If someone said they'd pull survivors out of the tunnels, Varric would have called bullshit. His wounded heart thought it an exercise in futility more than anything else, but they searched them anyway. Thank the fucking Maker they did, and just in the nick of time to save the Iron Bull.

Solas's face dripped with perspiration, despite the cold, his hands glowing over Bull's form. The mountainous qunari joined the other wounded on a blue, crinkling tarp, although he was so large he didn't fit on it nearly as well. The healers, both magical and medical, pulled four bullets out of his flesh. Varric watched Solas pop one more into a bucket before he wiped his forehead briskly with the back of his palm.

"I think that is the last of the wounds." The elf stated, wiping his hands on a soiled towel. "If you were human, you would be dead."

"Well, thank the Maker for small miracles, huh?" Bull huffed weakly without any actual humor. His one eye trained on the small figure kneeling in the snow beside Solas, her trembling hands clasped on her knees. Varric didn't know if Bea Cadash was shaking from the cold, shock, horror, or grief. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. One of Bull's massive hands reached out to cover both of hers gently, squeezing softly.

Varric vividly recalled the two sisters dancing, their hips rolling together, Maria's exasperated little smile, Bea's head thrown back in a full-throated laugh. It had only been a few hours. The sun rose now, illuminating the great expanse of nothing around them. It should have woken him up in Maria's bed with her body pressed snugly against his. Their herald should have been safe and whole, victorious and sated in his arms.

Instead…

Instead, her sister curled forward on herself like she nursed a mortal wound in her stomach. Instead, Varric's eyes blurred with exhaustion and his chest ached around a void he couldn't name. The nurse stitching up the wound on the kid he held down sighed wearily and nodded at her work. "That's the best we can do here, dwarf."

Varric's own joints protested as he stood, shattered glass grinding together, reminding him that he was far too old for this. For any of this. He tapped his earpiece mechanically. "Bianca, what's our status?"

"Attempted connection to satellite, but it is tenuous at best. Attempting to redirect 5g network connection, but progress is slow due to complete infrastructure collapse."

"Yeah baby." He murmured, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "Two avalanches will do that."

Do that, and a hell of a lot more. Not only was their town gone, their connection to the outside world gone, their herald gone…

Their spirit was gone too. The people surrounding him were pale, hopeless wraiths moving like robots one second, spooked like frightened rabbits the next. They kept looking down into the valley like they'd see the templars climbing up the mountain, kept searching the sky for the dragon's reappearance.

But nothing came because the dragon took what it wanted, he thought darkly. The monsters got what they came for. Varric made his way to the small knot of people at the edge of the cliff, their faces turned down to the dawn covered snow. As Varric watched, a small ball of soot dropped from the sky into Dorian's outstretched hand, puffed up black feathers trilling almost sadly. Dorian's shoulders slumped in defeat.

Varric didn't want to ask, but he had to. His voice sounded like sandpaper, even to his own ears. "Anything?"

"No." Dorian cast one last, despondent look over the pristine scene below. All traces of battle, of their hopeless flight, gone like it never even happened. "There's no trace of her, I fear."

The bird hopped from Dorian's hand up to his neck, shoved it's tiny head into the crook of his neck in a gesture that seemed to be meant to comfort. Dorian shoved his hands in his pockets and turned from the valley.

No trace. If a magical familiar couldn't find her…

Varric shut his eyes against the pang of agony. If a magical familiar could not find Maria Cadash, it's because the only thing left to find was her body underneath a mountain of snow.

Shit.

"Blackwall and Sera traced the tunnels back to the chantry as far as they were able." Cassandra reported numbly to the rest of the group. "They found them blocked by debris and were unable to go further. They were uncertain if it was from the chantry or the landslide. They did not find anyone else."

"If we… if we make it to safety, if we are able to…" Cullen stuttered on the sentence, shook his head to clear it. "I would like to send people back to search. She deserves a proper funeral."

Varric's heart rebelled at that. Maria Cadash deserved to live more than she deserved a pyre or a cairn.

"Dwarves bury their dead." The valley below was beautiful. Perfect. Silent and still, the mountains surrounding it, gentle and peaceful guardians. He couldn't think of a better tomb for her to rest in. "She's already back in the stone, Curly. Don't try to give her to Andraste now."

"I swore I would protect her." Leliana hugged her arms around herself. "I swore it, if I would not have pulled our perimeter back, if I could have bought us more time…"

If Varric wouldn't have found the red lyrium. If he wouldn't have taken Hawke to that ruin in the Vinmarks. If the world were a better place…

"She told me once that nobody could protect anyone else." Cassandra glared into the sky. Varric wondered if the Seeker was silently arguing with her Maker. Wondered if this, perhaps, had finally broken the woman's faith.

"I told her that was true. But that you could die trying."

And that's what Maria did. Died trying to protect them, died taking the Seeker's words to heart. She succeeded and they failed.

"We have to move. If the templars and this… Corypheus are still out there, we must put some distance between us and them." Cullen ordered, turning on his booted heel. The man lifted his chin as he strode past, already beginning to shout orders. Cassandra and Leliana stayed where they were.

"I don't want to leave her. It seems wrong." Leliana admitted softly.

Varric didn't want to leave her either, not in the chantry, not with her lips pressed against his. But he had anyway, and now it was too late. Too damn late.

"You are certain, dwarf?" Cassandra asked, letting her eyes sink back to the snow beneath them once more. "You are certain you heard this demon? You heard him attacking…"

"Yes." He cut her off. He couldn't relive it one more time. Not when Maria's screams still echoed in his head. Not when he feared he'd hear them the rest of his life.

