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.)

29. Honor, Glory, and Other Lies

9:30 Molloris 10

Last Watch, Diamond Quarter, Orzammar

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Lýna was trying not to feel restless.

During their journey to Orzammar, Lýna had assumed there would be things for them to do when they got here. She hadn't known exactly what. She knew very little about this place, or the people here, but she'd assumed there would be something available for them to secure the dwarves as allies against the Blight — like with Eamon, dealing with the undead and then going to the Circle, there would be something. If nothing else, Orzammar was constantly under siege by darkspawn, there would be fighting to be done. Their recruits mostly hadn't even seen darkspawn yet, so they should get them out there. Lýna was leery of risking her people to the Joining — they had far too few people to fight a Blight to begin with (though they would have help with that, thankfully), and she didn't like sacrificing her people for no good reason — but she had some thoughts on how to maybe improve the chances they would live, so.

She was considering telling Solana, Jowan, and Morrigan about the Joining. That was against the rules, all of it was a tightly-held secret, but the three of them had knowledge of rare magics in general and blood magic in particular. It wasn't guaranteed they'd have any thoughts on how to improve the odds of success, but she thought it was worth trying. Lýna had her own ideas — mages had better odds, so it seemed obvious to her that non-mages should be given a dose of lyrium before the Joining; the Legion of the Dead apparently had their own potions to resist the taint, which was worth looking into; also, mages could help keep people alive long enough for it to work, Lýna thought doing the Joinings one at a time with multiple mages on hand to monitor them was a good idea — but she wasn't a mage and knew little about how magic actually worked, so it was very tempting to talk to them about it.

Not Sidona, though. So far as Lýna knew, she didn't know anything about blood magic, and had been a Warden much longer — she had no idea whether Sidona would approve of Lýna breaking the rules like that. If she had success, she would tell Sidona about it after the fact, so other Wardens could use the same tricks, but she wasn't going to risk the argument now.

Lýna had been prepared for something to happen when they got here, but not much had, really. It turned out, there wasn't much for them to do. The dwarves wouldn't tolerate any interference in the selection of their new king, and Lýna would have no idea where to begin anyway. The darkspawn were kept far away from the walls of the city, and attacks had dropped off as the Archdemon called the horde to itself, so there was little to do there. There were plans for a major battle on the horizon — if the Archdemon showed itself, the Blight might even end at Bónammar (however unlikely they thought that was, no Blight had been ended before its archdemon surfaced) — but that was still several weeks away, and most of the preparations were out of Lýna's hands.

For most of the day, she'd decided to simply let her people fill their time however they wished. Their first morning — she still wasn't sure how people could tell what time of the day it was — there had been a lecture about how dwarven society worked, the various groups and rules they had to know about. There was a lot to remember but, as Sidona had said, none of it was complicated, very orderly and predictable. (Like the stone and metal the dwarves surrounded themselves with, she guessed.) She wanted everyone to spend at least a couple hours a day keeping their skills sharp, practicing against each other and the more experienced Wardens. But that was pretty much it.

Or, mostly. She'd known the Wardens (at least in the "south") got most of their equipment from Orzammar — the higher-quality things, anyway, silverite and the like. She hadn't expected they'd be able to get much while they were here, though. How other people managed resources was still very much foreign to her, she couldn't claim to understand how it all worked, but she was aware that silverite was rare, the skill needed to forge and enchant it even more so. As difficult as it'd been to get even the basics back in Redcliffe, she hadn't expected there to be much available to them here, and if there were they'd certainly have to do something in exchange for such valuable things.

It turned out there were silverite arms and armor they were allowed to simply take. Some had belonged to Wardens of the past, either replaced or left here on their Calling — darkspawn tended to loot valuables from the dead, so Wardens on their final mission would often leave finer pieces behind rather than risk them falling into the enemy's hands. Others were gifts from the smiths and merchants and warriors of Orzammar, part of the support the dwarves gave to the Wardens in exchange for their help (or had actually been purchased at some point), but hadn't yet been sent out to Wardens around the world.

In their first full day at Last Watch, Perry had swapped out the hand-axes he'd picked up at Ostagar — the blades were silverite, filaments of some kind of metal wrapped around the shaft to make them harder to break — and Keran and Alim had both picked new shields, lighter and enchanted to resist magic. (No dwarf could cast magic, so they needed to be more creative when facing darkspawn mages.) After hearing about the enchantments, Lýna had tracked down the rest of their shieldbearers to have them take a look — Sedwulf, Wynvir, and Gailen had all taken a new one, but Halrys preferred his own he'd carried for years now. All the shieldbearers had picked up little additions to their armor here and there, not switching out everything but patching up what they felt were weak points.

Lýna had found a whole rack full of short, slightly curved swords, almost identical to the one she carried — apparently there was a family in the smith caste that mass-produced these things, they were everywhere in Orzammar. After confirming with Sidona that she was allowed to take as many as she needed, she'd handed one out to each of their archers and spearmen (with the exception of Edrick, who already carried an axe he preferred). She'd also offered one to Perry and Lèlja, but Perry was worried about the skill necessary (axes were much easier to use properly), and Lèlja preferred the weight and design of the one she'd picked up in Redcliffe. All those who'd taken them were to get a bit of training in how to use them in the next few weeks too. It wasn't a priority, but if for whatever reason they found themselves in a situation a bow or a spear wasn't very useful, they'd be very glad they had a back-up.

Really, the spearmen at least should have all had one to begin with — it could be far too easy to lose a spear in the middle of a battle — but the smith in Redcliffe had already been behind on all the work he had to do to equip Eamon's men, it was one of the more important things they'd still been missing when they'd left. Lýna was surprisingly relieved they had that taken care of now — she must have been worrying about it more than she'd realized.

And, of course, most of their archers and spearmen hadn't had the greatest armor either — their priority at Redcliffe had been to make sure the shieldbearers were protected. But there were plenty of things just sitting around they could take, and the smith at Last Watch, a gruff, middle-aged dwarf named Vírkjesj — he had the blue-ish B on his cheek, the mark of the casteless (meaning he was also a slave) — had taken some of their measurements to put together something new for them. Perry and Justien in particular needed new things, since neither humans nor dwarves often made things shaped for elves, and Edolyn had a rare body shape for a warrior (by Alamarri standards), so she needed it too. And then there was Solana — she had started putting something together for herself back at Redcliffe, but Vírkjesj's silverite was far better than Owen's steel — and also Lacie, once Sidona had agreed it was acceptable to equip close allies. Fabricio had his own Warden-crafted silverite, despite not being one of them, so. She'd made the same offer to Morrigan and Wynne, but both had declined, preferring to rely on their magic to protect themselves.

At one point Sidona had disappeared into one of the storage rooms for a moment, and returned with a bow. Supposedly the material was dragonbone — Sidona didn't know how dragonbone was processed into something that could be used in a bow, but it was something they did in Tevinter, so she assumed it was magic. It was all but unbreakable, and was enchanted to make it even stronger, to never lose its flex. It had a heavier draw — before the Joining, Lýna almost certainly wouldn't have been able to use it — but was even and smooth enough that it would improve Lýna's range significantly. Given Warden strength and elven eyesight and coordination trained from childhood and the magic arrows Solana and Jowan were working on — which she agreed were a great idea, Sidona wanted some for her own archers — Sidona claimed that with this bow Lýna would almost certainly be the deadliest archer she'd ever even heard of.

Lýna told her to put it back. It would be an improvement, yes, and it was a beautiful thing, all black and silver with a slight hint of lyrium blue here and there, but she couldn't take it. Lýna had made her bow herself, maybe two years ago now. The sinew for the string and the horn in the curves was from a halla who'd died saving Lýna's life — he'd rammed into a shriek an instant before it gutted her, taking a lethal wound before she could get back on her feet — and when she'd finished it Mẽrhiᶅ had done a ritual Lýna didn't really understand, calling on a spirit to preserve the bow and bless the user with luck. She didn't know about these things, but it'd clearly done something, the odd blue-ish color to it hadn't been there before. (She was certain whatever she'd done was forbidden, but Mẽrhiᶅ was willing to break the rules to help people she cared about.) She'd drawn and fired it so many times, it would probably begin to near the end of its life before too much longer...but Lýna simply wasn't prepared to give it up yet.

After explaining about Mẽrhiᶅ and that brave halla, Sidona had just smiled at her, and told her the dragonbone bow would be waiting for her whenever she was ready.

Lýna did pick up a new cloak, though. Unlike her bow, the cloak she used now held no personal value to her. It'd belonged to Nerathĩ, a hunter who'd died nearly three years ago now — after his possessions had been split up between his family and friends the cloak had remained, and hers had been lost fleeing the Stone-River valley. (Nerathĩ had gotten Blight sickness from the same fight, actually.) It was meant for warmth more than protection, and especially as summer returned the latter was far more important now. The one she'd taken already had a mail lining, and she'd also grabbed handfuls of silverite scales to fix to it later, plus some splints to replace the steel ones on her leathers. Which meant she had some work to do, but that was the way she preferred it — no insult meant to Vírkjesj, but she preferred to know exactly what she was wearing, and where its strengths and weaknesses were.

She'd been offered proper enchanted silverite armor, but she would rather do things her way. The Captains clearly thought she was being a little silly.

When they weren't poking through the Wardens' stash of weapons and armor or taking turns sparring against each other, Lýna wasn't really sure what all her people got up to. Some just stayed at Last Watch, chatting or playing cards or whatever else, relaxing from their month-long training and week-long journey. Others left, going out into Orzammar. A few stories of what they did out there trickled back to Lýna, but she didn't ask, and she honestly didn't really care that much. As long as they weren't getting hurt or making trouble for the Wardens, she truly felt it was none of her business.

When she wasn't training the archers or spearmen with their new weapons or sparring with Alistair or Reynaldo or Iaşneru — the Captains were both very good, she tagged them now and then but she lost more often than not — she was mostly working on her reading and writing. Lèlja had decided her Alamarri letters and spoken Cirienne were already getting good enough that it was worth it to start learning how to read Cirienne too. She'd had her first lesson on their first full day here and a second this morning, and her feelings on it were...mixed. One of the most annoying things about written Alamarri was that the letters did not work with the language well — they'd been invented to write dwarvish, and Alamarri had far more vowels than dwarvish did. It could be very hard to tell what sound was meant by which letters sometimes, and no two people wrote them all exactly the same, it was a pain. The letters themselves, though, were blocky and consistent, some looked somewhat similar but they weren't too hard to read.

Cirienne had kind of the opposite problem. Their letters had a lot more curves and such, and they tended to squish together, making it hard to tell where one ended and the next started. If Lýna could tell which letters they were supposed to be, though, it was much easier to figure out what it actually said. Cirienne letters had been invented for ancient Tevene, which Cirienne had actually grown out of — it wasn't perfect, but the letters matched spoken Cirienne much, much more closely than the Alamarri ones did.

At one point, Lýna joked that the letters must be more difficult to read because the spelling made sense, since if it were too easy they didn't get to feel better than illiterate people. Lèlja had laughed, light and bouncing and musical, her eyes twinkling. Lýna had caught herself staring, forced her eyes back down to the page.

(Lýna hadn't even thought it was that funny, she didn't know...)

Around noon (or what she was pretty sure was around noon), she was in the sparring room, giving Justien, Edolyn, and Cennith some tips for handling their new weapons. Alistair and Aaron (one of Fergus's men) were here too, but they were less than entirely helpful, honestly — they'd both been trained as shieldbearers, which was a very different style than what would be useful for their more light-footed warriors. Lýna had actually had to remind Aaron three times that they could use their off-hand for some things, none of them carried shields, come on...

Lýna had pulled Justien aside, going over how some things about a proper stance and footwork would be different for them than for humans, when someone from nearby said, "Excuse me, Commander?" She didn't have to look to recognize the voice and the accent as dwarven.

She took a blink to force any sign of irritation off her face — she was the only one who could teach Justien these things, the humans had been teaching him wrong. The interruption had come from a dwarven man, probably around Aiden's age, with another of those B-marks on his cheek. "Yes?"

"There is visitor at the gate who wish to speak with you. Dúlin Fondur, on behalf of Püröl Harrogáng."

She blinked — wasn't that the name of the man challenging Bélen to be King? What business did he have with her? Lýna hadn't even realized Harrogáng knew who she was already. With a little sigh, Lýna guessed she should at least see what this was about. "Sorry, Justien. We'll talk about this more later."

"Sure." Justien was maybe almost a decade older than her, and nearly a head taller, his hair a curious silvery-blond dusted with flecks of brighter yellow. (A mix of his parents' hair colors, she assumed.) He'd been a hunter before, hinted by the lines of muscles in his arms from drawing a bow, nicks from traps and work knives on his fingers. "I was to check out the market with Sed and Morden soon anyhow."

