"Morrigan will escort you to Ostagar," Flemeth announced the moment I stepped back inside the hut, as if we'd all agreed on that ahead of time. "It is not a long walk, but it is a perilous one."

Morrigan, who'd been standing near the hearth and looking like she was seriously considering setting the place on fire just for some peace and quiet, turned toward her mother with visible disdain.

"I will escort her?" she repeated, slowly, as if the words themselves were toxic. "Am I to be nursemaid now, in addition to errand girl and dutiful daughter?"

I could hardly blame her. She was probably just having a quiet day, doing… whatever the Hell Morrigan did, and I'd quite literally crash-landed into her life, taken up space in her bed, and now I was being handed off to her like an overdue library book.

I smirked, scooping up my handbag from the edge of the mattress and slinging it over my shoulder. "Tour guide wasn't on your to-do list today, huh?"

"Do not argue, girl," Flemeth snapped, her tone like a whip crack—and just like that, the iron in Morrigan's spine melted into a reluctant slouch of submission. Not fear, exactly. Just the weary resignation of someone used to losing the argument before it began.

"Very well," Morrigan muttered. She turned her eyes on me, cool and dismissive. "I will take her."

Her gaze dropped to my outfit, and her lip curled ever so slightly. "Your attire is… unsuitable, should we encounter any Darkspawn on the road. Do you even possess a weapon?"

I glanced down at myself. Black bodycon funeral dress. Heels. Designer handbag. I looked like I was ready for cocktails and a breakdown, not a journey through the goddamn Korcari Wilds.

"It was my sister's favourite," I murmured, brushing invisible dust from the hem. "She always said it made me look like I had my life together."

That was a lie. She wore it more than I did.

"It'll have to do for now," I added, more firmly. "I'm hoping someone at Ostagar can hook me up with something a little more apocalypse-appropriate. As for a weapon—unless this bag has a hidden sword compartment, which, spoiler alert, it does not—I'm fresh out."

Morrigan raised an eyebrow. "Ah. So we are traveling with optimism as our shield. How quaint."

"I guess you're just going to have to pick up my slack, then." I said, meeting her eyes challengingly.

She might have been a powerful apostate, but I had gone to an all-girls school for six years: if she wanted to have a bitch-off, she was going to lose.

Her mouth twitched at the corner—almost a smile, but not quite. A flicker of intrigue, maybe. Or pity. Or bloodlust. Hard to tell with Morrigan.

Flemeth swept to the back of the hut and tossed aside a dramatic red velvet throw—because of course she had a dramatic red velvet throw—to reveal a large wooden chest. She bent over it and rummaged around like she was pulling props for a dark fantasy stage play, eventually producing a long sword she held out to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The sheath was engraved with intricate, swirling patterns that bled seamlessly into a wrought iron hilt. It looked expensive. Important. And about a hundred years overdue for retirement.

"Take this with you, Lauren Duval. I have no need of it," she said, like she was handing me an umbrella instead of an ancient murder-stick.

I took it cautiously. It was lighter than I expected—not featherlight, but balanced. Intuitive. I unsheathed it slowly, half-expecting it to glow or whisper to me or demand a blood sacrifice. Nothing happened. I gave it a few experimental swings, trying not to decapitate anything or look like an idiot. It felt…right. Which somehow felt worse than if it hadn't.

I squinted at Flemeth.

"This better not be cursed," I muttered, without any real venom.

Flemeth laughed—not a chuckle or a cackle, but something deeper, stranger. Like wind through hollow bones.

"Oh, child. Power is never free. Only delayed in its collection. Everything worth wielding carries a price. The trick is to make sure you're not the one paying it."

"Oh, why not?" I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm already cursed, might as well accessorise. But just so we're clear: if this thing starts whispering to me in Elvhen, I'm throwing it in the swamp."

The sword sat against my back like it belonged there. Of course it did. I adjusted the strap, tested the draw, tried not to think about how natural it felt. That wasn't ominous at all.

