beta-read by brightspot149. Thank you!
Ciri spotted the sails first, deep red and triangular, bold against the gray rocks and muted greenery that surrounded the Dalish camp. Then she heard voices calling to one another in Mihris' lilting accent over the soft rushing sound of the stream, the words a mix of Common and Elven. As she drew closer, she could hear the faint bleating of some sort of animal and could see people bustling about. Over the smell of the stream's muddy banks, the air carried the scents of woodsmoke, leather, resins, and herbs their way.
The striking red sails were connected to wheeled wagons painted with red and white designs – aravels, she reminded herself. It wouldn't do to make a poor first impression and misname their transportation.
Mahanon beckoned from the stream's edge. "We ford here, where it's shallowest."
Ciri looked across. The activity continued without pause in the camp, though eyes darted toward them surreptitiously. An older elven man in fine, pale green robes watched with his arms crossed, his face still and stern.
She followed in Mahanon's footsteps, unable to keep from making a face as the cold water flowed over the tops of her boots to soak her stockings. Solas, Olgierd, Dorian, and Sera followed behind, with Mihris bringing up the rear.
Mahanon led her to the stern older elf. "Keeper Hawen," he said respectfully, "This is the Inquisitor."
"Inquisitor Morhen." The lines in his face deepened as he frowned. "An'daran atish'an. Be welcome in our camp. Mihris and Mahanon speak well of you and your Inquisition."
"'Ma serannas," Ciri said with a polite nod. "It's gracious of you to allow all of us into your camp, and I can see you'd rather we were elsewhere. We'll do our best to help, and then we'll be on our way."
"We have a troubled history with the shemlen," Keeper Hawen said, "as Mihris has told us you are aware." His eyes were hard as he looked over Olgierd and Dorian, though they softened slightly when they landed on Solas and Sera. "Our city elf kin are always welcome. We aren't a clan who would turn away those unfortunate enough to be born to the alienages."
Sera snorted rudely, and Keeper Hawen stiffened.
"As for you," he continued, his frown deepening. "We have heard the rumors. All of them. The one your Inquisition claims is true is the cruelest cut. We are the last of the Elvhen, descended from the noble families who ruled the Dales. If one of the Elvhen woke to this world, why would she seek out a shemlen? We were her people."
"Perhaps she did, and you turned her away," Solas said, his voice unreadable. "Would the Dalish recognize the Elvhen they so revere if one appeared before them now?"
Keeper Hawen's brows knitted together as he looked past Ciri at Solas. "The Elvhen were powerful beyond any mortal and possessed wisdom lost for thousands of years. We would know them at once and welcome them as kin and forebear."
Solas didn't answer. Ciri turned to see him tuck away a small, amused smile, his face smooth and blandly disinterested once more.
Ass, Ciri thought in irritation. She looked back at Keeper Hawen and sighed. "I'm sorry that my ancestry brings you pain or causes offense, Keeper. If I could relive that day I told the advisors and ask them to keep it a secret, I would."
He shook his head. "No. Do not let our pain and confusion make you wish to hide something you should take pride in. You may be a shemlen, but perhaps you may call us your people as well someday. In time."
"That's kind of you." Ciri held up a battered journal and extended it toward the keeper. "We have word of Emalien's brother, Valorin. I'm afraid it's not good news."
"Ah, Valorin." He reached out and pushed the journal gently back. "Emalien has been worried for days. At least she'll have closure. Such misfortune has plagued our clan since we came to the Dirth this year. These soldiers dig ditches that trip our halla and break the wheels on our aravels. Taven disappeared to the Emerald Graves chasing rumors, abandoning the clan when we need him most. And until Mahanon and Mihris came, we couldn't visit our dead in Var Bellanaris. I tell you, Inquisitor, Fen'Harel stalks these lands."
Ciri vaguely remembered the name from a dream. "Fen'Harel…that's your betrayer god."
"Oh, don't," Sera complained. "Don't get interested in the elfy religion."
