I can wade Grief—
Whole Pools of it—
I'm used to that—
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet—
And I tip—drunken—
Let no Pebble—smile—
'Twas the New Liquor—
That was all!
—Emily Dickinson

They passed out of the woods at last into the rolling yellow plains of Ostwick. Their travels had taken longer than expected; they had lost a day to an unmarked cliff in the woods that took some time to traverse, three more to a river which had flooded and washed out a crucial bridge. Eight weeks had passed since the attack on the carriage, over nine since they had left Kirkwall with Hawke dressed in gold and white, with Fenris's sword still bloodless. Now she wore stained, torn leggings and boots with failing soles; he slept with his sword in his hand and his daggers beneath his arm.

Ostwick's borderlands were desolate, covered in untamed, prickly yellow grass and overrun with wild elk, lumbering bighorn sheep, and sharp-eyed foxes. Wolves came with them, and once a great brown bear that very nearly trapped them both atop a boulder before Fenris managed to slash its arm and persuade it they were too much trouble to eat. During the day they walked, avoiding roads and towns, camping against sloped embankments where they could and by streams and rivers when they could not.

At night, when the late summer heat had waned, Fenris taught Hawke spear-work. She was good with staves already—the preferred weapon of her father—and had the strength to move the blade quickly and precisely. She was not afraid to kill, and one night under Fenris's guidance she brought down a brace of hare that they ate together. She demanded praise for her hunting and he gave it willingly; the next day she nearly broke the spear on a tree-root and was forced to concede room yet to learn.

At one long-abandoned farm they found a sack of potatoes and a disused fishing rod, and she spent the hot afternoon showing him how to tie a line and spear a worm on a bent hook, or a cricket, or a lock of her own hair. "Pearls before trout," Fenris said dryly, and she laughed. Still, the fish bit well, the bank littered with her line of perch and alewife, and that night Hawke did what she could to make stew for them both with a cracked iron pot and a choked chimney. The potatoes were not so old as the farm's disuse, perhaps forgotten by some other recent vagabond, and after Fenris had shorn the sprouting eyes from them, Hawke added wild carrots she had found in the untended field. It was the first hot meal they had had in weeks; it had taken Hawke over an hour to prepare.

He could not eat it.

He felt her eyes as he picked out the carrots and potatoes from the watery broth, the fish left behind untouched. He knew it was the freshest meat they were likely to find for some time, that only a fool would spurn the unexpected bounty, and still he could not bring himself to touch it. Even the smell repulsed him, the fish-tinged potatoes and carrots difficult to swallow.

"You could have said something," Hawke said at last, curiosity without censure. "I could have made you a separate bowl."

"I thought I could stand it," he admitted, and the shame choked him. "My apologies, Hawke."

"Is it the texture or the taste?"

He was silent. My master enjoyed fish, he thought and did not say. My master had me kneel at his feet when he ate, and when I had pleased him he fed me morsels of his dinner from his hands, like a dog, and I licked wine from his fingers. The smell sickened me at first, and then the gratitude overtook it. I loved the gift and despised it. And now I do not know if the taste revolts me from preference or memory.

He was defined by his dislike. It was the first thing he had learned, the first moment in his slavery when he knew what was being done to him was wrong. But time had made him comfortable with the privilege of refusal, with choice, and he had grown too comfortable saying yes only when he wished and no when he did not. Only men born free thought this something to be proud of, something worth defending. A slave knew to eat when food was given, because the chance might not return.

Hawke leaned across the farmhouse's little table. "You don't have to eat it, Fenris. It won't hurt my feelings, I swear."

"I would be a fool to waste it."

"And yet your spoon remains, sirrah, steadfastly still."

He brought it defiantly to his mouth. But—he could not—

"Here," Hawke said with brusque efficiency, and before he understood she had taken his bowl, drunk the remaining contents in four great swallows, and put it empty on the table again. From her own bowl she ladled out the potatoes and carrots and gave them to him, then set about finishing the rest of her fish. "There," she said with her mouth full. "Nothing to waste. And you still fill your belly."

