Chapter 33
"'I will rest only when the Witch of the Wilds has been killed,' said the templar, 'Tell me where she is!' The templar pointed his sword at the young woman, who smiled warmly as the templar felt a knife enter his back.
'I am myth, and warning, and the thief of souls,' whispered his killer. 'I am all those things you heard of me, and I was all those people with whom you spoke.' And the templar doubled over and fell to his knees, turning to face the voice and finding but a blur. 'And I am the last thing you will never see.'"
— The Witch of the Wilds, as told by the minstrel Ensuelo
Morrigan
Airmid was the first to mention it.
"You have been walking the Beyond," she said to Cianán.
The boy did not deny it. As the only person in Arlathan who possessed the strength of magic to use it to its full extent, he had that right.
However, he was still a child, and Morrigan believed he needed to be reminded of such. When Morrigan had told Airmid, she had agreed, and proposed to bring it up the next time she saw the boy.
The boy did not blink when he met Airmid's penetrating gaze with a defiant one of his own. "I have."
Airmid leaned forward, showing a deep urgency she had yet to reveal during all their time in Arlathan. "You must not do this without a teacher. You are surrounded by Dreamers. The least you could do is ask for guidance, even if none of us can accompany you. There are many perils in the Beyond, even for you."
"I'm not in danger." When Morrigan, Airmid, and even Nathaniel shot him looks of disbelief, when he insistently said, "I'm not. Not from here, anyway. Maybe on Thedas, I would be. But here, I'm unreachable to the spirits. All they can do is talk to me."
"You risk much by speaking to them," Morrigan said, more harshly than she had intended, yet the boy had to face the truth of it, lest he risk dying or worse. "Do not make a deal."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm not stupid."
"One would think you are not, and yet you roam the Fade without so much as mentioning it to anyone." Morrigan almost snapped the words. She did not like the fury she felt rising within her at the idea of her child being so uncaring of his safety, yet she could not tamp it down, and she was not convinced that she needed to. If Cianán not be brought to see the danger with softness, then he would learn it through hardness. Indeed, they had only discovered Cianán's actions after he'd slipped and dropped a tiny scrap of a hint about it during an otherwise mundane conversation with Nathaniel.
Nathaniel possessed the soundness of mind not only to pick up on the carelessly dropped hint, but then to immediately bring it to Morrigan's attention. Such things proved why she tolerated his continued presence.
"I'm fine. I know what I'm doing," said Cianán.
Her son was not foolish overall, but he was only seven. Children were bound to foolishness; it was one of the ways in which they experienced and learned the true nature of the world around them. They also did not understand that they were not immortal, that they were not impervious to damage.
Airmid had not lost the gravity of her look. "Cianán, do you know what happens when a Dreamer is killed in the Beyond?"
Cianán tilted his head a little at the question and its seemingly obvious answer. "You wake up. They're just dreams."
"No, they are not. A Dreamer who dies in the Beyond is forever cut off from it. You awaken in the mortal realm without your magic and without your emotions and with no way to regain them."
"Tranquility," Nathaniel said in his raspy voice, as Cianán sat in quiet shock.
Airmid turned to face Nathaniel. "How can you have a name for the Eradin when you do not have Dreamers?"
His eyes snapped over to Morrigan's, as if asking her to provide the explanation, but she pressed her lips together in a line and shook her head. It was his Chantry who inflicted such a punishment upon mages. She believed in no such institution.
"While I don't know of any Dreamers, the Tranquil do exist on Thedas," Nathaniel said with a whisper of wariness.
Cianán's transgressions forgotten for the time being, Airmid studied Nathaniel for a long moment. Then she asked, "How?"
It was as much a warning as it was a question.
And Nathaniel became the closest to panicked that Morrigan had ever seen him. Thus far in their time in Arlathan, he had remained unflappable. But now he hesitated before he provided an answer, as if trying to come up with a more palatable explanation than the truth, and had found none. "The religion on Thedas, the one that arose after you had left, does not trust its mages. Those who are deemed dangerous are put through a ritual that renders them Tranquil."
Airmid leapt to her feet, her outrage rendering her speechless for minutes. "You do this to your mages on purpose?"
"I do not," said Nathaniel. "Others do, yes. They do it to mages who request it, or mages the templars decide are too dangerous to be allowed to keep their magic. It's seen as a mercy."
