Chapter Text
Keening winds whipped up from moorlands dappled with wan sunlight and pale shadows. For miles, all there was to see was grass and the occasional sliver of dark, still water.
The Hero of Ferelden wandered across the lonely moor and did not look down. If he did, he knew what he would see beneath the glassy surface of the pools. His footsteps across them were hollow and echoed dully beneath perception, as did a low buzz that his sensitive hearing picked up on all too well: the distant echoes of the Archdemon's dying screams.
The Warden knew that to look down would be to see the bodies of all the Darkspawn he had ever slain, trapped beneath the surface of the water, screaming as one. Their faces would be washed free of color, but that only served to make their grotesquely mutilated mouths and eyes all the more stark in the sea of their dark, tainted blood. He knew that if he were to acknowledge them would be to recall that fateful night in its fire and its terror and its sheer loudness.
Mahariel did not look down.
And he did not look back.
Instead, he kept his eyes fixed forward and followed the trail of crushed grass that Kieran had left in his flight. Behind Mahariel, the skies boiled and the winds grew from their sharp, whistling rush into a roaring gale that churned the high grass around his knees. He did not need to see it to know how the sky darkened in his wake. He had not seen Kieran, but he understood that this was a trail left by his son, just as he understood that this was a dream.
The rolling grasslands went on so far, he could see the curvature of the globe near the horizon, and he and the storm progressed endlessly closer.
Those endless plains eventually did fade into dark, rocky cliffs. Even still, he knew that he followed in the footsteps of his son. He felt it in the gravel that scattered beneath his boots, and in the trembling of the Fade around him.
As he walked the cliffs, he gazed down into the ravine beside him; even as he stared upon it, the distance below stretched and stretched, becoming an almost insurmountable depth beneath him. And yet he saw in that dark crevasse a light: a farmhouse, spewing light and smoke.
That light did not coax, did not tempt. It seemed to warn. He was not to go down to it—danger awaited within its walls.
And yet—
"Papae!"
The cry echoed up to the Warden and whipped away on the screaming wind, imparting the urgency and terror of a lost child, and the dream snapped taught. The instincts that had kept Halevune Mahariel alive all these years kicked into high gear, but in the unforgiving reflection of the Fade those instincts were twisted into things too sharp to serve him. Lightning struck the moors, and darkness followed in its wake—and the Darkspawn spilled forth from the split earth.
Halevune looked behind him once.
And then he began to run.
He ran down the cliffs, frantic, rushing to reach his son before the Darkspawn horde. He tumbled into the shadowy ravine and found it full of rushing water. His steps faltered, stumbling on rock slick with algae—and he realized the sky had vanished above him. He was surrounded impossibly by the claustrophobic walls of the Deep Roads, yet ahead of him, he saw the farmhouse still. A small figure was smudged against the bright light in its doorway.
"Papae!" Kieran shouted again.
Halevune's heart choked him in his throat as he raced forward. But the ground would not move, the distance would not close; some force dragged at his limbs and kept him from reaching his son. His son who needed him.
In the echoes of his son's voice, he heard a discordant note—a low tone that had a rhythm to it. It was the drums of war that he had heard the night Kieran was conceived. It was the drums of war he so often heard in the undercurrent of Kieran's dreams, though he knew his son could never have known the horrors he had seen. He heard them all around him now, in time with his pulse.
A scream, a roar, built in Halevune's chest, but it could not escape. He could not move, not one inch further. He sobbed for breath as his Warden stamina failed him.
He fell to his knees, black waters rising swiftly. The light from the farmhouse began to dim, and Kieran's voice rose into a desperate, pleading scream.
Halevune dug his nails into the earth to claw himself forward through the floodwaters. His nails broke, his fingers bled, until he lost even the most desperate strength.
The water was up to his elbows. Then his neck.
Halevune Mahariel drowned, and the light above the surface of the water went out.
