.

The Spectral Breath

~~o~~

Chapter Ten: Long Travels

The elvhen fled the battlements of Skyhold in the garnet rainment of an Inquisition scouting party. Crows sung in a flitter of night-wings upon the departure of their galloping steeds into the faraway wilds, with only the moon to shelter them from the storm.

For three days they travelled from mountains to hills; brooks to dells; villages to farms. On the fifth day's ride the land dropped into a deep pitted valley. One of trails instead of roads, netted in rashvine nettles peeking from hard-packed dirt. Ferelden was a country of rich wild flowers and fermented soil. Lahris' beast often grazed on the open plains as a halla spoilt, fat. Even when they swept over the bay of the Drakon River and into the territory of Dragon's Peak. His rump grew in mass the further they travelled, even with his dashinh legs clouding the way behind him.

The winds cooled the closer seaward they drew. Scents of musty pollen mingled with the odd flavourings of bitter salt, parching the throats of them all. Lahris had dreamed of the old map Solas carried when they rode. Imagined him scouring the distant hills for rickety signs that bandits had hacked away many years ago for firewood. Only the stumps remained when they passed in the morning. But while Solas attempted to guide them safely to the clan, she could not help but giggle in hidden delight. For she knew the path innately and it was often that they took the wrong path south, if to make the trail more entertaining to explore.

It was when the steeds met deadfall that an arch of arthritic conifers walled the entirety of the eastern realm. They had reached the Brecilian Forest, facing it in all its gnarled, rotten glory.

"The Veil feels weaker here," announced Solas, patting his stallion's neck. It bristled under his touch - the fear of the forest beyond igniting its instinct to flee. He reared his reigns. Whispered calming words into its back-tipped ears.

Lahris' own halla pawed its contempt into the dirt. The way forward was not a nightmare to Assan. It was home.

"Shemlen have always been spooked by these roads." Jaras grinned, cupping his brows over the horizon. "Once saw a group dashing across the fen blue-bottomed and sweaty. Supposed they were goaded to stay in the forest 'til nightfall. It only took a few false wolf calls and the snap of a few branches to make 'em scarce."

"Let me guess. That was your own doing?"

Jaras howled in response.

Lahris noticed the stretch of grassland parting them from the forest. She gripped her reigns tighter, warily eying the choking greenery. "That may be why there are so many rumours to these lands."

The Dalish snorted. "Good thing to be had, Da'mi! Wouldn't want more of their ilk tainting what little lands we have left." He raised his arms high, stretching them until the bones popped. "Wonder what the game's like this close to Fall. Just think, Da'mi. Squirrel strew cooked by ol' Orananni's stewing pot. Fresh venison and onions and carrots!"

He gripped his stomach hard, crinkling the leather of his jerkin. "Andruil preserve me, oh I can almost smell it!"

"And of you, da'len?" asked Solas, edging his steed to her side. "What do you hope to see while being here?"

Lahris pulled her cloak tightly over her waist, shifting her legs so that her left settled by her right and its stirrup. "A place to rest," she laughed, smiling more when his frown grew more disappointed. "And you? Are you looking forward to meeting the Dalish?"

His long nose scrunched, as if smelling something foul. "As much as a hare anticipates the stew pot, as your companion so aptly put it."

"That much? My, hahren, it is a wonder how you ever smile."

"Only when the opportunity permits it. Which seems quite often when in your company."

Lahris' smile wavered and a blush crept over her cheeks. "Oh?"

Eyes widening, the elder elf coughed into his fist, then turned his attention back to the forest. "Yes, well… presumably. I, of course, you are a fair travelling companion and a good student. And the chance to pass on wisdom is in itself a rare treasure worth hoarding. But we should continue, before the sun sets…"

She watched as his black steed followed Jaras' through the grassland, chuckling at how silly their friendship had become. It nearly bordered over platonic, in her mind. After tipping her cowl further forward and tucking her long ears into the nooks, she smiled in the hope that it would someday continue.

Their stretch of path thinned under the crammed canopies of evergreens, so clustered together in their stands that the land beneath bordered on an annular eclipse. The way ahead could only be seen through the rare shaft of daylight peaking through broken branches. Creatures swept by as watery figures crunching dead leaves. Snapping dry twigs. Solas watched the spirits go. His lips were firm and silent.

Six months. That was how long it had been since her return. Six months. Little had changed since her depart.

