A riddle is a tale so familiar you no longer see it; it's simply there,
like the air you breathe, the ancient names of Kings echoing in
the corners of your house, the sunlight in the corner of your eye;
until one day you look at it and something shapeless, voiceless
in you opens a third eye and sees it as you have never seen it before.
Then you are left with the knowledge of the nameless question in you,
and the tale that is no longer meaningless but the one thing in
the world that has meaning any more. ~
Patricia A. McKillip

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Ghosts followed her as she walked along the cleared path past the remnants of Haven and the broken buildings beneath the snow and rubble. Burnt and jagged pieces of buildings and equipment thrust through the crust of debris, ice, and rock like ragged tombstones, and her mind kept going back to the early days when she'd first staggered through the gate with Caro and the others, frightened and uncertain. She remembered the first day on the lists, so afraid that Cullen would hear her name and denounce her as an apostate, or practicing staves with Caro while half hung-over, waking up among the books and reports on Cullen's bed, the first time Hugh kissed her, and the night Haven burned.

Melori shut her eyes, pausing on the path and trying to catch her breath. Missing them with such violence that she couldn't move or do anything but fight the tears away. Why had this seemed like a good idea? She should have traveled straight on to Crestwood and not bothered to stop. Dragging in another a breath, she wiped at her eyes, too embarrassed to look at the others who had paused on the road.

"Are you all right?" Sister Raelyn asked, a gentle hand finding Melori's arm. Of the three scholars making the climb to the Archive, Raelyn was the steadiest and hadn't seemed to question the idea that an elven apostate had once worked as a chantry scholar. Melori had liked the quiet woman immediately, recognizing a twin soul in their love of books and knowledge, and it was doubly embarrassing now to be caught weeping at something the others probably saw every day.

"I'm … this was home for a while," Melori managed, searching for a handkerchief. "Just … haven't been here since the dragon."

Raelyn nodded. "I think all of us have had to stop a few times for the same reason."

"It can't be easy for anyone," Melori agreed, managing a watery smile as she wiped at her eyes. The farther from the village they traveled, the easier it was to breathe through her nose again, the pain lingering but not overwhelming – like an old injury aching in the cold. Not having slept well the night before – and many other nights before that – Melori and still had that faint, sick feeling in her bones, as though she could just lie down in the snow and sleep for a while. Fortunately, the fresh air seemed to help.

The wind was very cold, bending the evergreens along the mountainside as they climbed the ridge until the path split. They continued to the left toward Melori's previous lodging - the Archive, bypassing the right hand path down to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The soldiers led them along the abandoned walkway and up to the entrance where the doors were propped open and they all quickly made their way inside to get out of the chill.

"We'll be out here till the afternoon then come in to help gather up whatever you've found and take it down to the Captain. He'll make sure everything's ready to go with you to Crestwood or be sent up to Skyhold," one of the soldiers told her, saluting properly and Melori thought he looked remarkably young. The previous evening, the Captain had explained that most of the men near Haven were mostly new recruits on their first real assignment. Melori hesitated briefly then saluted him back and he smiled. "If you need us for anythin', just yell. Not that there's much'll be botherin' you round here."

"That's good to know," she answered, following the other women through the door into the torch-lit halls beyond the doorway.


The soldiers who had initially broken back into the Archive had done so not to rescue the precious materials there, but to retrieve the dead. While there were yet gruesome remnants of those first horrible weeks after the Breach appeared evident throughout the corridors, it was less distressing than it might have been. The demons were gone, of course, their bodies having disintegrated when the Breach closed, but there was a smell in the air that turned Melori's stomach and she pressed a hand over her nose, the Fade stench almost too strong in spots.

"This might help," Raelyn said, offering Melori a sprig of embrium. "If you chew one of the buds, it will soothe the nausea from the stink."

Melori nodded, taking the small twig and breaking off the tiny pink bud on one end before popping it into her mouth. It tasted a little like eating grass, but with a warm, rosy flavor that bloomed as soon as she hit the middle of the bud. Within in a few minutes she felt immensely improved and a little more alert. "Thank you. That's much better."

"Mm hmm," the chantry sister smiled, watching her closely. "I've more if you find you need them."

"I guess everyone else is used to it, having been here longer," Melori sighed, looking around the long empty hallway. "I'll be down in the lower archive to see if anything I left behind is still intact in the main library. If you need me, I seem to recall this place echoes when empty. So just yell."

"You were here when it was empty?"

"A long time ago when Brother Genitivi was first studying the Temple," Melori laughed. "I was fresh out of the Circle Tower, then, and served as his assistant. Well, one of them. It's been a long time now."