"It's your religion, too, da'len," Keeper Hawen said to Sera.
"'S not," Sera retorted. "There's the Maker, and there's Andraste. I know wot's right."
Keeper Hawen looked at her for a long, silent moment, his eyes full of sadness. Ciri glanced at Solas and saw him watching both the keeper and Sera with a nearly identical expression before he saw her looking and tipped his head at her, sadness falling away.
"Emalien is over there," Hawen said, pointing deeper into the camp. "I'll ask that your shemlen companions not wander without one of the People accompanying them, Dalish or bare-faced. We'll make an exception for you."
"We understand," Olgierd said with a shallow bow. "There's naught I can say to ease your fears. But we'll follow your edicts to the letter."
"Time will tell if your words are empty," Keeper Hawen said. "Mahanon, Mihris, please introduce them to Emalien."
Ciri followed Mahanon and Mihris away from the stream's edge, past campfires and a pen with large, elegant, white-furred beasts with hooves and long, spiraling horns. Among them was one with faintly golden fur, and it gazed back at her with dark, intelligent eyes.
"Those are the halla," Mihris said quietly. "Our partners and friends. They pull the aravels because we ask them to, not because they're broken to the bit like your horses and oxen."
"They're the most beloved creation of Ghilan'nain, goddess of guides and navigation," Mahanon added.
Behind Ciri, Solas made a soft sound of disagreement, not loud enough for their Dalish guides to hear. She resolved to ask him his version of the Dalish legends when they were away from the camp.
"Emalien," Mahanon called out as they approached a young woman touching up paint on the side of an aravel.
Emalien turned with a smile that faded swiftly as she saw the company Mahanon kept. "Oh. Always good to see you, Mahanon. And you, Mihris," she said with forced friendliness.
"Emalien," Mihris returned.
"And this must be the Inquisitor," Emalien said, looking Ciri up and down. "Does Loranil know his hero is in camp?"
Mahanon shook his head. "Not yet."
Ciri set that aside to be chased down later and extended the journal again. "I'm so sorry, Emalien," she said gently. "We found your brother. He –"
"No," Emalien interrupted, snatching the journal from her hands. "No!" She clutched it to her chest as her eyes filled with tears. "What was he even doing out there?"
Ciri hesitated and glanced at Mahanon and Mihris. "I'm not certain. It looked like a ritual of some sort. His journal mentioned that he was looking for a talisman, or an amulet, belonging to someone named Lindiranae. He seemed to have intended to summon a spirit to guide him to it, or possibly a demon, and the spell went awry."
"Fenhedis! What do I care about Lindiranae's talisman when my brother is dead?" Emalien narrowed her teary eyes at Mihris in a fierce glare. "Did you put this in his head, you spiteful bitch? Valorin never would have done this before you set foot in our camp. He wouldn't have been so foolish!"
Mihris stumbled back a pace, blood draining from her pale face. "I'd never! Do you think I want Keeper Thelhen's mistakes repeated? I never spoke more than two words to your brother, Emalien, and neither of them included the words 'summon' or 'demon.'"
"The keeper was right," Emalien said bitterly. "You are cursed."
"Ir abelas, lethallin," Mahanon said, a note of warning in his voice. "I understand your pain. But don't blame my First for your brother's foolishness."
Emalien drew herself up stiffly, her arms tight around the journal. "Leave me be. The clan will need to be told, and we'll need to mourn – without outsiders."
"I understand," Ciri said. "I'm sorry for your loss."
They left the camp the way they'd arrived, fording the stream at its shallowest point. Keeper Hawen stared out at them for a long moment, then turned away.
"She shouldn't have blamed you, lethallin," Mahanon said to Mihris.
Mihris shrugged. "I understand. It's easier to be angry than to address grief properly. I don't hold it against her. I know Valorin's choices weren't my fault."
"You don't have to come back here if you don't want to," Ciri offered.
