Chapter 48
"So we return to my original dilemma. Who watches powers greater than that of the templars? One assumes it's the Divine, but how much could She know about their activities when their very existence is a mystery to most?"
—excerpt from a letter found in the Grand Cathedral archives, 8:80 Blessed
Líadan
Líadan felt no relief as she watched the Seeker ship sail from Denerim's port, even though she knew a number of the suspected radical templars—those not outright killed by the Seekers, at least—were prisoners on it. Irritation remained with her in relief's stead, wrapping her in a cloak of tension when her body was already changing and behaving in ways that made her uneasy and unprepared for battle. The violence-prone templars had departed, and they were supposedly safe. Yet, they were not, not as long as the Seekers remained, asking question after infernal question in the name of their Creators-forsaken Maker.
Even now, two Seekers stood nearby, their watchers for the day. "I'm back to having a templar shadow," Líadan said to Malcolm.
"I'm no templar," said one of their Seeker guards.
She took the comment as invitation. "You have a templar's abilities and you are employed by your Chantry. I see no difference. If you thought me in danger of possession or of using blood magic, you would not hesitate to kill me."
The second one raised an eyebrow. "Neither would your Wardens."
"There might be a slight hesitation," said Malcolm. "She has her bad days, like anyone does. We'd have to be sure it wasn't that. I mean, seriously, ogre. You have no idea."
The Seekers seemed startled at his humor, as if they hadn't expected a prince to joke as Malcolm did.
Líadan punched Malcolm in the arm for his efforts, lacing it with lightning to get her point across.
Oscar, the bodyguard Alistair had assigned to her ages ago, snorted. He reminded Líadan a lot of Kennard, which was probably why he'd been given the assignment, and why she could actually stand him. She'd even been pleased to discover he'd managed to survive the battle in the palace.
"That," Malcolm said to the now alarmed Seekers as he rubbed his arm, "was the ogre. Not whatever abomination you might be thinking. Now you know the difference, so there you go. You're welcome."
Líadan wasn't sure if she loved him or hated him. She was fairly certain that she hated the Seekers nearly as much as the templars. For they were the ones who held ultimate responsibility for the head injury Malcolm incurred when Renaud's supposed cabal of templars infiltrated the palace and tried to take Cáel. Her anger had only grown once she'd found out the entire story, that Malcolm hadn't been allowed to waken naturally, and that because of that, Wynne wasn't entirely certain if he would continue to be in good health in the long term. She had explained that the odds were high that he would, but with his history of being hit in the head, there was a small chance of damage that wouldn't show for some years yet. Creators willing, he would be fine, and most likely would be. But it still stood that the Seekers and the templars were the ones who had put him in that danger.
Put Malcolm in danger, taken away Cáel by forcing him into hiding, and it physically hurt to have him gone. There was a neverending ache in her chest at not seeing him, at knowing that he wasn't anywhere in the compound or palace, that she couldn't just go find him and Nuala when the feeling of missing him struck. She knew Malcolm felt the same, even though he hadn't mentioned it since the first time, because occasionally he'd get a slightly panicked look around his eyes, as if he'd thought of something he'd lost, and wasn't allowed to retrieve it.
It galled her at how almost normal the days afterward felt. The Seekers seemed to fade into the background as much as their kind could. Even the guards that followed them everywhere aside from in the Warden compound managed to remain largely unnoticed. When Líadan didn't turn into an abomination, and Malcolm did nothing horrific one would assume a blood thrall would do, their Seeker guards were reassigned—or so they assumed, since they stopped following them. Apparently, though she never specifically told them, Seeker Cassandra had deemed them not to be the threat Renaud had told her they were. It was that, or the guards were still tailing them, and were so incredibly adept at hiding in the shadows that no one could see them. Líadan wasn't putting aside that possibility. However, she did have to grudgingly admit at the seeming show of honest and forthrightness the Seekers had put on after the mishap at the palace.
Cassandra met often with Alistair and Anora, and gossip was passed along that she was questioning noble after noble. From Líadan's inside information, namely Alistair himself, she knew Cassandra shared—again, supposedly—the information she gleaned from her interrogations of the Bannorn. Anora suspected that the Seekers suspected a traitor in the nobility, but the Queen hadn't a clue why the Seekers would even care if there was. When Líadan had relayed the information to Thierry, he'd shrugged and said that no one really knew why the Seekers cared to find out whatever it was they were searching. All you knew was that you needed to come up with what they wanted, or suffer their punishment or presence for a very long time. Then again, the Seekers had acknowledged their fault in the casualties resulting from their quasi-attack on the palace, and had begun granting the monarchy access to their knowledge as amends for their trespasses.
