Chapter 43
"We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self. The rite was required to achieve the true peace that could draw a spirit of faith from the depths of the Fade. A difficult task, considering a Tranquil mind is all but invisible to these beings. The candidate must be pure. If the candidate proved worthy, the spirit would touch his mind... and he would be freed from Tranquility as well as made into a Seeker in truth. If he proved unworthy, Tranquility was permanent.
It was only later, when the first mage attempted to join our Order and failed, that we learned Tranquility rendered a mage unable to access his magic, as well as immune to demonic possession. Thus, when the Circle of Magi was born, we gave them the most holy rite we possessed. It was a sacrifice we made for the good of all, so dangerous mages could be spared execution and yet live productive and harmonious lives. What we did not give them was the secret of its reversal. That knowledge, and our ancient bond with the spirits of faith, shall forever be solely ours to keep."
—an excerpt from a secret tome passed from Lord Seeker to Lord Seeker
Líadan
Líadan had missed the Beyond. But when she dreamt that first night, she had trouble staying asleep. The dreams were so vivid, so painfully bright that they woke her up. Then she felt Malcolm warm next to her, and no longer missed the Beyond nearly as much as she had him. It'd been so long since she'd seen him that she still couldn't quite believe that he was truly there. Part of her wondered if it was a spirit's dream.
Then she remembered that spirits would only dare touch upon Tranquility if tricked or asked. It was something that scared them and mortals alike.
Her fingers slid over Malcolm's chest, assuring herself that he was there before they slipped upward to his necklace, where she saw his ring, the Warden amulet, and a silver coil. She frowned. The coil looked familiar, and she thought she knew what it was—her betrothal gift. When she lightly tugged at it to investigate further, it remained stubbornly coiled.
And she'd already pulled too hard, because Malcolm had woken up. "I meant to give it back to you," he said, confirming her suspicion. "Sooner, I mean. But I got distracted by you. And more you. And then you again and some more and we should do that again soon."
She laughed—it felt so good to laugh—and then reached behind his neck to unclasp the necklace. As soon as her lips were close enough, he kissed them, and almost succeeded in diverting her. But she managed to return his kiss and unclasp his necklace at the same time.
He broke off the kiss as soon as he noticed, his focus on it then returning in full force as she took his hand and put his ring back on. After she put his necklace back on, she handed him the coiled thread of her own. "I've no idea how to undo this."
"A cleanse, Wynne said." He paused. "Which I probably shouldn't do in bed, with you right here."
She nudged him. "Off you go, then."
He stared at her. "Are you kicking me out of your bed?"
"Only temporarily. Fix that and we can do those other things you mentioned."
"Well. You should've said so sooner." He hopped out of the bed, paying no mind that he didn't have so much as his smalls on, and tossed a cleanse at the coil in the palm of his hand. The necklace unwrapped itself, returning to the single silver strand it had been before.
"That was… very focused," she said. She hadn't felt it at all.
"I spent a lot of time with a templar over the past few weeks," he said with a sheepish grin. "And in the Deep Roads, you need things to do while you walk, as you know. She talked me through how I could refine and target the skills that Alistair taught me. And there's no need for you to look at me like that because her name's Evangeline and she's really into this guy named Rhys, who also happens to be—you know what? I'll tell you the whole story later." His sheepishness disappeared, though the smile remained, and he crawled back into bed. After he undid her necklace, he reached around behind her neck, as she had done to him, but after he clasped it, he spun it around so it settled properly. But she didn't give him a chance to sit back and admire his work, because she went in to kiss him like he'd done to her, but he dodged it right as their lips touched. She frowned at him and he started in on a laugh, which she cut off as soon as she could with another kiss. He didn't move away this time, and she didn't stop.
The second time, the nightmare woke her up. As she forced her body to relax, she forced her mind along the same lines. Her children had been saved. She'd been saved from the depths of what once had been an incurable living death. And she no longer slept alone.
The entire time they slept, Malcolm hadn't let himself be out of contact with her. A hand on her back, a leg flung over hers, a warm foot against her calf, fingers brushing gently over her scalp. Nothing controlling, nothing possessive, just light touches to reassure himself that she was really there.
She knew, because she did the same thing.
When she woke the last time, recalling nothing of her dreams except a dizzying amount of color and light, she couldn't return to sleep. Though the estate sounded remarkably quiet, weak, early morning sun trickled through the cracks between the drapes. It seemed everyone had needed more rest than usual, and she wasn't excluded, but she didn't feel like continuing the fight for sleep when the sun had risen. After she ran her fingers again through Malcolm's sleep-tousled hair, she slipped out of bed. When she washed up, she did so without looking into the mirror. She wasn't ready to face her reflection as herself, not yet. Not when she was so incomplete.
