Note: I'M ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE! I am so sorry for the unexpected hiatus. I moved to a new country, moved back, no big thang. I tried to work on new content but it was a bit hectic during that time. ANYWAY, I did write new stuff - WOOHOO! And now it's posted!

VERY VERY IMPORTANT: this chapter got ridiculously long. Think fire-alarm-REDONK. So I cut it into chunks, with like 6 new pages added to Chapter 6. YOU SHOULD GO READ THAT RIGHT NOW before digging into this chapter. This chapter will still be here! Go for it!

Warnings: graphic violence and descriptions of body parts. It's not Tarantino-level gore, but more descriptive than previous chapters. Also, minor character deaths. You've been warned.

Chapter 7: Haven, Goodbye

Eve did not stay inside the Chantry.

With Ivanna's lyrium pooling in her stomach and chasing away her headache, Eve had done what she could for Lysette. She had pushed the slick edges of Lysette's skull together while ignoring the blood and straw-colored fluid gushing over her fingers, and fused the fracture shut. At some point, she had had to pause to order onlookers to either stop gawking or point their puke outside of the treatment area. After that, she had had the vaguest sense of time passing as she darned tears and plugged holes in Lysette's head. In comparison, knitting the ribs and encouraging the buildup of blood and fluids in the lung to recede back into the veins had taken no time at all. But no matter how many times she had tried to revive the downed templar, Lysette did not wake.

At least she was alive and whole. Lysette's life force no longer flickered and now held a steady glow. Following the Sisters' directions, Mattrin and Dorian had carried her through a side door and down into the dusty depths of the Chantry. There among the huddles of villagers waiting out the battle, they had found a quiet spot to lay out the templar. Eve had been surprised at the sparkle in Mattrin's eyes as he thanked her profusely, going so far as to clasp her bloodied hand.

Brimming with mana and with a victory under her belt, Eve had asked to be taken to Seggrit. She had just healed a cracked skull so the brain hadn't slithered out; a swollen mouth and larynx would be far simpler.

Except that she was too late. Villagers had pointed to a small storeroom, where in the far corner someone had fashioned a small fence of crates and knick knacks. Curled up behind them was Seggrit, slumped against the wall. A quick glance at the grey pallor under his mottled skin and telling silence filling this dusty corner immediately told her that she'd taken too long. Staring at Seggrit's heart sitting like a stone in his chest, Eve reminded herself that blaming the templars wouldn't bring him back; but it drove home the fact that she had to ditch her templar watchdog and leash at some point if she wanted to do some good here. Distantly, Eve remembered the vigorous look of contempt Seggrit had worn earlier; in death, his slack face took on the uniform emptiness of all corpses.

Seggrit may have died but his attitude towards receiving her or Dorian's help lived on among the villagers. No one took up her offer of healing, though it seemed like most of the villagers had retreated into the bowels of the Chantry in relative safety. Surprisingly, the best reception had been the injured soldiers who had started to cluster around the Chantry doors to wait for her. Some had required some persuasion to let Eve anywhere close to their gaping wounds, but between her and Dorian's sharp tongues and Mattrin's firm insistences they had begrudgingly relented. Eve had set to work, with Dorian and Mattrin assisting by sorting out who was dying fastest and holding limbs still or staunching wounds.

Eve had had every intent to 'work and stay inside the Chantry', but that had been before the earsplitting roars followed by two earthshaking rumbles. She, Dorian, Mattrin, and the last injured soldier had burst outside the Chantry to stare at towering tongues of fire licking at the night sky, incinerating broken buildings and throwing the village into harsh relief.

Now… she had no idea what to do.

Shivering in the bitter wind, Eve goggled at the blinding conflagrations. It looked like an abomination had erupted in the village square, one of those incandescent demons of rage trailing a skirt of white-hot lava and incinerating everything in its path. But try as she might, she couldn't hear their signature hair-raising howl… so what had happened? Did that mean the Venatori were inside the village? The sounds of fighting seemed to have died down, but did that mean that they were winning or losing? Should she go find those soldiers and help them there, to give the village and the Herald a better chance? She didn't want to sit around in the Chantry waiting for the Venatori to hunt her down like a rat. Close by, Mattrin and the other soldiers had gathered to murmur among themselves, casting worried looks out into the night.

Eve almost jumped when Dorian clamped a bloodstained hand onto her shoulder. "Did you - did you see that?"

