Growing Certainty

by yunmin

Summary:

Eilhana Lavellan is pregnant. Not only is the father of her child not the man she though he was, she does not know how the magic in her hand might affect her pregnancy. Grappling with Blackwall’s betrayal and the situation with the Grey Wardens in Orlais, Eilhana finds herself at the door of Thedas’s most infamous spirit healer, and the one woman who knows what it is like to have the fate of Thedas in your hands: the Hero of Ferelden.

A tale of friendship, love, and what makes a family.

Notes:

Just play a Dragon Age, I thought, it’ll be fun, you’ll understand what everyone is talking about, you’ll finally have context for the egg jokes… some uh, fifty thousand words later and it has well and truly consumed me.

A timeline note: I've moved Blackwall's identity reveal to happen after Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, but before Here Lies the Abyss, because it suited my purposes better. Also I have only played the games, my extended canon knowledge comes solely from the wiki.

Chapter 1

It’s Cullen who first notices Inquisitor Lavellan being sick behind the stables.

The first time he sees it, he simply notes it as a fact. There are any number of things that could be making her sick. Drinks in the tavern with her friends. A meal that disagreed with her. It is nothing of note.

The second time he sees it, he is concerned. She is under a lot of stress at the moment; could that be what is making her ill? But before he can ask what she thinks it is, he is called to deal with a patrol exercise gone awry, and by the time he sees her again, he has other issues to deal with.

The third time he sees it, he is worried. He dismisses the squire following him. Lavellan undoubtedly would rather not talk about whatever is bothering her in front of the rank and file.

“Inquisitor?” he asks, as she hacks up the precious little in her stomach.

Lavellan does not rise to meet his eyes, but she meets his tone. “Commander.”

“Should I fetch a healer?”

“No.” She dry heaves again. Cullen rubs her back a little as she coughs. “No, I’ll be fine. It’ll pass. Whatever they’re serving for breakfast in the main hall set me off.”

Cullen hasn’t eaten yet this morning. When withdrawal was at its peak, he was too nauseous to. Now he is just in bad habits. But usually breakfast at Skyhold is a plain and simple affair. Lavellan might have delicate Dalish sensibilities, but Cullen thought she’d be over them by now.

“Why did you last eat a meal and keep it down?” he asks.

She has to think about it. “Hardtack for lunch, yesterday.”

She should be eating better things than hardtack, when she’s at Skyhold. “Dinner not agreeing with you either?”

“No, no, dinner I just forgot about, it’s breakfast that’s the problem.” Lavellan finally manages to straighten up. “The nausea fades as the day goes on. It’s fine. It’ll be some bug. It’s just annoying.”

Nausea in the mornings. Sensitivity to smell and food. Lavellan puts those things together and makes nothing of it. Former Knight-Captain Cullen remembers those symptoms in young women trapped in the Circle who had not been as careful as they ought.

“I have some simple porridge in my office.” An effort by Cassandra at ensuring he eats. It will work as well here. “You need to eat something.”

She turns to look at him. “Fair warning, I might throw that back up too.”

“I’ll live.”

Cullen leads the way up to the battlements and to his office. Thankfully, it’s not far from the stables. There’s a fire, and he settles the Inquisitor in front of it as he prepares food for the pair of them. He gives her the solitary bowl he keeps up here; he can eat his share directly from the pot.

“It’s not exactly glamorous,” he says, perched on his desk.

“I’ll take anything that doesn’t make me instantly want to vomit,” she replies. “Thank you, Commander.”

Cullen nods. He takes a spoonful of the very plain porridge, considering his next steps. This would be easier if the man who did this to her—or the man Cullen presumes has done this to her, at least—were here. He could be charged with taking responsibility. Cullen knows how to threaten a man. But Thom Rainier is in a jail cell in Val Royeaux. Lavellan has given orders for his rescue, a mission set for tonight, but it will take days before he is at Skyhold. Then, there is the matter of how she will judge him. Surely she should take her condition into account when she does so.

“I really think you should see a healer.” They can put together the answer to her symptoms the same as Cullen has, and tell her about it more gracefully than he could ever manage.

“They’ve got bigger things to attend to. It’s not stopping me from doing anything. A little bit of nausea in the morning is nothing compared to… everything else.” The weight of the world looks as if it is pressing on her shoulders. In many ways it is. And her personal affairs, right now, are making it harder. “It’s nothing more than you’ve had to deal with,” she adds. “How are you, Cullen?”

How like her, to be worrying about others when she should be concerned for herself. “Managing.” It’s true enough. He thought she needed to know, as Inquisitor, in case it becomes a problem. It was never meant to be an additional burden for her. “Cassandra is a boon. I have good men and women around me. All my work would not be possible without their support.”

She nods. “Good.” She turns to look at him directly, then asks: “Am I doing the right thing, rescuing Blackwall from the might of Orlais?”

Cullen, Josephine and Leliana had each proposed a plan to secure the man they once knew as Warden Blackwall into the custody of the Inquisition. Josephine and Cullen had not supplied anything that would not have significant costs. Leliana had suggested a swap; a traitor she was currently holding could be sent to the gallows in Rainier’s stead. That’s the plan Lavellan accepted. Cullen isn’t sure he approves, but he finds it preferable to sacrificing good men for the mission.

He doesn’t say any of this. She still reads it in his face. “You wouldn’t do it in my place.”

“If I was in your place, I would have made many decisions differently, and I am man enough to admit that with the benefit of hindsight, not all would have been for the best,” Cullen replies. “I trust you will make a judgment here as fair and as just as you have made every other choice we have put before you.”

“How can I be fair about this? He warned me, told me he was no good for me, that he would ruin me, and I felt so much for him I let it overwhelm me and told him I didn’t care and—”

She gags, trying to swallow it down. Cullen moves swiftly, removing her bowl of food, looking for a receptacle he really should have found earlier before the inevitable happened. The best he can manage is a scrap of fabric, to be tossed straight into the fire after. “Here,” he says, guiding her head as she retches up the food he’d managed to get into her. “There, there.” He strokes the back of her head in a motion he hopes is soothing. “Are you done?”

She shivers. “I think so.” She stays still, though. “I’m sorry.”

“You did warn me it might happen.”

She lifts her head. Cullen gathers the cloth together and tosses it directly into the fire. “You shouldn’t have to do this. You have other duties to attend to.”

He always has other duties to see to. This morning, there is nothing in imminent need of his attention. “I can spare some time for you, Inquisitor.” He looks at the bowl of porridge she was eating. There is still some left. “Do you think you can manage anything more?”

“I think it might be better not to chance it,” Lavellan replies. “Though I thank you for your efforts. Really. I’ll be fine by dinner. And I promise I’ll remember to eat it. Truly, it’s a strange bug. Why do I only feel sick in the mornings? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Is there no morning sickness amongst the Dalish?”