She dressed silently, having found her proper clothing in the pile of packs in the corner, as Malcolm slumbered on. There were times when she believed he'd sleep for days on end if anyone were to let him. Today was one of them, and she let him sleep. From what she'd gathered from the conversations around her, he'd had a long, hard journey to get here. He deserved the rest.
Her own clothes, including her Warden brigandine, felt heavier and safer than the flimsy robe they'd forced her to wear in the Gallows. Her own clothing, Warden clothing, felt right, like she'd regained another incremental aspect of herself. Yet she still had to resist the temptation to put on her cloak, if only so she could draw up the hood. She didn't in Marian's home, but that would change if she were forced to step into public.
In the kitchens, she stumbled across Nuala, who greeted her with a hug, and then directed her toward the garden.
Following Nuala's prompt, Líadan discovered the children—her own, as well as Morrigan's Cianán—up and active, capering about in some imagined game. She couldn't rightly describe the depth of the relief she'd felt when she became herself again and found them happy and whole. Their arms had held her tighter than they had after their worst nightmares, small fingers digging in, as if they believed that if they let go, she'd be gone. Neither of them had been subjected to her fate. They would recover from whatever else they'd gone through while she hadn't been able to protect them. From what she could see in the garden, they already were. Their smiles were genuine, their eyes lively, and they spoke without fear. They were all right.
And she would be, eventually. There were things she had to fix first, but she had to believe they could be. She owed it to them, and to Malcolm, to free herself from the morass of so many emotions she couldn't name them all that lurked at the edges of her mind. Loneliness ruled over the rest and she couldn't name why, not when she was surrounded by friends and loved ones, not when she could feel and reciprocate the ties between them. Darker emotions were there as well, anger and fear and sorrow, dark shadows chasing the brighter happiness and joy, and each one of them mixing together to form a confusing mire that left her paralyzed at times. But she would get through it. She would endure. Meredith wouldn't win this last battle. Líadan wouldn't let her.
Revas nudging at her hand brought Líadan out of her thoughts, and she idly scratched her mabari behind the ears. Then she realized that Morrigan stood on her opposite side, appearing as she had seemed to in the Gallows: out of nowhere, and entirely unexpected. Líadan had honestly never thought she would see Morrigan again, yet here she was. Part of her had been gladdened to see her old friend alive and healthy, and the other part of her had been terrified that Morrigan would ask to take Cáel with her. Thankfully, Morrigan had assuaged that fear without Líadan even needing to say it, yet a tiny part of her, she knew, would never be able to let go of that fear.
In an attempt to banish the fear, she decided to speak. "I have to ask," she said quietly to Morrigan, "how did you get here?"
"Simple," said Morrigan, who injected the tiniest bit of humor into her answer, "I walked. You did not get here in the same manner?"
The question served well enough to sever the tension, and Líadan laughed a little, settling back into the friendship they once had. "You know what I meant."
"I arrived the same way as I left—through the eluvian. Your clanmate had constructed an eluvian on this side, and once she had completed it, the one in Arlathan was activated. I decided it would be best for Cianán to gain some of his education in Thedas, and so I brought him here. I had not thought our visit would be permanent, yet I do not regret the choices that made it so."
"Permanent? Did Merrill's eluvian break?" She'd assumed Morrigan and Cianán would be returning to Arlathan soon, having dallied on Thedas for too long, risking the chance of Asha'belannar finding them.
"Not that I am aware, no. But it has stopped working. Merrill tells me it is because the Arlathan elves retreated through it, and then cut it off from their side. Danger, so they claimed, roams the Fade in the form of Fen'Harel. It matters not. They are gone, and so is the way to their city. Thus, they are no longer of import."
She glanced at her friend. "Your son's education won't suffer?"
"No. It seems he has learned what he can from the Arlathan elves. The rest can be learned here. It will take more effort to avoid Flemeth, but I believe it can be done. He is no longer an infant, so we needn't be quite so cautious."
Líadan studied Cianán again, amazed at seeing a little boy who resembled Morrigan so much play as any child would, his happiness and frustration with each turn of the game showing plainly on his face. It wasn't something she believed had been part of Morrigan's childhood, and it warmed her to see that Morrigan had chosen a different path with her own child. "He looks like you," she said out loud. "I imagine he looks like the child you could have been, perhaps the one you were, before the mirror."
"Perhaps," said Morrigan. "It is something I try not to dwell upon, my past. Cianán is the future. Better to look there."
"Perhaps," Líadan said as a purposeful echo of Morrigan's reply.
