CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN – SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST

When Fenris came back to their room at the Laughing Dragon, he found Merrill sitting at a small table, half-buried in a pile of books. She barely noticed his entrance until he cleared his throat.

"Oh! Welcome back," she said, and turned back to her work.

"What's all this?"

She turned back around. "Well, I thought I'd have a look at some literature I was able to find and see if anyone has ever heard anything like what happened to you."

"Any luck?"

"No," she said. "Everything I've been able to find is about the Tranquil, and that's obviously not you."

He nodded; while he knew his markings anchored him to the Fade in a strange enough way to have piqued Watcher's interest, he'd met Tranquil before and he was fairly certain he wasn't suffering from the same ailment. He had emotions, and plenty of them – just…nothing that connected him to the memories he knew were his.

"Anyways," she said. "I'm sure I'll find something, somewhere around here. Tell me again what happened when you lost them."

He attempted to explain Watcher's mistake, but had little luck doing so. He got the feeling that Watcher, from whatever corner she was living in, was tapping an impatient toe.

This would be so much easier if you'd just let me borrow your mouth, she said.

Absolutely not.

Fine. Have it your way. For as old a spirit as she was, she seemed to have an uncommonly good hold on mortal communication, especially the more idiomatic parts of it. Then again, that had probably come from years of observation. Regardless, Fenris remembered Justice all too well, felt Watcher's fear of him, and decided that sharing his eyes with her was more than enough.

He tried again, but translated Watcher's thoughts instead of summing things up, this time, and Merrill seemed to catch the gist.

"I don't think I've ever heard someone's mind described in such a way. I wonder what mine looks like…" she went off on a tangent.

"Merrill."

"Oh, yes, right." She thumbed through a few pages of one of the books. "I'm going to take some notes and have a think, then see if perhaps those mages from Dairsmuid are still in town. I know it's been a few weeks, but they seem to be here fairly often."

She gestured toward the bed in the double room that was his. "I picked up a couple new things for you, there. Something on martial arts, seeing as you still can't swing your sword."

Fenris stripped himself of his armor and weapons, then grabbed the book off the nightstand and crashed into his bed with a sigh.

Weeks more had passed, and while they still had plenty of gold between them, he was growing restless. He'd decided, weeks ago, that he should make for Starkhaven and, at the very least, attempt to re-forge his marriage. But while his spirit had been willing, his body had been uncooperative.

That appeared to have ended relatively recently; he had been able to venture out into the city for nearly a whole day without exhausting himself. Certainly a voyage by sea wouldn't be far behind, right?

He leaned back against the headboard and read the book for a while, but found his thoughts wandering. He'd been plumbing the depths of his memories, reacquainting himself with the new map of his head, the one that always looked as if he was seeing it from above. He'd willed himself to connect, to care, but thus far, he'd only seen a few moments that stirred him, even a little. He turned to those thoughts, and let them fill his mind's eye.

There was a sparring match with the elf Nigel. That one excited him; if he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel the pounding of his heart and the other elf's breaths as he brushed past with the quickest set of daggers he'd ever seen. There was a view of the coast from a path near Kirkwall; a nightscape as viewed from a tall chantry belltower, one that no longer existed.

The one that stirred him most, though, was that of a little rowhouse, here in Llomerryn, where a wizened old woman had told him that he would sire a son. He smiled at the thought; that memory wasn't something linked so solidly to the past as everything else. That one was open to interpretation, to daydreams, even, and he found himself turning to it fairly often, these days. It strengthened his resolve and made him want to push himself farther than he knew he could have without the external motivation.

He imagined what he'd look like. Would he be a perfect copy of himself, or an amalgam of himself and the child's mother?-

She has a name, Watcher said.

I know. He corrected his inner monologue, and thought of her. He wondered what she'd seen in him, or what he'd seen in her. Well, he knew what he'd seen in her, but was he the same person? He felt different; he was a little less prone to fits of rage, a little more balanced once he'd gotten past the initial feelings of loss and depression caused by it. The memory of the ritual in which his markings were made still lingered, but now it was miles away instead of minutes. That was one way in which he felt he'd benefited from Watcher's little accident: separated from the memory of that ritual, his markings no longer ached and twinged, even on the few occasions in which he'd tested them.

That was new, and could potentially make him even more dangerous, seeing as the pain in the markings had been one of the only things that had throttled his use of them in the first place. He fired up the ones on his hands, watched them blaze against the setting sun.

He might not have his sword, and had only a moderate command of his daggers, but he still had incredible control as far as his lyrium was concerned. He closed the book.