"Thanks," I said eventually, though it came out closer to a sigh than anything else. "For the... doomsday starter kit. Just...add it to my existential tab, I guess. I'm sure someone's keeping track."

"Before this day is over, you will begin to repay me," she said. "Not in coin. In consequence. Do not doubt that."

And I didn't.

If I knew anything about Flemeth, it was that she always got her way.

Even when Morrigan had sent the Warden to kill her, she had still found a way to live on: she had a plan, I was sure, and I was just another chess piece on her board.

I knew this, but there was little I could do about it. I was here now, and I had no choice but to go to Ostagar—just as she had wanted.

"Very well… come on, then," Morrigan sighed, already halfway out the hut like she'd just been asked to walk the dog on her birthday.

With a final nod to Flemeth, I turned and followed her with a knot of apprehension forming in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure what unnerved me more: the threat of Darkspawn and Wilder creatures or the prospect of one-on-one conversation with Morrigan.

As soon as she saw me emerge from the hut, she wheeled around and started striding towards the tree-line. I jogged to catch up, cursing the high heels and funeral dress that had beaten out jeans and Converse in a moment of bad, grief-fueled fashion logic.

I caught up with her just in time for her to surge ahead of me again, weaving through trees, following some unmarked path that only she knew. I scrambled after her, tripping on roots, slipping on moss, and collecting enough swamp muck on my shoes to classify as a local species.

Wet grass and marsh slapped at my bare legs as I walked, making my skin crawl and itch and I forced myself to resist the urge to stop and wipe the awful moisture off, aware that Morrigan probably wouldn't stop to wait for me.

A horrible thought crept into my mind as I looked around at the labyrinth of trees surrounding me.

We had been walking for almost ten minutes in silence, ducking and weaving and frequently changing direction. If she disappeared on me, I would be completely, hopelessly lost.

I wondered how long a person could wander in this place before finding a clear path to civilisation. The forest was so thick and dense that it blocked out all sunlight, though it couldn't have been later than two in the afternoon. If Morrigan decided that she didn't want to help me after all, I could spend the rest of my life lost in this place.

That thought gave me a jolt of adrenaline, and I closed the distance between us.

"Hey, Morrigan? Mind slowing down a bit?" I panted, barely winded but putting it on just enough to annoy her.

She stopped so abruptly I nearly face-planted into her spine, and the movement threw me off-balance.

She wheeled around to face me, her eyes glinting fiercely in the darkness, as I wobbled on one leg, trying to regain my footing.

"You wish to slow down? Does this pace tire you?" She asked, in a dangerously sweet voice.

"No, it doesn't tire me, but I have no idea where we're going. And these shoes weren't exactly designed for cross-country swamp-hikes." I pointed out, trying not to sound as pissed-off as I felt.

Her gaze flicked to my heels with visible distaste. "I confess, I am unsure what they were designed for. Slowing one down to make for easier prey, perhaps?"

I momentarily forgot my precarious situation and narrowed my eyes. You can insult me all you like, but leave the shoes out of it.

"These are Louboutins," I said, crisp as a slap. "They were designed to be fabulous. If I'd known I'd be slumming it through Ferelden's least desirable postcode, I'd have dressed accordingly. Despite your belief that I'm a walking cautionary tale, I do, in fact, have a brain. This…" I gestured at the...everything around me. "Was not on my Google Calendar."

Morrigan smirked—not unkindly, just the smug, faintly amused expression of someone who'd been judging you this whole time and found the results mildly entertaining.

"You are strange." She observed, though it didn't sound like an insult. "Come then. I shall try to move at a more agreeable pace."

We started walking again—side by side this time. Less forced march, more awkward trudge. The trees began to thin a little, sunlight trickling through the canopy in watery shafts, as if the forest had finally decided we'd suffered enough.

