Characters: F!Lavellan (Estral), OMC Rian Lavellan, Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan, OFC Siar Lavellan, OMC Eylan Lavellan, Unnamed Spirits, OMC Becan Lavellan, OFC Risi Lavellan, OMC Tam Lavellan, OMC Sellin Lavellan, OMC Dermot Lavellan, mention of others.

Pairings: Eylan/Siar Lavellan (parents of Inquisition's Lavellan), Deshanna/Sellin Lavellan

AU Elements: None

9:26 Dragon

Clan Lavellan, Somewhere in the Central Free Marches

i.

At the rock set in the river,

The water flows both ways—

To the left and to the right,

But first it has to choose.

—"At the Rock Set in the River," verse 1, Estral Lavellan, age 12

WHOOSH! Estral's barrier flickered out like a firefly. She dropped to her knees in an instant. Rian's fireball sizzled the hairs on the back of her neck as it passed overhead. A crackling hearth fire in a stone-circled pit in front of a family's tent was some of the best music Estral knew. Wild and spitting from a mage's staff, fire possessed a very different timbre.

Ignoring the jolting vibrations in her kneecaps and up and down her legs, Estral thrust out with her staff, desperate to make a showing. Razor-sharp teeth of ice shot out from the dirt toward Rian. Halfway to him, they died and melted. A jet of cold water splashed him, head to toe, which did a fair job of extinguishing the glowing embers at the tip of his staff but didn't accomplish much else.

Rian called time anyway. Since this was because he was laughing too hard at her to do magic, Estral didn't consider it one for the victory column. She let her staff fall to the ground and sat back on her heels with a groan, burying her head in her hands.

Behind her, she heard a rush of air as the Keeper extinguished the remaining flames of Rian's attack, then the soft sound of Deshanna's bare feet, padding over the grass. "Easy, now," came the Keeper's voice behind her. "Tell me where it is that you went wrong."

Estral scrubbed at her arms with her hands, irritated. "I hate the way the barriers feel," she complained. "Oily and thick. It's like I'm suffocating."

She could just feel Rian about to interject, so she lifted her head and glared at him. "I know I'm not, really. I can't help the way it feels."

"You don't want your barriers to hold, so they don't," Deshanna summarized, her voice so calm and nonjudgmental that Estral wanted to scream. "Your magic will do nothing you don't ask of it, in some small part of your heart or mind. The corollary is, da'len, when you lack fortitude, desire, or conviction, your magic will fall short. Now. How does this translate into your difficulty with the combat spells?"

Estral grimaced. "I suppose you're going to tell me I don't really want to hurt Rian, so I don't?"

"You're pulling your punches, Estral," Rian, ever blunter than the tactful Keeper, told her. "Come, now! You know the spells themselves backwards and forwards; up, down, and sideways. Do not tell me that you don't."

Estral closed her eyes, and without bothering to stand or pick her staff up from the ground, let the power of the Beyond flow through her, moving just her hands, this way and that, as though conducting a song. She felt rather than saw the pillars of spirit-stone shake the earth as they rose and fell in radius around her. She shot flame spurts from her hands, then raised a wall of ice around her, a meter and a half high and a handspan thick, that sent the flames vanishing into mist. Finally, she closed her fists, and the ice melted away into floating globes of water that she held a moment before letting them fall to the broken, torn up ground as rain.

She opened her eyes and looked at Rian and Deshanna, drained and completely despairing. "But it all goes wrong when we're fighting," she whispered. "Nothing works. It all just . . . fizzles out before it lands."

"Because somewhere inside that silly head of yours, instead of trusting that a mage sixteen years older than yourself with twelve more years of practice than you've got can probably handle himself," Rian answered, "you think you're about to take my head off and hold back. Vhenan. Gods all bless you, but can you have a little faith?"

He was smiling at her, but he was frustrated too. Estral could tell. "I don't mean not to have!" she protested. "I just—oh, you don't understand, Rian!"

Deshanna knelt in front of her. "You've run into a block, Estral. We all of us find them from time to time. The thing is to keep working to move past them. Come. You're tired. You're out of sorts. We'll try again tomorrow. And—if it helps, it is a very different thing to attack a friend than it is to attack a demon or a bandit on the road."

She held out her hand, and Estral took it, letting the Keeper help her up onto her feet.

"But of course, if you practice bad technique now, you may run into some difficulties when it is a demon or a bandit on the road," Rian added, with forced cheerfulness. "So let's get it before then, shall we?"

And what if I can't, Estral wanted to snap. What if I'm just bad at fighting? What then?

Rian looked more closely at her. "Why don't you head on back to the camp, Deshanna?" he said. "Sure, Sellin and Dermot will looking for you for supper. Estral and I will be along."

The Keeper hesitated. Estral could see it: Be the Keeper and see to a failing, needy apprentice, or go home and be with the husband and son who always seem to get the short end of the staff? Deshanna was Keeper because she hesitated. Or she has to hesitate because she's Keeper. Anyway, today, the temptation Rian offered her was just too much to resist. She clasped his hand and ran her fingers through Estral's hair, and then she was gone, vanishing through the trees.

Estral picked up her staff and conjured another globe of water, smaller this time. She moved it in one of the control exercises she had mastered years ago, streaming it through figure-eights and circles and studiously avoiding Rian's eye. Under her breath she chanted,

"At the rock set in the river,

The water flows both ways—

To the left and to the right,

But first it has to choose."

"What's that one, then?" Rian asked.

"Nothing," Estral muttered. "It isn't finished yet."

"Will you sing it for us when it is?"

Estral shook her head. "Not this time." She let the water globe fall to the ground again and started walking back toward the camp.

Rian stuck his staff out to block her path. Estral hit her shins against it, and she huffed, glaring up at him. "Rian, please."

"It's just a hiccup, vhenan," Rian said. "You'll get past it. You will. I had trouble with world sensing, and sometimes I still need cheat sheets for the youngsters' history lessons. And here you are, twelve years old with all the lore half memorized!"

