Killeen was picking flowers when the mages arrived.
It was not an easy task, in the Frostback Mountains. She'd been slipping and sliding and scrambling up and down the hills outside Haven for several hours, trying to find something alive that wasn't the ubiquitous, hardy elfroot, and only had a tiny handful of wildflowers by the time she trudged back to the gates.
To find the whole town boiling like an ant's nest. Mages everywhere, on the loose, and everyone else walking around very quiet and careful and desperately hoping not to be incinerated on the spot or turned into a toad.
"They're going to do it!" she heard someone whisper. "They're going to close the Breach! Tonight!"
"Maker be praised," another voice answered.
Killeen blinked down at the little bunch of flowers she still carried. This could all be over tomorrow.
Well, aside from bands of rogue Templars and apostate mages wandering the countryside, not to mention bandits and other assorted lowlifes, and stray left-over demons, and …
Still. The Breach was their biggest, most pressing problem. If the Herald could deal with that, everything else would become manageable.
Cullen will be in the war room, she thought, planning the assault with … them.
And likely nobody's in the mood for flowers, right at the moment.
She made her way back to the tent she shared with Cullen, found an empty bottle and filled it with water, then carefully set the flowers in it, making sure they were neither too close nor too far from the brazier. Although, if something goes wrong, we'll probably all be dead, and if it all goes right, I doubt the Commander is going to need a bunch of flowers to get her in the mood.
At least she's important enough to have her own room. I don't much fancy the idea of tactfully making myself scarce and then spending hours freezing my fundament while they …
"Well, hello!" A rounded, melodious voice broke in to her thoughts and Killeen looked up to see a tall, muscular man framed in the entrance to the tent. His elegant outfit showed off a great deal too much coffee coloured skin for this weather, his neat moustache was precisely curled, and he was somehow managing to swagger while standing still. "Are those for me? Do say yes, there's been a decided lack of welcome since I arrived."
"I, ah — this is the Commander's tent." Killeen got to her feet. "You can't be in here."
He ignored her, sauntering in. "That strapping young Templar? How delicious. And you're leaving him flowers? Lovely gesture."
"I'm not — that is, they're not for him. They're from him."
"Oh, well done you." He sat down on Cullen's cot, bounced slightly, and grimaced. "Though you must both be quite athletic, given the restrictions of the environment."
Killeen felt her face flame. "They're not for me. Excuse me, who are you?"
"Oh, forgive me." He rose to his feet gracefully, captured her hand and bent over it in a courtly bow. "Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady …"
"Killeen."
"Lady Killeen."
Feeling persistently wrong-footed, as if she was trying to spar on a moving mill-wheel, Killeen shook her head. "Not Lady. Lieutenant, if you need to be fancy."
"Ah, a woman of substance as well as style. Even better!" He raised an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you have anything to drink, do you? I've just fought my way through the kind of future you really don't want to live to see, ridden like the wind through some of the coldest, dampest countryside it's ever been my misfortune to encounter and then been greeted by nothing better than suspicion, mistrust and barely disguised hostility. A drink would be very welcome."
"I don't even know who you are!" Killeen snapped.
"My dear girl, I just told you. I know soldiers get hit very often on the head, but if your memory is that bad you really should get it looked at." Dorian settled back down on Cullen's cot, hands behind his head, feet resting carelessly on the Commander's desk. "Although it might well be a blessing to be able to forget certain things without benefit of alcohol. Speaking of which, you were about to provide me with some."
Killeen picked up his feet and dumped them unceremoniously back to the floor. "I really don't think I was, Pavus."
He was not discomposed. "You couldn't think again, could you?" he wheedled, fluttering his eyelashes. "Just for me?"
She was weighing up the best way to throw him out of the tent bodily with minimal disturbance to the furniture when she heard the tent flap again.
"Ah, Pavus," Cullen said. "You found it."
"Indeed. The lovely Lieutenant was about to offer me some refreshment."
"I'd prefer you sober," Cullen said. "Who knows what's going to happen up in the Temple tonight?"
"So it's true, it's tonight?" Dorian asked.
Killeen edged toward the entrance of the tent, and Cullen caught the movement. He waved a hand. "Stay, Kill, you should hear this too."
"Kill," Dorian said, and rolled his eyes. "The Ferelden ability to take a perfectly lovely name for a perfectly lovely woman and turn it into a verb is an abominable trait of your people. Why, you might as well call me Door."
His mockery made Killeen's cheeks burn. "If you ever face my sword," she said evenly, "you'll understand. Briefly."
Dorian threw back his head and laughed. "Touche, my lovely Lady Lieutenant, touche. But I'm afraid we may have problems that even your sword can't solve."
Killeen listened as Dorian told the story of his trip into a possible future with the Herald. From the questions Cullen asked, he'd heard at least the outlines of the story before, but now he wanted details: every word, every hint, every possible clue to what was going to happen and how to stop it.