She felt for Mihris. Clan Lavellan's new First was much too young to bear the weight of an entire clan's scorn, especially when all she wanted was to help.
"That may be for the best," Mihris agreed. She paused and looked upstream, then back at Ciri. "Valorin's journal made mention of the shrine to Sylaise just up the stream as a possible hiding spot for Lindiranae's talisman. We might retrieve it and give it to Clan Rasyluvun – finish Valorin's quest for him."
"Or keep it for Clan Lavellan," Mahanon countered. "Lindiranae was a hero to all elves, not just one clan. And they hardly deserve it after treating you so poorly."
Mihris looked at him with reproachful eyes. "Lethallan."
Mahanon sighed gustily and threw his hands in the air. "Fine. But they don't deserve it."
Ciri did like the idea of finishing Valorin's work. She looked around and saw no argument on anyone's face, though Sera seemed reluctant. Whether it had to do with the elven hero or their destination, she didn't know and didn't feel like asking.
They began walking upstream, Mihris in the lead. Ciri dropped back to walk beside Solas, and with a quick look at Mahanon to ensure her words wouldn't carry, asked, "You disagreed about Ghilan'nain. How do the Fade's accounts differ?"
"In the Fade, the earlier I look, the less I see a beloved guide and mother of Halla, and the more I see a mad inventor of monsters, someone whose creativity was only matched by her depravity," he said quietly. "The other 'gods' forced her to destroy most of her projects out of fear they would destroy the world. It is said she was raised to godhood in exchange for the destruction of those creations. The giant we fought in the Western Approach? One of her projects."
Ciri looked at him sharply. "You make it sound like they were real people, not just figures of worship."
"That is how they appear to me in the Fade."
It wasn't that different from Andraste, she realized after a moment. Andraste had been a flesh and blood person, a prophet of a new religion, only to be elevated to a place of divinity as the Maker's Bride after her death. Perhaps the Elvhen gods had been real people, too, several thousand years ago. It didn't make the Dalish religion any less valid than the humans'.
No wonder the Dalish clan Solas had come across in his 'wanderings' hadn't been receptive. If he'd tried to tell them that the very foundations of their religion and culture were wrong, they must have chased him out at arrow-point!
She snuck a sidelong glance at him as they walked. Solas had learned much from his dream visits to the Fade. She'd enjoyed his stories – the one about the spirit of love who matchmade village boys and girls was her favorite, though she also liked the one about the lost city of Barindur, and the story of the dwarven thaig falling to a darkspawn horde had nearly moved her to tears.
But there was something different in how he spoke of Ghilan'nain. He'd explained that the Fade reflected the physical world and that spirits would play out different interpretations of the same event or person. His description of the halla goddess, of the 'mad inventor,' was concrete. Absolute. It didn't fit with his other Fade stories.
And yet she believed his words. He spoke them with conviction, as if they were an unassailable fact. Ciri had to wonder if his Elvhen ancestor had lived long enough to share their stories of Elvhenan with him, and to keep the pretense up he just said he saw everything in the Fade. That taunt to Keeper Hawen – had his ancestor been turned away from a clan? Did that play a part in his grudge against the Dalish?
Something about that explanation seemed too pat. She'd need to think on it some more later.
They trekked up the bank past bent trees and flowing water, walking single file as the path narrowed and rose. It evened out at the mouth of a damaged elven ruin, masonry scattered across the ground everywhere.
"Here we are," Mihris announced as she led the way down the broken steps to a surprisingly intact door. "The shrine to Sylaise."
Sera held up a hand and cocked her head. "Hear that?"
"There's someone in there." Ciri drew Gynvael and readied herself.
Mahanon shoved the door open, and two masked Orlesian soldiers bereft of identifying colors stared at them for a heartbeat before reaching for their weapons with a yell. Dorian jabbed his staff at them, and lightning shot down from the shrine's dark ceiling. Solas' green spell smashed them against the back wall with bone-breaking force. Twin arrows flew from Sera and Mahanon's bows and lodged in the small, soft spaces uncovered by the masks.
