Chapter 12: Whispers of Treason
Lothering was less a town than a symptom.
The scent hit them first, long before the outer farms came into view: a dense perfume of unwashed bodies, animal sweat, and the greasy smoke of too many cookfires. The Imperial Highway, which they'd rejoined at a cautious distance, was a sluggish, muddy river of human misery. Carts laden with broken furniture and whimpering children clogged the way. Men and women trudged with blank eyes, carrying everything they owned on their backs. The occasional mounted rider in the colors of Loghain's Gwaren guard pushed through, scowling, their presence adding a sharp note of fear to the miasma of despair.
"Maker's breath," Alistair muttered, adjusting the strap of his shield as a hollow-eyed woman shuffled past, clutching a blanket-wrapped bundle to her chest. "They're pouring out of the south like ants from a kicked hill."
"They flee the horde's advance," Morrigan said, her tone devoid of sympathy. She navigated the edge of the throng with an animal's detached grace, untouched by the press. "Their terror has a taste. Like copper on the wind."
Daylen said nothing. His Circle training had been within sterile, controlled walls. This raw, unchanneled desperation was a new kind of chaos. He kept a hand near the pommel of one of his longswords, not out of threat, but from a deeply ingrained instinct to guard his space.
Just outside the town's pallisade, the chaos condensed into a scene of petty predation. Three men in mismatched leathers had an elven family backed against their own wagon, a skeletal mule trembling between the shafts. A man with a livid scar across his chin was yanking a wedding ring from the finger of the elven woman, while her husband tried to shield their two children.
"Come now, knife-ear, you won't be needing this where you're going," the bandit sneered.
Alistair was moving before Daylen could speak. "I think they might need it more than you do."
The bandits turned, scorn turning to assessment as they took in the armored Warden. "Piss off, soldier. This is toll collection. Highway's unsafe. We're providing a service."
"Your service ends now," Daylen said, his voice cutting through the ambient din. He didn't draw his swords. Not yet.
The lead bandit laughed, a wet, unpleasant sound. "Three of us, two of you and your fancy witch. Bad odds."
Morrigan leaned casually on her staff. "You cannot count. There is only one of you who matters. And he is already dead." Her eyes flicked to the scarred man. "Your heart flutters like a trapped bird. A weakness, bequeathed by your mother. It will burst on your next exertion."
The man's hand went instinctively to his chest, his bravado cracking. "You lying bi—"
He never finished. Alistair’s shield hit him like a battering ram, dropping him to the mud. The other two bandits surged forward.
What followed was not a duel. It was a dismissal. Daylen’s left blade cleared its sheath in a whisper of steel, deflecting a clumsy axe swing. He didn’t cast, didn’t need to. He stepped inside the man’s guard and drove the pommel into his temple. The man crumpled. The third bandit, seeing his companions fall, turned to flee. A sudden knot of tree roots erupted from the mire, tripping him violently. Alistair strode over and brought his sword hilt down with a precise crack.
Silence, save for the muffled sobs of the elven children and the distant murmur of the refugee column.
Daylen wiped his blade clean on the unconscious bandit’s tunic and sheathed it. He gathered the stolen goods—a small purse, the ring, a locket—and handed them back to the elf, whose hands trembled as he took them.
"Thank you, ser," the man whispered, his voice raw. "They said... they said the Wardens betrayed the king. But you..."
"Do not believe everything you hear on the road," Daylen said. "Get your family off the highway. Find a side trail."
They nodded, frantic, and hurried to coax their mule into motion.
Morrigan was examining the man whose heart she had mentioned. "Hmm. It seems I was incorrect. It did not burst. A pity."
"Must you?" Alistair sighed, rolling the bandits’ bodies off the path with a shove of his boot.
"I speak the truth as I see it. Its utility is not my concern."
They passed under the creaking sign of Lothering’s sole taverndayl. The air inside was thicker, hot with breath and spilled ale and despair. The noise was a wall. Refugees huddled on the floor, clutching mugs of watery broth. A few merchants, looking harried, argued in a corner.
And then, a voice rose above the din, clear and melodious, telling a story.
"...and so the lady drew her blade of summer steel, and her light was such that the darkspawn hid their eyes, and she smote the Archdemon a mighty blow, singing the Chant of Light as she fought!"
