Death and the Maiden

by Gene Dark

AU story from the Landsmeet to the End Game, including the events of Return to Ostagar, Soldier's Peak and Awakenings. General Loghain and Warden-Commander Tabris campaign against the Blight.

8. Chapter 8: Scarlet and Silver

Author's note: The beginning of this chapter is quite dark and contains themes of torture, violence and implied rape. It is not graphic, but might be disturbing. I'll post a brief summary at the start of the next chapter, to make it possible to skip this one.

The door burst open.

The four figures were blurred, shadowy blocks, back-lit by orange torchlight. Light glinted off metal studs and strips, wreathed them in tiny dark flames. Their faces, uncovered by helms, were fleshy and featureless as pumpkins. She slashed murderously across one stretched, exposed throat. A mist of blood darkened the air between them like approaching dusk. He straightened in one spasmodic lunge, both hands clutching the gaping wound. Summoning impossible strength, he stepped toward her; extended reddened, begging hands. He tumbled forward in wasted hope.

Rilian had no time to go for the sword. She continued the arc - jabbed the point into the armour join beneath the outstretched arm of the next. His bestial howl raised the hair on the back of her neck. His dropped torch guttered into darkness. The figures became a shifting ambiguity - Rilian saw the remaining two as shadowy angles of arm, shoulder, chest; blades darting like tongues of steel. She tried to keep in the doorway, allowing them to come at her only one at a time - but the third man barrelled into his comrade. She dodged to the side. Terror ground through her as the dagger-hilt, still half-buried, slipped from her grasp. She ducked low and made a convulsive lunge for the dropped sword. Aching, thankful fingers closed around it just as the third man struck. His blade whistled overhead. He cursed, swore - righted himself just as she scrambled to her feet. After the Dalish blade, this one felt heavy and clumsy as a plank of wood. He came to her slowly, with a low, smooth gait unexpected in such a large man. She crouched lightly, balanced on the balls of her feet, and spared a quick glance to see where she was. Near the centre of the room - not where she wanted to be. As the two came at her, she edged to the wall, needing it at her back. She slid sideways in a crouching glide. Then a movement in the lighted doorway warned her. A fifth figure approached. Robed, he glided like a wraith, the cloth rippling like pondwater. Jowan, she thought. Her muscles turned to water. Magic...

The nearest man attacked - a two-handed descending slash that hammered her sword-tip toward the floor. In the instant when both weapons were grounded, she drove the crown of her head directly into his nose. Cartilage crunched. A knee to the crotch doubled him over. Measuring, she drew back her own blade and swung. It sliced cleanly into his neck.

The blow was costly. Rilian had no time to recover. The fourth man was on her. Frantic, she jerked her sword free - swept it upwards. Not quick enough. He was a wall of black water speeding towards her; his blade the crest of a wave. The wave shivered, reversed itself. A burst of light dazzled her. There was a roaring flame, a thick coppery taste. Then the world exploded in a tornado of weight, curses, hot breath. The sword was wrenched from her grasp. There was a lull - a momentary relief from the pressure. Rilian rolled to her feet, faced the guard, who now held both blades.

Dizziness washed her senses to a weaving spiral of dots. Each breath bubbled, drawn through the blood - copper-sweet and edged with taint - that poured from her broken nose. Her red-tinged vision showed the black-bearded face split in a feral grin. She was half-stifled by the rank human smell of dirty flesh and hair, bloodlust, rage and sex. Rilian gathered herself, using white fury against the fear, and dashed in with a quick stabbing punch, and out again, narrowly evading the first slashing blade. The flat of the other caught her shoulder and she stumbled, unable to catch herself. She slammed against the sharp corner of the cabinet and it tore a gash across her cheek as she fell. Dimly, she could hear shouting: that thin, reedy, anguished voice, calling on the man to stop... Something about Arl Howe, and damage...

She got up slowly and turned to face the shem again, calling on every ounce of strength and the gutter-fighting skills that had saved her against Vaughan, knowing she'd already lost. It only remained to keep on fighting to the end.

He beat her with the delight of a monstrous child, using the flat of the blades and then his fists, shouting encouragement when she struck back. The room was a shifting, sliding chaos; the black shadow writhed: everywhere at once, never there to hit. When she fell, he stepped back - slowly, savouring the hunt - and put the swords down. He lifted her to her feet by her hair, encouraged her to strike at him again, and when she did, he let her drop. She spat at him. Her last blurred, collapsing image was of him straddling her, one fist raised like a cobra.

At the blow, a burst of light dazzled her, and then she was tumbling over and over in a cool stream that bathed her in freedom, washed away the pain.

Something choked off her breathing. She snapped awake. Black cloth suffocated her. She struggled, tried to roll over, but she couldn't move. Her entire body was a screaming mass of pain. It was only a little worse where the ropes bit into her wrists and ankles. Under her back was a hard, rough surface. The air crawled sluggishly with mould and fear, blood and rot. The cloth stuck to the side of her face - the cut was a line of fire. Every muscle ached; her broken ribs grated and stabbed. But she'd had bruises and broken ribs often enough before - there was nothing to indicate anything worse. She still felt the light gentleness of cloth around her body. How had Jowan stopped the guard from doing what he had intended? And what good did it do her, when she was here, in Arl Howe's power? Tears of fury filled Rilian's eyes. Clenching her fists, staring sightlessly up as though seeking the stars, she ground her teeth to muffle the hot breath of strangled weeping. Something in the quality of the silence told her she was not alone and she fought down rising panic. This was worse than the other would have been: the sheer helplessness; the shut-in, thick, breathless dark. Every instinct told her to struggle, but she held back, because Arl Howe was here, watching her, and she knew her futile efforts were what he wanted to see.

"Howe," she said, and though her voice was muffled by blood and cloth it was so calm, so cold, that it astonished her. "I know you're here. Let's get this over with."

There was a faint, dry chuckle. The sound of it wheezed and rasped like her own breathing. "You flatter yourself, knife-ear. It is not your flesh I want." There was the heavy breath of cloth on stone; the sudden glint of torchlight through dark threads. "I hope," the voice went on, sharpening a little, "That you are paying attention."

Something - it could have been a gauntlet or sword-hilt - prodded her broken ribs. She bit down so hard a fat bead welled in her lower lip, anchoring herself with pain she controlled. A hand felt over her face, applied pressure to the cut cheek, stroked the line of her jaw. When Rilian said nothing, the long aristocratic fingers tightened around her neck like closing teeth. When she was reeling, the tightness eased and she gasped, aware of nothing but the need to breathe, the roar of blood in her ears.

Arl Howe's laughter came in a series of sibilant, heaving gusts, like the wind through rain-washed leaves. Another rustle of cloth and the black hood came off. His face swam before her: indistinct, half-drowned in the murky, red-washed light. One elegant hand rested, with the solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, on her thigh. Rilian was so numb and cold she might have been encased in ice... She yearned to disappear, pull it over her like bed sheets, but her own force of will would not let her... Now the nightmare she still desperately denied at heart was reality; she was already more than half-drowned. There, from her neck on down, lay a nothingness freely possessed by a monster. The pinpoint eyes were dispassionate; her body a slab of meat on a butcher's block that happened to be still breathing. To ease the nightmare's suffocating pressure, to thrust out some flicker of her own will against its engulfment, Rilian flung out sarcasm, voice cracking just a little:

"There are easier ways of getting my attention. You and Loghain have my armies - you don't want my flesh - why am I here?"

As she spoke, the elegant hand made a beckoning gesture. Rilian could not see the second person - she could barely see two feet in front of her - but a shadow detached itself from the wall and shuffled closer, dragging footsteps aching with reluctance. She sensed the crackle of magic - the kind of magic not even Morrigan possessed - and knew the presence.

"Destroying the trade with Tevinter was clever, knife-ear - you have made yourself indispensible. You have also given me a problem - namely, the mud that sticks to a signed document. And you are ready to supplant me. You - the Teyrn - the Queen: between you, you are dangerous. Alone, the Queen is - extremely eligible. You and Loghain are necessary - at least, until we defeat the Blight. Afterwards - you will eliminate him. And when the Bannorn learn who murdered the Hero of River Dane - well, no-one will question the sale of your kind. Rats in a nest. Get rid of them, or suffer them again."

As though the smooth, well-modulated voice compelled him, Jowan approached: movements jerky, as if his body were curled around the sources of his guilt. His bloodless face was empty as a hanged man's. He knelt as though he could no longer find the strength to stand, and Arl Howe moved behind him. Rilian remembered Uldred, that blood-red sack of lust with a human face, raising abominations. It isn't magic that corrupts - it's having power... Looking at the two, she saw that it was true. It was the Blood Mage who was the puppet - the other, hands resting lightly on the stooped shoulders, pulled the strings. The face above encapsulated all the horror of the Harrowing chamber: it was a demon-soul beneath the water-smooth urbanity. The smile was barbed with fine, sharp hooks of cruelty at the corners of the mouth; the eyes beamed fond, languorous anticipation. Those eyes sought hers and found Rilian staring back, grinning insanely.