Líadan did her best to ignore most of it, not wanting to think about the Seekers any more than she had to. Much of Denerim did the same, with the Revered Mothers recommending patience and caution during this tumultuous time, which was the same message some of the nobility was passing along, as well. Not that Líadan much cared beyond working knowledge. She had Warden and personal matters to attend to, and not some sort of vendetta against the Seekers.
As she often did, Shianni came through the compound to visit, wanting news of her cousin, wanting to check in on her other cousin Rhian, to talk about what she'd spoken of with the Seeker, and to pass along any other news she'd heard. Shianni, the Wardens discovered, heard a lot.
"They're on about Alistair's mother and Malcolm's mother," Shianni said. "Trying to find out if it's the same woman. But that's crazy, right? I mean, Alistair's got his mother's older daughter taken care of here in the city, and that woman's mother wasn't an apostate or mage of the Circle; she was a servant at Redcliffe Castle. Those Seekers, you'd think they'd be good at finding the truth, but they're going entirely in the wrong direction trying to prove that Malcolm and Alistair have the same mother. I don't even see why they care so much. Is it the magic in the line? I heard enough from the nobles in the last Landsmeet talking about how at least half the noble lines in Thedas have magic in there somewhere." She sighed. "Well, hopefully they'll go in a different direction once they speak with Eamon and he sets them straight about where Alistair's mother was from. Maker, this is stupid."
"You won't get any disagreement from me," said Líadan.
Shianni drummed her fingers on the table as she continued to mull over all she had to share. "Bann Teagan said the Seekers asked him about all the dragon fighting. Of course, he told them they should ask the people who either fought or saw the dragons since he couldn't get to the Battle of Highever in time. Teyrn Fergus apparently told the Seekers to sod off when he got his summons demanding he present himself for questioning. They'll probably end up physically dragging him in like half the nobility."
Líadan chuckled. "Alistair is still trying to convince him to cooperate, but Fergus is still mad that they took some of his land." She'd heard the same rumors herself, about Cassandra or other Seekers asking about the dragons, insinuating that perhaps the Fereldans were or had started to worship the Old Gods, and that was why there had been so many dragon sightings in their country. Then there had come the accusations of the Wardens recruiting and harboring apostates on purpose, because they'd gone from only Líadan making up their mage population to the several they had now. She did know, through the secret messengers Hildur used between the Vigil and the Denerim compound, that Hildur had rejected the Seekers request that she to come to Denerim to clear up those rumors. She'd followed that up with another letter explaining that if the Seekers so much as hinted that they would try to take back any of her mages, they'd have to get through all her Wardens to do so. While the mages under Hildur's command had been thrilled to hear of their defense, Alistair had let drop that Cassandra had been less than pleased. It had, however, made some of the more resistant new Wardens warm up a bit to the Order.
Then Shianni glanced back at the doors just through the main hall. "And how do you stand being in a city crawling with templars?"
"I don't know. I try not to think about it, because I'm fairly certain that if I thought about it, I'd end up leaving." Líadan slumped over onto the table, doing her best to ignore that her rapidly expanding middle now kept her farther away than she normally sat. "I was supposed to be considering going to the Arlathvhen. But with the Seekers and their demands, and Cáel being stuck at the Vigil, my choice was completely taken away. By now, it's either over or very nearly over, and the Seekers are still here."
Bethany, who'd been sitting next to Shianni as the elven bann caught them up on the Seeker gossip, said, "I wonder if Merrill would've wanted to go to the Arlathvhen. She mentioned it once. Said one of those was the last time she'd seen her parents."
"She was around four when she came to the clan," said Líadan. "She only saw her parents once more, after that. In a way, Keeper Marethari was more a mother to her than the woman who gave birth to her." The pang of sadness for her clanmate struck her again at remembering that Merrill was now an exile, living in the human city of Kirkwall, and entirely without a clan.