"We hear stories, you know. Anyone who goes up to Skyhold comes back with tales of the people there," Raelyn chuckled, ducking a broken beam as they made their way further into the Archive. "I heard from one of the boys that there was an elven woman at Adamant, throwing lightning and calling down fire. I was thinking that might be you, considering the hair."

"Ah, perhaps it was. There aren't many mages with combat training," Melori admitted, "and I had only the rudiments when I joined the Inquisition." She paused and offered a hand to the sister, who was struggling to climb over a piece of broken furniture in her long robe. "I prefer books, honestly."

"They are usually safer!" Raelyn laughed, straightening her robes.

"Indeed," Melori answered as they came up to a large set of double doors, one of them completely knocked off its hinges and lying flat to the floor. "This is the upper library. I … suspect a Pride Demon likely did that. One was in the halls with us while we were hiding."

"Andraste watch over us," Raelyn exclaimed, staring down at the claw marks that scored the wood from top to bottom, deep and jagged. "I'll see what's left inside, I suppose."

"Good luck," Melori answered, patting the sister's shoulder before heading down the corridor to where the tall windows still stood, only partly blocked by snow. In the distance, she could make out the remnants of the Temple of Andraste , towers and ruined walls black and broken against the sky – so different from what she remembered. Down the stairs and around the corner, Melori found the cold, lonely remains of the main library.

Setting her bag down on the tiles, she summoned a globe of energy to give her light and turned in a slow circle, studying the space with a narrowed eye. It was dusty, of course, and some of the tables were broken, but very little had been disturbed. It all looked as though everyone had simply gone to lunch and forgotten to return.


The compilation lay where she'd left it, opened to the half-finished cover page, ornate lettering staring up at her still crisp against the creamy vellum: "The Urn of Sacred Ashes: The Collected Works of Brother Ferdinand Genitivi." Smiling, Melori took a seat on the stool at her desk and looked around. There were brushes and old, dried out ink bottles, pens with their nibs still sharp, tools for paper etching, liquid gold for illumination, rulers, soft cloths now heavy with dust, and her old tea cup still sitting undisturbed on the edge of the desk. In a box inside a drawer she found some of her rarer instruments and a necklace her mother had given her made of halla horn and tightly twined metal wire.

Carefully, Melori packed the Compilation in clean paper, wrapped it again in vellum, and then in thick leather before placing the book in a strapped box for travelling. It still required stitching along the spine once the illuminations were complete, and she did not want it damaged on the journey to Crestwood, where she would finish it. Packing all her tools into her bags, she realized that she missed the little nook and the broad, expansive library beyond, but she did not the life it represented. It was so pale and thin compared to what she had with the Inquisition. It was too ... safe, too tame. And it had none of her friends nor Cullen in it.

"You could still go back," Melori said to herself after dragging her other bags out to the hallway to await the soldiers and returning to her nook to take one last look around. "I could just… stay in the study. Never see anyone …"

Almost she missed it, but only almost. There, on the back of one of the shelves where it had been accidentally pushed at some point, was a little black painted wooden carving of a wolf, his head lifted as though howling to the stars. The little painted eyes nearly worn away and the tail blunted from the constant pressure of fat little fingers clutching it tightly day after day. Breath hitching, Melori felt her eyes welling as she retrieved it, turning the little thing between her adult fingers, memories catching her off-guard.

She remembered clutching her father's shoulder as he carried her through the forest, her mother a step behind him. They'd not said much, smiling at her questions and answering as best they could. Her father had seemed to shake sometimes when she asked where they were going, which was odd as he was always so proud and calm, always patiently answering her questions. Her mother would occasionally reach up a hand to tug at a wild red curl. They'd been so sad and she'd been too young to realize it.

Somewhere around midday they'd broken through the trees into a small village, and, even so many years later, she could remember how it stank of livestock and wood smoke. How the humans stared as her parents carried her down the street and up to the front door of the Chantry where men with sharp eyes and strange armor watched them approach. She'd clutched her father's neck and hid her face. Her father's words had been hard and sharp, his fingers clutched tight around her waist. Her mother stood behind him, lips tight, tears standing in her eyes, and Melori remembered wanting to cry, too, but knowing she was too old for such things, especially in front of the shem.

One of the men went into the building and her father stepped away and knelt to the ground, setting her on her feet in front of him. "You must do as I say," she remembered his words so clearly. "I know you don't understand, but you are going to a good place, da'vhenan. They will teach you many things."

