Author's note: This chapter has a bit of explicit gore.

"First time I've made armour for a horn-head," Harritt remarked, surveying his handiwork; Suredat-an had woken a week previously, to no great fanfare other than frightening the elven servant set to watch over her half to death, and one of the first orders of business had been to send her to the newly-arrived blacksmith to commission proper battle attire. She had acquiesced to this, and now she stood by the blacksmith's forge in the leather harness and knee-length trousers he'd fashioned to her specifications. The thick straps criss-crossed her torso, offering some protection to her organs and soft tissues, but they still exposed much of the flesh along her flanks, chest, and back, along with the many scars she carried upon her frame. Harritt had also fashioned a coat of mail to be worn beneath the harness, to offer a modicum of true protection, but Suredat-an had shirked it. The blacksmith could only gaze ruefully upon his work and its obstinate wearer. "It fit right?"

Suredat-an nodded. Once.

"Good," Harritt said. "You'll be wantin' a staff, I take it? Somethin' nice and magic-like?"

"No," the mage answered.

"...Right," the blacksmith grunted. "A sword, then, at least?"

"No," Suredat-an repeated.

"...Alright, then," Harritt settled. "I suppose...that'll be all, until you'll be needin' somethin' else. Let me know."

She inclined her head once more and departed from the blacksmith's forge without another word. She had spent days in silence, in fact, since we had convinced her that remaining at Haven and fighting for our cause was a wiser course of action than taking her chances on the road. Such aloofness did little to dissuade the growing majority in the camp that she was some sort of divine messenger, sent back through the Veil on Andraste's behalf, if not at her very behest. Yet such whispers seemed irrelevant to the mage; indeed, in the days that I had then been in her acquaintance, I had yet to know a single passion she possessed, apart from her stated goal of finding the erstwhile Commander of the Grey in Ferelden.

The path she took from the forge would have taken her outside of Haven's recently-fortified walls, to a quarry where she often went to practice her magical skills in peace and solitude. Even if she disregarded the common people's opinion of her, she seemed to respect the omnipresent suspicion and outright hostility magic could invoke in them, possibly from her own experience. This day, however, Varric stepped astride her path, his crossbow slung across one shoulder and a toothpick resting between his lips. "Hissrad," Suredat-an called him, as she did whenever she deigned to acknowledge his presence.

"Now I've got to give you a decent nickname," the dwarf scoffed. "How 'bout Silver?"

The woman's platinum eyebrows drew down. "No," she rumbled, a half-tone lower than normal.

Varric held up a placating hand. "Alright, alright...but when I do think of one that sticks, you're not gonna be able to sneer your way out of it," he warned her. "Anyhow, Chuckles and the Seeker are waiting for us out by the front gate to take this show on the road. We've got some shit to find in this god-awful wasteland these people call the Hinterlands." The dwarf grunted. "And here I thought I was retired. Shows me, huh?"

Suredat-an had no reply, but when he turned, she followed, all the way through the village's outer gate, where Solas and I stood waiting. Cullen was not far away, observing a batch of recruits; many of them came from the ranks of the templars, or from those who aspired to take their vows. Though neither he nor I upheld the oaths of our respective orders any longer, we could not ignore the past, and it was clear that the soldiers would be far more comfortable being overseen by one they felt they could relate to. Thus, by mutual consent, Cullen had taken on the lion's share of training and organisation, while I took the lead in selecting and effecting major excursions.

"We do not have to enjoy one another's company," I said, by way of greeting, when the archer and the qunari joined us. I spoke in the King's Tongue, common to Ferelden and the Free Marches, as it was the only language understood by the four of us. "But the fact remains that we cannot stay isolated on this mountainside forever, and the truth of the matter is that there are none here more capable of forming an expeditionary squad than we." I looked from Solas to Varric and back again; though I still held reservations about the elf's motivations, and I still suspected that Varric's self-reported prowess in the Tale of the Champion might have been slightly exaggerated, neither had given me cause to doubt their abilities and their willingness to employ them in our cause.

