually we solved yet another fucking puzzle, trooped through into a darkened chamber, and there they were, Cyrian and Anaris, in a big glowing red bubble around a pool. At least, something that looked like a pool. The ‘water’ might have been energy, Well of Sorrows style, it was hard to tell.

            “Well, well, the Dread Pup and her flock of lost little lambs.” Anaris said it mockingly, but if I was being entirely honest, I didn’t hate it as a nickname. “Are you here to join Cyrian at my side?”

            “Bellara,” Cyrian choked out. “I told you to stay away!”

            “I can’t, Cyrian,” Bellara said. “Not when it comes to you.”

            “Why couldn’t you listen to me?”

            “Why couldn't you stop being a dickhead, that’s the real question,” I said. “Turning people into demons, and then acting like Bellara’s the one in the wrong for trying to stop you? Get a grip.”

            “The Pup has teeth,” Anaris said, with a chuckle so patronising it very nearly made my head explode. “Pay them no mind, Cyrian. They cannot halt my moment of triumph. Soon, they shall witness my beneficence. As well as my wrath. Now, I shall make your people –”

            “Shut up!” I snapped. “Shut the fuck up, alright? Fuck me, you’re not special, Anaris, you’re just yet another smug prick in a long line of smug pricks with delusions of grandeur, all of you endlessly ranting about your fucking beneficence, and not a single bloody one of you knows how to just –”

            There was a flash of green-white light. Anaris just had time to say, “What –” before he was blasted backwards, out of the circle and into nothingness. We all stood there, staring at the empty space, as I slowly pulled my hands to my chest.

            “I, uh. I don’t… Was that me?”

            “It was me,” Cyrian said. “I wasn’t sure that was going to work.”

            “What happened?” Bellara asked.

            Cyrian ripped the ugly mask off, revealing a much more attractive face beneath as he said, “Hi, Vora’shivan. It’s me.”

            “May I ask, what exactly just happened?” Emmrich leaned around Bellara to ask, since she didn’t seem capable of speaking right then.

            “A flaw,” Cyrian said. “A little one. Enough to disrupt his ritual. Emmaera’s distraction was unexpected, but might have helped all the same. Thank you.”

            “Oh, no worries, I love having a go at dickheads.”

            Cyrian smiled. “With any luck, it sent him right back to the middle of the Fade.”

            “But… why?” Bellara asked softly. “Why did you do it?”

            “I followed your heart,” he said. “Like I said, it’s a good heart. And I didn’t want to disappoint you. Not again.”

            They stepped closer to each other, and I made a discreet retreat, leaning back into Lucanis as he put his arms around me. For a minute there, I felt all warm and fuzzy. There was some stupid, superstitious part of me that was thinking, hey, maybe if Bellara can turn her brother around, make him see sense, then who knew, maybe it meant I could –

            Then, with a choked gasp, Cyrian was dragged into the air by the leg. Anaris had slithered out of the pool, unnoticed, physical now, and had gotten hold of Cyrian before any of us knew what was happening. I was pretty sure he was taller now he was physically present, too, Cyrian was fully dangling in the air.

            “Betrayed again,” Anaris said. “How tragic.” Turning sharply, he hurled Cyrian against a pillar.

            You ever have a moment where you look back at something that happened to you, something bad, and suddenly realise that actually you got off relatively light? Because as bad as Corypheus hucking me into that trebuchet had been, at least he’d just thrown me like I was a towel going into the laundry hamper. Anaris launched Cyrian like he was trying to throw him through the damn pillar.

            Rolling his shoulders, Anaris sighed and said, “How I have missed the smell… the taste of this world. Once I dispose of you and finish my ritual, I will have succour in the storm.”

            “You took away my brother,” Bellara snarled. “I’m going to make you wish you were still a spirit!”

            As it turned out, fighting a god? Harder than you’d think. Anaris wasn’t even one of the first-string gods, and still, between the summoning hordes of demons and sending out blasts of power he was doing, we were in trouble. After one burst of energy that left us all lying on the stone, mostly insensible, there was a movement in the air above me. Before I had a chance to react, gloved hands wrapped around my throat, hoisting me into the air.

            “I have missed this also,” Anaris said, in a low voice full of savage joy. “The tactile pleasure of a throat spasming in my grip. Feeling your lifeforce ebb beneath my fingers. I could have broken your neck, Wolf’s Pup, as easily as snapping a stick, but this is more satisfying, is it not? More… intimate. Does your father know, I wonder? Can Fen’Harel sense the life fading from his Pup?”

            My vision was going dark around the edges as I regained enough motor control to reach up and grip Anaris’ wrists. He was a god, alright, or close enough to make no difference. But unlike Elgar’nan, he wasn’t wound about with layers upon layers of protective enchantments. That meant when I opened a dozen rifts inside him, it worked as intended. Painfully, messily, siphoning him into the Fade.

            “No!” he howled, dumping me on the ground to clutch at his chest… which only succeeded in feeding his hands into the rifts that were eating through his torso. “I must… escape… the Eye!”

            I just lay there trying to get my breath back as he cheesegratered his way out of existence. Thank fuck he’d intended on making me suffer, because the guy could have crushed my windpipe like a paper cup if he’d wanted, I could feel it. I pressed the Anchor to my bruised throat and forced myself to my feet as I remembered that Cyrian had got it way worse than me, my head swimming as I looked over to where Bellara was cradling her brother.

            “That final move of yours was… quite unpleasant,” Emmrich said.

            “Couldn’t have done it earlier?” Davrin muttered, also staring over at Bellara.

            “Got to be making contact for it to work.” I picked my way over to the siblings. When Cyrian caught sight of me over his sister’s shoulder, he somehow managed a smile, despite the horrible caved-in look his chest had.

            “Thank you,” he gurgled, “for helping Bellara. For helping me.”

            “I wish I could have done more.”

            “I made these choices. No one else.”

            Cyrian only asked for one last thing – for Bellara to stay with him. The lads and I pulled back to give them their space, as Bellara wept over her brother, who slowly slipped away.

*

                        Davrin and Lucanis carried Cyrian out between them, while Emmrich and I walked on each side of Bellara, steadying her. I couldn’t think of anything to say, at least nothing that would be any help at all. How do you say ‘sorry your dead brother came back to life just so he could die in front of you again’?

            “I’m so sorry, Bel,” I said, trying to keep it simple. “I just… can’t imagine.”

            “Thanks. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.”

            “You know we’ll get you anything you need, right? If you need to take some time off, or… I don’t know, whatever.”

            She squeezed my hand, though couldn’t seem to speak. We walked back to the Veil Jumper camp in silence, only to find a downcast Harding sat between Strife and Irelin. For a second I thought she’d somehow already heard the news. Then I saw the surprise in her eyes as she caught sight of Cyrian, and with a chill I realised something else had happened while we’d been out. Shit.

            “What happened?” Harding asked me quietly, as Bellara stepped aside to discuss funeral arrangements with Strife and Irelin.

            “Cyrian tried to do the right thing,” I sighed, “and Anaris… took it badly. Still, Anaris is dead, I think. He’s back in the Fade, at least. So. There’s that.”

            “Maker, that’s awful.” Harding sighed, shaking her head. “There’s something else, why I came here. When we got to Shathann’s house, it turned out she’d been kidnapped by this awful Antaam leader calling himself the Dragon King.”

            “Shit, alright,” I said, rubbing my temples. “We can –”

            “Em,” Harding said heavily, “it’s too late. We worked with the Lords to track her down, had to fight a damn dragon in the process, but… we didn’t get there in time. The Dragon King had us in a cage, with Shathann tied up in front of him. He was trying to get Taash to hand themself over, because they’re a fire-breather and all, something to do with Ghilan’nain. Shathann sacrificed herself to free us.”

            “She’s dead?” I whispered.

            “She said, ‘When I see my child in danger, I act’, asked me to take care of them, and then threw a lever to release the cage we were in. The Dragon King killed her for it, before we even had a chance at stopping him.”

            “Fuck. Are they… I mean, how’s Taash taking it? Sorry, stupid question. Shit. Shit, I should have been there, maybe –”

            “Hey, no, come on,” Harding patted my arm. “You were heading out to stop a demon ritual, and we were meant to be going to a nice family dinner. You couldn’t have known. Taash doesn’t blame you, not at all.”

            I sighed. “Alright. Let’s just get everyone home.”

            Another banner day for the Lighthouse team. 

Chapter Text

The away team had barely even made it back to the Lighthouse before Neve popped out after us and said, “Oh, good, you’re all here! Listen, I have a line on Aelia, think she’s about to start that big ritual of hers. Could use some help.”

            Of course. Emmrich and Harding stayed back to comfort Bellara and Taash, so only Davrin and Lucanis headed back out with us, both swearing they were fine to get into another fight. I explained everything that had happened on both away missions as we went, leaving Neve looking horrified.

            “Maker,” she said softly, “maybe I should have stayed back to check on the two of them.”

            “You can always head back, if you like,” I said, only half joking. “We’re happy to deal with Aelia for you.”

            “Always so sweet.” She patted me on the shoulder. “It’s fine. I’ll make it up to them both once we’ve dealt with this.”

            Elek the Crime Guy had already told her where to go, so we just charged along after her, picking our way out to an island in the bay, where the ‘Temple of Lusacan’ Aelia was apparently using to stage her ritual sat. Naturally, the first chamber we walked into was just packed with Venatori.

            “Listen up,” I shouted as they turned to us, “walk out without a fuss, give us a free run at Aelia, and we’ll fight you another day instead!”

            “Weren’t you a diplomat at one point?” Lucanis said, as every one of the Venatori decided to fight us instead of giving up and leaving.

            “Honesty is the best policy,” I said, and sent out a blast of lightning.

            The fight kicked off, and we were showing a bit of wear from spending hours fighting while being magically irradiated, though at least Neve was relatively fresh. I always pictured my magic reserves as a sort of well, after something Solas told me during our first training session back in Haven. An admittedly very deep well, but one I was quickly approaching the floor of right then.

            Just as I was thinking we should maybe have brought a bit more backup with us, before I could quite start to worry, a lean figure dropped down from a walkway overhead and put his hand clean through the nearest Venatori’s chest, as I made a sound I can only describe as “wurgh!” in response. That seemed to be his signature move, because he fisted three more people to death in quick succession while I stood there, staring in frozen horror.

            “Oh, Jesus fuck,” I said. Then he spun to face me, moving frighteningly fast as he knocked Tyrdda’s staff from my hand, grabbed the front of my shirt to slam me back against a column, and held up his gore-streaked hand. “No, please don’t fist me!”

            The guy, who turned out to be a skinny elf with white hair and glowing tattoos, paused to narrow his eyes at me. “You’re not Venatori.”

            “No, but this hand can do some really nasty shit, and I’ll do it if I have to! I’d rather not kill someone else who hates Venatori, but if my other option is getting fisted –”

            “Emma Rutherford,” he said, gaze dropping to the Anchor and back to my face. “The Inquisitor.”

            “Uh. Ye. Used to be. Used to be the Inquisitor, I mean, I’m still Emma Rutherford.”

            “Yes.” He released me, stepping away. “I can see why Varric liked you.”

            “Varric?” Hang on. Glowing power tattoos? “Are you Fenris?”

            “I’ll assume you’ve had a long day.”

            “Nice to finally meet you!”

            He nodded sharply. The others had finished off the remaining Venatori and were trailing over by then. Davrin looked ready to fight Fenris, or at least to shove him away from me, but the others seemed more chill now he’d taken his hands off me.

            “Gallus.”

            “Hi, Fenris,” Neve said with a smile. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

            “Elek told me there was a gathering of the Venatori, some sort of ritual,” Fenris said, picking bits of viscera off his clawed gauntlet. “I couldn’t resist. You’re Lucanis Dellamorte, yes? I’ve admired your work.”

            “As I’ve admired yours. Though I believe you might have poached some of my targets, in the past.” Lucanis collected Tyrdda’s staff and handed it back to me, giving me a quick kiss into the bargain.

            “Perhaps you should have gotten to them faster, rather than showboating.”

            Lucanis looked genuinely amused. “Perhaps I should.”

            I fell into step beside Fenris as we set off deeper into the temple, feeling weirdly starstruck. Probably because, out of all the Kirkwall crew, Fenris seemed the most mythic. Even Varric talked about him as basically having vanished into Tevinter, like a cryptid with a hatred for slavers. Now here he was, fisting people right beside me.

            “I met Isabela a few weeks ago,” I said eventually, just to have something to say. “Seen her a few times since, too.”

            There was a brief look of something close to panic in his eyes, though when he spoke he sounded calm as ever. “How is she?”

            “Good. She’s an admiral now, runs a sort of pirate gang slash treasure hunting unit. Super hot.”

            He snorted. “Yes. Sounds like her. Did Varric introduce you to any of the others?”

            “Um… Well, Hawke. I –”

            “I’m aware, and I’d rather not discuss it.”

            “Okay. Well, there’s you. Isabela. I met Carver and Aveline when we went to Kirkwall last year. Oh, And – Uh. And… I would like to meet Merrill, too, one day.”

            “Anders is still alive, is he?”

            “Fuck.”

            “Was that a serious attempt at covering that fact?”

            “He’s still with the Wardens. Not with Justice anymore. He’s off defending the south right now.”

            “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

            “He warned me to avoid you.”

            “What?” he snapped.

            “Mage.” I gestured to my staff. “In fairness, you did just come very close to magically fisting me to death.”

            “I wish you’d stop calling it that.”

            “Nah.”

            His lips twitched in something that came close to almost being a smile. Oh, I was going to break him, I knew it. He’d be laughing before the day was out. “And I didn’t come close to killing you. I stopped well short of breaking the skin.”

            “So you don’t have some pathological hatred of mages then?” I asked the guy who’d gone out to an abandoned temple, alone, because he heard there’d be Venatori there.

            “I have a hatred of slavers, and a… general distrust of mages. It just so happens that a lot of slavers here happen to be mages, besides which, most mages hardly prove my distrust wrong. Though Gallus and some of the Shadow Dragons are decent enough. Hawke, of course.” He looked me up and down. “You seem unobjectionable, I suppose.”

            “Flatterer.”

            He almost smiled again, and then we got into another fight, which was frustrating, because I was certain I could wear him down into thinking I was funny given enough time to work on him. Lucanis slipped in beside me when we set off again.

            “Have I been replaced as your favourite legendary mage-killer?” he asked.

            “Never.” I went up on my toes mid-stride to kiss him on the cheek, and he quickly reached out to steady me as I almost tripped over my own feet doing it. “Thanks. I don’t know, it’s just –”

            “Nice to talk to another of Varric’s friends,” he said quietly.

            “Yeah, I suppose that’s it. Like, I’ve heard so much about the Kirkwall crew, I almost feel like I know them already.” I rubbed the back of my head with a grimace. “Probably a bit parasocial.”

            “No, no, I think it’s sweet.”

            “I don’t trust your objectivity, I’m afraid.”

            Turning the next corner abruptly put everything back into perspective. A young man, barely more than a boy, was strung up in a cage. Bad enough, but what he was strung up by was his own blood – his wrists had been slashed, and the blood from the wounds was holding him upright, moving him around like puppet strings.

            “He’s from Dock Town,” Neve said darkly. “A paper seller.”

            “Neve Gallus,” the paper seller said in that unsettling, two-layered voice people got when Aelia was using them as a mouthpiece. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you were here?”

            “Mages,” Fenris muttered, as beside me Neve said, “Aelia.”

            “Can you do something, Neve?” I was far from squeamish, by necessity as much as anything, but that blood hanging in the air, twisting and jerking that poor lad around by his wounds like an awful marionette, was turning my stomach.

            Neve dutifully stepped up and held out her hands, power pulsing from her to the boy. After a moment she shook her head. “Damn it. Her magic… I can’t just pull him out. It might kill him.”

            “Then we’ll just have to kill Aelia first,” Fenris said, setting off immediately.

            There were more people in cages along the way, more blood puppets. All of them berated Neve, in Aelia’s almost-voice, about how she was wasting her Tevinter mage credentials by being a decent person or some shit. Typical Venatori stuff.

            Dropping off a ledge into an antechamber, we found Elek and Rana the templar waiting for us. “You guys made good time,” I said.

            “It helps that you folks cleared the place out,” Elek grinned. “I’ve got people ready to help with Aelia. Just say the word.”

            “I don’t like this,” Rana said. “Come on, Neve, working with the Threads?”

            “We’ve done more to help people lately than the templars have,” Elek said, his smile taking on a sharper edge.

            “We could try working together,” I said, “rather than squabbling over who gets to help. You know, considering Aelia’s a double-hard monster bastard of a mage, and we’ve already fought a metric fuckton of Venatori just getting here.”

            “You have such a way with words,” Elek said admiringly.

            “Aelia already knows we’re here,” Neve said thoughtfully, “but I don’t think she knows about you yet. Go, and stay out of sight. If we can throw a surprise at her, we might have a shot.”

            They set off together, hopefully not intending on murdering each other along the way. The rest of us trotted up a final set of steps and pushed through a door into a hall full of more Venatori, along with Aelia herself, stood on a platform over us. She was, as you might have guessed, monologuing.

            “Do you feel that, Neve Gallus? The old magic. Our legacy. It returns!”

            “It’s elf magic, dickhead!” I gave her a mocking bow. “You’re welcome.”

            “You shut your filthy mouth, knife-ear!”

            “Play another tune for once, fucking hell.”

            “You aren’t the future, Aelia!” Neve snapped. “You’re a murderer!”

            “I am Minrathous!” Aelia began to dramatically swirl power around above her head. “Its dark truth and bright power. The city won’t miss you. Dock Town won’t –” She tried to catch Neve by surprise, lashing out with all the power she’d built up, but Dock Town’s Finest was too quick for her and threw up a shield.

            Aelia would probably have continued monologuing, but Threads came pouring through a door behind her at that point, getting stuck into the cultists surrounding her. Fenris did a standing jump onto the platform, which genuinely took me out of the moment for a while there, like, the guy barely even wound up to it. Then he unsheathed a full-on Final Fantasy sword, the damn thing must have weighed as much as he did. God, maybe I was a little into him.

            Between them, Fenris and Neve took Aelia out while we dealt with yet another of those blood-powered mechs the Venatori seemed to be in love with lately. I think Neve’s original plan was for us to bring Aelia in alive, you know, make an example out of her, due process, yadda yadda. Unfortunately, Fenris.

            “Well,” I said, looking down at Aelia’s headless corpse, “at least that’s over.” Turning to Neve and Rana I added, “In fairness, killing all her underlings but then legally arresting her is a bit of a weird way to do things.”

            “Agreed,” Fenris said archly, cleaning his sword.

            “I suppose,” Neve sighed. “The main thing is she’s no longer a threat, and the captives… Oh, we should –”

            “Already got people doing it,” Elek said. “Pleasure working with you all. Always glad to make the streets a little safer.”

            Rana looked like she was about to explode, and Neve hastily led her off to a safe distance to have a hushed conversation, leaving me behind with the lads. “Really, thanks,” I said. “Both of you. I don’t think we could have done this without backup.”

            Elek smiled, shaking my hand. “As I said – my pleasure. You need anything in future, backup on a job, information, cheap potions, you come straight to us. I’ll make sure you get treated right.”

            “I’ll keep it in mind.” I turned to Fenris as my new crime boss bestie went on his way. Fenris had sheathed his sword by then and was just standing there, looking moderately awkward. “It was nice working with another of Varric’s strays. And I am including myself in that, before you take offence.”

            Another almost-smile. “It’s as good a word for us as any, though I always thought of us more as Hawke’s strays.”

            “Semantics.”

            Wonder of wonders, that’s what got him to laugh. Alright, so it was more of an exhalation than an actual laugh, but I was counting it as a win anyway. “You fight well. If you’re ever hunting Venatori again, feel free to get word to me through Elek. I wouldn’t be averse to working with you.” Turning to Lucanis, he added, “Good to see becoming an abomination hasn’t affected your capabilities, even if the showboating has gotten worse.”

            “I’ll… try to tone it down in future,” Lucanis said, smiling bemusedly as Davrin snickered behind him.

            Fenris left without another word, raising a hand to Neve as she wandered back over to us. “Ready to head back to the Lighthouse?” she said.

            Yes. Yes I bloody well was.

Chapter Text

Taash would barely talk about what happened with Shathann. I thought they were angry with me for not being there for them at first, but they seemed pretty chill when they showed me the piece of their mother’s horn which they’d apparently snapped off before having to leave Shathann’s body behind. In an active volcano. Jesus.

            “A Rivaini would wear it as jewellery,” they said quietly, “but she hated it when I acted Rivaini. A Qunari would graft the horn to their own, but she didn’t want me to stay part of the Qun. What would make her happy?”

            “What would make you happy?”

            They snorted. “Like that matters.”

            “Of course it does. Taash, come on. The whole reason she took you away from the Qun was so you could choose how you wanted to live your life, rather than having it assigned to you because you happened to be born a fire-breather. Remember our talk in the wetlands? You get one life. You’ve got to live it how you want.”

            “Huh,” they said. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

            Then they just… stopped talking. I stood there, waiting to see if they were going to follow it up with anything, or whether I was expected to say something else now. Before either of us had a chance, Davrin burst in, wild-eyed.

            “Caretaker said you were in here,” he panted. “Evka just got word through, they might have a line on the griffons.”

            “Then let’s get them back,” Taash said.

                        We got them back.

            Sounds nice and simple put that way, doesn’t it? Like we just went out and picked them up from the griffon park. Like it didn’t start with some Warden who’d gone on his Calling months previously staggering into Lavendel, directing us into the hole in the ground he’d seemingly crawled out of before he shuddered and died. Like our team – me, Davrin, Lucanis, Emmrich, and Taash – didn’t immediately hop right into that fucking hole, only to get ordered to stop by an apparent Warden with glowing red eyes before we’d gone too far, the guy guarding a door set into the rock behind him. When Davrin asked him where we were, Red Eyes called the place ‘Sanctuary’. Sure.

            “This place reeks of darkspawn and blight,” Davrin said, for my benefit more than Red Eyes’.

            “Embrace it,” the big weirdo rumbled, “and it will embrace you. The Calling is not the end for Grey Wardens.” He turned to fix those horrible, mad eyes on me. “You’re no Warden. You’re not allowed.”

            “That’s a shame!” I said cheerfully. “I’ll just have to go back above ground in that case!”

            I turned to go, but Davrin grabbed my shoulders and turned me back around, chuckling, before he drew his sword. “Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily.”

            We took down the door-Warden with the expected ease of a five-on-one fight (six if you included Assan, though he struggled to get involved in the tight space), and pressed on through the door he’d been guarding. Being down there turned out not to set off my depths phobia as badly as expected. The cavern we were in was so enormous it felt more like being out under a cloudy night’s sky. What was more unsettling was that we were looking at a building that was pretty much Weisshaupt, except underground and full of darkspawn and more of those ghouly Grey Wardens.

            After a while we found our way inside the building, only to discover the First Warden, still alive (of a fashion) and plumbed into a load of blight tendrils. He made a valiant effort to smile and gurgled, “Davrin. Rutherford.”

            “Jesus, Glasstrum, I’m… I thought Ghilan’nain had killed you. If I’d known you were alive, I’d have tried to get to you sooner.”

            “I wouldn’t have had you waste your time, girl,” he said. “Ghilan’nain did her worst. Then she found me.”

            “The Gloom Howler?” Davrin jumped in. “Isseya?”

            “She’s mad. She has the Wardens down here under her spell. She’s on a crusade to wipe out the whole order.”

            “What about the griffons?” Davrin demanded.

            “She’s going to blight them, too. Turn our own symbols against us. But there’s still time. Search around. There’s a feather from her own griffon, long ago. I’ve seen her look at it… with what passes for emotion. It might prompt something.”

            “Thank you,” I said. “Is there any… Can we do… Could we maybe cut you out of there?”

            “I appreciate the sentiment, but no. She’s in my head. I can’t hold her off. I should’ve died at Weisshaupt, anyway.” When Davrin tried to argue, the First Warden cut him off. “Give me some peace. That’s an order, Warden.”

            Davrin did as asked, putting a sword through the First Warden’s heart. I asked how he was afterwards, and he just shrugged, grabbed the feather from a nearby table, and led us deeper into the wrong Weisshaupt.

            It turned out that the darkspawn weren’t the biggest problem. They were swarming us, yeah, but we were well used to them by then, and Assan went through them like tissue paper, so we were doing fine. But the Ghoul Wardens were still capable of tactics, and being sneaky.

            Turning from a darkspawn, I saw a Grey Warden stabbing at Lucanis’ back. He was facing the other way, blades locked with a second Warden, the two ghouls seemingly having planned it that way, coordinating with each other. Lucanis didn’t have enough of a barrier left to save him, not from a point-blank stab like that, and I didn’t have time to get one of my own flimsy barriers on him. Didn’t have time to cast anything.

            I did have time for a Fade step, though.

            I shunted Lucanis aside, and the blade drove through my chest at an angle, punching through the centre and coming out just below my right shoulder blade. This sound came out of me, a sort of huff, like I’d been winded, and I managed to slap my Marked hand against the Warden’s wrist as he ripped the sword back out, opening a couple of rifts inside him. Somehow, the extraction hurt even more than the actual stabbing had, metal scraping across splintering bone.

            As my legs went out from under me, Lucanis grabbed me, lowering me to the ground with eyes wide and frantic. “No,” he said weakly, “oh no, no.”

            “Oh fuck,” I said. At least, that’s what I tried to say. All that came out was a great gush of blood, boiling hot and bitterly metallic. I coughed to try to clear my throat, but more blood just replaced it. Probably not a good sign.

            “The Anchor!” Lucanis grabbed my glowing hand and pressed it over the wound, which was pulsing out even more blood than was coming from my mouth. Where did it get me, then? Lung, almost definitely. Maybe heart too. He shook me. “Mi amor! Use the Anchor to heal!”

            The others were standing above us, shocked, horrified. I wanted to tell them there was no point. That healing a less mortal injury had almost killed me before, so a wound of that magnitude… I was dead either way. But when I tried to explain, only more blood came out, along with some gurgling, squeaking sounds.

            “Please,” Lucanis said desperately. “Focus on healing yourself, Emma, please.”

            God, he was going to have to watch me die. Knowing that was worse than knowing I was on my way out, that the last thing I was going to do in life was traumatise him, that his last memory of us together would be of me drowning in my own blood. I found myself hoping Cullen really had died before he knew what was happening. The thought that he might have felt like this in his final moments…

            “Emma, you must heal yourself,” Emmrich insisted. “A wound this severe is outside my abilities, you will be dead in moments.”

            Fuck it. At least if I closed the hole in my lung I might be able to speak enough to say a proper goodbye. I did as they asked, lemon-lime light flaring under my palm as bone and muscle and flesh and skin knit back together. Finally, I managed to cough out a glob of blood that seemed to be the last.

            “Thank the Maker,” Lucanis said, his voice catching as he pulled me into an embrace, clinging to me like he thought I’d float away if he let go. “I thought I’d lost you.”

            “You still will,” I said, my voice trembling as badly as I was. “The Anchor, the healing, it draws from my energy, and if I use too much at once it’ll kill me, so just, I love you, alright? I love you, Lucanis, and I love all you guys, and if you could tell the girls and Cole and my old team I love them too, and Fel, and… and… Hang on. Last time this happened I was already unconscious.”

            Emmrich knelt beside us as I sat back a little, holding out his hands. “May I?” He held his hands over my head and chest, a faint hum passing from his palms to my skin. After a moment he pulled away, shaking his head. “Remarkable! You’ve expended a great deal of magical energy, of course, but you are nowhere near close to death. From that perspective, at least. You have also lost a worrying amount of blood.”

            “Awesome,” Taash said. They pressed both hands over their eyes. “Had me kind of worried for a second.”

            Lucanis’ eyes flared magenta as Spite whispered, “Emma’s okay?”

            “Emma’s okay,” I said, resting my forehead against his with a smile.

            “Glad you’re still with us, da’asa’ma’lin,” Davrin said, gripping my shoulder with a trembling hand. “Listen, if you two want to stay here, rest –”

            “I’m fine.” I sat back and looked down at myself. God, I was soaked with blood from pretty much the nose on down. It looked like I’d eaten someone. “This shirt’s probably a write-off, though.” There was a tickle in my lungs, and I ejected another stream of blood onto my lap. Sure. Might as well.

            Davrin pulled me to my feet first, steadying me, then helped Lucanis up, who seemed a little shaky himself. I didn’t want to say anything to the others, but I didn’t think the Anchor had done anything to replace all the blood I’d lost, judging by the way my head was going all swimmy. I was really cold, as well, but in fairness that might have been because it was chilly down there and I was in wet clothes.

            Thankfully it wasn’t too much further before we reached Isseya, who had the stolen griffons locked in hanging cages dotted around the courtyard she was holding her ritual in. We took down the horde of darkspawn and corrupted Wardens protecting her, but before anyone could get to Isseya herself, Assan beat us to it. He tackled her, but Isseya just threw him off, pinned him down, and raised the Archdemon blood-contaminated sword, ready to drive it into him.

            “Touch him, and you die!” Davrin barked.

            “I’m giving him his freedom!” she shouted back.    

            “No, you’re not!” I snapped. “You’re just condemning him to go rabid and die, just like all the other griffons!”

            That seemed to give her pause, or maybe she was just thrown off by the fact I looked like Carrie post-prom. Either way, she shook it off and made to stab Assan… only to freeze again when Davrin took a step forward and said, “We know who you are, Isseya. A Grey Warden who lost her way. You blighted the griffons. You doomed them!”

            “The Wardens doomed them!” she spat back. “By their own decree! I saved them – the eggs. These are the future! With blight in their veins, the griffons will be immortal. The Wardens will never harm them again. I will be their shield against the pain!”

            The worst part was she sounded like she meant it. Like she genuinely, firmly believed everything she was saying, that what she was doing really was the best thing for them. I don’t know, maybe it was the blood loss, but I actually felt sorry for her.

            “You what?” Davrin was staring at me in astonishment, which was how I realised I’d said at least some of what I was thinking out loud. Isseya was also frozen, staring at me, so that was a plus, at least she wasn’t actively trying to stab Assan for the moment.

            “You did what you were ordered to do,” I said, “what you thought was best, with some really limited options available to you. I get that. I understand making hard decisions under pressure, trust me. I understand having those decisions haunt you. But you saved those eggs because you didn’t want them to die the same way, didn’t you?”

            “I… Yes.”

            “So why come back and try to do the exact same thing all over again? Of your own volition, this time? Why do this, expecting a different outcome, a better outcome, when deep down you’ve got to know what’s going to happen. Don’t these babies deserve the chance to live actual lives?” I reached into the pouch at Davrin’s belt, ignoring his bewildered look as I pulled out the feather. “Wouldn’t you have wanted your griffon to have the chance to live a full life?”

            “Revas…”

            “That was your mount?” Davrin said.

            “And a friend,” she whispered. “The blight drove her mad. I had to… put her down.”

            “And you would do the same to these griffons?” Davrin said.

            “You can make a better choice here,” I said quietly. “You can make up for what you did back then. Let them go. Let them live. Don’t make the same mistake over again, hoping it somehow makes up for last time.”

            She looked down at Assan, the sword slipping from her hand to land on the stones with a clank. “I’m… sorry.” She slid aside, letting Assan hop up and hurry over to Davrin. Looking up at us, at Davrin, Isseya said, “You will protect them? Better than I did?”

