Chapter 11

"They march you very far, don't they?"

"They do, Faith."

Marcelle and Faith were sitting side by side in the memory of the Hawke Family's home in Lothering. The memory was frozen in time, depicting six year old Bethany and Carver playing cards at the table, while their father and mother were sharing a much-needed hug in front of the crackling fire. The fire was warm and the smell of mutton stew was permeating through the air in the most delicious of ways. Marcelle and her father had been the ones to prepare it, dropping in chunks of gnarled carrots and potatoes pulled from their garden, as well as thick hunks of mutton and back bacon that they had bartered for earlier that day with Malcolm Hawke's healing salves. If Marcelle remembered correctly, they had thought to make creamy flour dumplings that night to accompany the stew, but there was no more flour to be had in the house – a fact that they had realized too late.

"Why do you return to memories, fledgling?" asked Faith. He was resting awkwardly against the wall, the rickety stool beneath him supporting the massive bulk of his armor by sheer force of Marcelle's will alone. "Why would you not craft your own fantasy?"

"Is that with my father used to do?" countered Marcelle, her head leaning against the wall. "He used to craft his own worlds?"

"No. He did as you do. Your father enjoyed walking his memories. Perhaps even more than you do."

"What sort of memories did my father return to?"

"I would not know," Faith replied. "He did not invite me into them, as you have done."

Marcelle chuckled. "I had not realized that there was a choice."

"You may bid me to go, fledgling, and I will do so." Faith turned his head towards her and peered at Marcelle through the slit in his visor, "though if a demon was to enter your memory and corrupt it, I would not be able to assist you until you rescinded my ban."

"Oh, Faith," Marcelle touched her hand to his knee, hiding her start of surprise as the contact sent a shock of spirit energy through her body. She should have been used to the jolt, but she was not. "I have nothing to hide from you, my dearest friend."

"That is good." Faith returned once more to staring out at the scene of the happy family in front of him. "Though I have little doubt that you would be able to handle one appropriately."

"Thank you, Faith." She bumped him with her shoulder playfully. "Your confidence is inspiring. Tell me something though," she squeezed his knee (his poleyn, to be precise) gently, "why did my father ask you to leave?"

If spirits of the Fade could sigh, Marcelle was sure he could have done so. "I do not know. He said it would be awkward."

"Awkward," Marcelle echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. And that having me there would also be awkward."

"Oh," Marcelle shook her head, "oh, Father."

"He must have been telling the truth."

She licked her lips. "Did it hurt your feelings?" Marcelle couldn't imagine what Faith might have been like before they met. Faith likely had been an incredibly awkward companion, and probably quite overbearing given what other limited contact she'd had with other spirits (such as Justice). Her father must have been a considerable influence on Faith, as for a spirit he was quite used to the ways of mortals. He did not always understand Marcelle, but he did try his best to do so. And if he could not, he was more than happy to believe that she was right or telling the truth, for such was the nature of a Spirit of Faith.

"No."

"Well," Marcelle crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. "It would have hurt mine."

"I do not always understand the ways of mortals, but your father was a good man and would not lie; least of all lie to me."

"I bet he was dreaming about Mother." Marcelle smiled widely at that.

"Perhaps." Faith pointed a gauntlet to where Marcelle's siblings were playing a card game. "Your brother is not a man of much faith."

"No," Marcelle looked sadly at the young face of her brother, and how sweet and innocent his profile looked by the light of the fire, "he is not. He would argue he isn't because faith never gave him a reason to believe."

"I pity your brother."

"He is who he is." She shrugged and tore her eyes from his face.

"The man whose face the desire demons wear – Sebastian – he has faith." Faith said in a matter of fact voice.

"He used to." Marcelle let out a small, embarrassed laugh. "I do not know if he does anymore."

"He will find it again." And Faith said this with such finality that Marcelle really could not find it in herself to argue. He turned his helmet to look at her once more. "Just as he will find you."

"And you know this how?"

"I just do." Faith spoke with a smile in his deep voice. "These things will work out as they are meant to. I have walked a long road with you, fledgling, and I have seen your dreams. I cannot believe that your paths will not cross again, not after what you have shown me."

"Do you think when I wake up he will be there?" Marcelle leaned forward on the edge of her stool, wrapping her arms around her midsection as a chill ran through her body. "And if he is, do you think he will be extending his hand or his sword to me?"

"I do not know if you are mocking me or are being sincere."

"I do not know either." Marcelle's teeth were chattering now, and a cold gust of icy wind rattled the walls of the house and blew down the chimney to snuff out the fire. "The Dreaming is ending, Faith."

"It worries me when they hurt you, fledgling," Faith's pauldrons drooped. "I cannot feel or find you in the darkness." He was referring, of course, to a Templar's ability to smite a mage and disrupt their connection to the Fade.