"You said…"

"I know." He shrugged helplessly under her bitter accusation. He knew what he told the Seeker and he knew what the truth was. In this surprising instance, they were the same damn thing. "I know. We killed him, I swear."

"Not well enough." Leliana muttered.

xx

Maria opened her eyes slowly. Closed them again with a whimper against the bright sunlight streaming through open curtains. Outside, she heard the bustle of Ostwick. The screech of car tires, the whoosh of a bus door sliding open, someone shouting at someone else from across the road. Her head throbbed in response and she curled herself tightly into the old, faded comforter before she risked opening her eyes again.

Across the room, she spotted an empty bed the same size as hers. Above it, posters of bands taped hazardly everywhere, cut-outs of celebrities looking elegant and beautiful, postcards from far-away places with notes jammed in the corners. The quilt hung half off the mattress, revealing a battered old stuffed nug wedged nearly under the pillow. Bea still couldn't sleep without it.

But where was her sister? Maria propped herself up on an aching arm and listened to the sounds more closely. She heard the clink of dishes. Running water. A man's voice crackling through old speakers.

Maria slowly crawled from bed. She shivered, cold despite the oversized sweatshirt hanging nearly down to her knees, one of dad's. It had the Ostwick police department logo on the right breast and the sleeves covered her own hands. She wrapped her arms around herself as she slipped into the hallway, making her way to the cheerful sounds.

The hallway opened up into their tiny living room, but her eyes skipped over it directly to the kitchenette and the bear of a man standing at the sink, shirtsleeves rolled up, elbow deep in soapy water. His thinning red hair glowed in the meager sunlight coming through the window and he muttered under his breath as the man on the radio recounted an abysmal performance in the Proving Ring.

Maria had a hard time getting the word out, it seemed stuck in her throat, came out raspy and breathless. "Dad?"

He looked over his shoulder immediately and pinned her with a wide grin. 'Hey Ria, you feeling any better?"

She blinked at him owlishly and he sighed, efficiently turning the faucet off, brusquely wiping his hands on a towel before he threw it on the counter and crossed the room to her. His eyes traced her face skeptically while he pressed the back of his damp palm against her head. "Still out of it, then?"

"Out of it?" She repeated.

"You've been sick, Ria." Her father explained patiently, his gray eyes burning into hers. "But you look like you're coming out of it. Thank the damn stone. I've been worrying myself into my grave."

His words sent a shiver through her that she couldn't quite explain. He caught it and frowned, wrapping a big arm over her shoulders. "Let's get you back to bed. You're freezing."

"No." She pressed into his warmth even as something twisted, uneasy in her stomach. "No. I want to stay with you."

Her father sighed, a sound made up mostly of playful exasperation. He smoothed her frazzled red hair back and nodded. "Alright. Settle up on the couch and let me get these damn dishes done. Then we'll watch some TV until your Nan gets back. She's bringing medicine and one of her famous old dwarven remedies."

As he spoke, he steered her gently towards the old, battered sofa. She collapsed onto it gratefully, her lungs aching for breath. Still, she managed a weak smile back up at the lined, handsome face watching her so closely. "Serves me right for being sick."

"That's my girl." He rested one large hand on top of her head for a too-brief second before he dropped it away, returning to the sink. Maria slumped into the sofa, stretching out and resting her head on her folded arms. From behind her, she heard the water begin running again. Her weary gaze rested on the book on the coffee table, the title emblazoned proudly on its spine.

Tale of the Champion.

It sent a jolt through her. She blinked, once, twice, the words blurring. Tale of the Champion, tale of the champion, tale of…

Her addled brain focused on the book again. The letters rearranged themselves into something else, Adventures of the Black Fox, and yes, that made more sense. That was what she was reading for school, and she was probably behind on her work, she should…

She closed her eyes instead, trying to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach. Something inside her continued to whisper that something was wrong, something was very wrong. But it was only because she was ill. It would be fine. She would be fine, Dad and Nan would take care of her just like they always did.

xx

"Twenty minutes wasn't enough time to say goodbye, The Iron Bull." Cole had been mercifully, blissfully silent for so long Varric almost hoped the danger of him plucking their horrid, heavy sadness out of the air had passed.

Apparently, it hadn't. Varric trudged forward regardless, trying to follow in the path forged by the humans and the qunari in front of him. It was slow work, particularly dragging their meager supplies and their wounded. They wouldn't make it much farther before darkness fell, not nearly far enough to put some comfortable distance between them and what was left of Haven.

"I know." Bull grunted. "It was all I could get. She deserved more. They both did."

"The tomb is dark. Tall. Too tall for dwarves. She's a shadow, more wisp than woman, but she ignores the man with the dangerous scowl and his expensive suit. Arms full of lilies. White against red, innocence and blood. The plaques gleam golden and she searches, searches…"

"It was at the end of the row." Bull growled. "Hidden in the corner by the fucking fat dathrasi."

"Where they wouldn't have to think of him." Cole agreed. "But she never stops thinking about him. Fingers trace the name, beloved, brilliant, breathtaking. She trembles in the dark and presses her forehead against the marble. She asked him to forgive her, but he couldn't hear her in the stone."

"Cole…" Varric pinched his nose, trying to banish the picture from his mind. A broken hearted young woman in an ostentatious mausoleum, the kind his own parents and brother were buried in, silent and bowed with grief. He didn't think anything could be worse than picturing her clawing at the mountain that buried her or screaming while a monster ripped her to pieces, and he wasn't thrilled to be proven wrong about that. "This… this isn't helping."

