Salem

"Your heart breaks for them." I repeated the words of the Maker back to her face, seeking for any sign of sorrow, any hint that she believed she might have spoken amiss. Of course, I sought in vain.

"Yes." She answered, unmoved and unperturbed by the heat inside my voice, unswayed by the way that I held Leliana closer to me, as if to protect her from the god who called her 'daughter'. "My heart breaks for the cruelties of the world, the darkness here that spreads to those I hold close to my heart and wounds them." She drew closer and stroked her hand across Leliana's fevered brow. "I hate to see her in pain." The Maker whispered, and everything within me wanted to lash out and strike her.

Instead, I struck with words. "Then why not end it?" I asked. "You have the power to, with your touch, with your breath, take this affliction from her. Why are you standing over her, grief in your eyes, sorrow in your voice, making no move to end her suffering?"

The Maker turned her gaze to me; eyes that held an entire cosmos of living and breath and being attempted to pierce my very soul. It frightened me that I remained unmoved and unafraid. I knew I stood in the presence of a god. I knew the power of gods and the reach they had over all of Thedas and still that did not move me to awe or to fear. I wanted the answers to my questions.

"Does the woman who suffered the pain of an entire world not know the answer?" the Maker asked, turning my questions against me, answering an inquiry with an inquiry.

"Speak in the god's language of enigmatics all you wish, it will avail you nothing." I scoffed. "I do know the answer that you will give me, and I am unsatisfied with it. Perhaps it was fair to me, at that time, to allow me to suffer."

"It allowed you to grow." The Maker reminded me, as I knew she would. "It allowed your mind to change, your warrior's spirit to gentle. It broke you in only the best of ways, and allowed you to reforge yourself into a weapon of greater purpose and a strength more vast than many can reckon."

"I was an imperfect vessel, and still I am rife with imperfection." I admitted, having long foregone any pride in the mockery of life that I led. "You called Leliana as your prophet reborn. You saw in her a soul and spirit perfect enough and bright enough to walk alongside your own and change the face of Thedas into what you desire. Why then have you not healed her?"

"Because there is another here whom you have not considered." The Maker spoke, the edge of waterfalls in her voice, the immutable knowing that a being of great power deigned to answer a mortal inquiry. "Another here whose heart is only just, only now awakening to all that it has learned; a heart that is coming into its own." Thedas' most-worshiped god turned to the corner, directing her eyes at the sleeping form of Cassandra Pentaghast. "All suffering has purpose, Salem Cousland." She spoke my name with a different tone…a stranger inflection. "Your suffering had purpose, for it helped create the beautiful heart that resides in the woman you cradle to your chest. Your suffering crafted Leliana into the woman whose voice lifted into heaven and touched my grieving heart and deafened ears. I heard her, Salem. I heard her as I have heard no other since Andraste sang to me ages…ages ago."

I saw a winsome star glimmer in the Maker's eye and fall from it in the form of a tear, a comet streaking down the face of a galaxy, dripping into a gown woven from the stars. Thedas' god, Thedas' hope in times of need, stood before me and wept. She wept at the memory of loving a mortal woman; she wept for the memory of hearing Leliana and returning to the world she had created. The world that, even when she persisted in her abandonment, still cried out to her.

"And me?" I whispered. "Do you hear me? Or, upon my being wrenched from paradise by another, who claimed me for their own, did you turn your back on me?"

"Such heat and passion in words that mean things you do not know that they mean." The Maker smiled at me with a kindness that stung me at the core of my heart, for I knew that manner of kindness was not deserved. "But there are questions that should precede it. What becomes of a mortal who fells a god, and lives? What does killing a god make a man? Does destroying something not make you stronger than it? Better than it?"

"No." I shook my head. "Only the arrogant warrior believes that the defeat of their enemy makes them the better combatant. A simple crack on one's armor can fell the mightiest swordsman the land has ever known. Even dragons depend on the winds to fly. All men have weaknesses."

"And gods who made men in their image?" the Maker lifted a single, indigo eyebrow. "If all men have weaknesses, then all gods must have weaknesses as well. Hubris…hubris has been the downfall of many a god, and many a man who served them."

