Athadra braced herself against the chill as she stepped into the bailey. She wore nothing but a scrap of cloth across her chest and hips, and that was mostly to keep the knights and servants of the castle from fainting. She was surprised to see how proudly her muscles already stood out beneath her skin after four-and-a-half months of running and fighting.
The stone steps were cold on her feet, and her bare flesh sprouted goose pimples almost immediately, but Athadra resisted the urge to heat herself with her mana; she knew the Sten would disapprove of any reliance upon her arcane skills in the days to come. For his part, the Qunari already stood at the chosen place, across the grounds from the stables, wearing no more than she. When she drew closer, she saw that three enormous logs lay at his feet. They'd been cut into long, rough rectangles, each one longer and thicker than the last.
"Been to the f-forest, I see," she managed to say through her shivers. She noticed the scars his flesh carried, as she'd noted her own earlier in Morrigan's looking glass, and she felt her respect for him grow.
"You will start with the smallest of them," he began without preamble. "I will take the largest." Though he was from the tropical isles of the North, he seemed unaffected by the cold.
"And wh-what am I to do, exac-actly?" Athadra could imagine, but she wanted to hear it from him, first. Rather than speak, however, the Sten crouched beside the biggest hunk of wood. He wrestled it up from the ground and set it on his shoulders, stretching out his arms to take the load. When it balanced, he grunted, forcing himself to stand. "...oh," she said, her fears confirmed. She suddenly didn't feel so excited to set to her training.
The Sten looked at her, full of expectation. "We cannot begin," he said through closed teeth, "until you take up your weight."
"Begin?" She almost laughed; it would be a miracle if she could pick the smallest log up without magical assistance by First Day, much less the coming solstice. Yet she could not slink from the man's gaze...she had not run from a challenge since she'd first tasted the tainted blood the previous summer. And, foolish as it was, she wanted the Sten to esteem her as highly as she regarded him.
So, with a great sigh, the elven mage bent to a crouch beside her assigned charge. She could feel the splinters laying in wait, but the freshness of the wood let her get a more decent grip, and she managed to tilt one end off the ground half a foot. With shaking limbs, Athadra raised the dead wood just high enough to slip beneath it. The weight pressed down upon her, spreading from her shoulders to her neck and spine, and she felt the chill of old snow biting her backside.
Then, just like she'd seen the Sten do, Athadra breathed deeply and levered the log properly onto her shoulders. It overbalanced, though, and the end which had first left the ground was the first to return, just as her legs gave way beneath her. Ravens took wing from the walls at the colossal thud which accompanied the fall, and it was all Athadra could do to keep her left arm from being pinned beneath the weight. She was near to collapsing when the Sten sniffed.
"Again," he said. "Do not fail."
Rather than falling forward in a shivering mess, or calling upon her mana to soothe her burning nerves, Athadra growled at herself. With little more patience than her instructor, she levered the log up once more and took it upon her shoulders. The splinters found purchase in her skin, and her hot blood soaked into the thirsty wood, but she managed to keep the gods-damned thing aloft. Her stomach muscles screamed at her when she tried to stand, and so she screamed back at them, as well as the crows and the startled-looking guards at the gate. It took three heaves of her legs, but at long last the Warden rose, pressing nearly as much of her will against her magic as against her limbs.
The Sten looked on from beneath his own burden, his expression grim. "Now we can begin," he said after a pause. "Follow." He took one heavy step, and then another, before he found some kind of rhythm. Athadra somehow mustered the determination to follow his lead, though she needed three steps for every one of his, so that he was on the other side of a large oak tree before she realized that he was leading her in a circle.
Soon the Warden forgot about the cold, her flesh heated by the furious strain of her efforts. Sweat licked at her flanks and dripped from her knees by the second circuit around the tree.
"Shift the weight," came the Sten's voice from close behind her. "Watch me after I pass." His own breath steamed about his face, she saw once he'd taken another few steps, and her eyes fixed on his massive shoulders when he fell into the line their feet had beaten. Fissures crisscrossed his blue-bronze shoulder blades, and Athadra could nearly hear the crack of the whip which had caused them. Her own shoulders shook, but she could not tell whether it was out of sympathy or sheer exhaustion. Nevertheless, the Qunari's shoulders moved gracefully, and the Warden realized that he was twisting the log so that the ends carved circles of their own in the air. "Do it," he reiterated, and Athadra flinched.
Agony reacquainted itself with the elf when she tried to copy the motion, and she dare not budge her burden too far, lest it fall from her shoulders once more. Every breath came with jagged effort. Tears as well as sweat burned in her eyes, and when she managed to get the log to rock upon its perch, she felt blood weeping down her back. Her eyes caught on the darker blood of the Sten, brought forth by his own splinters, and the temptation was almost too much to bear.
Athadra's world collapsed into the figure ahead of her, plodding at a steady pace, and she took an absurd pride in herself when she noticed that it had stopped receding into the distance. Panting breaths blended into a low, humming chorus in her ears, and pain became her deepest companion, driving her on as much as it pulled her back. Then, after what might have been a minute or an Age, the Sten halted before her and cast off his bloodied log.
