A/N: Sorry about missing Tuesday's update. I had the chapter written out since last week, but when I went back to look at it, it felt kind of clunky, so I needed to redo it. Thank you so much for reading!
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Finley sat perched on a stump next to a small stream, enjoying the afternoon sun as Cullen paced casually in front of her and talked about trebuchet calibrations and things that meant next to nothing to her. She couldn't say she minded, however. She liked hearing his voice, and that he would even talk to her again.
The sun danced in his hair, those curls of his having broken free from his careful maintenance to shine gold and warm. His symptoms from his latest withdrawal episode had withdrawn, too, and it was almost as though he'd never fallen ill. It warmed her heart that he could recover so quickly, and she didn't doubt that it was because of her diligence.
This was how things should be.
Well, almost.
As though he'd read her mind, he paused while he was talking to tug his shirt off over his head, revealing his toned body, scarred and glimmering in the gentle sunlight. He flashed her one of his mesmerizing smiles and his hands reached down to unbuckle his belt.
Even as his hands moved to untie his trousers, Solas leaned down beside her.
"Is now a bad time?"
Finley's lips twisted to the side a second as she let her gaze roll slowly up to meet Solas's. "I suppose not."
In a blink, Cullen and the stream were gone, replaced with the eerie void of the Fade.
Trying not to dwell on the dream, Finley turned and paused when she found that Solas was not alone. A little behind him stood an older woman with dark red hair, hand covering her mouth as she watched Finley. She was tall for a human, and her eyes sparkled as Finley hopped up and followed Solas over to her.
"Ellra was concerned when I showed up looking for your grimoire. I could think of no better way to put her at ease, as we are both dreamers."
Finley blinked, surprised at that. Glancing back at Solas, she cocked her head. "You're there already?"
"You have your ways for fast travel, and I have mine," Solas replied, giving her a simple nod.
Looking back at Ellra, Finley motioned to Solas. "I asked him to get it."
"Well, we were thinking you were dead. Again," Ellra paused and eye Solas. "So he seemed somewhat a scavenger."
"And what were you doing in my old haunt?" Finley asked, crossing her arms, trying to keep her grin at bay.
Ellra cackled. "Trying to figure out how to unlock your grimoire. No use in letting the dead's work go to waste."
"Can you let the others know I'm alive? I talked to Donovan and sent messages, but I don't know that they've reached anyone—"
"The ones about red lyrium?" Ellra interrupted and then motioned to Solas. "He was telling me more about it. I haven't seen any myself, but I have heard stories. Mostly from areas we don't go."
Finley nodded, mostly to herself. To hear that was both good and bad.
The Wilds were loosely broken up into different apostates' areas, though most of the borders to such spaces were nebulous at best.
Except when it came to maleficar. Within the Wilds' apostate ranks, there were three 'factions', if they could be called that. The mages who abstained from blood magic and wanted nothing to do with those who did, the mages who used blood magic, and those who didn't care.
Finley knew more than a few places that were off limits to her because of the maleficar that liked to reside there—mostly in the deeper Wilds south of Orlais, and then more than a few neutral areas that told her she wasn't welcome because she refused to not pick fights with any maleficar she came into contact with.
Not all mages who abhorred blood magic worked together, but most of them at least knew each other. Ellra, however, was one of Finley's allies. Their group consisted of eight mages, with the occasional newcomer or old member dying. It averaged at eight, though.
Of them, two were dreamers, and Ellra was by far the better of them. Though, Finley might have just favored the small woman because she'd never used Finley to get the templars off her own trail.
It was good to see her again—it felt like it had been a lifetime since they'd been able to sit together.
However, as Ellra's words sank in, a rather unpleasant realization dawned on Finley, discoloring the Fade to a murkier shade of miserable.
If she wanted to get to all the rifts and get rid of all the red lyrium—once she figured out how—she was going to have to cross into maleficar territories.
She'd made enemies with almost all of them—almost because there were a few who had learned to avoid her through others. All the rest, she'd personally fucked with, be it replacing reagents to mess up complex spells, sending templars their way, and helping their sacrifices escape.
Were those more names that Cullen and the others would need to know? They weren't friends by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps that made it all the more reason...after all, if they came forward, they could do damage to the Inquisition by claiming her a sister in their dark magics.
"I take it it's okay to let this one make off with your things?"
Finley snapped out of her thoughts, noticings that the Fade nearest her was filled with jagged spike-like protrusions that dripped darkness. Even as she noticed them, their tips dulled. Looking over at Ellra, she nodded. "I asked him to get it."
