Chapter 18
"As a bard, you are welcome anywhere in Orlais. Doors are opened to you with generous smiles, their wearers confident that no one would falsely pretend such a title for fear of retribution. Your slightest request is immediately seen to. Your services are expensive and yet actively sought, and those who cannot afford them beg only to not have your displeasure turn their way.
One day, however, you will awaken. You will realize the smiles are false, and behind them lies revenge. At the first moment of weakness, your brother and sister bards will be unleashed upon you like a pack of hounds, and you will realize they are not your brothers and sisters at all. For all your fancy intrigue, you have spent your life creating nothing of worth. You have been swallowed by the web of your own deceits, and the Game of which you believe yourself a master? It moves on without you, uncaring."
—from a letter signed Sister Nightingale
Malcolm
Because his mind hurt to believe it, he pretended Leliana wasn't there. It made it easier as she trailed after them, concern painted over her features in a way that was uncomfortably convincing.
He didn't want to be convinced.
Cold and miserable, the small party led the horses as they hiked out into the forest to camp where they would be hidden from the angry inhabitants of Velun. Their group wasn't short on their own anger, however. Rhys took up a pace to match Evangeline's as he confronted her, taking the energy he'd wanted to use to forcibly educate the blacksmith about the errors of his ways and placing it on the Knight-Captain. Adrian contented with glaring at Evangeline from under her hood. Both mages from the White Spire were so focused on Evangeline that they didn't even ask about Leliana, even though she'd brazenly followed them while leading her own horse.
Malcolm was fairly certain they weren't ignoring her on purpose like he was.
The arguing and nasty looks continued as they set up soggy tents on sodden ground. Right after she'd introduced herself as 'Sister Nightingale,' Leliana had grabbed a pack from her horse, and not so randomly yet officially joined their little group. The freezing rain had lightened to a cold mist, but it did nothing to help them keep the chill at bay. Adding in that having the chance to sleep in warm beds had been ripped away from them did little to improve their moods—mages, templars, and Wardens alike.
Rhys kicked at a tent stake before he scowled at Evangeline again. "Why did you even bother? It isn't like you're going to let us leave Adamant alive if we find that Tranquility isn't permanent. More than likely, the Lord Seeker has ordered you to kill us either way."
"Did he?" asked Adrian.
"I'm not at liberty to divulge my orders," said Evangeline. Her tent was already perfectly set up behind her, because of course it was.
"Oh, so you are going to kill us," said Rhys. "Wonderful."
Malcolm abandoned his hopeless task of making his tent appear as anything beyond passable and looked over at Evangeline. "I hope you know that I won't let you do that."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that a boast?"
"No."
"Malcolm," said Wynne.
He sighed, and certainly did not look in Wynne's direction. "All right, maybe a little one."
"Why do you even care?" asked Adrian.
"Because I give a shit about mages, obviously, or I wouldn't have sodding stuck up for any of you in that tavern." He could've just left them in the tavern, or he could've ignored the entire situation, taken his mead, and left them to their confrontation while he got a head start on resting in a warm, cozy room. Or he could've just put the man down for the atrocity he'd committed, disregarding the mages' need to keep a low profile. Instead, he'd defended them, because they were people just like any other—and that smith and his cohorts had sodding killed a child simply because she was a mage—and now he was out here in the cold rain, defending himself from the mages.
"Only because we're part of your little Warden mission." Adrian lashed out at stray piece of wood with her foot. "All you Wardens care about is what mages can do to darkspawn and what abilities we can use to help stop blights. You don't care about the people they are or how their lives are on Thedas. The only reason you're even bothering with this highly important research in the first place is so you can get more recruits for your order." She jabbed a finger at him. "Giving a shit about mages means you don't think of them as tools to be used by your stupid order."
He stared at her for a moment as his frustration worked its way up out of his chest. Then the anger broke free, unwilling to be restrained any longer. "My mother was a mage," he said to her, not knowing where his explanation was going, aside from laying out why he felt the way he felt. "The first woman I ever loved was a mage. My wife is a mage. My daughter is a mage, so don't you dare assume anything about what I think about mages."
Adrian stared at him.
"Oh, Malcolm, I'm sorry," said Wynne.
"So am I," he said, and then walked out of the camp. He needed to clear his head before he ended up doing something harmful to the person who kept needling him. While he was frustrated with her, she didn't deserve it, not to the extent his temper had taken him. That smith from the tavern deserved it, or any number of members of the templars and Seekers.
He'd been stupid in letting his temper get away from him, because he'd mentioned Ava while in the presence of a very observant templar, not to mention the even more observant and could not truly be ignored so-called Sister Nightingale. As much as he would've liked Shale to be wrong, she was right. There was no possible way they could finish their entire mission without the whole group finding out who he really was, and now they would know even more than they should once they did.
The flickering light from the small fire was still visible when he realized he'd been followed. When he turned and found it was Leliana, somehow already having changed into leathers, he pointed at her and said, "No." She opened her mouth to object or reason with him, but he cut her off. "No. I can't deal with you right now. I can't." Because Maker's sodding balls, Leliana had just heard everything he'd said and he had absolutely no idea what she would do with the information. The possibilities were too many and too dangerous. Added to the rage—no, it was mostly fear—simmering in his chest, he couldn't handle it.
"I wanted to say—"
Malcolm shook his head. "I don't want to hear whatever it is you have to say. My friend Leliana died during the Blight. You, you look an awful lot like her, Sister Nightingale, but you are not her. You wear her face and speak with her voice, but you aren't my friend. Nothing you say to me will be of any comfort." Then he faced the trees, the cold clouding his breath in front of him.
A very long silence followed. When he turned to look, she had gone.
It took only moments for Wynne to take her place. Without asking, she'd come to stand right next to him, so close that the sharp smell of the warmth balm she'd applied to her hands wafted over him.
He bit down on the confrontational words he wanted to snap at her, because they had a great deal of their trip left to go, and the overall goal of the mission was a lot more important than his undermined trust. That, and he wasn't sure he had the energy left to expend on pretending Leliana wasn't there, and keep himself from going back to that sodding inn and punishing that blacksmith.
So, he kept quiet.
"I am…" Wynne sighed. "I am sorry about you and Líadan. I hadn't told you that before, and I realize my error. I had honestly not seen her departure coming, yet learning about Ava must have been difficult for the both of you. Too difficult, it would seem."