It took some effort to stop herself from reacting to the use of Sed. She'd overheard Alim and Lacie talking about whether or not Justien and Sedwulf were together — they clearly couldn't be bonded, since it wasn't allowed for elves and dwarves or two men, but all the same. Lýna was skeptical, since she'd never heard them together the way she did Alim and Lacie now and then, but they did spend a lot of time in each other's company, had known each other long before they'd joined the Wardens. She couldn't help being a little curious. Definitely not the time to ask, though, so she just gave him a nod before starting off.

One half of the large double-doors opening out into the Way of Diamonds had been pushed open, allowing in a handful of dwarves, all in heavy armor with hilts and rims of weapons and shields poking up from behind their backs. A lot of the armor they'd seen on the way here had seemed more ornamental than functional, in bright colors with intricate braided designs carved into the edges of the plates — worn by nobles who didn't truly expect to see a real fight, she underwood now — but these were far more plain and blocky, black and a rusty red with the slightest blue-red glow to Lýna's eyes, a sign of enchantments. These must be actual warriors, then.

One had taken off his helmet, revealing orange hair cropped short, beard left scruffy and uneven, as though he'd simply gathered it together and roughly chopped it shorter with a knife. (Lýna had serious trouble telling dwarven faces apart, too wide and flat and alien, she was trying to get by based on their voices and their hair.) As Lýna walked over, he was speaking to an elven woman dressed in Warden colors, black-haired with bright orange-gold eyes — one of Iaşneru's Lieutenants, Lýna knew, but she didn't speak Alamarri or Orlesian...though she did speak dwarvish, apparently.

(She still didn't know how to feel about the Tevinter Wardens, and one of their officers being an elf wasn't helping. She was trying not to linger over it too much.)

Once she was only a few feet away, the Lieutenant shot Lýna a smile over her shoulder, made a last comment to their visitor in dwarvish, getting a solemn nod in return. She walked off, muttering "Conducătoare" to Lýna as she passed. Brushing off her idle curiosity about the elf from Tevinter, Lýna turned to the dwarves. "You asked for me?"

The man's too-wide, too-heavy brow furrowed for a blink before clearing again. "My name is Dúlin Fondur, and I am second to Püröl Harrogáng." He meant a sort of sworn companion in dwarven tradition — they were blood-brothers, basically. "First, I must apologize for my friend not coming here to meet you himself. These are dangerous times in our great city, and the Prince has eyes everywhere."

Lýna suspected Dúlin was trying to suggest Bélen would try to have Püröl killed if he were spotted out in the city. She would say that was overly paranoid but, given Bélen had most likely murdered his own father and eldest brother, she couldn't say he didn't have good reason to worry. "I understand. What is this about?"

Again, a frown flickered across Dúlin's face. She had a feeling he thought she was being rude, but honestly she didn't care. If she understood dwarven beliefs correctly, they thought everyone who lived on the surface were soulless animals, even lower than their casteless — they dealt with outsiders because they must to survive, but they didn't truly think anyone who hadn't a bond with their Stone were even people. Maybe if Dúlin were here for Bélen, who might or might not hold these traditional beliefs, she would play nice, but for Püröl's man she wasn't going to go too far out of her way to avoid offending him.

Any sign of annoyance on Dúlin's face vanished again, and he moved on. "Since your arrival in our city, rumors have begun to be passed around. The word is there is a new Commander of the Grey in Ferelden."

Lýna held in the urge to roll her eyes — honestly, Alamarri and dwarven lords were so ridiculous sometimes, why couldn't he just ask? "Yes, Duncan died fighting darkspawn at Ostagar. I'm the Warden-Commander now."

Low grumbles slipped out from under helmets, Dúlin frowning. "And so it's true. Then I convey Püröl's condolences — Duncan was great warrior and a good friend to Orzammar, Püröl was most distraught to hear of his death."

Given his beliefs about outsiders, Lýna was skeptical of that, but saying so would be far more rude than necessary. "Thank you."

Dúlin paused for a moment, as though expecting Lýna had more to say. That was silly of him, honestly, Lýna had no idea what she could say here. Duncan was dead, Püröl was sorry, message received. Maybe if they were friends or allies there'd be something more, but they'd never even met before, she didn't know what else she was supposed to do with this. (She should have brought Solana along to tell her what she was expected to say, but it was too late for that now.) Dúlin finally gave her a solemn nod, apparently deciding to pass over her lack of response. "While Duncan was not himself a Child of the Stone, no small number of us owe him our lives. My lord Püröl intends to sponsor Provings as soon as possible to commend Duncan's memory to the Stone."

"I see." She didn't, actually. These "Provings" had been mentioned in the lesson they'd been given on the dwarves, but there hadn't been much in the way of detail. "I'm sorry, I've never been to Orzammar before — these are duels, yes?"

"A Proving is more than a simple duel," Dúlin said, with a grumbling trace of irritation on his voice. "When held in the proper place in the proper manner, and when properly opened by the Shapers, a Proving holds the attention of the Stone Herself. It is through the Provings that the Ancestors can make their will known to us — the Stone acts through the participants, showing Her favor for one or the other. A Proving done in memory of the fallen bids the Ancestors to recognize his deeds. While a surfacer is not born of the Stone, and therefore cannot be returned to Her, through a Memorial Proving some small part of him may live on through the acknowledgement of the Ancestors themselves. This is what Püröl means to do for Duncan."

Lýna couldn't quite keep the surprise off her face. If she understood correctly, and there was no guarantee she did, the dwarves meant to come the closest they possibly could to honoring Duncan such that he could be ushered into their afterlife — perhaps they truly did legitimately respect him, despite their beliefs about outsiders. Interesting. "I'm sure Duncan would be honored. Is there anything I must do, for this?"

"If you or any others among your Wardens would like to participate, I'm certain that could be arranged, but it isn't required of you. It would be appropriate, though again not required, for you to attend the Provings. Püröl would be honored to accompany you and your second for the day."

"That I can't do." Dúlin frowned at her, she explained before he could say anything. "I am...flattered, yes, but it wouldn't look good. I have been told many times already that your lords don't welcome interference from outsiders in your politics — if I went to this Proving with him, people may think I wish him to be King." And after what the Captains had said two nights ago, she kind of didn't. She might not like that Bélen was a kinslayer, would hesitated to trust him personally, but having allies to oppose the Blight was more important. "I don't know if it would help him or hurt him, but there would be something, and people will be unhappy about that. Yes?"

Just for a second, there was another flash of annoyance crossing Dúlin's face, which was a little baffling. Had Püröl wanted to be seen with her? The Wardens were well-liked in Orzammar, yes, but surely trying to get help from outsiders would hurt his chances of becoming King.

Or, maybe not — if they were doing this Proving to memorialize Duncan, maybe they didn't truly consider the Wardens to be outsiders, but by their law they should be. Maybe less traditional thinkers, like Bélen's people, might welcome the support of the Wardens in this way, but shouldn't Püröl's be offended by it? Lýna must be missing something, because that didn't make any sense.

Whatever Dúlin was thinking, he didn't say it, his face clearing again and his head dipping in a little bow. "I hadn't thought of it that way, Warden — you honor Orzammar with your respect for our ways." Did he truly think that, or was he saving face in front of his subordinates now that she'd pointed it out? "I'm certain Püröl will take advantage of the safety of the Arena to meet you in person, but you're correct, it would be inappropriate for you to attend together. I believe the Wardens have a box set aside for them in the high seats. If you like, we will make sure it is prepared for your arrival."

Lýna opened her mouth to tell him they'd take care of it — she didn't know if it would be appropriate to accept this kind of help from Püröl's people — but stopped herself at the last second. The servants here were all casteless, and casteless weren't allowed in the Arena. Trying not to show her annoyance, she said, "Yes, thank you."

There was a little more discussion, about when the Provings were going to be, how long they were likely to take, how Wardens would put themselves forward to participate — Lýna listened to the instructions on how to contact the Arena Master and arrange everything, but she didn't intend to pass them on to any of her people. In fact, she thought she would order them not to participate. Sidona had said that, while these duels weren't necessarily to the death, the fighters did still sometimes die. Lýna didn't want to risk any of her people's lives on this, and she'd rather not make unnecessary enemies out of the locals by killing people in pointless duels.

Actually, it seemed likely they wouldn't hold grudges about losing in the Provings, the will of the Ancestors and all that, but she still didn't want to risk it.

Once all that was out of the way, Dúlin and his men gave that familiar salute — Lýna tried not to cringe at the loud clanging of metal, even worse when so close to it — and then they turned and filed out. Alone, Lýna let out a sigh. This all sounded like far more trouble than it was worth, but she had the feeling trying to stop a Proving in Duncan's honor would have gone very, very badly. As foreign and irritating as this whole thing was, it wasn't like she really had many better things to do at the moment. She might as well play along.

Now, where was Solana, she had questions about these Proving things...

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9:30 Molloris 12

Proving Grounds, Orzammar

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Lýna was trying to hide her distaste with this whole thing — judging by the occasional glances and taps on the arm Solana kept giving her, she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

The space the Provings were held was in the big round building at the center of the city, far below the Way of Diamonds. Mid-morning on their fourth day in Orzammar, those who wished to watch the duels — which was almost everyone, the only obvious absences were Fabricio, Wynne, and the Wardens on their Calling — walked one of the long bridges down to the Arena. It made Lýna slightly nervous, honestly.

She didn't normally have a problem with high places, and the bridge did have fencing along the sides, but Lýna couldn't tell what was holding these things up. They were connected to the Way of Diamonds (or other roads down one level and another and another and so on) and at the other end to the Arena, but otherwise were just...floating out in the open air, seemingly with no support at all. The dwarves must know what they were doing, some of the bridges lower down had dozens and dozens of dwarves packed into them, she didn't really think they would fall, but it still made her uncomfortable anyway.

The hall they stepped into was, as the dwarves seemed to make everything, a contrast of perfectly-flat, straight-edged, meticulously-polished stone and rough, almost natural-looking rock. The space was packed with chattering dwarves, slowly filing towards the doors, the noise starting to give her a headache after only a moment. It was very slow going because there were guards taking all their weapons, Sidona had warned them about this — few dwarves went about unarmed, because of the eternal war against the darkspawn, but there'd been events where the crowd got too rowdy and a lot of people died, so weapons weren't allowed in the Arena. The guards had thousands of colorful little cloth keys that would be cinched around each weapon, a strip with a matching pattern handed to the owner, who'd return it to the guards on the way out to get their things back. It seemed a reasonable thing to do to her — the way they talked about it, the Arena was a sort of sacred ground, so this was only appropriate — but the slow process of everyone disarming slowed them to a crawl. Which wasn't doing Lýna's headache any favors.

Lýna didn't actually have to hand over her sword, though. (She was only carrying her father's knife and the sword Duncan had gifted her, the rest left back at Last Watch.) Apparently, while almost everyone had to disarm, there were a few exceptions, the heads of noble families and certain army commanders. As Warden-Commander, Lýna didn't need to disarm, and neither did Fergus, as the head of a noble family (not dwarven, obviously, but still counted). Sidona, being the marshal at Last Watch, didn't either — she was even wearing a sword today, the same so-common one that Lýna and now several of her people did. Since she was a mage, Sidona obviously didn't need to carry a weapon at all — other than her spirit-blade, but Lýna couldn't even see where that was — but while out on the roads in Orzammar she did anyway, just for the display of it, like all the dwarves did.

Finally, after what felt like far too long, the dull pounding behind Lýna's eyes steadily growing, all of their people were past the guards, and they could move on. Sidona had been here before, she led their group down the wide, gently-curved hallway, the air shivering with the chattering of a hundred voices, ringing with the clinking of armor and the clacking of boots against the smooth stone. In time they came to a door, the paired griffons of the Wardens carved into the surface — she pushed it open and stepped inside, waving the rest in after her.

The hard-angled boxy space was surprisingly large, with room enough for all of them (though not with much left over). Most of the surfaces had been paved with black tile, glinting silver at the seams between them, a couple Warden banners in blue and white hanging here and there. A long table toward one wall had been stocked with food and drink ahead of their arrival — mostly dwarven foods, meats and a wide variety of mushrooms, oddly dark, thick bread to mop up the gravy, very little in the way of vegetables or fruits to be found. Lýna didn't much like the ale the dwarves drank — similar to the Alamarri kind, but stronger, with a sharp, sour aftertaste to it, blech — but they had plenty of that great Alamarri cider, which was nice of Harrogáng's people, she guessed.

