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The pain woke Ren Trevelyan in the middle of the night, shooting out from the center of her left palm and stabbing down through her fingers. She held her breath, keeping her body as still as possible, as she stretched out her fingers in a vain attempt to alleviate the pain.
After a little while it subsided, the green sparks flying up from the mark in the center of her palm disappearing, and she let her hand, and then her body, relax. The quiet breathing next to her told her that she hadn't awakened the Iron Bull, which she was glad of. This stabbing pain in her hand had occurred four or five times in the last few months, always unexpectedly. Ren was sure it would pass; and if it didn't, there would be time to deal with it then. Telling the Iron Bull now would only worry him.
She shifted to her side, listening to the wind whistling around their little round clifftop house, and the waves crashing against the rocks far below at the base of the cliff, letting the familiar and well-loved sounds lull her to sleep.
They'd had nearly two years here, filling their days with swimming and hunting and fishing and running the Iron Bull's mercenary company, the Chargers … although his second-in-command, Krem, did most of the grunt work there.
Far to the south of them, the Inquisition was coming along nicely under the leadership of Inquisitor Robert Morris, but Ren no longer worked for the organization she had formerly commanded. The last time, the trip into the Deep Roads after the great Titan who was creating earthquakes all along the coast, had been enough for her, and she had let Morris know as much in no uncertain terms when they had finally reached the surface again. Since then, the occasional request for assistance arrived by raven and was ignored, and Ren went on about her life peacefully.
Although recently there had been more ravens. After the sixth one in a week, Ren had caved enough to read the note—a request for her attendance at a Conclave in Orlais. Since her lack of skill at politics was the reason she had stepped down from the post of Inquisitor in the first place, Ren hardly saw what they needed her for. Morris was better than she could ever have hoped to be when it came to dealing with foreign heads of state.
Content with her decision, she drifted off to sleep.
Next to her, the Iron Bull's single eye opened, and he looked to his right—the movement awkward because his wide horns kept him from turning his head too far—with concern. His kadan, his heart, was asleep again, for which he was grateful. The last time her hand had spasmed, she'd been awake for hours.
He thought he understood why she was keeping it from him; she was a woman who valued her independence and was stubborn as the day was long, to boot. But the mark on her hand, the Anchor that could open and close the Fade, was some weird shit, and anything unusual related to it freaked the Iron Bull out.
On his last trip to Denerim, he had done some discreet reading up on it, and had sent messages to some old friends, asking for what they knew. But unfortunately, the one who knew the most, the strange elf Solas, was long gone. He had disappeared two years ago when Corypheus was dead, and hadn't been heard of since. Some really damned scary people had looked for him very hard, and had no luck, which said to the Iron Bull that if they ever heard from Solas again, it would be because he wanted to show up.
He sighed softly, not wanting to wake Morvoren again. She preferred the shortened form of her name, but he had been captivated by the music of it since before he had ever met her. It meant "mermaid", and he had a thousand memories of her in the water, her body sliding against his. She truly was his mermaid, his enchanted creature come from the depths. It had been hard to reconcile the man who loved her and the man who was a devoted follower of the Qun, and he still struggled to meld the southern and northern halves of his personality together, but all in all he was happy with his choice, happy with her … and no more eager than she was to answer the call from Morris and rejoin the Inquisition. Still … if her hand kept sparking like that …
No point worrying about it again tonight, he told himself, and he allowed sleep to close in on him.
A week later, Ren was climbing the ladder up to their aerie when she saw a raven flutter past. Gritting her teeth at Morris's persistence, she moved faster, wanting to catch the raven before the Iron Bull saw it.
He was standing at the door of the cabin, bird in hand, when she reached it. "Oh. Hey, kadan."
In his hand she could see the message from the Inquisition, and she hastened to try to explain. "I know I should have told you they were trying to reach me, it's just … I'm done with that, well, we are, and—" She stopped talking as she realized that he wasn't looking accusatory, or even curious. Instead, the expression on his face was almost … sheepish. "But you already knew that."
"Uh … yeah."
Ren groaned. "You didn't tell him we'd go, did you?" If possible, his expression became even more sheepish. It would have been adorable if she wasn't annoyed with him. "Why did you tell him we'd go to Orlais? Do you remember everything that happened the last time we were in Halamshiral?"
