The Temple halls echoed with the voices of the townsfolk as they wept and wailed. The wind was rising a little, the cries drifting around the courtyard like ghosts.

Nike was surprised to see so few bodies; perhaps three or four slumped in the snow, including the mayor himself. The ashes graying the dismal scene, however, told of at least a dozen more that had fallen to Morrigan's fury.

Morrigan.

She'd come. Nike had known that she would, even before Terrik had confirmed it, and yet it wasn't until the raven came down and defended her that she felt a strange sort of relief warm her gut. Part of her had still doubted. Part of her had lingered on the look that Morrigan had given before leaving the merchant hut for the frigid sky.

Leliana and Zevran rushed into the snowy yard, pink-cheeked and puffing clouds of white.

"I don't think we'll get any more trouble from the rest of these people," Nike said. "Unless they bring up arms against you, leave them be."

"What was it that you threw?" Leliana asked. "How did you kill that monster?"

Nike turned to the dead dragon. Morrigan, standing a few short paces from its lolling tongue, regarded it. It was impossible for Nike to see her face, but the set of her shoulders gave the mage's thoughts away.

Nike didn't answer, only touched Leliana's shoulder. Stepping past her, the Warden went to the mage.

"Morrigan?"

"Do not speak my name," Morrigan said, tongue laced with venom.

"I didn't want to do this."

"Yet somehow the dragon lays dead, and once again, you would be as well had I not taken leave of my better sense and returned."

"I know. I owe you, Morrigan. More than I can say. And I am sorry; as well, more than I can say."

Morrigan looked at her, askance. "And how is it that the beast is felled?"

Nike realized that Morrigan had not seen her in chains, nor the vial being thrown. She must have come in and attacked the moment she'd caught sight of Nike in that chaotic crowd, but had not been witness to its cause.

"Sinozine," Nike said, and with that single word she had Morrigan's full attention.

"Impossible!"

"Sinozine?" Leliana said, as she and Zevran came close. "How? Where did you get sinozine?"

Nike thought it likely that Morrigan would recognize the word, but she should have realized both Leliana and Zevran would be familiar with it as well.

"I was given it. A man named Ser Terrik handed it to me after I got the ashes. He said the vial was enough to kill the dragon so long as I got it into the beast's mouth."

"This isn't possible," Leliana said. "Sinozine was very difficult to make, and several of the reagents needed in its brewing became extinct around the time that Andraste sieged Minrathous. I would be surprised if the formula for it even still exists. If it does, it is locked in a vault somewhere in the Imperium."

"I suspect he got it before Andraste sieged Minrathous, then. I will explain on our way. We shouldn't linger here, and we'll be fortunate to get these ashes back to Arl Eamon in time as it is."

Some of the townsfolk were crowded in the archways and doors leading into the courtyard, watching them with fear and anger on their faces. A few of the younger men shook fists toward them, but the moment that Nike began to step their direction, they shrank away and vanished.

She didn't want to look at them; the heartbroken and weeping faces that parted before her and kept giving the sign of the Maker. After she'd gone, they'd be rushing into the yard to mourn and retrieve their dead. Some, despite Nike having proven the dragon was mortal and not Andraste, would fawn and grieve over the dead beast too.

It doesn't matter. Their cult is broken, the object of their false worship dead, and none can get into the ashes chamber without Ser Terrik's leave.

She didn't speak until they reached the front Temple doors. Her eyes fell on the pikes that lined the path, presenting their gruesome display. She grimaced.

I should go back and kill every single one of them for this.

The moment it was in her mind it was gone again. Those responsible were dead, and no one would be served by murdering the brainwashed and victimized.

"Where are the others?" She asked Morrigan.

"I am not their keeper, nor am I yours. A fact I wish you would learn." A beak snapped near her ear, feathers flashed, and the mage once again vanished into the sky.

"Do you think she'll come back?" Leliana asked.

"If she was going to leave forever, she'd have done it. Leave her be. We'll catch up to the others."