"Mercy is killing those who become Eradin. Mercy is not creating them." She pointed a finger at him, her mouth opening as she did, but then she closed it, and then closed her hand into a fist. Slowly, she lowered her fist to her side. "I am done for today."
Then she left the room.
There were certain terrors that dwelled within every mage, and they often fought for supremacy in their horrors. One was the fear of succumbing to a demon, either through one's own incompetence or through force. The other was the fear of being rendered Tranquil, cruelly separated from the Fade and one's own magic. Any mage who became a captive of the Chantry's templars ran that terrible risk, and once in a captor's hands, there was little the mage could do to prevent it. So then it was left to the mages to avoid such captivity, as Morrigan had done for her entire life. Flemeth was certainly helpful in those early years, given Morrigan had been a child. After she had learned those harsh, yet necessary lessons courtesy of a Flemeth who had deigned to teach them, she had evaded them on her own ever since.
And now Morrigan faced that terror again, yet it was terror of a threat not leveled directly at her, nor a threat she knew how to teach her son to evade. Certainly, he would never request to be made Tranquil. Templars could not kill him or make him Tranquil. Dreams, however, could. Morrigan did not know how one could defend oneself in a dream, not when the outcome was far more dire than simply awakening in one's bed.
If her child could not see on his own what disastrous outcomes could result from carelessly wandering the Fade, she would force him to open his eyes. "No path is darker than when one's eyes are shut," she said to him. "Until you can acknowledge that even you must have a guide, you will not walk the Fade."
He met her hard gaze. "It isn't like I can stop dreaming."
"No, you cannot. But you can control where you go, and you are not to go anywhere."
He sat back in his chair, the ancient wood creaking as he did. "You won't even be able to tell if I did or didn't."
"The elves can, now that they know who to look for. How else do you think they have been keeping watch for Flemeth?"
The realization that he couldn't escape the punishment finally hit him, and his face briefly crumpled before he regained control of it. He crossed his arms as he composed himself, and then lifted his chin in defiance. "Fine."
Morrigan did not relent, though she recognized the look as a reflection of her own when she had decided not to give in. "Fine." He would learn this lesson, even if it hurt them both. "Go see Taranis. He has another history lecture prepared for you."
The empty chair rocked on its legs once Cianán was out of it, such was the force of his standing. Then he exited the room without looking back. Morrigan didn't need to catch more than a glimpse of him as he walked away to know his chin was quivering.
She couldn't back down. She couldn't. If he ended up Tranquil through his own folly… she could do nothing to fix it. He would be broken and empty and she could not fathom doing what action would be required then. Perhaps Flemeth may have been able to, but Morrigan was not Flemeth. Morrigan could remove an adult mage from the misery of Tranquility, yet when it came to the possibility of the Tranquil mage being her own child, her mind refused to consider such a thing.
Perhaps she should be more like Flemeth. Perhaps she was doing her son a disservice by raising him differently than she had been raised.
"That was harder on you than you thought," she heard Nathaniel say from behind her. "Being so hard on him."
Unconsciously, she had wandered to the frame of the eluvian, nearly all of it filled with glass from work that had taken years of effort. Cianán finally coming into his magic had aided things along, and they had made more progress in recent months than they had in the years before them. They were very nearly done, and Airmid's abrupt departure had set them back another day.
Nathaniel's words immediately drew up her defenses, for they sounded like he was questioning her parenting methods with a child that was assuredly not his. Then she recognized that it was not a challenge, merely another one of his observations, of which he had many. Too many, in her opinion. "One can only remain a child for so long," she said without looking away from the eluvian.
"Something Flemeth told you?"
"Something Flemeth taught me." Then she told him how she had been taught that lesson: Creeping beyond the Wilds in animal form to observe the townsfolk. Seeing the noblewoman by her carriage, sparkling garments dazzling, her child self believing that display to be true wealth and beauty. Sneaking up and stealing a golden hand mirror from the carriage. "I hugged it to my chest in delight as I sped back to the Wilds," she said as she finished her story. "Flemeth was furious with me."
"Why would she care about petty thievery?"
"Because I was a child. Because, like Cianán now, I had not yet come into my full power. I had risked discovery for a pretty bauble, as Cianán risks his life out of simple curiosity. To teach me a lesson, Flemeth took the mirror and smashed it upon the ground. I was heartbroken."