On the far end of the room, the floor dropped in tiers, forming a few rows of benches, the wall on that side completely absent, looking into a large, open space. At the center of the Arena was an rounded open area, tiers of seating surrounding it on every side, a row of blocked off boxes like theirs set not quite halfway up. At the center was a circle of...it looked like very clay-heavy soil, but Lýna suspected it was actually sand, a rusty brownish-red like a lot of the rock down here. The benches above and below were filling up, what had to be hundreds of dwarves milling around, the excited chatter a solid wall of noise.

A bit to their left, on the same level as the boxes, was a platform with the ceiling cut away, a slice taken out of the benches behind it all the way to the top. There were a few large stone chairs near the rim, edges glinting a little in the light, banners dangling overhead, red with a gold and gray knotwork design she couldn't quite make out alternating with plain white — the colors of the dead King's family and white for morning, Solana explained. There were several armored figures milling around there, but Lýna was too far away to make out faces (not that she would recognize any). Must be Bélen and his people.

They'd arrived with some time left before the duels were to start, but they weren't left alone as they waited. There was a constant trickle of nobles and commanders who dropped by to introduce themselves to the new Warden-Commander, expressing sympathy for Duncan's passing and discussing the coming Blight. Sidona had already told the dwarven leaders about the Blight, they'd known what was to come for a couple years already, and had mixed feelings about it. Attacks on Orzammar tended to actually decrease during a Blight, the archdemon focusing the horde's raids on the surface, so in a way it was almost good for them; on the other hand, they couldn't survive without trade from the surface, and it would be all too easy for the land outside their gates to be overrun by darkspawn, dooming them to starve to death.

If nothing else, the dwarves considered it absolutely necessary to keep the road between Orzammar and Jader open — no matter what happened, even if Harrogáng refused to commit his people to help against the Blight (which the Captains thought was likely), there would be dwarven warriors sent to the surface, if only to protect this particular patch of land and their Avvar allies. Which Lýna thought was terribly foolish. If Ferelden fell to the darkspawn, their next target would be Orlais, and they needed to move through Jader to get there. No matter how many warriors Orzammar tried to defend the road with, they couldn't stand against the entire horde, that should be obvious.

If Ferelden fell, Orzammar fell — sending whatever they could to end the Blight as soon as possible was absolutely necessary for their survival. And not even in the long term! If Ferelden fell in the next wave or the one after that, it could easily be less than five years before Orzammar was cut off. The commanders she spoke to, at least, seemed to understand that — they were grim, worried, feelingly wishing Lýna and the others luck against the Archdemon — but she didn't think the nobles quite understood the serious trouble they were in.

But then, it didn't seem like most of the Alamarri lords did either, more concerned with squabbling among themselves than preparing for the common threat. Lýna really had to wonder why these people were obeyed at all.

Lýna didn't expect to remember the dwarven leaders she'd spoken to. Dwarves looked too similar to her eyes, and their meetings were all very short, little more than introducing themselves and trading a couple comments before moving on back to their seats, one after the other after the other. Also, she had no idea who these people were, what they did, which made it much more difficult for her to keep people straight.

Solana would remember it for her, she hoped. The solemn human mage was standing over her shoulder the whole time, introduced to each person coming by as Lýna's second — she wasn't really, not in the sense the dwarves understood it, but she knew the customs and laws of Orzammar and was more or less fluent in the language, so it was just convenient to have her on-hand. Alim had told Lýna that Solana would be most useful as an advisor on this sort of thing, so, just seemed reasonable.

She hadn't missed the flashes of disappointment from Alistair, Keran, and Edolyn, though she had no idea what that was about.

Probably the only interesting meeting out of the dozens she was forced to deal with was with a man called Vartag Gavór. Black hair cut very close to his head — Lýna suspected it'd been shaven completely off and allowed to grow back a little — he wore blue and silver armor, like the army commanders more practical, without the pointless decorative bits the nobles mostly had. And he happened to be Bélen's second. Their conversation was very brief, no different than the others, though instead of the dwarven salute Vartag clasped her arm in the way of the Avvar. As he spoke, like the others wishing her and her people luck against the Blight, his free hand came to the back of her wrist — carefully, shielded from view, he slipped a piece of paper under her glove.

It was a few minutes, the seemingly endless parade of well-wishers finally trickling away as the beginning of the Proving neared, before Lýna finally had a moment to look at it. As she pulled out the slip of paper, unfolding it to reveal the writing inside, Solana's eyes widened in surprise — even standing right next to her, she hadn't seen Vartag slipping her the message. It was in Alamarri, thankfully.

I know what is coming, and I know what you seek. Those who die away from the Embrace of the Stone are doomed to wander lost for all eternity. Beneath a gilded surface, the foundation crumbles. Trust no one. —Bélen Aidúkan

Lýna let out a sigh. Of course, he couldn't come out and say what he meant — she suspected there was a rule that nobles both Alamarri and dwarven were required to be as indirect and confusing as possible. She held the paper up to Solana. "Read this, then burn it." If Vartag was taking so much care to sneak her messages, she was guessing she shouldn't let anybody else see it.

It only took a second for Solana to read the message, her eyebrows crawling up her forehead, before the paper vanished in a flash of flame. "Interesting," she whispered, her voice almost lost in the noise filling the Arena, the Wardens packed into the box chatting and laughing. She leaned a little closer over Lýna, her voice dropping further, making sure nobody would overhear. "It seems the Prince is taking an interest in us as well."

"What did it mean?"

"The dwarves believe that one must be entombed within the Stone to reach their afterlife. If they send their army against the Blight on the surface, some of them will surely be lost — they would be risking their very souls. Lord Bélen is suggesting that Lord Püröl will never do this, no matter what promises he might make to you."

Lýna had been wondering about that — not this particularly, but why Püröl's second had come to her in the first place. Supposedly, they didn't want outsiders interfering in their affairs, and she really didn't think holding a Proving like this for an outsider was typical. It was obvious that Püröl was trying to ally with her, or at least deny an alliance to Bélen, who might be more willing to work with them to get an edge on Püröl. Of course, the Captains had already told her Püröl wouldn't send soldiers against the Blight, but maybe he was assuming Lýna didn't know these things yet. "He is saying he will."

"Yes. Carefully — it wouldn't do for the Assembly to catch word of this too early, it might turn the more conservative lords in his faction against him."

She nodded. As weird and confusing as this was, she guessed that made sense. "And the last bit, something about crumbling..."

"In plain Alamarri, things are not as they seem."

Lýna failed to hold in a scoff, shaking her head. She'd already figured that out for herself, thanks.

On the bottom row of benches in their box, a span had been cut out of the bench in the middle, four chairs instead sitting there. Lýna was told the two on the left were for herself and her second, and the other two were to be left open for any visitors who might come by. Technically, it should be Sidona's spot as the marshal of Last Watch, but as this event was focused on the Wardens of Ferelden it was hers for the day. (Would she have to deal with more tedious nobles coming over and talking at her about nothing through the whole thing? Ugh...) There were a few slow, heavy drumbeats, the whole Arena seeming to shiver with the sound — apparently that was a signal they were about to start. Everybody settled down on the benches, most with plates and mugs, low mutters passing back and forth.

Unlike the benches, the chair had a back — which was annoying, she would have had no problem sitting with her sword on the benches. Lýna had to remove the scabbard from her hip, setting it across her lap. She stared down at the sand, sipping at her cider.

The thing hadn't even started, and she was already tired of it.

Before too much longer, a handful of people stepped out onto the sand, all dressed in colorful, glittering clothing, glowing blue with lyrium here and there. Not armor, Lýna didn't think — unless they had protective enchantments, anyway — it seemed to be some kind of ceremonial dress, intricate and delicate. These were Shapers, Solana explained, which Lýna understood to be a kind of priest. (Dwarves didn't dream, but presumably they had some way to commune with this Stone of theirs.) One of them spoke, his voice emanating from the walls of the Arena, clearly some kind of enchantment — though it was in dwarven, of course.

Solana muttered a running translation, but she had trouble with it in places. There was a prayer of some kind at the beginning, calling to the Stone and their Ancestors, which had a lot of very poetical language that didn't translate very well. After that, the Shaper spoke of Duncan's life, going all the way back to his birth — in Highever, apparently, Lýna hadn't realized Duncan had been born in Ferelden. His parents were traders, sailing up and down the Waking Sea and up the east coast as far as Rivain, often bringing him along with. They died during a stop in Antiva when Duncan had been quite young, leaving the boy alone in a foreign land. He turned to theft to survive, flittering between Antivan and Rivaini cities to keep from being caught.

In the Rivaini city of Ayesleigh, his luck ran out. He broke into the home of a wealthy merchant who he'd thought was off on a trading voyage, but found him there instead — a fight broke out, and the merchant was killed. The noise drew the city guard, Duncan was captured and soon sentenced to be executed. He was moments away from death, the noose already around his neck, when the Rivaini Warden-Commander interrupted to Conscript him.

There was a few mutters from around and behind her, spreading as the story was translated for those who didn't speak dwarvish. Lýna hadn't realized that was a secret. Glancing around, she saw Solana, Fergus, and the Captains were unsurprised, but Alistair looked dumbfounded, his mouth dropped open and his eyes wide. Hadn't Duncan told him the story before? He'd told Lýna, and she hadn't known him nearly as long...

Anyway, there was more from there, Duncan's charge to rebuild the Wardens in Ferelden, a few missions with the Legion of the Dead. He and his Wardens had joined the Legion in two past attempts to reclaim Bónammar, both of which had failed, but his efforts in the Deep Roads to protect the city and their mines from darkspawn attacks had led the Assembly to... Well, Lýna didn't really understand Solana's explanation, but it sounded like they'd basically made him an honorary dwarf. (Solana claimed there were a tiny number of outsiders honored this way at any one time, it was very rare.) In time, the Blight began to rise, Duncan returning to Orzammar to help the Wardens of Last Watch and the Legion seal off old tunnels, before leaving again to fight them on the surface.

The Shaper didn't have any details about what had happened — obviously, they hadn't asked anyone who'd been there. But he didn't need details, instead speaking of Duncan heroically facing the darkspawn before falling, surely taking who knew how many of the monsters with him. In very poetical language, apparently, Solana had a lot of trouble trying to explain what he was saying. As he spoke, along the top rim of the walls surrounding the floor rolled up bundles of cloth were pushed over the edge, unfurling to reveal the griffons of the Wardens, alternating with the mabari of Ferelden.

Once the Shaper was done, a chant was started up by the crowd. At first quiet and a little out of sync, but growing louder and louder, deep dwarven voices calling out in time with thumps of hundreds of feet against the stone. It took Lýna a moment to realize it was Duncan's name — they didn't pronounce it quite right, coming out more like doon-cahn. Before long, the chant got painfully loud, her head ringing. It probably wouldn't help much, but Lýna instinctively moved to cover her ears — Solana caught her wrist, said it would be disrespectful. Gritting her teeth against the building headache, Lýna glared down at the sandy floor, impatiently waiting for it to end.

It trailed off, finally, as most of the Shapers left the floor, leaving only one, the same one who'd done the speaking. When relative quite returned, he raised both hands, little flickers of reflections as the metal fixed to his weird clothes shifted and caught the light at new angles. This time, he was speaking of the Ferelden Wardens continuing in Duncan's absence, that they'd arrived in Orzammar only days ago to continue the fight against the darkspawn. Led by Duncan's successor, he said, raising a hand toward the Warden's box, with such a terrible mispronunciation of her name she hadn't even realized he'd said it at all before Solana's translation.

Solana told her she should stand here, so she did, scabbard held in one hand. There was a bit of cheering, much less enthusiastic than the chant of Duncan's name earlier, but still, hadn't expected it. (She was going to have a terrible headache by the time this was over.) Once that bit was over, Lýna sitting again — Solana looking a little exasperated with her, for some reason — the priest said another prayer, and the actual dueling part of the duels finally got started.

It was all very... Lýna had seen duels before, of course, and they weren't that different from what she was used to. A pair of figures would come out onto the floor through archways set into the ring wall, wearing relatively light armor — less expensive than the thick, enchanted plate of the proper warriors, she assumed — cast in a variety of colors, bearing weapons and shields. Only dull weapons, she noticed, in the form of swords and axes and whatever else but without a cutting edge — a hard hit could still easily kill someone, but they wouldn't bleed to death. Some of them fought with a shield, but large, double-sided axes, like in the statues by the Highway and here and there in the city, seemed to be the most common.

