9:30 Nubulis 12
Lothering, South Reach, Chasingard, Ferelden
Wake up.
The land stretched below her, living green and gold speckled with red and blue, rising and falling, rolling to the horizon. She flew lower, the wind playing at her hair, swept over the trees, squirrels dancing in their branches, birds flicking about, deer following the course of a river, a pair of wolves stalking them not far behind, and then she was past, farms spreading out below her, men and women working, the giggling of playing children, she could see it all, spread out beneath her, she—
There was a rumble from the south, dark and deep and ravenous, hatred crawling over her, purple lightning flashing at the horizon.
Wake up.
The rumble grew louder, and louder, and louder, until the hateful notes were stabbing into her eyes, tears streaming down her face, her bones shivering—
Wake up, little raven.
Blackness spread from the south. An unnatural, sickly thing, a thick, sticky substance that poured from hill to hill. It covered the plants, and it covered the deer and the wolves, it caught the birds, and it consumed them all, suffocating them and dissolving them. And the black spread, and spread, it swept over the town, the people screamed and ran but they couldn't run fast enough, it crashed over them and smashed them to dust, and even swept the dust away, their homes crumbling until there was nothing left, there was nothing left—
The rumbling coursed through her, hatred and rage, high and clanging, the clashing of metal and the ringing of screams—
Wake up.
All below her was black, so thick and empty and nothing she couldn't even see the curve of the hills anymore. Above, dark clouds threaded with unnatural violet lightning, below, black, black, black, there was nothing left, nothing—
She saw a glimmer, color, there! There was something in the midst of the black, something alive, she made out more detail as she flew closer, a stalk, leaves green threaded with hints of yellow-orange, the splayed petals of an orchid. Its form was that of embrium, but the color was wrong, not deep red, but white — intensely white, like a cloud on a sunny day, freshly-fallen snow, pure and unblemished.
The sick hatred pulling at her loosened, just a little, something light and giddy bubbling up her chest, the flower grew out of the black, and it was beautiful, and looking on it she—
Wake up, little raven.
Wake up.
Sucking in a harsh gasp, Leliana bolted upright, nearly toppling right out of her bed. She felt like she'd been running, her breath hard and thin, her body shaking, muggy with sweat. Folding her legs, she leaned forward, rubbing at her face, she struggled to control her breathing, to calm down.
The Blight. She'd dreamed of the Blight — what else could that have been, that hateful blackness, consuming all the world?
The King's party had passed through town not so long ago, accompanied by what few Wardens Ferelden had. Mother Vichiénne hadn't believed the stories of a Fifth Blight rising in the south, still didn't, and neither did many others.
Leliana herself had been skeptical. People could frighten easily, and a frightening tale gained teeth with each person that told it. But now...
Her dreams were never wrong. Confusing, difficult to interpret, sometimes. But not wrong.
(Though she still didn't know why the Maker called her little raven.)
Still shaky, her bedclothes sticking to her sweaty skin, Leliana levered herself out of bed, crawled across her tiny little chamber to her altar. She lit her candle, for a moment simply stared into the flame, her head still spinning with the rumbling howls of inhuman hatred, bodies crumbling to nothing, screams and cries.
Composing herself, she bowed her head, found her voice with a brief hum. "Holy Andraste, Chosen of the Maker, carry my voice to Him, so that He may hear me; Holy Andraste, Chosen of the Creator, carry my Song to Him, so that He may have mercy.
"Glory to you, O Maker, may Your Song rise from every land, now and forever and evermore, have mercy on Your people;
"Praise to you, O Creator, save Your people from ruin and deprivation, may they find community in Your chosen, may they find peace;
"Glory to you, O Maker..."
Leliana found her thoughts wandering through the dawn prayer, more than they should. Even on an ordinary day, she found it difficult to concentrate on these things, sometimes. She knew the words, of course, and she was sincere, of course, but...
"...Holy Andraste, beg us His mercy; Oh Maker, give us peace..."
She didn't know what it was, really. Perhaps she would get used to it in time. She hadn't been here long, she hadn't even taken her solemn vows yet. Maybe...
"...O Creator, see me kneel: for I walk only where You have bid me; stand only where You have blessed; sing only what You have placed in my throat..."
She didn't say such things aloud to Mother Vichiénne, but honestly, she thought all this singing and praying in cloister was sort of silly. She understood the idea of it, that they were singing for those who could not, interceding on their behalf much as Andraste did for them all, but...
"...O Maker, hear my cry: seat me by Your side in death; make me one within Your glory; and let all once again see Your favor."
...but...
"For You are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only Yours to give."
...but that wasn't true, was it? Leliana trailed off, sat back on her heels, frowning absently.
She'd gotten into arguments with the other Sisters about this, more than once. She'd gone to the Chantry partially because she had nowhere to go — all the way out here, the south of Ferelden, about as far from home as she could possibly get without braving Tevinter or the Qun... She'd been running away, yes, but that hadn't been the whole of it. She'd been running toward something as well.
After her confrontation with Marjolaine, after her everything had fallen apart, it had been Mother Dorothea who had drawn her into the Chantry. She hadn't intended to, she didn't think, she doubted Dorothea knew where she was, what she was doing. She couldn't even be certain Leliana was still alive. But as the world shifted around her, as she'd been left lost and alone, Leliana had grasped at something — and she'd remembered Dorothea.
Revered Mother Dorothea was loved by the people of Valence. A sizeable town in the Heartlands, not so far from the capital, Valence had wealth enough but, as was too often the case, the common people saw little of it themselves. In the region, Dorothea was most well-known for her charity, for feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, building shelters for itinerants and orphanages for children. She sent her Templars after brigands, sometimes even against the men sworn to local lords. She interceded on the people's behalf, begging lords rule with wisdom and tribunals show mercy.
That was the Chantry Leliana had imagined. Teach the Chant, yes, bring its wisdom to the powerful and its hope to the powerless, its comfort to those in despair, yes. That wasn't unimportant, of course not.
But the Chant fed only the soul. A body still needed to eat.
The Chantry she imagined wasn't Sisters shut up in cloister, singing for the ears of Andraste and the Maker alone, no. The Chantry she imagined was one closer to the people, one active in their lives. One that spoke not only to their spiritual needs, but their material ones as well. Perhaps once she was a Mother, she'd have more freedom to do as she thought they should, but...
Sometimes, she wondered if she should have returned to Valence instead of coming to Ferelden. She wasn't even certain why she'd come here.
(The storm came out of the south, black and terrible, no, she knew exactly why she'd come here.)
