Leliana

We rushed out of the trees, into the firelight of the camp. Aaron strained against the horses' tethers, trying to calm them. Lisbeth clutched an ancient, battered sword in trembling hands. It would do nothing against darkspawn armor. I knew that and it worried me.

"Protect your mother." I told Shira.

I could hear our enemies' footsteps. It would not be long until we were overrun.

Again, I found myself longing for Salem. Her surety, her blades, her clarity in battle. I do not know if I can do this! I watched the darkspawn emerge from the shadows, a roving band of hurlocks and genlocks, armed to the teeth and thirsty for blood.

"Aaron, leave the horses!" I called. "We have larger worries!"

"Maker-damned darkspawn!" the man cursed, abandoning the animals and pulling a long-bladed knife.

I have to get them out alive, I thought, moving to the edge of the firelight. I have to keep them safe. They have no idea of the danger they are in; that the entire world is in.

"What should we do?" Lisbeth asked, her voice shaking as the darkspawn began to spread out.

"Stay back, near the wagon." Aaron cautioned.

"No!" I readied my daggers, wishing that I had thought to take my bow to the stream. It lay too far away for me to reach safely. "We cannot have our backs against anything! I have fought them before; please trust me!"

Aaron's eyes filled with hate. With that one statement, I had revealed my deceit. He had no reason to believe anything that I had told them previously. Only now his life hinged on his ability to trust me.

Maker, I have made a mess of this.

Before I could receive a frightened man's knife in my back, I rushed at the darkspawn, in close, trying to make their swords as useless as possible. Two strikes from my blades and the first hurlock fell, clutching at the slashes across its gut.

I spun around, aiming at the neck of a genlock. As my blade connected, I heard the unmistakable sound of crossbow strings drawn taut.

"Archers!" I cried, trying to alert the others.

They must be dealt with...soon!

I heard a trigger slam down, a string release, a bolt fly. A human cry of surprise and agony struck my ears.

"Father!" Shira's cry.

Maker's breath, Aaron!

I rushed at the archers, backpedaling as a hurlock swung his jagged-edged sawblade, trying to cut me in half. I somersaulted backwards, flinging my dagger into the darkspawn's chest as I rose.

I cannot kill them all, desperation pounded in time with my heartbeat. How do Alistair and Salem do this!?

I snagged my dagger from the hurlock's body and tried to get to the archers once more. Again the pull of strings and the slam of triggers. A crossbow bolt whispered past my ear...another buried itself in my skin, deep between my collarbone and neck.

Stunned, I fell to my knees. Heavens, hells, and angels! I think the bone is broken. I tried to lift my left arm and failed. Get up! Get up! On your feet, Leliana! I have seen Salem fight like fury with far graver injuries than this! I refuse to do any less!

I struggled to my feet, making my way to the archers. Instead of facing them head on, I flanked them and approached from behind, slitting the throat of one and kicking the other to the ground. I finished it with a boot to the back of the neck, satisfied as bone crunched.

Oh, Maker, no!

There were four hurlocks surrounding the wagon, cornering the last of the family left standing. Shira. The horses had been slaughtered...I feared Lisbeth and Aaron had fared no better.

I forced the pain in my body to the back of my mind. I ran to the wagons, tackling one of the hurlocks to the ground, spearing my blade through its ribcage and into its heart. Shira cried out and I saw a flash of red.

No, no, no! I leapt to my feet, under the hurlock's chin, dragging the blade across its throat. It fell with a gargling gasp and I turned to face the last two. Shira lay on the ground. I shoved it from my mind. There were more enemies to face.

I threw my dagger, striking one of them between the eyes. It crumpled without a sound. I transferred my dagger from my useless left hand to my right. The last hurlock charged me and I let him take me down to the ground, forcing my dagger between the plates of its armor, between its ribs, and into its lung.

I rolled out from under the darkspawn and crawled over the bodies. Aaron had a crossbow bolt in his chest; his eyes were fixed open and glassed over. Lisbeth's throat had been torn open and her head was cocked at an awkward angle. They were both dead.

