The ravens flew day and night.

Selena had been surprised to learn there were only four of them. There seemed to be a whole flock, the way they were constantly streaming in and out of camp. They were Sister Leliana's, she knew. The Sister had taken charge of a tent near the Chantry, on a rise that overlooked the whole of the camp, and Selena watched the ravens soar there and back again. Dropping suddenly out of the sky down to the tent. Heading out, dark and glossy, wings cutting cleanly into the air as they climbed higher, until the clouds swallowed them up. They seemed to take pleasure in how silent they could be, arrowing past the unsuspecting for the sheer enjoyment of making them jump.

It was simpler to watch the sky for the ravens than to watch the Breach. She tried not to watch the Breach. She caught herself watching it more often than she was comfortable with. She did it without thinking.

They had given her some time to…think. Or, rather, Sister Leliana had intervened when the Seeker began to press her, and suggested they allow Selena a few days to think about it. They could spare her a few days, the Sister had pointed out, and Selena could likely use the rest.

A great deal has happened to the Herald in a short time, Sister Leliana had said. It is not as if we do not have plenty to do. In the meantime, perhaps Lady Selena would like us to send word to her family, her friends, to let them know she is safe and well?

Selena had declined that offer. Her family had made it clear that they were not interested in getting involved. And her friends… Selena had told the Sister no and thank you. But there wasn't anyone to contact. There wasn't anyone left.

That was one of the things she was going to have to think about.

She had seen the Commander of the Inquisition's forces as she left, a tall, fair-haired man, striding up to the doors of the Chantry to hammer in a proclamation. She watched him stride back through the camp afterwards, neatly evading the frowning Chancellor Roderick. Head held high, looking forward. The Seeker moved like that. Many people in Haven — in the Inquisition did. With purpose. It was…tempting. The thought of not simply having to run and run. Of having a place and a purpose.

They were letting her stay in the cabin. She'd gone back there, after. And had been surprised when there was a knock at the door, and a slight, excitable elf came in, carrying soap and towels and two large buckets of hot water. She squeaked something about Lady Cassandra's orders and when Selena spoke to her, she flung herself into a bow on the floor and nearly dropped both buckets.

The girl hurried out, but was back again a few minutes later with a tray of food. She quavered an apology as she set it on the desk — something about rations until they had secured proper supply lines from somewhere. Selena thought she thanked the girl. She wasn't sure. There was a hard-boiled egg. And a mug of tea, so strong and sweet it was nearly a meal in itself. And porridge — real porridge, so thick she could almost slice it, and there was a swirl of honey on top and, Maker help her, raisins.

She thought briefly that she should go slowly. Make it last. That thought evaporated with the first searing taste. The porridge was hot enough to scald her mouth, but thick and rich, and she felt the heat of it slide down to her belly as she swallowed. Something inside her snapped at the feeling of real food in her stomach, feeling it settled there, warm and heavy, and the heat of it soak into her, and she shoveled in another mouthful, another, not even tasting it now. She scraped the spoon along the bowl, and then licked the spoon clean, and then the bowl, running her fingers along the inside of it to make sure she hadn't missed anything, and then had to sit on the floor for a bit and take a long, quiet moment to pull herself together.

Afterwards, she washed up. The water was still fairly hot, and Selena put her new clothes aside and scrubbed and scrubbed until she raised red marks on her skin. She washed her hair as quickly as she could, and tied it back into a long tail while it was still wet.

When she was finished, she put her new clothes back on. She didn't have anything else.

It was tempting to think about hiding away in there, in that small, warm cabin. To bolt the door and shut this all away. The choices and the whispers.

Because it was so tempting, Selena forced herself to go outside. To walk through Haven, and see how exactly the Seeker was putting her Inquisition into action. Very well, it seemed. Focused. Organized. It would need to be, Selena supposed. Haven was a small village at the edge of the mountains, clinging to the rock and ice out of sheer will. It had nearly been forgotten, and then, with the discovery of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, found and fostered, built up again out of necessity, because of its nearness to the Temple, but it didn't seem large enough for what the Seeker was proposing. Not without that organization.

An infirmary had been set up by the Chantry. Emilia was there — she was always there, she didn't appear to sleep — bullying Chantry sisters about the proper size of bandages and how their instruments needed to be boiled. Endlessly, it seemed, stitching and setting and bandaging. The surgeon had said that a lot of people survived, but it was clear to Selena, seeing the infirmary, that survival could mean many things.

"Know any healing magic?" Emilia demanded when Selena asked if she could help. Selena shook her head. "Then no. You'll just be in the way. Headaches?"

"No."

"Good. Get out of here."