"Am I the product of Flemeth's hubris?" I said, at last garnering a reaction. The silver eyes widened and sharpened until they looked like the point of a spear glimmering in the midday sun. "Or am I simply an abomination in another form? Is my soul still my own, or does it belong to her? What is my purpose, besides the breaking of Leliana's faith?"

"This was never your fight, Salem." The Maker's voice sounded as though it was haunted by ghosts older and more fearsome than anything the mortal realm could conceive of. For what made the gods toss and turn at night would destroy mere mortals with a breath. "A mother saw her children wronged, and the justice she embodied took hold and reigned over her mind. Time has made her crafty, anger has made her vengeful, and she sees nothing more fitting than love destroying faith…for it was love of power that destroyed her children. Do you understand me, Salem? Do you understand now that the conflict you are a part of has raged for millennia? That you are but a recent pawn in an old, old…"

"If you call it a game I will slaughter you." I hissed, for I would not see any life reduced to such a triviality…not even by a god. "My hands and my blades have struck down gods before. Do not test me."

Her eyes slashed at mine and again I did not recoil or look away. I held the power and might and majesty of her gaze and did not make myself obeisant to her power. "Not a game." She spoke. "Never a game. But that might be what she considers it. It might be how she constructs her movements from here to there, like pieces on a chessboard. Do not think that because mine has no known cessation that I devalue life."

"Then give me a promise." I whispered, low, for I knew she could hear me.

"What do you want?" the Maker asked, sounding tired and dispirited. "Riches? Escape? A new face and new name?" What would you ask of me, Salem Cousland? What will you ask of the god you have been resurrected to dethrone? What will you demand of me so that you will not serve the purpose you have been brought back for?"

"You think so little of mortals." I murmured, threading my hand through Leliana's hair, stroking it away from her face. I pressed a soft and gentle kiss to her fevered-flushed cheek, tasting her sweat. "I want nothing for myself, Maker. I am at peace with who I am and with avoiding the purpose I have been given and do not want. I am willing to live as I am and risk what Flemeth desires. All I ask is that you no longer allow Leliana to be punished for my intractability. The time for her to suffer for my decisions is long past; it ended when I died and our marriage vow was sundered. Should Flemeth ever desire to take her wrath against me out on Leliana…or those that Leliana calls friends and calls loves…stop her, as I know you can."

"That is all you ask?" she inquired and I nodded. "All you ask is that I keep her safe…and keep her from suffering for your refusal to play into Flemeth's wants?"

"Yes." I answered, unwavering. "And tell me now that she will not suffer long, and that she will not perish."

"I give you my word." The Maker said, and I nodded, pleased with the answer, no longer afraid that Leliana would leave this world a darker place…but still filled with sorrow that she would be forced to endure the pain of recovery.

"Thank you."

I watched as the Maker walked to Cassandra and knelt down before her, tracing pale, alabaster fingers over the lines of stitches on the woman's face. The wounds did not change, but Cassandra shifted in her sleep, murmured something unintelligible, and fell back into deep slumber. The Maker rose and walked to Leliana. She rested her hand on my once-lover's forehead and whispered in a language that had been lost to time for ages. Leliana's body relaxed in my arms, the crease of pain faded from her brow, and the rasp of her breath seemed easier. I understood the purpose of the injuries that she bore, but that did not make it any easier for me to witness.

"She will not wake." The Maker murmured. "Nor will Cassandra, for many hours yet. Hold her if you wish. Let her feel your love." She reached out and touched my cheek and in her skin I felt a child's breath and the rage of thunder. "You surprised me, Salem Cousland." She whispered. Her hand fell away and she walked towards the door. She looked back to me, then forward, then back again, as if debating something. At last, her eyes met mine for a final time. "No one knows what happens to a mortal who kills a god and lives. It has never happened before. But you are beginning to make me believe that when one brings down a god, they bear the burden of and also absorb the divinity they ended."

"What do you…" she faded from sight, as though she had never been, but I could still feel the burn of her finger against my cheek, and taste the bitterness of her words like molten iron in my mouth.

I sighed and hugged Leliana closer to me, deciding to cherish the moments I had been given, as I had so long ago when the Maker placed my wife's hand in mine and blessed us. I would attempt to see this moment as another blessing rendered, even though walking away would break my heart again. I breathed deep and steadied my spirit. I would survive the breaking. I always did.