Okay, last one in this little set. Sorry for the weirdness - I originally wrote this one and Deep into the Fade as a single chapter with the Solas POV following, but it didn't flow correctly since it wasn't in chronological order. So after considerable deliberation, I decided to do it this way.

Returns

There were several matters for me to deal with when I woke in the morning. The soldiers expected to finish repairing the bridge before the day was out, there was a letter from Skyhold informing me that Thom Rainier had survived the Joining, Vivienne had left me a letter before departing with the mages who had been responsible for Wisdom's death, and a Dalish boy whose vallaslin had barely had time to heal was brought, struggling, into camp an hour after dawn.

I was eating breakfast when the scouts prodded him toward me with drawn daggers, his hands bound before him. I had been contemplating Vivienne's letter - not the request itself, which was for the heart of a white wyvern, but because I thought I detected a faint tremor in her usually perfect copperplate handwriting. At first, when the Dalish boy's curses called my attention from the letter, I didn't understand what I was looking at. From the auras, I picked out a mage I didn't know, flanked by two scouts I had seen about camp. When I looked up, one of the scouts said: "We're very sorry, Your Worship, we didn't want to bring him like this, but he kept attacking us, even once we had taken his staff."

They had apparently forgotten that I couldn't see, and so I rose and approached them to find out what they were talking about. That was when I saw that the boy was Dalish, his tattoos still fresh, and that his wrists were tied. Glancing at the scouts, I realized they were putting away knives.

The boy laughed bitterly. "So the shemlenaan have dressed up a flat-ear in half-finished tattoos to pass her off as one of the People," he scoffed.

"An'daran atish'an, Valorin," I said, partly so he could hear my accent, but partly to remind myself not to slap him. "You are Valorin, aren't you? Second to Keeper Hawen?"

"He used a blood magic ritual to bind a rage demon. Or he tried, to, anyway," the scout who had spoken before said. "Had we not arrived in time to intervene…"

"Did you have any trouble with it?" I asked them. "Is anyone injured?"

The smirk was audible in her voice. "We put down a lot of demons, Inquisitor."

"I know," I replied. "Just making certain." I returned my attention to Valorin. "I would prefer not to return you to Hawen trussed like a snared pigeon, lethallin , but I require your promise that you won't attack us."

He drew himself up to his full height - which was certainly no greater than my own. "How dare you claim kinship with me ?" he demanded, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.

"Oh yes, how dare I speak the truth?" I rolled my eyes slightly. "Inana of Clan Lavellan, known to your Keeper as Deshanna's disappointment. I am aware that my vallaslin is incomplete, but I assure you that it was applied by my Keeper's own hand long before any shemlenaan became involved. What I want to know is why the Second of Clan Avisenuralas is off playing blood mage and tormenting spirits, leaving his Keeper to attempt to keep up wards on the camp alone. Hawen was forced to accept the aid of two of my shemlen mages to fill the holes in his wards. What were you thinking, Tael, leaving your clan in such a state in the middle of a war zone?"

Valorin went pale with alarm, and then red with embarrassment, and then white again with anger as I lectured him. By the time I finished, hands on my hips, he was glaring at me sullenly.

"You can't possibly understand, flat-ear," he spat. "Do what you want, but if you untie me, I'll take as many of your sad shemlen allies as I can into the Beyond."

I was ready to throw up my hands in frustration and deliver him to Hawen bound when a hand touched my shoulder. "Perhaps I might be of assistance, Inquisitor?"

It was Solas. I had been so focused on Valorin's brattiness that I hadn't noticed his approach. "You're certainly welcome to try," I told him. He looked better this morning - less haunted, though I was fairly certain he had lost weight, and his eyes were still shadowed.

The boy sneered. "Oh good, another flat-ear to lecture me on - "

"Suinala, da'harilelan," Solas said, injecting an impressive degree of authority - and perhaps a hint of menace - into a single quiet command. Valorin immediately stopped speaking, and I waited, curious, to see what Solas would follow up with. He glanced at me. "I'm certain you have duties to see to, Inquisitor. We will be perfectly well."

My eyebrows went up, but I had no real objections. It wasn't as though Solas would strangle the boy in the middle of camp. Or, at least, he was no more likely to than I was.

"All right," I agreed. "I'll ready our mounts." We were supposed to be headed for the northern camp, after all, though delivering Valorin to his clan would require a small detour - and that was even before the other detour we had planned to view the monument Cassandra and Harding had raised for Wisdom.

Readying our mounts included first packing up our belongings from the tent Solas and I shared - a detail I had purposely glossed over in front of Valorin. I shoved my own loose articles into saddlebags, but was careful to fold Solas's - for a man who almost exclusively wore unhemmed tunics, threadbare hose, and fraying breeches, he was remarkably picky about having all of it packed with care. Dorian and I laughed about it sometimes, along with Bull's complaints about nipple chafing any time someone managed to shove him into a shirt.

Once I was finished, I slung our bags over my shoulder and went to find Harding. She would be going with us, of course, and I was very much hoping that we had an extra horse Valorin could use. Otherwise he would probably end up riding Sylalhan with me, which sounded like torture for everyone involved.

I needn't have worried on either count, though - we had extra horses, and when Solas and Valorin approached several minutes later, Valorin's hands were untied, he was carrying his staff, and he came to me immediately with an enthusiastic apology: "Ir abelas, lethallan. The way I treated you earlier was, um," his eyes shifted, and I guessed he was glancing at Solas, "unacceptable. Could I ask you and your people for a favor?"

My eyebrows went up, but I nodded. Somewhat presumptuously requesting favors was still an improvement over his earlier behavior.

"There's a shrine to Sylaise nearby, currently occupied by the Freemen bandits," he told me eagerly. "I've found evidence it's the final resting place of Lindiranae's talisman." His expression became sheepish as he fixed his gaze on the ground. "That was why I was trying to bind the demon - to help me clear out the shrine so I could search."

"He has shown me his research," Solas said from behind Valorin, "and it appears sound - though of course we cannot know if there is other information that has not yet been uncovered. In any case, if you would prefer to prevent the Freemen from further desecrating one of the holy places of your people, and seek an artifact of historical significance at the same time, the deviation from our plans might prove worthwhile."

I looked at Valorin's excited grin. "Well, the bridge isn't supposed to be completed before mid-afternoon anyway," I sighed. "Let's make the Freemen a little less comfortable, shall we?"

Behind me, Harding gave an unexpected whoop of excitement.

"What?" she asked when I turned to look in her general direction. "I never get to kill things with you guys!"

I found myself laughing.

An'daran atish'an: The place you go is a safe place

Tael: Second

Suinala, da'harilelan: Silence, little rebel