By Gods Forsaken

by inwardtransience

One day, the shadows will part, and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see. (How do you do a summary for something this big? Total retelling, Mahariel!Warden, mage!Hawke, Dreamer!Trevelyan!Inquisitor, worldbuilding, too many OCs, serious plot edits, primarily F/F.)

21. The Arl of Redcliffe — IV

9:30 Nubulis 27

Redcliffe, Chasingard, Kingdom of Ferelden

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Lýna was trying not to look impatient. By the glances she was getting every now and then, she didn't think she was doing a very good job of it.

They landed back in Redcliffe the evening of the day after they'd left Kinloch Hold. They'd been gone for seven days, and while large, obvious features of the village hadn't changed much — the same buildings in the same shapes in the same places — a lot of the smaller things were different. The square in the middle of the village, outside the Chantry, had been cleared of all the archery targets and wagons and crates holding weapons or food or whatever, leaving the ground mostly empty, save for the occasional person passing through. The few barricades set up in the gaps between buildings had been removed, baskets and pottery and scraps of clothing, abandoned when people had fled their homes, picked up and returned to their places. Many of the windows and doors had been barricaded before, but they were open now, curtains fluttering in the breeze, showing glimpses of colorful interiors — not as cramped as a landship, but not as dense with ornamentation either, very much like Chasind homes, by the look of them.

And the feeling in the town had changed. Before the final battle against the undead, the place had seemed tense, frantic, desperate, a clear sense of fear and horror thick on the air. Afterward, everything had seemed quiet, even with all the activity going on — arranging pyres for the dead, people leaving the Chantry to return to their homes, boats landing at the docks and groups of people moving through toward outlying farms and smaller villages, running back and forth passing supplies around — a sort of shock lying like a heavy blanket over the area. As though everyone were holding their breath, not trusting things had gone back to normal and waiting for the next blow to fall.

And now they were breathing again. The place was noisier and rowdier, even from their first moments approaching the town. Their boat landed alongside others coming in, smaller and sleeker, hauling off onto the docks nets filled with fish and baskets with clams and clawfish and the like. The smell around the docks was intense, dead fish so thick Lýna could nearly feel it on her tongue, her eyes watering, an unexpected stink of brine (the lake here was freshwater?), but touched with something sharper and viler she couldn't place. Near one building, smoke billowed out through a few vents, well overhead but Lýna could still smell the fire and the tang of cooking fat — they must be drying much of the fish to preserve it, the Avvar did the same thing sometimes.

Further into the town, the activity was somewhat more subdued — because of the time of day, she'd later figure out, the fishers often didn't come back in until most people were done with their work for the day — but she still noticed the change in the atmosphere. With the animated corpses gone and cleansed with fire, the animals had returned, a few cats slinking around here or there, birds flittering across the roofs, a couple dogs standing guard outside doors. Voices leaked through windows and doors, snatches of conversation and laughter, scents from cooking food wafting through the town — Lýna recognized what was definitely a roots-and-mushroom stew of some kind, and maybe baking bread, but there were a few that were largely foreign to her, northern spices tickling at her nose.

There were even children playing in one of the alleys they passed through, running around and tossing back and forth a leather ball of some kind, shouting and laughing. One of them was distracted when their group came into view — she thought the boy was a dwarf, she didn't think she'd ever seen a dwarven child before — and failed to catch the ball, it came limply tumbling their way. Alim skipped out of place, reared up, and gave the thing a hard kick, sending it whizzing over the children's heads, spanging off the wall of a house, and then bouncing on down another alley. The children shrieked and giggled, went chasing after the thing, Alim left grinning to himself.

Lýna had to admit, she hadn't thought much of the town before, feeling all too dead and sterile and just... She didn't know, it hadn't felt right. But now the place felt far more lively, she didn't mind it near as much anymore. Still not a place she'd prefer to live, of course, but not nearly as bad.

They'd been met at the gates of the castle by Teagan and a few of his men — they'd spotted their boat coming long before they'd landed. After only a very brief discussion of what had happened at the Circle, Wynne had left with Teagan to go heal Eamon. The rest of their group had split up, the Wardens and Fergus's men both returning to the rooms they'd been put up in since the battle. It had been getting somewhat late by that point, so nothing much happened for the rest of the evening besides settling in.

Wynne returned in the dead of night, Lýna happened to be awake practicing her letters at the time. The Arl had woken up, and he was perfectly fine, if somewhat strained and exhausted — the body didn't like being put in stasis so long, it'd take some time for him to fully recover. Also, he'd woken up to find his only son and many of his people were dead, so. Eamon was healed, though Wynne couldn't guess when he'd be ready to meet with them.

The old healer lingered long enough to correct how Lýna was drawing one of the letters before going to bed. Lýna had scowled at Wynne's back — not really annoyed with Wynne, exactly, she just hated writing, it was even worse than trying to read...

When Lýna had woken up in the morning, Lèlja was already out of bed, kneeling on the floor and praying before a lit candle. Lèlja had explained back at the Circle why she did this every morning, but Lýna wasn't sure she really understood. The idea of priests speaking to gods on behalf of other people made perfect sense...except Chantry priests didn't claim to have any closer connection to their god than anyone else, he didn't speak to them either, so... But Lèlja did speak to her god, so it made sense for her to do it...except the prayer was one the other priests had taught her, a set ritual she just repeated — it didn't make any sense to Lýna that people who didn't speak to the Alamarri god should tell people who did how to go about it.

By the way she'd talked about it, Lýna suspected Lèlja wasn't entirely confident she got anything out of it either. She'd admitted she felt her god's presence sometimes, he was listening, but he never responded. Which Lýna thought made continuing to do it especially peculiar.

But it wasn't her god, it wasn't Lýna place to tell Lèlja how to worship him, any more than she thought those pretender shamans had the right to do the same. So she'd dressed as quietly as possible and slipped out of the room without a word.

And, once again, Lýna had found she had very little to do. All the work in the town was done with — not that they would have accepted Lýna's help with most of that anyway — she'd already washed her clothes back at Kinloch Hold, she didn't need to do any repairs. She didn't even need to sharpen her sword, silverite held an edge exceptionally well. Maybe she could use a few fresh arrows, she guessed, but due to her scavenging (and swiping some of the Templars') she wasn't short very many, and she could do that at any time. She didn't even need to gather or prepare food for herself, the servants at the castle handled that for all of them.

Not having anything to do still felt rather unsettling. Lýna wasn't accustomed to it.

Lýna did check in with their people they'd left behind. Perry and Keran had both been helping with the cleanup, resettling people in the town and the outlying villages and farms. Apparently, a lot of the land was being parceled out to new people, since many of the old holders were dead. Perry gave her a long, complicated explanation about how the leaders in the town were deciding who the empty farms and houses should go to, which she guessed was kind of interesting, if very confusing — Lýna honestly still didn't understand the concept of owning land to begin with, she wasn't sure what it really meant or how it worked. What she did understand was that it'd been very busy around here since the end of the battle, trying to populate the area's farmland before it was too late in the season to begin planting. Perry was pretty sure they'd done it, the people here shouldn't starve, so, good.

Of course, this region would almost certainly be overrun by darkspawn before they really had the time to starve, but they should be here long enough to harvest — they would have more than enough supplies to bring with them when they were finally forced to flee.

Much as the work Perry and Keran had done had been from different angles, giving Lýna different sides of what was going on, they'd both picked up rumors, but not the same rumors. Keran, who'd mostly worked with the Arl's men, said stories were trickling in that some of the Alamarri's leaders, banns and arls all over Ferelden, were refusing to bow to Loghain — which made perfect sense to Lýna, who would listen to someone who just declared they were in charge now like that?

Perry was more concerned about an elven revolt going on in Denerim, the city their king ruled from. Lýna had been confused at first, she hadn't realized there were enough elves among the Alamarri for a rebellion to get anywhere, but apparently they were much more common in the north of the country. According to the rumors he'd heard, Loghain had tried to put the revolt down by the sword but it hadn't worked, the rebels stubbornly holding on, hiding deep in the city and picking off warriors who wandered too close. Perry seemed kind of viciously pleased about it, wearing a bloody smirk, but also somewhat concerned — Lýna guessed he knew people in Denerim, worried they might be harmed, but he didn't say so she didn't ask.

