They set off before the sun is up the following morning, their quietly remarkable little expedition consisting of nearly all of the most important people in Ferelden.
Elissa is feeling heavy-hearted, fretting, wondering if she should have voiced more protests against this, if she should have been less resilient in the face of the royal games, demanded more explanation. They have quickly become her responsibility now, all these people.
Not that this is unusual.
It had been strange and immensely familiar at the same time, gearing up together outside the Palace. They were even receiving protective wards from Wynne who had offered Elissa a big hug and nearly tore up some deeply buried grief. Even if she doesn't know exactly what it is she grieves, she still feels the tears threatening to well up at the mere thought. Part of it is Wynne herself, though, and Elissa's happiness to see her again. Stubborn, well-meaning, brilliant Wynne on her high horse, always offering a remark or a piece of advice; undesired as it sometimes may be, other times her words hit the right spot, immediately within the heart of the issue. In Elissa's head Wynne resembles a gnarled old tree, comforting and harsh at the same time.
Wynne walks right next to Cauthrien, eyeing her thoroughly. Elissa wonders what she makes of the knight, what the verdict will be. She can't imagine Cauthrien would be easily forgiven for carrying out Loghain's orders at Ostagar and afterwards, but sometimes the mage has surprised her in the past. Her moral standards are high – too high for Wynne herself, Elissa half-suspects – and she does not forgive easily, but there is something worthy in her, something that ignites others.
Elissa tries not to think about what her former companion would make of the last, frantic decisions in Redcliffe because she honestly does not want to know.
Glancing over at Hedin and Loghain who are flanking her, she wonders if they feel the same blankness as far as darkspawn activity goes. Her head is clear, her body only responds to the nearness of other Wardens and there is no throbbing beat or persistent call in her blood.
"They're not above ground here," Hedin concludes, as though responding to her thoughts. "I can barely sense them."
"But you can sense them?" Loghain asks. He walks with his helmet in one hand and the old map of the charted passages tucked away inside his breastplate, Elissa knows, because she has been watching him.
"Vaguely."
Elissa nods, somewhat distracted by a loud noise in the compact line behind them, where Alistair and Anora ride in the midst of a metal-cloud of soldiers sworn to protect them with their lives. It's odd. In her mind, even after everything, Alistair is still the protector, her second.
This constellation of people is nothing if not very strange.
They make good headway and reach the very outskirts of the city quickly, continuing along a road that eventually leads to the coast through a difficult and not often used passage that Loghain has told her about. Elissa remembers it because she hoped, as he accounted for the dangers he and Maric had met there, that they were never going to use it.
"We should pay attention to any mound of stones, secluded areas and crossings of the road," Hedin announces from ahead.
He has begun to look less sickly over the past few days. As though the darkspawn energy is drawing him back in, fortifying his body for the final battle. It stings in her as these thoughts surface, small prickles of badly defined grief over a man she barely knows – but it's not just over him, Elissathinks, glumly. They will all share this fate.
"So just everything then?" Alistair remarks, in a too-loud whisper slipping out of the untouchable knight-swarm, blending with a low chuckle from Anora. So much for Anora's despairing verdict of her husband's hopeless sense of humour, Elissa thinks, with an inward sigh.
Well, at least some of them are enjoying the expedition.
Elissa quickens her pace to catch up with Loghain again, who is now several steps ahead of the other Wardens, up front. He gives her a glance and a nod; so far today they have barely said a word to each other. Once they returned last night they had been starved and dirty from battle and spring heat so after a meal they had retreated to baths and beds. It remains in her today, the fine-grained details of what they spoke of, what she had deducted from the scraps of history and Loghain's lack of denial.
She can't quite believe it, still. When she tries to picture it, the story she has created for them, her mind seem to hesitate, sending only a flurry of impressions back to her, leaving her undone and somewhat disturbed.
Queen Rowan had seemed so regal, so full of poise and Elissa is not convinced Loghain, even a young Loghain, is a man made for torrid affairs. The Queen and the farmer's son. It sounds more like the plot of one of those books she read when nobody saw her, back in Highever, not like something her general would be involved in. She can believe, of course, that Loghain is the sort of man you don't ever forget. He is forceful, dedicated and full of surprises – and there is that streak of unexpected warmth in him, too, swirling around his less guarded gestures and words, making them all the more powerful because it's Loghain and he isn't friendly or gentle or anything else like that.
