The estate was too quiet the next morning. The Wardens had given in without being asked and decided that the Arl-Commander could keep watch on Zevran, since it wasn't like he was going to leave his side, anyway.
That meant that Kallian was free of assigned duties, so she went looking for something to do. First she helped Lady Howe with breakfast, and after with unpacking some of their bags and boxes, since their return to Amaranthine had been delayed yet again. She went up to the top floor and checked on Anders and Warden-Constable Howe and Captain Alistair. The Captain was still wracked with fever and shakes, but Anders had gotten up with the dawn and was getting water and broth into him again.
"We Wardens are stubborn sodding blighters, Sergeant!" Anders told her cheerfully when she expressed concern about the Captain's condition. In her experience, if you got sick like that, you died. His cheer didn't actually reassure her any. It sounded manic, like too much alcohol or too little sleep. "We'd never survive otherwise!"
Kallian spent the rest of the morning helping him heat broth and steep fever-reducing herbs in hot water, which was then left over ice to cool. Lyrium withdrawal, Anders said, turned out not to respond well to magical healing.
By late lunchtime Constable Howe had bullied the healer into letting him out bed, and Kallian was assigned to escort him down to the kitchen to eat something. Lady Howe sent her back upstairs with food for Wardens Arend and Kasteros, who had woken up and gone immediately to the Magister's books.
"Anything?" Kallian asked hopefully, when her arrival with food broke their single-minded concentration.
"It doesn't make sense," Warden Arend scowled. "It just doesn't- there's some fundamental theory we're still missing, this shouldn't be this hard!"
That sounded bad, and she retreated to Anders's sickroom to update him on the progress. He wasn't happy to hear it, either.
"Could you go check- no, you can't go near him. Go ask Sigrun or somebody to ask Theron if he's gotten Zevran to eat or drink something."
The four remaining Wardens were attacking the rest of the uncleaned rooms.
"Stupid," Warden Mhequi pronounced, rattling the handle of one of the many fake doors in this estate.
"You know what Fenris said," Warden Kondrat told her. "It's all about looking like you have the money for all these rooms."
"Stupid."
"Well, yes."
The Arl-Commander hadn't gotten Zevran to eat or drink anything, and Warden Kondrat also reported that neither of them had slept. When Kallian told Anders this, he glared at the floor and told her to: "Hold this cold compress, I have to go make people care about their health."
He was gone for a good twenty minutes.
"Theron's sleeping in his usual room down the hall. You're up for Zevran-watching again. He really needs to have some water."
She tried, she did; but the blood thrall thing was creepy and she couldn't even spoon water into him like she could have an invalid- like Anders had resorted to a couple of times with the Captain- because he wouldn't swallow. It wasn't in his orders.
Dinner came, and Warden Kondrat told her to go take a walk or something. The Arl-Commander was awake again and wanted to come down, and Wardens Mhequi and Nastasas had forcibly taken over for Anders, who'd fallen asleep over his dinner.
"Interested in a spar?" Warden Brant asked when she came up from the cellar. Kallian decided she was, because she didn't have anything else to do and she was interested in properly seeing how one fought with two swords at once.
They went for maybe an hour, and were ready for more food by then.
"Thank you, Warden Brant," she said when he called the spar. She hadn't thought she'd feel so much better once it was over, but here she was.
"You can call me Lockhard, you know," he told her. "You can call all of us by our names. We've been living together for a week and a half, and we've fought together. And you saved the Warden-Commander and Zevran."
No she hadn't.
"No I didn't," Kallian said. "He's- Zevran's worse, because he helped me."
"You took out some of the slavers before we even got there," Lockhard said. "Then you kept them distracted while we snuck up, so we were able to rush them by surprise; and you kept the Warden-Commander busy. It would have been a lot harder fight if you hadn't done that, and maybe we would have actually lost somebody. But instead we've got mages who didn't pass out at the end of the fight so they're able to help now, and enough people who aren't on bed rest to take care of the ones who really need it."
"Maybe," Kallian said doubtfully.
"Definitely," Lockhard countered. "Come on, I'll show you what Ander can do with plain bread."
As it turned out, the Anderfels could do a lot with plain bread, and most of it was pretty good, and filling. She went to bed with a full stomach, if not an abundance of hope about what the next day would bring.
It was late afternoon sometime when Alistair came back to consciousness.
"Feeling better?"
