Chapter Ten : Nothing (Solona)
There was nothing that could have been done for the blighted princess. 'Nothing,' Solona Amell thought, wrapping that nihilistic promise around herself like a cloak. 'It was out of our hands from the start.' And yet, the icy sense of failure leached into her bones. Maker, she could not abide feeling helpless!
Solona carried with her a placard, hammered out of a thin sheet of bronze— Lady Sereda Aeducan, Princess of Orzammar. She could read the words with her fingertips through the cloth wrapping. The smith in Crestwood had been heavy handed with his lettering. Common seemed crude when compared to the precise runes which usually decorated dwarven monuments, but she supposed it was better than most people got these days.
Malika Cadash had mirthlessly suggested a second line— Fratricide. Died in the Fifth Blight. It would complete the story of the late princess, at least as would be recorded in the Memories. Especially, it stood to reason, if Sereda's brother Bhelen won his claim on the throne of the lower realm. Despite the intrinsic distrust surfacers carried for the ways of Orzammar, Cadash paid for the burial out of her own purse. A half dozen men fought amongst themselves for the chance at a week's wages. Hekkat Hall, the once-forgotten dwarven outpost beneath Crestwood's mines, saw one more Aeducan returned to its stone.
The entrance to the mines was an old cave, perched in the outskirts of the village. The mouth yawned large and black; it glistened wetly with flecks of ore. Refined stormheart was a pale aqua, the color of a frothy sea, living up to its name. Try as she might, Solona could not compel her feet to cross the threshold of the cave. In the torchlight she could see far enough inside to discern what appeared to be a hungry maw— the dark spiral of wooden platforms descended into the void. Over and over, she twisted it around in her mind.
"Will you go down?" Cullen asked suddenly, as if he had blinked out of the damp air. Her hand leapt to her heart in shock. "Oh! I thought you would hear me."
She offered him an embarrassed laugh, and looked down at her boots, where the toes dug holes into the wet gravel. "I was thinking too loudly."
"I see. My apologies for disturbing you."
"No, Cullen, I should be grateful to you. I've been rooted here trying to decide what to do. So much so, I think that petrification is setting in." She gave her foot an experimental shake, wincing when it twinged. The pain spread up her leg from her ankle and settled in the nerves behind her hips. She resisted pressing a hand against her lower back, but worried that soon the weight of her pregnancy would leave her hobbled. "Do you need something?"
"The smith told me you collected Lady Aeducan's burial marker. I thought I might accompany you down to her tomb, if that is where you are going."
"Actually, I had hoped to run into Cadash along the way," Solona admitted. "I don't care much for dark places these days."
"Ah." He gave her an understanding nod, and did not press further.
Thoughtfully, she unwrapped the bundle in her hands. The linen cloth came away and fluttered to the ground. The bronze flashed in the light. The expense of the material alone was enormous. She wondered how the Carta would feel knowing their cache had paid to memorialize a banished noble. Perhaps they would be pleased at the irony. "Have you been inside?"
He nodded. "Once."
The back of her neck felt prickly and flushed in the chill air. This was the longest conversation Solona had managed with Cullen in days. "Is it true that there aren't any darkspawn in the Deep Roads right now? Have they really all come to the surface?" The Grey Warden amulet resting over her breastbone was cool and still, but she still felt jittery. Something was off with the Fade here, or else her senses deceived her. When she closed her eyes, she swore she could see flashes of green.
"There are collapses on either end of the hall, and debris seals it from the road. They saw nothing down there but a large colony of nugs, fortunately, or else the village would have been overrun in the spring."
"As it is, they crawl about the wooded hills. We've killed enough darkspawn to be honorary Grey Wardens. It's a small relief to know one source is sealed." She swallowed. "How did it turn out?"
"Well, they are just miners, not master masons." He gestured out a rectangular shape, that of a grave. The leather on his gloves was dull in the cloudy light, but she knew that in full sun they could gleam a burnished red. "They cut out a place where there were some other tombs. Other Aeducans, Cadash said, from long ago. It is rather marvellous, actually. Quarried stone was carted in from the northern coast. Volcanic aurum inlays the floor tiles in patterns of gold and black, and there are stained glass windows in the walls."
"Stained glass?" she repeated. "Whatever for?"
"I suppose for the same reasons we use it. Beauty with function."
"What does a templar know of beauty?" she challenged. Her nose crinkled when she grinned.