Estral snapped. "And it won't mean a thing if I can't actually work the spells the Second of Clan Lavellan is supposed to be able to do! If the hunters can't rely on me, if in a fight with wolves or shem'len, I'm just a—just a drain—"

"Never that," Rian broke in, fiercely. "You hear me now, Estral: You aren't a drain, and you aren't a burden, whatever kind of mage you end up being. Clan Lavellan has got on perfectly well without a Second these past thirteen years. We're grand now, and wherever you're at when you finally take up your duties, we'll be even better then. Understand? Anything you do will make us better."

"But they'll talk if I'm rubbish," Estral insisted. "They'll all feel it, especially at the Arlathvhen, when we stand up next to the other clans and have a substandard Second."

"You won't be substandard," Rian told her. "You might not be a battle mage, though I do think you'll get past this block and figure it all out—"

"It's been weeks," Estral started.

"I believe in you." Rian said, interrupting again, looking her straight in the eye. "But—even if you aren't a battle mage, you can be a healer. You can be the finest loremaster in any clan among the People. You can write fifty new songs about the Dalish so Clan Lavellan is the pride and envy of everyone who shows up at Arlathvhen."

"But I can't stop at that," Estral said. "No matter what, I've got to be a mage. I've got to be Second, and the only ways I've got out of it are even worse—becoming a flat-ear apostate or Circle mage or Keeper or First in some other clan, with people depending on me even more."

"You have magic, Estral," Rian answered, frowning. "You're not telling me you'd wish to deny your gift?"

Estral felt the moss beneath her feet, the shift of the earth and the small pebbles in it. The wind whispered through the canopy overhead, and she knew on the other side of the Veil, the spirits were listening to hear what she said next. Hot, prickly shame rushed through her. She wouldn't know them if she weren't a mage. She wouldn't know a lot of things. There was so much of the world she could never touch without her magic. But so much of the world was barred to her with it.

"Left or right? Left or right?" she murmured. "One path or the other?" She shook her head. "I don't know what I want, Rian. Except to be left alone right now. Go. I've already made the Keeper late. Your family's waiting supper for you just as much as hers is."

"And yours," Rian said, raising his eyebrows.

"And mine," Estral agreed.

Rian looked at her. "Don't be too long about it," he said finally. "You're a titch young yet to be in the forest on your own."

Estral rolled her eyes. "Maybe if I'm attacked by wolves or ghoulies, I'll figure out how to stick a fireball."

Rian sighed, and wandered off toward the camp. Estral meandered after him, walking slowly. She drew her flute out of her belt, feeling the grain of the wood under her fingers, the weathered relief carvings of leaves and larks on the shaft. Her lute would be better for the eventual accompaniment on the air she was working on, but her old flute was easy to carry and was often helpful for working out melodies ahead of time. Unfortunately, she was as stuck on the melody for the song she was working on as she seemed to be on combat magic.

Anything you can do will make us better. Technically true, but galling. She didn't want to be some little hedgewitch and loremaster, pottering around with potions and creams and trusting the hunters not to get in too much trouble when she ought to be able to protect them, to lead the charge against any enemies of the clan right next to the Keeper. Smiling and spreading her hands at the Arlathvhen when it came time to show the other clans what knowledge she had to share. If she had to be a mage, she wanted to be good.

But I would prefer not to be a mage at all, Estral thought, with a desperate, guilty defiance. Not to not have magic. Just not to be a mage. I wish having magic didn't mean you had to be a mage.

Other girls in the clan could be hunters. They could be weavers or basket-makers, herd the halla or repair the aravels. They could be bowyers and family arbiters or tradeswomen especially trained to deal with other clans or the shem'len in the cities and towns to get the best deal possible. They could even be teachers and storytellers. Even Deshanna, Rian, and Estral all together couldn't teach every child in Lavellan every minute of every day.

But Estral had to be a mage. And if she failed at that, she couldn't just up and try something else. Fingering her flute, she thought, I can't try anything else anyway. It's not done. And anyway, I hardly have the time.

She could smell the fires of the campsite now. One for each tent—or group of two or three tents together. Around them, the families of Lavellan had all gathered for supper, tossing greens in long-handled, cast-iron pans or roasting skewers of rabbit, pheasant, or venison with mushrooms over the embers.

Estral's family fire was near the center of the camp. This wasn't just because Estral was apprentice to the Keeper and it was more convenient for her lessons, or an honor due her because she'd be Second one day. Her parents had earned pride of place too due to their contributions to the clan. Estral's mother was the best weaver in the camp. Her blankets and tapestries were prized possessions in the homes of most the clan—wedding and name day gifts, and they reliably turned a substantial profit any time the clan traded with outsiders. Estral's father was a great hunter, and liked and respected for his good humor and reliable judgment.

Of course, Estral was coming to believe that growing up the daughter of two pillars of the community wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. The light was going now, and her mother was still at the loom. Mam always did have a way of making her feel lazy.

Estral walked past her mother for now, tossing her staff inside the family pavilion, its flaps drawn back to take advantage of the fine weather. She stalked over to the family fire, stooped low, and draped her arms around her father's neck. He was minding their own skewers—just seasoned rabbit tonight, without greens or mushrooms to fill out the meal—and Estral closed her eyes against the guilt. These days, there was always something she forgot to do.

Dad didn't say a word about the stuff she should have gathered for supper though. He just crossed his free hand over his chest, hugging her arms to him. Mam wasn't quite so forgiving.

"Estral."

Estral rose, wincing and repressing a sigh. "Yes, Mam?"

"Would you care to tell me why I am still at my work tonight, although the light is going? Why I'll still be at it until I can no longer squint to see, just to stay on track to finish this tapestry before we hit the Tantervale Market Road?"

Mam didn't turn away from her work, even to scold. She didn't raise her voice. Estral's eyes fell on the thread basket beside her mother. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I forgot to brush and sort your thread for today."

