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rose_in_winter2024-10-31 11:21 pm
lassarina) wrote in rose_in_winter2024-10-31 11:21 pm
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[Dragon Age 2] When Love with Unconfinéd Wings, Chapter 17
Characters: Fenris, Mage Female Hawke, Sebastian Vael (Fenris/f!Hawke/Sebastian)
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks tosenmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.
Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
Winter travel in the Free Marches was not quite as bad as winter travel in Ferelden--there was much less snow, for starters--but spending all day in the saddle in a cold wind and spitting rain was still not Hawke's preferred way to pass the time. Beyond the physical discomfort, she had much more time than she wanted to rattle about inside her own mind.
The real problem--one of several, if she was required to be honest--was that between de Telvignon's unwillingness to share enough information, her certainty that he had lied with what he did say, and the relative unlikelihood that she could, in fact, find an Orlesian noblewoman and an unknown number of kidnappers somewhere in an enormous forest with which she was totally unfamiliar--well, given all that, it would be a miracle handed over by the Maker personally if she somehow managed to resolve this to de Telvignon's satisfaction.
At first blush, she'd hoped that this favor would consist of something easy. Roughing up a dragon, for example, or perhaps putting on a magic show for Meredith's next name-day and being congratulated rather than imprisoned. Since nothing in Kirkwall was ever easy, she was going to have to come up with a new idea for dealing with the contract.
Problems she couldn't solve with violence were so frustrating.
She knew from the solicitors that this, like most contracts, could be settled with sufficient infusion of sovereigns, so she supposed she was going to have to find a way to gather a lot of money very quickly. That was, surprisingly, harder to do with a title and a reputation than it had been when she'd arrived in Kirkwall. Keeping your head down and working for a smuggler was a lot harder when people recognized your face. Somehow it didn't work the other way about. Being the Champion and Lady Amell apparently just brought expensive problems but no income with which to solve them.
"Hawke?" Fenris asked, interrupting her spinning thoughts.
Speaking of problems she couldn't solve with violence.
"I was woolgathering," she said, summoning an awkwardly-guilty smile. "What did I miss?"
"There's a storm coming in," Sebastian said, pointing to the west. Above the looming density of the Planasene, thick dark clouds boiled together. "We should make camp soon."
Hawke winced and dug in her saddlebag for the traveler's guide she'd had Varric con out of the Merchants' Guild for her. Maps were good, but maps didn't show good places to stop for the night, or the location of posting inns along the road. Merchants, on the other hand, preferred safe, defensible campsites for their caravans and inns when they could get them. The guides were closely guarded to keep bandits from having an easy list of places merchants liked to frequent, and Hawke was well aware of the risk Varric took giving her the book. She pulled her cloak out in a billowing shield to keep the icy drizzle from smearing the pages, while her horse trundled along in the wake of Sebastian's.
"There's a cave system just outside the forest," Hawke said after a moment. "If we hurry, we should make it before the storm." It should be unoccupied as well, given that merchant caravans usually found the hassles of winter travel to outweigh the profits, at least according to Varric.
"Then let's go," Sebastian said. Hawke carefully tucked the guide back into her saddlebag and nudged her gelding with her heels. He moved into a bouncing trot that made her teeth rattle, but it was faster than the plodding walk. They rode in silence, heads bent into the cutting wind, and the forest loomed overhead as they drew nearer.
The cave system turned out to be about a quarter-mile from the young trees at the edge of the forest. It was not formally marked, but the well-trampled earth between the road and the cave was a giveaway. That made Hawke nervous. She looked around for signs of other people and saw nothing, but they had ridden past farmsteads and market towns fairly often. It wasn't impossible that a group was following them, waiting to ambush them when they took shelter.
"Sebastian--" she began.
