Josephine Montilyet shivered under the thin, linen blanket. It was one of the few things she had managed to grab before fleeing up the secret pass. She liked to believe, as a scion of Antiva City's premier trading house, a daughter many times descended from the ferocious Queen Asha, that the damp and chill wind was the only reason she could not still herself.

It was, as Josephine was coming to believe so many things were, an absolute lie. The rushing thunder of enormous, black wings filled her ears, the prickling needles of small burns danced along her cheeks and hands. Her nostrils had revolted long ago, in concert with her stomach, at the stench of charred flesh, human and equine, layered over an eldrtich stench from the depths of human nightmare.

She clutched at the front of her silken blouse, once the gold and purple livery of her house, now a red and black ruin. The apprentice. Yes, it had to have been him. That's when events passed from the realm of terrible but understandable and developed the topsy-turvy quality that she associated with fevered, nighttime visits to the Fade during sweaty bouts of Tellari Cough, during the sweltering Antivan summers of her girlhood.

She did not even know the man-boy, more accurately. How could anyone keep up with anything, since Trevelyan had more than trebled their strength with the addition of Fiona's rebel mages? She never would now, even if it had been her heart's fondest desire, nor could she drive him from her mind. He'd stumbled from the tavern while she ran from Adan's shop, towards the Chantry. She had been buying a tincture of deathroot for Minaeve, the shy little elf that shared her office. It seemed a ridiculous detail to remember, but one thing she did believe was that no detail of this night would ever escape her.

He seized her dress, robes ablaze, tried to speak with a tongue blistered beyond recognition, to gaze pleadingly up at her with eyes that had melted and run in rivulets down his cheeks. The charred, crumbling wreckage on her clothing were gobbets of his flesh. They'd pulled away from him when one of the Inquisition soldiers battened the lad away, with his shield, allowing Josie to take to her heels.

She did not know if the woman had survived the night's myriad terrors, nor even knew the new recruit well enough to put a name to her, either-just that she was Fereldan and had come along with the mages from Redcliffe-but would have been willing at that moment to offer her a bann's seat and half of House Montilyet's fortune.

It was all so very absurd. The night simply did not shatter into shards around strands of diversely hued fire. It could not be snowing, either, because in spite of how she shivered, the flakes lighting on her dark curls and long, sooty eyelashes, Josie felt nothing but the warmth of a twilit Antivan summer evening lull her to sleep. Frogs called to each other, in a far off marsh, and birds answered over the reeds-predator calling out to prey, or vice versa, beseeching impossible mercy from the Maker's ordained path for nature. She settled deeper into the blankets. Why had she thought it was winter? Tomorrow would be a beautiful day; she and Yvette could visit the market, maybe buy a new doll to keep company with her already impressive collection...

"Ambassador!" A gravelly voice broke her reverie. Why was this rough spectre haunting her bedroom? "Josephine... Josie!" He sat beside her, on his haunches, and pressed a flask to her lips. The impertinece! "Drink, Ambassador Montilyet. It's brandy."

"I don't want any, ser. I'm so sleepy."

"Want it or not, you need it."

"What I need is to just rest my eyes for a few minutes."

"If you go to sleep, Josie, you might not wake up."

"What? That's absurd."

He chuckled in that deep, soul shaking baritone and took her small hands in his big ones, began to rub the warmth back into them. They were so rough but at the same time so, so gentle. "It's just the sort of thing that happens to fine ladies in ruffled silk who fall asleep in snowbanks. Now drink." He released her hands and slipped the flask between her lips, again.

She did take a sip, this time. The burning liquid slid down her throat, tracing tendrils of fire through every drop of blood. With another swallow everything came into focus around her again. Little droplets of ice, driven on by the cruel wind, slashed her face. Her fingers, wrapped tightly in the blanket's green fabric, had stiffened into frozen claws that she could feel only at the furthest ranges of understanding. It seemed like they would remind her what pain could truly feel like as soon as there was the smallest hint of warmth. If there was any of that precious commodity left in all of Thedas. "I think I preferred my sweet summer at the Montilyet estate, outside of Antiva City."

"If it's all the same to you, I'm glad you came back to the Frostbacks. It might have been hard getting you back from Antiva City. It's a long way, after all."

"I can't imagine any place further from home than where we are right now."

"You'd be surprised. I've been a lot of place that I thought couldn't get further away from Markham."

"The Deep Roads?"

"Er... yes." He sipped the brandy. "The Deep Roads. They're terrible; absolutely full of darkspawn and... things."

She managed to smile around a sigh that hung visibly in the air, showed astounding resilience of spirit in these circumstances. "Those must be hardy things, to share space with the darkspawn."

"Nothing you'd like to be around, m'lady. Deepstalkers, giant spiders, dragons." He shivered, now, and flakes of ice dropped from his beard. "I pray to the Maker that Bull's Chargers and Sister Nightingale's rangers can find a pass for us to go up, soon. I don't know how much longer some of the Haven folks can make it."