"And Cáel," said Morrigan, "he is well. You have raised him well."
Líadan hadn't expected Morrigan to address Cáel much at all, especially not with her, especially not directly. Much like in the Gallows, she raised her eyebrow at Morrigan, not even needing to voice her question before Morrigan supplied an answer.
"The Gallows aside. You—" Morrigan glanced at Líadan's forehead, where the brand had yet to be healed. A brief rage sparked behind her golden eyes on seeing it.
Then Líadan remembered. She remembered exactly what had happened when Malcolm and Morrigan had discovered her fate. Morrigan's sincere apology, Morrigan's seething rage at what had been done, then Morrigan's rage turned on Malcolm for not carrying out Líadan's wish.
The devastation on Malcolm's face alone should have driven her to action, should have driven her to reassure him that she was fine, that they could figure out a way around it, that he shouldn't have to contemplate leaving her Tranquil or having to kill her with his own hands. That he would smile again and she would smile in return and they would be together, they and their children wold be a family, with no guilt on her part. That it would be all right, that he needn't be as hollow as she was as a Tranquil, that their children didn't need to be so distraught.
Yet, she hadn't cared. She hadn't cared at all, not as her bondmate and a woman as close as a sister argued loudly and painfully about what to do for her, not as her children beheld her with once innocent eyes brimming with anger and pain and fear, and she hadn't cared to comfort them. She hadn't cared to stop the argument between Malcolm and Morrigan, hadn't cared about anything and now she cared about everything all at once and it was too late and every emotion she should have felt then washed over her now, a wave the size of an ocean that never ended and she was drowning.
Morrigan noticed her struggling before she'd finished her sentence. "—have paid a high enough—" She stopped, her eyebrows slashing downward before she grasped Líadan's chin with her fingers so she could not look away. "You are here now, you are whole, and this is what you must remember."
Líadan nodded, brought back to herself almost as clearly as Wynne's spirit had brought her out of Tranquility.
Morrigan nodded back and let go of her chin. Then, after some moments filled with the children's voices shouting in their play or bickering over shifting rules of their game, Morrigan asked, "How is your magic?"
It hadn't even occurred to Líadan to reach for her magic, because she hadn't felt its absence since she returned, and so assumed it restored. If it hadn't been, she would still be Tranquil. So that she could answer Morrigan's question, she reached for it.
It wasn't there.
She tried again, and the same happened. It wasn't there. But there wasn't any empty space, either. She felt whole. If her magic was truly missing, she would've felt a great, gaping emptiness where it should have been. "I don't know," she said to Morrigan, unable to keep the bewilderment from her voice.
And with that, Morrigan's attention snapped back to Líadan. "You don't know?"
She shook her head. "I mean, I really don't know. I'd say it isn't there, but if it wasn't, I'd still be like I was." The word itself, she couldn't bear to say out loud. "And here I am, not like that. But I think if you asked me to cast a spell, I couldn't, not even to save my life. Whenever I reach for magic, there's nothing to hold."
"Only Tranquility can take magic from a mage, and that magic is restored when the mage is restored." Morrigan had the beginnings of a frown, but it wasn't directed at Líadan. A puzzle had been placed before Morrigan, a puzzle whose subject was magic, a subject in which Morrigan was incredibly well-versed, perhaps more so than most Keepers. Because of her knowledge, Morrigan did not like mysteries when it came to magic, and so she would pick at a puzzle until she unlocked its secrets. "You are restored," she said after a short time, "and cannot find your magic. Does its place within you feel like it would after a smite?"
"No. If there was an empty place, something else was put there so quickly that I never noticed it was empty at all."
"This does not bother you?"
Once Líadan let herself think about it, she was surprised—and yet not—to discover that the potential loss didn't bother her overmuch. Had she remained Tranquil, it would have bothered her. Enough so that death would've been the only option out of it. But she was herself, she could feel again, sometimes too much, and still couldn't get a hold on her magic. With how much trouble it had caused her over the years, with how much death and how little there was of it, she wasn't sad to see it gone. It was quite the opposite, really. "I suppose I would," she said slowly, "if I could feel its absence. But I can't. I only feel like I did before my magic appeared."
"Which is something you would prefer to never have happened."
"My magic was never like yours, Morrigan. Mine was a curse. Too weak to be of much worth, too strong to be entirely ignored, and having revealed itself far too late in my life. Magic is not breath for me. It never was, not like it is for you and other mages. As long as I am me and I am whole and I can feel, I don't think I'll miss it."
"Far better you than I," said Morrigan.
"You would be inconsolable."
