Author's Note: Hello, all. I know it has been a long time, and that I've been a terrible excuse for an author. Needless to say, 2016 has been a literal hell of a year, in a lot of ways. I've been struggling with a great deal of things, battling depression, and it has affected my ability and my drive to create. I can't promise anything, but I will try to be more efficient with my updates, because I love to write, and because I want to continue these stories. Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding, and for continuing to read and offer your thoughts on my work. I hope that this year is being kinder to you and yours than it has to me and mine, and I pray that all will become better over this holiday season, and the new year to follow. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy.

Bright Blessings,

~Raven Sinead

Redcliffe Village

Salem

The ground beneath our feet changed, altering from soft, brown earth to the hard red clay that the arling was known for. Of all ridiculous things, I was grateful for the fact that it had not rained in the past few days. The red soil of the land changed to a mud that clung to one's boots and stained everything when it rained. At least we did not have that to contend with. The incessant bickering between Alistair and Morrigan, the increasing heat, and the fact that my wound from the road had not quite fully healed culminated in more than enough irritation.

Though she said nothing and would never let on, I knew that Wynne asked Leliana to shadow me. The senior enchanter, even in the cloistering atmosphere of the Circle, learned much in her years, and knew that her presence hovering at my side would be unwelcome. I did not appreciate hovering. Especially given the fact that the mage refused to complete the healing in the time frame that I desired. I understood that it required time for any grave injury, but they did not know the limits of the pain I could…and had…endured. Much as I did not wish to admit it, I knew that, should they all remain with me, they would learn.

It is only in the legends that swordsmen walk out of battle with hordes of enemies without a single scratch. Even the melee at the tournaments leaves men injured and bleeding…and some dead. To ask that someone emerge from battle without a scratch is unrealistic. And I am most certainly no hero of legend. I am the daughter of a noble, blessed in my current state for, unlike many others of my station, my father allowed me to learn the sword.

The silhouette of Redcliffe Castle loomed in the distance and my weary heart rejoiced. If we were received well, there would be a warm bath and decent meal in store for us, who had not known such a luxury in weeks. At worst, we could pool together our gold and have a roof over our heads and walls that kept out the wind. And something passing for decent fare. We could only survive on dried meat for so long.

Burrow yipped and ran a little forward of the group as new scents reached his keen nose. It did not take long before I, too, smelled what had caught his attention, and it was not simply the aroma of a township. I smelled tar, oil, and smoke. Steel and blood lit the air as well. Something was not right here. Burrow sensed it as well, stopping from a dead run to a grinding halt.

"Your eyes have that look in them again." Leliana whispered and I flinched. I had not even noticed her walk closer to me. "The look before you ran into an ambush. Please tell me you will do no such thing again. You are still not well enough for combat."

"We might not have a choice." I replied. "Something is not right here."

"I am very much beginning to dislike it when you say that."

Leliana pulled her bow from her back and carried it in her hand. Most other archers would have taken an arrow from their quiver as well, but Leliana needed no such preparation. She was the swiftest with the bow I had ever seen, and I wondered, not for the first time, where the demure Chantry sister with a love for the old legends acquired such a skill. Those questions would wait, however. For now, we were at the bridge that began the road to Redcliffe, and I was staring down the head of a drawn arrow.

Leliana's hand wrapped around my forearm, and I noticed the subtle step she took in front of me. Inwardly, I sighed. This was not her place, nor anything I would ever ask of her. I bore the tainted blood of a Grey Warden. They had joined with me to fight the Archdemon. Each and every one of their lives was in my care. It was I who was meant to be their shield, and I would never allow that to change.

"It is all right, Leliana." I rested my hand over hers, remembering the softness of her skin from the few times we had touched, and wishing that my hands were not gloved. "With the sun as it is, this sentry cannot see our faces. Let me speak with him."

"You're still…"

"I know." I growled, removing my arm from her grasp as gently as I could and strode forward to greet the sentry.

"Halt!" He shouted. "Who goes there!?"

"I am Salem Cousland of Highever." I announced myself, expecting to need to say more when the sentry's bow fell away.

"Cousland!?" He shouted. "Then our pleas for aid have been heard at last! Please, milady, you must come to the village! We are in dire need of your assistance."

