Dinner that evening was an unusual and oddly lonely affair. Normally, the Couslands all gathered around the table in their private dining room. It was insisted upon by the Teyrna. Every other meal of the day might be taken apart but dinner was not optional, barring illness.

Tonight marked a change for the first time in as long as Nike could remember. Bryce still had his hands full making preparations for the morning. He and Arl Howe made a brief appearance but did little more than apologetically assemble sandwiches out of the sliced roast before they were off again.

Fergus had gone, his spot empty. Oriana and Oren were there, but the boy was both exhausted and overstimulated by the day. Oriana managed to get half a plate into him before he broke down into frustrated tears over his father being absent, and she bustled him off to bed.

Eleanor herself kept getting up and then returning to the table, insisting that every detail be perfect before her own departure. "I will not leave my daughter a mess," she said more than once, though Nike knew that her mother would never have let Highever get into a mess to start with.

So for a good portion of dinner, Nike sat alone at the long table, picking at the small sliced roast and stewed vegetables, the echo of her thoughts her only company.

She kept going over and over what Duncan had said, highly irritated at his gall and yet cowed by his words.

It was true, what he had told her. Blights were horrific, endless hordes of darkspawn crawling across Thedas, destroying everything they touched. They corrupted and poisoned by their very being, and more often than not decimated any army put into their path.

The Grey Wardens had first began Ages ago in order to stop them, succeeding where vast ranks of armored men had failed. As ridiculous as it might be to imagine a single soldier with a bow succeeding in normal circumstance, where the combined forces of entire realms had failed- it became far less so when that solider was a Warden.

Don't be preposterous, she thought, giving her vegetables another pointless stir. They are tales. Member of the Grey or not, a single Warden against the Blight would be rolled over as easily as anyone else.

She knew it had to be far closer to the truth that the Wardens succeeded against the Blights for other reasons than what the tales would suggest. For one, they Grey did not send single warriors to fight a Blight alone. While the Wardens may not have the number of any given standing army, they were still an army in their own right.

She knew enough about the Warden's to know much was fancy, but that didn't leave out the fact that some was likely true. No one was really sure what gifts of talent or magic was bestowed when one became a Warden. Possibly none- but Wardens also did not hesitate to recruit mages into their ranks. Being a Warden, was in fact, the only safe way for a mage in Ferelden to live outside the Circle. The Chantry and Templars still called them apostates, but no effort was made to arrest or contain them. The Chantry understood the need for the Wardens- at least in principle- and chose not to put themselves at odds by violating ancient treaties and demanding their mages surrender themselves.

A small army containing mages of varying degrees of ability would do far more against the Blight than a single man or woman, perhaps, but Nike was certain of the truth behind their success.

It wasn't what the Wardens actually were that gave them their edge- it was what they represented.

Everyone in Thedas grew up hearing the incredible and unbelievable tales about the Wardens. In a sense, they gained a power in the mythology built up around them that was hard to contest. It wasn't so much that the Wardens took on the Blight and won, it was that they had the power to unite all others under that idea.

The various armies of Thedas might take on a Blight but they would do so for themselves. The Fereldens would fight to protect Ferelden and would leave Orlais completely on its own. The Orlesians would be glad the Blight was harassing the 'dog lords' and would only rouse themselves once their own borders were threatened. The various cities in the Marches would only care when the Bight showed up at their gates. Everyone would fight for themselves and leave the others to fall or stand as they would.

Toss the Wardens into the mix and suddenly there was one flag for all. Orlais wouldn't fight for Ferelden but they would fight for the Wardens. Ferelden would leave Orlais happily to be consumed but they would fight for the Wardens.

Everyone, from the Marches to the Wilds, feared and respected the Wardens. It was the one common thread that would tie them all together. Without the Wardens, it was every country for itself against a Blight. With the Wardens, it became everyone together against the Blight. You didn't have to be a strategist to know the latter bought you far greater chances of success than the former.

