Even the pallor of a Fereldan winter morning seemed dazzling after the Chantry's submarine murk. A pair of crows sat on the tumbled wall and watched the odd pair emerge from the gloom. She leaned against the door to keep it open, glancing over her shoulder to make way for the Qunari. He needed to hunch his head and shoulders to fit through the wicket gate: the door set into the larger gates had not been constructed for his dimensions. The crows rustled in mutual interest as they caught sight of the object dragged in the larger one's wake. It was a corpse - the head brutalised beyond recognition - and it left an orange-red smear on the earth.

Letting the door settle back into the gate, Flora shielded her eyes against the blanched sun and looked upwards. Redcliffe Castle reminded her of the crows perched on the wall nearby: hunched in vigilant silhouette atop its rocky crag. From below, the fortress seemed impregnable.

Didn't Leliana say that it had never been taken in war?

Due to its geography, pointed out her pedantic general. Not due to the skill or strategy of its commanders.

The castle had four towers in total; they clustered like bannermen around the squat pile of a main keep. The flagpoles stood forlorn and naked; if the Guerrin colours had once flown proudly, there was no evidence of that now. The solid grey basalt of the walls was unbroken by banner or pennant

It's been taken now Flora thought, eyeing the towers and wondering which contained a rampaging abomination. She thought she saw a shadowed figure pass swiftly before a window on the eastern tower: but it was gone before she could look more closely.

"I will dispose of this."

Sten's flat observation cut across her thoughts. He was referring to the corpse suspended by an unceremonious leg; face down in the rain-damp mud. Flora dropped her gaze from the castle and eyed the body. The sight of it did not shock her. Death had never been a stranger; each month, at least one bloated carcass would wash up on Herring's shingled shores. Death was not an enemy but more a benevolent rival. ceding Flora some victories in the knowledge that it would claim everyone in the end. This death, she attributed to Loghain Mac Tir and his vicious lie.

"There's a pyre," she said, remembering the column of smoke they had spied from the ship. "In the marketplace. You can put him - it - him on there."

Sten eyed her, face still as a carving made in the stone.

"A creature who acted with dishonour deserves no honour in death."

"You can't just leave him here," she countered, squinting against the milky sunlight through a gap in the buildings. "Children might find him. Let's go to the marketplace."

He issued a grunt that meant: as you wish. Lead on.

Flora hesitated: there was no Chantry spire to act as a waymark. She was unsure whether she had any natural sense of direction since she had lacked any opportunity to put it into practice. Until recently her life had been spent within the boundary of Herring and its beach; and then the narrow confines of the Circle. Lothering had been the largest settlement she had ever visited, until they came to Redcliffe, which was twice its size. The town resembled an above-ground rabbit warren, buildings clustered together like clumps of mushrooms; sprawling out from the Chantry and hewn into the side of the cliff.

Still, Flora reasoned that she was bound to come across the marketplace sooner or later. Hoping that the Qunari would follow in her wake, she set off purposefully towards a desolate shell of a cottage: damaged beyond occupancy by weeks of battle. Despite his size, Sten's tread was almost silent. The only sound in Flora's wake was the dull slithering of the body as it was dragged through the dusty earth.

Why didn't you warn me?

?

About the man in the Chantry. I had a shock.

There came a prickle of irritation. Flora was so preoccupied with her internal conversation that she almost walked into a fence.

You ought to be more observant. We will not coddle you like a child.

Her flopping sleeve had snagged on the teeth of a broken fence post. As she extracted it, a strand of wool remained caught, unravelling for several inches. Flora tugged her arm free, the pale crescent of her forehead creasing. She was mistaken: the marketplace was not behind the tavern. Instead, a bemused goat blinked at her from its muddy pen, chewing on the meagre winter grass.

There may come a time where we are no longer with you.

This was so patently ridiculous that Flora had to stifle a snort.

Just then she was distracted by a familiar set of broken gates. The slithering drag of the corpse followed her as she passed through and down a side-alley; growing more confident as she felt the vein of her brother-warden's presence thicken.

The marketplace opened up unexpectedly before her as she rounded a corner; more oblong than square, and lined with the remnants of stalls on both long edges. Much of their wooden frames had been pillaged for use in the barricade. Since the town had become a war zone at night, the morning market was abandoned. Redcliffe had once boasted the finest selection of produce in southern Ferelden. Now, those in surrounding villages travelled further for their fare: to Crossroads, or to Teagan Guerrin's neighbouring bannorn.