“Morning sickness?”

From her confusion, Cullen guesses not. “When human women are pregnant, they often experience nausea in the early part of their pregnancy. More frequently in the mornings.”

Lavellan looks dumbstruck. “Pregnant.” She shrinks in on herself.

“It is merely a supposition. You would need to go to a healer to confirm it. I do not even know if your relationship with Rainier—or anyone else for that matter—was consummated.”

“It was consummated,” she says, in a small voice. “The night he left. I woke up alone.” Cullen grits his fists. For that alone, Rainier deserves his time in chains. He is a man some twenty years her senior. He should have treated her better. “A baby?”

“I should fetch someone.” Cullen is not equipped to answer her questions. He knew enough to suspect what was happening to her, has seen women go through pregnancy in his time at the Circle, but he has no intimate knowledge of it, and no wisdom to offer to an elf carrying a human child.

He stands and moves to go, though he has no idea who he will get. Is anyone here equipped to answer her questions. “No.” She reaches out to clutch his wrist. “Please. Don’t go.” He halts. “I don’t—”

“Inquisitor?”

“Please, Commander.” Her voice is soft and scared. More scared than it was when she faced down armies, or the hole in the sky. From the moment they pulled her from the ruins of the temple, they’d known her to be young. Contact with her clan had confirmed her to be a girl of no more than twenty years. Rarely has it been so apparent. “The healers will gossip. I can’t—”

“I’m sure I could find one that wouldn’t.” Leliana would know which of them could keep this secret. “Solas, then?”

Cullen trusts the elven apostate little. But he provided healing to Lavellan before, when the mark on her hand nearly killed her, and seems knowledgeable about many things.

Lavellan laughs, harshly, ridiculing the idea. “No. An elvhen, lying with one of the shem’len, beset by a human condition? Spare me the lecture.” She shakes her head. “Don’t suggest Vivienne or Dorian either. Please. I don’t need the judgment. And what could they tell me? What good will Dorian’s necromancy do me? You think he could tell me anything about how this elf-blooded human pregnancy will be affected by the magic inextricably linked to me? Where would we find a healer with the skill and the knowledge?”

The Inquisition has healers, both magical and surgical. But amongst the mages, there are few healers of any great skill. Enough to keep the army moving. Until now, they’ve not needed anything else. Cullen isn’t sure how many mages with that knowledge survived the war. None of that helps Lavellan. “At some point, you will have to tell someone.”

“I know,” she sighs. “Give me a few days.”

He can do that.

.

Cullen watches Lavellan in the Grand Hall that evening. She is eating, tucked on a table alongside her friends, showing no signs of the nausea that’s plagued her in the mornings. It is something, at least.

At first light, Cullen heads straight to Leliana’s rookery, before the Inquisition stirs. “Was the mission a success?”

“I had a raven an hour ago stating that Thom Rainier and my agent were safely outside Val Royeaux,” Leliana replies. “They will set for Skyhold, and be with us inside a week.”

“Good.” Cullen leans over the railing. “You will inform the Inquisitor?”

Leliana looks at him with an arched eyebrow. “Based on her last few mornings, I think I will wait a while.”

“You noticed?” Cullen shouldn’t be surprised; little in the Inquisition slips by Leliana’s notice.

“I saw you escort her into your office, yesterday,” Leliana says pointedly.

Cullen sighs. “She did not know. And now she does—at least, if what we suspect is true—she does not want anyone to know. I tried to convince her to see a healer, but she fears the gossip and judgment when it gets out.”

“It is certainly not ideal,” Leliana replies. “Even outside her position as head of the Inquisition, she possesses an ability that cannot be replicated and we cannot manage without. We cannot afford to not send her into battle; we can barely afford a blot on her reputation. There is a limit to the miracles Josie can work.”

“I don’t think she knows what she will do about it,” Cullen admits. “She may decide she wants nothing to do with him and nothing to do with his child. It is early enough she could dispose of the pregnancy, if she wished.”

Leliana thinks it over silently. “She is Dalish. There are certain cultural obligations and expectations around a child.”

“The father is human. I would assume that changes things.”

“Maybe not, if she loves him. She would not be the first with the weight of the world on their shoulders who made a foolish decision or two, for love’s sake.”

Leliana is likely thinking of her old friend, the Hero of Ferelden, whose love affair with Alistair Theirin was well known and well debated, how she had supported Anora for the throne just to keep Alistair for herself. But Cullen is thrown back to the ruins of Kirkwall, to the Gallows covered in ash in the wake of the disaster that followed the explosion at the Chantry, where Anders had stood alongside Garrett Hawke as they’d fought. Hawke could barely bear to look at Anders, but in the moments his gaze caught, he could not tear his eyes away. There had been too much love there. Hawke had lost friends over his decision to accept what Anders had done, and had fled Kirkwall with Anders and half the mages from the Gallows.

Before Anders had become a terrorist, he’d been a Grey Warden. Bound to a spirit of the Fade. A spirit healer of uncommon power.

“Maker’s breath,” Cullen curses. “I need to speak to Varric.”

.

“You told him?”

At the sight of Varric in Cullen’s office, fury flashes across Inquisitor Lavellan’s face. It fades under Varric’s easy charm. “Relax, kid. I won’t tell anyone. Sit. I’m sorry about all this, by the way. Rotten circumstances. Curly just figured you needed some help. Don’t blame him.”

Lavellan’s brow creases with confusion. “How can you help?”

Cullen steps in. “You were concerned that there was not a healer in the Inquisition equipped to deal with the particular nature of your pregnancy.”

“And it might so happen that I know a healer who also has a lot of experience with weird things and the fade. And might know something about little Dalish elves getting knocked up by their human lovers.”

Varric’s words are crass, but Lavellan doesn’t flinch. She just processes this information, following it through to the logical conclusion. “Anders.” She turns to Cullen, surprise clear on her face. “You’re on board with this?”

That’s a generous way to put it. “For all Anders’ faults—and believe me, they are many and varied and unforgivable—he was always a healer of great skill. And he has seen a great number of strange and unfamiliar things over the years.”

“And what does he know of elves?”

When Cullen had gone to see Varric about this plan, he had been uncertain of the exact nature of Anders’ experience. Logic dictated that he must have seen his fair share of pregnancies through his turn as the Darktown healer. Certainly, they had not seen the number of expected appeals to the Circle for help in such matters.

“Plenty of elves in Kirkwall, lass.”

“You said Dalish,” Lavellan retorts. “I was born in the Free Marches. I know those tribes. Few had anything to do with the Shemlen in the cities.”

Varric shrugs. He’s hiding something. There was a Dalish tribe on Sundermount who Hawke used to deal with, Cullen knows. He can only presume it involved them in some way. “And sometimes a young Dalish elf falls in love with a human and breaks from her tribe.” Varric appears to be citing a specific incident.

