Kinloch Hold, 9:30 Dragon
The situation at the Circle tower was far worse than anyone anticipated. Leliana did not scale the tower with Naia, so she waited on the ground floor as survivors were sent down. There were depressingly few of them.
When Leliana saw Cullen, she wondered if that might have been a mercy.
The abominations had kept the mages alive because they might prove useful; they had kept the Templars alive for amusement. The young man had been tortured, viciously, and in ways that not even Leliana could identify. His face was yellowed and hollow, his eyes were wild, and he shrank even from his fellow Templars, whispering something about illusions, demons, tricks.
Knight-Commander Greagoir did his best to soothe Cullen, and finally managed to persuade him to take a sleeping draught. The Templar lieutenant choked up half of it, and never did close his eyes, but the drug seemed to calm him somewhat. He lay down on a cot in their makeshift infirmary and was quieter, at least; but he was still mumbling and feverish, and his eyes were focused on a spot in the distance that only he seemed to be able to see.
"He is not well," Leliana told the Warden bluntly, when she came to see how he was. "What he has gone through—it is more than anyone should have to bear." She pitched her voice low, although she wasn't convinced that Cullen could hear her.
The elf sighed and shook her head. She stepped over to the lieutenant's cot and gave him a long look. "Maybe Wynne can—"
She stopped short when Cullen reached out and seized her wrist.
"You should have killed them," he rasped.
Naia stiffened and her eyes narrowed to slits, but her expression softened when her gaze fell to the Templar's hand. Two of his fingers were twisted at unnatural angles and were deep purple with bruising, and his fingernails were either shattered or missing, leaving his fingertips coated with dirt and blood. Leliana wondered if they had done that to him, or if he had done it himself while trying to escape his prison.
The Warden twisted her wrist and carefully freed herself. "I killed the ones who did this to you," she assured him.
"All of them," the Templar insisted, his voice shaking. "There is corruption in this Circle. Every mage here has been subject to blood magic and demons. You are a damned fool if you think any of them should still live."
"They weren't all malificarum," Naia said gently. "The ones who live deserved to be saved."
Cullen laughed—a harsh, ugly noise—and turned his face towards the wall. "Idiot girl."
Naia closed her eyes and her shoulders sagged. Leliana knew that expression; the Warden saw that there was nothing she could do for this man.
"Wynne said he was one of the nice ones. He won't ever be the same, will he?" Naia asked as they left the infirmary.
"No." Leliana's voice came out more sharply than she'd intended. "He may recover, with time, and help," she amended. "But no. He will not be the same."
Naia looked over at her and tilted her head slightly. Leliana wondered if the other woman could sense that she was speaking from experience. Probably so. The Warden had a disconcerting way of puzzling those sorts of things out. She braced herself for the inevitable questions.
But all Naia said was, "Do you think there's any way to bring back Uldred so I can kill him again?"
Leliana smiled sadly. "It would not help the boy."
The Warden's answering smile had a sharp edge to it. "Wouldn't hurt."
The mountains above Haven, 9:41 Dragon
It had been a day since Haven's destruction. It felt like a lifetime—or sometimes like a minute, or sometimes like it hadn't happened at all, that Haven had been just an awful figment of Leliana's imagination.
The Inquisition's spymaster walked close to the front of their party, her scout's eyes scanning the landscape, hoping to spot whatever it was that the Herald was leading them toward, whatever Solas had told her was there. It wasn't that she didn't trust the elf—actually, no, it was exactly that. But there were few people Leliana would have trusted with the fate of the entire Inquisition.
Cecily, on the other hand, moved through the snow with utter confidence, her face almost serene, only occasionally glancing at Solas for confirmation, which he gave with a subtle nod.
The Herald believes him, and so, I suppose, must I.
Varric and The Iron Bull trailed close behind the Herald and Solas. Leliana had heard Cullen ask Bull to remain near the Herald and act as her bodyguard—a wise idea, one Leliana should have thought of herself. Varric was there because Cecily was always a receptive audience for his stories. The one he was finishing now was about how his friend Daisy had gotten lost and wound up in the Viscount's bath chamber, to the deep consternation of the Viscount's house staff.