"Perfect plan!" she cried, in a hysterical levity that somehow liberated her, "Predatory politician! Please don't think I'm criticizing. Who am I to criticize? A talking head - just a small piece of a Warden - soon to be a Blood Puppet. But I'm confused. I've seen Blood Magic at work - heard of Templars forced to murder each other by Uldred's lackeys. But won't it be a long time before I can act - can't kill Loghain before he's led the campaign against the darkspawn, you know. Will the effects last? Can you wipe my memory? Won't Templars and Mages sense something amiss?"

She was sure her gibes would be answered to her own despair. For the moment, it was enough just to have mocked that gloating assurance to silence.

"I assure you - this will work, and has done. But why waste time explaining what you will see first-hand?"

The shadow moved. Jowan stood - slowly, as if moving through water - and placed sweating hands lightly against the pulse in her temples. The alien words were a low thrum, almost voiceless. She felt them as a pressure in the air; as smoke, dark and tentacular, worming inside her. She met it with the black tendrils of an iron will, sent the intricate latticework down every cell. Every nerve screamed the same message: a primal challenge. Fear. But no surrender. She gathered herself, setting herself to fight on the level of the mind. It was where she had always fought, and won: Adaia's death, a seventy hour working week, Vaughan's cruelty, starvation, cold and disease. She was aware of tiny rivers of blood, carrying messages of warmth and vitality. She felt the deep inward prickle of an alien energy - something that flared, crackled, groped for, tried to hijack the waters... The low thrum of pressure built steadily. She had felt such pain before: remembered blood as black as sin in a silver chalice, the words of a different ceremony...

... She stared down into the goblet. The liquid was thick, like tar. An evening breeze made fat, lazy bubbles crawl thickly along the surface like boiling pitch. They opened like greedy little mouths, then collapsed to nothingness. Rilian raised it to her lips. It crawled down her throat, hot as lava, a salty tang that carried images of predation, of unity, a vast low hum of chittering voices, a silver song as pure as starlight. A burning tree reached searing roots inside her, building to a sheet of blind, incandescent flame. She trembled, mouth gaping in the slow birth of a mind-emptying howl. Warden...

... Her skin seemed to be trying to slide off her body, but she held on to a distant, hard calm. Howe had done this before - but not to a Warden. She knew that was the only thing that would get her through this. The tides of her blood wavered and rippled, called by a will not her own. The swift-winged ship of her mind danced on a roiling sea. Its sails were tatters, its hull leaking. It rode the swirling tide of a watery whirlpool, a dark, spiralling vortex. Hauling on lines, Rilian fought to raise the sail. Every time she pulled, the line snapped. The chanting voice swelled from the wine-coloured depths. The boat rail gave way, disappeared into the vortex. Planks separated along the hull. The mast snapped, speared downward. Rilian braced against the canted deck, clawed for a handhold. The sea rose to embrace her, cover her like a shroud. She stared into a long tunnel, seeing at its end the faintest flicker of light, the shivering indistinctness of a face. Pale, shocked, in agonising pain. She followed the tunnel, clinging to the slenderest, most durable strand of her own will: a spider on a silken thread. And woke on the plank of wood, Jowan leaning over her. She felt as light and empty as an eggshell.

She met Jowan's eyes. His face seemed in constant motion. She heard Arl Howe asking him if the spell had worked and braced for his response. What would Howe do when he realised it had not - that she knew his secret? He still needed her - would he count on Loghain not believing her? Who would he threaten, to keep her quiet? But Jowan was nodding, lying through his teeth. He reached to undo the ropes with shaking hands. She sat up, slowly, testing limbs. She wore pain like a fiery suit of armour; viewed it with mild disinterest. Her limbs were the armaments of some lethal machine. She rose, gained her feet. She was far back inside herself; thoughts, hopes, dreams unravelled, dissolved into darkness like droplets of smoke. All that remained was a small, hard nugget: a predatory shiver impersonal and lethal as plague. She scanned the room, absently noting the crusted pool of blood along the stone, the scratches in the walls. She and Jowan and Arl Howe were the only people here. She walked past Howe - smelled him: velvet and cruelty and rosewater - reached the torch bracket along the wall. She grabbed it. It was the only part of her she clearly felt, and it was a tongue of fire, a crematory flame. With one quick, spasmodic lunge, she thrust it into Howe's face.

He screamed, shrilly, both hands reaching up to his ruined face, spinning in a crazed, blind circle. She watched the hideous spectacle, the dance of agony, with blank dispassion: crawling flames painting skin in lurid shades, the scent of wax and perfume charred to an acrid stink. One hand clutched his blinded eye - the other drew the slender sword at his hip. He advanced, face saturated with hate: the mask of urbanity peeled away, only the monster beneath. She dodged like a cat and sprung - barrelled right into him, clawed hands going for eyes and face. She bore him down, curled fingers though the well-groomed hair, yanked his head back then slammed it into stone. Her devouring gold eyes were disinterested as glass, lit by compressed energy void of feeling. She was every darkspawn who feels its prey go down, the salty, iron tang of blood in her mouth. She slammed him until he lay still and broken and remained for a slow crawl of minutes, still straddling his back. At last, the drip drip trickled into her consciousness, along with Jowan's hand on her shoulder. The air stretched thin and taut. The mantle of pain dropped back onto her shoulders.

"Rilian," Jowan whispered, voice thin and shaking, "Warden..."

Rilian hissed in rage. She whirled, faced the mage, who backed away. Fear painted his face. A lightning jolt brought her up short. She felt the ripple in the air even through the rage - the glimmer of returning conscience - thoughts and realisations like quicksilver beneath scarlet. Jowan had, in his own fashion, helped her. He had not dared defy the guards or Howe directly, but he had done what he could. She had done no more for him. She drew a shuddering breath, struggled for control. She needed to make her brain resume functioning - needed to think.

"He - he's dead. You've killed him."

Numbed by the inanity of the remark, Rilian could only stare. Jowan's next remark carried more sense. "What do we do about his guardsmen?"

"Arvall," Rilian decided, "We're going to save Captain Arvall."

She tried to rise, then lurched and nearly doubled over, retching. The blurred edges of the stone chamber curled in on themselves, blackness seeping from its edges like congealing blood, narrowing around her like the tightening of a noose. The sound she let out through gritted teeth was a soft groan, as unstoppable by act of will as the blood that trickled down her cheek or the cold sweat that prickled her body.

"Don't try to stand yet. A hard beating takes it out of you." Even through the dim haze, Rilian recognized the force, the knowing behind the words. Templars...she thought hazily. "I could - I could heal you..."

Rilian's stomach heaved at the idea. "No magic."

"You'll need your strength to rescue anyone," the thin voice argued. "If there's ever a right use of Blood Magic, this is it." His face crumpled to an almost petulant look. He gestured weakly at the lifeless ruin on the stone, not quite looking at it. "And there's enough blood to...well, he certainly doesn't need it anymore." He blushed and looked away, shifting, unable to keep still. How old was he? Rilian wondered. No more than her age, despite the fine lines of cynicism and fear and bitter disappointment in the mobile, expressive face. The odds on rescuing anyone in her current state raced through her mind as rapidly as Tevinter coins falling into Howe's purse.

"Do it," she decided.

Rilian fought a visceral shiver as that low, reedy hum began again. She watched with horrified fascination as the thing on the ground collapsed inward, emptied like an opened gourd. The air around them rippled and shifted - not with blood but with its essence; some raw, elemental life. Perhaps Howe had not been dead long enough to affect that - or perhaps there had been a thread of life within the broken body - now wrenched from him. She didn't care. The power crawled along her skin, brighter than the torchlight, scalding along her cheek and shoulder, then burning deeper. With an intolerable wrench, the broken ribs re-knit. Rilian reached upward, put both hands to her broken nose, snapped it back into place. The pain was eye-watering - she blinked back tears - a moment later the burning soothed that too. For one blind moment, Rilian clung to the pain - an armour, a kind of shield. The relief was almost an agony in itself and she found herself clutching for the last of the bruises and knotted lumps like an anchor. She shuddered, fought the urge to curl into herself. Later - when she was alone... She would not cry in front of Jowan.

She placed her hands to her knees and rose, slowly, testing her body. It wasn't her - she was outside it, viewing it almost as Howe had done - a puppet, her own will pulling the strings. At last, satisfied, she steeled herself and reached down to take the sword and sword-belt from the corpse. Charred, twisted, bloodless - a thing of nightmares. It seemed to reflect him much better than the living mask had done. A glint of silver edged through the dark velvet tunic. Rilian grabbed the cloth with broken nails and tore it. Underneath was a fine chainshirt, light as the scales of a fish. Rilian heaved the corpse onto its back, removing the keys and swordbelt and wrestling with the armour. When Jowan made a revolted noise she shrugged. "You drained his blood and object to this? Now help me - time's wasting. "

The chainshirt was a little big, but moved with her like water. The sword was thin and slightly curved. The cold silver blade gleamed almost blue. Its pommel was gold, set with a large emerald. A mere show-piece, good-for-nothing? Rilian swung it sideways, against one leg of the wooden table. It went through as if it were butter, with a sound like breaking bone. A white flare of exaltation began to melt the frozen chill. Rilian turned a fierce slit of a grin on Jowan. "Let's go."

