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The drifts were knee deep, snow packed so much Leliana had to stomp to break through the crust. The cold sank down into her fingers, down into her toes; it cut through her like a knife when the wind blew and settled in the weakest bits of her when it did not. Old aches, old scars. Her red, swollen fingers turned ghost white and hurt more than they numbed, yet there were only the three of them to carry the Inquisitor, and she was twelve stone at least, perhaps more with her armor—and all of her limp, unresponsive.
The mark upon her hand crackled with green electricity every few minutes, the only proof of life in her.
"If she survives this," Cullen grunted next to her, his arms hooked beneath her knees. "I may yet believe she is ordained. Haven itself will be rubble, and yet—"
His breath made clouds of mist, his face red from the wind. He dressed warmest of the three with furs and leathers beneath his plate, yet it did him little good. High in the mountains, the air sucked the warmth away from the skin, and carrying the Inquisitor only drew more heat from them.
Leliana couldn't speak. Her lips were chapped and in her mouth she tasted copper. She could scarcely breathe, only walk, her arms wrapped around Adaar's other knee.
Cassandra struggled behind them, holding the Inquisitor beneath the arms with a strength that never seemed to falter. She took long, steady breaths, eyes always fixed on what was to come, but the sweat upon her brow had long since frosted, and Leliana knew even she felt weariness. Even she could fall.
The Inquisitor, though... She toppled Haven, crippling the opposing forces, and yet, when she should have died, she returned to them instead. There were few who could return from a suicide mission like that, yet here she was. It had been a long time since Leliana had seen miracles in the world, but now she nearly believed the Inquisitor resembled the Warden. They both shared a penchant for surmounting unbeatable odds—and, if she was being honest, inspiring a certain sense of loyalty.
Leliana only prayed there would be time to see that flourish, that her tale would not end here in the Frostback Mountains.
"There. The camp." Cassandra's voice quivered with the cold, just loud enough to be heard above the wind.
Sheltered between two drifts and a sheer face of rock, the camp glowed faintly in the encroaching darkness. There was risk in keeping fires, but the Inquisition would freeze before an army could end them if they were left to the elements, and now, the sight of them was a blessing as well.
They were met at the outskirts by guardmen, their faces exultant at the sight of the four of them, the Inquisitor's mark still sparking with life. With their help, Leliana found her strength again, trudging into the camp, her fingers throbbing with every step. Josephine and Mother Giselle hovered by the entrance, pitching tents with the other camp followers, but Cullen barked a command to clear the way, and the two of them dropped the cow hide cover they'd been handling and came rushing to the fore.
"Where is the apostate?" Cassandra demanded.
"I will fetch him. Her tent has already been prepared," Josephine managed before hurrying off, her skirts soaked at the edges with snow and mud.
The tent was pitched against the rock face, plain in every way until they ducked inside. The smell of incense and the warmth of burning candles slipped out of the open flap, but Leliana didn't miss them as they passed. Within, a bed roll of thick furs had been laid out, the snow cleared from the floor. Bitter smelling herbs had been brought in preparation and buckets of faintly steaming water too, yet the healer was not there.
"Carefully," Leliana said, finally finding her voice. "Lay her down gently. Has Solas been found yet?"
"Josephine would have brought him here," Cullen said. Together, they began to lower the Inquisitor onto the furs, doing their best not to disturb the things laid out, and when they had finished, he looked to the two soldiers with them. "Find the mage Solas if Lady Josephine has not. I want him here now."
They departed, and Cassandra only hesitated a handful of moments before she too ducked out of the tent, muttering that she would stand guard. What she meant to guard Adaar from escaped Leliana, but Mother Giselle was already beginning to pull at the straps of her armor. Her fingers were steady though her lips were pale and chapped, and she brokered no arguments when she said, "Help me, children."
The armor was ice, frosted in areas that had splattered with blood, and Leliana had to grit her teeth to touch it, yet she did as she was told. When it had been pulled off, Cullen pulled the thick blanket over her body. It was made for men however, and could not cover her all.
"We will need more," Mother Giselle said, pulling the Inquisitor's hand into her lap to inspect. The ends of her fingers were devoid of color, more ice than flesh. If the bite had settled already, she would lose part—if not all—of them on that hand.
Leliana bowed her head and then rose. "I will find what can be spared."
She lifted the flap of the tent and the cold air gushed in; even Cullen in his furs shivered. After tying it securely behind her, Leliana turned from the tent, meeting Cassandra's eyes as she passed. She had made herself stone already, features frozen into that single-minded focus of a defender. She'd looked that way as the hand of the Divine as well; as Leliana moved away, she thought that if they were found, even an army of demons would break against Cassandra's steadfastness before she bowed.
"Leliana!"
"Josephine—Solas. She is in there. Mother Giselle has already begun, but she will need your magic."