"How would you—" Bethany cut herself off before she finished her question. "That's right, you and Merrill, you're from the same clan. I remember now. When Anders first came to Kirkwall, before he went into the Deep Roads with the Wardens, he ran into us in Lowtown. He had to find someone to take care of his kitten. I was going to ignore him, because Marian always told me to ignore men like him—"
"Men giving away kittens?" asked Shianni. "Not so sure I'd mind that."
"No! I mean, maybe. I meant men that seemed to be on a mission, as he was. But Merrill started cooing over the kitten, and I really had no choice but to talk to him. It eventually came out that he was a Fereldan Warden, and Merrill asked after Líadan, and they chatted about Keeper Marethari and the last time you'd visited the Mahariel, when Anders was with you." Bethany frowned, seemingly dissatisfied with how her explanation had been more jumbled than she liked. "Merrill was very happy that you'd visited them."
Líadan wondered if Anders had mentioned how she and Marethari had spent most of her visit arguing, and if wasn't arguing with the Keeper, she'd been arguing with Fenarel. Then there was the fact that she was fairly certain that time was when she and Malcolm had conceived when they weren't supposed to be able to, and she really didn't want to talk about the Mahariel anymore, at least not where she was concerned. She did want to know more about how Merrill was doing, and Bethany hadn't been this open since, well, ever.
"The Keeper and I argued about Merrill being exiled, actually," she said out loud. "I disagreed with the decision. Blood magic, as a source of power, isn't banned among the Dalish. Using others to power your spells is, of course, but not blood magic itself. Those who choose to learn it are allowed to use it on themselves. The clan does pay more attention to them, usually at the mage's request, to keep watch for possession."
Bethany didn't seem convinced, her mouth turning in the same displeased frown that Wynne got at the mention of blood magic. "She did make a deal with a demon."
"Spirit," said Líadan. "Humans differentiate between spirits who dwell in the Beyond, but what you might perceive as 'good' or 'bad' both have the potential to be bad. Some are more forthright about it, like rage or desire demons, as you call them, but others appear neutral or even good. Perhaps even the spirits themselves don't know their own potential to follow a dark path until it's too late." She sighed. "It's disappointing and frightening that Merrill had to learn from a spirit. Most Dalish mages choose not to learn, so it's become harder for those who would to find someone to teach them. That's probably why Merrill had to, but I still don't like how unsafe that path tends to be over learning it from another mage."
"Do you practice blood magic?" Rhian asked from another table.
"Me? No. Aside from the fact that Keeper Marethari doesn't practice it herself, and that I would never make a deal with a spirit, what would be the point? It wouldn't augment my abilities enough to be anywhere near worth the cost. I can see how Merrill's powers and abilities would become absolutely devastating for defending the clan, but at best, it'd make mine mildly useful instead of entirely useless. So, no. No blood magic for me."
"That's certainly good to hear," said Thierry. At Líadan's angry look, he held up his hands to fend her off. "I know, I know, I'm a Grey Warden. It isn't like I'd shout, 'Maleficar!' and then try to run you through. Maybe, I might have a couple months ago. But not now. It would make me wary, however. Good to know the extra vigilance won't be necessary."
"Wary is warranted," said Líadan, giving him a disarming smile for his newfound openness. "Not even the Dalish discount the heightened danger from spirits and the potential for possession where blood magic is concerned." Then she turned her attention back to Bethany. "Merrill has always been an incredibly strong mage, so I don't really even see why she'd feel she needed the extra power."
"She talked about a mirror." Bethany sat forward, picked up a stray bit of parchment someone had left on the table, and began tearing the edges. "Something about putting it back together because it had been shattered. But before she could work on it, she said she had to remove the taint from it, and nothing but blood magic would allow her to do so."
Líadan stared at Bethany. "Are you sure that's what you heard?"
"I heard about it often enough, especially whenever we visited the Mahariel. Every time, the Keeper would ask Merrill if she'd decided to leave the mirror alone and return to the clan. And every time, Merrill said no, that she was restoring it to regain the knowledge of their people. The same conversation, every time."
There was no question in Líadan's mind that Bethany spoke of the eluvian. The eluvian, the one that had changed her entire life, the one that had killed Tamlen, the one that had forced her from her clan and the only home and family she'd known until then. That eluvian was not a source of knowledge or a way to restore Elvhenan; it was a way to death of many kinds. Merrill was... she... she knew all those things. She'd seen for herself what the eluvian had done, how its corruption killed, either slowly or quickly. Either way, still dead.
