She hated templars.
She hated most things, actually. This tower, this floor, those drapes, that half-eaten corpse of a rat behind the bookshelf. The cats were the only animals allowed in the Circle, and they often had more character than all of the stuffy, prideful mages combined.
She actually didn't hate the food. It was alright. The cooks knew what they were doing. It could be worse. She remembered her times before the Tower, the nights spent in abandoned grain shacks with the mice and hard floors, the moldy bread.
She hated a lot about the Circle, but it meant food and a soft bed and warmth (just a bit of warmth, really, because the Tower might as well have been made of a single solid icicle from the Frostback Mountains for all the heat it retained).
In a perversely practical way, Amell was grateful. Magic was a curse, but a very delightful, very useful curse. For instance, one would have an extremely hard time hiding Knight Commander Greagoir's smallclothes in a block of frozen lake ice were it not for magic.
(She was mostly good at ice spells. At the age of eight she had learned to carve heavy snowdrifts into caves in less than three minutes, which was the average time it took for a blizzard to hit in the Hinterlands. Charmingly enough, it took only half that long to die. Very few people asked her how she knew this, but she probably wouldn't tell them anyway.)
Amell did not hate the food. She didn't hate the classes, either, though the mage instructors were boring, ridicule-y, and generally could not find it in their kindness to shut up. All of these traits were easily looked over using a special trait of her own – zoning out. It was more commonly called 'daydreaming', and it earned her slaps on the wrist and extra homework, but was ultimately worth every sting and written line of 'the purpose of a high level fire spell is to discourage hostile attacks burn enemies to a fine, tasty crisp'.
She also liked having Jowan as a friend. Best friend. Friends since the first day of Creation magic class eleven years ago. She also liked Cullen. Just a bit. Just a tiny bit. 'Tiny bit' meaning 'talk to him after every class and during dinner and maybe also during mass if she could get away with it when the Reverend Mother was busy picking her nose'.
Sure, her Harrowing was...harrowing, and the fact that Jowan convinced her to break into the phylactery chamber proved she was too loyal for her own good, especially when it turned out he really had dabbled in blood magic. Yes, the betrayal stung, but Lily's raised chin as she walked away, escorted by templars, reminded Amell that someone else was feeling the sting more and she was suddenly glad her sting was comparatively marginal.
At least Jowan was free. They'd talked about it as kids, like a nice dream you weren't supposed to have. Freedom, family, choice. There were a lot of things mages weren't allowed to have.
When Duncan asked her to join the Grey Wardens, she accepted. It wasn't the fame or glory bit, or even the 'we get to ride griffons tee hee' part. It wasn't the glare of Irving or the overtly murderous threats of Gregoir's. It was the freedom that convinced her. The thought of fresh air everyday and nature beneath her feet, the thought of a sky that wasn't obstructed by half a block of marble and puke-colored curtains and templar helmets.
She is a little sad to see Cullen, with his red hair and gold eyes, wave goodbye.
And travelling is marvelous, full of foods she's never tried and people she's never yet had the chance to be rude to. She can sleep without hearing a pair of mages above her in the bunk bed fumblingly getting it on. Bathing, she doesn't have to worry about templars sneaking peeks from between the cracked walls of the water chamber. She doesn't even have to worry about a stray ice ball – she can shoot a few into the sky and whoop cheerfully and no one tells her to 'stop that nonsense' or 'foolish, headstrong girl, you'll be the death of us all' or 'by the order of the Chantry, desist at once!'.
When Duncan asks her about homesickness a few days later, she laughs.
"No. I don't miss being trapped. But thank you for asking, anyway. You're sweet."
He is not sweet. He cuts down bandits like well-churned butter. They might as well not exist under his blade at the rate he cuts through them. Her ice spells take far longer to kill. Dying by cold is slow compared to fire or lightning, or even nature damage. A stone kills you quick, fire kills you quick, and sparks kill you faster than you can move. But ice? Ice likes to see you suffer.
It is fitting then, she thinks, that ice has chosen her.