Finding her had been a miracle. Maria's small, crumpled form had barely been visible underneath the snow clinging to her hair, her clothes. When Varric spotted crimson in the beam of his phone's weak flashlight, he raced toward it without thought, wishing, hoping, wanting… praying they weren't too late. Her form felt stiff as ice beneath his fingers, worse, she didn't respond to her name in his mouth, didn't move until he tightened his hold on her.

The instant his fingers curled into her shoulder, she made a small, broken sound. Not quite a whimper, but not a scream either. She shuddered under his hands and bucked against his grip weakly. Her eyes gazed ahead, unseeing, into the darkness while she struggled helplessly against him like a bird beating her wings against a cage. His stomach dropped, his fingers gently circling her delicate wrists while she tried to push him away. A quiet sob escaped Maria's lips and…

It broke him. Just a little. He wasn't ashamed to admit it.

"Maria, stop." He pleaded into her freezing ear. She shivered, but some of the fight seemed to bleed out of her. "It's just me. It's just me, we're gonna take care of you, baby."

Her faint struggles began to cease so he released her wrists and gently wrapped his arms around her waist, cradled her to his chest. "I won't hurt you." He promised to the shivering, half-conscious miracle in his arms. "I won't ever hurt you, Maria."

Somewhere above them, Nyx cawed loudly, repetitively, sounding the alarm for the entire rescue party. Maria collapsed against his chest with a broken, weary sigh that could have been his name, but he couldn't tell. There were other voices calling to each other in the darkness, growing awareness that someone had found something, although who or what was still unknown. They could only hope.

But hope had gotten them this far.

"Varric!" Dorian's voice cried out from the slope somewhere above him. "Varric, where in the blighted hell are you?"

"Here!" He pulled his face away from Maria's chilled skin to yell up over his shoulder. "I've got her!"

He pressed his lips against her temple, one hand gently pushing back the stiff, frozen hair framing her face. He could taste the iron of blood on his lips, her skin frigid underneath his mouth. "I've got you. I've got you." He whispered softly.

Cassandra sent up a prayer of weary gratitude. Dorian appeared beside him like he'd emerged from the shadows themselves, his gleaming dark eyes exhausted and panic stricken while he examined the shuddering woman in Varric's arms.

"Venhedis." Dorian cursed. "Where is Blackwall?"

"I can carry her." Bull rumbled.

"Perhaps. However, we did remove five bullets from your body. I am uncertain if you should even have joined us." Solas reached past Varric and laid a gentle hand over Maria's shoulder. The elf's frown said everything Varric didn't want to know. "We need to get her back. I cannot treat these injuries, I lack the skill…"

"Don't die, you." Sera blurted, half command, half plea. "Fix her up, right? Elfy shite magic can…"

"Here." Blackwall leaned down low, arms extended.

"Wait." Solas ordered. His eyes were glowing, a soft green light flickering. "I can dull the pain, put her to sleep, and remove the blood from her lungs so she doesn't drown in it. It will make travel easier, the rest…"

Varric could feel the magic working, Maria's form melting against his, boneless, finally giving into exhaustion and unconsciousness. Solas pulled his hand back and nodded briskly to Blackwall. "Now."

Varric didn't want to let her go. The last time he let her go she… he bit back the recrimination, reminded himself that the snow was only up to Blackwall's knees instead of his ass, and the most important thing was to get Maria back to camp before she finished dying on them. He shifted and she slipped out of his arms like water until the human lifted her, gentle as a sleeping child, into the air. Bull peered down into her face, rumbled something Varric couldn't quite make out.

"She will be fine." Cassandra stated firmly. "Andraste is with her."

Nobody could ignore the triumphant certainty in the Seeker's voice. Varric almost bemoaned that Cassandra could come through this with renewed faith in her Maker, in some sort of crazy plan. But Maria Cadash survived the vortex, time travel, a demon, a dragon, and an avalanche. Varric… wasn't quite sure what to even chalk that up to beyond divine intervention.

"What would be more helpful than Andraste at this moment would be modern medicine, a healer, and removing these clothes before she succumbs to frostbite." Solas remarked dryly.

"Cold. Bitter. Biting." Cole murmured. "Endless. Alone at the edge of the abyss. Falling. Frightened."

"We've got her now, kid." Varric reassured him as their search party began the perilous trek back. "We've got her."

"Yes." Cole agreed fervently. "They tried to burn her. Bury her. But the ashes were warm and the stone belongs to her family's hearth. He didn't know she'd rise."

"Get her down." The doctor ordered tersely. "This damn woman. If she's not falling out of the bleeding sky, she's stumbling back with hypothermia and Maker knows how many broken ribs."

Blackwall lowered Maria onto the cot with great, tender care. For a perfect moment of stillness, it was just Maria alone on the thin bed like a sacrifice left unattended on an altar. Then both the doctor and healer swarmed over her, checking her pulse, listening to her labored breathing.

"You're not going to believe this." Bea trembled beside Varric, his hand on her arm the only thing restraining her from elbowing both healer and doctor out of the way. She had one fist at her lips, white knuckles pressed to paler lips. "This isn't her idea of a good time either."

"Coulda fooled me." The doctor huffed, pulling the zipper on the sodden, blood spattered jacket. "I'm gonna need a knife to get these clothes off her. They're soaking wet."

Maria's head lolled to the side and Cole produced his switchblade nearly immediately. The Elven healer snatched it with a reproachful, wary gaze in the kid's direction before she began sawing through the thin cotton t-shirt.