Ellra nodded and then couldn't help but grin again. "You know, I never thought I'd be having a conversation with you in the Fade." She eyed Solas and quirked a brow. "Are you the one who convinced her it wasn't all demons and mind control here, or was it that pretty boy?"
"Commander Rutherford is not a mage," Finley murmured, noting the gleam in Ellra's eye as she looked back at her.
"Fell for a mundane, did you?"
"It's not like that—"
Ellra held up her hands, amused. "Okay. Sure. It's probably for the best. Non-mages have a tendency to put daggers in backs, after all."
Solas cocked his head, looking from Ellra to Finley. For an instant, he looked like he wanted to pursue the comment Ellra had made so offhandedly, especially after seeing how Finley simply nodded in response. However, he seemed to think better of it. Instead, Solas simply gave Ellara a polite smile before looking back at Finley. "I'll take my leave. I imagine you would like this book sooner than later."
"Thank you," Finley managed just before he vanished from existence.
As soon as he was gone, Finley found Ellra right in front of her, leaning down so that they were eye to eye. "Be careful of that one, yeah?"
"Commander—"
"The elf." When Finley didn't respond, Ellra paused and glanced around, as though Solas might still be watching them, somehow. Finley couldn't feel his magic anywhere nearby, but then... she was a novice in this sort of magic, wasn't she? "I don't know what it is about him, but...Reth doesn't trust him. He went pale when he saw your friend, and hasn't spoken a word more than he has to. And you know Reth."
Finley had met the couple years ago and had always marveled at their ability to stay together, two mages fighting against all odds in the Wilds. She'd always wanted to find someone who would stick with her through thick and thin, to have something like what they had.
Reth wasn't much in the way of being a dreamer, but he'd told Finley plenty of times about how Ellra could pull him out of his dreams and let him walk with her. They had their best conversations in the Fade.
"I'll send you a message when I can get Reth to talk about what's wrong. And we'll try to round up solid leads on any red lyrium in our areas."
"I need to know all of it," Finley said softly, pausing when Ellra bristled. "Where the red appears, templars follow, horrifying things…"
Ellra rolled her eyes. "I've dealt with horrifying templars before, love."
Finley reached out and caught the woman's sleeve before she could disappear—she was saying something about letting Finley get back to more pleasant dreams. Using what she'd learned thus far of the Fade, Finley conjured her memories from when she'd been in Therinfal Redoubt, of the waves of deformed creatures that had lumbered down the halls, bodies twisted and changed.
Her heart hurt as she remembered that Ser Caudry and Ser Ross were facing such a fate.
Ellra, however, was pale as a ghost. She jerked her hands up, making the memory stop as one of the beasts charged them, cringing away from it. "What is that thing?"
"A red templar." Finley focused again, drawing the different types that she'd seen into a line so that Ellra could look at them all. "Some of them still look mostly human, but...their interrupts and dispels are far worse than anything you've encountered." She paused before adding, "And red lyrium in your blood is a death sentence, unless you have an extremely skilled healer with you, like Solas."
"These things are in the Wilds?"
"I don't know," Finley murmured, turning her back to their twisted forms. "But red lyrium is. Ser Barnebus died of it."
"Show me."
By the time Finley opened her eyes to see the morning sun was already playing on the walls of her tent, she'd gone through as much of her memories as she could with Ellra, recounting the red lyrium, the venatori, the rifts.
Ellra had been extremely bitter to learn what the grey wardens had done. Like Finley, she and Reth had lost their home to the Blight. They'd finally been far enough south that the templars never came, and then the Blight had forced them back into the hunters' reach.
It felt good to talk to her, though, even if she was angry. Perhaps her concerns could convey to some of the others the urgency of the situation.
Then again, perhaps Finley's messages would, too. She'd sent them to every mage she could think of, every mage who didn't dabble in blood. Surely some of them could forward the message to the ones she hadn't messaged...
"Sleep well?" Dorian asked, adjusting a few buckles on his shirt as he got ready for the day.
"I talked to Solas. He's on his way back."
"Lovely," Dorian muttered, before shrugging it off. "I know you were talking about getting into Skyhold either tomorrow evening or the next morning, but if we ride hard and push into the night, we'll reach Skyhold today."
Finley eyed him as she sat up, running her fingers through her hair once to comb it and then reaching to get her outer clothes. "We can wait."
"Commander Rutherford was talking to Bull about how to get there faster," Dorian explained.
"Well, he's not going to push himself that hard."
With a soft laugh, Dorian shook his head. "He said riding hard for one day wouldn't push him to his limits, and the man seems quite well acquainted with those."
