Chapter Text
There was a buzz in the air, the suppressed energy of mages not quite daring to hope. Or maybe Elaine was projecting her own feelings about their visitor onto everyone she passed. Either way, a Grey Warden had arrived at Kinloch Hold.
"Recruiting for Wardens, maybe," Elaine murmured to Jowan as they wandered the halls after breakfast. "That poor sod King Cailan sent already managed to pry away some mages."
Jowan brightened hopefully from his recent baseline of skittish nerves. "I'd like to be a Warden. Should I ask, or..."
Elaine grimaced and shook her head. "Those stupid rumors, you not Harrowed? Greagoir'd never let you anywhere."
"Yeah," he sighed. He fell silent and pensive as they passed a templar, then tugged her into a secluded alcove. "Please, can't you tell me anything?"
He stared at her, clutching her hands. He was nearly twenty, taller than her, already a man. He hadn't even been seven when they'd met, but he'd been so proud to be able to tell her all he knew from two years in the Circle.
Even then she'd known things that could have helped her fellow mages, might have saved apprentices' lives, and she hadn't told anyone because she valued her own life and mind more. The Harrowing— the stupid fucking Harrowing—
She broke eye contact. "Mine was years ago. It could have been changed since then." It almost certainly hadn't, not in the broad strokes. Her father's information had been twenty years old, nearly thirty by the time she needed it, and from a different Circle, and it hadn't led her wrong. But in principle, it could have.
Jowan dropped her hands. "Some friend you are," he muttered, and stalked off.
Elaine stared after him. The trouble was, he wasn't entirely wrong to be worried. Nineteen was the average age when apprentices were Harrowed; hers at eighteen had been early, but not tremendously so. Nearly twenty wasn't very alarmingly late, but with the rumors...
The rumors were nonsense. Jowan wasn't that stupid, and he was fine with magic when he didn't overthink it, didn't compare himself to her. He'd be Harrowed soon, and he wouldn't need her forbidden advice.
Probably. She hoped.
But she couldn't afford to worry about that right now. She had a class to teach to new magelings.
The morning lesson went awfully well; only a few singed fingers this time. Elaine had never managed to pick up healing, so Irving had paired her with a new enchanter, Marise, who could patch up the little baby mages when they hurt themselves in Elaine's classes on primal magic.
After the children filed out, Marise spoke, wringing her hands. "Elaine? Can we talk a moment?"
Elaine turned back from tidying up the assorted pieces of wood she had given the magelings to work with. "Sure, what is it?"
Marisa had an Orlesian lilt to her words, a sign of having been transferred to Kinloch Hold only a few years ago. "You know there's... rumors, right? About some of your friends?"
"I've heard," Elaine said. She counted only two people still at Kinloch Hold as her friends, though she was friendly with more people than that. "You'll have to be more specific."
"I mean, Anders is, you know, he keeps..." Marise gestured vaguely at the outer wall of the work room, "and then, Jowan, he's... you know people are saying he's a, a..." She lowered her voice furtively, her accent thickening. "A blood mage, right?"
"I've heard," Elaine repeated blandly. "Jowan wouldn't do that. He's a good man."
Marise bobbed her head and worried the hem of her sleeve. "Just, you're so close with them, and, I know you'd never do anything like that, but. But it doesn't look good, non?"
Elaine fixed her neutral expression in place and kept her voice calm. "I can't control spurious rumors about my friends, and I can't control their actions. I also don't approve of everything they do."
"I— I understand." Marise looked away. "Just, so you know, okay?"
Elaine tried to smile politely. "Thanks, Marise."
Marise bobbed again and practically fled the room. Elaine flexed her fingers, breathed deeply, breathed again, then whirled and blasted the tidy pile of charred sticks and logs in the center of the stone floor. Asinine fucking Circle politics, asinine fucking Chantry rules, and her playing the good little responsible enchanter toeing every single line because somewhere, somewhere out in the countryside of Ferelden her family was free because of her. Her mother, her apostate father, her baby siblings a year younger than Jowan.
Her sister, her twin and spitting image, the reason she'd never once taken Anders up on his offers for help escaping the tower. The templars couldn't be allowed to find reason to search for a pale, dark-haired, blue-eyed apostate woman. They might find more than one.