The warriors would turn to the open-ceilinged box — the tallest chair in the middle remained empty, must be for the king — with a clanking salute, each would shout something. Solana could barely hear them half the time, but they seemed to be calls to their patrons, honor and glory to Duncan and the Grey Wardens, yes, but also whoever they fought for. Some of the names were unfamiliar, must be nobles or commanders, but Püröl and Bélen's names came up a lot. Once that was done, the warriors would turn to each other, and they would fight, to cheers and screamed encouragements from thousands of dwarves all around.

When the first cheers rose, Lýna frowned out around the stands, blinking. That seemed...inappropriate, somehow.

Their weapons were blunted, but the fighting was still rather brutal. Metal clashed against metal, the noise loud enough she could hear it through the shouting, hard enough to dent armor and break bone. The first duel was between a pair of dwarves with the big double-sided axes, the heavy-looking weapons swinging and repositioning and whirling around impressively quick — though not quick enough, Lýna was certain she'd be able to avoid them without too much trouble — sometimes deflected with an opposing blow or cutting useless through air, but several strikes landing. Protected by their armor, the heavy blows didn't incapacitate them immediately, both men took multiple powerful hits, pushing them back and winding them with each, Lýna cringing a little in sympathy. They wouldn't be cut, but still, those looked like they hurt.

Until finally, one of them took a hit in the stomach, knocking him breathless to his knees, a follow-up swing slamming into his shoulder before he could recover — he collapsed to the ground, unmoving. The victor — surely bruised, armor battered and dented, one of the plates over his hip missing — raised both arms above his head and let out a deep, bellowing cry, to the enthusiastic cheering of the crowd.

Lýna grimaced, covering her ears — Solana shot her a look, but she didn't care, this was far too loud.

As the duels went on, Lýna grew less and less at ease with this whole thing, and that wasn't just the headache. A slimy, shivering feeling of discomfort, she couldn't quite put her finger on what was bothering her so much, not at first. Until a fight ended with one fighter seriously injured, shoulder misshapen and leg broken, and another with a merciless blow to the head, a spray of blood misting the ground — it was hard to tell, but it looked bad enough he might be permanently enfeebled from that, or even dead. And it was that realization, the crowd obliviously cheering on the victor again, that she finally put a name on what was bothering her.

It was just so wasteful. The People didn't duel at all, really, the elders instead intervening to resolve disputes, but the Avvar and the Chasind both did, so she was familiar with the concept. As violent and pointless as it might seem, the purpose was to reduce bloodshed — a murderer or a rapist might face a relative of their victim, preventing the families from falling into a blood feud; a jarl might duel a challenger or another jarl in place of going to war. The Avvar would sometimes duel over an insult, but the insults that called for one were those that questioned the ability of the jarl to lead their people, the intervention of their gods in the duel proving whether or not that doubt was justified. There was a purpose to it, no matter that it might not seem so from the outside.

The Alamarri seemed to be similar, if Lýna understood correctly — what they considered bad enough of an insult was just different, as Eamon and Imrek had made quite clear. Eamon's consciously delayed hospitality and constant condescending derision of the People (and Lýna in particular) in their first meeting — and repeatedly through the rest of their stay in Redcliffe, honestly, he'd never gotten better — the Avvar would have considered more than enough for a visiting war-leader to challenge a jarl for their holdings; luckily for Eamon, Lýna was aware the Alamarri did things differently, and she had no interest in taking his lands for herself anyway. Imrek, on the other hand, had claimed insult on behalf of someone else, and it didn't work like that. (Of course, they were already enemies, so they could have fought without the pretense of a duel, but Alamarri were weird like that.) The rituals surrounding the duel were different, but it was familiar in the general idea.

But what purpose was there to this? There was no dispute to resolve, no decision being made here. They were just...beating the shit out of each other, the crowd meeting them with cheers of praise or disappointment or excitement — enjoying the show, clearly. Lýna had been given the impression of...well, something different.

This was no solemn ritual, religious or practical. No, this was entertainment. A few fights in, they started getting visitors again, nobles and commanders coming over to take the seat next to her. Chatting about pointless nonsense — subtly trying to dig out her intentions here, but that was hardly a secret, they could just ask — commenting on the fights, asking how she found Orzammar and the Provings, idle nothings, and...

Lýna hated this. The feeling built gradually until she could hardly stand it, derision and disgust simmering deep in her chest. It took effort to keep her voice level, and she thought she mostly managed it, but apparently she wasn't doing as good of a job with her expression. Solana kept nudging her, hissing that she shouldn't glare like that. But she couldn't help it.

As far as she was concerned, this stupid, wasteful idiocy couldn't end soon enough.

Most of the fighters were brutes, relying on strength and endurance to carry them through their contests. There was some good cause for this, Lýna guessed — dwarves tended to be slower and stiffer than even humans, but they were the strongest and hardiest of the races, their fighting style reflecting that. Also, since their weapons were all dulled, they didn't have to worry about a dagger slipped between the plates of their armor, speed was less important here. Sometimes the fights were very one-sided, the victors coming back for a second or a third, but the victors of close fights would get pretty beat up by the end, and normally didn't return for another. The ones that did, armor battered and limbs stuff from their injuries, usually lost badly.

There were anomalies among the fighters, a little bit of variety in the pattern. A few bore shields and one-handed weapons, to mixed success. In one fight, an axe-wielder ripped the shield out of his opponent's arm on the first stroke, felling him on the second, so having a shield clearly wasn't as much of an advantage as one might think. The oddest was somewhat smaller than the rest — not by much, but it was noticeable to Lýna's eyes — his armor a little ill-fitting, as though originally meant for someone else, or maybe he'd lost bulk since it'd been made. That was possible, being a little smaller than the others, it could go either way.

This one fought with a smaller, single-bladed axe in each hand, like Perry, noticeably lighter on his feet than the others, skipping out of the way of lumbering swings to dart closer in their wake, landing quick blows on legs and arms. His fights were longer than most, as the lighter weapons hit with less force, he needed to build up bruises until his opponent was slowed down enough to get debilitating shots in at chests and heads. He fought once, twice, three, four times without being hit once, until he finally took a hard blow to the side on his fifth. But no, he'd managed to turn as it hit, avoiding most of the force — he did seem to be limping a little, approaching this last fighter more cautiously than before, but in the end he knocked this one out too, the crowd cheering, chanting his name.

At least there were some truly talented warriors in this pointless display.

Solana hissed her name, nodding over the backs of the chairs. They must have another visitor.

Lýna let out a sigh, and stood from her chair, being careful to not nudge her sword — she'd decided to leave it leaning against the arm of her chair, the end of the scabbard resting on the floor near her foot, because constantly needing to hold on to the thing was just a pain. There were unfamiliar dwarves in their box now, wearing blue and white armor, some of the more practical sort but others with finely-detailed engravings on the plates, gold bits glittering in the light (very silly). A few had stopped to chat with the nearest Wardens, but two were slipping further into the room, presumably their leader and his second — one of the two was wearing different colors, a rusty red and black that—

Wait, that dwarf was very familiar. She was pretty sure that was Dúlin, Püröl's second. Which meant the gray-haired man with him — pausing for a moment just now to mutter a few words with Sidona before moving on — must be the contender for the throne himself.

Not that this was a shock — she'd suspected he would show up at some point. Honestly, she was a little surprised he'd taken this long.

His short talk with Sidona done, he got down to the bottom of the benches, walked straight for Lýna with a warm smile on his face — or what she assumed was meant to be a warm smile, at least, dwarven faces were difficult for her to read. He was well into middle age, deep-set wrinkles around his eyes and dividing his forehead, his hair doing that thing humans' did where it changed to an odd silvery gray, but the process was only halfway completed, dark and light mixed together giving it an almost frosted appearance.

"And you must be the Warden-Commander!" he called as he approached, offering his arm to her. "It is a great pleasure to welcome you to Orzammar, Lyna Maharjel." He didn't get her name quite right, getting the ý off in much the same way Chasind tended to — and Lèlja had, at first, the same sound was also in Cirienne — but she was used to outsiders saying her name wrong.

Lýna took his arm, clasped in the Avvar style — she could tell his grip would be uncomfortable if she didn't have splints on her sleeves, he probably didn't meet many elves. "Thank you. You must be Püröl Harrogáng." She was almost certain she got his name right, but the ü and ö also happened to be in Chasind and Cirienne, so.

Püröl's smile widened a tick. "And so I am!" Releasing her, he titled his had back toward his second. "I don't know if you remember my second, Dúlin Fondur."

Dúlin gave her the by-now familiar salute, Lýna nodded back at him. "I do," she said, "he's how I knew who you are."

"Ah, very observant, Commander, good. It seems too often these days people charge forward without paying heed to the stone beneath their feet."

She was pretty sure he was trying to suggest something, but she had no idea what. "Yes. And this is Solana Amell," she said with a similar jerk of her head. There was a rustle from behind her, probably Solana copying the dwarven salute, and then a few words in dwarvish; Püröl gave her a friendly nod back. "What brings you here to speak with me? I thought it would be bad for you to be seen with me, with the contest for the king."

"Yes, Dúlin informed me you wish to avoid the appearance of interference in our politics. And may I say, your conscientiousness in this matter is quite gratifying — if only all our visitors could have the respect for our traditions you have shown already in such a short stay." Lýna didn't know what conscientiousness meant, but she thought she got the idea anyway. "And if I were here to engage you in our politics, your caution would be warranted, but don't concern yourself so. This is merely a social visit."

Lýna tried not to glare at him — needless to say, she was extremely skeptical of that.

Soon they sat again, briefly turning to the duel that had started while they'd been saying hello. Another couple brutes with big damn axes, slow and brutal. Maybe if they were displaying actual skill — and if greater precautions were taken to prevent serious injury, of course — Lýna might be able to see its value as entertainment. Sort of like how the Avvar women would sometimes linger to watch their warrior men at practice, she guessed. But much of that was actually impressive, while this mostly just seemed to be a contest of endurance and their ability to power through pain, which... Maybe this was only her, but Lýna was honestly finding it just kind of unpleasant to watch.

(Though she'd never quite understood why those Avvar women had done that either, Lýna had always thought that... Well, she'd always found watching their women warriors more interesting, which she'd thought had been just because their style was more similar to her own so she could appreciate the skill required better, but now she was wondering... Did she just not like men in that way at all, for some reason? Was...liking women instead something that could even happen? She didn't know, but looking back on it, that would explain her preference with the Avvar warriors, and Ásta...and the awkwardness with Tallẽ...and Nadhiᶅ...and Fẽvhyshã...and sort of a lot, honestly...)

"If it's not too forward of me, Commander, how old are you? I only mean to say, from a distance I'd assumed your hair was a sign of the years, but from beside you it's clear I was mistaken."

Lýna wasn't answering that question. From the lecture they'd gotten about dwarven culture, she knew the dwarves came to adulthood when they reached the age of twenty or had their first child, whichever came first — and she had done neither of those things. She suspected if she told him, he would think her at least halfway a child, and she just didn't want to deal with that. "Elven hair doesn't gray with age."

"Oh? How curious. Human hair does, you know."

"Yes, I know." She assumed humans and dwarves were related somehow, more similar to each other than they were to elves — supposedly they could even have children together, though those children were themselves barren, like the offspring of halla and common deer — but she didn't really know. "Sometimes, if someone becomes very ill their hair might change color, but it isn't common."

"Fascinating." If Püröl noticed she hadn't answered the question, he didn't say anything about it. "And how are you finding Orzammar, Commander?"

Lýna bit back a sigh — so it was to be one of these conversations again.

The rest of that duel passed with idle chatter, going well into the next, Lýna doing her best to hide her irritation. The man with the two axes, Evér, had come up again, but his opponent was unusual: a woman, the first Lýna had seen so far, completely unarmored, wearing only leather and linen, armed with a single-bladed axe and a short sword. Given the way most of the other battles had gone, going without armor seemed incredibly foolish...but then, she was even lighter on her feet than Evér, dancing around swings and trying to get blows in at his sides, so maybe she would have done fine against one of the others.

One of the others, because Evér was keeping up rather well. He was a little slower, weighed down by his armor, but still quick enough the woman couldn't get more than a glancing hit now and then. The two warriors traded a rapid series of blows one after the other, going on for one minute, two, three, the crowd tensing with excitement as the fight went on. The two were rather talented — the woman graceful and light (for a dwarf), with more twisting flourishes as she repositioned, clearly well-practiced; Evér's style was less polished and flashy, tight and brutally efficient, no wasted movement anywhere. They were well-matched, for the most part, this duel was actually somewhat interesting.

Lýna's enjoyment of the display died a sudden death. While the woman was extended to make another strike, coming in at Evér's left, he shifted his weight a little, his foot coming down hard right on top of hers. She reared back, but before she could hardly move one of the axes struck her hard in the ribs, a second blow to her shoulder pitching her to the ground, her weapons throwing specks of dust as they fell into the sand. It had happened very fast, the surprise from the crowd had barely even faded before they were shouting in glee at the sudden victory.

