1

They set off in the gray light of dawn. Ten templars; the six Ellyn brought with her from Redcliffe as well as four more to escort the mages back to the tower when their business was done. She walked with the First Enchanter and Wynne, glad for a bit of familiarity of the home she left behind, Alistair and Leliana scouting ahead of them for any trouble. Sten and Fleur brought up the rear, while Morrigan disappeared with a promise to meet them at their destination.

Alistair was suspicious, but Ellyn understood completely. For an apostate, travelling with a group of templars could not be comfortable, in spite of all the things she said when she was well out of their hearing range.

"So, how did things go last night?" Leliana probed.

"I don't think it's much of a secret," Alistair looked behind them, making sure Ellyn was out of earshot. "You were probably peeking out of your tent flaps the whole time. I'm onto you."

"Ah, the knight in shining armour comforting the damsel in distress. I can spin such tales," she winked at him. "I need details. Unless you want me to make them up, of course."

"If you heard that much, you don't need anything from me." He knew she was listening. "Did you know that she has a brother?"

"You must mean Anders. Of course I have. Her life revolves around him."

"Any details?"

"According to Ellyn, he is perfection itself – handsome, kind, gentle, adventurous," Leliana surmised, "though I believe that's just brother worship. From the stories she told of him, I would say the man is vain, selfish, and obviously overprotective."

"Great. More ideals to live up to. What do you mean by 'obviously overprotective'?"

"Look at her." She shot him a sidelong glance. "Stop beating around the bush. You must really want to ask about what happened with Cullen last night."

"I do not." Alistair kept his eyes on the road.

"You're not a very good liar, Alistair."

"Stop with the baiting, and tell me."

"She didn't tell me. Sorry, no details." Leliana let out a soft giggle. "I just wanted to see that kicked puppy expression on your face. It's so cute."

"You're evil."

"Oh, Alistair." Leliana said when she was done laughing, "you can tell by looking at her that nothing happened. The girl is an open book."

The road between Lake Calenhad and Recliffe was clear, and they approached Redcliffe village by evening without incident. Of course, no bandit group would be foolhardy enough to attack as large a group as theirs of magi. Including Wynne, they were seven – power enough to foil an army.

As her templar guards returned to the Chantry in the village, Ellyn stopped by briefly to tell of their valiant efforts in the tower, and the Knight Commander seemed pleased that it did not turn out to be a suicide mission after all.

Irving and the mages prepared the ritual to send a mage into the Fade. He knew that Ellyn could travel into the Fade at will, so this was all for show. If the Chantry found out about her powers, there was no telling what they would do to her. She was harrowed, so she could not be made Tranquil. I'd probably end up in Aeonar. The Chantry's solution for dangerous mages.

Do you want me to handle this, Ellyn?

No. I need more practice with the Fade. I will call you if I need offensive spells. After having spent practically an entire day in the Fade, she realized that relying on someone else for everything – as she had always done – wasn't the best idea.

The demon offered her Cullen, and more than a vision or an experience. He would escape the Order, destroy her phylactery, and run away with her. It was very tempting, Ellyn thought, until she called on Mythal and blasted her out of existence.

Ellyn was quite tired of demons using the people she treasured against her.

She woke to see Alistair's face over her, standing vigil with his sword. This was familiar, and to her surprise, not unwelcoming. Cullen held the same post during her harrowing; the templar to slay her if she became possessed. "It is done." She allowed herself to be helped from the floor, "let us go see Arl Eamon."

When she finally saw Arl Eamon, she almost laughed. The poisoning was not severe; all they really needed was a spirit healer. She could have done this on her own, but it did give her the excuse to travel to the Urn of Sacred Ashes.

Arl Eamon would call the Landsmeet when they finish gathering the armies with their Grey Warden treaties, and Ellyn was not surprised to find out that Alistair was the heir to the Ferelden throne. Coincidences did not exist for her. Mythal always made sure everything happened for a reason, including being partnered up with a templar with royal blood.

Everything was part of Mythal's plan. She was sure of it. All the little coincidences tangled up together in a deal that kept her alive since they bonded.

2

"You're probably wondering why I didn't tell you about the whole ... bastard prince thing." Alistair stumbled over his words, clearly nervous. She was more curious about why he waited until they were at camp to approach her.

"No, I'm not."

"Um, really?" He looked both relieved, surprised, and a little hurt that she did seem to care.

"I didn't tell you anything about myself until yesterday. So why would I be mad at you?" She looked up from chopping up herbs for their stew. "We all have our secrets, Alistair."

