Author's note: I'm truly sorry about how long it took for this update. Unfortunately, my tablet ate my almost finished chapter so I've been trying to re-write it. Thank you for your patience and continuing to read. :)

One of the greatest pleasures in his life was holding his wife. A pleasure that wasn't diminished for Alistair even with the grief and fear he was consoling her through. He took no joy in her pain, but he could still marvel at the miracle of having her in his life and be glad he could give Lana his unconditional support.

They were sitting in her office, having removed their armor and pulled on their regular clothing. He'd been worried about how quiet she was while undoing some of the more difficult to reach straps on his armor. Normally the two would talk, even if it was just lighthearted chatter about inconsequential matters.

What didn't help was the way Vigilance and Sacrifice radiated worry, but didn't say anything. Yet.

So once they were seated, he in the chair with her curled up in his lap with her head on his shoulder, he lightly stroked her hair and he asked softly, "So what didn't you tell Moira?"

Lana sighed a little, "More like what happened after I sent her to you." Lana started to shiver as her fear grew, "There was a talking darkspawn."

Closing his eyes Alistair hugged her tighter. He remembered all too well that nightmare a couple of months before their wedding so could understand the terror that gripped her. He tried think how to ask his next question so that it wouldn't upset her. "Was it.."

"No," she whispered. "It wasn't that one, but it talked about a Father..." Anger suddenly mixed in with the fear, "It said something about the Father being right about me being at the Keep the day they attacked. Which means -"

Now he understood the anger. No one dealt well with betrayal, but given her history, Lana could be brutal in her reaction. "Someone told them when you'd be arriving. And you think it was a Warden?"

"Would a darkspawn be able to convince a non-Warden? All of the Wardens were having those weird dreams when I was still having those nightmares. What if those dreams actually worked on a Warden?"

That a Warden could betray the Order in such a fashion was sickening, yet they were only mortal and so were prone to mortal fallibility. He'd been greatly disillusioned about the Grey Wardens after the Orlesians arrived around the time of his coronation. He still honored and cherished Duncan's memory, and those of the Ferelden Wardens he knew, but he was no longer blindly accepting of the Orders from the other nations, even Weisshaupt. It was his turn to sigh, "Any idea of who it might be?"

Her hair tickled his throat as she lightly shook her head, "None. Only that it wasn't any of the ones here. Vigilance and Sacrifice vouch for them."

Huh, those blades were something else. "Well, it's a relief to know that we've got people here that we can rely on. Even if that includes Oghren and Nathaniel."

"Alistair..." He smiled a little at the annoyance in her voice and lightly tugged on a stray strand of hair, one of the little ways he showed he was teasing her. Her only response was a "Hmph."

There was one absence that bothered him that prompted him to finally ask, "I'm sorry to ask this, sweetheart, but how badly hurt was Oogie?"

Now the suppressed grief finally broke as her tears began to flow. His heart ached at the pain she was in as she said almost emptily, "He succumbed to the Taint."

He closed his eyes as he quietly grieved with her. He was never all that fond of dogs, even mabari. But Oogie had been something special. Smart, even for that breed well known for its intelligence, with the sense of humor of a good natured prankster, the two had formed a friendship through their bonds with Lana. Now his beloved had lost one more link to her life before the Blight. Even if another piece had stepped back into it.

Until proven otherwise, he considered Nathaniel Howe less than a claw clipping off the late Oogie.

Unsure of what to say, he gently rocked her as she wept in silence against his chest and he lightly kissed her hair. Even if he didn't have the words for it, he blessed the bond between them that let him tell her that he grieved with her so he didn't have to find the words.

Finally the storm passed and Lana sniffed as she straightened up. She gave him a watery smile, "Thank you, love."

Alistair ran his hand down her hair again while she pulled out a handkerchief to start wiping away her tears, "As always you're quite welcome. I'm glad I was able to get here as quickly as I did." He made an overly dramatic grimace causing a weak chuckle, "Even if I did have that harridan Rylock on my coattails."

