Chapter 8: Healing Touch
He woke to the scent of elfroot and burning incense, a sharp, clean smell that carved through the lingering taste of rot in his mouth. The world was soft focus and muted sound. A canvas ceiling, stained crimson by lantern light, swam above him. His body felt like a stone slab—heavy, numb, and aching in places he didn't know he had. The darkspawn song was still there, a distant, bass-line thrumming in his veins, a cockroach scuttling at the edge of his consciousness.
“Easy there, my dear.” A voice, warm and weathered like old parchment. “You’ve had quite the evening.”
He turned his head, the movement sending a spike of pain through his temple. Senior Enchanter Wynne sat on a stool beside his cot, her hands folded in her lap. Her face was a landscape of gentle lines, her eyes holding a depth of quiet understanding that immediately made him feel both seen and absurdly young. She wore simple travelling robes, not Circle finery, but they were immaculate. A delicate silver chain held a healing amulet at her throat.
“Wynne?” His voice was a rasp, grating against a raw throat.
“The very same,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips. “Duncan had you brought here. You’ve been out for hours. The other mages… well, let’s just say a Grey Warden in full armor, covered in filth and reeking of the taint, causes something of a stir.”
He tried to sit up. A wave of dizziness slammed into him, and a strong, steadying hand pressed against his chest, pushing him gently back onto the thin mattress. Her touch sent a jolt through him—not magic, just the simple, shocking warmth of human contact after the cold horror of the crypt.
“I said easy,” she chided softly. Her hand remained, a firm weight over his heart. He could feel the heat of it even through his breastplate. “The Joining is a trauma to both body and spirit. You need to let the healing take.”
Her other hand came up, palm glowing with a soft, gold light. The familiar, comforting warmth of a healing spell seeped into him, knitting sore muscles, calming the jangling nerves, pushing back the headache. He sighed, the tension leaching from his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he murmured, his eyes closing for a moment. When he opened them, he found she was studying his face, her gaze curious and unguarded. He was acutely aware of his own body—the gritty feel of dried sweat and worse on his skin, the bulky weight of his armor on the narrow cot, and beneath that, a different kind of heat beginning to stir, low and traitorous. The intimacy of her touch, the focused attention in her eyes, it was a lifeline thrown into the void the Joining had left inside him.
“You look… different,” she said quietly, her healing light beginning to fade. Her thumb, almost absently, stroked a small arc over the cold metal of his armor. “There’s a shadow in your eyes that wasn’t there before. A weight.”
“Daveth died,” Daylen said, the words like stones in his mouth. “Jory… Jory tried to run. Duncan killed him.”
Wynne’s face softened with a profound sadness. She didn’t offer platitudes. She simply nodded, absorbing the horror. Her hand, still resting on his chest, gave the slightest reassuring press. “And you drank the same poison.”
“I heard them. The darkspawn. It’s… a song. I can still hear it.” He swallowed. “It’s in me now.”
“I know, child.” Her voice was a whisper. The lantern light caught the silver in her hair. “I cannot cure that. But I can help you bear it.”
The formality of ‘Senior Enchanter’ had melted away in the quiet tent. It was just Wynne, her compassion a solid, tangible thing in the uncertain dark. His body responded to that solidity, that warmth, with a brutal, simple clarity. The exhaustion and the fear were still there, but under her hand, a more primal current was rising. The desperate, life-affirming need to feel something other than corruption and death.
He felt himself thickening, hardening against the linen of his smallclothes beneath his plate. A flush of heat crept up his neck. He tried to shift, to disguise it, but the cot was too small, her proximity too complete.
Wynne’s gaze flickered downward, then back to his face. A faint, pink blush coloured her cheeks. She didn’t move her hand. The gentle stroking of her thumb stopped, but her palm remained, a heated brand over his heart. Her breath, which had been steady and calm, hitched slightly.
“Your body is reacting to the surge of life energy from the healing,” she said, her tone professional, but the blush betrayed her. “It’s a… common physiological response.”
“It’s not the healing,” he admitted, his voice rough. He was past pretense. The visions of the deep roads, the black blood, Jory’s surprised eyes—they had scraped him hollow. This feeling, this raw, aching need, was the first real thing to fill the void. “It’s you.”
She didn’t look away. Her eyes, usually so wise and placid, held a storm of conflict. He saw the hesitation, the lifetime of discipline, the ingrained propriety. And beneath it, something else. A reflection of his own loneliness. A shared recognition of the precipice on which they all stood.
“Daylen, this is…” she began, but her hand still did not move.
“I know.” He covered her hand with his own, his fingers, calloused from staff and sword, closing over her slender ones. The connection was electric. He could feel the pulse in her wrist, rapid against his palm. “I know what you are. What I am. But I also heard the song today. I know what’s coming. And right now…” He drew her hand slowly down his chest, over the chill metal, guiding it. “…right now, I need to feel alive. Not a mage. Not a Warden. Just alive.”
Her resistance crumbled not with a gasp, but with a slow, shuddering exhale. Her fingers curled faintly against his grip. She allowed him to guide her hand lower, over the cool, engraved steel of his waistplate, down to the leather and mail of his groin. The hard, unmistakable swell of him pressed against her knuckles through the layers.