"I do not believe we need an audience for this." The Seeker said sternly. Varric deigned to ignore her even though he knew the statement was meant for him. "A few of us should stay, but surely…"

"Ria isn't modest. Or shy." Bea muttered, eyes fixed on the pale skin slowly exposed under the tattered shirt, more blue and purple than cream. Varric's stomach rolled at the mess of bruises and scrapes.

"Varric." Cassandra snapped impatiently. "I will not risk your…"

If she accused him of leering one more time he'd…

"But he's seen her bare." Cole interrupted, confused. "Warm. Wanting. Willing and wicked and…"

Well, he could always count on Cole. Bea rolled her eyes and shot Varric a rather reproachful glare, but honestly it was almost worth it to hear the sharp click of Cassandra's jaw slamming shut.

"Do hold that thought. I'll be rather interested in it if she doesn't choke to death on her own blood." Dorian shoved past, holding a sturdy pile of fleece blankets.

"She's not… she can't..." Bea's voice cracked on the words, swinging helplessly around the triage scene unspooling in front of them.

"Not on my watch at any rate. Not after getting us out of that Tevinter shitstorm." The elf muttered, peeling away the stiff fabric. Her hand glowed as she pressed it to Maria's skin and paused, seeming to listen to her injuries. "Five fractured ribs of varying severity. At least one punctured her lung."

"Sparkler is being unnecessarily dramatic." Varric soothed with a stern, warning glance leveled at the Tevinter witch's back. "She's going to wake up spitting fire, you watch."

He didn't know if he was trying to convince Bea or himself. Maria looked just as small as she had the first time he saw her, unconscious again, although at least she didn't appear to be flickering in and out of reality itself this time. Back then, he'd felt bad for the poor woman who had been pulled off the mountain and he certainly hadn't wanted anything to happen to her, but now…

Varric couldn't bear watching her lay so still as the doctor shouted about lacerations on her head, the healer's hands glowing blue to stitch up bone and lung. His stomach twisted into anxious knots, thoughts spiraling, conjuring scenarios where she never woke. Where he never held her again, never…

"Lacerations are minor. Burn on her palm." The doctor rattled off to the healer. "If you can fix her ribs, it'll be the hypothermia to worry about next."

"Can't help there." The Healer muttered as she worked. "Not trained to do anything about that. I could try raising her blood temperature but I'm as likely to cook her…"

Bea shuddered and the doctor took the switchblade, hacking at the waistband of Maria's jeans. "I need a warm compress. One of you bleedin' witches need to heat up some water and shove it in a damn bottle."

"No need to be rude." Dorian huffed. "Vivienne…"

"I will search for a container, since you are full of hot air darling. See if you can heat those blankets up a bit, hm?"

"All these clothes need to come off. They're soaked through." The doctor pulled the ruined denim away from Maria's hips, a cruel parody of the way Varric once peeled them off. He shut his eyes for a steadying moment and swallowed against the rising tide of complex, terrifying emotions.

"There." The healer said gently. "She'll be sore for a few days, at least, but she'll live. Come here, feel."

Bea tugged against his iron grip and Varric relaxed his hold enough to let her slip through his fingers. He opened bleary eyes and watched Bea press her palm over her sister's gently rising and falling abdomen. The terrible rattle had ceased, vanished into the ether. Bea's shook her head, voice small. "She's so cold."

"Not for long." The doctor muttered, pulling one of the gently steaming blankets from Dorian's arms and pinning Varric with his piercing, slightly insane gaze. "You'll do. Come here."

Varric hesitated. Just long enough for a rather large, he'd bet solid money Qunari, arm to shove him forward. Varric scowled back at Bull, but the doctor kept talking, "Body heat to insulate. You're rather sturdy and you're not too tall for the cot. Up you get."

Oh. Oh shit. "What?" He asked, the question semi-strangled, the thought of curling up next to Maria's solid, albeit frozen, form enough to render him temporarily, and possibly for the first time, speechless.

"Absolutely not." Cassandra scowled, flushing pink to the very roots of her hair. "It is inappropriate and scandalous. The Herald…"

"Right then. She'll just freeze solid while we argue about propriety." The doctor declared waspishly. "We can hope holy Andraste thaws her out."

"I certainly don't want to end up on the wrong side of Cassandra's ire…" Dorian looked entirely too smug for Varric's comfort level. "But this seems like an excellent idea. Finish unbuttoning that shirt, Varric. Better shuck the pants too, you've got snow all over them."

"Ugh." Sera sniffed, turning her face pointedly away. "Not watchin' this show."

"I cannot…" Cassandra's voice raised, the start of a rather fine shouting match nobody had time for.

"I'm sorry." Bea's voice didn't rise at all. It stayed perfectly, completely level. The hair on Varric's neck stood up regardless and he spared a glance for the woman staring Cassandra down with abject fury. "I thought my mother was dead. Please. Continue arguing about the fucking scandal while my sister loses her toes."

Cassandra's mouth moved, but nothing intelligible came out. Satisfied, Bea turned her sharp as knives gaze to him. "Pants off."

She'd given a steely command, one that left no room for negotiation. When Varric didn't quite move fast enough, Bea's voice dropped even further, to what he suspected was an even more dangerous octave. "I'm not asking again."

Varric wasn't certain she'd actually asked the first time. "Andraste's ass." He grumbled, reaching up to begin unbuttoning his shirt, hastily discarding it on a stack of crates. "Can I keep my damn boxers on or are we…"

Bea promptly made up her mind to ignore him. "Roll her onto her side." The doctor advised the healer. "Gently. No use jarring that head."