He nodded. "Fenris, take the horses," he said as he dismounted. Hawke slid out of her own saddle, grunting when her feet landed on stone cold enough she felt it through her boots. The opening to the cave system was wide enough for a wagon hauled by a brace of oxen. Sebastian had stopped his mount to the left side of the entrance, and as he moved in, he crossed the path diagonally, giving himself as much view of the inside of the cave as he could without being inside it. Fenris kept a safe distance, checking the area around them, while Hawke walked slowly backwards, searching the landscape behind them. This close to the encircling arm of the mountains that cradled the Planasene, the wide fields of the Free Marches had given way to gently rolling foothills, which were pleasant to look at as one rode through and a blessing for bandits who wanted to stay hidden. She saw nothing.
"Seems clear," Sebastian called softly, and Hawke heard the ring of iron on stone as Fenris led the horses into the cavern. She followed, ducking automatically though the opening was almost double her height, and looked around. The cavern was spacious enough for perhaps a dozen wagons if the drivers were skilled and the teams cooperative. Near one end of the roughly oval space, someone had built a stone chimney, and old ashes suggested it worked well enough. At the other end, a passageway seemed to lead deeper into the mountains. Apparently years of merchant caravans had yielded some improvements; there were iron rings hammered into the stone to hitch horses to, and a wooden trough for water. She would have to check the book again to see if there was a stream nearby, but it seemed likely.
Sebastian was at the far end of the cave, approaching the passageway. Fenris was getting the horses settled, his arms full of Hawke's saddle, when Hawke heard something outside the cavern.
"Maker," Sebastian hissed, and spun back toward them, frantically unwrapping his bow from the oilskin case that kept it safe from the rain. Hawke turned and saw a group of men filling the doorway, bristling with armaments and looking entirely confident in themselves.
"We don't want trouble," their apparent leader said, "so you go on and put that bow down, boy. And you, elf, put that saddle down and keep your hands where I can see them."
Hawke stood with her arms held slightly out from her sides, and the man nodded. "Good girl. You stay where you're at."
"If it's not trouble you're after," Sebastian said mildly, carefully setting down the case, "what do you want?"
"Just some business," the leader said. "The inn fee, you might say."
"Usually for an inn fee I get a proper bed and a meal," Hawke said.
"Listen, it's simple really. You give us your coin, say fifty silver, and we'll be on our way."
Hawke took a deep breath and opened her mind to the chill of the Fade. When she almost had the connection, she looked at the bandits. "Do you ever consider that you're picking fights you can't be sure of winning?"
He laughed. "There's fifteen of us and three of you, but there's no need for a fight."
She gave him one more chance. "There won't be if you leave now."
He scowled. "Just hand over the money."
"No," Hawke said, and Fenris's markings glowed pure bright white, shining through his cloak, at the same time she shaped the glyph of repelling and knocked the lot of them on their asses--outside the cave. Fenris, recognizing the flare of magic, had paused, and Hawke laid a glyph of paralysis inside the cave, then blocked it off with a spray of ice spikes directly in the opening.
Behind her, Sebastian had retrieved his bow and nocked an arrow. Hawke stepped to the right, closer against the cave wall, to give him a wider angle.
"Go away," she called out. "We don't want a fight and you want to keep your lives. For once let's all get what we want."
There was a jumble of cursing. She heard at least one extremely uncomplimentary description of herself, and other angry voices.
"Maker damn you, apostate." She was fairly sure that was the leader's voice.
"Too late," she muttered, and felt rather than saw the weight of Sebastian's gaze.
Outside, she heard the creak of leather and the slight jingle of metal. Then she heard hoofbeats retreating.
Fenris approached the doorway slowly, well outside the range of her glyphs, and searched the area outside the cave. "They've gone," he said, and turned back, narrowed eyes sweeping over Hawke and Sebastian. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," Hawke said. "You?"
He scoffed. "I can't take harm when there's no battle."
"I didn't want to risk it." I didn't want to risk you. "Someone will have to solve the problem of these bandits, but it won't be me." Her legs ached from the days in the saddle, and the whiplash of energy from the threat and the non-battle made her feel like every inch of her skin was prickling. She carefully crossed the cavern to the doorway and peered outside. The open space that served as a sort of courtyard was empty of bandits and horses. She couldn't see them through the driving rain.