After a slight pause, Morrigan inclined her head. "'Tis true." Then her frowned returned. "Still, I would find the answer to why yours is gone, yet you do not feel its loss at all. 'Tis strange and mysterious. I do not like not knowing."
Unwilling to delve further into the subject, since there would be no telling where it would end, not when Morrigan began ferreting out an answer to a magical mystery, Líadan decided on changing the subject. "I think I'd like to see the eluvian for myself. I've seen it a few times over the years, but never the finished version."
"It was finely wrought," said Morrigan. "A true testament to your clanmate's skill in research and magic, quite worthy of the People." She inclined her head toward the house behind them. "Go, then. I will remain here, observing these tiny savages until Nuala decides she has had long enough a break and resumes watch herself."
It amused Líadan that Morrigan didn't sound as if she resented the task at all. In fact, to anyone who knew her, Morrigan sounded like she was enjoying herself. Likely because it was a short amount of time, and Morrigan would then be afforded the opportunity to study the mystery that had presented itself to her this morning.
Before she left the Amell estate, Líadan pulled the hood of her cloak low, nearly over her eyes, so that that mess that had once been her tattoos could not be seen by anyone. Not with how they were such a disgrace, that she had fallen into Meredith's trap, handing her the perfect excuse to do what she'd done. While no one else knew the fault rested with her as much as Meredith, Líadan didn't want her mistake on display. She also recognized no small amount of irony in that she wore her Warden cloak like a shield, as she should have when she'd entered Kirkwall. Had she, the reason for wearing her hood so low wouldn't exist. Except she hadn't, and now she'd walk close to the same path as before, reminded of her failure each step of the way.
However, Líadan had no other choice than to walk that path. She needed to see Merrill. Only Merrill would truly understand why she needed her forehead to be healed and her vallaslin made right again.
But she hadn't taken three steps from the front door of the estate before two people caught up with her, choosing to walk on either side.
Líadan held in a sigh. "Isabela," she said to the woman on her right. "Bethany," she said to the one on her left. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Possibly," said Isabela, strolling close enough to Líadan's side that their arms brushed together with every step. "I saw you leave and I decided I wanted to go wherever you were going."
Bethany didn't bother to hold in her sigh, or disguise the annoyed look she directed at Isabela. "We're in Kirkwall," she then said to Líadan. "And you were going out to explore Kirkwall when you aren't from Kirkwall and you don't want to get lost. So we decided to come with you, because we don't want to let you get lost."
Did they think she'd lost her mind entirely? That her bout with Tranquility had left her as a ball of useless emotions and not a woman who could think for herself? "There's enough of the City Guard around for me to ask if I get lost." That she didn't growl the answer was achievement enough.
"We want to go with you," said Isabela, who ignored the hostility from Líadan. Her blitheness gave her that remarkable ability, and from what Líadan had witnessed, it had yet to fail her. "Bethany needs a distraction, and I want to see how Merrill is doing."
"And you," said Bethany.
"Morrigan told you where I was going, didn't she?"
"Not on purpose. I might have overheard," said Isabela.
"You mean eavesdropped."
"You make it sound so wrong when you say it like that. It isn't my fault I've got exceptional hearing. And it isn't like I'll just ignore useful information when I hear it. Besides, it could end up saving your life, depending on who we run into or where we run into them."
Líadan recognized a no-win situation when she saw it, usually, and this was definitely one of them. Though Isabela gave the appearance of being completely easygoing, able to change whims as the wind shifted, heading in whatever direction it took her, she hid a surprising streak of stubbornness behind it. You had to know her to know when she'd decided to stand against the wind, but it was obvious once you did. And it was obvious right now. She scowled. "Fine."
Their conversation hit a lull as they picked their way through Hightown. Members of the City Guard directed various groups of Kirkwallers, either hired into service or pressed, in clearing debris and cleaning up any remaining ash. No signs of any casualties remained. From what Líadan remembered of Sebastian's explanation—Marian hadn't been able to speak of it—most of the destruction and subsequent loss of life had centered on the chantry. A blessing in disguise, he'd said, with a hefty amount of residual pain behind his words. After that, she stopped asking about what'd happened.
The lower they descended into Kirkwall, the brighter it became, with the Lowtown citizens not nearly as hidden or despairing as Hightown residents. Still, it was hard to escape the pall the destruction of the chantry had cast over the entire city.
Isabela, as a rule, did not like dark palls of any kind. "So," she said as she purposefully bumped into Líadan as they left the stairs and headed into the center of Lowtown, "how was the reunion with that delightful man of yours?"
Líadan groaned. Of course Isabela would ask about that. She couldn't not, being Isabela.
Bethany went for the scold. "Isabela!"
