Five: Certain Dark Things

Author's note: This chapter is NSFW, and the fic as a whole has finally gone to an M rating.

The dreamers slip into our world each night,
thieves who reshape the world around them, steal
the shapes we have so painstakingly built.

Now, with our Golden City cracked,
our anchor is cut free. Nothing we have
built can stand. Nothing.

But the dreamers, the thieves, they come in,
and show us the way to their world.
We follow. Take on their passions,
their sorrows, wait and watch at the Veil.

From the Canticle of Demons, stanza 3: of the mortal world

Zevran:

They were moving quickly towards the commotion in the great hall, only barely keeping from a flat-out run. "Just like old times, no?"

Kathil grimaced and shifted her grip on Cerys. The infant was making noises that suggested that she was enjoying their haste, high-pitched giggles. "I thought my days of rescuing people from Oghren were over."

Through the arched doorway, Oghren's distinctive bellow sounded. "You sodding bastard, come back here and say that! I'm gonna—I'm gonna kill you, and cut you up, and then DANCE on the PIECES." He and Kathil burst into the hall a moment later, Cullen close on their heels and, if he was not mistaken, the royal couple not far behind.

Oghren was wielding a battleaxe, chasing around a terrified-looking Eddelbrek, and ranting. The human bann was bleeding from several deep cuts on his arms and one on his thigh, but that didn't seem to slow him down very much. He seemed to realize that keeping the timber posts between himself and Oghren was the only thing that slowed the dwarf down.

Oghren was very good at chopping living things into very small pieces, a fact that did not seem to escape Eddelbrek in the slightest. The dwarf, did, however, like to travel in straight lines. Dodging around things did not appear to occur to him often.

Or perhaps he truly was that drunk.

"Think you can take him down?" Kathil asked. "Without killing him, preferably?"

Zevran looked evaluatively at Oghren, and weighed his chances. The dwarf smacked into a support beam, bounced off with a clatter, then regained his balance and charged again. "Perhaps. If Cullen helps." Oghren was tricky to take down at the best of times, and in the years since the Blight the dwarf had become tougher, meaner, and drunker. And it was always a bit ticklish, to try not to kill someone who was trying to kill you.

Kathil looked irritated. "Not worth the risk. That's Frenzy he's got out there. Nasty weapon."

Cullen added, "Heard he calls it Branka."

"He would." She shifted Cerys and freed an arm, murmuring a spell. A shimmering cage appeared around Oghren, and Zevran held his breath. That worked sometimes, after all—

The spell made a soft popping noise and vanished as Oghren barreled through it. "Andante's bloody underthings. Dwarves. Try not to let him kill you, you two."

And that was as good as an order.

Keeping his blades in their sheaths for the moment, he stalked toward the dwarf, Cullen beside him. Another presence moved on his right side—out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alistair, angling toward them as they went to intercept Oghren.

Oghren ignored them, even as Zevran called his name. He barreled between Zevran and Cullen, and the two of them attempted to tackle him. They all went down in a pile, but briefly—Oghren grunted and surged to his feet, throwing them both off. Fortunately, he didn't seem to regard them as attackers.

Merely obstacles.

Zevran heard Kathil's voice snapping out a spell, and Eddelbrek froze as the same shimmering shield came up around him that Kathil had tried to cast on Oghren. She and Jowan were both very good at that spell; they used it to protect Cerys during battles. Within a couple of heartbeats Oghren was using his great axe to flail at the shield, the edge sparking and screaming as it hit and bounced away. The dwarf was not looking out behind him, and between Zevran Cullen, and Alistair they managed to get Frenzy away from him and the dwarf physically dragged away from the bann. Once they had Oghren down, Zevran sat on the dwarf's chest, glaring. Lorn plopped himself over Oghren's hips, with an air of I could do this all day.

Others had arrived in the room, and one of them was Anders, the mage who seemed to have such a grudge against Jowan. (Zevran had little doubt that it was entirely justified.) He crouched at Oghren's head, ignoring the shouting, and grabbed the dwarf's head in both hands.

The air briefly took on the tingling feel of magic, and all at once Oghren's body went slack. He was still awake, and his face was taking on a look of confused consternation. "What'd ya have to go do that for? I was just gettin' warmed up!"

The shield around Eddelbrek dropped, and Petra was fussing over the bann as his men moved in to surround them. The mage was a good healer, Zevran had witnessed it for himself in the weeks she had been at the Vigil, and Eddelbrek was in competent hands. He turned his attention back to Oghren. "I fear you are in trouble, my friend."

"Because I have a sodding elf sitting on me!" Oghren tried to get up, and failed. "That son of a duster deserves to go down."

Kathil was there, looming over them—as much as someone who was shorter than Zevran could loom, that was. "Why?" she asked. Cerys was awake in her arms, grabbing at a stray braid that was falling perilously close to the infant's hands. "What could Eddelbrek possibly have done? The one relatively sane bann—"

The dwarf looked up at the mage, scowled, and looked away. "Heard him talking to one of the other banns, that human with all the skirts. Said it wouldn't be easy to get the Vigil away from the Wardens, since the Commander was the King's whore and an apostate into the bargain. But he thought they could do it, especially since the Wardens here don't have Weisshaupt's support."

"That's old gossip, and I've been called worse." But Kathil's eyes had gone to flint. "So you decided to teach him a lesson."