"I think they left," she said.
"I can track them," Fenris said, and she grabbed for his arm.
"Don't," she said. "It's been a long day and I don't think they'll come back, not when they know we'd be alert for them."
"We should report it to the local authorities," Sebastian said, coming to join them. He had retrieved his bow case.
"A good idea, but not in this storm." A vicious boom of thunder nearly rattled her teeth as she said it, and she gestured at the entryway as if to remind them why. Icy-cold rain blew in and splattered her hand, arm, and the side of her face. She cursed.
"Come in here where it's dry," Sebastian said. "You too, Fenris. Hawke is right, they'll not be back tonight."
She gratefully left the winter rain to rattle against the stone outside and went to where they'd tied their horses to retrieve her pack. Sebastian knelt by the fireplace built into the wall, patiently building a neat stack of tinder. Hawke could have solved that problem with a thought, but it was likely to upset both of her companions, so she let him do it the time-consuming way. He was skillful at it, at least.
They'd ridden through a village in early afternoon, likely the same one from which their recent visitors hailed, and so they had fresh bread and cheese, and there was dried meat from their stores to supplement it. Hawke pulled the food out of her pack and started dividing it while Fenris finished tending to the horses. There turned out to be a small spring deeper in the cave, which refilled their waterskins and filled the trough for the horses.
When everything was ready, they sat before the small fire, eating in silence. There was a peculiar prickling quality to the quiet between them. It felt, Hawke thought, like the moment before a kiss--the anticipation and want tangled up in fear and nerves.
By the time she finished eating, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Yet when she rolled herself into her blanket, she found herself unable to sleep.
Fenris and Sebastian were still awake as the fire burned down. "Have you given any more thought to what I said?" Sebastian asked.
"Your faith in mankind is the sort that comes only from having a place of security," Fenris replied.
Sebastian was silent a moment. "You're meaning what you said about human soldiers not taking orders from an elf?"
"An elf, a former slave." Fenris shifted, and Hawke felt his fingers tangle lightly in her hair where it trailed out of the blanket. "You may not have chosen the Chantry initially, but it was--is--a place of safety for you. You don't question it."
Sebastian made an odd little sound. "I question it quite a lot."
"You question your final choice," Fenris corrected him. "It is not a question of whether the Chantry will have you, but rather whether you will have the Chantry. The Grand Cleric will challenge you, but not eject you--you have your choice of landings. You had a family that cared for you."
"You think I cannot endure hardship."
"That is not what I said." Fenris played with her hair absent-mindedly. Hawke kept her eyes firmly closed and wished she'd truly fallen asleep. She felt as though she was intruding, but she didn't want to interrupt. "You know your place in the world. Were you to declare you marched to reclaim Starkhaven, no doubt many would flock to your banner, in Kirkwall and in Starkhaven. Your right to the throne is clear, and you lead well." The admiration in his voice made Hawke's heart ache. It was small and petty and unfit of her, but she longed to have that admiration turned to her skills. "Were I to take your offer," Fenris continued, "I would fight for my place every day. Your decree can go only so far."
Sebastian considered that. Fenris continued to comb his fingers through her hair, and some of the tension in her body eased. The fire crackled soothingly.
"It might begin that way," Sebastian said. "It is true that many look down on elves, especially those who do not follow the Chantry. Yet as I said then, your skills would cement your place."
"I think it is not as easy as you believe." Fenris shifted. "You are determined, then, to return to Starkhaven?"
"I don't know." Sebastian leaned back on his elbows; Hawke could hear the rustle of cloth as he did so. "I do not know if Starkhaven needs me, or if it is only my pride telling me so. I will not risk lives and welfare on my own pride. Neither can I abandon my city if it truly needs me. But..." He trailed off. "I fled the Chantry once, did you know? My parents had sent me to the Chantry because I was an embarrassment to the family name, not to mention at risk of fathering a bastard."
