The journey out of the hills took longer than on the way up, mostly because Oghren slowed them down. At first Ten thought that he was just constantly hungover, but around the middle of the second day, she turned and saw that he was sort of ambling along without an iota of urgency, taking in everything around him. The rest of them indulged him, grateful the man was too awed by his new surroundings to behave abominably to either of the two women whom he had not already tried it on with. Or, perhaps it was that he heard Lelianna talking broadly about her visit to her lady friend in Redcliffe and not wanting to get himself into another situation like the one he had just left, and had a modicum of respect for his elders where Wynne was concerned. The weather had warmed considerably in the weeks they had spent underground - it was actually close to three - especially when they made it down below the snowline. Not enough to forgo cloaks and wool socks, of course, but enough that tents did not need to be clustered around the fire, and Pigeon began eschewing the inside for sleeping wherever the highest point was she could still see the group, lest she miss some sign of danger being carried on the wind.

They had made it to a decent campsite at the north shore of Lake Calenhad when Ten realized she had no idea where they were going. It wasn't time yet for the band of Dalish they were seeking to have taken up their summer residence in the coastal forests south of the capital. She just had clearly worn out her welcome in the dwarven city and making herself scarce was something she had always known when to do. Well, I suppose we make our way back east. Worst case scenario, we hang around in the forest and wait.

She paid it no mind when Lelianna, Alistair, and Sten went off to the lakeshore, hoping some wading birds or the odd mountain goat might offer something to eat besides the hardtack and dried meat that had sustained them thus far. Oghren, whose sojourn aboveground had not changed his nature long-term, retreated to his tent, preferring his nourishment fermented and distilled, and was snoring loud enough to be audible but not offensive. His sleep cycles had not quite caught up to a day governed by the sun, after all.

The rest of them found things to do, as they always did, Ten putting water on to boil to turn some of her powders and plants into a form that would be useful in battle, Zevran taking everyone's blades and volunteering to sharpen them, a task which he had both an uncanny talent for and liked a little bit too much, and Wynne deciding that the whole place was far too untidy. The two elves were engrossed in their respective tasks but had made a game of throwing a flask of bottom-barrel gin to each other across the fire, making a game of trying to trip the other up.

"Teneira," Wynne said, holding something out in front of her, at arm's length, like she didn't really want to be touching it, "Is this yours?"

Ten glanced up from her work. The campfire was nearly deserted. Pigeon had gone off with the hunting party. Jenny had thrown herself in a bed of clover and was munching away, though seemingly half asleep while she was doing it. Morrigan was nowhere to be found, but Ten suspected that the large raven sitting in a tree directly above Alistair's tent and messily eating a semi-rotten squirrel carcass was her. This, of course, was strange, as Ten suspected it was obvious to most of them that Alistair keeping up the habit of pitching his own tent at all was an exercise in polite fiction.

"Sorry, come again?" Ten asked.

"Is this sock yours?" Wynne asked impatiently.

Ten focused. Great. Always the socks.

"Why would you think it's mine?" she asked.

"It fell out of your tent when you unrolled it."

"Then I suppose it is," she said, looking back down, "You don't have to touch it, just leave it here, and I'll deal with it." She took a sip of the flask and glanced up at Zev. She made to throw it directly over the fire, but at the last second sidearmed it around. Rightfully proud of his catlike reflexes, Zevran reached out and caught it with his left hand.

Had Ten looked up, she would have seen the elder mage's triumphant expression. "It's too large for you," she said, "In fact…." the mage paused dramatically, "It looks like a man's sock."

Ten closed her eyes and sighed in irritation. "Then maybe it isn't mine."

"But it fell out of your tent."

"If you say so," Ten said.

"Why?"

"How about you put that pre-eminent mind of yours to it for a few minutes and tell me all the reasons you can think of that a man's sock might have been in a woman's tent," Ten said. Across the fire, Zevran started coughing as the gin came out of both nostrils. He cleaned himself up but kept laughing slightly under his breath on and off for the next five minutes or so. "Keeping in mind," Ten continuedm "That everyone here is well past grown, that I am currently unmarried, and that every man in the camp is either a bachelor or a widower, and so whatever you have in mind, however filthy, is neither illegal nor immoral."

