It was decided that they would leave for the Hinterlands in one week's time. The intervening days were dedicated to preparing for the journey. Thanks to her new religious title, Jane's recovery and training were the Inquisition's highest priorities, and as much as Elizabeth detested letting Jane out of her sight, she ended up passing most of the day alone. She found herself wandering the woods for herbs, building up her magic's strength, and learning to build armor with Harritt.
The smith was grateful for the help. He was a practical man with a rough demeanor, and an excellent teacher.
"Frankly, there's not much sewing and this have in common," he told her during their first lesson. "But being good with your hands is important, and we have more soldiers to outfit than smiths to outfit them."
By her third day, she had finished a pair of not-quite-symmetrical gloves for herself, the left one a little too tight and the right one a little too loose. Harritt assured her that the leather would adjust to her hands, and was pleased enough with her work that he suggested she add weapon making to her schedule when she returned. "You seem a quick enough learner. We're understaffed and it's not like we need the Sulevin Blade for every soldier around here."
"I'd be happy to help," she replied.
That evening, Varric made good on his promise and introduced her to Solas, who was as cold and arrogant as she had expected. When she told him that she would be joining them in the Hinterlands, a flicker of disapproval passed over his face. No matter how many times she reminded herself that she and Jane were in his debt, she could not quite raise her opinion of him. Fortunately, once she had profusely thanked him on both accounts, he seemed to consider the matter at an end, and acted as disinterested in striking up an acquaintance as she was. Besides nodding at each other when they passed, they did not interact.
The night before they left, as Elizabeth wrote a second, more detailed letter to their father in their hut, Jane appeared beside her. Elizabeth noticed she was fidgeting with her braid and looked up.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Lizzie, do you-," Jane began. She paused. "What do you think of the Commander?"
Elizabeth knew her sister well enough that this was all it took for an astonished smile to spread over her face.
"It's not like that!" Jane insisted, blushing in a way that made Elizabeth think it very much was like that.
"He's a good man," she said.
"He is," Jane agreed.
"And handsome, too," Elizabeth said.
Jane's blush deepened. "He's very good at what he does, but still kind."
Elizabeth had not spoken to him much, but what she had seen supported her sister's opinion. She'd particularly noticed because he was so different than the man Varric had portrayed in his book. Then again, she assumed that Varric had exaggerated quite a few things about Kirkwall.
She put her quill down, unable to keep the grin off her face. "Then I give you my full permission to fall in love."
"Don't tease me, Lizzie. I've only known him a week," Jane said, exasperated. "You're so much like Father sometimes!"
"Given our choice of role models, I'll take that as a compliment," she replied. "But when did this start? You have to tell me everything!"
"There's nothing to tell," Jane said as she sat on the edge of the bed. "He's quiet when he's not talking about the troops. I mean, he's training me in fighting, of course."
"That must produce some conversation."
Jane shook her head. "Less than you would think. It was easier at first, before I- before…"
"Before you started liking him," Elizabeth supplied helpfully, and she nodded. "Have you flirted with him? Has he flirted with you ?"
"Not really," she said. "Yesterday, I made a joke, and his smile lingered in a way that made me think- well, I don't know. And afterwards, he seemed flustered."
"Flustered how?"
Jane looked down and twirled her braid. "His cheeks were red and he stammered a little."
"Oh, Jane, he's already half in love with you!" Elizabeth exclaimed at this.
Her sister scoffed. "That's impossible."
"It's impossible that he's not," she said. She joined her sister on the bed.
"You said that about Lord Musgrove last summer," Jane accused.
Elizabeth threw her hands up. "How was I supposed to predict that he preferred men? And besides, you two became intimate friends, didn't you? If he could have fallen in love with you, I still believe he would have." She grabbed her sister's hand. "Jane, you need to try and flirt with him."
"You know I can't!" Jane exclaimed, aghast.
"Just try," Elizabeth replied. "For me?"
"I'm not very good at it."
"He doesn't need to be charmed if he's stammering at you already," Elizabeth argued. "All he needs is encouragement."
Jane sighed, and then laughed lightly. "The world is ending, and here I am, fretting over how a man feels about me." She shook her head. "I have the worst timing."
"One, the world is not ending, because you're going to save it," Elizabeth said, "And two, this is the perfect time for love. You need comfort and support and to be cared for. Not to mention the pleasure seeing you in love would bring me ." She looked at her sister intently, and finally Jane relented.
"Fine, I will try to flirt with him."
"That's all I ask," Elizabeth said, satisfied she had made her point. She turned back to her desk. "Now help me with this letter to Father. I want him to tell Mother that we joined something ridiculous, but I can't decide what. The Qun? The Imperium?" she said. She tapped her quill twice. "Maybe I'll say we've become Dalish…"
"You're terrible," Jane said with a giggle, climbing into bed.