"I was expecting her at some point from when I first offered to recruit Anders, just not so soon. It was worth it to see Oghren smite her though.'

They both shared equally evil grins. A templar's smite might not hurt a non-mage the way it did an actual mage, it still left quite a headache. Hopefully it would teach the woman a lesson.

After a quick kiss, Lana slid off his lap and stretched before flopping down in a chair next to his, rather than the one behind the desk. Alistair felt the shift in her mood before she said, "We think we found the way the darkspawn got into the Keep, but it's likely going to take some time to clear out the passage enough to tell."

She quietly explained the events earlier that day before he arrived. Any amusement he had from the situation with the two Glavonak brothers and Oghren melted away at the implications of what they suspected. "You think there's an entrance to the Deep Roads actually within the keep?"

He felt sick as she nodded, her eyes haunted. He closed his own as he took in a deep breath then reopened them when he expelled it,"We'll figure something out. Maybe Master Voldrik will be able to figure out a way to block it."

"That's what I'm hoping anyway. And maybe see if can see where they took the rest of the Wardens."

Somewhat shakily he ran a hand through his hair, "I can't imagine what they would want with Wardens. Unless..."

This time he regretted their bond a bit when he felt her sudden nausea before she pulled back a bit. In a frightened whisper she said, "Unless it figured out how to use Wardens in general for whatever it meant by freeing its kind from the call of the old gods."

"But how? And why so many?"

"I don't know, but I intend to find out," came the grim answer as her fear bled away. "And I intend to put an end to it."

He eyed her, he knew that tone and the sudden steely feel to her emotions. Lana had purged the worst of her grief and fear, had a direction to start in so was ready to do something. He was just a little concerned what that something was. Like a trip into the Deep Roads.

A knock on the door saved him from asking the question he didn't want an answer to, but still had to ask. Lana opened the door and gaped, "Dee? What are you doing here?"

The maid sniffed a little, "You need someone to look after you while you're busy with your important work here, Commander."

He didn't hear or see, but there was some signal that passed between the two women that caused Lana to back away from the door with a bemused expression. Then he saw, and smelled, the food that was being brought in by two servants that were accompanying Dee. He stifled his grin, trust Dee to do something to divert Lana.

Alistair decided he needed to find some way of rewarding the young woman, not many would have that kind of loyalty to the lady they served.

Though he couldn't tell what precisely she was thinking, Alistair could feel Lana's thoughts churning away at something. Lana sighed, "Thank you, Dee. We'll talk about this later."

Dee curtseyed to her lady, before chivvying the servants out of the room. He could have sworn she was trying not to grin. Once they were gone, he got up and walked over to his wife. Alistair wrapped his arms around her, kissed the top of her head, then lightly rested his chin there.

He could feel her amusement before she dryly said, "You obviously knew she was coming since there was no way she could just sneak into your escort."

"Mm hm."

"So why didn't you stop her?" Even though her tone was tart, she leaned against him and there was no anger coming from her.

"Stop her? Love, she's almost as formidable as you are when you're set on doing something."

She thought about that, "You might have a point there."

"Besides, she pointed out to me that while Vigilance and Sacrifice can take care of you battle, they can't take care of your daily needs."

Indignation erupted from wife and swords. He didn't bother to hide his grin at their reactions. Lana sputtered, "I don't need someone to take care of me. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

That comment caused the indignation from the weapons to fade and Vigilance somewhat crabbily asked, *And who needs to be reminded to eat and sleep when she is too focused on the task in front of her?*

She huffed, "Fine, fine. I get the message."

Before letting her go so they could eat their meal while it was still warm, Alistair kissed her again, "I love you."

The prickly mood softened as his wife twisted around to kiss him back, "I love you, too."

-oOo-

"You're looking a little gobsmacked there, lad."

The cheerful comment caused Anders to look up from the bowl of stew he was staring at and blink a few times. For a moment he thought there was something wrong with his eyes at seeing what appeared to be the same man standing side by side with himself. Average height, general good looks, should length hair the color of brightly polished copper. Then he saw that one had blue eyes and the other had green.