Perry and Keran also both asked if they were taking recruits — which was a silly question, there was a Blight on, of course they were taking recruits. While working with the people here over the last several days, both of them had been approached by men and women asking if they could join the Wardens, or how they would go about that. Keran had four or five who seemed serious about it, but Perry around a dozen. Most of them, Perry thought, had lost family recently, and no longer had anything to keep them here, or were taking the announcement of a rising Blight in the south dead seriously, sometimes their motivation a mix of both. Lýna told them to gather all of them together tomorrow, so she and Alistair and maybe Lèlja could talk to each of them — she had no interest in expending resources and effort equipping and training people who were just looking for a sword to throw themselves onto — but it sounded like they'd be leaving the town in greater numbers than they'd arrived, which could only be a good thing.

She also spoke with Morrigan, briefly. The Chasind mage had been keeping Jowan company, mostly discussing magic and bringing him books to entertain himself with while she wasn't around. Otherwise, she'd spent all of her time in the Arl's library — Morrigan could read, in multiple languages, but she'd never had access to so many books before. Occupied as she'd been, Morrigan had far less news to share with her than the others, their conversation didn't take very long, and Lýna hadn't lingered longer than she needed to, letting Morrigan get back to her reading.

Those meetings aside, she ended up spending much of the day with Solana.

Lýna had hardly spoken to their newest recruit before. She'd meant to at some point while at the Circle, but she'd been too unsettled by that abomination and distracted with other concerns, she'd forgotten. On the boat on the way here, Lýna had been pulled into conversations with Fergus and Alistair and Wynne about what they would need to do to arrange their trip to the dwarven kingdom — she'd memorized a lengthy list of supplies they would need, from food to clothing to things to maintain armor and weapons to horses to carry it all, even more now that they'd be bringing in new recruits — so she'd never really had the chance. There was time, they wouldn't be able to do her Joining for a little while, but still, she should have done this sooner.

It was Solana who actually found her first. The tall human mage — right around Ásta's height, she thought, maybe a little taller — had walked up to her later in the morning, after she'd been done speaking with Perry and Keran, and asked if there was anything she should be doing. There wasn't really anything in the way of work to be done here, but she meant for her initiation into the Wardens.

So, Lýna had spoken with Solana for some time, about the Wardens and what her place here was going to be. (For one thing, Solana could stop calling her "Lieutenant" all the time, that was weird.) There wasn't a whole lot initiates needed to know, besides the basics of how to fight darkspawn (which there'd be plenty of time to get into detail on later), how the order was structured, and how things operated day to day. Groups of Wardens tended to work a lot like an Avvar war band — there would be one person who was followed, yes, but everyone in the group could bring up questions and ideas if they liked, and even challenge the leader if they didn't like the way they were doing things. At higher levels, it worked much the same, with the occasional comment from the leadership at Weisshaupt. Really, it was less that Weisshaupt was in command of the various Wardens around the world as they were kept informed of who was running them and what resources they had, so if they needed to pull together a big effort to deal with a horde somewhere they could, but the local orders were mostly left to manage themselves otherwise.

For Solana in particular, she didn't actually need to join the Wardens if she didn't want to. The thought of forcing someone to join to avoid execution made Lýna uncomfortable, felt too close to slavery to her, so if Solana wanted to leave that was fine. But, because the Templars had sentenced her to death, she would need to join if she wanted to stay with them — if she 'escaped' that was fine, but Lýna planned to work with the Templars later, with the Blight on she couldn't jeopardize that by protecting 'evil blood mages' who weren't even Wardens. It was something to think about, because once Solana actually did go through the Joining she couldn't leave, ever. Becoming a Grey Warden was a commitment for life, everybody knew that.

Solana had been rather surprised that Lýna would let her leave, but quickly decided to stay with them anyway. So that was settled.

Anyway, since Solana had gotten the kind of training the Alamarri leadership got that few other people did — according to Alim, but Solana had confirmed — she'd probably end up being made a constable at some point...so then Lýna had to explain that. The other officers were pretty self-explanatory, commanders leading captains leading lieutenants leading war bands, but the constables weren't really part of that directly. Their job was more about managing the order itself, making sure any forts they held were supplied and in good repair, equipping and training recruits, organizing the different groups they were divided into and making sure everyone was getting on, that kind of thing. Any fort or other location held by the Wardens would have a constable keeping the place running, and also usually a captain in command of the Wardens there, but neither the captain or constable were under the other, more kind of equals? but with different areas of authority. It was sort of complicated, but Lýna thought dividing responsibilities like that was intended to help things run more smoothly. And, in addition to the constables running the forts, there was one who followed the commander directly, and ran all that sort of stuff for the whole region, in charge of the other constables, and was like the commander's right hand, speaking with their authority when they weren't around — in fact, this constable usually took over if something happened to the commander.

Part of the problem with the Fereldan Wardens was that they hadn't been in this country for a long time, and they hadn't wanted to bring in too many Wardens from other places to fill out the ranks — Duncan had intended to recruit a bunch of locals, and promote up locals to be officers, but the Blight had started before he'd had time to get very far. At the time of the battle at Ostagar, there had only been three lieutenants — one who'd died with Duncan, one back at their fort in Denerim who had since either fled Loghain or been killed, and Lýna herself — no captains, and no constables. Until Wardens elsewhere sent in reinforcements to help with the horde, their group here was all they had.

Which, Solana had asked, if the commander and all the constables were gone, what were the Wardens supposed to do then? Duncan had actually told Lýna about that, that in that kind of situation any surviving officers would get together and choose a commander from among them. A message would then be sent to Weisshaupt, and they'd either confirm the choice, request they pick someone else, or send in more officers from other regions and hold another vote. Solana had then pointed out that, with the exception of Riordan (who they couldn't contact and might be dead), Lýna was the only officer left — didn't that mean she should be Warden-Commander already, by default?

Lýna had had absolutely no idea what to say in response to that. She was pretty sure Solana was right. But she didn't like the idea of just claiming authority like that — who could say whether the more reticent Wardens (basically just Keran at this point) would go along with it, and she kind of doubted many Alamarri would either, at least not until the First Warden confirmed it.

Over lunch, she and Solana came up with a plan for how to go about it, in a way that Lýna at least would feel was more legitimate. Once they'd gathered their new recruits from Redcliffe, Lýna would get all of the Wardens together, and from the full members pick two new lieutenants — Lýna technically didn't have the authority to do that herself, but the Wardens could choose to raise new officers from among themselves in emergencies, so that was fine. The lieutenants would then pick one of them to be the new commander — they would almost certainly pick Lýna, Solana thought — and then all the Wardens would have a vote to confirm it. It wasn't perfect, but that was as close as they could get to following the order's rules in their circumstances.

Lýna still wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but she agreed it would do for now. They'd find out what Weisshaupt did with it when the time came.

After that, they needed to equip Solana — running around in a battle in those heavy robes seemed like a terrible idea, and she wasn't even wearing shoes. Teagan had said days ago that the Wardens could go to the smith in the village if they needed anything, the Arling would be covering it in thanks for their help, so Lýna brought Solana down to Owen in town. Apparently, the craftsman's daughter had been one of the servants the abomination had bewitched rather than killed — she'd need some time to recover, but she would live — so Owen was much more pleasant than he'd been the first time they'd met, the smell of liquor and piss gone, his shop clean and neat.

Owen didn't have anything Solana could use lying around (she was tall for a woman and more slender than warriors tended to be), but he said he could put something together for her, since the forge was burning again. Solana didn't know shit about armor, so it was Lýna who described what they wanted — something light that could bounce arrows, maybe turn a sword if Solana got too close, she shouldn't need anything more than that. Splinted leather would be ideal, Solana could enchant it herself in her free time for extra protection. (Solana was taken aback by that, apparently never thought of it herself, but had quickly agreed that was a good idea.) Also, a work knife that could be used as a weapon in a pinch, and a shield would be good — Lýna remembered Alim's encounter with that alpha back at Ostagar, he'd be dead now if Duncan hadn't thought to give him that shield. Oh, and boots, obviously.

Solana picked a shield and a knife out of his stock, but Owen said the armor and boots would be maybe two or three weeks, depending on how long the tanner took. That seemed reasonable — it wouldn't even be the only thing Owen was working on, so — and they didn't plan on leaving for the dwarves for at least that long. Owen took Solana's measurements quick, and then they left.

