Kirkwall's water was once again clean.

Cullen repeated it again and again as he trudged through Hightown, his booted feet taking him to the Hawke Estate. The water was once again safe. He could not quite rid his mind of the horrible image it seemed determined to cling to — Fenris and Amelle, both radiating so much light, the elf's hand inside the mage's chest.

And then, nothing. No noise, no light, no magic. Nothing.

In the oppressive silence that followed, Cullen's training alone got him to his feet and made him rummage through Amelle's pack until he found a stamina draught tucked safely away with the more mundane healing supplies. He'd gulped it down, grimacing at the taste even as his mind cleared and as energy slowly seeped back into his limbs. Enough to stand. Enough to walk.

"Take her home. Use that first escape route we passed." Fenris had given him a curt nod before hefting a far too limp and far too pale Amelle carefully — gingerly — into his arms and, with brisk, determined strides, disappearing up the narrow passageway, leaving Cullen behind with her staff and her pack, and a spring that had likely never been so clear, so free from disease as it was now. But at what price?

What have we done?

Gathering up the staff and Amelle's belongings, he then made his way up the stairway, back up to the Gallows, to Kirkwall, to the Order, to any number of things he wasn't completely certain he was prepared to face.

But Kirkwall's water was clean.

On his way out, Cullen spoke with Ser Hugh briefly, instructing him to put the newly-clean water into circulation. Eyeing the staff, the knight gave him a curious look, reminding Cullen he'd told no one else about the threat — there'd been no time to tell anyone, no time for talk. There'd been time only for action and, oh, there had been consequences. There would be consequences still.

Perhaps it had been Cullen's own disheveled appearance, perhaps the look in his eye, but Ser Hugh did not argue, did not press. He simply saluted and hurried off to gather more men to collect water from the wells to be brought into the city proper.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but even the air felt clearer; the sun shone a little brighter around pale, wispy clouds. He could not remember such a beautiful day. But as he knocked on the door to the Hawke Estate, Cullen wished for a leaden sky and cold, steadily falling rain — Fereldan weather. It would have suited his mood better. The sunshine only felt cruel.

Orana opened the door, and Cullen knew Fenris could not have got here very long before he did, for she looked pale and panicked, her eyes wide with fear.

"M-messere?"

It did not seem possible so many questions could be loaded into a single word. Cullen swallowed hard, only to find his throat impossibly dry. "Where is she?" he asked, stepping inside and cursing silently when his voice broke.

Orana closed the door behind him with a shaking hand. "Upstairs," she whispered. There were tears in her eyes. "Messere, please — p-please tell me what—"

What have we done?

"I… do not know," was all Cullen said, was all he could say, walking past the girl and up the stairs, his boots so heavy, so loud on the steps. He had no idea where Amelle's room was, but as he reached the second landing he heard the soft, plaintive tones of a dog's whining. He followed the sound down one hall with several doors — one of them slightly ajar. Light came from within. Cullen had very nearly had his fill of light, but this was the dancing amber glow of a fire in a hearth, not the otherworldly, blinding light that felt as if it had seared him throughout.

The door swung open silently, revealing Fenris in a chair pulled hastily to the bedside. One of the chair legs had caught the corner of the rug and was now rucked up messily underneath him. The elf paid it no mind. He sat, slumped forward, elbows upon his knees and hands clasped as if in prayer. His head was bowed, white hair hiding his features. Amelle had already been divested of the filthy, sweaty robes, changed into a nightgown, and tucked into bed. Her hair was still damp against her brow, silent testament to her ordeal. At the foot of the bed, the mabari hound was curled into an impossibly tight ball — far smaller than any beast that size ought to have managed. But there he lay, curled against her leg, his head resting on his paws as he watched her with mournful, dark eyes.

She was still. Too still. And Cullen still couldn't sense her, couldn't sense even the faintest twinge of magic around her. His stomach sank.

What have we done?

"What in all the Void happened down there, Fenris? What was that?"

Fenris did not raise his head. He did not move at all. If he heard Cullen speak, he gave no indication of it.

