Thank you all for reading! Special thanks to suilven for the beta! No update next week - summer! - but we'll be back the week after. End of this chapter is moderately NSFW.

She must have been out of her mind, Lilias thought, urging her horse on despite its reluctance. Of all things, she had agreed that her first set of tasks on the Inquisition's behalf would be to take back Emprise du Lion's quarries from the Red Templars. She had asked Thule if he really didn't have an easier task, and he had only grinned his wide grin, clapped her on the back, and wished her luck.

Solas had volunteered to go along, so Merrill had come as well, the two of them chattering away, neither of them looking cold at all. Sera had been going to join them, but she had backed out when Solas was added to the roster, and then Varric had insisted on coming. Any thought Lilias had entertained of Varric lightening the journey was banished by the dour glare he'd worn since they'd left Skyhold. Since Varric liked neither riding nor cold, Lilias was hoping his mood would improve along the way—but something told her there was more here than her dear friend missing his creature comforts.

And as if two lovey-dovey elves and a very cranky dwarf weren't enough to contend with … Alistair had invited himself along. So she'd had his incessant merry whistling in her ear all the way from Skyhold, when he wasn't cheerily trying to talk to one of them. Merrill and Solas listened politely and ignored him, but Varric was actively hostile, and Lilias didn't know why Alistair was here, so she had no idea what to say to him.

Altogether, by the time they rode into the Inquisition camp and met up with the redoubtable Scout Harding, who could probably survive the end of the world and still be cheerful, Lilias thought, the Champion of Kirkwall was feeling all her newfound confidence slowly ebbing away into the bone-chilling cold.

"Well, at least fighting will warm us up," Alistair observed. He was wearing a thick warm cloak with fur around the collar.

Lilias, whose cloak was rather threadbare since it was all she'd had since she fled Kirkwall, glared at him, before turning her attention back to Harding. "What in Thedas happened here? I mean, it's only Kingsway—why is everything frozen?"

Harding shook her head. "Something to do with the Red Templars. No one knows for sure just what they did." She gestured at the silent, mostly empty town behind her. "That's what's left of Sahrnia after the sudden freeze. The lucky ones got out before the river froze. The rest have been penned in here for over a month. Surrounded by Red Templars, they've had nowhere to go. We're the first friendly faces they've seen in a long while."

"We should send a raven back to Skyhold requesting more supplies," Varric said, looking somberly at the few residents out and about. They looked thin, and cold.

"I've already done so, Master Tethras," Harding told him. "Sahrnia relies on the river for everything; this has been devastating for them."

Lilias looked over the dwarf's shoulder. How was she supposed to fix this? She couldn't change the weather!

Next to her, Alistair spoke up. "This is hardly a strategic gem. Do you know why the Red Templars are here?"

Harding shook her head. "Our scouts haven't been able to get through; the Red Templars have outposts all through the hills. I think this is going to require a frontal assault."

Well, that, at least, Lilias thought she could manage.

"At my best guess," Harding continued, "it's to do with the local stone quarry. Mistress Poulin, down in town, apparently sold it to the Templars. She regrets it now, but now it's too late. She's stayed to feed and clothe and help as many as she could … but the damage is done. A number of men have disappeared, presumably being forced to help in the quarries."

Lilias and Varric exchanged worried looks. Prolonged exposure to Red Templars couldn't be good for the townspeople. That would have to be their priority—clean out the quarry and rescue the workers.

"No time like the present," Lilias said. She turned to Merrill and Solas. "You ready?"

"Of course, Hawke."

Solas nodded. "Yes. Right behind you."

It was damned cold. Varric stomped on the ground, trying to return the circulation to his toes. At least Sparkler wasn't with them—the Tevinter mage would be complaining up a storm. Using pretty words to do it, but complaining, to be sure. Daisy didn't complain, even though the cold must be murder on her lightly shod feet. Chuckles was too busy being all elfy for a starry-eyed Daisy, Hawke was too worried about getting everything wrong, and His Kingliness too occupied in mooning over Hawke.

So at least none of them would be grousing their way across the tundra. That was something, Varric thought. He stomped his feet again.

The quarry was more like a labyrinth. Just trying to get down into it was proving remarkably complicated, and there were altogether too many Red Templars in the way. Fighting through them meant drawing Bianca, which meant thinking about Bianca, which meant getting angry, which made shooting Red Templars even more satisfying than it already was.

They had liberated quite a few workers, sending them scurrying back to Sahrnia as fast as they could go. Varric was pleased at that, and he could tell Hawke was beginning to settle into the work. This was the shit they had done together for nearly a decade in Kirkwall—fight the bad guys, help the victims. This was the kind of thing that had made her the Champion of Kirkwall.

At last they made it to the bottom of the quarry, clearing out the last of the Red Templars. Varric was bleeding from a pretty nasty cut to the shoulder. Daisy bandaged it and Chuckles made a feeble attempt to heal it with magic, but both of them were exhausted. The fights had taken a lot out of them. Rolling the shoulder experimentally, Varric hoped there wasn't a lot of fighting left. The wound was going to play merry havoc with his aim.