            “Yes,” Davrin said.

            “Then I shall rest.” Isseya lay down, curled in on herself, and with one last shuddering breath she died. Huh.

            Davrin looked up at the cages of griffons overhead and asked, “Who’s ready to go home?” prompting a storm of chirping and shrieking. “Guys, think you could help me out with the cages?”

            “Actually,” I said apologetically, “could I be excused from this part, because I feel a bit –” and then I blacked out from the blood loss.

*

                        I was only unconscious for a few minutes. When I woke up, I was covered in griffons, apparently in an attempt at keeping me warm (truthfully, not the worst way to wake up), with Emmrich doing some sort of magic at me. We were quite the gang on the way out, a full baker’s dozen of griffons making short work of the few darkspawn that dared to come at us. Despite my promising I felt fine enough to walk, Taash and Davrin insisted on taking it in turns to carry me.

            “So, griffons safe, griffons back with Wardens,” I said as Davrin took over carrying duties. His answering ‘yes’ sounded deeply unenthused. “What’s up, Dav?”

            “It’s… After what the Wardens did to them, is giving them more griffons really the right move?”

            “What’s the other option?”

            “Remember my Uncle Eldrin? I’ve spoken to him about this before. He’d be more than happy to take the griffons with him to Arlathan, as protectors of the forest. But… the griffons have always worked with the Wardens. That’s who they are, who we are. Can we change our natures?”

            “Of course we can. People definitely can, like, it might take a lot of work, but we can do it. And griffons are pretty smart. They count as people, as far as I’m concerned. Cole used to be a spirit, right, and now he’s basically a person. I believed he could change, back then, and because we gave him the chance to, he did, and he’s happy. Bull used to be Ben-Hassrath, now he’s, you know, not. I was an office worker, now I’m a whatever I am. I’ve seen Assan in the forest. I think the griffons could do more good there, especially with the whole thing about how Blights might not happen anymore. We can all be better people. Anyone can be a better person. The griffons can just get a head start.”

            He raised an eyebrow. “Some parts of that made more sense than others.”

            “I think I need some juice.”

            Chuckling, he said, “We’ll get you some as soon as we’re above ground.” Then, quieter, “Thanks, Em.”

            “Whatever you need from me, big man, you know that. Whatever you need.”

Chapter Text

I was walking again by the time we made it back to the Lighthouse, just about. The girls and Felassan were hanging out together in the library when we trooped in, I think holding book club, which was a bit annoying since Lucanis, Emmrich, and I weren’t there but whatever. They all looked over to greet us, only to react with horror as I hobbled into view. I’d managed to wash the blood from my face by then, at least.

            “Sylaise’s blazing nipples, Emmaera,” Felassan choked out, stumbling to his feet. “What have you done to yourself?”

            “Got stabbed in the chest! Lost a bit of blood –”

            “A bit?”

            “—but I’m fine. Also, we got the griffons back. All of them, safe and sound. That’s today’s main takeaway.”

            “But… are you really okay?” Bellara asked hesitantly. “You’re very pale.”

            “Guys. Griffons. Davrin will tell you the whole dramatic tale. I’m, uh. I think I want a nap.”

            “Do you want me to –” Felassan started towards me.

            “It’s alright,” Lucanis said. “I can go with her. I owe her.”

            They stared at each other, until Felassan nodded and Lucanis helped me upstairs. I was really starting to feel the day by then. Davrin was well into his tale of dashing griffon-rescue before we got the door closed behind us. I made it to my couch bed and sat down heavily.

            “Tired now.”

            Lucanis laughed softly. “I can imagine.” He rummaged in my wardrobe, coming up with a set of pyjamas, then came to sit beside me. “You scared me today.”

            “It scared me too, in fairness.”

            “Em. You almost died for me.”

            “I mean, I’ve got the Anchor, at least. It sounds more impressive when you put it that way, but realistically I could take the hit with less risk than you.”

            “Except you thought you were dead either way.”

            Smiling sheepishly, I said, “Alright, fine, I almost died for you. Hope that doesn’t make me seem too clingy or whatever.”

            He looked at me like he thought I might be insane, which, you know, fair. “Emma, I have never had anyone who would throw themselves in front of a blade for me before, at least no one I wasn’t related to.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Maybe not even then.”

            “So I haven’t put you off by being too intense?”

            Blinking at me, he said, “How much blood did you lose today?”

            “Um.” I looked down at my gore-drenched self. “Lots. Emmrich gave me some tonic that’s meant to promote blood replacement, though, so I’ll be fine.”

            He leaned in and kissed me. “Good. Just in case, let me be clear – I thought I couldn’t love you more than I did, and you proved me wrong.”

            “Cool, very cool. Because getting run through with a sword and then dumped in the same day would have been a lot to deal with.” Maybe this was my cosmic punishment for saying I didn’t want to be immortal.

            “You don’t get rid of me that easily.” He reached for the hem of my sodden shirt, then hesitated.

            “Go on,” I said, keeping my voice light with some effort.

            Lucanis peeled my shirt off first, then called for the Caretaker to bring in a basin. There was a weird sense of déjà vu, coupled with a sort of vertigo; we were in the same situation as after the Zara incident, but with our positions reversed. The Caretaker actually turned up with a whole-ass wooden bathtub, full of hot water, before bowing and vanishing. Once we were alone again, Lucanis turned back to me, reaching towards my equally blood-soaked medieval sports-bra type thing, only to slowly pull his hands back.

            “Um,” he said.

            “It’s okay,” I said, smiling.

            Nodding, he undid the laces and tossed it aside with a damp thump. For a moment I thought his response – freezing, swallowing hard, and looking away – was a comment on my girls. Then I looked down and realised he was actually upset about the wound. Set right in the centre of my chest (thank fuck the blade caught me at the angle it did, I thought, if it had hit me straight on or been angled the other way it would have obliterated my heart) was a barely-closed gash. Usually using the Anchor on something turned it into a scar, but I supposed with something so major the healing must have focused on the internal damage.

            “Lean forwards,” he said quietly. I did, shivering slightly as his fingertips ghosted over the back of my shoulder. “Mierda.”

            “Same on the exit?”

            “It’s closed. That is what’s important.”

            God help us both, he then had to wrestle my boots, not-jeans, and underwear off. The whole time he kept looking like he wasn’t mean to be doing it, as if he thought I was about to start screaming and slapping at him. I watched everything with a sort of amused fondness. We’d said we loved each other, we’d had our little kitchen encounter, I’d just almost died for him, and still the guy wasn’t sure if he was allowed to see me naked. He was such a dork, I adored him.

            Something in the way he kept avoiding looking at me sparked off a concern, however, and as he finished tossing my clothes aside, I hesitantly said, “Do you… I mean, I’m covered in scars and all. Not very dainty and feminine. Does that bother you?”

            He turned back to me, surprised, maybe a little hurt. “Emma, how could you think such a thing? I love you. All of you.”

            “It’s just, you’re not looking at me.”

            “I…” He sighed. “I’ll admit, I never imagined that the first time I saw you naked it would be because you had just suffered a near-mortal injury. But these,” his fingers trailed over my skin, the wound under my ribs where I’d been shot, the long, raised scar to the left of my bellybutton where I’d taken a sword slash meant for Harding, the scar at the top of my left thigh from the Minrathous sewers, to say nothing of a dozen smaller, barely-there marks. “These are part of who you are. I hate to think of you in pain, but I could never love you any less because of them.”

            “Well, that’s alright then,” I said, a little breathlessly, since I was naked and he was touching me all over, and it had been literally years since the last time I’d been in that situation. Strange, that I could be so unfathomably turned on with so little blood in me. A real indomitable human spirit moment.

            It got worse once I was in the tub. First of all, he had to pick me up and set me down in there. Then the heat got to me, and I had to ask him for help in scrubbing me down, because I was clinging to consciousness by a fucking thread and my hands weren’t doing what I told them. I rested my head against the edge of the tub, watching through half-lidded eyes as my wild-eyed boyfriend gently sponged blood off my chest, my stomach, my thighs.

            By the end of all that, Lucanis wasn’t the only one breathing heavily and trembling. Maybe it was the blood loss, but something about that whole thing was the most… I want to say erotic, but “Gilbert Gottfried reads Fifty Shades” thoroughly ruined that word for me. Sensual, then. The most sensual experience of my life. If I’d had enough blood in me to blush, I’d have been scarlet the whole time. As it was, I was just constantly on the verge of blacking out, because all the blood in me was rushing to, you know, not my brain.

            Eventually he helped me out, towelled me down (which didn’t help matters), and then gave me a hand pulling my pyjamas on. I sat down heavily on the couch again as the Caretaker came back to whisk the bath away, trying to get my breath back.

            “There,” Lucanis said, sitting next to me. “How do you feel?”

            I kissed him. Then admitted, “Tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted probably isn’t a strong enough word.”

            Lucanis nodded, standing so he could lay me down. “Get some rest, and –”

            “Would you stay?” I caught his sleeve before he could pull away. “I don’t… I don’t think I’m capable of doing anything, like, fun. Despite how much I want to right now, and believe me, I fucking do. But I just don’t want to be alone.”

            “Of course, mi vida.”

            Stripping down to his boxers (black silk, because of course they were, you had to love the Crows, flash bastards all) he climbed onto the couch behind me, pulling the blanket up over us and settling in against my back, one arm draped over my waist. Somehow, that warmed me up more than the hot bath had.

*

                        When I woke up alone the next morning, I assumed Lucanis had just had an insomnia moment and crept off to keep from disturbing me, or possibly that Spite had taken over and gone for a wander. That had happened less, since they’d made peace with each other, but it was still a possibility. As I made to sit up, however, a voice spoke from the floor beside me.

            “I fell off.”

            Giggling, I shifted to look over the edge of the couch, finding him lying on his back on the rug, smiling. “You didn’t climb back up?”

            “I didn’t want to risk waking you.” He pushed himself up on his elbows to kiss me. “How are you feeling?”

            “Better than yesterday.”

            He snorted. “That’s not saying much.”

            “Decent, then. I should probably ask Emmrich for another blood tonic, or whatever they’re called.”

            “And then you’re going to take a few days off.”

            “Yeah, hopefully nobody needs –”

            “No,” he said firmly. “For the next few days, you are doing nothing but resting.”

            “I get –”

            “Emma, I almost watched you die yesterday. You were dying in my arms, and there was nothing I could do about it. You’re still so pale, it…” He swallowed, shaking his head. when he spoke again, his voice was steadier, steely. “You are going to take a few days off. No questions, no arguments. For me. Please.”

            “Alright, I get it.” I leaned forward to kiss him again, almost overbalancing. He caught me by the shoulder and steadied me, and I giggled as I said, “I’ll do nothing. I promise.”

            “Good.”

            After collecting my tonic from Emmrich, I went out to sit on the edge of the plaza, doing some more Fade mindfulness. Felassan was the first to join me, settling down with his legs dangling over the drop, shoulder to shoulder. “Good to see you looking better, Little Dream.”

            “I’m feeling better, too, thank you. For someone who should be dead.”

            “Bless this thing.” He grabbed my hand and planted a kiss on the Anchor.

            “I’m still meant to be dead. First time I used the Anchor to fix something, Dad said healing a mortal wound with it would kill me. Using it on something major knocked me out for days. Energy expenditure and all that. So how come I’m still alive?”

            “You must be stronger than you were that time.”

            “Genius.”

            “I mean it, da’len,” he chuckled. “You were weaker when you woke up, same as anyone coming out of uthenera. You’ve had time to acclimatise now. Not that I’d recommend making a habit out of this, of course. The Anchor can still only do so much.”

            “Well. That’s good to know.”

            “I hope that young man of yours –”

            “He was a perfect gentleman, not that it’s any business of yours.”

            “Maybe not. I just don’t want you being taken advantage of.”

            “I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself, I promise. I’m a widow, Fel. There’s not a lot more someone can do to me, heartbreak-wise, you know?”

            Felassan let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, da’len. I swear I never used to be a busybody, but being stuck in here is so fucking boring.”

            I laughed. “Sorry. I can only imagine. Though I struggle to believe you weren’t a busybody when you were the guy running this place.”

            “My job was mostly to prevent people from killing each other. Whatever else they did with their time was up to them.”

            “Right. And the reason you tried extremely hard to drive a wedge between Bria and Celene was because…”

            “I didn’t think the empress was good for…” He sighed, looking out into the Fade. “June’s balls. Maybe I am a busybody.”

            I laughed. After a moment of staring into the void, I said, “Listen… When I said I appreciate it, I meant it. I’d be lying if I said it doesn't piss me off enormously when you’re openly mean to Lucanis, and I’m not a fan of how often you call him a shem –”

            “Well, you know, he –”

            “Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up. But despite all that, it really means a lot that… I mean, to have someone worry about me like that. It means a lot, Fel. It really does.” I shrugged. “It’s just, I keep telling you to stop worrying, and I wanted you to know I do appreciate it. Not what you're saying, but the sentiment behind it, you know? After what happened yesterday, or nearly happened, whatever, I just… I wanted you to know. Because I might have… And you’d never have known. So, there it is. Thank you, for caring.”

            Felassan just stared at me for a long moment, purple eyes very bright. Swallowing hard, he stroked my hair with a murmured, “Of course I care, our Little Dream.”  

            “Morning, both!” Bellara said brightly behind us.

            “Hello, da’len,” Felassan said.

            “Hi, Bel.” I hastily scrubbed at my eyes.

            Bellara dropped down on my other side and wrapped me in a hug. “Glad to see you up and around.”

            “Thanks.” I leaned against her. “How are you feeling?”

            “Oh, I’m okay. Still feel kind of hollow, but I guess that’s better than hurting all the time. At least there’s plenty to keep my mind off things.”

            “Optimism,” Felassan said, reaching over me to squeeze Bellara’s shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear. Bloody Anaris.”

            Assan charged past, chirping and squawking, with Manfred in hot pursuit. “Hello!” he yelled delightedly in his squeaky little voice, before setting off after the griffon again, the fancy new coat Emmrich had picked up for him fluttering as he ran.

            “I’m glad Davrin’s sending the griffons to Arlathan rather than the Wardens,” Bellara said. “It’s not that I don’t like the Wardens or anything, I mean, Evka and Antoine are great, and I liked Alistair and Neria when I met them, but I don’t know, I just feel better knowing the griffons are out there in the wild living better lives.”

            “What was it you told Davrin?” Felassan asked me. “We can all change?”

            “I know, it’s stupid and a bit naïve, but –”

            “No,” he said. “There’s wisdom in that, da’len. I believe any one of us can become better than we are.”

            “Really?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

            Felassan smiled sadly. “I have to believe it, Little Dream.”

            “Even though sometimes changing isn’t enough,” Bellara sighed.

            “No,” Felassan murmured, “sometimes it isn’t.”

*

                        A while later I wandered into Harding’s room alone, since Bellara and Felassan were, as best I could tell, off to give the Anaris Archive a damn good kicking (Bellara had decided to keep the thing, but on the condition of Felassan helping her purge anything too dangerous, as far as possible), while the lads had gone out to officially hand the griffons over to Eldrin. They refused to take me with them on account of my still having the ‘bloodless’ stat. So when I realised Harding’s visitor light was on, I was happy to head on in there in search of company.

            “Hi, Em,” Harding said brightly. “You’re looking better! Taash was just saying… Sorry, what were you saying, Taash?”

            “Uh.” Taash gave me a look I didn’t understand, wide-eyed, almost frantic. “I got you a thing.” They gestured over their shoulder to an entire wheel of cheese sat on the table behind them. The thing was fully half the size of Harding.

            “The Knickers!” Harding said delightedly.

            “What the fuck have I walked in on?” I whispered.

            “Something stupid,” Taash said, shaking their head in frustration. “I knew cheese was stupid.” Oh Christ, they were trying the ‘you may fascinate a girl by giving her a piece of cheese’ tactic, just, like, supersized.

            “No!” Harding said, giggling all the while. “Back in Ferelden, we call this cheese ‘the Revered Mother’s knickers’, because that’s what it’s supposed to smell like.”

            “And people wonder why I prefer Antivan cooking,” I muttered.

            By that point, Taash was looking more confused than anything. “Is that… good?”

            “Taash, it’s wonderful,” Harding said. “I’m really, really touched.”

            “And on that note!” I turned for the door.

            “So soon?” Harding said, surprised. “Don’t you want to try the cheese?”

            I had a horrible suspicion this was how bad I looked at relationship stuff from the outside. “I, uh. I think you two need some time alone.”

            “Alone? Why?”

            Sweet Jesus fuck. “Taash, for the love of God.”

            “I like you,” Taash said finally. “You’re really nice, and… um. You smell good. Really good.”

            “Oh? Oh!”

            I scurried out of there before things could get any more awkward. Still, it was sweet. I’d have to check whether they sold portable stepladders in the Treviso market next time we were there.

Chapter Text

It turned out I got a full week off to recover from my bloodletting. A little over a week later, everyone but Taash and Harding were hanging out in the kitchen, generally yapping about the new lovebirds. Emmrich started rhapsodising about something Strife had said about romance, going full heart-eyes with it, while Bellara, Davrin, and I alternated between making fixed eye contact and being unable to meet each other’s eyes. Then the Caretaker appeared beside Lucanis, making everyone jump (save for Felassan, who only greeted them without looking up from that week’s book-club offering).

            “A missive for you, Dweller-who-is-Spite,” the Caretaker said, bowing as they handed over a note, before fading away again. Lucanis read it quickly, cursed, and hurried towards his room, tapping me on the shoulder as he went.

            “Excuse me, folks.” I scurried after him. “Not good news, I take it?”

            “Illario has called a meeting of all the Talons, at Caterina’s villa,” he said, buckling on his swordbelt. “He’s making his move.”

            “All that time he spent flirting with me, and I still don’t warrant an invite to his big day,” I tutted.

            “You can be my date,” he teased.

            “You take me to all the best places.” His answering smile faded quickly, so I asked, “You alright?”

            “It’s just… after last time. Are you well enough for another battle so soon?”

            “I’m fine. Fighting fit.” He still looked uncertain, so I went over and draped my arms over his shoulders. “Hey. I know what happened last week was horrible, but I’m okay. Between the Anchor and Emmrich’s tonics, I’m good as new. Well, I’ve maybe got a bit of scar tissue in my lung, but I’m a mage, it’s not like I need a massive amount of stamina anyway. And yeah, I think I might be more likely to get random lung collapses now, I’m not sure if the Anchor healing cancels that out or not. That’ll be fun to… Anyway, never mind that, I’m team leader. And your girlfriend. I can’t just sit here twiddling my thumbs while I wait for you to get back.”

            “I know,” he sighed, pulling me into a tight hug.

            “We’ll watch each other’s backs, yeah?" I said, a little breathlessly, since he was really squeezing me. "Just like always. Like it never happened.”

            “Of course.” He let me go and gave me a quick kiss. “Could you get the others moving?”

            “The whole gang?”

            “Better safe than sorry.”

*

                        We left Taash and Harding to their business, Felassan promising to let them know where we’d gone if they resurfaced while we were away, and arrived in Treviso to find the casino empty. Probably not a great sign.

            “Nobody here to greet us,” Neve said. “That’s rude.”

            “They’ve already gone to the villa,” Lucanis said. “This way.”

            “What has he even told people this party is about?” Davrin asked as we clattered down the stairs to the rooftops.

            “Viago’s invitation said they would ‘celebrate the new First Talon and discuss the situation in Treviso’,” Lucanis said, his voice tight. “It doesn’t matter what my cousin thinks he’s doing. It ends now. We go in, find Caterina, and we’ll have the perfect shot at Illario.”

            “Ooh, so we’re going to be visiting your family home!” Bellara said, sounding surprisingly jazzed about it. I assumed she was looking for more material for the romance novel she was writing about me and Lucanis that she thought we didn’t know about (Lucanis still didn’t – I might have skimmed the whole thing when she got distracted and left me alone in her room for an hour. She seemed to think we were having a lot more sex than we were, bless her. Also, a lot wilder sex. Not going to lie, some of it sounded a little scary, and that's coming from someone who'd done templar/mage roleplay on more than one occasion).

            Lucanis glanced at me. “We are. But we’re not exactly on the guest list.”

            “You don’t think Illario is expecting you?” Neve asked. “Just a little?”

            Lucanis was quiet. When he finally spoke, all he said was, “We’ll take the rooftops to the villa. Stay out of sight as long as possible.”

            “So we can’t go straight to the house?” Neve pressed.

            “There’s no way Illario will let me through the door.” His eyes glowed magenta as Spite popped up to add, “He fears us. Good. He should.”

            “Hey,” I said quietly, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze. “Spite, promise me this won’t be like last time. You’ll keep it together, listen to me and Lucanis. Trust us to get things done, alright?”

            Spite turned those gleaming eyes on me and growled, then stopped to rest his forehead against mine. “Fine,” he hissed. As we moved on again, Lucanis softly said, “Thank you.”

            We fought some Venatori posted on a rooftop, and after passing through a door into another set of rooftops Lucanis told us we were now on Dellamorte property, pointing out a tower we had to get to that would take us to the villa, and from there on to the party. I didn’t think anything of it until we’d been walking a while and Bellara piped up with, “So… how far is it to Illario’s party?”

            “The opera house is… it’s… you know, across the grounds. In the guesthouse.”

            Bellara blinked at him. “Why does such a big house need another house?”

            “For guests!”

            He gave me a slightly sheepish look, but I just smiled and squeezed his hand again. After all, I’d lived in a castle for years, hadn’t I? Yeah, it looked fancy, sounded fancy, but realistically the space that was actually mine, my own private living area, was way smaller. The Dellamortes had been in business a long time. It made sense that they had a whole series of buildings with different functions.

            Then he pointed out Villa Dellamorte itself, and I realised his house alone was maybe half the size of Skyhold, and that got to me. I just stood there for a second, frozen, staring across at that admittedly stunning mansion, as it really sunk in for the first time that Lucanis was, like… rich. Rich, and from an old-money family. And I’d grown up working class, where money was so tight our family holidays were all spent in Tenby, West Wales. Or, on a good year, Cornwall. It just… felt weird, suddenly. Humbling.

            “Are you alright?” Lucanis asked softly, resting a hand on my back with a troubled look.

            “Sorry, yeah, of course.” I quickly hitched on a grin. “Just admiring the view. Spectacular.”

            Off we went, fighting a few more Venatori along the way, since it seemed Illario had gotten Zara’s lackeys in their divorce. Taking a gondola across to the villa proper, Lucanis directed us to the tunnels underneath, our intended entry point.

            “Oh good,” I said, “the first time you bring me home and I’m crawling in through the sewers.”

            Lucanis laughed. “No sewers in Treviso. The streets are barely above water as it is. There’s a hidden escape route, that’s our way inside.”

            “And the secret escape route won’t also be guarded?” Davrin asked. “Because I don’t know about you, but I’d rather try to fight my way in through a front door than a corridor full of water.”

            “Illario doesn’t know it’s here,” Lucanis replied smugly. “Caterina didn’t even tell me. I found it playing alone as a boy.”

            Good job, too, because Davrin had a point. The secret entrance was a narrow passageway through the rock, close enough to being a cave to make my chest tighten. It was narrow enough that we had to go single file most of the way through, shuffling sideways in some places, and trying to fight our way through there would have been a real pain in the arse. As it was, we didn’t meet any resistance until we burst through a partition wall to kill a pair of Venatori hanging out in what looked like either a basement or a wine cellar (or a combination basement and wine cellar).

            “He let them into the house?” Lucanis said, throwing his hands in the air. “Now I’ll have to get the whole place cleaned!”

            We fought some more Venatori in another basement level, before we headed up to ground level, all marble floors and plush purple wallpaper and very expensive-looking antique furniture. The first room we found ourselves in was something that looked like it might have been a sitting room, and it was as big as the one in my childhood home. Through the elegantly arched doorway, I could see another room just as big. Hoo boy.

            “And here we are,” Lucanis said, speaking to everyone but with his eyes on me. “Welcome to Villa Dellamorte.”

            “It’s stunning,” I said, brushing my fingers over the thick wallpaper.

            “Home?” Spite broke in. “Smells like dust, and linseed oil.”

            “Don’t say that when Caterina is in earshot,” Lucanis muttered, leading us deeper into the house.

            The entrance hall was almost as big as my entire house back home. I knew I should stop comparing the two, but holy shit. I made sure to keep smiling, because Lucanis kept giving me looks when he thought I couldn’t see him, concern mixed with something like shame. Oh yeah, we were going to have a fun conversation later, I could see it coming. Maybe I could get stabbed again and avoid it. 

            Eventually we made it to the bedrooms, where Lucanis and Davrin kicked in a door the Venatori had been struggling to get through. Lucanis insisted on being first in, and as he stepped through, he caught a cane as it was swung at his head. Swung by someone who wasn’t a Venatori.

            “Caterina!”

            “Lucanis!” she said, lowering her beating stick. “My poor boy!”

            I waited for them to finish kissing each other’s cheeks before saying, “Glad to see you alive and well, Caterina. We could probably spare a few mages to escort you –”

            “You will do no such thing,” she said sternly. “This is no time for heroic nonsense.”

            “Uh.” I looked at Lucanis for help, but he was just smiling with his head down. “Okay, well…”

            “I will meet you in the opera house,” she said, and walked out before I could say anything else.

            “Uh.” I looked at Lucanis again. “Should we be sending one of the others with her, or…?”

            He chuckled. “We have cleared most of the Venatori out, and she can take care of herself.” Putting an arm around my waist, he pulled me close and pressed a kiss to my temple as he softly added, “Welcome to House Dellamorte, mi vida.”

            “Awww,” Bellara cooed.

            “Shush you,” I said.

*

                        Lucanis kicked open the doors to the opera house just in time to counter Illario’s stated intention of working with the Venatori with, “Over my dead body!” something I found simultaneously hilariously dramatic and wildly sexy.

            “That can be arranged,” Illario shot back, using his funky brooch to hit Lucanis with another of those blood magic bursts. I had a moment to be worried I’d have to kick Illario’s head in by myself while Lucanis flopped around on the marble like he’d taken too many sleeping tablets, but he and Spite working together was apparently enough to no-sell the effect, so, good stuff. Then everything kicked off.

            The fight was a pretty standard us vs Venatori affair for the most part, only with Illario also involved. The little weasel was scary fast. It mostly wasn’t an issue, since he and Lucanis were focused on each other, and my boy was a speedy lad himself, the two of them zipping around the battle while the rest of us focused on the Venatori. But then I turned and barely managed to avoid getting slashed across the face by Illario.

            “You chose the wrong Dellamorte,” he sneered.

            “Careful,” I said, “your best mate Elgar’nan wants me alive.”

            Illario let out a nasty sort of laugh. “Alive doesn’t have to mean well.”

            He took a swipe at my chest… and I froze. Only for a second, and the blade just glanced off my barrier (I don’t think he was fully intending on hitting me, either, just making the point that he could), but it threw me off. As I saw that blade coming, I was back in Fake Weisshaupt with a sword through my chest, full on sense-memory shit. Maybe it was too early for me to go back out after all.

            Then Lucanis was between us, shoving Illario away with a snarled, “I’ll kill you for that.”

            I had to focus on the last few Venatori, who were all mages so I didn’t have to worry about freezing up again. By the time I got a chance to check in with them, Illario was laid out on the ground with Lucanis standing over him.

            “What are you waiting for, cousin?” Illario spat. “Finish what you start!”

            “I already did,” Lucanis said. “What am I ever going to do that is worse than this? On your knees, in front of every house.”

            Well, that certainly gave me an idea for later, but there was no time to dwell on it right then. Caterina had turned up, just like she said she would, hitting Illario with, “No one from House Dellamorte kneels.” Viago impatiently hoisted the little weasel back to his feet.

            “Mierda,” Lucanis said, “what am I supposed to do with this idiot?”

            I had a lot I wanted to say, but one look at Lucanis’ face and it all vanished. With a deep, deep sigh, I slipped over to his side and said, “What was our contract for, you, me, and Spite?”

            “I didn’t realise you were included in that,” he said, amused.

            “Of course I was. Our contract was to save Caterina, and give Illario a good kicking. Well, job done.”

            “Not wrong,” Spite grumbled.

            “What are you saying?” Lucanis asked.

            Oh God, oh fuck, everyone was looking at us, this was horrible. “I’m saying, when I was in your mind palace I saw how much this little fuck means to you. He might be a prick of the highest order, but he's still your family. I don’t know, maybe… maybe a bit of mercy wouldn’t go amiss.”

            He turned from me to Illario, sighing, “Maybe you’re right.”

            “That’s not up to you, is it?” Illario snapped. “Caterina is still First Talon.”

            “Are you stupid?” I said before I could stop myself.

            “Enough,” Caterina said. “Lucanis is the new First Talon. His decision stands.”          

            Lucanis looked about as astonished as I felt, but recovered quickly enough to order Viago to try to keep the prick out of trouble. After Viago had dragged him off, the other Crows toasted Lucanis as the new First Talon, Teia pressing a goblet into my hand with a wink and a knowing look.

            Not the worst of our team days out, honestly.

Chapter Text

The Crows co-opted Illario’s party, because I guess everyone was there already, and there was plenty of drink in, so they might as well. My team joined in with surprising gusto, which was nice to see. They deserved to have a bit of fun. I hung back for a bit, watching as the team mingled and Lucanis did the rounds, accepting congratulations from the other Talons and assorted rank and file Crows. Right as I realised I couldn’t see Caterina anywhere, I heard her cane tap against the marble behind me.

            She gave me a very thin smile as I turned to her. “You brought my grandson home, as agreed, and helped free me into the bargain. Thank you.”

            “Oh, yeah, well, happy to help. Honestly, having Lucanis on board has been… really great. He’s an integral part of the team, we really appreciate having him around.”

            Caterina stared levelly at me for so long I had to resist the urge to go bird and take off for the rafters. Eventually, she said, “I see how you look at each other.”

            Fuck. “Oh, uh. Yeah, we… we’ve sort of fallen in love in the process.” Fucking kill me now. End my suffering. I’d gotten better at talking about my feelings with the object of my affections over the years, mostly, but talking about it with anyone else was still embarrassing, and talking about it with the guy’s grandma put me squarely in ‘please light me on fire’ territory. “You know, close quarters, relying on each other, things just… clicked.”

            “Love?” She narrowed her eyes, but then nodded slowly. “Good. Lucanis has been through so much. He has a good heart, one that is surprisingly soft, for a Crow. Do not break it, and you will be welcome in our family.”

            Before I could answer, Lucanis was there, slipping an arm around my waist. “Nice to see you two getting along.”

            “Emma seems like a fine young woman,” Caterina said. When she came at me, I felt a brief flare of panic, but she just kissed me on both cheeks, patted Lucanis’ face, and headed off to talk to Teia, who’d been unobtrusively watching us the whole time.

            “Would you like to make a discreet exit?” Lucanis murmured in my ear.

            “Let’s.”

*

                        I did warn the team we were leaving, in case that changed their minds about joining the party, but it turned out they were all having a great time, even Davrin, so that was cool. Lucanis and I went home alone, and even back at the Lighthouse there didn’t seem to be anyone around. I didn’t question it, just followed him out to the kitchen where… Lucanis got us both coffees and then sat on the couch. Hmm. Not exactly what I’d been expecting, but alright.

            “Hell of a night,” I said, taking a seat beside him.

            “At least it’s done. Now, we just have to kill some gods.”