Morrigan reassured herself that while she sought to teach the same lesson to her son, she had not left him heartbroken. Merely upset, a passing thing that would resolve once he came to see reason, and he was a reasonable child. Like the Antivan who fathered him, and like herself, he was able to separate emotions from logic and follow through with the most reasonable course. There were times when his youth and his emotions got the better of him, but he was a child. It was to be expected. And she would not break him, not while he could learn without it. But she couldn't rid herself of the image of his quavering, crumpled expression as he'd left the room.
"A hard lesson, for a child." The way Nathaniel said it, it seemed he had undergone the same type of teaching from his own parents. Most likely his father, given what scant information he had shared during their time in Arlathan.
She traced the patterns carved into the eluvian's frame, wondering at the strength of will it must have taken these elves to leave the others behind in order to save who they were. But they had done was needed to be done, and so would she. "And a necessary one. Flemeth was right to break me of my fascination. Beauty and love are fleeting and have no meaning. Survival has meaning. Power has meaning. Without those lessons, I would not be here today, and I would not be who I am, as difficult as they may have been."
"And what became of who you could have been?"
"I do not know." She did not like how easily he could see into the very depths of a person's thoughts, particularly her own. "Perhaps. Perhaps I find myself at times wondering what might have become of the girl with the beautiful golden mirror. But such fantasies have no place amidst reality. It is better the mirror gone, and any thoughts of who I might have been gone with it."
"I thought I saw you with such a hand mirror, before we left Thedas."
She turned and gave him a dark look, reminding him that it had never been a 'we' when it came to this endeavor.
He relented, something he so rarely did in truth. "Before you left Thedas and I foolishly followed."
"I did." She could not deny it, for he had obviously seen it, observant as he was. "I left it behind."
He arched an eyebrow slightly, so slightly that one might not have seen it had they not been subject to his sort of scrutiny over many barely tolerable years. "On purpose?"
"In part. It was a gift from someone whom I needed to leave behind as much as that mirror, just as I needed to forget whom I might have become, had I stayed. I did not stay, and so I did not need those things."
For a moment, he said nothing. Then he stepped over to the corner, where he'd propped his bow, the one that had belonged to his grandfather. Morrigan knew because her son had inquired about it, as the boy was wont to inquire about everything and anything. Nathaniel ran his fingers over it like she had the eluvian, yet while she had thought of power, she saw that his thoughts leaned toward whatever fond memories he might have had of his family, such as it was. He had left a sister and nephew behind, as she recalled.
"A reminder would be so bad?" he finally asked.
She did not like how many of her mother's lessons she found herself repeating today, but she would not abandon the ones so hard learned. "Flemeth once told me that temptation lies in the forbidden. Some doors should never be re-opened, and I will leave them shut. Nothing good can come from opening them."
"Maybe," he said as he hefted his bow and started for the door. "Maybe not." Then he was gone, and she was left alone with the eluvian and the memories she did not want.
To her surprise, her son did not last in his stubbornness, giving in not far past his bedtime. He left his bed and strode into the small main room of the quarters they shared, where he plunked himself forcefully into a chair. Though his unannounced appearance was indicative of his surrender, his arms remained crossed. However, they seemed to be aiding him in holding himself together instead of an aid to his defiance.
The change in mannerisms pulled Morrigan entirely away from her book. The boy was far more upset than she had predicted. Frustration, she had assumed, would comprise the majority of his emotions on the matter, and perhaps some sadness at the loss of freedom and the unbending wills of both his mother and one of his favored instructors. But Morrigan could see, as she had seen and denied earlier, that her son was truly upset. He trembled at the strength of whatever he was feeling, and it seemed less frustration than it was anger and sadness threatening to overcome his control.
Then again, he was seven, after all. It wasn't unexpected that he would occasionally have outbursts that he could not bring under control. To expect otherwise was unreasonable, and she would not be such.
"I can't not walk the Fade," he said.
"You will not walk it. You will not walk it until you acknowledge the unique danger it presents to you and agree to accept guidance from an older, more experienced Dreamer."
He scowled. "I know the danger. I'm just not the one in it."
An answer she had not expected. "Then who is in danger?"
"Another Dreamer. Demons and spirits—a lot of them—are after her."
"That is the way of things. You know this. Demons chase any mage, and they have an even stronger appetite for Dreamers. It is an understandable hunger, given the power Dreamers possess. You have handled it well thus far, despite your refusal to accept guidance. Perhaps it is skill, or perhaps it is a stroke of luck that you have not been harmed. But the actions of others within the Fade are not yours to govern or guard."
