Their Shallow Graves
"The wind that stirs
their shallow graves
carries their song
across the sands."
—excerpt from The Ballad of Ayesleigh, 5:20 Exalted
Chapter 1
"Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.
In their blood the Maker's will is written."
—Canticle of Benedictions 4:11
Leliana
9:30 Dragon
The fire is lit. Bank the embers. Bury the ashes.
The message needed no signature. A signature left upon it would be folly, much the same as not obeying its contents. The bit of folded paper sealed with unmarked wax had been slipped into her coinpurse when she had visited the chantry in Redcliffe. And now, Leliana held it in her hand as she stood watch just beyond the light of the fire.
The fires of the few hundred warriors and soldiers were strewn behind their camp, the forces Alistair had gathered on their way to Honnleath. They had stopped for a few hours around midnight to rest the horses. The rest was also necessary for Alistair and what had become his vanguard, but he would never admit that, even when he fell asleep almost immediately upon hitting his bedroll. Leliana had volunteered to keep watch since she seemed to be the only one not asleep on her feet. No one had the energy to object, and so she found herself alone in wakefulness, surrounded by the deep breathing and snores of the people who had been her companions for months.
She was just as exhausted as they were. Yet the message had left her too keyed up for sleep. During the day, she blamed her anxiety on the pending battle—it would be their first large, protracted battle against hundreds, perhaps even a thousand darkspawn. She said nothing to the others, keeping the half-truth close in case one of the more observant of her companions questioned her slightly changed demeanor. Alistair was too distracted by strategy planning to notice, but Zevran was certainly observant enough, as were Líadan and Morrigan.
Leliana read the message one last time, as if to convince herself that the instructions were indeed what they were, and then dropped it into the fire.
"What is it that you burn, I wonder?" came Morrigan's voice from somewhere near the trees.
Leliana turned.
Shadows swam and seemed to part, and then Morrigan stepped out of the forest, as if she had been part of it until she chose to reveal herself. Which, considering Morrigan's inherent touch of the wildness of nature about her, wasn't far from the truth. "Orders from your handlers, perhaps?"
"Merely a note." A note, yes, but the changes to be enacted within had nothing insignificant about them.
"And yet the reading of it leaves such distress in your eyes." Morrigan stopped her approach just short of the bright light of the fire. "One could only imagine you have received notice that it is time for you to go. That now you must leave the would-be king whom you bedded on orders from your superiors." She paused for a moment, her long fingers drumming on the stave she loosely held, as if teasing out an answer to a peculiar problem. "Which should not be hard for one trained such as you are. Except that you have encountered an unexpected difficulty. Let me guess: you, the bard, have allowed yourself to fall in love."
The witch was getting far closer to the truth than Leliana could ever have thought. Had she been spying on them? How else could she know things that Leliana hadn't even admitted to herself? Morrigan was far too confident. She had to be thrown off-balance. "Funny that you should speak of love. It's such a wonderful thing, isn't it?"
Morrigan's eyes narrowed, but she betrayed nothing else, even her posture remaining the same. "What you call 'love' is nothing more than wishful fancy. Pity that it has preyed upon you as it has. It makes your task all the more difficult, does it not?"
"You don't fool me, you know."
"'Tis not my intention to fool anyone. That is your purpose, not mine."
Leliana had to admit that Morrigan was better at this than she'd anticipated. Her ability to twist words rivaled that of any bard. She realized that speaking to Morrigan of love would not leave her the victor, not tonight. "The Maker has given all of us a purpose, Morrigan."
"And what is the purpose He has given you through your Chantry? Were you to control the would-be king? Were you sent to merely gather information? Or are you an assassin, sent to make sure Ferelden falls to the Blight?" Magic came alive in one of Morrigan's hands, purple tendrils snapping about her fingers. "Choose wisely, bard."
She wondered what it was that compelled Morrigan to protect it with such ferocity. Was it the denied love for Malcolm? Or was it to do with Alistair and the survival of Ferelden, after all? Perhaps something Flemeth had planned required Ferelden to remain intact, which meant protecting Alistair.