            “Easy peasy.” I smiled when that made him laugh, but had to ask, “You’re sticking around, then? I thought maybe because you were First Talon now you might –”

            He kissed me. After a while he pulled away enough to say, “I could never leave this place, mi vida, not with you here. I don’t have a lot to lose. What I do have – Illario, Caterina, you,” he kissed me again, “this team. I’m not giving any of it up.”

            “Oh,” I said, with a big dumbass grin that slowly faded. At his questioning look, I sighed. “It’s nothing, really. I just… I didn’t realise until tonight how, you know, rich your family is.”

            “Okay,” he said slowly.

            “And I’m… Back home, my family was never what you’d call well off, and now I’m managing on what’s left of the Inquisition money, plus a few investments Josie set up for me. If I had to pay rent, I’d be fucked. Not to mention I’m an elf, I look Dalish, and the only family I have here is dead or bastardous.”

            Lucanis had been staring at me in open bewilderment. “I’m sorry, mi vida, I don’t… Oh.” Bewilderment turned to sadness in an instant. “I see. I come from such… obscene wealth, you cannot help but see me differently now. I cannot change my family, but since I was eighteen I –”

            “What? No, I’m saying I don’t feel, like, fancy enough to be a part of House Dellamorte.”

            “Fancy?” he said disbelievingly. “Emma, we’re contract killers.”

            I couldn’t help laughing. “Yeah, but… Look, the first time I stepped into high society was when I went to the Winter Palace, and pretty much the first thing anyone there said about me was calling me a knife-ear. I just –”

            “Emma,” he said, “I am an abomination who kills people for money, and none of that has ever affected the way you treat me, even before we came to care for each other as we do. How many women would find out her prospective lover is possessed by a demon, only to make them work through their grievances with each other because she cares for them both? How many women could have been through all you have – losing your family, twice over, your world, your sense of self, your husband, your –” I sucked in a breath as my head briefly swam, and he quickly set both our coffees aside, sliding closer to caress my face. “To have been through so much, and to still be so kind, to have such hope.”

            “Soft touch,” I mumbled.

            “Exactly. I love you. I adore you. I have for longer than I think I even realised. At the start… Spite became enamoured with you so quickly, I feared his feelings were clouding my own judgement.”

            “Spite liked me first?” I grinned.

            “Since the Ossuary.” His eyes flashed magenta as Spite grabbed my Marked hand and pulled it to his mouth, gently kissing the Anchor before saying, in a surprisingly soft voice, “Emma smells like home.” Lucanis tutted. “Please, we were having a moment.”

            “What about you? When did you catch up?”

            “It started the first time we had coffee in here, I think. The first time I realised what I was feeling, and that the feeling was coming from me, not him, was our first visit to the wetlands.”

            “When I zapped the spooky well?”

            “Leading up to that. You immediately offered to help the first stranger to ask, and then fell in every single hole between us and that well. You displayed such easy, unthinking kindness, and then followed through despite being soaked to the skin, seemingly without once considering turning back. I remember looking at you, dripping wet, hair plastered to your head with swamp water as you picked weeds out of your clothes, and thinking Maker, she’s beautiful.”

            I kissed him. How could I not, after that? Resting my forehead against his, I softly said, “As soon as I saw you, I thought, oh, I’m in trouble here. Then Calivan called you a demon, and you gave me this little smile, and I think I was half smitten already. Then it was Weisshaupt. When you went for Ghilan’nain, there was this second where I thought she’d gotten you, and the way it hit me… It wasn’t just being worried that someone on the team was in danger, you know? It hit me harder than that. I never thought I could feel like this about someone again, after Cullen. But there you were. Of course, then someone had to play hard to get…”

            Laughing, we kissed again, and now there was more heat to it. One of his hands still held my face, occasionally sliding up to run his fingers through my hair, while his other hand slipped inside my shirt, tracing circles on my back. My own hands tangled in his hair, before sliding down his taut arms, running over his back and sides, all of him was so damn firm…

            Then I remembered my earlier plan for the evening. I broke away and stood up, meeting his confused look with a grin and an outstretched hand, wiggling my fingers. Because the away team might be distracted for a while, but I had no confirmation of where Varric, Taash, Harding, or Felassan were, and I did eventually learn my lessons. He put his hand in mine, and I led him into his room, shutting the door behind us. No lock, I hadn't noticed that before. Still. Probably fine.

            “What are –”

            “You were crowned First Talon tonight,” I said between kisses, gently propelling him backwards until he hit the bed and sat down. “That warrants something special, wouldn’t you agree?”

            Lucanis swallowed hard. “What did you have in mind?”

            “Something you said earlier gave me an idea, in fact.” I stood in front of him, putting a hand under his chin to tip his head back until his eyes met mine. “After the fight ended. The worst thing you could do to Illario. The thing House Dellamorte aren’t meant to do.”

            There was a flicker of confusion in his eyes, only for them to clear quickly as he swallowed again. He reached up to run a thumb over my bottom lip and said, soft and intense, “On your knees.”

            I didn’t have much choice in the matter, honestly, after that my legs just sort of gave out. My hands were trembling as I undid his belt and pulled his clothes aside enough to pull his cock free. Before I could do anything else, Lucanis caught my hands, looking down at me with very wide eyes.

            “You,” he said breathlessly, having to swallow again, hard, before he could continue. “Em, you don’t have to.”

            Frowning, I said, “Do you… not want me to, am I going too fast?”

            He let out a ragged laugh. “No, it’s all I want, but –”

            “Well, I want to as well. So shut up, and let me work.”

            He laughed again, breaking off into a groan as I first swirled my tongue around the head, then took as much of him into my mouth as possible in one smooth motion. I quite like giving blowjobs, though the mechanics of them have never interested me much (you know, in, out, suck, swirl, Ellana had been gifted with barely any gag reflex and I made the most of that).

            The point of them was the effect they had on the recipient. Watching through my eyelashes as Lucanis’ breathing became more ragged. He tried to keep his eyes on me the whole time, but as I worked he couldn’t seem to help his head tipping back, eyes squeezing closed, his mouth dropping open to emit the most delightful sounds, desperate little moans and murmured Antivan and softer sounds that were almost whimpers.

            Through it all, he was so gentle. The fingers of his right hand threaded through my hair, but he never shoved my head down. His hips twitched, the muscles of his thighs tensing under my forearms, but he never thrust up enough to take what was happening out of my control. I was the one in charge. He might have been First Talon, but in that room, right then, the power was in my… well, mouth.

            Towards the end I slipped my hand inside my own clothes and began to rub at my clit, because it was either that or set his bed on fire. He’d had his head tipped back for a while by then, abandoning all attempts at eye contact, but when my breathing sped up he looked down, realised what I was doing, and immediately came with a breathless cry. For the first time he thrust upwards, his hand tightening in my hair to hold me in place, but I allowed it, under the circumstances, taking it as a compliment. I stayed put until I was sure he was finished, then swallowed and let him slip from my mouth, smiling as he blinked down at me with something close to wonder.

            “Did you…?” he asked shakily.

            “No, but –”

            That was all I got out before he leaned forward to kiss me (a pleasant surprise, given how weird some guys got about that sort of thing) and replaced my hand with his. It was hardly any time before I came too, arching against him with a much louder cry of my own, because it was better he knew about my inability to come quietly sooner rather than later.

            Both of us were still breathing heavily as he flopped sideways, sliding back against the wall and patting the mattress in front of him. I rolled up into the space, and he wrapped his arm around me, hand resting flat against my stomach as he laid kisses against the back of my neck. I sighed contentedly, laying my hand over his.

            “Might just have a rest now,” I murmured.

            “Mm. Me too.” He pulled me closer. “Tonight went better than expected.”

            I chuckled, patting his hand. “I’ve had worse evenings, yeah.”

            Thus, we drifted off to sleep. It was especially nice, given I wasn’t even half dead of blood loss that time.

*

                        The next morning I woke up and had a brief moment of bewilderment before I remembered where I was and why. As I shifted Lucanis kissed my neck, and I wriggled around to face him, only to find it was Spite instead, glowing eyes half-lidded.

            “Oh, hi,” I said.

            “Lucanis. Still asleep.”

            “Yeah, I gathered. You didn’t want to go for a wander?”

            Spite looked confused. “No. You’re here.”

            I smiled and kissed him. “Sweet boy. That’s been a real surprise, you know?” He looked confused again, so I explained. “You’re a demon, and you’re, you know, Spite. I would have expected you to be more… I don’t know… forceful. Not that I don’t like it, I’m just surprised.”

            He cocked his head, then rolled on top of me, grabbing my wrists and holding them above my head, his grip stopping just short of too tight. “Like this?”

            It took me a moment to answer. I struggled to catch my breath, having to swallow hard before I managed to whisper, “Yeah, that’s… closer to what I was expecting.”

            “Hm.” He kissed me, firm and unyielding, teeth worrying at my bottom lip. In the same moment he pressed himself between my legs, and on realising he was already hard I couldn’t help but let out a pathetic little moan. He pulled back, glowing eyes fixed on mine as he whispered, “Like that?”

            “Mm, yeah. Uh, just… just one… I mean, what we talked about before, consent and all, Lucanis, has he…”

            Spite hissed, leaning down to nip at my earlobe before muttering, “Rules – if you want. It’s okay. But only. What you and him. Have already done.”

            “Sounds fair,” I tried to say, the words breaking off into a gasp as he ground himself against me again. “So what… have you got anything planned, or…?”

            “We think about it,” he whispered, breath hot in my ear. “Think about you. Touch ourselves. Spill in our hand. And think. Pretty sounds.” His teeth grazed my neck, making me whimper, and he responded with a soft growl. “Yes. Pretty. More of that. Smell of you, shelter and sadness, sweetness and secrets. When he tasted you.”

            The memory of Lucanis putting the fingers he’d been using on me in his mouth hit me so hard Spite might have beamed it to me telepathically. “Do… do you… want…?”

            Spite growled again, sounding frustrated this time. “Can’t taste you properly. He hasn’t.”

            Which I had to agree, with the rational part of my brain, was fair. It was Lucanis’ body, he was my primary partner of the two of them, it wouldn’t be fair to do something with Spite first. I got that. But right then, wanting him so badly the ache between my legs was actually painful, I’d have done an awful lot to ignore those rules.

            “Then touch me,” I whispered, pathetic, plaintive. I pressed my hips against his, desperate for something, anything, any sort of friction. “Please, Spite. Please.”

            Grinning smugly, he switched his grip so both my wrists were held in his left hand, before pushing his right hand between us, moving with such confidence I was suddenly sure he’d been planning this since that day in the library, and that thought made me moan again. Like Lucanis had at the kitchen table, Spite pulled back to watch my face, though there was no finesse in the way he touched me. If Lucanis’ technique was carefully picking a lock, Spite’s was blasting through the door like the Kool-Aid Man. But at that point it didn’t matter. He’d found my clit, the intention was there, and that was enough.

            “Look at me,” he whispered when I couldn’t help but squeeze my eyes closed. Despite how rough he was being elsewhere, it wasn’t a command, but a request, breathless, almost pleading. “Emma. Look at me.”

            So I forced my eyes open, making a request of my own – “Let me touch you, too.” With a grin, he released my wrists so I could reach down, pulling his cock free and running my hand up and down his length. Despite the close quarters and bad angle he let out a low growl, my touch spurring him on, and something about it, just touching each other, eyes locked, made me feel as laid bare as if I was standing naked in the middle of the Cobbled Swan.

            Spite’s head snapped up suddenly, looking at the wall above my head instead of into my eyes for the first time. With another frustrated growl, he clamped his free hand over my mouth. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but somehow that’s what tipped me over the edge, and I let out a series of cries that were mostly muffled by his palm. Spite grinned and came with a choked grunt, resting his forehead against mine.

            “Perfect,” he whispered, pulling his hand from my mouth to rest his thumb against my throat, grinning again as he felt my pulse jumping. “Pretty sounds. My Emma. Just in time.”

            I was still gasping as I whispered back, “What do you –”

            The door to the pantry burst open, and Felassan appeared through it, yelling, “Da’len, there you are!”

            “Christ alive, Fel, knock! We knock closed doors!” I felt a moment of all-encompassing shame-panic, before I realised we were still covered by the blanket, and below that we were both mostly clothed, so as far as he knew he’d just walked in on some kissing. “I could have been naked or… anything!” Oh Christ, if he'd walked in thirty seconds earlier... Would Spite even have stopped? He wouldn't, would he? Even when I took it to a bedroom, was I fucking cursed or something...

            “It’s important – morning Spite – get your stuff and get ready to move. I’ll meet you at the eluvian.”

            “Can you maybe…” He was already gone. I sighed, and by the time I looked back at him Spite was gone. Which meant Lucanis had woken up with one hand down my pants, and something of a mess to deal with (not just him, if the warmth on my leg was any indicator, that was going to be a fun walk back to my room). “Oh. Uh. Morning!”

            “It’s alright, Spite’s given me the details.” He kissed me, pulling his hand free.

            “You’re not jealous?”

            He huffed a laugh, seeming entirely genuine as he said, “Just glad you had a good start to the day. You go get changed. I’ll meet you at the eluvian, too.”

Chapter Text

It turned out that the majority of the team were catastrophically hungover, while Emmrich was nowhere to be found, and all Manfred would say when I asked after him was, “Strife!” so, that was something to unpack later. All of that meant the only people heading out into the Crossroads with me and Felassan were Lucanis, Taash, and Harding, which Felassan said would be fine.

            He still refused to tell us what we were going out there for, only insisting we had to hurry. Lucanis and I filled Taash and Harding in on what had happened the night before as we went. The Illario and First Talon stuff, I mean. Definitely not anything else that happened.

            “Awesome,” Taash said. “I’m glad you got Caterina back okay.”

            “Oh, I wish I could have been there,” Harding sighed. “It all sounds so exciting!”

            “Uh. I feel like we had a pretty great night too,” Taash said.

            “Of course we did!” Harding grabbed Taash’s hand. “But wouldn’t you have liked to have spent the evening hanging out with the Crows?”

            Taash sighed. “Yeah.”

            “Emmaera, up here with me,” Felassan called back, waving me forwards.

            “Are you going to explain any of this?” I asked as I slipped past the others to walk beside him.

            “I went into the Crossroads yesterday, while the rest of you were busy. I just needed to stretch my legs, couldn’t stay locked up in the Lighthouse anymore, especially not… not alone. I was talking with a few spirit friends of mine from the old days, when someone else turned up. He said he wanted to meet with you, and had a… compelling reason for you to do so.”

            “What compelling reason?” I demanded, keeping my voice quiet enough that the others, who were chatting about the Crows, wouldn’t overhear. “I don’t mind you dragging me into stuff, Fel, but if I’m putting my people in danger –”

            Felassan stopped and turned to me with a sickly grin. “There!”

            I looked where he was pointing, confused, until a guy stepped out from behind a rocky outcropping a little way ahead. He looked human, nondescript and on the short side, with a scruff of black beard and beady little eyes, his long black coat swishing around his legs as he gave a mocking bow. He was also, unfortunately, familiar.

            “Imshael,” I said, scrabbling for my staff. “Demon, Imshael demon, Fel, what the fuck?”

            “He’s not here for a fight.” Felassan put a hand on my back to prevent my attempt at a retreat and started pushing me forwards. “You lot wait back here, we’re just going to have a chat.”

            “Em?” Harding said uncertainly, her hand creeping to her bow. She’d been at Sahrnia the time we’d barely managed to banish Imshael to the fucking Shadow Realm, and she’d heard all about it.

            Still. I looked up at Felassan, who’d just started looking hurt at the lack of trust on display, and then at Imshael, who in fairness could have just come charging at me in Pride demon form before I even knew he was there. That was why I said, “Just hang back, make sure nobody jumps us, guys. It’s okay.”

            Felassan patted my back with a smile. “Morning, Imshael.”

            “Slow Arrow. Emmaera.” Imshael gave me a very worrying grin. “You do know that’s who you are now, I presume?”

            “Did you know, last time we met?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

            “Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I did.”

            “Fuck off did you, Imshael,” Felassan said derisively. “That Mark on her hand wasn’t enough to have known.”

            “A girl turns up telling that story, bearing that Mark, with Mythal’s Sorrows living inside her?” Imshael smirked. “I knew about Mythal and Fen’Harel’s indiscretion, remember. Credit me with the ability to put two and two together. Not to mention she was leaking all sorts of thoughts about how the Wolf himself was her mentor, even if he was too much of a coward to risk facing me himself. Speaking of which, what excuse did he give to justify being absent from our little Suledin rendezvous?”

            I could only stare at him for a second. “Said we needed to leave a mage behind to help Michel defend Sahrnia village.” When Imshael wiggled his eyebrows, I muttered, “Bastard. I take it you’d have recognised him.”

            “Oh, we were all friends, back in the good old days.” He winked at Felassan, who snorted.

            Suddenly, memories of our last meeting came back to me, things I’d forgotten. The way he’d stumbled over his words when he read my mind regarding my ‘mentor’. How he’d known I’d left someone, ‘the dreamer’, back in Sahrnia. Offering me a truth. Jesus Christ, he’d even called me pup. No, he wasn’t just showing off, pretending to be smarter than he was. He really had known. He’d known I was there with Solas as soon as he read my thoughts, and he’d known who I was once he felt the Well.

            “Why didn’t you say something last time?” I demanded, glad that after the Suledin incident Solas really had taught me how to guard my thoughts. “If you knew so fucking much, why not tell me?”

            “As I recall, Emma mine, I gave you the opportunity to find out the truth, about all of it,” Imshael’s bright, easy smile lapsed into a grin that bordered on the feral, “and you chose to try to kill me instead.”

            “Fault on both sides, then,” I said, because I deeply did not want to have to fight multiple bastard-hard demons again.

            “Perhaps so,” Imshael said through that grin. “Bygones, and all that.”

            “Well, now that’s all sorted out,” Felassan said brightly, “shall we discuss why you asked us here?”

            “Oh, right. Hang on.” Imshael walked back to the outcrop he’d appeared from, grabbed something that turned out to be a body, and hauled it out to dump it in front of us, gesturing towards it. “I believe you misplaced this.”

            “What are you…” My voice trailed off as I realised what I was looking at. Who I was looking at. Unkempt black hair, pallid skin, and rail thin, dressed in little more than rags. But the rags were familiar. “Jesus Christ. Oh… shit, Hawke?”

            I made to grab her, but Imshael yanked her out of reach with frightening ease, wagging a finger at me. “Uh uh uh. You don’t get something for nothing in this world, you know that.”

            “Right, of course,” I snapped. “Should have known. Go on then, what’s this shitty deal?”

            Imshael clasped both hands to his chest with a gasp, pretending offence, then laughed. “Fine. Let me offer you a choice – you get your Champion of Kirkwall back, soothing that inflamed little conscience of yours. In return,” he jerked his chin towards Felassan, “he stays with me. Spirits with spirits.” He smirked. “Shemlen with –”

            “Get fucked,” I snapped, taking a step towards them. Imshael yanked Hawke back towards him, gripping her chin. The threat was clear – any closer, and he’d snap her neck. Felassan caught me by the elbow, pulling me back.

            “I don’t mind, Little Dream,” he said softly, nodding towards Hawke. “Maybe she deserves a chance more than I do.”

            “You can fuck off as well. Why do you even want Felassan?”

            “I’m wounded, da’len.”

            “Fel, shut up! Imshael, why are you asking for Felassan? What’s even the point of this, are you fucking lonely or what?”

            “Maybe a little, but that’s not the important thing,” Imshael said, still looking smug. “The point is, you don’t want to choose. The point is you ruined what I had going on and sent me back to the Fade, and then you misplaced this little kitty – or was it the other way around? It’s so hard to know in this place. But I made sure she stayed alive, which was easier than I’d have thought. Tough little kitty.” He stroked Hawke’s hair. “Because I knew one day I’d get this chance. The chance to offer you a choice.” He snorted. “You took your bloody time.”

            “And what if I choose to just kill you instead?” I snapped. Felassan hissed through his teeth.

            “Do you think you could?” Imshael was still smiling, his tone soft, but he was speaking through his teeth, and his voice had picked up a sort of reverb edge to it. “Do you think that’s something you could accomplish here, Da’Emmaera? Do you have that much confidence in your abilities these days? Even if you think you could survive it, with that magic hand of yours, what about your… strangely diverse little band of shem friends? How do you think they will fare? Shall we find out?”

            “I don’t mind, Emma, really,” Felassan said.

            “I fucking mind!” I pressed my hands over my eyes and let out a sound somewhere between a frustrated groan and a scream. “For fuck’s sake, Elgar’nan is out there trying to take over the world, and Ghilan’nain’s doing unhinged body horror shit on a mass scale, and still, still, you and Anaris are just pulling the same self-centred nonsense!”

            “You’ve seen Anaris lately?” Imshael asked.

            “Cheesegratered him into the Fade, but that’s not the point! What do you think the world will be like if Elgar’nan gets his way? Do you think people are going to be burdened with an overabundance of choices then, you fucking dickhead? What are you going to do once the Evanuris have won, sneak into the physical world, hoping Elgar’nan doesn’t notice you, as you offer them the choice on how they want to worship that jumped-up self-aggrandising bastard? ‘Choose which monster Ghilan’nain turns you into’, that sort of thing? Who do you think makes more interesting choices, Imshael, free people, or fucking ghouls? You useless, myopic wanker, I’m going to eat my own fucking hands I swear to Christ!”

            Imshael stared at me in silence, arms folded. Then his eyes slid past me to Felassan, eyebrows raised. “Well, she’s got the off-the-cuff speech part down, but she swears more than the old Wolf ever did.”

            “I like to think she takes after me on that front,” Felassan said.

            “Alright, Emma mine,” Imshael said, gesturing theatrically. “You’ve made your point. What’s your suggestion?”

            “Give Hawke back. Let me keep Fel. Let us save the fucking world. And then go back to doing your whole Choice spirit thing once everything’s calmed down. I’m not even asking for your active involvement here, and if you want to hunt me down and mess with me after everything’s done then fine, you do what you’ve got to do. Just let us walk out of here without kicking off this one time, and then keep your head down until we’ve dealt with the Evanuris.”

            “Hmm.” Imshael looked from me to Hawke and back so many times I was sure he was going to just take off with her regardless. Instead, he looked up at me, suddenly sly, and said, “What if I asked for a kiss as payment?”

            “What if I ripped your arm off and beat you to death with it?” Felassan said mildly, making him snicker.

            “Honestly, it actually sounds slightly more appealing than the time I had to kiss Elgar’nan -"

            "Oh?"

            " - but my boyfriends are stood literally twenty feet away, and also my uncle is right next to us, so I’m going to have to pass, sorry.”

            "Uncle," he snorted, adding in a slightly less mocking tone, “But you do still think I’m fun?”

            I blinked at him for a second. “Uh. Yeah. You’re a hoot.”

            Imshael nodded, sighed and said, “I get to punch you in the face, once, and we have a deal.”

            “Done!” I said, over Felassan’s spluttered protestations.

            I stepped forwards, nodded, and with a look of obscene delight Imshael did indeed punch me in the face. He was stronger than he looked – spirit stuff, I suppose – and I ended up lying on the ground, clutching at my cheek as my head swam. I dimly heard Felassan shouting for someone to stay put, which is when I realised I probably should have warned the team what was about to happen. As I blinked and rolled over enough to make it to my knees, a hand popped into view in front of me. Imshael’s hand.

            “That was great,” he said as he hauled me back to my feet, solicitously brushing Fade dust off my coat.

            “Thanks for choosing my cheek over my nose.”

            He chucked me under my chin. “Oh, it wouldn’t do to mar that pretty little face. Anyway, kitty’s all yours. Take care of yourself, Emma mine. Maybe I’ll see you again, somewhere down the road. And do try your best to take down that bastard Elgar’nan. I’ll rest easier knowing he’s no longer a factor.” Before I realised he was doing it, he leaned in and kissed me on my bruised cheek, then turned back to Felassan. “Slow Arrow – good luck getting back with your –”

            “Have a good life, Imshael,” Felassan said.

            Imshael snickered, and with another sarcastic bow he was gone, striding back into the Fade. Felassan stepped up beside me, gently holding my chin so he could get a good look at the welt on my cheekbone. “That’ll heal a treat with the Anchor.” Grabbing my hand to press it over my face, he added, “You did well, by the way. Imshael’s a sneaky fucker, but he does love being tempted by the promise of better choices in the future.”

            “Cheers. Could have done with a bit of warning, though.”

            “Noted. Hey, you lot, come on!”

            Lucanis reached me first, and I smiled and pulled the Anchor away from my face long enough to let him see the mostly healed bruise. “Mierda, that bastard,” he muttered, kissing my other cheek as I went back to healing.

            “Harding said he was some demon you kicked the ass of back in the day,” Taash said. “How come you didn’t kick his ass this time?”

            “Took almost the whole crew last time, and we still got battered. This was the better option, believe it or not.”

            “Oh, Maker!” Harding had been checking the body at our feet, rolling Hawke onto her back. “Is this who I think it is?”

            “Yep,” I said. “Everyone, meet Hawke. Champion of Kirkwall.”

*

                        Taash hauled Hawke home, laying her out on a cot in the infirmary. Harding showed me how to get potions into an unconscious person (dribble it in with a towel, just a few drops at a time so she didn’t choke) and then I asked everyone to give us the room. I didn’t want her to feel overwhelmed when she woke up.

            “I cannot believe you got her back,” Varric breathed as I sat beside him on the cot next to hers. “After Adamant, I was sure… Thank you, Dreamer.”

            “Imshael’s the one who kept her alive. I just got decked to take her off him.”

            “You brought her home. That’s what matters.” He hugged me tightly, and I wrapped my arms around him in return.

            It only took Hawke a few hours to wake up, which really surprised me – it seemed Imshael had done a better job at taking care of her than I’d expected. I was half convinced she was never going to wake up, or if she did that it would take days, or even weeks. Instead, after maybe two hours, she jolted into consciousness, thrashing herself upright. I felt power in the air around us, the precursor to a full spell being cast, even though her staff had been lost out there in the Fade.

            “Hey, hey, it’s alright, it’s me!” I said hastily, holding out my empty hands. “Hawke, it’s Emma, the… the Inquisitor. I’m not going to hurt you, you’re safe, it’s okay!”

            “Emma?” She blinked at me, then rubbed her hands over her eyes. “You’re in the Fade too?”

            “No, no. Well, I mean, technically, but not like, the real Fade.”

            “What?”

            Varric had hobbled off to get a drink right before Hawke woke up, leaving me to explain a lot of shit all by myself. By the end, Hawke was staring at me open-mouthed. She sat that way for so long I began to worry I’d screwed up, that I’d hit her with too much information all at once and melted her brain. Then she rubbed her eyes again.

            “He’s alive,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’re saying Anders… I was so afraid he’d do something stupid when he heard about… But he’s alive? And no longer an abomination?”

            “Yeah. Alistair and his lady wife are with him, and they’re taking care of him. As best they can under the circumstances, I mean.”

            She nodded, taking a deep breath with her eyes closed. When they opened again, she grabbed my hand. “Oh, but I’m sorry about Cullen. And everything to do with your family, that… Solas? Really? The bald elf, mage, always quiet?”

            “Wild, right?”

            Hawke laughed. “That’s putting it mildly, yes.”

            “What about you? I… I’m sorry it took so long to get you out of there, I just had no idea how to –”

            “It’s alright.” She squeezed my hand. “Truthfully, I remember very little of it all. I escaped the Nightmare – once it realised the rift was closed, it forgot about me and went into a rage. I started hunting for open rifts, rationing what provisions I had on me, but couldn’t find my way back through. Time moves differently in there, but all the same, I was about to die of thirst when Imshael found me.”

            “And he just… helped? No sadistic choices or anything?”

            “Whenever I asked him why he was helping me, he always smirked and said something about ‘playing the long game’, waiting for ‘his Emma’ to come by.” She looked briefly panicked. “You didn’t give him –”

            “It’s fine,” I assured her quickly. “I talked him down into just punching me in the face.” And maybe hunting me down later, but no need for her to know that.

            “Oh. Good?”

            “Listen. I’m so sorry I shut that rift while you –”

            “Shut up. Come here.” She hugged me, which came as a bit of a surprise. “You stopped the Nightmare making it through into our world. I chose to act as bait. I chose to stay. I didn’t blame you for a moment, Emma.”

            “Okay.” I just held her for a while, hating the fragile thinness of her under the hanging rags. “Oh, Fenris nearly fisted me a little while ago!”

            I thought she might actually choke laughing.

Chapter Text

Hawke got tired quickly, so I headed out to give her some time to rest, bumping into Varric on the upper landing. “She’s awake,” I grinned, grabbing at his hands. “I’ve covered all the basics, she knows everything. She's knackered, but all the same, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

            He hugged me tightly again. “I can honestly never thank you enough for this, Dreamer.”

            After he’d gone in to see her, I headed out to the kitchen, where the away team were excitedly explaining what the hungover team had missed, though Emmrich was still absent. Interesting. Everyone turned to me as I walked in, Bellara even leapt up and crossed half the room.

            “How is she?” she asked. “Is she awake, or…?”

            “She’s resting, but she’s awake, alert. She seems fine,” I said. “Turns out Imshael is surprisingly good at taking care of people. Well. Keeping people alive, anyway.” I dropped into an empty chair between Davrin and Harding. “Did everyone have a fun time at CrowFest’52?”

            “Turns out Crows can hold their liquor,” Davrin said, smugly adding, “though not quite enough to put the Wardens to shame.”

            “Teia’s so nice,” Bellara said as she returned to her seat. “I got talking to her about Cyrian, and it turns out she’s never had any real family so she kind of sees the Crows that way instead, and it made me think that, I mean, between the Veil Jumpers and you guys… maybe I’m not really alone, you know?”

            “Andruil’s teeth, you’re sweet,” Felassan said, leaning over to hug her.

            “We’re here for you, Bel,” Neve said. “Always.” Her eyes cut sideways towards me. “Although of course, you two slipped out early.”

            “I hate being the centre of attention,” Lucanis said, “almost as much as Emma. And the coffee we have here is better than the stuff we have in the villa.”

            “I was mostly fleeing having the ‘intentions’ talk with Caterina,” I added, making Felassan laugh. “Yes, Fel, I do blame you on some cosmic level.” Felassan apologised, but it didn’t sound especially sincere, given he was still giggling at the time.

            “Hey, uh, Em?” Bellara said hesitantly. “By the way, the Veil Jumpers have managed to arrange Cyrian’s funeral for this evening. I can invite two of you guys, Dalish tradition stuff, and I’ve already asked Neve to come, but I was wondering whether you’d want to come along too?”

            “Ah,” Lucanis said before I could answer. “I meant to say, Viago sent a note earlier. It seems someone has asked for a meeting with you tonight.”

            “Who’s that?”

            “They sent an anonymous message. Viago said he’d have more information for us once we got there.”

            “Oh,” Bellara said, “well, that’s okay, I –”

            “Nah nah nah, hang on,” I said, waving a hand. “You said this evening, you said tonight. Someone give me exact timings, come on.”

            “Sunset?” Bellara said hesitantly.

            “Viago asked us to meet him at the Diamond half an hour before midnight.”

            “Well, there, can I do both? Bel, I hate to hit and run, but –”

            “No, that’s okay! I’ll just be glad to have you there for the ceremony.”

            “Cool, good stuff." I grinned. "Too popular for my own good, me.”