Inquisitor Lavellan, like Cullen, seems to know Varric is obfuscating. “And I suppose you’ve known where Anders is all along, just as you knew where Hawke was?”

“Eh, not exactly. But I know where he is now. It’s not that far from here. Take some horses and you’re only looking at a day’s camp. You’d have to take me, and I think we should probably have someone else with us as backup, but I’m ready to head out when you are.”

“We are still waiting on the scouting reports from the Western Approach to come in,” Cullen says. “There are matters that require your attention, but nothing urgent. I would recommend you go now, before that changes.”

“We will leave tomorrow.”

.

Before she had such things as a pregnancy to contend with, Eilhana Lavellan had formulated a plan for the Inquisition’s next move. Lace Harding has provided a full set of scouting reports on the Exalted Plains. They would head there first, sort out what the Orlesians had done to the Dirthavaren, then travel on to the Western Approach to rendezvous with Hawke and Alistair. Not that Eilhana wants to consider Grey Warden business now, when Blackwall’s betrayal is still so fresh.

But she cannot avoid it forever.

A party can be sent ahead of her, to the Exalted Plains. Given the presence of Elven ruins, Solas is the obvious man to send. Iron Bull can sort out the mess the Orlesian army has made of itself. Sera will round out that little party nicely. And with that, Eilhana moves three of her most inquisitive, observant companions out of Skyhold. She is not in the mood for any of them to reach the same conclusion Cullen had. Not yet.

A short briefing later, and it is agreed the Chargers will head out with them. Not for the first time, Eilhana finds herself grateful for Krem’s quick wit and thinking. They will leave at first light.

Josephine has missives for her. Now they are formally allied with Orlais, there are benefits for the Orlesian nobles in having a close relationship with the Inquisition. On a normal day, Eilhana cares not for them. She will instruct Josephine to use her own judgment.

In the back of her mind, Eilhana turns over a single thought: who will accompany her and Varric when they visit Anders?

Free from the poison of Chantry thinking, Eilhana finds nothing to fear in Anders. Terrible things happened in Kirkwall, tales that made their way to her clan from the mouths of those fleeing Kirkwall’s abuses. Anders took a stand against it. She thinks that is commendable. She is aware this is not a widely held opinion. She is limited in her options on who to bring.

Cassandra, right hand of the Divine, can be ruled out immediately. Vivienne, who believes mages should play within the system, is likely to be an explosive match. Cole still has not learned which secrets should be kept quiet, instead of brought into the open.

A month ago, Blackwall would have been the obvious choice. Anders was once a Grey Warden. Blackwall was faithful, and respectful, but had no blind loyalty to the institutions Anders had railed against. The men could have been brought to common ground.

But that is no option for her.

Dorian is her only choice.

It is immediately belayed by Varric. “Nope,” he says, over dinner. “Absolutely not. Pick literally anyone else. I’d take my chances on bringing Cassandra over Altus Pavus.”

As night falls, her problem remains unsolved. Sleep does not come easy. She wanders the battlements, thinking it over. Should she pull the Iron Bull from the assignment she has already given him? He, at least, has no personal stake in the matter. But he is, at least to her knowledge, unaware of how much things between her and Blackwall had progressed. He would undoubtedly tease her for giving into her desires. Eilhana is not sure she can face it, even though it would be less explosive than Cassandra. And Cassandra would judge as well, for her weakness and her choice to bring this problem to Anders’ door rather than leave it to the Inquisition’s healers. Cole, then?

She is still thinking it over when she walks straight into a closed door.

“Come in,” Cullen calls. Eilhana belatedly realises she’s drifted so far around Skyhold she’s reached his office. When she makes no move to open the door, he does it for her. “Inquisitor?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says.

“You must be freezing.” He takes her in. She’d stripped off her coat as she’d attempted to make her decisions, and had never put it back on again. “Come in, get out of that cold. I’ll find you a blanket.”

Cullen steers her inside, then makes short work of climbing the ladder up to his quarters. He slides back down the ladder with a warm, handknitted blanket in tow, and drapes it around her shoulders. She clutches at it, noting the neat stitches, the intricately patterned squares that make it up. Someone made this with a great deal of love and care. Cullen’s sister, perhaps?

“What’s keeping you up?” Cullen appears to realise it’s a stupid question as soon as he asks it. “Aside from everything, of course. Is there anything I can help with?”

Cullen is calm and soothing. Eilhana has always thought it a shame he is too valuable a commander for her to bring with her on her adventures. He would be a great asset, in the field. But here is where he is best placed. No one could lead their forces or inspire loyalty in their ranks like he does. “Come with me and Varric.” It would solve her immediate problem.

“Inquisitor?”

“Varric said I should bring backup, and I agree, but I’ve gone through everyone and everyone seems like a bad idea. Varric vetoed Dorian for reasons I don’t understand, but if you came with us—” It’s a foolish notion. But Cullen already knows her secret. There is nothing left to explain to him. And he has already set whatever personal feelings he has about Anders aside, to suggest she should go to him. “I know you can’t be away from Skyhold for long, but it isn’t far, and…”

“I could ask Cassandra to take over my duties,” Cullen replies. “It might do the men good, to see a different perspective. Though I cannot promise Anders will be pleased to see me.”

“You’re a known quantity.”

“If you wish to leave early tomorrow, I should make my excuses now. Would you like an escort back to your rooms?”

She does not want to return to her rooms. They are impersonal, always too lavish for her tastes. They have never felt like home. And now memories lurk round the corners, regrets of the choices she has made. Cullen’s offer is kindly meant, but she does not want it.

“I will not be gone long,” he says. “You may stay here, and we can agree a plan for the morning when I return.”

That sounds like a far better idea. Eventually, she will have to return to her own rooms, but for now she can stay in what little peace she has found. “Thank you.” He smiles at her as he leaves, and she settles into his chair, tucking the blanket around herself. The fire cackles soothingly, providing just enough heat. And in the safety of Cullen’s office, with no memories to haunt her, Eilhana falls asleep.

.

They depart Skyhold in the morning. Inquisitor Lavellan does not even make an attempt to eat before they leave. They ride through the day, and camp overnight. When first light comes, they ride on, only stopping for food when Lavellan promises the nausea isn’t so bad.

Despite this, she still retches up her first mouthful of food.

Varric watches with the same concern Cullen felt. Do Dwarven women get sick like this? Cullen doesn’t know. If it is an affliction that does not come naturally to the Dalish, it seems cruel that she has been struck so severely with it.

“Does this last the whole time?” she asks Cullen after washing her mouth out. The remaining food is viewed with suspicion.