Oh, she was here to lecture instead of comfort. He could deal with lectures, because since he'd inadvertently told their little group about Ava's not-so-little ability, he could finally tell the rest of the truth. That someone else would know that he and Líadan weren't at odds, that they still loved each other and would be together if they had any way possible of doing so while keeping their children safe, made him feel somewhat better. Better than he'd been in the past couple of days, at least. Enough that he smiled, despite the subject. "Líadan and I are fine, actually. I mean, it was touch and go for a while after we first found out, but we worked through it."
Malcolm could practically hear the shift of judgmental gears in Wynne's head. "Then the rumors of her leaving you, taking the children, and returning to the Dalish?"
"Started and allowed to perpetuate on purpose." Maker, why did it feel so freeing? He knew he should be trying to keep it a secret still, especially since he didn't know where Leliana was except for close and possibly listening in. But, in the end, if he couldn't trust any of these people with the secret of Ava being a mage and Líadan bringing her and Cáel to safety, then he could never even contemplate telling anyone about Ava's true ability. He'd been astonished to discover earlier that he could still trust them—or at least Wynne—with his life. Wynne's glyph had been evidence enough.
"What?"
"We couldn't allow it to get out that we sent our mage daughter to stay with the Dalish to keep her from the Chantry, could we?" He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. "Right?"
Her lips pursed and her frown was quick to follow. "You know better than that."
He ignored her clear disapproval. "Than what, exactly?"
"Mages cannot go untrained. To keep Ava from the Circle and proper training—or have you forgotten about what happened to Connor?"
"Connor was very much on my mind when we decided what to do."
Her robe rustled as she crossed her arms, not even pretending she was trying to keep warm in order to cover the extent of her disapproval. No, not even that. She disapproved, and it seemed she would make him know every detail of it. "Then I fail to understand—"
He finally turned to fully face her. "There was no way under the Maker's sun that we were going to give her to the Chantry. Yet, we both knew that a mage can't go without good, proper training. It's dangerous, and stupid. The Dalish will provide training as well as safe harbor from the templars."
The frown remained, intractable against reason that was not her own. "You are risking—"
"I know what we're risking."
She huffed. "Does Alistair know?"
"Of course he does. Thing is, we never expected it to appear. Not with Ava. We assumed it would be Cáel, but he still doesn't show any signs. And since Ava showed so young, we doubt he'll ever turn out to be a mage." He flashed her a fake smile. "But don't you worry about Ava being with the Dalish. I hear they're pretty good about training mages."
Wynne's lips pursed again, and Malcolm recognized the signs of her not letting a subject drop—she usually didn't like any subject to drop—and spun it around on her.
While continuing to ignore Leliana's presence would've been wonderful, it'd been childish to ignore it in the first place, and dangerous for him to keep doing it. "Have you noticed that we've two agents of the Divine with us? At least, I assume that's what you are too, given the letter you had and how you're apparently all cozy with Her Perfection." He crossed his own arms to mirror Wynne's rather defensive posture. "How long have you been friends with Sister Nightingale?"
"As long as you have."
"She's not Leliana. Not the one we knew."
"Once, I would have agreed with you. Now, I do not. She's the same woman we knew during the Blight. She's followed her path to the Maker, and continues to follow it still, whatever that path may be. While we may not see her path, it doesn't negate the fact that it is present for her. She shared her view of it with me, and I even agree with some of it. I have rendered my aid as a result, and it is she and her sponsor who have allowed this research on reversing Tranquility to be done. Think on that before you're so quick to condemn her."
No, he didn't want to. Not right then. "And by 'her sponsor,' of course you mean the Divine."
She gave him that infuriatingly enigmatic smile once again. "Perhaps."
As he seethed, she walked away as quietly as she'd appeared. It made him almost wish for Leliana. For all of Leliana's being a bard, their confrontation had held a lot more honesty.
He stayed out in the woods beyond the camp while he waited for the rest of their little traveling party to fall asleep. Confrontations could be saved for the morning, when he'd given his mind a night of sleep to regroup. It was that or he was going out to find that blacksmith.
The rain had stopped. There was that.
When he returned to camp, Evangeline was still awake. On watch and extra vigilant, she'd placed her sword across her knees as she stared out into the night. Before Malcolm could say anything, she said, "The others may not have put the pieces together, but I know who you are, Malcolm Theirin."
He'd have traded the rain stopping for Evangeline not being so observant and clever. "If you could keep it to yourself, that would be nice." And he really, really hoped that she would turn out to be the decent sort of templar he'd believed her to be. Otherwise, he'd inadvertently put his family in a lot of danger when the entire point of this separation was to keep them out of it.
She studied her blade for a moment before raising an eyebrow at him. "Why keep it a secret?"
Her tone held only curiosity, which provided a little relief, so he provided an answer. "Not a secret, not exactly." He shrugged and then gestured toward the trees around them. "I'm just a Grey Warden out here. People knowing about everything else tends to complicate things."
As she ran her thumb over the pommel of her blade, tracing the engraving of the Chantry's symbol, her eyes became wistful. "I can understand that. I left the nobility to become a templar. It is uncomfortable to be reminded. My father's holdings were close to here."
That did explain how she'd quickly and confidently known there would be trouble with the mages here. "Were?"
"After my parents died, I was offered the opportunity to leave the Order and assume my position in the nobility by taking over the estates. I turned it down. It was then given to my uncle, who promptly gambled everything away."
"That sort of happened to a friend of mine. Her ending was more fun, though. She and her siblings and their friends cleared the family estate of the slavers who'd taken it over, got the city to grant the deed and title again, and there you go. I suppose where she lives, she's lucky enough it isn't as poncy as it is here in Orlais. She can still be a soldier and remain in the nobility, even though she's a woman. She does tell me that other nobles look down on her all the same." Of course, now she could tell them to suck it. Marian would technically soon be a princess. Or she was one already, because even if Sebastian wasn't yet Prince of Starkhaven, he was still a prince. "Either way, it's a way bigger deal there or here than it is at home."
"That is a notion I have been struggling with since I put it together. For instance, Enchanter Wynne is one of your brother's subjects, and yet she treats you as she would a grandson, not a prince of her realm."
He outright grinned. "She treats my brother the same, actually."
"I will never get used to it."
"Good thing you don't have to."
When she didn't reply and only returned to her scans of the woods, Malcolm figured it was as good a time as any to ask the no bullshit kind of question. She knew who he was, so she'd know who his daughter was, and stood a very good chance of starting the Chantry's search for his family. "You know about my daughter, then. Who she is."
"I do." She didn't look away from the forest.
Because she wasn't going to make this awkward part any less awkward if it ended up with her saying she'd be doing something and him having to kill her to stop her and then having to explain to their little group just how that had happened. "Will you tell me what you're going to do? Or am I going to have to guess? I have to tell you, I'm terrible at guessing games."