"I think if we go back up this way, it's a short cut," Hawke said, squinting at the path in front of her. "Isn't this the way the workers went?"

"I think so," Chuckles agreed.

"Well, we should hurry," His Majesty said, looking up at the sky. It had clouded over, and flakes of snow were beginning to fall lightly around them.

They hiked their way up from the quarry as fast as they could, but the rocks and the paths and the falling snow made it hard to get their bearings.

At last, they came out through a passageway built into the rock, and Daisy, who was up ahead, called out, "I see the road to Sahrnia! Not much farther now."

The words were hardly out of her mouth when a snarl split the air and a giant shaggy grey bear was amongst them. A swipe of his paw was about to send Daisy flying when His Majesty the King of Ferelden jumped in front of her, taking the blow himself, knocked to the side by the force of it. Varric had Bianca out already, the motion as natural as breathing, and he and Hawke and Chuckles went to work on the bear while Daisy scrambled toward the king to make sure he was still breathing.

At last the bear was down—but the king still was, too. Lilias went on her knees next to Daisy.

"I'm no healer," Daisy said, "but I think he's all right. Just dazed."

Chuckles looked the king over himself and nodded in agreement with Daisy's assessment. "He can't make it back to Sahrnia like this. Not in this weather."

"You all go, then," Hawke said. "While you still can, before you're snowed in. I'll stay here with Alistair—there's the remains of a camp back there among the rocks, I saw it, fairly protected—and you go on ahead and tell them where we are."

There was a chorus of argument, and Hawke stared them all down. "Merrill, you'll freeze to death if you stay; Varric, that wound's got to be taken care of; Solas, I want you with Varric and Merrill. End of discussion. Now, help me move him and then get going before the snow gets heavier."

Between them, they got Alistair on his feet, half-dragging and half-carrying him back to the protected little circle of rocks Hawke had seen. There were indeed the remnants of someone's camp—a bedroll and a stack of firewood and a kettle on a tripod—and Hawke nodded in satisfaction. "I'll get a fire going and melt some snow and we'll be fine until you can come back with help."

Seeing that she would not be moved, they gave her the provisions from their packs and reluctantly left her there, hurrying through the snow in the direction of the town. They made it just as the storm truly closed in.

Harding was all for going right out to look for Hawke and the king, but one of her men, an Avvar from the mountains, shook his head. "It's a short storm. You can tell by the color of the clouds. They'll be all right—long as no one's fool enough to try to get to them in the height of the storm." He frowned down at the dwarf, who tapped her foot in annoyance.

"Fine. We'll stay. But you let me know as soon as you see a let-up in the storm. I'm not losing the King of Ferelden, or the Champion of Kirkwall, on my watch, do you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Getting the makeshift camp set up didn't take very long, and Alistair was beginning to stir by the time Lilias had a fire going and some water boiling. They had a very small amount of tea leaves in their provisions—Merrill never traveled without some—and she put them in to steep. A hot beverage would be very good right now.

"What—Where—How—?" Alistair groaned and sat up, putting a hand to his head. "I feel like a bear sat on me."

"Close enough." Lilias ladled some tea into a tin cup and handed it to him. "Sip that slowly. It'll make you feel better."

"Will it?" He sniffed at it suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Tea."

"Yep. That's what it smells like."

"What's the problem?"

"I don't like tea."

Lilias frowned. "We're stranded in a cave in the middle of a snowstorm. Tea's what you get."

"How did that happen?"

"You got sat on by a bear."

"And the others?"

"I sent them back to Sahrnia so someone would know where we were. They'll come for us when the storm is over."

Alistair shook his head. "We can go. I'm fine." He started to get to his feet, and Lilias put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"You are not fine, and the storm is fully on us now." Fereldan natives both, used to cold and bad weather, they stopped to listen to the storm. "It doesn't sound too bad. I'm sure they'll come for us soon." She put a very impersonal and clinical hand on his head. "You might want to get some sleep."

"Probably shouldn't, not if I got knocked out."

"Good point." Lilias ladled herself out some tea and hunkered down next to him. "So whatever will we talk about?"

"The weather?"

"Sure. Lots of snow out there. Cold, too."

"Very cold," Alistair agreed. "Snowy."

"Right."

They looked at one another.

"Well, that does it for the weather, then," Alistair said. "Lilias, I—"

"Don't."

"Really? Not even now? You won't let me explain, or apologize, or sob on your shoulder?"

"You've done plenty of sobbing in the last ten years."

"You're right. I have. I've … it's been an eventful few months, this time with the Inquisition, and I've found out a lot of things about myself, and about your cousin, that … weren't very pleasant. It's been hard to come to terms with it, and I still don't know … I don't know who I am. Or what to do with myself. I'm King of Ferelden, but I'm crap at it. Really. I let Teagan do most of the work, and he hates it. He's changed so much. He used to be so … suave, and good-humored, and now he's just cranky all the time, and he hates everyone, and I think I did that, making him do all my work for me."