The Wardens were not anything special. They were men and women. They were skilled combatants to be sure, and singularly dedicated, but they were still just men and women. It was the idea behind them- and that alone- that gave them their true power.

Were that idea one day to be shattered the Wardens would fall before the Blight like any other army. Duncan is wrong. One person riding into battle is not going to succeed where whole armies have failed, even if that person is a Warden. Stripped of the myth, the Wardens are nothing.

Her food had gone stone-cold, only half eaten. Looking around at the empty chairs, Nike folded her napkin and lightly placed it over her plate, before rising. Out of the shadows a single silent elf hurried over, clearing the plate almost before Nike had turned away for the door.

Nike was dreaming about the fire.

It boiled up in belches of hot white and yellow, birthing acrid clouds of sky clotting smoke. All around her, men were darting about the yard, shouting for water. Nike sat, smudged and bruised, in the middle of the yard. She had come running out of the solarium and had been knocked to the ground by one of the terrified servants.

From the depths of the fire she could hear the horses screaming.

"Caspi!"

She bolted to her feet, rushing for the stable door. Young Squire Gilmore, her brother's friend, was near to it. He had an arm up to shield his face from the incredible heat, and seemed to be looking for an opportunity to run inside.

Nike didn't bother looking for opportunities. She rushed past him, felt his fingers briefly on her shoulder as he reached out for her in surprise, then plunged past.

Smoke burned her eyes and lungs at once, her skin stretching painfully tight with the heat. Flinging her arm around her nose and mouth she blindly rushed on. The screaming was all around her now.

Something came up under her feet, and she tripped and fell sprawling. Water from the spilled bucket washed over her stomach and face and she sputtered. Her head was spinning, and each breath only pulled in a furnace.

Pushing herself up, she groped blindly out and found the door of one of the stalls. Her fingers blistered instantly as she grasped at the hot metal latch, but she managed to loosen it. Hoarse sounds roiled around her, carried by the smoke, and she realized dimly she'd gotten the wrong stall. This one held only the cartman's old, nasty-tempered donkey.

Crazed with fear and not at all grateful for being freed the bloody beast gripped her wrist in his teeth as she fumbled against him, then bolted, tearing her off balance and sending her crashing to the ground. One kicking hoof knocked her in the temple.

She couldn't get up. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, and the burning horses were still screaming around her. Caspi was still screaming.

Then the screaming changed. It wasn't the horrible sound of terrified, dying horses any more. It was a child's voice; Oren's voice. Nike struggled to sit up in the stall. Though she could see nothing else she could see Oren, sitting in the middle of the aisle only a few feet away. His hair had been replaced by fire, and his face was swelling with blisters, cracking with heat, cooking to black.

His mouth fell open again, and he let out another brief, wet scream as the sky outside suddenly rumbled with low thunder-

-and Nike sat bolt upright in bed, staring in confusion around her room. Her lungs, still convinced they were choking on smoke, heaved in breath after breath of air. Her hair stuck damply to the back of her neck.

A dream, nothing more. It was a familiar dream, as well, one she had suffered for weeks when she was fifteen.

The fire had been real, though they had never been certain the cause. Nike had been in the solarium when she'd heard the first shouts, and rushed out into the courtyard. Even now, years later, she could perfectly remember the sound of the dying horses trapped in their stalls.

The part where she'd run past Gilmore into the fire was true, as was the part where she managed to open the wrong stall. In the end, out of all the horses in the stable, including her own beloved Caspi, she had only managed to save that damned ill-tempered donkey.

Gilmore had rushed in shortly afterward, along with Fergus. It had been too late to save the horses but they luckily found Nike, half-suffocated, burned, and knocked silly from the hoof-blow the jackass had given her in thanks.

Her mother used to tell her when they carried her out, choking and coughing and scorched themselves, they had thought she was dead.

"I was certain you had gone to Andraste. My poor sweet brave girl."