"It's not the only thing you've forgotten lately. You'll have seen the missing greens, and we shall certainly all miss them by the morning, but your father also had to explain to Deiniol why it was that the rug for his new daughter-in-law would not be ready for the wedding as promised, seeing as it still smells of the beast that once wore it. Deiniol is a patient and forgiving man. He didn't upbraid or blame your father. I'd be surprised if Glenys was as generous, with us or with her father-in-law."

"Siar," Dad started.

"Eylan."

Estral walked away from her father, away from the fire, away from her mother's steady, unrelenting displeasure and disappointment. She stopped just on the edge of the shadows, still in eye- and earshot of her parents, and out of the hearing of anyone else around. "I'm sorry," she said again. "Sometimes I have to choose between being the Keeper's apprentice and being your daughter. Sometimes I don't have time for everything."

"Learn," Mam suggested. "Do you see the Keeper letting her son go hungry? Do you see Rian neglecting his mam or his duties to his sister and brother-in-law?" She answered her own question. "No. And both of them have just a few more tasks to do each day than you do."

"They're also more than a few years older than she is, wife," Dad pointed out. "It's fine, darling," he said to Estral. "We can tighten our belts tonight, and odds are we'll find a honeycomb or some watercress tomorrow so we can have a real feast. If not, we'll be at market in a few days' time. Your mam will finish her work in good time for it, and I can handle Deiniol and Glenys."

"You shouldn't have to," Mam said, bringing her shuttle to rest and turning to face the two of them. "If your daughter had done her work today, you wouldn't be looking at Deiniol's family thinking you're shiftless and a liar, or else that you're offering Glenys insult on purpose."

"Although—" Dad murmured, and in the light still filtering down through the treetops and the glow from the fire, Estral saw a twitch, hidden away in the corner of Mam's mouth. Glenys had been unpopular since her adoption into the clan four years ago at the Arlathvhen. She was pretty, with cold, precise features and shining flaxen hair, and she'd brought two halla to the herd and fine skills in making and repairing both tents and aravels with her when she came. But she was also snobbish, whining, and quick tempered, and had been feuding with people ever since her arrival.

"Hush, Eylan," Mam scolded through her smiling lips. "Estral, how are you going to make things right?"

"Maybe by becoming a mage that won't be a shame to you and the entire clan?" Estral muttered, feeling rebellious. She was so tired. The only thing she wanted to make right was the coverlet on the top of her bedroll and about a ten hours' sleep.

But Mam's eyes had narrowed at her sarcasm, and Estral sighed, closing her eyes for the count of three. "I'll see what provisions I can gather tonight by the river after supper. There's a moon tonight, so if I'm out there'll still be light to see by. And I'll wake early tomorrow to tan the rug for Glenys. It won't be finished in time for the wedding, and I'll have to clean up beforehand to help the Keeper and Rian with the ceremony. But I'll make a public apology to Glenys on Deiniol's behalf, accepting all responsibility for the tardiness of his gift. Since the gift will be tardy anyway, I can probably use some techniques to burn and dye a pattern onto it to make it more beautiful and more valuable to the newlyweds. Will that be sufficient, Mam?"

"I'd advise sticking to dyes, darling," Mam replied. "If you ruin the pelt with your burning, your father will owe the family another. You may use some of my own dyes if your own herbs are not sufficient, and trade at market from your own resources to make up the difference."

That was hard, Estral thought. She'd been saving polished shells and bone knives, belt pouches she'd woven from river reeds, and simple potions she'd made under Rian's tutelage for months now against the next market day. She even had a geode she'd found. But dyes were expensive, and if her mother insisted Glenys's new tent rug be dyed to make up for its tardiness to her, doing without burning techniques entirely, Estral would probably have to borrow some of her mother's dyes and replace what she used at market. Rian had recommended Estral buy her own set of copper measures for herbalism; she might not be able to afford both the measures and the music and the books she had wanted. That was probably her mother's plan, Estral thought, just in case making a public apology at Glenys's wedding tomorrow didn't sting enough next week.

She stalked back over to the fire to crouch beside Dad without comment, holding out her hand for one of the skewers. Dad was a fantastic cook. Even without the greens, supper would be worth eating. But Mam was right too. They'd all miss them, especially when night turned into morning. Estral should've remembered supper at least, even if she had forgotten to tan Glenys's stupid rug or brush out the thread Mam could handle well enough herself.

"I don't mean to fail at everything, Mam," she said, unable quite to keep the resentment out of her voice. "I'm sure it's awful dealing with such a trial and an embarrassment."

Siar rolled her eyes, coming over to sit with Estral and her father and taking her own skewer from her husband. "You're either being dramatic or fishing for praise and comfort. In both cases, I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy that I can spare you. You may not believe it, darling, but your father and I are just as exhausted as you by the end of the day."

Estral stared into the fire, hoping that the smoke would cloud her eyes and give her an excuse for how they watered and stung. She didn't think Mam and Dad were as tired as she was. They couldn't be. Neither one of them had to be a mage.

Mam's free hand reached out. She combed her fingers through Estral's tangled hair and brushed the backs of them against Estral's cheek. "Things have been easy for you up to now, I think," she said quietly. "You've been a good girl and a fine student to the Keeper and to Rian, and your father and I have been just as proud of you and everything you're doing as everyone in the clan. Your keeping it up now that things are getting a little harder will show who you really are, and the kind of girl, scholar, and warrior you truly mean to be. Do you understand me?"

Estral's stomach churned, and she handed her father her half-finished skewer. The juices of the salted and spiced rabbit still lingered in her mouth, hot and savory, and the meat was delicious and tender, but even though she knew she should eat and she would eventually feel it if she didn't, somehow now she just couldn't.

Dad was watching her. "Estral," he said. "You should hear what Rian and Deshanna say about you when you're not around. Don't you doubt they are proud, as proud as they could be. You've had Rian wrapped around your little finger since you were four years old. Likes you better than his blood sister, and the way Deshanna tells it, you're some kind of spiritual prodigy. You'll get past this rough patch. It's like stalking some fresh new quarry. The rules change with every creature. All you've got to do is learn them."