Hawke stifled a yawn; Sebastian had told her this story at the Chantry one night when she was restless and sleep might as well have been freedom for mages. She knew the way it went, so she drifted off to the soft rise and fall of their voices, comforted by their nearness in a way she did not want to consider too closely.
Chapter Eighteen
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks to
senmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
Winter travel in the Free Marches was not quite as bad as winter travel in Ferelden--there was much less snow, for starters--but spending all day in the saddle in a cold wind and spitting rain was still not Hawke's preferred way to pass the time. Beyond the physical discomfort, she had much more time than she wanted to rattle about inside her own mind.
The real problem--one of several, if she was required to be honest--was that between de Telvignon's unwillingness to share enough information, her certainty that he had lied with what he did say, and the relative unlikelihood that she could, in fact, find an Orlesian noblewoman and an unknown number of kidnappers somewhere in an enormous forest with which she was totally unfamiliar--well, given all that, it would be a miracle handed over by the Maker personally if she somehow managed to resolve this to de Telvignon's satisfaction.
At first blush, she'd hoped that this favor would consist of something easy. Roughing up a dragon, for example, or perhaps putting on a magic show for Meredith's next name-day and being congratulated rather than imprisoned. Since nothing in Kirkwall was ever easy, she was going to have to come up with a new idea for dealing with the contract.
Problems she couldn't solve with violence were so frustrating.
She knew from the solicitors that this, like most contracts, could be settled with sufficient infusion of sovereigns, so she supposed she was going to have to find a way to gather a lot of money very quickly. That was, surprisingly, harder to do with a title and a reputation than it had been when she'd arrived in Kirkwall. Keeping your head down and working for a smuggler was a lot harder when people recognized your face. Somehow it didn't work the other way about. Being the Champion and Lady Amell apparently just brought expensive problems but no income with which to solve them.
"Hawke?" Fenris asked, interrupting her spinning thoughts.
Speaking of problems she couldn't solve with violence.
"I was woolgathering," she said, summoning an awkwardly-guilty smile. "What did I miss?"
"There's a storm coming in," Sebastian said, pointing to the west. Above the looming density of the Planasene, thick dark clouds boiled together. "We should make camp soon."
Hawke winced and dug in her saddlebag for the traveler's guide she'd had Varric con out of the Merchants' Guild for her. Maps were good, but maps didn't show good places to stop for the night, or the location of posting inns along the road. Merchants, on the other hand, preferred safe, defensible campsites for their caravans and inns when they could get them. The guides were closely guarded to keep bandits from having an easy list of places merchants liked to frequent, and Hawke was well aware of the risk Varric took giving her the book. She pulled her cloak out in a billowing shield to keep the icy drizzle from smearing the pages, while her horse trundled along in the wake of Sebastian's.
"There's a cave system just outside the forest," Hawke said after a moment. "If we hurry, we should make it before the storm." It should be unoccupied as well, given that merchant caravans usually found the hassles of winter travel to outweigh the profits, at least according to Varric.
"Then let's go," Sebastian said. Hawke carefully tucked the guide back into her saddlebag and nudged her gelding with her heels. He moved into a bouncing trot that made her teeth rattle, but it was faster than the plodding walk. They rode in silence, heads bent into the cutting wind, and the forest loomed overhead as they drew nearer.
The cave system turned out to be about a quarter-mile from the young trees at the edge of the forest. It was not formally marked, but the well-trampled earth between the road and the cave was a giveaway. That made Hawke nervous. She looked around for signs of other people and saw nothing, but they had ridden past farmsteads and market towns fairly often. It wasn't impossible that a group was following them, waiting to ambush them when they took shelter.
"Sebastian--" she began.
He nodded. "Fenris, take the horses," he said as he dismounted. Hawke slid out of her own saddle, grunting when her feet landed on stone cold enough she felt it through her boots. The opening to the cave system was wide enough for a wagon hauled by a brace of oxen. Sebastian had stopped his mount to the left side of the entrance, and as he moved in, he crossed the path diagonally, giving himself as much view of the inside of the cave as he could without being inside it. Fenris kept a safe distance, checking the area around them, while Hawke walked slowly backwards, searching the landscape behind them. This close to the encircling arm of the mountains that cradled the Planasene, the wide fields of the Free Marches had given way to gently rolling foothills, which were pleasant to look at as one rode through and a blessing for bandits who wanted to stay hidden. She saw nothing.