Sword in hand, Rilian padded lightly down the corridor. Jowan followed, carrying the torch. The air was a living thing, curling around her, reeking of blood and rot and despair. It struck her like a fist. The first two cells were empty. All that was left were the stains of old blood, the iron chains, the instruments whose only purpose was pain. In the third cell she found a man. He was kneeling, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, mumbling to himself. There was something unbearably familiar about the small, jerky movements of his head. Rilian knelt beside him and smelled - beneath the crusted grime of old sweat and urine and fear - something sickly-sweet: molasses tinged with decay. The face was little more than skin stretched over a skull. Closed now, the eyes were sunk in sockets nearly as dark as the lines of darkspawn infection discolouring the flesh. Rilian murmured wordless sounds of reassurance. He did not seem aware, but the twitchy movements slowed, the ragged breathing calmed.

"Can you do anything for him?" she asked, keeping her voice soft.

"I...I can try. It's the Blight, isn't it?" When she nodded, Jowan set to work. He drew his dagger and made a small cut in his own arm, with the precision of long practice. He murmured words, and Rilian saw the man bathed in that vitality. But it did nothing to faze the infection.

He scrabbled on the floor, muttering a word.

"Is that your name?" Rilian whispered, "Rexel?"

"Rexel," he whispered, no heavier than a sigh. "Ostagar..."

Rilian continued to hold him as he rocked.

"Water - so thirsty..."

"Here, sure," she said softly. Her left hand stroked the filthy hair, tilted his head backwards, laid her palm gently against the hollow cheek near the half-open mouth. The right reached backward, silently. She felt the cold metal pressed into it, brought the arm round and forward, placed the tip of the dagger against the curve of the throat and drove it up into his brain.

The warren was far bigger than she would have guessed - they were two corridors down before they ran into any guards. Three men. Two led the way, walking side-by-side. One carried a torch. The third followed, several feet behind. Rilian parried the first, spun about, catching the second under the armpit as he raised his sword to strike. She reversed and swung back high, catching the other across the face. His hands came up. Blood spurted between his fingers and he sank down, moaning. A quick blow across the back of the neck ended his agony. There was a shiver in the air, and the third man jerked as though he had hit a wall. His sword fell from a nerveless grip. He stared with the wild, white eyes of a trapped rat. Slowly, delicately, Rilian walked towards him and placed the point of her sword to his throat.

"Can he talk?" she asked Jowan. Jowan released the spell. "Where are Captain Arvall and the Orlesian Warden?"

The man's mouth worked jerkily, soundlessly. Rilian pushed the sword-point deeper. A drop of blood welled, was washed away in a flood of acrid sweat. He managed to say, "The Captain is here, in the central chamber. Turn left, then left again. The large middle door. They brought the Warden upstairs, to the northernmost chamber."

"How many guards?"

The man was anxious to be helpful. "Three men working on the Captain and the boy - they say he's Bann Sighard's son, Oswyn. Five more in the chamber ahead - but you can avoid them. At least thirty on the main floor."

Thirty guards... Rilian thought numbly. They would need help - the Captain's - and, she realised, the Queen's...

Idly, she said to Jowan, "Shall we kill him quickly, or cut him up first?"

Moaning, the man shook his head. His hands opened and closed spasmodically. "Please! I can tell you more!"

"Tell me what?"

"About the other soldiers. Two hundred men from Amaranthine, commanded by the Arl's son, Thomas. Coming to meet him here."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. The next day. I don't know. But I told you. Don't kill me!"

Rilian felt dried blood crack on her face, knew she had bared her teeth. She didn't see Jowan look at the expression, then flinch and turn away. She said, "I don't kill the helpless. Not even scum. Jowan - will you lock him in the cell. If I touch him, I'll cut his throat." Jowan nodded, and Rilian kept the sword trained on the guard as the mage bundled him into the nearest cell and turned the lock.

"I'll let Captain Arvall deal with you," she said through the bars, "Maybe he'll be kinder than you were to him. Or maybe not..."

They followed the route the guard had given them and found two more prisoners in cells. One was an old man, only skin and rags, both hands severed and infection eating its way up the arms. Rilian knelt beside him, choked with the memories of Adaia - that hideous day in the square... Barely conscious, he made no response as she stroked his forehead, murmured wordless comfort, and gave him the same mercy she'd given Rexel. The second man was unmarked - but on his knees praying, his eyes glassy, faraway, strange... Beside her, Jowan gave a start of shock.

"That - that's Ser Irminric, one of the Templars that captured me!"

"Don't play ignorant," Rilian said coldly, "You must have seen Loghain's men capture him when they got you."

"I...yes, but I thought they killed him! I've never been down here..." The pleading expression curdled to a sullen glare. "Should I have tried to save him? He would have killed me! The Templars thinks life in any guise is too good for an apostate. A Blood Mage can be killed with impunity, with pleasure. Some of them even think our dying screams carry their names over to the Maker." Slowly, as if only just realising his own predicament, the angular face began to whiten. "Arl Howe was my only protection - and you've killed him! Even if we make it out of here I'm a dead man...and I would have given it all up for her..."

The last inexplicable words trailed off.

"Get a hold of yourself! You're not going to die. I'll do what I should have done at Arl Eamon's: conscript you."

"A...A Grey Warden? Me? But life as a Warden is dangerous - and short! Darkspawn - the Archdemon - no safety, no rest..."

"Are you always this scared to take risks? Maker - how did you ever end up a Blood Mage in the first place!"

Jowan coloured, shifted from foot to foot and stared down at the floor. "I was scared of failing my Harrowing," he muttered.

Rilian rolled her eyes. "Dangerous or not, it beats the alternative. There's no other choice for the likes of you and me. Make up your mind soon - I'll protect you if you let me."

And she meant it - even though she knew the promise was a trap that would never lose its danger for either of them.

"Come with us," she urged the kneeling man, but he looked through her.

His brown eyes were painted with a wet glaze as he spoke to spectres: one the saint whose cold statues adorned the city; the other his sister, a woman named Alfstanna. A ghost of memory fluttered like a moth - something Alistair had told her once. Lyrium withdrawal...

"If I find your sister would you go with her?"

The huddled man shifted - held out a jewelled signet ring. Rilian blinked. Such a ring could only come from Ferelden's nobility. She had seen one like it on Arl Eamon's finger. Good. She didn't care whether the woman was a lady or a washerwoman - but a noble would be easier to find. "Take it...take it..."

The bright flash winked like a jay as Rilian slipped it carefully into her belt pouch.

Rilian and Jowan turned left, then left again, spiralling inward toward the dark heart of the warren. A man's hoarse cries echoed strangely off the walls: leading them, then suddenly coming louder at their side, then louder still from behind them. The torchlight trailed grey wisps of shadow like veils. Two shadows detached themselves from the wall, striking simultaneously. Rilian did not try to parry. She did not decide consciously what to do at all. She was instinct and training, more a force than a person. She dropped to one knee, facing left - slashed with the diamond edge of Howe's blade. Both opponents' strikes whispered overhead - her own got the man through the belly. She whirled to the right - sword slicing through the dying man as she turned - and delivered a back-handed slash to the other. It took him in the thigh - exactly where Zevran had shown the main artery to be. Blood fountained. She knew he'd be dead in moments. Not bothering to finish them, she rose quickly, and ran the last few yards to the large central door. The scream sounded again - choked off sharply. Rilian kicked the door down.

The Captain was tied to the rack in the centre of the room. The two men working on him were already heading for her. A third - she saw him dimly from the corner of one eye - was finishing some business in the corner of the L-shaped chamber. He lurched almost comically, fumbling with his trouser belt and reaching for his sword at the same time.

Rilian engaged the first man and found herself pushed back, outmatched in size and skill. Jowan slipped to the side and began frantically trying to untie the Captain. She had no time to spare for them - had all she could handle trying to avoid that two-handed blade. She could not afford to parry too many of the blows - if they did not snap the blade, they might shatter her arms. Air-hunger began to burn in her lungs, and the weight of the night's events seemed to close in on her. Her head swam. She backed to the doorway - at least the second man could not reach her without going through his companion. She heard the faint chant of Jowan's healing, half-drowned as though through water. The guard grabbed the hilt of her sword, twisting it, nearly breaking her wrist. She struggled to pull back, and the second man edged forward. Then Captain Arvall, a roaring fury, leapt forward and impaled the first through the spine. Rilian regained her weapon, dodged a blow, lunged forward just as Arvall struck the second man. She never knew which of them finished him. Jowan was facing the third with the fierce determination of a man past his limits. The weasel-faced guard saw the Elf and Captain coming for him, tried to back away, tripped, and impaled himself on Jowan's dagger. Jowan calmly withdrew the blade, wiped it on his sleeve, and doubled up with spasms of dry heaving.