He is this dogged man walking beside her, nodding towards a small opening in the thickening forest.
"According to the map, there's a cave in here somewhere," he says.
"A passage?"
"Not that I am aware of, no." He holds up a cluster of pendent tree branches so he can pass under it and when he doesn't let it down again, Elissa realises he is waiting for her to follow.
"Thanks," she says, still half-way inside her wildly inappropriate and misplaced thoughts, which certainly doesn't improve anything. She glances over her shoulder to see if the others are coming along. They are, a bit further back, so she drops the branches and proceeds to investigate what clearly is a cave, just a few metres inside this glen. It's half buried in bushes and small, blossoming trees but there is a coldness surrounding it as they approach it, a sharp sound in her head that Loghain hears, as well, she knows because of the way he raises an eyebrow as he uncovers the cave entrance with his sword, cutting away a mass of ferns and weeds.
"Well, it looks like the map was right," Elissa says, turning around to shout to the others. "Over here!"
Loghain easily removes a small collection of stones gathered in front of the small inlet that, by the look of things, leads inside the underground.
The air outside the entrance is murky, as though whatever is inside is reaching out. If she tilts her head, Elissa sees the spiders jet up into the sticky clouds of web hanging over their heads. A shiver trickles down her spine despite the heat.
She is not fond of spiders.
It's a well-kept secret, a little flutter of worry at the pit of her stomach, and she flinches slightly at the idea of having to go in there. Not that she hasn't fought spiders the size of a fully grown man before, but it has been a long time now and she has appreciated this break from battling her own instincts to curl up and scream.
"Caves or spiders?" Loghain asks dryly. Perhaps it's no longer the world's best kept secret after all, she have to admit.
Sighing, she looks at him, smoothing out her facial expression. "Spiders."
He looks like he is about to say something else, when the rest of the party catches up with them, gathering around the cave where Elissa and Loghain have stopped. There's a rising hum as the rest take in the sight.
"We are not going in there," the Queen says firmly and it's not a question or even a statement, it's a royal decree, underlined by her posture as she finds a spot as far away from the cave as the small glen allows her.
"Well," Alistair says, hands already reaching for his weapons and an almost palpable longing in his face. "They might come out and play, of course. I don't know any good tricks to lure them out, though. Anyone else?"
"We are not going to lure anything out," Elissa clarifies, in the event of companions unfamiliar with this particular sense of humour.
"Let us hope not." Anora, definitely not amused, lets one hand rest at the hilt of her sword. It's an unusual sword, Elissa can't help but notice; it shimmers with gold and enchantments and the hilt is dotted with red gems. A spectacular, impractical sword not meant for fighting but for decoration – why anyone would want that, she can't even being to wrap her mind around.
"Your Majesties. Commander." Hedin steps forward. "I suggest the Wardens go in alone. We place a few knights behind us, to hear our call for assistance, should it be necessary."
Without even looking at either Alistair or Anora, Elissa has nodded her consent to the plan. She can see that Loghain agrees too, unsheathing his sword in preparation for going inside.
Elissa returns to the saddlebags to gather supplies; kneeling down she tucks poultices and potions into her pouch, bringing a small vial of poison too, hoping she can remember how Zevran taught her to use it as a last-resort treatment for her blades.
"Do I still count as a Warden?" Alistair is suddenly standing before her as she rises and turns around. There's an hesitant expression in face and his voice is low, as though he is keeping it down while obtaining her consent. Behind him she can see both Loghain and Anora follow their conversation with great interest. It is not often, but right now Elissa definitely spots the similarities between them, a visible trail running between father and daughter, their faces sealed and only their eyes betraying any emotion, should you look closely enough.
"Look," she begins, rubbing her forehead. "You're the king."
"Oh? Is that what I am?" Alistair smiles wryly. "I thought I just had a very large house all of a sudden. And this ill-fitting crown. Cailan must have had a gigantic head, because it just keeps falling down."
She has forgotten that he is even more difficult to talk to than Loghain, sometimes.