Before long, they were called to morning service. Her thoughts had wandered too much, she was behind, she had to scramble a little to get dressed. She trailed into the chapel after the other Sisters, got a rather reproachful look from Sister Kendal as she slid in next to her. By some miracle, Leliana managed to not smirk tauntingly back at her.
The morning service was mostly the same every day. A very abbreviated version of Andraste's story which, despite how very much the liturgy cut out, still took half an hour. There were a few portions that were swapped out on rotation, this time a couple passages from Trials.
Leliana smiled, mouthed, I have faced armies with You as my shield, and though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing can break me but Your absence. That was in Trials, but it wasn't one of the versus sung, she didn't know why she thought of it.
Toward the end, Mother Vichiénne gave a brief sermon, reading a passage from the Divine's latest encyclical and elaborating on it a bit. Leliana couldn't help frowning a little at the message — lecturing the faithful to not concern themselves with earthly matters, to sing only the Chant, to seek the Maker's wisdom above all else. Not for the first time, she got the impression that the Divine was...perhaps too deeply engrossed in the culture of Orlesian nobility. It was all well and good to tell them to not get so wrapped up in earthly matters, accumulating greater wealth and playing their petty politics. It was another thing entirely to give the same lecture to the people of a rural village like Lothering, those in attendance mostly farmers and low craftsmen.
(She realized it might be impious of her, but Leliana didn't think she liked Divine Beatrix much.)
After that, there were a few more songs, mostly quoted from Exaltations and Transfigurations, and it was done. Leliana sat for a moment longer, watching the Sisters and the people who'd attended — who weren't many, the people of Lothering tended to prefer evening services, and a significant portion of the village had left south with the King — as they moved about, chatting with each other. Mother Vichiénne was standing before the altar, Knight-Captain Bryant nearby, a short line of penitents forming to speak to her. At the back of the line was a familiar girl — fifteen or so, long curly black hair, fidgeting at her sleeves with obvious nervousness.
Smiling to herself a little, Leliana stood up, silently slipped over to the girl's side. "Maker watch over you, Bethany."
The girl twitched in surprise, squeaking a little. "Oh, don't do that!" she hissed, lightly whapping Leliana on the arm. "Honestly, Sister Leliana, you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days."
She really meant she might accidentally kill Leliana if she was startled too badly — the Mother and the Templars knew the Hawke sisters were hedge mages, half-trained by their father, an apostate from Kirkwall. (The Sisters didn't know, and Leliana wasn't supposed to, but joining the Chantry hadn't put an end to her habit of eavesdropping.) So far as Leliana could tell, the danger of a mage accidentally hurting people around them in an emotional outburst was far less than people made it out to be, she wasn't worried. "Mm, maybe if you weren't so distracted, you would have heard me coming."
"I never hear you coming. I don't know how you can be so quiet in those Chantry robes."
Practice, mostly. "That's a secret of the Sisterhood, I'm afraid." Some of the Sisters, including Leliana, teased Bethany about secrets of the Sisterhood, things they could only speak of with other Sisters (or Mothers), most of which was nonsense. The other Sisters were pretty sure Bethany would be joining them before too long, but that was impossible — they didn't know Bethany was a mage, mages were forbidden from taking vows.
Bethany pouted at her.
"Yes, you're very adorable. I still can't tell you. What do you wish to speak with the Revered Mother about?"
"Oh." The girl frowned, leaned around one of the local merchants to eye the head of the line — the Mother was wrapped up in a conversation with Miriam, appeared to be going nowhere very slowly. "I wanted to ask for a benediction."
"Now, Bethany, we are friends, aren't we? You can tell me if you feel you need intercession."
Bethany opened her mouth to speak, then immediately closed it, her cheeks pinking. There were multiple sorts of prayers a lay person might seek with a Sister or Mother. A benediction was, in general, asking the Maker for a blessing of some kind, good fortune or good health or the like. An intercession involved asking the Sister or Mother to beg forgiveness on the penitant's behalf for some sin or other — in Leliana's experience, the sins in question were most often sexual indiscretions.
The girl fidgeted in embarrassment for a moment before Leliana took pity on her. (Bethany was such a shrinking violet, if she were growing up in Lydes with Leliana one of her aunts would have dragged her off to a brothel to get it fucked out of her by now.) "I'm sorry, Bethany, I jest."
"It's all right," the girl muttered, shrugging.
"What do you want a benediction for? I know most of them, I think, if you want. It looks like the Revered Mother might be a while."
Bethany sighed. "It's... Carver and Marian, they're both at Ostagar, we haven't gotten any news, and... I don't know if they're even still alive," she finished, voice falling to a whisper and her eyes turning away from Leliana's. Anxious, scared, embarrassed.
"There's no shame in fearing for them, Bethany — they're your family, it's only natural. But, as it happens, I do know this one. If you want to sing with me instead of waiting for the Revered Mother."
"Oh. Yes, I would like that," she said, lips turning with a shy smile. "Thank you."
She just bet she would, Bethany would probably beg her for stories once they were finished. When she'd been a child, Leliana had had an obsession with stories and songs, she'd collected all kinds of them, from books or from Lady Cecille's friends and servants or from minstrels and even bards — her own time as a bard had only resulted in her acquiring ever more, even composing a few of her own. Bethany didn't come into town too often — the Hawke family farm lay some miles out of the village, Leliana only very rarely saw her at morning service — when she did they frequently ended up spending hours talking in the gardens.
Bethany sought her out consistently enough Leliana sometimes wondered if she were trying to get in her pants, but she was almost certain it was innocent.
(Sisters took vows of chastity, of course, but nobody really expected them to keep to them. Just last autumn, one of the Sisters had been found to be with child, she'd happily left the Chantry to marry the father. These things happened.)
A few moments later, they were out in the early spring chill, crossing the gardens toward their usual spot in the corner. They were hardly halfway across when Leliana froze. Her heart rising up into her throat, she stared wide-eyed at a particular patch of dirt, hardly able to breathe.
Halfway through Nubulis, it was still early in the season. Some trees and bushes were budding, some wildflowers and the like just starting to sprout, but it wasn't even quite planting season yet. An enterprising farmer or two might be getting started early, but... Herbalists, it was much too late for winter planting, spring planting didn't usually start until Eluveista, maybe the last weeks of Nubulis. Nothing should be flowering now, not until early Molloris, mid-Eluveista at the earliest.
Stretching through the grass, under the shadow of a row of bare, budding bushes, stood a strand of herbs. Leliana had tried planting several last year — she'd told Vichiénne she had some experience with potion-brewing, and the Mother, pleased, had suggested she plant some healing herbs in the gardens. She had less experience with that side of the process, some of her seedlings had done well, others not so well.