Grimly, in silence, the Captain knelt to strip the armour off the body of the first guard. Rilian turned away - instinct telling her to turn back only when the Captain was clothed and looking like himself again - and rounded the corner, looking for the other victim. The huddled figure had to be the noble's boy the guard had talked about - Bann Sighard's son, Oswyn. She knew a moment of blinding relief that the boy did not appear crippled - the injuries looked days old, and had been treated. A moment later the other details of his appearance struck her. The boy's face was chalky - not physically battered but haggard, a deathmask. The eyes were faraway as Irminric's had been, but while the Templar's had been glimmering and brilliant with visions, this boy's were dark pits from which the intelligence had been burned out. He was half-slumped, unable to lift his weight off the ground. A small caked pool of blood marked the stone between his feet. Howe and his men had strange tastes. He looked as Shianni had done when Rilian had rescued her from Vaughan.

Purely on instinct, as Jowan and Arvall came over to help - Jowan with healing and Arvall in helping the boy into the second guard's uniform - Rilian began to tell him of that rescue: of how Shianni had defied captors and slavers to save their people; of how she had been recruited to join the Wardens. "... Duncan said I was needed to help defeat the darkspawn. He trusted me - an Elf, an escaped prisoner - and taught me not only how to fight, but why. I didn't know anything about Grey Wardens except that they once rode on griffins, but he gave me the chance to make myself more than I ever dreamed I could be. He said we were none of us white knights - most of us had committed or suffered violence - but on that foundation we built an ideal: protect people; stop the Blight..." The boy was still, unresponsive. He obeyed Arvall's instructions - seemed to function in this world, but he lived in the Fade. She tried to tell herself there was a new firmness to his steps when she finished, but she wasn't certain.

Arvall put a hand on her shoulder. "I would thank you for my life - but seeing as you're the one who put it in danger in the first place I'd say we were even," he said gruffly.

Rilian found a tight grin. "Yes - but I'm the one who took out Howe."

"Humph - you may be good for something besides trouble, Elf."

"We need to get out of here, ser - but one of your men told me there's thirty guards up top: will they obey you, or fight us?"

"I wouldn't chance their loyalty to me - but once they hear of the Arl's untimely death they might be persuaded. But when Thomas Howe gets here with the Amaranthine levies - that's another story. Our safest bet is to go to the Queen."

"I can get us in," Jowan said, voice shaking just a little, "They trust me - and with you two in uniform, and you, Warden, as the prisoner: it might work. But Rilian - you'll have to lose the sword..."

Rilian nodded reluctantly and regretfully removed sword and chainshirt. Together, with Jowan in the lead and Arvall and Oswyn flanking her, the four headed out of the chamber for the stairs. Oswyn followed without question - some part of him aware of what they were doing. When they got to the top of the stairs and passed the guards at the double doors, a cold hand squeezed her heart. They could take the two - but not before they gave the alarm. But the men expected her to be returned to her chamber. Apparently it was not unusual for Howe to remain below during night hours. The walk to the Queen's chamber seemed interminably long, down a maze of side-passages. It was on the main floor, to the south-west, on the opposite side of the estate to the dungeon entrance. Only one guard asked questions: and he was the sandy-haired, nervous youth stationed outside the Queen's room. He stared at the four surprise visitors, muddy-brown eyes wide.

"S...Ser," he stammered, "No visitors allowed without the Arl's permission."

"Son," Captain Arvall said kindly - the lad's eyes widened even further at the familiar gravelly voice - "The mage and I have permission from the Arl."

The boy hesitated. Beads of sweat stood out on his lower lip, above his sparse, wispy attempt at a beard. He didn't want to offend the Arl if the Captain were telling the truth - but what if the Arl were only testing him? He knew what his life would be worth if the Arl was displeased. And hadn't Sergeant Loren said the Captain was a traitor? He didn't want to believe that - not of the man who'd trained him - but the Sergeant was a frightening man... He was so lost in his troubles he didn't even notice as Arvall stepped forward and hit him with the flat of his blade, with no more force than necessary to knock him out. Soundlessly, he crumpled, and the Captain eased him to the ground. In another moment Jowan had dissolved the wards on the door -and then Rilian blinked as it was opened, full wide, from the inside.

Queen Anora faced them, dressed in silver armour, a slender sword at her hip. Her entire body was taut like spring steel. Arl Howe would not have dared harm her - yet - but how many days had she lived in this tension, waiting for Howe to remove her only protection - Loghain - or simply decide to force the marriage, counting on shame and a noblewoman's discretion to keep her silent? She thought of Cyrion - a protective tiger beneath the stooped shoulders and shaking hands - and wondered what kind of father would inflict that on his child, even if he believed it necessary for the country. Anora's fine pale hair - hair like light - was drawn back in two tight buns; her skin so pale it seemed almost luminous. Her eyes were the strangely ominous colour of glacial ice. Rilian glanced at the sword at her hip and wondered if she had any skill with it. She would have thought not - from her experience of Lady Habren and Arlessa Isolde it seemed all noblewomen did was knit lace and screech orders - and the slender white hands were not those of a warrior. But Anora carried herself with a physical grace and confidence that suggested some training. Her voice was high and clear and brittle, like fine glass:

"We meet at last, Warden. I'm glad you put Myrtle's gift to good use. And Captain Arvall - I am glad to see you have survived the Arl's mistreatment."

For once, the normally laconic Captain stumbled over his words. Rilian was so startled she blinked. "You sent Myrtle to me on purpose - then you weren't really sleeping! You knew what the Arl meant to do - and what she meant to do..."

"Of course I did. That poor woman has suffered enough at the Arl's hands - and she is loyal to me as Erlina. Believe me - I would have spoken to my father had I any hope he might have listened. But I would only have succeeded in losing us the element of surprise."

Rilian said nothing, suddenly aware of danger. Surely Anora could not know about Erlina - if she did why keep her as a maid? She felt Oswyn's presence beside her and wanted to cry, Can't you see what happened to him? He needs help! But even that had danger - whose side was Anora really on? Would she let such a witness escape, to ruin her father's reputation as much as Arl Howe's? She did not dare speak of Irminric - if Bann Sighard would seek revenge, the Chantry certainly would. Would Anora feel her own position compromised by Loghain's crimes?

"So," she said, more harshly than she intended, "Arl Howe is dead - just as you wanted, my Lady. But there are thirty guards on this floor who'll have me for the crime."

As she spoke she wondered why the Queen would even care. Her unwanted, predatory suitor - the man who had schemed to assassinate her father and use her as a path to the throne - was dead. Why care if a mere Elf paid for the crime? Anora answered her doubts with action. So fast she seemed a spark of living lightning, she organized Arvall, Rilian and herself to round up the guards - a swift, bloodless coup that resulted in them swearing allegiance to their Queen. The choice was simple: the Arl was dead, the Teyrn absent, and Anora - the highest authority figure they had - was here. Sergeant Loren - bull-like and brutal but reliant on Howe and Loghain for authority - wavered, and in that moment lost his men to Anora's certainty. He ended up in a dungeon cell. The other guards - including the nervous sandy-haired boy - were allowed to continue their duties under their new leader. Anora tore through the halls, organizing, directing, commanding. Rilian's fear raised its head again, twisting like a snake, when she saw the Queen studying Oswyn's blank face, the calculations running behind her eyes so clearly they were almost legible. She was startled when the Queen gave Oswyn a chamber not far from her own and summoned Myrtle to take care of him. It made her question her initial impression of Anora as a woman of steely competence but no heart. Or had her choice of a woman who had lost five children to look after a boy who had suffered horrors been mere co-incidence, an expedient use of a superfluous Elven servant? Rilian didn't know - just as she wasn't sure whether the Queen knew Oswyn's identity or not. At last, when Captain Arvall was organising nightwatch downstairs, and Jowan retreated to the sanctuary of his own chambers, Anora invited Rilian to speak with her in private. Rilian was surprised the Queen summoned no guards or servants - Anora didn't know anything about her - but then, Anora was armed and she was not.

The Queen led her into a large L-shaped room, its solid, heavy lines softened and muted by the rose light that streamed from an oil lamp behind a pane of red glass. Along the polished wood of the floor was a green-and-pink rug, curled in intricate patterns of roses and thorns. The bed was quite a simple affair - her own guest-chamber had a bigger one - but the room was dominated by a large writing desk. On it were curled missives, scrolls - and a board of black-and-white squares dotted with small, stylised wooden soldiers. One side was quite plain - and the front row of pieces were mabaris! The other wore fancy plumes. It looked like a game played by two sides - but Anora had been playing both. She followed Rilian's gaze, and something in her look conveyed the impression that the set-up had a meaning beyond pastime. She turned back to face her, the rose lamp at her back. Her face was in shadow now, lit only by the moonlight that streamed from the narrow window; with the strange result that she looked brighter, keener, sharp as a silver blade.

