A/N: I'm back!

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There was a bit of a clamor as those last words left Hannah's mouth.

"A dragon? Andraste?" This was Leliana, sounding not only scandalized but in complete disbelief.

"There's a dragon in there? Maker, as if this wasn't hard enough!" That was Alistair.

"A cult and a dragon? Life as a Warden certainly isn't boring," said Zevran.

"This has officially gotten out of hand," Morrigan said. "No Arl is worth this."

Nike herself was so stunned she couldn't speak, simply staring at Hannah as if the woman had turned into a dragon herself, right in front of them.

"I'm leaving this place, and I suggest you do the same," Hannah said, speaking as if there were no clamor, her eyes on Nike. "Give it to sunset and the mayor will be back ready to have that 'discussion' with me, and with anyone else that lingers here. I intend to be well gone when he does."

As the others continued to argue amongst themselves, Nike walked back to the door, lifting the latch and looking out into the street. Not a single soul was in sight. She could not see the Temple, but she knew roughly which direction it had to lie in.

"No," Morrigan said, breaking off a nasty comment to Alistair as she noticed Nike's motion. She headed over to the door as well, her hand white-knuckled on her staff. "No! I know that look, you are not entertaining actually entering that place and fighting a high dragon!"

"I'm entertaining entering that place and getting the Urn," Nike said. Before Morrigan could speak again she turned her head and whistled sharply.

Instantly the room fell silent, everyone looking at her. Nike was looking at Hannah.

"Is there a way to get into the Temple that is not by the front gate?"

"You're suicidal," she said evenly. "I'm not. I'm not going to help you get yourselves killed. You want to do that by all means take your mounts and - "

Nike strode toward the counter, the others parting in front of her, and dropped the money pouch on the wood in front of Hannah forcefully enough that she could hear the coin inside.

"That, for information," she said. "And we'll escort you to more civilized climes than this, on my honor. Now, you're free to refuse my money and go anyway. I cannot stop you. I am not asking you to come along into that Temple or linger here and wait for us. I just need to know if there's a way to get in that Temple that is not by the front gate."

Hannah didn't so much as look at the coin bag. "I have enough," she said, as if insulted Nike had even offered it. "You are going to get yourself killed. I'm not going to have your blood on my hands too."

"This woman speaks a clarity of sense I have scarce heard since leaving the Wilds. Have you taken leave of your mind?" Morrigan asked her friend.

Nike looked impatient. "Zevran, Leliana, you two do well at sneaking about unseen. I'm not talking about raiding the front bloody gate and going sword to sword with this cult or a high dragon. Now, granted, I have never seen a high dragon before save in illustration, but they are big, correct?"

"Massive," Alistair said. "How such a dragon has not eaten everyone in this village I don't understand."

"They feed it," Hannah said. "They keep it well content so it feels no need to hunt."

"Have you any reason to suspect that when the Temple was originally built they made the halls and corridors large enough for a high dragon to pass through?" Nike asked him.

"Well, no, likely not."

"Then we're not going to run into it in the corridors. And it's not going to come hunting for us if its well-fed and sated. All we need to do is sneak in to the Temple some way this cult is not expecting, move unseen if we can through the halls, find the Urn, and steal it."

"Steal the Urn, are you mad?" Leliana asked, and it was her turn to be fixed with a look.

"If what Ms. Osling has said about the cult is correct the Urn was stolen long ago. Stolen from all of Thedas, and hoarded like gold in the hand of a greedy king while his people starve in the streets. Would you like to leave it in their hands?"

When Leliana said nothing, Nike nodded. "What I propose is this. Morrigan, Leliana, Zevran, and myself. We get inside that Temple and get that Urn. With the Maker's luck, this cult won't ever find out we were there, nor will the dragon. The rest of you stay here and help Hannah get packed up and moved out of the village and wait for us on the road back down the mountain. Hannah should know a faster way back than going through Honnleath again, if she regularly makes the trip to sell wares."

"I do," Hannah said, then gave a slow shake of her head. "Girl, what you are suggesting is risky."

"It gets riskier if we don't have a way to sneak in that Temple save by the front gate," Nike said. "Do you know a way or not?"

Morrigan was fuming. Nike did not need to look at the mage to know it. Her fury felt like a low thunder cloud, charged with electricity. She stepped out of the shop past Nike with hardly a look, changed into her raven form, and vanished into the sky. Nike watched her go with no small amount of regret, before Alistair caught her arm and distracted her.

"Nike."

"I'm not going to change my mind, Alistair," she said. "Honestly, I'm surprised at you. You wanted to save Arl Eamon's life more than anyone else. Now you're ready to give it up?"

"I'm not ready to give it up," he said, sounding wounded. "But this is beyond reason. Eamon wouldn't want you to do this just to save him."

"Eamon cannot tell me what he would or wouldn't want," Nike said, then looked him sternly in the eyes. "Alistair, our entire lives right now are beyond reason. Yes, there may be a high dragon in there. Yes, that is absolutely terrifying, but do you know what's even more terrifying? The archdemon. An archdemon we are going to have to fight and we are going to have to kill. It'll be ten times worse than any high dragon, certainly more than one we have a very good chance to sneak around. Do you know what I find more troubling than that dragon? The cult. They've murdered who knows how many people, good people like Eamon's knights. Good people just out looking for hope to save a life. They worship a dragon thinking it's Andraste reborn. Men and women mad enough to do that, are mad enough to do even more terrible things in their attempts to get the new 'Andraste' to manifest herself. What if they decide to feed Andraste's ashes to it? What if they decide to do some other spell or blood magic that twists that beast into an abomination, or into something we cannot even fathom? What if they decide that Haven is not large enough for their cult and start on other towns and villages with a pet dragon on a leash behind them?"