Tamlen, his skin corrupted and dark, shrieking as he attacked with hands transformed into claws, before crossbow bolts appeared in his chest. The tormented corpse of what had once been her friend landing on her, throwing her to the ground, the body's putrid smell filling her nostrils. The work of that eluvian and simple curiosity.
She stood up, pressing her hands flat on the table to help her stand. She couldn't remain, not here with these people who had no idea what Merrill's dabbling with the eluvian truly meant. What it could mean, what it could do, and Líadan wanted to take a ship to Kirkwall as fast as she could to shatter that eluvian all over again so it would not, could not, kill another member of her clan. "Excuse me," she said to the others who sat at the table with her, and strode from the room as fast as she was able. She was trapped in Denerim, but she had to go somewhere other than were she'd been sitting.
"What did I say?" she heard Bethany ask as Líadan walked away. Too much distance was between them for Líadan to hear the answer, not that anyone in the main hall would have been able to give the right one.
Revas followed her out into the empty yard and snuffled at her in worry when she sat down with her back against the stone wall that blocked the compound from the street. Usually, the yard would be filled with several of their Denerim recruits, but Malcolm and Oghren had brought them over to the palace's more open training area to work out with the royal guards, and to pit them against Teyrna Cauthrien. Cauthrien had returned to Denerim with nearly the entirety of her standing Gwaren troops, ready to defend her country against the Orlesian Seekers if it came to it. She had still yet to subject herself to questioning from Seeker Cassandra. Odds were low she ever would.
Líadan had seated herself more slowly than she liked, still unhappy that she'd lost a lot of her flexibility and more than a step of her speed. Her archery skills had returned over the weeks, and at least those were back to the form they'd been in when she was just a Dalish hunter. Her ability to heal hadn't gained any ground, however.
Not that it mattered. Even if she could heal, there was nothing she could do to prevent Merrill from hurting herself, or possibly even killing herself through the eluvian. Líadan did not like feeling helpless, or being helpless, as she was. She couldn't just leave to save her former clanmate, as much as she desperately wanted to, and she had no idea if she was sad or angry or what about Merrill's choice to try to fix the eluvian.
It was broken. Irrevocably, dangerously broken, and would bestow nothing but death, made to look whole or not.
Yet, there was nothing she could do to save Merrill. Nothing.
Revas whined and laid her head on top of the rounded swelling that held Líadan's growing child.
"Like that shelf, do you?" Líadan asked the mabari. "Convenient for you, I know. Not so much for me."
The dog let out a low, affirmative bark.
Líadan relaxed slightly and ran her fingers through the short fur on the top of Revas' head. "You ever felt like you had to save someone, but there was nothing you could do?"
Another whine from Revas.
"Right, lost your packmate. I know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. I miss him, too."
Revas whined again. And the pup. Miss the pup.
Líadan laid her cheek on the mabari's head as her arms went around to hug the dog's massive neck. "Me, too."
With Malcolm and Alistair busy with the recruits, and no other Wardens knowing exactly how to approach her, she was left alone until she felt recovered enough. Líadan decided to box away every thought and feeling she had about the eluvian for the time being. She didn't have enough energy to deal with it, and she didn't have a way to save Merrill from the danger. Maybe once the Seekers had gone, she would consider going to Kirkwall to destroy the eluvian. Until then, she would not give it any more of her time or attention.
Of course, with no one else clued into her plan, others didn't cooperate. Bethany sought her out to apologize before the evening meal, leaving Líadan to awkwardly try to reassure her that she hadn't offended. Just taken by surprise was all, nothing more. Malcolm and Oghren didn't come back until right before the evening meal, but Malcolm shot her enough curious looks over it to let her know that someone must have told him. She shook her head once at him, informing him that she'd tell him later. She had no intention of actually doing so, deciding on distraction instead, because she was well over discussing it any further. It also meant staying out in the main areas later than usual, socializing with the rest of the Wardens after the recruits had been sent home, because Malcolm wouldn't bring up what had happened unless they had privacy. The longer they remained in the warm main hall near the cheerful fire and Wardens slowly getting into the good winter ale, the less time they'd have in private, and therefore the less time for meaningful discussions she didn't want to have.
She hadn't taken into account Oghren being well into his cups, how chatty it made him, and how random he tended to be in that state. He stumbled past Líadan, forgetting that part of her protruded now, and bumped right into her midsection. "Sorry," he said, waving his mug in apology, careful enough to keep the ale in it from sloshing out. "Keep forgetting about the incubating nuglet."