Estral shook her head. "I'm sure you're right. Summoning magic from the reaches of the Beyond to attack an enemy is just like stalking some new creature." She closed her eyes again, leaned over, and pressed her face into her father's shoulder. "Forgive me. That was rude. And thank you for the vote of confidence."

"Oh, my girl," Dad sighed, wrapping an arm around her head and pressing a kiss to her hair. "Always."

Estral looked at her mother. She wanted to make things right with Mam too, but she was frustrated too. She couldn't do it all, whatever her mother said. Some days, she just couldn't. Especially lately. So as she rose, she just stopped by Mam's shoulder, unable to meet her eyes and focusing instead on her left shoulder. "If . . . if I find that honeycomb of Dad's, I'll use the wax and trade with Sellin to make you a lantern. Just in case. He'll make me a good bargain."

Mam reached up for her hand, and clasped it to her shoulder, and then Estral left her parents, reaching down into the family's things beside the pavilion for the broad basket she used for gathering.

While it was too early to expect to find any berries, she could probably collect a whole basket full of dandelions, nettles, clover, and watercress, and if she got lucky, she might find some wild mustard or garlic or some mushrooms. Some mushrooms would pair well with the milk and cheese Teilthe and her apprentices would be handing round in the morning. But in any event, she wouldn't be able to go back home until she had filled the entire basket. It was going to be a long night, with a longer day tomorrow.

ii.

The silver salmon in the river,

Swimming toward the rock,

Barks his scales unless he turns.

He too finds he must choose.

—"The Rock Set in the River," verse 2, Estral Lavellan, age 12

Once, long ago in Arlathan and Ancient Tevinter, and maybe some places in Tevinter still, there had been mages who could choose where they traveled in the Beyond; enter at will without the aid of blood magic or of lyrium. They could wander the dreams of sleepers and shape the boundaries of the Fade as easily as master sculptors with handfuls of river clay.

Estral was not one of that kind, nor had Deshanna or Rian heard tell of one among the People or elsewhere for centuries. But all mages had more awareness in the Beyond than nonmagical folk, who visited the strange realm in their dreams but remained oblivious, unable to affect or even absorb what they saw there. In a way, awareness in the world of sleep was the quality that separated a mage from an ordinary person. Oh, everyone talked about powers—a mage's ability to command the elements, to conjure a pestilence, change her shape, or create barriers of energy—but connecting with the strange world and spirits of the Beyond was where it all began. Accepting that there was more to the world than the way things looked when one was awake, that the laws that governed one there did not always apply—that was the essence of what it meant to be a mage.

In the Beyond—the place that humans called the Fade—up, down, and sideways could change places in a moment. Shapes of spirits and dreamers could morph in an instant, relating more to one's state of mind or arcane and unknowable symbols than to any absolute fact of being. Locations—and people—tended to mirror their counterparts within the waking world, but the ways in which they did so were often strange or unexpected. There was no day or night, however; no units of time to measure or weather by which to tell the seasons. Just the Black City, looming over the horizon, ever unreachable but ever present.

The humans claimed that the City used to be the home of the Maker before magisters of Tevinter invaded it, corrupting it with their evil and ambition and unleashing the first of the darkspawn. The People's lore said that the City was the prison of the gods, the place where Fen'Harel had trapped them. Estral wasn't really sure what the Black City truly was, but the feeling everyone who traveled in the Beyond got from the place was the same: it was a place of wrongness, of nightmares, of suffering and of brokenness.

But it didn't follow that the whole of the Beyond was evil. Estral only had good memories of the place. From almost before she could remember, her sleep had been a time of wonder and escape for her. The shifting landscape didn't bother her. Instead, it intrigued and absorbed her. She loved how she could do things in her dreams that she never could when she was awake—without shaping worlds like the somniari, she could still navigate large distances in moments. Without learning the craft of shapeshifting as such, in the Beyond, if she wished to be a squirrel or a bird or a fox or to take on the visage of a spirit, she could do so.

And she had friends in the Beyond. Ever since Estral had been a small girl, spirits had come to her in her dreams—not the demons the shem'len feared or those that sought the blood of evil or unscrupulous mages, but kinder, gentler entities, simpler in nature. Sometimes too simple, in fact, to know they shouldn't try to follow her through places the Veil was thin. One such had terrified her mother once, and it had been the way the clan had learned that Estral was a mage. Since, she had worn a protective amulet that grew warm when spirits of the Beyond were near her in the walking world so she could warn them away, or call Rian or Deshanna to fight. But it had never been necessary for any of them to fight the spirits.

The spirits just liked her. They liked to hear her sing. They played with her, or just hung floating like colored balls of light on the air inside the landscape of her dreams, emanating joy or peace. In fact, she was rarely alone when she wandered the wooded paths or plains of the Beyond. There was most always one or two benevolent spirits nearby.

But tonight, Estral was alone. Though she had gone to sleep in a forest, now, she stood on a plain, perhaps the place the forest had been two hundred years ago, or a thousand.

She could not say if she traveled north or south; east or west; up, down, or sideways. But in the distance, she saw a sign for a crossroads. It stood straight upon the vertical, with the destinations down its separate arms labeled just as they would be in the waking world. But the crossroads themselves were not there—or, rather, the roads near the sign that were supposed to cross did not. Instead, they crisscrossed the sky, moving on different planes that never met, and the sky was indistinguishable from the ground, save for the silhouette of the Black City, floating just on the horizon.

Estral was used to the way things worked within the Beyond. She only had to think to move toward the sign, and a river, running near it—if one could say that water flowing at angles to itself, and as likely to spiral off into mist as to scroll off as liquid ribbon truly "ran" at all. The fish within it seemed to be occasionally of the mind to float or fly instead of swim.

Estral smiled. Another night, the fish might be spirits, other sleepers, or perhaps the dreams of other sleepers. But these—these, she suspected, were hers, here only because she had expected them to be, and incapable of further speech with her sleeping mind. Fish had been on her mind lately, after all.