She saw the muscle jump in his jaw, but to her surprise he acted neither cowed nor chagrined. "I thought you were going to sneak in without the cult knowing you're there, or the dragon, and steal the Urn. How does sneaking in and leaving them none the wiser stop any of that from happening?"

Nike was taken aback. "Well, they can hardly feed it the ashes if – "

"They can still do all of those other terrible things," he said. "Nike, you cannot sneak off and kill a high dragon on your own. Entire armies of men have failed to kill high dragons!"

"That's enough, Alistair! I never said I was going to – "

"You didn't have to," he said tiredly. "I'm no leader, Nike. And I know I'm not the boldest of men, but please don't treat me as if I'm a dimwitted fool, like Morrigan does."

She felt a sharp stab of guilt at the hurt look on his face, and as he turned away she said, "Alistair, I don't think you're-"

"Do what you're going to do," he said bitterly. "You're going to anyway. On the off chance you actually come back, we'll be waiting down the mountain road."

Nike stood with Zevran and Leliana as she watched the others taking Hannah, her wagon, and the horses back out through the gate of Haven. Wynne paused just outside the gate, lifting her hand and murmuring some kind of spell, and their tracks in the snow and mud faded away and vanished. When she looked at Nike, the younger woman tried to give her a comforting nod, but Wynne did not return it.

As the trio turned up the road and started their weaving course through the village, none of them spoke. The sky above was a heavy slate, and lightly began to spit snow. Nike looked up at it but saw no sign of Morrigan, and finally lowered her eyes again.

They found the mayor's house, following the directions that Hannah had given them, then abruptly turned to the right, crossing between his home and the next to a stone well house. It was locked but within moments Zevran had it opened. He was the only one that seemed completely unconcerned about what they were doing, and gave Nike a wink and a broad bow as she stepped past him.

Beside the well, the room seemed to be empty. Nike quickly found the off-colored stones and pressed them, not letting out a breath until part of the floor slid aside and revealed the tunnel entrance it had concealed. Nike started to approach it but Zevran caught her arm.

"Allow me, my lady," he said genteelly. "I will go first. It is my duty, after all."

He drew his daggers and slipped into the shadows as silently as breath. Keeping Far Song on her shoulder, Nike drew the pair she'd taken off the body of the Crow, and she and Leliana quietly followed him.

The tunnel twisted and dove and lifted on uneven stairs for nearly a mile, just as Hannah said it would, before it reached another door. The mayor had at least posted a sentry outside of this one- a big and oafish looking man who didn't make a single sound as Zevran slipped his dagger through his back, catching him and lowering him gently down. He did it as swiftly and gracefully as a young lover might lower a maiden to his bedside.

They pulled the sentry into the tunnel, then closed the door again.

The Temple itself was not like anything that Nike had ever seen. They had come out in what appeared to be an old and forgotten storage area. The mayor had thought enough to set a sentry on the door, but they saw not another living soul as they carefully worked their way deeper in. Grand corridors and vaulting rooms (grand, but no where near large enough to hold a high dragon, Nike thought) were drifted with snow and crumbling into disrepair. Murals, so faded with age they looked like ghosts glimmering on the walls, watched their silent passage. The air should have been fresh and cold, as entire walls or portions of the roof had long ago caved in, but instead there seemed to be an odd heat, and a musty, earthy smell that was so foreign Nike could only imagine that it was the smell of the dragon.

You are a fool, she thought. Nike Cousland, what are you even doing here? Is it to save Eamon? Because you know that's a lie. You know it, and Alistair knew it. And if Alistair knew it, so does everyone else. So does Morrigan. So why? What do you hope to find? What do you think to gain? Is it ego? Are you buying into Leliana's delusions that you are somehow blessed by the Maker? Did dying addle your brain?

I didn't die! I didn't! I was just hurt-

Hurt bad enough to see the Fade? Hurt bad enough to see the Black City, clear as day with no confusion, no faltering of memory? Yes, Nike. They call that 'dead'. You're only standing here because Morrigan used blood magic to bring you back so quickly. Do you think she's going to do it again if you get killed here? Would you bring you back from such a stupid decision?

Morrigan. Nike would be lucky if Morrigan ever came back, if she did not just have done with them and flew off back to the Wilds. And she'd be right, wouldn't she? What kind of a fine thank you was this to her? Literally carving her arm open to save Nike's life, just to have Nike turn around and squander that life again? And for what?

For what, Nike? Why are you doing this?

She didn't know. And that was the worst part. She didn't know why she was doing this at all. If she had any sense about her at all, she'd turn around right now and go back to the others. Sadly, Eamon would die (if he hadn't already), but Teagan would take his place, and after all was said and done they could send a literal army after this stupid cult and their pet high dragon.

But she couldn't. Something was pulling her on. Something was driving her forward, and she felt as helpless to articulate it as she felt to resist it.

Maybe she had really died, even just for an instant, back in that scrubby little valley. Maybe that's what her 'premonition'-

-that's just normal paranoia-

-had been warning her of since leaving Redcliffe. She didn't know, but as the trio crept further and further into the ancient mountain temple, she didn't think so.

It seemed to her that whatever it had truly been warning her of lay ahead of her, in this lonely old place. It seemed to her, she could almost hear Morrigan's voice counting down in her mind again; counting what few breaths she had left.

Then, a new voice entered her mind. It wasn't her self-doubt or paranoia. It wasn't Morrigan's voice either. It was a man's voice, low and unmistakable, and for an instant she remembered her father's face from her first nightmare, his eyes gone and the sockets writhing with maggots.

I can feel you coming, Pup. I'm here. I'm waiting for you.

And as if to say that it could hear the voice too, the low rumbling growl of what could only be a dragon shivered the ground beneath her feet.