"Varric." Vivienne's voice trilled from behind him and Varric swore under his breath. "I take it since you're undressing that means you've finally come to your senses about this outfit."

"Everyone's a damn comedian as soon as the dwarf gets naked." Varric huffed, unbuttoning his pants. "Let me know if any ladies see something they like."

In front of him, they shifted Maria's nearly nude form onto her side, covering her with the first steaming blanket, lifting the barest corner for him to slither in beside her. Somehow, this seemed far more intimate than the fact that his mouth had been slanted over hers, their tongues twisted together, his face between her legs and his hands cupping her gorgeous breasts. Perhaps it was simply the aching vulnerability, the mottled fresh bruises covering all the skin he'd traced and kissed.

Maybe it was the blissfully empty expression on her face making her look so much younger, the fresh faced girl in her old photos. The one whose life still may have worked out the way she wanted in a better world, a kinder one.

If she was brave enough to face down a fucking dragon, he could lay beside her, keep her warm. That had to be the easier job. He definitely shouldn't be envying her the heroic showdown with the demon that nearly snatched her away.

As calmly and smoothly as he could, with false confidence born of years hiding inner turmoil, he slipped onto the stiff cot and curled against her while they draped a blanket over them. She was icy, freezing to the touch against his skin. His hissed at the initial contact, but he ignored the discomfort and gently, careful of the newly mended ribs and all the terrifying bruises lining her skin, draped his arm over the dip of her waist. He shifted his hips until they fit snug against hers and slipped one arm slowly under her neck.

The sharp bite of something ever colder than her skin sent him swearing. He shifted, gingerly withdrawing a tarnished silver chain from the space between them, the glimmering pendants nothing more than bits of ice against his fingers.

His eyes focused on them with a start, at first in stunned disbelief, then in bewilderment. They weren't pendants or charms, they were rings, a full damn set of wedding rings. There was a diamond large enough to make any debutante swoon and two plain, serviceable bands, a man's and a woman's.

Bea made a choked gasp, hands freezing in the motion of smoothing the blanket over Maria's shoulder. "Sodding Ancestors. I thought they'd be gone for sure, I thought…"

Varric gently slid his fingers along the chain, trying to ignore the sharp burst of curiosity. There was zero chance that Fynn Dunhark legally married Maria Cadash, that information would have been in the court records and media coverage for sure. But… he could see how legalities didn't matter. Not when you were young, not when the woman you loved agreed to take off from everything she knew and make a new life somewhere else.

Fynn Dunhark may only have had Maria Cadash for a short period of time before his untimely demise. But, he'd fully had his woman, no half-baked life full of lies and secrets. Varric would have sacrificed a lot for that same certainty.

He'd have taken a bullet too.

Varric unclasped the necklace with a deft twist of his fingers and deposited the cold chain in Bea's extended palm. She closed her fingers over them and brought her tight fist to her lips. "I didn't realize she was wearing them. She'd have been… she'd have been fucking devastated to lose them."

The tremor in Bea's usually nonchalant voice told him that Maria wouldn't have been the only one distraught.

"It's alright Mittens." Varric angled his form around Maria's, tipped his forehead against her hair, and closed his eyes. The scent of smoke and iron clung to her, a heady perfume of desperation and sheer, impossible survival. He fought the urge to press his palm more tightly over her abdomen, to drop his lips to her freckled shoulder and kiss each spot with silent, worshipful gratitude.

To drop even lower and gently press his lips to the interlocking triangles of the carta branded on her shoulder. To make a silent, desperate promise that this time, that part of her life was over. There'd be no going back, no matter the cost. Not after…

But this wasn't the time, this wasn't the place. Dorian balanced his warm bottle of water on the opposite side of Maria's neck and very gently brushed his tanned fingers over her cheek. Varric smoothed away the scowl that twisted his features and the matching possessive lurch in his thoughts. Hopefully before anyone noticed.

Instead, he splayed his fingers gently over the soft curve of her stomach. He focused on the gentle rise and fall, the ease of her breathing, so unlike the way she'd labored and gasped in his arms. Without much thought, and certainly without attempting to examine his motives, Varric brushed his thumb lightly, repetitively, in a small arc over her cold skin.

Solas layered another blanket over top of them and looked to the doctor. "You said there was a burn in her palm?"

"Odd one. Don't see how she could've done it, but I guess I've got to get used to her doing weird shit, don't I?"

Bea snorted in abbreviated, but clear, agreement.

"May I?" Solas asked cautiously.

"Be my guest." The doctor muttered. "Not much I can do for it with our general lack of supplies and I'd rather the damn healer deal with her brain than burns."

"Just swelling." The Elven healer's fingers lingered over Maria's head, eyes continuing to monitor Bea's barely concealed anxiety. "Nasty bump, that's all. She'll be right as rain, you'll see."

With a mumbled apology, Solas's hand lifted the blanket. Varric stilled his thumb, watching as Solas gently turned Maria's palm in his. Varric could see the burn even through the halo of Maria's hair, perfect and pristine, a spiraling pattern like a rising sun.

Varric fought back his own shudder. "Chuckles, that's not an accident."

Nothing so beautiful ever was. Solas ran his own fingers over it and frowned tightly. "Unfortunately," He confessed, "I suspect you are correct."

"What is it?" Cassandra asked, peering suspiciously over Solas's shoulder.