The flames leapt higher, burned brighter. She had to stay in this tower, this prison, for the rest of her life, had to pretend and hide even here. She had shed her father's name and claimed her mother's, become an Amell because it wasn't safe to be a Hawke, and now her carefully-maintained reputation was at stake because the two people here she cared about were an anxious apprentice and a man whose only crime was not wanting to be chained. She didn't want to be chained either, but she at least had chosen it, had walked into it with open eyes. So few mages got that choice.
"Andraste's frilly knickers, what did that wood ever do to you?"
Nothing remained on the stone but ashes. Elaine's flames guttered out, her intent and mana no longer fueling them. "Oh, insulted my family," she said airily as she turned to Anders.
"Right," he drawled, leaning against the doorway with crossed arms.
Elaine sighed and rubbed her face. "Well, I can't set rumors or people on fire."
"Can't, shouldn't..." Anders shrugged. "Irving would forgive you. You've kept your nose squeaky clean this long, even hanging around me."
"Jowan's done nothing wrong by any standard," Elaine muttered darkly. "You're doing all right?"
Anders shrugged and waved a hand. "Oh, nothing like a solitary vacation to clear the mind. Mr. Wiggums kept me company until that awful incident with the rage demon. Somebody gave him an adorable collar, did you see?"
Elaine smiled. She figured he'd noticed, when she kept finding the secret compartment in the collar empty of her notes and no templars ever came to interrogate her, but it was nice to have confirmation. "It was very charming, wasn't it?"
"It really was." Anders hummed, then straightened. "Right! Irving said he wants you in his office."
Elaine nodded and headed for the door. "Did he say what for?"
"Of course he didn't." Anders joined her as she passed into the hall. "I think he's meeting with the Grey Warden and Greagoir right now."
Elaine slowed. "Did he want to see me immediately? I could eat..." It was early for lunch, but not very early.
Anders smiled wryly. "'At your earliest convenience'. I'll keep a plate warm for you."
Elaine sighed. "Thanks."
The First Enchanter's office was on the way to the Great Hall, so they headed up to the second floor together in friendly silence. Elaine nodded politely to Owain as they passed through the stockroom. For all that the Tranquil disturbed her, she did her best to treat them kindly; it wasn't their fault they'd been hollowed out in the process of removing their magic.
Irving's office was open, and as Elaine and Anders came to the doorway they heard the Knight-Commander practically shouting. "—many have already gone to Ostagar!"
Anders sucked air through his teeth. "Somebody's grumpy."
Elaine nodded as Greagoir continued to rail against the idea of sending more mages to the battlefront. "Maybe head on to lunch," she murmured, "before he sees you and finds an excuse to blame you for something."
"Yeah, good idea. I'll see you there." Anders slipped past the door, turned back to wave at her, and headed upstairs.
Elaine would rather have followed him, but her reputation as an upstanding mage wouldn't weather blowing off the First Enchanter. She stepped into Irving's office as Greagoir bristled at an accusation that he didn't want mages using their magic, and an unfamiliar Rivaini man armored in Grey Warden colors noticed her.
"Gentlemen, please," he said quellingly. "Irving, someone is here to see you."
Elaine stepped forward to join them near Irving's desk. "Here as requested, First Enchanter."
"Ah, Elaine," Irving said with paternal fondness. "Thank you for coming so promptly."
"This is..." the Grey Warden started to say.
"Yes," Irving replied. "This is she."
Elaine mulled over that cryptic exchange while Greagoir promised to continue his argument with Irving later and then swept past her in a moderately respectable huff. Irving watched him leave, then turned back to Elaine. "Where was I? Ah, yes. This is Duncan, of the Grey Wardens."
Elaine bobbed a curtsy. "Pleased to meet you, Ser," she said, with genuine warmth.
Irving's eyes crinkled in a faint smile. "You've heard about the war brewing to the south, I expect," he continued. "Duncan is recruiting mages to join the king's army at Ostagar."
"I've heard there's a Blight on the horizon," Elaine replied.
Duncan raised his eyebrows in surprise, but nodded. "With darkspawn massing in such numbers as we have seen, we need all the help we can get, especially from the Circle."
Elaine hummed thoughtfully. "I'd imagine magic is very useful on the battlefield." A furious bonfire given darkspawn as fuel... it would raise a worse stink than burning giant spiders, but it would be terribly effective.