Closing his eyes, Cullen offered up a brief prayer for strength. Clearly whatever had happened had gone… somewhat counter to Fenris' intentions; the elf would not be so despondent, otherwise. But regret was not answers, and Cullen wanted the latter.

"Fenris," he barked in the tone usually reserved for disobedient recruits. The elf jerked, his head snapping up and his eyes blinking. "Report!"

A series of emotions flitted across Fenris' usually inscrutable face. Cullen wasn't certain if it was only that Fenris was feeling things more strongly, or that he was somehow less in control of himself, but either way, this was the most unreserved he'd ever seen him. After passing through indignation and distress and irritation, Fenris' expression settled on regret. And sorrow. The elf's grief was palpable. Cullen understood it too well.

"She required… more lyrium," Fenris said slowly, carefully, as though feeling out the syllables before he spoke them. Cullen didn't dare look too closely at the shadows in Fenris' gaze. The elf glanced down, flipping his hands over. The twining lines of lyrium were dark now, just markings without light or power. After a moment, Fenris closed his hands once again into fists and hunched over, shaking his head. "These markings… sometimes Danarius used them the way—the way you witnessed. But when I—Amelle took—I didn't anticipate it being so much—and she—she required more lyrium."

"No," Cullen said, the word hard and cold and not at all tempered with the grief he felt. "She needed to stop. We needed to stop." Pacing to the window, he clenched one hand in the fabric of the curtain, uncertain if he wanted to let the sunlight in or remain in the dark. Finally he decided on light, and opened the curtain half-way. "Maker's bloody breath, I should have been able to stop her. But I… I let myself get caught up in her hope. I let myself give everything to that sodding spring and it was too late. By the time I should have—could have—stopped her, I didn't have anything left."

"Was it for naught?" Fenris asked quietly. "Is the water yet tainted?"

Cullen shook his head slowly, wearily. "Nothing of the corruption remains. The spring is clear. The wells are clear. Whatever it has done to her, that last…"

"It worked, then."

Brow furrowing, Cullen moved away from the window and stood on the opposite side of the bed, staring down at Amelle's still form. "But at what cost?"

"She lives," Fenris said, his voice breaking on the final syllable. "She is a spirit healer. Surely she will—"

"At what cost?" Cullen repeated. "Fenris. She breathes. But her magic—her power—her life—I… she breathes. That is all."

Cullen didn't think the elf even realized he was trembling, his head shaking in disbelief. "She will wake. She lives."

Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Cullen said, more gently, "She may wake."

"She will wake," Fenris said firmly, with a hint of his usual intensity. "She is strong."

"She may wake," Cullen repeated. "And she may be… she may not be herself when she does. You—we—must be prepared."

You broke her, whispered the voice in his head. You failed her.

"You speak in riddles, templar."

Cullen closed one hand into a fist. "You wish me to be frank? I cannot feel her magic. I cannot feel the unique… connection that was Amelle. Yes, the spring is healed. Yes, the corruption is gone. Yes, we were successful. Hopefully the poison will pass from the people it tainted, and hopefully no others will die. But Amelle is broken. I fear this… I fear the power so overloaded her, so abused her connection to the Fade, that when she released that last rush of magic, the recoil made her Tranquil. That is what I fear, Fenris. There is no riddle to it."

Fenris went still. He appeared even to stop breathing, and Cullen saw too many of Fenris' thoughts as he heard his words, as he grasped what they meant. A muscle moved in his throat as he swallowed. Several more seconds passed and soon Fenris breathed again, but it was shallow and labored.

He echoed the word in little more than a ragged whisper. "Tranquil." He shook his head slowly, hands curling to fists. "That cannot be."

"The Rite of Tranquility utilizes both a templar's skills and an intense burst of lyrium to sever a mage's connection to the Fade," he explained. Fenris went pale — ashen — as he slowly shook his head. "That… burst typically takes the form of the… the brand the Tranquil wear. But—"

"No." Fenris' voice shook slightly. He clenched his jaw. "It cannot be."