My eye fell upon Suredat-an. "Have you any reservations about following me into the Hinterlands?"

"No."

I nodded, satisfied by the predictable response. When I saw that she had returned from Harritt's without even a dagger, however, I scoffed. "You will need a proper weapon where we head."

"You're forgetting, Seeker," Varric spoke up, before the qunari could gainsay me once again. "I told you the saarebas never used any staffs while they ransacked Kirkwall. That goes double for this one; never saw her pick up a butter knife." He made a dismissive gesture and glanced up the long distance between his eye-level and her own. "Besides, if she can shove her fists through a demon's chest and spit a fireball out the other side, I think a few apostates are the least of her worries. Now are we gonna get this circus on the road, or can I go back to my tent?"

"We shall go," I decided, unable to argue the point, especially given what I had witnessed during the effort of sealing the nearby rifts. I signalled to Emilia, one of the more capable soldiers who'd survived the blast, whom I'd placed in charge of transporting and securing supplies for a forward camp. The woman commanded a laden wagon pulled by the only draft horse we could then spare, and she was accompanied by half a dozen men at arms, tasked with protecting and defending our supplies as we forged ahead.

"Cassandra," Solas broached, once we were well underway. "I'm given to understand from our dwarven companion that you went to Kirkwall in order to seek out its Champion."

"That is correct," I acknowledged. "Once it became clear that she had truly abandoned the city, I settled on the next best thing: hearing the story of her rise to power...and subsequent fall."

"And what did you hope to gain if you'd found her?"

"I am uncertain," I answered, honestly. "Hawke is...a polarising figure, to put it mildly. I suppose I wanted to convince her to join me in putting out the flames that her rebel Warden companion helped to ignite...or, at least, to ascertain whether she would prosecute an active role in the mage uprising."

The deep pitch of the voice behind me took me by surprise. "She will not," Suredat-an said.

"Oh?" I retorted, too amazed to even look back. "And how do you know this?"

"I remember."

At my side, Solas did cast a glance over his shoulder, keen interest etched on his ageless features. "Fascinating," he allowed. "What else do you remember?"

The woman's tone grew all the dimmer. "Not enough."

The elf intuited that he would get no more from her, and so he returned his attention to me. "And what did you learn in Varric's recitation?"

I had half a mind to echo Suredat-an's answer, but those three syllables died in my throat. "I learned that Hawke has suffered more loss than any woman should have to face," I told him. "Though I still believe she may be our only hope of stopping the madness of this war."

Solas retreated into his thoughts for a few moments, and I assumed we would spend much of our journey in silence, but he was not long in returning to discourse. "Is the Champion a mage, by any chance?"

Varric interjected before I could respond. "No," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Pity," the elf sighed. "If she were, and if you had some of her personal effects to hand, there is a small chance I could have made contact with her in the Fade."

"Shit," Varric huffed. "You're not telling me you're like Feynriel, now?"

"I am afraid I'm unfamiliar with whomever that is," Solas replied, evenly.

"He is a Dreamer," I supplied, remembering the half-elven boy-a man now, most likely, if he still lived-from Varric's story. "Supposedly the first such born for centuries."

"Fascinating," Solas repeated, in earnest. "...No, however," he said, almost wistfully. "I have had many wonderful dreams, learned much and more of the Fade in my journeys, but I am no somniari. That is why I could not have guaranteed making contact."

Varric chuckled, and there was an edge to his breath that I had not heard since I had approached him in the ruined bar he called a home, after our interview had concluded...and after I had decided to bring him across the Waking Sea, whether or not he wished to accompany me. "It's just as well," the dwarf assured the mage. "Hawke would probably have exactly two words for you. Especially if you showed up in one of her dreams."

"The point is academic, I suppose," Solas conceded.

"Nevertheless," I said, "I appreciate the offer."