"It is only a temporary thing," Marcelle replied gently. "And if the effects wear off while I am asleep, they cannot keep me from the Fade." Asleep, Marcelle knew, was not the correct term. Unconscious was – knocked unconscious was even more appropriate – but she did not want to anger Faith or upset him anymore than she had to. The spirit had expressed his distress at being parted from her for those months in which she'd taken the draught of dreamless sleep, scolding her for being not only reckless, but also insincere and dishonest. She had left him alone without telling him why, and it was only then Marcelle had realized that Faith needed her as much as she needed him and that she had been exceptionally cruel to abandon him. To that very day, she was still apologizing. "They cannot keep me from you."

"And they cannot keep me from you." Faith pointed a finger to one of the wooden walls, "out there, they dream just as any other mortal."

Marcelle eyed the wall he pointed at, noticing how the wood was beginning to split and warp under the weight of consciousness. "You would enter their dreams?" The cracking began to spread along the other walls of the house, and the roof began to shake above them.

Faith scoffed. "No. Such things do not interest me. But I would follow the paths of their dreams. They are poor substitutes for the beat of your heart, but they are guidance enough."

Reflexively, Marcelle covered her heart with her hand. It was curiously intimate that Faith followed her movements beyond the Veil by listening to the beat of her heart through her innate connection to the Fade. "What if the Templar whose dreams you follow parts ways from me?"

"I will still find you," Faith replied simply. "They cannot sever your connection to the Fade completely. Whatever magic they use against you will eventually wear off."

"Well," Marcelle lowered her eyes to her lap, "let us hope that is true." The subject of Tranquility was not something that she and Faith had spoken of. And as the dream was crumbling around them, talk of it now was not entirely appropriate. The cold, stale wind of the Fade began to seep through the cracks in the house and the roof, and already its harsh, blue light was pushing its way into the house like an intruder. "What will you do," she asked, "while I am gone?"

"I will hunt. And I will track."

"Are you sure you're not a Spirit of Tenacity? Persistence?" she teased.

"No. You would find me impatient, were I such."

"Mm." Marcelle hummed. "Faith, I would - " she blinked as something cold and wet dripped onto her forehead. "What is…" she touched her fingers to her face, but found nothing. "Curious." She felt more splattering across her face. "I…think it is raining where I am, Faith. This will be," she sighed, "a miserable march."

"Be strong, fledgling." Faith placed his large gauntlet over her smaller hand, "and know that I will follow in your footsteps."

"I will be the stronger for the knowledge," Marcelle flashed him a smile, "thank you, my dear friend."

Faith stood and extended his hand to Marcelle, and when she took it, he led her to one of the shattering walls of her family's shack. The light between the cracks was glowing pink as the Veil began to claw and tear at the Fade as the dream weakened. "I will be waiting for you when you return."

"I'll be back when I can." Marcelle squeezed Faith's hand quickly before she pulled away from him and placed her hands on the fragments of the wooden wall. The pieces of the dream began to shift and part at her touch. Marcelle had to close her eyes against the glare of the light on the other side. "Goodbye, Faith," she called before stepping through the gap.

"Wake well, fledgling," Faith replied, finding himself in silence and gloom. He was left alone on a vista of warped trees and grey sand, the specter of the Black City floating in the distance. The Hawke Family's home and all its inhabitants were gone. It was as though it had never even existed.

8-8-8

Marcelle awoke to raindrops on her face. Her eyes fluttered open slowly to reveal that the sky above her was grey and dim with early morning sunlight. Logic dictated that there should be a roof over her head, or even a tent – and it was this absence of cover that caused her muscles to tense and her eyes to close again as she remembered what had befallen her. She had been captured by the Templar Order outside her home in Lothering, and they had marched west along the road. There had been a…misunderstanding…along the way, which had resulted in her being knocked out cold. If they were still traveling west, Marcelle hadn't the faintest idea, and she dared not risk moving, fearing that the slightest rustle of her robes, the slightest change in her breathing would bring the attention and the wrath of the Templars down upon her. The last thing she wanted was to lose another unspecified amount of time at their hands.

She rested on the ground and listened to the sounds of the camp around her. She heard snoring and snorting, deep breathing and soft, hissing wheezes. The men and women around her were asleep. She let her gaze fall sideways, hiding her eyes under the thick veil of her eyelashes. Around her, the Templars were resting on their bedrolls in their makeshift camp, sleeping as their breathing had suggested. They were resting peacefully in the Fade – the place from where Marcelle had just come.

Ser Karras was on watch, seated at the campfire facing her. His face was red from the chilly morning wind, and his bushy hair hung limp from lack of washing. He was poking at the fire with a long stick, his quick eyes darting between the flames and her prone form. If he knew she was awake, he made no move to acknowledge it.