Grimacing, Cullen looked away, but when his gaze fell on Amelle instead, he winced. It hurt to look at her. He'd failed her — she'd counted on him, she'd depended on him, she'd trusted him, and he'd failed her. He'd prided himself on knowing her power, on recognizing the feel of it well enough to know when she was pushing too far, too hard. He had not felt that peculiar note in Amelle's magic, the one that bespoke strain, the one that presaged nosebleeds and fainting. And yet. And yet. "We have no way of knowing until she wakes." The words were pulled from him one by one. Slowly. Painfully. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to say the words. "If she wakes. But we may well have — however inadvertently — recreated the very circumstances the Order uses to render mages Tranquil. You must be prepared for that."

It was not only Fenris who had to be prepared for such an outcome — the words Cullen spoke were also for himself.

"C-couldn't you consider her the… acting First Enchanter? You know, without the Circle or Harrowings or mages being made Tranquil?"

Kiara Hawke would never forgive him this. He doubted she would forgive either of them, but Cullen knew how utterly he'd failed the Champion of Kirkwall.

"Perhaps it's foolishness, but I… I trust you. I just… I just want her to be safe. For once."

But he hadn't kept Amelle safe — on the contrary, Cullen had done precisely the opposite of what Hawke had asked. Cullen turned back to the window and the perfect, clear day on the other side of the glass.

"You are not certain this outcome is inevitable," said Fenris quietly, and Cullen could feel the elf's eyes boring into the back of his head. A second or two passed before Cullen lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

"I think it is… uncomfortably likely. Enough so that I think we had better prepare ourselves. I would say we ought to draft a letter to Hawke, but we neither of us know where she is right now." He let out a deep sigh. "Fenris, you must understand—"

And in a flash, the elf was standing in front of him, and though his markings were still dark, something flared in his eyes, and Cullen saw the raw ache there, the shadows. "What you do not understand, templar, is the depth of Amelle Hawke's strength. We do not know what the future holds — that is for the Maker Himself to know. You of anyone I would expect to understand that. What I know is that Amelle Hawke has all the strength and determination of her sister. I will not believe such a thing until I have seen the outcome myself." He gritted his teeth and glared up at Cullen — and for a moment it felt as if there was no difference in height between the two of them — growling, "I will not give up on her."

And then Cullen understood.

"I see," he said quietly. He did not wish to cause Fenris more pain than he was already experiencing, but neither did he wish to encourage false hope. After a long beat of silence, Cullen exhaled on a sigh. "Then what do you expect to do for her?"

"As you have made clear there is little I can do but wait for her to wake." He sent a brief sidelong look toward the still figure in the bed. "And then I will decide what must be done. Even if it is to travel to Starkhaven myself and deliver such news to Hawke in person."

Cullen thought for a moment how Hawke might react to that brand of information. He swallowed hard, but said nothing.

"What I will not do is anticipate the worst. Not when I have seen the things she can do — they both come from… extraordinary stock, these Hawkes. You would do well not to underestimate them, templar."

Cullen wanted to believe Fenris, he wanted nothing more than to believe Amelle would yet be all right. And perhaps that was his own failing — such a lack of faith. But he had seen far too much in his years — and far too much in Kirkwall in particular — to feel any measure of comfort in faith at the moment.

In a gentler tone, Fenris added, "I will remain here. I will… send for you, should things change. But you are weary."

He wanted to protest, but the truth of Fenris' words rang too clear. He was weary. And he had a hundred responsibilities that would not wait. He could not sit in vigil, no matter how he might wish to.

"I will return when I'm able," Cullen said.

Fenris fixed him with a shrewd look. "Return once you are rested, Knight-Commander." The elf cast a swift glance at Amelle, his expression somehow fond and despairing all at once. "It is what she would caution you to do."

Cullen huffed a mirthless laugh. "You are right about that."

"Then heed her."

"She would tell you the same thing."

The elf's shoulders slumped minutely. "Yes."

"Fenris…"

"You have said enough, templar."

Cullen frowned. "I… I'm sorry. That's all I was going to say. I'm so sorry."