"Quite," Duncan agreed. "Especially against mindless hordes of darkspawn. If we don't drive them back we may indeed see another Blight."
Irving cut in. "Duncan, you worry the poor girl with talk of Blights and darkspawn."
He would play the part of kindly grandfather to his mages. Elaine shook her head. "I'm interested, actually."
Another smile. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to escort Duncan to his room, then. You may ask him as many questions as you wish."
She hadn't been an apprentice for five years now, but she really wasn't going to argue with Irving about occasionally treating her like one. "I can do that. He's in the guest quarters?"
"By the library," Irving confirmed.
Elaine nodded and led the way out of Irving's office. She was briefly, spitefully tempted to walk in silence, but she really was curious about Duncan. "So you're here looking for recruits," she said.
"I am, as Irving said, here looking for more mages to aid in the fight against the darkspawn," Duncan replied, which sounded like agreement but wasn't, not really.
She hummed noncommittally and turned to cut through the stockroom again. "Knight-Commander Greagoir didn't sound too happy about that."
"It is not my place to comment."
"I suppose it isn't." She didn't need his commentary, anyway; it was obvious that Greagoir just hated the idea of even the most upstanding mages being out from under his watchful eye.
They came to the guest quarters, dusted and ready for Duncan to stay for however long he would be doing that. "Thank you for escorting me," he said.
Elaine nodded and entered the room with him. The door was still open, but she angled herself to be less obvious to a casual observer. "You're not just here to get mages for the main army," she stated. "King Cailan already sent a regular army recruiter, and he got seven of the most talented and trustworthy senior mages."
"Only seven," Duncan returned gravely. "Mages can call down fire or ice to turn the tide of a battle, but that is just as true for darkspawn as for those who fight them. I asked King Cailan's permission to come and seek a greater commitment from the Circle."
"You're a Grey Warden, Ser," she retorted, staring him down. "You're not just here as a second army recruiter."
He met her gaze evenly. After a long moment he nodded. "You are correct. I am also here in search of recruits for the Grey Wardens."
"Any promising candidates?" she asked casually.
He pondered her for another moment. "Perhaps."
"I wish you luck, then," Elaine said, because directly asking if he was thinking of recruiting her, of rescuing her from this gilded cage, seemed unlikely to make her sound like good Warden material.
Or maybe it would. On the other hand, templars could be surprisingly sneaky in all that full plate, and if she got on the subject of wanting out she wasn't sure she would be able to stop.
Other people who could be surprisingly sneaky: Jowan. He caught her just before the stairs to the Great Hall, even more nervous than he had been earlier that morning. "I'm glad I caught up to you. Are you done talking with Irving?"
"Have you had lunch yet?" Elaine asked him. "You're jittering."
"I'm not hungry," Jowan said, then lowered his voice. "I need to talk to you. Do you remember what we discussed this morning?"
"Warden Duncan is looking for recruits, but I still don't think you'll get far with him. Why are you whispering?"
Jowan shushed her hurriedly. "I... I just want to make sure we're not overheard. We should go somewhere else. I don't feel safe talking here."
Elaine glanced longingly at the stairs, thinking of the plate Anders had promised her, then sighed. "All right. Lead on."
Jowan led her to a secluded corner of the chapel, almost empty except for a pretty redheaded initiate. "This is your idea of a safe place to talk?" Elaine asked him quietly, side-eyeing their company.
The initiate spoke up. "We can see the door from here. If anyone comes, we'll change the subject."
Elaine peered at her. "Uh-huh. Jowan, what's going on?"
"A few months ago I told you that I... met a girl." Jowan gestured nervously at the initiate. "This is Lily."
Elaine smiled slightly. "I was beginning to doubt her existence."
"I was afraid to tell anyone. She's taken vows. If anyone finds out she's been having... relations... with men, we'll both be in trouble."
"I won't tell anyone else," Elaine assured him. The look in Lily's eyes reminded her of her mother, gazing at her father as he read to one of the baby twins.
"Thank you," Jowan said fervently. "I knew you'd stand by me."
"So what's all the skulking around about?" Elaine asked, crossing her arms. "It seems a bit much for just telling me about your forbidden love affair."