Her heart ratcheted into a frenetic jig at the slight catch in his voice. This was the man who had displayed more alarm at the lack of bathtubs in Ferelden than the Venatori snapping at their heels. "What? What is it?" Eve turned her eyes to the sky as he was, though there didn't seem to be anything to see through the snow besides thick clouds and a faint, pearly shimmer from the moon. "Is it-? The Elder-?"

"No, no. I just thought I saw a dragon, is all," he answered with a careless wave. "Must be finally losing my mind-"

An ear-splitting shriek like metal being torn in two pierced the air. A ball of fire lit up the sky like a midnight sun, framed by two large flapping shadows. Another metal-tearing shriek rent the air and the ball of fire soared through the sky, erupting in the distance.

"Venhedis lassa," Dorian swore.

"Crud cakes," Eve agreed faintly. What else could you say to a motherfucking dragon attack?

The soldiers around them were in a panic, clamoring among themselves as Rude Orlesian tried to keep order. Mattrin reappeared out of the fray and shoved a couple bread rolls into her hands before she could even think of protesting. "Eat those. And stay here in the Chantry," he said, swinging his shield off of his back and readying it on his arm. "Take care of the villagers!"

"Where are you going?" Eve shouted as Mattrin jogged towards the village, a handful of soldiers falling in with him. "Are they going to fight a dragon?" Eve demanded to no one in particular. "They're going to roast to a crisp before they get within a ten yards of that thing!" Eve was by no means a draconology expert and didn't think she had Nevarran ancestry, but she assumed that it would take more than poking a dragon with a sharp metal stick to kill it. And that was assuming the dragon even landed instead of raining brimstones and death from the skies. Did that make the soldiers incredibly courageous or incredibly stupid? Or just garden-variety suicidal? She couldn't decide.

"Come," Dorian said, plucking a bread roll from her hands and waving it towards the Chantry. "I am not going to die without a ring of Venatori ashes around me and to do that, I need my staff. You need to get downstairs-"

So, she wasn't alone in thinking that this was it. She tried to swallow around a suddenly-parched throat and ignore her twisting stomach. "I'm staying out here," Eve said, stepping out from his grip. She searched his face, committing the dark fire of his eyes and the concern pinching his brows together to memory. Dorian's 'dastardly Tevinter villain' look had grown on her from his rakish hair to the stubble that had grown since their escape. His chin was still red from when he'd irritatedly pawed at it earlier. "The soldiers out there will need me," Eve explained, gesturing vaguely in their direction with the remaining bread roll before stuffing it into her pocket, "You go find your staff. I won't wait around in a cellar when I could have done something."

Dorian looked almost mutinous and suddenly eyed her right ear as if he'd really like to pull her into the Chantry with him when the dragon shrieked again. It sounded closer this time and they instinctively searched the sky for a hint of its large shadow. "Fine," Dorian griped. "You'd better be here when I get back! Remember, you are patently not allowed to die!" Dorian called before he vanished into the Chantry.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rude Orlesian shouted as Eve darted by. Eve ignored her, summoning a sheath of warmth around her as she followed the soldiers into the biting cold.

The village had seemed small and rough on the way in; now, alight with fires and empty of goggling villagers, it was a strange landscape strewn with dancing shadows. The snow was churned with mud and shouts drifted from the distance. The closer ones came from archers, Eve realized; humanoid silhouettes shot from wooden struts built just below the spikes of the palisade. They didn't seem to notice her as she hurried by, focusing on keeping her footing as she followed the slushy trail of the soldiers' footsteps.

Eve heard the soldiers' heavy armor before she saw them. Firelight gilded the heavy plates as they jogged past a large burning loghouse, the stamp of their heavy boots almost masking their coughs from the heavy smoke. A wooden sign that had not yet been eaten by the blazes proclaimed the building as The Singing Maiden. She trotted along slowly, keen to go undetected until they reached wherever the fighting was - then she could try to sense if there were any injured soldiers nearby and slip away. As long as she kept out of the major fighting, she could hopefully make a small difference in the tide of the battle.

Just as she drew even with the loghouse, Eve felt an insistent tug. Slush and mud sprayed as Eve skidded to a halt. Staring into the bright flames ravenously devouring the wooden walls, Eve stretched her senses - and felt a flickering answer.

Maferath's traitorous balls. Someone was trapped inside. And not for a leisurely nightcap.

"Hey!" Eve shouted over the crackling roar of the fire. There was a large gap where the wall had crumpled inwards - but between the thick, cedar-scented smoke burning her nose and the air rippling over the leaping flames like a mirage, she couldn't see anything. The spark of life was low and still - what if the person was pinned under something? "Can you hear me? Come toward my voice!"