"Can you blame me? Well, and maybe I was a bit drunk."

"You're still drunk," Anders said. "I have no idea how you can hold that much alcohol, but the rejuvenation spell didn't take care of nearly all of it."

"'s a talent." Oghren grinned. "Gonna let me up now? The elf's ass is bony."

Kathil glanced over her shoulder. "Sigrun, Nathaniel. Escort Oghren to the cells. He needs some time to dry out, and I have to do some damage control. Oghren, I'll deal with you later."

"Yeah, yeah," the dwarf grumbled. "Won't be the first time you've thrown me under the sodding cart."

The mage clenched her jaw, but turned away. "Never on purpose, and not now," she muttered. "Just—get out of my sight."

Zevran got up, and held out a hand to Oghren. He hauled the dwarf to his feet. "I will try to calm her," he told Oghren in a low voice. "She is not in the most stable of frames of mind at the moment, yes?"

"Don't do me any favors, fancypants." Sigrun and Nathaniel each took one of Oghren's arms and started hauling him away. Zevran turned his attention to Kathil, who was making for the place in the hall where Eddelbrek sat, surrounded by guards.

Alistair was shaking his head. "I knew he'd gotten bad, but I hadn't known how bad."

Zevran slowed, and glanced over his shoulder at the retreating Wardens. Then he went to return to Kathil's side.

Eddelbrek was on his feet. "I demand that you punish your man," he said. His face was drawn and pale; Eddelbrek was not used to being chased around and bleeding, it seemed. "If you hadn't intervened, he might have killed me."

Kathil just looked at the man with that flat gaze that had unnerved so many men. Though the bann did not visibly flinch, his anger guttered like a candle in a draft. "He might have. Then again, if what he said is accurate, he did not act without reason. He will be disciplined, but the walls of the Vigil have ears."

The bann glanced at Alistair, who was standing with crossed arms, and swallowed. "You have to understand, I said nothing objectionable. Merely apprising Lady Liza of a few things she wasn't aware of."

"Repeating gossip, you mean." She raised her chin, her armor creaking softly. "In normal circumstances, I would believe his word over yours, but these aren't exactly normal circumstances. I'll deal with Oghren, but I would caution you to observe the courtesies when under my roof, my lord."

She was looking steadily at Eddelbrek, but behind the bann there was a slight movement in the doorway. Lady Liza stood there, and though there were signs of strain at the corners of her eyes, there was a slight smile on her lips.

It was too bad that his Grey Warden did not usually allow Zevran to ply his own version of diplomacy. There was one bann in the room that needed swift retirement, and it was not the sweating man in front of them. Lady Liza Packton's hands were clean, she made sure of it. Yet somehow her name always came up when dirty deeds at Vigil's Keep were discussed, from angry mobs on the doorstep to an assassination attempt on Laurens when he should have been concentrating on fighting the darkspawn that refused to go away like good little monsters.

In his experience, it was those who were always on the edges of everything that turned out to be the most dangerous.

Eddelbrek bowed his head. "I understand. I believe I will withdraw for the evening." He left, his guards falling in around him.

Kathil glanced over at the rest of them, standing in a loose crowd by the large firepit that was the centerpiece of the hall as much as the dragon skull mounted over the dais. She drew a long breath. "I need to go deal with Oghren," she said. "Maker's Breath, I did not need this today."

Petra was scrubbing her hands with a bloodstained cloth. "Warden-Commander, if I could have a word?" she asked. "I won't take much time."

The words were entirely neutral, but there was something about them, some subtle electricity in her tone that drew the ear. Kathil frowned. "I'll meet you in my office shortly. The rest of you..." She waved, her gesture encompassing the hall. "Make yourselves at home. We usually gather for supper on the first floor of the wing where all the Warden quarters are. Anyone will be able to show you there. But before I go—" She silently held Cerys out to Zevran. The babe was pursing her mouth as if she were deep in thought about something, a facial expression that usually presaged a demand to be fed. Zevran took their daughter, as always marveling at the solidity of her.

Kathil crossed the space between herself and Leliana in four long strides, and threw her arms around the bard. "I missed you," the mage said, her face buried in Leliana's shoulder. "You have no idea."

"Ah, but I do have some small idea, yes?" Leliana smiled, and in that smile there were a thousand unspoken questions. "Ah, dearest. I was so worried. Could you not have written? At least to Redcliffe?"

"We spent the winter in the Brecilian Forest. Not a lot of post out that way. And anything I might have written probably would have gotten intercepted." She breathed out, and her shoulders sagged. "I have to go take care of things. But we'll talk later."

"Go, go. Commander." Leliana's eyes were gentle, but there was some mischief in them. "I think there is much work for us all to do here. But we can talk about that after you have dealt with the immediate crisis."

Kathil nodded. "Tonight." She turned to Zevran, and there was a small smile on her lips, the scar twisting one corner of her mouth. "Walk with me to my office. Cullen, make sure that Oghren's secure, and check on the, ah, project." The project was the Joining cup; they would hold the Joining tomorrow morning, if all went well. Cullen nodded, understanding, and departed.

Zevran walked with Kathil towards her office. "I'm going to have to get you to help me with my cuirass. Cerys is going to want her supper soon. I swear, I'm going to switch back to robes. Getting in and out of my armor every time I need to feed Cerys is more trouble than it's worth."