"I can't take the King of Ferelden with me down there," she says, attempting a new approach and ignoring his jokes. "If something happens to you-"
"Elissa," Alistair interrupts, stripping himself of all kingly form and manners in a second. As he meets her gaze, he is just Alistair and the air around them is full of echoes of what she once believed were unchanging things. "People are dying. There were darkspawn attacks in Denerim even though you ended the Blight and I'm a Warden. Everyone knows I am. I can't just... I can't just sit there in the Palace and not do anything."
"You can hand out bread and coins to the beggars then," she snaps, before thinking better of it. "Instead of having yourself killed underground."
"Elissa."
There is no point, Elissa knows, to remind him of what he has done already, that everyone acts in their own ways with their own means and that kings and queens don't necessarily fight in the Warden ranks. Or that he had left the sodding Order voluntarily to begin with. There is no point, because this is Alistair who fell in love with her when she gave food to a prisoner and sat with a dying soldier in Lothering - out of confusion more than goodness but he didn't believe that when she told him. Good, brave Alistair who may feel betrayedand blame her for being his kingmaker but who will spend every year on that throne fighting for what is right and just. Alistair who is compassionate and kind and sensitive, traits she had no use for in her game of thrones, but that nevertheless pulled her through the worst year of her life.
She suddenly wishes she had told him, at least once.
"Very well," she says instead. "I suppose I can't stop you."
"I do have a lot of knights now, it's true," he agrees, half-smiling and grabbing the weapons as they head back to the others.
Loghain rakes a hand through his hair in a gesture of quiet exasperation and Anora merely shakes her head as Elissa looks in her direction. There is genuine concern in her gaze as it follows Alistair, walking up to the cave. Elissa wishes she could promise her something – I will return him safely – but that would be a lie.
And then they step inside the stone-wrapped darkness, down a flight of broken, crumbling steps into something resembling a room, with several drifts leading in various directions. It must be an old mine, she decides, walking as slowly as possible in order not to fall. Elissa walks behind Hedin, with Loghain and Alistair at her back. Dog, unusually quiet, trots at the very end of their small line at Wynne's side.
Almost on cue, the flood of noise in her head increases, rushing over her thoughts and in between her senses, until she has to look at the others to assure herself she isn't going insane. Hedin nods grimly, his face sweaty and ashen.
"Are you certain you can do this?" she asks, quietly.
"I will not fail you," he retorts and even his voice is no more than a pale shiver. "I cannot fight well, but I can lead you to the darkspawn."
Elissa is about to ask how he will avoid being killed, when – almost on cue – a group of genlocks rush towards them. Pushing Hedin behind her and letting Loghain replace him, Elissa draws both swords and runs to greet them.
It's a simple enough fight between the six of them and the darkspawn go out with a whimper.
They are deep within the mine now. Or cave - she isn't sure what to call it, what this is, beyond a dark space full of possible dangers. There's a distant pull of the calling inside their heads. It comes and goes, strangely and rhythmically, likes waves.
She finds herself between Loghain and Alistair in this large section of the underground, where the stone beneath them is flat and everything flickers before her eyes while they try to adjust to the lack of sunlight. It looks like a tunnel is leading downwards, to their left, but as she moves closer to it, she realises it's merely a small path leading into another cavity in the massive stone. This place is almost consciously built, she thinks. That is not a cheerful prospect.
As they begin to spread out a little, to look in different corners of the large room, Elissa feels the surge again and before she even knows it, they are in the company of hurlocks, shrieks and an emissary who is throwing spells that are still blocked by Wynne's wards, though those are wearing a bit thin now.
"Wynne, take the spell caster!" Elissa cries, ducking for a green, acrid-smelling dagger swooshing through the air. "Dog, go after the shrieks!"
"What about me?" Alistair asks her as she falls silent and it's not until then she realises she hasn't given him an order.
Loghain has already taken on the hurlocks, rallying them around him in a corner, knowing already what she would say. He gives Alistair an unreadable glance in between attacks, as though he can't decide if he wants help or wishes the king of Ferelden would run back up into the sunlight again.
Alistair, with the heart of a storybook knight and always there, defending; Loghain, level-headed and calculating, counting on her to save her own skin. What a sodding pair she has brought with her.