The speaker was a woman with hair the color of a sunset, braided intricately, seated near the fire. She wore Chantry robes, but they were travel-stained, and she had a dagger at her belt. Her face was animated, her blue eyes bright as she held a small group of ragged listeners in thrall.
"A pretty tale," Morrigan remarked, claiming a spot at a sticky table. "Suitable for soothing children before they are devoured by wolves."
Alistair, however, was staring. "Is that a sister? Telling battle stories?"
As they found seats, the tale ended. The listeners dispersed, some leaving a copper in a wooden bowl by her feet. The red-haired woman caught Alistair's gaze and smiled, a warm, open expression. She rose and approached their table.
"You are new faces. And you bear arms," she said. Her accent was strange, musical. Not Fereldan. "I am Leliana. A traveling sister, of sorts."
"Of sorts?"Daylen asked.
"I have had many lives. Now, I feel the Maker's guidance leading me down a path. It led me here. And it whispers that I should speak with you." Her eyes fell on the griffon emblem on Alistair’s armor, partially hidden under his cloak. Her smile didn't fade, but it deepened with understanding. "Grey Wardens."
The door to the tavern banged open. Three men in uniforms stamped inside, scattering straw and tension. They wore the crest of Loghain—a heraldic lion. Their leader, a sergeant with a boiled-leather face, scanned the room. His eyes landed on their table, on the weapons, on Alistair’s attempt to hide the griffon.
"You there." The sergeant’s voice silenced the remaining chatter. "Heard there was some trouble on the road. Dead toll-collectors. You match the description."
Leliana’s posture shifted subtly, one hand drifting towards the hilt of her dagger. "Sergeant, these men have only just arrived. They are enjoying a moment's peace."
"Shut it, sister. This is Crown business." The sergeant took a step closer. "Loghain Mac Tir has declared the Grey Wardens traitors to the throne. All associates are to be detained for questioning. You will come with us."
Alistair’s chair scraped back. "On whose authority? The king is dead. Loghain abandoned the field."
"The only authority that matters," the sergeant growled, drawing his sword. His two companions followed suit.
The tavern held its breath.
Daylen stayed seated. He took a slow sip from the tankard of ale he’d just paid for. It was sour, warm. "We have business. We're not going with you."
"Then you die here, traitor."
They moved as one. The sergeant lunged for Alistair. The other two spread out, one towards Daylen, one, inexplicably, towards Leliana.
Time seemed to stretch. Daylen felt the familiar pool of mana in his gut, cool and ready. But he didn't reach for it. Instead, he kicked the table forward, spilling drinks into the lap of the man coming for him. As the man cursed and stumbled, Daylen rose, his right longsword leaving its sheath in a single fluid motion. He didn’t aim to kill. He used the flat of the blade, cracking it against the man’s sword arm. Bone snapped. The man screamed and dropped his weapon.
To his left, Alistair had caught the sergeant’s overhead chop on his shield and shoved back, sending the man off-balance. A quick pommel-strike to the helmet rang it like a bell. The sergeant staggered.
The third man had Leliana in his grasp. Or so he thought. One moment she was there, the next she had twisted like an eel, her leg hooking behind his. He fell hard. Her boot came down on his wrist, and her dagger point rested against his throat.
"Surrender," she said, her voice still pleasant. "The Maker has no love for pointless bloodshed."
Morrigan hadn't moved from her chair. A thin, almost invisible shimmer of ice now coated the floor around the fallen sergeant. When he tried to rise, his boots slid wildly, sending him crashing back down.
It was over in less than thirty seconds.
Daylen stood over the disarmed men, breathing steady. He looked at Leliana."Thank you."
"A rogue sister," Alistair said, a note of awe in his voice. "Who tells stories and fights like a bard from the tales."
"I told you," Leliana said, wiping her dagger clean with a handkerchief. "I have had many lives. It seems one of them must now be as a Grey Warden, if you will have me. The dream was quite specific."
Morrigan made a soft, disgusted sound. "Divine guidance. How tediously mundane."
Daylen considered the redhead. She was capable. She believed. And they had three empty quills on their treaty scrolls. "We're heading into the Wilds, then to the Circle Tower. Possibly into the Deep Roads. It won't be pretty tales."
"My prettiest tales," Leliana said, her eyes gleaming, "are all true."