It only earned her a hearty chuckle in response. "What? You were thinking it. Everyone was. I just had the balls to ask."
Líadan groaned again. "You don't really want me to answer that, do you?"
"I certainly don't need to hear it," said Bethany.
"Oh, did nothing happen?" Isabela sounded terribly disappointed, her sadness ringing with a touch of sincerity. "Such a pity. After all that time, even after the incredibly long day you had, I was sure you'd get around to that at least once. Then have passed out. The best kind of sleep."
Bethany made a gagging noise.
"I didn't say that," said Líadan.
Isabela thought for a moment before she posed her next question with a remarkable amount of gravity. "Do you need herbs, sweet thing? Or do you prefer potions? The ongoing kind and the after kind."
"Yes to the first, no to the second." Accepting Isabela's offer meant she didn't need to look for merchants to find the right supplies, or even worse, if they didn't have the right ones or enough, leaving the city to find ones herself, which could take a while and could prove dangerous, given the state of the city and its environs. Not that she'd entirely settled on when she'd let go of her own little rebellion and resume taking them, but it was better to have a supply than not.
Isabela considered her for a moment as they walked through the skeleton of Lowtown's main market. Líadan chose to pay more attention to Isabela than their surroundings, if only because the memories of what had happened here were far worse than confronting where her decisions might take her and why. Mostly the why, but even that wasn't as frightening as the memory of losing herself and her children in Lowtown.
Having recognized where they were, Bethany gave Líadan's arm a squeeze, letting her know she was there, just in case. Bethany had become a good friend, Líadan realized, especially with offering the support she could after she'd experienced a devastating loss of her own. It was a loss Líadan wished she could help her with, but she hadn't ever really come to terms with her own mother's death. At this point, she wasn't sure if she ever would.
"If you're worried about me, I've more than enough to share without putting myself at risk, so to speak," Isabela said after they'd passed where Líadan had fought the templars.
"It's fine," Líadan said, and before Bethany could ask—Isabela rarely asked for details on serious matters—she started in on an explanation that was as much for herself as it was for her friends. "For once..." Then she trailed off on seeing the winter-bare branches of the alienage's vhenadahl, because unlike the Lowtown humans, the Alienage's residents would be listening very closely to whatever she said. Better to say it once they got to Merrill's, where a closed door would stand between her and curious strangers.
They entered the Alienage in silence, but aside from the vhenadahl, it was empty.
"Aveline hired them to help clear the rubble," said Isabela. "The whole lot of them, every able-bodied man and woman. Good thinking, really. Who knew Big Girl had some brains in that head of hers?"
"Anyone who paid attention," said Bethany, but there was no venom in it. "Give people a choice between honest work and nothing, or honest work and very dishonest work, they'll choose the honest. They just have to be given that choice."
"That's what I want," said Líadan, recognizing the thing that had been taken from her, and not just in the Gallows. It had begun far before she ever been dragged there.
Isabela gave her a curious look. "You want an honest day's work? Or a life of crime? I'm confused."
She shook her head. "Not those. For once, I want something to be my choice. Not fate's choice, not Asha'belannar's, not my people's, not the humans', not the Chantry's or the Circle's, not even the Wardens' choice. Nothing but my choice. Something free from what anyone else expects or wants of me." Líadan drew her fingers along the designs painted on the vhenadahl's trunk before she started for Merrill's door. Merrill could help her get a start on choices that were hers and no one else's, and that meant repairing the damage done to her tattoos.
"I think you've more than earned a bit of freedom, if you ask me," said Isabela. "Not that anyone asks me."
Bethany laughed. "I don't think they need to ask you. You make it quite clear what you believe."
Líadan didn't share in the laugh, the frustration she'd pushed downward working its way up when it saw an escape. "I followed all the rules. I followed what I'd learned growing up in my clan, obeyed what I could of my people's strictures when it came to being with a human, and yet it was someone of my people who still tried to separate me from my bondmate. Even though I did everything that was asked and unasked, my grandfather still believed that bond needed to be broken and he took advantage of my worry over my daughter's life to do it. And this was the result. All of this. Everything." Her movements lost their grace as she gestured jerkily toward the harbor and the island in the middle of it, the Gallows still looming despite the darkness inside having been dispelled.
The hurt poured out before she could stop it, before she could plug it up and keep it from overwhelming her. More importantly, from overwhelming Isabela, who'd never been good at dealing with things like this, not so directly.
Her attempts did nothing. The hurt simply swept around her hands and out. "So I'm not doing what they want me to anymore, not unless it's something I want, too. And I'm not going to feel sorry for it. Except that I probably will, but that's from them and years of hearing it from them. If my grandfather can't accept the choices I've made despite my constant attempts at toeing their line, then none of them will. I'm not living my life like that anymore."
