Cullen wasn't far from the Shadow Wolves' keep, so he slowed Gunvor's pace, keeping an eye out for any hunters or scouts who might be out making sure no one snuck up on their hold. While Cullen still participated in regular raids on other holds—it would be unbecoming for the thane to sit those out—he couldn't help but feel that he was going to mess this one up. After all, most of the time, if there was a raid to steal brides, there were several raiders going in at once. Knowing that chaos could spring up anywhere in the hold at any time was an odd sort of comfort.

Now, however, it would just be Cullen.

And what if, when he snuck in to see Katrina, he startled her, and she cried out? What if she didn't want to come? He wouldn't force her to; he'd already decided that much.

So much could go wrong.

Raiders looking for brides were supposed to get two chances, though he doubted he would be afforded such, especially considering that he hadn't asked permission to steal Katrina. More likely than not, he would be fed to the Wolves' hold beast for his insolence.

He'd just have to make sure not to get caught.

And that meant he needed to leave Gunvor for a while. He would need to hide his steed somewhere where scouts wouldn't likely look.

Quietly, he cursed himself for not having taken a better survey of the land on his way home. It would have helped tremendously now.

Would she actually want to come with him, though?

What if she thought being stolen was barbaric? What if she had some fiancé or lover back home? They'd only ever talked about her sister, never any love interests.

How fool was he that he was actually doing this?

Cullen still hadn't figured out what he would do to keep the Shadow Wolves from killing him in retribution for this. Perhaps he could get Katrina to leave a note for them? 'Send some books, and I'll keep my end of the bargain'? Would it even count as stealing her if they left a note about where she was going?

This whole ordeal was so… unprecedented.

Precedence was something Cullen had always liked being able to fall back on. Not knowing left knots in his stomach, and doubt whispered in his mind. It told him that as thane he should just go back, forget this boyish idiocy.

But what was the point of living if he couldn't ever do something just for himself?

Just as he was deciding that perhaps he should leave Gunvor near a particularly thick grove of trees, he noticed that the ground he was passing over to get to it was turned up as though a great many horses had gone through, the tracks preserved in the frozen mud.

It was fresh. The tracks headed away from the Shadow Wolves' hold, though it wasn't the path his people had taken when they'd left. Regardless, he almost dismissed it as a hunting party, when he noticed something hanging from a lower branch above the path. Pulling Gunvor to it, he lightly plucked part of a large, extravagant feather from the newly budding branch.

It took him a moment to recognize the plumage.

It had been on every chevalier's helm that he had fought during the raid when he had initially saved Katrina.

Had the Orlesians followed them all the way back to the hold?

He'd thought they'd finished off the Lowlanders.

Cullen dismounted briefly to double check the direction the hoof prints were going in and frowned when he saw that they were indeed headed away from Shadow Wolf Keep.

Had it been a reconnaissance mission? It seemed like a great many people for something as simple as a scouting mission. There were bits of ash mixed in with the mud as well, occasionally, as though it had fallen off the riders or gotten caught in the horses' hooves.

This… was an ill omen if he'd ever seen one.

Indecision gripped him.

Part of him wanted nothing more than to cast aside the issue as it didn't matter to his clan. If there was chaos in the Wolves' hold, he could use that to his advantage.

However, another part of him won out: the part that couldn't let Mia's hold be overwhelmed by Lowlanders. Mounting Gunvor, he began to follow the trail. If it seemed to go nowhere, he'd give up on it, but if not…

Thane Blackwall would likely want to know how close the chevaliers were getting to his hold, assuming they hadn't already hit it. He glanced over his shoulder as he rode, wondering if he should go back to the hold and…

And what?

A single body wouldn't make much of a difference in any repairs needed to the hold. And it would likely raise more questions as to why he was there to begin with.

No, it would be better to follow the chevaliers, make sure they weren't a legitimate threat, and then find a way to steal Katrina.

Perhaps this would prove to just be some foolish noble's hunting party that had gotten horribly lost in the woods. They were weeks away from the 'official' Orlesian borders, but that hardly stopped the fools from wandering where they didn't belong.

He'd heard stories of such expeditions. Some noble prat got it in his head that he wanted to bag a larger wyvern, and wandered into Avvar territory to do it, ignoring the fact that trespassers were rarely well met, and then crying home to whoever it was who listened when he ended up having his horse stolen out from under him.

Sometimes, there was even retaliation against whatever clan had defended its territory, but if it got bad enough, the clan simply moved. It was a part of life in the mountains, after all.