Embrium was a rather finicky plant. Requiring a particular mix of sun and shade, relatively rocky soil, but not too acidic, it took an experienced herbalist to grow embrium consistently. Which was unfortunate, because embrium was even better than elfroot for healing potions, especially in salves for burns and frostbite, the difficulty in raising it kept prices relatively high. Leliana's amateur attempt at growing embrium had hardly produced sprouts before they'd all died.
Those right there, deep green stalks, lighter leaves streaked with orange, those were...
Numb, Leliana stumbled slowly to the herbs. There should not be embrium here. Especially not blooming embrium. There should not. Her embrium had died, every one. And it was far too early for embrium — in the wild, embrium sprouted in Eluveista and didn't fully bloom until Matrinalis, and herbalists hadn't managed to subvert its natural course that far.
"Those are pretty. Orchids? Did somebody transplant them from somewhere up north? It's too early for orchids."
A breathy whisper, "They're embrium."
Bethany was silent a moment. "Aren't embrium red?"
"They are," Leliana said, slowly nodding. These were embrium, the placement of the leaves, the form of the flowers, unmistakable. She stretched out a hand, shaky fingers approaching inch by inch, before touching them...
They were real. They weren't an illusion, Bethany had seen them too, she couldn't be hallucinating. They were real.
White embrium, exactly like in her dream.
Feeling the grin pulling at her own face, Leliana pushed herself back up to her feet, turned back to Bethany. "Shall we get started? I have a good feeling the Maker will be listening."
On their way to their usual corner, she couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, her eyes drawn to the impossible flowers, blooming wildly out of season and in the wrong color. Looking upon them, she had the same feeling that had come to her in her dream, giddy and cheerful and light...
Leliana had nearly forgotten what hope felt like.
9:30 Nubulis 13
Southron Hills, South Reach, Chasingard, Ferelden
Marian stumbled into the clearing, giving the little space a skeptical look.
This far off the road, there were occasional places where the topsoil thinned too much for trees to take root, the ground too hard and rocky for anything but grasses and hardscrabble bushes to grow. The trappers and hunters of the arlings of South Reach and Redcliffe greatly appreciated these — no matter how deep into the hills they went, there were always places to camp. Marian had grown quite familiar with them herself, over the last couple days, they were far more convenient to sleep in than the depths of the forest, where there might by stalks and branches from bushes or the like all over the place.
For a moment, she considered simply passing through, continuing on until she came to the next clearing, or possibly the next. But no. Her limbs were shaking with exhaustion, her back a mix of stings and aches. And worse than that, the flow of strength supporting her was wavering, the magic keeping her going fluttering with her breath, the back of her eyes itching, an odd metallic tingle at the back of her throat, an unpleasant sickly heat spreading through her chest — she'd been channelling too much magic for too long, teetering on the edge of burn-out. There wasn't much daylight left, if she had to cast some light on top of everything else...
No, she couldn't keep going. She needed to rest, for a couple hours at least.
Toward the middle of the clearing, she bent over, carefully setting Carver's limp form down on the grass, his legs first, pushing his chest back over her head and down. Then she released the familiar spells strengthening her body, and collapsed next to him.
She was so tired.
She felt like she was being pressed into the dirt, a heavy weight resting on her head to toe, took an irritating effort even to lift a finger. Everything hurt, aching and shivering, carried over from the exertion of the battle itself, and then carrying Carver through the hills for...
Had it been two days? She was pretty sure this was the second sunset she'd seen since the battle, which had itself started just after sunset. So it'd been, what, a day and a night and a day and another night and then yet another day since she'd properly slept? She'd gotten a few minutes here and there, but she couldn't stop, she had to keep moving...
She'd opened up some distance from the darkspawn, but not enough to risk a full night's sleep. If she let her eyes stay closed she would... As soon as she wasn't in danger of burning out anymore, she had to keep moving.
(Marian forced down the frustration and exhaustion, bit back tears, with ease of long habit.)
With a groan, Marian rolled over onto her elbows, shakily pushed herself up to her knees. Carver hadn't woken up this time. He looked somewhat lopsided, with the armor and clothing over one arm missing, showing bare skin from shoulder to fingers — he'd taken a nasty cut, she'd had to cut it off treating him and quickly decided it wasn't worth trying to repair. She was not much of a healer, but she had managed to reverse the damage, seal the cut up, mostly by throwing all the magic she could at it and praying for her stupid little brother to live dammit. It'd worked, but the effort had thrown her straight into burn-out, she'd passed right the fuck out, probably for an hour or two.
And just in time too — the darkspawn had caught up while she'd been unconscious, she'd barely managed to pick Carver up and get away.
Her inexpert healing had managed to keep Carver from bleeding out, but she'd obviously done something wrong. Ever since, he'd been terribly feverish, his face still looking flushed and streaked with sweat, his wet hair messily pasted here and there contributing to his general disheveled appearance. He'd woke up a few times, but never very long, and when he had he'd been a bit delirious, hadn't seemed to quite understand what was going on.
She thought he might be getting better. Maybe. Stretching out with her still-shaky magic, she could feel the fever burning at him, tamped it down on instinct. (What she'd done at the Joining felt very similar to helping control a fever, no wonder she'd figured out what to do so quickly.) It could be her imagination, but she thought it was weaker than last time she'd done this. It didn't keep quite as much power to keep Carver's temperature down as it had at its worst, it didn't resist quite so strongly as it had before. She couldn't be certain, she was not a healer, but it looked like he was going to make it.
She bit her tongue, took a second to wipe at her eyes (or maybe more than a second). He'd had her worried there, the little shit...
There was a low, breathy moan, a scrape as Carver shifted. "Dad?"
Maker, that wasn't helping with the whole trying not to cry thing. She wished their father were here too, he'd been a much better healer than she was. He'd said they'd get into it eventually, but that it was very finicky, to do it properly it required a lot of knowledge about magic and also how all that shit in bodies worked. It was an enormous time investment, and very advanced, they'd get to it when she was older.
And then he'd died before she could get older. She'd been younger than Carver and Bethany were now, and they'd been so little. Bethany had been inconsolate for weeks, crying at the drop of a pin. Carver had tried to be strong, acting all solemn and quiet and dignified (which had been kind of hilarious, coming from a little kid). Marian hadn't bought it for a second, of course — she'd known the twins since literally the day of their birth, if they wanted to fool her they had to try a whole lot harder than that. They still couldn't fool her, much as they sometimes thought they could. There was a difference between them getting away with it and Marian deciding to let them.
(That incident with Carver lying to Mother's face and running off to play soldier notwithstanding.)