They dragged the dazed soldiers out the back and left them tied in the midden heap, a clearer message than killing them. Sten, they found in a cage by the Chantry, a hulking qunari who spoke in rumbles of duty and failure. He wanted a purpose, a battle to atone for a crime he would not name. His massive two-handed sword was promise enough. Daylen broke the lock.
Gold was scavenged from the remaining bandit hideout in an old mill north of town, a quick, brutal clearance that left four more bodies in the churning water. They used the coin for supplies: potions from a frightened apothecary, whetstones, dried meat that wouldn't spoil.
As the sun began to bleed into the western hills, they left Lothering behind, the pall of its hopelessness receding. Bodahn Feddic’s merchant cart was on the roadside just beyond the last refugee cluster, its bright colors a strange note of cheer. The dwarven merchant was waving his arms, shouting, as a scouting pack of three genlocks clawed at his wagon’s wheels.
Sandal, his wide-eyed son, was standing on the driver’s seat. He pointed a finger.Boom.
A flash of pure, white-hot energy erupted, enveloping a genlock and reducing it to a charred, twitching husk. "Enchantment?" Sandal said, sounding vaguely curious.
The remaining darkspawn turned.
It was a skirmish, not a battle. Sten’s great sword cleaved one in half with a grunt of effort. Alistair and Daylen took the last in a pincer, blades finding the gaps in its crude armor. The thing died with a wet gurgle.
Bodahn was effusive with thanks, offering a discount on his goods—which consisted mostly of fine cloth and ornamental daggers, of little use. He did, however, have a stock of lyrium potions. Daylen traded for them with some of the bandit gold.
The road south stretched before them, empty and menacing as a drawn blade.
As they made camp that night in the lee of a rocky outcrop, the silence was different. It was no longer just Alistair and Morrigan’s prickly quiet. Leliana hummed as she prepared the stew, a soft Orlesian ballad. Sten sat, sharpening his sword, the rhythmic scrape of stone on steel a metronome in the gathering dark.
Morrigan approached Daylen as he took first watch, sitting beside him on the cold stone. The firelight danced on the planes of her face.
"You collected them like trinkets," she said, her voice low. "The repentant brute. The dreaming sister. A menagerie for the doomed."
"We need an army," Daylen replied, watching the stars emerge. "This is how it starts."
"They follow you. They watched you today. You did not wield your magic. You used only the blade. A calculated display for the templar and the sister?"
"Sometimes a blade is just a blade." He looked at her. "You were right about Lothering. The fear told the story. Loghain’s version is taking root."
"He sows his field with lies. We shall see what he reaps." She was close enough that he could feel the heat of her, smell the wild herbs and ozone that clung to her skin. The memory of the hut, of waking under her golden gaze, of her unabashed assessment of his naked form, thrummed between them, a live wire.
Her hand rested on the stone, inches from his. "You told me to be myself.To speak plain. Very well." She turned those fierce, intelligent eyes on him. "The Blight-song in your blood... it is a lure. To the darkspawn, yes. But to other things as well. It resonates with the deep, old magics. With things that sleep. You are a walking beacon in more ways than one, Daylen Amell. Be mindful of what you call."
He held her gaze, the warning settling in him not as fear, but as a kind of grim acknowledgment. "And what does it call in you, Morrigan?"
For the first time, she seemed to have no ready answer. Her lips parted slightly. The charged silence stretched, thick with unspoken things, with the raw and curious attraction that had crackled since she’d pulled him from death’s edge.
From the fire, Alistair’s voice carried, cheerful and deliberately loud. "So, Leliana. This lady with the summer-steel blade. Did she have a name, or was she just generically glorious?"
Leliana’s laugh tinkled in the dark. "Her name was forgotten, so that her deeds would belong to all."
Morrigan’s moment of vulnerability vanished behind her customary mask of scorn. She rose smoothly. "I shall take the next watch. Try not to dream of singing ladies, Alistair. Your sighs disturb the wildlife."
She melted into the shadows beyond the firelight.
Daylen watched her go, feeling the weight of the treaties in his pack, the new faces around his fire, the deep, thrumming call of the taint in his veins. The path ahead was dark, narrow, and thronged with enemies both human and inhuman. But for the first time since the tower fell, he did not feel entirely alone. He had a collection of lost causes, a sharp-tongued witch, and a duty that would either forge them or burn them to ash.The stars were cold and distant. Somewhere to the south, in the deep places, the Archdemon stirred.
Somewhere to the south, in the deep places, the Archdemon stirred.