As light and playful as Dorian's tone was, Killeen could tell the memories were not pleasant ones. And no wonder.
If we don't stop this, it really will be the end of the world.
"What is this 'Elder one'?" Killeen asked.
"No idea," Dorian said promptly. "We really weren't keen to hang around and meet him, as I'm sure you can appreciate."
"If he's behind the Breach, we've heard him, if not seen him," Cullen said. "Lady Cassandra said that the rift up at the Temple contained some sort of echo, the voices of the Divine and the Herald and another."
"If he's a man, he can be killed," Killeen said. "If he's darkspawn, he can be killed. Even if he's an archdemon, he can be killed. The Herald found her own pet Warden."
"And if he's worse?" Dorian asked soberly.
Killeen was startled. "Maker's balls, what's worse than archdemons?" She saw Cullen wince at her language. "Sorry. But honestly, worse than archdemons?" She shook her head.
"We only have one Warden," Cullen pointed out.
"A stunning lack of redundancy planning," Dorian said.
"Then we find the others. Or get Warden Blackwall to tell us how to make more. I mean, there are hundreds, right, or were before they disappeared? So it's not like kings. We can make an army of Wardens if this Elder One is an archdemon."
"You're remarkably insouciant," Dorian said. "That's usually my job, and I ought to be miffed, but it's really quite charming."
Cullen chuckled. "Kill's solutions to most problems is to stick a sword in them."
Normally, having him tease her in front of other people, even strangers, wouldn't have bothered her. But here, tonight, with Dorian making fun of her looks and her Commander as good as calling her simple … shame and anger made a hot lump in her stomach. She stood abruptly. "Yes, well," she said, "in my experience they stop being problems shortly thereafter. If they really are going to try and close the breach tonight, we need to be ready for whatever happens if it goes wrong. I'll be out on the lines, ser, if you need me for anything else."
Without waiting for his answer, she left.
Taking the long way around gave her time to burn off her irrational fury with the both of them. She was calm and collected by the time Cullen joined her, giving their troops the once-over to satisfy himself everything was in order. Not, she knew very well, that he didn't trust her: it was the one sign he ever gave of nerves.
"It'll go fine," she muttered to him as they walked side-by-side along the ranks. "She'll be fine."
Cullen rubbed the back of his neck. "We don't know how it will affect her."
"It's just a really, really big rift, isn't it? And she's closed plenty of those, without any ill-effect after that first one."
"It's too soon. After what she must have been through, in that future she and Pavus saw … no-one could be unaffected by that. Let alone … she's not like you, Kill. She's been in a Circle all her life. She's … sensitive."
Unlike me, tough as old boot-leather, Killeen thought. The least likely candidate imaginable for the romantic fantasies of knights with white horses.
"She's strong," she said. "She's had to be, to get this far. She's proven she's brave. And no matter how bad things were at Redcliffe Castle, she obviously kept her head well enough to get herself and Pavus back. She'll be fine."
"I'd be happier if it was a little bit easier on her," Cullen said. They reached the end of the ranks and stood, staring up at the Breach. "They'll be nearly up there now."
"I'd like it if it was a little bit easier on all of us," Killeen said, and he laughed quietly. "Especially me. Hey, can we save the world somewhere warm after this?"
"After this …" Cullen murmured, eyes on the sky. "I can't even start to imagine what comes after this."
Not that long ago, Killeen would have replied, we save the world and go home, but that was no longer going to happen.
She couldn't bring herself to say We save the world and go our separate ways.
"Burn that bridge when we cross it," she said instead. "Look! Is that it, do you think?"
They both stared upwards. The spark of light Killeen had glimpsed became a beam, lancing up to the heart of the Breach. She held her breath. The beam strengthened, brightened, wavered and grew stronger again …
And then, suddenly, the gaping hole in the sky was gone.
Killeen took a deep breath, and realised that at some time in the past few moments she'd taken hold of Cullen's hand, and was clinging to it like a child afraid of losing its mother in the market. Flushing, she started to pull away, but he tightened his own grip on her fingers and turned to look down at her.
"She did it." His voice was barely above a whisper, his face luminous with awe and hope and love. "She did it. It's gone."
"Yes," Killeen said. "She did it."
Unexpectedly, he pulled her to him, wrapping her in a hug of celebration and relief. Over his shoulder, Killeen could see their troops embracing each other as well, pounding each other on the back, whooping and yelling.
She closed her eyes and hugged him back, face pressed to the absurd collar of his cloak, breathing in the smell of smoke and sweat and the hair pomade he didn't think anyone knew he used, of metal polish and lamp-oil and Cullen, held him with all the strength in her arms and felt his own arms strong and sure around her.
Counted slowly to five.
Let him go.