On the way back, Solana asked if Lýna had thought of enchanting her arrows. Of course she had, but she was under the impression enchantments required lyrium, and that was rare enough that using some on every single arrow seemed like a waste. But Solana claimed lyrium wasn't actually necessary — they could carve the glyphs for an enchantment on the arrowheads, something to cause an explosion or a burst of lightning or pierce magical shields, and one of their mages could power them the moment before they get into a battle. Solana had gotten the idea from the suggestion she enchant her armor, as the Knight-Enchanters did something similar, carving glyphs into their armor and just pushing magic into it instead of using lyrium. That had the benefit of being less wasteful and easier to do — theoretically, non-mages could even carve the glyphs, so long as they did it correctly — and also reduced the risk of setting off one of the spells accidentally. The downside was that it would take quite a lot of power to do a whole quiver of arrows, and the magic would start to decay from the moment the mage powered them. They'd probably only remain powerful enough to use for maybe four or five hours, but a mage could always redo that at any time (and fights rarely lasted that long anyway). It might be tricky to get it to work in a practical situation, but if they could figure it out it would boost the damage Lýna and Lèlja could do by quite a lot.

Lýna had seen before what a skilled archer with magicked arrows could do, but they were terribly limited by needing a mage on hand to put the spell on each and every arrow one at a time — this was much quicker, she loved this idea. Figuring out how to make that work would be Solana and Jowan's project so long as they would be lingering in Redcliffe anyway, go get Lýna her magic arrows.

Smirking, Solana turned toward the dungeons, apparently going to find Jowan and get started right away. Good, now that the idea had been floated Lýna really wanted them.

And Lýna again found herself with nothing to do. She ended up taking her bundle of practice stories and going out on the wall over the lake to work on her reading some more. It was getting easier, she hardly ever had to check the list of letters to figure out what one was supposed to be anymore, but it was still pretty slow going. And she had to say each word out loud most of the time, because words were often written differently, she had to figure out what it was supposed to be by trying to say it, it was very tedious.

After some hours struggling with her reading, she was interrupted — a girl, maybe ten or twelve. She seemed rather nervous and twitchy, but Lýna was used to that from Alamarri by now, some of them could be very silly about her People. The Arl wished to meet with the Wardens. That was quick, Wynne had given her the impression it might be days before he was recovered enough to speak with him. Once Lýna told the girl she'd be there soon, she fled, disappearing back into the castle.

Honestly, she hadn't even hurt anyone in Redcliffe, very silly.

Lýna quickly dropped by the Wardens' hall to pick up a couple people to go with her. Alistair, of course, she recalled he'd been raised by Eamon; talking with allies and the like was going to be Solana's job eventually, but she wasn't a full Warden yet, so she brought Alim instead. She briefly considered bringing along Fergus, but she wasn't certain where he was at the moment, and this meeting was primarily to be Warden business — Fergus could treat with Eamon on behalf of his people on his own.

When they were ready, they were led by another servant up into a section of the castle Lýna had never been to before, where the Arl and his family lived. Outsiders normally weren't allowed up here, but while under the circumstances those rules had been loosened Lýna still hadn't — Isolde lived here, and Lýna had been avoiding her. She was a little worried the angry woman would be present during the meeting, but when they arrived in a room holding a man Lýna assumed was the Arl she was thankfully absent.

Eamon was older than Lýna had expected. His reddish-brown hair, a little bit more red than his brother Teagan's, was frosting at the temples, his thick beard from the corners of his mouth — Lýna knew that happened to human elders, but she still thought it was weird, elven hair didn't do that — and he had deep lines in his face, splitting his forehead and framing his eyes. His face looked long, drawn and tired, the eyes sunken, which might be further signs of age, but she suspected those were from the stress of the stasis he'd been put under. It was hard to tell for sure, since humans aged differently than elves, but Lýna thought he looked a good decade older than she'd thought — much older than his brother, too old for his first child to be as young as Connor had been. It was peculiar, enough Lýna was distracted puzzling over it, but she guessed it wasn't really important.

The Arl was sitting in a padded chair, his legs hidden with a quilt, set not far from the fire crackling in the hearth. He bid them come closer in a shaking, weakened voice, clearly still recovering from his ordeal. He greeted Alistair first — but of course he did, Alistair would be the only one of them he recognized. After quick introductions back and forth, Eamon asked about the events that had taken them here, and Alistair dove into the story, starting all the way back at their trip to Ostagar. The Wardens picking up Alim at Kinloch Hold, splitting up so Duncan could do some more recruiting on the way — a diversion on which he'd picked up Keran and Lýna, as well as several initiates who'd all died since — and their camp at Ostagar, and the arguments between Cailan and Loghain, and on and on and on...

And Lýna was trying very hard to not appear impatient. She realized the Arl had been in stasis since before Ostagar, so was uninformed as to the events since, explaining to him what was going on was necessary for them to seriously discuss much of anything at all, but it was still trying to stand here and not fidget. If they'd been offered chairs, it might not be so bad — Lýna still wasn't entirely accustomed to Alamarri furniture, but she could admit it was easier to keep still if she were sitting — but they hadn't been, instead standing in a row in front of the Arl. And Lýna didn't like standing still and doing nothing, she couldn't help shuffling her feet or clicking her fingernails against the scales fixed to her hips. And it didn't go unnoticed, all three of the others shot her occasional glances, her impatience obvious to all of them.

Eventually, she gave up even putting on the act. She wandered idly around the room, poking at the old weapons and preserved animal heads hung on the wall — a bear here or a wolf there, one elk with wide branching antlers intact — the little objects set on shelves, the books. She could read the letters etched into some of the spines (though she only had guesses what some meant, since she couldn't read them aloud just now), but some she suspected were actually in dwarvish, similar letters but spelling nonsense, and some were written with completely unfamiliar shapes. That would be the Tevinter alphabet, she knew — some other human languages used the Tevinter letters, including Orlesian, though Alamarri used the dwarven letters. Which was really just unnecessarily confusing, she'd probably have to learn these letters too...

Orlesian was maybe the easiest human language to speak she'd tried yet — there were a couple sounds she had trouble with, but Chasind and Alamarri had far too many vowels — but she wasn't looking forward to having to learn a whole second set of letters. She had the feeling she was going to get them terribly mixed up.

Eventually, Alistair started talking about the events at Redcliffe. Eamon had already heard some of this from his brother, but Teagan hadn't been in the battle himself, instead leading a second line defending the Chantry in the back. Facing the bookshelf, Lýna grimaced to herself a little — hopefully Eamon was going to be more reasonable than Isolde, if both of the human leaders here were going to be dead-set against them...

Lýna drifted back toward them as Alistair finished up with the final skirmish in the castle, where the abomination that had once been the Arl's son had fallen. (At the thought, Lýna remembered the boy's blood hot and thick on her hands, but the vision was thin and weak, she easily brushed it aside.) Eamon's face had gone even wrinklier than before, his brow heavy with a frown, pain so obvious in his eyes that even Lýna caught it. But as Alistair described the abomination's presence, how very warped the boy had been by the demon possessing him, he said, "So there was no saving him, then. I had wondered, the demon had held him for so long..."

Alistair shook his head. "No, there was nothing we could do." His voice cracked a little, anger, pain — as Eamon had raised him, this Connor would have been like a brother to him. (He'd driven his sword through the boy's heart.) "A demon can be exorcised from a person if you get to them quickly enough, but the window is...a day, maybe?" He glanced at Alim.

"For a hostile possession like this one, a day and a night, at the most. After so long sharing a body, Connor's soul and the demon's would have been so thoroughly intertwined, any attempt to separate them would have resulted in his death."

"And even making the attempt would have been...difficult," Alistair grumbled, grimacing. "I could prevent the demon from casting magic outside of itself, but I'm not strong enough to stop it from using magic to make itself stronger and quicker, to flee. With a few more Templars to back me up, maybe it would have been possible, but... If Lýna hadn't stopped it when she did, it might have escaped into the castle — and then who knows how many people it might have ambushed and killed as we tried to corner it."

"Yes, I..." The Arl let out a long, rumbling sigh, tired eyes turning up to the ceiling for a moment. He shifted in his chair, rearranging the quilt over his legs before speaking. "The two of you are far more knowledgeable on these matters than I, but even from what little I have been told, there was nothing that could have been done to save Connor. I will grieve for my son, but...had you not acted with such decisiveness, many more might well have died.