As they picked their way through the muddy streets, then out of Haven's town gates, Nike explained what had happened after she'd left them. She was able to tell them quite a lot, while omitting a few details; some to do with Morrigan, and others she didn't quite have her head around. She wasn't sure she wanted to get her head around them. There was much she wanted nothing more than to forget again.

Though neither spoke, Zevran's expressions told volumes of what he was thinking. Leliana, more stoic, listened with intent but gave nothing away.

Sten was waiting at the entrance to a side path, not too far down the road that led into Haven. Without the qunari there, Nike never would have noticed it. As they approached he came hopping down from his perch on a rock.

"This way. It is not far."

Half a mile further down the winding, broken little path the others were waiting in a small clearing. Holly broke away from Alistair and ran to Nike, snuffing as she licked her hands, stomped her feet. Her low woofs and whines were both relieved and chiding.

Alistair didn't move. His arms were folded, and when he caught her glance at him, he looked away. Near to him, Hannah was bundled beside her wagon. She approached, looking at the three of them with cautious surprise. Past all of them, Shale stood at the other end of the clearing, much as it had done every time they had stopped for a 'fleshy rest', ignoring the lot of them, eyes on the continuing road.

"What happened?"

"The dragon is dead," Zevran said, proud, as if he himself had killed the beast. "So is your pestering little mayor."

"Nike has the ashes," Leliana said.

Hannah's eyes went round, and Nike touched her arm. "You can probably go back, if you want. The cult is broken. You should have no more trouble."

"Maker's tits above," Hannah said, shaking her head. "No. No, I don't think I will. Not yet any way."

"Then you're welcome to come with us back to Redcliffe, but we need to go quickly."

They scattered to their horses. Nike mounted Angry Horse, giving him a pat, then spotted the large raven sitting on the end of Hannah's wagon. The bird did not look at her.

Wynne, riding beside her as they left the small clearing, pressed her for the story yet again. Nike told it, with the same omissions as when she'd told Leliana and Zevran. In the telling, she noticed that while neither Alistair nor Morrigan were look at her, both seemed to be listening.

"That is remarkable," Wynne said as she concluded. "I have never heard such a tale. This Ser Terrik was from the distant past, but seemed to know much of the future as well?"

"So it would seem," Nike said. "He knew, down almost to the words spoken, precisely what would happen if I walked out into that courtyard without my bow. The Havenites chained me as he described. They tried to feed me to the dragon, as he described. It all unfolded as he said it would. But he also made it clear to me that if I did not find a way out of the chains, or was not intent on keeping the attention of the beast, I would die and the dragon would live to spread further havoc in the world."

"I never dreamed," Hannah said. She barely seemed to need to guide the wagon; the pony that drew it knew the road. "I mean, they were a lot of blight-addled blaspheming murderers, but I never dreamed that the cult would ever spread beyond Haven."

"It certainly won't now," Zevran said, and winked at Hannah as she looked at him.

Alistair appeared to be struggling to keep ignoring Nike, despite his obvious questions, and finally his resolve broke. "What else did he know of the future? Did he say anything about Arl Eamon? The Blight?"

"No," Nike said. "No, nothing really."

She hated to lie to him, to all of them, but what Terrik had told her was deeply troubling. Not that he had been clear, to be honest. He had said that he saw what was to come, but as what was to come was constantly shifting, it was like describing the Fade while you were lost and confused within it. Nike didn't know what that meant, but had hope it indicated that the future was undecided, that people could make their own fates, and guide their own destinies.

What he had said, she couldn't get out of her mind. He'd told her of a man in chains, a Travailler, who held green fire in his fists. He'd told her of holes torn in the sky, demons falling into the world. There were men and women, he'd said, with red mists in their eyes, the world falling to ruin. There was a beast, a spider creature of impossible size. A blonde woman ran toward it, the fire in her hands casting reflections in the beast's eyes.

He'd said so much, and while she struggled to understand a lot of it, her thoughts dwelled on this last woman, mentioned more than once. He had never spoken her name, but Nike was both certain and terrified that it was Adaon, and that she was rushing into her death.