“It fades, eventually, I believe.” Cullen knows little more of it than that. “But it is usual for it to be a regular occurrence in the early months of pregnancy.”

Lavellan does not look pleased about that. Cullen wonders if anything can be done about it. A question to put to the healer, certainly. Maybe they should be less concerned about the mark she carries, and more about the routine dangers of pregnancy.

“A wonder any human women get pregnant, if this is what they face.”

“Eh,” Varric interjects. “I’m led to believe it isn’t a given. Seems you drew the short straw.”

“Great,” she grumbles. Cullen debates whether he should encourage her to eat more. Will it make things better or worse? “Guess I should count on none of this running smoothly, then?”

“Anders is surprisingly good at this pregnancy thing. You’re in good hands.”

Eventually, Lavellan does manage to eat a little more, and she keeps it down, and they carry on riding. Their path takes them up the coast. Avoids the ports; there will be no crossing the Waking Sea. But Cullen likes to imagine if he looked hard enough, he could see Kirkwall across the expanse. After a while, they pull away from the cliff path, into a forest that is wild enough that Cullen can guess why the most wanted man in Thedas would pick it as a hiding spot. No one would stumble across him here.

They reach a clearing with a little, single room shack, sitting alone. There are two horses tied up outside. Both look too well maintained for a life on the run. No sign of Anders. There is only a young elven boy, playing with a slingshot. He is aiming at a target, which shows a remarkable cluster of hits.

It does not take long for that slingshot to be aimed at the three intruders.

The boy is clearly good. Not good enough to stand against two trained archers and a swordsman, but he could easily do some damage before they got the upper hand. Cullen is not in the mood to test it.

There is a tense standoff. But the boy looks closer at Varric, scrunches his eyebrows together, and says: “I remember you.”

Varric swings off his horse, taking two steps towards the boy. Recognition dawns for him too. “Duncan?”

Duncan is not satisfied. “Mama,” he calls. “Uncle Anders!”

Who could this boy’s mother be? Hawke and Anders had kept the company of elves, but neither of the ones Cullen remembers resembles this fair child with auburn hair. That doesn’t make it impossible, but it seems unlikely. The boy is old enough that he would have been born and raised in Kirkwall before everything came to a head, and Cullen thinks he would have noticed a baby being dragged after them.

“What is it, da’len?”

It is a woman, who speaks. Dalish, clearly. There is the trace of a memory in it.

“We have visitors.”

It takes but a moment for the door to open. A Dalish elf appears, closely followed by Anders. Another, familiar face appears behind the pair, with lyrium inked into his skin. Fenris.

Cullen looks back to the Dalish elf. She is not the one who followed Hawke around Kirkwall, with such naivety it was a miracle Cullen was never forced to drag her to the Gallows. But she is familiar. The vallaslin on her face, he knows them. They were worn on the face of the kind stranger who rescued him from his torture in Kinloch Hold.

The Hero of Ferelden. Commander of the Grey. Lyna Mahariel.

“Hello, Varric,” Anders says.

“And Knight-Captain Cullen,” Fenris remarks.

“Commander Cullen of the Inquisition, now.” He is no longer a Templar, no longer beholden to the order. He is not here to hunt down an apostate. He is no threat to them. He dismounts his horse, and turns to offer Lavellan a hand.

“Inquisitor, you’re familiar with the stories about Anders, and Fenris.” Lavellan nods. “And this is Lyna Mahariel, better known as the Hero of Ferelden, and her son Duncan Alistair Sabrae. Everyone, this is Inquisitor Lavellan, Herald of Andraste.”

“If you bring bad news about Hawke, just say it.”

Cullen is grateful he called into the rookery before he left, and so he does in fact, have news for them. “Garrett and Alistair are in the Western Approach and are reportedly fine, though there were some complaints about the sand.”

“Then why are you here?” Fenris demands. “Why come now? Is it not enough that you have dragged Hawke into this?”

“I need a healer,” Lavellan says.

“Shouldn’t you have plenty of those?” Anders replies. “Isn’t that supposed to be one of the benefits of allying with the rebel mages?” He scans her up and down. “This doesn’t appear to be an emergency.”

Lavellan stands there, uncertain. Cullen does not want to say it for her, but he will if he must. There is little point to this trip is they do not get her help.

“Lethallan?” Lyna Mahariel asks, soft and gentle.

“I think I’m pregnant.” At that, Anders’ hostility evaporates. “Please. Help me.”

Chapter 2

Anders brings Inquisitor Lavellan inside his little home. Lyna Mahariel follows, and Anders shuts the door on the others before they can even think they will be welcome for this part of the proceedings. 

Lyna settles the young Dalish girl to sit on one of their few stools. Ser Pounce-a-lot slinks out from wherever he’s been hiding to curl around the Inquisitor’s legs. “What is your sal’melin, lethallan?”

“Eilhana,” the Inquisitor replies. “Call me Eilhana.”

Anders kneels in front of her. “Hello, Eilhana.” She looks scared. Not of him, though. This is a different kind of fear. She is younger than he expected, even though he’d read Varric’s remarks to Hawke on how the Inquisitor was only a little slip of a thing. “You said you thought you were pregnant? Have you not seen a healer to confirm it yet?”

She shakes her head. Well, it’s a simple thing to tell. If she’s wrong, they can finish this and everyone can return to their own lives. Anders holds a hand over her stomach and lets his magic flow, circling through her system, and there is a tiny flicker of life inside her that is not her own.

Without even trying to extend his power further, Anders can sense the power she holds in her hand, corrupting and sparking, calling on the veil, a terrifying force that could tear open the world if used the wrong way, and he suspects he knows part of why she seems terrified.

“You’re definitely pregnant,” he says, as matter of fact as he can. “Very early, though, earlier than most can tell. Are you late on your monthly?”

“No,” she says. “They were never regular, even before all this. I don’t remember the last I had.” Understandable, and not unusual in her circumstances. “I keep throwing up. In the mornings. Can barely keep anything down. It goes away, but it keeps coming back. Cullen said… Cullen said this is a thing that happens, to human women.”

Morning sickness in an Elf means one thing; a human father. Anders recalls how Cullen had helped the young Inquisitor from her horse, how tender he had been with her, and wonders whether the child could be his. 

As things in Kirkwall had worsened, they’d started quizzing the mages smuggled out the Gallows. The young women, in particular, for evidence of Templar abuses that they might actually get the public to care about. Enough horror stories had come out, but not one had spoken of that sort of abuse suffered directly at Cullen’s hands.

It didn’t make Cullen a good man. Plenty of them had also reported telling Cullen of the abuse they suffered, and he’d done nothing. Things had slipped by his watch, unnoticed and unpunished. But if Cullen had been the one to put this baby in the Inquisitor, Anders thinks he’d have fought to be in here, holding her hand through it, and she wouldn’t look quite so terrified.