            “That’s why you have an enemy list as long as my arm?” Davrin said, raising an eyebrow.

            “People have to know who I am to want me dead, Dav.”

            “I wonder what happened to that Venatori who wanted to know what you smelled like?” Bellara said.

            “What?” Felassan, Harding, and Taash all yelped, as both Lucanis and Davrin burst out laughing. I was mostly just glad they were getting along.

            “I think he was probably fed to Lusacan, sadly,” Neve smirked.

            “What in Mythal’s name do you get up to on your days out, Emmaera?” Felassan said, aghast.

            “I didn’t let him sniff me,” I pointed out, perhaps a little sharper than was necessary. “He was just speculating, and we happened to overhear him. And… he was dreaming about us ruling Tevinter together too, I guess.”

            Harding was also laughing by then. Felassan didn’t look like understanding the situation was making him feel any better. Taash just snorted and said, “Guy’s never smelled you after you’ve been to the wetlands.”

            “It’s not my fault I can’t see the fucking holes!”

            Spite popped up then, but only got out, “Emma smells like home and –” No idea what else he was going to say, but Lucanis did, and given he wrestled back enough control to slap a hand over his mouth so hard it almost split his lip, I could probably make some guesses.

            “Well,” I said, “who’d have thought getting decked by a Desire demon would be the high point of my morning.”

            Felassan snorted. “Lack of imagination, da’len. Things can always get worse.”

            Cheers.

*

                        Emmrich was at the Veil Jumper camp when the three of us got there, deep in conversation with Strife. Irelin noticed we were there and immediately came over to hug Bellara. “Everything’s ready for you, Bel.” She bit her lip. “You know you can talk to me any time, don’t you? I don’t want our history to make things awkward, and… I’m still your friend, you know?”

            Fucking hell, it was revelations all round. After Bellara thanked her, I nodded towards the gents and whispered, “So, what’s going on there?”

            “Emmrich showed up late last night, quite drunk,” Irelin said quietly. “Strife walked him out to the overlook, and they had a long discussion. Feelings and so on.” She smiled. “I imagine you’ll be seeing more of Strife at the Lighthouse.”

            “That’s sweet,” I said. “Shit, sorry Bel, we shouldn’t be gossiping.”

            She threw her arms around me. “I like it. It makes me feel like things might be normal again, one day.”

            We stopped to check in with Strife and Emmrich on the way – Emmrich was a bit flustered, but promised to be there for Bellara after I had to check out early. He sat down to wait at camp, while Bellara and I headed off for the marked path.

            It was a nice ceremony. Bellara had to light three braziers, each coming with an accompanying obstacle and then a friendly face. She explained it for me as we went, that the obstacles were there to represent the need to move past grief, with the loved one to represent life going on. I liked it far more than the Andrastian way of burning the person while someone read from the bloody Chant of Light.

            “It’s close to what my clan always did,” Bellara explained, “though we never used veilfire, and the words I’m saying are different. I got that part from the Archive. Eventually.”

            “It’s still being difficult?”

            “It called me a ‘witless fool’ three times while talking about the funeral rites.” She smiled. “Threatening to send it into an active volcano helped. So did Felassan.”

            “Did you learn any funeral stuff from Fel?”

            “He said he never actually went to any funerals back then. He tried to say that nobody he knew who died got a funeral, what with the rebellion and all. I got the feeling it was more like he just… couldn’t face saying goodbye to people, you know?”

            I thought about how upset he’d been by the deaths of those spirits in the memory we’d seen, and the way he talked about running the Lighthouse; “I was mostly just here to stop people killing each other”. As if it was a joke. As if it didn’t matter. I wondered who he was lying to, me, or himself.

            Irelin was the first friendly face, then Neve. Strife was last, waiting at the final brazier. After she lit it and said the final set of words, I put an arm around her, asking, “Are you okay?”

            “Surprisingly, yeah.” She sounded it, too. Sad, yes, but not beside herself. “Not amazing, not great, but okay. At least this time I got to say goodbye. And now I have to live my life. That’s all I can do. For either of us.” Pausing, she looked at me. “It stops hurting eventually, right?”

            “Probably not for a while,” I admitted. “Years, most likely. I won’t lie to you, I… I know you want comfort, and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to lie to you and say you’ll wake up next week and feel fine and dandy. But it will get better, a bit at a time. You probably won’t even notice it happening. One day you’ll think about him, and you’ll realise there’s no pain anymore. Or if there is, it’s no worse than nostalgia, pain, but sort of… in a wistful way. You’ll wish he was here, but you won't hate that he isn’t. Sorry, that probably sounds stupid –”

            “It’s lovely. Thank you.” She hugged me, and I held her tight. “It’s okay if you need to go now. The others are here. It just means a lot that you came.”

            “I’ll see you back to camp.” Taking a step back, I patted her cheek. “Try to get the gossip out of Emmrich.”

            She giggled and nodded. “By the time you get home, I’ll be ready to report.”

*

                        I ended up making it to the Diamond five minutes earlier than they expected me. Lucanis and Davrin were talking to Viago and Teia as I rocked up, and they all turned to greet me, though only Lucanis did so with a kiss. Man, what an orgy that would have been, though.

            “Good to see you again,” Teia said, taking my hands in hers. She kissed my cheeks before leaning in close and whispering, “I was hoping you and Lucanis would come to your senses.”

            “Thanks.” Making sure the lads were distracted first, I whispered back, “I’ve been feeling the same way about you and Viago. If you’re not already together, I mean. If that’s not weird.”

            Laughing softly, she said, “It’s complicated, but… that’s very sweet of you.” She patted my cheek. “You’re such a dear.”

            “Teia,” Lucanis sighed, “please don’t flirt with my girlfriend.”

            She winked at me, and I turned to the lads with a grin as I asked, “So, what’s the sitch?”

            “Someone has contacted us,” Viago said, giving Teia something of a look as she slipped back over to his side with a winsome smile. “Someone who offers access to the Butcher, and ‘privileged information’ on the gods.”

            “A chance to find your gods and free the city,” Teia added. “A prize for both our causes.”

            “Okay, cool,” I said. “Sounds good. Just out of interest, how likely is this to be a trap?”

            Teia snickered, and even Viago cracked a hint of a smile as he said, “It’s genuine. I would not send you into a meeting without verifying whether it was. They gave us patrol patterns, dreadnought arrivals. Their information is real.”

            “Alright then. Uh. And they’ve asked for me? Not you guys?”

            “You’re better known than either of us,” Teia said. “The ex-Inquisitor who defended the city from a dragon, and is currently working to save the world?”

            I was also Elgar’nan’s arranged fiancée, but of course they didn’t know that. The memory of that Venatori back in Arlathan hissing, “The risen god will reward us well for bringing you to him” hit me like a brick, making my skin prickle.

            “And the invitation is just for you,” Viago added. “You’ll be expected to meet them alone.”

            “With us stood right outside,” Lucanis said firmly.

            “Just a yell away,” Davrin agreed. “They can’t stop Assan cruising overhead. He’ll keep an eye out, let us know if anything happens.”

            “Thanks. Alright, fine. Let’s go see what this informant has to say.”

            The meeting was taking place in the little café off the market. Lucanis and Davrin stopped at the door as agreed, and when I walked inside, I initially thought the place was entirely empty. Then I stepped further in, and realised there were three other people present – two huge Antaam soldiers, and the Butcher himself, who turned out to be a genuine giant of a Qunari.

            “Trap,” I said, grabbing for my staff. “Trap, trap, I fucking –”

            “Tch, there’s no need for that,” the Butcher said quietly, in what was admittedly one of the coolest voices I’d ever heard. It turned out when he wasn’t yelling like a drill sergeant he had this really rich, deep voice. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t go a long way towards stopping my retreat. “Treviso is the trap, not this meeting. You are Emma Rutherford, yes?”

            “Uh. Yeah.”

            He smiled. “Sit, please.” His smile broadened as I cautiously took a seat across from him at one of the little coffee tables, his size making the table look comedically tiny in comparison. “So tense. I promise, I’ll signal when it’s time to fight.”

            “Well, so long as you promise,” I said, making him laugh softly. “Can’t imagine why I might be reluctant to trust you.”

            “Do you truly believe you would have made it to this meeting alive if I did not will it so? I have the forces to raze your casino, and slaughter everyone inside.”

            I narrowed my eyes at him. “So why haven’t you? Not that I’m encouraging you to do it or anything, like, that was a question, not a goad.”

            The Butcher chuckled again. “I haven’t done it for the reason I said before. Treviso is the trap. The jewel of Antiva… she sings, even while caged. Such purity in every stone. It’s trapped my heart. I love this city.”

            “Oh, that explains it then,” I snorted. “One of my best mates is Tal-Vashoth, and from what I’ve heard of his love life, you having a… firm hand with the city you love makes total sense.”

            “Yes,” he laughed. “I am aware of your history with our people, dreadnought and Dragon’s Breath included. As for my actions… you know there are traitors here. They ransom their own city. Literal gods stalk the land, but these filth worship their own purses! But you… you’re different. You Crows stay true to your roles. It means something when you die, and even more when you kill.” He tilted his head, eyeing me up and down. “You’re as much a work of art as this city.”

            “Flatterer,” I said, my cheeks hot, and his laugh that time was lower, softer. “I’m not really a Crow, though.”

            “No,” he agreed, still giving me that appraising look. “You’re something else. Something older, and stranger, and coveted by a god. Saarabasalit-an.”

            I’d picked up just enough Qunlat to translate that one. “A dangerous thing worthy of respect?”

            “Very good,” he grinned indulgently. “Back home, you would not merely have had your mouth sewn shut, you know. You would have been killed, for the good of the people. A thing too dangerous and strange to be permitted to walk the world."

             "Good job for me you don't report back to the Qun anymore then, isn't it?"

             "Yes, I serve the risen gods instead." He leaned forwards, lowering his voice. "Though that would not necessarily be better for you, would it? The risen god has asked for you alive and unharmed, you know. If any of his servants are to find ourselves in this situation, we are meant to incapacitate you and return you to him. I believe he intends on taking a firm hand with you, himself.”

            “I’m aware,” I said, making the effort to smile. “Let him fucking try.”

            The Butcher stared at me a moment longer, then chuckled. “Yes. I believe he will have his work cut out for him in his endeavour, though I see why he is willing to try. Often, the creature that is hardest to break makes the sweetest mount, do they not?” He smiled when that made me press my lips together, leaning back and gesturing towards me. “You have come here seeking a secret from me, Saarabasalit-an. Name it.”

            “The gods are planning a ritual, at the next eclipse. They're going to make a dagger that can tear through the Veil and drown the world in blight. I need to know where they are, before they get it done.”

            “The gods! They give strength!” The Butcher briefly broke out his public speaking voice again, making me flinch, before dialling it back to add, “But all they ask for in return is everything. I feel their corruption. I hear their whispers. They’re calling for a ritual. If I give in, I’ll know where you need to go. But I will lose my jewel. My city! So!” He lurched to his feet, hunching over and growling in pain. “Your friends live in a casino! Let us make a game of this! I will become what the gods want. Welcome their whispers.” He hurled the table aside, catching the edge of my jaw and slamming me into the ground as he stumbled towards the door, his voice deepening as he went. “Meet me, and show me if the Crows deserve my city!”

            He’d broken my jaw, but I still managed to roll over and fireball one of the Butcher’s bodyguards, both of whom were poised to stab me. The second guard hit the ground with a griffon tearing into his throat, his screams quickly turning to gurgles. As I pushed myself to my feet, Anchor pressed to the blinding pain in my face, Lucanis and Davrin charged in.

            “Was that the Butcher who just came through here?” Lucanis asked.

            “Turns out he was the contact, and if we kill him he’ll tell us where the gods are. Like a really dark Kinder Surprise.” I wiggled my lower jaw around, making sure it was properly attached, then stooped to give Assan a fuss. “Thanks for being my backup, boy.”

            We chased the Butcher out to the Sunken District, where the big guy had turned into an even bigger monster and was tearing a horde of Antaam apart, which, like, cheers mate. He was even good to his word, yelling out that the gods were at Tearstone Island (wherever that may have been) with his last rattling breath. Afterwards we sat in a row on a half-rotten fence, getting our breath back.

            “At least he did what he said he would in the end,” I said. “And he called me a work of art.”

            “Hm,” Lucanis said, putting an arm around me. “He wasn’t wrong there.”

            “Yes, truly the Butcher was a paragon of honour and virtue, and we are all sorry to see him go,” a voice called down sarcastically from a nearby roof. The owner of the voice was bald, bearded, and wearing a long coat with feathers at the collar. “And now you have a location for your final pointless confrontation. The gods are at Tearstone Island. Isn’t that what you wanted? A chance to die a hero’s death? So go! Leave Treviso to those who deserve it!”

            I stared upwards for a long moment, then turned to Lucanis, forehead creasing. “Who the fuck is that?”

            “Ivenci,” Lucanis said, “they’re a governor here.”

            “Huh.” I hopped to my feet and looked up at Ivenci, who’d gone from smug to furious. “Hang on, are you saying you’re the traitor the Butcher talked about? The one who sold Treviso to the Antaam?”

            “He… didn’t give you my name then,” Ivenci said. “That’s a surprise, that man did love to hear himself talk.” Without an ounce of irony, they went on to deliver an extended rant about how they were the real hero here, actually.

            I turned to Lucanis again. “If they’re the traitor, that means the contract against ‘the enemies of Treviso’ was taken out on them, right?”

            “Yes.”

            I swung my staff up and blasted the rooftop with all the power I still had in me, killing Ivenci and both of the Antaam standing on the roof with them into the bargain. “There we go. Contract complete, plus now there’s no one to take the fact we know about Tearstone Island back to the Evanuris.”

            Lucanis could only stare at me for a second. Then he leapt up, swept me into his arms, and said, “I adore you,” before kissing me passionately.

            Davrin sighed. “You guys do that. I’ll just check if these guys had anything worth stealing.”

Chapter Text

By the time we filled the Crows in on everything that had happened (it turned out I would indeed get paid for exploding Ivenci, because the ‘traitors of Treviso’ contract had been an open one, and Lucanis being present legitimised the hit, it could be claimed as having been worked by House Dellamorte, so, score) it was the early hours of the morning. I dropped onto my bed, alone, because I was just so monumentally knackered that I let Lucanis wander off to his own room uninterrupted, nodding off immediately.

            When I woke up the next morning, I decided to check in with Emmrich, because I’d barely seen him the previous day and, you know, there was gossip afoot. He shouted for me to come in when I knocked, and I’d barely stepped inside when Hezenkoss’ voice, of all people, barked, “Oh, what a surprise! Volkarin’s chief hanger-on has come to gawk!”

            I jumped violently, twisting towards the sound to find myself facing a skull on a cabinet, glowing with green energy.

            “You must be so pleased with yourself!” Yep, that was Hezenkoss’ voice coming out of the glowing skull.

            “Emmrich?”

            “Thanks to your interference, I’m stuck like this –”

            “Emmrich!”

            “—reduced to no more than –”

            “Please do give it a rest, Johanna,” Emmrich sighed, pattering down the stairs. “Good morning, Emma.”

            “Yeah, morning, so… What exactly have I walked in on here?”

            “Hmm? Oh! Yes, well, Johanna’s spirit is tied to her remains. Should we destroy her skull, said spirit would be set loose, which I think you’ll agree is not a desirable outcome. I promise you, she is strongly warded.” Emmrich sighed. “The Watchers found her skull as the only surviving part of her –”

            “Trapped in the ruins of my grand creation,” Hezenkoss put in tartly.

            “—and I volunteered to take care of her… rehabilitation.” He looked almost guilty as he added, “I know it’s perhaps foolish, to still want her to be taken care of despite all she has done, but –”

            “Emmrich, you’re preaching to the choir.”

            He smiled. “Yes, perhaps so.”

            “Ugh,” Hezenkoss sneered as he put an arm around my shoulders.

            “Oh, shush you,” Emmrich said.

            “You know, I could probably get Lucanis to knit her a hat,” I said. “Jazz her up a bit.”

            “How dare you –”

            “Perhaps now would be a good time to go for breakfast.” Emmrich used the arm around my shoulders to steer me out of the room. I went willingly enough, and as soon as he lowered his arm, I linked mine through his and smiled up at him.

            “So, you and Strife.”

            “Oh dear. Were we that obvious?”

            “Only in the last day or so. Come on, spill the beans.”

            “Well, I suppose it’s only fair, after the hours the rest of us have spent discussing you and Lucanis.”

            “Exactly! Hang on, hours?”

            “He’s courageous, and I do enjoy his stories. He inquired about my corpse-whispering, then presented me with the most exquisite jewelled skull. One thing led to another.”

            “I’m really happy for you,” I said, leaning against him. “Strife seems like a great guy. A bit brusque, maybe, but great. I’m glad you’ve got each other. I’d make an offer like ‘feel free to come to me for advice’, but in all honesty I’ve no idea what I’m doing. Relationships just sort of happen at me.”

            Emmrich laughed. “I appreciate the sentiment, regardless. This is far from my first relationship, so I believe I shall be fine, though I would be grateful if I might use you as a sounding board occasionally?”

            “Yeah, of course! I make no promises about the quality of my advice, but you’ll have it.”

            “Very kind.”

            I’d thought the kitchen would be empty, but it turned out the only person missing was Varric – even Hawke had hobbled her way out, and was sat in the chair nearest the fire, answering Bellara and Neve’s questions about Kirkwall. Lucanis was cooking, and smiled as he said, “I was about to send someone out to find you two. I made pancakes, to celebrate the traitor of Treviso being dealt with.”

            “Ooh.” I went over to give him a kiss before taking my seat. “I’ll have to explode the enemies of the Crows more often.”

            “I appear to have missed something,” Emmrich said.

            “Last night Em had a meeting with the Butcher,” Davrin explained. “He gave us the location of the Evanuris’ ritual, but he had to give in to Ghilan’nain’s changes to get it done, so we killed him. And then one of the governors outed themself as the person who sold Treviso to the Antaam, so Em hit them with a Hossberg-well level of lightning. That about covers it, right?”

            “Succinct,” I said, smiling up at Lucanis as he set a plate down in front of me. “Thank you.”

            “A ‘Hossberg-well’ level?” Hawke asked.

            “We found a haunted well in Hossberg,” Bellara jumped in. “And Emma hit it with the biggest bolt of lightning I've ever seen.”

            “Haunted wells? Perhaps a tad cliché.” Hawke cocked her head, scratching at the table beside her plate. “Speaking of lightning, is there a story behind the handprint burned into this table?”

            Mercifully, just as Lucanis dropped a frying pan and I started choking on my breakfast, the Caretaker appeared beside me, and I think only Neve noticed anything was up. Especially after Hawke responded to their appearance by leaping to her feet, pointing at them with a yell of, “Who –”

            “It’s alright,” I wheezed, taking a sip of water to clear the pancake lodged in my throat before gurgling, “They’re an old family friend.”

            “No scarier than me,” Felassan agreed, grinning at Hawke as she sat back down.

            “Well, they must be positively kittenish in that case,” she said, making him laugh.

            “You have visitors, Wolf’s Pup,” the Caretaker said, having waited patiently for everyone to stop yammering.

            “Oh? Oh!” I was hit with a weird mix of excitement and trepidation. “Could you escort them through?”

            All eyes turned to me as the Caretaker bowed and disappeared. “Keeping secrets, Little Dream?” Felassan asked.

            “Organising a surprise,” I corrected. “Eat your breakfast, you’ll see.”

            Cole was the first in, either because he already knew the way or because he ran. Whatever the cause, he burst through the doors and called, “Hello, Emma!”

            I’d just finished hoovering up my breakfast and hurried over to hug him. “Morning, Baby Bird!” Quieter, into his ear, I said, “Are you alone?”

            “They’re looking at the library. Hello, everyone!”

            The gang greeted him, and Lucanis even came over to shake Cole’s hand, something they both looked a bit confused by, though overall they seemed happy. Remembering Cole’s last visit, I hissed, “Spite, be nice!”

            That distant voice let out a frustrated sound, but said, “Hello, Compassion,” more or less politely.

            “Oh, thank you,” Cole said. Something else passed between them, not words, nothing I could hear, just a sense of information being shared. Cole’s eyes widened as he looked from Lucanis to me and back. “Oh,” he said softly. Then he broke into a beaming smile and hugged first me and then, a little hesitantly, Lucanis. “I’m happy for you all.” I desperately hoped Spite had just shared, like, the sense of us having gotten together, and not any images of what we'd been up to recently, because if that's what he'd done I'd have to kill us all. God, of course that was what he'd done, wasn't it? My baby boy didn't need to know I got up to that sort of thing. 

            Before we had a chance to say anything else (and before I could enact my "death before dishonour" plan), my other visitors arrived. Abelas first, who came in and bowed to me, his hand over his heart. He was closely followed by a small, slight elven woman with dark hair and big dark eyes peering out through a porcelain mask. Those big eyes barely even met mine before they slid sideways to stare at Felassan, who went from looking quietly amused to stunned as he slowly rose to his feet.

            “Bria?” he said softly.

            “Andaran atish’an, hahren,” Briala said, her voice tight.

            Then they were both moving, meeting halfway across the kitchen to throw their arms around each other, holding each other tight. Briala, one of the most reserved people I’d ever met, was in tears. Felassan was murmuring something I deliberately avoiding making out, to give them what privacy I could. Beside me, Cole tugged at my sleeve.

            “I really did think Felassan was dead.”

            “I assumed you didn’t go into a trance and say he was just to cause drama, yes,” I said, putting an arm around him.

            “We found him, my lady,” Abelas said. “Everything is prepared. We need only return.”

            “Sorry,” Neve said, leaning over the back of her chair and waving to get my attention. “I love a bit of clandestine fun, but only so long as I’m involved. Who have we found?”

            “Felassan’s body.” I smiled a little anxiously as his head jerked up, unreadable purple eyes fixing on me. “Dad must have set wards to protect your physical self, after he shoved your spirit self into that wall. And I had some of our people in the south track it down. I didn’t want to mention it until I was sure it was going to work out, just in case it didn’t. Like a surprise.” Withering under that stare, I weakly finished with jazz hands and said, “Surprise!”

            “You’re saying…”

            “We can restore you to your body, hahren,” Briala said, stepping back and smiling at him. Felassan held out a hand, and I cautiously stepped closer, only to be pulled into a painfully tight one-armed hug, with Briala squeezed against me as he wrapped an arm around her as well. “My girls,” he mumbled. “My clever, clever girls.”

*

                        The others stayed in the kitchen while I walked our guests, along with Felassan and Hawke, back to the eluvian. Hawke was going south with them, so Briala could link her up with the Wardens. She still felt too skinny as I hugged her goodbye, but her eyes were bright, and she couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

            “If you need me back, you have only to ask, you know,” she said as she stepped back.

            “Fuck off will I,” I scoffed. “You go get your man, and… Well, I was going to say you should take it easy and enjoy being back together, but given the world’s in the toilet right now, maybe –”

            She laughed. “Anders and I will do what we must to protect the south, don’t worry. You just deal with the Evanuris.”

            Cole, Felassan, and Briala came to say their goodbyes next, Cole chattering away in his weird little sentence fragments that Felassan seemed to understand with ease. I hugged Briala first, saying, “I hope Celene’s okay.”

            “She’s coping admirably,” Briala said pointedly, in response to Felassan’s snort. “Between her, the Divine, Queen Anora, Vivienne, and Thane Sun-Hair, the south is hanging on, though we're still trying to convince Orzammar to work with us. The Avvar actually drove a horde of Venatori from Val-Royeaux, aided by Ser Alistair’s Wardens.”

            “Good, that’s… as good as can be.” I turned to hug Felassan, who lifted me off the ground in the process, and Cole, who was much gentler. “You boys be good. Listen to Briala.”

            “Yes, mother,” Felassan said sarcastically.

            “Yes, mum,” Cole said, sounding so genuine I had to hug him again.

            “As soon as I’m well I’ll come back north,” Felassan promised. “You’ll have at least one person with a bit of sense to help you against Elgar’nan.”

            “Oh yeah, who’ll you be bringing with you?”

            “Funny, funny, Little Dream.” He pulled me in to kiss me on the forehead, and everyone but Abelas stepped through the mirror.

            “Thanks for making sure they got here and back safely, Abelas.” I briefly had the impulse to hug him, too, but judging by how stiff he was holding himself I thought a) he was expecting it, and b) he was very much not on board. So instead, I just gave him a stately nod and said, “Safe travels.”

            “Thank you, my lady. Remember, I am at your disposal.” He paused at the glass. “Oh. We discovered something on our journey, something I felt was deserving of your attention. I have left it on the library table.”

            “That’s great, thank you.”

            I had a sneaking suspicion of what I might be about to find when I got back upstairs, and unfortunately I was right. Sat in the middle of the library table was a wolf statuette, glowing faintly and radiating sorrow. The last key to the last regret mural. Shit.

            There was a moment where I considered just taking it outside and yeeting it into the Fade. Then I called myself a fucking coward and marched off back to the kitchen. Whatever the last panel was hiding, it might be important.

            Bursting back into the room, I announced, “We’ve got another horrible memory to watch, team!”

Chapter Text

I should have been a coward. As we came out of the final memory, all eyes turned to me. I just stared at the revealed mural, not seeing anything but the image there. The image of Solas cradling Flemeth’s limp body.

            “Only the first time.” That’s what Elgar’nan had said when Solas had talked about Mythal’s murder, wasn’t it?

            “Why should I not tear down the Veil and bring back immortality to all the elven people?” Solas had said to her in the memory. “They deserve it!”

            “The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love be torn apart to salve your conscience,” Flemythal had responded. “This is the only world our daughter knows now. She just recently risked her life to save it. Yet you would burn it down around her, to restore a world she knows only through second-hand legends?”

            “She will understand in time. I must fix what I have broken. I am sorry.”

            “Mi amor?” Lucanis asked gently when I just stood there, staring.

            “He took her from me.” My voice came out empty and feeble, which was strange, because on the inside I was so sad, and so furious, it felt like my bones were vibrating with it. “That, what he’s wearing in the panel, it’s what he was wearing when he went missing. So, he walked out on me, making me think my mistake had made him kill himself, I... I had to live with thinking he was dead because of me for two fucking years. Instead, he'd just gone straight to all that was left of my mother, and killed her. Killed her in cold blood to steal her power. The one chance I had at having a conversation with something like my mother, and that… bastard…”

            “Look, come and sit down,” Harding said, leading me over to the couch and sitting beside me, Lucanis on my other side. The others settled around us, all looking concerned, and after a second I realised why – waves of power were rolling off me, making the air around me crackle and spark. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, forcing my magic back under control.

            “All that epic magic and godly power,” Neve said. “In the end, it comes down to love and murder. Same as always.”

            “Not to mention sheer bloody-mindedness,” I muttered.

            “The world they love,” Davrin snorted. “Like the world’s so great for elves.”

            “It’s better than the alternative, Dav,” I said quietly. “In Redcliffe, I saw what happens to the world when the Veil comes down. Maybe Dad thinks he could control it better than Corypheus did, but… I’ve seen the world tearing apart at the seams, spirits twisted into demons pouring through the holes in the Veil. That's not a world anyone wants to live in, especially not when we'd have to kill all non-elves to get there, trust me.”

            Davrin nodded. “I do.”

            My stomach lurched suddenly, and I pressed a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God, I’m the one who told him. I met Flemeth in the Inquisition days, and he… the way he reacted, he hadn’t known. I’m the reason he knew she was out there to find. It’s my fault he found her.”

            “No, Emma, you can’t think like that,” Bellara said.

            “A power like Mythal in the world would have drawn the attention of a faded god seeking a shortcut to power soon enough,” Emmrich said. “Once he had amassed his network of elves – your friend Abelas and so on – he would surely have heard of her, and then what we saw in the mural would have happened regardless.”

            “Not everything is your fault.” Lucanis kissed the side of my head.

            “Something else is worrying me,” Davrin said. “Your old man turned on Mythal, in the end, same way he turned on Felassan. How long until it’s your turn?”

            “He wants out of that prison,” Neve agreed, “and you can bet he’s working on a plan.”

            I wanted to say no, that we could trust him, that he’d at least work with us until Elgar’nan was stopped. But I couldn’t. Instead, cold and empty inside, I said, “I’ve never thought to ask – do you guys have the story of the scorpion and the frog here?”

            “Can’t say it’s one I’ve heard,” Davrin said.

            “Well, there’s this scorpion who wants to get across a river, right? So he goes to a frog and asks for her help in crossing it, only she says she doesn’t want to, that she doesn’t trust the scorpion not to sting her. And the scorpion says hey, you can trust me across the river, at least. I can’t swim. If I sting you when we’re out on the water, we’ll both die. It’s in my best interest not to hurt you until then. The frog decides he has a point, he hops on her back, and when they’re halfway across the river the scorpion stings her all the same. As she dies, the frog asks the scorpion why, you know, why he did it, why he killed them both. And the scorpion says, ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s just my nature’.”

            “Oh, Em,” Harding whispered.

            Luckily the Caretaker appeared in front of me before I was expected to say anything else. “You have witnessed the Protector’s tale, Wolf’s Pup. Almost to its end.”

            “Almost?” I said bitterly. “Christ, how can there be anything worse?”

            “When the mighty fall, their echoes cross the ages,” they said. “An audience is warranted. Speak with your visitor. She awaits you in the Crossroads.”

            I nodded and heaved myself to my feet. When multiple people tried to talk to me at once, I waved them to silence. “I need to see this through. I appreciate everyone’s concerns, but… I need to. I’ll be alright, I promise.”

            “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Lucanis said softly, but he let me go without further argument.

            Out into the Crossroads I went. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for Morrigan to be hanging out in there, giving me a slightly subdued, “Hello, Emma.”

            “Oh. Hi, Mor. Sorry, I was expecting… How can I help, anyway?”

            “In fact, I came here to help you. By now I imagine you have a few questions about Solas and Mythal?” She reached out and cupped my cheek, and something in the gesture gave me déjà vu. Suddenly I was back in the Fade, with Morrigan and little Kieran as Flemythal clearly debated telling me who she was.

            Gasping, I jerked back out of reach. “You… you’re her, aren’t you? You have been ever since –”

            “Since your father killed my mother to steal the essence within her, yes.”

            I shook my head. “A decade. You’ve known about all of this for longer than I’ve even known who I am.” Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I let out a shrill laugh. “Would everyone please stop fucking lying to me?”

            “I am sorry,” she said, “but I felt telling you the truth would have done no good. Besides, I am not truly her. You remember how the situation went with my mother, do you not? A part of Mythal lives on in me, yes, but I remain entirely myself, mortal and free-willed.”

            “Well, that’s good, at least,” I sighed. “I know you were dead set against being possessed and all. Hang on, actually, why are you possessed? Why didn’t she come to me? I’m the one with the Well, I’m… you know. Shouldn’t she have…”

            “If you bore the Well alone, she may have,” she said. “Perhaps ‘tis because your body is not truly your own, so giving permission to another to share it is not within your power. Or she did not wish to share a body with a being almost as old as herself. It may even be because what was left of Mother saw me as her successor, and the question of the Well never entered into it. I cannot say, I am afraid. She came to me, and I accepted. That is all I know.”

            “Right. Okay. So, you can compel me to do things, yeah? Through the Well?”

