Chapter Text
There are a great many spirits in this world—no one is quite sure how many—but of all of them, none is more rare or more treasured than that of Compassion. A small and fragile spirit, Compassion does not often cross through the veil. It comes only to those of pure heart who are suffering immense pain or those whose desires to help and heal shine brightest.
For Herald of Andraste, both were true. … except for having a pure heart, but spirits can’t be right all the time.
They were gathered in the War Room, the pages of Ellana’s report spread out over the Chantry table. The elf hadn’t even taken time to bathe, bits of envy demon still clinging to her hair and exhaustion pulling at her face. Her advisors didn’t look much better. Cullen was glaring at the report as though he wished he could set it on fire and Josephine seemed as though she might simply fall asleep any moment.
Ellana slammed her hand down on the table. “We got the templars, it’s done. Why are we still talking about this?”
“I still think they would have made better allies than conscripts,” Cullen replied, rehashing the same talking points he’d been saying for the last hour. “We needed the men, yes, but the templar name had a lot of power to it. We could have used it.”
“The templars were corrupted,” Ellana said evenly.
“They were misled,” the commander argued.
“They followed a demon.” She scoffed. “They were fools.”
There was a nearly palpable tension in the room after that statement, Cassandra’s hand moving to rest on the pommel of her sword. For Ellana, however, it barely registered. There was always tension in the War Room. None of them could agree on much and Ellana had taken it on herself to be—at least in her mind—the voice of reason. Closing the Breach was what mattered. She would do that and then she’d go home. Making friends was not part of the plan.
Cullen sighed, brushing a hand through his hair as he scowled at the corners of the room. He was trying very hard not to scowl at her, she noticed. Personally, she wasn’t sure why he bothered. What elf wasn’t used to being scowled at by humans?
Ellana opened her mouth to say something when she found her thoughts interrupted by a strange voice in her head.
He tries to help, but it keeps hurting. He fears this will hurt too.
Ellana blinked. She rubbed her ears. “Did you hear something?”
“Hear what?” asked Cassandra.
Ellana didn’t like the way her advisors were looking at each other. She knew better than most just how tenuous her position in the Inquisition was. As a Dalish elf she was naturally wary of humans and was familiar with all the ways they could twist her words. She was still only one step removed from being a prisoner. She would not give them anything to use against her.
“Nothing,” she said briskly. “Never mind.”
“Decisions about the templars aside, everything appears to be in order,” Leliana said, holding up one of the pages to the light. “Except this one thing.” Her gaze turned sharply to Ellana. “You say when the Envy demon took over your mind, something guided you through. Helped you. But your account from there is very vague. What manner of creature was this? Another demon? Or spirit?”
“I don’t…” Ellana couldn’t suppress a shiver as she remembered the experience. As if in response, a small flow of warmth followed. “What does it matter?”
“It matters that there might be forces at play beyond what we have seen.”
“Or it was just a trick of my mind.”
“Perhaps.” Though seeming to agree, the red-head peered at her with those piercing eyes of hers, always probing far more deeply into Ellana than she was comfortable with. She did not hate any of the members of the Inquisition necessarily, but Leliana left her the most uncomfortable.
A song in the light, but a knife in the dark. She does not recognize the woman she has become.
“What?” Involuntarily, Ellana shook her head and rubbed her ears again, but the words still rang around her skull. Whose thoughts were these? Hers?
“Herald?”
Ellana glanced up, once again pined by Leliana’s inscrutible blue eyes. But, as she looked, she found that she could see depths in them. Hidden pains lurking below the surface. There was something more there.
The cryptic words ran through her mind again and caught. Leliana was a bard turned spymaster. Songs and knives. Though Ellana didn’t fully understand, it was too real. If there was a demon in her head, what would they do about it?
“Nothing.” Ellana shook herself, turning her eyes from the report and to the map of Thedas rolled out over the table. “This discussion is over. It’s time to talk about something else. I heard there was a message from Tevint—”
Rest.
All at once a wave of exhaustion flooded her system, her whole body feeling as though it was weightless and limp. She collapsed to the floor, elbow cracking against the table as she went. She barely heard the cries of alarm that surrounded her or felt the arms lifting her. It was all she could do to mumble to herself.
“I need to sleep.”
Yes. Rest. It will be better tomorrow.