"It's alright Varric." Bull's one good eye fixed on the kid trudging between them. "You're a spirit, Cole?"

"Yes. Not a demon. Not like what they warned you about. I help. Like she does." Cole stopped, stumbled over himself, eyes widening and swimming with emotions. "Did." He corrected quietly.

"They together?" Bull asked grimly. "Wherever they are - did those two find each other again?"

"He was always with her. The ink was a promise, straight and narrow, she said she'd never go back, only forward. She didn't want to break it, but there were other promises, older ones. Still she couldn't forget, she traces his name into her skin and he's always there."

Varric choked on his own pain. He conjured her ghost at the piano, his fury breaking over her sorrow, her fingers tracing that little tattoo. The last bit of the man she loved, the last ounce of him she had left. He hunched his shoulders defensively, cursing himself for an idiot.

"Fynn wouldn't have left her to die." Bea's raspy, choked voice came from somewhere behind them. "Not like we did."

And there was the dagger in his back, twisted just right to cut out whatever bleeding chunks of him were still nearly intact. He knew Bea didn't mean to. Knew she meant it just as much for herself. But it hadn't been Bea's fault. She was a fucking dancer for fuck's sake, what was she supposed to do against an army of monsters?

The army he made. The poison he found in their veins. His actions, but he hadn't paid the price.

He stopped and turned around to meet Bea's red-rimmed eyes. They sparkled so much like her sister's, a stunning match in a world full of pale imitations. Bea would never be able to look in a mirror again without seeing her lost sibling, the same way he couldn't see his own beard growing out without seeing Bartrand.

She'd only feel grief, he hoped. None of his venomous anger.

"We were supposed to be safe." Cole whispered softly. "We left callous, bruising hands in Ostwick. Eyes glisten, she pushes her hair out of her face. We're not going back. We're never going back. We were free. We were free."

Until they met a monster she couldn't survive, one he unleashed.

Bea shivered in the icy wind and pulled her thin coat tighter around her form. Made more for style than substance, she'd be lucky if she wasn't the first one to freeze to death on this march into nowhere.

Varric couldn't bear burying those eyes one more time. He needed there to be this, if nothing else, one last trace of Maria Cadash in the world to remind him it hadn't all been a fever dream. One haunting reminder he could force himself to look at while remembering that he'd caused this. His selfishness. His greed. It wouldn't be redemption, but it would be better than nothing.

Varric shrugged out of his thicker coat and held it out, a silent offering. Bea stared at it wordlessly for a second before flicking her eyes up to him, voice small and brittle. "She's not here to impress anymore, Tethras."

But if he ever met her again, in the stone or at Andraste's side, he could say he tried to keep Bea safe. "I know. Take it anyway."

xx

The clink of a mug on a wooden surface made her eyes open again and she shivered in spite of herself. A brisk tut greeted her feeble moan and she felt warm, wrinkled silk fingers on her forehead. From far away, she thought she could hear the gentle chime of a piano, chords trembling in the air before fading. She opened her mouth and breathed out a name. "Fynn?"

"Just me, miri ghel." Zarra Cadash clucked, the old dwarven words falling from her tongue as effortlessly as rain from the sky. She felt like she hadn't heard them said so softly for such a long time. Zarra tucked a piece of hair behind Maria's ear and sighed, settling onto the arm of the couch.

Fynn. Who was Fynn? Why had she thought…

"If you're not in the frying pan, Maria, you're in the fire." Zarra muttered. "What are we going to do with you?"

Maria looked up into the well worn face gently examining her. She fought the burn in her throat and tried to force something out of her lips, but it hurt, it hurt to breathe and she was so cold, freezing despite the warmth of the apartment…

"Hush." Zarra cautioned. "Save your strength, you'll need it."

It was easy to listen to her, easy to relax back into the cushions with a shiver. Zarra's hands stroked her hair, threading through the strands.

She flinched away, afraid of the inevitable tangle of a brute fist, the sharp tug to reveal her neck, his filthy voice in her ear. As soon as the thought appeared, it evaporated, leaving Maria dizzy. Zarra stopped immediately and released an old, bone weary sigh.

"I'm sorry." Maria apologized weakly, trying to prop herself up on her elbow. "I'm sorry, I…"

"It is not your fault." Zarra soothed softly, standing and making her way over to the stuffed armchair where she always settled. "I hope someday he meets the monster he has made."

She didn't understand the words, like they too were in their old mother tongue, but the cadence of them set her at ease. She laid back down on the sofa and Zarra opened her crossword book, untucking a pen from behind her ear. Maria listened to her own rattled breath, shivering despite herself, as Zarra tapped the pen against the book impatiently.

Maria's palm buzzed and ached, itched and burned. She brought it to her eyes, pushing back the long blue sleeve to reveal her own fingers. Nails bitten down to the quick, scratched and bloody but from what she didn't know. She slowly drew the sleeve lower, turning her wrist to stare into her palm.

There was a burn throbbing in her palm, a great circle with curling, almost graceful, lines arcing from the center. It looked like the sun. She frowned, both bewildered and afraid.

"What's a seven letter word for the most revered among dwarves?" Zarra asked, the question thudding in the silence like the burn on Maria's hand was of no consequence.

"Paragon." Maria answered numbly, curling and uncurling her fingers. She thought she saw flickers of pale gold light beneath her skin, but she couldn't be sure. "But there hasn't been any since our ancestors fled to the surface two hundred years ago."

Zarra looked more satisfied than a cat that swallowed the canary whole. She beamed slowly at Maria, face lighting up. "I am not so sure of that, miri ghel."