"The silver salmon in the river, swimming toward the rock," she murmured, "barks his scales unless he turns . . ."

She was beginning to hear something of a rhythm, to have the first ideas of a tempo. But as she stuck her hand into the water and some of it broke away to rise in globes of water like inverted raindrops, the melody eluded her as surely as the slippery tails of the salmon, and the fish themselves did not so much as look at her.

She felt a little lonely, and on impulse, she kicked the water, sending a panic through her silly little fish imaginings and a scattering of shattered rainbows, just because. Estral strode away from the water, staring at the sign, the crossroads the clan was due to arrive at tomorrow, or the next day.

Tantervale, Hasmal, Wildervale, or Starkhaven. Even in the Beyond, she was unlikely to be able to reach any of them tonight. She was uncertain she could even make it onto any of the city roads above and around her. They were beyond any place she believed she could actually step; outside the boundary of this dream. Probably another reflection, and perhaps one imbued with a more symbolic meaning than that of the poor, stupid fish that had been swimming through her head for days.

Very well, Estral thought, if she could not take the road, then she would go someplace else. There was one other landmark in sight, a solitary tree in the middle of the featureless plain—a twisted hawthorn, covered in lichen and peeling gray bark. In a thought and three steps, she had come to it, and she placed a hand upon the trunk, looking up.

The carrion smell coming from the wood and flowers wasn't enough to drive her away. The tree was too strange. It was in spring, summer, and winter all at once. On the side facing her, the tree was covered with white springtime blossoms, but a step to her left or to her right around the trunk, and it changed. The same tree bore flowers, leaf, and red fruits among naked branches.

"Well," Estral said, "that's one way to get around seasonal harvests."

"Indeed," a voice said.

Estral straightened, smiling again, pleased to have company at last. "A good greeting to you, stranger. Shall we speak together?"

A shimmer in the air behind the tree solidified, and Estral looked at a figure the approximate size and shape of a man, tall and slender. It wore, or seemed to wear, a long, shapeless, hooded drape of pale gray. There were no features to speak of, but rather the shifting suggestions of features, mutating and morphing, appearing and disappearing as she watched, too fast for her to track. In the place that would approximate the center of the spirit's brow, had it been a man, there was a blue-white gem like a star.

The spirit—for she felt right away this was a spirit, not a dreamer or another conjuring of her mind or some other's—raised a four-fingered hand. "We shall. It has been some time since one of your ilk has come to this place. And what are you called?"

Estral smiled again and shook her head. "Will you tell me that?"

She felt a sense of amusement and approval from the spirit. "Names have power. Foolish spirits who give their names to one such as you can find themselves torn from their home, bound by spells to the earth or to metal taken from it."

"Foolish mages who give their names to one such as you do not face so dire a danger," Estral returned, "but they may leave the dream of one night to find themselves stalked across many, for they have given a demon the means to identify, and follow them."

The spirit seemed pleased. "Then let us avoid names for the evening, young one. Is there another way I may know you?"

Estral nodded. There was no need to be rude, and this spirit was well-spoken, interesting. She placed a hand over her heart in a formal salute. "'We are the keepers of the lost lore,'" she recited, "'walkers of the lonely path. We are the last—'"

"'The last elvhen,'" the spirit recited with her. "Never again to submit. Yes, I recall your kin, child. I was here when they took their chains in hand to rise against the oppressors with the armies of Andraste, bloody teeth bared in vengeance. I was here when they crossed this land toward the new land Maferath had promised, each bloody bare footprint in the snow a marker of their pride in victory. And I was here when they fled, when they scattered from the emperor's armies, their last remnants hunted like rabbits and vermin by his chevaliers."

Estral struggled to master her anger, unwilling to let it be caught or reflected. The seizure of the Dales was still a sore point for the People, even after seven hundred years. "And what have you witnessed since?" she asked.

"All manner of men and women have passed through the crossroads, and I have caught the scent of their dreams as they camped nearby. Humans and elf-kind, merchants and messengers, bandits and nomads. Armies of warlords and city-state governors where once roamed the legions of Tevinter." The spirit gestured at the plain, and as it did, Estral thought she saw phantom soldiers and horses, fighting in the distance with lances and swords and axes. She shuddered, and the figures vanished.

Estral shuddered. She wasn't sure if it was from a creepy fascination or from revulsion. "I've never met a spirit quite like you," she admitted.

The spirit made no answer. Perhaps it wasn't worth commenting on.

Estral looked around, searching for any of her other friends, but there was no one and nothing else to see. Just the river, the endless plain that must have been what the forest the clan traveled through looked like fifty or a thousand years ago. Just the sign of the crossroads, the hawthorn, and the spirit, standing before her.

What was it, she wondered? It was clear enough that the spirit was a resident of the area, perhaps even the lord of this section of the Beyond. Could it be a demon? So far, it had made no attempt to trick or persuade her into any kind of contract or agreement. It had not asked her for anything but her name, and had accepted it when she did not give it. But there was a tingle down her spine and a pricking in the tips of her fingers that made her uneasy. She felt—an instability—in this place. A thinness to the layers of the world. Well, she thought, if the spirit was telling the truth, some dark things might have happened at this crossroads in the waking world. Enough to create a tear in the Veil?

She squinted at the plain where she thought she had seen the soldiers. Shartan's people, coming or going? The progenitors of the Dalish, fleeing Emperor Drakon? But she couldn't summon them back. Perhaps a good thing.

"What do you search for, young one?" the spirit asked her, apparently noticing her wandering eyes.

"I was wondering about the battle," Estral answered. "The warlord and the state-governor. When was that? What were they fighting for?"

"I know not," the spirit replied. "Land, or a politician's grudge. The armies were from the cities now known as Hasmal and Tantervale. Many died on both sides before the battle was done, and the river ran red with blood. Sometimes, this place remembers the young forest that sprang up from the soil of their graves; at others, the plain where the armies fought. The sleepers often determine which appears."