"Only if you try to remember not to run into the middle of battles, my Warden. While Anders and Petra are good at what they do, together they do not quite equal one Wynne." He smiled, and in his arms Cerys shifted and made a noncommittal noise, as if she were deciding whether fussing was worth the effort. "Come, we will get your armor off, and then you have sweet Petra waiting in your office."

They found an unoccupied room—barely larger than a closet—and set Cerys down. Zevran unbuckled the straps of Kathil's dragonhide armor with deft, practiced hands. He had stripped armor from this woman many more times than he could remember by now, and there was always a moment, when the shoulder straps released...

Ah, there.

He slipped one hand through the open collar of the shirt she wore between her skin and the armor padding and found a familiar knotted muscle. The mage groaned and leaned into his hand, her body relaxing for a moment. She rested her chin on his shoulder as he lowered the cuirass to the ground with his other hand.

"Lady Liza," she said, pitching her voice low. "Make it look good, Zev. I don't care what you do as long as she is no longer a problem."

His eyebrows shot up. Was she truly—? But she was. "It must wait until she travels back to her estate," he said, his voice pitched to match hers. "But I know how it will go."

"Good." She turned her face into his neck, and he felt her cool lips moving against his skin. "Take whatever, and whoever, you need."

"I will. And then there is the matter of payment. For no Crow takes a contract without the promise of reward, yes?"

She chuckled. "I know." Her teeth grazed his neck. "Return to me successful, and I will reward you lavishly. For days. Adequate?"

"Mmmm. Perhaps." He shifted, and trailed the fingers of one hand along her jaw. "I could ask for something special, no? Something we have not enjoyed since the summer."

He was well-practiced at reading her body, the shifts and currents of tension. He read interest and apprehension twined together; she had interpreted his words correctly. "Cullen and I are—"

"Both afraid to make a move for fear of being rejected," he said, interrupting her. "It is long past time for the pair of you to get over it, no? What is between you is plain to see."

The breath went out of her all at once. "I've been waiting for him to make the first move."

"And he waits for you, out of respect." Zevran shook his head and brushed his lips against her braided hair. "So much waiting. But while you are waiting, the time is slipping by, and you are both becoming entrenched, so to speak."

"I know." On the floor, Cerys stretched and began to fuss. Kathil kissed his neck once more and began stripping off the rest of her armor, revealing the soft shirt and trousers she habitually wore beneath. She tossed it all in a pile—gloves, vambraces, greaves, padding, and all the rest. "Take the armor back to our room for me?" she asked. "Just put it on the floor, I'll stand it when I get back." She slipped into her weapon harness; Spellweaver glittered sullenly where hilt met sheath.

"Of course." He picked up the armor, and she gathered up the infant. "I hope your meeting with Petra goes well."

She quirked her mouth without comment, kissed him again, and left. Zevran departed as well, thinking about one Lady Liza Packton, and how best to end her life without undue suspicion coming upon him and his.

Kathil:

She settled down behind her desk, in the chair that she kept on meaning to have changed out. It had been Laurens', and it was a bit too large for her. The hard wooden edge of the seat dug into the backs of her knees. Across from her, Petra perched in one of the guest chairs.

Kathil rearranged her clothing, and Cerys stopped fussing and latched on. There was a familiar rush of sensation through her breast. "You had something you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked Petra.

The other mage nodded. "I'm going back to the Tower, and taking Guaire," she said.

Kathil eyed her. "You say that like there's a catch."

"There is." Petra sighed and straightened her shoulders. "We'll give you two years, then we'll be back at Vigil's Keep, whether or not there's a new First Enchanter to take over. Both of us want to be Wardens, Kathil. And I want to see more of the world than just the Tower."

Two years. More time than I thought I might have. "We'll work something out," she said, and tried to make sure her gratitude was audible in her voice. "Thank you."

"I don't think Greagoir would have annulled the Circle over not having a First Enchanter," Petra said, pursing her lips. "But I have to admit, not having the ability to do the Harrowing is such an interesting problem, isn't it?"

Kathil closed her eyes briefly, trying not to sag in relief. "It is. I'm not terribly surprised that Guaire agreed to go back with you, either."

"Agreed? He was the one who was trying to talk me into it." She brushed her hand over her hair. "Said that we had a responsibility to see our previous obligations through before we took on new ones. He does do his best to keep me honest. Anyway, you'll keep Kinnon and the rest. And Anders, Maker help you."

"He's getting along. Mostly."

"Except for the fact that he and Jowan keep trying to kill each other." Petra grinned, a bit of savage humor lighting her face. "I don't envy you the two of them."

"I'd tell you to take one or the other back with you, but you can't keep Anders in the Tower, and I think trying to take Jowan back would end rather badly." Kathil grimaced, and then shifted Cerys to her other breast. "They'll settle down eventually."

"If they don't, they might take the Vigil down around your ears," Petra said. "Guaire and I were planning to leave tomorrow morning, since the weather looks like it's going to hold for a few days."

Kathil nodded. "Safe travels to you, then. First Enchanter." She smiled at Petra. She had never been friends with this mage, but neither had they been enemies. They could work together.

Petra smiled back, and took her leave. Kathil finished feeding Cerys in silence. As usual, the baby fell asleep just after the meal, with one small hand curled around Kathil's thumb. "Love you, little one," she murmured.