“Oh,” she breathed, the word full of resigned, shocked wonder.
He let go of her hand. She didn’t pull away. Her fingers pressed, gently at first, then with more certainty, tracing the rigid length of him. Her other hand came up to his cheek, her touch cooler now, trembling slightly. She leaned in, her eyes searching his.
“This is a terrible idea,” she whispered, her lips inches from his.
“The world is full of them,” he whispered back, and closed the distance.
Her kiss was not like Morrigan’s—all fierce possession and sharp edges. It was softer, deeper, tasting of tea and a faint, lingering sweetness. It was exploratory, hesitant, then growing bolder as her tongue met his. A small, desperate sound escaped her throat. Her hand on him squeezed, a sharp, delicious pressure through the leather.
He groaned into her mouth, his own hands coming up to frame her face. He kissed her with a hunger that surprised them both, a need to drown out the chanting in his blood. Her fingers fumbled with the buckles of his leg armor, her practiced healer’s hands clumsy with urgency.
“Let me,” he murmured, breaking the kiss. He sat up, the dizziness gone, replaced by a single-minded focus. He made quick work of the pauldrons, the breastplate, the greaves, letting the heavy plates drop to the woven rug with dull thuds. He stripped down to his smallclothes, his body humming with nervous energy and want.
Wynne watched him, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling rapidly. When he stood before her, mostly bare, she reached out and placed her hand flat on his stomach, feeling the muscle tense under her palm. “Maker’s breath,” she whispered, her gaze travelling up his lean, conditioned frame.
He reached for the clasp of her robe. “May I?”
She nodded, silent. He undid the simple fastening at her neck, and the grey wool parted. She wore a simple linen shift beneath. He pushed the robe from her shoulders, letting it pool around her on the stool. His hands slid up her arms, feeling the delicate strength there, then down to her hips. He pulled her to her feet and against him.
The feel of her body through the thin shift—the soft weight of her breasts against his chest, the curve of her hips—was an anchor. He kissed her again, deeper, his hands sliding down to grasp her backside, pulling her tight against his erection. She gasped, grinding against him instinctively, her head falling back.
He bent, slipping an arm behind her knees, lifting her effortlessly. She was lighter than he expected. He carried her the two steps to the cot and laid her down, following her down, covering her body with his. The scratch of wool blanket, the scent of her skin—lavender and ozone—filled his senses.
His mouth found hers, then trailed down her jaw to her throat. She arched into him, her fingers tangling in the short bristle of his hair. He pushed the strap of her shift down, exposing her shoulder, then further, revealing the full, soft curve of a breast. Her nipple was already taut, a dusky pink. He took it into his mouth, and she cried out, a sharp, unguarded sound that made him throb.
“Daylen,” she pleaded, her hands pulling at his smallclothes. He kicked them away, his cock springing free, thick and aching. Her eyes went wide for a second, then darkened with want. She touched him, her grip unsure at first, then firmer, stroking from root to tip.
He pushed her shift up, over her hips, over her breasts, until she lay naked beneath him. Her body was a revelation—not young, but beautiful in its truth, soft where he was hard, pale where he was tanned. He kissed the hollow of her stomach, the inside of her thigh, inhaling her scent.
When his tongue finally found her core, she let out a choked sob. She was already wet, hot, and tasted clean and sharply sweet. He licked and suckled, using his fingers too, learning her rhythms. Her hips bucked against his mouth, her hands clutching at his scalp. Her cries were muffled, bitten into her own arm, but they grew more urgent, less controlled.
“Please,” she begged, her thighs trembling around his head. “Now. I need… I need to feel you.”
He rose over her, guiding himself to her entrance. He pushed inside slowly, giving her time to stretch, to adjust. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her brow furrowed in intense concentration. When he was fully sheathed, he stilled, letting her feel the fullness of him. Her eyes opened, looking up at him with a vulnerability that shook him to his core.
“You’re so alive,” she murmured, wrapping her legs around his hips.
He began to move. It was not a frantic, driving pace, but a deep, rolling rhythm, a claiming and a surrender all at once. Each thrust pushed the world away—the fortress, the blight, the song, the blood. There was only this: the slick heat of her, the feel of her nails scoring his back, the sound of her breathy whimpers in his ear.
She came quietly, a series of internal flutters and a long, shuddering sigh against his shoulder. He held her through it, kissing her neck. The tightness of her climax pushed him over the edge. He came with a guttural groan, burying his face in the crook of her neck, spilling himself deep inside her, his whole body tensing and then collapsing into a boneless heap of relief.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the pop of the lantern wick. The darkspawn song was still there, but it was background noise now, a distant storm against the warm, spent quiet in the tent.
He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, holding her close. Her back was against his chest, his arm draped over her waist. She placed her hand over his, lacing their fingers together. They didn’t speak.
Outside, the camp went on. A distant shout. The clang of a hammer on metal. The world, with all its duty and horror, was still there, waiting.