"I think it's time to leave," he said to Merrill.

She closed the book she was working on, and smiled. Fenris wondered why the person he'd been had never bothered to get to know her – she was pleasant, kind, and thoughtful, if a little featherheaded. Then the obvious popped into his head, and he sighed.

She touched the forbidden and lived to tell the tale, Watcher said. She knows better now. The old Fenris would never have agreed with the spirit, but he couldn't seem to see eye to eye with the old Fenris. He wondered if it was Watcher's influence, or something else entirely.

"We'll start making arrangements tomorrow," she said, and buried her head back into her book.

"Good morning, puppy." Althaea brought Leto up to her and kissed him on his nose, causing his eyes to cross comically. When she brought him out to see his entire face, he lost his confusion and made an attempt at a smile. There was no laughter yet, but Cora said that would come.

She'd managed to get plenty of work done while he'd been stone cold sleeping, which was good. He was still a little too young to be left with Cora for longer than a few minutes at a time, but Sebastian had moved her quarters close to a meeting room she could use, and she'd been able to return to work, Leto strapped around her front in a sling, in a matter of weeks.

The look on her associates' faces had been priceless when they'd seen her arrangement. Cora had shown her how to tie an oversized scarf into a swaddling sling, and the easiest ways to tie it; the first morning she'd shown up to a meeting, the First Enchanter's jaw had dropped halfway to the floor before he'd remembered his sense of decorum and had recovered.

When she'd mentioned it to Cora, the elf had laughed and patted her on the back. "If it was good enough for me, it had better be good enough for the First Enchanter." Althaea laughed, as well, when she imagined a much younger Cora toting an infant Marius around in a sling while attending her duties. Yes, if Cora had been able to do it while working in a hot, sweaty kitchen, she could do it in a much easier context.

Her puppy. She wasn't sure how Leto had earned that moniker, but it had stuck. She thought that maybe Sebastian had remarked that her son had inherited his father's "puppy eyes", but that was when he'd been colicky and she'd been running on close to no sleep; those memories ran together and made little sense, even when she tried her hardest to remember them. Now that she'd established a good routine – sleep, eat, change, sleep, eat, change – she'd been faring much better on that front. He was sleeping at night, too, and in large enough blocks that she'd been able to get a few things done before falling asleep, herself.

She was glad for Cora's assistance, along with the small army of servants that her mother had commandeered to help out around her quarters. Without them, they'd both have been so weighed down with everyday responsibilities that they'd never have gotten anything else done. So the routine continued, and it seemed that every day, Leto was getting bigger, and doing new things, and eating like a piglet. Squealing like one, too.

He was in the middle of a feeding when there was a knock on the door. Cora wasn't around, so she got up and answered herself. If whoever was at the other end had an issue with a babe at the breast, they'd just have to turn around and leave.

It was only Seb, and though he reddened, this wasn't the first time he'd seen her feeding Leto. He'd have to get used to it; Beatrix was carrying low and broad now, and if her curiosity at Althaea's arrangement was any indication, it wouldn't be long before there was a second sling-riding infant around the castle. Which made sense; the Princess of Starkhaven was easily as busy, if not busier than, the Conclave's liaison.

"What can I do for you, Seb?" He gave her a meaningful look, and she corrected herself with a curtsey. "Your Highness." He only does that when wandering ears might be nearby…

"I came to summon you personally to the audience chamber," he said, then added, "the sooner, the better."

She nodded and allowed him inside. "Give me a few minutes to finish up and change."

She did so, allowing Leto to eat his fill – a full baby was a tired one, after all – then changed into something more presentable and followed Seb to the audience chamber.

"What's going on?" she asked him as they walked.

"It seems Kirkwall has finally has caught up with us," he said. "Well, with everyone." He opened the door to the audience chambers, where three knights dressed in black armor, a shining white eye embossed on each breastplate. The leader was a dour woman with close-cropped black hair.

"Please, have a seat," she said, and gestured at one of the chairs. Althaea did so, arranging herself primly on the seat, and the woman inclined her head. Her two flunkies took up next to the chair, looming over her as if ready to strike her down at any moment. Her heart raced, and Leto stirred in response.

"Is this really necessary?" Seb asked, and the woman gave her men the signal to back off. She calmed a little, but knew that if they decided to end her, there'd be precious little she could do about it.

"My apologies," said the woman. "I'm afraid we're a little more used to more…resistance, though it seems we have little to worry about on that front, as far as you're concerned. You have my congratulations; how old is the babe?"