"No," he moaned. "Ugh. Close the curtains?"
Anders did, and the dim room was much better.
"Well, your fever broke a few hours ago, so you're not going to die."
"Great," Alistair said. "Maybe if you say it again, I'll stop feeling like I want to."
"You're going to have to live with for a while."
"I can tell."
"However- it's been three days and nothing has exploded, fallen into the Waking Sea, caught on fire, or started a war."
"Even better."
Three days was a pretty good period for lyrium withdrawal.
"Don't ever let me do that again," he ordered Anders.
"Oh, I like how you think I hadn't already decided to freeze you to the ceiling the next time you suggested it," Anders retorted. "Don't ever take lyrium again. I'd say 'I can't believe the Chantry would do such a thing!', but, you know- Circles, Exalted Marches, Orlesian politics. What's addicting hundreds of thousands of people over nine Ages to lyrium and totally destroying them in the process on top of that?"
"Standard operating procedure."
Glassware clinked out of his field of vision- Anders was cleaning up.
"Do they at least tell you what you're getting into?"
"Oh, sure," Alistair said. "But you don't really believe it until you live it, and even then a lot of the younger Templars don't care. They think having magic powers is exciting. And the older ones don't like to think about it. They get all stern and un-fun because they know they're about to die horribly. I always dreaded that part."
"Right, because it's not like Wardens don't all die horribly."
"Look, I've lived through quitting lyrium- which is a lot worse than just withdrawal from a one-time dose, even if was an overdose- and a whole Blight. Darkspawn are better. You can kill them, and the Deep Roads is much more dignified death. Nobody calls dead Templars 'heroes'; and they certainly don't let them commit suicide-by-hordes-of-enemies before they lose their minds."
Anders made him sit up and have some broth.
"The whole bowl."
"No vegetables?"
"If you can keep this down. And bread too."
Alistair watched him finish cleaning up. Anders got to the end, and then just stood there, staring at some empty bottles he was holding.
"They shouldn't do it," he said abruptly. "It's not right."
"Excuse me?"
"Templars," Anders explained. "With the lyrium. Isn't ruining mages' lives enough, without talking up the glory of the Chantry and Andrasteans' sacred duty and all that dreck, and pulling in regular people?"
"Uh, you know," Alistair said. "They do volunteer for it. Mostly."
"'Mostly' isn't good enough!" Anders told him. "They shouldn't hurt people like that!"
"The powers are pretty useful-"
"And mages can't cleanse an area of magic or put down debilitating field effects? There's no excuse for-"
He gestured angrily at the room, encompassing the entire process of recovery and the effects Alistair would live with until he died.
"-all this!"
"Well, I'm glad you think so?" Alistair said. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond to this. "Thanks? For being outraged on my behalf?"
Anders sighed and crossed his arms.
"No problem. Don't mention it."
"How is everyone else doing?"
"Finish your food first."
Alistair couldn't decide if that was foreboding or not, so he finished it as quickly as he could. It wasn't very fast, not for a Warden, but he was still feeling nauseous.
"I let Nathaniel out of bed yesterday," Anders said. "He's fine to walk around for a little bit, but I'm not going to clear him for regular duties until the end of the week. I want to be absolutely sure that his lungs are all right, he needs them healthy. The Commander woke up, and- well, he's not 'all right', but so long as Kallian isn't in his line of sight the blood compulsions are ignorable. He spends almost all of his time with Zevran. He's actually getting worse, because it turns out thralls don't drink or eat or sleep unless ordered!"
Alistair hadn't known that, but suddenly blood mages' propensity towards kidnapping and actively recruiting followers made a lot more sense.
"How long can he live like that?"
"It's 'three minutes without breathing, three days without water, three weeks without food'," Anders said. "Today is day three. It can be more or less depending on circumstances, but…"
That was bad.
"Viktory and Andreas-"
"There's some fundamental theory that isn't in those books. They're not meant to be teaching guides. They assume a basic knowledge."
"So we'd have to ask a blood mage," Alistair said, and started to get out of bed. "All right then. I should go-"
"What do you think you're doing! Stop that! Stop right now! You're not fit to get up!"
Alistair wanted to argue that, but he'd gotten stuck. It hurt too much to continue to get up, but moving to lay back down also sounded like a world full of pain. He let Anders sit him back up against the pillows.