Once again, Fenris went unnaturally still. "We all made mistakes. But the water is once again safe. Amelle would—will—be pleased her risk was not in vain. As to the rest, time will tell."

Cullen said nothing to this. He only went to Amelle's side, and touched his fingertips briefly to her brow. Her skin felt unnaturally cool, almost clammy, but her breathing was deep and even. "Sleep well," he whispered. "Wake whole."

Nothing so overt as a flash of light or ripple of magic responded, but he almost thought he saw Amelle's eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, and for a moment—just a moment—it was enough to give him hope.

#

Fenris did not immediately return to Amelle's bedside after the Knight-Commander left. Instead, he moved restlessly about the chamber, fixing the hang of the curtains, adding a log to the already-adequate fire, and rearranging the plates of untouched food Orana had left on the sideboard. He could scarce bring himself to look at the woman lying too still and silent behind him; every time he caught a glimpse of her in his peripheral vision he thought the word Tranquil and everything went cold.

The templar had to be wrong. Amelle was merely sleeping, resting after an impressive expenditure of power, that was all. There would be an explanation for what Cullen believed was a disconnect from her gift.

There had to be an explanation. Because if there was no explanation, and she was left one of those talking automatons Fenris had always found so eerie, he did not know what he would do. He did not know what Hawke would do. As though somehow aware of his thoughts, the mabari whined and barked softly. Fenris was reminded—unpleasantly, uncomfortably—of Amelle's capture at the hands of Grace and Thrask, of the way Hawke fell to pieces when she thought her sister dead. Would a Tranquil sister be better or worse? Would any part of the vibrant, laughing Amelle remain? Fenris clenched his hands into fists, but resisted the urge to put them through something—the wardrobe, a wall. It would not be. Amelle would recover.

She had to recover. It was as he'd told the templar—she was stronger than this. She had to be stronger than this.

He wasn't certain he could bear it, if she wasn't.

Sinking into the chair he'd pulled up to her bedside, Fenris stared at her, forcing himself to see her. She looked… she looked tired and wan and too pale, but otherwise unharmed. He'd seen her look so much worse. Truly, if she would only toss and turn, he would feel less concerned. The stillness frightened him. The stillness was all that rendered the sleep unnatural.

The stillness made him doubt. He was glad, at least, the Knight-Commander had gone, taking his doubts and fears with him. The room was only so big, and Fenris only so strong.

Slowly, almost tentatively, he reached out, wrapping his fingers around Amelle's. She did not move.

"I am here," he murmured. The mabari glanced at him with mournful eyes. "I will not leave you. Come back to me." But there came, as he'd expected, no answer at all. Amelle simply lay there, pale and still, the only movement coming from her chest as she breathed slowly, evenly.

Unfortunately, in the silence of the room, very little distracted Fenris from his thoughts. In the past he'd had scarce reason or inclination to give much thought to mages or their fates. It had all been… quite simple, really — mages were dangerous, their powers were dangerous, and if there was any measure that might make them less dangerous, Fenris saw little that was negative about that. If a mage had been rendered Tranquil, then there must have been a reason for it. He'd given scant thought to the lives of those individuals selling their wares in the Gallows courtyard, their speech mild and monotone, their eyes blank, their thoughts perfectly ordered and utterly logical. It was easy not to see a Tranquil, to look past them, to not hear the deadened tone as they spoke.

It never mattered who or what they'd been before, because clearly they had been mages made Tranquil for a reason, and Fenris hadn't much cause to care what that reason was.

And, of course, any conversation with Anders had done nothing to change Fenris' mind on the matter. The more the mage ranted and raved about the injustices of rendering mages Tranquil, the more Fenris dug in his heels, the more he'd believed it was a punishment worth meting out.

It hadn't been until the day Hawke had been summoned to speak with Knight-Commander Meredith that Fenris had found himself even beginning to think about the Rite of Tranquility as anything other than a necessary measure.

