"Sten, could I speak to you for a moment?" Alistair asked, and Echo wasn't sure if she should intrude or watch.
Sten looked at him condescendingly, and then nodded. He followed Alistair a small ways from the camp, where Alistair sat heavily on a large rock.
"What was it like, being in charge of soldiers?" Alistair asked wearily. "Is it at all like what Elissa is doing?"
"I was under the impression that you were accepting your place as a leader, basra." Sten scoffed. "But no, it was a different experience than travelling with you Wardens."
Alistair bit his lip, and looked down at the ground.
"I am accepting the role I was given, Sten. But that's not what I'm asking. Did you feel responsible for your soldiers?"
Sten leered at him, and crossed his arms. "That is what it is to lead, basra."
"Do the Qunari think that the end justifies the means like the Wardens do? You seem like more of a man of principle than that."
Sten relaxed visibly. "You are disturbed by the events of Soldiers Peak."
Alistair shrugged. "In part, yes. But it's more than that. I always knew that the Wardens would do anything to end the Blight, but I didn't really think that meant anything."
"Like blood magic."
Alistair nodded, and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. "Or experimenting on other Wardens, for another. There are other things about the Wardens that disturb me."
Sten seemed interested. "Like what?"
Alistair pulled his shield close to his chest, as if to protect himself from his own traitorous thoughts.
"The utter lack of oversight or accountability. The undisclosed nature of the organization. The lies upon lies." He looked down at his feet miserably.
Sten sat on the ground next to him silently.
"The Qun tells us that every person has their place. I am Sten, and was born as such. My role is to lead and to fight. All that I am is known to me, and anyone that knows I am Sten."
"Does that make it easier?" Alistair asked, fingers curling tight around the edge of his shield until they turned white.
"The certainty provides purpose. My purpose guides me." Sten said, gazing out into the night sky.
"Would your purpose allow blood magic and sacrifice of living beings?"
"I travel with the mages of your party, but no. The Qun does not allow our mages to use such magic. The Saarebas are collared and led, allowed to protect the Qun with their lives and magic, but not by consorting with demons." Sten turned his head to Alistair. "But sacrificing lives is the nature of war. Do you intend to be a leader of warriors, or of fat dathrasi?"
Alistair straightened defensively. "I intend to lead by my principles, Sten."
"And do your principles align with the Wardens?" Sten asked in monotone.
"No, they don't." Alistair admitted shamefully. "I agree with their purpose, but not with their actions."
Sten gave him a blank look, tinted with approval. "Then perhaps you are not entirely a basra after all."
As Alistair settled into his bedroll and closed his eyes, the spirit felt a familiar tug at her core. She looked down, but didn't register anything being amiss until she looked around again and realized where she was.
"I'm back in the Fade!" she sang happily, and twirled. She swung her ethereal arms around her, and basked in the comfort of her long-missed home.
But now that she looked at it, the Fade was really a pale shadow of the waking world. Is that why light and smell and sound and touch had been so frighteningly vivid in Alistair's body?
"Huh." She heard from behind her, and whirled around to see Alistair splayed on the ground. "This is… odd."
"What's odd about the Fade? You mortals dream here all of the time." She smiled happily.
"That's exactly what's wrong, Echo. Grey Wardens… we don't dream in the Fade."
She froze.
"Then what do you do?" She inquired slowly. Maybe that's where the mages were disappearing to. Though why they said 'becoming Tranquil' instead of 'becoming a Grey Warden' was beyond her. But that wouldn't be the first time she'd found mortal behavior odd and contradictory.
"We have the Taint. During Blights like this, I should be dreaming of the Archdemon and the horde. I've had nightmares every night since my Joining, until you came along. I wasn't dreaming at all before today, but this is the first time I've been in the Fade for more than a year."
Wait. Gears started frantically whirring in her head, and her eyes widened in comprehension. "No…" she whispered, and stepped closer to Alistair to examine him. After a few moments, all the pieces fell into place and she slumped to the ground.
"What is it?" Alistair asked, obviously concerned. "I'm not dying, am I?"
She actually laughed, then. "That's exactly it, Alistair. You're not dying at all."
Alistair looked like she'd slapped him with a fish. "That's good, right?"
"Not if you liked being a Warden." She shrugged. "I'm not sure how or when it happened, but you don't have the Taint anymore at all."
