The tip of her nose was cold from the biting autumn wind, and she had to keep her hands buried in the itchy wool of her coat to keep away the chill. She could feel every pebble through the thin leather soles of her secondhand shoes. She should probably count herself lucky to be able to fit into a child’s outgrown hand-me-downs in the first place, as she wouldn’t have been able to afford a pair to replace her old ones otherwise, well-worn or not. It was difficult to bring herself to count her blessings today, though.
She’d had a half day of walking to think about it, and she still hadn’t come up with a plan. The further she got from Redcliffe, the more leaden the dread in the pit of her stomach felt. Stupid, stupid, stupid fools, the lot of them. What was the Grand Enchanter thinking? Nothing, apparently. Morning would have enjoyed the satisfaction of an I told you so when they all wound up in a blood magic cauldron in Tevinter, if she’d had the guts to say something before she left.
She hadn’t, though. She had snuck out in the hours before dawn without so much as a goodbye or a go-fuck-yourselves, after a sleepless night spent trying to quell the panic clutching at her throat and the nausea twisting in her stomach.
Maybe she could have waited another day. Maybe she would have been able to prepare better, scrape together a bit more food, even just think of someplace to go. But from the moment she heard that a Magister had arrived in Redcliffe – the moment she had learned that Fiona hadn’t turned them away on the spot – Morning had known she wasn’t safe among the Rebellion any longer, if she’d ever been safe there at all.
Fiona. An elf. She must have gone daft, or perhaps that Magister had already ensorcelled her mind – it made no difference. The rest of them could delude themselves into thinking that the Tevinters would offer them some kind of future if they wanted to. Even if they were right, there was no place for her in that future. No place for any of the full-blooded elves, either, but certainly none for her.
Well, they could all rot. She might have nowhere to go, but she’d die on the road before she’d live to see what the Tevinters meant to do with a half-qunari.
Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting her grumbling. As hungry as she was, Morning dreaded breaking into the few supplies she had been able to throw together the night before – some hard cheese, a loaf of stale bread, a few uncooked potatoes, a single pale carrot. With a knot of emotion already trembling at the back of her throat, she wasn’t sure she could stand the sight of the pathetic little bundle.
Still, maybe with something to eat, she could think more clearly. She had to think of something. Anything. She had departed east from Redcliffe, as the sight of the mountains to the west had proven too intimidating, and skirted south of the Imperial highway, for fear of bandits or templars, but as for what lay further to the east… damn it all, she should have stolen Liette’s map before she left. It wasn’t as if that fool woman was using it as anything but a table mat.
Morning stopped and rubbed her cold hands across her face. The grit stinging at her eyes was from lack of sleep, that was all. She would have a bite to eat, and walk until she found someplace to shelter from the wind, and when she woke up tomorrow she would feel better. Once she was far enough from the fighting, there would be some village or farm to stop at for a while. Everything was going to be alright. A year ago, she had dreamed of feeling the sun on her face and the wind in her hair, and it had felt just as impossible. A year from now, she would think back on this mess with a rueful smile.
Around the bend in the road ahead of her came the familiar clanking stride of plate armor, joined by men’s voices.
Morning’s head snapped up, eyes wide. Oh, no.
She didn’t stop to think, even to breathe, before she scrambled off the road and into the brush. Damn it, there wasn’t enough cover to hide – but she was small, her coat was brown, maybe if she curled up behind a tree trunk –
With her knees hugged to her chest, eyes shut tight, Morning tried to quiet her breathing. The footsteps on the road came closer and closer, and then – she felt terror sliding over her like ice water – they slowed to a stop.
A branch snapped as one of them stepped off the road behind her. Metal scraped as he drew his sword.
No, no no no no no no no –
She couldn’t hold back a scream as a gauntleted hand suddenly closed around the back of her neck, dragging her backwards before throwing her onto the road. She landed hard enough to make her teeth snap together, but didn’t have time to gather her wits before he made a fist in her hair and hauled her back up. The tips of her shoes barely touched the ground, and the blade was cold against her neck.
There were three – no, four of them, wearing dusty templar armor and smug looks. She didn’t dare to reach into her coat to grasp the broken core of her staff she’d tucked inside, but she could already feel the stubborn edges of reality sharpening around them, choking the whispers of the Fade into silence. One of the templars, tall and red-haired, stepped towards her, and she fought to slow her breathing.
“What’s your name, elf?”
Fuck, what was an elven name? “S- Sylaise.” Fuck. Stupid. They didn’t seem to realize – but of course they wouldn’t. There was a Dalish word for stupid humans, but she couldn’t remember it now.