"You'd be surprised, Warden." Josie considered what had transpired, the nightmare on wing. "After what they survived earlier I'm almost certain the good people of Haven can take anything."

"They'll face what comes with courage, right enough... but it looks like the only thing coming is snow and more snow. They're going to freeze. We're going to freeze."

"Come under my blanket." She lifted its flaps and inclinded her head towards him. "It's not a great deal of room, but two are usually warmer than one. The heat of our bodies will make up for much... unless we've become so cold that our blood is now ice."

"I..." He stiffened. "I'm not sure it's appropriate."

She rolled her magnificent, dark eyes. "Come along, Warden Blackwall... I'm inviting you to share my blanket so that we might see another sunrise, not into my bedchamber." This provoked a strangled noise that, under other circumstances, might have been a giggle. "Not that it would be anyone's business if I did, for that matter."

"You're the Inquisition's Ambassador and favored daughter of Antiva. I'm just a man who's really good at hitting things." He pondered a moment. "And getting hit by them, I suppose, considering how cracked my shield usually is after a fight."

"You forget, ser... you are a Grey Warden-a hero! Those things that you are good at hitting are the Blighted nightmares of an entire world. The things that hit you are usually the Alpha members of Hurlock bands. It makes things a little bit different, don't you think?" She coughed, a deep racking sound from her slender chest, and he remembered that the one trying to save him, here, was in the direst straits herself.

He joined her under the blanket, before any more warmth could escape the ailing woman, and drew it around them. "I should have known better than trying to argue with a diplomat. You people could talk the clouds down from the heavens."

"It is my job. Do the Grey Wardens employ many diplomats?"

"A few, to negotiate passage through war zones and call for recruits. There's not much need, though. The ancient treaties do their work, and the darkspawn don't seem terribly interested in negotiation."

"I do not think that those Red Templars have much more use for it... or Corypheus... or the Archdemon. I was just a little girl during the Blight, and we were not affected in Antiva as much as the poor people of Fereldan and the Free Marches, but I do not remember it sending any envoys to the rulers of the nations." She sagged against his shoulder, let her eyelids flutter closed. "I'm glad that as many people made it as did... even if Trevelyan-"

He knew what she was about to say, but pressed his finger to her lips before the words could escape. There was no point in dwelling on the demise of the Herald, after all, and it might have been premature in any event. They rested in silence for a long moment and Blackwall considered that, under different circumstances, it might have been a very pleasant situation indeed.

A shout up ahead broke their reverie. It was Krem, Bull's lieutenant. He shouted for Cullen, Blackwall, his commmander, Cassandra, Vivienne, Sister Nightingale... anyone with more authority than him. Skinner and Dalish had found the Herald sticking out of a snowbank, covered in blood, half-frozen and pink with burns inflicted by the Archdemon and the conflagration of Haven's demise. This, being well above his grade of pay and level of comfort, had led him to order Dalish to keep the enchanter warm with her "archery" while he passed the problem off to someone who might be able to handle it adroitly.

Havoc exploded in the make-shift camp. Bull, Cullen and Leliana rushed past their position-the Qunari still didn't have his damned shirt on, for what reason Blackwall could not begin to fathom. Cassandra limped behind them, leaning on the defunct staff of a dead mage, hobbled by the wounds to hip, back and legs she had sustained in the fight against Knight-Captain Denam.

She shouted and waved. "Bring healers! Get Grand-Enchanter Fiona, or the surgeon... someone, damn all your eyes!" She roared her disgust at the limits of human motion, how her own injuries slowed her. It was a raw, ugly noise for the same kind of night. "If the Herald dies then I swear by Andraste's flames that I will set my blade to someone's flesh!" Blackwall wondered if her tortured expression and ragged voice were nothing more than the Seeker's worry for her nascent Inquisition and its chances if Trevelyan should not survice. Bah... he was a romantic fool. Too much time spent among chevaliers in his wasted youth, perhaps.

Josephine sighed. "I suppose that I should join them; the work of an Ambassador is never done. And just as I was getting warmed up."

"What, you're going to talk to the Herald until he thaws out? There's nothing you can do right now, Josie, nothing to gain and much to lose if you don't take care of yourself." He smiled. "If you can't fulfill your obligations then we're going to have to make Sera our liason to the great kingdoms of Thedas."

She shuddered, lapsed into shivering, and then brought herself under control. "Perish the thought. We want the world at war with Corypheus and his minions, not the Inquisition."

"I don't know. Some folks might find her... refreshing."

"You must be confused. Or maybe I am. Aren't 'refreshing' and 'terrifying' different words?"

He chuckled, deep in this throat. "We'll discuss it at whatever length you want. Just sit here with me until they dig Trevelyan out. Then it's back to work." He sighed. "Back to work."

"It never ends, does it?"

"Not that I've noticed."