"Not sure I see how you could, considering she's eye level with you," said Líadan. "Keep your head there and she could probably kick you."
"Eh, I'd rather not. Not that I wouldn't want to be up close and personal with you, but I'd rather not risk it looking like something it isn't."
She rolled her eyes.
"What? It's true. You could forget and take offense, or the blighter could mistake it for something else, and I'd just rather not have to explain to the pike-twirler why his brother has a black eye and bloody nose." Despite his words, Oghren did reach out and poke Líadan's stomach with a finger. "You know, with the amount of lyrium in Sundermount, I'd be surprised if this new nuglet didn't turn out to be one of you sparkly-types." With that, he began to walk away.
Líadan grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him back. "Wait, what? Oghren, say that again."
"I don't think he's capable," said Malcolm. "I'm not even sure he knows what he said, honestly."
Oghren blinked, his eyes focusing more than before, indicating that he wasn't quite as drunk as he made himself appear. "Which part? The lyrium or the nuglet?"
"There's lyrium in Sundermount?" asked Líadan.
Oghren nodded. "Aye. More'n they'd mine in a year in the Deep Roads. Made my skin tingle. Lyrium veins had to be richer and purer than any I'd been around in a while."
"You could have said something while we were there," said Malcolm. "Seriously, Oghren. It didn't cross your mind that maybe you should have mentioned it?"
"I thought you knew! You all kept going on about how thin the Veil was and how demons and such from the Fade were walking around on the mountain. Figured you knew the lyrium had a part in it. Sodding Ancestors, I don't see why it's so important that it's got your knickers in a twist."
Malcolm's gaze shifted to Líadan, and then pointedly at the evidence of why the information about the excess lyrium might have come in handy.
"The nuglet." Oghren raised his mug and proceeded to drain the rest of his ale. "Right. I need a drink. 'Scuse me."
That was it. Líadan wanted the day over and done with and never to be spoken of again. So she turned and retreated upstairs to the room she shared with Malcolm, the noise of the main hall suddenly too much to bear. She slammed drawers shut a little harder than was necessary as she searched for one of the shifts she wore to bed, wanting nothing more than to crawl under the covers, throw them over her head, and put the day forever behind her.
After she slammed shut another drawer, she heard Malcolm say, "I'll just assume you don't want to talk about it."
"No, I don't."
He finished entering the room, quietly closing the door behind him. "Trying to do so will result in decapitation?"
"Likely." She pulled a clean shift from another drawer and took off the clothing the tailors had modified more than once.
When her breastband joined the rest of her clothes, Malcolm asked, "Was there a spell I'm not aware of? A potion?"
Entirely confused, even though usually she could follow his sudden shifts in conversational subjects, she finally fully turned to face him instead of keeping a side profile to him. "What?"
He waved his hands in the vague direction of her chest. "Those. Because those aren't yours."
"They're attached to my body." He wasn't seriously going on about this, was he? Of course he was. Of course.
"They weren't this morning."
Líadan let go of the grumble of annoyance she'd been resisting, and then pulled the shift over her head. Once it was on and Malcolm had at least stopped gawking, she asked, "Can we please discuss something else? Something that has nothing to do with my changing body, the eluvian, or Merrill?" She assumed that covered all the subjects she particularly wanted to avoid.
"All right." After he shrugged, he stripped to his smalls and slid under the covers. Then he sat up, a thoughtful look to his eyes, which usually signified a line of questioning she probably either wouldn't like or wouldn't follow. "One of the traders at the market mentioned glimpsing more Dalish than he'd ever noticed while traveling between the Frostbacks and Lake Calenhad. Then I remembered you once mentioning an Arlathvhen, and I wondered." He paused and waited until she made eye contact before asking, "Did you manage to miss the Arlathvhen without ever discussing it again?"
"Maybe." She stood at the end of the bed, somehow reluctant to climb in. On seeing her hesitation, Revas gave her a hopeful look. "No, no, you stay on the floor. You need a bath and those are fresh linens," she told the mabari.
Revas grumped before settling for the rug in front of the hearth.
Malcolm traced a pattern on the coverlet with one of his fingers. "You didn't want to go at all, did you?"