"Last I heard," Evangeline said as she slowly turned to look at him, "your wife had taken both your children, presumably to the Dalish. Last time I checked, the Templar Order and the Chantry have a tacit agreement to leave Dalish clans alone, so long as they don't stay around a human settlement for a substantial length of time. We do not actively hunt the Dalish clans, so why would I bother reporting about a mage with the Dalish?"
He met her gaze. "I hope you're telling the truth."
"And if I wasn't?"
"Then you wouldn't be the templar I think you are, and I'd have to stop you. Same as I'd do if you tried to kill any of the mages with us, by the way."
"What about the Chantry sister?"
"She's a special case." He was mostly certain that Leliana wouldn't tell the Chantry or the templars about Ava. For all her lies, she'd witnessed everything at Kinloch Hold during the Blight, and later, even after the Kinloch Hold, she had voiced a surprising amount of reason when it came to how mages should be treated. Whatever lies her mouth might tell, her actions tended more toward honesty. It didn't mean he'd trust her, but some of her actions he could trust. Mostly.
"And you would know this, how?"
"Prior run-ins. Also, she used to be dead. But if you want more detail than that, you'll have to ask her yourself."
"Ah." Evangeline nodded slowly. "Mauvais sang."
"Yes, exactly. Bad blood. A lot of it. Literally. Have fun getting the stories out of her." He gave her a feigned smile and crawled into his tent before she could resume questioning him about Leliana. For all his attempts at ignoring her, she kept coming up a lot.
The next morning, as they started out of Velun along a disused trail, trembling ground and the squawk of a doomed bird heralded Shale's appearance. She noticed right away that Leliana was with them, and she initially welcomed Leliana's return even less than Malcolm had. "I see the elder mage has brought the sister," she said as she tromped out of the trees.
While Evangeline, Rhys, and Adrian stared up at the golem, the rest carried on with their conversation.
"The sister brought herself," Wynne said.
"Has the sister explained why?"
"The Maker guided me to them, to keep people from dying in a needless tavern brawl," said Leliana.
Malcolm rolled his eyes instead of asking her why she felt the need to re-use the same damn story she'd used during the Blight. Maybe she'd had another dream too, complete with finding a rose alive where it should have been dead.
"Horseshit," said Adrian. "We would have been fine."
Leliana leveled a look at her. "I said 'people,' Enchanter. I did not specify you or your companions."
"The sister is catty," said Shale. "I like it. Has it brought me shoes?"
"Not yet, Shale. Perhaps after our journey."
This time, Malcolm glared at her for saying 'our journey,' like she was an invited companion, trusted to help, trusted to not pretend to die in the middle of it. But he had to settle for glaring, because he couldn't say any of those things out loud.
Evangeline's look had shifted from awe to appraising. "Can it be controlled?"
Shale cracked her stony knuckles. "Would it like a demonstration?"
"Unless you want to find yourself crushed, I'd say no," said Malcolm.
After another look at Shale, Evangeline nodded, and then nudged her horse into a walk. Rhys followed, and quickly engaged her in conversation not loud enough for the rest of them to hear. It made Adrian frown a lot, which made Malcolm wonder what was going on there, but not stupid enough to inquire. Thankfully, Finn managed to stave off whatever was brewing by bringing up new spells with Adrian. Though often accompanied by quick bursts of magic as they tried out the spells Finn had found, their conversation quickly became amiable. Leliana chose to ride beside Shale almost immediately, and the two of them cheerfully chatted about shoes.
Shoes. Maker, no one had warned him he'd be suffering this sort of thing during their trip. It was starting to become clear that he should've stayed in Denerim, maybe even gone to Highever. His new realization was validated quickly, when Wynne pulled up beside him. Several minutes stretched on impossibly long as she said nothing, while Malcolm waited for the inevitable comments. They were coming, and she'd had all night to think up a stockpile.
She didn't fail to meet his dreaded expectations. She did start out slowly, a comment lobbed here and there, perhaps only once or twice an hour as they traveled out of the verdant forests and meadows of the Heartlands and into the scrubby transition area to the Western Approach. She lobbed her first zinger right before they stopped to eat a midday meal.
"There's something I learned very quickly in my life as a mage," Wynne said, and then stopped to force him to engage.
Because he knew it would be worse if he didn't engage at all, he played along. "Is there?" However, playing along didn't mean he had to be enthusiastic about it, which he certainly was not, and his flat tone made it clear.
Wynne paid no mind to his tone; she never did, even when they were getting along. "Yes. What I learned was that for every apprentice in the tower, there was probably one who never even lived to see the templars come. No child, not even a mage child, is a match for an angry mob trying to place blame for a failed crop, a hard winter, a baby born dead. Sometimes, the mages in the Circle are the lucky ones."
Malcolm ignored it, because that had been exactly the circumstance that'd led to the confrontation at the inn, and then rolled right into Leliana's subsequent timely appearance. No need to give either of them more barbs to throw, because they didn't need them. At all. While Wynne's nagging slowly got to him, it turned out to be far easier to ignore than Leliana. She maintained her persona of a Chantry sister, which reminded Malcolm of the time during the Blight, and what'd happened, and of course that darkened his mood each time the thought crossed his mind. Which actually was a lot, because Leliana liked to talk, and did not relent in her attempts to get him to engage in conversation. Each time she disengaged from a conversation with someone else, she would try again with him.
She was good, he had to admit that. Her attempts were subtle enough that the rest of their group seemed to think it only a sister's way of engaging a moody Warden in a more cheerful subject. Already, she'd gotten Adrian to be less grumpy toward Rhys—though it seemed nothing would get Adrian to relent in her glaring at Evangeline. As for the templar, Leliana had gotten her to smile on more than one occasion. She'd even managed to get on the good sides of both Rhys and Finn, and so her attempts to cheer him up looked like nothing out of character.
Malcolm, however, knew the truth of it. She wanted to talk about the Blight. She wanted to talk about Alistair. She wanted to talk about what she did and what she did not do and things like broken trust and duty to the Maker. He did not. He didn't, because in the end, he couldn't see how he could trust her. For Maker's sake, if Morrigan randomly joined their rapidly not-so-little party, he wouldn't be able to fully trust her. And because Wynne trusted Leliana—that still blew his mind—he wasn't sure if he could trust Wynne anymore, either. All told, it left him awfully short on true allies out here.
At least he had Shale. Maybe. There were the shoes.