            “Have no fear of that, dear Emma.” Morrigan reached out, hesitantly, and took my hand. “I have no interest in manipulating you. Has the Well not been quiet these last ten years? The whispers would not have served you well, so I spared you their presence, unless you deliberately summoned them. Truly, I am only here now to offer what aid and succour I may.”

            “So… how much of her is in you?”

            “No more than a spark, I am afraid. Vague, shadowed memories I must sieve through to find meaning. Whether there was more of her before Fen’Harel found Mother, I cannot say.”

            I nodded. “Sorry about Flemeth. I know you two had a complicated relationship, but still. Another thing to smack Dad over.”

            “Thank you.” She patted my hand. “Admittedly, what grief I felt was more… grief over what could have been, or should have been. The mother I might have had, should circumstances have been different. A sentiment I imagine you are familiar with.”

            “Yeah,” I laughed bitterly. “I found out Mythal contributed to everything awful, and then also was murdered before I even had a chance to shout at her about it.” Rubbing at my eyes, I muttered, “God, I’m so tired.”

            Morrigan watched me closely, seeming to consider something. Finally, she nodded and said, “The chance might yet be yours.”

            “What do you mean? Are you giving me the go-ahead to shout at you?”

            She smiled. “Not quite. When Mythal was struck down by the other gods, it was with her own lyrium dagger. The dagger you now carry. Solas recovered it from Elgar’nan, and from it extracted a fragment of Mythal that had lain within its depths. This fragment – a younger sister to the one I carry, if you will – resides here, in the Crossroads. I can open the way for you. Find her, survive the encounter, and the essence you obtain will aid you in the times to come.” She waved a hand, and behind her vines drew back to reveal a new path.

            “She’s there?” I said softly, stepping towards it.

            Morrigan grabbed my arm and yanked me back, the gentler voice she’d been using vanishing as she said, “Did you perhaps miss the part where I said ‘survive the encounter’? The version of Mythal in there has not spent millennia among humans and modern elves. She is… harder and sharper, and more likely to react with aggression.”

            “I’ll just tell her who I am.” When she still refused to release my arm, the gnawing pit in my stomach grew wider. “Fine. Caretaker, could you ask Bellara and Davrin to come out here?”

            “Good.” Morrigan finally released my arm, gently rubbing the spot where her fingers had dug in. “It may be that she is willing to listen, but I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to your wellbeing.”

            “I appreciate it. I’ll see you around?”

            “In three days’ time, at midday, come and meet me in the Cobbled Swan. We can discuss today’s outing, yes?”

            “Yeah. See you then.”

            Bellara and Davrin jogged up as Morrigan went bird and headed off into the Crossroads. “Was that Lady Morrigan?” Bellara asked.

            I explained everything as quickly as I could. Bellara’s eyes went very wide, while Davrin seemed hilariously underwhelmed. “You two are here because Morrigan said I might need backup,” I finished, “and I thought elves might not set her off as much. Hope you don’t mind.”

            “You know we’re here for you,” Davrin said.

            “You really think she might attack you?” Bellara asked in a hushed voice.

            “Let’s find out.”

            The Caretaker ferried us out to a new island that had something that looked like a ruined temple standing on it. A Felassan note was trapped under a rock near the entrance, talking about how Solas had built the place in the hope that Mythal and I could one day come to live there, only for him to have to squirrel me away after Mythal’s death, at which point he deemed the place out of bounds. I really wished I could have kept Felassan for a little while longer. If just for more backup.

            Then, suddenly, there she was. An elf woman with long hair and a spiky headpiece, she was glowing a pale blue-white all over, like a spirit. She watched us impassively as we approached, Bellara and Davrin hanging back slightly while I said, “Hi. I’m –”

            “I know who you are,” she said evenly. “I have watched you, travelling back and forth through the Dread Wolf’s Crossroads. Emmaera. Not the name I would have chosen.”

            “Right. Yeah.” The cautious flickers of anticipation I’d been feeling faded into a hollow numbness. “Nice to finally meet you.”

            “Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You are disappointed. Did you imagine we would fall weeping into each other’s arms, perhaps? We are strangers, are we not? You have grown up in your own dreams, daughter to another world. Since your awakening, it has become clear you are more your father’s creature than mine.” Her mouth tightened. “Him, and his Slow Arrow.”

            Flemythal had been nice to me, even if she’d chosen not to tell me who I was. This Mythal… After everything I’d seen in the murals, I’d thought there was nothing more she could do to hurt me. Wrong again, idiot! God, Felassan had been right, I really did have a stunning lack of imagination. This was Mythal the Evanuris. This was the Mythal who was willing to marry Elgar’nan to improve her own position, who’d turn a blind eye to everything the other Evanuris were doing, at least until it came to the blight. The Mythal who left the Sentinel elves, her slaves, to guard her temple for an eternity. 

            “Did you ever care about me?” I asked before I could stop myself.

            Mythal seemed to think about it. “In the beginning, perhaps, when I first realised I was with child. Before I came to understand how much danger bearing Fen’Harel’s child put us both in. And… again, when you were first born, before I gave you over into your father’s care. I am sorry,” she said, softer than before. “Had things been different, perhaps… But I will not pretend to feel a connection that is not there.”

            “Fair enough.” I forced myself to smile. “Can you at least help us out against your ex-husband?”

            Her mouth twisted. “I can offer little. Solas drew me from the dagger that struck me down, but what is left of me can only survive here. I cannot return to the world, and even the true Fade is denied me. All I can do is watch. That is your true reason for coming here, then? To beg me to give up what remains of myself to help you defeat the monsters Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain have become?”

            “I came here to meet my mother,” I said. “Since you’ve made it abundantly clear that’s not who you consider yourself to be, yeah, I wouldn’t mind a hand dealing with your friends before they end the fucking world.”

            “There is no call to be churlish,” she said witheringly. “You have come to claim my help. Tell me why I should offer it.”

            I started trying to think, but then shook my head, letting out a bitter, scoffing laugh. “Will anything I say make any difference? You know what, fuck it, fuck this, fuck you. I killed Anaris without your help, and I –”

            “You killed Anaris?”

            “Oh, I thought you knew everything,” I snapped. When she stared levelly at me, I sighed. “Inasmuch as it’s possible to kill one of you lot in the physical world, yeah, I killed him. Maybe I just sent him back to the Fade, I don't know, but there's been no sign of him since, so I fucked him up good and proper, at least.”

            “She turned into a dragon, too,” Bellara piped up, “and fought two blighted dragons at once!”

            Mythal smiled a little. “What kind of dragon?”

            “Our dragon expert couldn’t identify me as any particular breed,” I said, “but I was green and sort of sleek, and I could breathe lightning. I’m good at working with lightning, generally.”

            She smiled again, just the tiniest quirk of her lips. “I see. Is that how you defeated Anaris?”

            “Actually, I used this.” I waved my Marked hand. “I can use it to open Fade rifts inside people if I touch them. It siphons them into the Fade in pieces. I tried it on Elgar’nan, but he’s got too many wards on him, so it only hurt him. But like, at least it hurt him. A lot.”

            Chuckling softly, her gaze slid past me. “Your people are desperate to jump to your defence. You command respect, Emmaera.”

            “Not just that,” Davrin said. “I respect Emma, yeah, but it’s more than that. She cares about us, and we care about her.”

            “Like a family,” Bellara said quietly, making my bottom lip tremble.

            Mythal looked closely at me again, and sighed. “Yes. I feel you are worthy of my aid. I have spent thousands of years watching. I shall miss that. But if what I am can protect the innocent and smite the guilty…” That time she smiled properly. “What remains of me, I give to you freely. Use it to protect the world with kindness when possible, and cunning when necessary.”

            I nodded. “Thank you.” Looking down at the hilt of the Wolf’s Fang, I said, “I’m going to use the weapon they murdered you with to kill them. That seems right, doesn’t it? Like justice, maybe?”

            “Or vengeance. Either way, you have my approval in your endeavour. Make them bleed, Emmaera. Make them pay for what they took from me.” For one last moment she gazed at me, softer and sadder than before. “I do wish things had been different for us, da'len.”

            “We just have to make the most out of what we have, don’t we?” I said wearily.

            “Yes, of course. Seek our vengeance, ashalan, and afterwards, live well.”

            With that, Mythal was overtaken by a blaze of white light, so bright I had to close my eyes. When I could see again, there was a statuette hovering in the air before me. Similar to the wolves we’d found, it was bluish and translucent and seemed to be lit from within, though this one was shaped like the Mythal statues we’d seen. Instead of emanating a sense of sorrow, this one felt warm and strangely comforting.

            “Are you okay?” Bellara asked quietly.

            “Yeah,” I sighed. “Didn’t get the chance to shout at her about the Titan stuff, mind.”

            “Don’t think anyone’s going to hold that against you,” Davrin said. “Even Harding.”

            “Hm. What was that thing she called me at the end? God, I really need to learn elven. Ashalan?”

            “Um.” Bellara looked at Davrin, who nodded. “It means daughter.”

            “Right.” I looked down at the statue in my hands, again feeling the urge to just toss an artifact into the void. “Naturally. Let’s just go home.”

Chapter Text

I spent the next few nights in with Lucanis again. Nothing sexy happened, I just couldn’t bear to go up to my stupid fishtank room alone, and falling asleep with his arm around me made that horrible chill in my chest recede slightly. I still didn’t sleep well. The night before I was due to meet Morrigan in Minrathous was the worst, I must have woken up every other hour. When I woke up for the last time, too close to morning to be worth dozing back off, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling.

            An hour or so later Lucanis’ breathing changed, and he started to mumble. I put a hand on his cheek, hoping it would calm him down, but instead it made him jerk backwards so hard his head hit the wall, waking him.

            “I’m sorry,” I whispered as he blinked at me. “You were having a nightmare, I think, and I –”

            “It’s alright.” He rubbed the back of his head with a rueful smile. “Not the worst way I’ve woken up.”

            “Was it the Ossuary?” When he nodded, I said, “Do you want to talk about it? You never have, you know, all the time we spent in the kitchen talking about my stuff, and… I don’t know, it might help.”

            “I don’t know about that,” he sighed.

            “Okay. I won’t push you. I just want you to know you can talk about it if you want.”

            “I know.” He caught my hand and pulled it to his mouth, kissing each of my fingers. “I don’t remember a lot of it. Not while I’m awake, and even the dreams fade too quickly to remember much. They didn’t let me sleep, ironically. That was part of it. Kept me awake for days at a time. No food, hardly any water. I think the idea was to break us down enough to let the demons be… seeded. There were beatings, too, but I’m a Crow. That’s just basic training. Once we were too weak to fight, they chained us down and brought the demons to us. Some of the demons were spirits, to begin with. Spite was. They’d already twisted him before they brought us together.”

            “Too real,” Spite muttered, popping in suddenly. “Too hard. Sharp edges when I tried to think. Pain. Wanted me to change. Wouldn’t let them win. Then, Lucanis. Shelter. He felt the same.”

            “Zara was trying for Envy,” Lucanis sighed. “Some cult she got the idea from down south managed to get hold of an Envy demon, and she was obsessed with doing the same thing. She wanted that to be me. I don’t know what went wrong, why I ended up with Spite instead, but I did. We worked together to hold onto ourselves, as much as possible.”

            “The Order of Fiery Promise,” I whispered.

            Lucanis blinked at me. “Yes. Have you –”

            “I, uh. I stopped them. The thing they were doing before, where they were putting demons into Seekers of Truth. I went to their hideout with Cassandra, Divine Victoria, back when she was just a Seeker. The leader of the Seekers was working with the Order to put demons in his own people, apparently working with an Envy demon that was pretending to be him for public appearances. Everyone died. We killed the Order and the Seekers that had gone wrong, but all the people they’d put a demon in died as well. Shit,” I said, as it occurred to me, “I never checked what happened with that Envy demon.”

            “Everyone died in the Ossuary, too,” he said. “One by one, screaming and…” Sucking in a breath, he stopped and shook his head. “All but me. Why all but me?”

            “You and Spite.” I reached out to stroke his face again. “You two worked together. You were a match. Maybe if they’d bothered to line things up like that more, rather than just jamming people and demons together haphazardly, they’d have had more success. Not that I’d say that outside this room, mind. Don’t really want people perfecting a process like that.”

            Lucanis laughed softly and turned his head to kiss my palm. He started kissing his way along, pressing one to the pulse point over my wrist, moving on down my arm, my shoulder. Just as he grazed my neck with his teeth in the way he knew drove me crazy, we heard the kitchen door open, then Taash and Harding talking loudly. He let out a frustrated, amused groan and rested his head in the crook of my neck.

            “I’d offer to keep going,” I whispered, “but –”

            “But there is no way we can do that with someone in the next room,” he laughed. “Come on. We can at least have breakfast together before you leave for Minrathous.”

*

                        As the rest of the gang trickled in, I told them about my appointment with Morrigan. A few of them offered to come along, but I wanted to go out there alone. Honestly, I just wanted to spend some time alone full stop, and travelling to the Cobbled Swan and back would be time to get my head clear.

            “Are you sure?” Harding asked quietly as the others went back to their business. “I’d be happy to spend some time with Morrigan.”

            “You’ve got your meeting with Stalgard, and then Taash is meant to be talking to Rowan,” I said.

            “If I just meet with Stalgard, and one of the others goes with Taash –”

            “Harding.” I patted her shoulder, smiling. “You go have a nice day with your partner. I’ll be fine alone, I promise.”

            “Okay. Be safe though, alright?”

            I headed out for the Swan early, taking my time through the Fade, and even Dock Town. With a glove on my left hand (fingerless, because I still couldn’t bear my fingertips being enclosed) and a hood covering my pointy ears, I walked through the city without catching so much as a lingering glance. I even used Felassan’s charm to shrink Tyrdda’s staff, really rendering me just another citizen. At one point I saw a trio of Venatori, just sort of hanging around and talking to each other. All I did was keep my head down and maintain the same pace, and they didn’t even look my way. It was refreshing.

            Morrigan was sat at a table just inside the doors, and she waved as she spotted me, as if Party Top Witch was in any way difficult to spot. When I dropped into the seat opposite her, she smiled wryly and said, “How did your meeting with mother go?”

            “Obviously you know already, so why ask?” I snapped. Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I hastily added. “God, I’m sorry, Mor, I –”

            “No, my apologies. ‘twas an ill-conceived jest. Besides which, I have certainly spoken sharper to you in the past. Did Mythal at least offer you any aid?”

            “Yeah, she gave me this… idol, I guess you’d call it. Don’t know how I’m meant to use it, but she did that much, at least.”

            She nodded slowly, and her smile that time was softer and more genuine. “’tis a strange thing, is it not, how our parents seem to possess the power to hurt us anew, time after time after time.”

            I let out a little laugh. “No one knows how to cut as deep as family.”

            After we sat in contemplative silence for a while, she shook herself and said, “So, what are our plans for the future?”

            “Well, we know where the gods plan to work their ritual,” I said. “There’s an Antaam flotilla between us and them, but a single small boat, especially one full of mages, should be able to sneak through. It means we won’t be able to take an army with us as backup, but honestly, I’ve always worked better as part of a smaller strike team, so,” I shrugged. “We’ve been contacting people we know, asking them to maybe raise a little hell, cause a bit of a distraction, that sort of thing. We’ve got some time, though, they need an eclipse to complete their own dagger.”

            I need to bite my own tongue off. Even as I was speaking the light changed, like evening had come early, and people outside started shouting and screaming. Morrigan and I hurried out there in time to witness one of the moons slowly shift in front of the sun, staining the world an eerie red. Given the timing, I couldn’t help seeing that moon as a giant middle finger. Or, you know. Being mooned.

            “Fuck.”

            “Go,” Morrigan said. “I will do what I can to rally those in the south. And Emma? I wish you great luck.”

            “You too,” I said, going bird and arrowing for the nearest eluvian.

*

                        The team was already gathered in the library when I got home, and I assumed at first it was because Taash and Harding had been outside and gotten back before me, but no, it turned out the eclipse was also affecting the Lighthouse, turning even the Fade-sky an ominous red. Motherfucker had changed my desktop wallpaper.

            Lucanis pulled me into an embrace as soon as he realised I was there. “They can finish their dagger – we have to move now.”

            “But we were supposed to have weeks!” Bellara protested, looking close to a freak-out, which, like, same.

            Neve asked how long we actually had, and Emmrich gave some magi-babble explanation that essentially boiled down to “we’ve maybe got a few hours”. The next discussion was on just how shit a situation we were walking into (“ultra-shit” seemed to be the general consensus), and I was just sort of stood there listening to the blood throbbing in my ears until Lucanis looked at me and said, “We might not all make it out again.”

            “Yes we will,” I said immediately. “Yes we fucking will. Everything we’ve been through, I’m betting on my bunch of badasses over a load of monsters and cultists and mind-controlled dickheads.”

            “And two gods,” Neve said.

            “We’ve got them outnumbered! Listen, I mean what I’m saying, alright? I believe in you. All of you. I believe we can do this, and I believe we can all make it home tonight. I just need all of you to believe it too. Nobody’s walking into this thinking they’re not making it back.”

            “Very inspiring, Soft Touch,” Neve said.

            “We’re with you,” Bellara said determinedly. “The gods won’t leave that island.”

            “No matter what,” Harding and Davrin said, almost in unison, nodding to each other.

            “Alright then,” I said. “Everyone go and get your gear, I’ll meet you back in here as soon as possible.” I stood there, trying to look confident as the team dispersed, leaving me alone with Varric.

            “Nice speech, Dreamer.”

            I snorted. “Apparently it’s hereditary. You know, I’ll miss having you watch my back on something as big as this, but I won’t lie, after what happened last time, I’m glad you’re hanging back here where it’s safe.”

            “Wish you could stay here, too,” Varric said. “Wouldn’t that be nice? You and me, just hunkering down and letting someone else deal with this shit for once.”

            “God, that’s the dream.” I hugged him tightly. “Just so long as I know you’re alright. That’s one thing off my mind.”

            “You going to check in with Chuckles before heading out?”

            “I don’t think that would help anyone,” I sighed. “He’s locked up safe too, that’s what matters right now. We can have a chat about everything once the job is done. Maybe we can even… even try to bust him out. Who knows.”

            “Fair enough. Stay safe, Dreamer.”

            “Love you, Varric.”

            He smiled. “Love you, too.”

            I was ready to rock and roll to begin with, so decided to check in on Lucanis. You know, just in case. He was standing by his bed, staring fixedly at his knives. As soon as I came in, he turned to me, shaking his head.

            “This isn’t going to work, mi vida.”

            “Hey, we’ll be fine.”

            “They moved the moon! We’re in over our heads. That’s not magic you can fight with a blade! You’re putting your life in our hands. My hands. All I know is death.”

            “Luc, come on.” I went over and put my arms around his neck, pulling him into a kiss. “Remember, you’re putting your life in my hands too, yeah? So we’re just going to take care of each other, and then everything. Will. Be. Fine.”

            Lucanis huffed a laugh. “You know, your optimism is your best and worst trait.” Sighing, he rested his forehead against mine and murmured, “If I have to kill every blighted creature in Thedas to keep you safe, I will.”

            “Same. I love you.”

            “I love you too.” He kissed me again, slow and lingering. “Just let me grab my knives and we’ll go to the eluvian.”

Chapter Text

Things went surprisingly smoothly on the way in. Our little boat made it through the Antaam lines without anyone spotting us, dropping us off on a quiet little beach. The beach we were on was quiet, at least. There was another nearby that was clearly crawling with Antaam, judging by all the chanting going on.

            We took off deeper into the island, and made it a fair way before anyone seemed to notice we were there. Then the gods started talking directly into our heads again, Ghilan’nain ranting about all the sinister little experiments she intended enacting on our asses, Elgar’nan darkly talking about how he wanted me to find him so he could show me the ‘things he would have of me’, just, really fun stuff.

            By the time we reached the top of the island, the magical energy had grown so strong Fade tears had started popping up all over the place. I closed any that stood directly in our way, but there were just too many for me to deal with them all.

            “Wait!” Bellara held up a hand. “Up ahead, you see? Wards blocking our way forward. Blood magic.”

            “One touch could kill,” Neve agreed.

            “Alright, who’s best with wards?” I asked.

            “The patterns are familiar,” Bellara said after a moment. “If I can fracture the harmonics, we could get through. Maybe.”

            “I deal with blood magic,” Neve said, sounding a lot more certain. “I can stop the damage long enough to burn out the wards.”

            “Sold,” I said, “Neve, if you wouldn’t mind.”

            Neve smiled, patted a troubled Bellara on the shoulder, and cautiously stepped up to the glowing door. It took her a minute or two, but boom, with a final wave of her hands the wards fizzed and disappeared. I squeezed her shoulder with a grin.

            “Nice one.”

            “All the same, let’s tread carefully,” she said. “The gods will probably have a trap or two.”

            I never even saw the eluvian until it was too late. I heard Elgar’nan’s voice saying, “That is a certainty,” and thought it was inside my head again. Then, with a cry, Neve was snatched up by a blight tendril and yanked in through the mirror, where Elgar’nan’s hulking silhouette now stared out at us. “I’ll take the greatest care ensuring your Tevinter mage knows the new face of her Empire.”

            “You let her go,” I snarled. “You fucking prick, you let her go right now!”

            “Temper, temper, vhenan,” he said smugly. The eluvian exploded, Davrin yanking me back out of range of the shards, and then his voice was in our heads. “You can all be forgiven by embracing the wisdom of surrender. Continue, and even the Dread Wolf will regret what I do to his Pup’s minions.” He laughed, low, making my skin crawl. “To say nothing of my plans for the Pup herself.”

            “We’ll get her back,” I said immediately. “The gods are still here, Neve has to be with them, they won’t leave without the dagger. So long as the dagger isn’t complete, we can get her back. We’ll get her back.”

            I took off through the door Neve had opened for us, the others following close behind. I tried to contact Solas in my head as I ran, hoping he might be able to mess with Elgar’nan the way he had before, what with there being Fade tears everywhere, but I got no response. It was all up to us.

            As we came closer to where they seemed to be holed up, we split into two groups, classic pincer style. But as my half broke through into a blight-infested courtyard, I heard the others calling to each other… only for their voices to fall silent one by one. I waved to Taash and Lucanis and we approached more cautiously, but Ghilan’nain already knew we were there.

            “So few of you remain,” she sneered, her voice echoing across the mist-shrouded courtyard. “Small. Desperate. Fearful.”

            I glanced back to check on my team, but they were gone, vanished into that mist without so much as a sound. I was alone. Sensing movement, I spun back to find Ghilan’nain herself looming over me. Oh, this couldn’t be good.

            “What’s this all about then, Ghil?” I spat, swinging my staff up. “Are we having a duel?”

            “This is your punishment for wounding Elgar’nan, whelp. To face me alone.” She gestured theatrically to either side, and I realised my whole team was there, save for Neve. They were just tied up in blight tendrils. “Have no fear – he wishes for you to remain alive to submit to his own ministrations afterwards. But I will have retribution for my poor sweet Razikale first.”

            She shouldn’t have let me see the team. When she came at me, all tentacles and magic and darkspawn (because apparently she was allowed to have people on her side, fine, whatever) I kept moving, slashing the tendrils away from first Davrin, then Taash, hissing for them to free the others before going on my way. It turned out she was so fixated on making me pay, and on snagging the Wolf’s Fang, that she hardly spared a thought for the rest of the team as they all broke each other free and began to mow down darkspawn. Still no sign of Neve, even with all the others loose, but other than that things were going as well as could be expected.

            Then a blight tendril got me by the leg. I just about had the presence of mind to huck the dagger in Lucanis’ direction before I was dragged over the stones and hoisted into the air, held upside down at eye level with Ghilan’nain. What passed for her eyes, anyway. One looked like a socket full of wriggling frogspawn, the other was a gnashing maw, like the Corinthian but real bad.

            I made a grab for the tendril holding me, hoping to use the Anchor to destroy it, but I’d spoiled that little trick with Elgar’nan and she knew better. She wrapped one of her tentacles around each of my wrists, yanking my arms away from my sides with such force I felt my shoulder sockets grind in protest. A third wrapped around my throat, slowly tightening. I’d seen enough hentai to be concerned that being dismembered like a rotisserie chicken wasn’t the worst place this could be going.

            “Look at you,” she whispered. “A pathetic, fragile little scrap of meat, the truest representative of this lost age. How Elgar’nan could even consider taking you as consort baffles me. We are the only beings in this world who can cleanse and tame the blight. Only we can use it to rebuild the old glories. These shemlen you have aligned yourself with have done naught but destroy them. But perhaps I should expect nothing less from Fen’Harel’s spawn.”

            “He… agrees… with you… about shemlen…” I wheezed out, before the tentacle around my throat tightened too far to allow for words.

            “Silence now, child.” The way she was tugging at my arms gave me the impression that she was seriously considering ripping them off and just telling Elgar'nan my death had been an accident or something. It felt like I was a single intrusive thought away from a serious limb reduction. 

            Through the darkness at the edge of my vision I saw Lucanis, dagger in hand, lunge at her. But he messed up, maybe committed before he was ready due to my predicament, and she slammed him with a blight tendril, pinning him to a nearby pillar, squeezing him tight. I couldn’t help letting out a choked yelp, and Ghilan’nain looked between us.

            “Oh,” she said knowingly. “I see. I had my own plans for the assassin, but perhaps giving him to my brother will go some way towards making up for your attack on him, Pup. I am sure whatever method of chastisement he chooses will avenge my –”

            She broke off into a scream as Harding, having scrambled up onto the top of another pillar, began to fire arrow after arrow into the god. I was allowed a brief flash of triumph before Ghilan’nain whipped around and drove a tentacle up under Harding’s ribcage. Harding kept firing, until a second tentacle punched through her chest, lifted her up, and discarded her into a pile of blight.

            I couldn’t even scream. The noose around my throat was too tight to let out more than a strangled little squeak. I could see her, suddenly, as she'd been the first day I’d met her. A teenage dwarf girl who’d been refreshingly underwhelmed about meeting the Herald of Andraste; a girl who showed up at the nearest Inquisition camp and told them she was their local scout now, then proved herself so well she became the primary scout for the entire Inquisition. Everywhere I went, there she was to greet me. After Cullen died, Harding and Varric were the ones who stopped me from throwing my life away.

            She died right in front of me. And I couldn’t do anything more than dangle there, wheezing.

            Lucanis took advantage of the distraction, fighting his way free of the tendril holding him, and my stomach turned over, sure I was about to lose them both. But no, he made it, Harding’s sacrifice had given him the time he needed, and he jammed the Wolf's Fang into the god’s heart. Ghilan’nain shrieked and slammed me into the ground hard enough to leave me seeing spots, or maybe that was left over from the asphyxiation. She made a grab for Lucanis, but he was already out of reach, landing gracefully and hurrying to my side. I was gasping and choking and my eyes felt like they might explode, but with his help I made it to my feet, pressing the Anchor to my throat.

            The two of us stood there together, holding each other (he was safe; bruised, yes, but alive, alive, alive) as Ghilan’nain thrashed around on the floor in front of us like a beached squid, waves of power emanating from the point where the dagger was still buried in her. Lucanis let out a hiss and pulled me back a step, and I realised why a second later when Elgar’nan staggered into view, his new dagger in hand, staring down at Ghilan’nain with something that looked like genuine sorrow.

            “We had… such plans, Elgar’nan,” Ghilan’nain cried, before going limp. The power pulsing from the dagger grew even stronger with her death, pushing us all back a step.

            Elgar’nan looked at me over Ghilan’nain’s body, grief turning to a seething rage. “You,” he growled. “You will regret this.”

            “Does that mean the engagement’s off?” I rasped.

            It looked like he planned on stabbing me right then and there, but something about the power coming from Ghilan’nain was reacting badly to the new dagger, which was seemingly made of red lyrium. Instead of attacking, he sneered, turned, and teleported away.

            There was another burst of power from the Wolf’s Fang, sending Lucanis staggering backwards. I hunkered down, just about managing to stay on my feet, as behind me Emmrich yelled that I needed to break the dagger’s contact with Ghilan’nain. I had to crawl to get it done, digging my fingers into the stone and hauling myself onwards like I was climbing a wall. But I got there, and yanked the blade free with a lot less resistance than expected. It came out bloodless, too, as if the lyrium had burned the blade clean even as it came loose.

            One god down… but it cost us Harding. Bottom lip quivering, I turned back to the others… and the whole world fell away as I realised Lucanis was lying on the ground, on his side, facing away from me. Suddenly I was back in a field in Ferelden, the sun blazing merrily overhead as Hound let out a mournful howl.

            “No,” I said weakly. My legs almost wouldn’t carry me as I stumbled towards him, mumbling it over and over, as if by saying it enough times I could somehow undo what had happened. “Please, God, please, no.”

            I grabbed Varric’s shoulder –

            - No -

            - pulled Cullen around to face me –

            - Wait -

            - Lucanis’ doe eyes stared up sightlessly at the red sky.

            I let out a deep, racking sob. It felt like my insides were being ripped out. Not him. Not this. Not again.

            “And so, you have your victory,” Solas said softly. “You live, and Ghilan’nain does not. Tell me, da’len. Did you truly think you would win the day without some painful sacrifice?”

            As I huddled there, sobbing brokenly, it felt like something moved beside me. I flinched away, instinctively pulling the blade closer to my chest. Lucanis’ body seemed to calcify in front of me, turning to stone before my eyes, like the Dragon’s Breath Qunari had, even as I begged him not to be dead, not to leave me alone again.

            A statue fell, toppling onto me, and then I was in freefall. The voices of my friends echoed through the space I tumbled through to tell me I wasn’t any sort of leader, that the Evanuris escaping was all my fault, the dragon razing Minrathous was all my fault, Harding dying and Lucanis dying, and Cullen, and Bette, and Haven burning, and Weisshaupt falling, and…

            At the edge of another abyss, one I couldn’t see the bottom of, I just barely managed to brace my feet against a column, frantically lashing out with the dagger, snagging it on empty air and holding me in place. Something was gripping my other arm, dragging me deeper into that pit, and I didn’t dare look at what it was. I just kept my gaze upwards as Solas started walking down the column, strolling down a 40-degree slope like it was an open field.

            “Dad,” I choked out, “what’s happening? Is this… is Elgar’nan messing with me again? Can you help me?”

            “I cannot.”

            “But… but then what…”

            “Regret, like all emotions, is a powerful thing, da’len. It can bruise us, break us, or blind us to the truth. Regret is even strong enough to serve as the lock on a prison built to hold gods. But such a prison can hold any captive.” He looked away, lowering his voice to add, “Such as you, filled with regrets as you are.”

            “No,” I said. “No, you… you’re not doing this now, please.”

            “You have performed admirably, Emma, against terrible odds. I am proud of you, please never doubt that. But Elgar’nan is beyond you.”

            The dagger was locked in place, by the feel of it, but my grip on it wasn’t as certain. My upper body strength had never been the best. “Dad, pull me up and we can talk about it, please.”

            “If you continue with this fight, I will be forced to watch as Elgar’nan blights you, corrupts you, or kills you. I could not bear it, da’len. This is not a fight for mortals.”

            “Please don’t do this!”

            Silly, silly little frog.

            “I will do all I can to protect our friends.” He slowly reached out… but towards the dagger, not my hand. “As well as yours, those who remain. But I cannot act to the best of my ability if I am afraid for your life, and I cannot do anything from within this prison. You will be safe in here. When the Veil comes down, I can bring down the walls of this place, and you will walk out into the world in which you were always meant to live.”