Alistair.
The magic should have woken him, templar that he was, but no movement sounded from inside his tent. Leliana glanced back, but the silence remained.
"Your templar king cannot save you," said Morrigan.
Leliana spun around, a glare darkening her fair features. "What have you done to him?"
"I? Nothing. Even templars occasionally succumb to exhaustion." A knowing smile spread across her lips. "It is such as I thought, then. You truly fell in love with him. A mistake, I assume. Was it worth it?"
"Yes."
Morrigan arched an eyebrow in genuine surprise. "Truly? 'Tis worth that much?"
"It is worth everything. You should know. You are experiencing it yourself."
"I do not allow myself to pursue a wishful fancy, even though you pursued yours to your own folly. So tell me, what is it you were sent to do? Do not assume I have forgotten that you have yet to answer my question." Her magic leapt from her hand to envelop her stave. "Neglecting to answer will be treated the same as choosing the wrong answer. Your purpose must not be allowed to override mine."
So it wasn't about protecting Malcolm, after all. Finding out Morrigan's motives would be an incredible piece of intelligence, should Leliana's plans not end with her death. Certainly more important than keeping the secret of her own purpose here from Morrigan. "I was sent to make sure Ferelden did not fall to the Blight."
"Were you? Are you secretly a Grey Warden? For they are the ones who stop Blights, not dutiful minions of the Chantry." The magic did not disappear, but the stave remained pointed upward, and not toward Leliana.
"No. I was to guide Alistair and make sure he united the Bannorn, which he has. The time has come for me to move on."
If the revelation surprised Morrigan, she did not show it. Yet, her magic dissipated into the night, leaving a smoothed walking stick in place of an oaken staff crackling with energy. "Will you leave us tonight, then?"
"No. Not so suddenly. It wouldn't work that way."
"Your templar would come after you."
"Yes. That is his way. He loves completely, with everything that he has and is. He would not rest until he found me."
Morrigan's gaze flicked over to Alistair's tent, which remained quiet. "It would ruin all you have done. You could not have that. Your Maker would not stand for it." Morrigan studied Leliana for a moment, taking measure. "You will have to die."
Leliana bit her lip, her eyes sliding over to the tent where Alistair slept unaware. "Yes."
"Have you a plan?"
The message itself was the plan. Bare instructions for taking apart what she and Alistair had built between them. What they did not include was how much it would hurt. "Of course."
Morrigan nodded, more to herself than Leliana. "I shall not hinder you."
"What—why not?"
"Your purpose does not interfere with mine. Therefore, I see no reason to intervene. Do as you must, I care not." Morrigan turned to walk back into the forest.
She couldn't let her have the last word, not with the air of superiority that practically wafted around her. "You lie, Morrigan," Leliana said, pointing her finger at the witch's back. "You do care. And what you insist is wishful fancy? Somewhere deep inside that blackened heart of yours, you are glad that you are experiencing love."
Morrigan froze, her back impossibly straight, before slowly turning around. Leliana wondered just what nerve she had touched, because Morrigan's eyes had filled with a cold fury. "Let me tell you one thing, and then let us speak of it no more. Love is a weakness. Love is a cancer that grows inside and makes one do foolish things. Love is death. The love you dream of is something that would be more important to one than anything, even life. I know no such love."
When Leliana opened her mouth to answer, Morrigan did not let her talk, holding up a hand surrounded by a faint purple glow.
"What I know is passion. The respect of equals. Things far more valuable that you cannot even comprehend."
The magic did not scare Leliana, because she knew Morrigan could not use it. Not without waking the trained templar, for summoning magic was one thing, using it another. An offensive spell would bring both Alistair and Malcolm out of their deep slumber. "What you know is a lie you tell yourself every moment of every day. It will catch up to you, Morrigan—and it will send you reeling."
"Lies such as the ones you used to insinuate yourself in the future king's bed? Lies you will tell to cover your disappearance? The tangle of lies you'll leave behind for Alistair to sort through for the tiniest grain of truth?"
