I usually have childcare a few hours a week, which is when I do most of my writing, but my person tore a ligament in her foot. I think I managed something on the order of 3 pages this whole week, so...it may be another week until I update again.

Unwind

"Will a day be enough rest for them?" I asked Cullen as he began gathering up his papers. I had briefly regretted not taking the Warden-Commander's suite for myself once Leliana and Cullen arrived, as it had become clear we needed somewhere to hold private conferences. But this tower was serving well enough, and according to Cullen's plans, we wouldn't be at Griffon Wing Keep for long.

"It will have to be," the Commander replied heavily. "We dare not delay and risk this ritual going forward, especially now that this Livius Erimond knows you are on his trail."

"And knows that he told you far too much," Leliana snorted. "Dorian was right: there appears to be an overabundance of cliched villainy running rampant among the upper echelons of Tevinter society. Imagine being fool enough to actually answer all those questions you asked."

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," Cullen declined dryly. "I'm sorry I can't stay and talk more about your clan," he told me.

I waved the apology away. "Making sure everything is organized is much more important at the moment. I'm grateful to you both for remembering them at all in the midst of this."

"Inquisitor…" Leliana began reproachfully.

"I know, but I can still be grateful," I told her, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out.

She shook her head. "Your clan is still safe. Cullen's soldiers have secured the area surrounding their camp - "

"The elves who marched with my men have made themselves useful in camp, from what I understand," Cullen couldn't resist putting in as he headed for the door. "They speak well of your Keeper, though I hope she won't be put off if some children result from their stay."

I laughed. "Children are precious among the Dalish, and the opportunity to bring new blood into the clan without the risk of venturing into hostile shemlen cities is rare. If you've heard of romances blossoming, I assure you that Deshanna has probably been hard at work observing our soldiers and pairing them off with likely partners for whatever assignments they're given. My clan actually likes taking in outsiders," I added. "If they can handle our lifestyle, anyway."

"Your clan may eventually expand by several members, then," Cullen told me, pausing at the door. "After the flight from Haven, I don't think many of our people will be surprised by what life among the Dalish entails."

That was true, though the trek to Skyhold had been more of a sprint than a test of endurance - but we had also done it through the mountains, with winter coming on, without proper preparation, much further south than my clan's range extended. I would give the soldiers staying with my clan a higher chance of acclimating that I would give most non-Dalish elves.

Leliana tried again as Cullen finally made it out the door: "The soldiers have secured the area, freeing more of my agents to continue making inquiries in both Wycome and Ansburg. Jester has determined that the 'bandits' are paid mercenaries, but hasn't yet finished tracing the payments, though I hope with additional personnel that task might be finished before we return to Skyhold. I can, however, make no promises. For all we know, your clan is being targeted because they are are your clan, and the money could be coming from beyond the Free Marches entirely."

I nodded soberly - it was a possibility that had always existed, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if the attacks were motivated by the usual sorts of things that motivated attacks against Dalish elves - and then glanced towards the door. It was never easy to read auras through solid objects, but I could do it, and the fact that Cullen was - or at least had been - a templar helped. "He's gone," I assured Leliana. "Blackwall?"

"Not named Blackwall," she said. "My agents believe he is a former member of the Orlesian army - a man named Thom Rainier. Rainier and a handful of trusted men massacred the family of one of Celene's supporters early in the civil unrest that Gaspard de Chalons has more recently escalated into war. Gaspard denounced the killing, but there is no reason to believe he didn't order it. Chevalier Robert Chapuis, one of Gaspard's staunchest allies, admitting to giving the final order, but the funds he offered to entice Rainier and his men into following it were…somewhat greater than the state of his finances would have made practical. He - ostensibly - committed suicide after his part in the affair was discovered."

"All right - but how did Rainier come to take on the guise of Warden Blackwall?" I asked.

"That I cannot say. Perhaps he murdered Blackwall as well - he would have had motive had the Wardens conscripted him," Leliana offered, her voice impassive.

"Something in there doesn't fit," I said, trying to arrange the pieces into a story I could believe. "Why murder the Warden and then pretend to be him, apparently going so far as to take on his duty - and then join the Inquisition?"

"He might have simply needed a new identity," she replied.