Was that an answering cough? A roof shingle fell at her feet, the shower of embers startling Eve almost ass over kettle. Heart hammering in her ears, Eve checked around for any skulking Venatori soldiers then flung magic at the gap in the wall. Columns of ice burst from the wood only to hiss into steam, evaporating to nothing as flames sprung back up. Gritting her teeth, Eve flung more ice until she was growling wordlessly in frustration. She frantically wracked her brains for a more useful spell - but what else did she have? If a patient needed to be burped or changed, Eve had spells to fix that at her fingertips and so much more. But she hadn't needed to master ice spells further than cooling body parts, and only because she hadn't wanted to lug ice packs from the Circle store rooms in the first place.

Eve's ear pricked as she heard a faint cry over the crackle of burning wood. She faced the crumbling tavern as sweat poured down her sides, the magic stuttering in her shaking hands. Dreading what she'd find, Eve felt for the life force - for a second she couldn't sense it at all. It stuttered, like a hot coal hissing in water before it extinguished.

Shit.

This was usually the part in the stories where the hero girded their loins and charged in to save the innocent townsfolk. And yet, as the roof sagged in on itself and sprayed sparks into the night, Eve could not make her feet budge any closer to the gaping, fiery maw. Someone was searing to a crisp in there... but she knew with cold certainty that she would only become another roast ham if she stepped foot inside.

Eve dealt with aftermaths. She was good at that. No matter how puffy or singed the elf was after another inevitable fire in the alienage, she'd pressed poultices to their singed limbs or sawed feverishly through charred bones to save what she could. And if they'd resembled little more than crumbling skeletons, well… that had been for their families to deal with. If only the patient were outside the tavern!

Rocking on her heels and yet unable to budge an inch further, Eve knew that she was being a coward. A smart, selfish coward nailed to the mud, watching a life force unfurl into the Void because she couldn't make herself go inside. At times, Eve had idly wondered if she could have been a primal mage or one of the fabled knight enchanters if it had not been for Empathy answering her call all those years ago. When it came down to the wire, would she unearth steel beneath the poultices and bandages? Would she find a hero within herself like the legendary Wynne of the Fifth Blight, or tenacious in the face of uncertainty and furious templars like Fiona?

Throat thick and eyes blindly fixed on the flames, Eve knew that the answer was no.

"-SCUSE ME!"

Eve only had a second to gape at the bright silhouette wreathed in flames before a figure charged out of the gap in the wall. Ashes shook off of the soldier's plate armor as he collapsed into a nearby snowbank with a clatter. Heaving with coughs, he rolled to the side revealing a woman curled up in the snow beneath him.

"Holy- are you alright?" Eve demanded as she hurried over.

The soldier waved her off, coughing. Coughing was good, it meant a clear-ish airway so she focused on the woman lying beside him. Tan skin, short brown hair, puffy red face and angry red burns criss-crossed her arms and chest. Her once-white shirt was in tatters, her corset hanging off of her shoulders by one strap. A long and wide burn with straight edges had branded itself across her back. A plank had been pinning this woman down, Eve thought as she summoned a torrent of magic and poured it into the woman's windpipe. Ears full of the woman's whistling and hacking breaths, Eve concentrated on fighting the inflammation in the woman's windpipe until someone smacked her arm.

Eve ignored it; the inflammation was stubborn. It was like trying to cool a hot kettle by pouring cold water over it - it had to boil the heat away before the water inside calmed. But Eve was even more stubborn and had a decent pool of magic to quell the insistent burn-

A strong hand gripped Eve's arm and pulled her to her feet. "Mage," the soldier said hoarsely over Eve's protests, "Please return Flissa to the Chantry. The enemy forces are getting through the palisade. They were right behind me-"

Eve tried to shake the soldier off. "This woman needs more healing before she can be moved," she insisted, quickly checking the soldier over. He had lifted the visor of his helmet to gasp in fresh air. Finely arched brows, pale skin under the streaks of soot, nose as straight as an arrow and thickly-lashed, pine-green eyes. A young man? His voice sounded young, clear and high under the rasp-

"Herald!" A soldier in heavy armor called as he and a stocky dwarf in dark leathers barreled around the tavern as the roof finally collapsed. The dwarf held some kind of metal and wood tool clutched in his broad hands.

"They're coming 'round! Curly's bringing up the rear- shit." The dwarf planted himself in the middle of the path, aimed the contraption to Eve's left and a sharp snap whipped through the air.