The elf was wrapped in roughspun rags, his bald head hidden beneath a hood of a mage robe. He'd found boots too, so big they barely clung to his feet, but he was surefooted enough when he nodded and hurried ahead, already muttering elvish beneath his breath. It trailed behind him in clouds of mist, lingering between Josephine and Leliana.
"We need more blankets," Leliana told her.
"They are being distributed now," Josephine said. "Come."
They went. Josephine led her through the mess of tents pitched too close together, through shivering men and little fires that barely rose above their tinder. Great pack beasts were left to stomp at the ground, kicking back the snow to dig for greens, yet people only seemed to notice them if their supplies had not been taken or when they trampled shelters. Leliana had to pause to wave off a group of men pulling gourds from an animal's saddles and positioned a soldier to stand guard until all the goods could be gathered and accounted. They would have too little in the days to come to lose now to people's fears.
Finally, the two of them found one of the Inquisition's quartermasters, a tiny little wisp of an elf whose gaze only lost its deadly edge when she realized who they were. She was flanked by two soldiers and a mage, but she moved to meet them.
"Two bear pelts, quickly," Josephine said.
"No bears, m'lady. But there's still plenty smaller furs." She turned and dug into a sack, digging through all that remained of their stores from Haven. There hadn't been time to gather much; there would be many who would go without no matter what they tried. "Is it true, then? She buried Haven and the templars, but she ain't dead?"
The camp was already abuzz with the news then. "The Inquisitor lives," Leliana said. If nothing else, that may pass the night smoother.
"By Andraste, she's the real thing. Maker-sent," the elf said. "Tell her I says thanks for what she done... Raenil says thanks. I'll keep this lot in order so she don't got to worry."
The elf, Raenil, folded up two ram skins as best she could and handed them off to Leliana with a smile, bowing her head. She took them with a word of thanks a promise to pass along her words, but then she turned away, not wasting another moment. Josephine followed her closely, pulling up her skirts to keep pace with Leliana.
"Every man and woman here will know she has returned within the hour," Josephine said, looking to her.
"Let it give them hope."
Cullen had joined Cassandra at the entrance of the tent when they returned. He ducked inside to deliver the furs to Mother Giselle and Solas, and when he returned, his expression was drawn. He touched his temple, sighing deeply. "We need to discuss what's next for the Inquisition."
"For the Inquisition? There isn't an Inquisition now. Only refugees," Cassandra said, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
Leliana curled and uncurled her fingers, but the pain remained. "Then we plan for refugees. We cannot stay here."
Josephine glanced at Leliana. "We are still the Inquisition. We must still be the Inquisition. Without the structure of it—without its banner—we will have no influence. No one will—"
"If influence could save us now, I would call on every piss noble in Kirkwall and Fereldan both. By the time they get word and strike out to find us, we'll be buried beneath the snow—or on the end of a blade." Cullen crossed his arms, a pillar of strength. He was a commander in his bones, but the elements were not something he could fight, could kill. "We need to send troops to scout a way out of these mountains."
"And go where? Even without the cold, our group is too large to support without stores and farms. And the lands are ravaged enough as they are; there will not be enough forage to feed so many," Leliana said.
"Down from the mountains. That is all we know for now." Cassandra had already made up her mind. She clenched her jaw, standing taller even than Cullen, yet the frustration didn't leave her features. Warriors, in the end, would charge before even hearing the call to attack.
Leliana grit her teeth. "Which path might we seek? To the east are the Hinterlands, the chansid woods and bogs to the south. Do we go west into Orlais? What of the army at our heels? We need direction, Cassandra. A blind rush will only kill us faster."
"Yet the mountain kills us faster still," Cassandra bit. "We will search for the fastest path to lower lands."
"The south then. But the merchants are avoiding that area due to plague. There are even sightings of the undead, and the Avvar attack those even on the outskirts of the area. The bogs are no safety to us," Josephine said, nearly out of breath.
"And the Hinterlands are no better. Every spare mage and templar in the area still war daily there. The place is a battlefield," Cullen sighed.
"Are there no Orlesian families we could lean on? You've been writing the DuMounts almost daily, Josephine." Leliana could feel the pain in her fingers behind her eyes now, a headache that threatened to turn her mounting frustrations into anger. It was too cold, there were too many questions, too many things to consider. No matter what they did, people would die, and still, every bit of her felt exhausted, pained. The damp had made ruin of her joints beneath Arl Raleigh's estate, and she could still feel the cold steel of the tools in Redcliffe if she let her mind wander. "Isn't there anything that can be used?"
Josephine looked away, her face pale in the faint light of the torches outside the Inquisitor's tent. "Nothing. We have been negotiating titles, lands... If we came to them as beggars, they would turn us away."
"Or sell us to our enemies," Cassandra added gruffly.