One of the other men, broad-shouldered with a shaggy black beard, stepped forward to rip her rucksack off her shoulder. “Grey skin,” he observed. “I reckon that’s a qunari.”
“Didn’t know they made them this small,” the man with his sword to her throat muttered.
The other one shook out the contents of her bag onto the road, then stomped on the cheese and potatoes, grinding them into the dirt beneath his heel before kicking them to the side.
“Don’t they sew their mages’ mouths shut? So this one mustn’t be –”
The red-headed one, the apparent leader of the group, cut him off. “Whatever she is, it doesn’t matter.” Morning would have been surprised if that were the end of it, but she felt her stomach sink all the same when the blade remained at her throat. She didn’t dare to think what they meant to do with her – calm, she had to stay calm. Whatever they intended, she wouldn’t let them. She just had to wait until the one dampening her magic let his attention slip, and she would make sure nothing was left of them all but blackened bones. The leader took another step closer and reached out to hold her by the jaw, the metal of his gauntlet biting into her skin. The smile on his mouth made her want to throw up, or smash his teeth in, or both. “Now, why were you hiding, girl?”
What kind of stupid question was that? Why the hell wouldn’t she be hiding? No – he just wanted to watch her squirm. They were toying with her. “I—” She winced and faltered as the one holding her tightened his grip on her hair. “I thought you were bandits…”
One of the others laughed. “More likely setting up an ambush.” Oh, the second they slipped up, she was going to burn his tongue to ash in his mouth. Even as frightened as she was, she had to bite her own tongue to resist swearing at him.
“Easy now,” another man’s voice called from further away. Another templar? With the blade against her throat and the fist gripping her hair she couldn’t turn her head. “That’s an Inquisition agent. You don’t want any trouble.”
What? she thought, feeling dizzy. But she wasn’t – what? Morning swallowed hard and focused on her face, trying to fight back the baffled look tugging at her eyebrows.
“Is that so,” their leader said, and let go of her face as he turned away. The stranger must be approaching them. Yes – the bastard holding her turned to look as well, and the shift brought the newcomer into her field of vision. A tall, fair-haired human in leather armor, his sword still sheathed. Morning supposed it would be stupid to charge into a group of templars alone if he was looking for a fight. And why would he be?
“That’s right.” The stranger stopped some distance away, as if coming to the end of a leisurely stroll. “I shouldn’t have to tell you the Inquisition doesn’t take kindly to dead scouts.”
His accent didn’t sound like one of the Hinterlands people, more like the templars from back in Ansburg. He sounded… unafraid, like they were a group of kids throwing rocks, rather than heavily-armed soldiers in the process of assaulting a traveler on the road.
“How very convenient.” The leader looked him up and down. “Even if she was, why should we care? As far as the Inquisition or anyone else is concerned, two fools with their throats cut on the side of the road has got nothing to do with us.”
The newcomer laughed outright, light and melodic. “You do know the Inquisition’s spymaster last served the Divine, right? Sister Nightingale knows exactly where her scouts are. How do you think I knew where to look for her?” His gaze scanned across the four templars, catching for just a moment on Morning’s wide eyes before moving on. “You’ll be begging for death by nightfall.”
Morning suddenly felt the dampening spell slip as the stranger drew their attention. The ambient traces of the Fade flowed around them once more, as natural and effortless as a cool brook across her bare feet. This was her opening, but – the stranger was so close now, she might…
“Horseshit,” the templar scoffed. “You’re bluffing.”
The stranger smiled. Something about that smile, cool and viciously serene, sent a thrill through her. He looked like that was what he had been hoping to hear. “You want to bet your skin on it?”
The silence stretched on interminably, before finally the templar leader swore under his breath. “Let her go,” he said at last. “The bitch isn’t worth the trouble of cleaning your blade.”
The one holding her hesitated, then pulled the sword away and released his grip on her hair. She unceremoniously crumpled to the ground, cracking her knees on the hard dirt of the road with a bolt of sharp pain. “Ow!”
The templars backed away, then turned tail and left. The stranger waited until their footsteps and sullen muttering had faded into the wind, then knelt beside her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. Morning could only manage to stare at him, feeling like she’d forgotten how to speak the trade tongue.[1] His eyebrows knit together with… concern? “Ah – your throat, it’s bleeding.”