Choking back unwanted damn feelings again, Marian brushed Carver's hair out of his face — still damp with sweat, but not so bad as before. "It's me, little brother."
Carver let out a hum. He turned to her, his eyes opening a little. He seemed to be having trouble focusing, eyes flicking to the side now and again and squinting a little, but it was the most coherent he'd looked in some time. "I was just... That spell just now..." His eyes closed again, shaking his head. "Dad... That time I fell in the river, you know, around Wintersend? He stayed up with me, and..." He sounded more coherent, too, so, that was good.
And yeah, she remembered that, of course she did. She and Dad had been out hunting, and the twins had been running around getting into trouble like little idiots — Carver had fallen through the ice on the river (a little brook, really), which he'd been walking on around Wintersend like a fucking moron. (He'd been, what, five or six at the time, but really.) He might have been swept away to be drowned or frozen to death if Bethany hadn't managed to yank him out with magic. And he'd still almost died, ended up catching pneumonia, he'd been terribly ill for a week.
That was, in fact, when Father had taught her to help people with fevers in the first place. "That wasn't Dad, that was me."
Carver's brow creased in an absent sort of frown. "He stayed up with me for days..."
"No, I stayed up with you for days." Dad had had too much work to do, with spring on the horizon, he hadn't had the time to stay at Carver's bedside stopping his fever from turning his brain to mush for days straight.
"He read to me..."
"Still me." There were an abnormally large number of books in their house given they were just farmers — some Mom had taken with her when she'd left home, some Dad had stolen from the library at the Kirkwall Circle, some they'd picked up over the years. Keeping that spell on Carver hadn't been difficult, but she'd had to stay within a couple feet of him, so reading was really the only thing she could do to pass the time. Half the time, when her voice cooperated, she'd read out loud because...well, why not? Carver had been pretty out of it, she hadn't realized he remembered that. "You ass."
"Oh. I thought..." He trailed off, still frowning to himself.
Probably thought the idea of Marian diligently sitting with him in sickbed looking after him for days straight was unimaginable. She knew Carver thought she didn't like him much...for some reason, she didn't really get it. Bethany was much more forthcoming about it than Carver ever was. Apparently, it had started when Dad had still been around — he'd been a bit jealous, that both of his sisters spent so much time with him on their special magic lessons and everything, a little resentful for taking Bethany away. (She and Carver had been inseparable when they'd been little, still were close, if somewhat less so.) And then after, Marian had hardly had much time for him at all, but she'd still kept up the magic lessons with Bethany. Eventually, he'd come to the conclusion that Marian simply didn't like him.
Which, that was just fucking stupid. Yes, she hadn't had time to play around with Carver or whatever, but she'd been kind of busy — you know, making sure there was food for him to eat, and clothes for him to wear. The magic lessons were a priority too, unless he wanted Bethany to be outed to the villagers, or accidentally kill herself somehow, or get possessed by a fucking demon, that was kind of important. But, she'd been too busy to fool around with Carver, so clearly she was a terrible big sister. Her bad.
Despite Bethany explaining it a couple years ago now, she'd never brought it up with him. It was irritating, she'd probably end up yelling at him, and that wouldn't do any good.
At some point, her hand had found his, their fingers lacing together. She hadn't meant to do that. "I'll always take care of you, little brother."
...
"Even when you're being an annoyingly little shit."
Carver let out a guffaw, shifting into a cough. After a few seconds he stilled again, smiling blearily up at her. "Fuck you too, Marian."
Yeah, he'd be fine.
(She bit her tongue again, blinking, dammit, not the time for that shit...)
"Here." Marian unhooked a wineskin from her belt, warmed it a bit with the tiniest application of fire magic, scrunching and shaking the contents around. She twisted off the cap, started levering her arm under Carver's shoulders. With an exasperated sigh, he pushed himself upright, swaying dizzily. "Woah, hey, slow down. You okay?"
He'd managed to steady himself, breathing harder than he should, but he hadn't fallen over again. "Yeah. Well, no, I feel like shit, but I'm fine." He took a swig out of the skin, then gagged, one hand covering his lips. "Andraste's— What is this?"
"Water."
"That doesn't taste like water."
"I added shredded elfroot and crushed tack." She shrugged — she'd had to keep Carver going somehow, it'd been the only thing she could think of.
"That's fucking disgusting, Marian."
"Yes, well, it's the only elfroot we have, and you're still not well, so either you drink it or I make you drink it." Reaching into her pack, Marian pulled out a square of tack — or, a vaguely rectangular chunk, anyway, she'd already eaten half of it. "Unless you'd rather trade?"
Carver grimaced, probably at the idea of eating tack without broth of some kind to soften it in. He gave her a surly pout, but he took another gulp from her concoction, coughing again at the taste.
"That's what I thought." She cast one weak spell to freeze the cracker, immediately followed by another to heat it up again. Tack was pretty much impossible to eat without softening it in something, but she'd found freezing it then heating it could loosen it enough to get bites off — it was still hard, made her teeth ache, and of course very dry and terribly bland and stale, but it was edible, at least.
Carver managed another gulp, gagging some more. Taking pity on him, she handed him her last piece of jerky. They had to be nearly to Lothering by now anyway.
Or, halfway, at least? She wasn't certain, she'd been avoiding the road...
"Where are we?"
She shook her head. "Somewhere between home and Ostagar. I've been walking a couple days, but it's been slow going."
"Ostagar isn't that far away."
"It is when you're carrying someone bigger and heavier than you on your back."
Carver had nothing to say to that.
"We'll rest, for an hour or two." The unpleasant tingling of burn-out was starting to recede, Marian cast a fire with a wave of her hand — sitting right on a protruding bit of rock nearby, nothing was actually burning, magic could be interesting like that. "If you can walk on your own by then, that'll help. I think we might make it home tomorrow. If not, the next day."
Nodding along, Carver hardly seemed to be listening. He was poking at his naked arm, an odd look on his face, distant. "You pulled me out of the battle."
"Yes." It hadn't been easy, either — she'd had to kill like twenty darkspawn single-handedly, and flying with him had been hard.
It almost looked like he was going to protest, her saving his life and dragging him away from the battle like a disobedient child. "The King?"
Oh. Maybe that hadn't been fair of her. "I didn't see." She'd left the King and the Wardens the moment she'd noticed Carver's position being overrun, she hadn't looked back. "I haven't heard anything, but..."
"But?"
"It was pretty bad, Carver. I don't think he made it."
