Cullen nearly walked into Herald Finley as she darted into the tent they'd assigned for their records and missives. Their command center, so to speak, ragged as it was.

They spent a moment or two awkwardly trying to side step one another and simply staying in each other's way as they moved in the same directions before finally stopping. With a sigh, Cullen scratched at the back of his neck and nodded toward Finley, waiting for her to step around him or say something or leave or…just about anything, really.

He expected her to don one of those snared animal looks that she was so quick to wear whenever there were templars—or former templars—about. He expected her to pick holes into her sleeves or to knot her hair around her fingers as she watched him, half ready to run should he decide that the mark wasn't worth it and draw his blade.

Not that he would.

It was just…rather obvious what her typical fears were. Fears that lingered, despite his best attempts to show they had no grounds.

Though…she had seemed considerably less skittish around him since that night, when they'd fallen asleep together. It made his ears burn just to think of it, and he tried to force his mind to wander.

It didn't stray far, still settling back on their Herald and her fears.

It was almost as if she'd expected them to turn on her this whole time, yet in the last few days since they'd found her and brought her to camp—now that they'd gone out of their way to save her—she didn't seem sure what to make of them anymore.

Despite their efforts, she had not stayed in her tent to heal. Several templars had found her staggering near the edge of camp and while they had been suspicious—he hadn't told anyone beyond the immediate group who'd already heard it that their Herald thought her gift was blood magic, but one did not set aside eight hundred years' worth of institutionalized fear just because one mage seemed invested in the good of the whole rather than just themselves—but even as she'd bristled, Ser Jensen had come to her rescue.

Or So Cullen had been told.

Apparently she'd been willing enough to side with Ser Jensen, talking circles around the other templars, exhausted as she clearly was, but things got a little dicey when Ser Jensen offered to take her back to her tent.

That fear was rooted deep on both sides. Templars and mages.

Fortunately, even as Ser Jensen had tried to stay on their Herald's side while arguing with the other templars that her being nervous around them hardly meant she needed to be locked up, Varric had strolled up and somehow managed to calm everyone down.

When asked, Herald Finley had only said she'd wanted to go for a walk, though when they'd pointed out that that didn't make sense, considering she could barely stand, Varric had been the one to go off on a tangent, talking about the Wilds and survival and all manner of excuses that had reportedly left Herald Finley impressed and nodding in agreement.

The templars had been annoyed, but Herald Finley had offered that she wasn't used to being able to lie about so and that, considering their current predicament, she felt woefully selfish holed up in her tent. As a healer, she'd wanted to take stock of their supplies.

So why had she looked like she was trying to actually leave the camp, one of the templars had wanted to know.

She'd said she thought she saw something in the tree line, but didn't want to cause an alarm if it was nothing.

The templars had gone to check while Ser Jensen and Varric escorted her back to her tent.

She'd stayed there for three days. While Cullen had only been able to swing by once, he'd heard from others that she was rather grumpy over the whole thing. Grumpy and skittish and healing slower than he would have liked.

At least she was alive, and had enough energy to make the templars' lives difficult.

The mark crackled softly, drawing Cullen out of his thoughts.

She'd told them that the mark was blood magic, that it was something evil and while she'd laid there, completely defenseless, Cullen had found himself drawing closer, wanting to reach out and take her hand, to tell her he didn't believe that their salvation could be blood magic. Even if it had been a blood ritual that had made it, Finley hadn't cast it. She hadn't been involved.

She didn't need to fear that they would turn on her.

Still, that fear, muted as it might be considering recent events, was still in her, and thus he had expected her to show it, if only in passing.

However, when she simply stood up a bit straighter and side stepped him, gaze sweeping the rest of the tent to take stock, her demeanor a bit calmer than he'd ever seen it…

That gave him pause.

"Herald."

"Commander," she said, matching his formality. Her hands were clasped in front of her, much the way she had been when she'd tried to sneak out of Haven months ago, and the only real movement to her was a slow rock from heel to toe and back. When neither of them made a move for the tent's exit, she motioned toward it. "I did not mean to interrupt your…duties."

Cullen tried not to narrow his eyes.

This was odd.

The last time she'd acted like this, she had been trying to sneak off on her own. And she was clearly doing better than his reports had indicated. There were a few bruises that peeked through the holes in her clothes, but beyond that, she didn't look at all like someone who'd fought an archdemon and darkspawn magister, been caught in an avalanche, and nearly frozen to death.

"Were you looking for something?"

"Sister Leliana," Finley replied, a bit too on point. She idly let her gaze wander the tent again and then shrugged. "I suppose I shall have to look elsewhere."

"I suppose you shall," Cullen echoed, shifting his weight and crossing his arms. "Or perhaps it's something I could help you with?"