Idle talk amongst the four-or, rather, the three-of us saw leagues disappear beneath our feet as we descended toward the Hinterlands. We broke a long fast at midday, still afoot to make good time. The shadows grew long ahead of us as the sun began dipping behind the Frostbacks, but we journeyed into the evening, only stopping to make camp when Emilia came up to warn us of exhausting the men and horse who trailed behind. The camp we built was simple, but not austere; two pavilion-style tents were large enough to house we four expeditionaries and our auxiliaries, and a modest fire soon had a hearty stew bubbling to fill our bellies.

I had borne the heaviest armour for the journey, but I was the least fatigued of any of our companions or attendants, and so I volunteered for the first watch. Varric and Solas showed their exhaustion plainly, but Suredat-an showed no more signs of needing rest than I, and so she silently acquiesced to become my watch partner. Emilia and her men were grateful for the chance to rest after the long hours on the road, and the qunari was as indifferent as I had come to expect.

She did not speak over the next hour that we spent alternately patrolling and sitting by the fire, but this was not surprising, as she had not said another word after insisting upon Hawke's lack of participation in the conflict with the mages. Her certainty struck me as notable, perhaps even incongruous, and after that hour of silence, I could not hold my musings to myself any longer. "Did you know Hawke well during your time in Kirkwall?"

Her violet-tinged skin seemed nearly bleached white in the soft light of the campfire's embers. "No," she rumbled, and I assumed that syllable would be the end of it, as it had been for nearly every putative conversation I or anyone else had thus far attempted with the woman. "Basalit-an knew her better."

Somehow that did not surprise me, though I did not yet understand the magnitude of my own misapprehension. "Varric's tale kept the two Champions at arm's length," I observed. "According to him, Bethany was always much closer to Athadra."

Suredat-an's expression remained perfectly inscrutable as she observed the shadows beyond the fire. "Yes," she said. This time she did not elaborate, leaving me to stew over the evident contradiction in her words.

A different curiosity took hold. "How did you come to know the Hero of Ferelden? And revere her so highly?" From what I had gathered from Varric's tale, basalit-an was one of the highest terms of respect a non-qunari could hope to hear from the citizens of the Northern Isles.

"She restored my tongue," the mage told me, though if it were an admission, her tone did not seem to consider it such.

Regardless, I felt a trickle of my old suspicion returning; sewn lips might have been a standard practice for saarebas, but I was certain that having one's tongue removed was far from it. "You delved into forbidden magicks," I said, as I did not need to ask.

"Yes." The firelight flickered in her quicksilver eyes.

I grimaced enough to deform the scar upon my cheek. "Are you a blood mage, then?"

"Yes," came her answer. "But that is not why arvaarad took my tongue."

I felt a churning in my stomach, an old fear mingling with an undeniable fascination at this window into a foreign world. "Blood magic is not forbidden among the qunari?"

"No," Suredat-an allowed. "It is a demand of the Qun."

That information was at once both alarming and reassuring; I was not so naive as to believe every instance of blood magic implied the practitioner was an abomination lying in wait, but I had dealt with a great many blood mages who fit that description not to have some twinge of instinctive suspicion. "Why did your squad leader take your tongue away, then?"

At this the qunari's eyes flicked downward, something approaching emotion colouring the edges of her face. "I saved him," she growled, through clenched teeth. For the first time outside of battle I saw anger in her expression, but this was not the fire of combat; it was a much deeper hatred, a loathing impossible to name.

Without another word or even a backward glance, Suredat-an rose to her feet, stepping away from our place by the fire. She spent the rest of the watch stalking the perimeter of the camp, and even when I joined her, I did not feel it prudent to broach any subject with her. After another hour she seemed as placid as normal, and I was finally beginning to feel the long march behind us, so I ended our watch and we turned in for the night in the smaller of the two pavilion tents, where Solas and Varric lay, lightly snoring.

The next morning, Varric emerged last from our tent, scratching the night's growth of stubble along his jaw that he did not yet see fit to shave. "I've slept rougher in my time," he admitted, somewhat grudgingly.