The woman pushed herself to her knees, shaking, one arm wrapped around her middle. Something had clearly been broken, the shape of her left shoulder not quite matching her right anymore, but still she crawled toward her axe, clearly meaning to continue the fight. Evér noticed, but he hesitated, taking slow steps around her, his weapons held low, his shoulders visibly drooping a little, looking almost sad.

As the woman's hand closed around her axe, Lýna said, "What is happening? She can't fight like this."

"She can't yield," Püröl drawled, low and solemn, a note of respectful...almost awe on his voice. "She's a Silent Sister."

"What does that mean?"

Solana leaned a little closer to her. "An order of warrior women, almost religious in nature. They swear an oath to never surrender, ever. Also, she physically can't — their initiation into the order involves the removal of their tongue."

"What?!"

"Oh yes," Püröl said mildly, apparently not noticing her distaste, "all Silent Sisters are incapable of speech. Even if she wished to yield, she would not be able to."

Evér tossed one of his axes aside, the metal scattering sand in a little wave. One hand coming up to his chest in a salute, he bowed to the woman, deeper than people normally did. Gripping his remaining axe with both hands, he raised it above his head then swung down hard, dropping to a knee as he went to give it extra force. Lýna imagined she could hear the crunch of bone from here, and the woman collapsed to the ground limp — judging by the blood leaking out into the sand and the dent in the back of her head, she wouldn't be rising again.

There were cheers from the crowd, but they were rather more reserved, many calling out what sounded like words — she wasn't certain of it until she heard Püröl repeat them from right next to her. "May the Stone welcome you, Sister," Solana translated.

Disgusted, Lýna grimaced.

While Evér walked out of the circle, a pair of guards appearing to remove the Sister's body, Püröl turned back to Lýna. "So, Commander, I never did ask. What brings you and your warriors to Orzammar?"

Finally getting to important matters, was he? "What else? We are gathering allies to face the Blight."

"Ah, of course. You have come at an unfortunate time — I'm afraid the army will be unable to march from Orzammar so long as the throne remains empty."

"So I'm told. I didn't know you were without a King until after I came here." Not that she thought it would have made a difference if she had known. Their new recruits needed to fight darkspawn before their Joining — and they would need to be Joined before they fought the Archdemon — and with the Warden post in Denerim in Loghain's hands, Last Watch was the only place Lýna could easily get word to Wardens outside of Ferelden. They would have come to Orzammar no matter what. "If some of your warriors choose to fight with us, good; if not, so be it."

"If any are to go to the surface with you, it will be single houses or commanders acting independently, small, uncoordinated pieces of the army at large. The army won't march without their King."

"I know."

"And I'm uncertain how many volunteers you would get. Not only would they risk being lost to the Stone should they die, but even if they live they might never return — without special dispensation from the Assembly, those who step out onto the surface are stripped of their caste. They would be exiled for the rest of their lives."

"Truly?" Now that she thought about it, Sidona had said something about that. She guessed she'd just assumed that warriors going to war were excluded from that rule. "What about the warriors outside?"

Püröl nodded. "They have been given permission from the Assembly to be there, to hold the Gates. Protecting the only way in and out of the city is a common interest to us all — for any significant force to be given permission to range so far from home would...require convincing."

"And I guess you would do that convincing if you become King." Solana sucked in a hissing breath at Lýna saying it so openly, but she'd thought the implication was obvious.

"I'm sure I couldn't say," he grumbled, a hint of disapproval on his voice — but he was still smiling, dark, too-small eyes almost seeming to twinkle in amusement.

No, of course he couldn't, had to play the nobles' game of dancing around the point all the time, obviously. "As you said, these would be separate groups, small and uncoordinated. We would fare better against the horde with an army than with scattered bands."

"Yes, I suspect you might, but I sincerely doubt the Assembly would support such drastic action. Our King hasn't led the army onto the surface in nearly four hundred and fifty years, I believe."

"It has been about that long," Solana agreed, nodding. "Queen Gjerni Dés intervened in the first Orlesian invasion of Ferelden in...Eighty-Two Black? The war ended in Eighty-Four Black, if I recall correctly, so it's been precisely four hundred and forty-six years since the warriors of Orzammar have marched on the surface."

Püröl nodded back. "Precisely so. Perhaps you can imagine why the Assembly might be leery to do such a thing again, given how very little precedent there is. That intervention you speak of was even seen to be very controversial by her contemporaries, though the wisdom of Queen Gjerni's decision has been demonstrated with time."

"You mean because the Orlesians meant to conquer the Avvar as well."

"Yes, and how much more difficult would we find it without their support? I shudder to think how much emptier the markets could have been during the recent war between your country and Orlais."

Solana let out a low hum. "It's not my country, in point of fact — I was born in Kirkwall, and I've personally never sworn allegiance to the King of Ferelden." It looked like Püröl might say something to that — perhaps explaining he meant in the sense that they were Wardens of Ferelden, or that he'd been speaking to Lýna (though it wasn't her country either) — but Solana moved on before he could. "Do correct me if I'm mistaken, but my understanding is that the King can order the army to mobilise without the approval of the Assembly."

"That is true," Püröl admitted, "but in practice it is exceedingly rare. Should a King make such a controversial decision, he would be forced to manage dissent from within alongside the war on the surface. Requesting approval from the Assembly is a courtesy, yes, but it's a critical one. And it is a courtesy that, to my knowledge, has never once been foregone — Queen Gjerni marched only with the approval of the Assembly."

"She did. But if the Assembly withheld their approval, perhaps she would have done what she felt to be necessary anyway."

"Perhaps, but we can never know what might have been."

"Mm." Solana cut Lýna a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. It was short, and subtle, but Lýna got the message anyway — she thought Püröl was painting grass.

Which, Lýna was pleased the person who actually knew anything about the dwarves thought so, because she'd been getting the same feeling. "I know little of how things are done here, it's true. But it seems to me that not doing whatever you can to end the Blight would be very foolish." Solana winced, probably wishing Lýna had said it less bluntly.

Püröl was still smiling, but Lýna noticed his eyes had narrowed, just a little. "When considering great, momentous events, we have only the legacy of our Ancestors to guide us — and Orzammar has never, not once, marched against a Blight on the surface."

Your Ancestors were foolish, then — that one, Lýna knew better than to say aloud.

"The darkspawn might only threaten the surface during these Blights, but it is a constant threat to us, one from which we have had not a single reprieve in over a thousand years. Alternatively, one might say that the people of the surface kingdoms are foolish for not acting to carve out the corruption at its source."

"That is also foolish, I agree." Püröl twitched, just slightly, his eyes widening a little, one eyebrow rising — apparently, he hadn't expected her to admit that. "And if I live through the Blight, I mean to change that once it is over. The Wardens should do all that we can to clear the darkspawn in the Deep Roads under our lands, bring the war to them between Blights. In part because it will weaken the horde for when a Blight comes again, but for other reasons too. The darkspawn are not an unending threat only for Orzammar — they kill people above between Blights too."

Püröl was quiet a moment, wordlessly watching another pair of hulking men hammer at each other. "I see. I confess, Commander, you show more wisdom than I expected."

Lýna tried not to glare at him — did he mean he hadn't expected this of her because she was so young, or because she was an elven barbarian? Come to think of it, she had absolutely no idea what Orzammar dwarves thought of the People. Given punishments for crimes normally included marking their faces, she was guessing it wasn't very well...

"Perhaps there is merit to your argument. However, you must understand that the Assembly will be very reluctant to send our warriors against the horde — especially given it would leave Orzammar defenseless, and that those who fall might well be lost to the Stone."

She'd wondered if he was going to fall back on that. It seemed like Bélen knew his opponent well. "And you must understand that if Ferelden falls, so too does Orzammar. The horde will continue west, through the valleys from here north to the sea. Jader and the Avvar both will be overrun, killed or forced to flee, and then who will you trade with?"

"I'm surprised to hear this argument from you, Commander," he said, lips curling in a sharp smile. "Is this not the very same dilemma your ancestors faced? They fled their homeland rather than surrender to the Orlesians, so that the legacy of their ancestors might live on."

For some reason, Lýna found Püröl bringing up the Fall of the Republic unreasonably annoying. "They chose to flee to keep their traditions; they didn't choose to die."

"And what are a people without the very things that make them who they are? The body might live on, but what purpose does it have if the soul has died?"

"And yet a legacy can't live on without people to carry it — without the body, there is no soul." Not strictly true, of course, but dwarves had no connection to the Beyond, so Lýna doubted he thought spirits counted for anything.

Before Püröl could come up with how to respond to that, the next duel was called, Püröl noticeably perking up at the names. "Excuse me, Evér is fighting Piőtin?

Two figures were walking out into the circle, to the eager cheers of the crowd. There was the little dwarf with the axes, the same one who'd fought and won several times by now, his opponent unfamiliar — like most of the fighters he wore relatively light plate armor, his in gold and gray, but this one was carrying a shield and...well, it looked like a club, but she thought it was maybe supposed to be a mace. "Is that not good?"

"Well, 'good'..." Püröl leaned forward in his seat a little, hands folding under his chin. "Evér has never been... Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's a drunk — he hasn't placed well in a Proving in years. Clearly something is different about him today, this is his...seventh match, and he's won them all? By the Stone, I can hardly remember the last time someone has fought so many in a single day..."

Yes, Lýna would guess that must be a lot harder if they let themselves be smacked around with those ridiculous over-sized axes. "He is good, clever."

"He's never shown this depth of talent before, but yes, the Ancestors clearly favor him today. But against Piőtin..."

"Is this Piőtin good?"

Püröl let out a little grunt. "Piőtin Aidúkan is one of the best. And I don't mean of those participating in this Proving — he's one of Orzammar's best warriors, absolutely."

"...Aidúkan?"

Frowning just a little, he said, "He and the Prince are first cousins."

Ah. Right.

Suddenly, an anticipatory hush fell over the crowd. They didn't go silent, but they were certainly quieter than before — apparently they expected this duel to be as interesting as Püröl did. (Assuming he wasn't just using this as an excuse to get out of their argument, anyway.) It could be Lýna's imagination, she was quite far away, but she thought Evér was more tense than in his previous fights, nervous. If Piőtin was truly Orzammar's best warrior, Evér must know that too, probably thought he was done for.

The pair waited for a moment, staring each other down, until Evér snapped into motion, turning his shoulder to Piőtin and starting a harsh sideways swing. Piőtin angled his shield to catch it, but Evér clearly expected that, even as his axe bounced off dipping and turning to Piőtin's side, his back to Piőtin's shield for just a second, the other axe coming in at the back of Piőtin's knee. Unfortunately for Evér, Piőtin saw that coming, lifting his foot before the blow could land and turning in place, mace coming up, around, and down straight toward Evér's head. Evér dove to the side, rolling over his shoulder, his feet coming up and around to slap against the dirt and push himself up again. He staggered for a step, over-correcting, before sinking into his stance.

Lýna frowned — something about that hadn't looked right. Plate armor was big and heavy, it wasn't really possible to do those kinds of dives and rolls while wearing it. The suits they were wearing at this Proving thing were rather thinner than ones meant for battle, but still, they weren't built for it. And Lýna had noticed, several fights ago now, that Evér's armor didn't seem to quite fit him properly — as though he was significantly slimmer now than he'd been when it'd been made, or...

...as though it wasn't his armor. That roll just now, overbalancing on standing like that, she had the feeling he wasn't accustomed to fighting in this armor at all. But Püröl had said he'd been in Provings for years.

That isn't Evér.

Her fingers tapping at her legs, she glanced over at Püröl. He was watching the duel, brow furrowed in thought, eyes intensely focused. Well, he seemed to be quite far into it, Lýna was just going to keep this idea to herself. She was certain she was right — unreasonably so, given what she had to work with — but she had no idea how Püröl would react if she told him. It seemed like entering the Proving under someone else's name was the sort of thing the more traditionally-minded dwarves wouldn't take well.