She took that as permission to do the same, and the world opened up around her as soon as the wood tumbled from her shoulders. Her feet shoot with the force of both weights hitting the ground, and a very different pain flooded her from the quicks of her toenails to the roots of her hair. The Warden dare not lay down, for fear that she wouldn't get up again.
"Food," was all the Sten said, and he set off toward a side-door that shortcut to the kitchens.
Athadra blinked, and she realized that the sun-disk was nearly to its apex in the Northern sky, behind the veil of wintry clouds. Suddenly her stomach clawed its hunger at her, giving her all the impetus she needed to run after the Qunari. The Sten ordered simple porridge with salt, and told her to take water; Athadra devoured as much as the cook lay before her. She hadn't been this ravenous since shortly after the Joining.
"I trust you, kadan," the Sten ventured eventually. "With my life."
Athadra nearly choked on her food. "And I you, with mine," she said, and realized that she meant it.
"Then you must tell me if you succumb to temptation and use your magic. We work from dawn to sundown, and you will be tempted."
The Warden shuddered. "I've been tempted already," she admitted. "But I think I've resisted."
"You think?" The Sten's brow arched dangerously.
"You want me to be honest, I'm being honest. With this much blood flowing, it's hard to tell. But I'm trying not to, I promise." She shoveled down the last of her fourth bowl of porridge and sat back, only to groan when the Sten stood up.
"I trust you," he repeated, and he did not speak again until they were in the relative solitude of the bailey once again. "I had thought of the special manacles that your templars use, to suppress your magic, in case you cannot resist...but they do not stymie your special talent, do they?"
Athadra swallowed hard and glanced around, listening hard for anyone who might be listening to them in their turn. Champion or no, she had little doubt that Mother Hannah could convince some templars to come chase down a maleficar, despite the local Chantry's lack of lyrium...which was likely the only reason the tintops hadn't reappeared yet. She gave a short shake of her head.
The Sten nodded. "Then I can scourge you, if you give in."
The Warden's eyes widened, and she remembered the scars across the man's back. A breath steadied her. "Very well," she said, unable to reply any other way.
He moved into position beside his log and signaled for her to do the same. "Begin," he pronounced, when she'd crouched down.
The log wasn't any easier to lift the second time, which convinced her that she wasn't drawing on her mana. The first few minutes seemed to take an eternity, but once she started swiveling the log upon her nettled shoulders, Athadra lost track the flow of time. She worked through the pain and even the mad joy that threatened, reminding her of nothing so much as the battle-madness which could take her in the midst of slaughter, and when the shadows grew longer than the castle's walls the Sten called a halt to their work.
"Return tomorrow," he said, after he'd caught his breath. "At the first day of each week, you will begin with the next larger piece of wood. When you have mastered my log, we will take up arms once more."
Which meant that Athadra had another fourteen days of her circles, at least. "Can I heal meself afterward, then?"
The Sten crossed his arms and looked at her evenly. "I do not know," he said at last. "You may pursue whichever arts you wish, in the dark hours. But muscles only grow by injury, and if you are overzealous in easing your pain, you may well undo the benefit of our labour."
The Warden tried to nod, but the muscles in her neck seized, and she hissed. "Right. I'll have to judge that." She managed a smile and a smidgen of a bow, and she turned to hobble back to the stairs and up into the castle. She made it all the way to the armour stands before her legs gave out and she went onto one knee. Luckily, for her pride at least, Shale was nowhere to be found, but the Warden's blood whispered in her ear and her heart sunk.
"Athadra!" Alistair appeared in the doorway to Eamon's study. His mouth worked wordlessly for a moment as he took in the sight of her, kneeling and bloody and nearly naked as she was. "What's happened? Are we under attack?"
"No," she hissed, trying to push herself back onto her feet. She couldn't quite make it, but before she'd fallen, Athadra felt the other Warden's arms folding around her. She writhed even as he cradled her, sudden fear looming from deep within her. If her limbs weren't already spasming she would have struck out against her captor.
"Athadra," he called again, his voice calmer this time. "Tell me what happened."
The Warden managed a few deep breaths and calmed the tenor of her instinct. "Training," she said. "The Sten," she added, after a breath. "Get stronger."
"Well, I can see how well that's working out for you," Alistair quipped, mounting the stairs to the second floor. "Let's get you up to bed, and I'll have a talk with Sten."
"You will not," Athadra growled, meeting the man's gaze ferociously. "I need this."
Alistair's expression wavered. "I guess it's your decision," he conceded. "Just don't let it kill you."
"Trust me," she said more softly. "And...thank you," she admitted, once they topped the stairs. "But let me down." She managed to nod at the other Warden's unvoiced question, and with obvious reluctance he set her onto her feet. She couldn't quite stand straight, and she had to grip the wall, but she waved Alistair away to his own room. Then, quite alone, Athadra hobbled down the long corridor to her chosen bedchamber with as much dignity as she could muster.