Hooves clattered over ancient pave stones. Mist rose from the earth in a hiss of secrets, curling round the horse's hinds.

The forest was a dangerous place for those with frail hearts, weak minds, jittery souls. Whatever the truth of its legends, be it swamp crones, Fade rifts or demons lurking in the brush, there were plenty of enough bones away from the path to hint into the fates of those that strayed too far away. Death, she suspected, was the least of their worries. And yet the air wavered in her sigh of melancholy.

The path drifted into swamp water. Solas watched the tide flow beneath him, tall on his steed. "I fear this land has become an assembly of travesties. Spirits are being called here. I wonder what caused this."

"The Keeper spoke of many stories to the clan. I'm not quite sure which are to believed."

"Legends of their god's noble endeavours I have no doubt," he jibed, sneering into deeper underwood.

"Sometimes," she corrected, frowning back. "But mostly of wars between the elvh-… ancient elves and the Tevinter Imperium. Sometimes he spoke of warring families and valiant kingship. You should really listen to him when he spins his tales, Solas. They truly are quite entertaining. He might even listen to you."

The apostate regarded her curiously, watching as her halla shifted through the ebb of the river to quickly parry onto dry land. Only when his own steed readied the climb did he spy pale shimmers cascading across the water. His gaze flashed up to the trees. "Wait. We're not alone here."

Jaras kicked his mare up the path, smirking when Solas caught his eye. "Really, flat-ear? We were never alone to begin with."

Pillars of ashwood guided the remainder of the way. Totems decorated their podiums, cut in archaic languages with bear skulls roped to their fronts by hewn twine. It was not long before the pillars grew in height, clustered within shorter gaps. A long wall eventually enclosed them. Lahris tapped Assan's flank, raising his mud-mottled fur over the last remaining brush. A gateway ended their journey, washed on its front in bright red paint.

Jaras slipped from his mare in a shuffle of sanded leather. He tore the bow from the saddle, clipped it over one rugged shoulder. Lahris cringed when her skirts met the mud, knowing she should have worn the archer's breeches instead. Still, shivering more when mud oozed between her toes, she grasped Assan by the bit and tugged him gently along to the clan's front entrance.

Inside, the natter of fifty villagers rose over the walls in merrisome delight. Lahris wondered briefly if the cheer was for her return, though she doubted the Dalish waited with baited breath. Her mind flashed back to the quiet evening in which she had first taken her leave. Only two elves bayed her goodbye. The rest continued to reap and sew. Oblivious to her passing. At least one cared for me.

She straightened at the door - a bolt of shaped timber cut into a five-pointed arch. Her hand slipped over the surface and she closed her eyes. Magic resonated from the wood. Runes were engraved so deeply that even the mere radiance of the sun could not decipher its placing.

"Is everything alright, da'len?" the apostate inquired, climbing down from his saddle and releasing his staff from the horse's back.

His question had come too late.

In the swerve of a glance silver glinted over nearby copses. Leaves tore from the grove like shrapnel; arrows whipped from leather backs, and drawstrings cracked in a wide berth. Silence fell over the company, bitter and unsweet. In another flare their staffs were snatched from their fingers, dumped before the clan's main door.

Jaras hissed when his own bow was torn from his shoulder and thrown into the dirt by a red-sashed brigand. He growled, thrusting the arrows from his chest. But then the sliver of a blade slunk up his throat, bobbing in sequence with his adam's apple. The brigand tsked, snickering when his victim's tongue forked out to wet dry lips.

Though Jaras was the one that was safe. The same could not be said for Lahris, who prickled under the foreign breath of a swamp witch. Hands braced over the door, breath held back, she felt long fingerstips draw her cowl down to her shoulders and swipe her hair leisurely to one side.

"An outcast, a thief and a flat-ear. Andruil has shined her cunning this day," the swamp witch jested, arching the elvhen's back with the point of an arrowhead. "And here I thought this day was to be a tiresome one. What strange company you keep, Elgar'shiral. How strange indeed."

"I see you never tire of your tricks," Lahris replied, wincing under the chill that coursed down her spine. "Mythal'enaste. You have gotten better at hiding."

"And you've gotten ignorant of your surroundings, lethallan. But that hasn't really changed, has it?"

"Has it not?" Lahris reached up, curling her fingers back to present the glimmering crackle of a spell confined. She felt the arrowhead freeze and grinned. "As the shemlen lords say in Orlais. Touché, Velani."