"I do not hold you responsible for my son's death, Lyna," he said, turning his head to meet her eyes. "I have heard the things my lady wife has been saying, she has said them to me, but I do not share...her convictions. Responsibility for Connor's death rests on other shoulders. I wanted you to know that, before we discuss anything else."

There was something about his wording that bothered her, something hinted more than stated, but it wasn't clear enough for her to think of what it was. She nodded. "I am sorry, for your son. What is it you say, that he walks in the Light of the Maker?"

Alistair's lips twitched. With the clear sense of quoting something, "Guide him through emerald waters and welcome him to your side, O Maker, let your eternal Light shine upon him and give him rest."

That was longer and rather more complicated than the phrase Lýna had been thinking of, but it would do.

One of Eamon's bushy eyebrows had ticked up, giving Lýna a look he couldn't quite read. "Forgive me, are you Andrastian? My brother is under the impression you...worship the old gods of the elves."

Lýna suspected he was intentionally changing the subject from his son's death, which was understandable. She also suspected Eamon had been about to say you are a heathen, but switched to something more polite at the last second. Not that she really cared, she still wasn't quite certain what that word even meant. "I don't follow your god, but I am learning."

"We have a Sister who's been traveling with us," Alistair said, "she's started teaching Lýna about the Chant these last few days. I don't think the intent is for her to convert, though?" It sounded like a question.

She shook her head. "I am to live with the Alamarri, it is best I know what is important with you. So I learn."

"Ah, I understand," Eamon said, nodding. "Regardless. Redcliffe owes you a debt — I owe you a debt, for safeguarding my people when I could not. In gratitude, you and your people, all who participated in the battle, are to be known henceforth as Champions of Redcliffe. You shall always be welcome in our halls, for as long as you live."

Lýna had no idea what that meant. She thought he was referring to some kind of...traditional, ceremonial thing, but of course she had no context for any of that. It was clear Alistair and Alim did, thanking him and bowing their heads, she'd have to ask later.

"If there is anything else I can do to repay you for the service you have performed for Redcliffe, you need only ask — if it is in my power to grant, you shall have it."

Silence lingered for a moment, neither Alistair or Alim moved to speak. It looked like she was speaking for them, then. "We came here, before, for your help against the Blight. We need supplies, and an army to match the darkspawn. Alistair says for the second the Landsmeet needs to pick a new king who work with us. If it is Loghain, it is...difficult."

"Yes, Loghain." Eamon let out a sigh, and then went quiet for a moment, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. "I have known Loghain for a very long time. I first met him before the Landsmeet that confirmed Maric as our king. Maric and Loghain were the closest of friends, nearly brothers — it was almost like having a second brother-in-law," he said, an odd lilt to his voice Lýna didn't know how to read. Alim coughed, hiding a laugh, Alistair shot him a glare, giving her the clear feeling she was missing something. "He struck me then, and has ever since, as a rough...uncultured sort of man, but an unwaveringly sensible one. And deeply loyal to Maric. And in the years since...

"That he would through action or inaction allow Cailan to come to harm is...unthinkable. To turn against his homeland's king and the son of his closest friend, to do nothing as darkspawn sweep through the land, to weaken the Kingdom by thrusting himself into an illegitimate regency, instigating a civil war as lords bicker over whether to recognize his authority, even as a Blight rises on our doorstep... The actions he has taken over the last weeks reflect such a stark divergence from the man I knew, it is hard to believe he is truly Loghain at all.

"And yet," he said with another sigh, his eyes finally opening again, "it is so. Something must have happened for Loghain to choose to act as he has, though I can't imagine what. But whatever may have driven him to this is irrelevant, in the end — Loghain must be stopped, before he tears our country apart."

Lýna was fighting her impatience again — she really didn't give a damn about Eamon's personal history with Loghain, or his read of his character, none of it would change the state of things — so Alistair spoke first. "That is why we came to you, Eamon. If a Contest breaks out now, of all times, we will all be killed by the darkspawn. We need the Landsmeet to unite behind someone, and few are more well-respected than yourself."

Eamon let out a low, rumbling chuckle. "I hope you are not suggesting I make a bid for the crown, Alistair."

"No, of course not, I know you have no interest in it. But since His Majesty died without an heir, it will take convincing to unite the lords behind anyone, and that is something you can do."

"Perhaps," Eamon muttered, as light and airy as such a deep voice could manage. "Loghain's claim to authority is illegitimate, but so long as Anora does not act to remove him there is little that can be done about it. But Loghain's power is tied to hers — it is the Queen's authority that must be challenged, and that shall be rather more difficult to accomplish. To sway the hearts of the lords, we will need to present to them a candidate with a stronger claim than Anora's. In our present circumstances I can think of only one."

As he spoke, Alistair had started going rigid, his hackles rising, visible even through his armor. His voice higher than normal, tight and hard, "What?! You don't seriously— You can't be talking about me."

"I would not propose such a course were there any other alternative available to us. Teagan and I have a claim through marriage, which means ours are no stronger than Anora's. Your claim, Alistair, is by blood."

"Yeah, but..." Alistair spluttered for a moment, his face pinking a little, an occasional meaningless noise making its way out of his throat, as though he were so shocked his mouth wasn't quite working properly. "You can't really think the Landsmeet will accept me. Eamon, that's insane."

Eamon's voice softened a little. "Whatever else you may believe, Maric was your father, Alistair. That is undeniable."

"Um, point of order?" Alim said, lifting one finger, pointing up at the ceiling. "It is deniable."

His forehead turning slightly wrinklier, Eamon didn't quite manage to suppress a frown. "It is not. Maric himself entrusted me with the care of Alistair and his mother."

"Ah ha, he entrusted you with Alistair and his mother — so, Alistair had yet to be born at the time? Tell me, did King Maric ever meet Alistair? even once?" Eamon's brow furrowed even further, his irritation only increasing, but it was clear the answer was no. "Maybe if the King had ever acknowledged him as his child, Alistair would have a claim. But he did not. Tell me, who knows about Alistair's parentage? Besides you and Teagan and Fergus, of course."

Alistair cleared his throat. "The Couslands don't know. They know I'm a bastard, but they were never told whose. I'm pretty sure Fergus thinks Eamon is my father. Uh, I mean," he stumbled, awkwardly glancing back at Eamon, "I never told him that, I wouldn't do that to you, my lord, I just...think he assumed."

Alim blinked in confusion, his eyes flicking between Alistair and Eamon a few times, before he shook his head. "Right, as I was saying, who knows besides you and Teagan? From what Alistair told us of his childhood, even the Arlessa doesn't know — did you tell anyone?"

For a few long seconds, Eamon didn't say anything. He silently glared up at Alim, his jaw shifting under his beard a little, as though grinding his teeth. "Loghain. I told Loghain."

"Oh, so Loghain knows! The only person alive, besides your own brother, who can confirm your story is the one person who has the greatest interest in denying it! So explain to me again — and I do apologize for the bluntness, my lord — why should they believe you?"

Eamon just stared up at Alim some more, simmering with anger and frustration. Honestly, with what she'd learned about Alamarri, Lýna was a little surprised a human lord was letting an elf speak to him this way — perhaps there were benefits to being a Grey Warden. "Perhaps it will take some convincing, but I am certain I can bring enough of my peers around to my way of thinking."

"You would expend time and effort convincing the other lords Alistair is Maric's son at all, and that that means he has a claim, rather than using it to press the claim of somebody known to the Landsmeet."

"It will take time and effort to convince the Landsmeet to affirm anyone — doubly so if he has no connection to the royal family."

"If someone else wants it, I say let them have it," Alistair said, aiming for firm but his voice wavered a little, clearly uncomfortable. "Like Fergus, Fergus would be a good king, I say we back him."

Eamon's face scrunched up into a stern glare, narrowing his eyes and further wrinkling his face, turned over to Alistair. His voice low, hard, "You have a responsibility to our country, Alistair. Without you, Loghain wins. I would have to support him, else weaken us before the spread of the Blight. Is that what you want?"

His face pinking, Alistair spluttered, his hands twitching at his sides. "I... But I..."

"This doesn't matter," Lýna blurted out, drawing all eyes to herself. "Alistair is Grey Warden now. He can't be your king."