Most of all, he did not want to become the morose, sullen near-child he'd been for much of the Blight, and settled on a course of gallows humor. It was humor typically found in Wardens, and doled out in generous amounts.
If only Wynne didn't make it so hard not to shout in defense of his and Líadan's decision about Ava and Cáel, because it wasn't like it'd been easy.
The woodlands finished thinning out, leaving half-sized hangers-on of actual trees sloping into the arid beginnings of badlands—the outer edge of the Western Approach. The red rocks were afire in the light of the setting sun, and beyond, toward the horizon, everything was still. It was a clear warning, which they were going to ignore.
But not until the next morning.
The threat of the desert staring them in the face made for a quiet camp that night. Malcolm decided he preferred it, because chats would seem decidedly out of place. For once, he reveled in the quiet, not pressured in the slightest to fill it. During third watch, as he guarded the camp, he was happy enough to think about how Líadan would've appreciated it, how Cáel would respect the chance for nature to have its say, up until Ava reached the limits of her ability to keep still and quiet. Then, depending on if Ava's fidgeting broke Cáel's will first, or if Cáel's moment of stillness compelled her to break it by breaking her brother, they would inevitably fall into bickering or tussling or both. Children were remarkably good at filling every available space with their energy, whether it be their tumultuous outrage or unhidden joy, leaving no room for quiet. When they were gone, along with Líadan's small sighs of exasperation or the tiny, contented smile that secretly found its way out when she watched their children take glee in some new experience, the silence was louder than the noise preceding it.
When Leliana said from behind him, "You miss them," Malcolm started enough to kick over his shield. He barely caught it in time to keep it from crashing loudly on a flat rock.
Because Leliana had once been his friend, because his memories had dulled his anger, and because Leliana's question about his family had been the first in a while asked in a tone that conveyed sympathy without pity, he chose to answer her. "Yes," he said as he leaned his shield against his knee.
"It is a fine tale that you have constructed." Leliana stepped around to sit on the ground next to him, but far enough away that he did not tense up out of reflex. "Yet, I suspect it is not the truth."
"Enough of it is."
"You speak of the parts that hurt the most."
For all it was a statement, it was also an inquiry. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."
"She did not leave you?"
He wanted to say, of course she didn't, but he'd already gone skating across the treacherous crust of the ice that formed over the currents in Lake Calenhad. One shift in the current, one upwelling of warmer water, and it would break apart, taking him with it. He said nothing.
Leliana spoke enough for both of them. "She did, in a way," she said, her words presented as conjecture spoken to the night sky. "Yet not in the way the tales tell. She did not leave you after a nasty argument, no. You were together until the last moment, were you not? Until she had to leave, and you had to stay, but you shared those moments before to keep the flame of memory and the warmth of love alive until you could be together again."
As Leliana had certainly intended, the memory of his last day with his wife, his last night with his wife, his last time with his family, flared so brightly in the front of his mind that he closed his eyes.
He did not verbally acknowledge Leliana or the effect her words had on him.
She took his inaction as an indication for her to continue. "You do not know when you will see her again, I think," she said. "Or when you will see your children again."
Malcolm thought of the book he'd read before he'd fallen asleep earlier, the same book his son had read before he'd had to leave with his mother and sister. He thought of the much-loved stuffed toy in the bottom of his pack, carried in the hope that he'd be able to return it to his daughter. He thought about the Dalish ring he wore on his necklace, and the heirloom silver thread of a necklace that Líadan wore. He thought about answering Leliana, but that was as far as it went.
She finally reacted. "Are you not going to speak to me?"
He banished the thoughts as best he could, ready to engage again. "I'm speaking to you right now. We even exchanged a few civil sentences. See? Speaking. You'd think a bard would have a better grasp of the definition."
"Silence does not become you."
Now she sounded like Wynne, and that prodded at the banked embers of his irritation. "And to think, people used to tell me that running my mouth didn't become me. Be nice if everyone made up their minds. Maybe you could ask the Divine for me, Sister. Or is it Seeker? I'm never sure which."
"Whatever you might think, I remain the same friend you had all those years ago."
He found his fingers tracing over the edge of his shield, and withdrew them. "This isn't a conversation I want to have."
"It needs to be had, Malcolm. We are going to be fighting alongside each other once more."
"Fighting on the same side doesn't mean we have to talk. Well, aside from, 'Hey, there's someone sneaking into your blind spot,' or 'Hey, there's a trap,' or 'Hey, there's a genlock trying to gnaw your arm off.' Not that the last one would concern you, since you lived through that, along with, I don't know, a knife to the heart. Remarkable, really, your ability to survive."
She paused for a moment, her fingers wringing together a few times before she arrested the movement. "You are bitter. I understand that."
"No, I'm not sure you do." He wasn't sure what he was. Confused and bitter were in there somewhere, but not as much as he'd thought.
"Each of us must find our own solace, either in the Maker's light, the Maker's teaching, or perhaps just in the Maker's creations. Perhaps, as you wait, you can find your peace there."
When Malcolm glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, Leliana noticed. She pointed at Alindra's bright navigational star, and then drew her finger down the river of Alindra's tears to where it ended with her lover's star, across the horizon.
For a bard, Leliana could be remarkably shortsighted at times. "I don't think that's the comparison you should go with," he said to her without rancor. "Alindra can't get to her soldier until she cries enough tears. It's been a long time, and I suspect, a lot of tears, and yet they remain apart." It was something he vehemently did not want for himself and Líadan, not from the meaning of the story, and not from the further meaning Alistair had given it. "After you died, Alistair looked up at Alindra's tears whenever he thought about you. He spent a lot of time studying that part of the sky."
When a brief burst of hurt surged in Leliana's eyes before she willed it away, Malcolm didn't feel the triumph he thought he'd feel after a successful barb. Instead, he felt a twinge of empathy. He knew she was a good bard, a ridiculously good bard, but he began to believe she might have loved his brother. It didn't change any of her actions, or how she'd hurt Alistair, or how he disagreed with her whole 'following the Maker's path' bit, but he wasn't unfamiliar with these sorts of situations. And now Alistair had strangely found a contended sort of happiness with his wife and children, and here Leliana was very much alone, with only her Maker and Andraste for company, still paying for what she'd done during the Blight. He couldn't decide if he felt bad about it or not, or if she still deserved it.
He spent the rest of his watch staring out into the darkness of the desert, while Leliana stared up at the night sky.
In the morning, the first thing Malcolm noted as they headed into the badlands was that the temperature hadn't increased since they'd awakened at dawn. The second thing was that the wind picked up as soon as they saw the sun, and steadily increased in intensity as the morning drew on. The third thing was that Wynne did not let up, even after the break granted the previous night.
