And We Shall Rise

"When darkness comes

and swallows light

heed our words

and we shall rise."

—excerpt from The Ballad of Ayesleigh, 5:20 Exalted

Chapter 1

"Only the Word dispels the darkness upon us."

—Chant of Light, Verse Unknown

Leliana

9:30 Dragon

"What have you there?"

One thing Leliana had learned while traveling with Morrigan for such a long time was that Morrigan was curious. She suspected it was so because of how Morrigan had been raised—a lonely child, her only company the Korcari Wilds and Flemeth. People were a curiosity to her, curiosity in how they worked and how they felt in comparison to her. It made Morrigan entirely too observant, and never hesitant to voice her observations, especially if it suited to make another person uncomfortable.

Morrigan, Leliana had found, loved to make her feel uncomfortable, as she had just done. "It is nothing."

"And that is why you cling to it so tightly?"

Leliana looked down at the small vial tucked away in her hand, which none of the others had seen, not even when she'd filled it. Which meant of course Morrigan noticed. Morrigan had been right, however. Her hand held the vial tightly, lest she drop something of such import. "It is nothing to you."

"No? 'Tis powerful magic you hide in your hand, bard. It is of interest to me."

"I hold no magic, Morrigan, whatever you might think. Perhaps you see the remnants of my having been in the presence of the ashes of the Maker's Chosen." Leliana picked up her pace, hoping to pull ahead of the witch.

In a true expression of her interest, Morrigan matched Leliana's speed. "'Tis something more solid than your foolish belief. What do you hold?"

"A pinch of the most holy relic on Thedas. It is not magic you feel. It is the Maker's light, the Maker's hope and love."

"I think you believe me stupid if you expect me to fall for your vapid act of faith. What you hold now in your hand is magic. Unlike your faith, magic is real. The others may not feel it, but the magic rolls off it in waves. And here you walk, speaking of a prophet you burned and a god who has turned His back on you not once, but twice, instead of acknowledging the reality of what you hold—powerful magic. Open your eyes, or it will consume you."

Before Leliana could respond, there was a shift in the wind, and then Morrigan was gone, having taken to the skies in her raven form. Leliana dreaded the apostate's return, when she would surely inform the others of what Leliana had taken. Then Morrigan surprised her.

She told no one.

9:32 Dragon

Though Mother Dorothea had expressed the belief to Leliana that Wynne could be swayed to their cause, she had not mentioned the difficulty of the task.

Wynne was not easily swayed. Nor was she easily convinced, persuaded, coaxed, cajoled, or coerced. She did not receive Mother Dorothea's invitation well, and Leliana's appearance only made the situation exponentially more difficult.

"You." Wynne jabbed a finger in her direction. "What you have done—"

"I followed the Maker's will, as best I could," said Leliana. Though she again fervently believed in the truth of her mission, and she was a trained bard, her words did little to convey her fervor. The explanation fell flat.

For Wynne, the explanation fell so flat it shattered. "Then I would have to question your interpretation of what you believe the Maker said to you, to do such reprehensible things to people whom you named friend." Indicating her readiness to leave, her eyes flicked more than once to the closed door of Grand Cleric Philippa's borrowed study.

"It is the only explanation I have. It was not done to cause pain, even though it did."

"It certainly did. You hurt every single one of us with your grand ploy. Most of all, you hurt Alistair." Wynne held Leliana's gaze, her narrowed eyes containing both hurt and accusation. "During the Blight, I had come to know Alistair as a fine lad, skilled in battle, but quite inexperienced when it came to affairs of the heart. I never wanted to see him—or any of you—get hurt. As I watched, his relationship with you blossomed, and I had come to believe there was nothing I needed to be concerned over. I had believed you to be sincere and guileless; that you had opened your heart to him as much as he had to you. When you died—when we all had believed you died—it crushed him."

"It changed him, yes? For the better." Though, Leliana often wished that Alistair's shift in outlook hadn't come at such a great expense.

For a moment, Wynne looked to object, her mouth even opening to deliver her objection. Then she pressed her lips into a firm, disapproving line before she spoke again. "Yes, it did. The experience forged him into who he is today, his emotions battle-hardened and his sense of self secure. But it took a lot of pain to put him through that growth, and you were the one to hurt him."