She lifted her fingers to her throat, and finally noticed the stinging of the wound when they came away red with blood. When she looked up again, he was holding out a handkerchief. Dumbly, she stared at it for a few more moments, before begrudgingly taking it to press against her throat. The rest of her hurt worse than the cut, her knees sore and her scalp still aching. “I’m – I’m fine.” She tried to still the tremor in her voice. “I’m fine.”
He paused, then offered her a patient smile. The easy warmth of his face was almost enough to make her second-guess whether that unsettling smile that had scared off the templars had been a figment of her panicked imagination. He was… handsome, probably, with a large nose with a scar down its length, brown skin dotted with several large moles, and overgrown stubble that matched his pale hair.
After a moment spent watching her, he reached into a pocket to withdraw something – she couldn’t help but flinch – only for him to extend a flask. “Whiskey,” he explained, and before she knew it he had pressed it into her palm. “It’ll dull the pain.”
Morning was reluctant to accept, but – a drink did sound really good right now, and she wasn’t sure her legs were steady enough yet to get up from the spot where she’d been dropped like a child’s discarded toy. She finally pulled her eyes away from him to examine the flask in her hands: plain well-worn leather, with a little celadon charm of a tiger dangling from the strap. She pulled the stopper and took a long swig.
The alcohol was sweet and spicy on her tongue, and left her coughing. After the burn had stopped, she took another drink. Unwise, probably – in the few skirmishes she’d had with alcohol, she had generally lost badly – but if he meant to leave her dead in a ditch, he probably wouldn’t be such a gentleman about it in the process. And if he did, well – better him than templars, she supposed.
In the meantime, the man had begun to collect the scattered contents of her rucksack. Her books, her comb, her socks – the meager few belongings she had managed to gather before they had quit the tower, before she had fled the Rebellion. To see everything she owned covered in road dust, held with such care in the hands of a stranger, left her face hot and her eyes stinging. Just the whiskey, she thought, blinking rapidly as she looked back to the ground.
The man’s hands were quick, and Morning’s possessions soon formed a little pile atop her bag. Something about the sight of it was intolerable, and she haphazardly stuffed everything back inside the rucksack as quickly as she could, without even half the care he had taken in collecting her things. Her ruined rations remained untouched by the side of the road, although he must have noticed them there. Probably already covered in ants, she thought sourly.
The next thing Morning knew, he was standing above her, looking far too tall and offering her his hand. It took her a moment to comprehend that he meant to help her up. She thought about refusing his hand, maybe just sitting here in the dirt for the remainder of her life, but after a few seconds she gritted her teeth and reached out to take it. She half-expected to fall right back down again – as did he, judging by the way he didn’t let go – but her legs held up. After it was clear that she was steady on her feet, he released his grip and stepped back. She found herself staring at him again, mouth half-open as if to speak, but unable to even formulate the question.
“My name is Ilya,” he offered with another smile.
She didn’t smile back. She wished he would stop that. “Why?” She hadn’t meant to speak at all, but now that she’d found her voice, the question was inexorable.
He raised his eyebrows. “Why what?”
“Help me,” she said, and somehow it sounded like an accusation. Save me, she might have said, but that word was too vexing. “You – you don’t even know me.”
The man shrugged. “You seemed like you could use a hand.”
That didn’t explain anything. Who the hell thought they could get away with a stunt like that, anyway? Her braid was half undone, she realized suddenly, as the wind caught a few strands of her hair. Shit, she must look ridiculous like this. Morning lowered the handkerchief from her throat and glared at him as she straightened the collar of her travel coat and brushed off some of the dust, to little effect. “I don’t need your help.”
“Alright,” he replied lightly, apparently undeterred. “Still, why don’t you come back to our camp for now? I’m sure someone will be going in the same direction as you, and you’ll both be safer on the road for the company.”
Morning let out an irritated huff of breath through her nose, tucking her hair back behind her ears. He seemed to take her lack of argument as acquiescence. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” she replied curtly, fiddling with the strap of her rucksack to ensure it hadn’t torn. Seeming satisfied with that reply, he started back in the direction he’d come from with a slow stride. After a moment’s hesitation, she shouldered her bag and trailed unhappily after him.
“Those were real templars, you know,” she said, frowning at his back. She tried to ignore the lingering waver in her voice. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“Maybe,” he replied, with another shrug as he glanced back at her. “I was betting that they were cowards.”
“They’re all fucking cowards,” she snapped back. “That doesn’t make them less dangerous.”
“I know.”
“What if they hadn’t believed you?”
“Then I would have killed them.” The calm certainty in his voice took her aback.
“And gotten me killed in the process,” she muttered.
“They were going to kill you anyway,” he replied, gently. He left the or worse unspoken, but she was too annoyed to be grateful for his tact.
