Thank you all for reading! Particular thanks to my awesome beta, suilven! BTW, I have recently started a new project that may cause updates to be spottier than usual the next couple of months - I hope you'll all bear with me. I've never left a story unfinished yet, and I don't plan to start with this one!
She came in the door of the main hall, causing little notice amongst the denizens of the Inquisition. Varric, watching her, tapping his quill against his lips, couldn't understand why no one was looking at her—she was well worth looking at. Hair as black and glossy as a raven's wing, and a strong, lithe body underneath a skirt made of scraps of leather and a top that was little more than a scrap itself. A face as beautiful and cold as an ice sculpture. The magic practically rolled off her, cold as her face.
If no one was looking at her, Varric felt forced to conclude, it was because she didn't want them to.
As she paused in the doorway, looking around, her gaze fell on him, and she smiled, a calculating and predatory smile. He took notice of the sway of her hips beneath the skirt as she walked toward him. She was beautiful, no question there, but not his type. Too aware of her beauty and the weapon it could become.
"Varric Tethras."
"Lady Morrigan." For it could be no one else but her. He was fascinated to have her here … but less fascinated than he had been by many another person. Because no one would ever come close enough to this woman to tell her story, or even to alter it. She held her story close to her chest, and would share it with no one.
"You see much, Master Dwarf," she said, nodding her head at him. "I take it I will not be the subject of any of your tawdry tales?"
"Not as such," he agreed.
"As it should be." She turned her head toward the inner keep. "Your leaders are at council, I suppose?"
He wondered how she knew. No doubt she knew much more than anyone wanted her to. "So I imagine. I don't track their movements."
Morrigan laughed. "Don't you." It wasn't a question. "Perhaps we will speak more later, dwarf."
"I'm here," he said lightly, but he breathed an inner sigh of relief when she moved on and took the burden of her gaze away from him … or he did until he saw that the next person she stopped to speak to was Hawke.
Lilias remembered Morrigan from the ball. Seeing her here, in Skyhold, she stiffened, and from the amusement on the other woman's face, Morrigan noticed it.
"The Champion of Kirkwall. Skyhold does attract the mighty names of Thedas, does it not?"
Nettled, Lilias snapped, "My name is Lilias Hawke. I am not the Champion of Kirkwall, and as I imagine you very well know, I never truly was."
Morrigan tutted at her. "You should have more confidence in your power. Leyden certainly did. She knew the power she held, and she toyed with it. And with them." The smile that had been playing around her mouth widened; she looked very much like a cat with a mouse.
"With them?" The implication was that others had been in love with Leyden, too, not just Alistair. Could that be true? Certainly Morrigan wouldn't have expected Lilias to feel relief at that news … but undeniably she did.
"When the assassin returned to Antiva, he bore a fresh tattoo. Not unlike the one the King of Ferelden carries branded on his heart."
"What is it you want here, Morrigan?" Lilias asked coolly. She was somewhat taller than the mage, and she took advantage of her height now, drawing herself up.
"Is that not for the Inquisitor to ask? Perhaps you will be dismayed to hear that I am come to stay." Morrigan looked around her with satisfaction. "'Tis a most welcome change from the Blight—and if truth be told, rather warmer than the Winter Palace."
"What do you mean?"
"Empress Celene has decided the Inquisition needs the benefit of my knowledge more than she does, and has declared me liaison to the Inquisition."
"Congratulations."
"Thank you. No doubt I can be of use against Corypheus." There was a sneering look on Morrigan's face that said as plainly as words that she questioned Lilias's use in that endeavor.
"Good. We can use all the help we can get," Lilias said, trying not to rise to the bait.
Morrigan began to move past her, then stopped. "You may not believe it, Champion, but I truly wish you luck. You will need it."
And then she was gone, pushing through the door into Josephine's office, leaving Lilias to wonder just what she had meant by that.
Cullen moved a piece across the War Table into the region of Orlais known as the Arbor Wilds. "This is where our latest intelligence has him, Inquisitor. He has uprooted his major strongholds and gone south." A pleased smile crept across his face. "His army clearly wasn't prepared to flee. Our victories have them on the defensive."
"Good of Corypheus to make it easy to find him." There was an answering smile on Thule's face. It felt for a moment as if they both could sense the beginning of the end. "If we can find him in the Arbor Wilds, that's where we finish him."
"But what is Corypheus doing in such a remote area?" Josephine asked.