Jowan nodded, going tense and gloomy again. "Remember I said that I didn't think they wanted to give me my Harrowing? I know why. They're... they're going to make me Tranquil!"
Elaine tensed, hands clenching on her sleeves. "How do you know that?"
"I saw the document on Greagoir's table," Lily said. "It authorized the Rite on Jowan, and Irving had signed it."
Elaine forced herself to relax before something, probably her sleeve, caught fire. "Fuck. They believe that stupid rumor, don't they." She scowled at Jowan. "It is just a rumor, right?"
"Of course it is!" Jowan yelped, his voice cracking, but settled sheepishly when Lily put a hand on his arm. "I've been sneaking around to meet Lily," he added more softly. "Maybe others have seen me and assumed I was doing something forbidden." At Elaine's raised eyebrows he said, "I suppose we are, but they think it's blood magic, and— and it isn't."
"All right," Elaine said with a nod. "So what are you going to do about it?"
"I need to escape. I need to destroy my phylactery." Jowan stared at her beseechingly, the same way he'd stared when he'd begged her to tell him about the Harrowing. "We need your help," he said, a plaintive whine creeping back into his voice. "Lily and I can't do this on our own."
"Give us your word that you will help," Lily said, "and we will tell you what we intend."
Elaine examined them for a long moment. They were young, younger than her, younger than her parents had been when they met—but there was the same desperate love between them she imagined her parents still had, the same pure flame that the Circle would choke out for fear of what it could burn.
"You have my word," Elaine promised, and she meant it. "I'll help you both get out of here."
Jowan and Lily's plan was to break into the phylactery chamber by melting the lock with a rod of fire. Elaine left them in the chapel and headed for the stockroom. "Hi, Owain," she said, preempting his usual monotone spiel. "I need a rod of fire."
"Rods of fire serve many purposes," he droned. "Why do you wish to acquire this particular item?"
"A well-controlled source of heat to more easily demonstrate burning and melting points," Elaine lied promptly.
Owain retrieved an item request form and filled it in. "Here is the form. Have it signed and dated by a senior enchanter. I will release a rod to you once I have the signed form."
"Thank you." Elaine took the form, double-checked it—spotless as always, but it was good practice—and headed for the laboratory.
She felt a little bad about what she was about to do next. If Jowan's escape went sideways, Senior Enchanter Leorah didn't deserve to get in trouble less than a fortnight after getting her robes. But she owed Elaine a favor, and Elaine wasn't, actually, above using that.
Leorah smiled as Elaine came up to the book-covered table in the middle of the laboratory. "It's good to see you again."
Elaine smiled back. "Hey. Seen any more spiders?"
"No, thank the Maker," she said with a nervous laugh. "You were pretty thorough."
"Oh, good. Has the stink cleared out yet?"
Leorah shook her head regretfully. "It'll clear out eventually, I'm sure. I'm glad you cleaned out the cobwebs while you were down there, by the way."
"You're welcome." Elaine pulled out the form. "I thought of a favor. I have this idea for my primal magic class, use a rod of fire to show off what fire can do more specifically without exhausting myself controlling it, but stockroom procedure needs a senior mage to sign off on the release." It really was a good idea. She'd probably do it next class; the kids who weren't terrified of their own magic tended to love watching spectacular effects.
Leorah glanced over the form and signed it in one long illegible scrawl. "Right... there you go."
Elaine dried the ink and rolled the form back up. "Thank you."
"It was a pleasure. You'll be signing forms like this in not too long, I bet!"
"A few more years between then and now," Elaine said with a tight smile, and headed for the stockroom.
She didn't want to think about becoming a senior enchanter. She probably would, after another decade of reserved politeness and offering to teach magelings the basics they needed before apprenticeship. She'd be pressed to get an apprentice, sooner or later. A formal one, not like how she mentored Jowan as an older peer.
Had mentored Jowan. He'd pulled away, the last few months, furtive and cagey. Worrying about keeping his relationship with Lily a secret made sense of that, at least as much as anybody feeling the slightest desire for another person's body made sense to Elaine. She couldn't imagine it, but so many people risked furtive trysts and fumbling under hiked robes; it couldn't be that the eternal scrutiny of the templars broke people.
Or at least, it didn't break everyone the same way. She'd asked Owain, once, in a fit of morbid curiosity; he said he had actually volunteered for Tranquility, of all things.