A sneer pulled at Eamon's lips, but he quickly hid it. "Vows can be put aside when a greater duty presents itself. Alistair has already done it once, when he left the Templars."

"There is no greater duty — once you are through the Joining, there is no leaving. We carry a duty that cannot be foresworn," quoting directly from the traditional welcome at the Joining, "an oath for life that can never be broken. Even if Alistair agrees, he will still be a Warden. Will your Landsmeet choose a Warden king?" Eamon didn't bother hiding a scowl this time, which Lýna took as a no. "And so, if you talk him into it and he tries to leave, he will never be your king."

"You cannot know that. You know nothing of my peers or our traditions — when the alternative is the end of the line of Calenhad the Great, I am certain they will see reason."

"I believe what the Lieutenant meant to say," Alim said, a lilt of humor on his voice, "is that we will kill him before he can be crowned — the penalty for desertion from the Wardens is death, without exception."

Eamon's eyes widened, Alistair gave a hard, full-body twitch, but Lýna calmly nodded, keeping her face blank. "It is so. Joining the Grey Wardens is for life — one way, or another."

Lýna didn't approve of that, if she were being honest, but she understood the Wardens held secrets they didn't want getting out. People knowing certain things about them could make it more difficult to rally allies to face future Blights, especially given how completely unreasonable Alamarri were about blood magic...or some idiot might get the bright idea that they should try to reproduce the effects of the Joining for their own benefit, that could end horribly. Lýna planned to warn recruits about that before putting them through the Joining, that was really the best she could do.

"Oh, shucks," Alistair said, snapping his fingers. "Sorry, Eamon, the boss says I can't be king. And I so badly wanted to, that's just so sad..."

Eamon scowled some more. "You should not cede to their threats, Alistair. I am certain we can protect you."

"From Lýna? I'm not sure you can. You haven't seen it, Eamon, this girl is very sneaky, she'd probably climb in the damn window and slit my throat in my sleep."

More likely, since Alistair had made it very clear during this conversation that he didn't want to be their king, she would climb in the window, wake Alistair up, and help him escape. "And we will not take your threats, Eamon — anyone who tries to steal away any of us will not live through it."

Alim let out a short, surprised laugh. "Ah, I think what the Lieutenant meant to say is that if you keep trying to pressure Alistair into going along with your little plan, she'll kill you."

"Alim!" Alistair gasped.

"What? Lýna's the one who said it..."

"And so she did," the Arl grumbled, his voice rolling like distant thunder. "Perhaps you are unaware, Lieutenant, that the penalty for threatening the life of an arl is death."

"Perhaps, you are a fool." Her hand coming to her waist, Lýna drew her dagger up — she didn't pull it all the way out, but enough to make the point. "If you call for your men, you will die before they come."

"Um, guys..." Alistair muttered, taking a little half-step toward Eamon, as though considering putting himself between them.

"You may kill me, but then you would face all of my men between here and the gates."

Lýna clicked her tongue. "I saw your men fight — I am not afraid. We will live."

"You would be forced to flee Ferelden, abandoning these lands to the Blight."

"Be it so, we go to Orlais and make our stand there. We can't protect people who don't want us."

A heavy, thick silence fell over the room, broken only with the crackling of the fire, an occasional tinkle of mail from Alistair, the slow rasping of breath. Eamon glared up at her, his craggy face set into stern stone, eyes hard and furious; Lýna stared back at him, blank and impassive, meeting his eyes, her hand on her father's knife and weight held ready to pounce. Alistair, tense and nervous, glanced back and forth between them, clearly uncertain what he should do, Alim at her other side looking more amused than anything, relaxed and smiling — yet Lýna heard the slightest twitter of magic in the air, Alim prepared to intervene at the slightest sign. The moments passed one after another in a slow crawl, as still and cold as a winter night.

And then the angry tension in Eamon's body loosened, he relaxed back into his chair a little, his eyes closing with a sigh. "What steadfast comrades you have, Alistair. I would be pleased you have come into such loyal company — were their loyalty not so terribly inconvenient."

Alistair twitched, blinking down at the tired, older man, letting out a wordless, confused sort of noise. He clearly had no bloody clue what was going on.

Lýna, though, slid her dagger back home, the subtle sense of magic on the air fading away. Eamon had been testing her resolve in opposing his foolish plan to try to make Alistair king, and he'd blinked first. But of course he had — with as silly as Alamarri could be about Wardens she seriously doubted that would ever happen, and the points Alim had brought up seemed convincing to her. She suspected trying to back Alistair would only set the Alamarri jarlar against them, which would make whoever they did choose less likely to work with them, which would cripple them in their efforts to rally Ferelden against the Blight. Under the circumstances, Lýna was never going to agree to that plan.

She'd sworn an oath to oppose the Blight by any means necessary — if the Arl should force her hand, and she needed to remove him as a threat, so be it. She hadn't actually thought it would come to that, but it looked like Eamon understood that she would if she felt she had to, so hopefully he would be willing to offer terms she could actually agree to now.

Things like this were why Duncan hadn't made Alistair lieutenant in the first place.

Eamon's eyes opened again, he reached toward the little table sitting next to his chair. There was a little metal thing there, he picked it up and— Oh, it was a bell, a tiny one, the sound high and tinkling. After a couple seconds, one of the other doors, not the one they'd come in through, opened up a crack, a girl poking their head through. "Bring the wine now. And chairs for our guests."

By how casual he gave the order, the fact that there were apparently already chairs to be brought in and spiced wine prepared, Lýna was having the feeling that Eamon had planned this — there had been some kind of game going on, a test, one subtle enough Lýna hadn't noticed it happening. It looked like it'd come out in their favor, so she guessed it didn't really matter.

There was a bit of a delay then, as chairs were brought in for them to be set in a row opposite Eamon — dragged out a bit when Lýna pointed out the scales on her hips would probably tear the cloth on this one, a plain chair would be better. The wine was more of that heated, spiced stuff, like they'd had eating with Irving and Greagoir, though it wasn't quite the same, she thought the spices might be a little bit different. It was still great, of course, Lýna would have to be careful to not drink too much again.

Once they were all settled in, the servants slipping back out the door again, Eamon took a breath to begin speaking, but Lýna got there first. "Why is this important?"

Eamon blinked at her for a second. "What do you mean?"

"That Alistair be king. This wasn't important before, you didn't train him for it, but it is important now. Why?"

For a brief moment, Eamon hesitated, eyes flicking to either side of Lýna, Alistair and Alim. "I never thought this course was to become necessary. Cailan and Anora were young, that he would die so early and without issue was...unexpected."

Alim let out a little, irritated huff, but whatever he was thinking he didn't say out loud. Perhaps he'd just realized, like Lýna had, that Eamon hadn't answered the question. "That may be, but there are others who can be king. But you want Alistair. Why?"

"We did not fight the Orlesians for all those years only to lose our royal line in a single generation. Maric yet has a son."

Lýna frowned. "No he doesn't." Eamon's beard shifted, probably opening his mouth to insist Alistair really was Maric's son. "What is a father, truly? Maybe it is different here, but, where I am from, a father is not blood. A father without the caring, protecting, teaching, and guiding is no father. Maric may be Alistair's blood; you, Arl Eamon, are his father." Slow and casual, Lýna took a sip of her wine.

The three men all stared at her silently for a moment, a mix of unreadable looks on their faces. Well, no, Alim's was readable, but she suspected that amused smirk was hiding something else anyway. Eventually, Eamon said, "I can't speak to how these matters are considered in the far south, but we are not in the far south."

"No," Alim drawled, "we are in Ferelden. Where the authority of the king derives, at least in theory, from the consensus of the Lords of Alamar gathered in Landsmeet. Blood alone does not make one our king."

"And as the lords were first united by Calenhad Theirin, so his descendants have always been Kings of the Alamarri and High Lords of Ferelden. And so it has been, for four hundred years."

"Three hundred eighty-four, three hundred ten taking the Occupation into account." Alim smirked. "But who's counting?"

"I assure you, Warden, I am taking the Occupation into account. It was not so very long ago that we fought the Orlesians to secure Cailan the throne, his heritage as the last descendant of Calenhad the Silver Knight secured, and it is that heritage that I continue to—" Eamon cut himself off as Alim let out a harsh, derisive scoff, all but rolling his eyes as he took another sip of wine. His face wrinkling again in another frown of disapproval, the Arl grumbled, "I acknowledge that I cannot force Alistair to take up his father's legacy if he does not wish to do so, but that does not mean my patience with your disrespect is unlimited."