"Hmph. And I feared your time with the shemlen would make you soft." The Dalish scout released her friend slowly, grasping her left hand and twirling her around into an embrace. Lahris choked, lightly weaving her arms around her. "T'is good to see you again, lethallan! Too long has it been. You must share your tales of the beyond. What was it like? Are the shemlen as crude as we know, or as timid as the Keeper would have us believe?"

Lahris grinned at the fair-haired maiden, noticing that her locks had been recently chopped to reach the length of her ears, framing her long face in wavy curls. Tanned, tall and svelte. There was a reason why she was the lead scout on the Sahlin Clan's raids, and why she always brought back the grandest game. As shown by two hunters wrought in steel like fisher's mail, with a stag haunch between each elbow.

The clan would feast heartily that night. Mythal blessed us indeed with calmer skies, she thought, nipping her lip when her stomach growled low, fierce. Another day and I may have ate Jaras' stuffed hare hat.

Velani grinned. "You sound hungry enough to eat the entire bulk! Good thing this was part of a two day heist, then, or we'd have to tear you out of the clan so the children could eat."

The thought made Lahris cringe, though the mere mention of food had the scouts lowering their arms and sheathing their arrows. Velani twisted to Jaras, whom with the shiv of a blade under his chin, barely managed an awkward gulp.

"What's the matter, lethallin? Fen caught your tongue?"

"Always delightful to see you lass," he muttered, cringing when the silver nipped his chin.

Velani reached up to languishly pet the hunk of fur falling from his forehead to lower back. "Down boy."

He growled, snapping his head to one side. "Damnable lass."

"And you." She sauntered up to Solas, strong hips in sway. She leaned down to his shoulder, sniffed thrice, then scowled. "Really, Elgar'shiral? We already have firsts and seconds under the Keeper as is. But another clever-man? We thought the dwarf enough."

Lahris frowned. "Dwarf? What dwarf?"

"A lot has happened since your leave, sister. Come, let me show you."

To her surprise, the inside of the clan had changed since her last venture into Dalish borders. A settlement of timbered huts draped in bright red sails, the Sahlin clan was only a small company of elves, halla and farmers all safely tucked into the surrounding ringfort of elven craftsmanship. When she had first chose to leave, the surrounding pillars had only just been built. Now nature had claimed much of the rest, solidifying the very fortification within clustering vine roots and spindleweed.

Varieties of metal - bronze, gold, even emerald veridium - had been woven into the homes, reinforced the pallicades, shining bold in the evening dusk-light. There were even kilns outside many of the homes with racks of clay, flint and resin from neighbouring pits. Pots decorated pillared podiums, painted in a similar fashion to the ancient elves and their murals. Mosaically symbolic.

Farmers soon rose over their fields upon spying the newcomers to their little sanctuary. Ears pricked from home steads. Curtains were tugged apart from open panes. Doorways were inched just a little further inward while bright eyes shone through the dark like tiny mountain cats.

Lahris curled her shoulders in and tied the ends of her garment so close together that she appeared more of a widow than a young woman bright-eyed and keen to be home.

Velani tapped her left shoulder, causing a stammer in her walk. "They're just curious, lethallan. Outsiders are rare in these parts, and many never thought you'd return."

"I remember the first time they saw me coming down the mountain, Velani," she sighed, ducking so far down that her cowl shielded her face in shadows. "Their faces have not changed. My return will not sway their hearts."

"But you're grateful to be back?"

She nodded once, rising over the rune-paved steps towards the grandest home thatched from the bark of old aravels - landships - and torn sails. The public monestary. Angled in the likeness of a chipped boulder, many rose lattices crawled along its spines and shoulders. Birds roosted in the quiet rookeries adorning its crannies and smoke rose from the chimney stacks in high waves.

Baby halla grazed by the doorstep, only baying the new visitors a kindly sniff before returning to their pastures. Velani knocked on the Keeper's door once. Inside they passed through lilac silk and entered into a place filled with the smokey aroma of candled incense and pelted rugs. Lahris shrugged off her mantle, hooking the hood over a bent wicker armchair.

While Velani walked further inside, Lahris wandered over to the shivering flames of a fireplace and bowed to rub her hands in its heat. Shadows of animals quivered over the mantle. An antlered halla figurine, bowed wolf, dashing hare, wide-winged owl, twin ravens joined by a branch… altars to the pantheon.