"Good." Isabela nodded. "Good. You deserve happy. Your luscious husband deserves happy. I say embrace it. And, if a kid happens along, I only ask you name it after me, boy or girl." Then Isabela put her arm around Líadan's shoulders. "Now, what are your thoughts on piracy?"
One of the best things about Isabela was that she didn't judge. She listened and then offered what she could. Sometimes it was perspective, sometimes it was an escape, sometimes it was a change of the subject and the mood. It inspired a laugh where Líadan hadn't thought to find one.
When Merrill opened the door to her small home, Líadan still had a little of the smile left. "Lethallan!" Then she wrapped Líadan up in a hug quicker than she could greet her in return.
Líadan struggled with speaking, left reeling by the juxtaposition of Merrill's enthusiasm now, and the unbidden memory of how Merrill had reacted when she'd found her in the Gallows. There had been no cheerfulness in her eyes at all then, only a mourning for her clanmate, even though Líadan still breathed.
And she hadn't cared. Not then. Now, now she did.
As soon as Merrill stepped far enough away for Líadan to gain some bearing, her speech returned, driven by the absolute need to have the brand gone and her vallaslin restored, not left a ruin. "I need you to fix it," she said to Merrill, her hands tight on Merrill's shoulders, Merrill the personification of her hope, and if she let her go, so would she let go of the hope of regaining who she was. What she didn't want to admit was that a small part of her believed the woman she had been was gone, and she didn't know much of who she was now. "I can't even look. I have to—you need to put it back the way it was."
The grief returned to Merrill's eyes, and she gently placed her hands on Líadan's arms, supporting her as much as she was herself. "I can't. As much as I want to, I can't. That brand, the lyrium in it, to heal it without doing further harm would take a talented healer. I'm not. And without the brand gone, I don't dare touch your vallaslin. Once your skin is healed, I can fix them. But not before. It would be too dangerous."
Líadan gripped Merrill's shoulders harder as she tried to keep her sudden tremble from showing. "I can't—"
"Keeper Lanaya could help you, lethallan," Merrill said before Líadan could finish her plea. "I can't remember how good a healer she is, but I know she's much better than me. Or, if she can't, Keeper Emrys can, whenever he gets here. There, I mean, to Lanaya's clan. He could help, surely."
Líadan concentrated on the fact that she wasn't Tranquil, that she could care again, could respond to her friends and family with the love and kindness she felt in return instead of the nothing she had expressed before. In the face of those truths, the brand and the twisted state of her vallaslin should mean nothing, yet it did, and she could do nothing about it.
She dreaded what she believed she would hear from Lanaya—that only Emrys possessed the ability to heal it. Aside from him, the only healers she knew who came close to him in skill had been Wynne and Anders. They were both gone, which left Emrys as her only option if she wanted to be healed, and she wasn't sure if her grandfather seeing her like this was a good thing. Then again, part of her wanted to show him exactly what results his ploy to separate her from Malcolm had yielded. The other part of her wanted to hide her shame over the mark, over her own choices that had played a part in the result, over how she would never truly have his approval. And for all the years she'd spent denying she needed approval from him, her actions had, time and again, proven exactly the opposite.
She let out a shaky laugh as she moved away from Merrill. "I don't know if that makes me feel any better."
"Family's like that," said Bethany. "You need them and you don't. You wish you didn't and you do."
"I'm sorry about Leandra," Merrill said to her.
Bethany gave her a wan smile. "I'll be all right. But thank you." Yet when Isabela put an arm around her shoulders, she leaned into her friend.
Recognizing that Bethany had reached the extent of how much she wanted to discuss her mother's death, Merrill went back to Líadan's situation, which seemed to offer a more concrete chance of being set to rights. "Once it's healed, I can redo it. Keeper Marethari trained me and I have… Varric brought me her kit. He found it at the camp. After."
Though she still no idea the true extent of her clanmate's involvement with the death of the Mahariel clan, Líadan couldn't bring herself to address it. Later, maybe. When she was stronger. Healed. But she could at least acknowledge truths that never would have changed. "She would have wanted you to have it." Then she didn't want to talk about it anymore, and asked Merrill about the eluvian, instead.
"It… worked." Merrill's hesitation made it clear that it no longer did, and her look cast toward the dark, unremarkable corner in which the eluvian stood told the same tale. "Now it doesn't. The Arlathan elves turned it off from their side, however they might've done it. I'm not sure. But it doesn't do anything now. Not even reflect. Like it never worked at all. Cut off, not just from us but from most of the Beyond. Maybe it was like…" Then Merrill turned away from the eluvian to peer curiously at Líadan. "How did they hide you from the Beyond? Do you remember? Maybe it's like that?"