"I should talk to Theron," he told Anders. "About what to do."
"Then I'll go get him."
For Kallian, the second and third days after the Magister passed much like the first, except that after lunch on the third day she realized that she hadn't seen Fenris in half a week, and went looking for him.
She found him in a different part of the cellar from where they were keeping Zevran, down by the wine racks.
"Are you drunk?" she asked, because it smelled like it; or maybe this was just what wine cellars smelled like.
"No," Fenris growled. He sounded pissed about it, but she wasn't sure if it was because she'd implied that she thought he was drunk; or because he wasn't and wanted to be.
"There are better ways to handle your problems."
"Hn."
Kallian sat down with him.
"Are you drinking it straight from the bottle?"
"Why not?"
"Because we have cups, and then you could share."
Fenris waved a hand at all the bottles on the extensive racks, a silent invitation.
"You know what I mean," Kallian told him.
"Perhaps I don't wish for company."
"Perhaps I don't wish for you to drink yourself to death alone in the cellar of your own house."
He scowled at her.
"I would not."
"Good," she said. "I've seen it happen in the alienage. People say it's a better death than hanging or slitting your wrists, but I'm not convinced. It takes so long. Jumping off a roof is messy and nasty for the people left behind, but so long as you do it off one of the nobles' estates and not your own roof, you're pretty assuredly dead. And even if it's not instantaneous the guards will probably put you out of misery right away. Or the healer they get for you will."
He'd stopped scowling, but this odd look he was giving her wasn't necessarily better.
"Why are we talking about this?"
"Because talking about things can be good for you," Kallian told him. "Better than getting drunk. I've known a lot of people who killed themselves after what humans did to them, and now the only ones I've got left are my father, one of my cousins, and my cousin-in-law, and she lives with the Dalish now. I can't stand to live in the same city I grew up in, so I haven't seen my cousin or my father in-"
How long had it been?
"-five years. But we write and I send money back, so that's something."
"And how will they feel, knowing how close you came to being a slave of the Imperium?"
"Probably not well," Kallian said. "We had people from our alienage kidnapped into slavery during the Blight. But it might finally get them to leave Denerim and come live in Amaranthine. It would be better for all of us."
Fenris drank more wine.
"Hadriana told me I have a sister," he said. "She said her name is Varania, and she lives free in Qarinus in the employ of Magister Ahriman."
"That's nice."
His expression went thunderous.
"I don't trust her! What purpose does it serve her to say something like that!"
"I don't know," Kallian said after a moment of thinking about it. "Maybe it's the truth."
"Magisters lie. It's what they do."
"Well, are going to go to Qarinus and look for her?"
"Of course not," Fenris snorted. "It's a trap."
She shrugged.
"Then maybe stop thinking about it."
He glared at her.
"Yeah, I know it's not that easy. But if you're not going to go you shouldn't tear yourself up thinking about it. If she's real and she's free, you being a runaway slave would complicate her life, right?"
"It would," Fenris said. "And if she harbored me-"
His smile was bitter with realization.
"-even if she just talked to me, and didn't turn me in, that would be grounds enough to enslave her again."
"It's really bad in Tevinter, isn't it?"
"Very," Fenris said. "I loathe it. I will never go back."
"I kind of feel the same way about Denerim," Kallian offered. "Except most of the city doesn't hold bad memories. It's just- a couple of places. And I don't think I could stand to live in the alienage again. Or any alienage. Not now that I've lived under the Arl-Commander and served in the Vigil's Guard. I hated having to live in one before, but now…"
She let it trail off. She was pretty sure Fenris understood.
He offered her a new bottle of wine.
"Hadriana would not have been able to keep you," he told her as she pried the cork out. "You have too much of Arlathan in you. It's the same reason why she put a blood compulsion on Arl-Commander Mahariel. Dalish kill themselves rather than be enslaved, or they try to escape until the Magisters kill them out of sheer frustration. Elves from southern alienages are much easier to handle. And easier to catch."
He paused.
"I have… admired them," Fenris admitted. "The few Dalish I remember seeing in Tevinter. They never let themselves be broken. At first I thought they were foolish, but then I escaped. I understand now."
"Fenris?" Kallian asked hesitantly. "Is the Arl-Commander going to be okay?"
He sighed and let his head tip back against the wine racks, eyes closed.
"I don't know."
"Can they really break the compulsions, and the thralldom?"