"The mark of the magic she survived in the vortex." Solas ran his own thumb over her palm. The second he did, the burn illuminated with a dull, gentle flicker. Varric swore he saw flakes of golden light dancing under Maria's skin through her veins. "That demon pulled it to the surface, perhaps in an attempt to wrench it from her."

"It looks almost like the symbol of the Chantry." Cassandra supplied with a rather firm amount of conviction lacing her voice.

She was right, to a point. It was certainly a sun, Varric would give her that, but beyond that Maria's brand bore little resemblance to the great glowing suns of the Chantry. Her's had delicate, intricate knots laced within it. A pattern within a pattern, looking more like something Daisy would doodle than anything else.

"A coincidence, nothing more." Solas curled Maria's small fingers over the mark like she clasped something precious within it. "It must have caused her great pain to have it brought to the surface like this."

He knew. He'd heard her screaming. Unable to help himself, he brushed his thumb over her skin again, an unsaid apology for leaving her at a monster's mercy.

"She's tough." Bea tightened her grip on the rings on her hand and lifted burning eyes to Solas. "Ria is tougher than anyone I know."

Solas smiled, both kind and sad. "Of that, I have little doubt. We would not be here otherwise."

xx

She awoke in pieces, not all at once. The first thing she noticed was the searing heat surrounding her, warmth bleeding through every inch of skin except the tip of her nose, which felt frozen solid. The blankets covering her were heavy weights keeping the sweltering heat in.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so warm, so cozy. She considered opening her eyes, but that seemed… too hard. Her head throbbed in warning so she kept them shut, shifting slightly off an aching hip to…

It was that tiny movement that revealed the second, more important thing. Maria Cadash was not alone in this horribly uncomfortable bed. Someone's heavy arm rested over her bare skin, her wiggling pressed her firmly against a broad, immovable chest, rough hair prickling her skin. She froze, keeping her eyes shut resolutely, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Her first thought, one that nearly had her leaping from the bed, was that she'd fallen asleep in Dwyka's bed, fallen into this pantomime of intimacy while she'd been asleep. It happened before, and somehow that was always worse than laying perfectly still until dawn, waiting for the sun to rise to make her escape.

But the hand on her stomach was different than Dwyka's. Undoubtedly Dwarven given the size, but less weather roughened, the callouses in the wrong place, and draped gently over her waist. There was nothing possessive about it, only warm reassurance.

Fynn, her gut clenched as his name rattled in her head, but that wasn't right either. Fynn's hands had been strong, ages practicing the piano at his mother's insistence after all, but they'd never grown rough with any kind of manual labor or…

Writing.

Those were callouses from pen and pencil, she'd developed some of her own during her school days, before she'd decided that fighting and crime left better paying marks instead.

With that thought, bits and pieces began to drift back. Their desperate kiss in the kitchen. His broad arms effortlessly lifting her off her feet, his mouth…

His amazingly talented mouth. The very thought sent a spike of heat right through her in spite of her aching head and stiff limbs. Somebody must have spiked her drink, because clearly she'd been drunk, she couldn't even remember the main event. Out of all the terrible things that happened to her, that seemed most unfair. If she'd made the critical error of falling into this horribly uncomfortable bed with Varric Tethras, she wanted to at least have the good bits to cling to.

Why was her bed so uncomfortable? Sodding hell, she felt like she was sleeping on a prison cot. She shifted again, as gingerly as she could, brain trying to fire off what exactly to do next. She needed to open her eyes, needed to break this spell, send him packing, and yet…

And yet.

She was so tired. Her eyelids felt heavy, her limbs leaden. His breath was warm on her shoulder, his forehead tucked against her hair. She was pressed tightly against him and he felt solid against her, a bulwark against the darkness nibbling at the edges of her mind. She'd been so afraid, so alone, and he…

Emotions she didn't quite understand bubbled to the surface, fear squeezing her throat. It had been so dark and it hurt. She was so confused, her addled mind trying to keep up, and she didn't…

"I've got you." Varric whispered against her temple. "I've got you."

Everything else returned like a punch in the gut. Haven. The templars, the dragon, Corypheus. Her march through the snow to her doom. Her eyes flew open, startled, taking in the cold dark night surrounding them. In her line of sight, Bea curled up in a tiny ball, her head resting against Bull's solid chest. He slept too, leaning on the pole holding this makeshift shelter up, eye closed. One arm wrapped around Bea's shoulders, the other around Sera's while she snored lightly.

Alive. Alive, they were alive and so was she. She closed her eyes again, dizzy with relief. If they were alive, then it would be okay. It had to be.

She could go back to sleep. It would be so damn easy to.

Behind her, Varric shifted near imperceptibly and Maria's breath hitched. Sweet Ancestors, his bare legs were tangled up against hers too and…

Maker. He couldn't be completely naked, could he? Her mind struggled to process the feel of him, but she was still wearing her damn underwear, the underwire of the bra poking against her uncomfortably to remind her of that fact. He had to be wearing his.

How in the void had this even happened? How had Bea allowed this to happen? Her little sister could hardly be called part of the Varric Tethras fan club.

Boxers or briefs? Maria's inner voice questioned, off on it's own little tangent while she struggled to make sense of the crazy series of events that ended up with her snuggled up quite cozily to Varric fucking Tethras.

