9:33 Dragon, Autumn

"I don't care what you say." Samantha shrugged on her long coat; autumn's chill had begun to creep through the Free Marches.

Goran was fidgeting in the hallway of the royal palace, repeating the same phrase that had become his mantra for the last month. "This is a bad idea. A bad idea."

"I should have done this long ago." She carefully fastened the large buttons on her coat.

Keis looked bored, leaning against the archway that led into the front room. "You aren't going to talk her out of it, Your Highness."

Goran took a step forward, and then backward, fumbling with his hands. "What if something happens?"

Samantha pulled on a pair of Orlesian silk gloves, buttoning each tiny silver button at the wrist. "It won't."

"But how do you know?"

"'Cause I'll be holding a sword to his throat." Keis spoke calmly, not even looking at them.

"Oh…" Goran stopped fidgeting. "Well, that might not be wise. I mean, you don't want to make the man nervous."

The warrior shrugged. "At your will."

Keis made everyone nervous sometimes.

Samantha pulled at the front doors but found them easier to open once Keis was helping her, and as Goran followed the pair of women out into the brisk morning—one made of lace and the other made of rock—he snapped his fingers at his squire to have his coat brought to the palace gates.

The letter he had received was from Starkhaven's sister city to the east, Ansburg. Their leader, Margrave Frederick Eberstark, was a military governor and claimed protective responsibility for territory beyond the limits of the city.

Your Royal Highness, Prince Goran Vael,

Inside the box, I believe you will find something of great interest. Please allow me to explain how this particular item came into my possession.

This piece of armor came to me from the city guard. Apparently, they had saved it from being melted down by a local smithy after having recognized the crest. An investigation revealed that the person who sold it to the smithy was a man who calls himself Archim Falk, an Anders of some ill repute who had stolen it from a merchant caravan headed to Starkhaven. The merchant claims to have paid a fair price for it, and was compensated as he was able to prove that it had been paid for. He bought it from a little girl who sold it to feed herself and her four orphaned brothers who all live in the Green Dales to the north. The area has plagued us for some time, as many children, some Antivan but mostly Fereldan refugees, call the plains their home and roam like wild beasts, attacking caravans in packs like wolves.

My men were able to track the little girl down, though it took quite a bit of time to do so. She claims she found it in the Minanter – specifically, a place the wild children call The Hub, as they often to meet up with other packs to organize attacks on passing merchant caravans. This is how we found her, and we had to offer a substantial reward to obtain this information from her.

I offer this information to you freely and in good faith with the hope that our efforts will not be forgotten in the future, should we ever require such friendship.

May the Maker bless you with healthy children to continue the Vael line,

The Margrave of Ansburg, Lord Frederick Eberstark

When Samantha had woken up from fainting, she had found herself lying in bed in her official room; Goran was slumped in a nearby chair, his head firmly planted in his hands, snoozing peacefully, apparently having fallen asleep as he waited for her to wake up. He'd nearly lost it when she had passed out, she later learned. Already a mess from the confirmation of his belief that his brother might be alive, the shock of seeing Samantha collapse had frayed his last nerve. His personal squire, a boy named Colin, had arranged for a sleeping tonic which he'd refused to take until Samantha woke up. The tonic turned out to be unnecessary.

While she watched Goran sleep, her thoughts were swallowed up with his brother. Possibly alive and alone out there somewhere – just like Goran had always said. The Minanter flowed east towards the Amaranthine Ocean, and so if the little girl from Ansburg had found it in the river, it must have flowed from Starkhaven or somewhere nearby. Samantha hoped it wasn't the swamps. The swamps were filled with creatures that weren't even cataloged, as adventurers who went in rarely came out. Perhaps he was in the Free Marches somewhere, imprisoned by the Flint Company and forgotten in their deaths. Maybe his memory was affected or he was fighting his way out of somewhere brutal and dark… such thoughts were horrible but preferable to imagining him dead.

It had been two years. Her memory stirred with that morning she had awoken in the chantry; fuzzy-headed, with her throat on fire, her bruised legs, that horrendous scratch on her arm, and that incredible thirst.

The mages had healed her, placing their bare hands on her skin in places only Corbinian had touched and, at the time, it felt like a violation. They had offered to take her pain away, to quench that thirst and satiate her hunger, to help her sleep and help her wake, to make the recovery easier, they said, but she had refused all of it. Once she fully regained consciousness, she had screamed at them to stay away, fearful of any magical touch, but on the morning she woke after reading the Margrave's letter, she also recalled how the mages had offered to help her remember.

