"My – my lord, I had no idea you were awake, I swear," she stammered, not even daring to look up. A wooden box lay forgotten on the floorboards before her. Across from the bed where he lay, a fire smoldered comfortably in the hearth. The room was plain, with a wooden frame and floorboards. Haven?
Memories came rushing back in a confused patchwork of sights and sounds. His mind had been muddled and his senses dulled, but he remembered – a terrible voice, a burning pain, a blackened jawbone jutting from the ashes… The edges blurred together with his nightmare, or his nightmare mirrored memories of the Fade bleeding into reality, reflections upon reflections of a grim truth. His heart was pounding in his throat. That much wasn’t unusual, as surprised as he was to find himself alive.
"It’s alright," Ilya murmured. Steady breaths. "I only—"
She scarcely seemed to hear him. "I – I beg your forgiveness, and your blessing."
What? His frown deepened as he studied her, rubbing his eyes with the back of a hand. Her down-turned face hid her expression, but her voice trembled with fear and… awe?
His eyes flicked from the frightened girl to the door. Weathered wood, no obvious reinforcement; it looked as if it might buckle under a strong couple of kicks. Even if it were barred from the outside, it wouldn’t serve as a cell door. The windows were grainy glass, too small for his shoulders but likewise unbarred. He touched his wrist with a hand: the bruises and cuts from the manacles he had worn the last time he awoke had already begun to fade. They must not have chained him while he slept. Was he not detained, then…?
"What happened?" Ilya asked, looking back to the girl as he pushed himself up off his elbows and swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit upright.
"They say you stopped the Breach from growing." She finally dared to peek up at him, her eyes wide, then looked away quickly. "They say you saved us. It’s all anyone has talked about for the past three days."
The wave of relief at those words did little to unravel the knot in his stomach. ‘Stopped from growing’ was not quite the outcome they had hoped for, but it was something. Perhaps that meant he had done enough to earn a respite – or perhaps it meant that with the close of the immediate crisis, he had outlived his usefulness.
"So," he mused, "I suppose a trial happens now."
"I don’t know anything about that," she replied, looking pale at the thought. She slowly rose to her feet, as if he might lunge at her, and began backing towards the door as she wrung her hands. "Lady Cassandra will want to know you’ve wakened. She said, at once."
"And where is she?" he asked.
"In the Chantry, with the Chancellor. At once, she said." With that, she was gone, scampering out the door. At least he didn’t hear the click of a lock or the thunk of a deadbolt.
The fire crackled softly, joined by only the sound of his own breathing. He had little time before Pentaghast was alerted, and no certainty of what her reaction would be. He had won some of her trust in the valley, he thought, but there was no way to know whether his failure to close the Breach entirely had rekindled her suspicions or burned away what little goodwill he had earned. The sound of his own voice echoing through the ruined temple came suddenly to mind; whatever had happened, would she think it incriminated him? Perhaps a failure to save the Divine was as good as a murder.
Even so, what Ilya had told Pentaghast on the road to the temple was true, at least in part: whatever fate awaited him in the village, it probably beat his alternatives. He was exhausted, unprepared, and hungry; trying to run would be a death sentence, even before considering what might become of the mark still smoldering in the heart of his palm. At least here he had some chance of shaping whatever came next.
His legs proved steady enough, and he took a few moments to collect himself. On the table, someone had left a cold loaf of bread and wedge of cheese, which he fell upon like a starved wolf, pausing only long enough to keep from choking. He wished he had a change of clothes, but a basin of water on the table at least afforded him the chance to wash some of the sweat and ash from his face and retie his disheveled hair. When the water had stilled, he could make out some of his reflection: drooping eyes, dark circles, sunken cheeks, stubble halfway to a beard... The change wrought by the past few days was disconcerting, but little surprise. He could only hope that the overall effect was pitiable, rather than untrustworthy. He tested a weary smile, just to make sure the muscles of his face were loose enough to manage it still, then turned away.
The sword he'd taken from the dead soldier was nowhere to be seen, along with the daggers they had presumably confiscated the last time he'd been unconscious. If they'd carried him back from the ruins of the temple, then that wasn't necessarily worrying, but the weight of a weapon would have been comforting. The state of his clothing and leathers was disastrous, stained in what seemed equal parts blood, sweat, and sulfur, but there was nothing to be done about that. If they did mean to execute him, Ilya thought with a whisper of dark amusement, perhaps they'd at least allow him a change of clothes first.
Despite the young woman's rushed departure, he still half-expected to find the door locked when he tested the handle, but it gave way easily. Outside, he was met by the bracing wind, and –
Another chill settled in deeper than the frigid mountain air as Ilya took in the sight of the gathered crowd. For a moment, he thought they might mean to kill him after all, but it was too quiet to be a mob. When Pentaghast had last led him through the village, he had been met with murderous jeers and murmurs of dissent. Now, the crowd was hushed, almost reverential, as if awaiting the words of the Chant.
He didn't like it. Not at all.
After a moment's hesitation, he stepped forward. The gap in the crowd widened at his approach, allowing him to pass through easily, with the sound of whispers at his back. Andraste's chosen, they say –
Ilya hurried to the Chantry. Perhaps the mountains weren’t such a bad idea, after all.