"Not every plan the Maker has for us to walk is guaranteed to be empty of pain. Andraste is merely one example, as is Archon Hessarian, Disciple Havard, or perhaps even Maferath. Without his betrayal, Andraste never would have fulfilled her purpose."

"So you compare yourself Maferath?"

"If I am, I have yet to be forgiven, as he was."

The accusation in Wynne's eyes lessened, and her expression became more thoughtful. "Maferath's forgiveness was granted in the Canticle of Silence—a Dissonant Verse, and thus stricken from Chantry record."

"Yet, it is a verse each one of us knows," Dorothea said quietly. When Wynne gave her a startled look, Dorothea answered with a small smile. Then she asked, "You show scholarship of the Chant, even the Dissonant Verses. Do you believe?"

"I do, to some extent." Suspicion returned to Wynne's face. "Why do you ask?"

"From record, it is easy to see you are a good person—"

"If you think flattery will get you anywhere—"

"I am not going in the direction you believe I am, Senior Enchanter. I do not seek to flatter you. What I want to know is why you do the good works you do. If you would be so kind as to tell me, why do you?"

At first, Wynne's initial silence made Leliana believe she would not answer.

And then Wynne said, "Because I enjoy it. I enjoy teaching others and helping them. I do not seek recognition or approval from my peers, or a distant god." The last was a point all on its own, and her eyes flung it at the two representatives of the Chantry. "Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

Dorothea nodded. "It does."

"Good." Wynne gave a nod of her own, and turned to Leliana. "Now I wish to satisfy a curiosity of my own. Help me to understand why I should even contemplate helping you or anyone or anything else to do with you, considering what you have done."

It was a valid question, and yet Leliana struggled to find a suitable answer. Everything she thought of seemed trite, and would fall as flatly as her answer from before. Wynne was no fool, however, and would see through dishonesty from her after all that had happened. "We wish to change the world."

To Leliana's surprise, Wynne chuckled. "You don't envision anything small, do you, child? Tell me, how would you change it?"

"Things as they are... they are not fair." Then Leliana struggled for the right words to describe what she felt in her heart, what she saw in their future—should she be able to help it come to fruition.

Dorothea saw her stumble, and offered her help by taking up what Leliana could not. "The magi are the Maker's children as much as any of us are," Dorothea said to Wynne. "Yet, they are not treated so by the very people who claim to spread the Maker's word, who claim to spread the Maker's love and guidance. If the Chantry does not adhere to the Maker's precepts, the Chant that will one day spread to the four corners of the world will not be sung correctly, and He will not return."

"So it is not about the dignity of the magi at all?"

"Of course it is. The very act of giving mages the dignity deserved of any of the Maker's creations will change the world all on its own."

"How will this change be accomplished, Your Reverence?"

Wynne's use of Dorothea's title allowed Leliana to hope that she had been swayed. It was the first time in the entire negotiation—for this was no mere conversation—that Wynne had used it.

"By following a plan that has been in place for decades," Dorothea said without hesitation. "There will be a day when we will have need of a spirit healer who is wise and can provide others with guidance. We believe that to be you, Senior Enchanter. When the time comes, Seeker Leliana will find you, and then the two of you will work together to bring about the change we all seek."

"If I were to agree, I could not depart immediately."

Dorothea shook her head. "No need. There is a journey Leliana must take first, and you have your own duties to attend, Senior Enchanter. We have all heard the new Theirin heir will be born soon, and that you have been asked to help with the delivery."

Wynne nodded before she looked at Leliana. "How long?"

"I am not sure. Weeks, perhaps months. One must protect their friends, even when they will not protect themselves. I will return after it is finished, and we will begin our work then."

Wynne studied Leliana for a while, taking a measure for standards to which Leliana was not privy. Yet, Leliana did not look away, for if she were to come up short in Wynne's estimation, she would come up short for everything she was.

Then Wynne said, "I will help."

That Leliana did not sigh out loud with relief was a credit to her training as a bard, but it was a close thing.

