The Blower's Daughter (Part Two – Marian)

"Hmm?" Lucía stirred and stretched. "What… What did you say?" She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"You were dreaming," Anders said, kissing her.

"Ah… I thought you'd said 'Victoria', and it was funny…" she kissed him back. "I was dreaming about a Victoria. Hmm… Then again," she sat astride him, completely awake now, "I think I also had a naughty dream about you."

Anders chuckled. "Oh, is that so? What do you plan to do with me, then?"

"Want me to tell you or to show you?" she smiled, leaning over him.


He was sound asleep.

It was her turn to watch him. His lips were slightly parted, and he was breathing deeply and yet very softly. Lucía laid her head on the pillow and smiled. He'd been just as passionate as she'd thought. She had truly felt him – his warmth, his trembles, his hesitation and his passion. He was hers, at last. Timidly, she caressed his cheek with her thumb, wondering what he was dreaming about.


Fields of Ghislain – the year 528 of the Dark Age

"And here we are." Quentin Amell opened the gate to his farmhouse and let his apprentice in. Hartmann Devin entered timidly. He was tall, eighteen years old, with strawberry blonde hair and light brown eyes. His master patted him on the back and Hartmann smiled sheepishly. "Don't be so shy, boy. You'll be fine with us." Quentin Amell's kind blue eyes landed on his wife, Leodora Welle, who had been waiting for his return.

"Papa!" Hartmann heard a young voice and turned around to see a girl running towards them. Reddish hair, dark eyes, red lips and rosy cheeks. Quentin held her in his arms and spun her around. "Hartmann, this is my daughter, Marian." Hartmann bowed politely and Marian curtsied, as her mother had taught her.

Living with the Amells was like having a family of his own for Hartmann. Quentin trained him in spells that he had never heard of; he was gentle and patient. Hartmann was eager to learn, and so was Marian, who occasionally joined them for practice.

"This is my grimoire," she told Hartmann one afternoon that they were alone. "Papa says that discipline is the most important trait in a mage, and I've started writing everything he's taught me." Her finger traced the words written on one of the pages. "Do you have one?"

Hartmann nodded. "It's very similar to yours, but mine has a bird carved on the cover."

"Mine has a cat. I love cats. We had a mouser some years ago. She disappeared one day." She smiled at him sweetly. Hartmann smiled back. He felt comfortable with her. Her younger siblings were still too young to spend time with them, and so Marian sought out Hartmann's company as often as she could.


Anders's eyelids moved lightly. Lucía thought that he'd wake up, but he went on sleeping. His chest went up and down regularly. She wondered if he was resting. She hoped so. They had wasted so much time being apart. And now they'd be spending even more time apart. Five months, he'd said. Seheron. That was so far away.

She clung onto him and rubbed her cheek against his chest. The morning would come soon.


Fields of Ghislain – the year 538 of the Dark Age

"You need to concentrate, Hartmann!" Quentin's voice was firm, but he didn't sound angry. Hartmann panted and looked up. Marian was watching him with a smile in her big dark eyes. Her reddish hair was flowing in the wind. She was offering him her hand. He took it and as he stood up, she whispered in his ear, "I'm waiting."

"You'll see," he replied with a badly-concealed smile. He raised one of his hands and focused on casting his spell. Marian raised her staff and attacked him, but he'd managed to protect himself from her offensive.

That was the only moment when he was around her that he could think of defending himself.

She'd snuck into his room one night. He'd been so surprised that he'd become paralyzed for a while. She was panting.

"Torches! Soldiers, coming this way…"

Quentin had warned him that something like that could happen, now that the Nevarran king was starting to recover some of the territories that lay on the border with Orlais. Hartmann told Marian to get her siblings ready and he put his most precious belongings in a sack.

"I'll be right behind you, Hartmann," Quentin panted, casting glyphs, waiting for their attackers. "But if I fall, take them with you. Protect them."

