She scraped at the dirt and stone, and it felt futile. Her fingernails—no, claws?—broke into ragged shards, her blood colored the ground black, and she was no closer to finding the source of the song in her head. She screamed in rage and frustration before redoubling her efforts. She wasn't alone: hundreds, thousands more just like her were digging in the dark. The song never stopped, and her body would break before she could stop digging.

Adara jerked awake with a gasp. She held out her shaking hands. In the predawn gloom that just barely lightened her bedroom, she could make out that they were just hands: no claws, no dirt, no blood. No song in her head, at least not yet. She let her head fall back on the pillow, closing her eyes as she tried to slow her breathing.

"Mm'okay?" Carver said, his voice thick with sleep. Not really awake, he wrapped one arm around her and pulled her in close. It was easier for her to push away her nightmares when there was someone next to her, warm and alive. She was glad that she had asked him to stay.

"I'm fine," she said. The dream felt so real that she had almost expected her voice to be hoarse and raw from screaming. "Just a nightmare."

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Usual shit?" Grey Wardens were almost connoisseurs of nightmares.

"Yeah." Adara rested in his arms until her heart stopped racing. The room grew lighter as she stared up the bed canopy, and she tried to remain still in case Carver had managed to fall back to sleep. Maker knew that sleep could never be counted on to come easily for Grey Wardens and they needed to take it when they could.

She thought that maybe he had drifted off until he spoke: "What does the First Warden want with talking darkspawn anyway?"

Adara could tell that this had been weighing on him ever since the Orlesians left. Something was almost always bothering Carver, but not all vexations were equal. This one had gotten under his skin.

"I'm not sure exactly," Adara admitted. "To study, I guess. They don't hear the calling anymore, even though they're still… well, darkspawn. Tainted. The Architect thought that he could end the Blights that way."

Carver grunted. "So we can, what, live happily ever after with darkspawn? Not a fucking chance."

"I can't imagine the First Warden intends to continue his work," Adara said. "But if the calling can be taken from them… maybe it could be taken from us, too. Maybe it could save all of our lives." There was no way of knowing how much sand was left in the hourglass of their lives, trickling away until they began to hear the song of the Old Gods themselves and were overwhelmed by it. What if they could remove the calling entirely? It was too much to hope for, but maybe someone at Weisshaupt would consider trying. If becoming a Grey Warden wasn't a death sentence, perhaps everything could change: the secrecy, the desperation, the fear.

"I just need to know that if I let one live, it was worth it," Carver said. His voice actually quavered, with anger and with something else Adara couldn't be certain of. Guilt, maybe.

She rolled over enough to look at him in the growing light. "I have to tell myself that taking a chance is always worth it," she said in a soft voice. The alternative was to stay a course with a grisly and predetermined end.

He grunted again, not sounding entirely convinced. Adara wiggled close enough to press her body against his, throwing her leg and one arm across him. It was about as close as she could get to enveloping him in an embrace.

"Ostagar was a fucking nightmare, but you know that," he said after a minute.

She nodded. Adara hadn't been on the field, which was the only reason she had survived. Or so she thought at the time.

"Tried to get my family out after that. An ogre killed my sister. My twin sister. She was right in front of me, and I couldn't stop it." His voice was thick with pain, and she didn't try to interrupt. "It's like I lost half of myself. I thought maybe if I filled up the space she left behind with darkspawn corpses, it would help."

"Does it?" Adara asked, but she already knew the answer.

"No." He paused, thinking. "But it does feel really fucking good to cut them down. And makes me sick to let one go."

"I'm sorry," Adara said quietly. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have someone that close to lose in the first place, but she couldn't. "I won't ask you to do it again, if we find more." Hopefully they wouldn't. Weisshaupt surely had enough wayward Disciples by now to get whatever information they hoped to find, and hopefully there weren't many more to find in the first place. Surely the Architect hadn't made so many of them.

Carver shook his head. "Nah, I didn't mean it like that. I'll do what you need me to do. Just telling you why I'm pissed off about it."

"You're allowed to be pissed off. You don't need to explain it to me," she said. She went to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head quickly enough to catch her lips with his own. He kissed her with an intensity that thrilled her, and she reached up to dig her fingers into his hair, pulling gently. His hands moved to her hips to pull her astride him.

The morning was taking a very promising turn, until one of her soft gasps was punctuated by a loud and sudden rapping at the door that startled both of them.

"Just a minute," she called out. She glanced at the window as she scrambled around to find the clothing she had abandoned the night before. It wasn't even properly dawn yet, which meant that either something serious had happened or she was about to be very, very pissed off. Or both. Pulling a rumpled gown over her head, she crossed to the door and pulled it open.

The seneschal was standing there, looking bleary-eyed himself. Garevel peered behind her at Carver, who gave the seneschal an awkward wave while he continued to hunt for a shirt. Garevel ignored him. "I apologize for the early hour, Commander, but you said to alert you the moment we heard anything from Aeonar. Two messengers have just arrived."

Adara's stomach seemed to flip over with nerves, and she frowned. "Two?" She hadn't even expected one. The Knight Commander could send a letter in lots of different ways, if he bothered to respond to her request at all.

She followed Garevel to the great hall, passing both guards and kitchen staff already beginning their day's work. As they entered the hall, one of the guards—a very young human, barely more than a boy—met them at the door wearing a nervous expression. A cowled messenger waited behind him. "Um. Commander. Seneschal. About the messengers…"

Garevel's eyes flicked to the person standing behind him. "We're here to speak to them. Is there a problem?"

"Ah. Well. One of them left. He said his part was done, but he left this." The boy passed a letter to Adara, who broke the Knight Commander's seal and frowned as she began to read. It was infuriatingly brief:

After consideration, we have agreed to grant your request. Aeonar releases this prisoner into your care with the understanding that the Grey Wardens assume all responsibility for her actions from this time forward.

Adara blinked and read the note again, hoping that she had misread it but knowing that she had not. She had very specifically requested that they not do this one thing. For the first time, she lifted her eyes to the messenger standing there and felt something in her chest twist sharply.

Her face was gaunt where it used to be full, her cheeks were pale instead of rosy, and her expression was haunted instead of hopeful.

Lily.