The Herald? Eve couldn't help but stare as the Herald slammed down her visor and unsheathed her sword, turning to rush down the path towards three charging figures. The Herald was here, in the fray like any other pair of boots instead of shouting orders safely from behind three lines of soldiers in the Chantry - that's how nobles usually worked, didn't they? What was this noblewoman doing in battered armor, gallivanting through burning buildings and rescuing the common folk? This truly was the end of the world. Unless she had mistakenly recognized some other female soldier as the Herald, which was entirely possible given that they were in the middle of a fight now-

"Hey, you two!" the dwarf shouted, shoving something into his contraption and lifting it up to his broad shoulder again. "Get your asses through the workshops to the Chantry - path behind us is blocked!"

"Workshops?" Eve muttered, looking around frantically. The path split at the palisade, one way wrapping around the burning tavern and the other curving up on a rocky hill, the top obscured by a low stone wall and skeletal trees. She had had the barest glimpse of this village when she and Dorian had been marched in and no one had graced them with a welcome tour. Flinching as more fighters rounded the burned-down tavern, Eve threw up a barrier and hoisted the woman - Flissa - to her feet. Eve almost wilted with relief when the fighters didn't spare them a glance and ran to the Herald's aid instead. Flissa wasn't healed as much as Eve would like, but they didn't have time to spare for Eve to fix every single problem in her body when the Venatori could charge in at any second. Flissa could walk and talk so they needed to get to safety, now.

Clasping the gaping front of her corset to her chest, Flissa pointed up the rocky path. "This way," Flissa coughed.

Eyes darting everywhere and trying to ignore the mantra of ohshitohshitohshit galloping through her head, Eve trotted up the steps roughly hewn into the hill then screeched to a halt. A battle raged between three rough wooden shacks with a curious clearing in the center of the fray. Soldiers roared and whacked each other with swords and shields, lightning bolts and ice burst through the crowd; it was chaos. Eve couldn't tell who was on what side.

Flissa grabbed Eve's arm and pulled her toward the pointy swords. "There's a path around the corner-"

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Eve demanded, digging in her heels. Why was everyone still pulling her around? "We have to go back-"

A tongue of bright blue fire caught her eye. The roof of the workshop at the far end was ablaze, the dancing flames flaring from orange to green to blue and back again. The open doorway was guarded by an elven woman holding a staff, a glimmering green barrier keeping the Venatori at bay. A bald and bearded man appeared behind her with a battlecry, whipping a glass bottle full of dark liquid into the melee - and Eve watched as it bounced off of a crested helmet, gracefully spun in the light, then landed in the center of four large clay pots.

The next second, Eve was flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her. A deafening ringing echoed through her head even though her ears felt like they'd been plugged with beeswax. She vaguely recalled that there had been an explosive BOOM a split second before she'd been flung through the air like a doll. At least the barrier had taken the brunt of the impact. Groggily, she stared at the stars and morosely wondered how she turned out to be such an idiot. Go warn the Herald, Felix had said. We'll save them from the Elder One, Dorian had said. No one had said anything about being accused of being spies, getting locked up, and exploded. Aftermaths, Eve thought as she woozily sat up, I should really stick to aftermaths. I'm not cut out for this shit.

What had once been a little square between workhouses was now quiet, except for the multicoloured fire crackling on the flattened shack on the far side. Smoke curled up from a crater in the center of the battlefield, the surrounding soldiers either still or moaning in the mud. Someone was sobbing quietly. Eve quickly squelched a roil of nausea when she realized that the unlucky bastards closest to the crater had been blown into chunks.

"Ser mage!" a hoarse voice called. A figure was rooting through the wooden planks of the burning shack, the flames lighting up the ragged white bodice sagging around the figure's shoulders. "-found Adan!" she called, "They need help!"

Eve was about to snap back that they were the ones who needed help - they had just been blown up for Maker's sake and they were sticking around like ninnies in a temporarily quiet battlefield surrounded by enemy soldiers who could spring up to kill them at any moment - when the body nearest to her arched, gasping.

Eve scrambled back in an awkward crab-walk. Cotton-mouthed and trembling with adrenaline, she was nearly on her feet when the firelight sprayed off rubies encrusting a cheekbone. Eve's eyes focused; the body transformed from a nameless writhing casualty into a wild-eyed woman pouring blood from what had once been an arm. The other hand was outstretched, the air shimmering and distorting around the splayed fingers-

With a shout, Eve dove to the side and blindly cast a spell of paralysis. The mage shouted incoherently with fury, but didn't budge another inch. Snapping a barrier around herself, Eve cautiously shuffled forward on her knees, uncaring of the brown slush of mud and snow.