"I may lie to others, but I do not lie to myself. Better that than someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself."
Morrigan did not so much as blink. "Believe what you must. Do what you must. I have nothing more to say to you." With that, she stalked back into the trees, her tense muscles revealing just how close Leliana had cut her.
Leliana watched her go, wondering if Morrigan would keep her secret, or would betray her. There was no telling, and there was nothing Leliana could do to stop it. What she could do was complete her assignment and move on to the next. She had the potion to keep her body in stasis and a potion to induce fever. She had the vial with a single drop of archdemon's blood that she had taken from the Grey Warden safe in Denerim when the others had been distracted, stored in a special box she'd found in Duncan's desk. The box hid the taint from the Wardens until it was unsealed. The agents in the Redcliffe chantry were prepared to accept what would look like her shrouded dead body. All she needed now was opportunity, but that would depend on where she was assigned during battle. For now, all she had was waiting. All she had was a love she desperately wanted to hold onto and carry for as long as possible, but she would have to toss away instead. Alistair was a good man, and he would be a good king. She took solace in that.
She sighed quietly, and then slipped into Alistair's tent. While she knew this love would be fleeting, she would revel in it as much as she could before it was over.
The end came sooner than she expected.
Honnleath had been lost before the small army even arrived, but they fought the remaining darkspawn and prevailed. Leliana was separated from the other archers when a party of darkspawn pressed a sudden advantage and overrode their position. A genlock ducked past a swipe of her bow, and then bit down hard on her gauntlet. She lashed out with her booted foot, sending the darkspawn to the ground before plunging a dagger into its chest. The rest of her company of archers had taken care of the other darkspawn, and as she glanced up and at the field of battle, she found it largely empty of fighting parties. Instead, the human and elven warriors were walking through the fallen darkspawn bodies, making sure each of them were dead. Another group, following the first, searched for human and elven survivors. The Wardens had gone into the village proper to find survivors there—though Leliana knew full well that anyone they found, they would kill. It's what the Wardens had to do with people who were tainted, without question.
It was a practice she would be counting on.
She took off her gauntlet and inspected the area the genlock had bitten. Livid bruises already colored her skin, mottled a dark purple and blue. The skin hadn't broken, but she could fix that to look as if it had, even to a healer. From there, coupled with a potion that could make a person's skin appear corrupted—it was astonishing what one could find at the Wonders of Thedas—she was fairly certain she could create the illusion that she had been tainted. Both the fever inducing potion and the corruption potion were slow acting, so they would mimic the onset of the blight sickness. After arranging the final details in her head, she put the gauntlet back on and went to help at the makeshift field hospital. There was good she could still do.
When Líadan returned from the village leading actual, untainted survivors, Leliana felt hope for the first time in months. Then she remembered what she had to do, how she would seem another casualty soon enough, and the hope kindling in her chest turned to cold cinders.
On the march away from the burning battlefield, Leliana took both the skin and fever potions, anticipating their coming into full force later that evening. Once in the camp, she wandered into nearby trees, claiming need for use of a privy. There, she grimaced as she opened the skin around the bruises and unbroken indentations left by the genlock's bite. It was some of her finest work, and yet she could not bring herself to admire it, not even a little. It filled her with shame and sadness, even as hope spread through the soldiers and warriors in the army's camp. Then she took the stasis potion, which wouldn't kick in until she was killed—it would stop a mortal wound from reaching that mortal point. However, it would only hold the grave injury for a few days. Any more than that, and she would die in truth, for the cause of the Maker.
Then she took the vial with the drop of archdemon blood out of its sealed box—the Wardens' security was not a challenge for the most determined and skillful of snoops—and tucked it into a hidden pocket. She went and sat by the fire, barely needing to act with the strength of the fever that suddenly struck her. Now she would wait for the Wardens to sense the taint and seek out its source.
And then kill it. It was their duty. Their sacrifice, and she would make them suffer another, make another dark stain on their souls.