"Where are you from, Lauren Duval?" she asked suddenly, eyes cutting sideways with a flicker of genuine curiosity.

I chewed my lip, weighing my options. Through the wardrobe? Down the rabbit hole? Somewhere over the rainbow?

Nothing sounded any more insane than the truth.

"I'm from a place called Scotland," I said finally. Keep it simple. Keep it vague.

"That is the name of your world?" she asked, as casual as if we were discussing tea varieties.

"My country. The world is… something else. I thought I knew where it was in relation to here but now…" I trailed off, gesturing vaguely at nothing. "Let's just say the GPS has stopped recalculating."

Oh, you just turn left at Big Ben, second star to the right and straight on 'till morning, you can't miss it.

"How did you come to be here? I heard what my mother said. A tear in the veil…that is all fine and well, but a tear that large does not simply happen by accident. Powerful magics were involved…and yet you are no mage."

Morrigan didn't press. "And how did you come to be here?" she asked. "A tear in the Veil may explain your arrival, but not the cause. Such a rupture would require great power. And yet, you are no mage."

"Nope." I kicked a stick out of my path. "Still waiting on my Hogwarts letter."

She frowned, clearly uncertain whether or not that was a joke. I let it hang.

"I don't really know. But I think it has something to do with my sister." I admitted, finally voicing the theory that had been nagging at the back of my mind all day.

"Your sister? She is a mage?"

I shook my head.

"No, Emily was just...a normal girl."

Was. The word sat in my throat like a stone.

"Was?" Morrigan asked quietly, her sharp gaze flicking across my face.

"Ah…you picked up on that." I muttered, kicking a stone out of my path. "Yeah, she…she passed away recently. A week ago, in fact." I sighed, wondering whether or not I could tell Morrigan the rest. I decided that I had nothing to lose.

"I think she was killed. There was something…some force that controlled her, lead her to her death. I haven't…nobody in my world knows that. They think her death was an accident. I knew, because I saw it happen in a…in a dream." I finished, lamely.

"And you did not tell anyone?" She asked, frowning.

"Nah…things like that, they don't really happen in my world. "We don't have magic in my world. No Fade, no demons, no creepy swamp witches." I glanced sideways at her. "No offense."

"None taken," she said, but I could hear the faint edge of amusement behind it.

"I haven't told anyone. Until now." I blinked hard and looked up, as if the forest might offer something resembling comfort. "It doesn't matter, anyway. People in my world don't believe in things they can't see. Ghosts, visions, fate—all of it's just… superstition."

Morrigan was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought.

"You claim you have no magic—no Fade—" She shook her head as if she found the idea absurd, and continued, "—and yet you witnessed your sister's death in a vision? How? If there is no Fade in your world, how is that possible?"

"As far as I was concerned until a week ago, it's not possible. But that doesn't seem to count for much, anymore." I paused. "Some people in my world talk about twin connections—psychic stuff, dream-sharing, whatever. I always thought it was bollocks, to be honest. Nothing like that ever happened between us before."

"Twins," Morrigan repeated, as if testing the word against something unspoken.

"Identical," I confirmed. "So maybe it's a good thing I landed here. I know it was killing my parents to have to look at me every day—seeing her face on their far less pleasant daughter."

I was so lost in that bitter thought I didn't notice she'd stopped walking.

I turned to find her still, staring at me with something unreadable in her expression—like she was replaying a memory that hadn't happened yet. It was difficult to tell in the half-light of the forest, but I thought that her face looked, if possible, even paler than usual.

"What?" I asked, instantly uneasy.

She opened her mouth to answer—

—but a sudden yell cut through the trees, followed by the unmistakable clash of steel on steel.

We turned as one.

I reached for my sword without thinking, unsheathing it in one smooth motion. It fit into my hands like it belonged there. Like I belonged here. I didn't know how I felt about that.

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. "There is trouble ahead," she muttered, mostly to herself. "Keep your wits about you."