"Not possible," Alistair shrugged, "Grey Wardens drink darkspawn blood and absorb the Taint, which slowly kills us or drives us mad."
"That's exactly what I'm saying." She looked up to meet his eyes wearily. "I think I may have accidently cured you."
Alistair's whole body twitched. "How is that even possible?" he ran his hands through his hair in an obvious effort to comfort himself, and she put a hand on his shoulder.
"It may have been when I originally helped you and pulled out demonic energy, or it might have been when I took over your body in the Circle Tower. I do remember noting a sluggish feeling in your limbs that gradually receded the longer I was in control. Or perhaps I could have purged the final bits of the Taint when we closed the portals to the Fade together, I do not know. But the blood mage knew that only Elissa still had the darkspawn taint, he even said as much."
Alistair grabbed at her arms, and his eyes were wide with panic. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"
"I didn't realize it then, Alistair, calm yourself." She patted his hair awkwardly, and he let himself fall onto the ground with a pained look.
They both stayed silent for a few awkward moments, before Alistair finally spoke.
"That means Elissa is the only Warden in all of Ferelden."
She flopped onto the ground next to him. "That is a heavy burden to bear, to be sure. Has a Warden ever been cleaned of the Taint before?"
Alistair shook his head. "Not that I know of, at least. Which means I should be very quiet about it, I suppose."
"Only if you're still strangely adverse to being studied and picked apart by the Wardens for science." She sighed. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry – for all of this. I didn't intend to take a joyride in your body, and I didn't even know that I could cure the Taint. I've made your life infinitely harder, and I don't even begin to know how to fix it."
Alistair shook his head again emphatically. "There's nothing to fix, and it isn't your fault, really. Though this is going to be much harder than I had ever hoped."
He rolled over onto his side, and made a silly face at her. "I suppose you'll just have to make it up to me somehow, right?"
She eyed him like a rabbit might eye a sleeping dog. "I'm not going to like this, am I."
Alistair grinned. "I think I'd just still like to have your advice for a while. Besides, no one else ever gets my jokes. Sten seems to think I was actually raised by dogs."
She rolled her eyes. "The lack of bathing certainly does support that theory. I don't even have a nose and I can smell you."
"So, what do you say?" Alistair waggled his eyebrows and grinned.
"Fine, you great yellow menace. I'll help you, at least until the Blight is over. Then I'm off to the Fade, unchecked, unchallenged-"
"Teaching demons to love?" Alistair interrupted, still smiling.
"…Sure. Why not."
'Are you sure you do not mind?' The spirit asked awkwardly. She was actually enjoying her time in the living world, but she didn't want to wear out her welcome. The living world was just so exciting, and she was finally getting the chance to answer questions she'd had for centuries.
But it was common knowledge that only demons longed for contact with the living world. Did that mean she was changing? Or maybe she, like Alistair, had already changed without even knowing it?
It was hard to know. Maybe all demons had moments like this before they changed. But she didn't feel comfortable in Alistair's body. She felt like an intruder, watching life through someone else's eyes. It was a more voyeuristic experience than she'd ever been interested in.
'Honestly, I'm not sure at all.' Alistair said cheerfully. 'I'm playing this all by ear. There isn't really a precedent for this situation in the 'How to be a Grey Warden' handbook.'
'Pity, that.' Not that the Grey Wardens sounded like they'd ever be that forthcoming. Outside of Alistair and Elissa, she wouldn't trust them at all. They sounded entirely too secretive and unaccountable to any authority at all.
'So, what is the plan, then?' She asked.
'For now, it's 'Go to the Blackmarsh, close those Veil tears, go to Denerim for the Landsmeet, defeat Loghain, punch the archdemon in the face, and go home with nary a kipper scuffed.' Unless you have any other ideas, of course.'
'How could I possibly have amendments to such a brilliant, well-thought-out plan?' Echo asked wearily.
'That's what I thought, too, but I just wanted to check. Solidarity and all that, you know.' Alistair bantered, as he trudged through swampy marshland. 'We have to be almost to the Blackmarsh now, it's been a week since we left Soldier's Peak.'
'Don't you people have map technology?' How did they stand never knowing exactly where they were?
'Yes, my people do possess that ability.' Alistair joked. 'We just prefer to determine our destination by tossing blackened chicken bones into a pot.'