-:-:-:-:-:-
The Hero of Ferelden stood framed against the blinding light of the eluvian, his stark white hair and pale skin seeming to blur in its glow. He loomed there, and as Ixchel Lavellan stood in stupefied silence, his stormy brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Da'len,” the Warden Commander said in his sharp, clipped voice. “Where is my son?”
Cole, who stood at the Inquisitor's side, leaned into her side. "You can tell him," he whispered.
It was not often these days that Ixchel was made to feel as small and as feeble as she did under the Warden's silver-white glare. She floundered for a moment before she was able to the right words—and even then, she knew that what she had to offer by way of explanation would not appease him. "I do not know where they have gone, Hal," she said, "but they're safe."
"How can you say they are safe, if you do not know where they have gone?" he demanded. His sharp eyes did not leave hers; his attention seemed so wholly and entirely focused upon her that she wondered if he even saw Cole. But then, he asked, "What manner of spirit is this?"
"I'm Compassion," Cole said, eager, for once, to have been noticed. "You knew Justice, and I've known him too. And Anders, and others. We're friends."
Ixchel gave Halevune a hesitant nod. "If Cole says Kieran and Morrigan are safe, it means that he can sense it, and I trust him."
The Warden exhaled roughly through his teeth and waved at the eluvian, which went dark, still without turning from Ixchel. "It has been days since I heard from them. What caused them to flee?"
"You should sit," Cole said, and all at once Ixchel felt her fatigue hit her. She had just been about to eat, perhaps for the first time in days, when the Warden Commander stepped through the eluvian. "Anders told you to eat, and to rest. You did a lot of resting. Don't forget the rest."
But Ixchel glanced at Mahariel, apologetic and searching for something like permission.
The Warden's severe face might have softened slightly, and he nodded once. Cole tugged on Ixchel's elbow and helped her retreat back to one of the pews, and she gratefully took a seat. Mahariel drew closer, his movements still tense, as though he were a spring coiled tight and awaiting the slightest provocation. He lowered himself into a seat opposite her and, with patience that somewhat surprised Ixchel, he waited for her to tuck into her small meal.
She was grateful to her friends, that they had known not to send her too much food too soon. Her throat and chest and stomach were still recovering.
She watched Mahariel from the corner of her eye as she swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread. He was far more haggard than she recalled from when she had first met him, ten years ago, shortly after the Fifth Blight. But he was not yet as worn and certainly not as defeated as he had been when they'd traveled together, years after her time as Herald and Inquisitor was over, in her first life.
The vallaslin of Falon'Din was pale on his face, purple ink faded by years in the sun. New lines had been added to the corners of his eyes and between his brows, and especially near his mouth, where he had become accustomed to frowning—or glaring, as was more likely the case.
Ixchel looked back down at the plate in her hands and began to answer his questions.
"Corypheus, the Elder One that Morrigan warned you about, attacked my hold," Ixchel told Halevune first. "We warned you that he could control Wardens and Tainted things, and Morrigan seemed to want to keep Kieran from his influence. Where they've fled to, I don't know, but that was…days ago now."
The disappointment and aggravation were clear in the Warden's eye. She swallowed, then grimaced and touched her chest tentatively, where Corypheus had run her through with his claws. The ache was so dull it was nearly unnoticeable, but her ribs and throat felt nauseatingly tight.
"You were injured," Mahariel stated more than guessed. She had of course known that he had encountered the Architect, but not the details; from his tone, she felt that he had plenty of experience with wounds inflicted by ancient Magister Darkspawn and did not envy her.
She nodded slowly, wary of what reaction her next revelation might garner from the Warden. "And I have Anders to thank for my life."
Mahariel's eyes flashed, but she did not know if that recognition was born out of a positive or negative association. "How did he come into your company?" he asked guardedly.
Cole touched Ixchel's knee comfortingly, for she had swallowed again and nearly triggered a fit of coughs, which could have been the end of her in her fragile state. She lowered her voice, hoping that would avoid irritating her lungs. "After he and Justice…struck out against the Chantry, and forced the Circle Mages to vote on their freedom, he went into hiding. The Free Mages viewed him as a threat as much as the Loyalists... His old friends hunted him. Though he was still a healer, he could not help those he had harmed. What I am told is that he wished to face judgment, do penance of a kind, and that is why Morrigan's mother, Asha'Bellanar, coaxed him south in his dreams," Ixchel said. "She told them that death would destroy Justice, and she promised them a way to separate once and for all before Anders turned himself in. I intercepted him and told him of another way to end his possession—one in which Flemeth was unlikely to meddle."