“Cullen’s not wrong. Has he also told you it should fade, given time? Most women do not suffer with it their entire pregnancy. You said it was in the mornings. Are you managing to keep some of what you eat down throughout the rest of the day?” At Kinloch Hold, they’d had a mage who had been so sick they could not keep her hydrated. She’d wanted her baby, however it came to be, regardless of the fact the Chantry would take it from her. Anders had ended that pregnancy to save her life. 

“Dinner is fine.”

“Can you give her anything for it?” Lyna Mahariel asks.

Anders shakes his head. “I’d prefer not to. Potions tend to just come straight back up. Magic could soothe it, but with limited effect. It’s the sort of thing you just have to put up with.” He shrugs. “Afraid I’m not a miracle worker.”

“Anything else I should know about human pregnancies?” Eilhana asks.

Anders wonders how much she knows about elven pregnancies. Some, he’s sure. Not enough, likely. “Human babies get big. With any luck, you’ll be early, which is much safer for you, because otherwise someone will have to cut it out of you. But riskier for the baby. Don’t give birth without having an actual healer on hand.”

“He means it,” Lyna chimes in. “Duncan and I—neither of us would be here if I hadn’t had a spirit healer and a good supply of lyrium to hand.”

“Don’t scare her.” It is hard to imagine any birth going as poorly as Duncan’s had.

Eilhana lifts up her left hand, which glows a faint green, sparking with magic, the same as the breach in the sky. “Will this make it worse?”

The truth is… Anders does not know. He cannot imagine it will make it better. He lifts his hand to meet hers, closing it over the mark.

This time, the magic sparks through him far more violently. It does not want him there. It is unlike almost anything he has ever felt.

But Anders was in the Blackmarsh when the veil had been torn so thin that when the Grey Wardens tumbled out of it, they brought a spirit back with them. It is not the same magic—that would be too simple—but there is something familiar in it. The part of him that was formed in the Fade, fused now to a mortal soul, rears its head.

Curious, that part of Anders thinks.

Don’t, the other part of him prays.

“Anders?”

Lyna Mahariel’s voice calls him out of it.

“Great to know I’m not the only one here who glows,” Eilhana says. It’s the cheeriest she’s sounded yet. 

“Bring a thing that tears and repairs holes in the veil to someone possessed by a Fade spirit and I guess that’s what you get,” Anders answers. “As to how it’ll effect things—I don’t know. I can’t imagine it’s a good thing.” He’d put good money on the child being a mage. He’s not sure he’d find anyone to take the bet. “But neither is the stress or all the fighting that you’ll be doing, and you won’t be giving those up, so I think fretting about it won’t achieve much.”

The magic she holds in her hand is powerful. It is a problem to muse on. At some point, surely, it will have to be removed. For all its usefulness now, it is not meant to last. There is an inherent instability in it.

He looks to her hands, with familiar archer’s calluses. “You can survey the battlefield from afar. Let those with blades tangle with the monsters. Try not to over-exert yourself. Ensure you eat properly; don’t just survive on field rations. A standard health poultice will work just the same, but be wary about any potions you ingest. You should see someone properly about your pregnancy when you’re further along, and once the baby starts moving you’ll want to be more careful. If you find yourself bleeding, there isn’t much we can do—sometimes you’ll lose the baby, sometimes you won’t.”

That, it appears, is news to Eilhana. Her mouth furrows, uncertain and conflicted. “I could lose the baby?”

“A lot of women will lose a pregnancy at the stage you’re at and not even know they had one to lose.”

Eilhana looks at him, then ducks her head. “Varric was right,” she mutters. “You know more about this than I thought you would.”

Anders had learnt how to deliver a baby in Kinloch Hold. It had been a skill he had not-often been called upon to use, until he arrived in Kirkwall. From then on, his assistance was regularly required across the city. There were a handful of midwives, who oversaw routine deliveries, but if anything went wrong; Anders is the man they called.

He made a good healer. A good midwife. It was a shame it was not enough for him to just be those things.

“Do you want this baby?” Anders asks. He thinks a part of her must, else she would not be here, full of concern. That does not mean she shouldn’t consider all of her options. “If you do not, I can sort that out too. A little bleeding and you could tell the Templar and Varric it was a miscarriage.”

“I don’t know.”

He smiles at her. “You don’t have to decide now.” 

“I just—” Eilhana huffs in frustration. “I pictured this going differently. I would be surrounded by people I loved. The father of my baby would be here, not having to be sprung from a jail cell in Val Royeaux, and he’d be who I thought he was, not a man who lied and broke my trust and left. We’d be a family.”

“Who was he, lethallan?”

“He said his name was Gordon Blackwall, and he was a Grey Warden. But that was just who he was pretending to be. He isn’t a Warden at all, just a man on the run from the Orlesian army, who’d turned mercenary and ordered his men to kill a nobleman and his family for profit, and he spent his whole life running. And now he’s too damn noble to run anymore, but he never asked, we could have helped him if he hadn’t taken matters into his own hands. Now it’s all so public I don’t know what to do about it.”

Lyna Mahariel takes this in with a heavy gaze. She does not seem to like any of it. Her mouth purses into a frown, and she makes a hasty exit. No doubt to speak to Varric and Cullen and attempt to unravel the story from their perspective.

Anders, meanwhile, has a patient. “What he wants and who he is is of no consequence to the decision you make.”

“Isn’t it?” Eilhana asks. “It will be my job to judge him. His fate lies in my hands. How do I tell my child I am the reason they do not know their father? Or if I make another choice, that their father never paid penance for the crimes he committed? I believe in standing for what is right, in defending those who cannot defend themselves, in justice—” Anders bites back a laugh “—and yet I fear I would throw all that away.”

“Are you asking me if his crimes are forgivable?” Anders may be fused with a spirit of justice, but justice can all too easily be twisted into something else. There are some who celebrate his actions; others who think they are deplorable. “I don’t think I, of all people, have any right to judge.”

Eilhana turns to look at him. A smile tugs at her lips, the irony of the question striking her. “Is an act of violence against your oppressors when it would gain the freedom of your people a crime?”

Anders blinks.

He’d always thought what he did would be unforgivable. And he’d been prepared to pay the price for it; expected to meet an end on the edge of a blade. Hawke had not granted him it.

“Innocents died. Children. I’m sure Cullen could tell you about the bodies pulled from the rubble.” The explosion at the Chantry had ramifications across the city, consequences Anders had never intended. He had not foreseen the extent of the slaughter at the Gallows. Cullen had fought alongside them, trying to save as many as they could, but it had been an unhappy alliance. “Does the Templar know you harbour such sympathies?”