As they'd spoken with the Knight-Commander's assistant, a Tranquil mage named Elsa, Fenris could not help but wonder why a templar had not been enlisted for such a position. It was true the young woman had seemed… inordinately organized, and Meredith also likely valued Elsa's quietude, but Fenris also realized that day in the sunny courtyard at Templar Hall, there was something else the Tranquil possessed that Meredith valued: she would follow every one of Meredith's orders, without question. Not even a templar could make that boast — a templar, still hindered by emotion, by the ability and autonomy to question, to challengethe Knight-Commander, would be no use to her at all.

He tried to picture Amelle without her compassion, without her stubbornness, without the fierce determination to be that she and her sister shared. It was a picture that would not form.

And if he had been the one to do this to her — he, with these thrice-blighted markings, had been the one to add a single volatile element to Amelle's experiment…

Nothing Hawke could do to him would compare to that he'd have done willingly to himself.

Amelle had said it before, and more than once — being made Tranquil was a fate worse than death. She'd feared it, and he — not knowing better, not knowing her — had dismissed those fears.

How quickly her fears had become his own.

His fingers twitched, tightening around hers. He longed for something to fight, for something to face and kill. He understood such things. Being forced to wait and see, to hope against hope… Fenris didn't know what to do with helplessness.

And yet the thought of leaving her side was unbearable. So he wrestled down his anxiety and his desire to move and do and fight and instead held tight to that slim, cold hand and silently pleaded as he'd never done for anything before for her to return to him healthy and whole.

#

The first thing Amelle realized was that her head was resting on a pillow, but she wasn't sleeping on her side. Strange, that. It was also strange that she couldn't quite force her body to move or her eyes to open. Strangest of all were the flickering images caught somewhere between dreaming and waking. Amelle often remembered her dreams—it was, she thought, part of having such a strong connection to the Fade. But now, flat on her back with her head on a pillow, she remembered the clinic and a blue dress and her sister. And a cat, curled on her paralyzed sister's stomach, blinking at her with jewel-green eyes and a somehow sheepish expression.

Amelle felt as though she'd been asleep for a hundred years.

Perhaps that was why she couldn't so much as twitch her fingers. Or frown. She most certainly wanted to frown. But all the effort she could manage didn't even change the steady, slow tenor of her breath.

Temporarily giving up on moving, Amelle listened. Even if the warmth of him curled at her side hadn't been a giveaway, Cupcake snuffled in his sleep. By the low whine she suspected he was dreaming of chasing cats. Though she couldn't move her hand, she could feel his breath on her fingers. Fire crackled in the hearth. Rain pattered against the window, oddly soothing.

Her chest hurt. Not intensely, but the ache was deep and persistent, and every breath made certain she did not forget the pain. And such a peculiar pain it was. Almost as though—

If she'd been able to move, she would have jerked upright. If she'd been able to speak, she would have cried out. The faint memories of Kiara and the clinic were abruptly banished by brighter recollections: the spring, the healing, the blue-silver-white light.

Fenris.

Do you trust me?

And, Maker help her, she'd said yes.

Try as she might, she had trouble remembering what happened next. Pain and… and not-pain. Somehow mixed together in equal measure. White light. Life. And so much power. She'd never felt power like that before, never even imagined it. Even as she'd been reveling—what illness could stand before such power?—she'd felt her connection to Compassion fraying, going strange and thin and ragged. Going somehow wrong. The Fade spirit had been screaming.

And then darkness. And the clinic. And Kiara. Who had, in spite of clearly being not quite well, seemed more like her old self. It had almost been reassuring.

When Amelle tried to grasp those memories, they faded at once. She felt as though she had, perhaps, dreamed herself in the clinic for a very long time even before her sister appeared, but trying to follow time in a dream was beyond futile.

She rather wished her current paralytic predicament didn't echo her dream-sister's quite so closely. She'd been standing in her dream, though — she remembered that clearly, looking down at Kiara. Indeed, she clearly remembered releasing a flash of healing magic into her sister. On one of those deep, even breaths, Amelle felt for her magic, felt that quiet place where her mana pulsed, alive and waiting for her. That gentle psychic touch — tentative, for she remembered the last time she'd woken up from such a sleep — found her mana intact and full, but something about that brief, questing touch hurt too, as if she'd been bruised throughout.