Carver sighed, rubbed at his forehead with the fingers of one hand. Marian looked away, pretending not to see whatever reaction there might be on his face, chewing at her tack. (She'd set a few trees on fire to blow off steam when she'd put together what must have happened, she understood.) "And the Teyrn?"
"He wasn't at the battle. The Teyrn or his men."
"What?" His hand dropped into his lap, nearly spilling her concoction — which she was certain Carver would deeply regret if he did, what a tragedy. He stared at her for a moment, face blank with incomprehension.
No, not incomprehension — disbelief. That Teyrn Loghain Mac-Tir could run away from a battle, abandoning to die his best friend's son, his own son-in-law, betraying Ferelden and her King... Marian wouldn't have been able to imagine such a thing could happen. She hadn't put it together until afterward, why the battle hadn't gone according to plan — not until she'd been on the road, and some of the Teyrn's men had started killing some of those who'd managed to flee, just, butchering them on the road from horseback. Marian had escaped into the trees with Carver by the skin of her teeth, she'd avoided the road ever since, fleeing from the darkspawn and the fucking Gwaren army.
(That was when she'd set the trees on fire — when she'd realized not only that the King had died, but that the Teyrn had betrayed him, and was even now killing the men and women who'd survived the battle, loyal sons and daughters of Ferelden who were guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time — the rage building in her chest too great for her usual methods to contain it, she'd needed to break something.)
(She'd sort of scared herself, honestly, she didn't want to think about it.)
"That... No, that can't be. Teyrn Loghain wouldn't just... Are you sure?"
"Yes, Carver, I'm sure. The Teyrn wasn't at the battle. He left." She wasn't going to tell him the rest of it, not now. When he was in better shape, sure, but stressing him more than necessary wouldn't do him any good.
Carver flopped onto his back, his hands coming up to rub at his face. "I can't believe it. This is... I just can't believe it."
"Yeah."
"We're fucked. With the Blight on, and Loghain killing the King, all the Wardens were there... Ferelden is so fucked."
"I think Lýna and Alistair's team probably made it." She hadn't seen them since before the battle started, but they'd been up on the cliffs, well away from the fighting — in fact, she suspected Duncan had kept them out of danger on purpose, so Ferelden would still have Wardens if the battle went badly. "But you're right. There will be a civil war, on top of the Blight."
From what she understood, compared to the rest of the world Ferelden was an unstable country at the best of times. Calenhad the Great hadn't so much "united" the Alamarri as he had won the fealty of various chieftains and petty kings (not all of whom had even been Alamarri at the time). When Calenhad had been born, the teyrnirs of Denerim, Gwaren, and Highever had been independent kingdoms; the modern arlings of South Reach and Redcliffe had made a fourth, and the West Hills and Edgehall had made a fifth. (They were called Chasingard and Avvarskild these days, though that's obviously not what they'd called them then.) And then there were the Bannorn, they hadn't been one kingdom then but a whole bunch of tiny ones, or tribesmen with no loyalty beyond their own kith and kin.
Calenhad the Great had won their loyalty, yes, but the King was really the only thing keeping the scattered regions of the country together. It was often assumed by foreigners that the son of the King became King, and that was that, but it was actually more complicated than that. Nobody was acknowledged as King of Ferelden simply because his father had been, he must be accepted by the Landsmeet first. If the King had an obvious heir, he (or she) would run the kingdom until a Landsmeet could be called, but they didn't always confirm him. Some transfers of power had been...more contentious, sometimes breaking out into civil wars small or large.
There had been two in the Exalted Age, Calenhad's son and grandson both contested by various nobles. There had been a tiny blip of one halfway through Steel, and then a much larger one at the very end, carrying in to the first years of Storm. There were a couple more little ones throughout Storm, and then an especially bad one in the early decades of the Blessed Age — they'd still been weakened from fighting each other when Orlais invaded in 8:24, it was why Orlais had been able to take the entire teyrnir of Highever and arling of Edgehall, and parts of the West Hills and Redcliffe, relatively quickly and easily. Civil wars were a common feature in Ferelden history, and were always a possibility when a King died.
Especially when there was no obvious heir available.
Queen Anora would be in charge, until a Landsmeet could be called and a successor elected. But, as she thought about it, Marian didn't think it very likely the Queen would be confirmed. She didn't know much about what the political landscape looked like right now — she might be a well-read farmer, but she was still just a farmer — but there was absolutely no way the Landsmeet would accept Anora after what Loghain had done. (And they would find out, Loghain was trying to kill survivors but he wouldn't get them all, and his own men could still talk.) It might not be fair, but the Queen was still young, and her father was Teyrn fucking Loghain — the lords would assume she was his puppet, even if she wasn't. They would not accept a puppet of the man who'd killed the King, no matter how widely beloved he might have been previously.
Highever would certainly oppose Anora (Loghain) — their Teyrn, Bryce Cousland, might even be selected as the next king in her place. So would Redcliffe — their Arl was the King's uncle, it was personal to him. Both arlings of the Avvarskild, certainly. Maybe South Reach, it depends, and Marian didn't know enough about the people involved to guess what the hell would happen in the Bannorn. Anora (Loghain) would have Gwaren, Denerim, maybe South Reach, and whichever banns go to their side. Unless something extraordinary happened to stop it, the country would split itself east and west, and set into killing each other.
Just in time for the darkspawn to come up from the south. Because a fucking Blight was the best time to have a civil war, obviously.
"What are we going to do, Mari?"
Well, that was actually a very easy problem to solve, despite how complicated it all seemed — Blights and wars between idiot teyrns and arls were not their problem. "We leave. Ferelden, I mean — as soon as we get home, we're leaving for Kirkwall."
She expected Carver to argue. He had last time this had come up, insisted that they couldn't just leave, not when their country was facing a Blight, not when they might be able to help. Instead, he was quiet a brief moment, lying there with one arm covering his eyes. "And if the esteemed Lord and Lady Amell aren't pleased to see us?"
That was a serious concern, she knew — as she understood it, Mom had run away with Dad against her parents' wishes. They might not react at all well to their estranged daughter crawling back with her three children (two of them apostate mages), with nothing to their names but what they'd been able to carry.
And that was assuming they were even still alive. Mom had never gotten word from them, but neither had she truly expected to, she'd been prepared to be cut off entirely when she'd left. But, it had been over twenty years, Marian's Marcher grandparents must be old now. They had to be...Maker, in their seventies, maybe? She wasn't certain how old they'd been when her mother had been born, but yeah, they might well be dead by now. They might end up dealing with her uncle instead.
Uh...Ganner? Gamleigh? She didn't know, Marian had never met the man.
"Then I guess we just figure something out. It's that, or stay here and take bets on what kills us first. My money's on the contest — South Reach is between Denerim and Redcliffe, you might have noticed."