Cullen grunted, his brow furrowed, Cassandra kept shifting and touching the hilt of her sword, and Josephine looked desperately thoughtful, meeting no one's gaze.There was no cohesion to them, no voice to speak above the rest. They needed a plan, and they needed someone to lead it, yet the Inquisitor lie unconscious just a few feet away, and Leliana didn't know if she would wake at all.
If the Maker was good...
"Leliana, your spies were supposed to have scouted this area." Cullen's accusation was subtle as a blade in the gut.
"Yet I play at guesses with the rest of you," she snapped, curling her fingers again. "Shall we discuss that or will we make—"
The tent flap opened, and Mother Giselle nearly knocked Cullen over. Some color had returned to her cheeks, but she looked no more dangerous for her time within the warmth of the tent. "Advisers, are you? And squabbling like children here of all places. Go—we have healing to do."
Cassandra set her jaw again, but Mother Giselle's gaze was steel. She was not Justinia, yet she still spoke the truth. Leliana nodded stiffly, biting out her words carefully. "Perhaps we ought to reconvene with ideas in an hour. If we are lucky, our Inquisitor will be there to join us."
No one moved for a moment, but then Cullen turned away. "Yes. The distribution of supplies need to be organized, and our perimeter must be patrolled."
Josephine let out a breath Leliana hadn't realized she'd been holding. "An elf named Raenil has taken charge of many of our stores. She would be a good place to start."
Cullen nodded to Josephine and then to Mother Giselle and was gone, holding his arm up to the wind. Cassandra didn't say anything, but when she turned in the direction of the camp's entrance, Leliana could only assume she meant to call back the other search parties who had been looking for Adaar. Leliana herself might have done the same, but the pain in her fingers had long since become unbearable. She turned sharply and set off to find the war tent.
The table was still at Haven, probably buried beneath the rubble with whatever hopes she'd had for the Inquisition. How had they ignored Haven's poor defenses for so long? She'd known—they'd all known—and even so, they'd grown comfortable in Haven.
Leliana wasn't sure what she ought to have expected from a war tent with no table, but she was surprised to find maps of the area pinned down crudely to two crates with candles lit nearby. It wasn't as warm as it might have been near a campfire, but the wind was off her, and the candles did a little for the temperature. More than anything, Leliana was thankful for a moment alone.
"Oh, Maker..." she sighed. "You want her back, don't you? She was supposed to die, yet she returned. Now you condemn her here..."
She ached for a blade in her hands, ached for some release. It would be so easy to follow Cassandra, to let her lead them to the bogs or the Hinterlands, to chase an enemy that could be stopped with a well placed arrow or a hidden dagger. She remembered the Warden, how easy it had been to follow her, and suddenly she could think no more.
Leliana fell against one of the crates, her throbbing hands clasped together in prayer. She didn't pray, not to the Maker and not to Andraste; she closed her eyes and whispered forgotten words to her passed beloved, to her murdered mentor.
The Warden had smiled even to the day her Taint called her to the Deep Roads. She had grown grey, her eyes bleeding yellow around the edges, but she'd shouldered her staff and told Leliana it was time. Leliana had been the one who'd cried then, but as always, the Warden was unshakable. She drove forward and didn't look back. Justinia had been like her in that way. She meant to usher in a new age by brokering peace between mages and templars and rewriting the tenants on which the divide was based. Yet she'd never blinked as Leliana warned her of the dangers, of the list of enemies which grew by the day.
Leliana prayed to them for their strength, for their guidance, and their silence did not hurt her as it once had.
She fell back on her feet, holding her hands before her and sighing. She drew off one glove and examined the flesh beneath as though it weren't hers.
The breaks had healed, though the swelling had yet to truly disappear. At this point, she wasn't sure if it ever would. The redness was gone, though she suspected that was only because the skin was near frozen. Her nails grew anew, but she'd known that. Nails always grew back.
Leliana pulled her other glove off and saw it looked much the same, felt much the same. The cold agitated the mending bones, and she brought her hands to her mouth, blowing into them for warmth over and over until the ache began to abide.
"Leliana?"
Josephine stepped into the tent accompanied by a gust of cold air. Leliana hadn't realized how warm the tent had grown until she felt the outside air, shivering.
"Oh, excuse me... I did not mean to disturb. Were you praying?"
"No." Leliana climbed to her feet and turned to meet her, pulling on her gloves again. "Is it time already?"
There was no missing the weight of her gaze as Leliana covered her hands once more. Still, Josephine had seen the worst of it already. When Redcliffe had been taken and their troops returned to Haven, she had been the one to sit with Leliana in the healer's hut, bringing her letters from her agents and reading her correspondence from the nobles of Orlais and Ferelden alike. A lower house had promised their support if only the Inquisitor would denounce the Qun and agree to a marriage to the family's oldest son, and the two of them had laughed until Leliana's ribs hurt more than her injuries.