Cullen laughed at her tease. "Too much, actually. If you stand eight hours a day in full plate, everything begins to look beautiful." He ticked off with his fingers, "A chair. A cold drink. A smile…" Their eyes met, and it was natural, like it had once been. Cullen was the most attractive man she had ever met. That he was oblivious to his own charms only enhanced the effect. His blond curls were unfailingly unkempt, and he rarely managed to remember his shaving kit. People noticed him when they travelled. People had noticed him in the Circle.
She remembered how his stubble felt on her neck, and how his breath flashed hot against the shell of her ear, and how she lived on nothing but fond memories of his touch for stretches of days. It was hard enough to find time when they both might reasonably be alone, much less alone together.
Now she had the time but she could not—
"Tell me more about the Deep Roads," she said, tearing her gaze away. She stared down at her ragged fingernails. These weren't the soft, polished hands of a mage. Whose hands were these?
Cullen obliged, coloring slightly at her tactful rejection. "There were once glowing runes behind the glass, but they have all gone out. It must have looked like— like sunlight in a Chantry." He stepped back to lean against one of the wooden pillars propping the entrance to the cave system, and rubbed his elbow. "The Deep Roads are not what I once pictured. I thought there would be wilderness beyond Orzammar." He turned his hands upward and flat, weighing Orzammar in one palm and wilderness in the other. "Like mineshafts or perhaps burrows? But it is nothing like that. It feels like the nave of a cathedral stretched out a thousand miles."
"Stolen by darkspawn."
He hummed in agreement.
"Isn't it bizarre?"
"What do you mean?"
"We go to all this trouble because Sereda was a princess. As if the death of one princess was a particular tragedy, or as if... being a princess should have spared her."
"What are you getting at, Sola?"
"I don't know. A ghoul is not so different from an abomination, I think."
The old pillar wobbled when Cullen pushed against it. His sword jounced against his thigh, making a jingling noise she found unexpectedly comforting. "What does that matter now?"
She lifted her chin stubbornly in the air. "What matters is you agree."
"On the surface, I can see the similarities," Cullen rubbed a hand over his face.
"Either both deserve the rites of burial, or neither do."
"The Chantry says—" He stopped. "You must know— it is easier for me to fall back on the Chantry line, to think nothing but words drilled into my head. And when it gets too much, I am guilty of shutting it all out and falling back on the rote familiar. That is how I... cope. I am not a philosopher, Sola, just a soldier." He grimaced. "If that's not what you want, I can understand. But let it be a peaceful parting. Do not bully me to pieces." He stared glassily at her face, but with unseeing eyes. His pupils were a swallowing black in his amber eyes.
Gently, Solona laid her hand on Cullen's arm. "Walk with me?" she asked. "Knight-Lieutenant?"
Cullen nodded, quickly swiping at his eyes. She pretended for both their sakes not to notice. "Enchanter Amell." He slotted her hand into the crook of his arm. Only then did she notice how cold she was becoming, and how welcome his warmth.
"From now on, I think I'd prefer to be Enchanter Trevelyan."
"Of course." He seemed faintly bemused. "If you like, Enchanter Trevelyan."
"You knew?" Her mouth became a thin line. "All this time?"
"All the officers were briefed on your relation to the First Enchanter. 'There are no secrets in the Circle,' Knight-Commander Greagoir always said. Someone might have tried to leverage that information against Irving, if we did not know to watch for it."
"Maker's breath. First the Circle takes my name, then it acts as though it has done me some great favor."
Cullen's face fell. "I never said I agreed with any of it."
"But you were complicit! You could have told me at any time in the year we were together." Angrily, she picked up the pace of her step, practically dragging him along behind her as she gripped tightly to his arm.
"I was waiting for you to tell me! You told the others easily enough. Alistair knew practically from the start."
Solona did not care for what he was implying. "Because he's easy to talk to."
"I'm not?"
"It's impossible to talk to you!" She squeezed her eyes shut and immediately tripped on a protruding root. Cullen's right arm shot out to save her from the impending fall. He looked at her silently, wounded by her brash remark. "But that's neither here nor there," Solona sighed, trying to take it back without conceding her point. "As a Knight-Lieutenant of the Templar Order and an Enchanter of the Circle of Magi, we should have been on equal footing. But we never were."
His hand slid down her shoulder and lingered on her elbow. "So… the problem between us was in the balance of power? In the infrastructure of the Circle."
"Yes." She felt shockingly naked before his piercing gaze, but she was not afraid. She bit her lip. "It will always be so."