Elissa is unused to commanding them both at the same time, she realises, momentarily confused. To be honest, she doesn't exactly command Loghain a great deal to begin with, since he is an excellent strategist and often makes better choices on his own than anything she could have predicted. With Alistair it used to be different; he had wanted directions and orders and she had wanted a trustworthy templar at her back, with a shield bash so powerful it often left her with a lot of space and liberty to conduct the rest of the fight. They had been a smooth, well-rehearsed duo after a year of fighting together.
It's safe to say that they aren't, not any more.
"Hurlocks," she shouts back, slamming her sword down hard on a genlock's head.
Fighting has rarely been this confusing and only half of her troubles results of the darkness.
But battle is in their bodies, however rusty and mismatched and unused to each other these bodies may be, and the fighting ends, eventually.
"Loghain, look for remaining darkspawn in the tunnels." Elissa straightens up, crossing the stone floor to look at the mess they have made. The commands flow better now, with more ease.
"Yes."
"Alistair, check with the knights if they are all right back there."
He nods, and slips out in one of the tunnels again.
Wynne and Elissa, aided by Hedin, spend a long while scouting the place for anything interesting. It is difficult when the only light is coming from Wynne's spheres that dance above them, giving a sufficient but still rather dim glow. They can quickly conclude that whatever this is – mine or cave or darkspawn creation – they are standing in its heart. There are no paths leading further inside or further down.
Loghain returns first, his sword glistening with fresh blood. "I found a few more."
"The last of them?" Elissa digs her toe into a pile of sackcloth and what appears to be clothes. A stench of rotten flesh rises, filling her nostrils and tickles the back of her throat with a nauseating force. She holds her breath as she lowers herself to the ground to examine the mess.
"Yes, it seems we have emptied the place."
Loghain kneels beside her, turning over what Elissa soon learns are the remains of a human body, now a decaying piece of flesh.
"I don't think darkspawn eat people," she mutters, refraining from making a grimace at the sight and smell and that sour sensation of disgust welling up.
"It has not been eaten," Loghain says. "This is what death looks like if you leave the body be."
"Right." She thinks with a shudder about dwarves and how they send their dead back into the stone they came from, their bodies still intact, unburned. Or the Dalish, merely letting the dead rot. It is one of the strangest habits she has ever heard of. To be eaten by worms and slowly become tainted, sick earth. She wrinkles her nose.
"The knights are fine. No darkspawn. There is no passage to anywhere back there either. I checked to see if we missed anything." Alistair reappears, hoisting his shield.
Elissa gets up, averting her eyes from the corpse.
"This place looks like it's been used. As a house or something."
"Darkspawn houses, now there's an image," Alistair retorts, puzzled.
Loghain gives her a look over his shoulder that tells her she might not be crazy after all; tells her that his mind, too, has made the unsettling connection of the details they have been given so far.
"I'm going to have another look," he says, heaving himself up.
As he leaves, Alistair shakes his head. "He doesn't trust anyone but himself, does he?"
She is about to say something in Loghain's defence – he's just being thorough – when she realises the expression on Alistair's face isn't as dark as expected and her sharp comment vanishes unspoken.
"Anora is the same way," he adds. "You can't fool that woman. She always – Well. Never mind."
"Alistair, I-" Elissa lets her own voice fade away, not even knowing what she had intended to say.
Alistair turns away from her her.
"Why would darkspawn need a house?" He has devoted his attention to the room they're in, pacing the floor with one hand against the wall as though it would be able to tell him anything, as though he would feel something beside damp stone. "Banquets? Raising a family? They're darkspawn."
"Yes," she agrees, stupidly. A part of her – the part that can't believe he is the king, let alone call him Your Majesty – wants to confess what she has learned about darkspawn recently. Wants to sit in front of a fire with Alistair and Leliana and Wynne and Zevran and not keep any secrets because their mission, their hopelessly desperate but simple enough mission, requires no such things as all they want is to end the Blight. All the other parts of her know that she is a Warden now and that apart from today, Alistair isn't.
"Do you think they use this place for something? Summoning other darkspawn? Like emissaries do, drawing them from the ground?"
"Who knows?" Elissa adds a cheerfully stupid note to her voice, which rings oddly false in this place.
Alistair gives her a long, peculiar look but he asks no more.