She meant to argue, to ask what exactly her grandmother meant by that, but instead her bleary vision caught on the book on the table again. It still had the correct title, Adventures of the Black Fox, but the cover was wrong. Black with a red bird rising, and in between the pages…

Maria's trembling fingers reached out and pulled the card free, flipped it over to stare at it. Two figures intertwined, laughing, in love, the world at their feet.

The Lovers.

And just like that, the scene around her froze. Buzzing filled her head. The card fell from her fingertips into the vast darkness.

She cried out, but nobody heard her.

xx

They stopped with just enough daylight left to put up some kind of makeshift camp. Unstable shelters made of little more than tarp and string, held together with prayers more than anything else, didn't do much to keep the wind out. Someone built up great big fires, beacons in the night if anyone was looking for them, but the other option was freezing to death. At least the dragon would be quicker.

Although Varric supposed there was something to be said for being at once blazing hot and cold as ice. He mopped at the sweat on his brow and turned his back to the flames while he fucked around with the phone in his hand.

"Bianca did you try resetting…" He began tersely.

"Resetting is impossible considering that would require some services working to begin with."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and toyed with the idea of throwing his earpiece into the fire. Instead, he grit out through his teeth another question. "What haven't we tried?"

"Signal boosting in your area may allow me to connect to a signal." Bianca suggested cheerfully enough. "If you can obtain any other mobile devices…"

"Would you like me to pull these out of my ass?" He asked grimly.

"If they can be found in that section of your anatomy." She replied smoothly in his ear. "I would recommend immediate sanitation upon removal."

Internally, Varric descended into a blistering torrent of cursing.

"What do you need?" Bea's voice cut through his thoughts and pulled him back to the blighted mountainside.

He needed the real Bianca because she was probably the only one who could fix this mess, but when he turned to tell Bea that the words died in his throat. Maria's eyes stared out of her face and Varric couldn't utter Bianca's name in front of them. Not now. Hell, maybe not ever. Another surge of guilt poured through him and he ripped his eyes back down to the device in his hand.

"I need to boost our signal here. If we've got enough phones, I may be able to make our own network and connect to the satellite. Maybe."

If they were lucky, which of course had yet to happen. But Bea nodded, just once, and pressed a smashed granola bar into his other hand. "Mine's dead. But I'll start asking."

"They're not going to give them up." Varric advised with a tight frown. "It's all most of these people carried out of Haven."

"I've got to do something." She lifted her chin up, both fierce and determined, and for a second she looked so much like her sister tears pricked Varric's eyes. Then she took off, splitting through the crowd.

If anyone could get them to give up their only lifelines, maybe Bea Cadash with her haunted gray eyes could. They all owed Maria their lives, after all. Maybe they could start repaying the debt to her sister.

He was so busy watching her vanish in the growing darkness, he almost missed the Seeker's form striding towards him. A vein in Cassandra's temple throbbed but her voice was steely with command. "We are still blind?"

"As baby nugs." Varric confirmed. "Trying my best over here, Seeker."

"I thought perhaps you would join me." Cassandra's frown deepened even as she spoke, eyes restlessly scanning the gathering darkness. "I am going to retrace our steps to search for survivors."

Survivors. Her. But they couldn't say her name, not out loud, not anymore. It was like ripping the stitches out of a fresh wound. The pain settled low in his stomach with his helplessness, his exhaustion, the fucking hopelessness of their whole situation. He looked down at the bright rectangle of light in his palm and frowned. "You're wasting your time, Seeker."

"Perhaps if anyone could have survived, she…"

Cassandra's words only caused two things. A jarring spike of pain through both his heart and head and a red haze of fury. "Let me guess. The Maker saved her." He spat self-righteously. "The same one that let a fucking dragon kill a hundred people. Where was your Maker then, Seeker?"

Cassandra's jaw tensed and she glared down her nose at him like he was scum on the bottom of her boot. "I do not know." She snapped. "But I know where my herald was. And I owe it to her to…"

"Because we killed her." The confession tasted bitter and venomous on his tongue. "Me and the fucking red lyrium. You and your damn holy war."

Cassandra's face flushed beet red. "She fought bravely to the bitter end, and all you can do is make her a victim of fate. You are no knight errant, Varric. It does not suit you to play one."

He was no knight errant. Cassandra's statement cleaved too close to the truth, and that cut him deeper than he wanted to admit, so he lashed out in turn. "You left her to die."

So had he, though. They all had. He expected that the grief darkening Cassandra's face would feel righteous, feel like vindicated justice, but instead all it did was redouble his own agony. His breath came, sharp and twisted in his chest, and he half hoped Cassandra would slug him.

Instead, she simply drew herself up to her full height. "I thought you cared for her. I see I was mistaken."

With that, the Seeker twisted her form and strode away as fast as she came, a storm scattering everyone in her path. Varric watched her go, heartsick with impotent rage. Not at her. Not even at the demons and wars that broke down on their heads.

He had cared for Maria. He had believed in her and he had let her down. The only one he could be rightfully angry with was himself.

xx

She woke up again, but this time, she was alone in the dark. The only thing Maria heard was her own rattling, scratching breath heaving from her lungs with so much effort she could barely think. Every inch of her body ached, bruised and battered, protesting as she rolled from her back onto her side. Bright, agonized pain burst to life in her chest, but the sound she made was choked, weak.

She coughed, trying to ease the unbearable pressure in her chest. It turned out to be a massive mistake. A garbled screech rang in the room and something dark splattered onto the dirt and snow beneath her. Maria touched trembling fingers to her lips and brushed the rest of the blood from her mouth. Her stomach revolted with the taste of iron, but she breathed through the nausea.