"What if it did not have to be?" he asked, again with that curiously disquieting stare.
"Only if we left the Circle." It dawned on her slowly, what his strange expression meant. "Maker, you mean to leave the Circle. You cannot be serious." Her head whipped around to see if anyone would overhear them. But they were completely alone, standing amidst the naked gray trees in the wooded hills.
"Why not?" he replied, so soft she had to read his lips to catch it. "We have a friend in the Carta now. The biggest impediment as I see it is finding a steady supply of lyrium."
Solona made a choking sound. "That's the impediment? Not the templar-fucking-hunters? I run and I'm an apostate all my days. Maybe they bring me back to a Circle. Maybe they'd send me to the Aenor."
"Our child is the reason the risk is worthwhile. Our child," Cullen repeated. His expression was resolute as he cupped her face. "Before I knew it existed, I stole your phylactery from the Grand Cleric's knights. I'd never let them catch you if you wanted to run."
"They'll hang you, Cullen." She exhaled shakily, and gave in to his touch.
"Even…" He swallowed unsteadily. "So I will hang. Do not look so surprised! I have always known the mage children are not going to Jainen for the Circle, but for the ships across the Waking Sea. I agreed to come fully knowing I was aiding apostates."
Something broke inside her. "Damn it, Cullen. You should have told me."
"I see that now. I thought I was protecting you."
"I don't need—"
"Let me try," he interrupted. "I know you can handle more darkspawn than I in a fight. I know how capable you are, and how brave. If you wish it, I will give you your phylactery and walk away. Let the choice be yours."
Her soul railed against the notion that there was nothing she could do. And here, Cullen offered her something. Solona did not believe she was as brave as he said. One hand wished to push him away, and the other needed to pull him to her like a shield. She wondered if he meant it— would he stop protecting her if she asked? He was still so entrenched in the thought patterns of a templar. How might she learn to trust him again?
Her rational mind said she could not have a family. She'd lost the right be a part of the world in the moment her magic erupted. She could not keep his child. If they survived the Blight, they would both go back to the Circle.
Her heart dared to want more.
WINTER
Solona,
The Frostbacks are a stupid place to be in winter. Gherlen's Pass closed up tighter than a templar's arsehole in the last storm, so we are stuck here until the local dwarves dig us out, barring some kind of intervention from the Maker. Lissie, me, Leliana, Zevran, Wynne, Shale, Sten, Barky, and Morrigan. You think you know cold until you have to share a tent with Morrigan in a snowstorm. Not exactly my idea of cozy. You get the picture. Frosty frost mage.
Ha!
So get this— Sten has been looking all over the kingdom for his special soul-sword, Asala. He lost it up near the lake and losing it made him go crazy and murder a bunch of Reacher farmers. If you believe his story. I did not, at first, but Lis always takes this kind of thing v. seriously. She likes people to owe her favors. (Don't tell her I said that.) Anyway, Sten and Morrigan went off on their own to look for it while we were in Oswin. A battlefield scavenger sold it to a human merchant named Faryn, who trades almost exclusively with Orzammar.
Yadda yadda. We talked to Faryn today. Talk might not be the right word. Sten threatened to rip his arms off and Lis laughed. But it worked. Poor blighter spilled his guts. He sold it to a dwarf named Dwyn. Our same Dwyn from Redcliffe. Of course, I cannot remember him ever using anything but an axe. Sten wanted to turn around right away and go back, but we're stuck. That made him angry. Lis offered him a shovel and told him he could try and dig his way through the pass, or he could come with us to talk to the dwarves.
Soooo if my letters stop coming, I'm probably not dead yet, just lost. Duncan once told me the Deep Roads are "indescribable." At the time I was excited. Silly me.
Keep safe and mind the snow sneaking up on you,
Alistair
The walls in the Dusty Gale Inn were plastered with curling sheets of yellow parchment. Solona studied them as she walked the perimeter of the common room. These were the names of the missing and the dead. The desperate pleas of families torn to pieces in the growing storm of war and Blight.
Has anyone seen…
Mother, we have passage for Kirkwall. There is a ticket saved in your name…
My brother Gershwin was in King Cailan's army last spring…
Please, help me find my sister and her children…
What had begun as a few frantic messages tacked onto the back of the Chanter's board had spread across every signpost, wall, and public space in Jainen. As the displaced Fereldans of the south flooded into Waking Sea, they carried with them the hope that they might find their lost loved ones already waiting for them.