"I am pleased our accommodation surpasses those of the Deep Roads," I said, and I took a certain amount of satisfaction in the sourness the comment inspired in the dwarf's expression. "Make yourself ready; we shall break our fast upon the road, and I pray we are not too late."

"Where the fuck are we going, anyway?" Varric demanded, as bluntly as ever. "What's in the Hinterlands that's so important we have to walk our boots off?"

"Allies," I answered. "And also enemies." I carried with me writs prepared by Josephine and Leliana, to persuade and conscript aid from the farmers and tradespeople of the Hinterlands; we would need more steady and regular supplies of all manner of goods to Haven if we wished to keep it habitable, and we would need the indulgence-if not support-of the clerics in order to begin operating freely.

The answer seemed to mollify him, vague as it was. Suredat-an was already prepared, as was I; Solas was not long in making ready, and once Varric had finished packing his bedroll, we set off once more. The qunari was as loquacious as ever, and I had no desire to retread our conversation from the night before, still uncertain about her frank admission of blood magic and her claim that it was not at the root of her punishment but rather an integral part of her erstwhile philosophy. But the Qun was almost entirely foreign to me, especially then, as I had not shared yet shared even a single word with one of its adherents.

Our second day afoot was not to be spent in such reflections, however. We were not far removed from the sanctity of the mountains when we came across the first signs of evidence that, though their leaders and representatives had been obliterated above Haven, neither the mages nor the templars were willing to lay down their arms for a settlement that would now never come. An elven homestead lay fallow by the narrow road, freshly burnt and picked over, strewn with bodies that would never be buried; combatants, yes, but also a family of innocent victims who'd never asked to be made to choose sides in a war that they couldn't understand. The sight of a young girl lying prone in the long grass gave me pause, and I wanted to help her in death as I'd failed her in life. But I could not afford to waylay our caravan over my own petty sentimentality, and so I urged us on.

It was not much past midday when we came upon the Imperial Highway, and an unofficial checkpoint manned by templars in badly-cleaned armour. The presumptive leader was an unhelmed man of middle years, his face sallow and eyes blackened by an addiction too long unfed. "Hold," he called, signalling his forces to form up into a solid line as we approached. His expression soured as he saw the Seeker symbol emblazoned upon my breastplate, and I could feel my stomach sinking as I saw the reflexive fear in his face transmute into barely-contained rage. "What business have ye got comin' into the Hinterlands?"

"That is none of your concern," I rebuffed, throwing my own signal to Emilia and her charges to keep well back along the road. I counted seven templars, including our accuser...but if they were each in a state such as he, they would pose little enough trouble for even me to dispatch, much less the four of us who formed the vanguard. "You will let us pass."

"No," came Suredat-an's voice, from behind me, the first time she'd spoken since we parted the previous night's watch. Her words lacked passion, but the woman's tone held unwavering certainty. "They will die."

The helmless templar blinked, evidently surprised that he had not sensed the qunari's magic before this moment, nor that emanating from Solas. But he did not flinch in even momentary fear, as he had done when laying eyes upon me; instead his lips curled, the avarice naked upon his features. "Apostates," he announced, unshouldering his shield and reaching for his blade. "Means ye've got some lyrium in that wagon, I'll wager."

The man's actions were soon echoed by his subordinates, and in another moment, we faced seven lyrium-starved but well-armed and armoured templars. I moved to arm myself as well, but I was surprised to feel Suredat-an's hand on my forearm, keeping me from reaching the blade at my shoulder. "No," she said once again, either to me or to the templars...or, likely, both of us. With two long strides, she reached the midpoint between the templars and our company, giving me the briefest of glances from over her shoulder before she turned to face the blockade.

Templar training dictated but one course of action when faced with an apostate who would not run away: drain the mage's mana with Holy Smites and other techniques until they were incapacitated. I saw all seven of our opponents employ this tactic more-or-less simultaneously, the ritual motions and signs of exertion as familiar to me as breathing; in quick succession, Suredat-an flinched seven times, as the anti-magic coursed over her body and into her nerves, seeking to turn her own mana against her. The assault might even have been enough to kill a human or elven apostate outright, but the qunari hardly stumbled.