At that, she stiffened for just a breath. Before he could suck in the air to ask what was going on, she'd relaxed again. "No. It's a matter of…"

"Secrecy?"

"Well, Sister Leliana does deal with secrets, I suppose," Finley straightened up further, somehow, tugging on a sleeve and beginning to fall back into her usual fidgeting. He was surprised at how comforting those little actions were. "Also information and contacts and…I should imagine you to be familiar with her role in the Inquisition at this point, commander."

"I suppose I am," he replied, finally stepping toward the tent's exit and holding the flap open for Finley. As his gaze happened outside, he thought he saw that Tevinter, Dorian, standing not far off, with a dwarf he didn't recognize.

"You wouldn't happen to know where Sister Leliana is, would you?"

Finley's voice drew him his attention away from their odd audience, and he glanced down at her. When he looked back across the way, both mage and dwarf had disappeared. His brow furrowed, and he took a step outside of the tent.

"Commander?"

He reached up to rub one of his temples. Perhaps it was the cold and lack of sleep and that damned whisper of lyrium always at the edges of his vision, but…

He had seen them, hadn't he?

Maker, help him if he was hallucinating.

"I, uh," he paused, trying to gather his thoughts. "I believe she was in the southern part of camp, reviewing some reports coming in about possible places we could head."

"Seems like out of the mountains would be a good bet," Finley offered, pausing when Cullen fell into step beside her. She only faltered for a second, but it was enough for him to notice.

What was going on?

"Well, yes, but we can't just show up on some Bann's land without permission, nor can we encroach on some Orlesian noble's property. And we'll need somewhere substantial to house our forces."

"Forces dwindling by the day," Finley whispered, gaze down.

He felt his chest clench at her words. They were true enough. Despite their mages' efforts, they could not keep everyone warded against the cold all of the time. While Herald Finley's adjustments to the spell that the other mages had manages to piece together to make it more efficient, there simply weren't enough of them. And even without the cold, there were injuries that were becoming infected and food supplies were emptying far too quickly and…

"It is a mire," Cullen murmured.

"I think I know a way to fix things."

That made his gaze snap up, to her. She was very much preoccupied with where she was placing her feet. However, when he watched her for a moment, her gaze darted toward him for just an instant. "How?"

"I need to talk to Sister Leliana."

"Not me, though."

"She will be more acquainted with how to make my ideas a reality."

Cullen arched his brow. "You realize I'm a strategist, yes?"

"For soldiers and fighting," Finley objected, looking at him directly, annoyance dancing along with that magic in her eyes. "Not everything falls under your purview. Otherwise we wouldn't need Sister Leliana and Josie."

He eyed her again. "And you can't tell me what this is about?"

He had the oddest tingling sensation at the back of his neck, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he thought he saw Dorian duck behind a tent. He stopped, turning fully to try to see what was going on. Even as he started to backtrack, he remembered he'd been trying to figure out what Herald Finley was on about. When he turned back to her, he frowned.

She, too, was gone.

Maker.

He'd taken his eyes off her for a second.

Were the mages playing with him for a reason, or were they just bored?

Was Dorian involved with whatever Herald Finley was up to? It felt like it, though he couldn't quite figure out the pieces of this puzzle.

Seeing as he'd been left, he opted to wander back to look for Dorian rather than hassle their Herald. After all, he knew—at least—that she was looking for Leliana, and even when she had been trying to trick him in the past, it had never been for anything malicious.

There were no tracks where he'd seen Dorian.

The snow was pristine and clear and fresh and…

And that didn't make any sense. This was a camp that was constantly on the move, with people and patrols trekking through every inch of snow, turning it up, muddying it. That it would be this clear indicated that someone was trying to hide their tracks.

Magically.

Cullen took in a slow breath. He'd left the Order behind to make something better of himself, to be a part of something that wasn't corrupted to the core. He'd left behind the mantle of templar.

And yet, as he looked down at that swath of pristine snow leading in so obvious a trail, he couldn't help the urge to follow it, to see what that Tevinter mage was up to. So often mages didn't realize that in making sure there were no clear tracks to follow, they made a path so unnaturally perfect that it was obvious magic had been involved. Looking for signs that tracks had been covered was just as much a part of hunting mages as searching for signs they'd been there, if not more so.

Cullen took in another breath of frigid air and then started along the snow, his own footprints sloshing away at the perfection.

Wasn't Dorian a fire mage? How had he done this?

While, yes, mages could learn spells from different sects, they generally tended to stick with one or two, often types of magic that complimented one another. That Dorian had already shown proficiency in fire and healing—it was an odd sort of healing, but healing none the less—made it somewhat unlikely that he'd also be dabbling in frost.