She looked down at her middle, and then back up at him, her eyebrow raised. "Not really, and I doubt you have to use your imagination as to why."
"I'd believe you, except you didn't want to go before you knew you'd be like this while the Arlathvhen was going on." He leaned against the headboard behind him. "Why didn't you really want to go?"
"And if I don't tell you?"
"I'd be just as happy talking about the other things you really don't want to talk about."
Problem was, she knew he wasn't bluffing, and would persist until she admitted what direction her thoughts had gone in on finding out about Merrill and the eluvian earlier. She sighed and clambered into the bed, starting to feel the tiredness that was her steadfast follower as of late. "My grandfather."
"Your grandfather?"
"...is still alive."
"Really?" Malcolm's question was posed at a pitch much higher than his normal one.
"And the Keeper of another clan."
He scrubbed his fingers through his short-cropped hair. "And you never thought to mention this?"
"I'm mentioning it right now." The idea of Malcolm being afraid of her grandfather was somewhat entertaining, and certainly a nice diversion from her more stressful thoughts.
Malcolm's limbs were tense, and he looked liable to leap out of the bed at any second. "He's a strong mage, isn't he? Yes? Yes. He will set me on fire."
"Not if he doesn't meet you, which he probably won't. I haven't seen him since right after my parents died. We didn't much speak then, and I don't foresee seeing or speaking to him anytime soon, if at all. He'd avoided my parents since I was little, and seems to be continuing the habit with me."
He relaxed a little, appearing far less likely to flee the bed. "Why?"
"He was angry. Is angry, I suppose. My mother wasn't of my father's clan; she was a Suriel. While she didn't have the Gift herself, with her father being the Keeper of the clan, she was expected to stay with the clan, especially since there was a significant chance any child she had would have the Gift, and provide a potential First for my grandfather. So, when she met and bonded with my father, it didn't go over well. I'm not sure that he's forgiven either of them, even now."
"And you don't think that if he finds out about me, about us, that he wouldn't come looking for me?"
"He has his responsibilities as a Keeper. He hasn't come for me yet, either to scold or take me back to the Dalish or even remind me that I still have one relation by blood alive and presumably well, so I don't think he'd suddenly begin to care. Besides, how would he even find out? His clan tends to stay far from human settlements, so they rarely hear of human events or tales, especially recent ones."
Malcolm remained unconvinced. "But did you get your temper from him? Because that would definitely override his sense of responsibility. It's one thing to pretend not to care because of a long-standing disagreement. It's another thing to discover that your granddaughter is going to have an elf-blooded child, especially if you got your temper from him. Yeah, I think I'll go back to wearing armor more often, even when not training here in garrison."
"Think what you want. I haven't seen or heard from Emrys since he visited the Mahariel after my mother and father died. Not when I became a Grey Warden, not after I helped end the Blight, and not now. I don't see that changing." Had she attended the Arlathvhen, maybe she could see the outcome Malcolm feared. But the only clan that knew of her situation was out finding and destroying eluvians, not attending Arlathvhens, so there wouldn't be anyone to pass along pertinent information to her grandfather, which meant he would stay out of her life.
She was fine with that, as long as she didn't think about it too much. Malcolm looked eager to continue the conversation, and she had no wish to dwell on it. So she mumbled a good night, rolled over, and dropped right off to sleep.
In the Beyond, it didn't take long for the dreaming to start; it never had since Sundermount. Líadan saw a young man approaching, impossibly fair, his amber-colored eyes at first calm, even determined. Once she was able to break away from his gaze, she noticed his ears. They were almost pointed, but not quite elvhen. She looked twice, because that was something that never happened. Elf-blooded children did not have traits that strongly identified them as having an elven parent. If they had any elven traits, it was never the ears. And yet, here was a young man in the Beyond who was unmistakably elf-blooded. Was this Cianán, then, already grown? Did time move differently in Arlathan? His eyes were close to Zevran's color, and perhaps a little of Morrigan's, as well. The hair would be all Zevran.
"Cianán?" she asked, feeling more than strange doing so, but feeling compelled to know.
The young man didn't answer. He looked past her, and then whipped around to look behind him.
Her gaze followed, and then she saw what he did: a spirit that moved along behind him at a lazy, yet constant pace. A spirit of sloth, clearly chasing the young man.
"Cianán?" she called again, more urgently. If it was him, he couldn't be taken by a demon. Not with the power he would have within him.