In the morning, Elizabeth went to Leliana's tent. Early on, the spymaster had been able to produce a record of the noblemen and Chantry members who'd died at the Conclave, as they required invitations to enter the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The templars and mages, however, were invited by the Divine en masse . Besides a few important names from either faction, no one in the Inquisition had been able to establish who was and wasn't there, and unfortunately, neither organization seemed eager to help provide names. "We believe they are concerned that one of their own will be implicated," Cassandra explained when Elizabeth asked why.
As information trickled in, Leliana kept a running list of confirmed names for the two groups in her tent, and Elizabeth tended to linger whenever she saw that new entries had been added. Her decision not to join the rebellion had severed many ties between her and the other mages in her Circle, so she had very little current information about them, and that doubled for the templars she knew.
Elizabeth was not the only one who sought out the list regularly; she often saw Cullen leaving as she was entering, or vice versa.
On that particular morning, two new names were familiar to her: A couple of enchanters from Ostwick. Neither of them were close friends, and she had suspected that they would be at the Conclave, since they had both been Libertarians, but seeing their names in ink still affected her. She was overcome enough to close her eyes while she gathered her thoughts.
"Someone you knew?" a voice asked from behind her, and she turned to see the Commander.
"Yes, two people from my Circle," she replied. "And you?"
"There've been a few," he admitted. They stood in awkward silence for a moment. "I hear you'll be leaving soon. May I walk you to the stables?"
"Yes, of course," she replied. As they set off, she asked, "You don't think they did it, do you? The mages or the templars I mean."
"No," Cullen said, shaking his head. "Far too many lives were lost on both sides. Whoever did this used the chaos of the war to further their own ends- to what, I cannot say." He sighed. "I had hoped reasonable people would prevail at the Conclave."
"Yes," she agreed sadly, "but they may not have, even without the explosion. The war has made some reasonable people I know do terrible things."
"That much is true," Cullen muttered. They were nearing the horses where Cassandra and Jane were waiting and he looked over towards them with a pained expression on his face.
"Cullen," Elizabeth said, softly. "I'll bring her back safely. I promise."
Cullen looked startled and then flushed. "Uh, I…" he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yes. See that you do. Lady Trevelyan is very important." His flush deepened. "To the Inquisition, I mean. And to you, I'm sure." He nodded to her and walked toward her sister to bid her farewell.
Her mind was still preoccupied, but she couldn't help a small smile from touching her lips. It seemed that she had been correct in her estimation of the Commander's feelings. With bittersweet emotions-and a little difficulty-Elizabeth pulled on her new gloves and mounted her horse.
The first leg of their journey went quickly. The Frostbacks were barren, but in a beautiful sort of way, and Elizabeth was able to explore a little with the excuse of looking for herbs. Varric scouted ahead, joining them at midday and in the evenings, and guided them around hostile Avvar holds and bandits. After a few days, they began to see civilization, and with civilization came evidence of combat. They had not yet reached the Hinterlands, but the instability of the war spread beyond the touch of the mages and the templars.
At one point, they passed just twenty miles south of Longbourn, and Jane remarked to her sister that they should visit on their way back.
The look Elizabeth gave her sister could have forged steel.
"I am not sure this would be a good time for you to visit home, Herald," Cassandra said from a few feet ahead. "There is still much work to do, and the sight of your mother may make you homesick."
Elizabeth snorted. When she glanced up, she sobered under the glare of the Seeker. "Sorry. You just clearly haven't met Mama."
As they neared the Crossroads, they rode through villages that were empty, or even entirely destroyed. With abandoned villages, of course, came the men who scared the villagers off. Varric's reports contained more and more bandit camps to avoid. For several days, they were successful in doing so, but they couldn't stay lucky forever. One day's ride from Scout Harding's camp, they were ambushed.
"Bandits!" Cassandra cried out when the first arrow neatly caught Jane's horse in the neck.
Elizabeth leapt down from her horse, a few yards behind her sister, staff in hand. Before she could even turn, she felt the chill of Solas' now familiar magic pass her. Without thinking, she raised her mana to her eyes and she saw the world glow. Now she could see the barrier that Solas had placed on Jane. Unlike the dome-shaped barriers she'd been taught at the Circle, this one clung to her sister like fabric, effectively following her movements for several moments before beginning to melt. An arrow bounced harmlessly off Jane's side. Neat trick, she thought, impressed despite herself.