Mahariel stared at her expectantly.
Ixchel took a labored breath. "Anders is no longer possessed."
For the first time, Mahariel looked away. He turned his head to the dark eluvian across the room, perhaps to hide a pang of—something. "Ah," he murmured. "I counted Justice among my friends for a time… Enaste. He was so adamant that he would not be corrupted…"
"He wasn't," Ixchel and Cole said at the same time, and Mahariel's mouth tightened. He looked back at them, brow once again plunged low over his eyes in suspicion.
"Justice wasn't killed, not like what the Dalish do," Cole said quickly. "He is free, free to fly, free to fight, free to fill. He is near, right now. Can't you feel him? He's glad you are here, Warden. He is glad you are proud of him. He is proud of you, too."
Mahariel did not speak to answer the Spirit, but Ixchel knew more than most that words were not necessary where Cole was concerned. She let him process, and commune with Cole, for a moment longer and set her plate aside.
"You say that Anders saved your life. So he has not been given over for judgment yet?"
She shook her head, but she could not raise her eyes to Mahariel. "He has—he has volunteered to become Tranquil, so that we might have a willing subject to test the Rite's reversal."
Even speaking the words made her stomach turn, and she gasped for breath to steady herself. Mahariel's silence was damningly loud, as much a condemnation as any she could have thought of for herself.
"The Templars—the Seekers—the Circles—their very foundation has been destroyed, and all sorts of secrets have come to light," Ixchel explained. "A real cure for Tranquility…that the Seekers have known about for hundreds of years. Secret deals between the Divine and the Empress of Orlais…" She shook her head again and squeezed her eyes shut. "The Inquisition was originally intended to intervene in the Mage-Templar conflict, and now that I am Inquisitor, that is technically my role. I have been mediating between the Free Mages, the Loyalists, the Templars and Seekers, the Chantry…and Anders. And this is a fate he volunteered for, and I think, they have agreed to."
Ixchel's chest ached, but it was not wholly due to the injuries she had aggravated with her prolonged speech. Her heart itself strained against her ribs, aching for the gentle healer who she had come to know, even if only a little, over the past several weeks.
Mahariel lay a hand on the back of the pew, just within her peripheral vision. "Ixchel," he said quietly. "Tell me what has happened to you."
"Why I am older than you remember?" she clarified, and he hummed affirmatively. Ixchel's lips quirked a little, realizing with a small pang of gratitude that Morrigan had kept her secret—even from Mahariel. "Time magic," Ixchel said. She looked up at him, smile now wry; at least his suspicion had faded, though she did not like the concern that had replaced it. "I have been Herald, and Inquisitor, and defeated Corypheus, in another life. A life in which I was dear friends with Morrigan and Kieran, Hal." She paused. "A life I ended prematurely in the face of another threat, out of despair."
Cole's hand appeared on her knee, and he squeezed it comfortingly. "But not out of weakness," he assured her.
Ixchel ducked her chin briefly. "Ma serannas, Cole."
Mahariel's jaw worked as though he were literally chewing on what she had just told him. "And time magic returned you from the dead?"
"I think so," she said. "I still don't fully understand what happened." She bit her lip suddenly—to stop herself from revealing that his lover's mother bore Mythal's essence, or that Ixchel herself perhaps carried the spent Old God Soul that Kieran possessed. She could not know how many multitudes of questions even one of those revelations would spawn…or how Mahariel would react. Above all, Mahariel was a proud son of the Dalish Clans. She knew that he wore Falon'Din's vallaslin out of dedication and reverence. It would be unkind to tear down everything he knew all at once, especially when he was so obviously concerned about the disappearance of his son and his beloved.