At the fire, Leliana passed Daylen a wooden bowl of stew. "It is not much. Turnip, some rabbit Morrigan caught. But it is hot."
"It's good," Daylen said, and meant it. The warmth spread through his chest."Thank you."
The wind picked up, whistling over the rock face and making the flames dance. Sten was a motionless silhouette against the vast, star-flecked sky, his vigilance a physical presence. Alistair was already rolling himself in his bedroll near the coals, mumbling about blisters and mabari with poor attitudes.
Daylen moved to sit near Sten, giving the qunari a respectful amount of space. "Your sword," Daylen began, choosing his words. "It has a purpose in its design. Every curve has a function."
Sten's head turned slowly. His eyes, in the firelight, were chips of obsidian. "The ghan\-kata. It is not a sword. It is an answer. The edge meets a problem. The geometry directs force." He spoke in a low rumble, each word considered. "To see this is to understand its soul."
"It demands a different stance," Daylen observed, thinking of the wide, sweeping arcs Sten had used against the genlock. "Wider footing. You commit your whole mass."
"The Beresaad do not feint. We do not dance. We decide. The blow lands, or it does not. The outcome is inevitable." A pause. "Your people fight like insects. All scurrying and individual stings. It is inefficient."
"The Grey Wardens fight to win," Daylen said. "Efficiency is just a tool. Like this sword." He touched the pommel of one of his longswords.
"A tool requires a hand that understands its weight," Sten stated. He looked at Daylen directly. "You carry two blades. You are a mage. These are contradictions under the Qun. A thing is what it is. A shovel does not pretend to be a spoon."
"In Ferelden, sometimes a shovel has to spoon," Alistair called from his bedroll, his voice thick with impending sleep.
Sten did not acknowledge the joke. He seemed to be waiting for Daylen's answer.
"Under the Chantry's rules, a mage is a danger to be contained," Daylen said, the old frustration a familiar knot. "A tool locked in a box. The Grey Wardens see a different use. We see a weapon that can think. That can adapt."
Sten gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. "Adaptation is a sign of intelligence. Perhaps you are not a shovel. Perhaps you are a... multi-purpose implement." The term sounded foreign in his mouth. "I will observe this."
Daylen left him to his watch and crossed back to the fire's warmth. Leliana was cleaning her dagger again, the cloth moving in methodical strokes.
"You are careful with that," he said.
"A blade is a companion. It should be treated with respect." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "So many companions, in so many different forms."
"You said you've had many lives," Daylen prompted, settling on a log. "What was the one before the Chantry robes?"
Her hands stilled for a moment. The fire cast shifting shadows across her face, momentarily erasing its openness. "That life... was full of music.And masks. Orlesian masks are not just for balls, you know. They are for the market, for the alley, for the bedroom. One learns to sing whatever song the listener wishes to hear."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was." The admission was quiet, stark. She looked into the fire. "There came a point where the songs were all lies, and the mask had grown into the skin. And then... I heard a new song. In the Chantry. A true one. It asked for nothing but faith."
"Now you're with us." Daylen said. "That's a different song again."
Her smile returned, warmer now, tinged with a fierce light. "A grander one. With a better chorus. I have made my peace with the woman in the mask. She taught me how to survive. Now, perhaps, I can learn how to live."
He felt a pang of recognition. They were all refugees from something. His Circle, her Orlesian court, Sten's rigid Qun, Alistair's disgraced Templar order. The Blight had made a clean, if horrific, cut through their old lives.
Morrigan emerged from her tent, a darker shadow against the dark. She glanced at Daylen and Leliana, said nothing, and walked past the fire's ring to relieve Sten on watch. Their exchange was a silent transfer of duty, two solitary figures acknowledging necessity.
He watched her go, the sway of her hips, the proud line of her back. The memory of her warning by the rocks was a cool finger on his spine. Be mindful of what you call. He watched her until she was swallowed by the night, a sentinel joining the other shadows.
The day’s exhaustion, a deep weight in his bones from the road, the fighting, the sheer psychic strain of Lothering’s despair, finally pulled him down. He slid into his own bedroll, the wool scratchy against his neck. His eyes grew heavy, the star-punched blackness above blurring.
The last thing he saw before sleep took him was the faintest glow of a wisp-light, a distant, cool ember where Morrigan stood her watch, a silent challenge to the pressing dark.