'Fantastic.'
Alistair just smiled, and brought his boot up out of the mud. It made a loud sucking sound, and he laboriously plunged it down again in front of him.
'Why would anyone ever live here?' Alistair wondered. 'I don't think I've ever been anywhere so unpleasant that didn't have any demons visible.'
'I can think of a few places I found less pleasant than a muddy bit of land.' She peered out into the seemingly endless marshland in front of them. 'Is that a sign over there?'
Alistair looked over in the direction she indicated. 'Yes, it is.' He slowly made his way to it, and grinned.
"Says here that we're about to enter the town of Blackmarsh!" Alistair called back, and they heard more than one sigh of relief in the background.
'Doesn't that mean we have to fight demons?' Echo asked, bewildered that anyone would be excited at such a prospect.
'Yes, but it also means camp, and once we're done with this, we get to go to Denerim. We've already been through quite a bit during this Blight, and the end is now in sight for all of us.' Alistair reasoned, and readied his shield.
"Ready to go in?" Elissa asked, and everyone nodded after readying their weapons.
"All right." Alistair took up the front, and entered the edge of the town.
"What happened here?" Leliana asked, as she eyed the sunken ruins of homes scattered out before them.
Elissa shrugged her shoulders, but kept her eyes roaming for any signs of trouble. "No one really knows. The town was suddenly deserted during the rebellions, but no one was able to look into it. And after… it had been deserted so long that people just tended to their own situations at home. It is surprising that the Howe family never bothered to look into it, but then again my personal experience is that Arl Howe is a selfish, backstabbing twat. So he probably wasn't all that concerned for the welfare of a few peasants."
'Not much you can say to that.' Echo said wryly. 'You think she may be bitter?'
'For good reason.' Alistair inserted, peering sadly into another dilapidated home. 'He had her entire family slaughtered.'
'I didn't say there wasn't a good reason. Just that she's bitter.' She said calmly.
A dreadful howl sounded off dangerously close to their right, and Alistair unsheathed his sword quickly. Three werewolves leapt out of the inky darkness and directly into their path, fangs dripping with what appeared to be a mixture of blood and saliva. Morrigan flinched and reflexively sent out a nasty fireball that scorched her palms. She didn't seem to care about the wound, instead focusing on the way their opponents went up like greasy torches. One of them dropped to the mud and began to roll desperately. Shale merely raised a foot and leaned over so that she could bring her massive stone heel down on his head and cracked it open like a watermelon.
'Do you people even realize how terrifying you are?'
'Er. I suppose we are a bit intimidating as a group.' Alistair admitted.
'Just a bit.' Echo deadpanned. 'If I had legs, I would use them to make sure I was a continent away from you. I can't believe anything attacks you on purpose.'
"Don't panic, Morrigan." Alistair teased. "Shale and I can save you from the rabid dogs."
"Tis I who saved myself, you flea-ridden jackanape!" Morrigan snapped.
Alistair just shrugged and smiled, while Morrigan fumed.
'She's gonna light you on fire.' Echo stated. 'And I wouldn't blame her.'
'Whose side are you on, anyway?' Alistair demanded. 'She's a witch who could turn me into a toad.'
'And you're poking her in the eye with a stick.'
'You may have a point there.' Alistair begrudged. 'But she's really awful to me.'
She gaped. 'Seriously, who raised you? Be the bigger person here. Stop inciting the wrath of the crazy woman who throws lightning around like pebbles.'
'Who are you, my mother?' Alistair retorted, and then grew suddenly quiet. 'Oh, I made myself feel bad.'
Was is even possible for there to be a silent, awkward moment between two people sharing a consciousness?
Apparently so, as it turned out.
Silence reigned in the Blackmarsh as they calmly cut through the small bands of darkspawn and blighted creatures. Echo grew bored watching Alistair bludgeon darkspawn into death's icy grip and instead began to drift off, thinking in particular about how much she wished she couldn't smell the fetid swamp water, coppery blood, and rotting corpses. It was a particularly disgusting combination, truth be told.
"What in hell are those things?" Elissa shrieked, and gestured to Morrigan emphatically.
That effectively shook Echo out of her thoughts, and she looked to their surroundings. The clearing they'd come to was full of large, white cocoons. Most of them were obviously underdeveloped, but a few were large and looked to be ready to burst.