"Well," Alim chirped, "then you're not going to like this, are you? I'm sorry, my lord, but if you think the Fereldan people — the common people, the ones who themselves faced the chevaliers, who fought and bled and died — if you think they gave a damn about the heritage of Calenhad the Silver Knight, you're delusional."

"Alim! I'm sorry, my lord, he didn't mean—"

"Shut up, Alistair, I did mean that. Those men and women who died during the Rebellion, they didn't do it because Cailan was the rightful king or some such nonsense, or for lofty ideas like heritage or privilege or the succession or whatever the hell, they did it because the Occupation was miserable for common people. They did it because Meghren's officials starved them with taxes, because les aristos and their thugs abused and robbed and raped them, because they were torn from their lands to be forced into serfdom and were murdered if they resisted. That was why the Rebellion was fought, not to preserve the heritage of Calenhad the Silver Knight.

"Also, I was under the impression you and your family spent the entire Rebellion safe in Ansburg — you didn't fight the Orlesians to preserve anything. So, with all due respect, my lord, make an argument in support of your position that doesn't appropriate the valor of men far braver than you, or shut the fuck up."

Eamon's face was reddening with anger, Alistair spluttered, clearly there was about to be a lot of angry shouting. While they were still flailing to find their verbal feet, Lýna snapped, "Leave, now."

"Gladly." Alim hopped to his feet and sauntered off for the door, his pace loose and swaggering, tossing back a gulp of wine as he went. Throwing open the door, he stepped into the hall, paused on the threshold only long enough to give them a sarcastic salute before slamming it closed again.

Alistair immediately set into cooling Eamon down — apologizing and making excuses for Alim's words, that he'd just been through a lot with the rebellion at the Circle and all, a bunch of his friends had just died, they were really sorry about that, they'd make sure Alim stayed far away from Eamon and his family from now on. Lýna just let Alistair handle all that. Partially, yes, he knew the Arl, and Lýna wasn't confident enough in her Alamarri to be certain she wouldn't say something badly, but also just because she wasn't certain Alim was wrong. Saying that kind of thing right to his face, especially while they were living in his house, maybe that was unwise, but on the facts? Lýna was new to these lands, so there was a lot she didn't know about, but it'd sounded a lot to her like Alim had had a point.

She still thought the idea that someone had a right to authority just because their father had held it before them was very, very silly. She could kind of understand how, since Ferelden was so big and Alamarri life so complicated, that there might be a lot of things someone needed to know to lead their people, that it might take years and years of training to learn how to do it correctly. In that sense, it kind of made sense for their leaders to train the leaders of the next generation how to do it right — if it was a question of knowing the right things, of having grown up with the right training and in the right traditions with the right people, she would maybe get that. But, since Alistair hadn't been raised by Maric, or with any of the stuff their leaders were supposed to know — that same training Solana had actually gotten a lot of, more than Alistair had — that clearly wasn't what was going on here. Alistair had never even met his father, saying Alistair should be king just because Maric had been and Alistair was his only blood relative left was...just strange, she didn't get it.

Really, Eamon might as well make Alim their king — he and Alistair had gotten the same amount of training from the Kingdom's leaders in how to do the job. Which was to say, none.

Since the whole idea was silly to begin with, she really didn't see why people should care so much as to fight and die to make sure the person with the right blood was in power. But, if people thought that King Maric, who was "supposed" to rule these lands, being in power would be much better for them and their families than the Orlesians — Lýna might have doubts about the way the Alamarri did things, but she had no doubt that was true — then it made perfect sense. Given the choice between securing the heritage of Whoever the Whatever Eamon had been talking about, and getting a leader who was of their own people and so (presumably) actually gave a damn about them, or sticking with a leader of another people from far away who had a long history of treating other peoples terribly (like Lýna's own People), she thought that choice was fucking obvious. That very well might have seemed worth fighting and dying for, whatever pretty words Eamon painted over it were really beside the point.

The Alamarri were different from her People, but she didn't think they were that different.

And, Alim had said, the king was chosen by the lords — this had been explained to Lýna before, when they first told her about the Landsmeet weeks ago. So...the lords could choose anyone, right? It didn't have to be someone descended from this Calenhad person. Kind of like how the Keeper worked to preserve and continue the heritage of their clan, but the next Keeper was rarely the child of the one before, and sometimes the Keeper had even come from a different clan entirely — Mẽrhiᶅ hadn't been born Maharjel, but she'd be their Keeper in time — because "heritage" wasn't about blood, it was...well, everything else. Ferelden would still be Ferelden and the Alamarri would still be Alamarri, even if they picked a king who wasn't the great-great-great-however-many-grandson of whoever.

In fact, from what Alim and the others had said, that the lords picked their king was something that was special about Ferelden, something other human lands in the north didn't do. In that sense, making someone else their king, someone who had gotten all that training their king needed, was more in keeping with their history and their traditions than picking Alistair.

Hadn't that been what they'd really been fighting for, when they'd thrown out the Orlesians? to pick their own king again? That's what it sounded like to Lýna, but maybe she was missing something...

And Alim's last point, yeah, maybe not something he should have said to Eamon's face, but... If Eamon really had been far away from the fighting, and he was going about lecturing them about what "we" had fought for, well...that was sort of...disgusting? She'd have to ask Alistair about that later, if that was actually true, because it was bothering her the more she thought about it...

So, Lýna didn't really think Alim had been anywhere wrong, and maybe it would have been fine to say that to an Avvar jarl. It might have ended in a duel, sure, but that was what happened when you questioned the fitness and the honor of a jarl — they believed that if the jarl were truly faithless, their gods would intervene to make sure the jarl lost. (Lýna was pretty sure it worked too: she'd witnessed one such challenge, and she'd been able to feel the Lawgiver's presence, summoned at their goði's invitation, it'd honestly been a little breathtaking.) But it had been quite clear from Eamon and Alistair's reactions that it wasn't acceptable to say that sort of thing to an Alamarri arl, despite the fact that she was pretty sure it was even the same word — Eamon had said threatening an arl was punishable by death, so...

Yeah, she would just be quiet and let Alistair handle it.

Eventually, that whole thing was done with, and they moved on to talking about what their arrangement would look like — particularly, the Wardens needed supplies and new recruits to face the Blight, and Eamon's people needed the Wardens to not die from the Blight. Really, it was hardly even a negotiation. Lýna didn't like holding the threat of not helping Redcliffe against the darkspawn over Eamon's head, even if it was only implied, but it was the reality of the situation, and they needed supplies, and Eamon already owed them for helping with the abomination. And it was just how this sort of thing went. Made her feel kind of gross, leveraging the Blight to get things she needed like this, but.

Of course, Eamon also wanted their support in the Landsmeet, but Lýna wasn't certain they could do that. For one thing, she wasn't sure that would be a smart thing to do — she'd been told repeatedly that a lot of Fereldans didn't trust the Wardens for stupid reasons, so she suspected supporting anyone to be king would actually hurt their chances, and sabotage their ability to work with the Alamarri afterward. Also, he admitted he still wanted Alistair to be king, so Lýna couldn't support him. But Eamon didn't actually want them to do much, just be seen with him and his, and also help protect him from assassination by his enemies — who, as supporters of Loghain, would also be their enemies — which was apparently something that happened at these sort of things sometimes. That they could do.

Getting the supplies they needed was more of a sticking point. The smaller things weren't a problem — things needed to maintain their armor and weapons, some basic healing supplies (bandages, potions and poultices, that sort of thing), thread and cloth to patch or repair clothing, and so forth. He offered to have a tailor come in to get them clothes appropriate for meeting dwarven nobles and the Landsmeet — or for sitting in proper chairs, he added, with a wry little smile — though he wasn't certain that could be done before they left for Orzammar. As exasperated as she expected she would be with Alamarri clothing (a lot of it looked impractical), that was probably a good idea. Loading them up with enough food to get them to the dwarves, at least, would be no problem at all. He could even hand over enough of their remaining lyrium for Alim to refill his potions and his little pouch, and also supply Solana, Lacie, and Wynne. Which was no small amount of lyrium, Lýna understood.