            “Dad.” I forced myself to speak as calmly, as rationally as possible, as if that would make a difference. “You don’t have to do this, alright? I can… I can figure out a way to break you out, I can use the Anchor, blast it open from the outside. We can work together, we can go after Elgar'nan together. Just pull me up. Please.”

            “It’s best this way, Emma. I am sorry.”

            His eyes slipped past me to the weight hanging off my other arm. I couldn’t help looking as well… and it was Varric. A statue or something of Varric. What…?

            “As soon as I have fixed the world, I will free you.” I looked back up at him, shaking my head, my eyes wide. He just looked away, eyes fixed on the dagger as his fingers touched the hilt. “Until then, rest.”

            My fingers slipped, gripping nothing but air, and I fell.

Chapter Text

I woke up lying in a greyscale wasteland. It took me a second to recognise the place as the prison I’d been meeting Solas in. He’d really done it. He’d really broken out of there by feeding me to it in his place. Davrin had been right. It had only been a matter of time before he screwed me over too. It was just his nature, couldn't be helped. My own fault for trusting him, really. I’d probably have cried, if it hadn’t hit me so hard I felt empty.

            Afterwards, I never told anyone about the first five minutes I spent in the Fade prison. Because for those first five minutes, I just dragged myself up onto the fallen pillar where we’d talked together, then sat and stared at my clasped hands. Why not, right? Why not just sit and wait and let things play out. Why not let everything be someone else’s problem, just for once, just for fucking once. Let Solas deal with Elgar’nan. Let the team deal with Solas. Why not just take the hint, give up, and get some rest. Hadn’t I earned it? Hadn’t I done enough, given enough, by then? I was tired. I was so fucking tired.

            Then, with a deep, deep sigh, I heaved myself to my feet, held out my Marked hand, and tried to open a rift. I wasn’t especially surprised when it didn’t work. As soon as the Anchor started pushing at the world, I could feel how thick the walls of the prison were. I could also feel that they were thicker down where I was, but with the barest suggestion that it might be thinner further up. So, with another sigh, I started trudging towards a nearby staircase.

            Regret was the lock, wasn't that what Solas had said? Fine. So, dream logic, maybe if I worked through my regrets, faced them or whatever, maybe that would be enough to get me out? Worth trying, at least. It explained why Solas had been stuck in there that whole time, why the place would have worked to hold the Evanuris. None of them were big on introspection. But I could do it. Probably. I spent a lot of time in my head, didn't I? 

            Also… it was a dream prison. A lot of what had just happened to me had been dream stuff, right? The falling and the accusatory voices and… Did that mean what I’d seen before falling was fake, too? Not Harding, what happened to her had happened too long before everything went weird, but… did that mean Lucanis, at least, might be alright? Was that just a trick too? Solas messing with me, trying to break my spirit to make it easier to keep me trapped? I'd told him, hadn't I, about me and Lucanis, and I wouldn't put it past him to have...

            I had to know. I had to get out.

            As I climbed, a voice started calling down from above me. Neve’s voice, choked and close to tears. “Who’s going to protect Dock Town now I’m gone, Em? I trusted you. And it got me killed.”

            There was a statue of her on the landing above, staring at me with stony eyes. That one was easy enough, at least, almost like a warm up. “Nah. For one, I don’t believe Neve’s dead. We’re going to get you back, good as new. I don’t care what we have to do, we’re going to save you. Besides which, yeah, you trusted me, but I trust you too, and I knew you could get those wards down. I couldn’t have known about the eluvian. That one’s on Elgar’nan, not me.”

            There was a pause, and the air around the statue wavered, like a heat haze. Then Neve chuckled. “You’re not wrong there, Soft Touch. Go on. Just don’t forget about me when you get out there.”

            “Never,” I promised.

            The next landing was harder. Or rather, it was Harding. Her statue gazed impassively at me as I tentatively approached her. “I died for you,” she said coldly. “Isn’t that right? Just one more body in a long line.”

            “Just… what?” I said, my throat dry.

            For a second, there was a spectral overlay in the air around me. Row upon row of ghostly figures, all staring at me with cold, empty eyes. Dead eyes. Accusing eyes. Some I recognised (Bette, the first casualty of my choices, was close enough to touch), some I didn’t, but I knew who they were all the same. Most wore Inquisition armour, but there were mercs and Avvar and Grey Wardens, civilians of multiple nations dotted here and there through a crowd that stretched from horizon to horizon. Everyone who’d died for me, for the Inquisitor, for the Herald. All the bodies that could be laid at my feet.

            Only a second or two, like a flash of lightning, and then it was just Harding and me again, standing there as the representative of all the people I’d let down. I stared at her, shaking. “Well,” I managed eventually, “good to know I do still feel bad about this sort of thing. Felassan and I had a chat about it, you know, about how sending people to their deaths might start feeling like nothing. But yeah. Turns out it’s still just as awful.”

            “You sent us out to die,” Harding pressed. “Our blood is on your hands, all of us. Thousands of corpses, tens of thousands. An ocean of blood. All of it thanks to you. You asked us to put our lives on the line, for you, for your cause, and we died because of it. You sat there in Skyhold, safe in a place where nothing could hurt you, complaining about being bored, while people went out to fight and die in your name. You dangled there doing nothing, while I tried to save you, and I died for it. For you.”

            “I didn’t,” I whispered, swallowing against the dryness in my throat. “I didn’t mean… I never meant for any of this, I just…”

            “Is that meant to make me feel better? Does that help any of us? You got us all killed, but at least it was through your own incompetence, not something you did deliberately? Does your ineptitude make us any less dead?” When I stammered, she made a disgusted sound. “At least when Solas sent his people out to die, it was as part of a plan. It was a deliberate sacrifice. We died because you’re worthless as a leader. Why even try to leave this place? Do you think your getting out of here is going to help anyone? Do you really think they won’t all be better off without you?” A low, disgusted laugh, and she added, “We should have let you kill yourself on the road. Maybe if we had, I’d still be alive.”

            I let out a sob, backing away. My hands were shaking, my chest was so tight I could hardly catch a full breath, and I turned, ready to sprint back down the stairs. I was going to go back to the pillar and just wait for Solas to bring the walls down. Give up, like she said. But even as I turned, it was like I heard Varric's voice whispering to me, telling me I didn't get to just give up, that he'd hogtie me and dump me off with Leliana if I tried... and a lightbulb went off in my head.

            “No,” I said slowly, turning back to her. “No, hang on… Harding would never say something like that to me. Not the real Harding. This place… regrets, this isn’t…”

            “This place is where you belong, where you can’t hurt people anymore.”

            “No,” I said, more certain that time. “Harding was the one who told me I didn’t ask people to die for me. She’s the one who said I never set up suicide missions. We all did what we had to. The only reason I haven’t died for you guys is the Anchor, and dumb luck.” I reached up to absent-mindedly rub at the scar over my heart. “I hate it. I hate that anyone’s died for my sake, in my name, that’s never going to change. But those people made their own choices. I never wanted any of this, and I never forced anyone to work for me.” Conscientiously, I added, “Except when I made Florianne my jester, but she’s still alive.”

            There was a pause, the air around the Harding statue wavering. “Glad you’ve finally decided to listen to me,” she said, sounding more like herself.

            “I’m sorry it… it took so long. I wish things had gone another way.”

            “I know. You’re my friend, Em. I don’t blame you for what happened – that was my choice, not yours. What better way to go out than in a blaze of glory, saving the world, right?”

            I sucked in a breath, scrubbing at my eyes before I could say, “You got us Ghilan’nain. I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to finish the job.”

            “Good. Good luck, Em.”

            For a while, I just sat on the steps below the next landing, letting myself have a bit of a cry. I had to press on, had to get myself out of there, but I didn’t doubt that as soon as I was outside it would be all hands on deck again. So I sat there and let myself grieve for a few minutes, said my goodbyes to Harding. Then I pressed on.

            No idea what I was expecting on the next level, but it wasn’t a statue of Cullen in his full Inquisition-days armour. This sound came out of me, somewhere between a sob and a groan, and I stumbled across to grab at him. All I wanted to do was dig my fingers into that furry collar he always wore, to run my hands through his hair, to kiss that scar on his lip… but he was a statue. Cold and hard.

            “I’m sorry,” he said softly, and hearing his voice for the first time in three years… I somehow managed to keep from sobbing, but tears were streaming freely down my face all the same. “You know why I’m here.”

            “Regrets,” I said, my voice shaking. “Cullen-related regrets. Alright. I… Fuck, I don’t think I can do this.”

            “You can,” he said. “What do you regret, my lady?”

            “I… I should have known. I should have realised something was wrong with you, and I didn’t.”

            “And why is that foolish?”

            I frowned. “Aren’t you meant to be telling me it’s all my fault?”

            “Emma, you’re projecting me from your own mind. Do you really think I’d come back to you, just to be cruel? Now, go on.”

            I let out a feeble, watery laugh. “Um. Because we never knew, not with any of the ex-templars who died, not Alain, not any of them. You might have had a headache, but you had a lot of headaches. Even you couldn’t have known.”

            “Precisely. And I would rather it have been that way, a bolt from the blue, than have spent every moment worrying about what was coming. What else?”

            “Cullen, I… I’ve met someone else.” I couldn’t help letting out a little sob, almost like a hiccup. “I shouldn’t have, not ever, especially not this soon. I should still be grieving, I mean, I am, but –”

            “Do you even need me to tell you that one’s foolish?” he said gently. “Emma, if you could have asked me in my final moments what I wanted for you when I was gone, it would be precisely this.”

            “A Crowbomination?”

            “Well. Perhaps not precisely,” he said dryly, sounding so perfectly Cullen it hurt, even as I laughed. I’d literally been stabbed in the heart, and that had been less agonising. “But he loves you, and he’s good to you. In the end, that’s all that matters. Besides, he would have to be extraordinary to be worthy of you, my lady.”

            Nodding, I had to fight to take a full breath before I managed to say, “Okay. I’ll… I’ll try to be happy.”

            “That’s all I want. Now, number three.”

            “I never got to say goodbye.”

            “So say it now.”

            Statue or not, I wrapped my arms around him. “Goodbye. You were the first man I ever loved, and nothing’s going to change that. I miss you so much –”

            “But you have to live your own life,” he murmured. “I know. I love you, too. One day – hopefully many years from now – you will join me at the Maker’s side. I’ll even be polite to your Crow, when that happens. Until then, live your life, Emma. Be happy, and live.”

            Another flight of stairs appeared beside me. I took one last look at the statue, running my thumb over that scar on his lip for the final time, and then I left Cullen behind and climbed to what I hoped would be a way out. Only it wasn’t. It was the ritual site where we’d put Solas in Fade Jail.

            “Oh shit,” I muttered. “Is this the ‘released the Evanuris’ portion of regrets? Because that might be tricky.”

            “Not exactly,” Varric’s voice echoed out of the air around me.

            It all played out before me again, part memory, part the place hurling regret flashbacks at me. I watched, breathing heavily, my stomach twisting in on itself, as Varric insisted on being the one to speak to Solas; as they fought for the dagger; as Solas drove the dagger into Varric’s chest, sending him tumbling down the long flight of stairs to land where I finally reached him.

            But then it changed. I still reached him before the others, pressing my Marked hand over the wound in desperation as I pleaded for Neve to help. As I looked up at Solas, however, something different happened. Varric wrenched the dagger out and tossed it aside, choked out, “Hey, Dreamer,” and died.

            “No,” I said softly as the memory faded back into the eerie stillness of the Fade prison. “No, you… you can’t…”

            “Afraid so,” Varric sighed behind me. Unlike the others, he was mobile, looking like himself rather than a statue. “Sorry, Dreamer.”

            “But… but I’ve been…” I put my hand to the scar on the back of my head. The place that had spilt enough blood to allow Solas to form his link. His blood-magic, mind-altering link. I thought about dragging Cole into the infirmary, the first time I’d definitely been in a room with Varric and another person where I deliberately drew someone’s attention to him… and the violent headache I got when Cole began to speak.

            “Putting it together, huh?”

            “He took it from me,” I said, my voice shaking. “Dad killed you. Lied to me about it. Used blood magic to steal the grief, any comfort the others might have given me –”

            “And they did,” Varric put in. “You’ve got a good team out there, you know. They care about you.”

            “You cared about me. You and Solas were the first people in this world who bothered to be kind to me. And ten years later, I had to watch one of you murder the other, before the survivor ripped out part of my brain so I’d be easier to screw over.”

            “In fairness to your old man, I think my part in it was an accident.”

            “So he’s still in my head then, is he?”

            “Nah, not since he carved his way out of here.”

            “Then why are you defending the bastard? Are you…” I looked closely at him. “Is this like a Divine Justinia in the Fade situation?”

            Varric chuckled. “Nothing but weird shit happens to you, does it?”

            I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

            “What are you apologising for now?”

            “It’s my fault. I let you go up there, I got you killed.”

            “Come on, Dreamer, didn’t this place teach you anything? You’re not to blame here. I made the choice to go up there and try to reason with him, even knowing the risks. My decision. My sacrifice. And you don’t get to take that from me.”

            Shaking my head, I choked out, “It should have been me.”

            “Ah, that old chestnut. Do you really think the world would have been improved if you’d died out here instead of me?”

            “He might not have stabbed me. Even if he had, there’s the Anchor, I could –”

            “You think that little Mark of yours could have healed a wound delivered by a certified god-killer?” he said, a laugh in his voice. “Nah. Of the two of us, I’d rather it was me.”

            “I wouldn’t.”

            “I know. I’d have expected nothing less from you.” He patted my arm. “Come on, Dreamer. Every story’s got an ending. This one just came a little sooner than I’d planned. Now it’s time to end this story. The one about Emma Rutherford versus the Evanuris. I just know the ending’s going to be killer.”

            He gestured for me to follow him, and we began to slowly ascend the final set of stairs together. “Am I going to keep seeing you out there?”

            “Nah. Now your dad’s not messing with you, I’ll just go back to being a memory.”

            “What if I don’t want that?”

            “Sorry to say, Dreamer, but you don’t have much choice in the matter.”

            I nodded. “I’m going to miss you. So fucking much.”

            “Back at you. If you’ll let me give you one last piece of sage advice? Your dad wants to be a hero. That’s who he is, deep down. But it’s easier for him to play the villain, because that means he didn’t fail. All the damage he’s done, the people he’s hurt, it becomes a choice. Remind him who he really is. He might just listen.”

            “What makes you think I’d even want that, after all of this?”

            Varric smiled. “Because whatever else he’s done, he’s still your dad. And deep down, you’re still the Emma Morgan who let a dreadnought blow up for the sake of the Chargers, broke Blackwall out of prison without question because he was a friend, and let Samson live just because he was kind to a Tranquil. It’s up to you, Dreamer. All up to you.”

            There was a shout somewhere above me, wavering and watery. As best I could tell, it was coming from a crackling Fade tear at the top of the stairs. Emmrich and Taash, talking about how thin the Veil was.

            “They’re waiting for you,” Varric said with a smile.

            “You broke your promise, you know,” I said, my voice shaking badly. “You and Harding both. You fucking promised me, you…” I stopped, pressing a hand over my eyes.

            “I know,” he said quietly, “and I’m sorry. But you have to keep your end of the bargain all the same, you hear me? For the others out there. You don’t get to throw your life away for my sake, alright?”

            “Alright.” I had to take a deep breath before I managed to choke out, “Goodbye, Varric. Love you.”

            He smiled again. “Love you too, Dreamer. I’d say good luck, but you don’t need it.”

            Another voice called out up there – Lucanis, yelling my name. Everything inside me seemed to leap at once, because he was alive, alive, alive, it really had been just part of the dream, he was alive and up there waiting for me.

            With one final look at Varric, I crossed the last few steps and thrust my Marked hand into the Fade tear. I thought I might have been able to use the Anchor to drag myself out, if necessary, but in the end I didn’t need to. Multiple pairs of hands closed around my waving arm, hauling me out into the physical world. I lay panting on the ground for only a second or two before Lucanis pulled me into his arms, and for a while we just sat there, holding each other, as the team chattered excitedly above our heads.

Chapter Text

Weeks. I’d been gone for weeks, on the outside. During that time, Elgar’nan had attacked Minrathous, slaughtered most of the Magisterium (Lucanis assured me Dorian had survived before I even had the chance to panic), sealed the city gates, and cut off all the eluvians. They’d lost touch with the Shadow Dragons shortly after the Magisterium incident.

            Then Bellara said, “If it weren’t for Solas, they’d already be dead.”

            “… What?”    

            “He got to Minrathous just before the gates sealed,” Lucanis said. His hand was resting on my back – he’d been in constant contact with me since I got out, like he thought I’d drift away without an anchor. I wasn’t arguing. “Saved some civilians, killed some Venatori.”

            “Now people are rallying to the Dread Wolf like he’s the only one who can save them,” Davrin scoffed.

            I should have been… something. Angry. Sad. Hurt. But there was just this whistling emptiness inside me. I wasn’t even happy to be free, not really. No relief. There was nothing. Maybe Solas had been right. Maybe I had been full of regrets, nothing but regrets. Now I’d cleared those out, I was hollow. 

            We finished up our team meeting, everyone promising to get messages out to our allies to meet up at the Lighthouse the next morning. I sent my own messages out with the Caretaker, then went up to my room, ostensibly to rest. Really, I just sat there, staring unseeing at the fish.

            “I cannot believe we found you.” Lucanis was in the doorway suddenly, trying to smile. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but I thought there might be tears in his eyes as he added in a shaky voice, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

            “I thought you were dead.” My own voice was even shakier. “When I got sucked into the prison, that was the first thing I saw. I think… I think Dad put it in my head to make me… I thought killing Ghilan’nain had killed you. I spent my whole time in there thinking you might be dead, and it was all my…” I broke off, swallowing and shaking my head.

            Lucanis came to kneel beside me, dark eyes wide and soft. “And yet here we both are. Not even gods can keep us apart.” He looked closer at me. “Are you alright? What happened in there?” When I only mouthed silently for a moment, he added, “Sorry, you don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

            “It’s okay. It… It was about regrets.” I started toying with the silver ravens at his collar, avoiding looking into his eyes. “All the things I regretted, trying to make me stay put. Letting Neve get snatched. Getting… No. The fact that Harding was dead. All the deaths that happened under my watch, it threw those back at me. That’s the bit that nearly worked, honestly.”

            “I can imagine,” he murmured, his hand coming up to rub my knee reassuringly.

            “Cullen, too. My regrets about Cullen.”

            “Oh, Emma.”

            “It’s alright, really. I’m here because I worked through them, you know? And Cullen… I know it wasn’t him, not really, it was like a projection from my brain, but still, I knew him better than anyone outside his family, and he… It made me realise what Harding said was right. That he’d want me to be with you, and be happy.”

            “Well, that’s reassuring to hear, at least,” he said, with a soft little smile.

            Nodding slowly, I forced myself to say, “And then I found out that Varric was dead.”

            Lucanis frowned confusedly. “You… what?”

            “The whole time I’ve been here I thought he was alive. I’ve been seeing him, talking to him. I thought he survived the stabbing, I’ve been talking through my problems with him, I… I said goodbye to him before we went to the island. I thought he was here, safe.”

            He shook his head. “Emma, I don’t understand, how –”

            “The blood magic Dad was doing to me. It was to make me think Varric was still alive. I don’t know why, to make me… make me easier to… But yeah. He let me think Varric was alive, then threw his death in my face as a last-ditch effort to trap me in the prison.”

            “But… Emma, we’ve talked about Varric’s death. At the kitchen table, at other times, you and I, all of us, we’ve discussed it, how you felt about it, how you –”

            “Dad took it from me. I don’t remember any of it, he kept just… reaching in and pulling memories out, I suppose. I don’t know if he was letting me have the conversation and then wiping my brain afterwards, or maybe he’d take over and puppet me for it.” He must have panicked, that time with Cole, I thought. Panicked and gotten sloppy as a result.

            Lucanis’ expression was one of such overwhelming horror, it made the cold emptiness inside me bite even deeper. On the one hand, there was a touch of vindication, the relief of seeing your own horror reflected in someone else and realising that you weren’t making a big deal of something, that it was, in fact, a big deal. On the other hand, I felt ashamed. I couldn’t really tell where the shame was coming from, whether it was embarrassment that I could have been blindsided like that, or the shame that came from knowing someone I loved (and I did, I thought bitterly, he was my dad and I’d loved him accordingly, despite everything, couldn’t help it) could have done that to me.

            “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Emma, I didn’t even know, if I had –”

            “He’d just have taken it from me again anyway. Nothing you could have done, Luc. Don’t feel bad. Please, don’t feel bad on my behalf.” Taking a deep breath, I pulled my shirt off and tossed it aside. In response to his astonished look, I said, “I just… in case this is… I thought you were dead, and now I’ve got you back, and I… I want to feel something. Something good. I want you.” When he only stared at me with his mouth open, I rubbed a hand over my eyes. “Sorry, if you don’t –”

            He lurched upwards, kissing me as he fumbled at the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt. I laughed softly and replaced his clumsy fingers with my slightly less trembly ones, though he repaid me by immediately going to work on the laces of my bra. Once both our torsos were bare, he pushed me back onto the couch and climbed on top of me, and for a while we just kissed. The warm weight of him, the press of fever-hot skin, his tongue working against mine, was enough to start thawing that hollow pit inside me.

            Sighing, he pulled away. “Too many clothes.”

            “We should live naked,” I giggled.

            With something like a growl, he said, “Don’t give me ideas.”

            He began to move down my chest, pausing along the way – placing a tender kiss to the scar over my heart, teeth grazing each of my nipples in turn, another kiss to the scar under my ribs (and I couldn't help thinking that was in response to my worries the last time he'd seen me naked, that he remembered and wanted to show me they didn't bother him), before moving lower, hooking his fingers into my waistband as he went. He had to break away to pull my not-jeans all the way off, and the look of harried concentration on his face as he fought them down my legs set me off giggling again.

            “I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly, “I know I’m –”

            I quickly sat up to kiss him. “I like it,” I said firmly. “Sex doesn’t have to be deadly serious. We’re meant to be having fun, aren’t we?”

            He gave me a beaming grin, then pushed me flat again, this time moving much more smoothly as he slid my underwear off, kissing his way back up my inner thigh. I barely had time to catch my breath before his mouth was on me, tongue swirling around my swollen clit, hot and wet and everything I needed. I wasn’t laughing by then.

            Worried for both our safety, I draped my left arm over the back of the couch, keeping the Anchor well away from either of us. I risked running the fingers of my right hand through his hair, looking down at him whenever I could muster the strength to raise my head. His eyes were closed, face set in concentration. I smiled fondly, running a thumb over the crease between his eyebrows… and then my head was pressed back against the cushions with a gasp, back arching, as he slipped two fingers inside me and crooked them upwards, fingertips running over a very responsive bundle of nerves.

            Lucanis chuckled against me, his left arm coming up to press over my hip and lower stomach, holding me still, silently telling me I was making his job harder. If I could have managed anything coherent by then, I’d have told him he just needed to deal with it. As it was, all I could do was keep writhing, eventually releasing his hair in favour of gripping the arm of the couch above my head, clinging to it for dear life as the pressure inside me built and built… and then released. The hiss of singeing couch was lost under my cry, and the storm of cursing that followed.

            “That is good swearing, I hope,” he said teasingly, pulling away to finish getting his own trousers off.

            “Don’t be smug,” I panted.

            “How can I not be when I have you here like this?”

            He paused over me for a moment, eyes roving over my body as his hand reached out to gently trace over my hip, my waist, pausing to rub a thumb over one extremely sensitive nipple, sending another tingle of heat down between my legs, before finally caressing my cheek. He climbed on top of me again, reaching down to position himself… then looked at me with those big doe eyes, suddenly uncertain.

            “Are you sure?” he whispered.

            “My boy,” I murmured, stroking his face. “My sweet boy. I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

            With another smile he slowly sank into me, inch by inch, until our hips were pressed flush. He’d done his job well; there was barely the hint of a burn, easily overwhelmed by the pleasure of finally, finally, feeling him inside me. I let out a shaky sigh, gripping his hips with my knees, as he pressed his face against my neck with a low moan.

            “I… need a moment,” he murmured, words hot against my skin.

            “Take your time,” I said, giggling again. There was a distant frustrated yell, and Spite’s wings unfurled from Lucanis’ shoulders, surprising both of us and making my giggles worse. “Good job I find guys with wings sexy.”

            “Really?” he said, turning his head so his nose brushed my cheek.

            “Big time.”

            With a breathless chuckle he began to move at last, deliciously slowly, laying kisses up and down my neck and collarbone, occasionally nipping at my neck to pull those squeaks they liked from me, and all the while he was making those wonderful little moans that were almost whimpers. I still didn’t fully trust my Marked hand not to do something drastic, but my right hand roved up and down him, tangling in his hair, running over his ribs, before impulsively reaching up to trail my fingers through that shimmering canopy of magenta feathers. The sensation was strange – tingly, halfway between actual feathers and the cool water feel of an eluvian.

            It clearly felt different on the receiving end. Lucanis let out a sharp, breathless cry, and his hips snapped forwards sharply a few times, his teeth clamping down on my shoulder just short of being too painful.

            “Spite liked that?” I asked through another storm of breathless giggles.

            “We both did,” he admitted raggedly, kissing the spot he’d bitten, which felt like it would probably bruise by morning.

            “Again,” Spite hissed.

            I obligingly ran my hand over his wing again, eliciting a long groan as Lucanis ground his hips against mine, as if being fully buried inside me suddenly wasn’t close enough for him, for them, for us. After that he began to move faster, his left arm tucked under my back to press me tighter against him, his right hand dropping between us to rub at my aching clit.

            It was almost too much. Almost.

            I was whispering his name, both of their names, because I knew Spite was there too, could feel it in the press of his fingers against my back, the way his rhythm would stutter every few thrusts, smooth strokes switching to something harder, almost frantic. It felt right, that they should both be there, that first time. Both of my boys driving into me, touching me, drawing out those pretty sounds they liked.

            Lucanis had started up a steady stream of murmured Antivan, and I understood just enough to know he was saying he loved me, that I was doing well, so well, interspersing the words with soft moans. Spite’s distant voice was just whispering, “mine, mine, mine,” over and over, and as the pressure started to build inside me again I started begging, even though I didn’t know what for, only that I needed what I was feeling to keep building, until it was everything, all-encompassing, and it had worked, my plan, because I was finally feeling something and it was only good…

            Then I came again, so hard it felt like every nerve fired all at once. The sound I made that time was unforgivably loud, as I wrapped my shaking legs tighter around him to pull him closer and fisted my hand in his feathers. He barely lasted a few more thrusts before following me over the edge with a desperate cry of his own, fitting himself tightly against me as he shuddered and gasped his way through his own release. His fingers kept moving against me, seemingly on automatic, and between that, the sounds he was making, and the feeling of him letting go inside me, I snuck in a surprise extra one of my own, as a sort of afterthought.

            “Fucking hell,” I managed eventually, when I’d gotten at least some of my breath back. “You’re sure you don’t have a lot of experience?”

            He chuckled against my neck. “I’m just glad I didn’t embarrass myself.”   

            “I can’t feel my fucking legs, Luc.” I patted his shoulder weakly. “You’re safe on that front.”

            We lay like that for a while, entangled, until finally his wings faded away and he slipped out of me, both of us shifting so he was lying beside me, rather than atop me. Not that we were much further from each other. Our legs were entwined, hands still trailing over each other’s bodies. I found myself tracing the scars littering his torso – the puncture wounds over his collarbone, matching those on his bicep and hip, from the Forfex incident; the ragged strip of scar tissue on his shoulder from the darkspawn under Dock Town; half a dozen others over his ribs and stomach and arms, all representing a story I hadn’t heard yet.

            When I looked back at his face, his eyes were closed, his head lolling back against the couch. I laughed softly, and he quickly opened his eyes, mumbling, “I’m awake.”

            “It’s fine,” I whispered, stroking his face. “We should probably get some sleep tonight, anyway.”

            Lucanis snorted. “How am I meant to sleep with you here like this?” He nodded towards my boobs, making me laugh again.

            “Oh, well, I’ll just put my clothes back on then,” I said, making to sit up.

            “Don’t you dare.” He got an arm around me and pulled me back down, kissing me as I giggled. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get a few hours, so long as Spite doesn’t decide to wander off in the meantime.”

            “Won’t wander,” Spite muttered. “Emma’s here. Naked.”

            “Well,” Lucanis said, “that’s good enough, I suppose.”

            I wriggled around to face the other way, and he pulled me tight against him. “We’re going to be okay,” I whispered. “We’re going to wreck Elgar’nan’s shit, and then we’re going to come back here and fuck until we drop from exhaustion.”

            It was mostly said as a joke, but Lucanis went still behind me. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said, so soft he was barely audible.

Chapter Text

The first thing I did the next morning was check on Taash, who was sat in their room, staring at the wall. “Hey. You okay?” I said softly.

            “I should have known better,” they said. “Everyone I love dies.”

            “Taash, come on.” I went down on my knees next to them, not hugging them, because I didn’t feel like they’d have appreciated that, but just being there. “You can’t think like that. Harding wouldn’t want you thinking like that, would she?”

            “I thought you said what matters is what I want,” they said sharply.

            “Oh, now you fucking listen to me.” That prompted the ghost of a smile, at least. “Bad things happen. Harding made her choice. She was a hero. But she wouldn’t want you to close yourself off like this for her sake, would she? Harding, of all people?” Remembering a gin-soaked conversation with Varric, I said, “You were happy. That’s more than some people get.”

            They gave me a long, considering look. “It stops eventually, right?”

            I smiled sadly. “You’ve seen me with Lucanis. It never stops. But one day it gets… less. Bearable.” As they nodded, I added, “If you come out there with us… Taash, can I trust that you’re trying to make it home? That you’re not… Because I can’t lose you, too. I’ve lost enough people I care about already. I’m not taking someone out there who’s looking to get… you know.”

            For a second, I thought they were going to start shouting. Instead, they smiled. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” They patted me on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

            From there I headed down into the library, directing the leaders of all our allied groups out to the kitchen as they arrived, where we were holding our planning summit. Myrna, Strife, Viago, Isabela, Evka… no Shadow Dragons, of course. I prayed for Dorian to stay safe, just for a little while longer.

            I was worried that might be everyone, only for me to be lifted off my feet with a roar of, “Boss!”

            “Thought you weren’t coming for a second,” I said as Bull set me down. “How’s the south?”

            “Hanging on well enough to spare some folks. Not a whole lot, there’s still plenty to deal with down there, but looks like that Elgar’Asshole pulled some of his forces back north when he took over Vint City.” He eyed me for a moment. “Spoken to Dorian?”

            “Whatever Elgar’nan’s doing to cancel out the eluvians is blocking the sending crystals too, but the team said he was doing fine last they heard from him.” I rubbed his arm. “We’ll get him back, Bull. Don’t worry.”

            “If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you, Boss. Can’t say I’m a fan of this ‘living in the Fade’ crap you’re doing, though.”

            “Ah, you get used to it. Who else is coming?”

            “Hawke isn’t. She’s staying down there with the Wardens. Or one Warden in particular, I guess. Nice work getting her back, by the way.”

            “Thanks, Imshael punched me in the face over it.”

            “That asshole. Cole’s coming. Josie isn’t, but she’s laid on boats that are bringing Blackwall, the girls, and some volunteers from along the coast to the Treviso eluvian. They’ll meet us at Minrathous. Viv can’t come, but she’s sending some of her best professors.”