The next morning, Leliana began her trip across Ferelden to the market outside Orzammar's gates. Once there, it took time, gold, and other efforts she was not fond of, but the arrangements were made. Surface dwarves who still considered themselves miners—for they knew no other trade—had been convinced to dig near an unstable portion of the steep mountainsides bordering Gherlen's Pass. The Carta had been convinced to temporarily engage in the trade of highwaymen, to which they easily took, along Gherlen's Pass. For a few days, they preyed upon unsuspecting carriages, relieving them of cargo before allowing them to continue to Orlais, albeit with a lightened load. On a day when Leliana had infiltrated the mining camp, the Carta stopped a carriage bearing the heraldry of Redcliffe. The Carta took the gold, the jewels, and the babe inside. Above the pass, directly above the halted carriage in particular, mining had not ceased. There was an unfortunate misjudgment from an unduly influenced miner, the results of which tumbled down the mountainside in a rush of rocks and boulders. Aside from the abducted babe, none survived.

Shortly thereafter, the Carta gave up their new line of work, and the illegal mining practice ceased. The babe was brought to King Bhelen, along with bodies pulled from the rockslide and the story of how the babe had been found nearby. Messages were sent out, the human Chantry contacted, and investigators sent back to identify the dead. Once they had, another message was sent to Denerim, to inform Ferelden's king of the deaths of subjects that had almost become former subjects.

Leliana would never tell Alistair what had truly happened. She knew he would suspect, but she would never confirm it. It was better for him not to know for sure.

Weeks later, after another round of messages, the birth of a royal heir, and a long overdue wedding, Leliana met Wynne outside Denerim. They had two horses and supplies to last for weeks, if necessary. What they did not have was camaraderie, for Leliana's deeds during the Blight had destroyed what ties they had formed back then. For days, they engaged in no real conversations, riding and camping with a silence so immense it seemed its own person.

Silence had never been something Leliana tolerated well outside the walls of a chantry.

"The Chantry ceremony for Malcolm and Líadan was lovely, no?"

Though she did not divert her gaze from the road ahead, Wynne asked, "You were there?"

"Hidden, yes, but I wanted to see. They were my friends, Wynne, though they will never view me as such again."

Wynne slowly turned and peered at her for a moment. "You were the one who arranged for the dispensation, weren't you?"

"It was Revered Mother Dorothea's work."

"Brought to her attention by you."

"Perhaps." Not wanting to return to the oppressive silence, Leliana kept talking, but changed the subject. "How is the new prince?"

"Do you truly wish to hear the answer?" asked Wynne. "Or are you punishing yourself by listening to what you might have had?"

Leliana rocked a little in the saddle, caught off guard by the painfully accurate observation. "A… little of both."

"He is a beautiful boy."

It was a kindness that Wynne said nothing more about him, or about the boy's parents. It was Leliana who kept the silence, after that.

"Where are we going?" Wynne asked the next morning. "I had thought we would go to Orlais."

"We are. It is not healthy for me to stay in Ferelden, yet I have one final task to complete before I leave, possibly for good."

"And just what is this task?"

Leliana tilted her head as she searched for the right way to describe it. Then it came to her, an idea from heart to mind. "A pilgrimage."

The message from long ago had instructed Leliana to bury the ashes, and she had—for both the plan the message referred to, and the ashes she'd held since their visit to the Frostbacks. Leaving Ferelden as she was, she needed to bring them with her, and to do that, she needed to find them. If she left them, they stood the chance of falling into the hands of a freeholder plowing his field, or a young child digging for whatever it was children dug for. If a person such as those found the vial, they wouldn't know what they held, and they would cast them away. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen.

The ashes were important, after all.

The detour added a more than a week's travel to their trip, taking the West Road to the Imperial Highway before cutting south just after Redcliffe. When they passed the clearing the army had used as a camp after Leliana's last battle, she did not look at it. It was part of her past that she would not regret, not any longer. To look at it now would only invite regret to return, and so she did not look. Wynne said nothing, and for that, Leliana was grateful. Only when they stepped into the fallow field north of Honnleath did Wynne break her silence.

"This is the field where the majority of the Battle of Honnleath took place," she said.

"I know," said Leliana.

Wynne let out a huff, but said nothing more as she followed the bard to the opposite side of the field. At the base of an oak tree, a large black rock poked from the ground. There, the ashes had been buried, between rock and tree. Leliana fell to her knees and set to digging with the small shovel she'd borrowed from a freeholder's barn. This task was about Andraste, so the transgression of stealing would be forgiven.

It didn't take long until Leliana uncovered the wooden box that held a leather pouch, which, in turn, held the vial of ashes. She opened the box.