The pyre was located at the far end of the marketplace. The rising smoke had an oily, greenish tinge; curls of ash blew up and out over the rooftops. Several yards away, a party was preparing to wage battle. The senior instructors from the Circle, made distinct by their crimson robes and fading hair, clustered together in low conversation. A knot of Templars supervised the apparatus that the mages would use during the exorcism: staves that gleamed as though dipped in liquid metal, a chest that rattled and shifted in the earth, a tangle of silver tripods. Flora eyed the array of arcane equipment. She recalled Wynne slipping rings on fingers as slender and knobbled as tree breeches: Dorophor's Flameguard, Contrarian's Girdle.

Maybe I should have borrowed a ring.

Ha!

She recognised her companions waiting a short distance away from the mages. Alistair, head and shoulders above everyone, stood beside Teagan. He was no good at feigning patience; fidgeting like a stallion held at the nose by an inexperienced squire. Leliana had not bothered with her demure Chantry robe: she stood armed to the teeth and leatherbound. She was speaking with the bann, who was half-listening; one eye on the lofty spectre of the castle. Of Morrigan, there was no sign.

Alistair had never been able to sense his sister-warden's approach as she could his. Once - many weeks ago - this had been a source of irritation: why could she, a fledgling recruit, best him with his year's experience? With time, and some vague fragments of explanation from Flora herself, he came to understand it better. The taint ran in Alistair's blood as a vein within a vein, thick and dark: she could taste him in the air. The strange chemistry of Flora's body had subdued the poison before it could take hold: it drifted in her wake like the gossamer tail of a cobweb.

In the end, it was one of the senior instructors who first took note of Flora and Sten's arrival. The swift side-glance of curiosity lingered as they noted the Qunari, then widened into alarm as the dragging corpse came into focus. The ripple of consternation echoed through the mages and spread to the nearby group: the bann and Alistair turned at the same moment.

Turning, her brother-warden's handsome face began to crease into a smile, then abruptly veered into dismay. His eyes went straight to the bloodied corpse dangling by a leg in Sten's wake.

The bann's mouth formed silent blasphemy; Leliana alone maintained her composure. She took stock of the situation in a heartbeat, hesitating only briefly before calling out across the market.

"A surprise gift from Mac Tir, I assume."

Flora was not sure that she would describe the would-be kidnapper as a present. The pyre of corpses gave off a strong odour of sulphur. The wood beneath the heaped bodies was damp and so they burned slowly.

Then Alistair was at her side, mailbound fingers sinking into the loose folds of her sleeves. His face was seething with sour emotion: fear and anger feeding off one another. He had crossed the marketplace in half the strides taken by the bann; such was his fervour and the length of his limb.

"Flora."

"Mm."

She was relieved to see him, while sorry that she had interrupted his breakfast. Several apples and a loaf of bread sat on an abandoned stall near where he had been waiting. Her stomach grumbled: I haven't been fed either.

"Did he hurt you?"

"No."

Flora's tailbone had taken the brunt of her ungainly tumble onto the flagstones, and the bruises had already healed.

"But he weren't trying to hurt me," she added, noticing a pair of village children approach the pyre.

"He was not an assassin?"

This came from Leliana, who did not stop before Flora but continued on to the prone body. The Qunari had let it drop unceremoniously onto the flagstones; it lay face-down, grubby with red mud and blood. The children were now throwing stones at the burning dead, cheering at each rush of sparks.

"No." Flora wished that she had at least found out something useful about Loghain Mac Tir's plan. "He was going to take me to General Mac Tir. Well, he would have tried."

Alistair's face went slack with shock - blank as a new canvas - and then stony. His eyes were dark with an anger so potent that Flora felt it like heat on her skin. He said nothing, but the nearby children hesitated in their stone-throwing. In the moments before a storm broke at sea, the air tasted subtly different: the hair on the back of the neck would rise and the heart would pick up its pace.

"For the love of Andraste."

This came from the newly arrived bann. Teagan Guerrin used the toe of his boot to heft the corpse onto its back, revealing a startled face and a skull split in two. The Chantry door had proved as effective a weapon as any dwarven axe. The bann's eyebrows rose into his hairline; his gaze darted from Flora, to the silent Qunari at her side, then back to Flora.

"I assume that's the handiwork of your friend."