He glanced back at Líadan, his light brows drawn together in confusion.
Líadan remembered—Cianán resembled Morrigan, not Zevran. This young man was someone else.
Then the spirit said, "Dreamer." Its—his?—voice was languid and calming and wrong.
The young man's eyes widened in terror. He bolted past Líadan, and a sheer cliff rose behind him, soaring thousands of feet into the Beyond's sky. It left her with no path of escape and facing a spirit that humans would have named a demon, with nowhere to flee.
The demon plodded ever forward, his eyes having shifted from his first chosen prey onto her. "You will do," he said. "A weakling mage, but a weak connection to the Beyond is better than none at all. And when I possess you, you will no longer be weak, because I am part of the Beyond."
Weak. She'd show him weak. She summoned lightning without thought, but it had little effect on the demon.
He made a show of brushing off the shocking energy with his desiccated hand, and then chuckled. "So spirited. This will give me energy I have not had in a very long time."
"No." This spirit would not have her body. It was hers. She shared it now with her growing child, but it was hers. This being of sloth was not invited, nor would he ever be. "Stay away from me." She couldn't even imagine what would happen if this demon won and she became an abomination. What would happen to her unborn child? The question had never occurred to her, and it had never come up in all her training with Marethari. Perhaps some things were too awful to even think of in hypotheticals.
A bow appeared in her left hand, and an arrow in her right, with a quiver hanging from a belt slung around her hips. She nocked the arrow and drew it back. "Stay away."
"Oh! There are two lives in one! What an unexpected treat. I can make this nice for you, you know. You won't see a thing of what happens after. You'll be living the perfect life, reveling in complete happiness because the child is not a mage. Is that not what you want? For fate to change its course? I can do that for you. I can create that world."
"Back off, spirit."
"No, I don't think I will."
Líadan loosed the arrow and it struck the spirit in the chest, where the heart would have been in an elf.
The spirit was unaffected.
She kept the cursing inside her head. Of course it wouldn't have a heart. What was she thinking? She went to nock another arrow, but feared he was getting too close. Her back already pressed against the smooth rock wall behind her.
"Keep trying," said the spirit. "This is fun."
"Get away from her," said another voice, ringing strong and resolute through the Beyond. "Do not disobey me, demon. You will leave her alone, or you will face my wrath."
The demon slowly spun to peer at the newly appeared spirit. "Wrath, is it? Whatever happened to your sense of justice?"
The new spirit drew a sword and held it in front of him, the tip in the soil, and the spirit's gauntleted hands resting on top of the pommel. Despite the ease of his posture, his readiness was apparent in the power that projected from him. "Leave."
Though the new spirit was not as corporeal as the demon, the demon of sloth nevertheless bowed his head and began to back away. "I will do as you say, for now. But you will not always be here to protect my prey, and I will be waiting."
Líadan's eyes snapped open to find herself awake and out of the Beyond. She wasn't sure if she felt relieved or rattled. The weak—weak? I'll show you weak—light of pre-dawn stretched through the lightly frosted panes of the window. Malcolm slept on beside her, unaware. She slipped out of the bed, the undetectable Dalish hunter—you will not always be here to protect my prey—and went about the necessities she had to do before she could leave the room. The library would be deserted this early. She could retreat and recompose herself within books and the warm accompaniment of her mabari. Malcolm would have provided comfort, but she did not want to stay in bed, and she did not want to wake him, either.
Dread threatened to overtake her even as she fled from the room. She'd never drawn a spirit before as she slept, not once. Now one was after her, one that knew about her pending child. She had not been prepared for the abject fear that took root in her stomach. Maybe it wasn't her it was after. Maybe it was the child. Maybe it was from what Oghren had said, that the Gift would be passed along because of the lyrium and could magic manifest from the cradle? She had never heard of it doing so, and could not imagine how a babe could control it.
Because they couldn't, which was why magic didn't appear until they had at least mastered walking. But with the excess lyrium and Sundermount and the thin Veil, Líadan couldn't make herself feel any amount of certainty. Perhaps it could happen. Perhaps magic could be apparent and active within a mage from birth. There would be no way to control it, no way to teach control, and every outcome from such a thing would be unbearable, far worse than having her elf-blooded child manifest the Gift normally.
It couldn't happen, could it?
Morrigan would know, but Morrigan was not there to ask. By the time she found her again, it would be too late.