Her fingers plucked the birds to observe the patterning spirals cut into their conjoined wings. Her mind recalled a time sat by that fire with the ravens in hand, listening to the ballads her Keeper sung throughout the long winters accompanying their land. Her smile was small when it was returned to its place. A finger nudged it left, making its seat perfectly symmetrical to the rest.

Another set of fingers took to one of the gods. The bowed wolf. "Fen'harel," she answered, knowing the questions darkening her fellow apostate's features. "The trickster god. That is what the Sahlin believe."

"As do all Dalish, it seems."

"Maybe, though their creation story is slightly different. Are you familiar with it? It is quite the legend." Her gaze flickered to the flames, where they continued to dance, brandishing her tanned complexion in summery tones. "Long ago, there were two clans that watched over the People. The benevolent Creators and the sinful Forgotten Ones. Where the Creators strived to help the People, the Forgotten Ones sought to tear them asunder, one will at a time. When the humans attacked, Fen'Harel made a truce, for he was deceitful and cunning like the wolf.

"He told each the other had forged a weapon to end them. He told the Creators it was forged from the heavens, and told the Forgotten Ones it was hid in the abyss. And when the gods sought them out, he tombed them all in the Beyond. Thus, he ended the People's future and left them to the hands of the humans. I am told the Dalish in other lands burn wolf pelts to scare away the trickster. Some even pay sacrifice…"

Upon Solas' deepening scowl, she gently touched his shoulder. "You do not believe that tradition?"

He kept his voice low, but she could sense the ire in his tone. It made her ears twitch in interest. "I simply do not make it a practise to give legend the weight of history. So many histories are warped over the centuries. How is this creation story any different?"

Lahris faltered. "I- suppose it isn't…" She sighed, feeling the fire's heat rise and fall as her hand swept over the flames. "Here, they believe Fen'Harel locked the gods away for their own safety. They believe that Fen'Harel originally sought to protect them, but when the gods found that the People were in trouble, he knew that the humans would win, and so end his brethren. And so he did what a father would do if his children were in danger. But with the Creators gone, the Forgotten Ones took a rise to power.

"So Fen'Harel also trapped them away from the People, and in doing so willingly spared them from their destruction. But he caused the end of the elves by other hands. And he did so with a mournful smile."

"From compassion stems the foolish of minds, weakest of souls," echoed wisdom through the hall, by a mage whose noble sentiments sprang like embers through the chimney. Lahris stared at the Keeper having fallen mute, for melancholy clutched her lithe neck tight. "Fen'Harel greets us every third quarter-moon. He is a testament to a god's fallen mercy. We strive to learn and grow as the Brecilian, but do not let our hearts will our minds. Mind over feeling, always. That's how we survive."

Solas scowled at the words born from the great bear of an elf before him. Though dressed in a unique type of robed finery for a Dalish Keeper, his manner of standing held an elder regalness to it that not many men, nor elves, possessed. It was a proud standing, much like Solas' own, only aided by the woven cane in one veined hand. His left leg did not crinkle at the knee. Fused, set and arthritic. The other would go some day.

"A noble seminment from a story filled of half-truths."

"Yet we strive to learn the fullest truth that can be found, Solas."

The apostate's eyebrows drew close. "How did you come by my name?"

The Keeper curled a finger in, whacking his cane before his toes and using its orbed pommel to lean forward. "I listened through the doorway, lad. Curtains rarely hide the noise I'm afraid."

"Ah."

The Keeper groaned in the sudden embrace of a hug that was far too swift for even he to have seen it coming. Ash never smelt so good. Lahris wound her arms tighter, clutched his higher back with kneading fingers.

She rose and fell with his hearty bellow, and closed her eyes when his hand came to pet her hair. "Aneth ara, Elgar'shiral! Lass, you have been far as of late. But it does these old bones good to know you are here safe."

Lahris smiled, wiping a stray tear with her sleeve and slowly leaving the warmth of her mentor. "Keeper Athron… adaran atish'an," she bowed. "You look well. The herbs staved the illness?"

"As well as Sylaise herself could have brewed, my dear. But, tell me what brings you here. Am I correct in thinking you have been cured?"

Her smile quivered momentarily. He frowned deeply. "I feared as much." Having seen the others in her company, he gradually returned to full height. "So, you have returned our hunter and brought an outsider to our midsts. Velani mentioned your clever-man. Is this true? Do you wish to learn from us?"

