The Darkspawn were vile, twisted mockeries of nature. She had long since lost track of where they were, of their mission. All that remained was the heft of her family sword, the spray of black, foul blood over her armor, marring the Cousland crest she had so proudly polished just that morning.

She fought with two other recruits, an old knight from Redcliffe who bemoaned his wife's plight, pregnant and alone, even as he eyed her with doubts obviously stemming from her own sex. Well, she was hardly pregnant, and knew exactly how to fight invaders.

It felt colder, this fighting, without the thoughts of those she loved to ignite her rage and desperation. This was somehow less, and somehow more. Oriana and Oren were dead. Mother and father were dead. So instead of fighting for them, she was fighting for all of Ferelden.

She ducked a wildly cast magical bolt of some sort, came up with her sword and enough momentum to bury it in the creature's chest. Hurlock, Alistair had said. The name fit.

She used her foot to aid in releasing her sword, turned to finish the next foe just in time to see Daveth stab it in the back, killing it and saving them from its Fade-forsaken magics.

Panting, she cast her gaze around. There were none left to come after them. She flexed a gauntleted fist, glared at the blood there.

She wished Max were at her side.

Alistair looked at her then, direct and unflinching, and shivers crawled along her spine. So like Cailan when he had awakened her this morning.

"You have to go, darling. Duncan waits for no one," he had chuckled, petted her hair.

"I'm to go with Alistair." Cailan's smile slipped. So he knew then. She wondered if Alistair knew. It could go either way, depending.

"He is a fine Warden, I hear—Duncan speaks highly of him."

And your gut burns with jealousy, Cailan, she thought unkindly. "He seems fair enough, though I hear he likes to bait the mages."

Cailan shrugged. "I had your armor brought here, I hope you don't mind. And Duncan said the hound wouldn't be permitted to accompany you. I thought perhaps he'd like to help me with my paperwork?"

She smiled, went along with the subject change. "You'll make him fat," she protested, even as she wondered why Duncan would want to separate her from her only friend.

"Only if you don't come back to collect him," Cailan said seriously.

"I'll come back," she promised, even though she didn't believe it herself.

She shook her head, wondering why everything seemed so far away. Alistair was crouched over her now, but she could barely hear him over the roar in her ears. Someone was tugging at her helmet, and she tried to lash out at him, because it hurt.

Alistair pried open her lips, pushed bitter-tasting elfroot into her mouth. She understood a little now. She chewed waiting for the magic of the plant to kick in, waiting for the numbness she remembered from when she had been small and broken an arm.

They were wrapping her head now, pressing the poultices the mages made to the crack in her skull and she whimpered, but had no strength to pull away. Alistair cupped a hand over her cheek and told her to relax, let the magic do its job. He lied and told her she would be alright, even as he wrenched his gaze from hers and barked out more orders to the other recruits. They'd take a break while she recovered, he said. Then they'd find the scrolls for Duncan and return.

She wondered how Fergus was doing.

By the time the small cook fire had been started and lunch had been broken out of travel packs, she was feeling well enough to sit up, though she still felt a little queasy.

She stripped off her gloves, flexing her fingers and staring at them, wondering why they were so clean. The rest of her had been covered in blood. It seemed incongruous that only her hands might be clean.

"Feeling better?" Alistair asked, and she wrenched her attention towards him.

"Yes, ser," she said.

"Not a ser," he said.

She mustered a smile. What were they supposed to do next, make small talk? She doubted he cared about the latest fashion in Orlais or the Antivan boots her mother had received for her wedding anniversary.

"We've got enough Darkspawn blood," he said after a few moments of awkward silence. "If you're feeling well enough, I'd like to continue on to collect those treaties. They may offer a huge tactical advantage later."

Intrigued, she asked "So you agree with Duncan then? This is a real Blight, not some minor incursion?"

"Yes," he said with quiet conviction, expression open and earnest, which did more to settle her opinion on the matter than Duncan's brusque dismissal of her questions or Cailan's bluster and bravado. Still, she didn't dare ask him how he knew.

***

The first thing Elissa noticed about the woman was her inappropriate attire. Elissa might dress like a man, but she'd never bare so much skin. It seemed somehow undignified.

The second thing Elissa noticed was the deliberate wordplay. The woman wanted to be feared, which instantly seemed to indicate that the woman wasn't any stronger than they were. She looked over her shoulder to see if any of the men had noticed that too.

They seemed entranced. Elissa suppressed the weird sick feeling of jealousy she felt at that, and focused again on the woman.

A proper, 'civilized' greeting was something Elissa could manage. The woman, Morrigan seemed surprised. She covered it well, and Alistair tried to shove his foot firmly in his mouth. Again.

Morrigan's mother had a cold, powerful presence, but she handed them the treaties, sent them on their way with Morrigan to guide them.

