Summary: Setting camp in the Brecillian forest brings both trial and torment to Cyna Mahariel, but there is also relief and freedom offered at that familiar site where it all began so many long months earlier. On the spot marked with old, withered promises, she offers new, yet more conservative pledges to the man who brought her soul out of the darkness a fated encounter with the Eluvian left her in.

A/N: A companion piece to Heart of the Huntress. It is not necessary to be familiar with that piece to grasp this one, though there are some specific references from that piece that may not be quite as clear.

Disclaimer: Dragon Age belongs to Bioware, I'm only playing with their universe. I do not own the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. I do it for the love of the game, the world, and the characters; and because they stuck with me long after I turned the game off (and back on, and off, ad infinitum).

Keening Moon

-1-

Cyna stood at the edge of the water, staring at the flowering tree that was now barren. Without realizing it she had instructed her band of companions and friends to make camp near the place it had all started. Without knowing what lurked in the darkness beneath them, she instructed them to make camp, where they would be ambushed. Her inattentiveness gnawed at her but it was no match for the burning searing truth that was ripping through her very soul.

With some presence of mind, she had ordered them to pull up camp as swiftly as could be managed, while she slipped into the kind shadowy embrace of the Brecillian Forest. She had found the place more easily than she thought she might. Without consideration for the state of her boots, she traversed the knee-deep waters more loudly than she typically would.

Her eyes softened, filling with tears as she found the freshest markings on the bark. The smile on her lips made her heart ache as her fingers traced the elvish symbols. Tamlen had chosen the symbols of their vallaslin, rather than something more identifiable to mark their union, their promise. She could still see the triumphant pleased grin on his face when he'd placed their pledge alongside so many others.

As she collapsed to her knees, strong arms caught her. Cyna Mahariel turned her face toward him. Concerned darkened his usually mirthful eyes, as he embraced her.

"Warden?" he whispered in that lyric Antivan lilt. She made no response. "Are you well?"

She thought about it longer than she should. Then shook her head. "No. I fear I am not," she admitted. Leaning forward, her hand still pressed to the trunk of the tree, she let her head fall forward as she muttered, "And I fear I may never be."

Zevran Arainai was an unlikely confidante. He had tried to kill her when they first met, but there was something in his eyes that he reminded her of Tamlen, so she spared him his indiscretion. They became friends quickly. Though he was not raised among the Dalish, he seemed to understand Cyna, and held her in high esteem, as she did him. Despite their closeness, he had maintained their relationship platonically despite his expressed desire.

In her heart, she had known that Tamlen was not dead, she felt that he was not lost completely, as he was now. The wail that finally broke through the grief choking her caused Zevran to tighten his embrace.

-2-

It was a sound that held a note of the familiar. There were few times in his life when his heart had made that sound. The pain, grief, loss-all were clear in the screeching wail that lifted the Warden's face to the bright moon. Zevran gritted his teeth against the memories it stirred in him and he held tighter to the woman he'd come to care more for than he thought he was capable of.

Mahariel had surprised him at every turn. Allowing him to live was one thing, but to take the assassin hired to kill you into your camp, then to befriend the same. She'd entranced him slowly but surely weaving herself into his heart, until all at once Zevran had seemed to awaken to the fact that he was in love with her.

Cyna earned his trust and trusted him in return. She treated him as she did the other men who travelled with her. Though there was one consideration that was his alone, her confidence. She spoke with him freely, sharing of her life, her thoughts, bearing herself to him. Those were the things that endeared her to him; that was the trust that he cherished most.

"Cyna," he whispered against her ear, as she leaned her head against his shoulder as she bayed at the moon.

Her body tensed, nails digging into the bark of the tree. She rose back to a kneeling position and he moved with her. The keening calmed, but sobs now rocked her body. Zevran dared remove one arm from around her, and he ran his hand along her arm until his hand lay over hers that gripped the tree.

"Loose the tree, Mahariel. I will not let you go."

Her face turned to his. Green eyes bright with tears searched his. "Come, my dear … Warden," he soothed afraid to say too much or not enough.

Her fingers laced with his and he breathed a sigh of relief into her dark hair as he wrapped his arm back around her. They knelt there like that for some time, her eyes on the moon, his face buried in her neck as she grieved. Sorrow shook her from time to time, and when it did he held her more tightly, sometimes kissing her shoulder softly.

When she turned toward him again, her assassin looked at her with cloudy grey eyes. Then he pressed his forehead to hers and squeezed her again.

"Speak to me," he guided.

They shifted. He sat near enough to her that his arms could be back around her in an instant if she needed it. Cyna kept tight hold of his hand feeling a need for that sense of physical connection with her treasured friend.

"I …" She closed her eyes and tried to fight the welling emotion for a moment. "Tamlen," she breathed, face turned to the moon again.

Zevran leaned forward, his arm pulling her a little closer as he pressed his warm lips to her shoulder. "He was … ?"

"Yes." Her response was clipped. Then she looked over at him. "Like Hespith in the Deep Roads. I killed him."

Zevran winced. She had told him of Tamlen-what he meant to her, their bonding, the closeness they'd shared their whole lives. He was the only person alive besides herself who knew of it. "I am …" He stopped himself from apologizing. "There are no words I can offer in good conscience."

Her gaze was intense until it turned skyward again. "He released me from our promise," she stuttered at the moon, the tears on her cheeks drying in the softly perfumed night breezes. "Swore his love would never end, but that he was no longer the man he was. He had died in that ruin, though his body remained, little else did."

Zevran inched closer to her, never letting go, as he had promised; his thumb traced swooping patterns over the back of her hand.

"Tamlen asked me to release him as well." Mahariel was looking at him.