"Helena?" she breathed.

Helena glared at her, rich walnut skin flushing as she struggled against muscles that no longer obeyed her commands. Her thin lips were frozen in a snarl, the ruby red crystals erupting from her skin almost as if her blood sought to leave her body. She looked half-starved, as if the red lyrium were sucking the muscle and fat from her body and growing a garden from her bones. Back in the Spire, Helena had been unassuming and kind, always quick to praise a student's efforts and compliment the kitchen staff on the daily gruel. She and Eve had sometimes shared tea after a long day of lecturing rowdy apprentices, laughing at the squabbles of the day in the third floor enchanters' lounge. Randolph would sometimes pop in during their chats, showing off his privileges as her student, and sometimes the nights would be cut short when Turin called for assistance in the clinic-

Eve jerked up to her feet, straining her neck as she squinted around in the flickering shadows. Was Randolph here, in the ring of tangled and strewn limbs? Helena couldn't possibly the only rebel mage to have made it this far-

"SER MAGE!" Flissa called, the urgency in her voice ratcheting up as she struggled to pull something from the wreckage. "Please, they're badly burned-"

-what if he was here? What if he was emptying out his lifeblood in the square like Helena, staring up at the cold and distant stars through the warp of a concussive shroud? What if he had been standing too close to those nondescript pots and-

Staring into Helena's hazel eyes, Eve made a decision. Reaching inside herself, she called forth Empathy.

The little square lit up as bright as day as the spirit bloomed to fit just under her skin. Glyphs and sigils flowered in glowing calligraphy in her mind's eye, layered over and through each other as the spell branched out until it enclosed itself in a scripted circle. Eve knew her part and obeyed Empathy's instruction without hesitation. The Veil fluttered under her fingers, never-calm and always rippling; it was flimsy here, wide swaths of it as thin as a pleural membrane. Eve grabbed a fistful of the Veil and deftly twisted it just right; magic cascaded through the spell, torrented through her body and flooded the square.

The bodies closest to her were hit with the first wave. Helena's outstretched arm jerked as the forearm fracture healed itself straight; the dark, steaming puddle underneath her halted in its tracks. The man laying next to her startled awake as his nose snapped back into place; another soldier close by struggled carefully to his side, gawking at the scar tissue springing into the holes in his mangled ankle. Eve couldn't see every single break or tear; but she could sense them fixing themselves, the magic radiating outward from her body. She could even sense Flissa and what had to be the bald man and elven women she had been helping through their rapidly healing burns. Eve concentrated on holding the spell together and allowing the magic to channel through her until the whisper of hurts dimmed in her mind.

Eve blinked as she drew the spell to a close, the magic leaving her almost empty of mana. She let Empathy go with a silent thanks, and felt a warm caress in return. The light faded from her skin as the spirit withdrew back into the Fade but it was enough to survey her handiwork. Helmets bobbed as soldiers started to wake up and push themselves up from the ground, the shuffle of plate armor bringing the battlefield back to life. Their life forces shone brighter than before she'd cast the spell; there were at least ten people solidly planted in the land of the living now.

Now, all she had to do was sort out the Haven soldiers and rebel mages from the Venatori, paralyze their asses and get everyone else to the Chantry. Easy peasy, right? And it looked like the two people that Flissa was helping were already climbing to their feet, so Eve didn't have to worry about them.

Wondering how she was going to move Helena when she was paralyzed, Eve turned to the rebel mage and just barely had enough time to register that the mage was drawing back on her newly healed stump, any flicker of recognition absent from her gaunt face as an intense ball of magic coalesced around her hand aimed right at her face-

Helena's head whipped back in the next moment. The threads of lightning coiling around her hand died as her body fell, slack. Eve's brain distantly registered that the thing now lodged inside Helena's left eye looked like the back half of a short, stout arrow.

"Hey, newbie!" a gravelly voice called from behind, "Nice lightshow, but you realize that half these blighters aren't ours, right?" A sharp twang split the air and a second later, a Venatori soldier struggling to get to his feet collapsed back into the mud.

The next arrow glanced off of the immense barrier that Eve had conjured up as she leapt to her feet. "STOP!" She cried out, curving the barrier so it fit around the battlefield behind her. "Stop, at least long enough so I can find the mages!"

A barrier had also sprung up around the group of approaching soldiers - probably cast by the tall, bald elf in roughly woven robes. His modest wooden staff cast the same green glow that the barrier shed around them. Standing in front of him was a dwarf - the same dwarf who she'd seen just before the explosion - along with a few humans in armor. They were close enough that she could see them casting confused looks at each other from their defensive stances.