A blur took the place of the memory, shouts and snapping magic, the growl of demons so close to the Veil, arms and legs and swords, cries of pain and silence and then nothing. But that was all there was when she reached for the full memory, scraps that fluttered from her fingers. "I can't—" She couldn't even finish her sentence, that was how much she couldn't, and her eyes opened without even realizing she'd closed them in the first place.
Merrill was right there, her eyes wide and bright and too worried. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have asked. It isn't fair to make you remember. You shouldn't want to, and shouldn't have to."
It was almost too much, and all Líadan wanted was to see the people she'd been denied for weeks. Seeing them reassured her that it was over, that they were free and safe and she wasn't in some dream, hadn't fallen for a demon's tricks, hadn't failed any sort of Harrowing.
If only she'd agreed. If she'd just agreed, none of this would've happened—
A touch to her shoulder, then fur brushed across her ear as she heard and felt loud purring. "Ser Pounce," she said, coming back to herself, courtesy of the cat. Ser Pounce had always had a knack for it, helping.
Ser Pounce purred louder before leaping off Líadan's shoulders and onto the table in front of the fire, looking inordinately pleased with himself, as the cat often did.
"Maybe we should go back to Marian's," said Isabela.
"Oh!" said Merrill. She let go of Líadan and flitted over to a set of her shelves. "I'll go with you! I promised Ava the halla yesterday. I can bring it with me." Then she picked it up and showed Líadan.
She groaned, yet grateful for the switch in subjects, which gave her time to recover. "It's another broken one."
"I know! But it's missing the other antler. Together, they've got both. I can't keep them apart. It would be cruel." She tucked the halla under her arm. "They're a pair!"
"That doesn't even make sense."
The reply Merrill gave—a broad smile—did nothing to clear up the confusion, and when she offered nothing more, which was very Keeper-like, they set off toward Hightown.
It wasn't until they were halfway there that Merrill said quietly from beside Líadan, "The halla's from Anders. He's the one who found it, and he thought Ava would like it as a gift. But he brought it to me, and then told me to give it to her instead of him."
"Why?"
"It was before. It wasn't long after that he died and none of us realized he was gone."
It jolted her to think it, that Anders had died long before Vengeance had taken both the healer and Justice and twisted them, turning abomination and destroying the chantry and the hopes of many. It was like she'd gone to sleep in one world and woken up to a world so changed that it barely resembled the first. Wynne was dead. Anders was dead. Her clan was dead. Wardens were dead at Meredith's hands. And people she'd not thought she'd see ever again had appeared, as if they'd never been gone at all. Then came the moments when it was as if she'd never been gone as the world went on, and she needed to begin attempting a reconciliation of the world as it had been before with the world as it now was, the person she had been before and the person she now was, because each one of them was a stranger.
When their little group returned to the Amell estate, Líadan headed straight for the garden, Merrill walking beside her. It was only mid-morning, and considering her children had been locked away indoors for weeks, they would likely stay outside until physically dragged indoors.
Líadan found them right where she'd thought, in the garden, returning to their normal selves. They'd scrounged up a couple wasters from the collection Marian kept for herself and her brother, and even thrown together a mess of haphazard padding to serve as practice armor. And like they'd never had that awful interruption in the practice ring in the Warden compound, Cáel and Ava sparred with each other. Yet, on closer observation, Líadan recognized that their competitive streak when it came to one another had dulled somewhat. Gone was the determination to send a sibling to their backside, replaced by a cheerfulness gained from burning off energy that'd built up for weeks on end. Malcolm watched from nearby, standing in front of a bench. On the bench rested the stuffed spider Ava had cried over when she realized she'd left it behind, as well as the book Cáel had vehemently not cried over at forgetting it, but complained bitterly and often in the early days of their travel that he didn't have it.
Malcolm noticed her from across the makeshift ring and grinned, the flash of his smile brighter than a glimpse of the sun through the thick canopy of leaves in the Brecilian Forest. She smiled in return, not fathoming how she couldn't, and not fathoming how she ever could've believed for a moment that she'd missed the Dalish more than she would ever miss him. If that had been true, she would've felt content staying with the Dalish clans, her children with her. Instead, she'd felt as much as outsider as they had, keenly missing her bondmate, not wishing to join in the clan's evening activities.
That in mind, she skirted the edges of the imagined boundaries of the sparring ring, and then stood next to Malcolm. She leaned into him because she loved him and because she could once more, and then as he did, she contentedly watched their children play.