This duel also ended abruptly. They went back and forth for a little while, 'Evér' ducking and dipping under the mace, Piőtin's shield catching each strike of the axes, occasionally slapping one aside with his own weapon instead. It did look like it might go on for some time before one could get the upper hand, but then Piőtin took a sharp step forward, slapping 'Evér''s incoming axe aside with his shield, knocking the smaller man off-balance. Before he could recover, the mace was coming in at his shoulder — 'Evér' was still quick enough to try to dodge, but he didn't move fast enough, getting whapped over the head instead. It was a glancing blow, but it was still enough to tear the helmet off his head, falling to roll across the dirt, the force tossing him down to his hands and knees. 'Evér' frantically reached out for one of his axes, he'd dropped them as he'd fallen, turned to stand and—

Piőtin staggered back a couple steps, shocked. His mace came up, pointing directly at "'Evér''s face. Lýna was pretty sure he shouted something, but he was too far away and it was too noisy in here for her catch it — besides, it was almost certainly in dwarvish. Piőtin threw away his mace and shield, both falling to the ground hard enough to kick up little plumes of dirt, the motion angry, contemptuous. 'Evér' had frozen, vibrant red-orange hair shifting a little as he glanced around.

Because, in response to Piőtin's shout, guards were trickling into the circle, a ring quickly tightening around 'Evér'. Displeased murmuring was building in the crowd, whatever was happening being passed up to those too far away to see or hear, turning harsh with anger and disgust. As the news reached them, Püröl surged to his feet, face flushing and twisting with a scowl, he snarled out something in dwarvish, voice low and grinding. As the seconds went by, the guards advancing on 'Evér', the rage filling the Arena grew louder and louder, people standing to yell down into the circle, hands raised in gestures Lýna assumed must be threatening or insulting.

Confused, Lýna turned to Solana. She was watching the warriors below, eyes narrowed, a downward curl to her lips Lýna didn't know how to read. "What is happening?"

Her eyes flicked to Lýna, just for a second, before turning back down. "That isn't Evér. Whoever he is, he's casteless."

"I thought casteless weren't allowed in the Provings."

"They aren't," Solana said, low and hard.

The ring of guards finally closed on 'Evér', and he tried to fight them off, skipping around and axes flying. He lasted surprisingly long, dodging or parrying one blow after another, trying to force an opening in the ring he might flee through. But against so many, he had no chance at all. He finally took a hit in the arm, and then another in the back, and his figure was hidden by the guards surrounding him — it was hard to tell from here, but Lýna thought some of the guards were kicking him.

Lýna felt her own face twisting into a grimace — that just seemed unnecessary. "What's to happen to him?"

"He'll be executed. Publicly."

She turned to stare at Solana, surprised, but the mage wasn't looking at her, watching the guards drag 'Evér' off, limp and unresisting, clearly unconscious. That seemed like...such a waste. Whoever this 'Evér' person truly was, he certainly had talent. Lýna realized this Proving thing had some kind of spiritual significance to the dwarves, and the casteless were spiritually toxic somehow (though she didn't quite understand it) — to them, a casteless participating in the Proving must be...well, sacreligious. She could see that, but they had a Blight on, they needed every skilled warrior they could get. Killing people for no good reason seemed terribly wasteful.

...

Well. She knew just the thing to do about that, didn't she?

---

9:30 Molloris 12

Hall of Justice, Grand Avenue, Orzammar

---

Natí woke up in pain. For a moment, thoughts bumbling sluggishly in her head, she had no idea why.

But then, slowly, it came back to her. The deal with Berát, sneaking into the Proving Grounds, winning match after match (the crowd cheering, the sound an almost physical presence, she couldn't stop grinning), losing her helmet, her head ringing, Piőtin sodding Aidúkan seeing her face, the guards closing, body electric with fear, and then one hit after another, pain and darkness...

Natí groaned.

Before trying to sit up, she tested each of her limbs, wincing as fresh bruises throbbed dull and hot, prodded at her chest and her stomach with her fingers. (Evér's armor was gone, but she'd been left her clothes, thankfully.) She was stiff and battered, but she didn't think anything was broken? She'd be feeling it for days, probably even a couple weeks, but it wasn't so bad.

Or, she guessed she wouldn't be feeling it for so long — she was well aware what her punishment would be for what she'd done.

Pushing herself up to a seat, gritting her teeth against her protesting injuries, Natí looked around. She was in a cell, unsurprisingly. She'd been laid on a flat slab of grayish stone, the walls and floor and ceiling all a familiar rusty red — the same material a good half of Orzammar had been carved out of, Dust Town was formed almost entirely from the stuff. Though here there was some kind of shining finisher covering it, preventing grains from rubbing off, no sign of the slowly-accumulating sand that had given Dust Town its name. Natí noticed a couple glyphs carved into the walls here and there, but she couldn't begin to guess what they were for. The cell was rather small, only a few paces across in any direction, the hallway beyond blocked off by a fence, the steel bars thick and heavy, hinges capped. There was a narrow rounded pit cut into one part of the floor against the wall, a faint stench of shit tainting the air.

She'd had worse.

Thankfully — or she guessed not, considering what she knew was coming — Natí wasn't left alone for long. It was probably only a few minutes after she'd woken that she heard a clicking of a latch, a heavy door swinging open, closing again a moment later — she didn't hear the latch again, must have been left unlocked. Natí sprung up to her feet (wincing at the dull flares of pain acting up), stood in the middle of her cell, waiting for whoever it was to appear. Because there was someone coming, though it was hard to tell — she caught soft, padding footfalls, the sound carried faint down the hall, but little else. Either whoever it was wasn't wearing armor at all, or they were a scout of some kind, mail and plate padded to stop them from making noise. Only one set of footsteps, which was odd, an interrogator would come with bodyguards...

Finally, a figure stepped into view outside her cell. They were rather taller than Natí had expected, over a head taller than herself. Narrow and willowy, something about their swaying gait told Natí this was an elf — she'd only met a few before, all mages, escapees from their Circles. This wasn't an elf she'd met before though, she could tell that at a glance. They were wearing odd, asymmetrical armor, mismatched plates and scales and splints fixed to the leather underneath, half covered by a cloak, the hood pulled over their head. Despite how sloppy it looked, a lot of that metal was silverite, so they must be wealthy, whoever this was. The gloves were backed with silverite, but the fingers were left bare — must be an archer — at one hip a dagger, the sheath made of leather and wood, strangely, at their other hip a lady's sidearm — so, yes, definitely wealthy.

Natí watched them approach, feeling very confused. Why was an elf coming to talk to her? How had they even gotten in the door?

...Were they some Carta assassin Natí had never heard of before? Possibly...

The elf turned to look at her, pulling their hood back — her hood, Natí could now see the strange elf was a woman. Her hair was a solid white, but her face was young...and covered in wandering vines, little red blossoms here and there. Dalish? Natí had heard of the elven primitives before, but she'd never met one. Stopping right in the middle of Natí's cell, she met her eyes (purple? weird...), and spoke in accented Alamarri, careful and delicate. "You are the one who fought in the Proving?"

Natí felt herself tense, if the Carta had sent someone to retrieve her... "What's it to you?"

The elf's lips twitched. "Oh good, I am in the right place." She took a couple steps closer to the bars — Natí had a wild thought, she could reach far enough to make a grab for the elf's sword, but it wouldn't do her any good. Even if she did kill the elf, she'd still be locked up. "What is your name? Nobody could tell me."

She seriously doubted anybody here gave a toss what her name was. "Do you care?"

"I must call you something. I am Lýna Maharjeᶅ."

Natí hesitated for a second...but it probably didn't matter. She would be dead soon anyway, and her name wouldn't be enough for anybody to attach her to Ríkja. "Natí."

"Hello then, Natí. Do you know where you are?"

"The Hall of Justice." She'd never been inside before, but where else would they have dragged her off to?

Lýna nodded. "They don't mean to do anything with you until tomorrow, I think, so there is time to talk."

...Talk about what?

"I know what this one is," the elf said, pointing at her cheek — the same spot a casteless brand would go, Natí noticed. "What are the others for?"

Nuh-uh, she wasn't going to spend what would almost certainly be her last evening alive tolerating some random elf sticking her nose in her shit, especially to ask about that. Her arms folded over her chest, Natí just glared back at her.

Lýna's head tilted a tick. "Mine, the colors are for the Hearthkeeper — I have little interest in her gifts, the Hunter would have been more appropriate, but I chose it to remember my mother. She died when I was little. The shape is for the Friend to the Dead. By the time I was old enough, both my parents were dead, and a few of my friends, I watched people die what seemed like every day, struck down by darkspawn or poisoned by the Blight. Death was everywhere, and it had grown familiar. And so we were all friends to the dead, I felt."

...A Blight? Was there a Blight going on up there? Come to think of it, she had heard rumors about that, but she'd thought they were just rumors. Sod it, that was just going to make food even more expensive, so many people were going to starve...

Oh well, not going to be her problem for much longer. The elf must have explained her marks thinking Natí would be more willing to share hers, but it didn't work like that — it was obvious they didn't mean the same thing to the Dalish they did to dwarves. But, what did it matter? It wasn't like Natí had anything else to do right now...and she doubted the elf really cared that much anyway...

Natí let out a sigh. She pointed at the design at the side of her chin, "Theft," stretching along her jawline, "one, two, three times. The fifth one, they take a hand." Pointing at her forehead, "Assault."

The elf frowned. "Assault."

"That's what they called it, anyway," she grumbled, glaring off at a wall.

"I don't know this word."

Oh, that should have been obvious. "To attack someone meaning to hurt them."

"Ah," she breathed, nodding. "They called it this. You disagree?"

Natí scowled. "What do you care?"

"I am curious only. I want to understand."

...She wanted to understand what? Biting back the old anger crawling up her throat, Natí snarled, "I call it shit-stains getting what's coming to them. Bastard was going to rape my sister. I killed his two lackies, and kicked the piss out of him — I'm casteless and he's not, so, assault."

"But not murder, for the other two."

"They were casteless."

"I see," Lýna muttered, an edge of...something to her voice. Annoyance, maybe? That was the right response to that kind of nugshit, so... "Why did you do it?"

"What, was I supposed to sit back and do nothing while those—"

"No, not that. The Proving. You know what they will do to you."

A shiver of fear started crawling up her spine, but Natí grit her teeth, shoved it down. Forcing her voice level, flat and cold, she said, "Yes. They'll take me to Stonehammer's Court, where people can see. They'll hammer my hands into the wall. They'll take my eyes and my tongue. They'll stuff my mouth with ash from the Shaperate's forges. They'll cut me open and feed my guts to the brontos, and leave me hanging there to die. After three days, they'll burn my body and dump the ashes in the river, denying me the possibility of returning to the Stone." Not that they thought casteless would ever be embraced by the Stone in the first place, but it was the symbolism of the thing.

As her description went on, Lýna's eyes widened bit by bit, until she was left gaping back at Natí. "Truly? I knew they were to kill you, but I didn't... This is how it is done?"

"For dishonoring the Stone? Yeah."

The elf sneered, her lip curling with what was obviously meant to be disgust. "They speak of honor, and treat their people this way! Only minutes before, Püröl Harrogáng was telling me these Ancestors must favor you to do so well, that he couldn't remember anyone winning so many in one day. But once they see your face, this is an insult? Ridiculous..."

...Püröl Harrogáng said that? Huh. Despite how completely fucked she was, Natí couldn't help feeling a little flattered.

"You knew, if you were seen, this was to be your fate. And you did it anyway. Why?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." The elf gave her a flat, unamused look. It really wasn't this Lýna's business, but, sod it. If she blew the elf off, she'd probably just leave — and then Natí would have nothing to distract herself from what was going to happen tomorrow. "I owed someone a lot of money. He put a bet on Evér beating Ménar in the Proving. Since Evér is a sodden fool, the odds were more than good enough to cover my debt — I took Evér's place to make it happen."

"Did you beat him?"

A reluctant smirk pulling at her face, Natí said, "Shit yeah I did, kicked his ass. One of the harder fights, but. Self-righteous bastard got beat by a casteless woman, hope he's choking on that right now." Reality trickling back in, her smirk faded. "Not that it matters. The whole Proving will be stricken, no way is my patron getting paid. They probably won't give him his buy-in back, either." And that would mean, Ríkja... Fuck, she hadn't thought of that...

"Does it matter if you're dead?"

"Yes. If I'm gone, Berát will try to get it out of my sister, and she doesn't have it either." She grit her teeth — she shouldn't have admitted she had a sister, if this elf was working for... But it didn't matter, the Carta already knew about Ríkja and she wasn't going to tell Lýna enough to find her.

"I see," Lýna muttered, nodding. "That would have to be dealt with." What...? "What did you need the money for?"

Frowning back at the elf, Natí felt tingles spread across her shoulders, a realization lurking just out of reach — there was something...odd going on. She still didn't know what the elf was doing here, but... She licked her lips, said, "Ah, do you know what noble-hunting is?"

The elf blinked. "No?"

Of course, she was a surfacer, Natí should have expected that. She bit back a sigh. "You know, a parent passes their caste to matching kids, a boy gets his father's and a girl gets her mother's. Right?" She nodded. "Right. It's hard for a lot of women to have kids — something in the water, I heard. The higher castes marry for whatever reason, wealth and politics and whatever, and sometimes they can't have kids. The man still needs heirs, so he'll screw around, hoping he'll get lucky.