When she saw Alistair stroll back into their camp with his brother, face alight with warmth and optimism, within her, hope fled in the face of her grief. Just as he would eventually end her life this night, she would end the hope he had just started to allow himself to feel.
When Alistair saw her, he grinned and walked straight for her. As he got closer, the optimism faded from his eyes, quickly replaced with concern. His food was set aside and forgotten as he reached out to her, cupped her chin, and asked her what was wrong.
She couldn't tell him the truth—that she was a bard in employment of a single member of the Chantry, a woman who would eventually bring about momentous, needed, and good change in Andraste's legacy. Since he'd not asked about feeling the taint, she did wonder if the drop she'd obtained wasn't strong enough. So she asked, "Can't you feel it?" The tears that threatened were no act. She hated this. But she would do it because she served a greater purpose.
A half-smile turned up a corner of Alistair's mouth. "Can't you? Everyone here, Leliana, they're filled with hope. It's a pestilence all over the camp, and it's wonderful."
He was killing her already, waving the hope she could not have in front of her face, holding onto hope in his own heart, hope that she would soon rip to shreds. "No," she said, the word coming out in a whisper as her voice began to fail her. Imagine, a bard's voice failing, that was how far she'd fallen in love with him. Had it gone on much longer, even her convictions to the Maker may not have withstood its power.
At Alistair's puzzled look, she reached down and removed her gauntlet. Then she thrust it into the light cast by the fire.
He stared.
"It was a genlock," she said, truth within a lie.
Alistair grabbed her arm, turning it over, searching for a different answer other than the one presented. Panic widened his eyes; he had felt the taint. The corruption potion had begun to work, and dark tendrils wormed their way through her skin, working in tandem with the drop of archdemon blood. "It hasn't been long," he said, looking around the camp for something, anything to fix it. He began to babble something about Wynne, something about Marethari, yet even as he came up with solutions, he threw them out. Everything was not enough or too far away.
Leliana had planned it this way. She gently took her arm out of his hands, wishing she could take his guilt along with it. "It's okay."
"No, it is not." His jaw set in determination, the same as it did before he became truly angry. "Not by any means."
She explained to him that she'd known it could happen—another partial truth—and that she had accepted the possibility when she rejected becoming a Warden. "If the Maker wills it, then the Maker wills it," she told him, that statement entirely true.
His anger mixed with fear. "The Maker doesn't will this."
Leliana winced. "Don't make this harder than it already is." For you have no idea how difficult it is not to stop this entire charade and ignore the Maker's will.
He repeated her request, and she asked him to accept what would happen, even as the fever began to burn white-hot under her skin.
Alistair closed his eyes.
Behind him, Malcolm came into view, his face at once confused and determined. "Alistair, there might be a problem somewhere in camp. I can sense..." he trailed off as his gaze settled on Leliana, and he pinpointed the source of the taint. "Oh, no."
She tried to smile, but knew she failed. "It's okay."
Malcolm didn't believe her either. He went through the same list of ideas as Alistair had, with Alistair explaining in turn how each idea would not work. That they had time to do very little. She had hours, possibly minutes.
The fever's strength sapped hers, and her legs gave out when she went to wipe the sweat from her brow. Alistair caught her before she hit the ground, gently lowering her instead. This would be the last time that he would hold her. This would be the last time that he would love her.
She grieved. She grieved for what would be lost.
Wynne's magic barely touched the potion-induced fever. The other Wardens commented on the taint, discussed the situation. Even Morrigan, who knew what was really going on, participated in the conversation, telling nothing of the truth she knew.
Leliana winced again as the fever wracked her body, causing her muscles to spasm and stiffen. "Help me," she said, unwilling to endure this grief any longer, this farce any longer, this pain any longer. It amazed her how many truths she spoke when she had expected to tell only lies.
A dagger glinted in the firelight, pressed into Alistair's hand.
"Please." Between the corruption in her skin and the fever, her voice strained to reach even a whisper.
Farewells were made.