That was one thing settled, at least. And with any luck, she would be able to talk Alistair into confirming Varel as Arl of Amaranthine. She was dancing on thin ice there, she knew, but it was the only reasonable solution. She had no good candidates among the Wardens for the arling; the closest she could get was Nathaniel Howe, and if she thought Varel was a controversial candidate...

She quite purposely did not think very hard about the request she had made of Zevran a little bit earlier. It was made, and knowing her assassin it was as good as done. Though what he had asked for in return—

He is right, and you know it.

She rose, and went to find a sling to put Cerys in. Her next task was one that she did not look forward to in the slightest.

A little while later, she had found Cullen and Sigrun, and headed across the inner ward towards the cells. "That's strange," Sigrun said, stopping and cocking her head.

Kathil pulled up and followed Sigrun's gaze. Huddled against the stone of the ward wall was a small woman wrapped in a tattered blanket, a begging bowl sitting in front of her. "We have a few beggars," Kathil said. "She looks like she's blind."

"Inside the inner ward, though?" Sigrun shook her head. "The guards don't usually let people inside who don't actually have business in here."

The beggar lifted her head as if she'd heard them from all the way across the ward, her tangled hair shadowing her face. Then she smiled.

A moment later, she was gone.

"That was odd," Cullen said. "Did she just vanish?"

Sigrun was frowning. "You should talk to the guards about keeping their eyes open," she said, glancing at Kathil. "It's probably nothing, but better to be sure."

"I was going to talk to Maverlies about the Templars, anyway," she said. "I'll ask her to remind the watch to be more vigilant."

Cullen hauled open the door to the basement, and peered inside. He nodded to Kathil, then started down the stairs. Kathil and Sigrun followed.

Oghren was sitting with his back to the wall of one of the cells. "Come to tell me off, eh?" he said, voice a low growl.

Kathil gritted her teeth, and straightened her back. Cullen and Sigrun were hanging back, evidently deciding to let Kathil handle this. The knot of the sling that Cerys slept in dug into her shoulder. "Oghren, you're going to have to talk to me. You obviously have a problem in general, and with me in specific. We might as well have it out."

The dwarf snorted. "Just because you disappear on us, and then come dancin' back in and boot out the commander we just sodding finished breaking in? Nah. Why would I have a sodding problem?"

"You've never had a problem with my leadership before." Kathil stepped forward, and narrowed her eyes. "I got the impression after the Archdemon that you didn't need me any more. You were going to go settle down with Felsi, maybe join the king's guard."

"Yeah, well, the settling down didn't work out so well, did it? Felsi's not speaking to me, the nugget's a year old and I've seen him maybe twice." He glared at Kathil. "Just tell me what my punishment's going to be and get it over with."

The nugget? Is he— If anyone had told her that Oghren had a son, she hadn't remembered it. I suppose we dislike most in others what we hate about ourselves. "I finished my obligations," she said, keeping her voice steady. "I killed the stupid dragon, broke the Blight. I was done."

"Yeah? So why are you here?" He eyed her with more than a little suspicion.

She gave the dwarf a lopsided smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes. "You see anyone else stupid enough to take on being Warden-Commander?"

And it was more complicated than that, but it always was, wasn't it?

If Kathil had had a rough few years, Oghren had had it even rougher. He'd been bent and battered by life when she'd met him, and he was even more so now. "There's that," he said, grudgingly. He straightened, and looked her in the eye. "Look, didn't you ever think there might be people who sodding worried about you, girl? You just left. Right in the middle of a wedding. You missed the best part, too, that Cousland blighter got into the Dragon Piss and started howling about his sister. And then you show up again, and—" Words seemed to fail him. He motioned sharply with one hand at Kathil. "I mean, good on you for takin' responsibility. But."

She glanced down at Cerys, who was sleeping unconcerned in her sling. "But. I know." She felt her shoulders tighten. "Oghren...where is Felsi?"

"Rainesfere. Last I heard, at least. She moves around some."

She eyed him. "Think she would consider moving to Amaranthine, once rebuilding starts? Sure to be lots of work."

Oghren pulled on one of the filthy braids in his beard. "She told me that she'd go back to Orzammar before she'd live anywhere near me. Still not sure how serious I should take that." Though by the scowl on his face, he took it very seriously indeed. "You know me and women. The Commander—Laurens, not you—was going to help me write letters to the nugget."

It was generally safe to assume that Oghren deserved whatever he got; it was also safe to assume that he had too much stone-balled warrior pride to apologize to anyone about anything. Including someone who had once loved him enough to marry him.

Time shits on us all, my friend.

She took a sharp breath. "So. Your punishment, Oghren, is that you are going to go to Rainesfere, find Felsi, and apologize. You're going to give her some sovereigns—docked from your stipend—and tell her that if she wants to make her way to the Vigil, I'll make sure she's taken care of when she gets here."

Oghren glared at her. Kathil glared back.

They were warriors, the pair of them, and Felsi was one too, though of a different kind. With Oghren, the fight came first, it always had. "Think of it as taking responsibility," she said. "In your phrasing."

He snorted and relaxed, in that abrupt way that he'd always had of deciding that the fight was over and it was time to be friends again. "Yeah, well. Suppose you expect me to be on my way tonight?"