"You are a remarkable woman, Warden," she said, "If even half the tales are true. To defeat the Arl and his guards with no more than a kitchen knife..."

Impatient with what she saw as more lying noble's flattery, Rilian gave an indelicate snort. "You have Jowan to thank, not me. Without his help, I'd be dead. Or wishing I were." Her head came up; she met the Queen's diamond gaze with a direct, fiery stare that threw everything she saw into sharp relief. "I'm going to conscript him."

Thoughtfully, Anora nodded. "You see - you are the stronger. A Queen cannot oppose the Chantry who must bless her right to rule. As a Warden, you can do what I would not dare."

"I'm an ordinary woman, my Lady," Rilian said bitterly, "From your own Alienage. An Elf in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The Queen did not seem surprised. Rilian guessed that if Arl Eamon and Ser Cauthrien knew the story, Anora must too. But she did not react in any of the obvious ways. Her vivid eyes held no anger at the murder of a Bann she must have known, no scorn, no womanly sympathy. Their glance went through Rilian, not in disinterest but as though she had triggered a wide range of abstract ideas, and fixed itself on something behind her, some set of possibilities she cast like a shadow. The impression was so strong Rilian had to fight not to look around, half-expecting to find someone at her back.

"Nonetheless, your story is amazing to me. It seems to prove my late husband's romantic notions correct. Poor Cailan always loved the tale of King Maric's meeting with my father. He considered it proof that into any ordinary life a door of adventure might open, offering the least Ferelden citizen an opportunity for greatness." Her voice softened and muted; a shadow crossed her face. An instant later all that was banished; she regained control of voice and features and forced them to serve her. "I consider that people are as ordinary or exceptional as they choose to be. Oh, I am assured that no-one can conceive a talent for magic or the Dwarven stone-sense by act of will" - she didn't sound entirely convinced - "and it is true that Ferelden is a warrior's world, where a woman must oppose the arrogance of men in order to prove herself. Yet I believe that in the end I am limited only by the limits of my own determination, not by accidents of bloodline or preconceptions of gender."

This view of her rise to power - and Loghain's - as "romantic" struck Rilian as so poignant - and so mistaken - that she was startled to find herself on the verge of tears. She had risen over Nelaros' death and Shianni's pain. If she could she would have turned back time - sent Duncan elsewhere to open the door for a different Warden, a stranger - to save them. She wondered, suddenly, about that chance meeting with King Maric in Loghain's life, and what the cost had been. Had Loghain followed him simply because he needed him to be worth that price, and would he have undone it if he could? If anything, Anora's ideas seemed less realistic than Cailan's, rather than more. What could the Queen know of the traps of racism and grinding poverty - of how much determination it took for people like Cyrion and Goldanna simply to survive one more day, keep their children fed and clothed and their families afloat?

"The only way for people like me to rise is through disaster," she said flatly, thinking of Nelaros' words. "The determination comes afterwards - to make steel of ourselves or break. There is no fairytale."

Rilian shivered. All she wanted was to drink until she drove the cold from her bones and blotted out the memory of Howe's hands, his touch, the snaking fingers of magic. She turned away from the Queen and faced the wall with the window. To its right was an unlit grate, filled with coals like rotten teeth: the open shadowy maw of some beast. In front was a black velvet armchair. Its ornate heaviness seemed curiously ominous, an unpredictable creature crouching in the dimness. Next to the window on the other side was a high, spindly wooden structure that Rilian took to be some kind of clothes rack - until she saw the canvas stretched between two poles. A map, she thought - until she squinted at the fine, unnaturally straight lines and made out a shape that seemed to blend the sleek sharpness of an arrowhead with the delicacy of a bird in flight. In the shadows it was strange, and spoke of hidden possibilities. Outside, the moon seemed poised like a blade amid the silver veils of clouds. The sharp wetness across her cheek was starting to resemble pain, her skin burned and crawled. Absently, Rilian touched it. Her cracked and dirty fingertips came away with dried blood. I must look awful, she realised vaguely.

Anora said nothing - but Rilian heard the delicate chime of a bell as she rang for a servant. Then the clink and scrape of armour as she passed Rilian, knelt, and began to stoke the fire. When the boy arrived Rilian saw he was not a servant but the sandy-haired young guard whom Arvall had struck. A growing bruise marked the side of his face like a dark-veined spiderweb. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but here. Rilian tried to smile reassuringly. It was a sickly effort, like a fracture in a porcelain vase, and she felt the dried blood crack along her cheek. He flinched and looked away quickly. Distantly, she heard Anora call for a pitcher of wine. She reached a hand up to her hair: a matted bird's nest. Jowan's spell had speeded her healing up considerably, but she felt the throb of bruises under her face's skin, a patchwork of numbness and pain.

Anora got the fire lit, and instantly the character of the room changed. Golden flames warred with the room's shadows in a dance of shifting ambiguity, blurred harsh lines to a shimmering dreamlike haze. The hulking black velvet armchair brightened to soft, inviting scarlet. Rilian's limbs felt boneless as water as Anora put a hand on her shoulder and guided her into it. She stared into the fire as Anora shifted and moved away towards the hidden part of the L shaped room. The flames were oddly entrancing. She stared into them as though they might hypnotize her into forgetting everything. Anora returned with a damp towel. Rilian was startled when she began dabbing the cut gently, washing blood and dirt away from the wound. After studying it for a moment, the Queen pronounced, "There - it's clean. It still bleeds a little, but that only serves to wash out infection. It is only as long as my finger, and rather delicate. When it heals, you will have a fine, straight scar. I do not think it will mar your face."

Rilian wondered a little at her own dismay. She knew Alistair would not find it ugly, and since when had she been ashamed of scars? Only - it would have felt different had it been a battle injury. There was something both ridiculous and shameful about a fall across a cabinet, being chased by a man intent on rape, and she wished she could hide it the way Alarith covered his Tevinter brand.

At that moment the young guard returned with the wine and two crystal glasses. Anora poured with practiced grace, and Rilian watched the flow of the rich red smoothness, the way it swirled within the glass...a watery whirlpool, a dark, spiralling vortex... Anora's shadow fell over it as she extended the glass... Fat bubbles crawled along the surface of the glistening black liquid... Rilian's stomach clenched but she shut her eyes and took a longer draught than good manners or wisdom suggested. Despite her nausea, the wine began to work magic along her bones, pulsing like liquid sunlight through chill veins. Rilian looked up from the red-and-gold dance and saw the way the heat-shimmer brought the canvas to life. The silver tracery, delicate as the wings of a moth, took on movement and freedom, called up her dream of flight.

"What is it, my Lady?"

A faint flush stained the pale face, delicate as a pink pearl. "I have been held here a week, with nothing to do but plan my outfit for the day. I suspect my imagination has been overactive. I call it a glider."

Ignoring dizziness, Rilian stood up, uncaring of the way the liquid sloshed in the glass. Golden eyes narrowed as she studied the diagram intently, seeing dreams, possibilities - pragmatism...

"But this will not fly like a bird," she said, with a strange, hollow ache of disappointment, "For there is no power in the wings. And the middle is too heavy."

"Have you ever watched a bumblebee in flight?" asked Anora inexplicably. "No? Well, I'll show you something."

She went to the desk and picked up a blank piece of parchment. It was a valuable thing, Rilian thought - paper to write on had been the hardest thing to come by in Mother Boann's school - so she was startled when Anora folded one corner over in a diagonal line. She folded the other corner, then the first again in a long, clean line. She mirrored this again, then folded both sides back and over. All at once the ordinary piece of parchment came alive in the deft, careful hands: a tiny, fragile, living version of the diagram. The silver-armoured woman walked to the window, and Rilian followed. The shape was an arrow-slit, but through the rounder middle part she could see the estate's ornate garden. Shadowy oblong sentinels formed a grim spiral around a flat glistening blackness. The moon and stars were caught within. Faint ripples stirred, visible only as an occasional tremor that changed the clean brightness of reflection to something obscured and distorted. One hand pushed the paper bird through the gap; a flick of the wrist sent it into the night. Rilian rushed to the window as Anora withdrew, and craned her head to look. She expected to see the poor, wingless creature flutter to the ground like a handkerchief dropped by a captive princess to a questing suitor. Instead the parchment caught a gust like a white-winged ship sailing on air. It curved as cleanly as the steel dances of her own sword, gliding disdainfully past the hulking armoured sentinels, which resolved into mere fir trees in its wake. Rilian felt light as air as she watched the pale arrowhead vanish beyond her line of sight. She turned, full of wonder, alight with possibilities.

"They say the Wardens flew on griffins once," she said softly, "This may be the next best thing - there's a lot of high points within the city!" Realism nipped the heels of enthusiasm. "Of course - we don't have time."

