Lance was sitting across the fire from her, not being shy about his keen interest in who she was and where she had come from. Velanna was seated close, and let her hand tap absently against his leg.
She didn't trust Lilith, and Lance couldn't blame her. Cauthrien quietly agreed with him, sitting on his left with her sword on her lap. She watched both Lilith and Lance, waiting for some reason to begin with the head-chopping she was so fond of. Lance hadn't said much more than two words to the ex-knight, but he was beginning to respect her quite a bit.
"Are you going to ask me a question, Grey Warden," Lilith asked, poking at the thick stew in her bowl. "Or are you just going to stare?"
She was dressed in a robe that increased her likeness to Morrigan. And that disturbed him. Velanna saw his gaze flicker over Lilith's ample cleavage, and was a little gratified to see him frown in irritation.
"Who are you?" Lance asked. She snorted.
"I am Lilith, as I said."
"Are you really Flemeth's daughter?"
"Do you mean to ask if Flemeth gave birth to me?"
Lance didn't speak. Velanna looked over at him, saw his eyes widen just a bit. She had said something, something to set him off. Velanna didn't get the chance to speak before Lance was standing abruptly, crossing the distance between him and the witch.
He reached out, caught her throat and pushed her into the ground. The witch reached up instinctively, gripped his wrists to defend herself. Velanna could sense Lance drain Lilith's magic, and smiled a bit to herself.
She liked it when he showed off.
"Don't you ever say that!" he snapped. "Answer my sodding question. Who are you?"
She gasped, trying to catch her breath. She had evidently never had the magic sucked out of her. But then she was smiling, laughing.
"Oh, so are you a Templar, then? How marvelous. And my sister fell in with you?" she laughed louder, as though this was some sort of grand joke. Lance snarled, reached for his belt knife. Cauthrien was up, grabbing his wrist to prevent him from cutting the girl's throat.
"Perhaps you should try interrogation before we skip right to the execution?" Cauthrien said. Lance regarded her with a frown, but nodded.
He released the witch, but stayed near enough that she could feel his Templar powers within him.
"I am Flemeth's daughter," said Lilith. "Inasmuch as she has ever had a daughter."
"How did you get away?" Lance asked, keeping his belt knife in hand.
"I… discovered her grimoire and her little secret," said Lilith. "And so I left when I had the chance."
Lance scowled at her. She was young, pretty, looked no older than Morrigan. Which was impossible. Morrigan had said that the grimoire was older than either of them. So that meant…
"How do you stay young?" he asked. Lilith laughed again, brushing aside a few errant strands of hair and leaning back on her elbows.
"How do you imagine?"
"Sod her," said Lance, and he turned away. "We should gut her and leave her in the forest."
"But then you would not get the benefit of my privileged information," said Lilith. "And you will not be able to save Morrigan."
Lance stopped, becoming very rigid. He grit his teeth, and Velanna thought she heard something pop. He turned on his heel to face her.
"What are you talking about? Speak quickly."
"I have been Antiva these past years," she said. "But I have not been ignorant to the Blight. No, I have been most interested in the workings of the Darkspawn."
He crossed his arms, looking at Cauthrien and making sure that she was ready to cut Lilith's head off the instant she proved untrustworthy.
"You know what I speak of," said Lilith, letting it hang in the air. Velanna saw him stand straighter, his hand curl tightly around the knife. And she stood, stepped towards him. Quietly, in order to comfort him, she let her hand rest at the small of his back, rubbing him gently with her fingernails.
He seemed to relax, just a bit.
"Perhaps I do," he said. And Lilith smiled to herself.
"Then I suppose all that is left is to figure out how this ends."
"How's it end?"
"Flemeth was willing to part with the grimoire, was she not? Did you not wonder why? 'Tis not something she would do out of hand, is it?"
Velanna felt Lance go tense again, put a hand on his arm, leaning against him slightly. She looked like a woman on his arm, like a trusted friend, perhaps more.
"You mean…" Lance began, looking away from Lilith to stare out into the wilderness. Velanna looked up at him, following the conversation with some difficulty but following nonetheless. Lance's great shame was coming back to bite him in a big way.
"The grimoire was flawed."
"It was a trap," Lance whispered aloud. And he reached behind him, found flat ground to sit on. Velanna followed him, looking at him with great concern. The color had drained from his face, and he was somewhere between terror and shock.
"She learned from her first mistake," said Lilith. "And she planned for another. Do you know the depths of her depravity?"
Lance felt Velanna's hand in his, squeezed even as he struggled to believe what he was hearing. Morrigan was in danger, in more ways than he could believe. And he found Velanna's arm, held onto it for comfort.