The twins smirked at him as they sat down. Thankfully they weren't mirror images of each other as they did so. While Blue Eyes poured out ale for the two, Green Eyes said, "I'm Mal, this's m'brother Donal. Glad to see one of our newest Brothers is a fellow mage."

That was surprising, the two of them were built more along the lines of fighters than mages. Neither of them wore robes either, both of them were in scruffy looking tunics and pants made out of soft leather. And he was fairly certain they'd been wearing armor almost as heavy as the King's when they arrived.

While Mal took a sip from his mug, Donal explained, "Robes are a pain in the neck. You can't do anythin' practical like wood workin' without riskin' the robes getting' caught on somethin'. Can't really make a livin' with magic if you aren't willing to do some nasty things since those are the only sorts who'll hire apostates, so don't bother with 'em."

Mal grunted, "An try running around a battlefield in robes. No thanks."

"I managed those darkspawn just fine a couple of days ago."

Nathaniel who had slipped in at the table at some point just rolled his eyes, "Anders, it was only a handful of the creatures and it didn't involve any running around."

Trying not to feel ganged up on since he didn't want to give up his robes, especially the very nice ones the Wardens supplied, Anders continued on, "Moira seems to run around just fine in hers."

The two brothers exchanged looks, Mal shook his head, "Her. Half the time she isn't even in human shape. Though this time it sounds like she wasn't skittering around as a giant spider."

Even as the blood drained from his face, Anders did derive some satisfaction at seeing the same reaction from Nathaniel. That Moira shapeshifted into a hawk was awesome, but a giant spider? Far less so.

Nathaniel leaned his elbows on the table as the brothers started to eat, and quietly asked, "So there's still been a lot of darkspawn activity?"

"Well, it is a Thaw," Donal pointed out as he ate. "But the last month, month an' a half, been too quiet."

"Now we know why," Mal added somewhat bitterly.

In the silence Oghren asked, "So why were ya so gobsmacked, sparklefingers?"

Even though it wasn't all that late in the day, Anders decided that he was going to lay down after eating. That the disgusting dwarf snuck up on him and the mage hadn't smelled him approaching... All four of the Wardens stared at him. At least Edwards and Tammrel were off somewhere else so he didn't have to deal with them too.

"The thing with Rylock earlier -'

"Yer welcome," Oghren commented in one of the moments he took a breath while inhaling a turkey leg.

Anders shook his head, "while it was absolutely fantastic to see that bitch get a taste of her own medicine, that's not what I'm talking about."

Donal scratched at his head, "You thought the Commander was just going to hand you over?"

It was difficult not to squirm under the disapproving regard of the brothers and dwarf. Nathaniel gave him a bland look, but Anders suspected Howe was disappointed in him too. All of which was irritating. How dare they judge him so? Some of that irritation bleed over to his words giving them a sharp edge. "Why not? Marlana's only known me for less than a handful of days. It's well known she's a pious woman given how she supposedly found Andraste's Ashes. Why wouldn't the Commander do what the Chantry tells her?"

Nathaniel gave a sideways look at Oghren, the dwarf's impending explosion had been paused by his desire not to choke on the turkey that he'd been stuffing into his mouth. So he spoke before the dwarf could, "You're confusing devotion to the Maker with blind obedience. It may have been some time since I was considered her adoptive big brother, but I can tell you that blind obedience is not one of her flaws. If anything, the opposite is true."

Mal continued after a quick, silent consensus with his brother, "She did the same for us."

"When we heard the Wardens were recruitin' after big battle in Denerim an' the coronation, we left our da's place thinkin' to see if they would accept us. Durin' the trip, bandits came after us. Had to use our magic to deal with 'em. Didn't think we left traces, but guess we did." Donal looked rueful as he picked up from Mal's start.

His brother shrugged, "Can't be helped now. Anyways. We got to Denerim, met this scary Antivan named Carlos who almost didn't believe us that we're mages. Then Donal fried his eyebrows off with a lick of fire."