Fenris ate slowly, his thoughts circling like Kirkwall's gulls. She presented solutions to him so simply, as if it were expected his tastes be accommodated, as if a thing like disliking fish were to be made room for instead of overcome. He had spent his life solving his problems with flight, and then when he could flee no more, turning his back against a wall and fighting through it with ferocious desperation. Even the White Guard had been a stopgap, not a thing he had wanted save being the only way to stay near a friend.

"So, no fish." Hawke settled back on her stool with an unroyal smack of her lips. "What do you like instead? Venison? Those little frosted cakes with mint leaves?"

"Apples," he said. "Pears. Dolmades."

"What else?"

As if he had never eaten food in his life. He cast about desperately for something, anything, and grasped the first thought that struck him. "Being indoors during the rain."

She laughed, but it was a soft, warm, welcoming sound. "Good. What else?"

"The sword-yard at dawn." She touched the back of his hand and he grew bold. "When Sebastian and I trained together by the river before he became prince. The olive trees at the height of summer. When I took my horse Lethendralis to the windy hills above the city and we rode alone." He thought, when I danced with you.

"Some of those are not so difficult. Pears, for instance."

"Oh? Even your witch-blood falters when it comes to stopping rain?"

She laughed. "You've found me out. All this time, we could have been walking dry. I just wished to see you miserable."

"As I had suspected," he said, but his smile faded. "Some of these things have been beyond my reach for many years. I'm not sure it does much good to linger on what's been lost."

She had grown sober with his voice. "Joy doesn't have to be borrowed pain, Fenris. Sometimes the moment can be all the more beautiful because you know it may not come again. Better to look back and remember the happiness, rather than the loss of it after."

Fenris shook his head. "It would be less painful to list out the hate."

The scent of fish began to fade; the coals burned faint red in the smoky fireplace. "It's easy to be scornful," Hawke said at last. "The walls are higher then, and it's harder to pierce them to hurt. To love a thing is harder, and to show that love to another harder still." She shook her head. "Really, it's a marvel anyone ever falls in love at all."

"Only the foolish, then."

"Or the courageous."

"There," Hawke breathed as they crested the last hill, "the sea!"

They had reached the Waking Sea at last. It spread out before them, silver-green and shining in the autumn sun, cradled between hills on either side that rose to mountains the further they reached towards the horizon. Stretched from hill to hill along the curved shore was the city-capital of Ostwick. It was not so industrious as Kirkwall, nor as polished as Starkhaven's white walls; it was made instead of stout wood cottages and many grey stone towers, of thatched roofs and cobblestone roads. A double roundpole wall surrounded it, with sharpened stakes set more against wolves than invading armies. An old castle sat upon a hill in the center of the city, grey bricks marking its original purpose as a teyrnir fort, and orange and brown pennants snapped and flew above the keep's square towers.

A hundred ships or more floated in the bay, great three-masted galleons down to swift, narrow schooners with white sails. This was where Ostwick's traffic ran; this was their last, best hope.

No longer could they avoid the road. Just after midmorning they fell in behind a large caravan of wagons bearing grain, fruits, and furs for trade. The farmers let them, more concerned with keeping their children wrangled than two tired travelers in stained clothing limping in their wake, and as the noon sun crested overhead they passed through the open city gates. The sound of bustle and calling voices doubled instantly, penned in by stone.

"Stay close to me," Fenris murmured, and put his hand on her back.

"With great pleasure, Captain."

More people surrounded them than they had seen in over two months. For all Ostwick was not richly built it was large and peopled by tradesmen, their wealth in their goods instead of their castles. They passed stalls of fine buttery leathers and a butcher's with fat, plucked chickens dangling from a beam; a boy and his sister ran laughing down the street, the wool of their autumn cloaks dyed a rich yellow. A bann's horse and carriage came rapidly down the street; Fenris flattened Hawke against a stone wall and scowled.

"One of your noble Bayart cousins, I take it," he said in an undertone as the carriage rocked around the corner and grumbling merchants filled the street again in its wake.

"Third cousins at best, and even that connection's dubious. Besides, if it had been a Bayart, they would have hit me."

