This week was a shitshow in terms of my writing productivity. Let's never speak of it again and hope to whatever gods we pray to that next week is better. At least next week I should have childcare.

Judgment

Of course, William "Demon Expert of the Kirkwall Circle" chose that moment to approach us, ignoring Cassandra's shouted warnings. It appeared she had confiscated his staff - likely all their staves - and so she didn't seem to consider him enough of a threat to restrain him with force. "You did it! Th-thank you. We would not have risked a summoning, but we were attacked by bandits - "

Solas rounded on him without hesitation. "You! You tortured and killed my friend!"

"W-w-we d-didn't know what the b-bindings would do!" William stammered. "The b-book said it could help us!"

"All you pathetic Chantry sycophants! You crush whatever you don't understand - " He gathered together the power to strike down the helpless mage, his rage and pain cascading over me. Vaguely I understood that I should intervene, but I couldn't for the life of me think of a single reason why.

Cole's hand landed on my shoulder, and something he did created a brief space between Solas's feelings and my own. I took a deep breath with the sudden impression that I had been breathing in time with my beloved, and my lungs were only just rediscovering their own proper rhythm. "Stop!" I cried.

I didn't entirely expect him to listen, but Solas hesitated, giving me time to stumble between him and the other fool of a mage. Dimly, I recognized that Cassandra and the other mages were hurrying over, but all of my attention was on Solas and maintaining some vague sense of the emotional border Cole had delineated for me. I hadn't experienced Solas's emotions as overwhelming enough to effectively erase my own since the very first time his skin had touched mine, and I had nearly forgotten since it had only happened once.

How much had he been holding back, I wondered? Was this result only because his grief was so profound that it held depths beyond anything I had experienced in my somewhat shorter lifetime? Or did he always feel things this strongly, and now that his control over those feelings had slipped enough, the outpouring was sufficient to drown my own feelings?

"Inana." My name was a warning, snarled from between clenched teeth.

"Is this really what you want?" I demanded, my real feelings on the subject beginning to unfurl in a confusing mass that I didn't yet have words for. "You want them to die here, their only punishments for killing Wisdom the worthlessness of their lives and the obscurity of their deaths?"

"And what other option do you propose?" he retorted, as though he expected the question to reveal the impossibility of other options existing.

"A trial in Skyhold," I shot back, "where the crimes of enslavement and murder of a spirit can be read out in the open. A trial where we can make it clear that when I said the Inquisition was for everyone, I wasn't speaking only of the people on this side of the Veil. I meant everyone."

I wasn't standing close enough to see his face with perfect clarity, but I did see his lips part in the same slack surprise that reverberated through our bond. "A trial," he repeated before suspicion closed in again. "And what penalties are available for such crimes?" he asked. "Death?"

My feelings began to crystallize. "No," I told him quietly, but with increasingly implacable conviction. "Not unless there is no other choice to protect others. This - this isn't really different from the Wardens causing Hawke to sacrifice her life."

"Wisdom made no choices!" he very nearly howled. "They tortured her!"

"Very well, then what of Celene?" I asked evenly, beginning to understand my feelings better as I found the principle behind them. "Going to Halamshiral is effectively offering her an opportunity to redeem herself after her burning of the elven quarter there. None of those people volunteered, either. Many, I'm certain, were tortured - raped and beaten, and some no doubt had ears cut off as trophies. Why do we offer Celene a chance like this? Because she's an empress? Is that the principle we wish to operate under: that those with sufficient power deserve opportunities to atone while those without should simply be eliminated?"

"Very noble, Inquisitor," he shot back. "And how do you intend to apply your principle to Magister Alexius? Whatever hurt he caused you, does he not deserve the chance to…better himself?"

I took a step back as much from the force of his bitter resentment as from the words themselves. His regret followed almost immediately, but just because he had said it to hurt me didn't mean it wasn't true.