"Well, I didn't want to… it's just… well, I suppose it's not really my business, is it," Wynne sputtered. Evidently put out that she was not going to embarrass the girl, sat herself down by the fire. Ten kept her eyes on her work, except to look up and grab the flask out of the air as Zevran tossed it back.

"Ask her why her knees are always bruised while you're at it," Zevran said slyly.

"Ask him why he's looking at my knees."

"Ask her why that's as far up her leg as we ever get to see."

The mage looked from one elf to the other, trying to discern whether the banter meant anything or if they were just being impertinent.

"So tell me, manita, what foul death are you making there?" Zevran said, changing the subject before it could get awkward.

"I'm seeing what happens if I combined a paralytic with a hallucinogen," she said, "Would you like to try?"

"I will trust that it is as unpleasant as you intend it to be. I'd ask if you would like to test this sword, but I'm afraid our viejita might take that the wrong way… since her mind is already in the gutter."

Wynne opened her mouth to protest and likely scold them but paused as all three heard hurried footsteps on the road. Ten and Zevran stood, Zev having picked up the largest blade near him, which was Sten's sword, and Ten's hand instinctively going to her waist before realizing both her ax and dagger were on the ground before the erstwhile cutler. They both relaxed when they saw that it was just Sten himself, carrying something large over his shoulder.. It took Ten a moment to realize that it was not the carcass of a deer or goat, but Wynne was not nearly as startled and lept into action, moving out of the way to clear space for Sten to lay down the barely conscious Lelianna by the fire. That sent both Ten and Zevran to their respective tasks, Zev making brief eye contact with Sten before following him back in the direction that he had come from to see if whatever had done this was still out there, Ten kneeling by the sister's side, going a little green seeing the size of the bolt that was protruding from beneath her left breast.

"I can't do anything until that's out of her," Wynne said, "And surgery is your department."

Ten, knowing full well what her department was, had taken her hunting knife and cut the bolt halfway through the shaft. The good sister had forsworn her habit for this journey and had taken to wearing leathers much like Ten's own. While the padded jerkin she had acquired somewhere outside of Highever had probably done quite a bit to stop the bolt, had she not been wearing it, it likely would have gone clean through her and ironically done less damage.

"It must have something on it," said Ten, "If she's this out of it. Help me with the buckles, will you?"

Together, she and Wynne were able to get the jerkin off as Lelianna began foaming at the mouth.

"Do its effects look familiar?" Wynne asked.

"There are any number of things do this. Some worse than others. Whoever made it is a fucking professional, I can tell you that much," Ten muttered. She paused, examining the wound, "Over under on this thing being barbed?"

"Better to push it through than make that bet," Wynne said, "I can close a puncture, but if you yank out an artery, I don't like the odds of me growing her a new one before she bleeds out."

"Shit," Ten muttered. She called up to the trees, "Morrigan if you're up there we could really use another pair of hands right now!"

The forest gave them no answers.

"Just do it, Teneira!" Wynne snapped.

"I fucking hate doing this," Ten sighed. With Wynne's help, they got Lelianna on her side. Ten wrapped her hand in a rag and pushed on the shaft as hard as she could. With a sickening squelch, the arrowhead emerged from Lelianna's back. Ten stepped over her, planted her feet, seized the tip in both hands and tugged it loose, grimacing at the quantity of blood that welled out to pool on the ground below her. Barbed. Good call, Wynne. She cast the broken bolt aside and put both hands on the exit wound, trying to keep as much of the sister's blood in her body as she could. Wynne wasted no time muttering an incantation which closed the wound, though Ten was not sure what damage whatever had been on that arrow tip had done already. But, after a few moments the convulsions stopped, the patient's eyes fluttered open, and she immediately went to her hands and knees, coughing violently, expelling first several mouthfuls of foam and then the blood that had pooled in her punctured lung over the journey back to camp onto the ground.

Thankfully, there seemed to be no permanent damage, as she managed to wheeze out the word 'putain' three times mid cough, 'bitch and 'cunt' twice each, and finish with a solitary 'salope' before getting ahold of herself and sitting up.

"I'm guessing whoever shot you was a woman," Ten said.