Fenris opened one eye enough to look at her.
"They insist on doing the impossible," he told her. "But I believe it is more of an unwillingness to leave hope behind rather than any true chance of success. In the Imperium, it's known that you can't break blood magic once it's been put on someone. It's why the Magisters use it to enslave 'lesser mages'- elves with magic."
"Oh," Kallian said quietly. "I'd- wondered, how the Tevenes dealt with that."
"I told Captain Alistair it would be a mercy to give Zevran his death," Fenris said. "He didn't want to listen, but blood thralls are pitiful creatures. Any man who- the way Arl-Commander Mahariel spoke of him to his clan, I believe that Zevran would thank us for it, if he could. As for Arl-Commander Mahariel… if his only compulsion is to fight you, he may learn to live with it, so long as you are not around."
"I'd rather not quit my job," Kallian told him. "But if it means he gets to go home, and be arl and make Amaranthine the place it is, I'll gladly go somewhere else."
"But," Fenris asked. "Would he want to, if he couldn't have Zevran?"
Kallian thought about the way he'd spent the last days locked in with him, and thought the answer was probably 'no'.
"He just sits there, Alistair. It's like-"
He kept thinking he wouldn't be able to cry anymore, after all the times he had already, but Theron kept finding that he had more tears.
"-it's like he's dead already."
"I'm sorry, Theron," Alistair told him. "This never should have happened."
No, it shouldn't have.
"Fenris told me we should kill him, because you can't break a thralldom. I don't want to believe it, but Viktory and Andreas aren't getting anywhere. And Anders says that he's going to die anyway, because we can't make him drink any water."
Oh, how he knew that. He'd spent hours trying to change that, all in vain.
"It would be a slow death, Theron. I don't really want to, but- we could make it fast."
"No. No. I won't- I can't kill him."
"No one would make you do it," Alistair said gently.
Like that would make any difference. He'd still be letting it happen.
"But I'd still know."
"Then we've only got one other option, and I hate to suggest it," Alistair told him. "It's always been the one rule we stick with, when we let everything else go. But we do know a blood mage who won't try to kill us. Or, well- you know her."
"She doesn't need that kind of encouragement," Theron protested, but it sounded weak even to him. To get Zevran back, to be rid of his own compulsions-
"Theron, I think it's come down to 'sanction blood magic' or 'kill Zevran'."
"And me."
Alistair looked at him in alarm.
"That's awfully drastic, don't you think! All you've got is 'fight Kallian'- you've even been forbidden from killing her. But Zevran would kill all of us."
"I meant to apologize," Theron told him. "You agreed to saving Anders, and we did. But I wouldn't think that we could have saved Connor Guerrin. But we could have, couldn't we?"
Alistair sighed.
"I'm not the one who could use that apology. And you'd be better off not bringing it up to his parents."
"I know."
"You've been guilty about that all these years?"
"No," Theron admitted. "Only since Anders. And I should apologize again for leaving Amaranthine to Caron and making you run around after me for six months. When we found Anders again, I understood how you could be so upset about it still."
"That apology, I'll accept. And about time, too."
"But yes," Theron said. "Killing me too."
"Absolutely not," Alistair said. "Theron, you're Arl-Commander. Kallian can get a new job. You can't. Not turning her out isn't nearly good enough of a reason to kill you. Stop being self-sacrificing and try out the Dalish pragmatism."
But you should, Theron didn't say, because Alistair wasn't Dalish and didn't understand. If you got caught by slavers, you escaped, or you did the honorable thing and killed yourself, so you weren't disgracing your people. He hadn't escaped- he hadn't even tried, when Zevran had found his way around the compulsions- and the blood magic was keeping him from making up for what he'd done. Even if no one else saw it, it was still there, and he'd never be rid of it.
"If we don't kill him," he continued. "Then it's blood magic, or we just… sit here and watch. And I don't want to put that on you, Theron, I really don't. I just don't know if it's as much as how much I really don't want to resort to blood magic. It's just- it's you and Zevran. And Merrill's your sister. She's still Dalish enough to do things for her clan, right?"
"She will always be Dalish," Theron said, because it was true. "But I'm not sure she'd do anything for Sabrae. For me, she might."
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Whatever we do, Theron," Alistair eventually said. "We'd better both agree on it, because otherwise this'll get nasty between us and fester, and- we're friends."