I laughed. "There have to be safer ones than recruiting Warden and member of the Inquisitor's inner circle," I argued. "I know you weren't there when we fought Widris, but...she nearly erased him - and she did it because he tried to save Sera." I paused, thinking it over, and Leliana waited. "I suppose we'll have to ask him, but I think it more likely that he meant to join the Wardens, but something happened to Blackwall before they were able to go through with the Joining. It may be he couldn't find any other Wardens after that - look at how much trouble we've had, after all."

"That's a relief," Leliana said, and her voice was warmer than it had been a moment before. "Charter and I reached a very similar arrangement of facts and conjecture as the best fit for Rainier's behavior since joining our ranks, but you know him better than we do."

"You haven't spoken to him about any of this?" I asked her.

"No - nor have I told Cullen, nor had him removed from his position under some other pretext," she answered. "If you will take my advice: wait until after the assault on Adamant to reveal what we have learned. Not only will his help be welcome during the actual battle - "

"Afterward, we'll know exactly how corrupt the Wardens have become," I finished for her, "and so it will be easier to determine whether to encourage him to join them or look for another solution."

Though she was too far away for me to see her smile, I heard it in her voice: "If it's true he was promised to the Wardens, allowing him to join would be the neatest solution to the problem he represents. I'm glad we are in agreement."

"Thank you for being flexible about this."

"Flexibility is my job, Inquisitor," she pointed out.

"I suppose if it were 'strict adherence to principle,' that would rather usurp Cassandra's role in the organization," I allowed dryly, and then took a breath. "She won't be happy about his lies. He doesn't have Varric's charm, and she never dragged him in for interrogation or stabbed his book, so he can't hold that over her."

"Don't expect her to forgive him," Leliana advised me. "She likely won't. It doesn't mean they can't both be of use."

"I know," I assured her, though I wasn't looking forward to having to take them places together. It was already bad enough when Blackwall couldn't avoid Dorian or Vivienne, or when Sera began trying to antagonize Vivienne, or when Vivienne started trying to give Solas advice on his casting. And Solas wasn't much better than Vivienne when it came to Bull and the Qun, or Sera and her rejection of all things elven. At least Varric more or less got along with everyone, and it was amusing to know that he scribbled down notes whenever two of the others started sniping at each other, as evidenced by the frequent scratch of his pencil against the pages of the notebook he carried everywhere.

"I have news of our research on the Void, as well," Leliana told me, recalling me from my reverie.

"You didn't want to discuss that with Cullen here?" I asked, somewhat surprised.

"It makes him tense," she told me dismissively, "and he ought to focus on the battle ahead for now. Fiona, as you know, located the Circle where Widris spent her apprenticeship, but it does us little good as it burned during the conflict. Only one of her instructors is known to have survived. He claims he assigned our apostate the same texts he does all his apprentices, and there is no reason not to believe him. They are standard fare, and many copies are available. Helisma is examining them for possible coded references, but there is an excellent chance that it all leads nowhere."

"Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected, given the damage wrought by the war," I said. "What of Solas's titles?"

"Most of them unheard of," Leliana told me, and I could hear the wry smile in her voice. "Dorian has managed to locate a few in Tevinter, but we are still negotiating for their release from the archives where they are housed, and may need to send agents to retrieve them personally."

"That will take months," I observed with a sigh, "and we'll be sending them into hostile territory."

"I have a few contacts who can handle it," she assured me, "but not quickly. Our most promising lead is actually the potion. Its ingredients are exceedingly odd - more mineral than vegetable, and unraveling the mechanisms by which it functions stymied all our best alchemists." Her voice became satisfied and I thought I detected a hint of a smile: "Until, at least - on a whim - I brought it to Dagna. There is, as it turns out, a legendary rune that dwarves typically don't speak of to outsiders. It's called The Well of the Sky, and though there is no doubt it once existed, records of its exact making are fragmentary. Even so, they bear a striking resemblence to the ingredients of the potion Widris used."

"Does The Well of the Sky sound more ominous to dwarves than to us?" I asked. "Because…"

"Much more ominous, or so Dagna assures me," Leliana replied. "The rune was forbidden because those so much as wounded with a blade worked with it invariably went mad - as the did the bearer of the blade after an extended period of use. It is said they began dreaming."