"No," Lelianna said, finally done coughing up what she was going to cough up. She looked behind her and her eyes bugged out as she saw the sheer quantity of blood she'd spilled on the ground, "But the person who sent those connards certainly is."

"So it wasn't a hunting accident," Ten said.

Lelianna's eyes went wide, the expression she always made when she realized she'd said too much.

However, before Ten could press further, an even larger commotion issued as the remainder of the hunting party returned, and brought a friend. Or, rather, Pigeon had brought the friend, for the dog had a strange man by the ankle and was dragging him bodily over the road, kicking up clouds of dust every time he hit a bump. Ten just stared. I didn't know she knew how to do that.

"Well I'm not cooking that," Wynne declared, rising and wiping her bloody hands on her robe.

"This the asshole who shot you?" asked Ten.

"The very one," Lelianna said, poison dripping from the words.

"The dog only listens to me some of the time," Alistair said, shrugging, "I tried to get her to leave it, but she got her jaws on him and wouldn't let go. I guess she decided this is our kill for the day."

"The rest of them had scattered by the time I arrived," Zevran added.

"Rest?" Ten asked.

"There were several, all hidden in the forest," Sten said, "But this one," he kicked the inert form on the ground, "Was in a tree. He was unable to abscond."

"Does anyone want a crossbow?" Zevran held up said crossbow, ostensibly confiscated from the unfortunate marksman.

"Those are for hacks," Lelianna said, shaking her head, "Didn't even have the decency to send a real archer."

"Bring that here," Ten commanded. Zevran looked confused for a moment and then realized that she had been talking to the dog, who, obligingly as always, dragged the man over. "Drop it."

Pigeon obeyed. Her teeth had gotten through the man's leather breeches, but not too far into his skin.

"He doesn't look like a bandit," Ten said, rolling him over. The culprit was a human man in his thirties, on the short side but otherwise unremarkable.

"As I stated," Sten said, "He was waiting for us. Camouflaged. This was not random."

"And the others?"

"They'd spread out, looked like four or five of them. One took the shot, and the others ran like cowards."

"Well, this one's had a thump on the head, but nothing permanent," Wynne said. She had started inspecting the inert prisoner but found nothing more than the standard bruises and scrapes one might expect from being dragged along the ground by a massive dog, "I assume that was courtesy of one of you."

"Nah. He fell out of the tree," Alistair said, "Made a hilarious noise on the way down."

"Well," Ten said brightly, "You fine gentlemen are just in time to hear Lelianna's theory on how she managed to get a bolt under her tit while it appears that everyone else there was unhurt. Would you like to share it with the class, Sister, or do we have to wait until Scaredy McPisspants here comes around?"

"Wait, what?" Alistair said, "We thought they were after you."

"Me? I wasn't even there."

"Well, it is a pattern," he said, "And when a marksman puts a bolt in the only woman in the group and tries to leave, one can only assume…"

"I suppose I'd be flattered if someone took a hit out on me without knowing I'm an elf. Or a brunette. Or about six inches shorter," Ten said, "But… I suspect that is not the case. And so… Sister, would like to tell us your suspicions?"

Lelianna had, in the intervening, had evidently rehearsed what to say. She looked at the ground penitently and was quiet, though Ten imagined it might have been for dramatic effect. "I have not been… entirely honest with you." She looked around the group, perhaps hoping for gasps of astonishment, but found none.

"How dishonest are we talking, and how much trouble are you in?" Ten sighed. The blood on her hands was beginning to dry, so she drew a bucketful of water from the brook to wash them, letting Lelianna gather her thoughts.

"I was not always a woman of the cloth," Lelianna finally said, "In fact, I took the veil because I had to flee Orlais." She had gotten up on her knees and spoke in a low tone, with her head bowed, as though confessing before a reverend mother. She looked up and around again as she finished her sentence, waiting for someone, anyone to be surprised at this. The only reaction was from Alistair, who put out his palm, and Wynne, who begrudgingly placed ten silver coins in it.

"Well, I am shocked, I tell you," Zevran said, "Simply shocked. So why did you have to flee? Did you engage in unhygienic bedroom activities with any members of the aristocracy? Is that just a thing over there?"

"I… that has nothing to do with this at all!" said Lelianna, "I was a bard."

"So a spy," Zevran said, "How is it that I, of all people here, have one of the tamer backstories?"

