A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed. Hitcounts are nice but reviews are nicer!
Killeen expected him to emerge from the healer's tent almost immediately, expecting reports, but a moment passed, and then another, and then another.
He can't bear to leave her, she realised. For Commander Cullen to let his responsibilities slip …
He never truly knew how much he loved her, what love could feel like, until that moment, Cole had said.
Killeen made the rounds of the camp one more time, legs like lead, heart aching with the effort, and then found a place near enough to a fire to feel some warmth, a pile of supply sacks providing a backrest, and lowered herself down. Arms loosely laced around the child in her lap, she closed her eyes and let herself fall into something that was almost sleep, a warm darkness that held her suspended without dreams, without worry about what the next day would bring, without the memory of the expression on Cullen's face as he bore the Herald safely home.
Some unknown time later, she sensed a familiar presence near her, and opened her eyes to see Cullen looking down at her.
His lips quirked. "Quite the picture," he said softly, as if the tenderness he felt for the Herald was so great it couldn't help but overflow to include a skinny little stray asleep in a soldier's arms.
"Mercenary with spoils of war?" Killeen said quietly, careful not to wake the child.
Cullen sat down beside her, leaned his head back against the pile of sacks with a sigh. "Something like. You can't find her mother?"
Killeen shook her head. "She has to be here somewhere, the count checks out. But I don't know her name. I can't even really remember what she looked like."
"The girl will know," Cullen said. "You can find her in the morning."
"Yes." Killeen gathered herself. "Commander, we have food for —"
He stilled her with a weary gesture. "Anything that needs my attention tonight?"
"No."
"Then it can wait for dawn."
Unheard of.
"Cullen," she said. "No matter how you feel, you can't let it make you let things slip."
He rolled his head to look at her, amber eyes clearer of shadows as she'd ever seen them, expression as peaceful as if he sat at ease at his own hearth in a time of peace. "You saw to it," he said, as if that was all the excuse he needed.
"Yes."
"Well, then," he said, and smiled, and Killeen knew she couldn't leave, no matter what the dawn brought, not until the Elder One and his dragon were ended, not until there was no damage that Cullen's distraction by the Herald could do.
No, she would stay, by his side, at his shoulder, picking up the pieces he let fall, guarding his back in combat and out. Seeing to it.
Killeen would have hated him for it, then, except she could never hate Cullen, especially not when he was looking at her with his face open and relaxed, looking at her with that half-smile curling his beautiful mouth and the firelight glancing off the perfect slope of his cheek. She would have hated the Herald, except it would be profoundly ungrateful to hate a woman who saved your life even knowing it might cost her own.
She settled for hating the Elder One.
"Kill …" Cullen said softly, barely more than a breath.
"Mmm?"
He hesitated, and then raised voices on the other side of the camp drew his attention. "Stay here. I'll see what that is."
An argument, is what it was, between the Herald's advisers. Killeen could tell that much from where she sat. Cullen was drawn into it, his tall form looming over Lady Montilyet and the Spymaster, jabbing his fingers to make a point. The slim form of the Herald emerged from the healer's tent, limping, paused as the argument fell away into glum silence.
Then a voice, soft, clear, true, lifted in song. Mother Giselle, who Killeen had seen in the Chantry, who must have summoned up extraordinary inner strength to haul her ageing bones up the mountain, walked forward to the fire, singing of falling shadows, fleeing hope.
Singing of a coming dawn.
Another voice joined her, high and soaring. It was the Spymaster, and for the first time Killeen understood why Varric called her Nightingale.
Keep to the stars, she sang, and from the crowd other voices answered the dawn will come.
Hair rose on the back of Killeen's neck. She shook the shoulder of the little girl sleeping in her lap. "Wake up, kid. Wake up."
"Whassit?" the girl mumbled.
"You need to see this, honey."
The child turned and peered across the camp as Killeen saw Cullen close his eyes and raise his voice with the others. The path is dark, he sang, and for an instant Killeen was back in the snow and the wind, trudging forward with her eyes on a tall form, a blond head, leading them all. The path is dark, look to the sky — for one day soon, the dawn will come.
Everyone was singing now. Killeen realised even she was, in a husky croak. Bare your blade, and raise it high. Stand your ground …
She set the little girl on the ground and rose to her feet, holding the child's hand. Bare my blade, you better believe it. Stand my ground, you just watch me.
They were kneeling now, one by one, before the Herald. Heads bowed, fists clenched to chests, vowing loyalty, swearing fealty.
Because the night might be long and the path might be dark …
But the dawn always came.
Beside her, the little girl dropped her knees, one chubby fist held to her chest, head bowed. As the song died away, Killeen gathered her up again, held her tightly, hand cradling her head, and looked to the Herald, standing slim and straight, chin lifted, accepting their promises, answering it with her silent own.
Yes.
Yes, I will lead you to the dawn.
Looked over the Herald's shoulder to Cullen also watching that slender, upright form, watching her with a look on his face as if the promised dawn rose already in the Herald's eyes.