A startled expression touched the pale face. Something moved in the Queen's eyes, a swirl that disappeared before she could be sure of it, but it left her thinking of a child discovering an unexpected gift. Rilian, who took for granted the understanding of family and peers, wondered at it. At once the expression shifted, without really moving at all, to a touch of dry humour.

"You think of warfare. I was thinking of messages, communications. In any case, I suspect the military uses to be somewhat limited. Father teased me when he saw it."

"Perhaps that is because he sees the world only in terms of the past," Rilian blurted. She nearly added, Is that what the university is for? before her own carelessness appalled her. She didn't want to say anything of her conversation with Erlina. Steering clear of dangerous ground, she said instead: "But I think learning is not just history but the future."

Anora's smile was bright and spontaneous as the sparks that leapt from the grate. "Warden," she said softly, "You amaze me. Is this what being ordinary means in the Alienage? Your world must be braver than mine."

The words - and her own treacherous spark of pleasure - sent a ripple of irritation through Rilian. Why should it surprise the Queen to hear an Elf talk of learning or the future? No doubt because she, like all her kind, assumed that in a human world they had neither. Bristling, she said nothing.

Alerted to the change in mood, Anora turned - not insulted but gracefully neutral - and moved away to rinse out the towel. She returned with a hairbrush and a delicate gold mirror. Rilian took them without comment. Staring into the silvery glass, she no longer wondered at the guard's expression. She looked like something out of a darkspawn lair. A seething array of mottled bruises swirled under her skin like incipient stormclouds. The cut was a thin scarlet ribbon, running from the corner of her mouth to her cheekbone. Thanks to Anora, her face was clean, but caked blood disappeared into hairline and neck.

"Don't worry," Anora reassured her, "A heated bath will do wonders - you must choose one of my dresses - and make-up will disguise the damage. I have a wonderful cream - a present from Erlina. It is popular in the Orlesian court, though a trifle mask-like. Think of it as women's warpaint. Although," she added, "your appearance would at least serve to convince my father we were telling the truth."

Rilian shook her head: a visceral, instinctive movement.

"I understand. I never use weakness as an argument either." Some trick of the candlelight brightened her eyes; they glimmered and seemed full, as though the colour might spill over. "Perhaps Cailan might have listened if I had." Rilian was only half-sure of the last words: they seemed to float in the air, softer than the streams of rose light. But a moment later the character of her face changed so completely it was as if the delicate bones were shifting. Like the shadow of a bird in flight, Rilian saw the set of Loghain's face on Anora's: hard, cool, implacable. A spark of intuition told her the resemblance would be greater outdoors - candlelight blurred and distorted lines of fierce, uncompromising steel to mere beauty.

"In any case it does not matter what my father believes. Let him think the Arl a victim of our ambition: Rendon Howe is dead and we are here, and he must work with us." Blue eyes glinted from paled features. Her voice was hard as the ground and, though light and thin as crystal compared to Loghain's gravelly growl, carried the same heavy darkness of conviction. "He sent Erlina to you because he had no option but to join forces after you stopped the trade with Tevinter. You would not be here had you not agreed to that alliance. And my father will need me to break Arl Eamon's stalemate. That man has used the Blight to play for the throne - and now the Bannorn drink and play cards in the Gnawed Noble tavern while the horde masses on our doorstep." Anora was too well-bred to curl her lip - but her eyes went flat and cool as a hunting hawk's. "I expect my father to task me with making the Banns see reason."

Rilian caught her breath. Anora had not been there - but she was correct in every detail. Sheer, cold logic had taken the place of knowledge. In the moonlight, her eyes were luminous with it.

"No," Anora said flatly, "my father will not be asking questions but answering them - if Bann Sighard and the Chantry discover what Arl Howe has done."

Shock flashed through Rilian. How did - ? Trying to cover her reaction, she jerked to her feet, went to the wine decanter and - too flustered to even think about manners - refilled her glass up to the brim. Suddenly the whole room felt threatening, as though the walls were transparent and the floor might yawn open. Anora had made her think, made her dream: the glider, the university... They could not touch her heart the way Alistair's compassion had done, but they fired her imagination. That, and the glimpses of odd vulnerability, had lulled her into an insane sense of safety. She was furious with herself for forgetting - if only for a moment - who she was dealing with: nobility, bred to deceit and mastery. Loghain's daughter. Anora might very well be capable of murdering Oswyn and Irminric in order to preserve her father's reputation. And how much did she know of her conversation with Erlina? It seemed impossible that Anora could not know her maid's secret - yet how could Rilian protect Erlina without giving her away?

"But I have a question for you, Warden." The electricity of her gaze made Rilian shiver. "Did you come here tonight only because my father threatened your people? Or do you truly wish to save lives by this alliance?"

Rilian's answer was simple - the meaning behind the question was not. She knew as well as Anora that the outrage over what had been done to Oswyn and Ser Irminric was a gift to Arl Eamon - that it might very well destroy both Loghain and the alliance.

Unexpectedly, Rilian found she had reached her limit. Sharp, lightning flashes of memory: Arl Howe's fingers, finding points that radiated spikes of pain - Oswyn's void eyes, empty of everything but horror - the hopeless suffering of Rexel and the bitter torment of the old man - collapsed inward into searing rage. Arl Howe's sadism - Loghain's willingness to turn a blind eye to it - Anora's political manoeuvring. All of them: sick with arrogance, perfectly willing to murder and manipulate in the belief that they had the right, that only they could save Ferelden. Distantly - the thought seemed to float on a haze of wine and firelight - she wondered why she cared so much for the fate of two unknown shem nobles: but she thought of Adaia and Shianni and felt the same sickness curdle her stomach, the same helpless fury.

Deliberately, she turned and faced Anora, the heat of her golden eyes seeking to bore a hole in that marble, poker face to the secrets within. For several long breaths, the two women held each other in unyielding grips of sheer will. Small, excited blood vessels writhed in tight, scrawling messages of tension.

"Do I wish to save lives with this alliance: yes. Would I help Arl Eamon use their suffering for political gain: no." Rilian took a step forward, unconsciously, the pressure of her conviction forcing her closer. "Will I help you hide Arl Howe's crimes to protect Teyrn Loghain's reputation - even to save the alliance: no." Even as she spoke Rilian knew a moment of despair. Anora held all the power and all the cards - Captain Arvall answered to her. If she meant to make the witnesses disappear Rilian could not stop her. And then it would be her word against the Queen's.

Without actually looking away from her - Rilian wasn't sure how she did it - Anora suddenly deflected the contest: drew shadows and moonlight around the stark granite of her expression like a veil. The change spoke of calculations, of hidden thought, just as a river's sparkling waves kept its depths unknown.

"Warden," she said quietly, "I am not my father. I do not murder innocents for what I believe to be the good of Ferelden. I am not asking you to help me conceal these crimes, only to mitigate their consequences: convince Bann Sighard and the Chantry to put vengeance aside until the Blight is defeated. Afterwards - that depends on you."

There was something in Anora's tone - particularly in her last words - that hovered at the edges of Rilian's mind. She turned away to watch the erratic dance of shadows and firelight. Sometimes the light won - hissing upwards in a shower of bold sparks. But then the shadows curled around them like smoke. Everything shifting - hiding and then reappearing. Mere streets separated her from home - yet the world where friends and enemies were clearly identified could have been miles away. Now the distinction was a hazy, treacherous line that could create a picture as deceptive and dangerous as a mirage. Anora's motives were a mystery to her - what she said might have nothing to do with what she really wanted. Yet somehow - she could not have said why - Rilian knew she was not lying. Memory and logic were shattered, scattered - Rilian tried to pick up the pieces, tried to build a coherent picture - to think... Even if she reassured Anora she could not prove her intentions. Anora's safest bet would be to leave the prisoners here until the meeting with the Banns was over. But that would be a death sentence - Loghain would be here tomorrow morning. Yet if Anora let them go tonight she would need some other leverage. Images of her people scratched at her brain like a cat sharpening its claws. No, she thought confusedly, that wouldn't work: Arl Eamon had said the Crown had no authority over the Alienage. Then in a sudden flood of icy terror she remembered Thomas Howe...

Having no answers - no strength left to pursue the questions - Rilian turned back. "My lady," she said wearily, "I have every intention of honouring the alliance. We need the Teyrn - I need him - to save Denerim. My community is here - the families of those I care about. He promised a strategy to save the city - meet the horde outside Denerim - if only we can convince the Banns. I'd never jeopardise that for Arl Eamon's agenda - not even to put Alistair on the throne. I don't know how to prove it to you. But I ask you to let Oswyn and Ser - the Templar go."

"You know his name." A sudden spike of alarm flared in Rilian. But really - the Chantry held more power than any Bann: his identity hardly made a difference.

"It will help in writing messages," the Queen said dryly. "I believe you, Warden. I will send for Bann Sighard and a representative of the Chantry tonight."

Hardly knowing what to think, Rilian said softly, "His name is Ser Irminric. He asked for his sister, Alfstanna. He gave me this."