She shifted again, pressing back gently. Boxer briefs, she thought. Had to be. She twisted her hips again, just to be sure…

"Princess." Varric huffed gently in her ear, voice sleep roughened and deliciously husky. He pressed gently on her stomach and stifled a low laugh in her shoulder. "You keep moving like that, I can't be held liable for what happens next."

She fought back a delighted shiver without much success. She felt Varric's response in the loose sweep of his fingers up her abdomen and the slight pull of his hips away from hers. She felt more loss at that than she wanted to admit. And a brief, electric jolt that was only barely smothered by fatigue.

"Are we safe?" Her own voice came out hoarse.

"Seems that way. Been a whole twenty four hours since we ran out of Haven, beautiful. No sign of anything chasing our ass. They probably figured we'd starve or freeze to death without them having to lift a finger."

Maybe everyone should have to sleep next to Varric, then, because the man was a furnace. She twisted to sit up and winced immediately, every muscle protesting the sudden movement. Her chest ached, her stomach ached, her arms and legs and…

The world tilted, spun, fuzzed a bit at the edges.

Varric sat up far more successfully than she had, but she still managed to curl to face him. His amber eyes were dark in the weak light flickering around them in the darkness, lanterns and firelight, his glorious chest completely bare.

Touch. A part of her commanded greedily. Her hand responded without her permission, lifting into the fraught, tense space between them. This all felt so surreal, part of a dream, and perhaps she hadn't quite woken…

"Careful with that one." Varric's eyes flicked to the palm of her hand and back to her eyes. "You've got some magic stuck in it."

Her fingers curled closed, protectively, and she pulled back. Yes. She remembered the sun caught in her palm, her flashlight in the darkness. With her fingers against it, she could feel it there, one more ache among all the others.

He'd burned it into her skin. Seared it to her flesh. Her heartbeat spiked, fear prickled through the exhaustion. "He put it there, he did something to me, he was..."

There weren't any words. Varric could probably find them, but they escaped her. He'd been like a solid black hole in the universe, like a wound oozing pus and infection, like every nightmare she'd ever had all rolled into one.

"I know." Varric whispered, gently placing one of his hands on her shoulder and lightly guiding her back down. "We know. We know who it was. What he is."

"What?" She rasped. Varric sighed and made to tuck her smoothly back under the blankets. He was going to get up, going to leave her in the darkness and the cold with nothing but her thoughts and fears, oblivion circling the edges of her vision. The next word fell from her lips before she considered it fully. "Stay."

For a split second her words landed into the silence with all the elegance of a ticking time bomb. He stared at her, taken aback by the request she assumed. Certainly unsure how to handle a sick, broken creature clinging to him so selfishly. But she swallowed the tension, quirked her lips into the best smle she could manage. "Keep me warm and tell me a story."

Please. The unsaid word echoed in her chest.

"It's a shitty story, Princess." Varric sighed, but he slipped back beneath the blanket, careful to leave a scant inch of sizzling air between their skin. "But I'll try. It started with Hawke…"

Varric spun Reyna Hawke into being as smoothly as if he'd done it a thousand times, conjuring the witch out of the freezing night air so vividly, Maria could see her the way he did. This wasn't a woman lighting her own pyre in the ashes of Redcliffe, crazed and wounded with a manic gleam in her eye. This was a heroine. A champion. Varric's champion.

He told the story from where he'd entered it. Pulled out of bed by a panicked three in the morning phone call, shambling up to the ritziest areas of Kirkwall. The shattered glass from the broken window, the light from the silent alarm still blinking steadily. The first Hawke sister, bruised and shaken but otherwise unharmed, the second smelling of smoke and charred dwarf while an elf calmly stitched up his own wound.

Following the Carta to, of all places, an ancient temple hidden in the Vinmarks. A temple that locked them inside and forced them into the Deep Roads before they could escape. Their desperate fight through the things of nightmares, and Hawke's blood being the only thing that could open the door.

It unlocked more than that. Much more.

And in spite of herself, as he spun the tale, she ended up closing that distance between their bodies. She wasn't sure exactly how it happened, it seemed to be a magic of it's own, magnetism or perhaps gravity. She didn't press against him, not like she desperately wanted to, but she couldn't ignore the soft heat leaching from him to her.

Couldn't ignore the way his voice lulled her back to sleep.

"I swear." Varric murmured softly into her hair. "We killed him, Princess."

No they didn't. But she was too tired to argue.

"I'm sorry." She thought he whispered. But it could have been a dream, one she slipped back into effortlessly.

The next time she woke up, it was to bitter shouts. There was a weight at the end of the cot, but nobody under the blankets beside her. She was completely, utterly, alone. Clearly, she'd hallucinated Varric Tethras's gentle arms curling around her, his searing warmth, his muscles and…

She raised her hand to her head, rubbing her face briskly.

"Ria?" Bea's voice asked cautiously, breathless with hope.

"Bea." She answered groggily, opening her eyes. It wasn't Bea's face she met with, but the lined and weary one of Mother Gisele. She swallowed, swinging her eyes down to the bottom of the cot where Bea sat, still as a statue, looking more a mess than she'd ever seen her. Eyeliner smudged, hair askew, lips pale.

"Are you awake this time?" Bea asked, frozen in place. "Really awake? Varric said you were before but you were out of it still and…"

"Varric?" Her tongue nearly tripped on the word, a surge of heat rising up her face. "He was here?"

"They all were." Gisele soothed. "You are dear to many people, Herald. You've had a steady stream of them wishing you well."

"What would you have me tell them?!" Cullen's voice roared. Maria fought back the flinch and pushed herself up, trying to stare into the darkness past Bea.