As they carefully navigated between red rocks worn smooth by the wind, Wynne took it upon herself to ride beside him. "You cannot hide the talent in a child any more than you can hide a blazing fire."
Darkspawn. He needed to summon darkspawn so they could have a battle and Wynne could concentrate on something else. But darkspawn only seemed to interrupt conversations between himself and Alistair, and so no darkspawn appeared. Like holes in the ground to swallow you up, darkspawn never seemed to materialize when they were needed.
"It needs to be watched and tended to," Wynne continued, "that it may burn brightly, but safely." She sharpened her tone, piercing at his reluctance to acknowledge her. "You don't throw a rug over it, or shut it in a closet, trying to smother it. It will flare up when you least expect it."
He sighed. "I get the point, you know. You can stop anytime."
"No. I don't believe so. Not until you take responsibility."
Malcolm gritted his teeth and rode to the front of the line, before he did or said something he'd regret to a friend he still, somehow, considered dear. He and Líadan had taken responsibility, and they were paying for it in ways never imagined.
"Is there a reason she keeps harping on you about mages needing training?" Adrian asked as he slowed to ride next to her and Rhys.
"Yes."
"You aren't going to tell me, are you?"
"Not right now, no."
"My guess," said Rhys, "is that he'll probably yell. And for once, my dear Adrian, you are not the person who deserves to be yelled at."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "So you know what's going on?"
"In a way."
In a way. Malcolm outwardly pretended at a realization. "You sound like your mother."
Instead of reacting defensively, Rhys just chuckled.
Which, really, only proved Malcolm's point. At this rate, he was starting to think that maybe he should hear Leliana out. Then like she'd read his mind—a possibility he wouldn't discount after the past few days—she came riding up beside him, flashing that Chantry sister smile of hers.
But their chances for conversation became slim as they traveled deeper into the badlands, past lonely, gnarled, twisted trees hugging the ground, bowed into eternal submission by the wind. Then there were the arches carved by the elements through the red rocks jutting out of the sand, and then the rocks themselves channeled the howling winds over them, subjecting them to the same obeisance as the scraggly trees. Each one of them had dismounted, deciding that leading their horses through the maze would be safer. The horses didn't seem terribly thrilled about their situation either way.
"I thought it would be different," Malcolm said as they passed under one of the arches, bending forward to keep the wind from toppling them over and backward.
"What did you expect?" asked Leliana.
"Sand dunes. For it not to be so cold. Less wind. A lot less wind. You not to be here."
"There will be less forceful wind once we're out of the badlands."
"Not sure if you've noticed, but this whole place is the badlands. Because they're bad, and they're lands. Aptly named, if you ask me."
Her tone lightened, and he could hear the melody of her amusement. "Then once we get to the badlands sans rocks, where the iron towers and sand dunes start, the wind should calm a little with nothing left to channel it."
"And if it doesn't?" He remembered the part about the tall, rusted iron towers from the book Hildur had sent with him. No one remembered who it was, either the Wardens or the Orlesians, but one of them had placed the towers to mark the path through the Approach to Adamant. If it was safe to continue on to the next tower, you'd be able to see it from the one you currently stood under. If you couldn't see it, you waited until you could, otherwise you'd die, blinded and misled by the sands.
"Then we shall end up scoured clean," said Leliana.
"Better than stripping naked and bounding through Andraste's magical flames, praying that your bits won't be burned off," he muttered.
Leliana laughed quietly, and it didn't irritate him like he thought it would.
They didn't reach the first tower until the light had already started to fade, and Evangeline declared it best they wait until dawn to continue onward. Remains of wards set by ancient Wardens were still etched under the rust on the towers, and those wards, even weakened as they were, would aid in protection overnight, when they didn't have the cloak of the blowing sand.
"Why," Adrian said after she accidentally brushed against the tower and her robe came away with a large streak of rust flakes across it, "is there a path in this Maker-forsaken place at all?"
"Without a path that can withstand the wind, travelers would die, for one," said Malcolm. "And the Wardens needed the path marked because Adamant's on the lip of the Abyssal Rift, on the south side of the Approach. Before you ask about why a fortress exists in such a horrible location, it was the guard against the darkspawn that would come climbing out of the chasm. Once the darkspawn stopped coming out, the Wardens stayed for a while, but then like most other Warden fortresses, it was abandoned between blights."
Adrian's eyes flicked over to look south, to approximately where the Abyssal Rift waited. "If the rest of your order abandoned it, why are you going back?"
"Because my Warden-Commander told me to." Hildur would've preened with that one, especially because he'd meant it.
Adrian spun to look at him. "And you always do what you're told?"
He laughed, and provided no other answer.
After a wasted moment trying to glare him into talking, Adrian switched her focus to Wynne. "Why is your Tranquil friend there?"
"It's far from the rest of civilization, which made it the safest place available for conducting his experiments. Primarily, however, because the Veil is thin there."
"That's reassuring," said Rhys.
"That is never reassuring," said Finn.
The first night in the Western Approach wasn't as bad as Malcolm thought it'd be. The wind falling entirely still at sundown creeped him out more than a little, and it left the others as jumpy as he was. After a day filled with constant wind, it felt downright unnatural to switch to nothing at all so quickly. Then again, it wasn't a natural place. It hadn't been since the Second Blight.
The next afternoon, his darkspawn finally showed their faces, far too late to be of any help to him in avoiding Wynne's comments. He'd felt the faintest slither of the taint along his skin, but had mostly attributed it to being close to the Rift.
Then Evangeline squinted into the distance. "What's up there?"
"Where?"
She pointed at a long ridge of worn red rock, thrust up from the ground near the lip of the Rift. "There."
And there, blurred by the distance and blowing sand between them, stood the reason for the taint creeping at the edge of his consciousness. But even looking didn't strengthen his ability to sense them, so there couldn't have been too many to be a terrible concern. "Just darkspawn."
Rhys gave him an incredulous look. "Just darkspawn?"
"Welcome to traveling with Grey Wardens," said Wynne.
"Should we prepare for an attack?" asked Evangeline.
He started to say no. Then the shapes stilled and one turned to look directly at him. Even from this distance, with the whipping sand between them, Malcolm could recognize an Alpha hurlock. Big, ugly one, and he could practically feel a sneer from him through the taint.