Sten's lip curled at the implication that they were anything more than colleagues of necessity.

Flora nodded, her eyes lifting beyond the rooftops and the lone windmill; up to where the castle hunched scowling on its lonely promontory. She wondered if the possessed child was stalking the halls of the main keep, or if it had taken up residence in one of the towers.

We need the Fereldan army to fight the Archdemon.

We need the Fereldan nobles to win the Fereldan army.

We need Arl Eamon to win the Fereldan nobles.

We need to save Connor Guerrin to win Arl Eamon.

The logic of it pleased Flora: it made sense to her, more so than any convoluted politics.

And when the Archdemon is dead, I can go back to Herring.

"You're not hurt." It wasn't a question: Eamon's brother had already appraised her from head to toe. "A lucky escape. Did the sorry bastard say anything before he fell foul of your friend here?"

Sten scowled. Flora opened her mouth to reply in the negative, when her brother-warden's anger broke like a wave against the rocks: sudden and violent.

"What does Loghain want with her? Why would he order that she be taken to him alive? It doesn't make sense. He - he… does he want to- "

There was a sharp kernel of fear amidst the anger, glinting like a glass splinter.

"The man's full of flaws," Teagan said quietly, who had guessed the cause of Alistair's dismay. "But it's not in his nature to dishonour a woman. I'd bet my bannorn that he doesn't want her for… for that purpose."

He chose his words carefully, aware of Flora's bemused gaze.

Leliana added her agreement, eyes solemn and thoughtful.

"Mac Tir condemns his own men to death for any offense of that sort," she murmured, thoughtful. "Rumour has it that he saw some terrible things during the Orlesian invasion. I have heard that his own mother was mistreated by the chevaliers."

Alistair let out a bitter and humourless laugh: his eyes hollow darts.

"The man is full of deceit and treachery," he retorted, bluntly. "And anyone who believes he has even a shred of honour is a fool."

Even in his displeasure, the young man was compelling to watch: the charisma of his fury drew the eye. Onlookers with greying hair were reminded of another who had the same magnetic anger.

Boy's got a Marician temper, observed one in an undertone to another. It's possible, isn't it?

Oh, aye. He's the spit of him.

"Alistair," said Teagan, but there was no force behind the word: the bann was gazing at Alistair with an odd light in his eyes. There was a calculation taking place within his head that involved no numbers.

"It don't matter," interrupted Flora with her northerner's bluntness, her eyes still set on the castle above. "No one takes me anywhere unless I want 'em to. Send a message to Loghain that he has to send more assassins in the future, or better ones."

She was not eloquent, but her words had the brute force of a granite club: dispersing the anger that simmered in the air. Alistair blinked as though struck over the head and the dismayed murmurings of the onlookers quietened.

Flora was aware of the two dozen stares settling on her: some curious, others wary and watchful. Since she had always drawn the eyes of others - for her face in Herring and for her ignorance in the Circle - this attention did not bother her. She was only concerned with her brother-warden: he was gazing at her with an unblinking focus.

Leliana slid forwards, kneeling beside the corpse and removing its woollen coat without hesitation. She did not appear to be bothered by the body matter soaking into the fabric; her movements brisk and deft.

"If this had taken place in the Towers Age," the bard murmured, folding the bloodied material into quarters. "We might choose to send the head of the offender back to his master. We claim to have grown more civilised in recent times, though. We shall send the man's bloody jacket back to Loghain. It will speak without words."

"Well, I haven't grown more civilised," muttered Alistair, but his belligerence had no teeth: he had deflated from his earlier puffed-up rage. "I'd happily send bits of the whoreson back to Denerim."

"You would need to find a strong-winged bird," replied Leliana, wryly. "I think the coat will suffice in the circumstances."


AN: Thank you for the comments! I promise I will reply to them - I am SO tired at the moment, lol! This lack of commute is really impacting my writing time, I miss my two hours on a train 2.5 days a week! Looking after a toddler is so exhausting, I'm a single parent too so I have 0 time hehehee

Anyway, two historical facts for today: a wicket gate is the technical name for a smaller door set inside a larger door, usually in a larger medieval building! And the bloody coat is inspired by the legend Catherine of Aragon, who sent the bloodstained jacket of James IV of Scotland to her absent husband Henry when he was away fighting in France (the Scots had just been slaughtered at Flodden). She wanted to send his head originally but was talked out of it lol