It was almost nightfall when he caught up to the Orlesians. He nearly rode straight into the sight of a scout near their camp, narrowly pulling Gunvor's reins back before he could be spotted. He rode his steed back a few dozen yards before dismounting and heading closer to investigate.

The scout might have been worth something in the supposedly open, rolling plains of the Lowlands, but here in the wooded mountains, he could barely keep track of himself. He kept sniffling and glaring at the ground as his boots squikked into the mud that was replacing the snow.

The man seemed to be focused almost completely on the path they'd left, as though knowing that it was easy to follow and fully expecting someone to do just that.

Cullen snuck up behind him easily, snapping his neck before the man even realized what was going on. Sneaking past where he'd been pacing, Cullen drew closer to see several tents being erected. One of the men kept glancing around, clinging to his blade as he shivered in his armor.

When he complained in Orlesian, another snapped at him as he hammered a stake into the ground for his tent. Cullen knew a few Orlesian words, but he could barely speak it at all. They might as well have been bears growling at one another for all he could understand.

However, what bothered him the most about their camp was that they didn't seem concerned about retaliation from the Shadow Wolves. They were barely a day from an Avvar hold that they had to be aware of, and they thought it safe enough to stop?

Perhaps this was some sort of reconnaissance mission after all. If they hadn't struck yet, they might not expect the Wolves to be aware of them…

A woman was tending to a wound on another's arm, chastising him and thwacking him on the head as she stitched up a long gash.

There was obvious wear on all of their armor, though only a one of the breastplates and helms indicated the rank of chevalier. The rest were soldiers, for sure, though he didn't know what rank they might hold. Whatever they were, they were beneath the chevalier.

Cullen did a quick head count before slinking back into the woods.

There were six of them—seven with the scout he'd already handled.

It would be foolish to charge in, but he didn't want to leave them, either. He was decent with a bow, but he wasn't confident that he could take out enough of them before they found where he was hiding in the trees. He could fight, but even he wasn't stupid enough to attempt these odds.

He made his way back to where he'd killed the scout and carefully dragged the body further away—it wouldn't do to have them finding evidence that he was here. If he was lucky, he could pick them off as they wandered out to look for their friend.

He might be able to take out two or three before they realized what was happening.

Then he could take out the last few in close combat.

Assuming they didn't all move as a group the second the second one went missing. With a frown, he ran his hands down his face, thinking it over.

He needed help.

It was as he considered that he shouldn't have come up alone that he felt a hand on his shoulder. Whirling, his blade was half drawn before he realized just who was kneeling beside him, eyes wide.

He stared at her in bewilderment. "Cassandra."

"Thane."

His lips moved wordlessly for a moment before he was able to find his voice. "What are you doing here?"

"A few hours after you left, one of the Shadow Wolves' scouts caught up with us and asked for our help," Cassandra motioned over her shoulder. Three of the Red Lion warriors were with her. "We sent Jim and two others back to the hold to warn them that things are far more complicated than they should be and the rest of us followed the scout's directions. We didn't want to leave you vulnerable."

"Who's the scout who told you to come here?" And how had they known the Orlesians would be camping here, of all places? It seemed like, if anything, Cassandra and the others would have ended back up at the keep instead of where Cullen was.

"He…" Cassandra's brow knit together as she tried to think of what had happened. "He was a young man." She hesitated, thinking back a little longer before shifting her weight. "I can't remember what he looked like. He said the Orlesians hit the hold and then scattered. They needed help going after the different groups, and one had headed in this direction."

"And you believed him?" Cullen frowned. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful that they were there, but this was still… odd.

As soon as Cullen pointed it out, Cassandra seemed bothered by the fact that they had so readily broken their course for home and come to the rescue as they had. Her gaze wandered away from him as her brow pinched together. "When he spoke, we just knew that he was telling the truth. It never occurred to me to question him."

Even as Cullen was about to try to get more information, he decided that now was hardly the time. There was no need to leave themselves open to attack while trying to figure out how the Shadow Wolves had known where the Orlesians would be.

He looked at Cassandra, motioning with his head toward the lowlander camp. "It's six to five."

With a smirk, Cassandra lifted her chin. "Good odds."

"Do you think the Wolves want any alive?"

"From what that scout said, no. They hit the hold, attacking people regardless of age or skill with a blade," Cassandra muttered, a disgusted noise catching in her throat as she glared in the general direction of the Lowlanders.

Cullen set his jaw, mulling it over. Then, he turned to his other warriors. "We'll split up and surround the camp. Arrows first. We may be able to take them all out before they can even know what's hitting them."