Unlike the fights they'd had before, when they'd been evenly matched, Cáel beat Ava handily, much to the girl's dismay. And she loudly proclaimed said dismay, accusing her brother of cheating because he'd gotten to practice and she hadn't, because the Circle hadn't let mages play with swords, but the templars had let him train all he wanted with the other initiates.
"More like all they wanted," said Cáel, but his heart wasn't in it.
Malcolm straightened suddenly. "Initiate?"
"They tried to make him a templar," said Líadan. Her simple declaration belied nothing of how it had been the last push, barely a nudge at all, that sent her into a state where she decided she would do anything she had to in order to free him. To free him before they got to him. "They tried to make you a templar," she repeated when her first sentence caught Cáel's attention and he turned to look at her.
"Not exactly," he said.
She didn't quite hear him, her mind on the panic that'd leapt onto Ser Keran's face when he realized he'd accidentally told her what no one had wanted her to know. "Keran let it slip by accident. Cullen had wanted to keep it from me. He wanted to keep it from me, how Meredith had gone back on her word and given my son to the templars. To be an initiate. To learn to be one of them. To become one of them. I couldn't trust him then—" She felt the plummet in her gut, the same as when Keran had told her, free falling from a scouting climb after the last tree branch underfoot cracked and gave way. "—so I found Thrask. I wanted to, I had to get out so I could get you out before they could turn you."
As Líadan and Cáel stumbled into a strange sort of argument, Ava tossed aside her own practice sword and tucked in close to Malcolm's side, watching.
"They wouldn't have," said Cáel, his hands working at the grip of the waster.
Her fingers curled into painfully tight fists, and she wondered if there were any ferries running to the Gallows. "Cullen trying to stop Meredith made me forget that he wasn't to be trusted anymore. I'd thought he was one of the good ones. That he'd keep you and Ava safe and he didn't—"
"He did!"
"In the guise of bringing you to the Chantry's side."
"He was trying to help!" Cáel let the wooden practice sword go, thumping dully into the grass as he threw his arms in the air in his frustration. "He never forced me to learn anything in classes. And it wasn't like I was the best behaved—"
"There's a shock," Malcolm muttered.
Ava elbowed him, and had Líadan not been struggling for control, she would've laughed at the look of betrayal Malcolm gave their daughter.
Cáel rolled his eyes at him. "You know what I mean." Then he turned to his mother. "Cullen's Fereldan. Even though he lives in Kirkwall now, he's still Fereldan. He told me that more than once. He told me that was a big reason why he wasn't actually training me like an initiate. That was why he was biding his time, because he's still a loyal subject, and he was going to get word to Ferelden one way or another."
Malcolm raised his eyebrows. "Fancies Alistair, does he? Remind me to tease them both about it later."
Even as Líadan recognized the situation trying to right itself, darkness opting for light, whatever had sparked her anger refused to be doused that easily, before it could take casualties, and it dove for a slow, lazy, yet certain spiral out of control.
"The Knight-Commander sought to make Cáel a templar initiate?" Líadan heard Morrigan's voice ask from nearby, presumably from just outside the doorway.
"I was going to stop them," said Líadan.
"They hadn't even started," said Cáel. "And Cullen wasn't going to."
Líadan bit down on abrasive reply, part of her knowing there wasn't a real conflict here with her son, or with anyone present right then in the garden. But the other part wasn't sure if she was arguing with her son, herself, everything, or nothing. Yet Morrigan was right there, asking questions Líadan couldn't decipher, but she could hear the other woman's voice and the lilt at the end signifying a question and the old terror resurfaced. The terror she'd felt intermittently throughout Cáel's life—maybe Morrigan was going to take him back. Maybe now that Morrigan had seen for herself an inkling of what Tranquility had done to her, she would demand him back so someone who had control could raise him properly. But Líadan knew, knew, that Morrigan would never do such a thing. But the frigid knot of fear in her chest couldn't be convinced, nor the hot terror in her head.
Her fears surrounded her, gnashing at the chance to eat her alive, and here she hadn't even been alive again for all that long.
And she was still talking, and she couldn't recognize most of the things she was saying, but she gathered the gist of it, that it had moved far beyond Cáel and the templars, Ava and the Circle, pelting right into the chilling emptiness that had been the beginnings of Tranquility.
As Cáel and Ava watched her with slack jaws and confused eyes, Malcolm took her by the shoulders and guided her into the house. She threw him off as soon as they were through the doorway, hastily charging up the stairs and into the room they shared before it got worse. Before the fear shattered her into a thousand pieces that she'd have no hope of putting back together.