With another breath, Amelle focused on opening her eyes, but they felt as if they'd been sealed shut. If she'd been able to reach up and wipe the sleep and grit from her eyes it might've helped, but that was a goal entirely out of reach.

If nothing else, she knew without looking she was home. Whatever else had happened, she was home and in her own bed. Amelle was also satisfied this wasn't a dream — she had always had far more control over her dreams than that. If she couldn't move, it was, sadly, a circumstance rooted in reality.

She swallowed, gratified to learn she could, parting her lips and breathing in deeply and out again. Better. After what felt like hours of effort, Amelle opened her eyes enough to see a blurry sliver of greys and blues and browns. She tried to blink away the gumminess clinging to her lids and her fingers twitched with the renewed urge to rub at her eyes.

Another blink brought things slowly into focus — Cupcake's rounded form was pressed against her leg much as she'd thought; the window was a dim square of grey all streaked with rain; the fire was blazing brightly, cheerfully in the hearth, at odds with the rain tapping against the window; the chair by the fire was… no longer by the fire. It had been dragged close to the bedside, and held Fenris, utterly asleep. His head had lolled to the side, white hair falling messily across his forehead and into his eyes. A small cushion had been propped against his shoulder and a quilt had been thrown over him — Orana's touch.

Amelle's eyes closed again, heavily, and she tried to shift her body onto her side. Her body was stiff and sore and she felt almost certain that if she could just get onto her side, everything would slowly start making its way to better. She took another breath and tried to move, fingers twitching as she tried to grip the coverlet and pull herself onto her side.

It was an ambitious plan for someone who'd just managed to open her eyes after three attempts. Amelle looked down at her hand — and realized she was frowning at her hand, which was also an improvement — and tried to grasp the blanket. Cupcake, sensing the movement, jerked awake immediately and let out a soft whine.

There was a soft thud and the soft whisper of fabric falling. "Amelle?"

Amelle blinked again and slowly shifted her gaze to find Fenris, the pillow on the floor and the blanket forgotten. He looked for all the world like he'd been in the middle of levering himself forward and then stopped — froze, really — both hands braced on either side of the chair as he stared at her.

Fenris looked far too tense, far too concerned. Cupcake, on the other hand, was the manifestation of relief, snuffling her hand and licking it, then shoving his massive head under her palm as if to encourage her to pet him. Her thumb twitched gently across his forehead.

"Amelle?" Fenris said again, more slowly this time, never shifting his gaze from her.

What happened, Fenris? What did you do? What did I do? Is the water clear? Did it work? Is everyone all right?

But she could give voice to none of it; she'd expended most of her energy on things like opening her eyes and moving her fingers. So she swallowed hard — her mouth was so dry — before licking her lips and trying a word. "Fen…" She frowned and was about to try again when a warm hand slipped under her head, gently supporting it as a cup of fresh, clear water hovered before her lips.

"It is clean," he murmured, and Amelle heard a strange, thick quality to his voice she couldn't quite identify. "The corruption is gone. We were victorious. Now, drink."

She drank. And if she'd ever tasted water so pure, she couldn't remember it. The faintest echo of magic still lingered about the liquid. More than simple water, it tasted of healing. She managed to push her head back against Fenris' hand when she'd had enough, and he set the glass on the bedside table, all without releasing her. When he turned back, his eyes were still troubled—wounded—as he peered at her closely.

She wondered what it was he was looking for.

Moistening her lips, she met his eyes and said, "Fenris."

Because one hand was still cradling the back of her head, she felt the jolt go through him. It was as though every muscle in his body tensed for a breath, a heartbeat, and then he bowed his head, his face crumpling. And Maker's breath, this was relief. It was relief so violent and palpable it made her pulse race. She couldn't begin to wonder why he'd been so worried. Unless—unless she'd been asleep a very long time. Or unless something had gone terribly wrong. She swallowed hard, wondering where Cullen was—whether he'd—

"F-fen-ris?"