Carver didn't say anything, but she could practically hear him scowling. "Right. Get some sleep. I'll keep watch."
She nearly protested that Carver wasn't well...but he'd been asleep for days, and he was doing much better. He probably couldn't fight yet, but his eyes still worked. So she couldn't use that as an excuse. "I'm fine."
Pushing himself upright again, leaning back on his hands, he said, "Don't give me that shit, Marian. When's the last time you slept?"
"This morning." He gave her a flat, doubtful look. "Okay, it was only for like an hour, but—"
"Marian."
...
Well, it would be nice. She'd been trying to ignore how worn down she was feeling, but...
She bit her lip, glanced up at the sky. "Wake me up at full dark."
"That's hardly enough to—"
"We need to keep moving. The darkspawn aren't that far behind us — I'd like to get home a day before them, at least. And, I won't be able to keep that fire going if I'm asleep. We don't have any torches, and darkspawn are damned frustrating to spot in the dark."
Carver scowled, but nodded. "Fine. Full dark."
Marian intended to keep up a bit of banter about her baby brother growing up to be so bossy, and he'd been such a sweet kid. But the second she set her head down, she was already drifting off, losing her train of thought.
Oh well. She'd let Carver off easy, this time...
9:30 Nubulis 15
Palace Hill, Denerim, Ferelden
Shianni didn't think she'd ever seen the square so full.
Public executions were rare in Denerim. Most of the time, if someone had committed a crime that warranted being killed for it (and sometimes even if they hadn't), they would simply be killed on the spot by the city guard, or vanish into Fort Drakon never to be seen again — executed quietly or dying from torture during interrogation, perhaps, but mostly from disease. The only reason to execute someone in a big public show was to deliver a message to the people of the city, it was rarely considered necessary.
As rare as they were, there was still a place set aside for them. Right where the road leading up to Fort Drakon met the avenue marking the border between the noble district and the rest of the city was a square. As large as the market in the northern city, but completely empty, bare tan tile stretching from the road to the low wall following the river. On festival occasions, major holidays or whenever they decided they wanted a party, the nobility and the wealthy merchants would fix the place up with tents and tables and decorations and whatever else, have themselves a festival. Shianni had seen them from a distance, of course, she'd never attended one herself. (Elven peasants weren't invited, obviously.) The rest of the year, it was barren, the only feature a raised platform on the western side, a little row of stone blocks on top.
Chipped and scraped from repeated hits with axes, streaked with layer upon layer of bloodstains.
And Shianni had never seen the square so full. There was always an announcement the day before an execution, but nobody was actually required to attend — they didn't need many people to come for all to know, the people of the city gossipped. And they had gossipped, everybody knew what had happened. The square was filled with people, from one end to the other, even spilling out down the avenue and alleys into the city, hundreds of people, thousands of people. The common people of the city, a sea of drab, threadbare clothing and solemn, angry faces.
Everybody knew what had happened. The city guard had made their announcements, shouting from market stands and street corners, notices posted to walls all over the place (especially around the elven quarter). The story the officials told was that a band of elven criminals had broken into the Arl's estate, made off with valuables after murdering everyone inside. Including the Arl's children — Bann Vaughan, two younger sons, and a daughter. For no reason, apparently, listen to the city guard and it sounded like the men involved had just attacked the place for the hell of it.
But their story came too late. The people of Denerim gossipped. By the time the officials made their announcements, everybody knew the truth.
Standing among them, Shianni could feel the crowd seethe with frustrated anger. Not just the elves, but the humans as well, a tide of hatred that the presence of the guards standing on the platform only stoked higher, higher, the air so thick and hot with palpable fury she felt she might choke on it.
The anger only rose as the prisoners were dragged up onto the platform, in view of the entire crowd. Gethon, Nelaros, Taeodor, Cyrion...
Darrian and Soris.
Mutters swept the crowd. They'd clearly been beaten, their faces bruised and scraped, Cyrion was limping a bit, Nelaros was missing a fair bit of his left ear. Darrian and Soris in particular, her brave stupid cousins looked terrible, she was amazed they were standing upright. And they were standing, despite being covered in bruises and wincing with each step, their heads still held high, glaring defiantly at the guards manhandling them.
Shianni's teeth clenched, her vision blurred, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She wasn't going to look away, she wasn't going to leave them. She could repay their bravery that much.
There was some important person up there now, along with a Chantry Mother — not the Revered Mother, and not Boann either, Shianni didn't recognize her. (Someone attached to the Palace or one of the nobles' estates, probably.) A scroll was unrolled, and a proclamation from the Crown read out. Shianni could barely hear him over the crowd, and she wasn't really listening anyway. Everyone knew that, though things like execution orders might be signed by the King (or Queen, in this case), they certainly weren't written by him (or her). Some other official would have handled that. The Queen hadn't actually said any of this, there was no point listening.
Not that Shianni thought the Queen actually gave a damn what happened to a few elven peasants, none of the big hats did, but that wasn't really the point.
The first three were forced to their knees in front of the blocks. Cyrion, Gethon, and Taeodor had helped the other three, had killed a few of the Arl's guards, but they hadn't actually entered the estate, they were lumped together under lesser crimes. Once they were in place, the Chantry Mother went to Taeodor, offered to hear his last words on behalf of Andraste (she knew, Shianni couldn't actually hear her). Taeodor was crying, shaking his head, whatever he said the Mother gently placed a hand on his head, sang something before moving on to Gethon. He glared up at the Mother for a second before turning to the man who'd read the proclamation, spitting in his direction. One of the guards stepped forward, punching him across the face, knocking him back.
Hisses swept the crowd, a few started into motion before stopping again, swaying like grass.
And then Cyrion. Her uncle blandly stared at the Mother a second, before glancing toward Darrian, looking at his son one last time. Then he slowly shook his head, and closed his eyes, calm and impossibly serene.
Shianni wiped at her eyes again.
Hands on their shoulders, the three men were forced forward, bent over double. Three guardsmen with heavy axes approached. At a signal, they all together raised their weapons, and brought them smoothly down.
Nearly all at once, out of sync only instants, three heads fell to the platform.
Shianni hadn't known what she'd expected to feel, watching her uncle be beheaded, his blood splashing over the leg of his executioner, dripping down to the platform. Uncle, he was more a father, really — he'd taken her in after her mother had died, when she'd been eight or so. She didn't really remember her own father, and her mother faded further every day. Cyrion and Adaia were who she remembered. Adaia had died, a couple years back now, and now Cyrion...
Watching him be murdered, she'd expected horror, grief.