"His people have been ransacking elven ruins since Haven," Leliana replied. "We believe he seeks more. What he hopes to find, however," she added, "continues to elude us."
As if in response to her words, the heavy doors flew open, and a cool voice said, "Which should surprise no one."
Cullen's head snapped up in surprise as he recognized the lady Morrigan. He had known she was coming—they all had—but that she could arrive here, in the midst of a War Room meeting, with no notice from their scouts … Well, it had been obvious even in the Tower, even in his state at the time, that she was no ordinary woman, and certainly not an ordinary mage. He shivered, wondering what the extent of her powers might be.
Next to him, Leliana stiffened as Morrigan came further into the room, standing next to Thule as though she belonged there. She looked arrogantly around the table. "Fortunately, I can assist." She paused, and then when no one spoke, she continued. "What Corypheus seeks in those forgotten woods is as ancient as it is dangerous."
"Which is?" Thule asked her, a faint edge to his tone.
She looked down at him, and Cullen marveled at how clear it was that the sense of superiority she felt over the Inquisitor had nothing to do with his height. "'Tis best if I show you."
And with that she was gone, leaving Leliana seething, Josephine curious, and Thule resigned, if a little impatient. Shrugging his shoulders apologetically, he followed her out of the room.
Given his choice, Thule would far rather have finished the War Room meeting than gone with Morrigan, but she seemed uninterested in taking no for an answer. That kind of high-handed behavior was going to become tiresome if it continued, and he intended to let her know that … but he admitted to some curiosity as to what knowledge, exactly, she brought to the table.
Cassandra found him leaning on the low wall of one of the battlements hours later, staring off into space. He roused himself when she came near, but only with an effort.
"I understand the Empress's 'occult advisor' has come to join us," she said stiffly. "I do hope her presence will be of value."
"I was skeptical," he admitted, "but what she showed me today …" He let the words trail off, not sure he knew how to fully explain what he had experienced.
"Oh?" There was a dangerous edge to Cassandra's voice that suggested he had better try.
"She has a mirror. She calls it an … eluvian," he said, pronouncing it carefully. "An ancient elven artifact."
"And what does she use this mirror for?"
"To—" He turned to look up at her. "You won't believe me."
"Of course I will," Cassandra said indignantly. "When have I not believed you? Since the first day we met, that is," she amended hastily, and Thule was glad to see a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"Fair enough," he said, smiling back at her. "She uses it to move between worlds."
"Balderdash!"
"See? I told you you wouldn't believe me."
"I am sorry," Cassandra said contritely. "Pray continue."
"She took me through," Thule continued, "to this grey land where there are all these doorways—other eluvians. She called it a Crossroads."
"Do you mean to tell me that Corypheus seeks such a mirror?"
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Can you imagine what he might do with the power to travel almost instantly from one part of Thedas to another?"
Cassandra shook her head. "He could become unstoppable."
"Yes." Thule nodded. "We can't allow that."
She reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We won't."
He put his hand over hers, keeping it there. "No," he agreed. "We won't."
He knew he shouldn't go. He told himself so all the way to the gardens. But he couldn't stop himself. As soon as Alistair had heard of Morrigan's arrival in Skyhold, he had been filled with the need to see her, to get from her the truth of whatever secret it was she and Leliana possessed that he didn't know—what had happened to Leyden before she faced the Archdemon.
As he had imagined she might be, Morrigan was waiting for him when he arrived. "You are late."
"You'll tell me what you know today," he said without waiting for the niceties, "or by the Maker I'll—"
Morrigan laughed. "You will do nothing. I know you, Alistair, and I know that one of your virtues, few though they may be, is that you would never touch a woman in anger. Not even I, whom you hold to be barely such."
She was right, and he subsided, as much for the rare praise and the surprising softness of her tone as for the words themselves.
"Tell me," he said, the words falling onto the ground like snowflakes.
"Do you know that Skyhold was built upon the remains of a site holy to the ancient elves? They called it Tarasyl'an; 'the place where the sky is kept'. 'Tis a marvel that the Inquisition found it, buried as it is here in the mountains. Bones laid upon bones, silent until the Inquisition's arrival."
Alistair clamped his teeth down on his tongue to keep from urging her again.
"There is a magic in this place," Morrigan went on, musing as if to herself. "It is a protection against … darkness."
"Is that why we can't leave? Me, and …" He didn't want to use Lilias's name.