Estral was disturbed. "I'd rather have seen the forest," she murmured.

"Would you? Yet you were drawn to this place. Will you tell me news of what passes in the forest?"

Estral sat with her back to the hawthorn tree, her legs crossed before her and her staff laid across her knees. "Winter's breaking into early spring," she said. "We think the last snows have gone from the lowlands, though the river on the other side isn't at full flood yet. My clan is bound for the outskirts of one of the shem'len cities, to trade for goods there we can't harvest or make ourselves. There's to be a wedding tomorrow between one of the girls fostered into our clan last Arlathvhenand one of our young hunters. The halla does will have their young within the next two months, and we'll be able to find early berries in the woods. And I'll continue to apprentice with the Keeper and our First." She couldn't stop the downturn of her voice as she said this, and the spirit seemed to tilt its head.

"You are not pleased by this?"

Estral looked over at the salmon leaping out of the river. "I should say it's an honor," she observed. "But you can hardly say something is an honor when you have to do it, can you? Be a mage. Lead the clan, leave home and lead another clan. Become a flat-ear and be locked inside a Circle. Or go apostate. Those are the only choices a girl born a mage has to her. I suppose it's two more than the shem'len get." She was silent for a moment, watching the salmon.

"Left or right, left or right," she murmured again.

"One path or the other?

Or bash your head against the rock,

Drown'd by pounding water?"

"Swim or die, is it? There used to be places where this was not true. Perhaps a few still remain."

"Nowhere near here," Estral said. "I'd have to swim out to sea and beyond, probably. I could walk the length and breadth of all the country my clan has ever trod without getting to a place where I could have magic without being trapped by using it."

"Do you wonder what could happen if your power did not constrain you? If it liberated you instead?" the spirit asked.

Estral looked up sharply. Her spine began tingling once again. She swept her eyes across the plain, looking for any of the spirits that usually met her in the Beyond. She had been enjoying the conversation, as eerie and occasionally morbid as it was. Most spirits she met didn't have such insight into other beings. They couldn't understand when she talked about the clan or the past or her thoughts and desires. This one seemed ancient. It knew history, used figures of speech. She'd wanted to ask it more about Hasmal and Tantervale, about the elves that had fought with Andraste and Maferath's agreement with them to grant them a homeland in the Dales. It could be lore she could pass on to the others. But now . . .

"A clan mage's power liberates all of her fellows," she said, quoting the lessons she had learned from the Keeper. "The lore she learns gives children and adults the wisdom of their past. The strength of her staff protects them from beasts and demons and humans alike."

"But nevertheless, your words imply she is like one of your halla in harness, or do I misunderstand you? A trusted and honored friend, but burdened by the weight of the lives she carries on her back, and unable to go where she wills until that weight is lifted. Is it ever lifted, child?"

Estral swallowed. The pungent scent of the hawthorn at her back filled her nostrils. She unfolded herself and stood. "It's not. Is that any of your business, stranger?" On the horizon, something else moved. Estral's heart leapt, thinking it was one of her friends, a spirit that might be more familiar to her. But even from afar, she saw it had too many legs. A shiver quaked through her.

Stop it, Estral, she thought. You'll draw it all the faster.

"It could be," the spirit said, answering her earlier question. "If you seek the power to break your bonds, young one, to change this fate you feel drowning you, or moving you relentlessly down a river toward sharp rocks you cannot escape, to speak up against those who take your smiling service for granted—" The spirit's impassive voice had gradually shifted over the course of the conversation. Now it had a sharp, angry edge to it.

Estral shook her head. "I will make no contract with you," she said. "Do not ask. I think it's time I moved along."

There was another scuttling creature moving across the plain, hurrying toward her.

"I can feel your mounting fear," the spirit told her, tracking her gaze once again, "edging out your restlessness and resentment. They can feel it too. As I said—it has been some time since one of your ilk has come here. The scent is . . . powerful. Intoxicating. And I do wonder if you can run or wake fast enough to escape them now. Would you like my help to face them?"

Estral raised her staff. "I don't want anything from you."

A shadow like a spider, knee height to Estral, flung itself out of the shadow of the hawthorn, fangs and furry legs outstretched. Estral swung her staff, and a dagger of ice impaled the creature.

The spirit she had been conversing with seemed to breathe in deep through its nonexistent nostrils. "Power," it murmured. "Power and anger and fear. I can taste your waking mind, child, not far away from this place . . ."

Two more spider creatures leaped, and a column of fire began to move toward Estral from the direction of the spirit, the demon before her.

Estral planted her feet to either side of a hawthorn root and willed the stones in the ground beneath her to rise up from it, to garb her in armor of rock. She swung her staff again, conjuring a wall of water to meet the fire, sweep the fear-creatures aside from her path.

A tear ran down her cheek, and out of the river, she saw more spiders coming, fish transforming into spiders to crawl up the bank and join the battle. Lesser demons or figments of her own fevered sleeper's mind, it didn't matter. If they caught her, they could destroy her own spirit or worse. They could take it over, turn her to an abomination that might destroy her entire clan.

She could not allow that to happen.

iii.

Left or right? Left or right?

One path or the other?

Or bash your head against the rock,

Drown'd by pounding water?

—"The Rock Set in the River," refrain, Estral Lavellan, age 12

"Estral Lavellan!"

Estral woke up gasping, covered in sweat but shivering with cold, with her blankets tangled around her legs. In lieu of the roof of her family's tent, she saw the open sky and the silhouettes of two figures looming over her. She cried out and thrust her hand forward. A green-veined stone from the heart of the Beyond catapulted from her hand toward the chest of the nearer figure. It raised a staff, and a barrier materialized from nothing, deflecting her missile. Estral flinched back and threw both her arms in front of her face, encasing herself in a pyramid of ice.

"Estral! Da'len, it's over!"