There it rested. A portion of the ashes of the Maker's bride, Andraste.

Wynne, who had been gazing out at the field where so many had died, whipped around as Leliana lifted the pouch from the box. "Those are the ashes," she said, her voice hard with accusation. "They should be returned to their resting place."

Leliana hadn't expected Wynne to be so against her possessing the ashes. Nor did she look forward to a trip into the Frostbacks unless it was through Gherlen's Pass. "I do not know if—"

"You had no right to take them."

"I believe I had more right to them than Arl Eamon." As Wynne seemed to consider it, Leliana stood up. "They should not have been used for a man who ended up committing treason."

"In the light of recent events, I agree they were wasted on him. Perhaps no one had a right to take them."

Leliana looked Wynne directly in the eyes, unwilling to back down after all their trials. "We all went through the gauntlet, Wynne, not just Alistair. We all faced the challenges presented, and we were all allowed access to Andraste's ashes. I took a pinch, as we were all told we could. Nothing more."

Wynne did not look convinced. "You are equivocating. Those ashes belong in their rightful place, not carried about in some common pouch. They hold too much power for any one of us to handle. The temple was absolutely rife with strong magic, and the same magic resides in those ashes you hold. You should see them returned."

While Leliana wasn't certain that Wynne's demand was the best path for them to take, she did want to see if they could once again find the resting place of the Maker's bride. "Will you accompany me?"

"I would be honored to visit Her resting place again."

They left the shovel and empty hole behind. The box they burned that night in their campfire.

At the top of the mountain, past the abandoned village of Haven, they found only a mountaintop: bleak and cold, the sky shrouded in clouds, bare grey tips of rocks breaking through the blanket of snow. There was nothing there for them, as if there had never been.

"Perhaps I should scatter them," said Leliana. She held her voice to just beyond a whisper, as if they risked being hunted if they spoke any louder.

"No. If the temple has disappeared, then there must be some meaning to your still having the ashes you took." Wynne didn't look at Leliana. Instead, she focused her gaze on where the temple had once been, if they had not collectively imagined it. "You are their guardian, but for what purpose, it is not ours to know."

"We should leave." Leliana felt compelled to do so, rushed, as if danger waited for them if they dallied any longer. "Mother Dorothea waits for us. She has questions to which we do not know the answers, and so she wants them investigated."

"What sort of questions?"

"She would like to see if Tranquility can be reversed. She wants to know if Tranquility can be done in such a way that it does not rob a mage of their mind and soul."

Wynne abruptly turned from the missing temple to the woman at her side. "You have whatever aid I can provide."

Leliana nodded. "Then we go."

As they descended, Leliana thought she heard the low flap of high dragon's wings. She did not look back. There was nothing for her there.

9:38 Dragon

Once she had the ashes, Leliana did not return to Ferelden for a long time. Alistair had made it clear she was not welcome there, as threats of death often did. She did not wish to force him to kill her, or be forced to kill him, so she stayed away. Wynne split her time between doing the Divine's work with researching Tranquility, and with being the sometimes court healer for the King of Ferelden. Because Alistair, his family, and his advisors did not know of Wynne's other work, she remained in their good graces. The Fereldan throne and Ferelden in general kept a healthy distrust of the Chantry as a whole, given the events that had occurred years earlier.

Yet the Chantry, for the time being, was not concerned about Ferelden. Dorothea, who had risen to the office of the Divine and taken the ruling name of Justinia V, had summoned Leliana to investigate a brewing threat. The situation, as it appeared, threatened not only the Free Marches, but perhaps all of Thedas.

"Blights aside," said Justinia as she paced in her study—as a rule, Justinia did not pace, for it showed anxiety, and so Leliana was alarmed, "the situation in Kirkwall is the most dire threat to Thedas since the Qunari invasion. If the burning coals of the situation are not dampened, it will soon burst into a flame that no one will be able to stop. It will become worse for the mages, not better, no matter what we have tried to do and what we plan to do. These 'Resolutionists' threaten everyone. Not just mages, not just templars, not just the Chantry. If they continue their acts of terror, which have only been small, thus far, I will not be able to fix what is so broken in our beloved Chantry."

"What would you have me do, Most Holy?" asked Leliana.