And as they leave, she knows that the only thing she brings back with her, save a few scrolls Wynne found, is strange sensation of having missed something, a low hum of frustrating doubt gnawing at her very thoughts.
.
.
.
.
Following the mage's advice, they take a break for lunch once they are back outside the cave. The sun is partly hidden behind thin clouds but still warm, making Loghain regret the choice of armour for the day.
He slumps down on a tree trunk, unbuckling the breastplate slightly and leans back, drawing deep breaths. A bit further to his left, near the edge of the forest he sees the knights swarm around the king, who looks – to his credit – slightly embarrassed to be this coddled. It had never bothered Cailan, as far as Loghain recalls. Half the time he appeared to enjoy the adulatory displays that came with his title, a little too much, which had always left a bad taste in Loghain's mouth. His daughter had endured that brat with more patience than Loghain had thought she possessed, much more than Cailan deserved. It had seemed, even after a few bracing months on the throne, that Cailan had managed to pick up only the worst traits of a very young Maric – traits that the rebellion simply had no room for and had therefore erased – and none of his strengths. He was good-natured but weak, easily swayed and susceptible to flattery and lies if they hit his insecurities. More importantly, he was arrogant and dramatic and wanted to prove himself as good as Maric, if not better.
Loghain hopes this bastard son is more his father's equal. For all their sakes.
Because Anora has always held her love for the role as queen and for the throne itself higher than her love for the people who will take her there, her standards may vary, Loghain knows. If it serves her well, she endures fools gladly. He finds no particular information in the fact that she seems to enjoy the new husband's company.
Elissa, on the other hand, seems to be a harsh – and likely superior - judge of character.
Before she made a king of Maric's bastard, she had been involved with the boy after all, and it's not that Loghain has the faintest idea of what she considers worthwhile in a man, but he can't imagine that her preferences, even during a war, would be so faulty she would have taken an utter fool for lover.
Wincing slightly at the mental images conjured up by those thoughts – a plethora of situations involving the boy who looks entirely too much like Maric and the commander, in various compromising situations - and Loghain isn't sure what undoes him more: the images or the fact that he has them, within reach.
He shakes his head and glares at the food in his bowl. Mutton, cooked in a thick broth of ale and mushrooms and onions and served with black bread. It is very good food. Not ordinary camp food, for certain. Perhaps they ought to travel with the royals more often.
"You did not want us to come."
Loghain looks up to see Anora standing there, carrying a flask and a sword. Two items that seem rather misplaced in her hands - so misplaced, in fact, that he blinks again to make sure he can trust his own eyes.
"I did not." He watches her as she sits down beside him. Her cheeks and the thin bridge of her nose are reddened from the sun, making her look flushed. She has never resembled her mother more. Celia would wear hats into the late autumn to protect her face, Loghain remembers, the vast and ever-growing collection of them always an odd thing to him, one of her few vices. "There is no reason you should occupy yourselves with this."
"Denerim is still under attack," Anora says and glances at him. "As are many other places - and not just in Ferelden. It seems to me that regents cannot sit idly by as this continues. Darkspawn may be your duty, this is true, but Ferelden is mine."
Loghain knows that something is brewing. Somewhere, around them and between them – between nations and people, between people and darkspawn – something is shifting. He knows all Wardens are aware of this. All skilled politicians too, most likely. Elissa had brought enough news with her from Orlais for them both to be able to construct a fairly plausible political map of the world after the Blight.
It's not a cheerful map, granted.
"The Empress still wants to negotiate?" he asks, swallowing a large piece of bread soaked in broth. For short periods of time he manages to forget the depths of this new hunger, how much he can eat before feeling full now.
Anora shoots him a grim smile. "Indeed."
He thinks about something Elissa told him in a letter, about how the darkspawn have become the currency of this war. When nobody acknowledged their existence, when the Blight was a tall tale men like Loghain could brush off as nonsense, the slightest bit of insight became priceless. The Empress of Orlais had used it to her advantage, as had Maric, he supposes. Now, however, everybody knows. The stakes are higher, the bargains much more expensive.
For all the idiocy in this undertaking, he supposes he can't deny Ferelden's regents the possible benefit that could come from it.