"What has happened here?" Alistair appeared at my side. "It smells like battle and blood. It smells like…" His eyes met mine and I saw in their dark color the horror of the name, the sole time this poor man had ever scented true battle.

Ostagar. It smells like Ostagar.

"Follow me and I will tell you what I can." The sentry responded, whispering orders to a fellow in the shadow and beginning to guide us down the long, meandering path to the village. "But Bann Teagan will be able to tell you more. He is the one in command."

Even in the hues of sunset, I could see Alistair's features pale. "Has something happened to Arl Eamon?" He asked. "Is he…"

The sentry shook his head, and the tension in my warden-brother grew almost tangible. "The arl took ill not so long ago, but we've no word beyond that, ser. As I said, it is beyond my ken, but our bann will be able to tell you more. He is in the Chantry, where we have set up a headquarters and infirmary of sorts."

"I am a skilled healer with the Circle of Magi." Wynne spoke. "I will be more than pleased to provide my assistance to the wounded."

It did not take the eye of an eagle to see that there was need for a healer. The road to the village was littered with corpses, only…only few of them were human. The stench of decaying flesh hung in the air, but the largesse of the bodies littering the ground were already skeletal. It made little sense, and I feared that we would fare little better here than we had fared at the Circle Tower. The entire country was crumbling from its zenith to foundation.

"Much like the elven forest, this place reeks of death and magic." Morrigan broke the silence and the sentry flinched.

"What sort of magic?" I asked, sensing that our witch would know more than Bann Teagan about the truth of the corpses littering the road.

"It is still too soon to tell." Morrigan sniffed. "But it reeks vaguely of necromancy. In fact, I would wager that much of the dead that lie here were once brothers in arms."

"Milady Cousland…" The sentry's voice shivered, "…how does she know such things? What company have you taken on?"

"There is a lengthy tale to tell, but now is not the time." I replied and the man was content, for mine was the reply of nobles.

Redcliffe's Chantry came into view and I felt fingers thread through my own, Leliana's hand squeezing mine tightly. Her deep blue eyes looked into mine and they were filled with an anxious concern I knew all too well. It lived in my mother's eyes…when I fell from a tree and broke my arm, when I found myself trampled and half-gored by a boar on a hunt, when I became ill with Dane Fever, and, the last time, when one of Howe's swordsmen scored my side.

"Salem." She spoke my name so low that the sentry did not hear her break what he would perceive to be protocol. "Salem, if this comes to fighting, please, I beg of you, stay with the rear guard."

I did not answer as, at that moment, a russet-haired man I knew all too well emerged from the Chantry doors. However, Leliana's words did bring a question to mind.

Why, Leliana? Why is it that you seem to care so very much? I have been a cold, dispassionate leader. Whatever is it that causes you to show what appears to be personal concern, unrelated to the warden's mission?

"Bann Teagan!" The sentry shouted, drawing the man's attention to us, and my mind away from my questions. I smiled as I saw the familiar features. Teagan had grown out his beard, and it suited his face. "Bann Teagan, our prayers have been answered! Our relief is here!"

Teagan's brows furrowed as he surveyed the small, eclectic group before him. "I do not understand." He murmured. "I asked for a battalion of soldiers and I receive only six, one of them an old woman?"

"Do not underestimate the aged, Teagan." I spoke to him, moving into the light of the wall sconces. "I do believe there has been something of a misunderstanding. We are not the relief you asked for, but if there is trouble here, we will lend whatever aid we may."

Teagan stepped closer, his lips turning down at the corners. "No mere soldier would address a Bann by first name. I know your voice, but it is distant in my memory."

"I would wager it was from a hunting expedition in Highever, prior to the Great Tourney, several years ago." I reminded him. "You might remember me as the woman who slaughtered the wild boar we supped on that night."

The bann's eyes flared with recognition. "The woman who slaughtered the boar after her horse threw her, trod on her, and after she had half of the monster's tusk impaled in her thigh?" He asked and I nodded. "Salem?" He spoke my name with an edge of disbelief in his voice. I nodded once again. "Salem Cousland? But we were…there were…there was word sent throughout the bannorn that all the Couslands perished after Howe's men discovered their treason."