Cianán took a breath, as if preparing to speak, yet he said nothing. Then he studied his fingers as they began to fidget, the picture of any other small child his age. But when he looked up at Morrigan again, his eyes held a strange mix of innocence and the sort of confidence that no child should possess. "I have the soul of an Old God," he said slowly.
Though he'd had her attention before, he somehow garnered more of it now. Rarely did the boy acknowledge the difference between his soul and the soul of every other person on Thedas or in Arlathan. "Go on," she said.
"I don't remember anything about it. I know I'm me and not whoever that Old God was, not really. But it makes things different for me, in the Fade. The spirits try to hunt me at first, but when I confront them, as I was taught, they cower and slink away before I've had time to do anything. The same doesn't happen for the other Dreamer." He took another breath, the confidence slipping away to leave only the little boy behind. "She had two other Dreamers protecting her, like it was their duty or something, to help another Dreamer as they learned their way. Then one day they were gone. I couldn't just… I couldn't just leave her to fight them on her own."
It seemed extensive history was not the only thing Taranis had taught the boy. Justice and fairness had crept in, as well. Morrigan was curious as to the impact it had on her son's actions. "No?" she asked, though she had a good idea what his answer would be. What she wanted was to hear him say it.
"No!" He jumped from the chair to his feet. "It would be wrong!" Then he took notice that he had somehow gotten to a standing position, blushed slightly, and returned the chair. His conviction did not soften, however. "She's even younger than I am, and Airmid said I was very young, and she's alone. Those other two Dreamers have to come back sometime. I think they just lost track of her. When they come back, I can stop helping. But not before."
"You would help a stranger?"
The exasperated look he gave her was a mirror to one she often gave others. The first time she had seen it cross her son's face, she had almost been amused. Even now, it was still slightly thus.
Cianán was not so amused. Though, as if sensing her consideration of changing her mind, he wasn't as grave as he'd been before. "That's the strange thing." He frowned at the inadequate wording. "Another strange thing, I mean. I don't think she's a stranger, not like any other stranger." He frowned again. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"
She had never lied to him, nor did she intend to start, yet she did not speak the truth with harshness. "No, I would say not."
He gritted his teeth as frustration tugged at him again. "It's like… it's almost like how I'd feel if she were my brother, but not quite. Familiar, somehow." He sighed. "I don't know how to say it. Maybe another Dreamer could describe it better."
Morrigan straightened in her own chair, her book long forgotten. "Have you searched for your brother?"
His eyes were disbelieving. "Of course I have. He's my brother. Not that I've found him. I would tell you if I had. Besides, I don't look for him anymore. Not with protecting the other Dreamer taking all my time in the Fade."
She let the subject of Cianán's brother drop away for the time being, for it was another memory she did not wish to dwell upon. Cáel had his father on Thedas, and a mother, as well. Líadan was more a mother to him than Morrigan had ever been, and she would not take that away from either of them. The present was what she would concentrate on. The present was what needed her attention. "If you are so determined to help this other child, then perhaps you should consider accepting the guidance offered you. It would only allow you to aid her more, would it not?"
"I suppose it would."
She lifted an eyebrow.
He rolled his eyes, the turmoil within him finally calming. "I'll work with Airmid or whoever you think would be the best teacher."
"Thank you for seeing reason," she said, making sure to look in him the eye so he would know her thanks were sincere.
"And I can keep helping her?"
She nodded. "Yes. If it is your choice to render aid, then you shall be allowed. As long as your safety is not compromised, I will not fetter you. Freedom is power, and you must learn how to wield it."
Cianán slid down in his chair, his toes barely touching the floor, the lateness of the hour and the passing of his immediate concern leaving him weary. "I wish I knew who she was."
"As do I."
The next day, her son presented her with a golden mirror. Morrigan did not need to inquire about from whom he had gotten the idea, not only because there could be only one culprit, but because Cianán told her.
"Nathaniel said you had to leave yours behind on Thedas," he said as he handed it to her.
"Did he also not tell you that I do not require a replacement?" The mirror felt heavier than it should have, given the materials of its construction.
"I can…" Cianán briefly glanced behind him, toward the central market of Arlathan. "I can take it back."
She regretted the betrayed look on his face, for she had not truly considered the earnestness of her son's gesture. He had meant well. What Nathaniel had meant, she did not know, and she did not like it. "I am not ungrateful," she said to Cianán as she bent to his height. "It it is a thoughtful gift, and you need not—" Then she recalled the petty thievery that Nathaniel had taught her son. "Did you steal it?"