"You're right," I said in a near-whisper, and then cleared my throat, uncertain he had heard me. "You're right," I told him more firmly, and raised my chin. "I will write to Josephine as soon as I have a chance, and request that she stop dancing with Ferelden and acquire Alexius so that I may judge him. He's too dangerous to be allowed to go free, but I will find him a place where he can be of use." Though the Imperium had officially condemned the magister's actions, airing his crimes in public and then either executing or imprisoning him was still apparently a diplomatic nightmare - one both Ferelden and the Inquisition had been trying to avoid by insisting the other had jurisdiction. From what Josephine said, King Alistair might very well weep with relief if I took the problem from his hands.

Solas went entirely numb in the wake of my decision, and I couldn't tell whether it was shock, or whether he had realized how much of his emotion he was pouring through our bond, and had decided to use whatever means necessary to stop. "I am…sorry, vhenan," he told me heavily. "Do as you will with them. I - need some time alone."

"All right," I agreed, forcing my voice to remain casual even as I gave him a sharp glance. "I will return to camp, decide how to send these mages back to Skyhold, acquire supplies for a few days, and find you."

"Alone, Inana," he repeated.

"You will have several hours alone, and after I join you…" I took a breath. "Well, I suppose you'll still be alone. You'll just be alone with me beside you to keep watch while you sleep."

"I - " I could tell he felt he should protest, perhaps should feel resentful again, but his resentment came across a great deal more like relief. "Ma nuvenin," he said at last.

"What she wanted most for you was that you wouldn't be alone," Cole's voice said from somewhere nearby, though I couldn't see him.

I turned to look at - or at least toward - William. "Inquisitor?" he whispered.

I inclined my head, but Cassandra approached with the other mages in tow before I could find anything to say. I heard Solas retreating swiftly.

"Inquisitor," the Seeker said as she stopped nearby.

"You don't approve of my plans for the mages?" I guessed, rubbing my forehead with one hand and abruptly feeling exhausted. I assumed she had heard. They hadn't been that far away and Solas and I hadn't exactly been keeping our voices down.

"That isn't the case at all," she said, surprised. "I find your adherence to principle…admirable. I admire it," she clarified, perhaps fearing that I would take the more restrained statement as a protest or back-handed compliment. "I am merely concerned with logistics. How will we deliver these people safely to Skyhold?"

"We'll have to send some of the soldiers," I replied with a long sigh. "It will slow everything down, of course, but I don't see a way around it. One of you will have to go, too - to command them." I paused thoughtfully. Under other circumstances, I would send Solas because, much as I would miss him, I trusted him more than any of the others. That clearly wasn't feasible in the current situation. "We have extra mages…" I said, and then realized I was approaching the problem all wrong. "Vivienne. Vivienne can go with them. She is accustomed to being in charge of mages, and isn't overly burdened with sympathy to begin with - once she hears that they have been practicing blood magic and are being sent to Skyhold for trial…"

I didn't need to send the person I trusted the most to conform to my wishes, I needed to send the one whose interests already aligned with my wishes.

"Are you certain they will arrive…in a condition to stand trial?" Cassandra asked, evidently surprised by the choice.

I shot an exasperated glare in her general direction. "Of course they will. Vivienne appreciates few things as much as a spectacle. Think of how it looks to have the Inquisition catching and passing judgment on blood mages."

"I don't believe she will find your views on redemption and rehabilitation especially persuasive," the Seeker pointed out wryly.

"She doesn't need to know how I will judge them - at least not immediately," I told Cassandra. "Though it might be best if I spoke to her of it before the actual judgment occurs."

"How will you judge us, Inquisitor?" a new voice asked, or - not entirely new. After a moment I placed it as the mage who had been limping earlier. "If death isn't an option, what is? The Rite of Tranquility?"

I recoiled in instinctive horror. "Creators, no! If you force me to kill you by continuing to harm others, I won't do it by half-measures. You will either live or die - I won't condemn you to the twilit realm between the two."

There was a small wail and I thought I heard a sob. "Merciful Andraste," someone breathed.