There was the apothecary, harried and short-tempered, crammed into a cabin at the edge of camp that was packed with bottles shoved onto shelves, bubbling away over flames, drying herbs hanging from the ceilings, and recipes tacked to the walls. There was the tavern, just down from the apothecary's, small but cozy, with a warmth that went beyond the roaring fire, and laughter that shifted into silence when she entered. Selena forced herself to linger long enough to exchange a few words with the wide-eyed, and surprisingly young, girl behind the bar — you're her! Oh my goodness, you're her, aren't you? — before escaping.

There were a number of bonfires, spaced throughout Haven, and they all had something cooking on them, at all hours of the day or night. Vats of stew, spider-legged iron ovens for bread or hard biscuits, countless potatoes buried in the embers. And there was always a kettle on the boil, for the hot, sweet tea that everyone drank, or the coffee that…some people preferred coffee. There were a lot of people in Haven, and they all needed to be fed. It was surprisingly comforting to walk by, feel the heat of the fire, catch the scent of something roasting or baking, and hear the kettle whistling. If a little dizzying.

A merchant had set up shop just by the gates, and just beyond them the blacksmith's forge. And a training area for the soldiers.

There were Templars training them.

Selena stopped when she saw them.

It was a difficult moment. Seeing them that first time. She had known they were there. In Haven. Of course they were, they had come for the Conclave, she had known that. But knowing it was different from seeing it. And seeing it was…difficult. The armor. She saw that armor in her sleep. The smell of the polish. A special mix of wax and oils that only they used. She couldn't be smelling it, she was too far away, but she knew it would be there. The swords, the light flashing along the blades as they slashed, silent.

She hadn't thought they would be silent. Books always talked about swords whistling through the air, but their swords were silent, fast and wet and silent, as they came down.

Foolish. Foolish to be afraid, to see them and be afraid, to feel her heart racing in her chest and heat flush over her skin in spite of the ice whistling down from the mountains. Foolish to want to run don't run…

One of them looked over, shielding his eyes from the sun. Saw her. He grabbed another Templar's arm, nodding to her. His friend shrugged, said something Selena couldn't hear, but the first Templar started towards her.

The moment became a little more difficult.

Don't run, don't don't run, think and don't run. They were in Haven, here, now, which meant they had come for the Conclave, and stayed for this Inquisition. It meant they wanted peace. The Templar strode towards her. He didn't seem to be very tall, but it was hard to tell. That armor made everything look bigger. It blocked out the sun, and cast only shadows.

She wished she still had a staff. She felt naked, standing there, in the strange, new clothing that still didn't feel entirely hers. It was better she didn't have one. It would have made things worse.

If it came to it, she wouldn't need one.

It wouldn't come to it.

Another Templar, a woman, hurried after the man and pushed her way in front of him. "Rory — Rory, stop this — "

He said something to the woman, low and quick — Conclave…the Divine — and tried to shove his way past her, to Selena. The woman shoved him back and then held out her arms. "I said stop this now! You know what the Commander will say when he hears of this!"

Selena could hear her heart hammering away in her ears. She could smell it now. The sweat. The armor polish.

The scent of it was always there, in the Circle. It was part of the background, like the Templars themselves. Now the blood overpowered nearly everything, but the scent of their polish was still there. Like a ghost. And when it got stronger, she knew they were coming.

"I don't give a shit what that mage-lover says. She's just walking around free and we're supposed to accept that?"

Selena heard herself say, "I didn't kill the Divine."

He made to shove past the other Templar, to charge at Selena, but the woman managed to hold him back. "Then you're a fucking liar as well as a murderer! It isn't right, Lysette, and you know it!"

"Well. Isn't this nice? All of us here, together, keeping the spirit of the Conclave alive." Varric strolled up, tossing them an easy smile. He gave Selena a nod. "Heard you were up and about. Feeling okay?"

"Yes. Thank you." She hated how hard it was to say those words. Hated how brittle they sounded.

"Looks like you've got the glowing hand thing under control."

Selena looked down at her hand and unclenched her aching fingers. "Yes," she said. That sounded a little better.

Varric nodded again. "Lysette. Rory. How's the shoulder?"

"Better," the woman said, her eyes dancing from her friend to Selena. He still hadn't taken his eyes off Selena.

"Back on active duty yet?"

"The Commander says next week, if the healer approves it."

"Good to hear. Listen, if you all are around later, we're getting up a game of Wicked Grace. Tavern, around sundown. You should come," he said, elbowing Selena. "I'd like to see how well the Herald bluffs."

The Templar jerked away from the woman, taking a few steps back. "I don't play cards with mages." He stalked back towards the soldiers.

The woman gave them a brief nod, and strode after him.

Varric watched them go. "Making friends?"

"Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?" Selena tried to focus on the wind. The cold.

"Theoretically. Come on. It's freezing. I don't know about you, but I could use something hot to drink."