"If he does get a boy somewhere, he'll usually bring the mother and her family into his household, so the kid can be raised right. There isn't a lot of work for casteless, you know, and definitely not good work, nothing that will get you anywhere. For a lot of people, having some noble prick's son is the only way out. Women trying to find a higher-caste man to knock them up are called noble-hunters."

The elf looked rather uncomfortable, but Natí couldn't really tell what kind of uncomfortable — she hadn't known very many elves, their faces were weird. "I understand. And the money is for this?"

Natí nodded, admitted, "For my sister. They'll know she's casteless, obviously, but nobles...have tastes. There are things she needs, nice clothes and jewelry and perfume and whatever else, fuck, I don't know what all. I'm no good with that shit. The only thing I was ever good for is hitting people." Lýna's lips twitched — by the look of her, Natí was guessing this elf was the same. "We didn't have the coin for all that, we had to borrow it. We thought, if Rí– my sister lands some noble, his family will pay it off, no problem. But they want the money sooner than that."

"So you were desperate."

"Yeah." Fingering the hem of her shirt, the scratchy canvas tickling her skin, Natí hesitated for a second. "My sister's pregnant. I don't know who with, she doesn't tell me that, in case something goes bad." That was a sodding lie, of course, Natí knew everything, but she didn't want to take Ríkja down with her. "If we don't pay them soon..." She took a deep breath. "They'll force-feed her this potion, she'll miscarry. As far along as she is, that...won't go well. She might even die." And it would be Natí's fault...

The elf was frowning again, the disgusted sneer back. "What good is this? It doesn't get them their coin."

"No, but it sends a message to everyone else not to fuck with them."

Huffing, the elf muttered something, but it wasn't Alamarri — must be elvish, Natí didn't know any of that. "I mean no insult to you, but I think I hate this place."

Despite herself, Natí felt herself smiling. "None taken."

It took a couple seconds, the elf glaring off to the side, taking a couple of harsh breaths — far more angry it made sense for her to be, this had nothing to do with her — but finally she turned back to Natí. "I can get you out of here. You won't die tomorrow, and I'll pay this Berát, make sure your sister is well."

The tingles came back, Natí let out a shivering breath, that creeping suspicion coming over her again. This elf was definitely someone, something was happening here, but she couldn't begin to guess what. "It's...not a small amount of money."

"This won't be a problem," Lýna said, sounding...strangely exasperated? What kind of person was exasperated about having coin to throw around? "If he makes trouble for it, we'll simply kill him."

"Uh, you realize he knows people in the Carta, right?"

"This also won't be a problem — if they make trouble for it, we'll kill them too.

...Either this elf was someone important, with some serious protection around her, or she was completely sodding insane. Honestly, it could go either way at this point. "Who are you?"

Lýna blinked back at her for a second. "Did I never say? I thought you would know, this all—"

She cut off at the sound of the door opening and then closing again, the heavy tromping and clinking of armed men filling the hall. It was hard to tell, Natí only had the sound to go on, but there were more than one — two...three, maybe? Lýna had turned toward the door, head tilting in curiosity(?), but her left hand came to the scabbard at her side, holding it just under the hilt. To make it easier to draw quickly, Natí knew. She took a couple steps back, closer to the right edge of Natí's cell.

"And what have we here?" called a low, gruff voice, with an air of vicious amusement. Natí grimaced — she knew that voice. "You been holding out on us, Natí? I didn't know you had such...intriguing friends."

Lýna must have noticed the suggestion on his voice, her eyes narrowing and nose scrunching with distaste. "Who is this? Rescue?"

"Not exactly." The new arrivals finally came into view — Roggar, the Carta enforcer scarred and smirking, flanked by two thugs, all of them wearing light scale armor and carrying weapons, axes and daggers. Who the fuck was letting people back here without disarming them first? "I'm guessing Berát wants to...have a word with me."

"Mm, something like that," Roggar drawled, the trio coming to a stop a few steps away from Lýna. "You've made a lot of trouble for the boss, girl, you and your pretty little sister. Got to make his investment back somehow."

Natí was too busy gritting her teeth, fury tightening her chest, Lýna spoke first. "Get it back how?"

An evil smirk twisting his face, Roggar said, "It'd freeze your blood, elf, the...desires some men have. They pay good gold for the opportunity to do it for real, on someone that won't be missed. Someone like little Natí here, or the whore." The grunts flanking him darkly chuckled.

Natí was choked with anger, her fists shaking, but there was nothing she could do — she was unarmed, stuck in a cell, she couldn't...

"There is nothing I can say to turn you away."

Roggar let out a huff, amused. "How much these girls have swindled Berát, you'd have to be sun-touched. Might take you too, while we're at it — Karsjol's always looking for new toys."

With a thin sigh, Lýna drew the sword, the silverite letting out a shivering ring. Roggar's thugs drew their own in response, but Roggar himself didn't move, just laughing at her. "Come then, let us get this over with."

"Uh, Lyna, maybe that's not—"

Lýna's eyes flicked to hers, freezing Natí's breath in her throat. The elf's gaze was hard and terribly cold, without a trace of nervousness or uncertainty — Natí had thought the slim, fragile-looking woman would be easily cut down by Roggar and his brutes, no matter that she was armed and armored with silverite, but now she wondered... "Don't worry. I've fought worse than this."

With an impatient roll of his eyes, Roggar waved his thugs toward her. They sauntered closer, hefting their weapons, leering at her in anticipation. Natí got the sense they didn't plan to let her die easy, they'd...take their time. Normally she'd expect a frisson of horror at the thought she was about to watch a woman be beaten, raped, and murdered right in front of her, but... The way Lýna calmly watched them approach, sword held loose at her side, she certainly didn't seem concerned...

One of the men took a last couple steps and swung toward her sword arm, his axe turned around to hit with the back of the head. The elf's silverite blade flicked up, bolt-fast, surging forward a couple steps, the man staggering away, scrambling to block one slash and then a second falling one after the other, he rolled back to escape a third. The dark anticipation on their faces had vanished as they realized Lýna might actually be a problem — the pair sank into proper stances, more cautious; Roggar drew his paired short swords, watching carefully.

The brutes began to advance again, moving together, striking from both sides at once. Lýna stepped to the right, out of the range of one and deflecting the other with a sweep of her sword, slashing down toward the man's shoulder, he barely got a dagger up in time to slap it away. They traded a couple quick blows, the silverite blade moving light and fast enough the man could barely keep up despite having a weapon in each hand, the second man moving around to flank her.

Before she was boxed in, Lýna stepped back, hopped up onto the bench running along the wall, sidled around an overhead axe swing aimed right for her stomach. She jumped toward one of the men, planting a foot on his shoulder, pushing off in a way to turn in mid air, her cloak swirling around her, as she fell a heavy slash dropping right into the base of the man's neck before he could do a thing about it. Lýna kicked him in the back, the wound torn deeper with a scraping of silverite against bone, pitching him to fall face-first into the bench. She darted toward the other man, jerking into motion quickly enough her cloak snapped in her wake. The remaining brute tried to retreat, but she was too fast, dove under a wild jab, rolling over her shoulder, her free hand coming to her hip, and Lýna was standing behind the man, left arm draping over his shoulders, a dagger with a strange black blade now in her left hand, a vicious full-body turn and she was stepping away, the man's throat torn open, blood spurting out in rivelts to patter against the stone. The man fell to his knees, axe and dagger clattering against the floor, hands clutching at his neck (for all the good that would do), while Lýna was already sweeping away, facing Roggar, blood dripping from sword and dagger.

Natí had stepped forward at some point, she hadn't noticed, hands gripping the bars, staring dumbfounded. She'd never seen anyone move like that before! It'd been so sodding fast, she'd dropped them both in, what, five seconds? Who the fuck was she?

Roggar was clearly thinking the same thing. Blades raised defensively, glaring across them toward her, he growled, "Who are you?"

"Lýna Maharjeᶅ, Commander of the Grey in Ferelden." An edge of dark amusement slipping into her voice, "Maybe you should have asked before trying to kill me." Yeah, no shit! Everyone knew you didn't fuck with the Wardens, not if you wanted to—

Natí twitched, an unpleasant thrum coursing through her. She meant, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden...the same one the Proving had been in honor of...the same Proving she'd just violated by participating in? This...might not actually be good for her...

"You're making a serious mistake, Warden." Roggar half turned his head, glancing over his shoulder. Evaluating his chances of getting away without having to fight her, by the look of it. "The Carta will make you pay for this." Natí almost had to laugh at the empty threat — Berát and Karsjol might be vicious bastards, but they weren't morons.

"They can try. Come."

Roggar was, Natí knew, one of the better swordsmen with the Carta in Orzammar — there was a reason he was Karsjol's favorite enforcer. She couldn't count the stories she'd heard of him cutting down some poor sod, and not just dusters, but warriors and nobles too. He was one of the few fighters good enough that Natí still avoided provoking him.

And none of that mattered for shit. They met in a flurry of stabs and slashes, steel and silverite flying with a chorus of tinking and clanging and scraping, Lýna retreating a few steps but still keeping up, hardly even using the dagger. And it only lasted for a few moments before Lýna sidled a step to the side, catching Roggar's left sword with the dagger, shoving it to the side and down with a long skittering scrape, the right sword caught under it, both pushed down out of the way. So there was nothing stopping Lýna from cutting open his throat, silverite slithering through flesh almost silently.

Already choking on his own blood, Roggar took a last wild slash at Lýna, apparently trying to take her down with him. Lýna slapped it aside with contemptuous ease, sneering at him, and punched him in the head. Quickly weakening from the rapid blood loss, he topped over, twitching and gagging.

She turned her back on the dying man, stalked over to the ones who'd already bled out. Crouching down, she wiped the blades clean on his clothes, first the sword and then the dagger, sliding them back home.

"Fuck," Natí breathed. "How did you do that?"

"Like I said, I've fought worse." Lýna stood again, walked over to Roggar, turned him onto his back with a foot. Crouching down, she started going through his pockets — she could have just cleaned her blades on Roggar's clothes, but Natí guessed she hadn't wanted to risk him trying to take her by surprise. He was still alive, but barely, Natí doubted he had the strength to pull a dagger on her anymore. "This one wasn't bad," she admitted, nodding at his face (deathly pale, mouth breathlessly twitching), "but he was sloppy. What I saw in the Proving, you could have beaten him, I think."

Shit, she didn't know, maybe, but she certainly wouldn't have been able to do it so quickly. This sodding elf had made it look easy.

...This sodding elf who happened to be the heir of the guy the Proving had been for. Right.

"Um, about the Proving..."

"What about it?" Lýna had stood again, a heavy steel key in one hand — she must have assumed Roggar would have a key if he was coming to take her, which would explain why she'd been going through his pockets. (Natí assumed the Warden-Commander didn't need to swipe bits off dusters.) She stood in front of Natí's cell, calmly staring back at her, mildly curious.

...It didn't look like she was offended over Natí violating the Proving. "Never mind."

Lýna's head tilted a little, eyes narrowing, but she shrugged it off after a second. "I can take you out. But if I do, you must come with me."

"What, don't have enough slaves up in your sodding palace already?" The words burst out before she realized what she was saying, she winced — this was your way out of a horrible death, Natí, the hell are you doing...

The elf scowled at her. "I meant you will be a Warden."

...Oh. Okay, now she felt like an asshole.

"When a person Joins us," Lýna continued, ignoring Natí kicking herself, "their past crimes are as nothing. The Natí who had been before will be dead, so they will have no right to punish you for what happened today." So...it was like joining the Legion of the Dead, then, but without the actually being legally dead part? Shit, if she'd known that she might have gone up to Last Watch and signed on years ago... "But you will never be able to leave — a commitment to the Wardens is one for life, one way or another. And when we are done here, you will return to Ferelden with us."

That thought had a prickle of fear sprouting along her neck, but she forced it down. It was this, or be executed tomorrow...and leave Ríkja to Berát and the Carta. It wasn't much of a choice, honestly. Besides, "It's not like I got much going for me down here. Take care of my sister, and I'll do it gladly."

Lýna nodded, and moved to unlock the door without another word.

Through the noisy door at the end of the cell block was another hallway, this one in smoother granite, speckled gray and white. Lýna led her up a flight of stairs, eventually ending at a wide set of double doors, a handful of guards standing watch. Natí tensed, her eyes dropped to the floor — she didn't think anyone would react well to Natí escaping punishment...but these guards must have known what Lýna wanted with her...