Sure enough, they heard sounds like cotton clothes ripping, and some of the cocoons were torn apart from the inside by the most disgusting thing Echo had seen yet. It looked like a long, nasty grub, with a distorted human-like face. Its teeth appeared sharp, and worse yet, it had a large amount of insect-like legs to propel it directly towards Alistair and Elissa.
Alistair gagged a bit at the sight, and Morrigan wasted no time lighting the other cocoons on fire. The few grub-things that had hatched launched themselves directly at Alistair, and only by leaping backwards did he avoid having his head taken off by a particularly enthusiastic monster. Zevran tossed a fire flask into the space that Alistair had vacated, and the monsters gave off a keening cry like a human infant before collapsing on the ground.
Elissa froze momentarily at the sound, and a grub took advantage of her vulnerability and launched itself at her side, taking out a chunk of her thigh.
"Aaaagh!" Elissa screamed, and brought down the edge of her shield on the beast to chop it in half. The blood and guts exploded out of the creature, and coated Elissa from head to toe. The grub's head was still attached to her thigh, teeth embedded deeply into her flesh. She hit it continually with her sword in panic while crying in pain and frustration, while Alistair and the rest of the group carefully cut and diced their way through the rest of the grubs.
Elissa finally dislodged the grotesque thing's head from her leg and stood up shakily. She was obviously waery from blood loss, and Wynne would need to tend to her.
"The children!" Echo heard a distorted voice bellow behind them, and Alistair immediately moved to address the threat and place himself between the newcomer and the wounded Elissa.
A large armored darkspawn burst into the clearing and leered at them hatefully.
"You have destroyed the Mother's children!" He screamed, as he took a staff from his back and waved it around menacingly. "You cannot be allowed to live!"
Then he rose the staff up in the air, and Echo realized what he was doing all too late as she felt the connection to the Fade strengthen, like the tension in a taut rubber band, before snapping back immediately to where she could feel nothing at all.
She forced herself to look down at her body to confirm her fears. Wisps of spiritual energy wrapped around an ethereal torso, and she brought a hand to her face and noted that the Fade rippled with her every movement.
"Oh, hell." She breathed, and tried not to weep in despair. Echo looked around herself, but none of Alistair's companions were in her range of vision. "They must have landed somewhere else."
She could see the suddenly-restored Blackmarsh not far in the distance, and heaved a sigh. "Nothing for it, one foot in front of the other." She made her way down the embankment she'd landed on carefully, but twitched when she noticed a smell she recognized. "Sulfur… and rot." She muttered, wrinkling her nose. "Demons. Of course."
It would be best to take care of them first, and then go to the village. The demons would doubtless attack Alistair and his companions later if they were not disposed of now, and then they would risk being swarmed. Perhaps the rest of the party had also been separated, as well, and they would need to be located.
With that in mind, she picked through the strange brambles and terrain of the Fade, and made her way towards one of the tears in the Veil she could sense. When she neared it, she could see a trio of desire demons maintaining the connection, with a contingent of rage demons as guards.
"I don't know that I could kill them by myself." She mused grumpily, and turned away. She would either need a plan, or one of Alistair's companions. Echo was powerful, yes, but not physically so. She had the power to dispose of all the demons, but not in an instant. She would need a strong companion to weather a few blows while she gathered and directed her energy at the demons.
As if answering a silent prayer, she noticed distant movement out of the corner of her eye, and a glint of light reflecting off a craggy surface. Echo silently dropped lower to the ground and moved closer to the source, while keeping an eye on the coven of demons.
Behind a Tevinter statue, she found her quarry. Shale was standing over a pile of rage demons, with a triumphant air. Echo straightened, and cleared her throat a safe distance away.
Shale turned her head quickly. "What is it? Another demon, perhaps? I should squish it like the others."
Echo raised her hands in outwardly calm surrender. "A spirit, but not a demon. Your battle prowess is impressive."
Shale straightened proudly. "Of course it thinks so. I am impressive."
Echo simultaneously agreed, and wanted to roll her eyes. "What is a warrior of such power doing here, in the Fade?"
Shale leaned in and took a few steps closer. Echo was glad she didn't need to breathe, or she would be hyperventilating right now. Any second, Shale could just reach over and… well, it didn't bear thinking about.
"Someone put me here." Shale announced, before checking the general area. "What is it doing here?"