"Ser mage," the slightest of them all stepped forward, her voice hard, "explain why you are protecting the Venatori."

"We do not have time for you to give every single person a fair trial," a taller soldier snapped in a harsh accent Eve couldn't place. She stalked forward, the eye painted on her shield seeming to glare accusingly at Eve. "She is clearly the spy we suspected her to be. Let us kill her and be done-"

"I am not!" Eve shouted. A small, slightly hysterical part of her was calculating and recalculating the odds of her survival because by the Maker's foulest morning breath, the laws of the cosmos seemed determined to lay out her bones for the birds tonight. "Look, alright-" she dissolved her barrier, the translucent shell melting away so she stood alone without a spark of magic, "Just listen to me for a minute."

Eyeball Woman made an impatient noise. The soldier who Eve now realized was the Herald held out her arm to bar anyone else from marching forward. "You have ten seconds."

Shit. Where could she even start? "I am - was - a rebel mage but I escaped them to warn you about the Elder One. I wanted your help to save the other mages since they are being controlled by the Elder One with red lyrium," Eve said rapidly, noting that the dwarf took a half-step back in surprise. "It's liquid power, like holding a dragon inside of you and they are addicted, controlled by him. He's the one who drugs and supplies them so now they do whatever he asks instead of helping you, which is what they originally wanted."

A stunned silence greeted her words, punctuated by another snap. The dwarf shrugged unapologetically as another Venatori slumped to the ground.

A soldier built like an oak door and sporting the bushiest beard that had ever bearded scowled. "You aren't making a lick of sense," he said flatly.

Why wasn't there a wall conveniently close by so she could bang her head against it? "Right," Eve grit out, "Let me summarize: I just want to help whatever brainwashed friends I may still have in this pile before we make it to the Chantry."

"Then why heal these Venatori along with them?" Bald Elf asked shrewdly.

Eve deflated a bit. Yeah, that had been a dumb oversight on her part. "I couldn't tell which dying person was a Haven soldier and who wasn't," Eve admitted, lifting her chin even as her cheeks heated up. "It was quicker just to heal everyone."

"And what was the second step in this brilliant plan?" the dwarf deadpanned. He was getting to be a pain in her ass.

Eve crossed her arms to try to regain her poise but shivered in the bitter cold instead. "Sort out the good apples from the rotten, slap on some magical bandages on the good, paralysis glyphs on the bad, and hightail it to the Chantry?" she offered.

The Herald ignored the sounds of disbelief from her team and waved them forward. "Great," the Herald said, unsheathing her sword as she marched forward. And even though the barrier broke off to follow her, she kept her shield between her and Eve. "Then you won't object if we execute the rotten apples and help our men to safety."

Eve clenched her jaw at the word 'execute'. "As long as I can sort through them with you and help any rebel mages I find," she said tightly. "I will, of course, heal any Haven soldiers and villagers that need it as well." Or try to, anyway. Her mana was drying up after tapping into Empathy, as it usually did. But the Herald and her stabby friends didn't have to know that right now.

"Thank you for your offer," the Herald said courteously as she passed.

"But you aren't going anywhere," Pain in the Ass finished. He aimed his contraption at Eve, a tired grin curving over his strong jaw. "Just in case you change your mind," he explained lightly, though his aim never wavered, "I mean, I can't help those guys walk anyway, what with these short legs, but I can watch you at the very least-"

"Herald!" Dozens of soldiers rounded the bend lead by Lionhead. He slowed when he spotted the dwarf, then Eve. "And mage…" he acknowledged her with a glare, "why are you not in the Chantry as ordered?"

"Long story," Eve muttered, stepping out of the soldiers' way as they hurried to help their fellows.

Pain in the Ass chuckled grimly and shouldered his weapon. "Curly, you used to be good at keeping the mages rounded up," he chided.

Lionhead glared down at the dwarf, seemingly about to make a retort when an earsplitting shriek interrupted him from the sky. He faced the frozen soldiers instead. "MOVE!" he bellowed.

"Wait, no!" Eve tried to object as everyone started to scramble. She couldn't see the Herald, couldn't see the other executioners. "The mages-"

Someone shoved her forward to the path - it was the Bushiest Beard. "Couldn't find any!" he shouted as he dragged along a limping Haven soldier. "Get moving!"