That voice was familiar, and it cut through Estral's panic, sounding loud enough to drown out even the frantic beating of her heart. Estral clenched and relaxed her shaking hands, and the ice around her melted and fell to the ground.

Estral looked around. She sat in the ruins of her family tent. She could see the broken tent poles and torn canvas walls all around her amid jagged, uneven pillars of more green-veined Fade stone. They rose like teeth to bite the stars. It was late night or very early morning, with not a trace of the dawn visible yet above the tree line. The campfires were all still banked down, rosy embers in mounds of stones and ashes waiting for the morning. But no one in the camp was sleeping.

What looked like the whole of Clan Lavellan was standing several meters away, grouped around the enclosure for the halla. Their eyes gleamed in the dark, wide and frightened. Accusing. Estral swallowed, gripping her blankets.

"Where are my parents?" she asked the Keeper.

Keeper Deshanna knelt beside her. "Keeper," Rian said, in a sharp, warning voice. Estral realized he was holding his staff at the ready, to attack, and in his other hand he grasped a dagger.

"Are you going to murder me?" she asked.

His tone was harsh and wary, not at all like the usual voice Rian used with her. "I will slay you only if you have been compromised by a demon."

"I killed the demons. Where—where are my parents?"

"They stand apart with the others," Deshanna told her. "You broke Eylan's ribs with one of your first boulders, but both your parents escaped the worst of it and sounded the alarm. Becan is binding up your da's ribs."

Becan was a family friend, one of Dad's fellow hunters and had proved capable before at binding up wounds and broken bones until the Keeper or Rian could see to the injured, but still Estral rose, looking toward the group. "Dad!" she called. "Dad, are you alright? I didn't mean—"

"Stay where you are," Rian warned her, interposing his staff in between her and the others.

"I told you, I killed the demons," Estral said, impatient, tears beginning to leak out from her eyes. She started trembling, still wet from the ice blockade and now exposed to the chill night air. "I want to see my dad—oh, no." She'd caught sight of Mam's loom—her beautiful, massive, tapestry loom, woven with a masterwork Mam had been planning to sell at market. The frame had been splintered into three different pieces, and the working was destroyed—torn and frayed and scorched with something that looked like burn marks.

She collapsed to her knees again, reaching for the broken strands of the loom, touching the shattered tent poles. "What have I done?"

"I would say you have definitively proved you are capable of offensive magic," the Keeper said. "If indeed you are still you."

Estral was angry. "I didn't ask for a squadron of demons to assault me in my sleep! But you should trust your teaching well enough to know that I did not succumb!"

"And you should have learned your lessons well enough to know that the demons do not venture where they are completely unwarranted," Rian retorted. "Was it this place, or did something about you draw them?"

"There was a battle between ancient overseers of Tantervale and Hasmal . . ." Estral started, then broke off, confused. Had she drawn the demons? Her fear once the first had attacked certainly had not helped the situation. "I . . ."

"There is a way to be certain you are not possessed by a demon, child," Deshanna told her. "Do not be afraid. If all happened as you say, you will not be harmed." But her eyes darted to Rian over Estral in a silent assurance that if Estral had been corrupted, the two of them would do what was necessary.

She held out her hand. There was a brilliant flash of white light, and Estral felt a current pass through her, as though a cold north wind had driven right past muscles and bones to her very heart. She blinked the green and violet dots across her vision away and shook her head.

With a clatter, Rian threw aside his staff and dagger. He hugged her to him and kissed her hair, then thrust her out to arm's length and tweaked her ear, quite hard. "Did not you calm yourself before bed, vhenan? Have not we told you how dangerous it may be to sleep in strange places when you have a clouded mind? You could have killed someone! You could have died! And then where would the rest of us be?"

"Peace, Rian," Deshanna ordered.

"But—"

"Peace," the Keeper said again. "I think waking up in a tattered tent may prove a better lesson to her than all of your scolding. Estral's injured her father tonight, destroyed her mother's livelihood for a time, and scared the rest of us half to death. Would you forget any of that in a hurry? You may hold to it that the clan will not."

Estral began sobbing. "I didn't—I never—" She could feel the others watching her, the fear and blame of their gazes. The People weren't like the humans; they knew the value of a mage. But mages were still expected to use their powers to protect and benefit their clans. Those who lost control of their abilities were worse than drains; they were dangers.

The Keeper helped her to her feet again. With her arm around Estral, she led her forward to face the rest of the clan. "Eylan, are you well?"

Estral's father spoke, his voice strained with pain. "I've had worse off an unlucky boar hunt or a boating accident. Estral—are you well?"

Estral felt she could drown in guilt and shame. "Dad, let me help," she said. "I can heal you—"

"Not now, I think," Dad said, and Estral cringed. Even he was afraid of her. "I'll be grand with Becan till the morning."

"Becan, take Eylan into your family's tent, please," the Keeper ordered. "Risi, can you and Tam make room for Siar? We will discuss making a new dwelling for Eylan, Siar, and Estral in the morning. Estral herself will stay with me." Two figures nodded and began leading Estral's parents away from the group. Estral's mam hesitated, stepped toward her, one hand raised, then turned away again to follow Risi.

Estral leaned on her staff, bowing her head against the tears.

"Will you be alright, Keeper?" someone asked. Estral couldn't see their face.

The Keeper stiffened beside her, but her voice was calm when she replied. "Estral is no threat to me or to any of us now. She has suffered a great ordeal this night, and the violence she wrought here was neither intentional nor malicious. A byproduct of carelessness, perhaps, but also evidence that she is committed to fighting any demons that stalk her in the Beyond. She remains uncorrupted by their evil, and I daresay she will be more vigilant in the future in maintaining her guard so that they never again obtain even the slightest foothold in her sleeping mind. I stake my honor as your Keeper on Estral's continued trustworthiness as my apprentice. Return to your bedrolls. Set your fears aside. There has been more than enough turmoil tonight."

There was a muttering from the clan, but the group broke up and dispersed, moving toward their separate tents. Estral stumbled in Deshanna's wake, following her to her own family tent in the center of the camp.