"How did you know to come here?" Ixchel asked.
Mahariel's eyes had wandered back to the dark eluvian as he pondered the mysteries laid out before him, but now they snapped back to her face. "You say you were…close, with my son? Then you know of his gifts." Ixchel nodded. Mahariel's grim smile twisted the scar that ran down one side of his face, a souvenir from the Archdemon whose soul Kieran carried beside his own. "He can appear to me in my dreams. But two nights ago… I felt that he was afraid. That he was being pursued. That he was in danger. He called out to me."
He jerked his head back in the direction he had appeared. "Within the Crossroads, I know which eluvian is Morrigan's. It was the first place I thought to look."
"Of course." Ixchel looked between him and Cole. "Do you have other guesses? Might I help your search?"
Mahariel's face twisted in anger, and he shook his head. But Cole nodded. "The god child sings to the song that's in you, but in a different key. In the Fade—I could listen, with you. I could try to hear where he has gone."
"If you're comfortable," Ixchel began to say, but Mahariel had nodded immediately, and she recalled that the Warden had undertaken far more questionable endeavors in his day with even less hesitation. She covered Cole's hand with her own, over her knee, and laced her fingers with his briefly. "Go with him, Cole. If you can help him, you should."
"Thank you, da'len, but not yet." Mahariel stood, his movements now languid and free of the aggression that had filled his frame before. "Your hold is filled with Wardens. After all that is happened, I should speak to them, if you would allow it. And I hear…another calling, the Taint, but—" he glanced at Cole "—in another key. It concerns me."
"It is the lyrium," Cole said softly. "Whispers in red lyrium, a Calling not to awaken but to become."
Ixchel and Mahariel exchanged troubled glances.
"You're welcome to stay, lethallin," Ixchel said to Mahariel. "As long as you want. Whatever I can do for you—just ask." She stood painstakingly and gathered her reports under one arm, while Cole picked up her empty plate. "Let's find my Commander. I'm sure he'll know where our Wardens are."
Mahariel held the door open for her, and she led him out into the gardens. It was still filled with healers and herbalists hard at work making salves and potions and dressings, washing soiled linens and taking a break from the converted infirmary in the main hall. Most hardly spared the Warden a glance, their eyes on Ixchel alone, but the Inquisitor caught at least one look of awed recognition directed to the Hero of Ferelden beside her.
The whispers rose quickly in the main hall, but Ixchel did not tarry long. They picked their way around the perimeter of the hall and out into the courtyard to take the long way to Cullen's office; the bridge to the rotunda had been damaged in Corypheus's assault.
Ixchel felt the Warden Commander grow tense as they descended the stairs. The Elder One had seeded their battleground with red lyrium, and her followers had done their best to remove it all, but even Ixchel could sense that traces of it lingered in the soil. She did not doubt that this was what Mahariel heard, too. But they skirted past the still-open pits and made their way to the battlements beside the ruined Herald's Rest.
In the light of day, the sight of Skyhold—her home, won and lost twice over—in ruin once again felt to Ixchel like a knife twisted in her gut. Those who were able-bodied enough to work toiled away at reconstruction efforts, but still, traces of battle marred the hold all around. From the pits in the ground to the blood on the walls to the smell of smoke and Blight that lingered in the air, Corypheus had left his mark.
Ixchel led the way into Cullen's office. As her vision transitioned from the bright afternoon to the dim space inside the tower, she did not see, but she heard, Cullen's surprise.
She squinted against the spots in her vision and found him standing dumbly over his desk, a book hanging loosely from one hand as he stared at Mahariel. Beside him stood Leliana. She had left her hood down, which afforded Ixchel an unobstructed view of her worn features—features currently frozen in the closest thing to fear Ixchel had truly seen on the Spymaster's face. Leliana was already pale, but now she looked as though she had seen a ghost.
"Huh."
Mahariel's voice was flat, heavy, cold. Ixchel looked up at him in surprise, only to find that he had pinned Leliana with a glare so intense, it might set the air aflame between them.
"Small world."