Before Solas could answer, Lahris interjected. "I may have lied. It is not wisdom we seek, Keeper. It is more. I wish to speak with you alone. There's much to discuss."

A wary glint crossed the Keeper's face. Tapping his cane twice, he bayed everyone to leave the monestary other than her and carefully sat in his wicker chair amongst the flames. "Tell me all then, my dear. You have my undivided attention."

She told him all that had transpired since her leave. Of the Inquisition, of the fires at Hillbreach, and of the lack of understanding in her curse.

Though she did not mention her journeyings in the Fade, nor of her vision that brought her there. Through it all Keeper Athron listened, worrying the bark beneath his fingers until a small pocket had grown in their place.

He sighed heavily at her ending, rubbing his bristled upper lip. "You know more of that temple than any other, dear one. You've seen the horrors that dwell within. My hunters have only scratched the surface since your departure. We've found derelicts in smaller areas, as you have seen around you. Our clan is growing, but we are running short on the materials our forefathers possessed. I wonder why you wish to go back there. You did promise yourself, yes, 'never again?' Or did my old ears deceive me?"

"They did not, Keeper."

"Then what's changed, lass? Something is different with you. I see it in the fires."

She sifted through the ash with a poker, watching the flames prance to her leisure. "I do not wish to die."

"And you fear this will happen should you not get your cure. You sense it's in that decrepit place, don't you?" He extracted a curious flask from his inner breast pocket, dangling the amber liquid towards the firelight before indulging in a long swig. "Why is it that the Creators choose to put the answers to our prayers in the bowels of hells instead of lush fields woven in wheat?"

A scent of rotten beeswax filled the room. Lahris gagged, smothering her nose with her sleeve. "Dirthamen preserve me, what is that smell, Keeper?!"

"A little concoction to stem the tide, lass. The basics, truly. Honey, elfroot… blood lotus… deathroot."

"Deathroot? But that is poison!"

"Last time I saw you, you could barely concoct a stew never mind a health poultice. Alchemy is not your forte, so I'd suggest keeping the judgment to yourself. The last I need is for the lovely lass Velani to hover over me like a babe-less crone." His grin twisted into a grimace. The fireplace shivered in his spit. "Damnable slime! I… never said I was any good at it."

Lahris shook her head, smiling. He will never learn.

Then, all of sudden his mien twisted somber. "If you're serious on returning to that wicked place, child, I cannot stop you. That place is your history. T'is not meant for my eyes just yet. But you must be careful. Wolves have been seen delving within, and haven't been coming out."

"What do you mean, Keeper?"

He tapped her foot with his cane, beckoning her mind and ears to listen. "There's a dwarf in our borders. I had a mind to bay him farewell and let him be at the mercy of the wilds, but he spoke of the temple. He came across it, you see, with a merchant's wagon. Hoped to reap, plunder and spoil, the sodding fool. Seven dwarves went in. Only he came out."

"What did he say?"

"He spoke in wild ramblings. Took our healer three days to get any coherence from his tongue. But he spoke of voices in the halls, and death in the sanctum. Worse, he saw a spirit that spoke to him only once. It said…"

Keeper Athron hastily took her hand in his; traced small circles over her knuckles, watched her face uncertainly, for she saw he had questions, ones that perhaps even she knew not the answer of. "It called your name, child."

Her face paled. "My name?"

"Not the name we gave you. The name before your rebirth. Var'sulahn."

She jerked from his touch. Rose to meet the fireplace. The altar to Dirthamen cloaked the mantle in sister wings. Each raven stared at her through red-painted eyes, only for their left eye to wink green concurrently. Pain flared along her arm - swift - blistery. The black markings pulsed their hue, caught even underneath the cotton of her sleeves.

Lahris cupped her face, inhaling deep. "How, Keeper? We went together. No one survived the temple. Only I."

"The dead need no excuse."

He reached for her hand and kissed her knuckles. "I'm afraid I can offer little aid in your endeavour. The clan will not permit the gifting of supplies to you, other than food and water. You need not go, but something tells me you will. You never listen to reason."

She did not hear his words. Her mind was in the temple. Thoughts on the spirit. Her fingers twiddled with the hem of her gown while he tipped her chin up to catch the firelight. "The dwarf is in the courtyard. Speak to him before you go, Elgar'shiral. But please, be careful. There are many dangers to histories, just as there are worse things than what pride can bring."