It was over in seconds. Ciri sheathed her blade again and entered the shrine. "We'll have to drag them out to see to their remains," she said. "What were they even doing here?"
"Looting," Mahanon scoffed. "As they do. Shems hear rumors of elven treasure and destroy our old temples and buildings in search of a stray statuette. Fools."
A soft white light illuminated the space, and Ciri turned to see the top of Mihris' staff aglow as she slowly walked the perimeter of the room. Solas, Dorian, and Olgierd followed suit.
"This place has always puzzled me," Mihris said as she peered at a crack in the masonry. "If it's a shrine to the Hearthkeeper, where is her statue? We simply know it's dedicated to her, for that's what we've been told."
"Hm." Solas packed a wealth of dismissiveness into a single soft noise.
Dorian extended a hand to a metal brazier affixed to the wall, and ghostly greenish-blue flames filled it. "I wonder if there's a rune or glyph on the walls here," he said. "Some sort of clue."
Ciri wandered along the walls, her eyes peeled for any discoloration or chinks in the ancient grout. Mihris had an excellent point. A shrine should have a statue in it for worshipers to kneel to.
As she reached the center of the third wall, her fingers stopped. The cool stone blocks felt ever so slightly different beneath her fingers, the grout slightly crumbly.
"Over here," she called out. "This wall – I think it's newer."
"And I found the glyph!" Dorian called back.
Olgierd joined Ciri at the wall, and he pressed his hand beside hers. "You're right," he murmured. "We'll have to kick it down – this will get messy."
The two of them raised their booted feet and aimed their heels at the crumbling grout, kicking hard. A block broke from the wall, then another. Chips and grout flew everywhere. Once the hole was large enough, they began to pry the bricks loose with their hands. Finally, panting, they stood back.
Behind the false wall stood a recessed nook holding a statue of an elven woman – Sylaise, presumably. At her feet, surrounded by broken stones and loose grout, lay a withered corpse in decayed remnants of elven robes, clutching something in their fist. Ciri knelt and carefully pried the item loose.
It appeared to be a pendant of some sort, golden and round with tiny inlaid semi-precious stones forming an image she could barely make out. She gently brushed bits of dirt and flakes of the corpse's skin to the floor and brought it closer to Mihris' soft white light.
"This is it," Mihris said in a hushed voice. "You found it. Lindiranae's talisman. The shemlen took her sword, Evanura, as a war prize when she fell, but no one ever knew what became of her necklace."
"Until today." Ciri pressed it into Mihris' hand and folded her fingers over it. "It belongs to your people, Mihris. Whether you give it to Clan Rasyluvun or keep it for Clan Lavellan, you have a part of your history back."
Ciri thought for a moment that the teenager was about to embrace her, but Mihris just nodded hard and turned her eyes to the pendant in her hand, rubbing her thumb lightly across its surface.
Mahanon knelt by the corpse and rested a hand on the stick-thin shoulder. "Serannasen ma, falon," he said quietly. "Dar'atisha."
Even Sera didn't seem inclined to make light of the moment, and Solas watched Mihris and Mahanon with an expression Ciri couldn't quite interpret. She walked away to quietly ask Dorian, "What were you saying about finding a glyph?"
He led her to the far wall, where a luminous, pale blue-green image shone at eye level. It had an abstract beauty to it, but Ciri couldn't make out what it was supposed to be.
"Touch it," Dorian prompted her.
She did. The image of a hawk and a hare chasing the sun flashed through her mind's eye vividly, then disappeared again. "How –"
"Old elven magic," Dorian said. "Magisters use something similar to conceal their private correspondence. I don't doubt they stole the idea from the elves."
Mihris joined them at the wall and looked up at the glyph. She brushed her fingers across it and pulled them back with a faint frown.
"What is it?" Ciri asked.