"I am a spirit." Echo calmly countered. "My kind exists in the Fade." Or, you know, in the living world when they could hitch a ride.
"Ah." Shale seemed disinterested now. "It doesn't know how to leave, then?"
Now they were finally getting somewhere.
"I have an idea." Echo said, trying to sound calm. "You and the others that were sent must slay the demons in the area, and lastly the demon that controls this section of the Fade."
Shale stood quietly and examined Echo as if she were a fresh-caught fish on market day. "Very well, then. Where does it think I should go?"
Echo gestured with her ethereal limbs in the direction of the demons she'd found earlier. "I have a good place to start, if you would join me."
Shale nodded decisively. "I do not like this… Fade of yours. I will assist you, spirit," she spat sarcastically, "if that is what it requires to leave this dreadful place."
"At least it doesn't have any birds?" Echo suggested helpfully, and Shale quickly looked to the sky. She examined it carefully for a few moments before staring at Echo again.
Echo shrugged lightly, and turned in the direction of their quarry. She felt more than heard Shale moving behind her, sounds felt so dull in the Fade. It was not unlike listening to music or talking while underwater. Everything was muted and garbled.
She could still feel, though, if she really thought about it. Shale's heavy footsteps made the ground shake lightly behind her, rumbling up to make her body vibrate. It felt almost like having a heartbeat again, the steady pounding driving her forward.
They found the demons just as they'd been before. The desire demons were steadfastly chanting and channeling energy into an altar to maintain the tears in the Fade, as rage demons briskly flowed around the clearing.
"Ready?" Echo turned back to Shale, but Shale was staring at the demons instead of her face. Shale then burst up and barreled into the area. Echo quickly gathered energy to herself and focused it on the desire demons closest to Shale, who was pummeling a rage demon into a fine paste. She rose her hands and made a throwing gesture, as white-hot energy exploded from her see-through fingertips and launched itself into the chest of the first desire demon. The demon shrieked and held its hand to its breast, cupping it awkwardly while grasping desperately into the air for magic of its own. It twitched violently and slumped to the ground, as the energy arced quickly to the second desire demon. It burnt a hole into its skin, but did no more than grievously wound. The second desire demon screeched an obscenity, and pushed its hands together and out to press a wave of demonic energy out at Echo.
Echo made a squeaking noise, but held her hands out reflexively to shield herself with her own energy. The demon's attack hit hard against her defense, but it didn't hurt. She brought her hands out and slammed them down on the ground, causing a shockwave of spirit energy that rippled outwards. As the ground shook, the altar quaked, and the scenery of the Fade winked in and out of existence.
'The created surroundings can't withstand this much disruption.' Echo noted distractedly. 'The demon that constructed the illusion created too much to maintain. The nitwit.'
The fact that doing damage to the altar broke the illusion was telling. The altars weren't just a portal into the living world, but a conduit through which thrall demons gave their liege lord power.
'Some demon's life is about to suck very hard, very soon.' She giggled to herself. 'All Shale and I have to do is break the rest of those altars before we confront it. It will be weak, confused, and mostly unsupported. I almost feel sorry for it.'
"Shale, we need to smash the altar!" She shouted and pointed. If she wasn't absolutely sure that golems didn't have facial expressions, she would sworn Shale smiled before running up to the altar and bringing both massive fists down upon it.
The altar broke – or rather, was pulverized into ethereal dust- and the few demons left shrieked again.
Echo dodged an incoming swipe from a rage demon, and shoved an energy-covered palm into its chest. The demon froze solid, and she took the opportunity to kick it in the torso. It shattered into thousands of pieces, and Echo vaguely wished that someone else had been there to see it.
Shale tore through the demons like they were made of wet tissue paper, and Echo turned to face the last desire demon. It dove at her with its claws out and tore into her arm. A bitter smile was right in her face, breathing cool air scented of roses directly into her face. Slowly, the desire demon twisted her nails slightly, digging them in to what would have been the bone in a creature made of flesh. As she was thought and magic, the wound was a hold into her very being.
It took a moment for what had happened to register. Echo gasped and stiffened, previously unacquainted with the concept of pain. That- it was so much more intense when not filtered through Alistair's senses. She took too long to react—the other hand jerked towards her heart.