Oghren snorted his amusement, "So that's why the blighter refused ta say wut 'appened."

Seeing the identical looks of deviltry, Anders pitied the twins' parents. They must have been a handful without magic, but with...

Mal continued, "So Carlos heads off rubbing his lack of eyebrows. Comes back with this wee lass that he claimed to be the Warden-Commander, not to mention the big Hero and future Queen. Only reason we sorta believed him cause of the hair."

"Yeees, most of the stories do tend to leave out the lack of height," Anders commented, bringing about good natured chuckles. "But why does she dye her hair like that anyway?"

The grins disappeared and Nathaniel paled as he said, "She doesn't. It was a... childhood mishap. You'll have to ask her for the details yourself."

Donal resumed the brothers' story in the attempt to diffuse the situation, "So she starts grillin' us on what we can do an' what we know." He rubbed the back of his head, "Commander's no mage, but she's got a scary-good grasp of the basics. And when we did another show,we made sure she wasn't near it. Even then we knew it was a bad idea to piss her off. Wee lass or not."

Everyone relaxed as amusement spread among their little group. While Anders sighed with relief that he hadn't utterly bollixed things with his fellow Wardens, he had to admit to curiosity about what they wouldn't talk about their commander. But that was for later.

"So she accepts us as recruits," Mal said, taking up the story, "Put us through the Joining and gives us what books on magic the Wardens had available. Unfortunately, it was mainly combat stuff, not much to help teach us more healing magic."

That surprised Anders, most mages seemed to prefer to learn how blow things up, even if they couldn't use those skills much. "You want to learn how to heal?"

Both coppery heads bobbed in agreement. Donal said, " 'Fore ma went to the Maker, she taught us what she could, but she wasn't powerful and had more of a knack with plants than beasts an' people."

"I'll be glad to teach you what I can during however long you'll be here."

"Good," Mal said fiercely, "Moira can't heal worth shit and while we know a good bit of herb lore to help make up for our magic,I know we can do more to help people with better training."

"What do you mean?"

"Once a month we have a small clinic to help the folks who can't afford a proper healer. We can't do as much as we like, but it's kept some sickness from getting worse. Helps that Marlana is Arlessa of Denerim too, she's set up some funding for it, but there's only so much she can put into it when there's other things that needs funds."

"Yeah," Donal sighed, "It's the clinic that drew the templars after us. The ones that discovered what we did to the bandits heard about our clinic and they came hunting us. The people we treated wouldn't tell them anything, but they're damnably good at finding mages anyway. They tracked us to the compound and demanded that we be turned over to them for justice."

"Justice!" he spat. "We always followed Andraste's will in using our magic to serve man. But because we killed some bandits quick an clean, cleaner than a blade, we were monsters for killin' scum by magic."

While Donal seethed at the memory, Mal said, "Carlos, Maker bless him, held the bastards off so someone could get the Commander. The pompous ass seemed to think she'd just give him what he wanted." He took a pull of his ale, "Maker forgive me, but I expected the same. 'Til she showed up and made it right clear that we're Grey Wardens and that's that."

His brother sniffed in disdain, "You left out the part how she made him look like a right fool in front of the Grand Cleric."

"Now that was a thing of beauty," Delindro commented as he plopped down at the table. Anders could feel himself going wide eyed. The Antivan looked like he'd just finished weapons practice judging by his sweaty appearance and the fresh bruise on his arm, but it wasn't the man's appearance that was so startling. His teeth were bright against his swarthy appearance as he grinned. "Since I was the one to get them I had a most excellent view. Marlana crossed her arms and gave him this look. The kind that looks like it'll peel the skin off of a person."

Oghren and Nathaniel both shuddered.

Another dazzling flash before Delindro started tearing into his food, "Her Grace was just quiet and let Marlana do all the talking. She asked, 'So what exactly is the problem with my Wardens?' He squirmed a bit then said, "Well, they're apostates. And they killed men with their magic.' She did that thing where she raises one eyebrow as she asked, 'I take it that it was more than the bandits they told me about?'"