"Seems clear," Sebastian called softly, and Hawke heard the ring of iron on stone as Fenris led the horses into the cavern. She followed, ducking automatically though the opening was almost double her height, and looked around. The cavern was spacious enough for perhaps a dozen wagons if the drivers were skilled and the teams cooperative. Near one end of the roughly oval space, someone had built a stone chimney, and old ashes suggested it worked well enough. At the other end, a passageway seemed to lead deeper into the mountains. Apparently years of merchant caravans had yielded some improvements; there were iron rings hammered into the stone to hitch horses to, and a wooden trough for water. She would have to check the book again to see if there was a stream nearby, but it seemed likely.
Sebastian was at the far end of the cave, approaching the passageway. Fenris was getting the horses settled, his arms full of Hawke's saddle, when Hawke heard something outside the cavern.
"Maker," Sebastian hissed, and spun back toward them, frantically unwrapping his bow from the oilskin case that kept it safe from the rain. Hawke turned and saw a group of men filling the doorway, bristling with armaments and looking entirely confident in themselves.
"We don't want trouble," their apparent leader said, "so you go on and put that bow down, boy. And you, elf, put that saddle down and keep your hands where I can see them."
Hawke stood with her arms held slightly out from her sides, and the man nodded. "Good girl. You stay where you're at."
"If it's not trouble you're after," Sebastian said mildly, carefully setting down the case, "what do you want?"
"Just some business," the leader said. "The inn fee, you might say."
"Usually for an inn fee I get a proper bed and a meal," Hawke said.
"Listen, it's simple really. You give us your coin, say fifty silver, and we'll be on our way."
Hawke took a deep breath and opened her mind to the chill of the Fade. When she almost had the connection, she looked at the bandits. "Do you ever consider that you're picking fights you can't be sure of winning?"
He laughed. "There's fifteen of us and three of you, but there's no need for a fight."
She gave him one more chance. "There won't be if you leave now."
He scowled. "Just hand over the money."
"No," Hawke said, and Fenris's markings glowed pure bright white, shining through his cloak, at the same time she shaped the glyph of repelling and knocked the lot of them on their asses--outside the cave. Fenris, recognizing the flare of magic, had paused, and Hawke laid a glyph of paralysis inside the cave, then blocked it off with a spray of ice spikes directly in the opening.
Behind her, Sebastian had retrieved his bow and nocked an arrow. Hawke stepped to the right, closer against the cave wall, to give him a wider angle.
"Go away," she called out. "We don't want a fight and you want to keep your lives. For once let's all get what we want."
There was a jumble of cursing. She heard at least one extremely uncomplimentary description of herself, and other angry voices.
"Maker damn you, apostate." She was fairly sure that was the leader's voice.
"Too late," she muttered, and felt rather than saw the weight of Sebastian's gaze.
Outside, she heard the creak of leather and the slight jingle of metal. Then she heard hoofbeats retreating.
Fenris approached the doorway slowly, well outside the range of her glyphs, and searched the area outside the cave. "They've gone," he said, and turned back, narrowed eyes sweeping over Hawke and Sebastian. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," Hawke said. "You?"
He scoffed. "I can't take harm when there's no battle."
"I didn't want to risk it." I didn't want to risk you. "Someone will have to solve the problem of these bandits, but it won't be me." Her legs ached from the days in the saddle, and the whiplash of energy from the threat and the non-battle made her feel like every inch of her skin was prickling. She carefully crossed the cavern to the doorway and peered outside. The open space that served as a sort of courtyard was empty of bandits and horses. She couldn't see them through the driving rain.
"I think they left," she said.
"I can track them," Fenris said, and she grabbed for his arm.
"Don't," she said. "It's been a long day and I don't think they'll come back, not when they know we'd be alert for them."