            “Cass and Leliana?”

            He smiled. “Send their love. Cassandra really wants to be here, but they’re not letting the Divine put herself at risk. Leliana’s marshalling the Skyhold forces.”

            “So long as they stay safe,” I sighed.

            Thus it was that when we marched on Minrathous, it was with an extra group of allies I couldn’t help still thinking of as ‘Inquisition’. Blackwall almost broke my back with his hug. Sera was somehow worse. Dagna told me all about her latest invention (which sounded unsettlingly similar to Greek fire) with a troubling light in her eyes. The ‘volunteers’ turned out to include various Wycombe residents, most notably a group of Clan Lavellan members. I froze when I realised who they were, the new Keeper’s First and a handful of hunters forming a semi-circle around me before I knew it.

            “Hello, all,” I said weakly.

            They all looked at each other. Then one said, “She doesn’t even really look like Ellana, does she?”

            “Those eyes,” another said, his mouth twisting as he looked away. “She used to have such lovely eyes.”

            “Not just that, she holds herself differently,” said a third. “Eerie, really.”

            “Listen, I’m sorry –”

            “No apologies, lethallan,” the Keeper’s First, a tall woman with dark hair, came over to pat my shoulder. “We’ve all heard the story. Just…” She stepped closer, briefly resting a hand on my cheek. “Nice to see her face again. Even under the circumstances.”

            So, good start there. I sent the clan off with the Veil Jumpers, thinking they’d mesh best, attached Blackwall and the girls to the Wardens, and had Viv’s mages and the Chargers back up the Lords. I could only afford to take a smaller strike team with me, having had to send the others off to supervise our allies. That was why, when Emmrich got the wards down and Bellara fucked up the Jaeger the Venatori had somehow activated, it was only me, Lucanis, and Davrin who broke through into the city.

            To get there, we had to sprint across the entire battlefield in front of the city gates, ducking between the feet of the giant construct, sure that at any moment I was going to catch a blade or a spell, or worse, that one of the lads would be struck down right in front of me. Once we made it inside the city, it was to face wave after wave of darkspawn. Thank God for Davrin and Assan.

            Shoving through a narrow corridor between walls of blight, giving me horrible flashbacks to D’Meta’s Crossing, I came out into the open just in time to see Taash, who I’d seconded to the Crows, get blasted back by a Venatori. I sprinted straight to their side as Teia stabbed the mage responsible, and thankfully Taash was already sitting up before I reached them.

            “You good?” I asked anyway, squeezing their shoulder.

            “Sure,” they grinned. “Told you I was making it back.”

            “I think this makes you an honorary Crow,” Teia said, wiping off her blades. Taash’s smile widened at that. “Emma, we spotted Solas. He’s not far ahead.”

            She pointed to a side street, then she and Taash headed off to kill more Venatori, Taash asking about capes as they went. I turned to the street, trying to steel myself. Lucanis gave my hand a squeeze, and with a smile I pushed myself onwards.

            Coming around a corner, a blight tendril dropped the Viper at my feet. Tarquin rushed to his side, then we both turned to face the tendril, which lashed out towards us… only to be caught up in a blaze of light and yanked away. Tarquin immediately ran past me, back to the Viper.

            “Did we win?” the Viper asked muzzily.

            “You’re lucky your head’s so damn hard,” Tarquin said, hauling him to his feet.

            “Good to see you both alive,” I said.

            “Thanks to Solas.” Tarquin hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s been the only thing between us and Elgar’nan.”

            “Dorian’s fine, by the way,” the Viper said, rubbing his ribs. “At least, he was as of an hour ago.”

            “Thanks. Lads, do you mind hanging back for a minute while I have a domestic incident?”

            “You’re sure?” Lucanis asked softly.

            “You think it’s safe talking to him alone?” Davrin added, less softly.

            “It’ll be safe for me,” I growled.

            Solas stood in the centre of a plaza, up on a broken platform of stone, magically wrestling with some truly huge blight tendrils. He glanced around, I think to check on the Viper and Tarquin, and froze on spotting me, his eyes going very wide. I walked briskly towards him, jaw clenched, and he had the grace to look abashed as he made his way down to meet me. A blight tendril came blasting through a wall to my right, like a fleshy freight train, and he caught it with his magic, slamming it aside.

            “By now, I should have expected the impossible from you,” he said with a soft laugh as he started towards me again. “But to have escaped that prison. I could never have –”

            I hauled off and punched him as hard as I could, throwing my whole body into it. Got him right in his stupid bald face. He barely lost a step, it hardly did more than rock his head back, and it felt like I might have broken my hand in the process. But it was all worth it, to see that look of hurt surprise on his face.

            “Emma! What –”

            “Varric!” I snarled. As usual, it was a case of rage or cry, and I was determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing me in tears, not this fucking time. “Varric, you bastard. It wasn’t enough for you to murder him in front of me, you had to rip parts of my mind out to make me easier to manipulate, too? Make it easier to feed me to prison in your place?”

            “That was not why I…” He stopped, swallowing, and I realised it was because he’d almost admitted that what he was doing was manipulation, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “I allowed you to take my place because I truly thought you would be safer there, and I kept the truth from you because… why would you have agreed to speak with me if you knew?”

            I let out a sharp, barking laugh. “Really? The same fucking reason you lied about who I was for a year? The exact same shit all over again?”

            “Da’len, please –”

            “What, did you think I’m so stupid I wouldn’t have been able to choke down my anger and work with you to save the fucking world? Do you really think that little of me? You fucking –”

            I tried to punch him again, but he caught my arm before I could. “Please, Emma, you’re only going to hurt yourself.”

            “Fuck you!” I yanked my arm back. "Do you know what I saw in there? Do you have any idea what you fucking put me through?"

            "I have some idea, yes," he said, and at least he looked ashamed. At least he had that much decency.

            "You have some idea," I scoffed. "You used the worst things that have happened to me, the worst parts of my mind, to try to trap me in a prison you fucking made, because it was easier for you. Because you didn't trust that I'd pull you out of there."

             "Emma, I put you in there because -"

             "Shut the fuck up! I'm talking now! You already said enough, when you were throwing me into that pit. Do you know how close I came to killing myself, after Cullen died?" The look of horror on his face told me he hadn't, for all the rooting around in my mind he'd been doing, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some savage joy at the thought it might have hurt him. "Between losing my family and finding out about you, losing Cullen on top of everything, I just... I couldn't see a reason to carry on. You know why I didn't go through with it? Harding, and Varric. You fucking threw me in there, and you used every single element of the worst period of my life as the lock." 

             As horrified as he looked, he still couldn't help himself. "I am sorry, Emma, but I didn't choose the -"

             "Fuck you. That's not even the worst of it, is it? Because all that, locking me up and making me talk out my problems, at least that would have just fucked me up emotionally. Psychologically. The other shit you've been doing... Dorian told me, back when he was talking about what his dad tried to do to him, that the blood magic involved could have turned him into a vegetable. Tell me that wasn’t a risk with what you’ve been doing to me. Tell me all the migraines I’ve been having weren’t dangerous. Please, Dad, tell me you weren’t putting my life at risk with this shit.”

            He didn’t say anything for a long moment, his mouth working. Then he said, “I… I was very careful.”

            “Oh, Jesus Christ,” I said weakly.

            “I knew what I was doing, Emma, I… In another’s hands the risk would have been greater, but you were never –"

            “No! Fuck you, you’re not going to justify your way out of this! You murdered my friend, and you risked my life to blood magic my brain, and then you threw me into the Fade and made me think I’d gotten Lucanis killed when you know what I went through with Cullen!” I was shouting, trying to stay angry, but I’d lost the battle by then, tears streaming down my face. The worst of it was the hurt look in his eyes. Not hurt because I was shouting. Hurt because I was hurt. All the things he’d done, and he still cared. It was just that his version of ‘caring’ looked like brainwashing and imprisonment, because he was the eternal scorpion, and I was always going to be the fucking frog. I pressed both hands over my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore, finally devolving into sobs. “You fucked everything up! You always fuck everything up! You could at least have told me, I might even…”

            “I was wrong,” he said softly, approaching me cautiously. “For all of it, da’len, I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

            “Doesn’t bring him back,” I sobbed.

            “No. No, it doesn’t.”

            Hesitantly, like he was expecting me to smack him again, he put his arms around me. And, pathetic as I am, I let him. I couldn’t help it. Scorpion he may be, but he was all the family I had.

            When the worst of the sobs had subsided, I stepped back, shaking my head. “Well, great chat, Dad, as always. Thanks for taking care of the Shadow Dragons and all. See you around.”

            “Wait, Emma, wait, please.” He grabbed my arm as I tried to skirt around him. “I have not been able to defeat Elgar’nan, or even his Archdemon. But you will need my help to do so yourself. We need each other.”

            I laughed bitterly. "Working together? The exact thing I fucking suggested, right before you tossed me into Fade Jail?"

            "Emma -"

            “How can I trust you? After everything, how can I?”

            “Da’len, please, listen –”

            “The minute we win, you’ll screw me over and go right back to burning the world down.”

            “No. Listen to me – if our working together to stop Elgar’nan requires the Veil to stay in place, I will pay that price, unflinching.” When I continued to look sceptical, he pressed on with, “I swear by my own foolish pride, by love for friends I’ve failed and hurt, by my love for you, the daughter I never deserved. I swear by everything I ever held as sacred. I will leave the Veil untroubled. It will never come down by my hand.”

            I shook my head. “I want to believe you…”

            “Then believe me, Emmaera. Will you come with me? I can show you what has prevented me from reaching Elgar’nan.”

            With a heavy sigh, I waved to the lads, who trotted over to join us. Lucanis came straight to me, putting an arm around my shoulders with a dark look at Solas. Davrin asked if I was okay.

            “As well as can be expected,” I said. “Dad’s going to get us to Elgar’nan.”

            “So long as you’re sure,” Davrin muttered.

            We headed off through the city, Solas first telling us the problem he’d been having (the blight tendrils were being controlled by some consciousness that hated him, which like, same, mysterious consciousness), before he turned to look at Lucanis. “An Antivan Crow and a spirit of… Determination?”

            “Spite,” Spite popped up to correct him.

            “The two of you were bound unwillingly,” Solas continued. “It is a crime against you both. I may be able to separate you safely.”

            “Spite and I made our own deal,” Lucanis said coolly, smiling a little as he added, “With Emma’s help.”

            “And you. Hurt. Em!” Spite snapped. “You lie!”

            Solas flinched. “A fair point,” he said quietly. “My daughter is lucky to have someone who cares so deeply for her.”

            Lucanis softened, just a little. “I’m the lucky one.”

            “We are,” Spite added.

            Another wave of darkspawn came at us. Solas gave a disgusted huff, waved his hands, and froze half the group in an instant. I was grudgingly impressed, knowing how hard casting magic without a staff was. The lads and I managed to kill a handful of the others before Solas wiped out the final few with another spell. I raised my eyebrows at him as we set off again.

            “What?” Solas asked.

            “No, nothing.” When he kept looking at me, I said, “It’s just… Where was this energy when we were fighting dragons and giant spiders?”

            Solas laughed. “It has been ten years, da’len. You’re not at your best immediately after waking from a nap, are you?”

            “Yeah, fair play.” I couldn’t help myself, speaking without thinking. “Oh, stealing Flemythal’s lifeforce probably helped, didn’t it?”

            Closing his eyes for a second, he breathed, “You saw.”

            Well, I was committed now. “Saw you taking her away from me, yeah. The décor again.”

            “It was not her, Emma. Not truly. Merely a fragment.”

            “I know. Because I met the real version, the echo of her you stuck in the Crossroads. That was a treat, let me tell you. ‘I won’t pretend to feel a connection that isn’t there’. Was that how you felt? Is that why you offered to train me, way back when?”

            “You were my first thought on waking up,” he said sadly, “and I offered to train you to try to make up for the time we had lost. I am sorry both of your parents are so much less than you deserve.”

            Before I could say anything else we walked out onto a plaza thronged with blight tendrils, all emanating from a tangled rat’s nest of blight taking up the far end, which Solas indicated as being where the intelligence controlling the blight must be. I picked my way forwards alone, the lads hanging back a few steps, while Solas couldn’t even set foot onto the plaza without getting all of us mauled by blight.

            There was something wrapped up in the tendrils, a face just barely poking out of the mess. I squinted over the distance, and despite the pallid skin, sickly black veins, and glowing eyes, I recognised her. Neve. We hadn’t gotten to her in time.

            “No,” I gasped, starting to run. “God, no, Neve, we –”

            I only made it a few steps before Archdemon Lusacan dropped out of the sky, so huge he blocked out the shadowed sun. Even if I could go dragon, I’d only be about a third his size, at best, maybe just a quarter. As it was, I felt like a shrew trying to stare down a Maine Coon.

            “Ohhh fuck me.”

            Solas lunged past me, telekinetically slamming Lusacan’s head into a building to buy us some time. He quickly turned back to me, pressing the lyrium dagger into my hand as he said, “I will deal with the Archdemon. Once Elgar’nan is mortal, the final blow must be yours.”

            “Dad,” I said, taking the dagger but catching his arm with my other hand, “you can’t fight that thing by yourself.”

            Solas smiled, pulling me in to kiss my forehead. “I believe you can kill Elgar’nan, da’len. I ask only for the same confidence.”

            I wanted to point out he’d only recently tossed me into Fade Jail because he was so convinced I couldn’t kill Elgar’nan. Instead, I sighed, and said, “Then… good luck.”

            “And to you.” He turned and began to run towards Lusacan, yelling back, “When next we meet, let us be standing over Elgar’nan’s body!”

            I had a moment to worry, to be certain he was about to be unceremoniously gobbled up, only for him to turn into a wolf as he ran. A wolf the size of a house, that leapt up to drive its fangs into Lusacan’s throat, the shrieking dragon taking off and disappearing into a different part of the city, with Solas still gnawing at him.

            “I can’t shapeshift,” he told me. Fucking liar.

Chapter Text

With our way now dragon-free, we headed over to call up to Neve. “Neve is gone,” a voice that was hers and not hers at the same time announced, before the tendrils around us reassembled one of those stupid blood magic robots. Of course, the damn things were familiar enough to us now that we took it apart again easily enough, then I started hacking at the tendrils anchoring Neve with the Wolf’s Fang, until the nest around her unravelled and dropped her into Davrin’s waiting arms.

            Before any of us could ask whether she was okay, she slipped out of Davrin's grip and took a few steps away, shaking her head sharply. “Get out of my head,” she yelled at the sky, “and out of my city!” Blinking, she walked past me… then stopped and turned back, as if only just noticing me. “Em?”

            “Yeah, yeah, it’s me. We’re here to save you.”

            “He had me. I was controlling the blight for him. It was all I could think about.”

            “I’m so sorry, Neve,” I said. “I should have… When I kill him, it –”

            “No!” she cried, grabbing my arm. “You can’t kill Elgar’nan yet! If you do –”

            She didn’t get to finish as chaos erupted around us. Lusacan reappeared, more blight tendrils erupted from the ground, a building almost fell on us, and then Morrigan, of all people, flew in and turned back to human long enough to magically hold the building up until we got the fuck out of there. We ended up in a room that was surprisingly undemolished, just having time to catch our breaths before the door burst open… and there was Dorian, along with Cole, Taash, and Evka. All safe and well.

            I hit Dorian at speed, practically climbing him, as he squeezed me so tightly he actually popped a knot of tension in my back, freeing up one of my shoulders. “When they said he slaughtered the Magisterium…” I whispered.

            “A handful of ex-Lucerni and myself had reason to believe the Venatori were up to something,” he mumbled. “Last I heard, Solas had trapped you in the Fade. Having to work beside him to keep my people safe was certainly a trial after that.” He paused. “The man is dressed impeccably, however.”

            I cracked up, kissing his cheek before I turned to hug Cole too. “Glad you’re all okay. You’re all okay?”

            “We’re fine,” Taash said. “Kicking ass. Neve! You’re alive!”

            “Em got me out,” she said, stumbling a little as she swung back to face me. “But I learned things from that blight eruption. We need to talk.”

            “Healer first,” I insisted. “Talk after.”

            “Come on.” Taash put an arm around her shoulders. “I know where we can find a healer.”

            “You’ve made it to one of our safe houses, at least,” Dorian said as we followed them more slowly, Evka splitting off to stay with Antoine. “It will make a decent staging post for whatever mad next step you’re undoubtedly planning. Dorian Pavus,” he held out a hand towards Lucanis, “Emma’s dearest friend.”

            “Lucanis Dellamorte,” he said, looking perturbed as he shook hands. “Emma’s boyfriend.”

            “Oh, I’m aware. Cole told me. I just thought we should meet, in an official capacity.” He raised his eyebrows at me as that traitor Davrin snorted and power-walked his way out of the situation. “First a templar, now a renowned mage-killer. We do have a type, don’t we?”

            “Qunari boyfriend.”

            Dorian threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, you have me there. Good to meet you, Lucanis. Treat her well. She deserves it.” At a distant roar of ‘Kadan!’ he covered his smile with a sigh. “If you’ll excuse me.”

            Cole led us to one of the very few intact buildings in the area, which was serving as our command hub. While the surrounding buildings and streets were full of our allies, inside the hub there was only my team. Both sets of my teams. Bellara was talking excitedly about enchantments with Dagna, Bull was enthusiastically discussing dragons with Taash, his arm wrapped around Dorian, who was in quiet conversation with Emmrich. Blackwall was talking to Davrin while Sera rolled around on the floor with Assan, and Cole kissed me on the cheek before hurrying over to speak to Manfred…

            “Are you alright?” Lucanis asked softly.

            I didn’t know how to answer. How to tell him that seeing everyone talking to each other, there at the end of the world, was like watching my past and present crashing together. That seeing them all getting along warmed me in a way I couldn’t define… but also set off a strange concern, a sort of superstitious dread that everything must be coming to an end, somehow…

            “Just… glad to see everyone again, that’s all,” I said, kissing him. “And it’s nice no one’s fighting.”

            “Little Dream!” Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, briefly lifting me off my feet.

            “Fel!” I said once he set me down. “You’re corporeal!”

            “Your little surprise panned out. Bria’s staying back south to protect her empress, but she sends her love. Hello, Spite. Lucanis.”

            “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Cass says some people who get un-Tranquilised can end up a bit… reactive.”

            “Lucky for us, I’m a man apart. And also I’ve had almost a month to get used to it. The first week or so was… interesting. Especially since I got the news about what happened to you during it. I think Abelas wanted me re-Tranquilised. Or dead.” His gaze flickered to the dagger at my hip. “You’ve seen him?”

            “She punched him,” Lucanis said proudly.

            “In the face!” Spite added.

            “That’s my girl,” Felassan said, briefly hugging me again.

            “Then he turned into a wolf to attack Lusacan,” I said. “I didn’t even know that was a thing he could do.”

            “You didn’t know the Dread Wolf could turn into a wolf?”

            “No, Slow Arrow, I didn’t.”

            “Fair point, yes. Come on, looks like Neve’s on her feet. Probably time for a meeting.”

            The team gathered around a table covered in maps, all eyes fixed on Neve, who still looked Tainted, but who was otherwise alert and seemingly unhurt. “That bastard was in my head the whole time,” she said disgustedly. “All I could think about was making him happy.”

            “That’s messed up,” Taash said, retaining their crown as the monarch of understatement.

            “There’s blight flowing through him. And now through me.”

            “We’ll sort it out,” I said firmly. “Worst comes to worst, Dav, you and the Wardens can do whatever it is you do, right?”

            “Whatever you need,” Davrin said.

            “We’ll just kill Elgar’nan and –”

            “You can’t!” Neve burst out. “That’s what I needed to tell you! My connection with Elgar’nan went both ways. I could sense him. His mind, his magic, his life force. He’s tied to the Veil. His life is holding the Veil in place.”

            I felt Lucanis look at me as my mouth went dry. Morrigan added, “I felt the Veil weaken when Ghilan’nain fell. I suspect that when Solas imprisoned the other gods, he bound them all thus. And now that Elgar’nan is the only one left…”

            “We kill him, and the Veil collapses,” Neve finished.

            For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. Davrin was avoiding meeting my eyes, Lucanis was gazing sadly at me, as I slowly pulled the dagger out and stared at it. I felt sick. Sick and hollow, and like all I wanted to do was crawl into a corner and cry. Stupid little frog, I thought bitterly.

            “Oh, Emma,” Cole whispered.

            “’The Veil will never come down by my hand,’ he told me,” I said dully. “Swore on his love for me he’d leave it untroubled. Then he gave me this, and insisted that I had to be the one to kill Elgar’nan.”

            “Sneaky fucker,” Sera said, squeaking as Dagna elbowed her.

            God, I was so fucking tired. Rubbing my eye with the heel of my empty hand, I said, “We can’t leave Elgar’nan alive, though. What the fuck do we do now?”

            “We could tie the Veil to something else,” Bellara said hesitantly.

            “I doubt any simple substitution would suffice,” Morrigan said. “The Veil was made to be tied to the ancient elven gods.”

            “Solas, then,” Sera said immediately. “He’s the only one of them elfy gods left, right?”

            “It would mean condemning him to the Fade,” Felassan said, his tone perfectly neutral. “Allowing the only tether to the Veil to wander the physical world wouldn’t be safe.”

            “Binding him would require drawing his blood with the lyrium dagger,” Emmrich added, with an apologetic look my way.

            “Doubt he’s going to volunteer,” Bull muttered.

            “I’m going to have to…” I trailed off, staring at the shimmering blade again.

            The others kept talking about how we might be able to trick him, how maybe we could use the Mythal statue somehow, which I’d brought in my pack in case it proved useful (Morrigan recoiled from the thing like it was a bomb, insisting we only use it as a last resort), that maybe it would help to talk him down somehow. The whole time I just stood there, trying to look like I was thoughtfully considering my options, as if I didn’t feel like I’d just been stabbed in the chest. You know, again.

            “We’ll figure it out,” I said, once their conversation started petering out. “For now, we let Dad deal with the Archdemon while we get to Elgar’nan.”

            “He’s holed up in the Archon’s palace,” Taash said, “so if we climb that big blight tendril –”

            “I’ve already got a plan on that front.” I pointed to each member of my away team. Cole, Lucanis, Dorian, Bull, Taash, Bellara, Emmrich, Felassan, and Morrigan. “You lot get ready to move. Everyone else, I need you down here, rallying our allies, covering the city.”

            From there, I went to sit in a chair beside the fire, arms resting on my knees, staring at my clasped hands. Felassan was the first to trail over, crouching in front of me. “Are you sure you can do this?”

            “Shouldn’t I want to hurt him?” I said softly. “Shouldn’t I want to toss him into the Fade? Lie to him and use him and trap him, same as he did to me?”

            Felassan gazed steadily at me. “Maybe you should. Do you?”

            “Do you?” I met his eyes quickly, searching for something, anything, that might tell me how he was really feeling. Something to give me any sort of guidance. “He did the same thing to you.”

            He just gave me the saddest of smiles, and said, “Hate isn’t as easy as some people make it look, is it?” Glancing to the side, he leaned in to kiss my forehead, then rose and left, to be replaced with Lucanis.

            “Have you come to make sure I’m going to screw Solas over as well?”

            Lucanis snorted, pulling me to my feet. “Mi vida, Illario tried to have me murdered, and not only did I let him live, but he’s walking around more or less free.” He smiled. “Thanks to your guidance, if you recall. I am not the person to judge you for showing a little mercy.” Kissing me, he added, “Whatever you decide, however it plays out, I am behind you. So long as today ends with me asleep in your arms, I will do anything you ask.”

            I kissed him again. He headed off to speak to Davrin, and Sera wandered over, wolf-whistling. “Shut up,” I said fondly. “You wouldn’t like him, he’s got a demon in him.”

            “What, really?” She pulled a face when I nodded. “So, what, when you’re giving it the,” she thrust her hips a few times, “do you have to put up wards or something, so it doesn’t get in the way?”

            “Actually, I’m seeing them both. Sex and all.”

            “Frigging pissflaps, did you get him at a two for one sale or what?” She grinned when that made me laugh, happily returning my hug. “Dead weird, you are. Still, nice to see you happy.”

            “You wouldn’t have given up that quickly back in the day.”

            “Scary, innit?” she said with a grin. “Getting old these days.”

            Kieran showed up as we were preparing to leave, and I quickly added him to the away team, then turned to find the room at large looking at me, waiting. Waiting for me to say something, I realised. I had to clear my throat a few times before I could speak, my hands twisting together.

            “I know you’re probably all expecting some rousing speech right now, but uh… All I want to say is that you guys mean everything to me. You, and a handful of people who couldn’t be here who I wish were, you’re all I have. I hope tomorrow sees us all sat in a pub together somewhere, talking about how hard we kicked some gods in the arses, but just in case, I need you all to know that. I love you, each and every one. There’s nobody I’d rather have with me, by my side or backing me up, than the people in this room. Do what you can to win, but do whatever you have to do to make sure you’re still here for the after-party. Because I can’t do this without you guys. I keep thinking I don’t have any family here, how Solas is all I have, but that’s not true, is it? I’ve got enough family to fill a room. I…”

            My throat locked up, and I had to stop. For a second I was worried about how they might react to my turning what should have been an inspiring speech into something stammering and mawkish. Nobody seemed put out by it, though, judging by the way I found myself at the centre of a group hug.

            “Take care of each other up there,” Davrin said gruffly. “We’ve got down here covered.”

            “They won’t stand a chance,” Blackwall added. “I’m looking forward to fighting beside a Warden, never mind an actual griffon.”

            As I made to leave, Neve caught my arm and said, “I’m coming.”

            “Neve, you need to rest.”

            “What I need is to help you. Come on, Soft Touch, you’ll need me out there.”

            There was an intensity in her that allowed for no argument. Sighing, I nodded, and when we headed outside it was with Neve in tow. Our little team stopped in the street outside, looking at the Archon’s palace hovering in the distance, tethered to the city by a monumental tendril.

            “So,” Bull said, “we cross the city, climb the –”

            “Nope,” I said. “That's too much time out in the open. We’re flying up.”

            “Sorry to disappoint you, Boss,” Bull said, “but I haven’t learned to go bird since the last time we saw each other.”

            “I know. Lucanis, can you and Spite fly that far?”

            He cocked his head, calculating. “Yes.”

            “Alright. So, Morrigan, Kieran, Lucanis and I are going to fly. The rest of you are catching a ride.”

            “How?” Dorian said, bewildered, as I stepped out ahead to get some space.

            “Hey, Bull, remember during the Dragon’s Breath thing, when you told me I should learn to turn into something big enough to carry everyone?”

             This time there was no sense of having sprung a leak, and given how much magic and spirit stuff operated on expectations and dream logic, I couldn’t help wondering whether it was my bracing for death the first time that had messed up the experience for me. Or maybe I’d just done the magical equivalent of descending to the bottom of a well, expecting to find a stone floor, only to discover wooden planks instead. Wooden planks hollow with the promise of a deeper void beneath.

            Whatever the cause, this time when I turned into a dragon, I felt fine.

            “Holy shit!” Bull yelled.

            “That’s quite the new trick,” Dorian said weakly.

            “It’s badass is what it is,” Bull added, high-fiving Taash. “Think you could turn me into a dragon next?”

            “Make haste, everyone, climb aboard,” Morrigan said. “Emma is correct, the less time we spend out in the open the better.”

Chapter Text

It took a minute to get airborne. I’d never flown as a big whomping scaly bastard of a lizard before, and I was pretty weighed down. Still, once I took off it all started coming together. Bull and Taash were laughing the whole time. Dorian was screaming, a lot, as was Felassan, the pair of them clutching frantically at each other. At least they were getting along, that was nice. Lucanis stayed close to me, though the two crows, Morrigan and Kieran, kicked on ahead. There was a deep gouge in the foundation of the palace, the only guaranteed opening I could make out, and I beelined right for it.

            A roar echoed up from the city below, and I glanced back down to see Lusacan taking off, Solas clinging to one of his back legs, savaging it, mostly unnoticed. I worked my wings harder, cursing internally. I was smaller and faster, but I was also covered in people, while Lusacan’s sheer size meant that every beat of his wings saw him gaining on me, a little at a time.

            Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…

            “Uh, Boss? Don’t want to cause alarm –”

            I let out a low rumble, which Cole helpfully translated as, “She sees him.”

            If it wasn’t for Solas, we wouldn’t have made it. His weight dragging Lusacan down gave me just enough breathing room to slip through the gap after the two crows, Lucanis right beside me. I shook myself like a wet dog, and the gang took the hint and hastily slipped down from my back, hurrying off into the shadows. With them clear, I crouched down inside a buckled chunk of floor and waited.

            Lusacan appeared through the gap, barely even fitting. He seemed to have been expecting me to be there waiting for him, ready to jump him as soon as he came into view. When he couldn’t see me, he pulled himself slowly into the space, eyes fixed on the huddled crowd in the corner. Once he seemed adequately distracted, I launched myself out of hiding, teeth latching on under his jaw and shaking like a terrier with a rat. Though given our size difference, it was more like a rat going for a terrier, I suppose. 

            He unleashed a blast of fire, I think aiming for my team, but I’d pushed his head up enough for it to scour the ceiling instead. I responded by screaming lightning into the wound I’d torn. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to kill him, but it did make him retreat, slashing at me with one set of front claws as he went. I jerked back out of range and let him go. He'd destabilised the edges of the gap we'd come in through, and as soon as it was clear I was able to reach up with my clawed front paws and rip that section of roof down, closing the way behind us.

            “Are you alright?” Lucanis asked as I shrank back down to my regular size, catching me as I stumbled on the uneven floor. “It’s just you passed out the last time you did that.”

            “Feeling surprisingly good, yeah.”

            “That was a neat trick, Auntie,” Kieran said. “Jumping out on Lusacan like that, I mean, though the dragon thing wasn't bad either.”

            “Cheers, got the idea from watching Watership Down too many times as a kid. Bigwig versus Woundwort." When they just stared at me blankly, I clapped my hands and pointed to the only apparent exit. "Let’s move.”

            Dorian led us to the throne room as quickly as possible. I cursed internally again when we arrived, because the roof had been torn off completely, meaning I’d have been able to drop straight in there in dragon form. Then again, that would have allowed Lusacan to follow us in, and he’d definitely have killed us all, so, maybe for the best we didn’t.

            Elgar’nan himself was slumped on the throne, surrounded by other mages he’d plumbed into the blight. There was blight clinging to him now, too. Tendrils reached out of the heap behind the throne to twine around him, while more seemed to be growing out of him, caressing the edges of his armour. His eyes were glowing red, his veins blackened, blight goo was leaking all over his face. When he spoke, his voice was clotted and warped.

            “Did you not think I could sense your approach?” he sneered as we marched out into the open. “Such arrogance, thinking you can hide from your god.”

            “Who’s hiding, bitch?” I snapped. “I came up here as a dragon, that’s not exactly low profile.”

            “Insolence,” he said, his voice shaking with disgust. “Always such insolence. I would have restored the glory your lives are too brief to remember, and still you speak to me thus.”

            “Oh yeah, you’re looking really glorious right now,” I said, as mockingly as I could. “The great and mighty Elgar’nan, reduced to nothing more than a ghoul that still thinks it’s a god. Can’t say I really trust your perspective when it comes to glory.”

            “Especially given the ruined city we just had to wade through,” Felassan said, leaning on his staff.