The big disagreement ended up being horses. Having some kind of mounts would drastically increase the speed with which they could move about the country — Fereldans weren't accustomed to the like of the hard trek they'd taken from Lothering to Redcliffe, even Lýna would prefer to avoid pushing them that hard if possible, and it would be much more difficult to do in a larger group — and also make it much easier to carry around their supplies. There were horses in the south, she'd seen them before, but they were only used by the Chasind, for ploughing fields and pulling wagons. Lýna had never ridden one before. She had ridden deer, though — they did much better on the uneven ground of the hills — and Avvar nuggalopes on a few memorable occasions — the first time she would have fallen right off and been trampled if Ásta hadn't caught her — and she assumed they couldn't be that different.

Alamarri war-horses were demanding to raise, though. They were large animals, so needed a lot of food, and took training from experts to be usable by amateurs. Also, they weren't common in this area of the country to begin with — the Frostbacks proper were still some distance away, but the hills stretched almost all the way up to the lake, the rocky, uneven ground here just as treacherous to the more fragile limbs of horses as the hill country in the south. What few of this breed Eamon had were necessary for his own forces, he didn't have enough to hand any over to the Wardens.

Or at least not enough for all of them, especially considering their new recruits. He could give them a handful, for Lýna and Alistair and a couple others, maybe. Which would be worse than useless, of course — they could only travel as fast as the slowest among them.

The more the conversation went on, the more Lýna became convinced Eamon was being difficult on purpose, but it was hard to say what was giving her that feeling in particular. Some subtle lilt on the edge of his voice, feeling almost entirely hidden, the hardness of his eyes on her, as though daring her to call him out. As their talk dragged on, Lýna puzzled over it. Horses certainly couldn't be any more rare than lyrium, and he had no problem handing over as much of that as they wanted, it wasn't really a matter of scarcity, he was doing this for some other reason...

It must be retaliation for Alim mouthing off at him earlier. Lýna was slightly irritated, but she didn't mind that much, if she was being honest. They hadn't needed horses so badly, they could travel on foot just the same. If this was how Eamon intended to humble them for Alim's disrespect, but was going to be accommodating otherwise, then she thought they'd gotten off easy — he could have chosen to be much more difficult than this.

In the end, Lýna agreed to take two draft horses — not beasts meant for quick travel or for war, but to move loads too heavy to carry, which they could lash the more bulky of their supplies to. She acted reluctant and frustrated about the compromise, to play to Eamon's pride, but she was actually happy with it. She had no idea how they would have fed all those horses either. Grass, she guessed, but they were going to Orzammar...

Somewhat to her surprise, Eamon offered them some money on top of all of that, fifty sovereigns. Those were the big gold ones, she knew, Keran still had one or two of those from those men on the highway outside Lothering. Lýna had very little understanding of money to begin with — though she'd been told an ordinary person might not see a single gold coin in their entire lives — so she really had no idea how much fifty sovereigns were worth. Far more than they had, that was for sure.

She claimed to be insulted by the offer, for all that the Wardens had done for Eamon and would in the future, really five hundred would be more appropriate; but since they were allies and she was really quite reasonable, she was willing to halve that to two-fifty. Alistair coughed, eyes going wide in surprise, but Eamon just smiled at her — honestly, Alistair, they were negotiating here, trying to haggle up was just expected, wasn't it? They had on everything else, was gold so different? Eamon didn't seem offended, at least, they ended up splitting the difference at one-hundred thirty, so Lýna assumed Alistair was just been silly again.

And here was another reason Duncan hadn't made Alistair lieutenant, too quick to accept what he was offered...

After that was all settled, they'd been at it for some time, it had to be getting into the evening now. Eamon had sunk even further into his chair, looking quite exhausted, and Lýna had gotten to the bottom of a second glass of wine — even as spread out as they'd been, she was noticeably tingly, so she shouldn't accept a third. (She probably would if it was offered anyway, this stuff was really good.) Apparently Eamon agreed they were almost done here, saying with a thin sigh, "I believe there is but one matter remaining to attend to."

"Yes?" Lýna couldn't think of anything, they'd gone down her whole list...

"We must discuss the fate of my son's tutor — my brother tells me you have demanded his release." There was a faint note of...annoyance maybe, or accusation.

"Ah." So, not something to do with their alliance then. She had meant to talk to Eamon about this, she just hadn't considered it part of this conversation. "Yes, it is right he be freed."

His brow furrowing into another wrinkly frown, Eamon let out a low hum. "You can understand, Warden, how I might find that unacceptable."

"...No?"

"We speak now of a man who set the terrible events here into motion — the man responsible for the death of my son and so many of my people. Under the circumstances, I cannot see how mercy is even an option."

Lýna was so blindsided by that, delivered hard and cold and certain, that it took her a couple breaths to find her voice. "You speak to Isolde." And maybe his brother, it was possible she hadn't actually convinced Teagan that Jowan was innocent. "All Jowan did to your son is teach him. Too little too late, yes, but that blame is not on him."

"You'll forgive me if I can't believe that."

She wouldn't, actually. "It is truth."

"I find myself doubting that." Eamon shifted in his chair, turned to glare into the moodily-flickering fire. "There has been the occasional accident involving Connor's magic over the years, yes, but nothing truly harmful. And then, a mere week or two after Jowan's arrival, and my son is corrupted by a powerful demon, all of my lands under threat? At such a time as we face Loghain and his allies, no, I cannot believe that is a coincidence."

...Connor was possessed before the battle at Ostagar, Loghain couldn't possibly have anything to do with it. A snake might bite one man and the same day a second might fall from a cliff, but this didn't mean the snake had killed them both. "To teach a mage this is not—" Cutting herself off with a sigh, she paused to figure out how to say what she wished to. This would be much easier if Lýna's Alamarri were better. "Demons lie. They lie and trick into doing as they will. And in the Beyond a mage is not...all awake, it can be hard to think around a clever demon. Where I come from, we teach mages how to do this, to keep them safe, for very long, from...childtide." Lýna had the feeling that word was wrong, but she couldn't come up with the right one. "It is slow, to learn. All of us learn these stories, as soon as speak, and mages get more training from when they are found. It takes a long time.

"Jowan was only here a week. What can he do? In that small time, he can't teach Connor to be safe, not truly. But he can't teach him wrong either, there was no time for this. He tried. He was too late."

"A week may not be long enough to teach a mage to guard their dreams, but it is more than long enough to summon a demon."

Yes, he'd definitely been speaking to Isolde. "Maybe, but that is not how this works."

"She's right, Eamon," Alistair said, looking uncomfortable, his eyes on the floor and fingers playing with his wine glass. "A demon can't be summoned into a mage, that's not how it works. In order for a demon to possess someone, the mage has to agree to let them in, to make a deal. The demon can lie, or manipulate the mage's dreams to make agreeing sound like a good idea, but a demon can't be forced on another person. Jowan claims the demon told him — while walking around here, I mean — that it promised it would keep you here, stop you from going to Ostagar and maybe dying against the darkspawn, that it would keep you safe. And so Connor agreed." Eamon's eyes fell closed, cringing slightly into his chair, pained. "It's terrible, yes, and as much as I may not want to trust a blood mage, I believe him that he had nothing to do with it."

Lýna grimaced — she really wished Alistair hadn't said—

"A blood mage?" Yep, there it was: Eamon's eyes had snapped wide open, now staring in shock at Alistair, his face even seeming to pale a little. "Jowan is a blood mage?"

"Ah, yeah, he, um..." Alistair shot Lýna an apologetic glance, cleared his throat. "That's how he escaped from the Circle, he knocked out a few people with blood magic and fled while they were unconscious — we were just there, we were told about it..." Only because the Templars wanted to execute Alim for what Jowan had done, they would have had no reason to speak of it otherwise.

His voice crackling with emotion, fear or anger or both, Eamon growled, "Well, I certainly can't release him now! Perhaps he truly had nothing to do with what happened to Connor, but I can hardly let a blood mage walk free in my lands, in my home! No." He settled back into his chair, rearranging the quilt over his legs. "No, either we send him back to the Circle, or he will be executed forthwith."

"No."

One of the Arl's bushy eyebrows ticked up. "Excuse me?"

Lýna glared back at him. "No. I will not see an innocent man dead, even so when his strength can be used against the Blight."