I had witnessed blood mages stand fast against such countermeasures, only to open their own veins and lose their minds to the demons that had taught them the craft. I had always put their resistance down to those spirits within them, but Suredat-an provided a counterexample to my previous experience; rather than call upon her blood, or any mana that might have remained, she leapt forward upon the helmless bandit-cum-templar before he had a chance to recover from the exertion of casting his Holy Smite. She took his head in both hands and ripped it sideways with such force that we could all hear the tendons of his throat rip within his very flesh.

As he fell, nerveless, the qunari veered left, into three men still unprepared to deal with her. The first met a fate similar to his now-dead commander, while Suredat-an grasped the remaining to by their throats, driving them into the ground. Her hands burrowed into the meat of their necks, until her fingers each met their opposed thumbs within the men's windpipes. Twin fountains of crimson sprang up around her when she stood, flesh and blood streaming from her bare hands as she turned to the three armoured men who still stood, shocked by the sudden, visceral assault that had seen over half of their company slain in less than the span of five breaths. To their credit, or perhaps to their cost, none of them broke and ran; instead, they readied swords and shields, rallying to the training that had so ill-served their companions. Suredat-an advanced in another bounding leap, and she caught the first man's thrusting arm by his wrist, wrenching his arm with such force that it bent backward at the shoulder and elbow. The next man's sword scraped along her chained flank in an ill-aimed stab that saw her grasp the top of his breastplate in one hand; she tossed him with such force that he tumbled twice in the air, and when he landed, he did not rise again. The final templar finally lost his courage. He threw down his sword and shield, turning to run, but before he could move three strides, Suredat-an was upon him, driving him into the ground with a bare foot to his spineplate. Her foot lifted three times, and three times she brought all of her weight down upon his back, until the steel he wore bowed inward and blood frothed at the corners of his mouth. As he twitched, she returned her attention to the first man whose arm she'd maimed, who was also attempting to flee. She caught him with no more difficulty than his comrade, and he died with his head split open against a stone.

Suredat-an turned back to us, her expression only slightly more animated than it had been on the day we met; she raised her bloodied hands to her face and slowly dragged them down, until eight crimson lines stretched from her forehead to the base of her neck. The red stripes upon her lavender flesh gave a chilling effect to her already-intimidating appearance. "Was that display truly necessary?" I asked, still recovering from the unexpected shock; the whole affair had taken her less time than it would have taken me to slaughter a pig, and she had not used a single thread of magic that I could detect. "We might have attempted to pass without violence."

"No," she said, looking beyond me, beyond Solas, beyond even the wagon and its slack-jawed entourage, none of whom had before witnessed her savagery. Somehow I knew that she looked down the road, all the way back to the homestead we had crossed before, with the dead child that had so disturbed me. "They thought themselves arvaarad," she said, rolling her shoulder toward the corpses in her wake. "They were mistaken."

I had nothing to say to her pronouncement, and neither did our other two companions, and so we continued onto the Imperial Highway. As the day grew longer, Suredat-an had two more occasions to add to her vitaar, as I would come to learn to term the patterns she drew upon her exposed flesh. Each time, we interrupted a skirmish between desperate templars and harassed mages, and each time, Suredat-an leapt into the thick of the fighting, striking down all who came within her grasp, and many who remained at a distance. She gave no opportunity to surrender, no quarter, and no favour to her fellow mages; it was nearly all the rest of us could do to participate in these battles to keep ourselves from feeling useless. By the time we made camp that night, the better part of Suredat-an's face, neck, arms, and torso were covered in cross-cut geometrical lines, painted in blood. The effect was disquieting upon our troupe, and especially upon the civilians who crossed our path; despite her assertion to the contrary during my interrogation, the longer I came to know her, the more Suredat-an appeared a devotee of the Qun.

I had no notion of how this would affect the whispers that called her the Herald of Andraste, but I was not optimistic in those early days, and events immediately to follow did not inspire confidence.