Anora observes him, sipping the water. Loghain isn't sure he has seen anyone wear splintmail and sip something at the same time but the twitch in the corner of her mouth tells him he would do well not to point it out to her. His daughter is a lot of things but she is not a very imposing sight here and now and she is well aware of this cruel piece of truth.
"I was not aware you had kept that," he says, nodding towards the sword that she still has a hold of, as though it will be needed with half an army of knights leaping to her rescue if she as much as chokes on a slice of bread. The red gems shine in the sun, giving the sword the illusion of being on fire.
As a girl she had been stubborn as a mule, loud and demanding and ever the resourceful one, making certain she had her way. For a long stretch of time she had wanted to be a knight. There had been no talking her out of if and she repeatedly got into the armoury in their keep, attempting to steal swords before running off to slay monsters. On Celia's advice, spelled out in one of the many despairing letters she wrote to him, Loghain had bought a blade for Anora's birthday.
"Oh, mother wouldn't let me throw it away," Anora replies, smiling faintly. "I found it returned to my room, plenty of times."
Of course, she had not needed the kind of enchanted, exquisitely decorated blade that Loghain had returned home with. The charcoal burner's brats with their wooden swords had not taken kindly to her red gems and pure gold; their circles closed even tighter and Anora came home, tear stains in her face and bruises on her arms, throwing the sword away.
He had thought she discarded it once and for all that year when Celia fell ill and died and Loghain withdrew into work and duty and Denerim. The cold fury in her gaze, he can see it flash through the layers of time even now, a hard surface of it at the bottom of even her warmest sentiments.
"You should have it replaced." Loghain scrapes she bowl clean with his last bread. "It is a rather poor blade now, in comparison."
Anora's smile deepens, transforms her into the young girl who had deemed him an insensitive monster one day and allowed him to comfort her the next.
"I am not replacing it, father," she says, softly.
"I never knew you to be sentimental," Loghain says in response to that. His voice is dry but he knows she hears the smile hidden in it.
"No more so than you."
He gives a derisive snort, but before he has composed a response, Anora has risen to her feet and lets one hand softly touch one of the braids in his hair before she walks away. It leaves him wordless. Those small things, unaffected by time and deeds done, reflecting a past where he still thought it possible to be someone else; Loghain tucks the braid behind his ear, almost by instinct. He has nearly lost the memory but the taste of it, somewhere deep down and far back, carries a note of youth. He was young then and Celia was still shy in his presence in a way he found both irritating and disheartening and one day she had looked at him differently, her deft fingers had suddenly reached out – hold on, let me – for the strands of hair that always fell into his eyes.
And it became a ritual, quiet and unassuming before battle or ceremony, later a daily habit.
Loghain looks up again, to see Elissa observing him from a distance. Her gaze is never anything remotely close to being unassuming, he thinks, meeting it after a moment's hesitation. It's a power, demanding and revealing and it has managed to scrape his own defences bare in spots, forcing him to replace it in others. By all definitions she is very far from him, her shape an alien one in his life. She is a young woman – younger than Anora, he admits when he goes back in his long line of memories – with barely any experience similar to his own yet Loghain, after a year of reluctantly admitting her various strengths, considers her an equal. There is no sensible explanation for it, except her personality, her nature that doesn't let him see her in any other way. Elissa is Elissa.
She nods and smiles at him, casually, the way she does sometimes, as though Loghain is a man you habitually offer that kind of gesture.
He nods back.
.
.
.
.
The second spot they come across – a small path leading to an empty winter lair belonging to bears and holding nothing of interest to anybody but Dog who picks up a scent of wild animals – is ticked off their list some hours later. It is safe to say that their estimated time plan was poorly made, Loghain establishes, as he looks at the map.
It is quickly decided that they will follow the map to another spot marked as one of the old, abandoned passages before returning the King and Queen to Denerim and picking up their search with a smaller party tomorrow. Anora seems to approve. The bastard king is more reluctant but he agrees eventually, a determined look on his face as they enter the last cave as though he intends to say that at least he will only give up after a decent fight.
The last spot for today is situated on their way back to the city, resembling a hole in the ground but once the area is cleaned up a little, a flight of broken stairs appears, leading the way down into the earth itself.