The signet ring winked in the candlelight. The Queen's feathery eyebrows drew together like the uplifted wings of a pale eagle. "Not only a Templar but the brother of Bann Alfstanna. Like Bann Sighard, one of my father's staunchest allies. Really, if Arl Howe had set out to ruin him he could hardly have done a better job."

Rilian moved to stand beside her as the Queen settled herself into the chair by the writing desk and began to pen the notes. The messages were like her handwriting: spare, lucid, and to the point. Memory flashed across her mind: treasured lessons with Mother Boann - her struggles with quill and ink - her torturous, spidery scrawls...

"Well - the charter gives control of the city to the Arl of Denerim - he can imprison anyone he likes without reference to the Crown," Rilian said idly as she read over the Queen's shoulder, only half-thinking. "I suppose Howe thought he was untouchable."

To her surprise, the Queen turned sharply - looking at her intently as though she had made a valid point. "Indeed - and that may save my father."

Rilian stiffened. "He's been to the dungeons - he had to have known!" He had the Orlesian Warden taken to the upstairs rooms, she nearly added - and could have bitten off her tongue.

Cursing her own carelessness - avoiding Anora's probing gaze - Rilian went silent.

"Warden," Anora said, lips curved in a small smile and eyes blue-bright as ice, "In politics what is believed is reality."

"But that - that's wrong!" Rilian scowled in frustration - keenly aware that she had no intention of betraying Loghain; her need for justice and her need to honour their alliance at each other's throats. "Well - he can't hide from the Maker's justice!" And that was her father's voice, after Adaia's death: the helpless wail for divine justice from those who could expect none on earth. Rilian clamped her mouth shut over the echo. Anora was watching her with an unreadable expression.

"Besides," Rilian added thoughtfully, "I don't think the Teyrn will claim he didn't know. He's a soldier: it happened on his watch. He'll try to justify it as being for the good of the country - but he won't hide from men who never shed blood for Ferelden."

"Really?" Anora arched a pale eyebrow, "You think? You have met him once - and I have known him all my life..." A slight edge to her voice called up the ghost of a younger Rilian: a lanky teenager, all elbows and feet, scowling in a doorway while Cyrion taught Shianni to cook, watching her cousin sculpt pastries in the perfect image of his own. He had long since given up teaching her... But Anora drew herself up with an aloof dignity Rilian could never have managed and said quietly, "No - you may know better than I indeed."

By the time Anora had written the messages and sent Captain Arvall to the Gnawed Noble, Rilian's exhaustion was so complete it covered her like a cold shroud, tightening and tightening till it squeezed her like a vise. Her bruises were a bitter bone-deep ache. She was still standing by the desk but had turned away towards the fire. The flickering warmth could almost convince her the chilling vision of Thomas Howe's approach was distant, unimportant...

She didn't realise Anora was talking until the Queen touched her shoulder - briefly and lightly as the flutter of a moth. Her words were an echo of Rilian's inner voice:

"Warden, I know that your fears for Oswyn and Ser Irminric were not the whole story. It is tempting to think that our reasons for fear become less if we do not think about them - but you and I both know that the reverse is true. We can only lessen danger by acknowledging it and acting against it."

Anora's fingers were steepled in front of her. It was as if she pulled Rilian's words out with those slim, wraith hands. Their implications were horrifying:

"Captain Arvall told me Thomas Howe is headed towards Denerim with two-hundred reinforcements. He's Arl of Denerim now. He'll have jurisdiction over my people."

Anora did not seem surprised. There seemed to be little she didn't already know from her informants, despite her imprisonment. Distinctly, like an avowal of faith, she said, "Then you must let me protect them."

Rilian was so startled she stared.

Anora opened the desk drawer. Rilian saw correspondence folded in precise rows, neat and organised as battlefield divisions. She saw the clean lines of the Legion, more uniform than any human troops could be, bristling with weapons like a hedgehog. She blinked away the image. What Anora showed her was the new city charter she had drawn up - the one Erlina had spoken of - that showed the Capital under jurisdiction of the Crown and the Arl's estate a seat of learning.

"I see you understand the significance - yet you do not seem surprised."

"No, I - I am," Rilian said quickly.

"Hmm. As you see, I have had this in my head for some time. What I had not planned - but would be willing to grant - would be autonomy to the Elven Alienage: its own laws; its own Bann."

The possibility exploded through Rilian like a dance of radiant colour. The lifting of that oppression would be like coming up from a life lived under dim grey water to the world in brilliant sunshine. Then Anora's next words fractured her joy like ice-splinters.

"To do this I must declare Arl Rendon Howe a traitor: must oppose his son, who is now Teyrn of Highever, Arl of Amaranthine, and Arl of Denerim. Queens have been destroyed for far less."

"You and the Teyrn could commandeer those forces!" Rilian blurted.

"I do not speak of the campaign but of the Landsmeet afterwards. The Howe family hold the allegiance of more Banns than any other. Why do you suppose my father was forced to ally with Rendon Howe? I can only do this if I may count on your support, Warden."

The words went through Rilian like slow ice; their meaning was a punch to the gut. She turned away - a quick, almost uncontrolled movement - and strode across the room. This was why Anora could afford to trust her over Oswyn and Irminric! Rilian had thought of Thomas Howe but had been too stupid to see the implication - that Anora's power did not lie in threatening her people but in being the only one who could save them. And because Rilian had trusted her, she had given away her only bargaining chip - Anora knew she cared as much for the alliance as Loghain did. Slowly, she sank into the chair. Though she wanted to think clearly - needed to think clearly - her thoughts were fragments, spinning away from her. She groped for argument, but knew Anora was too cunning for her. A slow pulse of anger rescued her, pounding in her veins and chasing away exhaustion like cold fire, till finally, in a rumbling, chilling tone of its own, it broke free:

"Vaughan Urien tried to buy me with forty silver and a threat to my community. The cost would have been my cousin, Shianni. Now you try the same - and the cost will be Alistair. You want me to betray him at the Landsmeet."

Anora drew back her shoulders, straightened her spine. Firelight glittered across her armour; she seemed ablaze in darkly-sparkling jewels. She looked regal and certain, like a woman who is within her rights.

"Is that not what you have already done by coming here? Arl Eamon was going to use our need for your forces to strong-arm the Bannorn and you have cut that ground from under him."

"It's not the same. I may have levelled the field. I won't work against him."

"Warden - do you not see that Arl Eamon cannot win on a level playing field? That Alistair's only advantages are his bloodline and my father's crimes - which, after he has helped us defeat the Blight, will seem that much less important? Do you think that will outweigh the threat of a ruler who takes his orders from Weisshaupt? Or of Arl Eamon's correspondence with the Empress of Orlais?"

Rilian felt the blood drain from her face.

"Warden - do you think I am unaware of Erlina's circumstances? No - do not worry," she added quickly. Her vivid eyes softened imperceptibly. "I would not punish a woman for doing her best to feed her family. Better a spy I know about than one I do not. I can control the flow of information - and, as you see, it works both ways."

... Since then, my life is lies. And threats. I use them all: the Queen, Arl Howe, Arl Eamon. One protects against another ...

"So you see - I hold Arl Eamon's doom in my hands: these letters will ruin him." Rilian cared not at all for Arl Eamon's well-deserved fall - but for Alistair's sake the words were a blade in her heart. "And do you think," the Queen finished almost gently, "That after I make them public the Bannorn will hand power to a boy who was never formally acknowledged and who - if the rumours are true - knows no more of kingship than my own stablehand?"

When Rilian started out of the chair Anora waved her back, almost negligently. "Never attack the truth - and never forget that ambition always finds reasons to justify its actions."

"I don't give a rat's arse for Arl Eamon's ambition," Rilian grated out, so angry she lapsed unconsciously into the slang of her childhood. "I support Alistair for what he is, in himself. You talk of learning, of progress, of trade - but you are like Teyrn Loghain: you think your goals are more important than individuals. The only people in your university will be those who can afford not to work. The only people who benefit from trade will be traders. The rich will get richer and the nobles will get more educated - and for the rest of us you won't change a damn thing. I support Alistair for his justice, his compassion."

"So - no mere thoughtless bundle of emotions; and not just a woman wishing to crown her personal Prince. I wonder, Warden, what you would say to my suggestion of a political marriage between Alistair and I? Once Arl Eamon is safely out of the way Alistair may prove a good counterweight. And if I do oppose Thomas Howe and - others - I may need a male defender."

"Who are you - what is he - that you make him a possession? I hand Alistair over to you like a - a chattel - and in exchange you save my people? How dare you!"

Anora stepped forward. A streak of firelight caught her face, so that her usual paleness was covered by an orange-gold blush. The flame burned in her eyes, turning them from the blue-brightness of ice to Rilian's hot amber. She seemed an entirely different woman: direct and candid.

"Warden," she said, her words and their precise diction very calm, very cold, "You mistake me twice. I do not ask you to betray Alistair. I do not ask you to "hand him over". I am telling you what I mean to do. I am offering you a challenge."