Malcolm shrugged and tried to play off the encounter for the benefit of his companions. He didn't need them alarmed for the whole afternoon, not while they were still relatively safe due to the combination of wind and sand. "Not now, no. But we really need to be at a tower and prepared by nightfall." The majority of the darkspawn had to be down in the chasm, furiously digging. If they were attacked, it would only be by a skirmish party on a minor foray. As long as they were ready, it was nothing a group like the one he was in couldn't handle, not with this many talented mages. The key was being ready.
However, since the rest weren't Wardens, they didn't share in his feigned calm when it came to being stalked by darkspawn. The others noticed darkspawn scouts two or three times, when there was a gap in the blowing sand. Malcolm didn't tell them about the ones they'd missed because they weren't Wardens, because it would only confirm their fear that they were literally being stalked. Even though he knew the raiding party wasn't a large one, the sand left them blind, lending freedom to fear.
Out in the middle of the desert instead of at a tower, they were largely unprotected, and very not ready. They had to get to a tower, and the one in front of them never seemed to get closer, no matter how fast they went. As the afternoon closed in on evening, Malcolm couldn't feign ease any longer, not when he could feel the darkspawn creeping in, not when they still hadn't reached the tower and the sun was nearly below the horizon.
"Ride as fast and as hard as you can for the tower!" he shouted at the others. "They're coming!"
Despite the lashing sand, they urged their horses to speed up, rushing to beat the setting sun before the wind dropped the cloak of sand and revealed them to their hunters. The darkspawn crept closer, using the shield of sand against the human party, the sand they believed protected them. "Cast wards!" Malcolm drew his sword. "Do it now! Now!"
"The tower's right there!" Finn yelled.
Faint snarls and guttural growls came from somewhere near them—the darkspawn were everywhere except within their sight. The sun finally descended below the distant ridges of the Gamordan Peaks, draping the desert in fading twilight. The sand around them glittered in the strange glow until a shriek burst through and slammed into Rhys, knocking him off his horse and through the curtain of sand. He hadn't even had time to scream.
"Rhys!" Evangeline shouted, echoed by Wynne and Adrian.
"Shit," said Malcolm. "Get to the tower! Now! Go!"
Wynne, Leliana, and Finn immediately did as he'd told them, bolting for the safety of the tower and its wards. Evangeline and Adrian did not. "What about Rhys?" asked Adrian.
"I'll get him!" He didn't have time to explain that he didn't have to worry about becoming tainted. The others were smart. They'd work it out. They just had to get to the sodding tower. "You, go! Shale, make them if you have to!" Without looking to confirm that they'd followed instructions, Malcolm let go of his reins, grabbed his shield, and flung himself from his horse. Knock was trained well; he'd follow the other horses to safety.
As he hit the ground and rolled to his feet, the wind stilled. The sand drifted down with him, blanketing everything. Rhys quickly shook it off as he grappled with the shriek. Both of them were on the ground, the shriek appearing unharmed, but Rhys with a long gash down his side. Malcolm tried to run over, but the sand scrabbled at his boots, slowing his steps.
The shriek let out its tooth-rattling scream, and then head butted Rhys. The mage's arm went slack mid-cast and his body fell backward into the sand, the magic extinguished. Before the darkspawn could send Rhys permanently to the Fade by savaging the mage's throat, Malcolm finished his hampered sprint and cut the shriek down. When he dropped to a knee to assess Rhys' condition, the rest of the darkspawn jumped.
Malcolm fended them off with his shield as he grabbed the back of Rhys' robes and dragged him toward the tower. Finn stayed back within the wards with Wynne and Adrian, and Evangeline stood between the trio of mages and the darkspawn. Leliana had drifted outward, toward the fringes of the twilight, where the darkspawn wouldn't readily notice her.
"Get him," Malcolm told Evangeline when he got close. "I can get the darkspawn." At first, his declaration sounded better than it looked, because he'd gotten only a few steps away before he had to start back up one of the sand dunes, and hadn't gone much farther before he slid back down when the sand shifted under him. The sand coursed down the dune, he went with it, flipped onto his back and it was all he could do to keep hold of his sword and shield. The sand slide dumped him in the hollow between two dunes. It kept catching at him as he tried to get to his feet, and he felt more like a wallowing bronto than a Grey Warden as he struggled.
A hurlock popped over the top of the dune and bounded for him.
Then leather-gloved hands were pulling him to a stand as a bolt of ice shot out from Wynne's stave and froze the hurlock. It pitched forward and slid down the dune as Malcolm had, skidding over Malcolm's boots and bumping into the base of the next dune.
"Let's go, Warden," Leliana said as she steadied him. "You kill the darkspawn, yes? Just like old times."
Immediately, his skin tingled from the edges of Wynne's healing magic as she bolstered the unconscious Rhys, he could feel Shale's lumbering steps through the ground, and when Leliana dropped away to hide herself again, he still instinctively knew where she was. It was vaguely unsettling how familiar it felt to fight alongside them again.
He'd been more right than he'd meant to be earlier with Leliana—aside from occasional warnings, they truly did not need to speak during battle.
So, he shattered the frozen hurlock with his sword, and then trudged back up the dune. He did, however, decide that he hated sand dunes. They were not fascinating; they were irritating.
Terrible start aside, he still believed their small group was skilled enough to deal with the raiding party. Malcolm, Wynne, Shale, and Leliana alone had fought together so much previously that the rhythms felt like they'd never stopped, and they fell back into them like the Blight had never ended. An arrow to an elbow or a dagger cutting a hamstring or a lob of ice sent a darkspawn's way, and then Malcolm followed through with cuts or smashes or stabs, and Shale used her massive fists to crush any stragglers, all as easy as breathing. Too easy, Malcolm realized, because with an archer and a mage who knew his fighting style so well, in addition to all the extra training he'd done recently, along with an actual golem who loved to squish things, meant for some incredibly fast and effective killing of darkspawn. It took over his mind, and he could only think of this one task, granting him freedom of mind he couldn't find outside battle.
Then there weren't anymore darkspawn to kill. Malcolm pushed aside the body of a gutted hurlock and went looking for Leliana or Wynne's next victim, only to find the darkspawn all dead.
He was slightly astonished. He remembered the Blight being a lot harder. Or had it been? Maybe it had just been because it lasted so long. Easy as their skirmish here had gone, Rhys had taken the first blow, and the others might have taken their own. He took off his helm and started walking back to where the others had gathered near the tower. "Everyone all right?" he asked as he got closer. "No one bitten? Anyone get any of their blood into an open wound? Swallow any?"
Finn retched.
Malcolm gave him a conciliatory smile. "Sorry, but it's been known to happen." He put his arms and helm aside as he knelt next to Wynne, who was healing Rhys. She nodded at him and then motioned toward the healing wound on Rhys' flank, her eyes just a little wider than usual.