Nike hadn't died, obviously. Her next real memory was of waking that evening, having been treated by a healer and still feeling as if her lungs were being squeezed, but suffering no lingering physical injury. She had wept for days over her poor Caspi. It took longer for the nightmares to go away, but go away they did, and only rarely now did that one return.

The part with Oren had been new. Obviously, the boy hadn't been born at the time the fire had occurred. Fergus wouldn't even be married until years later. Why Oren had suddenly appeared in her dream like that-and the thunder? The thunder had been strange. The thunder…

…was still going on?

Her breathing had just started to slow when she realized she could still hear the growling rumble. Holly, who often slept in her room, was standing at her door. Every tooth in her mouth was bared, her lips skinned back almost demonically as she rumbled that low, dangerous snarl.

The last cobwebs left Nike at once and she slipped out of bed. An ornate old trunk stood near her wardrobe and she hurried to it, opening and taking out a dagger.

"What is it girl?" she whispered softly. Holly didn't budge. If not for the endless snarl, the mabari might well have been made of stone. Crouched there beside her trunk, Nike strained to listen.

Muffled voices, perhaps? Distant shouts? It was hard to tell, to hear past Holly. Creeping over to her window she peered out through the lower sash, but could see little. There seemed to be quite a lot of torchlight than was usual for the middle of the night coming from the direction of the yards, but she could make out no detail as to why.

One thing was certain. Holly would not be growling at her door unless something was very wrong. What that could be, Nike didn't know, but she doubted she wanted to address it in her nightgown.

Moving as quickly and silently as she was able, she drew some clothes out of her wardrobe and pulled them on, then sliding on her boots. Dagger in hand, she edged toward the door.

Before she reached it, there was a loud wham! The wood visibly shuddered and jolted, the heavy latch holding it shut rattling loudly. Holly went from growling to a frenzy of snarls and bellows until it sounded like a whole platoon of mabari was in the room.

Nike shifted back, her fingers now white-knuckled on her dagger, and looked around. As the door shuddered again, she ran back over to her window and opened it, peering out. Below her window, there was more or less a sheer drop sixty feet into the side dooryard. The balcony of her parents' bedroom was about thirty feet to her left, past the roof of her mother's study on the lower level of their suite. The study was set outward from the wall, and the roof provided a good five or six foot ledge, that started six or seven feet below Nike's window. However, it was sharply and steeply angled. Beyond it she could see a faint gleam, as if her mother had left a lantern or a candle lit in their bedroom.

Behind her, the door jumped again, the latch starting to crack. Holly furiously assailed it, foam flecking off her lips as her big paws dug and gouged at the wood. Nike turned back with a worried, "Holly!"

Just at that moment a final blow landed, and the latch splintered and broke free. The end of what looked like a small and roughly hewn log appeared through the breaking wood panels of the door itself. The broken door flew open, and Holly flung herself through and on to whomever was waiting there.

Nike started toward the door herself, but quickly halted when two men rushed in. From the sound, Holly had driven back at least one or two more- there were human screams and shouts of pain mingled in with her bellows.

The two who entered wore heavy armor and had gleaming blades in their hands. They were strangers to Nike but she immediately recognized the crest on their tabards- and the intent in their eyes.

She stood no chance against them with only her dagger and a thin layer of clothing between their swords and her flesh, and she had only a moment to act. They didn't pause, not to taunt or savor or explain themselves.

She was wearing no sheath or belt by which to stash her dagger, and while it may look romantic in illustrations or paintings to tuck one's blade between one's teeth- it was also a very good way to cut your face or tongue open if your blade was double edged, as hers was. As the men rushed in she dropped it instead on the floor, rushed back to the window, and scrambled out of it.

There was a swish of wind, and one of the sword blades sank into the side of the window frame as her head fell out of sight. Clinging to the window sill with her hands as she hung below it, she used her momentum and swung her feet for the study roof. She released her hold just as the sword freed itself and again sunk down where her fingers had just been.