"Tomorrow," she said. "I have to find someone willing to go with you."

"I don't need a nanny," the dwarf grumbled, the dark clouds gathering in his expression once more.

She raised an eyebrow. "No, but the towns you stop in might."

Oghren laughed, then got to his feet. "You're sodding right, girl! Rainesfere, lock up your ale and your daughters!"

"You get to stay here tonight," Kathil said. "I've got enough problems without the banns coming squeaking to me about you roaming the halls. Tomorrow morning, you get packed up to leave." She turned towards the door, and saw Cullen and Sigrun both looking at her. Sigrun looked troubled; Cullen looked skeptical. "Petra and Guaire will go with him as far as the Imperial Highway," she said.

Sigrun cocked her head. "Petra is leaving?"

Cullen said, "I guessed as much, from something Guaire said to me last night." He cast a glance back at Oghren, and there was still trouble in the way his jaw firmed. "Let's get back into the Keep proper."

She'd wondered, a little, how Cullen would react when the Chantry began to reach for their daughter in that gasping way it had. Now she had her answer: with that solidity that went beyond stubbornness that was so characteristic of who he was.

(No fewer than two around Cerys at any time, he'd said, his eyes gone to flint. At least one non-mage. If they see the opportunity, they will try to take her by force. And she believed him; had no reason not to.)

She only hoped that his decisions would not cost him so very much, when all was figured.

Leliana:

It was such a large fortress, and pleasant in a rough-shouldered, heavy-beamed way. The Alamarri had built few things, but what they had constructed they had intended to last the ages.

And oh, there were such surprises within.

Such as the baby that was currently being passed around the Wardens, mumbling around the fist she had stuffed in her mouth, unfocused eyes dreamy. Such as the way that Zevran and Cullen both kept half an eye on the infant, another half on the door. (The Templars were still resident, after all.)

Such as Kathil herself, bone-weary but more sharply cheerful, more alive, than she had been since the early days of the Blight. She was embroiled in a discussion with Alistair, trying to convince him that he really did need to name Varel Arl of Amaranthine. Rima sat next to Alistair, outwardly calm, but Leliana had witnessed the woman's maneuvering earlier. The Queen could find a way through the narrowest of openings, and what she truly wanted was a Circle of Magi that was not under Chantry control—and preferably heavily beholden to the crown.

There were other surprises such as Nathaniel Howe (who sat across the table from them, looking nearly at ease even in this company), a tall man who called himself Justice and appeared to only be alive in the most technical of senses, and a woman who was a member of the Legion of the Dead as well as a Grey Warden. Leliana wanted to spend some time talking to Sigrun, as information about the Legion was hard to come by on the surface, and even in Orzammar people did not like to talk much about them. How did one join? Did they attend their own funerals? Who funded the Legion, gave it arms and armor? Did they have their own heroes, their own stories? They must, surely.

Far down the table from Leliana, Jowan avoided looking at her, instead involving himself in conversation with one of the other Wardens. Beside her, Murena picked at her food, casting sidelong glances at the baby that Leliana held. "Eat, little one," Leliana told her, dropping into Tevinter. "Do not just push it around." One of the girl's worst habits was the hoarding of food; Leliana had needed to have sharp words with Murena just before they made the crossing into Ferelden, after discovering the half-rotted remains of several meals at the bottom of the girl's pack.

She was not far enough yet from the streets of Minrathous to believe that there would be enough food tomorrow, and the day after that. In her world, one always had to make food last as long as possible.

Murena poked a whitish lump with her spoon. "What is this?"

"Turnips, and before you ask they are not poisonous, no matter how they taste." She leaned over and ruffled the girl's hair. Murena ducked, but only halfheartedly. "Remember what I said about being polite?"

"Courtesy-is-the-foundation-of-grace," Murena said, running the words together in a mumble. She frowned at her turnips. "Eating this is part of courtesy?"

"As is speaking in a language those around you can understand," she said, switching back to Fereldan. Nathaniel Howe was looking at them with curiosity written on his face. "Murena is not entirely comfortable in the Fereldan language yet," she said to him.

He twitched his mouth. "I don't like turnips either," he said to Murena in heavily accented Tevinter. "I used to slip them to the dogs."

The girl's reaction to hearing someone here speak one of her native languages was remarkable. She brightened, sitting upright, and then blushed and ducked her head, muttering incomprehensibly. "Murena is still finding her feet," Leliana told Nathaniel. "Where did you learn Tevinter? It's not much spoken in this country."

"I squired in the Free Marches, and Tevinter is one of the languages of the land there." He gave Murena a glance that seemed more sympathetic than amused. "I take it your apprentice is from Tevinter itself?"

"I lived a' Minrathous," Murena said, this time speaking clearly, though slipping a bit into cant.

"And what do you think of Ferelden?" Nathaniel asked.

Murena looked around her, her sharp face considering. "S'cold. But people are nice to me." She smiled, briefly showing her crooked teeth. "I like all the dogs."

"I think that's all that's required to enjoy living here." He shifted his attention to Leliana. "Are you planning to stay long, or will you leave when the King and Queen do?"

"Oh, I will stay for the moment." She glanced at Kathil, who was gesturing sharply in the general direction of the great hall of the Vigil. "If nothing else, life around your commander is always interesting."

