The chest is unremarkable, and if it weren't for the fact that a stray bolt of fire has scorched away the vegetation that obscured it for the Creators know how long, I would never have seen it.
We can't tarry long – Dorian is worried there'll be more Venatori further along here in the Avvar Blade valley filled with its ugly, misshapen statues. The place gives me the creeps. Cassandra is conferring with our friendly Vint, but my gaze keeps sliding to the chest. It's no bigger than a loaf of bread, and I rise creakily from where I'm resting against a lightning struck pine.
Solas wants me to rest; he worries that I've over-exerted myself after that Templar bashed me with his shield a day ago, but I need to satisfy my curiosity. Besides, he has slipped away on one of his mysterious little side quests.
I've learnt to often be disappointed with our finds in the Hinterlands. Sometimes it's an old, dented helmet or sword with rust-ruined blade. Our smiths back in Haven make do with what we find. Waste not, want not, they say.
I slip off my gauntlets and slide my fingers across splintery wood. The chest is weather stained and warped, and the lid disintegrates as I lift it. Inside I find leaves, a long-abandoned mouse nest and another small box, smooth and hammered from silverite. Dwarven made, and possibly worth a pretty bit of coin. I polish it up against the leather of my breeches, and the pretty box gleams white-blue in my scarred palm, no doubt as brightly as it did the day it was made.
I curse the fact that my nails are bitten to the quick, because I struggle with the latch.
"May I?" It's Solas.
I pause in my efforts, the warmth of a blush creeping up my cheeks. The so-called "herald" for the shems crouched in the dirt like an urchin struggling with a trinket. But Solas not one of the People. I shouldn't care what the bald-headed apostate thinks.
I don't quite make eye contact but pass him the box. "See if you have better luck. I think it's locked."
He turns the item over in his long-fingered hands. His nails are trimmed and neat, and he presses once, twice, and the box clicks open.
Solas holds out the small treasure, his lips not quite twitching in a smile.
The interior is lined with plush, plum velvet, and a single, dull metal ring, its edges shaped to form an octagon, lies at its centre.
"It's an iron ring," he says.
"I can see that." I can't help but keep some of the disappointment from my voice. I'd been hoping for something prettier, somehow. The silverite box is possibly more valuable than the ring it contains.
He picks up the ring, holds it up to the sun. "They were favoured by the Children of the Stone in Valammar not long after the third Blight. The smith caste would wear the rings on the small fingers of their dominant hands. When they drafted their designs, the edges would catch on the parchment, marking them, reminding them that the fates of their people depended on their skills. It is said that the iron rings were forged from a fade-touched iron ingot, but that might purely be hearsay."
"I didn't know you had an interest in dwarven history, Chuckles." Varric, with a grace belying his short, blocky stature, has approached without us noticing.
Solas stiffens and, with a delicate sniff, returns the box to me. "There are many things that one learns in the fade, Child of Stone." With that he rises and walks away, without a backward glance.
Varric raises a brow and trades a wry glance with me. "Someone's touchy."
I lift the ring from the velvet. It's too big for any of my fingers.
Varric examines it. "I wouldn't wear this. The metal reacts with your skin after a while and leaves a black mark."
"It was obviously dear to someone," I add. "And how it came to be stored in a box out here in the middle of nowhere…"
"Now wouldn't that be a story to tell?" Varric muses.
I can already see him scribbling furious in his journal tonight once we reach camp. I return the ring to its box, snap shut the lid and place it in his big hand. "Maybe you'll write that story one day?"
His smile is radiant. "You know, Lily, I don't mind if I do."