"There's something about this," she murmured. "My memories… Mahanon and I found two others like it. One in the old elven baths, and one down the hill by the collapsed tunnel. A pair of hands cupped around the moon, and the Keeper of Secrets on the back of a crow."
"What about your memories, Mihris?"
"Imshael was…clever. Insidious." She shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the glyph. "He knew these glyphs. Something about it escapes me. But it amused him. It led to something he found amusing."
"Are there more?" Ciri asked. She didn't know how Mihris would know Imshael's mind so well, but she had suspicions – suspicions she wouldn't voice.
"One more," Mihris said decisively. Then she faltered. "But I don't know where."
"We might ask the Dalish clan if they know," Olgierd suggested. "You did intend to deliver that talisman to them."
"They likely won't receive us again so soon," Mihris said. "Not after what Emalien said. But you're right. They're our best option, and I do want to give them the talisman."
She returned to the little nook in the wall and bowed her head before the statue. Ciri gestured to Olgierd, Dorian, and Solas, and between the four of them, they managed to haul the Freemen's bodies back up the stairs and out of the shrine. Mahanon joined them after a minute, the shriveled elven corpse hoisted carefully in his arms.
"She goes to Clan Rasyluvun," he said, as if in anticipation of an argument. "They can lay her to rest in Var Bellanaris."
"Of course," Ciri agreed at once. "She deserves to lie among her people."
Olgierd set the Freemen's corpses aflame with a gesture, and once they'd burned down to ash and twisted remnants of metal armor they turned and walked down the streambank again.
An elf in green and brown armor, his pale upper arms bare and delicate vallaslin across his brow like stylized halla horns, crossed the stream to meet them.
"Aneth ara," he greeted Mihris and Mahanon. He smiled apologetically, his eyes flicking down to Mahanon's burden. "Mahanon, you and the Inquisitor would be welcome in the camp, but –"
"All or none, Loranil," Mahanon interrupted.
"It's alright, lethallan," Mihris said calmly. She held out the pendant to Loranil. "Please tell Keeper Hawen and Emalien that we finished Valorin's work. Lindiranae's talisman was hidden in the shrine to Sylaise, as he suspected. It should go to your clan."
Loranil took it with careful fingers, his eyes wide. "I'll bring it to the Keeper. Thank you, Mihris. You didn't have to."
"I did."
"Take her, too," Mahanon said, holding out the shriveled corpse. "She was the one hiding it from the shems behind a false wall all these centuries. She deserves a spot in Var Bellanaris."
Distaste crossed Loranil's face, but he accepted the burden without hesitation. "I'll see it done."
Mihris smiled at him gently. "Still want to join the Inquisition?"
Loranil looked down at the ancient corpse in his arms. "Will I have to carry a lot of bodies?"
"More than you'd expect," Dorian said dryly.
Loranil swallowed hard at that, but he squared his shoulders. "I'll talk to Keeper Hawen again. I want to help. The People can't stand apart when all of Thedas is threatened."
"An admirable sentiment." Ciri stepped forward, acutely aware of the eyes watching them from across the stream. "We found a glyph that can only be seen by veilfire in the shrine. Mihris and Mahanon said they found two others, one by a collapsed tunnel and another by the old elven baths. Do you know of any more?"
Loranil brightened and pointed awkwardly downstream with his elbow. "The ruins just there – Taven said he found a glyph there last spring. Be careful. I went scouting when we made camp, and the whole place is full of demons. There's a tear in the Veil letting them through."
"Thank you for your help," Ciri said. "If you do decide to join the Inquisition, come to one of the camps. We'd be glad to have you."
"Dareth shiral, Inquisitor," Loranil said as he turned to ford the stream again. "I hope we meet again."
"Ugh," Sera groaned quietly. "We don't need another elfy elf. Three of them's plenty."
"Any human looking at you would say that four of us is plenty," Mahanon said with a shrug, leading the way downstream once more. "Turn your back on your people all you like. You'll never be human enough for them."