Any objections were drowned in the scramble. Roiling between relief and suspicions that the gruff man was lying, Eve almost fell into Flissa as soldiers barrelled past. Flissa was trying to heave her two charges to their feet; Eve fired down magic into the bald and bearded human's foot, almost severed by shrapnel as Flissa pulled the elven woman along. Surrounded by soldiers on all sides, Eve felt a bit like a minnow in a school of glittering silver fish as they jogged towards the looming Chantry.

Eve could only muster up an ounce of dread when she realized that the Chantry was under attack. She caught a few snippets of the battle: Dorian incinerating the last Venatori soldier with an almighty blast of lightning from his staff, Hatrocity lying still in the snow with sword still in hand, a Venatori soldier flying from a well-placed shield bash. But there didn't seem to be many of the opposition left - they were quickly crushed between the Haven defenders guarding the doors and the soldiers approaching from behind.

Warmth greeted her as they finally stumbled through the double doors of the Chantry. It felt like an age ago since Eve had decided (stupidly) to leave the torchlit safety of the stonework building. The bearded man lurched, sending both him and Eve to the floor as the rest of the soldiers stampeded further inside. Gasping, Eve slumped against the wall and counted her lucky stars that she was still alive to enjoy the burning ache in her muscles and the painful stitch in her side.

"Eve!" someone called. "Spirited spirit healer of all healers, we need your magic touch here!"

If it weren't Dorian, she may have pretended not to have heard the call. Then she called bullshit on herself since it sounded like someone needed help. "Over here," she croaked, easing up from her seat and shaking the fog of exhaustion creeping on her mind. "Who's this?" she asked as Dorian sidled through the dissipating throng, helping what looked like a Chantry brother over to her quiet corner.

"A brave man," he said wryly as he eased the older man into a chair by a pillar. "He stood against the Venatori."

"Briefly," the brother croaked, holding himself around the middle. Blood was blooming bright red around his clenched hands, spreading down his white robes. "I am no templar," he said ruefully, beads of sweat gleaming in the torchlight, "nor a battle-ready mage."

"We can't all be perfect," Dorian said kindly. He shot a bright-eyed look at Eve. "Glad to see you made it back in one piece. Can you help him?" he asked in an undertone for her ears only.

Eve nibbled her lower lip as she eyed the now-damp front of the Brother's robes. "Brother, allow me to help you," she said in her best soothing tone. "I need to see your wound first-"

"Herald!" Lionhead called as he barred the doors shut. His broad shoulders slumped as he turned to face the Herald, the lines of her body also weary. "Our position is not good-" Eve almost snorted at the understatement of the age, "-That dragon took back any time you may have earned us. There has been no communication, no demands. Only advance after advance," he said flatly.

"There was no bargaining with the mages either," Dorian interjected from the Brother's other side. "This Elder One takes what it wants. From what we gathered in Redcliffe, it marched all of this way to take your Herald."

The Herald had shucked her helmet to swipe grimy sweat out of her eyes. With lines of exhaustion bracketing her plum lips and looking twenty years older than when Eve first laid eyes on her, the Herald looked over her shoulder at the villagers and soldiers waiting in the depths of the Chantry. Most were human, which didn't surprise Eve - but here and there, she spotted elves and dwarves. While most of them seemed to be soldiers, she was surprised to see that the villagers held swords, shields, even gardening hoes at the ready. Some were downcast, pressing themselves into their friends' and families' sides and clutching their children close. All of them watched the woman with sweat-matted hair and battered armor with hope burning in their faces.

"If it will save these people, he can have me," the Herald declared softly. Eve coughed to cover up how her heart pinched at the raw sincerity in her voice. A cynical part of Eve scoffed at how anyone but storybook heroes could actually spew such cliche lines and swallow them, then she immediately berated herself. The noble whom she'd dismissed as the Disappointment of the Age - the Herald of Andraste - had been running around all night literally fighting off evil and rescuing the innocent. To ignore her squirming insides, Eve studiously returned to coaxing the Chantry brother's hands away from his front and finally succeeded - only to hiss in sympathy at the glistening, gorey mess spilling down the front of his ripped robes.