Sellin stood there by the tent flap, holding Dermot by the hand. "Will you be setting wards about her?" he asked the Keeper, without so much as a greeting to Estral.

Deshanna looked up at her husband, her eyes glinting in the starlight, her shoulders stiff. Finally, she sighed. "If it will please you."

"It would," Sellin confirmed. He looked uneasily at Estral. "I know these . . . incidents . . . are not always within the ability of a mage of your age to control, da'len," he said. "And who knows but they are more likely to occur with a girl of your talents? But try to understand—my son is even younger than you." He squeezed Dermot's hand, then let go. "I'll collect what things I can from your family's tent. Dermot, why don't you take Estral inside and help her settle in?"

Later, when Dermot—a lad of seven who clearly hadn't seen what had happened to her tent, understood the substance of anything his father had said, or comprehended that Estral's presence in his tent was anything more than a delightful scheme of his parents for the evening and perhaps an impending adoption akin to those that routinely occurred after Arlathvhen—was asleep with his father, the pair of them crowded onto one bedroll to make room for Estral, Estral curled up into her own blankets. Her things were scorched and smelled of fireballs where they weren't damp with icemelt. The Keeper's efforts to make things more comfortable by spraying the lot with pine water and dry it with her magic had met with only partial success.

She sat beside Estral's bedroll now, shaping wards with her hands that would keep Estral quiet until she woke. Her face was drawn and lined in the faint light coming from a lamp hung in the tent's center. "I am sorry for this, Estral. I believe warding you is unnecessary, but—"

"No," Estral answered. "Do it. I'm only sorry for the energy they'll cost you." She stared across the tent at Sellin and Dermot in the shadows, at how tightly Sellin's arm wrapped around his son, the hardness of his jaw even in his sleep. "This is all my fault," she whispered. "I was just so tired, and I—" she stopped. There was no excuse that was good enough. There simply was no excuse. "This may be a dangerous place in the Beyond, but I'm uncertain I did not make that first spirit—the first I faced, the first that came to me—I'm uncertain I didn't transform it into a demon." She hardly dared to look at her teacher. "I know I drew the others once my conversation with the first became a battle. I panicked. They came to my fear, fed on it."

She wanted assurance, forgiveness. Deshanna offered her neither. "The Beyond and the spirits who live there often serve as a mirror of living souls. But you know this. I cannot say I was not half expecting something like this to occur soon, though I did not expect it to occur in so spectacular of a fashion, or so uncontrolled. I would have introduced measures first."

She was quiet a moment, and her hands fell to her lap. The wards shimmered over Estral, completed. Then the Keeper said, "In the Andrastian Circles of Magi, enchanters provoke situations of this kind as a matter of ritual. An apprentice cannot enter her majority without proving her strength in denying the demons. The People prefer a more cautious approach—but then, our mages, permitted their dignity and roles of honor within their clans, perhaps do not have to withstand such severe emotional temptation. But, as Sellin said, it is not unheard of for our young ones to run into some trouble. You have been struggling of late."

Bitterness and grief rose up inside of Estral. She rolled over on her back, looking up at the Keeper. "You think it was me that turned the spirit. My anger . . . my resentment."

The Keeper didn't answer. Estral closed her eyes against the growing pressure. "Then it was my fault it had to die. It didn't corrupt me. I corrupted it. Is that why—none of the others were there in the Beyond tonight. It was empty, deserted until the greater spirit came. The others—do you think they were frightened of me? Disgusted?"

Nothing but silence. Estral opened her eyes, waiting. The Keeper looked troubled. "I . . . I do not know, da'len," she said finally. "I . . . your affinity with the brighter spirits of the Beyond has always been . . . exceptionally strong. But I . . . I have often wondered whether it could last. Your friends—joy and harmony and curiosity—they are . . . confused and frightened by the more complex emotions. The grown mage in balance and at peace enough within themselves to still appeal to these spirits does occasionally exist. You hear of them, from time to time, within the lore. But by and large—"

"They're childish, you mean," Estral said, "and they're children's companions." A stab of loss seemed to pierce her entire being.

"If you like," Deshanna said, "though this is not the most precise way to classify them. It may be more accurate to say they are simple, pure, and the adolescent or adult who can maintain the kind of simplicity and purity they love is a rare soul indeed. Concerns of maturity creep in—duty to clan and family, allegiance to higher beliefs. These concerns attract different spirits—more powerful, and potentially more dangerous."

Estral turned over again to lie on her stomach, facing away from Deshanna. "So I see."

She felt Deshanna's hand on her back. "Sleep, da'len. Try and forget it for now. The wards will protect you until you wake, and when you wake, you can go to your father, and we can begin to set right what has been upset this night."

But Estral didn't think things could be right again for a long, long time.

A/N: Well! This took forever and a day. Not sure if anyone's ever read any of this, but if you have, I am still working on it. It just took me forever in between data loss, work on original material, and an epic dry spell. It was also somewhat difficult to establish a narrative voice for Estral, who I haven't written since she was a very small child many moons ago. She has a tendency toward poetry and formality the others don't possess.

As Deshanna hints, this is basically my take on a Dalish Harrowing, though Estral hit it a little earlier than her teachers were expecting and much, much more violently, in a setting entirely less controlled than they would have preferred. But mages gots to learn how to deal with demons and manage their emotions. A nasty fact about their existence is that spirits are drawn to them, whether or not they happen to be somniari "dreamers," who just have it super bad. Some of those spirits are demons. Some of those spirits are vulnerable to becoming demons. And one of the primary reasons the Templars shut mages up in Circles is to keep them from becoming abominations like Connor Guerrin in Origins when they encounter situations just like the one Estral runs into here. Suppressed mage desires, anger, or temptations are like fine wine to the spirits of the Fade, who don't really experience them on their own. And like mages bring some of the Fade into the real world, I think they bring some of the real world into the Fade, and most of the spirits there have been sundered from it and are desperate to return.

Onward we go!

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LMS