Finley tugged her coat into place and started checking her bags—she never bothered with a bedroll, so it made getting ready to go a bit easier—and eyed Dorian again. "When did he say that?"
"This morning when he left—Wait!"
Finley was out of the tent, glaring around the small camp at the few inquisition soldiers that were already up and preparing for the day. They made a point to avoid meeting her gaze.
Warden Blackwall nodded to her from where he stood, readying their horses, and she almost screeched when she saw that the Beast and Cullen's horses were both gone. She darted over to the tent Cullen and Warden Blackwall had shared and jerked the flap up hard enough that the whole tent shook.
It was empty.
"Finley, you can't coddle your general—" Dorian held his hands up in surrender as she whirled on him, seething.
"We had a deal."
"And he wanted me to tell you that he's promising—"
"I should go back to the Wilds right now and never come back!" Finley snapped before she could stop herself. She wasn't sure why his leaving felt like such a betrayal. Did he not trust that she could take care of him? "He is disobeying orders," Finley said, a bit more hurt than she meant to sound.
Dorian strode over to her and wrapped his arms around her, tilting her one way and then the other so that she nearly fell over. "I know, I know. He told me to tell you to set whatever pace you wanted. He just felt he'd been absent far too long, especially with the army getting back from Adamant and all that. I sent Bull with him to make sure that he didn't undo all your hard work." He hesitated, still with his arms wrapped around her. "He also told me that you're not allowed to disappear."
"I am going to…" Finley scowled into Dorian's shoulder before pushing him away. He let her go, amusement glittering in his eyes as he watched her pace. "He had no right to leave without telling me."
"Do you really want to make a scene in front of the troops?" Dorian asked, motioning to the soldiers around them who immediately tried—and mostly failed—to look very busy. "Word of a lover's spat will get back to the castle before we do."
"It's not—" Finley scowled and crossed her arms. "We're not having a lover's spat."
"Don't worry, Inquisitor, we understand," one of the soldiers offered, pausing to give Dorian a sour look before smiling back at Finley. "No one thinks you and the commander are seeing one another."
"Thank you," Finley replied, surprised to have such an unexpected ally in the conversation. She fought back the urge to be suspicious, not sure what she should be suspicious about. Even as Dorian shot the man a glare, she narrowed her gaze at her fellow mage. "It would be unprofessional to pursue the commander."
"And we all know you are a bastion of what is professional and proper," Dorian replied, pausing to glare at the man one more time before offering her his arm. "Shall we get on the road? We could take a detour and make the commander wait even longer as punishment for ditching us."
As tempting as it was, Finley sighed, shoulders slumping. "That would be unprofessional, too, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," Warden Blackwall said as Dorian assured her it would be fine.
As Warden Blackwall helped her up onto Dorian's horse, Dorian made a show of his displeasure. "My dear inquisitor, how ever am I supposed to corrupt you with my dastardly northern ways if you use the grey warden as your moral compass instead of me?"
"We're wasting time," Finley replied, taking up the reins awkwardly. "Do you want to be left behind?"
"And see you fall off the horse in front of everyone? I think not." He swung up in place behind her.
As they left the camp, Finley could swear she heard someone whisper something about a bet, and how the soldier who had sided with her was dangerously close to getting kicked out of it.
It brought her mind back to another reference to a bet she'd heard, the day before, and—seeing as they were riding hard and couldn't very well keep up a conversation—for the first time during their trip, her mind wandered away from red lyrium and curing her templars.
Instead, she couldn't help but wonder about the bet.
The day before, they'd passed a group of chantry sisters and templars heading south to her old home. While Finley had doubted they would need seven people tending to it, she hadn't wanted to stop and argue with them, when they were clearly doing something good. And anyway, with Corypheus and his people out there, it was probably better to err toward caution.
What had struck her, however, was the way Cullen had gone stiff behind her, like he was embarrassed to be seen riding the same horse as her. Perhaps it had had to do with the way the Chantry sisters had raised their eyebrows and their eyes had gone wide.
One of them had whispered something about sending word back to Skyhold about a bet.
Finley wondered if it might be the same one, and if it had something to do with Cullen. Who might she be able to ask about it? If they were sending word back to Skyhold, then there had to be someone there who was in on it.
Though, there were thousands of people at Skyhold at this point, so it wasn't like she could find the one or two people who might be in on it there.
Finally, she decided that she would ask Varric about it. He was a personable sort and even if he didn't know about it now, he could likely find out.
And if he couldn't, she didn't doubt that Sera could.