"We must find a way!" Cassandra snapped back, a pale figure in the dim firelight.

"Please!" Jospehine cried out. "We must use reason!"

"Don't mind them." Bea dismissed the humans with a wave over her shoulder. "They've been at it for hours. How are you feeling? How's your head? Still remarkably thick?"

"Shut up." Maria replied automatically, the banter familiar even as her throat scratched out the words like she hadn't spoken in ages. "Where are my clothes?"

"Ruined." Bea supplied unhelpfully. "But Harding said she had a spare outfit of her own in her camera bag. It's probably the closest we'll get to anything fitting you. Hold on, I'll go find them."

As if she'd simply been waiting for something, anything, to do, Bea jumped into motion. She fled into the darkness before Maria had time to ask where exactly her little sister had gotten the coat she was wearing. The thick, buttery leather was far more familiar than Maria wanted to admit.

"You need to rest." Giselle said gently. "There is no need to get up quite yet. After all…"

Giselle tipped her head almost playfully to the heated argument happening just outside between Cassandra, Josephine, Leliana, and Cullen. "It does not appear we're going anywhere quickly."

"We have time to waste?" Maria asked, pushing herself impatiently into a fully seated position despite Gisele's tutting disapproval. She clutched the blankets tightly around her shoulders and breathed through the ache in her muscles. Bad, yes, but not the worst she'd ever pushed through.

"Thanks to you, they have the luxury of arguing. You prevented our enemies from following, but with time to doubt… well, it is easy to blame."

Bea reappeared, tossing a bundle of clothes on the cot. "Right. So, I'm gonna warn you that you look like a bannana someone's kicked around, that's how fucking bruised up you are."

"I'm sure I've looked worse." Maria muttered, dropping the blanket and reaching for the sweater. Even in the flickering lantern light, she could see the marks covering her pale flesh. Deep bits of purple and blue, shadows deepening them into black in places.

"I'm not." Bea admitted, folding her arms around herself and watching Maria as she struggled to manage the fabric with her stiff limbs. Finally, impatiently, Bea stepped forward and grabbed it, thrusting it over Maria's head. "Here, before you strangle yourself."

"We don't have that!" Cullen yelled.

"She is not saying we do!" Leliana snarled back.

"In-fighting may be as great a danger to us as Corypheus." Giselle sighed.

"I don't know." Bea sniped under her breath while she gently tugged the sweater over Maria's battered torso, taking extra care to straighten it and meeting her eyes with a weak grin. "To my knowledge, our humans have zero dragons and the demon has one."

"Where is it?" Panic clawed at Maria's throat again. "The dragon and Corypheus, the red templars, where…"

"Nobody has figured out where the fuck we are." Bea answered. "Varric can't get his network up and running for more than ten minutes at a time, although to be fair he's been snuggling you and trying to work for most of the night. For as good as he claims to be at multitasking…"

There was his name again. And her chance to ask. She plucked the material over Bea's shoulders pointedly. "What's this?"

"It's mine now." Bea declared, wicked eyes dancing with relief and mirth. "Jealous, Ria?"

Gisele cut in with practiced diplomacy. "There has been no sign of Corypheus, his dragon, or the templars. Perhaps he believes you are dead, and thus is satisfied. Or he believes we are helpless and lost."

Gisele sighed. "It could even be that he plans another attack as we speak. We do not know the demon's mind, only our own fears."

Maria swung her feet off the cot and pulled the leggings on over her aching limbs as quickly as she could. Jumping from the cot to finish the job was a mistake, the rush of blood to her head making her stumble into Bea. Her sister's arm wrapped around her waist. "Easy." Bea whispered. "This was… this was bad, Ria. You really should lay back down."

"I'm not gonna sodding sit here and listen to them arguing." Maria spat between her gritted teeth, fighting the dizziness back where it came from and finishing the job of putting her damn pants on. "This isn't helping anything."

"Another heated voice won't help." Gisele advised, a gentle voice laced with steel. "Even yours. Perhaps especially yours."

"I agree. The last thing we need is one of your infamous tantrums, Ria."

She was going to kill Bea. She glared into her sister's face, holding onto her and pulling on one of her soggy boots, the only clothing left from her misadventure, it seemed. Gisele picked up where Bea left off. "They are struggling to lead because of what we survivors witnessed."

"Well, it can't be worse than what I saw." Maria snapped, pulling on the last boot.

"Don't you dare." Bea shoved Maria, hard, back onto the cot. Caught off guard, Maria stumbled back onto the thing. It creaked precariously, but before she could turn her temper on Bea, Maria realized her sister's face was flushed and splotchy, tears threatening in her eyes. "Don't you dare." Bea hissed, diving into Varric's coat pocket and pulling out something glimmering, shining in the dull light. Instead of handing it to her, Bea threw it. The necklace and her rings landed in Maria's lap.

Maria blocked out the human's arguing and focused on Bea, preparing to argue with her instead. She opened her mouth, but Bea stopped her cold. "I saw you die, Ria. I thought I buried you just like I buried Nanna, Dad, and Fynn."

The well of grief under those two sentences stretched endlessly. Bea ripped her eyes away from Maria's and stared up at the tarp above them, blinking rapidly. Guilt thudded hollowly in Maria's chest and she curled her fist around the necklace.

"Bea…"

"Shut up." Bea seethed. "Shut up. I thought I lost you, I thought… fuck."