She waited for him to see something. Arainai was uncertain. His consideration for her outstripped anything he had ever considered. The whores where he had grown up pretended at love; he himself had pretended it on occasion. Once he even thought he knew it, with Rinna, but what he experienced with Mahariel was something altogether different.

Glancing down at their hands he considered it all. Everyone his entire life treated him like the son of a whore he was. Some looked at him with fear because of his association with the crows. Some looked at him with disgust for being born an elf. Cyna only ever cast a gaze of acceptance in his direction. She knew all he was, but still swept it aside to find the man beyond it.

"Did you?" he asked in a quivering voice.

Hope rose in his throat, he'd held back because of the memory of Tamlen, because of the connection she had to him. He had kissed her once and her body had responded; he'd seen a shade of love for him in her eyes. But her promise ripped her from his arms. Her heart was claimed by another, if there was but a chance he lived she couldn't be his. Zevran had been envious of Tamlen that night and so many since. To be loved like that. It was something he couldn't wrap his head around, until he realized it was precisely how he came to love her. Mahariel carried his heart, even if she was not wholly aware of the extent of his devotion to her.

"In this world and the next." With an ethereal touch, her fingers caressed his cheek as she pressed her forehead to his again. "Thank you for following me, Zevran," she muttered.

His lips barely curved. "As I said when you spared me, I will follow you as long as you wish it."

The flash in her eyes told him Mahariel knew there was more beneath the statement than there had been when he first offered his service. "Zevran …"

His thumb swept across her lips before she could offer the same type of reply both of them usually used when their conversations turned weighty or toward matters such as this. But a part of him needed her to know. Now that the obstacle had been lifted he felt overwhelmed by everything he had held back from her.

"Cyna. I do not follow you out of obligation. Your side is the place I feel I am meant to be. My blades have been yours, and will remain such." He took her face in his hands. "But I did not come to you because I am merely a loyal companion. I saw your pain," he revealed, his thumbs rubbing her cheeks as he held her face in his hands, looking into her eyes the color of leaves in spring.

His mouth moved as he sought the words, but he made no sound for some time. Zevran loved her, was in love with her. He wanted to tell her, wanted to scream it from the highest peak for all to know, but the words failed him. He swallowed at the growing lump of emotion in his throat. Finally, he said, "What I feel for you … It is not something I know or understand but it guides me, steers me to you. I follow you not out of obligation to some promise sworn at the tip of your sword. I remain with you in keeping with a promise whispered on the winds as you lay in my arms."

There was surprise in her eyes. Followed by recognition. She knew the night he meant-the night he told her of Rinna. She had held him in his grief, refused to let him slink away a lick his wounds in the shadows. Cyna had wrapped him in her arms, smoothed his hair and kissed his forehead until grief and pain turned to exhaustion.

He awoke to find her body wrapped around him, her head reclined softly on his shoulder with her face buried in his neck. He had clung to her in sleep, she had as well-her long delicate fingers had wrapped around the straps in his armor-locking him in a powerful embrace that was both loving and protective. It was both something he had not known before that moment, and a sensation he had found himself craving with desperation since.

-3-

His lips were warm. His kiss hesitant, but oh so telling. Zevran was a master of many things, especially concealment. But there was no trace of it in the way he looked at her as revealed to her the truth as he knew it. There was no hint of concealment in the way his lips quivered against hers.

Cyna only allowed herself to admit that she cared for him. She felt admitting to anything more would be a betrayal. But Tamlen had released her from her guilt, released her from the shadows of her own making. His reappearance had given her pause, but he'd come to her with a purpose greater than his own release.

"Your heart is strong and pure. Your love is something that should be shared and I have not been the man you loved in too long. You must live. You must put me completely to rest. You will move on. He will fight for you, as I am no longer able," he'd revealed before dropping to his knees begging her to show him one last merciful kindness.

Mahariel pulled away from him slightly. "My time is shorter than most," she whispered, eyes still closed. Please let that not matter, she thought.

Zevran had brought her heart back from the brink of breaking; he'd allowed her to connect to another person. It was his friendship that had allowed her the strength to connect to the others she now counted as friends. Cyna knew that without him, things would be very different for all of them. He had not allowed her to remain aloof; he'd drawn her out, made her smile, laugh, brought her to tears then wiped them away as he held her without judgment.

"Then I will greedily savor every second of it you allow me to partake of."

There was a steadiness in his gray eyes, a stoicism that few saw in the smooth-tongued, quick-witted Antivan. Zevran had become her rock, a solid place for her to retreat to when everything was crumbling.

"You've shown me there is more than just pleasure found where it lies. With you, I have more. It makes me want more. I've never been covetous, but where you are concerned I am ever thirsting for every drop, every morsel you offer me," he revealed.

The smile curved her lips. "Do you plan to serve me raw?"

There was a soft crinkle at the corner of his eyes, as his smile bloomed as well. "I imagine you could be quite tempting drizzled in honey. But I am a purist in such things, as you may assume."

Cyna giggled lightly. Her lips brushed his and he responded fervently. He set his hands on her waist, while she repositioned herself. Pulling her close, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"You will allow me to remain, then?" he whispered tentatively against her shoulder.

She leaned back and looked into his eyes. The question lingered between them a moment.

"I do not allow anything. I desire you to remain. And will treasure you as long as you chose to do so," Mahariel promised.

Her heart was full, but cautious. She had made endless promises to Tamlen and lost him within days of making them. Cyna could not bear losing Zevran, so she tempered her pledge in hopes that her temperance might offer her more time.

"Then since you do not allow it. You cannot release me. And I am free and content to remain to my heart's leisure," he smiled against her lips before seizing them again.