There was a moment of terrifying freefall, and then her boots slammed hard into the sharp slope of the study roof-ledge. She awkwardly threw her weight forward, the breath barking sharply out of her as she landed belly down on the slope, and immediately began to slide backward. Her blouse rode up and the rough stone tore at her belly, her boots and hands flailing urgently for purchase.

The toes of her boots came upon the lip of the roof and caught hold. As she stopped, she gripped the edge of the roof with her hand as well, and pushed herself up, climbing the angling arch hurriedly.

One of the men yelled something behind her. She stepped over the apex of the arch and edged down the other side, keeping one hand on the wall as she did. The balcony to her parents' bedroom loomed ahead, carved stone posts holding up a broad railing of polished iron and wood. Halfway down the slope of the roof toward it, she braced herself and leapt, catching hold of two of the posts. Her feet swung down and forward in open air.

As she started to haul herself upward, she heard another yell, and then a very familiar hiss past her ear. The arrow hit the iron of the railing near her head, and bounced off. She flung an arm upward, over the railing, and heaved, getting her leg up enough to get her boot between two of the posts.

Another hiss, then a hot sting in the back of her shoulder. She grit her teeth, lunged, then flopped gracelessly onto the balcony, scrambling for the door that led inside.

Once through she straightened to her feet. Instinctively she groped around at her shoulder, expecting to find an arrow sticking out of it. Apparently the tip had struck bone and it had bounced back to tumble away, because the wound was both shallow and empty.

So long as the men who had attacked her weren't idiots, it would take them almost no time at all to leave her quarters, run down the dozen or so feet of corridor to her parent's door, and be upon her. A quick glance showed that the bedroom she stood in was empty. Her mother's nightclothes were laid out but did not appear to have been donned, though a small book on the table side and the lit candle suggested she had not been far from doing so.

If Eleanor or Bryce were still in the suite it was not here. No one was in sight, and the door was standing slightly ajar. To make for it would have been foolish, and would only have put her in the middle of that hallway with her attackers bearing down on her.

Instead, she hurried quickly for the door to the lower level of their suite, rushing down the spiraling steps toward the study whose roof she had just climbed over.

Her head was thundering. The men who had attacked her had been wearing the colors of Arl Howe, and fury burned in her throat at the very idea.

Bandits, or enemies of my father, she thought. The craven cowards donned the colors of the Arl hoping to gain entrance. What story did they spin to get in, I wonder? Did they pretend to be the scouts of the Arl's main force?

That they would slither in under pretense of honor, besmirching the Howe family and their good name in order to perpetuate devilry, enraged her. That there was clear murder on their minds and not hostage-taking terrified her for the rest of her family. Where were her parents? Oriana and Oren? The Arl? With all the shouting they had been doing, all the noise from Holly, half the castle had to be roused by now. They certainly hadn't bothered trying to keep quiet.

Which means there might be a lot of them, or else I was the last one they came after, she thought, then shoved it down as she reached the lower level and rushed through the side study door.

The study was empty, and dark. She crept toward the door that lead into the hall and carefully eased it open, glancing up and down the corridor.

Two bodies were sprawled over the Orlesian carpets to her right, another to her left. Elves. Servants. In the distance she could hear a mabari still barking madly, but if it was Holly or one of the others, she could not say. Men were also shouting in the distance, and she heard the unmistakable clash of weapons on shields.

Taking heart that the invasion was now at least known and being countered, she moved into the hall. Were she to go left, it would lead her toward the main hall. While that was likely the safest place to go, the quarters Fergus shared with his family were to the right. Fergus had arms in his rooms she could use, but she was more concerned about seeing if Oriana and Oren were all right.

The final part of her nightmare had come back to her with chilling force- most especially that painful, wet scream Oren had let out at the end.

Oren's bedroom was right below her own. If that scream had been real…

She broke into a run.