This time Loghain leads. Behind him are Elissa, the king, the mage and Dog. The second they descend fully, he is grateful Hedin was persuaded to remain with the Queen outside. The noise down here can make even Loghain doubt his own body; for seconds or longer he is convinced he is going to his own Calling, merely dropping everything else and following the soft music of his rushing blood.
He feels a hand on his back and doesn't have to turn his head to know it's Elissa, wordlessly reining him in. So she hears it, too. Except less seductively, he imagines. He ought to be closer to his Calling.
Once they - half-falling, half-climbing - are done with the stairs they stand in the middle of a road that certainly looks like a piece of the Deep Roads. And it is, unsurprisingly, crowded with darkspawn. From the sides of the tunnel they flood against them, from the dark corners and the hidden paths deeper inside the stone; Loghain hears no more than a loud howl from Dog before the battle is upon them once more.
They fight as a group until the lines of genlocks are thinned out; as the hurlocks arrive, Wynne is thrown off her feet and into a wall, landing with a groan and a thud on the floor. Loghain sees Elissa prop her up, before narrowly avoiding an arrow. Dog sets off after another knot and then, in a moment's respite, the commander clutches Loghain's arm, demanding his attention.
"I'm going down that tunnel," she says, in a half-whisper. Dog barks from behind her, tugging at her hand in an inefficient attempt at convincing her not to. "That's where they come from. You handle Dog."
Because she knows he is not about to protests against her battle tactics, no matter how far-fetched and inane they may seem, she doesn't wait for his answer. She has hurried away, is out of sight before anyone else – except Dog, whining furiously and launching himself at a hurlock to still the worries – has reacted.
Some moments later, however, the boy king has noticed her absence and runs towards Loghain, a livid expression on his face, fighting rather impressively without paying much attention to it. His gaze is hard as rock when it meets Loghain's.
"Where did she go?"
Loghain nods towards the tunnel only seconds before his reply is drowned in a deafening rumble. One one of cavities along the sides has caved in, leaving only a large pile of stone and rubble behind – the reason for it seems to be a source of magic, coming from the tunnel Elissa just slipped into.
"Your Majesty," Loghain all but reaches out for the boy's arm to grab hold of him, but catches himself.
"She's alone in there." Alistair's voice is cold as he responds, mid-fight with a hurlock who swings his axe and misses, falling headlong for a shield bash.
He wonders if there is something in Maric's blood sprouting these forceful heroic ideals, remembering him exactly like this. Even with Rowan who inadvertently set him off on rescue missions despite Maric being the weaker fighter of the two – she had never needed to be saved, not once for as long as Loghain had known her, and the fact that Maric didn't agree had always been a grinding, grating matter of dispute between them. Loghain had thought it typical that Maric who had her sodding heart in his hands didn't even know her.
"She went alone in there for a reason." Loghain doesn't know why he even tries, like both young kings Loghain has served before, this one is also denying logic when emotions get in the way. Like blind fools they rush off, tossing everything else aside. "You stay here."
"No!" The King of Ferelden turns on his heel, stabbing a hurlock through dumb luck and the rush of fury. "I won't."
Loghain is about to point out that with Wynne knocked out, he and Dog will be the only ones left in this large tunnel, where darkspawn seem to be crawling out of every small path along the sides. He gathers the boy doesn't have much motivation to ensure Loghain's continued existence, on the other hand, so he swallows that silly remark.
But as though the very ground has heard his thoughts, the entrance to the tunnel crumbles - with another rumbling noise - before the boy has even reached it, leaving the commander trapped on the other side while they are trapped here, with an arriving flock of emissaries.
It seems a rather ironic way to die, all things considered, Loghain thinks, readjusting his grip of the sword.
In the end, it's more surprising not to die.
The stream of genlocks seems incessant. And it's not that they are particularly troublesome to fight, because they are not, not after a year of practice and especially not since they usually carry weak weapons, but they are many and they are tiring. He is out of breath as he kills the last one in sight, looking over his shoulder to make certain the sodding king is still standing, too.
"We have to get in there!" the boy shouts over the noises and despite the forced notes of his voice, Loghain can hear the unspoken accusations in it.
"Is there another way inside?"
Loghain turns, surprised to see the mage stand there, bleeding from a wound in her forehead but otherwise unscathed.
"Wynne!" the boy calls out. "Can you make the stones go away?"