"I will need to speak to Fiona in order to devise an appropriate task with the proper amount of oversight for you," I told them, realizing that they didn't deserve to be kept in suspense. "I don't imagine it will be pleasant , and the stigma of 'blood mage' no doubt less so, but as long as you work to improve the world rather than using others for your own gain, I will do my level best to protect you."

"I'm - I'm so very sorry that we corrupted that - that spirit," the woman who seemed to be speaking for the rest of them said. "Once you released the bindings, it really ceased to be any threat. We truly didn't know - no one ever told us - that they could be like - like that."

"I know," I sighed heavily, sadness over the waste of it all sweeping through me again. "Come, it will take longer to get to camp with most of us unmounted, and we must be on guard against more attacks from the Freemen."

We did run into a group of Freemen on the trek back, but they seemed to be a roving band that had nothing to do with those the mages had fought earlier, and they were quickly driven off. We arrived at camp in time for the midday meal, which I arranged for the mages to eat while I spoke with Vivienne and Harding. "I'm sorry for sending you off," I told Vivienne when Harding left to select soldiers for the escort, "but, truthfully, I likely should have sent you on to Skyhold anyway to help Josephine with preparations for Halamshiral. I am going to dress as Shartan from the famous mural by Henri de Lydes, so she is going to need all your help in balancing the rest of our company so the accusation is at least somewhat softened."

"A very bold statement indeed, Inquisitor," Vivienne said, her eyebrows arching elegantly. "And you are very correct that you will need every clever ploy we can pull together to keep it from being an affront. But do take care, my dear - the ramparts were difficult to retake even with four mages."

"I know," I sighed, "which makes this hard. But the blood mages must go to Skyhold, you are probably the best suited to escort them, and you are needed there nearly as badly as you are needed here." I spread my hands in a gesture of helplessness.

Vivenne's answering smile was pleased - and perhaps a touch smug. "Though the decision is fraught, darling, I'm pleased to be able to lift these concerns from your shoulders. Concentrate on freeing Celene's forces, and let me worry about Halamshiral."

Harding rejoined us, then, carrying a list - there were three former templars among our forces, and she wanted my approval to include them in the escort. I gave it, and she left again to hand out orders while I turned my attention to collecting the gear and supplies Solas and I would need for a couple of days away from camp - food, water, and a few various potions that might prove helpful, in addition to a tent and bedrolls. I also dashed off a quick note for Josephine asking her to obtain Alexius for the Inquisition.

With arrangements for the mages settled, Cassandra had time and attention for disapproving of my plan to join Solas while he mourned in private. She approached me as I was packing Sylalhan - I would need him if I wanted to carry a tent and two bedrolls. "This, I don't approve of," she told me without preamble. "You are too important to risk losing, and there is still so much to be done to pacify this region."

"I know," I told her. "But Solas deserves his space, we need him to take that space safely, and I'm the only one he's likely to allow within reach. We will look after each other, Cassandra." I drew in a breath, my hands stilling on the straps I had just finished tightening. "As for the region - we can't do much while the bridge is being repaired - " Harding had confirmed that the retreating soldiers had destroyed it behind them, " - which will take at least two days. Probably more now that I'm sending half our soldiers away," I added ruefully. "But we will return in two days. I know the timing isn't ideal, but - "

"Tragedy's timing rarely is," the Seeker allowed sympathetically. "Do you know where Solas went? You're certain he wouldn't change his intended destination in order to be entirely alone?"

I didn't need to know where he had gone - I could follow the pull of our bond. "He wouldn't," I reassured Cassandra, ignoring the first question. "It would leave me exposed, and he would never risk my safety that way."

"No," she agreed, "I suppose that is one constant we can count on. Very well - two days and no longer. I imagine that Harding and her scouts could track you if necessary."

I swung onto Sylalhan's back and smiled down at her now-blurred face wryly. "With Leliana's training? I'm certain they could." Then I turned my hart's nose in the direction the shivas'lath tugged me, and we set off.

Ma nuvenin: As you wish