“You think you can kill four templars?” she asked dubiously.
“The ones out here? Yes.”
That answer surprised her, but Morning took his meaning. Most of the renegade templars here in the Hinterlands were vicious fools drunk on the thrill of finally being allowed to indulge their base cruelty without any pretense. If they’d had any real discipline, they wouldn’t be pillaging the countryside in the first place. Still, his confidence was bewildering.
They walked in silence for a short while. His stride slowed further, until they were side by side. It made it vexingly difficult to overlook the full head or so he stood over her. “Just so you know,” he said finally, with a glance toward her, “it’s alright if you are a mage. I’m not worried about that.”
She let out an annoyed huff. “I’m not a mage.” Was that some kind of trick? Why wouldn’t he be worried about it? “Those bastards will stop anybody these days. Anybody they think they can rob, or…” She trailed off, suddenly compelled to change the subject rather than pursue that train of thought further. “Are you really with the Inquisition?”
“Mhm.”
“So you have a job, then? You don’t spend all your time playing the hero for random damsels in distress on the road?” Perhaps that was a bit too bitter.
He shot her an amused glance, another stupid smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “We have quotas, you know. I was short a damsel for the week.”
Never mind. “How pragmatic,” Morning muttered under her breath. After a bit longer, she couldn’t help but break the silence again. “That bit about the Divine’s spymaster – was that true?”
“Mostly.”
“Really?”
“She did work for the Divine. She isn’t personally managing the situation in the Hinterlands, but we have enough people out here to narrow down any disappearances quickly.” A note of dry humor slipped into his voice. “Still, they might have lived until tomorrow night, I suppose.”
Morning chewed on the side of her cheek. “Too bad,” she muttered. “They deserve to rot.”
“They will,” he replied, calm and soft, like it was a promise.
Her eyebrows shot up, but when she looked up at him, he didn’t meet her eyes this time. The frown settled across her brow once more. Did he really mean that?
She turned her eyes down to the dirt road, but the longer the silence stretched on, the more difficult it proved to tolerate. She didn’t want to talk, but she didn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts, either. It took her a moment to rifle around for another topic. “Do you know the Herald of Andraste, then?”
He didn’t glance over this time, but his voice still had that amused edge. “We’ve never met face to face.”
Somehow, that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “To be honest, I didn’t even think he was real.”
“The bit about Andraste is questionable, but he is real, for better or for worse.”
She huffed. “How would you know what Andraste was up to?”
He slowed to a stop, and spent a few moments studying her face, as if making up his mind about something. Whether to leave her in the ditch after all for being so quarrelsome, in all likelihood. She drew herself up straight and lifted her chin as she met his gaze, preparing herself for however he might retaliate, but he just sighed.
“Listen, I don’t mean to tease you,” he said finally, as he started tugging off one of his leather gloves. What was he going to do, hit her with it? “Just please try not to get upset, alright?”
She tried and failed to quell the nervous sense of suspense suddenly bubbling in her chest. “Upset about what?”
With the glove removed, he offered her his hand, palm-up. Stretched across the peach-brown of his palm was a jagged green gash, flickering with pale light. “It’s me,” he said, sounding suddenly tired. “I’m the one they’re calling the Herald.”
Morning stared at his hand in silence, then looked up to his face, then back to his hand. When she finally found her tongue again, her voice had risen several octaves and was loud enough to startle several birds out of a bush nearby. “What?!”
“Shhh,” he winced. She clapped a hand over her mouth, only to remove it a moment later.
“You’re him?” Her voice was just as shrill, although her volume had dropped to a stage whisper.
“Unfortunately,” he replied, slipping his glove back on.
Morning pressed her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes to try to banish a sudden wave of dizziness. This couldn’t be real. She was going to wake up on her straw mattress back in Redcliffe, feeling foolish about this entire, ridiculous dream. It was absurd enough to think she’d been rescued by pure chance by some stranger who could frighten templars without so much as drawing a blade, but the Herald of fucking Andraste – sure, Andraste was too dead to have anything to do with it, probably, but he was the herald of something –
A hysterical giggle slipped out of her throat, despite her grimace, but there was a note of something like despair in her voice. “Oh, no. Oh, no…”
She must have stood there with her eyes shut for longer than she thought; when she felt a gentle touch to her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of her skin. He was smiling at her apologetically. “Let’s sit down for a while. You must have walked a long way already.”