"Well, it kind of tracks that you would be the one trying to cause the most trouble to make up for being a bit boring," Ten observed and turned to Lelianna, "So, Sister, if I can even call you that anymore, who'd you fuck over?"

"I didn't do anything!" Lelianna protested, "It was my maîtresse. Marjolein. She was selling state secrets, and when she was about to be caught, shifted the blame to me! So I was dodging soldiers on one hand, her agents on the other! One seeking to imprison me and torture me into confession, the other to put me in the ground before I could crache le morceau!"

"That is… quite an idiom," Ten observed, grimacing, "So you haven't squealed yet, but likely they still want you to. Are we bringing down the wrath of the entire Orlesian Empire by having you here?"

"No!" Lelianna exclaimed, "They think me dead. But… since I was in her employ, they have certainly been watching her like a hawk. She is likely trying to… what is the phrase… tie up loose ends."

"How dangerous is she?"

"She's a petty spymistress with delusions of grandeur."

"If I had a copper for every time I was called that," Ten sighed.

"Oh you could only aspire to be like her," Lelianna scoffed. Then thought for a moment, a light going on behind her eyes, "However, if you were to… bring her down, so to speak. That would do wonders for your reputation indeed."

"I can't do anything over the border," Ten said, "I don't know anyone there who isn't very recently expatriated. I can barely do anything outside the walls of Denerim."

"But if she has sent assassins, she is probably here in Ferelden. And, knowing her, she is in the only city considered worth anything," Lelianna said, "Taking her down would mean you could move in whatever circles you like, in whatever country you like."

Ten paused. I have absolutely no ambitions in Orlais. Bunch of unwashed perfumed fops who shit in the streets and fuck in public while telling us we smell like wet dog. But… if a foreigner with no intention of expatriation is calling hits in Denerim without permission, that is a problem. And she almost certainly did not get permission. If Albertine knew she was in town, she'd be face down in the canal before she could even find a hitman. That means she does not know. And that means if I don't tell her, I'm the asshole.

"Ten, she is playing on your ego right now," Alistair warned, mistaking Ten's pensive silence for her liking the idea of getting rid of one spymistress to further her own notoriety.

She looked at him in surprise. Maker's breath, I know you don't trust her, but you're seriously suggesting we…

"Look, I'm sorry, Sister," Alistair said, turning to Lelianna, who was also astonished, "I know you've likely just done what you had to do, but you've had this price on your head for how long, and you never thought to tell anyone? Not even Ten with her neverending supply of street thugs?"

"You, of all people, are angry at me for keeping secrets that could get us in trouble?" Lelianna demanded.

"The price on my head had nothing to do with that," Alistair said, crossing his arms.

"Stop!" Ten snapped, "Lelianna, it's been obvious to everyone here you were lying, but even I didn't think it was a lie of the caliber that would get us sniped at on the road. Alistair, you are well aware of my philosophy on snitching, so I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here."

"I wasn't suggesting handing her over to anyone," he said, "Just… look, it's not every day a nun winds up being a former undercover operative…"

"Lay sister."

"Look… Lelianna. You've been a friend to me," Ten sighed, interrupting, "A very strange friend with… wait, are the visions you get just part of the whole slightly-crazed-mystic persona?"

"Oh no, those are real," Lelianna insisted, relaxing a little now that it seemed a little more likely she was not about to be left on her own to face whatever mercenary might be sent after her next, "The Maker does speak to me."

"A very strange friend with a very vivid imagination," Ten concluded. She was fairly sure that the misplaced maternal feelings she had towards Lelianna were mostly because she had red hair like Shianni and that she had thought her very young when they had first met. But, having watched her over a period of several months and now knowing that she had a whole prior career before winding up in a convent in the ass end of nowhere, Ten wondered if Lelianna wasn't actually quite a bit older than she herself was, "So tell me, this Marjolein. Is this the same woman who got Madame Hirondelle driven from high society?"

"It is!"

"And you think she showed her face in Denerim," Ten said skeptically, "Because if she did, this little problem may take care of itself by the time we are back in town."

"Well, there is one person here who could answer this question," Lelianna pointed out.

"Correct."