"Good point," Alistair had an uneasy feeling that Ellyn was doing the cooking again. She approached it with enthusiasm, but that was about the only skill she brought to the cauldron. "So ... what's for dinner?"

She flashed him the biggest smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Ha ha, very funny. I think my sense of humour is rubbing off on you."

"I learned it all from my brother. He's a terrible influence." She knelt to pick up a bundle of herbs from a pack on the floor, and a crossbow bolt travelled through where her head had been to lodge itself in Alistair's arm. "Get down!"

She pulled him down and had a barrier over them both in an instant. Ellyn took stock of the situation: the bolt was in his sword arm, and the wound was turning black. Poison. Maker damn it all to the void. They were alone, but everyone should be coming back soon from their tasks. She just needed to hold them off for a while. "Stay there and play dead, Alistair."

It was said that the elves of Arlathan was the first to practice blood magic, and the Tevinter magisters learned it from them. The Elven Pantheon, the first of the gods, were the masters of using life force to power their spells. Mythal was the second of the Pantheon.

Ellyn reached down and drew it from a small patch of blood from the ground. It wasn't just human blood – it was royal blood. Enough for a net; enough for her to scent out those who shot him. There was one east of them, the closest. Right there.

She focused her power out to a single point in his brain and tore his senses from him. She saw through his eyes, ate his memories. Twenty of them ringed the camp with crossbows and daggers, poison-tipped. They were here for the Wardens. Near her feet, Alistair sputtered. She prayed that his eyes were closed.

One by one she drew them in, using one to lure another. When they were close enough, she squeezed. A warrior could use a sword and riddle a man full of wounds so he would bleed to death; a rogue could sneak up behind one and twist his neck. A blood mage could use so much power as to dry her own veins before a foe was slain, or she could squeeze in all the right places.

All the more important when all she had was one drop of blood. One by one, they fell, an artery severed here, a heart blocked there, and each one gave her more, more delicious power. The blood of those she fell fed her, each death more explosive than the last when frugality was no longer needed.

She felt a moment of horrid fascination as she made one slice open his own artery, and another to slit his own throat. Then the guilt came, as it always did, for the blood lust was Mythal's. Mythal could drink blood and enjoy it as rich wine, while Ellyn found that the coppery smell made her nauseous.

There was only one left. She took her last puppet and held him there, terrified. He looked out of his own eyes but could not control his limbs. The ringleader; his mind was full, and it would be easier for him to explain the plan to her companions than for her to let them know how she read his mind.

She would deal with him after she drew the poison from Alistair's veins. There was power enough in her, nineteen lives in all. Ellyn reached down, pulled out the bolt, and heard him whimper. She the poison flowed upwards into the air, out of the wound, and it was strange to see his blood the way she could see now – it was poison, even without the dart. She separated them, the deathroot and the taint, the one which killed quickly and another that killed slow as water wore channels in stone.

The Chantry taught that blood magic was forbidden because it corrupted mages. It was not entirely true. It was just very, very hard to stop, to be one filled with life force when there was nothing else left to kill. She was full to brimming, covered in a red glow; Alistair stared at her with wide eyes and he knew what he saw.

Maleficar.

Ellyn picked up the knife she was using to chop herbs. She handed it to Alistair, hilt first, gestured at a spot in between her shoulder and her collarbone. He understood, though when the knife was about to sink into her, he hesitated and closed his eyes.

She stumbled a few steps back, pulling the knife out in the process. The pain jolted her and ended her spell, dissipating the excess energy. Ellyn dropped to the ground, exhausted, with a surprised Alistair standing over her. She drew the life force out of the corpses around her by instinct, the wound in her shoulder, a shocking burn, disappeared almost straightaway.

For the next few minutes they both lost the power of speech.

The leader of the assassins, last of her puppets, fell to his knees not ten feet away, the strings holding him severed. Silently, Alistair dragged him into the camp, and silently Ellyn gave Alistair a rope to tie him up. They would have to wait for their companions to return and for this assassin to wake. Alistair turned to Ellyn, accusation apparent in his eyes.

"We all have our secrets?" His voice was full of anger barely contained. "I thought you were a healer!"

"I am a healer." There were no other options were available. No mage was able to sustain a barrier for long, certainly not long enough to wait for rescue. If she had waited, the poison would have done him in before anyone else arrived.

"What do you call this then, huh?" Alistair gestured to the bloody scene around them. Nineteen dried skeletal bodies ringed them, lying in their own pools of blood. "Blood magic is forbidden!"