For the first time that day, she felt too dazed to argue. He led her a little ways away from the road, onto a grassy slope that overlooked the farmland below. It would have been scenic, were it not for the charred remains of several distant farmhouses and mottled patches where fire had scorched away fields. Morning sank to the ground beside him, staring vacantly out at nothing.
“Here,” he said, pressing something into her hand. She looked down to find a large piece of cheese. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”
She stared at it for a few seconds, too many feelings to name gripping at her throat, before cautiously taking a nibble. The flavor was sharp and the fat was rich on her tongue, and she remembered suddenly that she was famished. After another large bite, she cast a worried look up at him.
Rather than scolding her, he held out a piece of bread and a canteen. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more at our camp. Have as much as you want.”
Morning hesitated, but not for very long. After she had finished, he handed her something else – a piece of fruit. She studied it, somehow puzzled.
It was a large pear, its pale green skin beginning to blush ripened pink. When was the last time she had eaten a pear? She must have been a child, before Domhnall took her to Ansburg. She couldn’t even recall the taste, but she remembered liking them. The longer she looked at it, the heavier it felt in her hands, like a precious stone.
He was saying something else, but she didn’t hear. As she carefully cradled the pear between her palms, Morning held it to her chest, drew her knees up to her face, and cried.
When she finally lifted her head again, the front of her skirt was damp, and the sky had changed colors as the sun began to sink westward. Ilya was still sitting beside her, leaning back and watching the clouds. After a long silence, except for her sniffling, she took a small bite of the pear and chewed it slowly. The flesh was more coarse than she recalled, but it had a delicate, mild sweetness. It brought to mind moments she could almost remember, fluttering just out of reach – laying in the grass in the summertime, eating sliced pears drizzled in honey. She had cried then, too, after a bee had chased her. Someone had comforted her; her mother? She couldn’t remember anymore. That must have been nearly twenty summers ago. Her thick throat made it hard to swallow the bite, so she kept chewing.
They sat in silence for a while longer as she slowly savored the pear. Part of her felt guilty to waste his time like this, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
“Ilya,” she said at last. Her voice was still wet and ragged. “Earlier, you asked…” She trailed off, then tried again. “I am a mage. I’m sorry.”
That didn’t seem to surprise him at all, but she felt too thoroughly wrung out to try to be annoyed with him again. “That’s alright.”
“Really?” Her brow furrowed, leaving her reddened eyes pensive. “But the Inquisition – it’s a Chantry… situation, isn’t it?”
He smiled at her, and again, it seemed impossibly incongruous with that look on his face from before. Maker, that felt like it was hours ago, but it must not have been all that long. “I promise.”
She looked away again, suddenly afraid that she might not have run out of tears after all. “If you’re the bloody Herald, I suppose I can’t argue,” she murmured, only for him to laugh.
“No,” Ilya replied, amused, “I suppose you can’t. Will you tell me your name now, at least?”
Her eyebrows shot up as she looked back to him. “My– Oh.” For a moment, she felt mortified, but she found her mouth returning his smile regardless. It felt… better than she expected, to smile like that. “My name is Morning.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Morning.” She wasn’t sure it had ever been a pleasure for anyone to meet her, least of all him, after the mess she’d gotten him into. He paused a moment. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but – do you have somewhere to go?”
Her eyes turned back towards the horizon stretched out below the hillside, where Redcliffe lay westward. She could see just a bit of the lake sparkling beneath the descending sun. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “No.”
That seemed to be the answer he was expecting. Morning supposed it wasn’t a difficult conclusion to reach, all things considered. “Well,” he said, “you can stay with the Inquisition as long as you’d like. If that’s what you want.”
She looked back to him once more, eyes wide. “I didn’t think the Inquisition took mages.”
“It won’t be a problem,” he shrugged. “We already have a few, anyway.”
“I don’t– I’m not a battle mage, you know.” Her heart was beating quickly now, as if she was afraid something might slip from her fingers before she had even learned what it was she was holding. Her hands tightened around the half-eaten pear, although she was careful not to crush it. “I mean, I’ve fought before, but –”
He nudged her shoulder with an elbow. “If you want to stay, we’ll sort it out. If you don’t want to fight, there’s plenty of other work to be done.”
“No,” Morning said, surprising herself. She thought of the red-haired templar’s smiling face again. “I do want to fight.”
“Well, so long as you don’t set us on fire,” Ilya replied with a wink, “I daresay we’ll manage. Alright?”
Morning had to cover her laugh with a hand. Despite the smile pulling at her mouth, her chest still felt tight, like something inside was full to bursting. “Alright,” she said, and took another bite of her pear.