"Family," Theron corrected. "Brothers, in arms and by choice."
"Yeah," he agreed, and the little smile on his lips was worth a lot in a time like this. "And I don't want to ruin that."
"I won't kill Zevran," Theron said again.
"All right. But does watching him die because we could have gone to Merrill, and didn't, count as killing him?"
Did it? Did it count as having a choice when the only other thing to do was a bad decision? But was it a bad decision, when it was just Merrill, and no one else would be hurt?
'No blood magic' was one of the only rules they could claim to have never broken. In its own way, that was a comfort, because if you could say that there were some things you just didn't do and could prove it, then you always knew where you stood.
But.
"I don't want Zevran to die," Theron said, defeated.
Alistair took a deep breath.
"Okay then," he said. "We're doing this."
Anders was standing outside of Hawke's estate because he hadn't let Alistair come, and the Commander was in no state to do much besides hold himself together. He let himself in the usual way- without knocking- and went looking for Merrill.
"How considerate of you to finally show up," Aveline said icily from the front hall balcony. "It's been three days, Anders-"
"We've had our own problems, Vallen," he shot back. "Where's Merrill?"
"In with Hawke. And you'd better say hello to Leandra first."
He did, because finding Leandra would give Aveline time to extract Merrill from Hawke. Anders wasn't about to try that himself.
Leandra seemed to have recovered from her murder scare. Anders got the impression, talking to her, that no one had told her the whole truth of the incident.
"I'm just so relieved it wasn't someone coming for Marian," she confided in him. "I can't lose another child."
That reminded him.
"Leandra," he told her. "You'd better find a way to get Bethany out of the Gallows. We found evidence that says the First Enchanter is a blood mage. You don't want her in there when this blows up."
"The First Enchanter?"
"Even if it's not true, if Meredith hears about it, she won't listen to reason."
"Malcolm's old route might still be open," Leandra said. "But they'd know it was us."
"They can accuse all they want, but if they don't find her here, they can't touch you," Anders said. "Get her out- talk to the Mage Underground. Hawke knows how. Send her to Amaranthine. I'll get her set up somewhere safe."
"Andraste's blessings on you, Anders; thank you. I don't know what this city will come to without you caring for people all over it."
He shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal.
"Kirkwall's still got your daughter. She cares plenty."
"But in a different way," Leandra said. "I mean it, Anders. I won't be the same without you."
"I'll write?"
"Of course you will. I expect nothing less. Every two weeks, but I can forgive a month."
"Yes, Leandra."
"And use some of your leave to come visit."
It was good to hear her nagging again. He could remember his own mother, but this was almost better.
"Yes, Leandra."
"Anders?" he heard Merrill call, and excused himself. They met back in the front hallway.
"What did you want to talk about? If you're hoping to make up with Marian, you really should just talk to her-"
"I don't want to talk to you," Anders told her. "I have to talk to you. The Wardens need a blood mage, Merrill."
She blinked at him in surprise.
"Theron would never-"
"When we got back from saving Leandra the Commander and Zevran and Kallian were gone and we found out that some Tevene slavers with a Magister had grabbed them and we got them back but the Magister had decided that the only way to keep the Commander and Zevran in line was blood magic. The Commander's got compulsions and Zevran's a thrall and we've been trying to figure out how to get rid of it from the Magister's books but we don't get it, because none of us are blood mages!"
"He still would never," Merrill said, though she sounded less certain.
"He is," Anders said. "It's come down to asking you for help, or killing Zevran, which may as well be the same thing as killing the Commander. He needs you, Merrill. Even if you don't come, Zevran will die. Blood thralldom doesn't leave room for eating or drinking or sleeping, and magical healing won't keep him going forever. I know you know that."
"I never learned anything about how to control people."
"I told you, we've got the books, and someone who reads Tevene. Please, Merrill. I hate being here and I know the Commander hates asking, but he's found his breaking point."
She titled her head- her usual thinking pose.
"Is the Magister dead?" she asked.
"Of course!"
"Good," Merrill said. "I'll come."
It wasn't real to her until she saw Theron, and then it was too real. She'd seen him happy, she'd seen him uncomfortable, she'd seemed him worried, she'd seen him thoughtful and melancholy. She'd seen him arguing with Marethari and the Warden to stay with the clan, and heartbroken as he was forced to leave, and distant and at ease and sure of himself in Warden's armor. But she'd never seen him hopeless and half-grieving, huddled in on himself, and this wasn't how he was supposed to be.