She was worried. It made sense. Malcolm would've been worried in her situation, too. He gave Rhys another look, but didn't feel any taint in him. Lucky, then. Very lucky. "He's fine," he said quietly to Wynne.
The worry retreated from her eyes, and she finished closing up the wounds. "It will be some time before he awakens," she said as she and Adrian moved an unconscious Rhys into a more comfortable position. Then her attention turned to Malcolm. "You took the brunt of it after Rhys. You didn't hit your head, did you?"
"No. I don't even think I was scratched." Which, really, was remarkable.
"The insipid Warden has much improved in its technique since last I saw it fight the darkspawn," said Shale. "I must admit, I am impressed with its progress."
"All for you, Shale. All for you." He'd had a lot of free time for practice, but he didn't need to advertise it. Though, at this point, it was just Adrian who didn't know. Evangeline and Rhys had spoken about it between themselves the day before, wondering how long it would take Adrian to figure it out. There was even a silver or two on the line regarding the outcome, and since it reminded Malcolm of traveling with Oghren and the old Anders, he was fine with keeping up the ruse.
Wynne surveyed the other members of their group. "And how is everyone else?"
"Filthy, but otherwise fine," said Finn.
Adrian attempted to dust off her robes, but quickly gave up and turned her attention to their handiwork. "I hadn't thought it of you, but it would seem that some of the legends about Grey Wardens are true."
Doing his best not to take her comment as an insult, he decided to be as nonchalant as she seemed to believe he was. He slowly glanced back at the scattered darkspawn bodies, and then toward Adrian. "That? That's just from lots of practice. I think shaving is harder than that. All those planes and angles."
She stared at him for a moment before she looked at Evangeline. "What he said earlier? I don't think he was boasting."
Well, he hadn't been. But he'd refrained from pointing it out because Evangeline underestimating him would give him another advantage should she try to kill the mages with them.
Evangeline shrugged a shoulder in answer as she started to walk the perimeter the ancient glyphs set for the camp. Then she went to check on the horses Shale had gathered up.
"Besides," Malcolm said, desperately trying to avoid a confrontation right then about Evangeline's not-so-secret mission parameters, "that group didn't even have an emissary. Those are the challenging ones."
"Emissary?" asked Adrian.
"Darkspawn mage."
"So…" Adrian's brows drew together as she sat down next to the unconscious Rhys. "What do you do when they appear?"
"Smite them and then kill them. There's an extra step, and a lot of very bad things can happen during that extra step, like, say, a crushing prison."
She shot right back up from where she'd just sat down. "You can smite? Are you a templar?" To demonstrate her anger, she stalked toward him, much as she had the smith at the tavern. Fire jumped from fingertip to fingertip, but Malcolm was mostly inured to such displays. Morrigan's handiness with fire had seen to that, along with encounters with various dragons.
Yet, he still took a step backward, just in case. "Not a templar. I mean, yes, I know how to use a smite, but I'm no templar. There are former templars and initiates in the Wardens now, and they've taught some of us how to use their abilities against emissaries. That's all."
From now on, he decided, he'd tell all mages he traveled with in the future that he had templar abilities, right at the outset. It would save a lot of confrontations, or at least the untimely ones.
"You don't have to take lyrium to use those skills?" asked Adrian.
Evangeline started to voice her objection to the subject from where she was watering the horses, but Finn cut her off. "It's a poorly kept secret, which means everyone knows it," he said. "Any healer who's aided a templar knows, and even if they didn't, every healer knows that a body begins to rely on lyrium when it's taken steadily over a period of time, and we definitely know what the withdrawal symptoms are."
She tucked away the dwarven-runed waterskin they used for the horses, gave her horse a good rub between his ears, and then said to them, "We are told we need lyrium to use our powers."
"Well," said Malcolm, "they lied."
If the statement affected her at all, it didn't show in her face. She did seem to chew on it, even as she dropped the subject and did not take it up again. Her silence continued as she retrieved her pack and bedroll from her horse and then walked toward where the rest of their group had clustered. Rhys hadn't yet awakened, and Wynne kept glancing at him whenever she believed no one was looking. On seeing Evangeline with her things, Finn bounced up and headed to get his own. Malcolm decided he'd set up his tent after he'd spent a bit of time scouting around to make sure the darkspawn would be leaving them alone for the night. Given how easily the raiding party had been trounced, he assumed they wouldn't disturb them again. Still, he had to be vigilant. It was part of the oath he'd taken, after all. The upside about being in a half-blighted desert was that they didn't have to worry about gathering and burning the darkspawn bodies.
He hadn't taken two steps before Evangeline questioned him in that quiet, yet steady way of hers. "You never said what would happen if someone had been contaminated."
Malcolm stared up at the top of the iron tower as he considered the best way to answer the Knight-Captain's question. After a moment, he said, "Nothing good." It was true. Nothing would've happened, and there was nothing good he could say about it. So that he could escape another awkward conversation before it really got started, he took advantage of her silent surprise at his honesty. "I'm going to go make sure there aren't any stragglers about."
But Wynne followed, stopping him just outside the ring of glyphs. "Let me take a look at your head, just to be sure."
"Are you sure you didn't take a blow to the head? It isn't like you, to not say what you mean. Well, I mean, you can be vague, but you don't tend to pretend to do one thing but mean another."
Probably just to spite him, she summoned her magic to assess him, even as she asked the question he knew was coming. "Are you certain about Rhys?"
He wanted to sigh, but he couldn't fault Wynne for her caution. Had it been his son or daughter in the same situation, he'd be acting the same way she was. "He isn't tainted."
A soothing wave of healing magic washed over him, and he instantly felt better, which meant there'd been injuries he hadn't been aware he had. "And what if he had been?" Wynne asked as she let her magic dissipate. "Do you have your kit?"
"Of course I do, but—Wynne, you know what it entails. You know what happens." She knew more than a lot of new Wardens; she'd seen the effects firsthand.
"I thought it was better now, with the new potion."
"It is, but it's still…" This time, he did sigh as he tried to properly word how the newer potion was both better and not at the same time. "Being a Warden will never be pleasant for anyone, and the Joining itself still carries its inherent risks. It never lost that." He paused and waited until she looked directly at him. "Wynne, he's fine. I promise. While I wouldn't lie to you in general, I definitely wouldn't lie about the health of your son, even grown man as he is."