Lilias watched him, wishing she had something to say that could help.

Alistair sighed. He took a long swallow of the tea, grimacing as it went down. "I should step down, but then, who do I appoint in my place? Who's better for the country than I am? I mean, besides anyone, but … really, they wanted a Theirin on the throne. They've got one. The country's more or less happy. Well, they're not, but they are. Does that make any sense?"

"Surprisingly, it almost does. Which makes me wonder which of us had the head injury," Lilias said dryly.

Chuckling, Alistair shook his head. "I'm grateful that the Inquisitor doesn't seem to mind having the King of Ferelden as an extended guest. It's giving me time to think that I desperately need."

"He's a generous man," Lilias agreed. "Look at what he's let me do."

"Let you?" Alistair raised his eyebrows. "Don't you realize what a gift you are to him? Someone as competent as he is who can take some of the work off his hands? Let you?" he repeated, shaking his head. "He should get down on his knees and thank you."

"No." Lilias dropped her eyes, unable to meet Alistair's gaze, not wanting to see the pride and admiration in it—or wanting to see them too much. "No, I'm a liability."

Suddenly he was kneeling in front of her, lifting her chin with a gentle hand to force her to look at him. "You are not. What Anders did wasn't your fault. I met Anders, you know. He was unstable to begin with, and Justice … well, he was a bad idea from the start, and I told Caron that. You held the city of Kirkwall together against the Qunari, despite Chantry interference, without a Viscount to help you. No one blames you that you couldn't be everywhere at once."

"Everyone blames me! I—Elthina, and the Revered Mothers, everyone in the Chantry, they—it was my fault, Alistair. I didn't stop him. I didn't help him, even when I saw him descending into madness."

"The only way you could have stopped him was to kill him, and killing isn't done lightly." His face was close to hers now, his eyes holding hers. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't fail. You carried an entire city on your shoulders for far longer than anyone could have asked you to do, and in the face of crushing tragedies of your own. I … You are an amazing woman, Lilias Hawke. You—I wish I had seen how amazing more clearly, much, much sooner." His voice had dropped huskily, and suddenly Lilias was very aware of how close together they were, of how alone they were in the midst of this storm, and of how much she wanted to kiss him.

But the question, the name she least wanted to mention, tumbled from her mouth without her having decided to utter it. "What about Leyden?"

"She's a dream. A figment. Someone I made up."

"It's not that easy."

"No. But—I've come to understand recently that in many ways she played a part for me, as she did for many people. She was who I thought I wanted her to be, and in the process did a disservice to herself, and to me. And I let her. I welcomed it."

Maybe it was the storm. Maybe it was his words. Maybe it was his eyes on her, his fingers still on her chin, the warmth of his body, the many nights she had dreamed of him—but Lilias was tired of pushing her desires aside. Leaning up, she kissed him, slowly, pressing him to open his mouth, and when he did she rose to her knees, winding her arms around his neck, and kissed him harder.

He growled low in his throat, and his arms went around her in their turn, pulling her close against him as he took over the kiss. And then it didn't matter who was in the lead. They were kissing each other, reveling in the taste and feel of each other, and they never wanted to stop.

Without taking her mouth from his, Lilias attacked the buckles on the sides of his armor, leaning back long enough to help him lift the heavy breastplate off and to strip off the layers he wore beneath it. When his torso was bared to her, she pressed her mouth against the sculpted lines of his muscular stomach, licking and kissing her way up and up while Alistair swayed back on his knees, his eyes closing. By the time she had reached his neck, she was straddling him, pressing herself down against the bulge she could feel growing between his legs.

Then they were kissing again, both of them working feverishly to strip Lilias of her own armor. It was warm enough in the cave, but once she was bared to him Alistair took his cloak and slung it over her shoulders, pressing her back onto the bedroll while he rid himself of the rest of his own clothes. He joined her on the bedroll, and Lilias rolled him over so that she was on top, the heavy cloak covering them both.

His hands found her breasts, massaging and stroking, and Lilias rubbed herself against him, feeling the heat of him against her own. Without fully intending to, she lifted her hips and took him inside herself, the most exquisite sensations shooting through her body as she seated herself fully on him.

"Lilias," he groaned, his eyes closing with the pleasure. "Lilias!"

Her name. Her name. Not the other name. Her name. Triumph rose in her as she rocked atop him, a great fierce wave of joy that at last he was free of the enchantment that had held his heart locked away for so long.

Her shout of victory was lost in the wind as she shot over the pinnacle. Alistair thrust up against her as she came down for the last time, growling deep in his throat as he achieved his own satisfaction.

Lilias slid off of him into his waiting arms, her head pillowed on his chest, and they fell asleep to the sounds of the wind outside and each other's hearts inside.