Sera made a face at the back of his head. "Who was it calling city elves 'flat ears' the other day?"
"Force of habit," Mahanon said. "One I'm trying to correct. I didn't mean offense."
"Yeah, well…just don't do it again, yeah?"
Ciri sighed. She half-expected Solas to chime in with a soft, barbed comment of his own. To her relief, he stayed silent, and the rest of the journey passed quietly.
"Over this way," Mihris said as she pointed across the stream to a large mound of boulders overgrown with trees and bushes. "I've been here before in years past, though I haven't seen the glyph Loranil spoke of."
Ciri followed her as they ventured across the stream once more. It was deeper, narrower, the water running faster as it neared the river. She hopped up to the bank with a grimace, her feet icy cold and soaking wet.
The stairs to the ruins led down between large, mossy boulders into darkness. Mihris lit the top of her staff again, and Olgierd summoned flames to his hand. Faint sounds, like wet cloth being dragged over stone, came from ahead, and Ciri drew her sword.
Olgierd led the way, the flame casting exaggerated shadows on the damaged walls that stretched and danced as they descended. The shushing, dragging sounds grew louder. From around Olgierd's shoulder, Ciri spied a mottled gray arm ending in long claws attached to a hunched back go by on quiet, robed feet, and she nodded to him.
The flames left his hand, and the shade shrieked in rage as it caught fire and burned into nothingness. Another rushed the stairs from a darkened corner of the room, its claws outstretched. Olgierd intercepted it with a hard slash of his saber, and it dissolved into green muck.
He summoned flames to his hand again and looked about the room. "That seems to be the last of them."
"Then let's proceed," Ciri said. "But take care. Loranil mentioned a rift."
There was another flight of stairs leading deeper into the ruins, dark and oppressive. They went in single file, ducking their heads as roots from above scraped their hair and helmets. A faint, emerald green light shone ahead, and Ciri gripped Gynvael as the sound of grinding glass echoed through the narrow corridor.
The stairs opened into an open-air balcony leading down to a grassy courtyard. One of the staircases to the courtyard had collapsed in the centuries that had passed since the Exalted March, but the other looked intact. The stream rushed by, connecting to the river just beyond. And right above the courtyard, a bright, active rift hung in the air.
Tendrils of light shot out from the rift. Four of them connected with the grass below. Two of them puddled on the balcony. Ciri gestured for Dorian, Solas, and Sera to follow her and raced down the stairs.
Demons emerged from the puddles of green light – a rage demon, two terror demons, and a wraith. She didn't look back at the balcony to see what Olgierd and the Dalish scouts had to contend with. She lunged at the rage demon as Dorian cast a barrier over her.
It oozed toward her, shedding embers and burning a trail through the grass as it went. She darted to the side and struck out with Gynvael's icy blade. The demon's searing heat pressed against her as it twisted to claw at her armor, roaring in pain. She slipped away from its claws and struck again, hard and fast.
Steam rose from the wound where her blade met its molten body. It lashed out at her once more, but she was too fast, too light on her feet, and pirouetted past its heavy swipe to slice at its other side. It roared a final time and dissolved into a small pool of ichor and embers at her feet.
She took a precious second to glance around the area. Back up on the balcony, Mahanon and Mihris finished off a wraith, while Olgierd cleaved a terror demon across its spindly chest. In the courtyard, Dorian clenched his fist, and the terror demon trapped in an ethereal prison collapsed in on itself with a crunching sound as the bars shrank rapidly.
The rift flared again, shooting out more tendrils of light, and Solas cast another barrier as Sera set another arrow to her bowstring. Then a terror demon leaped at Ciri, and she was on the move again.
Dorian's spell rushed through Ciri. The terror demon's leap slowed to a painful crawl. She sped toward it, sword outstretched, and cleaved through it as it descended. One down. She rushed across the courtyard to strike down a sluggish wraith.