"No." He shook his head rather emphatically to support his point. "I promised Tuirenn that I would help tend his garden for a week."
"If you have no quarrel with keeping your side of your bargain, then you need not take it back. Thank you for your gift."
The wide smile he gave her was entirely the Antivan's, and the sudden, sharp pain struck her that it was not Malcolm's smile.
No. She was past this weakness. She had moved on. She had put it in the past, who she had been with him. Yet, like it did when she wondered what might have become of the little girl with the golden mirror, she wondered what might have become of the woman who had allowed herself to experience love.
It startled her to realize that it had remained, yet in a new form. Perhaps it could be described as a fondness, a constant wish to see him well. She did not, however, like being startled. She did not like having to examine the feelings the golden mirror brought forth from her. She did not like having to examine those feelings to be certain she would not suffer from a weakness so petty as jealousy, not when she had moved on.
She found no envy, no weakness, and she was pleased at the discovery. She bore no jealousy within her of the woman who had taken her place. She wanted him happy, and the woman he was with was like a sister to her, and so she also wanted her happy. Both of them should experience what she could not, and she could not begrudge either of them.
Yet, the wondering at what could have become of the woman so in love with him that she had willingly carried his child, willingly given the child up to him, did not wish leave her. The missing future with the golden mirror also pestered her, and both left her with a weakness she could not tolerate.
And so she did not wonder.
She focused on what she knew. While Zevran had never been as close a companion as Malcolm or Líadan, he had still been, admittedly, a friend. And so it stood that there was nothing wrong with her son exhibiting some of the Antivan's traits. For good or for ill, Zevran had helped complete a ritual that gave them the power to save the lives of the friends they shared. Not only had he helped save those lives, but he had given her Cianán, her son, and for that, she would always be grateful.
"Now," she said out loud to her son, "I must speak with Nathaniel, for he should never have told you my story. It was mine to tell. You, however, are innocent in this." She could not help the twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "For once."
After another cheeky grin, he was off, burning away the boundless energy of youth.
Morrigan went after Nathaniel, who was rapidly becoming intolerable.
She found him sitting cross-legged underneath a large tree, fletching arrows. "You have told a story of mine that was not yours to tell."
"He asked me if I knew anything about what you were like as a child. It was the only story I had." Though his fingers didn't stop their work with the feathers, he lifted his head just enough to look at her. "Having others know you're human isn't a bad thing."
While he yet again had a point, she would not acknowledge it directly. "It is my right to choose the story, not yours."
"You're not an elf, at least. The last time I told a story meant to have someone appear human when I meant mortal and fallible, it was about Velanna. She was… not happy."
"If her story was anything like mine, she had a reason for her anger. You should have learned your lesson then and not repeated it here, now, and to my detriment."
He chuckled as he returned his eyes to his work. "I imagine Velanna was angrier that I insinuated she was human, rather than the actual telling of the story."
Her eyes narrowed, for she did not like the subtle shift in the tone of his voice when he spoke of this woman. "Who was she to you?" When he seemed to be working up an objection, she added, "'Tis only fair you answer some questions of mine, in return for what you told."
"A challenge, I suppose. She intrigued me."
"To what extent?"
"We were friends, as much as a human and a shem-hating Dalish elf could be. Maybe, given years, there could have been more. But there weren't years, and that was it."
Morrigan narrowed her eyes further. "You do not expect such from me, do you?"
He set down the fletched arrow on a pile of other completed arrows. "I believe, my lady, such a thing would take decades. You have your work. It is something I respect. Perhaps I had wished for your friendship, but tolerance has become acceptable."
Friendships risked too much akin to love, and she had no wish to take up such weakness again. "I do not seek friendship from anyone, so do not begin to think that you are special in my rejection of it when it comes to you."
His huff of laughter was infuriating, and he did not bother attempting to hide it.
"And," she said, sharpening her tone, "my tolerance of you grows thin. Tell another story that is mine and I will see you sent from this place."
His amusement dried up instantly, and when he looked at her again, his eyes were very grave. "That's fair. However, your son might be hurt if I'm sent away."
He was right again, and she did not like it, not when it spoke of her son's attachment to the man. Given the circumstances, it was understandable. Nathaniel was the only adult human male in Arlathan, and it was natural that Cianán would gravitate toward him for guidance like what a father would give. And, Morrigan had to admit, it seemed Nathaniel not only filled the role as the Antivan would have, but had done well by her son, thus far. "Then if you care about him at all, you should endeavor to remain tolerable."