"We should report it to the local authorities," Sebastian said, coming to join them. He had retrieved his bow case.
"A good idea, but not in this storm." A vicious boom of thunder nearly rattled her teeth as she said it, and she gestured at the entryway as if to remind them why. Icy-cold rain blew in and splattered her hand, arm, and the side of her face. She cursed.
"Come in here where it's dry," Sebastian said. "You too, Fenris. Hawke is right, they'll not be back tonight."
She gratefully left the winter rain to rattle against the stone outside and went to where they'd tied their horses to retrieve her pack. Sebastian knelt by the fireplace built into the wall, patiently building a neat stack of tinder. Hawke could have solved that problem with a thought, but it was likely to upset both of her companions, so she let him do it the time-consuming way. He was skillful at it, at least.
They'd ridden through a village in early afternoon, likely the same one from which their recent visitors hailed, and so they had fresh bread and cheese, and there was dried meat from their stores to supplement it. Hawke pulled the food out of her pack and started dividing it while Fenris finished tending to the horses. There turned out to be a small spring deeper in the cave, which refilled their waterskins and filled the trough for the horses.
When everything was ready, they sat before the small fire, eating in silence. There was a peculiar prickling quality to the quiet between them. It felt, Hawke thought, like the moment before a kiss--the anticipation and want tangled up in fear and nerves.
By the time she finished eating, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Yet when she rolled herself into her blanket, she found herself unable to sleep.
Fenris and Sebastian were still awake as the fire burned down. "Have you given any more thought to what I said?" Sebastian asked.
"Your faith in mankind is the sort that comes only from having a place of security," Fenris replied.
Sebastian was silent a moment. "You're meaning what you said about human soldiers not taking orders from an elf?"
"An elf, a former slave." Fenris shifted, and Hawke felt his fingers tangle lightly in her hair where it trailed out of the blanket. "You may not have chosen the Chantry initially, but it was--is--a place of safety for you. You don't question it."
Sebastian made an odd little sound. "I question it quite a lot."
"You question your final choice," Fenris corrected him. "It is not a question of whether the Chantry will have you, but rather whether you will have the Chantry. The Grand Cleric will challenge you, but not eject you--you have your choice of landings. You had a family that cared for you."
"You think I cannot endure hardship."
"That is not what I said." Fenris played with her hair absent-mindedly. Hawke kept her eyes firmly closed and wished she'd truly fallen asleep. She felt as though she was intruding, but she didn't want to interrupt. "You know your place in the world. Were you to declare you marched to reclaim Starkhaven, no doubt many would flock to your banner, in Kirkwall and in Starkhaven. Your right to the throne is clear, and you lead well." The admiration in his voice made Hawke's heart ache. It was small and petty and unfit of her, but she longed to have that admiration turned to her skills. "Were I to take your offer," Fenris continued, "I would fight for my place every day. Your decree can go only so far."
Sebastian considered that. Fenris continued to comb his fingers through her hair, and some of the tension in her body eased. The fire crackled soothingly.
"It might begin that way," Sebastian said. "It is true that many look down on elves, especially those who do not follow the Chantry. Yet as I said then, your skills would cement your place."
"I think it is not as easy as you believe." Fenris shifted. "You are determined, then, to return to Starkhaven?"
"I don't know." Sebastian leaned back on his elbows; Hawke could hear the rustle of cloth as he did so. "I do not know if Starkhaven needs me, or if it is only my pride telling me so. I will not risk lives and welfare on my own pride. Neither can I abandon my city if it truly needs me. But..." He trailed off. "I fled the Chantry once, did you know? My parents had sent me to the Chantry because I was an embarrassment to the family name, not to mention at risk of fathering a bastard."
Hawke stifled a yawn; Sebastian had told her this story at the Chantry one night when she was restless and sleep might as well have been freedom for mages. She knew the way it went, so she drifted off to the soft rise and fall of their voices, comforted by their nearness in a way she did not want to consider too closely.
Chapter Eighteen