Ten took the bucket of water she had finished washing her hands in and dashed it over the head of the unconscious crossbowman. He sputtered, but his eyes opened and then widened when he saw several armed people of various persuasions staring down at him.

"Ah, good, you are still with us," Lelianna said, "And, no thanks to you, moi aussi."

"Shit," he said, closing his eyes, "I was hoping I'd just had a nightmare about being dragged to a den by a mother wolf, but here I am with the pups circling." He had a strange accent. Not Orlesian, thank the Maker, and so likely not hired through official channels. Probably from the Marches, the northern part by Antiva.

"Who do you answer to?" Ten asked, "You're not from here, are you."

"No! No," he said, sitting up slowly, looking nervously at Pigeon, who was seated placidly at her mistress's feet, "Andraste's left tit, I'd heard of mabari hounds, but I had no idea how big they are."

"Who sent you?" demanded Lelianna. She squatted before the man and delivered a slap across his face that echoed around the hills that surrounded them.

"I don't ask names," he exclaimed.

"I don't believe you," Lelianna said. She hit him again, this time with the back of her hand. The leather fingerless gloves she had taken to wearing had studs on the knuckles, two of which cut the man's lip.

"Some Orlesian bitch! She said I was looking for a ginger girl dressed like a nun," he said, "Name was… shit, one of those fucking stupid Orlesian names. Started with an M. Hitting me again isn't going to make me able to pronounce it."

Lelianna hit him again. "That was just for fun."

"How long have you been following us?" Ten asked.

"We found you outside Orzammar last week," he said, "Look, I don't know shit about shit. I'm a hired bow. I'm not even from here. All I want is to get out of this fucking wasteland before everything burns down. What do I need to do to make that happen?"

"She has paid you already?" Lelianna asked.

"Quarter up front, rest when the job's done. I spent most of it on the way out here but if you let me live to collect the rest, you can have all of it. Seventy-five sovereigns."

"Well, at least we know your life is moderately expensive. That's a small cottage in a medium-sized village… or a medium-sized cottage in a small village," Ten said, looking at Lelianna approvingly, then turning back to the bowman, "Where'd you meet this Orlesian bitch?"

"Denerim. Somewhere in the market quarter. I've got the address in my pocket. Left one. You can take it."

"What the fuck were you doing in Denerim?"

"Well, I'd been in Ciudad Antiva," he said, "But I heard there that a bunch of Fereldan hitmen had been exiled or killed and I thought there was a vacuum I could fill. My mistake. Fuck this place."

Ten went through his pockets. On a scrap of paper was, in fact, written an address in the upper markets, close to the Orlesian quarter. "Lelianna, bring me one of your habits, please."

Lelianna obeyed, handing Ten the yellow and orange robe. Ten found the barbed end of the bolt she had removed from her side and poked a hole through front and back. Then she pushed it down in the puddle of blood on the ground. Then she handed it to the would-be assassin.

"You're lucky today, friend, because you get to live," Ten said. You will scurry back to Denerim, show your patron this, and tell that the job is done. Get your money and get out of the country."

"Don't need to tell me that twice. They told me Ferelden was nothing but a wasteland full of sheepfucking offal-eating barbarians, but you lot have managed to be even worse than your reputation," he grunted, sitting up.

"I suppose we could always kill you," said Ten.

"Right, whatever," he grumbled. He held out his hand for the bloodstained habit, which Ten gave him, rose to his feet, and took off down the road.

"I said scurry!" Ten exclaimed, and he did so, his back to the setting sun.

They watched him leave, Ten silently handing Lelianna the flask she and Zevran had been passing back and forth. She drank gratefully, and they stayed there silently until the assassin's back had disappeared over the crest of a hill.

"I don't suppose anything fresh is on the menu tonight," Wynne sighed.

"Fermented and distilled only," Lelianna said, finishing the flask and going to find more. The rest of them grumbled but ate the preserved food left for them in tense silence and retired to their respective tents.

A couple of hours later, in the musty dark of her own tent, Ten was putting away her newly sharpened blades when Alistair crept in, much as he had every night since they had been on the road. She wasn't sure if she ought to be annoyed with him, exactly. She didn't like that he had expressed his antipathy for having Lelianna along right to her face - that would only cause trouble between them going forward - but he had had a point.