"Do you know any woodcraft lore you'd want to share with us?" Elissa asked politely. "Only I'm not terribly confident of my own skills. I can tell elfroot from deathroot, but that's about it."

"What I know of herbalism would make you cringe, little girl." Morrigan had taken to calling her that, but Elissa refused to be intimidated. The poor woman was likely unaccustomed to being ordered around and resented the necessity of joining them.

"That's a no then," she said cheerfully. Alistair smothered a laugh in his hand, and Ser Jory scoffed. Elissa was sure he was going to make his opinions clear once again when Morrigan spoke again.

"'Twas not a no. I simply wished to make it clear that I could not teach anyone all I know in so little a time as this."

"I'm not worried about being an expert, I just want to know what's edible, and what's useful for healing maybe."

Morrigan softened toward her a little, and spent the trip pointing out various plants and offering anecdotes about when one might use them. 'If a giant bear is running toward you full tilt, one might consider throwing the crushed leaves of this plant in its eyes to confuse it. Or, you could simply draw your sword and slay it.'

Even Alistair seemed less inclined to kill her by the time they had returned to Ostagar.

***

The Joining is barbaric. It is all she can to not vomit on the flags when Ser Jory is killed out of hand, but she knows her choices here, and will not falter. Better to face the unknown than certain death, right? No one answers her silent question, but Alistair's eyes are on her, she knows.

She drinks from the cup.

***

Her every sense prickled with the nightmare knowledge that has come to her, though now she knew why the two Wardens are so utterly convinced there is a Blight. She allowed Alistair to help her to her feet, thanked him with slurred words.

The conversation between Loghain and Cailan was heated when they arrived at the War Council. Loghain seemed genuinely frustrated, and he eyed her with disgust as she approaches.

Cailan feigned ignorance over her identity again and she watched as Loghain sneered—and let it pass. He was pretending all was well between Cailan and Anora then, which was understandable, if not laudable.

Cailan insisted that she not be in the bulk of the fighting forces when the army meets the Darkspawn, and hot resentment bubbled up in her.

"Is it so important a task, then, that you need a Grey Warden to do it? Why not have one of the men already on duty in the tower take care of it?"

"It is of critical importance to the campaign. I would not insist if it weren't." His expression was pleading.

Alistair, too, was resentful, but she rather doubted his reasons were the same.

Cailan dismissed them, but held her back.

"I don't want you hurt, you understand. The other two... when I think how easily that could have been you, it's painful."

Elissa shook her head. "You aren't allowed. You can't say those things to me, it's too late." She knew she should have made this stand last night, but she had been weak then. Now... "You already picked Anora, and I won't—after this is over, I won't come back. I won't be a favored mistress, not when I could have been so much more, and you already picked."

He jerked away, taken aback. Elissa blinked to stop the tears from falling. She had already shed too many tears on this matter, and Cailan already thought her weak and incapable.

"Elissa, darling, I wish you would understand. My position, it's not—"

"I don't want to hear it," she said, her voice trembling with the effort it took not to shout. "I don't care anymore. I can't care, I won't!" She turned her head away from his, not wanting to see the look on his face, not wanting to let him see hers.

He pulled her against him, armor against armor, hard and cold and horrible. "I'm sorry. If that's worth anything to you, anything at all, know that it is true. I'm sorry, Elissa." He kissed her forehead, then pushed her away gently. "You should go. The scouts' reports say it should be soon."

She nodded and turned to go, heart heavy. She had a beacon to light.

***

She knew they would be too late when she saw the soldiers fleeing from the tower in terror. She gritted her teeth and stalked on anyway, Max snarling at her side.

She hated the look of the tower, booby-trapped and barricaded against would-be-defenders, but she fought and killed and watched Alistair do the same, while Max stayed where she'd told him—"Guard the mage." They hadn't had enough time to exchange names, but damned if she'd let one more person die.

Alistair grinned at her through blood soaking his face. She didn't dare wonder if it was his.

They hesitated in stairways and rooms with barrable doors to catch their breath, to make sure nothing was bleeding too heavily, to pray. Alistair knew a great many prayers appropriate for battle, she learned.

On the third floor, mabari whined and strained against bars in cages, and Max whined with them. She released them, to die with dignity, and they tore down the enemy with a fervor she'd long since lost. The mage laughed darkly when one brought him the head of one of the darkspawn mages. He didn't make a sound when the same hound was cut down a few moments later, its dying screams meshing with the rest in a haunting choir of death.

Max hunkered down next to her, and she allowed herself a moment of mourning, laid her hand against his head. The next thing she could tell, a genlock was dead on top of her, throat ripped out, and Alistair was straining to hold Max back so the mage could drag her free.

When they had won clear to the beacon, Alistair cried out that it was too late, but she lit it anyway, with hope in her heart that somehow, some way, the army might survive, that he might survive. Lit it and watched as nothing changed below.

Then they were overrun, and she felt a sense of profound failure before she knew no more.