Gently, so gently, he gathered her into his arms. He wasn't wearing his armor, and the cloth beneath her cheek was thin enough she could feel the heat of him and hear the thudding of his heart. "I knew you were strong enough," he whispered into her hair, his fingertips brushing the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck.

Long sentences were beyond her, no matter how much she wished to speak them. Instead, she concentrated very hard—not so easy when pressed up against a very warm, very grateful elf—and managed, "T-tell. Me."

She felt him nod against the top of her head. The words came slowly at first, almost as though he, too, was having trouble making them form. As he described the burst of magic and Cullen's fears afterward, she began to understand why. Tranquil. Perhaps it had been negligent of her, but such a possibility had never occurred to her. Not once. Even now the danger was past, she was not able to contain her shudder of horror. Fenris' arms tightened briefly, comfortingly around her. Tranquil. Maker.

"How l-long?"

"It is near dawn. You slept two nights, and the day in between. It was… I have never quite seen a sleep like it." Again his arms tightened, almost, it seemed, involuntarily. "Amelle, you… the Knight-Commander felt no connection to the Fade in you. And the blood ma—Merrill. Merrill was here yesterday. She said you felt… distant. I—I must be certain—"

She huffed a breath meant to be laughter, but it emerged far too anemic. "No M-march. C-cullen."

Again she felt him nod, but none of the tension left his limbs. "He will be sent for."

Pressing her cheek against him with as much force as she could muster, she hummed an approving sound deep in her throat. Fenris, she realized, was sitting on the edge of her bed as he held her, with no indication he planned on moving anytime soon. He simply held her, and soon his warmth had soaked through her, to the point that the stiff soreness in her body slowly started to recede. There was the temptation to reach for a rejuvenation spell, but after such a vast amount of magic exertion, it seemed wiser to refrain.

"He will be sent for eventually," he amended. "But do not ask me to leave you now."

"Won't." Amelle closed her eyes and focused on the sound of Fenris' heartbeat. What she wanted to do was to wrap her arms around him as tightly as she could, until the word Tranquil Tranquil Tranquil stopped circling like buzzards around her mind. She breathed in a slow breath and let it out again. Her chest still twinged with that strange ache. "Y-you… stayed?"

That made Fenris pull back a fraction and look down at her. "I was not going to leave you," he chided gently. "I fear my decision drove your maid to distraction."

Though Amelle didn't comment, she thought this unlikely — if Orana had something or someone to take care of, she probably focused on that over anything else. Amelle let out a huff of breath that still wasn't quite laughter and attempted a smile. Evidently her attempt was less successful than she'd thought, for Fenris brushed her hair away from her forehead and began lowering her back against the pillows. As she was about to protest, he very carefully situated her on her side and Amelle let out a contented sigh as he body settled into that more familiar, more comfortable position. Cupcake pressed against the back of her legs, his body fitting snugly into the bend of her knees and let out a content canine groan as he settled in again.

"You are still exhausted." He brushed a kiss against her temple. "Rest."

Mustering a weak scowl, Amelle muttered, "No. Too much."

"Too much rest?" Fenris asked, leveling a skeptical look at her. "I doubt that."

How could she tell him she felt like she'd been sleeping for an age, at least? "Not… tired."

She wouldn't have thought Fenris' skeptical look could get more skeptical. "Amelle. You must rest." When her weak scowl graduated into something less weak, Fenris did the unthinkable: he let out a soft huff of laughter as he shook his head.

"Funny?"

He ran one hand over her hair and replied, "Had you ever told me I would relish the day when you treated me to a dose of your stubbornness, I would never have believed it." He took her hand and squeezed as he stood. "Very well. If you are still awake after I have sent Orana for the Knight-Commander, we will play cards until he arrives."

Amelle's smile was answer enough and she saw more of the worry and fear melt out of Fenris' gaze. Bending forward, he kissed her forehead again, then stepped away. "I will return shortly." His eyes slid over to Cupcake and Fenris raised his eyebrows at the dog. "Watch over her."

Cupcake lifted his head and uttered a short bark as his tail wagged agreeably.