"Seven months." Maker, had it already been that long?

"And the name?"

"Leto." She bounced him gently, and he seemed to drift back off to sleep. Good, the last thing she wanted to deal with was a crying baby during an apparent interrogation.

"I assume you know why we're here?"

"Can we start with names? I am Amalthaea Demitridis. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And yours?"

If the diversion took the woman aback, she made no indication of it. "I am Cassandra Pentaghast, a Seeker of the Chantry."

A Seeker. She'd never seen one, and hoped she never would. She attempted to look at Seb for confirmation, but the two guards jerked as if she would try to attack.

So Kirkwall had indeed caught up with her, and it probably didn't help that she was openly living under her given name, and the Chantry almost certainly knew with whom she shared it.

"What is it you seek?"

"Answers."

"Those I have in spades," Althaea said, "though they may not be the ones you're looking for. Would you mind sitting down? My neck is starting to ache."

Cassandra, apparently nonplussed, did so. Good, she thought. I have a feeling this is going to be a while.

She took a deep breath and prepared to spend the next few hours being interrogated.

Funnily enough, Fenris found passage for Merrill and himself on the Quicksilver, which was bound on a silk run to the Antivan city of Bastion. From there, numerous ferries rode up and down the Minanter, and they would likely be lucky enough to secure passage one one of those, directly to Starkhaven.

So it was that the two found themselves on one of these ferries, bored enough to play cards and read to each other from the books they'd decided not to leave behind.

"Here, have a look at this one," Merrill said. "I can't read it out loud – it would make Isabela blush."

Fenris raised an eyebrow and had a look. The story in the collection was entitled My Templar Lover and His Cold, Cold Armor, and as he skimmed it, he felt himself turning several shades of red. When one of the scenes sparked a memory of his own bedroom exploits, he turned even darker.

"I told you!" Merrill laughed.

He put the book down. "Of all the titles we had, is there a reason you decided to bring this one with you?"

"Varric wrote it," she said, and pointed to the spine. Surely enough, the words Varric Tethras were on the cover.

"I miss him," Merrill said. "Don't you?"

He shrugged. The dwarf had been the second-least distant of Hawke's companions, and he'd been cordial enough despite Fenris's initial confusion at his situation, and the ensuing depression. They'd sat and talked more than a few times between when he'd woken up and when he'd parted ways with them in Llomerryn.

"I suppose I do," he said, and knew it to be true. The dwarf had been a source of comfort for him, and he wished he could have stayed around.

He had a look around the ferry. It was chock-full of people, all shapes and sizes, but a group of three in one corner caught his attention. "Merrill," he said, "aren't those some of the mages you met in Llomerryn?"

She had a look, and nodded. "What are they doing here?"

"I don't know, she said. "I guess I had better go find out." She walked over to the group of mages, who hugged her and started talking animatedly. She gestured him over.

"Fenris, meet Gerhart, Ryelle, and Celeste. They were from the Dairsmuid Circle."

"Were?"

Celeste nodded her head sadly. "The Seekers…they annulled it. Only eight of us survived."

"Where are the other five?" Fenris asked.

"Timothy didn't make it. The other four made for Tevinter, instead."

"Not a good idea," Fenris said. "The only mages better off in the Imperium are magisters."

"We didn't think so, either," Gerhart said, "and we heard that a small conclave of mages had formed in Starkhaven, so…"

He nodded. "We've heard that, too."

"You make for Starkhaven, then?" Ryelle said. "Good. There's safety in numbers, and we only just avoided being sold into slavery, thanks to poor Timothy."

"Circle born and from Ferelden," Celeste said. "He was a good boy, just a little too daft to live."

Fenris shook his head and thought about the irony of his situation. Old Fenris - as he now called him – would have chafed at the very thought of sharing a barge with three freshly minted apostates. Now they looked to him less like monsters, and more like sad, scared people: afraid of the Templars, afraid of their power, afraid for their future.

They sat together and bumped, fairly merrily, along the Minanter. In just a few days he'd be docked in Starkhaven. Whatever would he say to his wife, when he saw her again? He didn't know, but supposed he had a little bit longer to think about it.

Postscript: We got hit by about as bad a thunderstorm as it gets without actually being a tornado, and home is a total war zone! I'm sitting at a coffee shop to update this, because we finally got power back yesterday but half the city of Minneapolis (including us) has no internet.

That being said, I plan to upload both this and the next chapter today, so please accept my apologies for the dual notifications.