I failed, I shoved down the guilt as I reached Shira's side. Her skin was white. Blood slipped through her fingers as she held her hands over the stab wound to her stomach. I've failed all of them.

I knelt down and her blood soaked into my robes.

"Stay with me." I encouraged her, having been in this place in my life more times than I wanted to count. "Breathe past the pain, Shira. I'm going to move your hands."

Gentle, I pried her hands from the wound, keeping my face impassive, though inside, I faltered. With immediate attention from a healer, she would survive, but here, isolated and alone, there was very little chance of that. Abdominal wounds promised a slow, painful death if left untreated, and I did not have the skill...

"You are going to be fine." I smiled into her worried eyes.

I cut a large piece away from my robe, wadded it up, and pressed it against her injury, trying to control the bleeding.

"Stay awake for me, Shira." I ordered. "There might be more. We will have to move soon."

"No." she whispered, blood showing at the corner of her mouth. "Please...go on...they're dead." her eyes flitted to the bodies of her parents. "Got...nothing...left."

"They would want you to live." I forced the words between my lips. "They would want you to remain strong."

"I," she gasped for air, "I don't...want to. Please...sister...have mercy."

I knew the mercy of which she spoke. The gentle kiss of death that should come from the hand of a friend. Feeling utterly useless, I removed my hand from her wound. The blood flow had already slowed. Unless another human hand intervened, her death would be slow and excruciating.

My heart burned as I moved around her body and cradled her head in my lap. My vision blurred and suddenly Shira's dark skin and broad features were no longer there. Instead, I looked into silver-blue eyes hazed with pain and exhaustion, skin as pale as moonlight's gleam. Blonde hair turned to dark as I stared into the face of Salem...a woman who had watched her family killed and her home sacked. A woman who had been wounded in so many ways, and yet did not beg for death.

I could so easily be holding my warden...ushering her into the peace of death...for this is the same position in which she found herself.

"Go into the Maker's grace, child." I said the words written for such times as this, my voice trembling as the correlation between Shira's wish and Salem's life struck me repeatedly. "Your soul in peace, your heart in love. May you be reunited with those lost, in the world to come."

"Thank you." Shira/Salem whispered. "Sister."

I took a darkspawn's dagger from the ground and drew the razor edge across her neck, severing the arteries. Shira's blood sheeted over my hands. It was not a painless death, but it was a quick one, and the sole brand of mercy I could offer her.

I bowed my head and wept. I had failed them all. I had tried to protect them from the darkspawn, the evil that ravaged the world, but I was not up to the task.

Salem could so easily have been Shira. Why, my Maker, why? Why is it that, after the loss of everything they know, one soul clings to life and fights to save the world, and another begs for death? I do not understand! Would I have offered Salem the same mercy I gave Shira had I found her at Highever? Would I have taken such a light, such a force, from this world?

I rose and leaned against the wagon, forcing myself to look away from the girl I had killed and examine the bolt embedded in my shoulder. It was too deep to pull out and I did not have the strength to force it through.

How, I wondered, how did I consider this the best course of action? I am nothing on my own. It is why I have always sought out people of strength. Those like Marjolaine. Those like Salem.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I wept for the lives I had lost. Alistair's words rang through my mind.

"Every blow she takes is a thousand deaths; every victory is ten-thousand lives spared."

"I'm sorry." I whispered an apology to my warden, for leaving her, for not understanding her position, for not truly comprehending why she consistently threw herself into harm's way. "Heavens, hells, and angels, Salem, I'm sorry."

I stood on shaking legs, needing to be away from the death and blood, the stench of my miserable failure as a protector. I have to go back, I realized. I need her in my life. There is...there is no better place in this world for me than at her side. I am breaking to shards after losing three strangers. How much more must she feel? And I left her there to carry it...alone.

Salem is the one who chooses to live after losing everything. She is the one who does not beg for mercy...but she extends it to all she meets. She is...she is worthy of love.

I began walking back towards Haven, into a more uncertain future than I had when I departed from thence. I did not know what would happen, or if Salem had even survived her quest for the Ashes. All I knew was that I needed to be near her, at least once more.