"Fortunately, Hawke put enough coin in the right hands to make them forget the whole thing ever happened. After that I got Daisy a ball of twine so she could find her way home without winding up in the Keep," Varric finished.
Cecily and The Iron Bull were both laughing, and even Solas let out a soft chuckle. Normally Leliana would have joined them, but today the sound of laugher felt almost unbearable. All she could think about was the agents she'd pulled back. The ones she should have left in the field. Could their work, their information, have given them warning about the attack? Could Haven have been saved?
The dwarf looked over at Leliana. If he recognized her dark mood, he didn't show it. "What about you, Sister?"
Leliana frowned, puzzled. "Me?"
"For a bard, you tell surprisingly few tales. I've told everyone about Hawke. What about the Hero of Ferelden?"
"What about her?"
"Well, come on, you must have some stories. Is it true she'd never held a sword before the Wardens recruited her from her alienage?" Varric asked.
"A pretty tale, but no," Leliana said. "Her mother trained her—and trained her well. She could not have survived the Blight otherwise."
Varric groaned. "You're letting facts get in the way of a perfectly good story, Sister. Are you sure you used to do this professionally?"
Leliana smiled a bit. "I could not lie about Naia. I feel certain she would know, somehow. But she is the most naturally gifted fighter I have ever met. You have only to show her something once and she will learn it, and then improve it. She is beautiful to watch. She moves quickly, with precision and control, no motion wasted. You can imagine the effect in battle."
The Iron Bull cleared his throat. "She's a redhead, right?" he asked.
Cecily giggled at that, for some reason.
"You would like her, Solas," Leliana continued.
"Because she's an elf?" Solas asked archly.
"No—though she would have asked me the same thing. Because she is endlessly curious. I have never known anyone with so many questions!" Leliana felt herself slowly warming to the topic. "We had a Sten with our party. Naia had never even heard of the Qunari before we met him. She used to walk alongside Sten and ask him question after question. 'What if someone doesn't like their job in the Qun? Why can't women be warriors in the Qun? Isn't it confusing not to have names in the Qun? What if there were another Sten here, would we call you Sten 1 and Sten 2?'"
She laughed. "He would give her such short answers, but this only seemed to make her ask more questions. After a few months, he started calling her by a Qunari word—'kadan.' At first I thought it must mean 'pest.'"
"Well. That's not a word most Sten would use on a bas." Bull sounded mildly impressed.
When Cecily looked over at him, he explained, "'Kadan' means 'friend.' Literally, 'my heart.' It's a word we save for the people we care about most."
"And ... that is Naia," Leliana said simply. "She earns the devotion of the most unlikely people. She is not naive, and if she thinks you are wrong she will tell you so. But she chooses to see the best in her friends. It makes us want to be the person that she sees."
An ugly little voice rose in the back of her mind. And what would she see to look at you now, Nightingale?
If she even lives.
The last time they had spoken, the normally cheerful Warden had been serious and frustrated. She had told Leliana that strange things were happening in the Wardens, that Commanders in Orlais and even in the Anderfels seemed to be moving to isolate her. They had sent her most trusted lieutenant, Nathaniel Howe, into the Deep Roads; there were even hints that the Orlesian Wardens were supporting the rumor that the Fifth Blight had not been a true Blight at all.
Leliana had attributed this to a combination of professional jealousy and Orlesian prejudice against elves. Naia had insisted that there was something else going on, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but that her instincts told her must be there.
And then, she had disappeared.
Leliana pushed the thought down. "I met Naia in Lothering," she began, forcing a lightness into her voice that she didn't feel.
Wherever she is, I cannot help her now.
Adamant Fortress, 9:41 Dragon
Leliana's heart skipped a beat with every cell door she opened. Would this be the one? Would this be the room where she found the body of a red-haired elven woman?
Naia Tabris would have either stopped the Wardens from committing the horrors at Adamant, or died trying. Leliana had no doubt that if she found her friend here it would be as a corpse.
The cells did contain bodies, including one of a human woman whose coppery hair was frighteningly close to Naia's. But after hours of searching, and after lengthy questioning of the surviving Wardens, Leliana concluded that Naia was not, and never had been, at Adamant.
The Hero of Ferelden was still missing. For the first time, that knowledge brought Leliana relief.