They made their way quickly to the docks. Once there, though, their progress stalled; as careful as they had been on their travels, scant little coin remained to them. The dead innkeeper's precious silver pennies had been doled out for food when their hunting had been poor, transmuted one by one into a handful of turnips, two loaves of bread, a small portion of steamed vegetables. Only one was left—not enough to buy passage for a bird, let alone two hard-worn travelers with no papers and a crucial need for secrecy.

A few surreptitious inquiries revealed no Kirkwall ships in the harbor. Fenris did not wish to stow away if they could help it, but neither did they have time to earn the coin with labor. Grey auks and gannets whirled overhead, alighting on ship-masts and taking flight again; even when Fenris pulled Hawke into an alley between a tavern and a chandler's shop to get away from both onlookers and street traffic, her eyes were on the sea.

They were just trying to decide if Hawke's pearl earrings, the last jewels left to her, could be pawned safely when a crossbow bolt thudded into the wooden wall beside Hawke.

Fenris whirled, dagger in hand. A young man had crept close—a boy—with red hair and wide, wide eyes, his hand frozen outstretched towards Hawke's satchel. The bolt had pinned his sleeve to the wall; he wrenched it away until the cloth tore, and a second bolt slammed inches from his head.

A man looked down at them from the second-floor window of the tavern across the alley. He was wide and short, his sandy hair in a low tail, and he wore a long coat of rich brown leather over red fustian. He lifted the crossbow away, many gold rings on his broad fingers, and said, "I wouldn't try that again if I were you. You're not good enough for it."

The boy flinched, glanced once at Hawke, and fled down the other end of the alley. Fenris took a step or two after, then looked up.

"The name's Varric Tethras," the man above them said. "There's Tevinter hunters crawling all over the city looking for you. You'd better come inside."

"Here's what I think," Varric Tethras said once they were safely ensconced in his second-floor suite. Fenris stood with his back to the door, arms crossed, Hawke's spear in his hand; Hawke herself perched on the edge of one of Varric's proffered red armchairs to avoid soiling the fabric and failed to hide her pleasure at its comfort. "I think the two of you are in a lot more trouble than you look, and you need to get out of Ostwick fast."

"Not so difficult to surmise," Hawke said lightly. "Though we thank you for keeping him from robbing us of what little we do have."

A broad table covered in manuscripts, books, and half-finished letters spread across most of the room, which was otherwise well furnished with thick rugs and heavy wall hangings. Varric sat behind the table and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. "Would you believe I know who you are and where you're going, and that I'm here to help?"

Fenris stiffened. "End this talking in circles, or I'll end it for you."

The man looked to him, his eyes warm, and gave a sympathetic smile. "You've had a long road to get here, Captain Fenris of Starkhaven's White Guard." His gaze slid to Hawke. "And you, the crown princess Euphemia Amell of Kirkwall, called Hawke, very clearly not dead." He rose and bowed. "Your Royal Highness."

Fenris's hand tightened on the spear, power leaping to his skin, but Varric put up a hand. "I'm here to help," he said again. "I'll swear to that. But first, I need to know why Tevinter wants you both dead."

Fenris met Hawke's eyes. Her face had gone white, but she did not look afraid, and her hands were folded loosely in her lap. She lifted a brow; he inclined his head. Varric watched without speaking. At last, Hawke said, "We don't know for sure. We have only guesses."

"Guesses are more than I have, Your Highness."

The address pricked uncomfortably. Fenris shook his head. "What is widely known already?"

"Her Highness rode out from Kirkwall with a mix of soldiers from Kirkwall and Starkhaven. Each rendezvous was reported as met on schedule; then it wasn't. Kirkwall soldiers found the carriage wrecked and burned and the bodies of men and horses being eaten by flies."

Hawke turned her face away; Varric inclined his head and continued. "The princess was missing, as was the captain from Starkhaven, one of his guardsmen, and a Dalish noblewoman. They launched a full investigation. So did Starkhaven. Accusations were flying around faster than shit in a slophouse. Sorry, sorry, Captain."

"Do not apologize to me."

"You're the one glaring death. Anyway, Kirkwall demanded back their princess while Starkhaven raged about their missing captain. For a few weeks there, it looked like war was inevitable. Then the lady Merrill showed up on the captain's missing horse out of the blue."