"Which echoes Solas's claim that even dwarves could use the Void to access the Fade," I observed. "Can we learn anything else about it?"

"Dagna has written to some of her family that still speaks to her, requesting the intervention of the Shaperate in this matter. Though they're insular, my name appears within their records, and that may be of some use, as will news of what Widris tried to do, and how she did it." Leliana answered. "Dagna believes they may cooperate with us, at least to a degree, for the chance to learn more."

"Well, it sounds as though that path will also be a slow one, but at least we're making some progress," I said. "You're doing good work."

"Thank you, Inquisitor." She hesitated so briefly that I wasn't quite certain whether it was a hesitation at all, and then said: "There is one more matter that I ought to bring up. Perhaps it won't have occurred to you, but traveling with the army is not quite the same as traveling with your inner circle or my scouts. You will need a commander's tent, and...you shouldn't be sharing it with anyone else."

I spent a moment blinking, caught off guard by the subject.

"There is nothing wrong with your attachment to Solas, of course - it's only that putting aside such comforts as we face down battle is a good example for those you lead," she explained.

A sudden thought made me laugh. "Cullen made you tell me this, didn't he." Picturing him trying to get through an explanation for why I couldn't sleep with Solas, while also trying not to acknowledge that he knew I was sleeping with Solas, sent me into a fit of giggles.

"He never made it through the full request," she replied dryly. "I volunteered when I understood what he was asking - I didn't have all day to wait for him to work up to saying it."

"I understand," I assured her. "A Keeper and any apprentices they have usually share an aravel separate from all the rest of their families - officially, I mean, and also in reality any time there's clan business to see to. I'll miss the warmth, but otherwise - it's fine. It's only a few days."

"I told him you weren't going to argue," Leliana said with a soft chuckle.

"Which would have been more reassuring for him, no doubt, if my propensity to argue had been the main problem," I replied, "rather than his embarrassment over having to acknowledge the situation at all."

"True," she allowed, her chuckle expanding into a burbling laugh. "That's all I needed from you, Inquisitor. I know you have your own concerns to oversee before we leave tomorrow."

It was true. My concerns weren't many, but they were important - some of them important to me, if to no one else. Leliana had brought a letter from Deshanna; I wanted to read it and leave a response with the spymaster before I ran into Adamant and Creators-alone-knew how many demons. Dagna had sent items worked with the runes I had requested for Varric and Bull - I would need to test their effectiveness. And then there was the matter of choosing members of my inner circle to accompany me wherever duty ended up taking me. Blackwall needed to stay with the soldiers under his command, of course. Cole was still a spirit and possibly susceptible to whatever horrors the Wardens were engaging in. And Cullen had asked if he could take two of my mage companions to oversee some of the Circle mages who were less accustomed to battle magics. I had been happy to cede Vivienne to him, but I wasn't certain Circle mages would take kindly to being ordered about either by an altus from Tevinter or by an elven apostate. I needed to discuss the matter with Fiona before I gave Cullen the go-ahead. He might not have thought through the politics of mage hierarchies.

Testing the runed items was the most pressing matter, so I started there, retrieving Bull and Varric to stand around in the courtyard for me while I scrutinized them, cast light spells to highlight them, and then, ultimately, pulled them through the Fade. Varric was no trouble. Bull's mass was great enough that, while I could Fade-shift him, it was draining and I could only move him a fraction of the distance I could someone like Solas or Cassandra.

It was still an undeniable improvement.

Settling the question of the mages was required to settle the question of who would follow me around Adamant, and so I went to find Fiona next.

"After what occurred with Alexius, your concerns aren't misplaced - or wouldn't be for any Tevinter mage other than Altus Pavus," Fiona told me. She was helping the healers dry and fold boiled bandages so they would be ready for use. I took them as she finished and packed them for her, placing muslin bags filled with blarast and dalavaria in between. "Stories of what the two of you did to free us from our contract with Alexius have spread, and his demand that the Inquisition treat us as allies has become an entire speech on the rights of mages. Some," she sighed, "are even saying that he is an avatar of Archon Hessarian to your Andraste, here to redeem Tevinter from its sins and excesses."