Bea whirled away and Maria stood, intent on following her. "I need a fucking minute." Bea shouted back, voice thick with unshed tears. "Stay fucking put for once in your damn life and give me a second to breathe."

Wretched, Maria watched Bea stumble back out into the night. Gisele sighed, watching the slender form vanish. "It is difficult. For all of us, although for her I fear it was far worse. We left our defender behind to save us all… and we lost her."

Maria hadn't been defending anyone. She'd just been trying to survive, blindly acting on gut and instinct. It had been a desperate last stand, nothing more, nothing heroic or courageous. "I wasn't…"

Gisele overrode her voice patiently. "And after all hope had fled… she returns. This is miraculous by any standard, and your actions appear more divine intervention than standard heroics. The longer we examine the darkness behind us, the more our trials seem ordained."

"That's crazy." Maria folded her arms around her aching torso, trying not to shiver. "Nothing about this has anything to do with faith or…"

"It does seem insane, yes?" Gisele asked sweetly, piercing Maria with her dark eyes. "What 'we' have been called to ensure? What 'we', perhaps, must come to believe?"

That 'we' of Gisele's was very pointed and Maria wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't believe in their Maker, their Andraste, their Herald. Maria never heard the Stone sing or heard whispered guidance from her Ancestors' tombs. The Elven creators apparently abandoned the world long ago, and Maria wouldn't be surprised if everyone else hadn't followed suit. They were alone, carving out their destinies with nothing but switchblades and shaking fingers.

"What 'we' believe doesn't matter." Maria glared, standing from the cot and steadying herself for just a moment. "What we're about to do is freeze to death if someone can't get their head out of their ass. I'm not waiting for the Maker to intervene."

She turned her back on the infuriating woman and took careful, measured steps to the edge of the tent. Outside her meager shelter, she saw the Inquisition's leaders surrounding a campfire, all wearing various expressions of distress, their silence simmering with resentment.

Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck were they supposed to…

"Shadows fall…" Gisele's throaty voice carried from somewhere behind her, loud and clear as a chantry bell on Sunday as she moved to stand beside Maria. "And hope has fled. Steel your heart, the dawn will come…"

"What are you doing?" Maria hissed under her breath, piercing Gisele with a reproving glare, flinching as the four humans turned to stare. Gisele smiled, mysterious and sly, sailing past Maria without a word of explanation. She continued to sing an old song, a song Maria swore she'd heard in bits and pieces, a Chantry hymn floating out of pretty wooden chapels in Ostwick. "The night is long, and the path is dark… Look to the sky, for one day soon… the dawn will come."

Maria gambled semi-professionally and knew she was rather good at it. Still, she'd have never placed money on what happened next in a million years.

It started with Leliana's clear, bright soprano joining the chorus. Then, Maker's balls, Cullen. Soldiers. Refugees. Chantry sisters. Children and witches and templars, all of them. The sound roared louder than the ocean, enough to drown the dragon's screech still echoing in her head, and they were staring at her like she had an answer, like she could do something, anything.

Some of them dropped to their knees like she really was an idol carved of stone, an altar to worship at. Her panicked thoughts insisted she should have fled after Bea, but when she looked behind her to see if that escape route was still open, she saw her sister had returned in silence. The slouched form in the darkness, arms crossed, looked torn between amusement and grave concern.

She could almost hear Bea scoffing about humans being outrageous. Maria tightened her grip helplessly on the rings in her fist, wishing for all the world she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The song ended, the night sky hanging onto the last piercing note. Gisele turned her dark eyes back down towards Maria, triumph sparking in them as people cheered. "An army needs more than an enemy." She declared softly. "It needs a cause."

Gisele lifted her hands, prepared to preach a sermon to the masses. "My fellow children of the Maker…" She began fervently. "We have survived the trials put in front of us, endured the terror of…"

She stared, agog, until she felt the light press of a hand against the small of her back. She looked up to pin Solas with her bewildered gaze.

"A word?" He asked politely.

"Only if it has four letters." She protested weakly, staring back out in stunned disbelief at the crowd.

"Come." Solas said gently, guiding her into the shadows. "We have much to discuss."

"She's a wise woman. Worth heeding, at the very least. Her kind understand the moments that unify a cause… or fracture it." Solas muttered, almost to himself, although Maria understood he was attempting to instruct her.

Maria shivered, although if it was from the cold or existential dread, she couldn't tell. Solas noticed and extended his palm. A smooth, elegant flick of his wrist summoned a ball of flames, blue and beautiful, in the space between them. Maria stepped closer to the warmth, grateful for it.

"Can you help me escape her?" Maria asked, only semi-joking. Solas's fond smile was the only answer before he shook his head.

"The magic Corypheus used against you. The spell that embedded that mark in your hand… It is Elven."

Maria lifted her right palm up, still clutching the rings within it. She unfolded her fingers and stared down at the intricate, beautiful sun burned into it. "It looks Elven, I guess." She muttered, shifting the sparkling rings to reveal the elegant loops. "Not that I'm an expert."

"It is the magic that has been inside you since the start, pulled to the surface." Solas explained clinically. "I assume it is also the magic that created the vortex, the same spell that caused the explosion that destroyed the conclave."

And now… now it was inside her. "Fantastic." She muttered.

"Do not begrudge it so much." Solas advised. "I suspect without that magic in your veins, you would have perished then as well. As to how Corypheus survived… that is a mystery."