Donal grinned viciously, "Shoulda seen the Grand Cleric's when Marlana pried out of him that it was just the bandits. That we don't go sacrificin' kiddies and in fact we've been tryin' to help people as more than just Wardens. In fact the crowd was starting to get a little ugly. Some of 'em we've helped. But seems it was more than that."

"Yeah," Mal agreed, "Seems during the Battle of Denerim some apostates were helping defend against the darkspawn. Then they stuck around to help heal some of the worst injured before the templars got themselves reorganized and they had to go back into hiding." He paused with a wondering look, "They remembered the good done by the mages and some of them appreciated it. Appreciated us for what we still did as minor healers. Not just because we're Wardens."

Delindro nodded, 'Then there's Irminric going around tellin' about what the mages go through in the Circles. How at first he thought that it was his holy duty to be a templar, but has realized it isn't. And the Commander has been quietly pointin' out that if mages were treated like the people they are then Uldred's rebellion wouldn't have happened the way it did."

Anders shook his head in amazement, "All right, I can see why the Commander stood up for me. But how is it the Chantry hasn't gone after her as heretic or something?"

Letting loose a long, drawn out belch, Oghren answered, " 'Sides the fact she put down that problem in that Tower of yers? Stopped yer civil war? Killed the soddin' huge, Tainted dragon?"

He rubbed the back of his head, "Well, when you put it that way..."

"Ain't just that either, twinkletoes. She found the ashes of that woman you surfacers swear by."

Suddenly Anders felt light headed again, "You're really saying she really did find the Ashes of Andraste? It's not just one more story going around?"

"Yep. I wasn't there fer it, but Alistair, Wynne and Leli were. Those three ain't the type to lie to a person." He belched again, " 'Sides, it healed that blighter Eamon when nothin' else did. An' she found Branka when all those noble asses in Orzammar said she was dead. Seeing what else she found... I kin believe she found them Ashes."

Silent until that point, Nathaniel spoke up, "But that doesn't mean there won't be individuals who have it out for her."

"That bitch Rylock holds a grudge, " Anders pointed out. As long as she was out there, he'd still have nightmares about her.

Delindro shrugged, but not dismissively, "So we watch out for her and each other like we always do."

"Good thing there's more of us now, " Oghren grunted, "Gonna need all the eyes we kin get."

-oOo-

Curled up with her husband after a good meal was one of life's greatest pleasures, Lana thought sleepily, a pity she was going to have to ruin it. Even though it had only been about a week since she left for the Keep, it seemed like a lifetime given all that had happened. She sighed a little causing Alistair to run his hand over hair, "What's wrong, love?"

"There's one more thing I have to tell you, but I think its minor compared to everything else."

"I think you should let me be the judge of that, " he said dryly.

"Seems that Esmerelle is finally making her move."

He grunted in annoyance. Though she could tell it wasn't at her, "It figures she'd pull something now. So what's she up to? Going to do the usual underhanded noble thing?"

"Well, according to Kallian, she's apparently plotting with Dairine Woolgar to kill me so that her charming daughter, Ebba, the one that you are so very fond of, can get her hooks into you."

Lana expected him to get upset, she didn't expect the jolt that went through him before he began to furiously swear. Honestly, she had no idea he even knew some of those terms. Worriedly, she ran her hand along his cheek, "Love? What's wrong? It'll be okay, really, it will."

He grabbed her hand in a tight grip that was almost crushing. She didn't like the way his normally tawny eyes had darkened in his fear and anger. "Lana, there was something that arrived just before I left Denerim, but didn't think anything of it at the time... It now has a really ugly twist to it."

Curling her fingers around his, then shifting so that her other arm could go around his shoulders, Lana tried to project reassurance to Alistair as he told her about the letter from Dairine's husband. It was a little concerning that they were making their move now and in such a way, but really, it was something far easier to deal with than talking darkspawn who abducted Wardens.

He really was not going to like the idea that suddenly came to mind.