Cold. It was so damn cold. She couldn't see anything in the oppressive blackness pressing down on top of her. Her limbs shook as she pushed herself from the ground, the rubble and snow beneath her.

Her voice was little more than a rasp, but she called out anyway. "Help."

Her word echoed back both mocking and hollow, sending chills down her spine.

She was alone. She was completely alone and improbably alive. Injured, terribly injured it seemed, but alive. Her head spun with the sheer impossibility of it.

For now, she survived. Until she froze to death or bled out.

She had to move. She pressed the palm of her hand down to push herself up and nearly screamed again at the bright burst of pain. Her right palm burned so fiercely that she could only clench her fingers tight against it. She lifted her fist to her chest and slowly unfurled them, trying to examine her own skin in the murky darkness.

Something glowed in her palm, a pulse of light, sparks dancing in her veins like gold. It cast dim yellow light in a hazy circle around her even as it seared her skin. Despite the pain, she was so thankful for the light in the darkness she nearly descended into sobs.

If she burned her fingers holding the sun, well, it was better than suffocating in the dark.

She left her right hand unclenched and pushed herself up on her shaking left arm. The world spun while she staggered upright. She doubled over, her chest protesting the movement, struggling to catch her breath.

Ribs were broken, a clinical part of her insisted. At least one, at any rate, maybe more. She'd lived through broken ribs before, that would be fine. It was the shortness of breath, the crackling sound of her lungs, the blood in her mouth, that drew more concern.

That and the way the whole caverned shimmered and spun. Maybe a concussion could be expected when an entire mountain fell on her head, but all Maria could think was that if she couldn't plan clearly, if she couldn't breathe, if she couldn't walk…

She'd die. She'd die buried under the mountain, choking just like her ancestors had.

The fear of that caused her to stagger forward slowly, painfully. Each step sent knives digging deeper into her chest, each footfall drew helpless little whimpers from deep inside her no matter how she tried to choke them down. She wanted to scream again into the dark, ask if anyone was there, if anyone could hear her.

She knew they couldn't. She knew nobody was there. Nobody was coming to help her.

So she did the only thing he knew how to do. She dragged her beaten, battered form forward into the dark.

The tunnels dragged on, sloping upwards, dark and wet. She thought she saw the remnants of old wooden beams lining them, and spared a moment to wonder if these were built by humans mining the mountain or by dwarves linking their homes.

She thought humans, but she wouldn't know either way really. It was only her meager attempt to distract herself. She was so tired, her chest ached like she'd swallowed a ball of fire, and all she wanted was to lay down.

But she thought if she went back to sleep, she'd never wake up again.

At least Nanna and Dad were waiting there for her. Maybe if she slept, she'd see Fynn too.

Promise you'll come find us.

Bea had asked, though, and she had promised. Could she really break one more promise to her sister?

She was trying, Maria thought wearily. She was trying her damnedest but the path was so dark she could barely make it out in the dimming light of her palm. Each heartbeat seemed a bit unsteady, causing her vision to blur and shake.

But she thought she could smell something fresh and clean through the dirt. Thought she could feel the wind on her face. Pine trees. The cold, pristine scent of fresh snow. She stumbled through the abyss and felt the wind whip against her face, brisk and unforgiving. Maria cast her eyes up and saw the stars.

The blurring wasn't just her unsteady heartbeat. It was tears of sheer, unfathomable relief. At least if she died, she'd die up here, die with the starlight on her face and the unsullied air of the mountains in her barely functioning lungs. The wind blew away her horror even as she shuddered in the cold. She didn't need the dim glow of her hand, not when the stars shone above her, so she shoved the numb fingers into her coat pockets.

Her stomach rolled as she grasped something at once unfamiliar and completely familiar in the pocket. She withdrew the slim rectangle and stared at it in confusion. She'd left her phone on the counter. It hadn't been charged, but it was showing nearly a full battery and it was here in her pocket, just like magic.

You can't lose this beauty. If I walked out of the room without it, I'd find it in my pocket ten minutes later.

She called bullshit and chalked it up to Varric being Varric, but if he hadn't been lying, if he…

Maker's breath she'd kiss him if she ever saw him again.

She fumbled with the lock screen, but it took her thumbprint, eventually, and opened up to reveal all her installed apps, like it was a normal day and she wasn't lost and alone at the mouth of a cave somewhere in the fucking mountains. Like she may want to instagram this. Like she wasn't dying, choking on her own blood, stumbling blindly towards help that may or may not be there. How was she to know anyone had escaped? If the dragon had found them…

She couldn't think like that. She couldn't.

The signal strength on her phone barely existed, a sputtering one bar that seemed to reappear and vanish with every jagged beat of her heart. But she had to try. She had to…

She opened the contacts and scrolled to nearly the very first name, tapping it and bringing the cold device up to her numb ear. It seemed to take forever to connect, but it never rang. Instead, a brittle, robotic voice began to speak. The sounds disjointed and nearly incomprehensible.

"-umber you have - out ser - pl -"

She swore and hit the disconnect button, fighting the urge to throw the device down the damn mountain. She pulled it back from her ear and stared at the bright rectangle of light, trembling as she tried to navigate her contacts, thinking that Varric's phone was always on, and if she had some signal surely he…

She stopped, Bull's name under her shivering thumb. Bull, wounded and bleeding, collapsed and dying because of her. Bull, who never abandoned her, no matter how hard she pushed him away, no matter…

She'd been in the holding cell for three days, which was unusual. Nobody had come telling her what exactly she was being charged with or offering to read her rights to her and call a lawyer. She hadn't even ended up with some pro bono ass who couldn't even shave telling her, earnestly, that her best bet was to plea out and go to rehab for the drugs she definitely had to be on to keep ending up in these situations.