His reply was to say nothing, and to return to fletching his arrows.
She left him to it.
Airmid's work with Cianán in his walking the Fade yielded a breakthrough with repairing the eluvian, for it provided Airmid with a stronger connection to the Fade—something she and the other mages, including Morrigan, had been denied during all their time in Arlathan. Her once great magic returned, nearly in full, and the glass of the mirror seemed to fly together in comparison to the sluggish pace from before.
Then came the morning when the power of the eluvian nearly matched the power Morrigan had felt from the one at Drake's Fall. Both she and Cianán commented on it when they entered the room, having felt it out in the corridor.
So strong was its power that Nathaniel was roused to ask, "Can you feel that?"
"I would be surprised if all of Arlathan could not."
Yet, there remained something missing, and so it did not activate.
"We both know what it is," Airmid said to Morrigan as they inspected the fully repaired eluvian. "It needs an active eluvian on Thedas for it to connect to, else it's merely a poorly functioning mirror." Airmid did not say those would be the eluvians you ordered destroyed and that is why this one is repaired yet broken, but she did not need to say it. Morrigan knew well enough what her lack of knowledge could cost them.
Thus, they had nothing further to do with the eluvian except to wait.
The summons arrived in the middle of the night, one of the temple guards rapping on her door. The guard spoke without greeting as soon as Morrigan opened it: "Airmid has requested your presence. Something's happened."
"Something good or something bad?" Cianán asked from behind Morrigan.
"We don't yet know," said the guard.
She waited until they had dressed, and then accompanied them to the library. Several of her temple guard compatriots milled in the hallway outside the eluvian's room, and their messenger joined them, her task complete.
After she had felt the eluvian's newest increase in power that morning, Morrigan had held a slight suspicion—a hope—that it had connected. Yet she was still surprised when she entered the room to find the eluvian active. Its dull surface rippled as the one at Drake's Fall had, meaning some intrepid soul on Thedas had found or built another eluvian.
"One of the guards saw the change and sent for me," Airmid said by way of explanation. "Then when I saw it, I had someone fetch you. However, I haven't seen anyone on the other side. Just a small room with a small bed, nothing more."
Nathaniel stood quietly in a corner, as he generally did while others worked on the eluvian.
"Why the guards?" asked Cianán.
"Better to err on the side of safety, since we don't now who could be on the other side," said Airmid.
Cianán nodded. Then he followed Morrigan as she approached the eluvian to peer through its surface, wondering if she could recognize the place where it exited. Beyond finding it a standard bed in a smallish room, she could not. It was not the shack in the Wilds, it was certainly not anything resembling a room found in a noble's home, nor was it the large cavern of Drake's Fall.
Morrigan and her son peered into it for a while, expecting something to happen, and yet not expecting at the same time.
Morrigan had nearly decided to find a chair and read as they waited, but then they heard muffled footsteps coming from the other side of the eluvian. Out of reflex, Morrigan placed a hand on her son's shoulder to keep him nearby, and so she could better protect him from any harm. Airmid joined them, the three as close to the eluvian as they dared.
Then a face appeared, eternally youthful in the way that only elves were, etched with the vallaslin of the Dalish.
"Creators!" came a shout from the stranger, and she fell back out of shock.
Airmid let out a wordless yelp and stumbled back the same as the other elf.
"It would seem you are not so different from your descendants," said Morrigan.
Airmid flashed her an irritated look before she looked at the eluvian again.
The stranger recovered her footing and returned to the eluvian. Her large green eyes blinked several times as she stared. Then she asked, "Would you like to visit?"
Morrigan found that she did. With Cianán's walking of the Fade, they would not be much safer in Arlathan than they would be on Thedas. And with the connection having been established, they could come and go at will, expanding her son's education to include both Arlathan and Thedas. She could also send Nathaniel back to the Wardens, where he belonged.
"I would," Morrigan said out loud.
The Dalish elf's face broke into a brilliant grin. "Come on, then! I'm always happy to have visitors, and I've never had anyone from an eluvian visit before."
Airmid's people really had not changed overmuch in their time apart.
"Go ahead," said Airmid. "I'll stay here and keep the eluvian open and active. The guards will stay, of course. Keeping arcane warriors around is only prudent."
Morrigan glanced down at her son and raised an eyebrow.
"I'd like to see Thedas," he said.
She nodded, and then they stepped through.