Then it was just Alistair, the fundamentally good man who would be a good king, the man upon whose soul she would now leave a scar. It couldn't be helped. The Maker had willed it.
She hoped one day that Alistair might understand. That he would understand one very certain truth she had to tell him. "I love you," she whispered.
He told her the same, kissed her, and drove the dagger into her heart.
What Leliana had not expected was how much it would hurt. The stasis potion did not work right away, and she felt every torn muscle and ligament, felt her heart pierced, felt the grief build. Then everything went dark, and she felt nothing more.
Light, bright and painful, pried at her eyes.
"Sister Leliana? Can you hear me?" asked Mother Hannah.
"Yes," said Leliana, her voice no more than a croak, the ugliest she'd ever heard it.
It matched the ugliness she felt in her soul. Following the Maker's will had yet to cleanse it. She wondered how long it would be, or if she would always carry this ugliness within her, a scar of her own to match the one she'd given Alistair.
"Good," said Mother Hannah. "Can you open your eyes?"
Leliana tried, but her eyelids refused. "Too bright."
Fabric rustled, most likely Mother Hannah motioning for oil lamps to be turned down. "Try now."
Her eyes slowly obeyed her command to open, her vision clouded at first until it cleared the dryness of potion-induced sleep. "How close was it?" she asked once she could fully make out the Revered Mother's face.
"Closer than I or Dorothea would have liked. That was very nearly your body on that bier they'll burn tonight."
"Would that it were," Leliana said out loud, her eyes fluttering shut against what she had spoken.
Mother Hannah placed a kind, warm hand over hers. "You did the right thing. You did the Maker's will."
She opened her eyes again, waiting to feel the sureness of her decision, sureness sent by the Maker in following Him, but she was left wanting. "Maker's will or not, it doesn't feel right."
"The revelation will come, in time. The Maker moves at His own pace, in His own mysterious ways. Perhaps I will use that in my eulogy."
Platitudes, Leliana thought. Funny how she didn't hear them before. And yet when the resolution of the Maker's will returned to her, they would once more be truths instead of platitudes. For now, however, she had no wish to hear any. "They are having a funeral?"
"You were more beloved than you thought."
And more than I wanted. "By whom? My former companions or the Maker?"
Mother Hannah gave Leliana's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Both, my dear."
Her mannerisms and gentleness reminded her of Wynne.
It wasn't a reminder she wanted. Wynne would hate her now, for what she'd done to Alistair. To her, Alistair was very much like the son she was never allowed to raise, and she was protective of him. To Wynne, this would very much be a betrayal, were she ever to learn the truth. It would be the same to all of them, except perhaps Morrigan. But Morrigan was too busy betraying herself to get worked up over someone else's betrayal.
"Everything is prepared for your departure," Mother Hannah said after some time. "You may rest here overnight, or you may go. Dorothea is expecting you within the week. She must move quickly to bring the rest of her plans into line if she is to become Divine in the coming years, and so it is my understanding that you will infiltrate the Seekers next."
"Yes. Good." Leliana stole a look over at the hidden doorway set into the wall that led out to a passage, which in turn led out into a copse of trees behind the chantry. "What time of day is it?"
"Evening falls, Sister."
"I would like to watch. To witness."
"That cannot be a good—"
Leliana stood, wobbly at first, and then with strength. "It is the least I can do to atone to them for what I have done." She gave Mother Hannah a small, confident smile. "Fear not. I will not be seen, for they expect me to be somewhere else." The sleight of hand and the expectation, coupled with her skill, would keep her hidden from view.
Mother Hannah dropped her argument with a nod. "As you will. The ceremony will begin in two candle marks. I will be speaking and I have much to say."
The shadows of the windmill's roof held enough darkness for Leliana to blend in while being able to see everything. The acoustics of the cliffs allowed the sound from the singer to carry up to her ears. The fire-tipped arrow sailed through the night and struck true. Leliana watched the boat burn, the flames consuming her lies until they were nothing but ashes of a life she could not have.
It was not the Maker's will.