"Commander," called a thick voice, the accent noticeable. "Have you decided if—" He cut off, a little muttering rising from the other guards. "How did you get it out on your own?"

"People came to take her away while we were talking. They had a key. Carta, he said they were?" By how she said the word, Lýna wasn't sure she'd heard it correctly, which could only mean that she barely knew the Carta existed — how could even a surfacer be that ignorant? There was some hissing from the guards at that, raising her voice a little, "How did they get past you?"

Voice low and angry, "They didn't. There must be tunnels down there we don't know about."

Lýna hummed — Natí wasn't looking, still staring down at the floor, but she could practically feel the skepticism wafting off of her. "While you're looking, you might want to send someone to remove the bodies. There are three, near where her cell was."

"She killed Roggar," Natí blurted out, impulsively. She probably shouldn't be drawing attention to herself, but she couldn't help it, she'd watched it happen and it was still hard to believe that Roggar was really dead.

"Be silent, dust—"

"You hit her and I'll take that hand."

As the guards went deathly silent at Lýna's threat, Natí dipped her head down even further, trying to cover her face with her hair. They probably wouldn't react well to her grinning at them.

The uncomfortable silence stretched for a long moment, before tentatively breaking. The guards thanked Lýna for taking down Roggar — he was wanted for multiple murders — if sounding very reluctant about it. Natí guessed they really weren't happy about Lýna helping a casteless escape punishment for crimes against the Ancestors themselves, but they also weren't going to try to stop her. Which was wise — messing with the Wardens was a terrible idea, everybody knew that.

After a short walk through a couple hallways, passing a few people along the way (most pausing to glare at Natí), they came out into a large, open hall, polished black stone glimmering with silver and the blue glow of live lyrium, tall double-doors set into the opposite wall hanging open — Natí could see a glimpse of the street beyond from here, this must be the entrance. There were rather more people standing around than she'd expected, all armed and armored — not cheap shit either, must mostly be nobles — and they were clearly in the middle of an argument, two groups facing off against each other.

"—stand for it! Absolutely not! The duster has profaned the Proving Grounds, and—"

"She profaned the Grounds by winning six duels in a row? If the will of the Ancestors truly is reflected in the results, then clearly—"

"Its victories mean nothing — its deception rendered the proceedings illegitimate!"

"I'm shocked to hear you speak of deception, Lord Püröl, truly. Do you mean to suggest that, before her face was revealed to us, the Ancestors are so blind themselves so as to not have known she was casteless?"

There was a lot of angry shouting at that, but too many voices all mixing together for Natí to pick out much. Her gaze dropped to the floor again — it simply wouldn't do to meet a noble's eyes by accident — struggling against the smile tugging at her lips. She was tempted to try to pick out who was speaking in her defense, and even referring to her as he would a person (most nobles spoke of casteless like they were soulless objects), but she wasn't that curious.

Their approach interrupted the argument. Natí still wasn't looking, but she did hear a clattering of armor shifting, people repositioning to face them. "Ah, Commander," said the same noble defending her, "I see you've decided to—"

"Seize the casteless!" There was a wave of rustling and clanking, the scrape of swords being drawn, as several men took their weapons to hand — Natí tensed, gritting her teeth, but kept staring resolutely at the floor. (Looking at them would only provoke them further, at this point.) There was a second wave of noise immediately after, must be the other group responding to the first.

She twitched at the touch of a hand on her shoulder, Lýna gently pushing her an extra step back. She'd drawn her sword too, Natí saw, but not brandished at the clump of nobles, instead held ready low at her side.

That seemed...unwise. The quick little elf had done shockingly well against two Carta thugs at once, but Natí doubted she'd fare nearly so well against who knew how many nobles. The other Wardens would exact some kind of vengeance on those responsible, of course, but Lýna wouldn't live to see it.

Thankfully, it didn't come to that. For whatever reason — the other group's men on their side, maybe they just didn't want to make an enemy of the Wardens — nobody made a move for Natí. There was a tense, vicious silence, stretching on for a few moments, before the shouty noble (Püröl Harrogáng?) spoke, his voice simmering with anger. "Commander, I understand the Wardens seek recruits to march against the Blight on the surface, but I would beg you reconsider. To honor casteless with—"

"Honor," Lýna scoffed — Natí picked out a little grumbling, warriors annoyed with her for interrupting their lord. "The Grey Wardens are not concerned with honor. We do what is necessary, all else is as nothing. Besides, what better way to honor Duncan's memory than to recruit someone about to be executed?" That was a good point, Natí bit her lip to keep herself from laughing.

It would be kind of hard to argue with that, she thought, so Harrogáng completely ignored it. "Which is a very noble sentiment, of course." That got another quiet scoff from Lýna, probably thinking ideas like 'nobility' were equally useless to her order. "But it is that very sentiment that proceeding as you intend may threaten. This duster has committed treason, and she must be punished for it."

"Perhaps I'm mistaken," said the other noble, the one on their side, "it has been quite a while since I've taken a look at the thing. But I was under the impression the Blight Accords grant the Grey Wardens the right to conscript as they please — anyone, at any time, no reservations whatsoever."

"That stipulation was never intended to apply to casteless criminals!"

"Is that so? Curious that the Ancestors, in their unsurpassed wisdom..." Natí blinked — was that sarcasm? "...failed to clarify that in the text itself. Or in any contemporaneous writings, or even any commentary after the fact — anywhere, ever."

Okay, who was that? Disagreeing with Püröl's understanding of the Ancestor's judgement, while at once questioning the inherent wisdom of their decisions, was very strange ground to level. She meant, normally people thought the Ancestors were worth revering, or they thought they were ordinary people like anyone else, you kind of had to pick one.

Sounding a little irritated, Lýna said, "I have an original copy back at Last Watch, if you want to check. But it is true, I'm sure — if I wanted I could conscript you, Püröl, and you would be bound to follow. Be glad I am taking only her, and not every casteless I come across."

"You would be acting fully within your rights if you did. I'm surprised, Püröl, I should think you would be pleased the Commander intended to remove a casteless woman from Orzammar — if she removed even more from the reach of the Stone, wouldn't that be all to the good?"

That, of course, started another angry argument — if Natí was reading the room correctly, the speaker had done that on purpose. Apparently realizing the same thing, Lýna returned her sword to its scabbard, and started walking around the pack of shouting nobles. At first, she lead Natí along with a hand on her arm, but she let go soon after Natí started following her. The walked along without interruption, the nobles too busy arguing with each other, and before long there were no longer any more figures in her peripheral vision between them and the door, a heady rush coming over her, warmth surging in her chest, she was actually getting out of here for real, she—

"Duster, stop."

Despite herself, despite how very much she wanted to get the fuck out of here, Natí froze. Disobeying direct commands from nobles was, generally speaking, a bad, bad idea. Anyway, she was pretty sure that had been the one on their side, so it couldn't be anything bad, right? Lýna continued a couple steps past her before pausing, turning to give her a confused look.

"Look at me."

The eager thrill rising from the realization that she really wasn't going to die tomorrow instantly vanished, replaced with cold unease dribbling down her back. Meeting a noble's eyes was also a bad idea. Natí had seen casteless children who'd gotten slapped for the presumption, and sometimes much worse — there were people who'd had an eye cut out over it, usually dying of fever in the next few days. Which was sodding ridiculous, it wasn't like castelessness was contagious or something, but you learned to play along quickly, if only out of self-preservation. But at the same time, he had told her to...and he had been on their side against Harrogáng, so...it was probably fine?

If nothing else, Lýna would try to stop anyone from doing anything about it. Taking a quick girding breath, her fists clenching at her sides, she turned around and looked up, quickly meeting his eyes. It wasn't difficult to figure out which one he was — he was toward the front of the group and the only one looking their way, seemingly having left his second to manage the ongoing argument.

Natí twitched, the twang of surprise almost making her rear back a step. Fine armor royal red and silverite gray — it wasn't polished to a shine, so it didn't have the sheen silverite often did, more practical than that — reddish-blond hair cut short and flat on the top of his head, his beard longer, arranged into wide symmetrical plates, the ends capped with silver-and-ruby pins, eyes a pale blue, sharp and bright, like polished beryl. She recognized him instantly. She'd never met him in person, of course, but she'd seen him from a distance before, she knew who this was.

Bélen Aidúkan.

He stared at her for a long moment, brow thoughtfully furrowed, Natí fighting the urge to fidget. One of his people tried to get his attention, a hand gently touching his arm, causing him to twitch just a little, the frown smoothing out. "Oh, it's nothing. She reminds of someone else." A few people, those who heard the comment, made faces at that — Bélen might not be a complete ass about casteless himself, but that didn't mean all of his people agreed.

Yeah well of course I do, you're screwing my baby sister. Thankfully, Natí had the good sense not to say that one out loud. Although... He had taken her side in this whole thing — and not just because his enemy wanted her dead, she was pretty sure — and he didn't seem...unsettled by the resemblance, she didn't think. And Natí had no idea how long it might be before she had the opportunity to tell Ríkja what happened to her.

This was a terrible idea...

Trying to ignore the niggling of doubt, Natí confirmed with a quick glance that nobody else was paying her particular attention — it was pretty much only Bélen, the others too busy arguing with each other. (Not about her or even casteless in general anymore, by the sound of it they'd already gotten off on tangents a couple times.) Staring the sodding Prince in the eyes, Natí mouthed sister.

Bélen's eyes widened a little, one eyebrow stretching up his forehead.

She glanced around the cavernous entrance of the Hall of Justice, smooth black stone gleaming blue from lyrium lamps, shook her head just slightly — the message meant to be she doesn't know where I am. Some things Ríkja just didn't need to know, Natí hadn't told her about the Proving plot. (She wouldn't have found out until Natí's execution.) She mouthed tell her, dipping her head in a bow, one fist coming up to her chest, please.

The Prince watched her for a short, tense second. And then he nodded, and turned back to the argument going on around him, as though nothing had happened.

Natí let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

She stepped out onto the Grand Avenue in the elf's wake — it was darker than she'd realized, lamps turned down to let shadows cling to the stone, the opposite side of the city all but hidden in darkness, little specks of light twinkling here and there. It must have gotten late, how long had she been unconscious? There were dwarves wandering around, but far fewer than there would be during waking hours, mostly just guards keeping an eye on things.

"Come then," Lýna said, turning off to the west. "I'm hungry, and there are people you need to meet before bed. We can also talk to Vírkjesj if he's still there, see about getting you things. You have time to settle into the group and get comfortable with new things — there will be a battle soon, but it won't be for a few weeks yet, and..."

The elf kept babbling on, speaking of the other Wardens and their plans for the next weeks, but Natí was hardly listening. She looked out over the sleeping city, light on her feet despite her still-protesting bruises, face pulled almost painfully taught by a grin. She wasn't going to die tomorrow. She'd been trying to find a way out of Dust Town for herself and her sister for what felt like forever — and now Ríkja was having the child of Bélen sodding Aidúkan, and Natí had kicked so much ass at the Proving that she'd gotten the attention of the Grey sodding Wardens. The Commander had even said they'd cover her debts, so she didn't have to worry about Berát and the Carta either, everything would be okay. Suddenly, only yesterday it'd seemed like everything was crumbling around her ears, it didn't feel entirely real, but everything was going to be okay, she knew it.

It had been one hell of a day, that's for sure...

---

Hey look, it's the dwarf commoner origin! This was a late addition — as in, I literally only decided to include it a few weeks ago, when I was writing their arrival in Orzammar — but it helps to greatly streamline a few points coming up soon, so it's quite convenient. Love it when things work out that way. I'm not happy with...most of the last scene, to be honest, but it is what it is.

Also, why the hell do my chapters keep getting so long? How many weekly 20k-plus chapters in a row is this now? I clearly have a problem.

Duncan's background is very much not canon. I have serious issues with the events of The Calling, to put it mildly, and have made changes. Duncan and Maric did have an encounter with the Architect, as in canon, though the team there was explicitly put together to reform the Wardens in Ferelden. Given recent history, the First Warden was not so much of a complete fucking idiot as to send Orlesians — the team was instead made up of Rivainis and Marchers, led by ex-pat Duncan.

Fiona's history is mostly unchanged (except for being human now, for reasons), though transplanted from Orlais to Antiva; she was handed off to the Rivaini Wardens before her Joining for political reasons. She was intended to be one of the new Fereldan Wardens, but she returned to Rivain due to certain circumstances. (The same reason she's human now — if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry, it'll come up eventually.)

Anyhoo, next chapter we're checking in on Aedan and friends, and then Marian — one chapter each, though the Marian one might be kinda long — before coming back to Orzammar. Thanks for reading my nonsense, until next time, blah blah.