It was as though the Wolves' Gods had chosen to favor them, for their enemies were barely able to react after the first barrage of arrows came in. Despite the chevalier spotting Cullen's warriors and nearly getting to Cassandra, all of the Lowlanders were dead before any had gotten close enough to so much as nick any of the Avvar.

They'd brought it upon themselves, coming this far out of their territories.

And if they'd truly attacked the defenseless, as Cassandra had been told…

Cullen and his warriors entered the camp cautiously, in case they'd somehow missed a few—or if the Lowlanders had been smart enough to send a few of their team out to hunt for dinner—but it was still, and there was no sign that any other than that solitary scout had been assigned outside of the camp.

All in all, it was rather poorly done.

More bizarre actions on the Lowlanders' parts.

Kneeling beside one of the last to fall, he began to rummage through the man's satchels on his belt. "Look around, and see if you can find orders or…any paper really. Lowlanders do love to write everything down."

Except for Katrina.

It was the first time since he'd caught up to the Lowlanders that he'd really thought of Katrina, and he paused, wondering what would happen now. They'd need to return to the Shadow Wolves—perhaps he could send a few more of his people home, to make it clear that they weren't threatening them—but if the woods were crawling with Lowlanders…

Then it might be better for Katrina to be elsewhere anyway.

Korth's teeth, don't let Thane Blackwall ask him to take her home with him. That would ruin everything.

He took in a breath, trying to get himself to think of one thing at a time. The Lowlander camp first, and then he could worry about his ridiculous infatuation.

Even as one of his warriors brought him a note only partially stained with blood, an arrow thudded into the tent beside him.

In a breath, he and his warriors had their weapons drawn.

However, as he looked toward where it had come from, he saw the Shadow Wolves' Master of the Hunt step into the clearing, a few hunters following his lead, arrows notched.

Cullen tried to remember the man's name before nodding to him. "Nathaniel. We're here to help."

"I'm sure we'd be grateful if you weren't supposed to be around two days southwest of here," Nathaniel replied, eyes narrowed as he stopped far enough away that his next arrow would still have a decent impact if he chose to let it loose. "Any reason you decided to stay where you're not welcome?"

"Your scout sent for us," Cullen said, frowning. He hoped the young man—whoever he was—wouldn't notice that Cullen hadn't been among the ones he'd recruited. He dared a glance toward Cassandra to see if she might point out the one who had gone to them for help from the Avvar with Nathaniel, but she didn't seem to recognize any of them, instead standing with her hand on her sword, knees bent slightly, ready to break into a charge on command.

"One of our scouts got you?" Nathaniel asked, lips twisting into a disgusted sneer as he appraised Cullen with open contempt. "We were attacked last night. Who could we have sent to get to you in time to get you to come here? How could we have known they'd have come this way?"

There was that detail, resurfacing.

Cullen had been hoping the Wolves would be able to explain that one.

Cassandra—angered by the suggestion that they had lied about how they'd gotten there—took a step forward, ignoring as the Wolves' bows lifted. "The boy said we needed to come here. That you needed help."

Even as Nathaniel seemed ready to dismiss them and tell his hunters to fire, one of Cullen's other warriors cleared her throat, "The boy never actually said he was a Wolf. Just that they needed help."

For a moment, silence reigned over the small clearing. Nathaniel somehow managed to narrow his eyes further. "What did he look like?"

"I… can't remember," Cassandra said, her voice a bit flat.

Lowering his weapon, Cullen sheathed it, holding his hands up toward the Master of the Hunt. "If we were working with the Lowlanders, we wouldn't have killed them, would we? We heard there was trouble, and came to help. We're as confused as you about what led us here, but we're here, willing to offer our blades to your cause."

Nathaniel shifted a little in his stance, still ready to shoot. Then, one of his hunters slipped up beside him and whispered something in his ear, all the while glancing nervously at Cullen and the other Lions. Abruptly, Nathaniel lowered his bow. "This is a fraction of the ones who attacked us. If you're really here to help, then help."

Cullen nodded. "The Lowlanders attacked your hold then?"

At first it seemed like the mere question had undone the tenuous truce they'd just come to. However, finally, Nathaniel nodded, lips dipped into a wicked grimace. "They came for the journals and our translator."

Cullen felt a knot twist in his stomach. "Is she alright?"

"I wouldn't know," Nathaniel shrugged, motioning for them to come with them, heading back to where they'd left their horses. "They took her."