"Oghren has mentioned as much." He glanced at Kathil, and Leliana remembered that the mage had killed this man's father. It had been a death richly deserved, but she doubted that Nathaniel was ever entirely at ease around Kathil. He opened his mouth to continue, but Kathil abruptly stood, and the room fell raggedly into silence as all eyes went to her.

"It's settled," she said, raising her voice to carry through the room. "Varel will be named arl by Alistair tomorrow. I will continue as Warden-Commander. We have a difficult task ahead of us, and it will be made easier when the leadership of the arling is clear. Not that much easier, but any little thing that might help, I'll take." Her gaze swept the room, considering each of the assembled Wardens for a moment. "And just so everyone knows, the Templars who showed up this afternoon are guests. Barely tolerated ones, at that. Treat them with respect, but keep your distance." She glanced at Jowan, and there was a whole silent conversation in the glance that passed between them.

The maleficar inclined his head in response, but kept his silence.

Kathil leaned over and spoke to Cullen in a low voice. Leliana ruffled Murena's hair again. "Stay here. I will be back shortly." Then she got to her feet, catching Kathil's eye as she did so. The mage straightened and then rounded the table, coming over to Leliana. "You and I should speak, yes?"

"We should." Leliana saw her mouth quirk, and then the glance she gave to her daughter, who had just been passed back to Zevran by the tall blond mage who seemed so bent on charming everyone around him. "This way."

There was a small sitting room just down from the room the Wardens were using as a communal dining room. It was apparently currently being used as a place to store arms and armor that were in need of repair; Leliana moved an arm-guard with a large crease right down the middle and a chainmail shirt with a number of rings broken or twisted far out of place off of a chair so she could sit down. The room smelled of metal and oil, with a faint overlay of the very familiar scent of sweat-soaked armor padding.

It smelled like the night before a battle.

Kathil had done the same thing, shifting a breastplate and some bloodstained padding off of her own chair. "We're still at sixes and sevens here," she said. "There never seems to be enough time to get even this wing of the keep in order, much less the rest of it."

"Usually, the seneschal would have a castellan who would oversee such domestic arrangements," Leliana said. "Is there no such person here?"

The mage frowned, her scar twisting the corner of her mouth. "Come to think of it, Varel did mention that his castellan died during the siege this winter. We've been a bit busy trying to keep ourselves from killing the banns, but I'll talk to him about it. Garavel is going to be made seneschal once Varel is confirmed as arl. Garavel has a lot of battle experience, but it'll be a while before he's as good at his job as Varel is." She sighed a little, and glanced around. "The same could be said for many of the rest of us."

"You seem to be doing well," Leliana said. "It was an eventful winter, for all of us."

"And we're going to have to sit down with a bottle of wine one of these evenings and tell each other about it." Kathil regarded Leliana was that intent gaze that made many people so very uncomfortable. "But unless I miss my guess, you have something you want to talk to me about that's more politics and less catching up."

Leliana shifted, and spread one hand out on her knee. "The first is that the Imperial magister who ordered the jeu at the masque is dead. It was...not as clean a game as I would have liked to have played. The magister had a bard in his household who knows I was there that night. I took steps to neutralize him, but there may yet be consequences."

"That's good news, mostly. Any consequences, well, we'll deal with those when they wash up on our shores. And the other?"

"This." Leliana's hands went to her neck, and found the chain that hung there. She pulled the necklace over her head and handed it to Kathil: "I was given this by a woman in Minrathous who requested that I take it to the Fereldan Grey Wardens, since the original owner was once the Fereldan Warden-Commander."

Kathil turned over the pendant in her hand, the scratched and battered pendant. "This is a Warden's Oath. And the motto is in Orlesian...Lei, who did this belong to?"

Leliana held the mage's gaze with her own. "I believe you know who."

"Duncan." The breath went out of her all at once, and she slumped back in her chair, folding her hand around the Oath. Then she gave Leliana a sharp look. "Who in Minrathous had it—and why?"

"As for that...your Duncan, he was a man who would bend the rules when it suited him, yes? There was a woman, a Circle mage, that he helped convey to freedom in Tevinter. The Oath was given to her as a token of safe passage, and the Wardens helped her get across the Waking Sea and supported her as she established herself in Minrathous.." Leliana smiled. "From what I was able to glean, the mage was pregnant when she made the journey. Her daughter was born in Tevinter."

"Duncan was the father?"

"So Amity said."

And in the silence between them then hung everything that Leliana could not say about who Amity was and who she had been to Leliana, how her absence was an unexpected and unwelcome ache. How the woman had worked her way into Leliana's cracked heart, and found herself a place among the ruins, and had even begun to undo the damage that Marjolaine had done. The gulf of the winter stretched between herself and this mage, the miles and months they had traveled apart placing them at a distance that it was going to take some time to cross.

They had time. Leliana had faith in that much, at least.

She watched her friend run her thumb along the length of the vial in her hand, and hoped that it would not take so very much time.

Cullen:

The funny thing about the mixture of darkspawn blood and lyrium that would go into the Joining cup tomorrow morning was that it looked exactly like what it was—bubbling, liquid death.

Smells like it, too.

He stirred it desultorily. He wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to be checking on, but it hadn't burst into flame, it hadn't separated out into its component liquids, and it smelled genuinely evil.