Rilian felt almost as though a chain binding her to a world she neither liked nor understood was suddenly broken. Out of everything that had been said, here, at last, was something she knew how to handle. Her own community was rife with such challenges: mother to daughter-in-law - sister to sister - woman to woman. Unexpectedly, Rilian almost grinned. Then Anora stepped backwards, just slightly, so that the shadows distorted her, and Rilian had to bite her lip to keep from reaching forward and physically dragging her back into the light.

"Or a compromise. Alistair would not be the first Theirin man to take an Elven mistress."

Rilian blinked. No Alienage woman would tolerate such a thing. The history of her community was rife with tales of wives' vengeance on mistresses and hapless husbands - the stories were the colour of local evenings, retold and embellished till the best became legendary. Baffled and contemptuous, she glared at Anora, head cocked as though trying to understand her.

"And you would accept that? A husband who is a political tool, whose affections lie elsewhere. How can you live that way? Can you be happy?"

"Warden - I am my mind, my plans, my goals. I am Queen to my beloved Ferelden. My identity does not lie in the affections of my husband. I have never invested myself in that, or hoped for that kind of happiness."

Rilian stamped on her own tiny seedlings of understanding - of respect. Such happiness was all she had ever wanted and - thanks to Vaughan's cruelty - more than she would ever have. She could not help but see the words as scornful, feel herself being weighed and judged: a dull woman with her mind in her belly, whose ambitions stopped at husband and children and food on the table. Irritated with this fierce and bloodless intellectual who dismissed such things when Rilian mourned their loss - who would take her Alistair as a mere pawn - she faced her, hands on hips and shoulders rounded forward, back arched to the very shape of One-Eyed Sal's: Soris' spiteful female cat.

"Families are more than happiness," she shot back, "The duty of a Queen is to bear children."

The arrow flown, Rilian relaxed as she felt her victory: in her community such an insult would have been unanswerable. Two faint spots of red did appear in Anora's cheeks, but her expression became very still, like stone.

"Warden, I was speaking of a political challenge - not a personal one."

Rilian wanted to curse the other woman's enigmatic smile that left her confused and somehow ashamed. She looked away.

"Actually, I believe that the children of dreams outlive the children of blood," she said quietly. "And Wardens can't bear children either. You could have thrown that back at me."

Anora regarded her with a very strange expression. Horrified to recognize sympathy and the beginnings of appreciation, Rilian quickly resumed the challenge:

"Alright: you don't need me to betray Alistair - or talk him into marriage. Politics is your theatre - your arena. So what use do you have for someone whose only talent is fighting and who - however temporarily - has the backing of an army? You've answered that, my lady. You said yourself that Ferelden is a warrior's world - or a General's. You said you might need a male defender to deal with Thomas Howe - and others. And you said that your father's crimes will seem that much less important after the Blight - or easily blamed on Arl Howe. I've heard the Teyrn intends to hand power back to you once the Blight is over - but you and I both know he isn't like that. He'll always see another threat - won't be able to help himself from keeping hold of the reins. He really believes it's best for the country - and for you."

Memories of Cyrion raced through her mind like tiny beads on a golden necklace: he had arranged her schooling with Mother Boann - her job with Lady Habren - even her marriage - and whether she had agreed or not she had always understood the love behind the meddling. Like all the fathers of her community, he had run her life - until the terrible day when that protection had been ripped away. The Teyrn persistently refused to remind her of her father - but still the memories lit a sudden distaste for Anora's plan. "He's the man you want me to betray." Her lip curled. "You talked about your plans for education, invention, progress - and I almost believed you. But you could do all that as King Loghain's daughter - and it's still not enough! You're like all the other nobles: more interested in power than what the power is for." She wondered at her own stab of bitter disappointment. "Whatever the Teyrn has done he's still your father. That ought to make a difference."

Anora regarded her in silence, pale and austere. At once the bones of her face seemed to draw tight, as though she struggled under unseen pressure. For a moment, she looked a decade older. "I assure you, Warden," she said quietly, "That it makes every difference. You understand me so well I am sorry to see you understand me so little."

In taut silence, she walked to the desk, pulled out a missive stamped with an unfamiliar wax seal, and gave it into Rilian's hands.

...To the Regent of Ferelden.

You have murdered the Empress's finest chevaliers at the border of Gherlen's Pass - the very reinforcements sent to aid you. In addition, you have tortured and imprisoned Warden-Commander Riordan of Montsimmard. Neither the nation of Orlais nor the Order of the Grey will see these acts go unpunished. Due to your arrogance your land is already ravaged by the Blight. Now Ferelden will suffer for your crimes as well.

Guillaume Caron,

Acting Warden-Commander of Montsimmard...

"I find it strange," Anora murmured through Rilian's white-lipped shock, "That the Order only sent one Warden - and sent him straight to Arl Howe. Or rather - not so strange, considering how much Orlais stands to gain from using the Wardens as allies against Ferelden. Orlais will let the Blight finish us - and if we defeat it, will attack when we are weakest. And the sad thing is - I think my father almost welcomes the chance to defend Ferelden. It is the world he knows - the world of the rebellion - the best way he has to love his country. He tells me I must trust his ability to see Ferelden through this. The strange thing is, I do - but I also see the thirty years of learning, trade and progress we will lose along the way. My father will not even recognize the loss. So you see - I would never betray him for power: but I will do it for my country. I am my father's daughter."

The moonlight made her look wan, bloodless - but Rilian saw in that instant that she did indeed have a heart. The fingers that took Guillaume's missive were pale and urgent, and every line of her stance told Rilian she was mourning.

"I understand, my lady," Rilian said softly. She glanced down at the black-and-white squares, the tiny wooden pieces forever locked in combat, frozen in time. "But there is a reason you ask me, isn't there - instead of, say, Alistair. You said: every difference. You don't only want me to help you prevent this war - you want me to save your father's life." And Rilian was awed by how much Anora was willing to give. For this she would oppose the son of her father's most powerful ally - almost forcing herself into alliance with Alistair to gain the necessary support. And a cold slimy sensation of guilt crawled inside her at the knowledge she held back: that she would have helped Anora for nothing, because of her memories of Cyrion, because she could not bear to fight alongside Loghain and then betray him to his death.

When Vaughan had stolen her old life, the dream that had replaced it had been of fighting for her people - not making deals with nobility to save them.

I'm not becoming like them - I may be letting Anora make an offer she doesn't need to, but I'm not lying.

And what makes an open mouth that lies different from a closed one that hides the truth? That was Shianni's voice: bracing, impatient with excuses.

I am becoming like them, she admitted, half-ashamed, half-resigned. I'm learning to use people. I use them for my people. And she felt another silvery strand of understanding woven between her and the Queen.

"My lady," she said - because she would not lie about this - "I think you may overestimate me. How am I going to protect your father? Once he loses power, all his enemies will gather like vultures."

Anora managed a small smile. "I have spoken to you before about your power as a Warden: you can do what I would not dare."

Rilian's mouth dropped open."You want me to - conscript him? I don't know how to...what I mean is: it would be insane to do it now, before the campaign - he might not make it. And afterwards - I might die. The Archdemon will probably do for me before I can keep my promise - or hold you to yours."

The thin, tense smile softened; became a quicksilver ripple of mingled sadness and amusement that changed the character of Anora's whole face, made her years younger. "If there is one thing my father taught me, it is that good strategies do not depend on individual lives - even one's own. You must task one of your community to assume the title of Bann - and recruit Wardens you trust to carry out your orders. On that subject - I would suggest you speak to this Riordan. I know," her voice hardened fractionally, "that he has every reason to hate my father - but if what I suspect is true he will have equal reason to hate Orlais. Meanwhile," Anora settled herself at her desk, and took her quill as fiercely as she had held her sword, "I shall write to every Bann in the city, inviting them here tomorrow. When my father arrives, Bann Sighard and Bann Alfstanna will already be here - and the others will soon follow. Even Arl Eamon, for fear of losing influence. Together, you and I shall forge this alliance." Her face was scored by icy courage - but a small, dry smile twitched her lips. "I'm sure Arl Howe would have been delighted to see his estate become - however briefly - the centre of Ferelden."

All at once Rilian felt more like herself than she had done since Arl Howe's work. A flash of her old spirit began to melt the frozen numbness: a resonance, a crackle and spark, a smile on the face of danger. Almost mischievous in her quick resurgence of exuberance and certainty, she playfully tossed back Anora's words about a Warden's power: "My lady," she said, in a feigned solemnity that spread into a brilliant cocky grin, "Where the Queen and the Warden are is the centre of Ferelden."

Anora stared, startled - then all at once her controlled expression brightened into a rare, luminous smile. The two stared at each other a moment before Rilian took her leave, as though they had recognized each other at last.

Author's note: sorry for the late update! And thank you to Arsinoe for the Orlesian plot - very, very fishy to send a single Warden straight to Howe, I agree! - and for Anora's planned city charter and location for the university.