The smell of something hot and savory beckoned as they made their way to the bonfire. It turned out to be stew. Two women were tending to a huge pot of it, nearly big enough that it could have doubled as a bathtub. Or, rather, one woman was tending to it, stirring the thickly bubbling, spicy-scented concoction as she and her friend gossiped. "I suppose you've heard about those refugees out in the Hinterlands. The ones near Redcliffe?"

Her friend hmmmed as she nodded at Varric and Selena. "Hard going, I hear." She wrapped her apron around her hand and lifted the whistling kettle off it's hook over the fire. "The mages and the Templars put a lot of people out of their homes."

"Mother Giselle is there to help, at least," the cook replied, stirring vigorously. "That's something."

Her friend sniffed, pouring boiling water into a large teapot. "I think food and clothing would help more than prayers. You think it's bad here — they're freezing to death down there."

"Mother Giselle's not like that. I met her — give us mugs, Letty, I know Pip's just brought back a load of them, washed — back during the Blight. She might say prayers, but she also found my Thom a bed in the Chantry infirmary, even after the Reverend Mother said Andraste's hospitality didn't extend to dwarves, and she didn't let any of the healers just pass him by, either. I'm afraid we've only got tea," the cook said, pouring out two mugs and shoving one into Selena's hands. "Coffee's all been 'requisitioned.'"

"Tea is fine, thank you," Selena said. The mug was massive and heavy, and hot enough to sting her hands.

Varric sniffed theatrically. "Something sure smells good."

"It's for supper tonight, and it's still got a few hours to cook, unless you like your meat tough as boot leather."

"Meat?" Varric's expression brightened.

"One of the Nightingale's scouts brought some by. And if you're smart, Master Tethras, that's all you'll ask about where it came from and what it is."

"Fair enough. You sure you don't have anything you could spare? For my friend," Varric added with a charming smile. "She's awful hungry."

"Famished," Selena said quickly, when the cook and her friend both turned to her.

The friend pursed her lips, but bent down to lift the lid off a cast iron oven when the cook nodded at her. The scent of baking, warm and sweet, blossomed in the cold air. "Now that you mention it, we did get a bit of flour this morning. Oh, a few more, Letty, there's nothing to the girl."

Letty passed them a small handkerchief full of cookies, still warm from the oven.

"Now you go and sit down," the cook said, waving an authoritative ladle at one of the long benches set up near the bonfire. "And if anyone asks you where you got those, mind, it was here."

The women dropped their voices, but Selena still heard the whispers as she headed to the benches. That's her. The one as stopped the Breach from getting any bigger.

I thought she was supposed to close it entirely. Still, it's more than anyone else has done. The demons would have had us otherwise.

Selena blew on her tea as the steam curled up into the cold air. Trying to give it a moment to cool. To give herself a moment.

She tried a cookie. It tasted of almonds, and crumbled delicately in her mouth as she chewed.

"Good, huh?" Varric popped a second cookie in his mouth, whole. "Who knew being a prisoner actually rated you some decent grub?"

"I thought you were a guest," Selena said, taking another careful bite. Her stomach, prodded awake by the first cautious taste, rumbled, wanting more. Wanting her to gorge.

"I think they're still working out the fine print in this fancy new Inquisition. You okay?" he asked.

"Yes. Thank you," she said. "And thank you — for intervening."

"Yeah, well. If this…whatever the hell it is…is going to work out, we're all going to have to learn to play nice with each other." He nudged her. "Eat up."

Selena selected a second cookie and turned it over in her fingers. "Are you watching out for me?"

He grinned. "Just playing nice."

A shriek split the air. No, not a shriek, Selena realized, her heart pounding. More a squeal — joyous and excited and drawn-out and so high-pitched that it nearly became inaudible for a few moments. It was coming from a woman, dark haired and resplendent in gold and purple silks, her arms thrown wide as she rushed past the bonfire and up the steps towards the tent by the Chantry entrance. The next moment Sister Leliana was there, catching the woman in a hug so fierce it knocked her hood back, and Selena could see that the Sister's face was alight with laughter. There was a breathless, "You're late!"

"Of course I am!" the other woman said, pushing back far enough to give the Sister an amused look. Amber earrings jangled against her dark hair as she shook her head. "Wait until you see them, Leliana — they are beautiful, simply beautiful! Even your Seeker will be impressed."

"Well, look at that." Varric waved his mug at the two women. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say Nightingale almost looks human."

"Nightingale?" Selena said.

"Our Leliana's had, shall we say, an interesting career. Even before she was Left Hand of the Divine. You are going to want to eat that," Varric said, nodding to the cookie in her hands. "Bess is only going to start bullying you if she sees you're not eating."

Selena glanced at the cook. "Do you know everyone here?"

Varric shrugged. "Not too hard to get to know people if you talk to them a little. And use a little common sense. Everyone's got a story. Take Ruffles there. Those fancy clothes say court life to me, and she knows Leliana. I'm guessing she's the new ambassador we're supposed to be getting."