…-…

Memories came and went in a jumble of images and smells, pains and sounds. Katrina couldn't help but feel a familiarity with the chaos bouncing about in her head, and had the oddest impression that there was someone there with her, working diligently to push the pieces back into a more ordered pattern.

And through all of it, there was a despicable taste that Katrina couldn't quite get to go away, and an occasional, sharp throb that made all the images, smells, and sounds scatter and rearrange.

Katrina could remember Cullen coming to get her—no. That wasn't right. She'd been thinking about Cullen coming to get her when someone had come in. Even as she'd felt the sensation of butterflies in her stomach, he approached her in her darkened room, and she'd realized that whoever it was, it wasn't Cullen.

That's right. He'd left. The hold, her, the mess with the Lowlanders. It wasn't his clan's problem, so he'd gone home, despite what he'd told her. Despite…

She wasn't really upset about that, though, was she? It was more that she'd been disowned, had no real place, was being hunted, and then the first friendly face turned out to be just as callous as the rest of the world.

She ignored the butterflies that tried to come back at the thought of the Avvar thane, squelching them down.

It hadn't been Cullen. It had been a soldier. An Orlesian.

She tried to focus on what had happened after that. It was still a whirl of senses.

There had been burning. A pain in her stomach as someone—that soldier—carried her over his shoulder.

And to be completely candid, even if it had been Cullen, she wouldn't have been very happy at that moment. It was quite uncomfortable to be slung over someone like that. Something metallic had dug into her stomach with each brisk step.

Then she'd...what had she done? It didn't make sense, but she remembered being free, running. People were screaming, metal was clanging, flames consuming.

It had been different from the Avvar's raid—from what she had seen. Many of the Avvar she could remember were poorly equipped for a fight, their armor missing or their gentle bodies hinting that they weren't the type to go out and fend off the world. They were the homemakers.

Some were children.

And they were fighting for their lives as their homes burned.

Katrina's world came into clearer focus as she remembered that.

After the Orlesian had shown up, she'd managed to undo one of the pouches on his belt and use it to club him in the back of the head. Then she'd fled, searching for help, only to find the hold in flames.

She'd felt useless, unsure what to do—where to hide—when she'd seen a young girl knocked back into a wall, the dagger she'd been using to defend herself thudding into the mud near her. She couldn't have been more than twelve. Even as she raised her arms to try to block against whatever attack came next, Katrina had lunged forward, catching her attacker off guard and tackling him to the ground.

As the bastard tried to get up, the dagger from before sunk into his forehead with a sickening squik. His eyes blanked, and he fell into the snow.

Katrina had turned to the girl. "Is there a place we can go that's safe?"

She hadn't understood the common tongue.

With a curse, Katrina had heard Orlesian shouts getting closer. More soldiers. They couldn't honestly be the Comte's, could they? This seemed like too many.

Pointing at the girl, she thought back to the words she'd managed to pick up in Avvar—it hadn't been much, considering they wanted her translating other languages, rather than learning theirs. "You go."

She stared past Katrina for a moment before nodding once and turning to run. Even then, she thought better of it and darted up to Katrina, motioning to the dagger and saying...

Maker, she needed to learn the fucking language.

After all, it was what she did, one of the few things that her parents had dared to be proud of her for. She was fluent in the common tongue, Orlesian, Antivan, Tevene, and had been working on Rivaini—though she still couldn't string more than a sentence or two together in the last one.

She'd often suspected that was the reason her parents had forgiven as many of her mishaps as they had. She was the one in the family who could translate all the letters that came in, and could tell when foreign dignitaries and businessfolk were trying to rip them off or deceive them—so many people made smart ass comments in their native tongues when they were sure no one around them could understand. It was ridiculous.

Katrina had gathered the gist of what the Avvar girl had been trying to say, though. Jerking the dagger free from where it rested, Katrina had briefly inspected the soldier's armor, noting that the crest on it wasn't familiar, and turned to face the oncoming Orlesians.

Part of her wanted to run with the girl, but they'd just catch up and kill them both. Maybe this way, they'd lose track of the girl, or she'd get to someone who could protect her.

One of the soldiers had laughed when he'd seen her, his own sword easily reaching further and giving him the advantage.

However, Katrina hadn't been about to go down without a fight.

She'd always been stubborn.

She'd managed to dodge his attacks, keeping herself in his way as others drew closer. Her odds had been abysmal when they'd been one on one, but when backup had shown up for her enemy...

When one of them lunged in, she managed to duck under his blade and then bring hers up, digging it in behind his ear as he stumbled past her, surprised at her spryness.

As another two ran at her, an arrow had struck into one's chest.