Her eyes told him she accepted and trusted his answer at first, before she switched to irritation. "You wouldn't lie to me, young man? Just what do you think it was you did when you let me believe that Líadan had taken the children and left you?"
He fought the urge to shuffle his feet and stare at the ground because, like Wynne's son, he was a grown man, too. "I, personally, didn't tell you that. Even if I had, I wouldn't have been lying. She did leave. She did take the children. It just so happens that it was a mutually agreed upon thing, and not because I did something stupid to upset her. Not this time." Her expression softened just a little, and he pounced on the chance. "Look, I know—" He glanced back at the others gathered in the slowly forming camp at the base of the tower, making sure they were still engaged in their own conversations before he returned to Wynne. "I know you're concerned about Ava. I know you're angry about what we decided to do to keep her safe. But that's the thing—we're doing it to keep her safe."
She crossed her arms, which didn't indicate a great reception on her part, but she didn't say anything, and indicated for him to continue.
"It's because we know that trying to cover up magic will only lead to people getting hurt that we're getting her a teacher. But what we also know is that the Circle is not the safest of places, and certainly not now. I don't know if you heard while we were at the White Spire, but there's some sort of ghost going around killing mages, and the templars don't seem terribly fussed about it. And now because a single blood mage tried to kill the Divine, every single mage is being punished with further restrictions on their freedoms. If we'd had no other choice—if we knew of no teachers other than those residing at or were members of the Circle—then we would've done something different. But we know good teachers who aren't in the Circle, and we chose them."
Wynne gave him a slight nod, her attention wandering briefly to her adult son, whom she'd not had the opportunity to raise because of Chantry rules imposed upon the Circle. "I had not wanted my own child to have magic, and yet, there he is, a Senior Enchanter in his own right. It is a gift, yet it is not a gift one would wish for a person, and certainly not a child. The same, I suspect, as you don't wish anyone else to become a Grey Warden unless it was absolutely necessary."
"A little. I'm not sure which is worse."
She looked at him again. "You're certain this teacher is good enough?"
"I've been told he's the oldest Keeper the Dalish have, so I suspect he's more than capable of doing the job."
Wynne nodded again, her expression even softer, returned to the familiar face of a caring healer. "For what it's worth, I am sorry."
He preferred the anger; the empathy was too much to take. "So are we," he said quickly, and then set to walking a patrol as Wynne wandered back to the makeshift camp.
Later that night, it was Leliana's questions that were harder to field. She snuck up on him again, catching him when he couldn't effectively avoid a conversation by walking away, because he was on watch. Their uneasy camaraderie had vanished, and they were left with the awkward unease from before, though his anger had yet to reach the levels it had earlier.
After a cursory whispered greeting, Leliana sat next to him, and then studied the sky for a time before she asked the question she'd most likely come out to ask. "If I had been in Rhys' place, and then had I had been tainted, what would you have done?"
"The same as I would do for anyone else here," said Malcolm.
"You would kill them instead of attempting to make them Wardens?"
He blinked, and then swung his head around to look at her. "What? No. I'd give them the choice between the two, of course, but I think everyone with us except Wynne would go the Warden route. I'd give you the same choice." He did wonder if she'd take it, now that he knew why she'd turned it down during the Blight.
"I did not think you would extend that offer to me."
"Clearly." He sighed, too weary to be angry. "As much as I hate what you did, even as deeply as you hurt my brother, I don't think I could kill you in cold blood. Or warm blood or however that works. Now, if I had to choose between you and, say, one of my children, or Líadan, or one of my brothers, then, sorry. You lose. Otherwise, no, I couldn't."
Her eyes swept up to Alindra's tears once again as her fingers tapped idly on the knee of one of her crossed legs. She didn't take her eyes from the stars when she asked, "Would Alistair?"
Malcolm wondered how long Leliana had held in that particular question. "Maybe once. Now? Probably not, no. He's had some time to heal. I doubt he'd be civil, but I don't think there'd be bloodshed. However, were I you, I'd keep avoiding him, just to be safe. And don't mistake my unwillingness to kill you or let you die for trust. If there's no way I could ever fully trust Morrigan again, then that goes doubly so for you."
She shifted her gaze from the stars to the desert spread around them, and then toward the reddish glow from the gaping chasm of the Rift. "You need not fear to find a blade in your back. Not from me."
The seriousness in her voice forced him to look at her and raise an eyebrow. "There are plenty of other places to stab me."
"I will not kill you, nor will I allow you to be killed, if it is within my ability to prevent it."
He studied her, weighing if he could possibly trust her words. Then he suddenly realized he could, because if she'd wanted him dead, there were about a hundred different ways she could've accomplished that probably in the last hour alone, possibly even the last five minutes. "Why?"
"Why, what?"
"Why should I trust you? Why do you want me to trust you?"
"Because I am your friend, even though you believe me not to be."
"You did go a long way to prove that you weren't."
She faced him again. "What I did was not personal. It was business, and you were never in danger. Even though you do not know it, even though you would not acknowledge it if you did, I have remained true to our friendship by aiding and protecting you from afar."
"Oh, you mean like the time one of your nastier templars nearly smashed my head in? That kind of aid?"
"I misjudged."
"You misjudge when you're shooting arrows at a target and miss the center. Your entire plan with the templars went balls up, which was no mere mistake. Own it, because that has sown nearly as much distrust as your little hoax during the Blight."
Leliana folded her arms over her chest and tightly gripped her elbows, straining to hold in her frustration. "Malcolm, who do you think it was who procured the dispensation for your marriage so quickly?
He'd assumed it'd been Cassandra, even though she'd denied it, because he couldn't think of anyone else who had the motivation, including Leliana. She'd never appeared particularly remorseful about her actions, not to him. "Why?"
"There is a debt I owe you and the others. I abandoned all of you for the Maker's work, and while I do not regret my path, I do regret the hurt it has caused in each of you. I can never make full amends for what I have done, but I am compelled to try. The dispensation was merely one part of it."
"Huh. So it really wasn't Cassandra?"
"While she owes you and your family a debt of her own, it remains unfulfilled, as far as I know."
If she'd arranged for his and Líadan's dispensation, then she'd probably arranged for other things. Things that Alistair had never been willing to thoroughly deal with, danger though it presented. "You killed Eamon, didn't you?"
She stood up, dusting off her trousers, which didn't look dusty at all. "Boulders falling from an unstable cliff killed him." Then she left him to his watch before he could inquire further, but he didn't need to.
It was obvious who'd pushed the rocks, and just as obvious that Leliana would never admit to it. It didn't bother him. With it, she'd given proof enough that she wasn't as unworthy of trust as he'd thought.