Leodora fell first, trying to protect her son. Hartmann saw the swords of the Nevarran soldiers going through her body, even though she had spoken to them in their language. She was a traitor for mating and breeding with an Orlesian. The younger daughter, Lisbeth, fell down. Marian ran towards her, but Quentin told her to keep running.

"I won't leave you, Papa!"

"Marian…" Quentin cupped his older daughter's face in his hands and kissed her. "Be brave."

Hartmann and Marian took little Lisbeth with them, across streams and windy moors of the Arlesans.

"We should get to Cumberland," Marian said to Hartmann one night, "not to Val Chevin. We have to find a place where we can live in peace, where we're not persecuted. We must go across the sea."

"Cumberland would be too dangerous for you," Hartmann replied, keeping an eye on Lisbeth. "If something happened to you…" He caressed her cheek gently. "I'd turn to it. I'd use blood magic for you."

Marian held his hand and rubbed her cheek against his palm. "You will never have to. We're in this together."


Lucía turned around and took the clock from the night table. 5.45 in the morning. Should she wake him up? He'd have to leave in less than two hours. What if she went away with him? No, she couldn't do that, especially with Carver gone and Varric so far away. Her mother and sister completely relied on her now. She sighed.

Anders turned in his sleep and curled up under the sheets. One of the windows had opened and there was a slight breeze coming in through it. Lucía looked at him lovingly. There was something so human and sweet about that gesture that she had to fight the urge to kiss him. She got up carefully so as not to wake him up and closed the window. She stretched out and walked to the bathroom. A good shower was in order.


Planasene Forest – the year 538 of the Dark Age

"I'll destroy you, demon!" Hartmann grabbed the mage from the neck and she whimpered.

"Hartmann, no! She was trying to help!" The roguish dwarf, Erwin, jumped forward and pushed Hartmann to the ground. The human, the dwarf, and the elf fell to the ground.

"She killed her! She killed Lisbeth!" Hartmann shouted. The elf scrambled to her feet and tried to run away, but a cold air seemed to have taken hold of her.

Marian approached her closely. Her dark eyes, filled with sorrow, pierced through the elf's. "You used blood magic," she muttered.

The elf nodded. "It was the only way to destroy the demon that had possessed her," she said quickly. "She could have killed us all."

"Fighting fire with fire isn't always right," Erwin said, getting up. "And the poor girl…"

Marian went back to her sister's body. She caressed the girl's cheeks, pale and bloodied. Hartmann knew what she was thinking: the last part of her family had just died with Lisbeth. She had nowhere to go, nobody to return home to. He put his hand over her shoulder, hoping to comfort her.

She had slept with him that night, and the night after that. She had been silent – her hands had done the talking for her. He didn't know if she had done it because she felt love, affection, or gratitude. He didn't want to know.

The four of them wandered about the forest, meeting others like them. Hartmann and Erwin had managed to collect information from travellers and they had learned that Cumberland was a relatively safe passage to the territories across from the Waking Sea.

That was where they had found him. Wounded. Persecuted. Just like them.

But deep down, Hartmann knew he wasn't like them at all.

He'd tried to persuade Marian to leave him behind, but she wouldn't hear him. She had told him that she felt sorry for the white-haired warrior, that he needed them. Blinded with jealousy, Hartmann had left them. He had left her. But he couldn't live without her. Not anymore.

Some time later, he had found his way back to her, only to find her in his arms.

She was Louvetaux's now.


Anders's eyes shot open. He sat up quickly. Lucía was not there. He rubbed his eyes and then he heard it. The sound of the shower.

He stood up and walked to the bathroom. He pressed his hand and forehead against the door. He parted his lips to call her name, but something inside him told him that it wasn't necessary to do that.

He entered the bathroom, stark naked, and joined her in the shower.

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Title: the same as the previous chapter. "We'll both forget the breeze" / "The colder water" / "The pupil in denial" - The next one will show where everything started.