He speaks of magic like a child, Loghain thinks irritably, probably seeing it as a cure for all nasty things and a soothing solution whenever something goes wrong.
"Not in any way that is safe." Wynne frowns, using her staff to steady herself momentarily. "If we blast them, we might bury everyone."
"So what are we going to do?" the boy – king, Loghain attempts in his head, the boy is the king – approaches them, grim determination in his face. He gives Loghain an almost violent glare. "And if you even suggest leaving her-"
"No need to worry about that, Your Majesty," Loghain cuts in, before trying in vain to look around a corner to determine whether or not it would be likely to find another path leading inside the larger road where Elissa went.
They walk for much too long.
Loghain sends Dog in front of them, watching him pick up on the scent and bark angrily at stone and stray darkspawn alike, before he stops, his body taut and unmovable in front of a small opening in the compact walls, a dim light shifting through the darkness, suggesting something on the other side.
A cave. A cave spreading out before their eyes with the help of Wynne's magic and a good portion of stubbornness, Loghain gathers. A way inside, slim and narrow with harsh stones cutting into their sides as they sidle through it – but nonetheless a way inside.
The room is quiet, a stark contrast to the magical noise that filled it before, when Elissa went in. Loghain pushes the thoughts away and presses forward, the others at his heel.
There's a tight little knot in his chest that hardens even further at the sight of her body, unmoving and sprawled, farther inside the large centre of the cave. She is flat on the ground, one of her swords glimmering from a spot far away; the other is sticking up from the inside of an ogre's throat, only the hilt visible.
"Elissa?" Loghain kneels beside her on the stones, noticing a few scratches and a cracked lip. One of these days, Loghain knows, she will get her skull irreparably cracked because she refuses to wear a helmet.
"I told you-" the boy begins, his voice trailing off when he steps closer.
"Elissa?" Loghain places two fingers on the commander's neck, searching for the pulse - it responds when her voice does not, beating hard and steady against him; then she groans something inaudible and puts her hands to the ground, heaving herself up until she's sitting. At the sight of them a half-smile crosses her battered face.
"Sodding ogres," she hisses, still searching for her voice. It's always shocking to have to speak after an injury, Loghain knows. "Did I get them?"
He looks around. "You did."
"Good."
"Elissa." Alistair is squatting down too, dropping all of his posture at once, looking softly at the commander.
"You shouldn't run into battle like that," Elissa concludes wryly, lifting one hand very slowly to feel the cracked lip. She winces with pain as the tips of her fingers trace the swell. "Andraste's arse, Alistair, you really should know better."
"I know," he admits reluctantly, glancing at Loghain as though he is to blame for this, too.
"I was doing very well before you two stormed in," Elissa grunts, lips barely moving. "Kept myself unnoticed. Believe it or not but when I have to, I can be stealthy."
Loghain doesn't quite believe her, but he decides this is not the time nor place for that particular conversation.
"This is your work then?" Loghain ask and nods towards the floor, where an impressing number of darkspawn lie defeated. A smile plays at the back of his mind.
"Yes." She nods gravely. "There were emissaries, too, as you can see."
Wynne has already begun to examine the remains of those, Loghain notices, as Elissa looks at him again, with something of importance on her mind but no way of saying it in this company.
"We should get out of here," the king states, rather needlessly.
"Good thinking," Elissa agrees.
Elissa makes an effort to stand, slowly and with moderate success as she collapses back down on her knees; swallowing visibly she crawls back up, glancing almost unnoticeably at Loghain, in a silent and secret confession of the kind they usually only practice in public. It is a wordless plea for assistance, between two people who never admit weakness. Offering his hand, Loghain has to admit that it hits a peculiarly gleeful note in him that she has no such bond to the boy who has turned his back to them and begun to walk. The mage gathers the last items from the fallen bodies and joins him, leaving Loghain with Elissa who is threading carefully and with one arm around his shoulder.
"How hurt are you?" he asks, keeping his voice down.
"Oh, never mind that. It heals."
Loghain slips one arm around her waist as she seems to stop; her face turns towards him as he does so, and her gaze digs into his own, urging him to stop as well.
"They didn't want to kill me," she whispers then, her mouth so close to Loghain's ear that her words are wrapped in hot flushes of breath against his skin. "They tried to capture me."