            “The Dread Wolf’s Slow Arrow,” Elgar’nan growled, red eyes fixing on him. “I suppose I should not be surprised to find you sniffing around the Pup, nor that you still mistake discipline for cruelty. You always have lacked a master’s gentle guidance. Fen’Harel permitted you far too much freedom.”

            Felassan let out a snickering laugh. “Oh, he’d love to hear himself called my master. Think you could run through that little speech again if he makes an appearance?”

            Elgar’nan was seething even more as he turned back to me. “We only destroyed because you resisted. In the new empire, every child would have blossomed under my protection. And Ghilan’nain, my brilliant sister, would have forged the blight into a tool of beauty.” He sounded genuinely sad as he stood, blight tendrils reluctantly sliding free, and said, “But she is dead. And all we have is this.” Raising the red lyrium dagger, he pointed it towards me and finished with a snarl of, “Because of you.”

            “If you miss Ghilan’nain that much, let’s send you to her,” I said, managing to sound more confident than I felt.

            Elgar’nan responded by starting to hover, Fade stepping across the room, and then sending a blast of lightning directly at me. As I leapt aside, getting off a bolt of my own before having to dodge another energy blast, I couldn’t help thinking I might have been a little too mouthy for my own good that time.

            That fight… I’d felt a certain amount of safety in the fact we had him outnumbered literally a dozen to one. Half our mages were constantly slamming down barriers; Bellara, Felassan, and I were on the offensive, Felassan pulling out moves I’d never seen, making the paving slabs open up to grab his legs, holding him until he could thrash his way free. Taash and Bull matched each other in terms of sheer bonkers ferocity, while Cole and Lucanis darted around, their blades a blur.

            None of it was enough. Elgar’nan could replicate himself, splitting into half a dozen copies, all of whom could throw out their own energy blasts. He could do the knight-enchanter thing to summon a spectral weapon, only in his case the sword was bigger than my whole body, and hit with enough power to send even a fully barriered Iron Bull hurtling across the square. Not to mention the fact his Archdemon was still alive, meaning every hit we managed to land on him was shrugged off easily.

            Speaking of which, Lusacan rocked up somewhere in there. Solas leapt after him… but the blight surrounding the square responded, wrapping around the giant wolf and holding him in place. Elgar’nan turned to me with a smug grin, announcing, “The Dread Wolf cannot save you! He cannot even save himself! Now you understand that none may stand against me.”

            Behind him, I saw Cole start forward with his face set. I felt the barrier around Cole decay, leaving him unprotected, everyone else distracted by the spectacle of Lusacan gripping a trapped Solas in his claws. I realised Elgar’nan knew Cole was coming, and was winding up an attack, one which my own flimsy barriers would never be enough to stop. Like back in the fake Weisshaupt, there was only one thing I could do.

            Fade stepping to Cole’s side, even as the god turned, I shouldered my boy aside and raised my staff in a desperate attempt to cast some sort of shield. A wave of energy hit me like a truck, and everything went black.

*

                        When I came to, I was lying facedown on the stone floor of the square. Elgar’nan was laughing smugly and hadn’t moved, so I couldn’t have been out for too long. I hastily looked for Cole, who was sat a few feet away, seemingly unhurt, but frozen in place. It was different to what Elgar’nan had done the first time he’d appeared, in Hossberg, because I could see Cole’s eyes swivelling frantically in their sockets, looking from me to Elgar’nan to the others. They were all frozen. Not in time, but locked in their bodies, forced to watch. Everyone but me.

            Gasping for air (it felt like I’d barely avoided getting all my ribs broken, my sternum along with them) I grabbed Tyrdda’s staff and made to stand… only to realise my legs wouldn’t hold me, and the staff came up with a surprising lack of resistance. Looking down, I slumped back to my knees. Tyrdda’s staff, my staff, lay in three pieces, snapped and powerless. I pulled the head of it into my lap, staring at the entwined snakes with the most incredible sense of loss.

            “Yield, vhenan,” Elgar’nan said in this sickeningly gentle voice, like he thought he was doing me a favour. “Yield, and you shall all be spared. If you yield to me now, I will even permit the assassin to live. You know, surely, that you cannot triumph against a god. This is no fight for shemlen.”

            I was alone. Unarmed. I was so, so tired, down to my bones, in a way that went beyond physical exhaustion. Maybe it was time to just give up. Accept reality, and just let it happen. Once I was blighted, I wouldn’t care anyway, right? Once I was blighted, I’d be happy, probably. I lowered my head, and with a smug chuckle Elgar’nan began to form a sort of noose made of red energy, directing it my way.

            It was over. He’d won.

*

                        Shemlen, though.

            He called me a fucking shem.

            What was I, really? I was an ancient elf, wasn’t I? Wasn’t that the whole reason he was giving me the chance to yield, the reason he was calling me fucking vhenan? The Well of Sorrows shifted inside me, protesting against the idea of giving up when vengeance was so close at hand, and when I looked down at the shattered chunk of staff the Anchor shone back at me.

            Hossberg well. Healing a mortal wound. I’d just turned into a dragon, then carried on with my day like nothing happened.

            Suddenly I was hit with a memory of being back in Haven, all the way back at the beginning. When Solas was teaching me how to use my magic, and I'd called down a blast of lightning so immense I'd seen the worry on his face as he'd told me to pull the power back, to limit how much I used at any given time. I remembered that the blast I'd called down, not even trying my hardest, not even breaking a sweat, had been even bigger than the one in Hossberg. I hadn't known. I'd had no sense of perspective on that sort of thing back then, and then I'd forgotten. Solas had told me I needed to pull it back, and because I trusted him, I had, unquestioningly.

            Once again, I had the mental image of finding myself at the floor of a well, only this time I saw myself smashing through the boards. On the other side, the well continued, dizzyingly deep.

            Shemlen, was I?

            I’d fucking show him shemlen.

            Reaching out with my mind, I dismissed the noose he was casting at me. With a little more effort, I cancelled the spell holding the others in place. Then I laughed.

            “What do you think you –” Elgar’nan snarled.

            “Dad was right, wasn’t he?” I gently set the shard of staff down and stood, running the Anchor over my sternum to clear the pain. “Back in Arlathan, when he said the blight had made you slower. It’s made you weaker too, hasn’t it?”

            “You dare –”

            “You draw power from the blight, yeah, but you’ve gone too far. You really are barely more than a ghoul now, aren’t you? But me…”

            “The bastard offspring of two traitors!”

            “The child of two gods,” I grinned. “Not just that, but this body belonged to a mage who was powerful in her own right, some poor girl who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The whole time I’ve been awake, I believed it when people told me there were limits, so I limited myself. Dream logic, right? Everything here runs on fucking dream logic. Well, fuck that. No more.”

            Lusacan let out a roar, drawing himself up to his full height, and Elgar’nan hitched his smug look back into place. “And how exactly do you plan on dealing with my Archdemon, newfound confidence and all?” he asked witheringly.

            Behind him I could see Neve sprinting for his vacated throne, throwing herself into it with a determined look. Taash and Bull hefted their axes, and I couldn’t resist laughing again. “I don’t have to do shit!”

            He had a moment to look confused before he seemed to sense what Neve was doing; plumbing herself into the blight in his place, and using her connection to force the tendrils holding Solas to release him. Whipping around to face her, Elgar’nan snarled, “I gave you this power, girl!”

            “This is my city!” Neve snapped back, and as she was swallowed up by the blight Solas shook himself free.

            The giant wolf pounced, snagging hold of the dragon’s face. As he dragged it down, Taash and Bull leapt up, each aiming for the gouge I’d bitten under his chin. In surprisingly short order, Lusacan fell dead, decapitated, shaking the ground so hard as his limp weight landed, I was worried it would be enough to knock the palace out of the sky.

            While Elgar’nan screamed his fury, I Fade stepped to Dorian’s side, ignoring his surprised look as I fumbled in a pouch at his belt, the one I knew contained his lyrium potions. I slipped two out with a grin as Solas melted back into elf form, gasping for air.

            “You are mortal, Elgar’nan,” he choked out. “Enjoy it while it lasts!”

            The team were bristling, ready to get back into the fight, but I snapped, “No! No one’s getting hurt today. I'm not losing anyone else to this shit. This is between me and him.” I necked both lyrium potions, one swig each like I was back in uni, double-fisting shots of tequila. “A fiddle of gold against your soul says you’re a pathetic little sewer rat, vhenan.”

            The potions kicked in, and it felt like the top of my head popped off. This would have to be a one-time thing, otherwise I could see it becoming a serious problem. I could see everything. Everything. The way the Veil rippled around us, thin and bunched and close to fraying with the strain everything we were doing had put on it. The spirits who dared to creep close on the other side, watching what was happening with quiet intensity. The disintegrating fragments of wards clinging to Elgar’nan like spiderwebs blowing away in a breeze, a fading umbilical linking him to the dead dragon. The power spiralling from our mages, something about it making me think of nightclubs, smoke lit by neon lights. Cole and Lucanis, too, were both putting out streams of power, though fainter, and I could see Spite’s wings, even though they weren’t out. The Anchor blazed too bright to look at, warping the Veil around it. 

            “Yielding is no longer an option,” Elgar’nan snarled, summoning his giant sword.

            I let out a delirious sort of laugh and called down a lightning strike that made the Hossberg well incident look like a static shock. He managed to shield himself against it, then split into a bunch of clones again, all firing lightning at the team. I fired off a barrier to cover my people, before realising I could see which Elgar’nan was the real one, his clones suddenly no more than wavering images in the air. I threw a fireball at him, which he batted away before lunging at me with that big glowing sword. When I Fade stepped aside, he growled and turned to send a lash of power at the team again.

            He seemed to be moving so slowly all of a sudden. I could see where he was going to be before he moved, what spells he was going to cast even as he cast them, could see it in the way the Veil rippled around him. I shot lightning from my hands, laughing and dismissing it when he clumsily redirected it back at me. From there I brought down another lightning strike, one he had to Fade step aside to avoid. With a snarl, he launched a ball of energy directly at Lucanis.

            If he’d kept coming at me, I’d have drawn the whole thing out even more, enjoyed getting the chance to absolutely let rip on someone when it felt like my veins were full of light and fire and electricity. But it was clear he was going to keep targeting the team, and that I couldn’t allow. I’d only have to slip up once, after all.

            Dismissing the energy ball before it could reach Lucanis, I Fade stepped in behind Elgar’nan, waited for him to turn, and then drove the dagger into his chest, armour and bone and cartilage parting like butter. I stood up on my tiptoes to spit, “Right in the vhenan,” into his face, laughing wildly again.

            Gurgling what might have been an attempt at words, he grabbed for the hilt of the Wolf’s Fang, taking a wild swing at me with his red lyrium version. I Fade stepped to his other side, kicked him in the back of the knee to bring him down to my level, then drove my dagger through the base of his skull with no more resistance than stabbing a pumpkin.

            I stepped back as he toppled to the floor, and had roughly three seconds to feel very proud of myself before he exploded with energy, throwing me to the ground a few feet away. A hole opened in space, dragging in his and Lusacan’s corpses, along with a heap of blight.

            Then the sky split open.

Chapter Text

“It is done.” Solas was on his feet, though he was in pretty bad shape, with cuts all over and favouring his hip. There was a particularly bad slash over his right eye – it looked like he’d barely avoided losing it. “The world owes you a debt, da’len. Both for defeating Elgar’nan, and for bringing down the Veil.” He couldn’t quite look at me as he added, “I am sorry for this final betrayal. But I will do what I can to minimise the damage. When you see the old world restored…”

            I'd dropped the dagger as I was thrown back, leaving it lying on the slabs a few feet away. He tried to summon the thing to him, but I intercepted it, Fade stepping forward to snag the handle. I pushed myself to my feet as he sighed. Before he could get a word out, I wrapped my Marked hand around the blade, and Solas froze.

            “Careful, Emma.”

            “I know exactly what I’m doing,” I said. “I knew this was coming, you see. Sorry, Neve spoiled your grand plan to screw me over this time, I know that must be really disappointing for you. I knew killing Elgar’nan would bring down the Veil. And I know how to keep it from coming down. God blood, or life essence, or whatever. And what's a god, but an ancient, powerful mage? I think I just proved I qualify, don’t you?”

            “Please.” He reached out his hand, eyes wide. “Emma, if you –”

            “I get dragged into the Fade forever. I know, Dad. I know how little you think of me, but please, give me enough credit to believe I know exactly what I’m doing.” Behind me, Lucanis let out a cry that might have been my name, and as I heard him start forwards I automatically yelled, “Bull!” There was a scuffle, and I heard low voices saying what I hoped were reassuring words – Cole, Bellara, Emmrich. I couldn’t risk looking around. I couldn’t bear to see their faces.

            Solas read it in me. “Look at them, Emma. They love you. If you do this, you will be lost to them forever.”

            “They’re why I’m doing this. Them. This world. I love all of it, as stupid and fucked up and awful as it is. The solution is to try to fix it. To work to make things better, even if it’s just a bit at a time, even if things don’t actually improve until our grandchildren’s days. The solution isn’t to just burn it all down.”

            “We can delay the final ritual. Take all those you care for to Skyhold, ensure their safety. Emma, I beg you, do not do this.”

            “Right, yeah, don’t ruin your plan.”

            “Don’t throw your life away!” he said, pained.

            “It’s worth it. My life, for the sake of the world? How could I give any less than Harding, Dad? How could I do less than the fucking Butcher?”

            He stared at me, stricken. “You would have me do this instead? You would rather I sacrifice myself?”

            “No, you fucking idiot!” Despite my best efforts to remain calm and rational, my voice started to wobble. “Of course that's not what I wanted. I didn't want any of this to happen. I want us both to walk away from this. I want you to go to the Lighthouse, so you don’t have to worry about reprisals, and then I can go off with Lucanis, and come back and visit as if you were a proper fucking father, but I can’t, can I? Because you’re the scorpion, Dad, you’ve always been the fucking scorpion, you just can’t help yourself, and now you’ve set it up so that either the world ends or one of us gets eaten by the Fade, you selfish fucking prick!”

            “Emma, if you do this, I…”

            He trailed off, and as I stared into his eyes it hit me that I had no idea how he intended on ending that sentence. If you do this, I’ll lose you? Or, if you do this, I'll have to kill you? The fact I couldn’t tell, that I even thought the latter was an option, made me go cold all over. Would he really do it? If I tied my life to the Veil, would he kill me before I could make it into the Fade, and go right back to bringing the damn thing down?

            I looked down at the dagger resting against my palm and thought… it would be so easy. The blade cut through armour like paper, it would go through my skin with no effort at all. I probably wouldn't even feel it. And then at least it would all be over and done with, one way or the other. Either I’d get sucked into the Fade, or he’d murder me. Whatever the outcome, I’d finally get a chance to rest. Gritting my teeth, I made to push the edge of the blade into my skin, right over the Anchor… only to freeze as a hand gently came to rest over mine.

            “Give him the chance to do the right thing first, Little Dream.”

            “Felassan,” Solas gasped. He lurched forwards, touching Felassan’s face before gripping his shoulder.

            “Hello, Solas. I’d hoped you hadn’t noticed me earlier. I’ve been lurking behind the big chap with the horns, thought I’d wait for my moment. Hopefully it was appropriately dramatic.”

            “How?” Solas whispered, his eyes seeming to drink Felassan in.

            “Da’Emmaera.” Felassan nodded my way. “She found me, out there where you left me. Nursed me back to health, though put like that it makes me sound like a sickly halla. Briala reminds me of you. That was what I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted. The firebrand version of you, in any case, the Dread Wolf. Emma’s more like the person you were before. Funny. Clever. Overly soft-hearted. Mouth perhaps a little too big for her own good. She does you proud, lethallin.”

            Solas was shaking his head. “I know. I know, but… I cannot allow it to change my course. You must understand, both of you, I… I cannot leave the Veil in place. For Mythal’s sake, I cannot. If the Veil does not fall, I am destroying the world your mother wanted, Emma. All I have done… She will have died for nothing.”

             "What about the world I want?" I said quietly. "Am I not enough?" 

             "Oh, da'len, no, I didn't mean..." He reached hesitantly towards me, and I flinched back, pulling the dagger to my chest, my hand tightening against the blade. He froze. “Please. Emma, you have been to Vir Dirthara. You have seen how the world could be, the wonder and the beauty of it. How could you not wish to see that return?”

            “Because she loves the world she knows, Dread Wolf.” Morrigan stepped up beside me, resting a hand on my back.

            The confusion on Solas’ face was almost funny, even under the circumstances. “Morrigan?”

            “One appellation among many I wear,” she said. “I have been an advisor to Orlais, Witch of the Wilds, Daughter of Flemeth, and once, long ago, an old friend.”

            Solas gave me a questioning look. “She inherited part of Mythal’s spirit,” I explained, “after you killed Flemeth.” Swallowing, I handed the dagger off to Felassan to pull the statuette of Mythal out of my bag, handing it to Morrigan.

            Morrigan held the statuette to her chest, and the figure of Mythal as I’d seen her in the Crossroads resolved in the air in front of her. The effect on Solas was immediate. He reeled back, lowering his head, like he couldn’t bear to look directly at her.

            “I pulled you from the Fade you loved and sent you into war,” Mythal said, and I tried not to be hurt by the fact she was so much gentler when she spoke to him than she had been with me. Felassan must have noticed; he put his free hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “I used your wisdom as a weapon, and it broke you.”

            Despite how soft she was being with him, Solas folded in on himself. “The things I have done…”

            “Are not for you alone to bear, my friend. The many wrongs we did, we did together. But we did do one thing right, did me not?” She gestured towards me, though Solas still couldn’t seem to raise his head. “Look at her, love. All the mistakes we have made, and our daughter has spent her waking life making amends for them. Whether you wished her to or not. She is willing to give her life for this world, imperfect as it may be. We have already let her down in so many ways. For her sake, if nothing else, set aside your plans.” The spectral figure stepped forward to rest a hand on his shoulder. “I release you from my service.”

            With that, she faded back into the statue, leaving Solas a mess, sobbing with his hands braced on his knees. I stepped closer to him, tentatively placing a hand on his back, and he straightened immediately to pull me tight against him.

            “It’s okay,” I whispered.

            “I’m sorry. Emma, I’m so sorry.” He reached out, casting around until he could grab Felassan and pull him in as well, their foreheads resting together. “And you, Felassan, I… How can I even begin to apologise?”

            “Apologising would be a good start.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            Felassan smiled as he stepped back and then, with only a hint of reluctance, held the Wolf’s Fang out. Solas took it, and despite everything there were still a few seconds where my blood went cold, expecting one final double-cross.

            Silly, silly little frog, thinking he could change…

            Instead, Solas immediately slid the blade across his palm, spattering the flagstones with blood. Smiling, he said, “My life force now sustains the Veil. With every breath I take, I will protect the innocent from my past failures. The Titans’ dreams are mad from their imprisonment. I cannot kill the blight, but I can help to soothe its anger. I will go, and seek atonement.”

            I nodded, taking the dagger back from him when he held it out. Solas was calmer by then. It seemed like all of his upset had been transferred to me instead. “I don’t…” My voice broke so badly I had to stop to clear my throat. “I hate to think of you in there alone.”

            “He won’t be alone, Little Dream,” Felassan said, looking apologetic. “He’ll have me.”

            “After what I did,” Solas said, “I cannot ask you to –”

            “You’re asking nothing,” Felassan said. “It’s my decision. Where you go, I go, Wolf.” He turned back to me, smiling sadly, as Cole ran up to speak to Solas. “I already said goodbye to Bria, but could you tell her what happened? At least I won’t be a mystery this time.”

            “Of course I will.” I hugged him. “I love you, Fel. I’m going to miss you.”

            “Obviously, I’m bags of fun,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I’ll miss you too. But at least we’ve had a chance to know each other, after everything. I’m glad I got to see the woman you’ve become, and I’m disgustingly proud of you. I love you, our Little Dream. And you two,” he stepped back to clap a hand on Lucanis’ shoulder as he joined us, “take care of her.”

            “We’ll keep. Her safe,” Spite promised.

            “Emma can look after herself just fine,” Lucanis said. “But it will be my pleasure to watch her back.”

            Felassan smiled, kissing each of us on the forehead before heading over to wait by the Fade tear. Solas had finished saying goodbye to Cole, and turned to Lucanis first to say, “I wish we had the time to know each other better.”

            It took him a moment, but with a sigh Lucanis said, “As do I. For Emma’s sake.”

            Solas hugged me one last time. “Thank you for showing me a better path.”

            “I’ll see you again, won’t I?” I whispered. “Dream-walking and all?”

            He smiled sadly. “I hope so. Goodbye, Emma. I love you, more than anything.”

            “I love you too.”

            With that, he joined Felassan by the Fade tear. Right before they dissolved into light and disappeared into the tear, I saw Felassan grab Solas’ hand, and Solas’ head turned towards him with a smile. I burst into full sobs, just couldn’t help it. But with Lucanis holding me on one side, and Cole, also sniffling, clinging to me on the other, I supposed it wasn’t quite as hideous as it might have been.

Chapter Text

Things weren’t as bad as they could have been.

            That was the general consensus the following day, as I sat on a roof looking out over a ruined city bathed in sunlight, people dropping in on me to pass on news before going back to their business. Cullen’s brother-in-law had died defending Skyhold, but the rest of his family made it through alive. Some of the ex-templars I’d helped rehabilitate had died the same way, Penny among them, but Belinda, Delia, and Sandor Hound had all survived, and Cary Elkwes was confirmed to be safe over in Wycombe. Abelas had died putting himself between a darkspawn and Briala, but she’d lived, as had Celene and Queen Anora. Thane Sun-Hair and Skywatcher had died gloriously in battle (the exact words of the messenger who’d brought the news, so, that was nice for them?), and so had Gael, fighting down in the city.

            Hawke and Anders were alive, however, and slipped off alone together into the countryside. Their fellow survivors, Alistair and Neria, let them walk without argument. “They’ve earned it,” was all Alistair said when he was asked. The mayor of D’Meta’s Crossing died a hero, apparently. So. That was something.

            My Lighthouse team, and the Inquisition crew, had all made it out with no more than wounds. Neve was Tainted, yes, but no worse than a Grey Warden once Solas went into the Fade, and even that might not be the ticking clock it used to be anymore. Blackwall had lost his left leg at the knee, but he was surprisingly chill about it. All he had to say on the matter was, “My fighting days were already behind me, lass. This just gives me an excuse to have my girls dote on me.” Dote they would – Sera wouldn’t let him out of his sickbed, and Dagna was already designing plans for a prosthetic leg that would be ‘even better than the old one’. Neve offered to give him pointers on getting used to his new situation.

            Morrigan left before we even made it down from the palace. “You know I hate all the mawkish follow-up to grand events,” she said.

            “I know,” I said with a chuckle. “Thank you, anyway, for everything you did. We couldn't have done it without you. Not to be too mawkish.”

            She nodded, giving me a very brief, very awkward hug (it was like a coat rack coming at me). “I will see you again,” she said, and then, going bird, she took off into the sky.

            Kieran stayed, however. I think it was mostly because Cole and I were upset, but he was very quick to go off with Davrin when he asked for help with clearing debris from the streets, and I don’t think the blush Kieran was wearing the next time I saw him was due to exertion alone. It made me smile, even if I did have to repeatedly remind myself that yes, the little man was officially an adult, it was fine if he had a bit of a crush.

            Cole sat with me for as long as he could, but there were sad people all over the city in need of a little Compassion, so I sent him on his way with a hug. He promised to check in with Taash first, which I wholeheartedly agreed with.

            “Melancholy again?”

            “Well, if it isn’t Archon Pavus, come to grace my humble rooftop!” I gave Dorian the best bow I could while still sitting, giggling when he kneed me in the back before dropping down beside me. “Seriously, though, congrats. Tevinter needs someone to give them a good kick in the arse.”

            “I aim to do just that. Though Mae has promised to keep me from becoming a tyrant. Not that I’d need to get my hands dirty – Neve has introduced me to a very intense elf with an abiding hatred of slavers who I believe will be a useful ally. Once I’ve convinced him I’m a mage worth trusting, at least.”

            “Fenris is still kicking? Cool.”

            “Ah, you’re acquainted.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You know, if it wasn’t for the Bull –”

            “Oh yeah, don’t worry, I get it. You haven’t seen him in action yet, but believe me, it is a treat.”

            Dorian chuckled. Then, quietly, “Are you alright?”

            I let out a heavy sigh. “It’s for the best, really. If he’d stayed… Helping the Shadow Dragons for the last few weeks or not, someone would have taken a shot at him eventually. He’d have spent the rest of his life locked up in the Lighthouse, looking over his shoulder. As it is, he’s safe, and with a friend, and making up for what he did as best he can.” I shrugged.

            Nodding slowly, he said, “I was asking how you were feeling.”

            “I’m okay, I think,” I said, huffing a laugh. “Tired. Sad. But most people I care about survived, so. That’s something. I’m going to have to go south soon, check in with some people. Mia lost her husband in the fighting, and I think I owe her some support.” For the first time in a long time, the idea of seeing the Rutherfords in person didn’t freak me out. The thought of seeing three sets of Cullen’s eyes looking back at me didn’t upset me. I thought I might actually have liked it.

            “Very sweet. I always said you were a goddess, by the way.”

            Laughing harder that time, I said, “Well, I’d have to be something special to be a worthy best mate of yours, wouldn’t I?”

            “Naturally.”

            Snorting, I leaned against him. “I’m not a god, anyway. Just a mage. No one saw what happened up there but people I trust, so nobody needs to know. Now the lyrium’s worn off, I can go back to comfortable obscurity.”

            “The comfortable obscurity of the Herald of Andraste, ex-Inquisitor daughter of the Dread Wolf and Mythal who led the teams that killed one ancient magister and two elven gods, who’s also the lover of the First Talon of the Antivan Crows, aka the Demon of Vyrantium.”

            “Fuck off.”

            Dorian laughed. “Is it still there, though? All that power?”

            “Always has been, always will be,” I said. “Until now I think I’ve been working with Ellana’s magic, because she was apparently, like, notably powerful. Only tapped into mine if I wanted to do something special, you know, pulling out a trickle at a time or whatever? Didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but it’s what makes sense.” I clicked my tongue a few times, looking down. “I think Dad trained it into me. Back when he was first teaching me, at Haven, he kept saying I shouldn’t push myself, kept making me pull it back. I think he didn’t want me to know everything I could do.”

            “Much as I hate to admit it, he may have had a point,” Dorian sighed. “You wouldn’t have wanted people scrutinising you too closely before you were safely established.”

            “I know, I know. Anyway, now I’ve got access to the whole shebang. Not that it makes much difference for someone living a quiet life.”

            “It’s alright,” he said, putting an arm around me. “You know it’s there if you need it. That’s what matters.”

            “Maybe so.” Someone coughed softly behind us, and I looked back to find Lucanis and Krem standing together near the door to the stairs. “Oh, hi lads.”

            “Hello, your Worship,” Krem said. “Good to see you’re well.”

            “Same to you.”

            Nodding to Dorian, he added, “The Chief asked me to track down the new Archon.”

            “Always in demand,” Dorian said. He kissed my cheek and went on his way, and Lucanis took his place, wrapping his arm around my waist.

            We didn’t talk for a while, just sat there together. Eventually, I quietly said, "I'm sorry I pulled that thing with the dagger."

            Lucanis huffed a laugh. "I don't know why I didn't expect it, honestly. Of course you would have been willing to throw yourself on that knife." He kissed the side of my head. "Don't be sorry. You had a plan, and you didn't have time to communicate it. That's fine. Besides, if you'd gone into the Fade, I would have just followed you in, like your father and Felassan."

            "That might not have been so awful," I said, smiling.

            After a little more sitting in silence, he said, “What are your plans, now the gods have been dealt with?”

            “Don’t know, actually. God, the whole time I’ve been in Thedas I’ve had stuff to do, one thing after another. Stop Corypheus, close all the rifts, stop Solas – while rehabbing templars – stop the Evanuris. Now… I can’t think of anything. A decade of constantly having a checklist, now I can’t think of a single thing that requires my specific attention to fix. A nap is possibly in order. After we go home and have sex so hard we break all the furniture, obviously.”

            “Obviously,” he said, smiling, colour flooding his cheeks. “You could always retire. After you have a nap and then lots of sex, of course.”

            “Probably want to do the nap after the sex. But nah, I tried retiring once, didn’t agree with me. What are you going to do?”

            “Have sex so hard we break all the furniture, then have a nap. Then go back to the Crows.” His smile faded into something more thoughtful. “Illario used to say to me, ‘you’re a Crow, not a freedom fighter’, but lately I’ve been thinking, maybe we could… Well, not be freedom fighters, exactly, but at least pick and choose our jobs to try to do some good in this world, rather than continuing on as nothing more than killers for hire. We used to be more. That’s how the stories went, in any case. I’d like us to be that again. Teia’s already on board, and we’re sure between us we can talk Viago around, if only to spit in his father’s face. There’s a rogue Crow out there, too, notorious for taking down his corrupt brethren. Perhaps we could find him.”

            “Not Zevran Araini, by any chance?”

            “Do you know literally everyone?”

            “Starting to feel like it,” I giggled. “I only know him by correspondence, anyway.” I tactfully decided not to mention that I knew him by correspondence because Inquisition forces had once helped the guy evade some Crows who were hunting him. “Be nice to meet him in person, one day.”

            “I will see what I can arrange.” Looking thoughtful, he added, “All of us working together, we could change things.”

            I twisted to face him. “What if I asked you not to go back? What if I asked you to leave all that behind and just come live in the Lighthouse with me?”

            “Then I’d come and live in the Lighthouse.”

            “Just like that?”

            “Of course.” He took my hand and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. “Emma, I love you. Wherever you go, that’s where I’ll go too. You gave me my life back. It’s because of you that Spite and I get along without trying to tear each other apart. I’m a hired killer and an abomination, and you have never made me feel like either of those things was something you found concerning, even when people kept telling you they should be dealbreakers. Even when I kept telling you they should concern you. Even when Spite –”

            “Would never hurt Emma,” Spite broke in sullenly, adding in a sly tone, “Unless. She asks.”

            “I adore you,” Lucanis said over my storm of red-cheeked giggling. “Whatever you need of me, you have it.”

            I kissed him, then said, “Cool. I think I’ll like living in Antiva. Weather’s a bit hot for me, but the food more than makes up for it.”

            Blinking at me, he said, “I thought –”

            “I just wanted to know you weren’t going to dump me, now we’re not part of the same god-killing team anymore. I’m happy to join the Crows, help you with the reform stuff. I know I won’t really be a proper one –"    

            He cut me off with a kiss. “After that display up there, I think an exception could be made. So long as you’re willing to join under House Dellamorte. Speaking of which.” Rummaging in a pouch at his belt, he held out a silver ring set with a big-ass opal. Not big enough to be gaudy, but still, lorge. “Teia gave me this earlier. She said Caterina wanted you to have it. I was going to come up with a whole plan, take you out somewhere nice, but… Oh, of course I will still take you somewhere nice, when –”

            This time, I was the one cutting off his rambling, with another, deeper kiss, before I slipped the ring on. It was a little big for me, but whatever. That was such a minor problem after everything else we’d dealt with, I was almost glad of it. Perspective, you know?

            “I’ve got one condition,” I said grinning.

            “Name it.”

            “I get my own cape.”

            Lucanis laughed, resting his head against mine. “Done.”