Instinct took over, and Echo found herself with one hand holding the demon's wrist away from her heart, and the other embedded into its chest.
The demon's face was frozen in shock and pain, and the body slumped around her shaking hand.
"Is it all right?" Shale's voice resounded from the other side of the clearing, and Echo slowly turned her head. Suddenly, everything felt very surreal. She had killed demons – on her own – and was up to her forearm in desire demon entrails.
She didn't have a response for this. None of her experiences in her life, the Fade, or in Alistair's body gave her any sort of idea what she was supposed to do now.
Then again, maybe it was obvious. She dropped the demon's arm with her free hand, and laboriously shoved the creature off her trapped limb. She stared at the offending hand blankly, before self-consciously rubbing her hand against her body, even though there wasn't any blood to wipe off.
Shale huffed in the distance, and Echo turned to face her again.
"Sorry," she choked. "My first time disemboweling someone with my hand. You know how it goes."
She felt somewhat light-headed. Could spirits even faint?
Shale grunted. "Are all spirits this weak?"
Echo didn't care enough to be insulted. She shrugged instead. "I never said I was an unstoppable, death-dealing machine. Would you prefer that I leave?"
She wasn't sure whether the question was genuine or not. Echo wanted Alistair and his friends to get out of the Fade alive, but she didn't think she was cut out for this. She didn't like killing – at all – and she obviously didn't have any pain tolerance.
She brought her hands closer to her chest, and rubbed her arms. The wound the demon had given her burned like acid, and she felt like crying. Would it ever heal again? Human's bodies healed with time, but she didn't know if spirits were the same. She wasn't a spirit of Justice, fighting demons all the time.
A shadow fell over her, and she looked up to see Shale staring back down at her.
"I am separated from my companions, and do not know their location." Shale shared. "Travelling with you seems tolerable, for now."
Echo squared her shoulders, and looked Shale in the eyes. (Or, rather, the pretty gems that were in place of eyes.) "Good." She said, with much more confidence than she felt. "We should take care of the other altars in the area. We might find your friends on the way."
She turned in the direction of the next altar she could sense, and started stomping away. Hopefully, Shale wouldn't notice that her hands were shaking if she moved fast enough.
Luckily, none of the altars were very far from each other, and Echo was actually relieved to see a group of demons in the distance. They might have heard the commotion from their earlier fight, but with one altar destroyed, they couldn't risk leaving theirs.
Echo cracked a smile, and slammed her palms on the ground again to loose another shockwave. The disturbance shook more than a few demons to the ground, and Shale ran over them with all the grace of a semi-trailer without brakes.
This time, Echo didn't hesitate, and mercilessly shot out a bolt of energy into a desire demon's chest. As that one slumped to the ground, the smell of burning plastic hit her nose, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
A rage demon rushed to meet her, and she wasted no time in stopping it dead as she shook her head to clear away the smell.
She ran towards another desire demon. Hopefully, if she didn't give herself enough time to think, she wouldn't be able to panic.
Echo barely dodged another swipe from venomous talons by diving to the side, and brought her hands up to protect her head. The desire demon slashed again with her other hand, and gnashed her teeth wildly in fury.
'So much for not panicking,' Echo thought frantically, as she barely managed to fend off the demon's quick attacks. 'Oh, shit, I'm entirely out of my depth.'
She dropped to the ground to avoid a particularly nasty-looking hit to her chest, and rolled to her left. Echo popped back up immediately, and shoved her hands out with spirit energy.
Evidently she put entirely too much into it, as it sent out a veritable wall that passed through the desire demon, entirely incinerating it. It continued to burn through the Fade, swallowing up the constructed trees, rocks, and outlying buildings.
Echo cringed as it finally stopped near the coastline, and looked around to make sure Shale was still safe.
Shale was standing only a few feet away, staring at the blackened path her attack had carved into the landscape.
"Perhaps it isn't so weak, after all." Shale amended grudgingly, before turning to the altar and smashing it with a single swing. Dust exploded into Echo's face, and she choked on the taste.
"Warn a girl before you do that!" Echo rasped, fanning the air with one hand as she tried to scrape the foul substance off her tongue with her teeth.
Shale huffed, and started walking away.
"You aren't even going the right way." Echo called grumpily, and started to walk off in the direction of the next altar.
She didn't need to turn to know Shale was following, or that she was supremely amused.