"You are my left hand, child. Find out what these Resolutionists mean to do, and what they want. Will they always respond with escalations of violence no matter what the negotiation? Or are they willing to discuss matters like civilized people? If they will only act with violence in order to bring forth their changes, and we cannot find the leaders driving them, then the Chantry may have to march upon Kirkwall. If not, I fear for what the Resolutionists will do to the city and its inhabitants. Or what the city might do to its mages, if the threats against Grand Cleric Elthina's life are carried out."

"There have been threats to Her Grace?"

Justinia nodded. "It took me by surprise, as well, given how beloved Elthina is to her people. Yet, these Resolutionist mages may not view her neutrality as a desired trait. If you believe she is in true danger, please extend our protection to her."

"Is there anything else I can do?" Though the Resolutionists were the most physically threatening of Kirkwall's problems, they were not the only ones. There were multiple sides in the heated, tangled situation in the city-state.

"Yes." Justinia settled herself in the chair she kept next to the window overlooking the Grand Cathedral's courtyard. Telling Leliana of her mission seemed to have relieved her somewhat. "You know as well as I do that Elthina's neutrality has to do with the issues between Knight-Commander Meredith and First Enchanter Orsino. While Meredith closes ranks and carries out harsher sanctions on the Circle in the Gallows, Orsino campaigns for relaxing those restrictions. Meanwhile, there are troubling reports of templar misbehavior and terrible treatment of the mages, and yet other reports of apostates and even Circle mages resorting to blood magic and turning into abominations. While it is easy to see a mage who has become an abomination, it is much harder to see what templars have become abominations with their behaviors. The templars can take care of the problematic maleficarum and abominations, but the magi cannot do anything with the irresponsible templars."

A frown briefly marring her face, Justinia stood and stepped over to her desk. As Leliana watched, the Divine opened a slim drawer and removed an envelope. Only after she'd handed it to Leliana did she speak again. "One templar there sent me a peculiar letter, outlining a peculiar—and horrific—so-called solution to the problem of what he perceives as uncontrollable mages. His solution is reprehensible, and I would like you to bring him my answer. While you are there, if you determine that he will not heed my telling him no, and to stop, then you will stop Ser Alrik by any means necessary."

"Yes, Most Holy. I will do as you ask."

"Then the Maker watch over you as you carry out His work."

Kirkwall astonished Leliana with its hidden darkness. In the Gallows, she found many abominable acts carried out not by abominations, but by templars, as Justinia had mentioned. She observed for days, searching out the source of the darkness. While Knight-Commander Meredith was on the far side of righteous, she still carried some of the Maker's light with her work. What was happening was darker, more frightening, and resulted in a larger number of Tranquil mages than should have been in a Circle of Kirkwall's size.

The source turned out to be the templar Justinia had sent Leliana to confront.

In the shadows of his modestly-sized room, Leliana waited for Alrik to return from his day's duty. Return he did, an hour after curfew, smelling of blood, with his face set in a very much self-satisfied way. Once he had shed his armor and placed it on his armor stand, Leliana revealed herself.

To his credit, he did not startle. "Who are you? What are you doing in my chambers?" His hand reached for the grip of his Sword of Mercy as he spoke.

Leliana leapt and knocked his hand away before his fingers could close on it. Then she twisted his arm behind his back and kicked him downward. Before he could get to his feet, Leliana had a dagger to his throat. "I am the left hand of the Divine. I believe you sent a letter to her some months ago."

"Yes! I did!" Alrik frowned at the dagger. "Is this a test of my fortitude? I assure you, my solution was sincere in how I presented it. The number of mages in the Free Marches has doubled in the past three years alone, and they're past controlling using any regular means. Tranquility for all would mean they would be pacified and peaceful, retain their usefulness, and do what they're told. We'll keep their souls from the Void and rescue them from their sins. Best of all, once they're Tranquil, they'll do anything you ask. Anything." His eyes drifted once more to the dagger that had yet to leave his throat, and then back up at Leliana. "Did Her Perfection give you an answer to my message?"

"She did."

His body was found the next day in Kirkwall's harbor, another victim of walking drunk near the docks. Drowning was not uncommon in Lowtown, either by accident or by design.

No one mourned his loss.