"That is not what I heard from Duncan. Isn't the joining itself blood magic?"

They squared off facing one another, neither one willing to back down. Alistair backed by divine right, Ellyn by her stubbornness. "We were just at the tower killing blood mages and abominations! Don't you know how dangerous it is to deal with demons?"

"My guardian spirit is not a demon!" She feared Mythal just as much she loved her. Mythal killed, left Ellyn with her sorrow. Mythal made decisions, Ellyn lived with them. Mythal was all she had left. "You were going to die!"

"You could have paralysed them the way you always do when we're surrounded!"

She bit the side of her mouth in indignation. He was right. That might have given her enough time to get the poison out of him, and she wouldn't have had to use blood magic. "I panicked, okay? They had poison!"

Alistair half spun on the ground away from Ellyn, too angry to look at her anymore. "Blood magic. How could you?"

Ellyn felt a tantrum coming on and she gave herself up to it, "The least you can do is say 'thank you'! I hate you!" She stamped her foot, "you self-righteous sodding pompous templar! My brother is right about the lot of you!" She turned away as well, determined to let him stew on it.

Fleur was the first to return, then Sten, who surveyed the dead bodies and looked not at Alistair, but at Ellyn. He was not surprised. When Wynne and Morrigan did the same, Alistair wondered if he was the only one who took Ellyn for what she was.

"I'm guessing dinner is a loss." Leliana arrived, picked up the discarded knife and gave Alistair a curious look. "I don't see any other weapons around. Did you kill all these people with this here little knife? That would make quite a story."

3

The assassin Ellyn spared turned out to be an Antivan Crow hired by Loghain. To Alistair's continued irritation, he also turned out to be Ellyn's new best friend. He followed her so closely he might step on her robe, flattered her, and entertained her with his stories of Antiva on their week long trek first to Denerim and into the Brecillian forest.

Wynne approached him with her usual understanding smile. "Alistair, do you need to talk?"

He needed more than talk. There were two very sharp daggers on Zevran's back. If he chose to, the man could kill Ellyn whenever he wanted to and vanish into the woods before anyone could catch up with him. "Don't you wonder about what happened to all the other assassins?"

"Ellyn got to them, didn't she?" Wynne answered, calm as still water.

Up ahead, Ellyn laughed and playfully swatted Zevran on the arm. "It doesn't strike you as odd that a healer killed nineteen assassins while I was unarmed?"

"If you keep making that face, it's going to stay that way. And no, I don't find it odd. I'm guessing you know what she is."

"A maleficar." Alistair lowered his voice and spat out the syllables one by one.

"By the Chantry's very narrow standards, yes. Ellyn did not make a deal with a demon. Otherwise...I would not be here. By the chantry's standards, Morrigan, Ellyn, and I are all apostates who uses 'unsanctioned' magic." Wynne once felt the same; no longer. She was not ignorant of how an abomination could also be human.

"Well, I don't even know who she is anymore." He paused, hoping the gravity of his words would change how he truly felt, "she was our healer and I was her shield. Then she went ahead and -"

"Saved your life?" Wynne cut him off. "Did the one thing she hated so that you may live? Alistair, think about it. Is this about her magic, or about your role?"

He did not know what to say to that. Ellyn was all the things a man wanted; something straight out of a fairy tale. Princess in a tower, damsel in distress, waiting for true love's first kiss. He was happy to be her shield. It gave him ... purpose.

Then one day, she showed him how she needed him not at all. He sighed, "don't mind me, I'm just feeling useless."

"She needs you, Alistair. You understand that a templar protects a mage 'from within and without'?"

"Well, so much for that. She's already an abomination and I'm letting her live. She's handling the 'without' bit just fine."

"It was her last resort. The fault lies partially with the Circle of Magi. Ellyn is a powerful conduit – more so than any we have seen." Wynne shook her head, realizing how foolish they all had been. "Irving trained her to be an aura caster to influence hundreds of men on the battlefield at once. He also wanted to keep her defenceless so she would feel the need for templars. Maybe it's time for me to teach her some other ways to defend herself."

"I heard a lot of things from the templars at the Circle when I was waiting for her to arrive. It sounds as though she was very sheltered."

"'Sheltered' is the polite way to put it. Isolated is closer to the truth." Wynne let out a long sigh, "The Circle was afraid of her, and the Knight Commander wanted to keep her away from everyone if possible. She was only allowed the contact of three people – Anders, Ser Clara, and Irving. None of them are here to protect her now. She needs ... someone who cares about her."