"How angry are you with me?" he asked, seeing in the lanternlight that she had several of her knives spread out before her and pausing.

"Not enough that you need to worry about these," she said, putting the ones with sheaths into their sheaths, "But I do wish you hadn't just called Lelianna out to her face like that. I'm worried she'll have it out for you in the future, and that's certainly not something we need. You don't really think we should just send her out on her own, do you?"

"Look, I don't want to. I have no problem with her. People have their reasons for being cagey. But… isn't one dodgy foreigner with a target on his back enough?"

"She's the best marksman we have," Ten said.

"She is," Alistair acknowledged. He watched her as she wrapped the remaining blades in cloth and put them in the pockets in her pack she had sewn there for that purpose.

"So," she said, closing her pack and sliding over to sit beside him where he had landed on one side of her bedroll, "You're going spend all of tomorrow apologizing to her and go out of your way to be nice to her until we get back to Denerim."

"I… do kind of feel bad about that."

"Good," Ten said, "Because here's the thing. If the general milk of human kindness doesn't convince you to keep her around, the biggest thing I have going for me is my reputation and the connections that come with it. If it becomes known that Teneira Tabris can't or won't protect her friends, suddenly Teneira Tabris doesn't have so many friends anymore."

She saw him nod slowly.

"It could be that putting Lelianna out wouldn't do much to that reputation. Few people on this side of the mountains have any idea who she is, after all, and it seems that is by design. However, there is the matter of the woman who put a hit out on her," Ten continued, "This Marjolein. I have heard of her before. She has done a very great wrong to an associate of mine. So, if, somehow, it were to be found out that I knew she was in the country and I said nothing to this associate, that's also mud on my face."

"Is that why you burned all those bridges keeping me from the block?" he asked, "To keep mud off your face?"

She sighed, looking down, "You need to stop going down that road."

"Why?"

"What goes on in here only works if what goes on out there is separate," she said.

"You can say that all you want, that doesn't make it true. And I don't agree," he replied, "I can't just… turn off that part of myself when we're on about other things. I don't think you can either. You pretend to, I know, but you've always chosen to protect me, even when you didn't need to. Even when it cost you."

"Well, it was never the wrong thing to do, was it," Ten observed.

"But if it were, you'd have done it anyway."

She paused, thinking what she would do in a circumstance where letting him live would have caused something terrible to happen. Then again, maybe it had. Who knew what Anora had planned for Ioan if she figured out where he'd fled to. Shit, did I sell out my oldest friend to save some man I'd known for six months? There'd be no coming back from that. The only way out of that shame is ritual suicide.

"Well," she acknowledged, "There's a reason most of the great love stories end in tragedy."

"I never understood that before," Alistair said, "Why everyone in the tales is willing to make deals with demons or blood mages when they know full well how it's going to go, just to get their person back." He pulled her to him so she was facing him, one knee on either side of his waist. She let him. After getting the cold shoulder for a few days in Orzammar, she was more grateful than she cared to admit to having his affection, however clumsy, back.

"And now?" She rested one elbow on each of his shoulders, cocking her head to the side.

"If the next time you disappear on some ridiculous caper, you don't come back, I'd think about it."

"Even if you knew it was just going to be the both of us in the ground at the end?"

"Everyone dies at some point. If it got us a little more time?"

"Well, I guess we'll just have to make sure you die first," Ten said. She leaned in close and spoke in his ear, trying to tease some of the darkness out of his eyes.

"What, because you wouldn't?" he asked, his voice muffled against her shoulder. He sounded put out, but both of his hands were under her skirt, creeping up the outside of her thighs.

"Oh, I definitely would," she said, her own hands snaking up between them to get at the buttons of his shirt, "But I'd fully intend to cheat the demon and get the happy ending anyway."

"You'd probably do it too," he acknowledged, but by this time, she was far more interested in divesting both of them of their respective clothing than macabre speculation, and he, being a young man, after all, was beginning to lose interest in that as well.

"Anyway," she declared, having accomplished her goal at least to tent-in-early-spring standards. She half climbed and half rolled off him, laying on her back and tugging him down onto her, mindful of what the previous several nights had done to her knees and figuring it was his turn to take the brunt of the ground, "We're still at that bit in the middle."