Merrill threw herself at Theron, and hugged him even tighter when he hesitated to hug back.
"Theron, talk to me."
"Don't tell them," he begged. "Don't tell Marethari, don't tell the clan- I didn't escape I didn't fight they had to come rescue me-"
"They can do that," Merrill told him. "They aren't Dalish. They don't have to protect themselves the same way."
"She took my blood and she said- she told me I wasn't allowed to try to escape, I wasn't allowed to fight them, I wasn't allowed to kill myself-"
"Oh, Theron- Theron, it's all right."
"No it isn't; it isn't I didn't fight I was too scared I broke the Oath and now Zevran-"
"You can't fight blood compulsions," Merrill told him firmly, pulling back to look him in the eyes. "Theron. You didn't submit. You didn't. You didn't want to do what she made you do."
"That doesn't count," he said, words full of shame and misery.
"Yes it does," she said. "Who was First here, me or you?"
"You," Theron said. "But I learned the stories. How you're supposed to do things."
"They're important," Merrill agreed. "But if we were all acted like the heroes in the stories, then would there be anyone left alive? You didn't break the Oath of the Dales, Theron. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You didn't submit, and you came home. That's more than most manage, and even more than was asked of you."
He leaned forward and buried his face in the join of her neck and shoulder. Merrill took his hands and squeezed them comfortingly.
"It's true, isa'ma'lin."
"It doesn't feel like it."
"And that's what they want to you to think. They want you to be too ashamed to come home, so you never try to run."
"I- she made me give her Zevran's blood, and now he's-"
"And now you're trying to save him," Merrill cut him off. "Theron, stop this. It isn't your fault."
"He's dying," Theron said. "It's like he's dead already, the way he is. Merrill, he's 'ma'sal'shiral, what am I supposed to do if-"
"Plant a tree," she told him. "The biggest, prettiest, bestest tree you can think of, and water it and care for it and make sure everyone knows who it's for. Make sure people know his story, so he isn't forgotten."
"It won't be the same."
"It never is, Theron," she said sadly, thinking of the trees by their old camp Sabrae had planted for him and Tamlen before Marethari had led them north. She had no idea if they'd survived the Blight or not. "But it's what we have. And would he like a Dalish burial?"
"I think he really would."
"Then it'll be your last gift to him, too. Falon'din will make sure he knows. And then when you die, you can go adventure in the Beyond together."
He almost laughed.
"Being a Warden is adventure enough," Theron told her. "And we don't get to retire."
"Then you can stay in one place for a little bit," Merrill said. "Maybe you can greet the newly-dead. It could be like a tavern!"
"The Beyond doesn't have taverns, Merrill."
"Well it could. You don't know. You get thirsty wandering around all the time, I bet everyone would appreciate it and then you'd get to hear all the stories."
"I've missed you," he said after a second. "I didn't say that before. I'm sorry. I love you."
"I knew, Theron. I love you too. Even if you don't like my choices and I don't like your job."
He raised his head again.
"You don't like my job?"
"It took you from us," Merrill told him. "I'll never like it. I don't care that it's the Grey Wardens and we need them. But I guess if it hadn't we would have gotten married and then we wouldn't have ever met Zevran or Marian."
"Merrill," Theron said. "How important is she to you?"
"I live in her house."
"Oh," he said, and then paused. "Well, I suppose Zevran lives in mine, too. Even if a lot of other people do as well."
"And you didn't invite me to the wedding!" she gently teased. "You're a bad brother."
Now, he managed a smile.
"You didn't invite me to yours, either."
Merrill swung their joined hands, knocking their fingers together lightly.
"That's because it hasn't happened."
"You'll have to fix that."
"So do you," she told him, and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm going to go look at these books, Theron, and then I will figure out a way to give him back to you."
The waiting was awful. He spent it with Zevran, still trying to get him to drink something- anything, it was day three and he couldn't- and not succeeding. He told more stories, traditional Dalish ones and ones he'd heard from humans, stories about Sabrae and his life with Merrill and Tamlen. He sang the stories and poems that couldn't be recited, and went so far as to go through the long prayers for the Holy Days. If Zevran couldn't hear him, maybe the Creators could.
Dinner came and went, and Delilah Howe came down to facilitate the exchange of watch between him and Kallian.