The peace and quiet was kinda nice. The fact that Bea had to be home alone, worried sick, was less so. She tried to ask for a phone call, but nobody wanted to speak to her.

Unsurprisingly, the cops at the station never could quite meet her eyes, too many of them remembered dad. Too many of them remembered her the way she'd been before.

That was the worst part. She didn't care about going to jail over a damn bar brawl, she was old enough to know life wasn't fair, but she wanted out of this damn station before she choked on the guilt.

Of course, before that could happen, the universe had to shove him through the door.

She heard him before she saw him, but she didn't move from the wooden bunk. Didn't open her eyes or sit up. She'd recognize the way he moved for the rest of her life, the huge strides he took, the weight of his body in each footfall, the way he favored his right side ever so slightly.

"Hell of a ride tracking you down this time, boss." Bull's warm, graveled voice floated through the bars and Maria squeezed her eyes shut tighter. "Little B knew you got picked up in a bar fight, but there's no records of you getting processed in any of the systems. Been combing every station in this city."

Well, that was even more interesting, but besides the point. "Sorry to waste your time. I'm alright, they'll let me out eventually."

They always did. Guilt on their part, she thought. When Maria got picked up, she never got picked up for long.

"You could have called."

Here they went again. Bull's wounded pride, her wounded heart. She brought her fist to her eyes and rubbed them briskly.

"I figured I'd give Krem a call when I got charged." She answered dully. "I was just waiting."

"Who started the brawl?"

Maria didn't answer. She honestly wasn't entirely certain of the answer. She'd been left to her own devices at the bar, blissfully free of the heavy pressure of Dwyka's hand on her back while he vanished into the seedy hidden rooms behind it. She'd been minding her own damn business when the punches started flying. Wouldn't have bothered getting involved at all except she got caught in the middle of it.

Bull didn't pursue her stony silence, but he didn't let it rest either. "Do you know what we thought when we couldn't find out where you were booked?"

"I can imagine."

"Krem's looking at the morgues. Figured Dwyka finally put a bullet in your brain." Former special ops he may have been, but even Bull couldn't hide the bitter pain in that sentence. "All because you won't fight him and you won't let us do it for you."

She shouldn't have looked, but she did anyway. She pushed herself up off the bunk and stared at the giant form outside her cell. Bull rested his great horned head against the bars, fist clenched tightly and eyes closed as well.

She couldn't tell him. She couldn't because it would ruin his career and he worked so damn hard to carve a life for his own here, one free of blood and war. She'd ruined enough lives as it was.

"You should go." She said instead. "I don't need your help."

Bull looked for a moment like he may lose his tight control and a part of her almost wished he would. Maybe then she could stop living these agonized moments where he tried to convince her to save herself, or if she wouldn't to just let him…

"Alright, boss." He gave in with a weary sigh. "Just remember, I'm here if you need me. You can call whenever you want, and it doesn't matter what that piece of shit does or says, okay?"

She could call Bull. He always wanted her to call when she was in trouble, and she never did. Now he was probably dead and it was probably her fault and all she wanted to do was say she was fucking sorry for all the times she told him to go away.

She tapped on his name and waited.

She didn't expect him to answer.

"Boss?" He sounded so far away, but his voice was clear, sharp, not fading from blood loss, not a half garbled grunt. She nearly sank to the ground in relief, but she didn't answer him. Not until he called out a second time, the phone crackling in her ear. "Boss!"

"I'm sorry." She needed to get that out, if it was the last thing she said she needed to apologize. "I'm sorry, I should have called, I should have…"

"-alright." His voice cut out, but it was there, a lifeline in the darkness. "-ere are you?"

"I don't know." She admitted. "I don't know. Is Bea with you, is she safe, is she…"

It was too much. Too much talking and her body revolted. For a terrifying, dizzying moment she couldn't catch her breath at all. Coughs racked her form so hard she nearly dropped the phone from shaking fingers, dark splashes dotting the snow around her.

"-hurt." Bull's voice mumbled. "How bad?"

"Bad." She croaked weakly. "Bea…"

"Fine, boss." Bull tried to reassure. "-re fine. You di-"

She lost him completely for a moment. The thought of it sent her into a blind panic. "Bull?" She called.

"I'm here."

He was always there. She choked on the sobs that threatened to overtake her. "I need help." She admitted softly.

"-ay with us." Bull soothed briskly. "Coming to fin-"

The phone beeped sharply once, twice. Maria pulled it away from her ear and looked at the blinking corner where the bar had been, one that showed nothing more than a circle with a line through it.

She waited, anxiously hoping it would reappear, that it would ring, that she wouldn't be left alone again in the blackness. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket and looked out into the endless night. They'd never find her, not one dwarf alone in the dark. She needed to find them, she needed…

She needed to keep fighting. Just a bit longer.

xx

Harding shook her head and sighed. "I don't know. That message may have gone through."

It may have. But it probably didn't. Varric could barely get a wavering signal to last for ten minutes. They'd all starve and freeze to death before he got any sort of worthwhile communication going at all. He couldn't get a large enough map downloaded, only a small circle of the surrounding areas where Haven used to be. Couldn't call, couldn't text, couldn't even listen to his own voicemails, and he had several, most of them from Hawke, two from Bianca. All of them disjointed, incomprehensible things.