“Clan Lavellan wanders the Free Marches,” Eilhana replies. “We steered clear of the cities, but we heard of the abuses in Kirkwall. We found apostates, maleficar, refugees, hiding in places they had never hidden before. I was not there. I am no mage. But the Dalish have never feared magic the way the shemlen do. We do understand oppression, of being driven from your homes and hunted and being looked on by the common man as if you could never be one of them. It should not surprise anyone where my sympathies lie.”

When Anders heard that the Inquisition had made allies of the rebel mages, he thought it was a decision born of pure pragmatism. He never thought that ideals might have been part of it.

“No matter what people may think of your choices, you made them because you believed it was the right thing to do for your people. Blackwall—Rainier—made his choices as a mercenary. It’s different.”

Anders places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Ser Pounce-a-lot meows in sympathy. “I live, because my judgment fell to a man who stayed his blade for love.”

“What would Justice say?”

The man should answer for his crimes.

Anders’ skin crackles with veilfire. He lets it burn through him.

But the answer must be in redemption. If he has skills to offer, he should not languish forgotten. Put him to work. Let him make amends.

Anders laughs. Yet another irony. That is what he should be doing, what he is trying to do, what he knows he is not doing a good job at.

“A life of service,” Anders answers. “That is the way redemption lies.”

Eilhana smiles, a soft, insecure thing. “He was doing that already.” Even in her shock and horror that this man was not the one she thought he was, her feelings for him remain. In the end, she will forgive him. She’ll forgive him even without the child they will share. “All that remains is that I ensure he can continue that work.”

“You’re the Inquisitor,” Anders says. “From what I hear, you can do anything you set your mind to. I am sure you will manage this as well.” 

.

“Can I see your shield?”

Cullen greets the little elven boy’s request with scepticism. Children do not always mix well with weapons, even defensive ones. But it seems cruel to outright deny him this.

“I should see if it is okay with your mother,” he responds.

“Mahariel let him hold my greatsword,” Fenris chips in. “I suspect she will not mind Duncan inspecting a shield.”

Fenris’s greatsword is nearly as tall as him. What sort of mother lets a child hold a weapon of that size? But then, the Hero of Ferelden was always noted for being extraordinary. Cullen lifts his shield off his back and kneels so he can set it in front of Duncan.

“It’s like Dad’s,” Duncan remarks. Cullen hadn’t wanted to inquire after the parentage of the boy. He is named for Alistair, born of a woman who loves Alistair, and yet surely cannot share Alistair’s blood. But Templars, even former Templars, even ones who just trained as boys and never took their vows, are alike in their choice of shields and how they hold them. Cullen has no doubt Alistair carries a shield much like his own.

“Hold it like this.” Cullen guides Duncan’s small hands to brace inside the shield. It is too big for him by far, but there is form; this child already knows something of how to fight.

“Fancy a sparring match, little one?” Fenris asks.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

Fenris sets down his greatsword. He instead heads to the horses that were already here, taking a longsword and a dagger from the saddlebags. He takes them from their sheaths. The longsword he keeps for himself; the dagger, he gives to Duncan.

“Uh—” It is not Cullen’s place to object, but surely Fenris cannot be proposing a fight with live blades?

“If it makes you feel better,” Varric says, watching with an amused eye, “all the Dalish clans start training their hunters young.”

Cullen has seen Fenris fight; the man is lethal, with a brutality that Cullen has never seen matched. Here, it is very different. He is careful and deliberate. Blades touch, but do not truly connect. Fenris takes openings, but only as a way to teach the boy where he’s leaving them. It is fascinating to watch.

“That boy is his father’s son.”

Lyna Mahariel’s voice spooks Cullen. He had not realised she was watching.

“Alistair?” It remains the only answer that makes sense, even if it should also be impossible.

“Who else?”

Cullen looks at the boy again. His ears are very clearly pointed, strikingly so. “Duncan’s elven.” Children born of mixed bloodlines never resemble the elven parent.

Lyna Mahariel shrugs. “And Alistair’s mother was no human serving girl. It explains why Maric hid him away as a child. What would the people think? Would Ferelden’s King have been so beloved if it were known he had a half-elven bastard? If Alistair had taken the throne, and his mother came forth to claim him, what would happen to Ferelden?”

Cullen is no politician. Except that he knows better than to comment on affairs he knows little of. “I never knew you had a son.”

“You thought Tales of the Champion covered everything that happened in Kirkwall those seven years?” Lyna Mahariel laughs. “Commander, you know that not to be true.”

“He was born in Kirkwall?” Surely, Cullen would have been made aware of any visit paid by the Hero of Ferelden to the city. He was not. How had they all missed her?

“I was looking for my clan,” Lyna Mahariel answers. “I was pregnant at the time, though I never really believed it. Grey Wardens shouldn’t be able to have children. It should have been impossible. I pushed too hard. I collapsed, on the Wounded Coast, and was lucky enough to be found by my old clanmate, who was with Hawke at the time. And they took me to Anders.”

“Hell of a coincidence,” Varric says. “For the record. That’s why it never made the books. Too much backstory to explain. Hawke’s friend just happens to be the Hero of Ferelden’s former clanmate, and they take her to her first recruit? As a sidestory? My publisher would never go for it.”

“Anders delivered Duncan. And I found the rest of my clan on Sundermount, and gave Duncan into their care, whilst I looked for answers. Until the death of my keeper, and all the trouble in Kirkwall came to a head. He has travelled with Alistair and myself ever since.” Her face turns grim. “And at no point in those years have we had the fate of Thedas in our hands, and yet having a child and raising them was still not without its challenges. How could you let this happen?”

“The Inquisitor’s a grown woman, Hero,” Varric says.

“Is she?” Mahariel looks to her child, wrestling in the ground with Fenris. Fenris is clearly letting him win. “She bears her vallaslin, but they are still fresh. She cannot have seen more than twenty summers. I do not know of this man who she was with, but he sounds much older.”

“He is.” Twice her age and then some, but Thom Rainier was still younger than Warden Blackwall would have been. Cullen doesn’t think voicing that will help. “We had concerns. But we were also asking her to make decisions that affected the fate of everyone in Thedas. It seemed silly to tell her she couldn’t choose who she loved. It seemed like it was just a flirtation, until…” Until the Inquisitor was pregnant and distraught. “It was always clear he had a past he wasn’t proud of. But we thought he was a Grey Warden; whatever he had done, we thought it behind him.”

“He went before the gallows so that one of his men would be spared,” Varric adds. “It’s kinda romantic, if you think about it.”

“He left her alone their first night together.” The anger floods out of Cullen. “There is nothing romantic about his actions. Whatever redemption he seeks could have been had without breaking her heart.”

Lyna Mahariel furrows her brow.