Hawke jolted like the crossbow had speared her. "Merrill's alive?" she asked breathlessly.

Varric smiled warmly. "Yes, Your Highness. Safe and sound in Starkhaven."

Hawke leapt to her feet, came to Fenris at the door and seized his hands. "Merrill's alive," she said, her eyes shining. "And your horse, of all things. Fenris, they're alive."

He could not stop the smile. She was gladder than he had seen in months; the joy made her radiant, brighter than the sunlight pouring in from the balcony windows. She whirled away before he could speak. "What happened? What did she tell them?"

"Treachery," Varric said, more grave. "Two of the guardsmen led the caravan into an ambush. She was convinced the princess was still alive somewhere. She said if Captain Fenris had found her, it would take an army to stop him getting her safely to Starkhaven, and even then he had an equal chance. Both countries have been searching for you since."

Hawke laughed, bare and brilliant. His fingers burned where she had held him. "I can't tell you what this means to me. I can't possibly thank you enough. How—so they haven't moved on anything yet. Tevinter, I mean."

"Yes," Varric said, leaning forward. "That's where I'm missing pieces. Tell me how Tevinter's involved, Your Highness."

"We went back to the ambush site, a few days after. We found this note on one of the guards." Hawke took it from her satchel and passed it to Varric, who held it carefully to the light. "I hope you'll trust I didn't write it."

"I'll take your word for it, Your Highness," he said, smiling, but looked on with interest as she pulled out her little journal from her pocket for comparison. "So who did?"

"Hadriana," said Fenris stonily. "An apprentice of a man named Danarius."

"One of the premier advisors to the Archon," Varric said, though the measured look he gave Fenris implied a deeper understanding that concerned and comforted him at once. "Why would a powerful Tevinter senator care about the political marriage of Kirkwall and Starkhaven?"

"We wondered that ourselves," Hawke said. She still had not found the chair again; instead she paced, running her fingers along the bookshelves, touching the fringe of a hanging tapestry. "An envoy was sent to Starkhaven last winter. Do you remember? Did you hear of it?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"They were hoping to open new slave trading routes through Starkhaven to the Minanter River. Branching out into the Waking Sea. They were prepared to pay handsomely for the opened passage."

"Starkhaven declined." Varric glanced sidelong at Fenris. "Emphatically."

Fenris gritted his teeth. "Hadriana came with the envoy. She found me in Starkhaven. She tried to return me to Danarius and…did not succeed. But after that, he knew where I was."

"And he knew you would be sent to bring me to Starkhaven safely." He did not like this grief in Hawke's eyes, no matter how many times he saw it. "He knew there were only so many roads we could take between our countries. He sent spies to the White Guard; he bought Druvond and Murena from Starkhaven and Decimus from Kirkwall, and maybe others. With coin, with blackmail, we can't guess. He—or Murena—created rumors I could not travel by ship so that we would be forced to stay to the roads. Then he waited."

Varric passed a hand over his square jaw, and the ring in his ear glinted with the motion. "That…explains a lot. Druvond is dead," he added, and shook his head. "He died in Starkhaven custody. No one knows how. The baron Hanley wrote a letter of confession when his nephew's body came home, and then he hanged himself in his granary. He said he had taken Tevinter coin, that he had used his position on Starkhaven's council to ensure certain people were included in the captain's retinue. The prince's spymaster found Druvond posted up in a derelict manor near the Tevinter border the next day, and they arrested him right after."

"The baron—Hanley's uncle," Hawke said, looking to Fenris. With feeling, she added, "Poor, stupid man."

Fenris felt his voice grow tight. "What of Decimus?"

"A patrol in Starkhaven's north saw a man with his description fleeing into Tevinter, welcomed by one of the guards at the border there. No one has seen him since."

There was no satisfaction in it. Fenris had wanted to see Decimus dead. He had wanted to kill Druvond himself, to see the light leave his eyes as he won justice for Petra, for Rudin and Hanley and Hawke. Starkhaven would not have killed him directly—Sebastian could be vengeful, but he was not cruel—and that meant he had died somehow on his own terms in Starkhaven's prisons. An empty, hollow victory. He wanted to break down the door and shout his rage at the sea.