He tried one of the voicemails again, one of Hawke's. He knew he couldn't… he couldn't listen to Bianca's voice. Not now. Not with Maria's touch still seared on his skin.

"-arric!" Hawke's recorded voice started in his earpiece. "-vived, I know. -crazy. You've go-"
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, tapped away from the app on his phone and stared down at it with a frown.

"I heard Little B was looking for phones for you." Bull's rough voice grumbled from behind him. "But I can't find her."

Bull thrust out a sleek phone, a model Varric recognized, one of Rogue Tech's newer ones. What jarred him, temporarily, from his frustration was the case Bull used. It was a very shiny, very bright, very iridescent pink.

"Pretty, huh?" Bull asked.

"It's pink." Varric stated dumbly, unable to help himself.

"It's pretty."

Well, he couldn't argue that point. He took the device with a brisk shake of his head and opened the menu, searching for the settings. While he did that Bull looked out into the darkness surrounding them. "Cassandra's back. She didn't find anything."

Varric knew she wouldn't so he tried to hide the pang of disappointment that echoed with his guilt and grief. He was being unfair, really, and a selfish ass. He could see the weight of sorrow barely veiled on Bull's features. The other man had known her longer, after all. Varric managed to make the words come out, almost smooth. "How are you holding up?"

Bull sighed. "I've been prepping to plan her funeral for years. Let myself believe I wouldn't have to for a minute. So… that's a real punch in the gut."

The understatement of the year. "Dwyka?" Varric asked quietly.

"Bastard." Bull growled. "Would have given my other eye to get her away from him. Away from the Carta. Out of Ostwick. The universe does it for me and then…"

"A dragon, an army, and a demon." Varric's red lyrium. The war Varric's old friend started. He sighed, tapping on Bull's phone and setting it on their makeshift table next to the rest. "Bianca, link up that one. See what happens."

Maria was dead. And it didn't matter, but it did. He turned his back on Harding and focused his full attention on the hulking qunari looming over them. "Why? Why didn't she leave?"

The facts of Maria's life, up to a point, were abundantly clear. A path that veered straight into tragedy like he'd written it himself. Her father's suicide. Her entrance into the Carta. Her grandmother's death. Her runaway romance with a rich boy. His eventual murder and her trial for the crime.

That, at least, all made some kind of sense. It was the return to the Carta that he never understood. But he saw Bull's fury flicker to the surface and knew he wouldn't get an answer from him either. "He had something on her. Fuck if I knew what it was, but he had some kind of information, something she never shared with me. Couldn't ever figure it out. Couldn't get it out of Bea either."

"Varric, I thought I saw something go for a minute." Harding's voice leapt with excitement, breaking the tension. Varric turned to her with a weak almost smile.

"And here I thought we'd be in the dark forever." Varric mumbled.

"You holding up?" Bull asked.

Varric honestly hadn't expected the question to get turned on him, not by Bull. He looked up again and shrugged helplessly. "I'll live."

He'd live with her lips burned onto his, live with her ghost tantalizingly out of reach. Live with the knowledge she'd been almost-free, almost-safe, but he'd been the bigger threat in the end than any gangster in the Free Marches. "I didn't know her like you did."

In the end, he didn't get to grieve like her family did. She was an almost, one more in a life full of them, and she always would be. But Varric was an author, he dealt and traded in almosts and fantasies. In his head, he could spin a story where Maria vanquished the dragon, where he didn't leave her, where she lived.

The buzzing vibration of Bull's phone tore another one of those nearly adorable squeaks from Harding, followed by a muffled shout of victory. Bull's phone screen lit up blue, a call coming through. The network must have been somewhat functional, then, although he doubted they'd be able to carry on an audio conversation with…

A complex guitar chord broke the silence, bright and bold, followed by a man crooning through Bull's phone speakers. "Maria, Maria…. She reminds me of a west side story…"

Almost as soon as the music started, the picture flashed on the screen. An old photo, he guessed, but it depicted a younger Maria perched on top of a low wall next to a slender human man. The clean shaven figure grinned almostly shyly and her lips were pressed to his cheek. The man had a graduation cap clutched in his hands.

The name flashing beneath the photo was only one word, 'Boss.'

"What the fuck…" Varric's mind veered off in a thousand different directions. Maria had an old phone, an old number, Bull never changed it. That was it. Someone else was calling from Maria's old phone the one…

The one that melted in the vortex when she stumbled out of it.

But it couldn't be Maria's actual phone calling, because it was buried in Haven with Maria, and that would be…

Bull moved quicker than Varric did, picking the phone up and sliding to accept the call. He hit the speakerphone button as both he and Harding stared, agog, at the device in his big hands. "Boss?" Bull greeted with a rumble.

Nothing. Nothing but crackling silence on the other end. They'd been called by a ghost, the ghost of the woman they abandoned in Haven, hounding and haunting them.

"Boss!" Bull's voice cracked. Varric could hear the yawning desperation under it.

"Sorry." A small, weak voice whispered through the speakers. She sounded exhausted, she sounded like she was drowning, she sounded…

"I'm sorry." She whispered hoarsely. "-ave called, I -"

She sounded alive and that was the one damn thing Varric Tethras hadn't been prepared for. The one thing that hit him harder than anything else could.

"Listen to me, it's alright." Bull rumbled, one gleaming eye boring into Varric's face. "It's alright. Where are you?"

Varric's fingers moved before his brain finished comprehending that she was calling. A part of him trembled, breathless with hope, even as he barked out an order. "Harding, keep an eye on that network connection. We've got to keep it stable as long as we can."