"You knew my father well, Teagan." I murmured, a wash of pain spearing through me as I remembered the agony in my father's eyes as he lay wounded on the floor; my mother's anguished scream as three arrows ripped through her breast. "Do you truly believe that he would betray the crown?"

Teagan's shoulders slumped. "No." He replied at last, hanging his head. "If you have come seeking shelter from those who would harm you, Lady Cousland, I am afraid we cannot provide it."

I shook my head. "I ask for nothing of the sort, Teagan." I replied. "Fate and chance have seen me a Grey Warden. I am here to beg help from your brother against the darkspawn threat. However, it would appear that none can be rendered. Tell me, what has happened here?"

A blur of movement pushed me aside and Alistair stood before the bann, his features taut with worry. "The sentry informed us that Eamon has fallen ill? How is he? Might we see him? Speak to him?"

Teagan looked from me to Alistair, his confusion etched in his eyes. "Is that…" He stepped closer and scrutinized my warden brother. "Alistair?" He asked at last. "Eamon mentioned that you had left the templars but…a Grey Warden…"

"Eamon received my letters?" Alistair asked, and I heard Morrigan muttering something about her awe that the buffoon could do more than scrawl an 'x' on parchment. I ignored her. "I am surprised that Isolde did not destroy them. She always hated me. Regardless, where is Eamon? Is he here?"

Teagan's eyes filled with sorrow, an expression and emotion I was now entirely too well-acquainted with. "There has been no word from my brother." He informed us. "Eamon fell ill last week. Word came to me in Gherlen's Pass, where I was investigating reports of a darkspawn attack. I returned here as quickly as I could to find the city in shambles and my people terrified. None have been able to reach the castle and every night, as the sun sets, there have been…" Teagan shuddered, "…the animated dead spill out of the castle and attack the village."

"So Isolde, Connor, Eamon?" Alistair asked and I saw terror on his face. He told me that Eamon had been a father to him until he married a much younger Orlesian noblewoman, who banned him from the household. In order to spare his marriage, Eamon sent Alistair away to the Chantry to become a templar.

"We do not know if they are living or dead." Teagan confessed. "With the horrors I have seen…I fear the worst. I came with many knights from the Pass, but many of them lie injured and unable to fight. Those that are still capable of battle are on the edge of exhausted collapse."

"Teagan, my companion that you so grievously underestimated is Wynne, senior enchanter of the Circle of Magi." I broke my way back into the conversation. "With an apology, I am certain she would be happy to tend to your knights."

Teagan bowed to Wynne, proper abashment on his features. "I do apologize, my lady. I spoke wrongly to you under the strain of the circumstances, and quite forgot myself. If you would be so kind as to render aid to my men, I would be grateful."

"Lead and I will go." Wynne answered, gracious as I knew she would be.

Perhaps I had overstepped in calling Teagan out on his behavior and forcing him to apologize, but I would not feel guilty for it. I would not abide a member of the Ferelden nobility speaking ill of someone they did not know to that person's face, strain and circumstances notwithstanding. I remembered a moment when my father had dismissed me and I cursed at him. My brother had taken me aside that day and spoke words to me I would never forget.

Never do such a thing again, sister. If you remember anything, remember this. Every single human heart and mind is always fighting a battle. Be kind always, Salem, no matter the battles you yourself are fighting. When he is in a better state of mind, you will apologize to father, and I will not hear of an incident like this again or I will thrash your hide. Am I understood?

My heart felt torn asunder as I remembered those words, the severity of the expression on my brother's face. I remembered him laughing, calling my name, taunting me in the sparring yard, offering encouragement and advice as I trained with the sword. My knees trembled, my hands quavered, and my lungs refused to take in air. The smell of battle in Redcliffe brought back the stench of the sacking of Highever and I almost gagged.

"Salem?" Leliana's voice rang at my ear again, soft and concerned. "Are you all right?"

No, Leliana. I do not think I shall ever be "all right" again.

"Fine." I murmured. "We should find the leader of Teagan's knights and see where we could be most helpful."

"On that matter, Salem," Leliana whispered, and I felt a storm within her words, "I would like to speak with you. Privately."