Cullen feels scrutinised under her gaze. He thinks anyone she turns it on would feel that way. He remembers how she listened to him beg her to kill every mage in Kinloch Hold, with sympathy for what he had suffered, whilst making it clear she did not trust his judgment. With perspective, he can see she was right. And then he went to Kirkwall, and if she was there—if she was a friend of Anders, and clanmate to the Dalish apostate? What stories would she have heard of him there? Nothing good he can only imagine.

“Cullen, a word?”

He nods. She leads him away from Varric, away from Fenris, across the mock battlefield—ruffling her son’s hair in the process—and into the forest, where the conversation is as private as it can get.

“I presume Leliana has done what she does and got this man out of the custody of the Orlesians and into the custody of the Inquisition?”

“Yes.”

“And what will happen to him then?”

“He will be brought before the Inquistor for judgment.”

“You would make her decide his fate?”

It may be cruel, but they have no alternative. They have made a practice of this since they named her Inquisitor. She is the ultimate authority. She may ask her advisors what they would do, even follow their suggestions to the letter, but she must issue the judgment herself. “She does not have to make the choice alone. But if we made it for her, we would undermine every scrap of power we have endeavored to put in her hands.”

“You put too great a burden on the shoulders of one too young to deal with it.”

Cullen does not disagree. But it is not like they planned this. “When Leliana and Cassandra sought to call the Inquisition, they wanted you to lead it,” he states. “Perhaps the burden would not have fallen to Inquisitor Lavellan if they had been able to find you.”

“And instead of simply saving Ferelden, I would have to save Orlais and all of Thedas?” Lyna Mahariel shakes her head. “Besides, they were looking for the Hero of Ferelden, the Grey Warden who cut down an archdemon.”

“If you wish to lie about your identity, you should do it to someone who did not meet you then.”

She eyes him curiously. Cullen wonders if she remembers him. His memory of her is so striking he has never considered that he must have been amongst hundreds of souls in dire circumstances she must have met that year.

“I was a Grey Warden then. I carried the taint. I do so no longer.”

Cullen knows she has been searching for a cure to the calling, so that becoming a Grey Warden need not be a death sentence. If she has found a way to draw the taint out of someone, then—

“You found the cure?”

She laughs bitterly. “No.”

“Then what—” 

“I have not been a Grey Warden for six years,” she says. “I did not seek it out. It happened by chance, in circumstances I cannot explain and I doubt would be replicable. It is no cure. No solution. It merely sets me apart, unable to hear the Calling that torments those I love, whilst I hear only silence. The search for a cure must continue, because I have no intention of living whilst those I delivered to the Wardens go to their deaths.”

Cullen thinks. What happened could have happened to her six years ago? One possibility presents itself: “Your son.”

“An impossibility, and yet he stands before us, with me free of the taint.” She sighs. “Grey Wardens aren’t supposed to have children. We are told it is so unlikely that it might as well be impossible.” Lyna Mahariel looks back across the forest, to the direction of the camp and her son and the Inquisitor. “I would scold the girl for being irresponsible, but if she believed she was sleeping with a Warden…”

“So fault him for it.”

Blackwall was a man old and wise enough to think of such things. And he knew he wasn’t a Warden.

Once again, Mahariel watches Cullen with a careful eye. “I do.” She purses her lips. “And that brings me to the other point I wanted to make, Cullen Rutherford. Do not fall in love with her.”

Cullen furrows his brow. “What?”

She speaks as if it is obvious. “I see the way you care for her. I see how you rise to her defense. I see how she trusts you. And I see how she loves another, but does not think she should. Do not muddle this for her. You may think that giving her another option is a kind, chivalrous thing to do. It is not.”

“I don’t feel that way about her.”

Eilhana Lavellan is a beautiful, courageous, kind young woman. You would have to be a fool not to see it. Cullen had been flattered when she’d flirted with him at Haven, bashful as she’d asked probing questions seemingly with the intention of getting him to blush. But it had never been anything serious. He was hardly the only person she flirted with. It had been obvious for a while there was only one person she was serious about.

Cullen had come to care deeply for Eilhana, but he is not harbouring any foolish notions that he loves her. He doesn’t feel that way about anyone. Not since—

“And I’m sure that’s what you told yourself about that little elven mage who was in your care.”

The mention of Neria punches the breath out of him.

Only moments ago, he was wondering if Mahariel remembered who he was. Now, she knows secrets about him Cullen did not think were known to anyone still alive.

“How—?”

It had only ever been an infatuation. Cullen had seen other young recruits fall for the mages, and sworn it would never be him. He’d been at the tower months before he’d noticed her; a quiet, studious apprentice, overshadowed by the rest of her peer group. An odd little friendship had formed, nothing untoward in it. But he’d found himself longing for her company, taking assignments that would bring him close to her. Little things. Not enough to be anything, but a thought that maybe, someday, if things changed, that they could— 

And then she died, and the memory of her was used to torture him, and Cullen knew it could never have been anything.

The shock must show clearly on his face. Mahariel softens. “Wynne made a comment when we found her body. Whatever you felt, it did not go unnoticed by those around you.” Cullen wonders how widely known it was. Was it one of the considerations in the decision to send him to Kirkwall? “I am not saying never love her. I even think you would balance her well. You will hear no hypocrisy from me about why the Dalish elf trying to save the world should not fall in love with the dashing, earnest former Templar. But if you pursue anything, it must be after. Let her end this. Let there be closure. And Mythal’enaste, do not hold it against her if she pressures you into making a choice you don’t like for your own good.”

Cullen thinks of the vial of lyrium in his office. The desire for it is over; the physical symptoms of withdrawal, and the knowledge they could be soothed if he gave in, are not. He would be a more effective Commander to the Inquisition if he went back on lyrium. The day may come when he is ordered to take it.

“You sound as if you speak from experience.”

“I do.”

“All I want if for the Inquisitor to bear as little hurt as possible,” Cullen says. “I will endeavour not to bring any to her by my own hands. Trust she will be as safe in my care as I can make her.”

Lyna Mahariel takes him in. He does not know if there is anything else he can say to convince her. But she must decide it is enough. “Come, then,” she says. “We should return before my son starts to believe he might best Fenris in a fight.”

“He’s not bad with that dagger or the slingshot.”

“Give it another ten years before you recruit my son, please.” But she’s laughing as she says it, and Cullen has no doubt if there is a war to fight when Duncan Alistair Sabrae comes of age, she will not be able to keep him out of it.

.

“Yep, okay, that’s— Yep.” Anders’ voice is steady as he soothes a hand over Inquisitor Lavellan’s back. “Better out than in, there you go.”

Lyna Mahariel watches with morbid curiosity. Her own pregnancy was anything but smooth, but the sickness had never come for her. Maybe she had been lucky. Maybe Alistair had been too elven for it. 

“Water?” Anders asks. Cullen, who is hovering, passes some over. “Little sips. There you—” More retching. “Oops. Okay, I’m gonna try something. Give me a sec.”