"It is, perhaps, why you don't wish to. The darkness has bitten deep into you; perhaps even now the magic here is counteracting it." Morrigan frowned thoughtfully. "And perhaps the Inquisitor as well. He has much the same magic about him, don't you think? It is impossible not to find him a cheering presence—even for me," she added, with what almost looked like a grin in Alistair's direction. "You see, I say it before you have a chance to do so."
"Why are you here, Morrigan? Are you here to harm the Inquisition?"
"No." He believed her, although he wasn't sure why he should. "I am here to aid the Inquisition's cause with all the knowledge at my disposal. I swear it."
"Why should you swear to me?"
"So that you will believe me when I tell you that I did not wish Leyden to die. She was my friend, if I have ever understood what such a thing means. I would have given everything I had for her to accept the bargain I offered her. I wish, even now, that I had not taken her word and gone to you instead. For her, even then, you might have listened."
"I?" A chill worked its way through Alistair. "What could I have done?"
"You will not believe me."
"You have to tell me, whether I believe you or not. I've—" He didn't want to admit these things to her, but she already knew, that was plain enough. "I've suffered without her. I don't know how—I don't know who I am, or what to do. All I know is I was once good enough for her, and I haven't been good enough for anything else since then."
"I know you feel that. I have wondered since whether, in truth, she was good enough for you."
"You don't mean that."
"You see? Already you do not believe me." She sounded genuinely grieved, but Alistair knew better than to fall for that. "What would you have done to save her life, Alistair?"
"Anything."
"Yes, perhaps so. You see … I offered her a way out. Neither of you would have had to die."
"I could have done this, saved her life? Why didn't she let me?" His voice was hoarse, and he stepped closer to her without thinking.
"Stop!" Leliana came toward them out of the shadows. "Do not tell him this way!"
"If you had your way, we would never tell him at all. Is that what you prefer?" Morrigan asked.
"He doesn't need to know. Leave his memories untarnished," Leliana pleaded.
"A false memory is worse than a tarnished one. At least he would know the woman he mourns better."
"None of that matters. Don't you see?" Alistair turned to Leliana, and she was pained by the sorrow in his eyes. "I have to know."
"Very well. Leyden—"
Morrigan interrupted her. "I went to Leyden in Redcliffe; I spoke to her of a ritual, to be performed in the dark of night."
"A ritual?" Alistair asked. "Blood magic?"
"Of a type."
"She wanted to sleep with you," Leliana said. "To bed you, and get with child by you."
"A child?" Alistair was frowning between them. "Neither of you are making any sense."
Morrigan spoke quickly, and with an impatient look at Leliana. "If I could have conceived a child with the taint—begat by a Grey Warden such as yourself, with some life left in his loins—the Archdemon's soul would have sought the child when it was killed. The child would have absorbed the soul of the Old God, and the taint in the child would have cleansed it. There would have been no final duel between the soul of the Old God and the soul of the Grey Warden."
Alistair put his hands on his face, and some part of Leliana that remembered who she had been before she became the Left Hand of the Divine wanted to go to him, to embrace and comfort him. "How can you just tell him like that? As though it is one of Varric's tales," she spat.
"It is far more important than that," Morrigan countered. "The question is, how can you not have told him? Do you not see what placing her on a pedestal she didn't deserve and did not want has damaged him? I have never felt any affection for Alistair, but I would never have left him to flail as you have done."
"She … said no?" Alistair asked faintly. "Was it—because of me?" There was a spark of hope in his face, but it was joyless.
"No." Morrigan spoke flatly, not even trying to sugarcoat the words. "She no longer wished to live. She hated being a Grey Warden, hated the things she had done, and felt nothing but contempt for those who worshipped her."
"Zevran knew that," Leliana said. "I did, too. But you—oh, Alistair, you were so innocent … How could we bear to show you that she didn't know how to love?"
He looked at her, his eyes brimming with tears. "Don't you see how much worse that makes it?" he whispered, and then he was gone, disappearing into the darkened garden alone.
Leliana began to go after him, but Morrigan's hand clamped down on her wrist. "Taken in hand properly, he could have accomplished much. But Leyden, and you, and apparently the Champion of Kirkwall, all cherished his innocence so much that you kept him from growing up—and you have done all of Thedas a grave disservice in so doing."
Looking at Morrigan now, with the weight of all the years and the memories between them, Leliana couldn't argue. She had a sinking suspicion that the witch was right.