Leliana continued to watch Kirkwall's internal workings. Templar brutality had been momentarily dulled, but she well knew there would be another to take Alrik's place, in time. Meredith continued to issue increasingly draconian measures that were met with grumbles from reasonable templars, and many complaints from residents of Kirkwall's Circle. The complaints, for the most part, were valid. While the restrictions hadn't yet achieved the level of abuse, they were certainly the tightest restrictions on Thedas. Even mages of the White Spire in Val Royeaux had more freedoms. Just barely, but a little more.

In marketplaces, and in some less savory places in the city, Leliana caught rumors of apostate attacks on patrolling templars. Then she heard more rumors, of apostates attacking people they believed to be an agent of the Divine. Those unfortunate souls had been victims of Leliana's having started rumors of herself. The vague description meant the net the Resolutionists cast was too large, and caught too many innocents in its violent hold.

She could not find a leader. She searched from Hightown and even into Darktown, but all she found were apostates who helped others. There was the Darktown healer, there was the apostate protecting orphans in Lowtown, and another apostate who made potions and poultices for those who needed them. The work of the Resolutionists was everywhere one looked, but the Resolutionists themselves seemed exist nowhere, except in shadow.

The sole cure for Kirkwall's illness would be to clean it out entirely, before the violence spread from the city to the greater Free Marches, and from the Free Marches to the rest of Thedas. If the mages rebelled before Justinia had the chance to fix what had long been broken, the Chantry would shatter, the templars and Seekers along with it, and many countries would follow.

She heard enough talk of plots against Elthina, even as other Kirkwallers proclaimed their adoration for their Grand Cleric. In light, to most, Elthina was beloved to her flock. To others, to mages who felt she had not done enough to curb the likes of Alrik, or to keep Meredith from assuming the responsibilities of the viscountcy, Elthina was a threat who needed to be neutralized to bring about change.

Leliana visited Elthina herself, late in the night, as Elthina read in the chantry's vast library. Unlike with Alrik, Leliana allowed herself to be heard as she shut the door and approached the older woman sitting at a table.

"I had wondered how long it would take for Her Perfection to send one of hers to see me," Elthina said quietly, before she even looked up. She smiled softly at Leliana's raised eyebrow. "None of ours here walk quite the same way as an agent of the Divine. Perhaps Sebastian did, when he was here, but no longer." Elthina crossed her legs and folded her hands over her knees. "I take it you have been observing Kirkwall for some time?"

"I have, Your Grace."

"And you have found a city in peril?"

"Its people in peril, in the very least. I could not find the source of the violent unrest, yet how they chose to react to my presence condemns them, and it may condemn all of Kirkwall."

"So you could not find the leader of the Resolutionists?"

"No, Your Grace."

Elthina sighed: a soft, sad sound. "I had hoped you would. I wish to speak with them, to see what it is they would like us to do."

"They want freedom for all mages, at any cost. They have engaged in acts of terrorism and sabotage throughout Thedas, and will not stop until they have destroyed all that we know in the name of freedom. Unless mages are freed to rule themselves, they have declared that they will show every person in Thedas how little protection the Circle offers them."

"In some cases, they are right. Perhaps, sometimes, in Kirkwall's own Circle. I heard about Ser Alrik. Your work, I presume?"

"The Maker's work."

Elthina let out a huff of slight amusement; recognition of what Leliana had said and not said. Then she returned to serious matters regarding her role in the plight of the magi. "How can I work with them if they will not see me? Not speak with me?"

Leliana knelt in front of the Grand Cleric, taking her hands in her own. "Your Grace, they wish to see you dead. They believe you a wall impeding them from their mission. They will not barter with you. They will not deal. They will not beg. They will not ask. They will merely move you out of their way by sending you to the Maker's side. You must leave, Your Grace. There is safe refuge for you at the Grand Cathedral."

"I cannot leave my people, not now, of all times. No matter how justified the fear of what will come might be, it is no excuse to try saving my own neck by abandoning those whom it is my responsibility to shepherd. I will stay." Elthina removed her hands from Leliana's, and brushed her hand over Leliana's hair, as if comforting a child. "The Maker will watch over me. Do not fear, child. There is no greater devotion than to lay one's life at the Maker's feet. He will see me through this. He will see all of us through this."

"I will let the Divine know of your choice," Leliana said as she rose to her feet. "And I will pray for you."

"Pray for Kirkwall. Her people need Andraste's guidance far more than I."

The prayers would go unanswered.