Jane's training with the Commander showed, and she quickly fended off an attacker, but it was Lady Cassandra who demanded Elizabeth's attention. The woman was a force of nature. As Elizabeth pooled her mana in one hand and held her attack with her staff in the other, she saw Cassandra slice through three bandits almost instantaneously. With a tug of the Veil, Elizabeth ignited the magic in her palm and shot fire forward, sending another bandit tumbling backwards into her sister's sword. She stepped back several feet as she did so, arranging herself so she could watch Solas as he laid another barrier, this one on Cassandra. She held her fire steady on the bandit as she studied the glow of Solas's movements, her eyes following the Veil as it followed him.
A movement in the corner of her eye alerted her to a fifth bandit, a woman rushing at her sister from behind. There wasn't enough time to call out. Praying to the Maker that she had seen enough, she tried to replicate his spell. With a clumsy thud, it landed right before the attack. Her barrier was nowhere near as strong as his, and it melted into the air much faster, but it was enough to throw back the bandit's sword. Solas saw it, and he glanced back at her with an alarmed expression. The distraction almost allowed a sixth man's sword to lace his arm, but with surprising agility, he Fade-stepped away and then hit the man with a wall of ice.
When she looked back, the bandits lay dead, Cassandra was examining an injury on her leg, and Jane was looking a little pale. Elizabeth strapped her staff to her back and went to speak with her sister, only to feel someone grab her arm. She looked up at Solas, surprised.
"What was that?" he asked. The alarm had not left his face.
"A bandit attack," she replied coolly.
Solas's jaw clenched. "No. Where did you learn that barrier spell?" he said.
Elizabeth dropped her eyes for a moment before looking back up. She told him the truth. "I copied yours. Is that a problem?"
Solas let go of her arm, but continued to stare at her, his eyes dark. She opened her mouth, an explanation on her tongue, and then closed it again.
She had hoped that an apostate would not care so much about the unusual way that she practiced magic. Over the years, people had warned her about the irresponsibility of replicating spells on sight, but they'd all been in the Circle. It had almost prevented her from becoming an enchanter at all. Magic was meant to be studied, the senior enchanters had all claimed; it was to be taught and researched by people much more experienced than her. Using her magic to watch how another interacted with the Veil was lazy, and even dangerous. It required pushing her mana close to the Veil, and that left her vulnerable to demons.
She had received the lecture often enough to recite it from memory and did not want to hear it from Solas. Especially since she doubted the Seeker or the former templar back at Haven would approve.
"I know, it's not by the book," she said in a lower voice, folding her arms. "I'll try not to do it in the future. Please, don't tell Cassandra."
His eyebrows drew together and the expression on his face relaxed into confusion. "I was not planning to."
"Good," she said, and she stepped around him and went to Jane.
Cassandra was only slightly injured, but it was already near evening, so they decided to camp early. Varric tracked them down an hour later. When they told him what happened, he sighed heavily.
"Sorry," he said, gruffly. "There's just too many of them here."
"It's not your fault, Varric," the Seeker said, the kindest words Elizabeth had heard her speak to him all journey. "While we are this close to the fighting, we should stick closer together."
They only had potatoes left, which they boiled and salted. The Seeker went to lie down after supper. Elizabeth glanced continually at her sister, noting that the color had returned to Jane's face soon after the battle and that she still seemed to have an appetite.
Occupied as she was with Jane's welfare, Elizabeth did not notice that Solas' eyes were following her with renewed interest. At first, he'd dismissed her when he'd discovered that her shallow pool of mana was too weak to withstand a single fight; however, there was a certain uniqueness to her magic, as minimal as it was. In particular, her ability to duplicate spells from mere observation showed a rare level of talent. He'd caught a glimpse at how she did, too; indeed, he could not have missed it, as the effect on her eyes had rendered her face striking. Solas knew that the woman they called the Herald of Andraste was beautiful in a general way, and that many eyes followed her around Haven for that very reason, though his own stayed only on her hand. It occurred to him suddenly that some of the humans would also find the Herald's sister quite pretty as well.
Eventually, Elizabeth had to look away from her sister when Jane went to lay out the bedrolls, and as she did, she met his eyes, surprised to find them sharp and focused on her. He blinked and looked away, to her confusion.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No," he replied, standing. He placed his empty bowl next to the fire and went to his tent without saying another word to her or Varric.
Elizabeth stared at the fire for a moment before bidding Varric goodnight and heading back to the tent she shared with Jane.
"Solas was scowling at me just now," she whispered as she climbed into her bedroll.
"Was he?" Jane asked, amused. Elizabeth had told her sister about what she overheard at Haven, though of course Jane had interpreted Solas' comments as concern for Elizabeth's safety. "Maybe he's impressed with your fighting skills."
"I doubt that ; he's a much better mage than I am," Elizabeth replied. "I believe he's offended I stole his spell." She pulled the blankets up to her chin against the cold Hinterlands air. "And if that's the case, I must make sure to steal several more of them."