She hadn't expected rage.
The crowd shuffled around her as the bodies were shuffled away, Shianni grit her teeth, her fists clenched and shaking at her sides, her cousins and Nelaros were moved into their place, forced down to their knees in the same places the others had just died. (At least the guards had the tact to not put Darrian where they'd just killed his father, though she couldn't be certain they'd meant to avoid it.) The crowd was actually quieter than it'd been before, words shocked out from throats, but she couldn't hear so well anyway, her breath scraping in her throat, her heart pounding in her head.
The Mother came to Nelaros first. He hesitated for a moment, rocking on his knees a little, his face working silently. And then he yelled, loud enough to echo through the square: "The sick son of a bitch deserved it!"
Nelaros got a gauntlet in the face much as Gethon had before him, there was some shuffling and arguing going on up there. A mutter went through the crowd, angry hissing, whispers passing one to the next.
Sympathetic whispers.
Because the sick son of a bitch had deserved it.
Everybody knew about Vaughan Kendalls. The Arl's son and his friends, mostly children of lesser nobles, had made a game the last few years of terrorising the people of the city. It hadn't been too bad, at the start. A few drunken fights breaking out in one tavern or another, the occasional unwelcome pawing at one serving girl or another. And then it wasn't just in taverns, he and his friends started accosting women out in the open, wherever they happened to run into them.
Before long, things had escalated. They didn't just harass women anymore. They abducted them, dragged them away to the Arl's estate, raped and brutalized them. Some where never seen again.
Some were outright murdered, their beaten and violated corpses left out in the street for their families to find.
For a time, Shianni had assumed they only targeted elves — the elves and the humans of the city lived somewhat apart, it was only natural he would hear of the victims taken from among them first. Nearly a year ago now she'd learned, no, he took human girls too. Probably more humans, in fact. It hadn't taken long for the elves to put together what had happened — people gossipped, and the elven quarter was somewhat more tight-knit than the humans of similar means — and it had become less than entirely safe for Vaughan in the elven quarter. As soon as he stepped foot on their streets, he was shadowed.
If he and his friends tried to snatch a girl directly from the elven quarter, Shianni doubted they would get out alive.
He certainly hadn't gotten away with it for long, at least.
A week ago, they'd come in force. Vaughan and his friends, backed up by several city guards, had waltzed right into the Square, all crude and swaggering. And he'd started pawing at Nola. Just, out in the open, in front of her family and everyone — in the shade of the Tree! Even if he were welcome, even if he were a local, that was just— That was just unacceptable.
Shianni hadn't even meant to do it. One moment she'd been a few steps away, watching. The next she had a bottle of wine in her hand, and Vaughan was laid out on the ground in front of her, half-conscious. Then a gauntleted fist was flying at her face.
The next thing she knew she'd been waking up with a horrible headache, locked in a small, unfamiliar room — richly appointed, the rugs and tapestries and furniture far finer than anything an elf in Denerim could ever afford. Neslara had been there with her, and Seda. Valora and Nola had been taken too, they'd said, but they weren't in the room with them.
Shianni had been able to hear them, on the other side of the door. Screaming.
The door had been locked, Shianni had torn through the room like a storm, searching for something, anything, finally she'd noticed Seda's bracelet, snatched it off her wrist. A few hard smacks against the edge of a bookshelf, and she'd twisted some of the wires away, kneeled in front of the door, started picking at it, tried to ignore Valora and Nora's cries, the men laughing, Seda and Neslara behind her egging her on. She hadn't gotten enough practice with this, it wasn't easy, and the noise hadn't helped her concentrate...
And then, with much yelling and clanging, quiet. Shianni had scrambled away from the door, and seconds later it was kicked open. Darrian, a blade in each hand and covered in blood. He'd taken a brief look at her — standing between the other women and the entrance, the mangled jewelry brandished like a weapon, ready to leap into action — and he'd smirked. Not a pleasant smirk, dark and horrified and furious, but still amused with her.
Neslara had leapt into her brother's arms (which had then gotten blood all over her dress, because he was as filthy as Darrian), and Soris had been there too, holding his crying wife (they'd been too late for Valora), blood-streaked and shaking with fury. Vaughan and his friends had been scattered about the room, most of them underdressed, all of them very, very dead.
On the way toward the exit, Darrian had tightly wrapped an arm around her shoulders, "Don't scare me like that, Spitfire," dropped a kiss on her hair.
Vaughan and his friends had deserved it.
The big hats, the Chantry Mothers and the nobles and the guards and whoever, they might not know that. But the people making up the crowd, oh, they knew it. They knew it too well.
Next, the Mother came to Darrian. He scowled up at her, scowled at the guards. And he didn't hesitate for an instant. His shoulders firming, his head thrown back, "Mïen-harel!" Darrian got a punch in the face too, and there was a bit of squabbling, but Shianni couldn't hear it.
The crowd was shuffling, anger tipping to the boiling point, a whisper running through the square as the phrase was translated for nearby humans who might not know. None of the elves in Denerim actually spoke elvish anymore, and the few words and phrases they remembered sounded rather different from what the Dalish spoke. But there were still some things they remembered. Curses, sometimes, a few words for extended family, some kinds of food, some for clothing and decoration. The Tree in the elven quarter had a proper elvish name, but Shianni couldn't pronounce it.
That one in particular, that was a phrase all elves knew.
They were the words of Shartan, it was said, the oath around which he'd called elven slaves into revolt against Tevinter. They were the words on the lips of the old Dalish warriors, going to war against Orlais. They were still spoken, sometimes, when elves all throughout the world rose up in rebellion, or simply wished they could, whispered in unseen corners, boldly painted on the walls of manors. In Ferelden, in Orlais, in the Marches, in Tevinter, everywhere.
Justice through blood.
Eventually, the fluttering up on the platform was settling down — Shianni would just bet human leaders would recognize that particular phrase, even if peasants didn't — and the Mother was moving on to Soris. The crowd was noisier now, shuffling and muttering, but she could still hear Soris shout, "Mïen-har—" He was cut off, one of the guards shoving him down, his head slamming into the block. There were shouts in the crowd now, as Darrian and Nelaros were pushed down, the executioners moving into place, rushing a little, compared to before, egged on by—
"Justice by blood!"
"Murderers!"
"Let them go!"
"Mïen-harel!"
The axes came up, and then they came down. Her cousins' blood splashed on the stone, and her vision seemed to fill with it, everything going red and hot and angry—
Shianni bent over, picked up a loose stone, and threw it up toward the platform. The big hat who'd read the proclamations — she didn't know who it was, some minor noble or chancellor or something — it hit him in the chest, winding him and knocking him back a few steps. And then more rocks were falling, thrown at random from the crowd, pinging off of the guards' armor, one striking the Mother over the head.
