It wasn't a week! But now I really need to finish more writing.

Suspicion

We returned, at last, to Skyhold.

I spent the weeks between meeting Stroud and returning to my fortress keeping a close eye on Blackwall, trying - and failing - to detect some sign of the Blight within him. It wasn't something I wanted to bring up in camp, and it was generally too cold to invite him to walk and talk about something that might end up being unpleasant, so I held off. My intention was to speak with him immediately on our return, but that tentative plan collapsed when a runner met me at the gates, falling in beside Sylalhan and looking grave - I could see her expression now that I was once again within Skyhold's wards. "Your advisors request your presence immediately, Your Worship. Something has come up that requires your attention."

That was ominous. I dismounted, tossed the reins of my hart to a waiting stablehand, and hurried toward the keep.

Josephine, Leliana, and Cullen were all waiting for me in the war room. I suspected all of them were various degrees of "tense" based on Josephine's expression - the only one I was near enough to read - and the fact that Cullen was actually pacing. "I'm here. What's going on?" I asked.

"Your clan has come under attack," Leliana told me without preamble.

"We tried to send word to the Crossroads, but you had already left," Josephine added, handing me a letter.

It was from Deshanna. I skimmed it, wondering if it represented the situation accurately or if things were worse than she was admitting. On the one hand, I thought things would have to be bad for her to call on me for aid. On the other, she wasn't prone to either exaggeration or downplaying problems. "How long ago did this arrive?" I demanded, feeling as though my lungs were on the point of freezing.

"A week, and when we realized that we wouldn't be able to get your input, we decided to act," Leliana told me. "Josephine wanted to send someone to negotiate with the duke of Wycome for aid, but I believed you might find relying on local human aristocracy...problematic. Cullen favored sending troops - which we have done - but I feared they would arrive too late to be of assistance, coming from Skyhold. I had agents in Starkhaven, Kirkwall, and Markham, and so we compromised by sending them. One is to investigate the bandits and the other five to offer whatever aid your clan needs."

I sagged against the table as Leliana explained. "Ma serannas. Any action you took would have been better than none, but you likely did just as I would have requested. Do you know when you will have word from your agents?"

Cullen stopped pacing and Leliana's voice held the barest hint of relief: "I expect at least an initial report at any day. Of course I will notify you immediately."

"All right. All right. This - this will work out."

"I'm sorry if your association with the Inquisition has made your clan a target - " Josephine began.

I laughed humorlessly. "Josephine, two clans of Dalish have been entirely wiped out in just the last five years. My position as Inquisitor may have prompted this attack - but there's a very good chance that it would have occurred regardless, and that my position may be the only reason any of my clan survive."

"Maker, I had no idea," she breathed.

"We will do our best to protect them," Leliana promised. "And don't thank us," she added as I opened my mouth to do just that. "You would do the same for any of us, no? We all know you would."

I took a breath and nodded. "Is there anything else?" I asked.

"Always, I'm afraid," Josephine replied wryly, "but nothing so pressing it needs your attention now. Please - take time to unpack and have a meal. We can meet again in the morning."

Though I nodded, I found myself eyeing Leliana's slightly-blurred form. I wanted nothing more than to find Solas and cling to him until we received word, but I still had other things to think of, Blackwall chief among them at the moment. Apathy born of weariness and worry threatened to overwhelm me, and I closed my eyes briefly to fight it back. "Leliana, there's something I might need your help with, though its not something we all need to deal with. A...small side matter. Could we meet in the rookery after I change into something that doesn't smell of Sylalhan?"

"Of course, Inquisitor," she replied. "I'll have the kitchens send up something for you to eat, if that would suit you."

"Yes, thank you," I agreed, even though I wasn't all that hungry. Josephine was likely to fret if she heard I hadn't at least tried to eat.

Solas was waiting for me in Josephine's office - I had been so preoccupied by my own fear in learning about the trouble my clan was having that I hadn't even noticed his corresponding concern. "Vhenan," he greeted me, the endearment also a question.

My advisors were still in the war room, so I went to him, relieved to have his arms around me. "Someone is attacking my clan," I explained. "They," I waved generally toward the war room and my advisors, "have done what they could and exactly what I would have asked had I been here, but - " I shivered and didn't finish the thought. My voice sank to an unhappy mumble: "Creators, Solas, what if I had put off replying to the letter Maela sent any longer? She might not have told me at all."

"I don't believe that is true," he told me, hands rubbing my back soothingly. "You said the words yourself, did you not? The Dalish are a model for stubborn survival - a fact I have had more than one occasion to be grateful for these past months. Your Keeper would have told you anyway, because another course would have endangered the clan."

I laughed into his shoulder. "Solas, was that a compliment? For the Dalish?"

"There always have been aspects of the Dalish culture which demand respect," he replied. "I was a fool to let resentment shape my judgment so entirely as to blind me to that fact." One of his hands came up to cup my jaw, tilting my head so I would look up at him. "If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours, they possess something of undeniable value."

"Now you're just flattering me," I accused him.

"Arasha, I am not - though I believe I will have to begin, if you have so much trouble in discerning flattery from simple statements of fact," he said, smiling down at me fondly.

"Well," Leliana's voice said from near - or perhaps within - the corridor leading to the war room, "I begin to understand what our Inquisitor sees in her Fade expert. Beyond the obvious, I mean."

"Is any part of it in the least obvious?" Solas replied, releasing me now that someone else was present. I stepped back a little, my ears hot.

"Oh yes," the spymaster answered, walking a few steps closer. "Whatever Dorian would have the rest of the world believe, sometimes understated elegance is far more attractive than flashy showmanship. And anyone who can make your habitual choices in dress appear elegant - as you often do - is certainly demonstrating considerable proficiency in the art. And now I learn your words are every bit as graceful as your person." Her next words were for me: "Of course you are smitten. Who wouldn't be?"