"Don't kno-" Maria's voice cut in and out of Bull's phone. "Be-"

The racking, agonized fit of coughing that crackled through the speakers made his heart stutter fearfully. That sounded… bad. That sounded really bad.

Bull jumped right to the point too. "That sounded like it hurt. How bad?"

If she answered, it didn't come through. It didn't need to. Varric could hear the way her voice trembled on the next word. "Bea…"

"Keep her talking." Varric directed tersely. They needed to keep the line open, keep Maria on it, as long as they possibly could. "Bianca, I need a trace on that call."

"Signal is…"

"She's fine, Boss." Bull reassured immediately over top of the AI in his ear. "We're fine. You did it, you know. You did… you were amazing. Always knew you were. Thought I wouldn't get the chance to tell you."

"I know the signal is shit." Varric hissed. "I need a trace and I need those maps of the tunnels again."

"Bull!" A momentary, jarring hiss of panic from the woman on the line.

"I'm here." Bull's grip tightened on the phone and he ducked his head. "Keep it together, boss."

"Tracing the signal will use network resources supporting the call and drain the battery of the devices supporting…"

"Do it quick then, baby." Varric nearly begged.

"I need-" Maria's voice cut out again. Varric saw the maps flash on the tablet.

"Varric, we're losing…" Harding's own voice rose in panic.

"Stay with us, Boss." Bull's one eye trained on the maps as well, watching as they zoomed in closer and closer to the mountainside. "You've just gotta stay with us. We're coming to find you, I swear. I'll get you out of this. Keep your head and-"

The screen flickered, a harsh beeping the only sound, the light blinking in and out, the disconnected button flashing. The picture of Maria and the unknown man stayed for only another moment before it vanished as well. Bull cursed in the heavy, rough language of the Qunari before he turned his ire on Varric. "Tell me you can find her."

"I can narrow it down to a two mile radius." Bianca advised.

Varric could narrow it down further. He was almost certain he could. "Get the Seeker. Cole. One of the witches. Fuck, get all of the witches. Sparkler's damn bird too."

Bull took off faster than a man of his size ought to be able to move, particularly one who'd been shot several times in the last twenty-four hours. "Show me your trace area." He directed the AI. Harding crowded over her shoulder, whistling through her teeth as Bianca illuminated a red circle in the mountain terrain.

"That's a lot of area to search." Harding murmured. "And the network is down again, I don't know how long it'll take…"

She shouldn't have survived, and if she had… well, she clearly didn't dig her way out of an avalanche. Nobody could. But if she fell into the old mining tunnels in the chaos… It would have been a nasty tumble. If anyone could walk away from it, however, apparently Maria could.

He layered the maps over top of the search area. "Bianca, mark the exits."

He sent a silent prayer to the Maker he didn't quite believe in. Then watched one, just one, pristine red dot appear to the southwest quadrant of their search area.

They could save her. They could save her. He hadn't failed her yet.

xx

Maria's hazy, injured, oxygen starved brain shouted at her to keep going. Stopping now would mean death, frozen in the mountains she'd thought so pretty and clean. It would be game over.

It would all be over. Blissfully over. No more pain, no more suffering, no more constant weight on her shoulders. Bea. Cole. Bull. The Inquisition. The demons and red templars. They wouldn't be her problem any longer. They'd all have to go on without her.

Her body protested as she slipped and stumbled, face first, into another snow bank. Her agonized wail of pain was barely audible over the sound of the wind. Maybe she didn't make a sound at all. If there was no one to hear a tree falling in the woods, did it even really happen? Had any of this really happened?

She pushed herself up again. And again. And again. Her fingers shook but she couldn't feel them. The blood that stained the snow around her crimson was just an interesting side note.

She wondered if this was how her father felt when he held the gun to his temple, alone in his room, his girls at school, the word "pig" spray painted on their apartment door and the crowd outside baying for his blood?

Had it felt so heavy for him too? So easy to put it all down?

She stumbled one last time and darkness clouded the edges of her vision. Her heartbeat throbbed painfully and she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't…

Fingers curled around her shoulders. Too hard, too painful, digging into sore muscles even as she protested, even as she tried to fight off whatever new hell she'd stumbled into. They were a person's hands, a person's voice, but she couldn't understand any of it. She shoved against solid bulk, blind in the dark, the agony under her skin singing as she struggled weakly against the person caging her. Fingers curled around her wrists and she knew. She knew.

It was Dwyka. He'd found her, somehow, in the snow. Found her so he could be the one to finally kill her, or worse, force her to keep living, force her back to Ostwick, back into…

"Maria, stop." A voice, too rough with emotion, pleaded in her ear. "It's just me. It's just me, we're gonna take care of you, baby. I won't hurt you, I won't ever hurt you, Maria…"

A bird cawed, high and bright in the sky. A spark jumped to life inside her, and she tried to say his name, but it came out an unrecognizable noise instead. The hands that tried to push him away clutched into his shirt instead, numb fingers aching as she twisted them tighter.

"Varric!" Someone yelled in the distance.

"Here! I've got her!" He shouted back, arms wrapping tight around her, his lips pressing against her temple as he pushed back stiff, blood soaked hair from her face. "I've got you. I've got you." He murmured softly.

"Thank the Maker." It was Cassandra, she was here too. Then there were other threads of voices, words she couldn't make out, a bubble of noise converging on her. Shouted orders, a human's broad arms gently prying her from Varric to hoist her into the air. The pain took her breath away, the darkness swirled closer, but the last thing she heard was Bull, his voice warm and suffused with pride, before the blackness claimed her.

"Welcome back, boss."