Mia, Branson, Rosalie—
I am safe.
It was a message as taciturn as the man who left it. Solona smiled, quietly glad to have discovered it, though she had not known until that moment that she had been searching for it. In the mornings, Cullen went out by himself to walk the docks, as the winter sunlight broke up the heavy fog. He never said why, but she did not need to ask him.
The last anyone knew, the newly-orphaned Rutherford siblings had fled on horseback for the South Reach, just ahead of the horde of darkspawn which now split the southern half of the kingdom in twain. There was no telling if Mia or Branson or Rosalie had survived beyond their meeting with Matthias in Honnleath, especially the badly injured Bran. Likewise, there was no way to let them know Cullen had survived the culling at Lake Calenhad.
I am safe.
Cullen had not signed his name, she noticed. Perhaps this was done in fear that someday the Warden's companions would come down on the wrong side of history. If any lesson she had learned from the failure at Crestwood, it was thus: better to be anonymous. Days in Eremon lands had become twice perilous. Anyone, with the right persuasion, might become a Howe spy. The bann of the Storm Coast and her naval fleet were all that stood between Jainen and the civil war.
"Can I help you, missus?" inquired the mustachioed innkeeper when she reached the front of the line.
"Yes. How much to send a letter to Qarinus?"
He blinked. "Where?"
"Qarinus," Solona repeated clearly. "In the Imperium."
He considered this. "Two sovereigns."
"Two sovereigns?" she repeated in alarm. "It can't be that much!"
"There are no ships out of the city with Tevinter on their register, on account of all the magefolk trying to get out of Ferelden. Knight-Enchanter's orders, you see." He grimaced sympathetically. "Best that can be done is to get your letter on a ship bound for Jader or Cumberland and hope it gets past the pirates."
"I see. You were giving me a discount." She fished out the small fortune from her purse.
"Is it family?" he asked, appraising the weight of her purse at a glance.
"Hm?"
"The person in Tevinter? Is it family?" He lowered his voice. "Because if you were someone who knew a mage, I know a smuggler who can get you settled in Lowtown for a reasonable price. He does good papers, too, good enough to fool Stannard. Just saying. You'll never make it to the Vints 'fore that babe comes."
Maker, was the word MAGE branded on her flesh? Solona gave him her best blank look, and slid an envelope labeled with the name and address of Halward Pavus across the wooden countertop. "Messere Pavus is my grandmother's cousin."
"Very good, missus. Anything else I can help you with?"
"You seem quite well informed. What have you heard?"
"Ah yes, you're the third who's asked this morning," the innkeeper chuckled, as he wrapped his hand with a towel and reached for the kettle hanging above the fire. He poured out heady smelling coffee into a mug; it set Solona's mouth watering. "Everyone's thirsty for a bit o' news. Drink?"
"Yes, please." She accepted the offering. She gripped the clay mug with both hands, letting the warmth seep into her hands. Blood rushed to her fingernails. It was not so cold in this part of the inn, but it was drafty, and even with a wool shawl it was all she could do to keep her growing belly warm. She longed, just a little, for the days of enchanted warmth, but could not risk using the spells herself.
Jainen City was lousy with templars.
"More nobles have pledged themselves to Prince Alistair. He holds most of the west, by my figuring. All but Edgehall and West Hill. The former 'cos Arl Lendon is dead and the latter 'cos Bann Franderel is right scared of Loghain. Our own Bann Alfstanna was one of the first to bend her knee to him, with Bann Nell soon after."
Solona listened intently, feigning ignorance where it suited her. "But where did this new prince come from?"
"I've heard all sorts of stories. Rumor was once that Cailan weren't Maric's rightful heir, and that the real son was simple or a mage, kept locked away in the palace. There was also a rumor that Maric and Rowan prefered the company of anyone but each other, if you know what I mean, missus." He winked. "Could be plenty of blond bastards running about with King Maric's face. The difference is this one is a true heir, recognized by the Chantry and all that. Queen Rowan's family raised him and the Chantry educated him in one of those templar schools, would you believe?"
"A prince raised a templar?" she scoffed. "The knights are telling tales."
"That's wot I said." He leaned forward. "Course, he's a Grey Warden. Folks say Loghain wanted to kill off all the Grey Wardens so there would be no competition for his daughter the Queen. That makes more sense to me than this templar stuff."