"Babae" She'd said, feeling so very serious, watching his face shift with sorrow, tears appearing in his eyes. "Babae, din'numin."- Pleading with him not to cry, and then crying herself when he could not keep the tears away. She'd never seen her father cry. "Din'numin."

"Nadas'numin," her mother had said, kissing her forehead and pulling her close. "Ma emma lath, Melori."

More had been said, she was certain, but all she remembered now was the large, armored man picking her up off the ground, not un-gently, and her father giving her the look he had that always hushed her instantly. She lifted her chin and he'd smiled, proud of her even as she's hiccoughed and wiped at her eyes.

"I made this for you," he said, showing her the little wolf carving. "Fen'harel asks a high price of us, but he turns away the darkness from our camps. Be clever as a wolf, emm'asha."

"Babae? Mamae?" Panic set in as they walked away, disserting pride for fear as she called after them. The Templar somehow managed to keep hold of the squirming, screaming elven child without hurting her, though he did not let her go. She remembered a big, metal-shod hand petting her hair while he carried her into the Chantry as she sobbed, inconsolable for what seemed like days and days. For years after, she would wake every morning hoping to find her father had come to fetch her and found the little wolf figure instead.


The soldiers came for her bags and Melori slipped the figurine into her pocket, a little shocked at how vividly she remembered everything. Her early days in the Circle tower were not her fondest memories, though she did recall how kind Irving had been. For two years or more, she'd believed that father would take her back to the aravels and the forests. Somewhere around the age of seven or eight, she'd come to understand that she was truly alone and that her magic was the reason why.

Lips firming, Melori put the memories aside and gathered her pack, her staff, and her sword before walking out of the main library and up to her old bedroom. They'd stay in the Archive through the night and finish their work in the morning. The light through the tall, narrow windows in the hall was dimming as night fell, and she was bone tired. Spreading her bedroll over the slightly mouse-eaten quilt on her old bed, Melori ate a few rations and dressed for bed. She cast her warming spell and stretched out across the old mattress, dropping into dreams so deep and dark that hours later she couldn't remember if she'd even dreamt at all.

Raelyn had another Embrium bud for her when Melori appeared in the old dining hall for breakfast. The room was far cleaner than it had been the day before, though it still smelled awful to Melori. No one else seemed to notice, but she had a little trouble eating the porridge they passed around. There were new soldiers, replacements for the others, and the scholars greeted them happily. She ate as quickly as she could, and headed back out into the corridor. The faster she got through the main library, the faster she would finish and could decide whether to return to Skyhold or move on to Crestwood.

Halfway down the hall to the main library, one of the soldiers caught up with her, a letter in his hand. "A raven flew in this morning and this was addressed to you."

"Oh, thank you." Melori took the letter, and stepped over to one of the windows, leaning against the stone while she broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. Her stomach twisted when she saw the sharp, black handwriting there, and she almost folded it up for later, unable to continue, but she'd never been good at resisting literary temptations.

.

Melori,

You've gone. Somehow in the chaos, I thought you nearby, but a certain furious Tevinter insists otherwise. I searched for you in your study, in your room, in the library, but you were not there. I found the Nightingale, instead, and she informs me that you are heading to Crestwod by way of Haven and suggests I might be able to waylay you, if I ride fast enough.

She has called me every kind of fool and insists that I hid behind my duties rather than do what was best, and I must admit, she is correct. In my moment of anger and personal hurt, in the midst of my fear for your safety, I lost sight of who you are and why you would have wished to keep such a secret, given who I once was. I was intent on my own feelings and neglected to consider yours - Maker knows, it is a failing that has nearly ruined my life in the past. I hope that it is not too late to remedy my mistake and beg that you will forgive me.

Expect me on the morrow, somewhere toward evening, likely with Pavus and his shadow in tow. They have insisted and I am in no mood to dissuade them.

I have things I must say to you. Things I ought to have said long before now.

Yours always,
C.R.

P.S. Pavus insists I add that he will resort to violence if you do not remain where you are.

.

The parchment cracked in her fingers as she read the letter again and then again, a curious sense of relief and happiness creeping up through her center, almost overwhelming in strength. He was riding toward Haven, she thought, a little dazedly, leaning with her back to the windows, her head tilted against the wall between them, her mind full of the memory of his touch and his voice.

When the world outside the windows flashed green, she almost didn't notice until the building shook beneath the explosion of sound and pressure, and she staggered halfway across the hall, turning to stare in horror as the Breach ripped open once more above the Temple of Sacred Ashes.


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NOTE: You can panic now. :-D