"Fenris," Hawke said softly, and he covered his eyes with his hand. It was hard to breathe suddenly, the revelations overwhelming, the denial of justice maddening, the sudden gain of an ally after two months and more of solitary battle impossible to understand. He could not trust it.

"Fenris, look at me." Her warm hand touched his cheek; he lifted his eyes with enormous effort and found her smiling at him. He knew her eyes so well now, knew the turn of her mouth when she was glad and when she was angry, knew the black fall of her hair as she braided it. She cupped his face. "It's all right. I'm here. It's all right."

He could trust Hawke. If nothing else, he knew that. He shut his eyes and drew in a long, steady breath, let it out again through his teeth. He looked at her again; her hand slipped away. "All is well," he said roughly. "Forgive me."

She shook her head, her face gentle. Behind her Varric cleared his throat. "Sorry, Captain, since it looks like you're going through a lot, but I find it hard to believe Tevinter would be willing to start a war just to get you back. Even one between two kingdoms of—at best—middling import. Sorry."

"Not just for me," Fenris said with difficulty; Hawke reached for his elbow and he grew stronger. "For Starkhaven. Minrathous wants passage to the Waking Sea. And Kirkwall's soldiers are formidable, but Minrathous wants the iron and riches in their mountain more than it fears their swords. They didn't need Starkhaven to truly believe Hawke—Her Highness—was willing to kill Sebastian, not for long; they simply needed Starkhaven's trust in Kirkwall to erode. You said yourself our disappearance nearly started the war on its own."

A light dawned in Varric's eyes. "I see. It would have been nice to have you both dead—" Hawke snorted indignantly— "but as long as you never made it to the city, that was good enough. If they could plant seeds of treachery between the two countries, even better. A spark here, a whisper there, and we would have had war."

"An expensive war." Hawke finally went still, leaned against Varric's table. "Kirkwall's navy would have destroyed Starkhaven's river ships. They would have burned our fields, starved my people. We—or they, whoever flinched first—would have had no choice to ask for help from neighboring powers."

"From Tevinter."

"Where else?" Hawke turned, looked out the window to the sea. "Ferelden is still barren from its plague. Ostwick would not aid either of us if we held swords to their throats, not with Kirkwall set to replace their extraordinarily overpriced breadbasket with Starkhaven's proffered cornucopia. Cumberland, perhaps, would be willing to help whomever asked first, but where would their coin come from? The air?"

"And there's no one else close enough to care." Varric sat back in his chair. "Tevinter, then. Perhaps."

"And so by force or fear they would at last gain their river passage to the Waking Sea, or they would have secured their foothold in my mountain. Either way, once they were there, they would not have left again easily." Hawke stared at her linked hands, then looked up. "Except, as it so fortuitously happens, they failed to kill us. Or Merrill, which was perhaps more salient to staving off said war."

"Fortunate indeed."

Her smile was bleak. "We have no proof of any of this, of course. It's only what we've pieced together over many very quiet forest nights. Best guesses, nothing more. For all we know it might yet be some rogue member of their Senate acting on some personal vendetta. Or even Danarius alone, without Tevinter backing, willing to chance such a war to have Fenris returned to him, though that seems a terrible risk on his part."

Varric ran a hand over his jaw. "I suppose that's possible too, though Tevinter wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior long if they weren't looking for an opportunity themselves. Besides, it fits better than my own guesses, which involved more kidnapping and ransom and less impersonal evil. I've been writing romances too long."

A thought had been scratching at Fenris's mind; now it took shape. "Who are you, Varric Tethras? What does any of this matter to you?"

"I'm a prince of nothing more than a merchant house," he said, and spread his arms wide, "a humble author of penny papers and underappreciated novels. The marriages of kings and queens are past my purview. But war is bad for business, and I have friends in Kirkwall I would prefer didn't starve. Not to mention there are a lot of advantages to having a rescued princess in my pocket."

Fenris grimaced, but there was no artifice in the man's face. Hawke let out a breath. "So. You know where we're headed. You said you could help."

"Yes, Your Highness," said Varric, and his eyes gleamed like gold. "I can get you a ship."