But here, for now, they were just two people, adrift in the dark, holding onto a fragment of warmth. The silence between them was comfortable, heavy with unspoken understanding. It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. He knew that. But as he felt her breathing even out into sleep, he held onto it, clinging to the quiet humanity of it.
The dawn would bring Alistair, and Duncan, and the weight of the treaties. But for these few, stolen hours, there was only peace.
But for these few, stolen hours, there was only peace. Her warmth was a blanket against the chill seeping through the tent canvas, her slow breathing a rhythm that almost, almost drowned out the low hum in his blood. Sleep took him in a dark, dreamless wave, a respite so complete it felt like drowning in silence.
He woke to the press of her back against his chest, the curve of her spine fitting into the hollow of his stomach. The lantern had guttered out, leaving only the deep grey of pre-dawn filtering through the fabric. The camp was quiet, that dead hour before the cooks stirred. In that stillness, his body responded to the feel of her, the memory of her heat and her sighs.
He felt himself stiffen again, a heavy, insistent pressure against the small of her back. She slept on, undisturbed. A reckless, tender hunger rose in him, sharper than before. He wanted to claim this quiet, to fill the silent void with something more than memory.
He reached around her stomach, his hand sliding down through the coarse hair between her legs. She was slick still from their first joining. He positioned himself, the head of his cock nudging against her entrance, and eased himself into her while she slept.
She gasped, her body tensing for a second before recognizing his. A sleepy chuckle vibrated through her back into his chest. “Maker’s breath, boy,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. “Your vigor is… considerable.”
He established a rhythm quickly, his hips moving in smooth, deep strokes. Her groans were strained and breathless, muffled against the pillow. Each thrust pushed a soft sigh from her lips. His size stretched her beautifully, a full, aching pressure that made her toes curl against his shins.
Her hands came back to grip his thighs, her nails biting into his skin. The rhythm was sending shockwaves throughout her nervous system, each penetration a jolt that traveled from her core to her fingertips. “Don’t stop,” she begged, her voice a raw scrape. “Just there.”
He obeyed, angling his hips, driving deeper. The cot ropes creaked a steady, protesting tempo beneath them. Her breathing fractured into panting little cries. The tension in her coiled, a spring wound tight, vibrating with every impact.
She convulsed with a thunderous orgasm, her body seizing around him in violent, pulsing waves. A choked scream tore from her throat, swallowed by the linen. The fierce, clamping rhythm of her finish pulled his own release from him. He spilled a colossal load inside her, grunting into her shoulder, his vision whitening at the edges.
It spilled out, warm between them, as he collapsed. He rested inside her, holding her back against his chest, both of them slick and spent. Their breath synced, ragged, then gradually slowing. The world outside remained hushed, holding its breath. They caught theirs and fell back asleep, tangled in a mess of limbs and quiet.
A fist hammering on the tent pole shattered the stillness.
“Amell! Dawn’s here. Stop fucking the healer and get your arse in gear.” Alistair’s voice was a cheerful blade through the linen walls.
Daylen jolted awake. Wynne stiffened in his arms. The grey light was stronger now, cold and practical. The darkspawn song, which had receded to a bare whisper, swelled back to a persistent, nagging thrum in his temples. Reality crashed in, cold and unwelcome.
“One moment,” Daylen called back, his voice gravelly.
Wynne slid away from him, the loss of contact immediate and chilling. She didn’t look at him. She sat on the edge of the cot, her back a pale curve in the gloom, and reached for her shift. The silence between them was different now, charged with a morning-after awkwardness that felt absurd given the night’s raw honesty.
“That was…” she started, pulling the linen over her head.
“A mistake?” he finished, sitting up. The air was cold on his skin.
She turned, her face composed into its usual gentle mask, but her eyes were tired. “No. Not a mistake. An indulgence.” She stood, finding her robes. “A wonderful, necessary indulgence. But the sun is up. You are a Grey Warden. I am a mage of the Circle. And the Blight does not care for our comforts.”
He nodded, the words a bucket of icy water. He stood and began gathering his armor from the floor. The metal was cold. He dressed methodically, buckling plate to leather, each piece a weight settling back onto his shoulders. The familiar ritual was a return to himself, or to the self he now had to be.
“Will you be at the war council?” he asked, not looking at her.
“I will be where the healing is needed,” she said. She was fully dressed now, the Senior Enchanter once more. She walked to him and placed a hand, briefly, on his armored chest. Her touch was clinical. “Listen to Duncan. And don’t die. The world has enough ghosts.”
She left without another word, slipping out of the tent flap into the growing light. The space felt instantly empty, smelling only of spent oil and old canvas. He fastened the last buckle on his vambrace.
Alistair poked his head in, his eyebrows waggling. “Get it all out of your system? Good. You’ll need the focus.” His joking tone didn’t reach his eyes, which were shadowed. “Duncan’s waiting. King wants to see the new Grey Warden before the battle lines form.”
Daylen strapped his longswords to his back, the weight a comfort. “The king?”
“Yeah. Cailan. Thinks this is all going to be a glorious song.” Alistair’s smile was thin, sharp. “Come on. Time to learn how the melody really goes.”