Her lack of memory of that night hadn't changed. There was no revelatory dream or nightmare, and no inanimate object had stirred a flashback. There was just nothing. Like she had been put to sleep for four days.

With the news that Corbinian may not have died on that night, she felt a surge of courage to learn what happened after she had swung open the large door to her estate to find him standing on the stoop with that… thing. Giggling flirtatiously with those hideous eyes… Samantha could have described them down to the smallest detail if she had wanted, but she kept them to herself – they were her nightmare. They didn't belong to anyone else.

The mages insisted that those memories could be recovered, but she had been too frightened of magic. Now she felt afraid of remembering a version of events that she didn't want to believe.

Ser Traven was now a Knight Captain in the Templar Order, and he had walked calmly beside First Enchanter Raddick as they approached the gates. Raddick was tall with dark skin, likely from Rivain, to judge by his looks. His wiry black hair was kept very short, and tiny reading glasses stood guard on his stern face. His dark eyes appraised Samantha in the same way they had those many months ago when she first requested his assistance. She had hated waiting, but he insisted on time to prepare the spell and make sure the components were in order. Plus, he needed another mage with a special ability and, since mages were scarce in Starkhaven, he'd had to send for one.

The First Enchanter of Kirkwall, Orsino, had responded to Raddick's request and sent a mage, though when she arrived, she was not what was expected. For one, she was an elf; a tiny little thing compared to Raddick. And, for another, she looked no older than thirteen. Samantha's father had never deemed the information necessary, and thus she hadn't read much about elves before, though there were volumes written by the famed scholar Brother Genitivi. This elf's copper hair was kept in a tight bun behind ears that flew backwards off her head like they had been caught in a windstorm. She had a pointy chin with wide-set cheekbones that flared below a pair of crystal-clear blue eyes. All elves were lithe, but Samantha hadn't known many of them and they all looked so similar. Like sticks with eyes.

The trio met Samantha, Goran, and Keis at the palace gates and as they walked to one of the sitting rooms, Goran seemed either bothered by or enamored with the elf – Samantha couldn't tell which.

Once inside, he shook his head at Raddick. "Absolutely not."

Samantha glared. "You can't forbid me, Goran."

"I'm supposed to entrust your safety to an elf?" He scoffed. "An elf?"

"You may call me Amethyne." She was trying to sound polite, but the words came through clenched teeth.

"I don't care what your name is!" Goran refused to look at her now.

The elven girl sighed softly, but Raddick almost growled. "Is there a problem, Your Most Worthy Highness?"

The way he enunciated every word in the title turned Goran pink, and the Prince of Starkhaven took a moment to remember that he was prince. "First Enchanter, we know nothing of this—girl."

Raddick raised a brow in irritation but Amethyne muttered something before she took a breath and spoke. "I was born in Highever to a servant. Surely you are familiar with those."

"Amethyne," Traven warned. "You are speaking to the Prince of Starkhaven."

"My apologies, Your Highness." She spoke the words as though they tasted foul. "My mother sent me to the Denerim alienage when I was a girl to live with her friends, because she didn't want the Teyrn, whose house she cleaned, to send her daughter to the Circle once they found out that she was a mage." She sounded rather bitter about that.

"You're city-borne then?" Samantha asked carefully, staring at her but trying not to be blatant about it.

"Yes. I grew up in a large estate. Not as nice as this one, though," she said naively, looking across the large circular rug to the velvet tapestries. It was as though she didn't fully comprehend the riches of Starkhaven royalty. She looked back to Samantha and continued. "I lived in Denerim for a while. Not that long, though. When the darkspawn sacked the city during the Blight, there was no one protecting the alienage, and so we fled. And yes, a group of us ended up with the Dalish for a time."

"And you didn't stay with them?" Samantha didn't understand; her family had lost their fair share of elven servants to the Dalish.

"Of course not! I hated it." Her accent was indeed highborn Fereldan. "I mean, I was born in a mansion, sent to an alienage to live in the dirt, and then the Dalish wanted me to like living in the dirt."

The way she spoke that last sentence, Goran and Samantha understood implicitly, but Keis lifted her eyes to the ceiling in annoyance.

Traven finished for her. "The Templars found her living in the Kirkwall alienage."