And familiar. He remembered his own Joining, almost two years ago, how even the smell of the cup had made the small hairs on the back of his neck raise and his gorge attempt to head for the hills. He wouldn't stand at tomorrow's Joining; that would be Kathil and Sigrun, and possibly Alistair in some acknowledgement that the King was still a Warden in the way that perhaps mattered most.

Not how he would live, but how he would die.

Cullen added some wood to the hearth fire, used the poker to rearrange the coals. He was delaying, he knew, lingering in the mage lab when everyone else had retired for the evening. He should head to his room. Try to get some sleep. There was the Joining early tomorrow morning, and then an audience with the banns that might turn ugly—particularly if the Templars still in residence decided to show up in force. The next day, they were to go to the city of Amaranthine, to see with their own eyes the destruction that had been wrought there.

All the while trying to ignore the looming threats, the clouds gathering on the horizon. Cullen shook his head and straightened, then replaced the poker in the rack next to the hearth. He'd collect Fiann from the kennels and head to his room.

He turned towards the door, and was brought up short. Kathil was there, leaning on the doorframe, exactly as if she had been there all along. (And she might have been; she was in her stocking feet, and Maker knew she had ways of traveling from one place to another unseen.) "I was just checking on the mixture," he said, then stopped.

She didn't move from where she was. "I thought you would be spending the evening with Guaire, since he's leaving tomorrow."

"Talked with him a bit this afternoon. He's promised to write." He gestured at the pot bubbling over the fire. "Seems to be almost ready."

She dipped her chin in acknowledgement, and he remembered another Joining, months ago; standing beside Jowan's prone form. "Come spar with me?" she asked, then chewed on the inside of her cheek briefly, an old nervous gesture. "I need the exercise."

He eyed her. "Where's Cerys?"

"Zev has her. He's playing cards with Alistair and Leliana and—Sigrun, I think. Or maybe Anders. He wasn't specific. Anyway, she's had her evening meal. She'll sleep for a while, and I told Zev I'd be in the salle." She rested her hand on Spellweaver's hilt. The mageblade sparked briefly and then settled. "I'm very tired of practicing against pells."

While she was recovering from giving birth, she'd switched back to practicing against trees and pells, just enough activity to remind her body of its training. He'd been surprised that she hadn't taken up the circle again when they'd gotten to the Vigil. "Sure you're ready?"

She twisted the corner of her mouth. "My hips are never going to be the same, but the rest of me needs to get with the sodding program. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing battle again sooner rather than later." She shifted her balance, pushing away from the doorframe. "So, are you coming?"

Cullen relented. "Lead the way."

They went down the stairs to the salle. The salle itself was enclosed, but great doors at one side led out to the practice yard. The room was larger than the Tower's salle, with five rings instead of three, and benches stacked to one side that could be set up for lectures.

It was late enough at night that they were alone, the practice weapons racked neatly and shadows lingering beyond the door. Kathil flicked her fingers, and three bright magelights flew up to hang in the rafters. They shed an unwavering light, and Cullen was reminded of the Tower. The salle there had been lit by magelights too, as was much of the Tower proper. (Candles and books were a bad combination.)

Kathil went to the edge of the ring in the center of the room, her footsteps echoing. The wooden floor creaked gently beneath her feet. She pulled Spellweaver from its sheath, then unbuckled the sword belt from her waist and laid it and the sheath aside. She pulled off her socks and tossed them next to the sheath. "Are you coming?"

He hadn't even realized that he'd stopped to watch her. "One moment."

"I think I'll get Wade to make you a blade," she said, looking critically at the steel in his hand as he hefted his shield, examining the straps that held it to his arm.. "It's time both you and Zev had nicer weapons, and Wade is one of the best."

"I like this one," he said, keeping his voice mild as he came to the edge of the circle opposite her. "It's comfortable."

"Mmm. Seems you could get a new one that's just as comfortable, and more enchantable." They both stepped over the line into the ring. "Well. Let's do this, Cullen."

They raised their weapons, and began.

It had been a long time since he had sparred with Kathil. There were some things that didn't change. She still had that little hitch in her stride that marred her grace; she still held her right side more strongly than her scarred left. They circled each other, evaluating, getting comfortable with the space and the footing. Neither of them were armored.

As one, they moved.

They came together with a clash of metal, Spellweaver sparking and spitting. Kathil disengaged quickly. In a contest of sheer strength, he would win, and when their swords were locked together Cullen had the advantage. Kathil's advantage was all in swiftness, in misdirection. Mindful of that, he did not chase her when she retreated, simply waited for her to come at him again.

They kept on like that for long minutes, until both of them were damp with sweat. Kathil was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed. She came in again, and he made to deflect her with his shield—and heard her pained grunt as his shield caught her on her injured shoulder and she stumbled away.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Fine." There was a tingle in the air, the icy smell of magic gathering, the feel of the Veil bending—

He growled and raised his shield. "Hey, you get out the magic, I get out the cleansing."

Kathil snorted, and then she was abruptly close, under his shield and inside of his guard. A moment later the length of her body was pressed against him. "Are you very certain of that?" she asked, her mouth at his ear.

And it had suddenly stopped being a sparring match and become something else entirely.

She vanished again, leaving him nearly gasping with her absence. He heard her footstep behind him and whirled.