Solas sighed and hunched his shoulders, staring down at the snow consideringly. "The only thing that is not a mystery is how people will react when they discover the origin of this magic. Perhaps people will not look past the fact that it is the symbol of the chantry, but there must have been a tool, one he used to harness it, and if it is found…"

"Riots." Maria sighed. "The elves have it shit enough in all the cities of Thedas."

Nanna used to say it could always be worse when they complained about not having enough money to buy nice clothes or go to the movies. They, at least, could afford food and their bills even if they had to work to the bone to do it. The elves… well, there was a reason they were shoved into the alienage projects. Nobody wanted to look at starving children.

"This is a fucking mess and elves are an easy target." Maria murmured.

"I agree." Solas's voice was laced with approval. He placed a gentle hand on her aching shoulder. "But we can control this narrative. We can tell the story we wish to tell."

"Solas." Maria jerked her chin over her shoulder. "There's a woman back there preaching a sermon about a dwarven criminal with elven magic in her hand at the head of a human religious movement. I can't control any of my own story."

She hadn't been able to in years.

"Corypheus attacking the Inquisition changed it. Changed you." Solas insisted. Maria shivered again, but this time it certainly wasn't from the cold. "You are their guide. You are their savior."

"I'm not." Maria protested, wrenching away. "I'm not, don't you dare go human on me, Solas, or I swear…"

"There is a place in the North. I have seen it in the fade, a place hidden by magic that waits for a force to hold it…"

"Is there anything useful in the fade?" Maria asked skeptically. "Maybe a way to get the network up and running so we can call for help?"

"Varric Tethras will never get our communications up and running without additional technology." Solas insisted smoothly. "The witches alone, our power, interfered too much. Perhaps, if we had not found you he could have rigged something together, but the stronger you become, the more you recover…"

Solas reached for her palm, covered it with his own. "The technology we have with us cannot override your magic. Not any longer. I suspect he is beginning to identify the problem as well. If anyone could fix it, I suspect it is Varric, but he cannot do so here."

"Oh for fuck's sake." Maria blurted out. It would have been better, apparently, if she froze to death or simply died in the avalanche.

"But your magic is, perhaps, the only key to finding our path. Go north, lead them forward. Your magic can unlock our safety, I know it." Solas pressed. "Only you can do this."

"I can't." Maria's voice broke and she shook her head. "Solas, I can't."

"You must." Solas's lips pressed into a thin line. "But you will not do it alone. We are by your side."

"They won't listen to me."

"On the contrary." Solas smiled, soft and proud. "I believe you are the only one they will listen to."

xx

Three days. They followed Maria through the mountains for three fucking days. Varric thought he'd never forgive her for their forced march through miles of snow, directly into the bitter, biting wind of the north. There was, after all, only so much a man would do for a pair of beguiling eyes no matter how sensuous her curves. Varric Tethras had nearly reached his damn limit.

In fact, he'd had it with Maker damned everything. The network that wouldn't connect them to the satellite, no matter what he tried. He couldn't feel his toes. And he was simply sick of the endless, bleak, whiteness of it all.

One more day, he thought darkly, trudging after Maria's crimson hair. One more blighted day, then he was refusing to go one more step.

Which, of course, was exactly what he'd said to himself yesterday.

"Can you all honestly not feel that?" Maria asked over her shoulder, perplexed.

"There are lots of things I can't feel, Princess." Varric growled. "Would you like an enumerated list?"

She sent him a withering look. Varric glared back, unimpressed.

"Darling, all I can feel is that energy coming out of your hand. It's like standing in the middle of an orchestra." Vivienne, somehow, still looked elegant in her snug fitted peacoat. The splashes of red templar blood almost formed a chic pattern. She'd be a perfect villain for one of his stories. If he didn't freeze to death first.

Maria cautiously approached a cliff. Varric watched, warily, as she danced rather too close to the edge for his taste. If she fell to her death one more time, he wasn't rescuing her, right hand to Andraste.

"Please do not fall off that precipice." Dorian snapped, in tune with his thoughts. "I, for one, do not wish to be the person informing Cullen we allowed you to plummet to your doom."

Maria ignored him, reaching out to brush snow from a large stone pillar overlooking the abyss. A matching one, almost like they were man made instead of natural, sat some distance away. Her ineffective swiping revealed something carved into the surface.

"Runes." Solas smiled down at her, proud as only an old teacher could be. "Well done."

But Maria seemed to be entranced by the shapes in the rock. She tipped her head to the side, examining them curiously. She brought her gloved right hand to her mouth and used her teeth to rip off the fleece fabric. Varric caught the slightest flicker of light in her palm before she pressed it to the stone.

The runes lit up gold, glowing gently, flickering with power. A gust of wind surged past them all, so fierce he temporarily grew concerned it would topple Maria right into the yawning abyss. Instead, it lifted her hair around her face, whipped past them into the chasm, bright lights dancing within it.

Varric's breath caught in his throat. The lights seemed to sketch out a bridge, one that turned corporeal before their very eyes. It was made of stone and marble, hanging above the abyss implausibly. The magic picked up speed, circling in clouds in the air, puffs of glitter exploding to reveal walls, towers, trees, gates, all pulled from nothing but thin air.

"Andraste's blushing buttcheeks." Dorian whispered. "Who hid this?"

Who wouldn't? It was something from another age, from a fairy tale, a fortress fit for a queen, pristine and intact, waiting for someone to unveil it, someone to call it back to life.

Not a queen, a part of him supplied. A princess. His princess.

"Skyhold." Solas supplied quietly. "Welcome home, Herald."