"Innocent?" he scoffed. "Do you deny he's a blood mage?"

"He used what skill he has to escape slavery — where I come from, that is only right."

"But we are not where you come from! Blood magic of any kind is most resolutely prohibited in all civilized lands — if this accusation is true, Jowan must be put to death before he can harm anyone else."

Her glare only intensified, with no conscious decision on her part. She didn't think the insult had been called for. "Maybe I am not of your civilized lands, as it is no difference to me. If you do not free him, he will be a Warden."

"No, I cannot allow that."

"You have no say in this. In time of Blight, I can Conscript who I want, it matters not who they are or what they've done. I'm taking him, one way or the other."

His face darkening with anger again, Eamon growled, "If you think I will stand by and do nothing while maleficar and murderers traipse about my home—"

"Put us out, then!" Surging up to her feet, Lýna turned to slam her glass down on her now empty chair — a little harder than she'd meant to, but it didn't crack. Glaring down at the Arl, Lýna said, "I will not see killed a man who has done no harm, not when he can still do good. Jowan will fight the Blight. I care not if you don't like it."

Glaring right back up at her, voice low and threatening, "He will not leave that cell. If you take him out of it, he will be returned, or he will die."

Lýna scoffed — she'd already called that bluff once before, did he really think her answer would change? "No, he will not. He will be a Warden. You have no right or no power to stop this. Do not try."

She was certain Eamon was going to have some response to that. He did not look happy, still glaring up at her, hairy brow sunk over his eyes and deeply wrinkled, face flushed with anger. Even Alistair might say something, he'd stood with her, looking flustered and uncertain. But she didn't care what either of them had to say.

She turned her back on Eamon and walked out of the room.

By the time Alistair caught up to her, she was already on the bottom floor, nearing the stairs leading down below ground. She heard him coming long before he got anywhere close, his armor clanging and tinkling. It was a little odd he was even wearing all that, he usually didn't indoors — he must have been out sparring or something earlier. "Hey, Lýna! Wait up!"

She didn't stop, but she did slow down a little, starting on down the stairs at a more casual pace. When he caught up, about halfway down, she asked, "Is that true, before?"

"Uh..." Alistair clunked down behind her, the rattling of him rushing down the stairs finally cutting down to the normal noises of him walking — good, that'd been really loud, in the enclosed space of the stairs it'd been giving her a headache. "Was what true?"

"That Eamon was away from Ferelden during the Rebellion."

"That's what you're fixed on? You were just in a shouting match with Eamon and—"

"Alistair. Is that true?"

He didn't answer right away, letting out a huff. They came out of the stairs into an enclosed hall, the shadows thick in the corners of the room. Lýna immediately turned toward the dungeons, putting the lights of the kitchen at her back. Finally, his voice slow and cautious, Alistair admitted, "Eamon was in Ansburg during the Rebellion, yes, that's true."

Lýna scoffed — of course it was, she hadn't really doubted it.

"It's not like that, Lýna, I mean— You know, I think he was only eighteen or nineteen at the height of the war."

"How old am I?"

"Yes, well, not everyone's like you, Lýna."

"Alistair, how old are you?"

"That– That's not the point..."

It was, actually. But she wasn't going to stand here and talk Alistair into thinking ill of his father — if he still wanted to believe in the man who'd raised him, that was understandable. Lýna wasn't impressed, though.

In fact, she kind of thought he was a stupid, arrogant, self-righteous ass, but she was going to just keep that to herself. She didn't know half the words in Alamarri anyway.

Lýna found Jowan in a different spot than before — they'd been moving him around cell to cell, to keep his space from getting too filthy — the door hanging open, Solana sitting with him and muttering about something. She could hear them just fine, but she didn't know a lot of the words, assumed they were magic terms she hadn't learned. It only took a few minutes to move Jowan up to the part of the castle the Wardens were staying in, all the while Alistair trailing after her, looking rather uncomfortable, occasionally asking her if she was sure about this, if defying Eamon was really a good idea.

She ignored him. Eamon might not be happy, but he wasn't going to do a thing about it. Alistair didn't argue the fact that she could Conscript whoever she wanted during a Blight — according to the law, the treaties all peoples had made with the Wardens, she could even Conscript Eamon himself, and he would be bound to follow her — so Eamon had no power at all to refuse her. And the argument that he was a blood mage wasn't going to get anywhere with her, especially since Jowan hadn't hurt anybody — even according to the Templars' story, he'd knocked a few people out for a few minutes. Maybe if Jowan was actually guilty of a serious crime, she could understand Eamon (and Alistair) being reluctant about letting him go, but he hadn't! The whole thing was so stupid.

Honestly, even if he had hurt people escaping from Kinloch Hold, Lýna would probably still recruit him anyway — just as she would fight the Blight by any means necessary, she thought it was justifiable to use any means necessary to escape slavery. But she didn't admit that out loud.

And Eamon wasn't going to do anything about it. They might need supplies, but they could get those from somewhere else if it came to that. Eamon needed them more than they needed him — saying he would take Jowan back or have him killed had been a bluff, just like their stand off over Alistair earlier in the conversation. It was a little foolish of him to make the same bluff she'd already called once, but she guessed the Arl was used to people doing what he told them to. Unfortunately for him, Eamon was not her arl, and she didn't care what he thought of her, so he really had no power over her.

Alim being so happy to see his friend free, leaping up to hug him, thanking Lýna before dragging Jowan off to wash up, would be reason enough to do it on its own. It wasn't the most important reason she'd done it, but she'd be lying if she said it hadn't been a consideration.

Also, she really wanted those magic arrows.

So if Eamon didn't like it, he... What was it the Alamarri said? He could go to hell?

When she said that, Alistair and Keran both looked very unamused — Lýna had to bite her lip to keep herself from laughing in their faces.

---

[Maric himself entrusted me with the care of Alistair and his mother] — As some might have guessed, I've tweaked the events of Alistair's conception and birth somewhat. Also, Eamon knows exactly who Alistair's mother really is, he's been lying about it Alistair's whole life at her request. There are actually very good reasons for that request, though I doubt it'll ever come up.

Lawgiver — By the way, this is the Avvar god Sigfost, but the untranslated name won't actually be Sigfost. I have some trouble figuring out what that name is supposed to be. The "sig" is pretty obviously sigr, but "fost"? What, from fóstra, maybe? Dunno, doesn't work very well. I did come up with something I thought his name should be instead, but I didn't write it down... A compound of kenna and lög, maybe, meaning something like teaching-law — hence, Kinloch Hold, the place is named after the Avvar god. Seems right, sure, let's go with that.

Deer and nuggalope — Riding deer is actually possible with the larger species, though is historically very uncommon, due to horses being much better suited for the purpose. Also, elves are smaller and lighter than humans, so. Their pace is very different from a horse's, so it might look really weird to people not used to it. There are a bunch of "harts" available as mounts in DA:I, suggested to be something the elves do, which is where I got this — except a "hart" is just the males. That's also where I got the nuggalope — basically a huge fucking nug, with wicked ram's horns, because Dragon Age sometimes — which are slightly terrifying. Just imagine an Avvar war party charging out of the hills on those things, yeesh...

[I think he was only eighteen or nineteen at the height of the war] — Eamon's age is adjusted by a few years, splitting the difference between his canonical age and his appearance in the game — he's only supposed to be 46, but to me he looks well into his fifties. In this he should be right around fifty. Which, incidentally, means he should have been old enough to start fighting in the rebellion upon the death of his father (and "uncle"), but he stayed in Ansburg with his mother and Teagan through the end, as in canon. And you can bet some people will ever let him forget it.

There was originally a much longer treatment of Lýna's conversations with Keran and Perry — including an explanation of what freeholders and tenants were, and how exactly the land was being parceled out and a lot of the work going into moving people and belongings around — but I decided that wasn't really necessary, and cut much of it. Some of that stuff are things Lýna will need to know, and will be helpful to understand later on, but I think it'll be more useful to talk about it when it's actually relevant, during the events of Awakening.

Poor frustrated, impatient Lýna...

There was going to be more at the end there, starring Perry actually doing something, but I decided to (awkwardly) chop it off there instead. I'll put the stuff with Perry in the montage leading up to their departure from Redcliffe instead.

So, right. Done? Done. Off to Kirkwall we go.