They clashed and parted, body striving against body, blade against blade. He heard her chuckle, a little muffled, and he sidestepped and turned his shield edge on to meet her next blow. Spellweaver nearly shrieked against the metal of his shield, and he grinned. Kathil's eyes narrowed.

A moment later, she'd folded her knees and he overbalanced, staggering as she hit the ground and rolled away. He recovered and turned, and she was slow to recover. Too slow—his shield arm shot out and grabbed her off hand, wrapping around her wrist and yanking her in under his guard. His mouth was hard on hers, and Kathil returned the kiss with similar force.

Distantly, he heard a clatter as her blade fell to the floor. Her hand fastened in the cloth of his shirt, and she broke the kiss and shifted her weight backwards.

She used her leverage to yank him forward and off balance once more, and as he stepped forward to catch himself, she put one of her legs between his, and twisted. He hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs. A heartbeat later she was atop him, pinning him down, her hand at the base of his throat.

Her pupils were wide, and strange things moved in their depths.

Cullen let go of his blade.

Then they were kissing again, and this thing between them was something frantic, need beating at both of them with hard wings. I had almost forgotten—

He pulled his arm free of the shield. Kathil was straddling his hips, and he knew that she could feel him hardening against her. He could say no, still. He could say stop and she would, and they would retreat back into silence, behind walls that were growing thicker and stronger by the day.

In that moment, Cullen realized that Kathil was waiting for him to pull away once again.

I am tired of denying who I am.

He fisted his hand in the front of her shirt and brought her down on him, claiming her mouth once more. The two of them were hard-edged, teeth and nails and hunger. A few minutes later, they both had their shirts off, and Cullen had one hand on Kathil's breast and the other on her hip. She locked her legs around his hips and rolled them so that Cullen was above her.

It was not a gesture of submission. Her gaze was so intent on his face that he felt stripped naked, bared before her. He looked back at her, not flinching. Acknowledging.

The flame between them guttered and flared, and her fingers dug into his shoulder. Then they were moving again, and she was teeth and elbows and a long, heavy braid that smacked his face when she surged to her knees. The magelights above them winked out one after another. Shadows claimed the salle, but Kathil's skin was limned with sparks like a cat's fur in the winter.

Somewhere, somehow, they had lost the rest of their clothes.

"I love you," he hissed against her neck, and they were bruising things, those words. But it was important to say them. To know what they were up against.

Her response was to silence him with her mouth and to guide him into her heat with one hand, into a wetness that rose up around him like a river in flood. He drowned—ah, he drowned—and they were driving together, wanting and voracious—skin and scar, her face contorted and the scar a deep slash down the side of her face—I think I might be dying—

She arched her back and cried out, full-throated, and she clenched around him, her whole body a demand. More. Now.

Everything.

He buried himself deep inside of her and his release came from the base of his spine. His face was against her shoulder, teeth against scar, and for an eternity there was nothing at all.

Cullen came back to himself some time later with the realization that he might have bruised both of his knees, and there was definitely something sharp digging into his hip. He lifted his head—he was lying half-draped over Kathil, her skin flushed and every place they touched soaked and slippery with sweat and other fluids.

She started to speak, and then coughed, wincing. "Next time, I vote for a bed," she said, her voice hoarse. "I think I have splinters in my back."

He chuckled and laid his head down on the wooden floor. Their faces were so close that their noses were nearly touching. He could see only the curve of her cheek in the dim, her eyes black and fathomless. "You didn't complain at the time."

"True." They were still then for a time, their breathing slowly slowing, their heartbeats falling into their usual rhythms.

Cullen shifted, used his free hand to shove his shield—the thing digging into his hip—away from them. He returned that hand to her body, moved fingers over the place where her waist swelled out into her hip. Childbirth had changed her body, he noticed a little belatedly. There were more marks on her belly, the skin a little loose and soft still, and the bones of her hips themselves were wider now. Her breasts were heavier, a different shape than they had been.

Cerys had rearranged them all, he realized. But Kathil's body was still thin and bone-sharp, despite the changes in it, and what connected the two of them was still very much present despite the changes in both of them. Kathil breathed out, and moved so her forehead was set against Cullen's.

"I didn't think I would be lying on the floor of the Vigil's salle when I said this." Kathil's voice was rueful. "Can we stop being such a pair of sops now? I think we've been driving everyone mad."

"Everyone meaning Zevran," he said. "I think so."

"Good." He felt her body relax against him, the long coil of tension that seemed to be a permanent resident in her spine loosening. "As much as I hate to think about moving, the longer I stay here the more my hips are going to hate me tomorrow."

He kissed the end of her nose, and she screwed up her face in a comical grimace. "Come on, then," he said, and sat up. They both got to their feet, and in the shadowed quiet of the salle they located their clothes. Cullen didn't remember exactly how his braes had managed to get themselves thrown onto the weapon racks, but he had his suspicions. And his shirt was never going to be the same.

He found that he didn't care in the slightest.

They picked up their weapons and their boots, and padded barefoot through the halls of Vigil's Keep. Tomorrow was the Joining, and after that—

Well, they would see, wouldn't they? They would see.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

—Pablo Neruda

Author's Note:

Wow, this chapter took forever, didn't it? Rest assured that I'm continuing to work on this story. I spent some time writing a related story called "The Languages of the Needle", about Celia Mac Tir, that you can find on my profile.

Happy Yule, everyone, and I hope you have a lovely holiday!