From the looks on Amethyne's and Raddick's faces, nothing further needed to be explained.

"I thought elves prefer the Dalish…" Samantha didn't know much about elven history, but that much was common knowledge.

"Well, I didn't."

"You prefer the Circle, then?" Samantha asked naively.

The elf rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, I love it. It's just like my home in Highever, except the guards point their spears at me instead of outsiders."

Traven growled her name in another warning while Goran scowled at Raddick. Neither he nor Samantha had ever encountered an elf who dared speak to them as this girl did.

But Raddick responded in measured tones. "I have tested her myself. She is particularly suited to watch over Lady Samantha while I help her remember."

Goran's hands flew outward. "Suited—?"

"If there is a problem." Raddick's voice was unfathomably deep. "Then I have asked our own Knight Commander Rayce and Kirkwall's Knight Commander Meredith and First Enchanter Orsino to accommodate me for no reason. That's an awfully terrible group of people to irritate in a single day."

Traven shifted his weight uncomfortably and Amethyne shuddered.

Samantha didn't know Meredith, but the Knight Commander of Kirkwall had a reputation for being hard as nails and Kirkwall's Templar Order had a reputation for harsh punishments. The Knight Commander of Starkhaven, Ser Rayce Taraamäe, was an extremely ambitious man, but historically had always tried to treat mages fairly, or so everyone said. Orsino, also an elf, was known throughout the Free Marches as an emotional sort, a loose cannon. No one wanted the ire of any one of them, let alone all three.

Goran paused, considering what to say next, but he was running out of arguments and he still refused to look at the elf. "She's so young, though."

Amethyne never took her eyes from him and, no matter how big and beautiful they were, they were filled with frustration.

"She is what I need." Raddick commanded.

"And what is that?"

"A spirit healer."

Goran had no answer for that. None of them did, because none of them knew just what a spirit healer was.

Raddick set his jaw as he began again. "A spirit healer will ensure that Lady Samantha's mind remains uninjured for the spell's duration. It can be an intense experience, and we wouldn't want her to—" He glanced at Keis, who was giving him the evil eye. "—fall into a coma."

"Maker's breath!" Goran was not persuaded, and in fact, talking about the negative side effects of the experience was the absolute wrong thing to do.

"Your Highness, you misunderstand me." Raddick had impeccable manners. "Lady Samantha will be watched over and protected at every moment. The only way she could be assaulted is if I am assaulted, and that's why Amethyne is needed."

Goran's eyes went wide. "And I'm supposed to entrust Samantha's life to the elf?"

The girl huffed in obvious annoyance and Traven's frown turned into a glare.

Goran turned to Samantha. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

Samantha glanced at the girl. All the healers she had known were friendly, compassionate people. This girl was anything but. But Samantha knew that she needed to do this, despite Goran's reservations.

"The First Enchanter will be here," Samantha said. "She's not going to injure me."

"Of course I won't," Amethyne said bluntly. "I want to stay here in Starkhaven. Besides, if you die, who do you think will get the blame out of everyone in this room? I don't particularly want to be Tranquil."

Her argument was a simple one. While most of them felt uncomfortable with the blatant injustice it implied, they all knew it was absolutely true. But Traven had finally had enough.

"I realize that this is not your city, Amethyne." The Templar towered above her. "But you will adhere to our customs. I've told you this before: in the presence of the Prince of Starkhaven, you do not speak unless spoken to. I will not warn you again."

Her shoulders sunk. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry, what?"

"I'm sorry, Your Highness." She resumed trying to be polite.

Goran was squinting at Raddick with his lips pursed as though deep in thought and unaware of all other conversation. He asked the First Enchanter: "What does she mean, stay in Starkhaven?"

Raddick opened his mouth to answer, but Traven cut him off. "This is not the time—"

"And when is the time?" Raddick's unfathomably deep voice made every word sound important.

"May I speak now?" Amethyne was glowering at everyone who all turned to Goran for approval. A moment passed before he realized that he had to give it, and he fumbled awkwardly with his hands in her direction.

The elf seemed emboldened by his permission, and Samantha wondered about how rare these kinds of mages were, these spirit healers, because this elf was acting from a position of power.

"I wish to remain here," she explained. "I wish to be transferred from Kirkwall to Starkhaven. Orsino will approve it, but I need the Circle's approval here as well. Would be better if the prince approved me personally."