Quite abruptly, Thane Blackwall had been darting past her, blade cutting through the other soldier's neck.

Even as he let out a bellowing shout and charged further into the fray, a hand had gripped Katrina's shoulder.

It was a little shameful how easily Mia disarmed Katrina when she whirled around to defend herself in a panic. Mia had muttered something—likely unflattering—in her native tongue before motioning for Katrina to come with her. "You are too important to die here. And too inept to live through the fight. Come."

At that memory, Katrina's brow pinched together as she tried to sit up and found she couldn't bring her hands up in front of her.

It took a moment or two as she gathered her wits, looking around slowly, finally taking in her surroundings.

Her hands were tied behind her. Her feet were bound as well, and that distractingly disgusting taste in her mouth was a gag.

Finally fully aware, Katrina let her head thunk back to the ground where she lay—only to instantly regret it as it made the pain in the back of her head hurt more for a minute or so. She was in a tent. An Orlesian one. No one was in it with her, but she could see shadows moving outside. She could hear voices, too. She listened long enough to hear them curse the 'barbarian fools' and deemed their opinions unworthy of her time.

Carefully, painfully, she managed to twist her hands down and pull her legs through her looped arms to bring her hands in front of her.

Thank the Maker that these idiots hadn't known how easily she'd gotten out of similar bindings before.

Granted, before, she'd had a sword.

But had also had frostbite.

So all in all, things were about even at the moment.

And her gloves—her cloak was missing, but they seemed to have left every other piece of clothing on her, thankfully—made the bindings a little less painful, as the leather blocked the coarse rope from rubbing directly against her skin. It was tight enough that she'd probably still have bruises, but likely no blisters or rope-burn.

She considered that a distinct plus.

Katrina pulled the gag down, doing her best not to make any loud gasping noises as she was finally freed of that wretched taste of dirty cloth, and then drew her feet up quietly so that she could pick at the knot.

Every time a shadow seemed to draw closer to her tent, she would still, waiting to see if they might come in to check on her and wondering if she should have kept the fucking gag in place after all.

However, every time they drew near, they would pause a moment—some even cut themselves off mid-sentence—and then walk away.

It was most peculiar.

Working the knot around her ankles loose as diligently as she could, her mind still kept wandering back to the attack on the hold.

What had happened to Mia?

She'd been with her and then...

It was fuzzy. The Orlesian soldiers—not all of them were chevaliers, she was sure—must have somehow managed to attack them from behind. That newly acquired ache in the back of her skull that certainly spoke to that effect.

She really needed to learn to fight better. Forever ago, an old friend—it felt like thinking back to anything in the Lowlands had been a lifetime ago, though it hadn't even been a month since she'd tried to flee Orlais—had attempted to teach her how to use daggers. "In case someone decides to assassinate you," he'd said.

She'd rather thought that had been a joke. It had never occurred to her that someone might actually do that. After all, she wasn't nearly important enough…

Shaking her head to get out of such useless thoughts, Katrina finally picked the knot apart and carefully drew one foot and then the other out of the bindings. Now all that was left was her hands.

Not that she had a clear way to get to the knot.

Was she going to have to chew it?

Maker, please don't make her need to chew it…

As she glanced around for any conveniently placed sharp objects—surprise, there were none—her mind again wandered back to that empty spot in her memory.

Closing her eyes, Katrina whispered, "Maker or…Lady or whoever out there watches and listens, please let Mia and Thane Blackwall…and their people in general, really…" she paused as she realized her prayer was turning into a bit of a ramble. She frowned, opening her eyes. "Please let them be alright. Even if they are asses."

Katrina drew in a breath as she thought she heard someone step closer to her tent. She really couldn't ever use her head, could she? She'd just had to talk out loud. However, as she listened, she couldn't hear anyone nearby and let out a relieved curse under her breath.

She could figure out proper prayers and the like later. For now, she needed to get away from her latest kidnappers.

Even as she tried to twist one of her hands enough to fiddle with the knot, a dagger protruded into the back of the tent with a soft ripping noise. With a sucked in breath, she stared at it with wide eyes, unsure if it was a warning or…

It dragged down, tearing a neat, quiet hole into the tarp.

As soon as the dagger disappeared, pale fingers curled into the opening, pulling it carefully and quietly apart until a young man with shaggy blonde hair poked his head into the tent, large, pale blue eyes locking on her as he took a quick survey of enclosed space.

Katrina was sure she'd met him before, though she couldn't quite place where. Even as she tried to remember, he held a finger to his lips and motioned for her to follow him.

Without thinking, she did.