And now he placidly maintained the Circle's stock of magical items, and handed her the rod of fire she needed after only glancing at the signed form. Convenient, for her, but endlessly unsettling.
But she had a chance, now, to get someone out before the Circle ground him down. Elaine cautiously tucked the rod of fire into her belt and headed back to the chapel.
When she got back, Jowan wanted to head down to the basement immediately. "Who knows when they'll drag me off?" he asked, shifting nervously. "We need to go, now, while everyone's busy."
Elaine shook her head. "We need to have all our strength for this, just in case. And Anders promised he'd save me some lunch. You don't think he'll come looking for me if I never show up?"
Jowan scowled, but Lily put her hand on his arm. "She's right, Jowan. We need our strength. We need to not look suspicious."
"... All right," Jowan said, slumping. "All right. We'll have lunch first."
"You two go on ahead." Lily gave Jowan a gentle push. "Enjoy your fish stew."
Elaine snorted, but headed for the stairs. "Do you think they'll use chicken broth today?" she asked Jowan.
"I'll be happy if I never have to eat fish again," he muttered darkly.
She patted him on the arm, the perfect picture of sympathy. "But there are so many varieties of fish to choose from! This month it's trout, but depending on the season there's pike, trout, salmon, trout, carp, trout—"
Jowan shoved her, but he also cracked a smile. Elaine laughed and hugged him around the shoulders.
The Templars on duty at the stairs to the cafeteria didn't give them any trouble. Elaine scanned the crowd for Anders and made a beeline when she saw him and two bowls; there were plenty of empty seats around him, which was convenient but also sad. "Go get yourself food," she told Jowan, pushing him towards the serving line.
He hesitated, eyes flicking nervously between her and Anders. "You won't—"
"He's got my food," Elaine said. "I'll barely even say hello. Go on!"
Jowan split from her, and Elaine headed for Anders at a brisk walk. "Good," she said as she plopped herself on the bench next to him, "you didn't eat it first. Pass me the bread?"
Anders clasped his hand to his breast and gave her a wounded expression. "Eat your stew? Oh, no, I've been eating so well this year, I couldn't possibly have another bite."
Elaine gave him a dry, level look. "But you're totally fine, you said."
"Only the finest dry bread and stagnant water for me," Anders said airily. He grabbed the nearly whole plate of bread for their section of the table—one of the few benefits to Anders being a social pariah and the Tranquil placing bread at even intervals regardless of number of people—and offered it to her with a flourish. "Your whores-dove-rez, madam."
Elaine snickered and carefully tore off a chunk to dip in her stew. It was closer to soup than usual, a little thin on the ingredients. "Hors d'oeuvres," she corrected. "Which this definitely isn't."
She chewed her way through the broth-softened bread and the chunks of fish and vegetables in her stew, and nodded absently at Jowan when he thumped down next to her and began inhaling his stew. She nudged him, gently, when a bit of broth splashed on his robe. "If you choke on a carrot we won't have time for that tutoring session before lunch is over."
Jowan blinked at her, his spoon hovering above his bowl. "Tutoring? —Oh, right, tutoring. Of course."
"He's nervous," Elaine said to Anders. "His Harrowing's probably any day now, but he's feeling kind of shaky on his fire magic, so I'm helping him out."
Anders leaned on the table to give Jowan a reassuring smile around Elaine. "You'll do fine," he said. "Just don't overthink it." He paused. "Actually, with the Harrowing, do overthink it. But not like that—"
Elaine elbowed Anders sharply. "You'll be fine," she said to Jowan, as Anders swore. "You'll be out of the apprentice dorms in no time."
Jowan nodded slowly, his throat bobbing, and returned to eating his lunch at a more reasonable pace.
Eventually, Elaine was done and Jowan was staring at his partially-eaten stew. "I'm not hungry," he said abruptly, shoving it away and standing. "Elaine, can we get to tutoring now?"
Elaine didn't wince at the almost audible quotes Jowan added, just nudged his bowl toward Anders. "Can you get our dishes for us?" she asked as she stood.
Anders cheerfully pulled Jowan's food to himself. "Anything for people who feed me!"
Elaine tugged on his ponytail. "I'll see you later," she promised, and followed Jowan out of the cafeteria.