She lay still for a few minutes more, willing herself to be calm and, if she could, return to sleep. But Marcelle's body was uncooperative. There was a rock digging into her back, and her head was throbbing from where she had been struck. Her scalp felt crusty and sticky from where she had bled. She longed for a hot bath, more than she longed for food or a comfortable bed. Her clothes were soiled, her fingernails were dirty, and her hair was a bird's nest of sand and blood.

Slowly, so as not to startle the Templars around her, she opened her eyes. She slipped her hands from their position at her stomach to her face, wincing at the way the thick rope rubbed against the raw skin of her wrists. She did not risk a healing cantrip to soothe their pain, and so she pursed her lips against the friction. Marcelle pushed the sleep from her eyes and rubbed at her cold cheeks and nose to warm them.

Ser Karras was now fully aware of her, and he moved from his position at the campfire towards her. His heavy feet crunched menacingly in the dirt and gravel as he stalked to her side, and the toe of his boot kicked up a spray of the grit onto her stomach as he knelt down next to her. Marcelle lowered her hands back to her stomach and stared up at him with serene blue eyes She watched as he extended his gauntlet towards her face, refusing to wince or start in surprise as he grasped her chin roughly between a thumb and forefinger to tilt her face away from him.

"Do you know where we're taking you?" he asked.

"No," Marcelle replied honestly. She didn't have the faintest idea where she was being taken. She could guess, however. "But I would assume it is to the Circle Tower?"

"And how do you figure that?"

"We marched west," Marcelle explained. "The only things of note in this direction beyond Orzammar and the road to Orlais are Kinloch Hold and Redcliffe. I assume we go to Kinloch Hold because you are a Templar and I am a mage, neither of which is associated with Redcliffe."

Ser Karras grunted. "You'll be going back to the Circle…where you belong." His fingers tightened on her chin. "Though this Circle wouldn't have been my first choice."

"I imagine," Marcelle said quietly, "that you must be quite uncomfortable with the ideas behind the Fereldan Circle."

"Are you mocking me, mage?"

"No," Marcelle would have tried shaking her head, if she could. "The Fereldan Circle is merely founded on different principles than the Kirkwall Circle, though that wasn't always as such. King Alistair was very gracious to the mages."

"King Alistair is a fool," Ser Karras replied bitterly, "and has opened himself to the possibility of blood magic in his court…if he was not already influenced by it."

"I know little of Fereldan politics, serrah," Marcelle kept her gaze straight ahead to the copse of trees that Ser Karras pointed her face to, "at least where mages are concerned."

"Oh, don't you, Viscountess Hawke?" Ser Karras laughed darkly. "Would you be pleased to know that the surviving nobility of Kirkwall have refused the Knight Commander's orders for a vote?"

"I am only saddened that there is strife in my beloved city."

"Such a politician," the Templar sneered. "I'll enjoy seeing you take your Harrowing, and I'll enjoy watching you walk the halls of the Circle Tower as an outsider amongst your own kind."

"Templars are not allowed in Kinloch Hold," Marcelle murmured, looking at Ser Karras out of the corner of her eye. "You shall do no watching, serrah."

"There's an entire garrison at Kinloch Hold." Ser Karras raised his bushy eyebrows. "And there has been for months. They opened their doors to us. Why, I might even go as far to say that they missed us."

Marcelle said nothing and instead just stared at the trees and the grey sky that was beginning to turn blue above them.

"Yes, Marcelle Hawke," Ser Karras pinched her chin; "you'll join the Circle and take your Harrowing. And if you try to run again, we'll kill you."

"Again?" Marcelle gently wiggled her chin from out of the Templar's grip and sat up on her elbows, tired of craning her neck. Stones and gravel pressed painfully into the skin of her elbows, biting through the thin material of her dress. "I do not understand. I have never run from the Templars before…" A cold feeling of dread began to spread through her body, spurred on by the realization that something she had hoped to be true was likely false. The scar on her hand ached.

"You escaped the Kirkwall Circle once, but you will not escape the Fereldan Circle."

She frowned and shook her head. "I was not a part of the Kirkwall Circle; therefore I could never have escaped it."

Ser Karras seemed amused at her protestations. "Really now? First Enchanter Orsino claimed otherwise."

"First Enchanter Orsino was a madman and a blood mage," she replied in a voice of silk and steel, her skin prickling with gooseflesh. "What proof could he possibly have that could make you believe such a story?"

"The First Enchanter may have shown his true colors before his death, but his proof is undeniable. He had your phylactery."

"I…do not have a phylactery." Marcelle clenched her jaw. "I think I would remember such a thing."