Was he wandering around with First Enchanter Vivienne? Cullen hadn't seen her, and she was most definitely not the type to slink around. If she was going to be somewhere, she made damned sure people knew it.

Not that that was a bad thing, just…this secrecy wasn't something she'd stoop to.

So then…who…?

Cullen stopped in his tracks.

When Dorian had been questioned, after things had quieted down, he'd explained how he was looking for his countrymen and he'd found them, and then dutifully come to warn the Inquisition. However, there had been holes in his story, holes that Leliana had been content to let him keep, implying she knew at least a little of it.

Cullen understood that she would keep things from him if she didn't deem them important enough to burden him with—if it was political rather than military—but this had felt distinctly different.

This had felt like the way Leliana was so quick to take up arms to defend the mage cause.

If she knew that Cullen wouldn't be on board with going to the mages now, when the Inquisition was at its weakest…

Maker help them.

That's what this was, wasn't it?

Herald Finley and Dorian were seeking out Leliana to recruit the mages now, of all times.

Cullen resumed his hunt, his pace quicker.

While he still didn't know that he would want to ally with the mages, seeing as they'd been tearing up the countryside and inciting panic and fear in the general populace in the last two years, it left him more than a little irate that they would try to go about recruiting them behind his back.

He was the commander, and if the mages joined, they would be part of the forces in the Inquisition. He would need to work with them, and that garnered him just as much reason to be involved with their recruitment as anyone, if not more.

Maker preserve him.

Had Herald Finley not listened when they'd explained the whole mage/templar war issue? They already had the templars here. Just because the Order had been disbanded didn't mean that fighting wouldn't break out if the mages and templars were brought together.

They needed unity and stability, especially now, lost as they were in the mountains, chances of support dwindling as the outcome became more and more bleak.

And even if they could bring the mages in, they hadn't the supplies to keep more people in this dismal camp.

What were they thinking?

Lately, it seemed like all he and the other advisors did was argue when they were together. The Inquisition was falling apart.

That they would go behind his back, though…

When he finally swung around a tent to see that, sure enough, Finley, Dorian, the dwarf from before, Solas, and another mage he didn't recognize were all grouped up and talking to Leliana, he had to fight back the grimace that wanted to take hold of his features.

It wouldn't do to walk up proving them right in their wariness, would it?

He'd left the Order behind, and if mages were coming to the Inquisition now, they would have to know the condition of their organization. They would have come knowing that they would be required to assist rather than seek refuge.

If that was the case, he would be able to work with them.

Surely, though, they would be wary of joining an organization with so many templars in it.

Templars who no longer had an order…

Cullen wasn't sure how he felt about this as he came to a stop in front of the small gathering, gaze sweeping over them and stopping on Herald Finley. Her gaze narrowed slightly, though she didn't seem surprised to see him there.

"Commander, good," Leliana said before he could think of anything to say. Her voice was unusually pleasant and that made him frown, despite his earlier vow not to. "We were going to need to speak with you about a rather fortunate turn of events."

"The mages are offering their assistance?" Cullen asked, his tone a bit clipped.

"We are," the unfamiliar mage offered, stepping forward. He was spindly and tall, his shoulders a bit hunched from a lifetime of sitting at desks, hunched over research. "I am Reinald Grovinger, here on behalf of Grand Enchanter Fiona." He made a short bow.

Cullen returned the action with a nod of his head. He wasn't sure what he said in response, but it was something distant and pleasant, something that wouldn't ruffle feathers.

For a second, he was half terrified that he might know the mage from either Kinloch Hold or Kirkwall, but the name was unfamiliar, and his face was that of a stranger's.

Cullen tried to push thoughts of both Circles from his head as he listened to Leliana and the mage talk back and forth about coming together. Finally, when there was a lull in the conversation, he stepped in. "If you are to join us, you should know that we have fallen on poor luck for the time being. We—"

"You're alive, aren't you?" Reinald laughed.

"We have no place to call home."

"Solas had a suggestion in regards to that, actually," Herald Finley interjected, rocking from heel to toe and back again. She was hardly fidgeting, more alert than usual. Was he making her nervous? "He knows of a place we can head to. It'll take a few weeks, though."

"In the meantime," Reinald picked up as her voice died off, "well will be happy to send a…smaller number of our people over to help maintain your…frost ward, was it?" He looked back at Herald Finley. When she nodded, his smile returned. "We look forward to working with you."

...-...

A/N: Thank you to 0wallie0 on tumblr for beta reading for me! And also to everyone who reads. I hope you're enjoying the story thus far :3

Also, I'm thinking of dropping updates down to once a week. Does anyone have a preference for which day?