"Your sister is very funny," she remarked. "And sweet. I'm glad you found your family again, too."
He had been happy about it, but now he felt like he was losing the most important part of it. Once he'd eaten enough to satisfy everyone else, he went up to the room Viktory and Andreas and Merrill were still using. Fenris was there too, to his surprise.
"These aren't nice books, Theron," Merrill told him, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "They're awful. Why would people do this?"
"Power," Fenris said. "They like how it feels to hurt other people."
"We haven't figured it out yet, Commander," Viktory said apologetically. "But we're going to try again tomorrow. Fenris has been really helpful. Now we know what the different blood glyphs do. That was important."
"You're all right with this?" Theron asked him once Merrill had left to go sleep, with a promise to come back first thing after dawn. The lines of tension all through his body screamed 'no!' but Fenris's words were:
"Hadriana was after me."
"You shouldn't be uncomfortable in your own house."
"I'm helping," Fenris said, and that was the end of the conversation.
Theron slept because Anders would yell at him, and Alistair and Nathaniel and Sigrun would be sad, if he didn't.
It was Nathaniel who shook him awake a half-hour after dawn.
"Anders said not wake you until Merrill came," he said, face drawn with worry and stress. "But Zevran passed out a few hours ago. Anders is in there now. He said parts of his body just quit working, because he doesn't have any water left and even blood magic can only go so far-"
Theron was out of bed and running for the cellar in an instant, only stopping at the end of the hallway when something occurred to him.
"Kallian?"
"With Fenris, they're back to bonding over big swords and how awful humans are. Go through the kitchen."
Anders was deep into his healing magic when Theron reached the room, enough so that Alistair had managed to escape from his bed to take the watch chair without arousing the healer's ire, or attention.
"Theron," Alistair said, grabbing his arm when he tried to go to where Anders had laid Zevran out on the floor. "You'll just be in the way. Zevran will be fine. Anders is really good, you know that."
"But he can't make him drink," Theron said. "And he can't make him eat. And you can't run a body on magic."
This was even worse than he'd imagined. If he hadn't agreed yesterday to go to Merrill, he would be running for Hawke's estate right now, void take all the times he'd refused blood magic before. Zevran was dying on the floor in front of him and the last thing said between them was Zevran trying to tell him that it was okay that Theron had been handing him over to a blood mage.
Please let him stay, he begged Sylaise silently; and then Falon'din: If he has to die, find him quickly.
"Yes, it isn't fixing the problem," he heard Merrill say from the hallway. "But there's no more time."
She walked in with one of the books and the vials of blood. The vials and book went down on the table with the water pitcher and lantern, and she flipped the pages open to a piece of string marking a particular passage.
"This isn't any different than the Magister!" Viktory protested from the doorway.
"Yes it is," Merrill told her, calm and composed. "I'm not trying to hurt him."
She drew her knife and cut off the wax seal that held the cork in Zevran's vial, then pried the cork itself out. She put a new one in, and the old one and the wax were wrapped in a piece of paper, dropped on the floor, and burnt to ash in a matter of seconds.
Merrill took a close look at the page she had open, then cut a finger. She used the candle in the lantern to seal the new cork in, mixing it with a few drops of her own blood, and slammed a small, many-lined glyph of pure magic into the cooling wax. She inspected it carefully, comparing it to something in the book, and apparently deemed it good enough.
"Can Anders come out of that without causing a problem?" she asked. "I don't want to mix magics. They can react badly."
Viktory glared at her, but roused Anders from his trance.
"Quickly," he ordered, leaning against Viktory's legs, and took the opportunity to take a lyrium potion. "In a couple of minutes-"
"Par," Merrill said, carefully reading out the Tevene. "E nunc tus magister!"
Magic glowed around the vial, purple.
"Drink!" she ordered Zevran in Trade, and then grabbed the pitcher of water. "Anders-"
They got water in his mouth and Alistair was good brother and let Theron crush his hand while Anders gently felt around Zevran's throat. He saw the moment when the healer's shoulders jumped.
"He swallowed!"
Oh.
"Merrill I have to-"
"I know how to give water Anders, just make sure he lives long enough for it to-"
"See?" Alistair told Theron, as he tried to hold the sobs in with both hands, and helped him sink to the floor because Theron's knees would not work. "I told you. It's going to be all right; he's going to make it-"