When the demons had all been felled, she raised her marked hand to the quiescent rift above. A connection sparked, and she forced the magic through. It raced from her hand to the rift in an eager torrent, a bright rope of magic tying her palm to the Veil. She yanked back, and the rift sealed with a snap.
"Is everyone alright?" she called up to the balcony.
"We're fine," Mahanon called back. "Mihris spotted the brazier on the way in. We'll be down in a moment."
"We might as well all go light torches and take a look around," Dorian suggested. He headed back toward the stairs, Solas behind him.
They made a strange sight, seven ghostly green torches bobbing up and down as they peered at the walls of the elven ruins. All of them spread out through the long-abandoned building in search of the elusive glyph.
"Think I see it – wait, no," Sera said. She snickered. "Just a weird mushroom."
Mihris shook her head and kept looking.
The search led them back to the grassy courtyard, now scorched and damaged from the fight with the demons. Ciri held her torch up to one of the pillars and heard a faint sound, almost like the tinkle of shattering china at a distance. She raised her voice.
"Mihris, is this what we're looking for?"
Mihris came over and held her torch up beside Ciri's. Another beautiful, abstract glyph in pale blue-green came to life beneath the flames, and they both reached out to touch it. The image of two ravens flashed through Ciri's mind's eye. One gripped a mirror in its talons. The other held a lifelike heart.
"This is it," Mihris said distractedly. Her gaze was on something in the far distance, something beyond Dirthavaren.
"Do you know what they mean?" Ciri asked.
"It's a code," Mihris said. "A map. To an Elvhen temple to Dirthamen."
Ciri's eyebrows rose in curiosity. "Elvhen, not elven?"
"Elvhen," Mihris confirmed. "I…I think it was forgotten on purpose. Something dark happened there, long before the Long Walk. The glyphs were a warning to stay away."
"Right, then we should," Sera said at once. "Don't mess with magic bad enough to get warning signs put up."
Ciri could understand the sentiment, but her Witcher sensibilities were itching to go deal with whatever was wrong with the Elvhen temple. And something Mihris had said earlier had piqued her interest. "You said there was something about it that amused Imshael."
Mihris nodded reluctantly. "He…there's a secret there, about the Elvhen. I don't know what it is. But he thought it was funny."
"I wouldn't necessarily put stock in what Imshael said," Dorian said. "Demons are known for their deception. On the other hand, they quite frequently tell the truth if it would be more hurtful or entertaining. If there truly is a secret about the Elvhen there, it might be worth investigating."
"There's little we could discover about the Elvhen that I cannot tell you myself," Solas rebutted. He frowned. "Though I will admit to some curiosity as to what one of the Forbidden Ones would find 'amusing.'"
"Do you know where the glyphs lead, Mihris?" Ciri asked.
Mihris nodded. "It's on the coast of the Waking Sea, two weeks' journey from here. If you get me a map of Orlais I can pinpoint it for you."
"We have the time," Ciri said, looking around at the others. "What do the rest of you think?"
"No, no, bad idea," Sera said. "Elfy elves and secrets and 'somethin' dark' doesn't sound good. They lost it on purpose. Let's just forget it, yeah?"
"We deserve to know about our ancestors," Mahanon argued. "And the seven of us can handle whatever darkness overtook the temple."
"You have my answer," Solas said simply.
"I'm curious," Dorian admitted. "If there is time, I'd like to see this temple for myself."
"It's a decision best left to our elven friends," Olgierd said, "though if we are venturing into danger, I'll guard your back."
Ciri nodded. "Back to camp, then. We leave for the temple in the morning."
A mix of trepidation and excitement filled her as they headed back out of the ruins. Finally, she had something close to Witcher's work awaiting her. But at the back of her mind, she remembered another powerful being who ruined lives and bartered favors, and she wondered what sort of thing Imshael might find amusing in the ruins of a fallen empire.
There won't be a chapter next Saturday, since I'll be busy with family holiday stuff. I hope you all have a great one, whatever you celebrate!