"We?"

"Looks like." Varric finished off his tea and set his mug down by the bench. "So. Now that Cassandra's out of earshot, are you holding up all right? I mean, you go from being the most wanted criminal in Thedas to being hailed as the Herald of freakin' Andraste and offered a place in the armies of the faithful. Most people would've spread that out over more than one day. I'm assuming Cassandra did ask you to stay."

"She did."

"As a guest?"

Selena tried to smile. "So it would seem."

"You sure about that?" She glanced at him in surprise. Varric sighed. "Look, I've written enough tragedies to recognize where this is going. That hole in the sky? That's going to need something more than good intentions and some heroic 'once more unto the Breach' type speeches. That's going to need a miracle." He gave her an intent look. "Sure you don't want to consider running at the first opportunity?"

Selena took a sip of her tea before answering. It was very hot, and so sweet that it made her teeth ache. "What makes you think I'm not?"

"Just a guess," he said dryly. "You know you keep looking at it."

Selena hadn't realized she'd turned to watch the Breach again. She pulled her gaze away. "I know."

But Varric had turned to watch it himself, shaking his head. "I still can't believe anyone walked out of that thing and lived."

Selena thought about the charges Chancellor Roderick had hurled at her. "It was luck."

Varric snorted. "Yeah, you're really lucky. I think the question is if it's good luck or bad. Don't suppose you remember what that was like? Writerly curiosity."

Selena shook her head. "I don't remember anything about… I didn't know what happened until they told me. Until I saw…the Temple."

"Yeah." His voice was somber. "I'm sorry."

"So am I," she said.

"Friends of yours?"

Selena swallowed. "Yes."

"Well, shit."

"Yes." She looked up at the Breach again. "They said thousands were coming to the Conclave."

"I don't want to think about it." Varric rubbed a hand over his face. "I do, all the damn time, but I don't want to."

"But you still do. All the time." Selena focused on the steaming mug of tea in her hands. "How do you — walk away from that? How can you? Turn your back on them, on all of them. All of those who died, those who could die if you do nothing. If you can help, then — then how can you choose not to?"

"A lot of people could," he said.

She turned on him, not sure if her question was angry or serious. "Could you?

Varric hesitated. "I'd like to think I'm as selfish and irresponsible as the next guy, but this… Thousands of people died on that mountain, I was almost one of them. And now there's a giant hole in the sky. Even I can't walk away and just leave that to sort itself out."

Selena looked at her hand. "No."

"No," Varric agreed. Then he grinned. "Though you could argue that's the attitude that got us into this situation in the first place."

The smile easier this time. "True."

He laughed. "All right. Sold. Let's be big damn heroes."


By the evening, a small crowd had gathered to watch as the woman in purple and gold shouted orders to two workers hanging out the top windows of the Chantry. They were carefully maneuvering a larger roll of…it looked like fabric to Selena. "A little to the left!" The woman flinging her arms dramatically in the direction she wanted them to go. "No, I said a little — that's a very little, you have to move it more! A very little bit more!"

Selena made her way through the crowd to where the Seeker was watching. Her attention was focused on the entertainment, but she inclined her head as Selena stopped beside her. "Lady Selena."

"Seeker Pentaghast. What is this?"

The Seeker smiled. "You will see."

"Stop stop stop!" the woman cried out, waving her hands. "There! Perfect!" She clapped her hands together and sighed as she turned to say something to Sister Leliana.

Selena said, "I don't go by my title very much. I prefer Selena."

"I understand," the Seeker said. "I myself prefer simply Cassandra. Particularly among those I work alongside."

One of the workers nodded and waved a hand. The woman cupped her hands over her mouth and called out, "Now!"

A banner unfurled, bold against the grey stones of the Chantry. Golden stitching on a brilliant red background. A sword and eye, with tendrils curling out like flames.

"The official banner of the Inquisition," Cassandra said, the ring of pride in her voice as clear as a bell. "So that everyone knows who we are, and what we shall do."

Selena stared up at the banner. The stitching was so new it gleamed, even in the fading pink and purple light of evening. "You're promising a lot with that."

"I intend to fulfill it," Cassandra said.

"It doesn't frighten you?"

"It does. But I will not let that stop me." The Seeker turned to her, arching an eyebrow. "Will you let it stop you?"

Selena felt the wind pick up, saw it catch the banner. "No."

"No?" Cassandra repeated, and smiled when Selena turned to her. She offered her hand. A week ago the Seeker had her in chains, and now she was offering her hand.

Selena took it.

Overhead, the banner snapped and twisted, fighting against the wind.

And in the distance, pulling the clouds to it and turning the stretch of sky over the mountain grey, the Breach burned like the sun.

AN: Thanks so much for reading along with the first part! I'm off to work on Part 2, and will begin posting when it's complete.