"I already care about her." Alistair admitted.

The mage did not seem surprised. "That is easy to do, Alistair. She is a beautiful girl, and she has a good heart. But she is young, and kept that way. Do not coddle her. Anders did that for years, and she's no better for it."

4

Alistair was sure that Ellyn was avoiding him. During the day she kept herself to the front of their column while assigning Alistair to the rear, at night she stuck to Leliana like glue, the girls going off to bathe in the river when they were close enough to one.

This time he left nothing up to chance. She went into her tent to get her staff, and when she came out, there he was. "Ellyn, we need to talk."

"What about? I have a lesson with Wynne." She held her staff in front of her as if it could ward him off.

"Come with me." Camp was no place to talk. Leliana was sure to be listening somewhere, and the Antivan elf no doubt watching from the shadows. They walked in silence, her arm in his obligingly as he helped her step over roots in the dark. He measured out the distance in minutes.

"Look. I'm not saying that I approve of your use of forbidden magic," he took her hand in his once they were in a clearing where the sounds of the camp was no longer apparent. "But you did it to save my life, and I never thanked you. So ... thank you."

Her eyes widened in surprise. She was half expecting a lecture. "Um ... you don't need to thank me. You've saved my life plenty of times. I was just being a little brat." Ellyn attempted a half-smile, pursing her lips. "I shouldn't have yelled."

"What I mean is ... I was harsh with you, and I must have come off as," he took a deep breath, "ungrateful. You obviously don't want to resort to ... forbidden magic, either."

She cast her eyes down and chewed her lip. "I didn't really want to kill those people. You were poisoned and my first thought was 'they're going to pay' and I just ... lost control."

"If you didn't killed them, they would have killed us both. Your new elven friend told us so." Alistair tried his best to keep jealousy out of his tone. "Please be careful. I don't think," he paused, letting out a small sigh, "I don't think I'm strong enough to kill you." That came out completely wrong, and Maker she looked as though she was bout to cry, "No, I mean I don't want to kill you."

"Maybe you should," her voice was quiet, he thought in the moonlight she looked so young and lost. "I'm a danger to everyone."

"No, you're a danger to darkspawn and bandits!" Alistair leaned closer so she could see his face in the dark, "I'm a danger to them too, what with the sword and the shield and the holy smite."

"But I ..." Ellyn had been hiding this for so long it became second nature, but it was time to tell him. "Remember I told you that I was attacked at the circle by templars?"

"Yes?" It was only three days ago that she told him by the campfire. "What of it?"

"I killed them. When Anders came to save me, he wasn't ... coming to save me. He came to help me regain control," Ellyn buried her face in her hands, "I almost killed him too."

Alistair was surprised not by her admission but by how much death affected her. Their two months together were filled with death, her auras boosting his power behind his sword, while he mete out death without a nary thought. They were killers of more than mindless darkspawn; bandits, looters, thieves, if any dared bare steel against them, they struck back.

She was trained to be a healer of armies, the mage that kept men alive. Now she was out in the world, killing them, and each death added more weight to her shoulders.

What was it that Wynne said? She needed someone who cared for her. Someone she would want to protect. "You said you 'almost' killed him. I'm guessing you didn't want to, and you stopped yourself."

"He was in a coma for two months! Two whole months!" She sobbed softly, bunching up the sleeves of her robe to wipe her eyes. "He didn't even say anything about it once I finally cured him. He just ... acted like it didn't matter that I was the one ... who ..."

"Ellyn, he knows you didn't want to hurt him. That's probably why he didn't say anything. But he's not here anymore, so if something happens again you'll have to learn to control yourself." He held her shoulders, keeping her at arm's length. Wynne did tell him not to coddle her, but Maker was it difficult with her sobbing in front of him. "But I will try my best to make sure you won't have to do that again. I – we – will not leave you undefended."

Alistair waited for her crying to stop. It was only a scant few minutes, and he quickly realized that Ellyn was very much like a child. Coddle her, and she would keep crying – hours if you let her, but if you waited, she handled herself just fine. Ellyn wiped away her last tears with one sleeve. "Thank you, Alistair."

"Do you still hate me?" He gave her an open smile that he hoped was charming.

She stuck out her tongue a little. "I didn't mean that. Well, I meant it at the time. Not anymore."

"Oh, good. No more secrets, okay?" Alistair offered his arm, she took it guiltily and said nothing. There were some things she could not promise, and secrets were part of her life.