"Creators have mercy," I groaned.

"Though I don't let the stories spread openly, the apprentices are fond of them," she told me. "And discipline rarely stops such whispers."

For a moment I debated the wisdom of telling this to Dorian, but I knew I wouldn't be able to resist. The chance to see him collapse with laughter was too good to pass up - even if odds were high he would be insufferable about it afterward. "What's next? Casting Solas in the role of Shartan?"

"Maker's mercy - don't even say it aloud," Fiona hissed.

"Ir abelas," I apologized. I helped her finish the bag she was packing, and then went to find Cullen to tell him that he could put Dorian in charge of some of the mages.

Once that had been accomplished, I borrowed the lap desk Vivienne always traveled with and retreated to my room to pour over Deshanna's letter. Most of it was concerned with the trials they had been facing at the hands of the bandits - two of my clanmates had been killed, and Deshanna wanted me to know. The rest, though, was so complimentary that it made me blush. She was impressed by the professionalism and courtesy of Leliana's agents, as well as the eagerness of Cullen's soldiers. She said the elves who stayed with the camp spoke nothing but praise of both me and the Inquisition I had built, and were happy to do anything asked of them. She approved of my freeing of the mages and told me that she was certain Mythal, wherever she was, was smiling to see such a grave and long-lived injustice righted.

My eyes didn't remain entirely dry. I couldn't respond to all the compliments - I had no idea what to say - but I promised to pray to Falon'Din for the souls of our departed lethallenen and begged her to write to me if there was anything else I could do for the clan. Then I told her about meeting Hawke, celebrating Satinalia, Solas's unexpected gift for painting frescoes in the ancient style, and both my successes and failures in my first fight against a high dragon. I left out everything with the Wardens. There was a chance I would tell her some of it later, but we were still in the midst of dealing with the problem, and I didn't know what I could safely say.

Solas came in as I was finishing my letter, which was convenient since I needed to let him know he would be sleeping alone for a few days, and, in light of that change, I also wanted to make a request.

"That is entirely expected," he told me when I repeated what Leliana had said. I was sitting at the foot of our bed, but the lap desk didn't leave much space for him to sit beside me. He chose to sit on the pillows at the head. The mattresses weren't thick enough for his taste, and none of them were filled with feathers - just straw and wool fluff - but the pillows were down, and he seemed to find them satisfactory as a place to sit.

"Led a lot of armies, have you?" I teased him.

"Led? No," he replied, with a slippery feeling that told me he wasn't telling the full truth. "Marched with, however? More than I care to remember."

I sighed, wondering if I should tell him that I wasn't going to let him pass off statements like that as being "too painful to discuss" forever, when I knew the real reason for his reticence lay elsewhere. I settled for staring at the blur I knew to be him steadily until his discomfort grew to large enough proportions to satisfy me. "Will you let me into your dreams?" I asked when I felt I had kept him squirming - metaphorically, of course - for long enough.

"You want to tryst in the Fade?" he asked, half teasing and half testing me.

"Not in the sense of meeting to have sex. Not here," I assured him. "I presume you know more about it than I do, but with all the spirits unsettled by and demons drawn to the Venatori blood magic…" I shrugged. "Not here." I paused, weighing my words - and then decided that it didn't really matter what they revealed about my feelings for him. He knew anyway. "I simply don't want to lose that much time with you."

In spite of knowing how I cared for him, my words stung him, somehow. He got up and approached me by coming around the bed, lifting the lap desk and setting it aside on the floor. One of his knees pressed into the mattresses beside my legs, and he bent over me, taking my face in his hands, his feelings both deeply pained and wistful. "Perhaps we ought to make use of this room while we still have it," he suggested, his voice rough with everything else he wanted to say, but probably wouldn't.

There were things I wanted to say, too, but I held them back because I knew he would reject any verbal comfort I tried to offer. I could already hear his dismissal: You are hardly in a position to judge, ma vhenan . Instead I raised my face so he could kiss me, slid back on the bed so his body could cover mine, and helped him strip me of what I was wearing.

We missed dinner, but we made very good use of the room.

Blarast: Lavender (lit. clean-flower)

Dalavaria: Spindleweed