"I know, I know, but this Conclave is a big deal. Even Krem thought we should go."
"You talked to Krem?!"
"Actually, he came to me. The Inquisitor wanted him and Flissa to talk you into it."
"He did?" Morris had never gone that far before. "This Conclave is that important?"
The Iron Bull nodded. "Yeah, I guess it is. He's got everyone, far as I can tell. Cassandra, Varric, Cole—he even found Sera."
Ren frowned. "That sounds good—but why? What does he need us for?"
"I don't know as much as I would have before I left the Qun, but I hear that Ferelden wants to shut down the Inquisition altogether—and Orlais wants to take it over."
"They can't do that! Either of them," Ren flared. "Where were they when Corypheus needed killing? Where were they when I put down the rebellion in the Hinterlands and got the Venatori out of the Western Approach? I do all their dirty work for them and this is the thanks I get?"
The Iron Bull nodded slowly, grinning at her indignation. "And that's why I told Morris we would go." Then the grin faded from his face. He let go of the bird, who fluttered up to the top of the doorjamb, and came toward her, reaching for her left hand. He turned it gently over, holding it in both of his. "And this."
She looked up into his eye, seeing all the concern there that she had been hoping to avoid. "I didn't want to worry you."
"I know, kadan."
"But apparently I can't hide anything from you."
"Not something that wakes you up in pain in the middle of the night," he agreed.
She tried to pull her hand out of his grasp. "It'll be fine."
"Yeah? How do you know?"
"I'm sure it'll be fine."
He rolled his eye at that non-response. "I'll feel better if I can have someone look at it."
"Who? The only person who knew anything about it is long gone."
The Iron Bull looked worried. "I know."
"You've been looking for him?"
"Leliana has, and so has Fairbanks." Fairbanks had taken over as Inquisition spymaster when Leliana became the Divine. "Neither of them has found any sign of him—or any sign he ever existed. It's like he came out of nowhere."
"The Dalish aren't well documented, and they don't like talking to humans. He probably was an outcast from one of their clans that they don't want to admit to, or have written out of their memories."
"That's dwarves."
"Humans have been known to cut people out of their lives and their wills, too," she reminded him, thinking of her own father, who had disowned her completely when she left the Inquisition. It hadn't been much of a loss, really—they'd never had a good relationship. "It stands to reason the Dalish have something similar. Even they must have black sheep occasionally."
"Good point. I'll ask Dalish." One of the Chargers, a former apostate now avowed mage, Dalish ran many of the group's operations now that both Krem and the Iron Bull were semi-retired.
"Isn't she still in Nevarra?"
"They're meeting us at the Council. I thought we'd need the backup, and besides, they wanted to go." He smiled. "I guess they miss the old days, too."
Ren flushed slightly. "I don't really miss the old days."
"No, but you miss our friends, and so do I, and for that reason alone, we're going." He grinned widely. "Besides, I want to see Leliana in that hat."
It was a ridiculous hat, and would not mesh well with the severity of the woman they had known as the Nightingale, the Inquisition's spymaster. Ren laughed, conceding victory to him. "Fine, we'll go." She shook her head at him. "Who would have thought the Iron Bull would be advocating attendance at a boring set of meetings where people are going to yammer on all day?"
"I'm hoping there'll be some fighting to do." At her skeptical look, he raised his eyebrow. "What? It could happen. Remember the last time we were at Halamshiral? We got in a fair amount of fighting."
"Did we? I can't seem to recall. I was too dazzled by how you looked in that jacket. You going to wear it again?"
"Can't. Last time I tried it on you ripped it off me—with your teeth."
"Oh. Yeah." Ren vividly recalled. The wool hadn't tasted good, but she'd been too frenzied to have him naked to bother using her hands. She thought one of the buttons was still lodged in a floorboard somewhere. Warmed by the memory, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed him, hard.
Things would have heated up from there, but the raven, still perched above the door, cawed impatiently. The Iron Bull lifted his head and glared at the bird. "Fine. Bossy bird," he grumbled. "Must have been one of Leliana's."
He went into the cabin and wrote the note officially agreeing to attend the Council, tucking it into the tiny case on the bird's leg, and the bird flew off.
Turning back to his kadan, he growled, "Now, where were we?"
And she proceeded to show him. Thoroughly.