And Morrigan. He'd had much to say on the Witch of the Wilds, nearly all of which was as troubling to some degree. She felt disquiet, as she looked at the raven who would not look back.

With Hannah there, familiar with the road, they pushed well into the night before setting camp. Before dawn had truly broken over the hills, they were on their way again.

The lowlands were a relieving sight. By the early afternoon they could see Redcliffe's walls. Hannah turned off into the village, but the rest kept on across the bridge to the gates. Nike kept Angry horse at a canter, slowing him only enough as they reached the courtyard to slip off his back. A young man grabbed the reins.

"Arl Eamon?"

"Maker's miracle he still breathes, but he's going any time now. The room stinks of death."

Still alive then? As the clatter of hoofbeats signaled the arrival of the others, Nike ran toward the door of the Keep. She gripped the pouch at her side in a fist.

Bodahn, Sandal, and Tahja were in the entry hall when she rushed in. Their gaping, astonished faces were only briefly glimpsed as she ran past them, and at least one of them fell in breathless step behind her.

Sitting outside the door to Eamon's chamber was a mage. She didn't know his name, but that didn't stop her from calling out to him as soon as he was in sight.

"I have the ashes! Does he -?"

There was no time for the man to answer. As if poised for her arrival, another opened the door to the chambers.

"Thank the Maker," Teagan said, so drawn and hollow-eyed he looked almost lunatic. "Hurry! I don't think he's got an hour's breath left in him!"

She hurried in, opening her pouch and drawing out a little bundle of silk. Wet-faced and gaunt, Isolde stood from the bedside. It took no effort at all for Connor, who had been in her arms, to pull free of them and dart at Nike.

"Have you got the ashes? Are you going to save my dad?"

"I'm going to try," she said, feeling breathless herself. As she carefully balanced the silk in her palm, untying the thin little cord that held it together, she looked at the mage that had followed her in. "H-how do I do this? Just put them in his mouth, or…?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I've never healed someone with the ashes before."

Teagen, who had followed them to the bedside, grabbed up a pitcher of water and filled a glass. "Here. Put them in here."

Parting the silk wrappings like flower petals, Nike bared the tiny pile of smudged gray-black, and upended it over the water. Some of the powder floated on top, a few pale gray whisps lazily sinking into the clear water. She didn't know if they others expected dramatic smoking or flashing of embers; if so they had to be disappointed. Much as saints and sinners alike looked just like everyone else, the ashes looked like any other ashes.

Teagan had the glass still in his hand, and now approached the bed. Nike, following him with her eyes, only peripherally noticed Tahja taking hold of her arm; of Alistair, Wynne, and the others crowding into the door of the room. She caught sight of Eamon for the first time.

How he's lasted this long is beyond me, she thought at the sight of him. He had looked withered and ill before; now he seemed as if he were a corpse already days gone into the Fade.

Sliding a hand under his brother's head, Teagan lifted it, then gently tilted the water to his lips.

The first mouthful simply spilled in rivulets down his chin from the corners of his lips. If there was any reflexive effort to swallow, Nike didn't see it. Isolde half climbed onto the bed, grasping at her husband's hands and pleading.

"Please, mon dieu! Please, drink!"

Teagan swiped the spilled water away with the back of the hand holding the glass, then tried again, trickling another mouthful in past his brother's lips. This time, Nike clearly saw some of the ashes pass inside.

Then, Eamon swallowed in almost spastic reflex. He snorted, spraying half the mouthful over his brother, gasped.

"That's it! That's it, Eamon you old bastard. Another swallow, come on!"

Teagan was less gentle with his third mouthful, spilling more down Eamon's chin, but the Arl seemed to be coming to a thin consciousness. He swallowed again, then again; each swallow more purposeful than the last. By the time he'd drained the glass his color had returned and he was holding his own head up.

Teagan had tears on his own face as he finally lowered the empty glass, only a few sandy traces of the ashes still left inside.

"Eamon?"

"Teagan, what's going on? What's happened?"

Any further questions he had were muffled as Isolde clutched him close, and began to sob.