The guards had drawn swords now, pressing in on the crowd, trying to push them away from the big hats. Some were trying to flee, but Shianni pushed toward the front, she saw in her peripheral vision she wasn't the only one. She bent to pick up another stone, threw it up at the platform, bouncing off the helmet of one of the guards, "Mïen-harel!" the cry echoed in dozens of throats, elven and human—
There were screams, and shouts of anger, the crowd pushing tighter around her, for a second she could barely breathe, she levered her shoulder through, forcing her way forward. Over shoulders she saw the guards had formed a line, shields out and swords raised, Shianni made it to the front, there were a couple bodies on the tile, blood pooling over—
"Mïen-harel!" The portion of the crowd to Shianni's right surged toward the line, the shields turned them away, blades biting into flesh, the smell of blood already thick on the air, and there were screams, not of fear but of anger, each strike just seemed to make the crowd more and more furious, stones flicking over their heads in a constant thin hail now, one of the big hats on the platform had been knocked out, carried away by guards—
The crowd around Shianni moved, seemingly without the conscious choice of any one person, rage carrying them forth on each other's shoulders, the guardsmen were barely a few steps away now, and Shianni's whole body seemed to thrum with terror but she didn't listen to it she was pushed into the line—
She thumped into a guard's shield, her momentum and the push behind her shoving him back a couple steps, and the human woman next to her was cut down, the crowd around her thinned as they instinctively backed away from weapons, but Shianni didn't let go, she had one arm wrapped around the top of the shield, gripping it with both hands, and when space opened up behind her she pulled.
Unprepared for the sudden switch between being pushed back and pulled forward, the guard stumbled after her. He recovered after a moment, his arm turning to stab down at her over his own shield, she yanked, dropping to her knees and turning, the guard fell, crashing down and flopping on to his side, and people were pulling his shield away and kicking at him—
(Thank you, Adaia. That was two times in one week she owed her life to her aunt's illicit self-defense lessons now.)
Shianni was kneeling on his chest, she was somewhat surprised to find her work knife in her hand, but she didn't think, she plunged it into his throat, all her weight enough to get the dull blade to sink through several inches. While he twitched and gurgled, Shianni plucked his sword off the tile, tossed it up to a nearby human man who held it aloft, "Mïen-harel!" and off he went. She drew the guard's dagger off his belt, left her knife where it was in his throat — this would be better for fighting with anyway.
Looking up, Shianni wasn't the only one who'd managed to pull one of the guards away from the others, there were gaps now, furious peasants meeting nervous guards with pilfered swords and shields. Just ahead of her, the man she'd handed the sword to was trading awkward blows with one of the guards, he wasn't going to last long, Shianni ran up and dove, rolling to a stop at the guard's right side, turned and sliced across the unarmored back of his knee, while he flailed the man with the sword chopped into his neck, droplets of blood raining over Shianni, the blade had stuck deep in the collapsing guard, one of his fellows gutted the man before he could recover it, but then five more were there with knives and fists, falling on them.
The fight was absolute chaos, Shianni could hardly follow what was happening, and she didn't really try to. Bodies bumping against her, she tried to stay low, while guards were busy with other people slipping around behind and stabbing them in the back. She got an elbow in the head more than once, her left ear was ringing a little, she'd gotten hit over the shoulder with a shield pretty hard, fallen enough times she'd be bruised something awful tomorrow, she'd gotten a cut along her arm but it wasn't bad enough to worry about, so many others had been killed, but she hadn't, she'd killed them first, four or five of them, she thought, but she didn't think about that, she'd never killed anyone before, but—
There was a hard twanging of crossbows going off, a chorus of screams from the north. Shianni turned that direction without thinking, leaving her fight behind, she ran toward the platform, right at its base there was a fight between a guard and two elves and a human going on. She came up behind him, slipped her stolen dagger through a seam in his armor at its waist, then again a bit to the side, the man started going limp, she shoved him against the platform, one of the elves only barely dancing out of the way. Stepping up on the man's shoulder, she got her elbows over the edge of the platform, started pulling herself up, someone was pushing her up, she glanced down to see it was the human, the guard's sword in his other hand.
And Shianni was up on the platform, nobody had moved Nelaros and her cousins' bodies, but she couldn't look, she didn't look. Running across the platform, she looked out over the crowd, her bloody dagger held to the sun, "Mïen-harel!" a vicious grin pulling at her face as the cry was echoed from all directions at once, an unbearable giddiness filling her chest. Still running, she leapt off the side of the platform, landing on top of one of the crossbowmen, taking him to the ground, slitting his throat before he could get up, ducking a jab from the butt of a crossbow from the next, stabbing him in the groin.
The distraction had been enough, the enraged crowd surging forward, spilling over the crossbowmen, setting upon them with knives and stones and fists, weapons taken from their belts and their hands, hefted into the air, cheering, "Mïen-harel!"
"The Palace!"
"To the Palace!"
"Burn the Hill!"
"To the Palace!"
Shianni was swept along with the rest of the crowd, turning to the south, the Palace Hill ahead of them, the sprawling estates of all the banns and arls and teyrns, at the center the Landsmeet Hall and the Royal Palace itself. The heart of the Kingdom of Ferelden.
And its own people were about to hold a knife to it.
"To the Palace!"
"Mïen-harel!"
Parts of Leliana's prayers are adapted from irl Christian matins, parts quoted from the Canticle of Transfigurations.
[I have faced armies...] — Trials 1:6
Mïen-harel — The meaning of the phrase remembered by the city elves is off, a bit. The canon translation of "rebellion" would be decent, the "justice through blood" the city elves use is a more literal translation of the same concept (though, again, somewhat wrong). Lýna's thoughts on the city elves' mangling of the phrase will come up later, so I won't bother explaining where they're wrong just this second.
So, the riot that in canon is limited to the elven quarter is actually a huge fucking deal — if the garrison at Fort Drakon hadn't rushed to meet them, they might have had a legit peasant rebellion on their hands. Loghain could have gotten to Denerim to find his daughter and who knows how many nobles murdered, the city in absolute chaos. Because I just like to make things complicated.
Also, this is exactly the sort of thing that sometimes sparked peasant uprisings in real life. There are reasons people phased out public executions, and it's not because they became oh so enlightened and civilised — they tended to invite backlash when the populace had more sympathy for the executed than the executioners.
So, that's gonna be a fun atmosphere in the city for our Wardens to deal with during the Landsmeet! Tee hee.