"Oh yes," Ser Karras smirked, "you do have a phylactery." His hand darted out and grabbed at the wrist that was closest to him. Marcelle was pulled to one side as the Templar dragged her hand up, raising the palm to the light. The long scar from a sharp blade was still visible on her palm, the wound having been resistant to healing magic and forced to heal to a thick, white scar. "There's your proof. And how fitting it is," he taunted, "that the Champion of Kirkwall, the mage who sent other mages back to the Circle, finally gets to join them."

"But that's not…that's not possible." She pulled her hand from his grip and clutched it to her chest.

"Of course it's possible," Ser Karras put a hand on Marcelle's shoulder and pushed her back onto the ground. He leaned over her, "I was there when the First Enchanter made Circle mages of you and those blood mages that Ser Terrance brought in. I saw him make the cut on your hand and then watched as he let the blood drip into the vial. I heard him cast whatever spell he's supposed to cast to link you and the blood together. I saw him do it to all of you apostates that day. Are you calling me a liar?"

"Yes." Marcelle flashed narrowed blue eyes to his face. In truth, Marcelle believed him, but she was hoping that she could force his hand so that he could reveal the location of her phylactery. She was of a mind to break it, if only to spite Orsino and his meddlesome plans.

"How do you think," Ser Karras said slowly, "we found you so quickly?"

"I thought Lothering would have been obvious choice to look."

"Your father hid in Lothering for a long time and avoided capture. You might have done the same. Are you telling me that you weren't careful? That you would have been easily found?"

"No," Marcelle admitted, "you would not have found me easily."

"Beyond the scar and your capture, what more proof could you possibly need? You don't think I'm going to just flash the phylactery in front of you, do you?"

"It would be the ultimate proof."

"I could fill a vial with rabbit's blood and claim it was yours too. Would you believe that?" His expression was one of smug and triumph. "Proof of your phylactery or not, you are now part of the Circle of the Magi, and you are under the watchful eyes of the Templar Order and the Maker Himself. Tell me," he stroked at one of his thick sideburns, "does the idea of life in the Circle still appeal to you now?"

Marcelle said nothing to that and instead bit the insides of her cheeks to quell the flood of irritation she felt. She was shocked and appalled by the things she had just learned. She and Orsino may not have seen eye to eye on every issue, yet she had at least considered the First Enchanter a friend up until her last few days in Kirkwall. They had shared many conversations and stories over the years, and it was only during the battle in the Gallows, when Orsino had turned into a monstrous abomination of flesh and undeath that Marcelle had changed her mind about him. Pieces of a puzzle she had tried to solve years earlier began to fall into place, and cryptic notes and borrowed books in the lair of a murder all made sense. Orsino had never been her friend. In some ways – in a lot of ways – he had betrayed her.

It made her numb to consider that Orsino had cast the enchantment. She felt like a fool. She had been worried of Meredith's intentions, fearing that the now-deceased Knight Commander of Kirkwall's Templars would tip the balance of power in Kirkwall by having her became a mage of the Circle. Yet, she needn't have worried about Meredith at all, because it was her "good friend" the First Enchanter who had tipped the balance of power instead. She could not understand why though.

She wondered bitterly what his plan had been, and what part she would have played in it if she hadn't escaped that night. Had he been trying to create a power vacuum to tempt and ensnare Meredith by removing her…Hawke…as Viscountess, thus showing to Kirkwall that Meredith loved nothing more than power? Had he thought that she could somehow better serve the plight of the Circle's mages as one of them? Did Orsino think that she would be a calming force on the Templars, and that if she dwelled within the Gallows that they would be on their best behavior? Did Orsino know of Anders and Justice, and if so, did he hope to provoke one and the other to action if he bound her to the Gallows? There were…so many different things Orsino could have planned, and yet there were no answers to her questions, for Orsino was dead. Whatever it was he had tried to do had failed, though that thought brought her little comfort now.

Meredith couldn't have put Orsino up to the task, because if she had, Orsino would have resisted. If Meredith claimed the sky was blue, Orsino would call it grey, and if Orsino called the grass green, Meredith would say there was no grass. The two had always been at odds, countering and feinting with one another for as long as they had been in power. If Orsino had acted, he had acted on his own, which meant Orsino had possessed an agenda, and he had planned to use her to further it - just like he had let Quentin use her mother for his research. It was almost too much for her to bear, and she hoped that the gasp of air she took in sounded less like a sob in Ser Karras's ears than it did in her own.

"If you can't face up to the reality," Ser Karras sent her one last smirk before standing, "we can always make you Tranquil. Then you won't feel a thing."

We return to Vigil's Keep in Chapter 12, and see how Sebastian and the Grey Wardens are fairing. Time is running out for our dear Lady Hawke! Let us hope Sebastian gets a lead where to look for her.

Thank you all for reading! Also, I'm sorry if you've reviewed and I haven't responded. The site has been a bit broken lately when it comes to responding to reviews, though I'm doing my best!