"I didn't realize there were conditions attached to this." Goran still wouldn't look at her.

Amethyne ignored that he wasn't speaking to her, and the way her eyes bore into him, even though he continued to avoid her gaze was interesting to say the least. "You need something from me. I need something from you."

"My apologies, Your Highness," Traven said, sounding sincere. "I was going to bring a formal request to your attention once the ritual was complete."

Goran nodded at Traven in forgiveness, but Samantha was still curious about the elf's reasons. "Why do you want to leave Kirkwall?"

Amethyne turned to her, those eyes twinkling like big sapphires. "Mages like me don't last long in a city like Kirkwall. Most of my friends have been made Tranquil already."

"They become maleficar?" Samantha asked innocently, feeling alarmed.

"No," she answered with a glare. "The Knight Commander of Kirkwall is…" She glanced at Traven, who was watching her closely. "…not like the Knight Commander here. Or so everyone says. Either way, I'll take my chances."

The elf was brazen in her request to leave that city, and Samantha wondered if the reputation of Kirkwall's Templar Order was understated.

Goran was still deep in thought, asking questions that seemed random to everyone else, but likely were perfectly linear in his mind. "You said you could be assaulted. Does this mean you're going to enter the Fade? Is Samantha going to be in the Fade?"

The First Enchanter hesitated briefly. "Not exactly. I need the energy from the Fade to tap into her subconscious, to enable her to remember. It's like a doorway and it will be open. Lady Samantha will be exposed, as will I, but we will be protected."

"By the elf," Goran finished, and Amethyne looked like she wanted to strangle him at his constant refusal to say her name.

Keis grumbled something about regret before she spoke up. "Then I'm going with her. Her life is mine, and where she goes, I go."

"It's not like that, Your Highness." Raddick kept calm, though his façade was slowly crumbling.

"Keis is going." Goran demanded, and Samantha knew that this was as good as she was going to get.

The First Enchanter only sighed and Amethyne shuffled noisily, still staring at Goran. It was obvious that she wanted some kind of answer to her request.

Goran set his gaze upon Samantha and she could see the real fear there: that he would lose her, his only friend. For if she was gone, then he would be left alone and no soul in the realm would know him, would know his heart, would know that he loved painting and eggs, disliked oranges and the famous Starkhaven Fish Pie, loved to be read to but disliked reading for himself, enjoyed silence over idle chit-chat, and painted his mother more often than anyone else. Goran needed people, perhaps more than most, and he had lost nearly all of his already.

Goran finally turned to Raddick. "If Samantha makes it through this unscathed, I'll consider the elf's request."

Amethyne grinned in triumph.

"We will need more candles," Raddick murmured to her. "This is going to take a while."

It took an hour for the area to be set up properly, about as long as it took for the arrival of the guards that Goran insisted stand vigil outside the door, and he even called a few Templars in case "the Veil was ripped open or something." Everyone thought him paranoid and ignorant about magic, but they all understood that the Prince of Starkhaven was going to take his precautions whether they argued with him about it or not.

The First Enchanter and Amethyne sat on either side of Samantha and Keis who were seated together on a high-backed lounge. Raddick closed his eyes and began to murmur, the words unintelligible even if they were in the native tongue of the Free Marches. There was a glow about him, burning out from his skin and through his clothes, something hazy and yellowish, like the aura just before a sunrise. Goran started to fidget again.

Amethyne took one of Samantha's hands, and a tingling sensation stretched up her arm like thorny vines settling onto her skin. After a moment, it began to burn, and she looked down to see the long scratch – it was there!

"How—?" She looked up to Amethyne but the elf seemed confused, glancing at Raddick who never broke concentration.

A sickness rose up through her, not unlike the way she felt when she first saw her brother in that dark dungeon cell. It squirmed in her belly like a sack of worms, and she was certain she would be ill. Her legs began to ache with a pain that grew out from somewhere deep in her skin. She felt spongy, pliable, and when one tear slid down her cheek, she heard Goran say something somewhere off in the distance but she closed her eyes anyway and when I open them up I am crashing down the stairs, my body slamming into the wall at the turn and I throw myself at the front doors, pulling the handle but it won't move and I pull again but it won't move and I am fumbling with the latch until it finally clicks and as I throw the door open, the pungent fog greeting me, burning my eyes and—

I freeze. My hands are still clutching the door. It's my Beenie.