Thank you for reading!
It was nice to be out on the open road again, just a traveller among so many others. His cloak pulled up over his head, his sword sheathed, his shield covered so no one could see the Grey Warden sigil on it. Alistair trudged along in the drizzle, heading for Ferelden. He shouldn't go back, he knew that. But he was no safer in Orlais—the Grey Wardens he had fled to there had been suspicious at first, and then he could see them changing, the way his fellows in Ferelden had. He had considered going on to Weisshaupt, but it was so far away. The problem was here. And if no one else was going to stop what was happening, it was left to him to do so. If only he could, before he was caught.
Alistair ducked his head, adjusting his hood. As he marched, his mind went back into the past, to the last time he had trudged the roads and the woman who had walked at his side as he had. Her red hair shining in the sun, her merry voice singing next to him. How he missed her.
He lost himself in his memories as he walked, wishing Leliana was here right now.
"You know, Varric, all that stuff in your books about spies is all wrong."
Chuckling, Varric looked up, and up, at the Qunari next to him. "You read my books, Tiny? I'm flattered. If only I'd had you around to consult at the time."
"You should have. That 'blue swan flies at midnight' stuff just doesn't work." Even as he bantered, the Iron Bull looked up ahead at Rosalind. She was clinging to the Vint mage. It was as though the two of them had lived a whole lifetime in a few minutes at Redcliffe, and come out the other end the best of friends. "Most times, you pass information on a dead drop," he continued. "No meetings at all."
Varric snorted. "Where's the drama in that?" He, too, was watching their companions. The Iron Bull considered asking him what he thought, but he had learned already that Varric deflected at the best of times, and outright lied at all the others.
"Can't you mess up the realism of something else? Like lyrium smuggling?" The Vint was beautiful, the Iron Bull had to give him that. The pretty ones were always the worst.
"Tevinters and blood mages are always the worst," Varric remarked, following his gaze. "Like lost socks—or couriers from the Merchants' Guild. They turn up in the damnedest places."
"You think?" The whole plan had seemed to be going so well—the soldiers sneaking in where Red had found some kind of secret passage, taking out the Vints who had overrun Redcliffe. And then something with a medallion and some weird green swirl, and the next thing he'd known the Vint and Rosalind were gone and he'd thought they were dead, that she was dead, and he'd barely had time to register how much he wanted her back before suddenly she was back, and the magister at the head of it all was weeping at their feet.
"This one seems helpful, at least."
"He seems it," the Iron Bull said doubtfully. "But you can never trust a Vint, can you?"
"I've been known to say that about Qunari."
The two of them looked at each other, then back at Rosalind and the Vint.
Rosalind's hands closed around Dorian's again. "Is it over?"
"I think so. Alexius—I can't believe what he almost got started."
"He wanted me dead." She shuddered. "Up until a few weeks ago, no one had ever wanted me dead before. Tranquil, yes, but not dead."
"What's the difference?" Dorian asked dryly.
She laughed. They hadn't known each other very long, but being thrown into the future together, fighting their way through a nightmare, had brought them very close in a short time. She still didn't understand what Grand Enchanter Fiona had been thinking, entrusting all the mages in Ferelden to a pack of Tevinters who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, but she thought charitably that maybe it had been blood magic.
"What did he mean about your stolen gift? How did you steal this?" Dorian poked gently at the mark, and Rosalind pulled her hand away.
"I don't know. I wish I did. I can't remember any of it. I wish—I wish Alexius had told me what it was for."
"I don't believe he knew, either," Dorian said. "I can't believe what happened to him. He sounded exactly like the sort of villainous cliché everyone expects us all to be."
"He was that sort of villainous cliché." Rosalind shuddered. She couldn't get it out of her head—the way the Breach had taken over the entire sky. The red lyrium everywhere. The way everything and everyone had been infused with it. She resisted the temptation to look back at the Iron Bull, and Varric, to reassure herself that neither of them were infected with the stuff, the way they had been in that nightmare future. "What about the Elder One? Who do you think that is?"
"I wish I knew. I wish I didn't think we were going to find out."
"The demon army."
Dorian nodded. "The demon army. And the killing of the Empress."
"At least we know about it."
Red lyrium. Always red lyrium. Varric had listened to Phoenix's story about the nightmare future she and Sparkler had gone into in Redcliffe, and it scared the shit out of him. What had he and Bartram started, all that time ago?
He missed Hawke suddenly, fiercely. He wanted to … hold her hand, listen to her reassure him that it wasn't his fault, that she was here, that nothing would happen as long as they were together. But they weren't together, and that was all his fault.
"You don't like red lyrium," Tiny said abruptly, and Varric cursed himself for not hiding his thoughts better.
"My brother Bartram and I sort of discovered it during an expedition in the Deep Roads. An idol, in an ancient thaig, so old it barely looked dwarven."
"So how did it get into the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Or that Redcliffe future?"
Varric sighed. He didn't want to consider it. "I don't know. So far as I knew, the only piece of it that made it to the surface was destroyed. And the location of the thaig it came from is a secret." Known only to a few people—and those the people Varric loved most in the world. One thing about being stuck here in the back end of nowhere, it kept him from rushing off worrying about them. "Did someone find more of it in the Deep Roads? That's not a cheery thought."
"No. I guess it isn't," Tiny said morosely.
And the four of them walked on in silence, each lost in their own dark thoughts.