Eve held the brother's trembling and bloodstained hands away, ignoring the foul stench as she twisted her vision to look inside. His intestines are shredded, Eve noted clinically. This wasn't swordwork; it looked like a bear had treated this man's abdomen like a scratching post. The reek and black ooze had been intestinal contents, never meant to stray outside of the organ walls like it did now, poisoning the surrounding tissues and blood vessels. Even if she weren't achingingly low on mana, it would take hours of intense magical healing with Empathy's guidance and a vault of lyrium potions to reverse the fatal damage in this man. Over half of the Circle templars who had suffered similar wounds to this had never risen from their patient beds again no matter what she and Turin had done. Never mind that his aging body may not bear up through the healing process or that they were in the middle of a losing battle-

The brother suddenly lurched up in the chair with a cough, scooping an arm around his middle again. "There is a path!" he panted, hectic spots of pink staining his stubbled cheeks. He knocked away Eve's hands as she tried to get him to sit back in the chair, suddenly full of rigorous energy. "You wouldn't know it was there unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage, as I have," he continued, addressing the Herald and the motley group assembled around her. "The people can escape! She must have shown me - Andraste must have shown me, so I could tell you…"

"Brother, you need to stop using your core muscles if you want to keep your insides on the inside," Eve said firmly as she pushed him back. He blanched, gasping blindly at the ceiling and trying to clutch his front again, getting in her way. She had at least enough mana to scrape together a basic healing spell, fusing the rips in the skin of his intestines and abdominal muscles together to buy him a little time before he succumbed to the poison. Let the bigwigs hash out strategies and decide the fate of the people crowded under the Chantry roof; she couldn't make such pivotal decisions. She could only stave off exhaustion through sheer willpower and focus on what was under her fingers-

Eve's magic winked out from her hands as the Brother covered them with his own. For a second, she thought he was going to snap at her for using 'magic, the condemned arts'. Instead, he gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Thank you," he huffed, "It is time to start our journey. I must lead-"

"Journey?" Eve repeated blankly. She glanced around, suddenly aware of the people streaming to the back of the Chantry and Lionhead in the thick of it, shouting something about following a man named Roderick. Where was everyone going? "You can't possibly think about walking let alone-"

"Healer!" Pain in the Ass appeared at her side, pulling along the Herald insistently.

"Varric, I'm fine-"

"Ah, no. You aren't," Pain in the Ass Called Varric retorted. He turned back to Eve with a heavy brow raised. "You are a spirit healer, right?"

Eve gestured to the Brother, almost in tears of exasperation. "What do you think I'm trying to do?"

"Great. Does your little ghost pal tell you to, I don't know, kill all templars or blow up Chantries?" Varric asked offhandedly. "Cuz I gotta tell ya, that's gonna cut Ray's plan to save all our asses short if we all die here. And she needs to not have an ankle sprain to go up against a dragon."

"Injured?" the Brother gasped, struggling upright.

Outside, the dragon shrieked again as if it just knew it was being gossipped about. "It's nothing," the Herald said quickly, jabbing an elbow into Varric's shoulder. "We're wasting time here and Brother Roderick needs healing more than I do to lead everyone to safety-"

"You're staying?" Eve demanded incredulously. The Herald nodded firmly, eyes darting from the ceiling to the doors as if waiting for the dragon to burst through at any moment. The realization dawned on Eve that this woman was sincere, ready to be a distraction while everyone else ran away.

"Weren't you here five minutes ago when we were talking about all of this?" Varric asked. "She needs to be shored up-"

"I'm almost completely empty," Eve interrupted numbly, "I poured most of it into the Brother and he may still…" Shit, she hadn't known that the Herald was injured. She needed another lyrium potion, something because the Brother could die in the next hour as he lead them out of the Chantry without more healing while the Herald shouldn't die in the first five minutes of a fight if the dragon snapped her up by the ankle.

"Heal Brother Roderick," the Herald insisted just as the Brother jabbed a tremulous finger at the Herald.

"Heal her," he croaked.

Calling forth the last of her mana was like wringing blood from a stone. Feeling paper-thin and parched, Eve grasped the Herald's hand and shot the spark of magic down to her left ankle, soothing the swollen tendons back to normal.

"Thank you," Varric and Brother Roderick said simultaneously. The dwarf actually sounded genuine. The Herald nodded, gave Eve's hand a hard squeeze before she marched to the double doors, her sword singing as she unsheathed it from her scabbard. Eve wished that she could follow her, to do more to help the Herald of Andraste and the motley fighters surrounding her-

"Come on," Dorian said, marching up quickly from behind. He hoisted one of Brother Roderick's arms over his shoulder and helped the older man out of the chair while Eve quickly helped with his other side. "Evidently, we've got a village to lead."

Note: Okay, so... no promises, but I hope to upload chapters more regularly from now on, since I'm back on home turf. Perhaps not weekly, but I'll do what I can. Please leave a review! They help speed up the writing process it's scientifically proven okay? Thank you!