"What did I do?" he whispered. Lilith seemed to take some amusement from that. And she leaned forward, elbows now on her knees.
"Flemeth found the Old God, Urthemiel. Flemeth told someone where it was, how to find it before his brothers did."
The Architect. Lance felt nauseous, wanted to pull away from the group and go stumbling into the woods. He needed air. It was so suffocating here. He needed time to breathe.
"Oh, no," he reached up, ran a hand through his hair. Velanna felt it, too. This Flemeth, this Witch of the Wilds, she was responsible for the Blight, for the deaths of so many. Lance was in love with the daughter of his greatest enemy, his nemesis.
And here he was, facing off with a woman that looked exactly like Morrigan, talking about Flemeth, the Blight, its roots. And he was headed to Orlais, racing against Grey Wardens and Templars, an army of Chevaliers in between him and Val Royeaux. And a child with the soul of an Old God, the result of a flawed Ritual and his own selfishness.
"Will it hurt her?" asked Lance. Lilith shrugged.
"I cannot say. 'Twill be… the Old God, but whether 'tis a monster or… otherwise… I cannot say."
"What can you say?" Lance asked, flipping the belt knife around in his hand so that he could slip it back into its sheathe.
"Before this is over, there will be death," Lilith smiled pleasantly. "But of course, you knew that already."
"I'm going to Orlais," said Lance. "I'm going to find Morrigan. You comin' with me?"
Lilith nodded. "I would not wish to be anywhere else."
He grunted and sat across from her. He held his hands out in front of him, warming his hands by the fire. Velanna sighed, quietly. She had her hand on his knee, comforting him. If he noticed, he made no gesture.
"Did you actually think you could defy Flemeth and get away with it?" Lilith asked. Lance looked at her, brow furrowed in that same look of irritation he wore almost every day. He frowned.
Looking back, he should have known.
Flemeth looked at life as a grand game, a game of schemes of victory conditions and parameters. She never lost, not unless it meant she won. And her willingness to lose, the fact that the great and legendary Flemeth of the Korcari Wilds had lost, it should have set a fire in his mind. He should have known, Morrigan should have known.
That book, the one he ripped from the chest in her hut, it wasn't real. It was a copy, a dupe, a fake. And he fell for it – hook and line. And here he was, prepared to pay for it, prepared to answer it in blood.
"Do you know the story?" Lilith asked him, smiling from across the fire. "The one the Chasind tell of my mother to scare them into obedience?"
"Yes," said Lance, looking into the fire. He recalled Morrigan telling him, one night in camp. The look on her face, the lilt in her voice as she described the particulars. Lilith's smile faded, and she looked deadly serious as she spoke now.
"But you did not hear the best part," she whispered. Lance glared at her, his lips curling in a snarl once more.
He stared blankly, an obvious demand for her to continue.
"Did you know that Bann Conobar Elstan once resided in a castle?" she asked. Lance frowned again. He was growing impatient, and it seemed to amuse her. She liked playing on his nerves like that, making him annoyed and angry.
So she leaned back, adopted a more casual pose and smiled wide as she spoke.
She was a vile reflection of Morrigan, all the bitterness and rage wrapped up in a sweeter package.
"Did you know that Flemeth faced capture during her escape? That Conobar's Captain of the Guard was a man long abused by his lord? Or that he dreamed of glory and honor for his family? Did you know that Flemeth promised him all of that and more?"
Lance leaned on his knees, looking as though he wanted a more intimate conversation with Lilith. And with an unamused curl of his lips, he said, "Get to the point."
That made Lilith giggle.
"Flemeth provided this," she said. "Title and land. A castle that once belonged to the Elstans."
She lost her smile, replaced it with a grimace.
"The Captain made a deal. One of his sons in exchange for the glory, title, land, all of it."
Velanna glanced up at Lance; saw the irritation that threatened to boil, to become pure rage. Lilith very much enjoyed this. She wondered how much like his Morrigan she was, whether or not his rage and irritation stemmed from that.
"Do you know what his name was?"
Velanna could see the wheels turning in his head, the cold terror dawning on his face. She didn't follow, not at first. Then she remembered one of the numerous arguments he'd had with Nathaniel, always about their respective fathers.
Nathaniel insisting that his father had done only what was right, the Commander throwing it back in his face. And his anger, his rage at what had befallen them both.
And that his father was a Teyrn, an important man, that Nathaniel's family had no right. That his lineage was old and pure.
"His name was Sarim Cousland."