"There is still time," Josephine said, breaking the long silence between them. "I had hoped to apologize."
Leliana cocked a brow. "What for?"
"There are many things I learned in Orlais as ambassador, many you taught me yourself. Yet I have led no troops, and for all of my posturing and letters, I have gained us no allies or noblemen who will be able to take us now." She shifted, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I feel rather useless to you all."
"No more useless than the rest of us are." Leliana sighed. "For all their posturing, Cullen and Cassandra are soldiers first, and you cannot kill a mountain or a plague or hunger with a sword."
"But you were—are—a bard. You've told me stories with greater decisions to be made and less time to make them."
"Politics are not the same, Josephine."
"I know, Leliana. I can work politics. I know how to build alliances and intimidate the lesser houses with a word. Politics won't help me here. I have spent years in noble courts and royal castles, but I still could never do what you do, what you have done..."
Leliana didn't miss the way her eyes fell upon her hands again. She'd caught that same look many times before when she'd yet to become to the left hand of the Divine, when she would return from parties with bruises and cuts and a slip of paper that had made it all worth it.
"I... Am worried, Leliana," Josephine said, edging closer. "About you. About what you will do. You have changed so much since our first meeting. And yet you are... Without the Inquisitor, you are our best hope." She touched her face, the leather of her glove cool against Leliana's cheek. "I wish it were not so, yet it is. I cannot help you with the decisions you will have to make to see us through, and Cassandra and Cullen are soldiers as you say. So much will be put on your shoulders..."
Josephine reached for Leliana's hand with both of her own. Leliana didn't speak, didn't dare say a word. She had been mistaken for a leader, praying or devising a plan, but Josephine didn't know what she'd truly been doing. Her hands had ached, and the warmth of her breath had been a comfort. They ached now even as the glove of one hand was pulled off carefully.
Her fine leather gloves were cold cradling Leliana's hand, and she flinched at the touch. "You are quick to put your faith in me for this."
Josephine pulled her own gloves off, tucking them into her pocket. Her skin was only a fraction warmed, but her flesh was soft, careful. She turned Leliana's hand in her own, examining it. Then she turned it palm down and knelt to press a kiss to her knuckles, breath hot. Her lips lingered, skimming each of the four knuckle bones, her hair falling in curls to brush against the pale skin of her scarred hand.
"I am sorry." Was all she said.
Then she slipped the glove back on and moved on to the other. She gave it the same treatment, brushing her chapped lips across her knuckles until the flesh was warm from her breath. When she had finished, she covered her hand again and rose, her face solemn.
The first time they'd met, Josephine had held a ball in honor of her return to Orlais. She had smiled at all the right moments, joked about Leliana going back into business just loud enough for others to overhear, and when the night was nearly through, she'd leaned over and asked if she felt up for something a little more exciting. She'd laughed so earnestly then. Now bruises shadowed her eyes, and the lines of her face were tight and somber. This mountain had killed all the laughter in her, yet she still worried how Leliana had changed.
"It has to be you," Josephine said.
Leliana couldn't manage a smile. "You don't leave much room for argument."
"I have been thinking of this since the Inquisitor elected to stay in Haven to buy us time."
"Perhaps you are right," she said, stepping closer.
The Inquisition left little time for the two of them, and Leliana missed the days they were free to waste their days lounging in a plaza with the finest wine in Orlais. She'd get drunk on the taste of sweet summer wine and Josephine herself. Now, they were lucky for a moment alone in a week, and that was before Haven fell. Leliana kissed her. The air between them was too cold for their lips to be anything but chilled, but she was still soft, always soft. It was brief, fleeting, but when Leliana retreated, a bit of color had returned to Josephine's pale face, and it felt like enough.
"But I am sorry too," Leliana said, feeling her pulse in each of her fingers. She touched Josephine's hands lightly with her own. "I am but one hand. Cassandra may follow me, but she will not serve me as she—we—did the Divine. She will not be my right hand. If I am to lead, I need someone to support me, not follow me."
Josephine blinked, looking from Leliana to their hands. "I... I can do that. Oh Maker, how am I supposed to...?"
"Do we have in hope in Orlais?"
She hesitated a beat. "No."
"Then we will need to forge new alliances after we enter the Hinterlands. Can I count on you to do that?"
She didn't hesitate this time. "Yes."
Leliana sighed, and for a moment, they were quiet, both of them looking down at their intertwined hands. Hers still hurt, but it was duller now, an ache that promised to fade eventually. How awful that they were here on this mountain, their lives and the lives of others teetering on the point of an arrow. Worse now, it would be them holding the bow.
Yet with two hands, the arrow could fly.
"Let's find our soldiers then," Leliana said, pulling her hands away. "And pray that the Inquisitor wakes before we become accustomed to calling them that."