A soothing glow of healing magic passes over the Inquisitor’s back. She holds steady for a moment, carefully considering, then sits up. Anders looks her over. “Any better?”

Lavellan still looks a little queasy. “Some.”

“Better than nothing,” Anders says with a shrug. “In good news, there was nothing extraordinary about that. In bad news, there was nothing extraordinary about that. Welcome to: pregnancy kind of just sucks sometimes. Sorry.”

“Great.” The Inquisitor leans back, head facing the sky, hands hugging her knees. “How long did you say it was going to last? Another two months?”

“At least.” With grim resignation, Anders adds: “I have seen it recur through an entire pregnancy. Hopefully you’ll get to skip that part.”

“I’ll get used to a lack of breakfast, then,” is Lavellan’s grim reply. Her pot of porridge, made intentionally plain, lies abandoned. 

“Any chance you can teach whatever you just did to another mage?” Cullen asks.

Anders blinks. Considering that Cullen is infamous—rightly so—for his distrust of magic, and those who wield it, even if he recognises that it has its uses, it is a surprise that he wants more magic in these circumstances. “If you had someone who already had a gift for healing, perhaps, but from the sounds of the mages who travel with you none of them have any particular knack for it.”

Lyna Mahariel, perhaps spoiled by travelling with two of the finest spirit healers Ferelden had ever produced, thinks it is mad that the Inquisitor travels with no one with that skill in her party. The number of potions and poultices they must go through!

“It’s not really a cure, anyway. You’ll feel nauseous again when you try and eat anything, until a time the nausea would have worn off anyway. And you do need to eat.”

“I’m fine, Cullen,” the Inquisitor insists.

Cullen is not satisfied. “We will find you a mage with the healing skill to travel with you.”

“No,” she says, insistent. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t like the idea of you travelling with no one who knows and no one who can do anything about it if something goes wrong.”

“I’ll make Anders one of my inner circle then, and take him with me,” she retorts.

Lyna Mahariel’s eyes meet Anders’ across the fire. He raises his eyebrows. She shakes her head. It’s a bad idea. It’s not just that Anders is still considered a terrorist by many. It’s that Anders himself is a man built on unstable ground. Away from Kirkwall, he’s more of the man Lyna once knew, but she cannot be sure how long that will last. Not when the Calling is coming for every Grey Warden within a hundred miles of Orlais’ border. If Inquisitor Lavellan brought Anders along with her, deeper into Orlais, he surely would fall under that influence. They cannot risk it.

“You tread a dangerous line with the Chantry loyalists already,” Cullen warns. But he seems to be considering it.

Anders opens his mouth, ready to object, but Lavellan gets there first. “Relax. I’ll bring Varric with me. If someone needs to know, he can tell them.”

Lyna guesses that the Inquisitor will not end up unconscious on an unknown coast, with no one knowing she was missing, only to be found by chance. Her circumstances are not Eilhana’s.

Cullen accepts this. It likely won’t be long before the rest of the Inquisitor’s circle become aware of her condition. It is a difficult secret to keep. With any luck, she will keep it close enough she can resolve the mess with the baby’s father before the gossip spreads across Thedas.

Varric, Fenris and Duncan join them shortly thereafter for breakfast, with Ser-Pounce-a-lot weaving his way through the small crowd in hopes of scraps before settling on Anders’ shoulder. Lyna settles down to write a letter, scratching thoughts to her husband down on paper. With things as they have been, it has been too long since they exchanged any correspondence. But the Inquisitor will see Alistair again soon enough, she has made that clear. It seems ridiculous to turn the Herald of Andraste into her messenger girl, but if she does not ask, she will not get it.

When Inquisitor Lavellan prepares to leave, Lyna Mahariel presses the letter into her hands. “When you see Alistair next,” she says. “Please will you give this to him?”

Inquisitor Lavellan takes the letter, nods, and tucks it securely into the pouch on her belt. “I asked him about you,” she says. “I wanted to know how true the stories were. And he spoke about you with such love and affection, that it made me ache, and all I could hope that my love might speak about me that way some day.” Lavellan’s eyes are wet, and she looks down to hide them. She shakes her head. “A foolish notion.”

“Things have not always sailed smooth for myself and Alistair,” Lyna says. There had been a time she wondered if he was lost to her, whether she’d pushed too hard during the Blight, forcing him into a choice he might never have made on his own. It is nothing like the situation Lavellan has found herself in. “We have had to weather storms. I would like to say we have come out stronger for it.” Without having met this Thom Rainier, Lyna Mahariel is ill-placed to make a judgment on what will happen next. Whether this man who lied about who he was lied about anything else. “Lethallan, you must find your own way through this. That is all I can counsel. Alistair and I are much further down a path you have only begun to follow.”

The Inquisitor nods.

“May Sylaise guide your steps.”

“And if the Creators have turned from me, when everyone claims me to be Andraste’s herald?”

Lyna Mahariel can only sympathise with her. “I called upon the power of Andraste to heal a sick man. I passed a test of her faith. I spoke with those who knew her. I can attest that she was real, that she had a power beyond any I have otherwise seen. But I am still not one of her faithful. I pray to Mythal, to Andruil, to June.” Lavellan is marked for Ghilan’nain. Lyna wonders what the girl’s life was to be, before she was caught up in this. “Your faith must be your own. Do not let your Inquisition mold you into a woman you are not willing to be.”

An easy thing to say. Harder to do. Lyna Mahariel fought her war unknown to the people, where she was just a Warden recruit thought to be a traitor to the crown, until the Landsmeet and the battle for Denerim, where she had suddenly been a hero to all. Eilhana Lavellan’s challenges are different. “I have faith in you,” she adds.

The Inquisitor’s little party leaves, with less fanfare than they had arrived. Lyna, Anders, Fenris and Duncan wave them off. “That all seems likely to end in disaster,” Fenris comments.

“Relying on a barely grown Dalish girl who’s gotten knocked up by a man who’s been lying to her since he met her to save the world? Surely not,” Anders replies. “Or that she’s got Cullen of all people advising her.”

“I saved the world with an ex-assassin, a disgraced Qunari soldier, an ex-Templar and the very same lay sister of the Chantry the Inquisitor has advising her,” Lyna says. “I think she could be in worse hands.”

“She could be in better,” Anders replies.

“She has Hawke and Alistair. The only other thing we could do is throw our lot in with them entirely.” Lyna looks to her son, to Anders, to Fenris, all men with their own preoccupations. “We still have other concerns.” She will find a cure for the calling. Fenris will bring freedom to as many as he can, or die in the attempt. Anders will attempt to find peace with the world he has created. Duncan, well Duncan just needs to grow up well. “I suggest we return to them.”