"Mmm," she agreed, chewing through a mouthful of coffee. The texture was not unlike wet sand; the dregs had boiled down. Real Antivan coffee, a luxury these days to be sure. In Redcliffe they served chicory and passed it off as something better. This was not better, per say, but it was something.
"Other folks says it's an Orlesian plot. How could a prince be kept secret until months after the death of his brother? The only heir a Warden, right when we need 'em most? Love to know that myself. Could the Empress start a Blight, even if she wanted to?"
"I doubt it," Solona shrugged. "I heard yesterday someone talking about the Warden. That he's rounding up recruits to fight what Loghain won't."
"She!" corrected the innkeeper gleefully. "You've really been under a rock if you don't know the Warden is a woman."
"How can a Grey Warden be a woman?"
"First one I've heard of. Figure that makes her a particular sort of mad, like all women in war. No one knows who she is. She comes and she kills what needs killing and then vanishes. Has to. Bounty on her head is sky high."
"That's terrible."
"Terrible nothing, missus! The Warden can handle herself! No one knows if they should beg her to save us, or turn her in for the reward money, but she's got mercenaries and assassins knocking down the doors of bounty hunters, so I'm content to keep to myself."
From the corner of her eye, she caught the door to the tavern blowing open. Solona set the mug back down on the counter, offered him some silver for his time, and wandered to the farthest table in the next room, cleanly out of the line of sight of the chatty innkeeper.
She gripped the edge of the table when she sat down, facing the wall. It was getting difficult to move freely, which gave this particular venture an added danger. She folded her hands, resting them on the globe of her stomach. She listened intently for footsteps, counting in her head to pass the time. After precisely two minutes, a traveller in a long cloak slipped around her to sit with his back to the wall.
He tugged down his hood, revealing a pale face with finely boned features, and a long ponytail of strawberry blond hair. "Andraste, you're as big as a whale!" Anders exclaimed, grinning and reaching across the table to grip her hands. "Is it Cullen's, you beast? You've broken my heart forever, you know. I saw him first."
"As if you had eyes for anyone but Karl," Solona replied, flashing him a genuine smile. "It's so good to see you, Anders."
"And you, Solona. When I got your message I thought, 'What is Solly doing in Jainen City, of all places, and not in her Circle like a good girl?' Actually, my first thought was to wonder how in the Void you found me. I had a good thing going before the whole city started crawling with templars and displaced mages."
"You heard about Kinloch?"
He sobered. "I did. Can't say I'm sorry to have missed that party. Do you know who survived?"
"Wynne, Petra, Kinnon, Finn, Godwin, Cera, Evelina, Sweeney, Torrin, Irving… and a few of the children. Keili… survived in body but not in mind. Of the tranquil, only Owain."
"So few?" he said, aghast. "I heard it was bad… but that is a massacre!"
"Not everyone was back from the Battle at Ostagar. I hold hope that they ran when they had the opportunity."
"Seventh time was the charm for me. Poor bastards. I see you took your own advice. But you did not mention the names of any templars. Please don't tell me Cullen…" Ander's face creased with concern, and he squeezed her hands.
She squeezed back. "He was tortured horribly by a desire demon for the better part of a week. But he survived."
Anders swore expressively.
"He spotted you two days ago in the lower market. It was his idea that we meet."
"He came with you? Good for the boy. How can I help?"
"We figure no one knows more about hunters than you, Anders. We got most of our friends on a boat to Kirkwall, but now they're checking for papers and I have none."
He frowned. "You are too obvious a target in your condition. Is it just you two? Do either of you have any family in Ferelden?"
"Just us," Solona nodded. "My cousins went to Kirkwall, Maker willing. They were in Lothering. Cullen's village was wiped out. But I have family and means beyond Ferelden. I've sent letters to the Trevelyans in Nevarra and Ostwick, the Amells in Kirkwall. Just now, the Pavuses in Qarinus."
"How do you know they won't be intercepted by the you-know-whats?"
"Oh. I thought this was clever." She shifted restlessly in her chair. "They all inquire about my health of my dead grandmother, and direct replies to my Aunt Lucille. She'll know what I mean. Name a city in the North and I have a family member living there."
"Cumberland," Anders said gamely.
"My twin brother, Max." Her face twisted. "I know. It might as well be Luna or Satina for the good it does me if I can't get on a ship."
Anders rapped his knuckles on the table. His fingers were oddly long, and chapped red from the winter air. He wore gloves with the fingers cut off, a dead giveaway to any other mage who saw him. "What you need is a horse."