"The vast majority of people who have met me," Solas answered for me, his tone wry.

"Ah, but you save that charm for those discerning enough to appreciate it, no?" Leliana prodded. "Our Inquisitor is...quite remarkable in that regard."

It was too much. "I'm going to change my clothing now," I told them.

Solas followed me up to my chamber, apparently uninterested in continuing his conversation with Leliana - at least without me there to embarrass. I couldn't tell whether he was also disconcerted by her observations, or if that was just my emotion enveloping both of us.

The remaining furnishings had been completed while I was gone, and now everything I could see of the room at any given time was pleasant and cozy. Solas chose a chair so his back would be towards me as I undressed and washed hurriedly in a basin of water left for that purpose. It had been left recently; I didn't need to use magic to warm it.

"I don't care if you watch," I told him, somewhat amused.

"If I were to watch you, do you believe you would be leaving to meet anyone, at any time within the next few hours?" he asked as I finished drying and pulled out a clean shift.

I supposed that was a good point.

"Stay here and relax, if you like," I told him, my voice slightly muffled as I began dressing. "I can have some food sent up for you." There were always runners hanging about the rookery.

He hesitated. "I fear I've reading to do."

"What I have to tell Leliana shouldn't take long, and then I intend to return here." There were entirely too many laces present on everything I wore, and had I been anywhere other than Skyhold, I probably wouldn't have bothered with half of them. But I supposed I couldn't run around the keep looking like I was only grudgingly seeing to my duties, preferring to be in bed with Solas - even if it was, on some level, true. I chose stays with more structure than I usually bothered with since the fit wouldn't need to be as precise to offer support and make me look like I was better than half dressed. "After returning, I mean to be naked in fairly short order," I added when Solas still seemed to be wavering. "If you're that eager to return the library, I can always see to my own needs, but I confess I thought you would want - "

I looked up from knotting the end of the cord of my stays and broke off, finding Solas had risen from his chair and was approaching me with a distinctly predatory air. How he managed to look that intimidating with his shoulders loose and his hands clasped behind his back was a mystery, but it gave me chills. "You have made your point, arasha ," he said, leaning toward me. "In fact," he added, his breath tickling my ear as he bent closer, "if you make it much more exhaustively, I may not let you leave at all."

My face sought his instinctively. "I wish I didn't have to, vhenan - but I truly do need to speak with Leliana."

His tongue touched the place where my jaw met my neck, just below my ear. "I would prefer to dine on you , but I suppose a meal wouldn't be entirely unwelcome." Then he stepped back, leaving me off balance as I leaned into him. At least he caught me when I stumbled, pleased to have had such an effect on me.

"I'll return soon," I promised both of us, and left him so I could sit down and wrap my feet. Skyhold, I reflected, really was beginning to feel like home - if only because it was the one place warm enough in this season that I didn't ever have to wear boots.

I found a runner in the library on my way up to see Leliana and asked him to take a meal to my room, and then proceeded on to see my spymaster. She was waiting for me at the table in the rookery that served as her desk, enjoying a pastry from a large dish of assorted finger-foods and staring out over Skyhold's walls. Actually seeing and smelling food made me realize that perhaps I was in need of a meal after all, and so I took a bit of bread with sliced mushrooms and melted cheese, biting into it as I sat down across from her.

"Usually," Leliana said without taking her eyes from the view, "I can guess what someone wishes to speak to me about when they request a private conversation. But I confess, Inquisitor, that I am rather at a loss in this instance."

"Well, that's good, considering I haven't spoken to anyone about it," I told her. "I know everyone jokes about how you can read minds, but I think it would be unsettling to receive confirmation."

Her lips quirked in an ironic smile as she looked at me for the first time. "I imagine such an ability would be equal parts useful and uncomfortable - and it is, for better or worse, not mine."

She fell silent, waiting.

"I learned something when I met Warden Stroud," I told her after spending a moment casting about for a way to begin. "I can see the taint from the Blight."

She was frighteningly quick to pick up on my implication. "You learned this upon meeting Warden Stroud...not Warden Blackwall."

I nodded. "Now, my sight isn't flawless. Darkspawn are much clearer than Stroud, implying that the degree of taint matters, and there may conceivably be some threshold at which I become insensible to it. But Blackwall isn't a young man, and has apparently spent enough years within the Wardens to be entrusted with recruiting others - a task I doubt anyone would hand to a novice Warden. And Stroud was very clear in my sight."

"You have yet to confront him about this?" Leliana confirmed.

"Where was I to do it - camp?" I replied.

"No. No, your instincts are good," she said. "Allow me to look into this matter before you speak with him. We had trouble learning much about Warden Blackwall - other than that he is or was a real Warden. The Grey Wardens are both fragmented and insular. I put it aside as less important than a host of other concerns."

"Why wouldn't you?" I asked. "Even if Blackwall is lying about his name, the help he has offered the Inquisition is no lie." I remembered his cry as Widris attacked him - his aura beginning to fade as she manipulated the Void to erase his existence. And that was only his most recent act of heroism. Hadn't he walked beside me into Redcliffe Castle? "He has been more than willing to lay down his life for the rest of us. There is no lie in that."

Leliana inclined her head. "An important point to keep in mind," she allowed. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Inquisitor."

I took a pastry filled with some sort of meat from the tray. "Sathem lasa halani. I think we have a little time here at Skyhold, but I'll go to the Western Approach without Blackwall if necessary."

She rose. "A good plan. I have some letters to write. Feel free to take some of that back to your chamber...if you would prefer."

She gave me a saucy smile and a small plate, and I began selecting a few things that I thought Solas might enjoy sharing with me.

Sathem lasa halani: Pleased to be of assistance